Monday, September 24, 2007

Marcel Marceau died yesterday

 
Marcel Marceau died yesterday in Paris. The internationally renowned mime was 84.

The tragic aspect of the story is that Marceau choked to death in a restaurant. Onlookers, believing they were watching another of his brilliant performances, simply applauded.

Sorry about that last paragraph, folks. Sometimes I have a sick sense of humor.

Sunday, September 23, 2007

The "Hillraisers" go to School. The New School, that is.

 
A few days ago, Suitably Flip's phenomenal analysis linked fugitive Clinton fundraiser Norman Hsu to the former ownership of the Lillian Vernon (LV) company. Fred Hochberg, son of the founder, had contribution patterns that uncannily match those of Hsu. Or maybe cannily -- if that's a word -- given the ties between the two.

The annual report of The New School -- a liberal arts college in New York -- lists both Hsu and Hochberg as board members/trustees. In addition, Bernard Schwartz, former CEO and Chairman of Loral Space & Communications is also among the members of that august group.

The name Loral may ring a bell. In 1998, Congress investigated the bizarre ties between the Clinton administration, the Chinese military, and a series of fundraisers for Democratic causes.

Starting in 1995, Schwartz gave around a quarter of million dollars to the DNC and related groups. Less than three months after the last contribution, Bill Clinton approved the launches of four U.S. satellites on Chinese rockets. And less than a month after that -- on March 14, 1996 -- Clinton moved the satellite licensing function from Defense to the Commerce Department over objections from the military and intelligence communities. It gets worse. Read the summary from MSNBC in 1998 (when the network still had news and investigative departments) for a series of shocking revelations that, truthfully, deserve to be told and retold during Hillary Clinton's campaign.

Back to the New School and the Hillraisers: the New School -- by its own admission -- is a "legendary, progressive university" that produces "economists and actors, fashion designers and urban planners, dancers and anthropologists, orchestra conductors, filmmakers, political scientists, organizational experts, jazz musicians, scholars, psychologists, historians, journalists, and above all, world citizens-individuals..."

Whether the school is a breeding ground for open-border socialists I'll leave to the conspiracy theorists among us. I was more intrigued by the revelation that Hsu, Hochberg, and Schwartz were board members/trustees of the school. I wrote a small program that would analyze the list of board members or trustees (around 200 names) and compare it to the list of around 200 "Hillraisers" -- Hillary's donation bundlers who had contributed $100,000 or more to her campaign.

I no longer trust the Hillary site's list of Hillraisers, since Mr. Hsu has disappeared from the list. Instead, I used the list for all presidential candidates operated by WhiteHouseForSale.org, which tracks bundlers for both parties.

Using a soundex algorithm -- rather than an exact name match -- I found that there are not three, but at least eight Hillraisers who are also board members or trustees of the New School. They are:

John Catsimatidis
Barbaralee Diamonstein (Diamonstein-Spielvogel in The New School's Annual Report)
Blair/Cheryl Effron (Blair is a Hillraiser, wife Cheryl on the New School list)
Fred Hochberg
Norman Hsu
Bernard Schwartz
Jay Snyder
Sally Susman

It would be interesting to determine whether -- besides Hsu and Hochberg -- other patterns of apparently bogus donations exist between the New School Hillraisers.

Hitler at Columbia

 
A few days ago, I created a poster mocking Columbia for its willingness to host genocidal madman Mahmoud Ahmedinejad.

I included the names of Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot as other members of a "distinguished speakers series" consisting of mass-murderers; leaders of despotic regimes responsible for the deaths of scores of millions of innocents.

Problem was, no one told Columbia University about the parody. Interviewed on Fox News, the institution's Dean of International and Public Affairs -- John Coatsworth -- asserted that he'd be delighted to host Hitler.

I wonder why we haven't heard anything from authors like Elie Wiesel or Allan Dershowitz in response. Or, for that matter, frequent Fox contributor Benjamin Netanyahu. It would be interesting to get their perspectives on Columbia's willingness to provide public relations support for genocidal maniacs. And their shocking refusal to allow the ROTC to speak on campus.

Also see: Hot Air

Saturday, September 22, 2007

New York state issues drivers licenses for illegals

 
Gordon Taylor at Red State:

The question before the state [of New York] was, "What should we do to get rid of illegal aliens driving illegally in New York State?"

A. When stopped for a traffic violation, arrest them for driving without a license.

B. When stopped for a traffic violation, arrest them for driving without a license and also for being here illegally and deport them.

C. Apologize for the inconvenience and send them on their way with a free lottery ticket.

D. Escort them to the nearest Department of Motor Vehicles to get a license.

The answer the state chose was... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...D

The New York Post summarized the ramifications for residents of the state.

Gov. Spitzer announced yesterday that illegal immigrants will get driver's licenses - but at a cost to legal citizens because they'll now be useless as airport ID... Spitzer said the state would no longer require a Social Security number or proof that a person is not eligible for such a number in order to qualify for a driver's license.

...States that fail to meet the [2005] standards will lose their certification by the Department of Homeland Security, meaning that driver's licenses in those states will no longer be valid for air travel, entry to federal facilities and for tax purposes... Travelers will now have to carry a second form of ID, like a passport, which was met with criticism yesterday.

"To outright dismiss the security needs of our state and nation and provide illegal aliens documentation is dangerous and inconceivable," said Sen. Dale Volker (R-Depew)... "Gov. Spitzer should not view New York state driver's licenses like baseball cards - handing them out just to score political points."

Rep. Peter King (R-L.I.), the ranking member on the House Committee on Homeland Security, said: "I strongly disagree with giving state-authorized IDs to illegal immigrants. More importantly, this proposal raises serious homeland-security concerns..."

True, but I can think of few other concerns as well.

Such as the possibility of illegal voting scams that would benefit the likes of Hillary Clinton and Spitzer himself.

Story idea: Larwyn. McLovin's drivers' license: Gothamist. UBL's license adapted from: TRJ.

When I was a kid, the only thing you could build with Legos...

 
...was a really crappy-looking house. These kids today have no idea how good they've got it! Cell-phones with text-messaging and Internet browsing; high-end, ultra-thin laptops; Halo on X-boxes; and even their Legos are infinitely cooler than the ones we had in the seventies.

Back in the day, the only way to make Legos look like this would have been to use a blow-torch and my little brother's hands to shape the burning plastic.

Look up Political Correctness in the dictionary...

 
...and you'll see this photo.

If historians want to point to a single day in America when life just stopped making sense, it was probably this one.

What did Arafat and Hitler have in common?

 
Besides a homicidal hatred of Catholics and Jews, that is.

A Mr. E.G.C. Brandt, a member of the Swedish parliament, nominated Adolf Hitler for the 1939 Nobel Peace Prize. The nomination was withdrawn in a letter dated February 1, 1939.

Good thing the nomination was withdrawn. Based upon wins by folks like Arafish, Hitler was a lock. Hat tip: LGF

Why did Canada's member of parliament cross the road?

 
Answer: To get to the better health-care on the U.S. side.

Canada's CTV reports (hat tip: Texas Rainmaker):

Liberal MP Belinda Stronach, who is battling breast cancer, travelled to California last June for an operation that was recommended as part of her treatment, says a report... Stronach's spokesman, Greg MacEachern, told the Toronto Star that the MP for Newmarket-Aurora had a "later-stage" operation in the U.S. after a Toronto doctor referred her.

...He said speed was not the reason why she went to California.... Instead, MacEachern said the decision was made because the U.S. hospital was the best place to have it done due to the type of surgery required...

Our thoughts and prayers are with Stronach, who faces a grave medical crisis.

But the lesson learned is a simple one. As in the UK, it appears government elites often opt out of the public health-care system in order to pursue private health-care solutions. Advocates of HillaryCare v2.0 would do well to ruminate on that fact --- long and hard.

The Microsoft Downgrade

 
Enough folks are sufficiently troubled by Microsoft Vista that manufacturers have begun quietly offering another option. You can downgrade your Vista machine to XP:

While Microsoft is still pushing Vista hard, the company is quietly allowing PC makers to offer a "downgrade" option to buyers that get machines with the new operating system but want to switch to Windows XP... "That's going to help out small- and medium-size businesses," Fujitsu marketing manager Brandon Farris told CNET News.com.

...While there is always resistance by some to move to a new operating system, there appears to be particularly strong demand, especially from businesses, to stick with XP... One of the challenges, for both businesses and consumers are Vista's hefty graphics and memory needs.

Some of Bruce Schneier's comments from February figure prominently into the equation.

Windows Vista includes an array of "features" that you don't want. These features will make your computer less reliable and less secure. They'll make your computer less stable and run slower. They will cause technical support problems. They may even require you to upgrade some of your peripheral hardware and existing software. And these features won't do anything useful. In fact, they're working against you. They're digital rights management (DRM) features built into Vista at the behest of the entertainment industry... And you don't get to refuse them.

Of course, users could always choose to downgrade from Vista to Ubuntu.

Friday, September 21, 2007

Hillary in Deep Hsit

 
The walls around Castle Hillary are crumbling. The blogosphere is slowly unwinding the back-story of the inscrutable Mr. Norman Hsu. Suitably Flip has the details -- and they are flat-out startling (hat tips: Anchoress and Larwyn).

If there's one thing that can be said about Clinton financial scandals, it's that they tend to be complex. And thus far, the Norman Hsu debacle is living up to the archetype... The mystery of Hsu's [choice of candidates] is a vexing one. Enlightenment, however, appears to be tucked away in a single transaction listed in a NYC Campaign Finance Board disclosure... [it's] peculiar. As an A-list Democratic fundraiser, Hsu is typically the bundler in these transactions, not the bundlee. So what gives?

Lillian Vernon is a trinket catalog company... founded by Lillian Hochberg in Mount Vernon, NY (clever, eh?) in 1951. Lillian's son Fred is the current CEO and his brother David is an executive at the company... If you run a search for Fred Hochberg's own federal political contributions, the telltale Hsu pattern once again emerges.

...Fred Hochberg... [is] a fellow HillRaiser... Hochberg is also a dean at the New School, where Hsu was a trustee until this scandal broke last month and the school hurriedly removed his name from their website. Also on the New School board is Bernard Schwartz, one of Bill Clinton's biggest financial backers and the central figure in Clinton's scandal involving the sale of missile technology to China.

And the lily gilder: Fred Hochberg was a member of President Clinton's Cabinet.

Read it all, folks. Hsu's links to China, ICBM technology, and Bill Clinton's scandal-ridden administration are still a bit fuzzy, but they are starting to come into focus.

The dirty money flowing to the Democratic Party from Hsu alone is about to surpass that of the Abramoff scandal. Somehow I don't think we'll see the same sort of coverage in the mainstream media.

But facts are facts and it's clear Hillary's campaign is beginning to crumble like a stale cracker.

The Genocidal Midget at Ground Zero

 
If he visited the WTC, I know who Ahmadinejad would be paying respects to.

And it won't be the innocent victims.

Hat tip: Rick

Thursday, September 20, 2007

The Pardons 'R' Us Circus

 
Last week, Tony Rodham -- Hillary Clinton's brother -- settled an old lawsuit of infamous origins. Rodham was accused of failing to repay $107,000 plus interest to the estate of a carnival operator and his wife.

Mysteriously, the mainstream media didn't cover the story.

The couple -- Allen and Vonna Jo Gregory -- received pardons for bank fraud convictions from President Bill Clinton after Rodham became a paid consultant to a carnival business the couple owned.

I'm sure that was just a coincidence.

Rodham had claimed that the money he received from the Gregorys was for "consulting services," but attorneys said it was a loan.

Rodham said he had talked to his brother-in-law about the pardon, but went on to add that President Clinton made the decision to grant clemency on the merits of their case. And he said that with a straight face.

Another of Hillary's brothers, Hugh Rodham, became a beneficiary of Pardons-R-Us. He "was paid more than $400,000 for his successful efforts to win pardons for a businessman under investigation for money laundering and a commutation for a convicted drug trafficker. He eventually returned the money at his sister's request."

As his presidency drew to a close, Clinton pardoned 140 people, including billionaire fugitive Marc Rich. Rich's ex-wife, Denise Rich, contributed nearly a half million dollars to the Clinton presidential library project, $1.1 million to the Democratic Party, and at least $109,000 to Hillary Clinton's Senate campaign.

A circus is an entirely appropriate theme for this bunch of clowns.

Columbia's Distinguished Speakers Series

 
Here's the poster advertising the event.

It truly is a proud tradition.

Hillary's National Security Adviser is a Convicted Thief

 
Surprise!


"Excuse me, Mr. Berger! What's that you're carrying out?"

The mainstream media hasn't noticed one of Hillary's key national security advisers, Sandy Berger.

The more experienced Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, has relied largely on her husband and a triumvirate of senior officials from his presidency—former secretary of state Madeleine Albright, former U.N. ambassador Richard Holbrooke and former national-security adviser Sandy Berger (who tries to keep a low profile after pleading guilty in 2005 to misdemeanor charges of taking classified material without authorization).

That Hillary would name an admitted thief like Berger to this position says all you need to know about the Democrats and national security.

Line o' the Day: Who are the Dems afraid of?

 
President George W. Bush, commenting on Democrats' refusal to criticize MorOn.org's "General Betray Us" ad:

[It] leads me to come to this conclusion: that most Democrats are afraid of irritating a left-wing group like MoveOn.org, or more afraid of irritating them, then they are of irritating the United States military.

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

I guess they really don't support the troops

 
This really doesn't come as much of a surprise.

Supporting the troops essentially means supporting the illegal war. It seems that us anti-war types have been doing all sorts of mental and philisophical gymnastics to try and work around this...

If you call lying "doing all sorts of mental and philisophical gymnastics", then -- yes -- I suppose so.

As Marine Lt. Col. Stan Coerr wrote in today's Journal:

How is it that the people who are actually going to the war, who are actually sacrificing for this cause, are the ones who support it most strongly? ...These Americans have catalyzed a fledgling modern Iraq, which, though it has existed for decades, has just begun to live.

Genocidal midget wants to tour ground zero

 
Mahmoud Ahmedinejad plans to visit the United Nations in New York City for the General Assembly meetings later this month. NBC reports that the genocidal midget asked to visit ground zero to "lay a wreath". After meeting with the Secret Service and the Port Authority, NYPD officials decided to refuse the request citing "security reasons."

Hey, I've got an idea.

Let's let him tour a scenic building in the Bronx.

For, say, 444 days or so.

A bumper-sticker for you

 
Print out and super-glue to your bumper and have some fun with the liberals progressives in your neighborhood.

Iran threatens U.S. --- again

 
After countless threats against the US (remember Iran's "strategy... for the destruction of Anglo-Saxon civilization"?), Tehran's saber-rattling hit another new low this week. According to the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), the "Zionist regime's allies" will receive a "response" on October 12th.

In homicidal-midget-speak, that's a threat.

Supporters of the Zionist regime will receive their response during the world Qods Day's rallies, government spokesman, Gholam-Hossein Elham, said Wednesday.

The spokesman made the remarks during his weekly press conference while commenting on the current visit to the occupied Palestine of the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Qods Day is held each year on the last Friday of Muslims fasting month of Ramadan after it was nominated by the late Founder of the Islamic Republic, Imam Khomeini, as a day to voice the protest of the Islamic Ummah against the Zionists... The day falls on October 12 this year...

"The US loses all opportunities to cooperate with regional and other world states by trying to support a regime (the Zionist regime) which is now at its weakest political and social position," Elham said...
[warning that US] insistence on its wrong policies and arrogant approaches would have no result "but further political disgrace" for itself.

Referring to the approaching World Qods Day, the spokesman stressed, "Supporters of the Zionist regime will definitely receive the final response for their support on that day."

When asked about Ahmedinejad's remarks, Vice President Dick Cheney said "watch this..." and directed visitors' attention to a large plasma screen hanging on the wall. He then unlocked a compartment on his desktop, which exposed a prominent red button. Without fanfare, he pressed the button and a distinct click was heard.


"No, that's what I call a 'final response,'" Cheney was quoted as saying.

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

How did a wanted fugitive get so close to the Clintons?

 
How did a fugitive cozy up to powerful Democrats who are under Secret Service protection? That's the question Michelle Malkin is asking.

A law-enforcement source tells Michelle that the Clintons' favorite fundraiser, Norman Hsu, should have been instantly identified as a fugitive by the Secret Service. Unless, of course, they were asked not to.

Hsu as a key Dem fundraiser had access to VIP among the Dem party like the Clintons. Both Mr. and Mrs. Clinton are protected by the Secret Service. SOP for law enforcement protection details is to check the criminal background of those who might come in contact with the protectees.

As you probably are already aware, it is well known that usually the Secret Service asks for, at a minimum, full legal name, DOB and SSN of those who get anywhere near/attend events with, SS protectees, so they can run a record check. (FYI the Secret Service record check is, ‘unofficially’, considered one of the most extensive that can be done by US law enforcement.)

So if the Secret Service knew for years that Hsu was a wanted FUGITIVE why did they:

1. Not do anything?

2. Allow him anywhere near any important (high value) targets like either of the Clintons?

Alternatively, if the SS did not do its basic ‘due diligence’ check then the questions are even more pointed:

1. Why not? Who ordered them not to do it, and why? (What did the Clinton’s know and when did they know it?)

2. Was the Clinton (and by extension, the Democrat) fund-raising machine so focused on money that they would violate basic security protocol... letting a wanted, fugitive, felon (of questionable background — from part of the world where their are many hostile to US governmental interests) get into the “inner circle” simply because of the cash?

Well, Bill Clinton is still the only president to have irretrievably lost the nuclear launch codes all CINCs are required to carry. And he didn't seem to have any problem ensuring that sensitive missile technology could slither to the Chinese Military in return for the requisite campaign donations.

Pity the mainstream media only gets excited about OJ and Britney.