Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Late night comics face off against Slate Magazine

 
Don Surber explains why the late night comics are rooting for Hillary to win.

David Letterman: Hillary Clinton is the junior senator from the great state of New York. When they swore her in, she used the Clinton family Bible — the one with only seven commandments.

Jay Leno: Well, the big story — Hillary Clinton will be running for president in 2008. You know why I think she's running? I think she finally wants to see what it's like to sleep in the president's bed.

Jay Leno: In a fiery speech this weekend, Hillary Clinton wondered why President Bush can't find the tallest man in Afghanistan. Probably for the same reason she couldn't find the fattest intern under the desk...

Meanwhile, the spoilsports at Slate have organized a Hillary beat-down trifecta, tears be damned: "Clinton Meshugas", "Hillary's 'Experience' Lie" and "The case against Hillary Clinton."

Update: Hillary appears to be getting strong support from alleged drug traffickers. Hello? Mainstream media? Anyone there? (Cricket sounds).

Ain't capitalism grand?

 
The Journal has a fascinating story of a man who had a really, really good 2007.

Hedge fund manager John Paulson pulled down an estimated $3 billion last year ($4 billion, according to some accounts) betting that banks had done a poor job underwriting real estate loans. He correctly figured that the valuations of real-estate investment vehicles like CDOs (collateralized debt obligations) were vastly overblown. The result for his investors? One of Paulson's funds returned 590% in '07.

For those who complain about "income inequality," I pose a simple question. Would it be better for a Saudi Arabian prince or a Chinese General to have made those risky wagers? Or is it better for a smart American to have created a successful investment firm and returned incredible results to his investors?

Income inequality is the fantastic byproduct of free-market capitalism... and those who oppose it would do well to move to Cuba to immerse themselves in an alternative model. In fact, the more income inequality, the better. Bill Gates pulled down tens of billions of dollars by creating Microsoft, and thereby helped make the U.S. a tech behemoth in the process.

Of course, no one tell Paul Krugman any of this. He's not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed, so it's bound to confuse him.

Update: In October, Paulson also gave $15 million to the Center for Responsible Lending, which assists families facing foreclosure.

Monday, January 14, 2008

Arkansas Times (2002): Mike Huckabee and Wayne Dumond

 
In 2005, long before Mike Huckabee had been mentioned as a serious presidential candidate, the Arkansas Times ran a reprint of a horrifying article.

Editor's note, Sept. 1, 2005: Wayne Dumond, convicted of rape in Arkansas and murder in Missouri, died of apparent natural causes in prison Tuesday.

The occasion prompts us to republish Murray Waas' prize-winning article for the Arkansas Times in 2002 about the extraordinary steps Gov. Mike Huckabee took to help win Dumond's freedom. He has since blamed others for Dumond's release to kill again, but his actions over many years demonstrated his support for Dumond and, ultimately, the instrumental role he played in the parole board's decision to free him.

...Huckabee has denied a role in Dumond’s release, which has become an issue in his race for re-election against Democrat Jimmie Lou Fisher. Fisher says Huckabee’s advocacy of Dumond’s freedom, plus other acts of executive clemency, exhibit poor judgment. In response, Huckabee has shifted responsibility for Dumond’s release to others, claiming former Gov. Jim Guy Tucker made Dumond eligible for parole and saying the Post Prison Transfer Board made the decision on its own to free Dumond.

But the Times’ new reporting shows the extent to which Huckabee and a key aide were involved in the process to win Dumond’s release. It was a process marked by deviation from accepted parole practice and direct personal lobbying by the governor, in an apparently illegal and unrecorded closed-door meeting with the parole board...

Make sure you read the Times' "Special handling - How the Huckabee administration worked to free rapist Wayne Dumond."

And Ace has more on Huckabee's 1,033 clemencies.

Huckabee has no business running for Assistant County Sewer District Commissioner, much less the highest office in the land.

And the 2007 Fiskie and Fallaci Awards go to...

 
The writer's strike notwithstanding, LGF has the winners!

Hint: the Fiskie goes to the most deranged news-slash-sportscaster of all times!

It could "overthrow rulers and topple kingdoms"

 
The Asia Times:

What if scholars can prove beyond reasonable doubt that the Koran was not dictated by the Archangel Gabriel to the Prophet Mohammad during the 7th century, but rather was redacted by later writers drawing on a variety of extant Christian and Jewish sources? That would be the precise equivalent of proving that the Jesus Christ of the Gospels really was a composite of several individuals, some of whom lived a century or two apart.

It has long been known that variant copies of the Koran exist, including some found in 1972 in a paper grave at Sa'na in Yemen, the subject of a cover story in the January 1999 Atlantic Monthly. Before the Yemeni authorities shut the door to Western scholars, two German academics, Gerhard R Puin and H C Graf von Bothmer, made 35,000 microfilm copies, which remain at the University of the Saarland. Many scholars believe that the German archive, which includes photocopies of manuscripts as old as 700 AD, will provide more evidence of variation in the Koran.

The history of the archive reads like an Islamic version of the Da Vinci Code...

It took Christianity hundreds of painful years to separate its legal system from its religious practices. Is it also possible that Islam will eventually detach its religious law (Sharia) from its spiritual practices?

Memo to the Hillary Camp

 
Playing the race card didn't work for Howard Dean:

* In front of the Congressional Black Caucus, DNC chairman Howard Dean asked, "You think the Republican National Committee could get this many people of color in a single room? Only if they had the hotel staff in here.”

* Dean also said that Republicans... "all look the same. It's pretty much a white Christian party."

It didn't work for Donna Brazile:

* Vice President Al Gore's campaign chief, Donna Brazile, stunned observers when she remarked that Republicans would rather "take pictures with black children than feed them."

* Brazile also belittled two of the GOP's prominent personalities -- Gen. Colin Powell and Rep. J C. Watts -- as "tokens."

News flash for the Hillary camp: playing the politics of racial divisiveness won't work against your own party.

And belittling the contributions of Martin Luther King Jr. in order to score cheap political points against Barack Obama won't work. Ever.

That offhand remark just cost the Clinton Machine hundreds of thousands of votes and tens of millions of dollars. Perhaps Karl Rove was responsible. Or some other member of the nefarious "Vast Right Wing Conspiracy."

Sunday, January 13, 2008

Quick Links: miss 'em and miss oodles of bloggy goodness!

 
* Astute Bloggers: An examination of John McCain’s disastrous record
* Astute Bloggers: The Conch Republic and the price of gas
* Atlas Shrugs: The process of cleansing has already begun

* Atlas Shrugs: My man Rich!
* Iowahawk's new blog: Bolus
* Don Surber: Jay Rockefeller: 'Ahmadinejad is nuts'
* Don Surber: Save the Earth from Al Gore
* Gateway Pundit: Bush rocks the Emirates Palace Hotel
* Gateway Pundit: Hillary takes credit for the Surge she opposed!
* PrairiePundit: The failure of lawfare against terrorism
* TigerHawk: Spinning Iraq: George Soros and the subversion of academic reputation

Hat tip: Larwyn

Iran TV's Meet the Press

 
Welcome to Iran's longest running program since the revolution: Iranian TV's Meet the Press!

Today's guest: Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, his holy beardness... Ayatollah Ali Khamenei!

And now to your host: Haddad HomAyoon...

Supreme Leader, many young, foolish students have asked why must we stone women for adultery, hang homosexuals, flog dissidents, and suppress opposition political --

Silence! Guards! Send this infidel host to the gallows! Next host!

Errr... umh... Dearest Supreme Leader, some misguided souls argue that Iran must abandon its quest for nuclear weapons and embrace a new strategy for --

Outrageous! Guards!! 500 lashes and 25 years for this buffoon! Next!

Uhm... ahhhh... oh... Most Benificent... Supreme Leader... of Untold Piety, should thieves suffer two hand amputations rather than one?

Ah, excellent question... host. Remember, as prescribed by hodud, amputation of a single hand is a punishment approved by Iran’s Supreme Court. And remember a missive from years past: if thieves don’t want their hands cut off, they should stop stealing. Also, I may confide that our latest statistics show that public amputations have a visible effect on controlling the crime rate!

Uhmm... excellent, excellent. Well, Outrageously Wondrous Supreme Leader of Epic Wisdom... we appear to have run out of time...

Thank you for watching Meet the Press. Join us next week, when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Sean Penn interrogate our hosts.

Also, we have many job openings on Meet the Press, including television hosts - no experience whatsoever required! Call 7-21 to apply.

Thank you for watching and tune in next week. Please to be turning off your television now.

...and your life was an open book

 
DBKP has snapshots of the Presidential candidates... when they were youngsters.

Mitt Romney was clean-cut and Rudy Giuliani had hair? Who knew?

Nuclear contingency plans for a Pakistani coup

 
Huda al Husseini, writing in Asharq Alawsat, hints at America's rumored plan to seize Pakistan's nuclear weapons should a coup against Musharraf succeed.

During a meeting with some Pakistani friends following the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, their discussion was centered on “the absence of any sign of grief from her husband Asif Ali Zardari!”

Later, I asked a British friend if the world should now be concerned about the possibility of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons falling into the hands of Al-Qaeda, the Taliban or any other extremist group. His answer was that Washington had a plan and that it was coordinating with a group of army and security officers in Pakistan whereby the US forces will carry out a military operation to remove Pakistan’s nuclear components and then destroy all the installations so that no nuclear weapons or reserves could fall into the hands of the enemies.

Benazir Bhutto’s assassination was not unforeseen, especially in light of the first assassination attempt that ‘greeted’ her upon her return and which resulted in the deaths of over 134 people...

As far back as 2001, Global Security speculated that the U.S. had just such a set of contingency plans in place:

...Secretary Rumsfeld's reiteration on CNN of the U.S. policy of not forswearing the use of nuclear weapons generated a few misguided articles in the Pakistani and Indian press about planned nuclear strikes on Afghanistan, but First World journalists didn't indulge in the same misinterpretation. Most damaging to coalition solidarity was Seymour Hersh's New Yorker article positing the U.S. seizure of Pakistan's atomic arsenal in the event of an anti-Musharraf coup. Pakistani observers bristled at this and at Indian press reports that Islamabad had handed Pak nuclear experts over to the CIA for questioning about links with al-Qaida. Papers in Egypt, the West Bank and Tunisia treated the stories as consistent with the assumed American (and Israeli) fear of Pakistan's "Islamic" bomb. Some Indian editorials implied that the world had woken up late to the danger of atomic weapons being in Islamabad's hands...

That the U.S. would be prepared to secure Pakistan's nukes seems entirely believable. As the Boulder Weekly reminds us, Wretchard's three conjectures still resonate years after being written, especially in the wake of the Bhutto assassination.

…obstacles to terrorist capability are the sole reason that the War on Terror has not yet crossed the nuclear threshold. The terrorist intent to destroy the United States, at whatever cost to themselves, has been a given since September 11. Only their capability is in doubt.

This is an inversion of the Cold War situation when the capability of the Soviet Union to destroy America was given but its intent to do so, in the face of certain retaliation, was doubtful… The relevant Cold War question was ‘do they intend to use the Bomb?’ In the War on Terror, the relevant question is simply ‘do they have the Bomb?’ This puts the nuclear threshold very low...

...It is supremely ironic that the survival of the Islamic world should hinge on an American victory in the War on Terror, the last chance to prevent that terrible day in which all the decisions will have already been made for us. That effort really consists of two separate aspects: a campaign to destroy the locus of militant Islam and prevent their acquisition of WMDs; and an attempt to awaken the world to the urgency of the threat. While American arms have proven irresistible, much of Europe, as well as moderates in the Islamic world, remain blind to the danger and indeed increase it. Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad recently "told an international conference of young Muslim leaders ... (that) ... Muslims must acquire skills and technology so they can create modern weapons and strike fear into the hearts of our enemies". Fecklessness and gunpowder are a lethal combination. The terrible ifs accumulate.

Preventing nuclear weapons from falling into the hands of Jihadists is truly the most important work in the history of mankind. And the armed forces of the United States are at the forefront of this mission to save humanity from itself.

Carmakers expand usage of Microsoft Automotive Software

 
American carmakers are increasing their use of and integration with Microsoft'sf automotive software.

Ford is expanding on its new Sync car A/V system, developed with Microsoft, which is being hailed as a breakthrough product for the OEM new-car market and a competitor to the aftermarket... Microsoft chairman Bill Gates also announced at the show that Sync, a car A/V system with advanced voice recognition that can read aloud a user’s email from his cellular phone...

Perhaps I'm just too cynical, but can't help but wonder about this sort of thing:


Larwyn's quick takes

 
* QandO quotes Megan McCardle (hat tip: TigerHawk):

Paul Krugman is voting for doom. It's worth keeping in mind, however, that Paul Krugman has predicted eight of the last none recessions under the Bush administration.

Even a broken clock is right twice a day, but Krugman's track record would have to significantly improve to match the proverbial busted timepiece.

* Gerard Vanderleun highly recommends Neo-Neocon's Cultural and moral relativism, Part I and Part II.
Good and evil are admittedly difficult concepts for "progressives" to grok.

* The Spectator's Philip Klein deconstructs HillaryCare™ version 2.0 (now with thinly disgused Socialism™!):

...The plan would require insurers to provide coverage to everybody who applies, regardless of pre-existing conditions or risk factors, at a price the government deems "affordable." But insurance companies exist to manage and price risk. If car insurers were required to provide low-cost auto coverage to motorists who have had licenses suspended multiple times for reckless driving, they would not remain in business for long. Similarly, the Clinton plan would eventually lead to the collapse of the private medical insurance market, even if she left it "intact" in the meantime for the purposes of selling the plan. Her proposal would also create a new government-run health-care program modeled after Medicare. This would set the stage for future liberal politicians to argue that with the private market in shambles, the only choice is to go to a fully socialized system...

Perhaps it will be the only time in recorded history that centralized government control resulted in lower prices and better service.

* With more seriousness than the candidate deserves, Ace questions the case for Ron Paul:

...I don't get the claim that he's "the only man" who can save America, "the only man" who can restore the Constitution, "the only man" who can bring limited government back in vogue.

All of this is extraordinarily fanciful. I don't mean this as a cheap line -- it's rather serious. If the man couldn't keep a handle on his own small newsletter operation, can someone explain to me how he can possibly be "the only man in America" capable of forcing the federal government into a direction that the great mass of the American public simply does not want?

A whiney, sniveling isolationist -- with a history of racism and a plethora of bizarre backers? What's not to like?

* The American Thinker's Selwyn Duke on The race for the American mind:

...the old media fears the new one. The latter watches the watchers, polices the police. It has cut into the Rathersphere's market, causing a diminution of circulation, viewership and - this is what really gets their collars up -- power. They can no longer propagandize with Tass-like impunity, for the e-hills have eyes... Yet this is no time for a victory dance. The new media is under attack, as the left aims to silence dissent before it grows strong enough to block the thought police's coup de grace. This is the race for the American mind.

And we are losing...

When does political correctness (or Steyn's "creeping Sharia") infringe upon the First Amendment?

* Gateway Pundit reminds us that George Soros, a notorious sufferer of Bush Derangement Syndrome, funded the corrupt "Lancet Study":

...Soros was the money man behind the grossly inaccurate Lancet-Johns Hopkins study that claimed that 650,000 civilians had been slaughtered in Iraq since the start of the war... Soros provided nearly half of the funding for the study.

Sounds like there are economic incentives for more than just the global warming crowd.

Saturday, January 12, 2008

"[Is it] that we are Arabs or is it because we are Muslims?"

 
The Asharq Alawsat newspaper's Mshari Al-Zaydi addresses the famous question posed by Egypt's Nobel-prize winning scientist Ahmed Zeweil.

“Does the problem lie in the fact that we are Arabs or is it because we are Muslims?”

...Zeweil asked this question in search of a convincing explanation for the failures of Arabs and Muslims to participate, even slightly, in the scientific renaissance that is taking place from East to West, from Japan to the United States bypassing Arab and Muslim regions... [but he also] said, “It is wrong to associate problems with Islam since our Muslim ancestors were the most prominent in the field of science.”

...Zeweil... continues to assert upon the fact that the appropriate environment for scientific research is absent in the Arab world. Out of appreciation, he explained that had it not been for the freedom of creativity in the United States he would never have progressed in the field of science to such an extent... The West is [also] developed in the fields of literature, arts, engineering, mathematics, politics and freedoms thus the renaissance and prosperity of science is simply one part of the “renaissance spirit”.

The West reached this point in fields of science and technology only through a prolonged philosophical, political and social struggle... The problem of scientific backwardness in the Arab and Muslim worlds is a reality and a catastrophe. A “Nature” [editorial recently stated that] “The Islamic world is leading news headlines across the globe (…) however there is a complete absence of any official or public debate regarding science and knowledge...

The answer is obvious to some Western observers. Islam must disconnect its legal system -- Sharia -- from religious practice. Muslims against Sharia is one group that has dedicated itself to precisely this cause. Without this separation, creativity and individual freedom are extinguished.

As John Lewis, writing in The Objective Standard observed:

...A government that turns its force against its own citizens, especially to impose an ideological doctrine on them, subordinates the rights of individuals to the demands of the State. This is statism—the elevation of the State over the individual, and the inversion of the very purpose of government. Statism is the greatest killer in history—dwarfing all attacks by criminals—precisely because it is motivated by some form of mystical political ideology. Because statists claim an authority that is above the rights of man—whether the Fuehrer’s master race, the communists’ dialectic, or the theocrat’s God—they do not recognize the principle of individual rights or the self-ownership of men on earth; rather, they claim the right to rule men, and to kill with impunity anyone who disobeys the ideology or regime...

One method for stripping Sharia from Islam may lie in the text the Koran itself. The Wall Street Journal's Andrew Higgins reports that a cache of documents -- thought lost during World War II -- has been found. The documents allow for the first serious research on Islam's holy text in decades.

On the night of April 24, 1944, British air force bombers hammered a former Jesuit college here housing the Bavarian Academy of Science. The 16th-century building crumpled in the inferno. Among the treasures lost, later lamented Anton Spitaler, an Arabic scholar at the academy, was a unique photo archive of ancient manuscripts of the Quran... The cache of photos survived.. and a Quran research project buried for more than 60 years has risen from the grave.

...The revived Quran venture plays into a very modern debate: how to reconcile Islam with the modern world? Academic quarrying of the Quran has produced bold theories, bitter feuds and even claims of an Islamic Reformation in the making. Applying Western critical methods to Islam's holiest text is a sensitive test of the Muslim community's readiness to both accommodate and absorb thinking outside its own traditions.

...The Quran is viewed by most Muslims as the unchanging word of God as transmitted to the Prophet Muhammad in the 7th century. The text, they believe, didn't evolve or get edited. The Quran says it is "flawless" and fixed by an "imperishable tablet" in heaven. It starts with a warning: "This book is not to be doubted."

[One scholar] claims that chunks of it were written not in Arabic but in another ancient language, Syriac. The "virgins" promised by the Quran to Islamic martyrs, he asserts, are in fact only "grapes..." The [research] task, says Mr. Kunitzsch, grew steadily more sensitive as Muslim hostility towards Western scholars escalated, particularly after the founding of Israel in 1948. "He knew that for Arabs, [the Quran] was a closed matter..."

The research on the origins of the Koran will take a decade or more. If the document is found to have evolved over time and not "etched in stone" from the moment of its creation, it may provide a lever for freeing Islam from its legal system.

Hillary Clinton paddles up the River Cochytus

 
London's Daily Mail has fascinating coverage of the Clintons' rise to power ("How Hillary Clinton made a pact with the devil for political power"). Make sure you read the whole thing.

...Her husband noted in the second year of his presidency, with a wave toward his large Oval Office desk: "I might as well try to lift that desk up and throw it through the window as to change her mind."

Hmmm. That's precisely the quality we want in a Commander-in-Chief.

Nor does Hillary ever feel compelled to explain her certainties - or much else about her thoughts and emotions. This defiantly closed nature has fuelled a perception that she was withholding information during numerous official investigations into the Clintons' affairs.

Well, that and the roughly 250 times she said she didn't remember while under oath.

..."She was extremely Machiavellian, a master of doing things that could not be traced back to her," recalled one close colleague. "She would say: 'Do this, but don't leave any fingerprints.'"

Hillary's own mother once observed: "She just does everything she has to do to get along and get ahead."

I'm frankly stunned her Mom's still alive after that statement. In fact, has someone checked on Mom lately?

...[Their] moments of physical contact were companionable rather than passionate, and reflected Bill and Hillary's mastery of what White House Press Secretary Michael McCurry later called "the science of how they interacted publicly" - the well-practised whisper, the peck on the forehead even in periods of terrible tension.

It was a skill in which Hillary revelled. On January 21, 1993, Bill's first full day in office, she and Bill shook some 1,800 hands in three hours.

"We just screwed all these people," she whispered to her husband - a comment heard on network television.

Wow! She really is honest once in a while!

...The joint decision-making at the top was so overt that staff members called Hillary "The Supreme Court." Whenever Bill said "let me think about it," aides knew he intended to call Hillary.

"We would always say: 'Has the Supreme Court been consulted?'" recalled Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers.

...Significantly, when the nurse at Chelsea's school needed to get permission to dispense an aspirin, the First Daughter said: "Call my dad. My mom's too busy." The nurse did in fact reach the President easily, and he was only too eager to remain on the phone for a chat.

Did he ask what she was wearing?

...Vice-President Al Gore was the biggest victim [of the 'co-presidency']. It was a given in the White House that Hillary had to "sign off on big decisions," and even before Clinton's inauguration, her adviser Susan Thomases was quoted saying that Gore "would have to adjust to a smaller role."

The effect was to add a new layer of intrigue and rivalry to the West Wing, where advisers and cabinet officers knew they could lobby either the First Lady or the Vice-President to reverse decisions by the President.

David Gergen called the "threeheaded system" a "rolling disaster."

The word 'unmitigated' could also have been used instead of 'rolling'.

...her political touch was by no means as sure as her husband's... She insisted on producing a complicated plan for sweeping health reforms that would guarantee medical insurance for all, but refused to consult experts who didn't already agree with her... Her figures were dismissed as mindbogglingly unrealistic - and even Bill, after studying the plan in detail, said: "My brain aches."

During a trip to Massachusetts, he dared to suggest that the reforms might be watered down. Back in Washington, Hillary reacted with fury. An aide recalled how she picked up the phone and told the White House operator: "Get me the President."

Moments later, Bill came on the line. "What the f*** are you doing up there?" she screamed. "I want to see you as soon as you get back." ...Her tone was as "hard-edged" as her advisers had ever heard... The next day, he publicly retracted his comments and even apologised, promising that he aimed to implement the reforms in full. Even so, it was only a matter of time before Hillary's hugely unpopular plan was ignominiously dumped.

Her response? To blame a "conspiracy" - this time in the medical profession... It was the same language she used against the mistresses who lined up to accuse her husband. But as we will see on Monday, those accusers were proving impossible to silence.

It's amazing how many 'conspiracies' arise around the Clintons to foil their well-meaning plans.

Like I said, read it all; it's well worth your time.

Hat tips: LGF and ZombieTime (images).

Kos: Ethical and Classy!

 
Kos is urging his minions to vote for Mitt Romney in Tuesday's open Michigan Primary.

With a history of meddling in our primaries, why don't we try and return the favor. Next Tuesday, January 15th, Michigan will hold its primary. Michigan Democrats should vote for Mitt Romney, because if Mitt wins, Democrats win...

Apparently, Kos is still reeling from the embarrassment that GOP voters inflicted upon him by pumping up Democrat George Wallace's totals in the '72 Primary.

I'm actually a bit shocked that Kos hasn't marketed the idea of each Kos Kid voting multiple times for Romney as well. That would be consistent with this classy dictate.

Hat tips: Charlie Foxtrot and Glenn Reynolds. Wired Magazine has more.

Friday, January 11, 2008

Death lives in fear of Fred Thompson

 
In the Fred Thompson administration, there will be no need for the leaders of terrorist states to visit Ground Zero; Ground Zero will be visiting them.

If strangling Socialists with their own intestines is wrong, Fred Thompson doesn't want to be right.

The Klingon word for bitchin' is "Fred Thompson."

Fred Thompson is not your "bro" and he will tase you.

Fred Thompson has, on one or more occasions, pronounced "nuclear" correctly.

Fred Thompson used to be quite the ladies' man before he married Jeri. In fact, there's a fifty percent chance he's your real father.

In a fight between John Wayne and Chuck Norris, Fred Thompson would win.

Fred Thompson will spend Christmas Eve this year the same as he traditionally does: managing a crisis at Washington Dulles International Airport.

Even annoying yip-yip dogs fall silent in the presence of Fred Thompson.

Fred Thompson opens up whupass in Sam's Club-sized cans.

Fred Thompson has promised to fight and win at least one world war within his first one hundred days.

In a debate, Fred Thompson follows up any rhetorical point he scores with an awesome guitar solo.

Oh, and Fred's inviolable principles are:

The Environment. For too long, we have yielded to the forces of natures. Instead, the nature should bend to our will. We must tame it like a beast as use it as yet another tool to destroy our enemies. If nature will not yield to us, then it must be destroyed starting with the sun.

Space Exploration. We lay claim to all the universe. We must continue to explore space to see if any life forms are occupying our property and punish them.

Border Security. America deserves a giant wall on both borders made from human bones.

Military Technology. We need weapons that launch fireballs at our enemies. Enemies of America deserve to be hit with fireballs.

Foreign Countries. Foreign countries are an affront to our sovereignty. Their mere existence suggests that someone would prefer to live somewhere else than the U.S. For this blasphemy, we must destroy all foreign countries and punish those who support them.

Education. Children are stupid. Someone needs to do something about that or I will destroy them.

Terrorism. We must make our enemies know that Allah is not nearly powerful enough to protect them from our wrath.

Via IMAO (hat tip: The End Zone)

Fred Thompson shreds Mike Huckabee in a manner reminiscent of Genghis Kahn

 
In case you missed it Thursday night, Fred Thompson singlehandedly ended Mike Huckabee's campaign with this riff.

On the one hand, you have the Reagan revolution. You have the Reagan coalition of limited government and strong national security. On the other hand, you have the direction that Governor Huckabee would take us in. He would be a Christian leader, but he would also bring about liberal economic policies, liberal foreign policies. He believes we have an arrogant foreign policy and the tradition of, blame America first.

He believes that Guantanamo should be closed down and those enemy combatants brought here to the United States to find their way into the court system eventually. He believes in taxpayer-funded programs for illegals, as he did in Arkansas. He has the endorsement of the National Education Association, and the NEA said it was because of his opposition to vouchers. He said he would sign a bill that would ban smoking nationwide. So much for federalism. So much for states' rights. So much for individual rights. That's not the model of the Reagan coalition, that's the model of the Democratic Party.

No need for applause. This is just a blog.

Update: another good Thompson quip, courtesy Say Anything.

Make big money in match-stick repair (and TV news)!

 
If I told you that:

* only 19.6% of Americans believe most news media reporting, down from 27.4% in '03..
* that 86% believed the media attempts to influence public policy, up from 77%...
* and that Americans think the New York Times and NPR are roughly four times more liberal than conservative...

Would you believe it?

That's what a recent national survey showed. Suitaby Flip has the details.

Oh. I forgot to mention that the most trusted name in news is Fox News (27.0%), followed by CNN (14.6%), NBC News (10.90%), ABC News (7.0%), CBS News (6.8%), MSNBC (4.0%) and PBS(3.0%). As recently as 2003, CNN led Fox News on "trust most for accurate reporting" 23.8% to 14.6%.

Yet another Clinton fraud?

 
Newsbusters reports that the Clinton Machine may have pulled off another scam.

Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign stop was interrupted Monday when two men stood in the crowd and began screaming, "Iron my shirt!" during one of her final appearances before the New Hampshire primary... Clinton, a former first lady running to become the nation's first female president, laughed at the seemingly sexist protest that suggested a woman's place is doing the laundry and not running the country.

"Ah, the remnants of sexism — alive and well," Clinton said to applause in a school auditorium.

It turns out that the protesters work for Boston station WBCN 104.1 FM and were promoting a local show.

You know, this might make my "Top 12 Hillary Fabrications list."

Line o' the Day

 
Bill Richardson, on Fox News, asked whether his supporters favor Clinton or Obama:

"My people are going both ways"

Uhm, okaaay.