Wednesday, October 3. 2007
 We all expect hardball and ugly politics when large amounts of power are in play, but there are tactics and methods which go beyond hardball. But the Dem attack machine, funded by Soros organizations, appears to have no conscience whatsoever - which is why I am so offended by it all. You can't really blame it all on Soros - they are working hand-in-hand. It's a war for them.
If everyone is going to get a bit ad hominem here, let's be reminded that Soros was a Nazi collaborator, despite being Jewish. OK, he was young, but it might say something about how he operates: he admits "that's when my character was formed." When someone at MoveOn claimed to "own the Democratic Party," they weren't kidding. The Dems jump when Soros says jump. Tammy: The purely fascist tactic of ritual defamation, condemning dissent, and attempts to silence voices that do not pledge allegiance to the Left, has now consumed local and federal Democrat lawmakers. In one of the most remarkable and shameless displays of Thought Police tactics, Democrats now carry the water for the Soros Gestapos which exist to squelch public discussion of which they do not approve or does not confirm to their nihilistic leftist agenda. Make no mistake--this is one of many volleys launched in an effort to revive the necessary and ultimate leftist grab for power--a return of the so-called Fairness Doctrine, which would kill the freedom of market and listener driven talk radio.
I don't know whether it's about the Fairness Doctrine or about shutting up opinion preparatory to the election, but I do think it is all about intimidation. After all, they already have Imus' head as a prize - and as a warning. Read Tammy's whole rant.
Tuesday, October 2. 2007
The Taliban did not permit photos, or any images, and they sure did not permit homosexuality. However, these rules did not apply to them. Watch the video slideshow. h/t, Taliban Glam piece at Attack Machine.
 After years of a pragmatic, uninspiring and relatively non-ideological Bush, the GOP "brand" has become muddied and tattered. Thus we read depressing pieces like this one in the WSJ.
Although I do not consider myself a Republican, I do consider myself to be a Conservative, with erratically Libertarian aspects. I also believe, perhaps wrongly, that it is in the best interest of the Repubs to continue to stand for conservative ideas. However, I am fully aware that it is the only task of political parties to gain power and easy jobs with great benefits for their members, not to marry any ideology. I also predict that Iraq and terrorism will fade as the major political issue - not disappear, but move to second or third or fourth place. Why? Because Bush will have been successful in defusing some of the most ominous threats (yes, I do know Islam will be a chronic threat for many years). I would like to see a candidate who is able to refresh the brand in a warm, cheerful, optimistic way. Am I asking for another Reagan? Editor's note: Great minds think alike. Kudlow today: The GOP has some re-branding to do
The more you tax people, the less money they have to take care of themselves and their families, so the more they are inclined to turn to the government (ie their neighbors' money) for help, so politicians raise taxes to buy their votes, rendering them that much less able to care for themselves and their families. The News Junkie
All explained by Noel Sheppard at Newbusters. It's the Dem Attack and Smear Machine of hollow organizations, paid for by Soros. I think it's meant to be the Dem answer to the Repub attack machine during the Clinton administration, but the Soros folks don't seem to give a damn about the truth. Slash and burn while the candidate looks relatively uninvolved. It's getting rough out there.
The VA State Climatologist, at Reference Frame
Monday, October 1. 2007
Robison at American Thinker. It begins: There are signs that the global Islamic jihad movement is splitting apart, in what would be a tremendous achievement for American strategy. The center of the action is in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the very territory which is thought to harbor Usama, and from which Al Qaeda was able to launch 9/11. Capitalizing on existing splits, a trap was set and closed, and the benefits have only begun to be evident.
Read the whole thing.
Shrinkwrapped takes on the NYT Editorial The Socialists are Coming! He is a physician with a daughter in medical school. He discusses the politics and realities of government medical care from the physician's perspective in an essay Health Care Conundrums. Key quote: ...I agree with the formulation that health care can be: • Universal • Affordable • High Quality Pick 2 out of 3
Being conservative isn't cool in Hollywood, where cool, if mindless, fashion rules. If the GOP choses to become the Grumpy Old Party, it doesn't help. The GOP needs to be the party of cheerful, expansive, good-humored optimism. But back to Hollywood, a place I believe to be only one small cultural step ahead of Las Vegas and one small step behind Winnipeg. Breibart has a piece on Hollywood: Cons in the Closet. A quote: My father-in-law, Orson Bean, an author, comedian and actor, was once blacklisted as a Communist back in the '50s. Ed Sullivan called him to say he could no longer book him on the show. Fifty years later, and after a sharp ideological metamorphosis, Orson says it's harder now to be an open conservative on a Hollywood set than it was back then to be a Communist.
Oxford Medievalist has it exactly right, and George Soros is footing the bill. Michelle quotes Insty: Glenn Reynolds spells it out: “…the intent is to limit the ability of people like Limbaugh or O’Reilly to drive stories in the mainstream news as we get closer to the election. Expect more of this, with more targets.”
 Farming is improving in Greenland, for the time being, at least. Eskimos hardest hit.
Maybe they could get a job like everybody else, and try a nice side-order of potatoes along with their Polar Bear steaks, seal blubber, and Canadian Club. With a job, the Eskimos could afford some sun-block, too. I am old enough to remember sun-tanning lotion. It was kind of like grease, and similar to Polar Beat fat.
Sunday, September 30. 2007
At IBD (which is becoming a great news and opinion source) via LGF. A quote: “I swear by Allah that war is deception,” said Shukri Abu-Baker, now on trial in the federal terror-funding case. “We are fighting our enemy with a kind heart. . . . Deceive, camouflage, pretend that you’re leaving while you’re walking that way. Deceive your enemy.”
The wishfully naive West still doesn't get it. Doesn't want to get it, because it would be trouble to deal with it.
Friday, September 28. 2007
 It's about Boston, at Sippican.
Photo: The scary "new" Boston City Hall, from the piece at Sip. Note openings for 7.62 mm minigun emplacements above the traditional portcullis.
How does one account for this graph of Antarctic ice? (h/t, Junk Science). Perhaps some of the recent effects in Greenland are local, not global? 
Thursday, September 27. 2007
It's a very major change. Ace. What did Bush tell them? To produce that kind of dramatic about-face in one week, they must have been told something that the public has not yet been told.
Wednesday, September 26. 2007
 Behind the curtain of the immigration marches and the debate. Anchoress. That guy is everywhere, but always invisibly.
As the IBD editorial concludes: Soros' "shaping public policies," as OSI calls it, is not illegal. But it's a problem for democracy because it drives issues with cash and then only lets the public know about it after it's old news. That means the public makes decisions about issues without understanding the special agendas of groups behind them. Without more transparency, it amounts to political manipulation. This leads to cynicism. As word of these short-term covert ops gets out, the public grows to distrust what it hears and tunes out. The irony here is that Soros claims to be an advocate of an "open society." His OSI does just the legal minimum to disclose its activities. The public shouldn't have to wait until an annual report is out before the light is flipped on about the Open Society's political action.
Wise advice to Dems from Hanson, re Iraq, quoted from a piece at Dr. Sanity: ...the Democrats need to start once again readjusting, especially on Iraq. They might want to consider a tactic along the following lines: their initial votes for the removal of Iraq were sound and not to be apologized for; then their timely constant haranguing led to the necessary changes that came kicking and screaming; and now thanks to their vigilance there is some hope of resolution — combined with reminders that they always supported principled aid for Middle East reformers.
Yes, they could win elections with that approach, but it would involve so many abrupt changes in direction that they might all end up in neck braces.
I cannot remember where I saw the above statement quoted yesterday, regarding Columbia Pres. Bollinger. The statement does apply, I believe. Admadinejad scored a great PR and political coup, while illuminating nothing and showing contempt for the intelligence of his audience. As Kate noted at SDA, Bollinger has now been attacked by Iranians. Some gratitude. Here's an email I received early today from Columbia, still pushing the bogus "free speech" spin and trying to hype Bollinger's belated challenges to Ahmadinejad: Over the past week the scheduled appearance of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at Columbia's World Leaders Forum has sparked debate around the world. Here on campus, in countless conversations, students and faculty challenged one another to think critically about the issues raised by his visit. President Bollinger has answered tough questions from the media and from local and regional politicians. The University has heard from hundreds of alumni on the subject expressing both support and dismay. Yesterday the Morningside Heights campus was alive as thousands of students participated in peaceful demonstrations and dialogue about issues relating to both Iran and free speech. Many alumni would have been proud of our students who, however intense and disparate their viewpoints, upheld the values of free expression and respect that define the essence of our campus community and our society. At the World Leaders Forum event in Roone Arledge auditorium, President Bollinger, SIPA interim dean John Coatsworth, and Columbia students called the Iranian President to account for his positions on the Holocaust, Israel, nuclear weapons, homosexuals, women's rights, and many other matters—and afforded Ahmadinejad the opportunity to respond. I hope you will take the time to visit http://www.columbia.edu/cu/news/07/09/sipairan.html, where you can see a full video of the event, read transcripts of President Bollinger's introduction and President Ahmadinejad's remarks, and read other statements relating to the event. You may also want to read an editorial, "Free Speech in Practice," published in the Spectator, Columbia's student newspaper. The issues raised at, and by, yesterday's World Leaders Forum will continue to reverberate. I invite you to follow the links above and then log in to share your thoughts with other alumni in Columbia's free speech discussion group at alumni.columbia.edu/forum.
Yours,
Eric J. Furda
Vice President for Alumni Relations
Tuesday, September 25. 2007
Thanks, reader, for pointing us to Heather MacDonald's The Jena Dodge at City Journal. As we have noted here many times, the post-war downhill slide of American blacks is due to the breakdown of the black family. Blame whomever or whatever you will for that. Moynihan preached about this years ago. As white folks imitate the single-parent life, they will eventually reap the same whirlwind. It's called social breakdown.
Even kids, as in this familiar 2005 story. Cartoon via Wizbang, with thanks to C&F. 
Gateway. The UN is a joke, and everyone pretends, publicly, that it isn't. Like Head Start, it's one of those things that employs a lot of people and demonstrably does no good, but is easy to be sanctimonious about. Feel-good BS - on my nickel. But that's OK. As we often say here, if the UN fuctioned as it would like to, it would be scary. Envision a World EU: no escape.
Oxford Medievalist. Yes, and not just the Iranians - probably most of the world. Columbia Pres. Bollinger is a shlemozzle. (University board of directors generally like to select weak sisters for their presidents.) (For those whose Yiddish is weak, I have been told that a shlemiel is the guy who always spills the soup, and a shlemozzle is the guy who always gets soup spilled on him. A fine distinction, in both senses.) Addendum: More on topic - "Rave review" - at Dino. It was one shlemiel and one shlemozzle - Perfect Together on Morningside Heights.
 Here’s a good quote from an Art History Prof:
"He contradicts the fundamental standards of the university, which are order, morality, personal honor and most importantly, the rights of others," said Pamela Lee, an art history professor. "This person has played a critical role in a disastrously failed military policy. He has aggressively abused international law. We view the appointment as fundamentally incompatible with the ethical values of truthfulness, tolerance, disinterested enquiry, respect for national and international laws and care for the opinions, property and lives of others to which Stanford is inalienably committed,"
Oh wait, Pammie is at Stanford and she’s talking about Don Rumsfeld…. Photo: The Lane Reading Room, The Bing Wing, Stanford University
 Coulter:
The only "crisis" in health care in this country is that doctors are paid too little. (Also they've come up with nothing to help that poor Dennis Kucinich.)
But the Democratic Party treats doctors like they're Klan members. They wail about how much doctors are paid and celebrate the trial lawyers who do absolutely nothing to make society better, but swoop in and steal from the most valuable members of society.
Maybe doctors could get the Democrats to like them if they started suing their patients.
Read the whole thing.
Six black athletes beat up and stomp a white kid at school. How did this become a racism incident worthy of the attention of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton? Simon at Classical Values. One might think that this would be the sort of thing they would wish to avoid. It's a neat trick to beat someone up and then claim victimhood, but I guess that kind of upside-down stuff is all the rage these days. Pomo logic, you know. We lawyers can learn a thing or two from this. It's the old saw about the kid who killed his parents, then asked for mercy from the judge for being an orphan. But, on the other hand, is beating up kids in the playground a real crime? Raging hormones, etc. Isn't it normal? I got beat up once in junior high school, and was too ashamed of losing the fight to tell anybody. (I did, eventually, get even with the jerk in a highly sadistic and thoroughly-satisfying manner. He is now a very successful real estate developer, and is still a first-class jerk.) Good comments - thanks
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