THE SCOOTER LIBBY VERDICT: JUSTICE HAS NOT BEEN SERVED

THE ULTIMATE POLITICAL WITCH-HUNT

"There should have been no referral, no special counsel, no indictments, and no trial. The “CIA-leak case” has been a travesty. A good man has paid a very heavy price for the Left’s fevers, the media’s scandal-mongering, and President Bush’s failure to unify his own administration. Justice demands that Bush issue a pardon and lower the curtain on an embarrassing drama that shouldn’t have lasted beyond its opening act."--

National Review

Reliapundit said it well but I am so livid about this verdict I had to have my say also. To read my rant go here.

Reliapundit adds: The WASH POST summed it up best:

The fall of this skilled and long-respected public servant is particularly sobering because it arose from a Washington scandal remarkable for its lack of substance. It was propelled not by actual wrongdoing but by inflated and frequently false claims, and by the aggressive and occasionally reckless response of senior Bush administration officials -- culminating in Mr. Libby's perjury. ...

Mr. Wilson was embraced by many because he was early in publicly charging that the Bush administration had "twisted," if not invented, facts in making the case for war against Iraq. In conversations with journalists or in a July 6, 2003, op-ed, he claimed to have debunked evidence that Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger; suggested that he had been dispatched by Mr. Cheney to look into the matter; and alleged that his report had circulated at the highest levels of the administration.

A bipartisan investigation by the Senate intelligence committee subsequently established that all of these claims were false -- and that Mr. Wilson was recommended for the Niger trip by Ms. Plame, his wife. When this fact, along with Ms. Plame's name, was disclosed in a column by Robert D. Novak, Mr. Wilson advanced yet another sensational charge: that his wife was a covert CIA operative and that senior White House officials had orchestrated the leak of her name to destroy her career and thus punish Mr. Wilson.

The partisan furor over this allegation led to the appointment of special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald. Yet after two years of investigation, Mr. Fitzgerald charged no one with a crime for leaking Ms. Plame's name. In fact, he learned early on that Mr. Novak's primary source was former deputy secretary of state Richard L. Armitage, an unlikely tool of the White House. The trial has provided convincing evidence that there was no conspiracy to punish Mr. Wilson by leaking Ms. Plame's identity -- and no evidence that she was, in fact, covert. [UMPH ADDED.]

It would have been sensible for Mr. Fitzgerald to end his investigation after learning about Mr. Armitage. Instead, like many Washington special prosecutors before him, he pressed on, pursuing every tangent in the case. In so doing he unnecessarily subjected numerous journalists to the ordeal of having to disclose confidential sources or face imprisonment. One, Judith Miller of the New York Times, lost several court appeals and spent 85 days in jail before agreeing to testify. The damage done to journalists' ability to obtain information from confidential government sources has yet to be measured.

Mr. Wilson's case has besmirched nearly everyone it touched. The former ambassador will be remembered as a blowhard. Mr. Cheney and Mr. Libby were overbearing in their zeal to rebut Mr. Wilson and careless in their handling of classified information. Mr. Libby's subsequent false statements were reprehensible. And Mr. Fitzgerald has shown again why handing a Washington political case to a federal special prosecutor is a prescription for excess.

MEANWHILE, THAT DICKHEAD SANDY BERGLER IS A FREE MAN, AND THE NYTIMES - WHICH HAS PUBLISHED NUMEROUS CLASSIFIED SECRETS WHICH HAVE EACH WEAKENED OUR NATIONAL SECURITY - HAS NOT EVEN BEEN SUBPOENAED . GO FIGGER. THE INJUSTICE WOULD BE SIMPLY ABSURD WERE IT NOT SO DEEPLY TROUBLING.

FRANCE BANS CITIZEN JOURNALISTS (BLOGGERS) FROM REPORTING VIOLENCE

This is one of the most sick things I have ever heard.

The Muslim riots never stopped in France. As I have reported here previously, there are an average of close to 200 cars torched every night on the streets of France. The Parisian police chief declared that they are at "war", and asked the state to provide his forces with weapons of war so that they would be adequately protected, and able to fight back. To this date, the French police have NOT been provided with the tools necessary.

And, here is the most stunning thing of all. The casualty rate of the French police force is over three times higher than the casualty rate of the American armed forces in Iraq.

And now, France is banning bloggers from reporting on this violence.

There's nothing to see here. Move along.

Screw France:


The French Constitutional Council has approved a law that criminalizes the filming or broadcasting of acts of violence by people other than professional journalists. The law could lead to the imprisonment of eyewitnesses who film acts of police violence, or operators of Web sites publishing the images, one French civil liberties group warned on Tuesday.

THE BOTTOM-LINE ON THE PLAME-WILSON AFFAIR AND THE LIBBY TRIAL

FOUR FACTS:

1 - ARMITAGE WAS THE LEAKER. IT DID NOT COME FROM THE WHITE HOUSE.

2 - THE NOW FAMOUS 16 WORDS IN THE SOTU ARE STILL TRUE.

3 - JOE WILSON LIED ABOUT HIS MISSION, WHO SENT HIM, AND WHAT HE FOUND.

4 - ARMITAGE LEAKED THE NAME OF WILSON'S WIFE TO BUTTRESS WILSON, NOT TO ATTACK HIM. [SEE PARAGRAPHS 13 &14.]

5 - OVER 500 TONS - YES TONS - OF YELLOWCAKE URANIUM WERE FOUND IN POST-WAR IRAQ.

WHICH MEANS THAT DESPITE THE CHENEY/ROVE/LIBBY WITCH HUNT, THE ENTIRE LEFTIST MSM MEME ON THIS STORY IS TOTALLY WRONG:

THE FACT IS THAT THE BUSH WHITE HOUSE DID NOT LIE ABOUT WMD, AND THEY DID NOT ATTEMPT TO "GET" WILSON, OR TO SEND A "CHILLING" MESSAGE TO OTHER WOULD-BE "WHISTLEBLOWERS."

FURTHERMORE, FITZGERALD KNEW THAT THE BASIS OF THE CASE - A WHITE HOUSE EFFORT TO "GET" WILSON-PLAME - WAS TOTAL BS BEFORE HE CALLED A SINGLE WITNESS -- BECAUSE HE KNEW THAT ARMITAGE WAS THE LEAKER ON DAY-2 OF HIS JOB.

WHICH IS WHY, IN MY MIND, THIS ENTIRE CASE WAS A POLITICAL HATCHET JOB, AND THE VERDICT IS BS.

[ASIDE: IF ARI FLEISHER AND WALTER PINCUS DID NOTHING WRONG - (BECAUSE UNDER OATH THEY GAVE ENTIRELY DIFFERENT ACCOUNTS ABOUT WHO SAID WHAT TO WHOM, AND WHEN), THEN NEITHER DID LIBBY.]

COMPLETE ROUND UP AT MEMEORANDUM.

ADAM AIR CRASH: 6 WEEKS AFTER BLACK BOXES RECOVERED, STILL NO EXPLANATION

On New Year's Day a 737 in Indonesia's ADAM AIR fleet crashed in mid-flight, without warning, in bad but totally navigable weather. (Previous posts HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE.) THE PILOT NEVER ISSUED A MAYDAY.

The "black boxes: were recovered (from the bottom of the Makassar Strait) on January 25. There is still no report of what information they contain.

Today, an Indonesian jet burst into flames after a "hard-landing." UPDATE: 20 DEAD. Indonesia is ordering that all old 737's be re-checked.

I don't know about today's incident, but think the New Year's Day crash was NOT accidental. I think that there's a possibility that the flight recorders will show nothing, and that the jet came down as a result of a sudden catastrophic failure which was itself the result of jihadoterror. I feel that jihadists might have successfully tested a procedure in Indonesia which they intend to employ here in the West. I think that the enemy is constantly probing our defenses, and that today's arrest of man in boarding a flight at LAX - who had electronic stuff up his rectum - is another example of this.

WHY ISN'T A SINGLE MSM OUTLET FOLLOWING UP ON THIS? Because the so-called professional news media is pathetic!)

GLOBAL WARMING? NOT IN MASSACHUSETTS!

WORCESTER TELEGRAM/(VIA DRUDGE):

Tuesday, March 6, 2007
Brrrrr! Coldest March day since 1950

By Bill Fortier

A meteorologist in the Taunton office of the National Weather Service today confirmed what anybody walking outside quicky realizes, which is, it is about as cold as it can be for the month of March. At 11 a.m. it was 3 degrees above zero with a wind child of about 20 degrees below zero, Meteorologist William Simpson said. The temperature at midnight was 16 degrees which is the March 6 record for the lowest maximum temperature for the date, according to Mr. Simpson.

The record low maximum temerature for the month of March is 10 degrees, set on March 3, 1950. With a high temperature of 9 degrees predicted for the rest of the day, today will rival that record even though it won't show in the record book because the high temperature was recorded at midnight. "Certainly, today is the coldest March day since 1950," Mr. Simpson said.

MORE PROOF THAT THE AGW CROWD IS FLAT OUT WRONG.

JOYAL AND SAFRONOV: 2 MORE REASONS TO SUSPECT PUTIN WHACKED LITVINENKO

YAHOO/AP:

A journalist who plunged to his death from his apartment building window faced threats while reporting on a highly sensitive story that Russia planned to sell sophisticated missiles to Syria and Iran, his newspaper reported Tuesday.

Ivan Safronov, a military affairs writer for the daily Kommersant, died Friday after plunging from a stairwell window between the fourth and fifth stories. Kommersant reported Tuesday that Safronov had told his editors he was working on a story about Russian plans to sell weapons to Iran and Syria via Belarus. The deals, if concluded, could upset the balance of power in the Middle East and strain Russia's relations with Israel and the United States, which have strongly objected to earlier Russian weapons sales to the two countries.

Kommersant reported that Safronov, 51, had recently told colleagues he was warned he would face a criminal investigation for possibly releasing state secrets if he reported allegations that Russia had struck a deal to supply Iskander missiles to Syria.

WASH EXAMINER/AP:

An expert on Russian intelligence was critically injured in a shooting in front of his suburban Washington home, authorities said. The shooting of Paul Joyal, 53, came days after he accused the Russian government of involvement in the poisoning of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko.

Joyal was shot Thursday by two men in the driveway of his Adelphi, Md., home, police said. Few details were released about the incident, and the identities of the shooters were not known. The shooting appeared to be a random robbery and street shooting, a law enforcement official with knowledge of the case told The Associated Press. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because the person did not have authority to comment on the case.

NEWSMAX:

An expert on Russian intelligence was shot and critically wounded in front of his home in suburban Washington, D.C., just days after he charged that the Russian government was behind the death of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko.

Paul Joyal, who works for a Washington-based government consulting firm, was shot on March 1 by two men in his driveway.

The shooting raises suspicions of Russian involvement, given that critics of Russian President Vladimir Putin — journalists, politicians, and others — at times end up suffering violent deaths.

Anyone who persists in denying Putin's likely involvement in Litvinenko's death is in deep denial. As is Bush if he thinks Putin can be a trusted ally. Putin is a dangerous foe, and must be treated as such.

What Would Lenny Say?

I have the answer to the Ann Coulter problem. Just ask yourself what would Lenny Bruce say?

What would Lenny Say?

Cross Posted at Power and Control

SAUDI RAPE VICTIM FALLS VICTIM TO SAUDI COURTS AS WELL

A rape victim in the House of Saud has now been sentenced to 90 lashes for the "crime" of being alone with a man not-related to her:

A 19-year-old Saudi woman who was kidnapped, beaten and gang raped by seven men who then took photos of their victim and threatened to kill her, was sentenced under the country's Islamic-based law to 90 lashes for the "crime" of being alone with a man not related to her.

The woman is appealing to Saudi King Abdullah to intervene in the controversial case.

I find it unlikely that this awful king will do anything to overturn her sentence. We however can certainly intervene by calling out for help for her! This woman does not deserve to live in the kind of slavery situation she's in, and should be freed from Saudi Arabia as well.

DARFUR'S ISLAMIC RULERS ARE WORST HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSERS

A recent US report says that Darfur in Sudan is the worst abuser of human rights:

The continuing genocide in Sudan's troubled Darfur region was the world's worst human rights abuse last year, the United States said Tuesday in a global report that found freedoms eroding in numerous other nations, including US allies Afghanistan and Iraq.

In its annual survey of human rights practices, the State Department also criticized Russia for a "further erosion of government accountability" and said China's human rights record deteriorated in some areas.

Not that this article actually says that Islam is the problem, though it does give a clue to who's in charge of Sudan:

Just days before senior US diplomats expect to meet Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir in Khartoum, the State Department lashed out at the Sudanese government, blaming its military and proxy militia for the genocide in Darfur, the western Sudan region which more than 200,000 people have died and some 2.5 million have been displaced, according to some estimates.

"The Sudanese government and government-backed Janjaweed militia bear responsibility for the genocide in Darfur," it said, adding that they, along with indigenous rebels, had and continued to commit atrocities as the four-year-old war rages unabated.

"All parties to the conflagration committed serious abuses, including widespread killing of civilians, rape as a tool of war, systematic torture, robbery and recruitment of child soldiers," the report said.

Bashir is not a president, but rather, a dictator, and does not deserve to be "leading" Sudan. The country should be returned to its native people, the black Sudanese, whom Islamofascists like Bashir and his Janjaweed militia helpers have usurped the country from.

THE BEEB'S LATEST ANTI-ISRAEL INCITEMENT

The BBC went on yet another incite-against Israel campaign, drawing up a poll that that asked 28,000 people their opinions on several different countries. But all it really does is show why, if there's any polls I don't find reliable, it's the ones from the BBC.

And when you see what the overall opinion respondents had for the European Union was in this poll...

Respondents were also asked their views of the 27-member European Union; 53 percent saw it as positive and 19 percent as negative.

...you know something's wrong. The EU has caused more than enough problems for European economy, among other things, and it certainly looks like the Beeb was writing up its survey selectively.

SOCIALISM IN AMERICA

Excerpt from Democracy Project

According to today's New York Times: "The strongest job market New York City has had in decades has not helped the city's youngest workers find jobs, leaving them at risk of becoming permanently unemployable..."

New York is the city with the strongest unions, the highest taxes, the most government intervention and the most welfare. It is the city closest in the nation to a socialist model. Yet, New York has largely excluded minority youth from employment. The reason is in part lack of access to a failed educational system that relies on the failed theories of John Dewey, but also, that union entry restrictions limit minority employment in the construction crafts, and that political and business connections are necessary for jobs that rely on government support and political largess. Those without connections or an Ivy League education find themselves excluded from New York's socialist economy.

In this regard, there is a marked parallel between Paris and New York . Just as the French have relied on a heavy dose of socialism or dirigisme in their economy and have excluded low income minorities from participation in their economy, resulting in the riots in the banlieue, so New York has excluded low-income minorities. Both Paris in New York can be proud of their socialist policies.

The process by which socialist economies exclude minorities is administered wages. Administered wages are wages above the market clearing level. One key cause of administered wages is labor unions. Labor unions push for higher wages, but in order to pay higher wages employers must reduce the number of workers and substitute capital for labor in the form of machinery. The excluded workers can move to Colorado or London or start their own businesses, but if they lack basic skills they may end up unemployed. This crowding out effect is characteristic of socialist economies where workers are paid above-market clearing wages.

India is a more extreme example of socialist oppression of the poor through this crowding out effect. In recent years liberal economists have complained about income inequality and its supposed ill effects. There is no data or economic theory to support this argument. In fact, when income inequality was at its apex in the late 19th century and early 20th centuries, the United States first developed the telephone, kerosene (and subsequently gasoline), the light bulb, AC electricity, mass production of the automobile and a wide range of other innovations that subsequently improved life.

When income equality increased in the mid twentieth century due to punitive income taxes, innovation slowed. The mid twentieth century is best remembered for Elvis Presley rather than technological innovation. It wasn't until after the Reagan tax cuts in the early 1980s that the pace of innovation increased. Now our geniuses from the liberal economics establishment, the ones who brought us our piddling social security benefit and who apologized for Stalin in the 1930s, for Mao in the 1970s, and gave us stagflation in the 1970s, are arguing for a renewal of punitive taxation. True geniuses.

(For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Page. Email me (John Ray) here.)

ALASKA GOVERNOR QUESTIONS SCIENCE OF POLAR BEAR LISTING

Excerpt:

Officially, the state of Alaska has not decided whether to back a federal proposal to list polar bears as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. But speaking at a federal hearing, Gov. Sarah Palin's point person on polar bears stopped just short of saying it was a lousy idea. Tina Cunnings, a biologist and a special assistant to the commissioner of the Department of Fish and Game, questioned whether polar bears really need sea ice to survive. She said polar bears are adaptable to use land for hunting, and though their preferred food, ice seals, may be declining, bears are adapting to alternative food sources. She also testified that a listing in the United States ultimately could harm bears in Canada because Inuit villagers would no longer have an incentive to preserve them for American hunters. An ESA listing would ban importation of polar bear trophy hides. "We are concerned that a listing of polar bears under ESA in the United States may actually be harmful for the conservation of polar bear populations internationally," she said.

FULL STORY here

(For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Page. Email me (John Ray) here.)

Greenie foot-shooting in Australia

Ironic: Their global warming hysteria is giving them something they REALLY hate

Fear of global warming has dramatically reversed Australians' attitude to nuclear energy, with more people supporting nuclear power for the first time. In the past four months, support for nuclear power has risen from just 35 per cent to 45 per cent, and opposition has fallen in the same time from 50 per cent to 40 per cent. But people are still overwhelming opposed to having a nuclear power plant in their backyard.

The Newspoll survey, taken exclusively for The Australian last weekend, is the first survey showing more support for, than opposition to, nuclear power stations in Australia. Previous Newspoll surveys, in May and December last year, had the highest support at 38 per cent and lowest opposition at 50 per cent, with 40 per cent being "strongly opposed".

The key difference in the survey results stems from the question of trying to reduce greenhouse gases. John Howard has been campaigning for a nuclear debate in Australia and ordered a report on nuclear power on the basis of fighting global warming. The Prime Minister has constantly referred to nuclear power as "clean and green" and an option that has to be considered to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels. From strong opposition to nuclear power, the balance of opinion has turned to being slightly in favour when linked with cutting greenhouse gas emissions....

Mr Howard has been running a campaign on the benefits of nuclear power in fighting greenhouse gas emissions, although Labor is opposed to nuclear energy. The Government commissioned a study into nuclear options for Australia by former Telstra boss Ziggy Switkowski. Yesterday, Labor launched an extraordinary attack against the integrity of the businessman, claiming he had been put in charge of the nation's nuclear research organisation to campaign for nuclear power.

Opposition industry spokesman Kim Carr said Dr Switkowski could not be trusted as the new chair of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation because he had accepted an invitation to write a report on the prospects for nuclear power. "Once again, Mr Howard has put his own political interests ahead of the nation's, appointing a cheerleader for nuclear power as chair of the board for the nation's only research organisation devoted solely to nuclear science and technology," he said. "There is no doubt Dr Switkowski has qualifications in the area - in nuclear engineering and high-level management - and Labor does not call those into question. "However, Dr Switkowski has also earned his political stripes writing the recent report for the PM recommending that nuclear power is imposed on Australia." ...

Dr Switkowski's interim report found that nuclear energy would not be competitive against coal and gas power for at least a decade, but by the middle of the century the nation could feasibly host 25 nuclear power stations along the eastern seaboard.

Source

(For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Page. Email me (John Ray) here.)

AL GORE: LIAR; DEMAGOGUE; HYPOCRITE; FRAUD

DOUG ROSS HAS A ROUND UP OF PROOF THAT AL GORE'S "CARBON OFFSETS" INVESTMENT SCHEME IS A FRAUDULENT RACKET SET UP TO BENEFIT... GORE AND HIS CRONIES MORE THAN THE ATMOSPHERE.

WHEN IS "HATE SPEECH" PERMISSABLE? WHEN IT'S BY THE LEFT.

PATTERICO HAS A PARTIAL LIST OF QUOTES WITH LINKS.

IT'S LONG. (VIA PJM.)

[ASIDE: UNLIKE ANN'S WITTY DOUBLE-EDGED COMMENT WHICH ATTACKED EDWARDS (FOR BEING PRISSY) AND ATTACKED THE "PC POLICE" (FOR DEMANDING AN ACTOR GO INTO REHAB FOR USING THE WORD FAGGOT), MOST OF THESE VERBAL ATTACKS BY LEFTISTS ACTUALLY CALL FOR VIOLENCE.

YET NOBODY IN THE MSM OR THE LEFT EVER EVEN BLEW A GASKET. PROVING ONCE AGAIN THAT THE POST MODERN LEFT HAS NO PRINCIPLES.]

SARKOZY HAS THE RIGHT DIAGNOSIS - AND THE CURE

TELEGAPH (UK): Sarko knows what's wrong with France -

In his best-selling book, Testimony, Sarkozy portrays modern France as a failing society; arrogant, work-shy and perniciously resistant to change. In contrast, he holds Britain up as an example to be emulated: "London has become the seventh largest French city," he writes. "It ceaselessly sucks in thousands of young French people - including my own daughter - who find it easier to succeed there than at home. How shameful is it that a young person wanting to get on is obliged to leave?"

SARKOZY IS THE ONLY CANDIDATE WHO DOESN'T THINK THAT "ANGLO-AMERICAN" IS A DIRTY WORD.

IF HE WINS - AND CAN ANGLO-AMERICANIZE/(HAYEK-REAGAN-THATCHERIZE) THE FRENCH ECONOMY, THEN FRANCE HAS A CHANCE TO SURVIVE. THEIR LAST CHANCE. I hope they listen Doctor Sarko and take their medicine.

EDWARDS SLANDERS AMERICANS AS SELFISH

(VIA DRUDGE)BREITRBART/AP:

Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards says Jesus would be appalled at how the United States has ignored the plight of the suffering, and that he believes children should have private time to pray at school.

Edwards, in an interview with the Web site Beliefnet.com, said Jesus would be most upset with the selfishness of Americans and the country's willingness to go to war "when it's not necessary."

"I think that Jesus would be disappointed in our ignoring the plight of those around us who are suffering and our focus on our own selfish short-term needs," Edwards told the site. "I think he would be appalled, actually."

THIS IS LEFTIST BULLS*IT.

FACT: AMERICANS ARE THE MOST GENEROUS MOST CHARITABLE PEOPLE ON EARTH. WE GIVE MORE THAN TWICE THE AMOUNT EACH YEAR AS THE NEXT NATION ON THE LIST - THE UK.

FACT: CONSERVATIVES ARE MORE CHARITABLE THAN LEFTIES. DETAILS HERE AND HERE.

MAYBE "EDWARDS-THE-FAGGOT" SHOULD SPEND LESS TIME ON PRISSING UP HIS PRETTY BOY LOOKS AND HIS LEFTIST RHETORIC, AND MORE TIME GETTING THE FACTS RIGHT.

THEN AGAIN, THIS AMBULANCE CHASING LAWYER NEVER DEPENDED ON THE TRUTH OR THE FACTS TO MAKE HIS MILLIONS, JUST DEMAGOGUING THE JURIES. AND HE'S TRYING THE SAME LINE OF ATTACK NOW, TOO. HE HAS NO SHAME.

EDWARDS IS A HYPOCRITE AND A LIAR WHO SLANDERS AMERICANS - WHICH IS WHY HE'S A PERFECT NOMINEE FOR THE "BLAME AMERICA FIRST" DEMS!

The Popinjay makes a good point here.
COMPLETE ROUND UP HERE AT MEMEORANDUM.

I LOVE THE HALF HOUR NEWS HOUR

Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter opened up the show again last night and it was awesome. I loved every minute of it. Make sure you watch the clip if you missed it.

There have been a lot of critics of the show but its all about rating and viewers and the 1st show did very well. I look forward to seeing the numbers from the 2nd show in the hopes that it will get picked up. Here is some of what Rush had to say about how it will work as he talked to a caller last friday:

"Here's what happens. They produced two pilots. The second one airs at ten p.m. this Sunday. The shows have to generate a certain rating in order for further episodes to be ordered. The rating, of course, will determine spot rates. The program has a cost. The cost has to be met, with a little profit thrown in. So it all depends on how well they rate as to whether more episodes will be ordered. I'm privy to a little bit of this that I can't repeat right now. The process of getting it on the air has been something that's been going on a long, long time and there are other factors involved. I have no clue whether it's going to get picked up, by the way. I don't know that. All I know is that it got great prepublicity before the first episode aired two weeks ago. It got tremendous audience response the first night. We'll see what happens on Sunday night and probably go from there. But if it works then what will happen is there will be an order for 13 more episodes."

UPDATE:
The trip to Jefferson City went great and I look forward to sharing the details in the next day or two.

THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS SCOOPS DRUDGE AND THE MSM... AGAIN: CLAUDE ALLEGRE

DRUDGE IS TOUTING A LINK TO A NATIONAL POST ARTICLE ABOUT A LEADING FRENCH CLIMATOLOGIST WHO HAS REVERSED HIMSELF AND NOW DEBUINKS ANTHROPOGENIC GLOBAL WARMING, (AGW). MANY IN THE BLOGOSPHERE ARE LINKING TO THIS ARTICLE.

WELL, TAB HAD THIS STORY IN OCTOBER OF LAST YEAR - SIX MONTHS AGO.

PROVING ONCE AGAIN THAT TAB IS THE PLACE TO BE! BUT, YOU KNOW THAT; NOW, SPREAD THE WORD!

BTW: IT'S A GREAT ARTICLE: CHECK IT OUT/RTWT!

BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA JUNIOR: LIAR

HOT AIR (VIA 4RWWS):

Let’s go to the (rough) partial transcript [THIS IS WHAT OBAMA SAID]:

"What happened in Selma, Alabama and Birmingham also stirred the conscience of the nation. It worried folks in the White House who said, “You know, we’re battling Communism. How are we going to win hearts and minds all across the world? If right here in our own country, John, we’re not observing the ideals set fort in our Constitution, we might be accused of being hypocrites.” So the Kennedy’s decided we’re going to do an air lift. We’re going to go to Africa and start bringing young Africans over to this country and give them scholarships to study so they can learn what a wonderful country America is.

This young man named Barack Obama got one of those tickets and came over to this country. He met this woman whose great great-great-great-grandfather had owned slaves; but she had a good idea there was some craziness going on because they looked at each other and they decided that we know that the world as it has been it might not be possible for us to get together and have a child. There was something stirring across the country because of what happened in Selma, Alabama, because some folks are willing to march across a bridge. So they got together and Barack Obama Jr. was born. So don’t tell me I don’t have a claim on Selma, Alabama. Don’t tell me I’m not coming home to Selma, Alabama."

A Kennedy program helped bring Obama’s father to the United States? Really? According to Obama’s first book,

He eventually won a scholarship to study in Nairobi; and then, on the eve of Kenyan independence, he was selected by Kenyan leaders and American sponsors to attend a university in the United States, joining the first large wave of Africans to be sent forth to master Western technology and bring it back to forge a new, modern Africa.

In 1959, at the age of 23, he arrived at the University of Hawaii – the first African student there.

1959. Two years before JFK was inaugurated.

As for his parents getting together in part because of what was stirring from Selma, Bloody Sunday happened on March 7, 1965. Obama was born August 4, 1961.

In fairness, he does link Selma to Birmingham a minute or two earlier in the clip — but even if you stretch the timeline to account for that, the major civil rights events in Birmingham happened in 1963, still two years after he was born.

Maybe he meant Montgomery?

Update: The Obama camp is already spinning his convenient lie:

Obama was born in 1961, four years before the march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. But spokesman Bill Burton said Obama was “speaking metaphorically about the civil rights movement as a whole.

THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS NOTED MONTHS AGO THAT OBAMA WAS A DISHONORABLE AND DISLOYAL HUMAN, NOW WE CAN ADD LIAR.

DISLOYAL, DISHONORABLE, LIAR: NO WONDER THE DEMS AND THE LEFT LOVE HIM!

Australia: Muslims too sensitive, says His Eminence

Excerpt:

Muslims are overly sensitive and are the only migrants to have plotted violence against Australia, Catholic Archbishop Cardinal George Pell has claimed. Dr Pell said Muslim leaders needed to develop more appropriate responses to criticism. "In a democratic society, every group is criticised - Prime Minister (John) Howard said quite rightly last year that if Catholics rioted in Australia every time they were criticised, there would be regular riots," Dr Pell said. "It's not appropriate that Muslims regularly reply to criticism with insults, denigration and evasions while avoiding the point of issue, and unfortunately we've seen too much of this from some Muslim public personalities." The comments came during Dr Pell's appearance on a panel about Muslims and non-Muslims in Australia as part of the national deliberative poll.

Dr Pell, who began studying Islam after the attacks of September 11, 2001 on the US, said he had met "many wonderful Muslims". "But there are Islamists who are at war with the Western world - most of the victims of these extreme Muslims are fellow Muslims," he said. "So its important to distinguish accurately your real friends from your enemies and from those who only seem to be friends."

Dr Pell said integration was a "key tool" for a harmonious and secular democratic society.....

Source

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH. My Home Page. Email me here.

Evil Fiction about Israel

Excerpt:

Let me tell you about an audiobook that I hated. I didn't hate it because it was badly written -- it was mediocre in the way that mediocre thrillers usually are, and that means it would ordinarily have been tolerable. No, the reason I stopped listening to Steve Berry's The Alexandria Link is that this book is evil. I don't mean it's about evil. I don't even mean that it is evil-porn, like those horror books whose authors are pervertedly devoted to thinking up cool ways to torture and kill people. I mean that this book, to the degree that it is read by people ignorant of history (i.e., practically everybody), will move us closer to a future in which our society permits or even approves of the murder of Jews and the destruction of the state of Israel.

Wait! This book is fiction! How could it have such an effect? Well, it can't -- not all by itself. Its effect is incremental. But it's real. Here's how it works. At the beginning of the book, we are shown a Palestinian during the 1948 war over the creation of the state of Israel. The scene is about how this Palestinian has been torturing a man he captured in order to find out what he is doing; then he kills him. But the torture is not treated in the fiction as anything other than a regrettable necessity; later, the character does in fact regret his actions that day.

That's not what makes this book evil. No, it's the fact that Berry sets this scene against a background in which Israelis are systematically driving all the Palestinians out of Israel; the Israelis are heavily armed by the British while the Palestinians have no weapons to counter them; and the Israelis have rounded up whole villages of Palestinians and slaughtered them, men and women alike. These things are not what the scene is about. They are slipped in as background; they are treated as if they were the sort of thing that was really going on in Palestine in 1948.

This is the kind of thing that readers -- especially ones who don't know anything about history -- are likely to assume the writer has researched, so that it can be trusted. The book is fiction, so we know this particular character did not torture and kill the other guy -- that part is obviously made up. But the background is assumed to be real. And readers often come out of books like this thinking they now know something about the real world.

In fact, what Berry is providing is pure propaganda -- the propaganda created by terrorists and murderers to "prove" that Jews "deserve" to be blown up by suicide bombers. It is exactly as reliable as the widely-believed propaganda lie that either President Bush or the state of Israel -- or both -- actually carried out the 9/11 attacks in order to provide a pretext for invading innocent Muslim countries.

RTWT here.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, DISSECTING LEFTISM.