I have heard about this device in the past, and now astronomers have figured out how it worked:
Using high-tech x-ray and CT scanning, they have deciphered hidden inscriptions and pieced together the workings of the complex mechanical mechanism.
The analysis confirmed the theory that the Antikythera Mechanism, which dates back to between 100 and 150BC, was an astronomical calculator - but also showed it was much more technologically advanced than previously thought.
So sophisticated was the system of gears, cogs and wheels that it is thought to have been unmatched until the at least 1,000 years later.
Here's a terrific story of one of our fighting women in action:
Back in March in Iraq, Chief Warrant Officer 3 Lori Hill, with the 2nd Squadron, 17th Cavalry Regiment, was piloting her Kiowa Warrior when the lead chopper came under heavy fire. She drew the fire away, simultaneously providing suppressive fire for the troops engaged with the enemy on the ground.
A rocket-propelled grenade hit her, damaging the helo’s instrumentation, but instead of focusing on her predicament, she established communication with the ground forces and continued to provide them with aerial weapon support until the soldiers reached safety.
As she turned her attention to the aircraft, which was losing hydraulic power, the helo took on machine-gun fire, a round crashing into one of Hill’s ankles. Still, with a damaged aircraft and an injury, she landed at Forward Operating Base Normandy, saving her crew and aircraft.
For her actions she was presented the Distinguished Flying Cross by Vice President Richard Cheney at Fort Campbell, Ky., on Oct. 16.
“It’s was a once-in-a-lifetime thing to get the award and then have the vice president come and award it to you,” she said. “It’s just incredible for any soldier.”
Obviously the focus has been on his calling the President "numbnuts" but somebody should mention that he also talked about "trashing" the Lincoln Bedroom. Reminds me of the famous photo of Marky (dumb as a ) Post jumping up and down on the bed.
...and then we banish the nastiness from our thoughts and vote like it never happened, like terrorism isn't our problem. Yet our enemies still exist, and they still want all of us "infidels" dead. That includes all of those anti-war sympathizers, too. They're considered infidels along with the rest of us. But what the hell, life is a cabaret -- right?
Keith Ellison, D-Minn., the first Muslim elected to the United States Congress, has announced that he will not take his oath of office on the Bible, but on the bible of Islam, the Koran.
He should not be allowed to do so -- not because of any American hostility to the Koran, but because the act undermines American civilization.
I couldn't agree with him more. Usually I'll read an editorial like this and the writer will go off onto a tangent, but Prager hits on all the points I would:
1. Jews have not taken their oath of office on the Talmud. 2. Mormons have not taken their oath of office on the Book of Mormon. 3. Atheists have not taken their oath of office on the New York Times.
He points out that Ellison is likely to get away with it, precisely because he is a Muslim.
An aside (okay a tangent) here: A lot of conservative commentators (including Charles Krauthammer and Jonah Goldberg have panned the movie Borat for its supposed revelation that people in the heartland of America are intolerant. In fact, Borat shows that if anything, people are too tolerant of a boorish, sexist kook. Ditto with Ellison and his quest to be sworn in on the Koran.
Democratic Sen. John Kerry, considering a second bid for the U.S. presidency, finished dead last in a poll released on Monday on the Likeability of 20 top American political figures.
Among those placed ahead of Kerry were about a dozen potential 2008 White House rivals, including Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona.
This is hardly surprising to a person who started a blog called Kerry Haters. It always seemed that the people who knew Kerry best, liked him least. Remember the "no-bounce" convention in 2004? Kerry, given a week of solid coverage capped off with his "And I'm reporting for duty!" speech at the DNC, actually saw his poll numbers decline slightly.
Everywhere you looked, you found people who disliked Kerry, from his classmates at Paul's prep school, to those who knew him at Yale, to those who served with him in the Navy. After his divorce from his first wife, he dated a few famous women, including Michelle Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas singing group, and actress Morgan Fairchild. Phillips donated to Kerry's rival for the nomination, Howard Dean, but not to Kerry. Fairchild donated to John Edwards, Howard Dean, and Dick Gephardt, but not John Kerry.
I consideredd this but couldn't pull it off; Junkyard Blog figured it out.
Grandma detonated in a rage, dear Her whole family’s thrilled and not bereaved ‘Cause she tried to take Israelis with her Now your darling sweet ol’ granny’s a shaheed.
Kudos to our buddies Andrea Shea-King and Mark Vance, whose post on thanks to our military got picked up by Stand To!, a daily compendium of news, information and context for Army leaders. (Look under "What's being said in blogs").
Apparently Sherman Yellen wasn't paying attention during the 1990s, as he comes up with a hilarious "high crime and misdemeanor" for which President Bush can be impeached:
What is the impeachable offense, other than lying to America and to the world about the WMD's? First and foremost, stupidity. There is a point in which bad judgment is a crime, or as the diplomat Count Metternich said of some 19th Century misadventure, it is worse than a crime, it is a mistake. As a result of George Bush and Dick Cheney's mistake, the republic is at risk. That is what impeachment is about - removing those whose disgraceful actions have put the country in danger.
I will be guest-blogging for John Hawkins over at Right Wing News tomorrow. I'm pinching myself, especially when I look at the other guest-bloggers that John has lined up.
I don't know how much there is to this story, but it's certainly interesting that his war wounds have migrated over time.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on May 12, 2002, reported that “Marine Corps casualty records show that Murtha was injured in 'hostile' actions near Danang, Vietnam, on March 22, 1967, and May 7, 1967.
“In the first incident, his right cheek was lacerated, and in the second, he was lacerated above his left eye. Neither injury required evacuation,” the Post-Gazette reported.
But an Oct. 26, 1994, article in the Herald-Standard quoted Murtha as describing two different injuries.
“I was wounded in the arm with shrapnel from a bullet that hit the motor mount of a helicopter. In the other, my knee was banged up and my arm was banged up when a helicopter was shot down from a very few feet,” Murtha told the Herald-Standard.
The four remaining teams learn that their next destination is Morocco. On the way to the airport, we see that Rob is again having trouble with his rental car; he's always complaining about the cars, but as one of the Gumps remarks later, if it's always you having the problem, maybe you are the problem.
The Beauty Queens get the first flight to Italy, from where they will have a tight connection to Casablanca. The other teams fly to Paris where there is a later flight to Casablanca, but it apparently doesn't matter, because there is only one flight from Casablanca to the town that is the destination, which is something like Ouarsazad. As it works out, the BQs miss their connection, and just barely make it to Casablanca in time.
The teams must travel to the Casbah, where they will receive a good luck charm at a particular store. The Beauty Queens sneak off the flight quickly but Rob & Kimberley and Team Recovery follow them as they follow a cabbie who apparently knows the route but gets lost and stops for directions. Meanwhile, Team Gump did not waste their layover in Paris, spending their time studying maps of the region. Sure enough, they zip past the other teams and find the shop quickly. The next clue takes them to the Atlas Studios where films such as Gladiator were shot. Warning, Yield Ahead!
Unfortunately, the studios are closed until morning, so the Gumps don't get their chance to yield the Beauty Queens, and instead are yielded by them. Oddly, the other two teams arrived at the Yield first and did not choose to yield the BQs. Roadblock: Teams must take part in a chariot race and grab two pennants while they're racing. This does not appear too tough, but Team Recovery misses their first try at a penannt and so must make another lap while the BQs and Rob & Kimberley head off. It appears that the Gumps' time delay is over at about this time as well, and they make it through the chariot race fairly quickly. BTW, guys, they were not "gladiators" they were "charioteers".
Rob & Kimberley are in the lead, but what's this? A flat tire on their vehicle being pointed out before the fact by the Beauty Queens? I'm just a tad suspicious; there seem to be constant flats in TAR. At first, Rob can't find the jack, then he can't get it out of the vehicle. Meanwhile, all three teams (including the yielded Team Gump) have passed them by. Next stop is a Cafe, and I have a sinking feeling that we're going to get one of those "local delicacy" bits. Fortunately I'm wrong and it's a Detour: Throw It or Grind It.
In Throw It, teams must complete two pieces of pottery, while in Grind It, they must grind 77 pounds of olives into a paste. Phil mentions that there are only three stations at each location, so if all four teams choose the same task, one will be forced to wait.
The BQs decide to Grind It (mainly because they know which direction they are going on that task), while Team Recovery opts initially for Throw It, but then decides to Grind It as well. But the BQs make their first major mistake of the race as they drive past the horse ranch where the olive grinders are located. Meanwhile the Gumps have nearly caught up with Team Recovery, and they begin grinding olives at roughly the same time.
Rob & Kimberley flag down a passing car and get help changing the tire. Finally they make it to the cluebox, where they also decide to grind it. Who will get to the horse ranch first?
It turns out that the BQs are left waiting while the other three teams are grinding away at those olives. Bad luck for them, which seems certain to result their being Phil-Liminated, when the next clue (first received by Team Recovery) is the location of the Pit Stop.
Team Recovery has a pretty good lead on Team Gump as they pull into the parking area and dash off towards the mat. But then they realize they've left their Good Luck Charm behind in the car. As they run back, the Gumps are parking. Can they actually pull off a victory?
Uh, no. It's not even really dramatic as we can see that the twentysomething men are only a little behind the thirtysomething women with a fairly long way to go. There's no way they don't win that footrace easily. Still the two black women are obviously proud of overcoming the Yield to take second place. Team Recovery also happened to pick the Luckiest Lucky Charm and get some sort of device where you can watch TV on your cellphone.
The BQs are clearly behind Rob & Kimberley and despite the latter getting lost initially, they arrive at the mat last. Is this the end for our two hotties? Well, I would have sworn it was, since we've already had two non-elimination legs so far this season, but sure enough Phil announces that they've been spared the axe. IIRC this is pretty standard practice for TAR when the teams reach four, but I could have sworn one of the rules was that all but two pitstops would be elimination legs. David and Mary, Team Coalminer, were spared twice this season already.
I'm glad they're still around; to a certain extent they're the villains this season. My wishes for the winners, in order: Team Gump, Team Recovery, the BQs and Rob & Kimberley. The Gumps because they've done a couple of smart things that have impressed me the last two weeks: studying the Moroccan maps tonight while laying over in Paris, and making up their rap song while driving last week, and it would be a gas to see those moderately out of shape women beat the athletes in the race. I'd pick Team Recovery over the BQs just because they've been more cooperative in the race; the BQs have their game faces on 24/7. Besides, teams that have overcome obstacles are more inspiring than a couple of hot chicks who won beauty contests. I just don't like Rob & Kimberley, although they were not as argumentative tonight as usual.
Don't let Europe's current round of playing pacifist dress-up fool you: This is the continent that perfected genocide and ethnic cleansing, the happy-go-lucky slice of humanity that brought us such recent hits as the Holocaust and Srebrenica.
The historical patterns are clear: When Europeans feel sufficiently threatened - even when the threat's concocted nonsense - they don't just react, they over-react with stunning ferocity. One of their more-humane (and frequently employed) techniques has been ethnic cleansing.
I'm not certain that Peters is right here; it does seem that the Europeans have greater problems integrating their immigrant populations than the US does. It's certainly one of the ironies that in the 1930s and 1940s many blacks felt more comfortable and accepted in Europe than they did in the United State; that may be changing.
Taking the opposite tack is Mark Steyn, and it certainly appears that he has the better of the argument with this point about the Grandma suicide bomber I covered on Friday:
An-Najar gave birth to her first child at the age of 12. She had eight others. She had 41 grandchildren. Keep that family tree in mind. By contrast, in Spain, a 64-year old woman will have maybe one grandchild. That's four grandparents, one grandchild: a family tree with no branches.
You know the problem is that there's no good outcome; just a question of which is worse. Either a new Hitler arises, or Europe falls under Sharia law.
Is MyDD's incredible 12-year-old blogger Matt Stoller. Matt is upset that people are portraying Nancy Pelousy as motivated by vindictiveness in committee assignments. At first, he admits that Alcee Hastings is inappropriate for the Intelligence Committee chair, but not because he was impeached:
I don't mean the rejection of Hastings, because substantively he's a cipher on Intelligence matters and that's reason enough to find someone more suitable to hold this critical post. I mean the way he's being insulted by the punditocracy. It's not an unusual situation to have a black man wrongfully accused of a crime in this country, and to so callously throw Hastings aside as tainted, even though he was acquitted of the charges and chosen repeatedly by voters to hold public office, looks insensitive at first, but when you combine this with the needless dig at Menendez, it looks a lot to me like a whole lot of brown people are considered tainted with no evidence whatsoever.
Yeah, it's because they're brown. Not because Hastings was impeached (and Pelousy voted in favor of impeachment), but because he was brown. And Menendez isn't a crook who rented space to a 501(c)(3) in his building that he arranged funding for, he's guilty of being in the Senate while brown.
In the first suicide bombing claimed by Hamas in nearly two years, a grandmother blew herself up today near Israeli troops operating inside Gaza near the town of Beit Lahiya.
The soldiers, who had warning, threw a stun grenade toward the woman, who then detonated her explosive belt. Two soldiers were lightly injured. The woman, identified as Fatima Omar Mahmud al-Najar, died. Her age was given as both 57 and 64. She was a mother of nine and a grandmother of more than 40, according to Agence France-Presse.
Sniff... pardon me for crying a little here. I was always a sucker for a happy ending.
According to Rasmussen Polling, 43% of Americans "would never consider voting for a Mormon candidate." The numbers are worse among evangelicals:
Half (53%) of all Evangelical Christians say that they would not consider voting for a Mormon candidate.
Let me say here too that I have gotten to know many Mormons in the years I've lived in the Western United States, and I would have no concern about voting for an LDS candidate.
Army Spc. Donald L. Wheeler 22 years old from Concord, Michigan A Company, 1st Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Division October 13, 2003
Spc. Donald Laverne Wheeler was affectionately known as "DJ" to his family, which included three sisters and eight brothers. In the military, he picked up the nickname "Sunshine." "They called him Sunshine at Fort Hood in Texas because he was so tall he stood out from everyone else and he was always smiling," said one of his sisters, Andrea Barrett. Wheeler died on October 13, 2003 in an attack in Tikrit. His mother, Mary Cay Wheeler, said he decided to enlist after the Sept. 11 attacks. "He loved the Army but at the same time he missed his family", she said. They had a photo of Wheeler blown up to near life size and brought it to his sister's wedding reception because he couldn't attend. "I shall always remember him, a big kid who gave everything he had on that dusty day," said Lt. Jason Price at a memorial service in Tikrit. "It's difficult to say goodbye."
These brave men and women have given their lives so that others may enjoy the freedoms we get to enjoy everyday. For that, I am proud to call them Hero. We Have Every Right To Dream Heroic Dreams. Those Who Say That We're In A Time When There Are No Heroes, They Just Don't Know Where To Look
This post is part of the Wednesday Hero blogroll. If you would like to participate in honoring the brave men and women who serve this great country, you can find out how by clicking here.
I don't want to get into bashing the other candidates for President in 2008, but here's a very thought-provoking article on Mitt Romney's conservative bona fides.
The 2002 Olympics – run by Mitt Romney – was the only Olympics that restricted the Boy Scouts from participating. According to news reports, this was apparently because of pressure from homosexual activists. (But also, according to reports, homosexual groups participated fairly prominently.) Romney would not respond to reporters’ questions about that action.
The largest Boy Scout council in the country responded to the call for volunteers issued by the Salt Lake Olympic Organizing Committee, but the welcome mat was rolled up and the door slammed in its face. Olympic spokesmen for the 2002 winter games say the exclusion has nothing to do with recent protests by gay activists. While the organizing committee for the Olympic event is prominently displaying a call for local volunteers, they have explicitly let it be known that the Boy Scouts need not apply. "For us not to be involved is discouraging, considering the Atlanta games. The Scouting council there was extremely involved," said Kay Godfrey, professional Scout executive for the Great Salt Lake Council of Boy Scouts. - NewsMax.com, Dec. 18, 2000.
This is something that deserves deeper digging. I don't mind Republican candidates who are pro-choice (as I am), pro-gay rights (as I am partially), as long as they admit it. I am very uncomfortable with folks who shift positions depending on the audience. And I despise those who fail to respect the Boy Scouts of America.
Seems the Democrats don't want to be blamed for it, even if it would kick-start the anti-war movement:
Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California told reporters on Monday that she does not support reinstating the draft, which was suspended in 1973 near the end of the Vietnam War and replaced by the all-volunteer army.
As Ways and Means panel chairman, Rangel will have a significant role in U.S. tax and health-care policy. That post will not necessarily give Rangel an effective forum for pursuing his military draft legislation, Pelosi observed.
Best Team? Indianapolis, even with the loss. The Bears are clearly the class of the NFC, but I'm uncomfortable about a team with effectively a rookie quarterback, and they absolutely should have lost that Monday night game against Arizona. I'd pick New England, but Indy beat them at the Blade. I still like the Pats against anybody in the postseason except Denver.
MVP: None of the quarterbacks has run away with it this season, and so I'd go with LT; he's just an astonishing player
Surprise Team: San Francisco. Have they really won 5 games already this year?
Four words I don't recall arranging in that order before, but I absolutely agree with him this time.
Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry insisted on Sunday his "botched joke" about President Bush's Iraq policy would not undermine a possible White House campaign in 2008.
"Not in the least," Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee in said when asked if the furor over his comment had caused him to reconsider a 2008 race. "The parlor game of who's up, who's down, today or tomorrow, if I listened to that stuff, I would never have won the nomination."
Yep, the joke will have absolutely no impact, for the simple reason that John Fraude Kerry's chances of getting the Democratic nomination were 0% before the "joke" and they are 0% now, afterwards.
What If They Gave A Peace Demonstration and Nobody Came
That doesn't look like a problem this time, provided there's plenty of Viagra. Coming from the San Francisco lunatic fringe: Orgasms for peace.
Two peace activists have planned a massive anti-war demonstration for the first day of winter.
But they don't want you marching in the streets. They'd much rather you just stay home.
The Global Orgasm for Peace was conceived by Donna Sheehan, 76, and Paul Reffell, 55, whose immodest goal is for everyone in the world to have an orgasm Dec. 22 while focusing on world peace.
"The orgasm gives out an incredible feeling of peace during it and after it," Reffell said Sunday. "Your mind is like a blank. It's like a meditative state. And mass meditations have been shown to make a change."
The couple are no strangers to sex and social activism. Sheehan, no relation to anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan, brought together nearly 50 women in 2002 who stripped naked and spelled out the word "Peace."
If you're looking for a good reason why the peace movement has not taken off, you could start with 76-year-old women getting naked. As for the "Big O for Peace", I'm up for it, but I got a hunch that Meg Ryan's going to be faking it.
Excellent episode with one of the best roadblocks I've seen and some memorable characterization.
The teams start out where we left off last week, with four teams still needing to rappel face-first down a large tower. Once they're done, the clue tells them to fly to the capital city of the country where Chernobyl is. Some momentary confusion as to whether this is the Ukraine or Russia, but it turns out to be the former as all discover when they get to the airport. There are two flights going to Kiev, one via Vienna and one by way of Warsaw. Team Recovery and the Beauty Queens snag the earlier flights, while the other three teams get on the latter. At firt it appears that both flights will arrive at the same time, but the Warsaw connection is delayed by a half-hour.
Clues at the cars tell the teams to drive to a location spelled out in Cyrillic. The Beauty Queens and Team Recovery hire a taxi driver to lead their cars to the location, as do Rob & Kimberley. However, the Chos and Team Gump make do with a map and directions, and quickly get lost. We can see that the Alabamans are getting annoyed at the Cho's constant stopping for directions.
The next clue is at a Tank school, and sure enough, the Roadblock requires one member of each team to drive a tank along an obstacle course. It looks like terrific fun. The Beauty Queens barely beat Team Recovery and both teams head back to Kiev, again following their taxi driver. Rob & Kimberley arrive next (with a little pointer from Team Recovery), then the Chos and Team Gump. The Cho brother makes it through the tank course quicker than the Gump woman, but they wait for their allies before leaving.
All teams must now find an apartment in Kiev. Once again the Chos are seemingly stopping every block for directions, and the Alabamans finally lose patience. But the Chos catch up to them at the apartment block. Meanwhile, Rob & Kimberley have had automobile problems (overheating) and must get a replacement car. But they still lead the remaining members of the Six-Pack.
The next task is a Detour: Make Music or Find Music. In the former, the team must go to a nightclub and create a rap song that includes the names of all the countries they've visited. In Find Music, they have to go to a symphony hall, find one particular piece of sheet music on a table loaded with sheet music, and then take it to a pianist who will perform it for them.
Well, it's not to hard to see that Make Music is easier, but Team Recovery decides to Find Music. Fortunately for them it works out as they find both the sheet music and the pianist fairly quickly. The next clue is the Pit Stop, at the Great Patriotic War Museum in Kiev. The Beauty Queens finish their rap and chase after the boys.
But in the end, Team Recovery finishes first and wins a trip to Puerto Vallarta. The Beauty Queens finish behind them, and Phil once again reminds them that no all-female team has yet won TAR. Rob & Kimberley follow. Now it is obvious that either the Chos or Team Gump will be on the chopping block.
Both teams choose the rap option, but the Chos refuse out of some misplaced sense of nobility to follow Team Gump to the disco, and they can't find anybody who knows where it's located. So they belatedly decide to head to the symphony hall. Team Gump shows a little smarts, making up their rap song in the car while driving. It appears to be neck and neck as both teams finish apparently close together in time. Who will get to the mat first?
Well, of course Team Gump gets a guide and the Chos fail to do so. Then they try to go down a closed street and get harassed by the Kiev cops. In the end, there's no real drama as Team Gump arrives much earlier than the Chos, who are Phil-Liminated. It's a shame, because I liked them and their honorable ways, but jeez, they had no idea of how to compete!
Who was the last man to die for what John Kerry called a mistake? Was it that American soldier whose name is the last name on the last panel of the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington D.C.? Was it a soldier in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, whichever true believer didn't strip off his uniform and desert in the end? The last of the 2 million Cambodian men, women and children to die in the Khmer Rouge killing fields in 1979. A Vietnamese boat person, thrown over the side when the pirates of the South China Sea took his money and his wife in the early 1980s?
This is why we can't abandon Iraq. We will certainly lose more men and women winning this war, but there would be far more deaths if we adopt the Vietnam "solution".
A Spanish teacher at Smithfield-Selma Senior High School resigned this week after handing out an assignment that some students and parents said teaches hate.
Khalid Chahhou, who was in his first year of teaching in Johnston County, gave students a worksheet in which they were to translate words and find them within a word-search puzzle.
Some students started uncovering strange words in the process.
"There were words like 'kill,' then I saw it said 'destroy America,'" Eric Herrera said.
As they read on, students found the puzzle contained a paragraph that contained the following phrases:
"Sharon killed a lot of innocent people," a possible reference to former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
"Palestine is not a terrorist group."
"Allah help destroy this body of evil making humanity miserable."
I had thought that last Tuesday's big win by the Democrats would end the nonsense about Diebold stealing elections, but of course I underestimated the idiotarians. Their new claim is that the Democrats would have won even bigger if Diebold and other companies hadn't prevented it.
According to EDA, the Edison-Mitofsky National Exit Poll, conducted by a consortium of news organizations, showed at 7 p.m. on Election Night an 11.5% vote margin in favor of Dems nationwide. But by 1:00 p.m. on the following day, according to EDA, "[T]he Edison-Mitofsky poll had been adjusted, by a process known as 'forcing,' to match the reported vote totals for the election." The adjusted exit polls showed "a 7.6 percent margin exactly mirroring the reported vote totals."
Michelle Malkin has a good post on Kos's nutty claims about Diebold stealing votes in Florida's 13th CD. One problem: Diebold's machines weren't used in that election. The claim is that 18,000 voters didn't vote in the congressional election.
But the fight is unlikely to end there. Jennings is challenging the results of the election because touch-screen voting machines in Sarasota County reported about 18,000 people - one in eight voters - did not vote in the congressional race, but made choices in other races. That rate was significantly higher than other counties in the district.
Those undervotes will be checked in a state-mandated manual recount Thursday. Elections officials must also send in counts of provisional, military and overseas ballots on Friday.
Significantly higher than other counties in the district doesn't tell me anything. Apparently about 12% of the voters didn't make a choice in that election. What is the percentage in the other counties? There is the usual claim that the ballot was confusing (those confusing touchscreens?) but apparently 88% of the people were able to locate that race.
Of course, a bunch of people are now calling for a "do-over".
“The election was not an affirmation of the other party’s program. Try as hard as I could, I couldn’t find much evidence that my Democratic friends were offering anything that resembled a coherent platform or principled leadership on the critical issues that confront us today.
“Nor do I believe Americans rejected our values and governing philosophy. On the contrary, I think they rejected us because they felt we had come to value our incumbency over our principles, and partisanship, from both parties, was no longer a contest of ideas, but an ever cruder and uncivil brawl over the spoils of power.
“I am convinced that a majority of Americans still consider themselves conservatives or right of center. They still prefer common sense conservatism to the alternative. Americans had elected us to change government, and they rejected us because they believed government had changed us. We must spend the next two years reacquainting the public and ourselves with the reason we came to office in the first place: to serve a cause greater than our self-interest.
“Common sense conservatives believe that the government that governs least governs best; that government should do only those things individuals cannot do for themselves, and do them efficiently. Much rides on that principle: the integrity of the government, our prosperity; and every American’s self-respect, which depends, as it always has, on one’s own decisions and actions, and cannot be provided as another government benefit."
Blogger reactions:
Riehl World View: McCain could say a lot of things to a great many people and have a point, telling the GOP it needs to get back to its conservative roots isn't one of them. What worries me most about him is that he'll split from the GOP, attract a marginal number of votes and open the door for Hillary in 08. And she'd probably make him Sec Def for the effort.
Not a chance. If he were even remotely tempted by a third party run, he would have done it in 2004, or taken John Kerry's offer of the VP slot.
The Moderate Voice is more positive: I strongly believe that if the Republican party wants to win the Presidential elections in 08 it has to come up with a new program, based on old values: a conservative agenda.
Reason comes down in between: Although McCain obviously is brushing up his bona fides with economic conservatives in preparation for his presidential campaign, he does have a pretty good record of opposing pork and advocating fiscal restraint. He also shares George W. Bush's relatively tolerant approach to immigration—one of the few positive aspects of the president's platform. And he has stood up to Bush on executive power issues when most Republicans were eager to give the president everything he wanted. I'm not sure if that's enough to make up for McCain's assaults on the First Amendment and his hawkish foreign policy views, but he certainly is looking better than, say, Bill Frist.
The Media Are Shocked, Shocked I Tell You, To Discover That Murtha's a Crook
Of course, back when it might have mattered to the voters in his his district, like two weeks ago, they were doing the "See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil" routine with Murtha. But now that he's been reelected and was up for a leadership position, they suddenly realized that it matters. Consider:
NEWLY MINTED House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is off to a rocky start. On the same day she was formally elected to lead the new Democratic majority, party colleagues refused to endorse her bizarre choice of Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), who was investigated but not charged in the Abscam scandal more than two decades ago, as her second-in-command.
But Ms. Pelosi’s damage to herself was already done. The well-known shortcomings of Mr. Murtha were broadcast for all to see — from his quid-pro-quo addiction to moneyed lobbyists to the grainy government tape of his involvement in the Abscam scandal a generation ago. The resurrected tape — feasted upon by Pelosi enemies — shows how Mr. Murtha narrowly survived as an unindicted co-conspirator, admittedly tempted but finally rebuffing a bribe offer: “I’m not interested — at this point.”
It also didn't help Murtha that he was the star of FBI surveillance tapes in the ABSCAM influence-peddling case two decades ago. He wasn't charged with a crime, but the video inevitably became a YouTube hit in recent weeks. Here's another rule for the successful Boss: don't back someone for leadership who is a lead player in FBI tapes.
Boy, it's amazing what crack investigative work these liberals can produce when it's not going to result in a Republican beating a Democrat!
Update: Thanks to Pam who dubbed this the quote of the day.
House Democrats on Thursday chose Maryland Rep. Steny Hoyer to be House majority leader over Rep. John Murtha, the choice of Rep. Nancy Pelosi, in line to become speaker.
Hoyer was elected on a vote of 149-86.
Airiheadda says that Pelousy won by losing, somehow:
And don't shed any tears for Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi. Even though her guy lost, this was still a big win for her.
Well, let's hope that Speaker Pelousy has many more big wins of the same variety.
That's what some of the more idiotic lefty bloggers seem to be hankering for. You may have thought this election was about Iraq and illegal immigration; they think it was about Free Trade. David Sirota, writing in the Nation:
Meanwhile, as a new report from nonpartisan Public Citizen shows, opposition to America's job-killing "free" trade policies was used by candidates in 115 campaigns nationwide, resulting in "fair" trade Democrats capturing an astounding seven new Senate seats and at least twenty-seven new House seats, many in traditionally Republican areas.
Fair trade, of course, means no trade unless you pay your workers prevailing US wages, which of course means no new jobs in Mexico, which of course means more and more illegal immigrants sneaking over the border.
When the government told me that the laws of physics had been temporarily suspended so that the three WTC buildings could collapse into their own footprint all on the same day, I noticed. When the spin doctors went into overdrive to explain how such a thing was possible, conveniently leaving out all the information that clearly showed it was not, I noticed. When all the steel from the crime scene was removed so it could not be inspected, I noticed. When dedicated scientists and truth seekers dared to veer from the "official version" of events on 9/11, only to be ridiculed by the administration and those who carry its water, I noticed. And when the report from the 9/11 commission was released and immediately proved itself laughably deficient, I noticed.
This is classic "Truther" nonsense. The three WTC buildings did not "collapse into their own footprint. Here's a graphic showing the buildings which were damaged by the collapse of the three buildings:
As you can see, buildings as far away as the Winter Garden suffered major damage from the collapse of the WTC buildings. Here's a look at that building:
Here's a look at two other buildings damaged by the collapse of WTC 7, the Verizon Building and 30 West Broadway:
As for the steel being shipped away before it could be inspected, it's just another lie from the "Truth" movement.
One of the giants of science fiction; according to this article, he was responsible for the terms "terraforming" and "android". Back when I was haunting used bookstores for sci-fi paperbacks in my 20s, Williamson, Brunner and Kuttner were the three authors I'd buy any book by that I hadn't read.
Although Hollywood seems environmentally conscious thanks to celebrities who lend their names to various causes, the industry created more pollution than individually produced by aerospace manufacturing, apparel, hotels and semiconductor manufacturing, the study found.
Only petroleum manufacturing belched more emissions.
"People talk of 'the industry,' but we don't think of them as an industry," said Mary Nichols, who heads the school's Institute of the Environment, which released what researchers called a "snapshot" of industry pollution. "We think of the creative side, the movie, the people, the actors -- we don't think of what it takes to produce the product."
I'm sure Laurie David and Leonardo DiCaprio will agree.
I have been somewhat involved behind the scenes in this effort.
About 5 months ago I was blogging away and something struck me “there is no tradeshow for blogging!” At least not a tradeshow for all bloggers that I could find. (I produce very big tradeshows for a living). Sure there were lots of great events but they each addressed a particular niche BlogHer, the Blog Business Summit (a very cool event btw), or Yearly Kos for example. I wanted to go to something that had everything any blogger could ever want. From publishing platforms, to broad band providers, to lap tops to badges, widgets and plug ins, to a dozen other things I could think of off the top of my head. It seems everyday I across some new product or service that Bloggers use /want/need.
Well, you probably guessed it: BlogWorld Expo is coming, next November 7-9! Vegas, baby!
Marine MP Adam R. Fales died in Iraq, but not on its ruthless streets. He was killed in the barracks at Camp Fallujah, an M-16 slug in the back of his head.
At first, when it looked as if Fales had been murdered by an insurgent or perhaps even a comrade, Fales' mother wanted eye-for-an-eye justice. But since then, she has learned that it was a terrible accident involving two fellow Marines.
(This post will remain on top until Tuesday Morning; scroll down for newer content).
I will be on with my buddies Allman and Smash in the Morning tomorrow (Tuesday) at 7:45 AM Central, 8:45 AM Eastern on 97.1 FM. For those not fortunate enough to live in the St. Louis area, you can listen in live here.
As of today, the policy of this blog is to support John McCain's candidacy for President in 2008.
I do not make this decision lightly. Many of my friends in the center-right blogosphere despise John McCain, and I myself have been quite acerbic about some of the things he's done in the last six years.
There are two ways to interpret the election results from Tuesday. One is that many conservatives, feeling betrayed by the Bush administration on their pet issues, stayed home to teach the Republicans a lesson. The other is that moderates abandoned the party. My feeling is it was a little bit of both.
But we really don't have the time to figure it out. The presidential election of 2008 is already imminent. I have very little doubt about whom the Democrats will nominate, and it ain't Tom Vilsack. The results on Tuesday virtually guarantee that if Hillary wins, she will have a Democratic congress as well.
This election is too important to blow. We cannot nominate someone that the right wing of the party will support whole-heartedly in the twin hopes that:
1. They will come out and vote. 2. They will more than offset any votes lost in the center.
And it's not like McCain's probable opponents have tremendous appeal to the social conservative wing of the party. I don't want to bash the other Republican candidates here; this isn't about knocking down the other guys. Rudy's pro-choice; so am I. But I don't kid myself that's going to be a popular position with the pro-life crowd. Maybe they vote for him anyway, because of his performance under incredible stress on 9-11 and his tough on crime policies.
Newt? Let's not kid ourselves that Newt's going to pick up any votes for us in the center; he's been successfully demonized by the liberals. And he's got enough problems in his past that the CC crowd is certain to feel a little ambivalent about his candidacy.
Mitt Romney? I doubt he's been prominent enough on the national stage to make the jump to the Oval Office. And while I have zero problems with him being a Mormon, others will.
McCain is not free of problems in his past either. His volcanic temper is legendary. He was one of the Keating Five senators, in fact, the only one still in office. His wife stole pain-killers from a charity she headed.
But the Keating five scandal was overblown (remember, his conviction has been oveturned), and McCain's involvement was innocent, according to even the Phoenix New Times, a left-wing newspaper that looked very carefully at the charges back in the early 1990s. By all accounts, McCain only supported Keating because he was a major employer in Arizona who claimed to be getting shafted by government bureaucrats. When McCain learned that was not the case and that Keating probably had broken laws, he withdrew his support, unlike the other senators in the room.
His wife's painkiller problem? Rush Limbaugh has taught us all that addiction to painkillers is extraordinarily pernicious. Granted, he didn't steal them, but if he'd had access to them would he have?
McCain's been solid on the war on terror, the major issue of our time, and because of his credibility with the media at least has countered some of the natural anti-war tendencies of that group. He also helped defuse the torture issue. The Gang of 14 seems to have worked out pretty well; would we have gotten Alito on the court without some real problems? And am I the only person breathing a little easier about Democratic control of the Senate without the nuclear option having been used?
I am aware that this is not a particular popular position in the center-right blogosphere. I hope my friends who disagree will recognize that I am endorsing McCain because I feel he's a solid Republican who gives the party the best chance to win in 2008.
John Hawkins: Mark, here's the $24,000 question: can you give us a quick rundown on thereasons why Europe's birth rates have plummeted?
Mark Steyn: Well, I think it's true as countries get wealthy, birth rates decline and that's true around the world even in Muslim cultures. For example, more advanced Muslim societies such as those little wealthy Gulf Emirates, they breed less than they do, say in Somalia or in Pakistan or Yemen. So declining birth rates are merely one sign, you know, an indication of increasing prosperity; however, they have gone way below that in Europe.
In other words, they've gone past the symbol -- you know, wealthy middle class moms deciding they'd like fewer children -- to an effect of huge numbers of people in those societies deciding that they don't want any children whatsoever -- huge numbers, and they basically pass the point of no return. Essentially I think a lot of it is to do really with the kind of re-organization of society in which the state has a primacy that was once reserved for individuals of the family.
That's to say if the state basically becomes your patriarch -- if the state becomes the one who looks after your elderly parents in old age, takes them off your hands, and so frees you up not to have to look after boring old granddad once he's getting into his 90's and he's incontinent and he doesn't remember anybody's name. If they just say, " Well, we'll house him, look after him, you can get on with your life," it's not such a big step then to decide that if you do without grandparents, you can also do without grandchildren.
Here's an interesting article on how senators have a tough time making the jump to the presidency. The article starts out with a focus on the ridiculous talk about Barack Obama. This part drew a chortle:
"The Senate historically has not been a great place from which to run for president," said former senator Bob Graham (D-Fla.), who personally learned the lesson in 2004. "Senator Obama might feel he would be better off to run while he has not been tainted by an excessive period in the Senate."
I don't think that less experience as a senator is likely to make one a stronger candidate. The article does note that the two frontrunners for 2008 are both in the Senate: Hillary Clinton and John McCain. Obviously if both of them manage to be nominated, the curse of the Senate will only affect one of them.
Some memorable quotes this episode. The teams are instructed to go to Helsinki, Finland. They are given tickets to Paris, where they may find connections, but the plane doesn't leave until that evening. The teams realize that by flying to South Africa, they can make a connection to Frankfurt and thence to Finland, where people wear wooden shoes (according to the Beauty Queens). At first it appears that Team Gump will get left behind, but they manage to wheedle their way onto the plane.
In Helsinki, teams get their next clue at an internet cafe, delivered by family members in a video. They must then find a school where the next cluebox is. Next they are to take a train and then catch a cab to another school, where they must find the cluebox on the grounds.
Team Recovery and the Beauty Queens snag the available cabs. Rob & Kimberley jump the queue, as does Team Gump. The Chos, however, are too polite, and one of them muses "Being polite sucks sometimes."
However, Rob & Kimberley get lost and so the five teams are pretty tight when they come to the Detour: Swamp This or Swamp That. In Swamp This, teams must use cross-country skis to make it across a swamp. in Swamp That, they have to run through a swamp, completing a number of tasks along the way (like crawling and carrying each other.
Team Recovery finishes first, followed by the Beauty Queens. Rob & Kimberley almost get caught by the Chos but then the brothers slip back again, and are in last. Next stop the train station again. The Beauty Queens and Team Recovery manage to make the first train, while Rob & Kimberley just miss. Rob is angry and upset: "Just let me have my moment!" Now that Peter is gone, he's the designated jerk.
When they get off the train, cars are waiting. Teams must make their way to a limestone mine. Team Recovery gloats as the Beauty Queens completely miss the marker on a doorway. They hop into the mine car and find the clue: Roadblock.
One member of each team must ride a mountain bike down a shaft and get a piece of limestone, then bike back uphill to crack open the limestone for the next clue. Of course, as always my heart pumps a little faster at the biking opportunity. I know I would have beaten all of the contestants in that phase of the challenge; for one thing they all went fairly slow downhill, except for Rob, who was in last place at that point.
As it works out, Team Recovery and the Beauty Queens are in the lead, followed by Rob & Kimberley & the Cho Brothers. The next clue leads teams to the Olympic Stadium in Helsinki, but what's this? No Pit Stop mention and warning that the last team may be eliminated? This is a pretty obvious sign that the teams will have to keep racing at the end of tonight's show.
At the Olympic Stadium, Team Recovery rushes inside expecting to see Phil, and miss a little marker in a doorway. Eventually they find it and go up to the top of the stadium, where they must rappel down; not so tough until you realize they want the contestants to do it face first. In a cool bit one of the guys does a reverse Batman routine, walking down the side of the tower.
The Beauty Queens arrive followed by the three other teams all racing madly. Unbelievably, Rob & Kimberley make a wrong turn yet again, while the Chos and Team Gump find the cluebox. About this time the second member of Team Recovery makes it down the face and receives the clue that has been obvious for awhile now: "You're still racing."
Just for the heck of it, I checked out Tradesports' page on the expected Republican nominee in 2008.
McCain's at about 52 cents asked (to win $1.00 if he becomes the nominee. Romney's at 13 cents, Giuliani about 13.5 cents, Huckabee's at 8 cents, Rice and Gingrich are at 5 cents, Hagel's way overvalued at 3 cents and everybody else is right around a penny.
I would encourage my friends who disagree on McCain to stop saying they won't vote for him under any circumstances, unless of course they are talking about in the primaries. Tradesports is not perfect by any means, but it distills the CW very well. The CW is that McCain is about as likely as all the other candidates combined to win the nomination.
On the Democrat's side of the ledger, Tradesports sees Hillary as slightly more of a favorite than McCain, with her shares offered at 54.4 cents. Amusingly, Obama's shares are currently ahead of Gore's, at 16.6 cents compared to 11.9 cents. Edwards rounds out the real contenders at 7.6 cents; everybody after that is at 3 cents or lower. Jean Fraude Kerry is at 2 cents even, behind Vilsack, Bayh, Biden and Richardson.
Allow me to be the first to say NO WAY JOSE! to this backstabber. And IMHO, McCain IS a backstabber.
At this point I think we have to entertain the possibility that McCain has stabbed at backs when they deserved to be stabbed. I'm as big a Bush loyalist as anybody, but are we going to admit at some point that he appears to have made some mistakes along the way? Maybe, just maybe, McCain really disagreed with Bush.
Aren't you jumping the gun a bit early? Why not wait at least a few months to see who is on the horizon?
Allen was the guy on the horizon several months ago; at this point the realistic field is Giuliani, McCain, Romney and Newt. Does anybody really think Tom Tancredo or Chuck Hagel has a chance? Please stop reading my blog in that case; we're talking serious politics here. Brownback's arguably a candidate, but he's not going to come on like gangbusters.
If I had to choose right now, I'd choose Rudy. He has far better numbers than McCain, whose negatives are increasing as that straw poll continues. He did wonders with NYC, and the whole country knows how well he handled the 9/11 attack. Heck, even Dems praised him! PLUS, he's not a hot-tempered loose cannon with a permanent grudge.
So it's Guiliani or McCain. I could certainly support Rudy G; he has much of the same crossover appeal that McCain has. But while I was in awe of his performance on 9-11, somebody has to talk about his performance in his aborted 2000 Senate run against Hillary. He was going to lose that election and lose it badly. Granted it's New York and pre 9-11; things have changed.
Aaron says I've jumped the shark! I didn't know I was ever good enough to be considered to have jumped the shark to being awful. ;)
Did you have a chance to read hewitts take on this? you seem to be a hh fan...
Hugh's a great guy but he doesn't like McCain for whatever reason. The notion that somehow the Gang of 14 is responsible for the loss of this election is silly, and to the extent it has any traction at all, it's because Hugh and others made it a big deal. The Gang worked out well in my opinion.
You're panicking. We lost a mid-term election in the sixth year of a presidency (always a bad time to be both an incumbent and a member of the President's party) and you want to put into the White House a man who did nothing less than betray his oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
I don't buy the argument that this was just a typical sixth year vote. Most reelected presidents sweep into office a whole bunch of people in marginal seats with them, who inevitably lose without the prez on the ballot the next time around. The numbers are skewed by the likes of Reagan in 1984 and Nixon in 1972, who brought in big freshmen classes in the House that were swept back out to sea in 1986 and 1974. I'm sure there was a similar phenomenon in 1936 for Roosevelt. Clinton did not have a sixth-year swoon as you may remember; he also didn't carry his party to a big victory in his reelection year.
Fatman also decries pork barrel spending, apparently not realizing that McCain is one of the strongest senators combatting that particular issue. He also says that McCain is Democrat Lite.
McCain's career rating from the American Conservative Union is 83. Joe Lieberman is a 17. Liberal Republicans like Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine check in at about 50. Sam Brownback is a 95, and George Allen was a 92. I don't believe that the difference between an 83 and a 92 is going quite to Democrat Lite.
However, Fatman does bring in one legitimate point:
And the irony is that McCain-Feingold actually increased the out-of-control campaign spending by funneling it into 527s, where it's harder to track, at a cost of restricting our free speech during political campaigns. And are you forgetting McCain's attempts to include bloggers (that's you and me) in those restrictions?
I'm not a fan of McCain-Feingold. But one of John McCain's flaws is that he absorbs personal lessons almost too well. I believe that he hates fundraising personally and so he's amenable to legislation against it. See also torture...
I had a shorter post on McCain on my blog. One of my fears of a McCain nomination is the "retread" factor--his getting the nomination as Dole did in 1996, because he "it's his turn." That won't excite the swing voters. Still, even though our side lost, McCain's stock is up because of his hard work for GOP candidates in the weeks leading up to election day.
I agree with John here about Dole, but it's important to remember that Clinton was probably not going to be beaten by anybody in 1996. That's the reason that Dole had such lackluster competition.
Anna's willing to take a wait and see attitude, but Wild Bill says no way he's voting for McCain. Even if it's a choice between him and Hillary, Bill?
Look, I'm not deluded about the power of my prose. I am not going to lead anybody anyplace they don't already want to go. I'm not announcing my endorsement in the hopes that it will change minds. I'm doing it so you know where I stand, and where to expect some bias on my part.
Ray Robison wonders whether the Democrats, including Charlie Rangel and John Murtha, will pursue a draft of young men and women now that they have been elected to majority positions in both houses.
As such, it is possible that Congressman Rangel’s latest draft proposal will come up for consideration in the House. With Murtha riding heard over the Democrats, he may well push them to approve Rangel’s draft legislation submitted earlier this year. Rangel and Murtha both served in the military at time of war in Korea and Vietnam respectively. The draft was in effect at the time each man was in the military. Both have called for it publicly or submitted legislation. How long can it be until they get what they asked for now that they are in charge of the House?
My suspicion is that this was just a way of scaring young people, who we know voted heavily for Democrats this time around. If the Democrats ever actually instituted a draft, I suspect you'd see a large percentage of those youngsters deserting their newfound party.
Dame Eliza, who rarely speaks in public, gave a speech to a small audience on Thursday, detailing what she believes her organisation and the UK is facing.
She said that, since the 7 July bombings, five further major conspiracies in the UK had been thwarted.
"Today, my officers and the police are working to contend with some 200 groupings or networks, totalling over 1,600 identified individuals - and there will be many we don't know - who are actively engaged in plotting, or facilitating, terrorist acts here and overseas," she said.
"Today we see the use of home-made improvised explosive devices.
"Tomorrow's threat may - I suggest will - include the use of chemicals, bacteriological agents, radioactive materials and even nuclear technology."
Sorry for the late notice but I will be on Constitutional Public Radio in about 20 minutes with my friends Andrea Shea-King and Mark Vance to discuss the election, Robert Gates, and other current events. You can listen in live here, and participate in the chat here.
It's been awhile for this regular feature here at Brainster's, but the results of Tuesday's election clearly indicate that impeachment is on the table. Except Nancy Pelousy insists that it isn't.
But Pelosi made clear on Wednesday she plans to rein in any revenge seeking Democrats who have dreams of bringing the president up on charges of ''high crimes and misdemeanours'' over the war in Iraq.
''I have said, and I say again, that impeachment is off the table,'' Pelosi told reporters. ''Democrats are not about getting even.''
The Booman Tribune, one of the larger liberal blogs, is willing to wait until after the trial:
"We won't rest until they're frog-marched out" or otherwise resign in disgrace. Goodbye Rumsfeld. This website is still dedicated to exposing crimes and punishing hypocrisy. I'll be pushing for accountability and vigorous oversight. At the same time, I do not want, or expect, the new House to push for impeachment. What I want them to do is conduct public hearings of White House officials, under oath, and investigate pre-war intelligence, the energy plan, war profiteering, NSA wiretapping, officially sanctioned torture, and violations of our treaty obligations. I expect those hearings to expose criminal wrongdoing in a very organic way.
We should pursue Cheney first and foremost. If facts emerge that are so damning that even Republicans have to concede that Cheney must be leave office, then we should have them quietly go up to Naval Observatory and ask him to resign (for health reasons if necessary to save face). If he refuses, we impeach. But we only impeach if we are virtually assured of winning in the Senate. And we will only be assured of that if the facts that emerge from honest and open hearings warrant it.
Okay, that was a bad night. The good news is that the Democrats won largely by moving to the middle. Their one effort at nominating an antiwar leftist kook went down in flames, with Neddy Lamont losing by ten points.
What comes next? Obstructionism and investigation is my best guess with John Conyers oiling up the impeachment machine.
CNN Forgets About Party Identification in Order to Push Democrats Win
Earlier today, CNN correctly recorded that two independents had won Senate races today; Joe Lieberman and Bernie (Socialist) Sanders. But now that the Senate is in reach, CNN suddenly thinks those guys are Democrats:
This is boosterism at best. The Democrats are not, despite CNN's fervent hopes at 48 seats; they're at 46 with two independents that will certainly caucus with the Democrats. So why not star the 48 in the Democrats' column and admit that's why you did it? I don't disagree with the decision, I disagree with the lack of disclosure.
I don't know how to sugar-coat this. You can kind of look at 48-48 as of tonight and say that's a split decision, but in fact in Senate seats voted on tonight that's 21-8 for the Democrats so far. I predicted a week or so ago that the Republicans would lose the House; the Senate is still very much up for grabs.
I'll be in the chatroom with my friends Andrea-Shea King, Mark Vance and all the CPR Radio regulars tonight starting at 7:00 PM Eastern. I also recommend listening to Hugh Hewitt, who will be covering the election on Salem Radio Network tonight. I think (but I'm not sure) that you can listen in here. If you want to chat and listen to the smartest people about politics today, please join me!
Donna Martinez said she asked Rather if he stands by the story, which questioned Bush's fulfillment of his guard service during the Vietnam War. CBS retracted the story after bloggers and then the national media challenged the authenticity of the documents on which the story was based.
"He said the story is true, and that what he thinks that what people didn't like is that he reported the story," Martinez said.
It's worth contrasting the fawning media admiration for Kerry's truncated tour of duty with their total lack of interest in Bob Dole's years of service two presidential campaigns earlier. That convention night in Boston was one of the freakiest presentations in contemporary politics: a man being greeted as a combination of Alexander the Great and the Duke of Wellington for a few weeks' service in a war America lost. But Kerry is the flesh-and-blood embodiment of the Democratic straddle, of the we-oppose-the-war-but-support-our-troops line. That's why anti-war Dems, outspinning themselves, decided they could support a soldier who opposed a war. And as Kerry demonstrates effortlessly every time he opens his mouth, if you detach the heroism of a war from the morality of it, what's left but braggadocio? Or, as the senator intoned to me back in New Hampshire when I tried to ask what he would actually do about Iraq, Iran or anything else, "Sometimes truly courageous leadership means having the courage not to show any leadership." (I quote from memory.)
The teams start out with the task of flying to Madagascar. Once there they must locate the Black Angel, which in a cunning bit of work by the Madagascar Tourism Board, has recently been painted white. The Beauty Queens pass up the car they partially wrecked last episode and take another team's car. This results in the Cho Brothers nobly taking the damaged vehicle. As it works out, the first flight does not leave for many hours and thus the BQs gain nothing but more enmity from the other teams.
David and Mary, the Cho Brothers and Team Gump take the lead briefly, but pass up the angel because it is too pale. Team Recovery and Rob & Kimberly correctly make the stop. Intersection: The teams must join forces. The options are Fast Forward, or take a Detour. The first two teams decide to try the Fast Forward in an effort to kayo Team Coal Miner.
The Beauty Queens are stuck since there is no team to join with them for awhile. Team Coal Miner and Team Gump arrive and join forces, and eventually the Chos are forced to unite with the Beaty Queens.
The Detour tasks involve Mattresses or Paper, but since nobody takes the latter we'll ignore it for now. In the Mattress competion, teams must cover 8 mattresses with slipcovers, then haul them about a mile to a house where they will collect their next clue. At first it looks like Team Gump and Team Coal Miner might jump ahead, as the guide for the Chos and the BQs disappears. But smartly, the Chos run ahead to find the house where the mattresses are to be delivered, then return to bring the mattresses and depart comfortably ahead of the other team.
Meanwhile, Team Recovery and Rob & Kimberley have discovered the treat awaiting them at the Fast Forward: Cowlips! Mmmmm, cowlips! As usual, it is described as a local delicacy. It looks as though they may have quite a bit of trouble with finishing their plates. Is there another way for Team Coal Miner to survive despite the likely possibility that they will not arrive first at the mat?
The teams split up after completing the Detour and head to the Roadblock. This time, they must deal with the bureaucracy of the Rubber Stamp. They must search stalls for rubber stamps of a plane, a train, an automobile and a ship. The Beauty Queen assigned to this task finishes first, with the Chos in hot pursuit. Now to the Pit Stop at a cathedral.
Meanwhile Team Recovery is complete with their cowlip treat and are encouraging Rob & Kimberley, who's ralphing like crazy. However, somehow she finishes and they are on their way to the Pit Stop as well.
The Beauty Queens arrive first, and win a trip to Hawaii, complete with a helicopter tour of the volcanoes. They seem noticably more pleased this week. Rob & Kimberley are next, and are quite bummed to learn that their gastronomic feat did not win them a leg of the race. Then comes team recovery, followed by the Chos.
Mary finishes before the Gump representative, but of course when they arrive at the mat, Phil tells them that they must serve the half-hour penalty for failing to arrive first after the prior episode's last-place finish. It certainly appears unlikely that they will beat the Gumps, and sure enough, Gump #2 show up with about 20 minutes to spare. Much sobbing and weeping as Team Coal Miner are Phil-Liminated and head back to Kentucky, sadder and wiser. Well, sadder, anyway. I liked them and their loyalty to their alliance, but they got their problems on TAR the old fashioned way; they earned them.
There has been a flurry in the press lately concerning the alleged letters written by Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and first carried to Leonid Brezhnev and later to Yuri Andropov.
The initial one, written in 1979, was an offer to work with the Soviets and against then President Jimmy Carter, who, in Mr. Kennedy’s estimation, was working a bit too hard in thwarting the USSR’s goals in their wild and woolly Afghanistan adventure.
Now granted, it is hard to treat the notion that Jimmy Carter was being too tough on the Soviets and anything other than laughable. But remember that if "Sheets" Byrd ever retires, Teddy would be the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, with effective veto power over Supreme Court Justices. Forget about Alito and Roberts ever getting confirmed.
Was Kerry making fun of the president, or warning students against the pitfalls awaiting the undereducated in general?
It doesn't matter. Kerry was right either way.
Kerry wasn't saying -- regardless of the Republican spin -- that our troops are stupid.
Either way? Doesn't that imply that our troops are drawn from the undereducated?
This is so typical of the liberal media that it's almost a self-parody. The media love to bray (remember, donkeys bray, not elephants) about how few congressmen have children in the military. How many newspaper editorial writers have their offspring serving their country? I guarantee, not many from the liberal side of the aisle.
More important, what does the Kerry camp's posting of this idiotic editorial say about his "apology"? It says that he really didn't mean it, but he was getting flak from Hillary and others, so he disavowed the comment while still insisting he was right.
On a very much related matter, a blogger at the Right Place points out that the terrorists in the Middle East are rooting for one of the political parties to win next Tuesday.
National Democrats have abandoned their anti-war Senate candidate in Connecticut, say liberal bloggers who earlier this year were heavily courted by top Democrats in their quest to take over Congress.
Democratic nominee Ned Lamont -- darling of the left-wing blogosphere -- now trails Sen. Joe Lieberman by 10 points or more, and the highly energized bloggers who helped win him the nomination in August blame the national party.
But I'm in the mood to laugh myself. The Democrats seem to be on the verge of a historic victory, and the liberal bloggers are crying in their beer because the national party didn't help them defeat a Democrat. The better news is that this disgust with the party is being transmitted to the base by the likes of Matt Stoller, MyDD's incredible 12-year-old blogger:
"Well there are a number of reasons, but among the most prominent is the total abandonment of Lamont by the party establishment," he wrote in a blog posting at Direct Democracy (www.mydd.com). "Let's be very clear -- this is not Lamont that they are abandoning, it's the party primary voters that they are abandoning."
Liberal vitriol in recent weeks has been directed at some of the Democratic Party's most beloved figures, such as former President Bill Clinton, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, Sen. Charles E. Schumer of New York and even rising star Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois.
Off-year elections are all about energizing the base. Thanks to Le Fraude's stupid comments about getting stuck in Iraq, the Republican base is energized and angry at the Democrats. And so are the liberal bloggers.
Sheesh, how stupid can you get? Even Hillary Clinton recognized that what John Kerry said was wrong, but not the Nashville Dog-Trainer:
The Massachusetts Democrat apologized for his statement yesterday, but he needn't have, because he said nothing to offend soldiers or veterans. In the speech to a group of California college students on Monday, Kerry said, "Education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. And if you don't, you get stuck in Iraq."
The sad fact is, young men and women without a college degree usually earn less, as much as $23,000 a year less, according to a recent U.S. Census report. And many of those have-nots, lured into the military by enlistment bonuses, find themselves in Iraq. Then, in many cases, their tours of duty have been extended, because the U.S. military is currently overextended with troops needed on numerous fronts.
Anybody want to bet they just lost a couple thousand subscribers? Check out the comments on that editorial; whole lotta folks saying include me out:
What in the world is wrong with you people? Have you totally lost your collective minds? I think it's time to cancel my subscription.
I find your papers defense of the comments made by Kerry disgraceful to our men & women in uniform.I will never purchase your so called newspaper again & will be sure to encourage everyone I know to do the same.
BS + MBA + 25 Years in the U.S. Navy = One Tennessean subscription cancelled.
Moron Kerry from our buddy, Third Wave Dave. Love the photoshop!
I've been a fan of Ron's since he destroyed a 9-11 Denier named Les Jamieson on his (libertarian) program, Hardfire, in July. Today he's got a terrific piece on a forgotten bit of Clinton corruption:
“Hillary Rodham Clinton began her protracted presidential campaign four years ago by claiming a Senate seat from a state she didn’t live in. Her pro-Palestinian sentiments caused problems with New York’s large Jewish population, and in particular, allowed her opponent, Rick Lazio, to trounce her in Hasidic communities. Except for one.
“New Square Community, in Rockland County, contained four prominent men who got very rich by applying for and receiving Federal scholarships for 1500 students. The students didn’t exist and the four men picked “Go Directly to Jail” cards. The Smartest Woman Who Ever Lived visited New Square in August of 2000. In November, she won that district by the tidy margin of 1400 to 12 (a cool 99.15%). In December, a delegation from New Square journeyed to Washington, D.C. and visited with America’s first Jewish President, who bit his lower lip and felt their pain. In January 2001, the four naughty Hasids were pardoned.
“All of this has a familiar ring. True, it’s the most spectacularly unambiguous example of vote-buying to come along the pike in a hound’s age, but the Clintons do lots of crooked things. There is much huffing and puffing; they dare anyone to do something about it; nobody does nuthin’.”
Sgt. Lindsey and his convoy were attacked when Taliban fighters set up a false checkpoint in Afghanistan on Sept. 9, 2006. The enemies hit the convoy with either a roadside bomb or a rocket-propelled grenade, and then opened up small-arms fire on the vehicles. Lindsey, a gunner who had recently switched from a desk job at a secure base in Kandahar to a job training Afghan soldiers, died in the attack. He had volunteered for deployment to Afghanistan after having already served in Iraq and during Hurricane Katrina to protect an officer he had driven for since June 2004. Lindsey was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star, the Purple Heart and the Meritorious Service Medals on Sept. 22, 2006.
More information on our heroes in the War on Terror can be found here.
"I sincerely regret that my words were misinterpreted to wrongly imply anything negative about those in uniform, and I personally apologize to any service member, family member or American who was offended."
What's the bit about us misinterpreting what he said, which is:
"You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq."
Is there a way to interpret that as not negative to those in uniform?
But he has a good excuse. You see, he had a terrific joke in mind:
Still, Kerry claimed that it was a "botched joke." In what the Kerry camp released yesterday as the prepared text of his remarks, Kerry supposedly meant to say:
"It's great to be here with college students. I can't overstress the importance of a great education. Do you know where you end up if you don't study, if you aren't smart, if you're intellectually lazy? You end up getting us stuck in a war in Iraq. Just ask President Bush."
Oh, yeah, that makes terrific sense, considering that Kerry himself didn't study notably hard during his college years. In Tour of Duty, he admits that he "majored in flying" (small planes) his senior year.
