Found While Hunting

Billy Beck finally got those tracks up he was working on last week.

Update: Link’s been fixed. Sorry. My bad…

Reuters has up one of several reports suggesting the economy is doing far better than John Kerry would like.

Consumer Prices down
Housing starts up wildly
Industry output up.

Personally, I blame the Bush Tax cuts.
So much for the ‘worst economy since the Depression” lie.
(Snicker!)

Steve Kornacki over at PoliticsNJ.com has noted a move by some NJ Democrats to push McGreevey out.

Question to my mind is, do they have enough time to set up the election for November, even if he was to drop out today? If not, all of this is for show, aimed at quelling screaming from the electorate about this thinly veiled ploy to hang onto power, as I described yesterday. (Below)

I suspect that NJ voters will be voicing their disapproval of these tactics by voting against Democrats at every level come November, if they don’t manage to get McGreevey out, by then. As I gather it from other sources I’ve spoken to in the NYC area, this is the biggest fear Democrats there have right now about fallout from McGreevey.

The Command Post notes:

“CNN TV is reporting that British authorities have charged the 8 terrorist suspects seized two weeks ago with conspiracy to commit murder and a public nuisance. Also of interest… authorities report the men planned to use radioactive, chemical, toxic, and explosive substances and that their target was not the UK rather it was the United States%2C with specific targets including the NYSE, IMF, and CitiGroup.”

So, the problems that Tom Ridge raised the terror threat level for, were real.

Where are all the idiot Kerry supporters who were lining up to charge (with no proof of it, mind you) that the timing of the warnings was politically motivated?

Yes, dear readers, in answer to all your e-mails… I have indeed made note of a Reuters News Article on Walter Cronkite yesterday. I hadn’t blogged it as yet because I hadn’t stopped laughing, yet.

Most of you noted where Old Pipe and slippers himself notes the tendency of internet folks to ‘smear the innocent via unfounded accusations.”

You’ll forgive me if I don’t stand up and salute on that one. Walter, you did that yourself for years. Only, of course if the targets of that smear were to your right flank. Even in your heyday, you were known as a leftist who showed it even in your supposedly unboased newscasts… someone who intentionally tilted the news to make leftists look better. Chile, as an example.

Anything in pusuit of a leftist agenda.  In fairness, your network, CBS has accelerated that trend since they showed you the door.

Yet, there is one large point being missed here by bloggers and pundits all around the horn this monring on this one… That being that this swan song of yours is little more than a ploy to defend John Kerry.

Bloggers, and news sources like Newsmax and Drudge, are at the moment, the biggest public pressure being brought to bear against the left in general, and against John Kerry in particular.

As a prime example, let’s recall, please, that given the mainstream press wouldn’t go anywhere near the Swift Vets. It was pressure from the internet sources Cronkite decries, which forced the mainstream press’ hand on this… The Vets have been out there since last January. The very same press that had a feeding frenzy on the slightest hint of questions about Mr. Bush’s military history, had an aversion to such questions as the vets brought… likely because they knew the answers wouldn’t favor their boy…. and it turns out the press was right, in their way… the charges against Kerry, as America is discovering, are not unfounded in any way shape or form.

No small wonder then that Cronkite would have such a problem the 5th estate losing it’s monopoly.

Just shuddup, Walter.

Update: Colby Cosh seems to agree. I’ve never had Colby on my ‘must read’ list, but I’ll take a second look, here.

Nice to see someone with the stature of a Dennis Prager agreeing with my call of yesterday on this sham that New Jersey Governor James McGreevey’s shoved down our throats.

NewsMax is running an interesting story this morning. It appears that they’re not happy about the US pullout of Germany.

“Base closures would hit us very hard,” fretted Ole Kruse, spokesman for the Bavarian city of Wuerzburg, home of the U.S. Army’s 1st Infantry Division.

“We view this with great concern,” Bamberg spokesman Steffen Schuetzewohl chimed in.

Well, ya see, Germany, it’s like this:

We like our troops, and our dollars, to go to freinds.
You’ve been decidedly unfreindly of late, opting insead to side with those who would like to destroy us. At every turn you’ve opposed us, and in more than just the war on terror.

You made your bed.
Get used to it.

Now… about France….

DRUDGE says:

Dem presidential hopeful John Kerry flew his Washington, DC hairdresser to Portland, OR last week for a touch-up.

Ah, yes.
Almost Clintonesque, isn’t it?
This is, after all, everyman.. and a tough military type at that, huh?

Or.. is there a rather strange resemblence…

….between All-Around Idiot Al Franken and Steve Martin in the latest Looney Tunes Movie?

OK, I guess to be fair… one really IS looney tunes… and Martin just plays one in movies. (shrug)

No longer America’s sport wails ESPN. Trouble is, anyone with brains larger than the average doorknob could have seen the writing on the wall well prior to the recent defeat of the US team by PuertoRico. All they had to do was look at the quality of play within the NBA these last 15 years or so. The NBA has become a sham.

How do you go 3 for 24 from the 3-point circle? simple… Too many show-offs trying to go it alone, and not enough teamwork.

Look, let’s be honest enough to say that the last real team in the NBA was the early to mid-80’s Boston Celtics. Yes, there’s been other phenom, but these invariably ended up being one person shows… MJ, or Shaq, for example. Good as Byrd was in his day, he never overshadowed the remainder of his team… and they PLAYED like a team. Not so all the rest, then, and since.  Basketball outside the NBA… as the NBA has devoled these last few years, at least… is a team sport. That’s a point the US squad got a reminder of just recently.

Even Alan Iverson knew it, coming off the floor, and commenting on PuertoRico’s winning effort…

“They play the game the way it’s supposed to be played,” Iverson said. “It’s not about athletics. That’s the game the way Karl Malone and John Stockton play it. It’s good for kids to see how the game is supposed to be played.”

Question is, is the NBA listening?  Is the US Olympic BB program?
I doubt it.

The sad part is, Basketball fans and the NBA have nobody but themselves to blame.  The fire inside has gone out… drowned by financial excess. The entire NBA has become nothing but a show-off session for kids… thugs mostly… chasing ‘bling bling’ and not giving a tinker’s cuss for the game itself, nor of the fans.

The sad fact is, we’re letting them do it to us. We’ve known for years we’re getting screwed, here. We know full well these thugs are exactly that… thugs… .. the drugs, the sex, the 120 in a 30mph zone Porches, the gun fights, the assults on wives and girlfreinds, the lot… And yet the fans, dumb as they are keep showing up, paying $25 bucks a person for stale popcorn, and Coke syrup with no fizz… to say nothing of the $75 bucks per person ticket prices. Who the hell can afford these prices? Imagine my family of four for a night out. All of this to watch a level of play that most high schoolers could blow out with a little coaching.

And yet we treat these idiots like heros. We wonder why this ugliness has become so prevelant in our society…. and the reason’s right there on the tube every night there’s a game on… WE GLORIFY THESE PEOPLE, thereby encouraging the behavior. We pay them super human numbers, and then wonder why those on the street want to be just as thuggish as our ‘heros’.

Back to basics, guys. It’s time. One million dollars per year maximum per player is a place to start. Perhaps then we’d get to a point where player would actually work toward a team effort, and fans could actually afford a ticket to see them play.. and the teams would get a gate to draw again. I doubt the league has the testicular fortitde.

And in a larger sense… one wonders what this mindset has to say to a nation that has such problems doing what needs to be done to defend freedom. We can’t even properly define ‘hero’, if our pro sports culture is any indication. No wonder the rest of our culture goes wanting, as well.

Because of the way this conversation developed, this is going to be a hard discussional thread to follow for some.

James Joyner makes note this morning, of what he calls a “rather startling” claim from Kevin Jennings, the “founder and Executive Director of the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network, an organization working to make schools safe for lesbian, gay, bi­sexual and transgender youth.” Says Jennings;

“As I watched New Jersey Gov. Jim Mc­Greevey’s resignation speech, I felt sick. I nearly had to turn away from the agony and pain that radiated from his face, all caused, I thought, by his deci­sion to live a lie in order to attain political power. And I had a startling realization: but for one decision, I might have been Jim Mc­Greevey.

Like Jim, I grew up in a working class family in the Seventies. I too was a political junkie, the kind of kid who thought watch­ing conventions on TV was fun. When asked in first grade what I wanted to be when I grew up, I said “President.” I believed the promise of America, where any little boy could grow up to be President.

Any little boy who is not gay, that is.”

Yep. there it is, gang… The claim that “we’re only after this criminal because he’s homosexual.”  I called this one. I knew it was going to devolve into this kind of nonsense, and called it before the echo had died from the announcement that Mc­Greevey was resinging. I said at the time that’s why Mc­Greevey ‘came out’ in hte first place.

Jon Henke over at Q&O stated, rightly, that

“The homosexuality is an unimportant data point, irrelevant to politics or the story.”

To which, I responded..(A little snippier than I’d intended)

“Then why does he make it a point to bring it up, Jon? It’s almost as if he expects waving the pink flag to help his problems to go away.”

I have to tell you, that as I sit here this morning going over the headlines, I feel vindicated… this is exactly what this is… a cold, calulated political ploy to sheild Mc­Greevey from his crimes.

I expanded on this point a few hours later, saying in part;

“And I can’t help but thank that part of the issue here has to be the Democrat party as a whole, particualrly in light of Joyner’s points about the three month delay. I can’t help but think all this was planned… he Govenor and the party looked at the situation, and wondered how they could save their butts… and this is what they came up with. resign, but delay it so as to thart a special election which the Democrats wuld almost certainly lose… and start waving the pink flag now, so that any criminal charges can be responded to with a charge of “You BIGOT, you’re only after me because I’m a homosexual”

There’s precident.. the Democrats have done this before.  Consider Bill Clinton. “All this is, is sex” was the claim… thus avoiding the more serious issues which he was also guilty on.

It seems clear the party leadership sat down and worked out what they felt was the best way to retain the Govenor’s spot in New Jersey, for their party…. dirvet attention from the crimes of Mc­Greevey and the Democrats, by releasing the info that Mc­Greevey is a homosexual, and had an affair. Muddy the water. Arrange for Mc­Greevey to resign AFTER the election, thus keeping the Govenor’s job in Democrat party hands until the three years from now… by which time, the electorate won’t remember how dirty all the Democrats surrounding Mc­Greevey were.
I have my doubts about Mc­Greevey’s homosexual claim on a number of levels, as should anyone looking at this in a dispassionate manner. It’s as I said… Mc­Greevey’s waving the pink flag, trying to make his criminal problems disapear.

If Jennings could get his head out of his party-loyalist ass for two seconds, he may notice he and his ‘movement’ are being manipulated by someone desperate to avoid jailtime and Democrat political losses… at both the state and the national level.

OTOH, given his own history of truth twisting for his own agenda, perhaps he already knows, and is a part of this cynical political ploy.

As it is, Mc­Greevey’s getting a polling bounce out of all of this… name recognition, mostly.

Does anyone think that a serious, non-sexual exploitation examiniation of Mc­Greevey at this stage of the game, along with his resigning prior to the election instead of delaying it until afterward, wouldn’t hurt the Democrats in the state house and in the Presidential contest there, as well?

Anyone think Bush wouldn’t carry New Jersey under those conditions?

New England Republican this morning has a great post pointing up some of the differences between how the press handles President Bush, and how it hand;es his liberal challangers, entitled ” Media Hypocrisy – How the Media Handled the Bush AWOL Controversy”

RTWT

OK, Show-off time.
Long time readers of this blog will recall I had a 95 Astro for a few years… and around 150,000 miles. Nothing wrong with it really, but I did want to upgrade some. So, I got this one, recently, and thought some of my friends from the Astro mail groups would get a kick out of seeing this, since I so often file my long-form stuff from on the road. Generally, when I do that, I’m behind the wheel, sitting trackside, somewhere. Keep a watch, and you’ll see some in the coming weeks.

It’s a 98 GMC Safari… small for a full sized van, but not quite a minivan, which makes it ideal for our camping, and other long-haul trips… we do these quite frequently. We already have a couple longer hauls on the agenda… One to Wilmington DE in October, for example, and one to Fostoria OH shortly after that.

All Wheel Drive. Very high-end Factory AM/FM/Tape/CD changer in the front. Heated Leather Captains chairs up front, with unheated leather in the remaining four positions. Added AM/FM/TAPE/CD in the back on headphones for the kids. TV/VCR/DVD/Nintendo, also on headphones, all on separate headphone circuits.

Dual Air, Dual Heat, Heated/Cooled cup holders in the front… Keeps the coffee hot, and the pop cold. Individual reading lights at every position. I’m working on a laptop computer hookup, which would make writing easier than the Palm Pilot. Has a fridge in it, great for camping and saves lots of money on the road… Hey… 25 cents per can from the Grocery store vs $1.50/can on the road? Oh, yeah.

First test run was to Albany and back… a round trip of around 700 miles. Just wonderful. About drove itself, even through a rather nasty rainstorm. Got around 22mpg on that trip, but then again, I’ve not done anything to the engine and so on yet. I plan to do tot his what I did to the other one… such as a better breather (K&N) a better exhaust (Mangaflow) and some chip re-timing. I got the last van up to 24mpg average for longer haul work, which isn’t bad, given the size of this beast.

It’s no economy car, but it’s not a really big eater, either… a nice balance, and as comfortable as any Caddy. I refuse, frankly, to sacrifice my family’s safety for a few gallons of gas. My wife and I are both 6 footers, and we have two boys…do the math on that one. Plus, we tow a camper. With all this in mind, an Astro/Safari is about as small as I’m gonna go.

Which of course ticks off the leftists, no end, as I demonstrated in THIS long form article of a couple years back.

Astro-Safari Owners, drop me a line. Been thinking of setting out a group blog. If you’re into that idea, we need to talk.

Program ID 183091: “This week’s special 2-hour Road to the White House will feature:
A repeat of ABC’s June 30, 1971, ‘The Dick Cavett Show.’ This show featured a debate between John Kerry and John O’Neill on U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. Both men served in the Navy and commanded swift boats in Vietnam. After returning from the war, John Kerry served as spokesman for an organization called ‘Vietnam Veterans Against the War.’ John O’Neill supported the U.S. policy toward Vietnam and in Southeast Asia.
John O’Neill is the co-author with Dr. Jerome R. Corsi of a new book Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry, published by Regnery Publishing.
Also:
On, Wednesday, August 11, 2004 Vice President and Mrs. Cheney attend a town hall meeting at the John Q. Hammond Convention Center in Joplin, Missouri. “

Captain’s Quarters notes:

The utter media blackout on John Kerry’s Christmas in Cambodia
myth appears to be lifting, and in one of the least predictable
markets. Scott Canon writes a Knight-Ridder wire article that at least covers the outlines of the story, and the Seattle Times — serving one of the most liberal areas of the country — becomes the second major newspaper to cover it as a news story (via NZ Bear)

Now, all this MIGHT have something to do with the $2.4m Mr. Bush raised in Seattle last night…

IN any event, the Captain’s been all over this story, and needs to be on your daily read list. He’s on mine.