A Navy SEAL sacrificed his life to save his comrades by throwing himself on top of a grenade Iraqi insurgents tossed into their sniper hideout, fellow members of the elite force said.
Petty Officer 2nd Class Michael A. Monsoor had been near the only door to the rooftop structure Sept. 29 when the grenade hit him in the chest and bounced to the floor, said four SEALs who spoke to The Associated Press this week on condition of anonymity because their work requires their identities to remain secret.
That's what the Irey campaign says in a press release today:
Washington County Commissioner and Pennsylvania 12th district Republican Congressional nominee Diana Irey held a press conference in Johnstown today and released the following statement:
"Jack Murtha is scared to debate me.
"That's the only conclusion one can draw from the news we got two days ago from the League of Women Voters -- Jack Murtha, we were told, refuses to get on a stage here in the 12th District and debate me over the significant issues in this campaign.
On the other hand, maybe Murtha's just being smart. If you looked like this:
Would you want to be debating somebody who looks like this:
This is a good time to mention that you can only contribute through the Rightroots candidate website until the 15th of this month, so consider doing it today. Diana Irey is one of the candidates they're supporting. Send Jack Murtha a message!
An environmental wacko calls for Nuremberg-style trials for Global Warming "deniers".
Grist Magazine’s staff writer David Roberts called for the Nuremberg-style trials for the “bastards” who were members of what he termed the global warming “denial industry.”
Roberts wrote in the online publication on September 19, 2006, "When we've finally gotten serious about global warming, when the impacts are really hitting us and we're in a full worldwide scramble to minimize the damage, we should have war crimes trials for these bastards -- some sort of climate Nuremberg.”
Mark Warner, who was considered by many to be a strong candidate for the 2008 Democratic nomination for president has dropped out of the race.
Warner scheduled a late morning news conference in Richmond to make the announcement, according to two Democratic officials who refused to be identified because they did not want to upstage Warner's announcement.
You mean they didn't want to be identified as the guys who upstaged the announcement.
This might come as a surprise to some, but I had long thought that Warner was facing an uphill battle. First, of course, is the 800-pound gorilla. No matter how he tried, Warner wasn't going to get to the right of Hillary Clinton; at least there was no way he could do it and claim to represent a sizable chunk of Democrats.
Warner did make a lot of sense in some ways; he's a red state governor, which is a qualification that the last two Democrats elected to the Oval Office (Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton) had in common. He could reasonably claim that he, unlike Hillary could bring over a red state into the Democrats' column.
But it would also mean that the Democrats would have to settle for a moderate, and they strike me as in no mood to do that. From their standpoint it's a shame that Howard Dean didn't get the nomination in 2004, because the Vermonster would have gotten the McGovern treatment from the voters, convincing the Democrats that they needed to tack back towards the center. Instead, they went with the "electable" guy, heh.
The big winners from this announcement? Hillary and the Republicans.
A player-pilot is still a sensitive topic for the Yankees, whose captain, Thurman Munson, was killed in the crash of a plane he was flying in 1979. Lidle, acquired from the Philadelphia Phillies on July 30, said his plane was safe.
“The whole plane has a parachute on it,” Lidle said. “Ninety-nine percent of pilots that go up never have engine failure, and the 1 percent that do usually land it. But if you’re up in the air and something goes wrong, you pull that parachute, and the whole plane goes down slowly.”
they said now some of the buildings are completely engulfed in flames!!! oh uh!
watch out for total building collapses soon!!! hhahahahahahahhaa
I wonder how much of the aircraft will be found after it's over... vaporized ???
The dumbest part is where they go back and forth over whether 10/11/06 reversed and upside down is 9/11/01 (of course it's not, but 9/11/01 reversed and upside down would be 10/11/6, which is close enough for the "woo" factor.
Well, it looks like Janet Napolitano has successfully kicked this issue down the road past the election.
Munsil raised the issue again during a televised debate Thursday evening, saying the monument fails to honor victims of the Sept. 11 attacks. Gov. Janet Napolitano said she will recommend the commission that created the memorial use its best judgment in reviewing what, if any, changes should be made. But she said she won't recommend specific changes.
And any changes that do occur are likely to happen after the Nov. 7 election.
What they mean to say is that there will be no changes, as Janet will have weathered the storm and still gotten reelected.
The monument was designed with exactly the same number of letters in the inscriptions as victims that day. Astoundingly, some of the members of the commission which created the memorial wanted to include 19 more letters; for those poor terrorists who also perished! Video here.
I did a little digging into Paul Eppinger, the director of the commission that designed the memorial. It appears that Eppinger should have listened to his own advice from 2003:
Paul Eppinger, executive director of the Arizona Interfaith Movement spoke at the gathering. Mr. Eppinger stated that instead of efforts to build memorial monuments, we should actively convey peace messages to the younger generations.
Can the Democrats pass their agenda? Not with a Republican-run Senate. And even if the Dems captured both houses, they would have to approve legislation by veto-proof margins. So we're much more likely to see the Democrats playing defense--that is, blocking what remains of the Bush agenda--and using control of the calendar and the House floor to spotlight their issues.
What would they do about Iraq? That, at the moment, is anyone's guess.
Does "Cut and Run" sound familiar?
Michael Barone (in the same article) raises some interesting points:
"Consider the fact that 34 House Democrats, most from districts carried by Bush in 2004, voted for the terrorist interrogation bill supported by George W. Bush and John McCain. That means a narrowly Democratic House is unlikely to act on presumptive Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel's suggestion that it defund the military campaign in Iraq, as a 2-to-1 Democratic House voted to refuse funds for bailing out South Vietnam in 1975 . . ."
But:
"On domestic policy, a Democratic House will be able to obstruct but not to impose its own will. Rangel will surely see to it that no extensions of Bush tax cuts come out of Ways and Means, which means tax increases in outyears. Budget levels will be subject to fierce negotiations, as they were in the Clinton-Gingrich years. John Dingell as chairman of Energy and Commerce will deploy his considerable skills on regulatory issues, but these do not always split on party lines. The smart and canny Henry Waxman, as chairman of Government Reform, will undoubtedly launch a series of newsworthy investigations moments after being sworn in on Jan. 3.
Our buddy the Bulldog Pundit takes a look at those "disaster for the Republicans" polls and finds the usual nonsense:
In the NYT poll, 14% of respondents aren’t even eligible to vote. And of those 86% that are registered, a full 41% didn’t vote, and an additional 10% don’t remember. And while I’m no math major, it would seem to me that of the total respondents to this poll, a full 50% of them either aren’t registered to vote or didn’t vote in the last midterm election. So again, please tell me, how it is that any conclusions can be drawn from this poll. Further, a full 21% of registered voter respondents didn’t even show up to vote in the 2004 Presidential election.
The Demographics of the WP poll are even more ridiculous. In that poll, Democrat respondents outnumber GOP respondents by a full 11% (38-27%). Plus, 3 of the 4 nights in the WP poll are weekends, and the poll director of the WP has previously admitted that weekend polls favor Democrats.
I should mention here that I do suspect that public opinion has turned pretty sour on the Republicans. But as BDP mentions, there are really only 30-40 congressional elections which are competitive, and national polls tell us little about what is going on in those particular districts.
If the Republicans do get swamped this election, there will be consequences. First, I will endorse John McCain for President in 2008. Why? First, because things will not get better for the Republicans in the next two years if the Democrats take substantial power in Congress. Therefore it will be necessary that the Republicans have the strongest possible candidate--not the best possible candidate from my personal viewpoint, but the one with the strongest chance of winning.
And second, if we lose this year there is little doubt in my mind that it will be because some members of the party decided to send a message. But the time for sending messages is not in the general election, but in the primaries. Indeed, what I will get from a loss to the Democrats this year is that the folks sending the Republican party a message are undependable.
There was Streisand, enduring a smattering of very loud jeers as she and "George Bush" _ a celebrity impersonator _ muddled through a skit that portrayed the president as a bumbling idiot.
Though most of the crowd offered polite applause during the slightly humorous routine, it got a bit too long, especially for a few in the audience who just wanted to hear Streisand sing like she had been doing for the past hour.
"Come on, be polite!" the well-known liberal implored during the sketch as she and "Bush" exchanged zingers. But one heckler wouldn't let up. And finally, Streisand let him have it.
"Shut the (expletive) up!" Streisand bellowed, drawing wild applause. "Shut up if you can't take a joke!"
(Note: This post will remain on top until tomorrow morning; scroll down for newer content.)
I will be on the air with my buddies Allman and Smash in the Morning on FM 97.1 Tomorrow at 7:10 Central Time, 8:10 Eastern. For those not fortunate enough to live in the St. Louis area, you can listen in live here.
This article teases us with the "news" that John Kerry may be running again in 2008.
Kerry himself insisted he has not decided whether to run. But more than a dozen longtime loyalists interviewed for this story said they had no doubt that Kerry would attempt what a host of Washington doubters think unimaginable: become the first Democrat in half a century to lose a general election and be renominated four years later.
There's no doubt in my mind that Kerry's going to run in 2008. I doubt he's going to get anywhere. As mentioned above, he would be the first Democrat to be renominated after losing the prior election since Adlai Stevenson. Of course, the key fact not mentioned is that Stevenson was seen all along as a sacrificial lamb in 1952; there was virtually no chance he was going to defeat Eisenhower in that election.
Here's an inspiring story about some small Alaskan villages that are turning down Hugo Chavez's offer of cheap heating oil.
The heating oil is being offered by the petroleum company controlled by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, President Bush's nemesis. While scores of Alaska's Eskimo and Indian villages say they have no choice but to accept, others would rather suffer.
"As a citizen of this country, you can have your own opinion of our president and our country. But I don't want a foreigner coming in here and bashing us," said Justine Gunderson, administrator for the tribal council in the Aleut village of Nelson Lagoon. "Even thought we're in economically dire straits, it was the right choice to make."
When Bush became president in 2000, Pyongyang's reactor was frozen under a 1994 agreement with the United States. Clinton administration officials thought they were so close to a deal limiting North Korean missiles that in the days before he left office, Bill Clinton seriously considered making the first visit to Pyongyang by a U.S. president.
Well, for starters, Bush did not become president in 2000; he became the president-elect. He was sworn in during January 2001. But more important, the North Koreans were still moving ahead with their nuclear program.
But North Korea cheated on its 1994 pledges by secretly obtaining uranium enrichment technology. When confronted by the United States, it kicked out the inspectors and abandoned the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Pyongyang has since boasted that it has reprocessed all 8,000 spent fuel rods; its erstwhile supplier A.Q. Khan now claims to have seen North Korean nuclear weapons.
The number of men Che's "revolutionary tribunals" condemned to death in the identical manner range from 400 to 1,892. The number of defenseless men (and boys) Che personally murdered with his own pistol runs to the dozens. Imagine Charles Manson, Ted Bundy, and Son of Sam t-shirts on such as Johnny Depp and Prince Harry. Granted, these last three didn't match Che's murder tally.
The article goes on to note Che's enduring popularity among the mindless Left. I remember in the 1970s National Lampoon did an issue on the theme of, "Is Nothing Sacred"? To illustrate this theme, NatLamp chose a cover with the iconic poster of Che getting hit with an egg. Yep, Che was supposed to be sacred.
The Amazing Race--The Mystery of the Vietnamese Junk
Entertaining and emotional episode this weekend, as we see the stresses on many of the teams sparking anger.
At the start, teams get an audio clue to take a cab to a bus station. Smartly, some of the contestants drag their driver to listen to the clue to make sure he gets it right. But Rob & Kimberly's driver seems to get lost and they seem to be falling behind. Fortunately, it's an early bunching routine as the bus will not arrive for several hours. The bus takes them to Ha Long Bay, where there are junks (Oriental boats) and a roadblock. "Who's got strong arms and legs?"
Unfortunately, team triathlete decides that Sarah should be the member to take this challenge. It's almost as if idiot Peter is trying to market his miracle prosthetic leg to America rather than win the million dollars. Even worse from the standpoint of the show is that it's a repeat challenge--climb a rock formation. Predictably, Sarah falls behind while Peter overdoes the "You can do it!" routine. Still they finish this challenge ahead of the beauty queens.
Next they must make their way to the Sung Sot Cave:
At the cluebox there is a detour. Teams must choose between underwater and overwater. They are to row sampans to either a series of oyster traps, or deliver fresh produce (also in sampans). Tempers really start flaring as the teams deal with learning how to row the sampans.
Only Team Gump attempts the delivery chore and it seems to work out fairly well for them. The rest of the teams chose to hoist the oyster traps up from the bottom. We see Peter snapping at Sarah and indicating he wants to give up. Not going to impress the audience with griping like that. Everybody seems to have trouble with this chore and at one point one of the teams even starts to sink.
Team Beauty Queen is seriously behind at this point, but they start to catch up on Tommy & Terry on the oyster traps. Eventually they leave while Team Gay is still working. But the Beauty Queens have not read the clues carefully. It says to "Take your junk to Soi Sum Island". Not realizing that means the powered boats that took them out into the bay, they try to row around looking for the island. Worst still, the clue has been shredded and so they can't re-read it. But they get lucky and decide to head over to the power boat.
Meanwhile, Team Gay is having trouble rowing. Tom's arms seem completely unable to handle rowing, and in a move that would make Jack LaLanne proud, he hops into the water and tugs the boat to the junk. Rob & Kimberly have finished first, getting his and hers jet skis, with Peter and Sarah coming close behind. The woman in Team Coal says something about Phil being "scrawny and beautiful". It is apparent that the race tonight is between the Beauty Queens and Tommy & Terry. Although TAR dramatizes it a bit, you can see by the shadows that the Beauty Queens finish well ahead of Team Gay, which is Phil-liminated.
As always, check out the Viking Pundit's recap of the show here.
