RED CHINA WILL CLOSE BORDERS IF/WHEN MUTATED BIRD FLU STRIKES!

"Reuters" -

China will close its borders if it finds a single case of human-to-human transmission of bird flu there, a Hong Kong newspaper reported on Saturday ... Saving lives would be Beijing's top priority in efforts to contain a possible outbreak of bird flu, even if it meant slowing the economy, Huang Jiefu, a vice minister of health, was quoted as saying by the South China Morning Post.

Er, umm... whattayathink THAT would do to the world economy?!?!? Yipes!

NYTIMES MELTDOWN: DOWD LASHES OUT IN SCATHING PERSONAL ATTACK ON MILLER

I saw a DT version of the NYTIMES today, and read Dowd (I got a tip earlier in the day that it was a "hot" column). BOY WUZZIT! THERE WAS ONLY ONE POINT TO THE COLUMN: Dowd viciously attacking Judith Miller. I would call it a one-sided cat-fight only Dowd is way way way WAY too bitchy. Then again, maybe mentioning bitches and cat-fights in the same sentence as Maureen Dowd is an insult to dogs and cats everywhere!

Anyhow.... HOW BIZARRE IZZIT THAT A NYTIMES COLUMNIST IS ATTACKING ONE OF ITS STAR REPORTERS (on the same day she is attacked by its managing editor, Keller)!?!?

There is only one explanation: The NYTIMES has begun to MELTDOWN! Don't believe me!? Well, imagine if - at NRO - Jonah Goldberg viciously attacked KJ Lopez. IMPOSSIBLE YOU SAY!? Right. And now you've got an inkling of how weird this really is. There might be another partial explanation: Dowd - like Krugman and Herbert and Keller and the rest of the NYTIMES - has no shame. Like the rest of the Left!

(MEMEORANDUM has a round-up: Jeff Jarvis / BuzzMachine:Dowd v. Miller; The Huffington Post, Captain's Quarters and Instapundit.com .) More HERE (hat tip Memeorandum.)

SUNDAY UPDATE: On MTP today, Frank Rich admitted that the NYTIMES is in disarray and in a crisis. SO PINCH: whattyathink is the remedy.... moving FURTHER TO THE LEFT!?!?!?

MUSIC LOVER'S WORLD LOSES TRUE GENIUS

SHIRLEY HORN DEAD AT 71. She had a lovely voice and was a phenomenal jazz pianist, too. I had the great fortune of seeing her perform many times, including once at a small. intimate club in NYC - The Village Vanguard. She was a gem. Miles' favorite.

Which reminds me, the music lover's world lost another great musician not too long ago (and I think I neglected to acknowledge it at the time): Clarence Gatemouth Brown - a great fiddle player, a great guitarist, and a great singer. Oh yeah, he also led a Big Band once - a Texas Swing Band, as the drummer! When I lived in New Orleans I used to see him every time I had the chance, and I was never disappointed; he was a joyful performer.

I miss them both already. May they both Rest In Peace.

IN A WAY, THE 2005 WORLD SERIES PITS HILLARY'S CHICAGOANS AGAINST THE PRESIDENT'S HOUSTONIANS

And I think W kicks Hillary's ass: Houston in 5.

RELIGION OF PEACE (ROP) NEWS

(1)Three dead as 'anti-Islam' play triggers church riot -- Scotsman, UK - 4 hours ago

THREE people have died during a riot outside a Coptic church in Alexandria, Egypt, after a protest against a play accused of offending Islam. ...

(1A) Christian DVD sparks riot -- CNN - 13 hours ago

Demonstrators gather at a Coptic Christian church Friday to denounce a play deemed offensive to Islam. ALEXANDRIA, Egypt (AP) -- One ...

(2) Muslim student stabs Coptic nun -- New Zealand Herald, New Zealand - 20 hours ago

Muslim student stabbed and seriously wounded a Coptic novitiate nun inside a church in the Egyptian port city of Alexandria yesterday amid tensions over a ...

ONE WEEK THEY RIOT OVER REPORTS OF A FLUSHED KORAN, ANOTHER WEEK THEY GANG RAPE A WOMAN TO RESTORE HONOR TO THEIR FAMILY, ANOTHER WEEK THEY BLOW-UP HUNDREDS OF SHIAS DURING A FUNERAL IN A MOSQUE, ANOTHER WEEK THEY THREATEN A DANISH NEWSPAPER BECASUE IT RAN A DRAWING OF A LIKENESS OF THEIR PROPHET. ALL IN THE NAME OF THEIR FAITH - AN "ROP."

I COULD GO ON. NUFF SAID.

FORMER POWELL AIDE IMAGINES A CHENEY-RUMSFELD "CABAL"

Powell's former chief of staff says that Bush is uninterested in foreign policy and that it's run by a Cheney-Rumsfeld Cabal! (CAN YOU IMAGINE: a twice elected Veep [who was himself a SecDef], and one of the most experienced SecDefs EVER have A LOT OF INFLUENCE!? HOW OUTRAGEOUS! [Sarcasm off.]) Lawrence Wilkerson's use of the word "CABAL" has very interesting and probably intended overtones; cabal is obviously code for neo-con/Zionists. AND LET'S NOT FORGET THAT THIS IS NOT THE FIRST TIME WILKERSON HAS GONE OUT OF HIS WAY TO HURT BUSH: He slandered Bolton during his confirmation process; (Jehl/Weiseman, New York Times, April 19 - hat tip: NTI).

All I can say to the "Cheney-Rumsfeld Cabal" is this: When you piss off folks like Wilkerson, you must be doing something right!

QUESTION: IS BUSH'S 2ND TERM A FAILURE SO FAR? ANSWER: NO!

PROOF.

SENSENBRENNER INTRODUCES BILL TO BREAK UP 9TH CIRCUIT INTO MORE COURTS

BETSY'S THINGS: Representative Sensenbrenner has introduced a bill to break up the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. This is a long overdue measure, but I doubt that the Democrats will allow this to pass while Bush is president. Consider, however, these statistics.

The Ninth has 47 judges, a figure that approaches twice the number of total judges of the next largest circuit. The Ninth represents 56-million people, or roughly one- fifth of our nation's population. This is 25-million more people than the second largest circuit.

RELIAPUNDIT: If they carve a few more courts out the 9th, it would be good for ALL the people of out West, who right now have a very Leftist court which is VERY VERY over-worked and which can barely keep up with its workload. Betsy thinks this will get fillerbusted by the Leftist Dems. I think this would be GREAT issue to onvoke the "Constitutional Option" and re-tool the fillerbuster altogether. WHY? The Senate fillerbuster rule is anti-democratic -- SMALL "d".

SYRIA'S ASSAD REGIME ON VERGE...

10/21 -- UPDATE: NYTIMES/AP: The international community must find a way to hold Syrian authorities accountable for the death of a leading Lebanese reformer, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Friday. Rice said she was deeply troubled by a U.N. report implicating Syria in the killing last February of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Rice spoke to reporters after the release of a report by U.N. investigator Detlev Mehlis that established a clear link between Syrian officials and their Lebanese allies in Hariri's murder. She declined to discuss next steps, beyond saying that some kind of international mechanism must be established to ensure that Syria is held accountable.

I have been arguing for a while that Syria's tyrant Assad -- and his murderous socialist/baathist henchmen -- would soon be through - one way or another. Last year I even wrote a post arguing that the ROAD TO TEHRAN GOES THROGH DAMASCUS. Well, the evidence is mounting that this is going to happen SOONER RATHER THAN LATER. Here's are 3 news items from YESTERDAY:

(1)"Reuters" - The head of a U.N. investigation into the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri turned over to Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Thursday a report that diplomatic and political sources said would implicate Syrian and Lebanese officials. Annan planned to transmit the report by veteran German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis to the 15-nation Security Council and to the Lebanese government on Friday. The United States is seeking tough action against Syria and Western powers are already discussing their response. Mehlis had no plan to give an advance copy to Damascus, U.N. chief spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. Syria has grown increasingly nervous over how strongly the report will implicate its officials in the assassination of Hariri and 20 others in a Beirut truck bombing on February 14.

(2) NYTIMES - Syrian opposition grows bolder: "As international pressure on Syria rises, the country's historically quarrelsome and divided opposition groups have issued a broad call for democratic change in the form of a statement that is being called the "Damascus declaration." The Damascus declaration, which was issued on Oct. 16, calls for an end to Syria's emergency laws and other forms of political repression, and for a national conference on democratic change. The statement comes at a particularly tense time for Syria, which is being pressed by the United States and other Western nations to stop foreign fighters from crossing its eastern border into Iraq and to end its suspected interference in Lebanese and Palestinian affairs."

(3) ALSO NYTIMES: "Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, facing tough questions about Iraq from Republican and Democratic senators, asserted that progress was being made in securing the country but declined to predict when American forces could withdraw or to rule out widening the war to Syria. ... Ms. Rice was also peppered with questions about possible expansion of the fighting to Syria and Iran, especially after she said both countries had to decide whether they were on the side of war or peace in Iraq. Asked about news reports that fighting on the border could spread to Syria, Ms. Rice repeatedly indicated that no options were being ruled out. "

So, STAY TUNED... (ASIDE: remember, once Syria falls, Iran will be completely isolated and surrounded...)

IN 1991, SADDAM DIRECTLY THREATENED THE USA WITH TERROR ATTACKS - and in 2003 Bush FINALLY did something about it!

SADDAM: "The United States wants to secure the flow of oil. This understandable and known. But it must not deploy methods which the United States says it disapproves of -- flexing muscles and pressure. If you use pressure, we will deploy pressure and force. We know that you can harm us although we do not threaten you. But we too can harm you. Everyone can cause harm according to their ability and their size. We cannot come all the way to you in the United States, but individual Arabs may reach you."

This quote proves that Bush was right to dethrone Saddam because this was a direct threat to the continental USA - one which could not be tolerated in a post 9/11 world.

This blatant threat coupled with the fact that Saddam had used WMD (against his own citizens in Halabja, and against Iranians), and was sponsoring international terror (by sending money to Palestinian terrorist groups) and was harboring terrorists (including Zarqawi and Abu Nidal) and was firing on our jets patrolling the NO-FLY ZONES (which were the only things preventing his continued genocide against the Kurds and the Shias) made his continued rule over Iraq a serious threat.

In 1998, the Congress passed and Clinton signed the Iraq Liberation Act - making regime change in Iraq the official policy of the USA. IN ADDITION, Saddam was in violation of several UNSCR's - which constituted the armistice for the Gulf War, and therefore - technically and legally - a state of war existed. When the UNSC unanimously oassed UNSCR #1441, they specifically warned Saddam that this was his last chance to get back into good graces, and what did he do??? Saddam filed what is UNIVERSALLY regarded as a false declaration. This essentially burned his final chance.

By using force to oust Saddam, all Bush did was implement UNSCR's and defend the security of the USA. This was - and remains - the president's most important duty, and in regard to Iraq, it was a duty he had the Congressional authority to ensure with the use of force - and authority granted to him in October of 2002 - THREE MONTHS BEFORE THE SOTU IN WHICH HE CITED BRITISH INTEL' ABOUT IRAQ'S ATTEMPTS TO BUY URANIUM IN AFRICA --- A FACT WHICH WAS ONLY A SINGLE FACET OF A MULTIFACETED CASE AGANIST SADDAM.

I bring this up today because with all the hubbub surrounding the Plamegate grand jury, and the Saddam Trial, I think it's important to remember that the first job of ALL presidents is to protect and defend the USA. We should NEVER allow our nation to be governed by a president - a COMMANDER IN CHIEF - who makes that a secondary priority - as Clinton did (remember, BJ Clinton didn't do enough to strengthen our defenses or counterattack our enemies after Somalia, the African embassy bombings, the Khobar bombing, the USS Cole attack. Still don't believe me that Clinton was DERELICT? Then just read the Freeh book!).

BOTTOM-LINE: Ousting Saddam made his threat to us moot. And it has changed Kaddafy, freed Lebanon - and will soon liberate Syria, too. And utterly isolate Iran.

It took great courage for Bush to stick by his guns and do the right thing. We are safer as a result (because Saddam canno threaten us or the Saudis or the Israelis or anyone else) - and the world is becoming a better place, too: democracy is spreading, and the swamp which breeds jihadoterrorism is draining - (that swamp is NOT anti-Americanism; it is tyranny and the poverty and ignorance which tyranny produces). In Iraq we are killing jihadoterrorists and we are constructing a society which will diminish the appeal of jihadoterrorism, and which will inspire other peoples and other nations - which are under the thrall of tyranny - to become free - as in Lebanon.

Joe Wilson - andf those who use him - are using LIES in a YEARS OLD attempt to show that the war was not justified. They are wrong. I think I have proven they are wrong, FOR EVEN IF BUSH NEVER MENTIONED AFRICA AND URANIUM IN HIS SOTU, USING FORCE TO OUST SADDAM WAS RIGHT! And in September of 2002 - BEFORE Congress authorized Bush to use force to oust Saddam - Bush spoke to the UNGA and gave a long laundry list of reasons why Saddam had to go, and why his exit would lead to the spread of democracy and proerity and peace.

People like Joe Wilson and Dean and Pelosi ignore the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act and the SEPTEMBER 2002 speech AND the OCTOBER 2002 Joint Congressional Resolution authorizing the use of force against Saddam, (AND MERELY FOCUS ON ONE SENTENCE IN A 2003 SOTU).

People like Joe Wilson and Dean and Pelosi (and Bill Clinton) are bad for our national security. They are untrustworthy, cowardly, mendacious self-serving jerks who have directly and indirectly aided our enemies. Wilson is one of the worst culprits; he has used outright LIES to try to cast a negative light on Bush's courageous decision to use force to oust Saddam. Wilson should go on trial after Saddam!

ADDENDUM: the FACT that Saddam should have been removed will NOT be changed ONE IOTA even if Rove and/or Libby are indicted FOR ANYTHING. But that will not stop the Left - and the MSM they still dominate - from spinning any indictments as "proof that Bush lied, and people died - needlessly, (or for oil)."

RAMPAGING REDISTRIBUTIONISM RUINING SOUTH AMERICA

FROM PUBLIUS:

SOCIALIST REDISTRIBUTION

Miguel Buitrago of MABB on Bolivia has a chart showing that the regions in Bolivia that receive the most and the least government spending.

Guess which ones are the richest and which ones are the poorest? Go see here. For those who claim more government spending means more wealth, that the rich are only rich at the expense of the poor, that there is only so much to go around, that the economic pie is only a matter of slicing and not expanding, that redistribution from rich to poor is the only answer, there are going to be some surprises. But for fans of Hayek and Bastiat, the classical economics about the nature of government spending and how the more government expands, the less private sector there is, it’s a full-page advertisement for the free market.

He's got links to stuff about Bolivia and Venezuela - and how they're being DESTROYED by the same thing that turned RICH RHODESIA into IMPOVERISHED ZIMBABWE: redistributionism. RTWT.

PREDICTION: WHEN FITZGERALD ANNOUNCES THERE WILL BE NO INDICTMENTS IN PLAMEGATE...

PREDICTION: WHEN FITZGERALD ANNOUNCES THERE WILL BE NO INDICTMENTS IN PLAMEGATE, THE LEFT WILL CALL FOR A SPECIAL PROSECUTOR TO INVESTIGATE THE SPECIAL PROSECUTOR!

See below...

PLAMEGATE SPECIAL PROSECUTOR WON'T ISSUE REPORT

FITZGERALD WON'T BE ISSUING A FINAL REPORT. Well,, er... um, he can't; it would be ILLEGAL! Anyhow, he PROBABLY won't be indicting anyone either, becasue NO CRIME WAS COMMITTED!

PREDICTION: WHEN FITZGERALD ANNOUNCES THERE WILL BE NO INDICTMENTS, THE DEM/LEFT WILL CALL FOR A SPECIAL PROSECUTOR TO INVESTIGATE THE SPECIAL PROSECUTOR! Heh!

SERIOUSLY: the SOTU in question - the one mendacious Joe Wilson referred to in his INFAMOUS NYTIMES Op-Ed - was delivered to a joint session of Congress in January 2003, just a few months before the war to oust Saddam. (IMPORTANTLY: Bush NEVER said the word "Niger" in the speech, and specifically cited British intelligence which the Lord Butler Report investigated after the war and found to be valid).

Congress gave Bush the AUTHORITY AND POWER TO MAKE WAR IN OCTOBER OF 2002. Three months BEFORE the SOTU in question!

Therefore, the Dem/Left's contention that Bush MISLED us into war, and that the 16 word-sentence in which cited British intel' was a key part of Bush's deliberate "over-hyping" of the potential of Saddam's WMD threat IS ENTIRELY BOGUS.

Since this charge is BOGUS, there is ABSOLUTELY NO MOTIVATION for Bush or Rove or Cheney or Libby to have to go to ANY EXTREME to discredit Joe Wilson; his charges were untrue; his report did not show what he claimed it showed in his NYTIMES Op-Ed, and there was no need to punish him or his wife or anyone.

The charge that Bush/Rove/Cheney/Libby were "OUT TO GET JOE WILSON" is merely a figment of the idiotically paranoid and confused Left - which has ALWAYS argued that AshKKKroft and SmirkingchimpBusHitler were bigger threats to the USA than Saddam or jihadoterrorism and islamofascism.

On top of that, Bush repeatedly said that we could not wait for the threat to become IMMINENT, and had to act preventatively, BEFORE Saddam had any nuclear weapons, (an ambition he definitively had). So to criticize Bush for acting too soon/"RUSHING TO WAR" - BEFORE an imminent threat was apparent - is too make the charge DOUBLY BOGUS. We did NOT rush to war on deliberately slanted intel'.

That all this criticism of Bush is coming down NOW - JUST AFTER THE REPUBLIC OF IRAQ HAS APPROVED A CONSTITUTION AND IS EMERGING AS THE FIRST TRUE ARAB DEMOCRACY - is a shameful sickening display of irrational Bush hatred and self-loathing by a political faction which has almost always taken the side of our enemies and has loathed everything America has always stood for - it is a shameful display of anti-0libertarianism by the prescriptionary statists, the groupist utopianists, and redistributionary elitists of the Left.

Now is the time we should all be rejoicing and praising Bush's courage and the courage and sacrifice of our armed forces.

May God Bless America, and help the Iraqis achieve democracy and liberty and prosperity and peace.

AND MAY WE ALL SOON FORGET THIS WHOLE PLAMEGATE SIDESHOW!

BUSH NUMBERS ARE LOW BECAUSE THE BIASED MSM DELIBERATELY EXACERBATES ANGST

VDH has written another BRILLIANT essay; RTWT. HERE ARE A FEW KEY EXCERPTS:

Americans — never more affluent or privileged — are in a gloomy mood. ... In sheer numbers, more people are working than at any time in our history. Home ownership is at record levels. We haven't been attacked in more than four years.

And yet even low unemployment, low inflation and low interest rates have not brought the public a sense of calm, given the worry over energy costs, national debt and the war abroad. Usually such angst — less than half the population expresses confidence in the administration — would lead to the opposition’s advantage. It hasn't, as the Democrats are offering no systematic alternative to meet the growing anguish.

And the fatalism of a normally can-do public grows. Voters no longer trust once tight-fisted Republicans to balance the budget, while the old war party of Wilson, Roosevelt, Truman and Kennedy is no longer credible on national security.

The voters want to both expand traditional domestic energy sources and to curtail consumption, but the two horn-locked parties see these solutions as either/or rather than compatible.

The result of this petrified leadership is that while things are not nearly as bad as they seem, the public in its frustration feels they are far worse.

ME: If the MSM were not dominated by the Left (as NEWSWEEK editor Evan Thomas -- son of famous Lefty Norman Thomas -- asserted in 2004, and as ALL studies prove -- more HERE and HERE and HERE) then the public would FEEL better about where we're at right now. And Bush's poll numbers would reflect that. mThe MSM is DELIBERATELY tryoing to foment a GLOOMY MOOD in order to drive Bush's numbers down and thereby help their Dem/Left comrades.

Take for instance that the current economic numbers on unemployment, employment, inflation, home ownership ARE ALL GREAT - as good OR BETTER as during the "boom-boom" Clinton Years. Yet the MSM NEVER plays it that way; they have always consistently portrayed the economy as doing badly. This has depressed Bush's numbers, too. As does the incessant negative reporting about Iraq; the MSM NEVER reports any good news; they just give a running body count. Even the election and referendum were reported in muted ways, and SHEESH: these two elections were the two of the most important POSITIVE events in the CENTURY!

NOT TO WORRY: (as VDH points out) as long as the Dem/Left fails to articluate a viable alternative set of policies which reflect our CURRENT situation - (AND NOT MERELY A KNEE-JERK REACTIONARY DEFENSE OF FDR/LBJ DOMESTIC POLICIES, AND NEO-ISOLATIONIST ECONOMIC POLICIES AND AN OVER-EMPHASIS OF MULTILATERAL PROCESSES AND INSTITUTIONS) - the Dem/left will fail to achieve a majority.

Thank God.

BIRD FLU AND EUROPE: why Katrina and Europe's 2003 heat Wave prove that Europe is headed for another socialist genocide

The UK's Health Minister has said she is completely satisfied with her nation's preparations for the possible Bird Flu Pandemic. BBC:

British is one of the best prepared countries to deal with a human pandemic of bird flu should one occur, the Health Secretary has told MPs. Patricia Hewitt was confident enough was being done and stressed the disease was "no direct threat" to humans yet. Antiviral drugs are being stockpiled, vaccine research is underway and UK experts are going to South East Asia to see how an outbreak might be tackled. ... On Sunday, Chief Medical Officer Sir Liam Donaldson warned if such a mutation did happen a bird flu pandemic could kill 50,000 people in the UK. But he said this was unlikely to happen this winter. Patricia Hewitt told the House of Commons on Monday Britain was doing all it should be to prepare for any future outbreak. "I'm satisfied that we are making exactly the preparations that we need." The UK has so far stockpiled 2.5m doses of anti-viral drugs. Ms Hewitt said the government was also procuring two to three million doses of vaccine against H5N1 as "a precautionary measure". Although this probably would not protect against a mutant strain that is able to spread easily between humans, it could be used in research and be given to priority groups, such as health service workers, until experts are able to make a more exact vaccine.

I am NOT so hopeful about the preparations in the UK -- or the EU for that matter. The UK's NHS (the socialist health service) is already a shoddy, poorly run outfit - itself the target of countless scandals and shortfalls in areas of routine care (like the inability to give antibiotics to probable STD patients for weeks because of test-result delays!) - HOW CAN THEY HANDLE A MAJOR PUBLIC HEALTH CRISIS?! What makes them think they can!? Pure socialist hubris.

The people of the continent of Europe are also victimized by a poorly run socialist medical system - REMEMBER: 45,000 people DIED in the 2003 heat wave! [ASIDE: That's 45 TIMES more than the number of Coalition Troops who have died in 3 1/2 years in Afganistan and Iraq! In a frigging little heat wave!] On top of that, the EU has eliminated most of its border controls, controls which MIGHT have been useful in "putting on the brakes" of any outbreak.

That's why I expect the UK and the EU to be utterly devastated IF there is a pandemic of human-to-human transmissable Bird Flu. Their public health systems suck.

The Left of the EU will continue to deny this, of course. Like Gerhard Schroeder, who had the audacity to lash out at America in his farewell speech, and specifically deride the USA because, in his mind (and as portrayed by the left-wing dominated MSM), Katrina exposed the heartless incompetencies of American-style "small government" and proved that Euro-style "big government"/socialism was better at handling public crises. BAH HUMBUG! Katrina exposed incompetence and corruption at the LOCAL AND STATE GOVERNMENT - specifically in Nawlins and Louisiana, and even with those horrifically inept responses Katrina only killed 1100 people (in an area the size of Great Britain!). Contrast this to the relatively BENIGN 2003 heatwave, which in socialist Deutschland alone killed 7000!

As I said before: This does NOT bode well for the socialist EU! YUP: I'd say that the Katrina/Heat-Wave comparison proves that the EU is MOST LIKELY headed for a horrendously huge health crisis, and perhaps millions and millions dead if AND WHEN the Bird Flu mutates in a strain that's transmissable from human-to-human.