Palestinian Politics

JERUSALEM - A political rally by the militant Palestinian group Hamas turned violent Saturday, as supporters of the rival Fatah faction opened fire, sparking a melee that left more than 25 people wounded, a Palestinian official said.
The incident in the Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza was the first instance of violence between rival Palestinian factions since the election of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas in early January.
Abbas has been holding talks with rival political factions, including Hamas, in hopes of reaching a truce agreement between militants and Israel.
The shooting occurred at an outdoor rally staged by Hamas to celebrate its victory in municipal elections in Gaza earlier in the week. Hamas' strong showing dealt a setback to Abbas' dominant Fatah faction.
The Palestinian official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the Hamas supporters chanted victory slogans, angering Fatah supporters in the area.
One of the Fatah supporters opened fire, seriously wounding one Hamas supporters and causing shrapnel wounds to four others, the official said. Some 25 other people were hurt by knives, clubs and beatings in the ensuing melee, the official said.
No further details were immediately available.
While rival Palestinian factions have sporadically fought one another, such instances of fighting are rare, with the various groups all saying they are committed to ending Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

So, as long as they only murder each other sporadically, murdering Jews is okeedokee.

And... on the bright side, at least the wackos here in the US aren't trying to kill those of us who won.

Thanks Hollywood!

thanks

LGF links to a great article detailing a hilarious ad campaign against Hollywood:

HUMAN EVENTS has learned that a billboard blitz "thanking" Hollywood for the reelection of President Bush will be unveiled early next week.

The advertisements feature the faces of liberal Hollywood icons Michael Moore, Whoopi Goldberg, Ben Affleck, Martin Sheen, Chevy Chase, Barbara Streisand, and Sean Penn, and offer thanks to Hollywood their help getting President Bush reelected.

Two versions of the billboard were created, both "thanking" Hollywood -- the first for "4 more years" and the second for "W. Still President."Billboard creator Citizens United, a group that advocates a return to traditional American values, has purchased the use of three billboards near the Kodak Theatre (home of the Academy Awards) for the month of February, which includes Oscar Night, Sunday, February 27.

Much Ado About Nothing

Cheney's Wardrobe Malfunction?

If you haven't heard, Vice President Dick Cheney has created a small stir amongst the media regarding his attire at the Aushwitz ceremony. A Washington Post style writer criticized him in Friday's paper, commenting that his ski cap and olive colored parka made him look "like an awkward child amid the well-dressed adults" The style commentator went on stating that "The vice president . . . was dressed in the kind of attire one typically wears to operate a snow blower."

I literally watched this story self-replicate and multiply in a matter of minutes. Once the Post writer had written the article, Main Stream Media couldn't resist the temptation to jump on the story and post headlines declaring that Cheney was "under fire" for his choice of wardrobe. The one common thread in all of these articles was that the only critic on the record actually attacking Cheney was the author of the intial Post article.

This is the old routine of the media creating the news, then trying to report on it as some impartial observor. At the time of this posting, no reports indicate that anyone of significance has criticized his attire. Oddly, for the MSM, the comments of one stlye writer is enough to create a furor over something insignificant.

It's only a matter of time before Pelosi, Boxer and the rest of the game jump on the MSM bandwaggon and demand some form of apology.

Sacre Blue!!

"here, allow me to demonstrate a common French military tactic..."

Apparently France's socialist President has called for an "experimental" international tax to help combat AIDS. We all know how those work, you put them in place, and then never lift them.

It is odd that the world community would go through such extremes to combat a disease which is entirely preventable. Powerline points out that the spread of AIDS could be stopped tomorrow if behaviors were changed. Why is AIDS worthy of some international tax but not some other non-preventable disease?

New Brain-Terminal Video

Evan Maloney of Brain-terminal.com has a new video. This time he interviewed protestors at the inauguration. The protestors lived up to my expectations. The whole Bush=nazi=fascist=Hitler=chimp was in full force, but to clam them down, Evan offered them Hillary Clinton action figures.

Run Hillary Run: 2008

Well folks, its time for another RWP recurring feature. I've decided to entitle this one, "Run Hillary Run: 2008" and it will predominantly serve to track the calculated moves of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton as she manuevers herself for the Democratic ticket of 08. Keeping in mind that she's stragically placed herself further to the right of the President on immigration and national security, it will be interesting to see what she does next.

Here's a taste from powerline:

In a speech to about 1,000 abortion rights supporters near the New York State Capitol, Mrs. Clinton firmly restated her support for the Supreme Court's ruling in Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion nationwide in 1973. But then she quickly shifted gears, offering warm words to opponents of legalized abortion and praising the influence of "religious and moral values" on delaying teenage girls from becoming sexually active.
"There is an opportunity for people of good faith to find common ground in this debate - we should be able to agree that we want every child born in this country to be wanted, cherished and loved," Mrs. Clinton said.
Mrs. Clinton's remarks were generally well received, though the audience was silent during most of her overtures to anti-abortion groups. Afterward, leaders of those groups were skeptical, given Mrs. Clinton's outspoken support for abortion rights over the years.

ABC: tries, I mean does, deliver a political cheapshot

I know news organizatins try to be fair and balanced, but this is a little extreme. Powerline received notice that ABC news was looking for any military funerals from soldiers who died in Iraq that were going to be held on inauguration day. here's portions from ABC News:

Jan. 19, 2005 — For a possible Inauguration Day story on ABC News, we are trying to find out if there any military funerals for Iraq war casualties scheduled for Thursday, Jan. 20. If you know of a funeral and whether the family might be willing to talk to ABC News, please fill out the form below.

Powerline writes: Note that only the families of Iraqi war dead need apply. If a soldier died in Afghanistan, or aiding tsunami victims in Indonesia or Sri Lanka, or in a training exercise, never mind. That isn't the "balance" ABC is looking for.

I can just picture how it would have aired. Promplty after the inauguration they would have cut to a military funeral with some voiceover saying "while the festivities are just beginning in the nation's capital, the Jones family in town X are just beginning to Mourn. Mourning the loss of their son who died in Iraq as a direct result of President Bush's aggressive policies."

I have the deepest respect for our military men and women, but by airing such a story, ABC is solely attempting to manipulate a tragic event into a political propaganda piece.

ABC has tried to cover its tracks and has since deleted the post, but Captian Ed took a screen shot of the page and archived it.

UPDATE: Turns out that ABC decided to run with the funeral story anyway. Here's excerpts form an Archived version.

PETER JENNINGS: And in Rockport, Texas, today – just about the time the president was speaking – there was a funeral for a young Marine reservist. Twenty-one-year-old Matthew Holloway was killed in Iraq last week by a roadside bomb.
His brother told a local paper that as much as Matthew wanted to be home, he was very proud of what he was doing in Iraq. And it is something you hear from so many people in the services, including the 10,000 who have already been wounded.

The Crazy Aunt in California's Attic

California's own, Senator Barbara Boxer has once again embarrassed herself and the entire golden state (as if San Fran's Mayor Gavin Newsome wasn't enough). Made the laughing stock of the blogosphere after she was caught crying during the electoral vote count and certification of President Bush a few weeks ago, Boxer thoroughly demonstrated a new low as she attempted to "nail" Condoleezza Rice during the confirmation hearing.

Captain's Quarters has a few great insights.

You make the call

In another installment of "You make the call," I have included a parapraph from the Washington Post. It's up to you to decide whether its from the news page or opinioin page.

President Bush will begin his second term in office without a clear mandate to lead the nation, with strong disapproval of his policies in Iraq and with the public both hopeful and dubious about his leadership on the issues that will dominate his agenda, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll.

This comes from the front page.

The Soft Bigotry of the American Left

We all remember the immortal works of Dr. Martin Luther King when he said that he had a dream that his children would be judged, not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

Well it turns out Hillary Rodham disagrees, as she stated a while back "if we don't take race as part of our character, then we are kidding ourselves." (link removed)

In addition, I ran across an old artlice from BOTWT which is interesting.

The New Jersey Education Association's Web site features a brochure for download called "Getting Involved in Your Child's School." It comes in three versions; the first is simply described as "a parent's resource" (links in PDF format). The second is written in Spanish, but the third is curious. It's called the "African-American version."

Why is an African-American version necessary? Who knows, but there are differences between the text of two versions. For example, here's how the "parent's resource" answers the question: "Why do teachers need my help?":

Today, there is an increasing emphasis on individualized instruction--fitting the curriculum to the child. Teachers want to employ new methods and materials to give each child personal guidance.

When you assist teachers with growing paperwork, make instructional materials, or conduct a science experiment, you give them more time for planning activities, for trying new teaching strategies, and for working directly with children. As a parent volunteer, you allow them to be more effective teachers--and the school obtains your skills and services that might be unavailable due to financial limitations.

Here's how the "African-American version" answers the same question:
Today, teachers want to use new methods and materials to give each child personal guidance.

When you assist teachers, you give them more time to work with children. You allow them to be more effective teachers.

We actually like the African-American version better; it takes just 36 words to say the same thing the parent's resource says in 91. But another way of looking at it is that the New Jersey teachers union seems to think their material has to be dumbed down for the benefit of black parents.

Separation of Church and State

Its amazing what courts will consider a violation of the First Amendment separation of church and state.

ATLANTA (Reuters) - A U.S. judge on Thursday ordered a Georgia school district to remove stickers challenging the theory of evolution from its textbooks on the grounds that they violated the U.S. Constitution.

In a ruling issued in Atlanta, U.S. District Judge Clarence Cooper said Cobb County's school board had violated the constitutional ban on the separation of church and state when it put the disclaimers on biology books in 2002.

The stickers read: "This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered."

Not surprisingly, it was the ACLU that was suing the school.

Dems Theory on the South

Post-election, many on the left were left with a choice: blame the loss on a stolen election, or try to understand why they lost. Some of them made more sense when the were claiming fraud.
Senator Feingold recently visited Alabama. While not citing any proof, he echoed the stupidity and arrogance that has lately dominated Democratic and MSM debate.
From BOTWT:
It seems Alabamans are really poor: The senator "heard repeatedly of the difficult struggles that so many working families are enduring in both urban and rural areas."

I can only be humbled by their sacrifice.
But because I am a lawmaker and a student of history, I also know who has been asking them to give so much. And I can only wonder how many more generations of central Alabamians will say "yes" when the increasingly powerful Republican Party asks them to be concerned about homosexuality but not about the security of their own health, about abortion but not about the economic futures of their own children.
As my wife and I drove through Greenville that night, I thought how fundamentally unfair this all is in order to support an increasingly radical conservative movement.

Taranto points out the inconsistancies and hypocricy of this view:

...There is at the very least a tension between the stereotype of the GOP as a party of impoverished dupes and the other Democratic stereotype of the GOP as the party of the rich.

But for the sake of argument, let's assume that the economic portion of Feingold's analysis is correct--that lots of poor people vote against their own economic interests when they cast ballots for Republicans--or at least that he actually believes it. If Democrats care so much about the "downtrodden," and if the GOP is playing on their false consciousness by emphasizing things that don't matter like abortion and homosexuality, why don't the Democrats simply adopt pro-life and antigay positions, so that they can win office on their superior economic programs and actually do something for these fortuneless folks?

The question answers itself, doesn't it? Russ Feingold would never endorse, say, the
Human Life Amendment or the Federal Marriage Amendment, because they are against his principles. Indeed, we're guessing he has enough integrity that he'd rather lose an election than change these positions.
In other words, when Feingold writes disparagingly of Alabama voters' concern about homosexuality and abortion, it isn't because he regards these as trivial matters. Rather, it is because he does not respect the views of those who disagree.

WA Elections

Washington state has outmatched Florida for having a more ridiculous election than many third world countries. There's an article in opinionjournal, about the election, and while I disagree with their ideas about a revote, it is a good read for those who haven't kept up. It outlines the fraud or at least incompetence of election officials. Look for more info here. (on the right)

WA Elections

Washington state has outmatched Florida for having a more ridiculous election than many third world countries. There's an article in opinionjournal, about the election, and while I disagree with their ideas about a revote, it is a good read for those who haven't kept up. It outlines the fraud or at least incompetence of election officials. Look for more info here. (on the right)

Journalistic Standards

There has been a fair amount of uproar about certain opinion-commentators getting money to advocate certain policies. I don't see the problem, if their facts are correct. Which is worse?
Journalists using falsified information to help a cause they believe in for free.
or
Commentators using accurate information in a cause they mostly believe in, for pay.
Apparently scrappleface had similar thoughts.

"The outcry from professional journalists over these pay-for-commentary scandals is not surprising," the source added. "They violated the journalistic code of honor. It's appalling to think that these men received compensation for weaving their biases into their work. Meanwhile, thousands of hard-working journalists do the same thing every day at no extra charge."

UNtimely

Those keeping up on the tsunami disaster relief efforts are probably aware of what the Americans, Brithish and Aussies have already done and are doing to help masses. You are also probably aware of the utter failure of the UN to actually do anything substantive up to date. Here's a few highlights from a couple of great blogs on the subject.

From the dimplomad, a blog run by foreign service members:

Well, dear friends, we're now into the tenth day of the tsunami crisis and in this battered corner of Asia, the UN is nowhere to be seen -- unless you count at meetings, in five-star hotels, and holding press conferences.Aussies and Yanks continue to carry the overwhelming bulk of the burden, but some other fine folks also have jumped in: e.g., the New Zealanders have provided C-130 lift and an excellent and much-needed potable water distribution system; the Singaporeans have provided great helo support; the Indians have a hospital ship taking position off Sumatra. Spain and Netherlands have sent aircraft with supplies.

The UN continues to send its best product, bureaucrats. Just today the city's Embassies got a letter from the local UN representative requesting a meeting for "Ms. Margareeta Wahlstrom, United Nations Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator and the Secretary-General's Special Coordinator for Humanitarian Assistance in Tsunami-afected countries." Wow! Put that on a business card! And she must be really, really special because she has the word "coordinator" twice in her title!...

Read the rest, it's great

From another blog:

Today, during an afternoon conference that wrapped up my project of the last 18 months, one of my Euro collegues tossed this little turd out to no one in particular:

" See, this is why George Bush is so dumb, theres a disaster in the world and he sends an Aircraft Carrier..."After which he and many of my Euro collegues laughed out loud.
and then they looked at me. I wasn't laughing, and neither was my Hindi friend sitting next to me, who has lost family in the disaster.

I'm afraid I was "unprofessional", I let it loose -
"Hmmm, let's see, what would be the ideal ship to send to a disaster, now what kind of ship would we want? Something with its own inexhuastible power supply? Something that can produce 900,000 gallons of fresh water a day from sea water? Something with its own airfield? So that after producing the fresh water, it could help distribute it? Something with 4 hospitals and lots of open space for emergency supplies? Something with a global communications facility to make the coordination of disaster relief in the region easier?

Well "Franz", us peasants in America call that kind of ship an "Aircraft Carrier". We have 12 of them. How many do you have?

You make the call

In another round of "you make the call" the following is a news clipping from Newsweek. Its up to you to decide whether it is from a "news" or opinion column.

Now, NEWSWEEK has learned, the Pentagon is intensively debating an option that dates back to a still-secret strategy in the Reagan administration’s battle against the leftist guerrilla insurgency in El Salvador in the early 1980s. Then, faced with a losing war against Salvadoran rebels, the U.S. government funded or supported "nationalist" forces that allegedly included so-called death squads directed to hunt down and kill rebel leaders and sympathizers. Eventually the insurgency was quelled, and many U.S. conservatives consider the policy to have been a success—despite the deaths of innocent civilians and the subsequent Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages scandal.

Not suprisingly, this was from the "news" section.

Glenn Reynolds from Instapundit has a hilarious rebuttal:

Er, maybe because the Iran-Contra scandal had to do with overthrowing the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, rather than the guerrilla war in El Salvador? I mean, I know all those people look alike to the folks at Newsweek, but this is either inexcusable sloppiness, or simply a stretch to try to bring in more stuff that might make it look bad.

The whole piece is like that, and it's unfortunately typical. I don't know whether this sort of thing is a good idea or not -- I can see arguments both ways -- but this story goes out of its way, as usual, to get the digs in before getting around to mentioning the actual arguments.
I guess I should be glad, though: Usually it's all about Vietnam. At least this story is bringing things 20 years closer to the present.

Losing the Faith in France

LGF has a link to an interesting article, reporting on the decline of religion in France.

For decades, the Church in France has been living on borrowed time, relying on a body of priests whose average age has steadily increased. That time has suddenly run out. Recent research suggests that French priests have become so old that half of them will die in the next eight years.

At Puy L'Eveque, Michel Cambon is Fr Bouzou's nearest fellow priest. He is the only one who seems really angry about the crisis. As we walk among the dilapidated tombs in the churchyard with their fallen crosses and mournful statuary, the church bells clang balefully. Fr Cambon - who has more than 30 churches to look after - says his elderly congregation is dying out so rapidly that in 10 years there may be no church in Puy L'Eveque at all.

"People kept saying it would be all right," says Fr Cambon, "but they're about to be proved wrong. My fear is that the Roman Catholic Church will disappear altogether in France. That's the path we're on."

Free Speech

Opinionjournal (third item) has a story outlining the hypocricy of defending speech you agree with, and using the courts to silence the rest.

Tsunami

A few good links to info about the SE Asia disaster.

Arthur Chrenkoff has a list of good news. Some highlights:

"Afghans donated blood on Wednesday for the victims of last week's devastating tsunami, and the government asked the US military to help it send war-hardened doctors to the disaster zone. About a dozen medics and a planeload of medicine and equipment would leave for India and Sri Lanka as soon as possible, the defense Ministry said. 'We have our own problems, but we are part of the family of nations,' said ministry spokesman Gen Zaher Mohammed Azimi. 'The people of Afghanistan are saddened by this disaster'."Just goes to show that you're never too poor or troubled not to show some charity and human spirit.

"The United Nations and international donors on Thursday faced an unusual problem as they sought to rally help for victims of the Indian Ocean tsunami: not a shortage of money, but a surfeit - or at least far more promised cash than they can use in the coming months."An outpouring of public donations and government pledges from around the world has created an embarrassment ofriches.

The $5bn promised amounts to about $1,000 for each of the estimated 5m people affected, much more than the typical annual income of a Sri Lankan fisherman or an Indian villager, let alone an African peasant. [emphasis added]"UN officials do not want to stop the money flowing, but they admit that it poses some unexpected challenges, not least because the pledges are already five times greater than the $977m appeal launched on Thursday by Kofi Annan, UN secretary general, for emergency tsunami relief efforts over the next six months."

Also is a link to this list of donations from "stingy" American's.

I'm not sure if anyone else noticed this "human" interest story to come out of the disaster.
I have trouble believing that all this effort couldn't be better used on something else. But scrappleface has a great story about the stranded fish. (I know its not really a fish, duh!)

Finally, since I don't have cable, or a TV that even gets reception, I hadn't gotten a good feel for how huge the waves were. I have heard the number of dead, and seen some pictures of the carnage, but hadn't seen how powerful and enormous the waves were. A Foxnews and MSNBC video shows the incoming wave, shot from a second story, shows a little boy out in the beach, getting swallowed by the tsunami. It's disturbing, but it opened my eyes to the horror that this disaster was.

Border Crossing Made Easy

The Mexican government has apparently published a manual for Mexican immigrants which outlines various techniques on entering the US illegally. This blog has a few key highlighs translated from the manual with suggestions on how to cross rivers and deserts properly. Its a must read.

Of course with Mexican President Vicente Fox denying that illegal imigrants are illegal, you can only expect so much.

I realize that there exist many positives to illegal immigration, what bothers me is that a foreign government would outright endorse the breaking of American laws.

Sticks and Stones

I’ve decided to start another recurring feature. Sometimes you hear something so outrageously false, that it’s kind of funny. Like Al-Qaida leaders calling the US terrorists (or anyone else calling the US terrorists).
It’s the same with little kids (I’m not a brat, you’re a brat).
So, without further introduction, here’s today’s Sticks and Stones:

Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi is urging the U.S. to change "shameful" form of
government into a real democracy, insisting, "The U.S. doesn't have a regime worth imitating. If any regime is worth imitating, it is the Libyan regime: A republic of the masses, in which men and women govern themselves. ... a direct popular democracy."
In an interview on Al-Jazeera, Qaddafi says, "We call upon the American people to govern themselves, and convene popular committees. Today, after the bitter experience of 2004, it has been proven that the project of traditional democracy of political parties of elections [and] of presidents … failed. These are old classic molds that should all be in a museum.
... It is a disgrace to human nature."

I don't want to pick on the UN too much (is that possible), but one has to wonder if Lybia's spot on the Human Rights Commission has gone to their heads.

Kerry's Poor Taste

I didn't believe it at first. I read this off a page with several Bush ads, so it was a little suspect. Then I found it in the San Fran Chron too. Who does this guy think he is?!
I wasn't aware of this, but Kerry's in Iraq (or was). Making himself look like an ***. He met with soldiers there:

The senator said he was more interested in asking questions of soldiers, U.S. officials, Iraqis and even the journalists themselves instead of rehashing the political battles of the past campaign season.
But in several instances, Kerry attacked what he called the "horrendous judgments" and "unbelievable blunders" of the Bush administration. The mistakes, he said, included former U.S. occupation leader Paul Bremer's decisions to disband the Iraqi army and purge the government of former members of Hussein's Baath Party. Both moves are widely believed to have fueled the largely Sunni insurgency.
"What is sad about what's happening here now is that so much of it is a process of catching up from the enormous miscalculations and wrong judgments made in the beginning," he said. "And the job has been made enormously harder."
He added, however, that it was time to move forward.
"Mistakes have been made," he said. "Now, it's a different time and different set of judgments that have to be made. I'm here to make judgments about what moves are available to us."

A few thoughts...
Kerry first says he doesn't want to "rehash" his lost election, then he goes ahead and rehashes it. Personally I don't think Kerry ever flipped-flopped. He just wanted to have it both ways. He's still trying to have it both ways.
...not to mention how tasteless it is to talk-bad about somebody's boss, who happened to win more votes than you did.
Also...
Why's he in Iraq trying to "figure out his moves".

Memo to Kerry...you lost!

Sen. Boxer to Object to Election Certification!!!

I heard on the Radio this morning, and FOX News reports, that Senator Barbara Boxer from CA could be planning to officially object to the certification of the electoral college votes. Apparently, Boxer gave in to the Michael Moore wing of the party. Although this would produce a delay in the procedure of the certification, it will probably only be minor and is meant to gain press.

Not all of the Dems support Boxer and apparently a few high profile Senators wisely refused to object. Both Obama and Kerry wouldn't touch it. In addition, the new Senate Minority leader Harry Reid was uspest with the proposal and tried to prevent Boxer's plan from leaking to the press.

You Make the Call

Bear's post below reminded me of my recurring feature "Editorial versus Front Page: you make the call." To remind you what this is about, I post a paragraph from a newspaper and you try to tell if it was lifted from the front page, or editorial page.

here's one:

President Bush, still smarting from charges that the United States was doing too little to assist in relief operations, announced that he was sending Secretary of State Colin L. Powell to the region, along with the president's brother, Jeb, the governor of Florida.

This little nugget of opinion was from the front page of the LA Times (subscription only). Whether Bush was "smarting" from those charges seems debatable, but what isn't debatable is that the writer of this piece hopes Bush is smarting.

Here's another few paragraphs I ran across at Powerline.

President Bush's initial, halting response to the Indian Ocean tsunami catastrophe, followed within days by strong expressions of concern and decisive action, spotlighted a governing style that sometimes finds its stride only after stumbling at the gate. This seems especially true when Bush is confronted with a cataclysmic event and must improvise quickly -- as with the Dec. 26 tsunami or the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks....

The first U.S. president with a graduate business degree, Bush sees himself as an unflinching leader who sticks to his guns. Yet on numerous occasions he has shown an ability to bend to the public will -- to the point of executing U-turns....

"Bush's default mechanism continues to be the laid-back quality that marked his Texas governorship, in which he had a short work day, a long midday break and delegated very extensively," said Fred I. Greenstein, a Princeton presidential scholar.

Again from the news pages of the LA Times. The whole article is quite amusingy. Yet another Bush hit piece cloaked as a legitimate news story.

Free Speech

Like J-Red's You make the call posts, I've decided to sart my own recurring category. I've noticed how often Dems cry wolf about free speech, so when I find examples of people redefining "free speech" to mean freedom from critisism or any other definition, I'll try to point it out.

From BOTWT, qouting a Newsweek interview with Desmond Tutu:

I was teaching in Jacksonville, Fla., [during the election campaign] and I was shocked, because I had naively believed all these many years that Americans genuinely believed in freedom of speech. [But I] discovered there that when you made an utterance that was remotely contrary to what the White House was saying, then they attacked you. For a South African the déjà vu was frightening. They behaved exactly the same way that used to happen here [during apartheid]--vilifying those who are putting forward a slightly different view.

So, to make sence of Tutu's ideas, let's paraphrase. "When I said things that people didn't agree with, they vilified me. If they believed in free speech, they would be quiet."
Why is it that liberals hope to silence speech in the name of free speech?

cBS Tries to Kiss and Make-up

So, how far has cBS sunk?
According to Broadcasting and Cable News, CBS news president and Washington bureau chief went to the White House to explain to the Bush administration that "neither CBS News nor Rather had a vendetta against the White House" and that they would try to be "fair and balanced." Oh how the mighty have fallen. Not only do they come bowing before the administration they hoped to end, their assurance of good behavior pays homage to their other victorious enemy Fox News.

Reagan

I really don't remember much about Reagan. From what I read, he seems a lot like Winston Churchill, or Abraham Lincoln. He was a great leader with a sharp wit. Here are some quotes I found:
Here's my strategy on the Cold War: We win, they lose."

"The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant: It's just that they know so much that isn't so."
"Of the four wars in my lifetime none came about because the U.S. was too strong."
"I have wondered at times about what the TenCommandment's would have looked like if Moses had runthem through the U.S. Congress."
"The taxpayer: That's someone who works for the federal government but doesn't have to take the civil service examination."
"Government is like a baby: An 'alimentary canal' with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other."
"The nearest thing to eternal life we will ever see on thisearth is a government program."
"I've laid down the law, though, to everyone from now on about anything that happens: No matter what time it is, wake me. Even if it's in the middle of a Cabinet meeting."
"It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first."
"Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it."
"Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards. If you disgrace yourself you can always write a book."

Even more important than his wit, was his ability to see a evil for what it was, another trait shared by Churchill and Lincoln.

More on the UN

From a NYTimes article about a secret meeting with Kofi, comes this insight:

The meeting also occurred at a moment when the United Nations faces major institutional challenges: the Jan. 30 balloting in Iraq that United Nations electoral experts helped set up; the preliminary report late this month of the oil-for-food inquiry led by Paul A. Volcker, the former Federal Reserve chairman.

Now, the Asian tsunami is testing the organization's capacity for coordinating aid on a global scale.

The UN's is challenged when it tries to promote democracy, face it's own corruption, and help disaster vicitms. What is the UN good at?
IMAO has a few ideas:

* The main job for the U.N. is "peacekeeping" which usually means "whining at the U.S."
* The U.S. created the United Nations in 1945 in an effort to centralize pointless squabbling.
* The job of the U.N. is to make other nations feel like they have a say in things while the U.S. goes ahead and does whatever the hell it feels like.
* The U.N. has expanded its job to getting kickbacks for their members and hating Israel.
* Most of the voting in the U.N. is for non-binding resolutions that hold no weight. It's like internet polls with more Jew-hating.
*While the U.S. dropping out of the U.N. would cripple the corrupt organization and save the U.S. money, it would make lots of whiny nations angry at us... which, come to think of it, isn't really a change.

Also, how can the Times think that aid to Asia is on a global scale. International, but not global. Unless they are using Kerry's definition of global. (second item)



Finally, a question for all those in the no-name conferences. Who's more corrupt, UN or BCS?