Terrorists Playing for the Election Coverage?

Hume, last night:

If you had any doubt that insurgents in Iraq are aware of the political seasons here in the U.S., consider this: New data from the Defense Intelligence Agency shows that enemy initiated attacks during the entire course of the war peaked in October 2006 — the month leading up to the midterm elections. That month, the total number of insurgent led attacks was at more than 5,000.

The data shows that between November 2006 and May 2007, attacks remained at the highest levels of the 5 year conflict. However, the numbers indicate that since the surge was fully implemented last summer that attacks have dropped significantly — down about 70 percent since June 2007.

One of the messages sent by the surge was that we were going to stay and see it through. Now, I tell you, friends, this is going to be a rough summer over there. THe attacks, or at least, attempted attacks will increase as the election comes on. They’re trying to weaken our resolve.

But one reason that people over there are starting to turn on AlQuieda, is that the surge taught them we were going to see this thing done.

So, now the question; If we react to increased violence over there by elected a cut and run Democrat, what message does that send to the Iraqi people who risk everything by going against AlQuieda?

The so-called black leaders who Barack Obama used to acquire his black political identity, and from whom he does not distance, are certainly no disciples of the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.   They are races hustlers.    Christopher Hitchens, makes a bold assertion, “Today, the national civil rights pulpit is largely occupied by second-rate shakedown artists:”   Further, Hitchens makes it stick.   BO may claim to transcend race, but his friends certainly do not.

?

• Is there life in Ipse Dixit? It’s moving for the first time in recent memory, and was noticed by a feed I apparently didn’t remember to turn off, years ago.
• Ah, yes, the typical ploy… if you can’t convince them with logic, you can always Re-educate them.
• I see Robert Mugabe demanding a recount in Zimbabwe ala Al Gore. Did anyone really think he’d go quietly?
• No, John, more’s the pity; They do not understand why it’s wrong, and never have. Wherein lies the breakdown of the family that they decry publicly, but will not lift a finger to fix. I did speak to this point some time ago, you know. Here, too.
• I wonder how long until this one no longer has a job? I don’t know what scare me more; that we actually have people in the country who think this way, or that they vote. The only enemies this woman has, she’s made herself… and so identified, she’s going to find them harder to deal with. Clearly, the woman has issues to be worked out; personal issues. But I wonder how much of that is present in all people who hold such views?
• Yes, Richard, I know. Well, maybe now we have a bit of info on why the party tried to ignore their votes two cycles in a row.
• Actually, James, I couldn’t possibly care less about airline flying and the quality thereof. And, I fail to understand why the government should be involved in what amounts to a private contract. I gave up on dealing with airlines years ago, and drive everywhere. In the end, it’s still cheaper and more reliable, even with the gas prices. It’s one reason I got the camper trailer.
• The fact is, Hitch nailed it.
• Oh, dear. It seems that Jeremiah Wright used to be a Muslim. Are you shocked? Me, neither. No wonder he holds such a soft spot in what laughingly passes for a heart, for Farrakhan.
• Will Condi Rice be VP? I doubt it. Oh, she’s certainly qualified, and McCain could do far worse, on many fronts. I could even get behind it. I just don’t think it’s going to happen.
• Penn is now saying that he’s still advising Clintons. So what was yesterday all about? Satisfying the unions who wanted blood over free trade. In short, we have on the books yet another Clinton lie. What other answer is there?
• So now, comes the argument that Microsoft, who is all abuzz tryng to maintain it’s grip on the low cost computer market, which is now being over-run by Linux offerings such as Ubuntu… which is free…  should revert these lower cost machines to a slightly updated version of XP. Actually, I’m down with that. It’s my professional view Vista doesn’t add anything to the end user, and costs way too much in performance, even on the higher end machines.  If Vista is choking machines only a couple years old, do you think XP will run faster on even upper end machines? I know it does, whcih is why I don’t run vista, and in many cases, I’m still running 2000, for situations where execution speed is at a premium.  Or, Linux, which runs faster for most things, anyway, if compatability with Microsoft’s OS’s isn’t an issue.  (Extreme example; You can’t make a game machine out of a linux box, but you can make a hell of an all-around secratarial box out of Ubuntu 7…. and for half the hardware costs, and zero OS costs.

Following up on Bit’s link  to John Hawkins’ interview with Dawn Eden.   I present the polar opposite view.   Our culture become so perverse we have made a virtue out of being a slut.  Loose sexual morality and winking at it, has become a qualification for president, video:

[wp_youtube]JejBMZGZhQc[/wp_youtube]

But then morality is only based on one’s politics, and the Clintons are pro-abortion.  

Look, Guys…, I have to tell you, aside from what I’ve already said about that Times article…

If someone wanted me to Blog for them for enough to support my needs, I might actually take them up on it.  As I’ve said a few times about my radio career, and my computer support career, I’m lucky.  I got to do two things I really like doing… and I get paid for it. A lot of folks never get so lucky, to really enjoy what they do for a living. Blogging, I like, too for a lot of different reasons…and so I’d do it anyway… and if someone wanted to pay me for it, well, fine.

(Full disclosure; Technically, I do get paid… but it’s almost enough to pay for the web hosting, annually. I guess the dividing line to be when you start making substantial amounts of cash… enough to start thinking you cn make a living at it. )

What did I expect when I got into this thing?  Well, there’s the thing; I honestly didn’t KNOW what to expect, though I figured a lot of people I knew and had chatted with for years, were getting into this new medium. BY the time the website went up on Blogspot, 7 years back, I’d already been active online … since the middle 70’s… back when 1200 baud was a fast modem. Not like I’d not been around a bit. So, I figured what the hell, and went for it. I’ve never looked back.

Have I been pleased with the results?  Yes, I suppose I have. As I told James Joyner, over the weekend: When I add up all the talents that need to be brought in a blogging project…

* Web mastery
* Software mastery
* (Creative?) Writing
* World awareness
* promoting
* social networking
* Critical thinking

These are all skills that can be used, once so honed, outside the blogging world. I have had employers, hire me on the basis of the blog. Not that they agree with everything I say, but the assumption is if I can keep something like that running, I must have a little on the ball.

In that light, anyone running a successful blog, has a leg up, in my view even absent any other consideration.  If I make money at it, fine… but I don’t expect it. Then again, I didn’t expect this site to be online seven years after I started it. Along the way, I’ve made a few good online friends, reinforced other relationships, become a respected regular on many blogs, have earned a good reputation, and picked up a hell of a writing partner, too… the best I could have hoped for, in David. I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished, here at BitsBlog. Even assuming we have no further accomplishment here, we can be proud of what we’ve done.  And I suppose that to make it worthwhile.

OK, I finally hit the end of my fuse with this stuff, when yesterday, a group of leftists decided to put a sign up on the Golden Gate bridge:

“One world, one dream; Free Tibet.”

Look, I sympathize with the idea of making Tibet free from the Chinese… but I’m totally turned off by the ‘one world’ nonsense. The one worlders are people, by and large who have tacitly supported totalitarian communists in the past, and show no signs of stopping that support.  Their emotions are ruling them in each case.  Logic however dictates that a one world government as they emotionally propose, means that Tibet will be enslaved once again, along with all the rest of he countries in the world, of course.

If they ever get round to addressing the inherrent contradictions of their politics, and what they’ve been calling for in the case of Tibet, they’ll likely keel over from the guilt overload..

John Hawkins has an interview up with Dawn Eden, the author of the “The Thrill Of The Chaste.”

I know you describe being chaste as rebellious, which is the opposite of what a lot of people probably think. Talk about that a little bit. What makes that so? Why is being chaste more rebellious than having premarital sex?

It’s really the most countercultural action that anyone can take in today’s culture. …Our culture teaches us to measure ourselves and one another by what physical qualities we have that can attract others. So, when you’re chaste, you’re off the market in that sense and you demand to be taken seriously for what’s inside of you and not what’s on the outside. So, it is very radical in the best way.

Well, yeah, she’s got a point there, at least.

President George W. Bush is a foul-mouthed, reformed drunk obsessed with baseball, Saddam Hussein and a conflicted relationship with his dad. Or at least that’s how he’s portrayed in the script for Oliver Stone’s upcoming feature “W.”But how accurate is that depiction?

As the film preps for its April 21 start date, The Hollywood Reporter sent a copy of the screenplay to four Bush biographers for their comments. The draft is dated Oct. 17, 2007, and has recently been circulated to talent, though a person close to the film said the script has since gone through at least two drafts.

…

Reactions to the script from the biographers were mixed. They said specific scenes are largely based in fact but noted that the screenplay contains inaccurate and over-the-top caricatures of Bush and his inner circle.

So says The Hollywood Reporter.

So, Oliver Stone is releasing a movie that is inaccurate. This is news?

I mean, come on, here. It’s like saying the forcast for tonight is dark early and continued dark through the night-tie hours to be followed by widely scattered light in the morning. As soon as Stone’s name came up with this, anyone who didn’t understand that this movie was going to be presenting the far left slant on things… in other words, that it was going to be a fantasy from the get-go… obviously has been sleeping for the last 20 years.

The real news is that the fantasy portrayed here is going to be touted as factual.. or perhaps ‘fake but accurate’ by a group of people desperate to hang anything they can on Republicans of any stripe. Doesn’t matter who. Anyone to the right of Fidel Castro qualifies as a legit target, to these folks.

But you’ll never see the press mention that part, they beng part of the problem.

¼/p>

Strike up the band and let’s hear a cheer… the good guys won:

Radio Netherlands:

The Hague – A judge has ruled in a case against MP Geert Wilders brought by the Dutch Islamic Federation that Mr Wilders is not guilty of spreading hate, although his statements are provocative. The Islamic Federation wanted a judgement on the Freedom Party’s leader after he compared the Qur’an to Mein Kampf. However the judge ruled that members of parliament have to be able to express their opinions strongly.

Free speech, guys. Can YOU say that? I’ll bet you can if you try. You’ve not tried for years, though. Don’t you think it’s time?

Jed Babbin, Human Events, makes his predictions on tommorow’s Senate Armed Service Committee hearing:

Tomorrow is Hillary’s Last Stand. She will prove her military expertise is no better than Custer’s was. And he didn’t fib about being under fire

• I can’t let this touching post of McQ’s slide off into oblivion in Google somewhere, without commenting on it. The guys involved with this project would modestly tell you it’s all part of being a soldier. They’d be right in that, of course, but it makes what they did no less special.I’ve seen people… and one person in particular I’m thinking of just now, who knew they didn’t have long to live… and wondered, what would they do with that time, if they had the choice. In the case of the person I’m thinking of, she didn’t alter her activity all that much, really. She loved her life as it was, and lived to nearly 20. She had those years behind her… that maturity… to better understand what was happening to her, and deal with it. I remain impressed by her to this day, decades later.But….I can’t imagine, in my wildest nightmares, what goes though the minds of kids this age, though. And that these guys took the time to… well, go look for yourself.And as for Make A Wish, I say that there is a special place of honor in Heaven for such people. But more; There’s something special to them, I can’t quite describe, but I’ll try. You see, I’ve DJ’d for fund raisers for them in the past and have always been struck by how special the projects they attend are. And I noticed something in the doing, about them; Unlike a lot of the people I’ve played for over the years, they know how to have FUN, as a rule. They remain in my memory as some of the better parties I’ve done, in over 25 years of doing them. There is something to a connection, I think, between that ability, and the ability to provide for kids such as in McQ’s example. A deep seated joy, perhaps, looking for an outlet.
• Another Honorable mention at OTB’s Caption Contest.
  

• Oh.. speaking of OTB, we’re still back and forth on the Civil War, over there.

• One of the things that’s occurred to me in the last few days, is that when this kind of story is exposed as a lie… as in this case… that rather removes much chance for Obama to pursue the issue with any credibility… even assuming we as a people are stupid enough to elect him.

• Gotta Love Annie…. Anyone who ticks the left off by simply existing has some serious value right at the off. And they’re going spastic on this one, because she has Obama pegged so very well.

• Getting the problems with the transition to WordPress 2.5 out of the way. Turns out that part of the issue with the editor, aside form the stuff with MCE I mentioned the other day, was that I needed to restart Panther, my big desktop. Wrong Java version was being loaded into Firefox. I’m less than thrilled with the layout, but it works, and the added functionality makes it far easier to take.

• Added some RAM to Panther, today, too. (He’s a Dell Dimension 2400 with two dual vid cards (Yes, four monitors) and a few extra tricks, running XP) We’re up to a full 2 gigs, there, now, which makes less difference than I’d hoped. It’s OK, I guess he’s maxed out, now.

• Update: The installation of Ubuntu 7.10 on “Aardvark” is doing well, much to my shock. Mostly, I’m shocked at what the thing is able to do with only a PIII/700 and 512 meg. (It’s a Dell L-700cx, so that means it’s already full-housed) At the moment, he’s doing background tasks for me. Firewall watching, monitoring disk full percentages on the LAN’s three servers, and such. He’s also playing my MP3 collection.. a task which was taking a heavy amount of bandwidth from “Panther”. Aardvark has a really first rate sound card in him, so I’m hoping to use him for some MP3 recording duties… ripping some Vinyl. (Update: Well, that  boops that Idea; I just lost Aardvark today, to a bad hard drive. Arrgh)

• Anyone stupid enough to think that the Iraqi people would have been better off under Saddam should read this.

• What would you do if a Helicopter came through your roof? Well, OK, just part of one. But, still…

• Look, I’m in favor of the war on Drugs and repeat it has not been taken seriously enough. But there’s a limit, folks, that this idiot pole-vaulted over. If I’m that district, I’m removing the guy from any employment with the district, or it’s children. Of course we know that won’t happen, because the administration of the district is made up of people who appointed him to this position because they think like he does. Is it any wonder, dear reader, that government schools are the object of such scorn? Billy sees the same story, and has some thoughts.
• The Jawas make note of the usual goings on over at the Democrat Underground. Ya know, if this kind of thing DIDN’T go on over there… if the first thing out of their mouths on any given occasion, wasn’t a series of hate filled screeds, THAT would be news.
  

  “If Heston lived another 20 years would the world be a better place? no. I think not. Its just that simple. So break out the good wine. Drink to vanquished enemies.”

  “Their brain-eroding diseases coincided with their rightwing turns.” (referencing Heston and Reagan)

  “I’ll see you at Nancy Reagan’s funeral. I will be the guy with the air horn and a big ol’ grin.”

  “If “liberal” means…feeling any sense of loss that some sorry piece of shithumanity such as C Heston has checked out?…Then sign me out.”

  Remember, folks, according to these morons, it’s those to the right of center that are filled with hate. And lest you think that this kind of nonsense is limited to the supposed fringe… I note that James has a link up to a CNN Obit:

  Heston was also known for his political activism. He was a high-profile supporter of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his civil rights movement. He attended King’s 1963 March on Washington and stood near the podium as King delivered his “I have a dream” speech. He was president of the National Rifle Association from 1998 to 2002, a role that cast him as a conservative.

  Why the juxtaposition, I wonder? Is it that the author, like the megamorons at DU(h), considers being for equal rights for all the races, and being a conservtive, to be mutually exclusive? How does this not qualify as a slanted press report? How much in the way of mind altering drugs must one consume to come up with stuff like this?

Remember where you read this, next time Ace is trolling for votes.

I predict.  One the ‘rats will nominate Barack Obama.   Two, Obama will be Swit Boated, and lose badly.   Remember that Swit Boating is where someone dares to speak the truth about a democrat.

BO is simply a target waiting to get hit.

Item, Christopher Willis, Townhall:

Barack Obama wants to make something clear: He loves America.

After a series of incidents that prompted questions about his patriotism, the Democratic presidential candidate is peppering speeches with explicit statements on his love of country

Sure people who just love America take their children to a church where the minister hates this country and are married to woman who hates America.  Sure Senator.

Item, Nick Timiraos, Wall Street Journal:

Sen. Barack Obama’s Philadelphia speech on race relations last month seemed to put the controversial remarks of his former pastor behind him. But three weeks later, there is evidence of lingering damage.

“It has not been defused,” says David Parker.

Hat tip:  Gina Cobb.

Item, See-dubya, Michelle Malkin:

The gall of this man. Here’s a clip from my post from Thursday, where’s he’s talking tough on guns for urban Democrats in Philly and Pittsburgh:

“I am not in favor of concealed weapons,” Obama said. “I think that creates a potential atmosphere where more innocent people could (get shot during) altercations.

But then Politico looked at Obama’s strategy to woo blue-collar pro-gun voters in rural PA:

Barack Obama did not hunt or fish as a child. He lives in a big city. And as an Illinois state legislator and a U.S. senator, he consistently backed gun control legislation.

While BO doesn’t have much of  a record, he is making a lot of effort to hide it.  BO can be either pro gun control or pro Constitution.  He can’t be both.  BO is trying be a different candidate for different constituents.   It may let his ship get past Mrs. Clinton’s listing one, but set up for general election broadside.   Expect it.

?

Scott Fybush over at NERW, says:

There’s a lineup change to report at WWRL (1600 New York), as the Access.1-owned talker pulls more Air America programming off its schedule. Instead of Air America’s Lionel from 9 AM-noon, WWRL now carries two hours of infomercials followed by a local show at 11 with Ron Samuels. At noon, Air America’s Thom Hartmann is out, replaced by Ed Schultz, and the Al Sharpton show (on tape delay) replaces Air America’s “Clout!” from 8-10 PM. (“Clout!” gets moved to a 4-6 AM taped replay.)

Heh. I wonder how long Shultz will last, possibly being the only person on the air today with less credibility than Randi Rhodes.Or, Alex Jones, for that matter.

That leaves Randi Rhodes (3-6 PM) and Rachel Maddow (6-8 PM) as the only live Air America clearances on WWRL – except that Rhodes is now under suspension by Air America management after making some intemperate comments about Hillary Clinton during a live appearance for the network’s San Francisco affiliate last week.

And of course we mentioned Shultz and his grand adventure last week.

By way of Memeorandum, I note Sean Wilentz already casting about looking for somewhere beside Hillary Clinton, her past, her policies, her politics and her personality, to place the blame for her loss of the nomination:

Unlike the Republicans, the Democrats in primary states choose their nominee on the basis of a convoluted system of proportional distribution of delegates that varies from state to state and that obtains in neither congressional nor presidential elections. It is this eccentric system that has given Obama his lead in the delegate count

Oh, come on. I mean, I rather expected this loss to get rationalized… (When, after all, has Hillary Clinton EVER taken the blame for something?) …but to blame the system that the Democrats themselves erected, is a bit much.  Are we now to aver that the last several Democrat nominations were unfairly gotten because of the system? Are we now also on that basis, to assume that Clinton lost because Obama managed to game the system better than she did?  (Someone gaming better than the Clintons, yeah, THAT’s credible…) What kind of image does this present going into the General election?

But, oh, what the heck, let’s take the Democrats at their word, and suggest with Wilentz that the system is the problem. Given that the Democrats themselves designed it, with the idea of being fair in mind, and came up such an abysmal failure at fairness, by Wilentz’ lights, should we take serously the idea that they’re going to be any more sucessful at designing and implementing a system for Government based healthcare, or taxation, or for that matter, anything else?

You’ll pardon me; It’s a bear to type when I’m laughing, and I have to clean the coffee spray off the screen.

I note Dave Schuler over at OTB this monring, talking about  the price of rice going up.

When I read this post by one of the associate bloggers at Joe Gandelman’s The Moderate Voice, it piqued my interest. The post quotes briefly from this New York Times article about possible unrest from the sharp rise in the price of rice that’s gone on recently:

HANOI — Rising prices and a growing fear of scarcity have prompted some of the world’s largest rice producers to announce drastic limits on the amount of rice they export.

The price of rice, a staple in the diets of nearly half the world’s population, has almost doubled on international markets in the last three months. That has pinched the budgets of millions of poor Asians and raised fears of civil unrest.

Shortages and high prices for all kinds of food have caused tensions and even violence around the world in recent months. Since January, thousands of troops have been deployed in Pakistan to guard trucks carrying wheat and flour. Protests have erupted in Indonesia over soybean shortages, and China has put price controls on cooking oil, grain, meat, milk and eggs.

Food riots have erupted in recent months in Guinea, Mauritania, Mexico, Morocco, Senegal, Uzbekistan and Yemen. But the moves by rice-exporting nations over the last two days — meant to ensure scarce supplies will meet domestic needs — drove prices on the world market even higher this week.

Reports of the increases in prices are various. The graph on the right, gleaned from the WSJ, reports a more than 30% increase in rice futures in 2007. This article reports a whopping 60% increase in the price of rice on world markets from March of 2007 to March of 2008.

What could cause such a sharp increase?

The NYT article suggests several reasons for the increase

• Increased demand due to greater affluence in China and India
• Reduced output by some growers due to poor weather conditions.
• Farmers abandoning rice production for more profitable crops.
• Reduction in acreage devoted to rice due to urbanization.

Unfortunately, the article doesn’t attempt to quantify any of these costs nor to identify which factors are more important than others.

I think that level of detail beyond the ken of most NYT readers, in any event. Or it’s writers, aparently, who say, Dave notes, that…

reports like this one from India and this one from Pakistan suggest that the cost of oil amounts to 25% or less of the cost of rice cultivation

… but say NOTHING about the cost of transporting it. Nor do they account for the costs of support items such as cost of ferilizer, and shipping THAT, which also, of course, requires oil.

But the fact is, the price of ALL food is going up, and by similar amounts, right across the board. It’s all being driven by ethenol, in the end, and that, in turn by the myth of ‘global warming’. A little logic bears this out; the Times cites a move toward more profitable crops. Think, now; Why are they more profitable? Can it be that those crops are being subsidised by a government looking to solve ‘global warming’ and an oil crisis, which itself was brought on by those pushing that myth?