:: PROLEGOMENA ::

:: Friday, December 31 ::

STINGY, INSENSITIVE GEORGE BUSH AMERICA UPSETS UN BY RAISING RELIEF FUNDS

Except for its failings with the preventable genocide in Rwanda, the stoppable genocide in the Balkans, the stoppable genocide in Darfur, the enforceable 17 Security Council resolutions against Iraq, the changeable theocratic terror that was Afghanistan's Taliban, the removable Ba'athist regime, the damnable Chinese infanticide policy, the proclivity to license reporters via the corrupt UNESCO, the moral responsibility to open its books to audit, the moral responsibility to allow investigators to probe the oil-for-food scandals right up to the Secretary Generals's son, the UN is the only body with the moral authority:

I think this initiative from America to set up four countries claiming to coordinate sounds like yet another attempt to undermine the UN when it is the best system we have got and the one that needs building up, she said.

Only really the UN can do that job, she told BBC Radio Fours PM programme. It is the only body that has the moral authority. But it can only do it well if it is backed up by the authority of the great powers.

We need a President to call this spade a spade. We need a speech that outright condemns the UN as worthless and asked to leave. Jeanne Kirkpatrick, Chuck Lichenstein, and Jesse Helms had the stones to condemn it - who will be next?


:: michael Friday, December 31, 2004 [+] ::
...

THE INSENSITIVE, VACATIONING PRESIDENT

I am surprised the Washington Post didn't link to his Christianity and his belief of the prophecies in the Revelation:

The Bush administration more than doubled its financial commitment yesterday to provide relief to nations suffering from the Indian Ocean tsunami, amid complaints that the vacationing President Bush has been insensitive to a humanitarian catastrophe of epic proportions.

Again, this is where the press fails to inform the public. Presidents are still Presidents even when out of Washington. There is more than the PDB, the Public Daily Briefing; the job is on, the job which includes leading the global war against terrorists. And what exactly do they think Bush is supposed to do while they continue to fail to report on the massive foreign aid America gives regularly?

What they want is what they praised Kerry for: words. Imagine a President Kerry right now, in his wet suit in the Indian Ocean, quoting someone in the UN and blabbering about global warming, while First Lady Maria Teresa Thierstein Simoes-Ferreira Heinz Kerry advises them to run naked and think about food first.


:: michael Wednesday, December 29, 2004 [+] ::
...

AGAIN... NO JEW HELP WANTED
I have been waiting for this very headline:

Sri Lanka rejects Israel rescuers
Israel has cancelled plans to send a 150-person rescue mission to Sri Lanka after the devastated island objected to the military composition of the team.

This is actually not an outright rejection for a judenrein relief effort, but the Sri Lankans object to the Israeli military presence accompanying the mission (as if Israel would take their filthy, devasted island). This Sri Lankan rejection recalls the UN rejection of Israeli blood donated for the Palestinians after they started the second Intifada. The UN delayed blood delivery until they could get non-Jew blood from Jordan. It also recalls the pan-Arab rejection of the Israelis' offer to share their knowledge for growing crops in the desert.

Yesterday the UN official calls us "stingy" and sanctimoniously brings up the giving spirit of the Christmas season. Israelis, in the spirit of living, offer to share their survival skills. Necessity, of course, is the mother of Israel's superior survival and disaster relief skills as well as their security, existing here ironically because of the likes of the Sri Lankan mentality.

Remember - The Iranians refused Israeli charity exactly a year ago when they lost the city of Bam to an earthquake.

Remember also- just over a year ago at the Islamic Conference, the then-Malaysian PM got a standing ovation from the representatives of the 57 Islamic nations when he called for arming against the Jews.

Of course you are reading that headline.


:: michael Wednesday, December 29, 2004 [+] ::
...

SATELLITE GALAXIES ?

I never knew there were such things... the Milky Way has satellites!

:: michael Tuesday, December 28, 2004 [+] ::
...

U.N. official slams U.S. as 'stingy' over aid

To clarify, that is the same U.S. which led the liberation of Afghanistan, where people, including previously burkha'd women, just voted for the first time in history. That is the same U.S. that just did the worthless UN Security Council's job for it in Iraq while UN officials corrupted the Oil-for-Food program. That is also the same U.S. whose government-provided foreign aid is charted in part here.

The official, a European, of course, is Jan Egeland, who, in fairness, is on record criticizing the Security Council here. But this actually boils down to his belief that we are undertaxed:

But U.N. Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland suggested that the United States and other Western nations were being "stingy" with relief funds, saying there would be more available if taxes were raised.

Is this a deliberate ignorance of the bounty from our private charities? A hostility to the genuinely spiritual motivation for our freely religious nation to give? Oddly, Jan (hey - that's a girl's name!) seems to know of the genuinely spiritual motivation for our freely religious nation to give, and seems to unintentionally disqualify the religions of poor nnations in the process:

"Christmastime should remind many Western countries at least, [of] how rich we have become."

Whatever the answers, Jan Egeland is another example of why the UN is worthless.


UPDATE:
Oh, lookit - the Norwegian looked up "stingy" in the dictionary:

U.N. Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland rowed back from statements he made on Monday after an annoyed Secretary of State Colin Powell said Washington was "the greatest contributor to international relief efforts in the world.

Now if only we can get best ex-President Jimmy Carter to look up "unilateral".

:: michael Tuesday, December 28, 2004 [+] ::
...

Are there any leftists in the Maldives, Sri Lanka, India, the Andamans, Bangladesh, Myanmar, or Indonesia who say their countries deserved the tsunami disaster?

Will Islamists rise to power with this kind of nonsense argument? The Maldives may be in that very danger.

I can't find a Pinch Sulzberger at the New Delhi Times, but stay tuned for blame on western indulgence - I found this at Reuters:

Global Warming, Pollution Add to Coastal Threats
A creeping rise in sea levels tied to global warming, pollution and damage to coral reefs may make coastlines even more vulnerable to disasters like tsunamis or storms in future, experts said Monday.

It's another article referring to experts who are not named. Space is limited, so cram in the crap and leave out the names.

:: michael Tuesday, December 28, 2004 [+] ::
...

WELL.. HE DIDN'T REALLY SAY THAT

Here's what Rumsfeld said Friday: "I think all of us have a sense if we imagine the kind of world we would face if the people who bombed the mess hall in Mosul, or the people who did the bombing in Spain, or the people who attacked the United States in New York, shot down the plane over Pennsylvania and attacked the Pentagon, the people who cut off peoples' heads on television to intimidate, to frighten – indeed the word 'terrorized' is just that. Its purpose is to terrorize, to alter behavior, to make people be something other than that which they want to be."

This isn't even a complete sentence, but looking at simple subject-verb who-did, he is not saying the US shot the plane down. His sentence was way, way, too long for anyone to understand what he meant to say. Sure, I am open to the shot-down theory of Flight 93 and I do not think that lessens the heroism of Todd Beamer and company. In his example, whether the plane was shot down or not, civilian passengers have since taken action on planes, and that, I believe, has prevented copycat hijack-suicide missions.

UPDATE:

Pentagon: Rumsfeld misspoke on Flight 93 crash
A Pentagon spokesman insisted that Rumsfeld simply misspoke, but Internet conspiracy theorists seized on the reference to the plane having been shot down.

Well, the theorists need to re-read his (mis)statement. That very obviously is not what he said when the subject of his remark is terrorists.

:: michael Monday, December 27, 2004 [+] ::
...

IT'S ALL FUN AND GAMES, UNTIL ...

Via Joanne Jacobs: A school in Tampa bans rubber bands. She blogs the article without a direct comment of her own, but offers a funny twist.

You may recall ten years ago or more when the Super Soaker water gun was being abused by some to shoot bleach. The liberal solution: ban the water gun rather than ensure severe punishment to deter the crime. The comment /feedback section at the Jacobs blog, however, gets to the ultimate root of the problem. The poster, using the name Allen, offers a solution I think the Chinese would love:

Cripes, all these half-measures. Why not go to the root of the problem?
It's all those damned kids. They need somewhere to sit. They need a place get out of the rain. They complain. They've got parents who complain. They need to be taught something. Need, need, need. It just never ends.
The solution's obvious: get rid of the kids.
Imagine how quiet and peaceful the schools would be without all those kids. No lessons to plan. No reports to turn in. No parent-teacher conferences. No fighting. No throwing up. No endless stream of rules to try to keep up with every new outrage, problem, concern, danger and worry. What could be better?

IN OTHER REGIONS OF UNEDUCATED SPACE:
The Middle East Media Research Institute reports on an Iranian TV show depicting Israelis as eye thieves:

In Episode 1, Yitzhak Cohen lectures at a medical conference on the advances being made by Israeli medicine regarding organ transplants. Later in the episode, Israelis disguised as UN workers visit a Palestinian school, ostensibly to examine the children's eyes for diseases, but in reality to select which children's eyes to steal to be used for transplants.

:: michael Monday, December 27, 2004 [+] ::
...

ALL WEEK NO BLOG

And I didn't even work this week. Where does the time go?

I returned from NYC, where people were stepping around the street people to go protest the removal of a huge, filthy hawk's nest from private property overlooking Central Park, but where Steak Tartare was also being served at Casimir in the East Village with a raw egg on top - under the micromanaging nose of Mayor Bloomberg!

My long-time friend Francis, who I visited part of the time in Manhattan, works at the Apple Computer store on Prince Street in SOHO, where Ann Coulter was just there for him specifically, with a Christmas kiss and a present.

The week began with a warning from the Pope about materialism and Christmas - followed by a great big "RIGHT-ON!" from me:

"The message of the Christmas tree is that life is always green if you give, not many material things, but of yourself through friendship and sincere affection, through help and forgiveness, by spending time together and listening to each other," he said.

Then along comes Dennis Prager, the Jewish conservative who defended evangelical Christianity, this time defending Christmas shopping:

Spending one's money on presents for people is one of the nicest traditions in society and ought to be cultivated, not discouraged. People who don't buy Christmas or Chanukah gifts aren't particularly noble; they are usually particularly cheap.
...
Various religious commentators warn that children will lose the real meaning of Christmas or Chanukah if they associate it with getting gifts. This is another corker. What child who waited all year and then all Christmas Eve to see what he or she would get for Christmas thought primarily about the theological implications of Christmas? Isn't it enough that some of the happiest memories of a Christian child are associated with one of the two holiest days of the Christian calendar? Would it really religiously benefit a child to receive no gifts on the day celebrating the birth of Jesus?

Insensitive Defense Secretary Rumsfeld arguably risks his life to visit the troops in Iraq, in Fallujah, Tikrit, and Mosul. He got there by C-17. I love C-17's!

And a still condemned-as-unintelligent President Bush re-nominates the judges so we can see again the Democrats for who they are.

In outer space, a probe named Huygens was released from the Cassini spacecraft into the Saturnian moon Titan, which was noted by the media about as much as whatever Arlen Specter said this week about Bush's judicial agenda.

This has been a week of damn-cold temperatures as well. It's this time of year I return to childish science and... put my ice-cube trays just outside my sliding kitchen door instead of in the freezer - and they say conservatives don't care about wasting energy! I chill my wine and Champagne this way, too. Back to the ice cubes, though - the wierdest thing - these upside-down icicles rise up out of the cubes, looking like stalactites, but the things rise up out of a surface that gravity made flat at the start. Are there any geeks out there who can explain this to us?

UPDATE - OMG! - I found the answer!

Each year I take an item from my mother's vast collections of things and wrap it up for Christmas to see if she recognizes it. This year, a tin of Russian tea like she had at the long-gone Russian Tea Room five years ago. She has owned it for five years and never opened it. She just unwrapped it and again, I win.

Mr. Prager, please take note.

:: michael Saturday, December 25, 2004 [+] ::
...

MORE VICTIMS OF U.S. HEGEMONY

But Jackson to the rescue:

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - President Thabo Mbeki's ruling party published a stinging attack Friday on top U.S. health officials, accusing them of treating Africans like "guinea pigs" and lying to promote a key AIDS drug.
...
The article, published in the online journal ANC Today, was responding to Associated Press reports this week that U.S. health officials withheld criticism of a nevirapine study before President Bush (news - web sites) launched a 2002 plan to distribute the drug in Africa.
...
In the United States, the Rev. Jesse Jackson (news - web sites) called for a U.S. congressional investigation and demanded nevirapine no longer be distributed in Africa.

Hey, remember that about the Bush administration? -his address to the nation declaring that we had a "moral" duty to help Africa with its AIDS crisis? To clarify, this is the same Africa where Africans are still enslaved in Muslim areas. In the meantime, they must not be helped if the Bush Administration gets any credit, and while we wait for Bill Clinton's apology for long-gone U.S. slavery to still have some influence.


:: michael Saturday, December 18, 2004 [+] ::
...

STILL WALKING NYC STREETS...

There was this 25-30 woman in front of the very groovy Coffee Shop Bar at Union Square calling out to people, "Would you like to help save our National Forests today? Sixty percent of our forests are gone!" Ah, the irony of saving the forests from the concrete jungle.

And I love the sight of full-length fur coats. It threw me back to the last inauguration in DC... there was clearly a new party in town!
:: michael Thursday, December 16, 2004 [+] ::
...

THIS SHOULD TAKE ABOUT SEVENTEEN PLEDGES

Annan Pledges to Aid in Oil-For-Food Probe

WASHINGTON - U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan (news - web sites) pledged full cooperation Thursday with investigations into alleged abuses in a U.N. oil and aid program that have led Republicans in Congress to demand his resignation. He said U.N. employees can be fired if they do not comply.

...and then we will have to take charge.
:: michael Thursday, December 16, 2004 [+] ::
...

SO KAROL HOSTED A BLOGGER PARTY AND...

it took me three days to get to a computer...

It was a super early Christmas present to finally meet:

Karol of Alarming News

Peter of Executive Slacks

Paul of Experimental Insanity

Ari of Ari Goes Down

Smurfette

Kevin, formerly of Blogs for Bush

Yaron of Daily Lunch

Zelda (funny, I don't remember her name being Zelda) of The Urban Grind

My short-term memory will not recall any more names than that. Or was it Stella Artois?
:: michael Thursday, December 16, 2004 [+] ::
...

CHRISTMAS IN NEW YORK CITY
All week this week.
And just in time for Karol's party!

UPDATE:

I realize this is short notice but there will be a blogger party (Monday, December 13) at Rififi/Cinema Classics on East 11th between First and Second Avenues in Manhattan.

:: michael Friday, December 10, 2004 [+] ::
...

IF THIS DOESN'T CHANGE THE MOOD OF THE APOLOGISTS:

Pizza courier 'targeted' Amsterdam sex zone

AMSTERDAM — Justice authorities arrested a Moroccan man last month after receiving a tip-off that Islamic extremists were allegedly planning an attack on the Red Light District in Amsterdam, it was reported on Friday

Remember when Al Qaeda gassed that dog on video? Finally they were outraged. What do you think would happen if the Islamists hit an abortion clinic?

:: michael Friday, December 10, 2004 [+] ::
...

THEY MAY NEVER BE READY

Saddam lawyers 'not ready' for trial
By Andrew Gilligan, Evening Standard

Iraqi judges and prosecutors chosen to try Saddam Hussein are "nowhere near ready", according to western officials who saw them at a secret training session in London.

Amid growing recriminations, the advisers have claimed that the United Nations and Europe are refusing to provide the tribunal with desperately needed help.

Memo from Europe:
All mass graves are equal, but some are less equal than others.

:: michael Friday, December 10, 2004 [+] ::
...

STUPID QUOTE OF THE DAY

It will be the immediate reaction of many serious believers to rejoice here, but just because:

Atheist now believes in God, more or less

doesn't mean this renowned philosopher is all that smart:

"I'm thinking of a God very different from the God of the Christian and far and away from the God of Islam, because both are depicted as omnipotent Oriental despots, cosmic Saddam Husseins."
-Antony Flew, British philosophy professor

I expected a professor in the PC hell of a British University to know that rugs are Oriental, that he should use the word "Asian".



:: michael Friday, December 10, 2004 [+] ::
...

pussies.

Ban on Night Alcohol Sales Sought in Paris


:: michael Thursday, December 09, 2004 [+] ::
...

ONLY IN A GOVERNMENT REPORT

In a news story about last night's Chicago high-rise fire, a recall of a similar fire just over a year ago:

The fire comes 14 months after a 35-story county-owned building in downtown Chicago caught fire, killing six people. A state-funded investigation of the October 2003 blaze concluded in September that the deaths could have been prevented if there had been sprinklers and unlocked stairwells, and if firefighters had searched for victims sooner and kept out smoke and heat.

That's the downside of fire, really. Smoke and heat. Where's there's fire, there's smoke... and heat!
Oh, and it has to start before the fighters can be called in.

Look also at this goverment report about a fire in a government building - no sprinklers and locked stairwells! Gee, if only the victims could have gotten out before the fire fighters had to break the doors down for them.

I'm surprised there wasn't an environmental impact statement, but on that subject:

A dozen empty houses in a new Maryland subdivision that is the focus of a long-running environmental dispute were destroyed and numerous others were damaged yesterday in what officials said were more than 20 coordinated, methodically planned arsons.

A mighty blow for environmentalism! These homes were huge, too. Think of the plastic and pressure-treated wood that went up in toxic smoke and the fire-fighting water that carried the chemicals into the soil. Gee, if only the firefighters had prevented the smoke from...

:: michael Tuesday, December 07, 2004 [+] ::
...

WILL KERRY DEMAND CHIRAC'S HEAD?

Explosives lost in airport gaffe
Plastic explosives were mistakenly loaded onto a plane at a Paris airport after security officials lost track of it during an exercise, police say.

No. Nobody will. Because blaming such things on the head of state has always been a bunch of Al-Qaqaa.

:: michael Sunday, December 05, 2004 [+] ::
...

PERP AMNESTY

England called it "Gun Amnesty" because it's not the criminals doing the crime, unless it's self-defense:

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM.- British artist Lucy Wood unveils her latest artwork "Map 272183" at the Metropolitan Police Gun Crime Conference in London 02 December, 2004. The artwork measures 8 by 6.26 metres and is made up of a sizeable portion of the three thousand and eighty five weapons that were handed in under the Gun Amnesty of 2003 and destroyed.

The sculpture is made entirely of pieces of firearms handed in during a gun amnesty. It was due to be shown at the Metropolitan Police’s training centre at Hendon, north London, where a conference was being staged today to help reduce gun crime in the city. The title od the sculptureis in reference to the Ordnance Survey map of the 32 boroughs of London.

The artist stated: "Once broken up into small pieces the guns no longer serve any purpose."

No purpose, indeed. Now they need a day of "art amnesty."

:: michael Sunday, December 05, 2004 [+] ::
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DAMN THAT GEORGE BUSH

First we get the flu, now this.

:: michael Friday, December 03, 2004 [+] ::
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HATING, AND HELL

Jeff Jacoby marked the death of Yasser Arafat with a bold certainty that God, against the apparant good will of George Bush, would not bless Arafat's soul, but damn it to hell.

Pat Buchanan, unsurprisingly indignant, followed up:

"God bless his soul? What a grotesque idea! ... God, I am quite sure, will damn him for eternity."

So writes Jeff Jacoby of the Boston Globe. And we are surely fortunate to have columnists who know the mind of God.

In defense of President Bush, if that was his first reaction to Arafat's death, it bespeaks a Christian heart. As a boy in World War II, I was taught by Catholic nuns that while permissible to pray for the death of Hitler or Tojo, it was impermissible to pray for their damnation. That was hatred, and hatred is a sin.

I do not think Jeff Jacoby presumed to know the mind of God, but the nuns' lesson, repeated by Buchanan, is extremely valuable.

Still, Dennis Prager takes that baton and goes at it like a Vulcan:

First, is there a hell? Can rational people believe in such a thing?

Second, if there is a hell, does Arafat merit going there? And can any of us mortals judge a person worthy of hell?

Third, if there is a hell, is it acceptable to hope someone who we believe merits it goes there?

Click Prager's blue text above and read the whole thing.

:: michael Friday, December 03, 2004 [+] ::
...

NEVER THINK THAT!

Oh, no - we should never impose our point of view or democratic ways on people who aren't ready or culturally different. Who the hell are we to say we are better?

200 Iranians volunteer for "martyrdom" against Americans, Israelis

Besides, aren't they exercising free speech?

:: michael Friday, December 03, 2004 [+] ::
...

FIRST THIS:

Pig not degraded by televised sexual experience, British watchdog rules

THEN THIS:

Palestinian violinist: I was forced to play at checkpoint

NOW THIS:
Lava lamp left on hot stovetop explodes, killing man

It's a good week to take a break from blogging...

:: michael Thursday, December 02, 2004 [+] ::
...

NEWS FROM PARODY

Today's first post touches on what someone learns and does not learn from the main stream media. From my first subscription to the Conservative Chronicle in 1992 to smart parody writing today, it is amazing still the news I learn from the jokers -gotta be careful, though... you need to be informed enough already, especially when reading Ann Coulter, to know if there is a joke in your facts.

Scrappleface is currently making good fun of the toll road collectors' imminent strike in Pennsylania:

"You can't just go out in the streets and find people who want to spend their days sitting down, listening to loud music and acting surly while taking money from people and putting it in a drawer," said an unnamed spokesman for the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission. "Who's going to do that for only $39,000 per year plus fully paid health insurance, eye and dental coverage, a prescription drug benefits program, 15 paid holidays, 10 sick days per year, four weeks vacation after 16 years and participation in the state retirement program.?"

But you gotta look it up... wow.. from PennLive.com News:

Toll collectors and maintenance workers have a starting base salary of $15.76 an hour and a maximum base hourly wage of $18.69, DeFebo said

:: michael Wednesday, November 24, 2004 [+] ::
...

"AUBERNICA"
via Andrew Sullivan
I was not expecting this when I clicked the link:
http://www.wizznutzz.com/guernica.html


:: michael Wednesday, November 24, 2004 [+] ::
...

MEDIA NOT-MATTERS

So every blogger is already on the retirement of Dan Rather. what. ever. When the event happens in March, every network will blabber on about it like it's the death of a movie star. The CNN article went far enough to describe the forged documents as allegedly forged documents. Good grief, there was more proof of that than there was to convict Scott Peterson - way more. Well, at least Rather didn't interrupt a broadcast of CSI.

It's pleasing to see FOX News more regularly reporting on the UN Oil-for-Food scandal, something the rest of us have known for many, many months. Surprisingly, BBC News, the Baghdad Broadcasting Company, is suddenly interested in the scandal, and more so than CNN is in its competition at CBS using forged documents. From yesterday's The Age, a report on BBC news not updated at the BBC site since Nov. 16, news which should have been dated months ago:

The BBC sent a reporter to Iraq and Jordan to track down people involved in the oil-for-food program, which has been described as the largest financial swindle in history. Virtually all said that Saddam took kickbacks from companies who sold goods to Iraq, and that the UN knew this. The businessmen - most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity - said it was standard to pay commissions, that nobody complained, and that was the price of doing business with Iraq.

:: michael Wednesday, November 24, 2004 [+] ::
...

Anti-Semitism in Russia
via Alarming News (link at left)

Here are a few photos of a rally held by the National Fatherland Party of Russia. While word has it that this party is banned, there is a far-left Fatherland party which will be a part of Russia's new three-party system. I cannot see that they are the same, but isn't it still amazing how, world-wide, there are people in so many different cultures with a Jew problem. Add to that the millions of screwed-up minds who condemn Hitler but refer to the Israelis as Nazis, and will not recognize the genocidal desire of the Muslim world. I see it as evidence of the spiritual war described in the Bible.

Jewish columnist Dennis Prager wrote a book on the subject.

The atheist contrarian Christopher Hitchens has already gone there as well in Vanity Fair (scroll down to "Jewish Power, Jewish Peril).

And today, Jeff Jacoby writes about hating your enemies. It's an instructive perspective, and a cool follow-up to his outright condemnation of Yasser Arafat.

:: michael Monday, November 22, 2004 [+] ::
...

ART NOT ARMS

That is the bumper sticker I frequently drive behind in post-election stress-traumatized Asheville, a city where I do know hundreds of fun-loving people in a vibrant, smart downtown culture. Here as well is a stronghold of anarchists and liberals, angry ones, and the reason I hesitated to sport a Bush sign on my SUV. The women among them wear black and stand "in silence mourning violence". The stupid anarchist kids among them dress like retards and march for "books not bombs", like they are actually going to read. Kerry-Edwards stickers are slowly dropping out of display, but before the election these people here in this town actually thought they were going to steer the national election, by organizing groups to literally "run against Bush" in matching tee-shirts, jogging around downtown; by driving in anti-Bush caravans to take people to early voting; by crashing organized downtown events with their Kerry registration campaigns; all this and much more, and they didn't even swing North Carolina!

It's interesting what doesn't swing them:

"In the south of Fallujah yesterday, U.S. Marines found the armless, legless body of a blonde woman, her throat slashed and her entrails cut out. Benjamin Finnell, a hospital apprentice with the U.S. Navy Corps, said that she had been dead for a while, but at that location for only a day or two. The woman was wearing a blue dress; her face had been disfigured. It was unclear if the remains were the body of the Irish-born aid worker Margaret Hassan, 59, or of Teresa Borcz, 54, a Pole abducted two weeks ago. Both were married to Iraqis and held Iraqi citizenship; both were kidnapped in Baghdad last month."

...and it's no wonder they still apologize for the equally un-outraged Muslims. But let's talk about that Marine in the Mosque...


:: michael Friday, November 19, 2004 [+] ::
...

FAKING GOD

Kathleen Parker's Nov. 13 column is a lovely thought on authenticity:

You can't just suddenly start carrying around a Bible and expect to convince people you're a believer. It is also dangerous to invoke the Bible if you're not that familiar with it, as Howard Dean proved when he expressed his admiration for the book of Job, which he erroneously placed in the New Testament.

If you like Job, you know where it is.

You also do not tell children that Mary and Joseph were homeless when they were away from home to be taxed or say your favorite verse is John 16:3 (Gore). You don't stand at Black church pulpits and lie about voter suppression and abuse the parables of Jesus to attack your opponent (Kerry).


:: michael Wednesday, November 17, 2004 [+] ::
...

NAIVE

I thought the anger would be about Margaret Hassan. But:

Shooting in Iraq Mosque Angers Muslims

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - The fatal shooting of a wounded and apparently unarmed man in a Fallujah mosque by a U.S. Marine angered Sunni Muslims in Iraq on Tuesday and raised questions about the protection of insurgents once they are out of action

A Christian college friend changed my mind 13 years ago, when I said all those people over there were a bunch of animals. He corrected me on the spot, and changed my view into seeing them as worthy people because I could not disagree that God saw them as worthy people. The Hassan murder, on top of the near-complete absence of general Muslim anti-terror protest tempts me to go back to my old view.


:: michael Wednesday, November 17, 2004 [+] ::
...

NO SURPRISE

French consider naming streets after Arafat

Also, wouldn't it be nice if this headline read, "Dutch Muslims Dismayed by Islamic Backlash"
when in reality:

Dutch Muslims Dismayed by Anti-Islamic Backlash

Since Van Gogh's death on Nov. 2 there have been at least 20 arson attacks on mosques and churches in tit for tat violence.
A Muslim school was damaged by a bomb on Monday, another set ablaze on Tuesday. There have been a number of minor arson attacks on churches and a classroom at a Catholic school in Eindhoven was destroyed by fire on Wednesday.
In the latest suspected arson attack on Saturday, a small mosque in the south was destroyed by fire.

Encouraging - even liberals can get sick of liberalism, in Holland at least... are we supposed to copy this enlightened European thinking over here? The French would say non, unless...

SURPRISE

I like to pride myself on being informed, so how in the world, with my attention so focus on this subject, did I miss this:

Israeli sources suggest that a quiet deal was made in which Israel would not reveal Arafat's HIV/AIDs illness -- reportedly well-known in intelligence circles -- in exchange for Palestinian officials scotching claims of poisoning.

Scotch is a rare verb; a judge once scotched a traffic ticket for me. Earlier this week, "welshed" was used to describe a Chinese mother who broke her promise to buy her son a PC.

But back to the point - I think the Palestinians won this little round, sort of blackmailing the Israelis with the poison thing, in spite of the fact that the poisoning accusation was totally predictible.


:: michael Sunday, November 14, 2004 [+] ::
...

FRONT PAGE NEWS



The first paper I saw this morning was USA Today. The news about Arafat second to his huge portrait above the fold on page one. We have long known the general bias of the mainstream press when it comes to this subject, but today, in contrast to widespread Arab belief that the Jews own the US government, I am tempted to believe the Arabs own USA Today.

Jeff Jacoby's bold remark about Arafat, I am sure, will not be beat:

In a better world, George Bush would not have said, on hearing the first reports that Arafat had died, "God bless his soul."

God bless his soul? What a grotesque idea! Bless the soul of the man who brought modern terrorism to the world? Who sent his agents to slaughter athletes at the Olympics, blow airliners out of the sky, bomb schools and pizzerias, machine-gun passengers in airline terminals? Who lied, cheated, and stole without compunction? Who inculcated the vilest culture of Jew-hatred since the Third Reich? Human beings might stoop to bless a creature so evil -- as indeed Arafat was blessed, with money, deference, even a Nobel Prize -- but God, I am quite sure, will damn him for eternity.

Well, God bless Jeff Jacoby for remembering at the end of that column the massacre at Ma'alot, which is as shamefully forgotten as the Al Sharpton-inspired massacre at Freddie's Fashion Mart in Harlem.
Ma'alot, however, was more on the level of the recent Chechen hideousness at the school in Beslan.

Best Ex-President Jimmy Carter rather ambiguously calls him "a powerful human symbol and forceful advocate." I will agree with our lowest-class ex-President, indeed he was a powerful symbol of the human nature to cling to power and desire legacy, but it stops right there. Of course Carter did not mean that because carter has always been in deial about human nature. Read on:

He said that while Arafat provided "indispensable leadership to a revolutionary movement" and played a key role in forging a peace agreement with Israel in 1993, he was excluded from negotiations in recent years

Indispensable? HA! Like Carter was indispensible during the Iranian hostage crisis. This Arafat bastard, after winning the Nobel Peace Prize, postponed elections and blamed the Jews. He met Shimon Peres's amazing offer of all of Gaza, almost all of the West Bank, and a capital in East Jerusalem (where, golly, he might have been buried!), with a second Intifada - war - his response when instead today, ordinary Palestinians could be four years into building a state with significant foreign investment. Instead, Arafat will be buried in Ramallah, near the rubble pile he called headquarters.

How much longer will it be when West Bank streets are re-named, this time not in honor of suicide bombers? When will Palestinian children actually trade baseball cards instead of suicide-bomber cards? When will the costume parties no longer be a suicide-bomber theme? How long before a terrorist act against America will not prompt dancing and passing out candy on Palestinian streets? I am placing no bets. Ordinary, misled Palestinians will be paying for the Arafat regime for a long, long, time.
:: michael Thursday, November 11, 2004 [+] ::
...

Mmm-Hmm...

(Via LGF) MPAC, the Muslim Public Affairs Council, will counter "religious and political extremism" next month in Long Beach. The poster provides you with the faces of the extremists: Pat Robertson, Rummy, the Great Satan Daniel Pipes, and oh! they threw in Osama.
Check it: http://www.mpac.org/conv_splash.aspx

Exercising open-mindedness, I visited the MPAC site to read their mission statement against terror, and it turns out they have something called the "National Anti-Terrorism Campaign". Nice, until just below that you see their media awards, to Alec Baldwin and to Michael Moore.

Michael Moore was honored for his courageous commitment to social justice and uncovering the truth. When asked why he does what he does, Moore stated, “I don’t know any other way to live but to follow my conscience. Moore stated emphatically, “I promise to do the best I can do to stand in the way of those who in my name and with my tax dollars attempt to take away our freedoms.”

Back to Daniel Pipes... why is he on the poster? Perhaps his exposé of one of the MPAC founders (condensed):

In 1993, he memorably asserted that "When Patrick Henry said, 'Give me liberty or give me death,' that statement epitomized jihad [Islamic holy war]." In 1996, he made the silly and inaccurate observation that "American freedom fighters hundreds of years ago were also regarded as terrorists by the British." Mr. Al-Marayati's intent here is obvious: to render jihad and terrorism acceptable to Americans.
Second, Mr. Al-Marayati apologizes for the most ghastly Middle Eastern regimes and draws moral equivalencies between them and America.
Third, Mr. Al-Marayati turns a blind eye to terrorism if it is of a fundamentalist Muslim persuasion.

MPAC's "extremist" label for Pipes reminds me of the temporary American Muslims for Global Peace and Justice, who called for a boycott of Starbucks after the Jewish CEO gave a speech denouncing terror.

:: michael Wednesday, November 10, 2004 [+] ::
...

RACE-SPECIFIC MEDICINE?

At the sight of the headline, it makes sense when remembering that only blacks have sickle-cell anemia. Even if that disease is unrelated to the heart failure rates among blacks, it is proof that race can be a factor in disease.

Heart pill a breakthrough for Blacks

NEW ORLEANS - The largest study ever done solely on Blacks with heart failure raises the controversial prospect of the first drug that might be marketed to a specific racial group.

The experimental drug, BiDil, dramatically improved survival and cut hospitalizations for heart failure, a problem that affects 5 million Americans, Blacks 2½ times more often than Whites.

But, good grief, it gets complicated. There is understandable interest in protecting the patent, and including whites would put that protection in jeopardy. Bioethics classes nationwide are changing their syllabi:

However, some specialists believe the pill also would help whites and say it should have been tested among them but wasn't for business reasons.

:: michael Tuesday, November 09, 2004 [+] ::
...

THE FLU IS JUST THE BEGINNING...

George Bush also brings us a new kind of stress disorder:

Traumatized Kerry supporters in Florida seek therapy: report

MIAMI (AFP) - Shocked supporters of defeated US presidential candidate John Kerry (news - web sites) are seeking help from psychologists, who refer to their condition as "post-election selection trauma," it was reported.

Consider this an update to my "Society of Victims" post below. If only the suicidal Veal had been provided with the kind of attention he required before he left his body parts behind at Ground Zero for someone else to clean up. To his credit, he wasn't defending weapons-smuggling tunnels.

UPDATE: Veal's suicide is now reported to be not in response to the election. It was in response to being torn between two women. The point remains the same: the passion of so many people concerned about this election, the hysteria, e-mail alerts in all caps, the abandonment of reasons and definitions, the continued vandalism, and the world-has-come-to-an-end funk we observed in our Leftist neighbors on Wednesday, made the election-motivated suicide story very believable.

It also makes this sactimonious website of apology equally unsurprising:
http://72.3.131.10/gallery/1/
M'god - even America's pets are remorseful. These people need might do better considering suicide, or just moving to Canada. (via LGF)

No apologies for making light of Veal's suicide, either. Veal left behind pained relatives, emotionally devasted women, and a psychologically assaulting mess of blood and body parts for someone else to clean up on sacred ground.

:: michael Tuesday, November 09, 2004 [+] ::
...

HELL HATH NO FURY
-like a woman about to lose her $100,000 per month allowance.

CLAMART, France (AP) - Yasser Arafat's wife said her husband is "all right" and lashed out at his top lieutenants Monday, accusing them of traveling to Paris with plans to "bury" him "alive."

In a screaming telephone call from Arafat's hospital bedside, Suha Arafat told pan-Arab Al-Jazeera television that she was issuing "an appeal to the Palestinian people." She accused his top aides, who are traveling to Paris later Monday, of conspiring to usurp her husband's four-decade long role as Palestinian leader.

"Let it be known to the honest Palestinian people that a bunch of those who want to inherit are coming to Paris," she shouted in Arabic, in her first public comments since Arafat fell ill a month ago.

"You have to realize the size of the conspiracy. I tell you they are trying to bury Abu Ammar alive," she said, using Arafat's nom de guerre. He is all right and he is going home. God is great."

Palestinian Conspiracy? Funny, I though it was Israel who had poisoned him. This accusation was entirely predictable:

AILING Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat may have been the victim of an Israeli poisoning, according to Palestine's delegate to Australia Ali Kazak.

Where are we now? - about to discover a rare moment of Israeli-Palestininan cooperation? Jews poison so Arabs can position to take over? Will the "honest Palestinian people" be able to help? Are there any?

Hell, you can't even find one who's not in denial:

the sign says
'Abu Ammar, you will overcome your sickness Allah willing. As you overcame the occupation'

:: michael Monday, November 08, 2004 [+] ::
...

SOCIETY OF VICTIMS

One defining characteristic of humanity is the desire to be a victim, hence the success of political correctness. As I live in Asheville surrounded by angry liberals, I felt the mood on Wednesday. Most of the town as I know it was in a huge funk. (It threw me back to Bill Clinton's observation that the nation was in a funk in 1995 - the first time a President ever used that particular F-word. This is not Asheville's first collective funk, however, as this event secured George Bush's second term.)

So the e-mails have been in a flurry here. The rarer conservative gloating and the reactionary, sky-is-falling liberal forecasting complete disaster and bemoaning the "divison" caused by George W. Bush, which of course is only going to make the flu worse.

My use of the reply-all button was to be positive: regardless of the "true" motive of our war effort, still some good things happened there. The most ardent liberals need to acknowledge the release of women from the Taliban and the Ba'athists. Did any race/gender-conscious people notice the National Security Advisor?

Popular among the liberals here is the positive-thinking new-age particle physics documentary, What the Bleep Do We Know? (Recommended simply for the mind-blowing water-droplet photo scene.) Still, the liberals must struggle to remember what they paid their seven dollars for, or this:

Man commits suicide at Ground Zero
Distraught over the re-election of President George W. Bush, a Georgia man traveled to New York City, went to Ground Zero and killed himself with a shotgun blast, police said yesterday.

The suicide victim, Andrew Veal, 25, was discovered just before 8 a.m. yesterday when a worker for the Millennium Hotel looking at Ground Zero from an upper floor saw a man lying atop the concrete structure through which the 1 and 9 subway lines run.

This may have more to do with how Veal was raised, but for now we are left with a decomposing case of melodrama and a stupid kid leaving behind a psychologically disturbing mess for someone else to clean up after him. From that same article, an East Villager's stunningly stupid observation:

"It's a national tragedy," he said. "This election is devastating to all who believe in democracy."

And there is the problem, as I have argued from my very first blog: the disregard for the definitions of words. Record voter turnout and a popular vote win by more than 3 1/2 million is labeled as democracy in devastation, and therefore sufficient excuse for a narcissistic suicide.

So back here at home we conservatives watch as drama and definitional disregard keep our fellow beer-drinkers in a funk. Hopefully caring conservatives can enforce the bright sides, or at least remind the distraught liberals that they do have what they need to deal with the devastation, and the worst that can happen is getting the munchies.

:: michael Sunday, November 07, 2004 [+] ::
...

WHERE WE'RE HEADED...

So far it seems little is changing on the left. In fact, the problem is escalating. Will the leadership in the Democratic Party speak out against this?

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - Vandals spray painted vulgar messages on the walls of the North Carolina Republican Party headquarters and left a burned effigy depicting President Bush and Sen. John Kerry, police said.
Authorities detained several suspects early Saturday, hours after the attacks took place Friday night, but had not filed any charges, police spokesman Jim Sughrue said.
A police officer reported Friday that about 100 people wearing masks and gloves were walking down a street near the headquarters, authorities said.
The Republican president won re-election Tuesday after a challenge by Kerry, a Democrat. John Edwards, who was Kerry's running mate, is a senator from North Carolina.
``This is not a political statement,'' Sughrue said. ``A political statement is what we made Tuesday. This is a crime.''
Police said at least two windows were broken and it appeared that the vandals tried to put incendiary devices inside of the building.

The statesmanship so badly needed here is extremely rare within the Democratic Party, and they need the vandals' votes since they are part of the "base". Zell Miller's statesmanship was scorned, but now, when so clearly out of power, is the time for Democratic penance and for declaring right and wrong. I want to be an optimist and think they will do the denouncing that needs to be done.

:: michael Saturday, November 06, 2004 [+] ::
...

CAUSE AND EFFECT?

Nov 3:
Rueters: Bush Wins White House, Reaches Out to Foes
Nov 4:
Rueters: Palestinian Leader Arafat in Coma
Al-Jazeera puts it more punctually:
"Official: Yasser Arafat in a comma"
However, Arafat's death is anything but punctual. Do you recall the phrase, "untimely death"? Have you ever thought about that? When is a good time to die?
Headline suggestion for tomorrow: "Yasser Arafat died today, and it's about god-damn time!"

Talk in the past speculated an imminent civil war between Fatah and Hamas at this time, for control of the billions in Arafat's accounts, where it has been while his fellow Palestinians live in squalor and blame the Jews.

No need to re-think those billions. US News provides a get-to-the-point headline:
End of the Arafat Era?
It includes this juicy fact:

West Bank hospitals, starved for funds by the massive corruption of his regime, aren't equipped to treat his ailment, reportedly a life-threatening blood disease.

So the old terrorist must be flown to Paris, treatment delayed by his own inaction. Sweet. On the other hand, Arafat in in Paris at his close friend Jaques Chirac's invitation. "Doctor Chirac," Arafat (used) to call him.

He could have learned something from Fidel Castro:
AP: Fidel Castro can live to 140, doctor says
But thank God he didn't.

One more question, will a widowed Sufa Arafat continue to live on a $100,000 per month allowance, or might she decide a deficient West Bank hospital is more worthy?

:: michael Thursday, November 04, 2004 [+] ::
...

I spent much of yesterday mentally preparing for a Kerry victory. I lost my faith in the Americans' ability to reject demagoguery and believed the MTV crowd was going to win it for Kerry. Trying to be optimistic, I thought, at least, a Kerry victory may win us better service in Paris restaurants for the next four years.

After all that filthy demagoguery, lying to black congregations and distorting parables, telling the lame they will walk, going ape shit over a falsified ammo dump story. After the major media's blatant meddling and manipulating, the CBS forgeries, NPR's Abu Ghraib obsession. After the media sacrifice of Howard Dean and very, very suspicious exit polls. After Rock the Vote, the fascism of millions of brainwashed college kids marching for Books not Bombs, George Soros' billions and Michael Moore's documentaries.

After all that, America's majority just decided that Kerry really didn't shoot that goose.

Wow, the former personal injury lawyer from North Carolina, Senator John Edwards did not win his own state for Kerry. Even his soon-to-be vacated Senate seat was won by Republican Richard Burr. He's not Al Gore, who lost his own state and even lost his own county, but it's got to hurt a little. Go ahead and cry, Edwards, let it out. You're not to old to cry... at least you don't look too old.

North Carolina re-elected Bush and sent Republican Burr to the Senate, but also re-elected the Democrat Governor Easley. I think this says something good about North Carolinian thoughtfulness when voting. Easley's opponent came across as young and a bit College Republican for NC's taste.

I think Daschle may be a little teary-eyed this morning as well. Fraud was obvious in the last South Dakota Senatorial go-around, but Thune took the high road and waited his turn.

Speaking of the high road: oh how the angry left lamented that Electoral College system when Bush lost the popular vote by half a million. Now Bush wins it by almost four million. Please, dear Left, lecture me again on what the people want.

:: michael Wednesday, November 03, 2004 [+] ::
...

12:41 am November 3

NO FAIR! ABOLISH THE ELECTORAL VOTE SYSTEM!

Popular Vote 70% of Precincts Reporting

George W. Bush 51% 45,599,811
John Kerry 48% 42,661,905

Electoral
Bush 246
Kerry 207

Oh... by the way - I noticed nothing blew up in America recently. Did 45 million people just notice that?

:: michael Wednesday, November 03, 2004 [+] ::
...

HISTORY REPEATING ITSELF

Rebecca Hagelin writes about it, and uses a descritpion I have used, that the evil regime itself was a weapon of mass destruction. It's not just a metaphor:

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/rebeccahagelin/rh20041029.shtml

:: michael Friday, October 29, 2004 [+] ::
...

BLOOD RUNNING IN THE STREETS OF AMERICA

A terrorist saying this is news? (Would the Left now agree that it is better to fight them over there, and to keep them hell out of our country?) During the Reagan Presidency, Col. Muammar Qadhafi threatened the same thing. This new terrorist is as about as original as John Kerry. No wonder ABC didn't think the CIA should see the whole thing.

:: michael Friday, October 29, 2004 [+] ::
...

TODAY IN HISTORY

I wonder how many people remember October as the day of the 1929 Stock Market crash. Consequencially, today is thought to be the anniversary of a great number of suicides. However, I cannot find an impressive list of financial titans tightening their own noose.

Sir Walter Raleigh and Joseph Pulitzer died on October 29 as well.

Raleigh said, "All men are evil and will declare themselves to be so when occasion is offered."

When he assumed ownership of the New York World, Pulitzer said, "There is room in this great and growing city for a journal that is not only cheap but bright, not only bright but large, not only large but truly democratic... that will expose all fraud and sham; fight all public evils and abuses; that will serve and battle for the people with earnest sincerity."
- - Too bad that's not the "Newspaper of Record"

Also, it is the aniversary of the binding and gagging of anti-war activist Bobby Seale, after he repeatedly shouted and insulted the judge and prosecution and disrupted the court proceedings.
- - Let me savor that for a minute....

:: michael Friday, October 29, 2004 [+] ::
...

DIGESTIVE MALFUNCTION

I really didn't even know who she is until I saw this headline. I noticed at Google News that 658 news reports are published on the subject:

Ashlee Simpson takes lip sync blame

Simpson Appears on 'Today,' Denies Lip-Syncing

The gerund "syncing" sure does look funny when it is spelled-out, doesn't it?

My favorite headline:

ASHLEE'S HALF-ACID LIP-SYNC EXCUSE

It's not news, but then it is. The public is to blame for supporting high ticket prices and fake performances. I now wish I had read more into Elton John's recent Madonna-bashing, but I do have books to read...


:: michael Tuesday, October 26, 2004 [+] ::
...

HOW TO E-MAIL WITH A LIBERAL

-----Original Message-----
From: JT
Sent: Friday, October 22, 2004 1:51 PM

Quick note... Kathleen, Katie and JT went to AB Tech (local comm college) to view the "movie" that the Sinclair Monopoly put out to be televised.... could not believe the hatred, rude ness of the general crowd... several vets who DARED TO QUESTION were treated terribly, quite frightening... how divisive this administration is. enjoy the humor of the first line at least!!! Later, jt

Monopoly?

I have good news:

Sinclair owns 62 stations reaching only 24% of American houses, and none in the major metropolitan cities (unless St Louis is major).

The would-be viewers in those areas are not required to view.

They are allowed to change the channel.

"Divisive"? The Bush Administration did not produce the documentary any more than the Kerry campaign produced the ad comparing Bush to Adolf Hitler. (That was MoveOn.org)

more good news:

The documentary was produced by Carlton Sherwood, known for his Pulitzer Prize winning work investigating the Pauline Fathers' fund-raising scandal, and the Vatican cover-up. He also defended the Moonies as victims of religious bigotry. This is not the work of a conservative hack.

Vets "dared to question" what? If you mean Veterans for Peace were heckled, that cannot be blamed on Bush. You might blame the vets against Kerry who greatly outnumber those who support. Troop support is a powerfully passionate issue at the citizen level, so of course there was heckling.

It is reasonable to explore whether Kerry's Senate testimony was exaggerated, and if it was used against POW's by the enemy.

It is reasonable to ask why Kerry met with the enemy in Paris and explore the results of that meeting.

That was thirty years ago, yes, but this month Kerry carelessly insulted the head of the world's youngest (and very fragile) consensual government and our newest ally. He did so to score a political point against Bush. It is reasonable to question his current statesmanship.

Were you this agitated when CBS produced the forged documents?

-whenTom Brokaw and Peter Jennings defended Dan Rather's use of forged documents?

-when Rather blamed Bush for Presidential mismanagement in 1998?

-when MSNBC did the same?

-when Michael Moore said in an interview in Midtown Manhattan, two miles from ground zero, that there is no terrorist threat, and was subsequently awarded a seat in the DNC box with the Carters?

-when the NYT compared the WTC attacks to the rise of Pinochet in Chile?

-when CNN's Peter Arnett reported the false Operation Tailwind story?

-when Katie Couric connected the murder of Matthew Shepard to Christian outreach advertising?

:: michael Saturday, October 23, 2004 [+] ::
...

MANLY DISPLAY

I wondered here yesterday if Edwards would be giving us an ostentatious heterosexual display to overpower the images of him fussing with his hair. Kerry took care of it with what Dick Cheney cleverly calls an October disguise. (Damn, it frustrates me when I could have thought of that but didn't.)

NPR this morning talked with best-ex-President Jimmy Carter and how he handled the Ayatollah and what he thinks the Founders got wrong. It was just riveting. You can listen by clicking:
Presidents and the Constitution: Jimmy Carter

Scroll down for related articles. Related, indeed:
President Carter Tries Hand at Fiction


:: michael Friday, October 22, 2004 [+] ::
...

INFILTRATION!

via Alarming News via VodkaPundit via GayPatriot...

So I am reading Angels and Demons and can hardly do another thing. I am alomost totally wrapped up not just in the art and the mapping, but also in the infiltration of the Illuminati in the story, so this bit of little-known news has my interest. I had never heard of the Gay Patriot until this, and the post is impressive:

Log Cabin GOP Political Director Unmasked As Former Edwards Campaign Operative

I never liked jokes about the Log Cabin group. They represent free thinking. As Camille Paglia raged in Salon about truly anti-choice mainstream feminism and fascist gay activism and the pressures therein, I admire this group for not marching lock-step into the Democratic Party. Read the links in the post as well, particulary the numbers. If the writer's hunch is correct, this makes the Dems even dirtier when its comes to free thinking.

It also has me thinking:

But how could he resist? Edwards is soooooooooo handsome!

This has got me thinking back to Al Gore's ostentatious heterosexual display with the kiss he laid on Tipper at the DNC in 2000.

After the released video of Edwards's primping, his Breck Girl status, and this news... will the Democratic Party demand such a display from Edwards?

:: michael Thursday, October 21, 2004 [+] ::
...

THIS IS NEWS?

"Analysis: Clinton eyes U.N. post"
WASHINGTON, Oct. 20 (UPI) -- Former U.S. President Bill Clinton has set his sights on becoming U.N. secretary-general. A Clinton insider and a senior U.N. source have told United Press International the 56-year-old former president would like to be named leader of the world body when Kofi Annan's term ends early in 2006.

He is perfect for the job, meaning just as he ignored the obvious terrorist threat and just as he armed China against us, reminiscent of the UN's incapability to enforce its own Security Council resolutions and Kofi Annan's failure to be proactive with Rwanda, he would truly fit in there.

White House fundraising scandals during the Clinton Administration... Oil-for-Food kickbacks at the UN under Kofi's leadership... it makes so much sense.

Clinton blames 9-11 on the Crusades and Native American displacement... the UN votes the US off the Human rights committee while retaining China and Cuba.

Indeed, he is a qualified applicant.

:: michael Thursday, October 21, 2004 [+] ::
...

IF THEY ARE DOING IT THERE, THEY ARE DOING IT HERE

Britain Charges Muslim Cleric Sought by U.S.
Published: October 20, 2004
LONDON, Oct. 19 - Abu Hamza al-Masri, a radical Muslim cleric who faces extradition to the United States, was charged by the British police on Tuesday with encouraging followers to murder Jews and other non-Muslims.

He fought the Soviets with our help, and now worked to fight us. Is there a word for gratitude in their vocabulary?

JUST LIKE THEY STILL DO IT IN SPAIN

Showing Spain that changing the government and pulling troops out of Iraq was not enough, the new message is that even prosecuting within Spain's own borders is not acceptable, either.

Spain arrests 8 in alleged plot against anti-terror court system

:: michael Wednesday, October 20, 2004 [+] ::
...

UNCLEAR ON THE CONCEPT

13-year-old faces child pornography rap

LACEY, WA, Oct. 15 (UPI) -- A 13-year-old boy in Washington State has been charged with posting sexually explicit pictures of himself on the Internet along with other kiddie porn.
. . .
The boy, who has not been identified because of his age, is being held without bail in a juvenile detention center. Sgt. John Didion of the Washington State Patrol told the newspaper that he is unusually young to be a suspect in a child pornography case, an area where most defendants are older than 25.

I was once visiting a house where the 4 and 7 year-old boys were well-known as complete brats. They grabbed a disposable camera and ran outside, where the older brother said, "Hey (name withheld to protect the juvenile), let's take pictures of our penises and our butts!" The elder brother dropped his pants, bent back to make the first picture really easy to take, turned, bent over, grabbed his cheeks, and pulled for easy proctography. They switched roles. The mother arrived at the scene half-way through the younger brother's posing. The entire event took less than half a minute.

I am sure the mother threw the camera away in case there was someone like Lacey, Washington's DA working at the photo lab.

Kids do stupid things. I know thirteen is older than seven, but the boy in the news story is still just thirteen. Held without bail?

On the other hand, I got a dirty joke book at that age, then another, then a third. I became obsessed with dirty and racial jokes until I got caught at school and connected with the books. The fright of being called to the office broke my obsession. This 13 year-old's obsession is a real highway to hell. Maybe what seems like overreaction by the prosecutor will break him before it's too late.

:: michael Wednesday, October 20, 2004 [+] ::
...

BUSH KNEW!

First, he screws up the vaccine supply and

Woman awaiting flu shot falls, dies

now this:

Woman Waiting In Line For Oprah Show Dies

WWKD?

:: michael Saturday, October 16, 2004 [+] ::
...

IRRELEVANT PRESIDENCY

Painful debate-watching was soothed by switching to Raiders of the Lost Ark on USA Network and to a documentary about the Sears Tower in Chicago on the History Channel.

I am grateful to have switched to the debate just in time to catch Kerry siting two major news organizations' opinions against Bush policy, and to catch the President slip in his sly un-remark about the reliability of those major news organizations.

Still, Kerry, amid all his intelligence, has without realizing made a very interesting case: we don't need a President. Kerry's campaign has been about bashing almost 100% of Bush's actions in office. (Now the President is responsible for college tuition and, say what? - flu vaccine!) My point is that amid this Kerry-alleged near-complete failure of the Bush Administration, somehow, the American flag is still on the pole. Somehow, Americans are still at work.

:: michael Thursday, October 14, 2004 [+] ::
...

LOSING MY MIND

My mother is here in my house this morning, which means we have to watch the Today show and criticize Ann Curry's haircut, and then, God help me, watch that Regis show. Duran Duran is performing "Hungry Like the Wolf." It's funny how in Rock music, the standards of aging are so different. The Stones and Blondie definitely win, and the Psychedelic Furs are doing well. DD should have stayed home. My mother should have, too.

:: michael Wednesday, October 13, 2004 [+] ::
...

Edwards Stem Cell Vision: 'We will stop juvenile diabetes, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and other debilitating diseases... When John Kerry is president, people like Christopher Reeve are going get up out of that wheelchair and walk again.' Edwards made the unprecedented campaign promises during 30-minute speech at Newton High School gym in Newton, Iowa...

I bet he can't wait to sue them when they fail.

:: michael Tuesday, October 12, 2004 [+] ::
...

CHRISTOPHER REEVE DEAD

I heard it when I woke up, thinking how I heard just late last week that he still labored to keep his body and muscles ready for when a cure arrived. That is faith worth copying. However, I still am not surprised that his body shut down.

Remembering when in 1996 at the DNC he was rolled out onto the stage with also-wheelchair-bound Jim Brady, I have made remarks from time to time about that DNC paralysis parade, but that got far overshadowed by the Paul Wellstone Memorial service years later. I am sorry he got used like that, but it must have helped the spinal research cause.

IN OTHER, MORE IMPORTANT NEWS:

Afghan Poll Crisis Subsides as Karzai Rivals Back Off

That's the place where we bombed them out of the stone age. Women there are now going to school, working, registering to vote, and voting. Critics may bitch about multiple voting, but that problem exists still in America, ironically by people who opposed Bush's military action ousting the Taliban.

Re-Elected Howard to Keep Troops in Iraq

Good. This means Spanish isn't contagious.

“I know a commander-in-chief when I see one and there’s only one on the ballot.”

Oh - I can't wait for Kerry to come back with, "But Wesley Clark says...!" and then add that Franks was coerced and bribed - afraid he would otherwise get fired like Shinseki.

U.S. shuts down British media Web sites

Because it's Indymedia, I am not as alarmed - they must have seriously crossed the line, more so than they did when they published and article blaming the Bali nightclub bombing on the Jews.

The importance of the following tidbit will be missed by most of the press, because cheering Taba terrorism three years after cheering the September 11 attacks is not crossing the line if Palestinians are the ones doing the cheering:

The Palestinian Authority condemned over the weekend the bombing attacks in Sinai, but many Palestinians voiced support for the bombings, saying they were a natural response to Israeli and American "crimes" in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Iraq.

:: michael Monday, October 11, 2004 [+] ::
...

FROM TUNNELS TO TABA

The multiple bombings in the Sinai resorts prompted an interesting front page photo on yesterday's New York Times, one that actually elicited sympathy for the Israeli victims, in this case a bloody pregnant woman.

The article contained the mindblowing information that the authorities were seeing this a a terrorist attack - ya think?

A headline later in the day reported Egyptian resistance to Israeli medical teams:

Egypt was originally uncooperative, hampering Israeli efforts to assist in the rescue efforts, and one police official said that four valuable hours were lost as a result. By this morning, however, the situation had improved, and "we were allowed to bring in whatever forces and teams we wanted to," the official said.

Via LGF, DEBKA file reports:

Initial Egyptian investigation of quadruple car bombings at three Sinai sites Thursday night points to co-production orchestrated by Iran - to which explosives traced - organized by Hizballah and carried out by Saudi al Qaeda bomb-teams.

Iran has been listening to too much Kerry - how do you say "Bring it on!" in Farsi? Well, there will no need to say it if the Iranians were really a part of this. I anxiously await the arrival of the Israeli airborne reactor-demolition squad.

Oh - and this:

The Hizballah’s Sinai cell is part of the Palestinian international weapons smuggling network that has grown out of the Sinai-Gaza tunnel system and which now branches out to East Africa, Arabia, the Persian Gulf, Syria, Turkey and Chechnya.

This blog written in memory of tunnel-defender and would-be bulldozer blocker Rachel Corrie.

:: michael Saturday, October 09, 2004 [+] ::
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DAH BATES!

OK - I watched this one, but eliminated an annoying browser hijacker at the same time with the help of bazooka.com.

Bush is doing much better in this debate. He's absolutely right jabbing back with how Kerry has already shown he cannot build an alliance based on the stupid things he has said.

I watch this, understanding human nature... I know why people want this job, but I do not know how the hell they do it.

What - Bush owns a timber business? ... oh Bush just asked the same question.

Kerry decries labels.. HAHA.. just not the ones he takes from faded bumper stickers and other people's speeches as his own.

And lookit... Drudge has a memo from ABC and gosh, they sure went overboard with the aging process on this one.

Oh whatever, I finished a great counter-terrorism novel by Vince Flynn this afternoon, and now I am on to Angels and Demons, the Illuminati and their antimatter weapon. Feeling very sleepy...

:: michael Friday, October 08, 2004 [+] ::
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ECONOMIC GOOSEY-MAN?

There are far more important concerns going on these days, so what the hell is Schwarzenegger doing signing this?

The signing of a bill by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last week banning the production and sale of foie gras in California was a watershed moment in a protracted battle of culinary politics. It has pitted animal rights supporters, including Sir Paul McCartney and Martin Sheen, against Guillermo Gonzalez, a 52-year-old businessman from El Salvador who is the state's lone producer of foie gras.

Especially, what the hell is he doing handing a legislative victory to people who do this?

Last year some activists vandalized a cafe in Sonoma owned by Mr. Gonzalez; Laurent Manrique, the chef of Aqua in San Francisco; and Didier Jaubert. They also damaged the men's homes.

Unless he is doing this to annoy the French, this is a bad move. What in the meat industry will be next?

:: michael Wednesday, October 06, 2004 [+] ::
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"PERHAPS YOU WEREN'T THERE TO VOTE FOR THAT."

Ever since Doug Giles wrote..

Take John Edwards, for instance: no real person smiles that much. Middle Americans don’t beam that bountifully. Neither Jesus nor kids stoned on expensive weed grin that much. Only avaricious ambulance chasing lawyers, running for vice president and trying to off set their Lurch-like presidential running mate, smile that much. This grinning Edwards reminds me of the overly gleeful guy who sold me a ’75 Firebird back in ’79, which turned out to be a complete piece of crap. And be sure of this: John Edwards is to Dick Cheney what Potsie was to the Fonz. The debates should prove interesting.

..I have been looking forward to last night.

However, I missed it. A new sports bar had an invitational opening last night. I write local wine and dine articles and therefore got invited. It was, wonderfully, an open bar until 9:30. On the TV screens were three sports, poker, and the Cheney/Edwards/Ifill Show, but without sound or closed-captioning. I stood with players from the local women's football team, the Asheville Assault, and was surprised to hear a lot of admiration for Vice President Cheney.

So I missed this debate and am glad for it. I simply didn't want to get angry last night. I learn from an angry Junk Yard Blog that Ifill misquoted Rumsfeld at the beginning of the debate. But mainly, I wanted to avoid having to listen to the former personal injury lawyer from North Carolina, Senator John Edwards, distort and defame.

I also knew that by missing the debate I would not have to cringe at the missed opportunities for Cheney to hit hard, devastating blows so deserved by the Democrats, particularly for disregarding our national security when allowing China access to our WMD technology and for allowing North Korea to become nuclear. I am sick of the Republican high road when they have so much ammo which needs no exagerration.

*** *** ***
Bush is plain-talking in Pennsylvania as I write. He just said he didn't pick Dick Cheney for his hair-do. I love the way he said hair-do in that Texan accent.
:: michael Wednesday, October 06, 2004 [+] ::
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A POLE YOU CAN TRUST

Drudge reports Polish retort:

"It is sad that a senator with 20 years of experience does not recognize Polish contribution. This is immoral," Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski told FACTS in an interview commenting on the US Presidential Debate.

Wow! He used the I-word. How about for the next debate we see a Kerry-Kwasniewski face-off?

:: michael Tuesday, October 05, 2004 [+] ::
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SO KERRY DIDN'T HAVE A CHEAT SHEET

Click for the image:
"Mystery Solved" (Thanks to Allah)

Having run out of bumper sticker slogans and things Bush and Cheney have already said, Kerry simply borrowed a look from Bob Dole.

Sad thing about this is - it was worth the inquiry. It was believable where John Kerry is concerned. This threw me back to when it was alleged that the Clinton administration was granting plots in Arlington National Cemetery in exchange for donations. Not true, but not outrageous to suggest as possible for that administration to do.

:: michael Tuesday, October 05, 2004 [+] ::
...

One less reason for liberals to hate Israel
(and one more for the Muslims...):
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers traumatised by battle with the Palestinians have a new, unconventional weapon to exorcise their nightmares -- marijuana.

:: michael Tuesday, October 05, 2004 [+] ::
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FOUR MORE YEARS

That is what it is going to take to get the instructions-challenged would-be voters in Florida to learn how to complete a form. This headline has me giggly:

Thousands in Florida may be surprised they can't vote Nov. 2

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Potentially tens of thousands of people who think they are registered to vote could be turned away at the polls Nov. 2 because their voter registration forms weren't completely filled out.

Secretary of State Glenda Hood said some groups registering voters are turning in application forms missing information, such as unchecked boxes asking whether applicants are citizens, mentally incompetent or felons.

I like seeing people encouraging other people to register and vote, but this is sad. Here we have registration activists recruiting people to vote who are not responsible enough to complete a form, and the recruiters themselves are not capable of checking the completeness of the form. It is not a chemistry test. (These are primarily the same people who cheered the no-postmark-disqualification of military absentee ballots in 2000.)

Of course the article mentions the usual voter fraud problems and allegations of unauthorized party-switching. Lawsuits have been filed in vain by voter advocacy groups because the law does not allow them to retreive the forms and take them back to the people who did not complete them to begin with.

"It seems like every time that we try to take steps to help voters to make sure they get on the rolls and to make sure they are protected, the state and the counties put obstacles in the way," said Browne.

This is a depressing vision for two reasons. These voting activists are unconcerned about the quality of the voter. I am sure many of them do their work out of genuinely good will, but stupid, uninformed voters are a huge problem. That is why they marched for a re-vote four years ago. The other problem is blaming the state. The true source of their frustration is the stupidity, the laziness of people who cannot or will not follow instructions on a simple form or connect the dots.

:: michael Tuesday, October 05, 2004 [+] ::
...