Kyoto No-No

Mark Steyn's latest. The man is hilarious.

Biden: Scrap Hearings and Go Straight to Floor for Vote

As reported by ABC News. Here's his reason:

"Just go to the Senate floor and debate the nominee's statements," the Delaware senator said, "instead of this game."

Translation:

These jurists that I'm supposed to vilify in order to please the far-left groups that elect me are too damn smart and just make me look like an ass. It's easier for me to distort their statements and assassinate their character when they can't defend themselves.

I've been picking on Biden a lot lately, but he deserves it.

Update: At least he admits it. Peggy Noonan actually finds his meandering train of thought endearing. Well, he's certainly amusing.

Hmm, Something New

I really didn't know this until I heard it on Rush just now: Ted Kennedy was expelled from Harvard for cheating. I really cannot comprehend the idiocy of the Massachusetts voter - they continually vote for this man. The MA GOP can't come up with somebody to get rid of him?

Although, I don't mind TOO much having him in the Senate. He's a good liberal pinata - poke him and all sorts of moronic statements useful for conservative propaganda pop out.

Joe Biden: Sexist and Homophobe

If he were a Republican, he would surely be called that based on the audio I heard on Hugh Hewitt's show today. To paraphrase:

The chick showing us around was hot, and my son was interested. If he weren't I'd be worried because he might be a flaming fairy.

I think Mark Levin is right in calling him the stupidest senator.

Those rascally Iranians

Despite opposition by the cruel global establishment, Iran has struck a blow for freedom. By removing the seals on it's nuclear facilities, Iran has empowered itself to continue peaceful research on generating electricity by nuclear means.

Affirmative Action

From BOTW, got this story about a black Australian bodyguard who is suing because he contends he was "overpromoted" due to his skin color, and as a result made mistakes due to his lack of training that led to reassignment.
Affirmative action just leads to resentment (for those who get passed up because of their skin color) and guilt (for those who get something because of their skin color). Get rid of it now, please.

This is how the DU will interpret this

Alito's wife was interviewed for more insight into the man:

-He attended a ska festival! He's a racist, as we all know ska is tied to Nazi white supremacists.

-He can shoot double clays! He's a gun nut! Not much interpretation needed there.

-He's a gourmet cook! He's secretly gay, like John Roberts! I expect this will draw the most attention. DUers love to say conservatives are secretly gay. It's their second favorite pejorative after calling conservatives racist.

He likes Springsteen. Hard to be from Jersey without liking Brooooooooce. I don't know if a leftie commenter will be able to say anything bad about this because then they would be criticizing Brooooce, who himself is a big critic of George Bush.

Anyway, let the games begin! Who's your number one contender for Bloviation Champion during the hearings? I pick either Kennedy or Biden.

NAGs

want JoePa's head. Just leave the old man alone!

Ouch

Via this link from Michelle Malkin, check out the video of a recently returned veteran telling off Congressmen Moran and Murtha. Awesome.

The Attempted Borking of Scalito

Drudge has an ***Exclusive*** up on how the Dems are going to try to hang Alito by attaching his name to a sentence written by an old dude named Frederick Foote in CAP's (Concerned Alumni for Princeton) magazine that stated:

The facts show that, for whatever reasons, whites today are more intelligent than blacks.

Alito joined the organization, he states, to protest the Princeton policy that disallowed ROTC from operating on the campus.
Gimme a break. They can't possibly be that stupid. Tigerhawk points out that by the same standard, the Democrats who have associated with Robert "KKK" Byrd or joined the party while George Wallace was running as a segregationist are guilty of the same "racism". He also has a lot of background on how the controversial piece was written and why, and it certainly takes the edge off of the statement.
This is just more proof of the unhingedness of the Democrats. They feel their last stronghold of power - the unelected power of the Supreme Court - dwindling away and they have to pull out all the stops to defend it. If I were a Democrat, I'd spend less time smearing honorable justices and a little more time focusing on 1) defining an agenda for '06 and '08 and 2) demonstrating that they are more fit to govern than scandal-ridden Republicans.

More Global Warming

Record snowfall in Japan.

Israel

As if things weren't hairy enough in the middle east. Ariel Sharon suffered a massive stroke Wednesday. He's still alive but it looks like his days of active politics are over. I'm pretty uneducated on the matter, but in the short term I think we'll see Sharon's plans continue with Israel pulling out of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. I say short term because some Arabian country (cough... Iran, cough...) will no doubt try again to push Israel into the sea (Intel probably wouldn't be too happy with that). After which who knows. Of immediate domestic interest, oil prices rise further due to increased insecurity in the Middle East (and West Africa).

The Only Thing Worse Than a RINO

is a big squishy RINO with a thick Austrian accent. "Don't be economic girlie-men." He should follow his own advice.

Un-Frickin'-Believable

A Mack Brown team wins the big one!

Even though I'm a huge Texas football fan, I was even drinking the Reggie Bush kool-aid and privately thought that USC would steamroll the 'Horns. They just had sooo many offensive tools at their disposal. Indeed, it still looked that way until the last six minutes of the game. However, Vince Young carried UT to the win with a jaw-dropping performance (how does a quarterback gain 200 yards rushing? how?). The hard-hitting UT defense also looked very good, although I think they started tiring in the 3rd quarter when USC began nickel-and-diming them to death. But Vince Young impressed me with a combination of poise, athleticism and humility that I don't see a lot of in sports today.

The Heisman voters screwed up this one. Vince Young not only is a superior athlete to Bush, he is also an incredible team leader - and a far smarter player, after seeing Bush turn a really great run into a fumble because of a bonehead lateral. I must say, I hope an NFL team I like picks this kid up because he is awesome.

Non-Default Headline

Finally got around to reading State of Fear on the honeymoon. The idea that we don't know if mankind's actions have a major effect on global climate is probably not new to most here. Note that not knowing is different from knowing that we're not. We should continue to take steps toward not screwing up the planet, we just don't need to shoot ourselves in the foot while doing so. Some realities of climate change are nicely expressed in the book, as are a couple other examples of man's generally unremarked upon ineptitude.
The best thing about the book is that it points out the folly of man's pride. Even with the best of intentions we often screw things up because we act before we know what we should be doing. Pride keeps us from seeing our lack of knowledge. Take forest fires. We wanted to preserve wilderness so we put out forest fires to keep ithe wilderness from burning down. Turns out that forest fires were a critical part of what naturally preserved the wilderness. So we think we've figured it out and start letting fires happen. Turns out that we've now let so much underbrush grow that the fire burns so hot that in some places it sterilizes the ground. I'm sure it will turn out that we replantted with the wrong mix of seeds and screwed things up further.
On top of all that, there's the whole idea that we are somehow doing something noble for the planet with this preservation. I'm all for preservation of the wilderness, but let's admit that it's a selfish act as far as mankind is conserned. We're preserving nature for our children and their children and so on. Nature doesn't care about "untouched" american forests. Nature was touching the heck out of american forests 10,000 years ago while they were crushed under glaciers. Only in our pride do we imagine that our lifetime is the measure of the world. "Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall."

Letterman=Worthless

This confirms what I've felt about Letterman for a while now. Too bad, sometimes he can be funny.
O'Reilly schooled him though. I think O'Reilly is a buffoon, but compared to Letterman he's a noble statesman.

Media's Worst of 2005

Stephen Spruiell reports. To me, the worst Media Moment of 2005 was the horrendous coverage of Hurricane Katrina. Even conservatives prone to emotionalism (like Michelle Malkin can sometimes be) laid it on thick on FEMA's response to this particular hurricane, and yet the countless hurricanes before and even Rita and Wilma afterward brought nary a peep. To paraphrase Sowell - agencies like FEMA only serve to use our taxpayer funds to subsidize people's decisions to live in hurricane prone areas. Plus, it's a government agency, so why should we, as conservatives, be indignant when it fails? Better to just be rid of it and let the insurance companies do what they are supposed to.

After seeing the ridiculous Katrina coverage, I can't stand Shep "Little Demon" Smith and Geraldo anymore. I REALLY can't stand Anderson "Premature Ejaculation" Cooper. They reported a bunch of sensationalist rumors that caused resources to be diverted that were needed elsewhere. The MSM is populated by a bunch of self-important jackasses who will take any opportunity to engage in moral preening, and I'm happy to say adios and get my news from the new media.

Bush Didn't Lie!

Via the Instapundit, got this great editorial from the Chicago Tribune:

After reassessing the administration's nine arguments for war, we do not see the conspiracy to mislead that many critics allege. Example: The accusation that Bush lied about Saddam Hussein's weapons programs overlooks years of global intelligence warnings that, by February 2003, had convinced even French President Jacques Chirac of "the probable possession of weapons of mass destruction by an uncontrollable country, Iraq." We also know that, as early as 1997, U.S. intel agencies began repeatedly warning the Clinton White House that Iraq, with fissile material from a foreign source, could have a crude nuclear bomb within a year.

And follows it up with this:

Many people of patriotism and integrity disagreed with us and still do. But the totality of what we know now--what this matrix chronicles-- affirms for us our verdict of March 2, 2003. We hope these editorials help Tribune readers assess theirs.

Read it all. Indeed, a cogent "post-game" analysis of the adminstration's case is what we need right now, and this is it. They do a good job in pointing out that Bush probably overplayed the whole WMD point because of its sexiness, which is probably true. I felt Bush's biggest problem in advancing the case for war was that he didn't illustrate well enough (unlike Tony Blair, who was spectacular and vigorous on this point) that the convergence of WMD producing nations and terrorist organizations willing to be the delivery vehicles were what we were trying to prevent.

Of Democracy And Men

David Hanson, posting on NRO, provides one of the best explanations I've yet to come across regarding the Mid-East, advancing my theory that our only shot for winning the GWOT comes from a free Muslim populace.

Couldn't Predict This One...

Europeans missing their CO2 emissions targets from the Save the Icebergs Treaty:

Although the US is portrayed as the ecological villain for refusing to sign up to the agreement, 10 out of the 15 European Union signatories - including Ireland, Italy and Spain - will miss their targets without urgent action, the Institute for Public Policy Research found.

Imagine that. Along this vein, I'm in the midst of reading The Satanic Gases to be better informed on this subject, as well as the global warming chapter in The Skeptical Environmentalist. If I ever get around to it, I might read the actual published papers in Science or Nature just to see what the current research is. It seems Crichton's critique is pretty accurate so far though - predictive alarmist studies usually rely on models, and models always rest on some assumptions. If those assumptions are geared toward producing a particular result, then it should surprise noone that you get that result. I've seen it with molecular dynamics simulations - you can make MD do anything you want.

¡Lo Hizo!

He made it! Wifedido and I went to the re-enactment of Washington's Christmas day crossing, just a few miles up the road here. For the past three years, too much precipitation has raised the river level and increased the current, making it unsafe so the intrepid Founding Father has been stuck in Pennsylvania - leaving the survival of our fledgling democratic experiment in limbo - but he made it across this year to press our cause forward. It was a lot of fun - especially listening to the "real" story of the Betsy Ross flag from the NJ reenactors - and this event is a neat little Christmas tradition if you're stuck here for a long time.

For a good account of Washington's Crossing, read David Hackett Fischer's book. (Aside: Fischer also wrote another of my favorite books, Albion's Seed).

He Won't Be Too Happy About This

if he's still alive that is. And she actually looks pretty good...

Why I Love Ann Coulter Also

I beat Muztan to the punch in posting this gem of a column:

Among the things that war entails are: killing people (sometimes innocent), destroying buildings (sometimes innocent) and spying on people (sometimes innocent).

That is why war is a bad thing. But once a war starts, it is going to be finished one way or another, and I have a preference for it coming out one way rather than the other.

The whole column details how the NY Times did not heed "privacy rights" as it busted up a child porn ring, and relates it to the lame "spying" accusations on the Pres.

Well Said, Mr. Robbins.

Of the NSA wiretap leak...

"So New York Times writer James Risen will sell his book, the Times will increase circulation, politicians will beat their breasts and send out fundraising letters, and who will pay in the end?
You can answer that one."

The TRUTH(.com) About Civil Liberties

You know, it's interesting what targets are picked by folks who claim they fight to protect civil liberties. They want to ban smoking, guns, and arguably any public religious reference across the country, but are hell up in arms when they find out the NSA's been eavesdropping on International conversations of suspicious terrorist activity without warrants. Am I alone in saying that the liberal mindset really wants to create Utopia without acknowledging we have a "human nature" problem?

UPDATE: Hah! The guy who leaked this news (which the NYT delayed publishing for a year - supposedly requested by the White House) forgot to tell everyone he's just releasing a book. Via who else, Drudge.

While We're on the Subject of Race...

Morgan Freeman is on the same page as me:

Freeman notes there is no "white history month," and says the only way to get rid of racism is to "stop talking about it."

Damn straight.

Why I Love Ann Coulter

You know, it's posts like this that make me happy she's on our side...

To Libs & Modern Racial Aggravators, Majority Only Counts When #s Work For Them

Also through Drudge, startling news to the left shows the majority of folks who died in and after Katrina were..., no, can't be,...white?
This is a big piece of news! Course to find it, you have to go to Drudge and other more obscure sites. Perhaps we should email this to Kanye...

Is King Kong Racist?

Drudge has a story up about a column asking the question. Here's the column.
Here's a quote:

Movie reviewer David Edelstein, writing in Slate.com, notes the "implicit racism of 'King Kong' - the implication that Kong stands for the black man brought in chains from a dark island (full of murderous primitive pagans) and with a penchant for skinny white blondes." Indeed, a Google search using the words "King Kong racism" yielded 490,000 hits.

Riiiiight. I see King Kong and I see a big ape. He sees King Kong and he sees a black dude. Who's the racist? See Jonah Goldberg's column for a relevant analysis on criticism of racism in the Lord of the Rings.

Geez, it seems you're supposed to find racial undertones in anything nowadays. I used to find it irritating because the implication was that these elitists thought everybody else was a racist and they were the only ones who could see this undercurrent. Now I find it unsettling because I think the real problem is that these elitists are the racists. They are the ones who ascribe qualities to people based on race so they feel the need to jump through hoops to prove that they don't translate that into action. I've seen it all too much in academia now to think it's just a fluke of one or two people. I'd give examples, but I don't know who would stumble across this blog, as humble as it may be.

To prove this - look no further than multiculturalism. They cannot separate "culture" from "ethnicity". Therefore, they are loathe to criticize cultural traits of different groups (no matter how wrong they may be, such as, I don't know, female genital mutilation) because they believe that it would be tantamount to racism. Gimme a friggin' break.

It's About Time...

..they get one to launch. Verifying with an ex-coworker, the SN# they used for the flight is one I helped build and test. The rest are already installed in silos in Alaska and Vandenburg.

Who says you can't work on anything cool anymore?...

World Ends: Women, Minorities Hit Hardest

See here.

Virgin Galactic

This is pretty durn cool. In our own backyard no less. I'm actually suprised I didn't see any mention of Richardson in the article. Seems like pretty good publicity for his run at president. The governor who helped America get back in the space race.

Great Story

OK, I haven't really been doing too many political posts lately, even though this is a politics-centric blog, but this was too good to pass up. Another sports post, but this one is a good one.

I first took note of this story on a Monday Night game between the Packers and the Eagles. The current Packers running back is a kid named Sam Gado. He's the son of Nigerian immigrants to the United States, who was brought to the US as a result of an evangelical church's desire to reunite a family. He played college ball at Liberty University (for those who don't know, Liberty is Jerry Falwell's university, so to your lib friends it should be the focus of all evil) as a third-string running back, but somehow, through a series of events, ended up on the playing field for the Packers. The rest is history. Read the whole thing here. Here too.

It isn't all roses though - like most rookies, he has a fumbling problem. Most everyone is rooting for him though, so I hope he solves it. I love it whenever a class act like this guy shows up in the NFL. Cheers the spirit.

I should forward this story to libs who think that Christians are the focus of all evil.

WHY????????????

Is there so much buzz over Barack Obama???? My goodness, so WHAT if he's eloquent? Bill Clinton was too and look what happened to this country (if you look past the media prism that is). I swear I am so freakin sick of people that think "youth and eloquence" are the solutions for this country. I'm speaking to people that I know are Republicans yet disenfranchised with Bush and I keep getting the "well, I'll vote Democrat....if that one guy runs....that eloquent gentleman from Illinois...." WHY do people thinks he's a "centrist?" The guy is another flaming left-wing liberal PEOPLE! Just look at the FACTS: he supports a woman's right to choose, supports affirmative action, favors gay rights, is against voluntary prayer in schools, believes government should take over health care, social security, and education; STRONGLY opposes the death penalty (and I'm SURE he thinks Tookie should walk free on the street because he wrote some lousy books saying kids are great while in jail); ban 2nd amendment; opposes tax cuts; worships the UN; wants Kyoto to take over the world for the environment. Granted, he DOES support the military, but blah...so did Clinton in 92 and look what the **** happened. Now tell me how all this is CENTRIST? Whether one agrees or not, these are factually LEFT WING points of view. I am still waiting for morons to tell me HOW this guy is a damn Centrist!

On top of all that, he thinks we live in a Darwinistic socialist state of affairs. Great Obama, since you think the government should track how many times we breath during the day, the last thing I need is having your eye on my life.

I'm so sick of the "he's so young and photogenic" philosophy leading to perhaps maybe an euphoric explosion in harmonious politics. F*** JFK, Clinton, and Obama. Why do we need Obama 08 so bad? Oh that's right, we need a black President...

No Clemency for "Tookie"

Good. I've gone a little soft on the death penalty in the past couple of years (read Mark Fuhrman's book to see why) but justice must be served in this case. "Tookie" may have done much to combat gang violence, but he isn't on death row for being a Crip founding member. He's on death row for the execution-style murder of 4 innocents. He has maintained his innocence all along for this crime - a crime a jury of his peers convicted him of. I don't care what Snoop Dogg or these other 2-bit celebrities think - remorse for the crime you are convicted of should be a necessary (but not sufficient) condition of clemency.

Read here about his crimes. He's scheduled to die tomorrow - may God have mercy on his soul.

Right on the Money

A pretty high profile scolding. Hope US carmakers listen to this. They'll probably just retarget the paradigm of the holistic marketing segment to better uninhibit the synergistic realities of the unpredictable consumers who should be told what they want and like it.
Wonder if Rooney planned this cooincidence?

Bush Approval Ratings

are higher than ever! Ok, it's Reggie, but still...

I'm excited because the Houston Texans are the worst team in the NFL, which means they'll get him in the draft (should he declare himself eligible, which he might). He's the kind of player you want to build a franchise around. Start with drafting him, then some offensive linemen.

Speaking of Soccer

UNM plays Maryland tomorrow for the national title. 12:00 on ESPN2. It would be the Lobos' second championship ever in a team sport. So long as you count skiing as a team sport... Just a little bias in the ESPN article, it starts off talking about how the Terrapins ended three years of frustration with this berth in the final. Then finally mentions the Lobos lack of national titles in anything on the second to last paragraph. I think my favorite thing about this article is that second to last paragraph. Check it out. It's a one sentence paragraph and the sentence is about two totally seperate topics. It looks kinda like Clemson's coach told the reporter about UNM's only other championship in skiing then started badmouthing the Lobos about the semifinal game. The the reporter seems to have misunderstood and written that UNM caused Clemson to loose the 2004 skiing championship by playing dirty.

We're Screwed!

The U.S. draws into a Group of Death - Italy, Czech Republic, and Ghana. Ouch. Most everyone agrees this is one of the top 2 toughest groups (with Argentina, Holland, Serbia, and Ivory Coast being the other). Our prospects for repeating the performance of '02 are pretty grim. Here's Grant Wahl's analysis.

Here's what I think, at first glance:

-We have a very good chance of beating Italy. They're a flagging old soccer power, and I think we've got a knack for playing well against teams that have that historical arrogance. We performed quite well against the Germans in '02 and I think they're a better team than the Italians. Of course, I haven't seen the Italians play in a long time so we'll have to see...
-The Czechs scare me the most. They have been playing extreeeemely well lately. The proximity to the Czech Republic means that they may have a pseudo home-field advantage too. I think we'll be lucky if we tie them.
-Ghana have superb talent in Essien but I think we'll be able to take them out relatively easily if Arena can make sure the guys don't take them too lightly. These uber-athletic African teams always manage to surprise in the big dance.

The most difficult thing in replicating our success of the past Cup, beyond merely advancing, is that we'll play the winner of the Brazil group (assuming we come in 2nd) - so we'll be playing Brazil if we advance. My money's on Brazil to win, so we're pretty much screwed.

Here's hoping we get lucky...

Good stuff

For X-Men 3, I check out this webcomic and I was like no way but then I check IMDB and you know what, it's true.