Notable Quotable

Senator Joe Lieberman (D-CT), Opposing Feingold-Reid Legislation Which Cuts War Funding and Calls for Immediate U.S. Troop Withdrawal from Iraq:

"I have thought a lot about this war, and I cannot help but wonder at a moment like this what some of the political heroes of my youth who are Democrats would think if they were here and could see and listen to this debate and read this resolution.

"I think of President Kennedy who declared: '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.'

"In my opinion, that is exactly what we are doing in Iraq today.

"I ask my colleagues: Do these words have meaning, have significance? Or are these just words?"

Source

Heroes: Marine Looks Back on Long Journey to Corps

"I always wanted to visit America,” Vyskocil said. “I started to save up enough money for a plane ticket and some extra spending money.”

He arrived in America in 1998 with one change of clothes, a small bag and no ability to speak the English language.

“I’m proud that I’m a Marine and honored to serve this country,” ... “I came to this country with basically nothing, and after 10 years, I have a family and everything I’ve ever dreamed of before coming to the United States. I’ll never take the freedom America gave me for granted.”

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Conditions to Determine Post-Surge Troop Levels in Iraq, General Says

[There...]
Officials project five U.S. Army brigades and two Marine battalions will leave Iraq by the end of July, but it’s too soon to project troop levels beyond that, a senior U.S. military officer said here today.

“There is increasing pressure on al Qaeda in Iraq everywhere inside of Iraq,”

If current conditions continue, the projected U.S. troop strength in Iraq should drop from about 156,000 U.S. troops there now to about 140,000 servicemembers by the end of July, Ham said.

However, U.S. military force levels in Iraq, as always, remain contingent upon conditions on the ground, Ham emphasized.

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Nonsense on Intelligence Reform

[here...]

The Democratic leadership on Capitol Hill has circled the wagons in defense of the party’s determination to roll the dice with American national security.

Senators Jay Rockefeller and Patrick Leahy joined Representatives Silvestre Reyes and John Conyers in penning a fatuous op-ed in the Washington Post Monday. The four are chairs of the intelligence and judiciary committees of, respectively, the Senate and House. They claim that the White House is engaged in fear-mongering when it decries the failure of House Democrats to enact a reform measure that would have preserved essential intelligence-collection authority — a bill that passed in the Democrat-controlled Senate by an overwhelming two-to-one margin and would similarly sail through the House - if only Speaker Nancy Pelosi would allow it to come to the floor for a vote...

[I.e., it's not a case of the house being split: it's not. It's a simple case of Ms. Pelosi preventing the matter from even coming to a vote. How very democratic]

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Egypt puts concrete wall on Gaza border

El-Arish, Egypt -- Egypt is building a 10-foot-high concrete wall along its border with Gaza to prevent any new breaches after Palestinian militants blasted through the barrier in January to escape a blockade of their territory, an official said. The new wall replaces a mixed barbed-wire, iron and concrete barrier which was breached in several places when militants blew it open with explosives (Snip) Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians flooded across the open border unchecked for 12 days before Egypt managed to reseal it.

[Will Egypt now be accused of 'apartheid' by the world press {and ex-president-peanut farmers} for controlling its border as was Israel? And the Gazans aren't even trying to murder them.]

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Preserving "Liberty's Best Hope

“Liberty’s Best Hope,” a new book by Kim Holmes, vice president for foreign policy at The Heritage Foundation, boldly proclaims the truth: The United States and our republican democracy is the only true hope for the oppressed nations in the world. If we don’t step up to the plate and accept the responsibility that comes with the many blessings we enjoy as a free nation, then our future -- and indeed that of peace-loving people around the world -- is bleak, at best.
[snip]
Those who think the solution is to work out our differences at the United Nations will get a much-needed education from Holmes. Despite the fact that the U.N. charter calls for the expulsion of member nations that fail to uphold basic human rights, the U.N. has become home to the world’s most repressive regimes, which routinely work to subvert the actions of freedom-loving nations. Yet we keep trying to make it work. The result? “Through countless efforts to work with the U.N., Washington has unwittingly fallen into the trap of conferring more legitimacy on the United Nations than it deserves."
[snip]
“The only way around it is for the U.S. president and his cabinet to understand at times they will have to endure some bad feelings and controversies from friends and allies. … Other countries drive hard bargains because they believe in their own values and interests. China and Russia are ready examples. We should do the same without apology. If tone and style matter, then do it with a smile and without bluster - but be no less forthright in the assertion of our interests than other nations are.”

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Canada to buy old German tanks as spare parts for Afghan mission

Ottawa - Canada plans to buy a handful of older, surplus German tanks to cannibalize for spare parts to keep its combat forces on the move in Afghanistan. The undisclosed purchase is apparently part of the $1.3-billion tank modernization [?] program (Snip) Part of the problem is that cuts to Canada's defence industry throughout the 1990s eroded its ability to service armoured vehicles.

[if you'd like to review a problem that truly approaches the definition of 'pandemic', this is it: the degree to which nearly all liberal-western countries having successively cut back on defense budgets to pay for ever expanding social programs has left them with near-dysfunctional militaries - certainly when it come to force projection outside their borders. I.e., they count on America for that now, and when China and Russia start causing trouble, don't expect there to be any 'help' available from our 'allies'.]

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NO HEALTH INSURANCE? FACE FINES

Massachusetts has begun imposing stiff fines on residents who, for whatever reason, fail to purchase health insurance. The program is the enforcement end of the state's universal health-insurance plan -- and the fees reach up to $912 a year, says WorldNetDaily.com.

"The Massachusetts universal coverage plan is overregulated and largely unworkable," said Devon Herrick, senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis. "The least expensive plan would cost a 37-year-old male resident of Massachusetts $196 a month, and a fine for not having insurance could run half of that, or $98 a month. The same 37-year-old living in Dallas could buy coverage for $98 per month."

[government is also for-profit - but without the pesky need to convince customers of its value - it merely imposes itself upon the populace]

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GLOBAL WARMING: IS IT REALLY A CRISIS?

John McCain, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton all promise massive new regulations that will cost trillions of dollars to combat global warming. Ironically, this political unanimity is occurring as scientific evidence points in the other direction, says John R. Lott, Jr., a senior research scientist at the University of Maryland:

• Global temperatures have now largely eliminated most of the one degree Celsius warming that had previously occurred over the last 100 years, according to a consensus of scientists.

• Temperatures rose from the late 1970s to 1998, but there has been no net global warming since 1998; indeed, the more recent numbers show that there is now evidence of significant cooling.

• Even if temperatures were not decreasing, mankind is responsible for just a fraction of one percent of the effect from greenhouse gases, and greenhouse gases are not responsible for most of what causes warming (e.g., the Sun).

Yet we just keep on piling on more and more regulations without asking hard questions about whether they are justified, says Lott.

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Hispanic group calls for boycott of Houston Rodeo

A group of Hispanic leaders called today for a boycott of the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, saying show officials haven't done enough to include Hispanics in the event.
[snip]
The show is disrespecting the Hispanic community by hiring non-Tejano performers to play at the show's main venue,and not enough of the show's scholarships go to Hispanic students, said Ruben Cubillos, co-founder of the group. He also complained that the show doesn't have enough Hispanics at the executive level.

State Sen. Mario Gallegos, who said he tried to negotiate with show officials, offered to discuss the issues with them again. "We're open to sit down and talk, and talk for real," he said.
[snip]
But several members of the show's Go Tejano Committee who attended the Rodeo Roundup kickoff event said they didn't agree with the boycott.

"They're completely out of line," said George Hernandez, a committee volunteer. "We're not chartered by the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo to hear Tejano music. If they want their music heard, they should join a music association."

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AP Highlights Fewer Jobs, Ignores Steep Drop in Unemployed

Here's is the core information the Associated Press's Jeannine Aversa had to work with today in the Employment Situation Report released by the government's Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS):
[snip]
Here's how her report began (scare words in bold; the headline is also from AP):

Employers Slash Jobs by Most in 5 Years

Employers slashed jobs by 63,000 in February, the most in five years, the starkest sign yet the country is heading dangerously toward recession or is in one already...

She totally ignored the fact that the number of unemployed (i.e., the people we should be concerned about) dropped by almost 200,000 in February, and is now 284,000 (3.6%) lower than it was in December. That doesn't exactly square with an economy Aversa says is "heading dangerously toward recession or is in one already."

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Government Knows Best

Type "New York City Council" and "ban" and "2007" into Google. Here's some of what you find:
• A New York Times story: New York City Council Approves Ban on Metal Bats
• A BBC News story: "Racial slur banned in New York."
• A CNN story on how New York is considering banning "ultrathin" models.
• A New York Sun article on how New York City is contemplating banning feeding pigeons.
• A link to the Humane Society's effort to ban horse drawn carriages.
And that's on the first page alone.

In Britain, in a perfectly typical event quickly forgotten, police tracked down and nearly arrested an 11-year-old boy for calling a 10-year-old boy "gay" in an e-mail. This was considered a "very serious homophobic crime" requiring the full attention of police, traffic cameras are now trained on drivers to arrest them for eating in their cars.

And in both Britain and Canada, the old Hitler Youth slogan, "Nutrition is not a private matter!" has taken on a new life. One expert this week argued that obesity must now be treated like Global Warming, requiring stern government intervention.

On countless fronts, the natural pastures of daily liberty are being paved over by bureaucrats, politicians and other do-gooders. They aren't merely fixing problems as they come up. They are laying-down a path to a world where people like them are in charge of our lives, in large ways and small.

The old story of the frog who doesn't jump out of the pot because the heat is turned up so slowly comes to mind.

[I recently listened Michael Bloomberg address the World Bank on CSPAN. The man's beliefs are literally indistinguishable to the worst despots in history: government-forced behaviors at every level - frightening]

Jonah Goldberg is the author of the New York Times bestseller Liberal Fascism.

Governor proposes insurance fee to fund firefighting

California

Facing an estimated $14 billion state budget deficit, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed assessing a fee on property owners’ insurance to help cover the cost of fighting fires.

It is just one of many fees and spending cuts the governor is considering to help close the financial gap, while maintaining public services and protecting Californians from such risks as devastating wildfires.

[once again with the firehouse ploy: when facing budget cuts start with the most obviously necessary: police, fire, infrastructure schools et al - as if there's nothing else in the budge we wouldn't be better of cutting completely than diminishing any of these supposedly basic-critical services. I don't know which insults me more, the arrogance of their perpetually doing so - or its seeming to work on the populace every time the do...]

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...................................Take Your Kid to Work Day