Dow hits all-time record!

How's your 401K doin' these days?

Posted by: Gary at 04:10 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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That was my first thought when I saw: this headline.

Thankfully, it turns out that the article isn't referring to Howard Dean. Whew. That's a relief. We need this guy right where he is.

Posted by: Gary at 11:21 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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According to a story in The Hill, Joe Lieberman says he's received assurances from the Senate Democrat Leadership that - should he win - he will keep his seniority and committee assignments.

"So, how's it going on the campaign trail, Liebs, old pal? Looking forward to keeping that seniority are we? Wink, wink. Nudge, nudge. Say no more?"

The nutroots, of course, sees this as a betrayal. And I don't blame them.

Tom Matzzie, the Washington director of MoveOn.org, a liberal advocacy group that supports Lamont, said Lieberman may be spreading false information to make himself a more attractive candidate.

“This is a Lieberman campaign tactic,” he said. “Democratic leaders are supporting Ned Lamont.”

Bill Grad, who sits on the Democratic Town Council of Greenwich, Conn., LamontÂ’s home town, said Lieberman has very actively distanced himself from the Democratic Party, and that it was wrong of leaders to promise anything.

“Why should Reid tell the guy in advance that he’ll have his seniority. If it comes to that, that’s fine. But it’s disappointing, it’s greatly disappointing that he would be given assurances.”

It'll be interesting to read the Lefty blogs in the coming days.

Posted by: Gary at 09:20 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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So the Washington Times has an editorial up calling for Speaker Hastert to resign.

Here's the funny part. Up until this moment, Liberals have considered the low-circulation daily to be nothing more than a GOP talking points rag and derided it every chance they would get.

Now watch them laud the paper for its profile in courage.

Bunk. Don Surber has hit the nail on the head here. The Times is taking the opportunity to force Republicans to clean house:

The Washington Times has an agenda to push the Republican Party further to the right, rendering it as useless as the lefty-dominated Democratic Party.

There is no appeasing these loons on either side.

It's a fact that the Times often features the side of the story that the Washington Post and the NY Times won't. And I've often linked them to support my own arguments, as I will continue to do.

But this kind of a move, without the benefit of a full investigation, is ridiculous. And the fact that they leaked it to Drudge the night before to get the buzz going is indicitive of the agenda of their editorial board - a party purge.

Expect more from the ranks of the hard Right to echo the Times' demand. These are also the people who think it benefits the GOP in the long run to lose now so they can win later, with a more "ideologically pure" slate of candidates. Sound familiar? Maybe like the Ned Lamont supporters?

Sorry, guys. But losing is for losers. Not to mention the fact that the stakes are just too high.

Speaker Hastert would do well to ignore them.

UPDATE:
...or better yet, as Hugh Hewitt advises: "Don't Resign, Speaker Hastert. Swing Back."

Posted by: Gary at 07:15 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Speaker Hastert has publicly declared that no one in the GOP leadership saw or had knowledge of the Foley IMs. The emails from way back when are one thing. They weren't sexual in nature at all and the parents of the page didn't want them made public. Hastert is either telling the truth or he's one hell of a gambler.

Now if someone on the other side had these IMs and held onto them until five weeks before an election, they had better leave the country or there'll be hell to pay if they're found out.

Lorie Byrd at Wizbang has the money quote here:

If it is learned that a Democrat has been holding those IMs for any period of time for political purposes, the backlash could be as nasty as those disgusting messages.

UPDATE:
Thanks to Scrapiron for the tip below. The link is here.

Posted by: Gary at 04:40 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Just as a heads up for those who are interested. It looks like all of season five of "24" will be broadcast on "A&E" network.

Fox started showing the season in repeats back in June but oddly decided to abandon this schedule in favor of a Friday night movie-of-the-week format, showing such cinematic classics as "Bringing Down The House" with Steve Martin and Queen Latifah. Sigh.

Anyway, for those who missed any episodes (or like me, most of season five) this is your chance to catch up.

A&E looks to be broadcasting three episodes every Monday at 8am, 9am & 10am and later at 2pm, 3pm & 4pm. Series episodes 97, 98 & 99 (or season five episodes 1, 2 & 3) begin Monday, October 16th.

If this eight week schedule holds, they should be finished by December 4th. Season five will be released on DVD on December 5th. What timing, eh?

Posted by: Gary at 11:15 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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And besides Mets post-season baseball this year, that can only mean one thing...

OKTOBERFEST!

So go grab a couple of these and enjoy.

The beers, I mean.

Posted by: Gary at 10:15 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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First let me be point out that, as I posted earlier, I'm disgusted by Rep. Foley's actions. I've already made it clear what course of action the Congressman should take.

That being said, as the bigger story begins to spread to the GOP leadership who supposedly "knew" he was a pedophile, there's something about this that feels awfully familiar. Like Rathergate. The timing of this story is really suspicious.

And just as they did two years ago, the blogoshere is smelling a rat and doing some extensive analysis of the way this went down.

Both Curt at Flopping Aces and Mark at Decision '08 have found some sources for that smell. Go read through what they've found.

Posted by: Gary at 07:25 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Today is the day the the land of Mu Nu migrates to new servers. Actually Sunday is the day, but since the administrator resides on the other side of the world, it's already Sunday. Whatever.

Anyway, expect some down time in the next 24-36 hours. It may be only disabled comments but it could very well mean a complete outage.

Go enjoy your weekend. We'll be back soon.

Posted by: Gary at 02:30 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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1 I've had to put off the move until next weekend. Everything is now copied onto the new servers, but it's already 10PM Sunday here in Oz. Fortunately, since everything is already copied, it means that next weekend I can just run an update (which only takes a couple of hours) and then flick the switch. Downtime should only be two to four hours, maximum. Unless something gets screwed up. And that never happens. :wink:

Posted by: Pixy Misa at October 01, 2006 07:09 AM (YnQfp)

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Show 'em if ya got 'em.

And this week's Diane Lane Netflix Pick of the Week:

Miss All-American Beauty (1982)

Gary's take: If there's any movie that highlighted what an "all-American" girl-next-door Diane Lane is it's this one. Yes, it was a made for TV movie, but all in all it's pretty well done. An interesting look into world of beauty pageants. Sally's grueling schedule strains her relationship with her family and boyfriend. Will she find the meaning of real beauty?

Posted by: Gary at 08:45 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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1 Her mother was a Playboy centerfold after all.

Posted by: Denny at September 30, 2006 03:50 PM (UF+gN)

2 good point

Posted by: Gary at September 30, 2006 05:59 PM (Z0vta)

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What a disgusting piece of dogshit.

Foley, do the world a favor and blow your brains out.

And don't think for one minute that if this guy was a Democrat that Liberals everywhere wouldn't be wringing their hands over what a poor, tortured soul he is.

Seriously, dude. Smith and Wesson. One shot to the temple. Goom-bye!

Posted by: Gary at 10:44 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Notwithstanding that the 37th President is dead, crack reporter Bob Woodward sees the fact that President Bush has met with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger as some kind of proof that Richard Nixon's legacy lives on with the White House's current occupant.

The premise of his new book - which oddly enough is coming out just before an election, imagine that - is that Bush is hiding the bad news in Iraq from the American people. Nixon is Bush and Vietnam is Iraq. Get the connection here? Woodward still pines for his golden days when his investigations blew the lid off of Watergate, leading to Nixon's resignation. Maybe he's hoping for a sequel to "All The President's Men". And Robert Redford would be only too happy to play him again. Once again, he'd be the darling of the media elite. Oh, to force Bush to resign! Just think of that!

Please.

As further "evidence" of some kind of White House cover-up, Woodward points to the increase in the number of attacks in Iraq against coalition forces. Like this is news? As if the MSM isn't thumping the drum on this one already? Whatever.

A senior administration official saw little new in Woodward's charges "except that Bob believes he has a lot of making up to do since the Washington establishment criticized him for being too soft in his first two books (on the Bush administration)."

"We've seen this movie before, and we shouldn't be surprised of another critical book about the Bush administration 40 days before an election," said the official.

Bush's Republican Party faces a strong challenge from Democrats as it seeks to retain control of Congress in the November 7 elections. The unpopular war in Iraq is a major issue in the campaign.

The official added there was nothing revealing in Woodward's account of the daily attack numbers. "You print them all the time."

It's time for Bob Woodward and the rest of the aging Boomer Left to exorcise the ghost of Nixon and get over their paranoia. It's really sad.

Posted by: Gary at 02:50 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Here's a Friday WTF? for the hall of fame: Woman Eats Sand To Stay Healthy.

An Indian grandmother has revealed she eats a kilo of sand a day to stay fit and healthy.

Ram Rati, 80, considers sand an essential part of her daily diet and eats a kilo of it before breakfast, lunch and afternoon tea

Ram who lives in Chinhar in Lucknow told Asian News International: "When young, I tried it for fun once. Since then, I am used to it. My brothers and relatives pestered me to quit it but it was all in vain. I eat on an average around one or one-and-a-half kilos of sand per day."

Her granddaughter Shikha said: "The doctor said if she has no health problems, let her eat. We think it suits her health."

Posted by: Gary at 02:03 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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...The Donger need food!

Posted by: Gary at 10:15 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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The gloves are off:

"Five years after 9/11, the worst attack on the American homeland in history, the Democrats offer nothing but criticism and obstruction and endless second-guessing. The party of FDR, the party of Harry Truman has become the party of cut and run," Bush said.

Posted by: Gary at 10:04 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Mark Goldblatt in National Review Online asks the question: "When are we going to stop blaming ourselves?"

Why is so hard for some people to grasp the idea that Islamic Fascism is an ideology (posing as a theology) hell bent on destroying the West in general and the United States in particular for no other reason than they hate everything that we are and what we represent? They don't need Iraq or any other motivation to want to convert us or kill us. They just do.

Goldblatt explains:

If America hadn’t invaded Iraq, the United Nations would presumably still be enforcing sanctions against Saddam’s regime — sanctions which were killing thousands of Iraqi children each month and which were specifically cited by Osama in 2002 as a justification for the 9/11 attacks. In other words, the situation in Iraq before the war was viewed by al Qaeda as a rationale for violence against America.

Then again, America’s support for Israel was also cited by Osama to justify his terrorist jihad. Should we therefore end that support? What about our tolerance of, in Osama’s words, “immoral acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling’s [sic], and trading with interest”? If our “immorality” is being utilized by al Qaeda to recruit terrorists, should we therefore crack down on Snoop Dogg, Will and Grace, Budweiser, Las Vegas, and Citibank? And what of our stubborn refusal to convert to Islam — in Osama’s eyes, perhaps the greatest provocation of all? Should we therefore renounce our Judeo-Christian heritage, abandon the separation of church and state and adopt sharia law to escape the wrath of al Qaeda?

If America is ever to triumph in its war against Islamic terrorism, we must get past the idea that we are its root cause. Specifically, we must get past the idea that a suicide bomber is just a peace-loving Muslim who, if we hadnÂ’t set him off, would be growing figs and building sandcastles. Strapping explosives to your torso, marching yourself into a crowded marketplace and blowing yourself up in order to slaughter as many civilians, including women and children, as you can is a profoundly demented act, an act which undoes a dozen or so millennia in the moral evolution of the human species.

Such an act is not triggered by AmericaÂ’s sociopolitical landscape or by its foreign policy. Rather, it is nurtured by an intellectually degenerate culture, sponsored by sleazy kleptocratic regimes and authorized by a once-honorable religious tradition perverted to serve the pipedreams of an apocalyptic death cult.

ItÂ’s Muslim civilization, not America, that must change in order for Islamic terrorism to cease.

Seriously, if the position of a political party is that we as a nation can somehow mollify or reduce this enemy's hatred for us and thereby lower the threat that they pose then it represents a fundamental failure to understand this enemy.

That alone disqualifies Democrats from being in charge of the Global War On Terror.

It's bad enough that the Democrats' "Blame America" rhetoric gives aid and comfort to this enemy. Allowing them to call the shots in how we deal with them would have disastrous consequences for the safety of the American people.

UPDATE (9/29/06):
The Moose is thinking along similar lines today:

It comes down to a clash of perspectives between those who view the fight against Jihadists as a criminal action against a gang versus those who view it as a war against a terrorist movement that rejects the normal rules of combat. If you believe the former, the detainees should have access to all of the protections and rights of the American legal system. If your perspective is that this is a war, then the normal protections that are championed by the ACLU for American citizens do not apply.

America remains the great hope of liberalism in a world threatened by reactionaries who seek to repeal civilization and return us to the seventh century. For the sake of the soul of progressivism, it is time for liberals to speak these truths.

Anti-Bush animus is leading lefties to lose perspective and adopt the old "Blame America First" mentality. The enemy is not us.

Posted by: Gary at 03:30 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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From the horse's mouth: Zarqawi's replacement as Al-Qaeda leader in Iraq, Abu Hamza al-Muhajir.

4,000? Not bad for a distraction from the War On Terror, eh?

Posted by: Gary at 02:14 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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It's been more than five weeks since the last Quinnipiac Poll on the CT Senate race, and with six weeks still remaining before the November 7th election Joe Lieberman still shows a ten-point lead among likely Connecticut voters.

The results of the poll have Lieberman at 49% to Lamont's 39%. Republican candidate Alan "Gold" Schlesinger is still stuck at 5%. If you distribute the "undecideds" proportionately, the numbers indicate that Lieberman would win with 52% if the election were held today. If you gave all the "undecideds" to Ned Lamont, Lieberman still wins 49% to 46%. I seriously doubt any Schlesinger voters would switch to Lamont.

The A/P story tries its best to spin the poll results by pointing out that the race has "tightened" since the Aug. 17th poll, which was Lieberman leading 53% to Lamont's 41%. Yeah. It "tightened" so much Lieberman's lead went from 12 points to 10! Wow, is that a dynamic swing or what?

The real story when you compare those numbers is that Lamont's total support dropped from 41% to 39%. Lamont's momentum coming out of the Aug. 8th primary seems to have evaporated.

Now let's look at the internal data. While it's true that the bulk of Lieberman's support comes from Republicans and Independents, it's clear that Democrats are not united behind Ned Lamont. Democrat respondents favored the Greenwich millionaire 57% to 37%. More than one third of likely Democrat voters still prefer Joe Lieberman.

Remember last week when the Lamont campaign released an ad calling Lieberman a "turncoat"? I said at the time that I guessed that the reason they were focusing so much on Lieberman's Independent candidacy was because their internals were probably showing that Lamont, the Democrat's annointed candidate, was not closing the deal with enough of the party faithful.

Looks like that is indeed the case. Five weeks ago in the August 17th Quinnipiac poll, Democrats favored Lamont over Lieberman 60% to 33%. That's a seven point swing back in Lieberman's favor - among Democrats!

Another significant factor in the data proves another point:

"Lamont wins among those who say Iraq is the most important issue to their vote, but that is only 35 percent of the electorate. Lieberman wins on all the other issues voters say matter most to them, including terrorism and the economy."

When asked if Ned Lamont "has the right kind of experience to be a United States Senator or not", 47% of respondents said "No".

When asked if each candidate was spending more time "explaining what he would do if elected Senator or attacking" their opponent, guess what?

Lieberman: Explaining what he would do - 53% or attacking Ned Lamont - 33%
Lamont: Explaining what he would do - 25% or attacking Joe Lieberman - 62%

Joe Lieberman need not feel completely secure just yet. Six weeks is a long time in politics. But it's clear that as long as he continues to connect with CT voters - regardless of party - as a positive force for his state in the U.S. Senate, then the great CT moonbat "insurgency" of 2006 will be swatted away by a popular majority. And the Dems will have thrown away a perfectly safe Senate seat.

UPDATE:
Jim Geraghty sees the final spread on Nov. 7th in single digits and I'm inclined to agree with him, though he presents a comprehensive analysis of the data which shows Lamont doesn't have a snowball's chance of beating Liebs.

Posted by: Gary at 09:30 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Republican officials are saying that there will be an announcement later today that the party has chosen the host city for it's 2008 Presidential Nominating Convention: Minneapolis-St. Paul.

It seems the rationale centers on the amount of local coverage that would saturate the states of Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin. Frankly, it makes sense. Of all the "Blue States" that the GOP have a chance of flipping, Minnesota and Wisconsin are probably the most logical (Iowa went for Bush in 2004, barely).

In 2004, John Kerry won Wisconsin by 11,384 votes (50% to 49%) and Minnesota by 98,319 votes (51% to 48%). All three states used to be reliable Democrat carries but the margins have gotten thinner in the last couple of election cycles. Minnesota was the only state won by Mondale in 1984 (it was his home state).

As far as party affiliation goes, the 2004 exit polls showed the following break-down:
IA: 36% Republican, 34% Democrat, 30% Independent
MN: 35% Republican, 38% Democrat, 27% Independent
WI: 38% Republican, 35% Democrat, 27% Independent

Had Bush carried Minnesota and Wisconsin in 2004, the Electoral College result would have been Bush: 306 v. Kerry: 232. That's a 40 vote swing - not insignificant.

It makes no sense to have the convention in a "Red State". Although its debatable how much influence the site has on the election itself, in a part of the country where the margin is so razor thin it can only help.

Any city in the Northeast or on the West Coast would not have made sense (though in 2004, a rebuilding NY City got a major economic shot in the arm by hosting the Republicans).

So if the "Red States" are getting redder and the "Blue States" are getting bluer, it makes sense to focus on the "Purple" ones. My initial impression here is that this was a good move. I can't help but wonder if this is part of a broader long-term strategy of the RNC.

UPDATE:
Captain Ed (a MN native) is pleased. And he also has the scoop on how the Dems lost out:

At the end, though, [Minneapolis Democrat Mayor R.T.] Rybak tried his best to get the Democrats to pull the trigger first. After hearing that the GOP had decided to go with the Twin Cities, Rybak called his party chair and warned him that the Democrats had to act fast if they wanted to get the nod. Dean couldn't get the DNC to make the decision, and the Republicans held the field. This doesn't necessarily mean that the Democrats couldn't also meet here, but it's unlikely, and that means they have given the GOP a golden opportunity to sweep the Upper Midwest in 2008.

Posted by: Gary at 03:30 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Dow creeping up to new all time high (previous record high is 11,722).

Posted by: Gary at 12:00 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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