INDEED: “Why have so many journalists been saying that Faye (Topsy) Turney ‘admitted’ the British sailors trespassed into Iranian waters? That implies that it’s true, but she’s obviously under duress. She said it. That’s all.”
Archive for 2007
March 29, 2007
REDSTATE IS SENDING TWO BLOGGERS TO IRAQ, and wants your help in funding the trip.
MORE ON BUDGET POLITICS, from the D.C. Examiner:
Something else Democrats should be more upfront about is the 30 “reserve funds†in the draft 2008 budget. A reserve fund is a sort of legislative hidden-ball trick that authorizes Congress to spend additional billions on favored programs so long as either spending elsewhere in the government is reduced or taxes are increased by an equivalent amount. For example, Section 306 of the draft 2008 budget includes a reserve fund worth an additional $15 billion in farm aid. But does anybody seriously think Congress will reduce spending somewhere else by $15 billion? Whoops, here comes another tax hike!
As we’ve asked before and will no doubt ask again, why can’t Washington politicians just tell us the truth?
Er, because if people knew what they were really doing, they’d be tarred and feathered? Just a guess . . . .
For months, Barack Obama got the kind of glowing media coverage that most candidates could only fantasize about.
But now that he’s a full-fledged presidential candidate, he’s starting to get nicked a bit. This was utterly predictable, and is part of the process. You don’t get to be a party’s nominee without an intensive media audit, especially if you haven’t been a national figure who has been vetted in the past.
As he notes, however, some lefty bloggers are squealing, though rather unpersuasively. I like Obama (and I remember a delightful email exchange with his campaign manager back when he was running against Alan Keyes) but his record is pretty thin, and you can expect people to look at him as closely as they can — in part because of all the hype. And that’s good. If he has any big problems, they’re sure to come out before the election. Better for the Democrats if they come out now, rather than in October of 2008.
AUSTIN BAY ON IRAN’S LATEST HOSTAGE GAMBLE: If Jimmy Carter had responded firmly to the first one, we would be facing a lot less misbehavior from Iran today.
Still, Bay observes: “But this latest hostage-taking incident smacks of desperation, not revolutionary fervor.”
MISSING IN ACTION: The “human rights community.”
Their outrage seems to be reserved for situations that benefit the enemies of civilization.
“MCCAIN STANDS IN THE GAP:” I’ve noticed a lot of people who haven’t been huge McCain fans taking a shine to him because of his strong stand on Iraq.
APPARENTLY, BLOGGER STILL SUCKS: The Insta-Wife is in the next room cursing, as Blogger just ate a post she’d put a couple of hours’ work into. Why doesn’t it have the auto-save feature that Gmail has?
March 28, 2007
ANOTHER REASON TO LIKE FRED THOMPSON: James Dobson doesn’t like him.
UPDATE: “I’m willing to overlook that.”
TAKING ON “AMERICAPHOBIA:” It’s about time someone did. . . .
DIANNE FEINSTEIN RESIGNS from the Military Construction Appropriations Subcommittee.
UPDATE: Moe Lane: “I question the timing.”
ANOTHER UPDATE: “As big as Duke Cunningham.”
Then why isn’t it getting more attention?
DANA MILBANK SAYS THAT JIM WEBB IS EXECUTING A CUT AND RUN — not over Iraq, but over the fate of his aide Phillip Thompson:
If Webb seemed to be enjoying the moment a bit too much, that’s probably because a Virginia politician has never lost an election for loving guns too much. But Phillip Thompson, who carried the weapon, derived rather less pleasure from the incident.
Thompson — a.k.a. “Lockup No. 1” — spent 28 hours in the slammer after walking into the Russell building Monday morning with a gun and two loaded magazines in his briefcase. Two hours after Webb’s performance in front of the cameras, Thompson — sandwiched between drug cases and domestic disputes — made his appearance in the foul-smelling arraignment room at D.C. Superior Court. He had a 5 o’clock shadow and a new pair of leg irons to accessorize his rumpled business suit. Ordered to stand in a box marked off with frayed duct tape, he must have been too stunned to answer when the judge asked if he understood the charges. . . .
Webb even hinted that he ignores the District law requiring handguns to be registered. Asked if he considered himself above D.C. law, he said: “I’m not going to comment in any level in terms of how I provide for my own security,” he said.
The senator was less forthcoming in his defense of Thompson. “He is going to be arraigned today,” Webb said. “I do not in any way want to prejudice his case and the situation that he’s involved in.”
Prejudice the case? But wasn’t it Webb’s gun that his aide was carrying for him?
Webb wouldn’t even acknowledge it was his gun. “I have never carried a gun in the Capitol complex, and I did not give the weapon to Phillip Thompson,” he stipulated.
Webb had kind words for his aide — “a longtime friend” and “a fine individual” — but he seemed to be trying to cut Thompson loose as he spoke of the incident.
That doesn’t seem right. If the gun was Webb’s, and it was all an accident, — and I can’t think of any other likely explanation — why doesn’t Webb make things clear? Am I missing something here?
DIVESTMENT: Will California take on the mullahs? “Today California will become the first state to decide whether or not it will continue to do business with the Islamic Republic of Iran. The State Assembly will hear proposed legislation (AB-221) by Republican Joel Anderson of El Cajon, and Democrat Jose Solorio of Anaheim that will require state pension funds to divest from companies that do business with the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
THE UNITED NATIONS HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL makes itself even more of a joke by excluding Iran and Uzbekistan from consideration.
UPDATE: Read this post, too.
MORE ON SPACE JUNK, from the Smithsonian’s Air and Space magazine.
UPDATE: Link was wrong before. Fixed now. Sorry!
YET ANOTHER DUMB INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LAWSUIT: “The company that licensed the US rights to Orwell’s 1984 don’t really understand copyright, so they’re threatening the people who made the now-infamous Hillary Clinton/Apple 1984-ad mashup.”
PAJAMAS MEDIA BLOGGERS Omar and Mohammed Fadhil quoted by President Bush.
ALSO, THERE’S NO CONNECTION BETWEEN TOBACCO AND LUNG CANCER:
Former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack gave Sen. Hillary Clinton his endorsement for her presidential campaign.
The Clinton campaign has promised Vilsack to help pay off a $400,000 campaign debt he built up during his run for the White House. . . .
The campaign said there is no connection between Vilsack’s endorsement and their commitment to help pay off his campaign debt.
Oh, well. (Via Best of the Web).
BLAMING AL GORE AND ME: It’s a fair cop.
THE EQUAL RIGHTS AMENDMENT HAS BEEN REINTRODUCED, and here are some thoughts on what it might mean.
Personally, given the tendencies of the people who run universities and government agencies, I’d like to see ironclad nondiscrimination rules on race, sex, and sexual preference. But without the usual loopholes for politically correct discrmination.
UPDATE: Eric Scheie: “NOW is endorsing Hillary Clinton for president. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence.”
Can you think of anything good coming from establishing a troop withdrawal deadline? Anything at all?
Except of course, for getting a Democrat into the White House. And that’s really the whole point, isn’t it?
That’s alway the point nowadays.
Why the liberal furor over 300? . . . there seems to be an almost elemental anger that such a ‘simplistic’ take on good and evil—West good, East bad—reduced to comic book simplicity has hoodwinked the Neanderthal class in the way they were led by the nose to Iraq by the Bush/Cheney nexus.
But what they fail to grasp is why 300 took off, and, say for example, Oliver Stone’s Alexander bombed, a take that had all the hot-button Hollywood issue from easy homosexuality to the inner crisis over ‘what it all means.’ But critics forget that there were 4 key differences between those two films.
Read the whole thing. Part of it is that the movie industry — or at least the critic section thereof — is stuck in the 1970s, when moral ambiguity and angst used to be groundbreaking and novel. Now they’re overdone, predictable and boring.
HOW BLOGS opened up Microsoft.
POT, KETTLE: A look at what goes on in the comments sections at The Washington Post.
Some related thoughts here.
GENERATING HYDROGEN FUEL ON DEMAND from magnesium and water? Sounds too good to be true. Though I’d be happy to be wrong about that.
UPDATE: But it looks like I’m not. Various readers emailed, but this from chemist Derek Lowe is clearest:
As I’m sure several heaps of people have already emailed you about, magnesium gives off hydrogen as a matter of course when it’s submerged in water. You’re left with magnesium hydroxide, an insoluble white powder. The problem with this (and similar ideas using boron, aluminum, etc.) is that you need energy to get the free metal to start with, and plenty of energy to recycle the oxides back to the metal (when that’s practical at all – it often isn’t).
All the press-release talk about how this process doesn’t release carbon dioxide ignored the production of the metals, as far as I can see. . .
Sounds like the process is of limited utility overall.