"This was business as usual..."

Wow, imagine that, another group of Democrats being tried and convicted of voter fraud in last years elections where they even went so far as to outright pay people for their votes (story via Gateway Pundit). Just for a bonus, the Democratic 'Director of Regulatory Affairs' is also being tried for attempted murder for his attempt to kill a witness who was going to expose the prostitution ring he was running out of city hall. You gotta love East St. Louis.

But of course, as any of the Democratic party faithful know, and are quite willing to point out to us uninformed, it is actually the Republicans that steal elections. The fact that everyone actually charged and convicted of fraud happens to be a Democrat is just an odd coincidence. As is the fact that more dead and fictional people vote in Democratic ridings then they do elsewhere.

(Original link via Powerline)

Equal air time

Just to be fair I figured I'd post a pic of Miller (you know, the Evil ferret).

Well I'm also a little worried what he might do if he ever found a pic of Weiser on this blog and not one of him (he's the kind of ferret that definately knows how to hold a grudge).

It might sound funny but there is a laptop out by their cage that I swear I've turned off only to find it back on when I return from work. I've always wondered what he did all day when I'm not around besides climb into the dryer to sleep.


Trust me, beneath that cute exterior lies a heart of darkness. Just look at how messy he leaves his bed. Evil I tell ya. E..V..I..L..

Hey, I can see my house from here.

If you have the time and the computer power I would definitely recommend downloading Google Earth.

You couldn't have even imagined this level of tech being publicly available just a few years ago yet now, Google is not only making it available, but the standard edition is free.

Is there anything Google will not get in to?

Thanks to Slashdot for pointing this out.

How I'll spend my summer vacation

Enjoying the magestic beauty that is North Eastern Canada from the driver's seat of a 17' UHaul (or if I'm lucky, the driver's seat of a minivan with 3 kids under the age of 13 as passengers). And the best part, all the stuff and the kids are my brothers, I'm just going along for the ride.

Ahh the joys of family.

=)

NYT finally calls it right down the middle

Or as Michelle Malkin refers to, crack reporting.

For once I find myself in total agreement with something in the New York Times; apparently I was just looking in the wrong section. All the level headed writers appear to be in the style section.

You may need to log in to view the site. If you don't want to register, try bugmenot.

What is it with the left and their show trials

First last week they had the Democrats and their mock 'impeachment hearing' in some Capital Hill closet and now the left, in an international effort, are meeting in Istanbul to have mock 'War Crimes Tribunal' (thanks LGF) to condemn the US and Britain and to praise the insurgents efforts.

When will the insanity ever stop!

Another group votes to cut ties with Israel: Anglicans

I don't really get this vote at all. Besides the normal left wing lunacy that drove groups like the AUT to ban contact with Israeli Universities (a decision that was later reversed) why is the Anglican church getting so directly involved in the Israeli/Arab conflict.

I've never understood the lefts fascination and compassion for people who routinely try to kill innocent men, women and children to prove a point. They somehow defend and support the insurgents in Iraq and the Palestinians in Israel without every looking at the fact that the methods these groups use are designed to target non-combatants (and even children specifically) for death. Yet, if a person who was caught performing these types of acts is put in a place where their A/C is turned on too high you never hear the end of it. It's like trying to deal with a person with a split personality who even when faced with the proof of their condition refuses to accept it. Just look at this quote from the report the Anglicans based their decision on:

"‘the honor of meeting the President of the Palestinian Authority, the late Yasser Arafat, who so warmly welcomed us in what turned out to be one of his last days among us"

I don't know about you but I would not be able to claim meeting Arafat as an honor, as he more than almost anyone else, acted as a roadblock to peace in Israel for decades.

As for the Israeli/Arab conflict itself, just look at any of the television programs being broadcast in the Middle East to see what conditions are like there. Almost every major television network outside of Israel runs, or has run, blatant anti-Jewish programming (documentaries showing how the Jews practice the 'blood libel' and the teaching the 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion' as fact, both of which were based on Nazi propaganda to raise distrust for their Jewish communities) but yet the left sees these groups as the victims, not the Jews. This may also tie in to their apparent lack of condemnation for any brutalities carried out by non-democratic governments. Israel, being the only true democracy in the Middle East, therefore is the only true target of leftist scorn.

They really need to look on a map. Israel is a small strip of land, roughly the size of New Jersey, with a population of about 6.5 million surrounded by predominantly Muslim countries, several of which have it as their foreign policy to destroy Israel. I believe this Protest Warrior sign says it all. You may have to zoom the graphic to truly get the point (Israel is in blue).

Read the rest of Melanie Phillips's diary entry. It's an interesting read to see just how gone the Anglican church has become. When a group of people can be condemned for defending themselves from groups of people whose stated goal is their total destruction as a race, while the attackers themselves are glorified, you know you've lost touch with reality.

Thanks to LGF for the original link.

One sick ferret

Just took Weiser, my non-evil ferret, to the vet and found out that after 7 years he's come down with what appears to be swollen adrenal glands. This is actually pretty common amongst ferrets but it's still sad to see. He's losing his fur and getting really lethargic.

I would really love to get him the operation to make him feel better but my vet, who does not actually perform it, estimates the cost at $1000.

But just look at this face.
How can you say no to that.

To make the decision even harder, my brother and sister-in-law are on their way out for vacation and my nephews and niece, who just love Miller and Weiser, would probably be devastated if anything happened to him.

It's going to be a hard couple of weeks.


Update:
Well now it appears I'm being referred to a ferret specialist. Of course, like all ferret specialist in the fine city of Ottawa, he's going on vacation for the next week (is there some International Ferret Symposium going on that I haven't heard about) so I can't see him till at least the 11th.

The good news, while Weiser doesn't look like a good surgical candidate, because of his extreme old age, there is a shot, or series of shots (my vet didn't know the details) that has a chance of helping out.

Keep your fingers crossed.

Aussie Editor worried about offending terrorists.

I'll let Ace and Tim Blair handle the expanded commentary on this. Just thought I'd point it out to whoever wandered by.

On Douglas Wood's use of the word "a--holes" to described his terrorist kidnappers who held him for 47 days, Andrew Jaspen, editor-in-chief of The Age (Australian daily newspaper) had this to say:

"The issue really is largely, speaking as I understand it, he was treated well there. He says he was fed every day, and as such to turn around and use that kind of language I think is just insensitive."

Just when you think the liberal mentality has hit rock bottom ....
Is there any doubting Karl Rove's comments now?

Here's the original article from the Herald Sun: How the Left gets loonier

Finally, a good article on the Huffington Post

Danielle Crittenden has some views on the womens movement in the ME vs USA. Besides just the article, the comments section is a pretty good read for opinion from both sides of the issue.

Just to make sure it's out in the open, Crittenden is married to David Frum, fellow journalist and former Bush speech writer.

Careful libs, your mask is slipping

A few days ago in the Kelo v. New London case, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) decided that the eminent domain definition of public use extends to not only things like roads, water systems, flood walls, etc.. (you know, actual public services) but to anything the local government determines helps them in any way, including higher tax revenue. So for the first time, the SCOTUS has determined that this law can be used to allow the government to take one private entities property and give it to another private entity.

The actual case involves a small subdivision (with houses up to 100 years old and in good condition) being taken from their owners (including an 87 year old women who was born in her house) and rented to Pfizer (yes the multi-billion dollar drug company) for as little as $1 a year. All this because the town council has determined that the financial benefit of having a Pfizer plant is worth more than those peoples homes, and of course under any math it is. But where does this stop?

This ruling allows anyone's home or business to be seized if the local government determines that some other developer can make better use of it. There is already a well used system to facilitate that type of action, it called capitalism. If you want my house, make me and offer. If we agree on a price, good for both of us, if we can't, then go buy someone elses land.

The best part of this decision (if there is anything good about it at all) is that it was the liberal judges that decided to interpret public use this way, with all the conservative judges dissenting, showing once and for all the difference between judicial activism (or making crap up as I like to call it) and the strict constitutionalists.

The right side of the blogosphere was almost unanimous in it's condemnation, as they should (see Captain's Quarters, Protein Wisdom and LGF for starters), whereas the left is either trying to ride both sides of the decision or fully support it (See Kos, Eschaton). Although in their defense there are some rational voices in the comment section but them seem to be from conservative or ex- democrats.

This just goes to prove what the right has been saying about the left all these years; they are essentially a socialist/communist party looking to create a nanny state. Under this type of ruling you no longer own property, you are merely dwelling on public lands until such time as they decide they have a better use for it.

A real tragedy

Got this picture and story in an email at work the other day and thought I'd pass it along. I'm paraphrasing since I did not send the original email to my home address:

This picture shows a recent accident on a small German highway. I'm not sure exactly how many vehicles were involved. Some people, I assume emergency workers, appear in the background.

I warn you, the picture is graphic in that you can clearly see several victims still lying on the ground, uncovered. Luckily, in the foreground you can clearly see what appear to be several survivors.

You can see the picture here.

About Timetables

Timetables are a good thing; when you are trying to schedule activities which generally take a definitive amount of time to accomplish. Need to pick up some milk and oranges at the supermarket, gas for the car and drop off a letter at the corner post office before meeting someone for dinner; make a quick timetable. These types of things you can schedule with a pretty strong degree of certainty, but even then you usually have to build in a few extra minutes, just in case.

Need to overthrow a tyrant, bring democracy to a dictatorship and defeat both home grown and foreign terrorists; in that case a timetable is next to useless. So why is it that so many Democrats, and their supporters, and even a small group of Republicans have been demanding one of the current US administration? There are two possible answers: 1)they are trying to create some bad PR for the President and/or 2) they have no understanding of the way war works. Neither alternative is a good one.

If this is all about PR, then they have chosen the wrong place and time to do it. While your country is at war is not the time to try and make your leaders look bad. It's one thing to criticize the administration on a domestic front, that topic is always open, but when you attack them publicly on their foreign policy, parroting some of the same claims as the terrorist groups themselves, you help no one except your enemies. Take the Gitmo and Abu Ghraib cases. It is alright to question the treatment of prisoners at these facilities to ensure that they are not, in fact, being abused as part of a command level policy. But if that is what you were really interested in you would first check to see if investigations were being launched by the military into any reported cases and then wait for the results before making your accusations. As most of these cases are made public through these types of internal investigations, I believe that is the proof that the system is working. Instead Democrats run to the first mic they can find as soon as the simple mention of abuse is made.

Then there's the idea of them just not understanding the situation. By their own statements this has been proven to be true. John Kerry, on at least two occasions, called the war on terrorism a 'police action' but has also called for a timetable to withdraw. Ok Mr. Kerry (I love that name "Mr. Kerry" reminds me of a joke about an old man and a White House guard), where are your plans to withdraw the NYPD or LAPD from the streets in their respective cities? Apparently, Democrats can predict exactly when further enforcement is no longer needed. Just think of all the lives and money saved by using that magic liberal power and reducing your nations police forces down to a couple of Barney Fife's watching over the town drunks.

Besides that the US has maintained forces in Germany and Korea for a lot longer than 2 years and there are few calls to set a timetable to remove those forces (although in Germany's case those forces are mostly just used as a jumping off point nowadays, but directly following WWII those forces were vital). In Iraq's case, the US along with their allies have created what is basically a new nation. Once again, unless the Democrats have some magic ability to predict the timelines for an event that is a singular occurrence, then they should stop with their ridiculous demands for a timetable to withdrawal.

Timetables work in absolutes and even in our daily lives we know that they are routinely thrown off. Anyone who has ever try scheduling a run to the bank and lunch in the same 12-1 period should know what I mean. In cases like Iraq, as has been repeated several times by several people, recently by President Bush himself, timetables only serve to tell the enemy how long they need to hold out till. Just to show that in a simple everyday example; how many times have you had something at work upset you so much that you were about to lose it. If you had no idea when your work day would end you would be more likely to actually act then and be forced to face the consequences of your actions. But most people use the knowledge that their day will end at a specific time to help keep themselves under control, thereby allowing the grievance to go unvoiced until such time as they feel safer (among friends, the other person is no longer in a position of power, etc..). That, in a nutshell, is exactly what the Democrats want to give the terrorists.

Dear Journal

Day Four. Has it already been four days out here in the fever swamps? The howling of the moonbats are becoming unbearable. "Screech", "Screech", "Rove", "Screech". It's becoming almost too much for one man to bear.

Will it ever stop! Will it ever stop!

Occasionally I hear a friendly voice in the distance but the incessant rants of one bat in particular, I call him "Jay", make it a fleeting comfort. Some of the smaller bats, one I named 'Justin' in particular, have seemed to disappear but there are still times when I can see a swarm arrive to deposit gifts to Jay. He must be their leader.

I have tried to injure him or drive him off with my arsenal of facts and links but to no avail. He seems impervious to logic. It's a world where opinion and feeling appear to have more stength than fact. I should continue on to more civilized territories but I feel an obligation to try and bring light to this darkness.

My journey continues.

Today's Ottawa Sun: June 24th

Michael, Michael, Michael (Harris that is, the Journalist not the former Premier), poor deluded Michael. In a move that would almost make Dick Durbin proud (although nowhere near as offensive) Harris smoothly connects the dots of Gitmo to Abu Ghraib to WWII War Crimes convicts to, and I'm still not sure how this is connected, the conviction of Mel Gibson's stalker.

I just don't get it. A group of 10 former soldiers who in the last days of WWII, slaughtered 560 men, women and children = a few prison guards who abused some inmates = a few prison guards who turned up the air conditioning. The only one let off in this piece was the stalker who Harris seems to think was unfairly convicted. After all, all he said was he wanted to 'Pray' with Mel, after going to Mel's house, his church, sending him harassing letter and violating a restraining order. But we all know celebrity stalkers who have spend time in mental institutions never do anything bad. Living in Ottawa you know better first hand.

Anyway, back to the 'real' crimes. I hate to break this to you Mike, but despite your claims to the contrary, every prisoner at Gitmo has been given a military trial to determine if they should stay or should be released (and several have only to be recaptured taking part in further actions against the US). They are not 'criminals' in the regular sense so civil criminal courts would make little or no sense; but the claims still make good press. And on the torture front, it seems several of these tortured souls are actually refusing to leave when they are being released. Why? Because they understand what real torture is and Gitmo is NOT it. Most gulags I've heard of didn't serve tandoori chicken breast and the like, a menu that cost on average approximately $12 a day per prisoner. That's 3-4 times the average for inmates in all other federal jails and prisons. And most torture tactics I've heard of don't include fattening them up, with the average detainee gaining between 5-13 lbs while being 'tortured'. Unless, "No please stop I couldn't eat another bite" is actually a plea for help, in which case I better have my mother arrested next Christmas lunch.

While I'll admit that the Abu Ghraib fiasco was a real case of abuse (and in some cases even rising to the level of torture), those involved were not following orders but were instead acting on their own motivations. As you may have noticed, several have already been formally punished (with up to 10 years in military prison), they were not given ticker tape parades on their return.

Just give it up already, even the polls in the states show that the vast majority of people, Democrat, Republican and Independent alike, believe that the Gitmo detainees are being treated better than they should be. When's the last time you saw that happen.

As for the Liberal's move last night to sneak in their budget, just how many dirty tricks do you have to pull out of your hat before you begin to realize that maybe, just maybe, you don't have the confidence of Parliament. You don't need a vote of non-confidence, which has technically already happened just they wouldn't recognize it as such (a major flaw in the Canadian system), to know when you don't have the moral authority to rule. Any legitimate leader would be willing to go to the polls if their government was in this much turmoil. The Liberals, on the other hand, are hoping that our Canadian short term memory affect continues working and that by the time an election is actually called they can convince everyone that in fact it is Harper's "secret agenda" than has led the country into the current sorry state of affairs. Captain's Quarters has more on Martin's move.

"30 Days"

Why am I not surprised with this.

Over at Michelle Malkins, she has a post about the upcoming series "30 Days" brought to you by the guy who made 'SuperSize Me' and, interestingly enough, Michael Moores producers from 'The Awful Truth'. I've seen the commercials for this new series and can honestly say this is exactly what I was expecting, that is an attempt to present one person's (or in this case a team of people's) biased opinion as fact.

If you've seen SuperSize you know what I'm talking about. There was nothing at all scientific about the way he did his 'experiment'. It doesn't even reach the level of pseudo-science. For a prime example, not only did he eat only McDonalds for the 30 days, which was the topic of the movie, but he also stopped exercising almost entirely. Here's a note that even the most bias of researchers can tell you, you cannot judge cause and effect in an experiment with multiple criteria. Were his physical changes due to the food he ate or the fact he drastically changed his lifestyle?

Ever see those before and after photos for exercise equipment. They often use people who were formerly fit that for some reason had to stop their normal routines (accident victims are a prime source). The reason, as soon as they can start up there normal routine again they will lose all the weight and return to their former self. No fast food involved. Essentially the entire point of the movie was to make fast food look really bad (which I will admit it is not the healthiest thing out there) and he did whatever he had to to make that appear so. Just look at him eating his first meal for crying out loud. If he wasn't hamming that up to make it look as bad as possible then he has to have the weakest, smallest stomach on the planet.

So now he takes that same 'scientific method' to prove such things as discrimination in the US. While this could be the base for a valid study, this show is not it. It's no wonder that he uses Moore's producers as he appears to be ready to use much of Moore's methods to make his opinion appear as fact.

Canadian Gulag

I went to a local restaurant today, The Taj (well technically The Taj Mahal of the Glebe) for some Gitmo cuisine. The tandoori chicken was delicious as usual but my first glass of water was actually room temperature right out of the pitcher. Not an ice cube in sight!

So what I want to know is does Amnesty International have a tip line to call or do I call my local police first and get them to contact AI for me?

I have also on occasion been subject to mildly loud music being blasted over their internal speaker system. Now it wasn't Christina Aguilera or anything, but honestly, there is only so much sitar music one man can take (over a 45 minutes lunch break). I would have called back then but I just didn't know my rights were being violated until now.

You have to see this!

Just go to GOP.com and click on the "Democrats 'Wild Thing' video" link. It is probably one of the funniest (as long as you're not a Democrat) and best political ads I've ever seen.

The best part, with the exception of the music, every word in the ad is by a Democrat (and yes, that includes Jon Stewart).

What he said .

I couldn't have said it better myself. So I won't even try.

In all honesty, what purpose does Ted Kennedy serve in the US Senate?

Dems pick wrong fight at wrong time (as usual)

As all of the Democratic party faithful know, you do not go after KKKarl (the man behind the throne as they refer to him) without something big (The man can get crazy conservative Stan Smith elected Deacon of his church just for kicks for crying out loud (American Dad, episode 106)). This is not it.

Michelle Malkin point to this SFGate story (Democrats Demand Retraction From Rove) about how the Democrats are upset over Karl Rove's comments about their commitment to the war effort after September 11th:

"liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers. Conservatives," he said in the speech to the New York state Conservative Party just a few miles north of Ground Zero, "saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared for war."

The Democrats immediately called for a formal apology by Mr. Rove, calling his statements "offensive and outrageous". I guess they should know as they are the party of Howard "I Hate The Republicans And Everything They Stand For" Dean and Dick "torture, torture, everywhere" Durbin. Speaking of Democratic Senator Durbin's remarks comparing US soldiers to the likes of Stalin Gulag guards, Nazi's and Pol Pot, Rove had this little gem:

"Has there ever been a more revealing moment this year?" Mr. Rove asked. "Let me just put this in fairly simple terms: Al Jazeera now broadcasts the words of Senator Durbin to the Mideast, certainly putting our troops in greater danger. No more needs to be said about the motives of liberals,"

Clear, concise, to the point.

Anyway, I must have missed the formal letter from Democrats requesting Durbin, they're #2 man in the Senate, to apologize, or the dozens of letters sent to Howard Dean, they're elected Party leader, for all his "offensive and outrageous" remarks. But when a non-elected political advisor with no actual authority or party standing makes a comment, the Dems are quick to demand action.

Funny, with all the anti-war protests, anti-soldier comments and pro terrorists rights petitions they've been throwing around, I would think that the Democrats would naturally accept the title of terrorist therapists. When you run on a platform that calls for allowing evil dictators to remain in power and unchecked as well as take every opportunity to put down the fine men and women of your countries military, don't be surprised when someone calls you on it.

Now I don't want to make it sound like Republicans don't make outrageous statements that deserve public apologies, but as Abraham Fox, national director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) points out (in reference to Republican Sen. Rick Santorum's comparison of judicial filibusters to Nazi era tactics) (from the Washington Times):

"Senator Santorum apologized," Mr. Foxman said. "Senator Durbin's explanation is not an apology, and I think an apology is in order." Mr. Durbin's apology "was not sufficient"

So there you have it in simple black and white. When a Republican gets caught saying something stupid, which people of both parties do on a regular basis, they stand up and apologize. When the Democrats get caught, they explain. (I believe a case of a certain President who got caught lying under oath not too long ago makes that abundantly clear; unless you are still not sure what "is" means.)

Update:
More at Blogs for Bush & Captain's Quarters

Update #2:
A large list of quotes at Right Wing News to support Rove's statement. A must read.

The Ohio Verdict is in

Captain's Quarters points out that the DNC have finally gotten the results from their study on last years election in Ohio. If you remember any of the statements made by DNC members , Ohio was seen as a hotbed of Republican corruption and intimidation.

As it turns out, the report finds nothing at all to any allegations of voter disenfranchisement by the Republicans. It did point out that the lines in predominately black riding were longer than those in white ridings, but most of their reasoning seems to point to such things as poorly trained poll workers (which are the responsibility of the individual ridings)rather than an orchestrated effort by either party.

Even a Democrat organized and run review that stated no Republican interference wasn't enough to stop Dean from commenting (from FoxNews.com):

"It's been widely reported over the past several years that Republicans do target African-Americans for voter suppression. It's very clear here while there was no massive voter fraud, and I concur with the conclusion — it's also clear that there was massive voter suppression,"

A statement that triggered an immediate reply by one of the people involved with creating the Democrats report (did I mention this was a DNC report, paid for and run by the Democrats):

"Where the partisan bias came from, where it went, we really have no basis for making any assertion about that and I don't believe the report makes any statements about that," said Cornell University professor of government Walter Mebane Jr.

Which then caused Dead to backoff his previous statement with this:

"While we certainly couldn't draw a proven conclusion that this was willful, it certainly has the appearance of impropriety,"

So there you have it. The Democrats perform their own review which shows no attempt at active voter disenfranchisement in Ohio and even goes so far as to state that even if everything had run smoothly, the outcome would most likely have been the same. So therefore, in Deans mind, that equals "massive voter suppression" by the Republicans.

Two things Mr. Dean may want to consider.

1. A bunch of sore loser Democrats saying it over and over does not count as "widely reported". In the real world where the rest of us live, we require some form of proof. When every allegation you make proves to be false, even when your own side does the investigation, at some point any sane person would decide maybe they were wrong. But since it manages to keep the extreme left wing of the Democratic party in a huff and active, don't expect reality to set in anytime soon at Dean speech writing meetings.
2. As the Washington Times points out, there were several cases of actual election fraud in Ohio last year, mostly dealing with false voter registration cards.
   

But Dean won't mention those because as the report, conducted by Ohio election law attorneys, points out:

"Overwhelmingly, these problems were reportedly traced primarily to four Democratic political allies who supported Mr. Kerry: ACORN, America Coming Together, the AFL-CIO and the NAACP National Voter Fund."

Oddly enough, if you do a search on confirmed cases of election fraud, almost every case involves a Democrat or people working on their behalf. And many aren't just for illegal voter registrations either.

P.S. For some strange reason every time I try to type 'Dean' I ended up typing 'Dead'. Odd.

Today's Ottawa Sun: June 22nd

Another interesting issue of the Sun today.

I'll start with a story on the cover: "Rocker raps PM: Boost Africa Aid of 'Stay Home'" in reference to Bob Geldof's call to PM Martin to promise more money to African Aid or not bother to attend the upcoming G8 meeting. While the headline is an attention grabber, the story itself is rather benign. As Canada is the only G8 country currently running a surplus (9.1 billion + last year) Geldof is asking Martin to increase our part beyond the already promised doubling (from 1.3 to 2.7 billion over 5 years). So basically, our PM is actually following through on his word to increase giving (for once [sorry, it's a reflex, I couldn't help it]), and Geldof, being a world class fund raiser is just trying to get a little bit more. So nothing to see there.

But then I get to Ike Awgu's column, 'Iraq Numbers Add Up to Real Scare'. I must say I often disagree with Ike, never that big a deal, but in this column he is beginning to sound more and more like one of the posters over at Daily Kos (not quite DU material yet). Just look at his opening line:

"Politeness aside, it's pretty clear to nearly every Canadian who isn't a flake that the war in Iraq was a big mistake and our absence from it a blessing."

Well call me a flake.

He goes on with the stats from the war in Iraq:

22,353 - minimum estimate of deaths in Iraq (does not separate Military actions from Insurgent attacks). Even though these are Ike's numbers I'll even go one step further to show the estimated maximum: 25,426 (iraqbodycount.net).
12,896 - Number of troops injured (may or may not include deaths)
1,724 - Number of troops killed, or as he likes to call them "American teenagers and young adults (many of whom were poor and joined the military to pay for college)".
0 - the number of WMD found in Iraq

First I'd like to deal with the reference to the "many of whom were poor" line. Never mind that the liberal myth of a army made up of the nations poor has been disproven many times over, but you know the old rule "repeat a lie long enough ..." but in fact, due to the Marines (you know, those guys doing the front line work) requirement for a high school diploma you can argue that the extremely low income families (those most likely to drop out of school) are under represented on the front lines.

So here are the numbers he doesn't point out:

25,000 - 50,000: number of deaths (annually) directly attributed to Saddam Hussein (not including natural deaths). So that would mean, on the conservative side, a little over 25,000 more Iraqis are alive today than would have been if Saddam were still in power (using 2 years for calculations on the length of the war). I don't know how liberals do math but this 'flake' thinks that this is actually a good case for the war. On top of that, the war will end, Saddam, or his even more maniacal sons, would have most likely continued their reign of terror for years to come.

26,000,000 +: Number of Iraqis who now have the ability to govern themselves instead of living under a maniacal dictator.

3,800,000 +: Number of Lebanese who now have the ability to govern themselves instead of living under direct Syrian control. (Very few serious experts even try to refute the idea that 200,000+ US soldiers a few miles away affected Syria's withdrawal from Lebanon after decades of pseudo-rule).

???: just wanted to put a point in for the untold millions that are now getting the opportunity to vote in municipal, state/provincial and/or federal elections for the first time due to the pressure placed on their collective governments due to the Iraqi elections.

0: Number of countries, prior to the war, who thought Iraq had no WMDs. Even the most adamant opponents of the war (Germany, Russia and France) all believed he had them (often due to the fact they had sold the necessary equipment to him even while sales were banned by UN resolutions). And just for the record, several rockets armed with chemical weapons were found in Iraq, although the number and age of the rockets tend not to make it a significant find.

And some numbers just for contrast sake:

300,000: number of deaths of US servicemen during WWII. With an additional 300,000 wounded.

58,000: number of deaths of US servicemen during Vietnam. With an additional 211,000 wounded.

293: number of deaths of US servicemen during the first Gulf war. During this war engagements were mostly limited to the Iraq/Kuwait border.

While it is very difficult to compare one war to another, by any count the current Iraq war death toll is actually very low. It is only roughly 3 times the projected rate of the first Gulf war which did not even fully engage the Iraqi military or have to deal with the interference of external terrorist organizations.

Something the left can just not get through their collective heads is that in war people will die, it is inevitable. Sometimes however, the outcome is worth the sacrifice. That is why the vast majority of the military serving in Iraq support the President. They get to see first hand what they are accomplishing and feel it is worth putting their lives on the line.

That's enough for Ike's column.

There was also news on the rosey outlook for the NHL negotiations. It's nice to see they are close to penning a deal. Hopefully the new salary cap will help keep the current system where 2 or 3 owners can cause headaches for everyone by making outrageous offers to mediocre players, from happening again.

And the final thing that caught my eye; Jessi. YOWZA!

Like nailing Jello to a wall

That's what it feels like debating with hardcore left wing moonbats.

It all started when I followed this LGF linkover to Think Progress. The original thread topic is based on the odd coincidence that a few right wingers noted about the journalist that copied and then destroyed the original Downing Street Memos sharing the same name with one of Mary Mapes assistants who was directly involved with the whole Rathergate mess (in which 'original' documents were supposedly faxed to CBS and then destroyed).

By the sounds of it on this left wing site, it is a growing conspiracy theory driven by LGF and others. The odd thing is the timeline. Here's a brief breakdown of the events as they happened:

• June 19th (7:55 PM): Scylla & Charybdis notice the name similarity
  
• June 19th (8:52 PM): Charles notes the S & C story on LGF
• June 19th (8:58 PM): Comment #5 on LGF notes the fact Michael Smith is a common name. Not yet totally dismissed, but conspiracy already in question.
• June 19th (8:59 PM): Comment #7 seconds the coincidence theory.
• June 19th (9:31 PM): Comment #8 at S & C sheds further light on the past works of the two Michael Smiths and everyone accepts that they are in fact two separate reporters.
• June 19th (11:45 PM): Comment #106 at LFG repeats Comment #8 from S&C's claims.
• June 20th (12:42 PM): Think Progress creates a post to show how the conservative blogosphere "desperate to discredit the Downing Street Minutes" is abuzz with this Michael Smith thing.

So there you go. Only 15 hours after a half joking article about an odd coincidence is already debunked (by conservatives themselves) the moonbats begin screaming about a new conspiracy theory born of desperation by the Right. If you read the LGF thread, you may notice that of the 559 comments (as of this posting), none take the theory the slightest bit seriously and few, if any even mention it. Most are commenting on the DSMs themselves and journalistic integrity in general (and of course the standard Karl Rove joke). The S&C thread does take it a bit more seriously, maybe 2 of the first 7 give the theory any direct support but even then they leave room for coincidence as does the original S&K posting.

As for the Think Progress thread, I jumped in to the discussion when it began changing topics (comment #109) (having already seen the 'conspiracy' debunked on LGF and Scylla & Charybdis). If you read through the comments you will see exactly what I am talking about when I say debating a hard core lefty is frustrating, but even at 3:00 AM I was in a pretty good mood but I knew that the same could not be said for the lefties on the site so I continued on.

You'll notice quickly that even when I (or other conservatives) back up our arguments with facts and figures, including direct quotes from Bob Geldof and Bono for crying out loud (trying to reach out by using their own icons), they refuse to believe that there is any way for a conservative led USA to have helped anyone anywhere in the world. If you are interested in some of the highlights, the 300's are a good place to look, although #299 is my personal favorite, that's where Justin states I don't deserve to be a Canadian.

Overall, this makes a good case study into the liberal way of seeing the world and their general modus operandi. Create straw man, attack it with everything you got, then claim victory no matter what the actual result. Oh yeah, and all throughout don't forget to pat yourselves and others on your side, on the backs for the wonderful job you are doing protecting democracy, the poor, the economy, yada..yada..yada.. (once again ignoring any actual facts to the contrary).

Mark Steyn weighs in

Somehow over the past couple of days I managed to come back to this Mark Steyn article about a dozen times. So to save me the time and effort of having to bookmark it (and add to my already cluttered browser bookmark file) I figured I'd just post it here.

A great read on the whole Durbin/Gitmo fiasco.

Ahh, young love

And I thought arranged marriages were bad. Here's a story (from the New York Post) that gives some insight into Ethiopian mating rituals, namely the kidnapping and forced marriage of the bride to be. In this case however, a few lions seemed to object to the wedding and could not hold their peace.

Here's an interesting stat at the end of the article:

"Kidnapping young girls has long been part of the marriage custom in Ethiopia. The United Nations estimates that more than 70 percent of marriages in Ethiopia are by abduction..."

I'm surprised we don't here more about this type of thing.

Thanks to The American Thinker for the original link

Even in death..

. . there are those on the left that just can't let it go.

This is just sad, and not just because someone has died, but that his family members have taken their time of grief to instead attack others.

Got the original link from Michelle Malkin but Captain Ed has a bit more on the subject over at Captain's Quarters.

PETA workers arrested for cruelty to animals

This is just an odd story (by way of Protein Wisdom). No matter what their reasoning I say it couldn't happen to a better group of people.

I especially like the stats at the bottom of the page:

PETA has euthanized animals for years. In Virginia last year, the activist group euthanized 2,278 animals, sterilized 7,641 and found homes for 361.

That's looking like a pretty bad track record to me. Send your pet to PETA and it's almost 6.5 times more like to end up dead than adopted.

(A little more on why I don't like PETA)

The Downing Street Memo

First of all I'm not in any way implying that this recently discoverd memo is a fraud. Even though it doesn't mention direct statements from anyone, and no one outside of the reporter who originally discovered it claims to know who wrote it, and both leaders involved claim that it is not accurate, I'm sure it could still be real. I just thought I'd share a couple of interesting details about the Downing Street Memo which you may not get to see on your evening news.

The first is that, as Captain Ed points out, the copies of the memo that everyone has seen are not actual copies of the original memo. In fact, Michael Smith (the reporter who was leaked the memo) admitted that they are in fact copies of a copy that he typed up himself. In a case reminiscent of CBS's 'Memogate', after re-typing the memo from the original pages, he destroyed the originals so they could not be tracked back to his source. This not only makes them useless in any court in pretty much any democratic country but seriously makes me question that particular reporters integrity.

The second thing is more of an odd coincidence than anything else. The reporter who 'discovered' the memo, Michael Smith, shares a name with the assistant of a Mary Mapes who was directly involved in 'Memogate'. Apparently they are not the same person but it definitely makes for an odd connection. (See Scylla & Charybdis for more details. Thanks to LGF for the link.)

I have heard through the grapevine that in fact another reporter (a third Michael Smith coincidentally enough) is about to come forward with a tape recording he was given of Big Foot and the Jersey Devil discussing how Karl Rove was behind the recent no vote for the EU's proposed constitution. Of course, to protect his source he had to recreate the original tape using the voice talents of Ben Stiller and Chris Rock (apparently he was also a big Madagascar fan) and then burn the original. Stay tuned for further updates.

P.S. You know, all these Smith references are making me think that these reporters are in fact Mormons and are just following in the steps of the founder of the Latter Day Saints, Joseph Smith. We all know what happened to his original stone tablets after he copied them to paper to write the book of Mormon don't we.

There is no media bias (CBC edition)

Take a look at the CBC's coverage of the now (in)famous Downing Street Memo.

I especially like these two statements:

During a forum organized by the U.S. House Judiciary Committee held to investigate the implications of the memo, Rep. John Conyers said the document "means that more than 1,600 brave Americans and hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis would have have lost their lives for a lie."

I believe what they meant to say by 'forum organized by the U.S. House Judiciary Committee held to investigate the implications of the memo' was in fact 'group of Democratic Congressman with no actual authority just looking to make a fool of themselves' (see this previous post for more). But hey, you know that darn CBC spellchecker, just can't say bad things about Democrats when the Bush administration is involved.

And at the end they have this little tidbit (emphasis mine):

But what is having an impact is the surging number of American soldiers killed or wounded in Iraq.

I don't know about you but the use of the term 'surging' definitely seems to display an obvious bias on the writers part. But I guess anything goes when a group of Democrats can have a mock impeachment in a basement conference room to call forward a witness to claim the Jews were behind Sept. 11 (or to be honest, he only claimed they knew about it and both didn't warn the US and modified investments to make a profit off it) and have it simply called a forum.

(Thanks to LGF for the American Thinker link above)

Today's Ottawa Sun

While doing my daily browsing of The Ottawa Sun today I came across three things which caught my eye. While pretty much unrelated, I figured I'd put them together just to give me an excuse to write another nice long post.

The first thing was a short write-up about a new $100,000 contract for a new "social marketing strategy" to sell French to Ontarians. Take it from me, the best way to get other people in Canada to want to learn French is NOT to force it down out throats with Government spending and regulations, that just creates resentment. While I have nothing against French per se, all the time and money spent on trying to get everyone in the country to learn a language which in under ten years will be only the third most spoken language nationwide, is going to lead to a lot of trouble.

Once the Chinese community decides to move for Mandarin or Cantonese to get the same protections as French, which based on population they can probably do very soon, then all these special interest laws/programs are really going to cost us. It's hard to defend a law which gives a one minority language more rights than another minority language that is actually more commonly used. Imagine a law stating that every federal employee must learn English, French and Cantonese to get a job. The day is not too far off.

I can tell you from experience language laws in Canada make little or no sense and do nothing to help the French cause beside build animosity. Although I work in an English essential federal job in a predominantly English city, due to federal job descriptions, I am currently at the highest level I can get without becoming bilingual. It doesn't even matter if I move somewhere else, the language ceiling will still be there.

The second article of interests was Eric Margolis's article on Gitmo. While The Sun in general is generally pretty conservative, Eric's article is so far to the left that you could swear it was written by a Democratic staffer. He repeats Amnesty International's 'the gulag of our time' claim (a claim that they themselves later admitted was not based on fact but was primarily a publicity stunt) and then shoots down the US governments attempts to refute their accusations. He then follows the Democratic talking points about trials and torture.

5 points for Eric to consider:

1) As unlawful combatants (non-uniformed, carrying concealed arms, not officially under any governments authority) the Geneva Convention does not apply and under internationally recognized rules of war the US had the legal write to execute them on the battlefields.

2) The captives at Gitmo were all given a military tribunal hearing to determine whether or not they deserved to be kept there, after which several were released and some later recaptured while taking part in other attacks on US interests/personnel.

3) Not all captives are treated like the one described in the FBI report that has been making the rounds. Most are just being held to prevent them from committing further actions against the US. Even so, the captive in question was a special case and was believed to be a valuable source of information, he was often referred to as the 20th highjacker.

4) The report itself is approximately 2 years old.

5) Finally, the parts of the report that describe what is considered to be the closest signs of actual torture as repeated by the press, such as the prisoner being chained in the fetal position, are often over stated for publicity's sake. The observer actually states that the prisoner was seen in the fetal position and chained, it does not specify that the restraints were used in any way to force the position. Regardless, little of what is even being assumed by the press rises to the level of torture. Creating a situation where a prisoner is uncomfortable and more likely to talk is not torture, its' a form of interrogation. Torture require physical pain, not simple discomfort.

While I might not necessarily agree with everything being done down at Gitmo, these allegations are just ridiculous. As Mark Steyn points out, if Gitmo is a gulag, it is the only gulag in history where the average prisoner puts on 13 pounds during their incarceration. At least this article is in the editorial section, where an opinion piece belongs, and not on the front cover like some more prestigious newspapers south of the border are apt to do. (Check out Michelle Malkin for some more interesting links on the subject)

Finally, the third thing of interest in the paper wasn't even an article, it was a comic. Today's The Duplex, while funny as usual, does a good job showing how inaccurate polls can be. While you can ask a yes/no question, it is very hard to determine exactly why the respondent said yes or no. Just think about this the next time you see some talking head on either side of an issue trying to use poll numbers to prove his point.

Alas poor Slashdot, I knew thee well.

You know what's sad? Reading the politics section of Slashdot. That's what's sad. If you read almost any posting there, it sounds more like the Democratic Underground than a discussion board of supposedly intelligent, hi-tech centered professionals.

Just take a look at the Patriot Act discussion for example. After totally ignoring the fact that the amendment in question seeks to prevent something that has never happened (a library or bookstore having their records searched for customer purchases) by putting in a restriction that is already there* they continue to rant about all the freedoms the current administration has stripped away from the American people.

Being Canadian, I was unaware that the US government had begun pulling all those willing to 'speak truth to power' from their homes in the middle of the night and making them 'disappear'. (Although that would explain why I haven't seem Michael Moore around lately.) I guess it's just that vast right wing conspiracy of the MSM that's not telling all those stories.

What's even sadder is the fact these types of rantings rarely stay confined to the politics section either. Almost any thread that gets more than 50 replies will at some point have a least one anti-administration comment that while totally off topic gets modded as insightful.

It's just sad.


*All federal agents already require a federal warrant before searching any records. The amendment only seeks to define which judges can issue the warrant.

Conspiracy First. Research later.

Or just another day at the Democratic Underground.

No, this is not a spoof site. This is an actual post on DU concerning the streaming video from the C-SPAN servers of the mock 'impeachment hearing'. The poster, with the oh so original name of 'AuntiBush', begins to scream of a nefarious plot on the part of, well we're not quite sure by somehow Washington is involved, to trace and monitor her (I'm assuming) computer. As the left has never met a conspiracy they didn't like, a few more of the loons jump on the wagon and begin pointing fingers at the CIA.

They continue this way, assuring everyone that of course they are being monitored, until one of the more enlightened DUmmies points out that as you are watching a live web feed from a C-SPAN server than that server is more than likely going to need to contact your computer. In fact the original warning as posted even stated that the port being contacted can be used by the GateCrasher Trojan and/or the RTSP streaming Media. Being a standard moonbat, the DU poster assumed a right wing trojan was attacking his computer (although apparently his anti-virus program could not detect one). Anyone else, before creating some insane theory of government agents trying to monitor your home computer, may have done a quick Google search for what "RTSP streaming Media" was and quickly realized that it is a protocol used by RealPlayer to stream live webcasts; say like a webcast of a bunch of crazy Democrats showing just how far removed from reality they have become.

Lucky for us, in this case a couple of Dummies with a higher than room temperature IQ dropped by and pointed out the sane explaination to old Aunti and her friends. Crisis averted. But will we be so lucky next time? Or will we have to endure months of demands for Senate investigations and Congressional hearings for conspiracies with even less basis in fact. Maybe even a press conference or two by some high ranking Democrats just trying to 'speak truth to power'. I really hope not, but if the past is any indication of the future, then I predict my hopes being dashed by sometime next week.

Thanks to LGF for the original link (as I had already hit my DU quota for the week).

Happy Father's Day!

The #1 day of the year for collect calling.

I can honestly say that the only Father's day I've ever charged the call to my father was while in University and my long distance plan consisted of my parents calling card. Other than that, I've paid for my own calls.

Although I'm pretty sure unless I put this on a Freecell website I doubt he will ever see it; Happy Father's Day, Dad!

=)

Iowahawk on Sen. Durbin

Iowahawk has the best rip of Senator Durbin BAR NONE!

Iowahawk doesn't blog much anymore (you can read his blog for the details) but when he does, let's just say I'm glad I wasn't drinking anything at the time or I'd be cleaning my keyboard instead of typing this.

A must read!

The Nostradamus of our times

Un-freakin-believable!

In the most shocking story of 2005 to date, James Guckert (aka Jeff Gannon) has been proven a prophet. He was called a partisan hack when he made reference to the Democrats as " ... people who seem to have divorced themselves from reality" but now he has shown himself to be one of the greatest visionaries of our time.

How else can you describe this scene of actual Democratic Congressman holding a mock 'impeachment inquiry' in a small meeting room while supports watch a live feed back at Democratic headquarters. They even called 'expert' witnesses.

It's this type of actions by elected officials, and not some stories about a guard holding the Koran with his right hand instead of his left, that give the US a bad name. This is just getting too painful to watch, and I'm not even American.

In the immortal words of Susan Powter, "Stop the insanity!".

Found via lgf

Update:
Welcome to JeffGannon.com readers (and to the man himself). I was wondering where my spike in traffic was coming from.
Thanks for dropping by. Pull up a seat and stay awhile.

It's all your fault!

Wednesday was just one of those times where, when driving in the car, I decided to listen to the radio. It's rare but it happens. On this occasion I just happened to hear David McGuinty, brother to Ontario Liberal Premier Dalton 'if my lips are moving I'm lying' McGuinty, and Liberal MP for Ottawa South.

Well I do live in Ottawa, and MPs, of any stripe, are always willing to get themselves a little air time, so while I thought it might be mildly interesting but I was only half paying attention to what he was saying. That was, until the commentator (I believe it was 'Ottawa Noon' on CFRA 580 so it would have been Norman Jack), asked him about all the money that the Liberals have been handing out to essentially buy votes. ( I don't believe he actually said it that way but you could hear that he meant it that way.) In what may go down in history as the oddest statement ever made with regards to a government's mishandling of public funds, McGuinty actually stated that their buying off of groups, and in the case of the NDP entire parties, willy nilly across the country was solely due to the fact that we as Canadians elected a minority Liberal government. Even the commentators seems a little taken aback by that. He even repeated it several times when asked to clarify.

That was his position; as a member of a the ruling party in a minority government, a party who coincidentally is under investigation for freely spending tax payers money willy nilly in Quebec with much of it somehow ending up back in their own pockets, we the people, were actually giving them a mandate to spend our hard earned money like drunken sailors on weekend leave. (Last numbers I saw they were already up to $20+ Billion in promises and a formal election call is still most likely months away.)

I don't remember the part of the ballot that stated that in the case of a minority government, all fiscal management would be thrown out the window for the sake of the ruling party being able to buy a few extra votes when needed. I looked carefully at the slip, but all I remember were the various candidates names. It must have been on the back in small print.

Glass Houses (another longer than expected post)

There's an old saying about glass house and stones I'm sure everyone is familiar with, everyone that is except the Democratic leadership in the States.

First they use their combined might to attack Tom Delay for his use of lobbyists money for trips and/or not properly reporting trips as required by House rules. All in all actually pretty small ethics violations (but violations none the less) but according to the Dems, the sign of a coming apocalypse. In their eagerness to get their accusations to the press, which the press were more than willing to run with even with little or no investigation of their own, the Democrats failed to realize that they too, including some of the leading accusers, were guilty of the exact same violations. In some cases their associations with the lobbyists in question were even more direct, such as Senator Harry Reid (D-NEV) whose aide, after being hired by Abramoff (one of the leading lobbyists in question) continued to raise funds for the Senator.

Then they attacked Tom Delay again, or more accurately his family, for being paid for working for his campaign. In this case even the number they quote, $500,000 is grossly inflated using very prejudicial math but besides that, it is not an uncommon practice for politicians to hire on family members to aide them in their campaigns (once again this includes Democrats). As pointed out by Captain Ed, when broken down into the years they were actually paid, even the amounts are not all that amazing considering the family members in question are generally professional campaign strategists working for well recognized firms.

Now the latest, and most egregious act of stone throwing comes from Democratic Senator Dick Durbin (Michell Malkin has some good links to the media's take on the Durbin comments). In comments that can leave no doubt about his real view of the US Military he compared troops and the conditions at Gitmo to Nazis, Stalin era Gulags and Cambodian genocidal leader Pol Pot. Despite the fact that the methods used by the US interrogators don't even remotely resemble those used by those other regimes (unless you equate bad pop music and puppet shows to firing squads) and the fact that as of today the official number of deaths at Gitmo is zero he refuses to apologize for his comparison.

In Senator Durbin's case his 'glass house' was built by fellow Democrat and Cook County Sheriff Michael Sheahan and involves his handling of the Cook County Jail right in the heart of the Senators own district. John in Caroline has a nice write up about the documented cases of abuse at the jail during Sheahan's tenure there. These include real cases of abuse such as rapes and beating by guards as opposed to the Gitmo accounts of alternating the air conditioner settings to make it either uncomfortably hot or cold. Again, unlike the Gitmo abuse allegations which have been painstakingly reviewed, many of the cases at Cook County were just dismissed outright by the Sheriff. And don't forget that the 'mistreatment' of the terrorists being held at Gitmo is done for the purposes of interrogation. These are people who were caught acting on behalf of Al Qaeda and in many cases are believed to have further knowledge of Al Qaeda support systems and activities. In the case of the Cook County Jail, these are prisoners who are serving their time and have no further information to provide anyone; their 'mistreatment' is done for either payback or to set an example or possibly in extreme cases just for some guards amusement.

Now if you were a prisoner with a choice of where to spend your time which would you choose, a US Military Detention Center where the guards are taught how to properly respect your customs and if they accidental offend you can be reprimanded (Google the Koran peeing incident) or a jail where the guards that should be there to protect you from the other inmates are as likely as not to be the ones who attack and beat you.

I'd like to state this outright, neither of these situations even begin to rise to the level of the previously mentioned regimes. In the case of Gitmo, the details that have been released show interrogation methods that rely heavily on sleep deprivation and embarrassment to encourage prisoners to talk, not true cases of physical abuse and torture. Cook County Jail, on the other hand, while showing instances of real violence against prisoners, is still on such a small scale as to not be considered the normal operating procedure there. Make no mistake, in a Nazi, Stalin or Pol Pot camp, the torture was real and was not isolated to convicted criminals and captured enemy combatants. Many of the people tortured or killed there were men, women and children who were just unlucky enough to belong to groups or races that the leaders of those regimes determined were either easy scapegoats or not worthy of living.

If you pay any attention to Canadian politics you will have seen this all before, although in their defense, the Liberal party tends to keep their unfounded accusations, and in most cases utter fabrications, to just personal attacks on Conservatives MPs and the Conservative Party as a whole. They rarely directly attack the reputations of our Canadian Armed Forces; most likely due to the fact they can't afford to have anyone looking too closely at the complete and utter ruin they have allowed our military to fall to under their watch.

Anyways, back to my original point. It's time for the Democrats to stop being the party of insults to again become a party of ideas (even if I personally don't agree with those ideas). Not that I'm really hoping they would really ever gain control of any branch of the US government again, but the best decisions are made through well organized debate and right now there is little of that happening in Washington (or Ottawa for that matter). It's time for a little civility in politics.


A special hat tip to Captain's Quarters for all the good links.

(And while not directly involved with the above mentioned ethics violations, this Captain's Quarters post and this CBS News article are interesting side notes that help highlight what can come happen when journalists actually do their jobs instead of just repeating partisan personal attacks. )

The Gitmo Cookbook

Found via Michelle Malkin; The Gitmo Cookbook - Helping you support the troops, mock the MSM and eat like a Gitmo detainee!

Ummmm..... baked tandouri chicken breast ...... ummmmm.

Historic apology, same old bias.

I can't really see how anyone can have too much trouble with the latest move by the US Senate to officially apologize for failing to pass anti-lynching legislation almost a century ago. At least in this case, their are still people alive today that were directly affected by the Senates refusal to follow the Presidents and Congresses lead and pass these laws. (This is opposed to the several states/cities that now require companies to apologize for any connection to the slave trade (see Wachovia Bank) ; something which has little connection to any of the modern companies or any person currently living.)

What I do have a problem with is the manner in which the NY Times and other bastions of the MSM are taking this opportunity to try and re-write history and make this look like this was a Republican problem. Despite the fact that it was in fact southern Democrats who filibustered every attempt at passing the legislation in question, the NY Times does everything they can to imply just the opposite. Unless you read this statement some other way (from the article):

"Although the House passed anti-lynching legislation three times in the first half of the 20th century, the Senate, controlled by Southern conservatives, repeatedly refused to do so."

Why mention who controlled the Senate and not the fact that it was the members of the minority party that were actually preventing the passing of the bill. There is no way to read this except as a blatent attempt to make the party of the 'Southern conservatives' look bad. It's pretty bad when the NY Times is directly using Michael Moore type tactics to report the news.
This is the same type of historical revisionism that makes the Democrats the heroes of the Civil rights movement when in fact it was again several Democrats who used the filibuster in an attempt to prevent that legislation from passing; a certain still elected Democratic Senator among them.

Captain's Quarters and Patterico go a bit more into the MSM's obvious attempt to distance the fact these were two cases in which filibusters were used, to paraphrase Senator Byrd (D-WV in case you didn't know), to 'save the Republic'*.


*In all honesty he said that about the deal made a few weeks ago to keep the filibuster alive, but since he himself used it as a way to block civil rights bills, I felt it fitting to use his words.

Update: Added the comment in brackets above about the slave apologies.

Jackson Hysteria

Let it go. He got off, it's over. Please stop all the news coverage!

I turned on the TV this morning and with the exception of a couple stories on the new King Tut exhibit every story on the US stations were about the Jackson case. At least the Canadian morning news guys were playing scrabble. Honestly, there has to be something else going on somewhere.

The only good part of this whole thing is it draws attention away from the Time story of interrogators using puppet shows and Christina Aguilera music to 'torture' inmates at Gitmo.

Defending the Patriarchy -- Code of Conduct

Apparently there has been a bit of a fuss kicked up on the left side of the blogosphere over an ad for The Real Gilligan's Island that was/is running at the Daily Kos site, the premier left wing blog.

Mr. Kos himself, Markos Moulitsas Zuniga (sorry, the accent over the 'u' in Zuniga didn't paste well), has apparently offended some of his readers, and half of the inmates over at the Democratic Underground, with his defense of the ad:

"Apparently, having two women throw pies at each other, wrestle each other in a sexy, lesbianic manner, then having water splashed on their ample, fake bosoms is degrading to women. Or something like that."

It's gotten so bad that even the Right wing bloggers are stepping in to help the poor embattled Kos. Bill, at INDC had this post on the subject, while Pennywit has graciously taken the time to transfer the official "Defender of the Patriarchy" Code of Conduct over to his blog (although any true defender will already have their leather bound edition of the Code sitting in the place of honor next to their copies of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition).

I never thought I'd say this but, keep up the good fight Kos, we're all behind you! (of course several just waiting to enact rule 29 of the code, but still, we're all there).

Double standards

Besides being a sad story, on the part of the babies involved, this is a shining example of the natural result of current abortion laws in North America. According to most laws in North America a fetus is considered a person deserving of legal protection from harm by anyone except the mother. For example, in the case of a pregnant women who is murdered, the defendant will often find themselves charged with double homicide, as they should.

In this bizarre case, Gerardo Flores was asked by his girlfriend to help abort her twin babies after her own attempts to cause miscarriages were unsuccessful (including punching her own stomach). To achieve this he repeatedly stepped on her stomach, and earlier on the day of the miscarriage he punched her at least once (this time during a fight).

The end result was the twins were in fact killed (although they cannot confirm how or when exactly) and Flores, who I have little sympathy for, received the mandatory sentence of life imprisonment. Legally the girlfriend, who invited Flores to do this remember, broke no law and cannot even be charged as an accessory. Under Texas law then, and US federal law now, a woman cannot be charged for causing the deaths of her own fetuses for any reason. Of course if the babies had survived but were mentally of physically damaged due to this then more than likely both Flores and his girlfriend would have been found guilty of some form of child abuse/endangerment for their actions.

At some point we have to set up a common legal definition of when in fact a fetus is a life and make all the laws equal. Now the exact timing can be debated for years to come, but sentences like this clearly show that the current system of arbitrarily defining a fetus as a child depending on who is involved is blatantly unfair.

Either Flores is guilty of assaulting his girlfriend (something that may not even get him jail time) or they are both guilty of two cases of capital murder. You cannot have it both ways.

Can't say I'm surprised

Not that this report from the Fraser Institute is 100% infallible, but it does help show with actual numbers what most centrists or conservatives already knew, that the CBC has an anti-American bias. The report covers the period after the September 11th attack and prior to the US war with Iraq.

I would love to see a similar report done comparing CBC coverage of last years American Presidential campaign. I don't really watch CBC all that much anymore, mostly because of their blatant pro-liberal slant to almost everything they do, but their were times last year that they didn't even pretend to be an unbiased news source. Just before the actual election they were running anti-bush documentaries repeatedly. Now that type of thing is a bit iffy for a privately owned media company, but is downright wrong for a publicly owned crown corporation.

Hat tip to LGF for the original link.

A little compare and contrast

Found this via a Michelle Malkin story on John Kerry finally releasing his military records. Of course being Kerry he couldn't just make them public like Bush did, no, he had to release them only to a Kerry friendly journalist (who also happens to be his biographer). Can this man do nothing in a straightforward manner?

Well anyways, I didn't really care too much about that (by this time it's all just about saving face on his part) I just had to link to Right Wing Howler's comparison of a John Kerry school photo, apparently included in the released documents, and one of George Bush.

Could this be the real reason he didn't want his records made public?

An interesting invention

Well we still don't have our personal hover cars, but this invention by Alon Bodner may bring us one step closer to the sci-fi dream of underwater cities.

His new system actually takes the air right out of the surrounding water which can enable a diver to stay under for as long as he/she has battery power to keep it running. Early calculations show that a single 1 kilo lithium battery could enable a dive of up to 1 hour.

Due to the relatively low power needs of the system there is also a chance of it being used for non-nuclear powered submersibles, lengthening the time they can stay submerged before having to surface. That could be good news for our Canadian diesel subs, if they are ever actually deemed sea worthy that is.

Hat tip to Slashdot for the original link.

A insightful interview with a former Spanish Prime Minister

Thanks to RightasRain for providing the link to this interview with Former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar over in the comments section of LGF.

It's a very interesting look into how Europeans in general view Israel.

(If you can stomach it you can check out the original LGF post that RightasRain was leaving the comment in.)

New flash: Bush is NOT Evil???

What's this?

Another group of foreigners who think Bush is not in fact Hitler? Quick, someone tell the inmates at the Democartic Underground Asylum so they can enlighten these poor Azerbaijanis about the error of their ways in demanding a democratic say in how their lives are run.

Curse you Bush, and your evil plot to bring representative government to the world!

/sarcasm

A case study in Leftward thinking

If you've ever wondered what goes on in a far left thinking mind just check out this thread at the Democratic Underground Forums. You can almost hear the glee in their voices at the possible thought that the Koran desecration stories from Gitmo are true. Even cases of 'mistreatment' of Korans (which the government gave to the prisoners in the first place) which are unintended and fully explained in the report* are in their minds 100% proof that the Bush administration is evil. They don't seem to get the fact that if the US government was desecrating the Korans of prisoners on a regular basis then they would probably not authorize a public report about it.

I love the fact that in the same thread that they discuss pure assumptions and non-existent facts as if they were gospel (pun not intended) they also pat themselves on the back as being one of the only free bastions of truth. And notice how the one slight voice of reason, is ridiculed and challenged on his actual knowledge of Islam. Even when he mentions the fact that he minored in religious studies, which included Islam, and has several Muslim friends, he is still challenged about his knowledge by someone who himself presents no credentials except to repeat the same statements over and over. This is the lefts idea of debate. When facts or educated opinion are presented just ignore them and stick to your 'feelings'.

A few things are suspiciously missing from what I was able to read. The first is the fact that there were more cases of prisoners defacing their own Korans, including the infamous flushing incident, than of guards. The second is anyone pointing out the fact that Newsweek's story, which they claim is now justified, was still wrong. Even with all that has come out, Newsweek's actual assertions (mainly the systematic Koran abuse at Gitmo) have still been shown to be false, but then again 'fake but accurate' seems to be the liberal mantra as of late; facts be damned. Thirdly, the fact that recovered Al Qaeda training manuals specifically state that when captured, members should lie about mistreatment and torture by the people holding them. That of course won't stop Dummies (as Democratic Undergrounder are known on the right) and other staunch liberals from screaming from the rooftops whenever any prisoner makes any abuse claims, even when absolutely no proof is offered. Just check out the recent statement from Amnesty International for more evidence of this. Especially telling is their executive director's clarification (link to Captain's Quarters but there is a Yahoo News link in the post) of their most recent report which went so far as to compare Gitmo to the Soviet Gulags. As it turns out, they really have no proof of any abuse at Gitmo but basically just 'feel' that it's a bad place.

As a parting shot in the thread, notice the use the favorite left technique of creating hypothetical situations and then answering them with the most outrageous possible response. In this case namely the assertion that if these incidents had involved Bibles instead then Bush, along with his right wing cronies, would have declared war on the perpetrators. I feel sorry for this guy's lack of worldly experience. Namely the fact that this type of thing is done regularly as 'art' (a fact that is even pointed out earlier in the thread). Oddly enough, most of their arguments are as easily proven false but that never seems to phase them in the slightest.

If you read some other threads on that site you will becomes lost in the number of times they mention the fact that Bush cannot stand opposing viewpoints and is crushing dissent in the US. The fact that these loons have not all been rounded up already and are free to post those assertions in the DUmmies forums is an irony they just cannot grasp. While I normally encourage people to research any claims made, especially in a blog, you may want to take my word on that last bit. Spending more time then is absolutely necessary on Democratic Underground can be hazardous to ones mental health. The most I can usually handle is maybe 1 thread every two weeks or so.

*For the record, the peeing incident they are stuck on was reported after a guard took a leak near an air vent. A prisoner then claimed that a few drops may have come through the vent and as a result the guard was punished and the prisoner received all new clothes and bedding. The Koran, being in the prisoner's cell, may have been touched by a stray urine particle but no actual proof was shown. This is the type of case they just love.

Another Birthday wish

Well June is upon us so it's time to wish my niece a happy birthday. So just to make it official, here it is:

Happy Birthday Micaela!!

This time I actually sent her gift prior to the actual event, which is today. Even though it will more than likely not arrive until next Tuesday or Wednesday, from what I understand she's still playing with the birthday gift I sent my sister last week, so that should buy me some time.

I would have delivered it myself, but I need to bring my car in for service and that probably won't be until next week. Sorry =)

Of course, I still don't know if my sister has even found this site yet so this might be all for naught.

Another interesting Captain's Quarters Post

This story was just a little further down the main page at Captain's Quarters than his Grewal Tapes posting. While it has nothing to do with Canadian politics, it is such a strange little story I just had to add a link.

The California Assembly, made up predominately of Democrats (just had to add that), voted last Thursday, and I kid you not, to "ban school districts from purchasing textbooks longer than 200 pages". This law is believed to be the first of it's kind in the US, and possibly anywhere.

This will either result in one of two things:

1. Specially printed, smaller textbooks for California schools that read more like a course outline. In many cases any additional/background information would have to be left out entirely.
2. Publishers breaking down textbooks into several smaller parts so as to fit below the 200 page limit without having to sacrifice quality.

Either result will most likely cost Californians more in the long run, both financially and in terms of a quality education system.