This is one of the key congressional races; if Nancy Pelousy is going to become Speaker of the House, she will need Patty Madrid to beat Heather Wilson. After seeing this video, there should be no doubt in your mind that Heather deserves another term.
Our buddy Teflon at Molten Thought did some reflecting and some analysis and has decided that he will in fact be voting Republican this year.
I have changed my mind because my position was predicated on the notion that the Republican House and Senate have tacked leftward since 1994. That is not true, for reasons I will make clear in this post.
This is a terrific analysis and an excellent post. Highly recommended!
That appears to be the goal of Rizzleweb, an online directory of politicians. You can write reviews of candidates and rate others reviews and the candidates themselves. So far it seems to be a relatively non-partisan affair without rancor or bias; we will see how long that lasts.
Mr. Palmer began his e-mail message: “I was wondering where we should send the bill for the live shot Friday at the theater for the Al Gore commercial we aired.”
Mr. Palmer said he wanted no more stories broadcast on global warming because: “a) we do local news, b) the issue evolved from hard science into hard politics and c) despite what you may have heard from the mainstream media, this science is far from conclusive.” Mr. Palmer said in his e-mail message to his operations manager and two women who served as a news anchor and a reporter that he placed “global warming stories in the same category as ‘the killer African bee scare’ from the 1970s or, more recently, the Y2K scare when everyone’s computer was going to self-destruct.”
Dr. James Hansen, the director of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies at Columbia University, said in an interview yesterday that the station’s policy on coverage was irresponsible.
Considering that the mainstream media does seem to be providing free advertising to Gore's Powerpoint presentation, maybe they've got a point.
This was actually a mediocre episode from a racing standpoint, but terrific on the characterization and conflict. Teams must make their way from Kuwait to Mauritius, an island in the Indian Ocean off Africa. As it turns out, the only way there is via London, rather uninituitively. The major drama comes when the Beauty Queens convince a travel agent to help Team Recovery before Team Gump. But it's all for naught as the teams make the same flights.
Once in Mauritius, the teams must find a ship in the harbor and swim out to it. Although Team Cho waits for Team Coal Miner, Team Gump finds the cars and dashes off after the Beauty Queens and Team Abuse. Team Recovery gets lost at this point and falls well behind, so that even though Team Gump and Team Coal Miner are gasping for air, they are returning to shore as the male models head out to the ship.
The next clue takes the teams to a dilapidated Post Office building. Here we see some of the competitive nature of the BQs, as they fret that Rob and Kimberley are following them. They decide to quickly jump off onto an alternate route, while their pursuers get boxed in and can't come after them.
Things get worse for Team Abuse, as Rob can't get the car in gear. They are pushed to the side, to the delight of the other teams. Of course, eventually a replacement vehicle shows up, bu they are behind.
At the post office is a Detour: Sea or Salt. In Sea, the teams motor out to an island and must hike to hidden sails using a treasure map. In Salt, they have to sift through a mound of the saline substance for a salt shaker containing their next clue.
Surprisingly, the Beauty Queens are the only ones who choose Sea. The rest choose to sift through the salt piles, which are immense. I shudder, thinking of the poor Gaghan mom, looking through all those white beans for the one red bean. To make it even more fiendish, they discover that the producers have hidden numerous empty salt shakers and even ones filled with pepper.
Well, the order of finish is pretty much determined by the order in which the teams give up on the Salt task, and here's where the "Sixpack" alliance actually works against the teams as they stay the longest. The Chos and Bama eventually bolt, as does Team Coal Miner, when Mary reminds David that they'll be the idiot couple that stayed forever and couldn't find the shaker.
But apparently finding the sails isn't that easy either, although the BQs find them well before the other teams reach the island, and they are on their way back. At first they fret that they were the only team to choose that option on the Detour, but then they see the other teams making their way to the island. The clue consists of diretions to the next Pit Stop.
Rob and Kim arrive and find the sails next, followed by Team Recovery. The Six-Pack looks doomed. But they work together again once the sails are found. The BQs finish first and win motor scooters (and don't quite manage to hide their disappointment). Phil suggests that the scooters have room for a passenger, so they could go out on dates sometime, and one of the gals asks him for a date. Disappointingly he doesn't give us the arched eyebrow this time. Team Recovery finishes second with Rob & Kim in third despite getting lost again.
The three teams in the Sixpack take off together, with the Chos in front, Team Coal Miner in second and Team Gump in last. The Gumps admit that they would not wait for the Coal Miners just as Mary announces that she's going to wait for the Alabamans. But that noble sentiment may be for nothing. Following a hunch by Mary, Team Coal Miner darts off to the right at an fork, but it turns out to be a mistake. Team Cho drives through the gate of the resort that is the Pit Stop, followed by Team Gump. David and Mary must turn around and are clearly hosed.
But at the mat, TAR actually surprises me. I fully expected Team Coal Miner to be Phil-Liminated, but today was an non-elimination leg. They must finish first next week, or face a 30-minute delay at the mat. It will be interesting to see if there is another Fast Forward next week; we know David & Mary cannot use the next one.
My prediction for the winners: The Chos. I think we're being sold on their nobility. I'd love to see David & Mary get it, but at this point you've got to question their common sense, and as I said last week I have zero confidence in their ability to solve the inevitable puzzle at the end. The Chos could easily have pulled away today and they didn't; they actually stuck back to work together with the alliance. Granted, they knew that in any dash to the mat they'd win, but that's my current prediction.
Wouldn't it be interesting if the Chos get the Fast Forward next week and hold off stepping on the mat to see if David and Mary can make it to them in the lead?
As always, check out the Viking Pundit's recap. In an eeeevil fashion, he's rooting against the common man.
This strikes me as an exceptionally interesting comment:
Bush said something, en passant, that I brooded on all the way home. Asked about poll numbers, he said that 25 percent of the population are always against the war -- any war.
That strikes me as about right. But if 25% of the folks are opposed to any war, then aren't they more or less irrelevant? Say that the latest poll shows 55% against the war and 45% in favor. Doesn't that really mean that we've got a 45% to 30% lead over the people who are at least willing to consider a war?
Michael Kinsley calls them out on it even as he acknowledges the validity of voting a straight ticket.
In a remarkable editorial on Wednesday, the New York Times endorsed Diane Farrell for Congress from a district in Connecticut.
Who is Diane Farrell? I have no idea, and the Times seemed to have not a lot. After eight years as first selectman of Westport, the paper noted somewhat desperately, "she has a better understanding than most legislators of the impact of federal mandates and tax policy on local government." By contrast her opponent, Christopher Shays, has held the seat for almost 20 years and been endorsed by the Times "in every race in which he has faced a serious opponent" -- until now.
In other words, they endorsed her because she's a Democrat. Fine, says Kinsley, just don't pretend you've made a thoughtful analysis on the basis of anything other than partisanship.
I agree. What drives conservatives nuts is not that the media are liberal. It's that they are liberal and deny it. They pretend to come down on the Democrats' side of every issue after careful deliberation and weighing the arguments on both side, but in reality the fix is in and everybody knows it.
There's a transcript of an interview with him here, but there's also a podcast that I recommend listening to.
They’ve [Republicans] been in the majority now for 12 years. You know, basically the Iraqis are being expected to pick up the hang of this self-government thing in 12 weeks but the Republicans have had 12 years and still can’t do it. That’s a pretty shabby excuse. I think they’re disconnected from, in large part, they’re disconnected from their base and there’s a ratchet effect in Washington that happens whereby “the pull,” “the pull”—the minute you’re in a kind of East Coast media environment “the pull” is like toward Diane Sawyer’s hair-do—it’s like, you know, the gravity in Washington pulls them away from where they ought to be. And I think there’s very little price to be paid for being—people don’t get defeated for being too conservative.
If things go as planned for liberal bloggers in the next few weeks, searching Google for “Jon Kyl,” the Republican senator from Arizona now running for re-election, will produce high among the returns a link to an April 13 article from The Phoenix New Times, an alternative weekly.
Mr. Kyl “has spent his time in Washington kowtowing to the Bush administration and the radical right,” the article suggests, “very often to the detriment of Arizonans.”
Just Googled his name and that article comes up #6 on the hit list; maybe it's time to make sure that this article is associated with Jon Kyl. It's the Time article describing Kyl as one of America's ten best Senators.
This time the rumors are real: Castro is dying of stomach cancer. He may have already died, even before the funeral preparations were finished, so the news is not out. Confirmation of the terminal illness comes from the usual sources but in a non-conventional manner. The Cuban government has been summoning to Havana representatives of the major international media to negotiate the best seats, camera angles, and interviews with the despot’s political survivors, and to inform them of the ground rules for coverage of the state funeral.
Both the Lieberman and Lamont campaigns wheeled out their support from Senators whose last name is pronounced Kerry. Lamont had DYKWIA by his side, while Lieberman relied on Bob Kerrey, a former senator from Nebraska (and a Congressional Medal of Honor recipient).
Like Mr. Lieberman, Mr. Kerrey supported the toppling of Saddam Hussein early on and said that the region was safer without him in power. But he added: “Do I think invading Iraq helped the war on terror? No, I do not. I think it reduced the threat in the region, which was serious.”
Certainly arguable, but get this from the Boston Fog Machine:
“I don’t think a lot of the countries around there get serious about what you have to do to really quell the violence and resolve the issues until you’ve made it clear you’re not going to be there forever,” Mr. Kerry said. “There is nothing compelling them to say: ‘Wow, this is our mess now. We’ve got a stake in it.’ It’s just logic, it’s common sense.”
Of course, Kerry's plan has been voted on several times and failed each.
When a raucous bunch of zealots in the theater audience interrupted Lieberman's closing statement, and the feeble shushing of the senator and moderator George Stephanopoulos failed to silence them, it was Schlesinger who stepped to the edge of the stage and, with his size and commanding voice, ordered them to pipe down -- receiving thanks from Lieberman for his intervention.
I seem to recall reading a few days ago that the zealots in question were not Jane Hamsher and company, but a bunch of LaRouche nutbars.
Broder notes as well that the only person who seemed relaxed was Republican Schlesinger. Of course, he's got nothing to lose. But Broder does get in one good crack about Neddy:
Lamont himself is not a strong figure or a compelling politician; he looks like a juvenile in a drawing room comedy, and he is competitive mainly because he has sunk much of his fortune into this race.
(Wednesday Bump: Donations to SC Eagle's site are now over $28,000, and the auction is up to $1009. Great job, folks!) Dave's take here.
(This post will be periodically bumped to the top over the next couple weeks--scroll down for newer content).
Our buddies Andrea Shea-King and Mark Vance of CPR are going to have an auction of Lt. Col. Buzz Patterson's books as a fundraiser for SC Eagle, an Afghanistan campaign vet, whose wife has cancer and needs funds for home hospice care. They have three young children and mounting expenses.
The auction will be on ebay starting Thursday night at 10:00 Eastern time. I will update this post with a direct link to the auction. If you'd care to just donate to SC Eagle, go here.
Update: The auction page is here. Let me mention here that Snappy Auctions, a firm on Florida's Space Coast, did a terrific job of setting up the auction page.
Gore Compares Global Warming Skeptics to Moon Landing Deniers
Which is ironic, because the only Moon Landing Denier I know is a science teacher who believes in Global Warming.
Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels, who introduced the speakers, said Reichert doesn't think climate change is caused by humans.
"Did he say that?" interrupted Gore, whose film about global warming, "An Inconvenient Truth," grossed $23.7 million. "He's not sure it's caused by humans?" advertising
"He's not convinced that it's caused by human beings," responded Nickels.
"C'mon! And this man is a United States congressman?" asked Gore. "You know, 15 percent of people believe the moon landing was staged on some movie lot and a somewhat smaller number still believe the Earth is flat. They get together on Saturday night and party with the global-warming deniers."
Men who live as women can now legally use women's rest rooms in New York's transit system under an unprecedented deal revealed yesterday.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority agreed to allow riders to use MTA rest rooms "consistent with their gender expression," the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund announced yesterday.
Take a stroll over to the Lone Star Pundit and you may change your mind.
Democrat Randall Kallinen is running for judge in the Criminal District Court District 185. Kallinen recently wrote an editorial in the Houston Chronicle about Houston’s unofficial “sanctuary city” policy in which he stated, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Kallinen was honored by the Houston Atheist Society “for his success in representing Kay Staley in her suit against Harris County” in 2004, forcing the removal of a Bible from a memorial in front of the Civil Courts building in downtown Houston. Kallinen has been endorsed by several liberal organizations, including the Houston GLBT (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender) Political Caucus, which held a fundraiser for him just last week.
Our buddy Mr Right put together a ranking about 18 months ago of every single member of Congress. He's done it again, with a slightly reworked formula and of course, new data on voting records since then.
This is a very handy little ranking system, drawing from both conservative and liberal scorecards. As you can see, Hillary, who ranks a 10, is actually more liberal than Steny Hoyer or Harry Reid.
A smirking peace activist who left a rising rock star fighting for his life after a row over his girlfriend was jailed for eight months today.
Christiaan Briggs, 30, attacked 19-year-old singer Billy Leeson and left him in a coma, after Mr Leeson asked him to stop staring at his girlfriend on a late night number 29 bus.
Of course, his defense attorney portrayed him as virtually a saint:
In mitigation Bartholomew Casella said Briggs was a "committed pacifist" and was "absolutely horrified by his behaviour".
He told the packed courtroom that Briggs was a man of "far beyond good character, quite an exceptional young human being who has devoted a lot of time to helping others, who has rather selflessly gone about in his own way trying to make the world a better place."
Move Over Air America, There's a New Sheriff in Town!
Nova M Radio, based here in Phoenix, is planning on taking over Liberal Talk Radio.
As I have discussed in the past, the difference between Airhead America and Nova M, is that Nova M is planning on targeting an even thinner slice of the electorate than Air America. This is not radio for liberals, it's radio for Leftist kooks.
The new network will include shows by hosts Mike Malloy and Peter B. Collins and a nonpartisan program by pollster John Zogby. Newcomb, who previously had a show on Phoenix-area radio, also will host a show.
We've already seen signs of this on the local station, which frequently gives time to 9-11 "Truthers" (we're calling them Deniers at Screw Loose Change).
Well, this seems to be the week that everybody decides that Barack Obama has the right stuff.
Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) opened the door to a 2008 presidential campaign yesterday, saying he has begun to weigh a possible candidacy and will make a decision after the November elections.
"Given the responses that I've been getting over the last several months, I have thought about the possibility, but I have not thought about it with the seriousness and depth that I think is required," Obama said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "After November 7th, I'll sit down and consider it, and if at some point, I change my mind, I will make a public announcement and everybody will be able to go at me."
I suspect that if indeed Obama runs in 2008 that it will be just a "get acquainted" outing. Although the Democrats are notorious for falling in love with the new face, I suspect that the Democratic nomination in 2008 is Hillary's to lose. If a challenge is to succeed against her, it's going to have to come from the antiwar wing of the party, which Barack does not represent.
Obama's only 45, which means he's got plenty of time to lay the groundwork for a serious national run. Yes, 2008 is very tempting to any Democrat with presidential aspirations, because there will be no "heir apparent" on the Republican side, and thus it's a complete tossup.
I remain firm in my belief that the first black president (and Hispanic president and woman president) will come from the Republican Party.
Well, if they lose now, they won't be able to claim it was because they didn't pull out all the stops. Chris Bowers writes:
Step One: With help form readers at Dailykos and MyDD, I will compile a list of seventy article, one for each targeted race. Every article will focus on a different Republican candidate, and will be written by as generally trusted a news source as possible. It will also present as unflattering a view on the Republican candidate as possible. All of these articles will be placed into a database that I will maintain with the help of willing volunteers.
You can probably guess the next step; Google-bomb the candidates with hyperlinks to that article.
It's tempting to dismiss this as a desperation ploy, but it's actually not all that bad an idea. Remember, during the 2004 election, conservative bloggers did a great job getting John Kerry's campaign website to come up under a Google Bomb for "waffles"?
Of course, it depends on there being mainstream media articles that while non-partisan, portray the Republican in a negative light. Okay, that doesn't seem all that difficult, thanks to our wonderful, unbiased media.
The race starts off with everybody getting a video clue: They have to find a set of towers in Kuwait City. Although there is some drama about an early plane to Bombay, as it works out all six teams are on the same flight into Kuwait. Somebody notes that this is where Saddam's downfall all started.
There does not seem to be a great deal of difficulty locating the Kuwait Towers, an imposing structure:
Everybody arrives within a few minutes of each other. They must take tags numbered from 1 to 7 and Team Cho gets the last number. There is a fast-forward in the cluebox, and for a moment several teams consider it. The Chos indicate to the Beauty Queens that they are going for it, but really they are trying to hold up to see if Team Coal Miner will take it. Of course, the Kentuckians must, because they have to finish first or incur a half-hour penalty, and the Chos bravely distract the others while they speed off.
The next task is a roadblock. Teams must climb a service ladder to the top of the tower. It looks exhilarating, but now it turns out that the Chos are both afraid of heights, so their sacrifice for Team Coal Miner looks even nobler than before. At the top, the teams receive a jigsaw puzzle that they must assemble for their next clue.
The teams finish the jigsaw puzzle in the same order that they started it. It's written in Arabic and tells them to go to Gharabelly street or something close. They must find a marked shop, which causes a great deal of anxiety as the teams seem to be having trouble locating it.
Meanwhile Team Coal Miner is forced to simulate fighting an oil fire. Although this appears to involve quite a bit of fireproof clothing, it does not seem overly difficult. David comments that he'd always wanted to be a fireman, and thus he's grateful to the show for helping him live out his dream. Please! They make it to the mat and are spared the penalty, receving a vacation in Jamaica instead.
All the teams eventually locate the shop with the next clue, but the Chos have slipped ahead of Team Gump and the Beauty Queens. Detour: Manual or Automatic. In Manual, teams must fill ten 110-lb bags of camel feed and stack it on a pallet. In Authomatic they must put a robotic jockey atop a camel, and then use it to whip the camel around a racetrack.
Surprisingly, most of the teams choose Manual, even though this seems difficult and laborious compared to Automatic. But in reality, the real challenge here is finding the way to the Detour locations. Everybody struggles, having difficulty finding anybody who knows either location. Eventually the Beauty Queens and Rob & Kimberley find the location of the camel feed. Unfortunately for the Beauty Queens, they fall victim to the "good enough" mentality and are told that they must fill up the bags more completely. Rob & Kimberley finish first, the Beauty Queens second and the Cho Brothers third. Pit stop!
Meanwhile, the other three teams (Gump, Recovery and Triathlon) are all hopelessly lost. Eventually Gump finds the racetrack and discovers that the camel-whipping is quite easy. Then Recovery locates it as well.
Team Triathlon experiences a momentary bit of hope as they see a marker, but it turns out to be the firefighting Fast Forward. It grows dark and they finally make it to the camel feed. Phil doesn't even have the heart to draw out the drama; he says "I'm sorry to say you're the last team to arrive. You've both been eliminated from the race." Of course, he's supposed to say "You're the last team to arrive. I'm sorry to tell you that you've both been eliminated from the race." So it doesn't count as a real Phil-Limination.
One last observation: Team Coal Miner appears to have gotten a pretty good lead on everybody with the fast forward. But you've gotta wonder about their chances at the end of this thing when we finally hit the puzzle. They don't seem smart enough to handle anything really challenging.
Sheesh, this family is now officially on their sixteenth minute of fame. The dad does admit his daughter was wrong and the Secret Service right to caution her and provides a little additional detail:
Julia also had encouraged, through the MySpace site, communications with her middle school classmates and friends who "wanted to stab" the president. Julia had taken the picture and the offensive words off her Web site during the summer after learning in her spring semester history class that such starkly expressed sentiments were against the law.
As the Oct. 13 front-page story in The Sacramento Bee recounts, my wife Kirstie and I were unaware that our computer-savvy daughter had expressed her political passions in such inflammatory and inappropriate terms, and we agreed with the Secret Service agents that they had every right to sternly warn her about the seriousness of using violent imagery to express her dislike of Bush administration policies.
But we also see the fuzzy-headed thinking of liberals apparent in this section:
The things about Bush that Julia dislikes the most are his bigoted attitude toward gays and lesbians and his know-nothing attitude toward global warming. Though we share these perceptions, she has reached them independently, and she feels them with fervor.
His bigotry being expressed in his desire to prevent gays and lesbians from getting married, despite the fact that they have been getting married in this country for hundreds of years, I suppose. And of course Julia has done marvelous research on the subject of global warming, which give her authority in this area.
Well, looks like there will be no joy in kookville, mighty Neddy has struck out.
Sen. Joe Lieberman has increased his lead over Democratic challenger Ned Lamont to 17 percentage points, according to the first Quinnipiac University poll taken since the two faced off in a debate earlier this week.
Lieberman, who is running as an independent after losing the Aug. 8 Democratic primary to Lamont, leads the Greenwich businessman 52 percent to 35 percent among likely voters in the poll released Friday. Republican Alan Schlesinger trailed with 6 percent and 7 percent were undecided.
All I want to know is this — Democratic leaders like Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer may make pale endorsements of Lamont as the Democratic candidate, but they don't have the stones to say that Joe Lieberman is not running as a Democrat and that his actions are bad for the party and he hurts Democratic chances to take both the House and the Senate in the fall. The CW on this one seems to be they don't want to piss off Joe and drive him into the arms of the Republicans, so they take him at his word that he will caucus with them if they just STFU.
Christy Hardin Smith seems to feel this will be a bad day for Lieberman:
The Lamont campaign rolled out its latest ad — starring Connecticut's senior Senator Christopher Dodd. Something tells me that Turncoat Joe is going to be a little more petulant than usual today.
This is just the first of many things going on between now and election day. DNC Chairman Howard Dean will be campaigning with Ned at a rally in Hartford today at noon — if you are in Connecticut, it should be a great event from everything I'm hearing — so take your lunch hour with Ned and Howard Dean!
If you aren't happy with what you are hearing about poll numbers or establishment Democratic support for the Connecticut Senate race, well, here's the solution: get up off your butt and do something about it – you can volunteer for Ned's campaign, for canvassing, or calling, or whatever, by checking here.
I'm optimistic because the energy in Connecticut is palpable, more so than what Lieberman's mercenary ground team can muster. I'm optimistic because we haven't seen or heard the last of Schlesinger. And I'm optimistic because I believe in people-power. It ousted one of the most powerful Democrats in Congress in a primary. It helped Tester win a crushing primary victory in Montana despite being tied in the polls on election eve. And it helped Jim Webb win his Virginia primary despite not running a single television ad.
This is the year we're turning the political world upside down. And Lieberman is destined to be a casualty.
And then there's Schlesinger. It's too bad there are only three debates, but he's starting to get air time on local news and he's being quoted in news articles. It's unlikely he'll stay at 6 percent, since there is a hardcore Republican fringe that hates immigration and Social Security as much as he does and will vote their hearts on election day.
Irony of ironies, it appears that the liberal bloggers are pulling for the Republican and the conservative bloggers are pulling for the Independent.
It's ironic, but all the talk of impeachment died down once it became apparent that the Democrats might take back the House and the Senate. However, in case you've forgotten, this was quite a popular topic six months to a year ago, and Rocco DiPippo hasn't forgotten.
Impeachment plans began seriously coalescing in 2005, after the NY Times published classified aspects of the NSA surveillance program. In mid- December of that year, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-CA, asked a group of presidential scholars whether President George W. Bush had committed an impeachable offense when he authorized the NSA foreign surveillance program. John Dean, the long-time Bush critic of Watergate fame provided Boxer with the answer she and most other Democrats were looking for: “Bush is the first president to admit an impeachable offense,” he said.
Around the same time, Senator John Kerry, D-MA, told a gathering of 100 Democrats that, should they capture the House in 2006, there would be a “solid case” for impeachment based on President Bush's “misleading” the American public over prewar intelligence. Kerry was picking up where another prominent Democrat had, on November 1, 2005, left off. On that day, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid called a rare closed Senate session with other Democrats to look into the “misinformation and disinformation” used by the Bush administration to justify Operation Iraqi Freedom.
The obvious conclusion is that the Democrats are soft-peddling the imay-eachment-pay talk until after November, but you know that the Kos Kidz and others are not going to keep quiet for long if the Donks do take control of the necessary committees.
That's how Jean Fraude Kerry would probably respond to this article on his frugality in funding other Democrats this year.
"He's still hanging on to $8,352,685 of our money, while Democratic candidates in competitive districts are short on funds," the Web site says. After the 2004 election, many Democrats questioned why Kerry didn't spend all his campaign money trying to unseat President Bush and help other Democrats.
Some people may not realize it, but the term "brainwashed" comes from the Korean War. Some American soldiers were captured by the North Vietnamese, and after watching a steady diet of anti-American propaganda, were filmed making statements in support of Communism and North Korea.
Errr, that is, the internationally-acclaimed play, My Name is Rachel Corrie. Kesher Talk was there, handing out some very poignant flyers. The thing that I find interesting is that they were paying attention to what worked with the audience for the play:
A few people (who appeared to be sympathetic to Rachel, perhaps biased against Israel) asked "what side are you on"...to which we replied " the side of peace...and there is no question that Rachel wanted peace...". This response was well recieved and these skeptics took our literature.
Several people said " so you don't think people should see this play"....we replied "to the contrary" it's important to hear all points of view this is a complicated story, we just encourage you to have more facts in front of you"....Ticket-holders responded well to this response, too, taking the info.
The two undefeated teams are Chicago and Indianapolis. Coming into Monday Night Football, everybody pretty much thought Chicago was showing every sign of being an elite team. But the Cardinals made their offense look less than ordinary, and even the defense, despite the two amazing fumble recoveries for TD, still allowed a rookie quarterback to drive confidently upfield for a pair of touchdowns in the first quarter.
Indianapolis, of course, is battling their own past. Nobody's going to get excited about the Colts right now because they have been here before; in the last three years they have won 12, 12, and 14 games in the regular season. There's not much doubt they're going to the playoffs; there's just considerable doubt they can win once they make it.
So who's out there to get excited over? San Diego looks pretty good, but they've beaten the doormats to get that gaudy record--Oakland, San Francisco, and Tennessee. They're 1-1 against real teams, beating the Steelers and losing to the Ravens. New England? An impressive win at Cincinnati, a good win over the Jets at the Meadowlands, a bad loss to Denver at home and two very unimpressive wins over the Bills and Miami at the Blade. The Saints are winning, but they're winning close games at home against tough competition and easy games on the road against creampuffs like Cleveland and Green Bay.
So it looks wide open at this point. There's no one team that has put the hammer down and established beyond doubt they're going all the way.
MVP: Donovan McNabb. Rookie of the Year: Matt Leinart. This kid is the real deal; I'm not sure even the Cardinals can screw this up.
Hoping desperately to distract attention from Searchlight Harry Reid's land deal, they try to make an absurd comparison to a transaction involving Dennis Hastert:
Hastert's property appreciated in value after he earmarked taxpayer funding for a highway near the property -- but only two CNN transcripts contain any mention of Hastert's land deal, for a total word count that is one-fiftieth the number of words CNN has devoted to the Reid story. And 65 words is an extremely generous count -- it includes a vague reference made in passing by Democratic strategist and pundit James Carville.
They do a silly side-by-side comparison showing that Hastert is more senior, that his party is in power (like that has anything to do with it), and that Hastert made more money on his deal.
Here's the article that Media Mutters cites. What did they forget to put in their comparison chart?
Annual congressional disclosure statements were released Wednesday, and specific information detailing the transactions was reflected in Hastert's filing only to a limited degree, which is about all that is required.
Filed required disclosure statements:
Hastert: Yes Reid: No
Media Mutters claims that a highway that Hastert got funding for runs "near" his property; that's true, but not as true as it sounds:
"None of the properties purchased by the speaker are near enough to be affected by the proposed parkway," he said. Bonjean maintains Hastert's home is 5.5 miles from the Prairie Parkway; the Beacon News puts the development's edge about three miles away.
I Guess My Conditional Endorsement of McCain Hasn't Reassured Him
A week or so ago I mentioned that I will endorse Senator John McCain in the event that the Democrats take back both the House and the Senate in the 2006 elections. Apparently that prospect does not sit well with him:
McCain spoke at a mid-day news conference in Des Moines, where McCain was asked what his reaction would be to a Democratic take-over of the Senate.
"I think I'd just commit suicide," McCain said, as the Republicans standing beside him burst into laughter. "I don't want to face that eventuality because I don't think it's going to happen...I think it's going to be tough, but I think we'll do o.k." A few moments later McCain turned to Congressman Latham and joked that Latham would probably commit suicide first, as polls suggest control of the House is likely to swing to Democrats in this year's election.
Aaron, a gay black Republican himself, calls it the new McCarthyism, which seems about right on the money to me.
Rogers is pondscum, engaging in blackmail to try to sway votes for his version of the gay agenda. As Aaron points out, not all gays agree with that agenda.
Here's a report that Nova M Radio, which owns the Air America Phoenix outlet, is expanding its operations.
Nova M Radio, Inc. based in Phoenix, Arizona officially announced the formation of its new progressive talk radio network. Debuting on the network will be the long awaited return to the airwaves of America’s original “truth-seeker” Mike Malloy. The Mike Malloy Show will initially broadcast live, from 9PM -12 Midnight (EST) beginning October 30,2006 on Nova M Radio affiliate 1480-AM KPHX Phoenix.
Malloy is indeed a truth "seeker"; let us know when he finds some. He's actually one of the more entertaining former Air America stalwarts, if only because he's so completely unhinged. About a year ago, he decided to read the entire text of Orwell's 1984 over the air.
But wait, there's more!
Also joining our team will be internationally renowned pollster John Zogby, President and CEO of Zogby International. John will be co-hosting a weekly one hour show, “The Pulse of the Nation” where John polls particular hot button issues from politics and pop culture to the War in Iraq and stem cell research. Each program will include expert guests and audience participation. At the end of each show John will reveal the secret results of the poll and each listener will then know whether or not they have their finger on “The Pulse of the Nation”! Zogby proclaimed "This is very exciting. I will have the chance to share some of the latest polling on what Americans are really thinking about their lives, their needs, the views of government and politics, and how they think things need to be fixed. I know listeners are going to be fascinated by hearing what their peers are thinking".
I guess that the notion that Zogby is an independent pollster with no personal interest in the subjects of his polling will finally die a merciful death. It's ironic that one of Zogby's early boosters was none other than Rush Limbaugh.
The most interesting thing about this whole endeavor is that, at least judging by the Phoenix station, the new network will be targeting an even thinner slice of the electorate than Air America. AAPhx has been pushing 9-11 Denial fairly heavily in the last few months, which puts them out beyond the Left in cuckoo land. Sheldon Drobny, the money partner, has been pushing 9-11 Denial from his soapbox over at the HuffPo. Dr Mike Newcomb, the brains of the operation, initially expressed skepticism about the "9-11 was an inside job" nonsense, but has apparently come on board thanks to the influence of his producer, Jeff Farias, who's a confirmed 9-11 nutter.
Morgan Quitno Press, which compiles state- and city-ranking publications, used a variety of measurements to create their list, including money spent on students, standardized test scores, graduation rates, teacher salaries and teacher/student ratios.
However:
Horne pointed to the fact that Arizona students outperformed the national average on SAT scores as well as the standardized TerraNova tests.
TerraNova is a national test that compares Arizona students with their peers in reading and math.
"Arizona students perform above the national average on TerraNova, which is the principal measure by which we compare ourselves to other states," Horne said.
Arizona test scores are generally about average, but the state historically ranks at the bottom in terms of money spent per student.
Better than average in results, well below average in cost? I'd call that pretty smart.
Seems she's finally 'fessed up that she wasn't named after Sir Edmund, the conquerer of Mount Everest. Of course, we knew that all along:
But one big hole has been poked in the story over the years, both in cyberspace and elsewhere: Sir Edmund became famous only after climbing Everest in 1953. Mrs. Clinton, as it happens, was born in 1947.
The Arizona/Phoenix/St. Louis/Chicago Cardinals by a mile. When they moved to Phoenix in 1988, I had a friend who was determined to support the new team, but I warned him at the time that this was not exactly a team covered in glory. They have now been in the Valley of the Sun for 19 seasons; during that time they've had a winning record once. And prior to that they were pretty sketchy as well. During their entire time in St. Louis they did not win a postseason game. In fact, in 87 years of play, they have accumulated a total of two postseason victories. Only the Houston Texans, who are now in their fifth year as a franchise, have fewer.
As you may have gathered, I was thoroughly disgusted by the Cardinals' performance tonight. Ironically, like everybody else, I was expecting them to get hammered by the Bears. And don't get me wrong; there's a lot to be upbeat about. The defense played superbly, allowing only one field goal. Matt Leinart looked like a man with a long and productive future in the NFL.
But in the end you have to win the game. The Cardinals managed to lose two games in which their rookie quarterback played superbly, certainly well enough to win. About the only costly mistake Leinart made was on the fumble that resulted in a Bears TD; he should have recognized that nobody was guarding the defensive end on his right and called for a timeout or redirected one of the blockers.
Update: John Ruberry sees the Bears as a team of destiny. Maybe. But this game did seem to expose a lot of weakness in their offense, against the Cardinals who are not exactly a punishing defense.
From Rear Adm. Joe Maguire, USN - Commander Naval Special Warfare Command, "On behalf of the entire Naval Special Warfare community, we mourn the loss of Master at Arms Second Class (SEAL) Michael A. Monsoor, who died conducting some of our military's most important missions. It's been said that we cannot decide whether we live or die - we know one day we will die - but as people, as men and warriors, we can only decide what we will die for. This Sailor along with our two wounded teammates chose a life of significant meaning -- to defend freedom and protect America and its allies from terrorism. We grieve with and support the family and friends who support our warriors on a daily basis. We hope that in time Michael's family is comforted in knowing that he died fighting for what he believed in and we will not forget his sacrifice."
In Vietnam, similar actions resulted in the awarding of the Congressional Medal of Honor. Moonsoor deserves the recognition of the nation's highest honor, as do the SEALs as a whole.
She posted a picture of the president, scrawled "Kill Bush" across the top and drew a dagger stabbing his outstretched hand. She later replaced her page on the social-networking site after learning in her eighth-grade history class that such threats are a federal offense.
"I wasn't dangerous. I mean, look at what's (stenciled) on my backpack - it's a heart. I'm a very peace-loving person," said Wilson, an honor student who describes herself as politically passionate. "I'm against the war in Iraq. I'm not going to kill the president."
Well, if she had a heart on her backpack, then I'm sure it's okay.
Lynne Stewart, an attorney who helped Sheikh Rahman by relaying messages to his supporters, is scheduled to be sentenced today to as long as 30 years in prison (hope, hope!). Her defense essentially boils down to the Stockholm Syndrome:
The psychiatrist, Steven Teich, points to 11 emotional events that he claims prompted her to want to take action on Abdel Rahman's behalf, Stewart's attorneys say. Among the events that make Dr.Teich's list are her experiences seeing Abdel Rahman incarcerated and the 1995 suicide of a drug defendant named Dominick Maldonado, whom Stewart had once represented.
Stewart was convicted in 2005 of providing material support for terrorism for passing on the messages Abdel Rahman gave her and her translator during visits with him in federal prison in Minnesota. Abdel Rahman, the spiritual leader of a terrorist group in Egypt, is serving a life term following his 1995 conviction in a conspiracy to blow up landmarks around New York. Following a conversation with Abdel Rahman in 2000, Stewart called a Reuters reporter in Cairo to say that Abdel Rahman had withdrawn his support from a ceasefire that his terrorist organization, the Islamic Group, was observing in Egypt.
Since being indicted four years ago, Stewart had defended her actions.
"I would do it again— it's the way a lawyer is supposed to behave." Stewart told reporters the day of her conviction, the Washington Post reported.
Almost needless to say, she has become a cause celebre for the idiot brigade:
Stewart speaks regularly at political rallies across the city and beyond. Yesterday afternoon and well into the evening, dozens of speakers praised Stewart to a mostly graying audience of 500 at Riverside Church. Several members of the Granny Peace Brigade, a group of elderly women whose anti-war acts of civil disobedience have attracted international attention, sang a protest song in Stewart's honor.
Rahman is the blind Muslim Cleric whose supporters were responsible for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
Most of the bloggers posting about this are in support of a long sentence for Stewart.
Regardless of what led to her decisions and actions, she needs to be held accountable for them.
Blogmeister USA, talking about the American Al Qaeda spokesman, Adam Gadahn:
Watch for leftwing sympathizers and the ACLU to rise to Gadahn's defense. Too bad Lynne Stewart won't be available...she is the most logical choice. Perhaps Ramsey Clark will defend him!
She's been trying to play the leniency card, noting that she's being treated for breast cancer, as though that somehow mitigates the fact that she damaged US national security by violating agreements made with the federal government not to do what she did.
Rally to accompany Lynne Stewart to Court. Demonstrate your support. You cannot be too “busy” for this historic moment. One to tell your grandchildren about. Crucial to the atmosphere of outraged citizenry we need. Be there for the early rally. Go with Lynne to court. If there’s no room …rally outside the courthouse in the square. We are hoping that this will be Massive and demonstrate the strength of the People!!!
In a case that has echoes of Haymarket, Sacco/Vanzetti, and the Rosenbergs, attorney Lynne Stewart will be sentenced on Monday October 16.
Of course, Sacco & Vanzetti were guilty as we learned this year when a letter was unearthed from lefty sob-sister Upton Sinclair acknowledging their guilt.
“Lynne Stewart is just the latest in a long line of victims in the war by the Bush administration and a bipartisan Congress to repeal the Bill of Rights and erode civil liberties. Bush has callously used the 9/11 attacks as a pretext to curtail the right to a fair trial, to illegally spy on Americans, and to sanction torture. Here in New York, we have witnessed the recent convictions of Muslim leaders such as Imam Umar and Yassin Aref on trumped up grounds. Even the government has admitted that they want a long prison sentence for Ms. Stewart largely to have a chilling effect on other lawyers, discouraging them from representing controversial clients,” stated Hawkins.
Hawkins is a moonbat 9-11 Denier who appears briefly in one of Dylan Avery's vanity videos of the Loose Change crew's trip to New York the weekend before 9-11-06.
Update: Stewart gets 28 months, about one-twelfth the maximum sentence.
The Amazing Race Recap--Driving On the Wrong Side of the Road
To start off, teams must take a train from Haiphong to Hanoi. The train station turns out to be closed, so this functions as the usual bunching maneuver and all teams get on the same train. Team Coal Miner explains that their hope is for David to get out of coal mining.
From Hanoi, they must fly to Chennai, India. We are told that Vietnam does not allow people to buy tickets at the airport; instead they must buy them at a travel agent beforehand. Team Triathletes notes that Teams Cho, Coal Miner and Gump are cooperating and Peter offers to help out the Beauty Queens. One of the Chos pretends to be talking on a fake cellphone to get a plane reservation. The gag appears to backfire as Peter begs a phone call from another passenger on the train and arranges a flight for Team Triathlete and the Beauty Queens.
There is much back and forth about planes, but in the end all the teams arrive in Chennai within about 1/2 hour of each other, with Team Coal Miner in last place. From Chennai they take a bus to Mammalapura, where they must visit an arts & crafts building. Team Gump makes an amusing observation; they note that in Vietnam their excess poundage attracted attention, but in India the folks have a little more meat on their bones.
Detour: Wild animals or wild rice. Teams must choose between helping to transport a small crocodile or creating a painting with colored powders made of wild rice. As usual, the majority of the teams pick correctly; the crocodile task, while daunting, appears to be much quicker than doing the painting. Only Team Recovery and Team Coal Miner choose the latter chore, and it clearly slows them down. It was especially sad to see Team Coal Miner make this selection as they are in next to last, and are unlikely to make up time on Team Recovery.
Now the teams must take a bus back to Chennai. Peter and Sarah, who are in the lead, just miss the bus and must share the ride with the Beauty Queens. It's amusing because this budding alliance seems to be going nowhere as these two teams are only cooperating when it's in their own interests. Of course, Peter doesn't even seem to be in an alliance with Sarah; he's becoming one of the most annoying racers ever.
Roadblock: One member of each team must take a driving test and obtain an Indian driving license. Some amusement as the driving instructor has them use a little horn for animals and children. However, there does not seem to be any real difficulty here as everybody makes it through (apparently) on their first try.
The Pit Stop is at Chettinad House, a remnant from India's colonial era. Team Triathlete finishes first, followed shortly by the Beauty Queens. Phil asks if they will be the first all-female team to win the Amazing Race. Team Coal Miner arrives last as seemed inevitable from the moment they arrived in India. However Phil has a surprise for them, and us. This is not an elimination leg. Unlike non-elimination legs in previous seasons, they do not lose their money and possessions; instead they must arrive first in the next leg, or suffer a 1/2 hour penalty at the mat.
Our longtime blogging buddy Rick Moran is the subject of a longish feature article in the (Chicago suburban) Daily Herald.
Dave Schuler, the Chicago blogger at TheGlitteringEye.com, has been reading Moran's site practically since its inception.
"I think he is one of the fairest and the savviest of the bloggers," said Schuler, who describes himself as a centrist. "He's an analyst. You always learn something when you read one of Rick's posts."
Rick's been on my blogroll since the Kerry Haters days; if I'm not mistaken KH was one of the first blogs to link him. I say that not to brag; Rick was headed for the top and it was only a matter of time before he got the attention he deserved. We don't always agree on everything, but I always respect his opinions even when they differ from mine because I know they're carefully thought out.
Well, they stumbled to the finish line during the regular season, dropping out of the AL Central lead on the last day. They lost the first game of the playoffs and seemed to be on the ropes. Then they won seven in a row, defeating the Yankees and A's to head to their third World Series in my lifetime. They won the other two, in seven games in 1968 (defeating Bob Gibson in the finale), and in five games in 1984. If they go on to win it all, they will surely be remembered as one of the miracle teams of history, right up there with the 1969 Mets, the 1991 Twins and (for those with exceptional memories) the 1914 Boston Braves.
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.
