D

avid Letterman has apologized for suggesting that Sarah Palin’s daughter “got knocked up” by Alex Rodriguez during the 7th inning stretch at a Yankee game.  For those of you who have been visiting Pyongyang, here is the original, er, joke:

The fact that Willow, 14, attended the game, not Bristol, 18, was highly publicized on New York media and was common knowledge from New York to SoCal - but Letterman would like us to think that the Palin-bashers on his writing team were unaware, explaining:

We were, as we often do, making jokes about people in the news and we made some jokes about Sarah Palin and her daughter … and now they’re upset with me….  These are not jokes made about her 14-year-old daughter. I would never, never make jokes about raping or having sex of any description with a 14-year-old girl…. Am I guilty of poor taste? Yes. Did I suggest that it was okay for her 14-year-old daughter to be having promiscuous sex? No.

He then says he hopes he’s “cleared part of this up,” and graciously extends an invitation to Sarah Palin to be a guest on his show.  Why Sarah? Why not Bristol? Or Willow?

Let’s trust the flamingly liberal Letterman at his word (just pretend we’re fools who have suspended all knowledge of liberal behavior). Then we have to accept that making fun of the young (18) children of political candidates is acceptable.  Sasha and Malia, watch out; you could be next! Not. Ever. Redirecting the joke after the fact to Bristol protects Letterman from being a verbal pedophile, but it does not extend any modicum of good taste or decency to the man.

It’s hard to accept that no one on the Letterman team knew it was Willow at the game. This is almost certainly a weasley lie to cover up dispicable behavior - behavior that got a lot of laughs from his similarly dispicable audience.

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onservative News & Views certainly had a rich field of entries to consider for its 7th annual “20 Most Annoying Liberals” rankings- just look at the honorable mentions:

Bill Ayers, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Juan Cole, Kent Conrad, The Daily Kos, Bill Delahunt, Glenn Greenwald, Alcee Hastings, Christopher Hitchens, The Huffington Post, Jesse Jackson, Jesse Jackson Jr. Caroline Kennedy, John Kerry, Ezra Klein, The L.A. Times, Mike Malloy, Rachel Maddow, Michael Moore, MoveOn, Michael Newdow, The New York Times, Michelle Obama, Rosie O’Donnell, Keith Olbermann, Michael Pfleger, Ted Rall, Bill Richardson, Randi Rhodes, Al Sharpton, Cindy Sheehan, Ted Turner, Oprah Winfrey, Jeremiah Wright, Matthew Yglesias

Wow.  With at least 20 people more annoying than this crew, it’s easy to realize just how annoying liberals can be.

So here’s CN&V’s pick for the second most annoying liberal of the year:

Harry Reid: When the Senate Majority leader wasn’t bizarrely declaring that we had to grind our economy to a halt by refusing to continue to use fossil fuels…

” That is, coal makes us sick, oil makes us sick, its Global Warming, its ruining our Country, its ruining our World. We have got to stop using fossil fuel.” — Harry Reid

…or causing stocks to plunge by popping off at the mouth,

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is getting credit for sparking a blistering sell-off in insurance stocks. MetLife Inc., Hartford Financial Services Group and Prudential Financial Inc. all fell by double-digit percentage amounts [yesterday] after Reid on Wednesday said the financial-system bailout plan was crucial because a large insurer was at risk of failing.

…A statement from his office said that Reid was “not personally aware of any particular company being on the verge of bankruptcy” and that “he has no special knowledge about nor has he talked to any insurance company officials,” Dow Jones reported.

…Little Lord Harry was declaring that he was offended by the very stench of his constituents.

Defining quote: “My staff tells me not to say this, but I’m going to say it anyway. In the summer because of the heat and high humidity, you could literally smell the tourists coming into the Capitol. It may be descriptive but it’s true.” — Harry Reid

So who’s the most annoying liberal of 2008? Hint: He gave birth to one of the most outrageous anti-Palin stories of the year. Click here to see who it is.

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ncredible Daughter #3 is a Disney fan, which includes social networking on Mice Chat - a place, you might be surprised, of periodic high emotions and deep controversies.

Currently, the Mice Chatters are all dialed up on the thread about the re-opening of the Small World ride, scheduled for mid-Feb after a long shut-down. (And I apologize, deeply, from the bottom of my heart, if the preceding sentence stuck a certain annoying, high-pitched song in your head.) It started with this:

Really, I don’t think this matters but I gotta ask- are they gonna call the America scene “Up With America”, because I heard they might call it “Hooray for USA!”.

An American scene would be new in Small World and a couple negative comments quickly followed:

Regardless of what the America scene is called’ It’s like saying you just saw the rest of the world and now the greatest of them all’ and tell people they live in the greatest nation on Earth. Not that I don’t love my country but it is not appropriate for the message of the ride.

I think that the USA has been underrepresented to this point, but if the rumors are true then it’s going to be overrepresented now, particularly given the fact that Disneyland is in the USA and much of the park is dedicated to the country in some fashion. I wouldn’t mind a fraction of a section, but an entire section devoted to a single country is too much, in my opinion, given the spirit of the ride’s egalitarian treatment of various regions and cultures.

When Incredible Daughter #3 first pointed this out to me, I saw it as more evidence of PC and America hating. After all, the name of the ride is “Small World,” not “Small World except for that part where America is.” That’s certainly how she saw it, based on her comments:

I like that there’s going to be an America room. Our country is so targeted with hate right now. The fact that there is a tribute to America shows that with all the hate she’s getting, America is still a great country.

Yes, since you asked, I am incredibly proud of Incredible Daughter #3. But while there most definitely is a whiff of anti-Americanism in the discussion, what’s really at play here is Disney fundamentalism:

When Small World was originally designed for the NY World’s Fair it didn’t include an America scene. When Small World was brought to Disneyland, the attraction was e-x-p-a-n-d-e-d and new scenes added. Again, no America scene.

Walt was alive, contributing, and overseeing the park during both installations (NYWF and Disneyland), so if he wanted an America scene he would have had one designed. Same thinking goes for the addition of Disney characters: if Walt wanted them, he would have installed them.

The desire to keep a good thing true to its roots - the feeling that motivates the views of strict Constitutionalists and evangelical Christians - is not a rare feeling at all. Nor is the feeling by others that some change is needed to keep the beloved thing relevant.  (It also motivates fundamentalist Islamists, but they fail to realize that the religion they don’t want to change basically stinks.)

Not surprisingly (or surprisingly, depending on how you look at it), I’m with the ones who don’t want an American room added. The strength of the vision of Disneyland’s founding father has stood the test of time, despite the new Disney’s many efforts to “modernize” it, so out with America!

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et’s take a break from all the newsy frivolity - the economic recovery plan, the market mayhem, Ahmadinejad’s latest threats against Israel, oh, I don’t know … the election - and deal with something really, really serious. Sarah Palin’s lip liner. We join the world’s largest leftyblog:

On September 10th, Wonkette received a tip that Sarah Palin’s lipliner is a tattoo.

From: C______@gmail.com>
To: tips@wonkette.com
Date: Wed, Sep 10, 2008 at 2:59 PM
Subject: tip on Sarah Pallin Notes: Sarah’s sister in-law owns a beauty parlor in Wasilla…apparently Sarah’s lip liner is tattooed on…not sure what to do with that one.
leak to wonkette

So although the allegation comes in a strangely cryptic email and there is no actual proof that this procedure was performed, we’ve been studying Sarah Palin’s mouth very closely …

Are they obsessed? Yes, I’d say they’re obsessed. The 43.49% that say it is a lip tattoo are obsessed, the 23.24% that say it’s not are obsessed, and even the 28.68% who have studied and pondered and pondered and studied and just couldn’t make up their minds are terribly, terribly obsessed.

By the way, Incredible Daughter #2, who is trained in this sort of stuff (she’s not just a beauty, she’s a beauty professional) took one look at the picture above and said:

No way. It’s uneven … but WHO CARES?

Smart girl. Do you think we’ll see a poll next on whether Joe Biden’s got hair plugs? No, of course not. It doesn’t matter because he’s a man so let’s not get catty, and more to the point, he’s not a woman who has done the unspeakable sin of not goose-stepping with the bra-burners. Conservative women, we are led to believe by this obscene obsession withe Palin, aren’t allowed to think, work, run for vice president, and they certainly aren’t allowed to get lip liner tattoos.

Here’s a question that we conservatives might want to spend the next day or two on: Do you think Nancy Pelosi has a new face tattooed over her old one?

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f you’re wondering why liberal women hate Sarah Palin so, turn to a truly abominable liberal woman like Sandra Bernhard and give a listen as she spews foul-mouthed hate fest not just at Palin, but at Christians, middle class people and basically anyone who’s not a radically liberal Jew.

Yeah, I walk the walk and I talk the talk. Bring the s*** on.

Yeah, women started the whole f***** thing. Now you got Uncle Women like Sarah Palin who jumps on this s*** and points her finger at other women … turncoat b****! [laughter]

Don’t you f***** reference the Old Testament, b****. Stay with your new Goyish, crappy, shiksa, funky, bulls***! [loud laughter] Don’t you touch my Old Testament, you b****! [laughter, cheering, applause]

Yes, we have left it open for interpretation. It is no longer taken literally, you whore in your f***** New Vision cheap-a$$ plastic glasses and your hair up. [laughter] A Tina Fey, Megan Malele [ph] broke-down, bulls*** moment.

After a moment, she continues with a jazzy piano in the background:

Ah, delicious. A bikini-waxed fresh Jewess t*** in your face! Call the sh** in, call the sh** in! Tell them what I said tonight. I hope you’re filming this sh**! Put it out there.

As disgusting as Bernhard is, it’s more disgusting that the show this comes from actually attracts enough paying customers to keep the woman well-housed, well-fed and, apparently, well-drugged up. You can hear these cheering loons, If you’re up for it, on the clip:

According to NewsBusters, elsewhere in the show she cautions Palin not to come to Manahattan, lest she get gang-raped by some of Bernhard’s “black brothers.” The show’s producer, Ali Roth, thinks it’s all brilliant.

The fact that the show has a few riffs like this does not — to my mind — make it a “disgusting show.” there’s too much beauty, variety, vitality, and intelligence to label the entire show as “disgusting.” I’ll agree with you that we produced this show because we did find it to be edgy — because we wanted to give right wing conservative Jews a good run for their money by being on the receiving end of some blistering indictments from Sandra. Does it go over the edge sometimes? On the gang-rape joke, yes. Sure. Not much else. It goes over the edge and then comes right back to the cutting edge. [Profanity edited by NewsBusters]

So it’s not over the edge to take most of the Bible away from Christians and heap obscene scorn on their holy New Testament? Hah! There’s no way Barnhard would say something as foul to Muslims about their Quran - she’s only biting when she’s biting those who don’t bite back.

It’s all the typical thinking of the modern, hip urban liberal. (Hmmm - sounds like a definition of one Barack H. Obama …) Only one certified brand of thought is allowed, and anyone who does not buy in completely to the brand is intolerant and therefore cannot be tolerated. And all this is funny - laughing, cheering funny - to these paragons of tolerance.

So, what do you think? Should the McCain campaign start the Berhard clip as the warm-up whenever Sarah Palin is going to speak? Do you think that would fire up the troops?

“Is Obama’s campaign over? It might be.” That’s John Hinderaker at Power Line commenting on the snotty, prejudiced, uninformed, demeaning Obama disparagement of many — most? — Americans:

You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

Ann Althouse disagrees with my characterization (”snotty, prejudiced …”), saying that while it may be correct, it misses the point of who Obama really is, and why he said it:

But I must say that the original statement sounded like a typical law-school-liberal remark. I think it was quite sincere, and I’m rather sure he believed he was being admirably intellectual and raising politics to a new, higher level. Within a liberal law school environment, that statement would be heard as a thoughtful, compassionate insight.

Dem analyst Kirstin Powers, quoted by Rick Moran, underscores the same, with the words coming out of a liberal mouth:

“It comes off very badly,” Democratic strategist Kirsten Powers said of the small-town America remarks. “They are things that I think in a liberal world sound totally normal, and outside of that world I don’t know that he appreciates how it sounds. And it just sounds very elitist, and it sounds like he’s looking down on people.”

(Moran’s post, BTW, is a good read, reminding us that elitism goes back to the founding fathers.)

Yes, it is only the liberal left that is foolish enough to tilt at campaigns to bring us all together in humble awe under their superior powers and insight. The rest of us realize that while Americans can work together for our common self interests, we don’t really want to be brought together is some sort of phony and ultimately failed group hug all that much.

Not only does Obama assume the worst of a bunch of people I like a lot (the real, non-urban, non-elite folks), in his Indiana damage control statement he assumes that government is their only solution, their only ticket. And he knows he’s caught, so he’s spinning:

“People don’t vote on economic issues because they don’t expect anybody is going to help them,” Obama told a crowd at a Terre Haute, Ind., high school Friday evening. “So people end up voting on issues like guns and are they going to have the right to bear arms. They vote on issues like gay marriage. They take refuge in their faith and their community, and their family, and the things they can count on. But they don’t believe they can count on Washington.”

To which the McCain campaign replied:

“Instead of apologizing to small town Americans for dismissing their values, Barack Obama arrogantly tried to spin his way out of his outrageous San Francisco remarks. Only an elitist who attributes religious faith and gun ownership to bitterness would think that tax cuts for the rich include families who make $75,000 per year. Only an elitist would say that people vote their values only out of frustration. Barack Obama thinks he knows your hopes and fears better than you do. You can’t be more out of touch than that.”

Spinning like a drill bit, digging himself deeper and deeper, as he now shows us that he doesn’t even understand why we vote and how we feel — yet he’s supposed to be the one to bring us together? As Reason puts it:

While Obama is indeed engaging in spin, there is a far more disturbing aspect to his interpretation. He misses the essential nature of modern culture. People don’t end up focusing on issues like the right to bear arms, gay marriage, faith-based and family-based issues, and the like, because of bitterness against Washington or a sense that they can’t effect change there. People focus on these issues because modern American political culture is, effectively, about subcultures, variety, pursuing parochial aims, and shaping one’s identity and personal agendas independently of the state.

So getting back to Hinderaker, is Obama’s campaign over? I’ve seen him worm his way out of many gaffes before, including the mega-gaffe of Rev. Wright. It’s like the tides around a rock in the ocean — they rush up to embrace, then Obama does something truly hateful or stupid and they fall back in shock, then, finding nowhere else to go, they rush back in for an embrace.

Many are so committed to “change” and to electing a black president, and so repulsed by Hillary and the Bush legacy that they would vote for Obama even if horns sprang out of his forehead and a tail from his butt. But he can’t win on those voters alone; he desperately needs cross-over voters to beat Hillary, and then beat McCain.

In small towns across America today, people are reading the news, watching the news and perusing the Internet. Yes, Barack, they do — that behavior isn’t limited to big town America. And last straws are being placed on the backs of many Obama supporters.

But there is something supernatural about this man and I for one am not going to count him out until the last ballot is counted. And then some.

Hat-tip: memeorandum

You all know this story already:

(02-13) 01:33 PST Berkeley — After a day of enraged confrontation outside Berkeley City Hall between anti-war and pro-military demonstrators, the City Council backed down early Wednesday from its controversial decision to tell the U.S. Marines they are “unwelcome intruders” for operating a downtown recruiting center. (SF Chron)

Well, whoopie-do. The Left has come out once again, proverbial guns (not actual guns, please!) blazing, all to make a Big Moral Point.

And as soon as they’re confronted with one whit of opposition, they back down, dropping their spines all over the City Council chambers.

Morality? Convenience? Guess which one the “if it feels good, do it” set will always run to.

Now imagine these lame, hard-left, anti-war pieces of human squishiness being president. How dangerous would that be? How dangerous would it be to have someone like, oh, Barack Obama as president of the United States?

Saul Alinsky’s Playbook

What do you make of a quote like this, from Mike Huckabee?

“Many of us who have been Republicans out of conviction . . . the social conservatives … were welcomed in the party as long as we sort of kept our place, but Lord help us if we ever stood forward and said we would actually like to lead the party.”

As a Christian social conservative, I think it’s just not true, since there are a lot of conservative Christians in the GOP in positions of authority. President Bush, for example. At NRO, Mark Levin feels the same way, and has found the right way to put it:

Huckabee continues to use his faith as a weapon against those who question not his faith, but his political populism — much of which he shares with secular progressives. And he is clearly hoping to stir up resentment among Evangelical Christians against the other elements of the conservative movement and Republican Party as a way of encouraging them to vote in the caucuses and primaries. This is a tactic right out of Saul Alinsky’s playbook. Of course he wants us to believe the Reagan coalition is dead because he cannot win with it intact. But he cannot win either the nomination or presidency with the narrow focus of his appeal. This is why I find Mike Huckabee’s tactics and candidacy so deplorable.

In the primaries, we are not voting for who we want to win our local primary; we are voting for who we think should be our next president. That’s why Huckabee is not even on the margins of my consideration for the Cal primary.

As much as I wish Huckabee was the pastor of my church, were he just a pastor, I wouldn’t have him as the pastor of my church, given the dishonorable way he’s running his campaign. (hat-tip: memeorandum)

France Offers Atoms To Arabs

Give ‘em an inch of nuclear technology, M. Sarkozy, and they just might take a mile.

Nicolas Sarkozy might be a Bush ally of sorts — after all, he’s touring the Middle East at the same time W. is — but he has that cavalier Gallic attitude about selling nuclear technology. If it brings money to France, how bad can it be? Read this from BBC and ponder:

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has begun a Gulf tour, during which he is due to sign an nuclear co-operation deal with the United Arab Emirates.

He has arrived in Saudi Arabia and will go on to Qatar and the UAE over the next three days. All three are seeking to develop civilian nuclear programmes.

Mr Sarkozy has said the Arab world should have the same rights to such programmes as other states.

France has already signed nuclear agreements with Algeria and Libya.

Mr Sarkozy said the sale of such technology could foster trust between the West and the Muslim world.

Or a terrifying thermonuclear nightmare of obliterating consequences. Your choice.

But if that’s the way it’s going to be, then any nation threated by the thought of Sunni theocracies having nuclear power — be it bombs or reactors — should also have it. Ethiopia, the Balkan states, Central African states like Kenya and the Congo Republic.

Fine and dandy. Atoms for all. But just this, Nicolas, mon ami, the first time one of ‘em screws with an inspection, the whole program must be withdrawn and their facilities destroyed. No more Irans, no more North Koreas.

All That Glitters

Here’s a long list of celebrity contributions to political campaigns. Yes, folks, it’s true: Movie stars like Obama best. The contribution edge over Dem runner-up Clinton includes such glitterati as Jennifer Aniston, Tyra Banks, Halle Berry, George Clooney, Larry David, Morgan Freeman, Leonard Nimoy and Brooke Shields.

Almost completely, black entertainers are lined up behind Obama. Starlets overwhelmingly put race ahead of gender … you don’t really think they’re poring over the issues with the intensity they pore over scripts, do you? Exceptions (not counting those who contribute to multiple campaigns) are: Quincy Jones (Clinton) and … oh, that’s it; Quincy Jones.

GOP donors? Well, that’s pretty easy: Pat Boone (Brownback and Romney), Jerry Bruckheimer (McCain, natch), and Kelsey Grammer, Adam Sandler and Ben Stein, all for Giuliani.

It’s not at all curious that the most curious contributor was SNL major domo Lorne Michaels, who gave $4,600 to Dodd and $2,300 to McCain. I’m trying to figure that one out.

Now Be Nice!

Sacramento, like many cities around the country, is facing fiscal hard times: Budget shortfall, huge and costly infrastructure needs and various local controversies that are stymieing the city’s vision and future.

So here’s what Sacto mayor Heather Fargo said in a State of the Downtown speech:

We each need to change one light bulb to a compact fluorescent because it’s good for the environment. Oh, and be sure to walk more and drink tap water to promote a “green Sacramento.”

If politicians think Greenie platitudes will fix anything, they should ready themselves for legions of voters who are green around the gills with Greenie platitudes. Or, as SacBee columnist Marcos Breton put it:

There is no political risk in promoting the idea of a “Green Sacramento.” It’s like saying we should all be nice to each other.

Ouch. Breton is right on here, but way off course here:

When you have a room full of large-scale developers, as Fargo did, why not use your pulpit to educate them on how “green” building materials can be cost-effective too? Why not show them that they can still make their money and build projects that are better for the environment?

The arrogant little pencil-chewing twit! Who knows more about the economics and benefits of green development than builders? They started the movement in the 1970 energy crisis, putting their existing and planned buldings through rigorous energy audits and investing in more energy technologies that would pay for themselves.

Who do you think has saved more energy in the last couple decades, free market building owners who are seeking lower costs, or power-hungry bureaucrats who are seeking to force their view of reality on the world? Of course, a newspaper columnist, so far removed from reality, would wrongly think the latter.

Curses, Foiled Again!

Fars, the Iranian Propaganda Ministry news service, is not a trustworthy news source to put it mildly, so I’ll give US fencer Ivan Lee the benefit of the doubt, but hardly a pass, on the comments he made while participating in a fencing competition in Iran recently. According to Fars, here’s what Lee said:

“If the Iranian people and government posed a problem (for us), the US fencing team would never take a second trip to Iran,” Ivan Lee, who is currently in Iran to attend the 2008 International Fencing Competitions in Iran’s Persian Gulf island of Kish, told FNA on Sunday.

“Everyone analyzes issues by using his own mind and logic; we know that all the negative propaganda against Iran is unreal and, thus, we attended Iran’s international competitions for a second time,” he said.

Feint is the word, Ivan, feint. The Iranians showed you something that wasn’t real in order to make you miss what was real. Anyone who thinks for a moment that a repressive, totalitarian regime would let any visit get a brush with reality has had one too many épée hits on the cognitive organ. (Yeah, yeah, everyone knows Lee is a saber fencer, but épée is such a cooler word.)

And Now From The Euro-Libs

It’s not enough that some SCOTUS members think it’s just fine to cite European Community law in their American legal decisions. Now Euro-Libs are asking for the right to vote in US elections. From an editorial in the Brussels rag De Standard, courtesy of Brussels Journal:

American presidential elections are not “home affairs.” American decisions have repercussions all over the globe. The American mortgage crisis affects banks in Europe. The insatiable American demand for oil makes the Arabian sheiks rich. The American refusal to care for the environment causes the North Pole ice to melt and coastal areas in Asia to flood. A weakened dollar and an immense budget deficit affect the global economy.

Hence, the world should be given the right to vote. Because the current situation is a blatant case of taxation without representation, against which the Americans rebelled in 1776.

Never mind that Brussels would be a Nazi nation were it not for decisions we Americans made as part of our “home affairs” sixty years ago; Europe can do no harm. It does not pollute, it does not have financial woes, it has never seen its currencies falter. Its efforts to impose a multicultural political mindset on the planet, and to spend our way out of the alleged human causes of global warming does not, apparently, also represent taxation without representation.

Did we have a say in any of that foolishness? Not that I recall. (hat-tip: What Bubba Knows)

A Chair By Any Other Name

The must-read read of the day is Armando Iannucci’s column in The Guardian on Barack Obama and American politics. By the time you read this, at the beginning of the third paragraph …

So why does Obama, billed by everyone as a cross between Gandhi and Abraham Lincoln, but without the terrible looks of either, just leave me puzzled? Maybe it’s because his is a rhetoric that soars and takes flight, but alights nowhere.

… you’ll be hooked.

Iannucci does a lovely spoof on Obama-speak by suggesting that this is how Obama would rhetoric to death a chair:

‘This chair can take your weight. This chair can hold your buttocks, 15 inches in the air. This chair, this wooden chair, can support the ass of the white man or the crack of the black man, take the downward pressure of a Jewish girl’s behind or the butt of a Buddhist adolescent, it can provide comfort for Muslim buns or Mormon backsides, the withered rump of an unemployed man in Nevada struggling to get his kids through high school and needful of a place to sit and think, the plump can of a single mum in Florida desperately struggling to make ends meet but who can no longer face standing, this chair, made from wood felled from the tallest redwood in Chicago, this chair, if only we believed in it, could sustain America’s huddled arse.’

The problem with Obama and all our politicians is that that’s enough; one must never bother with the harsh facts of what you’re actually going to do about the chair, or be brave enough to say nothing needs to be done by government about the chair; one only has to stir the feeling of “chair” that’s in all of us.

I can share two more lovely lines from the essay without giving away too much of your future enjoyment of it:

American politicians take time out from their busy lives to makes speeches that sound empty; British politicians fill the emptiness of their lives with words that make them sound busy.

And

The chair, by the way, was made in China.

We’re All Gonna Die!

And I’ll be 40,000,057 years old when it happens, according to this report in Science Daily.

Well, actually, that will be when Smith’s Cloud impacts the Milky Way (the pink burst in the image above). Our sun is noted a bit to the right, so I’ll probably have a few more years to spend with the grand, grand, grand, grand, grand, grand, grand, grand, grand, grand, grand, grand, grand, grand, grandkids.

Smith’s cloud, which if flush with hydrogen (enough to fire up a million suns), is a bit bigger than a puff in the sky: eleven thousand light-years long and 2,500 light-years wide. It’s 8,000 light years away and is rushing at us at 150 miles per second (a tad faster than my German V8).

And that’s something that’s close to us. No wonder SciFi writers have to invent hyperspace and worm holes to get their heroes from here to there.

It’s really too bad we won’t be around when Smith’s Cloud hits, since this is what it’ll look like, according to astronomer Felix Lockman:

When it hits, it could set off a tremendous burst of star formation. Many of those stars will be very massive, rushing through their lives quickly and exploding as supernovae. Over a few million years, it’ll look like a celestial New Year’s celebration, with huge firecrackers going off in that region of the Galaxy.

Shoot. It’ll be a real shame to miss that!

SoCal’s Own Fruit And Nut

Adam Gadahn, born of OC, raised by hippie parents on a goat farm in the hills of Riverside County, gives us such pride. Not. He is, of course, al-Qaeda’s American mouthpiece, and he’s released another screed against the country that raised him:

“We felt it necessary to address the American people and explain to them some of the facts about these critical and fast-moving events. The first questions Americans might ask is has America really been defeated? The answer is yes and on all fronts.”

If we’re so defeated, I wonder why Gadahn feels compelled to say this:

Meanwhile, the occupied territories are awaiting their first visit by the Crusader Bush, and the mujahadeen are also waiting. [He switches here from English to Arabic, and leans into the camera.] At this point I issue an urgent call to our mujahadeen brothers in Muslim Palestine, and in the Arabian Peninsula in particular and all the region in general.

They should be in full readiness to receive the crusader arch-killer Bush in his visit to Muslim Palestine and to the occupied Arabian Peninsula at the beginning of January. They should receive him not with roses and applause, but with bombs and booby-traps.

For an in-depth three-part biography of Gadahn, his Jewish grandparents, hippie parents and Muslim conversion, here, here and here are links to my overviews, each of which includes links to the three parts of the article.

Czech Artists’ Joke Bombs

They say you can’t be an artist if you haven’t suffered. Will three years in a Czech jail suffice?

Last June, anyone watching a certain Czech weather channel at the right moment saw a panning shot of the countryside near the Krkonose, or Giant Mountains, in Bohemia, when a yellow flash filled their screens and a skinny mushroom cloud lifted in the distance.

It was a hoax. A Czech artists’ group had inserted the explosion digitally. A state prosecutor said on Thursday that six members of the group will now have to stand trial for the hack. They could face up to three years in jail. (Spiegel)

Here are the two sides of the argument. First, the artists:

“We are neither a terrorist organization nor a political group,” a statement by Ztohoven said. “Our aim is not to intimidate society or manipulate it, which is something we witness on a daily basis both in the real world and that created by the media. On June 17 2007, [we] attacked the space of TV broadcasting, distorting it, questioning its truthfulness and its credibility.”

And the accuser:

No one was hurt, but a spokesman for Czech Television said, according to the UK’s Guardian newspaper, “The fake broadcast was really very inadvisable and could have provoked panic among a wide group of people.”

Here’s what Speigel has to say about Mikhail Saaskavili’s apparent victory in yesterday’s presidential elections in Georgia:

President Mikhail Saakashvili wants to be re-elected in Georgia on Saturday — after violent crackdowns on the opposition. This ally of the West is looking more and more like a dictator, with opponents arrested, beaten or sent into exile, and accusations of vote-rigging from critics inside Georgia and abroad.

Last November, Daniel Fried, our Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs, said in Tbilisi:

[W]e are all here because Georgia is on the frontiers of freedom. Frontiers of freedom began in Poland in 1989 and those frontiers have advanced. This is where the link between freedom and security is being made; where democratic institutions are being built.

Freedom is not a luxury that one looks to achieve as an afterthought. The 21^st century faces many challenges-terrorism, the proliferation of unconventional weapons and energy dependence are three important ones. The response, however, to these problems will be found through the expansion of democracy, of free markets, the rule of law, and the willingness to defend them. These values in turn make the resolution of these problems easier.

Georgia has taken strides in all these areas already. Georgians must know that the world is aware of and appreciates their progress.

Georgia’s strong progress should not mask the progress yet needed. Georgia’s ultimate fate is still to be determined. Much depends on the decisions Georgians and their leaders take in years to come. I can outline an American perspective on the issues at stake. To start, let me quickly deal with a couple of questions where easy answers are in fact available.

A bit of a wrist-slap there — and a slap State should re-visit in the wake of the election, as opposition demonstrations broke out in Georgia’s capital declaring the election results to be fraudulent.

Thomas P.M. Barnett writes that the seventh year of the Bush administration forces a reassessment of the entire Bush presidency:

The White House’s recent policy reversals amount to a stunning repudiation of the first seven years of George W. Bush’s presidency. Where allies were previously disrespected, now they’re viewed as essential. Where diplomacy was eschewed, now it’s pursued with vigor. No longer running the government from his base, George W. Bush finally tries to lead the entire nation.

Bush’s political opponents detect weakness and regret and a last-ditch attempt to salvage legacy, while supporters point to a self-professed dissident leader extending a freedom agenda in his final months. Both perspectives hold much truth.

But, as someone who’s worked extensively throughout the national security community across this administration, both inside and outside government, I am struck by how the world seems to be returning to its pre-9/11 correlation of forces, like a cosmic clock being reset. It’s almost as if the sum total effect of the second Bush term will be to repair the damage caused by the first.

Barnett, author of The Pentagon’s New Map, supported John Kerry in 2004 because he felt that Kerry would be more able to readily refocus on the broader, global issues that require cooperation between nations. Now Bush has reached that view and all that has been lost in the last few years is “time and opportunity, our most precious assets.”

War profiteer and greed-meister David Brooks is out on bail — but my oh my, what a bail!

• A $400 million bond, which Brooks secured with $48 million in pledged assets.
• Monitoring of all communications, including Internet, excluding attorney-client privileged communications.
• Brooks funding of private guards authorized to use force to if necessary to restrain Brooks

The Blotter explains the strict terms:

In large part, the terms, dubbed “bulletproof,” by one senior law enforcement official, are so severe because Brooks’ wealth and alleged blatant flaunting of the law make him a far larger flight risk than these and many other defendants, two federal officials said.

No Further Debate Update

We all know the global warming debate is over and that changes in ocean temperature are caused by nothing more than the nasty emissions of SUVs, power plants and factories, but I thought I’d pass this along nonetheless:

ScienceDaily (Jan. 5, 2008) — A Duke University-led analysis of available records shows that while the North Atlantic Ocean’s surface waters warmed in the 50 years between 1950 and 2000, the change was not uniform. In fact, the subpolar regions cooled at the same time that subtropical and tropical waters warmed.

This striking pattern can be explained largely by the influence of a natural and cyclical wind circulation pattern called the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), wrote authors of a study published Jan. 3, in Science Express, the online edition of the journal Science.

Wind!? How are you going to build a user tax and fund a global bureaucracy on wind, for cryin’ out loud?

Oh, My!

clipped from www.dailykos.com

Spitting On Returning Troops Update

Our troops have been treated pretty well, all in all. The American Left apparently has cut through their muddled cloudiness that is their brains on Liberalism and determined that spitting on returning troops is not always a good idea.

But in Britain (which, as you know — unless, perhaps, you’re one of the people interviewed in the clip above — is a part of that advanced Liberal nirvana called Europe), the troops are not doing as well:

Scores of soldiers flying home from Afghanistan on Christmas leave were ordered to change out of their uniforms on a freezing runway before being allowed into a civilian airport terminal.

Troops were told not to be seen in public in their uniforms - which they had worn with pride while risking their lives during months of intense fighting against the Taliban.

Last night the Ministry of Defence and bosses at Birmingham International Airport blamed each other for the indignity suffered by the soldiers - which comes amid mounting anger over the treatment of British troops returning from war.

One soldier, who was ordered to undress for “security reasons”, said: “It is an insult to the entire Army to force guys who’ve been fighting in Afghanistan to obey some jobsworth rule when all they want to do is get home to their families.

“So much for a nation proud of its servicemen. The temperature was Baltic on the runway but most of just wanted to get home so we cracked on.”

The December 23 flight, carrying 200 personnel, had been diverted from RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire to Birmingham because of bad weather.

The troops were told they could either wait for coaches to take them back to Brize Norton or else travel home via public transport - in which case they must change into civilian clothes before entering the terminal. (Daily Mail)

The Brit’s Department of Defensed shuched and jived to come up with an excuse that I won’t bother to even pass on, but I liked this quote from Conservative MP Patrick Mercer, a former infantry commander:

“This is just the sort of thing that gets seriously up the noses of fighting troops.”

Indeed it does. (hat-tip: What Bubba Knows)

The quote from Zack of the Cockroach is rated the third most obnoxious of 2008 by John Hawkins of Right Wing News, in his post on the year’s 40 most obnoxious quotes.

They begin with #40, from Larry Craig:

“(I have) a wide stance when going to the bathroom.”

… and end with … well, you’ll have to see.

BTW, I was going to start with the second most obnoxious quote, but even with all the hyphens, it’s just too obscene from concept to delivery to post.

hat-tip: memeorandum