Dr. Tiller Murdered

This morning Dr. George Tiller of Wichita, Kansas was murdered in the foyer of his church. Tiller's widow, who was singing in the choir at the time of the shooting, and her family have issued a statement, saying that the act was "an unspeakable tragedy. This is particularly heart-wrenching because George was shot down in his house of worship, a place of peace." The family added that its loss "is also a loss for the city of Wichita and women across America. George dedicated his life to providing women with high-quality health care despite frequent threats and violence."

The 67-year-old physician had been the center of much controversy for several decades due to him being one of few surgeons in the U.S. who performed late-term abortions. His clinic was one of only three in the nation that offered such services. Over the years, Tiller had been the target of threats and attacks. In 1985, his clinic was bombed and in 1993 he was shot by a protester in both arms. In recent years, Dr. Tiller had asked federal authorities to step up investigations into increasing vandalism of and threats against the clinic.

Pro-life groups have issued statements denouncing the murder. Troy Newman, president of Operation Rescue stated: "We are shocked at this morning's disturbing news that Mr. Tiller was gunned down. Operation Rescue has worked for years through peaceful, legal means, and through the proper channels to see him brought to justice. We denounce vigilantism and the cowardly act that took place this morning."

Nancy Keenan, president of abortion-rights group NARAL, issued a statement praising Tiller's commitment. "Dr. Tiller's murder will send a chill down the spines of the brave and courageous providers and other professionals who are part of reproductive-health centers that serve women across this country. We want them to know that they have our support as they move forward in providing these essential services in the aftermath of the shocking news from Wichita."

Here's more about Tiller's turbulent past, courtesy of FoxNews (emphasis added):

At a recent trial, he told jurors that he and his family have suffered years of harassment and threats and that he knew he was a target of anti-abortion protesters.

Federal marshals protected Tiller during the 1991 Summer of Mercy protests, and he was protected again between 1994 and 1998 after another abortion provider was assassinated and federal authorities reported finding Tiller's name on an assassination list.

Tiller remained prominent in the news, in part because of an investigation begun by former Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline, an abortion opponent.

Prosecutors had alleged that Tiller had gotten second opinions from a doctor who was essentially an employee of his, not independent as state law requires. A jury in March acquitted Tiller of all 19 misdemeanor counts.

"I am stunned by this lawless and violent act, which must be condemned and should be met with the full force of law," Kline said in a written statement. "We join in lifting prayer that God's grace and presence rest with Dr. Tiller's family and friends."

A suspect was arrested three hours later and 170 miles away in Kansas City.

The issue of abortion has always been difficult for me. I must, however, fall on the side of protecting innocent life, which makes me a pro-lifer. I firmly believe that anyone who considers himself or herself pro-life must be pro-life in all aspects. Anyone that can somehow rationalize this heinous act doesn't grasp what "pro-life" means -- and doesn't have both oars in the water.

I wonder how this murder will be played out in the media over the next several days ... and in the ongoing abortion battle between pro-life and pro-choice camps.

A favorite blogger, Donald Douglas of American Power has a great post to follow, including how some members of the MSM are reporting this along with several updates on the story as it develops.

Fallen Soldier's Dog Adopted By Friends

Being in the final days of the school year and all that entails, such as end-of-semester projects, final exams and the calculation of grades, I am scrambling to also get ready for a two-week trip. Forgive the spottiness of my posting these past few weeks and the next few.

I'll share this lovely story with you ... get the Kleenex ready! [emphasis added]

Fallen Soldier's Pooch Gets A
Ticket Out Of Iraq

Maj. Steven Hutchison killed by bomb; his friends will give Laia home in U.S.

Somewhere in Iraq today, a little yellow dog named Laia is starting the treacherous journey of a lifetime to the United States. She’s being saved thanks to Maj. Steven Hutchison, who adopted her, and SPCA International's Operation Baghdad Pups. But Hutchison himself won’t be part of the homecoming: He was killed by a roadside bomb May 10 outside Basra, just three months before he was supposed to return home to Scottsdale, Ariz. When she reaches the U.S., Laia will live with a friend's family instead.

Even among the heroic tales of sacrifice of the nearly 5,000 troops who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan, Maj. Hutchison stands out. At 60, he was the oldest combat death in either conflict. He was a decorated Vietnam vet with a doctorate in psychology. The father of two grown daughters, he had wanted to rejoin the military after the Sept. 11 attacks, but listened to his wife, who didn’t want him to go. After she died of cancer in 2006, Hutchison re-enlisted, with tours in Afghanistan and Iraq as an adviser to Iraqi forces.

Hutchison's unit found Laia at just 1 month old in Basra. The local vet said he would have to euthanize the dog unless they adopted her as a mascot. As policy, soldiers are not supposed to adopt strays, and Hutchison defied orders to get rid of the dog, even moving her from base to base, his friend, Sgt. Andrew Hunt, told the SPCA. "He ignored this request several times up until it began to move toward punishment," Sgt. Hunt said. "See, you couldn't ever tell the Major he couldn't do something, he [was] a stubborn old goat set in his ways. It was an endearing quality we loved about him."

Long tours in Iraq have led many soldiers to adopt animals, SPCA International spokeswoman Stephanie Scroggs told PEOPLE Pets. "As soon as soldiers adopt a dog or a cat, it just seems very transformative in many of their lives," she said. That seems to have been the case with Hutchison, who let Laia sleep in his bed and ride in his lap. "Whenever Laia was around, his demeanor and personality changed 1000 percent," Hunt told the SPCA. "He was never without a smile, he was so much happier in life, it was amazing."

Hunt helped arrange Laia's transport home and his family will temporarily take care of the dog until she moves to Michigan to live with her new family, including two kids.

But first, Laia must complete the most difficult part of her journey: traveling to the Baghdad airport in the care of a contractor hired by SPCA International. Although the trip is only about 300 miles, it will take two days. Then Laia, now just under 1 year old, will join three other dogs on a flight to the United States with Operation Baghdad Pups program manager Terri Crisp, making Laia the 147th pet saved by the group.

Leaving Iraq for a new life—and escaping mass government-sponsored exterminations—is not an easy option for many of the dogs that soldiers befriend, and that's where Operation Baghdad Pups comes in. Earlier this year, in a case that touched people around the world,

Courtesy Of Richard Hutchison / AP file Maj. Steven Hutchison, 60, was the oldest Army soldier to die in the Iraq conflict.

Gwen Beberg worked with the program—and fought the Army—to get her dog Ratchet out of Iraq. Right now, 50 soldiers are on the waiting list to move their pets out of the war zone, and each rescue can cost up to $4,000. The SPCA International is hoping for more donations to fund happy endings like Beberg's.

Maj. Hutchison's brother, Sgt. Richard Hutchison, told the SPCA that his brother always loved dogs and often talked about Laia in his phone calls. The rescue of Laia means so much to the family that Richard will meet the dog at Washington Dulles International Airport for her June 1 arrival.

"Laia has brought so much joy and happiness into our lives, and we cannot express how much she has touched us all," Hutchison told the SPCA. "As a final act for our brother, we want to send his dog home."

[Source]

The Honda Insight: A Horrible Review!

Only a Brit could write such a hilarious review of a car! Jeremy Clarkson of The Times Online wrote a scathing review of the new Honda hyrid: The Insight. (Emphasis added.)

Honda Insight 1.3 IMA SE Hybrid

Much has been written about the Insight, Honda’s new low-priced hybrid. We’ve been told how much carbon dioxide it produces, how its dashboard encourages frugal driving by glowing green when you’re easy on the throttle and how it is the dawn of all things. The beginning of days.

So far, though, you have not been told what it’s like as a car; as a tool for moving you, your friends and your things from place to place.

So here goes. It’s terrible. Biblically terrible. Possibly the worst new car money can buy. It’s the first car I’ve ever considered crashing into a tree, on purpose, so I didn’t have to drive it any more.

The biggest problem, and it’s taken me a while to work this out, because all the other problems are so vast and so cancerous, is the gearbox. For reasons known only to itself, Honda has fitted the Insight with something called constantly variable transmission (CVT).

It doesn’t work. Put your foot down in a normal car and the revs climb in tandem with the speed. In a CVT car, the revs spool up quickly and then the speed rises to match them. It feels like the clutch is slipping. It feels horrid.

And the sound is worse ... to get an idea of how awful it is, you’d have to sit a dog on a ham slicer.

So you’re sitting there with the engine screaming its head off, and your ears bleeding, and you’re doing only 23mph because that’s about the top speed, and you’re thinking things can’t get any worse, and then they do because you run over a small piece of grit.

... the engineers have plainly peeled the suspension components to the bone. The result is a ride that beggars belief. ... feels as if it’s been made from steel so thin, you could read through it. And the seats, finished in pleblon, are designed specifically, it seems, to ruin your skeleton. This is hairy-shirted eco-ism at its very worst.

However, as a result of all this, prices start at £15,490 — that’s £3,000 or so less than the cost of the Prius. But at least with the Toyota there is no indication that you’re driving a car with two motors. In the Insight you are constantly reminded, not only by the idiotic dashboard, which shows leaves growing on a tree when you ease off the throttle (pass the sick bucket), but by the noise and the ride and the seats. And also by the hybrid system Honda has fitted.

... And for what? For sure, you could get 60 or more mpg if you were careful. And that’s not bad for a spacious five-door hatchback. But for the same money you could have a Golf diesel, which will be even more economical. And hasn’t been built out of rice paper to keep costs down.

Of course, I am well aware that there are a great many people in the world who believe that the burning of fossil fuels will one day kill all the Dutch and that something must be done.

They will see the poor ride, the woeful performance, the awful noise and the spine-bending seats as a price worth paying. But what about the eco-cost of building the car in the first place?

Honda has produced a graph that seems to suggest that making the Insight is only marginally more energy-hungry than making a normal car. And that the slight difference is more than negated by the resultant fuel savings.

Hmmm. I would not accuse Honda of telling porkies. That would be foolish. But I cannot see how making a car with two motors costs the same in terms of resources as making a car with one.

The nickel for the battery has to come from somewhere. Canada, usually. It has to be shipped to Japan, not on a sailing boat, I presume. And then it must be converted, not in a tree house, into a battery, and then that battery must be transported, not on an ox cart, to the Insight production plant in Suzuka. And then the finished car has to be shipped, not by Thor Heyerdahl, to Britain, where it can be transported, not by wind, to the home of a man with a beard who thinks he’s doing the world a favour.

Why doesn’t he just buy a Range Rover, which is made from local components, just down the road? No, really — weird-beards buy locally produced meat and vegetables for eco-reasons. So why not apply the same logic to cars?

...

But let me be clear that hybrid cars are designed solely to milk the guilt genes of the smug and the foolish.

The only hope I have is that there are enough fools and madmen out there who will buy an Insight to look sanctimonious outside the school gates. And that the cash this generates can be used to develop something a bit more constructive.

Clarkson ends his review by giving the Honda Insight 1 out of 5 stars.

Obama Supporters Jumping Ship

It appears that some of the Kool-Aid drinkers are starting to sober up a bit. Here's what Ted Rall posted yesterday (emphasis added):

It's increasingly evident that Obama should resign

MIAMI — We expected broken promises. But the gap between the soaring expectations that accompanied Barack Obama’s inauguration and his wretched performance is the broadest such chasm in recent historical memory. This guy makes Bill Clinton look like a paragon of integrity and follow-through.

From health care to torture to the economy to war, Obama has reneged on pledges real and implied. So timid and so owned is he that he trembles in fear of offending, of all things, the government of Turkey. Obama has officially reneged on his campaign promise to acknowledge the Armenian genocide. When a president doesn’t have the nerve to annoy the Turks, why does he bother to show up for work in the morning?

Obama is useless. Worse than that, he’s dangerous. Which is why, if he has any patriotism left after the thousands of meetings he has sat through with corporate contributors, blood-sucking lobbyists and corrupt politicians, he ought to step down now — before he drags us further into the abyss.

I refer here to Obama’s plan for “preventive detentions.” If a cop or other government official thinks you might want to commit a crime someday, you could be held in “prolonged detention.” Reports in U.S. state-controlled media imply that Obama’s shocking new policy would only apply to Islamic terrorists (or, in this case, wannabe Islamic terrorists, and also kinda-sorta-maybe-thinking-about-terrorism dudes). As if that made it OK.

In practice, Obama wants to let government goons snatch you, me and anyone else they deem annoying off the street.

Preventive detention is the classic defining characteristic of a military dictatorship. Because dictatorial regimes rely on fear rather than consensus, their priority is self-preservation rather than improving their people’s lives. They worry obsessively over the one thing they can’t control, what George Orwell called “thoughtcrime” — contempt for rulers that might someday translate to direct action.

Locking up people who haven’t done anything wrong is worse than un-American and a violent attack on the most basic principles of Western jurisprudence. It is contrary to the most essential notion of human decency. That anyone has ever been subjected to “preventive detention” is an outrage. That the president of the United States, a man who won an election because he promised to elevate our moral and political discourse, would even entertain such a revolting idea offends the idea of civilization itself.

Obama is cute. He is charming. But there is something rotten inside him. Unlike the Republicans who backed George W. Bush, I won’t follow a terrible leader just because I voted for him. Obama has revealed himself. He is a monster, and he should remove himself from power.

“Prolonged detention,” reported The New York Times, would be inflicted upon “terrorism suspects who cannot be tried.”

“Cannot be tried.” Interesting choice of words.

Any “terrorism suspect” (can you be a suspect if you haven’t been charged with a crime?) can be tried. Anyone can be tried for anything. At this writing, a Somali child is sitting in a prison in New York, charged with piracy in the Indian Ocean, where the U.S. has no jurisdiction. Anyone can be tried.

What they mean, of course, is that the hundreds of men and boys languishing at Guantánamo and the thousands of “detainees” the Obama administration anticipates kidnapping in the future cannot be convicted. As in the old Soviet Union, putting enemies of the state on trial isn’t enough. The game has to be fixed. Conviction has to be a foregone conclusion.

Why is it, exactly, that some prisoners “cannot be tried”?

The Old Grey Lady explains why Obama wants this “entirely new chapter in American law” in a boring little sentence buried a couple of paragraphs past the jump and a couple of hundred words down page A16: “Yet another question is what to do with the most problematic group of Guantánamo detainees: those who pose a national security threat but cannot be prosecuted, either for lack of evidence or because evidence is tainted.”

In democracies with functioning legal systems, it is assumed that people against whom there is a “lack of evidence” are innocent. They walk free. In countries where the rule of law prevails, in places blessedly free of fearful leaders whose only concern is staying in power, “tainted evidence” is no evidence at all. If you can’t prove that a defendant committed a crime — an actual crime, not a thoughtcrime — in a fair trial, you release him and apologize to the judge and jury for wasting their time.

It is amazing and incredible, after eight years of Bush’s lawless behavior, to have to still have to explain these things. For that reason alone, Obama should resign.

Ted Rall is a columnist for Universal Press Syndicate.

Personally, I completely disagree with Rall's description of Bush's term in office as being "lawless behavior," but apparently this former supporter of Obama is so pissed off that he compares him to Bush.

GM: Government Motors

This was produced by a favorite blogger: Kevin Jackson of The Black Sphere. Be sure to check out his site!

New Words Added to the Dictionary

I've heard that a language that continues to grow and change is proof that is a "living language." Well, it is good to know that English is alive and well! The Oxford English Dictionary will be adding the following new entries:

#15: muggle: n. in the fiction of JK Rowling: a person who possesses no magical powers. Hence in allusive and extended uses: a person who lacks a particular skill or skills, or who is regarded as inferior in some way.

#14: blamestorming: n. A method of collectively finding one to blame for a mistake no one is willing to confess to. Often occdurs in the form of a meeting of colleagues at work, gathered to decide who is to blame for a screw up.

#13: gaydar: n. A homosexual person's ability to identify another person as homosexual by interpreting subtle signals conveyed by their appearance, interests, etc.

#12: grrrl: n. A young woman regarded as independent and strong or aggressive especially inher attitude to men or in her sexuality.

#11: threequel: n. The third film, book, event, etc. in a series; a second sequel.

#10: Mini-me: n. A person closely resembling a smaller or younger version of another.

#9: screenager: n. A person in their teens or twenties who has an aptitude for computers and the Internet.

#8: cyberslacking: n. Spending one's employer's Internet and email facilities for personal activities during working hours.

#7: lookism: n. Prejudice or discrimination on the grounds of appearance.

#6: frankenfood: n. Derogatory, a food that contains genetically modified ingredients.

#5: riffage: n. Guitar riffs.

#4: bouncebackability: n. The ability to recover from near-defeat in a competition; the ability to recover from a setback.

#3: prebuttal: n. A rebuttal for an accusation before it is made.

#2: ego-surfing: n. Searching the Internet for instances of one's own name or links to one's own website.

#1: meatspace: n. The physical world, as opposed to virtual.

[Source: Cracked.com]

Bailouts: Keeping America Awesome!

Maybe "Bailout Bandito" is Obama's newest nickname?

Political Correctness to be Spoofed by the King of Spoofers

I am so excited, although sad that I missed the premier Wednesday night, about a new animated show that spoofs the politically correct crowd: "The Goode Family" aired on ABC. (Wow! On a major network, no less!) The show's creators are Mike Judge, John Altschuler, and Dave Krinsky -- creators of "Beavis & Butthead" and "King of the Hill."

The focus of this animated spoof is the Goode family made up of PC-minded people, achingly green-minded and obsessed with "What would Al Gore do?", a play off of the WWJD movement, as they struggle to live a carbon-footprint-free lifestyle. The family characters are Gerald Good, an administrator at a community college who hails from a "long line of over-educated academic liberals." His wife, Helen Goode, is a local activist who laments how hard it is to be good while embarrassing her daughter Bliss with a "girlfriend-to-girlfriend" approach to discussions about sex. Their son, Ubuntu, is adopted from Africa, but is actually white. It turns out he was from South Africa, and they forgot to check the right box! The vegan family has raised the family dog Che to be vegan as well, who craves meat so much that wreaks havoc on the neighborhood wildlife, occasionally devouring a squirrel or cat that strays into the back yard.

Robert Lloyd, television critic of The Los Angeles Times, describes the new series:

"Being good is so hard," says wife-mother Helen (Nancy Carell); she wears a "Meat is Murder" T-shirt, which might also, of course, mark her as a Smiths fan. It's true: Goodness is a job at which most of us fail spectacularly, and to the extent the show explores that striving it's on to something good. Yet it's not quite clear whether we're supposed to regard the Goodes as deluded or as just too hard on themselves. There's something old and obvious about the countercultural shibboleths the show advances: yoga, vegetarianism, ceramics, sexual frankness between parent and child, animal rights, playing the mandolin, spiritual confusion, not shopping at a certain store because "they don't even have a mission statement," hypersensitivity to racial and gender issues masked as indifference to racial and gender issues.

Judge, sounding nothing at all like Hank Hill, plays dad Gerald Goode, vegan-thin and dressed always in bike shorts. (For work, he adds a poncho.) Linda Cardellini is daughter Bliss, who reads the Economist and just wants out. Teenage son Ubuntu (David Herman) is the African baby they adopted, who turned out to be Afrikaans and white. He is dressed in native garb, nonetheless, and is a bit of an ox, though with a talent for driving.

"I'm sorry I used so much gas, Dad," he says, having driven to rescue his father and sister from a Christian purity ball. (Judge and Co. do not save all their barbs for the Goodes.)

"It's OK," says his father. "What's important is you feel guilty about it."

These characters sound a little too much like some individuals I know! I gotta tune in!!

[You can go here to see some episodes.]

Obama's First 100 Days

[Source unknown]

First 100 Days -- brilliant!

Presidential Comparison Quiz

If George W. Bush had made a joke at the expense of the Special Olympics, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had given Tony Blair a set of inexpensive and useless (to Tony Blair's UK video formatting) DVDs, when Tony Blair had given him a thoughtful and historically significant gift, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had give the Queen of England an iPod containing videos of his speeches, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had visited and made reference to the non-existent "Austrian language", would you have brushed it off as a minor slip?

If George W. Bush had ordered the firing of the CEO of a major corporation, even though he had no constitutional authority to do so, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had proposed to double the national debt, which had taken more than two centuries to accumulate, in one year, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had then proposed to double the debt again within 10 years would you have approved?

So, tell me again, what is it about Obama that makes him so brilliant and impressive?

Can't think of anything? Don't worry. He's done all this in 10 weeks -- so you'll have three years and nine-and-a-half months to come up with an answer.

Fifty Dollars: A Lesson On The Real World

[Thanks, Mom!]

I recently asked my friends' little girl what she wanted to be
when she grows up. She said she wanted to be President
some day. Both of her parents, liberal Democrats, were
standing there, so I asked her, 'If you were President what
would be the first thing you would do? '

She replied, 'I'd give food and houses to all the homeless
people.'

Her parents beamed.

'Wow...what a worthy goal.' I told her, 'But you don't have to wait until
you're President to do that. You can come over to my house and mow the lawn,
pull weeds, and sweep my yard, and I'll pay you $50.

Then I'll take you over to the grocery store where the homeless guy hangs out,
and you can give him the $50 to use toward food and a new house. '

She thought that over for a few seconds, then she looked me straight in the eye
and asked, ' Why doesn't the homeless guy come over and do the work, and you can
just pay him the $ 50?

I said, 'Welcome to the Republican Party.'

New Ice Cream Flavor In Honor of President Obama

[Thanks, R!]

In honor of the 44th President of the United States, Baskin-Robbins Ice Cream has introduced a new flavor: "Barocky Road."

Barocky Road is a blend of half vanilla, half chocolate, and surrounded by nuts and flakes. The vanilla portion of the mix is not openly advertised and is usually denied as an ingredient. The nuts and flakes are all very bitter and hard to swallow.

The cost is $100 per scoop. When purchased, it will be presented to you in a large, beautiful cone, but then the ice cream is taken away and given to the person in line behind you. You are left with an empty cone with no hope of getting any ice cream

Obama v. Cheney: El Apologista v. Cojones Máximos

Toby Harnden, US Editor over at the Telegraph in the UK, composed his appraisal of the speeches Obama and Cheney gave last week.

Here's Harnden's assessment of the boxing match:

The 10 Punches Dick Cheney Landed Barack Obama's Jaw

The spectacle of two duelling speeches with a mile of each other in downtown Washington was extraordinary. I was at the Cheney event and watched Obama's address on a big screen beside the empty lectern that the former veep stepped behind barely two minutes after his adversary had finished.

So who won the fight? (it's hard to use anything other than a martial or pugilistic metaphor). Well, most people are on either one side or the other of this issue and I doubt today will have prompted many to switch sides.

But the very fact that Obama chose to schedule his speech (Cheney's was announced first) at exactly the same time as the former veep was a sign of some weakness.

Obama's speech and Cheney's empty lectern. Pic: Toby Harnden

The venues for the speeches said something. Obama showily chose the National Archives, repository for many of the founding documents of the US, and spoke in front of a copy of the Constitution - cloaking himself in the flag, as Republicans were often criticised for doing.

To hear Cheney speak, we were crammed into a decidedly unglamourous and cramped conference room at AEI, favourite think tank of conservative hawks.

The former veep's speech was factual and unemotional and certainly devoid of the kind of hokey, self-obsessed, campaign-style stuff like this, from Obama's address today: "I stand here today as someone whose own life was made possible by these documents. My father came to these shores in search of the promise that they offer. My mother made me rise before dawn to learn their truths when I lived as a child in a foreign land."

In terms of Obama's purported aim for his speech - to present a plan for closing Guantanamo Bay aimed at placating Congress - he failed. The reception on Capitol Hill was lukewarm with even Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Dick Cheney responds Pic: Toby Harnden

Cheney's speech wasn't stylish, there were no rhetorical flourishes and the tone was bitingly sarcastic and disdainful at times. But it was effective in many respects and Cheney showed that Obama is not invulnerable. Here are 10 of the punches he landed on the President's jaw:

1. "I've heard occasional speculation that I'm a different man after 9/11. I wouldn't say that, but I'll freely admit that watching a coordinated, devastating attack on our country from an underground bunker at the White House can affect how you view your responsibilities."

Anyone who was in New York or Washington on 9/11 (I was here in DC) was profoundly affected and most Americans understand this. Obama was, as far as I can tell, in Chicago. His response - he was then a mere state senator for liberal Hyde Park - was startlingly hand-wringing and out of step with how most Americans were feeling. This statement by Cheney reminds people of the tough decisions he and Bush had to make - ones that Obama has not yet faced.

2. "The first attack on the World Trade Center was treated as a law- enforcement problem, with everything handled after the fact: arrests, indictments, convictions, prison sentences, case closed."

This was the pre-9/11 mindset, much criticised after the attacks. Many sense that this is the approach Obama is increasingly taking.

3. "By presidential decision last month, we saw the selective release of documents relating to enhanced interrogations. This is held up as a bold exercise in open government, honoring the public's right to know. We're informed as well that there was much agonizing over this decision. Yet somehow, when the soul searching was done and the veil was lifted on the policies of the Bush administration, the public was given less than half the truth."

The release of the documents was a nakedly political move by Obama and Cheney called him on it. This passage from Obama's speech today came across as completely disingenuous: "I did not do this because I disagreed with the enhanced interrogation techniques that those memos authorized, and I didn't release the documents because I rejected their legal rationales -- although I do on both counts. I released the memos because the existence of that approach to interrogation was already widely known, the Bush Administration had acknowledged its existence, and I had already banned those methods."

4. "It's hard to imagine a worse precedent filled with more possibilities for trouble and abuse than to have an incoming administration criminalize the policy decisions of its predecessor. Apart from doing a serious injustice to intelligence operators and lawyers, who deserve far better for their devoted service, the danger here is a loss of focus on national security and what it requires."

Obama's suggestion that Bush administration officials might be prosecuted for legal and policy judgements about what was and was not permissible in interrogations was chilling. I doubt most Americans have any enthusiasm for such a witch-hunt and it flies in the face of Obama's stated desire not to "re-litigate" the Bush years.

5. "We had a lot of blind spots after the attacks on our country, things we didn't know about al Qaeda. We didn't know about al Qaeda's plans, but Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and a few others did know. And with many thousands of innocent lives potentially in the balance, we did not think it made sense to let the terrorists answer questions in their own good time, if they answered them at all."

The political climate is very different now from what it was just after 9/11 but it could change again in a heartbeat if and when there is another terrorist attack. Most Americans do not favour torture but do want the CIA and other agencies to question suspected terrorists very vigorously indeed if there is any chance they might know something about an attack on the US homeland.

6. "On his second day in office, President Obama announced he was closing the detention facility at Guantanamo. This step came with little deliberation, and no plan. Now the president says some of these terrorists should be brought to American soil for trial in our court system. Others, he says, will be shipped to third countries; but so far, the United States has had little luck getting other countries to take hardened terrorists."

Obama's grand announcement at the start of his administration that Gitmo would be closed within a year was clearly not properly thought out. If he fails to achieve what he promised, he will pay a big political price and Cheney was marking his card on the issue.

7. "The administration has found that it's easy to receive applause in Europe for closing Guantanamo, but it's tricky to come up with an alternative that will serve the interest of justice and America's national security."

The notion that Obama makes gestures designed to court popularity abroad is one that could find increasing resonance - many Republicans strongly suspect it already.

8. "If fine speechmaking, appeals to reason, or pleas for compassion had the power to move them, the terrorists would long ago have abandoned the field."

As Cheney said this, sarcasm dripped from his lips. Obviously "fine speechmaking" but no real substance is not a new charge against Obama and it hits home. And Cheney successfully made the point that much of the rhetoric from the Left tends to suggest that if only the US did not waterboard people, if only the US was viewed as Obama rather than Bush, Venus rather than Mars then it would be universally loved and al-Qaeda would wither away. Unfortunately, that's not the real world.

9. "It's worth recalling that ultimate power of declassification belongs to the president himself. President Obama has used his declassification authority to reveal what happens in the interrogation of terrorists. Now let him use that same power to show Americans what did not happen thanks to the good work of our intelligence officials."

Cheney is pushing Obama to declassify documents relating to the information gained from terrorist suspects who were subjected to Enhanced Interrogation Techniques. This puts Obama in a bind. If he does so, it prolongs an argument he wants to move on from and prolongs the Obama vs Cheney meme that is distracting and doesn't really help him. if he doesn't, he looks like he has something to hide.

10. "To the very end of our administration, we kept al-Qaeda terrorists busy with other problems. We focused on getting their secrets instead of sharing ours with them. And on our watch, they never hit this country again. After the most lethal and devastating terrorist attack ever, 7- 1/2 years without a repeat is not a record to be rebuked and scorned, much less criminalized."

It's indisputably an achievement of the Bush administration that it prevented the US from being attacked after 9/11. By ramming this point home, Cheney tees things up for some very tough questioning of Obama in the event that the US is attacked again.

I'm glad Cheney has been speaking up! My one big criticism of President Bush was that he never defended himself when the onslaught of hysteria and false accusations came crashing down around him. And, I find the criticism of Cheney so ridiculous, especially when some of that criticism came from Al Gore. Gore claims to have waited two years before criticizing a sitting president. How quickly the MSM forgot about Gore's little trip to Saudi Arabia in 2006 when he decried supposed abuses of Arabs at the hands of the U.S. government following the 9/11 attacks, saying that "terrible abuses" were committed, Arabs had been "indiscriminately rounded up" and held in "unforgivable" conditions. [Source] Oh, and check out the Weekly Standards scorecard of Gore's hypocrisy by going here.

By the way ... am I the only one that noticed how last week the MSM on TV always had a picture of Cheney with a bit of a sneer on his face? Still trying to make Cheney out to be Darth Vader, aren't they? (Maybe I oughta go back and look at the pictures they had of Obama ... see if there was some kind of halo light around his head er sumin' ....)

Letter from a Dodge dealer

letter to the editor

My name is George C. Joseph. I am the sole owner of Sunshine Dodge-Isuzu, a family owned and operated business in Melbourne, Florida. My family bought and paid for this automobile franchise 35 years ago in 1974. I am the second generation to manage this business.

We currently employ 50+ people and before the economic slowdown we employed over 70 local people. We are active in the community and the local chamber of commerce. We deal with several dozen local vendors on a day to day basis and many more during a month. All depend on our business for part of their livelihood. We are financially strong with great respect in the market place and community. We have strong local presence and stability.

I work every day the store is open, nine to ten hours a day. I know most of our customers and all our employees. Sunshine Dodge is my life.

On Thursday, May 14, 2009 I was notified that my Dodge franchise, that we purchased, will be taken away from my family on June 9, 2009 without compensation and given to another dealer at no cost to them. My new vehicle inventory consists of 125 vehicles with a financed balance of 3 million dollars. This inventory becomes impossible to sell with no factory incentives beyond June 9, 2009. Without the Dodge franchise we can no longer sell a new Dodge as "new," nor will we be able to do any warranty service work. Additionally, my Dodge parts inventory, (approximately $300,000.) is virtually worthless without the ability to perform warranty service. There is no offer from Chrysler to buy back the vehicles or parts inventory.

Our facility was recently totally renovated at Chrysler's insistence, incurring a multi-million dollar debt in the form of a mortgage at Sun Trust Bank.

HOW IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA CAN THIS HAPPEN?

THIS IS A PRIVATE BUSINESS NOT A GOVERNMENT ENTITY

This is beyond imagination! My business is being stolen from me through NO FAULT OF OUR OWN. We did NOTHING wrong.

This atrocity will most likely force my family into bankruptcy. This will also cause our 50+ employees to be unemployed. How will they provide for their families? This is a total economic disaster.

HOW CAN THIS HAPPEN IN A FREE MARKET ECONOMY IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA?

I beseech your help, and look forward to your reply. Thank you.

Sincerely,

George C. Joseph

President & Owner

Sunshine Dodge-Isuzu

[Source: American Thinker and Babalú Blog]

This is scary! I wonder how many other dealerships are experiencing the same tyranny from Washington and Chrysler!

Smith & Wesson Issues New Handgun for Gun-Fearing Libs

[Thanks, Sis!]

Do you have anti-gun Democrat friends who do not seem as joyous as they were after the election of the 'Great One'? Maybe they’re worried about their security at home with the increasing residential crime they’ve been reading about. Maybe they realize now that the police can’t be everywhere to protect them within seconds. Well here’s good news for them.

Smith & Wesson has just announced a new handgun designed just for the person who is un-familiar with, and possibly afraid of handguns, yet wants to have adequate home protection:

The “SW18044L”
(‘L’ signifies ‘liberal’).

You will note that this handsome, powerful weapon is a commemorative model which proudly bears the Democrat Donkey & a large capital 'D'. Tell your friends to be sure to get their orders in early, because they will be in high demand!

Firing Attorneys General: A Scorecard

Clinton: 93 Bush: 8

I find this whole charade surrounding the Bush Administration's firing of 8 attorneys general back in 2007 ridiculous. The MSM and Congress are raising such a fuss, curiously "forgetting" the 93 attorneys general that were fired back in 1993 during the Clinton Administration. NINETY-THREE!!!! Why such a stink raised over former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez' paltry EIGHT? But, I guess it's all part of the current witch hunt occurring right now, as Liberals continue clamoring for Bush's head.


Karl Rove's name has been pulled again into the spotlight. Here's what the AP reported on Friday (emphasis added):

A federal prosecutor questioned former top presidential aide Karl Rove for several hours on Friday, trying to determine his precise role in the Bush administration's politically tinged firings of U.S. attorneys. It was the first time Rove has faced questioning in the controversy, which erupted in 2007 and has lingered because the Bush White House resisted efforts by Congress and the Justice Department to question Rove and others. In Friday's session, Rove and the prosecutor who interviewed him, acting U.S. Attorney Nora Dannehy, declined to comment as they left the offices of Rove's lawyer separately. It is conceivable Rove may have to undergo further questioning.

The controversy continues to linger due to Bush resisting efforts to question his people? How quickly controversies have been forgotten in former administrations, especially those of The Golden Boy Bill Clinton. But, what was the MSM's reaction back in '93 with regards to then U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno when she fired 93 of the attorneys under her? Here's what MediaWatch reported back in April of 1993 (emphasis added):

93 U.S. attorneys, a very unusual practice. Republicans charged the Clintonites
made the move to take U.S. Attorney Jay Stephens off the House Post Office
investigation of Ways and Means Chairman Dan Rostenkowski. The network response: ABC and CBS never mentioned it. CNN's World News and NBC Nightly News provided brief mentions, with only NBC noting the Rosty angle. Only NBC's Garrick Utley kept the old outrage, declaring in a March 27 "Final
Thoughts" comment: "Every new President likes to say 'Under me, it's not going
to be politics as usual.' At the Justice Department, it looks as if it still
is."

Ah, the days of Janet Reno. She did have some feathers in her cap, such as the captures and convictions of such criminals as Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols (Oklahoma City bombers), Ted Kaczynski (the Unabomber), and those who committed the first attack on The World Trade Center. But, let's not forget some of her "less than stellar performances": David Koresh and The Branch Davidians, Ruby Ridge, Elian Gonzalez, and poor Richard Jewell being publicsly and falsely accused of bombing the Atlanta Olympics. Those calamities could have been grounds for dismissal right there, let alone the 93 fired attorneys. Gonzalez' firing of 8 attorneys pales in comparison.


[By the way, you can go here to see a brief sketch on the fired fired attorneys.]

Obama To Cut Abstinence Education

Sex ed programs in the schools is always a "hot topic" (sorry!) for debate. Last week, the AP reported that President Obama wants to cut more than $100 million in spending on abstinence-only programs, preferring to redirect the money to pregnancy-reduction programs that do not offer abstinence as an option.

The AP story continues:

The proposal in Obama's 2010 budget plan released Thursday could run into opposition from conservatives.

Administration budget documents say Obama wants to redirect funding from "abstinence-only education programs to evidence-based and promising teen pregnancy prevention programs."

Obama wants to eliminate a $38 million state grant program plus a nearly $100 million pot of money that is supposed to be spent for abstinence education at the direction the Administration for Children and Families, part of the Health and Human Services Department.

He would create a new $110 million "teen pregnancy prevention initiative," plus direct $50 million to states for pregnancy prevention programs.

The most positive results, Obama's budget plan asserts, come from programs that "provide a range of services in addition to comprehensive sex education, such as after school activities, academic support or service learning."

Discussing abstinence as an option for birth control has always been controversial, usually eliciting eye rolling at best to very heated responses at worst. However, one needs to consider that there is a difference between "abstinence only" and "abstinence-based" programs. The "abstinence-based" programs are those that emphasize abstinence but also provide information about other forms of birth control and disease prevention. Knowing human nature, I personally feel that "abstinence-based" would be the wiser choice: kids should have all the facts in case they feel they cannot abstain from sexual activity. But, to immediately spurn the idea of telling kids that waiting is better is very short-sighted, incomplete information.

Critics of discussing abstinence in sex ed classes seem to think they have the market cornered in comprehensive and effective programming. However, anyone else out there remember how quickly last spring's story was buried? The CDC issued a report stating that 1 in 4 teenage girls has a sexually transmitted disease (STD), and that 1 in 2 Black girls was infected.


Here's what USAToday reported:

CHICAGO (AP) — At least one in four teenage girls nationwide has a sexually transmitted disease, or more than 3 million teens, according to the first study of its kind in this age group.

A virus that causes cervical cancer is by far the most common sexually transmitted infection in teen girls ages 14 to 19, while the highest overall prevalence is among black girls — nearly half the blacks studied had at least one STD. That rate compared with 20% among both whites and Mexican-American teens, the study from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found.

About half of the girls acknowledged ever having sex; among them, the rate was 40%. While some teens define sex as only intercourse, other types of intimate behavior including oral sex can spread some infections.

For many, the numbers likely seem "overwhelming because you're talking about nearly half of the sexually experienced teens at any one time having evidence of an STD," said Dr. Margaret Blythe, an adolescent medicine specialist at Indiana University School of Medicine and head of the American Academy of Pediatrics' committee on adolescence.

It seemed that the story was quickly buried with the public -- sex ed people in particular -- refusing to recognize a very real problem:

sex education in general is failing!

Sadly, it didn't seem to kick up much of a fuss. For example, here's what John M. Grohol, Psy.D. commented at Psych Central: After giving readers a brief synopsis of the CDC's findings, he ended glibly with "What more can I add to this, other than to say, “Use condoms!”."

I would expect something more intellectual and insightful from a Psy.D. than a smart aleck wisecrack. (By the way, Grohol is the CEO and founder of Psych Central.) Shouldn't people like him ask more profound questions like "Why are our programs failing?" "Why are kids not following the information they're given? "What's preventing kids from grasping and implementing the information?" "What competing voices and influences are there?" "Do we combat those competing voices and how, or do we let kids ford ahead on their own with nothing more than Vulcan-like well wishes of "live long and prosper?"

Scare Force One: The Flyover Flap -- and We Paid For It!

OK, folks -- the White House decided to release the Air Force One photo-op picture that caused New Yorkers on April 27th. The jet airliner, accompanied by an F-16, screaming overhead brought flashbacks of 9/11 .... go figure. This little venture cost the American taxpayer $328,835 and resulted in the resignation of a White House "aide."

Here's the story from yesterday's The New York Post:

White House Aide Resigns Over Flyover Flap

WASHINGTON -- A top White House aide resigned today for his role in Air Force One's $328,835 photo-op flyover above New York City that sparked panic and flashbacks to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. His resignation was made public at the same time the photo of the flyover was released by the White House.

Louis Caldera said the controversy had made it impossible for him to effectively lead the White House Military Office. "Moreover, it has become a distraction in the important work you are doing as president," Caldera said in his resignation letter to President Barack Obama.

The sight of the huge passenger jet and an F-16 fighter plane flying past the Statue of Liberty and the lower Manhattan financial district sent panicked office workers streaming into the streets on April 27. Obama said it would not happen again.

Caldera's office approved the photo-op, which cost $35,000 in fuel alone for the plane and two jet fighter escorts. The Air Force estimated the photo shoot cost taxpayers $328,835.

White House officials said the flight was designed to update the official photo of the plane, known as Air Force One when the president is aboard. The White House released a photo of the blue-and-white plane high above the Statue of Liberty, with New Jersey in the background ...

Sheer genius, guys! Sheer genius!

Obama's Proposed Budget Cut: Just a Drop in the Bucket

I found this over at Black & Right ...

Viral Email Of The Day

This is a little over the top, but a great visual.

Fw: Posted to Craig's List Personal

To the Guy Who Tried to Mug Me in Downtown Savannah night before last.

Date: 2009-03-23, 3:43AM EST
I was the guy with the black Burberry jacket that you demanded I hand over, shortly after you pulled the knife on me and my girlfriend. You also asked for my girlfriend's purse and earrings.

I hope you somehow come across this message. I'd like to apologize.

That's the set-up. Here we go…

I didn't expect you to crap in your pants when I drew my pistol after you took my jacket. Truth is, I was wearing the jacket for a reason that evening, and it wasn't that cold outside.

You see, my girlfriend had just bought me that Kimber Model 1911 .45 ACP pistol for Christmas, and we had just picked up a shoulder holster for it that evening.

Beautiful pistol, eh?

It's a very intimidating weapon when pointed at your head, isn't it? I know it probably wasn't a great deal of fun walking back to wherever you'd come from with that brown sludge flopping about in your pants. I'm sure it was even worse since you also ended up leaving your shoes, cellphone, and wallet with me. I couldn't have you calling up any of your buddies to come help you try to mug us again.

I took the liberty of calling your mother, or "Momma" as you had her listed in your cell, and explaining to her your situation. I also bought myself and four other people in the gas station this morning a tank full of gas on your credit card. The guy with the big motor home took 150 gallons and was extremely grateful!

I gave your shoes to one of the homeless guys over by Vinnie Van Go Go's, along with all of the cash in your wallet. I threw the wallet in a fancy pink "pimp mobile" parked at the curb after I broke the windshield and side window out and keyed the drivers side. I called a bunch of phone sex numbers from your cellphone. They'll be on your bill in case you'd like to know which ones. Ma Bell just shut down the line, and I've only had the phone for a little over a day now, so I don't know what's going on with that. I hope they haven't permanently cut off your service.

I could only get in two threatening phone calls to the DA's office and one to the FBI with it. The FBI guy
was really pissed and we had a long chat (I guess while he traced the number).

I'd also like to apologize for not killing you and instead making you walk back home humiliated. I'm hoping that you'll reconsider your choice of path in life. Next time you might not be so lucky..
- Alex

P.S. Remember this motto…… an armed society is a polite society!

Like I said, a bit over the top, but funny.

***************
I just wonder if this really happened! I love the part about calling the creep's "momma." She must be very proud.