Luis Gutierrez's undivided loyalty

Mickey Kaus:

I might go along with the idea that Rep. Luis Gutierrez is a Latino "Martin Luther King figure"  when--in "his confrontational style"--he does something that actually threatens to hurt his political career. ... P.S.: I always thought Cesar Chavez was the Latino Martin Luther King. But then Chavez opposed illegal immigration for much of his career, so he won't do. ... P.P.S.: Newsweek quotes Gutierrez as saying:

“I have only one loyalty,” he says, “and that’s to the immigrant community.”

Really? He can he get away with that? He's a U.S. Congressman and has no loyalty to non-immigrant Americans, or America as a whole? Michelle Obama couldn't get away with the African American equivalent ... Note: I'm not saying Gutierrez has opened himself up to a charge of "dual loyalty." He's declaring single loyalty. Dual loyalty would be an improvement ... 1:08 a.m.

Must stink to be a non-immigrant constituent of his, no?

h/t: husband Pundit

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Grandmother allegedly hurls toddler to her death

I'm not sure why I'm posting about this terrible event. It's a local story I first heard about on the radio yesterday, when two and a half year-old Angelyn Ogdoc was still alive and it wasn't yet clear how she had fallen. I wondered how it could have happened -- was the railing too low? Was the little girl a good climber? Did the barrier have toddler-sized openings in it the parents hadn't noticed? Was some kind of horseplay going on?

Now we find out the child was reportedly thrown from the elevated walkway to her death -- by her grandmother. There's a photo at the link of the walkway that connects Tysons Corner Center to a parking garage, and another of Carmela Dela Rosa, the fifty year-old grandmother who appears to have murdered the little girl. Here's another report with comments from a neighbor who never saw anything amiss with the family.

I know insanity and evil exist. But this is hard to understand. I'm still hoping to hear it was some kind of freak accident.

In my morning paper, this story was next to one about a father pleading guilty to killing his three year-old son by dropping him off of a Baltimore bridge.

Oremus.


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Paging Mark Steyn

No, not really. Let the guy alone. But if he were around we'd be posting his comments on the following, via Jonah Goldberg: Where's Mark Steyn When You Need Him?

The T in TSA stands for Trousers, the Germans have turned their back on Keynes,  Wikileaks is revealing all sorts Saudi dirty laundry and now Great Britain is auctioning off the HMS Invincible on the internet.

What more does the Universe have to do to get the man back at the keyboard? Maybe if the Norks start using 1940s show tunes in their pageants?

We'd throw this in, too, as an extra enticement, if we wanted to bother him, which we don't:

British schoolchildren paid to walk to school

Bribes are inspired by the "nudge" theory of behavior modification popular among the allegedly conservative liberals now running Britain.

While in opposition David Cameron was so impressed with the 2008 bestseller Nudge, by Chigago Business School economist Richard Thaler and Chicago Law School professor Cass Sunstein — which suggests how to influence human behaviour — that he required all shadow cabinet members to read it during their summer holidays.

Yes, it's that Cass Sunstein — Comrade Obama's insane and authoritarian Regulatory Czar.

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Various & sundry*

*Revised and extended.

Michelle Obama isn't the only micro-managing nag in the family, and the tendency springs from the first couple's political beliefs as well as from their personal arrogance. From the NY Post's Kyle Smith comes today's must-read:

One staffer was conspicuously overweight. The president, in an incident that Wolffe believes proves how caring the man is, took it upon himself to present the aide with a salad for lunch — “then listened to him protest that he could take care of his own health. "I love you, man. I want you to look after yourself. Eat the salad."

Smith continues:

I love you, man. Eat the salad. That is the Obama presidency in a plastic see-through clamshell. (Hold the ranch dressing!) The president loves us. He knows what’s best for us. We should bow to his superior wisdom.
Jimmy Carter obsessed over the White House tennis court schedule. President Obama wants to be your life coach, guidance counselor and spouse, kicking your shins under the dinner table when you order chocolate cake instead of steamed celery.

The president has to deal with transnational terrorism, arms control, unemployment, the deficit, health care and limiting damage from the Joe Biden Gaffe-u-tron. Add in the possibility of North Korea throwing a nuclear tantrum, and it seems unlikely that Obama is going to have time to follow me into Wendy’s. Yet there he is, pushing for all restaurant chains to post calorie counts, as already required in New York. Like much of liberalism, this little nudge isn’t a terrible idea, but it does impose a cost on business with little apparent benefit.

I think it is a terrible idea. The nudgers always have an agenda and know how to  take advantage of our ovine nature to push it on us. The default option isn't always our friend. It's someone else's idea of what we should do. (Related, from April 2009: Obama's manipulation dream team and the power of the default option.)

More from Smith:

As Obama sees the hapless White House underling — an oaf who has never heard of salad and has been waiting for a visionary to guide him to the land of arugula — he sees the world.

Read the rest for more telling Obamaisms. Hat tip to RedState.

More astute Obamanalysis from Stanley Kurtz. His new book, Radical in Chief, cracks the code on his subject. Dr. Kurtz talks about Obama's early socialist influences and how they explain his behavior since becoming president in part one of a PJTV interview.


Maggie Gallagher looks closely at the questions and the numbers and unearths what Americans really think about marriage and family:

Who counts as a family? Fully 86 percent say a single parent and child are a family, and 80 percent say an unmarried couple with a child is a family. If a cohabiting couple has no children, a majority of the public says that they are not a family. But if a childless couple is married, 88 percent consider them family. Once again, the majority of Americans use two basic tools to define family: marriage and children. They no longer see these as necessarily linked, but the presence of either makes it more likely that Americans will see a family.

To whom are we obligated to help? Kin emerges as the big dividing line, and once again it is both biological children and marriage that create kinship: Far more people acknowledge an obligation to financially assist kin created by either blood or marriage (i.e., stepchildren, parents and siblings) than feel financially obligated to assist even their one very "best friend."

This submerged traditionalism re-emerges front and center in response to the question: What is "very important" in a good husband or wife? Two traits top the list: "A good father/mother" as well as "caring and compassionate." In third place, close behind, is the willingness "put his/her family before anything else."

And this:

Two-thirds of Americans say a man who wants to marry ought to be able to support a family, compared to just one-third who say a good wife must able to support a family.

We marry for love and children and value commitment above all else -- but a man, to be a good husband and father, had better be able to support his family.

Read the rest.


From Rich Richman at Contentions:

In a letter to the New York Times, CPA John Carrick succinctly summarizes a governmental scheme that would send private citizens to jail if they did the same thing:

Social Security is in effect a giant Ponzi scheme. Today’s contributions are used to pay beneficiaries who contributed yesterday, and the surplus of current contributions is “lent” to the federal government and used for general spending.

The Ponzi scheme underlying the Medicare system is even more blatant. Consider the new “Medicare Contribution,” enacted as part of ObamaCare in the name of “fairness,” which extended the 3.8 percent Medicare tax to the investment income of those making more than $200,000 ($250,000 in the case of a couple). The legislation dispensed with the interim step of sending the money to the Medicare Trust Fund, to then be “lent” to the general fund and spent on non-Medicare programs. Instead, the money from the new “contribution” will go straight to the general fund; Medicare will not even get a government IOU to hold in “trust.” Privately run Ponzi schemes are generally less brazen.

It's nothing but legalized theft on the grandest of scales. RTR. 


Are the TSA's naked screenings and enhanced pat-downs unconstitutional? Jeffrey Rosen thinks so. H/t: J-Ru.


Linked at MichelleMalkin.com -- thanks!

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Man-caused disaster quiz

1. What did the terrorist at the Christmas tree lighting celebration in Portland shout before trying to detonate his car bomb? No, not "Merry Christmas!" Try again.

Correct.

2. What was his name?

That was a bit of a trick question, but you're half right:

At least three people have emailed me to point out an interesting aspect of this incident: it has the first known Mohammed Coefficient of over 100%. The alleged would-be Portland Christmas Tree Bomber is a 19-year-old Somali-American named Mohamed Osman Mohamud, which gives this incident a Mohammed Coefficient of 200%. [. . .]

The culturally enriched teenage terrorist intended to make a “spectacular show”, and didn’t mind if he killed children and babies. He thought his cell phone would set off the bomb, but didn’t realize that he had bought his bogus “explosives” from FBI operatives. This was a smoothly-executed sting, and the Portland FBI office is to be commended for its deft handling of the case.

And the FBI has had to use the word "jihad" four times in its press release. That part is unusual. Read the rest.

Worst part, perhaps, quoted at link above, from OregonLive.com:

The FBI operatives cautioned Mohamud several times about the seriousness of his plan, noting that there would be many people, including children, at the event, and that Mohamud could abandon his plans at any time with no shame.

“You know there’s going to be a lot of children there?” an FBI operative asked Mohamud. “You know there are gonna be a lot of children there?”

Mohamud allegedly responded he was looking for a “huge mass that will … be attacked in their own element with their families celebrating the holidays.”

"He must stop Christmas from coming, but how?"

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Sheepish decline

Blogger Quite Rightly, commenting recently on the TSA's enhanced pat-downs:

Try to imagine the U.S. gov't trying to get away with this in, say, 1950, when the reality of Nazism was fresh in people's minds and most American men were battle-hardened veterans who had paid a high price for American freedoms.

The first time a TSA official put his or her hands on the first woman, girl, or boy, that woman's husband or that child's father would have intervened immediately, and he would not have been alone. He would have been backed up by almost every other male witnessing the molestation, as well as quite a few of the females. The cops would have known exactly what side they stood on, and it wouldn't have been on the side of the TSA.

That's not mentioning what would have happened the first time the TSA pulled a man out of line to grope his private parts.

This wholesale molestation of people is happening only through public consent--right on the spot.

In other words, Where are the men of yesteryear? Here's one with some healthy instincts. Too healthy, maybe, but I appreciate the sentiment. Bottom line:

My point was: I, as a husband and father, will not stand aside and watch that happen to my wife or daughter. Will. Not. I won’t allow it, and if that means jail time, then I’ll finally put that tip jar up here on The Trog.

Of course, feminism has skewed the entire picture. Men willing to protect women, and women willing to accept it? What a retro concept. Troglodytic, even.

Also read David Harsanyi's excellent column, Live Free or Die (When the Right Guy is President). What hypocrites these liberals be.


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'Tis the season: Some gift ideas

I'm not comfortable with begging for donations or actively selling things but the Amazon store (see upper left) is kind of a win-win. You probably know how it works: if you click through a link here and make a purchase, we will get a small percentage from Amazon that doesn't add to your cost.

I've just added more movies and TV and will add more children's books soon. There may be some things here you haven't thought of, so browse around if you're in a shopping mood. I've added some links to a few favorite things below.

Thanks for reading and for any purchases you may throw my way.


Books for kids:

The Tripod series -- Riveting. Link is to the first book but you'll want all four.

Little Britches -- When boys were boys. First in a series.

Little Bear -- He was a book before he was a cartoon. Set of the three must-haves.

Tintin in America and others -- Classic comics. My kids have read these over and
over.

Many more here.


Classic television:

Get Smart -- Kids watched and found out where dad got all his jokes.

All Creatures Great and Small -- Wonderful, and not just for anglophiles.

The Prisoner -- Be seeing you!

Movies:

3 Godfathers -- One of my all-time favorite westerns, and a Christmas movie to boot.

Bye Bye Byrdie -- Ann-Margret and Dick Van Dyke -- what's not to like?

Gaslight -- Paula!

More movies and TV here.

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Too much Sarah

I just read the Anchoress's Thanksgiving Linkaround, which is chock-full of good stuff, especially Jonah Goldberg's The Pope Plays It Right. She has excerpted exactly what I would have, so I'll refrain.

Near the end of her post Elizabeth Scalia says what I've been thinking about Sarah Palin lately:

I think she is risking real overexposure, myself.

Her face and voice are everywhere. She engages every critic. I'm getting tired of her  the way a consumer gets tired of an over-advertised product or a commercial that plays four times an hour. She's exacerbating my counter-will. Enough already. Remember what familiarity breeds.

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Freberg on Thanksgiving

A 1961 classic:



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Steyn stuff

I lamented to husband the other day how much I missed Mark Steyn's Saturday columns, and even more, I think, his Corner posts. Apparently the Steynus interruptus has been due to some health problems. From the SteynOnline homepage:

I know the on-again off-again nature of SteynOnline in recent months has sorely tried readers’ patience. Rather boringly, I have some health issues that demand somewhat more attention than I’ve been able to give them. So rather than keep driving you nuts by showing signs of life on the home page for a day or two and then lapsing back into sleep mode for a week, we’re going to close up shop for a while. 

Read the rest at the home page, say a prayer for a speedy recovery if you're so inclined, and shop Steyn this Christmas.

If you have a college student on your shopping list, blow his mind with the pure awesomeness of America Alone.

I've heard almost all of Mark's audio productions and especially enjoyed last year's Christmas Show, his tribute to Frank Loesser (both included in this package), and last year's acclaimed Gingerbread and Eggnog. This also looks like a great package, though I haven't heard the Dorothy Fields CD yet. (I'm not sure how I missed that.)

Here's a musical get well card for Mark.

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Not everyone dislikes the pat-downs

Why is it that liberals are so keen on those enhanced pat-downs? (Please don't answer that.)

Sen. Claire McCaskill called them "love pats."

Gloria Allred: Frankly, I liked it.

Whoopi Goldberg: Resigned to being squeezed.

Michael Kinsley: Go Ahead, Touch My Junk


Glenn Reynolds has a good post on the stress experienced by TSA agents who find themselves despised by those they, uh, come in contact with as they perform their duties:

“Instead of making this Wednesday National Opt-Out Day in which a bunch of self-appointed guardians of liberty slow down the line for everyone by asking for pat-downs,” said Baker, “maybe what we need is a day when everyone who goes through the line says, ‘Thanks for what you do.’

You can make us submit, I guess, but you can't make us thank you for it. Read the rest.

Thanks to Michelle Malkin for the Buzzworthy link.
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Cranberry bread

I'll be pretty busy over the next few days with Thanksgiving and other mom stuff. But I'll post as time allows, and as irresistible impulse demands.

In addition to the usual Thanksgiving menu I'm planning on making walnut broccoli a la Instapundit and a pecan pie a la Diana Hunter. Also making turkey, apple pie, squash pie, et cetera. But what my family really seems to care about is the cranberry bread which we start nibbling on Thursday morning. The recipe comes from the old Fannie Farmer cookbook, 11th edition.

CRANBERRY BREAD

Preheat oven to 325 F.
Grease a 9X5 loaf pan.

Ingredients:

1 orange
1 cup cranberries, chopped in a food processor
(1/2 C walnuts)
2 T butter
1 egg
1 C sugar
2 C flour
1/2 t salt
1/2 t baking soda

Grate the rind of one orange.
Squeeze the juice and add enough boiling water to make 3/4 C liquid.
Add the grated rind.
Add 2 T butter.

Put in another bowl:
1 egg
1 C sugar

Beat well and stir into the orange mixture.

Add:
1 C cranberries, chopped
(1/2 C walnuts, chopped, optional)

Sift together:
2 C flour
1/2 t salt
1/2 t baking soda

Stir into the first mixture.

Spoon into a buttered 9X5 inch loaf pan.

Bake 1 hour at 325.

Great with butter, cream cheese, or just plain. My family doesn't like nuts (irony alert!) but I do, so sometimes I pile some on top.


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Monday various & sundry

File this one under "We are so screwed." Obama is stuck in the 80's. Jackson Diehl:

So has nothing changed in the past quarter-century? In fact, almost everything has - especially when it comes to nuclear arms control and Israel's national objectives. What hasn't changed, it seems, is Barack Obama - who has led his administration into a foreign policy time warp that is sapping its strength abroad and at home.

Obama is surely stuck in a no-nukes, give-peace-a-chance mindset, (though I don't think that makes him all that unusual among liberals). So we're all stuck with his stupid, dangerous policies. Because a guy who knows he's smarter than everyone else isn't open to other ideas. Mr. Diehl continues:

Still, this administration is notable for its lack of grand strategy - or strategists. Its top foreign-policy makers are a former senator, a Washington lawyer and a former Senate staffer. There is no Henry Kissinger, no Zbigniew Brzezinski, no Condoleezza Rice; no foreign policy scholar.

Instead there is Obama, who likes to believe that he knows as much or more about policy than any of his aides - and who has been conspicuous in driving the strategies on nuclear disarmament and Israeli settlements. "I personally came of age during the Reagan presidency," Obama wrote in "The Audacity of Hope." Yes, and it shows.

RTR.

And file this under "They are so screwed." Jed Babbin on the Dems' 2012 albatross, otherwise known as the Obama agenda:

The biggest element of the Obama Toxicity Index is reflected in the Republicans' electoral mandate for the 112th Congress: to reduce the size and spending of the federal government. How many times will the Senate Dems follow Obama off the deficit spending cliff, voting to increase the debt limit, voting to increase spending, and refusing to reduce spending by the hundreds of billions of dollars that can and must be saved?

Each time these Democrats vote for more spending, each time they vote against cuts, they will be voting for Obama and against their political futures.

Just keep it up, ladies and gentlemen. What happened to House Democrats this year is waiting for you just 24 months from now.

Read the whole thing, which includes a discussion of Sen. Jim Webb, who may be caught between a rock and a hard place known as Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Mr. Babbin also notes that hope and change is lousy for your mental health (but you knew that):

It appears that Obama is literally driving us crazy. According to the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 20% of Americans had some form of mental illness in 2009. Which they attribute to unemployment, not the accumulated effect of listening to Barry's teleprompter speak almost daily.

The craziness will precipitously increase because -- only days before the Thanksgiving holiday -- the Touching Sensitive Areas gangsters are hanging a sign at all airports that reads, "Abandon all Hope, Ye who Enter Here." The choices are X-ray scanning, grope-a-dope frisking by its goons, or fines of up to $10,000. Whatever number of Americans were driven nuts in 2009 is going to double in 2011.

More on the TSA mess from Kathleen Parker, whom I rarely read, let alone quote. But she's on target here:

Those who wish not to submit to the body scan, whether out of modesty or concerns about radiation exposure, can submit instead to intimate frisking. Children under 12 are given modified pat-downs, though this isn't much comfort. Touching a 13-year-old boy or girl, possibly the most sensitive creature on the planet, is supposed to be just hunky-dory?

In calculating my own travel plans, I've determined that in flying home for Thanksgiving, I will be scanned or handled going and coming. My predisposition at this writing: I'm just not that into turkey. 

My beloved mother-in-law can't make it this year for Thanksgiving because of health concerns. But if she were able to visit as usual, I'd be letting her know that staying home is an option we would understand. Then we'd all realize that would mean the TSA terrorists were winning, and she'd probably fly out anyway. Besides, they'd never bother an obviously benign older lady, would they? Oh, wait . . . .


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At RN: Thin is in, even for three-year old girls

Hot off the press at RightNetwork: Our Daughters and the National Obsession with Thinness

Leave a comment or "like" it if you're so inclined.

(Link fixed -- thanks, PJM!)

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Obama responds weakly to TSA outrages as cancer survivors and kids get full treatment

There's no end in sight to the TSA horror stories. And they seem to be getting worse as people with serious medical conditions come forward and report the disgraceful treatment they've received at various airports across the country. I can hardly believe this one:

In August a veteran flight attendant was forced to remove her prosthetic breast and show it to

"She put her full hand on my breast and said, 'What is this?' Bossi recalled. "And I said, 'It's my prosthesis because I've had breast cancer.' And she said, 'Well, you'll need to show me that.'"

Bossi was asked to remove her prosthetic breast from her bra and show it to the agent.

She said she did not take down the name of the agent because of the "horrific" nature of the experience.

"It just blew my mind. I couldn't believe that somebody had done that to me,'" she told WBTV.

Could this possibly be standard operating procedure, to demand that a woman remove her prosthetic breast and present it to the agent? Madness.

And on November 7 a bladder cancer survivor received outrageous treatment at the hands of TSA agents in Detroit:

Before starting the enhanced pat-down procedure, a security officer did tell him what they were going to do and how they were going to it, but Sawyer said it wasn’t until they asked him to remove his sweatshirt and saw his urostomy bag that they asked any questions about his medical condition.

“One agent watched as the other used his flat hand to go slowly down my chest. I tried to warn him that he would hit the bag and break the seal on my bag, but he ignored me. Sure enough, the seal was broken and urine started dribbling down my shirt and my leg and into my pants.”

The security officer finished the pat-down, tested the gloves for any trace of explosives and then, Sawyer said, “He told me I could go. They never apologized. They never offered to help. They acted like they hadn’t seen what happened. But I know they saw it because I had a wet mark.”

Humiliated, upset and wet, Sawyer said he had to walk through the airport soaked in urine, board his plane and wait until after takeoff before he could clean up.

Humiliation seems to be their specialty. To state the obvious: imagine the outcry if  terrorists at Gitmo were given this kind of treatment.

*Update: Via Jim Hoft and YouTube, TSA implements No Child Left Alone policy:

Commenter at YouTube:

Well, on the bright side, we no longer have to wonder how so many fine Germans went along with the Nazi's. All we have to do is look in the mirror.

Hyperbolic, yes, but we are awfully good at imitating sheep.

President Obama, predictably out of touch with the chumps who stand in line at airports waiting to get molested, made a generic statement about this growing national nightmare, making sure to preface it with the news that he doesn't fly commercial. Um . . . huh?

In contrast, Texas Governor Rick Perry, sounding like a leader, has an excellent idea:

"Just in the last two weeks, I've had five of my citizens who've lost their lives on that border with Mexico, and that is an irresponsible lack of focus by our federal government," Perry said, calling the federal security an "abject failure."

When asked if, in the wake of the TSA invasive pat-down controversy, he'd replace TSA screeners as states are allowed under federal law, Perry had an idea.

"How about we take all those TSA agents and put them on the border with Mexico where they can do some security there?" Perry said. "That's where we need security substantially more than in our airports and what we're seeing out of this bunch."

Amen.

The governor had a few more things to say:

Perry cautioned that the incoming lawmakers in the 112th Congress "better be dreaming about" cutting the size of government and embracing fiscal conservatism when they go to sleep at night and focus on it every waking day.

"That's the type of individual that will be rewarded by the voters with a re-election," he said.

The possible presidential contender said that will also be the hallmark of a successful nominee.

"I'd like to find somebody with the characteristics will stand up and run for the presidency in 2012 and say, I want to go to Washington, D.C. and help you make Washington as inconsequential in your life as I can make it," he said.

Perry didn't say whether he was that person, but said he had "the best job" as governor of the Lone Star State. "I want to be back in the state being a governor and making things happen," he said.

Hmmm.

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There’s nothing like an expensive auto repair to drain that rainy day fund

Jimmie Bise of Sundries Shack is asking for some help:

I’ve never asked for anything like this before, but I know the internet is capable of quite a lot, and I have some pretty darned amazing readers and friends here so here goes.

My faithful Ford broke down yesterday on the way home from work. The hope at the time was that repairing it would be a relatively simple affair that wouldn’t cost very much. This morning, that’s not at all the case. The problem is inside the motor, which means a few days of repair and at least a thousand dollar bill. At least. The worst case is that I’m looking at a new engine which will clock in somewhere around two grand plus the cost of renting a car for up to ten days.

I simply don’t have that much money, even if I drain my bank account and run my emergency credit card to the max. I am, still, a pretty low-level public employee, one who hasn’t quite seen the great benefits that most of the rest of the public sector have seen lately. I have built up reserves, but not enough to cover this.

So I’m turning to you guys, the great Army of Davids, for a hand. There’s a donation button at the bottom of this post and in the right hand sidebar you can use to send me what you like. Send what you can. If you can’t donate, then I ask you to spread the word to people who you think can, by blog, Facebook, Twitter, and e-mail. Shake the trees. You can do a pretty awesome thing here and with your help (and that of the Almighty who I believe is still very much in the miracle business) this will only be a blip instead of a financial catastrophe.

Thanks to all of you for the mighty thing you are going to do on my behalf.

Pass it on.

Cross-posted at Potluck.

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Pence: Let's defund Planned Parenthood

Yes, please:

“How about, let's deny all federal funding to Planned Parenthood of America? That would save $350 million right off the top. I have to tell you as I travel around the country, the American people -- millions of Americans, more every day -- are offended that the largest abortion provider in America is also the largest recipient of federal funding under Title 10.”

I like Mike.

He also says he likes Sarah Palin's style. They'd make an attractive ticket. But I'd prefer Pence and Liz Cheney.



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Embassy bomber Ghailani found not guilty of 224 murders

A New York jury found al Qaeda terrorist Ahmed Ghailani not guilty on 224 murder charges and guilty only of conspiracy to destroy U.S. government buildings.

Peter King Rips Obama on Ghailani Verdict

I am disgusted at the total miscarriage of justice today in Manhattan’s federal civilian court.  In a case where Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani was facing 285 criminal counts, including hundreds of murder charges, and where Attorney General Eric Holder assured us that ‘failure is not an option,’ the jury found him guilty on only one count and acquitted him of all other counts including every murder charge.

Thomas Joscelyn:
Ghailani Verdict a Miscarriage of Justice: Al Qaeda terrorist Ahmed Ghailani is certainly guilty of mass murder

Let’s review some of the evidence presented at Ghailani’s trial. According to CBS News, government prosecutors presented all of the following facts to the jury:

1. Ghailani and another al Qaeda operative “purchased the used refrigeration truck converted to a weapon of mass destruction in Tanzania.”

2. “Ghailani then obtained some of the oxygen and flammable acetylene gas tanks joined to the TNT to enhance the explosion.”

3. “Ghailani also stored electric detonators - one and a half inch, aluminum coated, PETN charged blasting caps -- in the armoire of his Dar es Salaam house. The FBI found one, along with clothing tainted with TNT residue.”

4. Ghailani gave the suicide bomber who blew himself up in Tanzania the cell phone he used in plotting the attack. The suicide bomber made calls from this phone both the night before, and the morning of, the attack.

5. The government produced “numerous witnesses” who “placed Ghailani in 1998 in the company of known al Qaeda operatives and embassy bombers, at [a] ‘safe house’ in coastal Mombasa, Kenya, at the house Ghailani shared in Dar es Salaam, and riding in utility vehicles the conspirators used to ferry supplies to their bomb making locations.”

CBS News explains that two of the men “seen with Ghailani” have already been convicted for their role in the embassy bombings and are “serving life sentences.”

6. “Ghailani fled Tanzania using a fake name and passport the day before the bombings” and “three senior al Qaeda leaders involved with the East Africa's cell were on Ghailani's flight to Karachi, Pakistan."

It is a mystery how the jury could find that these facts failed to add up to a guilty verdict on all of the murder counts. How can a terrorist be guilty of conspiring to blow up two buildings, but then be found not guilty of the ensuing deaths?

Read the rest.

Video: Krauthammer: Ghailani Verdict "Huge Embarrassment" For Obama Admin
CK calls this a "calamity" and a co-panelist predicts Holder is headed for the bus undercarriage.

The Obama administration professes to be "pleased" with the verdict and I'm inclined to take them at their word, in a way; their hearts are not in the war against terrorism. And it could have been infinitely worse for them, politically. Allahpundit:

If he had walked, Obama would now be in the excruciating position of having to decide whether to let him go, which would be an utter political disaster, or to re-arrest him and hold him on some sort of preventive detention grounds, which would be a civil libertarian nightmare (and a political disaster among his base). This, in a nutshell, is why they now favor simply leaving KSM in legal limbo and not trying him anywhere — because, even in a military tribunal, there’s at least a (very) small chance that he’ll be acquitted and Obama will face this same impossible dilemma on an epic scale. I’d love to be a fly on the wall in Holder’s office right now.

What a mess. If you voted for Obama feel free to leave your abject apology in the comments.

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More TSA horror stories

TSA head John Pistole testified before the US Senate today and offered enhanced pat-downs for senators. Ryan Young queries: Shouldn’t He Buy Them Dinner First?

Today's hearing, and Pistole's salacious offer, were prompted by growing public outrage at TSA policies. Passengers are required to allow the TSA to take nude pictures of them; many people find this objectionable. Passengers who opt out must be patted down. New procedures require screeners are to touch passengers' breasts, buttocks, and genitals. Some passengers have compared the enhanced pat-downs to sexual assault, and at least one woman has threatened a lawsuit.

Michael Graham suggests a certain person should take Mr. Pistole up on the offer:

Napolitano says it’s vital to our security, though nobody can point to a single attack foiled by this fondling. She insists this is a key part of their “layered” approach to air safety.

OK, fine, Janet. I’ll do it. Only, you go first.

Graham recounts one mother's horror story:

“The TSA agent felt along my waistline, moved behind me, then proceeded to feel both of my buttocks. She reached from behind in the middle of my buttocks towards my vagina area . . . She then moved in front of me and touched the top and underneath portions of both of my breasts.”

I have to break here for a cigarette, but you get the picture.

In her op-ed, Napolitano insists that “pat-downs have long been one of the many security measures used by the U.S,” but what she doesn’t say is that the definition of “standard” has been upgraded to include activity that frequently got my face slapped in college. And this is mandatory for all travelers - including children - who do not aquiesce to the perv-o-matic full body scan.

Free Americans, allowing themselves to be treated like prisoners at the county lock-up, just because they want to fly to Granny’s for Thanksgiving. Why?

Then there's the guy who says the TSA put their hands down his pants.

More chilling anecdotes:

Philip Terzian: Big Brother is Scanning You

At that moment, a middle-aged gentleman in uniform, wearing sunglasses—I cannot now recall whether he was a policeman of some jurisdiction or a Transportation Safety Administration official—appeared in the no-man’s-land between the rope line and the customs desk. Like a drill sergeant, he strode back and forth with a purposeful air, and began to bellow.

“Listen up!” he said. “You will enter the proper line for passport control. U.S. passports here, non-U.S. passports there”—and he pointed to the appropriate queues. “You will have your passport available for immediate inspection. You will cooperate with the appropriate authorities. If you do not you will be subject to detention and possible arrest!”

These welcoming sentences were bellowed, as I say, and delivered as he marched up and down the forlorn line of exhausted travelers, hands on hips. I remember thinking at the time that the only ingredient missing from his kit was a swagger stick, and that the whole performance approached self-parody. Then I felt anger. My momentary inclination was to approach him, as he moved along the queue, and advise him that most of the waiting travelers were old, some were infirm, all were tired and sleepy, and it was hardly necessary to address them as if they were military recruits, or prisoners arriving at the state penitentiary. But imagining my own “detention and possible arrest,” I kept my mouth shut.

Yes, this happened in America. Dulles Airport, to be specific.

Another from Andrew Ian Dodge:

I informed the TSA officer that it was the scar from my colon cancer operation that went from my crotch to my sternum. A day later the scar still hurts from the kneading and prodding. I was informed they were checking in order to determine if I had anything sewn into my stomach. I offered to lift my shirt to show the TSA officer the still rather graphic scar, but he refused.

So in just five minutes I was told I looked like a notorious porn star by a TSA female employee and then had my scar examined by a man. I was so very pleased to be reminded of the painful and frightening (I had post-op complications including “dying several times”) experience of a few years ago.

I guess there is a new category of suspect persons to the TSA: “traveling with scars.”

Another scar story via Little Miss Attila:

And then, there’s this:

I am a frequent traveler and I have noticed that screenings have become more and more invasive. And they have become astonishingly stupid. The agents always say “I have to tell you that if the wand alarm goes off I have to pat the area down.”

I have an artificial left knee, it being replaced three years ago. Sure enough, my knee set off the metal detector and the guy wanded me. He waved the wand over the front of my knee and it beeped. And he patted my knee down. Then he wanded the back of ny knee and it beeped and he patted my knee down. Then he wanded both the inside and outside of my knee and it beeped over both areas and he patted down my knee on both sides.

I was wearing shorts. I have a five inch scar over the front of my knee and he patted it down repeatedly.

Read the rest.


Prison Planet reports on an incident that happened in 2008 which resulted in a law suit:

“As the TSA agent was frisking plaintiff, the agent pulled the plaintiff’s blouse completely down, exposing plaintiffs’ breasts to everyone in the area,” the lawsuit said. “As would be expected, plaintiff was extremely embarrassed and humiliated.”

TSA workers continued to laugh and joke about the incident “for an extended period of time,” leaving the woman distraught and needing to be consoled. After the woman re-entered the boarding area, TSA workers continued to humiliate her over the incident.

“One male TSA employee expressed to the plaintiff that he wished he would have been there when she came through the first time and that ‘he would just have to watch the video,’” the suit said.

Newsweek: For Survivors of Sexual Assault, New TSA Screenings Represent a Threat

For women and men who have already been sexually assaulted, the new screening rules—or just the threat of these rules—present a very real danger. They can be triggering events, setting off a posttraumatic-stress reaction. “I started crying. It was so intimate, so horrible. I feel like I was being raped,” an anonymous rape survivor recounted on a Minnesota blog. Melissa Gibbs, a spokeswoman for We Won’t Fly, a group protesting the new regulations, says that a rape survivor she spoke to had a panic attack as an agent began touching her leg.

Sen. Claire McCaskill:

“I’m wildly excited that I can walk through a machine instead of getting my dose of love pats.”

Love pats? What an incredibly inappropriate response.

More:
House floor: Rep. Duncan blasts Chertoff, TSA screening
Soros sells shares in TSA contractor making naked scanners
Reverse-Image Scanners Show Everything? TSA Patdowns Touch Everything?

Also, via Gateway Pundit, CNN employee's story: "I felt helpless, violated, and humiliated."

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Get that title straight

Dwight Schrute, call your Office. You can't make this stuff up:

Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) were scheduled to meet separately with the Congressional Black Caucus to discuss a series of matters, including the creation of a new leadership job for Jim Clyburn, who is the current majority whip and the highest-ranking African-American in Congress.

The new job will be called “assistant leader” rather than “assistant to the leader” and will come with a rank between whip and caucus chairman.

As a friend noted the other day, who cares what the job is as long as it comes with a car and driver. And you know it will.

More from Politico's Jonathan Allen including one Dem's characterization of Pelosi as "the face of our defeat."  Ouch.

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Various & sundry: Grope and change* edition

**Welcome, SteynOnline readers. Scroll down. You'll know where to stop.**


Life has overtaken blogging lately. Here's my feeble attempt to catch up a bit:

On the ongoing TSA national grope-a-thon*:

Sully Sullenberger's wife was "touched in sensitive places."

Mollie Hemingway was, too: 

I joked that in some cultures I would be married to my screener by now. But it wasn’t funny. It was incredibly intimate and it actually made me uncomfortable. I felt intimidated by the fact that the screeners have so much authority over your freedom to move about the country.

Who do these people think they are, again? Oh, wait. Janet says we need to recognize our role.

The groping and scanning aren't universal. Four of my family members are flying today from three different airports. One texted, "Hey i was not scanned OR groped. must have changed the rules? Anticlimax." Aw, shucks. Two others flew out of an airport without scanners and they weren't molested, either. Haven't heard from the last one yet. I'm hoping she's not chained to a chair in some airport backroom.


Hot Air Pundit quotes Hannity, and it's too good to check, even if we could, which we can't:

"There are some Democrats that cue me into things. The feeling among some people in the White House is that this president is unhinged, that he's detacted, that he's losing it, he's obsessed with critics, very specifically obsessed with Fox news, he can't stand Biden, he hates the Clintons, the Clintons hate him. Infighting apparently, and finger pointing is at an all-time high, if the President is brought bad news on the economy he has a meltdown everytime he hears it. And this is what people-and I'm telling you-my sources are reliable are telling me"

The Rangel circus was wonderfully entertaining while it lasted. The man deserves an award for his colossal, boundless nerve. See Doug Ross: 'I haven't stolen enough to afford a lawyer!'


Can we draw the curtain of charity over Alvin Greene now? He's obviously missing about two-thirds of his marbles.

Seamless segue to this:

What Mark says:

How pitiful is this? A mere two years after their original version of "A Marshmallow World", Mark & Jessica are reduced to a desperate disco cover of their Christmas hit. But, on the other hand, if you're looking to fill the dance floor at your holiday party, this track is sure to do the trick - and, for even more funkalicious groove-thang shakin', don't miss the extended megamix.

This Christmas, the world is your snowball - and your glitterball! To get this season's dance party sensation, via CD or digital download, simply click here

Heh. I did not see the disco thing coming at all. I was expecting more Steyn/Martin stylings along the lines of their very respectable Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas. But I've listened to the whole thing, and if it doesn't have you shakin' your booty, well, you just haven't had enough eggnog.

I do hope Mark is planning another Christmas show this year. Last year's was vastly entertaining.


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Airline searches, as ineffective as they are invasive

The great American awakening continues. Now we realize we'd rather not be  treated like criminals when we travel by air. Cases in point: this perfectly rational  three year-old girl, screaming "Quit touching me!" at the TSA agent, and a guy who opted not to fly rather than allow someone other than his wife and his doctor to examine his private parts.

Pilots and flight attendants also object, and one pilot has filed suit:

Although he has a libertarian streak, Roberts’ objection to the procedure goes beyond personal privacy and political philosophy. He says the screening just doesn’t work. It doesn’t improve passenger safety or deter terrorism. It’s just another example of the federal government closing the barn door after the horse gets out, and violating the rights of the innocent to make it look like the government is doing something about security.

Roberts notes the progression of this liberty-leeching invasion:

After the shoe-bomber attempt, we had to remove our shoes. After the underpants bomber, we had to be electronically strip searched and groped.

What will happen, he asks, after the first time a terrorist smuggles a bomb on a plane inside his rectum or in a breast implant?

There was a time, not too long ago, when that would have been a comedian’s witty one-liner. Now, it sounds more like the future rushing upon us.

Anne Leary says there's got to be a better way. Jed Babbin concurs: Just Stay Home:

There are two ideas which dominate US airline security, and both are false. The first is that every air traveler -- be it a four-year-old girl or a 24-year-old Yemeni man -- is an equal risk. The second is that it more important to keep dangerous objects off the plane than to keep a dangerous person on the ground. And plans based on these assumptions are metastasizing into a burden on air travel that will damage our economy severely. [. . .]

As a result of Umar, the Touching Sensitive Areas agency ordered accelerated deployment of the x-ray scanners which display us naked for inspection by TSA employees and the use of enhanced "pat down" techniques that the selfsame TSA clods use to run their hands over every part of our bodies. And yes, I do mean every part, even those we render inaccessible to all but our spouses and physicians. A multitude of news reports say that there is a whole lot of groping going on.

Airline pilots and stewardi are refusing to go through the scanners because of the health risk attendant to repeated X-ray exposure (and because they don't like being fondled by TSA). TSA -- not your radiologist -- says the scanners are safe. Right.

I am a cancer survivor. I have not, and will never, submit to the full-body x-ray scans. You should follow my lead. And when someone gropes you -- touches your privates even briefly or "by accident" -- get their name and their supervisor's name, and the names of any and all who assist them and report them to the airline you were going to fly. Not to TSA: they're governmentally impervious to such complaints.

Read the rest.

Melissa Clouthier had her own harrowing experience at the hands of the TSA back in 2002 when they forced her to leave her baby and toddler unsupervised in a busy airport as they slowly patted her down:

Stop for a moment and consider the absurdity of the situation. I am a 31 year old caucasian female with two children. Has any terrorist EVER matched that description? Even one woman, in the history of the known universe, ever bombed anything with that profile?

I told the TSA agent,”If something happens to my children, I will come after you.”

And it's all for show:

We damn well know that the TSA is too politically correct to make the tough decisions about who to screen anyway.

I do not deserve to be terrorized by my government and I was. I’ve written time and time again about the uselessness of the TSA–it’s all a show to make us feel better psychologically. We are all enduring procedures as placebo.

The TSA regulations make average citizens miserable while the real medicine–an Israeli-type profiling would actually make a security difference. But no. Security placebos for Americans.

Read the whole thing. It's an outrage.

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Smitty heads to Afghanistan

We'll miss him and pray for his safe return:

I hold orders to activate in mid-November and report to Kabul, Afghanistan in time for Christmas. Bandwidth, and latitude for skylarking online will not exist until the end of 2011.

The attentive may recall that I’m a Navy reservist, and Afghanistan hasn’t much coast. Welcome to the modern, double-Jointed world, where Semper Gumby (always flexible) is the watchword.  Have you supported Project Valor-IT yet?

As a staff REMF, it’s unlikely that I’ll be in harm’s way. This is really one year in an isolated locale, supporting the a few doughty Americans.  Should some sort of combat situation come upon me, there in the capital, things shall have gone really awry. Unlikely. Also, as a 40-something ship driver from the Navy, there is no interest in reliving my non-existent Rambo days. Let’s be crystal clear on that. Besides PowerPoint, I’ll be doing staff officer sorts of things.

But don’t thank me; thank Americans, from the Founding Fathers forward to the Tea Parties, to my electrician brother-in-law who just runs around fixing things all day. The exceptional American dedication to individualism, the ideals of the Constitution, and the courageous soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines in whose bigger footsteps I follow make it all worth it. I’ve benefitted so much from the American people, educationally and otherwise. Thus, it’s with a sense of gratitude to you that I depart on this set of orders, finishing out my Navy Reserve career in active duty style.

Read the rest.

I don't know how Stacy will get by without him.

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Sinatra break

 

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More on the Ego

I linked to Jonathan V. Last's American Narcissus in my previous post, but in case you missed it here are a couple of excerpts:

People have been noticing Obama’s vanity for a long time. In 2008, one of his Harvard Law classmates, the entertainment lawyer Jackie Fuchs, explained what Obama was like during his school days: “One of our classmates once famously noted that you could judge just how pretentious someone’s remarks in class were by how high they ranked on the ‘Obamanometer,’ a term that lasted far longer than our time at law school. Obama didn’t just share in class—he pontificated. He knew better than everyone else in the room, including the teachers." [. . .]

But Obama’s faith in his abilities extends beyond mere vote-getting. Buried in a 2008 New Yorker piece by Ryan Lizza about the Obama campaign was this gob-smacking passage:

Obama said that he liked being surrounded by people who expressed strong opinions, but he also said, “I think that I’m a better speechwriter than my speechwriters. I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I’ll tell you right now that I’m gonna think I’m a better political director than my political director.” After Obama’s first debate with McCain, on September 26th, [campaign political director Patrick] Gaspard sent him an e-mail. “You are more clutch than Michael Jordan,” he wrote. Obama replied, “Just give me the ball.”

(He's come a long way from the chubby kid in Jakarta they used to call "the boy who runs like a duck." )
  
Obama's intellectual narcissism is hardly unique. Matthew Crawford, in his book,  Shop Class as Soulcraft, lays out the connection between manual competence, intellect, and narcissism and suggests a cure. "Gifted" students are prone to harbor an inflated sense of their own abilities:

But the praising of gifted students for being smart, by parents and teachers, has a far more pernicious effect, especially when such praise is combined with the grade inflation and soft curriculum that are notorious at elite schools. A student can avoid hard sciences and foreign languages and get a degree without ever having the unambiguous experience of being wrong.  [. . .]

There may be something to be said, then, for having the gifted students learn a trade, if only in the summers, so that their egos will be repeatedly crushed before they go on to run the country. (pp. 203-4) 

To repeat myself (sorry) from last March:

But the David Brooksian "educated class" isn't to be judged by something as pedestrian as performance. They tend not to engage in jobs, such as installing a light switch, unclogging a drain, or fixing a transmission, that can be objectively evaluated as done or not done. Perceived failures in community organizing, academics, column-writing, and governing are open to interpretation and can be explained away. Not so with a car that still doesn't start.

And metaphorical cars stuck in metaphorical ditches don't count.

So parents, take note. Cool it on the empty praise and try to include something in your child's education that can be objectively measured, like welding, or crocheting.

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Obama trips over his ego in Asia

Heaven help me, I'm starting to feel sorry for this vain, petty man. William Kristol:

At his November 12 press conference in Seoul, President Obama was asked the following question by CBS’s Chip Reid: “What was the number-one complaint, concern, or piece of advice that you got from foreign leaders about the U.S. economy and your stewardship of the economy?”

Whereupon the president began his response with a complaint: “What about compliments?” he asked. “You didn’t put that in the list.”

Pair that with another recent "But let's get back to me" moment and you might detect a pattern:

MR. KANSAGRA:  Thank you.  Welcome, Mr. President, to India.  As a fellow Kenyan, I’m very proud to see that you have made –
THE PRESIDENT:  Made something of myself.  (Laughter.)
MR. KANSAGRA: — India as the focus of your drive for exports out of the U.S.

Obama's an egomaniac and that's bad news for our country. It's a weakness that separates him from reality and hampers his ability to do his job. A high level of denial is needed to support his inflated view of himself. President Sarkozy reportedly pointed this out a year ago:

"And they both say that [France's President Nicolas] Sarkozy thinks that President Obama is incredibly naive and grossly egotistical - so egotistical that no one can dent his naïveté. And he's very worried about what that means for the West. Because the President of the United States is the leader of the free world. And if the President of the United States isn't going to lead the free world, it's not going to be led."

This analysis has been confirmed and reconfirmed by Obama's behavior over the past year.

Back to Bill Kristol:

Poor President Obama. He’s (allegedly) getting all these compliments from his fellow world leaders—and the press just isn’t interested in having him tell us about them. True, President Obama became accustomed, as a candidate, to having a compliant press corps. But even so. After a contentious economic summit where the president was forced to defend the Fed’s ill-advised monetary policies, a summit that followed on the heels of the biggest midterm electoral defeat ever suffered by an elected first-term president, a defeat partly due to his ill-advised fiscal policies, did Obama really expect a reporter to stand up at the end of last week and ask, “Mr. President, what compliments did you receive from foreign leaders?”

And that has us worried. We’ve assumed the president would learn from the voters’ repudiation of his party on November 2. We’ve assumed he would learn from reality’s refutation of his policies over the last two years.

I'm not sure any astute Obama watchers really assumed that Obama would be able to correct course. That would require admission of error, something that's not in his repertoire. But blaming others -- his predecessor, his opponents, his party, his base, and the American electorate -- is something he's elevated to an art form.

Jonathan V. Last covers the towering ego quite nicely in his column, American Narcissus:

All presidents are hostage to self-confidence. But not since Babe Ruth grabbed a bat and wagged his fat finger at Wrigley’s center-field wall has an American politician called his shot like Barack Obama.

(Now he's praising the virtue of hitting singles, but that's another story.)

He announced his candidacy in Springfield, Illinois, on the steps where Abraham Lincoln gave his “house divided” speech. He mentioned Lincoln continually during the 2008 campaign. After he vanquished John McCain he passed out copies of Team of Rivals, a book about Lincoln’s cabinet, to his senior staff. At his inauguration, he chose to be sworn into office using Lincoln’s Bible. At the inaugural luncheon following the ceremony, he requested that the food—each dish of which was selected as a “tribute” to Lincoln—be served on replicas of Lincoln’s china. At some point in January 2009 you wanted to grab Obama by the lapels and tell him—We get it! You’re the Rail Splitter! If we promise to play along, will you keep the log cabin out of the Rose Garden?

It’s troubling that a fellow whose electoral rationale was that he edited the Harvard Law Review and wrote a couple of memoirs was comparing himself to the man who saved the Union. But it tells you all you need to know about what Obama thinks of his political gifts and why he’s unperturbed about having led his party into political disaster in the midterms. He assumes that he’ll be able to reverse the political tide once he becomes the issue, in the presidential race in 2012. As he said to Harry Reid after the majority leader congratulated him on one particularly fine oration, “I have a gift, Harry.”

That kind of vanity would be bad enough if he actually did possess that gift. RTR. 

**Follow-up: More on the Ego

Many thanks to Michelle Malkin for the Buzzworthy link.

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A hero for Veterans Day: Marine Cpl. Todd A. Nicely

Once in a while the Washington Post does something right. Today it profiles Marine Cpl. Todd A. Nicely, who lost a hand, an arm, and both legs when he was struck by a bomb in Afghanistan. Grab a coffee and some kleenex and read the whole thing.

"I remember screaming once or twice," he said. "You know, those curdling, bloody screams that they do on the movies, like: 'Waaaah! Waah!' I did that a couple times, and I remember thinking to myself: 'Don't do that again, because this is the last image that these boys are going to have of you in their heads. So stay strong.' After that, I just shut up."

He knew he gotten "blown up pretty good," he said. "I knew I was going to lose some. I wasn't quite aware that I had lost all four."

Read the rest and watch the video here.

There's still time to contribute to Project Valour IT.

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Someone tell Tina Fey that some of her fans are conservatives

I don't think she understands that. There may even have been some in the Kennedy Center audience, judging from this report:

In her acceptance speech, Fey touched on her best-known bit -- her Palin imitation --and offered some mock hands-across-the-political-divide commentary. The rise of conservative women in politics, she said pointedly, is good for all women, "unless you don't want to pay for your own rape kit . . . unless you're a lesbian who wants to get married to your partner of 20 years . . . [or] unless you believe in evolution."

The lines played first to nervous laughter and then to not much laughter at all.

My husband and I like 30 Rock, as do some of our conservative friends. Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin are smart and funny in it. Would they be surprised to hear us say that? I don't hate Tina for her political views or for doing her Palin thing on SNL (though I think she's a lot funnier as Liz Lemon). It's too bad Tina doesn't seem to value this segment of her fan base.

*Update: Welcome Instapundit and Michelle Malkin readers!*

**Thanks, Michelle, for pointing this out: Tina Fey recycles Palin rape kit lie.

***Also see Jim Treacher and Allahpundit.


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Project Valour IT: Show your appreciation

If you haven't, and you can, please consider a donation to Project Valour-IT.

This photo hung on the wall in my home when I was a kid. I think, for a while, my sisters and I thought my dad was one of those men. He wasn't, but he was a Marine who served in the Pacific in WWII (where he contracted malaria) and was there when the Japanese planes appeared in the sky over Pearl Harbor. 

As I've written previously, when we were young, my sisters and I didn't appreciate  our father's service to our country:

[He] was a Marine for 5 years during WWII and experienced firsthand the attack on our country at Pearl Harbor. One thing he used to say to his six clueless daughters (no sons) was, "Once a Marine, always a Marine." We had so little understanding, or even interest, in his wartime experiences that we never really asked him about December 7th. Maybe we knew that he didn't want to talk about it. But we certainly suffered from the self-centeredness of youth, and were mainly interested in ourselves. There are many things I would ask him now, if I could. And I'd try to convey my gratitude for his sacrifice.

You may convey yours with a donation to Project Valour-IT. It's a great way to say happy birthday to the USMC and to show your appreciation to those who have  sacrificed so greatly for you and your loved ones.

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Obligatory "There's an app for that" post

Another brave new world update. NY Observer via HotAir headlines:

British health officials are hard at work on a new app that will allow users to pee into their cell phones and find out within minutes if they have an STD. [. . .]

According to The Guardian, £4 million have been invested in the UK Clinical Research Collaboration, which is creating a smartphone app that will allow users, "to put urine or saliva on to a computer chip about the size of a USB chip, plug it into their phone or computer and receive a diagnosis within minutes."  [. . .]

If it's really that simple, why wait till after the deed is done? Wouldn't it make more sense for prospective partners to swap fluids before hand, get a reading on their cell phones, and then decide whether or not to "finish the download"?

Or they could just skip the middle man and have sex with their phones. If there's no app for that today you know there will be tomorrow.

(I was going to write, "Ah, romance!" but Carol got there first.)

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Brave new world update

A Mexican woman has given birth to her own grandson:

November 9, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A fifty-year-old Mexican woman has given birth to a child whose biological father is her homosexual son, according to the Mexico City newspaper Reforma.

Reforma reports that the woman, whose name has been withheld, decided to offer her womb to her 31-year-old son "Jorge," a single homosexual businessman who wanted a child. A childhood friend, who is married, contributed the ovum. Jorge's son was conceived through in-vitro fertilization with the assistance of obstetrician-gynecologist Juan Manuel Casillas and implanted in his mother's womb.

Now it takes a village to make a child.

Jorge's mother, who gave birth to her own grandson by cesarean section on November 1, has been released from the hospital after 48 hours of observation, and is now nursing the child. The attending doctors say that there have been no complications.

They're talking about medical complications. The same can't be said for the family tree diagram.

"I don't feel like a mother nor like a grandmother," the woman told Reforma. "When they say 'mother' to me I feel strange, and when they say 'grandmother' also. I mean, he was my first grandson, and I don't feel that way because at the same time he is my fourth son."

The family says that they have documented the circumstances of the birth so that the child, whose name is Darío, will someday know the full truth about his origins.

That will take some 'splainin'. Take it away, Ray.

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Teleprompter magic

The Washington Post reports Indian "amazement" at Obama's crutch, but it sounds more like confusion:

"It looks like a podium", said one mystified lawmaker. "Where do they place the paper?" asked another.

In India, politicians generally speak extemporaneously or from notes or text written on paper. The common perception, explained lawmaker Sanjay Nirupam of Mumbai, is that the really good speakers don't need to have text in front of them.

You don't say!

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California crazy, et cetera

A few things. First up:


California: The Lindsay Lohan of States, by Allysia Finley

Listen up, California. The other 48 states—your cousin New York excluded—are sick of your bratty arrogance. You're the Lindsay Lohan of states: a prima donna who once showed some talent but is now too wasted to do anything with it.

After enjoying ephemeral highs and spending binges, you suffer crashes that culminate in brief, unsuccessful stints in rehab. This cycle repeats itself every five to 10 years, as the rest of the country looks on with a mixture of horror and amusement. We'd feel sorry for you if you didn't constantly flip us the bird.

Instead, we're making bets on how long it will be before your next meltdown. Oh, wait—you're already melting down.

Read the rest. Then read Jim Hoft: California Borrows $40M a Day From Federal Government to Pay Unemployment

This is the definition of unsustainable, no? I guess Brown voters figure their state  can stay afloat indefinitely on bailouts? Their childlike faith in the candy man is, well, insane.


Ed Morrissey on the President Obama's self-professed cluelessness:

Maybe he’s just the Reuters of political prognosticators, or perhaps just a bit disingenuous.  In an interview on CBS’ 60 Minutes, Barack Obama tells viewers that he found himself surprised by the political cost of passing ObamaCare, despite the months of angry town halls, massive political rallies, and polling that showed the bill to be deeply unpopular all during the debate.  Even losing Ted Kennedy’s old seat in Massachusetts didn’t give him a clue?

Obama is also "discouraged" by the failure of his economic policies. Mr. Morrissey has a book suggestion that just might help.


Jim Geraghty isn't buying Obama's pose of surprise:

I only caught a few minutes of McLaughlin Group this weekend, but I liked the observation from Monica Crowley that the question is not whether President Obama ‘gets it,’ or whether he heard the resounding verdict from the American people on Tuesday. He heard it. He gets it. And he rejects it. If the American people are losing faith in President Obama, then to President Obama, that reflects a failing on the American people’s part, not on his.

President Obama is offering occasional words that sound a little contrite — “Part of my promise to the American people when I was elected was to maintain the kind of tone that says we can disagree without being disagreeable. And I think over the course of two years, there have been times where I’ve slipped on that commitment” — but as usual, the insistence is that this was a salesmanship failure or a communications failure or a tone failure. Obama cannot acknowledge that his policy vision is too far to the left for a center-right country. It would challenge everything he’s worked for his entire life…

Absolutely right. And Obama's arrogance won't allow him to correct course because that would be admitting error. Barring divine intervention, there will be no epiphany for President Obama.


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Sunday various & sundry

Not much time this morning but I'll toss a few items your way. 

From Jennifer Rubin's Flotsam and Jetsam:

Who knew? Obama has an ego problem, according to Politico. Next up: Obama is a liberal.

Who knew writing books about yourself wasn’t adequate preparation for the presidency? “He came across as a young man in a grown-up’s game—impressive but not presidential. A politician but not a leader, managing American policy at home and American power abroad with disturbing amateurishness.

RTR.

Victor Davis Hanson: Stay Worried

In other words, for most of his life Barack Obama has done quite well without understanding how and why American capital is created, and has enjoyed the lifestyle of the elite in the concrete as much in the abstract he has questioned its foundations. Does he finally see that the threat of borrowing huge amounts to grow government to redistribute income through higher taxes risks greater impoverishment for all of us, despite the perceived “fairness”? 

Nope.



Alex Berezow to Stephen Hawkings: Stick to physics.

Unfortunately, Dr. Hawking is at it again. And by "it," I mean bestowing upon us his rather bizarre thoughts on everything under (or above) the sun. His latest installment comes in an interview with TIME magazine, in which he provides yet more thoughts on God, death, and consciousness--three subjects of which he has absolutely no expertise.

Scientists aren't giving us science when they pretend that science can tell us how something came from nothing:

Finally, Dr. Hawking essentially believes that the laws of physics can replace God. Apparently, in his mind, it is somehow more scientific to believe in "spontaneous creation" rather than divine creation. However, his statement is nothing more than philosophy masquerading as science. Because his hypothesis is just as untestable as any religious belief, it is well beyond the scope of science.

Yes, enough already. But more, please, from Christopher Hitchens. Here he writes about the social land mines one encounters when one has stage four cancer:

It’s normally agreed that the question “How are you?” doesn’t put you on your oath to give a full or honest answer. So when asked these days, I tend to say something cryptic like “A bit early to say.” (If it’s the wonderful staff at my oncology clinic who inquire, I sometimes go so far as to respond, “I seem to have cancer today.”) [. . .]

So my proposed etiquette handbook would impose duties on me as well as upon those who say too much, or too little, in an attempt to cover the inevitable awkwardness in diplomatic relations between Tumortown and its neighbors. 

Read the rest.


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