Speechless

You have to read this CBC News article to believe it.

I've heard some pretty poor excuses being thrown around by Judges in their kid glove handling of pedophiles and child rapists before, and if you ever watch the O'Reilly Factor you'll have seen a lot of similar cases in the US as of late, but these statements from Judge Cote just takes the cake, runs it over with a car, and them bombs the hell out of it.

A step in the right direction

Say what you want about Prime Minister Harper's PR savvy, or lack thereof, but when it comes to making some real changes in the hollowed halls of Parliament he's already about 12 years ahead of the previous governments timetable.

Already in his short tenure he's brokered an end to the decades old softwood lumber dispute with the US and now this week he's taking on the even older issue of Parliamentary reform with a proposed bill to A) set a fixed date for Federal elections, and B) set term limits to Senators (see this CBC story).

A fixed date, much like that already used in several Provincial elections and most notably in the American electoral system, removes the most powerful tool from the party in powers bag of tricks. By not allowing the Prime Minister to call elections whenever he/she pleases, but instead setting the date in stone (barring a non-confidence vote) ensures that every candidate of every party has all the time they need to properly prepare for the election cycle. Gone will be the days of quick election calls when polls are in the governing parties favor in order to extend their rule artificially. It's no wonder the lone dissenting voice on the issue, that I've seen anyway, has been interim Liberal leader, Bill Graham.

As for term limits for Senators, it's a good first step into some much needed Senate reform. It's about time that the Upper House was revamped into something that could use it's parliamentary authority without causing open revolt amongst average Canadians due to it's lack of true citizen input or oversight.

These two changes should pass as more than enough opposition members agree with the Conservatives that it is necessary and in the case of the choosing of election date, it is a traditional PM power which Harper is voluntarily surrendering.

It will be interesting to see if Harper manages to use this as a jumping off point to fully redesign the Senate into a truly democratic body. Personally I favor the US system of a Lower House of proportionally elected representatives, while the Upper House gives each province and territory equal say, and it goes without saying (but I'll say it anyway) that they are both directly elected by the citizens. As those changes would require a complete overhauling of the constitution with regards to the Senate and how the Provinces are represented there I can foresee very long discussion taking place but it looks like we finally have a Prime Minister who's willing to correct a long broken system.

Now if he can only fix this whole Government/National Press fiasco that's been going on for weeks around these parts, all will be well.

This One's for You Rat K.

Rat sent me a link to the 9/11 "documentary" Loose Change about a month ago (and I use the term documentary in the loosest sense of the word in much the same manner as it can be said Michael Moore makes 'documentaries'). I briefly looked at it to see if it offered any real insights but based on articles I had read earlier as well as a quick google search, I quickly put them off as simple conspiracy theorists looking to make a buck.

But it seems someone else was willing to put a little more effort into debunking their claims and has put together a pretty good site at Screw Loose Change (just gotta love the name; short, sweet and too the point). In the process of debunking LCs claims SLC also does a pretty good job of providing some good links. I highly suggest reading the comments because it's just so much fun to read posts from people working so desperately to hold onto the slimmest chance that the US Administration actually perpetrated September 11th that they discount the opinions of recognized experts in every field but bite full force on the engineering opinion of the cleaning lady who thought something 'smelled funny' in the men's washrooms 10 minutes before the crash. As one commenter stated, normally comedy this good requires a 2 drink minimum.

On a side note, and the reason LC came back to mind after a month or so, is this little story over at LGF explaining how Loose Change is facing a little legal action for using copywritten material without a license. I can't tell you just how sorry I feel for them.

When Good Ice Cream Goes Bad

More proof McD's is just simply better than BK; when is the last time a McFlurry ever insulted someone's religion to the point where a Jihad was declared? (picture available here)

That'll teach those British BK Ice Cream scientists not to mess with the big boys over here in the McDonald's Canada Labs.

And don't think that creepy, peeping Tom, plastic headed King is going to save you!

(h/t LGF)

Another reason to be thankful I'm NOT part of CUPE

I am a public employee (Federal) and I do work in Ontario (Ottawa) but thankfully these clowns don't represent me.

Word's fail to adequately describe the level of loathing I feel toward the CUPE leadership right now. There is only so much leeway I will give to someone who chooses to be so willfully ignorant of the facts and history.

Is Israel perfect in their handling of the Palestinian conflict? Heck no.

Are the Palestinians the innocent little victims so many in the academic world attempt to paint them to be? Not on your life.

Should 'the wall', the most oft stated reason behind these type of divestment actions, come down ? I don't know about you but if a single structure can reduce incident of terrorism by upwards of 90% I say let it stand.

Should anyone take the UN condemnation of 'the wall' seriously? Sad to say but the UN has a very poor record on being objective on Israeli/Palestinian relations, taking almost every chance (and even holding special sessions just to create new chances) to condemn the only truly democratic nation in the Middle East.

It's just amazing to me when almost every neighboring country in the region has as it's official policy the destruction of the world's only Jewish nation (the recently elected Hamas has it as a key point in their organizational charter for crying out loud), whose population and land size barely rate as a blip on the map in the ME (just check out this Protest Warrior poster to help clarify the situation), it's somehow Israel's fault when they try and defend themselves, even through passive means like the wall.

Sometimes I wonder if things could get any worse if the Israelis decided to live up to their international image and just take full military action against Hamas and the other terrorist groups working openly in the occupied territories. Lord knows, the opinions of them within the CUPE leadership and much of their brothers and sisters in dementia over at the AUT couldn't get much worse.

Update:
Looks like my reference t the old AUT story is right on the mark as it appears their fellow British Teachers Union, and soon to be partner, NATFHE, just passed their own Israeli Academic ban.

Put your feet up and stay a while

I'm not American but I have been following the debates on border enforcement and illegal immigration. All I can say is that the Senate bill that was recently passed is actually making me feel good about Canada's own immigration policies.

While the Canadian deportation system pushed the limits of the concept of the separation of church and state as it is essentially a faith based program (the deportee is given a time and place to show up for their flight out of the country and the government basically prays they show up all the while receiving free lodging, health care and all welfare benefits) at least I am not aware of any provisions that require us to get the permission of any other country before putting any other programs in place to protect our borders. The US Senate bill, on the other hand, effectively gives Mexico veto rights as to the time and place of construction of any additional fences between the two countries.

Don't forget, you're talking about giving a country whose very economic stability (what little they have) is based on money being sent back from illegal workers in the US (to the sum of some $200 Billion each year). Add to that the very strong and widely held belief that many of the southern US states should belong to Mexico. But I'm sure Mr. Fox will be very open minded and helpful in stemming the flow if illegals between these two countries, after all, he does know where they are crossing as his army is often on the scene giving aid and supplies to the 'migrant workers', including warning them of locations of Border and civilian patrols.

And this is all outside of the interesting 'non-amnesty' amnesty portion of the bill that allows anyone in the country illegally for more than 2 years a clear path to citizenship (how exactly do you prove an illegal undocumented worker wasn't in the country for more than 2 years I wonder).

Sometimes you just have to wonder what they are putting in the water in the Capital building.

An Inconvenient Truth(?)

"In the United States of America, unfortunately we still live in a bubble of unreality. And the Category 5 denial is an enormous obstacle to any discussion of solutions. Nobody is interested in solutions if they don't think there's a problem. Given that starting point, I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous it is, as a predicate for opening up the audience to listen to what the solutions are, and how hopeful it is that we are going to solve this crisis. "

These are the words of former VP and current Global Warming warrior Al Gore.

It's not everyday that you get to see a leader of the global warming brigade flat out state that from their point of view the ends justify the means; lying is ok as long as you believe in the ultimate goal.

It's oddly comforting to see this admission in print since it has been my contention all along that those supporters of the "It's all our fault" global warming theory don't really have much in the way of evidence to back up their claim and that most of their arguments are based on empty rhetoric meant to frighten people into action. Now here we have one of the most well respected voices in that movement clearly stating that he supports that very thing.

I have not seen Gore's movie, and admittedly I probably won't, but I have seen him talk about man's affects on the environment and have seen him many times make claims that are in no way supported by fact.

Case in point, he likes to use the hurricanes from last year as proof of global warming, even going so far as to use a storm cloud as part of his movie poster, but every certified hurricane specialist I have seen has clearly stated that global warming, even if it does exists, would have had little or no affect on the number, or ferocity of the storms. For one, the waters of the Gulf of Mexico reach the critical temperature for hurricanes about the same time every year and even if they were to get warmer, that would have no real affect on the storms power. There is also the fact that the upsurge in storm activity in the northern hemisphere was predicted years ago but not based on any temperature increases but by recurring cycles that, while not fully understood, show a definite pattern of world wide hurricane occurrences; a pattern last years season fit perfectly. See this link for more.

Have you ever noticed how so many of the sites claiming to prove that link use the very same date range, 1880-1950? Ever ask yourself why, with all the increases in technology since 1950 would anyone pick that as a stopping point in a graph? The reason is pretty simple, by cherry picking dates you can create a believable relationship between almost any two factors (in most cases CO2 and temperature) and that's not to say they aren't related, but it's often the exploration of the anomalies (that in these cases are being intentionally ignored) that help people better understand the true nature of their connection. Again, just ask yourself, why is it that temperatures actually dropped during the periods with the greatest increase of man made CO2 if CO2 and temperature are as closely linked as Gore and his associates would like us to believe?

As I've said before in other posts and on other sites, I'm not making the claim that global warming does not exist, merely that there is very limited science creating the important cause and effect relationship with man.

The fact is that global warming is still a very young theory (only 20-30 years ago the very same environmentalists were shouting that the next ice age was upon us) and as such has not had time to be fully vetted. There may very well be some merit to the current claims that man is affecting the worlds temperature (we have managed to drastically increase the growth rates of forests due to the abundance of CO2 in the atmosphere after all) but as of yet there is little truly unbiased science to show that link. As any true scientist can tell you, a correlation does not prove causality, but that is the very argument at the heart of the global warming movement.

Global trends, the fact we are only a few centuries out of a mini ice age, improvements in measurement accuracy (just compare satellite to ground based temperature readings) , increase solar activity, etc.. are all just as viable alternatives as to why the planets average temperature has gone up 1 half of 1 degree in the last 100 years.

While I applaud anyone who chooses to move their homes over to solar/wind power, or uses better insulation or lighting fixtures to reduce electricity usage, or buys a hybrid car, I do so because all those things help a) reduce emissions and make the air cleaner, and b) reduce our dependence on oil. Any affects that those actions may have on the earths temperature are what I would consider added bonuses but not even close to my prime reason for supporting them.

Ottawa Traffic (part 8)

The heat is on, oh it's on the street; well at least that's the word from the OPP. It seems speeders are now officially public enemy #1. It nice to know we're #1 on somebody's list but truth be told, in this case I'd rather remain under the OPP's radar, so to speak.

It seems that stats for the past few years have shown a pretty strong relationship between major injuries and people traveling at high rates of speed. I really hope they didn't spend good money putting that report together when the Department of Stating the Obvious could have produced the same thing in an afternoon for mere peanuts.

I really can't put up an argument that speed is not a factor to the severity of injuries in traffic accidents, that's just plain common sense, but what I would like to put forward is that in many of these cases it was not speed, but the reckless driving of the people involved, that caused the accident to occur in the first place. Just the other day Rat and I were driving down the Queensway and drove by the scene of what was a somewhat major accident involving a single motorcycle. From the radio we were able to learn that the driver had been speeding down the highway and had lost control. However it appears the key contributing factor to the accident was not the speed at which he was traveling but the fact he was ducking and weaving through traffic in order to maintain that speed. If he had been traveling at above the posted limit but in a straight line it would have been very doubtful that any accident would have occurred.

That being said I still do believe there is a certain safe limit that can be traveled on any road or highway but it generally has little to do with the posted legal limit; it's primarily based on the flow of traffic. As long as a single vehicle does not exceed the rate of the flow by more than a few kilometers then everything should be ok. In cases like the Queensway where you have multiple lanes, that could lead to drastic variances from the extreme left to the extreme right lanes but the key is that the difference between any two adjoining lanes remains within a 10-20KM/H range. That should be more than enough to allow for people to safely and easily change lanes with lots of time to accelerate or slow down to match their target lanes speed. If you are unable to do that then maybe you should be sticking to the surface streets.

That leads to my cardinal rule of lane changing, when moving between two lanes traveling at different rates of speed, it is your responsibility to match the speed of the lane into which you are moving, it is not the job of the other occupants of that lane to adjust to match your speed. If you don't think you can get up to their speed quickly enough than I'm sorry, but your just stuck where you are. Next time buy a better car.

And speaking of surface streets, that leads to the second major determination of what is or isn't a safe speed, the surrounding structures. On a highway where access is limited and there aren't any buildings blocking the view ahead than flow is far and away the best indicator for speed, but off the highways you have to be very mindful of your surroundings. If you are driving through an industrial park with nothing but offices on one side and an empty field on the other than perhaps 80 is not such a bad speed to be doing, but put that same car in a residential area with houses just a few feet from the curbs and the threat of stupid children running out from every bush (I kid you not when I say just yesterday I saw a kid of at least 10 'swim' across the road on my way home, forcing 2 cars to have to slow to a crawl to allow him passage).

I guess I just want to say I really don't like the idea of being targeted just because of the actions of some of the idiots who happen to share my passion for driving fast. People just have to use some common sense and most accidents can easily be avoided. Now time for my drive home. Wish me luck.

(Part 7 and previous)

Most underrated Movie of the Year!

Bar none, that honor has to go to 'Grandma's Boy'.

Honestly, I avoided that movie like the plague when it was in theatres but on Rat's recommendation I picked up the DVD. Let's just say that more than made up for his talking me into picking up Rise of Legends (although I still don't have XP installed so I can't give my final verdict as to how well that worked out).

I just have to say how shocked I was at how good a movie made up solely of Adam Sandler extras could be without Sandler himself (not that Sandler's participation is necessarily an indicator of good movie). If I had know Nick Swardson both wrote and starred in it at the time it was originally released, I may have changed my mind and gone to see it. Either way, it's one of the best purchases so far this year.

If you're looking for you toilet humor fix for the next little while, this is definitely the movie for you; just one word of caution, if you are offended by drug references, you may just want to skip this one.

Time to lay some speed traps

I don't know how far this pandemic has spread, but if other cities are anything like Ottawa you may agree with me, it's time to put a stop to these roller sneakers!

It's a rarity now to see anyone under the age of 13 actually walk anywhere nowadays. Sure they may be standing up, but almost without fail they are leaning back on their heels gliding along on a pair of hidden wheels. It may be a cool concept but enough is enough already. It's starting to get to the point I want to start laying out hundreds of little spike strips throughout malls across the city.

Who's with me?

Update: minor edit

Reading is fundamental

Just a quick link for those on the extreme left who have obviously been having trouble with this topic over the past decade or so: RIF.ORG.

First we had the President of the United States arguing over the definitions of 'is' and 'alone' in front of an international audience.

Then we had the extreme left (I try to keep the moderates separated but on this point the lines a little fuzzier) arguing over what the definition of a lie is with their "Bush Lied..." series of memes. (For the record, if you repeat what you are told by every reliable source and believe to be the truth, even if it later turns out to be inaccurate, you haven't really lied. Lying requires advanced knowledge that what you are saying in untruthful.)

And now we have them struggling with what exactly constitutes an apology. So according to Marc over at Truthout, when you totally misrepresent conjecture and wishful thinking as fact it's not really your fault, your just erring:

"in getting too far out in front of the news-cycle".

Now that's a keeper of a line if I ever heard one.

This has been a long trend, especially in the higher level political circles, made most clear at least to me with Dick Durbin's apology (I'll let you look over the many sites evaluating his apology) over his comparison of US soldiers to Nazis in which, as is normally the case, he apologizes by actively placing blame on those who might have misunderstood his quote. (Note to Durbin, to apologize you have to admit a mistake on your part, not on the part of the audience. In the process of apologizing you can try to clarify your position, but you have to at least admit you goofed up.)

Everybody out there has more but for the sake of time and space I'll just link to Protein Wisdom and Riehl World. Oh and what the heck, I'll add Jeff's, Hot Air link just because the comments made me laugh.

Knock on wood

It looks like I can finally formally add my name to the list of people who have suffered a catastrophic hard drive failure; and only a week or so after talking with a friend about his drive crashing and commenting that it never having happened to me (except what I thought was a mistake on my part).

Just a few weeks ago when I upgraded my system with two new hard drives my older 200GB seemed to forget it was formatted. At the time I thought it might have just been a side affect of something I was doing in Partition Magic and just ran a recovery program to try and get back all the info stored on there (since it was my primary storage drive and it was completely full that process took over a week). As it turns out it appears the timing of the crash was just an odd coincidence as the same thing happened again on Thursday without me doing any hard drive modifications (even odder is the fact my brothers drive, about 2500KMs away did the exact same thing).

Luckily I had recovered the vast majority of useful information to one of my new drives, but as I was using my old drive as my Shareaza download folder I did lose about 56GB of partial downloads, so that kinda sucked.

And just to rub it in, Maxtor's online warranty system went down for service exactly 15 minutes before me needing it and is staying down just long enough for me not to be able to get to a store to buy a replacement drive before the long weekend is over. It's almost enough to make me start to believe in conspiracies.

Oh well, I wanted an excuse to get another 300GB drive anyway, and if I have to sacrifice a few days/weeks of downloads to do it, so be it. Just getting me 100GB closer to my ultimate terabyte goal. Come to think of it, since I'll need to install XP to get my Rise of Legends working, I may just take this time to finally replace my system drive (my only sub 200GB drive) and bust thought that ceiling.

Decisions, decisions.

Calgon, Take me away!

Another day another 8 hour meeting. If I wasn't feeling like crap before this week started I definitely would now. Oh well, 3 down, 1 to go before Friday and the Da Vinci Code (if Mac and AJ don't wimp out).

Hopefully by next week I'll be back to the humdrum life of the office and able to do a little midday blogging.

Cooking the Books

So the AG's report is out and surprise, surprise she managed to find another $60 million in hidden funds spent on the gun registry by the Liberals. So even a couple of months after they've been kicked out of power the Liberal Party of Canada still manages to cost the tax payers moneys.

The report wasn't all bad for the Liberals though, after all the numbers have been crunched it looks like the final bill to date for the $2 million dollar registry came in at only $946 million and not the $1 billion everyone was estimating. So instead of being 500% over budget they were only 473%. I have no doubt that somewhere in an office tower downtown, at this very moment, some Liberal spin doctors are trying to find a way to make "Liberals saved 27% over previous registry estimates" tomorrows headline.

And this was only from the publicly available books that the AG has access to, just imagine when the new Conservative policies start to take affect and she can go into the previously locked books of government contractors (a power she has already claimed will not be widely used) and all of those multibillion slush funds the Liberals set up outside of the control of parliament.

Another year come and gone

It's a sad day here in Ottawa, The Senators have once again been put out of their race for the Stanley Cup in the second round. It seems like a right of spring, snow melting, flowers blooming, Senators losing.

That every game came down to 1 goal and 3 of the wins were in overtime make this loss all the more painful. So close but yet ....

That won't stop me from ordering nexts years tickets though.

Give 'em hell on the greens guys!
Golf Sens Golf!!

ECW Public Service announcement #2

I just picked up Rise of Legends on the advice of a friend. Not really thinking too much about requirements (my system is old but not that old) I bought it and brought it home to install.

As it turns out my hardware is not the problem; Microsoft, in their infinite wisdom, has chosen to put a WinXP check into the program itself to prevent it from installing on any other operating system. From all accounts there is really no reason for the check, as most of the underlying systems are almost identical and the DEMO, with a small change to the installer, seems to work fine on 2k.

Using advice from a poster at this forum I managed to bypass the check and install the game but the same trick doesn't help with game play. As soon as I get to the main menu all the options besides check for upgrade or exit are blocked.

So in addition to warning people who are not currently running XP from buying Rise of Legends I'm also putting out the question: Is there any way to bypass Microsoft's XP check so that I can play it on my system without upgrading?

For those brave souls still interested in testing their luck here's all you have to do to install RoL on a Win2k box; go to the command line in the folder with the install program (probably setup.exe) and type the name with a "/a" afterward.

But as I've said, this only seems to work with the install program, trying this with the game doesn't seem to do anything.

If anyone does manage to get the game to play, please drop me a comment. Thanks.

The U.N. at it finest

As if there were actually a need for more evidence the U.N. is a failed organization in need for some serious overhaulin': 'Abusers' elected to human rights council

I fear not even poor ol' Chip could save this wreck (though I'm sure the one-off rims he'd put on the General Assembly building would be killer).

(h/t Ms. Malkin)

"STUPIDEST DEM ATTACK. EVER."

I tried to come up with a different post title but Michelle's just seemed to fit too perfectly. Read her full post here for the details.

You have to get up pretty early in the morning to come up with an attack plan this dumb. I'm just waiting for Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice next press conference.

A few words on the Budget

Well it looks like PM Harper's first full budget has managed the impossible, with the exception of the standard complaints from the opposition members in the House and Senate, it has majority support from the Canadian public, with an over 60% rating in Quebec alone (a small miracle for a Conservative budget).

Now it's not all win win, the big loss is it calls for the previous tax cut of 1% to be cut in half, but in my humble opinion, it is a step in the right direction.

With a lack of large government controlled programs, it instead opts instead for specialized tax breaks for people meeting specific conditions. The biggest example of this is the Conservative child care system. Instead of the Liberal model of giving large sums of cash to the provinces for 'child care' related spending (with absolutely no definition as to what constitutes 'child care'), they choose to give the money directly to the parents. The end result is this will help out every family with small children instead of the few lucky enough to live in metropolitan areas who are high enough on the waiting lists to get into one of the few thousand additional spots opened up under the Liberal plan (which really wasn't a plan so much as a sorry last minute vote buying scheme).

Another clear difference in the Conservative vs. Liberal methodology is their approach to the growing childhood obesity problem. Instead of creating some new bureaucratic nightmare of a program to try and find ways to deal with the problem at a Federal level, Harper's Conservatives have instead opted to make sports program expenses deductible off the parents personal taxes. This is the way I like to see the government 'interfere' with a persons daily life; instead of trying to grab more power unto itself by creating a 'Department of Fat Kids' with a staff of hundreds and it's own Ministerial position, as was the Liberal solution to most problems, they simply reward actions that they see as beneficial to society through tax breaks. The end result is an increase of the desired activity with no actual out of pocket expense to the Feds.

Then there's the GST reduction. Finally, after 13 years of promises by the previous government to scrap the Goods and Services Tax, the same group of people who put it in place to fight the deficit are back and are the first to actually begin to repeal it. Now it's only 1% for now, but in a few budgets time who knows, it could drop to 5, 4, 3 or even all the way to 0, depending on how the economy adjusts.

But beside the budget there's also word of a new crime bill that would actually look to enforce tough sentences on certain types of violent crimes. Imagine that, instead of fighting crime by creating a multi-billion registry which few people actually used anyway, you fight it by making the sentences for the crimes which can result in the greatest threat to the safety of the general public tougher. Now there are already complaints coming from the left that making gun crime sentences harsher than the current slap on the wrist will cost million of extra dollars a year, but yet those same people seem to have no problems with so many other millions being lost on failed programs and, once again because it's so fun to use as an example, a gun registry for hunting rifles (I'm told not the weapon of choice for even the most down on his luck gang banger) that somehow cost upwards of 1 billion dollars and was projected to hit 2 billion before long (or in other words, approximately enough money to pay for 1 and a half years of incarceration for every person currently in the Canadian prison population).

Overall, I'd have the give the neophyte Harper administration a thumbs up. He may have been, and for that matter still continues to be, a little weak on his PR side of things, but he does seem to be following through on his campaign promises. Just imagine that, a Canadian politician actually following through on campaign promises. I was beginning to think that once Mike Harris (former Conservative Premier of Ontario for those not in the know) had left politics that I would never see the like of such a thing again. It's nice to see on that point I was wrong (hey it doesn't happen often but I can admit my mistakes when they happen).

Eric, please man for the love of God get some help!

I'm know there was a time in the not to distant past when Eric Margolis was an good foreign correspondent. I'm just sure of it. I've been reading his commentaries in the Ottawa Sun for a while and I know he wasn't always bad. Now, as I've pointed out on several occasions already, he has gone so far off the deep end that the only place fit for him to swim is the Marianas Trench.

Last week was his article about the outrage at having the President of China's visit classified an 'official visit' instead of a 'State Visit'. This may be a topic of major concern within the Margolis household but I can't seem to find much hoopla about it anywhere else. In short, Eric believes that Bush is sending the world to hell in a handbasket because he didn't invite Hu Jintao over for supper but instead opted for lunch.

But then the BDS really starts to show. In trying to explain Bush's unforgivable behavior, Eric manages to use both the terms 'theocon' and 'neocon' and then when things are looking bleak for his chance at the trifecta he pulls it off and slips in a references to Abu Gharib (correct me if I'm wrong but weren't people tried and convicted of their actions there), Gitmo (one of the only torture centers I know of where prisoners petition not to leave), and hidden CIA interrogation centers (so secretive that since every foreign investigation into their existence has come back with absolutely no evidence, the only proof is from a single disgruntled CIA agent who has not hidden her dislike for the current admin and has been an open supporter of the Democrats for years), all in an effort to equate Bush's supposed sins to those of the communist party of China.

I must not be watching the same news channels as dear old Eric, but can someone please tell me when was the last time the President of the United States ordered his tanks to run over protestors in the street, enforce extreme filtering to nation wide internet access, imprison people for peacefully exercising their religion of choice? The fact that the same 2 or three examples of supposed rights violations (oddly, none of which actually occurred in the US and those that have been proven have resulted in criminal or military prosecutions) are always trotted out as examples of how evil the current administration is, is to me almost proof to the contrary. If Bush was trampling over the Constitution as much as those on the extreme left like to pretend, mostly so they can make themselves appear like heroes to each other when they 'speak truth to power' (BTW, has anyone seen Stephen Colbert lately? From reading the left side of the blogosphere you would assume he has to be in some deep dark hole in GITMO by now for his attack on the Dictator in Chief), don't you think that there would be a whole host of examples a little closer to home? And no, I don't count the nice hypothetical situations groups like the ACLU so love to sue over.

Anyways, on to this weeks article (not yet posted online) in which he goes on to argue against the US's call to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear device. Somehow, in a single article, he manages to both condemn the US's call for a cease of nuclear research and praise the EU's call for the same. Really, he's so far gone that he's not even trying anymore.

He then goes on to defend Iran's right to have nukes until Israel disarms, once again indirectly placing the blame for all the Mid East problems on the Jewish state.

It's simply amazing to me how much trouble 6.3 million people can cause their hundreds of millions of neighbors by just refusing to let themselves be killed. That is the stated goal of several of their neighboring countries, Iran itself being quite vocal on that point. But to Eric there is no doubt that were it not for the neocons and Israel, the Middle East would be a glorious happy place to live (that is if you can manage to gloss over the fact that almost every country in the region has been at war at one time or another with their neighbors even without Israel's involvement).

Please Eric, I'm begging you, go see a doctor and get yourself some medication. There must be something out there that can help you.

Comedy done 'Right'

I don't care what your views of the POTUS are, this is comedy gold. Add that to Laura Bush's 'Desperate Housewives' bit from the same event last year, and there's little doubt who the 'First Family' of comedy is.

And for a guy who doesn't naturally look like anyone he impersonates, Steve Bridges does a really good job of transforming himself into the perfect mirror of GB.

Al-qaeda's Funniest Home Videos

This video (courtesy of HotAir.com) has been getting some pretty good circulation in the last couple of days.

You can't help but smile when watching terrorist 'mastermind' Abu Musab Al Zarqawi trying his best Rambo pose for the camera. If it wasn't for the underling having to fix the gun for him, his 'shoot from the hip' style of handling it (I'd love to see that tried in real combat) or especially his turning around while holding the gun straight out, pointing it directly at another underling, it may have worked. As is it definitely portrays Zarqawi as more of a upper management type terrorist. Al-qaeda's very own version of the PHB.

There is a reason this part of the tape did not make it out until after it was retrieved by an army raid on a former safe house.

The New York Times (linking by way of LGF because of the NYT's forced enrollment and I just like LGF better) however, ever vigilant in their cause to protect the rights of the 'freedom fighters' in Iraq and around the world, as long as they oppose the current administrations goals of course, have been working overtime to make sure Abu's feelings don't get hurt. Using the patented NYT spin machine they somehow managed to turn a simple 'human interest' type story about embarrassing video clips of an extremist thug into an indictment of the President for causing the weapon to be lost in the first place; although no proof as to how Zarqawi came into possession of a widely used machine gun has been put forward by anyone, but then again, since when did facts get in the way of a good Bash Bush story at the 'paper of record'.

Personally, I'm a bit scared that the US military has/had Colonel's (and according to the author a multitude of other military personnel, but as per the NYT usual, all un-named) on it's payroll that can't even recognize the myriad of basic gun safety procedures that Zarqawi violated in under a minute.

As for the gun being unfamiliar and difficult to master, according to most other postings I have seen the gun in question is one of the simplest machine guns to use and takes almost no additional training for anyone familiar with weapons to handle. Kind of like a car owner borrowing a friend's SUV; you may not be performing hand brake turns right out of the driveway, but you at least know where the gas, brake, ignition and steering are and how they work.

Sore Losers

Looks like there are some VW fans out there who really didn't take the news of the Civic Si victory over the Golf GTI in the latest Motor Trend (article not yet online at time of posting).

Personally, I think this may be taking things a bit too far, but hey, at least we know Tim the Tool Man Taylor would approve.

(h/t Slashdot)

5 Myths about the US Military

I was just trying to clean up some of my draft posts that didn't seem to make it to the publishing stage when I came across this link. It's a pretty straight forward Townhall.com article dispelling some of the most often quoted myths about the problems and make-up of the US military.

Just so I don't lose it entirely I figured I'd promote it to a full posting.

St. Shivers of DuPont

In keeping with today's theme of great ideas, I'd like to draw special attention to the contribution to society of Mr. Joseph Shivers, or St. Shivers as he is more commonly known around my condo.

While not formally recognised by the Catholic church as a Saint, it is my firm belief that he more than meets the 3 miracle requirement to get into that most selective of clubs. Just the other day I was witness to not one, but two miracles that could be directly attributed to Joe.

And while much harm has been done in Joseph's name, I believe the good, firmly outweighs the bad. I can not hold him accountable for all the poor judgements made by people, especially when faced with the images placed before my eyes not two days ago while taking Foster out for a walk.

God bless all your good works Mr. Shivers.

I guess I should send out a special thank your to all those people who have worked so hard to make the most of Joseph's dream; Joseph William Foster and Phil Knight both deserve special mention in that department.

Great inventions

The wheel, indoor plumbing, cable TV, the remote control and now The Beer Belly. I guess necessity, truly is the mother of invention.

The perfect gift for any man on your shopping list (excluding all 'Queer Eye' fans. Mixing all the major 'guy' characteristics together in one item; cheapness, love of a certain sudsy beverage, and total nonchalant attitude about one's appearance.

I just don't know how this wasn't thought up sooner!


Hat tip to MacDaddy for the link via email.