June 05, 2005
"Saddam Hussein's morale has 'collapsed' after nearly 18 months in jail awaiting trial, according to the man who will sit in judgment on him." - From the UK's The Independent.Aw, gee whiz! Quick, somebody send him a Vermont Teddy Bear! I think they can come up with a "Sociopathic Dictator Bear" just for him.
Posted by: Gary at
08:25 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 60 words, total size 1 kb.
June 04, 2005
Posted by: Gary at
07:40 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 29 words, total size 1 kb.
Enjoy!!
Posted by: Gary at
07:21 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 49 words, total size 1 kb.
June 03, 2005
Senator Byrd has drifted far to the left of where his state now stands. WV choose President Bush by a 56-43 margin and has trended toward Republicans in the past decade. Senator Byrd believes he is unbeatable and has free reign to do whatever he wants because half of the state is named after him. Looking at the approval numbers, he does have a strong resevoir of support. But that does not mean he is unbeatable. Any poll showing an incumbent with under 50% in a head-to-head is a sign of weakness. If future polls show Senator Byrd polling this poorly, Representative Capito should challenge him.Quick, somebody call Hannity!
Posted by: Gary at
04:26 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 138 words, total size 1 kb.
With a little over three years to go until the 2008 Republican convention, I humbly submit an endorsement of Senator George F. Allen of Virginia for President (despite the fact that he is not yet officially a candidate, but then who is?).
From Allen's website:
Senator George Allen is working tirelessly in the U.S. Senate to make Virginia and America a better place to live, learn, work and raise a family. A self-described “common sense Jeffersonian Conservative”, Senator Allen trusts free people and free enterprise.
Biography:
Born: 3/8/52 (age 56 in 2008 - in Whittier, CA. Resides in Mt. Vernon, VA.
Wife: Susan Allen.
Three children: Tyler, Forrest and Brooke.
Education: B.A., History & Law Degree from University of Virginia
Political Heroes: Thomas Jefferson and Ronald Reagan
Political Experience:
- Served in VA State House
- One-term Congressman (VA-7)
- From 1994-1998, 67th Governor of VA
- Elected to U.S. Senate 2000, junior seat
- Currently serves on:
- Foreign Relations Committee
- Energy and National Resources Committee
- Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee
- Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee - Chairman of National Senatorial Committee in 2002-2004 presided over four-seat increase for GOP.
Sponsored legislation:
- Internet Tax Nondiscrimination Act – extending ban on three types of Internet taxes
- Introduced bill in this Congress to raise death benefit for “next of kin” of servicemen killed from $12,000 to $100,000.
Issues: (from Project Vote-Smart)
Interest Group Rankings:
100% (who likes him):
- National Right To Life Committee
- Americans For Tax Reform
- American Shareholders Association
- Republican Liberty Caucus
- Small Business Survival Committee
- National Small Business Association
- Family Research Council
- Concerned Women For America
- League of Private Property Voters
- Partnership For The HomelessVietnam Veterans of America
0% (who DOESNÂ’T like him)
- NARAL
- Planned Parenthood
- ACLU
- National Education Association
- American Coalition For Ethanol
- League of Conservation Voters
- Brady Campaign To Prevent Gun Violence
- American Immigration Lawyers Association
- AFSCME
- AFL-CIO
- American Federation of Government Employees
Campaign Finance: (via OpenSecrets.org)
- Individual Contributors: 78%
- PACs: 16%
- Business: 82%
- Ideological/Single-Issue: 17%
Summary:
Sen. Allen may not be that well-known at this point, but heÂ’s quickly making a name for himself particulary in the last couple of months with his appearances on TV on behalf of President BushÂ’s judicial nominees as well as John BoltonÂ’s nomination.
He is articulate, telegenic and speaks plainly in the style of his political hero, Ronald Reagan. There is very little Washinton-ese in his vocabulary. His conservative credentials are unimpeachable and his voting record has been consistent with his statements. He is pro-business, pro-tax cuts, socially conservative and supportive of the U.S. military and the Global War on Terror. Allen also has executive experience having served a term as VirginiaÂ’s governor.
Being largely unknown, Allen is considered a “dark horse” by Washington insiders behind bigger names like Frist, Guiliani and Rice. However his positions, experience and style should appeal strongly to the GOP base – especially when campaigning against the likes of John McCain, Chuck Hagel and Mitt Romney.
Of all the prospective nominees, Allen is my early choice. And if he plays it smart he could set himself up as the best choice for the party to win the nomination in 2008. You heard it here first.
Posted by: Gary at
12:37 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 549 words, total size 5 kb.
[Women] with wider hips also appeared to be protected against heart conditions. Women with a hip measurement smaller than 40 inches, or a size 14 would not have this protection, they said. The researchers say hip fat contains a beneficial natural anti-inflammatory.Don't strain yourself too hard with those Tae-bo workouts or you just might be shaving years off your life.
Cue Sir Mix-A-Lot...Compared to the group of women with the smallest hip circumferences, women with the biggest were found to have an 87% reduction in deaths.
They also had an 86% reduced risk of having coronary heart disease and a 46% reduction in the risk of developing cardiovascular disease, according to the researchers.
Hat Tip to K-Lo at The Corner
Posted by: Gary at
09:40 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 149 words, total size 1 kb.
Fair enough. But just one more simple expression of shadenfreude on my part...That is simply great news. In recent years the entire EU project — at least in Western Europe — has taken on an anti-American flavor. Gerhard Schroeder and Jacques Chirac — the lame duck and electorally doomed leaders of Germany and France, respectively — have kept their political engines running on the fumes of anti-Americanism in recent years. The EU project has been sold as a means of counterbalancing the American “hyperpower,” as the French call it. If a project with that kind of billing stumbles — and stumbles badly — and if anti-American nags like Schroeder and Chirac take it in the pants in the process, there can be no more appropriate response from the intelligent American than to dance a jig, do a shot, and wave the giant foam “We’re #1” finger in the air.
But American political leaders should do that behind closed doors. Public gloating wouldnÂ’t be in our interests.
BWWAAAAHHAAAAAHHAAAAHHAAAAA!!!!
Posted by: Gary at
09:13 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 217 words, total size 2 kb.
June 02, 2005
Posted by: Gary at
10:09 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 26 words, total size 1 kb.
Not an encouraging track record. And Brooks deftly explains why:
The people of Continental Europe got themselves addicted to the nanny-State and now they're paying the price, afraid to lose the cushy lives they've become accustomed to. But they're learning the hard way that, in the long run, there's no free lunch.The core fact is that the European model is foundering under the fact that billions of people are willing to work harder than the Europeans are. Europeans clearly love their way of life, but don't know how to sustain it.
Over the last few decades, American liberals have lauded the German model or the Swedish model or the European model. But these models are not flexible enough for the modern world. They encourage people to cling fiercely to entitlements their nation cannot afford. And far from breeding a confident, progressive outlook, they breed a reactionary fear of the future that comes in left- and right-wing varieties - a defensiveness, a tendency to lash out ferociously at anybody who proposes fundamental reform or at any group, like immigrants, that alters the fabric of life.
This is the chief problem with the welfare state, which has nothing to do with the success or efficiency of any individual program. The liberal project of the postwar era has bred a stultifying conservatism, a fear of dynamic flexibility, a greater concern for guarding what exists than for creating what doesn't.
I remember the "Today" show doing a feature on the Scandinavian countries several years ago with Matt and Katie going on and on about what an idyllic paradise it was compared to life in the U.S. I wasn't buyin' it then. And it looks like the current situation bears out my skepticism.
Posted by: Gary at
02:33 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 380 words, total size 3 kb.
Today's Washington Times has a good Op-Ed on the situation:
The problem with the school board is that they were less interested in educating students and than they were about pushing an agenda - one that many parents objected to.At the very least, Montgomery County showed what not to do: Don't stack advisory committees with advocates of "transgenderism" and homosexuality; don't quash opposing viewpoints you happen not to like; and don't make unwarranted distinctions between religious groups. Even in a liberal county, even in a region with liberal federal judges, public opposition will mount and a jurist will spot the constitutional problems.
The point of a sex-education curriculum is to teach facts about sex, not to propagate dubious theories. If such theories are put forward, then, at minimum, alternative approaches must also be presented. In Montgomery County, they were not. That was one of the principal reasons why Judge Alexander Williams Jr., the Clinton appointee who blocked the curriculum last month, ruled against the school board, citing First Amendment protections for free speech and expression.
Posted by: Gary at
09:16 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 224 words, total size 2 kb.
And she point out another tragic consequence of the leaker that brought down a President:
Nixon's ruin led to a cascade of catastrophic events--the crude and humiliating abandonment of Vietnam and the Vietnamese, the rise of a monster named Pol Pot, and millions--millions--killed in his genocide. America lost confidence; the Soviet Union gained brazenness. What a terrible time. Is it terrible when an American president lies and surrounds himself by dirty tricksters? Yes, it is. How about the butchering of children in the South China Sea. Is that worse? Yes. Infinitely, unforgettably and forever.
I was too young to remember these events first hand, but even at such a young age I could sense that lost confidence. Thank goodness for Ronald Reagan.
Posted by: Gary at
07:05 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 153 words, total size 1 kb.
They don't get that they can't take back America, it has to be given to them - by the voters. But of course that's the little obstacle they haven't figured a way around yet...We suspect that this conference is not as much about discovering new ideas, but rather, to figure out how best to mask them.
Why? Because if they came out honestly and aid what they'd really would like to happen - withdrawal from Iraq immediately, Canadian style rationed health care, kowtowing the UN bureaucrats, raise taxes, increase spending (even more than the Republicans), gay marriage, lawyers for terrorists, abortion on demand, economy and job-killing environmental policies and staggering regulatory policies that would cripple entrepreneurship - then they would wouldn't win anything outside the Upper East Side, San Francisco, Massachusetts and Vermont.
UPDATE 10:30am:
NRO's Byron York has a dispatch from the conference. They're bemoaning the lack of diversity at the conference. The problem is that they are ignoring the kind of diversity that would help them - the diversity of ideas.
Posted by: Gary at
06:36 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 222 words, total size 2 kb.
June 01, 2005
The Dutch have spoken and they voted by 62% against. Nee is Dutch for "no".
And the Euro continues to slide against the dollar in the face of a possible break-up of the European Union. The German Bundestag is already looking at the legal ramifications that would result from withdrawing from the charter.
But wait...there's more:
Jonah Goldberg at NRO:The euro was also undermined yesterday by renewed expectations that the next move from the European Central Bank may be to cut, rather than raise rates.
This talk, although by no means a majority view, was fanned yesterday by news that eurozone manufacturing output contracted for a second month in April. Furst quarter eurozone growth was also revised down.
Though I do think there's little reason to rejoice about the voter's intentions. If I understand the debate in France correctly, it was about whether or not a refrigerator box or a tree house makes for a better place to hide. Oh, wait, that was a different debate. This debate was about whether or not the proposed new EU constitution would result in "ultraliberalism" AKA as "the American" economic model. In other words, both the yes-ers and the no-ers were voting with anti-American attitudes. One group wanted the EU to stick it to America geopolitically. The other group found that part appealing, but was more afraid of becoming like America culturally and economically. In short, I think France remains largely a write-off to us. The good news, however, is that France is now far less positioned to determine the course of European foreign policy generally -- and that's great news.Ironically, Chirac and co. proclaimed a "no" vote to be a benefit to the U.S. and many cast their vote as an "anti-American" one.
Update: Dang! Captain Ed beat me to the punch on the Monty Python joke!
Posted by: Gary at
07:35 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 336 words, total size 3 kb.
Just what we need - another excuse for the Mrs. to spurn our thoughtful gifts from Victoria's Secret. Drat!Dr Gent said: "G-strings can abrade and injure the sensitive skin around the genital area, especially if they are too tight or made with badly stitched material."
He said he was dealing with a huge rise in the number of women suffering problems, with friction caused by the 'string' part of the garments often to blame.
Dr Gent, of the Association of Gynaecologists in Hamburg, said the resulting inflammation can "aid the spread of bacteria and lead to fungal infections."
He advises patients to return to more traditional, bigger knickers.
Posted by: Gary at
03:30 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 142 words, total size 1 kb.
Congratulations to Bill Roggio, Blackfive, Brian Scott, Kevin Craver, LaShawn Barber, Lorie Byrd, Mike Krempasky, Rodger Morrow, Trey Jackson, USMC_Vet & WindsofChange.net!
Hat Tip to: Blue State Conservatives
Posted by: Gary at
11:30 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 52 words, total size 1 kb.
Posted by: Gary at
10:47 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 21 words, total size 1 kb.
Mark Felt was the number two man in the FBI when J. Edgar Hoover died. Felt was logically next in line to be Director but President Nixon put in his own guy - L. Patrick Gray - instead. Naturally, Felt - an ambitious career FBI guy - was bitter about being passed over. His payback to Nixon was to anonymously leak classified information to Woodward in a garage somewhere in Georgetown - an act made famous by Hal Holbrook in the film "All The President's Men".
I certainly don't defend Nixon's actions in the Watergate affair. The man's dishonesty to the American people was a violation of his Oath of Office and it is right that he should be held accountable for his lack of judgment. But Felt's actions were not honorable either. He broke an oath of his own to the FBI by doing what he did.
Buchanan - who was on Nixon's staff - points out what would have been honorable. Felt should have gone into Director Patrick Gray's office and shared his information and concerns about the goings-on in the White House and recommended that the Bureau pursue an investigation. If Gray refused, the honorable thing would have been to resign his position and make a public statement outlining his concerns, which would have created the necessary pressure to force an FBI investigation into the matter. In this way he would have been true to both his obligations to the Bureau and the American public.
The reason Felt never made a public statement about his involvement in the story until now is because he knew his actions would have been viewed as dishonorable by his colleagues.
But now, prepare for the Liberal media to praise Felt as a hero with a capital "H". The Post already has a glowing account of the man in it's coverage today:
He was the romantic truth teller half hidden in the shadows of a Washington area parking garage.The MSM has always hated Nixon, ever since he doggedly outed State Department Official Alger Hiss as a Communist spy in 1948. They couldn't wait to be there when the President screwed up. What's really interesting about Felt's involvement in the story is that without him, there would not have been one. Woodward and Bernstein's crack investigations had led to a dead end until the former FBI man shared all his information. The reporters, for all intents and purposes, were nothing more than stenographers at that point.
The really sad part is the way that the Watergate story has poisoned American journalism by creating an "us v. them" mentality among those in the press who would always be on the look-out for the next "gotcha" story. If not for the legacy of Watergate, Bill Clinton might have even been spared Newsweek's Michael Isikoff's breaking of the Monica Lewinsky matter. And maybe after 9/11, the press' knee-jerk reaction would not have been "what did Bush know, and when did he know it?".
In any case, Mark Felt's contribution to journalism can best be remembered as the catalyst for an ever-escalating adversarial relationship between the press and the American government.
Posted by: Gary at
09:30 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 585 words, total size 4 kb.
But something much better happened. Dean was elected DNC Chairman - the public face of the Democrats. An editorial in the Washington Times looks at his first one hundred days and gives Republicans reason to smile.
The party chairman has two major roles: fund raising and presenting the party's message. Dean has failed miserably at both. To date, the Democrats lag the GOP in raising money. Dean has managed to come up with $16 million to the RNC's $34 million. And his "Deanisms" have made him - and by extension his party - look utterly ridiculous.
What is the key to Dean's lack of effectiveness? Simple, he's an arrogant, elitist, Northeast Liberal. And more importantly, as a politician he is undisciplined. Hell, for as annoying as Terry McAuliffe was, he could at least bring in the money and play spinmeister for John Kerry's double-talk.
But in the end, because Dean ignites the passion of the base, he will continue to be around for a while to help the GOP grow its party. As the times observes:
Go, Howard, Go!The Democratic Party needed a good jolt of energy following Mr. Kerry's loss last year, and Mr. Dean seems quite capable of providing it. But the party's problems go deeper than emotional reassurance. Republicans are slowly whittling away at once reliable Democratic voting blocs - blacks and Hispanics - and their control of the South is complete. To reverse these trends, Mr. Dean will have to do a little more than play judge and jury for Mr. DeLay.
Posted by: Gary at
06:32 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 322 words, total size 2 kb.
May 31, 2005
Posted by: Gary at
07:30 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 30 words, total size 1 kb.
While EU leaders called for calm, the Netherlands is now lining up to voice their opposition as well. Polls indicate the rejection by the French has increased percentage of those Dutch citizens registering opposition.
Britain's Tony Blair speculated that a vote in his country may be post-poned for the time being.A June 16-17 summit is certain to become a crisis meeting, as the leaders try to stop the "no" momentum ahead of other referendums this year in Luxembourg, Denmark and Portugal.
Nine countries, accounting for almost half the EU's population, have ratified the treaty, but all the members have to approve it for the constitution to gain the force of law.
"Underneath all this there is a more profound question, which is about the future of Europe and, in particular, the future of the European economy and how we deal with the modern questions of globalization and technological change," Mr. Blair told journalists during a vacation in Italy. Nine European Union members ratified the constitution before the French referendum.Add that to a slide in the Euro v. the US Dollar over the last couple of days and things ain't lookin' too rosey on the Continent.
Posted by: Gary at
04:15 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 239 words, total size 2 kb.
112 queries taking 0.2483 seconds, 272 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.
