Monthly Archives: August 2008

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Islamo Pak Legislator: Into the Past!

5 buried alive ‘tradition’ – Pakistani pol

A Pakistani lawmaker defended a decision by northwestern tribesmen to bury five women alive because they wanted to choose their own husbands, telling stunned members of Parliament to spare him their outrage.

“These are centuries-old traditions, and I will continue to defend them,” Israr Ullah Zehri, who represents Baluchistan province, told The Associated Press Saturday. “Only those who indulge in immoral acts should be afraid.”

The women, three of whom were teenagers, were first shot and then thrown into a ditch. They were still breathing as mud was shoveled over their bodies, according to media reports, which said their only “crime” was that they wished to marry men of their own choosing.

We’re supposed to be ALLIES with this country? Huh?

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Arachnophobia Comes to Britain

Deadly Afghan Spider Hitches Ride Home With U.K. Soldier, Kills Family Dog

A British soldier’s family have been scared out of their own home by a dangerous spider who bit their pet dog to death.

The Griffiths are fighting the war at home against the giant arachnid, who was unwittingly transported back from Afghanistan in paratrooper Rodney’s luggage. They have already lost their beloved eight-year-old dog, Bella, to the camel spider. The family pet had to be put down after being bitten by the venomous attacker.

Lorraine Griffiths and her three children, aged 18, 16 and four, have been forced to leave their family home in Colchester, Essex. They are now refusing to return to the property until the killer spider is captured by the RSPCA. Found in desert regions, camel spiders can grow up to 6 inches and reach speeds of up to 10 mph, making them devils to catch.

Lorraine Griffiths believes the spider hitched a ride into the U.K. in the personal belongings of her husband. Rodney, 32, came home from duty in Helmand in June. He has since returned for a further tour of duty in Afghanistan.

DISCLOSURE: These things ae NOT spiders, although they ARE Arachnids with 8 legs. Not a pleasant piece of work, but due to their size are capable of causing some noticeable damage. According to most descriptions, they are not venomous…so the Chief wonders about that bit of the above report.

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GOP’s Hot Ticket

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McCain picks Palin for GOP ticket
Selection sets up historic vote in fall

Republican Sen. John McCain on Friday picked little-known Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate, reassuring anxious social and fiscal conservatives but muting his own attacks on Democratic rival Sen. Barack Obama as too inexperienced to become commander in chief.

To thoughts on this:
(1) There is just a SLIGHT difference between the top of the ticket and the #2 slot.
(2) Palin’s experience is executive…which of necessity grounds itself in actual stuff that has to be done to keep something operating… whether it’s a small town, a state government, or a business.

B.O. has none of this – HIS experience consists of kvetching as a member of the legislative herd, and not an especially productive one at that

The stunning choice sets up a truly historic presidential race – on Nov. 4, Americans will either elect the nation’s first black president or its first female vice president.

Indeed!

Mrs. Palin, 44, still in her first term as governor, brings strong conservative credentials – she opposes abortion rights and gay marriage, supports increased domestic drilling for oil, is a lifelong member of the National Rifle Association and has a son in the U.S. Army who deploys to Iraq next month.

What’s not to like?

Finally, from across the aisle, predictable downtalking:

House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel said the choice represented “political panic,” and the Obama campaign put out a quick dismissive statement, saying Mrs. Palin had “zero foreign policy experience.”

“Zero foreign policy experience”…sort of like B.O., eh? Oh…not the same…as noted above, he’s at the TOP of the ticket. (Unless one counts B.O.’s appearance at Euro rock-concert/speech events as foreign policy experience.)

The Chief’s overall reaction:
ticket_main.jpg

“Every picture tells a story, don’t it?”

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Truth about B.O. Confirmed!

Barack Obama will appeal to European voters to get more troops for Afghanistan

Barack Obama will use his popularity with voters in Europe to put pressure on EU governments to commit more troops to Afghanistan.

Yep! For sure! He’s a legend in his own mind!

(And to come up with this one… he shows a very poor case of situational awareness.)

Constitution Watch

Censorship & Government Persecution: Obama’s SS Strikes!

Obama campaign confronts WGN radio

What are the Obamanistas attitude toward minor details of the Constitutional Law, like say, the 1st Amendment? “Every picture tells a story, don’t it?”

Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign organized its supporters Wednesday night to confront Tribune-owned WGN-AM in Chicago for having a critic of the Illinois Democrat on its air.

SHOCKING! Someone from the MSM that hasn’t bought into B.O.’s prospective ascension to the Imperial Throne? What else could they do than to attempt to cut out the heresy, root and branch, and cast the perpetrators into outer darkness – or at least off the air.

“WGN radio is giving right-wing hatchet man Stanley Kurtz a forum to air his baseless, fear-mongering terrorist smears,” Obama’s campaign wrote in an e-mail to supporters. “He’s currently scheduled to spend a solid two-hour block from 9:00 to 11:00 p.m. pushing lies, distortions, and manipulations about Barack and University of Illinois professor William Ayers.”

Kurtz, a conservative writer, recently wrote an article for the National Review that looked at Obama’s ties to Ayers, a former 1960s radical who later emerged as a school reform advocate in Chicago.

The magazine had been blocked in its initial attempts to obtain records from the University of Illinois at Chicago regarding a school reform initiative called the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, which Obama chaired and Ayers co-founded.

Obama critics were quick to suggest that political clout could be involved in seeking to protect Obama from embarrassment. The school later reserved its position and made the records available Tuesday.

After noting more of the details of the situation, the posting concludes with “Obama’s campaign has launched similar offensives against stations that have run campaign ads that it did not like.”

NRO has some more information…this is an op-ed, but it DOES also report some additional information about what’s going on.

Barack Obama, Aspiring Commissar

While the Obama coronation proceeds apace in Denver, it is in Chicago that Americans are getting a disturbing demonstration of his thuggish methods of stifling criticism.

They go on to conclude with this:

Kurtz has obviously hit a nerve. It is the same nerve hit by the American Issues Project, whose television ad calling for examination of the Obama/Ayers relationship has prompted the Obama campaign to demand that the Justice Department begin a criminal investigation. Obama fancies himself as “post-partisan.” He is that only in the sense that he apparently brooks no criticism. This episode could be an alarming preview of what life will be like for the media should the party of the Fairness Doctrine gain unified control of the federal government next year.

CRIMINAL charges? Hello? What happened to the 1st Amendment?

“Post-partisan?” Logically, this has to mean “one-party rule” (or is it “The One’s Party Rules”?)

Meanwhile, this stuff isn’t the only attempt to “control” the news that has affected the MSM:

ABC Reporter Arrested in Denver Taking Pictures of Senators, Big Donors
Asa Eslocker Was Investigating the Role of Lobbyists and Top Donors at the Convention

Police in Denver arrested an ABC News producer today as he and a camera crew were attempting to take pictures on a public sidewalk of Democratic senators and VIP donors leaving a private meeting at the Brown Palace Hotel.

Looks like the fix is in… it apparently wouldn’t do to show up Donk connections with the very same ilk of big-money types that their class-warfare neo-Bolshevik rhetoric loves to castigate.

What’s the flap about anyway?

Eslocker and his ABC News colleagues are spending the week investigating the role of corporate lobbyists and wealthy donors at the convention for a series of Money Trail reports on ABC’s “World News with Charles Gibson.”

Must be some real news in danger of actually being reported for a change.

If they are this aggressive now, can you imagine what these totalitarian minded apparatchiks would do if they were in charge of the FBI, BATF, CIA, etc.???

Yikes! Keep your powder dry!

Uncategorized

Donks’ Freudian Slip is Showing

Carville: Convention has no message!

On CNN this evening, Clintonista James Carville voiced his displeasure with tonight’s proceedings as having no theme, no message.

“James Carville seems the least satisfied Democrat in here right now,” noted CNN’s Anderson Cooper. “What’s going on James?”

“Well if this party has a message it has done a hell of a job of hiding it tonight I promise you that,” Carville said.

This is easily explained. In order to deliver a message…you first have to HAVE a message!

With nothing except retreaded 1930’s New Dealism with a new coat of Euroized “Social Democracy” (i.e. socialism) for a little variety, there is no message the Donks have left that they can admit to… at least without forfeiting totally their chance of getting elected in the U.S. (This fits in with the great success of B.O.’s speech in Deutschland, while it laid an egg here in the land of the Star Spangled Banner.

When will they ever learn?

National Insecurity

Cold War II & Stalinist Revivalism

Ghost of Stalin strides the Caucasus

Knowing the origins of Stalin, and his later record, the current mess in Georgia, and the aggressiveness of the Soviets Russians is unfortunately part of the pattern of the new cold war, same as the old cold war.

AT the centre of Gori, Georgia, where every window has been shattered and Russian T-72 tanks patrol, the marble statue of the world’s most famous Georgian, Joseph Stalin, stands gleamingly, almost supernaturally unharmed. As this vicious colonial war turns into an international battle over spheres of influence, Stalin is Banquo at the feast, metaphorically present in the palaces of the Kremlin, the burning houses in the villages, the cabinets of Europe’s eastern capitals.

Today, as far as Moscow is concerned, the Georgian cobbler’s son and Marxist fanatic has been laundered of any traces of Georgia and Marx. He is now a Russian tsar, the inspiration for the authoritarian, nationalistic and imperial strains in today’s capitalistic, pragmatic, swaggering Russia.

In this crisis, and in who knows how many future ones, Stalin represents empire, prestige, victory.

Given the historical fact that Stalin’s USSR killed more of its own people than the Nazis did in their rightly despised death camps, where’s the outcry over Russia’s Stalinist revival?

What would the reaction be if Germany similarly launched a rejuvenation of Hitler’s rep?

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Charity Begins at Home…Apparently not for B.O.

Barack Obama’s ‘lost’ brother found in Kenya

It’s said that blood is thicker than water…but maybe the political high altitude causes a sort of familial anemia fo B.O.

The Italian edition of Vanity Fair said that it had found George Hussein Onyango Obama living in a hut in a ramshackle town of Huruma on the outskirts of Nairobi.

Mr Obama, 26, the youngest of the presidential candidate’s half-brothers, spoke for the first time about his life, which could not be more different than that of the Democratic contender.

“No-one knows who I am,” he told the magazine, before claiming: “I live here on less than a dollar a month.”

Dang! $1.00 a month? B.O. reportedly met him the last time he was in Kenya…admittedly not much close connection…but family is still family…or is it?

Maybe B.O.’s in the not uncommon lib mode of thought that loves humanity but dislikes people.

National Insecurity

Iranians Sounding Like Nazis – Again

Ahmadinejad calls Israel ‘germ of corruption’ to be ‘removed soon’

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is calling Israel a “germ of corruption” that will be “removed soon.” The comments were posted Wednesday on his presidential Web site. They appear to be part of an effort to defuse criticism by hard-liners over recent remarks made by a high-level official.

Last week, Iranian media quoted Vice President Esfandiar Rahim Mashai as saying Iranians were “friends of all people in the world – even Israelis.” The comments were rare from a government official in Iran. They sparked domestic criticism of Mashai, with some officials calling for his resignation.

…and these are the friendly fiendly folks that Donk candidate=apparent B.O. thinks he can negotiate with.

Sort of positioning himself for walking in the footsteps of Chamberlain, assuming of course that he gets elected…which is NOT something the Chief is ready to concede

SD Politics

Government vs. Government

Districts can’t pay to sue S.D.

School districts don’t have the authority to spend district money to support their lawsuit that challenges the state’s education funding system, a Pierre judge ruled Thursday. Circuit Judge Lori Wilbur also ruled that school districts don’t have the standing to sue the state to declare its education funding system unconstitutional.

This one leaves the Chief somewhat conflicted… like happening upon a rattlesnake fighting with a scorpion. Neither side in the argument makes you want to pick a winner.

It’s a fact that SD is at the bottom of the heap for teachers’ pay scales. (It’s also a fact that the Chief is teaching at a SD school district that is at the bottom of the SD heap.) More money would be good for this, but…

The Chief has also noted in SOME cases at least, that school boards, administrators are all too willing to spend money on their pet interests, and ignore (if not actually de facto denigrate) the teachers, and their needs and concerns.

On the other hand, there’s a REAL queasy feeling when one level of government starts spending tax money to sue another level of government about not getting enough of THEIR tax money passed down the line to them, which also requires the defendent side to spend even more tax money to counter the suit.

Sort of reminds the Chief of MAFIA fighting over the take of the protection/extortion rackets.

The final upshot? No matter how it turns out…the taxpayer takes it in the shorts, and the lawyers out to do good, end up doing right well for themselves!

Anyway, this decision doesn’t bode well for the school boards in this case.

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A Positive Note:

Received via e-mail:

HOW TO START EACH DAY WITH A POSITIVE OUTLOOK
1. Open a new file in your computer.
2. Name it ‘Barack Obama’.
3. Send it to the Recycle Bin.
4. Empty the Recycle Bin.
5. Your PC will ask you: ‘Do you really want to get rid of ‘Barack Obama?’
6. Firmly Click ‘Yes.’
7. Feel better?
GOOD! – Tomorrow we’ll do Nancy Pelosi!

I like it.

Defense Matters!, National Insecurity

More Cold War II – Leading to World War III (or is it IV?)

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To one who is able and willing to recall 20th Century history, current events produce that same old deja vu all over again.

Remember? 3rd Reich Glee Club and Marching Society World Tour: 1938- Sudetenland / Czechoslovakia; 1939 – Poland; 1940 – Denmark, Norway, Netherlands, Belgium, France; 1941 – Yugoslavia, Greece, Albania, North Africa, USSR. ’nuff said.

Russia: Poland risks attack because of US missiles

A top Russian general said Friday that Poland’s agreement to accept a U.S. missile interceptor base exposes the ex-communist nation to attack, possibly by nuclear weapons, the Interfax news agency reported. The statement by Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn is the strongest threat that Russia has issued against the plans to put missile defense elements in former Soviet satellite nations….

“Poland, by deploying (the system) is exposing itself to a strike — 100 percent,” Nogovitsyn, the deputy chief of staff, was quoted as saying.

100%!!?? Is this REALLY a war warning? If so…see above note about 1939…

He added, in clear reference to the agreement, that Russia’s military doctrine sanctions the use of nuclear weapons “against the allies of countries having nuclear weapons if they in some way help them.” Nogovitsyn said that would include elements of strategic deterrence systems, he said, according to Interfax.

Yikes! Even the Foggy Bottom Boyus at the State Department wouldn’t be able to ignore an attack on Poland…whether or not we were actually ready to act…which we aren’t, at least not much more (psychologically if not militarily) than were Britain and France in 1939.

This leads to a REALLY ugly, bad conclusion… and the Chief at least can’t see a good ending if the Russia keeps its vows.

Defense Matters!, National Insecurity

Cold War II Update

Georgia on my Mind… (to quote Ray Charles)

Quoted in an e-mail bulletin, but without specifics as to date:

“Russia’s attack on neighboring Georgia over two tiny separatist provinces is really about something much bigger—Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s desire to restore the former USSR’s might. Russia’s ill intentions clearly are on display in Georgia. In a fit of nationalist fury, it wants to teach Georgia and other former satellite countries that once made up the Soviet Bloc that its pro-Western rapprochement days are over. What better way than to invade a former republic, humiliate its leaders and then taunt the West for failing to come to its aid? As if that wasn’t enough, Russia immediately began threatening its other neighbors. A top Russian diplomat ominously warned Monday that Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania and Poland would ‘pay’ for criticizing Russia’s ‘imperialist’ policy toward Georgia. Russia’s claim to support independence from Georgia of tiny South Ossetia and even tinier Abkhazia is simply phony. Georgia, with its strategically important oil pipeline, has grown close to the U.S. —even sending troops to Iraq. Putin, furious at growing U.S. and NATO ties with Eastern Europe, wanted to emasculate Georgia’s military while deposing its pro-American President Mikheil Saakashvili. With his attack, it looks like he’s succeeding. The symbolism of the invasion, coming at the start of the Beijing Olympics, is unmistakable. This is Russia’s wake-up call to all of us. Communism may be dead, Putin is saying, but Russia isn’t.” —Investor’s Business Daily

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Thid did encourage the Chief to look at I.B.D. to try to find the specifics, without success. There WERE however, a couple of other relevant op-eds there on the topic:

A Pipeline Runs Through It

Geopolitics: Russia’s aggression is not only about toppling a pro-Western democracy and potential NATO member. It’s about the only pipeline bringing Caspian Sea oil to the West not controlled by Moscow or Iran.

Georgia is only the latest instance of Russia’s plans to reassemble the “evil empire” and neuter NATO expansion, using energy as both a weapon and a means of financing its rapid military expansion. Russia has doubled its military in the past five years, thanks in large part to the “windfall profits” it has reaped from skyrocketing energy prices.

One of the Russian targets in Georgia is a pipeline carrying oil from the Caspian to the West. Georgia was a target of renewed Russian imperialism because it was a democracy, a future NATO member and an energy supplier to the West. Its use would accelerate declining oil prices worldwide and put a serious crimp in Moscow’s plans.

This makes FAR too much sense…is anyone in Washington besides Sen. McCain noticing this? B.O. the Annointed continues to demonstrate his nearly total lack of situational awareness concerning national security issues.

Answering Russia

Energy: Russia’s bloody invasion of a smaller neighbor whose territory includes a vital oil pipeline has left many people wondering: What can we do? Plenty, it turns out — including some things right here at home.

Russian President Dmitri Medvedev announced he was halting Russia’s air and ground attack on Georgia, but someone forgot to tell Russia’s military.

It has continued its brutal assault, with news reports that Russian troops have started looting, raping and savagely attacking Georgian civilians.

It’s clear former President Vladimir Putin, not his handpicked successor Medvedev, is calling the shots. Putin’s made no secret of the fact that he wants to depose Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili and set up a pliant puppet regime, giving him de facto control of Georgia’s oil pipeline — the main conduit to Europe from the oil-rich Caspian Sea that’s not on Russian soil.

What to do? Some ideas from I.D.B.:

Start with President Bush’s pledge Wednesday to support Georgia, an ally in the war on terror, and send it aid. Bush warned Russia the U.S. might not support its “aspirations” to join diplomatic, economic and security groups. We’ve already canceled joint NATO-Russia naval exercises, scheduled for this weekend. And we can turn the G-8 nations back into the G-7. Russia has shown that it doesn’t deserve to be counted among democratic, economically free nations.

But there’s more we can do:
• Russia wants badly to join the World Trade Organization. Put that on a back burner until it starts behaving.
• Russia is scheduled to hold the 2014 Winter Olympics at the resort of Sochi, 15 miles from Abkhazia, the other Georgian province that Russia just invaded. Cancel it, and give it to a more deserving host.
• We’re building a missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic. We should accelerate our plans, and broaden participation.
• Russia took in about $27 billion in foreign investment last year. We should limit capital flows to make sure Western capital and technology aren’t used to build Russia’s military.

In short, if Russia wants a Cold War, we can give them one.

Hoo-rah! The Chief heartily concurs.

National Insecurity

Marching through Georgia – Update

“…wars, and rumors of wars.”:

Russian strikes hit civilians

Hmmm. Restoring the old Russian traditions of not troubling over trivialities like collateral damage”. Sort of like Afghanistan in the 70’s and 80’s, to say nothing of Hungary in ’56.

Georgia conflict: Screams of the injured rise from residential streets

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The ground shook and a series of explosions rippled through the air. From the middle of a housing estate in the Georgian town of Gori a huge fireball rose into the sky, twisting and mushrooming as if in slow motion. Choking dust swirled above the debris, darkening the sky. A brief silence followed and then the screaming started.

For two days, Georgia has been convulsed by a Russian air and ground assault in a conflict that has escalated rapidly from a localised war against separatist rebels in South Ossetia into a full-scale military confrontation.

But this was the first time that Russian bombs had struck a residential area.

The fighter jets responsible for the devastation had been targeting a military barracks in the built-up outskirts of Gori, a Georgian town 15 miles from the Ossetian frontier. They missed.

Unfortunately there is a lot more harrowing description of the results of the Glorious Soviet Russian Air Force in the Telegraph piece.

Of course, all is sweetness and light from Moscow:

Russia denies deliberately targeting civilians, and insists that the offensive in Georgia is not war but a “peacekeeping mission”.

Yeah, right. So’s a cemetery peaceful. In other words: “Ignore the picture above and the accompanying descriptions. Move along folks, nothing to be concered about. Watch the ChiCom Olympics. Nothing happening here. The Soviet Union Russia is a peace-loving nation, quietly maintaining its sovereignty over a formerly Soviet land. I mean, wasn’t everything peaceful back in the USSR? Da! It’s that pesky independence that Georgia seems to think is important that’s the problem. Nyet?

Few of the people of Gori believe that. So powerful were the bombs aimed at the barracks that they shattered windows in a half-mile radius. Even if all had hit their intended target, the chances of collateral damage would have been high.

No precision bombing here!

Directly related is this:

Georgia: Crisis deepens as Russia snubs George W Bush’s call to pull troops out

Western nations have sent a high-level diplomatic mission to Georgia in a bid to broker a truce in the country’s conflict with Russia over the breakaway region of South Ossetia.

Yada, yada, yada. Like former KGB thug Putin gives a rip about diplospeak. If he DID care, the Red Russian Army wouldn’t be on the march.

National Insecurity

Marching through Georgia

Georgia: Russia enters into ‘war’ in South Ossetia

If there is anyplace on the planet with as intricate a set of blood-feuds, ethno-political complications, and a potential for generating mayhem on a massive scale as the Balkans, it’s the Caucasus. This is where Russia, Iran, Turkey, and numerous smaller nations and ethnic identities all are cheek-by-jowl, and many dislike if not hate each other, and have done so for centuries.

georgia-map_787491a.gif

The current events there are the latest manifiestation of this…although the situation is greatly complicated a Cold War II geopolitical calculus that has Georgia, which had been aligned to seek NATO membership musch to Russias displeasure, and which has a pipeline terminus that allows central Asian gas to by-pass Russia on its way to Europe, under attack by Russia for seeking to assert sovereignty over part of its own recognized territory opposed to an ethnic minority that looks to Russia for protection.

This is also taking place in the context of Russian threatened “bomber rattling” – floating ideas to place supersonic nuke bombers in Cuba and Venezuela, to threaten…guess who…as possible paybacks for preceding with missile defense against possible Iranian ballistic missiles. Phew! That’s a LOT on the geopolitical platter at one time.

Over 1,300 people are reported dead after Russian forces responded to a Georgian attack on rebels in the breakaway province of South Ossetia by mounting a full scale invasion. Columns of Russian tanks plunged the two neighbours into war as they filed into South Ossetia, marking the Kremlin’s first military assault on foreign soil since the Soviet Union’s Afghanistan intevention, which ended in 1989.

Russian tanks rolled towards the capital of South Ossetia and fighters bombed Georgian air bases after Georgia launched attacks on rebels in the breakaway region. South Ossetia won de-facto independence in a war which ended in 1992 but has been a source of tension ever since, along with Abkhazia, another separatist region.

The only light note in the situation, is the assurance that Atlanta will be safe…unless we learn that the Russians have a general named Sherman.

SD Politics

Sen. Johnson Speechless in Debates

This has been out there today…and is still worth noting:

Sen. Tim Johnson says no to debates

Democratic Sen. Tim Johnson says he won’t take part in “traditional political debates” during his 2008 re-election campaign. Johnson suffered a brain hemorrhage in December 2006 and went through extensive rehabilitation, slowly learning to walk and speak again. The 61-year-old Johnson, whose speech is slurred, is still undergoing speech rehab.

“I have been open and honest about my recovery,” he said in a news release. “While my speech continues to improve, it is not yet 100 percent and I have not yet reached a point in my rehab where my participation in a debate would accurately reflect my capabilities. Therefore I will not participate in traditional political debates during this campaign.”

To notice the 500 lb gorilla in the corner on this one, the Chief would note the possibility that the point reached in his rehab WOULD accurately reflect his capabilities. Of course no one is supposed to actually say so, but it’s still sitting there anyway.

More surprising to the Chief is the following, from the Argus-Leader:

Update: Johnson repeatedly vowed to debate before today’s decision to back out

After initially vowing to participate in political debates, Sen. Tim Johnson said today he would not debate Republican challenger Joel Dykstra. When Johnson announced he planned to run for reelection, Dykstra said, “he was quoted early on as being committed to debating his opponent… We hoped his campaign staff would have let him complete that promise.”

Johnson’s past statements show that Friday’s announcement is an abrupt departure from what the senator and his campaign manager said previously:

The piece then goes on to cite the specific instances when the debate question was previously discussed:

• In December, Johnson said in a conference call with reporters that he will participate in debates if he is asked. “How many and where are put in reserve, but I will participate in debates,” he told the Associated Press.
• In March, Steve Jarding, who heads the Johnson campaign, told the Argus Leader there will be debates.
• In April, Johnson again told the AP that he expected to debate the winner of the Republican primary.

Jarding said Friday the senator was not talked out of debates by his staff. “It’s his decision. Tim’s his own guy. He knows himself best, and God knows with health issues that should be in his hands,” says Jarding. “Obviously the calculation the Johnson staff has made is they feel the cost of snubbing the Dakotafest debate (and subsequent debates later this fall) is lower than the cost of doing it.

What surprises the Chief on all this is that the Argus-Leader actually pointed out the change in Johnson’s willingness to openly debate.

Uncategorized

Sieg Heil to The One!

One Nation, Under a New Obama Salute

These people are entering realms of consciousness that are more typical of north-central Europe in the 1930’s than anything that has come since. How very weird this is…not just the whole idea itself, but the overpowering need that Obamanationers have to absolutely DEVOTE themselves to what is becoming a Fuhrer-figure.

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Also, enough already of the neo-Boshevik style poster art – a Freudian slip is showing somewhere, for sure.

But you say there’s not really anything totalitarian going on here? Come again? What about The Candidate Of Change promising that he will CHANGE the details of our lives…no matter what WE want to do:

…he is going to give us not just new politics, but new lifestyles. He recently told an audience, “We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times … and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK.”

And the Obamas mean business, as Michelle Obama informed us:

Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. That you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zones. That you push yourselves to be better. And that you engage. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed.(Emphasis added)

Is that plain enough? Heaven help you if you persist in your “usual, univolved, uninformed” life, (for example as a bitter gun-liking, God-fearing, conservative), because the “re-education” camps couldn’t be far behind!

Of course, the “change” would need to start at the top…and the left has already openly proclaimed the need for a system of “war-crime” show trials a la Nuremberg after the annointing of the Imperial Status of The One.

One thing that hasn’t received much attention in conservative and Republicans circles is the ongoing conversation on the left about the possibility of Nuremberg-style war-crimes trials for members of the Bush administration should a Democratic president take office. I’m not exaggerating or introducing the Nazi analogy myself; they actually use the phrase “Nuremberg-style” when they discuss “war-crimes tribunals.” And they are quite serious (although the more moderate of them prefer a “truth commission.”)

Words fail at this point.

Uncategorized

Illegal Aliens?

Received the following from an e-mail correspondent:

Can this be just a coincidence?

Many of you will recall that on July 8, 1947, a little over 60 years ago, witnesses claim that an unidentified flying object (UFO) with five aliens aboard crashed onto a sheep and cattle ranch just outside Roswell, New Mexico. This is a well-known incident that many say has long been covered up by the US Air Force and other federal Agencies and organizations.

However, what you may NOT know is that in the month of April 1948, nine months after that historic day, the following people were born:
Albert A. Gore, Jr.
Hillary Rodham
John F. Kerry
William J. Clinton
Howard Dean
Nancy Pelosi
Dianne Feinstein
Charles E. Schumer
Barbara Boxer

See what happens when aliens breed with sheep?

I certainly hope this bit of information clears up a lot of things for you. It did for me!

No wonder they support  legislation to help illegal aliens. Now you know.

’nuff said!

Constitution Watch, Culture Wars

SD Abortion Debate on National Review Site

Ramesh Ponnaru posting on NRO’s THE CORNER site has given a Slate article a blast for, as he tags it:

SNEERING at SOUTH DAKOTA

I’ve long admired William Saletan’s work, and so I was taken aback by his post on South Dakota’s new informed-consent law on abortion, which has a much higher snark-to-substance ratio than I have come to expect from him. The law requires abortionists to tell women seeking their services that abortion “will terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being.” According to Saletan, the South Dakota legislators are “lying to women about their bodies.”

The post goes on to logically dismantle Saletan’s attempt at argument:

It’s actually a little hard to tease out Saletan’s argument. As far as I can make out, he has two objections to the word “separate” in the required message. First, he does not consider the embryo “separate” because, for example, it is implanted in and nourished by a mother’s womb. But obviously the word “separate” has multiple meanings; there is no contradiction or even tension in saying that an embryo is a being separate (=distinct) from the mother while also being within her. An infant is nourished by others without calling into question its separateness in the relevant sense.

Argument 1(b) is that the embryo isn’t separate because maternal RNA directs its growth. Saletan has made a big deal out of this point in the past. But his argument still makes no sense. Yes, the embryo’s RNA is derived from the mother and crucial to its development. So is half the embryo’s DNA. The other half is from the father, but the embryo is a being distinct from the father. So too is it distinct from the mother. Saletan’s argument is a bit like taking someone literally when he says that a baby has “his father’s eyes.”

Second, I think Saletan is trying to say that if the embryo is a separate being from the mother, then there can be no objection to removing it from the womb (and thus causing its death). The pro-life position collapses into logical incoherence. If the embryo is already separate, that is, what can be wrong with separating it from the mother? I hesitate to ascribe this position to Saletan because it seems so pathetic. Again, he is trading on the different meanings of the word “separate” as though ignorant of the way language operates. Rephrase the argument: “If the embryo is distinct from the mother, what can be wrong with physically removing it from the mother?” You can see that the argument has no force. In addition, abortion is not typically a mere removal of an embryo or fetus from the mother with the unfortunate side-effect of killing it. Killing it is almost always both the goal and the method of the procedure.

It’s always nice to see deft verbal rapier work, and the final conclusion is best of all:

In short, the rubes of South Dakota are right and the sophisticated sneerer is wrong.

Amen!

H/T to e-mail correspondent for this one.

Defense Matters!, National Insecurity

More Notes on Cold War-II

Putin says Russia needs to go back to Cuba

This goes along with previous posting here, talking about Soviet…er…Russian talk about moving nuclear bombers to Cuba and Venezuela.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Monday said it was time for Russia to rebuild links with former Cold War ally Cuba, news agencies reported.

The Kremlin is angry at U.S. plans for a missile defence system in Eastern Europe, and last month a news report suggested Russia might use Cuba, a thorn in America’s side for half a century, as a refueling stop for nuclear-capable bombers.

Keep your powder dry.

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Passing of a Titan: R.I.P. Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Russians mourn dissident hero Solzhenitsyn

The Chief has read everything by Solzhenitsyn that he could get his hands on…both in the 60’s and (early) 70’s when he was “cool”, and later when he spoke out against the “Evil Empire” as it was spotlighted by Reagan…and therefore became “un-cool”, at least to the MSM.

Russians on Monday mourned Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the author and dissident whose criticism of the tyranny of Soviet rule made him one of the bravest figures of the 20th century. Solzhenitsyn, a Nobel literature laureate, died of heart failure late on Sunday in his Moscow home. He was 89.

It’s worth noting that Aleksander Isayevich Solzhenitsyn’s passing has generated a further piece of irony:

“The death of Alexander Isayevich Solzhenitsyn is a heavy loss for the whole of Russia,” said a telegram from Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, a former agent with the KGB security service that led the persecution campaign against Solzhenitsyn.

It’ll be a long while before there’s another Russian writer of the stature of Solzhenitsyn again. The Chief would place him in a league with Tolstoy, and Doesteyevsky.

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The Answer Isn’t Blowin’ in the Wind

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Yeah, but NOT the way you might think it is! The Chief just HATES to throw mudballs at popular ideas, but this one is just too irresistable. First, Momentous Pronouncements from the Argus’ esteemed (satire alert!) paragon of political and ideological objectivity:

Kranz: Pickens plan has promise for S.D

If they haven’t heard much about him, South Dakotans will certainly know soon enough about T. Boone Pickens. His message on the future of energy is resonating loudly enough, and that has created some interest.

Hey, isn’t it AMAZING what a multi-million dollar multimedia ad campaign can accomplish in this day and age?

A Sioux Falls man, Lee Brown, a consultant, already was working on some unrelated projects with people connected with Pickens. “They in turn recommended me to help in this effort since I am once again located in South Dakota,” Brown said. He now is state director for activities promoting the Pickens Plan in the state – a plan to change how energy is used in this nation.

From what the Chief has seen, Pickens’ plan has more to do with how energy is PRODUCED, not how it’s USED… but I quibble.

Brown says South Dakota is already ahead of the game. He knows the importance of alternative energy, particularly wind energy, as well as the benefits from its use. Brown is a political consultant by trade, but he now has taken on an additional project.

Hello? As if this ISN’T political?

“Wind has been on the radar screen for three years, and projects are being funded, looking at anything in renewable fuels,” she said. “The Pickens Plan is a positive step, putting a national focus on the idea that we need to quit sending money to people who really don’t like us. His plan has huge potential….Downside? “There is no downside,” she said.”

No downside? And what’s the bit about where the money is going to go? Uh…read on, and follow the money.  IMHO the following piece has some real deal-busters.

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