Barack was asked at the Saddleback Church Forum to name the three people that would most influence his decisions as president. He named his wife, his grandmother and Ted Kennedy. If Michelle is going to be influencing the President of the United States, we should consider statements like;
"In America in 2008, life is not good: we're a divided country, we're a country that is "just downright mean," we are "guided by fear," we're a nation of cynics, sloths, and complacents." (March 10th New Yorker)
"And Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism, that you put down your division, that you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zones, that you push yourselves to be better, and that you engage. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual - uninvolved, uninformed..." (Speech in February, 2008)
"Barack knows that we are going to have to make sacrifices, that we are going to have to change our conversation, we're gonna have to change our traditions, our history, we're gonna have to move into a different place as a nation." (Campaign speech in Puerto Rico)
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Friday, August 29, 2008
US arrests al-Qaida figure blamed in kidnappings
Baghdad - The U.S. military has announced the arrest of an al-Qaida figure who allegedly planned the 2006 kidnapping of American journalist Jill Carroll. A statement Sunday says Salim Abdullah Ashur al-Shujayri was captured during an Aug. 11 operation. (Snip) The statement also says al-Shujayri's associates were involved in the high-profile kidnappings of Christian peacemakers and British aid worker Margaret Hassan.
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Bush Hatred: The Sequel
With the prospect of a decent outcome in Iraq -- perhaps even the first liberal democracy in the Muslim world -- looming ever more likely, Bush-haters have lately begun to argue that the eight-year presidency of George W. Bush must be considered a moral abomination regardless because the conduct of the war on terror has undermined America's core principles.
To spearhead this new talking point comes a spate of recent books with especially ominous titles: The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals by Jane Mayer; Bush's Law: The Remaking of American Justice by Eric Lichtblau; Torture Team: Rumsfeld's Memo and the Betrayal of American Values by Phillipe Sands; and, silliest of all, The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder by Vincent Bugiolsi. [snip]
Here's the truth they cannot grasp:
Like every war before it, the war on totalitarian Islam is a nasty, brutish endeavor. It is fraught with obscene excesses and squalid idiocies because, like every war before it, it looses the primordial evils of tribalism and bloodlust to which the human race, even at its current stage of evolution, remains heir. No technological advantage can render war antiseptic. War is always wrong. Which is why its only justification is the conviction that by going to war you're avoiding an even greater wrong down the road.
President Bush felt that conviction, and he acted on it.
If Iraq stabilizes anytime soon, and provides a liberal democratic exemplar that inspires the Muslim Middle East out of the Dark Age in which it has wallowed the last millennium, Bush will eventually be ranked with Lincoln and Roosevelt among our greatest presidents -- for the very reason that he championed American values.
Bush-haters, in turn, will join the long ranks of history's laughingstocks.
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US: Quds, Hezbollah training hit squads in Iran
WASHINGTON -- Iraqi Shiite assassination teams are being trained in at least four locations in Iran by Tehran's elite Quds force and Lebanese Hezbollah and are planning to return to Iraq in the next few months to kill specific Iraqi officials as well as U.S. and Iraqi troops.
The U.S. official acknowledged disclosing the information in an attempt to pressure Iran to suspend the training and prevent the militia fighters from returning to Iraq. The U.S. military also wants the Iraqi government to take steps to protect the targets.
The fighters are expected to return to Iraq between now and October, but the officer said there's no intelligence suggesting they are actually in Iraq yet. The information came from militia fighters captured in Iraq and other sources in the country...
[as they told us: just in time for November...]
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U.N. peacekeepers to remain in Lebanon
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The Security Council voted unanimously Wednesday to keep the U.N. peacekeeping force in Lebanon for another year, calling for stepped-up efforts to achieve a permanent cease-fire and long-term resolution of the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war.
The 13,300-strong U.N. force known as UNIFIL was deployed along Lebanon's border with Israel after the war to help 15,000 Lebanese troops extend their authority into the south for the first time in decades and create a buffer zone free of Hezbollah fighters. [snip]
Ban [Ki-Moon] has alleged that Hezbollah has rearmed with new long-range rockets and missiles since its 2006 war with Israel in violation of a U.N. arms embargo that bans weapons transfers to the militant Islamic group, and that sophisticated weapons from Iran and Syria have passed across the Lebanon-Syria border...
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[that's what the 13,000 blue hats were supposed to be preventing...> 
FLASHBACK: NNBrief 7/24/2005 :
UNIFIL and their Hezb'allah Security Blanket
Beset by al-Qaeda backed terrorists who are targeting United Nations troops in Lebanon, the guys in the robins egg blue helmets are turning to the terrorists in Hezb'allah to protect them from the terrorists inspired by Osama Bin Laden:
The growing threat of attack by Sunni radicals apparently spurred the leading European troop-contributing states to seek the Shiite Hizbullah's cooperation. According to UNIFIL sources, intelligence agents from Italy, France, and Spain met with Hizbullah representatives in the southern city of Sidon in April. As a result, some Spanish peacekeepers subsequently "escorted" on some of their patrols by Hizbullah members in civilian vehicles, the UNIFIL sources say.
During last summer's war with Israel, UNIFIL kindly allowed Hezb'allah the cover of one of their outposts to launch rockets into nearby towns in order to kill civilians. At the time, the blue helmets said that they were prevented from interfering by their mandate. Now they've apparently expanded that mandate to make Hezb'llah something of a partner in their peacekeeping duties.
What kind of a quid pro quo do you think Hezb'allah demanded to help "protect" UN troops?
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South Ossetia Isn't Kosovo
[HT:GW]
While it is almost certainly true that Moscow's action in the Ossetian and (for good measure) the Abkhazian enclave of Georgia has been, in a real sense, the revenge for the independence of Kosovo (on Feb. 14 Vladimir Putin said publicly that Western recognition of Kosovar independence would be met by intensified Russian support for irredentism in South Ossetia), it is extremely important to bear in mind that this observation does not permit us the moral sloth of allowing any equivalence between the two dramas.
Whatever Moscow says, there are at least six significant differences between the two situations...
[Recommended > ]
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Cold War tension rises as Putin talks of Black Sea confrontation
A new Cold War between Russia and the West grew steadily closer today after the Kremlin gave a warning about “direct confrontation” between American and Russian warships in the Black Sea. Dmitri Peskov, a spokesman for Vladimir Putin, the Prime Minister, declared that Russia was taking “measures of precaution” against American and Nato naval ships.
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McCain: Keep Shuttle flying, don't trust Russia
Presidential contender John McCain and two other bigshot Republican senators have written to George Bush urging that NASA keep the Space Shuttle fleet alive beyond 2010. The politicians are concerned about US reliance on Russia for manned space transport in the early years of the next decade. (Snip)
''At a minimum, we request that you direct NASA to take no action for at least one year from now that would preclude the extended use of the space shuttle beyond 2010,''READ MORE
>FLASHBACK: NNBrief 8/14/2008:
Russia's actions could hurt US space presence
[snip]
... The Russian Soyuz vehicle will be the only option available for NASA to send crew and cargo to the space station until the shuttle's replacement becomes available for manned missions in 2015...READ MORE
> FLASHBACK: NNBrief 5/15/2008:
Obama's Plan for NASA
[snip]
The early education plan will be paid for by delaying the NASA Constellation Program for five [more] years...READ MORE
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Advancing Hysteria by Editing Skeptical Views of Global Warming
Well, a Stanford social psychologist has recently done a study of how people's opinions about global warming change if skeptical views are edited out of news stories, and the results, though not surprising, should scare the heck out of free thinkers around the country. As reported by USA Today on August 13:
Armed with new research into what makes some people environmentally conscious and others less so, the 148,000-member American Psychological Association is stepping up efforts to 'foster' a broader sense of eco-sensitivity that the group believes will translate into more public action to protect the planet.
News stories that provided a balanced view of climate change reduced people's beliefs that humans are at fault and also reduced the number of people who thought climate change would be bad, according to research by Stanford social psychologist Jon Krosnick. [...]
American Psychological Association leaders say they want to launch a national initiative specifically targeting behavior changes, including developing media messages that will help people reduce their carbon footprint and pay more attention to ways they can conserve. They want to work with other organizations and enlist congressional support to help fund the effort.
Wow. So, the APA wants to work with media to brainwash citizens, and it's going to ask Congress to fund their efforts.
Be afraid. Be very afraid. [at a minimum, be aware of agendas]
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Boone Doggle
Boone Pickens may be a fine man, and has played a colorful and useful role on the American stage for decades. But his "energy plan," which he's spending a fortune to promote on cable TV, is not a plan. Asserting that something would be good to do is not "a plan." Saying how to do it is "a plan." By this standard, what the legendary oil man is devoting $58 million to pitch hardly amounts to a decent slogan...[snip]
He would replace natural gas in electricity production with wind, and use the natural gas to power cars. He fails to mention any practical theory of how to get there -- that would really be "a plan." Instead, he relies on the deus ex machina of Congress, waving a legislative wand to make people do things they would choose not to do, given the extravagant and unjustified costs involved...
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CBS News Portrays $7 Gas as Positive
[HT:JK]
Economists from Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) (NYSE:CM) foretasted $7-a-gallon gas prices by 2010, which according to some analysts would force 10 million vehicles off U.S. roads over four years. CIBC based its prediction on $200-per-barrel oil by 2010.
"In fact, by 2012, higher prices could send an additional 10 million vehicles off the road," CBS correspondent Priya David said. Although $7 gas would do the most harm to low-income Americans, David praised the effects it would have in easing congestion.
"It would certainly ease congestion. Having that many cars come off the road would be like permanently parking twice as many cars as there are in the state of New Jersey," David said. "Some look to Europe for solutions to the skyrocketing gas prices."
[Europe's 2/3 scale old cities aren't suited to cars - our society is built around it and has a higher standard of living as a result (fewer of as climb stairs to apartments and we enjoy yards because we commute to the 'burbs' - anytime we want with whatever stuff we want {Carlin would be proud}. Let's look to ourselves for our own 'solutions'.]
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BRITAIN'S HEALTH CARE SYSTEM COSTS PATIENTS AND BUSINESSES BILLIONS
Government-run health care in Great Britain has imposed huge costs on patients and businesses by denying treatments and medications.
According to the National Center for Policy Analysis:
• Great Britain lost a total of $208 billion in the overall economy to illness and treatment.NHS's negative effect on the British economy is causing tension within the government and among British citizens:
• This figure includes $127 billion in potential earnings based on productivity, $81 billion in paid mental health leave and $50 billion in direct costs to friends and family members tasked with caring for the ill.
• An April Gallup poll showed only 7 percent of British citizens were very satisfied with their health care system.Analysts credit the more incentive-based American system for the lower overall cost and higher productivity found in U.S. health care, particularly in comparison to the government-centered British health care apparatus...
• Twenty-five percent of those polled said they were extremely dissatisfied with their care.
• Another 27 percent were somewhat dissatisfied. [that makes over half, i.e. most]
[summary: our way works better, warts and all - let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater by going from however-bad-you-think-it-is to unavoidably-worse just to register some dissatisfaction - you'll pay for it.]
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ABC's Plan for Deficit? Donate to Government
"Good Morning America" correspondent Claire Shipman on Tuesday actually suggested that Americans "pitch in" $2000 to help pay off the deficit or even give up their lattes. Reporting on the news that the U.S. federal deficit is projected to rise to $482 billion in 2009, Shipman seriously proposed:
"Now, we came up with a few GMA solutions to try to put this in perspective. If every American were to pitch in $2,000, we could pay off this year's deficit."
Continuing the absurd "solutions," Shipman elaborated, "Or, if we handed over, each of us, 500 gallons of gasoline we could pay off this year's deficit."
There was one piece of advice left out of the ABC reporter's piece: At no point did she talk about wasteful government spending or the possibility of cutting back on entitlement programs.
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Bringing Back the Union Label?
Barely 12% of today's workers belong to a union ... most union workers today don't work in factories, mines, shipyards, on the railroads or driving trucks - most of them are federal and state civil servants and public school teachers... [snip]
... here comes HR 800, proposed federal legislation carrying the misleading title "Employee Free Choice Act". It was passed by the House in March 2007, but denied by the Senate. The Heritage Foundation has provided a superb summary of the Act and its pernicious effects on both employers and employees...[snip]
... even George McGovern, the aging liberal lion-in-winter writing in the Wall Street Journal, knows the most dangerous consequences from this toxic bill are the assault on free speech and denial of fundamental tenets of a democracy-- and virtually guarantees worker intimidation and, would force an employer to recognize the union with no recourse. [snip]
Certainly before the 2010 midterm Congressional elections, the union ranks would swell by the hundreds of thousands if not millions.
And what would be the consequences in addition to more Democrats easily winning re-election? Higher costs to consumers, companies less globally competitive and more jobs shipped to China. And higher taxes for those who remain to fund more unemployment benefits, free health care, and abstract environmental regulations having little tangible benefit to anyone.
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> "HR 800; Employee Free Choice Act"
Email Your Congressman > https://forms.house.gov/wyr/welcome.shtml
> FLASHBACK: NNBrief 6/13/2008:
LOOK FOR THE UNION LABEL
What do the farm bill, the cap-and-trade global warming bill, the clean water bill, the housing bailout bill and the school construction bill all have in common?
In each one and countless others the Democratic majority in Congress has inserted "prevailing-wage" requirements [via Davis-Bacon requirements] that amount to a super-minimum wage, says the Wall Street Journal.
Barack Obama has proposed a new taxpayer-supported $60 billion infrastructure bank that would siphon billions off to his union friends by mandating Davis-Bacon...
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Court rules S.F. teen illegal needs services
California
SAN FRANCISCO - A San Francisco court set aside a drug-trafficking case Monday against a 14-year-old Honduran immigrant - a ruling that juvenile justice officials fear will undermine Mayor Gavin Newsom's new policy requiring that such offenders be held for possible deportation. Juvenile Court Commissioner Abby Abinanti concluded that the youth, identified only as Francisco G. because of his age, should be treated within the social welfare system...
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Howard Dean Plays Race Card, Media Folds
Howard Dean. in a recent interview, Dean has once again called the GOP a "white party" attempting to make this campaign about race issues instead of candidates and platforms.
This is the sort of cynical, hate-filled garbage that Democrats have universally parlayed as campaign rhetoric since the 1960s. The response by the Old Media to the ease with which Democrats resort to race baiting, though, also shows the impunity that Democrats enjoy on the issue.
That Dean knows he can say such a thing and not feel he'd be taken to task for it proves not only that the Democrats are dividers and not uniters, but that the Old Media can be relied on to give them a complete pass on their divisiveness.
**Video Below the Fold**
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[a little late but I've been meaning to post:]
Don't call it bravery
A year before his lousy heart hustled him into the grave, my old man -- craggy, cranky, emphysemic -- ran the town bully out of a coffee shop in some pissant Ontario burg.
This thug walked up to two suits in their 30s at the counter. The bully was not small. He jabbed his thumb into one businessman's doughnut, scooped out the cream and licked it off. Then he did it to the second. The waitress froze. The suits backed away and walked out. As the old man put it, "They ran away slow."
Then they guy came over to my dad's table. Grinned. Bad teeth. He looked like this was the most fun he'd had all day.
My father -- past 70 and walking around in a failing body that would kill him in less than 12 months -- looked up. He had it worked out. If things went south, his coffee had been poured just moments before, lawsuit hot. Coffee in the guy's eyes, get off the one good punch he figured he still had in him after all these years, and then, wheezing for breath and trying to get a nitroglycerin pill under his tongue, "Hope for the best."
He said to the bully: "Do it and it just might be the last thing you do." The bully's smile went away and he looked at the old man and laughed.
But he left.
Mom was furious. "Risked his life over a doughnut." With the weariness of a man who has been explaining himself without much result to the same woman for more than half a century, the old man said, "It wasn't about the doughnut. It was about me." [snip]
Which brings us to the events that transpired last week on a Greyhound bus in Manitoba. A sleeping man was attacked with a large knife and decapitated. The passengers and driver fled. A passenger and a trucker who'd pulled over -- the heroes of the piece -- armed themselves with a crowbar and a hammer and kept the suspect in the bus.
A psychologist interviewed by Sun Media hit the proverbial nail square and true when he said:
"This isn't like Texas where an old lady can pull out a gun and defend herself."That's right. It isn't like Texas, or most of the U.S., where the right to self-defence is considered a divine gift.
In Canada, whenever some Good Samaritan tackles a fleeing rapist or mugger, the police utter the politically correct, nonsensical boilerplate: "It's important citizens don't take the law into their own hands ... bystanders should be careful not to get injured ... blah, blah, blah."
No wonder the people on that bus fled before one turned back once armed. They did as they were trained to do, they met fully the responsibilities to one another that have been driven into them. And a police officer, in phraseology worthy of Big Brother, said: "They were very brave [?]. They reacted swiftly and calmly in exiting the bus and as a result nobody else was injured."
No one knows if they'd react bravely in such a situation. I'm not willing to sit in judgment on those who fled. But I'm not willing to laud them for bravery, either. But am I wrong in assuming that somehow they quit making people like my old man?
Yes I am: Brave was the guy with the crowbar and the guy with the hammer.
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