Hold Hands & Jump

8 There was a certain man without a dependent, having neither a son nor a brother, yet there was no end to all his labor. Indeed, (A) his eyes were not satisfied with riches and he never asked, "And (B) for whom am I laboring and depriving myself of pleasure?" This too is vanity and it is a (C) grievous task.

9 Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor.

10 For if either of them falls, the one will lift up his companion. But woe to the one who falls when there is not another to lift him up.

11 Furthermore, if two lie down together they keep warm, but (D) how can one be warm alone?

12 And if one can overpower him who is alone, two can resist him. A cord of three strands is not quickly torn apart.

-Ecclesiastes 4:8-12

Persian Provocations

The Islamic Republic of Iran declared war upon the United States of America in 1978 when jihadi "students," led in part by their current "president," Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, invaded the American embassy in Tehran and took hostage over sixty U.S. nationals, holding fifty-three of them for over a year. From that moment, through the proxy attacks on the U.S. Marine barracks in Lebanon in 1983, to the hostage takings there in the mid-eighties, to this very day they have been at war with us. And the warning signs of drastic, even catastrophic, escalation of that conflict are proliferating exponentially.

Here is a sample from just the past couple of months.

APRIL 11:

Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad threw a party in Teheran today, complete with tribal dancers, musicians, and party streamers to announce that Iranian researchers had succeeded in enriching uranium - the first step towards nuclear energy and nuclear weapons...The Iranians announced their defiance of the UN Security Council, which demanded a halt to all enrichment activities within thirty days of the delivery of the resolution to Iranian diplomats at Turtle Bay. Two weeks later, Ahmadinejad televised his triumphal announcement, thumbing his nose at the UN and at the EU-3, the trio of nations that insisted it could negotiate an end to Iran's nuclear program.

Experts tried to soothe Western worries about a nuclear-armed mullahcracy, assuring reporters that the 164-centrifuge cascade used by the Iranians was insufficient to develop weapons-grade fissile material. In answer to that, Iran's Atomic Energy Organization chief Gholamreza Aghazadeh announced that the nation would roll out a 3,000-centrifuge system within the next year. In a system that large, it would take about a year to develop enough material to make a weapon, meaning that we can expect Iran to go nuclear in the spring of 2008 - assuming that Ahmadinejad is telling the truth now. [emphasis added]

APRIL 14:

The president of Iran again lashed out at Israel on Friday and said it was "heading toward annihilation," just days after Tehran raised fears about its nuclear activities by saying it successfully enriched uranium for the first time.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called Israel a "permanent threat" to the Middle East that will "soon" be liberated.....

"Like it or not, the Zionist regime is heading toward annihilation," Ahmadinejad said at the opening of a conference in support of the Palestinians. "The Zionist regime is a rotten, dried tree that will be eliminated by one storm."

APRIL 17:

Of all the claims that Iran made last week about its nuclear program, a one-sentence assertion by its president has provoked such surprise and concern among international nuclear inspectors they are planning to confront Tehran about it this week.

The assertion involves Iran's claim that even while it begins to enrich small amounts of uranium, it is pursuing a far more sophisticated way of making atomic fuel that American officials and inspectors say could speed Iran's path to developing a nuclear weapon.

Iran has consistently maintained that it abandoned work on this advanced technology, called the P-2 centrifuge, three years ago. Western analysts long suspected that Iran had a second, secret program — based on the black market offerings of the renegade Pakistani nuclear engineer Abdul Qadeer Khan — separate from the activity at its main nuclear facility at Natanz. But they had no proof.

Then on Thursday, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that Tehran was "presently conducting research" on the P-2 centrifuge, boasting that it would quadruple Iran's enrichment powers. The centrifuges are tall, thin machines that spin very fast to enrich, or concentrate, uranium's rare component, uranium 235, which can fuel nuclear reactors or atom bombs. ...

"This is a much better machine," a European diplomat said of the advanced centrifuge, which was a centerpiece of Pakistan's efforts to build its nuclear weapons and was found in 2004 in Libya, when that country gave up its nuclear program. The diplomat added that the Iranians, among other questions, will now have to explain whether Mr. Ahmadinejad was right, and if so, whether they recently restarted the abandoned program or have been pursuing it in secret for years.

If Iran moved beyond research and actually began running the machines, it could force American intelligence agencies to revise [drastically downward] their estimates of how long it would take for Iran to build an atom bomb — an event they now put somewhere between 2010 and 2015.

APRIL 20:

The Basiji's cult of self-destruction would be chilling in any country. In the context of the Iranian nuclear program, however, its obsession with martyrdom amounts to a lit fuse. Nowadays, Basiji are sent not into the desert, but rather into the laboratory. Basij students are encouraged to enroll in technical and scientific disciplines. According to a spokesperson for the Revolutionary Guard, the aim is to use the "technical factor" in order to augment "national security."

What exactly does that mean? Consider that, in December 2001, former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani explained that "the use of even one nuclear bomb inside Israel will destroy everything." On the other hand, if Israel responded with its own nuclear weapons, it "will only harm the Islamic world. It is not irrational to contemplate such an eventuality." Rafsanjani thus spelled out a macabre cost-benefit analysis. It might not be possible to destroy Israel without suffering retaliation. But, for Islam, the level of damage Israel could inflict is bearable - only 100,000 or so additional martyrs for Islam.

And Rafsanjani is a member of the moderate, pragmatic wing of the Iranian Revolution; he believes that any conflict ought to have a "worthwhile" outcome. Ahmadinejad, by contrast, is predisposed toward apocalyptic thinking. [emphasis added]

APRIL 27:

Iran has received its first batch of North Korean-made surface-to-surface missiles that put European countries within firing range, Israel's military intelligence chief said in an interview published Thursday.

The BM-25 missiles have a range of 1,550 miles and are capable of carrying nuclear warheads, the Haaretz daily reported.

APRIL 30:

Iran sent troops across the Iraqi border three miles towards Haj Oman nine days ago, where Kurdish opposition bases itself for its efforts to unseat the mullahcracy
in Teheran.

MAY 1:

A multi-charged roadside bomb, developed by Hizbollah in Lebanon, is being used against British and American soldiers by Iraqi insurgents linked to Iran, according to military intelligence sources....

[L]et’s be clear: There is much American blood on Tehran’s hands, in Iraq and elsewhere. The public debate over what to do about Iran should start with that fact.

MAY 2:

Iran has discovered new deposits of uranium and was continuing its nuclear enrichment program despite international protests, a top Iranian nuclear official said Tuesday.

MAY 7:

Jerusalem Post editor David Horovitz conducts an interesting interview with "a longtime Iranian-born opposition activist who, among other efforts, is a member of the National Union for Democracy in Iran, a three-year-old, US-based opposition group..."

How worried should the West be by the nuclear drive and horrible rhetoric?

Extremely worried. They should not be sleeping at night. If they are sleeping at night they are fools. They should take Ahmadinejad at face value. This is no rhetoric for political consumption, or domestic consumption, or international consumption. He means what he says and says what he means. And when I say "he" I mean "they" - the regime.

If they had a nuclear capability would they use it?

I would say so, yes.

Unprovoked?

They would make good use of it, in their aim to defeat the West.

MAY 12:

The IAEA announced preliminary results of tests made on residue found at an Iranian military site that indicates Iran [already] has weapons-grade enriched uranium (also here), not just the low-level enrichment they announced earlier. The report undermines the explanation given earlier by Iran when similar residue was found at a "civilian" facility.

MAY 15:

Iran arming al Qaeda in Iraq via Hezbollah? That's what a report in the Iraqi newspaper Azzaman says. [Aren't we at war with al Qaeda?]

MAY 29:

In addition to uranium enrichment, Iran is also on the route toward producing weapons-grade plutonium. This brief (.pdf) from the Institute for Science and International Security shows, with satellite imagery, that construction is continuing steadily on a heavy water reactor in Arak. If it stays on schedule, this reactor could be fully operational by 2009.

MAY 30:

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made it clear that he sees European opposition to his nuclear program a threat, and returned one in kind. Speaking to the German magazine Der Spiegel, the Iranian president warned Europe that they will "suffer
the consequences" if they d[o] not capitulate.

Infuriated? Alarmed? You should be. And this is just the prelude to what's coming between now and the fall. Gives a sinister twist to the expression "long, hot summer."

Haditha Hertz

Mary Katherine Ham has a nice roundup on the alleged "Haditha Massacre," including an article that provides some more desperately needed context as to what was going on in that western Iraqi town last year. I was especially struck by the profundity of this observation:

O.J. Simpson, arguably the most guilty innocent man in recent history, was treated with more respect during his circus of a trial than these Marines are being given now. They are men in uniform, men who have sacrificed more than most ever will in the name of the United States. They deserve our respect until such time as a verdict is reached which calls that respect into question.

'Tis hard to top that peroration. But then justice isn't the objective of "Haw-Haw" Murtha and his fellow-travelers, but rather defamation, defeat, and national suicide.

"Disgusting" doesn't begin to describe it.

UPDATE: Haditha does have one thing in common with Abu Ghraib - the military began a full investigation of the incident the instant it came to light, the diametric opposite of the "coverup" of the neoBolsheviks' tiresome innuendo.

You know the old saying: insanity is trying the same thing over and over and over and expecting a different result. Maybe someday the Democrats will start to figure that out, but it sure as hell won't be today.

UPDATE 6/1: Jed Babbin does his usual sobering job of summing up the stakes of Haditha:

No matter how quickly military investigators work, and no matter how firmly any crimes are punished, the anti-war left won't be satisfied unless Haditha becomes the lever that pushes President Bush to admit the war was wrong and set a time to withdraw from Iraq. My Lai - the March 16, 1968 massacre of about five hundred Vietnamese by US soldiers - was first covered up and then exploded in headlines, courts-martial and congressional hearings. (Maureen Dowd, one of the New York Times' hyperliberal columnists, has already labeled Haditha a "My Lai acid flashback.") Screamed about by protesters, shown endlessly on television news, My Lai and the court-martial of one of the perpetrators, Lieutenant William Calley, provided the final political nail in the coffin of American involvement in Vietnam. We withdrew from Vietnam in 1975, abandoning our allies and hanging our heads in shame. This is the political result the left wants from Haditha, and we cannot allow it to happen for one very big reason. The Vietnam War ended in Vietnam, leaving America incapable of taking action in defense of itself or its allies for decades. The end of the war against the terrorist nations won't occur in Iraq, and we must be prepared - psychologically and politically - to continue the fight. When we lost Vietnam the enemy didn't follow us home. Radical Islamists will. If they win, we will literally lose America. [emphases added]

Let the fifth-columnists scream - we'll shout 'em down. After all, there are few things more liberating than being "damned if you do and damned if you don't."

Bring it on, jihadi-symps, bring it on.

Kool-Aid To The Rescue?

Sorry, the imagery I wanted really didn't include a big, red talking juice pitcher (Was he in X-Men III? I must have missed that snippet...), but the riding-in-at-the-last-minute-to-save-the-day theme wasn't all that well-served by invoking the "cavalry" metaphor either, especially as they're going to be busy sharpening pencils and fetching coffee for the Mexican overseers of the U.S. Border Patrol anyway.

The gist of this post is that there may now actually be emerging from this "comprehensive" illegal immigration quagmire a way out for the Republican Party. One that was foreshadowed by Tony Blankley in the Washington Times a couple of weeks ago:

If — and it is a big if — all of that [securing the border and imposing sanctions upon employers who hire illegals] can be gained by congressional negotiations over the next two months, the question remains whether the anti-illegal immigrant and resident movement should accept some undesirable guest-worker or path-to-citizenship provisions — if that is the price we have to pay for getting a secure border.

This is where the sanity matter comes into play. Especially regarding the guest-worker provision, if we pass no legislation this year we will continue to have a de facto guest-worker program with millions of new arrivals every year and no secure border. Moreover, it is inconceivable that the November election will elect a Congress more amenable to our cause. The next Congress will have, if anything, more Democrats. Disgruntled conservatives will have no way of strengthening the anti-illegal immigrant vote: Their choice will be a soft Republican, a bad Democrat or abstention (which in effect is the same as a bad Democrat). It would seem to me that we lose nothing by trading an otherwise inevitable de facto guest worker condition for a genuinely secure border and employer sanction regimen.

On the other hand, the path to citizenship is not inevitable and should be fiercely resisted. Granting sacred citizenship to scofflaws is reprehensible, and if we pass nothing, at least we won't pass such a citizenship provision.

Well, lo and behold, reality seems to have bitten in the belfries of the GOP collective consciousness:

Republican House members facing the toughest races this fall are overwhelmingly opposed to any deal that provides illegal immigrants a path to citizenship — an election-year dynamic that significantly dims the prospects that President Bush will win the immigration compromise he is seeking, according to Republican lawmakers and leadership aides.

The opposition spreads across the geographical and ideological boundaries that often divide House Republicans, according to interviews with about half of the forty or so lawmakers whom political handicappers consider most vulnerable to defeat this November. At-risk Republicans — from moderates such as Christopher Shays in suburban Connecticut and Steve Chabot in Cincinnati to conservative J.D. Hayworth in Arizona — said they are adamant that Congress not take any action that might be perceived as rewarding illegal behavior. ...

... House Republicans appear inalterably opposed to any bill that paves the way for citizenship. They plan to name representatives to the House-Senate conference committee who share this view. They will fight for the security-only approach and are prepared to walk away from the conference if they don't get their way, according to GOP leadership aides. ...

The House is not going to roll over as lapdog for the Senate and White House. There will be no "comprehensive" immigration bill. Period.

So if the latter two want any smidgen of their border erasure scheme to survive and actually make it into law, they're going to have to follow the blithe advice condescended upon their House counterparts: compromise. And Congressman Mike Pence, no squish he, has proposed one - basically verifiable enforcement first, then a "guest worker" concept that requires prerequisite deportation - that is the best they're going to get and will turn the Democrats' policy jiu jitsu against them once again by either voting "yea" or being forced to embrace the very same politically untenable position that the President and Senate Republicans stupidly brought upon the GOP.

That there is a way out of the morass for the Stupid Party is miraculous in and of itself. Their taking it would be playing with pure, er, "House" money.

Bloated Blather

The Bloated One is at it again, on foreign soil, of course:

Al Gore has made his sharpest attack yet on the George Bush presidency, describing the current US administration as "a renegade band of right-wing extremists".

In an interview with the Guardian today, the former vice-president calls himself a "recovering politician", but launches into the political fray more explicitly than he has previously done during his high-profile campaigning on the threat of global warming.

Denying that his politics have shifted to the left since he lost the court battle for the 2000 election, Mr. Gore says: "If you have a renegade band of right-wing extremists who get hold of power, the whole thing goes to the right."

What is it about the Democrats that makes them think it's wise to trash their President and their government in other countries? What possible good do they think that does? Sure, it makes them loved by their fellow America-hating left-wing kooks, but most Americans do not fit that description.

Personally, I think another Al Gore candidacy would be a great thing for the Republicans.

JASmius adds: Sorry to intrude again, but Double-H plucked another Fat Albert quote that neatly sets off the above slur:

"This [i.e. global warming] could literally end civilisation." He smiles. "I know it sounds alarmist, as if this is hyperbole, like a man with a white beard holding a placard, saying the end of the world is near . . . but this really is a planetary emergency."

He smiled? At what? The prospect of "the end of civilization" (which the implementation of his evil scheme would certainly accomplish) or the fact that he knows damn well what a ridiculous hoax he's trying to perpetrate upon the body politic and let his mask of fleshy solemnity slip for a moment?

And he purports to speak of "extremism." Brings a smile to your face, doesn't it?

Beyond Amazing

1 The (A) heavens are telling of the glory of God; and their (B) expanse is declaring the work of His hands.

2 Day to (C) day pours forth speech, and (D) night to night reveals knowledge.

3 There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard.

4 Their [a](E) line has gone out through all Earth, and their utterances to the end of the world. In them He has (F) placed a tent for the sun, 5 which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber; it rejoices as a strong man to run his course.

6 Its (G) rising is from one end of the heavens, and its circuit to the other end of them; and there is nothing hidden from its heat.

-Psalm 19

No Snow Job

And so another Treasury Secretary exits, probably to "stage left." Anybody want to set up a betting pool as to how long it'll be before John Snow publishes his Bush-bashing, tell-all memoir?

Of Hank Paulson I knew, before now, not the slightest thing. A waggish corner of my mind was hoping it was Pat Paulsen, even if he has been dead for nearly a decade, as the Bush Administration sells its economic successes with so little enthusiasm that actually having a pulse has never seemed all that necessary to the job.

But there may be some PR hope to this selection after all, according to Rich Lowry:

This is what I'm picking up from a few conversations:

It is significant that the White House managed to get someone of stature, since the conventional wisdom had become that no one serious would take the job [i.e. Pat Paulsen wouldn't return their calls].

Paulson is not a Bush insider like Don Evans (who had been rumored to be the pick) and has a sterling reputation on Wall Street. What he says will carry real weight with the markets.

The speculation is that Paulson must have said no repeatedly, but Josh Bolten finally succeeded in twisting his arm [Dubya better be kissing Bolten's ass daily]. Some people guess that Paulson taking the job might mean that the position will have more heft than it has had to this point in the Bush Administration and also that there may be some significant policy proposals coming eventually. He has a reputation as a very smart guy and has been a defender of the Bush tax cuts. He should pretty quickly give Bush added credibility on the economy.

In other words, Bush will have an articulate, clout-wielding economic spokesman who actually believes in his economic policies (which Paul O'Neill didn't) and is willing and able to sell them (which John Snow wasn't). And maybe, just maybe, the five-year Bush Boom that Dubya's infuriating neglect has allowed to roar in an utter public relations vacuum, such that many Americans think we're in a permanent recession, will start getting its due props - along with its suicidally modest architect.

UPDATE 5/31: Well, that was a short honeymoon....

This -n- That

Well, looks like Jim has covered just about everything! My dad's still in the hospital, and my daughter had an Irish dance competition in Cleveland this weekend...therefore my work has backed up a little and I've been busier than (pick your favorite cliche and enter here).

As we were driving the 4 hours to Cleveland, Ohio, I noticed several cars still with Kerry/Edwards stickers on them. Why? Why would you continue to advertise that you were on the losing side? Heck, I took my Bush/Cheney sticker off (and replaced it with "The Map" with "America the Beautiful" underneath it) as soon as the Left stopped trying to steal Ohio. It just amazes me that people would still want to be identified with Kerry, but I guess if you were deluded enough to vote for him, you're deluded enough to still have faith in him. Hard to imagine, though.

I heartily agree with Jim regarding John Murtha. Semper Fi, indeed.

Well, my pot pie is about done and my work ain't doin' itself.

While I Was Away

In a manner of speaking - I didn't go anywhere over the Memorial Day weekend, but I tried (and made some progress at) catching up on blogging. That, however, made keeping up with current headlines problematic (a euphemism for "bloody impossible").

It appears I didn't miss very much, but there were some nuggets of interest.

***We're not doing anything to change the regimes in Pyongyang and Tehran, but the U.S. is building SDI-like anti-ICBM shields on the West Coast and in Central Europe to guard against Iranian and/or North Korean nuclear attack. Rather like seeing a big spider on your front step and going inside, closing and locking the door behind you, instead of just stepping on the damn thing.

***Al Gore is trying to lure evangelicals into his Chicken Little flick using religious rhetoric and imagery, which is altogether appropriate since environmental extremism is far more of a religion than Christianity could ever be.

***Of course, when those who live in glass houses seek publicity, the stones they throw get a lot of attention. Like Fat Albert's toxic waste dump. I guess some "polluters" are dirtier than others.

***The Senate passed Bushigration, and shadow-POTUS Vincente Fox wasted no time in tauntingly celebrating. You could almost wonder whether he is secretly on James Sensenbrenner's payroll.

***The Extreme Media's "Haditha Massacre" meme is slowly and steadily falling apart under a fusillade of facts (aka the side of the story the EM refuses to tell). I especially enjoyed Duncan Hunter and Senator John Warner all but publicly declaring that Jack Murtha is full of shit. I'd say we're getting quite an education about the American Fifth Column-for-hire, except that anybody who doesn't know this stuff by now is either autistic or one of them.

***Everybody in the Democrat Party is afraid of Hillary Clinton except three of the four losers on the last two Donk national tickets. This isn't news, but it is interesting actually seeing it mentioned in the press. On the other hand, New York Times columnist Frank Rich is cheerleading for Fat Albert anyway, for reasons that, well, "frankly" escape me. Isn't there anybody in that party who can "move on" and turn the page to a fresh face, like ex-Virginia governor Mark Warner, who could actually stand a chance of winning honestly and without Mafia help in 2008?

***The Bush Administration is invoking Executive Privilege on national security grounds against a number of seditious lawsuits designed to completely expose all state secrets (whatever ones still remain) regarding the NSA terrorist surveillance program. That'll doubtless stimulate a bunch more Nixon parallels, but it's not like they have much choice - nor any doubt as to on whose side of the GWOT the American Soviet Socialist Union and the Center for Terrorist Rights truly are.

***Looks like Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist isn't ready to follow his House counterparts over the public relations cliff on the Jefferson Raid. On the other hand, he's retiring after this year anyway, so he can afford to let the scales of Beltway myopia fall from his eyes a little early.

It also looks like Speaker Hastert and his boys have backed away from the brink - but it took Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and FBI Director Robert Mueller threating to quit in protest if the White House capitulated to congressional demands for a de facto legislative oligarchy to force it.

As to taking the focus off the gift-wrapped PR bonanza of a Donk Congressman offered up on a corruption platter, all I can say is thank God for Harry Reid.

***Ali Dickbar al-Durbini is demanding that the House leave untouched a Bushigration provision "slipped into the bill at the last minute" by Senator Chris Dodd giving Mexico a veto over the building of any new border fencing. Which is really, really stupid because it only focuses public scrutiny on something that is a poison pill if ever there was one. Unless, of course, the Donks' idea is that the death of this Mexifying turkey will be more politically damaging to the GOP than its intact passage. Which would just show that the political acumen inside the psychodelic bubble is as tone-deaf as it ever was.

***Well, here is an "About Damn Time" development to celebrate:

President Bush, marking Memorial Day with a speech paying tribute to fighting men and women lost in war, signed into law Monday a bill (the Respect For America's Fallen Heroes Act) that keeps demonstrators from disrupting military funerals....The new law bars protests within 300 feet of the entrance of a national cemetery and within 150 feet of a road into the cemetery. This restriction applies an hour before until an hour after a funeral. Those violating the act would face up to a $100,000 fine and up to a year in prison.

I love seeing the ACLU take it up the ass for a change, don't you?

***Speaking of knee-slappers, I just love this next tidbit:

Despite media coverage purporting to show that escalating violence in Iraq has the country spiraling out of control, civilian death statistics complied by Representative Steve King, R-IA, indicate that Iraq actually has a lower civilian violent death rate than Washington, D.C.

Appearing with Westwood One radio host Monica Crowley on Saturday, King said that the incessantly negative coverage of the Iraq war prompted him to research the actual death numbers.

"I began to ask myself the question, if you were a civilian in Iraq, how could you tolerate that level of violence," he said. "What really is the level of violence?"

A question that the Extreme Media should have asked from day one instead of aping al-Jazeera.

The Iraqi civilian death rate, BTW, is 27.1 per hundred thousand - lower than such American cities as Washington, D.C., Detroit, Baltimore, Atlanta, St. Louis, and (pre-Katrina) New Orleans. And they're all run by....Democrats. The same numbnuts who can't wait to abandon Iraq to Zarqawi and Ahmadinejad.

Gee, wonder what THAT would do to the Iraqi civilian death rate?

UPDATE 5/31: Brother Hinderaker has another intriguing factoid:

A total of 2,471 servicemembers have died in Iraq from 2003 to the present,
a period of a little over three years. That total is almost exactly one third of the number of military personnel who died on active duty from 1980 to 1982, a comparable time period when no wars were being fought. Until very recently, our armed forces lost servicemen at a greater rate than we have experienced in Iraq, due solely to accidental death.

Do you recall that during the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s there was any suggestion, from anyone, that our military policies were somehow disastrous due to fatalities among our servicemen - fatalities that nearly always exceeded those we are now experiencing in Iraq? No, neither do I.

To modify a famous rap tune, "It's all about the politics, baby..."

***Speaking of neoAdolph, the mullahs' frontman urged Germans to let go of their shame over the Holocaust and instead embrace it as a historic accomplishment. Well, okay, he told them not to sweat it since "it never happened." But six of one, half a dozen of the other.

***X-Men III: The Last Stand demolished all its competition, most especially the heretical piece of blasphemous garbage The Da Vinci Code, over the weekend. So naturally when I went to see the former yesterday at the local decaplex, there was one screen devoted to X-Men III and three showing Da Vinci.

I guess we know where Regal Cinemas stands.

A Blessed Memorial

6 (A) Now when Jesus was in (B) Bethany, at the home of Simon the leper, 7 (C) a woman came to Him with an alabaster vial of very costly perfume, and she poured it on His head as He reclined at the table.

8 But the disciples were indignant when they saw this, and said, "Why this waste? 9 For this perfume might have been sold for a high price and the money given to the poor."

10 But Jesus, aware of this, said to them, "Why do you bother the woman? For she has done a good deed to Me. 11 "For you always have (D) the poor with you; but you do not always have Me. 12 "For when she poured this perfume on My body, she did it (E) to prepare Me for burial. 13"Truly I say to you, (F) wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be spoken of in memory of her."

-Matthew 26:6-13

Putting The "D" In "DisLoyal"

The American Soviet Socialist Union is shot through with hypocrisy, the Democrat Party's racists and anti-Semites are coming (back) out of the closet, and Harry Reid, the one-time "conservative Democrat" from Nevada, has come to personify the functional lobotomization of contemporary liberalism.

But it is still militant pacifism - or, some dare call it, treason - that most defines today's DisLoyal Opposition.

According to the Boston Globe (via TKS), only half of Democrats surveyed in a left-wing poll consider winning the GWOT to be a "top priority," versus 62% who think "stopping the spread of AIDS" belongs in that spot. Only five out of every eight Donks believe American troops should defend our embassies overseas against terrorist attacks (Remember that embassies are sovereign territory no different from contiguous American soil).

This poll was taken seventeen months ago. Given the hysterical sedition that was the Dem reaction to the leak of the NSA terrorist surveillance program, it's a pretty safe bet that those numbers haven't risen since then, and have probably plunged instead.

J-Ger cites another, more recent survey with dismayingly but predictably similar results. To wit: 41% of Democrats think Operation Enduring Freedom, the post-9/11 invasion of Afghanistan to crush al Qaeda's then-base of operations and its Taliban hosts, was a "mistake," and almost 43% of the out-of-power party would oppose the use of military force against any "terrorist camp" anywhere. Guess this blows up the whole "Iraq is a distraction from the war on terror" meme.

Geraghty sagely asks, "If their base voters have views like this, how hawkish can elected Democrats be?" The answer, of course, is, "As much as necessary to con enough voters into electing them," provided they have enough candidates with Clintonoid dissembling capabilities. Have no illusions about the Donk base going along, either - if they heaved Dr. Demented overboard in favor of Mr. French the last time on the avowed grounds of "electability," they won't fail to support a faux hawk that actually can flip another "red" state or two.

If Mrs. Clinton wondered why her ears were burning just now, now she knows.

Red Skelton Knew Patriotism

Click here for the proof.

[H/T: Uncle]

Licenses To Kill

Christophobes are still rabidly determined to persecute the brethren (i.e. figurative murder, or character assassination, laying the groundwork for the real thing); their twisted and debased attempts at social engineering are well on the way to depopulating the human "species"; but at least the death cult's pogrom against embryos has evinced a short public relations shelf life - and at the hands of gen-u-ine science, no less.

As solaces go, that isn't too bad at all. Hopefully it'll double as a harbinger as well.

The Angel Of Music

10 Finally, (A) be strong in the LORD and in (B) the strength of His might.

11 (C) Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the (D) schemes of the devil.

12 For our (E) struggle is not against (F) flesh and blood, but (G) against the rulers, against the powers, against the (H) world forces of this (I) darkness, against the (J) spiritual forces of wickedness in (K) the heavenly places.

13 Therefore, take up (L) the full armor of God, so that you will be able to (M) resist in (N) the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm.

14 Stand firm therefore, (O) having girded your loins with truth, and having (P) put on the breastplate of righteousness, 15 and having (Q) shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; 16 in addition to all, taking up the (R) shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the (S) flaming arrows of (T) the evil one.

17 And take (U) the helmet of salvation, and the (V) sword of the Spirit, which is (W) the Word of God.

18 With all (X) prayer and petition (Y) pray at all times (Z) in the Spirit, and with this in view, (AA) be on the alert with all (AB) perseverance and (AC) petition for all the saints....

-Ephesians 6:10-18

Twisting In The Wind

If anybody had any doubts about whether or not the President's "comprehensive" immigration plan was a really, really bad idea, Jimmy Carter has removed them.

~ ~ ~

Is Plamegate Special Persecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, long ago left holding the bag on investigation of a "scandal" that never was, going for broke?

~ ~ ~

One thing out of the White House of late that I do have to like is how they put right-wing fussbudget Richard Vigeurie in his place:

Writing in the Washington Post on May 21, Viguerie – a consultant and direct-mail specialist who helped elect Ronald Reagan in 1980 – said: "Sixty-five months into Bush’s presidency, conservatives feel betrayed.

"After the ‘Bridge to Nowhere’ transportation bill, the Harriet Miers Supreme Court nomination and the Dubai Ports World deal, the immigration crisis was the tipping point for us.”

Viguerie also cited the No Child Left Behind Act, the Medicare prescription drug benefit, Bush’s signing of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance overhaul and "the greatest increase in spending since Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society” as betrayals of conservative principles.

"The main cause of conservatives’ anger with Bush is this: He talked like a conservative to win our votes but never governed like a conservative,” writes Viguerie, author of the forthcoming book Conservatives Betrayed: How Big
Government Republicans Hijacked the Conservative Cause.

Valid criticisms all, as any reader of this space knows all too well - except that last one. Viguerie has either a truncated memory or a faulty one, because the fact of the matter is that in the 2000 campaign, George W. Bush never "talked like a conservative." Remember "compassionate conservatism"? That was his campaign them back then, and it included No Child Left Behind as well as the prescription drug boondoggle. The third crown jewel was tax cuts, which was necessary to separate himself in conservative perceptions from his tax-raising father. And, tellingly, he kept his promises on all three. Ditto immigration policy, for that matter. So if Viguerie feels betrayed now, it's because he wasn't paying close enough attention sixty-five months ago.

George W. Bush is what he was then and remains today: a "big government conservative." He's never pretended to be anything else. It is, I think, part of Bill Clinton's legacy that so many people perceive his successor to be the one zig-zagging all over the policy landscape when in fact it is Dubya who stands, rooted, while his enemies (and erstwhile friends) buzz and flit all around him. And we must also be honest with ourselves about why we all fell in line behind him in 2000: We wanted the White House back after the long Clinton detour, and GDub was our best shot at doing so. It's easy to kick him while he's down now, the victim of one self-inflicted wound after another; that's the sort of self-serving indulgence that only electoral success provides.

That was the gist of the White House response, which fairly qualifies as devastating:

In an apparent attempt to deflect Viguerie’s criticism by pointing out his dissatisfaction with an unmistakably conservative president, Ronald Reagan, Peter H. Wehner – Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of Strategic Initiatives – sent an e-mail message to an unknown number of persons.

The message consisted of a series of quotes from Viguerie in the 1980s, including:

"Just like Jimmy Carter gave conservatives the back of the hand, we see the same thing happening in the Reagan Administration.” (January 1981)

Reagan "has changed sides and he is now allied with his former adversaries, the liberals, the Democrats and the Soviets.” (December 1987)

"The White House has slapped us in the face.” (July 1981)

"Eight years after Reagan’s nomination for president, the conservative movement is directionless.” (August 1988)

Is any of that directly responsive to Viguerie's anti-Bush screed? No, it isn't. But, in his case, it doesn't have to be, because what they put out shows him to be far more ideological than realistic, the sort of conservative that will always keep his own movement out of power through his stubborn, rigid rejection of even the minimally prudent level of pragmatism necessary to win elections and gain the power to get any of the conservative agenda enacted. Which, in the areas of tax policy, tort reform, and the federal judiciary, just to cite three examples, it has been.

The anti-Reagan quotes also bely Viguerie's assertion that "The remaining task for conservatives is to nominate and elect a president who will govern as a conservative.” He'll never do better at that than Ronald Reagan, and if he was pissing in the Gipper's face almost before he was inaugurated, then clearly no GOP president has any reason to listen to him in the future, including the current one. And that, in turn, reduces conservative credibility and clout within the Republican Party itself. Which is why it is imperative for conservatives, ultimately, to recognize that the perfect must not, even now, be seen as the enemy of the good. Or, as Pat Buchanan (ironically) once wrote, "With Republicans, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak; with Democrats, there is no spirit."

Let us also be realistic about the elephant in the birdcage I haven't mentioned: apart from 9/11, Bush the son is most likely a one-termer just like his dad. It was his strong response to the terrorist attacks, the blood-rushing, pulse-pounding, fist-pumping courage and leadership and foreign policy audacity in such stark contrast to the weak, feckless perfidy of his porcine predecessor that built up a reservoir of conservative good will that lasted as long as it did. That's why I say that for the President, the fumes of 9/11 have run out, and a new mission awaits him that he can no longer duck: the liberation of Iran, and with it final victory in the GWOT.

Quin Hillyer has some additional ideas, but this is the one that truly matters, on which George W. Bush's ultimate legacy will stand or fall.

And Dick Viguerie will have nothing to say about that, either.

VBC Missionaries Of The Week: Frank & Barbara Emrick

The Emricks serve with InterAct Ministries. They moved to Palmer, Alaska, in the fall of 2005 to serve the LORD's purpose of equipping the saints to serve in the North Pacific Crescent. They formerly served as church-planters in the Republic of Sakha, an area of Eastern Russia, reaching the North Pacific Crescent. They have three children: Rachel, Brankie, and Hanna.

Earthworms & Fruit

14 "Listen to this, O Job, stand and consider the wonders of God.

15 "Do you know how God establishes them, and makes the lightning of His cloud to shine?

16 "Do you know about the layers of the thick clouds, the (A) wonders of one (B) perfect in knowledge, 17 you whose garments are hot, when the land is still because of the south wind?

18 "Can you, with Him, (C) spread out the skies, strong as a molten mirror?

19 "Teach us what we shall say to Him; we (D) cannot arrange our case because of darkness.

-Job 37:14-19

The Fools On The Hill

Remember Able Danger? Remember how the Pentagon ordered its witnesses to clam up in their congressional testimony and had thousands of pages of documents detailing the program, including the penetration of the 9/11 plot and fingering of Mohammed Atta and several other al Qaeda ringleaders as much as a year before the attacks, destroyed?

Or so they claimed:

In two possibly related developments in the past week, the Pentagon denied access to almost 10,000 pages of classified documents relating to a top-secret intelligence program senior officials have three times previously testified were destroyed or unable to be located. And the attorneys for the secret team members who disclosed the existence of the data-mining counter-terrorism program, called ABLE DANGER, have argued in a new court filing that they be “cleared” to review such files.

The Defense Department’s Inspector General’s office (DoD-OIG) and the joint Special Operations Command (SOCOM) have amassed some 9,500 pages of documents on a program that senior DoD and 9/11 Commission officials have stated repeatedly were destroyed or can no longer be located.

In response to a Freedom of Information Act request, “The Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, has determined that approximately 9,500 pages of these collected documents are potentially responsive to your FOIA request.” [emphases added]

Cap'n Ed called this "stunning." I call it sloppy. Clearly the Bushies don't know the first thing about cover-ups. Good thing they don't have any scandals of their own - other than concealing their predecessor's biggest one of all.

Will anybody in Congress besides Curt Weldon give a crap that Pentagon witnesses lied to them in their sworn testimony? Will this ever get blown into the blockbuster scandal it really is?

Heck, why would they start now? Sheesh, they just caught up to the year-and-a-half-old story about the idiotic dress codes that the Federal Air Marshal Service is still imposing upon its agents that makes "incognito," and defending against fresh Islamikaze attacks, a practical impossibility. What were you expecting? Vigilence?

Har har hardy har har. Congress only reserves vigilence for covering its own ass. Which brings us wearily back to the House GOP leadership losing its what remained of its collective mind by insanely rushing to the moronic defense of Donk crook Willie Jefferson. A stunt so monumentally stupid as to make even the Washington Post sound sane for a change:

The uproar over the FBI's search of Representative William J. Jefferson's congressional office is understandable but overblown. A demand [Wednes]day by House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-IL) and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) that the Justice Department return the papers it seized goes way too far. Constitutional provisions designed to protect lawmakers from fear of political retribution, such as the speech-and-debate clause, counsel restraint and caution in circumstances such as these. They do not transform congressional offices into taxpayer-funded sanctuaries.

No one wants to have FBI agents pawing through lawmakers' files. Prosecutors and agents need to exhaust other avenues of obtaining evidence before doing so. If a search is required, they must take care not to trample on lawmakers' privileged activities.

It's not yet possible to make determinations about whether these principles were followed in the apparently unprecedented search of Mr. Jefferson's office. But the material for which agents searched had been under subpoena for eight months; Mr. Jefferson, a Louisiana Democrat, resisted complying. Under those circumstances, seeking judicial approval for a search warrant is more reasonable. And while the "Saturday night raid," as Mr. Hastert called it, sounds melodramatic, it's less disruptive than having FBI agents in the House during normal business hours.

Mr. Jefferson was, according to the search warrant affidavit, caught with cold, hard cash: Agents videotaped him taking $100,000 in $100 bills from a Northern Virginia investor working undercover and then found $90,000 of it in his freezer. This was no fishing expedition.

Cap'n Ed is correct that the "uproar" is not at all "understandable" - as far as Congress is concerned. It is, however, eminently understandable to the American voter every bit as much as the House bank and post office "uproars" of the early '90s. Just as ordinary citizens cannot kite checks and launder money through the local USPS, so an outraged defense of a Joe Sixpack caught red-handed with ninety grand of filthy lucre in his ice box on high constitutional dudgeon would become the instant stuff of Leno and Letterman monologues. Even the ACLU would be even money to take such a case. So why are Denny Hastert and John Boehner stubbornly pursuing this? And in defense of a Democrat, no less? Is this bipartisanship gone wild?

Or might it have something to do with this?

Despite a flat denial from the Department of Justice, federal law enforcement sources [i.e. liberals in the DOJ bureaucracy] tonight said ABC News accurately reported that Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert is "in the mix" in the FBI investigation of corruption in Congress.

Speaker Hastert said tonight the story was "absolutely untrue" and has demanded ABC News retract its story.

Law enforcement sources told ABC News that convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff has provided information to the FBI about Hastert and a number of other members of Congress that have broadened the scope of the investigation. Sources would not divulge details of the Abramoff’s information.

Ordinarily I'd dismiss this as just another Extreme Media smear. Most likely that's still all it is. But what if the Dems do have dirt on the Speaker and are blackmailing him into commiting political suicide on behalf of his majority caucus? Is there another plausible explanation for why Hastert would be seen in public as a co-babbling idiot alongside Crazy Nancy? One that doesn't involve men in white coats and butterfly nets?

And what is President Bush's excuse for sealing the seized Jefferson documents for forty-five days - meaning neither Jefferson, Congress, or the FBI will have access to them - as a "cooling off measure"? Does he really believe he can serve as an impartial referee when congressional leaders are pushing this as a separation of powers issue between the Legislative and Executive Branches? Isn't he himself obstructing the corruption investigation of Willie Jefferson? Why isn't he dragging Hastert down to the Oval Office and putting him in a headlock the way Hastert blasted him just a few weeks ago for shafting Porter Goss? Who the bleep is the leader of the Republican Party, anyway?

This is insanity. It is the New Tone run amok. And it is upping the ante on the apparent all-out GOP effort to return to the minority just over five months from now.

Some reporter should corner the Speaker and rip off the tagline from the Capital One ads: "What's in YOUR freezer?"

Outside The Beltway

Want a representative reason why the Pennsylvania senate race between Donk challenger Bob Casey and incumbent Republican Rick Santorum is tightening? The Casey campaign has been caught peeping in Santorum's keyholes:

The charges and countercharges in the Pennsylvania Senate race also have revived questions about where Santorum, his wife and six children live - a three-bedroom, 2,100-square-foot home in Penn Hills, PA, or a house in Leesburg, VA, that's more than 5,000 square feet.

Santorum launched radio ads on Monday that contend that a Casey operative admitted to "trespassing into the Santorums' home in Penn Hills, peering into the windows looking for campaign dirt."

What the size of the respective houses has to do with anything is, from a logic standpoint, anybody's guess, just as it is, in reality, a wholly unsubtle link to the "Republican culture of corruption" canard. The ASSociated Press is so relentlessly consistent, isn't it?

The Caseyoids followed the standard Clinton denial template:

Ed Vecchio, whose wife is a local Democratic Party leader in Penn Hills, told the TV station [WDKA] that he had a right to contest Santorum's votes from last week's primary because, "He doesn't live here. The house he's registered to vote out of, is vacant, no curtains, furniture, nothing in there."

Vecchio said he never looked into the windows of Santorum's home.

...That means he had an underling do it...

The Casey campaign said Vecchio does not work for them and denied that anyone from the campaign trespassed at the house.

To quote the noted philosopher Bart Simpson, "I didn't do it, nobody saw me do it, you can't prove anything!" Just like Don Clintone, always do dirty work through proxies who will stonewall and, if necessary, fall on their swords on your behalf. Not unlike the way Al Capone sat all fat & happy at his Miami estate while his henchmen were carrying out the St. Valentine's Day Massacre in Chicago.

This clinches the Casey campaign's guilt:

They also accused the Santorum campaign of trying to shift attention from the fact that Santorum primarily lives with his family in Virginia.

How dare Santorum distract public attention from our irrelevant smear to the dirty tricks we had to pull to perpetrate it! What NERVE!

I'm feeling better about this race all the time. And why not, given that even the gloomiest Pachyderms are now saying that the worst the GOP will do on the Senate side is break even?

It's not what they deserve. But it does open up the opportunity for ideological recovery if they can muster the humility to recognize it.

~ ~ ~

I was going to comment on New Orleans Mayor Ray "School Bus" Nagin and Louisiana Governor Kathleen "Babbling" Blanco "kissing and making up," but that mental picture is proving exceedingly difficult to get past without acute nausea.

Besides, celebrating getting away with their criminal negligence in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina would be a better description. And why shouldn't they celebrate? The Extreme Media framed President Bush for their failures, and Bush meekly capitulated to the smear. That was the point where his second term careened off the rails and it hasn't gotten anywhere near back on track since.

Doesn't exactly make Nagin and Blanco the new Bonny & Clyde, but it isn't unfair to state that they have washed the blood of the hurricane victims they killed in Dubya's reputation. And those are unjust stains that may never be cleansed - especially given his tempermental disinclination for doing "laundry."

Around The Kitchen Table

Did you know that the last few times I've filled up, the price per gallon of gasoline at the pump has been a dime higher than the previous time?

The reason why isn't "Big Oil" or any of the other left-wing demogogic myths endlessly floating around, but rising international demand for petroleum - mostly from Red China and India - coupled with domestic environmental policies that have choked off our own energy supplies and made it all but impossible to explore for new sources. No drilling and no new refineries or nuclear power plants since the 1970s have now landed the nation where the center-right has long warned: trapped in an upward spiral of rising energy prices and import dependency, with many foreign sources under the control of hostile regimes like Iran and Venezuela.

That's the brutal reality. Which makes it all the more astonishing that it is panicky Republicans who are rushing to embrace the same statist fantasism that created the mess in the first place in the even more remarkable belief that imitating the Democrats they've defeated for the past dozen years will somehow enhance their chances of re-election.

The political day of reckoning is coming; the energy policy day of reckoning is already here. And the only rational response is to stop artificially limiting domestic supplies. That means, among other greenstremist unthinkables, unlimited drilling, starting in the famous Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, or ANWR.

And, perhaps most astonishingly of all, the House actually approved another ANWR drilling bill on Thursday, after having failed to open up offshore natural gas drilling the previous week. But have no fear, assures the aforelinked ASSociated Press report, it'll surely die in the Senate.

Just once I would like to see a Republican accuse the Democrats of plotting to force skyrocketing gasoline prices on the American people the way they smear the GOP as being for "dirty water and dirty air". Just once. Is that too much to ask? Especially since the Donks are blaming the majority, and the free-market capitalist principles they're supposed to represent, for their own high energy costs?

~ ~ ~

Funny how so few people are even curious about how much the Bush-Hagel-Martinez illegal alien amnesty bill will cost the taxpayers over the next few years. Here's a hint:

The bill would grant amnesty to about 10 million illegal immigrants and put them on a path to citizenship. Once they become citizens, the net addi­tional cost to the federal government of benefits for these individuals will be around $16 billion per year. The bill would also spur a rapid new flow of low skill immigrants through its program for “guest workers” (for life, that is) and other provisions.

To make matters worse, once an illegal immigrant becomes a citizen, he has the right to bring his parents to live in the U.S. The parents, in turn, may become citi­zens. The long-term cost of government benefits for the parents of 10 million recipients of amnesty could be $50 billion per year or more. In the long run, the Hagel-Martinez bill, if enacted, would be the largest expansion of the welfare state in 35 years.

As if that weren't bad enough, the new bureaucracy within the Department of Labor tasked with overseeing labor markets for untold numbers of "guest workers" would be a mammoth plunge into socialistic central-planning.

But my oh my, would it be "compassionate conservatism" in action, huh? You can tell because of its primary beneficiaries - Mexico and the Democrat Party.

~ ~ ~

How's this for a gambit to turn the illegal immigration tide: offer to cut to the chase and simply annex Mexico outright. Would save a lot of time, and Vincente Fox thinks he runs our country anyway. Heck, George Dubya even agrees. Wonder what the reconquistadors would have to say about that.

Tony Blankely had a similar idea - just aimed in the opposite direction.

~ ~ ~

A Powerline emailer points out a fundamental contradiction in the border erasure crowd's core argument:

The "conditions" being attached to legalizing the 12 million IMPLY, do they not, that if the conditions are NOT obtained....then what?...isn't there an implicit promise then to DEPORT them?...similarly, with respect to "temporary" "guest workers"...if they don't leave...or violate other conditions of their "temporary" visas...is there not the clear implication that THEY will then be deported??

....so which is it?...is the implied PROMISE to deport in fact a FALSE promise because deportation is not "possible"?...or is deportation easily possible and is just a question of political will?....in which case what about the 12 million?

...or if the claim is that we cannot feasibly deport ALL of the 12 million...then the question arises: how many CAN we deport?...and why don't we?

The bottom line: if we "cannot" deport foreign violators of our immigration, naturalization and labor laws....then the "earned legalization" conditions for the 12 million illegals already here are bogus...and it is de facto complete and unconditional amnesty......AND the "temporary" guest workers" program is then a sham as well.

Logic is a bitch, isn't it? And if it isn't, doesn't the fact that illegals won't have to pay all of their back income taxes seal the deal?

That invade-Mexico option is looking better all the time.

Daily Devotion

1 (A) Sing to the LORD a (B) new song; sing to the LORD, all Earth.

2 Sing to the LORD, bless His name; (C) proclaim good tidings of His salvation from day to day.

3 Tell of (D) His glory among the nations, His wonderful deeds among all the peoples.

4 For (E) great is the LORD and (F) greatly to be praised; He is to be (G) feared (H) above all gods.

5 For (I) all the gods of the peoples are idols, but (J) the LORD made the heavens.

6 (K) Splendor and majesty are before Him, strength and beauty are in His sanctuary.

7 [a] Ascribe to the LORD, O (L) families of the peoples, (M) ascribe to the LORD glory and strength.

8 [b] Ascribe to the LORD the (N) glory of His name; bring an (O) offering and come into His courts.

9 (P) Worship the LORD in [c] holy attire; (Q) tremble before Him, all Earth.

10 Say among the nations, "(R) The LORD reigns; indeed, the (S) world is firmly established, it will not be moved; He will (T) judge the peoples with [d] equity."

11 Let the (U) heavens be glad, and let (V) Earth rejoice; let (W) the sea roar, and all it contains; 12 let the (X) field exult, and all that is in it then all the (Y) trees of the forest will sing for joy 13 before the LORD, (Z) for He is coming, for He is coming to judge Earth; (AA) He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples in His faithfulness.

-Psalm 96

Signs & Wonders

I took a vacation day today. I devoted part of it to a nap attack, part to my son, and part to reorganizing my mp3 library. Tomorrow I'll return to the fray, since that's just a weekend day and (hopefully) I used up my sloth quotient today.

Oh, who am I kidding? But I'll be here anyway.

In the mean time, here's more from Uncle's network.

~ ~ ~

The quote of the month is by Jay Leno:

With hurricanes, tornados, fires out of control, mud slides, flooding, severe thunderstorms tearing up the country from one end to another, and with the threat of bird flu and terrorist attacks, are we sure this is a good time to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance?

This is a beautiful photo of a giant flag in Arizona. The photo is authentic and un-retouched. The picture was taken on regular Kodak 35 mm film. The person who took the picture couldn't believe the image created by the sun's rays. Nice of them to share with the world!

For those that prefer to think that God is not watching over us....

~ ~ ~

....What the hell is the matter with you?

Craziness

Hey there everybody! Sorry for the short absence, my Dad is in the hospital with pneumonia and congestive heart failure. He was on a BiPAP (respirator) for a while, but is doing much better now. Might even get out of Intensive Care and into a regular room today. For those of you who are Christians, I'll share this with you. At 80 years old, he finally prayed with me and was saved. I rest a lot easier now, as you can imagine. :-)

I was just reading the DUmmie FUnnies over at Free Republic. PJ Comix is a guy who mines the threads over at the Democratic Underground (awful job, but somebody's gotta do it), and posts their most outrageous threads along with his commentary at Free Republic. The mind of a DUmmie is an amazing thing to watch. All they care about is bringing Bush down, that's it. You should have seen the glee with which they greeted the TruthOut (to lunch) article regarding Cheney being indicted, and more recently the debunked news about Dennis Hastert being investigated. Sure would be nice if they had some ideas to discuss, rather than how much they want to see everyone in the Republican party indicted and marched off to jail. These people are psychotic. Here is a snippet from the thread regarding Dennis Hastert:

I'll believe it when I see the FBI kicking in his office door... and hauling out all his papers and computer drives. Oh, and just to expedite the investigation, interrogators should strip Hastert, smear him with pee and feces, beat him, let a vicious dog bite him several times, and rape his family while he watches, since Bush and the GOP have condone torture as a valid tool for obtaining information. After all, if he's got nothing to hide, he's got nothing to worry about!

Nice people, huh? They will post stuff like the above, and then turn around and talk about the hatred in the Republican party. This is the kind of mentality we're up against.

Ballsy Prayer

This pastor has grapefruits!!

Thought you might enjoy this interesting prayer given in Kansas at the opening session of their Senate. It seems prayer still upsets some people.

When Minister Joe Wright was asked to open the new session of the Kansas Senate, everyone was expecting the usual generalities, but this is what they heard:

Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask your forgiveness and to seek your direction and guidance. We know Your Word says, "Woe to those who call evil good," but that is exactly what we have done. We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and reversed our values.

We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery.

We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare.

We have killed our unborn and called it choice.

We have shot abortionists and called it justifiable.

We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building self esteem.

We have abused power and called it politics.

We have coveted our neighbor's possessions and called it ambition.

We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression.

We have ridiculed the time-honored values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment.

Search us, Oh, God, and know our hearts today; cleanse us from every sin and set us free. Amen!"

The response was immediate. A number of legislators walked out during the prayer in protest. In six short weeks, Central Christian Church, where Reverend Wright is pastor, logged more than five thousand phone calls with only forty-seven of those calls responding negatively. The church is now receiving international requests for copies of this prayer from India, Africa and Korea. Commentator Paul Harvey aired this prayer on his radio program, The Rest of the Story and received a larger response to this program than any other he has ever aired.

With the LORD's help, may this prayer sweep over our nation and wholeheartedly become our desire so that we again can be called "one nation under God."

~ ~ ~

If Reverend Wright had uttered that prayer in California or Massachusetts, he may not have gotten out of the senate chambers alive.

[h/t: Uncle]

Words That Defile

17 "Do you not understand that everything that goes into the mouth passes into the stomach, and is eliminated?

18 "But (A) the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man.

19 "(B) For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders.

20 "These are the things which defile the man; but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile the man."

-Matthew 15:17-20

More Compare & Contrast

What the GOP base says:

Here's what they're missing, and it is the principal reason, in my opinion, WHY the anti-ILLEGAL forces are so upset - and so powerful.

It has to do with the bad faith, calculated deceit, Orwellian propaganda, dishonest sophistry, misdirection, arrogance, presumption, indifference to, and, indeed, contempt for the beliefs of huge numbers of ordinary Americans - including LEGAL immigrants and Hispanic natives! - on the part of political/media elites.

Let's recognize that the political process has - democratically - designated the illegals AS illegal. Why? Because we, as a nation, decided that their presence - NOT themselves per se (as the false attribution of racism would have it) - but their presence in such numbers for such purposes (the phony Jobs Americans Won't Do/Jobs Americans Are Not Doing) is undesirable. There are perfectly reasonable grounds for that judgment. When did we vote for the Mexification of America? ANS.: NEVER....Indeed, going back to the 1965 immigration "reforms", assurances were REPEATEDLY given (Kennedy) that such reforms would NOT lead to an influx or demographic change. And guess what? The burden of proof is NOT on the nation to justify this stance.

Period. Full stop. End of discussion.

Since these elites don't like that decision now they want us to accept a fait accompli..and more! They feel perfectly justified in collaborating in the subversion of our democratically enacted immigration regime - with crass, narrow, economic special interests and with others having perhaps more sinister designs. Their objectives - open borders, a free flow of cheap labor - are plain now for all to see. Some no longer even bother to pretend otherwise.

Given that, there is NO REASON to believe ANY of their promises - the "wall," enforcement of "tough" conditions for a "path to legalization/citizenship" or limits in a "tough and smart" "temporary" "guest workers" indentured servant-helot program. We also know that the very underlying rationale itself for "temporary" "guest workers" (the economically illiterate JAWD/JAAND) is in DIRECT CONTRADICTION to ANY arbitrary "limits"....Indeed, the very claim itself that deportation is "impossible" renders the enforcement promises self-refuting! We should all ignore the false promises and intentional non-feasance in the past?...and do I even have to mention the Simpson-Mazzoli fraud? "This time it's different"?....we REALLY mean it now?....

The ultimate retort of the immigration celebrationists - let us call it the "immigrants are good people" argument - is totally beside the point. It is an assertion that no one would disagree with, but it is also an argument that has NO internal LIMITING PRINCIPLE. There is, on its own terms, no non-arbitrary basis for excluding ANY ONE of the 6 billion non-Americans. Other than criminal disqualification, most of them, are, indeed "good people"....so what?

Well, we already decided the question of numbers and limits...and the political/media elites, in conjunction with the scofflaw employers, do NOT have standing to subvert the democratic decision made, upon deliberation, several times in reliance on what we now can see were plainly false promises.

Never again.

What the GOP, as typified by Dick Lugar (whose name still sounds like it was taken from a porn actor) says:

Don't bother calling Senator Richard Lugar's office to express your opinion about the immigration issue unless you agree with his opinion of not enforcing the southern border and amnesty in the form of a guest worker program. I made that mistake. His staff was rude and belittling. I was scolded as if he were talking to a teenager.

I was told I could not understand the problem. I would like to tell Lugar something. The people of Indiana do not want amnesty in the guise of a guest worker program. We did that in the 1980s. It did not work. We do not want an open border. We want you to go after the employers and verify Social Security numbers. Give the police the power and funds to deport illegals. I am tired of pressing #1 for English.

I would like to say to Senator Lugar the problem is with entrenched politicians in the pocket of big business with the attitude of your staff, go away "little people," we know what is best for you.

Hey Indiana, the problem with Dick Lugar is that he has not had to look for a job recently like the rest of us.

When even Jim Geraghty is starting to drift toward a detente with the Tapscottians, you know there's a collision coming sooner or later. Only question is when and how big.

The Perfect Remedy For Constipation

Read these two blurbs.

The Fading Political Impact of 9/11:

So here we are today nearing the summer of 2006, and each passing week and month causes the 9/11 effect to diminish. The pathetic hyperventilating over how we treat terrorists and the NSA efforts to prevent another attack are warning signs of the distance we continue to move from the nation's collective resolve the morning of September 11th....

[T]his success [preventing another terrorist attack], coupled with the passing of time, chips away at the political effect of 9/11. Robert Tracinski writes of President Bush's September 10 approval ratings in RealClearPolitics today and in many ways that is exactly what we are seeing politically. Obviously, there are other issues at work that are contributing to President Bush's woes and Republican angst - the fallout from Hurricane Katrina, the Harriet Miers fiasco, out of control spending and illegal immigration - but in the broader sense, make no mistake about it, we are seeing a fading away of the 9/11 effect.

Of course this can change in a flash with the next successful attack, but if this trend continues it will have a major impact on the 2006 and 2008 elections - and the consequences will not be favorable for Republicans.

Speaking of that "flash":

RM: How many nuclear weapons does Al-Qaeda possess?

HM: As far as I know, they smuggled three suitcase nukes from Russia to Europe. They smuggled many kilos of enriched uranium inside America for their dirty bomb projects. They said in 1999 that they must have material for more than six dirty bombs in America. They tested at least one dirty bomb in the Kunar province of Afghanistan in 2000.

They have planned an attack bigger than 9/11, even before 9/11 happened. Osama Bin Laden trained 42 fighters to destroy the American economy and military might. 19 were used on 9/11, 23 are still "sleeping" inside America waiting for a wake-up call from Bin Laden. [emphasis added]

And, just to make it relevant to the domestic politics of the moment:

RM: Were actual tactical nukes deployed to the US? And is the leader of the nuclear plot Adnan el-Shukrijumah as believed by some experts?

HM: Al-Qaeda leaders claimed to have deployed their tactical weapons inside America. But when I tried to track the transportation of those weapons from Georgia, I lost track in Italy. I don’t know the location of these today because my source left Afghanistan for Iraq last year. On the other hand, they claimed to me that weapons were smuggled to America through Mexico. [emphasis added]

"HM" is Hamid Mir, according to CFP "best known as the last journalist to interview Osama Bin Laden, and the only one to do so after the attacks of September 11, 2001. He is currently the Bureau Chief of Islamabad for Geo TV and is writing a biography on Osama Bin Laden. He has interviewed countless members of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban in many countries over the years."

Draw your own conclusions. Me, I need a change of pants.

Immigration Myth-Busting

[posted by T.C.]

There's been a lot of controversy about the illegal invaders living in our midst. A host of 'facts' have surfaced about the situation that imply that we're stuck with an accomplished fact here and must just learn to get along with them.

"Fact" #1 - "You can't deport them all."

TRUE, but the collary is that THEY GOT HERE, and if it were sufficiently important to them THEY could carry themselves home. Depriving them of employment unless they are properly documented would accomplish that easily.

Three things would easily create the circumstances in which they would deport themselves quickly:

1. Illegally entering the US must be a felony crime, establishing residence with the intent of remaining in the US needs to be another criminal offense and evading lawful registration as a resident alien yet another. (you have heard of the three strike laws in many states???)

2. Horrendous fines for companies hiring illegals... at LEAST five times the wage paid them, plus the expensed of the government in processing their deportation!

3. Confiscation under the RICO act of any vehicles or dwellings used by them to maintain their illegal residence. Landlords might then have a vested interest in making sure that anyone living on their property was properly documented.

The only thing necessary for all of the above conditions to be imposed would be a clearing house for information on legal residents. A "Quick Check" system in which prospective employers, landlords and others could dial up a government agency (think the INS ought to handle this?) provide the name, address, SSAN of the individual being checked and get a thumbs up or down and a 'transaction code' to write down so they can prove they did the check.

There would be affirmation of citizenship, legal status, or denial, but an alarm could easily be added to insure that limited time visas close to their expiry date were flagged and a phone call required to continue the transaction... especially if the inquiry came from a different location than their registered address.

Having a database of citizens, legal residents, embassy staff and others lawfully residing in the United States should be easily accomplished since between the State Department, Justice Department, INS, IRS and Social Security Administration all of that data is SUPPOSED to be on file and accurate.

"Fact" #2 - "Illegals ADD to the economy more than they take from it."

False: Mexico's largest cash crop is the importation of illegal workers in the US and their sending money back to family members left behind. Their drain on special education programs for ESL students, hospital expenses, and social welfare programs were well documented.

We'll leave the rest for another time... but the self-deportation of illegals needs to be the primary focus of any effective legislation. Closing our borders is of paramount importance, but the only people that can track down and FORCE the illegals to return to Mexico are themselves. It must be economically hostile in the US for any illegal, RICO laws must be applied to those conspiring with them to facilitate their presence in the US. Seizure of any vehicle being driven by an illegal, any residence they are allowed to rent or buy and forfeiture of any monitory assets in excess of $2,000 per person must be the price of trespassing on US soil. Every business, contractor, homeowner hiring casual labor and housewife hiring a maid or nanny needs to be able to instantly check on the documents of anyone applying for that job.

It must be obviously fair and simple to apply for and obtain US work papers for those IN OTHER COUNTRIES! Anything that even appears to offer amnesty will encourage these criminals to continue their underground economy in hopes that they will be in the right place at the right time to take advantage and become legal residents. NO ONE IN THE US ILLEGALLY can be allowed to profit from that crime. Once it's unprofitable for those seeking work, there will be no reason to enter the US illegally unless it's an attempt at transporting illicit substances or a hostile/terrorist infiltration of personnel and weapons that couldn't pass scrutiny at a port or border crossing.