"The party will announce its Great Ape Project at a press conference tomorrow. An organization with the same name is seeking a UN declaration on simian rights which would defend ape interests "the same as those of minors and the mentally handicapped of our species."Proving beyond reasonable doubt that chimps are more intelligent than Socialists.
Not since the up-and-down summer of 1864 has this country at war seen such equivocating and self-serving editorialists and politicians.
No one pauses to suggest what the region would now look like with Saddam reaping windfall oil profits, 15 years of no-fly zones, ongoing corruption in Oil-for-Food, the bad effects of the U.N. embargo, Libya's weapons program, and an unfettered Dr. Khan. If a newly provocative Russia is willing to sell missiles to Iran's crazy Ahmadinej(ih)ad, imagine what its current attitude would be to its old client Saddam.
Or perhaps, as in the 1980s when over a million perished, our realists, who seem fond of such good old days of order and stability, could once again encourage an unleashed Saddam, with Uday and Qusay at his side, to be played against Iran for a (nuclear) round two. How sad that those who once fallaciously argued that the fascist Saddam was the proper counterweight to the fascist Iran now ignore that the genuine corrective is a democratic and humane Iraq.
The latest Democratic proposal is for a "windfall profits tax," whereby they would steal the oil companies' money and create a windfall for themselves. This might be the single stupidest thing that could be done in connection with the current shortage of gasoline. If we steal the oil companies' money, the result will be less investment in drilling, pipelines and refineries, which means less supply of oil, which means higher prices indefinitely.Are the Democrats too dumb to understand this? No. (ed.note: the puppetmasters aren't; their moonbat minions are) But they think the American people are too dumb to understand it, and they are happy to pursue destructive policies if it will help them win in November.
President Bush handled the issue quite well in his press conference today:
Q. So "no" to a tax on profits?THE PRESIDENT: Look, the temptation in Washington is to tax everything, and they spend the money -- "they" being the people in Washington. The answer is, is for there to be strong reinvestment to make this country more secure from an energy perspective.
Listen, these oil prices are a wake-up call. We're dependent on oil and we need to get off oil. And the best way to do so is through technology...
But it's also important for the people to understand that one of the reasons why the price is gasoline is up is there's tight gasoline supplies. And one reason there's tight gasoline supplies is because we haven't built any new refineries since the 1970s. And, therefore, Congress needs to provide regulatory relief so people can expand their refineries.
By the way, corporations already pay income taxes of around 35%, in addition to all of the property taxes, sales taxes, etc., that they also pay, and when they pay dividends to their shareholders, more taxes are collected. I can still recall my tax professor saying, when I was in law school, that there is no intellectually respectable argument for the existence of the corporate income tax, other than the fact that it provides employment for legions of accountants and lawyers. And endless opportunities, I would add, for mindless demagoguery by Democrats.
"These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it NOW deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph." - Thomas Paine
I can't just run into Mexico and say, "hey! I deserve to be a citizen of your country with full rights of a native born Mexican because I am here and this is how I feel". The Mexican government would let me know how they feel 'real fast'.And inspired by another comment, I think the slogan for the day should be "A Day Without Illegals Is Like A Day Without Cancer."
(To illegals who want to be American) Pay taxes, defend your country, wave the AMERICAN FLAG and sing the Star Spangled Banner in ENGLISH.
How does failing to show up for work prove that you are doing "jobs that Americans won't do"?
I'm getting increasingly tired of the "We stole the Southwest from Mexico" line. Read your history, and you will find that the United States paid 15 million dollars to Mexico for that land, an exorbitant amount in 1848. Did the Spanish reimburse the Aztecs or other native tribes?
"We are under attack by madmen who want nothing more than to simply kill us all. They wish not to negotiate territory or borders. They simply wish to kill us all. Its is not our “support of the Jews” which has caused their grievance, its our very existence. Their god has forsaken them, and rather than face up to the shame generated by that fact, they choose instead to seek vengeance against those that appear to have found God's favor. They hate happiness and freedom in every form, and wish only the worst conditions on all mankind. We can no more accept the Jihadi conditions for our surrender than the people of United 93 could just sit in their seats."
"As May 1st draws near and America prepares for the hardship and suffering of “A Day without Illegal Immigrants”, the Justice Department announced today plans to mark the protest movement with its own act of civil disobedience.Si? Mexico seems to agree.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said he’ll encourage federal, state and local law enforcement on Monday to respond to illegal immigration rallies by observing “A Day without Miranda Rights” followed by “A Month without Habeas Corpus” and “A Year without Bail.”"
It turns out that the chicken hawk is a pretty impressive predator. It's the largest of its family. This species vigorously defends its territory, getting even more aggressive when the conditions get harshest. It adapts to all climates. Most impressively, it feeds on chickens, mice, and rats. Make of that what you will.
1. L.A. County has 10 million people. 40% of all workers in L.A. County are working for cash and not paying taxes. This is because they are predominantly illegal immigrants, working without a green card.
2. Of the 10 million people in L.A. County, 5.1 million people speak English. 3.9 million speak only Spanish.
3. 95% of warrants for murder in Los Angeles are for illegal aliens.
4. 75% of people on the most wanted list in Los Angeles are illegal aliens.
5. Over two-thirds of all births in Los Angeles County are to illegal alien Mexicans on Medi-Cal whose births were paid for by taxpayers.
6. Nearly 25% of all inmates in California detention centers are Mexican nationals here illegally.
7. Over 300,000 illegal aliens in Los Angeles County are living in garages.
8. The FBI reports half of all gang members in Los Angeles are most likely illegal aliens from south of the border.
9. Nearly 60% of all occupants of HUD properties are illegal.
10. 21 radio stations in L.A. are Spanish language only.
11. Less than 2% of illegal aliens are picking our crops but 36% are on welfare.
12. Over 70% of the United States annual population growth (and over 90% of California, Florida, and New York) results from immigration.
13. The United States receives more immigrants every year than the rest of the world combined.
14. The cost of immigration to the American taxpayer in 1997 was a NET (after subtracting taxes immigrants pay) $70 BILLION a year [Professor Donald Huddle, Rice University].
15. The lifetime fiscal impact (taxes paid minus services used) for the average adult Mexican immigrant is a NEGATIVE.
16. 29% of inmates in federal prisons are illegal aliens.
"Recently, media and politicians have virtually stopped talking about global warming and are now referring to climate change instead," states de Freitas. "That's because predictions of doom and gloom from warming just aren't coming true. But with 'climate change,' Kyoto advocates can now cite any change or phenomenon as proof that CO2 emissions have upset the global apple cart."via this post at Cox & Forkum, which has many more interesting links.
It's the old 'heads-I-win, tails-you-lose' trick played on a massive scale by "the global warming industry" who want to keep their hundreds of millions of research dollars flowing when their dire predictions of catastrophic warming are proven false, if not completely fraudulent...
Currently, Greenland is losing ice on its southern margins but is gaining ice in its interior -- a measurable fact.
Meanwhile, the Antarctic is cooling, with the exception of a small Antarctic peninsula as a result of currents.
"There's been global cooling since 1998 because 1998 was the hottest year in the last 150 years," says de Freitas, adding "10,000 years ago it was much warmer than it is now."
"From 1900 to 1940 there was global warming," he says, even though large scale industrialization didn't start until 1948.
"Then, from 1940 to 1979 there was global cooling and that happened when we were putting heaps of carbon into the air."
(emphases mine)
"The White House rejected calls by a Senate committee yesterday to close down the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), the government body lambasted for its woeful response to the Hurricane Katrina disaster. The push to scrap the agency came after a scathing report by a bipartisan Senate investigation into the disaster, which said that Katrina had exposed flaws in Fema “too substantial to mend”."Dismantling ineffective bureaucracy?!? Inconceivable!! How can the country survive if the federal government is restricted to its constitutionally-mandated powers?!? People might go deaf from all the freedom ringing throught the land!!
Bush can call for all the investigations he wants, but all he will find is a ridiculous American energy policy that practically guarantees our inherent risk of market manipulation and foreign extortion...(emphases mine)
Until we find ways to produce more crude in order to get more oil onto the market, the prices will continue to increase. Oil is, after all, a commodity -- a free-market product that will fetch the best price possible in trade. The more oil produced, the cheaper it will become. That mechanism does not rely on cost, either, except to the extent that high production costs would lower the amount of oil in the marketplace until prices rose high enough to cover the overhead.
If the US would start producing its own crude oil, then global prices would start dropping due to the increased worldwide supply and the drop in demand. We have vast fields of petroleum available for this purpose. Both coasts have proven oil deposits, and the Alaskan arctic area has stood ready for years to produce crude. In the case of our deposits off of the Florida coast, others such as Cuba may exploit those reserves instead. However, environmentalists refuse to allow for this production, forcing us to buy our oil elsewhere, artificially propping up prices and surrendering to the instability of the markets...
The main problem with gasoline prices is the number of varieties of gasoline that must be produced for local markets. Instead of having one single formulation, states have passed their own standards for the composition of gasoline, with various additives required in differing concentrations depending on where it is sold. If states all had their own refineries, this would present less of a problem...
So let's have an investigation, but let's not confine it to ExxonMobil's profit margin. Let's expand the probe into the bankruptcy of our energy policy for the past thirty years and the handcuffs we put on ourselves that force us to rely on unstable sources of crude oil and gasoline to meet our energy needs. Let's start getting realistic about those needs and start proposing rational methods of meeting them. Take the shackles off the US energy industry and allow us to shrug off the mullahs that control the world market.
Mary McCarthy’s situation cannot be considered in a vacuum... the broader context here is an intelligence community that was, quite brazenly, leaking in a manner designed to topple a sitting president.These CIA traitors should be glad they won't be treated like Saddam treated his dissidents (as much as they deserve it).
It is simply dumbfounding that, as an intelligence officer heading up the bin Laden team, (Michael Scheuer) was permitted by the CIA to write books about what he was doing. He has indicated, though, that it was fine with the agency as long as he was slamming the Bush administration.
Valerie Plame Wilson... maneuvered to have, not an objective analyst, but her husband – with no WMD expertise but an enemy of the president’s policy – sent to Niger, whence he returned and wrote a highly partisan, misleading and damaging op-ed in the NYTimes about the Bush administration’s case for toppling Saddam.
All the while, there has been a steady drumbeat from the former intelligence officers... attacking every aspect of the administration’s handling of the war on terror...
Now we find that an intelligence officer who was leaking information very damaging to Bush was a Kerry backer to a degree that was extraordinary for a single person on a government salary, and, even more extraordinarily, gave $5K of her own money to Democrats in the key swing state (Ohio) that, in the end, did actually decide the election.
From where I sit, that’s pretty d*** relevant.
"Those who add to the sum of ugliness are welcome to do so, but they have made themselves irrelevant."Ah, if only they 1) knew how irrelevant they were, 2) admitted it, and 3) quit claiming to be relevant.
"No artistic standard, once erased, as has ever been replaced by a more technically demanding one."
"It’s not so much the redefinition of standards that bothers me as the glee with which the old standards are trashed, and the sense that the arts have become unmoored from the larger culture."
"Finally, members of Congress of both parties will be watching to see if Bush kowtows to Beijing in ways that threaten our long-standing commitment to Taiwan."If members of Congress had been watching to see if Clinton kowtowed to Beijing in ways that threaten our national security, (or indeed been objectively watching any of Slick Willie's antics), we might not be having some of the troubles we are having today.
by Scott OttRead the rest.
(2006-04-19) — A growing movement of retired and active-duty U.S. military officers, angry at the mismanagement, arrogance and even deception that have hampered U.S. efforts to secure peace and democracy in Iraq, have begun quietly calling for the resignation of top leaders they blame for the difficulties.
“I believe that it’s time for them to step down,” said one unnamed retired three-star general. “The editors of The New York Times and Washington Post and the news producers at CNN, CBS, NBC and ABC should resign effective immediately.”
“They’ve formed a tight cabal that focuses only on news that reinforces their neo-journ ideology,” said another unnamed general. “Despite the urgent need for actual reporting from Iraq, they have failed to put enough boots on the ground in country.”
"Imagine that, as we crossed the Rhine, retired World War II officers were still harping, in March, 1945, about who was responsible months during Operation Cobra for the accidental B-17 bombing, killing, and wounding of hundreds of American soldiers and the death of Lt. Gen. Leslie McNair; or, in the midst of Matthew Ridgeway's Korean counteroffensives, we were still bickering over MacArthur's disastrous intelligence lapses about Chinese intervention that caused thousands of casualties. Did the opponents of daylight bombing over Europe in 1943 still damn the theories of old Billy Mitchell, or press on to find a way to hit Nazi Germany hard by late 1944?"and concludes:
"What we need, then, are not more self-appointed ethicists, but far more humility and recognition that in this war nothing is easy. Choices have been made, and remain to be made, between the not very good and the very, very bad. Most importantly, so far, none of our mistakes has been unprecedented, fatal to our cause, or impossible to correct.---
So let us have far less self-serving second-guessing, and far more national confidence that we are winning — and that radical Islamists and their fascist supporters in the Middle East are soon going to lament the day that they ever began this war."
Eric Julien, a former French military air traffic controller and senior airport manager, has completed a study of the comet 73P Schwassmann-Wachmann and declared that a fragment is highly likely to impact the Earth on or around May 25, 2006.And in related news, the French newspaper "Article Truqué Mais Précis" has received documents (faxed from a Kinko's in Boston) which tie Bush administration policies to the explosion of the Crab Nebula, excessive erosion in the Grand Desert of Arizona, and the Big Bang.
Comet Schwassman-Wachmann follows a five-year orbit that crosses the solar system's ecliptic plane. It has followed its five year orbit intact for centuries; but, in 1995, mysteriously fragmented. According to Julien, this is the same year that a crop circle appeared showing the inner solar system with the Earth missing from its orbit. He argues the "Missing Earth" crop circle was a message from higher intelligences warning humanity of the consequences of its destructive nuclear policies. He links this crop circle to May 25, 2006, and identifies the comet Schwassmann-Wachman as the subject of higher intelligence communications...
Julien argues that the kinetic energy of even a 'car sized' fragment will impact the Earth with devastating effect. He concludes the May 25 event is tied in to the Bush administration's policy of preemptive use of nuclear weapons against Iran, and the effect of nuclear weapons on the realms of higher intelligences...
"(doesn't) trust on the anti-Bush monkeys to be fair or rational in their assessments of anything these days, regardless of who is running DOD or anything else in the Bush administration. I don’t think they even see compelling reasons for Rummy to be replaced; they’re just looking for a “score.” And frankly, to reward them with Rumsfeld’s scalp would, just like capitulating to terrorists, would show them that they can get their way with their smear campaigns. It’s like rewarding a screaming toddler with the toy for which they’re having a meltdown. I fully expect we’d see the same vilification of a new nominee that we’ve seen with Justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito. Or John Tower. I don’t really care if they think it’s a “score”–that’s not the point. I just don’t think policy should be made based on what the “screaming toddlers” want, because clearly, their agenda is wholly incompatible with that of the Bush administration. What next, then? Pull out of Iraq before we should just because the left is howling? NO."update: Varifrank likes Rumsfeld too:
"(Being the Secretary of Defense) is a tough gig for anyone, even in peacetime. Secretary Rumsfeld has overseen the successful overthrow of the Taliban, and the Hussein Regime and has mobilized and streamlined a military force during wartime without destroying the US economy in the process. Morale amoungst the troops is high and efficiency is at its best in years. If people in Washington dont like him, well that just endears him to me all that much more.
We are winning this war, and we are winning largely becuase of the direction and leadership provided by Secretary Rumsfeld."
"This Great Nation was not founded on the premise that the King, President, Bi-Cameral legislature, or any governing body called by any name has full access to the earnings of the Nation’s Citizens, and can demand a predetermined portion of said earnings at the whim of whomever is in charge, in exchange for the promise to not toss said Citizens in jail for noncompliance. No no no no NO!That being said, I don't agree quite as strongly with his anti-17th Amendment arguments. It seems that the phrase "Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely." would apply no matter how the power was granted.
It is the duty of the Citizens of the United States of America to stand up to the Oligarchy when oppression, however slight (this is not slight) is reigned upon us (misspelled pun intended). The Founding Fathers showed us the Way, and we have utterly failed in our duties to their legacy...
We the People are being fleeced by every elected member of Congress who does not see the moral affront of stealing the hard-earned income of the Citizens of the United States...
The 16th and 17th Amendments to the Constitution were a roadmap to a Socialist State, and in my humble opinion are two of the biggest legislative stains ever to rest anywhere near our Constitution...
This ends now. There is not one moral argument that can truthfully be made for the theft of one individual’s earnings and the reapportionment of same to another individual. Not one...
It is time for We the People to remember why America was founded in the first place, and toss out of office any representative who will not vow to disassemble the IRS, stop the income tax immediately, and work towards something along the lines of the FairTax...
Today’s Congressionals have completely mistaken what “no taxation without representation” means, because it has been made so easy for them to steal our money while telling us that they are the “representation” part... In other words, that they are our Representatives is not enough to define this taxation as “with representation”, because all “they” do is take our money and do with it what they please - 536 King Georges.
...Otherwise, this Great Nation has become that which the Founding Fathers despised so deeply that they called for open revolution on the King of England. I cannot stand for this for one more day, and it saddens me that the 200 million or so taxpayers of the United States are so very willing to go along with the charade, for whatever reason."
"You'd call them useful idiots, but it's hard to see the "useful" part."
Twenty-seven years ago, because Islam didn’t fit into the old cold war template, analysts mostly discounted it. We looked at the map like that Broadway marquee: West and East, the old double act. As with most of the down-page turf, Iran’s significance lay in which half of the act she’d sign on with.(selections slightly edited)
To the Left, the shah was a high-profile example of an unsavory U.S. client propped up on traditional he-may-be-a-s.o.b.-but-he’s-our-s.o.b. grounds... To the realpolitik Right, the issue was Soviet containment: the shah may be our s.o.b., but he’d outlived his usefulness, and a weak Iran could prove too tempting an invitation to Moscow to fulfill the oldest of czarist dreams—a warm-water port, not to mention control of the Straits of Hormuz.
Very few of us considered the strategic implications of an Islamist victory on its own terms—the notion that Iran was checking the neither-of-the-above box and that that box would prove a far greater threat to the Freeish World than Communism...
As Communism retreated, radical Islam seeped into Africa and south Asia and the Balkans. Crazy guys holed up in Philippine jungles and the tri-border region of Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay who’d have been “Marxist fantasists” a generation or two back are now Islamists: it’s the ideology du jour...
Anyone who spends half an hour looking at Iranian foreign policy over the last 27 years sees five things:
- contempt for the most basic international conventions;
- long-reach extraterritoriality;
- effective promotion of radical Pan-Islamism;
- a willingness to go the extra mile for Jew-killing (unlike, say, Osama);
- an all-but-total synchronization between rhetoric and action.
Fran O'Brien's Steak House in Washington, D. C., has been told that they are to shut down operations and be out of the location by the end of April...The rest of the article makes it pretty clear that they are being evicted for their kind acts towards veterans. ThirdWaveDave suggests courses of action, and I think it would be a good idea to avoid the following establishments until this decision is reversed:
For the last 2 1/2 years, (the steak house has) opened their doors to our wounded from Walter Reed and Bethesda each Friday night. Not only do the servicemen and women get treated to dinner and drinks, they are able to bring their families, too. Fran O'Brien's picks up the whole tab. One of the owners, Hal, came up with the idea as a way to give back to those wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. The place is packed each Friday night.
Now, the reason for Fran's being shut down is not clear, and the owner of the property, Hilton Corporation, won't say.
HH: General, one of the objections from political columnists is that Iran's regime won't be toppled by (a quick strike option), and that they will strike back using Hezbollah around the globe, and specifically against our forces in Iraq. Your response?
TM: Yes, remember that what they were going to do when we went into Iraq? The Arab street was going to rise up?
HH: Exactly.
TM: Look, this is bull hockey.
"Sean Tarquin P Fin-tim-lim-bim-lim Diddy bim-bin-bim Puff Bus Stop Piddy F'tang F'tang Combs Olé Daddy-Waddy Biscuitbarrel D D D D D."Jennifer Noa Judd Anthony Lopez could not be reached for comment.
In a grassroots counterprotest against yesterday’s nationwide rallies by illegal aliens, today millions of documented U.S. citizens took to their desks, factories, shops and other job sites to demonstrate their commitment to U.S. law and the American work ethic.
Police estimated that the crowds exceeded 220 million people, but they reported no incidents of violence.
Many workplaces flew the American flag, as usual, to express their ongoing devotion to the values and freedoms for which generations of U.S. troops have fought and died...
“No chanting, no banners, no Latino music, no crowds blocking traffic,” she said, “Just millions of Americans quietly doing their jobs. All they do is work and vote. What kind of impact do they expect that to make?”
"Now, where is the enthusiasm for rolling back the welfare state? Social security, government medical insurance, government subsidized food and shelter, state schools, and an array of regulations that grant privilege to some to the detriment of others have made this country more like the Soviet Union than the country founded by Jefferson, Madison, Washington and Franklin."
In brief, the Mexican Constitution states that:(Found via Molten Thought)
- Immigrants and foreign visitors are banned from public political discourse.
- Immigrants and foreigners are denied certain basic property rights.
- Immigrants are denied equal employment rights.
- Immigrants and naturalized citizens will never be treated as real Mexican citizens.
- Immigrants and naturalized citizens are not to be trusted in public service.
- Immigrants and naturalized citizens may never become members of the clergy.
- Private citizens may make citizens arrests of lawbreakers (i.e., illegal immigrants) and hand them to the authorities.
- Immigrants may be expelled from Mexico for any reason and without due process.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, led the Church’s call for the situation to be turned from one of “embarrassment, disturbance, and even outrage into positive action, positive hope, which will break the stereotypes and lay serious and lasting foundations for understanding and peace.” While the Bishop of Oxford, the Rt Rev Richard Harries, has expressed his concern that people should be allowed the freedom to change their religion, others said that Sharia Law was being wrongly portrayed as “a strict set of rules and regulations”.but one Pennsylvanian in Exile isn't:
Ask the Christians in Africa and Indonesia about Sharia law, and how much of a "flexible system" it really is. Ask Salman Rushdie about how much a walk might bring about unity? Oh that's right, he can't walk around since he has a price on his head. Ask Theo Van Gogh about Muslims desire for "understanding and peace." Oopsie, some Muslims murdered him.
Yale admitted this former adviser to the notorious one-eyed Taliban leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar. As Yale officials stated, Hashemi got in "despite his fourth-grade education and high-school equivalency certificate" because "Universities are places that must strive to increase understanding." The Wall Street Journal's John Fund reports that Yale, which bars military recruiters and the ROTC, discounted Hashemi's tuition 35 to 40 percent.To which Molten Thought responds:
Imagine if Yale had accepted German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop's top aide in 1942 to "increase understanding" of Nazism. Maybe Yale should add David Duke to the faculty to help students "increase understanding" of neo-Nazism.
I frankly didn't think the effete band of bespectacled and goateed sissies making up American academia could possibly sink any lower in their treason-toeing efforts to undermine the War on Terror. I should have known they'd plumb deeper depths yet. What next? Teaching the fine art of suicide bombing to the mind-numbed idiots enrolled in these seditious cesspools?
"In the current ugly climate, it's hard to keep up the humor, day after day. And sometimes it's not so easy to mix the humor with the straight stuff within one blog."which is part of the reason for the recent sparseness of posts here.
