September 25, 2005

Damsel In Distress

If anyone is between Houston and Lake Charles, please speak up and let me know what the gas situation is where you are.

If you can help, please go read the rest.

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Cindy Sheehan is no Gary Qualls

Gary Qualls was the father of Lance Corporal Louis W. Qualls, who was killed during the Battle of Fallujah on November 16, 2004. Gary observes that Cindy Sheehan refuses to read the last letter of her son. He feels this reluctance marks her cause as one of dishonor and disrespect, rather than the principled objection it claims to be. Gary unashamedly read the text of his son's final letter on the Mall today, in Washington DC... something that apparently strikes fear into the hearts of the so-called "anti-war" movement's followers, for it allows a clear comparison between their "shenanigans" and the uncomplicated notion of "duty" that inspires patriots like Qualls. The result is far from flattering to the Copperheads.

more...

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Will Someone Please Deactivate the Comment Filter?

The thing is dysfunctional. Clearly the comment filter isn't working. I don't know whether Pixy can address this, or Rusty, but there's something decidedly silly going on. And for once it's not me. The following item quoted from a previous comment in the same thread results consistently in a "questionable content" rejection:

If you are really a cadre of badass street-brawling paint-huffing nihilists, how come you fight relentlessly for the side of big government and Hegelian progressivism?

Why a quoted comment that has already passed the comment filter results in a rejection if it's quoted simply escapes me, but clearly something is messed up. My comment on the above quote is simply that if anarchism made sense, it wouldn't be anarchism. But there's also such a thing as too much control.

Posted by: Demosophist at 12:59 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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H5N1 what I have learned this week

The story that seemed to kind of hang under the radar this week is the Bird Flu has reached Indonesia and bird culls are taking place there. I decided to see just what I could find out about H5N1 and flu vaccines and treatments in general. H5N1 is expected to follow the same path other flu does. Starting in chickens and ducks and migrating to swine and humans although direct jumps to humans are possible. I was able to find no one saying this is all a bunch of hooey. So while IÂ’m not panicked and donÂ’t think anyone else should there are a few issues that need attention here.

IÂ’ve collected a big pile of links and will post them below the break so you too can be informed and make your own judgements. Because when you rely on the government or the drug companies, Well you get the idea. Howie also has his commentary below. more...

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Thai Fighter

This man is talking a big game, and I hope he's playing it too. The Prime Minister of Thailand, Thaksin Shinawatra, has a serious Islamist insurrection in the south of his country, and he's giving an ultimatum: if he doesn't crush the insurgency in three years, he's asked Thailand to vote him out of office.

One of the interesting steps he's taking is banning dual citizenship for Thais who were born in Malaysia or cross into Thailand to work--and to vote. After two Thai Navy officers were beaten to death in a village, the PM observed that the incident "made us realise that it's time to solve this problem once and for all. Those militants have no gratitude to their motherland, which has given them the freedom to practice any religious faith,"

Dual citizenship is a strange thing. I'm not sure how much of Thailand's problems it is actually responsible for, but certainly it's an interesting parallel with our own border problems in which people without any loyalty to the United States, often unwilling to cut their allegiance with their homeland, have arrived en masse over a porous border.

It's a good first step, I think: Thaksin has told his people to pick a side--you're for pluralist Thailand, or you're for Islamist Malaysia. The protection of the laws in a country--in other words, to have rights-- entails responsibilities and basic loyalty as well, and it's interesting that Thailand has caught on to this distinction even as many open-borders advocates in the USA continue to miss it. It's Thailand's version of "You're either with us, or with the terrorists...and don't show up looking for welfare if you're with the terroroists.".


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DSM Revealed!

Thanks to Michelle Malkin's shutterbug skills, we have at last captured the likeness of the obnoxious, once-banned Jawa Report Troll From Seoul calling himself "Downing Street Memo"--though he remains mysterious behind dark glasses:

more...

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September 24, 2005

It's the Hole...

I'm not going to DC to witness the demonstrations, because it's just too depressing. I once thought that any policy mistakes the US happens to make will get sorted out in the public debate. That's the way democracy works, I figured. But mainstream media doesn't even appear capable of discussing the 2005 hurricane phenomenon with any degree of competence, let alone the strategy and tactics we're using in the "Long War Against Irreconcilable Islam." It's not so much that they're wrong, as that there isn't even a core of sense to grab onto. It isn't that their analysis is flawed, so much as that they have no idea what they're talking about. It's like your mechanic telling you that your car isn't running because your parachute wasn't packed properly. We can't have productive discussions about policy because almost half the public doesn't realize the cheese has slid off their cracker.

more...

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Conspiracy Theories Abound at Sheehan Antiwar Rally

While the antiwar movement claims their only concern is for the troops, any one who listens to their rhetoric for more than two minutes understands that they have an underlying agenda. These people hate the U.S. with as much passion as Osoma bin Laden. Below are a number of photos from today's rally in Washington, D.C.

I was all set to do a Blog Sabbath caption contest when I noticed some of the signs at the Mother Saint Cindy Sheehan protest rally which can't be ignored. Notice that Sheehan wants 'the truth'. The truth about what? 9/11? Check out the sign in the background.

cindy_sheeha_jesse_jackson.jpg

Here it is blown up. It says Expose 9/11 Cover-Up.

cindy_sheeha_jesse_jackson_911_sign.jpg more...

Posted by: Rusty at 03:53 PM | Comments (127) | Add Comment
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Galloway Supporters Want Your Children Dead

I just received an e-mail from the patriot who is raising money for U.S. troops by auctioning off George Galloway's treasonous book. You can participate in the auction here. Would it shock any of you to know that he has received a slew of hate mail and fake bids?

Two bidders, I am told are especially guilty of abusing eBay policy and have bid up the price to over 9 million dollars (screenshot below is evidence). They appear to be from the U.K. What do Galloway supporters in the U.K. think of British and American troops in Iraq? Your friends, brothers, and children are, and this is a direct quote, "people who kill women and children for a living."

Ladies and gentleman, your average Galloway supporter! They don't want the troops out of Iraq because they care about your sons and daughters. They want the troops out of Iraq because they hate your sons and daughters. Baby killers, that is their view of the American soldier.

If that weren't enough, our patriot friend continues:

Not only have they found my auction "disgusting", which is quite the compliment coming from those who find suicide bombers as glorious, but they have also expressed to me their wish for every American and British soldier to find their end in Iraqi soil.
These are British citizens, mind you, wishing their own countrymen dead and their troops defeated.

Of course, most of those against the war say they support the troops. There is actually a fair argument to be made that we should end the war because we cannot win, and we should not fight any war where we cannot attain victory. However, this is not the argument being made in D.C. this weekend by these protestors. What they are arguing is that the U.S. is bad, mmmmkay, and then try to dodge their own logic which inevetably leads one to conclude that if the U.S. and its allies are really the bad guys then it is perfectly acceptable to support those that murder them. more...

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Lando, Chewbacca Join Anti-Bush Protest

In a move that has delighted Star Wars enthusiasts and enraged Republicans everywhere, famed intergalactic heroes Lando Calrissian and Chewbacca recently turned up at an anti-war protest in Washington, DC.

Information and images here.

Posted by: Rusty at 01:45 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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Rita Runs Aground

Rita Has come ashore just east of the TX/LA border. Rita was downgraded to a category 2 about 7:00 CDT. Some damage reported. I also have recieved reports of winds near 100 mph near Beaumont. Several Tornado warnings have also been issued. It's just a wait and see game now.

CNN has a pretty good update this AM.

The NHC said the storm made landfall at 2:30 a.m. (3:30 a.m. EDT) at Cameron Parish, on the extreme southwest coast of Louisiana between Sabine Pass and Johnson's Bayou. Cameron Parish, is a flat marshy area stretching along the coast eastward from the Texas state line...... .....all but a few of the 10,000 residents of the parish evacuated. Damage from the storm was already reported in several locations, particularly Lake Charles, La.

Update:

Good news Rita has been downgraded to a tropical storm and initial reports are good considering. ZERO deaths reported so far and Damage has been less than expected. Reports after Katrina were good too, let's hope this one stays that way.

more...

Posted by: Howie at 08:26 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Just Step Over The Homeless Guy

I hope Rusty doesn't mind, but I'll be posting here full time on a part-time basis until I get my mu.nu digs.

Or is that part time on a full time basis?

Whatever, I quit the old space.

Don't worry, I won't clutter your monitor with my mindless drivel, because if I can't come up with something like this every day, why, it's not worth posting at all.

*Sigh* I put my site back up.

Posted by: Vinnie at 12:49 AM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
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September 23, 2005

Hurricane Rita hits: Adult Entertainers, Single Mothers Disproportionally Affected

Things were just about getting back to normal in New Orleans. The lushes were out in force, transvestyte hookers were trickling back into the city, and a strip club had reopened to service the needs of armies of insurance adjusters and lonely FEMA workers. There were even rumors of a new Girls Gone Wild: Hurricane Victims edition about to begin production work. Alas, it will all have to wait. Damn you Rita! Damn you to hell!!!

If you want to see the picture accompanying this story, better check out Riehl World View--and yes, that picture actually was part of a news story. Because journalists are after the important scoops. Notice that both the Reuters story and the pic that Dan Riehl have is of the same stripper. Why do I have the feeling that one Reuters reporter is a very satisfied customer? Reuters :

In a sign that things may be returning to normal in New Orleans, strip shows are back in the city's famous French Quarter.

Erotic dancers and strippers are entertaining crowds of police, firefighters and military personnel instead of the usual audiences of drunken conventioneers and tourists in Bourbon Street's Deja Vu club, which reopened this week.

It's the first strip joint to resume business, three weeks after Hurricane Katrina struck in the worst natural disaster ever to hit the United States.

"It's nice to get back to work, and all these men need some entertainment," Dawn Beasley, 27, a dancer at the club, said on Tuesday night. "They haven't seen anybody but their buddies for two weeks."

The crowd hooted and hollered as women peeled off their tops and gyrated, as customers tucked tips into their G-strings.

But don't you worry. FEMA cards are accepted for lap dances. Via QandO this Times Online story entitled Vote Republican for Free Lap Dances. I knew there was a reason I voted for that guy!:
Interviewed by a reporter for the local TV station, Abby over at Baby Dolls said she had seen many clients using their debit cards. She had nothing but praise for this exercise in government largesse. “A lot of customers have been coming in from Louisiana and they’ve been real happy about the $1.75 beers and they’re really nice.” It was only fair, she added that they should get a little publicly funded help. “You lost your whole house, then, why not?” she said. “You might want some beer in a strip club. There are a lot of guys out there that like to do that.”
With the mandatory evacuation of Houston's adult entertainment establishment, what will thousands of single mothers do to feed their children? Just one more way in which in Bush's America, single mothers are once again affected more deeply by natural disasters. ;-)

Posted by: Rusty at 02:16 PM | Comments (18) | Add Comment
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Hamas Blows Up Hamas?

Be careful don't step on the bo.........

ABCNEWS.

A pickup truck carrying masked Islamic militants and homemade rockets blew up at a Hamas rally Friday, killing at least 10 Palestinians, including children, and wounding 85, hospital doctors and witnesses said

Uh, Can you say Natural Selection?

Posted by: Howie at 01:00 PM | Comments (16) | Add Comment
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An Evening With President Bush

Hello America, I'm Larry King. My guest tonight is President Bush who is with us to talk about emergency preparedness and the federal government.

Mr. President, I noticed that the federal agencies have managed to respond much more quickly to Hurricane Rita than they did to Hurricane Katrina. Is that because they learned their lessons during Katrina? Or is it possibly because of the firing of Michael Brown?

President Bush: Well, Larry, I really don't think it's either. We just wanted to get there faster this time. After all, I can't let all those innocent people get killed right there in my home state. I might decide to run for Governor again.

King: So you're saying that you have more sympathy for the people caught in Hurricane Rita?

President Bush: Why heck yes. Didn't you hear my interview with Wolf Blitzer? And not only did we manage to get rid of all the Negroes, but did you know that New Orleans was filled with fornicators? That's a biblical word for people having sex. And according to my buddy Jerry, we can't let people do that. As a matter of fact, I'm going down to Florida next week to have a talk with my brother about why he evacuated all those homosexhuals from the Keys. Why he let the perfect opportunity to rid his state of most of the rif-raf slip straight through his fingers. more...

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Terror Suspect Arrested at U.K. Airport

manchester_airport_terror_scare.jpg
A man was arrested today at the Manchester, U.K., airport under Britain's new tougher anti-terrorism laws. Reports are conflicting at this point as to the exact circumstances of his arrest. This report claims the man was 'Asian', which in England usually indicates some one from the subcontinent--Pakistan or Indian.

[Image: AP]

Fox News reports that the man was arrested for acting suspiciously and apparently resisting the quesioning--a stun gun had to be used to subdue the man (hat tip Confederate Yankee for e-mailing me):

According to SKY News, a man was seen acting suspiciously at the airport, and was subsequently approached by authorities, who used a stun gun to arrest him after he resisted.

Army bomb units were then called in to investigate the suitcase, and the BBC reported that a controlled explosion was carried out.

This report indicates that the man might have been on the runway with the package:
Greater Manchester Police said the man had been seen acting suspiciously in the area where aircraft were parked.

The British Broadcasting Corporation reported that a man with a suitcase had been seen walking under an aircraft.

This report indicates, though, that the man was caught after he ran through a security checkpoint:
A man was arrested by police today after he ran through a security post at Manchester Airport and got within 60 metres of an aircraft.
While the man was initially arrested under the Terrorism Act, he is now being held under the Mental Health Act. So, either he's crazy or a crazy terrorist.

Posted by: Rusty at 11:57 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Hostage Forced to Bash Bush

Roy Hallums will be on 60 Minutes this Sunday. Here is some of what he says in the interview, from a CBS Press release (thanks to Tall Glass of Milk):

I didn't like the videos going out," says Hallums, "because I knew my family would probably see them and I hated for my daughters to see me in that situation," he tells Stahl.

His captors also sought his family's telephone numbers to ask for a ransom, says Hallums, putting a pistol barrel in his mouth and threatening to kill him. "I knew if I gave them the number, they would call them and ask for moneyÂ…and I didn't want [my family] to deal with a call like that."

Hallums was kept in a crawlspace below a farmhouse for most of the 10 months, a space he estimates at 9 feet by 11 feet and just over 4 feet high. At times there were several other hostages. "Most at any time is about nine people....You've got nine people and their breath and humidity, just living with nine people you don't know," recalls Hallums. He was blindfolded and bound the entire time.

And this from the NY Post, from the same interview (thanks to lawhawk):
A civilian contractor who was kept in a stifling crawl space by his Iraqi abductors for more than 10 months was beaten before being forced to make videos slamming President Bush for being indifferent to hostages, he says in his first interview since his rescue.
You will recall that Susan Hallums had said that the Bush-bashing didn't seem like Roy at all. His family always believed Roy had been forced to make those statements.

For past coverage, visit the Roy Hallums Archive.

Posted by: Rusty at 11:26 AM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
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World of Wind Too

I just wanted to clarify my earlier post, so that people don't get the idea that "those people" are all in the same category. I got another call from an elderly black woman who said that she had registered for financial assistance under her old address because she had been told to do so by the call agent. Apparently her old address was the one on her driver's license. She was eligible for assistance under her new address, but her call wasn't to apply for assistance again. She just wanted to correct her record in case the person living at her old address might be prevented from applying for aid because of the double count. She gained nothing from the call. She was simply concerned about someone else, and about fairness.

There are also a lot of people in the "affected area" who would be in pretty dire straits were it not for the Red Cross assistance. It's not as though there's much of a functioning economy there, and believe it or not landlords are ejecting people onto the street if they don't pay their rent on time. There are others with acute medical problems. One woman had a dental problem that had become abscessed because the dentist she went to wouldn't treat her until he had been paid in advance. We arranged to pay her bill through a local Red Cross chapter, but the abscess had already advanced nearly to the point of becoming systemic. Yet this dentist just couldn't bring himself to do any pro bono work. I'm afraid I don't understand that language very well either.

Also, the main reason Red Cross doesn't have any Service Centers in Louisiana is that the state and local governments refuse to invite us in. They don't want to "look bad" because they can't provide their citizens all the services they need, even though... you know, they can't. We have feeding centers and shelters, but no Service Centers to dispense financial assistance in Louisiana, although there are Centers in Mississippi and Alabama. This fact drives people in Louisiana nuts, because they think it's our fault we're not in their state.

Selfishness and goodwill both have many faces.

(Cross-posted by Demosophist to Demosophia)

Posted by: Demosophist at 11:14 AM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
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Antisemetism and Soft Bigotry Against Muslims

I listened to George Galloway on Michael Medved's show the other day. While he seemed indignant when Medved was about to accuse him of antisemetism (which Medved never got around to doing) it is clear the Galloway, and many on the Left are, in fact, antisemites. He kept obsessing about 'Israeli publications' and went on and on about Sharon's Zionism--without ever mentioning that Zionism has historically been a Leftist movement and that Israel's wars with its neighbors have invariably been led by Labour. Zionism, then, is not a right-wing movement.

George Galloway is an antisemite, plain and simple.

One does not need to believe in the 'Final Solution' to be an antisemite. The core of antisemetism is not 'hatred of Jews', rather, it is the belief that Jews are responsible for the ills of the world. Read Mein Kampf and it becomes apparent that Hitler actually believed in a Jewish conspiracy. Speaking of the Social Democratic Press of his time Hitler writes:

From publishers on down, they were all Jews.
Hitler could not accept democratic liberalism because it was just a front for Jews. How is this different than George Galloway who now believes the Labour Party is a front for Zionism? That wars are fought for Zionism? That the reason the Arab world has made so little progress is Zionism?

Galloway may not wish the final solution, but at his core he hates the thought of Jews with any amount of power. Jews are fine, if they know their place.

There is another way in which world wide antisemetism raises its ugly head: the double standard. Jews are expected to be paragons of virtue.

Every. Single. One.

When a single Jew commits an act of terrorism, for instance, the state of Israel is blamed--even when Israel arrests the man and there are mass protests against him. At the same time, when a Muslim commits an act of terrorism in Palestine, and the Palestinian Authority does not act against him, and there are mass rallies to support him, the world turns the other way or worse--condemns Israel as the 'root problem'.

The world's antisemetism has an inverse corollary: the soft bigotry of low expectations from Muslims. Muslims, it is believed, are incapable of acting like civilized human beings.

Charles Johnson made a similar point yesterday:

IÂ’m reading this again, and wondering where the hell is the worldÂ’s outrage about this? Newsweek prints a false rumor that a Koran was dunked in a toilet, and the entire planet goes nuts. Hamas announces that theyÂ’re going to turn a Jewish house of worship into a memorial to mass murder ... and the silence is absolutely deafening.
Today, The Astute Blogger opines:
The fact that the world EXPECTS Muslims to go nuts and run amok in a violent rampage based on a RUMOR about a Koran being flushed down a toilet, AND that the world says NOTHING when Muslims torch and descecrate synagogues and then publicly announces that they'ee gonna turn them into a museum glorifying genocide, PROVES that most people are CONVINCED that most Muslims are uncontrollably violent, racist gencodial maniacs. They've come to expect the worst from Muslims.
He is absolutely right. To hold Muslims to a lower standard is a form of bigotry. It is the bigotry that assumes that Muslims are something like children, not capable of proper behavior.

Let us not fall victim to this soft bigotry against Muslims. We should not hold them to a higher standard than we hold ourselves, but neither should we hold them to a lower standard.

UPDATE: More on George Galloway's possible perjury before the U.S. Senate here.

Posted by: Rusty at 09:02 AM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
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B!*ch Rita Update

The landfall point has become well defined this morning.

The good news is that the traffic situation has appeared to have improved. I dug through a few traffic cams in Houston and didn't notice the sea of red lights like I've seen the past two mornings. This map shows vast improvements:

According to Fox News this morning the oil industry has popped smoke from the region. They are out of there and for good reason too:

AT 4 AM CDT...0900Z...THE CENTER OF HURRICANE RITA WAS LOCATED NEAR LATITUDE 26.8 NORTH...LONGITUDE 91.0 WEST OR ABOUT 290 MILES SOUTHEAST OF GALVESTON TEXAS AND ABOUT 250 MILES SOUTHEAST OF CAMERON LOUISIANA.

RITA IS MOVING TOWARD THE NORTHWEST NEAR 9 MPH...AND THIS GENERAL MOTION IS EXPECTED TO CONTINUE FOR THE NEXT 24 HOURS. ON THIS TRACK...THE CORE OF RITA WILL BE APPROACHING THE SOUTHWEST LOUISIANA AND UPPER TEXAS COASTS LATE TODAY OR TONIGHT.

MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS ARE NEAR 140 MPH...WITH HIGHER GUSTS. RITA IS AN EXTREMELY DANGEROUS CATEGORY FOUR HURRICANE ON THE SAFFIR-SIMPSON SCALE.

May God bless the Gulf Coast.

Originally Posted at Conservative Thinking

Posted by: Chris Short at 05:59 AM | Comments (15) | Add Comment
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