Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Palestinian Girl: Hamas responsible for war


Well, this certainly seems to sum things up in terms simple enough for even Glenn Greenwald to understand.





Larwyn's Links: Hamas' suicide mission


Hamas's suicide mission: National Post
Palestinians admit using human shields: Peace with Realism
World's deadliest conventional weapons: Fox News

CNN at its unprincipled worst: The New Republic
WaPo steps in Pallywood Doodoo?: Augean Stables
On the other side from civilization: Spectator (Melanie Phillips)

Why we need net neutrality: Pajamas Media
NASA: Trauma Killed Shuttle Columbia Astronauts: Fox News
Financial desperation grows at The New York Times: American Thinker

Ohio Terror Sheikh Threatens American Deaths on Egyptian TV: Ohioans Against Terror
Crucifixion Legalized By Hamas... Liberal Elites Sympathize: Conservative Black Woman
Hamas: Of Course We'll Never Stop Attacking "Zionist Enemies Of God": Mere Rhetoric

D.C. lobbyist sues Times over McCain affair story: Long Island Business News
Where are all the women journalists obsessing over Caroline's wardrobe, makeup & hairstyles?: Slate
Media Deathwatch: Arrogant Reporter Vanquished By Bloggers Bleats into Obscurity: Patriot Room

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Rod Blagojevich and I are pleased to announce our endorsements for the 2008 Weblog Awards


Rod Blagojevich and I are pleased to announce our endorsements for the 2008 Weblog Awards.

Voting begins on January 5, 2009. Make sure you visit and vote for any of the following recommendations, which are officially endorsed by Blago and myself.

Best Blog: Hot Air
Best Individual Blogger: Jules Crittenden and The Anchoress
Best Humor Blog: Mother May I Sleep With Treacher and IMAO
Best Comic Strip: Day by Day and Dilbert
Best Conservative Blog: Little Green Footballs, Michelle Malkin, Ace of Spades, Power Line, American Thinker and Atlas Shrugs
Best Political Coverage: American Thinker and Townhall
Best Technology Blog: Ars Technica and TechCrunch
Best Military Blog: Michael Yon and Blackfive
Best Law Blog: Volokh Conspiracy and WSJ Law Blog
Best LGBT Blog: Gay Patriot
Best Photo Blog: Snapped Shot
Best Culture Blog: SondraK
Best Gossip Blog Perez Hilton, TMZ
Best Video Blog: DemoCast TV
Best Middle East/Africa Blog: Michael J. Totten, Elder of Ziyon, IsraellyCool
Best Australia or New Zealand Blog: Tim Blair
Best Major Blog: Instapundit
Best Very Large Blog: Right Wing News, Patterico, Protein Wisdom
Best Large Blog: Jammie Wearing Fool, Sister Toldjah
Best Midsize Blog: Zomblog, Betsy's Page, Israel Matzav
Best Small Blog: Exurban League
Best Up and Coming Blog: McClatchy Watch, Daled Amos, Sundries Shack

We didn't make it this year because (a) we suck; and (b) we just surpassed the 500+ Technorati authority level, which barely pushed us into the Very Large Blog category. And we really, really, really suck compared to the other Very Large Blogs.

Video o' the day: Hitchens' sign language


Yep, that's Christopher Hitchens offering his sign language feedback to Bill Maher's audience.

From all appearances, the crowd consists of the Left's intelligentsia: Cynthia McKinney, Susan Sarandon, E. J. Dionne, Michael Moore, Maureen Dowd and Alec Baldwin.

Hat tip: LGF Quick Links.

Hamas has a website survey: should it continue rocket attacks?


The English version of the official Hamas website is hosting a survey.

It asks the following question.

Next step for Al Qassam Brigade>[?] The choices are: (a) Keep calm; (b) Resume rockets; and (c) Resume operations. Strangely enough, the choice of Stop killing Jews and live in peace was missing.

The results thus far (560 or so votes as of this writing):

Of course, the real Hamas website (in Arabic) contains no such survey.

The survey is intended for the useful idiots -- that would be the English-speaking Left and the mainstream media. But I repeat myself.

After all, the Hamas charter is quite clear on this point.

...There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad.

Got that, Glenn Greenwald?

Update: Editorial: Hamas's suicide mission

Show your support for Blago with the new 'Free Blago' blog widget!


I love this guy! I'm convinced the man is innocent. Innocent as the driven snow, I say! You can show your support by adding a FREE BLAGO blog widget to your blog and other electronic correspondence.


Please send your checks to:

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Blago's still the right man for the job!


Hat tip: Larwyn. FREE BLAGO widget appears at: Gateway Pundit, Marathon Pundit, Northeast Republican, Bob McCarty and FPA. If you use the FREE BLAGO blog widget, send me the link and I'll include you in the list of high-powered, mega-cool Blago supporters.

No double standard


During its interview The New York Times lobbed softball after softball at Carolyn Kennedy. And she responded with a shtick straight out of the movie Valley Girl.

It really makes you wonder: what if Ms. Kennedy-Schlossberg had been pelted with the same questions Governor Palin received? Remember?

Brian Gibson interviews Barack Obama:

How does it feel to break a glass ceiling?
How does it feel to “win”?
How does your family feel about your “winning” breaking a glass ceiling?
Who will be your VP?
Should you choose Hillary Clinton as VP?
Will you accept public finance?
What issues is your campaign about?
Will you visit Iraq?
Will you debate McCain at a town hall?
What did you think of your competitor’s [Clinton] speech?


Brian Gibson interviews Sarah Palin:

Do you have enough qualifications for the job you’re seeking? Specifically have you visited foreign countries and met foreign leaders?
Aren’t you conceited to be seeking this high level job?
Questions about foreign policy
-territorial integrity of Georgia
-allowing Georgia and Ukraine to be members of NATO
-NATO treaty
-Iranian nuclear threat
-what to do if Israel attacks Iran
-Al Qaeda motivations
-the Bush Doctrine
-attacking terrorists harbored by Pakistan
Is America fighting a holy war? [misquoted Palin]

I'm shocked -- SHOCKED -- that Ms. Kennedy-Schlossberg hasn't been attacked the way Palin was. Recall these golden oldies?

Democrats


• Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) described Palin as "disabled".
• Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) said Palin "doesn't know anything".
• Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) believed that Palin's election would be a "backward step for women".
• Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) believed that Palin's "family background, including the pregnancy of her unwed teenage daughter, should be fair game for campaign discussion."
• Obama Finance Director Howard Gutman claimed that Palin "puts [her] career above [her] family."
• Michigan Democratic operative Barbara Theaker, introducing Joe Biden, called Palin "a bucket of fluff."
• South Carolina Democratic Chair Carol Fowler: "[Palin's] primary qualification seems to be that she hasn’t had an abortion."
• Obama supporter Lincoln Chafee called Sarah Palin a "cocky wacko."
• Former Gore advisor Bob Shrum: "However much the Republican base hoots and whistles, Palin may not become their Miss November; she’s been a runner-up before."

The Mainstream Media


• The Cleveland Plain-Dealer's Connie Schultz claimed "[Palin] outed her pregnant daughter... [abortion] was never really a choice for this girl, unless she was willing to derail her mother's political career."
• The New York Times' Judith Warner characterizes Palin's selecton as a "thoroughgoing humiliation for America’s women."
• The New York Times' Maureen Dowd quotes a Palin detractor: "She’s a child, inexperienced and simplistic."
• The Kansas City Star's Mary Sanchez headlined a column "Palin is gloriously, fabulously unfit for duty."
• Chicago Sun-Times Columnist Mary Mitchell said "Sarah Palin makes me sick... [she] scares me... I couldn't help but wonder what it's really like for [her] kids."
• The New York Times' Maureen Dowd described Palin as "our new Napoleon in bunny boots."
• The Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan: "She is the biggest joke to be put on a ticket in national politics... [She is] Princess of Alaska."
• The Washington Post's Wendy Doniger: "Her greatest hypocrisy is in her pretense that she is a woman."
• The New York Times' Gail Collins: "Given Palin’s affection for shooting wolves from airplanes with high-powered rifles, it’d be more appropriate to have them cowering in their dens while she aims her machine gun from a diving Cessna."
• The Boston Globe's Peter Gelzinis characterizes Palin as a "snow princess."
• Salon's Cintra Wilson said Palin is a "Christian Stepford wife in a sexy librarian costume... like one of those cutthroat Texas cheerleader stage moms."
• Salon's Juan Cole: "What is the difference between Palin and a Muslim fundamentalist? Lipstick."
• Air America's Randi Rhodes: "She’s friends with all the teenage boys. You have to say no when your kids say, ‘can we sleep over at the Palin’s? No! NO!’."

Hollywood


• Sandra Bernhard warns Palin: "[don't] come into Manhattan lest she get gang-raped by some of Sandra’s big black brothers."
• Bill Maher: I will send (Obama) whatever I have to to keep this snarling bitch out of the White House."
• Chevy Chase instructed SNL to "decimate this woman [Palin]."
• Pink: "This woman hates women... the woman terrifies me."
• Brad Garrett said Palin is "White trash."
• Roger Ebert described Palin as "A shallow, chirpy person with those vaguely alarming eyeglasses."
• Pamela Anderson said the candidate "can suck it."
• Linda Carter: "She’s judgmental and dictatorial... I think America should be very afraid."
• Lindsay Lohan: "Is our country so divided that the Republicans best hope is a narrow minded, media obsessed homophobe?"

Caroline Kennedy makes Sarah Palin look like Madame Curie.

No, there's no double standard here. None at all.

Update: Senora Kennedy is make very good Senator.

Thanks, FCC! The Colossal Text Message Ripoff


Now that the FCC, with all of its industry ties and inherent conflicts-of-interest, has allowed Ma Bell to reconstitute itself, can you guess which direction prices of mobile services are moving? Take text messages, for example.

In 2008, 2.5 trillion messages were sent from cell phones worldwide, up 32 percent from the year before, according to the Gartner Group and reported by The New York Times. But, what also rose in the last three years was the price — doubling from 10 to 20 cents per message while the industry consolidated from six major carriers to four.

And how much does it cost the telcos to send a text message? Basically nothing.

...A better description might be [that text messages] “cost carriers very, very, very little to transmit.” ...[the] messages are not just tiny; they are also free riders, tucked into what’s called a control channel, space reserved for operation of the wireless network...

All four of the major carriers decided during the last three years to increase the pay-per-use price for messages to 20 cents from 10 cents. The decision could not have come from a dearth of business: the 2.5 trillion sent messages this year, the estimate of the Gartner Group, is up 32 percent from 2007. Gartner expects 3.3 trillion messages to be sent in 2009...

...The carriers will [soon have] opportunities to tell us more about their pricing decisions: 20 class-action lawsuits have been filed around the country against AT&T and the other carriers, alleging price-fixing for text messaging services.

The telcos are effectively insulated from competition, from wholesaling requirements, from basic free-market principles by an FCC that has way too many ties to the industry to offer clean counsel to consumers.

That's why I call the telephone and cable companies the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac of telecommunications. And this sort of thing is exactly why I agree with Larwence Lessig: it's time to demolish the FCC.

The time has come for FairTax: Let's rescue the economy


If you're unfamiliar with the concept of FairTax, a nonpartisan approach to eradicating our outrageously complex tax code (and the IRS with it), now's certainly a good time to learn about it.

FairTax replaces all federal income and payroll based taxes with a progressive national retail sales tax. All Americans receive a "prebate" -- a base minimum set of funds -- to ensure no one pays federal taxes on spending up to the poverty level.

FairTax thereby removes huge accounting burdens from government, businesses and individuals. Why is it so important to remove the tax accounting burden? Because the tax code has grown so complex, so out-of-control, so immense that entire organizations are required to keep up with it.

This embedded "tax compliance burden" adds as much as 25% to the costs of all goods and services we consume. And, of course, it increases the size of government because the burden requires that the IRS, regulators, and thousands of other bureaucrats keep the taxpayers honest.

The FairTax Act (HR 25, S 1025) is nonpartisan legislation. It abolishes all federal personal and corporate income taxes, gift, estate, capital gains, alternative minimum, Social Security, Medicare, and self-employment taxes and replaces them with one simple, visible, federal retail sales tax administered primarily by existing state sales tax authorities.

The FairTax levies us only on what we choose to spend on new goods or services, not on what we earn. The FairTax is a fair, efficient and transparent solution to the frustration and inequity of our current tax system. The FairTax:

• Enables workers to keep their entire paychecks
• Enables retirees to keep their entire pensions
• Refunds in advance the tax on purchases of basic necessities
• Allows American products to compete fairly
• Brings transparency and accountability to tax policy
• Ensures Social Security and Medicare funding
• Closes all loopholes and brings fairness to taxation
• Abolishes the IRS

With the economy in desperate straits, it's time to eradicate our out-of-control tax code and thereby unleash American productivity.

Find out more about FairTax and send your own message to Washington. The time has come for FairTax.

Note for bloggers: Get your own banners and widgets to show your support.

Socialist States of America


In 1998 Russian academic and former KGB analyst Igor Panarin began predicting that the U.S. will fall apart in 2010. Given the recent economic turbulence, more Russian agencies and organizations are paying closer attention.

Mr. Panarin posits, in brief, that mass immigration, economic decline, and moral degradation will trigger a civil war next fall and the collapse of the dollar. Around the end of June 2010, or early July, he says, the U.S. will break into six pieces -- with Alaska reverting to Russian control...

...He based the forecast on classified data supplied to him by FAPSI analysts, he says. He predicts that economic, financial and demographic trends will provoke a political and social crisis in the U.S. When the going gets tough, he says, wealthier states will withhold funds from the federal government and effectively secede from the union. Social unrest up to and including a civil war will follow. The U.S. will then split along ethnic lines, and foreign powers will move in.

California will form the nucleus of what he calls "The Californian Republic," and will be part of China or under Chinese influence. Texas will be the heart of "The Texas Republic," a cluster of states that will go to Mexico or fall under Mexican influence. Washington, D.C., and New York will be part of an "Atlantic America" that may join the European Union. Canada will grab a group of Northern states Prof. Panarin calls "The Central North American Republic." Hawaii, he suggests, will be a protectorate of Japan or China, and Alaska will be subsumed into Russia...

[He] called U.S. foreign debt "a pyramid scheme," and predicted China and Russia would usurp Washington's role as a global financial regulator.

Georgia will join the Texican Republic? And South Carolina will ally with Northeastern states and join the EU?

Panarin must not be too familiar with these states.

Monday, December 29, 2008

Block o' the Year


It's the best time of the year for football. And Derek Kinder picks up our prestigious block o' the year award.


Click either image to check it.

Your end-of-year Reagan fix


Always inspiring.

The Reagan Wit
Reagan 2008 Tribute at RNC
"Tear down this wall"
Reagan Oval Office Farewell

Reagan advises Obama supporters
"Government is not the solution..."
Reagan on the age issue
Morning in America ad

Reagan responds to Sam Donaldson
Reagan's 1980 RNC Speech
Reagan's impromptu speech in 1976
Reagan in 1964

"It's the largest luxury sedan Detroit is legally allowed to build!"


New for 2010:



Related: "Let them drive Buicks."

Larwyn's Link Kerplosion: Princess and the Peabrain


Top five gaffes of campaign 2008 - Swamp Politics
Blago's Auction - American Thinker
Seven best capers of 2008 (but they forgot Madoff) - Wired

Lawyer [Dreier] Is Accused in Huge Hedge Fund Fraud - DealBook
Marc Dreier and Bernie Madoff: A Tale of Two Bails - WSJ
Shana Madoff's Ties to Uncle Probed - WSJ

'Senate Candidate No. 3' — Jan Schakowsky and Save-A-Life - RBO
The Slave Next Door: Child maid trafficking reaches US - Yahoo! News
Zakir ("Whacky Zaky") Naik on peace and tolerance - YouTube

Spot on sailor - Theo Spark
The Princess and the Peabrain - Ace
Warren's selection for 'Man of the Year' is mine too - American Digest

Tale of two presidential workout fanatics - Michelle Malkin
What ever happened to hope and change? - Jammie Wearing Fool
Sunday Night Blago Scandals Digest - Marathon Pundit

"Immortals? We'll put their name to the test." -- Leonidas (300)

Day after


Remember his over-the-top holiday decorations?

Papa B sends a picture from the day after.

Sunday, December 28, 2008

The importance of load distribution












Hat tip: The Car Tech.

Supporting Hamas is now "progressive"


So a group -- whose mission is the destruction of your entire country -- chucks hundreds of missiles into your territory and thereby kills a bunch of innocent civilians. After warning and warning and warning, you retaliate with overwhelming force, killing two hundred of the group's leaders and members with pinpoint precision unheard of in the annals of war.

It appears that Israel's retaliatory attacks killed 240, of whom 180 were Hamas leaders or fighters. This means that less than 25% (we're not sure exactly how many) of the dead were civilian casualties. The number is elevated because Hamas intentionally places its facilities next to hospitals, schools and mosques. In other words, Hamas routinely uses human shields. These acts violate every facet of any moral code.

Further, Hamas rocket attacks and suicide bombings are aimed strictly at civilian targets and result in almost 100% civilian casualties.

Put simply, Hamas attacks civilians and Israel responds by attacking Hamas leaders and fighters.

How do you react?

Well, if you're a liberal, you complain when the folks getting attacked retaliate.

Like Salon's Glenn Greenwald: "[How can we not mention] ...the ongoing four-decades brutal occupation or the recent, grotesquely inhumane blockade of Gaza -- would find the slaughter of scores of innocent Palestinians to be a horrible and deeply lamentable event." (Shhhh... no one tell Greewald about Egypt's blockade of Gaza; or how Russia reacted when attacked by Chechen separatists. Those standards don't apply!)

Or the vast majority of Salon readers: "Peretz - and his Kach-olytes on The Spine - have never really cared that much about the deaths of Arabs or Muslims, who they regard as only marginally human... I saw a Nazi b*tch on Meet the Press, she was the mouthpiece for the current atrocity in Gaza for Israel."

Or the grotesque Philip Weiss: "[The] Gaza slaughter will help end the Israel lobby."

Or the execrable Vorpal Putz? "Collective punishment is a War Crime." (No word on what Israel should have done; perhaps throw up its hands in surrender and march out of its tiny sliver of land into the ocean).

Perchance the wearily predictable "professor", Juan Cole? "Israel blames Hamas for primitive homemade rocket attacks on the nearby Israeli city of Sederot... [Eh, who should they blame, "professor"?] ...230 people were slaughtered in a day, over 70 of them innocent civilians. In contrast, from the ceasefire Hamas announced in June, 2008 until Saturday, no Israelis had been killed by Hamas. The infliction of this sort of death toll is known in the law of war as a disproportionate response, and it is a war crime..." (Put another way, if Poland had reacted to the Nazi invasion with its own massive bombing campaign, that would be a war crime too, using the 'logic' of 'disproportionate response'. Just to keep score, it's the war-time standard that applies only to the U.S. and Israel in the magical land of Coleistan)

Or the miracle cure for insomnia, Taylor Marsh: "Israel obviously learned nothing from their war with Lebanon. It's not about "very disproportionate, indeed," contrary to Mr. Peretz's whining. It's about Israel refusing to wake up and deal with the world condemnation..." (Because we all know the 'world' supports Israel so much!)

Israel has two simple conditions for a lasting ceasefire: (a) stop bombing Israel; and (b) acknowledge Israel’s right to exist. Simple enough? No: those two tenets are apparently far too complicated for the American left to comprehend.

To get a sense of how many rockets are currently slamming into Israel, subscribe to Twitter updates at @qassamcount.

Israel has few enough friends in the world community: there's a decided scarcity of those who support intellectual progress, civilization, and tolerance.

I think it's fair to say that we can now count the American left among Israel's enemies. But perhaps someone could explain to me how support for Hamas is now "progressive".

Start the Jeopardy countdown music, Vanna.

Update: Just in time for the Christmas holiday, Hamas "[passed] a Shari’a criminal code for the Palestinian Authority [and for certain crimes] it legalizes crucifixion." Enlightened!

Update II: “There is no such thing as a ‘disproportionate response’ to calls for genocide.”:

‘Death is coming. O Zionists, hide yourselves!‘ ...Let’s be clear. This is a call to genocide. While the UN and much of Europe wring their hands at the heavy Israeli response to rocket fire by the Palestinians into Israel, there is talk of ‘disproportionate response.’ There is no such thing as a ‘disproportionate response’ to calls for genocide. All conflicts end with ‘disproportionate response.’

Update III: On Fox News, Charles Krauthammer noted that the Israeli military warned Palestinian "human shields" ahead of time that attacks were coming. Got that, "Perfesser" Juan Cole?

Update IV: Ralph Peters of the New York Post:

Israel's crime isn't striking back at terror, but demonstrating, year after year, that a country in the Middle East can be governed without resort to terror. Israel's crime hasn't been denying Arab rights, but insisting on human rights for women and minorities.

Israel's crime has been making democracy work where tyranny prevailed for 5,000 years. Israel's crime has been survival against overwhelming odds, while legions of Arab nationalists, Islamist extremists and Western leftists want every Jew dead.

Update V: Memo from Israel to Palestine.

Hat tips: LGF, Gateway Pundit, Power Line and Infidel Bloggers Alliance.

Larywn's Global Warming Links: Hot off the Griddle


2008 was the year man-made global warming was disproved - UK Telegraph
"Average temperature of the water near the top of the Earth's oceans has significantly cooled since 2003." - NASA
The western tip of Lake Superior freezes over in December for first time in recent memory - Duluth News
"A Scam, With No Basis In Science" - Powerline

"Rare 50 year Arctic Blast Sets Sights On Southern California." - Ventura County Star
750 years of ice core data show sun drove pre-industrial temp changes - Scientific Blogging
South America has coldest winter in 90 years - Gateway Pundit

2008: coldest summer in Anchorage since 1917 (PDF) - Icecap
Alaskan Glaciers Grow for First Time in 250 years - DailyTech
Arctic sees 'massive gain' in ice coverage - DailyTech

Gov. Gregoire: Record Winter Storms Lead to Statewide Emergency - MSNBC
Scientist adjusts data -- presto, Antarctic cooling disappears - Heliogenic Climate Change
China struggles to cope with the worst snow storms in over 50 years - BBC

Update on 12/30/08: The Toronto Sun:

This has been another disappointing year for global warming alarmists, which is why you haven't heard much about it in the media.

Global temperatures lately haven't been co-operating with Al Gore's simplistic claim in An Inconvenient Truth that the Earth's temperature rises in automatic lockstep with increasing concentrations of man-made greenhouse gases. Based on that incorrect premise, there hasn't been any warming since 1998...

Linked by: MacBigot. Thanks!

Saturday, December 27, 2008

Who is this man?


Hamid Mowlana, supposedly a "professor", is seen here desecrating his country's flag. He is an American citizen of Iranian descent. The Spirit of Man has the excruciating details.


Perhaps Heinlein was right: military service should be required before citizenship is granted.

"Let them drive Buicks!"






Update: Barney Frank, Democrats Want To Tell Auto Industry What Kind Of Cars To Make

Linked by: American Thinker, Doug Powers and RightKlik. Thanks!