In case you're wondering, the title photo of moi was NOT photoshopped, taken in ambient room light without a flash, the Halloween coloring was serendipitous.
I'm logging off... thanks for all the fish.
--Zozo
Hitch asks a pertinent question and reaches an obvious conclusion
Yes, Saddam did have terrorist connections.In what was to be his last book, The Evidence of Things Not Seen, about the murders of black children in Atlanta in the early 1980s, the great James Baldwin had the following reminiscence:
Some years ago, after the disappearance of civil rights workers Chaney, Goodman and Schwirner in Mississippi, some friends of mine were dragging the river for their bodies. This one wasn't Schwirner. This one wasn't Goodman. This one wasn't Chaney. Then, as Dave Dennis tells it: "It suddenly struck us – what difference did it make that it wasn't them? What are these bodies doing in the river?"
[...]
I wouldn't ordinarily rest anything on an assertion from the Apostle Paul, who described faith itself as "the substance of things hoped for; the evidence of things not seen." But a whole school of pseudo-empiricism is now springing up, concerning the "evidence" from Iraq. In Slate a few weeks ago, reviewing the new book by Saddam's one-time chief physicist Mahdi Obeidi, I pointed to some important facts about Iraq's weaponry that have only become known to us as a direct consequence of regime-change. Some of these things—the buried nuclear centrifuge, or the attempt to purchase missiles from North Korea—were rather worse than had been previously alleged by the administration. Moreover, nobody before the war had claimed that Iraq had no covert weaponry at all.
[...]
In order to believe that Zarqawi is or was innocent of al-Qaida and Baathist ties, therefore, or in order to believe that he does not in fact represent such a tie, you must be ready to believe that:
1) A low-level Iraqi official decided to admit a much-hunted Jordanian—a refugee from the invasion of Afghanistan, after Sept. 11, 2001—when even the most conservative forces in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia were keeping their distance from such people and even assisting in rounding them up.
2) That this newly admitted immigrant felt that the most pressing need of the holy war was the assassination of Kurdish leaders opposed to the rule of Saddam Hussein.
3) That a recently arrived Jordanian, in a totally controlled police state, was so enterprising as to swiftly put himself in possession of maps, city diagrams, large sums of cash, and a group of heavily armed fighters hitherto named after the Iraqi dictator—the Fedayeen Saddam.
I can only say that you are quite welcome to believe all of that if you wish. But you must be able to wish quite hard.
[...]
Millions of Iraqis can tell you that during the Saddam despotism their country was as hard to enter as it was to leave. Any reporter with average knowledge or experience can also tell you that decisions of this kind—about which high-value fugitive to admit, for example—were not taken at consular or desk-officer level during the days of the supreme and absolute leader. But of course, this is no smoking gun. Perhaps, indeed, the Baathists and the jihadists simply collaborate without having to be told. Meanwhile, what are all those other bodies doing in the river?
What, indeed.
"If the Dems can't find Galena [Ohio], how can they help find explosives in Iraq?"
Well, we all knew it was only a matter of time and desperation —that Bob Shrum couldn't resist. In a final push for votes in key swing states, the words of Osama are being used in a Kerry radio ad.
Denny's on roll....this one made Feste spew beer all over the place...really, you humans are so disgusting....mumbling summin' about the good voters in Sth Dakota finally putting a stake through his tenure. Then there's this one...laugh-out-loud funny...'cept the joke's on you guys...ain't it?
Finally Feste got all worked up over this Public Service Announcement...I didn't know Feste was so civic-minded.. (Not work or wife safe).
WuT a SuNDAe! CLoCKs rOLLinG, eLEctIOn gUEsSinG, HaLLowEEninG aNd KaRNIvaL oF tHe KatZ Iz uP aT When cats Attack tOO!
mEoWWzAA!
He'RE's a piTcHEr oF mEEsa 'n ZozO enJOying a nEw caTNIp pOUcH ziPPeD iNTo tHe boTToM Of oUr sUnNinG bed. MeESa wuZ haVInG lOtZ oF fUn, tHen tHAt trICksy ZOzO kiCKeD meEsa OuT 'n hOgGeD iT aLL.
JuSTicE pREvaILeD aS yUO cAn sEE iF yOUsE cLIcKS tHe ReAd MoRe ShtUfF thINgiE...
HeH.
--moLLy
Amid the faux graveyards, ghouls and jockularity, John Donovan reminds us of the price paid to keep our Union strong and free. The Civil War is often forgotten except among historians, military buffs and re-inacters.
However, in the lush green countryside the grass grows in tens of thousands of quiet corners as tombstones stand witness to America's worst and best impluses.
No matter who wins on Tuesday we will still be a country divided, let's hope cooler heads prevail on both sides, or we may reap the whirwind that UBL promises...it will be not of his making but our own.
Ever notice that Kerry rhymes with scary? Ann Althouse, pens "How Kerry lost me", appears to have noticed too.
Greyhawk is once again disappointed with the American Left, and sums up UBL's total cluelessness in echoing Michael Moore in a classic retort.
...and I dunno what to make of this...cuz we cats don't need no stinkin' money......and we may now have way too much information about Susie's taste in men.
Frank J. lays it out in real simple terms...even a cat can grasp.
Today is of course Carnival of the Cats Sunday and the SB Poet allows us to explore our Inner Halloween.
| You Are Scary |
 You even scare scary people sometimes! |
Finally Korla Pundit asks: You decide: who is REALLY scary?
This way comes....MT 3.01!
Upgrading today...I'm fed up with the trick n treat spammers...some spooky seasonal bidness has been going on behind the scenes too as the cats take over the blog for Halloween....'round Midnight.
Now if cat blogging isn't scary enough... contemplate the photo below and whom would be only a hare-breath away from the Oval Office.
A man identified only as "Azzam the American" appears on
a tape saying America faces a new wave of terror attacks.
(ABC News)
ABC World News Tonight, with Peter Jennings, will run the alleged terrorist tape on their evening broadcast tonight.
WDYT? was an amusing TV game show in the late 50's...this is not a game nor is it amusing.
“I never believed in the link between Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda and Islamist terrorism,” former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright flatly declared in an October 21, 2003 essay published in Australia’s Melbourne Herald Sun.“Iraq was not a breeding ground for terrorism. Our invasion has made it one,” Senator Ted Kennedy said October 16, 2003. “We were told Iraq was attracting terrorists from Al Qaeda. It was not.”
In August 2003, former vice president Albert Gore reassuringly stated: “The evidence now shows clearly that Saddam did not want to work with Osama bin Laden at all.”
"Iraq was not a terrorist haven before the invasion," Democratic candidate John Kerry recklessly told Philadelphia voters September 24. At the September 30, 2004 presidential debate, Kerry asserted, "Iraq was not even close to the center of the War on Terror before the president invaded it."
This story gets dumber by the minute...ABC News is reporting a discrepancy in the amount of explosives missing and that they were not exactly as "secure" under the IAEA seal as we've been lead to believe
... confidential IAEA documents obtained by ABC News show that on Jan. 14, 2003, the agency's inspectors recorded that just over 3 tons of RDX was stored at the facility — a considerable discrepancy from what the Iraqis reported.The IAEA documents could mean that 138 tons of explosives were removed from the facility long before the start of the United States launched "Operation Iraqi Freedom" in March 2003.
Another Concern:
The documents show IAEA inspectors looked at nine bunkers containing more than 194 tons of HMX at the facility. Although these bunkers were still under IAEA seal, the inspectors said the seals may be potentially ineffective because they had ventilation slats on the sides. These slats could be easily removed to remove the materials inside the bunkers without breaking the seals, the inspectors noted. [empahsis added]
Well, that certainly fits with Drudge's teaser:
GERTZ // THURSDAY // WASH TIMES: Russian special forces troops moved many of Saddam Hussein's weapons and related goods out of Iraq and into Syria in the weeks before the March 2003 U.S. military operation, The Washington Times has learned. John A. Shaw, the deputy undersecretary of defense for international technology security, said in an interview that he believes the Russian troops, working with Iraqi intelligence, “almost certainly” removed the high-explosive material that went missing from the Al-Qaqaa facility, south of Baghdad.
What next? That Saddam's henchmen signaled the Russian trucks with a Bat Signal?
NY Actor Wally Shawn offers his opinion of John Kerry in an interview with Juan Gonzalez and Amy Goodman on Democracy Now:
WALLY SHAWN: Well, I -- I think that, you know, it's an awful situation. I don't -- certainly things are not going to become -- I mean, Kerry will be like Clinton or maybe worse. He's -- people don't usually -- you know, they rarely surprise you in a good way; but I think that, yeah, it's important to tell the world that, you know, we didn't like this, the things that have happened under Bush. I think we have to make the statement -- that, you know, we don't want to go on that road anymore. So, you know, for me it's humiliating to vote for Kerry, because I don't respect him; but I would -- I will -- it's unpleasant, it's like killing a big rat that is running around your apartment. It must be done. But you're not proud of it. But you have to do it. So, we have to tell other people, I think, that, you know, we didn't approve.
BUHWAHAHAHAHA!
No, this is not parody and it's even funnier in Shawn's trademark lisp.
(a hat tip to KH4K)
really cool...go outside.
The Blood Moon rises tonight for real...due to volcanic eruptions at Mt. St. Helens tonight's Moon rises bright and coppery red ....slowly turning.... blood red.
According to folklore, October's full moon is called the "Hunter's Moon" or sometimes the "Blood Moon." It gets its name from hunters who tracked and killed their prey by autumn moonlight, stockpiling food for the winter ahead. You can picture them: silent figures padding through the forest, the moon overhead, pale as a corpse, its cold light betraying the creatures of the wood.
Hoooowwwwwwlllllllllllll....
Megan McArdle, ably pinch-hitting for Glenn, posts this:
A CLOSER LOOK AT CULPABILITY: The New York Sun reports that the US asked the IAEA to destroy the looted explosives in 1995Nine years ago, U.N. weapons inspectors urgently called on the International Atomic Energy Agency to demolish powerful plastic explosives in a facility that Iraq's interim government said this month was looted due to poor security.
The chief American weapons inspector, Charles Duelfer, told The New York Sun yesterday that in 1995, when he was a member of the U.N. inspections team in Iraq, he urged the United Nations' atomic watchdog to remove tons of explosives that have since been declared missing.
Mr. Duelfer said he was rebuffed at the time by the Vienna-based agency because its officials were not convinced the presence of the HMX, RDX, and PETN explosives was directly related to Saddam Hussein's programs to amass weapons of mass destruction.
Instead of accepting recommendations to destroy the stocks, Mr. Duelfer said, the atomic-energy agency opted to continue to monitor them.
By e-mail, Mr. Duelfer wrote the Sun, "The policy was if acquired for the WMD program and used for it, it should be subject for destruction. The HMX was just that. Nevertheless the IAEA decided to let Iraq keep the stuff, like they needed more explosives."
UPDATE: A little poking around the IAEA Media Centre turned up what may be the underlying motive behind the IAEA's sudden interest the Al Qaqaa explosive issue after 18 months of silence. Rueters reported on Oct 23:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Despite urging U.N. nuclear chief Mohamed ElBaradei to step down after two terms, the Bush administration may be unwilling to undertake an all-out political battle to oust him, U.S. officials and diplomats say.ElBaradei, who has worked at the International Atomic Energy Agency for 20 years, officially announced his interest in a third term late last month, rebuffing President Bush's team, which said it hoped he would step down and allow the appointment of a new leader.
A senior U.S. official said: "We'd rather see an elegant way out for everybody. What we're seeking is a resolution that doesn't force the issue."
[...]
MUCH DEPENDS ON NOV. 2
The U.S. strategy will turn on who wins the presidential election. Bush charted a bold, largely unilateralist, foreign policy course during much of his first term. Kerry has promised to work more closely with allies.
The Massachusetts Democrat has not evolved positions on such issues as the IAEA director-general appointment, campaign sources say.
But a Democratic insider told Reuters that, while some Kerry advisers may like to see ElBaradei replaced, "We'd have to look at the political consequences."
Something smells and it isn't just the fetid stench of media machinations to defeat Bush ...it's the pernicious odor of corruption and self-interest roiling from the UN.
I can't disagree with any of George Neumayr's conclusions about the real story:
The Corrections section in the New York Times on Tuesday contained some weighty admissions of error. One correction was that the Times had spelled the first name of Barbara Genther "Barbra." Another correction was that a weather report "listed incorrect times in the section headed 'Sun, Moon and Planets.' The correct times were one hour later than those shown." As Times ombudsmen tended to these consequential corrections, the paper's editorial writers used its now-discredited Monday story on missing explosives in Iraq to slander George Bush's military as incompetents who couldn't guard 380 tons of explosives.The New York Times, it is often said, not only reports the news but makes the news. This is true literally. It makes the news up. To nail Bush, Bill Keller and company were willing to manufacture a story where there wasn't one. Then with grotesque unfairness they gave an appearance of reality to their fiction by demanding that Bush respond to it. In a classic of their well-honed technique, the Times treated their fake story as a real campaign issue, titling a piece yesterday, "Iraq Explosives Become Issue In Campaign." The editors of the Times are like malicious mechanics who cause a car crash, then approach the scene like innocents wondering what happened.
"Fake New York Times Story Becomes Kerry Smear Tool In Campaign," is the real headline. Al Qaqaa is a good nickname for the dominant media as the Democratic donkeys in their newsrooms produce endless piles of manure. "Crooked Liberal Media Becomes Issue In Campaign," is the story the electorate deserves to hear.
The byline on the bogus Times story, "Huge Cache of Explosives Vanished From Site In Iraq," lists 7 reporters working on it and "cooperation with the CBS News program '60 Minutes.'" (Steve Kroft can't blame this one on the second-stringers at 60 Minutes II.) Not one of these journalists knew that NBC had traveled with the military to Al Qaqaa and could disprove their story easily? This is as pathetic and shoddy as Dan Rather receiving forgeries from Kinko's. Evidently Bush hatred has left journalists at the Times and CBS so addled they can't even produce plausible propaganda that holds up for a day.
Watch as the Times and CBS, à la Dan Rather (who is so hapless he couldn't resist this fake story either), use the "fake but accurate" defense to change the subject. They will shift attention from the falseness of their claim that U.S. troops failed to guard 380 tons of explosives to what they regard as the "core truth" that explosives have gone missing since the U.S. invaded the country. Recall that the media and Democrats leveled wild charges against the military for letting "looters" steal the cultural patrimony of Iraq. That was a cheap attack on soldiers doing the best they could under difficult circumstances -- but precious PBS liberals who previously hadn't cared a whit about Saddam Hussein looting the country's cultural patrimony saw it as a convenient story with which to smear the U.S. war effort.
The liberal media -- which have never acknowledged the existence of nuclear components in pre-war Iraq before and have been pooh-poohing the idea that Saddam possessed any dangerous materials to share with terrorists -- only now make these concessions. And why? In order to buttress a bogus story accusing American soldiers of not securing them. The media had previously said terrorists weren't in Iraq under Saddam. Now they say by April 2003 terrorists were stealing weaponry in Iraq. The attacks on the U.S. war effort are so convoluted that they end up proving the necessity for it.
Just when you think things can't get worse for CBS News, Captain Ed reports:
CBS Reported Suspicious Powder At Al Qaqaa In April 2003Alert CQ reader Samuel Silver sent me this article from the archives of CBS News -- the same organization that helped prepped NYTrogate with the New York Times -- which shows that the Third Infantry Division had reached Al Qaqaa and discovered thousands of vials of a mysterious powdered explosive by April 3, 2003
With all of the pressure on the Bush administration to find WMD, does anyone seriously think for a moment that they left Al Qaqaa without checking for UNSCOM and/or IAEA seals? From the description that CBS gave at the time, the Army took a very close look at the materiel at Al Qaqaa:
The senior U.S. official, based in Washington and speaking on condition of anonymity, said the material was under further study. The site is enormous and U.S. troops are still investigating it for potential weapons of mass destruction, the official said.
"Initial reports are that the material is probably just explosives, but we're still going through the place," the official said. ...
The facility had been identified by the International Atomic Energy Agency as a suspected chemical, biological and nuclear weapons site. U.N. inspectors visited the plant at least nine times, including as recently as Feb. 18.
The idea that various Army units showed up at the weapons facility and strolled around a few minutes before moving up the road to Baghdad, leaving the lights on and the front door unlocked, looks more and more ridiculous. The Army knew very well what it had found, and it searched the bunkers carefully looking for the most dangerous and high-priority items.
Shame on CBS for not even checking its own archives in order to research their hit piece on Bush. Shame also on the NY Times for not reviewing the embeds for the units in the area during the invasion to verify the contemporaneous reporting. Even if one wants to write a hit piece, doing the proper research should be a basic part of the job.
Shame on the Kerry campaign for impunging the reputation and professionalism of the 3ID and 101st. Shame on John Kerry, for running with an opportunistic story without a through vetting, especially after the CBS memo scandal. If this is any indication of his ability to discern intel and command judgement, he's not fit for chief dog catcher, let alone CINC.
tee-hee.....snicker...chortle.... BUWHAHAHAHAHAH!
(A Fedora doff to Cox & Forkum)
I'm shocked, shocked.
New Study Finds Media Favored Kerry in First Two Weeks of October.
Dean Esmay hosts this weeks Carnival of the Liberated. "Oh great, another carnival" you think as your eyes glaze over. This carnival ain't no party, ain't no fooling around, its by Iraqi bloggers and you need to read it. All. Now. Before you go to the polls.
A Captain's Quarters reader raises a good point:
Unfortunately for the New York Times, no one gave a thought about the logistics of the notion that small bands of insurgents made off with 380 tons of explosives under the noses of the Coalition with no one noticing. CQ reader and retired Army Reserve Captain Ian Dodgson got paid to think about logistics, and he did some "cocktail-napkin" math that escaped the geniuses at the Paper of Record:
59 minutes and counting on the scandal clock...NYTrogate
Yeah, yeah, I know what I said yesterday, but this story is BIG. CBS News and the NY Times collaborated to released a blockbuster story 48 hours before the election. ANOTHER BOGUS story.
Hugh Hewitt offers links that demonstrate the MSM and CBS News in particluar, is interfering in the election. How is it that CBS was suckered by another dubious source with an agenda weeks after they were caught in MemoGate??
Time for Dan and Co to say "buh-bye".
N.Z. Bear has an excellent critique and a list of bloggers and Conserative MSM on the story:
More from:
Jim Geraghty at Kerryspot
Captain Ed
Hugh Hewitt
Roger Simon
Belmont Club
PowerLine
JustOneMinute
Michelle Malkin
Proving that the media cycle has become compressed beyond all recognition, Polipundit has already run a poll to name this new media scandal
Uh-oh...Joe Lockhart is going to be dancing as fast as he can today, and Bill Clinton must be wishing he'd stayed in Chappaqua as this stockpile was amassed on his watch. Breaking news from Cliff May:
Sent to me by a source in the government: “The Iraqi explosives story is a fraud. These weapons were not there when US troops went to this site in 2003. The IAEA and its head, the anti-American Mohammed El Baradei, leaked a false letter on this issue to the media to embarrass the Bush administration. The US is trying to deny El Baradei a second term and we have been on his case for missing the Libyan nuclear weapons program and for weakness on the Iranian nuclear weapons program.”
UPDATE: This Daily Herald story from April 2003 is illuminating:
As the military advances closer to Baghdad, signs of Iraqi chemical preparedness are multiplying, although there is still no conclusive evidence Saddam Hussein's regime possesses weapons of mass destruction.On Friday, troops at a training facility in the western Iraqi desert came across a bottle labeled "tabun" - a nerve gas and chemical weapon Iraq is banned from possessing.
Closer to Baghdad, troops at Iraq's largest military industrial complex found nerve agent antidotes, documents describing chemical warfare and a white powder that appeared to be used for explosives.
U.N. weapons inspectors went repeatedly to the vast al Qa Qaa complex - most recently on March 8 - but found nothing during spot visits to some of the 1,100 buildings at the site 25 miles south of Baghdad. [Emphasis added]
Col. John Peabody, engineer brigade commander of the 3rd Infantry Division, said troops found thousands of 2-inch by 5-inch boxes, each containing three vials of white powder, together with documents written in Arabic that dealt with how to engage in chemical warfare.
More proof that the NYTimes and CBS don't know how to use Google.
My ballot's in the mail, I'm done.
ENOUGH. You knew I didn't mean it, couldn't stand it. You were right.
If you're undecided at this point, I won't call you a moron as some might, but you're on your own, Pal. Short of an earth-shattering, mind-blowing, vote-changing event, you'll read no more of the race at Foolsblog until Election Eve.
What you will see for the next week is unrelenting good news from Iraq and the Stan.
Beginning with this excellent post from Arthur Chrenkoff:
There are two Iraqs.The one we more often get to see and read about is a dangerous place, full of exploding cars, kidnapped foreigners and deadly ambushes. The reconstruction is proceeding at a snail's pace, frustration boils over and tensions - political, ethnic, religious - crackle in the air like static electricity before a storm.
The other Iraq is a once prosperous and promising country of twenty-four million people, slowly recovering from physical and moral devastation of totalitarian rule. It's a country whose people are slowly beginning to stand on their own feet, grasp the opportunities undreamed of only two years ago, and dream of catching up on three decades of lost time. Recently, Annie Sweeney of the "Chicago Sun-Times" had a chance to travel off the beaten media track and visit this exotic country. Her impressions bear quoting at length:
Read it all, it's long because there is a lot of good news.
John was feelin' kinda lonesome and blue,
He needed somebody to talk to.
So he called up the President of France
Just to hear a voice of some kind.
"When you hear the beep,
It will be too late."
Jacques said that for over an hour
And John hung it up.
The Dems can be part right all of the time,
The GOP can be all right part of the time.
But all the Pols can't be all right all the time
I think Abraham Lincoln said that.
"I'll let you be in my war if I can be in yours,"
Kerry said that.
[Apologies to Bobby]
WeESa hAd gOOd fUn tODaY, FeSTe bROuGhT uZ frEsH kiTTy grAzz, wE'z lOVes kiTY gRAz aN FeSte toO. ThAt nAuGthy ZozO hoGGeD tHe bOWl, sHe iSh a bIg oLe pIG!
--MoLLy
[CATNIP: Carnival of the Cats is up at Lairs, Edloe ringmastering...or what ever it is he's doing. --Zozo]
Norm Geras' circuitous, well-considered argument may make Leftie brains hurt, but it's absolutely sound:
"There was no moral case against the Iraq war, though there were creditable moral reasons for having doubts about the moral case for it."
The US accepted the role as the world's 911 by default as much as design, we cannot deny that role because it's hard, expensive or that we simply don't want to do it. It's part of the price for our freedom. Imagine what our lives and that of our children would be, if the any of the tyrants and/or ideologies we've defeated in the last century had prevailed.
We won the Cold war without a hot war and the Left took from it the wrong lesson; the peace bonus was not standing down our defenses and forswearing war forever: it's peace.
Peace created by force and the threat of pre-emption; aka mutual nuclear destruction. It was scary and very risky, but it worked. Just as our gambit in Iraq is risky, Iraq could vote for a theocracy, but that was its path if we did nothing. After Saddam's eventual death and tribal/civil war there would have been no mediating factor, Iraq would have become a puppet of Iran and the Mullahs. They have a shot and early indications are that they intend to use it to create their own form of representational government. Not a clone of ours, but not a theocracy either.
Perhaps Johnson's belief in the Domino Theory , also called the Domino Effect, theory in U.S. foreign policy after World War II stating that the “fall” of a noncommunist state to communism would precipitate the fall of noncommunist governments in neighbouring states, wasn't so wrongheaded after all.
Radical Islam and China is the current and next foe, are we going to live under their law or ours? Their economic system or ours? That is the choice we made March 19, 2003, Iraq is our line in the sand, literally and rhetorically.
China watches and waits.
Daily a morose league of Dem experts-of-nothing, naysaysers, garment-renderers and gloom-spreaders parade across our Tv screens and newspapers, spreading their message of failure and American culpability. To these political operatives and office seekers, the Iraqi people are of minor relevance or importance, much like the Bosnians, Kosovar or Serbs, in their goal of obtaining power and privilage.
While the MSM media obssesses over death and destruction, they fail to see, or worse ignore, the blossoming of new life and hope spreading across the countryside. We are winning hearts and minds, not those in Fallujah, Paris, Bonn, or the elite control booths and salons of America, but in the next generation of Iraqis. Where. it. matters.
Iraqi Children take the 24th MEU Back to SchoolFORWARD OPERATING BASE KALSU, Iraq (Oct. 16, 2004) -- Laughter and smiles filled a local school playground as Marines and sailors of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit presented children with various educational provisions during a visit to an elementary school in south-central Iraq. The visit was the latest in the MEU's ongoing Back to School Campaign.
The event provided the children with water, stickers, balloons, sports equipment, and backpacks filled with school supplies, such as notebooks and crayons.
The 24th MEU is working with some 40 schools in Northern Babil Province. The MEU's Marines and sailors are making basic repairs and providing thousands of students with equipment and supplies that will facilitate a prosperous new year of learning.
While major reconstruction efforts in Iraq are planned, the MEU is looking to make a more immediate impact within the community and the lives of the Iraqi children.
1st Lt. Vanessa Engel of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit plays pat-a-cake with an Iraqi schoolgirl during an Oct. 16th visit to an elementary school in south-central Iraq. The visit was the latest in the MEU’s ongoing Back to School campaign, a key feature of which provides local Iraqi schoolchildren with water, stickers, balloons, sports equipment, and backpacks full of educational supplies.
While I realize Iraq is a dangerous place for American journalists, perhaps they could Google from the security of their hotel suites to see what is happening on the ground outside the Green Zone, where Americans, such as Lt. Engel walk-the-walk risking their lives to make an Iraqi child's better. But that might not coincide with their litany of mistakes, predictions of civil war and chaos, or dreams of anchor chairs/editor desks, and we wouldn't want good news spread around back at home, now would we?
Arthur Chrenkoff has a excellent piece on Kerry's "new alliance"
John Kerry's "real allies" in action:"Europe would line up behind a Kerry administration's fresh approach to 'winning the peace' in Iraq with diplomatic support, but not troops, say officials and policy analysts."
Which is a huge relief, because as we all know, the simmering insurgency and the slow pace of reconstruction can be blamed in large part for the shortage of diplomats on the ground in Iraq.
"Diplomats on the ground" aka "targets of opportunity", does anyone not sipping Kerry Koolaid believe that the French would remain in Iraq after the first car bombing or kidnapping of a diplomat ?
I rather like the imagery in Chernkoff's closing graf:
The Europeans are like teenage children of a divorce, who prefer to spend time with their Democrat mother rather than a strict Republican dad, not because they like the mother more (dude, parents they like, suck, or what?) but because she won't force them to take out the trash and clean the dishes. No wonder the father is increasingly thinking that his 59 year old teenager should finally move out of home and start supporting himself.
Exactamundo.
Juliette posts an important two-part piece that is a must read in the current racially charged election climate.
The River Flows (Part One) and (Part Two)
For years I've had this discussion with black friends, several of whom have become conservatives for these very reasons. I have long thought that the black power base cut a very bad deal with the Dems. When one looks at the billions of dollars the Dems threw at the problem of black economic parity and poverty over three decades, one would expect a demographic of well-educated millionaires, not 'hoods of despair.
The Freedom Train went seriously off the tracks with Jesse Jackson's pocket-lining corporate shakedowns, anti-Semitism, the rise of a cheap shyster, and the Congressional Black Caucus blackmailing Clinton to keep his campaign promises during impeachment. A shallow agenda of self-interest set the terms based on personal greed, white guilt, fear of litigation and retaining political power for a few, not Rev. King's dream of being judged on one's character, of equal access. I wonder how many whites, especially the young Jewish lawyers, would have joined the civil rights struggle in the 60's if it had been based on today's black leadership.
However having said all that, while we may seethe at racism and empathize with black friends and colleagues, we cannot walk in their shoes, ever. Nor can we really join the dialog over leaership, goals, conflict of interests and perception, it's the new civil rights battle and it's internal.
Baldilocks and Black Conservative gives one hope that the black community is beginning to get it...that the Dems ceased being partners long ago. Only when the black community has strong membership and interests in both parties will they have equal access to a quality education and capital, which from all else flows.
Political Campaigns Interpreted; two flavors, no waiting:
(Hat tip to Vodkapundit)
What part of the Gadsden flag didn't the Brits get 228 years ago?
The Guardian yesterday ran up the white flag and called a halt to "Operation Clark County", the newspaper's ambitious scheme to recruit thousands of readers to persuade American voters in a swing state to kick out President George W Bush in next month's election.
The cancellation of the project came 24 hours after the first of some 14,000 letters from Guardian readers began arriving in Clark County. The missives led to widespread complaints about foreign interference in a US election.It also prompted a surge of indignant local voters calling the county's Republican party offering to volunteer for Mr Bush.
Oops.
Management's graceless climb down is Ratheresque and amusing.
Albert Scardino, the paper's executive editor for news, simultaneously denied and conceded that an early halt had been called to the project. "It is roaringly, successfully completed. It has been an overwhelming triumph," he said.[...]
The scheme seemed to backfired from the start as the reactions of the first recipients varied from indifference to anger and even alarm.
The surrender was announced in a lengthy "mea culpa" by Ian Katz, the G2 editor at The Guardian, who dreamed up the scheme.
He began with a lengthy denunciation of the American Right for over-reacting to his scheme, and painted his project as the victim of its own success, after many thousands of readers wrote to Clark County voters.
Further down the piece it became clear that Mr Katz was calling it quits. "Somewhere along the line, though, the good-humoured spirit of the enterprise got lost in translation," he wrote.
There had been mounting evidence that urging foreigners to send anti-Bush letters to Clark County - an isolated slice of the rural mid-West - was only hurting Senator John Kerry, the Democratic presidential candidate.
One senior local politician, speaking off the record to avoid offending his neighbours, said: "They picked the wrong county for many reasons. One is, we're very parochial. When people talk about The Guardian of London, they think you mean London, Ohio, which is in the next-door county. Another is, we have some issues with literacy round here."
Mr Katz acknowledged that an ever-growing number of Democrats, among them Sharon Manitta, the spokesman in Britain for Democrats Abroad, tried warning The Guardian: "This will certainly garner more votes for George Bush."
Mr Katz wrote yesterday that the paper had considered the possibility, but "we didn't believe it". He insisted: "Folks in Clark County itself have best recognised the spirit of the enterprise. Local media coverage has been consistently fair and good humoured."
There’s none so blind as Lefties who will not see.
The election of 2000 is not the first disputed election in American history and as an army of litigators deploy across the land, it will not be the last. As stories of voter regisration irregularities appear one wonders if this isn't a new wrinkle and perhaps another unexpected means of determining the winner might constitutionally forced if Nevada, Michigan, Ohio, Colorado and Florida's results are declared null when voters cannot be verified during a recount challenge. While the MSM focuses on a repeat of 2000 tactics, perhaps the GOP has their eye on another consitutional means within their grasp to break a deadlock.
The House of Representatives.
The first election which ended in a dispute was the election of the 1800 our fourth election. In that election the Federalists nominated John Adams to be President and the Charles Pinckney to be Vice President. The Democratic-Republicans nominated Jefferson as President and Aaron Burr as Vice President. The Democratic-Republicans made the mistake of assigning the same number of electoral votes to both Jefferson as Burr. Thus no one had the majority of votes, and the election was turned over to the House of Representatives.
The House deliberated from February 11th to February 17th and voted 36 times. The Federalist had decided to support Burr, whom many felt was a lesser evil then the "dangerous" Jefferson. They would have won since they were the majority of the outgoing House. However the constitution called for the election of President by the House to be on a state by state basis, and the Federalist could not carry enough states. On the 36th ballot Jefferson was selected, but the country had come very close to having Aaron Burr as President. In the immediate aftermath of this election, there was a call to amend the constitutional provision requiring double balloting for President and Vice President. It was eliminated by the passage of the 12th amendment, which was approved by Congress in December 1803 and ratified in time for the election of 1804.
The election of 1824 was the second and last election decided by the House of Representatives. The four major candidates were John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, William H Crawford, and Andrew Jackson. When the electors were counted Jackson had 99, Adams 84, Crawford 41 and Clay 37. The election was thrown to the House of Representatives with the three leading candidates competing.
All of the candidates hoped for support from Clay and his supporters. Before the House met a scandal erupted when a Philadelphia newspaper published an anonymous letter claiming that Clay would support Adams in return for an appointment as Secretary of State. Clay vigorously denied this. Adams won on the first ballot of the House of Representatives, and later appointed Clay as Secretary of State.
Our founding fathers designed our system of government when the people did not have access to information in a nano-second, thus our government has the mechanism to endure a longer then expected transition. However, post-2000, does the body politic have the patience to bear witness to election by the House?
While I certainly agree with Stephen's anger and disgust, I do not dispair of destroying the Union, like a ill-tempered child denied his wishes, we are simply pushing the boundries of our founding documents. I believe they will stand long after Election 2000 and 2004 fade from memory...but then I am a fool. And wouldn't it be fun to watch? Mental health authorities would have to throw a net over the three Al's (Gore, Sharpton and Franken).
It just doesn't get any better than this.
My dear, beloved Brits,
I understand the Guardian is sponsoring a service where British citizens write to Americans to advise them on how to vote. Thank heavens! I was adrift in a sea of confusion and you are my beacon of hope!Feel free to respond to this email with your advice. Please keep in mind that I am something of an anglophile, so this is not confrontational. Please remember, too, that I am merely an American. That means I am not very bright. It means I have no culture or sense of history. It also means that I am barely literate, so please don’t use big, fancy words.
Set me straight, folks!
Dayton, Ohio
(More at Dodgeblogium)
One assumes the AFP photographer missed the heavy irony....or maybe not.
(hat tip to James...yes, I know I'm days behind...real-life sucks.)
The New York Times endorsed Kerry today:
"We have been impressed with Mr. Kerry's wide knowledge and clear thinking — something that became more apparent once he was reined in by that two-minute debate light. He is blessedly willing to re-evaluate decisions when conditions change. ... He strikes us, above all, as a man with a strong moral core."
I'm shocked, shocked.
Kevin Murphy at The Interocitor posts a story that flew past the MSM radar...Yes, I know it's very difficult to receive signal with your head up Kerry's butt....however, this seems worth mentioning since Kerry accused Bush of harming the middle class with a new tax give away for the rich numerous times last night.
Gone all but unnoticed in the national press, the "corporate tax bill" that recently passed will contain a sizable deduction for some in the middle class. Those living in states without an income tax, such as Washington State, can now itemize sales taxes again. Persons in states with an income tax may choose which of the two taxes to deduct. The deduction, last seen in 1986, was reinstituted due to intense lobbying by these no-income-tax states, who argued that their taxpayers were paying higher marginal rates due to the lack of a federal tax deduction.I guess the NY & LA Times missed this because it only affects fly-over country. See this article in the Seattle Times for details.
Average savings $500-700.
Kevin also notes that neither Kerry nor Edwards were present to vote. That's a given.
Jeffrey Gedmen reviews "Our Oldest Enemy", by John J. Miller and Mark Molesky in the WJS today reinforces my low opinion of our friend antagonist France.
Faux AmisAntipathy between France and America is nothing new.
Ah, the French. How to think of them? There is an easy default answer: kindly and gratefully. After all, they helped us in the Revolutionary War, gave us Alexis de Tocqueville and the Statue of Liberty, and to this day feel a keen republican spirit in harmony with America's own. Sure, we have had our spats. But when the chips are down, you can count on France to be on our side, more or less, and to supply some great wine if it is needed.
That is certainly one point of view. It is also (except for the wine) nonsense, as John J. Miller and Mark Molesky argue in "Our Oldest Enemy." More than a few readers are likely to agree. Before 9/11, 77% of Americans held a favorable opinion of France. By March 2003, only 34% did.That's quite a shift, and little wonder. In the weeks leading up to the Iraq war, when French support might have helped win the approval of the United Nations, the French poured contempt on the U.S. for its "unilateralism." In those crucial days Dominique de Villepin, the French foreign minister, scolded the U.S. with particular condescension, declaring that "nothing justifies envisaging military action." The chips were down, and France was most assuredly not on our side.
I would dispute the worth of French wine as well, as it comes at too high a price and has an acrid aftertaste of ashes. You might try this one instead...the 2001 reds from Northern California are stellar...but I digress.
It is positively amusing to hear John Kerry argue that George W. Bush single-handedly spoiled our relations with "Old Europe." The relations were never smooth in the first place. Even Benjamin Franklin, a celebrity in Paris when he later served as ambassador there, contended with the French, who "murder and scalp our farmers," as he put it, and claim "parts of the British territory as they find most convenient." In his time, Mark Twain bridled over French claims of superiority. "I can't describe to you," Twain wrote to a friend, "how poor & empty & offensive France is." FDR told Churchill in 1943 that de Gaulle had proved to be "unreliable, uncooperative, and disloyal to both governments." Truman would later call de Gaulle a "psychopath."[...]
Good luck to Mr. Kerry if he ever gets a chance to charm Old Europe.
[...]
Let's face it: Paris is not Pyongyang. Not yet anyway. But the French make great villains, and Messrs. Miller and Molesky are essentially right. It's hard to make the case any longer that France is simply an annoying ally. Only the annoying part is reliably true.
Roget's: nuisance: noun
Definition: annoyance
Synonyms: bad egg, besetment, blister, bore, bother, botheration, botherment, bum, bummer, creep, drag, drip, exasperation, flat tire, foul ball, frump, gadfly, headache, holy terror, human mistake, inconvenience, infliction, insect, irritant, irritation, kibitzer, louse, nag, noodge, nudge, nudnick, offense, pain, pest, pester, pesterer, pill, plague, poor excuse, problem, problem child, prune, terror, trouble, vexation.
Heh.
Kerry is simply not credible on education to this Californian.
I noticed that factcheck.org called Kerry on his remarks in the second debate in St. Louis.
Kerry claimed the "the president has underfunded [the No Child Left Behind law] by $28 billion," but that's an opinion and not a fact.Actually, as we reported last March, funding for the federal Department of Education grew a whopping 58% under Bush during his first three years, and Bush proposed another 5% increase for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1, including sizeable increases in spending for children from low-income families and for special education for disabled children. Even the Kerry campaign's own data -- which they provided to FactCheck.org at our request -- shows funding for programs specific to the No Child Left Behind law have increased by $2.7 billion, or 12%, since the new law was enacted.
The DNC's oft repeated mantra that the economic “playing field" must be leveled for the public school system was parroted by Kerry again last night.
Pardon me for being a skeptic, but if California, the wealthiest and most progressive state in the nation, hasn’t managed to produce a viable means of education revenue equity after 30 years of effort, I would like to know exactly how John Kerry plans to: a) fund a federal program, or b) mandate a massive expenditure of state/local tax revenue over which they have no authority, or even what standard would be used to identify poor vs. wealthy school districts. Personal Income? Property values? Given that in the Bay Area for example, a combined income of $120k is required to qualify for a starter home and the median home price is $640k, that seems a non-starter.
Californians heard the same hue and cry from the likes of the Burtons and Pelosi's for years; wealthy districts with high property values had an unfair advantage over poorer. California's local governments have historically relied on three major revenue sources: the property tax, the Vehicle License Fee (VLF), and the sales tax. Before passage of Proposition 13 in 1978, property taxes were the main source of locally-controlled government revenue. Cities, counties, special districts, and school districts were authorized to set the local property tax rate in its own jurisdiction and to establish its own spending priorities and limits. Only by passing control to the state could inequities be addressed.
A number of voter approved ballot measures (known as Propositions) and legislative attempts at parity have failed miserably. Not only did revenue shifting fail to uplift poorer schools, it lowered wealthier ones. Parents soon realized if the school needed a new gym or after school sports they had to raise the funding and donate the building etc., that too was seen as unfair.
We then passed a minimum funding requirement from the general revenue fund to insure a fixed pool from which to draw, approx 40% of state revenue goes directly to the schools and vesting teacher retirement. The results? Local governments grew more dependent on the state and as state revenue shortfalls began to appear, schools received less.
So we tried again with Prop 98 which shifted monies to education when the budget was under stress by borrowing against future budgets and two years later added Prop 111 requiring each school produce an annual School Accountability Report Card (SARC) with information about student achievement, dropout rates, class size, discipline, expenditures, programs, instructional materials, and other items in order to maintain or increase funding levels.
Scores continued to fall and the Latino community became alarmed by the disproportionate number of non-English speaking children failing to obtain basic skills.
So in 1998 voters passed Prop 227 by a 2/3 majority, ending thirty years of bilingual education proven to a dismal practical failure. For decades, millions of mostly Hispanic immigrant students remained trapped in Spanish-almost-only classes. Within three years of the enactment of the measure, the test scores of California’s younger limited English students nearly doubled, a result frequently connected to the widespread replacement of bilingual education with intensive English immersion. In spite of success, Governor Gray Davis, a Democrat, tried to over turn elements of 227 by fiat. California State Board of Education quietly proposed new regulations that would nullify crucial elements of the initiative. Under new regulations, Proposition 227’s requirement that younger English learners spend the first thirty days of each school year in an English immersion program would have been eliminated. However the final insult was that proposed regulations would have granted bilingual education teachers rather than immigrant parents the authority to place students in bilingual education programs. We know how well that worked out for Davis.
California's schools continue to plummet in performance testing, after-school programs, sports and other extra-curriculum activities disappear and high school drop-out rates continue to rise. Even our educational jewel-in-the-crown, UC Berkeley, ranked 22th nationally in 2003.
It seems we pass another education "fix-it" measure each election cycle, more taxpayer money goes down the educational rathole and the schools decline at a faster rate. This election we have Proposition 1A, which allegedly will return control of local revenues to local government, to borrow a Kerryism "back to where we were."
Undaunted, we trudge on...with our cow of a public school system...seeking a bag of magic education beans.
UPDATE:Yale at Horsefeathers isn't buying Kerry's pixy-dusted magic beans either.
You won't see in the MSM. Iraqi Security Forces Update:
Translation:"Iraqi SWAT Team"
An exclusive sent to Jeff Quinton by W. Thomas Smith, Jr., who wrote a recent NRO piece on Iraqi Special Forces. The poster is courtesy of Capt. David Nevers, 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit.
An excerpt from Smith's latest NRO piece:From their operating base in Kalsu (so-named for Bob Kalsu, a Buffalo Bills lineman and Army lieutenant who was killed during the Vietnam War), Douglas tells National Review Online, "The Iraqis are performing well-above my expectations. Their strengths are their aggressiveness and mobility, and we are enhancing those strengths."
Douglas, commander of a Marine Force reconnaissance platoon and a reconnaissance and surveillance platoon, is referring to a crack Iraqi SWAT (special-weapons and tactics) team, sometimes referred to as the Al Hillah SWAT team.
Last week, the Iraqi SWAT team and other members of the Iraqi security forces (about 800 men combined) backed by U.S. Marines (about 1,300) launched an offensive aimed at retaking guerilla strongholds south of the Sunni Triangle. The strongholds lie within Babil province, home of the ancient city of Babylon, though today a virtual no-man's-land rife with kidnappings, ambushes, and murder.
Mz Heinz Kerry frets about an UBL October suprise, given the ongoing ops in the Sunni Triangle, she may be half right. Al-Zarqawi's head on a pike would be equally satisfying.
(hat tip to INDC Journal)
7:59. "I will fight tooth and nail to pass the minimum wage." Try Metamuscil, Senator.
Stephen once again proves he's the Nick Charles of live-blogging.
UPDATE:Jeff Goldstein nails it:
John Kerry: “Whatever you need, it’s yours. Need a job? You got it. Need a higher living wage? Done. Need cheap, universal healthcare? I’m your man. Need a better education? Have at it, paid in full. Relying on social security for your retirement? I’ll put it in a lock box. Tax relief? I can give you that, too. Want to lose your virginity to a teenage Mexicali hooker and a donkey? I’ll print coupons. And the best part is, every single one of my plans comes with free cole slaw and a plate of homestyle biscuits!” George Bush: “Anybody who believes this guy can deliver on even one percent of his promises deserves four years of John F’n Kerry. God bless, and good night.”
Hugh calls it: Bush=A+ Kerry=-C Schieffer=F
In keeping with his track record of eerily-accurate five-minute analyses, Polipundit gives it to Bush...and the election. ...but DJ has the best imagery of the night:
And yes, I knew George W. Bush had won this debate, when John Kerry started channeling Elmer Fudd, stumbling over his words, losing his temper as soon as Bush pointed out his record, and looking increasingly desperate. I could almost hear a voice whisper in John’s ear, “ehh, what’s up, Doc?”
Ooooo..he's a wery, wery bwad bwogger.
My fav is a Kerry classic flip-flop: Ronald Reagan "Alliance-builder" ...except for that sticky Sandinista part. Pathetic. Loser.
Flipping the channels: Man, Russert & Brokaw are so deep in the tank for Kerry they need scuba gear.
[PSST-Someone please tell Russert that the whiteboard bit is so O-V-E-R and Alan Combs that the military are first responders.]
Matthews shell-shocked. No joy in Turner-ville. Clark is way early for Halloween. Rudy merrily gloats. Dick Morris is calling James Baker "a genius". They must be high-fivin' in Chappaqua.
Geraghty sums it up nicely: "Americans live on the side of the mountain facing the sun rise, because they focus on the day that is to come instead of the day that has gone"....not exactly Noonan...but a good closer.
:::::Happy feets dancin'::::
MORE UPDATE: Jools in her inimitable style, calls it like it is...no fluff.
Ace on the stench of gay-baiting...I don't get how this helps Kerry...makes him look like a self-serving jackass. Oh.
Bill at INDC Journal sez Bush picked up Jomentum tonight...check out his thorough roundup of blogopinion.
Splainer-Man Maguire spins 800,000 points of articulation to enmesh Obtuse Man and the eeevil Dr. Kostopus in a web of logic.
With a bit of a mind flip...You're into the time slip for Florida, April 19th, 2004. It's astounding; Time is fleeting; Madness takes its toll. But listen closely...
KERRY: "If, as Bob Woodward reports, it is true that gas supplies and prices in America are tied to the American election, then tied to a secret White House deal, that is outrageous and unacceptable to the American people," he said during a campaign stop in Florida.
"It is fundamentally wrong," he said. "It's my prayer that Americans are not being held hostage to a secret deal."If, as Bob Woodward reports, it is true that gas supplies and prices in America are tied to the American election -- then tied to a secret White House deal, that is outrageous and unacceptable to the American people."
That really drives you insane. Let's do the flip-flop again...Santa Fe, New Mexico October 11, 2004.
In another dimension, with voyeuristic intention, Kerry sees all.
KERRY:" A 30% increase in gases prices means a lot more profit for this president's friends in the oil industry, but for most middle-class Americans the Bush tax increase is a tax increase that they can't afford.
[...]
Four years ago, when he was running for president, George Bush said, quote, "What I think the president ought to do is get on the phone with the OPEC cartel and say, 'We expect to you open your spigots.'" Today, four years later with gas prices at a record level, we're still waiting for George Bush to make that phone call."
Okay...lemme see if I got this right...Bush is covertly burning up his whenever minutes pillow-talking the Saudi's to drive oil prices higher to profit his rich oil buddies and screw voters weeks before the election. No...Bush stubbornly refuses to call the Saudi's...er, that's not it...um...brain hurts...and nothing can ever be the same.
You're spaced out on sensation. Like you're under sedation.
It's just a jump to the left.
And then a step to the right.
Put your hands on your hips.
You try not to get uptight.
But it's the Kerry logic
That really drives you insane.
Let's do the flip-flop again.
Let's do the flip-flop again.
On October 12, 2002, in Bali, Islamist terrorists murdered 202 people and injured many more. Australians are our most loyal ally, their loss is our loss.
The War on Terror is not a nuisance or a passing inconvenience, it's a war waged by zealots who kill and maim innocents in horrific ways without reget or remorse. Australians get it, like us, they paid a price in blood and tears for their free society. Australian are not a people to cower when faced with a challenge or a threat, like us, they do what is right, not because it's easy, but because it's hard.
Honor our steadfast Australian friends with a moment of silence today.
"That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."
In 1969, Neil A. Armstrong took the “Small Step” into our greater future when he stepped off the Lunar Module, onto the surface of the Moon. This Afghan woman's voyage from the middle ages to 2004 is equally amazing and hopeful.
(A shout out to Sgt Hook, walkin' the walk in the Stan)
HeWoo...iT'z sUNdaE aN wE'Re bAAcK! FeSte tOOk tHish pITchER oF mEEsa oN tHe fENce toDay wHiLse EyE wUz wATchInG a liZaRD er SummIn', EyES fORgeTs.
ThE leAfsEs aRe tURniNg rEd aN gOld....tHeyS aRe rEaL purrTy, aIn'T tHEy?
[CATNIP: Henry and Lucy are delighted to present this week's Carnival of the Cats --Zozo]
This is so predictable:
Nobel peace laureate claims HIV deliberately createdKenyan ecologist Wangari Maathai, the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, today reiterated her claim that the AIDS virus was a deliberately created biological agent.
"Some say that AIDS came from the monkeys, and I doubt that because we have been living with monkeys (since) time immemorial, others say it was a curse from God, but I say it cannot be that.
"Us black people are dying more than any other people in this planet," Ms Maathai told a press conference in Nairobi a day after winning the prize for her work in human rights and reversing deforestation across Africa.
"We invaded Iraq because we believed that Saddam Hussein had made, or was in the process of creating agents of biological warfare," said Ms Maathai.
"In fact it (the HIV virus) is created by a scientist for biological warfare," she added.
"Why has there been so much secrecy about AIDS? When you ask where did the virus come from, it raises a lot of flags. That makes me suspicious," Ms Maathai said.
Africa accounts for 25 million out of the estimated 38 million across the world infected with HIV, and the vast majority of infected Africans are women, according to UNAIDS estimates.
The United States on Friday congratulated Ms Maathai on winning the Nobel Peace Prize, but tempered its praise over her claims about AIDS.
"She said (HIV/AIDS) was invented as a bio-weapon in some laboratory in the West," a senior State Department official said.
"We don't agree with that."
The official pointed to a report of those comments published in August in Kenya's daily Standard newspaper, in which Ms Maathai was quoted as saying that HIV/AIDS was created by scientists for the purpose of mass extermination.
The Nobel Peace Prize has become little more than a platform to bludgeon the West, which is code for the US. Apart from the sheer sophistry of such an argument, the West would hardly need to invent an uncontrollable disease such as AIDS if they were bent on germ-warfare/genocide in Africa. Any number of containable biological agents would would be far more effective.
Maathai fails to mention that childhood and communicable diseases, long controlled or exterminated in the West, kills millions of Africans because of a lack of vaccinations, clean water or sanitation.
Did the West invent e-Coli? Hepatitis? Cholera? Typhoid? Malaria? Schistosomiasis? Ebola? West Nile?
I am sorry if this sounds callous or harsh, but in a world where an African heads the UN, which repeatedly ignores or participates in corruption, slavery and genocide, it seems a little disengenious to blame the "West" for the plight in which Africa now finds itself.
Maathai doesn't mention cultural issues that faciliated the spread of AIDS, such a male taboo or aversion to condom use. AIDS has been indentified as a communicable disease with known risks and means of transmission/prevention for more than a decade.
AIDS is also pandemic in Southeast Asia and Russia spread by poverty, the sex industry, an unscreened blood supply, a lack of prevention and IV drug use, not a plot hatched by racist Westerners.
Africans cannot hope to have the means to control endemic diseases or begin to address the root causes as long as their wealth is siphoned off or wasted by their political classes. Until educated Africans such as Maathai comes to grip with the massive corruption within their society and hold their leaders accountable, no amount of blame laid, aid or assistance from the West will cure the myriad of plagues, genocide and economic challenges Africa faces.
Given that Africa needs the West's medical expertise, drugs and financial aid, it seems very foolish to poke us in the eye with nonsensical conspiracies.
The daily headlines and network news leads us to believe that Iraq is hopeless, dare I say it, a quagmire, soon to degenerate into civil war and a return to the dark side.
Not exactly. While the front pages scream "Failure!" and the editorials dream of cutting & running, the business pages often tell a different story. Does one desk know what the other is printing at the NY Times? I suspect not.
Iraqi Airways Flies Again, With One Jet
BAGHDAD, Oct. 5 - After lying all but dormant during 14 years of sanctions and still reeling from the damage it has suffered in the United States-led war, Iraq's national airline made a humble reappearance on the commercial aviation scene last month, with a single, 116-seat Boeing 737-200 flying to two nearby Middle East capitals, Damascus and Amman.
The airline, Iraqi Airways, has even begun making plans to expand its fleet, add destinations, renovate its headquarters and generally upgrade for a new age of commercial aviation.
"We are looking at this as a business," said Atta Nabeil, Iraq's interim deputy minister of transportation, who oversees the government-owned airline. "We don't want to subsidize anything. We would like to operate just like any normal private operator. We would like to make a profit."
[...]
"Iraqi Airways has got a lot of catching up to do," Michael L. Repking, senior vice president of Global Aviation, an aviation consultancy based in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, said in a phone interview from the company's Dubai office. "First they must refurbish their fleet, then their airport, and then all the airports in the country."
The industry the airline has re-entered is under far greater commercial pressure than 14 years ago. Now, even government-owned airlines that once could exist simply as totems of national pride must satisfy investors and regulators, as well as travelers with greater choices and expectations. And the region is now dominated by sleek Persian Gulf carriers like Emirates Airlines of Dubai and Qatar Airways, based in places where airports have invested in multibillion-dollar expansions.
According to Mr. Dawood, an additional 100 or so international passenger and cargo carriers have submitted applications to land at the 21-year-old, 18-gate Baghdad International Airport.
Business apears to be humming, in spite of security issues as technology and telecom giants vie to remake Iraq into the "Silicon Cresent."
Odd that we hear nothing of this on the nightly news.
Rebuild Iraq 2005: Be a player in the region’s most promising market.Be part of a success story. Relive the success of Rebuild Iraq 2004. Last year’s exhibition surpassed all expectations. It attracted more than 1,400 exhibitors targeting key Iraqi economic sectors, from 48 countries. All 35,000 square meters of exhibition space at the Kuwait International Fairs Ground were fully booked.
48 countries.
Or Iraq Procurement 2004, which will take place in Amman, Jordan on 22-24 November 2004.
Then there's this:
Iraq Suppliers portal looking for partnersCompanies who wish to aid in the rebuilding effort in Iraq are invited to be recognised as an official supplier for the reconstruction process through inclusion on Iraq Suppliers, an international online information resource created in association with Iraq Procurement, a series of high profile events that look to realise the trade and investment potential of Iraq.
Iraq Suppliers is designed for the benefit of companies keen to earn a share of the reconstruction projects and trade opportunities available in Iraq. Businesses are able to search Iraq Suppliers to find required goods and services from contractors, sub-contractors, industries, traders and service providers.
The author of this release might rethink their choice of verbs.
HP attacks Iraq marketHewlett-Packard has concluded a two day training workshop in Amman, Jordan, to introduce the company's product portfolio to resellers in Iraq. The event was modelled on the popular HP Academy. Director Hazem Bazan said the event was targeted at maximising awareness among the reseller community in the new market of Iraq, and providing them with adequate information.
I may be naive, but sounds like a lot of business activity and contract bidding for a quagmire.
October once again brings Fleet Week to the SF Bay Area. A controversial event since the late 60's... the military-hating, anti-war Letfties finally managed to drive the Navy's Blue Angels away. While the Blue Angels have long been a big crowd pleaser, it's mainly outlanders who attend in large numbers, the locals seethe as the blue jets roar over the city.
The heart-stopping, window-rattling flyovers of the Blue Angels won't be part of Fleet Week next month, but organizers of the military festivities promise an exciting event nonetheless.
The main attraction this year is a precision flying team from the north, the Canadian Snowbirds, whose motto is, "Warriors of the Air.''
The Blue Angels use six F-18 Hornets in their show; the Snowbirds fly nine CT-144 Tutors.
This is the first year since 1981 that the Blue Angels won't be part of Fleet Week. The only year they didn't show up was 2001, when Fleet Week itself was canceled after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Navy officials have remained mum on why the Blue Angels aren't coming to town, other than to say they'll be putting on a show elsewhere: The daredevil Angels will be doing their sky-high flips and turns and ear-splitting maneuvers in Oahu, Hawaii, during Fleet Week in San Francisco.
They will be sorely missed. The Snowbirds are a great stunt team, but they are not flying operational combat aircraft...it just isn't as exciting as six F-18's rolling off the deck. There is no point to Canada's arial demonstration team flying during Fleet Week, a tribute to the US Navy, especially when Canadians declined to join the coalition, other than to sell tickets.
Support the Navy, if you're a Northern Californian, tour the visiting ships, but do not spend your hard-earned money in SF, they hate everything for which the military stands and holds dear.
It is also sad that the Snowbirds are in decline as Canada no longer values their contribution nor needs a strong defense, as they live under our protective umbrella, and have no need to recruit pilots. Ironic isn't it?
The Canadian Forces stopped using the Tutor jets for training purposes in 2000. The Canadian Forces, with its aging fighter aircraft and helicopters, is faced with a 20 per cent cut to its budget. It says it's focusing on "core combat capabilities," and the Snowbirds are one of the squadrons facing elimination.Even if the Snowbirds survive the budget cuts, they'll still be flying obsolete aircraft for the next several years. In December 2002, Col. Dave Burt, the officer in charge of buying new aircraft for the Canadian Forces, said he's in no hurry to replace the Tutors and said they'll be able to fly safely until 2020.
Aviation author and former Snowbird pilot Dan Dempsey said there's no point in having an air demonstration squad that performs in aircraft that only they use.
San Francisco and Ottawa are a perfect fit.
The Media and by extension, the DNC/Kerry campaign are trying to make partisan hay of Paul Bremer's remarks re US troop strength and Iraqi looting.
Apart from the fact that they are cherry picking and twisting Bremer's words to the point that he's restated/clarified his position "What I Really Said About Iraq."
Mr. Kerry is free to quote my comments about Iraq. But for the sake of honesty he should also point out that I have repeatedly said, including in all my speeches in recent weeks, that President Bush made a correct and courageous decision to liberate Iraq from Saddam Hussein's brutality, and that the president is correct to see the war in Iraq as a central front in the war on terrorism.
The Left seems to have missed an obvious, common sense point that an astute reader, Verlaine makes in The Belmont Club's comments:
Barring a preposterously huge occupation force, instantly inserted into every part of the country, to do passive protection of selected infrastructure or other assets, the question is NOT about numbers of troops. It's about shooting looters. The call was made (by and large) not to intervene forcefully in the looting situation. A judgement call that stands up well in retrospect -- if one is remotely serious. [emphasis added]
One can imagine the screeching, teeth-gnashing and breast beating from the Left had Bremer/CENTCOM shot thousands of Iraqi looters to protect refrigerators, swivel chairs and lightbulbs.
Australian PM John Howard Wins a historic forth term!
With 77.52% of the primary vote counted nationwide, the Coalition has 52.36% (two-party preferred) and the ALP has 47.64%.
It looks likely that the government will be returned to power with an increased majority of seats as well. The election was seen by many as a referendum on Australia's participation in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Mr. Howard's opponent, Mark Latham, had promised to withdraw Australian troops from the Coalition.
Predictably, the leftie media is not happy.
SMH Online political editor Margo Kingston says John Howard's victory - or rather the solid defeat of Labor - shows how much Australia has really changed. "The appeal of the fair go is no longer compelling to Australians."
Bollocks.
The rabidly anti-Howard media is suddenly worried about fairness? There's a howler.
One suspects that like the US Dems, the ALP failed to understand how deeply October 12th and the threat of terrorism changed Australia. I am sure Tim Blair will have full coverage and commentary up soon as the world turns...as will Chrenkoff...until Down Under wakes skip on over to Bunyip's and enjoy Stanley tauting Margolians whilst giddily channeling Chuck Berry.
Howard's decisive win might be good news for Bush... of course, American voters will know little to none of it, as the US media shills for Kerry.
Chirac lashes out against US cultural dominationFrench President Jacques Chirac warned Thursday of a "catastrophe" for global diversity if the United States' cultural hegemony goes unchallenged.
Speaking at a French cultural center in Hanoi ahead of Friday's opening of a summit of European and Asian leaders, Chirac said France was right to stand up for cultural and linguistic diversity.
The outspoken French president warned that the world's different cultures could be "choked" by US values.
This, he said, would lead to a "general world sub-culture" based around the English language, which would be "a real ecological catastrophe".
Citing Hollywood's stranglehold over the film industry as an example, Chirac stressed that only with government assistance could countries maintain their cultural heritage.
Vietnam is a former French colony, but only around 375,000 of its 81 million people speak French. English is considered by most people a far more valuable and practical second language, particularly among businessmen.
Incredible that Chirac has the balls to speak of diversity in Vietnam given France's appalling history in Southeast Asia.
(via Drudge)
Ray D. at Davids Medienkritik posts from Germany:
The President just doesn’t seem to get it. His handling of the war is a disaster. He just doesn’t seem to understand how many grave mistakes he has made. Far too much emphasis is being placed on one front when we ought to have more troops going after the people who actually attacked us. Why can’t the President just admit his failings and concede that his critics are telling the truth, is he too stubborn or just too proud?"What’s that? You think we are being too hard on the President’s handling of the war? Well, don’t take our word for it. Here is a summary of what a top US General actually had to say:"
Every mistake that supposedly intelligent men could make has been made in this war. The operation was absolutely useless, yet all the available strength of Great Britain and the United States was thrown into the task. (…) The front on which we are fighting those who actually attacked us is being “starved” and a “disaster” because the President insists on fighting on another front. Our lack of success is the “bitter fruit” of this fateful decision. The Army is being asked to do the impossible and could have been used elsewhere to secure large portions of enemy held territory. We are fighting this war just as we fought the last war, in part because the people in Washington have never actually been on the front lines.
We Germans couldn’t have agreed more with this assessment, this is what we were trying to tell you Americans all along…this really would have saved us a number of headaches had you just taken this esteemed General’s advice! And what brave General was it who had the guts to stand up and tell it to the President like it is you ask? One moment…I’m sure it was Wesley Clark…no, …then it had to be General Merrill McPeak, or maybe it was General Abizaid? No?
In fact, it was Douglas MacArthur in November 1944 and he was talking about President Roosevelt’s handling of World War II. Here is the full text: “[MacArthur] said that every mistake that supposedly intelligent men could make has been made in this war. The North African operation was absolutely useless, yet all the available strength of Great Britain and the United States was thrown into the task.
The general, as he is depicted in the report, was full of two ideas: that the Pacific war had been “starved” in the interests of Europe, and that whereas the MacArthur-Nimitz strategy in the Pacific was skillfully to hit the enemy “where he ain’t,” the European strategy was to hammer stupidly against the enemy’s strongest points. “Patton’s army, which is trying to batter its way through the Vosges in the Luneville-Baccarat sector, can’t do it. He repeated---they can’t do it. No army could do it. … The Chinese situation is disastrous. It is the bitter fruit of our decision to concentrate our full strength against Germany. …He said that if he had been given just a portion of the force which invaded North Africa he could have retaken the Philippines in three months because at that time the Japanese were not ready. He lashed out in a general indictment of Washington, asserting that ‘they’ are fighting this war as they fought the last war. He said that most of them have never been in the front lines...”
A case of the Was MacArthur right in his criticism of President Roosevelt? Was Roosevelt taking "his eye off the ball" and "starving" the Pacific front to the point of "disaster" in committing so many men and resources to Europe?
Was it the wrong war, wrong place, wrong time?
Even money what the German media really thinks.
Did anyone ever doubt that this worm would turn?
Tariq Aziz, the former Iraqi deputy prime minister, told the ISG that the "primary motive for French co-operation" was to secure lucrative oil deals when UN sanctions were lifted. Total, the French oil giant, had been promised exploration rights.Tariq Aziz, Saddam's foreign minister, awarded several French "individuals" substantial oil vouchers in return for using their influence to help lift sanctions.
Iraqi intelligence officials then "targeted a number of French individuals that Iraq thought had a close relationship to French President Chirac," it said, including two of his "counsellors" and spokesman for his re-election campaign.
Aziz was singing a different tune in 1998 when Iraq's UN Ambassador Nizar Hamdoon presented a letter by Iraqi Deputy Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz, to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, excerpts follow:
UNITED NATIONS (CNN) -- Following are excerpts of the letter by Iraqi Deputy Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz, given to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Saturday:"On the basis of what was stated in your letter, and in appreciation of the content of the letter of President Boris Yeltsin of the Russian Federation and Mr. Yevgeny Primakov, the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation, and the positive positions expressed and conveyed to us by China, France, Brazil and other States, and in order to give a further chance to achieve justice by lifting sanctions commencing with the implementation of paragraph 22 of resolution 687 (1991), the leadership of Iraq decided to resume working with the (U.N.) special commission (UNSCOM) and the IAEA and to allow them to perform their normal duties in accordance with the relevant resolutions of the Security Council and on the basis of the principles which were agreed upon in the memorandum of understanding signed with you February 23, 1998.
We offer this chance not out of fear of the aggressive American campaign and the threat to commit a new aggression against Iraq, but as an expression of our responsibility, and in response to your appeal and those of our friends.
We affirm that the people of Iraq would not relinquish their legitimate right in having the iniquitous embargo lifted and to live normally like other nations of the world. We will be looking forward to seeing the outcome of your efforts and the review."
It's only a matter of time until Kofi Annan is proven to be tainted as well.
Given today's revelations, France's timing seems a tad off kilter.
Chirac calls for lifting arms ban on ChinaParis, France, Oct. 7 (UPI) -- French President Jacques Chirac is calling on the European Union to lift a long-standing arms embargo against China.
"France supports lifting the embargo," Chirac said in an interview with China's official news agency, Xinhua, adding it no longer reflected present day realities.
The European Union imposed the weapons' ban following China's 1989 crackdown against pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square, in Beijing.
Today, European countries are divided over lifting the embargo, with Sweden and the Netherlands opposed to doing so. The United States is also against it.
Chirac noted "stong reservations" on the part of Washington, but said Paris would push for a swift lifting of the embargo. His remarks were posted on the French presidency's Web site, and came ahead of Chirac's trip to China on Friday.
During his visit, the French president is expected to press for greater trade and foreign investment with China.
Wonder how much key money China paid or promised in sweetheart trade and armament contracts? The US out-sources jobs, the French out-source their soul.
Yes, indeedy, there was a coalition of the coerced and bribed, only problem is that it was Iraq doing the coercing and bribing:
Saddam bribed politicians around worldSaddam Hussein bribed senior politicians and businessmen around the world to secure an early lifting of sanctions, according to the Iraq Survey Report.
Focusing his attention in particular on France and Russia, both permanent members of the UN Security Council, Saddam awarded oil exploration contracts and financial inducements to individuals. [emphasis added]
The bribes were at first funded by the Iraqi government, but later derived from Saddam's illegal misuse of the oil-for-food programme, which was supposed to provide food for the poor and medicine for the sick.
You do recall the Moonbat Left's cry that the US sanctions were starving and killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqi babies and children don't you? But it gets much worse for John Kerry's proposed "Help Is On The Way Coalition"
Although the list included many legitimate oil traders, it also contained the names of politicians, political parties and other groups with little obvious connection to the oil industry.
Among those named were Benon Sevan, the former head of the UN's humanitarian programme; President Megawati Sukarnoputri of Indonesia; the former French interior minister Charles Pasqua; and Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the founder of Russia's Liberal Democratic Party.
The CIA's internet list appeared to have been edited to protect the identities of several firms and individuals from the US and other countries that supported the war.
France and Russia pressed for the lifting of UN sanctions from the mid-1990s.
In 1992, according to Iraqi intelligence documents included in the report, Abdel-Razek Al Hashimi, the Iraqi ambassador to France, handed $1 million for the ruling Socialist party to Pierre Joxe, the defence minister.
Tariq Aziz, Saddam's foreign minister, awarded several French "individuals" substantial oil vouchers in return for using their influence to help lift sanctions.
Most vouchers could be exchanged for cash from oil middlemen in Baghdad. "Saddam sought favourable relations with France because France was influential in the Security Council," the report said.
In June 2000, Iraq awarded $1.78 billion in short-term contracts under the food programme to France, worth 15 per cent of Iraq's total oil contracts, in the hope of ensuring support over sanctions.
Iraq's security services "flagged two groups influential to France's policy in the UN Security Council - government officials and influential citizens", the report said.
It disclosed that a $12 billion deal to build economic relations with Iraq was discussed with Russia's energy minister.
A staggering 32 per cent of oil-for-food contracts went to Russia in the form of oil vouchers and gifts in which the new oligarchs, officials and political parties were principal beneficiaries.
"The lion's share of Iraq's undeveloped oil fields went to Russia," said the report. In 2002, Russian firms negotiated 10-year contracts to begin exploring Iraqi oil fields.
UPDATE: Tom Maquire notes the disgusting, yet predictable spin from the US media.
A wonderfully inflammatory headline from the LA Times: "Oil-for-Food Probe to Reach White House". Call it "Mission Accomplished" for Waxman.
Meanwhile over at GlennReynolds.com un grand nuage noir appears on the Kerry foreign policy horizon: COLLAPSE OF KERRY'S FOREIGN POLICY CASE
Although everybody's talking about weapons of mass destruction, the story that's not being reported --you'd almost think the press "wants Kerry to win"-- is the complete collapse of John Kerry's foreign policy case, and the reason for that collapse.
Beck plays with architecture, perspective and impossible spaces as this week's Carnival of the Vanities Incites bloggy imagination.
I've nothing to add to Joe Katzman's summation of President John Kerry, other than to say that it scares the hell out of me.
I even understand the impetus to look at 2 candidates who offer less than the times demand, and see the stakes before us, and tell oneself that Kerry will have to do the right thing.But you know what? He absolutely does not.
Look at Europe now, or look back into human history - illusion and passivity in the face of real threats is an option, and some leaders and states will take it.
One question: is Kerry one of those people? Simple question. Simple answer.
Kerry's positions on issues like Iran are clear, and were openly stated in the debate: normalize relations with the world's #1 terrorist sponsors while they undermine Iraq & Afghanistan, offer them nuclear fuel, propose sanctions the Europeans will drag their feet on in order to stop a late-stage nuclear program that's impervious to sanctions anyway, and oppose both missile defense and the nuclear bunker-buster weapons that would give the USA defensive or offensive options in a crisis.
Gee, I'm sleeping better already.
[Note to self: refill Halcion and kiss ass goodbye.]
As I watched the morning talk shows I became angrier and angrier. As a Boomer I am ashamed. Ashamed that my generation whines, pisses and moans when faced with defending ourselves from the threat of worldwide terrorism.
We ask "What's in for us?" How about not being flown into a skyscraper for starters, or having your children murdered?
"Why us, why not them?" we implore. The fatwa is on our heads. We can argue how many angels dance on the head of the blame pin to no avail, for the answer is still the same; America is the target.
We should be greatful that the Brits and Aussies signed on at great risk to themselves, that other nations joined in the peackeeping, not belittle them or betray the Iraqis again by handing them over to the tryants, thieves and miscreants at the UN.
We cry "It's too costly." What will the cost be if we retreat? The implied costs to our economy post 9/11 may have been as high a half a trillion dollars and a million jobs.
One attack.
We toss away billions of dollars on instant gratification without a thought. We are awash in personal debt, how many credit cards in your wallet, have a second or third mortgage? We will spend an estimated $2.6 B for halloween this month. — HALLOWEEN — people. Yet whine about firehouses for Iraq?! We have been making lousy choices with our personal income and tax dollars for decades.
Now you're worried?
We did nothing about terrorism or terrorist attacks for almost a decade after the first WTC attack, failed to secure our borders and ports, placated North Korea, squandered a Russian realignment, fought the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time in the Balkans, reduced the size of our standing military for theoretical strategies, and ham-strung our intelligence services with lawyerly caveats.
Now you're worried?
Are you kidding me?
Yes, the task ahead of us daunting and expensive, but failure will be even more so, if it is even an option. Turning away will not resolve this issue for our future is bound up with those who seek to destroy our way of life. We must defeat the radical element and provide the means for a better way of life for the generations to follow or we will reap terror for generations.
The war on terror requires a long view, much as the Cold War and the space progam did in their time. John Kerry may fancy himself the new JFK, but Kerry has nothing in common with John F. Kennedy other than a monogram. For like Senator and Presidential candidate Walter Mondale, who sought to cancel the Apollo program, John Kerry fails the "vision test".
"We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too."
--John Kennedy speaking at Rice University, 1962
Subsititute "moon" for "war on terror," are we up to the challenge or not?
Our fathers saved the world from tryanny, rebuilt Europe, defeated Communism and went to the moon.
What will be our legacy?
(cross posted to The Command Post Op-Ed page)
I failed Rand Simberg's Global Test:
We're sorry, but your score of -2490 is not sufficiently high to justify your imperialistic foreign adventure. You will be billed for this test, and you may take it again, by pressing the "Repeat Test" button below.If you choose not to repeat the test, you may report to UN headquarters and attempt the standard diplomatic approach. We apologize for the inconvenience, but with luck, you may get approval within a decade.
How do you rate?
Officially Authorized, Internationally Recognized Global Test
(Compliments of Instapundit)
Boo-fuckinghoo.
You're Fired, AgainFor the second time in two days, Slingerlands native and "Apprentice" contestant Jennifer Crisafulli was apparently fired Thursday -- this time from her real job -- for remarks she made on the NBC reality show.
An official with the Manhattan firm Prudential Douglas Elliman said Thursday that Crisafulli, a 32-year-old real estate agent with the firm, would not be welcomed back because of comments she made on Wednesday night's episode of "The Apprentice."
Crisafulli, who now lives in Manhattan, made remarks that were perceived by some as anti-Semitic.
"We do not intend to have an individual in our organization who subscribes to this point of view," Steven James, Elliman's senior vice president and executive director of sales, told the Times Union on Thursday night. "They are not wanted. They are not needed."
But was she fired? James would not use the word, citing legal reasons, and Crisafulli said no one from Elliman contacted her Thursday. She did say it appeared she was about to be let go, if she hasn't been fired already.
"I'm so upset," she said. "I mean, my career is gone."
The 1990 graduate of the Academy of the Holy Names was shown on "The Apprentice" Wednesday making disparaging remarks about two women whom she believed gave a negative review to a restaurant her team opened. The team lost and project manager Crisafulli was later fired by star Donald Trump.
"It was those two old, Jewish fat ladies," she told teammates. "Really. They were like the pinnacle of the New York jaded old bags."
You opened your pie-hole Sweetie, and now you must pay the price for a massive display of stupidity on network TV.
Survivor, Big Brother and The Apprentice seem to have an unequal representation of minorities. The Amazing Race has done a better job of balancing race, age, cultural and income demographics. In Race 5's final episode I would bet more of the audience was pulling for the Bowling Moms or Chip and Kim, not the two whiny young couples with anger management issues.
The undercurrent of racism in both Apprentice casts is too obvious to be accidential. It's also too much of a coincidence that the crazy bitch has been a black woman both seasons. Are the producers injecting this dynamic in reality show casts? Perhaps minorities don't apply in equivilent numbers, but I find that hard to believe in our celebrity saturated culture.
One supects they purposely select cast members who will produce racial or gender fireworks and ratings. Maybe I'm overthinking it and since racism exists in the real world you can't avoid it in a TV reality show either...but real life isn't edited. Crisafulli behaved like a spoiled brat from the get-go and was a disaster as team leader, it was unnecessary to edit anti-Semitism into the show.
After seeing the episode, Crisafulli told the Times Union on Wednesday that she was worried about how she would be perceived. "I feel terrible about this. I hope people don't think about me in the wrong way." Crisafulli noted after the show that she has Jewish relatives; she stated as much on-camera, she said, but her comments were edited out. Crisafulli re-iterated the assertion Thursday morning on the "Today" show.
Too little too late, babe, however, this week's editing on The Apprentice was not a credit to NBC, Burnett's or Trump's organizations either.
(Hat tip to Whizbang)
An update on Haileygate...CBS's bogus documents may have claimed another reputation... as this appears to be self-inflicted, the professor's motivation remains unclear.
UPDATE: Crikey, these people are incredibly dense...Utah State University fires back at Whizbang, misses and shoots own toe:
CBS News didn't return calls for comment, and Mapes declined to discuss Hodges' charges. "I can't, I just can't," she says. But she did forward a study by Utah State University Associate Professor David Hailey disputing the contention that the memos were created on a word processor using digital type rather than a '70s-era typewriter--the key challenge to their authenticity. "I really believe they are not digitally produced," Hailey says. "I'm not saying that they're authentic. I'm saying they were probably typewritten. That doesn't make them authentic. But it does take CBS off the hook a little bit."
The good professor doesn't seem to get it, he's just put the hook in his own mouth.
Recently I was standing on line waiting to be served in a Berkeley shop. A pair of forty-something, well-dressed women (not hippies, yippies or dippies) ahead of me were discussing the war on terror/Iraq and dissing Bush. I tuned out their litany of half-truths and smug catch phrases...but this exchange dropped my jaw to the floor:
Woman #1 "Aren't you a little worried about a terrorist attack here?"
Woman #2 " Oh, no they would never attack the Bay Area, we're on their side."
When I read Amir Taheri's piece in the NY Post it reminded me why the SF Bay Area Dems are devoted Fancophiles...they share a distain, nay, a visceral hatred of Fly-over America that lies outside the cantons of their political brethern.
It comes, in part, from Americans who want Iraq to fail because they want President Bush to fail. Some 81 books paint the president as the devil incarnate; Bush-bashing is also the theme of three "documentaries" plus half a dozen Hollywood feature films. Never before in any mature democracy has a political leader aroused so much hatred from his domestic opponents.Others want Iraq to fail because they want America to fail, with or without Bush. The bitter tone of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan when he declared the liberation of Iraq "illegal" shows that it is not the future of Iraq but the vilification of the United States that interests him.
Add to this the recent bizarre phrase from French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin. The head of the Figaro press group went to see him about the kidnapping of two French journalists in Iraq; Raffarin assured him they would soon be freed, reportedly saying, "The Iraqi insurgents are our best allies." [emphasis added]
In plain language, this means that, in the struggle in Iraq, Raffarin does not see France on the side of its NATO allies — the U.S., Britain, Italy and Denmark among others — but on the side of the "insurgents."
Those who want Iraq to fail because they hate Bush and/or America as a whole (for reasons that have nothing to do with Iraq) know that "the insurgents" can't get anywhere. Nor would the Bush- or America-bashers really want Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi to become ruler of Iraq.
I wouldn't be so sure about the latter, for there are millions of Lefties who admire the likes of Castro, believe they can bargain with terrorists and view socialist Europe as a model society. A view provided by Europe's Leftist, anti-American media, and reinforced by travel well-cushioned from the realities of the system's shortcomings with beaucoup US dollars.
There was an anti-SUV article in Tuesday's SF Chronicle from Newhouse News Service by Rebecca Goldsmith that I can't source online. Goldsmith inadvertantly illustrates the difference in our standard of living and why Europeans hate the US...it's about envy, not hegemony.
The opposition (of Europe) to SUV's illustrates fundemental differences in the culture of cars.In the United States, SUV's size and stature appeal to Americans' romance with the open road and the endless horizon. Middle-class folks buy them to get a feeling of security in an insecure world.
But in Western Europe, sport utility drivers seem to flout social mores that emphasize less flambouant lifestyles, environmental consciousness and respect for others. In this climate, SUV drivers get labeled as road-hogging, gas-guzzling pigs. It doesn't help matters that some German models cost more than many people's homes.
An anti-American sneer comes through in every point, but many of her constructs are Wrong (someone point the author to Google). Europe lagged twenty years behind the US auto emission and passenger safety regulations. There is a difference between a European auto and the same model built for the US export market. Many compact European models are not exported to the US because they are built to lesser standards, although since ENCAP crash testing began in 1996, safety on some mid-size and luxury models has improved dramatically in the past few years. The EU has yet to adopt a set of requirements, but then they haven't ratified their constitution either.
It wasn't until 1993 European Union passed regulations to reduce the emissions from cars and by 1996 they were lowing the standards as they couldn't meet the targets and most American federal standards still remain more stringent than the EU. The manner in which the EU chose is illustrative of the difference between the two "car cultures" as well:
EU environmental legislation allows member states to introduce favourable taxation to encourage the introduction of an environmental initiative earlier than legislation demands. This has been widely used by some member states to:
- * Encourage early introduction of vehicles meeting future emissions limits
- * Support the costs for retrofitting cars, trucks and buses with catalytic converters and diesel particulate traps
- * Accelerate introduction of cleaner fuels such as unleaded gasoline and ultra-low sulphur diesel.
Typical incentives are reductions in the rate of annual or circulation tax on vehicles, a restriction on the use of more polluting vehicles in city centres and lower duty rates on 'cleaner' fuels.
Compare this with our most populous, car dependent/crazed state: California, which while driving more SUV's, light trucks and luxury imports has become a world leader smog emission control and the effort to encourage the development and marketing of low and zero-emission vehicles.
Only last week the remaining loophole in the smog regs was closed in California as the exemption of 30-year roll-over for classics and pre-76 models from emission regs, to cushion the poor from being forced to junk their old daily drivers and collectors was struck down by AB2683 when the new law was signed by the Governator, much to the disappointment of Jay Leno, car clubs and the Feste household.
As an ugly American and member of the *VRWBC, I might also point out that millions of Europeans are employed in producing road-hogging, gas-guzzling SUVs and luxury cars for the US market...cars fitted with advanced emission control equipment required by the DOT and not the EU.
Can you say hypocrite? I thought you could.
*Vast Right Wing Blogger Conspriracy
Okay...I couldn't resist rummaging through the blogosphere's collective memory banks for Kerry's factual errors in the debate...The Corner's Jack Fowler points out un mistatement énorme...
The supposed hunky-doriness of U.S.-French relations that Senator Kerry pined for in last night’s debate is trés bogus. This is from the September 18, 1995 issue of Time:On the same archive page, Cliff May makes a cogent point that undercuts Kerry's Iraq authorization bob & weave.Last May, finally, enter the tanned, energetic Jacques Chirac, eager to reassert raison d’etat and make a splash, unfortunately too literally. Chirac, though, was acting totally in national character. Daring to be different is nothing new for France, where galling allies is as enduring a national pastime as boules. Winston Churchill, who was host to Charles de Gaulle after the majority of his guest’s countrymen had capitulated to the Nazis, grumbled famously that of all the wartime crosses he bore, the heaviest was the Free French leader’s Cross of Lorraine. It didn’t help that De Gaulle constantly nattered on about how France was the “light of the world; its destiny is to illuminate the universe.” General Dwight Eisenhower managed to avoid gagging, but did complain that of all the Allies he was supremely commanding, “those damn French” were by far the most nettlesome.
De Gaulle gave clout to the once weak French presidency and stabilized France. But jealous of the Churchill-Roosevelt wartime bond, he remained a passionate anti-Atlanticist with a long memory. In 1963, still irate over Britain’s cave-in to U.S. pressure to pull back from Suez in 1956, he vetoed Britain’s application to join the European Economic Community. (His successors obstructed the entry of Spain and Portugal.) The following year, he withdrew France from the NATO military command and asked President Lyndon Johnson to remove U.S. troops from France. A seething Secretary of State Dean Rusk flew to Paris to seek clarification: “Does your order include the bodies of American soldiers in France’s cemeteries?”
Makes your blood boil. By the way 1: If we should remember anything about France, the U.S., and John Kerry, it should be how he was there in the early 1970s playing diplomat-wanna-be with Viet Cong.
Germany did indeed declare war on the US after Pearl Harbor. But the US was already at war with Saddam in 2003. The Gulf War never ended – there was only a ceasefire.Saddam continued to claim that he had won the Gulf War, that the US had been defeated, as demonstrated, for instance, by the fact that he was still in power while George H.W. Bush had been removed from office.
There are monuments in Iraq celebrating this great victory.
Saddam never complied with the obligations he undertook in order to establish the ceasefire. That should have rendered the ceasefire null and void.
That could have been the path on which Bush proceeded to renewed hostilities. Instead he went to the UN for its blessings and got resolution 1441, in which the entire Security Council agreed that Saddam had not accounted for the WMD he was known to have had. The resolution states that if Saddam did not fulfill his obligations immediately, serious consequences must follow.
Kerry's Korean gaff is simply astonishing given that Holbrooke is an advisor and key Clinton people are on Kerry's team. Had Bush made a similar error or said he visited KGB headquarters in Treblinka Square ....the MSM media would be howling "Dolt! Cowboy!! Moron!!!"
I'm way too late to the post-debate party to offer opinion & analysis, screeds or clever riffs and it's very difficult to choose from among Kerry's many gaffs, mis-statements,erronous facts and lies, so I'll just point you to Froggy Ruminations and let Matthew Heidt debunk the Tora Bora BS
As to the Tora Bora issue, Kerry said that we "outsourced" the job and therefore missed an opportunity to kill UBL. Tell that to the SF A-Teams that had infiltrated Afghanistan, trained and led the Northern Alliance into battle within a month of 9/11. The Unconventional Warfare operation conducted by the Army in Afghanistan will serve as a textbook example of how to conduct UW ops into perpetuity......and Smash can take it home.
