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Chickendove filmmaker Brian de Palma has shocked Venice audiences with his latest attack on the military, Redacted. Instead of making a film about the heroism of the men and women who have served our country honorably and well (unlike de Palma), de Palma instead chose as his subject matter a rape and killing that took place in Iraq.

This is not to say that all of our troops serve honorably without fail. We have the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal is an example, among others. Black chapters in our history.

From Reuters:

"The movie is an attempt to bring the reality of what is happening in Iraq to the American people," he told reporters after a press screening.

"The pictures are what will stop the war. One only hopes that these images will get the public incensed enough to motivate their Congressmen to vote against this war," he said.

There are far more examples of heroism and good that has come out of Iraq, far more than the very few isolated incidents of criminal behavior. Those who have committed atrocities in Iraq have faced charges and are serving prison sentences with a future reduced to being branded Federal Felons when they have completed their sentences and subsequently discharged. In the case of the incident that de Palma depicts, four of the five soldiers involved have been sentenced to military prison for a period of 5 to 110 years. It is safe to say that a couple of them won't be getting out of prison any time soon.

Instead of focusing on the good deeds that are done every day, form giving toys and sports equipment to kids and the reconstruction of a country, de Palma and his Hollywood chickendove cronies prefer to focus on the evil perpetrated by a very few punks. Instead of showing the brutalities perpetrated by Saddam Hussein, and the courage of the troops that liberated a country that had suffered horrible degradations and mass murder, we get a detailed movie focusing on an isolated incident.

There are too few movies produced that show the good and honorable deeds of our Armed Forces. Hollywood would rather make films depicting American atrocities, rather than heroism. They would rather make films like Casualties of War rather than The Great Raid, We Were soldiers or The Green Berets.

This is not to say that ugly things did not occur, and, in fact, the incident de Palma focuses, the rape of a young girl and murder of her family, did happen. We know this to be a fact. We also know that the perps are in prison, serving very long sentences.

We also know that Al Qaeda in Iraq has perpetrated many horrendous crimes against the people of Iraq. One of the best documented incidents was written and photographed by Michael Yon, and published on his website. Why are we not seeing Hollywood produce a film depicting these important incidents? When they do, I will cut chickendove moviemakers like de Palma a little slack. Not much slack, but a little.

The film is listed as being slated for a limited American release and is expected to play better in Europe. No surprise there!

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The Senate EPW runs a good website on global warming that I don't read anywhere often enough. This week they have an article on a paper being published that shows that "man-made global warming" is NOT a scientific consensus. In fact, the article points out that less than half of all peer reviewed publications support the U.N.-Al Gore position that it is our fault that the Earth is getting warmer.

From Michael Asher's piece on Daily Tech:

In 2004, history professor Naomi Oreskes performed a survey of research papers on climate change. Examining peer-reviewed papers published on the ISI Web of Science database from 1993 to 2003, she found a majority supported the "consensus view," defined as humans were having at least some effect on global climate change. Oreskes' work has been repeatedly cited, but as some of its data is now nearly 15 years old, its conclusions are becoming somewhat dated.

Medical researcher Dr. Klaus-Martin Schulte recently updated this research. Using the same database and search terms as Oreskes, he examined all papers published from 2004 to February 2007. The results have been submitted to the journal Energy and Environment, of which DailyTech has obtained a pre-publication copy. The figures are surprising.

Of 528 total papers on climate change, only 38 (7%) gave an explicit endorsement of the consensus. If one considers "implicit" endorsement (accepting the consensus without explicit statement), the figure rises to 45%. However, while only 32 papers (6%) reject the consensus outright, the largest category (48%) are neutral papers, refusing to either accept or reject the hypothesis. This is no "consensus."

According to the piece, there is a very small margin between those papers that explicitly accept and those that explicitly reject the Al Gore position on global warming. Even playing loosy-goosy by claiming the middle ground implicitly supports "man-made global warming" you still don't get anything resembling a consensus on global warming.

The article also points out that of all of the published papers in the last several years there is only one that claims that there will be catastrophic consequences due to "man-made global warming." That's probably the paper the social engineers who brought us the IPCC report read.

Schulte's survey contradicts the United Nation IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report (2007), which gave a figure of "90% likely" man was having an impact on world temperatures. But does the IPCC represent a consensus view of world scientists? Despite media claims of "thousands of scientists" involved in the report, the actual text is written by a much smaller number of "lead authors." The introductory "Summary for Policymakers" -- the only portion usually quoted in the media -- is written not by scientists at all, but by politicians, and approved, word-by-word, by political representatives from member nations. By IPCC policy, the individual report chapters -- the only text actually written by scientists -- are edited to "ensure compliance" with the summary, which is typically published months before the actual report itself.

I think that this last is something many people are unaware of: that the reports quoted as touring the "consensus" and the "90% likely" claim were not written by climate scientists but by politicians. In other words, the "Summary for Policy Makers" was written by and for policy makers. This is also pointed out in the Avery/Singer book, as well as other shortcomings to the IPCC reports, such as charts of scientific data modified in a way to so as to support the climate alarmist viewpoint.

On the EPW site there is another article posted last week on new peer-reviewed publications that shoots down the "man-made" global warming madness.

"Anthropogenic (man-made) global warming bites the dust," declared astronomer Dr. Ian Wilson after reviewing the new study which has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Geophysical Research. Another scientist said the peer-reviewed study overturned "in one fell swoop" the climate fears promoted by the UN and former Vice President Al Gore. The study entitled "Heat Capacity, Time Constant, and Sensitivity of Earth's Climate System," was authored by Brookhaven National Lab scientist Stephen Schwartz. (LINK)

"Effectively, this (new study) means that the global economy will spend trillions of dollars trying to avoid a warming of ~ 1.0 K by 2100 A.D." Dr. Wilson wrote in a note to the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee on August 19, 2007. Wilson, a former operations astronomer at the Hubble Space Telescope Institute in Baltimore MD, was referring to the trillions of dollars that would be spent under such international global warming treaties like the Kyoto Protocol.

"Previously, I have indicated that the widely accepted values for temperature increase associated with a doubling of CO2 were far too high i.e. 2 - 4.5 Kelvin. This new peer-reviewed paper claims a value of 1.1 +/- 0.5 K increase for a doubling of CO2," he added.

It goes on to point out that0.7K of that warming has already taken place, thus leaving a mere 0.4K of warming that can be predicted from CO2 forcing, providing that CO2 levels continue to increase to the point where it has doubled to roughly 560 parts per million, That's a very small fraction of a percent of the atmosphere. This is in keeping with scientific understanding that CO2 loses its capacity to force temperature increases as it grows in abundance in the atmosphere.

This second article on the EPW website goes into a lot of other material that proves that the current warming trend ain't our fault, including a little talked about fact that of the 0.038% of the atmosphere that is CO2, only 2.75% is derived from human activity. That means of the 383 ppm of atmospheric CO2, only 10.5ppm is caused by man. Talk about insignificant!

One more quote from the article, and I would encourage reading the entire piece:

In May 2007, the "father of meteorology" Dr. Reid Bryson, the founding chairman of the Department of Meteorology at University of Wisconsin, dismissed fears of increased man-made CO2 in the atmosphere.

"You can go outside and spit and have the same effect as doubling carbon dioxide," Bryson, who has been identified by the British Institute of Geographers as the most frequently cited climatologist in the world, said. (LINK) "All this argument is the temperature going up or not, it's absurd. Of course it's going up. It has gone up since the early 1800s, before the Industrial Revolution, because we're coming out of the Little Ice Age, not because we're putting more carbon dioxide into the air," Bryson added.

Bryson is right on the money. Just as the Earth cooled down after the Medieval Warming Period (Viking Age) as it entered the Little Ice Age, so it is with the Modern Warming Period. Solar activity, sunspot cycles, the Earth's tilt and variations in its orbit, and so many other factors, all play a role in the ongoing changes in climate, and all are ignored by the global warming fear mongers.

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There are serious problems when you have a Communist dictatorship using slave labor as a trading partner to manufacture goods. There has been a deluge of reports that products from China have poisoned pets, used lead paint in toys, defective tires, lethal chemicals in various foods and toothpaste, and so on.

From Reuters:

Mattel has only itself to blame for a huge toy recall that has stoked global alarm about Chinese-made goods, state media said on Thursday, charging that a slew of foreign safety scares had exposed a protectionist agenda.

Protectionist agenda?

"If it comes down to blame, then it all lies with the U.S. side," the paper said of the Mattel magnet recall, noting that the problem was a design defect. "The Chinese manufacturer only produced according to those specifications."

I seriously doubt that Mattel would provide manufacturing specifications that called for lead paint to be used.

There are serious ramifications when dealing with dictatorial regimes, and it isn't limited to having deadly products exported to the United States, although that has become a serious one.

The biggest problem is the amount of money that flows into China as a result of trade and how it is used: Specifically to bolster their military and totalitarian government.

Although free trade is a great thing when free countries and their people are involved. Free trade with communist regimes is not a good idea.

There are those that claim that free trade will help bolster the call for democracy. Maybe, but when the government is able to use the money that is earned from trade to enforce their will on the people, democracy hasn't got a chance.

If Mattel or any other U.S. company is to share in the blame for the deadly products they import, it is for their choice of trading partners and manufacturers, specifically dealing with communist dictatorships.

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I received an email from Senator Barbara Moonbat Boxer the other day. To my (lack of) surprise, she is once again showing her complete and total ignorance of what a U.S. pull out from Iraq will mean to the millions of Iraqis, as well as a complete lack of knowledge of the impact of the U.S. withdrawal and consequent abandonment of South Vietnam.

In Boxer's email, she writes:

Did you hear President Bush last week talking about Iraq? Instead of listening to the vast majority of the American people on Iraq, President Bush is talking about how wrong it was to leave Vietnam.

I hate to break the news to you, but Bush is right about Vietnam. When we pulled out, the North Vietnamese moved in (just as Iran will do to Iraq the moment we pull out). Hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese were put in gulags, and tens of thousands of people were murdered.

Things were worse in Cambodia where the Khmer Rouge liquidated over a third of the population, over two million people were murdered, while the rest of the population were used as slave labor.

That is what happened when we abandoned South Vietnam, at the insistence of the Democrats who ran Congress.

Democrats like Boxer are not ashamed of what happened in Vietnam, and, obviously, are willing to sacrifice millions of Iraqis to a similar fate, this time at the hands of a brutal totalitarian theocracy. Should we abandon Iraq, as we did Southeast Asia, the millions of Iraqis that have supported their liberation from tyranny and aided the formation of a democratically elected government will be forfeit.

Well, just a reminder to this President: U.S. troops stayed in Vietnam, in the middle of a civil war, for more than ten long and painful years. More than 50,000 of our young people died, countless wounded mentally and physically. Suicides and homelessness still follow too many of our Vietnam veterans. How many more would have died if George W. Bush had been President in the 1970's? How many more of our troops and innocent Iraqis will die if we don't finally end this war?

Yes, over 50,000 Americans died, and many thousands more were injured in Vietnam. As for the "suicides and homelessness" of Vietnam veterans, it is thanks to the hard-left that took control of the Democratic Party in the late '60s and early '70s that we have to thank for that. Instead of a hero's welcome, they were spat upon by the chickendoves, and called baby killers; even John Flipper Kerry referred to them as being nothing more than killing machines and war criminals.

Although how many Americans and Iraqis will die if we continue to work with Iraq in ending the terrorism and sectarian violence is valid, it is also valid, and critical, to ask "how many Iraqis will be murdered should we let the terrorists win?" We should also ask how many Americans will die at the hands of terrorists if we surrender to them now, as they will be greatly emboldened to carry out more and bloodier attacks against the U.S.

Boxer clearly doesn't understand what is at stake in Iraq, nor does she care.

Congratulations Senator Boxer, you are a Moonbat. I think we'll start calling you Senator Moonbat instead.

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Ahmadinejad of Iran is making its intentions towards its neighbor, Iraq, perfectly clear. They want to take control of the country. From FoxNews:

"The political power of the occupiers is collapsing rapidly," Ahmadinejad said at a press conference in Tehran, referring to U.S. troops in Iraq. "Soon, we will see a huge power vacuum in the region. Of course, we are prepared to fill the gap, with the help of neighbors and regional friends like Saudi Arabia, and with the help of the Iraqi nation."

This is another reason why we must succeed in eradicating the terrorists operating (with Iran's help) in Iraq, and build a functional democracy there.

Iran has been funneling arms, money and people into Iraq to help the terrorists and sectarian death squads destabilize the region so that they can then step in and institute a totalitarian theocracy in Iraq as well.

Add to that Iran's quest for nuclear weapons, and the entire region could go up in flames if we fail on delivering our promise of Liberty to the people of Iraq.

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Presidential Candidate John Cox of Illinois was the only candidate present at the Minnesota Straw Poll held this week. as such, he gave a good speech to the couple of hundred Minnesotans present for the event.

A shot video of his speech, splitting it into two parts so that it will fit into YouTubes 10 minute parameter for videos.

Part 1 of John Cox

Part 2 of John Cox

A lot of what Cox said resonates well with me, and I suspect with others as well. That being said, there were two points he made in regard to Iraq that put me off. The first is that he said if the current, democratically elected, government of Iraq doesn't get off its keester and get its political act together, we can and should replace it, just as we got rid of Saddam Hussein. The second is that we need to get Iraq's oil producing infrastructure up and fully operational and moving to the U.S.

The second point is the shorter one to explain why it bugs me, so I'll start with it. By complaining about the lack of oil production in post-war Iraq, and the need to get it flowing plays into the leftist mantra that Iraq is a "war for oil." This is not to say that he shouldn't make mention of oil production in Iraq, but the way it is phrased is important.

The way he presents it makes it sound as though we are entitled to the oil (or, more accurately, it's our oil). Getting oil production up and running to full capacity is important for Iraq for a number of reasons: Job creation, stabilizing the economy, and bringing in desperately needed revenues to facilitate the reconstruction of Iraq. It should not matter to whom Iraq sells their oil to (however I would prefer it not go to communist countries like China), and, sure, I would prefer it end up in our gas tanks in the long haul. But that is secondary to using the oil production to getting Iraq back on its feet, which is the primary goal.

Current oil production in Iraq is about 2 million barrels per day, only slightly below the target production of 2.1 million barrels. All in all, that's not too shabby a record.

As for the point on replacing the government of Iraq, Cox needs to remember that it is a democratically elected government, and as such, it should not be our decision to replacing it with something that might be more "friendly" to us. It is also an ally, and one should not threaten to remove our allies from power.

There have been numerous mistakes made in Iraq, including by the government that we helped to build and hope to see achieve good things. The Iraqi government has, with our blessing, made deals with murdering thugs like Muqtada al-Sadr, who is more interested in destabilizing the government and bringing in a totalitarian theocracy such as that which rules its neighbor, Iran.

Iraq also has to deal with rebuilding all of its infrastructure, particularly its military and police forces. This is a big job, and even though there are plenty of Iraqis who have shown the willingness to step up to the plate, they have also made themselves big targets for the terrorists. How many police stations and recruitment depots have been bombed killing and wounding hundreds of people?

On the upside, Cox resonates well on many of the issues.

He supports replacing the IRS with the "Fair Tax," which is a good move as it will encourage savings and investment by placing the tax burden on consumption.

He gets border security and illegal immigration. As he said, we don't need to reform our immigration laws but enforce the current laws.

In fact, he is right on the money on nearly issue.

It's just on those two points on Iraq that I found to be a turnoff. I hope that if he reads this he'll understand where I am coming from and reconsider his position on those two points. If he does, he will resonate much better with the mainstream Conservatives that make up the GOP.

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The Washington Times is running a piece on an Op-Ed that Rep. John Boehner wrote for Townhall.com this week. The thrust of both articles is how the GOP can regain the majority in Congress in 2008. I think Boehner hit it out of the park.

In his Op-Ed at Townhall.com, Boehner talks about what he has learned from constituents at local town hall meetings; what is important to Americans: border security, illegal aliens, the price of energy, health care, and more.

Mr. Boehner said Republicans can take back control of Congress next year with a focus on conservative principles, despite sluggish fundraising numbers and poll numbers that favor Democrats.

Yep, it can be done…the question is: will it be done?

House Republicans are hoping to build enthusiasm with their base by focusing on issues like immigration, the Democratic leadership and, to a lesser extent, the war in Iraq. They say this re-branding with the base, if successful, will pay off in increased financial contributions in time for next year's elections.

"You can always count on the Democrats to behave like Democrats," said National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman Ken Spain. "While they continue to falter, we need to continue to provide a clear alternative."

It isn't so much a need to "re-brand" but to go back to the roots that has made Conservatism successful: limited government, lower taxes which stimulates economic growth, and enforcing our immigration laws, just to name a few of the issues.

Boehner raises good points in his piece, including:

America faces the problem of rising health care costs. Millions of Americans go without health care every year, and Democrats have refused to let small businesses offer high-quality coverage and prevented workers from taking their coverage from job to job. In Ohio, people were asking why Democrats cut free market Medicare Advantage programs to pay for health benefits for illegal immigrants. And they were concerned by Democrats' plan to expand government-run bureaucratic health care to families making up to $82,000 a year, cleverly billed as an extension of "children's health insurance." We need less government and more health care; Democrats just want more government.

There are a lot of people who rail about government being too involved in their lives, including the so-called "surveillance society" of easier eavesdropping on international phone calls involving known terrorists. Yet these same people want to entrust the government with managing their health care decisions. This makes no sense! But then Liberal/Progressives rarely do make any sense.

One of the biggest issues with health care, aside from escalating costs, is being able to transport your coverage when transitioning between jobs. There are stories around about how someone with a long-term health issue is unable to get continued coverage for it when changing jobs as the new insurer refuses to cover pre-existing conditions. Maybe they found a loop hole in the coverage when people are transitioning, maybe those people made a bad choice for interim coverage that caused the loss of their condition being covered. However, there needs to be a better way of handling it so someone doesn't get surprised by the loss of coverage on a long term/permanent illness (like diabetes).

As for government pushing its health care plan on me, no thanks. When they can't, or are unwilling, to enforce our laws, how can I trust them to manage my health care? And will it be as good as what I have now, or will it be reduced to Canada Care, where everyone waits in line?

Too many Republicans believe the way to win is to lean left in order to appear "moderate." This doesn't work as the people that such politicians are attempting to appeal to will never vote for a Republican. The "fiscal conservative, social liberal" Republicans end up alienating the Conservative base and still lose to the hard-core liberal-progressives.

The bottom line is that Boehner is right: The way to win in 2008 is to get back to our conservative roots and rediscover Reaganism (minus amnesty for illegals, Reagan's one great mistake). Cut the spending and the taxes, grow the economy, secure the border, enforce the laws and win the war.

We need to open up new sources of oil production, including drilling in ANWR and the outer continental shelf. We need to embrace nuclear energy rather than live in fear of it. And we need to let Americans do what they do best: innovate without the shackles of excessive taxation.

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In 2006 John Kerry said that if you don't do well in school you get stuck in Iraq. This year Barack Obama has said that our military is doing nothing but air raiding villages and killing civilians in Afghanistan. Kerry wanted to be president and lost to George W. Bush. Obama wants to be President; hopefully he will also go down in defeat.

Yet they both echo the reigning sentiments of the Democratic Party and the hard-left that controls the party's agenda.

The Gateway Pundit posed this question:

Why do democrats hate the military so much?

It's a good question.

Another one to ask is: Why would I want one of them to be "Commander in Chief" of our Armed Forces? This is especially relevant for those currently serving in uniform. Do you want someone in the position of command who thinks you are doing nothing but "air raiding villages and killing civilians?"

As a former serviceman, USAF in the '80s, I would not want for my Commander in Chief who thinks that that is all our military does.

Obama has also threatened to invade Pakistan, one of our allies in the region. Pakistan may not be a role-model of Democracy, however the government there is struggling to keep radical Islam in check. If Obama were to invade Pakistan, we would end up with greater problems in the Middle East than we now have, as well as another war. By attacking an ally we would deservedly become a country that could not be trusted.

Obama talks tough when it comes to the dictatorial regime of Castro in Cuba, and how America should spread and encourage democracy. Yet he has always stood against the removal of the murdering tyrant who ruled Iraq with a blood-soaked iron fist, and would prefer to send that country back down the road of tyranny rather than standing strong with the fledgling democratically elected government.

Another major consideration for selecting a president is to remember that whomever we elect will have their finger on the proverbial "button," control of our nuclear arsenal.

Both Hillary and Obama have made statements that the use of nuclear weapons is never an option. This sends a green light to the dictators of Iran, China and North Korea that they can expect to have carte blanche should either of these two be elected. It also sends a signal to the terrorists that they should continue their pursuit to gain nuclear materials from their benefactors, especially Iran.

Bill Clinton was well known for his disdain of the responsibility of the nuclear arsenal by losing the launch codes and frequently leaving behind the man with the nuclear "football" when traveling by motorcade. (Read Dereliction of Duty by Robert Patterson.)

It would also explain the current trend in Russia as President Putin rebuilds its military and undertakes military exercises with Communist China, as well as sending out long range bomber patrols reminiscent of the cold war.

Whomever we choose as president to succeed Bush has got to be able to understand that it is one thing to disdain the use of nuclear weapons and another to be always vigilant in the event that their use is necessitated. And a prospective president, or any member of Congress for that matter, should never disparage the men and women who choose to serve our country in the Armed Forces of the United States.

As the 2008 Campaign for the Presidency goes into full swing, those are truly important questions to ask yourself: What kind of commander in Chief will they be, and how well can they handle the responsibility of managing, and, God forbid, using our nuclear arsenal.

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The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is looking for a bumper sticker slogan for the 2008 campaign.

Here's my recommendation: "We Surrender!"

You can find the slogan center at: BS Slogan

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Last night the Minnesota House Campaign Committee hosted the first Minnesota Presidential Straw Poll. The short version of the event is that Fred Thompson won the poll, followed very closely by Mitt Romney. Ron Paul of Texas made a good showing, but only because what looked like his entire Minnesota Campaign staff was there.

Jason Lewis broadcasted live from the event, interviewing Ron Paul (I heard it on the drive downtown) and John Cox who was at the event.

State Representative Marty Seifert MCed the event, and many other GOP State Reps were in attenedance. (Thanks to Rep. Garofalo for providing me with a ticket). Harold Shudlick, who ran a good, but unsuccessful bid for the GOP nod for the U.S. Senate was also in attendance.

The results of the straw poll are:

Kudos to John Cox for taking the time to join us in Minnesota for this Presidential event.

There were some extra boxed meals that were donated to a shelter.

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It looks like Hillary Clinton has changed her name in an attempt to associate herself with Richard Nixon. From the Washington Times:

As far as I can tell, its origins are nothing more than the campaign claims of the two candidates. Sen. Hillary Milhous Clinton has been lumbering around the political landscape talking about herself as commander in chief.

Or, perhaps, they are being tongue in cheek.

Despite their gaff, the piece is well worth reading as it focuses on the politcal clichés of Obama being able to bring change to Washington while Hillary has the experience to lead. It is right on the money when it comes to their experience and trustworthiness, which, in both cases, is not very high.

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The Associated Press -Ipsos poll on reading in America has been released. It took little time for a hard-left liberal/progressive to tout the survey as indicative that Liberals read and Conservatives don't despite that it is not possible to make such inferences based on the data released. Now, if the cross-tabulated data is ever released, we may be able to learn something. It is also important to realize that the poll was of 1003 people, in a country with a population of over 300 million people.

From Breit Bart:

Liberals read more books than conservatives. The head of the book publishing industry's trade group says she knows why-and there's little flattering about conservative readers in her explanation.

"The Karl Roves of the world have built a generation that just wants a couple slogans: 'No, don't raise my taxes, no new taxes,'" Pat Schroeder, president of the American Association of Publishers, said in a recent interview. "It's pretty hard to write a book saying, 'No new taxes, no new taxes, no new taxes' on every page."

Schroeder, who as a Colorado Democrat was once one of Congress' most liberal House members, was responding to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll that found people who consider themselves liberals are more prodigious book readers than conservatives.

She said liberals tend to be policy wonks who "can't say anything in less than paragraphs. We really want the whole picture, want to peel the onion."

The American Association of Publishers should be embarrassed by having their president make such insulting statements, especially since these statements are not defensible. And should they keep in their employ someone who insults a large segment of the population?

We all know that left-wingnuts and liberals control the publishing industry, just as they control the main stream media and the entertainment industry. That, like the tripe coming out of Hollywood, makes it hard to find good books worth reading.

Yet they feel secure to insult the book buying public despite the fact that the sales of books by conservatives do exceptionally well. If conservatives don't read, who's buying all of those books?

Also, the survey asks people how many books they have started and failed to finish. Quite a few there. Then there is the question of the religion of the person being surveyed. Based on the survey, where the number of Muslims reading books is ZERO, someone like Schroeder would naturally assume that Muslims don't read. Yet we all know that this is far from the truth.

As for who's reading what books, the indicators are that older people read far more books than younger people, and younger people tend to be more "liberal" and read more text books.

I read about 50 books per year, ranging from fiction (including SF and Fantasy) to technical books (due to my job) to hard science, current events and politics. I am not a left-winger.

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It's been a weird few days and haven't had as much opportunity to write as I would like. tomorrow is likely to be the same as it is the Minnesota GOP Straw Poll, and my friend, and State Rep., Pat Garofalo has offered me a ticket, which I greatly appreciate.

I haven't decided who I favor as the top of the chart for my hit parade for the 2008 campaign. I do hae several favorites, and several whom I have eliminated from consideration in the primary (those would be Giuliani and McCain).

I like Mitt Romney a lot, and his being LDS doesn't have any bearing to my choice. He has done a good job in Massachusetts.

I also like Mike Huckabee, especially after reading his website. We seem to be on the same page on most issues, especially the big ones (Iraq, the War on Terror, border security, Second amendment).

Duncan Hunter has a lot going form him to. Chuck Yeager is a big supporter of his, and that speaks volumes in my book. No offense to Hunter, I am just not sure he can pull it off at the top of the ticket. He would make one heckuva a great VP.

Finally, there is Newt Gingrich. I don't think he is in the race at this point, and he has a lot of "baggage" to over come. At least, that is the popular thought. The thing is, the "baggage" he has only carries weight with people who wouldn't vote for any Republican in the first place: the MoveOn crowd (and I wish they would MoveOn...to France!).

My initial thoughts on Fred Thompson were favorable, however, I've changed my mid about him. I don't think he is the Reaganite that many people want us to believe him to be.

So, right now, those are my four choices: Romney, Huckabee, Hunter, and Gingrich. I have no idea how the straw poll will go tomorrow. However, I will write a post about it when I get home.

It should be a lot of fun as Jason Lewis will be there as well, kind of an MC or Keynote or something.

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There is a proposed ballot initiative in California that would change the way it allocates electoral votes in the electoral college from a winner take all to allocation by congressional district with the overall winner of the state receiving an additional 2 electoral votes.

As California has the most electoral power, with 55 electors, in the country, this change would translate into a more balanced representation of the people in the election of our president. It will also mean that candidates will have to spend more time (and money) campaigning in the state as they can no longer afford to ignore the more rural regions of California. It will really change the dynamics of presidential elections in that state.

From CSN News:

Supporters call the plan more democratic because it would better represent the popular vote. But critics say it would needlessly tamper with the Electoral College for purely partisan gains.

Both sides of the debate have valid points, however there was a move by Democrats to make this same kind of change in Colorado a few years ago for the exact same reason: to divide up the electoral power to get better representation.

Quite frankly, I am in favor of such a change, especially starting with the largest states in the Union. I hate the idea of living in a state where my vote doesn't matter as it is a forgone conclusion that the other guy will get all of the electoral votes. Having electors chosen by Congressional District is more in keeping with how the Founders set up the electoral process. Each state is accorded electors based on their Congressional Delegation. That's one for each Congressional District plus two for the state overall.

The Founding Fathers also left it up to the individual states to determine how their electors are allocated.

In an interview with Cybercast News Service, Kevin Eckery, a spokesman for Hiltachk, said California is in the frustrating situation of having 55 electoral votes -- 21 or 22 more than any other state -- but because it leans either solidly Republican or Democrat, politicians tend to take its electoral votes for granted.

This is a darn good point. Of course, I don't know if California has leaned Republican since Ronald Reagan. It certainly hasn't in the last four election cycles.

As for taking California for granted, that makes since. Why should a candidate spend substantial amounts of money in a state he knows he has no chance of carrying. Whereas, if electors are decided by Congressional Districts, they will naturally want to spend time in California, most likely focusing on districts where they have a chance of getting good results, like San Diego for the GOP or San Francisco for the Democrats.

Eckery added that adopting the Maine-Nebraska model would be an improvement over the current "winner-take-all" method of choosing electors.

"In the case of presidential elections ... all it takes is a plurality of votes in California, and you win everything. President Clinton, for example, in 1992 carried 46 percent of California but all of its electoral votes -- in effect disenfranchising the majority of the state's population."

This is actually true in most states where the winner take all mentality is in place, and validates the necessity of changing the electoral process.

The current intention is to have it on the ballot in the 2008 Primary so that it would take effect in the 2008 Federal election.

Currently, only Nebraska and Maine follow a system similar to what is being proposed in California.

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California Election Reform

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I just finished reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling. This is the last volume in the famed "Harry Potter" series, and it is a very good sendoff for the series. I will not include any spoilers. I'll not even tell you about Hermione having Draco Malfoy's love child.

The novel is a remarkably good read, keeping a rhythm that makes it a hard bood to put down. It's a real page turner, and my wife is happy I have finished it as now she won't be a "Harry Potter widow" any more.

For those who have read all of the books in the series, you will see that this final volume in the series ties up a lot off loose-ends and resolves many of the conflicts and answers a lot of questions about Harry Potter and all those whom he has encountered after he entered the Wizarding World.

If you haven't read the books, then I would recommend reading them all in sequence before tackling the Deathly Hallows. Like most of the books, it weighs in at a hefty 759 pages, and is dense in detail, much of which will be glossed over or left out in the adaptation to film some few years down the road. Let's face it, like the Order of the Phoenix, it is tough to fit a novel of this length into a two and a half-hour movie.

This final novel has a number of surprises in it, as well as some twists and turns. There are few moments where the pacing seems to slow down, mostly in the first part of the book. Then it will come on like the Hogwart's Express on the first day of school and not let up.

I found myself wanting to stay up all night reading it rather than setting it down, especially as I reached the main climax of the saga. You will, too, when you sit down and read it.

The only downside to completing he series is that there will be no future Harry Potter stories. They've all been told.

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Harry Potter Rowling Deathly Hallows

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It seems like there is a lot of abuse of various systems in this country, now we have two Indian tribes offering memberships in their bands, for a price, and claiming it will but illegal immigrants on the path to legal status. From MyWAy News:

For prices starting at $50, two nonfederally recognized Indian tribes are offering membership to thousands of illegal immigrants, claiming they can achieve legal status by joining the groups.

But immigration authorities insist becoming a tribe member gives no protection against being deported. And immigration advocates condemn the practice, saying it defrauds immigrants of money and gives them false hope.

"You can't just decide to become a member of a tribe and all of a sudden legalize your status," said Marilu Cabrera, a spokeswoman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Sounds like these two "tribes" have found a way to increase their "tribal" coffers by scamming illegal aliens and maybe trying to scam U.S. Law.

The article reports that people have paid as much as $1,200 for membership in the Kaweah Indian Nation, which is not federally recognized, as it has no relationship to the Kaweah tribe that at one time did exist.

There are several others operating, and prosecutors will have difficulties prosecuting them as the victims, illegal aliens, are afraid of coming forward as they may be turned over to immigration officials and subsequently deported.

People who would seek to profit from illegal aliens in such a fashion are despicable, and I hope that investigators are able to secure enough evidence to try and convict these scumbags.

This is yet another reason we have to secure our borders and enforce our immigration laws. It is because we have a long history of ignoring border security and the vast number of illegal aliens that such crimes are able to take place and even flourish.

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immigration scam crime

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Anytime the now former soviet Union and Communist China gets together militarily speaking, it is a bad sign.

Putin has been flexing his muscle lately over the North Pole, trying to claim it is part of Russia, and then the recent reports where a para-military youth organization reminiscent of the Hitler Youth of Nazi Germany, which has also been in the news recently, combined with references to mass-murderer Joseph Stalin as being a great leader, all bad signs.

Now we have long range soviet bombers flying over the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic oceans at the same time thousands of Russian and Chinese troops are on joint maneuvers.

Although communism may have fallen in Russia, it looks like there is a resurgence, or at least the potential for it, in Russia, with Putin filling the void.

Yahoo News

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Putin China Russia Military

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FoxNews is reporting that Comrade Hugo Chavez, Dictator of Venezuela, plans to put forth his plans for reforming his country's constitution which will include the ability for him to be re-elected indefinitely.

Chavez has pushing his country more and more towards totalitarianism and has in the past made statements that he wants to have the constitution changed so that he could remain in office for more than the constitutionally allowed terms.

During the past year Chavez has "nationalized" the oil industry as part of the move to communism, as well as shutting down RCTV, an opposition broadcaster, for allegedly pushing to have Chavez removed from office. He has also threatened to seize other private businesses, including, but not limited to, food processing and grocers, in order to achieve a more Soviet style country.

Chavez's political allies firmly control the National Assembly responsible for reviewing his proposal as well as the Supreme Court. His critics accuse him of becoming obsessed with power and seeking to become a lifelong leader just like his close friend Fidel Castro.

Chavez rejects allegations that he poses a threat to democracy.

Chavez is partially right in that you can't pose a threat to something that no longer exists in Venezuela.

Since his re-election to a fresh six-year term in December, Chavez stoked fears that he his headed toward Cuba-style communism by creating a single ruling party and nationalizing Venezuela's several of key industries including the oil, telecommunications and electricity sectors.

There has been quite a bit in the news about his confiscating the assets of foreign oil companies, or, at best, compensating them for pennies on the dollar for the assets. all of this was done with the use of force, that the oil companies and other impacted sectors would have no choice in the matter save to accept his offer or face total confiscation of their assets.

Chavez, a former paratroop commander who was first elected in 1998, denies copying Cuba and insists that basic freedoms will be respected under his government. He says that democracy has flourished, rather than diminished, under his administration.

Chavez pushed through a new constitution in 1999, shortly after he was first elected. He says the charter must be redrafted in order to steer Venezuela away from capitalism.

Democracy has not flourished under Chavez, nor can democracy flourish where people must live in fear that their property will be seized, or their broadcast licenses suspended, thus putting them out of business (for all intents and purposes, that is the same as confiscation of assets), simply because they vocally oppose his agenda.

Thus it was with RCTV, and thus went free speech and freedom of the press in Venezuela.

Chavez is a megalomaniac nutcase who has allied himself with Ahmadinejad of Iran and Fidel Castro of Cuba. So it is no surprise that the Hollywood elites like Sean Penn has flocked to his banner.

Chavez is bad for Venezuela. How long will it take for the majority of Venezuelans to wake up and realize what a nutty tyrant they have ruining their country?

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Chavez Venezuela

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It comes as no surprise to me that once again the Red Star Tribune is publishing an opinion piece pushing for a tax increase. This time it is blaming Republicans and conservatives for not wanting to increase taxes to pay for roads and infrastructure. That's what we already pay taxes for. Let's keep in mind that this year Minnesota had a $2 Billion surplus that the Democrats used for a spree of new spending rather than returning it to the tax payers. More on that later as we get into the opinion piece.

Conservatives are exceptionally good at politicizing emotion. From the headlong rush toward a half-trillion-dollar misadventure in Iraq to attacks on immigrants, gays and abortion rights, emotional appeals have brought to power conservatives whose bedrock ideology is no new taxes, no matter what, and shrinking government.

Actually, it is the Liberal/Progressive/Whatever Democrats who are the real experts at manipulating the emotions of voters by using lines like "it's for the kids" when it comes to huge increases in education spending while refusing taxpayers the option of "school choice" via a voucher system. They play on emotions where health care is concerned by claiming millions of Americans cannot afford insurance and thus getting health care, yet there isn't a hospital emergency room in the country that would refuse to treat an uninsured person for illness or injuries. They call the liberation of Iraq a "misadventure" yet millions Iraqis have been able to vote in a democracy for the first time, and live in a free society, albeit one that has to deal with terrorists and sectarian death squads. The right to kill your children is another hot button issue for Liberal/Progressive Democrats as they claim it is "reproductive rights," rather than pushing for personal responsibility and ensuring that all Americans, even those in the womb, will be able to enjoy our unalienable rights of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. Conservatives have never "attacked" immigrants, but rather have pushed for enforcing our immigration laws, including the deportation of illegal aliens and securing our nations borders. Nor have conservatives "attacked" gays; there is a call to pass the Marriage Amendment that defines marriage as being between one woman and one man, which is what has been the norm throughout human history (with the exception of some cultures that have practiced polygamy, but that was still between man and woman, not man and man or woman and woman).

On the flip side of the coin Progressive/Liberal Democrats keep trying to change society through judicial fiat as with gay "marriage" in Massachusetts, or "royal" decree as was done in San Francisco. The claim that illegal aliens are just immigrant trying to make a living, yet these people have and do break our laws by violating immigration law, using forged documents and stealing the identities (and social security numbers) of working Americans. I could go on (and on), but you get the point.

But now that Minnesotans' tears are being shed and their fears heightened over the deadly collapse of the Interstate 35W river bridge, state Rep. Mark Buesgens tells us in his Aug. 10 commentary that this is no time to let emotions rule our collective response. It's a hypocritical ploy from a conservative legislator who has long prospered in the political marketplace of emotions.

Not even 24 hours had passed since the bridge collapse before the Lefties began calling for tax increases and blaming tax cuts for the disaster, yet it isn't transportation taxes that had been cut, but other taxes, and Minnesota ended up with a $2 Billion surplus, not a shortfall due to tax cuts. Who's playing with people's emotions? The Progressive/Liberal left.

Along with strong emotions, however, an unexpected bridge collapse legitimately and reasonably raises concrete questions about safety, maintenance, design, construction and political funding. Elected officials, after all, propose, authorize and administer transportation funds. And the public has a right to know about those decisions and to judge the results. That's democracy's ultimate check and balance.

Yep, here he is right, and with a $2 Billion surplus that COULD have been used for infrastructure, the Democrats went "whoohoo" and went on a spending spree like a bunch of drunken Liberals.

If the government has a surplus, we must cut taxes. If there is an ensuing deficit, we can't raise taxes back up, because that would hurt an already weakened economy. If pressing needs arise and public safety is at stake, we must reprioritize government spending, robbing health care or education to fill the gap.

Yep, and as has been shown, the tax cuts helped the economy and revenues grew, and Minnesota had a $2 Billion surplus, because people have more money to spend thus stimulating economic growth and job creation . Raising taxes has an inverse result, depressing tax revenues as people do not have as much to spend which causes economic stagnation and increased unemployment.

As for reprioritizing government spending, Liberals have been very good at robbing tax payers to support Liberal ideas rather than taking care of existing infrastructure. Instead of encouraging those in need to seek a helping hand up, they give them hand outs, thus keeping them on the public dole and encouraging bad behavior.

This is nonsense when pump prices often fluctuate daily by far more than the nickel or dime by which bipartisan legislators proposed hiking the gas tax. There's another difference: When drivers dig deeper for those market increases in the price of fuel, not a penny goes to easing traffic congestion that costs Twin Cities commuters hundreds of dollars a year or to maintaining bridges whose structural integrity is a matter of life and death.

Yep, and the price of a gasoline includes sales tax, so as the price of gas increases, people are paying more in taxes. That does not go towards infrastructure but into the general fund.

Facts, although they are stubborn things, haven't persuaded us to fix Minnesota's neglected transportation infrastructure, even as the funding shortfall approaches $2 billion a year. Maybe it's time to inject some good old-fashioned emotion into the debate.

Yep, facts are stubborn things, like a $2 Billion surplus squandered on new spending rather than used to cover the transportation infrastructure shortfall that deFiebre points out. Minnesota has spent a heckuva lot of money on light rail rather than on roads and bridges where we need to use it. And that $2 Billion surplus, as part of the State's general fund, could, and should, have been shifted to transportation uses.

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Star Tribune Minneapolis Bridge

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The State of California wants to tax its residents in order to provide Cal Grant sand fee waivers to illegal aliens attending Community Colleges. Illegal aliens already enjoy the privilege of only paying in-state tuition rates.

According to the San Jose Mercury News in its editorial:

The "California Dream Act," SB 160 by Sen. Gil Cedillo, D-Los Angeles, would extend eligibility for Cal Grants and community college fee waivers to undocumented students who've attended a state high school for three years; these students already qualify for in-state tuition but not for state or federal aid.

This is a good investment for the state. Brought across the border illegally by their parents, these young people grew up in California. They'll work in California, pay taxes, use services and raise children. Whether they manage to become legal citizens or not, they aren't going away. With a small investment, the state can help swell the ranks of programmers, nurses and technicians.

There are a few problems with this so called "Dream Act," first of which why shouldn't California focus on educating its youth who are not illegal aliens first? The piece also goes on about how California will hit a shortage of college educated workers; how are you going to guarantee that they will stay in California rather than move someplace where the cost of living is more conducive.

They also try to gain support by calling it an investment, when in reality it is a liability. Investments are things like stocks, bonds and real estate, not someone else's education. I can accept that a person paying for their own education, or of their children, as being a kind of investment, but not when they are forced to pay for the education of someone else's children, especially people who have violated our nation's laws.

With no access to state or federal aid, undocumented students often don't see college as a realistic goal. Some get private scholarships or work their way through - an estimated 1,000 undocumented students attend University of California or California State University campuses - but only the most determined complete a degree.

Question for law enforcement: If there are illegal aliens known to be in the colleges and universities, why are they not being rounded up and deported?

The collapse of the federal immigration bill killed a federal version of the Dream Act which included the promise of green-card eligibility for undocumented youths who complete two years of college or military service.

Now part of this last bit includes something I could agree with: Legal status to those serving in the Armed Forces for those youth who were brought here illegally by their parents. I would even say that if they serve a four year enlistment, putting them on the fast-track to citizenship, but they have to complete the four years first to counter-balance their lack of legal status, and must not have any criminal history aside from their status as illegal aliens to enter the Armed Forces. This would be in keeping with policies that have existed recruiting people into the military who want to immigrate to the United States without showing undo favoritism to illegal aliens. Illegal aliens should not be given any legal status simply for completing two years of college at tax payer expense.

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California Dream Act

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Comrade Hugo Chavez, the Dictator of Venezuela, is now threatening to cut off oil supplies to the United States should the U.S. attack him again. I was unaware that we had ever attacked Venezuela.

From Reuters:

"No one should think that we're going to stop sending oil to the United States, no -- unless they attack us again," Chavez said during a speech to leaders of Caribbean nations meeting in Caracas for an energy summit.

"If they attack us again like they did in April of 2002 ... there will be no oil."

Although there was a bungled coup attempt in 2002 that temporarily ousted Chavez from power for a whopping two days, there was no U.S. involvement.

Comrade Chavez has been living in a fantasy world where he believes that the U.S. is the "Evil Empire" and that he is the "benevolent" dictator. One thing he is right about, he is a dictator, just not benevolent.

His threat to cut off oil supplies to the U.S., which accounts for about 10-15% of the oil that is consumed here, in response to any perceived attack on Venezuela is nothing more than his way of throwing his weight around and trying to pump himself up to look big. The threats should not be considered idle, but should be used as a signal for Congress to get off its behind and open up new oil fields in ANWR and on the outer continental shelf.

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Chavez Venezuela Oil

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I spent a two hour shift working the GOP booth at the Dakota County Fair yesterday. It was a hot day, with temperatures well into the 90s matched with high humidity. anybody who knows me knows that it isn't the base temperature that gets me, but the humidity (I grew up in Fresno where temps often soared around 110, but there was virtually no humidity). The exhibit hall we were in, not being very well ventilated must have been a lot hotter.

A lot of people who stopped by the booth made it clear that they were against a tax increase to pay for replacing the bridge that collapsed last week over the Mississippi River. The one exception to that was a DFLer who drifted by (their booth was in the next building).

The folks at the Independence Party that I spoke with were finding a similar reaction.

This is more of a reaction of those who are more politically involved than the mainstream.

I did have a number of good conversations with folks about other things, making the time go by fairly quickly.

Before taking over the booth, my wife, daughter and I spent the afternoon looking around at the various exhibits and livestock barns. Anna, not quite two yet, demonstrated her animal sounds for other fair goers. She is especially good at saying what the sheep says: Baaaaa! And loudly. she also said "hot" for the first time, in response to the pizza we had for dinner at the fair.

The Fair itself was not as well attended for a Saturday as in the past. This may be a function of the heat and humidity, and the threat of rain, which proved to be much more than a threat, as a storm was closing in at about 8:15 PM.

By that time, I had rejoined my wife, Sue, and our daughter, Anna, and we elected to high tail it out of there before the storm hit. The parking lot looked as though we weren't alone in that decision.

We had not gone far down the road when the storm hit with a vengeance. Heavy rain and high winds. We good see pieces of tree limbs, small stuff, being blown around the roads all of the way home. It made for ugly, and dangerous, driving conditions.

Surprisingly we saw a lot of deer, including fawns, running around in the weather. We would have thought that they would be under cover somewhere.

This morning, taking the dogs out for their walkies, I spotted a tree was blown down onto the road we live on. I would be very surprised if that is the only tree that was knocked down in last night's storm. Total rainfall from that storm was 1.25 inches. Not much rain considering the ferocity of that storm.

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Dakota County Fair Storm

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I've not had as much time to write as I have been furiously reading to finish the current book on my shelf. The good news is I finished reading it. The bad news is it isn't the new Harry Potter book.

In Danger's Path by W.E.B Griffin is the 8th book in his The Corps series. There are two more in the series to go, but this one is a good stopping point as it ends mid-1943 and the next book in the series picks up with the beginning of the Korean War, which is a bit of a disappointment as there is so much he could do with World War 2.

The series as a whole is excellent reading with characters that are interesting and inspiring, especially the central character of the series, Killer McCoy. All of the cast of people in this series go through a number of life changing events and develop quite nicely, with the probable exception of the one despicable character in the series, Macklin, who was designed to be disliked.

Having read the first eight book, the WW2 sequence, straight through, is the way to go. You will spot a few inconsistencies, but those can be ignored and just enjoy the books for what they are: Darn good reading.

In Danger's Path is a book that wanted to be longer. Reading it, you can feel the need for it to be a couple of hundred pages longer and not be bored with it. It focuses around an operation to set up a clandestine weather station in the Gobi Desert and the rescuing of a group of U.S. military personnel and their families who escaped the Japanese occupation of China by hiding out in the Gobi.

The series is more about the politics of running the war and the personal lives of those who lived through it than it is about the firing of guns, although you get a spattering of that, too.

All in all, a good read, and now that I am at a breaking point, I can sit down and read Harry Potter. Finally!

I do wish that W.E.B. Griffin would complete the WW2 sequence.

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WEB Griffin The Corps

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I ran across this pic recently and decided to add my own caption to it.

I think it takes the words right out of Bill's mouth.

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Hillary Clinton

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It's funny how the Dems and others keep accusing Romney of flip-flopping on some issues, yet something that is critical to national security, the entrusting of the ultimate weapon, and Hillary flip-flops, nobody notices.

From Washington Post:

Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton, who chastised rival Barack Obama for ruling out the use of nuclear weapons in the war on terror, did just that when asked about Iran a year ago.

"I would certainly take nuclear weapons off the table," she said in April 2006.

Her views expressed while she was gearing up for a presidential run stand in conflict with her comments this month regarding Obama, who faced heavy criticism from leaders of both parties, including Clinton, after saying it would be "a profound mistake" to deploy nuclear weapons in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

"There's been no discussion of nuclear weapons. That's not on the table," he said.

Clinton, who has tried to cast her rival as too inexperienced for the job of commander in chief, said of Obama's stance on Pakistan: "I don't believe that any president should make any blanket statements with respect to the use or non-use of nuclear weapons."

Our nuclear arsenal is probably one of the most important factors, if not THE most important factor, in how we choose a president.

When a candidate states unilaterally that they would not use nukes under any circumstances, then they show a level of weakness to our enemies.

This is what got Eisenhower in trouble with the U.S.S.R. when he signed a treaty to stop testing nukes. We stopped, the bad guys didn't.

There is a balance that needs to be reached. You can't belligerently go around saying you are going to nuke countries or cities as Tancredo has been reported as doing in respect to nuking Mecca. You also can't say the use of nukes is off the table. Both extremes send the wrong message to the bad guys in Iran, North Korea, China, as well as the Islamic Terrorists.

When it comes to entrusting such weaponry, there is no way I would consider Hillary with nukes. I'd be afraid she would actually use it on one of our allies as a result of "actionable intelligence."

Obama on the other hand, continues to show naiveté by saying he wouldn't use nukes under any circumstances.

The middle ground is not to say whether or not you would use nukes. Reason: you pray to God that using them will never be necessary, but remain prepared to use them should the need arise.

While Hillary flip-flops on how she plans to deal with terrorism and other foreign policy issues, Obama continues to prove that he is a lightweight by trying to follow Hillary's lead and failing to keep up with her.

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Hillary Clinton Obama Nuclear Weapons

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Obama has been catching a lot of flack about his saying he would invade Pakistan if he had "actionable intelligence."

I ran across this clip on youtube. IN it, there is an over lay of Hillary saying very much the same thing.

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Hillary Clinton Pakistan

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Sometimes, one never knows where one will find idiocy. Today I found it in the letters to the editor of the Saginaw News.

The White House, Congress and the Supreme Court have a checks and balance system that gives them equal powers. Our forefathers designed it so we no longer could be ruled by a single person like King George III. President George is putting this system to the test and trying to turn back the hands of time.

First of, there three branches of the Federal government were not given equal powers. They were given different powers to serve as checks and balances. Congress was set up with two chambers in order to for legislation and to prevent the Executive branch from wielding too much power. For instance, all tax bills begin in the House of Representatives while the Senate as the power to advise and consent on various Presidential appointments, which helps subdivide the powers within Congress. The President, as the executive, signs into law the various bills that originate and pass through Congress. The Supreme Court is set up to interpret the law and resolve Constitutional conflicts, sometimes even getting it right, but not always (like it blew it with eminent domain). The original purpose of the Senate, lost since the 17th amendment, was to serve as a check against the Federal government seizing too much power from many States.

I also don't like the way they say "President George," associating him King George. This is improper and disrespectful; it shows a certain level of contempt for the President as it is intended to be an insult.

Most of the info the White House has given us in the past has been lies, and now they don't want us to know the truth. This doesn't seem to be a fair check- and-balance system.

Either they are referring to the false claims that Bush lied about the reasons for going into Iraq, or they are referring to Bill Clinton lying about getting Presidentials from Monica Lewinski. In the former, on every claim of lies, from WMDs in Iraq to involvement with various terrorist groups, Bush and the Administration have been proven right, while the chickendoves have been proven to be full of nothing but chickensh*t.

Did the hawks worry about the 3,640-plus military lives lost or the tens of thousands maimed and injured? Did they care about the 900 government contractors killed or the reporters who have lost their lives trying to get us the truth about the war? Some reports have said that President George has killed more Iraqi civilians than Saddam Hussein.

More so than the chickendoves who voted against the $86 billion to provide body armor to the troops in the field. (Need a better term to cover moonbats like Kerry who at least served in the Armed Forces, even though they are wrong on every issue in Washington.)

Although there are some sites that "claim" the war in Iraq has resulted in half a million deaths, it is closer to 60,000. That's still a lot of people, however it is known that Hussein murdered about half a million people during is reign of terror. Further, the vast majority of those killed in Iraq died at the hands of foreign terrorists (al-Qaeda) and sectarian death squads (like those operated by Muqtada al-Sadr), not by U.S. and coalition forces.

In May, Bush said "if the Iraqi government were to say leave, we would leave." Well, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki of Iraq told us to leave. But why change now? Why would you take the $12 billion spent on the war each month and help the poor or improve education or improve our health care system or save Social Security?

Although the Iraqi government has discussed a U.S. pull-out, the government has not ordered it. We're still there at their invitation.

As for the $12 billion spent each month, if we were to end the war today and save that money, it should be returned to the people who pay it: cut taxes. Sure, helping the poor is a good idea, but it is best accomplished through charitable organizations, not through government handouts which is subject to tremendous waste and abuse. Yes, education needs to be improved, and so far the Democrats have blocked all attempts to reform education and allowing school choice (vouchers) rather than taking a progressive stance and letting Americans choose where and how their children are educated. Competition will force the public schools to improve. Health care is and always will be a hotbed topic. We have the best health care system in the world. Yet the whackos on the left want Hillarycare and force Americans onto a Cuba-like system where only those with power get the best care and everyone else gets third-world treatment. As for saving Social Security, the liberals and Democrats have blocked every attempt to reform the Social Security system and allowing working Americans to control their "contributions" to a system that is doomed to insolvency.

Bush keeps pointing fingers at Iran as a threat, but more than half of the extremists in Iraq are Saudis, not Iranian. Bush and Cheney can't go after their friends that make them money or are militarily strong. Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates all have ties to al-Qaida and terrorism, but are kept under the radar by this administration.

Now this guy shows what a Moonbat he truly is. He has bought the Obama "get tough on terrorism" line of invading our allies. Yes, many of the extremists are not from Iran. However, Iran has been supplying them with arms, money and training. Iran has infiltrated into Iraq, and even taken British sailors and Marines hostage. Yes, many of the al-Qaeda terrorists are from Saudi Arabia and other places. Yes, bin Ladin may be hiding out in Pakistan. The government of Pakistan is in a somewhat precarious situation because of the terrorists, the Taliban, and other extremist forces, including domestic groups. If Pakistan were to let the U.S. in to go after bin Ladin (and I bet they would like to) they would have a revolution on their hands and an extremist government would come to power and have immediate access to nuclear weapons.

The governments sited in this editorial are working with us to solve the al-Qaeda problem. They may not be doing as much as we would like them to. But the alternative would be far worse, and would bring further destabilize the region with radical Islam.

The piece concludes with one line:

We just want the truth.

Quite frankly, dude, I don't think you'd know the truth if it jumped up and bit you on the nose.

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Bush Iraq Moonbat

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I cal this poetic justice. From FoxNews:

A Michigan man scrubbed a monument to U.S. troops with a toothbrush Tuesday while wearing a T-shirt that read "I Stole From Veterans" as part of a punishment for a scam to solicit scrap yards for metal, the Saginaw News reports.

There is more on the Saginaw News site.

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Elizabeth Edwards on her husband's campaign: "We can't make John black, we can't make him a woman."

No kidding. Could you at least make him smart? Can you get him to grow a pair when it comes to dealing with the war in Iraq and terrorism?

Probably not, even with Obama trying to portray himself as a chickenhawk wanting to invade an ally (Pakistan), Edwards will continue to take the chickendove stance on terrorism and Iraq.

It would be nice if they could even get him to be partially right on some of the major issues, like taxation, eminent domain, health care, and a host of other issues.

Instead, we get to hear of Edwards getting thousand dollar hair cuts and primping himself before the camera.

Edwards is the bottom of the heap when it comes to the A-list of Democratic candidates, trailing far behind the two front runners, Hilary and Obama.

I have no doubt that Hillary would be a lot happier if Obama would go away so that she could focus on besting Edwards, as anybody could beat him. No doubt the GOP would like it if Edwards would win the Democratic nomination. We can, hope, right?

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Edwards Democrat Hillary Obama

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Al Gore is back in the news making waves on the global warming debate. He is now claiming that those scientists that put forth research materials that prove that the current climate warming trend is predominantly due to outside forces, such as the sun spot activity, the solar wind and cosmic rays are similar to the people who were poo-pooing claims that tobacco causes cancer. There is a huge difference between these sets of claims, and Al Gore has a responsibility to not use such silly and irrelevant comparisons.

From MyWay News:

"There has been an organized campaign, financed to the tune of about $10 million a year from some of the largest carbon polluters, to create the impression that there is disagreement in the scientific community," Gore said at a forum in Singapore. "In actuality, there is very little disagreement."

Certainly there isn't in Al Gore's mind. However, for anyone who is actually following the debate and reading the science behind global warming, the general concensus is that it ain't man's fault.

In the piece, gore claims that there is a program that pays $10,000 for each article published that counters the false-claims that it is man-made carbon dioxide causing global warming. If so, when do I get a check? I could use the money. Gore continued, "They're trying to manipulate opinion and they are taking us for fools." That's not hard to do, and gore does an admirable job doing so without anybody else's help. After all, we are talking about the man who invented the Internet.

The World Climate Report has pegged Al gore to a tee. As more and more scientific material is released proving that the current climate warming is a natural phenomenon independent of what mankind is doing, Gore has chosen to take on even more scare tactics, even using Venus as an example of what is happening.

Consider this tale of two planets. Earth and Venus are almost exactly the same size, and have almost exactly the same amount of carbon. The difference is that most of the carbon on Earth is in the ground - having been deposited there by various forms of life over the last 600 million years - and most of the carbon on Venus is in the atmosphere.

As a result, while the average temperature on Earth is a pleasant 59 degrees, the average temperature on Venus is 867 degrees. True, Venus is closer to the Sun than we are, but the fault is not in our star; Venus is three times hotter on average than Mercury, which is right next to the Sun. It's the carbon dioxide.

Some points he missed: Mercury doesn't have a permanent atmosphere as its gravity is too weak to retrain one. What atmospheric elements it does have from time to time, are captured from the solar wind and trapped temporarily in its gravity well. Venus has a permanent atmosphere. Venus, being closer to the sun and a slightly weaker gravity than Earth, it is unable to retain large quantities of lighter gases in its atmosphere for long periods of time. Eventually, just as with Mercury, the lighter gases escape the gravity well leaving behind larger quantities of heavier gases such as carbon dioxide. There is also a lot of scientific theory about how Venus ended up the way it is, but very little proof to support such theories.

What we end up with is Al Gore grasping at straws to legitimize his claims that it is carbon dioxide that is causing the warming of the planet.

Now, if Al Gore really and truly believes that this is a case, why has he helped start and run a company that trades in the carbon offset/credit market, allowing himself to profit from the claims that it is carbon dioxide causing global warming. Sounds like he is just as guilty of the same kinds of wrong-doing that he claims Exxon and other companies that are supporting scientific research that indicates that it is not carbon dioxide causing the problem. If Gore wants to accuse others of a conflict of interest, perhaps he should divest himself of his on conflict of interests first.

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Al Gore Science

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I ran across an article on BreitBart that has the makings of being disturbing. The article revolves around a new web technology hosted by spock.com, of Redwood city. Their plan is to catalog and post profiles of every human on Earth.

The plan involves harvesting data from various social networking sites,m aggregating it, then making it available on the web for free. The people search engine will be free, the company supported by advertising revenues.

The Electronic Freedom Foundation has this to say about spock.com:

"More and more of our lives appear online, or are being organized online, said Derek Slater, an activism coordinator at Electronic Frontier Foundation, a privacy rights group.

"It can be very annoying to see so much of someone online, potentially without putting that (information) online oneself," Slater said.

Granted, there is a heckuva lot of info out there on millions of people. There's a lot of info on me just on this website, but not enough, I think, to be able to find my home.

One concern I have is that such a website might be used to aid criminal activity. I won't know what the potential is until I can have a chance to look at what it is they are posting up on the internet. If they are truly able to scrape enough details on individuals, then the potential for this tool to be used by burglars can be fairly significant. Nothing like having an online roadmap to determine which houses to hit, and possibly find out when people are away for an extended length of time. (I knew a couple that blogged their four month backpacking trip.)

Another problem I have is that they are gathering data from other sites to use for their own profit. This is, in my opinion, a form of trespassing. I have had issues with people scrapping stuff off of my websites and then posting it as their own in the past. It's a pain to have to deal with. In the case of spock.com, they are harvesting data from social networking sties such as myspace (which is mentioned in the article), and, one can assume, other sites such as youtube, livejournal, AOL, and a host of others, though they are not specifically mentioned.

I don't know about the rest of the world, when I post information for a user profile I expect it to stay local to that community, not be harvested by some third party for their own personal gain. Granted, it is getting easier to find information on people on the web through various online communities, however the availability of such data does not give these jokers the right to harvest it and use it for their person gain. I don't want spock.com coming along and performing a Vulcan Mind Meld with my community profiles.

According to the piece, they claim that they will honor an opt-out plan. The onus shouldn't be on us to get removed from their site. It should be up to us to determine if we want to be listed there.

Tags:

People Search Spock.com Privacy Rights

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BreitBart TV has a video of two Islamic "students" arrested and charged for possession of pipe bombs. In the video, a spokesman from CAIR claims that these pipe bombs were nothing more than firecrackers.

BBTV

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Terrorism

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I am rapidly becoming a fan of Clifford D. May, and am astonished that the Red Star Tribune carries his opinion pieces. Today he tackles the actions of Congressman (woman?) Nancy Boyda (D-KS).

It's tough being a member of Congress. Even if you're in the majority, as is Democratic Rep. Nancy Boyda of Kansas, you never know when your ears may be assaulted by outrageous and offensive ideas.

Like what? At a recent hearing of the Armed Services Committee, retired Gen. Jack Keane said "progress is being made" by U.S. military forces in Iraq; "We are on the offensive and we have the momentum," he added. The freshman congresswoman was so distressed by these remarks that she got up and walked out.

There was "only so much" she could take, she explained, so she "had to leave the room ... after so much of the frustration of having to listen to what we listened to." She said she was worried, too, that Keane's remarks "will in fact show up in the media and further divide this country." Hey, that could happen!

My first big problem with Boyda is not that she is a pro-terrorist Congressman who believes we should let the bad guys win in Iraq and elsewhere, but that she walked out of the Armed Services Committee briefing. How many of you can get up and walk out of a meeting for no reason at all and not get fired or suffer other disciplinary action? I sure can't. But apparently it's okay for a congressman because they are fed up with hearing good news on the situation in Iraq.

Congressman Boyda needs to be reminded that she has been elected to serve the People of the United States, not herself. If this is the way that she is going to behave then she deserves neither the honor nor the privilege of serving in that high office, or in any elected office.

When a Congressman is assigned to a committee, walking out during a committee briefing simply because you don't like what you are hearing is unacceptable behavior.

I believe that the Kansas Second district should consider replacing Boyda with someone who will take their obligations to the people seriously.

May has a lot more to say about Boyda and her not wanting to hear the facts on how things are going in Iraq. It is a darn good read.

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Clifford May Congress Boyda Iraq

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This is another entry of the "why am I not surprised?" There is a movement amongst the bloggers, predominantly the leftie bloggers to unionize the blogosphere. Say what? Unionize bloggers? They've got to be kidding.

It isn't surprising that this movement originated with the left-wingnuts who think that everything has to be controlled and organized according to whatever they determine is "best."

If you sense that I would be against unionizing bloggers, then you are right. Most people who blog, myself included, do so for fun, not for profit. Those pushing for a union are looking at it as a means to get things like health benefits and payment for their work, which means that if they are into it for those reasons, they haven't figured out how to make money at it yet. (I'm not in this for the money. as for my cafepress site, well, that's a different story.)

From Yahoo News:

"I think people have just gotten to the point where people outside the blogosphere understand the value of what it is that we do on the progressive side," said Susie Madrak, the author of Suburban Guerilla blog, who is active in the union campaign. "And I think they feel a little more entitled to ask for something now."

Let's see, on the progressive side, they are pushing the Democratic Party further to the left and giving America candidates like Howard Dean and Barack Obama. And they feel entitled to something? What?

Meanwhile, the article points out that conservative bloggers are not exactly thrilled with the idea of a blogger's union.

"The reason I like blogging is that it's very anarchistic. I can do whatever I want whenever I want, and oh my God, you're not going to tell me what to do," said Curt Hopkins, the founder of the Committee to Protect Bloggers.

"The blogosphere is such a weird term and such a weird idea. It's anyone who wants to do it," Hopkins said. "There's absolutely no commonality there. How will they find a commonality to go on? I think it's doomed to failure on any sort of large scale."

Hopkins has some good points. Whether or not it will prevent the left from seizing control of the blogosphere and forcing standards on bloogers through an organized union is debatable. Hopefully he is right.

Mark Noonan, an editor at Blogs for Bush and a senior writer at GOP Bloggers, said he worries that a blogger union would undermine the freewheeling nature of the blogosphere, regardless of its political composition.

"We just go out there and write what is on our mind, damn the critics," he said. "To make a union is to start to provide a firm structure for the blogosphere and that would merely make the blogosphere a junior-league (mainstream media). ... Get us a union and other 'professional' organizations and we'll start to be conformist and we'll start to be just another special interest."

I am familiar with Noonan and his work on both of his blogs. He nails it on the head when bloggers sit down and write an article or opinion piece for their blogs. We do this because we want to express our views, not because we expect to make money. We have a constitution right to express our opinions and the blogosphere has become the best means to get our opinions out to the public.

I don't know what the net result of unionizing bloggers will have on the 'Net, but I suspect it will be anything but good when it comes to free speech.

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Bloggers Union

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The Washington Times is running an interesting piece on Bruno Kirchenwitz, a now former employ of 7-Eleven, who was fired after an incident where a couple of Hispanic's threatened him and then subsequently fired shots at the store.

The sequence of events has to do with the fact that Kirchenwitz wear's a Border Patrol cap when he is not working. In the interview on the Washington Time's site, Kirchenwitz is very specific that he doesn't wear the cap to work, but since he rides the bus, it is likely that people would recognize him as the guy with the BP hat.

At the 7-Eleven, these two poster children for giving amnesty to illegal aliens, threatened Kirchenwitz, then returned with an M-1 rifle and fired five rounds into the store, which had several customers, including a family with a small child.

No one was hurt, though there were several customers present, including a family with a child. Police issued an arrest warrant for one of the men, Richard Ramirez, an illegal alien who had been deported before by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

Basalt Police Chief Keith Ikeda said the department identified the second man, who is living in Colorado legally, though no warrant is issued for his arrest.

Question #1 - why is an illegal alien running around with a firearm? This is a Federal felony.

Question #2 - Ramirez is a known illegal alien who has previously deported. Why is he still here?

Question #3 - why isn't there a warrant out for the arrest of the second perp?

Question #4 - who the hell provided an illegal alien with a firearm?

Richard Ramirez is the kind of "upstanding" illegal that the Democrats want to give legal status and citizenship to. Yet it is Kirchenwitz who gets fired from his job.

It is clear to me that these two thugs came into 7-Eleven in order to specifically harass Kirchenwitz, and that he is a victim. Seriously, what would 7-Eleven have done if they had pulled a gun and shot him on site?

At least I don't have to worry about boycotting 7-eleven. I haven't seen one in Minnesota, where I now live, yet. But I think I will skip getting a Slurpee next time I am in California.

Meanwhile, Ramirez and his accomplice should be prosecuted under the full power of the law, and deported once they have served their sentences.

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Kirchenwitz 7-Eleven

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There is an incredible amount of brouhaha over Jihad the Musical over in the U.K. When I first read about it, I took a pass on writing about it. but I spotted something in one of the articles that I had to share. From This Is London:

The story comes to a head on the night of the attack when Sayid must decide whose side he is on.

His sister eventually saves him, along with the French who sing "We turned and ran".

At least the writer got the part about the French right. I had to laugh.

Somehow I think that it is wanting to be a spin on The Producers, the Mel Brooks production from the '60s that starred, at least in the movie, Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder. I doubt that it is as funny as The Producers.

On the flip side of the coin, I don't think I have to worry about Jihad the Musical coming to my neighborhood.

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Jihad the Musical

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Last night was the monthly Townhall meetup, which I generally refer to as my monthly beer and politics night. Surprisingly, Darrell, who books the room for us, booked the patio instead. Not sure why, and it is possible that was the backup plan in the event some other group had beat us to booking the meeting room. Very likely this time around. Fortunately it was a nice evening to be out on the patio, and we had a smaller than usual turnout of 10-12 people, including Peter and Barbara returning after a nearly year long absence.

The downside of being on the patio is there is typically not table service, however, the people running the place came to the rescue and we did get table service. The bigger downside is no Guinness. Absolutely sinful!

This month it was more of an open forum as there wasn't any kind of forethought as to what topics to hit on. Not surprising with the bridge collapse the day before.

Although we did hit on the bridge collapse a bit, focusing on the moonbats who are politicizing the event, we otherwise stayed away from it out of respect for those killed and injured by this disaster. It's bad enough that there are whacko's on the left who are politicizing as part of their own agenda. And it is way too early to be able to discuss intelligently what caused the bridge to collapse.

We did have fun talking about what is going on in the Democratic Primary, especially with the recent verbal sparring between Barrack Obama and Hillary Clinton. I think that the consensus is that Hillary is beating Obama in the greater war of words like a bango drum, proving that Obama not only lacks smarts, but also lacks the needed savvy to be a leader. Of course Obama doesn't need Hillary's help in showing how ignorant he is: he is doing a good job of that on his own by stating he would invade Pakistan, one of our allies, and that he would not use nuclear weapons under any circumstances.

One good question brought up is if Hillary is beating the snot out of Obama (ever notice how MS Word wants to correct the spelling of Obama to Osama?), then why is he leading the pack on fund raising? The big money coming out of the entertainment industry probably has a lot to do with it.

Also mentioned were the allegations of election fraud on the part of Hillary Clinton. This is something I heard about for the first time a few days ago and I am not very informed on it. These allegations are being put forth by a guy named Peter Paul who claims Hillary Clinton knowingly failed to report millions of dollars in hard money contributions.

Overall, this was more of a low key event this time around.

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Hillary Clinton Obama 35W Bridge

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It comes as no surprise to me that Sean Penn has yet to meet a dictator he hasn't liked.

From BreitBart:

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has praised Sean Penn for his critical stance against the war in Iraq, saying the two chatted by phone and soon plan to meet in person.

I don't understand why so many Hollywood elites are so fascinated with dictators, and think that they are better than President Bush. I can't see myself meeting Comrade Chavez, but then I don't think he would be willing to meet with me either.

"Welcome to Venezuela, Mr. Penn. What drives him is consciousness, the search for new paths," Chavez said Wednesday in a televised speech. "He's one of the greatest opponents of the Iraq invasion."

Chavez read aloud from a recent open letter by Penn to President Bush in which the actor condemned the Iraq war and called for Bush to be impeached, saying the president along with Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice are "villainously and criminally obscene people."

The socialist president, who shares those views, said he and Penn talked by phone-"with my bad English but we understood each other more or less."

Chavez and Penn have several things in common, first of which is their love of dictators like Castro, Ahmadinejad, and Saddam Hussein. They both agree that the U.S. should not have liberated the people of Iraq and deposed a mass-murdering tyrant. And of course, they both hate America and George W. Bush.

And let's not forget their hatred of a free press. As I recall, Penn spent time in the pen for beating up a news photographer (paparazzi?); Chavez has shutdown television stations for broadcasting opposition views.

Penn has a definite problem with telling the difference between good and evil. Chavez, on the other hand, is in denial that he is himself evil.

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Sean Penn Chavez Venezuela

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It's not often that I feel a particular urge to write about Elton John (I'm old school enough to believe that knighthood should be reserved for those in military service, so no Sir for Mr. John).

From the Sun:

POP legend Sir Elton John wants the internet CLOSED DOWN.

Never one to keep his opinions to himself, the Rocket Man has waded into cyberspace with all guns blazing.

He claims it is destroying good music, saying: "The internet has stopped people from going out and being with each other, creating stuff.

"Instead they sit at home and make their own records, which is sometimes OK but it doesn't bode well for long-term artistic vision.

"It's just a means to an end.

"We're talking about things that are going to change the world and change the way people listen to music and that's not going to happen with people blogging on the internet.

"I mean, get out there - communicate.

"Hopefully the next movement in music will tear down the internet.

"Let's get out in the streets and march and protest instead of sitting at home and blogging.

"I do think it would be an incredible experiment to shut down the whole internet for five years and see what sort of art is produced over that span.

"There's too much technology available.

"I'm sure, as far as music goes, it would be much more interesting than it is today."

Elton also said that in the '70s there used to be ten great albums released every week, whereas today you are lucky if there are 10 great albums released in a year, with more albums being released in year than 30 years ago.

Okay, he may be right that there was a higher percentage of high quality music being released in the '70s than there is released today. Hard to argue that point as I believe he is right.

But to blame the Intenet and bloggers for the decline in good music? That's like blaming them for the vast number of bad movies and TV shows released every year in comparison to 30-40 years ago. Hollywood's answer to that dilemma is to rehash all of what was great in the '60s and '70s. The music industry continues to push out more and more drivel.

Probably the biggest contributor to the demise of high quality music is the advent of Rap music with its violent themes that involves drugs, rape, and cop killing. It sells, and Elton's latest album didn't.

As for an answer to Elton's question as to the kind of music produced if the Internet were to be shutdown, I have no doubt that the bulk of it would be the same kind of cr@p we are getting now. And he won't be able to blame the Internet and bloggers for it then.

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Elton John Internet Blogging Music

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The post-35W bridge collapse has had an interesting play on talk radio. I have noticed that the conservative opinion makers on the AM and FM dial have taken the tact of reporting only on the facts of the tragic incident, and have avoided getting into speculation as to the causes or the "blame game." Meanwhile, just for the heck of it, I tuned into AM950 to get a whiff of how they were handling it. The difference is night and day. Where Conservatives are treating this with great respect and solemnity, the Leftists, especially their callers, are busily politicizing the incident and looking for black helicopters.

The show on 950 that I caught a blurb of is the Ed Schultz Show. He was no where near as bad as some of his callers, one of whom asked "when is bush going to blame al-Qaeda." To his credit, Schultz stated that there is no evidence pointing to this being an act of terrorism. There was also a great deal of blaming Governor Pawlenty, Republicans, and even some placed on Ventura. It was truly whacked-out listening.

I checked out Schultz's website to see if he archived his show there as I would like to get a recording of some of the calls that were made.

I did see something I thought was interesting on a different issue. He is currently running a poll in regards to Obama's statement about invading Pakistan to go after terrorists.

Do you agree with Barack Obama's comment to hunt terrorists in Pakistan even without local permission if warranted?

Currently, 62% of those responding to the poll say "yes." In other words, 62% say they wish to violate the sovereignty of an ally (even a poor ally) in order to hunt terrorists. What an idea: commit an act of war against an ally that has nuclear weapons!

This is not to say that Schultz agrees with waging war with Pakistan, just asking his readers.

As for his handling of the bridge collapse, he may be a bit whacky, but he is no where near as nutty as some of his callers are.

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Air America Schultz MN

Posted by Sqotty at 5:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Senator-who-would-be-Queen Hillary Clinton moonbats it out of the park in a response to VP Cheney's refusal to allow the disclosure of Iraq plans from the Pentagon.

From Myway News:

She used even tougher language in an appeal sent to supporters of her presidential bid: "I couldn't care less what Dick Cheney says about me. But when he plays politics with the lives of our troops, you had better be sure I'm going to respond. And I know that you want to respond too."

As the saying goes "kettle, black."

It amazes me how often the hard-left accuses Conservatives of playing politics with the lives of our men and women who serve, especially since they are the ones who are playing hardball politics with our troops by tying funding for continued operations in Iraq to timetables for withdrawal (that's Democrat for surrender). It was a Democrat named Kerry who proclaimed "I voted for the $86 billion before I voted against" in regards to funding that was destined to provide needed equipment, including body armor, for our boots on the ground in Iraq.

Every time a Democrat attempts to tie funding to timetables or other tactics to micromanage the war, they are playing politics with the lives of our troops.

The politically charged debate began in May when Clinton, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, sought a briefing on how the Pentagon is planning to eventually remove troops and equipment from Iraq.

Undersecretary for Policy Eric Edelman wrote to the New York senator last month that such discussion boosts "enemy propaganda." Clinton called that answer "outrageous" and accused the Pentagon of ducking a serious issue.

Edelman s right in that talks of pulling out in Iraq sends a message that all the bad guys have to do is keep on doing what their doing and they will, like in Vietnam and Southeast Asia, win. They just have to wait out the American will to achieve victory and let the pro-terrorist activists and their proxies in Congress win the war for them.

I hate using comparing Iraq to Vietnam, however the Democrats have politicized the war in Iraq to the point where it is, in the political sense, like Vietnam. If we pull out of there now, a million Iraqis will either be forced to flee to other countries, or they will die. We will then lose Afghanistan as the Taliban will be reinforced by jihadis and the will for the U.S. to win there will also erode, turning Afghanistan into a 21st Century Cambodia. We will lose Pakistan as an ally as well, and probably other countries in the region.

Hillary Clinton is an expert at playing politics with the lives of our troops as well as the lives of those who want our help in securing their liberties.

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Hillary Clinton Iraq War Cheney

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This is all over the news tonight. I heard about it on my drive home from work. The bridge on Minnesota 35W crossing the Mississippi river collapsed this evening. The Star Tribune is reporting that at least 1 person is dead. Radio reports on the local airwaves have given the number killed as being three.

This is a serious travesty, at least as bad as the collapse of the Bay Bridge and an overpass in the East Bay that occurred during the '89 earthquake.

On my drive home I saw several emergency vehicles speeding north...I am assuming they were headed to the scene.

My thoughts and prayers go out to the victims and their families, as well as to the many emergency workers who will most likely be working through the night, despite a big storm headed their way.

UPDATE: Current reports on the radio are that 10 people are dead, 20 missing and at least 60 injured. Given the time of day this occurred, it could have been much worse.The radio stations continue to cover this tragic accident and informing people to stay clear of the area.

UPDATE: Radio stations have dropped the fatality count down to 4. Still 20 missing.

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Obama is talking tough on terrorism, but has he got the male equipment to do the walk or is he all wind? For some of his talk, it had better be whistling Dixie, as he is talking committing an act of war against Pakistan, who has been somewhat of an ally since 9/11.

From ABCNews (and other places to boot):

In a strikingly bold speech about terrorism scheduled for this morning, Democratic presidential candidate Illinois Sen. Barack Obama will call not only for a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, but a redeployment of troops into Afghanistan and even Pakistan - with or without the permission of Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf.

"I understand that President Musharraf has his own challenges," Obama will say, according to speech excerpts provided to ABC News by his campaign, "but let me make this clear. There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an al Qaeda leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will."

It is one thing to send troops into another country at their invitation, it is another to invade an ally, no matter how weak they are as an ally. That would be an act of war, just as Iran committed an act of war by taking over our embassy and holding our diplomatic staff hostage back in the '70s. Pakistan has nuclear weapons and would most likely use them in the event we did invade.

Obama attempts at talking tough shows a complete ignorance of what is at stake when it comes to the war on terror. He shows it when he claims our best bet at eliminating al-Qaeda leadership took place in 2005. Actually, the best chance was in the '90s when Sudan offered to extradite bin Ladin to the United States and Clinton turned them down. There were other opportunities to eliminate al-Qaeda early on that Clinton took a pass on as well.

The opportunity that Obama is referencing would have put a strain on our relations with Pakistan as well as carrying substantial risk, and may have failed.

Obama, whose father was Muslim, makes clear that he does not share the views of Democrats who downplay the risk of Islamist terrorism. In language rare for a Democratic presidential candidate, Obama will talk about Muslims who seek to create a repressive caliphate. "To defeat this enemy, we must understand who we are fighting against, and what we are fighting for."

And if Obama doesn't know that by now, he never will

Right now the debate is on as to who will be more dangerous to this country: Obama or Hillary. Right now it looks like Obama is the biggest threat to this country.

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Posted by Sqotty at 7:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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There are a couple of good pieces in the news today on the war in Iraq. The first is a piece on how firebrand Joe Lieberman is taking his formerly fellow Democrats in the Senate to task not just on the war in Iraq, but the Greater War on Terror as well.

From the Hill:

"I think either [Democrats] are, in my opinion, respectfully, naïve in thinking we can somehow defeat this enemy with talk, or they're simply hesitant to use American power, including military power," Lieberman said in a wide-ranging interview with The Hill.

"There is a very strong group within the party that I think doesn't take the threat of Islamist terrorism seriously enough."

Lieberman is, once again, proving that when it comes to the War on Terror and establishing democracy in the Middle East, he gets it, and the Dems in Senate do not.

He goes on to say that part of the problem is that many Democrats automatically take the attitude of anything Bush is for, then they will be against. This type of attitude brings out the worst in politics and is bad for the country. (Exception: if Hillary is in favor of something, then it may be that you should be against it.)

I don't agree on every issue with Lieberman, but I am happy to say on this issue (and probably a few others) we are in agreement.

Meanwhile, House majority Whip James Clyburn, is advocating a wait and see strategy to see what Petraeus' report will be like before continuing the push to surrender Iraq to the terrorists.

From the Washington Post:

Many Democrats have anticipated that, at best, Petraeus and U.S. ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker would present a mixed analysis of the success of the current troop surge strategy, given continued violence in Baghdad. But of late there have been signs that the commander of U.S. forces might be preparing something more generally positive. Clyburn said that would be "a real big problem for us."

Clyburn's comments came as House and Senate Democrats try to figure out their next steps in the legislative battle. Clyburn said he could foresee a circumstance in which House Democrats approve a measure without a timetable for withdrawing U.S. forces, which has been the consistent goal of the party throughout the months-long debate. But he said he could just as easily see Democrats continue to include a timetable.

With reports coming in that July had the lowest death rate of American troops in eight months, there could be strong indications that things are, in fact, turning around in Iraq. Granted, like everyone else, I would be much happier if the casualty rate in Iraq was zero. But getting the lowest in eight months, and with the surge only now having completed its first month of full operations, I think that is a good sign. I hope that a month form now we can claim the lowest death rate in a year, or more.

With 47 "Blue Dog" Democrats in the House who are likely to side with Republicans should things move in a positive direction vis-à-vis Iraq, it is possible we may stop hearing constant calls from Congress to "let the terrorists win."

Things may well be looking up for the people of Iraq. Let's hope so, as the price of failure will be very high, and it's the people of Iraq who will be making the down payment for that failure.

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Posted by Sqotty at 6:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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