Mosquito Rodeo

Everybody knows the Guardian is generally a giant, steaming camel plop in the desert of today's mainstream media. They've never provided me with insight that I didn't have already, and they get it criminally wrong more often than not. HOWEVER....this one caught me by surprise. When I got what they were doing, I laughed so hard that I think I peed my pants a little.

It just goes to show that you can never safely assume that even the most inane, moronic publication will never put out something worth reading.

Oh, LORD, but it must have been sweet. I'm very, very jealous.

The powerline guys bust the Minneapolis Star/Tribune's chops:

The Strib thinks that requiring a super-majority to confirm a judicial appointment is a fine thing:

In his statement on the "nuclear option," [Senator Norm] Coleman says that senators have a "right to vote 'yes' or 'no' on judges." In fact, they have that right in a cloture vote; it simply takes 60 of them to advance a nomination.

As one who is old enough to remember the Civil Rights era, I find it a little disorienting to read liberals' current paeans to that warm-and-fuzzy tool of democracy, the filibuster. In the case of the Strib, however, you don't need to go back that far to find inconsistency. As recently as the Clinton administration, the Strib was fulminating against the filibuster. Reader Martin Vaala dug around in the Strib's archives and came up with this gem from April 23, 1993:

In 1993, portions of President Clinton's domestic program were being filibustered by Republicans, and the Strib was enraged:

Down the drain goes President Clinton's economic stimulus package, washed away in the putrid flood of verbiage known as a filibuster.

Call it a power game. Call it politics as usual. Call it reprehensible.

Well, that was different, of course. It was different, too, in 1994, when the Strib wrote an editorial titled: "Stall busters--Don't pull punches in anti-filibuster fight."

The plain fact is, whatever party is in power at any given time hates filibusters, and the minority party loves them, mostly since it's often the only way for the minority party to influence things. The main difference I see between the current mess and previous uses of filibusters is that the current Democratic filibuster is preventing the senate from discharging its constitutional obligation of advise and consent to court nominees. The Dems should be allowed their say, which they have been. Then the candidates deserve an up-or-down vote, which they haven't been given. It's as simple as that.

If the repubs were talking about ditching the filibuster for plain legislation, I'd be as outraged as the next guy, since the filibuster has an important place in the workings of the senate. But we're talking about holding the judiciary hostage to the whims of a bloc of Democrats. Somebody should really let them know that they have had their asses handed to them for several election cycles now, and I can't see this crybaby act helping them to improve their standing with the centrist voters they need to turn their fortunes around.

I got tired of Ben's snide comments. I don't know about you, but I'd much rather read his snide posts. He's been invited to join the rodeo. Stay tuned.

Annie Jacobsen's at it again. I was roundly criticized when I originally applauded her original article about the "terrorist dry run" or whatever you want to call it on the flight she was on from Detroit to LA. I thought it was a pretty good account of an incredibly alarming series of events, and I still do.

I still think those guys were more than just musicians, HOWEVER popular or famous they are in their home country, which happens to be one of the best-known terrorist-sponsoring nations. Turns out the incident is still being investigated, DHS sounds like it has come around to the conclusion that those guys were probably bad actors, and if you read just a little between the lines, you get the idea somebody either screwed the pooch on the investigation or purposely tanked it, indicating our security is infiltrated. Either way, Thank God for writers like Annie, and Charles at LGF, and Robert Spencer, Daniel Pipes, and others who don't get overly concerned about the national cancer that is Political Correctness. It's people like these that may yet allow us to avoid huge and numerous tragedies.

I work in an engineering shop that produces, er, "devices". Lots of technical stuff, materials science, physics, you know. Boring, complex stuff. Received in my inbox at work today, redacted to protect the innocent:

(company name) is now providing (company name)Microwave Oven Capping Sheets free of charge to all users of its employee kitchens. These white, roll-fed, perforated cellulose pulp sheets are engineered to isolate and contain the explosive boilovers that occur during the food heating cycle due to the delta between the nominal boiling point temperature of the tomato-based medium and that of the heavier mixture of complex carbohydrates, proteins, vegetable matter, and other substances mixed therein. As the randomly-dispersed organic residue from these boilovers cools, it solidifies at the point of contact and eventually begins to decompose. Manual application (with some mechanical force) of an aqueous cleaning solution is required to restore the surface to a sanitary ("food-safe") condition beneficial to maintaining employee health.

Employees are urged to cover all food to be reheated with one (1) (company name) Microwave Oven Capping Sheet prior to initiating the heating cycle. These disposable and biodegradable sheets should be used one time only and then disposed of in the nearest trash receptacle. Tools and other consumable supplies designed for kitchen use are also available on-site. Failure to exercise reasonable efforts keep the microwave oven clean will result in future e-mail alerts.

Looks like somebody was feeling like a smartass today.

Don't trust the mainstream media any farther than you can throw them. They haven't covered this story AT ALL. When they start giving this kind of news (which seems to be 90% of the news coming out of Iraq these days) the same airplay as they gave the Abu Ghraib abuses, I'll listen to what they have to say.

I read this at lunch, and I've been thinking about it since. From time to time over the last few years I've noted various moonbats claiming that Hitler was democratically elected, and that is somehow supposed to prove that democracy is flawed.

I've never claimed that democracy is not flawed...it's just less flawed than any other form of government, particularly dictatorship and communism. It's good to see someone put the "Hitler was democratically elected" canard to rest in a pretty definitive way, though. Now if we could just get the moonbat contingent to simply admit that elections are NOT automatically "stolen" just because their guy lost and the guy who beat their guy is NOT just like Hitler just because he beat their guy, we'll be in much better shape.

Put down your coffee or soda before you click this link. I'm not sure whether to send this guy money or call the cops on him, but either way he definitely made my day.

I'll probably refrain from calling the cops, as I've spent a lot of time working with the boy scouts and I'm familiar with the forces that might drive someone to write a post like this.

"Juan" Cole is a moron.

It's a crime what the Left has done to the word "Liberal", as noted in the Weekly Standard. Liberals used to stand for truth, justice and the American way (so to speak). Liberal was standing up for the little guy, and protecting those who couldn't protect themselves. Helping people.

It most assuredly did not mean stamping out every last vestige of religion in the public square. It didn't mean going after the Boy Scouts as if they were fascists. It didn't mean embracing abortion with absolutely no limits. It didn't mean changing the definition of the word "marriage", it didn't mean peace at any price (no matter how many have to die or live under a thug's boot to get it), it didn't mean helping the enemy with their propaganda here at home during wartime and it didn't mean America is ALWAYS wrong in EVERYTHING, EVERYWHERE.

JFK would be sad to see the current state of his party and his philosophy. Except that if he were in politics today, his party would likely be the Republican party, and Robert Byrd and Barbara Boxer would be calling him a Nazi, a warmonger and the source of all the problems in the free world.

Sigh.

Well, we got rid of one feeb. Time to get on with the old people. It's just so wonderful that now we can just get rid of the people who are inconvenient for us. I'm SO glad we set that Schiavo precedent. Now stuff like this can happen ALL THE TIME and we can just point to the Schiavo case and say "well, it's not EXACTLY the same, but it's pretty close." A woman being dehydrated/starved to death against her living will when she's NOT terminal, NOT vegetative, and NOT anything else warranting a death sentence.

Slippery slope, thy name is the United States of America. We have only ourselves to blame. I just can't believe it's happening so fast.

UPDATE: Seems it might NOT be happening so fast. There seems to be some skepticism around about this story. It did seem a little too pat...like it was expressly designed to piss off people like me. Guess I may have jumped the gun on this one...though it's only a matter of time now until such things actually do start happening. Sigh.

When reading the news and hearing of deaths of people in the dozens or hundreds resulting from a terror attack in Afghanistan or Iraq, or even in New York, it's easy to lose track of the immediacy of death. Today I got reacquainted with death on a much more personal level.

I received a message this morning from my very best friend in the world; I was supposed to call him as soon as I could. He sounded very...off. My stomach contracted at the sound of his voice. I knew someone had died before his message ended. Upon calling him, it quickly became worse. His brother had killed himself.

My friend's family has not had an easy time over the years. My friend was my classmate since kindergarten, but we only became friends when my friend came to live with my family as a foster brother in high school. Since then, several members of his family have lived with my family in the same capacity. My friend's father killed himself several years ago. His brother (not the one who recently died) had an accident and has been paralyzed since.

Through all this, I've been there for my friend as much as I could...but how do you convince a man that there is a truly wonderful side to this world when he's seen so much of the other side? He's been through a lot, and I suspect he doesn't have the same default view of the world as I do anymore. His view is probably quite a bit darker than mine, and I have a hard time blaming him for that.

I bitch a lot on this site, but if you think about it and read what I write, I only bitch because I have a vision of how things could and should be, and I believe that they could actually be that way if things worked out right. Somebody who truly has a dark outlook won't bother to write or say such things because they have a hard time seeing the point. Why complain when you can't imagine anybody would listen or care, or anything could get better?

So to my friend, if he should read this, I say this: you are the best friend I ever had. I care for you as I do for myself. You've been there for me in dark times before, and of course I'll do anything I can to help you through this if you only let me know what you need me to do. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, whether you can see it yet or not, and no, it's not a train, though it may feel like on this dark day in your life.

We share a history together as friends that's long, unique, and wonderful. I've been told on at least one occasion that our friendship is envied by others, and I don't doubt it. My friendship, such as it is, will be yours until one of us dies. Count on it. Count on me. I know how to be a friend to you, and I'll never, EVER let you down.

Cap'n has the details in this important breaking story.

You know, it's interesting to note the "race" between liberal and conservative bloggers who are notching their belts with each political victory. The libs came hot out the gate knocking Lott out of his leadership position in the senate by breaking the Dixiecrat-praising story. Since then it's been the conservatives, though, who've had a succession of huge victories. They've deposed, showed up, or basically discredited John Kerry (Christmas in Cambodia, "magic hat", form 180, etc.), Dan Rather (Memogate), Eason Jordan (American forces "targeting" journalists), and several others, and now they're aiming at toppling the Liberal government of Canada.

You know Captain Ed has hit the big time when he's overthrowing governments. Now THAT is a player. Me? I'm just still pissed about Chretien's Fwench-speaking lackeys calling my president a moron. If he's a moron, he's OUR moron, and it's OUR place to call him that, not some whining maplehead's. I hope the conservatives take over the joint and make the Liberals do the dishes for the next decade.

Why does everybody refuse to do anything about this:

Captain Brian Steidle, a former US marine, described how African Union (AU) troops could only stand and watch as scenes of carnage unfolded in front of them. He said he had personally witnessed Sudanese government gunships strafing villages, setting them alight, and found the bodies of torture victims with ears cut off and eyes plucked out.

And he warned that, with the security situation deteriorating and aid agencies unable to reach large parts of the region, the death toll from illness and disease - currently running at about 10,000 people a month - was likely to rise by as much as 50 per cent to 15,000 a month.

Capt Steidle’s account is the first eyewitness report from one of the ceasefire observers allowed into the country by the Sudanese government in an agreement forced on it after months of wrangling.

It came as the UN Security Council finally approved a resolution to prosecute 51 Sudanese war crimes suspects before the International Criminal Court. The council moved after the United States dropped its threats to veto the resolution.

Um, guys? I know that the International Criminal Court gives the Euros a hardon and all, but nobody else buys that it's worth jack shit. Some well-placed cruise missiles, a carrier group with a few squadrons of F-18s and a Few Good Men (tm) will do a lot more to bring the situation under control than a pack of effeminate human rights jagoffs screaming that Sudan may be doing it, but it's all the US's fault. And you know they'll say that, too, because that's what ALL ICC proceedings end up with.

A few guys are forced to wear women's undies on their heads in Abu Ghraib and it's played on a loop by all television stations everywhere in the world for months. Thousands upon thousands of people are slaughtered in Southern Sudan after being raped, tortured, and violated in every way people can be violated, and the world yawns.

Why? Because the victims are black, and because they're poor. Where are the liberals on this? This is an issue tailor-made for them to demagogue to death, and for once I wouldn't mind. Maybe this is the thing that will finally make them admit that militaries can be used for good as well as eeeeeeevil.