Unrest In The Forest

Adios

2007-06-15T20:13:00.000-04:00

Sorry, we're closed. Running a blog was just too much work, and I'm sure our 20 or 30 loyal readers won't be too upset.

My advice; stick with Ace, Allah, Rusty and Charles.

Prison Riot In Indiana

2007-04-24T17:58:00.000-04:00

There's a full scale prison riot "developing" in Indiana. Here's the video:

Makes me damn glad I don't live in Indiana. Reports are that two guards were hurt.

I wonder if Jack Bauer had anything to do with this? (You won't get it if you don't watch the show.)

Drudge links to the story.

Slow Posting. Still.

2007-04-24T14:35:00.000-04:00

Just a reminder that we're still in slow posting mode here at UITF, as it is finals week. We posted a little last week for a few days, but only to take advantage of the thousands of hits flooding in from our "Ismail Ax" coverage (around 23,000 hits in three days, by the way, pretty good considering our daily average is about 100).

Posting should pick up at the end of this week or the beginning of next.

Impeach Pelosi? Why Not...

2007-04-19T15:42:00.000-04:00

I just got an email about how Pelosi could be convicted of a felony for her little visit to Syria under the Logan Act and was gonna post on it, but in doing some research, it appears Hot Air beat me to the punch, you know, 13 days ago when the story was still relevant.

Don't blame me, I think I was taking a blogging break back then...

Anyway, here's the text of the email:

Pelosi arguably committed a FELONY when she traveled to Syria and whispered behind closed doors with Bashar al-Assad, Syria's terrorist-loving leader.
First, the U.S. Constitution implicitly gives the President the authority to conduct foreign policy.

In order to make that responsibility explicit, in 17[99] President John Adams initiated the Logan Act, which forbids any American -- "without authority of the United States" -- to communicate with a foreign government with the intent of influencing that government's actions in any "disputes or controversies with the United States."

VIOLATION OF THE LOGAN ACT IS A FELONY! Upon conviction, an offender can be sentenced to prison for up to three years. If she was just a regular person like you, Nancy Pelosi would be a prime candidate for a prison cell.

Why should Speaker Pelosi, third in the line of Presidential succession, get away with blatantly undermining U.S. Foreign policy by meeting with the leader of a country that supports terrorism? Why aren't our conservative leaders calling for a full investigation of her actions, or censure or even impeachment?

Allah seems to think it's a long shot, and he's probably right. In some 200+ years, no one's been prosecuted. But this might be a good card to keep up our sleeves in case those power-drunk, trigger-happy Dems try and impeach Bush (as they so want to do) or Cheney (which they're now threatening). And it all has even more importance with Madame Speaker planning a similar trip to Iran.

Polygamist Rapper Molests 14 Year Old Girl On Stage

2007-04-19T13:01:00.000-04:00

From Hollywood Grind:

Akon [ed - raper, er, rapper], a self confessed Muslim who practices polygamy and has 3 wives, shocked an audience and a 14-year-old girl in Trinidad, when Akon brought the girl onstage and dry humped her while also pushing her around the stage.

Here's the video, but be warned, it's kind of disturbing, you know, if you don't like watching a 26 year old man forcefully dry humping a 14 year old girl across a stage infront of thousands (hundereds? Not sure...) of people.

Radical Islam Loves Cho, Cho Loves Nazis

2007-04-19T12:41:00.000-04:00

So while it appears that psycho VTech killer Cho Seung-Hui had no influences from Islam, the Religion of Peace is certainly taking a liking to him.

Over at Basharee Murtadd, they've done some digging to find the reactions of radical Islam to the VTech mass killings:

And now, turning to our peace-loving Muslims at an Arabic Islamic forum, I translate some of their ‘condolences’:

Al-Jazeera reported 20 dead and 29 injured. Praise be to Allah.

Praise be to Allah for these calamities hitting America. By the will of Allah, more of this [will happen], following their defeat in Iraq and Afghanistan.

O Allah, keep America busy with itself, and enamor its people against it.

And then they found this picture on another site:

Translation: “The first picture of the South Korean Shaikh, Abu Mus’Ab Al-Virgini [the Virginian]” (an attempt to make him seem like Abu Mus’Ab Al-Zarqawi)

There are plenty more disgusting comments and what-not from radical Islamic websites, check them out if you can stomach it.

Meanwhile, it looks like Cho might have had a little interest in Nazism. LGF notes:

One of the pictures received by NBC News from the Virginia Tech mass murderer suggests a neo-Nazi connection; with the heading, “The number of the Anti-Terrorist,” Cho drew the number “88”—a well-known neo-Nazi reference to the phrase “Heil Hitler.” (H is the eighth letter of the alphabet.)

All of these freak killers are fascinated with the Nazis. What better example of senseless killing on a massive scale?

VTech Killer's Parents Hospitalized With Shock, Some Students Forgive Cho

2007-04-18T16:59:00.000-04:00

Apparently Cho Seung-Hui's parents have been hospitalized due to shock. That's what happens when you don't raise your kid right. Actually, I guess I don't know they did a poor job parenting; but one can assume something went wrong when they raise America's worst mass murderer.

Meanwhile, students at VTech are being better Christians than I ever could, and actually forgiving Cho. I envy their compassion. The day of the shooting I said a short prayer for the victims and their families and friends, but try as I might, I just could not pray for the disgusting individual who killed them.

However, I will continue to pray for all those affected, and hopefully one day I'll be able to pray for and forgive Cho for his disgusting actions.

4 Bombings in Baghdad Kill at Least 183

2007-04-18T16:53:00.000-04:00

A very bloody day in Baghdad. Very sad, my prayers are with the victims and their families.

It's always hard to keep an optimistic mind about the war when the media throws so much horrible stuff at you. Thank God for blogs. It's nice to hear all of the good we're accomplishing there every now and then.

Liberal Hypocrisy Over At WaPo

2007-04-18T16:36:00.000-04:00

Liberal hypocrisy over at WaPo, where the paper of Howard Kurtz (who criticised LGF for not policing its comments) currently still has a comment up wishing death upon Vice President Cheney.

On an article about Kucinich moving to impeach Cheney, some lovely individual posted:

It is too bad the shooter at VT spent all of his mojo on students and faculty.

It's bad enough to desire the death of the Vice President, we're used to that from the Left, but insulting the memory of all those slain students? That's a new low for loser, liberal web crawlers.

The comment was posted yesterday around noon, and LGF found it 10pm, and yet it's still up?

'People Don't Stop Killers. People With Guns Do.'

2007-04-18T16:20:00.000-04:00

I'm too disgusted by all of the anti-Second Amendment filth being spewed in response to the VTech killings to post any of it, but since you'll be getting a good helping of it anyway from the MSM, here's Glenn Reynold's take on gun bans on campuses: "People Don't Stop Killers. People With Guns Do."

Was Cho Seung-Hui Schizophrenic?

2007-04-18T16:11:00.000-04:00

Hot Air, who has by far been doing the best job covering the VTech mass killings, has a post suggesting that the killer was schizophrenic. Well, he was obviously very sick in the head, but an interesting idea.

I just hope we don't end up blaming this on a disease. These killings weren't the fault of disease or the Second Amendment or politicians or the university or Islam or video games; the blame rest solely on the shoulders of the deranged maniac who pulled the trigger and killed some 32 people.

First Victory For Unborn Children Since 1973

2007-04-18T16:00:00.000-04:00

Unborn children got their first major win before the US Supreme Court today, as the court decided to uphold the partial-abortion ban:

The Supreme Court's conservative majority handed anti-abortion forces a major victory Wednesday in a decision that bans a controversial abortion procedure and set the stage for further restrictions.

For the first time since the court established a woman's right to an abortion in 1973, the justices upheld a nationwide ban on a specific abortion method, labeled partial-birth abortion by its opponents.

While this is good news, millions of unborn children are still be slaughtered daily around the world. At the very least, this will further bring to the attention of the public how this horrible procedure works.

Justice Kennedy wrote the majority opinion (odd), in which he notes the law is not unconstitutional in that, "The law need not give abortion doctors unfettered choice in the course of their medical practice..." But curses! Do conservatives want women to die! The law doesn't include an exception for when the mother's life is at risk! This argument just shows that liberals are missing the argument conservatives make. We believe that abortion is murder; in what way does that make it sound like we'd make an exception for murder to save the mother's life?

President Bush says:

"I am pleased that the Supreme Court has upheld a law that prohibits the abhorrent procedure of partial birth abortion," he said. "Today's decision affirms that the Constitution does not stand in the way of the people's representatives enacting laws reflecting the compassion and humanity of America."

I don't know who decided that the Supreme Court has the right to define when life begins and ends, but I guess that's what happens when the court has the ability to tell us what their powers are. Checks and balances? More like Judicial rule with an iron fist.

It was a 5-4 decision, with Kennedy, Alito, Thomas, Roberts, and Scalia in the majority. All-in-all, great news.

***Update, 4:44pm***

Drudge rounded up the response of most of the Presidential candidates.

Hillary: "Erosion of our Constitutional rights..."
Obama: "I strongly disagree..."
Edwards: "I couldn't disagree more strongly..."
Romney: "A step forward..."
McCain: "I'm very happy about the decision..."
Giuliani: "The Supreme Court reached the correct conclusion..." (BS)
Brownback: The ruling would result "in lives being saved."

Well, I guess Edwards will get the Democrat nomination. After all, he "couldn't disagree more strongly." Obama just disagreed.

'Ismail Ax' Sparks Web Search 'Frenzy'

2007-04-18T02:05:00.000-04:00

The Aussie news paper The Age is reporting that the phrase "Ismail Ax" has sparked a web search "frenzy."

No crap. My post on it took my daily average hits from 60 to 1200, with 13,000 hits yesterday alone and 1,000 in the last hour.

Meanwhile, Allah over at Hot Air notes that we may have all been on a wild goose chase, since a WaPo story tomorrow spells it "Ismale Ax."

Personally, I'm amazed at how many theories bloggers have been able to dig up in a day.

We have Rutheford's original theory that it was Islam related, which pissed a lot of people off. In fact, the story mentioned the theory:

As for the term's meaning, one popular theory spreading across the web comes from a story in the Koran, the holy book of Islam, about Ibrahim and his son, Ismail. This theory picked up speed because many bloggers wondered if the actions at Virginia Tech could be related to terrorism.

In Islam, Ibrahim is known as the father of the prophets and, upset that people in his hometown still worshiped idols and not Allah, he smashed all but one statue in a local temple with an ax. Ibrahim's son is Ismail, who also became a prophet. Ibrahim is Arabic for Abraham, who plays a significant role in Christianity, Judaism and Islam.

Then there's my current theory of choice, that it was his nickname, also mentioned in my original post (the update).

There's the theory that it came from the book The Prairie. The killer was an English major. Then a variant on that and part of my nickname theory, that it came from the book Ishmael.

Of course, all of this could be moot since the spelling may have been off. Of course, as we saw from the killer's disturbing writings, he wasn't very good with the English language.

Secret Service Agents Shot Each Other... Kind Of...

2007-04-18T01:36:00.000-04:00

It appears that two Secret Service agents shot each other, er, kind of. This lead to a lock down at the White House. There was also mention of a suspicious package. GW was not at the White House, but in Virginia.

Jawa has the story.

This crap would never happen if they'd just do what conservatives have been calling for since late 2001: put Jack Bauer in charge of guarding the President! Then again, every President he's been around seems to have died... And he did almost kill Logan. So maybe that's a bad idea...

Polygamists In The UK Can Get Benifits For All Their Wives. It's Only Fair...

2007-04-18T01:08:00.000-04:00

You wonder why conservatives think it's ok to legislate marriage? Here you go (hat tip: Hot Air):

Officials said yesterday a review was now under way into whether the state should continue to pay out income support, jobseeker’s allowance and housing and council tax benefits to ‘extra’ spouses…
[I]f a husband and his wives arrive and settle in Britain having wed in a country where polygamy is legal, then the UK benefits system recognises his extra wives as dependents and pays them accordingly…

You allow gay marriage, where do you draw the line? Why not allow Polygamy as well? Why not lower the age of consent? Why can't a man be with a goat? Who are we to get in the way of his and the goat's happiness?

Blame-Game Begins In VTech Killings

2007-04-18T00:56:00.000-04:00

The blame-game in the VTech killings has begun... Guh...

Liberal "heroes" like Olberman are blaming Bush for allowing the Assault Weapons Law of 1994 to expire therefore allowing Cho Seung-Hui to buy extended clips, when the ban didn't even cover them!

Meanwhile, some psycho over at Huffington Post is saying "I think it is also fair to place some of the blame on our political leaders who called for us to invade and occupy Iraq."

Guh. Get a grip on reality. There's one person to blame in this: the killer! He was a disturbed psycho who couldn't deal with his problems. Did a few extra bullets per clip allow him to kill all those people? I don't think so.

I don't want to argue the Second Amendment with regards to something so tragic, but let's be honest; the kid was already breaking gun laws by having a firearm on campus. Is anyone surprised the mass murder chose not to obey the law? If anything, greater Second Amendment rights may have saved lives, someone on campus may have been able to shoot back! Remember: when guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.

***Update, 1:47am***

Meanwhile, Obama seems to be blaming Imus' racist comments...

'Ismail Ax:' Cho Seung-Hui's Nickname?

2007-04-18T00:27:00.000-04:00

My God, the traffic is just pouring in from my earlier post on "Ismail Ax!" So, I think this post is needed to clarify, as I'm sick of getting emails from Islamist-sympathisers who are too lazy to read the full post.

After further investigation, as the other post says, I decided that "Ismail Ax" probably had little to do with Islam, but was a nickname derived from Cho Seung-Hui's name taken while studying in Indonesia, and possibly a reference to Ishmael, a book he probably read as an English major.

I make no apologies for initially wondering if there was a link to radical Islam in this horrific mass-murder. After all, a decade ago every conflict on the planet was so-and-so vs. Communism, these days it's almost always so-and-so vs. radical Islam. Also, there's the case of a North Carolina-Chapel Hill student who drove his car into a crowd of pedestrians as an act of terrorism. Never heard of it? That's because the MSM doesn't cover these things! And honestly, which is more far-fetched: thinking this may have been partly inspired by Islam, or actually blaming GW for it?

I never said that I thought this was solely an act of Islamic terror, but I easily could have seen Islam being one of many factors that his sick mind used to justify his disgusting actions.

Anyway, just to clarify, this doesn't appear to in anyway be related to radical Islam, rather just the very disturbing actions of someone who was obviously very sick in the head. Read the original post below, including the update about how "Ismail Ax" was apparently the killer's nickname.

***Update, 1:16am***

Other than my original Islamic terror theory and my subsequent nickname theory, there's another theory out there that it may have said "Ismail Ak," the name of a leading doctor in the killer's particular social disorder. He was referred to counseling and may have heard the name.

'Ismail Ax:' Virginia Tech Mass Killings and Islam

2007-04-17T16:47:00.000-04:00

Well, I said posting might be slow in my last weeks of school, but this is definitely important enough to post on.

The recent Virginia Tech murders were deeply disturbing, and being one who is realistic about the murderous tendencies of Islam, I immediately wondered if there was a connection as the story broke. When it appeared to just be the work of a crazed loner, I was disgusted that someone could do something that horrible for no reason (great coverage on the story at Hot Air here and here). But my fellow poster Rutheford just emailed me this:

I noticed in a news report that Cho Seung-Hui, the VA Tech shooter, had "Ismail Ax" written on his arm in red ink. Wondering what that meant (as Wikipedia failed to clarify) I did a little Googling, and guess what?

"Ismail Ax" is a well known phrase in the Muslim world. The Muslims believe that the [Old Testament] is wrong in saying that Abraham was supposed to kill Isaac with a knife, rather they believe he was supposed to kill Ishmael (Ismail) with an Axe. They also believe that Abraham was supposed to go out and attack idols with an axe, and some also attribute the phrase to meaning that Ishmael was supposed to kill Isaac, the father of all Western culture, with an axe.

Cho was a South Korean immigrant to the US, but it seems undeniable that his killing spree, at least in part, was motivated by some sort of belief in Islam.

Chalk another mass killing up to Islam, but don't expect the MSM to.

I'm posting this because other blogs fail to be noticing it. Many have caught that "Ismail" is a Muslim reference, but no one else seems to have elaborated. Cho Seung-Hui was of South Korean decent, and looking at his disturbing writings at The Smoking Gun, he clearly had poor grammar and spelling; thus "Ax" instead of "Axe" and "Ismail" instead of "Ishmael."

Rutheford's right; this may be yet another mass killing due in part to the murderous teachings of Islam.

*** Update, 5:49pm***

Rutheford found this photo posted on a blog with a caption reading "...and ismail ax in the middle." So it appears that, if that is Cho in the middle, "Ismail Ax" was his nick-name.

There's also this one on Flikr which calls him Ismail, "because his name is very hard to pronounce."

That seems to remove the suspicion he was motivated by Islam. The blog to go along with the Flikr acount says (in very poorly translated Korean):

Evidently that his Indonesian name, the name in fact was Jo Sung Ho [Cho Seung-Hui].

He and several of his colleagues from KorSel, was studying Indonesian for 2 months in WH. after that he will go to Palembang to teach the computer in the TECHNICAL COLLEGE OF MACHINERY for 2 years...

By the way the matter of the name, they were asked to choose the Indonesian name personally. Sy asked why Sung Ho chose the Ismail name, he every because he wanted to be friends with the person Islam.

Maybe the "Ax" was added as a literary reference to The Prairie or Ishmael. Ishmael in particular has a disturbing parallel to Cho's actions:

"As to what brought me back to the neighborhood, Hannah, it was to do some business for the judge, and to buy some stock for the farm. But there, my dear! that boy has slipped out, and is cutting the wood; I'll go and do it for him," said Reuben, as the sound of Ishmael's ax fell upon his ears.

Hannah arose and followed Gray to the door, and there before it stood Ishmael, chopping away at random, upon the pile of wood, his cheeks flushed with fever and his eyes wild with excitement.

"Hannah, he is ill; he is very ill; he doesn't well know what he is about," said Reuben, taking the ax from the boy's hand.

"Ishmael, Ishmael, my lad, come in; you are not well enough to work," said Hannah anxiously.

Ishmael yielded up the ax and suffered Reuben to draw him into the house.

"It is only that I am so hot and dizzy and weak, Mr. Middleton; but I am sure I shall be able to do it presently," said Ishmael apologetically, as he put his hand to his head and looked around himself in perplexity.

"I'll tell you what, the boy is out of his head, Hannah, and it's my belief as he's a going to have a bad illness," said Reuben, as he guided Ishmael to the bed and laid him on it. "

Sorry: Slow Posting Ahead

2007-04-03T16:25:00.000-04:00

Well guys, we've got 23 days of school left, so it looks like posting will be very slow if not nonexistent. I'm very much opposed to closing down the blog entirely, but school will keep me so busy I might as well be realistic.

See you in a few weeks.

Gaza Sewage Flood: Palestinians Brought It On Themselves!

2007-03-29T10:47:00.000-04:00

Again, sorry about the slow posting. I'm stepping it up at school; only 29 days left (not that I'm counting, or anything).

Anyway, a few days ago the media was weeping for Palestinians killed in Gaza from a sewage flood. But some of us know why their sewers aren't working.

The MSM failed to mention this little tid-bit of info about them ripping up their own Israel-funded sewer to make rockets which they subsequently kill Israeli civilians with.

They did manage to blame it on fighting "between" Israel and Palestine:

Aid officials said plans to build a larger waste-treatment facility had been held up for years by perpetual fighting in the area between Israel and Palestinians

Fortunately, I saw no direct blame levied at Israel. But for years Palestinians have been criticizing Israel for not allowing the import of the pipes needed for the sewers. But can you blame them when Palestinian terrorists, supported by a majority of the Palestinian population, rip these pipes out of the ground daily to convert to rockets? I know I don't.

I said it before:

It just shows that these Palestinian terrorists don't have Palestine's best interests at heart, they just want to destroy Israel. And what kind of person is invested in the annihilation of an entire people? You know, other than Hitler and the Muslims.

Half Of Americans Wouldn't Vote For Hillary

2007-03-27T16:19:00.000-04:00

Ouch:

Half of voting-age Americans say they would not vote for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) if she became the Democratic nominee for president in 2008, according to a Harris Interactive poll released Tuesday.

Of course, I'm among them.

Can Hillary really win if half the country wouldn't vote for her? Her socialist agenda is bound to just scare more people off.

Tony Snow's Cancer Is Back...

2007-03-27T10:34:00.000-04:00

I'm heart broken. Tony Snow's cancer is back, and it's spread to his liver.

The best outcome would be he just loses his job as he undergoes aggresive treatment. And we all know what the worst outcome would be...

My prayers are with him.

Get Pumped: '24' Tonight!

2007-03-26T19:11:00.000-04:00

Sorry for the lazy posting today. I had a good weekend and am having trouble getting back to work.

But hey, get pumped! 24 is on tonight!

Looks like we can add a few more kills to the kill counter and we may finally get rid of the crappy Palmer.

Growth Found In Tony Snow's Abdomen

2007-03-23T15:55:00.000-04:00

Looks like they've found a growth in Tony Snows abdomen, and he's going to be out a few weeks while recovering after doctors remove it. Snow says they're removing it "out of an aggressive sense of caution."

I'll be saying a prayer for Tony. For those of you who don't know, by the way, Tony Snow, White House Press Secretary, had his colon removed and underwent six months of chemo in 2005 after it was discovered he had colon cancer.

With these jerk libs in Congress constantly attacking the White House these days, the last thing we need is certifiable bad-ass Tony Snow gone.

Iran Captures 15 British Navy Personnel

2007-03-23T09:47:00.000-04:00

Not good:

Iran captured fifteen British Royal Navy personnel during a "routine boarding operation" in Iraqi waters on Friday, Britain's Ministry of Defense said.
Iran's ambassador in London has been summoned and Britain is demanding the immediate safe release of the sailors.
"At approximately 1030 Iraqi time this morning, 15 British naval personnel, engaged in routine boarding operations of merchant shipping in Iraqi territorial waters ... were seized by Iranian naval vessels," the ministry said in a statement.
"We are urgently pursuing this matter with the Iranian authorities at the highest level and on the instructions of the Foreign Secretary, the Iranian ambassador has been summoned to the Foreign Office. The British government is demanding the immediate and safe return of our people and equipment."

For Iran, anyway...

Constant Vigilance

2007-03-22T19:30:00.000-04:00

Prepare yourselves for the second wave in the tsunami that is news about Ana Nicole Smith:

The medical examiner investigating Anna Nicole Smith's death will release an autopsy report Monday, presumably disclosing what killed the former Playboy Playmate.

I can't wait to hear Greta Van Susteren's nasally voice going on and on about where how and why Ana died. Stay tuned!

No Sex At Harvard

2007-03-22T18:27:00.000-04:00

A novel idea in a promiscuous age:

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Sometime between the founding of a student-run porn magazine and the day the campus health center advertised "Free Lube," Harvard University seniors Sarah Kinsella and Justin Murray decided to fight back against what they see as too much mindless sex at the Ivy League school.

They founded a student group called True Love Revolution to promote abstinence on campus. The group, created earlier this school year, has more than 90 members on its Facebook.com page and drew about half that many to an ice cream social.

Harvard treats sex — or "hooking up" — so casually that "sometimes I wonder if sex is even a remotely serious thing," said Kinsella, who is dating Murray.

Other schools around the country have small groups devoted to abstinence. On most campuses, they are religious organizations. Princeton and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have Anscombe Societies, secular organizations named after an English philosopher and Roman Catholic. True Love Revolution is secular as well.

Wow. Who would have a problem with that. Oh, I know:

Some feminists, in particular, have criticized True Love Revolution's message.
Harvard student Rebecca Singh said she was offended by a valentine the group sent to the dormitory mailboxes of all freshmen. It read: "Why wait? Because you're worth it."

"I think they thought that we might not be 'ruined' yet," Singh said. "It's a symptom of that culture we have that values a woman on her purity. It's a relic."

Oh my God. I don't even know what to say. The feminist is actually mad that this organization overvalues women! What the Hell is wrong with that girl? I'm going to venture a guess that she's a promiscuous slut who hates herself for how she acts and takes her anger out on those with a little more self-control. Maybe.

More story:

True Love Revolution members say the problem starts with the university. They say Harvard has implicitly led students to believe that having sex at college is a foregone conclusion by requiring incoming freshman to attend a seminar on date-rape that does not mention abstinence, by placing condoms in freshmen dorms, and by hosting racy lecturers. (Harvard students have also launched H-Bomb, a magazine featuring racy photos of undergraduates.)

[...]

Dr. David Rosenthal, director of Harvard health services, disputed the notion that the university promotes sex.

You know, you'd think all the libs on campus would have some automatic instinct to back any group with "revolution" in their name. That's a brief side note.

Rosenthal's flawed reasoning behind thinking the university isn't to blame:

He said students mistakenly think everyone on campus is having sex. The National College Health Assessment Survey, which included Harvard and hundreds of other campuses, found that about 29 percent of students reported not having sex in the past school year. For the 71 percent who are having sex, it is crucial to promote safety, Rosenthal said.

"Some students may have a feeling that acknowledgment is condoning," he said, "and it's not."

1) Twenty-nine percent not having sex in the last year is a small enough number to allow the use of the colloquialism, "everyone" in regards to those doing it. 2) He's right, acknowledging isn't condoning, but they're not just acknowledging over at Harvard, they're promoting. I don't care what argument you try and throw at me, putting out free condoms is promoting sex.

Funny Video, Unfunny Cause

2007-03-22T17:47:00.000-04:00

Here's a comedian's spoof of what it would be like if Australian David Hicks who is currently detained at Gitmo appeared on MTV's Cribs:

Getup.org ruins this comedic video by advertising their website where you can petition for "David's" release. A visit to the site greets you with this message:

Already more than 55,000 people have joined GetUp's petition to the Australian Government, asking our leaders to bring David Hicks home. Vote David Out of the House now, and we'll add your name to the call!

Great. Let's just release poor David, it was obviously a misunderstanding. I should probably note some of the background in what led to him being in Gitmo, however.

First, let's stop calling him David. When he was taking up arms against America in Afghanistan he was known to his terrorist brothers as Abu Muslim al-Austraili (or Mohammed Dawood; remember it's a rule that a Muslim must have at least fourteen names.) According to the over-sympathetic entry on Wikipedia:

[Abu Muslim al-Austraili has been held] ... as an unlawful combatant by the United States Government at Guantánamo Bay for more than five years without trial. According to the U.S. government, Hicks served as a common foot soldier with the Taliban in Afghanistan.

But that's just according to the US government, and we all know they would create and elaborate lie and waste man power and money imprisoning an Australian citizen they knew to be innocent.

Later, the man who would never take up arms against the US:

... traveled to Albania, where he joined the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), a paramilitary organisation of ethnic Albanians fighting against Serbian forces in the Kosovo War, and served with them for two months.

For those of you who are unaware of the KLA they are an organization that:

... was accused of killing Serb civilians and Albanians perceived as being allied to the Yugoslav government. The Yugoslav authorities, the United States and other Western governments (prior to 1999) considered it to be a terrorist organization. Some former members were also widely regarded as being involved in postwar criminal activities and the destabilization of neighboring states in pursuit of a "Greater Albania".

I realize that they were on our side in that particular war, but their goals were far more militant than ours and their tactics were deplorable - yet Abu Muslim al-Austraili had no problem joining up, even posing in some of their bizarre Muslims-with-weapons porn:

I know this is getting winded, so let me get to the good stuff:

On 11 November 1999 Hicks traveled to Pakistan to study Islam. After a period of time he began training with the Lashkar-e-Toiba learning guerrilla warfare, weapons training, including landmines, kidnapping techniques and assassination methods.

Free David Hicks!

[US prosecutors] claim that, on an occasion when al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden visited an Afghan camp, Hicks questioned bin Laden about the lack of English in training material and subsequently "began to translate the training camp materials from Arabic to English". Hicks wrote home that he'd met Osama bin Laden 20 times. But he later told investigators he'd exaggerated. He'd seen bin Laden about eight times and spoken to him once.

It doesn't seem like an innocent Australian travelling through Afghanistan sightseeing would have met Osama eight times, but who am I to judge?

Unfortunately gov't cronies got to Abu's mom:

Hicks spoke to his parents from just outside the southern Afghan city of Kandahar in November 2001. "He said something about going off to Kabul to defend it against the Northern Alliance," Terry Hicks said.

Anyway, this "Free David Hicks" thing is just another cause for liberal sheep to jump on in order to demonize America. Abu Muslim al-Austraili has shown that he was willing to fight along side those who kill innocent civilians and went to Afghanistan to fight "the Northern Alliance" and met Osama Bin Laden almost a dozen times - if not more.

Side Note: As funny as the video is (and I know, it's only marginally funny) it has the classic trappings of liberal crap in its portrayal of Abu's cell. Here's an actual picture of the very cell he's housed in:

Note the cushioned bed. I guess he didn't have to curl up in that corner for two years. As Wikipedia notes, the window looks into a corridor (you mean he can't see the sky!?!?) and the inset picture is his reading room with no books in it! (He can't read poetry either!?!?!)

I can't believe these detainees even get reading rooms. I will note that there's a book in his main cell.

Ban Ki-Moon Close To Rocket Attack - Very, Very Close

2007-03-22T16:54:00.000-04:00

I sure hope he wasn't talking about how safe Iraq was, this being Ban Ki-Moon, however, he wasn't:

And now the context:

BAGHDAD (AP) - A rocket landed near the prime minister's office Thursday during the first visit to Iraq by the head of the United Nations in nearly a year and a half, sending Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon ducking unharmed behind a podium at a news conference.

The attack came as Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government said it had been negotiating with Sunni insurgents for months, and the U.S. military said that it had released a senior aide to Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr on al-Maliki's request.

The rocket caused no injuries but rattled the building in the heavily guarded Green Zone, sent small chips of debris floating from the ceiling, and left a three-foot-wide crater about 50 yards away outside.

Oh, my first comment was somewhat on the mark:

It struck right after al-Maliki, standing next to Ban, had finished telling reporters that Ban's visit was a sign that Iraq was on the road to stability.

Now the right-wing blogosphere is going nuts with death wishes for Ki-Moon:

Yet more proof that prayer does not work.

No heart, no guts, no spine, no balls, no brains: there's no way on can kill people like him.

Can we get him near the blast this time, for fuck's sake?

Oh sorry. I'm mistaken. Those are the comments over at MetaFilter about when there was a failed attack on our VP over in Iraq a few weeks ago.

I'd bloviate on the point, but if you read Ultramontane's previous post, that pretty much covers it.

Needless to say (and yet I'm saying it) I'm glad Ban Ki-Moon is all right and deplore the terrorists (or "militants" as he would say) who tried to kill him/others

Elizebeth Edward's Cancer Is Back

2007-03-22T16:11:00.000-04:00

Looks like Elizabeth Edward's cancer is out of remission. I can't believe he's going on with the campaign, I don't think I'd be able to. But then, that's what they've devoted their lives to, so I can see her not wanting it all thrown out because of her cancer.

I think we all saw this coming with yesterdays news that they'd be having a press conference today after John Edwards flew home to go to the doctor with her for her check-up. My prayers go out to the Edwards and all other people suffering this horrible disease.

I feel shallow making a political point with this one, but how much would you be willing to bet that, as usual, the conservatives are actually concerned for Elizabeth Edward's life and that liberals have probably said some disgusting things about the recent passing of conservative columnist Cathy Seipp at the hands of lung cancer (she never smoked a day in her life, by the way)?

The Diggbats didn't even break from their practice of burying things from LGF for an obituary for Cathy. The stories that did slip through had sarcastic comments like this one:

Yes, remebering [sic] the gallant Cathy Seipp. What I remeber [sic] best is how gallant she was. That is what I remeber [sic].

There was this lovely comment on Kos from April, so I guess it's alright because she only had cancer, she hadn't died yet:

I'll reserve my sympathy for people more deserving of it, thanks

And right below it, this comment about Cathy's struggle with her insurance company:

but I never forget that it is people who share her beliefs that helped bring this fate down on her and all of our heads. If it weren't for the Republicans and the invisible hand true believers, we might all have universal health coverage by now.

Now, I was surprised at how many comments on these libs sites weren't horrific (not many, but still, any is better than they usually do), but most still made my stomach turn.

Now, here are a few from those vile conservatives over at Hot Air:

To Sen. Edwards: sincerest best wishes for your wife’s health.

Best wishes to the Edwards family and to Elizabeth for a full recovery. Say what you want about the man as a politician, but his priorities are well in order on this one.

Pray for them.

This is the closest any of those evil right-wingers got to stepping out of line:

I hope it’s not the cancer, but I can’t feel too bad about Edwards dropping out. It was hard to take him seriously.
However, I wouldn’t wish cancer on anyone.

And he's just knocking Edwards while wishing his wife the best.

Anyway, my prayers go out to Elizabeth. They also go out to these moonbats; clearly, something is wrong with their heads...

Hillary: You Will Conform!

2007-03-19T18:59:00.000-04:00

Jawa says this add is Obama supporters cutting Hillary down, according to Fox, Obama's campaign says they know nothing about it:

Maybe it's not from Obama, but the advertisement for Obama's site shows that it's from Obama supporters.

I guess the libs aren't following the Golden Rule of primary politics: don't cut down your opponents. Chances are it'll be Hillary, not Obama, taking on the GOP opponent in 2008, and then all these Obama supporters will either have to do a 180 to support Hillary, or wind up with a Republican President. And to them, which is worse?

Malkin Covers The Gathering Of Eagles

2007-03-19T16:33:00.000-04:00

Malkin covered the Gathering of Eagles in DC:

The media not only ignored the pro-war demonstrators, but they ignored the fact that 80% of the anti-war crowd seemed to either be Truthers or commies.

Head over to Malkin's blog for more coverage.

A Magic Negro?

2007-03-19T16:17:00.000-04:00

Well I guess I'm extra-racist, since I don't like Obama. Apparently, he's the "magic negro," sent to relieve me of all my white guilt!

Gitmo Detainee Confesses To Planning Attack On USS Cole, US Embassies

2007-03-19T16:00:00.000-04:00

I'm confused, I thought everyone in Gitmo was innocent, at least, that's what the media's been telling me.

I guess Waleed Mohammed Bin Attash didn't get the memo, because he just confessed to being the "mastermind" behind the bombing of the USS Cole.

Waleed Mohammed Bin Attash, long suspected of plotting the bombing of the USS Cole, confessed to planning the attack during a hearing at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, according to a Pentagon transcript released Monday.

He also said he helped plan the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 that killed 213, the transcript said. Seventeen sailors were killed and 37 injured when suicide bombers steered an explosives-laden boat into the battleship on Oct. 12, 2000.

"I participated in the buying or purchasing of the explosives," bin Attash said when asked what his role was in the attacks on the Cole and the embassies. "I put together the plan for the operation a year and a half prior to the operation, buying the boat and recruiting the members that did the operation."

Of course, Attash isn't the only "innocent hostage" down in Gitmo accidentally confessing to crimes. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has been going on for about a week about how he helped plan 9/11 and the murder of Daniel Pearl. In fact, he boasted that he personally beheaded the "American Jew" and for those with any doubts, he said "there are pictures of me on the internet holding his head."

Long live Gitmo! If it continues to be this successful, I'll be wearing my "Club Gitmo" t-shirt with extra pride.

24 Tonight, Get Pumped!

2007-03-19T13:41:00.000-04:00

Looks like the shit's about to hit the fan! Can Jack handle it? Of course he can! Anyway, get pumped! Here's the preview:

'I Fought The Law'

2007-03-18T22:46:00.000-04:00

I've forgotten to post my supposedly weekly "Conservative Song" these last two weeks, but I'm remembering now.

This weeks conservative song is "I Fought The Law" by the Bobby Fuller Four (my favorite version), a classic song promoting law and order, something conservatives cherish. I could post the Greenday version, but I think it's automatically stripped of all conservativeness when they sing it... Anyway, here it is:

And here're the lyrics:

Breakin rocks in the hot sun
I fought the law and the law won (twice)
I needed money cause I had none
I fought the law and the law won (twice)

I left my baby and it feels so bad
Guess my race is run
Shes the best girl that I ever had
I fought the law and the law won
I fought the law and the

Robbin people with a six-gun
I fought the law and the law won (twice)
I lost my girl and I lost my fun
I fought the law and the law won (twice)

I left my baby and it feels so bad
Guess my race is run
Shes the best girl that I ever had
I fought the law and the law won
I fought the law and the

I fought the law and the law won (7 times)
I fought the law and the

CNN Called Clinton's Mass Attorney Firings A 'Clean Sweep'

2007-03-17T20:20:00.000-04:00

News Busters has dug up a CNN report on Clinton's mass attorney firings, in which they show just how balanced their coverage is:

...an April 12, 1993 CNN special report where reporter Ken Bode called it a “one-day clean sweep.” Reno declared: “I have asked for their resignations at the request of the President…It’s important that we build a team that reflects our desire to have a Justice Department marked by excellence, marked by diversity, marked by professionalism, and integrity. I want teamwork where we’re both interested in achieving justice throughout America.”

It just so happens that in order to build diversity, Clinton had to fire every single hold-over attorney from a Republican President. The media ignores this story, Clinton firing every single Republican attorney at once (all 93 of them), but talks of how GW's firing 8 random attorneys calls for an investigation "all the way to the top?"

Here's the video from News Busters:

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

2007-03-17T11:32:00.000-04:00

Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone! Before you all go out to get completely wasted tonight, take a minute to read about the "man behind the green beer," the true reason for the holiday, St Patrick. The article's from Slate, but its surprisingly not complete crap.

Ah, and to think, in Boston the Dropkick Murphys are having an awesome St. Patrick's day concert right now...

More Unhinged Liberal "Humor"

2007-03-16T17:01:00.000-04:00

What's funnier than joking about wanting to kill the POTUS? Pretty much everything. But leave it to Digg to have this right on their (video) homepage:

Here's the video:

And here are the "tags" that College Humor gives it:

Wow. Real funny.

Some of the unhinged comments over there:

Who doesnt? I mean come on. I really want to kill the president of the united states, with a mortor [sic] launcher. First!

Is this true? Cause if so, that's a bunch of bullshit. What happened to freedom of speech up in this piece?

[A mortar launcher is] accurate if you can do math and it has the range and a large enough blast radius that you can be off a few feet. Perfect for killing the pr- I mean WW2 Nazis.

rpg + a plane with airforce and one in the name beats mortar any day

Most of those are just stupid college students posting what they find to be funny, therefor, the true award for unhinged moron comment goes to "Happy Happy Happy Man" from - you guessed it - UC Berkley:

Hmm... it's interesting to know that at this point killing the president would almost be in the country's best interest. I say "almost" because if he died, Cheney would take his place...

The base of the Democrat party in this Country has become completely unhinged.

That's Right, I'm The Man of Steel

2007-03-16T16:33:00.000-04:00

Hat tip to Hot Air which posts both of these stories, which prove that I may survive well into my hundreds:

The first is a study that shows that prayer has a "small, but significant" beneficial effect on the sick. Allah sums it up:

The author looked at 17 studies [on the effects of prayer on recovery] over 40 years and found “significant improvement or favorable trends” among patients in 12 of them, according to the Arizona Republic.

He also points out the atheist objections against it. They can bitch and moan all they want for all I care. I know prayer works and will keep practising it no matter what any scientific study tells me.

The second story is this one:

He doesn’t ask for directions after repeatedly taking wrong turns, and when he’s hurt you’d never know it.

The stereotypical “tough guy” or “real man” rarely asks for help or shows signs of weakness, because then he wouldn’t be a guy, right?

While many scientists have considered these masculine tendencies to be barriers to health and recovery, a small study of about 50 men suggests the opposite. The man-of-steel mentality, often associated with military men and those in other high-risk occupations, can boost and speed up a guy’s recovery from a serious and/or traumatic injury possibly.

“It has long been assumed that men are not as concerned and don't take as good of care of their health,” said lead study author Glenn Good of the University of Missouri, Columbia, “but what we're seeing here is that the same ideas that led to their injuries may actually encourage their recovery.”

Wait a minute. Aren't you going to throw some anti-war rhetoric into your scientific study?

The annual incidence of traumatic brain injuries in the United States is greater than that of all cancers, Good writes in his study, and men account for three-quarters of such injuries. The number will increase if the Iraq war continues, he said.

Thanks. Allah adds a good exit question:

Isn’t it better to be a cringing beta male who never takes risks and therefore never has to heal in the first place?

Regardless of all of Allah's complaints, the fact is, I'm going to live to be at least 154 years-old.

Liberal Hatred

2007-03-16T16:01:00.000-04:00

As LGF points out the nutroots are at it again in their vicious attacks on conservatives suffering with poor health, this time over Rummy's recent hospitalization for heart troubles. Over at the Politico the comments become outrageous, here's what a few of the well-wishers had to say:

THEY FOUND A HEART ? any chance they located a SOUL ? oh wait he sold that years ago

Rummy was probably having a heart installed, since he's not ever had one.

At least he could have gone to Walter Reed.

CBC [an earlier poster who said, "[G]od bless" Rumsfeld], God is blessing the entire Bush administration with his wrath right now. God has even warned people like you to take off the blinders and not follow these ravenous wolves, liars, murderers and thieves into perdition.

Wouldn't that require to actually have a heart ???

May God forgive all of rummy's followers, supporters, & peanut gallery crazies.

Why should any reasonable American care whether he lives or dies? Prisons are filled with the likes of Donald Rumsfeld.

Yeh Rizzo [who said Rummy's service was greatly appreciated], I bet it's really appreciated by these folks too: http://www.iraqbodycount.net/

Washington Heart Center? Were all the rat-infested rooms taken at Walter Reed?

The most surprising thing about this story is that Rumsfeld has a heart!!!!!!!!!!

Since Rumsfeld actually served on active, the best thing I can say about him is that he was not a draft dodging coward like Bush, Cheney, and Rove. He was merely delusional and incompetent.

good to know he has a heart...I wasn't sure

Oh, and those "compassionate conservatives" are Snerd? See the link I posted. Libs have been nice way too long. Live with it. You think Rummy gives one hemorrhoid pinched turd about all the destruction and carnage he's helped inflict in the Middle East? YGTBSM If that's your definition of God's way then no wonder people are running from Christianity faster than Bush from Vietnam.

No one who actually served on active duty would have anything good to say about Rumsfeld. I served in[V]ietnam and the best I can say is that at least he was not some ultra right christian sideshow freak and redneck bigot, like most of [W]'s base.

I'll end with what is closest to a voice of reason left on the Left.

I retired from the Navy 3.5 years ago. I certainly don't like Donald Rumsfeld. I personally think he is an idiot. I don't like the guy , or the fact that our men and women are over there. In spite of that, I sure as hell wouldn't stoop to the level some of you have. Get rid of the hatred and do something positive for a change. Go ahead and flame away. Show the world just how intolerant the party of tolerance really is.

Way to bring in that classic liberal compassion.

What Would Gandhi Do? Apparently, Offer Himself 'To The Butcher's Knife...'

2007-03-15T17:31:00.000-04:00

Here's a great Fred Thompson thought to give all you conservatives a stiffy:

What would Gandhi do? I don't think "collective suicide" makes good theology, let alone American foreign policy.

Oops, almost forgot. Hat tip to Hot Air, which has some good links to go along with the audio.

Hannity Doesn't Understand Church Teachings

2007-03-15T17:19:00.000-04:00

Apparently Hannity doesn't understand Catholic teachings. This makes me sad; I always new that he wasn't the greatest thinker, that his show was a feel good talk show (as opposed to Limbaugh, who has substance). Here's Hannity arguing with a Catholic priest about birth control:

Assuming you know anything about Catholic theology, you know Hannity is way off. The priest might have pointed that out had Hannity let him get a word in.

Hannity keeps spouting Scripture like some bible-thumping Protestant. Apparently he doesn't realize the Church has been given the ability to interpret Scripture to help Catholics lead a more moral life. The old Testament tells us that God is against birth control; he actually kills Onan for "pulling out" early. As a Catholic figure, Hannity shouldn't be acting like a man of the Faith while at the same time going against Church teaching. No one said being a Catholic was easy.

Hannity shows his misunderstanding of the issue when he says the Church allows birth control, doesn't it father, referring to natural family planning, the process of following a woman's ovulation cycle and having sex at times when pregnancy is least likely. This isn't birth control! This is embracing part of God's nature and limiting the chances of pregnancy! Birth control is having no self control and having sex whenever you want to, "consequence" free, by using artificial methods.

Hannity needs some more theology lessons. Just because he disagrees with, or doesn't understand, Church teachings doesn't make them wrong. It makes him a flawed human (which we all are) who either needs to study theology further to come to terms with these issues, or pick a new religion that lets him create his own dogma, something he apparently thinks he's entitled to do now.

Hat tip to Hot Air for the video.

Super Humans

2007-03-15T16:26:00.000-04:00

For some reason Ace had some post the other day (maybe yesterday - maybe today) about super humans or something. Maybe this is what he was talking about (it's not):

I'll Take The Good With The Bad Any Day

2007-03-15T16:19:00.000-04:00

After posting a video that has no doubt given you some at least subconscious hatred for Muslims as an extension of your hatred for the Morons at Concordia, here's a story about hyper-sensitive liberals in Britain getting set straight by a prominent leader of the Muslim community:

[O]rganisers of the Kirklees Primary Music Festival decided to change the script to be ’sensitive’ to Muslims at a recent committee meeting.

Committee member Gill Goodswen, head teacher of Stile Common Junior School, defending the move.

She said: “We have to be sensitive if we want to be multi-cultural. It was felt it would be more responsible not to use the three little pigs.

“We feared that some Muslim children wouldn’t sing along to the words about pigs,’ she said.

But Shaykh Ibrahim Mogra from the Muslim Council of Britain branded the move ‘bizarre’.

He said: “The vast majority of Muslims have no problem whatsoever with the Three Little Pigs. It’s always been the traditional way of telling the story and I don’t see why that should be changed.

“There’s an issue about the eating of pork, which is forbidden, but there is no prohibition about reading stories about pigs. This is an unnecessary step.”…

Mr Mogra said: “How far are we going to go? Are we going to change the seven dwarves because it’s discriminatory towards people who are physically less able? Where do you draw the line?

“Every time we get these stories Muslims are seen more and more as misfits. We have to accept there’s a predominant culture here.”

Consequently, I'm a Catholic and am therefore not permitted to eat meat on Fridays during the season of Lent (which we are currently in.) I therefore am offended that the libs in the world aren't jumping through hoops to ban all public mentions of meat (or any of the animals that meat is derived from) on Fridays leading up to Easter. I guess it's because they're not afraid that if they don't I'll cut their heads off, but still.

Hat tip on that story to Hot Air, by the way.

Intifada At Concordia

2007-03-15T16:09:00.000-04:00

Here's a disturbing video via our friend over at LGF documenting the amazing level of power the Muslim students and their brainwashed liberal puppets are able to assert over free speech and even the police force at Canada's Concordia University.

This film documents their disruption (that ultimately led to the cancellation) of former Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu's speech, sponsored by the Israeli student organization, Hillel:

Funniest Headline Ever?

2007-03-15T16:07:00.000-04:00

Possibly. But there have been some pretty damn funny headlines out there:

Cats Invade Neb. House, 3 Injured

Surge At Work: Troop Deaths Drop From 42/Month To 17/Month

2007-03-14T16:58:00.000-04:00

Great news in Iraq (that you won't hear from the mainstream media, but let's not let that get us down):

The rate of killings of US troops in Iraq has been on the decline, down by 60 percent, since the launch of the new security measures in Baghdad, according to statistics revealed by the Multi-National Force -Iraq Combined Press Information Centre.
Only 17 members of the US military in Iraq have been killed since February 14 till March 13, compared to 42 from January 13 to February 13; the rate was on the decline during the first month of the security crackdown, compared to a month before.

Two of the 17 soldiers died at US Baghdad camps of non-combat causes.

The remarkable decrease in killings among the US troops came at a time when more of these troops were deployed in the Iraqi capital, especially in districts previously regarded as extremely hazardous for them such as Al-Sadr City, Al-Azamiyah, and Al-Doura.

Meanwhile, US attacks on insurgent strongholds north of Baghdad curbed attacks against helicopters. Before the new security plan, many such craft were downed leaving 20 soldiers dead.

The US army in Iraq had earlier said that sectarian fighting and violence in Baghdad had dropped sharply, by about 80 percent, since the launch of the plan.

My God, that's great news! Looks like the surge is working it's magic (of course, we already new that) The news is so great, I won't even let this assertion from Ace get me down:

Now as to that source. It's the Kuwaiti News Agency. Why is it that Drudge had to find this on a foreign outlet rather than on any American news source?
The information comes from the DoD. It was fed to the media. Why is it only a Kuwaiti outfit publishes it?

Damn media. I guess a drop from 42 troop deaths one month to 17 the next month isn't news worthy, huh? I remember when they were telling us every time we hit a "grim milestone."

Dems Itching To Stop Corruption, Even If It's Made Up

2007-03-14T16:14:00.000-04:00

This annoys me to no end.

Liberals and the mainstream media are whining and moaning that GW has fired a handful (8) of US attorneys while completely ignoring the fact that Clinton fired 93 of them!

And of course, ABC’s "justice correspondent" Pierre Thomas was quick to note:

Democrats suspect key White House advisor Karl Rove played a role in the firings and they want to investigate whether Republicans on Capitol Hill also were at play.

ABC is playing this as a scandal with the makings for "a trail that points straight to the top." However, no crime was committed here! Sound familiar (I'm looking at you, Ms. Plame!) Drudge today links to the very law that clearly states "United States Attorneys are subject to removal at the will of the President."

What is it liberals don't get about this! You waste people's time when you investigate things that aren't illegal! If the Democrats are so itching to take down corruption, they only need to look within their own party! Alcee Hastings, John Murtha, Harry Reid, William J. Jefferson, John Conyers, and Alan B. Mollohan, to name a few.

And now it looks like GW may have to throw a loyal staffer to the wolves. From Mexico (where he's busy promising Mexicans open borders), GW said "...mistakes were made and I'm frankly not happy about them." Of course, he's not referring to the firing of the attorneys, because absolutely nothing was wrong with that. He's referring to how the political "fallout" was handled.

Now, with Rummy gone, libs are itching for a new public enemy number one, and it looks like they may have found their man in Alberto Gonzalez. They've already started calling for his resignation. How long until he gets sick of the bitching and gives in like Rummy did?

Liberals are literally crippling our country's ability to defend its self. They pointlessly drag members of the Bush administration to court for hearings investigating events that aren't even crimes. They actually charge Scooter Libby for forgetting some dates while being investigated for an act that, surprise, wasn't a crime! They bitch and bitch until members of GW's cabinet resign. Can't they just let the government do its job; defend America? Apparently votes are more important to them than the lives of Americans.

Two Great Global Warming Stories

2007-03-13T14:30:00.000-04:00

Apparently ignorance isn't bliss:

A North Pole expedition meant to bring attention to global warming was called off after one of the explorers got frostbite. The explorers, Ann Bancroft and Liv Arnesen, on Saturday called off what was intended to be a 530-mile trek across the Arctic Ocean after Arnesen suffered frostbite in three of her toes, and extreme cold temperatures drained the batteries in some of their electronic equipment.

What do you know? It's cold in the North Pole! What did they expect? Did they go to the North Pole, believing their own liberal global warming hysteria, thinking it be a nice, warm vacation? Instead they experienced temperatures reaching 100 below zero and one of them got severe frost bite on her foot!

It be funny if they weren't so stupid. Apparently, they made a major scientific discovery. It's cold in the North Pole:

Then there was the cold - quite a bit colder, Atwood said, then Bancroft and Arnesen had expected. One night they measured the temperature inside their tent at 58 degrees below zero, and outside temperatures were exceeding 100 below zero at times, Atwood said.

Well I'm glad the trip wasn't a complete waste! Of course, they had their excuses all prepared:

"They were experiencing temperatures that weren't expected with global warming," Atwood said. "But one of the things we see with global warming is unpredictability."

Of course! Us simpletons seem to think that global warming, by definition, causes the planet to warm! But the truly great scientific minds know that it just throws off the global climate, conveniently making it impossible to disprove. Why do they call it "global warming" if it causes temperatures of 100 below zero in the North Pole?

And next up, a story that actually embraces the idea that global warming causes warming. Tell me if this is the fuzziest logic you've ever heard:

...thanks to global warming, the Tokyo area is having one of its earliest cherry seasons ever.
According to predictions released by Japan's Meteorological Agency, the trees are expected to bloom as early as this weekend in the capital area, where about a quarter of all Japanese live.
That would be 10 days earlier than average and the second earliest since the agency started compiling data in 1953.

You're telling me it's proof of global warming that Japan's cherry blossoms are blooming 10 days earlier than average! That's moronic! That's called a fluke, not proof! 10 days! These are the same people that are telling me global warming is a very complicated thing, and that freezing temperatures in New York and (apparently) the North Pole don't disprove it! How are cherry blossoms blooming 10 days earlier than the average a sign in anyway that global warming is real?

These people are unreal! They refuse to believe that signs of warming on Mars equal to that of the Earth's are a sign that the sun is causing the Earth's warming, and they refuse to believe that, despite the fact that polar bears are thriving, they aren't in danger from global warming, but they tell us that freezing temperatures in the North Pole and cherries blooming 10 days early are a sign of global warming?

I mean, my God, it takes more faith to be a liberal than it does to be a Christian!

Judge Allows Terror Supporter A Trip To Disney World

2007-03-12T16:40:00.000-04:00

Isn't our justice system wonderful?

A federal judge in Illinois on Thursday approved a request for a trip to Disney World by a man who the government had once accused of aiding Palestinian militants, brushing aside prosecutors' claims that he may instead flee.
"I'm confident that he will come back," U.S. District Judge Amy J. St. Eve said in giving former Chicago grocer Muhammad Salah permission to make the trip to the Florida vacation spot....

..."I get to take it off," a smiling Salah told reporters after court, pointing to a bulge under his left sock where the government has placed an electronic monitoring bracelet to make sure he stays under house arrest.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph M. Ferguson opposed allowing Salah to take off the monitoring bracelet or make the trip.

"His word has been found worthless by a jury," Ferguson said.

And libs bitch that we're being cruel to terrorists! We're letting them go to Disney World!

I don't know this guys' story, but if he's been convicted of aiding terrorists, he should be hanging from a tree somewhere. If he's suspected of terrorism, he should be sitting in a concrete room awaiting trial. Don't be surprised when this guy flees the country and ends up in Palestine killing Jews, or Iraq killing American soldiers.

(Hat tip: Jawa)

'Whale Of A Tale!'

2007-03-12T16:03:00.000-04:00

Apparently you don't want to mess with a whale:

"The current was pushing the divers into the whale," said Bridget Server, who videotaped the encounter. "They were basically right on top of the whale."

In fact, a group of three divers including Thornton had drifted directly above a 40-ton mother whale and her eight-ton baby, which was sleeping on her back.

From his hospital bed, Thornton explained what happened next.

"They both came up under us. The calf got spooked, spooked the mother," he said. "The mother flipped and threw the group every which way but loose."

The force was so intense, a videotape recording of the accident shows the actual impact and snapping of Thornton's femur, or thigh bone. You can hear a loud pop when his leg is broken.

Who in their right mind would swim up to a 40 ton whale?

Watch the video to hear the sickening pop when the divers leg is broken (the below should work soon. If not, the video is here.):

Bush 41 Stays Overnight In Hospital After Becoming Dizzy

2007-03-12T15:27:00.000-04:00

Apparently "the 82-year-old [Bush 41] 'became dizzy and dehydrated' while golfing and was taken to Eisenhower Medical Center in Palm Springs. He stayed overnight, was released this morning and is expected to resume his full schedule."

This isn't really news-worthy, I guess, except to say that he's getting old. Say a prayer for him.

***Update, 5:15pm***

Head over to Hot Air to see some of the lovely things the moonbats are saying about Bush 41. They're so civil! Not like that mean-spirited Coulter!

Gore Takes 'Current TV' To The UK, Saving Democracy As We Know It!

2007-03-12T15:22:00.000-04:00

Well, The Goracle has taken his "Current TV" channel to the UK, claiming that it "could help save democracy." Kind of like "Air America" helped save American democracy?

Liberals have their platform; the mainstream media. I don't see how introducing yet another liberal demagogue television network to the mix will in any way help democracy, but then, Al Gore's never been one to follow logic.

Farewell To A Great Blog

2007-03-12T14:33:00.000-04:00

Well, it looks like The Political Pit Bull is closing down. A great blog, we'll miss it. It's always sad to lose a good conservative blog, but it's hard work to run these things. Half the time I just don't feel like posting, and when I do I'm usually busy.

Anyway, farewell to a great blog.

Zell Miller: Abortion Broke Social Security And Caused Military And Worker Shortages

2007-03-12T14:03:00.000-04:00

Gotta love Zell Miller! He just gave a good speech at a pro-life meeting, including this bit, which is getting some (some) media attention (most notably, Rush Limbaugh, who gets a hat tip):

[The] killing: of unborn children has caused a number of social problems in the United States, including limiting the number of people who could be productive workers and contribute to social security. How could this great land of plenty produce too few people in the last 30 years..? Here is the brutal truth that no one dares to mention: We’re too few because too many of our babies have been killed... If those 45 million children had lived, today they would be defending our country, they would be filling our jobs, they would be paying into Social Security.

A good point, but liberals are pissed. You can't shed abortion in a poor light! Of course, this isn't really any different than when "rouge" economist Steven D. Levitt proposed that abortion led to a decrease in the crime rate. I didn't hear as many libs bitching then.

Of course, Rush notes that Miller's assertion is off. Rush asks how many of those children would have been Dems, who wouldn't have jobs and would never even think about joining the military? Of course, I'd say (following Kerry's lead) most of these murdered babies would have been poor blacks, so poor and so stupid they'd be duped into joining the military and get "stuck in Iraq."

Want To Be An Iraqi Policeman?

2007-03-12T10:50:00.000-04:00

A pretty funny (read: cheesy) public service add from Iraq to recruit policemen (hat tip: Hot Air):

As Allah notes: "I wonder if it’ll earn them a single extra recruit above and beyond what they get from offering good pay."

'300' Is 2007's Number One Blockbuster!

2007-03-12T10:26:00.000-04:00

The awesome movie, 300, has become 2007's number one blockbuster, earning $70 million in its opening weekend.

I saw the movie opening night, and it rocked. And a conservative political message? If anything, it had a liberal message. I mean, the movie's opening line is something like, "When the boy was born, like all Spartans, he was examined. Had he been weak, misshapen, or small he would have been discarded."

Here's the preview, including the liberal line I just poorly quoted (warning for nudity, violence, and men in speedos):

Bonus: Jawa has this ridiculous review of the movie, showing the Left's paranoia:

What's your favourite movie?
Someday soon, you may ask a new acquaintance that question, and just maybe -- because it takes all kinds -- your new friend will reply, "My favourite movie is 300."

If this happens, back away slowly. Your new friend probably kills cats for fun. Worse -- your new friend may be George W. Bush. Director Zack Snyder's new dramatization of the epic Spartan stand at Thermopylae will probably go down real well at the White House, and wherever disturbed young people massacre hundreds in violent video games. Others should exercise discretion.
. . .

As a tribute to a particular world view, 300 could play on a double bill with Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will.

And no doubt it will be screened at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. President Bush will certainly relish a film in which King Leonidas tries, and fails, to get authorization from Sparta's governing council for an attack against the forces of Persia, a.k.a. modern-day Iran. Leonidas goes ahead anyway. History calls him a hero. So much for congressional funding.

There's even evidence that the film consciously grasps at this clash-of-civilizations message. "Today we will rid the world of mysticism and tyranny," shouts a Greek soldier, leading a charge against the Persians moments after we have seen an image of dead Spartans in Christ-like poses.

No mention of the fact that if Leonidas hadn't gone against the council and defended Sparta, they'd all be slaves to the Persians.

Halliburton Apparently Has No Public Relations Firm

2007-03-12T10:04:00.000-04:00

Could Halliburton try a little harder to make the moonbats hate them? I think not:

Oil services giant Halliburton Co. (HAL) will soon shift its corporate headquarters from Houston to the Mideast financial powerhouse of Dubai, chief executive Dave Lesar announced Sunday.

Guh, the conspiracy theories are already playing in my head...

Their reasoning:

Lesar, speaking at an energy conference in nearby Bahrain, said he will relocate to Dubai from Texas to oversee Halliburton's intensified focus on business in the Mideast and energy-hungry Asia, home to some of the world's most important oil and gas markets.

Makes sense. With everyone in America believing oil is evil and treating Halliburton like Satan, when they've taken extraordinary losses to help our troops, I don't blame them. You gotta make that green.

Fred Thompson In The Race?

2007-03-12T09:56:00.000-04:00

Sorry about the slow posting (or rather no posting) this weekend, I was busy having fun, enjoying the last of my spring break, which is sadly now over.

The only story I missed that I really care about is the possibility of Fred Thompson entering the Presidential race. He pretty much rocks, mostly conservative on everything that matters, with the occasional well intentioned slip-up.

Here's the video of where he stands on the issues (something you can't find for say, Mitt Romney), hat tip to Hot Air:

He was a Senator from Tennessee, replacing Gore and being reelected with Tennessee's largest landslide for a state-wide office, or something, and now acts (on Law and Order) as well as serving as a visiting fellow for the American Enterprise Institute, researching national security and intelligence (automatically giving him more national security experience than, say, Obama).

Random Enviro/Econ Rant

2007-03-09T19:19:00.000-05:00

Fox tells me that ethanol production is driving up corn prices, and since corn feeds animals, that's driving up beef prices. Damn environmentalist, they already bitch at us for eating steaks, now they're actually driving up prices with their inefficient fuel that uses more energy to make than it produces? Guh... Just had to get that off my chest, not that it matters tonight. It's Friday and it's Lent and I'm a God-fearin' man.

Roger Ailes Mocking The Media On Their Own Turf

2007-03-09T18:15:00.000-05:00

Man, it takes balls to mock the liberal media on their own turf, at the Radio-Television News Directors Association awards ceremony. But that's exactly what Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes did when accepting his "First Amendment Award:"

Funny stuff, hat tip: Hot Air.

Leader Of 'Islamic State Of Iraq' Captured

2007-03-09T18:08:00.000-05:00

Caught a big asshole, I mean fish, in Iraq:

The leader of the al-Qaida-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq was captured Friday in a raid west of Baghdad — his identity revealed by a fellow insurgent detained with him, an Iraqi military spokesman said.

Allah has all the breaking news.

Damn Cavemen!

2007-03-09T18:06:00.000-05:00

Hm, sorry about the slow posting, I got distracted by this. Man, I can't wait for that sitcom!

Why We Don't Hear From Moderate Muslims

2007-03-09T17:50:00.000-05:00

Ever wonder why we don't hear from "moderate" Muslims? This CBC report should give you an idea:

Hat tip: LGF

Second Amendment Gets A Win In DC

2007-03-09T16:19:00.000-05:00

A rare win for the Second Amendment in DC, from WaPo:

A federal appellate panel today struck down parts of [Washington, DC]'s gun law as unconstitutional, ruling that the city cannot bar people from keeping firearms in their homes.
The decision was a victory for six D.C. residents who said they wanted to keep firearms for self-defense. But it could have much broader implications: The case eventually could wind up before the U.S. Supreme Court as a test of the thorny issues surrounding the Second Amendment and the public's right to keep weapons.

How any politician could think it was constitutional to ban people from having guns in their own homes is beyond me, but then again, liberals just pick and choose which parts of the Constitution they think are still relevant.

Sodom and Gomorrah Watch

2007-03-09T14:33:00.000-05:00

From Drudge: "California High School Students Openly Smoke Medical Marijuana in Class."

The media's funny quip: "Some California teens are giving a new meaning to 'high' school." My funny quip: "Some California teens openly disrespect the law, media laughs it off." The story reports:

Students are finding easy access to medical marijuana cards and presenting those cards to school authorities as a legitimate excuse for getting high.

But, where are the cards coming from?

This is a copy of the letter sent home to parents of students in the Grossmont Union High School District.

Seems there's a new excuse for getting caught high on campus these days:

"It's not a get out of jail free card at all."

These teens don't need medical marijuana, they're just abusing the system in a way every conservative said they would. Again, libs, either legalize it, or don't. Don't just pretend like you're trying to help the poor and downtrodden. You're pandering to the "legalize it" crowd, and look where that's gotten you. Anything for a few votes, huh?

What A Fag (It's A Joke, Settle Down)

2007-03-08T19:15:00.000-05:00

Apparently Ann was right: John Edwards, America's first female President?

Coalition Forces Destroy Anti-Aircraft Gun, Terrorists

2007-03-08T17:42:00.000-05:00

So this is an awesome video. It's what some would call military porn:

Hat tip to Allah at Hot Air, who apparently didn't want to find this on YouTube. He says, "It’s true, you can’t win the war through military means alone. But every little bit helps."

Note: The quality is way better if you go to this external site. Maybe that's why Allah didn't use YouTube.

Further Note: I give this video a day before it's labeled "obscene" for portraying the deaths of "heroes trying to defend their homeland from aggressors."

Vegetable Women Awakens

2007-03-08T17:01:00.000-05:00

A miracle in Colorado:

A woman who went into a vegetative state more than six years ago awoke this week for three days and spoke with her family and a local television station before slipping back.
"I'm fine," Christa Lilly told her mother on Sunday _ her first words in eight months. She has awakened four other times for briefer periods since suffering a heart attack and stroke in November of 2000.
"I think it's wonderful. It makes me so happy," Lilly told television station KKTV-TV. She also got to see youngest daughter, Chelcey, now 12 years old, and three grandchildren.
Before her relapse on Wednesday, Lilly told the station her biggest frustration was learning how to talk again.
After years of being fed from a tube, eating was no problem. "I've been eating cake," she said.
Her neurologist, Dr. Randall Bjork, said he couldn't explain how or why she awoke.
"I'm just not able to explain this on the basis of what we know about persistent vegetative states," he said.

Meanwhile, Terri Schiavo is still dead. The doctor noted:

... unlike the much publicized case of Terri Schiavo, Lilly is minimally conscious.

Yet this is the same doctor who was "not able to explain" why or how Lilly was waking up, so if the docs point in bringing up Terri was to say that she never would have awoken I'd have to reply that this doctor isn't even capable of explaining why Lilly can wake up. But thanks to the liberal culture of death we'll really never know whether Terri would've gotten up.

Iraqi Troop Surge Already Working

2007-03-08T16:58:00.000-05:00

What do you know, the surge in Iraq is having a "positive impact." Reports The Financial Times:

The top US general in Iraq said on Thursday that the military surge would continue “well beyond the summer”, as leading Democrats in Congress vowed to press ahead with legislation setting a timetable for withdrawal.
General David Petraeus said in Baghdad that there were “encouraging signs” the military escalation in the Iraqi capital was having a positive impact...

Hmm, a General saying something good about Iraq. Why isn't the media reporting this? They seem to report every ex-General who thinks things are going poorly. It's almost as if the mainstream media is biased. But that can't be, can it? Someone would have said something!

I liked this hidden gem:

The Pentagon this week said 2,200 military police would be sent to Baghdad to help deal with the increased detainee population that is expected as US and Iraqi forces clamp down on sectarian militias.

It's always nice when we anticipate capturing so many terrorists that we need an extra 2,200 MPs to detain them.

And showing that they either have their heads buried in the sand or are, in fact, invested in defeat, the Democrats chimed in:

Just hours after Gen Petraeus gave his first press conference since the surge began, Nancy Pelosi, the House Democratic leader, said the party would push legislation that would require US combat troops to leave Iraq by August 2008 at the latest, and earlier if the Baghdad government did not make more progress.

They truly want us to loose in Iraq, don't they? Screw the 26 million Iraqis who could be oppressed yet again by a terroristic regime that takes over once we leave, if the Dems make GW look bad it's good for them. And what's more important than winning elections? Apparently, to the Democrats, 26 million Arabs aren't.

And what is this about leaving earlier if the Iraqi government doesn't shape up? I understand the importance of accountability (however, since when do the Democrats?), but is that really a good idea? The Dems are basically saying unless you learn to handle the terrorists yourselves, we're leaving. But if they can handle the terrorists themselves, they won't need us. If they can't and we leave, they'll all die. Great logic, Madame Speaker!

Another little sign of the working surge:

US officials say there has been a fall in the number of bodies discovered in the capital, and Iraqis say that in some districts families driven out by insurgent and militia threats are returning.

I think that line deserves it's own story. If a few Iraqis are murdered, it's a sign of civil war. If the murder rate drops, it shows that the surge might have a "positive impact." Again, what media bias?

All-in-all, positive signs that the surge is already working, and will do great things once in full effect. Hopefully we'll be able to finish our job in Iraq before the Dems pull the rug out from under our troops feet. 26 million Iraqis are counting on it. The question is, what's more important to the Democrats; 26 million lives, or a few political points? Sadly, I think they've already answered the question, and it looks like they prefer genocide to losing elections.

***Update, 6:49pm***

Pathetic, this is how the mainstream media reports this story: "Iraq War Commander: Military Alone Won't Win: Nevertheless, Gen. David Petraeus Says Troop Surge Won't End Anytime Soon." Ah, to be invested in defeat...

The story opens:

As additional U.S. troops continue to flow into Baghdad, the new U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, warned that force alone would not get the job done.

"Any student of history knows there is no military solution to a problem like that in Iraq, to the insurgency of Iraq," said Petraeus. "Military action is necessary to help improve security … but it is not sufficient."
But in his first public comments since taking over, Petraeus made it clear the surge of more than 20,000 additional combat troops won't be over any time soon. After all, he said, all those troops won't even be in place until this summer.

Unreal. Not once did the ABC story mention a single one of the quotes above highlighting the success of the surge. The story closed with this carefully chosen quote:

Petraeus today did not rule out asking for even more troops down the road. He said there are no immediate requests, but that he would not hesitate to ask for more if needed.

Of course he didn't rule it out! As the original, unbiased story from The Financial Times quoted him as saying:

“Right now we do not see other requests [for troops] looming out there,” said Gen Petraeus. “That’s not to say that some emerging mission or emerging task will not require that, and if it does, then we will ask for that.”

Israeli Killer Robot

2007-03-08T16:57:00.000-05:00

Cool:

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - An Israeli defense firm on Thursday unveiled a portable robot billed as being capable of entering most combat zones alone and engaging enemies with an onboard armory that includes a machine-pistol and grenades.
The VIPeR, roughly the size of a small television, was invented as part of Israel's efforts to develop weaponry that could reduce the risks to its forces from hand-to-hand fighting against Palestinian or Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas.
The manufacturer, Elbit Systems Ltd., said that the VIPeR's small size and dual treads enable it to move "undeterred by stairs, rubble, dark alleys, caves or narrow tunnels".
As well as bomb-sniffing and bomb disposal equipment, the VIPeR can carry an Uzi machine-pistol or plant a grenade. The weapons would be aimed using an onboard video camera.
According to Elbit, which has close links with the Defense Ministry, Israel plans to deploy the VIPeR among its infantry units after field tests. The robot could also be of interest to foreign police units or U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Sound almost as cool as their robot bee assassin. Actually, this sounds more feasible.

I think this is a picture of it:

Osama Hussein's Finances, Pt. 2

2007-03-08T16:49:00.000-05:00

Looks likes Obama's finances become more and more troubling every day. I posted on his shady investing here, but now something even more shocking has come to light:

BOSTON (Reuters) - As he prepared to announce his campaign for the White House, Democratic Sen. Barack Obama took care of some unfinished business at Harvard University -- paying about $400 in parking fines dating back to his days as a law student.

Two weeks before the Illinois senator officially entered the presidential race on February 10, he paid parking fines he received while attending Harvard Law School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a Cambridge city official said on Thursday.

"I think it's great, we always like to collect," said Susan Clippinger, director of Cambridge's Traffic, Parking and Transportation Department.

Obama paid Cambridge $375 on January 26 for 17 parking tickets received between 1988 and 1990, she said. He paid neighboring Somerville another $45 for late fees on two parking tickets from the early 1990s, a Somerville official added.

Obama also paid a $73 auto excise tax he owed Somerville, said city spokesman Tom Champion.

Sorry Barrack. I didn't realize that paying taxes was only for the lowly average American. Hypocrite.

Palestine Shoots Self In Foot, Blames Israel

2007-03-08T16:37:00.001-05:00

Apparently the Palestinians have been bitching about the condition of their sewers, saying that their streets are flooding with sewage because the Israelis won't allow the needed pipes through road blocks. (Hat tip: Elder of Ziyon)

As it turns out, the Israelis are saying that Palestinian terrorists are digging up the pipes to convert into rockets to launch into Israel and kill innocent civilians. Who do you believe? I think Israel has earned a little more of my trust, seeing as how they don't target civilians, run massive propaganda efforts, or throw children off the roofs of schools.

Reports The Jerusalem Post:

A Palestinian from the Gaza Strip, who worked as a metal merchant at the Karni Crossing, was arrested by the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) earlier this month for allegedly selling pipes, which he would buy in Israel, to terror groups who used them to manufacture Kassam rockets, it was released for publication on Sunday...

The pipes that were sold to Zak were intended for civilian use, and specifically for the construction of a sewage system in the Gaza Strip.

So, I could believe that now Israel isn't letting the pipes into "Palestine," and why would they? Just so the people who ripped the original ones out of the ground can use these as weapons, too? The Palestinians have brought this upon themselves. And yes, I know not all Palestinians are terrorists, but a large majority of them support the efforts of Hamas and encourage the destruction of Israel. You get what you give.

It just shows that these Palestinian terrorists don't have Palestine's best interests at heart, they just want to destroy Israel. And what kind of person is invested in the annihilation of an entire people? You know, other than Hitler and the Muslims.

Edwards To Boycott Democrat Debate On Fox News

2007-03-08T16:37:00.000-05:00

John Edwards knows that he really has not shot at the Democrats' presidential nomination, and so he continues to take a wild shot by trying to appeal to the extreme left of the party:

Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards won't participate in a debate co-hosted by Fox News and the Nevada Democratic Party, his campaign said, as party officials tried to settle a dustup over their partnership with the cable network.

Edwards' campaign said the involvement of Fox News, which is often accused by liberals of having a conservative bias, was part of the decision to pass on the Aug. 14 debate in Reno.

"There were a number of factors and Fox was one of those. We're already planning to participate in a jam-packed schedule of debates across this country ... we can't attend every single debate and forum," the campaign said in a statement.

Other factor that have convinced him to skip the first debate: he doesn't want to win. While it may be a good move in some ways to appeal to the nutroots and moonbats and what-not, I think the other candidates have probably realized the best way to win support is to get out your message and distinguish yourself from the other candidates.

See if you can catch the conflict of opinion and truth in the next chunk of article (bolded to help you out):

The two Democratic presidential frontrunners, Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama, have not indicated whether they will attend the Nevada debate. Fox boss Rupert Murdoch threw a Senate fundraiser for Clinton, and is said to have a good relationship with the former first lady.

Online activists and bloggers quickly hailed Edwards' decision as a victory in their campaign to urge Nevada Democrats to drop Fox News as a partner.

MoveOn.org Civic Action says it has collected more than 260,000 signatures on a petition that calls the cable network a "mouthpiece for the Republican Party, not a legitimate news channel."

Yeah. Clearly Rupert had the intention of creating a "mouthpiece for the Republican Party" when he founded Fox.

Fox is and will always be a right-wing bogey man to the left, who feel the need to place all of the blame for their failing party on someone or something.

Entitlement, The Sixth Sense

2007-03-08T02:42:00.000-05:00

This Speed Bump is sad but true:

Slow Posting Today

2007-03-07T14:29:00.000-05:00

Well, we're going to shoot some guns, so slow posting today. Be back later.

Osama Hussein's Finances

2007-03-07T01:01:00.000-05:00

Obama's fuzzy investing:

Less than two months after ascending to the United States Senate, Barack Obama bought more than $50,000 worth of stock in two speculative companies whose major investors included some of his biggest political donors.
One of the companies was a biotech concern that was starting to develop a drug to treat avian flu. In March 2005, two weeks after buying about $5,000 of its shares, Mr. Obama took the lead in a legislative push for more federal spending to battle the disease.
The most recent financial disclosure form for Mr. Obama, an Illinois Democrat, also shows that he bought more than $50,000 in stock in a satellite communications business whose principal backers include four friends and donors who had raised more than $150,000 for his political committees.

What to make of this. Some - mostly on the right I'm sure - will see this as evidence that Barrack is as corrupt as Harry Reid. Hell, maybe even getting up there with the big boys like Hillary Clinton (yes, "boy." She has a penis, after all.)

Me? I'm more inclined to see this as two coincidences in what is most likely the gigantic portfolio of a millionaire. Hell, I may even buy the excuse the Obama camp is putting out there:

A spokesman for Mr. Obama, who is seeking his party’s presidential nomination in 2008, said yesterday that the senator did not know that he had invested in either company until fall 2005, when he learned of it and decided to sell the stocks. He sold them at a net loss of $13,000.
The spokesman, Bill Burton, said Mr. Obama’s broker bought the stocks without consulting the senator, under the terms of a blind trust that was being set up for the senator at that time but was not finalized until several months after the investments were made.
“He went about this process to avoid an actual or apparent conflict of interest, and he had no knowledge of the stocks he owned,” Mr. Burton said. “And when he realized that he didn’t have the level of blindness that he expected, he moved to terminate the trust.”

To me this is what should be a non-story. But here I am, living in a country of liberals that cook up bizarre, out of the way conspiracy connections like: "Bush was on the same board of trustees as this guy who once worked for a company that once employed someone who was at another time employed by another company that was partially funded by some Middle Eastern guy who owned shares in another company that Osama Bin Laden's brother-in-law's dad once owned."

The left loves to play "10 degrees of George Bush" to tie him to the most heinous criminals, terrorists and despots of our time and then they expect us to just brush something like this under the rug. Well, I'll chock this little Obama fiasco up to a blind trust, but it's a good thing to have in mind the next time someone tells you that "Bush's brother's wife's dad's uncle bought stock in Halliburton - only five years before we invaded Iraq! Coincidence? Please."

Side note: Why on earth is this story in the New York Times. It's either that the NYT has decided that they would prefer Hillary to Obama for president, or, more likely, they feel the need to get the story out there and provide the usual ten paragraphs defending Obama to ever one criticizing him before a more fair and balanced news outlet can crack the story.

Aparently The Left Says 'Faggot,' Too. Who Would Have Thought?

2007-03-06T18:35:00.000-05:00

Boy, apparently the Left loves to use the word "faggot." And no, it's not just a bunch of gays affectionately calling each other "faggot." It's the same kind of nasty, hypocritical bigotry we're used to seeing from the left.

Wil's Corner has the story.

Active Denial System

2007-03-06T18:24:00.000-05:00

Pretty damn awesome:

Hat tip Hot Air.

Appeal For Courage

2007-03-06T18:05:00.000-05:00

Check out the Appeal for Courage:

This site is an Appeal For Redress in support of our mission in Iraq.

An Appeal For Redress is an authorized means for active duty military to submit a grievance to Congress. It can be signed by Active Duty, Reserve, or National Guard military personnel.

It is authorized by DoD Directive 1325.6 and DoD Directive 7050.6.

The wording of the appeal is as follows:

As an American currently serving my nation in uniform, I respectfully urge my political leaders in Congress to fully support our mission in Iraq and halt any calls for retreat. I also respectfully urge my political leaders to actively oppose media efforts which embolden my enemy while demoralizing American support at home. The War in Iraq is a necessary and just effort to bring freedom to the Middle East and protect America from further attack.

You can expect this to get exactly zero media coverage, but it's a great idea by noble soldiers who understand that their mission is right and just and who realize that most of their fellow soldiers want to be in Iraq fighting for freedom.

If you are Active Duty, Reserve, or National Guard then sign the appeal here.

Hat tip to Jawa.

You can bet your ass you won't see fawning media coverage of these brave soldiers like the 60 Minutes fluff piece on the soldiers that want to leave Iraq because it's too hard.

It's Like Red Dawn, All Over Again

2007-03-06T16:50:00.000-05:00

This is cool:

Google Maps - Utah

Makes me wonder why there's a Cruise Missle flying over Utah. But then I came across a site that points out that it's just a plane with black wings (which you can barely make out). Oh well. I guess it's good news that we're not under attack, but it ruins a good picture.

Libby, Guilty

2007-03-06T16:27:00.000-05:00

Story on the Libby trial I've been ignoring because in many ways it's a non-story:

Former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby was convicted Tuesday of obstruction, perjury and lying to the FBI in an investigation into the leak of a CIA operative's identity.
Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, was accused of lying and obstructing the investigation into the 2003 leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity to reporters.
He was acquitted of one count of lying to the FBI.

Ace notes that those three convictions seem to be the same damn thing, reworded. I'd have to agree. Was it not obvious to this jury that since it has been proven that Richard Armitage was the one who "leaked" Plame's name, and that it's now beyond a doubt that no crime was involved in the "leak" anyway that it's far more likely that Libby just forgot some details or was confused when he "perjured" himself?

Whether it was obvious or not it's quite evident that Fitzgerald stacked the jury with people who hate the Bush administration and anyone connected to it in anyway, so they probably would have said guilty regardless of the facts.

Oh well. This is just another poor soul whose name and reputation were destroyed in the name of politics as usual.

CIA Increasing Efforts To Get Bin Laden, Al-Zawahiri

2007-03-06T16:16:00.000-05:00

Looks like the CIA is ramping up its efforts to catch Osama bin Laden and al-Zawahiri (hat tip: LGF):

Armed with fresh intelligence, the CIA is moving additional man power and equipment into Pakistan in the effort to find Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al Zawahri, U.S. officials tell ABC News. “Reports that the trail has gone stone cold are not correct,” said one U.S. official. “We are very much increasing our efforts there,” the official said.

People familiar with the CIA operation say undercover officers with paramilitary training have been ordered into Pakistan and the area across the border with Afghanistan as part of the ramp-up. Although never publicly acknowledged, Pakistan has permitted CIA teams to secretly operate inside Pakistan.

Pakistan officials say they are aware that CIA teams have increased their presence in northern Waziristan since last September when Pakistan withdrew its troops from the area under a much-criticized “peace deal” with tribal leaders.

Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell testified last week that current intelligence “to the best of our knowledge” puts both bin Laden and al Zawahri in Pakistan. It was the first time a high-ranking U.S. official publicly identified Pakistan as bin Laden’s hiding place.

I'm just wondering, what's the mainstream media doing mentioning this? I can't see how it hurts the war effort, unless maybe they like reminding us we never caught OBL...

Then again, I don't think ABC's blog counts as major media coverage. And aside from Fox News and USA Today, I'm not really seeing any other mention of this in any big news outlets, so never mind. Guess it's just another MSM whitewash...

Anyway, a great story. As Rusty over at Jawa notes, "If they ever get bin Laden, and he really is in Pakistan, don't worry: that will be some mighty fine crow, well worth the eating." Amen to that. I can't wait to serve bin Laden a big, meaty justice sandwich.

Spring A Comin'?

2007-03-06T16:10:00.000-05:00

There are robins everywhere outside my window. Does this mean spring's coming, or has global warming thrown them all off and now they'll freeze to death? I'm not sure which would make me happier...

John Edwards and Jesus

2007-03-06T15:01:00.000-05:00

John Edwards is talking about Jesus, which as any conservative knows, Democrats + Jesus = foot-in-mouth disorder.

The moronic thing that Edwards said:

Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards says Jesus would be appalled at how the United States has ignored the plight of the suffering, and that he believes children should have private time to pray at school.

It's nice to have some Freudian proof of John Edwards' lack of belief in Jesus. And where is that proof you ask? In his wording: "Jesus would be ..." Anyone who actually believes in the Risen Lord, Jesus Christ would have said, "Jesus is no doubt appalled ..."

Just another example of some secular humanist Democrat invoking Jesus in the Bible Belt because they think that the people there are so dumb they'll think, "Hey, I like Jesus too. I should vote for this guy."

Bryan over at Hot Air says about this quote:

Keep in mind that among the rationales for the Iraq war is that it would alleviate the Iraqi people’s suffering under Saddam. Keep in mind that Edwards chides America for ignoring the suffering of others. Keep in mind that Americans are consistently the most charitable people on the planet. And keep in mind that Edwards thinks the Iraq war, for which he voted, was unnecessary. America ignores suffering even though it leads the world in charity, but goes to war unnecessarily to alleviate suffering, and that’s also bad. Keep all that in mind. Congratulations! You have cognitive dissonance just like John Edwards!

I think Democrats should just follow their guts and avoid Jesus.

Conservative YouTube?

2007-03-06T14:41:00.000-05:00

I just did a link exchange with OURCountry.com, which bills itself as the conservative YouTube/MySpace. And God knows we need a conservative YouTube, with the fine people over there banning every conservative video as "inappropriate" while leaving up, for instance, the most foul, antisemitic hate speech imaginable.

OURCountry was apparently founded by Lee Troxler (Writer/Producer Farenhype 911) and Floyd G. Brown (Young Americas Foundation). They're in beta, but looking pretty good. Anyway, give them a visit and see if you like it.

Now all we need is a conservative Digg, which I've been dreaming about ever sense Ace mentioned it might be in the works.

The Great Global Warming Swindle

2007-03-05T19:54:00.000-05:00

A great article about what's bound to be a great documentary/movie/tv program:

Research said to prove that greenhouse gases cause climate change has been condemned as a sham by scientists.

A United Nations report earlier this year said humans are very likely to be to blame for global warming and there is "virtually no doubt" it is linked to man's use of fossil fuels.

But other climate experts say there is little scientific evidence to support the theory.

In fact global warming could be caused by increased solar activity such as a massive eruption.

Their argument will be outlined on Channel 4 this Thursday in a programme called The Great Global Warming Swindle raising major questions about some of the evidence used for global warming.

Ice core samples from Antarctica have been used as proof of how warming over the centuries has been accompanied by raised CO2 levels.

But Professor Ian Clark, an expert in palaeoclimatology from the University of Ottawa, claims that warmer periods of the Earth's history came around 800 years before rises in carbon dioxide levels.

The programme also highlights how, after the Second World War, there was a huge surge in carbon dioxide emissions, yet global temperatures fell for four decades after 1940.

The UN report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was published in February. At the time it was promoted as being backed by more than 2,000 of the world's leading scientists.

But Professor Paul Reiter, of the Pasteur Institute in Paris, said it was a "sham" given that this list included the names of scientists who disagreed with its findings.

Professor Reiter, an expert in malaria, said his name was removed from an assessment only when he threatened legal action against the panel.

"That is how they make it seem that all the top scientists are agreed," he said. "It's not true."

Gary Calder, a former editor of New Scientist, claims clouds and solar activity are the real reason behind climate change.

I'm counting on someone in the blogosphere to get "The Great Global Warming Swindle" up on Youtube, and pronto.

Kudos to Channel 4 for giving this "pseudoscience" airtime.

24 Tonight, Get Pumped!

2007-03-05T17:09:00.000-05:00

Well, it's spring break for us, so expect slow posting.

Anyway, 24 tonight! Get pumped! You don't get a video today, Rutheford posted it yesterday. But The Jack Sack has some funny stuff to get you pumped, "Jack Needs a Suit: a 24 Picture Book" is damn funny, and so is "The Real World: CTU."

Cheney Treated For Blood Clot [Update, With Lovely Comments From The Left!]

2007-03-05T16:41:00.000-05:00

Say a prayer for our Vice President:

Vice President Dick Cheney is being treated for a blood clot in his lower left leg that may have developed as a result of an extended trip aboard Air Force Two that took him around the world.
The clot was discovered today when Cheney went for an examination after experiencing ``mild discomfort'' in his left leg, his spokeswoman, Lea Anne McBride, said.

``In light of his recent prolonged air travel, he visited his doctor's office this afternoon,'' McBride said.

An ultrasound at George Washington University Medical Faculty Associates revealed a deep venous thrombosis, or a blood clot. He will be treated with blood thinning medication for several months, McBride said. Cheney has returned to the White House to resume his schedule, she said.

Cheney, 66, returned last week from a trip that covered about 25,000 miles over about 65 hours with stops in Japan, Australia, Pakistan and Afghanistan. The condition Cheney suffered can occur during long flights when movement is limited.

Heart patients are at particular risk for developing blood clots after plane rides for 10 hours or longer, according to the American Heart Association. Cheney had four heart attacks before he became vice president.

The story notes that "Deep-vein thrombosis can be deadly," but says nothing about specific risks to Cheney's health.

Man, this guy is literally working himself to death. And here I have trouble getting up by 2 to be at work...

***Update, 5:01pm***

By the way, with all their talk of civility, expect the moonbats to say nothing awful about this. They'd never say something like this, for instance:

Cheney Has Blood Clot in Leg; mean-spiritedness should dissolve it

Or, this would be something they'd never say:

I am sure Halliburton's Walter Reed will do a good job taking care of him!

And this, well, they'd definitely never say this:

He deserves to be put to death for his war crimes.

Oh, but wait! All of those are actual comments I found on Digg from our leftwing friends. This is exactly why I ignore liberals when they complain about Coulter kind of, sort of calling a flamboyant Senator a "faggot."

Poetic Justice - Criminals "Stealing" Illegals' Jobs

2007-03-04T15:44:00.000-05:00

"You'll never get rid of the illegals! Even if you try and crack down there are just too many!" So say the liberal and the misguided conservative alike. Somewhat contradicting themselves they also say, "If you get rid of all of the illegals our economy will collapse without their cheap labor."

Conservatives have long stated in rebuttal to the first argument that you wouldn't really need to round up every illegal in the country to get rid of them. All you need to do is crackdown on those that would hire them and remove their access to welfare in all its forms. Once you remove the incentive for the illegal to be here, they'll go where they can find work - somewhere else.

As to the second point, conservatives have long understood that in the absence of a cheap labor force the market will adjust and compensate through innovation like it always does. Another great solution is to kill two birds with one stone, and that's what they're doing in Colorado:

DENVER, March 3 — As migrant laborers flee Colorado because of tough new immigration restrictions, worried farmers are looking to prisoners to fill their places in the fields.

In a pilot program run by the state Corrections Department, supervised teams of low-risk inmates beginning this month will be available to harvest the swaths of sweet corn, peppers and melons that sweep the southeastern portion of the state.

Under the program, which has drawn criticism from groups concerned about immigrants’ rights and from others seeking changes in the criminal justice system, farmers will pay a fee to the state, and the inmates, who volunteer for the work, will be paid about 60 cents a day, corrections officials said.

Concerned about the possible shortage of field labor, Dorothy B. Butcher, a state representative from Pueblo and a supporter of the program, said, “The workers on these farms do the weeding, the harvesting, the storing, everything that comes with growing crops for the market.”

What an idea. We want (notice, I didn't write need) cheap labor. What sector of the population is largely worthless, and a pariah on society?

Oscar Winner ...

2007-03-04T13:03:00.000-05:00

A movie that is sure to vilify the Bush Administration - Hell, the main "bad guy" might be Dick Cheney. You know how Hollywood is.

LOS ANGELES — Warner Bros. studios is developing a feature film based on the lives of outed CIA agent Valerie Plame and her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson.

The movie is being co-produced by Zucker Productions and Weed Road, according to the entertainment industry publication Variety. Jez and John Butterworth, who recently completed the script for "Superbad," a James Brown biopic, are doing the screenplay.

Former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby is currently on trial on charges of obstruction of justice and lying to the FBI and a grand jury about how he learned Plame was a CIA agent and who he passed that information on to.

A special prosecutor has accused the Bush administration of leaking Plame's CIA connections to the news media in an effort to discredit her husband, a prominent critic of President Bush's handling of the Iraq war.

"The biggest element of the movie to us is the story of two people who spent their lives in service of their government, and were then betrayed by that government," said producer Jerry Zucker. He and his wife, Janet, got to know Plame and her husband when all four became involved in projects supporting stem cell research.

What kind of stem cell research? I think it's the media's absolute ignorance that pisses me off the most. There are probably three people in the world that don't support "stem cell research." But enjoy trying to explain to them the differences of "embryonic" stem cell research. It's too much for their little brains to process.

Jack Bauer Vs. Chunk

2007-03-04T01:33:00.000-05:00

I know it's not Monday yet, but who doesn't like to get pumped for 24 a little early?

Here's Jack Bauer forcing The Goonies' Chunk to divulge information that is no doubt critical to national security:

(You may have to click above to play.)

What I Learned From The CPAC Straw Poll

2007-03-04T01:16:00.000-05:00

Captain Ed sees little in Romney's CPAC victory. I'm not sure what his evidence is (other than being there), but here's how he views the Romney win:

However, the straw poll probably reflects Romney's organizing abilities far more than his popular support among conservatives. The Romney campaign turned CPAC from a get-acquainted event to a mini-convention by recruiting scores of young activists to attend CPAC and haranguing attendees to vote for Mitt. The Brownback campaign did the same with a smaller coterie of foot soldiers. None of the other candidates bothered to do anything of the kind.

In my opinion, Mitt's win comes from his mix of conservative values and a great Presidential appearance. It's CPAC; they're going to pick a conservative. And since the only other ones in the race (Gingrich and Tancredo) don't have much name recognition, they went with the conservative they felt was the most electable.

Then how did Giuliani and McCain do so well? They're not exactly the model conservatives. And McCain didn't even bother going to CPAC! Well, I'd say their high rankings are the results of scared Republicans. It can be a little daunting when they media is constantly licking Obama and Hillary's balls and paying no attention to the Republicans. Some of the folks at CPAC probably just went with the Republicans with the most name recognition (McCain and Giuliani) out of fear that they didn't have anyone electable.

It's far too early to be calling the Presidential race. I doubt most people could even guess who would win the primaries, let alone the general election. But if there's one thing CPAC showed, it's that conservatives won't be frightened by the Mainstream media into voting for a candidate just for name recognition; we'll pick a conservative who shares our values and can do the job.

'Let Them Eat Tofu!'

2007-03-04T01:03:00.000-05:00

Coulter has a good article this week (or I guess it's from last week):

Liberals haven't the foggiest idea how the industrial world works. They act as if America could reduce its vast energy consumption by using fluorescent bulbs and driving hybrid cars rather than SUVs. They have no idea how light miraculously appears when they flick a switch or what allows them to go to the bathroom indoors in winter — luxuries Americans are not likely to abandon because Leo DiCaprio had solar panels trucked into his Malibu estate.

Read it here.

Saturday Night Moon

2007-03-03T23:40:00.001-05:00

No, it's not a rip off of LGF, it's an homage to LGF.

Anyway, that's the lunar eclipse I missed. I aparently didn't miss much...

D. E. D., Dead

2007-03-03T23:39:00.000-05:00

I try not to paint a rosy picture, but it's hard not to be pleased with all of good news coming out of Iraq (unless you're a liberal). The latest:

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A U.S. air strike killed senior insurgents suspected of targeting American helicopters in Iraq, and the Iraqi government said 39 militants had been killed in western Anbar province in recent fighting.
The U.S. military said on Saturday the air strike took place on Friday north of Baghdad near the town of Taji, which is home to a major U.S. air base. It said weaponry, including a vehicle mounted with anti-aircraft artillery, was destroyed.
"Coalition forces believe key terrorists were killed during 1the [sic] air strike ... Intelligence reports indicated this network is responsible for threats to coalition aircraft," the military said in a statement without elaborating.

Insurgents have shot down eight helicopters since January 20 in Iraq, killing a total of 28 people, mostly soldiers. Six of those helicopters were U.S. military aircraft and two belonged to a private American security firm.

Iraq and the world are better places with fewer freedom-hating terrorists around. Expect for this to be buried by all the MSM outlets.

Holy Shit!

2007-03-03T22:03:00.001-05:00

Enough said.

Grim Milestone In Terrorist Deaths

2007-03-03T21:33:00.000-05:00

Terrorist Death Watch has the number of terrorists killed in Iraq and Afghanistan since the start of 2006 at a little over 3,000 (as of now.)

Hat tip to Ace and Ace of Spades HQ, who has this comment:

If Coalition KIA's are a useful metric for guaging [sic] the success of the terrorists (and failure of American policy), why is it that terrorist KIA's are never cited by the MSM as a metric of guaging [sic] the success of American troops?

The problem is that the left just sees terrorist deaths as another reason to be against the Iraq war, after all, it was our imperialistic, oil-centric foreign policy that made them terrorists in the first place.

Is Putin An Up And Coming Dictator? Absolutely!

2007-03-03T21:15:00.000-05:00

Ah, Mother Russia. What a beautiful and thriving democracy! Two stories; First:

[Paul Joyal] has also been a long-time critic of the the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The shooting came four days after he told "Dateline NBC" that he believes the Russian government was involved in the fatal poisoning of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko in London.

Second:

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia — Police clubbed protesters and dragged them into waiting buses on Saturday in response to a defiant demonstration against the Kremlin in the heart of President Vladimir Putin's hometown.

Several thousand [...people...] marched down St. Petersburg's main avenue to protest what they said was Russia's roll back from democracy.

God, Putin scares me. As Krauthammer notes:

Nonetheless, Putin's aggressiveness does not signal a return to the Cold War. He is too clever to be burdened by the absurdity of socialist economics or Marxist politics. He is blissfully free of ideology, political philosophy and economic theory. There is no existential dispute with the United States.

He is a more modest man: a mere mafia don, seizing the economic resources and political power of a country for himself and his mostly KGB cronies. And promoting his vision of the Russian national interest — assertive and expansionist — by engaging in diplomacy that challenges the dominant power in order to boost his own.

Putin is well on his way to being a dictator. There is no doubt in my mind that he is just a common criminal who would have no problems returning to the days of the gulags.

A while back Micahel Ladeen wrote a great article, "The Kremlin Murders," that showed how Putin has basically passed laws making it legal for him to have his critics assassinated. And there have been many possible victims of Putin's insecurities, including:

Alexander Litvinenko - The anti-Putin journalist who was recently poisoned with the rare radioactive material, polonium.
Victor Yushchenko - Ukrainian Presidential candidate who campaigned against Russia, and paid for it by being mysteriously poisoned. He is now President of Ukraine, but has been permanently disfigured by the mystery poison.
Paul Klebnikov - An anti-Putin journalist from Forbes who was mysteriously gunned down.
Anna Politkovskaya - A friend of Litvinenko's, she did some damning reporting on Russia's activities in Chechnya, and paid for it with her life. She was gunned down in her apartment on Putin's birthday.

Those are the few that come to mind. Putin silences his enemies, there's no doubt about that.

I worry every time I hear a story about Russia in the news. It's never good, and they're almost always a sign of bad things to come. There's Putin threatening to pull out of the nuclear arms control treaty, Putin trash talking the US (the first step to becoming a dictator is to create external enemies), Russia's selling weapons to rouge regimes (like their selling of some 29 "Tor M-1 missiles" to Iran, missiles that could be used to kill Americans or our allies), or Putin's using his nation's oil exports as a "substitute for diplomatic policy" (in other words, blackmailing the EU by denying them oil).

So, the next time you're listing off the world's up-and-coming dictators, don't forget to save a spot on your list for Putin: