Right Wing News

This week, I'm going to be on vacation and so I'm going to have the following passel of guest bloggers filling in for me beside of my regular co-bloggers, Dr. Melissa Clouthier, Van Helsing from Moonbattery, and McQ from QandO.

Mon
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Cassy Fiano
William Teach from Pirate's Cove
Little Miss Attila
Ron Coleman from Likelihood of Success

Tue
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Cassy Fiano
Sharon Soon from GOPUSA Northeast
William Teach from Pirate's Cove
Skye from Midnight Blue

Wed
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Katie Favazza
William Teach from Pirate's Cove
SarahK from mountaineer musings
Kathleen McKinley from RightwingSparkle

Thurs
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Jeff Gannon - A Voice of the New Media
Ed Driscoll
William Teach from Pirate's Cove
Little Miss Attila

Fri
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Sister Toldjah
Little Miss Attila
Likelihood of Success
Danny Carlton from JackLewis

CG
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Gina Cobb
Doubleplusundead
Sarahk from mountaineer musings
Michael Illions from GOPUSA Northeast

Right up the road in Durham. WRAL - Prosecutor: Couple's Crimes Related To Cult

A Durham couple charged with kidnapping, rape and assault was involved with a satanic cult, a prosecutor said Monday.

Joy Johnson and Joseph Craig appeared at a bond hearing Monday. A judge set Craig's bond at $590,000, but refused a prosecution request to increase Johnson's bond from $270,000 to $500,000.

Prosecutors said a man and a woman met Craig through a shared interest in Satan worship, but the pair never consented to physical abuse.

Craig shackled his victims to beds, kept them in dog cages and starved them inside his Albany Street home, prosecutors said. He was charged with beating the man with a cane and a cord and with raping the woman.

Sick. But, wait, this should come as no surprise

Johnson, who was third vice-chair of the Durham County Democratic Party and vice-chair for the Young Democrats, was charged with two counts of aiding and abetting. Prosecutors said she knew her husband planned the crime and watched as they were committed.

She has resigned her positions with the Democratic Party, said state Sen. Floyd McKissick, D-Durham.

Johnson also resigned her position as office manager for the Durham People's Alliance.

The Durham People's Alliance is a far left progressive group. I don't think the rest really needs to be commented on, do you?

Crossed at Pirate's Cove

Let me tell you the story of a remarkable American and Navy Veteran, Rich Davis. He is the founder of a pro-troop, pro-American organization called the Chester County Victory Movement (American Sheepdogs) based in West Chester, Pa.

His one man 'support the troops' rally has blossomed into a grassroot organization populated with exceptional Americans who publicly show their support for our troops.

This is the story of Rich Davis and the Chester County Victory Movement.

Intrigued? Read more of the story at MidnightBlue and American Sheepdogs

This video has been entered into the RNC convention's American Neighbor Video Contest

To start off, as many of you have already read, Obama threw Wes Clark, if not under the bus, at least into the bumper

"As he's said many times before, Senator Obama honors and respects Senator McCain's service, and of course he rejects yesterday's statement by General Clark," said Obama campaign spokeman Bill Burton.

Is this what the Hope 'n Change xPress will bring us throughout the campaign? Some Obama supporter comes out, says something nasty, gets the talking point out there for all to see, then Obama, who really needs to wash the blood and gore off his bus at this time, runs them over, then reaps the benefit of the nastiness while attempting to keep his hands clean? Democrats do not seem to want to blame Obama at all, yet blamed Bush for the actions of a few low level military members at a prison in Iraq.

But Clark won't back down (Politico)

There are many important issues in this Presidential election, clearly one of the most important issues is national security and keeping the American people safe. In my opinion, protecting the American people is the most important duty of our next President. I have made comments in the past about John McCain's service and I want to reiterate them in order be crystal clear. As I have said before I honor John McCain's service as a prisoner of war and a Vietnam Veteran. He was a hero to me and to hundreds of thousands and millions of others in Armed Forces as a prisoner of war. I would never dishonor the service of someone who chose to wear the uniform for our nation.

John McCain is running his campaign on his experience and how his experience would benefit him and our nation as President. That experience shows courage and commitment to our country - but it doesn't include executive experience wrestling with national policy or go-to-war decisions. And in this area his judgment has been flawed - he not only supported going into a war we didn't have to fight in Iraq, but has time and again undervalued other, non-military elements of national power that must be used effectively to protect America But as an American and former military officer I will not back down if I believe someone doesn't have sound judgment when it comes to our nation's most critical issues.

Now, let's look seriously at the issue. Does being in the military and being a POW give McCain "executive ability?" No. Not by itself. He sure doesn't have the experience like some others who almost started World War III with the Russians. But, you add that to his long service in government, and it certainly gives him a hell of a lot more then Senator Neophyte, who, according to Wes Clark, is not ready, because he has no experience wrestling with national policy or go-to-war decisions. Funny how that works, eh?

Now, as pointed out in the comments, the Democrats thought John Kerry's 4 months in Vietnam was enough to give him executive ability. But McCain's doesn't. What I want in a president is someone who will lead, who has vision, knows how to work with others, and looks mostly toward what is best for the people, not what they think is best for the people.

Update:  Bob Dole blasts Sir Wesley

 Dole, the 1996 Republican presidential nominee, said that Clark's statement was "beyond comprehension" and his "absurd remarks signal further erosion in our nation's political discourse. He should have stayed in bed Sunday morning.

"It's unfortunate that a former general who ran for the presidency on his own war record thinks it appropriate to attack a distinguished veteran and former prisoner-of-war in this way. Sen. McCain's entire life has been devoted to public service. His achievement and experience constitute unparalleled qualification for America's highest office."

A while back in Washington, I was approached modestly by a man named Jim Edwards, who asked if he could tell me a little about his organization, NumbersUSA. I soon realized that this was a group I had supported and whose emails I still regularly receive, so I was happy to find out more about it.

Jim, also known as Dr. James R. Edwards, Jr., I found out later, is a leading consultant of NumbersUSA, adjunct fellow at the Hoover Institute, author, and prominent public policy expert whose writings have been published by the New York Times, National Review Online, the Washington Times, and (my absolute favorite magazine) Human Events. For one with such an impressive resume, I found Jim to be astonishingly humble, good-natured, and approachable.

Jim explained to me that NumbersUSA, organized in 1997, is a "grassroots, nonpartisan organization that organizes around the issue of immigration." With over half a million activists throughout the country, the group has been making an increasing impact on both local and federal legislation. In fact, NumbersUSA "played a large part in stopping McCain-Kennedy," and since then has grown significantly.

Currently, a major goal of the organization is to help pass the Secure America with Verification and Enforcement (SAVE) Act through Congress, which was introduced, surprisingly, by Democrat Congressman Heath Schuler from North Carolina. The SAVE Act is a fair and practical response to the problem of illegal immigration which, as Jim stated, "is geared at closing down the jobs magnet" that attracts foreigners to enter the U.S. illegally by targeting the employers who hire them with firm penalties. Employers would further be mandated to confirm that all their workers are legally eligible for their jobs.

Most recently, NumbersUSA is asking concerned citizens to learn about the SAVE Act, call their Congressmen to get this bill on the floor, and send them a free fax to stress your concern. Jim emphasized that the issue of illegal immigration has become a "bipartisan issue," and the bill has been "picking up cosponsors from both parties," such as Senators Mark Pryor (D-AR) and David Vitter (R-LA).

Offering some statistics that should raise an eyebrow or two, Jim then revealed that

Our immigration flow, historically, has been an average of 250,000 per year from 1776 to 1976. Now, however, we've taken in over a million immigrants each year, and this accounts only for legal immigration.

Futher, he cited Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation:

When you take into account all the taxes that immigrant -legal and illegal - households pay vs. the entitlements/public benefits they receive, the average is a subsidy of $20,000 a year.

Cause for concern, anyone?

Nonetheless, Jim and the rest of NumbersUSA seem hopeful about their efforts.

The best strategy to do something about this issue by small, incremental steps; change incentives so more illegals leave on their own, and fewer enter.

He explained that while the group is pro-immigration, it believes that immigration should be legal and regulated in a way that could still be handled by Americans and our government. I whole-heartedly agree with him here, as the U.S. is a sovereign nation that - like any other nation - has every right to decide who it allows to reside within its borders; clearly, it should do this in a way that our communities can accommodate and that doesn't overburden our society. And perhaps mostly importantly, it should do so in a way that is fair and just, in keeping with our laws and sovereignty.

If Americans are smart, we will care enough to educate ourselves about the issue of immigration and take action to protect our nation's borders. Thanks to NumbersUSA, "taking action" can now even be accomplished with the click of a button - literally. With the ingenious system they've set up, which they call the "Action Buffet," anyone interested can set up a free, personal account where they have the opportunity to contribute in multiple ways:

• Stay informed with the latest news and legislation about the issue
• Send free automatic, pre-written faxes to your legislators
• Call your legislators about specific items of action
• Locate and/or attend town hall meetings and public appearances by legislators
• Donate to the cause

The Action Buffet, which can be customized by its users, makes it almost inexcusable for concerned citizens not to take action. And it has been impressively successful thus far. Through the system, according to Jim, supporters "have delivered incredible numbers of faxes and even shut down the phone lines at Capital Hill last summer." But the goal of NumbersUSA is still far from being achieved; more help is needed and more support from Congress is vital if we are ever to significantly impact this critical issue.

I, for one, am grateful to NumbersUSA and activists like Jim Edwards for making my job a few steps easier. And if Americans in favor of immigration the lawful way were all to spend a few minutes a week sending faxes or making calls, there is no question that Congress would have to her our voices and legislate accordingly. Is this too much to ask of America's citizens and their representatives?

Cross-posted from Conservatives with Attitude!

Educational standards in moonbattery-addled Britain aren't what they once were:

A British high school student received credit for writing nothing but a two-word obscenity on an exam paper because the phrase expressed meaning and was spelled correctly.

The exam question was "Describe the room you are sitting in." The student's answer was "F--- off."

"It would be wicked to give it zero because it does show some very basic skills we are looking for, like conveying some meaning and some spelling," [examiner Peter] Buckroyd was quoted as saying. "It's better than someone that doesn't write anything at all."

Buckroyd said the student would have received a higher mark if the phrase had been punctuated.

Keep that in mind while preparing your cheat sheets, students!

On tips from Lyle, Burning Hot, and Frank W. Cross-posted at Moonbattery.

The Heritage Foundation takes a look at what Obama promises for taxes should he be elected and what that means:

Obama's tax plan has two major components. First, he promises to end the Bush tax cuts, allowing the top two tax rates to return to 36% and 39.6%. Second, he promises to end the Social Security payroll tax cap for incomes above $250,000. Individuals making more than $250,000, therefore, would face a 15.65% tax rate from payroll taxes in addition to a top income tax rate of 39.6% for a combined tax rate over 56%. Individuals living in cities or states with high taxes such as New York City or California would have tax rates approaching 70%, levels not seen since Jimmy Carter was in office.

This from a man who claims to want to ensure that he puts policies in place to help the economy. Instead, higher taxes, especially in the range being talked about here, have three effects.

One - tax avoidance. People effected by high taxes are going to try every legal means, such as tax shelters, to avoid paying taxes on their earnings.

These gimmicks both reduce investment and economic growth in an attempt to avoid punitive taxation. Some individuals will attempt to transfer their compensation from wages to capital gains since capital gains would only be taxed at 25%. Others might try to incorporate so they could pay business taxes instead of income taxes. All of these schemes divert resources away from wealth creation and to lawyers and accountants who implement these schemes.

Two - Income flight. Money and capital will be moved to overseas location where it is taxed at a much lower rate.

Visiting Britain recently, French President Nicols Sarkozy remarked that France's high taxes had driven so many French to London that it had become the seventh-largest French city. Obama-sized tax rates would drive many creative Americans to Canada and London as well.

Or Ireland. Capital is going to seek a friendly tax climate for investment.

Three - Unemployment. When investment slows, the economy slows. And when the economy slows, the fastest way to effect the bottom line is to reduce headcount.

Currently only six of the top 30 industrial nations have combined local and national tax rates above 55%. The average unemployment rate rate for those countries is 7.35%. Under Obama's plan, the top marginal tax rate would exceed 60%, which means only Hungary would have a more punitive tax rate. Hungary's 2006 unemployment rate was 7.5%.

Couple that plan with the Obama plan to impose "windfall taxes" on the oil companies (for which the consumer will pay at the pump), biofuel mandates (for which the consumer will pay higher food prices) and and a carbon tax (for which the consumer will pay as well) and you have all the makings of an economic disaster.

Why would you be a bad guy in Texas? Everyone owns a gun and people really, really like to use them. Dave from Ace's blog has been watching this case, as have I. He explains what happened:

To recap: Joe Horn, a resident of Pasadena Texas observed two men (illegal aliens as it happens), burglarizing a neighbor's home, and he called 911.

He spent some time on the phone with the 911 dispatcher, waiting for law enforcement to arrive.

They didn't, and he grabbed a shotgun and went out to confront them.

According to the transcript, the 911 operator repeatedly urged Joe to stay inside and wait for law enforcement. Joe waited a while, then said 'he did not believe it would be right to let the burglars get away'.

"Well, here it goes, buddy," Horn can be heard telling the operator. "You hear the shotgun clicking and I'm going."

He went out, told em to stop. They didn't. And he shot both of them, in the back.

There's the "stand your ground" provision. If it justifies him leaving the house to face them down, it's not so much an exemption from the duty to retreat as an affirmative right to advance. And how was deadly force "immediately" necessary if it could have been prevented just by sitting tight? He's got the shotgun and he's watching them; if they try to come in his house, they'll never know what hit them. Eh, whatever. It's not worth parsing the statutes too finely since ultimately it's in a (grand) jury's hands and they're not going to send an old man to jail for shooting two felons caught in the act, whatever the felony and time of day.

One would think that a few instances like this would be a major deterrent to crime. Move to DC, it's safer to be a criminal there.

Cross-posted at Dr. Melissa Clouthier

There is one good reason for BHO to put Shrillary on the ticket. When his administration inevitably comes under fire for corruption and gross incompetence, he can defend himself be screaming about both racism and sexism, like Baltimore's Mayor Sheila Dixon.

Dixon, who has the extreme good fortune to be both black and female, has been called to account for passing out government contracts and $millions in tax breaks to her friends. But her defense is ironclad:

I think there is sexism and racism … It covers the gambit.

That does cover the gambit. Even the Obamessiah can only use racism to fend off criticism and overcome resistance. But with Shrillary on board, he'll have both sides of the liberal brain covered.

On a tip from V the K. Cross-posted at Moonbattery.

See, what I meant about the ugly choices? Marrying Rosie O'Donnell can't last long. It's the ending that makes it all worthwhile.

Cross-posted at Dr. Melissa Clouthier

What's happening in New York City this balmy summer day? The city bustles but there is little building going on ground zero. Prices are sky-rocketing. Government officials are wrangling (imagine that):

In a report to New York governor David Paterson, Mr Ward said: "The schedule and cost estimates of the rebuilding effort that have been communicated to the public are not realistic."

He said developers and government agencies would set new "clear and achievable timelines" by the end of September.

Mr Ward said the earliest rebuilding estimates in the wake of the 9/11 attacks were not truthful, referring to them as "emotional dates".

My initial response to the Twin Towers going down was that we should rebuild as quickly as possible. Get it done and show the world what America is made of tough stuff. Nothing keeps us down and all that.

Given that the Left operates like 9/11 didn't happen and ignores the consequences of unchecked Islamofascism and feels the threat is exaggerated (see here, here, or just watch CNN) a huge dirt hole seems to be an appropriate reminder. Put up 2,000+ markers where the people died and be done with it. Let every person look and ponder what happens when bad ideologies triumph (at least temporarily).

As an added bonus, there should be flat screens replaying the Towers going down with video of our soldiers hunting and killing terrorist scum. It's "raw", I know, but there's a simple elegance to my plan don't you think? As an added bonus: It's cost effective.

UPDATED:

Rachel Lucas reminds us why we need constant reminders of the consequences of Islamofascism:

Dear Britain: the more you apologize for stupid shit like this, the more you will be apologizing in the future for ever more innocuous "offenses." You will never be done with it, you will never be able to satisfy these people until you utterly BEND TO THEIR WILL, and you will apologize yourselves right into cultural oblivion as Islam slowly but very, very surely mows you down with its "outrage" and your proclivity to be doormats. Very impressive. Your dead and dying grandfathers and grandmothers, who stood up to the last set of fascist assholes when most of your neighbors didn't - they must be so proud.

Cross-posted at Dr. Melissa Clouthier

Hello RWN readers,

Let me take this time to introduce myself: I'm Skye, blog mistress of MidnightBlue and a contributor at Flopping Aces. I want to take a moment to thank John Hawkins for inviting me to guest post on Right Wing News today. I've been a fan of RWN for a number of years, and to have the opportunity to post on this remarkable website makes me all kinds of happy! Also, I would like to say hello to the brilliant commenters of RWN, especially CavalierX.

Just yesterday, over at MidnightBlue, I was bemoaning the silence on the outsourcing our energy products. Today, I discover all it not lost - that there is oil that can be stamped 'Made in America'.

BEULAH, N.D. -- Oscar Stohler was raised in a sod house in western North Dakota and ranched there for nearly seven decades. He never gave much thought to what lay below the grass that fattened his cattle.

A humble beginning for this newly minted millionaire.

In less than a year, Stohler and his wife, Lorene, 82, have become millionaires from the production of one well on their land near Dunn Center, a mile or so from the sod home where Oscar grew up. A second well has begun producing on their property and another is being drilled -- all aimed at the Bakken shale formation, a rich deposit that the U.S. Geological Survey calls the largest continuous oil accumulation it has ever assessed.

These are the jobs most Americans are not allowed to do thanks to decades of successful shunning of our natural resources by Green activists.

You can read the rest of this great story HERE

In the Democrat Corner:

DNC Prostest Will Be Behind A Fence:

The fence around the public demonstration zone outside the Democratic National Convention will be chicken wire or chain link, authorities revealed in U.S. District Court today.

That may allow protestors to be seen and heard by delegates going in and out of the Pepsi Center during the convention.

But the American Civil Liberties Union and several advocacy groups have filed an amended complaint to their lawsuit against the U.S. Secret Service and the city and county of Denver that says protestors and demonstrators may have their First Amendment rights violated by security restrictions

Perhaps after the Convention, the protesters can organize an 'Experience the DNC Fence' tour similar in style to the current Experience Gitmo tour.

In the Republican Corner:

An Exponential Leap in Technology

"This year, the Republican National Convention planning team is much more focused on using new media to get the party's message out, said Matt Burns, director of communications for the convention."

"The Republican convention in Minneapolis/St. Paul this year has a YouTube channel and has launched a YouTube video contest to attract Internet users."

"In addition, USTREAM.TV has formed a partnership with the Republicans to stream video live. Burns said recent progress in video streaming technology will make it easier to provide live coverage of the convention to online users."

"In addition, the convention has a Twitter account and FaceBook page and MySpace pages- and has launched an interactive online forum known as CONVENTIONiNSIDER where visitors can ask questions about planning in Minneapolis/St. Paul."

"The Republican convention team also said a Spanish language Web site is under development, and that video and streaming in Spanish would occur."

In fairness, the DNC is also hosting a video contest which is sponsored by the Denver Film Society and the Denver Office of Cultural Affairs entitled Cinemocracy. This weekend my big plan is to submit a video to this contest.

Chris Satullo, writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer, penned an opus to the "Blame America" groupies:

Put the fireworks in storage. Cancel the parade.

Tuck the soaring speeches in a drawer for another time.

This year, America doesn't deserve to celebrate its birthday. This Fourth of July should be a day of quiet and atonement.

For we have sinned.

We have failed to pay attention. We've settled for lame excuses. We've spit on the memory of those who did that brave, brave thing in Philadelphia 232 years ago.

We have sinned? Or is this just a public projection of the writers personal fears and doubts.

Two Terror Alerts regarding Iran have come to my attention:

1. Iran announces plans to dig thousands of graves in anticipation of an attack on its soil.

Iran is to dig 320,000 graves in border districts to allow for the burial of enemy soldiers in the event of any attack on its territory, a top commander said today. In implementation of the Geneva Conventions ... the necessary measures are being taken to provide for the burial of enemy soldiers," the Mehr news agency quoted General Mir-Faisal Bagherzadeh as saying.

"We have plans to dig 15,000 to 20,000 graves in each of the border provinces or a total of 320,000," the general said, adding that some of them would be mass graves if necessary.

Mr Bagherzadeh said Iran was keen to "reduce the suffering of the families of the fallen in any attack against our country ... and prevent any repetition of the long and bitter experience of the Vietnam War".

2. Iran Could Have Nuclear Weapons in 6 Months

The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency Mohamed ElBaradei, said Iran could create a nuclear weapon in six months. Yes, this is the same guy that a couple of months ago said we have a few years before Iran would have that capability.

ElBaradei spoke on Al-Arabiya television on June 20, discussing Iran's nuclear program, and the potential for the Middle Eastern country to produce a nuclear weapon.

Could it be that last year's NIE was a LIE? Now the IAEA Chief is restating Iran's capability to make a nuclear weapon within 6 months instead of several years.

As one of the supposed anti-science conservatives liberals are always yammering on about, I was glad when President Bush vetoed the increase in federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. I wrote about adult stem cell success stories, and since June of last year, there have been even more exciting treatments:

• A middle aged man in Colorado had his bone marrow cells harvested, multiplied in the lab and then injected into his back.

  "I think this is the beginning of a new era of surgery," [Dr. Christopher Centeno] said. "We usually take out the offending piece but do nothing to repair the small damage we just created. This allows you to do both."



• A study published in Canada shows how adult stem cells can help slow the progression of Lou Gehrig's disease:

  "We were able to measure a prominent effect on stem cell mobilization and found no adverse effects in the patients," said [Dr. Neil] Cashman. "There have been many misgivings in using stem cell stimulators in ALS patients but now we know we can safely do this. This is an important first step in providing a new treatment for ALS."



• Headline: Autologous Haematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation After Immunosuppressive Therapy Effective and Safe in Multiple Sclerosis
  

  What that means is that doctors in France took MS patients, suppressed their immune system, injected them with their own bone marrow cells and found:

  "All patients appeared to respond to treatment", reported Dr. Ionova. Improvement was seen in 62.3%, and stabilisation occurred in 37.7% of patients. Progression after improvement occurred in 7.1% and progression after stabilisation in 11.8% of patients.

  There were no deaths during the course of the study.

  Out of 26 patients included in the quality-of-life analysis, 24 exhibited a response and preserved a good quality of life during the follow-up. No unexpected treatment-related adverse events were observed.

  As Bioethics.com notes, "This confirms other studies."



• Researchers in Australia have found that patients with Parkinson's disease respond positively to the injection of adult stem cells:

  The Griffith University study published in the journal Stem Cells found that adult stem cells harvested from the noses of Parkinson's patients gave rise to dopamine-producing brain cells when transplanted into the brain of a rat.

  The debilitating symptoms of Parkinson's such as loss of muscle control are caused by degeneration of cells that produce the essential chemical dopamine in the brain.

  It's also important to note that they have tried the same experiment with embryonic stem cells, only it resulted in the "formation of tumours or teratomas in the host rats..."



• Two Canadians suffering from a rare form of lung disease were treated with their own "gene-modified stem cells" in an experimental procedure:

  "These enhanced stem cells are given in a heart catheterization suite, and lodge in the lung where it is hoped they will stimulate the repair and regeneration of blood vessels in the lung," explained Dr. Galipeau, Associate Professor of Medicine and Oncology at McGill University.

  This procedure has cured laboratory rats with pulmonary hypertension, and this study in Canadian volunteers afflicted with pulmonary hypertension seeks to assess the safety of this type of stem cell treatment.

That is just five examples of many. There are articles showing that adult stem cells may "may force Crohn's disease into retreat", they can "improve healing of fractures," and "are already giving some patients a new lease on life."

But what of the embryonic stem cell? What about the issue that helped catapult Claire McCaskill into Jim Talent's Senate Seat? You remember Michael J. Fox, don't you? He helped Missouri liberals amend the state constitution with his commercial for Senator McCaskill.

According to "the head of the UK National Stem Cell Network," embryonic stem cell research is a flop:

Despite his own reservations that stem cell work may not live up to its hype, Lord Patel said he was hopeful of finding treatments for serious diseases such as diabetes, Parkinson's, motor neurone disease and even disorders such as Alzheimer's.

"Are there any signs that this could happen? Yes there are, particularly in animal experiments that suggest this might be possible," Lord Patel said.

"In terms of embryonic stem cell therapy, there is currently no such therapy that is available in a large number of patients.

A recent Journal of the American Medical Association study done by "Richard K. Burt, M.D., of the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and colleagues" found, according to LifeNews.com, that adult stem cells are currently working with over 70 diseases.

Things are going so well on the adult stem cell side, that scientists are now able to manipulate stem cells still in the brain and pharmaceutical giant Pfizer announced recently that they would invest in adult stem cell research to help with "diabetes-induced retinal damage, a leading cause of blindness."

When you look at the landslide of success found in adult stem cell research and compare it to the lack of success on the embryonic side, you really have to ask who is the anti-science party. The science is on our side.

Cross posted at All American Blogger, where you can find other great original articles.

The Washington Post is reporting that along with Christopher Dodd and Kent Conrad, Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama got a sweeter than normal deal on his mortgage:

The freshman Democratic senator received a discount. He locked in an interest rate of 5.625 percent on the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, below the average for such loans at the time in Chicago. The loan was unusually large, known in banker lingo as a "super super jumbo." Obama paid no origination fee or discount points, as some consumers do to reduce their interest rates.

Compared with the average terms offered at the time in Chicago, Obama's rate could have saved him more than $300 per month.

Nice. I wonder if everyone could get as sweet a deal as that. I'm not talking about the guy trying to scrape together a couple hundred thousand for a house. I talking about other richy-rich folks. Would they get the same deal as a former state senator who made it to the show?

Nope:

In Obama's case, he received a lower rate than the average offered at the time in Chicago for similarly structured jumbo loans. He secured his final mortgage commitment on June 8, 2005, and during that week, rates on similar loans for which information is available averaged 5.93 percent, according to HSH Associates, which surveys lenders. Another survey firm, Bankrate.com, placed the average at 6 percent.

"It's certainly safe to say that this borrower did better than average," said Keith Gumbinger, an HSH vice president, noting that consumer rates vary widely. "It's a good deal."

I'm sure the Obamatons will excuse this as nothing out of the ordinary, even though "The Obamas had no prior relationship with Northern Trust when they applied for the loan." Sure, usually you get a better deal than the people who have been banking there for years. That's how it works.

See, the bank didn't really treat him an differently than anyone else:

Unlike Countrywide, where leaked internal e-mails documented a special discount program for friends of chief executive Angelo Mozilo, Northern Trust says it has no formal program to provide discounts to public officials. Loan officers may consider a borrower's occupation when establishing an interest rate, the bank said.

They just consider the occupation of United States Senator the same way they would, say, dog-catcher, or airline pilot. Oh, and then there is this:

Since 1990, Northern Trust employees have donated more than $739,000 to federal campaigns, including $71,000 to Obama, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Probably nothing to that either.

Next big speech for Barack: "I will never question anyone's mortgage, and I condemn anyone who does!"

Cross posted at All American Blogger, where you can find other great original articles.

I don't know how many times I saw the video in this post while I was in the Navy. It is a very important part of U.S. Naval history. Not once in all those viewings did I ever hear anyone claim that John McCain was responsible for the fire.

Now I have. A Free Republic user warned of a smear campaign by Lane Anderson of Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Lane, he said, was making the claim that John McCain started the USS Forrestal fire.

After a little searching, I found this:

More important than marital issues is his competance in military matters. Google {USS Forrestal Fire John McCain} to learn more about the pilot that lost five planes and set a supercarrier on fire!

Lane

If you click the link, you can see it is Lane Anderson.

Say what you want about John McCain, but he didn't start the Forrestal Fire. Via the Chief of Naval Information:

It is not a story about just a few individuals. Or ten. Or twenty. Or fifty. It is the story of hundreds of officers and enlisted men who were molded by disaster into a single cohesive force determined to accomplish one mission: Save their ship and their shipmates.

It is the story of the acts of heroism they performed-acts so commonplace, accomplished with such startling regularity, that it will be impossible to chronicle all of them. It will be impossible for a very simple reason:All of them will never be known.

Lt. Cmdr. Robert "Bo" Browning one of the pilots due for launch with many others, he was seated in the cockpit of his fueled and armed Skyhawk; the plane was spotted way aft, to port. Lt. Cmdr. John S. McCain III said later he heard a "whooshy" sound then a "low-order explosion" in front of him. Suddenly, two A-4s ahead of his plane were engulfed in flaming jet fuel -- JP-5 -- spewed from them. A bomb dropped to the deck and rolled about six feet and came to rest in a pool of burning fuel.

The awful conflagration, which was to leave 132 Forrestal crewmen dead, 62 more injured and two missing and presumed dead, had begun.

I thought that the left had reached rock bottom when they made the claims that McCain had it easy in the Hanoi Hilton and collaborated with the enemy. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but I am.

Blaming him for the death of 132 sailors is so far out there that it is beyond imagination.

Cross posted at All American Blogger, where you can find other great original articles.

Who's a big sweety? Who's a big sweety? Yes you are! Yes you are!

Muslims outraged at police advert featuring cute puppy sitting in policeman's hat

A postcard featuring a cute puppy sitting in a policeman's hat advertising a Scottish police force's new telephone number has sparked outrage from Muslims.  

Tayside Police's new non-emergency phone number has prompted complaints from members of the Islamic community.

The choice of image on the Tayside Police cards - a black dog sitting in a police officer's hat - has now been raised with Chief Constable John Vine.

The advert has upset Muslims because dogs are considered ritually unclean and has sparked such anger that some shopkeepers in Dundee have refused to display the advert.

It's no wonder Muslims are always so angry, if they cannot take joy in a puppy.

 Little Green Footballs

Crossed at Pirate's Cove

One of the problems with fighting back against the disciples of anthropogenic global warming, and other silliness such as 9/11 Twooferism and Progressivism, is having to respond to them using rationality and facts and figures, which they then dismiss as being created by Big Oil, or whoever and/or whatever the current villain is. Bret Stephens at the Wall Street Journal easily links the feelings based idiocy and the real facts regarding AGW - Global Warming as Mass Neurosis

Last week marked the 20th anniversary of the mass hysteria phenomenon known as global warming. Much of the science has since been discredited. Now it's time for political scientists, theologians and psychiatrists to weigh in.

What, discredited? Thousands of scientists insist otherwise, none more noisily than NASA's Jim Hansen, who first banged the gong with his June 23, 1988, congressional testimony (delivered with all the modesty of "99% confidence").

But mother nature has opinions of her own. NASA now begrudgingly confirms that the hottest year on record in the continental 48 was not 1998, as previously believed, but 1934, and that six of the 10 hottest years since 1880 antedate 1954. Data from 3,000 scientific robots in the world's oceans show there has been slight cooling in the past five years, never mind that "80% to 90% of global warming involves heating up ocean waters," according to a report by NPR's Richard Harris.

The Arctic ice cap may be thinning, but the extent of Antarctic sea ice has been expanding for years. At least as of February, last winter was the Northern Hemisphere's coldest in decades. In May, German climate modelers reported in the journal Nature that global warming is due for a decade-long vacation. But be not not-afraid, added the modelers: The inexorable march to apocalypse resumes in 2020.

This last item is, of course, a forecast, not an empirical observation. But it raises a useful question: If even slight global cooling remains evidence of global warming, what isn't evidence of global warming? What we have here is a nonfalsifiable hypothesis, logically indistinguishable from claims for the existence of God. This doesn't mean God doesn't exist, or that global warming isn't happening. It does mean it isn't science.

He goes on to point out that so much about AGW is belief, or, as he should have wrote it, Belief with ye olde capital B.

To me, it is not so much that global warming hasn't happened, and won't happen again. It has. It will. It will also get cool again. Climate change does happen. But, the Disciples of Gore desperately want to believe that it is all Man's fault, for so many of the reasons mentioned here at Right Wing News, at my site, around the Interwebz, and in the WSJ article. Funny how, despite the actual increase of CO2 output, the temperature portion of the climate, real temps, not models, have remained pretty much stagnant for 10 years, eh?

Ann Althouse wonders where the kids are. Makes me think about the book Where The Wild Things Are. Our neighborhood is full of kids, yet good luck finding evidence of them. Where are they?

Swimming--in public pools or in pools in the back yard. Summer camp. There are camps for everything and since playing stick ball with make-shift bases isn't part of the modern world, a child goes to a camp organized by adults, supervised by teenagers and it kills a couple birds with one stone. Children and teenagers, occupied! Wii--We bought one two weeks ago and I've been beaten in baseball, bowling, boxing, and my Mii has been beaten severely in tennis, though I have yet to play. My children have created a Wii community filled with mutant beings. It's great fun to make your dad bald, short, fat, with strange facial hair, a unibrow, pink cheeks, disco shades and eye shadow. Don't forget the moles. Cartoons. Come on! They are a summer staple. Yes, your children sit like mindless blobs of protoplasm absorbing what little mental nutrition can be extracted from these worthless shows. On the plus side, mom blogs in peace! Trampolines--Nothing says summer like working up a sweat engaging in repetititve bouncing activities. It's therapeutic. Down side--intracranial injuries. Eh, our generation rode bikes without helmets and skateboards without elbow pads, they'll be fine.

Kids are doing lots of stuff, just not the stuff that puts them in the public square or their own backyards much. Have you watched the news? No, most bloggers don't watch the news. Do blog readers watch the news? Well, if you watched Greta VanSusteren, last night, you saw children, young women, young men and families who were bludgeoned to death by a rampaging psycho. Oh, and then there were the three or four young women who were raped and killed 1) by relatives 2) while jogging 3) while taking a bath. My husband and I were talking about implanting a GPS device in my daughter. I kid you not. Evidently, we're not the only ones with this train of thought. For now, it looks we'd have to settle for cell phones.

The point is that parents don't feel free to let their kids roam like we did when we were kids. At five or six, we'd walk a couple streets over to play (walking through yards). At eight or nine, we'd be outside for hours until dinner time. I think my mom locked us out. Not now. Parents must observe children non-stop. Or they're working and gone. Or their neighbors aren't at home. What if something happened?

It might not be rational. In fact, upon researching it, it looks like it's not rational:

Research has shown that between 40 and 150 incidents of child abduction murder occur each year, which is less than one half of one percent of the murders committed nationally.

[Katherine M. Brown, Robert D. Keppel, Joseph G. Weis, and Marvin E. Skeen. CASE MANAGEMENT for Missing Children Homicide Investigation. Olympia, Washington: Office of the Attorney General, State of Washington, and U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, May 2006, page 1.]

797,500 children (younger than 18) were reported missing in a one-year period of time studied resulting in an average of 2,185 children being reported missing each day.
203,900 children were the victims of family abductions.
58,200 children were the victims of non-family abductions.
115 children were the victims of "stereotypical" kidnapping. (These crimes involve someone the child does not know or someone of slight acquaintance, who holds the child overnight, transports the child 50 miles or more, kills the child, demands ransom, or intends to keep the child permanently.
[Andrea J. Sedlak, David Finkelhor, Heather Hammer, and Dana J. Schultz. U.S. Department of Justice. "National Estimates of Missing Children: An Overview" in National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children. Washington, DC: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice, October 2002, page 5.]

Cross-posted at Dr. Melissa Clouthier

But the way I read it, the impact of speculation is such that any obvious steps we take toward energy independence (drilling, alternate fuels, conservation, efficient vehicles) will affect prices much more quickly than one might expect if supply and demand were the only variables involved.

(Yes; I got the schedule mixed up; I thought I was posting today instead of Monday. So that's what I shall do, and my apologies to Mr. Hawkins.)

Cross-posted at Little Miss Attila.

It looks like there really are two Americas. Blacks have their own country, with its own national anthem, as Denver discovered when René Marie performed the Black National Anthem at an official city event yesterday.

At least one councilman was sane enough to object:

This is the State of the City address. It's not an NAACP convention.

Marie was invited by moonbat mayor John Hickenlooper, who says he thought she was going to sing the real anthem. But he also says:

She blended the two songs together. She was trying to make an artistic expression of her love for the country. She did not intend to make a political statement or anything.

Nah, no political statement here. Nothing but love for the country. The Dems have found the right mayor to serve as master of ceremonies for their convention circus.

The song known as the Black National Anthem is "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing," by James Weldon Johnson. Marie lifted her voice and sang the first verse, which ends on an ominous note about marching on "till victory is won," evidently over the white man.

If the militant, race-obsessed blacks who are on the verge of taking over the White House can have their own religion, why not their own national anthem?

Hat tip: Slapstick Politics; on a tip from mega. Cross-posted at Moonbattery.

Read Christopher Hitchen's article and then come back and vote. His conclusion:

I apply the Abraham Lincoln test for moral casuistry: "If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong." Well, then, if waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture.

Cross-posted at Dr. Melissa Clouthier

Investor's Business Daily brings us the latest from probably the worst Majority Leader the Senate has seen in a very long time:

The Dr. No of the drill-nothing Congress tried to deflect the issue of rising gas prices Monday by telling Fox Business News that there are costs we should worry about besides those stemming from Democratic inaction. Our guilt is supposed to replace our anger. "Coal makes us sick," Reid said, "oil makes us sick, it's global warming, it's ruining our country, it's ruining our world, we've got to stop using fossil fuel . . . ."

In this case, he's partially right - we all know that in a perfect world, we'd be using something else - an alternative. But this isn't a perfect world and our energy needs aren't going to stand still as we try to develop alternatives. So we have to deal with and use what is available now and exploit it.

The problem is, "Dr. No" isn't just against petroleum and coal, but he's also against the use of very clean nuclear energy.

Instead Reid is invested in using "vapor ware" and convinced that our problem is we haven't thrown enough money at it. And, of course, once we do, everything will by hunky dory.

Even if we tripled our current output from wind, solar and geothermal, they'd produce just 2.2% of our current energy needs.

But even if we had the technology and it could fulfill the need, Reid forgets about the movement he and others have supported over the years:

The irony here is that it's environmentalists and Democrats who often stand in the way of alternative energy. Reid needs to talk to Ted Kennedy and John Kerry about their opposition to a wind farm off Cape Cod because it might spoil their view.

A 500-megawatt, 20,000-acre wind farm scheduled for Valley County, Mont., was stopped by environmentalists who complained that 400-foot turbines would disturb a nearby wilderness area.

The Sunrise Powerlink solar-energy project in Southern California is being fought because of a 150-mile, $1.5 billion high-voltage line connecting desert-based solar panels with the urban customers of San Diego Gas & Electric.

Not only have nuclear power plants, drilling and petroleum refineries been stopped by the environmental movement, so-called clean energy projects have been stopped in their tracks as well - aided and abetted by the likes off Harry Reid. He has no solutions, only road-blocks. And the candidate he supports is no better:

Agreeing with Reid is his party's presidential nominee, Sen. Barack Obama. In a primary debate in Nevada, Obama pledged: "I will end the notion of Yucca Mountain because it has not been based on the sort of sound science that can assure the people of Nevada that they're going to be safe."

If you're concerned with the future of our energy supply, you need to consider the fact that the present Congressional leadership hasn't a clue nor a desire to do what is necessary to ensure our energy supply in the near future. Couple that with an Obama presidency and we're looking at a lack of foresight that will economically effect us for decades to come.

This is a critical aspect of the coming election and people need to really dig into the plans on each side and make this a major issue for the voter. They need to demand specifics which will ensure the energy supply, even if that means coal and petroleum short-term with nuclear coming on-line and then the integration of alternative sources as they become technologically available and viable.

Using planes as bombs worked so well on September 11, Muslim terrorists just might try it again:

Private jets could be hijacked and used as "vehicle bombs" to target the public, the Government's anti-terror chief has warned.

Due to current lax security at small airports, such attacks would be "relatively simple" to orchestrate, according to Lord Carlile of Berriew in report on how the UK is dealing with the terror threat.

In related news:

Students are being encouraged to learn how to fly planes in a project by the University of Salford. Eighty students from the University — mostly from Muslim, black and minority ethnic backgrounds — have flown a glider or trainer aircraft as part of the scheme.

The project — titled Festival of Flight — is opening doors and opportunities for students who have felt excluded from the world of flight due to their race and also aims to ground stereotype views of young people from black and ethnic backgrounds.

Crows Rozaidah Abd Rahman, who's learning how to fly (and reassuringly even knows how to land):

Great moments are born from great opportunities. Festival of Flight will continue to give more opportunities like this to aspiring Muslim youth who have the passion, not just to fly but also to achieve their dreams in any other walk of life.

What kind of great moments and great opportunities? What kind of dreams? Ms. Abd Rahman continues:

The 9/11 and 7/7 tragedies have deterred the spirits of many young people, especially Muslims.

9/11 and 7/7 were really tough on Muslims. No doubt many were crestfallen at the disappointingly low body counts.

Somewhere in Phoenix, an FBI agent named Kenneth Williams is tearing out his hair.

Lenin said capitalists would sell the ropes used to hang them. Moonbats will provide Muslims with free ropes, and use taxpayer funds to teach them how to make nooses.

On tips from essemess. Cross-posted at Moonbattery.

A big thank you to John for inviting me to post. Without further adieu, here goes:

Love Thy Neighbor, the Farmer
Finally! Someone is connecting the dots on how to please both lovers of the free market and lovers of the market. This Motley Fool piece is a great look at Wal-Mart and others who are embracing local produce.

Produce in the U.S. travels an average of 1,500 miles to get to consumers' kitchens, and the company says that through "better logistics planning, better packing of trucks, and local sourcing, Wal-Mart expects to save millions of food miles each year" with its commitment to local fruits and veggies.

Read: Wal-Mart saves money getting the goods and that savings trickles down to the customer. And for those who don't care about Wal-Mart saving any dough:

Buying local produce reduces carbon footprints. It means eating food that's fresh and in season for one's own region. It's a very natural way of doing things. And, of course, there's a sense of accountability and community

Plus, many believe that eating fruits and vegetables that occur naturally in your region has incredible health benefits. Everyone wins!

Why More Jews Won't Be Voting Democrat This Year
Jennifer Rubin's column in the Jerusalem Post does a great job of presenting a complicated, rich history in a succinct and approachable way. Sadly still, far too few Jews in America will look at this and think: John McCain is the better man for the job.

Vast Majority of Iraq Benchmarks Satisfactory
There's a new Iraq report out with very good news, but leave it to the AP to spin undeniable progress into a negative story. The lede for this piece outright ignores the very facts which make the issue newsworthy.

Holy Conundrum Batman!
Partially because it has an incredible headline and partially because I'm obsessed with and utterly freaked out by The Dark Knight, this piece struck me. I hadn't the James Dean comparison laid out quite like this before, and it's interesting to compare the situations. It's a few pages to get all the way through, but it's worth digging through for some of the dirt:

"This is a true psychopath, a remorseless, incredibly evil character. But when he's on screen, you cannot take your eyes off him. And when he's off screen, you can't wait till he reappears on screen."

Read it. You know you want to. Also, click here to view a few minutes of the movie that have been leaked online.

That's all for now. Thanks again, John, for letting me help out.

This post has been cross-posted at Elocutio, my blog on Townhall.com that I swear I haven't forgotten.

We're right in the middle of a feisty yet dreadfully dull election season -- seriously, with patriot Obama and his patriot wife, I feel like I'm watching an endless loop of The Hope for Change Chronicles of Pretend Patriotism, where the story is stale, the acting is painful, and we're all just commiserating over how bad life will be when those people on the television run the world - kinda like the sixth season of 24, but with even more politically correct appeasement. I've already decided on the Whatevs vote for President, Whatevs being the Bad Republican, because socialism has, so far, killed more people than illegal immigration and campaign finance reform combined (I think). So I've checked out already, wake me in November if there's something good on television. I still check the headlines every day and read the funny political stuff (I didn't give a rat's toenail about politics until I learned about political humor) to stay informed, basically so I'll know what the heck Frank is talking about most of the time.

Today I came across this Telegraph headline and about peed my pants in shock:

Barack Obama: National Rifle Association campaigns to keep him out of White House

Um, thanks, Captain Obvious, for your amazing insight. But of course I couldn't stop reading, because the headline itself made me laugh.

America's gun lobby is to launch an expensive advertising campaign this autumn designed to stop Barack Obama winning the presidential election.

I would have thought they'd try to stop the pro-gun candidate. Under Obama's picture, they have a cute little description.

Mr Obama was careful to state his support for gun ownership but he is also a supporter of a ban on semi-automatic weapons

Ok, so Obama is all for Americans owning revolvers, most shotguns, and bolt-action rifles. That cuts out about eighty percent of the guns in our household. Good thing I carry a .38 special, or I'd have to get a new carry gun.

Mr Obama was careful after that ruling to state his support for gun ownership but he is also a supporter of a ban on semi-automatic weapons, most concealed weapons, and a limit on the number of handguns bought to one a month.

Most concealed weapons. So... maybe a Swiss Army knife? Or is that too weapony? Toothpicks are dangerous if you conceal them, and if someone attacks you with a 2x4, you should definitely not have the ability to remove his splinters, because that might hurt someone.

The significance of the campaign for Mr Obama is two-fold. It is likely to entrench opposition to his candidacy among white working class voters in the Appalachian region, who overwhelmingly supporter (sic) his opponent Hillary Clinton during the primary elections.

Typical white people. (The answer to your question is no, that never gets old.)

However, Robert Gibbs, Mr Obama's communications secretary, said: "We think we'll get the votes of plenty of gun owners, and gun owners will have a home with the Obama campaign."

If by "gun owners," Mr. Gibbs means "musket owners," he might be on to something.

SarahK blogs about TV at Snark Raving Mad and other stuff at mountaineer musings. She's married to Frank J. and has three cats and a dog, all of whom could totally pwn Patton.

Now that Sen. Barack Obama has become the Democratic Party's presumptive nominee for president, the media and punditocracy has focused their attention on the veepstakes. Speculation about Obama's running mate reveals an enormous deficiency in the Democrats' standard bearer. Most suggest that Obama needs someone with a military background, such as retired General Wesley Clark or Sen. James Webb to "balance the ticket."

However, it would take military men like George S. Patton or Douglas MacArthur to make up for Obama's shortcomings on national security. I find it amusing that Democrats find no hypocrisy in essentially turning over the responsibility for the country's defense to a vice president after having so loudly complained about Dick Cheney's influence in such matters over the past seven years.

Obama touts the fact that he was against the invasion of Iraq from the start. However, when Congress authorized President Bush to take military action in 2002, only the extreme left-wing fringe of the Democratic Party was opposed. Obama may claim that he was prescient about the difficulties of such an endeavor, but it was more likely that he was merely parroting the statements of Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Louis Farrakhan and William Ayers who see America's military as a symbol of oppression and imperialism.

In his recent role as a commencement speaker stand-in for ailing Sen. Ted Kennedy, Obama exhorted the graduating seniors to serve their country in a variety of ways and professions but failed to mention the U. S. military as an option. Obama has not once risen to the defense of America's men and women in uniform against the lies and smears coming from his Democratic Party colleagues and supporters. It took Obama nearly a year to speak out about MoveOn.org's attack ad on General David Petraeus, the architect of the stunning turnaround in Iraq. Obama has not even bothered to visit Iraq since 2006.

Obama applauded the misguided and overreaching Supreme Court decision that gave constitutional rights to foreign terrorists held at Guantanamo and diminished the power of the president during wartime. In a recent speech Obama spoke of bringing a gun to a knife fight, yet he was only talking about campaigning, not foreign policy. In the international arena, Obama has pledged to send diplomats instead of soldiers to challenge regimes seeking nuclear weapons and supporting terrorists.

While Obama tries to cast himself as the second coming of John F. Kennedy, it is important to note that the Soviet Union perceived the successor to President Dwight Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander during World War II as weak. The botched Bay of Pigs operation encouraged Soviet aggression around the world, including building of the Berlin Wall and the placement of missiles in Cuba.

There is no doubt that Barack Obama desires the presidency, but does he want to be Commander in Chief? It is clear to all that he lacks the experience to command the most envied and feared military in the history of the world, but voters should question if he has the will to do so.

What makes anyone believe that President Barack Obama would send bombers or troops to fight those he has more in common with than the bitter Americans who cling to their God and guns he swore an oath to protect?

You can read more from Jeff here.

At some point or another, I bet we have all played the whisper a rumor game. That's where you start with some sort of legitimate story, whisper it to one person, who repeats it to another, and so on around the circle, till it gets back to you, and you get to marval how much it has changed. I think Kevin Drum has been playing, as he somehow ends up with this

YOU AND YOUR CELL....All modern cell phones are equipped with GPS capability that allows your location to be tracked within a few meters at all times. Question: does the federal government have access to this tracking information without a warrant? The ACLU filed a Freedom of Information request to find out but the feds refused to respond. So now they've joined with the EFF and filed a lawsuit:

They do? They are all equipped with GPS capability? Damn! That's news to me. I rarely mention my business, but, I have been in wireless since 1994, and, let me tell you, if they all had GPS capability, we would be using it to make money, such as marketing it to parents to keep track of their kids and employers to keep track of their employees. I know of one employee at another carrier who was toasted by GPS, though. However, it was because of the tracker on the company vehicle, not the phone.

What can be done is track by tower and pinpoint reasonably close, depending on certain factors. So, somehow, in the overblown world of Liberals, this

The ACLU filed the FOIA request in November following media reports that federal officials were using Americans' cellular phones to pinpoint their locations without a warrant or any court oversight, the groups said. Some government officials at the time said they did not need probable cause to obtain tracking information from mobile phones. In addition, the reports said some federal law enforcement agents had obtained tracking data from wireless carriers without any court oversight.

became "all modern cell phone are equipped with GPS capability." It's the same kind of weirdness and wackiness, otherwise known here in the 'sphere as "Barking Moonbat Syndrome," that led to Trutherism, Bush wanting to kill all Black people in New Orleans, and the belief that giving phone call info to the government that included only phone numbers was domestic spying. Among their thousands of conspiracy theories.

As a sidebar, it is funny that Liberals want to invest enormous amounts of power in the hands of the federal government, which is full of liberals, then have coniptions when that power supposedly corrupts.

Stop The ACLU says not to jump on the paranoia bandwagon just yet. Too late!

American Street says a warrant is not needed, and explains.

A.J. Strata: The hyper-paranoid liberal chatter today is all about who 'owns' the location of your phones, especially cell phones. He goes much deeper into a subject that, because I work in the industry, I wasn't going to touch.

Has the media love affair with Obama ended? While they aren't taking the harsh shots at him yet, they are quietly starting to take the "hmmm, we're just wondering" type as of late. Case in point (sorry, long excerpt to start)

Last fall, Barack Obama explained why he hadn't been wearing an American flag pin on his lapel.

"I won't wear that pin on my chest," the presumptive Democratic nominee said. "Instead, I'm going to try to tell the American people what I believe will make this country great, and hopefully that will be a testimony to my patriotism."

What a difference a presidential campaign makes.

Obama, who suggested back then that the flag pin "became a substitute for I think true patriotism" after the Sept. 11 attacks, now regularly sports the patriotic symbol at campaign events.

He has given high profile speeches in symbolic locations, among them Unity, New Hampshire (on Democratic togetherness), Independence, Missouri (on patriotism) and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - also known as the city of brotherly love (on racial division).

He has peppered many of those speeches with references to symbolic moments from the American past - mentioning, for example, Abraham Lincoln's "House Divided" address during his formal announcement of his presidential run. (Obama gave the speech at the Old State Capitol in Springfield, Illinois, where Lincoln gave that very address.)

He even briefly employed a campaign seal that looked a lot like the official presidential seal, the symbolism of which was hard to miss.

For a candidate who took an early stance against what he seemed to characterize as an empty symbolic gesture, the heavy use of symbolism in Obama's campaign has been particularly hard to ignore.

But, wait, if you order in the next 15 minutes, there's more!

Greenberg argues that Obama "tends to emphasize the symbolic over policy detail" in his campaign - a tendency reflected by his reliance (especially early on) on vague notions of "hope" and "change."

"Bill Clinton used a lot of symbolism too, but he also ran with policy as his centerpiece," said Greenberg. "[Former Clinton advisor] George Stephanopoulos argued that 'specificity was the character issue,' and they made that a focus. That's not really what Obama is doing. It doesn't mean he hasn't thought about policy, but he isn't making it the central focus of his campaign."

Can you imagine this showing up in a major Credentialed Media outlet just a month ago?

Symbolism is great, when it has something concrete to back it up.

If you've watched the news, you know about the little "missing" girl from Vermont. Well, her remains were found yesterday on her uncle's property. Vermont, it turns out, has a wonderful sex offenders rehabilitation program. Daniel Goleman (of Primal Leadership fame) enthuses in the New York Times fifteen years ago:

The sex offender treatment program in Vermont, among the most sophisticated in the country, showed similar successes, according to a report at the Kent State meeting. In an evaluation of 473 sex offenders who have been released from prison for up to eight years, the average rate of sex crimes in the same period for a comparison group who received no treatment was 38 percent, at least double the rate of those treated for various sex crimes.

For child molesters in the treated group, the rate of sex crimes after release from prison was just 7 percent; for exhibitionists or voyeurs, 3 percent; for rapists, 19 percent. While the figure for rapists is highest, it is still just half that of those who did not receive any treatment.

To be sure, not all sex offenders respond to treatment. Among rapists, for instance, rape is often more an act of violence than of sex. This kind of rapist is less likely to benefit than are those for whom fantasies are more important than violence.

Let's just look at Brooke Bennett's case. Her uncle Michael Jacques has done this before:

In 1993, he was convicted of kidnapping and rape committed in June 1992. Court records show that the victim was an 18-year-old young woman he supervised at a fast-food business in Rutland. The records show he and a friend got her drunk and then Jacques alone forced her into his car and over the next four hours raped her several times. The police affidavit says she was choked with a rope around her neck, gagged with a cloth in her mouth, and handcuffed with police-style cuffs. Police say Jacques eventually let her go after he told her he needed help and was going to seek psychiatric counseling.

The victim told police that Jacques said he had killed a 12-year-old girl he raped in Arizona in 1985 because she threatened to go to the police, "so he had to kill her."

The police were unable to confirm his claimed killing of the 12-year-old in Arizona, but Jacques did plead no contest to the charges of kidnap and rape in Vermont. In return, under a plea agreement, he got six years in prison, but was released after serving only four and half with credit for good time.

That 1992 plea deal also required Jacques to complete the sex offender treatment program before he could be released from probation. According to the records, he did complete the therapy program, and was released from state supervision in December 2006. Corrections officials say Jacques completed his sex offender treatment program in 2000.

Since no one knows who will or who won't re-offend, why are any of these people released back into the community? And I don't put the flashers or oglers in the same category as a violent rapist. A violent rapist should know that if he gets convicted, he's in prison for life, period. Sure, some of these guys might reform or go impotent or get too old to have the energy to commit their dastardly deeds. The problem is, since no on knows who will and who won't offend, the risk is too great.

Let them rot in prison. Keep society safe from these freaks. Prison does not reform these jerks. At best, some inhibit their impulses. Let them be free of temptation. Keep them in prison.

Cross-posted at Dr. Melissa Clouthier

One of moonbattery's most pernicious effects is the way it warps priorities. In Britain, which has all but succumbed to the disease, authorities in the governmedia crack down on white people calling each other "honky"…

A white man has been prosecuted for racially abusing three white security guards. Jonathan Wicks was taken to court for calling the men "honky wannabe cops." Wicks, 20, has had to attend court at least five times, at an estimated cost to the taxpayer of more than £5,000.

…and the glorification of drinking gin and tonic while driving across wide-open arctic wasteland…

Top Gear has been censured by the BBC's governing body for glamorising drink-driving. It follows a complaint from a viewer who criticised the "blatant use of alcohol while driving" during an episode of the hit BBC1 show. The programme — which saw presenters James May and Jeremy Clarkson drinking gin and tonic in the cab of a truck — was described as "grossly irresponsible."

Meanwhile, a veteran is killed for asking thugs not to swear in front of a lady, London's mayor is advising people not to get involved when they see others in trouble on his city's anarchic streets, and a terrorist with direct links to Osama bin Laden will not be executed, incarcerated, or even deported, but instead released on bail to go about his business of mayhem and murder.

That slurping noise in the background is the sound of one of history's greatest civilizations flushing itself down the toilet.

On tips from Matthew B. Cross-posted at Moonbattery.

Late last year, when I reviewed Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism for the New Individualist magazine, I wrote:

Goldberg does yeoman's work researching and documenting material that the American left had consigned to the memory hole since 1945. By the 1970s, this pre-World War II past was considered hermetically sealed by liberals. As Goldberg writes, Ronald Reagan, a former FDR backer, was attacked in the Washington Post as late as 1981 for correctly pointing out the favorable lip service that he remembered being paid by FDR's brain trust to Mussolini.

Wattenberg writes:

I must offer here a word of sympathy for the oft-battered members of the press. I, too, have experienced the thrill of the chase. In 1981, my ex-AEI colleague Dave Gergen was on Ronald Reagan's White House communications staff. I got a one-on-one interview with President Reagan for my weekly documentary program Ben Wattenberg at Large. I ran through many of his views and policies: his optimism, his conservatism, the federal budget, the role of the federal government in relation to the states, Cuba, El Salvador, the Soviet Union, the safety net, and more.

But not long into the interview I asked him about his support of President Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Depression years. Here are some excerpts of what he said, and the reaction I had:

REAGAN: I have known [FDR's] sons for years. I know their own conversations about what he believed. I think [FDR] always thought that the things that were being done were in the nature of medicine for a sick patient. But people attracted to government and to government positions in those years, in many instances, did not view the medicine as temporary. If you remember, I was assailed during the campaign for saying that many of the New Dealers actually espoused what today has become an epithet--fascism--in that they spoke of how Mussolini had made the trains run on time....

ME (in my head): Bing!

REAGAN: They saw in what he said he was doing--a planned economy. Harold lckes [FDR's secretary of the interior] said that what we are striving for was a kind of modified form of communism.

Me (in my head): Bing! Bing!

REAGAN: I don't really believe that was really in Roosevelt's mind. I think that, had he lived, and with the war over, we would have seen him using government the other way.

What was I binging about? It was not about Reagan's views of the New Deal or Harold Ickes. It was about a news story for our program. I knew that Mussolini and Communism would be newsworthy. If I hadn't been wired for television I think I might have jumped out of my chair and given Reagan a big wet kiss.

Sure enough The Washington Post ran:

Reagan Still Sure Some in New Deal Espoused Fascism

President Reagan remains convinced that many New Deal advisors to President Franklin D. Roosevelt espoused fascism and spoke admiringly of Mussolini's Italian Fascist regime...

It is an idea Reagan first voiced in 1976 and has repeated several times, most recently in an interview with Ben Wattenberg to be broadcast on the Public Broadcasting Service Friday night.

Publicity for a television program in the competing print media is very hard to get. There are so many television programs...

(Originally posted at Ed Driscoll.com)

Bogged down with a failing health care system with huge waiting times, Brits are sure they've been saved by a new EU directive:

Patients will be able to escape NHS queues by demanding treatment anywhere in the European Union without the prior approval of a doctor, under proposals to guarantee health rights unveiled today in Brussels.

The NHS would then be duty bound to refund the British cost of the procedure under the new rules for cross-border healthcare.

Today's proposed EU directive will give patients in all 27 member states the same rights to treatment on the NHS as British patients. It also guarantees that the full cost of treatment abroad will be refunded when an NHS professional has agreed that it is necessary for the patient to go overseas.

We here in the US call this "the Canadian Plan".

The happy, cheery Health Commissioner said:

"Patients will be able to receive treatment in any member state, which will be reimbursed at home up to the level of the same or similar treatment in their health system," said Androula Vassiliou, the Health Commissioner.

"They will not need prior authorisation. However, if unpredictable cross-border healthcare becomes a problem, the system could put into place a system of prior authorisation to safeguard the system."

What "system" is being talked about here? Given this directive, the "system" is the "EU system" in its entirety. However, what Vassiliou seems to be saying is they reserve the right to reject (through requiring prior authorization) patients should they deem the other country's "system" to be in jeopardy. And that seems to be a bit of a contradiction doesn't it?

But that doesn't stop the happy talk, does it?

She added: "Patients from any country will enjoy equal treatment with the nationals of the country in which they are being treated and cannot be discriminated against."

This means that in countries with long waiting lists, patients from abroad will have to join the queue.

She added: "It will allow excessive demand from one country to be met by excessive capacity in another country. This is the essence of the co-operation."

It also means having to pay private providers as well.

You wait until eastern European patients start flooding western European medical facilities. Or Brits head into France and Germany while the UK's NHS pulls a US Medicare trick and refuses to reimburse French and German medical institutions at the rate they require.

My guess is a system of "authorization" will be in place so fast it will make your head swim ("I'm sorry, we don't take NHS patients").

And since, in Europe, health care is a "right" now, how about this?

Dr Terry John, chairman of the British Medical Association's International Committee, said: "We believe patients are entitled to safe, high-quality healthcare. Usually they want to be treated as close to home as possible, but it is understandable why some people want to seek treatment abroad.

"However, these proposals must not be allowed to erode the fundamental values of universality, accessibility and equality that should underlie healthcare. Patient mobility must not just be for the wealthy and educated.

Yes friends, if you want to escape those queues in the UK you have to pay your own travel and accommodation costs.

So, as I'm sure we'll see argued, this ruling is mostly for the rich! And yes, you're right - you can see it coming a mile off - travel and accommodation costs for medical care will soon be a "right" as well.

One of the commenters to the article says:

What an excellent idea! I live in Germany and only wish that my family back in the UK could experience the great healthcare that is available here.

Diana Taylor, Augsburg, Germany

Oh, not to worry Ms. Taylor - they and half of Britain will most likely be on your doorstep "experiencing" it before you know what hit you.

Ah, the law of unintended consequences is licking its chops on this one.

Wesley Clark certainly stepped in it over the weekend, Ed Morrissey writes:

After decades in the news business, Bob Schieffer may have thought he'd heard it all -- until yesterday on Face the Nation, when he interviewed Wesley Clark. Clark came as a surrogate for the Barack Obama campaign and attacked John McCain's military service, saying that he was "untested and untried". After Schieffer pointed out that McCain commanded the largest naval air squadron, had honorably endured over five years of torture as a POW in Vietnam, and had been on the Senate Armed Services committee since Obama was in college, Schieffer asked how Clark could claim that McCain was "untested and untried". Clark stunned him with this answer:

Jim Geraghty notes that Clark's slur is one of eight attacks on McCain's military service by surrogates of the Obama campaign:

Is anyone else sensing a sharper edge to Team McCain since Wes Clark became Democrat Number Seven and Rand Beers became Democrat Number Eight in speaking critically of John McCain's service in Vietnam?

"Mr. Beers' remarks are part of a pattern of Obama supporters attacking John McCain's military service, and a reminder of why it's what Sen. Obama, his supporters and his campaign actually do that matters most," McCain spokesman Brian Rogers tells ABC News. "Sen. Obama speaking out against these attacks isn't really relevant -- either his supporters aren't hearing him or they don't believe his words."

It's really nice that Obama said today that "no one should ever devalue that service, especially for the sake of a political campaign." It's also meaningless if everyone else in the Democratic party ignores him. Barack Obama doesn't have total control of the actions and words of every surrogate, but after the eighth instance, without any major consequence beyond a spokesman saying that Obama "rejects" the surrogate's statement, it starts to look like a deliberate and cynical good cop/bad cop routine. Let's see the candidate himself calling out his supporters by name. Let's see some heads rolling -- was Samantha Power's declaration that Hillary was a "monster" really that much worse? (Team McCain ditched Cunningham over using Obama's middle name.)

We looked at a few of the previous attacks on McCain's service in a mid-May edition of Silicon Graffiti:

In a related development, John Hinderaker spots a pair of attempts to make these attacks seem bipartisan:

Politico--and still more the anonymous Yahoo News headline writer!--know that attacks on McCain's service by the Obama campaign and other Democrats are poisonous and likely to backfire. So they are trying to give the Democrats cover by creating the misleading impression that these disgusting smears are somehow bipartisan.

Originally posted on Monday at Ed Driscoll.com. Since then, James Webb became yet another Obama surrogate to make a negative reference towards McCain's military service, though Jim Geraghty is willing to make, as he says, "A Halfhearted Effort to Defend Jim Webb."

As an apparent prelude to restricting them, the governmedia has decided that even television sets exacerbate the imaginary global warming crisis:

A gas used in the making of flat screen televisions, nitrogen trifluoride (NF3), is being blamed for damaging the atmosphere and accelerating global warming. […] The gas, widely used in the manufacture of flat screen TVs, is estimated to be 17,000 times as powerful as carbon dioxide.

Wow, this new menace causes 17,000 times the damage of CO2! Legislation needs to be passed before voters figure out that 17,000 times zero is still zero.

No doubt all flat-screen TVs have already been removed from the mansions of Al Gore and his crusading Hollyweird friends.

Progressives ought to be careful about what they target for their beloved restrictions. Without television to keep them in a brainwashed trance, people might start thinking, and where would the liberal elite be then? Probably hanging from lampposts.

On tips from Wiggins and mega. Cross-posted at Moonbattery.

Barack Obama in Fargo, ND today:

"I've always said that the pace of withdrawal would be dictated by the safety and security of our troops and the need to maintain stability. That assessment has not changed," he said. "And when I go to Iraq and have a chance to talk to some of the commanders on the ground, I'm sure I'll have more information and will continue to refine my policies."

Actually, what he's always said is this:

Obama will immediately begin to remove our troops from Iraq. He will remove one to two combat brigades each month, and have all of our combat brigades out of Iraq within 16 months. Obama will make it clear that we will not build any permanent bases in Iraq. He will keep some troops in Iraq to protect our embassy and diplomats; if al Qaeda attempts to build a base within Iraq, he will keep troops in Iraq or elsewhere in the region to carry out targeted strikes on al Qaeda.

And that plan was made without consulting a single commander on the ground.

What we have here is the beginning of the "Iraq crawl".

That's where Obama denies having said what he has said and when confronted with his own words, such as those from his website, describes them as "inartful" and pretends they were just to put pressure on the Iraqi government (and they succeeded!).

Oh, and don't forget, this is on his website as of this very moment:

The Surge: The goal of the surge was to create space for Iraq's political leaders to reach an agreement to end Iraq's civil war. At great cost, our troops have helped reduce violence in some areas of Iraq, but even those reductions do not get us below the unsustainable levels of violence of mid-2006. Moreover, Iraq's political leaders have made no progress in resolving the political differences at the heart of their civil war.

Violence is down to 2004 levels or less, no one is talking about a "civil war" (except Obama), the Sunnis have rejoined the Iraqi government, 15 of 18 benchmarks are satisfactory and everyone but the lefty "defeatist" dead-enders have admitted the surge has worked.

Who is out of touch here?

Or, maybe they just thought Faye Dunaway looked smokin' hot brandishing a .38 snubnose in her cashmere sweater and beret.

Making the rounds to promote his new book Nixonland, Rick Perlstein tells Reason:

reason: You like to mix cultural history with political history. Bonnie and Clyde is one of the central texts in the book.

Perlstein: My theory is that Bonnie and Clyde was the most important text of the New Left, much more important than anything written by Paul Goodman or C. Wright Mills or Regis Debray. It made an argument about vitality and virtue vs. staidness and morality that was completely new, that resonated with young people in a way that made no sense to old people. Just the idea that the outlaws were the good guys and the bourgeois householders were the bad guys--you cannot underestimate how strange and fresh that was.

1968 was also the year that, only a few months before his death at the hands of a young radical, Bobby Kennedy told a college audience:

"I am also glad to come to the home state of another great Kansan, who wrote, 'If our colleges and universities do not breed men who riot, who rebel, who attack life with all their youthful vision and vigor then there is something wrong with our colleges. The more riots that come on college campuses, the better the world for tomorrow.'"

I'm only in the early stages of reading Friend Perlstein's book but am struck by a potentially fatal flaw in his thesis that's implied in the review above. With his expected honesty, Mr. Perlstein initially identifies Nixonland as the sort of Red America that the Adlai Stevenson eggheads found themselves stuck in ad unable to comprehend in the 50s. That this part of the metaphor endures--is indeed a seemingly innate part of the culture--is reflected not just in his own essays about contemporary politics but in books by his friends and fellow Brights, like Thomas Frank's unintentionally hilarious, What's the Matter with Kansas.

On the other hand, the sort of violent divisiveness that he associates with Nixonland rather conspicuously developed at the exact time that Richard Nixon was not a central part of the national political scene. Inner-city riots, assassinations, student demonstrations, radical Left terrorism--all of these social plagues arose during the Johnson/Great Society years, the pinnacle of the Left's ascendancy. Even the initial violent reactions were led by Democrats--like LBJ sending federal troops into Detroit or Mayor Daley breaking up protests at the 1968 Democratic Convention. If anything, as Mr. Douthat suggests above, the return of Richard Nixon --a liberal Republican--in 1968 might be seen as an attempt by American voters to restore the social calm and consensus of earlier eras. Richard Nixon, at least in his final incarnation, should probably be considered an effect of the social breakdown of the Liberal 60s, rather than a cause of anything much.

(Originally posted at Ed Driscoll.com; Perlstein quote found appropriately enough here.)

Last month on my blog, I linked to Jack Shafer's article in Slate, declaring Advantage: Michael Crichton:

In 1993, novelist Michael Crichton riled the news business with a Wired magazine essay titled "Mediasaurus," in which he prophesied the death of the mass media--specifically the New York Times and the commercial networks. "Vanished, without a trace," he wrote.

The mediasaurs had about a decade to live, he wrote, before technological advances--"artificial intelligence agents roaming the databases, downloading stuff I am interested in, and assembling for me a front page"--swept them under. Shedding no tears, Crichton wrote that the shoddy mass media deserved its deadly fate.

"[T]he American media produce a product of very poor quality," he lectured. "Its information is not reliable, it has too much chrome and glitz, its doors rattle, it breaks down almost immediately, and it's sold without warranty. It's flashy but it's basically junk."

* * *

As we pass his prediction's 15-year anniversary, I've got to declare advantage Crichton. Rot afflicts the newspaper industry, which is shedding staff, circulation, and revenues. It's gotten so bad in newspaperville that some people want Google to buy the Times and run it as a charity! Evening news viewership continues to evaporate, and while the mass media aren't going extinct tomorrow, Crichton's original observations about the media future now ring more true than false. Ask any journalist.

Fortunately, as I noted in an earlier video segment, they've already built their own Jurassic Park!

(Originally posted at Ed Driscoll.com. And speaking of earlier segments, click here for older editions of our videos.)

So today, I had the pleasure of seeing the Astros lose at the gorgeous Minutemaid Park. It was a pleasure, too. The company, two of my sweet cherubs (have I mentioned that I'm a breeder?) and the mad blogging Floridian Cassy Fiano escorted by her conservative, buff, national guardsman and even better, Texan boyfriend, made the day. The game, meh.

The best part? Hearing the packed stadium sing America the Beautiful during the Seventh Inning stretch. Wait, the other best part? Seeing a marine throw out the first pitch and receive a standing ovation. This man, this patriot, who had sacrificed so much--he lost his legs from the knees down--displayed child-like joy and sincere delight at receiving the signed ball, and the adoration of the crowd. Oh man, there was another best part! A commander in Iraq gave a speech relaying the successes and ended with an enthusiastic, "Go Astros!" The crowd ate up his words. And then there was the soldier who sang the National Anthem with a flag the size of a basketball court in the middle of the field. Beautiful! And get this: hot dogs were $1 today.

I love America.

Cross-posted at Dr. Melissa Clouthier where I have a post to help you have an explosive 4th

O'Connor federal courthouse
Earlier this week I was here, in the stupidestly-designed courthouse on God's brutally-baked brown desert earth -- the Sandra Day O'Connor Courthouse in sunny Phoenix, Arizona.

It is truly a marvel of arrogance. Imagine being so utterly uninterested in anything besides how you'd like your box of Erector Set pieces to look like at the award ceremony that you design a massive building, meant for human habitation, that is actually a gigantic greenhouse that grabs scorching-hot sunbeams from one of the hottest atmospheres on the continent and just plays them across a gigantic, uncoolable interior atrium.

This monster has an evil twin in my own neighborhood, named after the entirely more prosaic former U.S. Senator and ur-fixer Alfonse D'Amato, in his home turf in Long Island. The U.S. courthouse for the Eastern District of New York is every bit as soulless and unconnected to how people use built space. Like the Arizona torture chamber, this one features cold, ornament-free, angular hard white spaces, a soaring atrium and a complete denial of the human spirit. Both feature vast plazas requiring five minutes of walking from the curb to the front door that, when shown on the architect's drawings, must have depicted lunchtime building workers gaily eating their lunches, taking in the sun, flirting and strumming guitars -- a true communitarian dream in federal jurisprudential space, and far enough from any possible truck bomb to make those shared moments entirely carefree.

Neither one of these plazas ever has a single person relaxing in them, in reality. The one in Central Islip is too windblown to hang out in, the D'Amato tower truly epitomizing the concept of a white elephant as the only building of its scale for what must be 20 miles all around -- a largely empty monument to federally funded megalomania. On almost any day the sun beats off the bright white surfaces so intensely that polarized lenses are de rigeur and blinded lawyers quickly scurry across the plaza through the revolving-door entrance and into the heartless, icy lobby.

But this same formula truly amounts to a miniature Judicial Conference death valley in Phoenix. (continued at Likelihood of Success)

Originally posted on Likelihood of Success, Ron Coleman's pretty good blog.

This was originally posted on Dean's World around the last national election. It's kind of a blogger's little Conscience of a Conservative (hence I changed the words "think" to "once thought" in the third-to-last paragraph when posting this today, as my conscience demanded). It seemed as if this piece could perhaps be an appropriate bit of musing for an election-year Fourth of July.

I recognized that I was a conservative during high school, when in support of a paper I was writing on Solzhenitsyn in a senior-year comparative literature class my ethnic-Polish teacher gave me a stack of American Spectator magazines, one of which included an article on Solzhenitsyn by Malcolm Muggeridge.

Be that as it may, it is truth to me, even though politics, and most politicians, turn my stomach. I mean, there is some ethic in there, isn't there?

But at the end of the day, these Democrats are the ones who so undermined the world I remember growing up in, and they continue to do so today. They are not even in the league, for patriotism and love of country and decency, of the Democratic politicians of my early youth -- Lyndon Johnson, Roberty Kennedy, Hubert Humphrey. With McGovern, that ended.

Jimmy Carter sealed the deal. He made being an American embarrassing, humiliating, depressing, hopeless. Wimpy. Apologetic. Cringing. Losing.

I don't believe any of today's Democratic leaders have improved on Jimmy Carter, except that he had the benefit of not having to kowtow, as today's Democrats do, so grossly to identity politics of every right- and- privilege- demanding ethnic and social subcultural group, no matter how subversive; to the hard-left on abortion rights; and he was allowed to be some kind of public Christian.

I wish there were Republicans today who had a quarter of the qualities of Ronald Reagan. Here was a great man, one who never claimed for himself the mantle of a perfect or even particularly virtuous personal life; but he loved his country, knew right from wrong, and -- exercising a quality that I admire for the very scold it places on one such as myself -- his ability, now proved doubly and triply, to make everyone around him think he was a dumbbell when in fact he was sly as a fox. Frankly I once thought George W. Bush comes quite close to these qualities. But, sadly lacking the Gipper's ability to communicate and being the literal heir to a political tradition of some ideological infirmity to a conservative -- think Jim Baker, the man who made me vote for Bill Clinton in 1992 -- he is not Reagan.Nor are the dizzy denizens of the Capitol statesmen, by and large. Were they ever? The past takes on an undeserved elegance in sepia. The crassness of living, live and unsilenceable color makes today's professional political class seemingly harder to swallow than its predecessors -- red or blue.

But every time I step into the booth I ask myself, If this candidate could choose Ronald Reagan* or Jimmy Carter to make the keynote speech at his or her party's nominating convention, which one would he or she choose?

The choice is simple.

Ron Coleman has a pretty good blog of his own at Likelihood of Success.

Congress in 1974 set a national 55 mph speed limit because of energy shortages caused by the Arab oil embargo. The speed limit was repealed in 1995 when crude oil dipped to $17 a barrel and gasoline cost $1.10 a gallon.

As motorists headed on trips for this Fourth of July weekend, gasoline averaged $4.10 a gallon nationwide, with oil hovering around $145 a barrel

For all its warts and carbuncles, I'd still not want to live anywhere else.

That's because there's still a will, in this great nation, to do what is right.

And while we may disagree on what that is and how to go about it, that freedom to dissent, to argue, to rant and rave is more precious that you can imagine. Never do I go to bed at night concerned there will be a knock on my door and I'll be taken away for something I've said or written.

I spent my youth in other countries as my father, a career Army officer, did his job. I saw first-hand what poverty really looks like. I got to see what the suppression of freedoms we take for granted entailed. I learned at an early age to appreciate what we have here and how important it is to work toward keeping us free. And certainly, I have my concerns and take the opportunity on this blog to voice them. But again, the simple act of doing that without fear is a blessing beyond reach for many in this world.

There's an innate spirit that still lives in most Americans (and needs to be constantly nurtured) that says we can and will overcome all obstacles in our path and do it while we continue to live free. There are those among us who cynically denigrate any appeals to patriotism and would have us believe that being patriotic is more like a disease than a matter of pride in one's country and its accomplishments. But the proof of their ignorance on the subject is found in the irony of their freedom to say such things without fear.

I find that most people who can't muster pride in where they live and what it stands for have no pride in much of anything. I feel sorry for them.

That said, I've never felt patriotism meant "my country right or wrong". Instead it meant trying to shorten that phrase to "my country - right" and working very hard to make that happen.

We're independent today because a group of patriots pledged their "lives, fortunes and sacred honor" toward achieving a goal. It is and was a very noble goal. Today's patriot needs to remember those original goals and ideals of our independence and renew the effort to keep them in the forefront of the political discussion. We are free today because of those ideals and goals, and we should never forget that.

Have a very happy 4th.

The deranged lawsuit of the day has been brought by Aaron Ferguson, a former accountant for Rachael Ray's TV cooking show, who as an anorexic is demanding $1 million because Ms. Ray is allegedly hostile to his kind.

According to court papers, Ray committed such unconscionable acts as stating that anorexics, who suffer from a potentially life-threatening personality disorder, "are sick in the head."

Ferguson's enterprising suit could serve as an inspiration for anyone who wants to get something for nothing at someone else's expense. Not all of us have the good fortune to belong to politically favored ethnic groups, or are willing to proclaim themselves to be homosexuals. But with a little creativity, anyone can climb aboard moonbattery's gravy train by claiming to belong to an oppressed minority.

On a tip from HoosierArmyMom. Cross-posted at Moonbattery.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the "lilypad cities":

Photo courtesy: Solent News and Photos

What the heck are they? Read on:

At first glance, they look like a couple of giant inflatable garden chairs that have washed out to sea.

But they are, apparently, the ultimate solution to rapidly rising sea levels.

This computer-generated image shows two floating cities, each with enough room for 50,000 inhabitants.

Based on the design of a lilypad, they could be used as a permanent refuge for those whose homes have been covered in water. Major cities including London, New York and Tokyo are seen as being at huge risk from oceans which could rise by as much as 3ft by the end of this century.

This solution, by the award-winning Belgian architect Vincent Callebaut, is designed to be a new place to live for those whose homelands have been wiped out.

The 'Lilypad City' would float around the world as an independent and fully self-sustainable home. With a lake at its centre to collect and purify rainwater, it would be accessed by three separate marinas and feature artificial mountains to offer the inhabitants a change of scenery from the seascape.

Power for the central accommodation hub is provided through a series of renewable energy sources including solar panels on the mountain sides, wind turbines and a power station to harness the energy of the waves.

Mr Callebaut said: 'The design of the city is inspired by the shape of the great Amazonia Victoria Regia lilypad. Some countries spend billions of pounds working on making their beaches and dams bigger and stronger.

'But the lilypad project is actually a long-term solution to the problem of the water rising.'

The architect, who has yet to estimate a cost for his design, added: 'It's an amphibious city without any roads or any cars. The whole city is covered by plants housed in suspended gardens.

'The goal is to create a harmonious coexistence of humans and nature.'

Really? I have a better idea: Why not just go ahead and create these now so we can ship off all the global warming alarmists in the world who don't practice what they preach about conservation, like The Goracle and John Edwards (for starters)? That would have the effect of creating a more "harmonious coexistence of humans and nature" stateside as well. Why, these things could become so self-sustaining that they could turn from floating cities into - gasp - countries of their own! And then maybe, just maybe The Goracle could find a place where he could finally be elected president.

Here's another photo of a "lilypad city":

Is it just me, or do the windmills in the image all kinda sorta look like peace signs?

More from the article:

Centred around a lake which collects and then purifies rain water, the Lilypad will drift around the world following the ocean currents and streams.

It will "drift around the world"? Even better! My only question is: will it be stable and sturdy enough to handle not just the global warming alarmists themselves, but their massive egos, too? It sounds like the architect has thought of everything, so I'll just have to assume he factored that into the equation as well.

I see no reason to delay construction of lilypad cities any longer. Let's get started!

Cross-posted from the Sister Toldjah blog.

"It has always been my contention that there is no sense in being in office if you don't have the courage to do what is right, even if it is the most unpopular position in the world." -- Jesse Helms

At one point in Helms' life, he could fairly have been called a racist, but like many pols, he left behind his bigoted ways when he left the Democratic Party. Over time, he became a champion of American people of all colors, of conservatives, and of the people of North Carolina. He was a man of principles, a man of courage, and he will be greatly missed, especially here in his home state.

Although it seems appropriate somehow for a great and patriotic man like Jesse Helms to shuffle off this mortal coil on Independence Day, my condolences go out to his friends and family. Jesse Helms will be missed.

Although the Fourth of July is a great day to be alive for most Americans, it causes the bile to boil in moonbats' veins, so that it seeps out through their pores in the most hideous displays. The appalling Chris Satullo is hardly the only example. Below are some lowlights from a seasonal piece at The Progressive:

It's July 4th again, a day of near-compulsory flag-waving and nation-worshipping. Count me out. Spare me the puerile parades. Don't play that martial music, white boy. And don't befoul nature's sky with your F-16s. […]

For when you stop to think about it, patriotism (especially in its malignant morph, nationalism) has done more to stack the corpses millions high in the last 300 years than any other factor, including the prodigious slayer, religion.

Communism, an antinationalistic ideology favored by progressives, has killed more than 100 million over the last century. But apparently this is dwarfed by the genocidal horrors of Christians singing hymns.

The worst kind of nationalism is of course American nationalism:

In the last five years in Iraq, tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians have died because the United States, the patriarch of patriotism, saw fit to impose itself, without just cause, on another country. But the excuse was patriotism, wrapped in Bush's brand of messianic militarism: that we, the great Americans, have a duty to deliver "God's gift of freedom" to every corner of the world.

Actually, we had already been at war with Iraq for years before W initiated the invasion with the bipartisan blessing of Congress, and Saddam had been systematically violating a ceasefire agreement. The genocide didn't start when Americans got there; that's when it stopped. But nobody wants to interrupt a hate-America fest with tedious historical facts.

Now for some smug psychoanalysis:

What is patriotism but "the narcissism of petty differences"? That's Freud's term, describing the disorder that compels one group to feel superior to another.

Next comes the laundry list of America's sins: we have nuclear weapons, we are an empire, we are a "greedy and wasteful nation," we are a "vastly unequal nation," we are a plutocracy, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, et cetera, et cetera, on and on until the duckspeak devolves into a meaningless droning quack, like the teacher's voice in Charlie Brown cartoons.

Have fun festering, moonbats. To everyone else: Happy Fourth of July!

On a tip from mega. Cross-posted at Moonbattery.

In Baghdad 1,215 Soldiers, Sailors, Marines and Airmen re-enlist in the US military on the 4th of July. Kind of says it all, doesn't it?

Fittingly, they took that oath in one of Saddam's former palaces festooned with a huge American flag.

He is a she. I am sick of the politically correct nonsense around this woman. Just because someone has surgery and names herself a man, doesn't make it so. Might make her delusional. And it makes the news media look more insane than average, too,"The new dad walked easily, although he appeared tired, .... Someone opened the door for him." Oh, and can you imagine how this kid is going to feel about "dad". This is just nuts. (Couldn't resist.)

She is free to call herself whatever she wants. This is America. And so I am free to call her a she and so I will.

Cross-posted at Dr. Melissa Clouthier where I shared pictures of the local 4th of July parade. Hey! It qualifies as citizen journalism.

But it was really James Thurber who turned me on to this poem, which has been going through my head all day for obvious reasons:

Barbara Frietchie

By John Greenleaf Whittier

On that pleasant morn of the early fall
When Lee marched over the mountain wall;

Over the mountains winding down,
Horse and foot, into Frederick town,

Forty flags with their silver stars,
Forty flags with their crimson bars,

Flapped in the morning wind . . .

. . . the sun
Of noon looked down, and saw not one.

Up rose old Barbara Frietchie then,
Bowed with her fourscore years and ten;

Bravest of all in Frederick town,
She took up the flag the men hauled down;

In her attic window the staff she set,
To show that one heart was loyal yet.

Up the street came the rebel tread,
Stonewall Jackson riding ahead.

Under his slouched hat left and right
He glanced; the old flag met his sight.

"Halt!" —the dust-brown ranks stood fast;
"Fire!" —out blazed the rifle-blast.

It shivered the window, pane and sash;
It rent the banner with seam and gash.

Quick, as it fell, from the broken staff
Dame Barbara snatched the silken scarf.

She leaned far out on the window-sill,
And shook it forth with a royal will.

"Shoot, if you must, this old gray head,
But spare your country's flag," she said.

A shade of sadness, a blush of shame,
Over the face of the leader came;

The nobler nature within him stirred
To life at that woman's deed and word;

"Who touches a hair of yon gray head
Dies like a dog! March on!" he said.

All day long through Frederick street
Sounded the tread of marching feet:

All day long that free flag tossed
Over the heads of the rebel host.

Ever its torn folds rose and fell
On the loyal winds that loved it well;

And through the hill-gaps sunset light
Shone over it with a warm good-night . . .

It isn't quite the same without Thurber's illustrations, which I may try to scan in tonight. But those lines: "'Who touches a hair of yon gray head / Dies like a dog! March on!' he said" always make me want to cry.

That is, there are principles of humanity, and decency that go beyond just about any conflict we might have as human beings. We wanted to know if we could end the evil of slavery in this country and still have a Federalist system that included reasonable states' rights.

The jury may be out on that, but respect for the loyal opposition and deference to one's elders are not a bad place to start in addressing our remaining challenges.

Happy Independence Day, everyone.

(Cross-posted at Little Miss Attila.)

Here's the Right Wing News guest blogger line-up this week-end.

Saturday
--------
Cassy Fiano
Kathy Shaidle Five Feet Of Fury
Gina Cobb
John Stephenson from Stop The ACLU
Little Miss Attila

Sunday
-------
Ron Coleman from Likelihood of Success
Sister Toldjah
William Teach from Pirate's Cove
Michael Illions from Polipundit
MCQ from QandO

Make sure to give all of them a warm welcome and check out their blogs!

This is serious: Barack Obama's campaign has endorsed the accuracy of what is almost cerrtainly a forged birth certificate for Obama.

And the Daily Kos website actively deleted other forged documents that betrayed the forged nature of the "Obama" birth certificate:

Jay McKinnon, a self-described Department of Homeland Security-trained document specialist, has implicated himself in the production of fake Hawaii birth certificate images similar to the one endorsed as genuine by the Barack Obama campaign, and appearing on the same Daily Kos blog entry where the supposedly authentic document appears.

The evidence of forgery and manipulation of images of official documents, triggered by Israel Insider's revelation of the collection of Hawaii birth certificate images on the Photobucket site and the diligent detective work of independent investigative journalists (led by JimJ and Texas Darling) and imaging professionals such as Polarik in the three weeks since the publication of the images, implicate The Daily Kos, a "progressive" blog site, and the Obama campaign's "Fight the Smears" website, in misleading the public with official-looking but manipulated document images of doubtful provenance. Moreover, the blog and the campaign have been negligent in allowing the promotion of obviously forged and fake official documents together with the purported image of Obama's birth certificate.

(Have you read it?) Jumping to the conclusion, then: As of this date, there is proof that Barack Obama's campaign and the Daily Kos website are liars of the first order. As one commenter at Lucianne, "rocketscientist," put it:

I think it is important to know that the Obama campaign's own 'Fight The Smears' webpage used an obviously photoshopped fake Birth Certificate to fight rumors of a fake one. It would be like paying a fine for being caught counterfeiting money with more counterfeit money. There is something fishy, arrogant, about stonewalling legitimate questions about his birth certificate and then showing a fake copy on his own Fight The Smears webpage. Just like when he first claimed he never heard Rev. Wright say anything offensive about Whites or America. There is something dishonest about the way Obama tries to skirt the truth when confronted with it.

That means there is no proof that Barack Obama is elegible to be president.

If Barack Obama's campaign is being honest about his citizenship -- and there's no guarantee that it is, given the fact that it has already proferred a forged birth certificate as evidence -- if the Obama campaign is being honest, then this is an easy enough matter to resolve.

If Barack Obama does not produce his original, paper birth certificate within one week, he should be presumed not to be eligible for the presidency of the United States of America.

This is an expanded version of an entry originally posted at GINA COBB

Two schoolboys in Britain were punished for refusing to kneel and pray to Allah.

Two schoolboys were given detention after refusing to kneel down and 'pray to Allah' during a religious education lesson.

Parents were outraged that the two boys from year seven (11 to 12-year-olds) were punished for not wanting to take part in the practical demonstration of how Allah is worshipped.

They said forcing their children to take part in the exercise at Alsager High School, near Stoke-on-Trent - which included wearing Muslim headgear - was a breach of their human rights.

One parent, Sharon Luinen, said: "This isn't right, it's taking things too far.

"I understand that they have to learn about other religions. I can live with that but it is taking it a step too far to be punished because they wouldn't join in Muslim prayer.

It's amazing, the amount of trouble that is being perpetrated in the name of "diversity."

What's even more amazing is the bravery and clear-headedness of these two schoolboys, who understood that there are some things important enough to require defying authority.

Would your kids do the same if they were asked to pray to someone else's god?

What would you do, under a greater threat?

Update of an entry earlier cross-posted at GINA COBB

Without preamble, NY Times - Hippie Arrests Draw A.C.L.U.'s Attention

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) -- The American Civil Liberties Union said on Saturday that it would investigate the actions of federal officers who had arrested five members of the Rainbow Family in western Wyoming during the group's annual gathering.

The federal Forest Service said a mob of about 400 members of the Rainbow Family, a group of hippie types and eccentrics who hold a weeklong national gathering on public land each year, threw rocks and sticks at Forest Service officers who tried to arrest a member of the group. The agency would not give a reason for the original arrest.

Now they want to get involved. When it was three students at Duke University, members of the lacrosse team, being uncredibly accused of rape, sexual crimes, and kidnapping, the ACLU was nowhere to be found.

When it was found that the police lineups used to identify the supposed perpetrators, the ACLU was nowhere to be found.

When it was found that Durham DA Mike Nifong refused to speak with not only the accused, but had not even spoken with the accuser, the ACLU was nowhere to be found.

When Nifong was all but convicting the players, calling them horrible names, the ACLU was nowhere to be found.

When the entire case was falling apart at the seams, due to massive problems with Nifong's evidence, the accusers Sybil like stories, tainted DNA runs, and a whole host of other issues, the ACLU was nowhere to be found.

When a case screams for protection from unconstitutional abuses, when people were literally asking for people and groups, including the Governor, the NC Attorney General, and, the ACLU, to get involved, the ACLU was nowhere to be found.

But, when a few hippies are arrested for unknown reasons - and, really, what business is that of the ACLU? - and others go ballistic - what happened to peace, love, and understanding? - the ACLU is there.

When jihadi's caught on the field of battle trying to kill Americans pretend that a Koran was abused, the ACLU is there.

When they have no proof, just an assumption, that government is tracking people by cell phone, the ACLU is there.

When there is to be an execution, which is allowed as part of the Constitution, the ACLU is there.

When something happens that they care about through their narrow liberal viewpoint, the ACLU is there. The rest? Well, they can go fu.... um, well, jump in a lake, take a long walk off a short pier, take a flying leap without a parachute.

Cross posted at Pirate's Cove

Spiritual

But perhaps a spiritual response is also needed to global warming -- to provide the inner strength necessary to face and combat the worst effects that are to come from the Earth's erratically changing climate. You don't have to go to a church, synagogue or temple to be "spiritual" (although it doesn't often hurt). Spirituality can be broadly defined as the attempt to respond meaningfully to life's existential challenges.

Perhaps it can provide a means for those who say Man is mostly or solely responsible for global warming to actually walk the walk, instead of just yammering away.

Heron's

The birth of white herons at wildlife park is proof of global warming say conservation experts.

Staff at Wildwood say climate change has warmed Britain's climate so much that it is now suitable for little egrets to breed.

Wait a sec: wouldn't increased breading be a good thing? I'd be more impressed if the story wasn't actually plagiarizing Wikipedia (paragraphs 7-10)

Food crisis

AMSTERDAM -- The global food crisis will only worsen because of climate change, the UN climate chief said Friday, urging leaders of the world's richest countries meeting in Japan next week to set goals to reduce carbon emissions within the next dozen years.

What we really need is some good global cooling to reduce the growing seasons and available land! That'd help!

As seen at Pirate's Cove

The AP wants to make damned sure you get their point:

[T]alk turns to the state of the Union, and the Optimists become decidedly bleak.

They use words such as "terrified," "disgusted" and "scary" to describe what one calls "this mess" we Americans find ourselves in. Then comes the list of problems constituting the mess: a protracted war, $4-a-gallon gas, soaring food prices, uncertainty about jobs, an erratic stock market, a tougher housing market, and so on and so forth.

One member's son is serving his second tour in Iraq. Another speaks of a daughter who's lost her job in the mortgage industry and a son in construction whose salary was slashed. Still another mentions a friend who can barely afford gas.

Joanne Kontak, 60, an elementary school lunch aide inducted just this day as an Optimist, sums things up like this: "There's just entirely too much wrong right now."

Happy birthday, America? This year, we're not so sure.

What a repeat of the smear job of just a couple of weeks ago!

Alternatively the AP is right. The four or five people they quote really are representative of "America" -- of what writer Pauline Arrilaga calls "we," Kimosabe. After all, there are those "wrong direction" polls! Perhaps this "news" item really is newsworthy.

In which case, here's the news: What a bunch of miserable, whining ingrates America has become! And how lucky America is that there are millions in other countries willing literally to risk death to beg, sneak or sue their way in here, take their places and breath the fresh air of liberty and opportunity.

It's odd that, of all people, Pauline Arrilaga missed that angle, considering that she "writes frequently about illegal immigrants crossing the border, and about the brutality of smuggling rings that exploit them."

What makes these people submit to such brutality... just to go in "the wrong direction"? Considering that one such story she wrote was described by the AP itself (same link) as "based on meticulous reporting" ... why didn't she ask these immigrants that question?

But she could be right. I'd rather assume the far more intuitively obvious, and historically supportable, proposition: What a nasty self-hating outfit the Associated Press is.

Cross-posted on Likelihood of Success.

As Barack Obama is finding out, if polls are any indication:

One week after Sen. Hillary Clinton made a public show of unity with Sen. Barack Obama, a new survey suggests supporters of the New York senator are increasingly less likely to follow her lead.

A growing number of Clinton supporters polled say they may stay home in November instead of casting their ballot for Obama, an indication the party has yet to coalesce around the Illinois senator four weeks after the most prolonged and at times divisive primary race in modern American history came to a close.

According to a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll released Friday, the number of Clinton supporters who plan to defect to Republican Sen. John McCain's camp is down from one month ago, but -- in what could be an ominous sign for Obama as he seeks to unify the party -- the number of them who say they plan to vote for Obama is also down, and a growing number say they may not vote at all.

Reading through the comment sections on a number of lefty blog I ran across quite a few commenters who claim they'll not be voting for Obama for various reasons. Kos even put out a post saying he wasn't going to reward "bad behavior" (i.e., Obama's move to the right) with a donation. And the latest thing which has put them off is the seeming softening of his stance on late term abortions.

Whether or not those commenters actually hold to what they're saying remains to be seen, of course, but at the moment they don't seem to be quite as happy with their "new" politician as they once were.

Anyway, the latest numbers:

In a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey completed in early June before the New York senator ended her White House bid, 60 percent of Clinton backers polled said they planned on voting for Obama. In the latest poll, that number has dropped to 54 percent.

In early June, 22 percent of Clinton supporters polled said they would not vote at all if Obama were the party's nominee, now close to a third say they will stay home.

In another sign the wounds of the heated primary race have yet to heal, 43 percent of registered Democrats polled still say they would prefer Clinton to be the party's presidential nominee.

That number is significantly higher than it was in early June, when 35 percent of Democrats polled said they preferred Clinton to lead the party's presidential ticket.

You'd think that those numbers would begin to come down at this stage, instead of going up. It would seem the disappointment of a Clinton loss has been exacerbated by Obama's rather clumsy move toward the center. Clinton supporters reluctant to vote for Obama may be using that move to the right as further justification for not voting for Obama (as if Clinton wouldn't have tried the same maneuver).

While it is way too early to give this poll much credence, it is, still, a potential problem for an Obama candidacy. If a third of the Clinton supporters do indeed stay home and a decent number of them cross over and vote for McCain, it could spell real trouble for Obama. As he's finding out, unity doesn't become a reality just because you announce that to be the case in a town called Unity.

And the fact that the ones not done by citizen journalists both come from the British media rather than our own mainstream media right here in the US should surprise no one.

----- Headline: Al-Qaeda is driven from Mosul bastion after bloody last stand
Subheading: The murder toll is dropping, the insurgents are on the run. Our correspondent is on the front line as the Iraqi army takes control

------ Iraqis lead final purge of Al-Qaeda

----- Bill Roggio from the awesome Long War Journal website: Iraqi forces pursue Mahdi Army in Baghdad

----- More from the LWJ, courtesy of Iraq The Model's Omar Fadhil: Analysis: Sadr movement, Mahdi Army shrink under pressure

Cross-posted from the Sister Toldjah blog.

The brilliant Penn Jillette makes a living from being a skeptic. Skepticism, he reports in the LA Times, isn't good enough for the "reality based community," however -- not on matters central to the canon:

[S]omeone asked us about global warming, or climate change, or however they're branding it now. Teller and I were both silent on stage for a bit too long, and then I said I didn't know.

I elaborated on "I don't know" quite a bit. I said that Al Gore was so annoying (that's scientifically provable, right?) that I really wanted to doubt anything he was hyping, but I just didn't know. I also emphasized that really smart friends, who knew a lot more than me, were convinced of global warming. I ended my long-winded rambling (I most often have a silent partner) very clearly with "I don't know." I did that because ... I don't know. . . .

The next day, I heard that one of the non-famous, non-groovy, non-scientist speakers had used me as an example of someone who let his emotions make him believe things that are wrong. . . . Later, I was asked about a Newsweek blog she wrote. . . . She ends with: "But here was Penn, a great friend to the skeptic community, basically saying, 'Don't bother me with scientific evidence, I'm going to make up my mind about global warming based on my disdain for Al Gore.' ... Which just goes to show, not even the most hard-nosed empiricists and skeptics are immune from the power of emotion to make us believe stupid things."Is there no ignorance allowed on this one subject? . . . You can't turn on the TV without seeing someone hating ourselves for what we've done to the planet and preaching the end of the world. Maybe they're right, but is there no room for "maybe"? There's a lot of evidence, but global warming encompasses a lot of complicated points: Is it happening? Did we cause it? Is it bad? Can we fix it? Is government-forced conservation the only way to fix it? . . .

[T]he climate of the whole world is . . . complicated. I'm not a scientist, and I haven't spent my life studying weather. I'm trying to learn what I can, and while I'm working on it, isn't it OK to say "I don't know"?

I can't give Jillette all the credit in the world for this thinking, however. His skeptical principles of knowing when not to know only go so far. Perhaps it really does matter whose ox is being Gored, because when it comes to other important matters arguably at least as complicated as global warming, Jillette is bold in his ignorance when in, fact, being so makes him feel good -- that is, when he uses his lack of study, knowledge or understanding to assert that there is no God. Read the rest of this entry >>

Make sure to check out Conservative Grapevine today, where you'll find links like:

John Fund: How Jesse Helms made a difference

Ty.rannosaur.us: 7 bizarre unsolved mysteries

Cracked: The 5 most baffling explosions in movie history

Egotastic!: Mariah Carey bikini pics

You can check out all those links and more by clicking here. Don't forget to bookmark RWN's companion page, CG! Remember, if you're not reading RWN and CG every day, you're not getting the full story!

PS: If you'd like to submit articles to be linked to Conservative Grapevine, register at CG, and then shoot me an email.

The website of the day is Massage Nerd.

I'd like to give a special thanks to my co-bloggers, guest bloggers, and week-end bloggers who carried the load while I was gone.

All American Blogger
Gina Cobb
Doubleplusundead
Dr. Melissa Clouthier
Ed Driscoll
Elocutio
Jeff Gannon - A Voice of the New Media
GOPUSA Northeast
JackLewis
Likelihood of Success
Little Miss Attila
Midnight Blue
Moonbattery
mountaineer musings
Pirate's Cove
Sister Toldjah
QandO

Make sure to check out their blogs!

Predicting whom a particular candidate will take as Vice-President is always difficult because so many factors play into it. Do both candidates get along? Is the presidential nominee looking to carry a particular state, region, or demographic group, is he looking to solidify his base, or is he just trying to add strength across the board in a general election?

Obama also has some unique needs. He has very little relevant experience, difficulty connecting with the older and middle class white voters he'll need to win, and potential difficulties caused by a nasty primary fight with Hillary Clinton.

Put it all together and there's no way to know which way Obama will ultimately go. Still, here are some of the most likely and/or discussed possibilities.

Evan Bayh: Bayh is an experienced former governor of Indiana and has been a senator since 1998. He has a reputation for being a moderate, being fiscally conservative, and he would likely be able to turn Indiana (11 electoral votes) blue. Bayh wouldn't be one of the more exciting choices, but despite his lack of charisma, he would certainly be one of the stronger picks that Obama could make.

Joe Biden: Biden is very experienced, is the chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, and has a certain sort of charm. He's also gaffe-prone, including this humdinger about Obama from the Democratic primaries,

"I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy...I mean, that's a storybook, man."

Yeah -- probably not.

Michael Bloomberg: The ex-Republican, Independent, Jewish mayor of New York is a down-the-line liberal on almost every issue, but his biggest asset would be deep pockets that he could use to finance the campaign. Given that Obama should have a much bigger warchest than McCain, Bloomberg probably couldn't add much to the campaign.

Phil Bredesen: Because he's the moderate governor of a Southern state, Bredesen has been discussed as a possible Vice President for Obama. However, Bredesen has only been in office since 2002 and probably couldn't carry Tennessee. That would seem to make it unlikely that he'd get a serious look.

Sherrod Brown: Brown is a rabidly liberal senator from Ohio, he spent 5 terms in the House, and he may be popular enough to turn his home state blue. If polling data confirms that Brown can deliver Ohio (20 electoral votes) to Obama, B.O.'d have to give him a hard look even if he added nothing more to the ticket.

Wesley Clark: The former Supreme Allied Commander Europe of NATO has military experience and is popular with the netroots, but he's a novice politician with a knack for putting his foot in his mouth. His latest escapade, denigrating McCain's military service, probably made him too much of a liability to be seriously considered as a VEEP.

Hillary Clinton: There are a list of reasons as long as your arm why Obama should steer clear of Hillary like she's on fire: the baggage, the nasty things she and her husband said about him, her lack of experience, etc., etc. However, a lot of her supporters haven't gotten on board the Obama express yet and she may be the only person who can get them on the bandwagon. What that means is that Hillary can probably deliver far more votes than anyone else Obama could select as veep -- and that means that Obama will almost have to seriously consider her for VP.

Christopher Dodd: Dodd is experienced, but he's also punishingly dull and is enmeshed in a Countrywide Bank subprime mortgage scandal. That would seem to make it unlikely that Obama would give him serious consideration.

Tom Daschle: His name is frequently mentioned as an Obama Veep possibility because of his experience and liberalism, but he has no charisma, he's a lobbyist, and he's as "old school" as it gets in politics. It seems unlikely that a guy like that would fit into a campaign that's supposed to be all about "change" and a "new type of politics."

John Edwards: Setting aside the fact that he added almost nothing to the ticket when John Kerry selected him in 2004, Edwards is the white Barack Obama. He's an inexperienced, pampered, liberal wimp whose biggest assets are his charisma and how he looks. That means Edwards would be an unlikely selection.

Al Gore: Even though Gore couldn't carry his own state when he ran for President in 2000, he would add some gravitas to the ticket. Moreover, he'd draw liberals out to the polls in an attempt to revenge his loss in 2000. On the other hand, there doesn't seem to be much evidence that Gore still has the fire in his belly necessary to take another run at the White House and even if he did, would he be willing to settle for being Vice-President yet again?

Chuck Hagel: He's a rabidly anti-war, pro-illegal immigration Republican from Nebraska with military experience. At first glance, that might make him appear to be an appealing candidate for a man pledging to unify the country. However, Hagel's lifetime ACU rating is 84.67%, which is actually higher than John McCain's 82.16%. It's hard to see Obama selecting a Vice-President who is actually to the right of the Republican Presidential nominee.

Tim Kaine: The current governor of Virginia is being widely discussed as a potential veep because he's moderate and could probably help Obama carry Virginia (13 electoral votes). However, Kaine has only been in office since 2006 and it seems unlikely that a candidate as inexperienced as Obama would reach out to a similarly inexperienced governor.

Janet Napolitano: The Democratic governor of Arizona could be a go-to-gal if Barack feels like he needs a woman on the ticket, but can't bear to reach out to the wicked witch of New York. On the other hand, Napolitano is a liberal governor, with almost no national name recognition, who has only been in office since 2002 and probably couldn't even carry her own state for Obama. That would seem to make her an unlikely selection.

Bill Nelson: Florida Senator Bill Nelson has a lot of experience, a reputation as a moderate, and actually once flew on the Space Shuttle Columbia, which admittedly, is pretty cool. If Obama's polling finds that Nelson will give the ticket enough of a boost to carry Florida, Obama would almost have to seriously consider him for the #2 slot.

Sam Nunn: The experienced former senator from Georgia has a lot of gravitas, a reputation for being moderate, credibility on defense issues, speaks Southern, and could very well turn Georgia (15 electoral votes) blue. It would be difficult for Obama to pick a VEEP who would be, at least on paper, a better fit for his campaign.

Bill Richardson: Richardson's two biggest strengths would be turning New Mexico (5 electoral votes) blue in 2008 and helping Obama capture the Hispanic vote. However, Obama is already beating McCain in New Mexico and running strong with Hispanics, so that removes most of the upside from choosing Richardson.

Brian Schweitzer: Bush won Montana in a walk back in 2004, but now the state is close and uber-popular Democratic Governor Brian Schweitzer would certainly be able to turn the state blue. On the other hand, Montana only provides 3 electoral votes and Schweitzer has only been governor since 2004. Pairing him up with someone as green as Obama might be frightening for voters.

Kathleen Sebelius: Look at the entry for Janet Napolitano and change the state to Kansas. You then have the Kathleen Sebelius entry.

Ted Strickland: Strickland has only been governor of Ohio since 2006, but he also has 5 terms in Congress under his belt. Although he has little national name recognition, he could probably deliver Ohio's 20 electoral votes and that might be enough to merit his selection -- if he would take the job despite his firm protests to the contrary.

Mark Warner: The moderate former governor of Virginia, Mark Warner, would likely turn the state (13 electoral votes) blue for the Democrats. Warner also "speaks Southern" and would be useful in states like North Carolina and Georgia, where Obama hopes to go on the offensive. On the other hand, Warner has minimal national name recognition and after only one term as governor of Virginia, he probably doesn't have enough experience to be Obama's Veep.

Jim Webb: This senator from Virginia might help Obama carry the state (13 electoral votes), is popular with the netroots, and as a former Secretary of the Navy, he would help shore up Obama's non-existent military credentials. On the other hand, he's a former Republican, is mistake-prone, and has only been in the Senate since 2006. Those negatives might be enough to force him into the 2nd tier of Veep candidates.

Also see, John McCain's Top 24 Potential Picks For Vice-President

I haven't seen all of this guy's videos, but the ones I have seen are truly outstanding. Hat tip to Maggie's Farm for the clip.

"John Kerry says Republican John McCain doesn't have the judgment to be president.

If that's the case, then it's probably a good thing McCain rejected overtures from Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee in 2004, to form a bipartisan ticket and run with Kerry as his candidate for vice president.

... McCain came to Kerry's aid in March 2004 after Bush and his campaign tried to paint the Democrat as weak on defense. He rejected the suggestion in broadcast interviews and chided both parties for waging such a "bitter and partisan" campaign.

...For the record, Kerry is not among those being mentioned as possible running mates for McCain." -- Hope Yen, Associated Press

After taking an entire week off on vacation, I thought it would be fun to write that classic essay that all of us were forced to scribble, way back in 3rd grade: What I did on my summer vacation! Of course, back then, we had a whole summer off and it still wasn't enough. Now? Taking a week at once seems almost decadent.

So, did I go to Europe, head cross country, or go on a cruise?

Nope.

I spent 6 days relaxing, 2 1/2 days doing grunt work, and got back on my normal schedule last night.

That may not seem like a lot of time off, but typically in a month I take 1-3 days off completely, without doing any work at all, and those days are seldom consecutive. So, taking 6 days off in a row? It feels like the equivalent of a person with a 40 hour a week, week-ends off work schedule spending two months hanging out in Barbados.

So, what did I do? Let's see. Aside from the usual (watching rented videos, chatting on the phone with friends, etc.)...

I caught 3 movies at the theater.

Kung-Fu Panda: I'd give it 3 out of 5 stars. It was humorous, uplifting, and a pretty good flick overall.

Don't Mess With The Zohan: The first 2/3 of the movie was really funny -- in a silly Airplane sort of way. However, the last third of the film bogged down in a sewer of moral equivalence that basically painted Palestinian terrorists who are deliberately blowing up Israelis as no better or worse than the Israelis defending their country. Thumbs down.

Hancock: Will Smith's latest film hasn't gotten the best reviews, but I thought it was an excellent flick. That being said, it was almost like two completely different movies featuring the same characters. The first part was a comedy and the 2nd part, after an M. Night Shyamalan style twist, was tragically romantic. For me, it worked, although the movie was a bit uneven. Thumbs up.

I also read 2 1/2 books.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, Volume 1: The Long Way Home By Joss Whedon (Read)

Candy Girl: A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper by Diablo Cody (Read)

Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance by Atul Gawande (1/2 read)

Additionally, I spent a lot of time playing God of War 2 on PS2. Unfortunately, I got a little bogged down in the middle of the game when I started getting to the tougher bosses and puzzles and didn't even get close to finishing the game before I had to return it. I guess that'll give me something to do at Christmas when I have time to spend an hour or ten playing video games.

Last week, I also got the first and second professional massages of my entire life and, yes, the first one, which featured oil and hot rocks was so good that I decided to set up a 2nd one (a Swedish massage) at another place. Personally, I preferred the deeper tissue work of the Swedish massage -- but, both of them felt fantastic.

On top of all that, I went to a chiropractor and after they put me on a machine that ran electric charges through my back and then another machine that massaged my back with jets of water, I got my back adjusted. It was definitely a plus.

Last but not least, I picked up a banging slate coffee table for my living room on the cheap and spent 2 1/2 days doing grunt work on RWN and around the house. I cleaned out about 90% of my to do list -- and some of this stuff had literally been on the list for months.

Now that, my friends, is one hell of a great vacation week.

"If Bill Clinton can get above 60% in the polls, he can start dating again" -- Fritz Hollings

Now typically, I'm the first person to sneer at stories that come from trashy gossip rags like the Globe, but they just might be onto something here,

"The former President was caught on camera holding hands with an attractive 26-year-old woman after a speaking engagement in Edmonton, Alberta. She's been identified as Avra Siegel, who worked as a national advance person for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.

...In a 44-frame sequence, Clinton is seen leaving the hotel, descending the steps while shaking a few hands, then reaching his car, turning and noticing Avra.

"He could have gotten into his vehicle but instead he turns and looks over to where she's standing," says (Sun photo editor Tom) Braid. "He reaches out, grabs her hand, waves, lets go, touches her on her shoulder, and leaves."

Braid says Avra had an "all-access" pass for the event, including the Green Room, an area of the stage where speakers can relax before going on.

...The hand-holding "lasted a few seconds," says Baird.

Could it be innocent? Conceivably, but it seems unlikely.

I mean come on; how many married guys are going to hold hands with a woman other than their wife in public? And keep in mind that we're talking about Bill Clinton here, a guy who's notorious for cheating on his wife. Now, he's photographed in public holding hands with a hotty he has been spending time around on the campaign -- and there's nothing going on? Sure....

PS: This is my favorite, unintentionally funny part of the pic. An "All-Access" pass to Bill Clinton? Yeah, I bet =D.

PS #2: I feel sorry for the girl because a lot of people, including Hillary, are going to figure that she's having an affair with Bill and if need be, Bill will shove her under a bus so fast it will make her head spin.

I hope you enjoyed your Fourth of July weekend more than the moonbats at AP, who predictably spent it wallowing in gloom. We're told that even the Optimists Club can hardly find a reason for America to go on living:

They use words such as "terrified," "disgusted" and "scary" to describe what one calls "this mess" we Americans find ourselves in. Then comes the list of problems constituting the mess: a protracted war, $4-a-gallon gas, soaring food prices, uncertainty about jobs, an erratic stock market, a tougher housing market, and so on and so forth. […] Happy birthday, America? This year, we're not so sure.

Even AP admits:

In 2008, using history as a yardstick, life actually is better and richer and fuller, with more opportunities than ever before.

Nevertheless, there is an election coming up and Republicans hold the White House, so we must be convinced that we're desperate for change. This is attempted by cherry-picking morose comments from pessimists, then spinning them with rhetoric like this:

The nation's psyche is battered and bruised, the sense of pessimism palpable. Young or old, Republican or Democrat, economically stable or struggling, Americans are questioning where they are and where they are going. And they wonder who or what might ride to their rescue.

I wonder who they might have in mind.

On a tip from mega. Cross-posted at Moonbattery.

It's a great day to be an American. Now that this Fourth of July weekend has wound down, I realize that I appreciate it particularly this year because I spent last year's out of the country while I was on vacation visiting family. And while I cherished the wonderful time I had in Malaysia with grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins, I recognized more than ever while I was abroad how much I pride and love I have for my country. It's like army vet Joseph A. Rehyansky wrote this weekend: "One does not have to travel very far from our county or stay away very long, although my wife and I have both done so, to know how precious is what we have got."

This time last year, I remember being acutely aware of the blessing of freedom that I enjoyed - one that was paid for by blood and sacrifice. And as my cousins and I teased each other about whose home country was "best" (I have family from all over the world), I wondered if they really understood the meaning of patriotism in the way that Americans do. Did they know what it meant to appreciate a nation whose foundation was built upon principles and values that were held so strongly that its people were willing to give up their lives and fortunes in order to defend them? Did they fully know the worth of liberty, granted first by God and then preserved by fellow patriots?

I found it interesting during my stay in Malaysia and Singapore how often the younger generation in these countries touted being "westernized" or "Americanized," referring mostly to the fact that they had kept up with the latest fashions, movies, and whatever else pop culture has to offer. Yet to me, this has never defined what it is to be "American," and I realized then how grateful I was that it meant so much more.

As beautiful as my family members' homelands may be, or as lavish their lifestyles (many of them are very wealthy), I wouldn't trade my American heritage for a thing. The pride I have in knowing the rich history of my country, as well as the sense of honor, integrity, and humility and I learned from this knowledge, are all values I hold as priceless. And no other nation could compare.

As the great Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North put it this Friday,

We're the only nation on the planet with tens of thousands of its sons and daughters who volunteer to don a uniform and go into harm's way around globe. They go not for gold or colonial conquest or "ethnic cleansing" -- but to offer others the hope of freedom -- the kind we celebrate on Independence Day.

There isn't another nation in the world like the U.S., and now that the parades and fireworks have come to an end, I hope Americans' gratitude doesn't. We can't forget what a privilege it is to have our rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness protected, or to play a part what Thomas Jefferson knew to be "the last, best hope of mankind." It's a privilege that should never be taken lightly, which Jefferson well understood.

I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet through all the Gloom I can see rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will tryumph in that Days Transaction, even altho We should rue it, which I trust in God We Shall not. (Letter from Thomas Jefferson to his wife Abigail; July 3, 1776)

Thankfully, over two hundred years later, generations of selfless and dutiful Americans have lived out Jefferson's prediction that the "end is more than worth all the means." But it is precisely those means that give our "end" so much worth.

The House is lost to Republicans and the numbers there are predicted to be worse after the November election.

The Senate has been the Republican's only bastion of power in this Congress, albeit as a minority party. But in the Senate, being the minority is a very powerful position to hold, if the majority held by the other party is a slim one. That, of course, is the case now, with Democrats holding a 51-49 majority in a body that requires 60 votes to get just about anything done.

But how are the races shaping up for November?

As it turns out, Republicans are defending almost twice as many seats as Democrats (23R/12D) and it isn't looking particularly good for the Republicans.

In June of last year, the Cook Report, well respected in political circles, considered only one Republican seat to be in jeopardy. Now it is of the opinion that 7 Republican seats are in play.

Of course, last June, Trent Lott (R-MS) hadn't retired. Nor had Senator's John Warner (R-VA), Pete V. Domenici (R-NM) or Wayne Allard (R-CO) announced their intention to retire.

That has put all 4 of those seats in contention (as it is always easier to win as an incumbent than when vying for an open seat).

As for the Dems, only one seat is being seriously contested and that's the Louisiana Senate seat of Mary Landrieu.

Other contested races are in AK, MN and OR. ME has Collins who is outpolling her Democratic rival, not that it necessarily means much to the Republican balance of power in the Senate.

The point to be made, of course, was echoed in a letter Obama wrote to Democrats urging them to give to the Senate campaign effort:

"Big changes don't happen without big Senate majorities."

The possibility of such a majority is beginning to loom.

Monty Python in its prime would have been at a loss to outdo the self-parody into which Britain's totalitarian political correctness has descended. In the name of combating "racism," toddlers are now required to like foreign foods:

The National Children's Bureau, which receives £12 million a year, mainly from Government funded organisations, has issued guidance to play leaders and nursery teachers advising them to be alert for racist incidents among youngsters in their care.

This could include a child of as young as three who says "yuk" in response to being served unfamiliar foreign food.

The NCB advises that such incidents must be punished; otherwise, "the lack of censure may indicate to the child that there is nothing unacceptable about such attitudes." Nurseries are urged to report all such thought crimes to local councils.

The next step will be the banning of native British foods, lest children prefer them to Pakistani fare.

On a tip from V the K. Cross-posted at Moonbattery.

"Senator Obama talks about bringing hope, faith and change to American politics. We now see this is all just political 'doublespeak.' One of his top priorities as President would be protecting abortion rights and even expanding them. If elected, Senator Obama would become 'The Abortion President,' with the most extremist policies on abortion of any President in history.

"Senator Obama's views on abortion are so radical that he even wants American citizens to pay for them. This would include Catholics, Evangelicals and all people of faith. He would also expand abortion rights through his passionate support of The Freedom of Choice Act.

This is Obama's challenge with Evangelicals. He can talk about the social justice issues all he wants and yes, it resonates to a certain extent but unless he moves on abortion (not likely) he'll have a problem. If he shows some support for parental notification laws or the annual fetal pain bill that moves through Congress then that will help insulate him to a degree on the extremist abortion tag.

Still, Christians believe their mission includes clothing the poor, feeding the needy, tending the sick, visiting the imprisoned, caring for the widows and orphans, and on it goes. Jesus told his followers that "whatever you do to serve the least of these, you've done for me." To a conservative Christian, it doesn't get more "least" than a helpless unborn child.

Hope and changeyness sounds wonderful--even to evangelical ears, but upon closer inspection, it rings hollow. Democrats will find their social justice messages a tough sell when the greatest social injustice, abortion, is a central plank of their social platform. Their only hope is to try to deceive conservatives into believing that Obama really is against abortion. Which, of course, he isn't.

Cross-posted at Dr. Melissa Clouthier and Melissa Clouthier.com where I'm experimenting with my new blog. Bookmark me!

Being terrorist's metaphorical friends is not the same thing as actively working against one's own government, but that's exactly what Nancy Pelosi has done. No doubt, being in bed with terrorist scum will endear her to her constituents, but will average voters like it?

And there's this: How will Barack Obama respond to the House Leader's actions? No doubt, he'd be thrilled to have a member of Congress actively undermining the United State's interests were he to be President. Of course, he'll probably be working to undermine America's interests, so they'd be working together.

Cross-posted at MelissaClouthier.com

Make sure to check out Conservative Grapevine today, where you'll find links like:

Rachel Lucas: Busting babies for "racism"? Seriously?

Cassy Fiano: A pic of Cassy Fiano and Melissa Clouthier together at a ball game in Texas

Heckler Spray: Top 8 movie sociopaths

Bizarre: Rick is turning himself into a tattooed zombie. (W/freaky pics)

Popoholic: Jennifer Lopez bikini pictures

You can check out all those links and more by clicking here. Don't forget to bookmark RWN's companion page, CG! Remember, if you're not reading RWN and CG every day, you're not getting the full story!

PS: If you'd like to submit articles to be linked to Conservative Grapevine, register at CG, and then shoot me an email.

The website of the day is JackLewis.

Cheri Jacobus, who is a brilliant woman, a Republican strategerist, she lives in Washington, she's worked on Capitol Hill, posted a little blurb: "Just how much Senate experience does Barack Obama have in terms of actual work days? Not much. ...how many days experience, from the time he's inaugurated in the Senate, sworn in, until he announced his presidential exploratory committee, how many actual days of work experience in the Senate for Barack Obama?...Educated guess 150. It's 143.

..."After 143 days of work experience, Obama believed he was ready to be Commander In Chief, Leader of the Free World, and fill the shoes of Abraham Lincoln, FDR, JFK and Ronald Reagan. 143 days -- I keep leftovers in my refrigerator longer than that. In contrast, John McCain's 26 years in Congress, 22 years of military service including 1,966 days in captivity as a POW in Hanoi now seem more impressive than ever." So there you go, 143 days. So this is the key. All of these so-called flip-flops, all these changes in position, they are due to his inexperience. His inexperience and his incompetence lead him to make goofs, to lie, to flounder around." -- Rush Limbaugh

The GOP is in trouble right now for one simple reason: too many Republicans in DC seem to be under the impression that it's the job of conservative voters to fall in line with their beliefs and serve their needs instead of vice-versa.

I sometimes wonder (in fact I often wonder) about the real mental acuity of the Speaker of the House. She does not impress me as the brightest bulb in the pack:

The speaker blames what she labels the Bush-Cheney big oil agenda, using graphics to point out gasoline prices have more than doubled in the Bush administration.

"This is a scam of the greatest magnitude," says Speaker Pelosi.

You have to remember that when Ms. Pelosi and the gang were running for reelection in 2006 they promised that if the people would give them a majority, they'd take care of gas prices. Standing in front of a gas station with posted prices in the $3 range, she and the others implied it was as simple as that. They had a "common sense plan", remember?

Now, with gas prices over the $4 mark, about all the Democrats seem capable of doing is attempting to blame Bush. And don't even talk about increasing domestic production:

"You know full well if you could drill in the Arctic Refuge it would save two cents 20 years from now," says Speaker Pelosi.

Ah, goal-post shifting (or just the usual hyperbole, you decide) - now it's "20 years" instead of 10. Of course, unsaid is the point that drilling elsewhere coupled with ANWR would yield much more than "two cents" on down the road, wouldn't it?

As for Pelosi's "common sense plan", well, it appears to be a two pronged attack. The first part of her solution then is:

"Mr. President, do not fill the strategic petroleum reserve with oil at record highs. Instead, take out the oil that we brought at a lower price to bring down the price of oil, to reduce the price at the pump," says Speaker Pelosi.

Right. Instead of drilling, Ms. Pelosi would instead like to see us without a SPR in a time in which we import 60% of our oil and are subject to interruption or cut-off at any time. Brilliant.

And what would pushing this oil onto the market do for the price of gas - not that much. Maybe a few cents per gallon.

But I mentioned a two-pronged attack by the speaker, didn't I? Well here's the second:

Building on last month's bipartisan legislation passed overwhelmingly by the House requiring the Commodities Futures Trading Commission to use its emergency powers to curb excessive speculation distorting the energy markets, the House Agriculture Committee this week will hold three days of hearings on oil market speculation. The goal is to present the House with strong legislation this month to bring transparency to the markets and to end speculators' ability to artificially inflate the price at the pump.

The House Ag Committee is holding three days of hearings on oil speculation? Brilliant! I'm sure the folks at the London futures market (and other foreign venues) are shivering in their boots. And, of course, I'm sure the faux problem of "speculators" will somehow be laid at Bush's feet as well.

So there you have Nancy Pelosi's solution to our gas price woes. Don't drill in ANWR (or anywhere else), deplete the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (a brilliant national security strategy) and go after speculators with Ag Committee hearings.

Wooo Hooo - we'll be down to $2.50 a gallon in no time.

If Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid aren't the greatest arguments against seniority as the primary qualification for a leadership position, I don't know who would be.

This recommended diary from the Daily Kos isn't the usual "I am happy this Republican died and is burning in hell" or "I can't wait for the revolution so I can murder Republicans" post from Kos, but yet and still, it was such a brilliant window into the liberal mindset that I had to excerpt from it.

You Americans Aren't Selfish Enough by LithiumCola

You pay all these taxes but you don't want anything in return for it. You don't want free health care. You don't want time off of work. You don't want anything. You're not selfish enough.

You get mad when someone is taking welfare and sitting on their *ss. What have you got against sitting on your *ss? The whole point behind having a government and paying taxes is to have more time to sit on your *ss. That's what technology is for. You Americans work longer than anyone, pay all these taxes, make all these robots, and then not only don't you sit on your *ss, but you get mad when anyone else does. You're f*cking crazy.

...Growing up means understanding self-regard. And you got none. You think anything for you must be bad. You're like a kid whose hand has been slapped above the cookie jar. Thing is, you made the cookies, idiot. This is your country, your government, and your taxes . . . you get to say what is done with it. And here's a clue: you want to sit on your *ss more. You want free health care.

Here's the whole post shortened to a sentence: "It's ok for everyone to be lazy and leech off of your fellow citizens."

Of course, the big problem with this is that it relies on the same misunderstanding of human nature that the Communists have -- which isn't surprising since most liberals are Commies at heart (Why do you think so many of them wear those Che Guevara shirts?). The problem is...drumroll please, because this will be shocking to liberals -- people are not going to strive to achieve, create new jobs, and generally move the country forward if they're getting nothing out of it.

Now, at this point, the average liberal is scratching his head going, "Move the country forward? That post was about being lazy!" Right. But, who's going to pay the bills while everyone else is acting like leeches?

The reality is that today, the average American citizen is not paying more in taxes than he is receiving in services. We make that up by looting the rich and running a deficit. But, guess what? We can't run a deficit forever and the rich are not going to keep working like little hamsters on wheels, accumulating more tax dollars for the rest of us to use, as the government takes an ever larger slice of their income.

Eventually, at some point, the corporations will go, "Given the profits we pay after taxes, it's not worth it for us to continue doing this," and they'll drop part of their business or close up shop. Eventually, at some point, the rich people will go, "Given the amount of taxes I'm paying on what I'm earning, it's not worth it for me to keep working. I might as well just lay back, be lazy like everyone else, and enjoy what I've already earned."

The reality is that this country can't afford to pay for the government services it's handing out now. So, the whole idea that we can receive even more while most of the country kicks back in a hammock and lets someone else do all the work is a fraud -- and it's a fraud at the heart of liberalism.

If you believe that the expansion of government and deficit spending are serious issues, then there almost could not be a starker difference between the two candidates for President.

From the LA Times,

Among other proposals during the course of the campaign, Obama has said he would strengthen the nation's bridges and dams ($6 billion a year), help make men better fathers ($50 million a year) and aid Iraqis displaced by the war ($2 billion in one-time spending). Last week, he pledged to give religious and community groups $500 million a year to provide summer education to low-income children.

Other proposals are more costly. Obama wants to extend health insurance to more people (part of a $65-billion-a-year health plan), develop cleaner energy sources ($15 billion a year), curb home foreclosures ($10 billion in one-time spending) and add $18 billion a year to education spending.

It is a far different blueprint than McCain is offering. The senator from Arizona has proposed relatively little new spending, arguing that tax cuts and private business are more effective means of solving problems.

The total price tag of Obama's plans, according to his campaign, is $130 billion a year. On top of that, Obama is proposing a middle-class tax cut of about $80 billion a year.

Obama's campaign says the new spending would be more than offset by cuts to existing federal programs and other savings.

"His plan reallocates what we're spending today on the war in Iraq and wasteful and low-priority government programs into higher-priority investments in our future," said Jason Furman, Obama's economic policy director.

Given the nature of how the price tags for government programs almost always dramatically expand, if Obama is saying he is proposing $130 billion a year in new spending, you can safely assume the initial amount is somewhere around $260 billion and rising.

Then there's McCain, who has one of the best records of fiscal conservatism in the Senate and who "has proposed relatively little new spending."

Controlling spending is like securing the borders. Every politician says that they want to do it, but then when it comes right down to it, you find that most of them don't believe what they say. Given that he's proposing all that new spending, Obama certainly isn't going to cut the deficit. On the other hand, McCain is promising to balance the budget in four years and he has proven time and time again that he will walk the walk on this issue.

So, which politician is more likely to make a change for the better on spending? Hint: it's not the guy who keeps repeating "change" over and over like a parrot.

It's probably a mistake to set up a timetable for the withdrawal of our troops from Iraq because it would give the enemy the ability to simply lay back and wait for us to leave. That's why wars aren't fought on timetables.

However, if the Iraqis insist on it, so be it.

They're not an American colony or puppet state. To the contrary, we set them up as a free and sovereign country and one of the things that free and sovereign countries get to do is choose whether they want foreign troops on their soil.

If the legitimate, democratic government of Iraq wants to agree to timetables for US troops to leave the country -- and it appears that they do -- then we should do our best to cooperate with them.*

The truth is that America is not going to determine whether Iraq remains a free democratic country. Yes, we do have a duty to give the Iraqis every opportunity to succeed and because of George Bush's leadership, we have hung in there and done the right thing so far.

But ultimately, even though we gave the Iraqis their freedom, it's going to be up to them to keep or lose it long term. The decision, right or wrong, to set up timetables is part of that process. Hopefully, they won't regret that decision down the road.

* It wouldn't surprise me if it turns out that the motivation behind this is to keep US troops in the country longer, as opposed to pushing us out the door quicker. Obama's "we're out in 16 months no matter what" timetable for defeat may be scaring the hell out of them.

If that is what the Iraqis are thinking, they have a problem, because Bush really can't tie the hands of the next President on this issue. Whatever agreement he may make goes out the window on this issue if the next President disagrees with it.

Update #1: Here's more info on the "timetable."

"Any agreement would not have any hard timetables for withdrawal, but could include the desire by the U.S. and Iraq to withdraw troops based on conditions on the ground," National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said.

"I know that Prime Minister al-Maliki has said that he doesn't want a precipitous withdrawal because of the security consequences," Johndroe said in Toyako, Japan, where President Bush is attending the G-8 summit.

Al-Maliki said in a meeting with Arab diplomats in Abu Dhabi that his country also has proposed a short-term interim memorandum of agreement rather than the more formal status of forces agreement the two sides have been negotiating.

The memorandum "now on the table" includes a formula for the withdrawal of U.S. troops, he said."

What's being described isn't even really a timetable per se, it's just a more formalized way of saying "As they stand up, we stand down" based on the conditions on the ground. It has very little to do with the Obama formula for defeat that says, we don't care what happens, we're just going to tuck our tails between our legs and run even if the people who stood shoulder to shoulder with us are cut down in the streets as a result.

Now, what you just read seems to conflict with the latest story from the AFP, which again seems to be talking about a hard date for withdrawal,

The United States on Tuesday rejected a demand from Iraq for a specific date for pullout of US-led foreign troops from the country, saying any withdrawal will be based on conditions on the ground.

"The US government and the government of Iraq are in agreement that we, the US government, we want to withdraw, we will withdraw. However, that decision will be conditions-based," State Department spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos said.

Iraq said on Tuesday it will reject any security pact with the United States unless it sets a date for the pullout of US-led troops.

"We will not accept any memorandum of understanding if it does not give a specific date for a complete withdrawal of foreign troops," national security advisor Muwaffaq al-Rubaie told reporters in the holy city of Najaf.

Since our presence in Iraq is going to outlast Bush's presidency, he shouldn't try to bind the hands of the next President by setting a hard date for withdrawal. However, Iraq is either a sovereign nation or it's not. If it is a sovereign nation -- and we've certainly been saying that it is -- and they want a hard date for withdrawal, then the next President should give it to them.

Congratulations to Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi on achieving a remarkable milestone. For the first time in American history, the public's approval of Congress has fallen to single digits. From Rasmussen, via Drudge:

This month, just 9% say Congress is doing a good or excellent job.

Even the fools who elected our current Congress are disgusted:

The percentage of Democrats who give Congress positive ratings fell from 17% last month to 13% this month.

Encouragingly, independents have an even lower opinion of our Democrat Congress than Republicans do, with 3% and 8%, respectively, offering positive ratings. There are probably more people who believe Elvis is alive than who think Reid and Pelosi are doing an acceptable job.

I'm guessing that Louis XVI and Nicholas II would have scored higher ratings right before they lost their jobs. No government this despised by the populace it exploits can last forever. Yet we're told that Dems will actually gain seats in November, and that they'll probably take the White House too, providing a rubber stamp for the policies that fewer than one in 10 Americans has a use for.

On a tip from Conan. Cross-posted at Moonbattery.

Rather than getting our news about the imaginary climate change crisis from the authoritarian propagandists who run the mainstream media, we would be well advised to turn to sources more grounded in reality. South Africa's Engineering News, for example:

During 2008, have we seen many stories in the newspapers about 2007 being particularly warm as a result of global warming?

During 2006, the doomsters were predicting that 2007 would be the hottest year on record, so why have we seen no reports about this?

The answer is simple — 2007 turned out to be the coolest year for 30 years. It is also the case that there has been no global warming since 1998. In fact, since 1998, there has been steady cooling.

Even more dramatic is the fact that the most recent computer model predictions indicate that there will be no more global warming for the next ten years. But the doomsters say that, after this ten-year period, global warming will come back with a vengeance. Why?

This answer is simple too: Because authoritarians and corrupt profiteers have invested far too much in the global warming hoax to admit that not only is human activity not causing global warming, currently there is no global warming.

This is a shame, because warming periods in the past were unsurprisingly associated with economic expansion. Humans are like most other life forms in that we fare better in a warmer world.

Nonetheless, South Africa prepares to drink the Kool-Aid by imposing a tax that will mean a 10% increase in electricity costs. This will kill two birds with one stone, enriching the bureaucracy, while keeping people poor enough to think they need the very government that is holding them down. But it will have no effect whatsoever on the climate.

On a tip from Bergbikr. Cross-posted at Moonbattery.

Olympic athletes will be suffering with terrible air quality over in Beijing. This may make a difference in their performance. More than that, I've been wondering where the environmentalists are on this. Interestingly, the American government (EPA) has done air quality studies on the city. Now, wait just a minute. I thought that the United States was and evil, consumerist empire bent on destroying the planet while communists cared about everything--the proletariat, sharing, equity and all that. Wouldn't the nice, sharing types also consider, diligently, the health of the workers?

Evidently not. Lefties are in an awkward position here, but they're managing to straddle the fence. They hate China AND Bush:

Aside from whether China DESERVED to be given the hosting of the Olympics in 2008, at this point a moot question, the karmic stains from the Tibetan and Uighur genocides upon China remain as vivid and as nauseating to the very few who are conscious of such things, as the stains on our own nation vis-a-vis our atrocities in much of the Middle East, which will go on and on in their impacts for decades into the future in most of the Islamic World, which, don't forget, includes at least 40% of Africa.

I wrote as early as 2002 to His Holiness the Dalai Lama recommending that Tibetans protest the Beijing Olympics to bring attention to the genocide of the Tibetan People, their perhaps last chance to address these matter, advice which some Tibetans have taken quite seriously.

I write this today hoping for a sense of reconciliation towards most of the world that we have alienated in the past 8 years with the Bushies and the Neocons, but I also am deeply concerned for the athletes' health going to Beijing. I regretfully predict that several will die there, not from terrorists due to the massive security paranoia in the Chinese authorities, but from plain old air pollution, especially in runners and cyclists doing long distances in that infernal smog.

So, many will die, but not from terrorism which is based in paranoia not actual experiences. The smog will kill them. It's a dangerous world we live in these days. Between Bush, made up terrorism stories and smog, it's more than dangerous--it's deadly.

Cross-posted at MelissaClouthier.com --it's coming along. Check out the new site!

Germans demonstrate their awesome insight once again:

The Pew Global Attitudes Project, published last month, showed that 66 per cent of Germans had unfavourable views of the US and that China and Russia had more interest than Washington in Germany's point of view. The sheer animosity towards America was displayed recently in sneering media reviews of the new, admittedly uninspiring, US embassy building in Berlin. A serious conservative newspaper identified the building's roof terrace as a "spa and water-boarding zone", referring to US military abuse of prisoners.

Not that I give a baboons red butt about what Germans think about America's leaders or anything, because I don't. What I find interesting is that these erudite socialists more closely identified with China and Russia. The latter is hilarious considering how Russia would just as soon cut off oil to Europe to ever so subtly influence European politics. In essence, as Gerhard Schroeder proved, Germany is Russia's lapdog and the Germans have more warm fuzzies for them than America.

Idiots. And here's further proof of their idiocy:

The embarrassment in Berlin masks the fact that almost every corner of the German political establishment now, with varying degrees of openness, wants Obama to win. The press call it "Obamania". The only reservations about Mr Obama are that he may be "too idealistic" -- the Germans found it very difficult to deal with another Democratic idealist, Jimmy Carter -- and that he may pay no more than lip service to the principles of free trade. But in most other respects he ticks every box in the checklist of Chancellor Merkel, who has already scheduled a meeting with the senator.

The Germans found it difficult to deal with another Democratic idealist, huh? Well, I can think of a socialist idealist they love, love, loved. The Germans have been notoriously lacking in judgment when it comes to the leaders they choose. And they have chosen Obama. I'm just saying....

Cross-posted at MelissaClouthier.com

The Hill reports on all the agony that the Democrats are going through as they try to address energy prices without allowing a vote on expanding drilling. They're afraid that, heavens, such a vote might actually succeed. It seems that there are a lot of Democrats out there who sense the voters' frustration with high gas prices and have made the connection to the limits on production that we have allowed.

One pro-drilling Democrat predicted that the backlash against Congress for gas prices could rival the outrage voters felt about the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal.

Another, Rep. Charlie Melancon (D-La.), is frustrated at not being listened to.

"My concern with my leadership is that they're not letting all the people in the room to present the facts," said Melancon, a proponent of more offshore drilling. "Where are all the pro-oil legislators? I'm not in the room. I don't know who is. My feeling is we are not being all-inclusive to pass legislation that can get through the Senate and avoid a veto."

For now, though, there will be no legislation to pass, as the only energy-related action this week will occur at the committee level.

Republicans may try to continue a strategy they demonstrated before recess by forcing drilling votes as energy amendments to bills being considered at the committee level, including appropriations bills.

And Republicans may go one step further by trying to get amendments added to the energy and water appropriations bill, a likely contender to see the floor this week.

"We're going to demand a pro-production energy vote before Congress goes home for the month of August," said House Republican Conference Chairman Adam Putnam (Fla.). "We've tried to highlight efforts to solve America's energy problem a thousand ways to Sunday, and [Democrats] keep pulling them from committee, pulling them from the floor and kicking the can down the road."

Exactly when Democrats will change their present course and bring an energy bill to the floor remains uncertain.

"Right now, our strategy on gas prices is 'Drive small cars and wait for the wind,' " said a Democratic aide.

Now that's a quote that you can expect to hear more in this election season.

The wonder is that they even get 9% to think that they're doing a good job.

The content was used with the permission of Betsy's Page.

Americans are vastly more generous with their time and money than Europeans. According to social demographer Arthur C. Brooks, in 1995 (the last year international data on giving was available), Americans gave 3 1/2 times more money to charities and causes than the French, seven times more than Germans and 14 times more than Italians.

In 1998, Americans volunteered 21 percent more than the Swiss and 32 percent more than Germans - two countries with compulsory national service. Yet we're told we should emulate them so that America, too, can have a "culture of service." -- Jonah Goldberg

In all seriousness, are people wearing these shirts?

I mean, despite the fact that these shirts are fascinating -- sort of the same way a train wreck is -- I just don't see Jonah Goldberg or Michelle Malkin wearing these shirts to the mall...

(Be forewarned, there is an obscenity on one of the shirts and the stunningly hot model, even though she appears to be doing the shoot on a warm, sunny street, seems to have perhaps just walked out of the freezer at a local meat packing plant...)

Make sure to check out Conservative Grapevine today, where you'll find links like:

Cassy Fiano: Cassy's scary travels in New Orleans

The Corner: The percentage of income spent on food, drink, and fuel per country, around the world.

Cracked: The 7 creepiest real life robots

Celebslam: Xisca bikini pics

You can check out all those links and more by clicking here. Don't forget to bookmark RWN's companion page, CG! Remember, if you're not reading RWN and CG every day, you're not getting the full story!

PS: If you'd like to submit articles to be linked to Conservative Grapevine, register at CG, and then shoot me an email.

What good is the United Nations when this sort of thing happens:

Caroline knows all too well. "It was a week before the election and the trouble was getting worse," she said. "The Zanu (PF) chairman said that in the Eighties when there was war, girls fought too so we need them to fight this time too." So the boys drew up lists of all the teenage girls in their neighbourhood and went to take them from their houses."

Caroline was led to a house in Adbeni used as a militia base. Opposition supporters were taken there from the pungwes (indoctrination meetings) held elsewhere. Caroline was led into a room by two older militia leaders in their twenties to administer a beating. "But instead they raped me, the two of them, in turn." Afterwards they took her to another room where a woman was lying face down on the ground. They told her she must beat her with the rope and baton they had given her. "I said 'How can I beat her, she is older than me? How can I beat someone who is like my mother, my grandmother?'." The face of her own mother, two years dead from Aids, loomed in front of her. But she remembered the horror of the rape and did what she was told. The next day she ran away from Mbare, to her grandmother's house in Highfield. But her older brother went looking for her. She had not told him the truth about what happened.

A country descends into lawlessness and brutality and the United Nation haggles. The United States alone, believes in tough measures (big surprise):

Opponents argued that mediation needed more time. The sanctions proposed by the United States include an arms embargo as well as a travel ban and financial freeze against Mr. Mugabe and 13 senior ministers, army officers and others.

The United Nations states dither about Mugabe's rampaging regime. Could Zimbabwe's chaos be more unnecessary and repugnant? No. And yet, the decisions at the UN could come down to another man's ego:

South Africa also opposes the idea in the sanctions resolution of Secretary General Ban Ki-moon appointing a special representative to aid mediation. The current mediator, President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, criticized for being too indulgent of Mr. Mugabe, dislikes being second-guessed, diplomats said.

Children being forced to rape and be raped. Parents of the opposition helpless and exposed. A beautiful, rich country raped and pillaged by its own for power. And the rest of Africa indulges Mugabe. And the UN debates. What an utter disgrace.

Cross-posted at MelissaClouthier.com

Obama starts off this clip by opposing English as an official language, seems to emphasize that teaching kids Spanish is more important than teaching them English, and then says Americans are an embarrassment because they only know one language when they go to Europe. It may be the one of the most grotesquely arrogant, out of touch displays that I have seen from someone running for President in the last decade.

Update #1: Money quote: "Understand this; don't worry about immigrants learning to speak English, you need to make sure your child can speak Spanish!"

Hoo boy, I think there are now two new patron saints for the church of political correctness...

A special meeting about Dallas County traffic tickets turned tense and bizarre this afternoon.

...Commissioner Kenneth Mayfield, who is white, said it seemed that central collections "has become a black hole" because paperwork reportedly has become lost in the office.

Commissioner John Wiley Price, who is black, interrupted him with a loud "Excuse me!" He then corrected his colleague, saying the office has become a "white hole."

That prompted Judge Thomas Jones, who is black, to demand an apology from Mayfield for his racially insensitive analogy.

Mayfield shot back that it was a figure of speech and a science term. A black hole, according to Webster's, is perhaps "the invisible remains of a collapsed star, with an intense gravitational field from which neither light nor matter can escape."

Aside from laughing uproariously at the bizarre silliness of the not one, but two complete idiots, who got offended, there's only one other thing that needs to be said and that is...black hole, black hole, black hole, black hole, black hole, black hole, black hole, black hole, black hole, black hole, black hole, black hole, black hole, black hole, black hole, black hole, black hole, black hole, black hole, black hole, black hole, black hole, black hole, black hole, black hole, black hole, black hole, black hole, black hole, black hole...

"Way back in June, Sen. Barack "middle name not permitted to be mentioned" Obama campaigned on the theme of "Change We Can Believe In." Now, several days later, his theme should be "Change We Can't Keep Up With." Apparently, the change he was calling for was not for Washington politics, but for his primary campaign positions. Abortion, gun control, capital punishment, FISA laws, the status of Jerusalem, faith-based federal programs, public financing of his campaign, welfare, NAFTA and free trade, and his commitment to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and his Trinity Church all have fallen to reconsideration, rephrasing, changed rhetorical modulation, and other semantic miracles."

His Iraq position is currently in the process of glissading from anti to pro, so we will have to wait for a while before saying he actually has changed it." -- Tony Blankley

The title you've just read was stolen from an absolutely brilliant column from Ralph Peters that says something that people desperately need to hear,

"The point isn't that military solutions are always the best solutions - any problem that can be resolved without bloodshed should be handled peaceably. But we've got to stop playing pretend: In this hate-plagued, often merciless world, events sometimes demand action, not just talk.

Our diplomats and "distinguished commentators" see the world from the 17th floor of a luxury hotel or the office of an English-speaking Cabinet member. The insular safety of their lives has convinced them that every problem has a peaceful solution if only we can all have a good chat.

But those who rule by the sword (or the fist, or engineered famines or outright genocide) don't want to hash things out. They want to win. No elegant phrase has ever stopped a bullet in midflight.

...If the pen truly were mightier than the sword, the defense industry would be making ink, paper and keyboards, rather than smart bombs and body armor. A pen wielded by a talented writer may wound a target's ego, but a sword will cut off the writer's head.

Pacifists mean well. But they're a dictator's best friends. The man who won't fight for justice abets the terrorist, the tyrant and the concentration-camp guard.

All decent men want peace. But wise men know that not all men are decent.

The use of the pen is an indulgence we can afford only because better men and women grip the sword on our behalf."

Like I said, brilliant.

Too many people don't understand that because we've fooled ourselves.

We think that because we have smart bombs, civilians shouldn't be accidentally killed when we're fighting.

We think that just because we're civilized, our opponents will act in a civilized fashion as well.

We think that these cute little "rules of war" that we come up with should be followed, even if they cause us to lose the war.

All of that is wrong.

No matter how good we get, we are going to accidentally kill civilians. If anything, we're far too concerned about the lives of enemy civilians whose lives, quite frankly aren't worth as much as those of our soldiers.

No matter how civilized we are, we can't count on our opponents to reciprocate. In fact, we have never fought an opponent that has adhered to the rules of the Geneva Convention, which makes it extremely silly for us to try to do so.

Last but not least, there is no rule of war more important than "win the war" by any method necessary, fairness be d*mned. The more we lose site of that, the harder it becomes to win wars and the more we're going to suffer as a result.

Moonbattery-addled Britain is a burglar's paradise. Not only is it illegal to defend your home, it is becoming all but legal for criminals to invade it and help themselves to your property:

Burglars should no longer be sentenced to jail, official advisers have said.

Unpaid work or a curfew would normally be a better way of punishing break-ins and thefts, said a panel that issues guidelines to judges.

The report — part of a consultation document on criminal sentencing — is likely to heighten concerns that Britain's courts are not punishing offenders harshly enough to deter others.

The same deranged report recommends that victims should have a say on how criminals are punished — but only if they call for leniency.

There are fears such a system could lead to some offenders intimidating victims into asking for a more lenient term for them. The proposals from the Sentencing Advisory Panel also suggest that criminals sent to prison for less than a year should be let off with a community punishment instead.

British authorities have been imposing anarchy by force. No doubt this will turn out to be yet another example of government manufacturing a problem so that it can extinguish more freedoms in the process of "solving" it.

On a tip from essemess. Cross-posted at Moonbattery.

At 4:00 PM EST, I'm going to be on the Jaz McKay show.

Click on Stickam in the left corner to listen to the show.

Thomas Sowell ends one of his great columns with:

Back in the 18th century, Helvetius said, "When I speak I put on a mask. When I act, I am forced to take it off." Too many voters still have not learned that lesson. They need to look at the track record of Obama's actions.

Back in the days of "The Lone Ranger" program, someone would ask, "Who is that masked man?" People need to start asking that question about Barack Obama.

Of course, I'd be willing to bet the vast majority of the public won't bother, as hopey changitude is more than enough for them.

One of the things that will mostly be ignored is the fact that Obama had been a senator for all of 143 days before he began his quest for the presidency. 143 days. That's just a little longer than John Kerry was in Viet Nam.

So it should come as no surprise when he says things like this when called to task by his base for seeming to soften his stance on the war in Iraq:

"I am absolutely committed to ending the war," Obama recently declared. "I will call my Joint Chiefs of Staff in and give them a new assignment and that is to end the war."

As Dean Barnett points out, while most critics concentrated on the first part of the statement (the absolute committment to defeat), few paid attention to the last part.

Folks, the JCS are not in the chain-of-command. They are, for the most part, an advisory group. They don't issue orders to commanders in the field. If Obama wants to end the war the order is issued to his CENTCOM commander to wrap it up and bring them home. While not a huge thing, it is indicative.

Ignorance of how the system works as an obvious result of inexperience. Do we really want an OJT president?

Then the RNC takes aim at Obama's past position on Iraq and he and his campaign's rather poor attempts to say he was saying what he's saying now all along:

Who is this masked man? A community organizer, a one-term state senator and a US Senator with 143 days of experience who doesn't know where he stands on the war, much less how to end it - that's who.

The campaign to impose moonbattery through lawsuits has come as close to the top as it can get. Liberals would no doubt sue God, but that would mean acknowledging a power higher than the State. So Bradley LaShawn Fowler is doing the next best thing: he's suing the Bible — or rather, two major Christian publishers for putting it in print.

Fowler's main claim to oppression is that he indulges in homosexuality, a disease-spreading form of depravity that does not find favor in the Good Book. Since this has caused him to fall victim to "demoralization, chaos, and bewilderment" as well as "emotional duress and mental instability," publishers of the Bible owe him $70 million, according to the suit.

No one will be surprised to learn that Fouler has a blog on Barack Obama's official campaign site.

Christians are advised to find secure places to store Bibles, where they will be safe from authorities after the book has been banned for failing to comply with the one true commandment: There is no god but moonbattery, and Obama is its prophet.

On a tip from Wiggins. Cross-posted at Moonbattery.

John Hawkins aptly establishes that Barack Obama is an out-of-touch snob about American kids learning Spanish. There is something more to all this, though. Obama ignores what makes a person a success in the world today. If there is any one factor that will contribute to a person's success, no matter where he or she lives in the world, it is speaking, reading and effectively communicating in English.

At one time, an educated person intent on doing business and influencing thoughts and ideas had to speak French. Today, it is English. If Obama wants to name a problem in America, since he's throwing pot-shots, it should be that American children are woefully ignorant in English fundamentals. Sure, they can speak it, yo, but in order to succeed, a person must speak it fluently, intelligibly and articulately. Why, in order to succeed, it wouldn't be a bad idea to emulate Barack Obama himself when it comes to the use and expression of English.

As far as Americans being stupid. close-minded rubes with no world interest.... Well. Obama is just displaying his arrogant contempt for the average American once again. Many Americans know second and third languages. I've had five years of French myself. And guess what? Twenty years ago, when I was in Paris, I spoke French and the snooty French people said this,"I. Speak. English. Thank. You." C'est la vie! I tried. The Frenchmen seemed determined to use the modern language of business and that's English.

French is a beautiful language. Spanish is great to swear in. If a person wants to connect to the rest of the world, though, he needs to speak English. Obama needs to embrace the preeminence of America and her culture. America is still THE Superpower and English is this Superpower's language....at least until Barack Obama is finished with it.

Cross-posted at MelissaClouthier.com

I'm Barack Obama! I'm running for president. You should vote for me. I'm a new politician. Remember when M&Ms came out with blue M&Ms and you ran to the store yelling, "Yay! A brand new candy!"? Well, I'm just like that. I'm a brand new politician. I promise hope and change. No politician has ever promised that before. Also, my opponent is not new. I think pretty much everyone agrees he is a very old politician. Also, he might get angry and hit you. I heard that somewhere.

But know what makes me newest and bestest? This is a secret, so you can't tell anyone. Do you promise you'll keep this just between you and me? You promise? Okay, here it is...

I agree with you on everything!

Just you, though. If anyone else with different viewpoints than you thinks I agree with him, then he just read an inartful statement made by my stupid staff who are always screwing things up. I don't want to hurt that guy's feelings, though, so let's keep that I really agree with you on everything between you and me.

With how much I agree with you, you really should vote for me. What? You don't believe me? That makes me sad. Didn't you hear how I'm a new politician? The kind that agrees with you on everything? I'll prove it to you. What's the issue most important to you? Go ahead and say it out loud.

Hey! That the issue most important to me! And what are your views on that issue?

Yeah, that's exactly what I think about that! It's actually a long held belief of mine I will never compromise on. Never. Once again, if you've heard anything to the contrary, it's because my idiot staff must have screwed up some statement or something. I hate that idiot staff. Still, I don't want anyone to feel bad, so I'm not going to make a big fuss about people believing I have a view different than yours. You understand, don't you? That's why when the issue came up for a vote, I voted "Present." But know that my view is really just like yours, so you should vote for me.

So what do you think about the Iraq War?

That's what I think! It's been a long held belief of mine I've never compromised on. Some people have interpreted my view as different than that, but it's really been just what you said all this time. It's so great we agree on everything! Aren't you going to love voting for me?

You don't believe me yet? But we're so alike! What's your favorite color?

Wow! That's my favorite color! If you read somewhere that my favorite color was something other than that one, that's once again just my stupid staff screwing things up. Oh! I hate my staff so much! They're always making it seem like I don't agree with you! But I totally do agree with you and you should vote for me.

Aren't you so excited to have a politician who agrees with you on everything? Won't it be great voting for me? I'm a new politician. I bring hope and change and viewpoints exactly like yours. But, once again, we need to keep that last part secret. We don't want my newness scaring people away. So, I hope you'll vote for me and not for that McCain who disagrees with you on stuff. What a stupid, old politician. But don't tell him I said that; he might hit me.

Barack Obama is a U.S. Senator from Illinois who has many firmly held beliefs and loves to play with those rubber super bouncy balls. Those bounce crazy!

This satire was used with the permission of IMAO.

Make sure to check out Conservative Grapevine today, where you'll find links like:

Ann Coulter: The New York Times vs. Helms, part 529,876

Cracked: 7 movies based on a true story (That are complete bullsh*t)

Robert Novak: A look at the vice presidential prospects in both parties in a rough order of how their chances rank

Egotastic!: More Jennifer Lopez bikini pics

You can check out all those links and more by clicking here. Don't forget to bookmark RWN's companion page, CG! Remember, if you're not reading RWN and CG every day, you're not getting the full story!

PS: If you'd like to submit articles to be linked to Conservative Grapevine, register at CG, and then shoot me an email.

This is a little dated, but it's so outstanding that I had to post it anyway. From Ann Coulter's website...

MESSAGE FROM THE POLISH TROOPS IN AFGHANISTAN TO THE U.S. TROOPS -

Subject: 4th of July Greeting

Dear Friends

Two hundred and thirty two years ago, when your forefathers signed the Declaration of Independence, they changed the history of the world. Thanks to their sacrifices the world realized the true meaning of freedom. Independence and freedom are powerful words in your country as they are in Poland. When the United States gained independence, Poland was in the process of slowly loosing portions of its borders to its neighbors. We appreciate your efforts towards a unified and independent United States of America because we know how difficult it is to regain freedom and independence. Today we can be very happy with living in independent countries. Today we fight together for freedom for people in other countries, like here in Afghanistan.

4th of July and Independence Day are identified in our country with aspiring to freedom and that is why we are so happy that we can celebrate this day with American soldiers signifying our common goals for peace and freedom.

Today we wish you and your nation a peaceful and happy day.

Polish Soldiers Polish Military Contingent Afghanistan Classification: UNCLASSIFIED Caveats: NONE

Right Wing News emailed more than 240 right-of-center bloggers and asked them about their favorite elected Republicans. The following 42 blogs responded,

The Absurd Report, The Anchoress, Argghhhh!, Bad Example, Betsy's Page, BizzyBlog, Bluey Blog, Dr. Melissa Clouthier, Gina Cobb, Conservatism Today, Conservative Grapevine, Conservative Punk, Doubleplusundead, Election Projection, Eternity Road, Elocutio, Exurban League, Fraters Libertas, Jeff Gannon - A Voice of the New Media, (Doug) GraniteGrok, Guardian Watchblog, The Hedgehog Report, Ivy League Conservatives, JB's Corner, Jeremayakovka, Mainstream Libertarian, Moonbattery, Neocon News, Newsbeat1, (Steve) No Runny Eggs, (Shoebox) No Runny Eggs, Pirate's Cove, Say Anything, Don Singleton, Sister Toldjah, Slobokan's Site Of Schtuff, The Smallest Minority, Stolen Thunder, The Sundries Shack, Viking Pundit, Villainous Company, WILLisms,

The bloggers were instructed to send in an unranked list 1-10 living, elected Republicans in Congress, President, or governors. Here is what they came up with, the favorite elected Republicans of right-of-center bloggers,

20) John Thune (6)
16) Mark Sanford (7)
16) Mitch McConnell (7)
16) John Cornyn (7)
16) John McCain (7)
12) John Shadegg (8)
12) Jon Kyl (8)
12) Haley Barbour (8)
12) Tom Tancredo (8)
11) Dick Cheney (9)
9) Jeff Sessions (11)
9) Jeff Flake (11)
8) Mike Pence (12)
7) George W. Bush (13)
6) James Inhofe (14)
5) Sarah Palin (15)
4) Duncan Hunter (16)
3) Jim DeMint (18)
2) Tom Coburn (24)
1) Bobby Jindal (25)

* Tune in tomorrow for the least favorite elected Republicans of right-of-center bloggers.

How perceptive of Jesse Jackson to notice that the arrogant Affirmative Action post turtle Barack Hussein Obama has been "talking down" to black people — just like he's been talking down to everyone else. Obammunists are advised not to blame Jackson for rather crudely expressing his jealous wish to castrate the Obamessiah. As the folks at Democratic Underground will tell you, the whole episode was the fault of Fox News — unless of course it was all cleverly staged by Jackson. Gibbers a DUmmie named KharmaTrain:

Part of me thinks Jesse could be playing this for a "Sistah Soljah" moment for Obama. His son is a big wheel inside Camp Obama. Obama has been taking a lot of heat lately from the bigots and this could take their hatred and direct it in another direction…going after an old favorite target. Jesse knew where he was sitting and maybe he's taking one for the team. It also shows, once again, for the majority who are tuned off on this network, how racist they, and repugnican, are.

It seems the wise and benevolent extortionist Jesse Jackass played those racist repugnicans at Faux News like a violin.

On tips from Dwaine and Wiggins. Cross-posted at Moonbattery.

Liberals always claim that socialized medicine will reduce the costs of health care as opposed to raising them.

However, the federal government is so ossified, hapless, and hidebound that it can't do anything as well as the private sector. If you want to speed something up, improve it, or make it function more efficiently, the last thing you ever want to do is have the government take charge of it.

Don't buy that? Well, take this excerpt from a column by Michael Leavitt, the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, and you tell me if you think the Feds are capable of cutting our health care costs,

"DME prices are based on a fee-schedule established by law in the 1980s and subsequently updated for inflation. But the fee-schedules weren't based on competitively determined market prices. It is a price-fixing program, and the equipment suppliers like it because they get overpaid and don't have to compete.

An oxygen concentrator, for example, is a device that delivers oxygen through a tube to patients, and it costs about $600 on the open market. Medicare beneficiaries typically rent the machines. The rental period, set by statute, is up to 36 months. The monthly rental payment, also set by statute, is $198.40. So renting an oxygen concentrator for 36 months costs $7,142.

As with most items and services in Medicare Part B, beneficiaries pay 20% of the costs, and Medicare pays the remaining 80%. The government, therefore, pays $5,714 - almost 10 times the free-market price of purchasing a concentrator outright. The patient pays $1,428 - more than twice the free-market price of purchase. Even allowing for the costs of setting up equipment, training and fitting the beneficiary, and other things, the rental fee is way out of line.

In light of this, when Congress passed the Medicare Modernization Act in 2003, it included a section instituting competitive bidding for DME, starting in selected communities. We've now conducted the bidding in 10 locales.

Unsurprisingly, the bids came in substantially below what Medicare pays - on average 26% below. These new prices took effect on July 1, benefiting taxpayers and patients.

But those who benefit from excessive fees in the current system are now in lobbying overdrive, as they stand to lose substantial business. In the 10 communities where competitive bidding has been conducted, there are a number of DME providers who either chose not to participate or weren't successful. They and others are putting significant pressure on Congress to delay the competitive-bidding program.

If you think a health care system designed by Barack Obama's handlers isn't going to be loaded with provisions like this, then you haven't been paying attention to how our government has worked for the last...well, let's be honest, for your entire lifetime. It doesn't matter if the Republicans or Democrats are in charge, incompetence of this type is the rule, not the exception. It always has been and it always will be, because that is the nature of the beast with the federal government.

Yesterday, RWN covered the kooky Dallas county commissioners who thought the term "black hole" was racist.

Well first off, there is now video of this and it is hilarious. Let me transcribe what one of these idiots said -- and, yes, this is real and he was serious -- this is not some sort of Borat style prank,

"Could I get an apology from the commissioner, in this day and time, you don't sit around a table where you have diversity and refer to a black hole. ...You shouldn't."

Well today, one of the two hypersensitive morons involved explained that terms like "devil's food cake" and "black sheep of the family," are also racially insensitive.

Yes, this is really him, too.

Ok, ok...I just got it. Dallas is playing a prank on the rest of America, right? Awwww wow, you guys really had us going there, but you know where you slipped up? Sure, it's easy enough to believe that this guy exists, but c'mon, what sort of braindead troglodyte would you have to be to actually vote this guy into office to represent you? I mean, there can't be enough dumb people to make a guy like this a county commissioner, can there? Oh, wait -- Marion Barry and William Jefferson got re-elected, too, didn't they. So, this isn't a joke, is it?

With that in mind, let me just conclude by saying....

Devil's food cake, devil's food cake, devil's food cake, devil's food cake, devil's food cake, devil's food cake, devil's food cake, devil's food cake, devil's food cake, devil's food cake, black sheep of the family, black sheep of the family, black sheep of the family, black sheep of the family, black sheep of the family, black sheep of the family, black sheep of the family, black sheep of the family, black sheep of the family, black sheep of the family, kiss my behind, you two idiots...

The man started bothering me way back in the day with his Maverickness schtick that I felt was a load of B.S. Doesn't a maverick carry a weapon--not necessarily to commit acts of aggression, but to at least defend himself in a gunfight?

Metaphorically, the presidential race demonstrates a man or woman's ease in relentlessly challenging situations. It's a fight, of sorts, not a real one, in the sense that there are huge global stakes, but there are personal ones that reflect how the candidate will defend the country and present the country to the world and to itself.

Am I making sense here? People watching the contenders campaign make judgments about the candidate's ability to make decisions for the country both within and without based on how the candidate makes decisions for himself. It's really all we have to go on with Obama since he has no record. McCain's record is troubling to conservatives because of the decisions he's made, in some respects. In others, conservatives have more confidence.

Being a Senator is not being President, though. It takes a whole different skill set to succeed. And McCain repeatedly misses where he should hit. He is not being Mavericky at all. He's not going on the offensive. And he's not going on the defensive either. Does the man even carry a weapon? He seems to be the pacifistic presidential candidate, afraid to wield even a cutting phrase for fear he'll be viewed as mean or aggressive. His pacifism calls into question his will to win. When G.W. bested McCain in the Carolinas in the last election he ran in, there was no question in my mind: George W. Bush wanted it more. And he got it. McCain was bitter, but had no right to be. Presidential elections are brutal for a reason--they portend and merely hint at the brutality that is being the United States president.

Does one question whether Barack Obama wants the throne, for that is surely how he views it? For that matter, does one question whether Hillary Clinton wants it? In both cases, these candidates go to the other extreme--I'm pretty sure the devil has a couple extra souls at his disposal. Still, there is no doubt that they want it.

John McCain's softness (and the irony is not lost on me) is absolutely frustrating given the last eight years of excessive Presidential oratorical restraint. The Republicans need a leader who can articulate what we feel: love for country, desire for small government, a kick-ass military who is freed to get the job done, solid infrastructure and the notion that America is great and strong. The Anchoress synthesizes the irritation:

Meanwhile...would someone kick McCain in the ass and tell him that he's being served one softball after another by Obama and the single-digit approved Congress, and he's letting them all sail over the plate?

Egad, what an election! What candidates!

No kidding! This election is excruciating on so many levels. Watching a moderate refuse to fight against a liberal who flails around like a blind boxer makes for an irritating spectacle. John McCain needs to get in touch with his inner Maverick and while he's at it, put the ammunition that is lying around in the proverbial gun and start some slinging.

John McCain is in a Presidential election. It's a messy business and there is a purpose for it. Voters get to see what the candidates are made of. No wonder Republicans are so demoralized.

Cross-posted at MelissaClouthier.com

In what's left of Great Britain, landscape maintenance takes a backseat to enabling public homosexual depravity:

Bristol City Council wants to prune bushes and remove cover from an area known as the Downs to improve the landscape and encourage rare wildlife.

But its own gay rights group has opposed the move, claiming that cutting back the bushes was "discriminating" to homosexual men who used the area for late night outdoor sex known as dogging.

Work on the beauty spot has been temporarily delayed while talks with gay rights groups take place to try and break the deadlock.

This is the same locale where firemen were reprimanded, suspended, fined, and subjected to perverted brainwashing last year for interrupting some publicly copulating homosexuals by shining a light on them.

In case anyone has failed to grasp that "gay rights" means "gay privilege":

The Downs Committee commissioned a report as part of ongoing improvements to the shrubland and have proposed cutting back a lot of the undergrowth.

The move was strongly backed by local residents who complained about "inappropriate sexual activity" and safety concerns in the area.

But during the consultation period last year "equality" concerns were raised by the council's Rainbow Group — an action group of lesbian, gay and bisexual council employees — about the threat to gay rights.

A report on the plans states: "As part of the consultation, concerns were expressed by the council's Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Group (and a small number of other consultees) that this action was potentially discriminating against gay and bisexual men, whose activities on this part of the Downs were objected to by other members of the local community and Downs users."

In other words, objecting to public sex acts by homosexuals is now considered "homophobic." People alive today will probably live to see gay porn filmed in St. Peter's Basilica — unless it's turned into a mosque first.

On tips from Bob Mc and Burning Hot. Cross-posted at Moonbattery.

His jacket might be a different color....
Remember when you were eleven and there was one kid who developed before everyone else? He had the musculature and facial hair of a 30 year old man. On one level, it was disconcerting, on another level, terrifying. Did you mess with muscle kid even if he was a nice guy? No. Did you pick on him? No. Well, you didn't unless you were crazy. And there's always a crazy kid, or three, around. Most of the time they floated in their delusions, til they mustered enough strength from the voices in their head, to provoke the muscle kid. And then, they got beat down, but they didn't care because they were crazy.

Iran is the crazy kid.

The crazy kid is doing crazy stuff off to himself--for now. He's making things go boom, writing rants inspired by God in mom and dad's basement, and generally acting antisocial and weird.

What isn't known until it's too late, is how crazy is crazy? Will the crazy kid just take on the muscle kid and be smashed into oblivion? Will the crazy kid go Columbine, like he's threatening, and take out as many as possible while going down for the count himself? No one knows.....'cuz he's crazy.

Since the crazy kid seems intent on avoiding the benefits of therapy, the best anyone can do is take away his weapons, watch him and make sure to be armed should he go, well, crazy. It's better that the crazy kid is dead than the rest of the class.

Barack Obama says he'll talk with the crazy kid, be his friend, give him a warm huggie hug and the crazy kid will suddenly get uncrazy. His suicidal and homicidal impulses will melt away in the sweet, embrace of Obamessiah goodness. Ahmadinejad's hatred and loathing for Jews and Israel will evaporate in enlightenment. Yep, that will happen.

Or, Israel, with America's help, will bomb Iran's nuclear facilities back to the stone ages after the election but before President Fuzzy comes into office. Sometimes neutralizing a crazy kid is the best a muscled kid can do.

Cross-posted at MelissaClouthier.com

Politico claims that "Dems [are] Searching Their Souls on Drilling".

Poppycock.

They're searching the polls, not their souls, and they aren't happy with what they find juxtaposed with their present position on the matter. So, as is typical of the breed, they're easing toward the more popular position.

Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) said Wednesday that Democratic and Republican leaders are negotiating a compromise on energy legislation. Kyl declined to say who's doing the negotiating or what results, if any, their discussions have yielded.

But Sen. John Warner (R-Va.), a longtime proponent of increased offshore drilling, said he was seeing "a big shift, a big shift in my direction," and it was hard to find Democrats who disagreed.

We're then treated to the most preposterous quote of the day:

"I'm not knee-jerk opposed to anything," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). "We're willing to work. We haven't shut our minds to anything."

Or so claims Mr. Harry "oil and gas make us sick" Reid. Instead what it means is Democrats are finally waking up to the political landmine this issue could be come Novemeber and are sliding, or slithering if you prefer, into the politically popular side of the debate.

The way you do that and still claim to be principled is to make demands while claiming it is these demands which have kept you from taking that side initially and it is all your political opponents fault for being intransigent on them. For instance:

Although Senate Democrats are slowly easing away from opposition to offshore drilling, it's clear that the majority party is not giving it away for nothing.

One idea floated by Reid would require that whatever oil is drilled in newly opened areas would need to be sold in the United States.

Democrats also want any compromise plan to include investments in clean and renewable energies, a crackdown on oil speculators and proof that the oil and gas companies are fully utilizing land that is already leased for exploration.

"If they were showing in good faith that they were drilling on some of the 68 million acres they have now, it might change some of our attitudes," said Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.).

The usual raft of nonsense about the "68 million acres". Joseph Petrowski answer that in today's WSJ:

The claim that the oil companies are sitting on leases and not drilling defies all logic. With oil at $135 per barrel and drilling rigs renting at $300,000 per day, there are no idle rigs anywhere.

He makes a couple of other salient points as well:

Your claim that any oil we drill for now will not come on line for five years or longer - and will thus have no effect on prices today - is incorrect. Unlike past oil crises, where the spot price of oil (that is, today's price) rose more than forward prices, the oil price for delivery in 2012 is trading at $138 per barrel. The market is sending a clear price signal that our problem is in the future - because we do not have the will to curb demand or increase supply.

How many houses would someone invest in if there were a future guarantee that the price would not decline? It is anticipation of ever-increasing prices that fuels the mania.

The oil market, however, has more than anticipation; it has a well-defined forward price signal. This is a key component of the added $25-$40 per barrel in current oil prices. Congressional hearings and "make it go away" legislation will not stop that. Demonstrate the national will to address the supply and demand issues now and it will.

As forward prices decline, watch how quickly the spot price comes down.

Bingo.

And furthermore, in remarks addressed to Republicans, Petrowski says:

Finally, can we stop with the nonsensical talk of "energy independence," the end of petroleum, and postured, ineffectual boycotts of Exxon Mobil? We cannot, should not and will not be independent in a global economy, and petroleum is not going to disappear.

A more accurate metaphor is the global energy market as a giant bath tub where more withdrawals (Chinese and Indian) are being made every day. The only consistent new supply to that tub is coming from periodically unstable and unfriendly places (Nigeria, Russia, Iran, Venezuela).

Our national interest is to add more energy, use it more efficiently, and diversify its source and type. This will serve to lessen the power of any one choke point (geography, nation or source).

Using market mechanisms and the private sector (admit it, Democrats) alongside an engaged, effective and focused government (admit it, Republicans), true leaders can solve this crisis decisively.

Of course no one will listen to Mr. Petrowski's common sense and econ 101 points. Petrowski, you see, is the president of Gulf Oil and we all know "big oil" is simply evil on toast and it's their greed which has gotten us in this shape in the first place. [/sarcasm]

There's a ridiculous myth that RINOs in DC have been spinning about illegal immigration and it goes something like this: Hispanics vote almost entirely based on the illegal immigration issue and if Republicans deliver an amnesty, Hispanics will be so grateful that the percentage of them voting Republican will go from roughly 30% up to 50+%.

So, even if we allow 12-20 million mostly uneducated, mostly Hispanic illegal aliens from socialist countries to become Americans and that leads to another 30-40 million (or more) of their relatives becoming U.S. citizens through chain migration, it'll still be a net gain for the GOP because they'll be voting majority Republican.

Laugh if you want, but there are "bubble Republicans" in D.C. that believe this. If they didn't, they certainly wouldn't be setting up a situation where the GOP could be demographically overwhelmed to such an extent via illegal immigration that we'd be forced to have a Democrat-lite agenda to keep ourselves from becoming a permanent minority party.

On the other hand, it's also worth noting that the Democrats clearly believe that they're going to be the ones to benefit politically from turning illegals into American citizens. That's the driving force behind their push for an amnesty and their desire to keep the floodgates on our southern borders open.

That brings us to John McCain's presidential campaign.

No Republican is more closely associated with amnesty than John McCain. He was so heavily tied to the comprehensive immigration bill that was stopped in the Senate that many people called it the McCain/Kennedy bill. Furthermore, although he switched to a security first position so he'd have a chance to win the GOP primaries, McCain still explicitly said that he intended to put illegals on a path to citizenship after the border was secured. Since then, McCain has flip-flopped back and forth several times between his "security then amnesty" position and the "amnesty/we'll have border security, I swear, wink, wink" position AKA comprehensive immigration reform, but he clearly seems to be leaning towards the latter option.

With that in mind, if your highest priority is having open borders and amnesty, you couldn't possibly do better than John McCain as a Republican nominee. That's a fair statement, right? He has been the champion of that sort of legislation and his nod toward securing the border has been as close to the bare minimum as any Republican candidate could possibly pull off in a presidential election these days.

Additionally, Barack Obama is generally perceived as being a weak candidate with Hispanics. So, how is McCain doing with Hispanics? Actually, not so well. According to Gallup, Obama is consistently beating McCain 2 to 1 with Hispanic voters. Gallup's latest poll, which was released in July, shows McCain only receiving 29% of the Hispanic vote.

So, let's take a hard look at this situation: McCain is the Republican most closely associated with amnesty, he's giving speeches to racist Hispanic groups like La Raza, he's going on trips to Mexico, he's publicly pledging to allow illegals to become American citizens en masse, and he's not getting 60% of the Hispanic vote, or 50%, or even 40%. No, McCain is only getting 29% of the Hispanic vote -- and at an enormous cost.

Over the last few years, no issue has done more damage to conservative enthusiasm and GOP fundraising than illegal immigration and even though the dream candidate of the amnesty and open borders crowd is running, the payoff so far has been -- drumroll, please -- 29% of the Hispanic vote against a Democrat who is weak with Hispanics.

In other words, the GOP may very well attract higher percentages of Hispanic voters in future elections, although it's impossible to say whether the GOP will ultimately be able to pull in 50% or more of that voting block. However, what this election is proving once and for all is that Hispanics are not one-issue voters who can be permanently bought off by the Republican Party for the price of an amnesty. Since that's the case, comprehensive immigration reform is nothing less than political suicide for the GOP. It utterly demoralizes the conservative base, doesn't draw large numbers of Hispanic voters to the Republican banner, and over the long haul, it would be likely to demographically destroy the conservative movement in the United States.

Make sure to check out Conservative Grapevine today, where you'll find links like:

Lorie Byrd: Lessons even liberals can learn from Jesse Helms

Playboy: The web's hottest female bloggers

Cracked: If everyone on eBay was forced to be honest

UseMyComputer: Anna Kournikova bikini shots

You can check out all those links and more by clicking here. Don't forget to bookmark RWN's companion page, CG! Remember, if you're not reading RWN and CG every day, you're not getting the full story!

PS: If you'd like to submit articles to be linked to Conservative Grapevine, register at CG, and then shoot me an email.

The website of the day is IMAO.

"In my last post I joked that Obama wants to take my money and give it to people who don't work as hard as I do. As with all gross generalizations, there are plenty of exceptions. But how does it hold up as a generalization?

When I was a kid, I was mowing lawns, working on my uncle's farm, shoveling snow, washing dishes, waiting tables, and anything else I could do to save for college. Meanwhile I worked hard enough in school to graduate as valedictorian, getting a few small scholarships that helped a lot. My mother took a job on an assembly line to help pay for my college, while my dad worked his job in the post office during the day and painted houses on nights and weekends.

...And then there was Dilbert. For the first six years I kept my day job and made Dilbert comics nights, weekends, and holidays. I didn't take a day off for about ten years. At one point I was doing all of that plus writing a book that became The Dilbert Principle. The only time I saw the sun was walking to the mailbox. And I believe that all of that hard work was necessary for the good things that happened.

The average work week is something like 35 hours. For most of my work life I worked about twice that much. I'm writing this blog post on the 4th of July, and have several deadlines to satisfy. So yes, as a generalization, Obama promises to take a large chunk of my hard-earned money and transfer it primarily to people who don't work as hard. That's just a fact." -- Scott Adams of Dilbert fame

Hat tip to Five Feet of Fury for the story.

"As a multilingual immigrant (English, Russian, enough Hebrew and Spanish to get by) I'm not exactly worried about those strange people from strange lands. I'm one of those people! But yes, I'm an English only partisan and here's why: it's better for the immigrants. I know this from experience and I know this for a fact. Sure, government offices can have their Spanish signs to make it easier for immigrants. But their local supermarket probably won't. The job they want will likely be in English. I really believe it's anti-immigrant to not help them assimilate. The Russians I know who never had to learn English because the signs on Brighton Beach are in Russian, they have RTV and listen to a Russian radio station are so much worse off than the Russians I know who learned English and adapted to their new country. The former have such limited opportunities it's not even funny. The latter, well, they're Americans and have every door open to them that someone American-born would have. I don't want to deprive new immigrants of America's promise." -- Karol Sheinin

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PS: Next week-end, I'm going to be attending the Defending the American Dream Summit in Texas. If you're going to be there, too, make sure to say "Hi."

Also, there is a new banner that runs at the bottom of every page on RWN. For $125 , you can get that banner, which is not shared, for a month.

Right Wing News emailed more than 240 right-of-center bloggers and asked them about their least favorite elected Republicans. The following 42 blogs responded,

The Absurd Report, The Anchoress, Argghhhh!, Bad Example, Betsy's Page, BizzyBlog, Bluey Blog, Dr. Melissa Clouthier, Gina Cobb, Conservatism Today, Conservative Grapevine, Conservative Punk, Doubleplusundead, Election Projection, Eternity Road, Elocutio, Exurban League, Fraters Libertas, Jeff Gannon - A Voice of the New Media, (Doug) GraniteGrok, Guardian Watchblog, The Hedgehog Report, Ivy League Conservatives, JB's Corner, Jeremayakovka, Mainstream Libertarian, Moonbattery, Neocon News, Newsbeat1, (Steve) No Runny Eggs, (Shoebox) No Runny Eggs, Pirate's Cove, Say Anything, Don Singleton, Sister Toldjah, Slobokan's Site Of Schtuff, The Smallest Minority, Stolen Thunder, The Sundries Shack, Viking Pundit, Villainous Company, WILLisms,

The bloggers were instructed to send in an unranked list 1-10 living, elected Republicans in Congress, President, or governors. Here is what they came up with, the least favorite elected Republicans of right-of-center bloggers,

14) Ron Paul (5)
14) Mel Martinez (5)
13) Michael Bloomberg (7)
11) Susan Collins (8)
11) Charlie Crist (8)
9) George Voinovich (9)
9) John Warner (9)
7) Lindsey Graham (16)
7) Larry Craig (16)
6) Ted Stevens (17)
5) John McCain (18)
4) Arnold Schwarzenegger (19)
3) Olympia Snowe (20)
1) Arlen Specter (23)
1) Chuck Hagel (23)

* You can see the favorite elected Republicans of right-of-center bloggers here.

God, in his infinite mercy, may forgive him for this, but that doesn't mean it's the right thing to do,

"A Sevier County man is suing his former church in South Knoxville, after he claims he was overcome by the spirit, fell backward and hit his head.

Matt Lincoln, 57, says pastors at Lakewind Church should have made sure someone caught him.

His attorney is asking for $2.5 million to cover medical bills, lost income and pain and suffering.

The case stems from a Wednesday night service at Lakewind in June 2007, when a visiting minister was praying for members individually.

"I just closed my eyes. I was just asking God, I wanted to have a real experience. It's like you faint. It's almost like you pass out," Lincoln says.

..."I hit. I hit full force backwards," he says.

After one year and two surgeries, Lincoln says he still hurts all the time.

...Lawyers for the church didn't want to go on camera, but say in an answer to the lawsuit that Lincoln was observed that night by other congregants to be on the floor laughing, that he failed to look out for his own safety and that court involvement with the ministry of this church would be unconstitutional."

It seems to me that this con artist and his shyster lawyer are suing the wrong people. Instead of suing the church, they should be suing God since they're claiming that he caused Lincoln to be "overcome by the spirit," which led to his falling and being hurt -- if he didn't injure himself laughing so hard on the floor.

This is just one more example of why we should have a "loser pays" system in this country so that people like Matt Lincoln would have to pony up for the lawyer bills of the church he's frivolously suing. Of course, that's assuming his roll of the dice in the gambling halls that make up our court system doesn't end up unfairly rewarding him with a fortune for falling down like a sack of potatoes in church.

If defending your own home from hordes of rock-throwing thugs by waving a stick at them counts as assault in Britain, why not this?

Julie Lake, daughter of a WWII RAF pilot, was fed up after witnessing years of vandalism and antisocial behavior at a memorial to those who died defending Britain, where gangs of spoiled punks run wild amid the ruins of a great civilization. She learned from experience that calling the police is futile. On seeing a snot-nosed brat ride a BMX bike through freshly laid flower beds, she grabbed the ringleader by the collar and gave him a talking-to.

The jeering gang surrounded her, shoved her, and shouted:

You can't touch us, we're 15, we can do what the f*** we like.

Authorities resolved the incident by convicting Mrs. Lake of assault, criminal damage, and a public order offense. A judge chastised her for her "complete lack of self-control." She was forced to pay £400 for throwing down a bicycle, which should amount to a year's supply of spray paint for the vandals, none of whom was arrested.

As always, taxpayers are the biggest losers. The farcical trial cost £100,000.

The situation in Britain is incomprehensible, yet simple. Moonbattery has resulted in the country being run by evil lunatics. If you are not an evil lunatic, and you fail to keep your head down, you will be punished. On the positive side… there is no positive side — unless you're an evil lunatic, in which case the world is your oyster.

On a tip from Bill V. Cross-posted at Moonbattery.

I have a confession. It's kinda embarrassing but I'm going to tell you anyway: I like trashy pop music. Yes, I do. My heart is moved by Leona Lewis' "Bleeding Love". Natasha Bedingfield puts snap in my step. I've taken solace under an Umbrella and like Lollipops. I know. Terrible.

Even I have limits, though.

A new tune is at the tops of iTunes and it is wickedly catchy: I Kissed A Girl And I Liked It.

So I do a little sleuthing and wouldn't you know that the girl, Katy Perry, singing this trashy tune is the daughter of two preachers. Preachers kids, they always go to extremes. Remember Footloose? (And, oh, by the way, Kevin Bacon is 50 years old. Yes, you're getting old, too.)

Anyhoo, so I'm watching So You Think You Can Dance last night and Katy Perry sings her tune on the show:

Here's the problem: This is a family show. Children, mostly girls, who aspire to be dancers watch the show because the dancing is amazing. It's a milder form of American Idol, really. I have the same issues around these shows:
1. The advertising should be kid appropriate.
2. The content should be kid appropriate.
3. At all points through the show, the producers should keep in mind who is watching the show.

If adults want to listen to "I Kissed A Girl", fine. Even teenagers can work their way around the topic. But I do not want to have to have a conversation with my eight year old about why a girl would kiss a girl. The lyrics are ribald and obvious, and, clear. Subtle lyrics can be vaguely addressed, but these lyrics beg for an explanation. Pardon me, but I'm not interested in explaining sexual orientation quite yet and the subtleties therein.

I know. I can change the channel and I do. But come on! When something purports to be "family" programming, it shouldn't be a big deal to leave the room to go to the bathroom for a minute. No commercials on "ED" or douching. No profanity. No violence. And no sexual provocation.

Maybe I'm an old fuddy duddy. Probably so. It is hard enough to raise children with some form of sustained childhood without being exposed to every adult idea at 8.

Cross-posted at MelissaClouthier.com

Some outside perspective on the looming election, from Australia:

Obama says he will reach across the aisle to bring about big changes. Rubbish. What he is banking on is big Democratic sweeps through Congress that deliver him power not only in the White House but wide majorities in the legislature as well.

Obama's appeal should help herald those big gains. And there's the rub. This could be the best chance the Democrats have had since the '60s to bring about the changes they long for, including their nirvana of government-sponsored healthcare.

Obama's hidden message is that he wants to end the culture wars, all right: by smashing the opposition and winning them.

Obama is the most liberal moonbat in the entire Senate, having established himself as even more fanatical than extremists like Hanoi John Kerry, Chappaquiddick Ted Kennedy, Babs Boxer, and avowed Socialist Bernie Sanders. No one who has a clue takes his easily predictable pre-election feints toward the center seriously. As the company he keeps makes obvious, Obama represents not just the left, but the ultra-left. A government takeover of the healthcare system would be only the beginning.

The stakes couldn't be higher.

Cross-posted at Moonbattery.

It is one of the longest wars America has fought, and it has been completely within our borders. On January 8, 1964, President Lyndon Johnson declared "all-out war on human poverty and unemployment in these United States." This "all-out war" would last through the presidencies of Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, H.W. Bush, Clinton, and George W. Bush. We have spent billions of dollars fighting this war, and what have we achieved?

Very little. In 1964, there were 36 million Americans living in poverty, or about 19% of the population. In the forty years between 1964 and 2004:

...poverty never measured less than 11 percent of the population. In 1983, under President Reagan, poverty registered 15.2 percent; in 1993, at the beginning of Bill Clinton's presidency, poverty was measured at 13.7 percent of the population. In 2004, under George W. Bush, a president often accused by the political Left as not caring about the poor, the poverty rate declined to 12.7 percent. Still, some 37 million Americans remain poor.

Despite the forty year war on poverty, we have a million more considered poor today than when the war started.

According to the article referenced above, in 1959, approximately 10% of white Americans were poor. In 2004, the number was 8.6%. However, the percentage of blacks living in poverty dropped from 55% in 1959 to 25% in 2004. It would be easy to attribute that change to the government programs initiated during this time, but Thomas Sowell gives us the facts:

The economic rise of blacks began decades earlier, before any of the legislation and policies that are credited with producing that rise. The continuation of the rise of blacks out of poverty did not -- repeat, did not -- accelerate during the 1960s.

The poverty rate among black families fell from 87 percent in 1940 to 47 percent in 1960, during an era of virtually no major civil rights legislation or anti-poverty programs. It dropped another 17 percentage points during the decade of the 1960s and one percentage point during the 1970s, but this continuation of the previous trend was neither unprecedented nor something to be arbitrarily attributed to the programs like the War on Poverty.

In various skilled trades, the incomes of blacks relative to whites more than doubled between 1936 and 1959 -- that is, before the magic 1960s decade when supposedly all progress began. The rise of blacks in professional and other high-level occupations was greater in the five years preceding the Civil Rights Act of 1964 than in the five years afterwards.

While some good things did come out of the 1960s, as out of many other decades, so did major social disasters that continue to plague us today. Many of those disasters began quite clearly during the 1960s.

Some of these social disasters include, according to Sowell:

• "In the liberal vision, slums bred crime. But brand-new government housing projects almost immediately became new centers of crime and quickly degenerated into new slums."
• "Rates of teenage pregnancy and venereal disease had been going down for years before the new 1960s attitudes toward sex spread rapidly through the schools, helped by War on Poverty money. These downward trends suddenly reversed and skyrocketed."
• "The murder rate had also been going down, for decades, and in 1960 was just under half of what it had been in 1934. Then the new 1960s policies toward curing the "root causes" of crime and creating new "rights" for criminals began. Rates of violent crime, including murder, skyrocketed."
• "The black family, which had survived centuries of slavery and discrimination, began rapidly disintegrating in the liberal welfare state that subsidized unwed pregnancy and changed welfare from an emergency rescue to a way of life."
• "Government social programs such as the War on Poverty were considered a way to reduce urban riots. Such programs increased sharply during the 1960s. So did urban riots."

Despite the failures of a War on Poverty in America, despite the evidence it has done more harm than good, Barack Obama is ready to take the fight global. S. 2433 is a bill sponsored by Obama, called the "Global Poverty Act of 2007." This bill requires "the President to develop and implement a comprehensive strategy to further the United States foreign policy objective of promoting the reduction of global poverty, the elimination of extreme global poverty, and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goal of reducing by one-half the proportion of people worldwide, between 1990 and 2015, who live on less than $1 per day."

The United States currently spends $16.3 billion annually on foreign aid. This bill would commit the United States to spending 0.7% of its gross national product on foreign aid, in addition to that $16.3 billion. 0.7% comes out to $845 billion dollars over 13 years. Obama wants another $65 billion a year or, around $2000 per American citizen in new taxes a year, for fighting poverty in third world countries.

Another troubling detail in the bill is our requirement to coordinate "the goal of poverty reduction with other internationally recognized Millennium Development Goals." The "Millennium Development Goals" are a United Nations creation, and according to Cliff Kincaid, means you could lose a lot more than two grand a year:

The bill defines the term "Millennium Development Goals" as the goals set out in the United Nations Millennium Declaration, General Assembly Resolution 55/2 (2000).

...

In addition to seeking to eradicate poverty, that declaration commits nations to banning "small arms and light weapons" and ratifying a series of treaties, including the International Criminal Court Treaty, the Kyoto Protocol (global warming treaty), the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

This bill opens up America to increased United Nations control. Hyperbole? Not at all. Take the Convention on the Rights of the Child for example. America's laws concerning the child are at the state level, not the federal. According to Wikipedia, "The U.S. Constitution not only limits federal jurisdiction over children, the U.S. Supreme Court has held that to some significant degree, no government--federal, state, or local--may interfere with the parent-child relationship."

Agreeing to this treaty would amount to the federal government putting the United Nations right in the middle of your family.

The Home School Legal Defense Association says the Convention of the Rights of the Child:

...would undermine families by granting to children a list of radical "rights" which would be primarily enforced against the parents. These new "fundamental" rights would include "the right to privacy," "the right to freedom of thought and association," and the right to "freedom of expression." Such presumptions subvert the authority of parents to exercise important responsibilities toward their children. Under the UN Convention, parental responsibility exists only in so far as parents are willing to further the independent choices of the child.

The Global Poverty Act is much more than an increase in your taxes. It is a danger to the individual rights of Americans, from the Second Amendment, to telling your daughter when to be home at night. The bill not only takes our property for redistribution overseas, it takes our rights as Americans and turns them over to the United Nations. It is a dangerous step towards a global collective. And most Americans have never heard of it.

On February 13, the bill passed out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee without any public hearings. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison says it will be up for a Senate vote after the July 4 recess. Your Senators should be aware of your opinion of this bill.

This article was cross posted at All American Blogger.com, where you can find other great original articles.

Note to the haters: John wants me to blog about popular culture and current events and unless you have your head buried in Barack Obama's backyard, the iPhone is BIG news. So I'm including a little review, as I am an iPhone lover. Buy one, people, you won't regret it.

Well, folks, I upgraded to 2.0 and so far, so good. I added a bunch of apps while the upgrade wasn't working. Light a candle, man, that's what I say. When I came back around, the upgrade completed. I detached the phone, re-synced it and the new applications downloaded, too.

Favorite one: The Light Saber

My kids love it. I love it. Yes, I'm a nerd. We have firmly established that fact.

Favorite Star Wars Quote: "Do or do not. There is no 'try.'" --Yoda

On another note, I don't know why people are complaining about the Facebook App. Personally, I like it. So does this guy.

I'm missing WordPress, but they say they're coming out with an iPhone App and then I can blog from anywhere with just my phone! Yay! And lucky, lucky you.

Other good stuff here. I've got to go and play some more.

Cross-posted at MelissaClouthier.com

Well yeah, to a degree I agree.

That was what Sen. Phil Gramm said yesterday about Americans. He also said for many it is a "mental recession", meaning that to this point they've not suffered the results of an actual recession, but have adopted the attitude prevalent during a recession (and, I suppose, help it become a reality).

I've never been much of a Gramm fan, but his criticism hit home. Just listen to the whining about gas prices for heaven sake. And you'd think the Iraq war was the most costly and brutal war ever fought if you listened to a certain segment of our population.

Not to mention the sky is falling, jobs are scarce (5.5% unemployment - considered full employment, but part of that mental recession), the right jobs aren't available, the housing crisis and, well you name it and someone is whining about it.

Certainly Gramm's comments may have been deemed by many as politically incorrect and insensitive, but I see them as essentially on target.

However the political season is the "whining" season. Whining is encouraged. Politicians are on stage to tell us how bad things are and how well they are going to fix them. This is when candidates have town hall meetings and potential voters whine about their condition and ask the candidate what they're going to do for them.

"America is hurting today," he said. "Michigan is hurting today. The automotive industry is hurting. And we've got big problems, and we've got big challenges."

And the candidates pander. And pander. And pander.

So it is absolutely unacceptable for an adviser to any politician to say something which doesn't help the panderfest. That is why Phil Gramm ended up being immediately thrown under the "Straight Talk Express" before he had time to get his helmet and pads on.

Here's the Right Wing News guest blogger line-up this week-end.

Saturday
--------
Cassy Fiano
Kathy Shaidle Five Feet Of Fury
Gina Cobb
John Stephenson from Stop The ACLU
Little Miss Attila

Sunday
-------
Ron Coleman from Likelihood of Success
Sister Toldjah
William Teach from Pirate's Cove
Michael Illions from Polipundit
MCQ from QandO

Make sure to give all of them a warm welcome and check out their blogs!

In the end, what do we really have but the legacy we leave and the glory of God that we imperfectly reflect?

Tony Snow has reached the end of his battle with cancer.

Tony Snow, the former White House press secretary and conservative pundit who bedeviled the press corps and charmed millions as a FOX News television and radio host, died after a long bout with cancer. He was 53.

A syndicated columnist, editor, TV anchor, radio show host and musician, Snow worked in nearly every medium in a career that spanned more than 30 years.

"Laura and I are deeply saddened by the death of our dear friend, Tony Snow," President Bush said in a statement. "The Snow family has lost a beloved husband and father. And America has lost a devoted public servant and a man of character."

Snow died at 2 a.m. Saturday at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, D.C.

Tony Snow lived his life with a cheerful, energetic awareness of its transience -- both before and after his cancer diagnosis. He didn't have to change who he was when he learned of the illness that took his life. He was already there.

Of course Tony Snow leaves a political legacy, but there's a reason why I'm not focusing on that right now. I honestly believe that his legacy as a man of faith, and as a man who faced cancer with optimism and bravery, will outshine his political legacy in the end. Anyone can be a press secretary -- and Tony Snow was a great one -- but Tony Snow was well centered and well grounded in life's most important values before, during, and at the end of his cancer battle.

If you want a feel for what I believe is Tony Snow's most important legacy, read the full text of Tony Snow's commencement address to The Catholic University of America, a speech he gave after he had a recurrence of cancer. I've called it a "home run of the heart." I'll leave you with a few excerpts in Tony's own words:

You begin to confront the truly overwhelming question: Why am I here? And that begins to open up the whole universe, because it impels you to think like the child staring out at the starry night: "Who put the lights in the sky? Who put me here? Why?" And pretty soon you are thinking about God. Don't shrink from pondering God's role in the universe or Christ's. You see, it's trendy to reject religious reflection as a grave offense against decency. That's not only cowardly. That's false. Faith and reason are knitted together in the human soul. So don't leave home without either one.

. . . . American culture likes to celebrate the petulant outcast, the smart-aleck with the contempt for everything and faith in nothing. Snarky mavericks. The problem is these guys are losers. They have signed up for an impossible mission. Because they've decided they're going to create all the meaning in their lives. They've either decided that no moral law exists or they will be the creator, the author of those laws. Now one road leads to complete and total anarchy. Life is solitary, nasty, brutish and short. The other is to insanity, since it requires playing God. We know in our hearts, intuitively, from our first years as children, that the universe unfolds with a discernable order and that moral laws, far from being convenient social conventions, are firm and unalterable. They predate us, they will survive us. Rather than admitting our weakness a lot of times, we just decide we'll try to get by. And maybe rather than giving God credit, we'll try to look for a cheap substitute.

Walk into a bookstore, you'll know what I mean. The shelves are groaning underneath the trendy tomes promising salvation -- medicine balls, herbs, purges, all sorts of weird stuff. In politics, there's a variant that elevates government to the status of God. It says that it is the source of love. It ought to be the recipient of your tithes, but government, while it does pursue compassionate ends, cannot be loving and personal. It treats all of us as completely equal rather than uniquely divine. The point is you can't escape the question of God and you can't escape the question of commitments.

When it comes to faith, I've taken my own journey. You will have to take your own. But here's what I know. Faith is as natural as the air we breathe. Religion is not an opiate, just the opposite. It is the introduction to the ultimate extreme sport. There is nothing that you can imagine that God cannot trump. As Paul said "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." And once you realize that there is something greater than you out there, then you have to decide, "Do I acknowledge it and do I act upon it?" You have to at some point surrender yourself. And there is nothing worthwhile in your life that will not at some point require an act of submission. It's true of faith and friendship. It is a practical passage [of the Bible], especially to marriage.

Tolstoy once said all happy marriages are happy in the same way and here's what he meant. When both people commit, when they say, "You and I are bound together, forever, period, no questions, no codicils, no pre-nups, no escape clauses," then all of a sudden, the temptations become irrelevant, and the glories become possible.

There is nothing like the pleasure of being a parent. Waking up the next morning to somebody whose breath has become the echo of your heartbeat. Trust me on this, it does not get any better. Commit.

. . . . Finally, love. How trite is that? But it's everything. It separates happiness from misery. It separates the full life from the empty life. To love is to acknowledge that life is not about you. I want you to remember that: It's not about you. It's a hard lesson. A lot of people go through life and never learn it. It's to submit willingly, heart and soul, to things that matter. Love is not melodrama. You don't purchase it, you don't manufacture it. You build it.

Every time I buy something gaudy for my wife she says, "Oh that's nice," and then it goes away someplace. The love letters she keeps; I don't know where the jewelry is.

Love springs from small deeds, the gestures that say casually and naturally "I care." That acknowledge what's special about somebody else. If somebody's smarter, quicker, better, prettier, wiser than you, tell them. Learn from them. Don't be jealous. Glory in it.

. . . . Think not only of what it means to love but what it means to be loved. I have a lot of experience with that. Since the news that I have cancer again, I have heard from thousands and thousands of people and I have been the subject of untold prayers. I'm telling you right now: You're young [and you feel] bullet-proof and invincible. [But] never underestimate the power of other people's love and prayer. They have incredible power. It's as if I've been carried on the shoulders of an entire army. And they had made me weightless. The soldiers in the army just wanted to do a nice thing for somebody. As I mentioned, a lot of people -- everybody out here -- wants to do that same thing.

To love is to place others before you and to make their needs your priority. Do it. When you put somebody else at the center of the frame, your entire world changes, and for the better. You begin to find your own place in the world. When you're drawn into the lives of others, you enter their problems, their hopes, their dreams, their families. They whisk you down unimagined corridors, toward possibilities that had been hidden to you before. So resolve to do little things for others. You don't know where they're going to lead but then again, you don't have any idea where your life is going to lead. When I was your age, I had long hair, a beard and thought of myself as a socialist. You are going to pinball all over the place, from experience to experience, job to job. And I want you to remember that you've got company. And that if you engage them with heart and mind, with faith and energy, you are going to find yourself on a cresting wave. It'll carry you forward and it'll push you under water from time to time. And some day in the dim and distant future, when you're looking back at it, you're not going to think about your car or your career or you