The Sulla Institute

Events

2010-05-11T16:01:00.002-04:00

A lot has happened since my last regular posts. I got married to the love of my life.

And we bought a house together. It is 1.8 miles from my office so I either walk to work or bike it every day.

Success

2010-05-11T13:03:00.001-04:00

At last, after years of blogging silence, I have the ability to post blog entries while at work.

I can send them using my blackberry and sending the posts as emails to my blogger account.

I will savor this victory later, I have to get back to work. Running this empire is not easy work.

Test post

2010-05-11T12:56:00.001-04:00

Let's try that again. Maybe this approach will allow me to make blog posts from my Blackberry.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

New from Detroit

2008-12-12T21:48:00.002-05:00

Ahhhhh.....we get to pay money to Detroit, even if we don't buy their cars.

Rapture Of The Bees

2008-06-11T18:14:00.002-04:00

There have been news reports over the last several months considering the mysterious disappearance of bees. The link above is to a NY Times story regarding die-offs in the past. Apparently, these die-offs are not unprecedented.

I have another theory. HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY had it wrong…it is not the mice who were the secret masters of Earth’s destiny. It was the bees. They are departing now right before the Vogons demolish Earth to make way for a new hyperspace bypass. No doubt, someone will find a message from the bees: “So long, and thanks for all the pollen.”

The Change is now complete

2007-11-08T19:26:00.000-05:00

My earlier photo got some fun attention over at Opinionjournal.com. So here is the rest of the story:

Seeing Is Believing

2007-11-06T17:30:00.000-05:00

I really don't have anything to say about this sign.

Russian Arrogance [link]

2007-04-29T07:55:00.000-04:00

So Russia is aggravated by US plans to deploy 10 anti-missile interceptors in the Czech Republic and Poland.

Russia views the U.S. plan to base 10 missile interceptors in Poland and radar in the Czech Republic from 2012 as a major threat to its national security.

Oh my...10 missile interceptors versus HOW many Russian intercontinental range or intermediate range missiles? If the Russians get t'eed off at Europe, all they would have to do is launch 11 missiles or more.

Maybe they have a point, though:

Putin told Czech President Vaclav Klaus at a Kremlin meeting that the proposed missile shield would be used to track Russian military activities.

"These systems will monitor Russian territory as far as the Ural mountains if we don't come out with a response," Putin told Klaus. "And we will indeed do this. Anyone would."

Radar and other systems only have limited ranges. Satellite based surveillance can cover a wide range of territory, but is also usually focused on a suspected area. This looks more like a Russian effort to keep Central Europe totally defenseless.

Ok, an appropriate US response. If we give in and choose not to deploy the defense system, just make sure that Russia knows that any missile attack (presumably a nuclear missile attack) launched from any middle eastern country against Europe or Israel will be treated as an attack BY Russia. If we deploy the system and Russia deploys countermeasures, then any middle eastern missile attack is able to avoid the system will be presumed to have used the Russian technology to defeat the defenses. This would also be treated as a Russian attack. In both cases, a presumed Russian attack would be met with an overwhelming US nuclear attack in response.

Gee...back to the good old days of the Cold War. Anyone up for a game of "Duck and cover?"

Sunny Saturday

2007-03-24T20:36:00.000-04:00

It was dark and raining in the morning, but the sun came out. I did not care. I was with a good friend watching the Muppets on the big screen at the Wexner Center. Then I went home and took the VW out for a spin.

The cursed Beetle was working fine. Who knows what evil lurks in its mechanical heart. But for now, it is being good.

Offensive comments [link]

2007-03-03T07:19:00.000-05:00

The MSM is beating up on Ann Coulter for a comment she made at CPAC:

“I’d say something about John Edwards, but if you say ‘faggot’ you have to go to rehab.”

Ann Coulter's comment was rude and offensive. However, plenty of liberals say equally offensive things about Bush and Cheney. Witness what Kurt Vonnegut said about the president this week in Ohio [see the link above]:

"The only difference between Bush and Hitler is that Hitler was elected."

I have heard liberals make this remark before. Yet no one seems to call for people who say THIS to apologize.

Some Thoughts on Total War

2006-11-27T19:50:00.001-05:00

How often have you heard someone say (or write on a blog), "Nuke [fill in the blank]!" Nuke Iraq. Nuke Iran. Nuke 'em all and let God (or the deity of your choice) sort them out.

Is the mass destruction of civilian populations ever justified? I wish I could say that it is not. But, I am afraid that if the world allows militant Islam to continue to expand and experience perceived successes, we may find outselves in a seemingly never ending struggle with a decentralized, violent, uncompromising enemy. The non-militants Muslims will either be frightened into silence, or maybe quietly and waiting on the sidelines hoping for their more violent brethren to succeed. We must defeat them...totally. We must make them suffer. Not out of revenge or a desire to make them suffer. We must hurt them so that they learn that they were mistaken. If they can keep attacking us and suffer minimal casualties, they will never have incentive to change.

The First World War was not fought to total victory. When the winter of 1918 arrived, the German military was in headlong retreat. The German government realized that if the war continued in the spring, their armies would be driven back and destroyed. Then Germany would be occupied and at the mercy of the Allies. To prevent this, they negotiated an end to the war. The Allies imposed punitive terms on the Germans, but they were spared to horror of total defeat. The result? The German population came to believe that they had really not lost the war...that they had been betrayed by the politicians. They felt wronged and they wanted revenge. Adolph Hitler was able to build on these feelings of betrayal and outrage and lead his country to war two decades later.

During the Second World War, the Allies did not stop until their enemies were totally defeated. Civilian targets were legitimate because the destruction of the civilian infrastructure was seen as a means of destroying the enemy's ability to resupply their war machine and continue fighting. However, it also served the purpose of making the populations of the defeated powers (which had been deluded by the NAZI fascists and the Japanese military government) realize that their visions of glory were wrong. The German and Japanese civilian populations of the 1940s probably would not have reassessed their values and become the progressive, representative and (essentially peaceful) countries that they are today without the devastating losses they suffered in the 1940s.

So, what are we to make of the Middle East and the global hot spots? We no longer allow wars to be fought to the bitter end. When one side starts to lose badly, the UN (or some other entity) steps in and negotiates an end to hostilities. The result? The losing government (and the subject people) don't bear the full weight of their defeat...they can rationalize away their loss (just as the Germans did after their loss in the First World War).

There is an old episode of classic STAR TREK named "A Taste of Armaggedon." In that episode, Kirk and the Enterprise find two planets at war. The battles are fought by computer, but the casualties are real (if the computer indicates that you are a fatality, you have to report to a termination center). Kirk destroys this system and explains that it was immoral. If you sanitize war....if you make it less painful and less dreadful, then you make it more likely that you will HAVE war.

Thus, our modern age of limited war allows aggressive regimes like Iraq, Iran, and the others (think of all those warlike states in Africa) to consider war as a viable option. If it goes bad...well...the UN will step in before they are totally conquered. Hence, we get more war and more suffering.

Thus, it may be necessary for the US and the western world to end this era of limited war. If someone wants to make war on us, we will fight with every weapon at our disposal and we will not stop fighting until the enemy is totally destroyed. The opposition population must suffer horribly as a lesson so that other countries won't want to repeat that mistake.

War must be horrible. War must be the ultimate nightmare. Countries must realize that they cannot be hostile and aggressive without facing their own destruction. The militant Islamists must not be permited to feel that they can attack us with impunity.

Democrat Wishful Thinking [link]

2006-11-12T06:20:00.000-05:00

The Washington Post writes:

Within hours of trouncing Sen. Mike DeWine (R) to become the first Democrat to win a Senate seat in Ohio since 1992, Rep. Sherrod Brown heard from a trio of Democratic well-wishers: Hillary Rodham Clinton, John Edwards and Barack Obama, presidential aspirants all.

The calls were hardly surprising.

"This is an important state," Brown said. "People know that."

Political strategists girding for 2008 are already studying Ohio, which this week produced a Democratic sweep of the most important statewide offices after backing President Bush and the Republicans in 2004. No Republican has ever reached the White House without winning here.

The political climate for the GOP this year was the worst in three decades, largely because of the Iraq war and corruption scandals. But Brown and his advisers believe his populist appeal to the middle class on economic issues was central to his decisive defeat of DeWine, a two-term incumbent who lost by nearly 500,000 votes.

Does Sharrod Brown really believe this? Do other Dems believe this? If so, then they may misread public attitudes.

Although the Iraq war provided a crucial opening, Brown hammered DeWine not just for backing Bush on matters of national security but also for being part of a Republican majority that worked closely with drug and energy companies on legislation that affects average Ohioans. Early and often, he accused DeWine of betraying the middle class.

This may just be an attempt by the Washington Post to stoke up support for the Dems by pointing to the one state where they made the most gains.

In truth, Ohio was a disaster for the Republicans because of horrible mismanagement by the Republican leadership in this state. George Voinovich was sworn in as Governor in 1991 and people expected that the Republicans would take a conservative line in governing the state. Instead, we got increased spending and higher taxes...and the spending was not well done. Looking back, it seems that the Republicans were afraid that if they cut government programs that they would scare away the political center. They were afraid that the Dems would paint them as heartless spending cutters.

So, in order to deny the Dems that argument, the Reps increased spending in certain areas: social services and education. But these programs were not really important to them...or maybe they did not really believe in them...because these programs were poorly managed. The result, Ohio has become a high tax/low service state.

Kimberley A. Strassel described the situation very well in an Opinion Journal column: http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/kstrassel/?id=110009100

Sadly, the national Reps seem to be following some of the same playbook. Witness the President's "No Child Left Behind" program and the drug benefit program for senior citizens. Republicans accepted these programs (and many conservatives opposed them) because they felt that it was window dressing necessary to make the political center feel safe with Republicans. "Gee, Eileen, thems Republicans really ain't so heartless."

Republicans did poorly nationwide for the same reason they did poorly in Ohio. In part it was because of an unpopular and expensive war. But in part, it was also because there was a feeling that Republicans just were not properly managing government business. When you have leaders promoting expensive new programs that they really don't believe in, it should come as no surprise that these programs are not well managed and the money well spent.

Brown, Strickland, and other Dem leaders believe that Ohio (and American as a whole) are coming back to the Democrat idea that big government programs are good and necessary. The Dems have the advantage of really believing in the programs they are promoting. But they have the disadvantage of not realizing that, no matter how well they are managed, these programs will never work terribly well.

Americans are not pining for more government programs. They just want a well managed government. If Dems read last Tuesday's results as a cry for new spending, they will find themselves in for a horrible Wednesday morning someday in the not so distant future.

Battlestar GOP-actica: Beyond the Red [States] Line

2006-11-09T05:57:00.000-05:00

The Democrats have won for now. But let's remember a few good quotes from William Adama:

"Mourn the dead later. Right now, best thing we can do is get this ship into the fight."

"You can run if you like. This ship will stand and it will fight."

The Democrats are victorious for now. But we will take a jump beyond the red line (err...the red STATES line), reorganize, and rejoin the battle.

It's Still The Same Old Story [link]

2006-11-03T06:16:00.000-05:00

In Nevada, the political scene has been shaken by charges that the Republican candidate for Governor, Jim Gibbons, assaulted a woman in a parking garage. Why does this story seem familiar?

Because it is right out of the Democrat playbook. Take a look at the 1990 Minnesota race for governor. Republican Jon Grunseth was ahead in the polls. Then shocking charges were made against Grunseth...that several years earlier he had been swimming naked with a teenaged girl at a political fundraiser. The scandal destroyed Grunseth and he was forced to drop out of the race.

Only...a few days AFTER election day, it was discovered that charges were absolutely false. The mother and daughter team who made the claim were discovered to be life-long Democrats. It was unlikely that they would have been at a Republican fundraiser. Better yet...the pair had made identical claims against another Republican candidate a few years earlier.

Oddly enough, you can't find much information about that old story online. There are a few DEM sites that reference it...all of which embellish the lude elements (some say there were 2 naked teenaged girls in the pool, some say there were 4). NONE of them make note of the fact that the charges were proven to be totally false.

I sent an email to the Powerline boys. They are the authorities on all things political in Minnesota and they might be in a better position to make comparisons.

Earth to John Kerry...there is no draft [link]

2006-11-01T22:08:00.000-05:00

It occurred to me earlier today that John Kerry's remark was a throw back to the a line from old movies.

"You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework, you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq."

Yes, in old movies, some poor kid would get in trouble with the law and the judge would give the kid a choice...join the army or go to jail. Later, during the Viet Nam era, boys enrolled in college were (at least for a time) exempt from the draft. Stay in school and you stayed out of the war. Of course, the college deferrment was later repealed.

But this is the 21st Century. We have not had a draft since the 70s. The military has enough potential recruits that it keeps high standards about who will be accepted into the service.

So, John Kerry was talking about a situation that no longer exists. I am not the only person to notice this. Here is a quote from Clarence Page (the entire article is linked to above):

As a fellow Vietnam veteran, I received Kerry's remarks as a political version of Vietnam-era flashback syndrome. Back in the 1960s, it was common to say, "Study hard or you might go to Vietnam." That's because we had something then that young people now don't have to contend with--a military draft.

Today's military is all-volunteer and a much broader mix by age, education and background than the Vietnam-era military. In fact, America's military has never been better educated. Recent enlistment shortfalls because of the Iraq war have pressured the Pentagon to relax some of its standards. But discussion of that problem, among others, is muffled by the uproar over Kerry's callousness.

Foot in mouth disease....I think John Kerry may have the first FATAL form of this illness!

Political Danger for the GOP in Ohio [link]

2006-11-01T07:00:00.000-05:00

According to a report this morning in the Columbus Dispatch, Dems in Ohio are making a major push to match Rep GOTV. And Rep volunteers are finding an electorate that is surly, fatigued, and unhappy.

This year, the Republicans have the same machinery in place that has delivered victory after victory in Ohio. But, privately, GOP officials worry that some of their most loyal voters might stay home.

A Franklin County Republican who has campaigned door-to-door observed, "There is a fatigue among Republicans. It’s going be a real test of our (turnout) ability, let’s put it that way."

This could spell danger for Republican office holders in Columbus and in DC.

Two years ago, a skilled Democratic get-out-the-vote operation enabled Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry to defeat Bush by a staggering 226,000 votes in Cuyahoga County — usually enough to win the state.

But Bush won the state — and the presidency — because Republicans’ "72-hour plan" turned out huge percentages of voters in numerous smaller, more-Republican counties. In some precincts, turnout topped an unheardof 90 percent, and Bush reaped a large majority of those votes.

"We recognize that the Republican machine is very good at this," said Lee Fisher, the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor. But he said his party’s operation is "better than what we did two years ago, although we did very well two years ago. The difference is that we’re not only going to be turning out in urban areas, we’re turning out in every county in the state."

Carlos Todd, a former Butler County GOP chairman who is close to the party’s conservative religious base, acknowledged that many conservatives have been "somewhat complacent and maybe a little disgusted with some of the things that have happened with the (Republican) party." But he predicted religious conservatives will turn out.

"They can’t live with the consequences if they don’t," Todd said.

Libby Cupp of Allen County, whose husband, Robert, is running for the Ohio Supreme Court, also has sensed a change. When she telephoned likely Republican voters in early October from a phone bank in Lima, people either hung up or tersely said, "Well, if it’s short, I’ll answer a question."

During the past two weeks, though, Cupp said she has received a warmer reception and senses a change in GOP attitudes.

Still, Democrats and their allies are almost giddy.

Of course, as always, the Dems have THEIR source of "volunteer" labor (if you can call paid employees of a tax exempt organization "volunteers").

As Pryce walked through Upper Arlington on Sunday, an organized-labor phone bank just a couple of miles away hummed with activity. Tucked in the basement of the Service Employees International Union local on Dublin Road, it can accommodate 48 callers. Volunteers from unions and Democratic campaigns such as that of Pryce’s opponent, Mary Jo Kilroy, can make thousands of calls daily.

Todd Hornyak, a letter carrier and union member from Hilliard who has spent hours in that basement, said about 80 percent of the union members he has telephoned pledged to support union-endorsed candidates — Kilroy, Democratic gubernatorial nominee Ted Strickland, Democratic Senate hopeful Sherrod Brown.

"It’s the economy and the war," he said.

During the final four days of the campaign, the AFL-CIO will focus on 500,000 Ohio union members who voted in the 2004 election but not in 2002. The labor organization says it will make 1 million telephone calls and knock on 280,000 doors. The Ohio Democratic Party says it will have its own 20,000 volunteers contacting 1.9 million households.

Where would the Dems be without organized labor to give them money and a source of people to knock on doors and man the phone banks. Paid for by union dues (including MINE...curse curse).

Ohio is a political disaster right now. A few nights ago I got a call from a former office holder asking if I could work door-to-door. I had to say "no" because I am a classified civil servant. We had a long talk anyways. It's nice to know that I still rank high enough to get a call from a former state rep instead of just some ordinary phone bank volunteer.

But it was not a happy call. I was glad to hear from Bill, but he did not have much happy news to give me. He said that there would be little joy for Republicans running statewide in Ohio.

I guess we will find out in less than a week.

Microsoft's Browser Stinks if you are a Blogger

2006-10-29T10:31:00.000-05:00

I have the new Internet Explorer 7.0 on my computer. And, God bless its evil little heart, it will not let me consistently post to this blog.

I have things to do today and I cannot afford to waste time sitting with this computer trying to get blogs to post.

Grrrrr....may the fleas from a thousand camels infest Bill Gate's you-know-what!

Fishy Ohio Senate Polls [link]

2006-10-26T21:25:00.000-04:00

The poll linked to above, by SurveyUSA, seems unbelievable. It shows Democrat Sherrod Brown with a commanding 57% to 37% lead over Mike DeWine. The other two major polls out show that this is an 8 point race.

DeWine has been a popular senator and has not been tied to any of the recent scandals (including the Bureau of Workers Comp scandal that mostly involved Dems but which the statewide media have long since forgotten). Things just don't feel THAT bad in Ohio. I checked out SurveyUSA's track record and they supposedly have done a fairly good job in the past. But this just does not feel right.

Ahhhh....and it helps to read the small print. Very cute. The composition of the 563 "likely voters" was 35% Rep and 42% Dem. That is a rather small sample (1,000 total people were called) and it is biased towards the Dems.

What is the potential fallout from biased polls? The Republican GOTV effort seems to be going well. I have been called countless times to come and volunteer (I am a state employee so I can't). Yard signs are popping up. Most of the Reps will crawl over broken glass to get to the polls. Will the Dems be so motivated? This is an off year election. If they feel it is in the bag (whether or not the polls are accurate) will they turn out?

We shall see.

Getting married? Have a GAY old time in New Jersey! [link]

2006-10-26T06:59:00.000-04:00

Debra! Megalon! If you can't find the men of your dreams, move to New Jersey and marry each other!

I have not had a chance to read the New Jersey Supreme Court's decision (I have linked to several postings at the Volokh Conspiracy that I will read later today that will hopefully have an intelligent discussion of htis issue).

My first guess, knowing little of what has happened, is that this is good news for Republicans in New Jersey, and nationwide. A story showing the public what will happen if we allow liberals to continue to exercise judicial powers. Some of those purple states might start looking a little redder today.

We have less than two weeks till election day. Hopefully this story will start a little Republican momentum to build. I really do not want to be represented by Sherrod Brown in the US Senate.

Bureaucrats GONE WILD! [link]

2006-10-22T08:25:00.000-04:00

How's this for madness. A man joins a voluntary trash recycling program and accidentally puts a piece of junk mail into the wrong bin. The result? He gets charged with a crime and prosecuted! Even worse, they also charged him with the additional crime of putting his trash bins out on the wrong day.

Let's see, this is a VOLUNTARY program. So who in their right mind is going to sign up for this VOLUNTARY program if the slightest mistake can land you in jail?

Mr Reeves said his first mistake was to put his rubbish out a day early, but only because he was going on holiday the next day. It was met with a warning that any further slip-ups would result in legal action.

"Duly warned I carried on separating the rubbish,' he said. Then came the summons accusing him of breaching the order. "I was shocked and had no idea what to do,' he said. "I couldn't sleep. At one point I even thought I might end up in jail."

He added: "The irony is that I would have been better off not recycling at all, just loading everything into a single rubbish bag. But like most people I supported the principle and was happy to play my part."

Well, we know better now. Recycling can be harmful for your health!

The BIG Bang Theory [link]

2006-10-20T06:14:00.000-04:00

Interesting reading over at The American Thinker (see the link above). J.R. Dunn writes that, according to columnist Bob Novak, there are members of congress who are trying to encourage the US Navy to recommission the last two battleships (the Iowa and the Wisconsin).

One suspects that much of the passion comes from people unwilling to see an era die. It’s easy to be sympathetic with that position. For a large portion of the 20th century, the battlewagons were the Kings of the Seas, unmatched for firepower, armor, and sheer elegance. Certain individual battleships – the Bismarck, the Yamato, the Arizona, and the Missouri – have entered into legend in a way that ships of no other class can match. Truly, something has vanished now that the battleship sails no more.

But the weight of the argument lies with the other side. Iowa-class battleships, requiring crews of over 1,500 sailors, are extremely hard to man. They utilize obsolete technology that is difficult, and often impossible, to replace or repair (not to mention problems in training info-age sailors to operate it), and they are expensive, even by modern standards.

The single unanswerable contention lies in those big 16-inch guns, unequaled by any weapon in any fleet on any ocean. (The naval standard these days is the puny 5-inch gun). The Mk. 7 gun is capable of firing a 1,900 lb. round over 25 miles – a hammer that would make any anvil ring. That’s a hard argument to beat – it’s a shame that we can’t take the guns and leave the old hulls, with all their associated problems, to their honored rest.

Yeah, this really excites me! Those big guns are impressive...most impressive. And Mr. Dunn points out that we can keep the guns and lose the warships:

And that may well be possible, through a revival of a nearly forgotten naval configuration – the big-gun monitor.

* * * *

So there’s our answer. Remove the guns from the Iowa and Wisconsin, and place them on new hulls, configured as monitors for the mission of infantry support. The old ships can go on to become museum pieces, while their offspring, perhaps given related names, carry on the tradition.

That would actually work quite well...provided you have a hull that can support the massive turrets and give adequate stability.

It would be great fun to see how Muslim militants cope with 1,900 pound shells raining down on their heads! Send them on an express elevator to hell...GOING DOWN!

****AMUSING DIGRESSION****

For another type of "big bang" you should take a look a this article in the Wikipedia. Sometimes those scientists with the pocket protectors and the coke bottle bottom glasses make the tiniest little error and then...oops!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Bravo

Maybe a major OOPS [link]

2006-10-18T18:54:00.000-04:00

The Democrat candidate for Governor of Ohio may be in trouble. It seems that he may not be properly registered to vote in Ohio. If he is not a properly registered voter, then he may be ineligible to run for office.

The controversy was sparked by a complaint filed last week with the elections board by an East Liverpool woman whose son, Larry Long Jr., is a volunteer worker for the Blackwell campaign.

The complaint questioned whether Strickland lives where he is registered to vote — in an apartment above his field office in Lisbon. Strickland listed the field office as his principal residence for purposes of voting after he was elected as the area’s new congressman in 2002.

Records show that in 2003 Strickland and his wife purchased a condominium in Columbus and on the paperwork listed it as their principal residence.

Strickland has to be a registered voter to run for office, and being disqualified as such by the elections board could mean, at least in theory, he no longer could be a candidate for governor.

The New York Times published and editorial yesterday condemning the Ohio Secretary of State's office for attempting to enforce Ohio's election laws:

Voters in Ohio can be forgiven if they feel they have been beamed out of the Midwest and dropped into a third-world autocracy. The latest news from the state’s governor’s race is that the Republican nominee, Kenneth Blackwell, who is also the Ohio secretary of state, could rule that his opponent is ineligible to run because of a technicality. We’d like to think that his office would not ultimately do that, or that if it did, such a ruling would not be allowed to stand. But the mere fact that an elected official and political candidate has the authority to toss his opponent out of a race is further evidence of a serious flaw in our democracy.

The full editorial can be found here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/17/opinion/17tues1.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

I guess technicalities only count if they work against a Republican candidate. One need only look at the efforts in Florida where Dems are suing to keep election officials from posting signs informing voters that votes cast for disgraced Congressman Mark Foley will count for a different candidate. And the Dems successfully sued to keep Tom DeLay's name on the ballot in Texas.

I have seen other candidates knocked out of Ohio races because of errors. In the last 20 years there have been two uncontested races for mayor of Columbus because of errors with nominating petitions.

Compliance with the technical requirements of the law is not optional. If the Dems made a mistake...too bad.

You're a Frakking Awesome Machine [link]

2006-10-16T23:00:00.000-04:00

You're my new battlestar and you've come so far.
I love your slanted walls and your A shaped halls.
You're full of Cylon clones and those old fashioned phones.
You're a frakking awesome machine.
So much better than the one with Lorne Greene!

Follow the link above to the best Galactica laugh I've had in a long time!

I love your blue-ish glow and your drunk XO.
I love that you've brought back old Richard Hatch.
You're a frakking awesome machine.
So much better...than the one with Lorne Greene!

Blame for No Ko Nuke

2006-10-12T18:55:00.000-04:00

Liberals are trying to blame the Bush administration for North Korea's nuclear provocation. In their dream world, President Clinton and former President Carter negotiated an agreement in 1994 that kept the NKs from developing nuclear weapons and that alleged diplomatic failures by the Bush administration caused the NK's to break out of that agreement and restart their nuke program.

The liberals are ignoring reality. 1994 was the last time the world had a chance at stopping the NK's while they were still lacked the ability to actually build nuclear weapons. The NK's gratefully accepted the incentives offered by Clinton and Carter, then secretly continued with developing nuclear weapons in secret. By 2001 the NK's had the ability to build weapons and they no longer needed to hide that fact. When evidence of their violation of the 1994 "Agreed Framework" was brought to their attention, the NK's promptly announced that they were no longer going to follow its terms.

So what did Clinton and Carter accomplish? They gave billions of dollars in aid to the NK's and they allowed the NK's to continue developing their nuclear program past the point where they could be stopped. By 2001, there was nothing the Bush administration could do, short of war, to keep the NK's from building weapons.

Liberals will howl that the NK's did not build nukes during the Clinton years. They conveniently ignore the fact that the NK's violated an agreement reached with the Clinton administration and secretly continued developing those weapons. Clinton's failure of nerve, incompetence, and stupidity allowed NK the additional time needed to complete their nuke program and build weapons in secret making any effort to stop the NK's too expensive to consider.

Atomic Weapons and Perversion [link]

2006-10-10T19:36:00.000-04:00

Over at CNN, Jeff Greenfield writes:

So does the North Korea test trump the Foley scandal? Here's one point to keep in mind: there's a month to go before Election Day. The North Korea story may well fade by then (not that it won't resurface in months or years to come); the Foley follies are likely to stay front and center for weeks.

How perverse. A rogue state tests a nuclear weapon, yet a CNN writer says that this is less important than a scandal involving a pathetic homosexual politician chasing teenaged boys.

Perhaps Mr. Greenfield is correct. But I hope that the American public is wiser. I hope that the American public realizes that the Foley scandal is merely entertaining silliness and that Kim Jong Il is a growing danger.

POP goes the weasel

2006-10-09T12:08:00.000-04:00

Just when things were looking absolutely desperate for the Republicans, Kim Jung Il goes nuclear. That should take Marky Foley off the front pages for a day or so. And when the media goes back to Foley, it will seem unimportant.

The fear for the GOP is that Republican voters will be demoralized and not show up at the polls on November 7th. The Foley scandal demoralized Rep voters just as their enthusiasm was showing upward momentum. At the same time, the scandal was increasing the moonbats' anger at Reps and increasing their enthusiasm. The result could have been explosive: lower Rep turnout and higher Dem turnout (with a signficant moonbat component) could have resulted in a 30 to 50 seat pickup for the Dems in the House and a 7 to 8 seat pickup in the Senate.

But now we have an international crisis of maximum importance...one that highlights the failures of the Jimmy Carter/Ned Lamont kumbayaa approach to foreign policy. Excuse me, exactly WHO negotiated the 1994 agreement with North Korea to keep them from developing nuclear weapons? Hmmmmm.

Hastert should resign - LATER

2006-10-05T05:55:00.000-04:00

I believe that the time has come for Speaker Hastert to announce that he will step down as Speaker of the House at the end of this current session of Congress. An immediate resignation would do more harm than good.

Hastert is a weak hand at the controls and everybody knows this. Today there are columns by Bob Novak, Ann Coulter, George Will and others describing the disfunctionality of the House leadership. New blood is needed.

Stepping down at the end of the term would allow the party to look forward to a necessary change in leadership without the drama of being leaderless right before the mid-term elections. The expectation of new leadership would minimize (though not eliminate) the Dem message of "Had enough?"

Mark Foley - is he also a gay American?

2006-10-03T20:08:00.000-04:00

Ok, in 2004 Jim McGreevey ... [pregant pause until Megalon stops laughing] ... deflects attention from his scandal ridden administration as Governor of New Jersey by telling the world that he is a "gay American" as he announces his resignation. The media applauds his "courage."

In 2001, California Congressman Gary Condit is discovered to have been having an affair with a young female intern, Chandra Levy, who has been missing (and who was later found to have been murdered). Rather than assist law enforcement officials by giving them pertinant information about her recent activities, he gave minimal and misleading information. It is possible that better participation on his part may have helped law enforcement officials uncover her fate and find more clues to her death. Condit refused to resign but was later voted out of office when he lost a contested primary.

In 1990, Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank is reprimanded by the House leadership (controlled by Dems at that time) because it was discovered that his male lover, Steve Gobie, was running a prostitution ring out of Frank's Washington, DC townhouse. Frank had previously hired Gobie to serve on his congressional staff. It was also learned that Frank had fixed 33 of Gobie's parking tickets. According to the rumor mill, Frank was willing to accept a reprimand, but that if a more severe punishment was sought, he would "out" several Republican gays who were in the closet. Charming...isn't it? Massachusetts voters continue to elect Frank.

In 1983, Massachusetts Congressman (what IS it with Massachusetts Congressmen?) Gerry Studds admitted to having had sex with a 17 year old congressional page ten years earlier. The House of Representatives voted to censure Studds...who turned his back as it was read. Voters sent him back to Congress for five more terms.

What do all of these politicians have in common? They are all Democrats.

In 2006, Republican Congressman Jim Foley is discovered to have been sending dirty instant messages and/or emails to Congressional pages. There is, as of yet, no proof that he actually had sexual relationships with any underaged youths. The news breaks on a Friday...Foley resigns that very same day. He does not claim to be a "gay pedophile American." He is not called a hero. No one comes to his support. He is OUT. Yet, this is not enough for the main stream media. They condemn the entire Republican leadership.

The timing of this story is intriguing. Several news outlets had information regarding Foley for over a year...but the story does not break until five weeks before election day. Curious, huh? The Dems always claim that the Reps are going to pull some October Surprise...but it always seems to be the Reps who are on the receiving end.

Time for Hastert to Go [link]

2006-10-03T06:08:00.000-04:00

The time has come... to say fair's fair; to pay the rent; to pay our share.

And the time has come for Denny Hastert to go. I do not know anything about his actions behind the scenes. I do not know how effective he has been organizing administrative matters in the House. But he has been a complete non-entity in an important leadership position.

Longtime readers (reader?) know that I believe that the Republican leaders in the House selected Hastert to be Speaker precisely because he lacked authority and power. A weak hand on the levers of control means that everyone has greater freedom to act. But this freedom has become chaos.

So Goes Ohio

2006-09-26T06:22:00.000-04:00

In 1982, Ohio elected Democrat Dick Celeste, a young, media savvy, liberal, political opportunist as governor. Celeste was not terribly competent and managed to make himself dreadfully unpopular in the polls, but the Republicans could not say no to a tired old warhorse, former governor Jim Rhodes, who went down to spectacular defeat in 1986.

Celeste tripled the size of Ohio government and raised taxes accordingly. Sadly, he did not triple the benefits to Ohio citizens. Now Ohio is a high tax, low service state. Is it any wonder that people (and businesses) are fleeing and the economy is sputtering along? What is even more frustrating is that government just can't seem to do the job right. More and more mistakes are being discovered...expensive mistakes. Corruption is everywhere...but what do you expect with so much money being spent. And government workers are never careful when they spend money...it's not like it is their own money.

But also, there is insubordination. The vast majority of the Ohio civil servants are Dems and they don't appreciate working for Republicans. After 12 years of controlling most of Ohio government, we STILL see Dems in most government jobs. Reps just don't know how to hire other Reps.

Back in 1983, I was hired as a summer intern for the Department of Liquor Control. When I went in for my interview with the Chief Legal Counsel, he asked me, "If I had someone go down to the County Recorder's office and checked your voter registration, which primary did you last vote in?" I answered truthfully, "The Republican primary." He laughed. Turns out, that was a disqualifying answer. BUT, somehow, he had received my resume from the Ohio Democrat Party. Mine was the ONLY first year law student's resume given to him by the Party. So, he was going to assume that I was OK with them and he gave me the job. But I was given strict instructions NOT to tell anyone else that I was a Republican...that would get me fired.

So how does this relate to insubordination? Back in 1990, Bob Taft was elected Secretary of State. Rather than clean house, Taft left most of the senior people from the prior Dem SOS stay in their jobs. One of the tasks performed by the SOS is the publication of a biannual political almanac of Ohio. When the 1992 almanac was published it was filled with errors. Apparently, the holdover Dems working on this project did not care enough about the job to do it well. They had little to worry about; their supervisors were Dems and did not care that much either. After the almanac was published, it became a major scandal...embarrassing Taft. The careerist Dems screw up and the Reps take the blame. Granted, the leadership should have reviewed the work more carefully (and Taft has subsequently shown that he pays almost no attention to detail), but you can't monitor EVERYTHING your subordinates are doing. If you can't trust them, then nothing will get done.

The Pope is RIGHT [link]

2006-09-18T21:50:00.000-04:00

Pope Benedict XVI uses a quote from an ancient source while giving an address on “Faith, Reason, and the University.” The reason for the quote? To make this point (courtesy of Thomas F. Madden at NRO):

The pope’s purpose in citing this passage is made clear almost immediately. “The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God's nature. The editor [of Manuel’s dialogue], Theodore Khoury, observes: For the emperor, as a Byzantine shaped by Greek philosophy, this statement is self-evident. But for Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality.”

A dry, philisophical point. The Pope might as well have been discussing 13th Century tax law.

Of course, Muslim activists don't care about reasoned debate. They are looking for any reason to cry for violence and jihad. So, they will distort the Pope's words and howl with outrage. Mind you, these are the same Muslims who hurl insults at everyone else on a regular basis. They can dish it out but they can't take it.

Diplomatic niceties are lost on these people. They need to be taught a lesson: if they don't act like civilized people, they will not be treated like civilized people.

They claim that love death as much as we love life. Maybe we should take them at their word.
As long as they have nothing to lose, they will act as wild as they can. The wilder they act, the more subdued we are and the more they gain. This cannot continue forever...they will believe their rhetoric and use WMD against the Western World, and then all hell will break loose.

We need to use harsh language now...or else we will use nuclear weapons later.

Apologies for light blogging

2006-09-13T20:14:00.000-04:00

Sorry readers (or dare I say, "reader") for the lack of content this week. I am at scenic Camp Perry in northern Ohio attending my annual military reserve duty.

I can only access the internet through a dialup connection that is painfully slow. And, being cheap, I am using a free service that only gives me ten hours of use per month...unless I want to pay them. Of course, it takes an hour to download all their commercials and content. Then I waste endless amounts of time waiting for pages to load. And there is a lovely little feature: every time Internet Explorer automatically closes a window, this causes a browser failure and ALL my Internet Explorer windows close. A painful event after I have spent ten minutes uploading a graphic to the web.

Ah well, I will be back online next week. Patience dear reader, patience.

Murphy - Farewell

2006-09-13T19:59:00.000-04:00

A wonderful canine friend has passed on.

Murphy

1992 to 2006

Rest In Peace

Pamela at Atlas Shrugs

2006-09-07T21:25:00.000-04:00

I called in to Pamela's BlogTalkRadio show...such fun! Next time I will do my homework so I can make a more intelligent contribution to her show. But, it was great to finally talk with Pamela after two years of emailing back and forth.

Thank you for being such a good friend Pamela! And I wish you continued success with your CRUSADE to save Western Civilization.

Apology

2006-09-07T06:01:00.000-04:00

Sorry everyone for the lack of activity. I am getting ready for military reserve duty next week. I had to run around and mail some checks last night (and take one to Federal Express...whoa was THAT expensive).

Then I learned that a person I knew in Pittsburgh died...someone who had been a bit of an institution in my circle of friends.

I need to post my opinions about Ohio senate candidate Sherrod Brown...oh my...what a hack. He is a cartoon version of a liberal Democrat. He held statewide office back in the 80s, then lost to Bob Taft (spit *** spit) in an election upset back in 1990. The Ohio Dems created a US House district for him during the 90s (up in the heart of the liberal northeast of Ohio) and he has been your classic, big city, mindless liberal. Now he is running for US Senate. The polls right now have him leading Mike DeWine.

I have a hard time believing this. I have been unhappy with Mike since he has not been a reliable conservative, but he has always struck me as a statesman. I think that Mike's difficulties have more to do with the general low feeling that America has with the President AND the low feeling that Ohio has with Republicans because of the scandals surrounding Governor Taft and his administration.

I hope that as we get closer to election day, Ohioians will take a closer look at Brown and realize that he lacks substance. Brown is a thoughtless liberal...he would be a hand puppet for the Dem leadership. He is one of the most liberal members of the Senate too. Of course, Ohio has a tradition of sending annoying liberals to the Senate...witness Howard Metzenbaum...there was a man who was so liberal (and so unprincipled about it) that he made me embarrassed to be Jewish. Metzenbaum was predecessor to Chuck Schumer as the archtype annoying liberal Jew in the Senate.

Ok, off to work.

Humans - the WORST kind of monsters [link]

2006-09-04T00:53:00.001-04:00

People say that it is wrong to describe our opponents using term that make them seem less than human.

Well, considering the fact that humans can be the most foul kind of monsters, I don't see how that is possible. Take this monster for example...one that Hezbollah wants freed from an Israeli jail:

IN his Israeli jail cell Samir Qantar, who is serving four life sentences for murder and terrorism, dreams about an exchange of prisoners that might allow him to go home to Lebanon.

* * * *

Qantar, 44, has been in prison since 1979, when he took part in an attack whose horrifying outcome made him one of the most hated men in Israel.

* * * *

Qantar’s role in the attack on the coastal town of Nahariya 27 years ago would make this an especially bitter pill for Israelis to swallow. A policeman was killed and a family taken hostage when Qantar’s group burst into their home.

Danny Haran, 28, was shot at close range in front of his terrified four-year-old daughter Einat, whose head was then smashed with a rifle butt.

The dead man’s wife Smadar hid in a loft with their two-year-old daughter Yael, keeping a hand over her mouth to stop her crying out. But the girl suffocated, leaving Smadar Haran bereft of her husband and both daughters.

Qantar, the longest-held Lebanese prisoner in Israel, was convicted of the murders of Danny and Einat Haran but his family in Lebanon continues to claim that he could not have killed them because he had been injured in a shoot-out with police by the time they died.

The punishment should fit the crime...but there is no way to make Qantar pay for what he did. Yet now it is possible that he may be released. Hezbollah will be rewarded for its crimes in attacking Israel, killing her soldiers and taking others hostage, by allowing other killers to be released from jail.

Well, Qantar may be released, but Israel should not forget or forgive what these HUMAN monsters have done. If the Lebanonese Muslims cheer Qantar's type of violence, then they should be seen as accomplices after the fact.

Carnival on St. Thomas - 1997

2006-09-03T23:44:00.000-04:00

This is what it was like living in the islands. The annual carnival jouvert parade. What a lot of fun it was!

Heh heh heh! Maybe I should post that STAR WARS video next. What do you think about THAT Megalon? What is it worth to you to keep the whole world from knowing just how much of a STAR WARS fanatic you are?

Lefties are unhinged [link]

2006-09-03T18:27:00.000-04:00

Here is more proof that the leftie moonbats are unhinged. Someone named Allen R. Roland posted a column contending that there are 14 characteristics of fascism and that the US now demonstrates all of them.

I think that Mr. Roland has seen the STAR WARS saga too many times. He really wants to believe that he is part of the Rebel Alliance (TM) opposing the evil Galactic Empire (TM).

With the four horseman of hubris ( Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice and Bush ) in full gallop, shouting their war cry of 'Islamic fascism' and systematically misquoting and demonizing Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ~ it's time for America to review the 14 characteristics of fascism and, in the process, face our own growing neocon fascist state.

Dr. Lawrence Britt has examined the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia) and several Latin American regimes. Britt found 14 defining characteristics common to each ~ and America has all of them.

Ok, let's take a look at these characteristics:

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism
2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights
3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause
4. Supremacy of the Military
5. Rampant Sexism
6. Controlled Mass Media
7. Obsession with National Security
8. Religion and Government are Intertwined
9. Corporate Power is Protected
10. Labor Power is Suppressed
11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts
12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment
13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption
14. Fraudulent Elections

I don't think Mr. Roland is living in the real world. He exaggerates elements of present day American life and politics in order to push them into these fourteen characteristics.

For instance, he seems to feel that the labor movement in the US is being severely suppressed. Huh? Really? I just got forceably put into a labor union. I don't see any suppression.

Disdain for intellectuals and the arts? Well, only publicly funded art...and that issue has been in dispute for the last 20 or more years...even when the Dems controlled the White House and congress.

Cronyism and corruption? When have these factors NOT been present in the American political scene?

Controlled mass media? Controlled by whom? Not by the Bush Administration. Most of our mass media has an elitist, aristocratic, East Coast mentality that tracks very closely with modern day liberalism (and its belief that Americans are too stupid to be trusted with running their own lives). I don't think that talk radio, Fox News Channel, and the editorial pages of the Washington Times and Wall Street Journal translates into "control" of the mass media.

Rampant sexism? Really? Gays and advocates of non traditional relationships have more power and more legitimacy than ever. Is it "sexism" to oppose legalization of gay marriage through the political process?

Religion and government intertwined? Oh...yeah. Where? Tell that to the Boy Scouts! Tell that to the voters in San Diego where a display of a cross could be torn down because it offends some atheists.

Disdain for the recognition of human rights? Please. It's the liberals who have been ignoring the various genocides in Africa. The allegations of torture of the detainees in Guatanemo bay are laughable compared to the genuine torture inflicted by our enemies on our troops and on their own people.

Liberals are trying to motivate themselves by making inflated claims about non-existent outrages. Heaven help us if they manage to get control of our government.

Ubuntu - my first effort at using Linux

2006-09-03T16:49:00.000-04:00

After much arm twisting from some friends, I decided to load a version of the Linux operating system on one of my computers. I chose my desktop computer since I had a spare hard drive that I could swap in to hold the operating system.

First impression...not favorable. I have two other hard drives mounted on this computer using an add-in IDE card. The OS acknowledges that those hard drives are there, but will not allow me to access any data on them. I don't know if it is because they are formatted as NTFS or if it is because they are mounted using the add-in card. I will eventually figure it out.

Grumble. I was thinking about loading Ubuntu on an old notebook computer of mine, but the OS needed a more up to date system. Another point against it. I am looking for a streamlined OS that will run on those old machines of mine.

Oh well, live and learn.

The Pope's HOT Wheels! [link]

2006-09-03T14:37:00.000-04:00

I have to say that I am impressed. This is a stunning vehicle.

On January 17, 2005, Ferrari announced that it would build one additional Enzo, bringing the total to 400. It was ceremonially presented to Pope John Paul II by a large group of Ferrari's employees and partners, including F1 drivers Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello. Luca di Montezemolo, President of Ferrari, offered to donate the auction proceedings of this extraordinary vehicle for humanitarian purposes. The Pope then requested that the car be auctioned off to benefit the Caritas charity.

The car, chassis #ZFFCZ56B000141920, was auctioned by Sotheby's Maranello Auction on June 28, 2005 to benefit survivors of the 2004 Tsunami for €950,000 (US$1,274,229), almost twice its list price. This sum was presented to Pope Benedict XVI, John Paul's successor, while Formula One driver Michael Schumacher gave the pope a steering wheel to commemorate the donation. This wheel included a plaque which read, "The Formula 1 World Champion's steering wheel to His Holiness Benedict XVI, Christianity's driver."

Behold the POWER of true faith:

Thy rod and thy staff may comfort me, but an F140 15º V12 (with 4 valves per cylinder, dual overhead cams and variable valve timing, that produces 650 horsepower at 7800 rpm) will certainly thrill thee!

Intent and Murder [link]

2006-09-03T13:46:00.000-04:00

A Cleveland detective was killed when a suspect fired a gun at the police through a closed door. The suspect was being arrested on a warrant for burglary and rape.

According to a report in the Cleveland Plain Dealer (linked to above):

Detective Schroeder had volunteered to be among the 12 law enforcement officers serving a warrant on aggravated robbery and rape charges on Wilson Santiago, 37.

The house on Cleveland's west side was surrounded by officers as Detective Schroeder and his supervisor went to the wooden, windowless front door. The door was opened from inside and quickly slammed shut before the bullet came through the door, striking Detective Schroeder, Mr. Flask said.

The police returned fire. Mr. Santiago, the suspected gunman, was not injured. He then surrendered and was arrested, Mr. Flask (Cleveland's Safety Director) said.

Ok, he was charged with Aggravated Murder....the penalty may be death. Let's assume that the news report is accurate. Let's also assume that Mr. Santiago was the only person in the house. There can be no doubt about his guilt. The defense team will focus attention on Santiago's intent to kill. They will claim that he did not mean to kill anyone; that he only intended to frighten the officers since there was no way he could aim his weapon at anyone through a closed door through which he could not see.

Too frakking bad. He intended to shoot the gun in the direction of arresting officers. Frankly, I am disappointed that the officers did not kill him on the scene. Most left-wing moon bats would have us all believe that a cop killer is almost certainly going to be given no chance of surrendering and will be murdered by the police...they are almost always wrong. I remember that case a year ago (on March 11, 2005) where a defendant in Atlanta, Georgia broke free from a Megalon sized (5'1" tall) guard and then killed a judge, court reporter, and a deputy sheriff. A co-worker of mine (a liberal attorney who had experience doing criminal defense work) kept telling me that the suspect had no chance of being taken alive. Well, WRONG! That killer (Brian Nichols) was later captured alive. Hmmm Nichols was also a rape suspect. Violent men, these rapists. Big surpise.

Well, Santiago was taken alive. So, he should be given a fair trial, convicted, and sentenced to death. If there were any justice in the world, he would be executed by year's end! The only reason to let him live a little longer would be so that he could gain some first hand experience at what it is like to be a rape victim while in prison.

Rat in the House [link]

2006-09-01T16:33:00.000-04:00

Whenever I encounter a liberal who is willing to entertain the notion that maybe the Bush Administration is not thoroughly corrupt...and willing to listen to my rants about the Plame scandal, I tell them to look at what the Washington Post has to say about Plame's husband, former Ambassador Joe Wilson.

WE'RE RELUCTANT to return to the subject of former CIA employee Valerie Plame because of our oft-stated belief that far too much attention and debate in Washington has been devoted to her story and that of her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, over the past three years. But all those who have opined on this affair ought to take note of the not-so-surprising disclosure that the primary source of the newspaper column in which Ms. Plame's cover as an agent was purportedly blown in 2003 was former deputy secretary of state Richard L. Armitage.

* * * *

Nevertheless, it now appears that the person most responsible for the end of Ms. Plame's CIA career is Mr. Wilson. Mr. Wilson chose to go public with an explosive charge, claiming -- falsely, as it turned out -- that he had debunked reports of Iraqi uranium-shopping in Niger and that his report had circulated to senior administration officials. He ought to have expected that both those officials and journalists such as Mr. Novak would ask why a retired ambassador would have been sent on such a mission and that the answer would point to his wife. He diverted responsibility from himself and his false charges by claiming that President Bush's closest aides had engaged in an illegal conspiracy. It's unfortunate that so many people took him seriously.

I would hardly call the Washington Post a cheerleader for the Bush Administration. Whenever I want to prove a point, it is always helpful to have someone on the opposite side who agrees with me.

Plame is a Snake (and so is Wilson) [link]

2006-08-31T20:16:00.000-04:00

Well now that everyone knows that former State Department official (and Iraq war opponent) Richard Armitage was the person who first leaked Valerie Plame Wilson's identity to the press, one wonders if Val and Joe will go after Armitage with the same vigor that they have gone after Karl Rove, Scooter Libby, and others in the White House. The answer? NO!

In July, the Wilsons sued Cheney, Rove, and Libby, along with ten other un-named co-defendants, charging that were part of a conspiracy to “discredit, punish and seek revenge against the plaintiffs that included, among other things, disclosing to members of the press Plaintiff Valerie Plame Wilson’s classified CIA employment.” Armitage was not named in the suit.

So, let's get the story straight. Armitage (along with many of the careerists in the State Department) opposed the Administration's position regarding the war with Iraq. Armitage leaked Plame's name to the media (but not the fact that she use to be a covert operative). Then Wilson told Nation columnist David Corn that his wife use to be a covert operative for the CIA and claimed that the Administration leaked her identity to ruin her career. Then Dem Senator Chuck Schumer howleds with outrage and demanded hearings.

The State Department knew who was to blame, but stayed silent since the Administration was taking the hits. The CIA was happy to play victim (anything to divert attention from the agency's decades long record of failure) and requested an investigation of the leak by the Justice Department.

Several years ago, a knowledgable friend told me that the CIA and the State Department formed an axis of information and power in Washington DC; that these two agencies shared the same world view and were opposed to the Bush Administration's approach to foreign policy. Whether by accident or design, the State Department and the CIA allowed the appearance of a scandal to develop where none actually existed...and the two agencies were quite content to let the media, the Justice Department, and the media dig into the White House.

If I were Libby Scooter, Karl Rove, and any of the other White House staffers whose lives were disrupted (and finances depleted by legal fees), I would think about filing a civil suit against Armitage and his boss, Colin Powell.

And if Powell ever runs for President, it will be a cold day in Hell before I vote for him. I would vote for Hillary Clinton or Chuck Schumer for President before I voted for Powell.

Friends

2006-08-29T22:37:00.000-04:00

Megalon...in all her glory.

Just Plame Nonsense [link]

2006-08-29T21:01:00.000-04:00

HUBRIS is the name of book about the Valerie Plame/Joe Wilson affair written by Michael Isikoff and David Corn. The title is more descriptive of the authors than of the Bush administrative.

I leave it to Christopher Hitchens to take the authors apart:

[T]here was always another layer to the Joseph Wilson fantasy. Easy enough as it was to prove that he had completely missed the West African evidence that was staring him in the face, there remained the charge that his nonreport on a real threat had led to a government-sponsored vendetta against him and his wife, Valerie Plame.

* * * *

After you have noted that the Niger uranium connection was in fact based on intelligence that has turned out to be sound, you may also note that this heated moral tone ("thuggish," "gang") is now quite absent from the story. It turns out that the person who put Valerie Plame's identity into circulation was a staunch foe of regime change in Iraq. Oh, that's all right, then. But you have to laugh at the way Corn now so neutrally describes his own initial delusion as one that was "seized on by administration critics."

What does emerge from Hubris is further confirmation of what we knew all along: the extraordinary venom of the interdepartmental rivalry that has characterized this administration. In particular, the bureaucracy at the State Department and the CIA appear to have used the indiscretion of Armitage to revenge themselves on the "neoconservatives" who had been advocating the removal of Saddam Hussein. Armitage identified himself to Colin Powell as Novak's source before the Fitzgerald inquiry had even been set on foot.

* * * *

[C]an one imagine anybody with a stronger motive to change the subject from CIA incompetence and to present a widely discredited agency as, instead, a victim, than Tenet himself? The man who kept the knowledge of the Minnesota flight schools to himself and who was facing every kind of investigation and obloquy finally saw a chance to change the subject. If there is any "irony" in the absurd and expensive and pointless brouhaha that followed, it is that he was abetted in this by so many who consider themselves "radical."

Ok, I have to quit writing for now. Household emergency...a bat just flew in the door while I was letting the dog out. Now I have a bat flying around the house!

* * * * UPDATE * * * *
Ok, the bat is history. I opened the front door and it flew out.

recovering - UN versus Israel - John Kerry is a sore loser [link]

2006-08-28T21:29:00.000-04:00

Major thunderstorms complete with tornadoes just rolled through Columbus...what's a guy gotta do to get some peace and quiet so he can rest?

I caught an 11pm flight out of LAX back to CMH airport Sunday night...it got me home at 6am. The darned 737-800 was packed with extra seats...you did not have room to recline your seat or move your knees. I drank a large beer right before the flight...it helped me sleep through most of it.

I got home, took an hour nap, showered, shaved, and headed to the office. Woo hoo! Exhaustion reigns supreme. Now I am going to sleep for the next 12 hours!

Sorry about the lack of posts...I won't make up for it! But I hope to have some comments tomorrow.

Ok, maybe a comment right now.

What the FRAK us the UN up to? I read a news report earlier today (that I would link to but I can't find it) stating that the UN mission in Lebanon was posting detailed reports on Israeli forces strength and unit locations on the internet. They did NOT do the same with respect to the Hezbollah forces. That counts as enemy action in my book. When (not "if") war breaks out again, the UN should be advised that if it is going to act like an enemy force, it WILL be fired upon. And frankly, it SHOULD be fired on!

Next up, Jean Francois Kerry is crying foul over the 2004 election results in Ohio [see the link above].

An e-mail will be sent to 100,000 Democratic donors Tuesday asking them to support U.S. Rep. Ted Strickland for governor of Ohio. The bulk of the e-mail criticizes Strickland's opponent, GOP Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, for his dual role in 2004 as President Bush's honorary Ohio campaign co-chairman and the state's top election official.

"He used the power of his state office to try to intimidate Ohioans and suppress the Democratic vote," said Kerry's e-mail.

And I thought I was a crybaby. It seems the Dems don't want to heal the country...they would gladly ramp up everyone's emotions so that we are at each other's throats. Richard Nixon conceded the 1960 election inspite of evidence of massive vote fraud that cost him the White House. Nixon put the nation's interests before his own (though if he HAD been president 8 years earlier, maybe we would have avoided the mess in Viet Nam and LBJ's credibility gap).

Ok, sleepy time for your faultless Dictator for Life.

Classic movie posters

2006-08-25T12:14:00.000-04:00

I just love the posters for old Sci-Fi movies. Not the kind of posters that Hezbollah would rip off to make as their new flag. Megalon loves these posters too...especially the ones with "50s chicks!"

This movie use to terrify me when I was very young:

And let's not forget good old old Gort! "Klaatu verata .... necktie...alright alright alright, I said your damned words..." Sorry, right line, wrong movie.

Now I remember pretty distinctly that Gort picked up Patricia Neal and carried her back to the spaceship in THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL. But I don't think Robbie the Robot put any moves on Anne Francis during FORBIDDEN PLANET (at least, not during the course of the movie...now they DID have a lot of time together before the story began...)

And finally, a movie that Megalon can really relate to:

I have actually seen her do this...with her doll houses, that is. She is going to kill me because of this next time she sees me.

What Not To Wear - Sci Fi Edition

2006-08-24T21:01:00.000-04:00

I am hardly the master of fashion, but there are all kinds of things wrong with what this sci-fi fan is wearing:

It is southern California...ok. It is not hot out, but certainly not cold. So why is this guy wearing a coat? And the rolled up cuffs?

What is going on with that?

* * * * update* * * *

Yeah yeah, I deleted the cheesecake. Live with it.

Of course, it would not be a sci-fi convention without costumes:

I know Megalon, you are becoming afraid.

Marina Sirtis - OH...MY...GOD!

2006-08-24T16:41:00.000-04:00

Marina Sirtis is just too funny to believe. I showed up at her presentation expecting to sit for a few minutes in the airconditioning, get some rest, then move on when I got bored. WRONG! She showed up a few minutes late and hit the ground running.

She got a question about her accent during Next Gen. She has a British accent and the producers told her that since they already had a Brit on the show, she would have to do another accent. She asked a very logical question...if Picard is French, shouldn't HE do an accent? She then went off on five minute rant bad mouthing the French:

As a Brit, I always wondered why we built that channel tunnel. We hate the f-ing French. I mean, who doesn't hate the French? Everybody hates the French.

* * * *

By the 24th Century, according to Star Trek, there are no more French speaking people left in France. Have you noticed that? That is why we built the channel tunnel.

* * * *

Look at this whole Lebanon business. The French are suppose to be leading the whole peacekeeping force. They want to send 200 soldiers; damned cowards. What is the first thing French kids learn in school. Anyone? "I surrender," in five different languages, yeah.

Marina wants to do GALACTICA, but apparently has NOT yet seen the show...she had no clue what a Cylon was.

Prices and Service

2006-08-24T14:17:00.000-04:00

I went to breakfast at the IHOP here in Anaheim. Whoa! The prices were about 50% higher than they are at the usual IHOP...vacationland premium prices. I was not amused.

On the other hand, the quality of the food was very good and the service was exceptional. I left a 23+% tip in cash on the table...good service deserves to be recognized and rewarded (and just leaving the tip on my credit card was not good enough...I wanted the staff to see that I appreciated their efforts).

On an odd note...I went back to my room after breakfast to brush my teeth and this is what I found in the hotel corridor:

I guess today is the day they replace the beds and the mattresses!

Worldcon update

2006-08-23T22:00:00.000-04:00

Martina has arrived!

And her paintings are hung...or at least the ones that the airline did not lose. One portfolio full of her paintings did not arrive at its final destination.

Worldcon photos

2006-08-23T17:41:00.000-04:00

LA Con IV has begun. One of the hazards of being a fan, but dressing like a normal human being is that people assume you are responsible. I was meandering through the dealer's room and bumped into the committee chairman for the Columbus in 2008 Worldcon bid. Too make a long story short, it looks like I am now on the committee.

Here are some interesting photos of the displays there.

First, a nude photo of Governor Schwarzenegger...VERY nude:

And Robbie the Robot:

And the rest of robot row:

You would NOT believe the LEGOS models they have there:

And some fans have WAY too much time on their hands:

Airport Blogging

2006-08-22T18:24:00.000-04:00

Here I am, stuck at Port Columbus International Airport. The good? Free wi-fi internet. But, you get what you pay for...it is painfully slow. The bad? My 6:15pm flight to LA has been delayed...estimated time for departure is now 7:30pm. There are a lot of very angry people waiting for this plane. I am not too t'eed off...though I am very tired; I put in a full day at the office before coming over to the airport.

No food on the flight...they are only serving a "snack." Peanuts or something like that. Charming. So, I had some overpriced airport food. I wish I had some toothpaste...I would really love to brush my teeth now.

Every few minutes they play an announcement telling us all the stuff we are no longer allowed to bring on the flight. Ok, no liquids or gel products. I was wondering...what about breast implants? I suppose you could have a female terrorist who had the fluid in her implants replaced with chemical explosives. Hmmmm....that ultra thin blonde sitting over there...her chest looks very suspicious!

Gate security was not that bad. There was no line at all when I went through. They gave my bag a thorough going over...through the scanner twice, then a manual search. Fortunately, the suspicous item was right on top...a die cast metal miniature of the Battlestar Galactica. The TSA employee who found it was totally confused.

Could be worse. Back in 1988, I was going through airport security and the x-rayed my carry-on bag. The agent had a puzzled look on his face and asked, "You don't, by chance, happen to have a solid steel model of the Starship Enterprise in your bag, do you? As a matter of fact, I did!

Ok, Megalon, I know. I am making you afraid.

They just told us that we will board in "zones." Priority people are in "zone 1." I am in "zone 7." Why am I not surprised?

* * * * UPDATE * * * *

My inflight movie today will be...let me check out the Delta Airlines website...ah yes... FLIGHT 93! NOT!!!!!!!

light blogging today - maybe more tomorrow

2006-08-22T05:06:00.000-04:00

I am off to the World Science Fiction Convention in Los Angeles (actually Anaheim). I will put in a full day at the office, head to the airport, and fly out at 6:20 pm tonight. I will probably get to my hotel at 10:00 pm Pacific Time...oh I will be one very tired little trekkie.

This photo was from the Boston worldcon in 2004. I won't be bringing any costumes this year (sorry Megalon); I decided not to check any luggage and I could barely fit 4 days worth of regular clothes in it (you KNOW how badly I overpack).

Los Angeles worldcons are always filled with major media events...hopefully this one will be no different.

Here I am with my Slovakian friend Martina...we met at the last LA Worldcon back in 1996. We will be partners in crime at this con too. Woo hoo! I just have to keep her safe from her ex-boyfriends!

How will the Emperor maintain control without the bureaucracy?

2006-08-21T06:29:00.000-04:00

Actually, maybe the question for us should be, "How will the Emperor and the bureaucracy maintain control?"

Government seems to be failing at its basic tasks on a more regular basis. The complaints about FEMA and the troubles in assisting survivors after hurricane Katrina seem based on the notion that FEMA was adequately handling disaster recovery befor 2005. This was not the case. FEMA was always wasting money on a grand scale...it's just that the waste and incompetence did not matter because the state and local governments were usually good at doing much of the disaster recovery work.

Katrina was an example of what happens when none of the levels of government demonstrate basic competency. I fear that it is prologue for our future...one filled with expensive government programs that fail at their basic tasks. Our public schools are another example. In the not-to-distant past, our country's public schools were a source of pride. Not anymore.

Sorry, there is no graceful way to end this...but I have to get moving for the day. Can't blog from the office, regretably.

Mort Kondracke - frightening words of wisdom [link]

2006-08-20T19:21:00.000-04:00

On Fox News Sunday today, Mort Kondracke said the following:

In the clash of civilizations, if that's what's going on now, I'm afraid that our side is losing, and the Iranians are ascending.

Sober words from a thoughtful man.

NSA Monitoring - Legal Follies

2006-08-18T06:33:00.000-04:00

The week after the bust up of a conspiracy in England to bomb ten airliners in flight, a bust up probably due to very intrusive monitoring of electronic communications, a U.S. District Court rules that the NSA's program for monitoring international electronic communications is unconstitutional.

I have not examined the legal merits of the case, but the timing certainly is bad for this decision. Gee...just after a monitoring program hits pay dirt and saves thousands of lives, a court rules that you are not allowed to monitor.

Ok, I am an unfrozen Ne[oCon]anderthal voter. WHAT THE FRAK!!!!!!! I think the American public is going to be highly cynical about this decision. The Bush administration is trying to keep us safe and the courts are more interested in legal niceties. The moonbats will be out there screaming that this proves that Bush is worse than Hitler.

Sigh. Judges (and other intelligent, educated people) can sometimes be so stupid and find themselves tied up in knots of spurious logic.

Jimmy Carter - DUNCE! [link]

2006-08-17T06:32:00.000-04:00

What can you say about any so-called American who says things like this?

I don't think that Israel has any legal or moral justification for their massive bombing of the entire nation of Lebanon. What happened is that Israel is holding almost 10,000 prisoners, so when the militants in Lebanon or in Gaza take one or two soldiers, Israel looks upon this as a justification for an attack on the civilian population of Lebanon and Gaza. I do not think that's justified, no.

Oh, it's just the Jews' job to die quietly. Jimmy always favored the Arabs.

Now, here is Jimmy talking about devout Christians:

The fundamentalists believe they have a unique relationship with God, and that they and their ideas are God's ideas and God's premises on the particular issue. Therefore, by definition since they are speaking for God anyone who disagrees with them is inherently wrong. And the next step is: Those who disagree with them are inherently inferior, and in extreme cases -- as is the case with some fundamentalists around the world -- it makes your opponents sub-humans, so that their lives are not significant. Another thing is that a fundamentalist can't bring himself or herself to negotiate with people who disagree with them because the negotiating process itself is an indication of implied equality. And so this administration, for instance, has a policy of just refusing to talk to someone who is in strong disagreement with them -- which is also a radical departure from past history. So these are the kinds of things that cause me concern. And, of course, fundamentalists don't believe they can make mistakes, so when we permit the torture of prisoners in Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib, it's just impossible for a fundamentalist to admit that a mistake was made.

Uh, Jimmy? I really think you are describing yourself. I am a non Christian who worked closely with devout Christians on political matters and I saw nothing of what you are describing above.

Here is Jimmy on America's response to 9/11:

Unfortunately, after Sept., there was an outburst in America of intense suffering and patriotism, and the Bush administration was very shrewd and effective in painting anyone who disagreed with the policies as unpatriotic or even traitorous. For three years, I'd say, the major news media in our country were complicit in this subservience to the Bush administration out of fear that they would be accused of being disloyal. I think in the last six months or so some of the media have now begun to be critical. But it's a long time coming.

Unfortunately? And I don't think the news media is subservient to the Administration. But, Jimmy lives in a special world.

Ok, here is Jimmy on the Democratic party:

I think I represent the vast majority of Democrats in this country. I think there is a substantial portion of American people that completely agree with me. I can't say a majority because we have fragmented portions in our country and divisions concerning gun control and the death penalty and abortion and gay marriage.

Well, I think he represents the wingnut roots...Michael Moore, Susan Sarandon, and company. But not Joe Sixpack. If Jimmy is representative of the Dems, then they are doomed.

Jimmy is arrogant, unforgiving, and a fool. He was a disgrace in office and an embarrassment in retirement.

Unfrozen Caveman Voters [link]

2006-08-16T16:50:00.000-04:00

The column linked to above is hilarious! Of course, I don't think of myself as a "caveman" but more of as a Unfrozen Neanderthal Voter...or...perhaps since I am Jewish and a conservative hawk, that makes me an Unfrozen Ne[oCon]anderthal Voter.

No better monologue could capture the spirit of a large portion of America today.

Hey, all you elected politicians and media types and academics! I'm just an average guy. I wake up and I go to work and I have a family. I don't know much about Shi'ites, Sunnis, Wahhabis, Salafists, Imams, Mullahs, root causes, or the desire for democracy in the Muslim world or whatever. My mind can grasp these concepts just fine, the fact of the matter is I just don't care. I don't know much about all that stuff, but there is one thing I do know: when a bunch of "death-to-america" chanting yahoos want to destroy our culture, attack our cities, down our aircraft, and build nuclear weapons, then they are entitled to the business end of a B52.

* * * *

Don't caricature this attitude with a desire for more invasions, more nation-building, more regime-change, random airstrikes, or wanton slaughter. It's hard to say just what policy exactly might satisfy the caveman demographic. But really, the Unfrozen Caveman Voter intuits a large portion of the art of warfare: opportunities must be created and then exploited -- or if they come by luck, they must be exploited all the same. And finally, the use of extreme and otherwise intolerable violence is necessary if used in the service of victory.

Well said! All I can add is "Ugga! Spit!" That is Ne[oCon]anderthal for, "So say we all!"

If I Were a Cartoonist. . .

2006-08-16T06:02:00.000-04:00

I have an image in my mind about the recent Israel/Lebanon war. You see a battered man climbing out of a bomb shelter in the middle of a bombed out moonscape of a land. In the distance, you see a fence/border with a tremendous concentration of military might on the other side. The battered man is shouting, "We won!" Cutting off the nose to spite one's face at the national level...some victory.

I had an IM chat with a soldier I know who is on his way back to Iraq to serve the second half of his tour. When I mentioned the failure of Israeli Prime Minister Olmert to prosecutor the war, my friend wrote, "WE ALL wanted to see him say FU to the UN, now the Iranians and Hezbullah are full of piss."

The modern laws of war are immoral. There is almost no enforcement imposed on dictator run states or terrorist groups. The tyrants and terrorists around the world use the UN and the Geneva Conventions to tie up the US and Western Powers to keep them from effectively fighting. The thugs of the world are banding together and using the UN and international law as instruments to protect themselves.

Atrocities in the third world are trumpeted as triumphs. Consider Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe. This petty tyrant took a prosperous country and turned it into a hell hole filled with starving people. Yet the other African leaders treat him like a hero. In John Derbyshire's latest podcast, a story was told about a neighboring country that named a major highway after Mugabe...but which then had to post guards to protect the plaques honoring the dictator from being vandalized by the tens of thousands of Zimbabwean refugees living there. If the African nations were the least bit sane, they would band together and support insurrection in Zimbabwe. But no, they worship Mugabe as a hero.

Our Western allies are to wrapped up in self hatred and guilt to defend themselves from the influx of Muslim hatred. The allow themselves to be deceived by the smokescreens of the tyrants. It is bad enough that they are not fully supporting the US in the war against Militant Islam, in many ways they are actively opposing us. The horrendous cease-fire in Lebanon was due, in large part, to pressure from the Western allies.

No time for a conclusion...I have to get showered, dressed, and on my way to the office.

Lunacy at Legal Services Corporation [link]

2006-08-15T06:39:00.000-04:00

Legal Services Corporation never seems to be able to do its job. It is suppose to provide basic legal assistance for the poor. But too often, it gets involved in anti-death penalty cases and other high profile litigation that have little to do with helping the poor overcome day-to-day legal problems.

The federal program that provides legal help to poor Americans turns away half of its applicants for lack of resources. But that hasn't stopped its executives from lavishing expensive meals, chauffeur-driven cars and foreign trips on themselves.

Lovely, huh?

Agency documents obtained by The Associated Press detail the luxuries that executives of the Legal Services Corp. have given themselves with federal money - from $14 "Death by Chocolate" desserts to $400 chauffeured rides to locations within cab distance of their offices.

The government-funded corporation also has a spacious headquarters in Washington's tony Georgetown district - with views of the Potomac River and a rent significantly higher than other tenants in the same building.

And board members wrote themselves a policy that doubled the amount they could claim for meals compared with their staff.

* * * *

Legal Services is a nonprofit corporation run with federal money that was created by Congress to provide legal help in civil matters for Americans who can't afford their own lawyers. It funds neighborhood clinics across the country where lawyers provide such help.

Three congressional committees have questioned the program's spending as has the corporation's own internal watchdog. The chairman of the tax-writing Senate Finance Committee is threatening to withhold future money if the corporation doesn't trim its extravagance.

"It's waste and abuse," said Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, citing the board's doubling of the meal money as an example. "At 200 percent, it seems to me what we would call in Iowa living high off the hog."

Don't worry. Senators Kennedy, Schumer, and Clinton will rise to defend LSC...liberals love this entity because it has been a reliable platform for attacking conservative policies (with the added benefit that it uses government dollars to do so).

The scrutiny of Legal Services' spending comes as the corporation says it doesn't have enough resources to meet many poor clients' needs.

Legal Services' own study found last October that for every client who receives service, one applicant is turned away for lack of resources. Since that study only counted those who contacted the program for assistance, the corporation said it likely underestimated the unmet need.

Yes, the liberals will no doubt manage to get LSC's budget increased because, with the help of their friends in the main stream media, they will turn this into another example of those mean, nasty, heartless Republicans trying to deprive the poor of a vital service. And the cowardly Republicans will cave in rather than stick to their principles. Hey, what's another couple of hundred million dollars...it's not like it's their money!

Intolerant Anti-Christians Need to Get A Life [link]

2006-08-14T21:10:00.000-04:00

Why are athiests and other anti-Christians so intolerant? Why does the display of religious symbols cause them such discomfort. Can't they see that a public display of a cross or the tablets of the Ten Commandments is an acknowledgement of the importance of religion?

Case in point: the display of a large cross as part of a war memorial in San Diego. From the anger coming from the anti-Christians, you would think that the display was being used to crucify non-Christians.

A giant cross in San Diego that's been contested for 17 years by an atheist became the property of the federal government Monday with President Bush's signature.

I view athiests as members of a competing religous view. Why should THEIR view be given preference? I am not a Christian and I do not feel threatened when I see Christian symbols in public.

But the legal fight that began in 1989 when atheist Philip Paulson sued San Diego over the cross is not played out yet.

Paulson's attorney, Jim McElroy, said he filed papers in federal court in San Diego last week to void the transfer and declare it unconstitutional.

"I don't think anybody really thinks the cross is going to remain on Mt. Soledad. It's been 17 years of litigation, and every court, every judge who's ever looked at it has ruled it's unconstitutional," McElroy said.

These people are selfish and incapable or realizing that the world is bigger than they are. Anything that makes them uncomfortable must be torn down....the fact that it makes other people uncomfortable is of no importance.

The U.S. Supreme Court started this nonsense by lecturing the country on the separation of church and state decades ago. The Court thought it could satisfy athiests and other anti-Christians by allowing them to sue to remove some religous symbols. Instead they created a never ending stream of litigation. There are always going to be people who are uncomfortable with things they see...the last thing you want to do is to give them a cause of action to file suit and possibly impose their values on the rest of us. .

The Jewish Left is in Shambles? [link]

2006-08-13T20:36:00.000-04:00

What is a good Jewish leftist to do? Being an activist for world peace does not seem to be working too well.

Opinionjournal.com has a column dealing with the dilemma that the Jewish left now finds itself in.

This is a soul-searching moment for the Jewish left. Actually, for many Jewish liberals, navigating the gloomy politics of the Middle East is like walking with two left feet.

* * * *

Yet, since 9/11 and the second intifada, in which suicide bombings and beheadings have become the calling cards of Arab diplomacy, and with Hamas and Hezbollah emerging as elected entities that, paradoxically, reject the first principles of liberal democracy, I feel a great deal of moral anguish. Perhaps I have been naive all along.

And I am not alone. Many Jews are in my position--the children and grandchildren of labor leaders, socialists, pacifists, humanitarians, antiwar protesters--instinctively leaning left, rejecting war, unwilling to demonize, and insisting that violence only breeds more violence. Most of all we share the profound belief that killing, humiliation and the infliction of unnecessary pain are not Jewish attributes.

Promote appeasement as much as you can and the rest of the world's leftists STILL accuse you of working on a plan straight out of Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

However, the world as we know it today--post-Holocaust, post-9/11, post-sanity--is not cooperating. Given the realities of the new Middle East, perhaps it is time for a reality check. For this reason, many Jewish liberals are surrendering to the mindset that there are no solutions other than to allow Israel to defend itself--with whatever means necessary. Unfortunately, the inevitability of Israel coincides with the inevitability of anti-Semitism.

And here is the conclusion:

The Jewish left is now in shambles. Peace Now advocates have lost their momentum, and, in some sense, their moral clarity. Opinion polls in Israel are showing near unanimous support for stronger incursions into Lebanon. And until kidnapped soldiers are returned and acts of terror curtailed, any further conversations about the future of the West Bank have been set aside.

Not unlike the deep divisions between the values of red- and blue-state America, world Jewry is being forced to reconsider all of its underlying assumptions about peace in the Middle East. The recent disastrous events in Lebanon and Gaza have inadvertently created a newly united Jewish consciousness--bringing right and left together into one deeply cynical red state.

Of course, some Jews will never learn. Consider this excerpt from another opinionjournal.com piece last Friday:

For the past several years, the members of the religious left, upset by GOP "values" victories, have argued that the Democratic Party needs to be more welcoming to people of faith. Some have even formed an organization--the Network of Spiritual Progressives--to pursue this cause. So why did they decide not to support the candidate who has probably been more vocal about his faith than just about any other Democrat on the national scene? Ms. Seger, Mr. Balmer and Rabbi Lerner all cite Mr. Lieberman's support of the war in Iraq.

Mr. Balmer, who says that he has voted for Mr. Lieberman in previous elections, explains: "My objection is not to Lieberman as a person or voice of faith. I just happen to disagree with him on this issue." Rabbi Lerner, who is also the national chair of the Network of Spiritual Progressives, is more forceful: "I think you have to ask Lieberman, 'What part of "Thou shalt not kill" do you not understand?'"

What part of "thou shalt not kill" does Rabbi Lerner not understand? Is it OK for Muslim militants to slaughter Jews? I was raised to believe that suicide was the greatest sin a Jew could commit. Refusal to defend oneself against Muslim militants is suicide. I guess this rabbi feels that it is better to be a pure suicide than to justifiably defend oneself.

Of course, later in the piece Rabbi Lerner demonstrates that he is an idealistic idiot for whom symbols are more important that substance:

Rabbi Lerner disapproves of Mr. Lieberman's recent vote for federal tax cuts. "He disempowers government," Rabbi Lerner says, keeping it from caring for the poor.

I disapprove of Rabbi Lerner. He is too stupid to be permitted to provide anyone with spiritual (or any other kind) of guidance.

ATTACK of the Cursed Undead VW from HELL!

2006-08-13T07:27:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, I came to recognize a force in the universe every bit as evil as the one I wrote about on 7/29/2006 in the post "The Battle for Columbus Has Begun!" Sadly, it is a force that is in my own garage. I was going to post a photograph of it here, but it is so evil that blogger.com won't allow me to upload the photo.

Of course, I am writing about my 1974 VW Superbeetle Cabriolet. Yesterday was the annual VW collector's festival here in Columbus, Ohio. I woke bright and early, hopped into Greenie, and headed off for the festival. I got about five miles from home when the clutch pedal fell down...it had become disconnected from the clutch cable. This had happened before and supposedly my mechanic had fixed it...well...obviously not.

So, there I am alongside the road in a broken down VW. I managed to get the cellphone number for the president of the local club....I called him hoping that he could send a "search and rescue" team out to help me (otherwise I would be stuck calling AAA and having the car towed home). The president told me that they could send out help, but then he said, "You know, you can drive your bug without a clutch." He told me that if I started the car in first gear ("It will lurch forward, but give it some gas and it will go") then just shift gears as I normally would ("Force it...it may grind a bit...but it will go into the new gear.") I could drive the car.

Ok, I tried it. Greenie started with a lurch, and started chugging along. I got up to about 15 mph and I forced the gear shift lever from 1st into 2nd gear. It took a little force, but it popped into gear with no grinding at all. The same thing happened from 2nd to 3rd gears and 3rd to 4th gears. There was a little grinding when I first tried to downshift...I learned that I had to rev the engine a bit before forcing the lever.

I made it to the meet. The folks at the membership desk were wonderful. I parked along side the road, walked over and filled out my paperwork, then they let me drive straight through the line of cars and park my bug with the others in its class (Class I: 1970-79 Beetle and Superbeetle Cabriolets).

It was a lovely day out there. There were HUNDREDS of Beetles. I was more than a little heartsick when I saw that I could have bought a restored Beetle convertible for less than half what I paid to have Greenie restored (to its PARTIAL state of readiness). I took over a hundred photos. Why then you ask, gentle reader, are none of those photos here...patience. In time all will be revealed.

About an hour after I arrived, another Ravenna Green VW Superbeetle Cabriolet parked two cars down from mine...a 1973 in beautiful condition. I talked with the owner; she and her husband drove in from Indiana that morning. There were some other friends of theirs who suffered last minute mechanical failures and were unable to attend. I guess Greenie is not the only evil VW genius out there.

I wandered around, took photos, ate a steakburger, bought some parts for Greenie, and had a pretty fun time. At 3pm, I realised that it would be smart to leave a little early and beat the rush...especially since I have a car that is now incapable of handling stop-and-go traffic. I made my final farewells and headed out on the road.

I decided to take the freeway back home since there would be fewer traffic signals to deal with. Bad mistake. Greenie just had the front of its frame replaced and I have not had time to get a proper front end alignment. I got out on the road and, after driving a few minutes at 65 mph, I heard a horrible noise and the wheel started to shake a bit. I pulled over to make sure that nothing had broken loose. Then I got back behind the wheel and drove on at 45 mph.

What a nightmare. I could not put the emergency blinkers on (they need repair too) but that probably would not have made any difference. People would fly up from behind me, jam on their brakes, ride on my bumper for a few moments, that speed around me. I tried to stay in the right lane; but it was not easy to get over since people would start passing me on the right everytime a new lane would get added to my right. I got home with a major headache and case of the shakes.

I took the memory chip out of my camera and plugged it into my computer to pull the pictures out...and there were none! My camera had been taking pictures all day....but none of them had been stored on my camera's xD memory chip. Oh, I was unhappy. I was despondent. I was to the point of asking existential questions. I got in my newer car and drove over to BestBuy to buy a new digital camera (I had hoped to put this expenditure off for a few more months but Greenie's evil will not be denied).

I am keeping a low profile today. Hopefully Greenie's lust for causing me pain has been satisfied.

Terror Stopped - For Now

2006-08-10T20:07:00.001-04:00

The news today is filled with information about the plot to destroy ten or so jetliners over the Atlantic ... a plan for mass murder comparable with 9/11.

Here we are engaged in an "international war against terror." Our military forces carefully choose targets in an effort to minimize civilian casualties. Meanwhile, our enemies are using every means at their disposal to target and kill unsuspecting civilians...ours, theirs, they don't care. And there are people on our side (supposedly) who claim that our enemies are justified in the way they are fighting us.

Some moral relativists claim that "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter." I disagree. True warriors/freedom fighters in the modern, civilized world limit the force they use based on the nature of their enemy.

The amount of force that you use against an enemy should be limited by the way in which your enemy fights you. If you are fighting an enemy who is only using nonviolent, political methods then it would be immoral to use violence against them. It would be outrageous and criminal for Joe Lieberman's supporters to start blowing up buses in Connecticut just because their guy lost at the polls on Tuesday...it would be ludicrous and wrong because they have effective, nonviolent means to achieve their goals.

If you are fighting an enemy who is using violence in a "limited war" fashion (such as the way the US and Israel use force), then it is immoral to respond with terror and violence aimed at unsuspecting civilians. Ok, you don't want to mass your forces into a major attack on the enemy ... that would be stupid since you would get wiped out. But if you can't achieve your goals through a direct military assault and if you can't achieve them through the political process, perhaps you should examine your goals ... maybe you need new goals.

What do the Arabs want with respect to Israel? Do they want to live within the borders of Israel and enjoy the full rights as citizens in a western style representative government? They can do that without war. A certain amount of immigration into Israel is allowed. Of course, not everyone who wants to move to Israel can do so ... just as not everyone who wants to move into the better neighborhoods in any American city can do so.

But the Arabs don't just want to live within the borders of Israel, they want to control the country. There is an exclusive neighborhood in Columbus, Ohio named Bexley. It is a great place to live; I live a few blocks outside of it and love to walk there. There are a limited number of houses for sale there. What would happen if a thousand families decided that they wanted to live in Bexley ... and THEY wanted to take control of the local government? They could try and move in legally ... but if there were not enough houses for sale (or if they could not afford to buy the houses that were available) they would be out of luck. They absolutely would not have the right to start killing people and destroying property in order to frighten Bexley residents into abandoning their homes so that the newcomers could move in.

Our enemies can't defeat us on the battlefield. They have goals that cannot be achieved through the political process nor through diplomacy. The only way they can achieve their goals is to terrify us into submission. The problem is, their ultimate goal is to dominate the world. If we retreat for now, they will only come after us later.

So, where do we go? What do we do? How do we respond?

On Friday September 13, 2003 an essay was posted at The Belmont Club entitled THE THREE CONJECTURES.

Conjecture 1: Terrorism has lowered the nuclear threshold
Conjecture 2: Attaining WMDs will destroy Islam
Conjecture 3: The War on Terror is the 'Golden Hour' -- the final chance

Why will attaining WMDs destroy Islam?

Because capability is the sole variable of interest in the war against terrorism, the greater the Islamic strike capability becomes, the stronger the response will be. An unrepeatable attack with a stolen WMD weapon would elicit a different response from one arising from a capability to strike on a sustained and repetitive basis. The riposte to an unrepeatable attack would be limited. However, suppose Pakistan or North Korea engineered a reliable plutonium weapon that could be built to one-point safety in any machine shop with a minimum of skill, giving Islamic terrorists the means to repeatedly attack America indefinitely. Under these circumstances, there would no incentive to retaliate proportionately. The WMD exchange would escalate uncontrollably until Islam was destroyed.

Consider a case where Islamic terrorists obliterate a city, causing five times the deaths at Hiroshima and an American limited response.

In a war between nations, the conflict might stop at this point. But since there is no one with whom to negotiate a peace and no inclination to stop anyhow, the Islamic terrorists will continue while they have the capability and the cycle of destruction continues.

At this point, a United States choked with corpses could still not negotiate an end to hostilities or deter further attacks. There would be no one to call on the Red Telephone, even to surrender to. In fact, there exists no competent Islamic authority, no supreme imam who could stop a jihad on behalf of the whole Muslim world. Even if the terror chiefs could somehow be contacted in this apocalyptic scenario and persuaded to bury the hatchet, the lack of command and control imposed by the cell structure would prevent them from reining in their minions. Due to the fixity of intent, attacks would continue for as long as capability remained. Under these circumstances, any American government would eventually be compelled by public desperation to finish the exchange entering -1 x 10^9 in the final right hand column: total retaliatory extermination.

In other words, the moment they hit us, we would need to kill them all ... otherwise they would eventually build more nukes and hit us again.

Our enemies want to terrify us into submission. They would show us no mercy and leave us with no freedoms. One need only look at the history of Islam in India to see what is in store for the entire world if we surrendered to the terrorists.

The terrorists believe that if they use enough violence we will capitulate. Hopefully, we will not. But we must make it clear to the terrorists that we are willing to destroy them ALL if they continue to ratchet up the level of destruction and use WMD. We choose to fight our wars in a limited fashion ... it has been a luxury that we could afford. Once the enemy deploys WMD, we will no longer be able to afford that luxury. We will return to the horrific days of the Second World War when civilians were legitimate targets ... total war.

At the top of this essay, I wrote, "The amount of force that you use against an enemy should be limited by the way in which your enemy fights you. " Our enemies are willing to wage total war against us; we are morally justified to respond in kind. Our very survival is at stake!

Shocking animal video [link]

2006-08-10T20:03:00.000-04:00

Park rangers in Africa tried to release a leopard (not a cheetah, Megalon) back into the wild. Note to file...do NOT poke the leopard with a stick when you are trying to get it to leave its cage. Leopards do not appreciate being poked with sticks.

The Lieberman Lesson [link]

2006-08-09T06:01:00.000-04:00

Submitted for your approval, a column by Noam Scheiber discussing the reasons behind Joe Lieberman's troubles.

IF you asked Senator Joseph I. Lieberman why he faced the fight of his life in yesterday’s Democratic primary in Connecticut, the answer would likely be “Iraq.”

It’s basically an argument by deduction. Mr. Lieberman has repeatedly said that his endorsements from a who’s who of environmentalists, abortion rights groups and labor unions certify that he’s a Democrat in good standing. The war, he has suggested, was the only major issue on which he dissented from his party. So the fact that many Democratic voters turned on him in the primary must mean that the party has become intolerant of dissenting foreign policy views.

In truth, Mr. Lieberman’s problem wasn’t so much the war as the perception that he’s a less than reliable partisan. To see why you probably have to go back to his overly civil performance during the 2000 presidential campaign. Or to his 1998 speech denouncing President Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky. Or to his occasional flirtation with school vouchers. Or to his ... well, you get the idea.

Good analysis, even if it IS in the NY Times.

Consider the way Democratic politics has worked for most of the last 40 years. If you were a Democratic member of Congress, pretty much the only way to earn yourself a primary challenger was to oppose a powerful local interest group on an issue it deemed critical. If you represented a Rust Belt district, for example, you could all but count on winning your party’s nomination every two years as long as you voted with the local union on trade legislation.

Under this old model, Mr. Lieberman was an all-star. He was a reliable vote on what Connecticut liberals care about: defending the right to abortion, fighting oil drilling in the Alaskan Arctic, raising the minimum wage.

When he did depart from Democratic orthodoxy, it usually involved attacking constituencies with little influence in his state, like Hollywood movie producers.
But over the last six years this old model has broken down. As anyone who hasn’t been living in a cave knows, traditional Democratic interest groups have steadily lost ground to a more partisan, progressive movement skilled at using the Internet to communicate and raise money. The most visible faces of the new movement are the thousands of political bloggers — and their millions of readers — who delighted in panning Mr. Lieberman these last several months.

The Dems are purging members who are not towing the BUSH LIED line...they do this at their own peril. Non-partisan voters will be repelled by the shrill noise that this crowd makes.

Anti-Israel or Anti-Semitic? You Decide [link]

2006-08-09T05:54:00.000-04:00

Read the comments hear at the DIGG posting linked to above. The underlying story deals with a rant by the offensive George Galloway on tv. Apparently, he shredded a news interviewer by spewing hatred towards Israel. The comments at the DIGG posting approve of Galloway's comments and many of them are dripping with hatred towards Israel and Jews.

Not the stuff that I want to read in the morning.

Galloway excels at twisting and ignoring facts to make it seem as if the tyrants and murderers he supports are virtual cherubs. He is a vile and disgusting man who can talk his way around any challenger who is not verbally adebt. Christopher Hitchens cleaned Galloway's clock several months ago in a debate. Hopefully, there will be MORE of that.

Say It Ain't So, Joe! [link]

2006-08-08T22:47:00.000-04:00

With over 80% of the precincts reporting, it looks like cable TV multimillionaire Ted Lamont has defeated veteran Senator Joe Lieberman in the Connecticut Democrat primary.

This is good news for the Kos-ites but bad news for the Dems; they will now get dragged to the left by the hate Bush appeasement-at-any-cost crowd.

On the bright side, it looks like Cynthia McKinney is trailing Hank Johnson in the runoff race for the 4th Congressional District of Georgia.

Israel Strikes Beirut with new super weapon!

2006-08-08T16:40:00.000-04:00

This just in! The Israelis are clearly buying weaponry from Japan.

Oh, Megalon...check your voice mail. The IDF is probably trying to reach you to lend some air support.

* * * * UPDATE * * * *

MEGALON JOINS THE BATTLE IN BEIRUT

NOTHING can save Hezbollah now!

Motion to Compel [link]

2006-08-08T06:09:00.000-04:00

Ladies and gentlemen, submitted for your approval is a draft of a motion to compel that can be used as a model for getting difficult people to attend social functions.

Don't overuse it!

Battlestar GOP-actica [it bears repeating]

2006-08-07T06:26:00.000-04:00

The Democrats were created by man.

They rebelled.

They evolved.

They look

and feel

human.

Some are programmed to believe they are human.

There are many copies.

And they have a plan.

The Last Honest Man? Hardly [link]

2006-08-06T09:10:00.000-04:00

Robert Kagan writes today in the Washington Post:

Twenty-nine Democratic senators voted in the fall of 2002 to authorize the invasion of Iraq. There isn't enough room on this page to list the Democratic foreign policy experts and former officials, including those from the top ranks of the Clinton administration, who supported the war publicly and privately -- some of whom even signed letters calling for the removal of Saddam Hussein. Nor is there any need to list the many liberal, and conservative, columnists on this and other editorial pages around the country who supported the war, or the many prominent journalists who provided the reporting that helped convince so many that the war was necessary.

The question of the day is, what makes Joe Lieberman different? What makes him now anathema to a Democratic Party and to liberal columnists who once supported both him and the war? Why is there now a chance he will lose the Democratic primary in Connecticut after so many years of faithfully serving that state and his own party?

Kagan describes Lieberman's devotion to the Democrat party and his hard work. Then he describes the support that other Democrats gave to the war in Iraq...and how they changed their position after the war became unpopular.

These have been the chosen tactics of self-preservation ever since events in Iraq started to go badly and the war became unpopular. Prominent intellectuals, both liberal and conservative, have turned on their friends and allies in an effort to avoid opprobrium for a war they publicly supported. Journalists have turned on their fellow journalists in an effort to make them scapegoats for the whole profession. Politicians have twisted themselves into pretzels to explain away their support for the war or, better still, to blame someone else for persuading them to support it.

Al Gore, the one-time Clinton administration hawk, airbrushed that history from his record. He turned on all those with whom he once agreed about Iraq and about many other foreign policy questions. And for this astonishing reversal he has been applauded by his fellow Democrats and may even get the party's nomination.

Apparently, amazingly, dispiritingly, it all works. At least in the short run, dishonesty pays. Dissembling pays. Forgetting your past writings and statements pays. Condemning those with whom you once agreed pays. Phony self-flagellation followed by self-righteous self-congratulation pays. The only thing that doesn't pay is honesty. If Joe Lieberman loses, it will not be because he supported the war or even because he still supports it. It will be because he refused to choose one of the many dishonorable paths open to him to salvage his political career.

He is the last honest man, and he may pay the price for it. At least he will be able to sleep at night. And he can take some solace in knowing that history, at least an honest history, will be kinder to him than was his own party.

The LAST honest man? Hardly. Mr. Kagan is forgetting all the Republicans and Neo-Conservatives who continue to support the war. Oh well, I guess to many, only the Dems count.

Why Sulla? [link]

2006-08-05T00:01:00.000-04:00

So just who was Sulla? That is Lucius Cornelius Sulla, my absolute favorite Dictator of Rome. My long time readers (ok, let me be honest, READER...that would be YOU Megalon) have read this before, but it bears repeating.

A famous Roman general stood poised to take the unprecedented step of marching on Rome with his legions, to purge the Senate of his political enemies and to ensure the downfall of a rival general, once more famous, now vying for command of the Roman armies. Of an old but decayed patrician family, he was famous for his conquest of foreign kings and his unrivaled luck in battle. He was ruthless, brilliant, alternately merciful and pitiless to his enemies. The younger general's actions sent shock-waves to the very foundations of the enfeebled Republic and led to his seizing the dictatorship of Rome; however, he would not step aside from the office in the traditional six months, but proceeded to force through legislation to recreate Rome in his own image. His name would become a byword for those who helped destroy the Roman Republic in its final years.

His name was Lucius Cornelius Sulla "Felix" - the fortunate.

The parallels between Sulla's notorious career and that of Julius Caesar (who was not even born when Sulla first rose to prominence, but who lived his youth under his shadow) are uncanny. As Caesar had his Pompey, Sulla had his Gaius Marius. The increasing struggles between the two warlords resulted in civil war and a seesaw of alternating political regimes that immersed Rome in blood. Caesar grew up in this political chaos. Sulla's ruthless actions must have profoundly influenced the mind of the young Julian.

If you are a fan of the HBO series ROME, then you should read Colleen McCullough's outstanding series, MASTERS OF ROME. The first book is FIRST MAN IN ROME. To be honest, she portrays Sulla as a monster...but I find it easy to ignore the outrageous antics she attributes to him (Gaius Julius Caesar's enemies made similar claims about him) and enjoy one of the few men in history who exercised absolute power, then retired to private life to party himself to death.

Michelle Malkin - SUPERSTAR

2006-08-04T23:51:00.000-04:00

I am humbled and amazed. Last night I emailed my HEZBOLLAH/EXODUS find to Michelle's website. This morning, I got an email back from Michelle (or one of her minions) saying that a link was made to this puny little blog.

Now, 12 hours after that link, I over 3 times as many people visit the Sulla Institute than in the entire previous year that it has been in operation.

Thank you Michelle. And thank you everyone else for visiting. Now I have to be religious about adding content.

Hezbollah - Stealing Ideas from the Jews

2006-08-03T05:34:00.000-04:00

I saw the flag used by Hezbollah and it occurred to me that it looked as if it was inspired by the movie poster for the Otto Preminger film EXODUS. Very odd...that was a movie that portrayed the Jews creating the state of Israel in a very heroic light.

It turns out that the poster for EXODUS was created by Saul Bass. You take a look and tell me if you see the simularity:

No Comment [link]

2006-08-01T19:37:00.000-04:00

I hear nothing! I see nothing! I know nothing!

Read the story yourself. I have nothing to say about this.

Democrat Hypocrisy - DeLay and the ballot [link]

2006-08-01T19:24:00.000-04:00

The Democrats in Texas want to keep Tom DeLay on the ballot. They claim that it would be a serious abuse to allow the Republicans to offer a different candidate. Excuse me. Is this the same Democrat party that sued to get Robert Torricelli OFF the New Jersey ballot?

Here is a link to a summary of the situtation over at National Review Online:

http://www.nationalreview.com/murdock/murdock100702.asp

What is outrageous about all this is that each state has separate rules with respect to how and when a candidate can resign from a race, and whether or not that candidate can be replaced. In New Jersey, the local courts ignored the law and allowed Torricelli to be replaced. In Texas, DeLay complied with the law, and the Dems have moved Heaven and Earth to keep him ON the ballot so they can run against him.

Of course, this could come back to bite them on the backside. If DeLay is forced to stay on the ballot, he can run his usual aggressive campaign. The Dems have foolishly given him an issue to run ON...they won't let him off the ballot. It is the DEMS who don't want the people of that district to have a choice. They may regret having Tom stay on the ballot.

I hope that Jim Bopp is able to convince the 5th Circuit to let the Republicans replace DeLay. But if not, I hope DeLay gives them hell and a solid whooping!

The Gibson Apology [link]

2006-08-01T18:33:00.000-04:00

Over at Drudge Report, there is a report that Mel Gibson has issued an apology. I took a look and, at least for a first step, it is acceptable (a lot more than you see out of your typical "avoid all blame" Hollywood liberal): http://www.drudgereport.com/flash3.htm

MEL SAYS SORRY TO THE JEWS

Tue Aug 01 2006 11:10:45 ET August 2, 2006 -- There is no excuse, nor should there be any tolerance, for anyone who thinks or expresses any kind of Anti-Semitic remark. I want to apologize specifically to everyone in the Jewish community for the vitriolic and harmful words that I said to a law enforcement officer the night I was arrested on a DUI charge.

I am a public person, and when I say something, either articulated and thought out, or blurted out in a moment of insanity, my words carry weight in the public arena. As a result, I must assume personal responsibility for my words and apologize directly to those who have been hurt and offended by those words.

The tenets of what I profess to believe necessitate that I exercise charity and tolerance as a way of life. Every human being is God ' s child, and if I wish to honor my God I have to honor his children. But please know from my heart that I am not an anti-Semite. I am not a bigot. Hatred of any kind goes against my faith.

I'm not just asking for forgiveness. I would like to take it one step further, and meet with leaders in the Jewish community, with whom I can have a one on one discussion to discern the appropriate path for healing.

I have begun an ongoing program of recovery and what I am now realizing is that I cannot do it alone. I am in the process of understanding where those vicious words came from during that drunken display, and I am asking the Jewish community, whom I have personally offended, to help me on my journey through recovery. Again, I am reaching out to the Jewish community for its help. I know there will be many in that community who will want nothing to do with me, and that would be understandable. But I pray that that door is not forever closed.

This is not about a film. Nor is it about artistic license. This is about real life and recognizing the consequences hurtful words can have. It's about existing in harmony in a world that seems to have gone mad.

END

I am willing to forgive someone for insulting me, provided they make a good faith effort. Gibson was arrested with a blood alcohol level of 0.12. That is not terribly high. In the not too distant past, the BAC for DUI was 0.15! So, he was only mildly impaired when he made those dreadful comments.

My guess is that Mel has more than a few anti-semitic bones in his body. The question is whether or not he truly believes that it is wrong.If he tries an easy path (find some Jews who will forgive ANYONE) and make a big show of going into recovery like Patrick Kennedy or (oh...fill in the name of some celebrity who tries to use substance abuse as an excuse for their criminal behavior...drug abuse) then I will have a more hostile opinion.

If he is sincere, he should meet with some "hard case" politically active Jews (maybe Abe Foxman at ADL or Rabbi Daniel Lapman at Towards Tradition) who will really make him WORK at getting forgiveness. He probably will never be able to totally banish the hatred of Jews from his heart; but if he keeps working at it I am willing to forgive. None of us are without sin or hate in our hearts; but being civilized means that we control it and, if we screw up and accidentally let it out, we make a strong, good faith effort at trying to repair the damage. Catholics have confession; Jews have Yom Kippur.

We are not perfect; we just need to keep pointing our noses down the path of righteousness no matter how far off the path we have slipped.

* * * * * UPDATE * * * * *

APOLOGY ACCEPTED

New York, NY, August 1, 2006 … The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today accepted actor Mel Gibson's apology for anti-Semitic remarks he made during an arrest on suspicion of drunken driving.

Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director, issued the following statement:
This is the apology we had sought and requested. We are glad that Mel Gibson has finally owned up to the fact that he made anti-Semitic remarks, and his apology sounds sincere. We welcome his efforts to repair the damage he has caused, to reach out to the Jewish community, and to seek help.

Once he completes his rehabilitation for alcohol abuse, we will be ready and willing to help him with his second rehabilitation to combat this disease of prejudice.

Hezbollah-wood...possibly another Islamofascist hoax [link]

2006-08-01T06:25:00.000-04:00

There is something suspicious going on up in Lebanon. Everyone was waiting for an Israeli bomb to go astray and hit a building with lots of civilians. Over the weekend it finally happens. 60 people dead! Over 3o of whom are children! International cries of outrage pour in and Israel announces a 48 hour suspension of its air attacks (did Hezbollah suspend ITS air attacks? Probably not!).

But then an odd detail comes out. The apartment building where all the deaths occurred did not collapse (because of a second explosion?) until 8 hours after the attack. So, are we to believe that everyone was killed in the initial attack?

Remember the supposed massacre at Jenin? Maybe the same thing happened at Qana. Here is an excerpt from the article linked to above:

Lebanese rescue teams did not start evacuating the building until the morning and only after the camera crews came. The absence of a real rescue effort was explained by saying that equipment was lacking. There were no scenes of live or injured people being extracted.

There was little blood, CNN's Wedeman noted: all the victims, he concluded, appeared to have died while as they were sleeping -- sleeping, apparently, through thunderous Israeli air attacks. Rescue workers equipped with cameras were removing the bodies from the same opening in the collapsed structure. Journalists were not allowed near the collapsed building.

Rescue workers filmed as they went carried the victims on the stretchers, occasionally flipping up the blankets so that cameras could show the faces and bodies of the dead.

But Israelis steeled to scenes of carnage from Palestinian suicide bombings and Hezbollah rocket attack could not help but notice that these victims did not look like our victims. Their faces were ashen gray. While medical examination clearly is called for to arrive at a definitive dating and cause of their deaths, they do not appear to have died hours before. The bodies looked like they had been dead for days.

Viewers can judge for themselves. But the accumulating evidence suggests another explanation for what happened at Kana. The scenario would be a setup in which the time between the initial Israeli bombing near the building and morning reports of its collapse would have been used to "plant" bodies killed in previous fighting -- reports in previous days indicated that nearby Tyre was used as a temporary morgue -- place them in the basement, and then engineer a "controlled demolition" to fake another Israeli attack.

The well-documented use by Palestinians of this kind of faked footage -- from the alleged shooting of Mohammed Dura in Gaza, scenes from Jenin of "dead" victims falling off gurneys and then climbing back on -- have merited the creation of a new film genre called "Palliwood." There is increasing evidence that the Kana sequel is another episode in this genre, a variety which might be called Hezbollywood. The Hezbollah have evidently learned their craft well.

Hooray for Hezbollah-wood! Rather than wait for the inevitable tragedy to occur, Hezbollah stages one! It does not matter though. The world will condemn Israel regardless of what really happened. Israel gets blamed for unintentially causing civilian deaths while Hezbollah rains missiles down on civilian areas of Israel INTENDING to cause civilian deaths.

George Orwell - Superstar! [link]

2006-07-31T19:47:00.000-04:00

I read an essay by George Orwell, linked to above, about corruption of the English language. I have seen excerpts of this essay, but I never before had the chance to read it in its entirety.

Here is the money quote:

1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

These rules sound elementary, and so they are, but they demand a deep change of attitude in anyone who has grown used to writing in the style now fashionable.

Read it! Learn it! Live it!

Mel Gibson - What a Bloody Mess

2006-07-31T19:26:00.000-04:00

I always liked Mel Gibson...not a lot (not like I liked Clint Eastwood, John Wayne, or Bruce Willis), but he was in a lot of fun films and he seemed nice enough.

But I am reluctantly changing my mind after the news of his arrest for drunk driving over the weekend. Yelling anti-Jewish comments at an arresting officer is pretty stupid. Then he issued a press release apologizing for his behavior stating that he has been battling alcoholism.

I want to forgive Mel, I really do. But...according to news reports, he tested out with a blood alcohol level of 0.12. The legal limit in California is currently 0.08 (until recently it was 0.10 and in the distant past it use to be 0.15 in many states). Mel was not falling down drunk; he was mildly impaired. And if he is a recovering alcoholic, a 0.12 is nothing...he could probably have passed for sober if he wanted to. But there he was, screaming all kinds of ugly, hateful things, and he was only mildly impaired. It makes it hard for me to see this as anything less than his true feelings shining through.

I hate condemning others for evil emotions. You absolutely do NOT want to be driving in the car with me when I am in a bad mood and someone does something stupid on the road near me...I will say the most horrible things. Racist? You bet! And then I feel horrible about it afterwards. Sometimes I will put ugly things into emails to my friends...or say ugly things to them in person or over the phone. But they know me...they know I am venting. That is a side of me I never show in public, EVEN when I have been drinking.

It's one thing to bare your ugly side to your friends...especially since they can tell when you are venting and you can later apologize and take the remarks back. But to say things like that in public...unbelievable. Only a true believer would let that kind of hate out.

I am a big believer in forgiveness...I am not one for seeking revenge. I think it is possible for Mel to redeem himself...to take actions that will show that he has a good heart and that he knows that his ugly emotions are wrong. Mel is going to have to show his "consciousness of innocence." Until then, he deserves every bit of scorn that everyone can throw at him.

Total War

2006-07-31T06:24:00.000-04:00

I hate to say this, but I think we need to go back to the rules of war that we used to defeat the Nazis and the Japanese. Total war. Civilians in the line of fire? Too bad. How did we get into this corner? Thank the UN.

The UN was suppose to see to the disarming of the militias in Lebanon after the Israelis pulled out. Everybody else disarmed while Hezbollah kept building up a massive military....massive enough to keep even the vaunted Israeli army at bay. If the Israelis had not attacked, how long would it have been before Hezbollah used this military might to conquer all of Lebanon?

One again, the UN has been a force to protect evil...it is a failed experiment. If you hold off attacking violent, expansive, fascist forces long enough, they just get tougher and more dangerous. I thought we learned that lesson in the 1930s...obviously not.

TAX THE RICH - Repeal the Estate and Gift Tax

2006-07-30T09:56:00.000-04:00

Looking out for Paris Hilton's trust fund? Hardly. The current tax law created the situation where wealthy families have little control over trust funds...to have control means that ownership has not truly passed to the beneficiary and can be included in the gross estate of the decedent. Thus, the wealthy Hiltons who created the Hilton trusts were required to leave vast sums to all future Hiltons (perhaps even before Paris was born) in order to avoid the estate and gift tax.

The estate and gift tax is a trap for the unwary. I talked with Bob Shamansky, Democrat candidate in the 12th Congressional District of Ohio, and he joked that he had never seen the "mythical family farmer" who would lose his farm because of the estate and gift tax. That was very ironic...hearing a wealthy businessman (who probably has a very sophisticated estate plan) say that the estate and gift tax really wasn't hurting anyone.

The mega wealthy families (like the Hiltons) can afford to spend millions of dollars in attorney fees and accountant fees in order to structure elaborate tax avoidance plans that reduce the tax bill. However, owners of successful businesses may not realize that their net worth has gone over the threshold for taxation and, on the death of the owner, find themselves stuck with a massive tax bill. It is not the family farmers that I am worried about; it is these businesses.

Dems are demagoguing the hell out of this issue...but the current tax law was written BY very wealthy Dems in the 1950s with an eye towards protecting their estates. Billionaires today are frantic in their efforts to preserve the current tax structure...they have invested millions of dollars in their tax avoidance plans...money that would be wasted if the estate and gift tax is permanently repealed - especially since the property that was potentially subject to the estate and gift tax would be more likely to be taxed as income.

When an heir receives property from the estate of a family member, that heir can immediately sell that property without getting stuck with a bill for income taxes. How? Let's look at how you compute income from the sale of property. "Income" is determined by taking the amount of money you receive when you sell a thing (the "amount realized"), and subtracting the amount that you paid when you first acquired it (the "tax basis"). So, if you bought a Rolex watch several years ago for $3,000 and sold it this year for $4,500, you would realize $1,500 in income.

What happens if you don't know (or can't prove) what you paid for a thing? Well, then the entire amount received is counted as income. But, there is a special rule that applies for property that you receive from a decedent's estate. THAT property is given a special tax basis...you look at the fair market value (the amount that you probably could have sold the thing for) on the date of the decedent's death and THAT will be the tax basis from that day forward. So, if you receive Uncle Seymour's prized Rolex watch from his estate, which he paid $1,500 for and which was worth $4,500 on the date of his death, and sold it for $4,500, you would have $0 income from that sale...and no income tax payable.

Guess what? The repeal of the estate and gift tax also means the repeal of the "stepup in basis" on the decedent's death. So, what is really happening is not the repeal of a tax so much as trading of one tax for another. And the billionaires are worried. It is likely that many of their estate plans take full advantage of the stepup in basis...an advantage that will be lost. Hence, their eagerness to keep the current tax structure is NOT based on their civic mindedness and willingness to pay tax...just the opposite! It is based on their desire to keep from paying taxes at all.

So, sock it to the rich! Repeal the DEATH TAX!

The Battle for Columbus Has Begun! [link]

2006-07-29T10:59:00.000-04:00

This time, it's WAR! And it is a war we must WIN!

Soft, cute, cuddly ... and dang annoying
Ohio gardens fall prey to voracious rabbits
Saturday, July 29, 2006
Barbara Carmen
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

They are everwhere! I go for a walk every day and I see dozens of them.

This summer, central Ohio and much of the Midwest has a bumper crop of bunnies, biologists said.

Fewer froze during the moderate winter. And suburban sprawl has been kind, creating lush gardens and destroying the habitats of natural predators.

As a result, the cottontails are multiplying like, well, rabbits. The Dempseys see them everywhere, crossing busy urban streets and snacking on suburban flower beds.

Oh, laugh if you must. But I tell you, these creatures are more vile and evil than the orcs from Lord of the Rings! You don't have to take my word for it:

"These are tough urban bunnies. Trust me, they’re fearless," Mr. Dempsey said.

The rabbits are brazen, agreed Jane Beathard, of London, whose porch boxes were raided. "A couple mornings ago, one hopped within 3 or 4 feet of me. He clearly wasn’t even scared."

And this is a problem that is only going to get WORSE!

But central Ohio’s human population boom is feeding the boom in rabbits. As farm fields are turned into housing lots, rabbits gain shrubs with nooks for nesting. A single field of corn or wheat is replaced with gardens of petunias, hostas and impatiens — a veritable rabbit salad bar.

Urban areas offer another perk for bunnies: fewer animals to eat them. Red-tailed hawks, great horned owls and coyotes tend to shy away from human bustle.

Without predators to hunt them, a pair of rabbits could produce 350,000 offspring in five years if all survived.

In the city, rabbit control is best left to house cats. State law forbids killing rabbits until their hunting season begins on Nov. 3, but then you can’t shoot a gun in the city. County wildlife officers can issue permits for people to trap and relocate rabbits.

Huh? "....best left to house cats." Who are these fools kidding? That is like saying that controlling Hamas is best left to Hezbollah! What good are cats? They lay around all day, do no work, and leave cat hair everywhere. House cats don't know how to hunt! Why should they ever learn...they have the Democrat constituent thing down perfect! Be totally helpless and some poor fool will take care of you...give you a house to live in and food to eat and you don't have to do a thing!

Here is the face of the enemy! Cruel! Heartless! Hungry! Look into those ravenous eyes and you will truly know ultimate fear!

"This isn’t just in Columbus, it’s over a large area," said Gehrt, who is researching coyotes moving into Chicago neighborhoods. "One homeowner told me they wanted more coyotes in the neighborhoods," Gehrt said. "They eat the rabbits."

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Anniversary of a Middle East Mistake [link]

2006-07-26T23:13:00.000-04:00

July 26 was the 50th anniversary of one of the greatest tragedies in Western diplomacy. Back in 1956, Gamal Abdul Nasser, President of Egypt, nationalized the Suez Canal. Soon thereafter, England and France convinced Israel to stage an invasion of the Sinai peninsula in order to retake the canal.

You can read an excellent analysis of these events at the link above, written by Arthur Herman for the Weekly Standard's website.

Herman writes:

By any objective standard, Nasser's seizing of the canal was theft. Until that July, it had been administered by a private company headquartered in Paris and owned by international shareholders. Nasser had even signed an agreement recognizing the Canal Zone's autonomy two years earlier, which allowed Great Britain to pull out the last troops from its bases in Suez.

* * * *

So, when the British high command informed Eden it would take six weeks to assemble enough ships, planes, and men to take back the canal and topple Nasser, Eden turned to the French for help. They in turn appealed to the Israelis. For some time the Israelis had wanted to wipe out the Palestinian guerrilla bases which had sprung up along their border with Egypt since the 1948 war, camps run by a Palestinian student-turned-Nasser flunky named Yasser Arafat. So Israel's chief of staff, the 41-year-old Moshe Dayan, drew up a plan with the help of a young paratrooper colonel named Ariel Sharon for an incursion into Gaza and Sinai in coordination with an Anglo-French landing at Suez. The Israelis assumed the West would back up bold action against hit-and-run terrorists and those who supported them.

But they, and their allies the French and British, had not reckoned on the United States. President Eisenhower and his secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, were preoccupied with the Cold War. Like their Democratic predecessors, they were reluctant to support any move that smacked of "colonialism," no matter how justified. And Eisenhower, in Stephen Ambrose's words, was "uncomfortable with Jews" and never understood the threat Israel faced from its Arab neighbors. So the Americans refused to endorse the Suez invasion. "We do not want to meet violence with violence," Dulles said--words that have a disturbing echo today. Then the Americans went further. If the British and French attacked Egypt, Eden was told, the United States would not back them up in the United Nations.

Finally, in late October, after weeks of hesitation and prevaricating, the British, French, and Israelis struck. The British and French Operation Musketeer was a stunning success; in the face of the Israeli attack, Nasser's army collapsed. French paratroopers and tanks were poised to roll into Cairo. But then, with American encouragement, U.N. secretary general Dag Hammarskjöld became involved.

To this day in elite circles, his name is treated with pious reverence second only to Gandhi and Martin Luther King. After his death, his face even graced an American postage stamp. In fact, Hammarskjöld was arguably the worst secretary general in the history of the United Nations. He was certainly the most devious. He was the bleak prototype of another U.N. apparatchik, his fellow Swede Hans Blix. Smug, icily cerebral, essentially humorless, he possessed a smooth arrogance that concealed a bottomless pit of liberal guilt.

* * * *

To Hammarskjöld, the issue was simple. If you were European and white, you were always in the wrong. If you were nonwhite, you were a victim of something and ipso facto in the right. Even so, Hammarskjöld's U.N. resolutions would have remained so many scraps of papers had President Eisenhower not threatened to break the pound sterling on the world's financial markets. Eden's will to fight burst like a soap bubble. French and British troops began pulling out in March 1957. Nasser triumphantly claimed his canal; Israel withdrew from Gaza and the Sinai.

The Suez crisis was over. But the damage it did was, and remains, incalculable. Eisenhower had wrecked the trust between the United States and its former World War II allies for a generation; in the case of France, for all time. If anyone wonders why French politicians are always willing to undermine American initiatives around the world, the answer is summed up in one word: "Suez."

Suez destroyed the United Nations as well. By handing it over to Dag Hammarskjöld and his feckless ilk, Eisenhower turned the organization from the stout voice of international law and order into at best a meaningless charade; at worst, a Machiavellian cesspool. Instead of teaching Nasser and his fellow dictators that breaking international law does not pay, Suez taught them that every transgression will be forgotten and forgiven, especially if oil is at stake.

* * * *

This, in the end, was the most egregious result of Suez. Hammarskjöld had ushered in a new era of international gangsterism, even as the U.N. became an essentially anti-Western body. Its lowest point came less than two decades later, in 1975, when it passed a resolution denouncing Zionism as racism and a triumphant Yasser Arafat addressed the General Assembly with a pistol strapped to his hip.

Suez destroyed the moral authority of the so-called world community. Fifty years later, we are all still living in the rubble.

How true! How true! Two flawed men, suffering from different weaknesses, worked on parallel paths to emasculate international law and turn it into a farce. Millions of people have died (and billions ultimately will die) because of inability to maintain a strong element of JUSTICE as a part of international law. Now, the UN is a tool of the lawless and the barbarous who seek to plunder the world and rape their own people...and keep the those countries with moral authority away.

Leftoids hate Israel...big surprise [link]

2006-07-23T08:17:00.000-04:00

I made the mistake of listening to part of the Tavis Smiley show on Friday. The first guest firmly put the blame on Hezbollah. The comments of this [epithet deleted] woman, Phyllis Bennis a New Internationalism fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, blamed the whole problem on Israel. She said that all Hezbollah had done was make a "border skirmish" with Israel and that these happen all the time without war resulting. However, the Israeli military had this war plan prepared (they had it for several years) and decided to use it. The existence of the war plan was proof to her that Israel was merely using the Hezbollah attack as a pretext for war.

Frakking whore! Every responsible military has war plans. But she made it sound sinister. I put a link in so you can listen to the broadcast.

Here is a bio of the bitch:

Phyllis Bennis, fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington DC, specializing in Middle East and United Nations issues. She is the author of Before and After: U.S. Foreign Policy and the September 11th Crisis (Olive Branch Press, 2002), Calling the Shots: How Washington Dominates Today’s UN, second edition (Olive Branch Press, 2000), and From Stones to Statehood: The Palestinian Uprising (Olive Branch Press, 1990). She has also co-edited, with Michel Moushabeck, Beyond the Storm: A Gulf Crisis Reader (1991) and Altered States: A Reader in the New World Order (1993), both published by Olive Branch Press. Her new book, Challenging Empire: How People, Governments, and the UN Defy U.S. Power, is published by Interlink.

I highlighted that last sentence. Defy US power, huh? How about defying all the aid we give when a natural disaster strikes? How about defying aid when we try to stop genocide in a third world country...oh...they already DO that!

I was disgusted by this woman's comments. Blame Israel! Blame the US! But at least I know where the leftoids and the nutroots stand. And America's Jews will continue to support the Democrat party even as it tries to look the other way as the world hopes for a new holocaust.

Super bore

2006-06-30T22:11:00.000-04:00

I recommend waiting to see Bryan Singer's 2 and a half hour opus SUPERMAN RETURNS at the dollar cinema (assuming your town still has one). It was long, it was slow, it was NOT exciting.

The story starts off in slow gear and takes almost a half hour to give us the first action sequence. Granted, you don't need action sequences if the story is fun, the character interactions are entertaining, and the dialogue is popping. Sadly, there was little of that. Newcomer Brandon Routh does a fine job...he is best doing a goofy Clark Kent (though they really don't go far enough). Kate Bosworth is lovely as Lois Lane...not as spunky or adorable as Margot Kidder but a helluva lot better looking (though she is a little bit of a lightweight pulling off the big "drama" of the piece...Lois is VERY upset that Superman took off for five years and didn't even say goodbye...she can't figure out why a man would do that).

The final action sequence is not really that impressive, then you have a very long anti-climax. The movie just peters out rather than ends. Yawn.

Oh well, maybe PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN II will be better.

RED ALERT!!!

2006-06-26T18:00:00.000-04:00

RED ALERT! RED ALERT!

This is crude, but effective. I must marshal my Jedi film editing skills and show the Galaxy what a fully trained Jedi film maker can do!

To Go Boldly Where No Man Has Gone Before [link]

2006-06-21T20:22:00.000-04:00

Interesting reading Monday morning. Apparently J. Michael Straczynski, the creator of Babylon 5, submitted a proposal for a new STAR TREK series back in 2004. Straczynski proposed a "reboot" of the ST universe. Take the story back to the original series and start again at the beginning of the first five year mission of the USS Enterprise under the command of James T. Kirk. Follow the link above to a PDF file of the outline.

Bruce Zabel was kind enough to post this outline, and to discuss the history behind it. You can read his blog here:

http://bztv.typepad.com/newsviews/2006/06/spaced_out_star.html

Straczynski had some good ideas, but also some bad ideas. He believed that the way to make the new series engaging was to have a 5 year story arc, similar to what he did with B5. In the pilot episode, we would learn about a highly advanced alien race that disappeared one million years ago. The Enterprise (and the other starships on 5 year missions) are out looking for traces of this ancient civilization.

Excuse me Joe, but this VERY idea was the plot to a STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION episode. So, ditch that idea....or at least remove it from being the central narrative device for the series. I don't have a problem with an advanced race out there...after all, we had a variety of hyper-advanced energy beings out there...any new Trek series should make sense of those: the super beings in "Charlie X," Trelayne from "The Squire of Gothos," the Organians from "Errand of Mercy," and a hand full of other advanced aliens should be better explained. Either they were all the same race, or there were a series of ancient races that have since retired from active politicking around the galaxy (very much like the ancients in David Brin's Uplift War sagas).

Of course, it could just be as simple as that...there were lots of civilizations that have retired to their home worlds and would prefer to be left alone; the Federation, Klingons, Romulans, and other young races are tearing about the galaxy and occasionally bumping into these advanced races...at their own risk. This would make an excellent subplot (one of several) for the entire series...but I don't think it would work well as THE central theme for a five year story arc...too melodramatic...and it was already done in B5.

In fact, now that I have thought more about it, I think Straczynski is on to something. But it would not be just one mystery, but many. There have been many ancient races that have ruled the galaxy and died out or disappeared. The investigation of these disappeared races (and the possibility that some of them may still be out there lurking in the great unknown...or the possibility that there is some great evil force that comes out every few million years to destroy the galaxy) is an important, but covert part of, Starfleet's mission to explore the galaxy. You could have a "great unknown" that Kirk and company are occasionally picking up pieces of...that would be fine. But don't try to tie it into a "war of the gods" like Straczynski had for Babylon 5.

Ok, I edited out the rest of my comments...this post was just TOO long!

Zarqawi's first blog entry from Paradise [link]

2006-06-10T09:04:00.000-04:00

Courtesy of Iowahawk (link above), here are Abu Musab al Zarqawi's first impressions of "Paradise." The short version: it's a lot hotter than he expected and much, much more painful.

Due to the mature content of that blog,

parental discretion is advised before

reading the Iowahawk blog entry

When the door close behind me, zwwwwippitch, I guess you could say I was a little surprised, maybe a little disappointed. Turns out paradise is dumpier that you'd expect. A lot dumpier. In fact it's a lot like the Iraq boondocks; sandy, dusty, seemed like 150 degrees in the shade. I always figured paradise would have better climate control, but hey, Allah has the thermostat and He works in mysterious ways. I start looking around, and looking around. No virgins, no figs, no raisins. Now, I'm horny, hungry, and annoyed. Okay, I figure, I guess it's up to Zarkman to cherchez la poontang himself, so I start to walk down this dusty street, and BOOOM!

Get this: some asshole planted an IED right in the middle of goddamn downtown Paradise, and I take my first step right on the cocksucker. As I was flying through the air, I'm going, what the dung? It must have been planted by some Jew or Crusader, but how did one of those bastards slip into paradise in the first place? It was giving me a headache. Then I got another headache when the schoolbus ran over my head.

I was laying there trying to figure it out, when my various limbs and torsos and gonads and such started to reassemble, sort of like that liquid chrome cop in Terminator 2. Pretty cool, but it hurt like a mofo. So SPROING! I'm back on my feet, and start out again and BOOM! And I'm like, another fucking IED? I mean, what are the frigging odds? Then shhhklorrrp, bus over the head, reassemble SPROING. The next couple of hours was a blur of step- BOOM- shhhklorrrp - SPROING, lather-rinse-repeat, and I'm like, dude, fuck this shit. I had only made it 50 yards and wasn't all that horny anymore.

Here is to hoping that Iowahawk is understating the truth!

ZARQAWI IS DEAD!!!!! [link]

2006-06-08T05:40:00.000-04:00

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has gone to collect his 72 virgins! I hope they all look like Yasser Arafat!

Al Qaeda's leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was killed in an American airstrike on an isolated safe house north of Baghdad at 6.15 p.m. local time on Wednesday, top U.S. and Iraqi officials said on Thursday.

At a joint news conference with Iraq's prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, the top American military commander in Iraq, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., said Zarqawi's body had been positively identified by fingerprints, "facial recognition" and other indicators. He said seven of Zarqawi's associates had also been killed in the strike.

Death from above! Great. Actually, I hope he is burning in hell!

While it is good news, let's not fall into the mistake of thinking that killing one leader will end the war on terror (or the war in Iraq). Back in the French war for Algeria, the French diligently went about killing all the leaders of the resistance. When the last resistance leader was dead, the French assumed they had won the war. Well, they were wrong.

So, let's have a toast for our boys in Iraq for a job well done, and then cheer them on to more feats of daring do!

When the world was young...

2006-06-07T21:31:00.000-04:00

A long time ago, in a Galaxy far, far away, when Patrick Stewart still had hair!

Your heroic dictator for life just ordered the BBC series I CLAUDIUS on DVD. This is going to be FUN!

* * * * UPDATE * * * *

Apparently, the hair in the above photo was actually a wig...according to the Wikipedia, Stewart was bald since the age of 19

At 16 he was a furniture salesman. And in 1957, at the age of 17, he embarked on a two-year acting course at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. He lost most of his hair by the age of 19 (alopecia runs in his family), but he successfully sold himself to theatre producers, after performing an audition with and without a wig, as "two actors for the price of one!". In 1964 he met the Old Vic's choreographer Sheila Falconer and they married on March 4, 1966. They had two children — Daniel Freedom Stewart and Sophie Alexandra Stewart — but divorced in 1990.1 Daniel Stewart would have a small role playing Picard's son in an alternate universe in the Next Generation episode, The Inner Light.

Following a period with the Manchester Library Theatre, he joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1966 where he appeared next to actors such as Ben Kingsley and Ian Richardson — and even played on the company's football (soccer) team. He then moved to the Royal National Theatre in the early 1980s. Over the years, Stewart took roles in many major television series without ever becoming a household name. He appeared as Sejanus in I, Claudius; Karla in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Smiley's People; Claudius in a 1980 BBC adaptation of Hamlet. He even took the romantic male lead in the BBC adaptation of Mrs Gaskell's North and South (wearing a hairpiece).

Oh well, his enormous talent more than makes up for his lack of follicles. Whereas your heroic dictator for life has plenty of follicles (on his head, thank you) and no talent whatsoever.

Prison Ministries ruled unconstitutional [link]

2006-06-04T10:16:00.000-04:00

Ok, so it is unconstitutional to have prison programs preaching Christianity to prisoners. Right...so let's just leave the preaching to the Islamo-Nazi-terrorist-wannabes and gangsters. Here is an excerpt from the NY Times report:

A federal judge in Iowa ruled Friday that a state-financed evangelical Christian program to help inmates re-enter society was "pervasively sectarian" and violated the separation of church and state.

The decision has set the stage for an appeals process that is expected to explore more broadly the constitutionality of the Bush administration's religion-based initiative programs, according to plaintiffs, defendants and legal experts.

Prison programs run by religious groups have increased over the last decade or so, as policy makers, prison and law enforcement officials and prisoner advocates have focused on the high rates of recidivism when inmates return to society, said Robert Tuttle, a law professor at George Washington University who is an expert on religion-based initiatives. Proponents of such programs in prisons have said that the transformative experience of religion can counter recidivism.

It is almost as if the liberals in our society WANT our nation and our society to commit suicide! The only thing that liberals want prisoners to learn in prison is how to be better at committing crimes.

Barry Lynn of Americans United for Separation of Church and State is an evil man. He calls himself a Christian, but he opposes the actual spread of Christianity. Mind you, I am not a Christian, I am a very secular JEW! But I recognize that faith is an important component in living a civilized life. I have no problem with government sponsored and paid for programs that promote Christianity as long as I am not being forced to convert (and as long as Jewish and other faiths can have similar programs).

Some people are so cynical or so afraid of religion that they cannot bear to see it anywhere...they want it stamped out of public life. But, if we say that there is no God, then WE become our own god. Or, as many wise men have said, "Without God, all things are permissible."

Hopefully, the Court of Appeals (and perhaps even the Supreme Court) will have a different perspective and will overrule the District Court. If not, well, I can only take solace in the fact that I do not have any children...because the world would truly be going to hell (or, to be precise, turning INTO hell).

Congressional Leadership

2006-06-04T08:28:00.000-04:00

The National Journal has a story this week indicating that Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky is the likely new Majority Leader should the Republicans retain control of the Senate this fall.

McConnell is a fighter who has not been afraid to speak his mind. McConnell was one of the leaders in challenging campaign finance reform. If the National Journal story is to be believed, McConnell is also savvy and subtle when it comes to politics.

But after checking and rechecking with his Senate colleagues to see where they stood, McConnell concluded that the vote would be a 50-50 tie.

McConnell didn't hesitate to notify the White House that Vice President Cheney, as Senate president, would have to cast the tiebreaker. Never mind that Cheney was halfway around the world in Afghanistan at a delicate moment in U.S. foreign policy. And never mind that by the time the vice president returned to Washington, his vote might not even be required, because a senator or two might switch positions.

In the end, McConnell's vote count was dead-on. The Senate approved the fiscal 2006 budget reconciliation conference report, 51-50, on December 21. For the seventh time during his vice presidency, Cheney provided the decisive Senate vote.

Other lawmakers might try to grab some glory for pulling off such a feat. Step out before the klieg lights. Enjoy the spotlight. But the low-key McConnell did none of those things. He saw that episode as simply part of his job as the No. 2 to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn.

I suspect that the Senate will be much more pleasing to conservatives if McConnell is in charge and not just because of his political savvy. McConnell has a power base, something that Frist (and Denny Hastert over on the House side) never seemed to really have. It takes power in the hands of the leadership to knock heads together and to force the individual members of Congress to work for a higher purpose (rather than just meet their immediate needs).

Congress has been a disaster for the last few years. The Republican leadership seemed incapable of holding the members together to vote on important issues. The Senate leadership has been a major embarrassment...they have a 10 vote margin and the let the Dems set the agenda.

It seems to me that Frist and Hastert were consensus choices for their leadership positions. While I have no first hand knowledge of the situations behind their rise to power, I have my suspicions.

Let's go back to post-election 1998. Newt Gingrich announces that he is not going to continue on as Speaker and Rep. Bob Livingston of Louisiana, the powerful chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, was next in line. Livingston IS a force to be reckoned with, yet his prospective Speaker-ship lasted only a few days. Word of a potential scandal involving marital infidelity caused him to announce his resignation from Congress. He went on to found the Livingston Group, one of the most powerful lobbying shops on Capitol Hill (the offices were on the same floor of the building I worked in between 2000 and 2002 and I became friends with Bob). The Republicans in the House then picked Hastert as the new Speaker.

Certain senior members in the House (leadership members and chairman of major committees) act as political "barons" who butt heads and jockey for power. A strong Speaker can keep these barons in line and prevent them from running amok. Livingston's departure left a vacuum at the top...and none of the remaining barons were powerful enough to seize the top position for themselves. So, they agreed to allow a non-entity like Hastert to become Speaker. Very quickly, the barons learned that they liked having a weak Speaker at the top...they could manage their own affairs and pursue their own agendas without interference.

All this has been a disaster for the GOP. Self interest of the members now reigns supreme. "To hell with the agenda, I have to get myself re-elected!" Well, to the leadership, I say, "To hell with YOU!"

TIN FOIL HAT ALERT!!!!! [link]

2006-06-02T05:16:00.000-04:00

The Dems just can't accept the fact that they lost the 2004 presidential election. Case in point, the new article by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

I guess you can't keep the tin foil hat brigades from finding conspiracies. I mean, if there are people who believe that the CIA and Israel were the parties truly responsible for the attacks on 9/11, then they will believe anything!

Maybe if you can't beat them, join them...

For that matter, Murphy needs protection too...

Speaking of vote fraud, Murphy still has not forgiven me for not letting HER go and vote in November of 2004. All of her Democrat canine friends in the neighborhood got to vote for John Kerry.

OH MY GOD

2006-05-31T21:14:00.000-04:00

This is just TOO funny! You must watch this video!

Sorry about the long absence...I will try to make amends later!

Spurious Poll...CNN shows its love for Bill Clinton

2006-05-13T12:57:00.000-04:00

The left wingers are singing with joy over a recent CNN poll that suggests that a majority of Americans think that Bill Clinton was a superior president to George Bush. Clinton was president during a time of peace and prosperity...I think the poll measures the respondents' desire for the good old days, rather than the abilities of the two leaders.

Here is what the Carpetbagger Report says:

Clinton, meanwhile, doesn't need partisans to make his presidency look good — after a few years of watching Bush, Americans can't help but miss having a competent, capable leader in the Oval Office.

Clinton did little to move the country forward or to prepare for the dangers on the horizon. He gave us dozens of tiny, populist programs to please the masses. But he ignored the major dangers that his successor is now forced to deal with.

Immigration policy? Punt. Stopping the spread of Islamo-terrorism? Punt.

It is a good thing Bill Clinton is not president now...otherwise we would all best be studying Arabic and boning up on the Sharia.

11 Angry Men...and One Coward [link]

2006-05-12T04:10:00.000-04:00

The Washington Post reports that the vote to execute Zacarias Moussaoui was 11 to 1...and that the holdout did so anonymously.

The foreman said deliberations reached a critical point on the third day, when the process nearly broke down. Frustrations built because of the repeated 11 to 1 votes on one charge without any dissenting arguments during discussions. All the ballots were anonymous, and the other jurors were relying on the discussions to identify the holdout.

So, the holdout pretended to go along with everyone else during the discussions, but voted against the death penalty just the same. Who knows why the person hid...probably because they knew that, if identified, they would become the focus of the attentions of the others.

So, this was not a "12 Angry Men" scenario, rather, it was 11 Angry Men...and One Coward. A coward who did not have the dignity to speak up for their beliefs. A coward who made no effort to justify those beliefs or win others over by force of argument. No, this coward just kept voting against the death penalty and driving his or her fellow jurors to distraction.

political zombies [link]

2006-05-11T16:39:00.000-04:00

Richard Lewis over at the Huffington Post blog feels that the current political situation is turning him into a zombie:

I'm married, working, performing, doing charitable work, helping other addicts, and working for as many political candidates to get elected in 2006 as I can. And yet, with the free-floating anxiety seemingly under control for the most part, I still feel like a zombie just going through the motions.

The reason? The mountain of abuses and lies and corruption and rationalizations, along with the fear of a majority of politicians (especially of my own beloved Democrats) to really level with power and authenticity about the nightmare of this administration. That, coupled with the obliteration of separation of church and state, our privacy rights, the pathetic nothingness done to help the racist divide, rampant poverty and homelessness, pathetic under-funded schools for most of our kids, massive zero health insurance for almost 50 million people, and on and on. That this is happening while the gargantuan collection of egos in powerful places continue to obliterate the progress America should be striving for, is again tragically getting me close to hiding under the covers.

* * * *

I don't get it. If a deeply religious, right wing conservative can still vote for a Republican candidate in November who remotely backs this President and his laundry list of horrors, then we're sunk. Isn't it possible for someone to be violently against say, Pro-Choice , but still be disgusted with the lies and deceit and vote to help us start over in building our country's esteem? I just don't get it. I can write a joke but I can't find anything funny about this. Maybe that's why I hate reality shows. This reality show is on 24/7 and that's plenty for me.

Well, the liberal whining, lies, and distortions of the tin hat brigades, and the blatant bias of the main stream media, are having an equally zombiefying effect on Megalon and your heroic Dictator for Life! Just look at us!

This could happen to YOU if we don't stop the Democrats!