It's Now Begun
Probably at the direction of Chrissy Matthews, MSNBC has started the campaign against democracy with their latest headline: White House waits for Iraq fallout; Will Sunday's vote spark democracy or civil war?
The media will now plant the seed (plans, momentum and justification) for the Sunni's to embrace the insurgents.
They are trying to win the Walter Cronkite prize for treason.
Posted by Aaron at 09:08 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
THIS BOY'S LIFE
| Leonardo DiCaprio poses with his Platinum Award in recognition for his exceptional career at the 20th Annual Santa Barbara International Film Festival at the Arlington Theater in Santa Barbara, California January 30, 2005. REUTERS/Phil Klein |  |
Boy is right. I felt like I was in some bizarro world when I read that. This is the kid who said, "My career should adapt to me. Fame is like a VIP pass wherever you want to go." And let's not forget this: "Portraying emotionally ill characters gives me the chance to really act."
DiCaprio Gets Lifetime Achievement Award
"It's a lifetime achievement award, which is completely and utterly surreal, given I'm only 30 years old," he continued, with a laugh. "But, you know, what has it been? Almost 17 years now. I've done quite a few films. But what's really exciting, for me, is that this is what I really love doing. It's what I want to do for the rest of my life."
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Once inside the auditorium, DiCaprio sat down for a two-hour career retrospective.
His screen credits include "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" (1993), "This Boy's Life" (1993), "Titanic" (1997) and "Catch Me If You Can" (2002).
You read the rest of his astonishing career highlights here.
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"ONE OF THE MOST PRESTIGIOUS FILM FESTIVALS"
 | Jeff Timmons changes a light bulb at the Egyptian Theater on Main street as the 2005 Sundance Film Festival is set to begin in Park City, Utah,January 20, 2005. The film 'Happy Endings' will screen on opening night of the festival directed by Don Roos and starring Lisa Kudrow and Jason Ritter. Over 200 films will be screened during the ten day festival, considered one of the most prestigious film festivals in the United States. REUTERS/Fred Prouser |
WELCOME TO SIN-DANCE
PARK CITY, Utah - There was plenty of shock and awe at this year's Sundance Film Festival. Audiences here have come to expect taboo-busting behavior from the indie movies making their debuts, but there were still gasps when James Woods reached for a tissue to wipe his thigh in "Pretty Persuasion."
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Marcos Siega's "Pretty Persuasion" - which was praised by Los Angeles Times critic Carina Chocano for its "jaw-dropping inappropriateness" - also features Woods seducing a lesbian TV newswoman played by Jane Krakowski, and makes cruel fun of sexual harassment, school violence, Palestinians and the handicapped - yet it had plenty of competition for the film festival's most offensive movie.
Sundance screens were awash in semen, and all other kinds of bodily fluids, as audiences were treated to graphic scenes of rape, castration, dismemberment and sex acts that crossed the threshold of almost every imaginable taboo - sometimes by performers who will be too young to attend these movies when (or if) they make it into theaters.
Posted by kitty at 03:23 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
OH, NO, MR. BILL!
(AMHERST, N.Y.) Sen. Hillary Clinton collapsed during an appearance here Monday before delivering a speech on Social Security.Clinton was not taken to a hospital and was expected to continue on with her schedule, an aide said.
Clinton was speaking in warm room in front of 150 people, according to one of her aides. She had been suffering from some sort of 24-hour flu."She was weak and needed to sit down. She fainted," said the aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity.Colleen DiPirro, president of the Amherst Chamber of Commerce, told WBEN-AM radio that Clinton told the crowd she was feeling weak and had had a stomach virus. Clinton started to speak then collapsed, DiPirro told the radio station. ... "I saw her walk out the door by herself, she smiled and said `thank you'," said the manager, Vincent Tracy.
UPDATE: Rush speculated that of course Her Royal C would be dizzy after that abrupt 180-turn she did last week on abortion.
A chink in Her Royal C's armor?
Posted by kitty at 02:02 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
FRAUD, FOR FUN & PROFIT
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SHE'D RATHER TALK TO ABC
IS Mary Mapes, the only CBS News staffer fired in the wake of Memogate, about to spill her guts on ABC? Sources say that Mapes Dan Rather's longtime producer who obtained the bogus National Guard memos has been wooed by rival ABC stars Diane Sawyer and Barbara Walters. Mapes is said to be leaning toward Sawyer. The Mapes interview, timed to air before before Rather retires from his evening news anchor chair on March 9, will be helpful to Mike Walker, the venerable gossip columnist for the National Enquirer. Walker has a book, "Rather Dumb: A Top Tabloid Reporter Tells CBS How to Do News," coming out in two weeks in which he gleefully takes on Rather and the rest of "the media elite." Walker argues that he and his dirt-digging colleagues at the tabloids are far better at investigating dubious documents than the over-educated "journalists" at the networks. "We know about documents," Walker told PAGE SIX. "The Enquirer has specialized in going through people's garbage. For CBS, it's amateur night in Dixie." The book is being published by Nelson Current, an imprint of Thomas Nelson in Nashville, Tenn., the world's largest publisher of Bibles.
Posted by kitty at 12:53 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
NY Times Op-Eds for January 31, 2005
Bob Herbert salutes the courage of the Iraqi people in voting for freedom despite threats from the terrorists. But (you knew there had to be a but):
But as with any positive development in Iraq, this one was riddled with caveats. For one thing, dozens of people were, in fact, killed in election day attacks. And shortly after the polls closed, a British military transport plane crashed northwest of Baghdad.
So there was no respite from the carnage.
And we should keep in mind that despite the feelings of pride and accomplishment experienced by so many of the voters, yesterday's election was hardly a textbook example of democracy in action. A real democracy requires an informed electorate. What we saw yesterday was an uncommonly brave electorate. But it was woefully uninformed.
The rest reads almost like a parody of a NY Times' column.
There is very little concern here about the plight of ordinary Iraqis, which is why the horrendous casualties being suffered by Iraqi civilians, including women and children, get so little attention.
Shoot, you know he just wanted to say "women and minorities", there, don't you?
Todays' substantial column is by Bartle Breese Bull, who gets the award for the tongue-twisting name of the day.
I write this from a rundown house in the poorest slum in the Middle East. Until yesterday, my hosts and neighbors had for three decades been among the most repressed people on earth. Yet when I walk out the door, I see a city smothered in posters and banners from a hundred political parties. Like Afghanistan last year, the country has endorsed the right to vote in percentages that shame the electoral apathy of the rich world. Let nobody tell you that this election was anything but real. Iraq's Baathists and Wahhabis may continue to bark, but this caravan is moving on.
The recently deceased architect Philip Johnson comes in for a little bashing at the hands of Mark Stevens for his youthful obsession with fascism. I don't know what significance this has, but the left has the memory of elephants when it comes to old enemies (think of the continuing crusade against Pinochet for example).
I suppose this piece about Mozart's avocation for police work is intended as humor, although I confess I don't get the joke.
Posted by pat at 12:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
COULDA, WOULDA, SHOULDA
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| "May I also suggest that we need a taller horse? You can get through deeper waters that way." |
Bad Kerry Day
By Shawn Macomber
As awful as it sounds, Kerry's Meet the Press appearance seemed timed to coincide with the election day disaster we all believed was coming in Iraq, but never materialized. While Iraqi Kurds and Shias were still dancing in the streets celebrating their first free elections after more than three decades of tyranny, Kerry could not have been more dour or pessimistic.
"It is hard to say that something is legitimate when whole portions of the country can't vote and don't vote," Kerry told Russert. But what election was he referring to? Was it the one that was stolen from him or the one that was apparently being stolen from the Sunnis? The rhetoric is virtually interchangeable. Just switch the words "Democrats" and "Sunnis" around and he'll have enough material to go on forsometime. Does this jab at Senator Kerry mean either our election system or Iraq's is perfect? Of course not. Personally, I'd like to see college students have to dip their fingers in indelible ink after voting as well so they can't canvas a state votingin every town along the way.
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So with all this genius, how did Kerry lose? Well, according to the senator, it basically came down to the "9/11 hurdle" and that "When a country is at war and in the wake of 9/11, it's very difficult to shift horses in midstream." Not so long ago, Kerry suggested to Wisconsin voters that "they shouldn't be wary of changing horses midstream when the horse is drowning" and joked, "May I also suggest that we need a taller horse? You can get through deeper waters that way."Maybe so, but withso little faith in the electoral process on his part, what horse on the planet would want to attempt to tote John Kerry across the electoral river -- be it the Mississippi or the Euphrates?
Posted by kitty at 12:36 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
COURAGE, IRAQI STYLE
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| Greg Donaldson of Columbus Ohio leads chants with protesters during a rally against the result of the U.S. Electoral College of the 2004 election in Washington, January 6, 2005. Congress is counting votescast by the Electoral College to certify the winner of the 2004 presidential election today. REUTERS/Micah Walter | Iraqi police examine the scene after a suicide bomber blew himself up near a polling station in Baghdad January 30, 2005. Insurgents bent on wrecking Iraq's historic election killed two people in a string of bomb and mortar attacks across the country Sunday soon after voting began in the first multi-party ballot in half a century. REUTERS/Ceerwan Aziz |
Voter Intimidation - Ohio Democrats v. The Average Iraqi
First, I'll say this - Man, do you people owe me big time. In preparation for this piece I had to force myself to read the entire 101 page staff report from the extra-congressional sham "hearings" John Conyers had on the Ohio vote. Of course he claims a grand conspiracy that gave President Bush the victory there. After reading it you can take my word (boy, watch the lefty bloggers have fun with that statement) that it ranks right up there with the X-Files and "Area 54" when it comes to conspiracy theory. Wild, unsubstantiated testimony not subject to cross-examination is taken as gospel truth. The supporting footnotes contain partisan sources. Leaps of logic are made that would make a psychic blush, and everyone they talk to has and agenda. Quite simply, and frankly, it's 10 pounds of sh*t in a 5 pound bag. But the reason that I read it was to see the exact election day "disenfranchisement" supposedly carried out by the GOP in Ohio to steal the Presidency.
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[J]ust for fun, let's compare the experiences of the average Iraqi voting on Sunday to that of the poor, put upon Ohio Kerry voter, because the report is dead certain that all those people who didn't vote would have voted for Kerry. But given the Democrats belief that they can determine the will of the voter, that's not surprising.
Posted by kitty at 12:24 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
ANKLEBITING PUNDIT SUFFERS SO WE DON'T HAVE TO
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"No one in the United States should overhype this election." |
Bulldog has posted a bullet point rundown of Kerry's (hee hee hee) untimely MEET THE PRESS performance. If he were a real man, one who wants to be president so badly that I swear hed sell Teraaaza for the chance, he would have swallowed his pride and congratulated Bush and the Iraqis and our troops. Oh, yes, how he values the military. You did know Kerry was in Vietnam, didnt you? Oh, yes, and he was awarded three Purple Hearts, too. Oh, such bravery! The Iraqis could learn a thing or two from the bravery Kerry exhibited in Vietnam. After all, they don't have Purple Hearts. Yes, yes, our troops in Iraq must have been proud when Kerry visited them recently.
Kerry on "MTP" OR "An Hour of My Life I'll Never Get Back"
1. He's running in 2008.
3. Thank God this man isn't President. His dour response to questions about the Iraq vote and constant carping about "what's wrong" tell us all we need to know about the man's fitness for leadership. Leadership requires a vision. Kerry has none. Never has.
Posted by kitty at 12:08 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Fresh, New Reasons to Dis Iraq
- Well, yeah, there was an election, but will they count all the votes?
- Elections are one thing, then there's that whole messy government requiring massive multinational involvement and the full cooperation of the whole wide world that George Bush could never muster. So singing Kum-bai-ah right about now wouldn't hurt.
- Are you sure this was a real election?
- Did we mention bin Laden is still on the loose?
- OK, can we leave now?
- Literally TONS of evidence of voter suppression. Like with suicide bombers and stuff.
- Do you realize how angry this is going to make the insurgents!
cross posted at ProfShade
Posted by at 10:11 AM | Comments (22) | TrackBack
FIRST HAND ACCOUNT
The first thing we saw this morning on our way to the voting center was a convoy of the Iraqi army vehicles patrolling the street, the soldiers were cheering the people marching towards their voting centers then one of the soldiers chanted "vote for Allawi" less than a hundred meters, the convoy stopped and the captain in charge yelled at the soldier who did that and said:"You're a member of the military institution and you have absolutely no right to support any political entity or interfere with the people's choice. This is Iraq's army, not Allawi's".This was a good sign indeed and the young officer's statement was met by applause from the people on the street. |
A first hand account from Iraq The Model:
The people have won
How can I describe it!? Take my eyes and look through them my friends, you have supported the day of Iraq's freedom and today, Iraqis have proven that they're not going to disappoint their country or their friends.Is there a bigger victory than this? I believe not.I still recall the first group of comments that came to this blog 14 months ago when many of the readers asked "The Model?"... "Model for what?"
Take a look today to meet the model of courage and human desire to achieve freedom; people walking across the fire to cast their votes.
Could any model match this one!? Could any bravery match the Iraqis'!?
Let the remaining tyrants of the world learn the lesson from this day.
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No more confusion about what the people want, they have said their word and they said it loud and the world has got to respct and support the people's will.God bless your brave steps sons of Iraq and God bless the defenders of freedom.
Aasha Al-Iraq....Aasha Al-Iraq....Aasha Al-Iraq.
Mohammed and Omar.
Posted by kitty at 03:11 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
ALGORE UPDATE
Does Algore still have the screaming meemies? I'll bet he gets them when people remember he said this:
Al Gore: "We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country." ("Text Of Remarks By Former Vice President Al Gore At The Commonwealth Club, San Francisco," Federal News Service, 9/23/02)
Read what other Democrats had to say at ChronWatch: The Dem Base: People Who Now Call Bush a Liar
He's ready for his injection now, Nurse Tipper.
Posted by kitty at 11:33 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
FOR THE FREEDOM OF MAN
Question: Who said the following?*
Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty..
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My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man
It's early, so I'm hesitant to believe such good news, but the turnout is being reported as better than expected.
72% Iraqi Turnout Stuns U.S. Press
With an hour left to go before the polls in Iraq close, Reuters reported that turnout had reached 72 percent nationwide. Election officials in Shiite areas say turnout there may top 90 percent.
Initial voter response was slow as the polls opened late Saturday U.S. time, but increased dramatically after threats of spectacular attacks failed to materialize. Of 5300 polling stations, only 15 reported attacks. 29 people were killed, including five police officers.
"Once it seemed like the worst was over, [voters] came out in very large numbers," Nordland said. While Sunni turnout was lower, "it was a lot better than would have been expected."
Some maintain that to legitimize this election, the turnout must be good. But frankly, the fact that Iraqis are turning out at all, walking openly along the roads to the polling places, is a victory itself.
A crowd of Iraqi women wait at the entrance of a polling station waiting to vote in their country's national election, in the holy city of Najaf, January 30, 2005. Insurgents bent on wrecking Iraq's historic election killed two people in a string of bomb and mortar attacks across the country Sunday soon after voting began in the first multi-party ballot in half a century. REUTERS/Faleh Kheiber | An Iraqi woman cries tears of joy after casting her vote, outside a polling station in the holy city of Najaf, January 30, 2005. Insurgentsthreatening an election day bloodbath killed at least 22 people Sunday in a string of bombings and mortar attacks on polling stations in Iraq's first multi-party ballot in half a century. REUTERS/Faleh Kheiber |
The exhilaration of democracy after years of exile
SALAH NASRAWI IN AMMAN, JORDAN
Clearly we were a mix - Shiites, Sunnis, Christians; Kurds, Arabs - but we were all Iraqis and all willing to ignore boycott calls and intimidation to have a say in our future and maybe one day live in the free, democratic, federal and united Iraq touted in election posters. It was exhilarating, and it was why I travelled to Amman in Jordan from my home in exile in Egypt, which was not among the countries where Iraqi expatriates could vote. As I stood in line, I recalled scenes from South Africa in 1994, when blacks, whites and South Africans of mixed race lined up to participate in the election marking apartheids demise.
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I was only four when Iraq held its last independent elections. Four years later, in 1958, army officers toppled the monarchy and ruled the country by decree until Saddam's Baath party took over in another coup in 1968. The military leaders and Baathists despised democracy, considering elections a western novelty. They always said Iraq was unfit for democracy, Iraqis not competent to judge what is best for the nation, and the tenets of democracy un-Iraqi. By implication, the Baath party was claiming for Saddam the official and sole right to decide what was best and what was indigenous to our culture. Now we are relying on ourselves to decide what is best.
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I fled with my wife and two children. I was lucky: days later the regime began imprisoning and torturing journalists for the same offence Id committed. I have no illusions. Elections are only a first step in a long process that is bound to be imperfect. There will be public frustration over the results, accusations of irregularities and possibly vote-rigging. Later, corruption and broken election promises are almost certain. Still, with Saddam gone, I could feel as I left the school courtyard that Iraq has a real chance to transform itself from a brutal, pariah nation to multiethnic democracy. Now I can hope that the agony of the past will end soon and I will be able to return to stay.Associated Press writer Salah Nasrawi, an Iraqi, fled his homeland in 1991 after Saddam Husseins regime revoked his press credentials because of his coverage of the Gulf War and the Shiite uprising that followed. Yesterday he cast his vote in Jordan.
* Answer: President John F. Kennedy; Inaugural Address, Friday, January 20, 1961. It's difficult to believe that Jack Kennedy and Ted Kennedy are brothers.
Posted by kitty at 10:54 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Appropriate Response
"We have declared a fierce war on this evil principle of democracy and those who follow this wrong ideology ... this evil principle. Anyone who tries to set up this system is part of it," Zarqawi said on a tape broadcast this week. For any Iraqi who needed an even more graphic warning, there was this from a leaflet being distributed by insurgent groups around Baghdad:
"This is the final warning to all of those who plan to participate in the election. We vow to wash the streets of Baghdad with the voters' blood. To those of you who think you can vote and run away, we will shadow you and catch you, and we will cut off your heads and the heads of your children."
Posted by at 09:14 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Islamic Klansmen
With the Iraqi elections on the line; have you ever considered the price others have paid to vote? The media and democrats will tell us the election is illegitimate--no matter what. But what about other countries who have stuggled to vote? What about South Africa? Rush asked this question: if only 20% of the white minority showed up to vote during South Africa's first election, would anyone question its legitimacy? Hell no!
This piece offers great perspective...it demonstrates freedom can overcome this insurgency and prevail just like it did here.
 | THE SAME EVIL |  |
As Iraqis prepare to cast secret ballots in Sunday's free election, terrorists work day and night to obliterate the entire project. Their political violence recalls that of white supremacists who shielded Jim Crow in the battle for civil rights. Those who block the doorway to Iraqi self-determination are nothing more than Islamo-Klansmen.Pray feverishly tonight that the struggle of the Iraqis succeed like the one of my ancestors."Those of you who think you can vote and then run away...we will shadow you and catch you, and we will cut off your heads and the heads of your children," threatened one Muslim-extremist leaflet the New York Times's Dexter Filkins saw distributed on Baghdad's Madaris Street. "This is a final warning to all of those who plan to participate in the election," it continued. "We vow to wash the streets of Baghdad with the voters' blood."
That blood already flows. On Wednesday alone, terrorists bombed three Baghdad polling places. A fourth explosive was disarmed at another precinct: an elementary school. In Baquba, Islamic fanatics shot up the offices of the Kurdistan Democratic party, the Coalition of Iraqi National Unity, and the Iraqi Communist party. They also released a videotape of three election workers kidnapped in Mosul.
Last month, terrorists yanked three election officials from their car in Baghdad and shot them point blank in their skulls in broad daylight. They also assassinated party leader Ayatollah Baqir al-Hakim in an attack that killed 13 Iraqis and wounded 66.
Such mayhem has hindered campaigning. Some parties conceal the names of their candidates to prevent political tickets from becoming hit lists.
The Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacists similarly slaved away to stymie southern democracy. An 1866 assault on black and white Republican legislators in New Orleans by racist white Democrats killed 137 people and wounded hundreds more. Ongoing Klan violence led President Ulysses S. Grant to announce in 1871 that (note the word) "insurgents were in rebellion against the authority of the United States."
The Invisible Empire of the South, as the KKK also was known, kept the torch of terror ablaze. During 1964's Freedom Summer, Mississippi alone saw 30 black homes burned, 35 volunteers shot at, 37 black churches firebombed, 80 activists beaten by white bigots, and some 1,000 civil rights fighters and their allies jailed by racist cops.
From Iraq The Model:
Saddam had tried all tools of oppression, killing and torture he could find against our people (including WMD's) but he failed to make the people believe in his hateful regime. And that's why the people abandoned him and now, he and his regime are just a bad old tale from the past.Amen.On Sunday, the sun will rise on the land of Mesopotamia. I can't wait, the dream is becoming true and I will stand in front of the box to put my heart in it.
Mohammed
Posted by Aaron at 09:12 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Sex Torture at Gitmo
Women Used to Interrogate Gitmo detainees AP...A draft manuscript obtained by The Associated Press is classified as secret pending a Pentagon review for a planned book that details ways the U.S. military used women as part of tougher physical and psychological interrogation tactics to get terrorist suspects to talk.It's a revealing account of interrogations at the detention camp, where officials say they have halted some controversial techniques.
"I have really struggled with this because the detainees, their families and much of the world will think this is a religious war based on some of the techniques used, even though it is not the case," the author, former Army Sgt. Erik Saar, 29, told the AP.
Yeah. A real sex-for-jihad scandal we have brewing here.
One female civilian contractor used an outfit that included a miniskirt, thong underwear and a bra during late-night interrogations with prisoners, mostly Muslim men who consider it taboo to have close contact with women who aren't their wives.Beginning in April 2003, "there hung a short skirt and thong underwear on the hook on the back of the door" of one interrogation team's office, Saar writes. "Later I learned that this outfit was used for interrogations by one of the female civilian contractors ... on a team which conducted interrogations in the middle of the night on Saudi men who were refusing to talk."
Some Guantanamo prisoners who have been released say they were tormented by "prostitutes."1
Well, the only thing more breathless than this prose is the detainees after a lengthy session with the Gitmo Girls.
1. Sissies. Prostitutes torment me every stinking day of my miserable life, I tell you.
Posted by at 02:53 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
BADA BING BADA BOOM
I knew it. I knew it was just too good to last. I know, the Mafia/Costa Nostra are mean/vicious/nasty. But the stories! The characters! The slang! The names are more than familiar, some are household: Corleone, Capone, Valachi, Sopranos, Norval. Wait a minute, Norval? Yes, Virginia, there is a Godfather in Scotland. But alas, I think Michaels wife Kay is finally getting her wish, because this Sicilian thing looks like it may come to an end. Why? As I blogged yesterday in OMERTA, O-SCHMERTA!, for the first time I can ever recall, a don has flipped and has been having a sit-down with the feds. Once the other families got the word, they all wanted to make a deal.
RAGING OVER A CANARY Massino's flip has given mobsters of every level an incentive to cut their own deals with the feds.
"I'm going to open a hot line called 1-800-PAN- CAKES because you flip pancakes, and they are flipping like pancakes," said a Genovese family turncoat.
The dynamics are simple, he added: If a boss like Massino rats out his underlings, the underlings have no incentive to obey the Mafia code of silence, and will feel free to inform on higher-ups in the family and even each other.
Leaders of other mob families could also follow Massino's example.
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Another mobster said if Massino's singing like a canary, "this thing of ours is dead."
Oh well, take the canolis.
Lucianne's line :)
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THE COLOR OF FREEDOM!
First voters : A group of Iraqis hold their index fingers aloft showing the dye to acknowledge they've placed a vote during the Iraqout-of-country voting at Wembley exhibition centre in London. (AFP/Adrian Dennis)
Forget the alphabet soup bloviators: Rather, Jennings et al. Forget that boozy bastard Kennedy. The Baghdad brothers, Mohammed and Omar, have a blog called IraqTheModel, which offers one of the best sources to gauge the current temperament of their beloved country. I say beloved because they do love Iraq; they want the best for Iraq. How fortunate are we to witness history in the making.
Go Iraq…go!
We're standing before a historic moment and I won't be exaggerating if I said that it's an important moment for the whole world; we're standing before a crossroads and everyone should watch and learn from the rebirth of Iraq.
Regardless of the winners in the se elections, those who opposed the elections and resisted the change will have to deal with the new reality.
In 48 hours from now, the dying dictatorships and their filthy tools, the terrorists, will find themselves facing an elected legitimate government in Iraq.
The tyrants nightmare is becoming reality, now they will have to deal with the scariest word in their dictionaries; THE PEOPLE'S CHOICE.
An Iraqi voter, casting her ballot at a voting station in Damascus, Syria, Saturday, Jan. 29, 2005, the second day of balloting for Iraqexiles in the Jan. 30 national elections. More than 200,000 Iraqis are living in Syria and around 16,581 of them have registered to vote. (AP Photo/Bassem Tellawi).
An Iraqi voter, kissing a balloting box Saturday, Jan. 29, 2005 in Damascus, Syria, the second day of absentee balloting for Iraq's Jan. 30 national election. More than 200,000 Iraqis are living in Syria and around 16,581 of them have registered to vote. (AP Photo/Bassem Tellawi).
Seventy-year-old Iraqi exile Mehsin Imgoter holds his voting ballot up and begins to weep before putting it in the voting box as he votes in Iraq's national electionat a polling place in the Detroit suburb of Southgate, Michigan, January 28, 2005. Voters are electing a 275-member Assembly, which will draft Iraq's Constitution. As he wept, he said he wished his son could be here with him. His son was killed in Iraq during the 1990-91 uprising that was crushed by Saddam Hussein's regime. REUTERS/Rebecca Cook
Todd, at Amateur Megalomania:
I want to focus on the courage of the Iraqi people.
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Yet if the polls track with reality, we are going to see a turnout that should give the entire world a reason to pause and reflect. While Western Nations worry about the effect of rain on turnout, the Iraqi's are dealing with the very real possibility of dying for their vote...yet still they will stand in line and take their chances
Posted by kitty at 10:26 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
Under the Manure Pile of Tenure
Seems everyone from O'Reilly, to Glenn Reynolds to Billy Jack are twisted tighter than a mayonnaise lid about Ward Churchill. What he says in public is the tip of the academic anthill, in reality. Buried beneath the surface, in every higher-ed burrow, you'll find owl pellets like him and worse. Lefty intellectual babble like Churchill's has been allowed to germinate, fester and grow in the fertile soil of tenured academia for generations, unchallenged and unthreatened. You pile tenure deep enough, this is what grows in its darkness. It's time to drive it out into the light.
I want a multitude of these wingnuts to step from their academic offices and man the ramparts. Since Bush won 2004, the leftist majority where I teach has been even more vocal, strident, petty and mean-spirited. It has become invective in place of debate, where conservatism is not tolerated. I want them to get louder. I want everyone in America to see and hear them, to witness and remember their faces and the vile, uncosmetic hatred many of them have for democracy, America and anyone who does not agree with their far-left POV.
Glenn Reynolds argues we're seeing the true face of the Left. The true face of leftism? There is no face any longer in many offices in higher education. In academia it's been etched, eroded and eaten away by hate, vindictiveness and bigotry. Yes, the academic left is deeply bigoted.
Bottom line: give me more Churchills. Let him embolden every self-loathing intellectual in the nation. Let the wingnuts speak. Turn 'em loose on the country like a pack of howling, alcoholic, and abusive uncles.
Please, encourage them to speak. And heed carefully the shocked silence that follows...
...from tuition-paying parents and taxpayers.
Posted by at 12:22 AM | Comments (13) | TrackBack
Buried Deep in the Archives of the CBC and the CBC
I think I came across something interesting doing some Googling this evening. I came across an article on Congressional Black Caucas Chair, Maryland Representative Elijah Cummings' website.
First, a picture. Look at the picture closely; who is that white man cuddling with Cummings?
Second, another picture. Look at this picture closely; who is the white man this woman is looking at with glee?
This white man just handed a check for $100,000 to Howard University's School of Communications. She is about to pee her pants. Who is this spectacular white man? Well, let's find out who he is:
On Thursday, February 12, 2004, U.S. Representative Elijah E. Cummings (D-MD), Chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, joined Fox News Channel Chairman Roger Ailes to present a $100,000 check to the Howard University School of Communications. The generous gift will go towards the purchase of new, state-of-the-art television, film and radio production equipment.
CBC Chairman Cummings joined Fox News Channel Chairman Ailes as he presented the $100,000 check to Howard University President H. Patrick Swygert at a press conference in the Carnegie Building on the campus of Howard University in Washington, D.C.:"I am proud to join Roger Ailes as the News Corporation presents such a generous gift to my alma mater, Howard University. This contribution by the News Corporation is not only a significant financial investment, but also a tremendous show of confidence in the abilities of African American student journalists attending historically black colleges. I am confident that this contribution to Howard University is just the beginning of a long and fruitful relationship between the News Corporation and the nation's community of historically black colleges," said Chairman Cummings.
The Howard University donation is part of an ongoing partnership between the Congressional Black Caucus and the News Corporation. The CBC hosted two Democratic presidential debates, on September 9, 2003 in Baltimore, Maryland and October 26, 2003 in Detroit, Michigan, respectfully, on the Fox News Channel.
So, we've heard from the CBC (Congressional Black Caucus); they gush over Fox News when they are giving them money (prostitution?). So after Roger Ailes gives this grant to Howard University, what does the other CBC--the Canadian Brodcasting Channel--think of Roger Ailes and Fox? Herego:
The conservative-leaning Fox News Channel will soon be coming to Canadian digital television channels.Read the rest of the crap here. How many adjectives does one report need...or is it bias? I say the latter.The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) approved an application Thursday to bring the Fox News Channel, one of the highest-rated news channels in the United States, onto Canadian digital airwaves.
The Canadian Cable Telecommunications Association (CCTA) applied to the broadcast regulator in April.Canadians already have access to the main Fox network, but not the right-leaning, 24-hour news channel, with its trademarked slogan of "fair and balanced."
Fox was launched in 1996 by a former Republican advisor, Roger Ailes. It's a subsidiary of News Corp. Ltd., which is controlled by right-wing Australian media tycoon Rupert Murdoch.
Posted by Aaron at 09:55 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
CHILD’S PLAY?
I read the following on Page Six:
ROBERT De Niro vanishing from his seat at the Beekman during Wednesday's screening of his abysmal "Hide and Seek" (
Debra Birnbaum's review: Page 39), leaving his wife, Grace, to suffer alone
From Birnbaum's review:
LET'S hope Dakota Fanning's parents are investing her paychecks wisely. She's going to need that money to pay her therapy bills for enduring "Hide and Seek," a schlocky thriller choking under the weight of its own psychobabble.
Not only has she been transformed into a lost member of the Addams family with a dark brown wig and several layers of under-eye makeup, she's also forced to suffer every horror-film clichdirector John Polson ("Swimfan") - a graduate of the School of Loud Knocks - can think up to inflict upon her.
Heres another review, by David Levine, who didnt think much of the film. You can watch preview clip there as well.
For young Emily Callaway, her games of Hide and Seek with an imaginary friend named Charlie have become anything but simple and innocent. Instead, she finds herself in the middle of a series of increasingly nightmarish acts that even her father David cannot stop. Who or what is Charlie? David wonders. How can an imaginary entity have this kind of hold on her? Maybe Charlie is not imaginary at all, but instead a flesh-and-blood, malevolent presence?
I saw some previews of this movie, Hide and Seek, last night while watching CSI, and I was sickened by what Hollywood is willing to put little kids through for a movie. And why do the parents give their permission? Is everyone so greedy for a buck that they'll potentially sacrifice a child's future well-being? The child may grow up well adjusted, and then maybe he/she won't. It's a gamble, so why gamble? Dakota Fanning was so convincing it was difficult to determine if she was acting or not. Let's pray this movie flops BIG time sothat Dakota isnt typecast by Hollywood and rented out by her parents.
Posted by kitty at 01:46 PM | Comments (18) | TrackBack
YO, LEROY!
Hmmmmmm? Maybe I've been missing something.
GOOFY 'IDOL' GUY A BUST
Wacky "American Idol" wannabe Leroy Wells watched himself make America laugh Tuesday night — from a cold jail cell.
Wells, a 22-year-old from Grand Bay, Ala., with a long rap sheet, was tossed into Mobile Metro Jail after he failed to appear in court on charges he shot someone in the hip earlier this month, according to local TV reports.
Sheriff's deputies allowed Wells to watch himself on Tuesday's "Idol" episode — which threw a spotlight on his downright weird audition for the mega-rated Fox reality show, now in its fourth season and going strong.
Posted by kitty at 01:11 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Omerta, O-schmerta!
Honor among thieves? Fuhgeddaboudit! What is this world coming to when you can’t even trust your local don?
CANARY ON TOP PERCH
The godfather donned a wire.
In a stunning blow to the mob, Bonanno don Joseph Massino volunteered to wear a bug to tape the family's acting boss in a plot to whack a federal prosecutor — becoming the first-ever godfather turncoat, according to both an indictment unsealed yesterday and law-enforcement sources.
"For the first time, here's a bona-fide real boss who's cooperating with the government," said retired FBI supervisor Bruce Mouw. "There's truly nothing sacred with regard to La Cosa Nostra. It's dog-eat-dog and every man for himself."
Posted by kitty at 01:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The Conservatives' McCain Condundrum
According to H-Bomb, at AnkleBitingPundits:
I have it on a rock solid source that Senator John McCain will be a candidate for President of the United States in 2008. And I have it from a well-placed source inside the Governor’s office that Jeb Bush’s commitment not to run in ’08 is genuine. So the question becomes, who can stop McCain, if indeed he needs to be stopped.
…
Nonetheless, as things stand today, no one, and I mean no one of the Left and no one of the Right, who is considering running for president in ’08 can beat McCain.
Of course, that ‘no one on the Left’ part is a check in McCain’s ‘pro’ column. He would mop the floor with Hillary as the media would carry his water even against her throughout the General Election.
I'm not as worried about McCain vying for the nomination. Maybe because thinking-engaged right-wingers outnumber the McCaniacs. Or maybe because so much can happen in the next 4 years. However, you can be certain that you'll hear lots of this:
Posted by kitty at 12:52 PM | Comments (9) | TrackBack
Remember to Deduct This from Your Taxes
From CNSNews:
According to NTU, the "chronically absent" list "is filled with presidential and vice presidential candidates," including Sens. John Kerry, (D-Mass.), John Edwards (D-N.C.), Bob Graham (D-Fla.), Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.), Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.), and Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio). House Members running for Senate seats also were also prominent on the list: They include Brad Carson (D-Okla.), Mac Collins (R-Ga.), Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), Pete Deutsch (D-Fla.), Joseph Hoeffel (D-Pa.), Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), Chris John (D-La.), Denise Majette (D-Ga.), George Nethercutt (R-Wash.), and Patrick Toomey (R-Pa.).From January 2003 to the October 2004 recess, John Kerry missed 146 days of votes without being granted leave, the NTU study shows. His total salary overpayment was $90,932.68, NTU said.Sen. John Edwards, Kerry's running mate, compiled 102 days of unexcused absences during that period, for an overpayment of $63,543.16, NTU said.Presidential hopeful Dick Gephardt's missed days cost taxpayers $81,362.53 in excessive pay. NTU also notes that Gephardt was absent for 85 of the 109 days that the House cast votes in the year 2003 alone. Combined with 2004, Gephardt had the highest unexcused absence rate in the House, at 131 days, NTU's analysis said.
Posted by Aaron at 10:20 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
NY Times Columnists for January 27, 2005
First up is Maureen Dowd. I posted over at Brainster's about today's column, but to be honest it's not worth your time or mine.
Not so easily dismissed usually is Thomas Friedman. But this column is really a stinker. Friedman suggests that Bush go on a listening tour of Europe. Get this:
Many young Europeans blame Mr. Bush for making America, since 9/11, into a strange new land that exports fear more than hope, and has become dark and brooding - a place whose greeting to visitors has gone from "Give me your tired, your poor" to "Give me your fingerprints." They look at Mr. Bush as someone who stole something precious from them.
Tim Kreutzfeldt, the bar owner, said to me: "Bush took away our America. I mean we love America. We are very sad about America. We believe in America and American values, but not in Bush. And it makes us angry that he distorted our image of the country which is so important to us. It is not what America stands for - and this makes us angry and it should make every American angry, because America lost so much in its reputation worldwide." The Bush team, he added, is giving everyone in the world the impression that "somebody is coming to kill you."
Don't you just love it when Euro-weenies tell us what America stands for?
The one serious column is by concentration camp survivor Aharon Appelfeld on the Holocaust and the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.
Posted by pat at 08:07 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Have some Kerry Whine with Your Brunch this Sunday
From Drudge:
In his first television interview since the presidential election, Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) will appear live on "Meet the Press with Tim Russert" for the full hour this Sunday, January 30, 2005. The exclusive interview will cover a wide range of topics including the day's historic elections in Iraq, the senator's own trip to the region, his view on Bush's second term agenda, and his plans for his political future. Sen. Kerry's last "Meet the Press" appearance on April 18, 2004, came thirty-three years after his very first appearance on the program as a spokesman for Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Earlier in the campaign cycle, Sen. Kerry announced his intentions to run for the Presidential nomination on "Meet the Press" on December 1, 2002.
Posted by Aaron at 07:59 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Add One More Nation to Bush's Failed Policy
The King of Jordan goes on national television to urge every Iraqi to vote...THEN introduces democratic reforms for Jordan. Could it be that the King of Jordon knows something about the word on the "Arab Street" that the media isn't reporting? Could there be a similar reaction from Jordananians as there was from Iranians to Bush's inaugural speech?
Millions of Iranians, glued to their TV sets to watch President Bush's inaugural address, warmly embraced his declaration to help spread liberty to nations ruled by tyranny, according to a leading pro-democracy movement.Once again proving that Bush doesn't know what he's doing.Underground groups operating in the Middle East nation indicate that in the days ahead, Iranians will increase their civil disobedience against the radical Islamic regime through strikes and demonstrations, said the Student Movement Coordination Committee for Democracy in Iran. The hope raised in the speech has been the main topic of conversation in family and social gatherings and on the street in Iran, the group said in a statement published by Front Page Magazine.
In his speech Thursday, the president pledged that "all who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know the United States will not ignore your opression."
"When you stand for liberty," Bush said, "we will stand with you. Democratic reformers facing prison or exile can know America sees you for who you are, future leaders of your country."
The president said "as hope kindles hope, millions more will find it" and "one day this untamed fire of freedom will reach the darkest corners of our world."
After the speech, many Iranians were seen flashing the "V" sign or raising their fists, the student group said.
From WorldNetDaily
Posted by Aaron at 07:13 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
A “DANGER” TO THE FAMILY?
MAYWOOD, Ill. -- In this photo released by the Loyola University Health System, Rumaisa Rahman, is seen next to a hand a few weeks after she was born at the Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, Ill. Rumaisa, whose parents came from Hyderabad, India, weighed 8.6 ounces when she was delivered Sept. 19. She is believed to be the smallest baby in the world ever to survive. (12/21/04 AP Photo/Loyola University Health System)
As HRC marches on to the White House, to which she believes she is rightfully and morally entitled, she has piqued MSMs interest with her recent speech at an abortion-rights rally.
EARLIER this week, Hillary Clinton gave a speech that had jaws dropping cross the nation. The New York Times ran the story on Page One, and pundits far and wide declared they they'd discovered a political "smoking gun" proof positive that New York's junior senator is running for president in 2008.
Yeah, right. As though she has had any other intentions since, at the very least, her days at Wellesley.
Once again, the abortion issue is front and center.
When I was younger, I held the popular views of my peers regarding abortion: 1) It was a difficult choice which should be left up to the mother, and 2) only in the case of rape or if the mother's health were at risk. About that time, I was reading the biography of potty-mouth Lenny Bruce. He had married a stripper named Honey Harlow who had aborted several babies. (They eventually had a daughter named Kitty.) Up until I read about Honey's abortions ... plural ... I had honestly thought that women simply did not have more than one, unless due to extreme circumstances, although I couldn't imagine what those circumstances could be. How could any woman choose to due that after having one? I had thought. It was the first time that I began considering what exactly an abortion entailed. Until then, it was merely an issue to discuss and debate, an abstract concept. Then one day it became personal.
When our two children were in the 8-to-10 age range, I thought I might have been pregnant. My husband and I had been very prudent to avoid another pregnancy, yet I found myself going to my doctor to be tested. (At-home pregnancy tests were not available then.) I'll spare you the details, but after all the tests, even the doctor couldn't be 100% certain. It was very possible that I was anywhere from 5 to 9 weeks along at that point, however my doctor said, "You'll just have to wait." My husband had left "The Decision" up to me. There were a multitude of reasons to opt for an abortion, or so I had thought, yet the I couldn't bring myself to do it. In desperation I turned to God and said, "You know our circumstances here. You know that another child would stretch our budget perilously thin, that we can't afford to buy a house. You know how careful we've been, so if I am pregnant it must be a very special baby. I can't kill it. So, I'm leaving the decision up to you. I'll abide with whatever you decide."
I honestly think that I had been pregnant but that I had miscarried. The fact that it was Christmas kept me from getting depressed; I had a family who needed me. It was a pivotal moment in my life: I discovered God and the sanctity of life. From that point on I would never view abortion as "a difficult choice but necessary."
Hillary's views on abortion, "safe, legal and rare," do not comfort me. I think Hillary could have chosen and gone through with an abortion, if the need arose. Yet she strikes me as a responsible woman who would make certain she was never faced with that decision; the operative word is "responsible." As "difficult" as women claim it to be, the majority of abortions are performed for reasons of convenience.
In todays American Spectator, George Neumayr writes Safe, Legal, and Hillary:
If you can talk happily and casually about your abortions -- as Barbara Ehrenreich did in the New York Times last year in a piece titled "Owning Up to Abortion" -- then how bad can the practice be? Understanding this psychology, Alexander Sanger, the grandson of Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger, has been emphasizing that abortion advocates should go beyond "choice" -- an insipid, evasive rhetoric, he thinks -- and celebrate abortion unapologetically. After all, he says, the unborn child is an interloper who deserves death. "The unborn child is not just an innocent life," he writes, but a "liability, a threat, and a danger to the mother and to the other members of the family."
Imnotsorry.net is awebsite that reflects the culture of abortion without apology that Sanger believes essential to the movement's survival. According to its founders, the website -- which allows women to post testimonials expressing their "relief" and "joy" after an abortion -- "was created for the purpose of showing women that exercising their legal right to terminate their pregnancy is not the blood-splattered guilt trip so many make it out to be."
Here's an example of what you'll read at ImNotSorry.net:
I went into the inner room and laid on the table. The man picked up a long, silver instrument and I felt excruciating pain as he inserted and twisted it. ... In the car, I vomited all the way home. It was Thursday. On Monday, I went back to work, butby Wednesday I was rushed to the hospital, hemorrhaging. On Friday, I left the hospital and went to my aunt's, then to a friend's out of town for several months. I had to hide. I'd nearly died that summer, more than once. It was the abortion that saved my life and set me free.
In one breath Carol tells about almost dying from the abortion and then says that the abortion saved her life and "set her free". Unbelievable.
Margaret Sanger is another peach who, I believe, was both racist and elitist as evidenced by her views on eugenics:
While Planned Parenthood's current apologists try to place some distance between the eugenics and birth control movements, history definitively says otherwise. The eugenic theme figured prominently in the Birth Control Review, which Sanger founded in 1917. She published such articles as "Some Moral Aspects of Eugenics" (June 1920), "The Eugenic Conscience" (February 1921), "The purpose of Eugenics" (December 1924), "Birth Control and Positive Eugenics" (July 1925), "Birth Control: The True Eugenics" (August 1928), and many others.
Being responsible can be challening, I agree. However, to rationalize that your unborn baby is a "liability, a threat, and a danger to the mother and to the other members of the family" to justify killing it is sick. Personally, I doubt any law, either pro or con aborthion, will change things with one exception: Partial birth abortions should be illegal. Instead, the battle is to change the hearts of people, because all babies are precious. Period.
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Social Security Calculator
Check this out; see how much you would have with Lifetime Savings Account.
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PAT HYNES IN THE NEWS
Pat Hynes of PassionForFairness and AnkleBitingPundits.
No Oscar battle for 'Passion' partisans
Internet Christian soldiers are admitting defeat in their battle to win a best picture Oscar nomination for "The Passion of the Christ" -- but their campaign to influence Hollywood goes on.
Patrick Hynes, a married, 32-year-old father and advertising copywriter, collected 25,000 signatures on a petition on his Web site, passionforfairness.com. He sent it to the academy -- but received no response. Disappointed by the announcement of Oscar nominees on Tuesday, the groups briefly considered boycotting movie theaters and targeting companies that will advertise on the ABC Oscar broadcast on February 27 in hopes of demonstrating some economic muscle. "I briefly floated the idea of a boycott of Hollywood --- and certainly the Oscars -- but in the end I don't think that would be productive, so I decided against it," said Hynes, who is based in Washington. ... For his part, Hynes will be watching the film industry -- and using his Web-based platform to spread his message. "I think, given the success of 'The Passion of the Christ,' other people will start generating some faith-based films," Hynessaid. "And we're going to watch to see if those continue to get snubbed and ridiculed and receive the same kind of enmity that Hollywood ladled on Mel Gibson and 'The Passion.' And if they are, we're going to speak out against them."
STAY TUNED! PassionForFairness "will have a major, major announcement in the next couple of days that will sum up our reaction to the snubbing of Mel Gibson and The Passion of The Christ."
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