Final Protective Fire

Saturday, January 31, 2004

 

Best wishes to Howard Bashman, on his hanging out his shingle.

Robin 7:56 PM

 

Did you know that Glenn's "Instawife" was so hot?

Robin 7:46 PM

Thursday, January 29, 2004

 

How is the BBC handling that it was found to be dishonest and irresponsible by Lord Hutton? With the kind of juvenile behavior you'd expect of a Left-wing propaganda ministry.

Robin 9:58 PM

 

Pejman points us to this piece on what a two-faced S.O.B. John Kerry is:
"Thank you for contacting me to express your opposition ... to the early use of military force by the US against Iraq. I share your concerns. On January 11, I voted in favor of a resolution that would have insisted that economic sanctions be given more time to work and against a resolution giving the president the immediate authority to go to war."

--letter from Senator John Kerry to Wallace Carter of Newton Centre, Massachusetts, dated January 22 [1991]

"Thank you very much for contacting me to express your support for the actions of President Bush in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. From the outset of the invasion, I have strongly and unequivocally supported President Bush's response to the crisis and the policy goals he has established with our military deployment in the Persian Gulf."

--Senator Kerry to Wallace Carter, January 31 [1991]

Just the most typical dishonest piece of nonsense you can get. He'll be the perfect Democrat nominee. Four More Years.

Robin 9:52 PM

 

With Great Sadness

Over the years of debate of the global warming issue, John Daly had the best compilation of articles and discussion of the skeptics to be found. And so it was with extraordinary sadness that I learned that - announced on his home page - John Daly had suddenly passed away.

I can't express what a huge gift his efforts on behalf of the GW skeptics was. I'm thankful we had the benefit of his time.

Best wishes to his family. John will be remembered.

Robin 9:44 AM

Wednesday, January 28, 2004

 

An interesting tale of how the New York Times shoddy and biased reporting results in slanders of U.S. troops.

Robin 11:00 AM

Monday, January 26, 2004

 

Its amusing in the midst of Democrat posturing about the PATRIOT Act's rather minimal changes to criminal procedure with respect to things like library records, that no one is commenting on Howard Dean's outrageous proposals about a national ID and requirements to access the Internet.

Robin 1:32 PM

Friday, January 23, 2004

 

Wow, Victor Davis Hanson really nails Clark in this piece about the whackiness of the Democrat presidential nomination candidates. Instead of seeing the whackiness limited to the known nuts like Kucinich, we see it being stated by almost all except the only adult in the group - Lieberman.

Especially on target is this comment by VDH:
And what has happened to General Clark? His once judicious observations of two years ago have become unhinged, and now make Curtis Le May seem circumspect by comparison. Democrats wanted a sober George Marshall on the campaign trail; instead Americans are beginning to witness an embittered, conspiracy-obsessed Maj. General Smedley Butler come alive — endorsed by the slander-spouting Michael Moore instead of respected peers like General Schwarzkopf.
Link shamelessly stolen from LGF.

Robin 1:54 PM

Wednesday, January 21, 2004

 

Frankly, I hate State of the Union speeches. The recent tradition of making the speech into a weird laundry list of silly policy initiatives has long ago driven me from the television during the speech.

This one was no different, so all I can do is endorse Pejman's take on the speech.

Robin 12:55 PM

Monday, January 19, 2004

 

Blogging law prof Tom Smith was watching a News Hour with Jim Lehrer program and gives us this hilarious "transcript" of a discussion of Justice O'Connor. If you don't hurt yourself laughing, there's good news - you are not a law geek.

Robin 3:03 PM

 

John Lott discusses the statistics of employment, a topic also covered well by Steve Verdon.

Robin 11:07 AM

Thursday, January 15, 2004

 

I don't visit the Group Captain in a while and he goes and gets himself in a spot of trouble. Should have called old man, I know how to get angry shotgun-toting fathers off your back.

But since its too late now, I'll congratulate both.

Robin 11:27 PM

Tuesday, January 13, 2004

 

Charles of LGF announces the winner of the Idiotarian of 2003 contest.

Robin 6:10 PM

 

Then again, as these celebrity Democrats demonstrate the level of discourse of which they are capable is just juvenile.

Robin 4:17 PM

 

I find it incredible that so many Democrats think a candidate with a completely uncontrolled mouth with such whacky things coming out of it should be nominated for President.

UPDATE: Frank Gaffney finds Gen. Clark's mouth disqualifies him.

Robin 11:19 AM

Monday, January 12, 2004

 

Ken Pollock has an interesting piece in the Atlantic that discusses the disparity between pre-Iraq War intelligence estimates of Iraq's WMD programs and post-war discoveries. The article would be better if it didn't sound like Pollock was trying to sneak a bit of bashing of the Bush administration for daring to actually follow his advice from his book ...
Link shamelessly swiped from LGF.

Robin 10:49 PM

Friday, January 09, 2004

 

The hypocrisy just keeps rolling in.

Robin 4:10 PM

 

Newsweek published an article mentioned on Overlawyered.com on the high costs of liability lawsuits.

The American Trial Lawyers Association didn't like it.

And now Overlawyered.com is hosting a detailed point by point response by one of the Newsweek reporters, Stuart Taylor, in two parts, here and here.

Robin 3:22 PM

 

On redefining chutzpah, Susan MacDougall's entry.
Link found on Howard Bashman's excellant site.

Does anyone know who filed this petition on her behalf? I'm surprised that the court didn't find a Rule 11 violation...

Robin 2:08 PM

Tuesday, January 06, 2004

 

Once again, I try to compose a good full-out raving blast about a stupid posting, and someone else does it better, this time Eric Raymond. Eric does the John Perry Barlow silliness truly well.

Robin 10:54 PM

Monday, January 05, 2004

 

After the little dustup about Howard Dean spouting off about the Book of Job ( and putting it in the wrong part of the Bible ), I thought that this comment in a thread on Little Green Footballs just about made me cough my soda through my nose.

Robin 8:30 PM

 

In the process of whacking Paul Krugman again, Donald Luskin has some interesting charts on the historical number of "discouraged" and "marginal" workers in the US labor market. I hadn't seen these data before and found it interesting political debate grist.

Robin 4:25 PM

 

Martha meet Howard, Howard meet Martha.
Link shamelessly stolen from Steve Verdon.

Robin 1:13 PM

Friday, January 02, 2004

 

A great piece by Victor Davis Hanson putting our efforts in Iraq into historical context.

Robin 3:20 PM

 

Amazingly enough, the NYT has this interesting article on the employment of US Army snipers in Iraq which contains only a small amount of sneering.

Robin 10:39 AM

 

The current installment of the excellant Inside the Ring has this bit, copied here as the link expires: Republican army
A new Army Times poll shows something that candidate George W. Bush found out during the Florida presidential recount: The all-volunteer military is growing more Republican.
Mr. Bush won the original Florida tally by garnering a majority of absentee votes from service members counted after Election Day.
The Army Times, an independent newspaper, said this week that its 2003 poll "reveals a military more conservative, more Republican and one that considers itself to be morally superior to the nation it serves."
Only 7 percent of those polled considered themselves liberal, while 50 percent said they are conservative or very conservative, and 40 percent said they are moderates.
More than 50 percent identify themselves as Republican and just 13 percent as Democrats.

This is the unfortunate result of the Democratic Party's swing to an extremist party dominated by its idiotarian wing. And while I'm pro-Republican, I don't think that this is a good thing. Having a military that thinks itself morally superior to the nation it serves is the beginning of the road to military intervention in politics. Now I don't think we are anywhere near a military coup, despite the silly posturing of the reality-challenged DU crowd, it would take decades of this trend to get anywhere near that. But in nations that have a history of military government, often the military has a culture of believing that it is the force that preserves that nation's values or integrity against destructive forces among either the people or politicians. Often this culture is deliberately inculcated into military officers.

In our case, this growing divide between the military and the Democrat party is a bellweather that the Democratic Party is doing both itself and the nation great harm in its irrational behavior. There should not be such a great divide. The answer is not that the military should suddenly go forth and recruit left-wing members but that the Democratic Party should reclaim more of the center again.

Robin 10:06 AM