President Bush has nominated federal appellate Judge Samuel Alito to the U.S. Supreme Court to replace retiring Justice O'Conner. A pretty good choice, too. Blogger Keith Burgess-Jackson looks at what kind of battle to expect, and why it's important to fight it.
Sounding like a man who's planning another run for president, John Kerry delivered a speech recently at Georgetown University. It's mostly the same old song and dance from the '04 loser. He's even showing a little bit of the John Kerry we last saw during the campaign.
On the subject of American troop presence in Iraq:
"When they could have listened to General Shinseki and put in enough troops to maintain order, they chose not to. They were wrong."Then later:
"...Our military presence in vast and visible numbers has become part of the problem, not the solution. And our generals understand this. General George Casey, our top military commander in Iraq, recently told Congress that our large military presence 'feeds the notion of occupation'".So which is it? Did we send in too few troops or too many? You can't have it both ways. Oh yeah, it's Kerry. As the Wall Street Journal's Best Of The Web puts it, "Apparently Kerry was for more troops before he was against it."
This story of political correctness run amuck comes from the U.K. Seems British banks are banning piggy banks because they might offend Muslims, who view pigs as unclean animals.
"The next thing we will be banning Christmas trees and cribs and the logical result of that process is a bland uniformity," the Dean of Blackburn, Reverend Christopher Armstrong, said. "We should learn to celebrate our difference, not be fearful of them."
To his credit, one Muslim member of Parliament recognized the nonsense of the ban, saying, "I doubt many Muslims would be seriously offended by piggy banks."
A British researcher says it's possible that people alive today could live 1,000 years or longer. He has a simple, seven step procedure. One of the steps... cure cancer. Sounds simple enough.
A mysterious object found in a Davenport home, which prompted a visit by the local bomb squad, turned out not to be a bomb. Instead, it was a device that was supposed to scare off aliens believed to be living under the ground. The device had been left by a previous homeowner, who got it from a friend of a relative.
About the friend: "He's an astrologer who believes aliens live under the ground... He was a little off his rocker."
Do ya' think?
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said his department aims without exception to expel all those who enter the United States illegally. It's about time the problem of illegal immigration was addressed this way. Of course, Chertoff saying this and the practice actually being done are two totally different things. The article correctly mentions that this idea lies in sharp contrast to the U.S. policy on illegal Cuban immigrants, which permits those who actually reach U.S. soil to stay in the country. Still, it's a great start if it holds true.
Here's an educated, positive editorial about the Fair Tax, courtesy of yesterday's Gainesville Sun.
Former ABC News anchor Chris Wallace, now host of "FOX News Sunday", discusses in an interview the tremendous amount of anti-President Bush sentiment he's seeing and hearing in the media. He says the questions he hears seem to almost always be slanted against the Bush Administration.
The last couple of days I've spent at the new house, getting unpacked and making the place more homey. I've also been doing a bit of yard work. Now the yard itself is nearly perfect. The previous owners kept it immaculate. Our next door neighbors have already told me that we have "a lot ot live up to" where the yard is concerned. The grass is nice and lush, and in a little less than an hour it can all be cut and edged. The backyard has a nice, young weeping willow which Shannon just loves. She's always wanted one in her yard.
Being out on the back porch, watching the squirrels playing on the fence or in the yard, and things all seem so right. It also helps bring on the feelings of ownership. This is OUR yard. OUR house. Sweet...
In a speech delivered to the The Media Center's We Media conference on October 5, 2005 in New York City, former VP Al Gore expounded on his views of the media's role in public discourse. It's a long, rambling, tiresome speech. I know, what else is new? Some interesting comments, though...
He talked about the "vividness and clarity" with which we (Americans) once talked amongst ourselves over "the problems and choices that we face." He says that "vividness and clarity", long lost, came back for a while in the media's coverage of the devestation from Hurricane Katrina.
I suppose he's referring to the (untrue) claims of tens of thousands of dead in New Orleans, supposedly left behind to die because of the color of their skin. Or the (also untrue) claims by New Orleans' mayor on national television of rapes and murders of women and children in the Superdome. Maybe it's the media's attempt to lay blame for all of New Orleans' mess on President Bush, while ignoring the facts (ooh, how the Left hates those pesky thinks!) that the mayor and Louisiana's Governor failed to act in a timely fashion to save their own people.
Then we get this quote...
Clearly, the purpose of television news is no longer to inform the American people or serve the public interest. It is to "glue eyeballs to the screen" in order to build ratings and sell advertising. If you have any doubt, just look at what's on: The Robert Blake trial. The Laci Peterson tragedy. The Michael Jackson trial. The Runaway Bride. The search in Aruba. The latest twist in various celebrity couplings, and on and on and on.I have to agree with the VP here. But, here's the thing... Most of the conservative people I know, whether family, friends or through work, couldn't care less about these things. Celebrity goings on, triels, etc. are of little or no interest to most of us. (I'm speaking for my own little circle now, not generalizing for everyone). Most of the people I know who talked about Blake, Laci, Jacko, Aruba, etc. are the same folks I know who read People Magazine, watch Entertainment Tonight and watch or tape soap operas.
...it is television delivered over cable and satellite that will continue for the remainder of this decade and probably the next to be the dominant medium of communication in America's democracy. And so long as that is the case, I truly believe that America's democracy is at grave risk.Allrighty, then...
Of course, I'm referring to to Cindy Sheehan. Here's a quote from her latest posting at Huffingtonpost.com
The war machine and the people who serve it in our government are getting a little afraid themselves of not being able to keep the industrial military complex rolling in the bloody dough, so George and friends have come up with a new enemy whose atrocities also can't be contained to borders and that doesn't wear a national uniform: The Bird Flu... Our new enemy of the state will be Birds who may be ill and we shall be very afraid every time we sneeze and pray that our government saves us from more imaginary threats.It could be funny watching to see what idiotic ramblings she comes up with next, if the woman herself weren't so pathetically disturbed. She needs help. Psychological help. Grief counseling. Something. Instead, the moonbats of the extreme Left are using her as a poster child for their causes. Sadly, the media is eating it up. Cindy is a victim of their games, but she's apparently too far gone to realize it.
Everything has gone about as well as we expected with the move. Last Friday, in the course of four rainy miserable hours, we moved from the old place to our new house. All the painting and preliminary work went well, with my father-in-law doing a fantastic job of getting hte house ready. The only issues we had were with utilities. We were without internet from before the move until sometime Sunday, hence no updates. We do have about 30 boxes in the house, with another 30-40 in the garage, but it's totally liveable now.
The move into the house has officially begun. My father-in-law is getting the painting inside finished, and we've started moving things from the old place to the new one. We did have a nasty little surprise the first time we opened the mailbox.
Nobody thinks twice about a mailbox. You either like the way it looks, or you don't. In this case, we did. So we didn't give it any more thought. Until we opened the blasted thing. A nice flowering vine was growing up around the post. It looked great, except that the vine had grown into the mailbox itself. Lots of vine tangled inside the box. Not a problem. But inside the box, with the vine, about a dozen big ugly cockroaches. Urgh! I absolutely detest these bugs, no the mailbox, it's post, and the ground around it are going to be drenched in some highly potent roach death liquid. They'll be sterile for years! The pretty vine around the mailbox... already gone. I pulled it, and the roach or two that were on it, and they've been disposed of.
I'm just glad I found them before my wife...
Senator Saxby Chambliss, chairman of the Senate Ag Committee, is considering seeking trade sanctions against Japan if that nation's ban on U.S. beef isn't lifted. Japan says it's concerned about the potential for BSE, also known as Mad Cow Disease, to infect U.S. cattle. Let's look at some facts, shall we?
There have been two cows in the U.S. found to be infected with BSE. One of those was born, and spent most of its life, in Canada. The other was an older cow, born before a feed ban was instituted in the U.S. to prevent the spread of BSE.
Japan, on the other hand, has a national herd size that is only 3.6 percent the size of the U.S. herd. Yet they have seen 20 confirmed cases of BSE.
Do the math. Japan has seen 10 times the BSE cases we have. Yet we raise more than 27 times the number of cattle. Sounds like their biggest fear should be their own cattle.
The Left hates it, but one of the most popular children's books right now is titled "Help! Mom! There are Liberals Under My Bed!". It's written by Katharine DeBrecht, pen name for a mother of three from South Carolina. Here's the book description from Amazon:
This full-color illustrated book is a fun way for parents to teach young children the valuable lessons of conservatism. Written in simple text, readers can follow along with Tommy and Lou as they open a lemonade stand to earn money for a swing set. But when liberals start demanding that Tommy and Lou pay half their money in taxes, take down their picture of Jesus, and serve broccoli with every glass of lemonade, the young brothers experience the downside to living in Liberaland.Oh, do you recognize the characters under the bed?
We get an interesting look at how a story is written (and rewritten) for the Associated Press, courtesy of Rightwingnews.com, and Mary Katharine who compiled the info.
A little background: Cindy Sheehan was arrested yesterday while protesting outside the White House.
An AP story was filed at 1:57 pm by correspondent Jennifer Kerr. The lead was:
Cindy Sheehan, the California woman who has used her son's death in Iraq to spur the anti-war movement, was arrested Monday while protesting outside the White House.At 3:00 pm, an update to the story was posted, with a slightly altered lead:
Cindy Sheehan, the California woman driven by her son's death in Iraq to re-ignite the anti-war movement, was arrested Monday while protesting outside the White House.Thirty-eight minutes later, another update appears, with another tweaked lead:
Cindy Sheehan, the California woman who became a leader of the anti-war movement following her son's death in Iraq, was arrested Monday along with dozens of others protesting outside the White House.The thinking inside AP headquarters, blogger Mary Katharine says, must have been something like this:
"You know, because the whole process was, like, so organic. Cindy didn't really "use" or "drive" anything so much as she "became" the conscience of a country veering horribly off course. It was her simple request to meet with the President, her private grief, and her authenticity that won us over. Not that we're on her side, mind you."Seems like a lot of thought went into making Ms. Sheehan sound more and more favorable as the story was being reposted. Why do you suppose the AP would try to portray Sheehan in a more positive light? Can you say... agenda?
Jerome Corsi at WorldNetDaily tackles the ongoing frenzy on the Left to blame Hurricane Katrina, as well as everything else weather-related that happens, on global warming. Now that Babs Streisand and Robert Kennedy Jr. have proclaimed global warming the second worse evil on the planet (after President Bush), we should all be motivated.
I still wonder, though. If global warming is causing stronger, deadlier hurricanes, why aren't we seeing stronger and deadlier hurricanes in the Pacific Ocean? Or the Indian Ocean? Or in the southern hemisphere? I don't get it.
Bill Maher, host of the HBO show "Real Time", compared first lady Laura Bush to "Hitler's dog" during his Friday night cablecast.
That's the same show on which aging comedian George Carlin referred to Barbara Bush as a "silver d----e bag".
These comments, on top of those I mentioned last week from Bette Midler and Kanye West's outrageous statements the week before, show the true nature of the bitter, hateful Left. Anything they disagree with will be ridiculed, blasted and insulted. People of compassion my a--.
Arthur Chrenkoff, the Australian blogger who chronicled the positive news stories out of Iraq and Afghanistan in his regular "Good News From..." columns, has filed his last reports. He's taken a new job, which will prevent him from blogging, so he recently said goodbye to the blogosphere. His contributions will be missed.
Scott Stevens, a weatherman in Idaho, has been in newspapers across the country where he was quoted in an Associated Press story as saying the Yakuza Mafia used a Russian-made electromagnetic generator to cause Hurricane Katrina in a bid to avenge the atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima. He has left his TV job to pursue his conspiracy theories full time.
To read more, here is Stevens' website: www.weatherwars.info
