BUSH, THE SIX PARTY TALKS AND NORTH KOREA

GOOD analysis HERE. And more proof that - (unlike what the Left and the Old Media would have you believe) - Bush has always, when appropriate, used patience and lithe multilateral diplomacy.

Bush also knows when to say "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH" - and on this count... the clock... is... ticking....

2005-2007: the Cusp of a New Era

I guess this is sort of a New Years post. One based on reflecting where we've been in the last year or so, and where I think we're headed in the next year or so. I guess this is sort of my SOTW (state of the world!).

I have the feeling - because of Bush's boldness and resolve - we are on the cusp of a new era; already on the horizon (internationally): Afghanistan and Iraq and Palestine all democratic; Jihadoterrorism largely defeated and discredited; reform on the way in other Arab countries; and the UN reformed. And domestically, we probably will reform Social Security, taxes, torts, and immigration.

Potential progress on these fronts is huge, and - if realized - it would put the Bush presidency on a footing with few equals.

After these successes, Old Europe and the Old Media will come around.

A few huge problems remain: North Korea; Syria and Iran; and the African tyrannies. I feel that Bush will confront these problems, too - and that, because of his imminent successes on the preceding fronts, he will be just as successful.

Of course, the enemy is NOT going to go down without a cunning and ruthless fight. They will counter-attack at every available moment, and attempt to rollback the progress. And, they'll counter-attack with greater and more terrible verocity the closer we get to victory - (remember: the Allies took more losses in the final 4 months of WW2 than in the preceding 4 years!). And, the enemy will counter-attack on many fronts, at our weakest spots - and when we least expect it. The enemy will attempt to distract us from victory on one front by drawing us into another front. (I expect Iran or North Korea to create a crisis just as we near victory in the Middle East.)

But, if we don't lose our resolve we'll win. Tyranny - (and the poverty and the ignorance and the hatred that tyranny foments) - will be replaced by democracy - (and the prosperity and the curiosity and the tolerance that democracy creates). The long hard painful march of humanity from tyranny to liberty has always been one-way. WHY?! Well, tyranny is so yesterday, and (as the wise man once said) yesterday has never defeated tomorrow.

ANOTHER KEY ARREST IN IRAQ

AFP - The US military said on Saturday that it had the arrested a militant linked to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's Al Qaeda-linked group in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. US Brigadier General Erv Lessel said the top lieutenant for the Zarqawi-linked Abu Talha cell in Mosul, Aziz Sadun Ahmed Hamduni, had been detained on December 22, bringing to three the number of arrests of top leaders from the militant group in Mosul. "These terrorists and Saddamists are doing all they can to stop upcoming elections," Brig Gen Lessel said. Iraq's Government had already announced on Thursday the arrest of Hamduni, also known as Abu Ahmed.

MORE BELOW; SCROLL DOWN...

US "STEPS UP" REWARDS PROGRAM IN PAKISTAN

The US has taken out ads in Pakistan advertising rewards for info' leading to the arrest of 14 more alQaeda leaders believed to be in Pakistan. EXCERPTS:

ISLAMABAD (AFP) - The United States advertised rewards in a top Pakistani daily for information leading to the capture of 14 Al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders including Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar. ... The half-page advert in the Urdu language newspaper Jang, placed by the US embassy in Islamabad, features mugshots of the wanted men and said anyone giving details to a special email address or hotlines would remain anonymous. ... US officials believe they are hiding somewhere in the mountains on the porous border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, although all the key seizures to date have been in crowded Pakistani cities.

I think that - due to the rapidity with which his latest tapes arrived in the West (and his up-to-date awareness of news and his appearance)- the US realizes that OBL is in a city in Pakistan - or Iran. We probably can't buy ads in Iran... Let's hope greed trumps xenophobia, and someone comes forward with a good tip!

KUWAITIS NAB LOCAL ALQAEDA LEADER

KUWAIT (Agencies): Kuwait's authorities have arrested a leading Kuwaiti al-Qaeda suspect accused of enlisting youths to attack US forces in Iraq, a security source said on Friday. Mohsen al-Fadli - an Islamic militant hunted by state security since August for allegedly supporting al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden - was detained earlier this week and is being interrogated, the source told Reuters.

The Arab Gulf nations have largely been good allies in the GWOT; this is another example of their seriousness. I expect them to lead a major breakthrough in Arab Israeli relations after Abbas wins and the PA and GOI begein earnest negotiations.

LANTOS ARRIVES IN NORTH KOREA

U.S. Congressman Arrives in N. Korea for Four-day Trip

PYONGYANG, Jan. 8 (KCNA-Yonhap) -- A U.S. Congressman arrived in Pyongyang Saturday for a four-day trip expected to focus on North Korea's nuclear weapons program and human rights issues, the North's official news agency reported. Tom Lantos, the ranking Democrat on the House International Relations Committee, and four of his staff were met by an official at the airport in Pyongyang, the Korean Central News Agency said in a brief report.

Lantos is a gem - and he AIN'T freelancing, so keep your on on him for the next few days and after his return.

IRAQ'S DEFENSE MINISTER SHOWS PROOF SYRIA & IRAN AID COUNTER-REVOLUTION

From ARAB NEWS in SAUDI ARABIA ("REUTERS"):

Iraqi Minister Says Iran, Syria Back Insurgents

BAGHDAD, 8 January - Iraq’s interim defense minister said yesterday he had proof that Syria and Iran were backing the insurgency raging in Iraq with money and arms. In the latest accusation against Iraq’s neighbors, Hazim Al-Shaalan showed journalists a video of a man he said was the captured leader of an insurgent group called Mohammed’s Army, confessing to receiving aide from Iran and Syria, and threatened revenge. “We, especially in Mohammed’s Army, received a lot of help from Iran, which also supports most of the resistance groups in Iraq,” said the man, who identified himself as Col. Moayed Yassin Aziz Al-Nasiri, from Saddam Hussein’s disbanded army. The video’s authenticity could not be verified. Iran and Syria deny links with Iraq’s insurgents.

It's ultimatum time... or maybe we have to wait until Iraq elects their government - AND THEN THEY ISSUE AN ULTIMATUM OF THEIR OWN: "Stop aiding the counter-revolutionaries or we will counter-attack your nation!" Then, the Iraq government asks us for help - AND WHAM, we whack Iran and Syria destroying all their military assets!

ANCIENT FAITH: THE CHRISTIAN MIDDLE EAST

Here's a link to a fascinating article about Christians still trying to live out their faith in the hostile regions of eastern Syria, Turkey and Northern Iraq. EXCERPT:

One of the most ancient monasteries in the world, St Matthew's, stands on a barren mountainside in northern Iraq, its last inhabitant a crusty old Syrian Orthodox priest. Nestled between sandstone crags with views of the hills around ancient Nineveh, now called Mosul, it looks like the final redoubt of the Christian world. Seven thousand monks used to worship here; now there is just one, Father Ada Qadr al-Kars. This thinning of the ranks has taken centuries, he said, but in the valleys Iraq's Christian community, targeted with especial ferocity by Islamic extremists for the past year, is disappearing rapidly. Churches have been bombed, priests kidnapped and Christian neighbourhoods subjected to random shootings, the terrorists' revenge for the community's shared religion with the "Christian" invaders.

This article reminds me of a fact that I think post-modernists ("Edward Said-like" "orientalists" and Marxists and anti-colonialists) have pretty much successfully gotten the West to forget (because they dominate the "academy"):

Namely, that the nearly the entire Middle East - and North Africa, from Morocco to Egypt - was Christian LONG before the people were forcibly converted to Islam, AND THAT CHRISTIANITY IS AN ANCIENT INDIGENOUS FAITH TO THE AREA - AND NOT SOME EUROPEAN IMPORT!

Another FACT often over-looked - or deliberately obfuscated: the Crusades were DEFENSIVE WARS waged by the Church to RECAPTURE lands which had been taken by force!

The idea that Christianity is alien to the greater Middle East and that it's an alien "Western" presence in the greater Middle East and is in itself an affront to indigenous culture is FALSE. Christans - AND JEWS AND BAHAI'S AND SUFI'S - deserve to be able to live and worship ANYWHERE in the Middle East and North Africa - including Iraq, Iran Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Gaza! Those who would prevent the indigenous peoples of these regions from worshipping as they have for CENTURIES - and as they please NOW -are fascists who deserve - at best - our utter scorn.

WORLD'S PATHOLOGIES REMAIN

Imagine a world in which there was no United States during the last 15 years. Iraq, Iran, and Libya would now have nukes. Afghanistan would remain a seventh-century Islamic terrorist haven sending out the minions of Zarqawi and Bin Laden worldwide. The lieutenants of Noriega, Milosevic, Mullah Omar, Saddam, and Moammar Khaddafi would no doubt be adjudicating human rights at the United Nations. [...] Bosnia and Kosovo would be national graveyards like Pol Pot's Cambodia. Add in Kurdistan as well — the periodic laboratory for Saddam's latest varieties of gas. Saddam himself, of course, would have statues throughout the Gulf attesting to his control of half the world's oil reservoirs. Europeans would be in two-day mourning that their arms sales to Arab monstrocracies ensured a second holocaust. North Korea would be shooting missiles over Tokyo from its new bases around Seoul and Pusan. For their own survival, Germany, Taiwan, and Japan would all now be nuclear. Americans know all that — and yet they grasp that their own vigilance and military sacrifices have earned them spite rather than gratitude. [...]

So an entire mythology has grown up to accommodate this false world of ours — sadly never more evident than during the recent tsunami disaster, [...] So even in death and misery, the world's pathologies remain — as Israel is disinvited to help the dying as the most benevolent United States, which freed Afghanistan and toppled Saddam, is supposedly under scrutiny to "regain" its stature for its "crimes" of jailing a mass murderer and sponsoring elections in his place. Last year alone the United States gave more direct money to Egypt and Jordan than what the entire billion-person Muslim world has given for the dead in Indonesia. [...]

Apparently the crime against America is not that it gives too little to those who need it, but that it gives too little to those who wish to administer it all. When the terrible wave hit, Kofi Annan was escaping the conundrum of the Oil-for-Food scandal by skiing at Jackson Hole, so naturally George Bush down in 'ole Crawford Texas was the global media's obvious insensitive leader — "on vacation" as it were, while millions perished.

The U.S. military is habitually slurred even though it possesses the world's only lift and sea assets that could substantially aid in the ongoing disasters in Indonesia and Thailand. Blamed for having too high a profile in removing the Taliban and Saddam, it is now abused for having too meek a presence in Southeast Asia. "

VDH. 'F'N' A-1! RTWT, A/O! OK?! (H-T LGF and NRO).

INTERROGATING GONZALES

It strikes me as very revealing that the Democrats and the Left interrogate people like Gonzales more toughly than they would interrogate enemy combatants.

But, I guess that's to be expected from the kind of wackos who fear Ashcroft more than Bin Laden.

EQUALLY REVEALING: Most of the "Bush is a torturer" crap comes from guys with very questionable personal backgrounds: Kennedy left the scene of a vehicular homicide (to put it POLITLEY!); Biden was a plagiarist; Leahy an officialy reprimanded leaker of national secrets. And that's just the Lefties on the Judiciary Committee. Then there's Clinton - the serial rapist/adulterer/perjurer, and Sandy Berger - who got caught stealing TOP SECRET documents from the National Archives, and Kerry - the slanderer and "war criminal."

Whatta crew! Thank God they're NOT in control of interrogating Jihadoterrorists or national security!

REV JJ SINGS A SONG

In honor of Jesse Jackson's, Stephanie Tubbs Jones and Barbara Boxer's efforts to overturn Ohio's vote...

CLICK AND SING-ALONG with "JESSE"!

NATURE JOURNAL: "MASS GRAVES UNNECESSARY"

"07 January 2005; Mass graves not necessary for tsunami victims; Philip Ball / Report says need for rapid burial to avert health risks is a myth."

And then they cite the same source I did LAST WEEK:

The tragedy is that this concern about the health risk posed by the dead is misplaced. A report issued last September by the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) addressed the management of dead bodies in disaster situations. Its findings suggest that the corpses from the 26 December catastrophe pose no serious risk of spreading infection and disease.Bodies should always be buried in a way that allows for later exhumation, says the PAHO report. "The use of common graves should be avoided in all circumstances," it recommends. The report calls mass burials "a violation of the human rights of the surviving family members.

I hope, now that the MSM is finally on the case, that this abhorrent and unnecessary practice will never be used again. Sadly, it is too late for many - including - possibly - tourists:

Aussies may be in mass graves -- January 7, 2005

UNIDENTIFIED Australian tsunami victims could have been buried in mass graves in Thailand, Australian officials said today.But the head of the Australian Federal Police (AFP) forensic team leading the victim identification process in Thailand said Australians, if they had been buried in mass graves, would be identified and their remains returned home. AFP team leader Karl Kent said he was aware of the location of the graves and he was satisfied Thai authorities had acted responsibly when conducting mass burials. Asked if it were possible that foreigners could be in the graves, Mr Kent said: "Yes." "We know the sites, we have been informed about them. "All of those deceased persons will be exhumed and all will be examined using the international DVI (Disaster Victim Identification) protocol."

And of course, this may be true elsewhere, too - where there were far many more victims...

THREE WEEKS OF HELL

That's what I expect it to be like between now and the election in Iraq. 3 weeks of hell.

I'm not alone: Nick Wadhams of the Associated Press on January 7, 2005, 1:12 PM EST -

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- A top U.S. military official said today he expects that insurgents may try to carry out "spectacular" attacks as the Iraqi election draws near, while Sunni religious leaders called for unity but persisted in their demands that the vote be delayed.The comments by U.S. Air Force Brig. Gen. Erv Lessel echoed a warning by Iraq's prime minister the day before that insurgent violence would only increase ahead of the Jan. 30 election for a National Assembly.

And then there this item from a nation which collborated with Saddam, (and therefore may have sources within the counter-revolution):

PARIS (Reuters) - President Jacques Chirac has urged journalists not to go to Iraq after the disappearance of a French reporter which caused fears of a new hostage crisis. [...] "We are terribly worried," Paris-based media rights watchdog Reporters Without Borders said in a statement. "The situation in Iraq is such that nothing can be ruled out."

The recent attack which destroyed a 35 TON Bradley Fighting Vehicle is just a taste of what the Jihadoterrorists have in store for us. WHY DO I SUSPECT THIS? Because so much is at stake; it's make or break time for Jihadism in Iraq, and they know it. And their only weapon is TERROR: inflicting a horrifying loss which shakes our will. By definition then, subsequent terrorist attacks must be more terrifying than preceding ones. Perhaps a Shia mosque will be blown up? Or another larger group of Iraqi election officials beheaded? I dunno, but be sure and brace yourself.

ABORTION POLICY IN CHINA

Two news items on abortion policy in China.

First, this story - (HAT TIP K-Lo of THE CORNER) - China intends to outlaw selective gender abortions. These are prevalent in China; there are now 40 million more men than women in China, and the government wants to halt this imbalance.

The imbalance is primarily due to ANOTHER Chinese government policy: family planning limits parents to one child per household. In fact, China uses COERCIVE practices to force parents to limit themselves to one child (Links to an article from AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL.) ! (More HERE and HERE.)

So... many parents decide that if they can only have one child, they want a boy - and so they have sonograms to determine the gender of the baby, AND ABORT THE BABY IF IT'S A GIRL!

Bottom-line: the Chinese government wants parents to accept the gender of their first born, and then abort ALL subsequent pregnancies regardless of the baby's gender - a politically correct solution which of course is nothing more than genocide.

YEAH: GENOCIDE. The tyrannical government of China coerces parents to abort. Because ALL Chinese are coerced to abort this may seem to some people to be fair; the Chinese government is merely trying to control population, and since the Chinese government has SO MANY RESPONSIBILITIES over that population (because it is still a socialist state) this control seems within their rights.

Naturally, no government anywhere should have that much control over anybody. People should be able to have as many kids as they choose - and as long as they take care of the kids, they can keep them, and keep having them. It's their business, not mine, not yours, not the state's.

What gets me is this: IMO, the pro-abortion lobby in the USA makes their most powerful case FOR abortion rights when they argue that the STATE should not have control over a woman's body. Well, that libertarian argument certainly runs counter to the situation in China where the state COERCES women to have abortions - which is, after all, ANOTHER way that the state takes control over a woman's body. SO it seems to me that the pro-abortion folks here ought to be making a HUGE stink about China's fascist family-planning policy. But they aren't.

BOTTOM-LINE: If one favors abortion rights on the basis of personal liberty then one should oppose China's policy. If one is anti-abortion on the grounds that one believes that life begins at conception (and all life should be honored and protected), then one must oppose China's policy.

Therefore, there is no moral basis for supporting China's policy.

The only basis is non-interventionist isolationism and moral/cultural relativism. But based on these creeds, there is no basis for intervening anywhere to stop "internal" genocide or slavery.

Which is what is happening in China: parents are virtual slaves of the state because they are coerced by the state into aborting their own babies - which is genocide.

When will the world cry out to make China stop their inhumane policies which amount to nothing more than slavery and genocide!? How many millions must die!?

PERSPECTIVE: 200 times more babies have been aborted in China because of this policy than people died in the tsunami. Think about it. Then think about this: since Roe v Wade, 200 times more pregnancies were aborted in the USA than people died in the tsunami.

Interrogating or Conversing: which will yield more information from Jihadoterrorists?

Via Michele Malkin - Heather McDonald on interrogating Jihadoterrorists:

"... district attorneys and police detectives routinely invoke the possibility of harsh criminal penalties to get criminals to confess. Federal prosecutors in New York have even been known to remind suspects that they are more likely to keep their teeth and not end up as sex slaves by pleading to a federal offense, thus avoiding New York City’s Rikers Island jail. Using such a method against an al-Qaida jihadist, by contrast, would be branded a serious humanitarian breach."

IMHO: Interrogators who cannot use coercive techniques on terrorists will not get as much information as ones that can and do. Disallowing all coercive techniques in order to banish torture is nothing more than throwing the baby out with the bathwater! Coercive techniques are part of the "arsenal" of a normal interrogation; they're the "stick" the "bad cop" uses when the "good cop's" "carrot" fails. In fact, they make each other MORE effective!

NOW... We all want the people in our armed forces to have the very best equipment. RIGHT?! SO... why do some - mostly naive hand-wringing idealists on the Left - want to "DISARM" our interrogators?! It makes NO SENSE!

RTWT.

And read MM everyday!

UPDATE 1/7: Lowry/NRO/the corner ("MORE ON INTERROGATION") has an example of coercive interrogation making a big difference.

OIL AND WATER

One of the many images that have bolstered me in the last few days have been the photos that the US Navy have been posting at their website which show how well and hard our military has been working to ameliorate the suffering of the millions of people hurt by the recent tsunami. (HAT TIP PRESTOPUNDIT.)

One little part of the imagery has stuck in my mind: photo after photo of water bottles - being filled; being ditributed. We have all heard so much about how getting clean water to the area is critical to prevent disease and more death. Well, that's a lot of what we've being doing - getting the survivors clean water.

AND... all of the water bottles are of course PLASTIC. Now, this would be hardly noticeable to most people in the world: most of the world is young, and they don't remember the days when ALL bottles were glass. I DO. Can you imagine the added problems and costs we'd be facing if all the many MILLIONS of water bottles being filled and distributed were GLASS? The added weight... the breakage. The difficulty of handling. Sheesh.

And all those many millions of water bottles are made from OIL. And delivered by ships and planes and heliocopters that run on OIL. And all those hospitals all over the region that are filled with injured victims of the tsunami - they are all lighted with OIL, cooled with OIL; their OR's are lighted by OIL, too. As are the water purifiers we are delivering all powered by oil.

Without OIL, the rescue would be impossible; with less oil, or more expensive oil, the rescue would be less effective, and more costly. And more lives would be lost.

WE NEED OIL. The WHOLE WORLD NEEDS OIL. OIL IS NOT THE CONSPICUOUSLY SOLD OR CONSPICUOUSLY CONSUMED LUXURY ITEM THAT THE LEFT WOULD HAVE YOU BELIEVE IT IS.

Oil is a necessity - the most basic commodity of the world economy. Without oil (and the products and the energy from oil) modern life would cease to function, and rescue missions - like the one now on-going in the Indian Ocean - would be IMPOSSIBLE.

I GRANT YOU: this is a minor point, one that should not be necessary to make. But the recent onslaught of anti-oil Leftist propaganda makes me feel it's necessary to reiterate.

"NO BLOOD FOR OIL!" was an awful and shallow harangue that belittled BOTH our aims in liberating Iraq, AND our NEED FOR OIL.

A need which President James Earl Carter clearly and unequivocably spelled out in his 1980 SOTU:

"Let our position be absolutely clear: An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force."

Carter was right then, and The Carter Doctrine is still right: we mustn't allow Jihadoterrorism to gain control of the world's oil by gaining control of Iraq or Saudi Arabia. And that is PART of what is at stake in the GWOT today in Iraq.

OIL: it's not just about the "First World's" ability to drive big cars. It's the whole world's ability to produce prosperity and to respond to global calamities.

Next time you hear an anti-globalist Leftist or Luddite deride the West's insatiable need for oil, tell him to try to go a day without it! And ask him: would he rather the whole world was like the Third World, or would he prefer those in the Third World to become materially better off... MORE LIKE THE FIRST WORLD!?

Well, we'll never make the people of the Third World more materially rich by having the First World consume less and buy less; that would just create a GLOBAL recession and more poverty - FOR EVERYBODY EVERYWHERE! NOPE, to improve the lives of people in the Third World we have to build more power plants and produce more goods. That means find, mine, refine and use more OIL., because it's the lifeblood of the modern world. It's what enables us - in the First World - to enjoy each day, create prosperity, and to help those less fortunate make tomorrow a better day.

SEVERAL KEY JIHADOTERRORISTS ARRESTED IN IRAQ

From AFP: Zarqawi followers arrested

From correspondents in Baghdad, Iraq

January 7, 2005

US forces and Iraqi police detained two leaders of Islamist cells linked to al-Qaeda terror chief in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the US military said today.The arrests came in two restive cities of the Sunni Muslim insurgency, Mosul and Baquba. Yesterday, Iraqi police netted two Islamic extremists in Baquba, 60 kilometres north-east of Baghdad, the military said. Police captured Karem Abed Ibrahim, who has "ties to the Zarqawi network in Baghdad", said Colonel Dana Pittard, head of the 1st Infantry Division in Baquba. "It'll put a dent in the insurgency."

It seems to me that the enemy is getting bolder and more desperate as we approach the election. They're being met with superior force and resolve, and we are defeating them, killing them, arresting them. Their days are numbered. The anti-Bush Old Media may not depect it that way; they prefer to depict Iraq's deadly struggle to achieve democracy as a pointless quagmire. In fact, I betchya you won't read about these arrests in the Old Media. Pity: in their insatiable desire to bring down Bush and the USA, the Left and thge Old Media they dominate are missing a great story - humanity's age-old battle against tyranny.

RTWT.

KERRY IN DAMASCUS FRIDAY

According to the Kuwaiti News Agency, Kerry will meet with Assad on Friday.

I predict that - if Kerry follows his old pattern, (of meeting with the enemy and then carrying their water) - it means we can expect him to start speechifying on behalf of terrorists and enemy combatants as soon as he gets back with their instructions! I expect something like: "Let's use a carrot with Syria and Iran - and not a stick." Which ought to make the "chic European appeaserati" happy! Which leads me to wonder: how will Kerry "use" the Gonzales confirmation vote? I predict as an opportunity to trash the US military and law enforcement agencies, and thereby make the Jihadoterrorists - and their Baathist allies - happy, too!

UPDATE: According to NEWSMAX Kerry - while in Bagdhad - is already trashing the USA! It's a virtual resprise of his Fonda-Vietcong days: giving moral aid to the enemy! Sheesh: it only proves that Kerry - like so many other Left-wing McGovernite anti-Americans - never really changed. Pity: the world HAS changed.

UPDATED 1/8: see WIZBANG.

*******UPDATE 1/8******* CLICK HERE. NOW! That's an order from Greyhawk at Mudville!

DEMOCRATS JUMP SHARK!

I just watched Barbara Boxer's presser in which she explained why she will challenge the counting of the Electoral College votes today. SHEESH! This is really the last straw; the Dems have really lost it - JUMPED THE SHARK! "OHIO-OHIO-OHIO!" "Fraud fraud fraud, long lines, discouraged voters, glitches, errors!"

They just don't get it!

It's as if they live in a parallel universe where terrorists deserve ACLU lawyers and wars and elections are perfect. They've become cry-babies! Whining, hand-wringing, terrorist coddling cry-babies!

The clincher: Bush LOST more states BY CLOSER MARGINS in 2000 and in 2004 than Kerry or Gore and yet contested NOTHING!

YUP: BUSH LOST BY SMALLER MARGINS IN THESE STATES THAN KERRY DID IN OHIO, AND YET HE CONTESTED NOTHING!

That's how adults who live in the real world behave.

I for one - a 4th generation registered Democrat (for the time being) - am ashamed of the Democrats, and PROUD I VOTED FOR BUSH!

UPDATE: Well, the Dems just objected to the Electoral College Count during the Joint Session, and the two bodies are withdrawing to their own chambers for 2 hours of debate. WHAT A WASTE! The Dems have demonstrated a total lack of leadership, sportmanship, and honor. SHAME ON THEM!

UPDATE #2: well, they're voting now in the Senate. Seems to me that they should've added another category besides "YES" and "NO"... "YOU MUST BE JOKING!" Sad thing is: the joke is on the Democrats - they seem like petty cry-babbies who would rather score points with their base than do what's right for their country.

HEY: that just about sums up where the Dems have been on loads of issues, DOESN'T IT!? The Democrats put satisfying their wacky Left-wing base ahead of patriotism and sanity. Not a single Democrat stood up and berated this wacky partisan move - had one: it would've been a "SISTER SOULJAH moment" to crown all others, and a presidential candidate would've been born. Instead, all the Dems speechified in platitudes and demogogic "sky-is-falling" cliches. PATHETIC!

UPDATE #3: POWERLINE agrees. So does VIKINGPUNDIT.

CHINA AND NORTH KOREA

The brilliant ROGER L. SIMON linked to an op-ed in the WSJ by Bruce Gilley titled AN IMMODEST PROPOSAL in which Gilley - a brilliant and well-educated expert in Asian affairs - suggests that the solution to the North Korean problem is not unification (now) but regime change authorized by the world community and undertaken by China through an invasion and occupation, followed by a transition period that would ultimately lead to re-unification.

Simon comments:

It also seems indisputable that the Chinese are by far the best placed to undertake such an action. [...] Well, it's hard to come to a conclusion about something like this at such short notice - to say the least. But Gilley certainly deserves plaudits for thinking out of the box."

I agree with Gilley. And I said so last year in a post made on 11/22:

11.22.2004 - SomeStraight Talk On North Korea - FROM JAPAN

The head of the ruling party in Japan has said that because the Kim Jong Il regimehas not been sincere/trustworthy in negotiations that regime change may be the only option.

This makes sense. Only how? I think an invasion by China makes the most sense. We should let them occupy North Korea and let them set up a new regime. ALSO: here's a link to an article from a South Korean newspaper with photographic PROOF that billboards of KIM JONG IL are coming down all over North Korea.

Simon expresses concern about enabling China to occupy another country and brings up Tibet. He is right to do so. Gilley and I merely believe that the risks of an unbridled North Korea outweigh the risks of Chinese hegemony. And China is better able to absorb North Korea than Soth Korea - at the present time. In conclusion: regime change led by China is the most practical solution.

ULTIMATUM FOR NORTH KOREA APPROACHES

According to YAHOO/"Reuters" - TOKYO (Reuters) - "The United States is setting a deadline of early February for a reply from North Korea on whether the communist state will return to six-party talks on its nuclear arms programme, a Japanese newspaper says. If Pyongyang does not reply positively by the time U.S. President George W. Bush gives his State of the Union address, the United States will prepare to bring the matter to the U.N. Security Council, the conservative Sankei Shimbun said on Thursday, quoting an unidentified diplomatic source familiar with the talks."

According to South Korea's CHOSUN.COM: "The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency Mohamed El-Baradei says the threat posed by North Korea's nuclear weapons program is worsening and needs to be resolved as soon as possible."

SO... I guess we should prepare for an anxious spring and summer! Well, maybe we'll all be ready by then: the elections in Iraq and the "Palestinian" territories will be behind us. I imagine that if Syria and Iran are cooperating by then that North Korea will be next in line for liberation.

Somehow, I feel that Syria and Iran will NOT be so cooperative, and that their uncooperativeness might slow things up a little - which might be part of the strategy of the axis of evil.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PAT!

YOU KNOW WHO WE MEAN!

Many happy and healthy returns of the day!
With love and respect,
reliapundit