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October 31, 2007

When an budget increase is a decrease

It's fascinating how the Democrats use language to conceal rather than reveal things like -- erm, what do we call it? -- facts.

National Review's Yuval Levin peels back the scab on an answer from Hillary Clinton during last night's debate to see what lies beneath:

In response to a question about Lance Armstrong and cancer research last night, Hillary Clinton said “It's just outrageous that under President Bush, the National Institutes of Health have been basically decreased in funding.”

The NIH budget in 2001: $20.4 billion
The NIH budget in 2007: $28.6 billion

An eight billion dollar increase. Maybe it all depends on the meaning of the word "basically".

It must be a family thing. As the would-be future First Husband once said, "It depends on what the definition of 'Is' is."

This is what the GOP gets for increasing government spending: they're still cold-hearted capitalists because they didn't agree to shovel even greater quantities of your cash into the insatiable maw of whatever program is deemed more in need of your greenbacks then you are.

Posted by Mike Lief at 12:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 30, 2007

Guilt-ridden, greedy bastard wants you to pay more taxes

Busybody Buffett.jpg

Warren Buffett counts the money from his wallet after an employee asked how much money he had in it, during a meeting with workers of TaeguTec, in Daegu, South Korea. Photograph: Jo Yong-Hak/Reuters


So, one of the richest men in America thinks he doesn't pay enough taxes -- and by implication neither do the rest of us -- which means: Tax hikes for everyone!

The United States' second-richest man has delivered a blunt message to the Bush administration: he wants to pay more tax.

Warren Buffett, the famous investor known as the "Sage of Omaha", has complained that he pays a lower rate of tax than any of his staff - including his receptionist. Mr Buffett, who is worth an estimated $52bn (£25bn), said: "The taxation system has tilted towards the rich and away from the middle class in the last 10 years. It's dramatic; I don't think it's appreciated and I think it should be addressed."

During an interview with NBC television, Mr Buffett brandished an informal survey of 15 of his 18 office staff at his Berkshire Hathaway empire. The billionaire said he was paying 17.7% payroll and income tax, compared with an average in the office of 32.9%.

"There wasn't anyone in the office, from the receptionist up, who paid as low a tax rate and I have no tax planning; I don't have an accountant or use tax shelters. I just follow what the US Congress tells me to do," he said.

A leading Democrat, the Harlem congressman Charlie Rangel, published alternative plans this week that would impose a 4% surcharge on people earning more than $200,000 a year, while delivering tax relief to 90 million working families.

Republicans say the net effect would be a $2 trillion tax increase that would hurt small businesses and farmers. Meanwhile, Mr Buffett's remarks drew a robust response from the US Chamber of Commerce, which said the top 1% of US earners accounted for 39% of tax revenue - and the highest earning 25% of the population delivered 86% of the tax-take.

The chamber's chief economist, Martin Regalia, said: "Mr Buffett has made an awful lot of money and if he wants to pay more taxes, I think that's fine. But I think he should get his facts straight."

I agree with Regalia: Buffett is free to pay more taxes if he thinks he's getting away with something. I suppose it's possible his tax rate is lower than mine, but that's probably related to him not earning much in salary during the past year, living instead on piles of cash made in the past from his investments -- past earnings that were taxed at a much higher rate, I'm sure.

Bully for him.

But what I can't stand is that he -- like so many other wealthy liberals -- insists that his circumstances and good fortune mean that the rest of us must also be getting away with some sort of fiscal shenanigans.

And therefore we should pay more in taxes, too.

What really chaps my hide is that Buffett and any other wealthy wanker isn't limited to giving Uncle Sugar just what the Feds say he owes. Don't feel like you're getting pinched bad enough? Write another check to the IRS.

Still feeling guilty? Write another, bigger check.

Still having problems dealing with your success? Write another check, this time to your psychiatrist.

But keep your grubby fingers out of my wallet.

Bastard.

Posted by Mike Lief at 08:31 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

October 29, 2007

The real G.I. Joe

About 0200, in a silence so pervasive that men many yards apart could hear each other breathing, I began to sense movement all along the front and deep in the jungle below us and to our left. We could hear the muffled clanking of equipment and periodically, voices hissing in Japanese. These were undoubtedly squad leaders giving their instructions. At the same time, small colored lights began flicking on and off throughout the jungle. I could hear Price whispering for me to come to his foxhole. I quietly crawled over to him and he had an excellent view of someone flicking a light on and off. Price said, 'I thought I was cracking up seeing all those fireflies.' I assured him he was not cracking up because those were lights handled by Japanese soldiers.

As I crawled around telling the men to glue their eyes and ears to anything and reminded them that the small lights we were seeing were assembly signals for the enemy squads, I again instructed everyone not to fire their guns as the muzzle flash would give away our positions and that we would be raked with fire and smothered with grenades. We had to let them get closer as we were outnumbered, but when things started popping I urged each man to just hang on. Earlier Jonjock, Swanek and I stretched a piece of wire out in front of our position and hung several empty blackened ration cans on it. We put an empty cartridge case in each can which would rattle if hit by someone's foot.

I had previously requested an artillery and mortar concentration. This was, however, denied because the enemy was still in the jungle where the effect would almost be nil. I then returned to my foxhole. Manning my number two gun was Corporal Raymond 'Big Stoop' Gaston and Private Samuel 'Muscles' Leiphart. Their gun was at the part of our line which bordered on the side where the jungle came up to meet the ridge. They both whispered to me that there was considerable rustling very near to the undergrowth. I said, 'Hold your fire.'

Corporal Richard 'Moose' Stanberry arranged several grenades in a neat row in front of him, then nervously rearranged them. He was fond of his Thompson sub-machine gun and I never worried about him as he was well-trained, a perfectly disciplined marine who could handle himself in any situation. Now everyone was straining to hear and see.

The bushes rustled and the maddening voices continued their soft sibilant mutterings, but still nothing could be seen. Then I dimly sensed a dark figure lurking near Gaston's position. I grabbed a grenade, pulled the pin and held the lever ready to throw it. Around me I could hear the others also pulling pins as we did the night before. We heard the ration cans rattle and then somebody let out a shriek and instantaneously the battle erupted. Grenades were exploding all over the ridge nose. Japanese rifles and machine guns fired blindly in the night and the first wave of enemy troops swarmed into our positions from the jungle flanking Gaston's gun.

Stansberry was pulling the pins out of his grenades with his teeth and lobbing them down the slope into the jungle. Leiphart was skying them overhead like a baseball pitcher. The tension burst like a balloon and many men found themselves cursing, growling, screaming like banshees. The Japanese were yelling Banzai! and 'Blood for the Emperor!' Stansberry, in a spontaneous tribute to President Roosevelt's wife, shouted back, 'Blood for Eleanor!'

The battleground was lit by flashes of machine-gun fire, pierced by the arching red patterns of tracer bullets, shaken by the blast of shells laid down no more than 30 yards in front of the ridge by Captain Louis Ditta's 60mm Mortars. It was a confusing maelstrom, with dark shapes crawling across the ground or swirling in clumped knots; struggling men falling on each other with bayonets, swords and violent oaths. After the first volley of American grenades exploded the wave of Japanese crowding onto the knoll thickened. Pfc. Charles H. Lock was killed from a burst of enemy machine-gun fire.

I screamed, 'Fire machine guns! Fire!' and with that all the machine guns opened up with all the rifles and tommy guns. In the flickering light, I saw a fierce struggle taking place for the number two gun. Several Japanese soldiers were racing toward Leiphart, who was kneeling, apparently already hit. I managed to shoot two of them while the third lowered his bayonet and lunged.

Leiphart was the smallest man in the platoon, weighing barely 125 pounds. The Japanese soldier ran him through, the force of the thrust lifting him high in the air. I took careful aim and shot Leiphart's killer.

Gaston was flat on his back, scrambling away from a Japanese officer who was hacking at him with a two-handed Samurai sword and grunting with the exertion. Gaston tried desperately to block the Samurai sword with a Springfield he had picked up off the ground, apparently Leiphart's. One of his legs was badly cut from the blows. The rifle soon splintered. The Japanese officer raised his sword for the killing thrust and Gaston, with maniac strength, snaked his good leg up and caught his man under the chin with his boon docker, a violent blow that broke the Japanese's' neck.

The attackers ran past Gaston's gun and spread out, concentrating their fire on the left flank gun, manned by Corporal John Grant, Pfc. Sam H. Scott and Willis A. Hinson. Within minutes, Scott was killed and Hinson was wounded in the head. Then Joseph A. Pawlowski was killed. Stansberry, who had been near me, was hit in the shoulder, but the last time I saw him he was still firing his tommy gun with ferocity and shouting, 'Charge! Charge! Blood for Eleanor!'

Corporal Pettyjohn on the right, cried out in anguish, 'My gun's jammed!' I was too busy to answer his call for help. At the center, we were beating back the seemingly endless wall of Japanese coming up the gentle slope at the front of the position. There were at that point approximately seventy-five enemy soldiers crashing through the platoon, most of them on the left flank, but the main force of the attack had already begun to ebb. The ridge was crowded with fighting men it seemed.

Somehow I vividly recall putting up my left hand just as an enemy soldier lunged at me with a fixed bayonet. He must have been off balance as the point of the bayonet hit between my little finger and the ring finger, enough to let me parry it off, and as he went by me he dropped dead on the ground.

The enemy started to melt back down the slope, and almost before they were out of sight, Navy Corpsmen began moving forward to treat the wounded. At Petty john's gun, James 'Knobby' McNabb and Mitchel F. 'Pat' Swanek were badly wounded and had to be moved off the line. Stansberry was still around and didn't want to leave. I crawled over to Pettyjohn's gun.

'What's wrong with it?'

Pettyjohn said 'a ruptured cartridge which refused to budge'.

I said, 'Move over,' and fumbled with stiff fingers, broke a nail completely off, but somehow pried the slug out with a combination tool, which I found in the spare parts kit under the tripod. I also changed the belt feed pawl, which had been damaged in the rough slamming trying to get the round out. Pettyjohn and Faust covered me.

Though the first assault had flopped, a number of enemy soldiers had shinnied to the top of the tall hardwood trees growing up from the jungle between the platoon and Fox Company's position. From this vantage point, they could direct a punishing, plunging fire down in two directions. The men in the foxholes along the crest were especially vulnerable; Bob G. Jonjock and John W. Price were wounded and helped back of the line by corpsmen.

I was getting ready to feed a new belt of ammunition into Pettyjohn's gun. My left hand felt very slippery so I rubbed it in the dirt under the tripod of the gun, then as I reached up to hold the belt again, I felt a sharp vibration and a jab of hot pain in my hand. I fell back momentarily and flapped my arm and stared angrily at the gun, which had been wrecked by a burst of fire from a Japanese Nambu light machine gun.

Almost immediately, a second assault wave came washing over our positions. This attack was more successful than the first. Oliver Hinkley and William R. Dudley were wounded. Hinson, over on the left gun and already wounded, continued to fire until all his supporting rifles were silenced. He then withdrew down around the hill in the rear of George Company, putting the gun out of action before he left as I had instructed.

That section had been hit hard with mortars and grenades, causing severe shock to all the men; one of the first being August P. Marquez. All the men on the spur had been literally blasted off, including Lieutenant Phillips, Bill Payne and John Grant.

In the Fox Company area back toward my left rear, I saw Fox Company men pulling out and disappearing over the crest. I picked up a Springfield and fired a shot at them, yelling for them to hold the line.

The Japanese swarmed up that seventy-foot cliff in great numbers, armed with three heavy and six light machine guns, a number of tommy guns and several knee mortars. I thought, "Dear God, Major Conoley and his small command post are just over the crest," but here was the only grazing fire I had with my machine gun, so I quickly found Gaston's gun and swung it around toward our own lines as there was nothing between my gun and the crest but enemy soldiers.

I fired a full belt of ammunition into the backs of those crouching enemy, praying that they could not get over the crest to the command post. I learned later from Captain Farrell, who was with Colonel Hanneken's command post, that the word was that the enemy had one of Paige's fast firing machine guns and the rounds were ricocheting over the line over Major Conoley's position. He had also heard reports that all my men had been killed and in fact, some had seen me sprawled out dead on the ground before they left the ridge.

I learned later, too, that this information had gotten back to the Division Command Post.

By 0500 the enemy was all over the spur and it appeared they were going to roll up-the entire battalion front. A second prong of the attack aimed at our front had not fared as well, but my platoon was being decimated. A hail of shrapnel killed Daniel R. Cashman. Stansberry had been pulled back over the hill after being hit again.

I continued to trigger bursts until the barrel began to steam. In front of me was a large pile of dead bodies. I ran around the ridge from gun to gun trying to keep them firing, but at each emplacement I found only dead bodies. I knew then I must be all alone.

As I ran back and forth, I bumped into enemy soldiers who were seemingly dashing about aimlessly in the dark. Apparently they weren't yet aware they had almost complete possession of the knoll. As I scampered around the knoll, I fired someone's Springfield that I happened to pick up. Then somehow, I stumbled over into the right flank into George Company. There I found a couple of men I knew named Kelly and Totman. They had a water-cooled machine gun. I told them I needed their gun. At the same time, I grabbed it and they took off with me.

I said, 'Follow me!' and ordered several riflemen to fix bayonets and to follow us to form a skirmish line back across the ridge. I told the riflemen not to be afraid to use the bayonet. We still had the 1905, 16-inch bayonets with the front end sharpened throughout its length and the back edge five inches from the point.

It was by then not quite as dark as it had been. Soon dawn would break. I knew that once the Japanese realized how much progress they had made, a third wave of attackers would come up the slope to solidify their hold on the hill.

On the way back I noticed some movement of Japanese on the ridge just above Major Conoley's position, which I had raked with grazing fire earlier. I fired Kelly's and Totman's full belt of 250 rounds into that area and once again the rounds were ricocheting over Conoley's head, but he had no way of knowing that I was doing the firing. He could only surmise that the enemy was now using our machine guns.

As we advanced back across the ridge, some of the Japanese began falling back. Several of them, however, began crawling awkwardly across the knoll with their rifles cradled in the crooks of their arms. Then I saw with horror that they were headed toward one of my guns, which was now out in the open and unmanned.

Galvanized by the threat, I ran for the gun. From the gully area, several Japanese guns spotted me and swiveled to rake me with enfilading fire. The snipers in the trees also tried to bring me down with grenades, and mortars burst all around me as I ran to that gun. One of the crawling enemy soldiers saw me coming and he jumped up to race me to the prize. I got there first and jumped into a hole behind the gun. The enemy soldier, less than 25 yards away, dropped to the ground and started to open up on me. I turned the gun on the enemy and immediately realized it was not loaded. I quickly scooped up a partially loaded belt lying on the ground and with fumbling fingers, started to load it.

Suddenly a very strange feeling came over me. I tried desperately to reach forward to pull the bolt handle back to load the gun, but I felt as though I was in a vise. Even so, I was completely relaxed and felt as though I was sitting peacefully in a park. I could feel a warm sensation between my chin and my Adam's apple. Then all of a sudden I fell forward over the gun, loaded the gun, and swung it at the enemy gunner, the precise moment he had fired his full thirty-round magazine at me and stopped firing.

For days later I thought about the mystery and somehow I knew that the 'Man Above' also knew what had happened. I never wanted to relate this experience to anyone, as I did not want to ever have anyone question it.

I found three more belts of ammunition and quickly fired them in the trees and all along the ridge. I sprayed the terrain with the remaining rounds clearing everything in sight. All the Japanese fire in the area was being aimed at me apparently, as this was the only automatic weapon firing from a forward position. The barrage, concentrated on the ridge nose, made me feel as if the whole Japanese Army was firing at me.

I was getting some help from our mortars control led by Battalion with the George Company Commander, Captain L.W. Martin, observing. These rounds laid on the spur and prevented the enemy from moving up which would have probably enveloped me from the rear. Other than this, I was still alone as my George Company friends were still behind me some distance.

In addition to being in this position, I had an immediate need of more ammunition and I couldn't see anymore lying around anywhere. Just at that time, aid came that made me glow with pride. Three men of my platoon voluntarily crossed the field of fire to resupply me.

The first one came up and just as he reached me he fell with a bullet in the stomach. Another one then rushed in and was hit in the groin just as he reached me too. He fell against me, knocking me away from the gun. Seconds later, Bob Jonjock, who had also been wounded earlier, came from somewhere with more ammunition. Just as he jumped down beside me to help load the gun, I saw a piece of flesh fly off his neck. He had been hit by an enemy bullet.

I told him to get back while I sprayed the area. He refused to leave. I said, 'Get the hell back, Jonjock!' and he again said, 'No, I'm staying with you.'

I hated to do it, but I punched him on the chin hard enough to bowl him over and convinced him finally that I wanted my order obeyed. He somehow made his way back as I was afraid he would bleed to death.

Meanwhile, Major Conoley, at the forward command post, was rounding up a ragtag force with which to retake the Fox Company spur. There were bandsmen serving as stretcher bearers, wiremen, runners, cooks, even mess boys, who had brought some hot food up to the front lines during the night and stayed just in case. Those men, numbering no more than twenty-four, mounted a counterattack up over the crest line that I fired some 500 rounds at. They found the Japanese machine guns and several of Fox Company's weapons, including three light machine guns, all in good working order. That counterattack found ninety-eight dead on the spur by actual count.

That was about 0530 or so. Dawn was already breaking. I was able to observe the progress of that charge from my position as I was directly out in their front. I also watched quite a few enemy soldiers scrambling back into the jungle, but I couldn't fire in that direction. As I watched that beautiful charge, it gave me the inspiration to get up and yell to my George Company fighters with their fixed bayonets to stand by to charge. I yelled out in Japanese to stand up: 'Tate! -- tah- teh, tah-teh!', hurry: 'Isoge!' -- ee-soh-geh, ee-soh-geh!'

Immediately a large group of Japanese soldiers, about thirty in all, popped up into view. One of them looked quizzically at me through field glasses. I triggered a long burst and they just peeled off like grass under a mowing machine.

At that point, I turned around to tell my friends I was going to charge over the knoll and I said, 'I want everyone of you to be right behind me,' and they were. I threw the two remaining belts of ammunition that my men had brought me over my shoulder, unclamped the heavy machine gun from the tripod and cradled it in my arms. I really didn't notice the weight which was about a total of eighty pounds, and was no more aware that the water jacket of the gun was red hot.

I fed one of the belts into the gun and started forward, down the slope, scrambling to keep my feet, spraying a raking fire all about me. There were still a number of live enemy soldiers on the hillside in the tall grass, pressed against the slope. I must have taken them by surprise, as the gun cut them all down. One of them I noticed, was a field grade officer who had just expended the rounds in his revolver and was reaching for his two-handed sword. He was no more than four or five feet from me when I ran into him head on.

The skirmishers followed me over the rim of the knoll and they, too, were all fired up and were giving the rebel yell, shrieking and cat-calling like little boys imitating marines, sounding like there were a thousand rather than a mere handful.

They followed me all the way across the draw with fixed bayonets, to the end of the jungle, where long hours before, the Japanese attacks had started. There we found nothing left to shoot at. The battle was over.

The jungle was once again so still, that if it weren't for the evidence of dead bodies, the agony and torment of the previous hours, the bursting terror of the artillery and mortars rounds and the many thousands of rounds of ammunition fired, it might only have been a bad dream of awful death.

It was a really strange sort of quietness. As I sat down soaked with perspiration and steam still rising from my hot gun, Captain Louis Ditta, another wonderful officer who had joined the riflemen in the skirmish line and had earlier been firing his 60mm mortars to help me, slapped me on the back and as he handed me his canteen of water he kept saying, 'tremendous, tremendous!' He then looked down at his legs. We could see blood coming through his dungarees. He had a neat bullet hole in his right leg.

There were hundreds of enemy dead in the grass, on the ridge, in the draw, and in the edge of the jungle. We dragged as many as we could into the jungle, out of the sun. We buried many and even blasted some of the ridge over them to prevent the smell that only a dead body can expel in heat. A corpsman sent by Capt. Ditta smeared my whole left arm with a tube of salve of some kind. He cleaned off the bayonet gash, since filled with dirt, and the bullet nicks on my hands also filled with dirt and coagulated blood. He stuck a patch on my back just below the shoulder blade. (In 1955, I felt something irritating in my back, and then had a piece of metal about 3/4 of an inch long removed from my back; right where the corpsman had placed that patch.)

As the corpsman left he said, 'You know, you have some pretty neat creases in your steel helmet.'

I replied:

"Yes, thank God -- Made in America."

Posted by Mike Lief at 11:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 28, 2007

Comet Holmes


Jeff, the stargazer at LaLunaSky.com, snagged an image of the comet flaring up in Perseus, mentioned below.

Head on over to his site and look around; it's amazing what amateur astronomers can see from their backyard observatories.

Posted by Mike Lief at 12:50 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Black is white, up is down

And murderers are heroes.

Moral equivalence is in the crosshairs at Classical Values, where Eric takes aim at those who blame the NRA for school massacres while failing to note that many adults and fellow students appear to lionize unrepentant homicidal maniacs and mass murderers.

He begins with reports that another teen was preparing to slaughter the bullies who were tormenting him; the would-be killer said that his gun was named for one of the Columbine killers. But more disturbing than the teen's tribute to the maniac is his attorney's claim that the two gunmen who stlked their fellow students through the halls of Columbine High are heroes to bullied kids throughout the nation.

I'm hoping the claim that Harris and Klebold are "heroes" to bullied kids is overwrought hype by the kid's attorney, because if they are developing a cultlike status, it's a disturbing development.
That's because, if you think about it, on what basis is this Columbine hero cult to be condemned? Because they were murderers? And murder is bad?

Well, what about the Cult of Che Guevara? Klebold and Harris killed twelve people, while Guevara killed nearly 2000, including the witnessed killing of a14 year old boy. And how about the Cult of Mumia?

I'm having trouble understanding how Che and Mumia can be heroes, but not Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris.

Not that everybody considers Che and Mumia to be heroes. Far from it. Fortunately, these are fringe cults.

But don't they have a certain legitimacy? Put yourself in the position of a school principal, and suppose some admirer of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold (yes there are groups like these) decided to wear a t-shirt with one of their pictures. Everyone would be horrified, right? The school would ban the t-shirts, right? But would they ban the Che t-shirts and the Cult of Che?

One commenter says the answer is home-schooling.

Unfortunately, home-schooling isn't enough; the societal rot is everywhere.

Heroes are so passe; it's murderers who capture the imagination of the young (and not so young) in our morally inverted world.

And the more the killers identified with the "workers," the better.

Communism -- directly responsible for the murder of unimaginably more people than the National Socialist German Workers' Party slaughtered in its 20-year existence -- is still chic, hip and viable in a way Naziism is not.

From mainstream, major retailers like Barnes & Noble, to the streets of small-to-medium size American towns, teens to thirty-somethings sip lattes while sporting t-shirts emblazoned with the faces of communist thugs and mass murderers, and the symbols of the regime that fomented oppression and human rights abuses like the world hadn't seen since the Dark Ages.

The pierced, tattooed and soul-patched moron who took my credit card had a hammer and sickle lapel-pin on his coat -- just the kind of flair his managers wanted, I'm sure.

Oddly, neither he nor his coworkers sported a swastika.

Strange, huh?

I'm not surprised that cop-killers and rage-filled thugs stalking their fellow students through blood-spattered halls; it's the logical end to our fourty-year journey on the moral relativism express.

"If it feels good, do it!" the rallying cry of the '60s and '70s, morphed by the '80s and '90s into, "Who am I to judge?"

And when there is no "right" -- and therefore, no "wrong" -- then we've pulled into the station, where up is down, good is bad, dark is light, and Che and Mumia are heroes.

Listen carefully! Can you hear that? Nero is fiddling.

We're doomed.

Posted by Mike Lief at 10:34 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

October 27, 2007

The history of music


These guys are great.

Stringfever, a preternaturally talented musical quartet (three brothers and a cousin), play their skeletal, electric stringed instruments and in less than 6 minutes cover more than 500 years of musical history.

They've even figured out how to fit a quartet on one instrument.



I wonder if they're less expensive as the four-on-one players -- as opposed to the each-plays-his-own version, which seems so boring now.

Good news! They'll begin their first U.S. tour in 2009.

Posted by Mike Lief at 11:54 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 25, 2007

This comet's a comer

Click for larger image.


Stargazers are abuzz about a rowdy newcomer in the constellation Perseus, according to Sky and Telescope.

A distant comet that was as faint as magnitude 18 on October 20th has suddenly brightened by a millionfold, altering the naked-eye appearance of the constellation Perseus.

This startling outburst of Comet Holmes (17P) may be even stronger than the one that occurred 115 years ago, in November 1892, when the comet was first spotted by English amateur Edwin Holmes.

According to IAU Circular 8886, issued Wednesday October 24th by the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams in Cambridge, Massachusetts, A. Henriquez Santana at Tenerife, Canary Islands, was the first to notice the outburst shortly after local midnight on the 24th. The comet was then about 8th magnitude, but within minutes Ramon Naves and colleagues in Barcelona, Spain, caught it at magnitude 7.3.

[...]

Comet expert Gary Kronk expects this object to remain bright and grow from a starlike point to several arcminutes across over the next few nights as it makes its way slowly westward across Perseus. Its position on October 25th (0h UT) is right ascension 3h 53m, declination +50.1° (equinox 2000), and by October 30th it will have moved only to 3h 48m, +50.4°. For those living in the Northern Hemisphere, Perseus is visible all night at this time of year.

Update Thursday Oct. 25: "This object is amazing!" posted Brian Cudnik of Houston, Texas, on the Yahoo CometChasing group after coming in from his telescope on the evening of the 24th. "I have just observed it with an 8-inch f/10 Cassegrain, boosting the power up to 163x then to 508x.... The bright inner coma seems displaced off-center toward position angle 315°. The inner coma opens up into a fan toward position angle 300°, and I have noticed one ripple, akin to the hoods/ripples seen in Comet Hale-Bopp ten years ago. The coma is uniform in brightness, aside from this fan-shape material emanating from the central condensation, and has a well-defined edge." He measured the coma to be 69 arcseconds wide using using the drift method. "The entire object has a nice yellow-white color; no sign of any tail. The apparent magnitude is +2.8 (estimated using Mirfak at +1.9 and the other two bright stars adjacent to it at +3.0 each) and has remained rather steady all evening."

I'm guessing everything after "amazing" translates to something like, "Wow!"

Posted by Mike Lief at 08:52 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

October 24, 2007

Couch potato hound


Bogie enjoys emulating his master -- demonstrating his mastery of late-night lolling, lazing and sprawling on the couch. I like the way he crosses his paws in such a debonaire fashion. He reminds me an English celebrity, passed out drunk on a sofa, one leg thrown over the other, martini in one hand, cigarette with a l-o-n-g ash in the other.



Here's an early-morning favorite -- a variation on the theme -- working in a four-legged stretch. He calls this one, "By the Dawn's Early Light." I think it's pretentious to name one's poses, but then I'm not a pooch with pretentions.

The sight of all those feet clustered together does give me paws, however.

Posted by Mike Lief at 09:59 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Let them eat cake

Just saw a commercial for “Nothing But Nets,” a charity dedicated to eradicating malaria in the third world by buying mosquito nets.

Which strikes me as about as misguided and hopeless a cause as the human mind can dream up.

Now, let me be clear: Malaria is killing millions of people, which is doubly tragic, given that malaria had been darn near wiped out by the 1950s, the disease vanquished thanks to scientific research – and a marvelous insecticide, DDT.

However, the late Rachel Carson wrote “Silent Spring,” the 1960s version of Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth,” which is to say it was the product of soft-headed propaganda, not hard science.

Carson blamed DDT for causing severe damage to wildlife, attributing the decline in numbers of several species of birds to the allegedly eggshell-thinning side-effects of the insecticide.

There is no “scientific consenus” that Carson was right then (as there is no consensus that Gore is right now), and as a result of the resultant media-backed hysteria, fed by Carson receiving much undeserved publicity, the use of DDT was banned throughout much of the world.

The result?

An explosion in the incidence of malaria – and millions dead.

Fed up with First World moralizing, some Third World nations have had enough. Tired of burying children laid low by mosquito-borne diseases, they’ve started spraying DDT again, with immediate results: malaria-carrying bugs are dying – instead of kids.

That’s why charities like Nothing But Nets are so infuriating. While it provides an opportunity for the NBA’s players to feel good about themselves, it does nothing to fix the problem.

With a solution – a cure! – at hand, one we’ve known works for more than 50 years, and more than 30 years of needless deaths as a result of an unnecessary ban on DDT, I have only one question?

Why do those opposed to using DDT hate the children?

It’s the 21st-century update on Marie Antoinette’s “Let them eat cake.”

As far as the environmentalists are concerned, the people dying of preventable diseases in far away lands deserve “Nothing But Net.”

Posted by Mike Lief at 09:51 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Romney and and the Second Amendment.

The manager of Red's Sporting Goods wrote presidential candidate Mitt Romney, asking for his views on the Second Amendment.

Romney's response is perfect.

If you hate guns.

I strongly support the Second Amendment right of Americans to keep and bear arms. I am proud to be among the many decent, law-abiding men and women who safely use firearms.

I firmly believe in the importance of responsible gun ownership and sales. As a member of the National Rifle Association, I do not believe that we need any more federal gun control laws. I also recognize that some types of extreme weapons, those which were not meant for hunting, sport, or self-defense, have no business being on the streets.

An individual’s right to keep and bear arms is a freedom guaranteed to all Americans by the United States Constitution. Together, we must ensure this freedom is protected. As Governor of one of the most liberal states in the country, I stood up for the rights of gun owners and sportsmen over burdensome bureaucratic regulation. I look forward to upholding these same ideals in Washington, D.C.

As one commenter noted, Romney's claim that he "stood up for the rights of gun owners and sportsmen over burdensome bureaucratic regulation" is rather weak, given that he signed into law Massachusetts' ban on scawey bwack wifles, the kind dubbed "assault weapons" by bed-wetting thumb-suckers.

David Hardy says it's clear that when it comes to the Second Amendment, Romney's answer reveals that he has no understanding of its meaning.

I think it reveals something else: that he has no chance of winning the votes of those Americans who do.

Posted by Mike Lief at 08:22 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

October 23, 2007

The Spirit of Kitty Hawk, circa 2007

I have a friend -- a long-time private pilot -- who wants to build a kit-plane in which he can zip, zoom and soar with the eagles. He went so far as to order the plans (I think) and asked if I was interested in going in on the project.

Not being particularly handy (my '45 Willys Jeep taxes my skills to the skinned-knuckles breaking point), I took a pass on being the cause of some future catastrophic structural failure.

This Nigerian fellow makes my friend look like the poster child for sober, cautious living.

KANO (AFP) - Mubarak Muhammad Abdullahi, a 24-year-old physics undergraduate in northern Nigeria, takes old cars and motorbikes to pieces in the back yard at home and builds his own helicopters from the parts.

"It took me eight months to build this one," he said, sweat pouring from his forehead as he filled the radiator of the banana yellow four-seater which he now parks in the grounds of his university.


home made helicopter.jpg


The chopper, which has flown briefly on six occasions, is made from scrap aluminium that Abdullahi bought with the money he makes from computer and mobile phone repairs, and a donation from his father, who teaches at Kano's Bayero university.

It is powered by a second-hand 133 horsepower Honda Civic car engine and kitted out with seats from an old Toyota saloon car. Its other parts come from the carcass of a Boeing 747 which crashed near Kano some years ago.

For a four-seater it is a big aircraft, measuring twelve metres (39 feet) long, seven metres high by five wide. It has never attained an altitude of more than seven feet.

The cockpit consists of a push-button ignition, an accelerator lever between the seats which controls vertical thrust, a joystick that provides balance and bearing.

A small screen on the dashboard connects to a camera underneath the helicopter for ground vision, a set of six buttons adjusts the screen's brightness while a small transmitter is used for communication.

"You start it, allow it to run for a minute or two and you then shift the accelerator forward and the propeller on top begins to spin. The further you shift the accelerator the faster it goes and once you reach 300 rmp you press the joystick and it takes off," Abdullahi explained from the cockpit.

He said he learned the rudiments of flying a helicopter from the Internet and first got the idea of building one from the films he watches on television.

"I watched action movies a lot and I was fascinated by the way choppers fly. I decided it would be easier to build one than to build a car," he said pacing the premises of the security division of the university which he uses as hanger for his helicopter.

He hoped -- and still does hope -- that the Nigerian government and his wealthy compatriots would turn to him and stop placing orders with western manufacturers.

So far, however, government response to his chopper project has been underwhelming to say the least.

Although some government officials got very excited when they saw him conduct a demonstration flight in neighbouring Katsina state, Nigeria's Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) has so far shown no interest in his aircraft.

Abdullahi does admit that his first helicopter lacks "some basic facilities like devices for measuring atmospheric pressure, altitude, humidity and the like."

But Abdullahi, undeterred, has started work on a new flying machine, which, he says, "will be a radical improvement on the first one in terms of sophistication and aesthetics."

He's nothing if not ambitious.

And fearless.

And completely insane.

But then, so were Orville and Wilbur Wright.

Posted by Mike Lief at 02:50 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

October 22, 2007

Wildfire info

This is a good one-stop site for news about the fires burning throughout SoCal, and this blog is providing in-depth coverage and pictures of the San Diego fires.

Posted by Mike Lief at 08:53 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Camp Roberts portfolio: Dusk

Click for larger image. Panasonic DMC-TZ3, 1/250, f11, underexposed 1/3 stop.

Click for larger image. Panasonic DMC-TZ3, 1/500, f4.9, underexposed 2/3 stop.

Click for larger image. Panasonic DMC-TZ3, 1/200, f4.1, underexposed 2/3 stop.

Posted by Mike Lief at 08:07 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack


Lt.Col. T. asked me if I was interested in some bang-bang -- he and his men were participating in a tactical pistol qualification shoot with the Beretta M-9, and generously offered to let me take a turn; I thought about for something less than an instant and said, "Absolutely, colonel!"

The drive out to Range 10 is long, thanks to a bridge being closed; I had to take a lengthy detour, past gunnery control for the base, then over a gravel, one-lane bridge over the stream dividing the post.

It's not long before you notice subtle signs that, the peaceful, bucolic scenary notwithstanding, all is not bunnies and butterflies 'round here.

CIMG1153.jpg

I kept driving over rutted dirt roads, slowing down at each clearly-marked "Tank Crossing," not wanting to get into a fender-bender with one of the Abrams tanks or Bradley fighting vehicles tearing across the countryside.

Range 10 was the last in a series of facilities dedicated to honing soldiers' lethal skills, with sites dedicated to rifles, automatic weapons and grenade throwing.

When I pulled up, soldiers wearing their helmets and Kevlar vests were on the firing line, shooting at man-size targets that popped into view at a variety of distances and locations. If the bullet hit the outline, the target fell backward, out of view.

Col. T. greeted me with a grin and a firm handshake, introducing me to his senior NCOs and his officers. One sergeant took me over to an army truck to make sure I was conversant with the operation of the Beretta; once we were done with the drill, it was time to get some safety gear on. The XO loaned me his helmet and a master sergeant handed over his vest.

Sgt. C. was going to be my spotter, just to make sure the JAG didn't do anything stupid.

Posted by Mike Lief at 07:43 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 21, 2007

GOP debate

I listened to most of the GOP debate tonight, and I agree with Jim Geraghty's assessment:

Wow. By far, the best debate of the cycle in either party. Just about everybody came out swinging, took some lumps, countered, made the crowd laugh, spurred applause, and jabbed at the moderators. The crowd was fired up, and the moderators took an aggressive tack that shook any lingering lethargy out of the candidates. Feel confident, Republicans. One way or another, the GOP is going to have a good debater representing it next year.

Geraghty gives his take on who did the best, the least, and who ought to pack it in.

I missed this exchange, but will try to catch it online; it showcases the Fred Thompson I've been looking for.

The crowd doesn’t like Wendell Goler’s question to Fred, “Some people say you’re lazy, sir. How do you respond.”

After some murmurs, Fred says, “Nah that’s okay. Let me answer that… I was a father at 17, a husband at the age of 17. Worked in a factory. Borrowed, got some help from my folks, they came in from the farm. I was able to be an assistant U.S. attorney at 28." He recites his career, and concludes, “If a man can do all that and be lazy, well, I’d strongly recommend it. And I should add, most important, I’m the father of five. Two of ‘em under the age of four.”

Great answer.

I'll say. Give 'em Hell, Fred.

Check out the rest of Geraghty's coverage -- just start at the top and keep scrolling.

Posted by Mike Lief at 11:29 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Extreme capture-the-flag

W. Thomas Smith is one crazy former Marine.

Semper Fi, Mac!

Posted by Mike Lief at 11:24 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Where do we find such men?

I had the chance to spend some time with a couple of interesting soldiers today, moving through the JAG shop on their way back to the sandbox.

Sergeant First Class C. is a boyish-looking soldier with a ready smile and laid-back demeanor. You wouldn't think he'd deployed twice already, once to Iraq and later to Kuwait.

"Which did you prefer?" I ask.

"Kuwait was like a vacation," he answers.

He pauses for a moment, then continues in a mild tone.

"On the other hand, I got shot and blown up in Iraq, so there's really no comparison."

Did I mention he wears the Combat Infantryman Badge on his ACUs?

That probably explains the jagged scar running from beneath the collar of his blouse, up along his neck, running uncomfortably close to his carotid artery.

He's a CHP officer in civilian life, and we trade stories about DUI arrests and prosecutions in our respective counties.

As he initials the pages of the will I've prepared, I notice the aluminum wristband he wears honoring a fellow trooper killed in combat; I'm curious, but don't want to pry.

Fallen comrades; torn flesh. He seems remarkably angst-free, not at all tormented by his experiences.

And yet -- despite what he's seen and suffered -- the sergeant has volunteered, eager to take part in another mission, leaving behind a wife and two young kids as he returns to hunt down and kill our enemies.

Later, I meet his commanding officer, Lt.Col. T., a man who decided to give up a career in the pharmaceutical industry back in the early '80s, enlisting in the army because he was too old to get a commission. He took his chances as an enlisted man, hoping he'd get the waivers necessary to become an officer. At 32, he was years older than his fellow recruits, but he persevered, earning his commission and serving as an active duty officer in the Regular Army for a few years, before joining the National Guard.

In the ensuing years, Lt.Col. T. founded an environmental consulting firm, raised a family, and always thought about resuming his military career, full-time.

In the days after 9-11, that impulse became more urgent, tamped down only by his obligations to his family.

Not too long ago, his wife told him she knew how much he longed to answer the call to arms ... and that it was okay.

Now in his 50s, Lt.Col. T. is getting ready to lead his GIs into battle with a cadre of experienced NCOs, men like Sgt. C., to watch his back and help shepherd his troops safely through the challenging days ahead.

And the environmental consulting firm? He's shutting it down, so he can do something really important.

Where do we find such men?

Posted by Mike Lief at 09:31 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

October 20, 2007

What's wrong with this picture?


Could it be that Barack Obama, vying for the Democratic nomination, can't be bothered to put his hand over his heart during the national anthem -- as required by U.S. Code Title 36, §301.

Sec. 301. National anthem

(a) Designation.--The composition consisting of the words and music
known as the Star-Spangled Banner is the national anthem.
(b) Conduct During Playing.--During a rendition of the national
anthem--
(1) when the flag is displayed--
(A) all present except those in uniform should stand at
attention facing the flag with the right hand over the heart;
(B) men not in uniform should remove their headdress with
their right hand and hold the headdress at the left shoulder,
the hand being over the heart; and
(C) individuals in uniform should give the military salute
at the first note of the anthem and maintain that position until
the last note; and
(2) when the flag is not displayed, all present should face
toward the music and act in the same manner they would if the flag
were displayed.

(Pub. L. 105-225, Aug. 12, 1998, 112 Stat. 1263.)

Common decency -- not to mention common sense -- ought to result in most Americans putting their hand over their heart during the Star Spangled Banner, especially those trying to win the race for the White House.

Hell, even Hillary Clinton knows better than to publicize her disdain for the Red State cultural mores of flag-waving, patriotic yahoos by engaging in ostentatious displays of trans-national contempt for the Stars and Stripes and the national anthem.

But not Barack Obama, who has already spoken of his refusal to wear the U.S. flag on his lapel.

Yeah, this guy may win over the Nut Roots and capture the Dem's nomination (not likely), but even if he did, there's no chance he'd prevail in a general election, where even most Democrats don't mind showing some respect for flag and anthem.

What a loser.

Posted by Mike Lief at 10:46 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

New Jersey news

I worked at the New Jersey Herald many years ago, first on the night copy desk, then on deadline, editing stories for the front page, writing headlines and trying to rejigger the layout as breaking news forced us to rip out old stories and find room for new ones.

Writing good headlines was always a challenge, trying to catch the reader's eye and entice him to go beyond the boldface type above, diving into the small, grey copy below.

Yeah, "Pricy Potbelly Pygmy Pigs Proving Popular Pets" was mine. What can I say? It was the late '80s -- and they were.

Anyhow, this headline from the Hudson County section of New Jersy Now caught my eye:

Flaming squirrel ignites car in Bayonne

How can you not want to continue reading that one? By definition it's a good -- not great, but gets-the-job-done -- headline (I'd deduct points for sticking Bayonne in at the end), because I'm guessing darn near everyone goes on to read the story.

The writer has a decent lede, but I like the second line better.

It's Rocky the Frying Squirrel!

A kamikaze squirrel fell from the sky and detonated a Bayonne woman's car yesterday, police said today.

Lindsey Millar, 23, and her brother, Tony, 22, were both home Wednesday at about 12:45 p.m. when Lindsey's car suddenly started burning outside their 42nd Street home.

Tony Millar said firefighters told them it was the work of a buck-toothed saboteur that had been gnawing on overhead power lines connected to a transformer directly above the 2006 Toyota Camry.

"The squirrel chewed through the wire, was set on fire, fell down directly to where the car was," Tony Millar said. "The squirrel, on fire, slid into the engine compartment and blew up the car. "They're always coming around here, chewing through the garbage," he added.

Police said there were no injuries -- except for the squirrel, that is, which is dead.

The Millars' home is decorated for Halloween, complete with a tiny plastic tombstone on their front lawn. Tony Millar said the family will consider dedicating the tombstone to the squirrel, who was not named.

I think it was a Mob hit gone bad.

Posted by Mike Lief at 08:12 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

But they support the troops!

Disappearing heroes.jpg


There are times when tar and feathers are called for -- and the despicable person responsible for this deserves a good helping of both.

From customers to congressmen, the removal of dozens of photos of U.S. troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan – many of them with relatives who use the Paso Robles Post Office, where the pictures had been on display for years behind the counter – inspired outrage Friday.

The photos were taken down after a customer complained that the display was pro-war. When the issue came to the attention of the regional postal center, they asked that Paso Robles postmaster Mike Milby and his staff take them down because they violate a regulation against displays of non-postal business material at any U.S. post office.

“It’s an emotional issue and people look at their post office as a hub of the community, but the post office is there to do postal business and it’s not a place to post things or make displays,” said postal spokesman Richard Maher.

Two signs posted at the postal counter Friday said “We are being forced to remove the pictures from out wall of our boys and girls in the military. Please ask for your pictures back.”

Clerks were constantly barraged with questions about why the display had gone down Friday, which most people expressing dismay that the photos had been removed.

Congressman Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) weighed in on the removal after his office was besieged with dozens of phone calls from constituents upset about the removal.

“Supporting our local heroes’ bravery and sacrifice is common sense. That is why I am troubled with the Paso Robles Post Office’s removal of pictures honoring the sacrifice of our brave men and women serving in the Armed Services. I am in contact with the Postal Service to get a clear answer of why this happened and determine what actions can be taken,” the congressman said in a statement.

McCarthy is going to try to get the pictures put back up, said his spokesman Nick Bouknight, even if it requires changing the postal regulations to do it.

I've been in the Paso Robles post office; the wall of photos is -- was -- deeply moving, a community's show of support for those who volunteered to defend us all -- and the families they left behind.

That some miserable, anti-military, anti-war activist (who no doubt claims to "support the troops!") would demand the pictures be taken down is simply infuriating.

That they were removed is mind-blowing.

Isn't it interesting that it's okay to post pictures of assorted rapists, kidnappers, terrorists and murderers -- as long as they're on the F.B.I.'s most wanted list -- but photos of America's all-volunteer citizen-soldiers are prohibited?

Shame on the Postal Service.

And shame on us, for allowing American society to devolve in the last decade into the kind of place where the (over)sensitive nature of one bellyaching whiner requires the rest of us to cave and cater to the whims of the professional carping class.

Posted by Mike Lief at 12:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 19, 2007

He's so bad, he's good just awful

Grady Hendrix offers a laugh-out-loud funny tribute to the best B-movie, bad-actor action star to hail from Belgium.

[He's managed to do a lot with a little. Jean-Claude [Van Damme] has three expressions: worried, charming, and doing a split. Of the three, doing a split is the most convincing. Getting crucified in Cyborg? Worried. Disposing of a bomb that could blow up a sacred Muslim shrine and start a jihad in The Order? Really worried. Meeting a spunky lady reporter in any number of movies? Charming. Confronting the hitmen who killed his wife? Do a split.

For a lot of actors, not being able to act would be an obstacle, but Jean-Claude has transformed it into his trademark. Acting? Acting is for weirdos like Forest Whitaker (Bloodsport), Kylie Minogue (Street Fighter), or Kieran Culkin (Nowhere to Run). Jean-Claude is just a normal, average guy, you know? When he fights, he likes to head-butt his opponents and kick them in the nuts, the way normal people fight.

[...]

The only thing Van Damme does in his movies that isn't normal is take his clothes off. A lot. Most people don't like to see themselves naked, but Jean-Claude has made gratuitous nudity an important part of his career.

Whether he's playing a serial killer, a time-traveling cop, an off-duty firefighter, a day laborer, or a member of the French Foreign Legion, he always manages to wind up in situations that require him to bare his muscular bottom.

It's an impressive posterior, as firm, white, and round as two uncooked turkeys. But, like the Tree of Wisdom in the Garden of Eden, or a pole dancer at Scores, you can look but you can't touch.

If you taste the fruits of Van Damme, it's only a matter of minutes before a bad guy kills you. Jean-Claude's wives and girlfriends come with expiration dates stamped on their foreheads, and the clock starts ticking the minute he says, "I love you."

There's more -- including the bizarre sight of Van Damme crashing a casting call for a film based on the life of Jean-Claude Van Damme -- here.

Posted by Mike Lief at 10:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Turning Democratic manure into millions

Rush turns B.S. into bullion.jpg


The E-bay auction is over, and Democratic Sen. Harry Reid's slanderous letter -- signed by 40 of his fellow Dems -- has sold for more money than any item since E-Bay began on-line bidding wars.

If you think it couldn't get any worse for the pathetic Reid, well, Captain Ed has proof that the Democratic senator just can't stop digging.

Harry Reid tried his best to put the best possible spin on the Rush Limbaugh letter that just sold to a Republican philanthropist for $2.1 million dollars. Rush will put up a matching $2.1 million donation to a charity that assists the children of Marines and law-enforcement officers killed in the line of duty.

Reid will ... try to claim credit for it:

This week, Rush Limbaugh put the original copy of that letter up for auction on e-bay. Mr. President, we didn't have time, or we could have gotten every senator to sign that letter. But he put the letter up for auction on e-bay and I think very, very constructively, left the proceeds of that it go to the Marine Corps law enforcements foundation. That provides scholarship assistance to marines and federal law enforcement personnel whose parents fall in the line of duty. What could be a more worthwhile cause?

I think it's really good that this money on e-bay is going to be raised for this purpose. ...

Never did we think that this letter would bring money of this nature. [emphasis added]

Uh-huh. So now Harry wants everyone to think that he participated in the fund-raising effort deliberately. He wants to take credit for over $4 million in donations that came from two people -- the bidder, and the man Reid intended to smear and intimidate. That's not just laughable, it's pathetic.

Let's see Reid put his money where his mouth is. Where's Reid's $2.1 million? He could sell off a few of the Nevada properties that have enriched him while he manipulates their value through legislation. His colleagues could also pitch in and at least match Rush in the aggregate -- donating $50,000 for everyone who signed the letter. If they want to take credit for the fundraising, why don't they contribute some funds themselves?

Beautiful.

Is it any wonder that the Senate -- under Reid's stellar [ahem] leadership -- has lower approval ratings than Pres. Bush?

And it bears repeating that Rush Limbaugh turned a slander against his good name -- an attempt by Democratic senators to bully and silence a citizen -- into more than $4 million dollars for a great cause.

Senator Reid -- you've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?

Posted by Mike Lief at 09:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Can we question their patriotism?

Mickey Kaus observed some self-loathing Americans in the wild recently.

I went to the premiere of my friend Viven Lesnick Weisman's eye-opening documentary, "Man of Two Havanas," and when the narrator got to the part about the Bay of Pigs and the announced (I'm paraphrasing) that it was "the most significant defeat for the American military in history," a non-trivial segment of the audience burst into applause. Nobody hissed back. This is in Los Angeles. I assume it's worse in Pelosi's San Francisco district.

Perfect. Because nothing is as satisfying to the American Left than a defeat.

Especially when a dictatorial Communist regime is responsible for foiling the United States military.

So, to recap, they want the U.S. to lose, cheer when our enemies win.

Can we question the patriotism of those who sit in a darkened movie theater, hooting and hollering at the prospect of a tyrant giving the U.S. a black eye?

If words have any meaning, I think we must.

Posted by Mike Lief at 05:56 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 18, 2007

Maybe they should call themselves "Dim-o-crats"

Rush turns B.S. into bullion.jpg


Proving that he's at least twice as smart as the Democrats who tried to smear him, Rush Limbaugh is auctioning their letter on E-Bay, with the proceeds going to provide assistance to the children of Marines and police officers killed in the line of duty.

When "Dingy Harry" Reid and the U.S. Senate turned away from the business of the nation to instead smear a private citizen, forty-one of them sent a letter demanding the "repudiation" of their inaccurate interpretation of Rush Limbaugh's comments about Jesse Al-Zaid (a.k.a. Jesse MacBeth) and other "phony soldiers" who falsify their service. This letter was delivered to Mark Mays of Clear Channel Communications, Rush Limbaugh's syndication partner, and widely quoted in the Drive-By Media.

Up for auction is the original letter signed by 41 Democrat senators. This historic document may well represent the first time in the history of America that this large a group of U.S. senators attempted to demonize a private citizen by lying about his views. As such, it is a priceless memento of the folly of Harry Reid and his 40 senatorial co-signers.

The entire proceeds of this auction -- the entire high bid-- will be donated to The Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation, a registered charity which provides financial assistance to the children of fallen Marines and federal law enforcement officers. Rush Limbaugh serves on the Board of this organization and has been active on its behalf. All costs of this auction will be paid by the seller ... every dollar of your winning bid will go to this charity, which has to date distributed over $29 million.

Rush first publicly displayed this letter on the night of October 11th during a speech in Philadelphia, having a security operative carry it on stage, with the letter itself safely encased in a Halliburton Attache case handcuffed to the agent's right wrist. Included in this auction is that same Halliburton briefcase, as well as a personal letter from Rush Limbaugh, thanking the winning bidder for his donation. The special handcuffs may not be distributed outside of law enforcement and security officers, and thus are not included in this auction.

As winning bidder, you get:

- The original and infamous "Harry Reid Smear" letter, signed by 41 Democat senators
- The Halliburton briefcase in which this letter is secured 24 hours a day
- A personal letter of thanks from the Man Who Runs America, Rush Limbaugh
- A photograph of Rush displaying the letter on stage in Philadelphia on October 11th

As of 9:50 p.m. on the West Coast, the bidding was over $2 millon.

Which makes Rush perhaps the greatest alchemist in history, capable of turning Democratic B.S. into bullion.

"Dinghy Harry" Reid and Chuckie Schumer must hate this.

Posted by Mike Lief at 09:47 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

And speaking of fawning reporters toadying to tyrants

Segueing from the previous post, Jay Nordlinger notes a disgusting bit of Castro ass-kissing, masquerading as quality reportage.

Anita Snow of the AP has filed another of her reports from Havana. And in this one, we learn that Castro appeared on the radio with Hugo Chávez, “sounding lucid and in good humor.”

Isn’t it nice when Castro sounds lucid and in good humor? That was nice about Stalin, too. Remember the words of Joseph Davies, our idiot ambassador: Stalin was “a man upon whose knee a child would like to sit.” No doubt.

Anyway, Ms. Snow tells us that, in a meeting shortly before the radio appearance, Chávez “sang revolutionary hymns to Castro.” He also called him “father of all revolutionaries.” In addition, he called him, “Our father, who is in the water, earth, and air.”

Most strikingly, Ms. Snow tells us that Chávez gave Castro a painting “he said he made while imprisoned in the early 1990s after leading a failed coup. The dark-colored painting showed the bars of his cell and a night scene beyond, with a full red moon and a guard tower in the distance.”

That is really cool. I wonder whether Anita Snow could ever consider meeting and writing about Castro’s many, many political prisoners. Perhaps one or two of them even have artistic talent.

But then that would require the press to acknowledge that Castro's prisons are filled with men and women who have dared to speak truth to power -- real power, malignant power -- and paid the price.

And when forced to see what happens to those who dare to defy a real dictator, American reporters and their fellow travelers would be hard-pressed to maintain the fiction that dissent of any kind has been stifled by the Right during the eight years of the Bush Administration.

Talk about an inconvenient truth.

Posted by Mike Lief at 09:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Commies not so hot for scribblers

The group Reporters Without Borders released its ranking of countries, based on how badly they interfere with freedom of the press, and the worst offenders are, in order:

Eritrea,

North Korea,

Turkmenistan,

Iran,

Cuba,

Myanmar Burma,

and China.

I find it fascinating that three of the worst places on Earth when it comes to freedom of speech are Communist-run dictatorships, the kinds of places routinely lauded by leftists as workers' paradises, where people are free to live without being exploited and oppressed by their capitalist masters.

They're so bad that even a lefty group like Reporters Without Borders couldn't ignore the plight of their colleagues. Of course RWB can't quite let go of the dogma that the West is still intent on stifling dissent; they couldn't bear to admit that the United States has the freest press in the world, figuring out a way to keep the U.S. out of the top-tier.

Northern European nations Iceland, Norway and Estonia were deemed the countries where journalists have the most liberty.

The United States was ranked 48 on a list of 169, gaining ground slightly for the first time since Reporters Without Borders began compiling the list five years ago. In 2002 when the group released its first list, the United States was 17th, but has since steadily declined because of limits on journalists linked to the war in Iraq and anti-terrorism policies. Last year it was 53rd.

Funny, I haven't seen a reduction in the volume of anti-America, anti-Bush, anti-Iraq War articles being published by the media; what limits are they talking about? From reports on the supposed abuse of terrorist detainees to the endless series of New York Times articles revealing details of U.S. surveillance and anti-terrorism operations, American journalists seem to have complete freedom -- freedom to publish whatever they please, no matter how damaging to national security and the fight against our enemies.

Which is to be expected, given the J-School training many would-be Woodwards and Bernsteins get, indoctrinating them that they are citizens of the world, not parochial scribes of a corrupt, Bush-led Reich.

Repressive governments are increasingly targeting bloggers, the group said. At least 64 people are currently imprisoned worldwide because of what they posted on the Internet, most of them in China which ranked 163rd.

It was the first time Eritrea had reached the bottom spot on the list, compiled by the Paris-based media watchdog and its network of more than 100 correspondents, legal experts and human rights activists worldwide.

"Eritrea deserves to be at the bottom," the group said in a statement. "The privately owned press has been banished by the authoritarian President Issaias Afeworki and the few journalists who dare to criticize the regime are sent off to prison camps."

Media freedom has not improved in Russia, ranked 144th, the group said, blaming failure to punish those responsible for murdering journalists and limited diversity in the media.

The group welcomed overall improvement in media rights in the world's rich democracies, including France and Japan, but noted that only two members of the G-8 - Canada and Germany - were in the list's top 20.

Canada and Germany are in the top 20? Did you know that in Germany, so-called "hate speech" can be criminally prosecuted, which is the very definition of thought control. And Canada is only moderately less interested in policing its citizens ability to say what they think.

Canada has no freedom of the press as we understand it, with judges routinely ordering newspapers to refrain from reporting on court proceedings, forcing Canadians to read American websites to find out what's happening in their own country.

And yet both of these nations are supposedly more dedicated to freedom of expression than the United States.

Hey, Reporters Without Borders, your bias is showing.

Update

On a related note, Seth Leibsohn and Andrew McCarthy say that American journalists are pressing for official recognition that they are above the law -- and officially not required to shoulder the same burdens and responsibilities as the rest of us yokels.

Posted by Mike Lief at 08:40 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 15, 2007

Judicial Jackassery - Monday morning edition

The black-robed poltroons of California's Central District have opined in Thomas v. Baca that making L.A. County's inmates sleep on the floor -- on mattresses! -- constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, a violation of the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

No word yet on the constitutionality of denying prisoners La-Z-Boy Recliners, down comforters and 400-thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets.

Posted by Mike Lief at 08:32 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

You must have meant something more intelligent

Christopher Hitchens, the former socialist and still outspoken atheist, came to speak at the annual Freedom From Religion Conference, where mockery of religion is the order of the day.

Hitchens, an Englishman with fearsome rhetorical skills, gave his hosts red meat, flaying, flambéing and lambasting believers in a speech sure to enrage peoples of all faiths.

But his audience got more than they bargained for when the subject turned to the war in Iraq and the subject of Islamist fundamentalism; the standing ovations soon petered out ...

... once Hitchens turned to rebuke the audience, mostly members of the agnostic organization Freedom From Religion Foundation, for not “coming out as atheists” and “taking on jihad” in the Middle East.

At the 30th annual FFRC conference, the author of “God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything” concluded with remarks he predicted “will slightly piss you off,” saying world suffering will not end until everyone stands up against the evils and war promoted by Islam.

FFRF Co-President Dan Barker met Hitchens on stage to present him with the “Emperor Has No Clothes Award,” which recognizes public figures who “are not afraid to just tell it like it is,” according to Barker.

Responding to a question from an audience member on what he said was the futility of killing Muslims in Iraq to end extremism, Hitchens parodied:

“ ‘How does killing them lessen their numbers?’ You must have meant something more intelligent. … We worry too much in America about our ‘right’ to be in Iraq.

“Make them worry. Make them run scared. … I’m going to fight these people and every other theocrat all the way. All the way. You should be ashamed sneering at the people guarding you as you sleep.”

The group was right to award Hitchens the “Emperor Has No Clothes Award.” Love him or loathe him (often in the same paragraph!) the man is “not afraid to just tell it like it is,” no matter the audience. And despite my rejection of his monochromatic views on religion, he was -- and is -- spot on in his analysis of the challenge the West faces from the forces of the mediaeval Muslim fundamentalists.

Hitch recognizes that he and his fellow atheists will be given no quarter by the scimitar-wielding jihaids. When will his co-irreligionists get the message?

Posted by Mike Lief at 07:52 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 14, 2007

More on the Bore Gore


And the reviews from globaloney skeptics keep pouring in.

Czech President Vaclav Klaus, who has led a personal crusade for months against “the hysteria” surrounding global warming, said he was astonished yesterday by the award of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize to former US vice-president Al Gore.

Vaclav Klaus “is a bit surprised that Al Gore has received a peace prize because the connection between his activities and world peace are vague and not very clear”, a statement released by the president’s office said. “It appears rather that the fact that Al Gore raises doubts about the fundamental building blocks of contemporary civilisation does not contribute much to peace."

I know, he's just another politician; what the hell do they know?

What? Gore's a politician, too? No, he's a political scientist -- the world is his laboratory, you dolt.

Where was I before I so rudely interrupted myself?

Speaking about critics who aren't qualified to criticise St. Albert, how about a reknowned scientist?

ONE of the world's foremost meteorologists has called the theory that helped Al Gore share the Nobel Peace Prize "ridiculous" and the product of "people who don't understand how the atmosphere works".

Dr William Gray, a pioneer in the science of seasonal hurricane forecasts, told a packed lecture hall at the University of North Carolina that humans were not responsible for the warming of the earth.

His comments came on the same day that the Nobel committee honoured Mr Gore for his work in support of the link between humans and global warming.

"We're brainwashing our children," said Dr Gray, 78. "They're going to the Gore movie [An Inconvenient Truth] and being fed all this. It's ridiculous."

Dr Gray, whose annual forecasts of the number of tropical storms and hurricanes are widely publicised, said a natural cycle of ocean water temperatures - related to the amount of salt in ocean water - was responsible for the global warming that he acknowledges has taken place.

However, he said, that same cycle meant a period of cooling would begin soon and last for several years.

"We'll look back on all of this in 10 or 15 years and realise how foolish it was," Dr Gray said.

Dr Gray also said those who had linked global warming to the increased number of hurricanes in recent years were in error.

He cited statistics showing there were 101 hurricanes from 1900 to 1949, in a period of cooler global temperatures, compared to 83 from 1957 to 2006 when the earth warmed.

"The human impact on the atmosphere is simply too small to have a major effect on global temperatures," Dr Gray said.

Well, if it's all bunk, why'd Gore win the Prize?

My guess is the Nobel committee saw this as another opportunity to give a one-finger salute to Pres. Bush; the dislike for the president is as strong in Geneva as it is in other foreign hotbeds of anti-American activity, places like New York City and San Francisco.

It'll be interesting to see if Gore walks the walk and makes a video appearance at the awards ceremony, or adds to his gigantic carbon footprint and flies over with his entourage.

Posted by Mike Lief at 09:38 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 13, 2007

Great blog

http://www.lighthawks.blogspot.com/

Posted by Mike Lief at 12:57 PM

October 12, 2007

Not quite all the news that's fit to print

NY Times biased story.jpg

The NY Times -- and the rest of the MSM -- had an eye-catching story today, one that touted another high-profile public figure turning against the Bush Administration and the war in Iraq. What made this story especially noteworthy was the identity of the critic: the former commander of U.S. forces in Iraq.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 12 — In a sweeping indictment of the four-year effort in Iraq, the former top commander of American forces there called the Bush administration’s handling of the war “incompetent” and said the result was “a nightmare with no end in sight.”

Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, who retired in 2006 after being replaced in Iraq after the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal, blamed the Bush administration for a “catastrophically flawed, unrealistically optimistic war plan” and denounced the current addition of American forces as a “desperate” move that would not achieve long-term stability.

“After more than four years of fighting, America continues its desperate struggle in Iraq without any concerted effort to devise a strategy that will achieve victory in that war-torn country or in the greater conflict against extremism,” General Sanchez said at a gathering of military reporters and editors in Arlington, Va.

Posted by Mike Lief at 11:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Oh, please


Apple Inc. blows kisses at the Goreacle in its ever-so-stylish way. Note the elegant simplicity of the white background, with the subtle reflection of Mankind's secular savior's photo, as if resting on a polished surface.

Not everyone is so enamored with Gore's so-called accomplishments.

Take, for instance, Damian Thompson, writing for Britain's Telegraph

The former US Vice-President has already taken over from Michael Moore as the most sanctimonious lardbutt Yank on the planet. Can you imagine what he'll be like now that the Norwegian Nobel committee has given him the prize?

Just after Gore won an Oscar for his global warming documentary, An Inconvenient Truth - in which he asked American households to cut their use of electricity - the Tennessee Centre for Policy Research took a look at Al's energy bills.

It reckoned that his 20-room, eight-bathroom mansion in Nashville sometimes uses twice the energy in one month that the average American household gets through in a year. The combined energy and gas bills for his estate came to nearly $30,000 in 2006. Ah, say his defenders, but he uses rainwater to flush his lavatories. Is there enough rainwater in the world, I wonder?

There are so many reasons why Gore shouldn't have won the peace prize for his preachiness. Alas, it is too late to influence their decision, but I'd have liked to refer the judges to a ruling by Mr Justice Burton, a High Court judge who has criticised the Government for sending out An Inconvenient Truth to schools without a health warning. The reason? It's full of errors and unsubstantiated claims.

The judge is not saying that Gore's basic thesis is wrong (and nor am I). In a way, his findings are more damning than that.

Gore claims that the rises in carbon dioxide and temperature over 650,000 years show an "exact fit". That's wrong, says Mr Justice Burton: there is a connection, but not a precise correlation.

Gore predicts sea levels rising by up to 20ft in the near future. Not so, according to the judge: that will happen only after millions of years.

Those low-lying Pacific atolls that Gore claims have been evacuated? No evidence. Polar bears who drowned swimming to look for ice? Again, no evidence: four bears have drowned - but because of a storm.

None of which will surprise seasoned Gore-watchers. The man is not, as his enemies maintained when he ran against George W. Bush in 2000, a pants-on-fire liar. He's an exaggerator and a braggart.

Gore struggles with his memory, too. [M]y favourite Gore memory lapse is his account of being sung to sleep with the lullaby Look for the Union Label, written in 1975. How sweet: being sung to sleep by your parents at the age of 27.

But there is a more fundamental objection to awarding Gore the peace prize that goes beyond issues of character. Climate change is a threat to the environment, not to "peace" and international order. The prize has gone to some sleazy recipients in the past, but at least you can make a case that their actions staved off bloodshed.

The Nobel Peace Prize committee lost all credibility when they decided Yasser Arafat -- a terrorist responsible for the deaths of countless men, women and children -- had somehow become a peace-loving statesman, notwithstanding his failure to ever express remorse for the blood he and his thugs spilled over nearly forty years.

Gore? He's just the latest, leastest in what will surely be an ever-less-relevant -- and less-deserving -- series of prize winners.

Big deal.

Posted by Mike Lief at 09:18 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Worst ex-president ever

On a day when Al Gore joins the ranks of frauds, tyrants, liars and fools who have been awarded the once prestigious Nobel Peace Prize, why don't we check in on a previous recipient, who also happens to be the worst ex-president in our nation's history.

US President George W. Bush's administration tortures detainees in defiance of international law, former US president Jimmy Carter charged Wednesday.

"I don't think it, I know it, certainly," Carter told CNN television when asked if he believed the US administration allowed the use of torture.

Carter rejected Bush's statement last week that the United States does not torture terror suspects.

"That's not an accurate statement, if you use the international norms of torture as has always been honored, certainly in the last 60 years, since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was promulgated," Carter said in the interview.

"But you can make your own definition of human rights and say, 'we don't violate them.' And ... you can make your own definition of torture and say 'we don't violate it,'" said the former Democratic president and Nobel laureate.

Asked if Bush was lying, Carter said: "The president is self-defining what we have done and authorized in the torture of prisoners, yes."

Those who commit torture were violating international law, Carter said.

The White House rejected Carter's comments and reiterated that the administration does not condone torture.

An ex-president, calling the current president a liar, broadcasting to the world his belief that the United States is guilty of crimes against humanity, based on international standards that have defined "torture" down to include things that don't involve injuring the persons being interrogated.

Using Carter's ever-so-subjective standards, I'd include forcing detainees to listen to any of Jimmah's books-on-tape, read by the author, on the list of cruel and unusual methods.

But let's not stop there; Jimmah has outdone himself, with a comment that reveals more about his narcissism and moral blindness than he intended.

Historian Victor Davis Hanson notes:

The inconsideration of Jimmy Carter never ceases to amaze. Apparently, he is convinced that his Christian piety provides a pass for an ungenerous disposition, that comes across as self-centered and -absorbed—whether campaigning for a Nobel Prize by publicly attacking his president at a time of war, or smearing democratic Israel, or snide comments about his successors. But that being said, I'm surprised at his latest quip:

"I have a specific regret in not having one more helicopter when I wanted to rescue our hostages. If I had had one more helicopter, they would have been rescued. I might have been reelected president."

Aside from the obvious that someone like the equivocator Carter, who sent Ramsey Clark to appease the terrorists, would always have one too few military assets, the statement is extremely callous.

That April 1980 rescue mission ("Operation Eagle Claw") was a catastrophe, costing the lives of 8 Americans, as well as over a dozen wounded, and top-secret plans falling into Iranian hands, as well as dispersion of the hostages.

Carter seems to see the disaster not in terms of innate planning ineptness that led to death and mayhem of our troops, but as a wrong decision that cost him his precious reelection.

To make explicit what Hanson implies, note that Carter's lament of "For want of a chopper, my election was lost!" never makes mention of the American Marines and airmen who were killed trying to rescue the hostages.

I don't give a damn about Jimmah's regrets -- and I thank God that his damage was limited to one term -- but his continuing status as liberal saint, defender of the downtrodden, all too often fails to take note of his disdain for actual individuals, of real people, preferring to deal in victim groups.

Apparently the warriors who fell in service to this incompetent Commander in Chief aren't worth mentioning in the midst of his self-pitying lament.

These are the men who died in the Iranian desert on April 24, 1980:

U.S. Marine Corps

SSGT Dewey L. Johnson, age 31
SGT John D. Harvey, age 21
CPL George N. Holmes, Jr., age 22

U.S. Air Force

MAJ Richard L. Bakke, age 33
MAJ Harold L. Lewis, age 35
CAPT Lyn D. McIntosh, age 33
CAPT Charles T. McMillan, II, age 28
TSGT Joel C. Mayo, age 34

I wonder how the families of these men feel about St. Jimmah's regrets.

Posted by Mike Lief at 06:33 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Meat vs. Fish

Unlike Gerg Gutfeld and Joe Sherlock, I do like seafood, but Gutfeld's explanation of why he won't partake of the ocean's bounty is pretty funny.

Look. I don't eat seafood. Never have. Never will. I have my reasons. First, people say fish is good if it doesn't smell "fishy." I don't say that about steak. "Hey at least it doesn't smell steaky." Fish stink because they come from the sea - which is a giant toilet. People pee in it. No one pees on cows, unless the cow has requested as much in a Craigslist ad. And shellfish are oversized insects. If they were smaller, they would be roaches. However, a tiny cow is basically a meat ball. And meat balls are delicious, because they're essentially meat, in ball-form.

Good point about cows and Craigslist. I think I'll have the steak.

Posted by Mike Lief at 07:38 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

October 11, 2007

Free speech? Not for you, buddy!

Republicans aren't entitled to the same free-speech rights enjoyed by liberals, at least according to the people running Google.

Internet giant Google has banned advertisements critical of MoveOn.org, the far-left advocacy group that caused a national uproar last month when it received preferential treatment from The New York Times for its “General Betray Us” message.

The ads banned by Google were placed by a firm working for Republican Sen. Susan Collins’ re-election campaign. Collins is seeking her third term.

Earlier this week, Google told Lance Dutson, president of Maine Coast Designs, that the ads he placed for Collins had been removed and would not be allowed to resume because they violated Google’s trademark policy.

Google’s Web site states, “Google takes allegations of trademark infringement very seriously and, as a courtesy, we’re happy to investigate matters raised by trademark owners.” That suggests Google acted in response to a complaint by MoveOn.org.

The banned advertisements said, “Susan Collins is MoveOn’s primary target. Learn how you can help” and “Help Susan Collins stand up to the MoveOn.org money machine.” The ads linked to Collins’ campaign Web site with a headline reading “MoveOn.org has made Susan Collins their #1 target.” The Collins Web site claims that MoveOn has contributed $250,000 to her likely Democratic opponent and has run nine ads against her costing nearly $1 million. The Web site also displays MoveOn.org’s controversial “General Betray Us” ad.

[...]

Ronald Coleman, a lawyer and leading expert on online intellectual property disputes, noted that, as a private company, Google has the right to treat different advertisers differently.

But he called Google’s removal of the Collins ads “troubling.” Coleman says that there is no such requirement under trademark law and that Google appears to be selectively enforcing its policy.

“In a recent ruling, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the notion that there is anything like a cause of action under the Lanham Act, the statue governing trademark law in the United States, for so-called ‘trademark disparagement,’ ” Coleman said. The courts have also rejected the notion that the use of a trademark as a search term is a “legally cognizable use” as a trademark use under federal trademark law, he added. Coleman is also general counsel for the Media Bloggers Association.

Google routinely permits the unauthorized use of company names such as Exxon, Wal-Mart, Cargill and Microsoft in advocacy ads. An anti-war ad currently running on Google asks “Keep Blackwater in Iraq?” and links to an article titled “Bastards at Blackwater — Should Blackwater Security be held accountable for the deaths of its employees?”

Nice.

Liberals: standing up for the rights of terrorists, criminals -- and other liberals.

Apparently, conservatives have no rights -- unless they rape, murder, molest or become oppressed.

Thanks to Google, we have a fantastic example of civil liberties in 21st Century America: Freedom of speech for me, not for thee.

Posted by Mike Lief at 08:08 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Celebrity justice

I've previously written about how Ventura County has changed since I arrived back in '96, exchanging its reputation as a tough-on-crime jurisdiction for a kinder, gentler, more criminal-friendly venue, sort of a San Francisco South -- except that 'Frisco is perceived by some local attorneys as being tougher on crime, Bay Area judges issuing the kind of sentences that would be deemed unduly harsh by the standards of the Ventura bench.

Apparently, Los Angeles has toughened up, too, as seen by the sentence handed down to actress Michelle Rodriguez, after she violated her DUI probation.

Former "Lost" star Michelle Rodriguez was sentenced Wednesday to six months in jail for failing to complete community service and alcohol monitoring as part of her probation from a previous drunk driving incident.

Rodriguez appeared before Superior Court Judge Daviann L. Mitchell, who ordered her to report to the county jail on Christmas Eve, the city attorney's office said.

Rodriguez "admitted violation of her probation by failing to provide proof of community service and by consuming alcohol three times while wearing an alcohol monitoring device," City Attorney spokesman Frank Mateljan said.

"She did file a document that said she completed community service on September 25th, but we obtained evidence that she was in New York that day," Mateljan said.

The document was required as part of 30 days of community service Rodriguez was ordered to serve for violating probation in a 2003 drunken driving case.

Mitchell ordered Rodriguez to complete the community service cleaning streets and highways, and prohibited her from being granted early release for work furlough or electronic monitoring, Mateljan said.

Rodriguez was on three years probation after pleading no contest to hit-and-run, driving on a suspended license and drunken driving in connection with two incidents in Hollywood in 2003.

She violated her probation when she was arrested in Hawaii on a drunken driving charge in 2005.

Rodriguez was ordered to spend 60 days in jail, but served less than a day because of jail overcrowding in May 2006. She was then ordered to perform community service and remain on probation until June 2009.

Holy smokes! A celebrity gets 180 days for a violation of probation? In the motion picture capital of the world? And this in a week when Kiefer Sutherland reportedly got 48 days for a second offense DUI while on probation!

To put this in perspective, I can't remember the last time anyone in Ventura County was slapped with 180 days in the slammer for violating her misdemeanor DUI probation (feel free to correct me).

To put this in celebrity perspective, when former sitcom actress Tracey Gold crashed her minivan while driving drunk a few years back, leaving her husband and one child with broken bones, a Ventura County judge not only reduced the charge to a misdemeanor (the District Attorney had filed it as a felony), but the judge refused to give the actress any jail, sentencing the celebrity to community service.

I guess Hollywood is learning its lesson: If celebrities want to take a walk on the drunken side, don't do it in L.A.

Ventura's much more accommodating.

Posted by Mike Lief at 07:32 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 09, 2007

GOP debate 2


Link: sevenload.com

Posted by Mike Lief at 10:42 PM

GOP debate

The presidential debates have so far left me feeling underwhelmed, and the latest was no exception. I'm not enthused about any of the would-be nominees, leading me to believe that this will be another instance of cutting from the bottom and seeing who's left over.

Tonight's GOP debate was the first one to include Fred Thompson, the guy I want to be better than the rest; he started off a little slow, but seemed to gain confidence as time passed, projecting a sort of avuncular folksiness without any schmaltz.

And his answers were okay on the substance, too.

I thought Thompson and Giuliani were the two strongest candidates participating in the forum, with Romney and Huckabee rounding out the ranks of the top contenders (although Romney leaves me cold, not withstanding his polish).

McCain looked wan and old; he's a decade past his sell-by date, which would really be of interest if he hadn't spent that decade alienating the GOP base.



Link: sevenload.com


Check out Thompson's response after co-moderator Chris Matthews decides it's too boring trying (and failing) to be impartial; the juicy-talking "journalist" tells the candidate that he should have left his answer at "No," rather than explaining in greater detail what he meant.

Thompson asks, "Who asked for your opinion, Christopher?"

I've never heard anyone call Matthews anything other than "Chris," or maybe "Chrissy."

"Christopher" left a puddle, so drenched in dry condescension it was.



Link: sevenload.com


Romney's response to a hypothetical involving an attack on Iran to prevent an imminent threat to the U.S. was simply horrible; he defaulted to "consulting lawyers" as the first thing he would do as the Commander in Chief. The last thing we need is a president interested in waging lawfare on our enemies.

Stiff, inauthentic, political hack; Romney hits the trifecta -- and drops out of my top tier (if he ever truly was in it).

Ron Paul offers another of his wild-eyed, arm-waving, shouting responses, one that draws a sharp -- and well deserved -- rebuke from Rudy Giuliani.

Brownback, Tancredo and some other guy added nothing to the debate; the sooner they figure out they're also rans, the better.

Posted by Mike Lief at 10:36 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Under Distant Stars with Michael Yon

There's another not-to-be-missed dispatch from Michael Yon, America's greatest living war correspondent.

This time, Yon writes of the warriors who have fallen -- some for the last time -- and the survivors' post-battle care and recovery, with many doing their utmost to rejoin their comrades in the field. It's a moving tribute to our nation's finest men.

Read it, then hit the tip jar. Yon's ability to stay in Iraq and report depends on the contributions of people like you and me.

Posted by Mike Lief at 10:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Judicial Jackassery update

It's an article of faith amongst American leftists that the United States is the biggest violator of human rights in the history (or is that herstory?) of the world, and the military prison at Gitmo where Muslim terrorists are held is the worst of the worst, a veritable black hole of purported torture, rudeness and Koran-abuse.

So, you'd think that a member of the pointy-headed, pseudo-intellectual, America-hating elite (aka, a federal judge) would be overjoyed at the thought of a poor, profiled and oppressed jihadi being released from his extra-constitutional prison and returned to his rightful place in the exotically ethnic, untainted-by-Western-Christianist-ideals Third-World paradise from whence he came.

But then you hadn't figured for the x factor: judicial jackassery.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — A federal judge in Washington blocked the Pentagon from transferring a Guantanamo Bay detainee to Tunisia, where he allegedly faces torture, according to a ruling unsealed Tuesday that marked a milestone in the treatment of detainees.

The order by U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler was unprecedented as a direct intervention in the case of a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay, where some 330 men accused of links to Al Qaeda or the Taliban are held, the detainee's lawyers said.

"It's the first time the judiciary has given a detainee any substantive right — in this case it is the right not to be tortured by the Tunisian government," said Joshua Denbeaux, the lawyer for Mohammed Abdul Rahman, the Tunisian detainee.

Kessler said that Rahman, who has a heart condition, was convicted in absentia in Tunisia, sentenced to 20 years in prison and allegedly would face torture there, demonstrating "the devastating and irreparable harm he is likely to face if transferred."

In the Oct. 2 ruling kept under seal until Tuesday, Kessler granted a preliminary injunction to halt the Defense Department's move to transfer Rahman to Tunisia. He was captured in Pakistan and allegedly handed over for a bounty.

The judge issued the halt to Rahman's transfer pending a decision by the Supreme Court on detainee rights at the U.S. naval base in Cuba.

The high court has been asked to determine whether Guantanamo detainees can use civilian courts to challenge their indefinite imprisonment under an age-old right known as habeas corpus. The justices twice before have ruled that suspected terrorists could pursue such challenges in civilian courts, but each time, the Bush administration and Congress, then under Republican control, changed the law to try to limit the detainees' rights.

In her ruling, Kessler said "it is imperative" that her court "protect its jurisdiction until the Supreme Court issues a definitive ruling."

Yeah, it's "imperative" that we retain jurisdiction over this terrorist turd, so he can avoid some old-school justice back in the old country.

Well whattay know? Suddenly there seems to be worse places to be be incarcerated than the Navy brig at Gitmo. At least in the eyes of Judge Kessler, self-appointed guardian of the welfare of brigands and cutthroats who would saw her head off and post the video on the internet if given the chance.

Will no member of the executive or legislative branch stand in the path of the runaway judicial juggernaut and cry, "Enough!"?

Pres. Bush, the commander in chief, should order this thug onto a military transport forthwith and deliver him unto his Tunisian brethren.

Once Muhammed is airborne, he should follow the lead of Pres. Andrew Jackson -- who resolved his own dispute with the judiciary by ignoring a high court ruling, saying, "The Supreme Court has made its decision, now let them enforce it." -- and tell Kessler and her brethren to piss off.

Posted by Mike Lief at 09:21 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Science, history and Agincourt

Don't let "physics" in the title scare you off; "Physics of Medieval Archery" is an interesting explanation of how the English triumphed against the French at Agincourt.

And, no, they didn't win because they were facing the French.

It is sobering to combine these facts with some historical data.

[English King] Henry V had approximately 5,000 archers at Agincourt, and a stock of about 400,000 arrows. Each archer could shoot about ten arrows a minute, so the army only had enough ammunition for about eight minutes of shooting at maximum fire power. However, this fire power would have been devastating. Fifty thousand arrows a minute - over 800 a second - would have hissed down on the French cavalry, killing hundreds of men a minute and wounding many more.

The function of a company of medieval archers seems to have been equivalent to that of a machine-gunner, so in modern terms we can imagine Agincourt as a battle between old-fashioned cavalry, supported by a few snipers (crossbow-men) on the French side, against a much smaller army equipped with machine guns.

Perhaps from this point of view the most remarkable fact about the battle is that the French ignored the very great military advantages of the longbow.

It's impossible to ignore that this would not be the last time the French ignored significant innovations in equipment or tactics.

Read the whole thing.

And when you're done, you must listen to Kenneth Branagh deliver Shakespeare's rousing speech by Henry V to the troops before battle .

Posted by Mike Lief at 08:08 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

October 08, 2007

Scamming the taxpayer

When Pres. Bush vetoed the Democrat-backed super-sizing of the SCHIP insurance program, the Dems had a 12-year-old kid deliver their response in an attempt to Mau-Mau conservatives into submission by using -- using -- a doe-eyed, cute-as-a-button, sick pre-teen to deliver the message that the GOP hates underprivileged, ill kids.

The MSM did a stellar job, if by that you mean uncritically publishing the propaganda of the Left, taking at face value the Dems' statement that the boy's family couldn't afford health insurance. It seems Graeme Frost was badly injured in a traffic accident; taxpayer-funded SCHIP paid for his care.

But the unwashed cyber-masses started digging, and guess what a blogger discovered after he started fact-checking a Baltimore Sun puff piece on the Frost family.

Brutally Honest found that the Frosts live in a 3,000-square-foot house in the Butchers Hill historic district of Baltimore.

The children attend the private Park School, where tuition is $20,000 a year each. Maybe that is subsidized. Interesting that public schools aren’t good enough for their kids but public health insurance is.

The Frosts contend they live on $45,000 and cannot afford health insurance. He’s a self-employed woodworker.

And they appear to be land rich, cash poor. He bought a building for $160,000 in 1999 and their house mortgage appears to be worth $200,000.

The Frosts found an “affordable” business building and an “affordable” 3,000-square foot house and an “affordable” private school. Why couldn’t these yuppies afford to cover their own damned kids?

I have a few questions about so many poor odd choices. Why doesn't the kid's father -- who is self-employed -- buy an insurance policy? Why doesn't the mother look for a job with health benefits? Why not send two of the kids to public school and use the $40,000 for health insurance premiums?

The answer is, I suppose, "Why bother?" After all, the taxpayers (aka the schmucks like you and me) will pick up the tab for the Frost parents' choosing lifestyle over responsibility.

The Frosts are living with the results of an economic cost-benefit analysis: big house, fancy schools, Dad's the boss and healthcare paid for by his neighbors.

That makes him -- in the eyes of the Dems -- a member of the economic underclass.

I think it means he's living on our dime -- and makes us suckers.

Posted by Mike Lief at 06:41 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 07, 2007

More multi-culti madness

From England comes more signs that radical Muslims -- emboldened by the willingness of multi-culti libs to make concessions in the interest of "sensitivity" -- are demanding further changes in Western society.

This time, it's the Hippocratic Oath that's at risk.

Some Muslim medical students are refusing to attend lectures or answer exam questions on alcohol-related or sexually transmitted diseases because they claim it offends their religious beliefs.

Some trainee doctors say learning to treat the diseases conflicts with their faith, which states that Muslims should not drink alcohol and rejects sexual promiscuity.

A small number of Muslim medical students have even refused to treat patients of the opposite sex. One male student was prepared to fail his final exams rather than carry out a basic examination of a female patient.

The religious objections by students have been confirmed by the British Medical Association (BMA) and General Medical Council (GMC), which both stressed that they did not approve of such actions.

Ooh, the BMA "did not approve." That'll teach those fanatical Mohammedans. Such criticism almost rises to the level of the British government's ever-so-firm statement in September 1939, expressing "disappointment in Herr Hitler's unauthorized field-trip across the Polish border."

And why shouldn't they demand a change in the curriculum? After all, previous demands have been met; a supermarket chain is allowing Muslims to avoid handling booze.

Sainsbury’s is permitting Muslim checkout operators to refuse to handle customers’ alcohol purchases on religious grounds. It means other members of staff have to be called over to scan in wine and beer for them at the till.

This weekend, it emerged that Sainsbury’s is also allowing its Muslim pharmacists to refuse to sell the morning-after pill to customers.

The BMA said it had received reports of Muslim students who did not want to learn anything about alcohol or the effects of overconsumption. “They are so opposed to the consumption of it they don’t want to learn anything about it,” said a spokesman.

The GMC said it had received requests for guidance over whether students could “omit parts of the medical curriculum and yet still be allowed to graduate”. Professor Peter Rubin, chairman of the GMC’s education committee, said: “Examples have included a refusal to see patients who are affected by diseases caused by alcohol or sexual activity, or a refusal to examine patients of a particular gender.”

He added that “prejudicing treatment on the grounds of patients’ gender or their responsibility for their condition would run counter to the most basic principles of ethical medical practice”.

Shazia Ovaisi, a GP in north London, said one of her male Muslim contemporaries at medical school failed to complete his training because he refused to examine a woman patient as part of his final exams.

Both the Muslim Council of Britain and Muslim Doctors and Dentist Association said they were aware of students opting out but did not support them.

Dr Abdul Majid Katme, of the Islamic Medical Association, said: “To learn about alcohol, to learn about sexually transmitted disease, to learn about abortion, it gives us more evidence to campaign against it. There is a difference between learning and practising.

“It is obligatory for Muslim doctors and students to learn about everything. The prophet said, ‘Learn about witchcraft, but don’t practise it’.”

Anyone care to wager how long it'll be before the rules are changed? How long will the Brits withstand allegations of insensitivity and racism, a result of Muslim med students being held back as a result of their religious beliefs?

I am not confident that Britain has the stones to hold fast and tell these whiners to piss off -- but they should.

Posted by Mike Lief at 11:22 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 06, 2007

I'd Rather not, if you don't mind

As Dan Rather fades away into well-deserved obscurity -- notwithstanding his ludicrous lawsuit against CBS -- it's worthwhile reviewing another example of the journalistic expertise and gravitas he brought to bear on the most important issues of the day.

Like this clip, summarizing his 20-minute exploration of whether or not to wear a trench coat on camera.

Dolt.

Posted by Mike Lief at 12:21 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 05, 2007

Cruel and unusual punishment

With the U.S. Supreme Court ready to weigh in (yet again) on the latest challenge to the death penalty, one of the guys at Patterico's blog says that every appellate brief on a capital case should begin with the facts of this crime:

A judge sentenced Julian Beltran to death for slitting the throats of his girlfriend and two young daughters.

The estranged boyfriend and father had slain each family member in a fit of rage at their Sun Valley home in 2002. He then fled from the nearly decapitated remains, dialed 911 in a cry of remorse and begged to end his life in a “suicide by cop.”

It was on Jan. 23, 2002, that 200-pound Beltran, upset over the breakup of his family, returned home after a three-month separation.

Prosecutors argued that he’d bought a knife, beat Barahona and slashed her throat as she watched TV, nearly cutting off her head. Then, they said, he marched into the bedroom to kill his daughters.

Marissa, who was awake, suffered 14 knife wounds and four 9-inch cuts to her neck.

Her 22-pound sister likely died in her sleep, her throat sliced from ear to ear, two weeks before her 2nd birthday.

A bloody handprint, left by Marissa, hung on the wall above her bed.

Deputy District Attorney Andrea Thompson said it was because of the heinous stabbing of the children that Beltran deserved the death penalty.

“Nothing can overcome what that child went through, nothing,” co-prosecutor Rose de Mattia told the judge. “The kid fought for her life against her father - the man who loved her, who was supposed to protect her.

“He murdered her, and she knew it.”

Death penalty opponents want us to halt executions because the condemned killers experience some fear and pain.

Well, I hope they do -- a prelude to an eternity of agony, if one believes in the concept of Hell.

These impassioned pleas for mercy on behalf of cold-blooded murderers who have shown no such concern for their victims betrays an appalling lack of compassion for the actual victims, those who have no voice -- perhaps because scum like Beltran slit their throats or nearly cut their heads off.

In the comments on Patterico's site comes this brilliant suggestion, already vetted by liberal opponents to the death penalty:

We have, from the Teri Schiavo case, testimony that dying of dehydration is painless.

Indeed. We could humanely starve and dehydrate death row prisoners. Humanely because liberals assure us this is painless. Brilliant.

It's all bullshit, this concern over lethal injection being "cruel and unusual." Know how I know this? Ask anyone raising the issue as a justification for halting executions, "What method would you find acceptable?"

There isn't one, which makes this line of attack disingenuous in the extreme.

If we wanted to make it quick, painless and foolproof, we'd give the condemned a Quaalude and send him to the guillotine, or take a lesson from that workers' paradise, Communist China, where they spend less than 10 cents and put a bullet in the back of the corrupt politician's head.

Too bloody? It's still a better death than the one Marissa got.

Posted by Mike Lief at 08:53 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

It's like Godzilla versus Mothra

Update II

RawStory.com has posted the video, so the version above should play.

Update

YouTube has taken the video down, but CBS posted a transcript of the interview; you can read it in the extended entry below.


It's like Godzilla versus Mothra -- if they were both liberal media types, and Mothra issued spittle-flecked, run-on diatribes from a slick, saliva-coated mouth with white stuff caught in the corners (Yeah, Chris Matthews, I'm talkin' 'bout you!).

Matthews goes on Jon Stewart's Daily Show to talk up his new book, and is taken aback when the host doesn't seem to care for it.

Notice how quickly Matthews starts in with nervous laughter when he realizes Stewart isn't going to roll over.

The best line comes at 2:14, when Stewart responds to an accusation that he's doing a hit piece on his guest by saying, "I'm not trashing your book; I'm trashing your philosophy of life."

Matthews tries defending his book -- and his philosophy -- by comparing himself to Machiavelli (no joke), telling Stewart that it's better than "The Prince," the centuries-old tome on conniving, scheming and strategizing your way into power, and how to hold on to it.

He asks Stewart what he found in the book, and gets an answer he doesn't like: "I thought that it was a recipe for sadness."

Frustrated, Matthews exclaims that this is the worst book interview he's had, demanding that he be allowed to tell a story.

Stewart tells his guest to go ahead, adding, "we'll just edit it out."

How bad do you have to be when a lib like the Daily Show host ain't buying the bunk you're selling?

There must be something in the talkshow water supply, what with Letterman's treatment of Paris Hilton, and now this.

I like it.

Jon Stewart: Life’s a Campaign. Now if I read this correctly, and I believe I read this book correctly, what you are saying is: People can use what politicians do in political campaigns to help their lives.

Chris Matthews: Yeah. It’s irony isn’t it?

Jon Stewart: It strikes me as fundamentally wrong. It strikes me as a self-hurt book, if you will. Aren’t campaigns, fundamentally, contrivances?

Chris Matthews: Yeah, campaigns can be. But politicians, the way they get to the top, is the real thing. They know what they’re doing. You don’t have to believe a word they say, but you have to watch how far they got. How did [Bill] Clinton get there? How did Hillary get there? How did all these guys get there? Reagan. They have methods to get to the top.

Jon Stewart: So you’re suggesting that even if noone believes a word you say, you can be successful.

Chris Matthews: Yes.

Jon Stewart: Now that seems to me to be a book about sadness. Is it not?

Chris Matthews: No.

Jon Stewart: How? In what world?

Chris Matthews: Can I give you one example of the truth here? Bill Clinton, when he was in college, would get women, girls, in bed…

Jon Stewart: Not just in college.

Chris Matthews:: … by listening. He listened to them. When friends of his couldn’t get the girls, he’d tell them ‘you gotta listen to them.’ I thought, growing up, that you drank beer and you bragged. But he says, you have to listen to them – it’s flattering. And it works.

Jon Stewart: It works if you care what they’re saying. But politicians often listen, but it’s a contrivance.

Chris Matthews: It’s not a contrivance. I’m listening to you.

Jon Stewart: No, you’re not.

Chris Matthews: How can I not? You’re trashing my book!

Jon Stewart: You don’t listen to anybody! I’m not trashing your book; I’m trashing your philosophy of life. Your book is an excellent recipe –

Chris Matthews: Do you want to succeed?

Jon Stewart: I’ve succeeded!

Chris Matthews: Do you want to have friends?

Jon Stewart: I have friends! I want real friends! Wait a minute. If you treat life like a campaign, at the end of your life do you give a concession speech?

Chris Matthews: No.

Jon Stewart: Well, then, it’s not a campaign.

Chris Matthews: It is a campaign. Everything about getting jobs, it’s about convincing someone to hire you. It’s about getting promotions. It’s about selling products. It’s always a campaign. It’s a campaign to get the girl of your dreams. It’s a campaign to do everything you want to do in life.

Jon Stewart: But there has to be some core of soul in there …

Chris Matthews: I’m not denying that. You’re a hard sell. Watch the Clintons. Watch how successful they are. Watch what they do. They do listen to people. Hillary Clinton went on a listening tour of the state of New York and won a Senate seat.

Jon Stewart: Labelling something a ‘listening tour’ doesn’t mean you’re listening. That’s what I’m saying. President Bush had a sign that said “Mission: Accomplished.” That doesn’t make it accomplished.

Chris Matthews: He wasn’t listening.

Jon Stewart: What campaigns are, are photo opportunities that are staged. And there’s nothing in this book about ‘Be Good. Be Competent.’

Chris Matthews: That’s the Bible. It’s been written.

Jon Stewart: This book has been written, too! It was called “The Prince.”

Chris Matthews: This book is better. Did you read it? What’d you think?

Jon Stewart: Yes, I read it. I thought it was a recipe for sadness. Only because when I read it I thought ‘This strikes me as artifice. If you live this book, your life will be strategy.’ This strikes me as saying success is finite.

Chris Matthews: No no. Because there’s a lot of good stories in it. To get ahead in life, people are good listeners, they’re optimistic people, they’re very good at asking for help because they don’t try to do it alone. And everytime the ask for help, they get more people invested in them.

Jon Stewart: On the campaign trail, that makes common sense. Listening to people, caring about people. But in this book, there’s stuff about “Attack Someone Where You Know Noone’s Going To Attack Them.”

Chris Matthews: I didn’t say that.

Jon Stewart: You tell the story about the guy in the campaign who attacked the other guy in the campaign on health care. And they asked him why he did that, and he said ‘cuz nobody else is attacking him on health care.’

Chris Matthews: No. He said he supported national health care because he knew his opponent wouldn’t do it because it looked like socialized medicine. He did what he thought was right. But that’s where he decided to strike, because he knew his opponent wouldn’t go with him.

Jon Stewart: That’s what I’m saying. Sometimes when you read the book, it seems like you’re saying ‘Do what you think will win,” not “Do what you think is right.”

Chris Matthews: Well, it’s both.

Jon Stewart: Well, this seems to emphasize the former.

Chris Matthews: It does! Can you come on ‘Hardball?’ We can play this both ways.

Jon Stewart: I don’t troll.

Chris Matthews: You are unbelievable. This is the book interview from hell. This is the worst interview I’ve ever had in my life. This is the worst. You are the worst. I thought you were so big, you weren’t afraid of me.

Jon Stewart: I’m not.

Chris Matthews: This book scares you. There’s something in this book you fear.

Jon Stewart: There is something in that book I fear. Like fascism. All I’m saying is this: I love what you do.

Chris Matthews: Can I tell a story?

Jon Stewart: You can. It’ll be edited out.

Chris Matthews: Okay. This is a book about good values, it’s a – it’s hopeless with you! You’re Zell Miller!

Jon Stewart: No. No duels for me. I appreciate it that you tried to …. I’ll come on your show and you can yell at me.

Posted by Mike Lief at 08:21 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Nothing Better To Do

I've always liked Leann Rimes, from the first time I heard (and couldn't believe) the voice bursting forth from a 13-year-old kid, in songs like "Blue" and "One Way Ticket."

She continued recording multi-platinum hits as she entered her late teens ("Big Deal" and "Committment"), releasing another smash country single at the ripe old age of 22, "Nothin' 'Bout Love Makes Sense."

If you like country music -- or if you simply enjoy listening to a singer with a fine voice sing songs with lyrics you can understand, give Rimes a try.

Her latest chart-climbing single, "Nothing Better To Do," finds Rimes in fine fettle, letting rip on another toe-tapping tune -- and the video features dancing jailhouse flappers.

What else could anyone ask for in musical entertainment?

Posted by Mike Lief at 08:01 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

October 03, 2007

Really, really important cars

Joe Sherlock discusses 10 Cars That Changed Everything, and I can't disagree with any of his picks (although the Studabaker has me on the fence).

Four of my favorite cars are included: the Jaguar XK-120, the 1961 Lincoln four-door convertible, the Volkswagen Beetle and the 1963 split-window Corvette Sting Ray. All classics, all relatively affordable if you wanted to pick up a cherry (except for the 'Vette).

And Joe's right about the Honda Civic; without it and the benchmark it set, Detroit would still be churning out horrible cars, instead of merely mediocre ones.

Posted by Mike Lief at 01:07 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Late-night smackdown

David Letterman vs. Jay Leno: the differences are stark, when insomnia strikes. Leno is a lowest-common denominator host, cracking witless jokes, slapping hands with the audience and relentlessly kissing the ass of every guest making an appearance to flack for her latest movie-CD-book-TV show-perfume.

Letterman, on the other hand .... I used to love this guy when I was in college; his snarkiness and sarcasm were a welcome relief from the traditional talkshow host. When Letterman chatted with a guest with whom he was less than impressed, he didn't conceal his feelings.

And when confronted with a celeb with pretensions, he delighted in puncturing them. In one famously contentious appearance, Cher called him an "asshole," and she wasn't joking around.

In recent years, however, Letterman has become increasingly partisan, injection a strain of left-wing politics into his show that I find unbearable, especially when all I'm looking for is a laugh before sleep. It's a curious thing, the compulsion amongst the celebrity ranks to self-righteously alienate half the viewing-audience on an entertainment program.

Anyhow, the result is that I'm more likely to watch the cringe-inducing Leno, just because I know he won't be launching some ill-considered rant against the war or those who support the war.

However, every so often, the old Dave emerges, throwing a bucket of cold water on the latest empty-headed celebutante making the late-night rounds.

The most revolting of that crowd, the inexplicably famous Paris Hilton (renowned for appearing in home-made sex tapes, being rich and doing nothing useful with her life) went on Letterman's show, expecting a Leno-like reception and getting something very different, according to the New York Post.

DAVID Letterman's merciless grilling of jail bird Paris Hilton on Friday's "Late Show" has emerged as another YouTube.com sensation.

Yesterday, video of the riveting confrontation between the gap-toothed late-night host and the air-headed heiress had been viewed on YouTube more than 2.7 million times, according to tallies posted on the site.

The segment, which was approximately 8½ minutes long, was posted by numerous YouTube contributors over the weekend, although one posting in particular, contributed by someone identified as mangoface247, drew the lion's share of hits - more than 2 million.

In the video, the two faced off over Letterman's insistence that Hilton answer questions about her recent experience as an inmate in L.A.'s county jail.

The famed amateur porn star and celebrated nightclub-goer cooperated at first, but eventually complained that Letterman's focus on her criminal record was preventing her from publicizing an upcoming movie, a clothing line and a new perfume.

"How'd you like being in jail?" Letterman asked as soon as Hilton sat down to chat with him.

"Not too much," Hilton answered.

After answering a number of questions about her jail time - including questions about the food she was forced to eat there - Hilton tried in vain to get Letterman to change the subject.

"I've moved on with my life," she said, "so I don't want to talk about it anymore."

But Letterman refused to budge. "Well, this is where you and I are different," he said, "because this is all I want to talk about."

At one point, someone in the studio audience shouted, "I love you, Paris!"

"I love you too," she replied, blowing the person a kiss.

"Somebody you met in prison?" Letterman asked.

I knew there was going to be trouble when Letterman began, "My first guest is a woman of many talents ...."

Gadzooks.

Posted by Mike Lief at 07:33 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Buh-bye!

There's a move afoot in two widely disparate regions of the U.S. to secede from the Union.

Tired of foreign wars and what they consider right-wing courts, the Middlebury Institute wants liberal states like Vermont to be able to secede peacefully.

That sounds just fine to the League of the South, a conservative group that refuses to give up on Southern independence.

Separated by hundreds of miles and divergent political philosophies, the Middlebury Institute and the League of the South are hosting a two-day Secessionist Convention starting Wednesday in Chattanooga.

They expect to attract supporters from California, Alaska and Hawaii, inviting anyone who wants to dissolve the Union so states can save themselves from an overbearing federal government.

The U.S. Constitution does not explicitly prohibit secession, but few people think it is politically viable.

Vermont, one of the nation's most liberal states, has become a hotbed for liberal secessionists, a fringe movement that gained new traction because of the Iraq war, rising oil prices and the formation of several pro-secession groups.

The Middlebury Institute, based in Cold Spring, N.Y., was started in 2005. Its followers, disillusioned by the Iraq war and federal imperialism, share the idea of states becoming independent republics. They contend their movement is growing.

Why limit it to states? Let's look back in history to a time when city-states were prominent, like Venice.

San Francisco is a perfect candidate for secession and independence; I'm an enthusiastic supporter of 'Frisco leaving us rubes and warmongers behind.

Don't let the door hit ya in the butt on the way out, Bub.

Posted by Mike Lief at 07:12 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

October 02, 2007

Taking a stand for equality

Here's a roundup of products designed to ... erm, well, designed to liberate women from the tyranny of dirty toilet seats.

Posted by Mike Lief at 09:01 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Well, it's a start

All things considered, this seems like a small price to pay for getting away with murder.

SANTA MONICA, Calif. — O.J. Simpson must hand over his Rolex watch and other assets to satisfy part of a long-standing judgment that found him liable for the deaths of ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and friend Ron Goldman.

Superior Court Judge Gerald Rosenberg also ruled Tuesday that any future royalties from a sports video game featuring Simpson must be delivered to Goldman's father, Fred Goldman.

He must also surrender any of the disputed memorabilia items recently seized by Las Vegas authorities that are found to be legally his.

Couldn't happen to a nicer more loathesome guy.

Posted by Mike Lief at 07:38 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Michael Ramirez

Click cartoon for a (slightly) bigger, easier-to-read version.

Posted by Mike Lief at 01:31 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Multi-culti madness

More bad news from England, where the societal rot seems to be picking up speed.

MUSLIM supermarket checkout staff who refuse to sell alcohol are being allowed to opt out of handling customers’ bottles and cans of drink.

Islamic workers at Sainsbury’s who object to alcohol on religious grounds are told to raise their hands when encountering any drink at their till so that a colleague can temporarily take their place or scan items for them.

Other staff have refused to work stacking shelves with wine, beer and spirits and have been found alternative roles in the company.

You know what's more irritating than their insistance on being coddled and catered to? Even leading Muslim politicians and activists think this is nuts.

Sainsbury’s said this weekend it was keen to accommodate the religious beliefs of all staff but some Islamic scholars condemned the practice, saying Muslims who refused to sell alcohol were reneging on their agreements with the store.

Islam states that Muslims should not consume alcohol, but opinion is divided on whether it is permissible to be involved in the sale of it.

[...]

Each time a bottle or can of alcohol comes along the conveyor belt in front of him, Mustapha either swaps places discreetly with a neighbouring attendant or raises his hand so that another member of staff can come over and pass the offending items in front of the scanner before he resumes work.

Some of the staff delegated to handle the drink for Mustapha are themselves obviously Muslim, including women in hijab head coverings. However, a staff member at the store told a reporter that two other employees had asked to be given alternative duties after objecting to stacking drinks shelves.

Mustapha told one customer: “I can’t sell the alcohol because of my religion. It is Ramadan at the moment.”

His customers did not appear to have any objection to his polite refusal to work with alcohol. One said: “I have no issues with it at all, it really doesn’t bother me.”

However, some senior Muslims were less approving.

Ghayasuddin Siddiqui, director of the Muslim Institute and leader of the Muslim parliament, said: “This is some kind of overenthusiasm. One expects professional behaviour from people working in a professional capacity and this shows a lack of maturity.

“Sainsbury’s is being very good, they are trying to accommodate the wishes of their employees and we commend that. The fault lies with the employee who is exploiting and misusing their goodwill. It makes no difference if it is only happening over Ramadan.”

Ibrahim Mogra, chairman of the inter-faith committee of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), said: “Muslim employees should look at the allowances within Muslim law to enable them to be better operating employees and not be seen as rather difficult to cater for.”

As with so many of these stories, it's the multi-cultural fetishists who are to blame, rushing to change societal norms in order to avoid the slightest risk of giving offense to the eggshell immigrant group of the day.

Society can function only inasmuch as we agree that minor irritations will be overlooked; our preferences willingly sublimated for the moment, in order that we might all function within a shared set of broad, shared values.

This used to be known as being "British," or as I am fond of saying, being that most exotic of creatures, an "American," instead of some hyphenated multi-culti Pushmi-Pullyu.

Feh.

Posted by Mike Lief at 01:10 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 01, 2007

What a way to go

The Drudge Report has given prominent play to a bizarre story about a woman who died after being arrested at an airport and handcuffed. Police think the woman strangled while trying to free herself from the cuffs.

Huh?

Slate takes a stab at explaining how she may have made a fatal mistake when she decided to go up and over, instead of down and through.

Posted by Mike Lief at 09:52 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Some folks really do support the troops

There's a lot of talk about supporting the troops, but it's not often you hear about someone putting words into action like this lady did.

Last Wednesday, while flying from Phoenix to the Alamo City on U.S. Airways Flight 207, a San Antonio man, Gil Anderson, witnessed something memorable.

Shortly before takeoff, he overheard a flight attendant tell a young uniformed soldier sitting in front of him:

"A lady in first-class wants to switch seats with you."

The soldier accepted the offer and walked up to the first-class section.

"When the lady came back to our area, I had a tear in my eye," Anderson said when he phoned this column soon after his plane landed. "I gave her a little round of applause.

"Then, by golly, everybody in that area started applauding," he said in a voice tinged with emotion. "It was a very moving moment."

Acknowledging the applause of Anderson and the other passengers, the first-class lady said simply:

"I did it because he deserves it."

Yes, he does. And that gal from first-class deserves a "thank you," too.

Bravo.

Posted by Mike Lief at 09:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Something for a don't-want-it-to-be Monday morning

It's Monday. And Mondays suck.

So let's start the week with a couple of videos from The B-52's; check out Kate Pierson's vocals in "Roam," recorded when she was 41.

Holy crap! I just realized that means Kate Pierson is 58!

If she's 58, then that means that I'm ... oy vey. I was a teen when I first threw myself to the floor of the Navy Club and writhed on my back to "Rock Lobster."

Now?

My arthritic shoulders -- and the realization that I really can't dance -- keep me from repeating that youthful folly.

But, damn, their music still makes me smile.

So, let's finish this beginning-of-the-week pep-me-up with their other late '80s smash, "Love Shack."

Posted by Mike Lief at 12:26 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack