:: ::
:: MAX BLACK ::
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."--C.S. Lewis
"The Swiss pocket knife of conservative thought on the web..." - Eli Kardrakian
"Bookmark Max and dump your subscription to the newspaper; if you don't have a birdcage you really don't need it anyway..." - Shirley St. James
:: Friday, February 25, 2005 ::
Ann Coulter on the Jeff Gannon fiasco::: Wednesday, February 23, 2005 ::First, liberals claimed Gannon was a White House plant who received a press pass so that he could ask softball questions--a perk reserved for New York Times reporters during the Clinton years. Their proof was that while "real" journalists (like Jayson Blair) were being denied press passes, Gannon had one, even though he writes for a Web site that no one has ever heard of--but still big enough to be a target of liberal hatred! (By the way, if writing for a news organization with no viewers is grounds for being denied a press pass, why do MSNBC reporters have them?)
Al Franken, eat your heart out...
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:: Max 10:00 PM [+] ::
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Black History Month:: Monday, February 21, 2005 ::
Project 21 member, Deroy Murdock, has compiled a historical laundry-list of why Republicanism is a better fit for Black Americans via C-Log:
July 30, 1866: New Orleans' Democratic government ordered police to raid an integrated GOP meeting, killing 40 people and injuring 150.
Sept. 28, 1868: Democrats in Opelousas, Louisiana killed nearly 300 blacks who tried to foil an assault on a Republican newspaper editor.
April 20, 1871: The GOP Congress adopted the Ku Klux Klan Act, banning the pro-Democrat domestic terrorist group.
Aug. 17, 1937: Republicans opposed Democratic President Franklin Roosevelt's Supreme Court nominee, Sen. Hugo Black, D-Ala., a former Klansman who defended Klansmen against race-murder charges.
February 2005: The Democrats' Klan-coddling today is embodied by KKK alumnus Robert Byrd, West Virginia's logorrheic senator. On March 4, 2001, Byrd told Fox News Sunday: "There are white niggers. I've seen a lot of white niggers in my time; I'm going to use that word." Byrd led Senate Democrats as late as December 1988. National Democrats never have arranged a primary challenge against or otherwise pressed this one-time cross-burner to get lost.
Here's his recap of Republican legislation favorable to blacks, often despite stiff Democratic opposition:
In 1866, 94 percent of GOP senators and 96 percent of GOP House members approved the 14th Amendment, guaranteeing all Americans equal protection of the law. Every congressional Democrat voted: "No."
Feb. 8, 1894: Democratic President Grover Cleveland and a Democratic Congress repealed the GOP's Enforcement Act, thus denying black voters federal protection.
Jan. 26, 1922: The House adopted a GOP bill to make lynching a federal crime. Filibustering Senate Democrats killed the measure.
May 17, 1954: Republican Chief Justice Earl Warren led the Supreme Court's desegregation of government schools in Brown v. Board of Education. GOP President Dwight Eisenhower's Justice Department argued for Topeka, Kansas' black school children. Democrat John W. Davis, who lost a presidential bid to incumbent Republican Calvin Coolidge in 1924, defended "separate but equal" classrooms.
Sept. 24, 1957: Eisenhower deployed the 82nd Airborne Division to desegregate Little Rock's government schools over the strenuous resistance of Democratic Gov. Orval Faubus.
July 2, 1964: Democratic President Johnson signed the 1964 Civil Rights Act after former Klansman Robert Byrd's 14-hour filibuster and the votes of 34 percent of Senate Democrats (but only 18 percent of Republicans) failed to scuttle the measure.
The Republican Party also is the home of numerous "firsts." Among them:
The first blacks to serve in the House and Senate were both black men seated in 1870. In 1872, Louisiana Republican Pinckney Pinchback became America's first black governor.
President Reagan appointed Colin Powell America's first black national security adviser while GOP President George W. Bush nominated him our first black secretary of state.
President G.W. Bush named Condoleezza Rice America's first black female NSC chief, then our second (consecutive) black secretary of state. Just last month, one-time Klansman Robert Byrd and other Senate Democrats stalled Rice's confirmation for a week. Amid unanimous GOP support, 12 Democrats voted: "No.""My father joined our party because the Democrats in Jim Crow Alabama of 1952 would not register him to vote," Rice has said. "The Republicans did. My father has never forgotten that day, and neither have I."
There's more of Dutch Martin's post over at Town Hall's C-Log [>]
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:: Max 7:23 AM [+] ::
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Coulter Unleashed
Ace of Spades does a yeoman's job reporting Ann Coulter's call for a "New Macarthyism" (Note: AOS was "typing furiously" and warns Ann's words are paraphrased pending a factual transcript of the speech) Here's a snippet of Ace's version of Coulters remarks:
"Liberals are so cute when they're frightened and trembling..."
"CBS is planning a tribute to Dan Rather... the memo went out a month ago but everyone assumed it was a fake."
"Ronald Reagan was way ahead of his time predicting we'd bring the Soviet Union down...it was much tougher to bring Dan Rather down. Liberals lied in wait for a long time to get Alger Hiss."
"We waited 35 years to get Dan Rather. Sleep well, Richard Nixon."
"They whine that they "can't get their message out." (Sarcastic voice) If only they had some sort of support from the mainstream media.... if only they had a crack, a toe-hold... some sympathetic ears in the media...."
My guess is that Kos and his fellow travelers don't grasp the significance of that last remark...much to the chagrin of the VRWC. Like her or hate her, Coulter is morphing into the Hunter L. Thompson of the right--she's truly a brilliant strategist--dismiss her at your own peril.
[She's just sooo much smarter (and funnier) than Al Franken it's astonishing. Where are the demopundits I ask you--hmmmm?. Well, where are they?!]
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:: Max 11:07 PM [+] ::
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"[he] Who is under threat should disappear..."
Dutch politicians are jailed to protect them from Islamofascists! This insane development from DutchReport (emphasis mine):Parliamentary representatives Geert Wilders, who receives many dead threats from Islamic immigrants is already for months housed in prison camp Zeist. A high secure prison that was also used for the Lockerbie terrorists. Wilders has to sleep in a prison cell. Representative Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who is also on the Islamists hit list, is housed on a heavily guarded Marine complex in Amsterdam.
Hirsi Ali told this today to the press. She wanted to protest how they both are treated. Representative Wilders declined to comment on the matter.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali reveals their secret locations "out of fear that others discover it. I want to live on a place of which everybody knows: here lives a threatened representative, but she is safe there. That's how they do that in countries like Israel and the United States, but also in Italy and Spain."
She experiences it as "very unjust and pathetic" that she has to live on secret locations. She thinks the "basic rights to be involved in politics" is under threat by the security philosophy professed by Minister Donner and the National Security Coordinator (NCBB). She says the philosophy is this: "Who is under threat should disappear".
This way they "unintended reach the goals of my opponents who do every thing to stop me: from threats to murder plans.", Hirsi Ali says.
The threatened representatives are them selves not informed about nature or gravity of the threats. Hirsi Ali says the situation is also no longer temporary. She already had to leave her own house in September 2002. But she can not reach agreement with the NCBB about a permanent residence: "Their objective is that is has to be a secret location, without a view, a house where nobody can see you. That way you always have the risk that you have to move, if some does see you"
Representative Wilders is told, that he has to stay in jail until September before he can get other housing. Five years a go this prison was used to hold the Libyan terrorist who blew up a plane above Lockerbie. After the Lockerbie trial the prison has been used for drug traffickers from Schiphol. But at this moment it is used for illegal aliens and other criminals.
This is the result of political-correctness gone mad, combined with an insideous, cowardly appeasment mentality that led to the brutal death of film-maker Theo van Gogh--and this is the fate of all of Europe unless somebody with balls takes control of the helm of the ship of state. Unfortunately, Europe's ruling class seems to be fresh out of the kind of courage required to stand up against these ignorant luddites. It's truly a shame to see such a fine little country ravaged by such a puny, insignificant, religion-crazed adversary. What in the hell is going on over there?!--geez--these people are truly spineless cowards. Shame.
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:: Max 8:00 PM [+] ::
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Suprise!
Barking-moonbats conjur US-Israel conspiracy in Hariri assasination (don't tell anybody, dude, but I heard an internet rumor -- and no I'm NOT kidding -- Karl Rove has taken over Jacques Chiracs body!...)
Update: Charles has more hilarious moonbattery here [>]
[ya know -- they're really serious about this vast right-wing conspiracy stuff--and not very bright either--someday Rove really WILL throw them a curveball--just for laughs! -ed]
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:: Max 3:26 PM [+] ::
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Inventor of Shotgun-Golf Dead at 67
RIP HSTI feel the loss like somebody just kicked me in the stomach. I don't care if his later work wasn't as brilliant as the '70s stuff, or whatever people like to say. For me and many (but not enough) others, he defined both the good and evil of America, and he made a chicken-shit trade like "journalism" seem vital and romantic. He was wrong, or maybe he was just the last of his kind, or maybe just the last of his kind smart enough to con some moneybag publisher into bankrolling another jaunt to Mexico or Vietnam.
I don't know why he shot himself today, but I imagine he had good reasons.
Ken Layne-Reno, Nevada
From Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas:"And that, I think, was the handle -- that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting -- on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave ...
So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark -- that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back."
-Hunter S. Thompson
No matter your politics, it's really hard to hate a guy who could pound words together like that. Certainly, we've lost one of our greatest literary talents ever. Dang.
Tim Blair has more [>]
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:: Max 2:37 PM [+] ::
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Free Mojtaba and Arash Day
Mojtaba Saminejad and Arash Sigarchi are two imprisoned Iranian bloggers and on February 22nd, free-world bloggers are being asked to spread the word.
Done Deal!
Update: Here's more [>]
Also related: There can be no doubt the elections in Iraq have sent shockwaves throughout the Middle East. Here are some pics of protest demonstrations in Syria and Egypt via Iraq the Model.
Related: Bill O'Reilly (of all people) has repeatedly stated on his radio program "there ought to be a law" against internet publishing (or words to that effect). Don't think it can't happen here--blogging, or the peoples media makes the rich and powerful real nervous. [you think maybe Dan Rather would like to have a few bloggers arrested?--I'm just asking...-ed]
MORE: LGF has a nice post on developments in Egypt here [>]
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:: Max 11:36 AM [+] ::
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Susan Estrich's online histrionics are providing Cathy Seipp with some great material--The Continuing Adventures of Susan Estrich::: Sunday, February 20, 2005 ::Estrich's response to the lack of sympathy she's been getting (via her syndicated column this week) is, basically, of course you realize this means war. As usual, it's rather nuts -- my favorite part is her threat to get out her "mimeograph machine" and alert Matt Drudge. (Who knew that Drudge communicates entirely by mimeograph?) Her conclusion:"Even one woman standing up -- with her friends around her and a couple of Rolaids at the ready -- can make them eat those words. That is what I want to teach my daughter. Given the state of women today, it is the most important lesson I can offer her, even if my stomach is killing me right now."
Oh, for God's sake. See, this is what I cannot stand about lefty feminists: Their preening notion that it's a brave and scary and stomach-churning thing to voice what they imagine to be a dissenting opinion. It isn't, not in this country. I've always found expressing my opinions easy as pie, sans benefit of Rolaids, even though my friends are often appalled. But so what? Voicing an unpopular opinion isn't exactly the same thing as storming Iwo Jima, which my daughter read about at breakfast today before going to school and then had to make a big effort to not cry. (The 60th anniversary is next week.) Checking out out the Wall Street Journal editorial page -- now that's something I'm glad she's learned from me, and I'm also glad she pays attention to what she reads rather than bean-counting byline genders.
A classic Cathy Seipp smackdown. Make sure to check out her NRO column "From the Left Coast" on the Estrich/Kinsley flap.
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:: Max 10:40 AM [+] ::
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Christina Aguilera's cell-phone number?: 1-310-917-9191
hmfph...
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:: Max 11:32 PM [+] ::
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Simon on blind loyalty::: Friday, February 18, 2005 ::Many people have no real politics at all other than social "self-description." They hypnotize themselves into sets of beliefs they feel are in keeping with club or team membership. Then the franchise moves to another city and they switch beliefs to keep their rooting status.
And I don't think self-described conservatives have anything to be smug about in all this. All sides are ever open to this kind of emotionally stunted behavior. My suspicion of labels of all sorts is not abating. I'm still with Chairman Deng Tsaio Peng (here it comes again): "I don't care if a cat is black or white as long as it catches mice!"
Roger L. Simon
I couldn't agree more--so much of politics in America is merely sport with the fans of both 'teams' blinded by a false loyalty. In the end, it's not about the color of the cat but something far more interesting (and important). The sooner we all figure this out, the better.
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:: Max 9:47 PM [+] ::
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You know you're a Liberal if::: Wednesday, February 16, 2005 ::
The British are having some fun at the expense of the left. Here's a little test to determine which side of the political fence you stand brought to you by House of Dumb:You know you're a Liberal if:
You don't think people can be trusted with guns, unless they're in the IRA
You believe soldiers in combat, doctors in A & E depts and householders defending themselves at 3.15AM should all be subject to legal action after the fact, but Judges should never be criticised because their job is too complex for ordinary citizens to understand
You think it's racist to point out the shortage of Arab democracies, but calling Americans obese, gun-crazed morons is cutting-edge political comment
You think giving kids a good education requires that they be taught about felching, rimming and golden showers, but religion has no place in schools
You think GM crops are dangerous, but crack isn't
You think mobile phones melt brain tissue, but paedophiles are an invention of the media
You believe we should be constantly alert to the risk of neo-nazi conspiracies arising to take over the world, but there's no such thing as Islamofascism
You think factory owners are bloated, capitalist pigs, but lawyers are altruistic guardians of the public
You complain loudly that Big Business is pumping chemicals into the environment just to boost profits, while you're snorting a line of coke.
You complain that Dubya was selected not elected, but Lord Chief Justice Woolf and his fellow travellers legislating from the bench is democracy in action
You complain about Islamophobia in the media, but you don't mind that whenever you see a Priest in a TV drama you know he'll turn out to be shagging a parishioner
You define a diverse workplace as one with a diversity of everything except opinions
You really think that a cop who tells an un-PC joke should be fired but a High Court judge in the Family Division who goes on record as hating marriage is entitled to her opinion
You believe every family needs a social worker, but fathers are an optional extra
You think that when a US President opposes a dictator with a pathological hatred of Jews, a record of invading his neighbours and gassing people plus a stupid moustache, then it means that the Yank is just like Hitler
:: Max 9:36 AM [+] ::
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Pajamahadeen!:: Tuesday, February 15, 2005 ::
Omar suits up for some serious blogging:"I was talking to Mohammed an hour ago and we both were feeling depressed because of the declining quality and quantity of posts on our blog and the deficiency of ideas for good posts that we're currently suffering from. I don't know whether you agree with us but we here can feel it.
Then he suddenly said laughing "go wear your pajamas, maybe this will inspire you to write something"!
Well, frankly speaking it did and once I went into my pajamas I felt a strange motivation for writing; writing anything, at least it encouraged me to write this stupid conversation between two bored brothers drinking tea and smoking cigarettes in the afternoon.
I'm not claiming that my pajamas have magic in them but you know what? They do make a change!"
God I love the blogosphere [maybe I should change into my pajamas! -ed(your already in your pajamas)]
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:: Max 9:27 PM [+] ::
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Kerfuffle Kershcmuffle
I'm begining to hate the word "kerfuffle". Please stop using it.
Thanks
Update: It's right up there with the phrase "at the end of the day..." and "absolutely"--stop it I tell you--cease and desist lest we all go mad!--sheesh!
:: Max 8:20 PM [+] ::
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Eason Jordan:: Wednesday, February 09, 2005 ::
The media fallout from the Eason Jordan affair is typical. Instead of MSM demanding the release of the Davos video which would ostensibly exonerate Jordan (no?), legacy media has it's collective panties in a knot about the blogosphere!? Yes, the Pajamahadeen are storming the gates of Black Rock, they tell us, the "drooling morons" with pitchforks have erected the gallows and are preparing an old-fashioned, mob-style lynching of the media elite.
As usual Jeff Jarvis, (who is quickly becoming the resident ethicist of the blogosphere) gets it right and MSM--with a few notable exceptions--has it all wrong. MSM, listen up:"Welcome to the new world of journalism, where every witness to news can report the news, thanks to the internet; where every citizen can question the powerful, thanks to the internet; where every speaker can be a pundit, thanks to the internet. Journalism is no longer the closed society of the gatekeepers. Journalism can no longer just lecture; now it must listen. News is freed from the limitations of paper and schedules and reporters' pens. Journalists should welcome the help, for journalists should believe that more information yields a more informed society and that is our goal.
Yep. All we ever wanted was a little unvarnished truth from the blow-dried, sun-tanned guys and gals that WE enfranchised with the responsibility to go after it. Instead, we get Rathergate, Easongate and Jayson Blair. Interesting how the pugnacious, investigative "truth-seekers" scream like spoiled children when the gaping maw of the television camera is shoved into their faces; comment Mr. Jordan?...Mr. Rather?
:: Max 10:06 AM [+] ::
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Wheel of Fortune MC, Pat Sajak slams John Kerry:: Tuesday, February 08, 2005 ::
Sajak's comment came from a recent online article he wrote titled "Name Calling." In the article, he seems to lament, "I don't think I've ever just flat-out called someone a name." But this time he apparently couldn't contain himself. As he put it, "...it's time for me to get this off my chest." And so he did, in a way that was plain and unambiguous: "Mr. Kerry, you are a jerk." Then, as if relieved, Sajak concluded, "There. I feel better."
Thanks Pat, I feel better now too. Link courtesy Chris Shugart via Tim Blair [>]
:: Max 8:34 PM [+] ::
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Whizbang says this is totally amazing and I concur; Advanced RC helicopter piloting (right up there with chainsaw juggling).
:: Max 11:16 PM [+] ::
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Fat Tuesday:: Sunday, February 06, 2005 ::
NOLA.com has a live-cam on Bourbon Street in New Orleans. If you've never been to Mardi Gras, you might want to drop in on the bourbocam to see what it's really like on the ground in sin city--you can almost smell the sweat, beer and urine through your monitor.
:: Max 9:13 PM [+] ::
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:: Saturday, February 05, 2005 ::"[Dan Rather, Sy Hersh and Eason Jordan]...seem to have sold their souls for a byline, for a bit of fame and limelight, to stand in front of an appreciative crowd, telling that crowd what they want to hear. It must be a heady thing to stand before an approving audience, not realizing how stories of massacres, and targeting of journalists in Iraq by American military is taken as an offence, an offence against the honor of those Jacksonians who hold the values of "Duty, Honor, Country" in high regard, who may not be in the audience, but are listening now. Such people do not take well to being slandered, most especially by the press. We hear you, Eason Jordan. We hear you very well, and we know what you are. Writing obits for the Sacramento Bee might start to look very good to you as a career move by the time you have finished hearing from us."
Sgt Mom on the Eason Jordan affair [>]
:: Max 1:51 PM [+] ::
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Diplomad Folding?!:: Friday, February 04, 2005 ::
"Darn it, the Diplomad is putting out a permanent "This line closed" sign. Just when I got to the front, too!
Hmmm...wonder if Diplomad was coerced by his handlers to shut down his operation--looks sketchy to me. Too bad, maybe he'll pop up somewhere else. In the meantime, alter your linkage accordingly.
Related: Jeff Jarvis is asking bloggers "how has blogging changed your life?". There are a lot of posts in the comment section on bloggers who have lost their jobs for maintaining online web journals--and one excellent reference to "Blogbutt" (I really do need to get out of this chair once in awhile).
:: Max 8:43 AM [+] ::
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Link Slut
Well, maybe I am, but I couldn't pass up this Victor Davis Hanson quote, posted on LGF--it's just too good. So I'll begin by citing Charles' blog as the source of this quote and end by saying VDH speaks for many millions, at home and abroad when he writes:
Then there was our media's hysteria: Donald Rumsfeld should be sacked in the midst of war; Abu Ghraib was the moral equivalent of everything from Saddam's gulag to the Holocaust; the U.S. military purportedly tried to kill reporters; and always the unwillingness or inability to condemn the beheaders, fascists, and suicide murderers, who sought to destroy any shred of liberalism. Meanwhile, the isolation of a corrupt Arafat, the withdrawal of 10,000 Americans from a Wahhabi theocracy, the transformation of the world's far-right monstrosities into reformed democracies, and the pull-back of some troops from Germany and the DMZ went unnoticed.
What explains this automatic censure of the United States, Israel, and to a lesser extent the Anglo-democracies of the United Kingdom and Australia? Westernization, coupled with globalization, has created an affluent and leisured elite that now gravitates to universities, the media, bureaucracies, and world organizations, all places where wealth is not created, but analyzed, critiqued, and lavishly spent.
Thus we now expect that the New York Times, Harper's, Le Monde, U.N. functionaries who call us "stingy," French diplomats, American writers and actors will all (1) live a pretty privileged life; (2) in recompense "feel" pretty worried and guilty about it; (3) somehow connect their unease over their comfort with a pathology of the world's hyperpower, the United States; and (4) thus be willing to risk their elite status, power, or wealth by very brave acts such as writing anguished essays, giving pained interviews, issuing apologetic communiques, braving the rails to Davos, and barking off-the-cuff furious remarks about their angst over themes (1) through (3) above. What a sad contrast they make with far better Iraqis dancing in the street to celebrate their voting.
This is the crux of it--odd how simple it seems to the rational mind. Make no mistake; Hanson is a genius and a national treasure...
:: Max 10:11 PM [+] ::
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Jarvis comments on the intellectual honesty of MSNBC's Eric Alterman:
"First, no, you didn't accuse them. An accusation might convey that you actually knew something. You did glibly, blithely speculate about a link to the CIA with -- quite clearly -- utterly no basis in fact, in reporting, in journalism, in so much as reading. Nothing. You speculated in a way that could endanger men's lives and you did so without knowing a damned thing. That's even more irresponsible than I thought. That's downright shocking. It's also shocking that you feel so free to talk about and speculate about things about which you now say you know absolutely nothing. This is your level of journalistic and intellectual curiosity and credibility?
MSM is really screwing up--they don't get it--they really don't understand what's happening here.
:: Max 6:33 AM [+] ::
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LGF Smokes Moonbat; English Teacher Lurks in Comments Section:: Thursday, February 03, 2005 ::
#21 realwest
"If I ran that outfit whoever (whomever?, dang never can get that right) would be out the door likethat."
You want "whoever" because "who" and "whoever" are the subject form, also called the nominative case (as in "Who is that moonbat?" and "Whoever insults Charles is a troll"). "Whom" and "whomever" are in the objective case used for the object of a preposition ("On whom shall we spit?") or the object of the verb ("Whomever Charles outted lived in Seattle").
Our language is so beautiful. Only the ignorant choose profanity and insults over respectful debate.
Yikes!--better watch your P's and Q's (and urls and pops and IP's...)
:: Max 6:08 AM [+] ::
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Gays Fight Gun Ban in San Francisco?!
Apparently, these guys (and gals) aren't real happy with SF's attempt to ban handguns. Well, this just goes to show that gays aren't stoopid--they get it. Let's hope they prevail over the misguided bureaucrats in San Fran's city Hall. Pink Pistols have been added to the Prairie Fire blogroll under the "Guns" heading.
Shoot'em up Cowboy...
:: Max 7:12 PM [+] ::
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Ketchup only hold the Kerry:: Wednesday, February 02, 2005 ::
Somehow, for me, this story kinda sums up the transparent, insincere, phony posturing of the Democrat Party.
via Wonkette
:: Max 8:53 AM [+] ::
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Eason Jordon:: Tuesday, February 01, 2005 ::
If you are not aware of the Eason Jordon affair, well, you're not a blog junkie. In any case, Jordan, CNN Chief News Executive has apparently accused the US military of deliberately assassinating journalists. Were it not for the blogosphere, these extraordinary accusations would surely have gone unnoticed--until they metasticize in the world press. But those days are long gone, just ask Dan Rather. So as it stands right now, Ed Morrisey at The Captains Quarter is really digging, springing for a Lexis-Nexis search to uncover Jordan's recent remarks on the matter while a whole host of bloggers are filling in the blanks. La Shawn Barber is attempting to keep track of the most recent details posted in the blogosphere (but is having a little trouble with her track-back feature).
So far, MSM is suspiciously absent from the dustup but there are rumblings that would indicate they're seriously looking into the matter. If what's left of MSM gets their talons into this story, Jordan will surely have to respond and he will basically have two choices: Implement the Rather stonewall-model that the story is unsubstantiated by the facts but is true OR produce the facts that substantiate it. My bet is that CNN producers are scrambling not to find the corroborating facts but are instead testing spin scenarios on their lawyers and PR people, much as must have happened at Black Rock during Rathergate. Mr. Jordan, were he hip to the new media paradigm, would be holding a press conference right now to square his damning accusations to the American public. My predictions is that we won't hear a peep out of Mr. Jordan until Drudge blows it apart with his little siren thingy. And if there is any truth to this story, (either way) he probably will.
In the meantime, if you like to see dinosaurs like Rather and Jordan "with their backs against the wall and their shirt tails on fire", keep your eye on the blogs--cause you sure ain't gonna see this dirty laundry aired on CNN, or CBS, or BBC or NYT, blah blah blah...
Wonder if Ted Turner reads Instapundit...think?...naw.
:: Max 6:51 PM [+] ::
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Interesting report from Hammorabi:
"On the other hand the Iraqi police and other security forces arrested two Saudis and an Egyptian before they carry out terrorist attacks against the polling stations. Another two were killed a Syrian and Sudanese while they tried to execute their attacks agnist the polling stations.
More terrorists were arrested today with large number of explosives and ammunition. They confessed that a Palestinian insurgent called (Abo-Mohamad) mobilized them.
There are reports from local sources indicate that the terrorists left Iraq towards Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and North East. The terrorists are now changing their tactic to attack in the region wider than Iraq as their networks are uncovered largely inside Iraq contrary to their statements today that they will continue their war."
This would be an amazing bit of good news if it were true. Seems plausible they'd pack up their IED's and get out of Dodge in view of the tremendous success of the election--must be real demoralizing to be an "insurgent" in Iraq these days. Make sure to read the whole thing, Hammorabi also reports preliminary election results are trickling in.
:: Max 8:33 PM [+] ::
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Election Report From The Messopotamian
"There were amazing scenes; not very likely to seen anywhere else. There were acts of heroism. Abdul Amir Kadhim, saw a man whom he suspected to be a suicide bomber, he threw himself on the man before he could get to the waiting line of people; and sure there was an explosion and this young man gave his life to save the others. Prime Minister Allawi paid tribute to this heroism. At one station there was a suicide attack and several people fell; when people of the neighborhood heard of this, the waiting line suddenly swelled to three times in size; people rushed out of their homes and came running to wait in line; it was their way to express their defiance and anger at this crime. The examples of bravery and courage are too numerous to recount. People took courage from each other, as people came out others watched and did not want to be left out. It was something incredible to watch. Yes this was a historic day, a day to remember until our dying day. With one stroke, in a single day, the silent majority spoke and answered all the pundits and doubters, and those who spoke on their behalf. Yet we have been telling you this all along; we have been telling you ever since this blogging movement started. Do you now see that we were not representing minority views, that we were not some CIA agents trying to make propaganda?
By all means, read the whole thing.
:: Max 8:07 PM [+] ::
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Iraqi Blogger "Ladybird" Outs Al Jazeera
Iraqi blogger Ladybird of Baghdad Dweller uses her superior computer skills to slueth the origination of a nasty email with surprising results. The email apparently originated from an Al Jazeera server. Way to go Ladybird--hope this story gets wider distribution.
:: Max 3:23 PM [+] ::
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Iraq Election Vids
Florida Cracker points to this site with apparently unedited video of the Iraqis trekking to vote--amazing--don't miss it.
:: Max 10:04 AM [+] ::
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Speaking of dropping handgrenades into washing machines....
Yep, the most highly trained fighting force the world has ever known.
:: Max 8:51 AM [+] ::
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