Maggie's Farm

Pentacostalism: Growing fast, around the world, with a big shindig in LA. CSM. 

More bombs in Baghdad. The new govt must be driving them crazy. NY Sun.  Sorry, guys. The war is over, and the good guys won. Now they are just killing their own people, for the hell of it. Libertarian Leanings points out that Iraq is doing well. Let's admit it.

Male ratios in colleges dropping. Too bad. Of course, the feminists are not worried. Nor should anyone else be worried. Don't worry - Be Happy. Why does everything have to be a dang crisis? USA Today

Academic English and noun-intoxication: If they knew what they wanted to say, it would not be so complicated. Language, grammar, and forthright, clear-thinking are cousins.  Guardian

Kerry-Kennedy quickly line up with Al Quaida. What world do these guys live in? More on Kerry's emotional immaturity from Boston's Soxblog.

Penn State goes over the edge, in dhimmitude. Censoring a Jewish view, in art. Imagine if this were pro-Christian? Maxed Out Mama

Estrich like totally embarassed by Dem Moonbats. HH has story. A quote here:

Professor Estrich and I did agree that the incredible level of venom on the left --not only undenounced by Democratic leaders, but actually embraced-- is a huge problem for her party. After Susan McDougal had gone on a bender of how she absolutely hates George Bush, and psycho-babbling Justin Frank had encouraged everyone in the pretty far left audience to unleash their hate of Bush, ("I'm going to stand up for hatred," he said to Estrich's amazement and my glee), Estrich admonished the crowd that their cheering of such rhetoric would only doom the party's chances.

Mary McCarthy, who was fired by the CIA this week for leaking CIA secret information to reporter Dana Priest, is just one of a bunch of ardently Democratic folks at State and the CIA who have been using their positions to undermine the Administration.

A great Left-Wing Conspiracy?, asks Ace.  McCarthy, Sandy Berger, Richard Clarke, Joe Wilson... 

Powerline has been talking about that for a year, in a non-paranoid manner, but I doubt that they imagined that such efforts might reach the level of treason. But it looks like it has, and she has let us down grievously and probably criminally. I doubt she was caught in a "mole hunt," as some have speculated - but she was caught in a leak-hunt.

It matters not whether the CIA or NSA was sending terrorists to Uzbekistan for interrogation: the morality of that is a separate subject. 

From a piece by Protein on the subject:

The subtext in the clause I highlighted suggests that these leak investigations could be a net negative inasmuch as they’re already beginning to “worsen” the White House / MSM relationship—one that the WaPo acknowledges was “already-tense.”

And that of course misses the point entirely, I think, and is doubtless borne of press arrogance (which is now practically institutionalized) and 30+ years of having ideological reign over shaping and controlling narratives:  because the fact is, the White House knows relations with the media will never normalize, it knows that it has been treated with hostility by an increasingly activist ideological press, and it has decided that protecting America’s security is more important than trying to get on the good side of the fourth estate, which has been hell bent on scandal-mongering, with the hope that something will stick and sink the Bush administration, ever since the start of the Iraq campaign.

Further, Porter Goss said he was going to clean up the CIA, and he—like John Bolton—seems to take his job seriously.  Which is why there was such resistance to both men, though the resistance against Goss happened once he was appointed CIA head and it became apparent he really meant to shake things up.

And if this story breaks like I’m starting to sense it will (for instance, McCarthy was Larry Johnson’s boss, and the connections between familiar players favored by the anti-war left are starting to pile up¹), the press calculus could play out in such a way that they see tough coverage of this scandal—an ACTUAL SCANDAL this time, mind you

IowaHawk has outsourced his humor to India! Rooty toot toot!

Protest season. Quote from NE Repub:

How come when Clinton or Jimmy Carter, or any Democrat won a Presidential Election…..we don’t have Republicans protesting on the streets of Washington? Call me crazy…but I strongly feel it has something to do with “having to go to work”…………Conservatives need to go to work-right? They have kids, and jobs and all kinds of responsibilities..I mean, even I do.

How soon will Hamas collapse?

The legal migration from the high-tax blue states to the red states: Why is it happening? Daily Pundit.

The sky is falling. Justin on environmental hysteria.

Russia's demographic choice: Suicide. Perhaps they might welcome 30 million Mexicans?

Venezuela become a military camp. What a joke. I guess it keeps the population from getting pissed off at Chavez - plus gives them a job. Pathetic.

Another quote from One Cosmos' confession (read it all here):

While harping on my own shortcomings, mention should also be given to my intellectual arrogance and my moral superiority. Scratch any leftist and this is what you will find: a bottomless reservoir of conviction that they not only know more than you do, but that they are a better person than you are. You are greedy, or homophobic, or sexist, or racist, or hate the poor, or don't care about the planet, while I am the opposite of all those things. I am kind, compassionate, wise, generous and tolerant.

The reason why leftist ideas are so devoid of substance is that they often come down to a simple affirmation of these self-flattering adjectives, as in the example a couple weeks ago of Jimmy Carter's abuse of the innocent elementary school student. To summarize, it went something like this: "Are you a nice person?," asked Carter. "Yes," says the girl. "Then you are a Democrat." Easy.

Second homes: They were 14% of the real estate market in 2004. Are they driving the real estate market? Clayton Cramer

Georgia's new immigration law: details here at YARGB

Free political speech and 527s. Coyote rips Repubs for their role in this mess.

Carl Bernstein makes a case for impeaching Bush. Claims it's not partisan. I think it's just payback time. Rick Moran takes a look.

What plants like to grow on beaches along the Atlantic coast? I have a project going, so I needed to check. Here they are.

Jetlag Cures: Water, darkness, and earplugs.

The Chinese organ-selling story. Hey, why not? It is "rational", isn't it?

Travel and Do Good: Adventurers bring cataract surgery to Indian villages. Only Americans would do things like this.

An MD with a Medicaid practice: That ain't a medical practice - that's charity.  God bless him.

We agree with Pejman:

Scott McClellan was never comfortable around the White House Press Corps. He was hardly what one would call an effective or charismatic spokesman for the Administration's interests. And at times, McClellan could just be clumsy. His successor will have a low bar to clear.

As for Rove, it (embarrassingly) never occurred to me to think that the White House's political problems may stem from the fact that its chief politico took up policy matters in addition to his political portfolio at the start of the second term. Correlation is not causation, of course, but one cannot help but wonder whether the expansion of the Rovian empire might have detracted from the effectiveness of the Administration's political operations. In any event, Republicans will likely welcome the renewed attention that Karl Rove will pay to political matters. The midterms, after all, will be upon the country quite soon now.

The Boston Globe tries its hand at multicultural "understanding." Seems like they "understand" suicide bombers. Of course they do. Who could doubt it?

As an essayist, I see Dinocrat rising to the level of the Great Right Wing Nuthouse. From a piece on multiculturalism:

Modernity carries within it the seeds of its own destruction. Modern society, with its technology, ease, mobility, and wealth weakens the traditional bonds of tribe, religion, family and tradition that have been the bonding elements of human society over many millennia. One of the chief sources of internal rot in modern society is multiculturalism. Multiculturalism arises out of a number of factors, including (a) the lack of understanding and instruction about how our bountiful time was created; and (b) the guilt of Western elites. Multiculturalism both creates internal rot, and finds itself easily intimidated by and unable to deal with pre-modern societies with deep tribal and belief structures such as the sharia societies of Islam.

Raskalnikov, a Canadian Indian, is fed up with blogging. One quote from Manitoba (with comments from S,C and A, where you can read the whole piece):

The white liberal guilt in this country has gone into overkill. It's like a dysfunctional family that buys new appliances when one son comes out of the closet, or the youngest daughter gets pregnant. Throw money at it, spend it away, ignore it under a pile of material compensation. Granted some if it does go to honorable ideas such as education, culture and health. These are vital aspects of life and the opportunities in them for us are now endless. The playing field may not be completely level, but it's much better than it was 50 years ago. Shit, 20 years ago. Any Indian not handcuffed by mental illness or addiction can be anything he or she wants to be. A doctor, a cop, whatever. It's sad most of them choose to keep on perpetuating the victimhood cult. In a society where we place such small value on thinking, is it any surprise the victimhood pimps use emotional fervor to brainwash future generations into whining and bitching? Mix this with the revolting, degenerate hip-hop destroying the minds of our youth and it sure beats having to take responsibility for yourself. And the welfare being handed to us by the Government only serves to put more value on the role of victim; not only does it appeal to baser human instincts, but you can get paid for it too.

As for our own Leadership, as much as I despise most Chiefs and Councils in this country, they are only human. How many of us could be handed endless streams of money, then find out all you need to do is cry racism when anyone asks what you did with it, and not be corrupted? This certainly doesn't pardon them, but I can sympathize with their fallibility. That being said, they are reprobate thieves and sawdust dictators for the most part. There should come a point when you recognize the errors you have made. We Indians are supposed to be so wise, especially our 'leaders". Yet we keep on making the same mistakes over and over, first and foremost keeping our lips tightly sealed on that big sweaty bleeding-heart progressive tit.

Raskalnikov is tired- and has been, for a while.

...I expect more. I am, by nature, a very cynical and skeptical person, however as I got older I realized, of course, most of that was just my own crap to deal with, and life, and people, really aren't that bad.....then I read something or hear something that just verifies my cynical outlook and I get enraged. Wow. People really are that stupid. Life really is meaningless and nasty, solitary, brutish and short. All that Nietzsche and Schopenhauer and Camus I read isn't just adolescent navel-gazing. People really are dogshit on the sole of the universe. And I guess nowhere is this more blatant than in politics and current events.

Indiana Federal Judge upholds voter ID law. How can that be news? How can anyone expect to vote without identifying themselves? Vote fraud in some of America's Democratic Machine cities is famous and well-known. There is no American who does not carry some form of ID, and I have always assumed you needed some to vote anywhere. The chutzpah of the Dems to angrily oppose this is an astonishing admission of devious intent.

Working on a tow-boat. A romantic, macho, outdoor career with echoes of Mark Twain. CSM

Some scientists need to determine to what extent the hot air from Al Gore's speeches contributes to global warming. I have become convinced that this "issue" is primarily ideological/political. The only good outcome of this movement might be to hasten the construction of new nuclear power plants. Like others of the limo liberals who don't need real jobs - Robert Kennedy Jr. comes to mind, these bozos, who couldn't pass Physical Chemistry - a highly cool area of rigorous study -  march off with their junk science as if experts, to make themselves feel, and appear, virtuous.

"Is a stay at home Mom a traitor to feminism?"  Sort of a bizarre question, since it postulates 1) a war, of sorts, and 2) that having a career is the highest expression of being human, when what it mainly is is a way to pay the bills. Cathy Young at Reason takes another look at careers vs. Mommys. As a bit of a Momma's Boy myself, I side with the Moms.

The Death Cult of Islam takes another step forward. Gateway.  If you want to be a suicide bomber, get in line. They have 70 already waiting to get into Israel.

The conservative divisions on illegal immigration: self-government vs. economic determinism. Auster.

Kevin Philips is worried about theocracy. Bogus scare tactics, if you ask me. Why is it creeping theocracy when conesrvative religious folks offer an opinion, but not then leftist religious folks do the same?

Enviros are finally coming around to nuclear. That makes sense. Instap.

Big White House staff shake-up coming soon. Good idea.

United 93. Prager says all Americans must see it, as an antidote to denial.

A look at past college sports team rape accusations, Revenge of the Nerds by Smerconish.

Bob at One Cosmos has written his story of his conversion from liberal to conservative. I have no doubt that it will ring true to many, and it contains most of the themes about we have written over the past year - but Bob writes gooder than we do. One quote:

Leftism continues to be a children's crusade against the adult world, and we are in desperate need of adults who will stand up to the children and not worry about trying to be their "friends." As a parent, you simply have to do what you need to do, because children don't really know how to raise themselves. (If I had more time, this would be a good place to expand upon this vis-a-vis Will's comment below on the spirit of rebellion that animates the Left. This rebellion is an inevitable artifact of childhood, and is oedipal to the core. To gratify it is to create a monster.)

Read it all.

I agree with John at Powerline, re the trumped-up Rumsfeld pseudo-issue (my bold):

JOHN adds: When you're President, you get lots of free advice. Some of it is well-intentioned; much of it is not. Here is why I think so many liberals are anxious for President Bush to replace Rumsfeld: they have staked a great deal on the proposition that the Iraq war has not gone well, and, in fact, has been a disaster. But they are troubled because they are not at all sure that is true. By any reasonable standard, casualties have been low and Iraq's progress toward democracy has been impressive. This doesn't mean the project couldn't still go off the rails; it clearly could. But it is also possible--likely, I think--that the Iraqis will succeed in forming a government, violence will continue to decline, our troops levels will be substantially reduced, and, in a year or two, the consensus will be that the war was pretty successful after all. This, I think, is what liberals fear most. They want President Bush to stipulate, in effect, that the war has been poorly conducted and has been a failure. That's the way in which firing Rumsfeld would rightly be interpreted. This would largely insulate liberals against the consequences if the war does, in fact, turn out to be successful. The same logic, I think, explains why liberals are always hectoring President Bush to "admit his mistakes." What they fear, deep down, is that the President's policies haven't been mistakes at all.

Rumsfeld is the "near enemy." The real enemy is Bush. Belmont explains it.  I also think that the "fire Rumsfeld" thing is due to his effectiveness: wars are always a mess but Rummy is about the most intelligent, incisive, confident guy in government, and I think his confidence and testosterone drive the Left nuts. (Do I detect a bit of jealousy of the guy's aggressive brain and masculinity, too?)

The Duke lynch mob. No idea whether team members raped this stripper/prostitute, but I do not see much evidence for it yet. TalkLeft has some legal defence considerations.Apparently David Brooks editorialized in much the same manner as we did here: true or false, the story fits the Left's preferred fantasy of evil white racist/sexist brutal jocks. (Do I detect a little jealousy, again? Who would not want to play a Division 1 sport, if they could?)

Is Moussaui a mainstream Moslem? Dinocrat thinks so. I have no idea. He sure is a mainstream Islamist. You have to read what Moussaui said at Daily Pundit, representing the Religion of Peace. Then scroll down at Dinocrat - he figures out the Dem strategy on immigration: it is to fool the Hispanics.

Granny Get Your Gun. Rambo Granny takes care of business in England. Wow. FMFT. She sets a fine example for the country.

Dems secret plans: race-based campaign against Steele in Maryland. Nice plan, guys. But it takes a little subtlety to run a racist campaign when you desperately need all black voters on your Dem plantation.

More on the new missing link hominids, at Science Daily and also more here.

Abdul Rahman killed in Pakistan. One by one, they are going down. Confed. Yank

Danger: Coke has fizz. Michigan court allows lawsuit to proceed by woman who had fizzy Coke spray in her eye.  Coke failed to warn that Coke was fizzy. h/t, Overlawyered. Note to scam artists and their lawyers: Carbonated beverages have fizz. Including beer. That's why you buy them: fizz is fun.

Do not look at these images of late-term abortions in Conservative Life. I mean it. Nor can I imagine a physician who would do this.

Fitzgerald gives false witness to New York Times. Charges will not be pressed against him.

Newsweek warns: Strong economy may lead to weak economy. Hmmm. I don't recall such articles when Clinton was President. Ace.

Tawana Brawley redux, at Duke? LaShawn wonders. I will remain open-minded, but it was amazing, and disturbing, to see the widespread assumption of guilt because the story fit a leftist myth. Man, when this stuff happens, the Left just eats it up, with the MSM cheerleading all the way. You might almost imagine that they welcome such stories...but to think that would be "mean-spirited," would it not?

The Medicare prescription plan: 8 in 10 are satisfied with it. Have you read that in the newspaper? Ca. Yank

The Wishful Thinking Theory of foreign affairs. Maybe Iran will change its mind? Huh? Have you ever tried to change just one person's mind about anything? The WaPo has no fear of Iran.

Kim du Toit announces a major immigration protest, to be held in November, 2006 and November, 2008.

The reductio ad absurdum of affirmative action: DNA-based job and college applications. NE Repub. This could get good: Every male has one entire X chromosome, which makes them 50% female. Every person has some African blood - duh! Not some - 100%, when you think about it - it was just a while ago in history, before that strange skin mutation turned my ancestors to a pasty, sickly, blotchy pale color, but what does that matter? I am a little worried about my Celtic and Norman warrior DNA - nobody seems to care about them. But hey, Harvard - I am 100% African, and half woman, and my DNA proves it. My skin color? It's just a Michael Jackson thing. My genitalia? None of your business, you filthy-minded Admissions Dept.  My character? Horrible: "malicious and so full of guile. Give it an inch, and he'll take a mile." It's a Human Thing.

Wierd men, and why they should marry foreign women. By a wierd man: Marginal Rev.

The Ugly Kid Crisis. What can the government do about this? If the government can solve the "Obesity Crisis" (shortly after abandoning the "Hunger Crisis") they can solve the Ugly Kid problem. I suggest we start with a $100,000,000 educational pilot program.

Italy returns to instability. My opinion? Not a serious nation; nice place to visit, with the most beautiful women in the world. From Publius:

Political instability is the result of political immaturity in a country that - in some respects - has still a fascistic mentality (statism, bureaucracy and wide corruption of politicians from both sides).

On Gambling, Stolen from News for Christians:

From Agape Press  -Apparently Americans have more money than they know what to do with. According to U.S. News & World Report's Kim Clark, each year Americans lose $80 billion to gambling in its various forms -- from casinos to bingo to online gambling to horse racing. Gamblers get plenty of opportunities to play. Forty-eight states have some form of legalized gambling, says Jeffrey Kluger of Time -- and that does not include the Internet, which is quickly becoming a wide-open portal for those with an itch to bet.  Read the complete article here. 

Too funny. New Orleans using school busses to bus voters for Nagin into New Orleans.

The role of International A.N.S.W.E.R. in the pro-illegal immigration protests. Totaly ignored by the MSM. Driscoll

75% of Chinese like free market capitalism. What are the numbers for those of other countries? The Conspiracy

"Instant Democrats"? Will on immigration reform.

Excellent essay on the history of gunpowder.

Look who is running for the Human Rights Council of the UN. Atlas

Another view of the Mass. Health Insurance Law: Headed for an Iceberg? NE Repub.

Moslems for open borders. See, the problem is this - open borders for Mexicans means open borders for anyone. And then you are no longer a country - you're just a place.

Did global warming stop eight years ago? Ex Donk  And this piece on how cleaner air adds to warming.