November 1, 2003
In a unique and, shall we say, fantastic defense, a father on trial for the beating death of his infant daughter claims that the real cuplrit is his 2-year-old son: A jealous 2-year-old battered his infant sister so badly that it left her vulnerable to death when her father tripped in their St. Paul apartment and dropped her last November, Said Moussa Gouleed's lawyer said Friday, the first day of Gouleed's murder trial. Six-week-old Faduma Moussa Gouleed died from the accidental fall, not from a beating by her father, lawyer Eric Olson said. They're not called the "terrible twos" for nothing, I guess. Let's see what this brawny baby managed to inflict on Sis: An autopsy disclosed evidence that the baby had been repeatedly injured before her death, including several broken bones and a previous skull fracture. Olson said pre-existing injuries inflicted by her brother, coupled with the accidental fall...
Has anyone asked Ralph Nader how it feels to be potentially replaced by Jesse Ventura? Do you suppose Nader may be a bit reluctant to spend a year campaigning on behalf of a party of environmentalists who wanted to throw him overboard for a pro-hunting, pro-snowmobiling, pro-boating candidate?
The LA Times features an article today on how Fox News intentionally skews its news writing to support a conservative bias: A veteran producer this week alleged that Fox News executives issue a daily memorandum to staff on news coverage to bend the network's reporting into conformity with management's political views, refocusing attention on the partisan bias of America's most watched cable news operation. The charges by Charlie Reina, 55, whose six-year tenure at Fox ended April 9, first surfaced Wednesday in a letter he posted on an influential Web site maintained by Jim Romenesko for the Poynter Institute, an organization that promotes journalistic education and ethics. (Romanesko's site, BTW, is on my blogroll to the left.) Read on for a taste of delicious irony: The corporate boards and family investors who control most of the American news media generally feel obliged to maintain a wall of separation between news...
As I've posted before, I'm a practicing Catholic, which is one who hopes to improve through repetition. (ba-dum-ting! Thank you, and don't forget to tip the waitress.) This morning, the First Mate informs me that it's that time again .... confession time. Belonging to any religion requires sacrifice of one kind or another. For Catholics, we have an obligation to go to confession -- now called Reconciliation, sort of how "problems" started to become "opportunities" at the office -- at least once a year, or whenever we have a mortal sin that has not been confessed. (Please note that I am no expert on Catholicism, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.) You are not supposed to receive the Holy Eucharist until you've confessed your sins and receive absolution. However, a large number of Catholics are uncomfortable with confession, myself included, and resist engaging in this...
Continue reading "Confess, Heretic" »
In my mind, this Palestinian woman is lucky to be alive: A Palestinian woman expresses her anger after Israeli Defence Forces detonated an explosive belt they found in her house, destroying the ground and first floor of the building, in the village of Hizmeh near Jerusalem(AFP/Atta Hussein). The link will take you to the picture; there is no corresponding story, just the caption, which I've quoted in full. Power Line has a few pertinent thoughts on this, and I'll add my own: I think the Israelis need to detonate ALL confiscated explosives in the dwellings they find them. Perhaps that will send a message to the 75% of Palestinians who think that bombing Israeli civilians is a peachy idea. Maybe that will impress upon them that they have a personal stake in stopping the terrorism and getting rid of the leadership that's keeping them destitute and dislocated. One last thought...
I don't know how I missed this, but this is just another outstanding entry by Chris Muir. The sickos called 9-11, and we're still answering. Way to go, Chris!...
It's an old story for acclaimed "metrosexual" candidate Howard Dean -- Open Mouth, Insert Foot: "I still want to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks," the former Vermont governor was quoted as saying in Saturday's Des Moines Register. "We can't beat George Bush unless we appeal to a broad cross-section of Democrats." Say, Yankee boy, don't you know them's fightin' words, at least among the Northeastern-elite-style Democrats? "I don't want to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks," Gephardt said in a statement. "I will win the Democratic nomination because I will be the candidate for guys with American flags in their pickup trucks." Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts contended that Dean's "pandering" to the National Rifle Association gave him an inroad to "pander to lovers of the Confederate flag." Will the Democrats be as quick with the BUSH...
Brant at Strange Women Lying in Ponds, a most excellent blog, would like to get blogrolled at Little Green Footballs: Let's talk turkey. The reader who gets SWLiP blogrolled on LGF will win a special prize: The Al Jarreau CD of his or her choice. So if anyone reading this has any influence with the guys at LGF, let's see if we can't help Brant out. And while we're at it, maybe someone can get me a mention there too, or a link over at Instapundit. I'll cough up a Jim Croce double-CD album for anyone who can get me blogrolled at either place. Between Brant and I, we'll rescue the RIAA singlehandedly. Well, doublehandedly, at least....
November 2, 2003
Slings and Arrows tries to advance my evolution by linking to my post from earlier today about the LA Times (in SWLiP's hilarious words) being shocked, shocked to find editorial bias at Fox News. Thanks to Byron for the support; I've blogrolled Bryon, and you all should check out his well-written site. In fact, check out this post with a great graphic about economic performance during the Bush administration. As Homer Simpson says, it's funny because it's true....
The Minneapolis Star-Tribune exercises little or no editorial control when purchasing fallacious stories from the NY Times: Two decades after Syria ruthlessly uprooted militant Islam, killing an estimated 10,000 people, this most secular of Arab states is experiencing a dramatic religious resurgence. Ruthlessly uprooted militant Islam? Really? Who's been hosting Islamic Jihad and Hamas for the past 20 years or so? Who's been co-sponsoring Hezb' Allah with Iran for 20 years? Read the entire article and see whether any of these groups, or Syria's support for them, are even mentioned in passing. This is an atrocious piece of writing, and for the Strib to republish it demonstrates their commitment to left-wing memes and mediocrity in general. This was my original post when this story first ran in the NY Times....
The Washington Post published a thoughtful and balanced piece on whether Muslim troops can remain loyal to the US: Military sociologist Charles Moskos is traveling to Iraq this month to poll troops about morale issues. He plans to ask whether Muslim soldiers seem to have their hearts in fighting fellow Muslims, and whether the troops trust Muslims in their ranks. "I'll ask, 'How do you feel about having a Muslim in your tent?' " Moskos said. A black Christian Army chaplain based in this country said some of her fellow soldiers feel "tension" with Muslims in their units, many of whom are also black. "They say, . . . 'Can we really trust them?' " In past wars, this concern over disloyalty in a diverse military has come up again and again. Most famously, the Japanese formed a unit to themselves in World War II and became the most decorated...
Yeah, I know, this isn't funny ... except it is, in a class-warfare kind of way: Three high school students — a sophomore girl and two junior boys — have been expelled from an exclusive preparatory school in the Sepulveda Pass for allegedly making a sexually explicit video and distributing it on school grounds. ... Wrubel, who did not release the students' names or ages, said two of the students in the video seemed not to know that the recording would be shown to anyone outside a close circle of friends. "They thought they were just doing it for fun," Wrubel said. "And then it showed up in school." I expect that the ACLU will sue the school on behalf of the two boys, claiming oppression of free-speech rights, and Gloria Allred will sue on behalf of the girl, for any manner of civil damages, and for good reason. Still,...
The Belgravia Dispatch posts a fisking, of sorts, on Maureen Dowd's latest column (via Instapundit): But here's the point. Bush, for a good while now--including back during his September speech to the United Nations--has increasingly made reference, not only to terrorists opposing the U.S. in Iraq, but also regime "holdouts." Put differently, he's been more frank about the somewhat variegated nature of the opposition in Iraq recently. So my concerns at least, as someone who has followed the issue pretty closely, have been allayed somewhat recently. But then MaDo comes in and ignores all the evidence to the contrary to facilitate her slanted, anti-Bush op-ed writing process. Gregory Djerejian then provides the specifics on various Bush speeches where he specifically speaks about the difference between terrorists in Iraq, who mostly come from somewhere else, and regime holdouts like the Saddam Fedayeen and ex-military officers. Djerejian lumps Dowd in with Stephen...
A collection of links to interesting posts around the Axis of Naughty and other great blogs this morning ... Michelle at A Small Victory wonders how to determine when ululating Arabs is a good or bad sign ... and also has a sane look at this morning's bad news in Iraq which puts it in perspective ... Wizbang has the Howard Dean Metrosexual Quiz ready for you (be sure to read the comments!) ... Samizdata has an example of left-wing hypocrisy in education policy in Britain, but we've seen it here before, too ... Kate over at Electric Venom (cool site!) is angry about the dilution of her Social Security money ... Roger Simon ponders the war of civilizations ... DC at Brainstorming wonders about the world-changing power of the new Apple computers, but over at Jessica's Well, the concern is over the hard-drive-changing power of their new operating system...
If you take prescription medication, you should read this entire article on "off-label" prescriptions: A six-month Knight Ridder investigation has found that patients nationwide are being injured and killed as doctors routinely prescribe drugs in ways the FDA never certified as safe and effective. Moreover, these unapproved prescriptions are soaring. In the past year, 115 million such prescriptions were written, nearly double the number of five years ago, a Knight Ridder analysis of prescriptions for the country's top-selling drugs found. The practice, called off-label prescribing, often is driven by questionable research, aggressive drug company marketing and cavalier doctors, and condoned by tepid regulators. The story details the practice of giving medications for conditions not specifically targeted by the medicine, such as anti-depressants for premature ejaculation, even if no studies exist to validate such use. Doctors aren't prepared for the possible damage these off-label prescriptions cause: Victims of off-label prescribing whom...
SurlyPundit has a note on her blog showing her Political Compass which gives a more sophisticated indication of her politics than simple "left-right" designations. Her graph point is 7.25/-3.69, which indicates significant rightist economics and libertarian philosophy. My numbers are more centrist: 4.75/-0.56. Quite frankly, I'm a little surprised; I would have expected more libertarian tendencies than that. SurlyPundit has an intriguing blog; you should check it out....
Make no mistake about it: European anti-Israel sentiment is directly linked to centuries-old European anti-Semitism, and they're falling back on their old tropes of the secret Jewish conspiracy behind all the world's woes. Israel was founded as a way for Jews to escape the "gentle" clutches of genocidal Europeans, and now the same Europeans, less than 60 years removed from the gas chambers of Auschwitz, are ready to ethnically cleanse Asia Minor of the same Jews they failed to kill in Europe.
IMAO has a script for Les Moonves. Hopefully, we can get Tim Robbins to play Bill Clinton, Pamela Anderson to play Hillary, and Edward Herrmann to play Janet Reno....
I don't know what breakfast cereal Thomas Friedman's been eating lately, but the man is on fire, this time asking if Europe has thrown in the towel, "Europe" mostly meaning France and Germany: At the Madrid conference, Saudi Arabia pledged $1 billion in new loans and credits for Iraq — and Germany and France pledged zero new dollars. The bottom line is clear: Saudi Arabia cares more about nurturing democracy in Iraq than Germany and France. Ah, you say, that’s unfair. Germany and France opposed the war, so why should they pay more than their share of the paltry EU contribution? Actually, it’s not unfair, when you remember that before the war France and Germany were obsessed with the lifting of UN sanctions on Saddam’s regime — in the name of easing the suffering of the Iraqi people. Friedman sheds quite a bit of light on the disconnect between the...
I normally like to finish on an up note, but that's not possible when you read something like this, which happened in North Carolina but involves a Minnesota teen: When Nolan Myers saw somebody was in need he was always willing to lend a helping hand, his family and friends said. ... He and three friends came upon the accident and stopped to be good samaritans. As Myers, 18, of Carver, Minn., reached one of the injured motorists, the driver of a speeding van plowed into the vehicles and the bystanders, killing five people, including Myers. A sixth person died en route to the hospital, authorities said. You may ask how someone driving by an accident could kill six people standing by the site. Take three guesses: The driver of the van, Larry Robert Veeder, 32, was charged Sunday with driving while impaired and with six counts of involuntary manslaughter,...
November 3, 2003
A group of centrist, concerned Democrats have published a manifesto that attempts to fight the McGovern tilt amongst the Presidential candidates: Last week, an impressive group of centrist Democratic foreign policy thinkers released a thoughtful document urging the party to adopt a "progressive internationalism" built around a strong defense, free trade and American leadership through international alliances "to shape a world in which the values of liberal democracy increasingly hold sway." ... Signed by prominent party thinkers like Will Marshall, president of the Progressive Policy Institute, and Iraq expert Kenneth Pollack of the Brookings Institution, the paper updates for a new century the vision advanced by Democratic presidents like Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman. In that tradition, the authors envision an America that expands its own security by working with allies to encourage the spread of trade and freedom around the globe — but defends its interests with...
Gregory Djerejian at the Belgravia Dispatch has a spot-on analysis of today's Washington Post article on Tariq Aziz and France's role in ensuring war was the only option: Aziz has told interrogators that French and Russian intermediaries repeatedly assured Hussein during late 2002 and early this year that they would block a U.S.-led war through delays and vetoes at the U.N. Security Council. Later, according to Aziz, Hussein concluded after private talks with French and Russian contacts that the United States would probably wage a long air war first, as it had done in previous conflicts. By hunkering down and putting up a stiff defense, he might buy enough time to win a cease-fire brokered by Paris and Moscow. Djerejian asks: And, it begs the question, is this the behaviour of an "ally"? If, on the cusp of a conflict, where the U.S. has amassed some 200,000 troops on the...
Buried deep within the Washington Post is this bit of very good news (via Power Line): The CIA has seized an extensive cache of files from the former Iraqi Intelligence Service....The records would stretch 9 1/2 miles if laid end to end, the officials said. They contain not only the names of nearly every Iraqi intelligence officer, but also the names of their paid foreign agents, written agent reports, evaluations of agent credentials, and documentary evidence of payments made to buy influence in the Arab world and elsewhere, the officials said. It's time for many luminaries on the world stage to start coughing nervously and updating their resumes. This not only promises to embarrass international figures, but will completely undermine domestic arguments that Bush could have worked harder to get more international support. My guess is that the list is heavy on French and German names: The officials declined to...
I didn't notice this until after I'd been on a while, but I've evolved further, from Slithering Reptile to Flappy Bird in the TTLB Ecosystem. Thanks to everyone who's been linking back here -- and if you haven't yet blogrolled me, let me know if you do so I can make sure I've blogrolled you in return!...
Posting messages in a forum where prior notice of attacks have been revealed before, Islamofascists have stated that several US cities will be attacked in the near future: A new message was posted in the last few hours by the Jeddah-based al-Qaeda-linked Al-Islah (Reform) society calling on Muslims to flee New York, Washington and Los Angeles in advance of major al Qaeda attacks in those cities. ... “The Jews rule the Pentagon by remote control and (are the cause) of Muslims being killed in every corner of the world. The United States should therefore expect more blows.” The message is signed on behalf of the al Bayan (The Threat) movement by “your warrior brother, Abul Hassan al Khadrami”. So far, nothing has been reported on CNN's web site. DEBKAfile gives background information on the forum and the history of al Khadrami. (via Little Green Footballs)...
Drudge Report has a headline without a story saying that CBS has dumped the miniseries on the Reagans. In the little Matt Drudge has posted, apparently Viacom chairman Sumner Redstone got involved and moved the miniseries to another Viacom subsidiary, Showtime, where it will run uncut. Of course, this will allow Showtime subscribers to demonstrate their displeasure by canceling and switching to HBO ... they may have done better to just cancel it altogether. Maybe they will. Expect squeals of McCarthyism from ultraleftist Judy Davis and Jim Streisand, er, James Brolin....
Another Democrat appears to be poised to defect in a major election, this time in the Louisiana gubernatorial race: Mayor Ray Nagin, a Democrat, crossed party lines Monday to endorse Republican Bobby Jindal in the Nov. 15 runoff election for governor. Jindal faces Lt. Gov. Kathleen Blanco in the election. Perhaps the Democrats should call in the UN -- 2004 is looking more like a quagmire every day. But this news, combined with the Zell Miller bombshell a few days back, and the sudden retirement announcement of Bob Graham in Florida, and it's becoming clear that the Democrats are losing the South. Despite their recent decision to abandon gun control, the South isn't likely to trust that Dem policy to be permanent, and the screechiness of the anti-war themes at the Presidential debates may play well in Hollywood and San Francisco, but among the NASCAR dads and the Confederate flag...
November 4, 2003
The Washington Post, whose editorial pages are generally clear-thinking on the war even when critical of the Bush administration, descends into self-contradictory babble in today's ultimately pointless second editorial: TWO MONTHS after the Bush administration embarked on an effort to attract greater international support for its mission in Iraq, it faces the latest surge of violence on the ground from a position that is more isolated than ever. Did I miss something? Has someone withdrawn from the established Coalition? Didn't Bush just get a unanimous resolution from the Security Council affirming the Coalition's mission in Iraq, something that the Clinton administration never did in the Balkans (where, by the way, we still have troops)? How is the Bush administration "isolated", let alone more isolated than ever? Rather than look for further help from India, Pakistan or Russia, or even NATO allies, the Bush administration has abruptly embraced a new strategy...
The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler honors a deserving QandO for its excellent fisking of Kucinich.
It's a bust! In fact, it was a lot of them for South St. Paul police officers responding to complaints of drug use: Twenty minutes before police raided a South St. Paul sex swingers club, one of the partygoing couples reportedly won the top prize — a sex game — for their Halloween costumes. They were dressed as a police officer and a jailbird. When the real police arrived at 1 a.m. Saturday, they found about 100 partygoers in the two-story building between two bars on South Concord Street. Officers also found small amounts of methamphetamine and cocaine. Three people were arrested in the raid; everyone inside was identified and photographed. Yes, thank goodness for the South St. Paul police. I feel so much safer in my community now that we have pictures of all the spouse-swappers out on the town last weekend. Why spend the time on photographing people...
... and I completely agree with Theresa Heinz Kerry: Heinz Kerry said debates have become about scoring a punch with quick soundbites. "It's just silly," she said. "I think those debates are really unproductive and they made it hard for all of them to (get their message across)." In fact, I would call them exceedingly silly, made so by live audiences who ooh, aah, gasp, titter, and applaud the most banal and trite comebacks. These debates embody the vacuity of modern hight-tech media sound bite-ism. The formats do not allow for thoughtful policy discourse, and in fact are designed to eliminate any hope of that. They are entertainment, at least in theory, a type of gladiator arena where the fight is not so much between the gladiators themselves as it is between the audience members to stay awake long enough to punctuate their champions' verbal jabs with the appropriate sound...
If intramural sports exist to build character for young adults, then one of the best success stories can be found in Nate Haasis, a Springfield, IL high-school quarterback: Nate Haasis dropped back for one more pass as the clock wound down on his high school football career. But this one was different: As he threw a 37-yard completion, his opponents just stood around and watched. With that, Haasis became the new all-time passing champion of the Central State Eight Conference, with a record 5,006 yards. But it turns out the two opposing coaches in the Oct. 25 game orchestrated the play to ensure Haasis' place in history. And now the 17-year-old senior wants to nullify the pass and give back the record in a dispute that has roiled this football-crazed city and led to a debate over honesty and fair play. Some in the community have made the coaches out...
November 5, 2003
The Democrat position in the South continued to erode, as the Republicans gained two governorships in elections yesterday: With a presidential campaign only months away, Republicans picked up two governorships in the South, ousting Mississippi's Democratic incumbent and seizing Kentucky's top job for the first time in 32 years. GOP Washington lobbyist Haley Barbour unseated one-term Democratic Gov. Ronnie Musgrove, while in Kentucky, three-term Republican Rep. Ernie Fletcher defeated Democratic Attorney General Ben Chandler. In an echo of the California recall, neither election was as close as pre-election polls indicated, especially in Mississippi, where newspapers had the race as a dead heat; Haley Barbour wound up winning by eight percentage points, far larger than the margin of error in the polls. Fletcher won by 10 points. Mississippi Democrats criticized Barbour for his connections and years spent in Washington as Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites) and other...
ABC struggles to keep its hit show, '8 Simple Rules', going without its star, the late John Ritter: Ritter had completed three episodes for the new season when he died of a heart ailment Sept. 11. His last episode aired Oct. 7. Gambling that a lighthearted sitcom can sustain the loss of its central figure, "8 Simple Rules..." is making a desperate bid to carry on as one of ABC's higher-rated series. Doing so, the producers and the network have risked conspicuous failure as well as criticism for tastelessness. Let me tell you, I watched last night's episode, and I was mightily impressed with their effort. They made an excellent decision to film the show without a live audience, and so even the humor was muted and sad. James Garner and Suzanne Pleshette did an excellent job as a bitter and bickering couple who try with limited success to bury...
Wizbang has the Carnival of the Vanities up and running. I'll post up some links later on in order to cast my votes. Don't forget that I've entered this post as my first-ever entry!...
As expected, Barbra Streisand leaps to the defense of her husband and his movie: I am deeply disappointed that CBS, the network that in 1964 gave me complete artistic control in creating television specials, now caved in to right wing Republican pressure to cancel the network broadcast of the movie The Reagans. (And I say MOVIE - because this is NOT a documentary - it's a television drama.) She has a point -- this is a movie, after all, not like Michael Moore's supposed documentaries, although I doubt she'd hesitate to defend his intellectually dishonest works. All crying aside, the movie will still be broadcast, just on a different Viacom outlet. However, this part of her argument made my eyes roll back into my head: I don't believe Democrats often, if ever, try to muscle the First Amendment like this. Let's see ... it wasn't more than a few years...
Over the past few days, I have observed a fascinating phenomenon: my post on Howard Dean and his outreach to people who have a Confederate flag on their trucks gets over 10 hits an hour from various search engines, notably Google. Despite the fact that I post regularly on political topics and the War on Terror, this is by far and away the most-requested post from search engines. Granted that this is not a scientific sample, and the Internet is not necessarily representative of the nation as a whole (and some of these searches are originating internationally), but it appears that Dean's comments have inflamed a large number of people who are looking for something on the Internet. No one has posted any comments on my original post, so I can only guess as to what it specifically means, but in general, those comments have resonated to a greater degree...
My talented and very good-looking friend, Haddayr Copley-Woods, has a new column in the Minnesota Women's Press regarding society's obsession with weight: As a feminist, I am ambivalent about having lost weight at all. Fat is a feminist issue, and although my weight loss was well within the scientific standard for my height and frame, I feel in a way as if I have betrayed the sisterhood. We should love ourselves for who we are, I tell myself, and people should love us for what’s inside. We should not be afraid to take up space. Also, I used to look a little tougher. Quit laughing. I said “a little.” Make sure you read the whole thing, and check out her previous columns as well. Haddayr always delivers an intelligent and entertaining column, I suppose even when we disagree, although so far that hasn't happened....
Here's my first vote for this week's Carnival entry -- Blackfive's deep commitment to the French boycott: The biggest fight that I have ever had with my wife in over six years of marriage was over my personal French Boycott. She had gone shopping and brought back some wine which happened to be made in France. She opened it before I knew what it was, and I asked her to pour it down the drain. Of course, my wife knows me well, and she knows how much it would kill me to watch good booze destroyed. But, we went back and forth over it and she finally poured it down the drain, looking me in the eye the whole time. He'd get my vote even if he wrote atrocious posts just for going through with that, but fortunately, he's a good writer. Check out his blog while you're there. And...
Nothing that has happened in this tempest in a teacup is scarier than the DNC's statement. This isn't a fringe group, for crying out loud,
these people want to run our government! Either they're about to drive off a cliff in the next year, or centrist Democrats need to stage a palace coup and eject Terry McAuliffe. They have become delusional in their bitterness.
Howard Dean, a man reportedly so intelligent that he is allowed to prescribe medication for people, needs something for his chronic foot-in-mouth disease: Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean told a Tallahassee audience today that southerners have to quit basing their votes on "race, guns, God and gays." Is Dean trying to lose the nomination? He traveled all the way to Tennessee just to tell Southerners to their faces that they're idiots who only vote on the basis of bigotry, religious fanaticism, and homicidal rage. Oh, and please stop doing that. What's next on the Dean itinerary -- a stop at the Bar Association to tell a few bad lawyer jokes, followed by an appearance at the NEA to tell the teachers that they should learn how to read first before trying to teach kids? It's one thing to tell voters what they need to hear (for instance, on entitlements) when...