A TIME-WARPED SEXIST ASSAULT

[HT:JS]
HOLY hoop skirts: When did the clock tick back to 1958?

When Joe Biden tragically lost his wife and infant daughter in a car wreck in 1972, not a single colleague, friend or competitor advised him to quit his newly won Senate seat to raise his two little surviving sons.

Rather, he was sworn into office from the injured boys' bedside, and took to commuting an hour and a half each way from Delaware to Washington. And when Biden's second wife gave birth to a daughter, no one thought to ask him to step aside and stay home.

They all do it. John Kennedy did it; so did Barack Obama: Men run for office and serve in elected positions while creating small children without ever being patronized as "super dads" or "multi-taskers."

Nor are they penalized, ridiculed or dismissed for ignoring their kids. They're good dads.

If Sarah Palin, tapped as John McCain's running mate, were a man, it's unlikely we'd even be having this conversation. (A man, or a Democrat...)

[good points all - Recommended > ]

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Gingrich Slams MSNBC's Allen Concerning Palin's Qualifications

on the convention floor in St. Paul when MSNBC's Ron Allen said to the former Speaker,

"But to be fair, her resume is not something we're familiar seeing with presidential candidates."

This didn't sit well with Gingrich who strongly replied (video embedded right):

It's stronger than Barack Obama's. I don't know why you guys walk around saying this baloney. She has a stronger resume than Obama. She's been a real mayor, he hasn't. She has been a real governor, he hasn't. She's been in charge of the Alaskan National Guard, he hasn't. She was a whistleblower who defeated an incumbent mayor. He has never once shown that kind of courage. She's a whistleblower who turned in the chairman of her own party and got him fined $12,000. I've never seen Obama do one thing like that. She took on the incumbent governor of her own party and beat him, and then she beat a former Democratic governor in the general election. I don't know of a single thing Obama's done except talk and write.

Newt then challenged Allen:

I'd like you to tell me one thing Sen. Obama's done.

With that, Allen retreated, and said:

Thanks very much, Mr. Speaker. I'm going to leave it there. I'm not going to argue the case. Thanks very much.

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[36 years in the Senate - isn't that 'change' we can believe in]

Germany Indicts ''Home Grown'' Islamists for Terrorist Bomb Plot

German federal prosecutors have indicted three men, two of them Germans who had converted to Islam, for a plot to explode half a ton of explosives at places frequented by US nationals.

(Snip) Police, who had eavesdropped on the plotters' communications and intervened to surreptitiously confiscate the main ingredient in the explosives, arrested the men a year ago.

If the bombing had succeeded, it would have been Germany's bloodiest experience by far...

[G.W.O.T.]

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'Terror cell did surveillance work on El Al crews in Toronto'

The alert level has been raised for Israelis in Canada after it was discovered that a terror cell was following and carrying out surveillance on El Al crews staying in a hotel in Toronto, Channel 2 reported Wednesday.

The cell was arrested and El Al changed the guidelines issued to its employees. The security establishment said that the cell appeared to be planning an attack on the Israelis and said the terrorists apparently belonged to Hizbullah.

[G.W.O.T.]

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Bush calls on Congress to "institutionalize" GWOT

Within the White House proposal for hearing legal appeals from detainees at Guantánamo Bay, is a provision that calls on Congress to "acknowledge again and explicitly that this nation remains engaged in an armed conflict with Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and associated organizations, who have already proclaimed themselves at war with us and who are dedicated to the slaughter of Americans."

Analysts say that together with the new wiretapping law (and pending Status of Forces Agreement with Iraq), the measure represents an effort to "institutionalize" the Global War on Terrorism before Bush leaves office. "This seems like a final push by the administration before they go out the door," said Suzanne Spaulding, a former lawyer for the Central Intelligence Agency and an expert on national security law.

The cumulative effect of the actions, said Spaulding, is to "put the onus on the next administration"—particularly a Barack Obama administration—to justify undoing what Bush has put in place. (NYT, Aug. 30)

See our last post on the politics of the GWOT.

[in this lopsided 'asymmetric' war, it's all about intelligence. With it, we eventually win: purging the world of the vermin that blow up civilians the world over. Without it, we could conceivably lose. Exaggeration? If a nuke or other WMD went off in a major American city, and we were told other such weapons existed in other cities {and why wouldn't they: our borders are uncontrolled}, what would we do? Refuse to capitulate to their demands knowing that doing so would be the death of another city?

Suicide bombers must be interdicted. That requires vast intelligence. Distasteful, and oversight must exist of its use. But the above horrific scenario is, eventually, the alternative. ]

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The >100$-Barrel world...

.
A New World Order

With all his pretense vanished, Vladimir Putin has embraced Russia’s past, seeking to restore its glory days of autocratic imperialism. His role model for restoring Russia to superpower status is none other than Joseph Stalin, a native of Georgia which just experienced the type of Soviet-style invasion that would have made Stalin proud.

Using an old Stalinist tactic, Russia is exploiting local ethnic feuds in neighboring lands on the pretext of protecting minority Russian speaking populations. Putin intends to reverse what he characterized several years ago as “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe” of the 20th century – the dismemberment of the Soviet Union.

However, while Stalin expanded Russia’s power by brute military force and ideology, Putin is using the stranglehold Russia has on key energy resources needed to fuel the economies of Europe and Asia...

[a new order we're financing because of our insane 'energy is bad - we won't be party to its exploitation' policies]

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Putin reminds EU of Russia's Pacific oil pipeline to Asia

MOSCOW -- Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on Sunday that Russia's first oil pipeline to Asia must be completed without delay, underlining Russia's energy clout just hours before European Union leaders meet to discuss Georgia. Russian state-owned news agency RIA said Putin had signed a government order "on speeding the building of phases of the Eastern Siberia -- Pacific Ocean (pipeline) and not allowing delays," while on a visit to the Far East.

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Palin's Importance

Security: The impact of prolonged high oil prices is moving well beyond economics.

Russia now takes license to assault Georgia, and intends worse [as does Iran, and Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela]. John McCain's Alaska running mate has the only weapon. When Alaska governor Sarah Palin was chosen for the McCain vice presidential ticket, most attention was on her beauty-queen past and down-home North Woods family life.

In reality, she's the powerful governor of Alaska, the most pivotal state in the union for energy....

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2008 GOP Platform Eliminates ‘Commitment’ to U.N.

(CNSNews.com) – Both critics and supporters of the United Nations have found applause-worthy features in the Republican Party platform adopted at this week’s convention.

The new document says the U.S. “will pay a fair, but not disproportionate, share of dues” to the U.N., and “will never support a U.N.-imposed tax.”

“The U.N. must reform its scandal-ridden and corrupt management and become more accountable and transparent in its operations and expenses,” it adds. [snip]

Countries’ contributions to the U.N.’s operating costs are calculated from assessments based on their relative “capacity to pay,” taking into account income statistics and other factors. The ceiling is set at 22 percent – the rate the U.S. is expected to contribute. The U.S. also contributes 25 percent of the peacekeeping budget.

The other four permanent members of the Security Council contribute considerably less to the operating costs, with Britain assessed at 6.7, France at 6.2, China at 2.4 and Russia at 0.7 percent. [snip]

John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the U.N., argued during and since his tenure for a shift to a system of “voluntary contributions.”

Such an arrangement, he said in congressional testimony last year, would allow member states

“to judge the effectiveness of the various parts of the U.N. system, and demand results. Non-responsive programs and funds can be defunded, effective agencies and personnel can be rewarded and augmented, and, most importantly, the crippling mentality of ‘entitlement’ that pervades the main U.N. organization will be stripped away.”

In a 2006 poll commissioned by the Hudson Institute, 71 percent of respondents said the U.S. contribution to the U.N. should be cut.

[even better: replace it with the UDN - the UN's become a clearing house for despots]

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NHS's report card not good

Last year, Gordon Brown commissioned Lord Darzi, a surgeon and health minister, to create a plan to 'celebrate' the 60th anniversary of the United Kingdom's National Health Service (NHS). Lord Darzi's final report contained some surprising conclusions, says the Economist.

In exchange for the security of a largely state-funded system, Britons have a state-run monopoly that is unresponsive to patient needs and slow to innovate, says the Economist.

With health care inflation outstripping the ordinary kind and an increasing aversion to higher taxes, Briton's extraordinary low level of private spending on health may have to change.

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MEDICARE IGNORED ITS CLAIMS POLICY, AUDIT SAYS

The report by the Health and Human Services inspector general's office, based on a sampling of claims for durable medical equipment, showed that some 29 percent of claims were made improperly but were paid by Medicare anyway.

Moreover: Medicare officials had estimated that improper payments cost the government health-care program for the elderly and disabled about $700 million in 2006.

However, for Medicare, the problem of paying improper claims is not new. Congressional reports show that Medicare paid nearly $100 million in recent years for claims submitted under the names of dead doctors, adds the Wall Street Journal.

[can you imagine a business allowing 700 large to be overpaid? Of course not - this is government.]

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California's borrowing orgy

Californians' penchant for debt has reached new highs in the absolute tidal wave of borrowing that the state's officeholders and voters have undertaken, some above-board bonds, some for legitimate public purposes, and some to cover deficit spending.

The irony is that until a couple of decades ago, California had an almost pathological aversion to public debt and relied on pay-as-you-go approaches, even for public works projects. The state's once-matchless highway system was financed from fuel taxes, while its world-class system of colleges and universities was largely built with royalties from oil on state-owned tidelands. [snip]

As spending has continued to outstrip revenues, legislators turned to debt [aka: Bonds] to finance them, undercutting the facade of balanced budgets. Some of the debt was formal, such as the $15 billion bond issue Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger pushed through in 2004 to refinance short-term operating debt. Some of it was clandestine, such as robbing the state teachers retirement system, knowing that the money grab would be declared illegal and have to be repaid later... [snip]

Servicing existing formal and informal loans now costs the state general fund more than $5 billion a year – and the beat goes on. California is building a debt mountain. Someday it will collapse. The only question is when.

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Anarchists grab dominance of Twin Cities freeway

Anarchists have set the terms for transportation of delegates and media at the Republican National Convention. The buses carrying the RNC delegates to and from the Xcel Energy Center are being rerouted off of the freeways "for security reasons." This is an affront to the decent and law abiding citizens living and working in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. Allow me to explain.

The reason for the reroute is that far-left anarchists have taken to throwing 40 lb. bags of cement off of the overpasses and onto the presumed Republicans (and their running dog lackeys, the drivers and security guards). Rather than secure the overpasses and inconvenience the anarchists, local authorities have decided to reroute the buses. The result: traffic in the areas surrounding the freeways has become a nightmare.

A source inside the Minnesota State Patrol has informed me that they do not have the manpower to guard all of the overpasses. I learned that police forces from outside the Twin Cities are being called up and placed on "alert." (Word to the authorities: The delegates will be leaving in less than three days.)

Meanwhile, the people of the Twin Cities are living in a traffic quagmire. But the anarchists (who cavort on the steps of the state capitol) are having fun.

[domestic dhimmitude - it will only spawn more bad behavior. When did we give up on law enforcement?]

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And Now a Moment of Realism

Barack Obama during his acceptance speech played a riff on Phil Gramm's impolitic remarks about a "mental recession" and a "nation of whiners." Like a succession of Democrats at the podium, he painted the economy in the darkest, most hopeless of colors -- never mind that the economy is actually growing and unemployment is still lower than it was during much of the Clinton presidency.

But here's the bad news for the dour Democrats -- most Americans don't share their economic pessimism.

That's the finding of public opinion expert Karlyn Bowman of the American Enterprise Institute.

"Most Americans are feeling pretty good about their jobs and their personal lives,"

she says after investigating the fine details of recent polls. Her report goes right to Mr. Gramm's concern about the gap between actual economic performance and the dreary negativity of politicians and the media.

She finds that 76% of Americans say they are actually optimistic about the direction of their own lives and their personal economic situations -- even though only 18% are optimistic about the country. That's the big disconnect. "These numbers haven't changed much over time," Ms. Bowman tells me.

I asked Ms. Bowman what accounts for the gap between people's attitudes about their own lives and the economy in general. Her answer is no big surprise: "The relentless negativity of the media."

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Modern times come to Kandahar

In the jumble of Kandahar city's bazaar kiosks and open-front stalls, it is now just as easy to find pornographic videos as Osama bin Laden's call-to-jihad tapes. Supply-and-demand does that. Rooftops of mud-brick buildings are barnacled with satellite dishes,

(Snip) First thing the Taliban did when they came to power in Kandahar was toss TV sets out the window or lynch them, symbolically, from mulberry trees.

[even homicidal lunatics can get some things right...]

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