Feetsball: The Brass Monkey Bowl

I hadn’t even thought of this, but a friend points out on IM just now that Green Bay is going to be seriously cold tomorrow for their football game with the Giants.

I watched Buffalo’s playoff chances disappear this year under a sudden snowstorm. Wonder what the cold’s going to be like for the Packers?

The HIGH…. the HIGH, mind you, is supposedly going to be 3 Degrees above Zero. Wind chills between 25 and 35 below. Yikes.

I have a feeling, however, that will not impede  beer sales, or the painted chests of yellow and white.

Apparently, Duncan Hunter is dropping out.

Nothing more than radio reports and blurbs on TV. Fox is teasing it so is CNN, but no substantial links yet.

No shock though. He got what, 2% in Nevada?

Ben Smith, Politicio:

Bill Clinton, speaking at a Vegas YMCA last night, made more charges against Obama and claimed to have, with Chelsea, personally witnessed voter suppression by the Culinary Workers

By the way, Clinton also claimed, “I never had sex with that Miss Lewinsky.”

More, Memeorandum.

Addendum: (Bit) And, is the one who claimed to have personally witnessed church burnings. One wonders if he’ll ever get to be a real boy.

Kathy, Five Feet of Fury, wants you to see Scarlet Johanssen’s “Army of Two”

Addendum: 

More, Marine Corps News, via Memeorandum.

• Mickey Kaus notes an article in the Tucson Citizen talking about a country which is having problems handling the demand for housing, jobs and schools it will face from Mexican illegals… The country having these issues? Mexico. Amazing how that works. Weren’t these issues we were not supposed to consider legit when they were coming north of the border?
• Been thnking about adding a podcast of some kind, but there’s problems both conceptually and logistically. Concepts abound, but the one I’m mostly thinking about is the idea of getting the Swamp Stompers together on audio chat roundtable and podcasting the result. We’ll see how that goes.
• Speaking of the Stompers, I note fellow Swamp Stomper Sister Toldjah has a good deal of updates up on South Carolina. I see the weather they’re getting there may be causing an issue.
• Kathy Shaidle, who usually blogs at FiveFeetOfFury, is guesting for the weekend at RWN. She writes of a “debate” that went down in Toronto, and links to Mike Brock, who has audio.
• An annoying event; I’ve spent a bit of time building up a new file and print server for Casa de Bit, and found I have a bad SCSI card, which clearly was the reason for the failure of the server I pulled it from originally.  (I tend to use a lot of used parts for my personal projects, and to that end, I have a small mountain of older equipment around, in various states of functionality. ) The good part of that is the server I pulled that part from isn’t as bad off as I thought it was.  I’m finding that Ebay is an excellent source of pull-off parts, which I tap at need. I managed to get exactly the card I was looking for, for $15… not bad considering they go well over $100 new. Good thing to do on a cold, cold..(near zero) day.
• Another really great thing about the colder days is this is when the Rainer SUV I bought really shines. I’d love to see those Sou-Cal Prius owners try to drive under the conditions we get up here. I’d take an admittedly perverse pleasure in counting the number of the things in the ditch as I drive by.

Fox is reporting Romney has taken Nevada, with 43%, whereas John McCain’s home state only have him 16%.

Coalition forces capture criminal element network facilitator

Posted: 17 Jan 2008 09:43 AM CST

BAGHDAD, Iraq (Jan 16, 2008) â?? Coalition forces captured a suspected criminal network facilitator early Thursday during operations to disrupt criminal element networks in the Baghdad area.

Al-Qaeda operations in northern Iraq disrupted; two killed, 17 detained

Posted: 17 Jan 2008 09:41 AM CST

BAGHDAD, Iraq (Jan. 16, 2008) â?? Coalition forces killed two terrorists and detained 17 suspects today during operations targeting al-Qaeda networks in northern Iraq.

RENO, Nev. —AP- John Edwards and Hillary Rodham Clinton criticized Barack Obama’s praise of the Republican Party and Ronald Reagan – an anathema for many Democrats, particularly union members considered crucial to winning Nevada’s Democratic caucuses Saturday.Obama responded by suggesting Clinton would be a “president whose plans change with the politics of the moment” as part of one of his most direct critiques of the New York senator yet.The intensity reflects what polls suggest could be a tight contest Saturday as Nevada plays its most prominent role ever in a presidential nominating campaign. Nevada was granted a coveted spot right after Iowa and New Hampshire in an attempt to bring more racial and geographic diversity into the selection.The novelty means there isn’t a reliable way to determine who is likely to turn out at caucuses across the state. In addition, nine caucuses are to be held in casinos for the first time to allow shift workers to participate on a busy holiday weekend – making the result even more unpredictable.Obama got a boost when he won the endorsement of the Culinary Workers Union that represents 60,000 housekeepers, bartenders, waiters and other employees on the Las Vegas Strip. Then a judge dismissed an attempt to eliminate the casino caucus sites. But Clinton still holds an edge in most polls.

Amazing stuff, really.

Think of it; The Democrats of today are doing something that the Democrats of Reagan’s own era could not; Trying to co-opt his message. There’s several reasons they couldn’t at the time; They opposed everything Reagan stood for at the time… still do, actually, but not quite so overtly as they did then… he was the competition, for pity’s sake. It’s the same reason, today, really, that the Democrats find so much fault with our Iraq efforts in spite of the massive successes there. They’re the party opposite, and can never, therefore admit that any Republican can do anything right.

But the Democrats are finding they have to deal with the Reagan message, now.  Granted that they have to twist it to fit an agenda that Reagan himself wouldn’t have stood for for one hot second, but they’re trying to deal with it, decades after Reagan was in office and years after his death.

Even Edwards, in his way, pays homage to Reagan, in that he’s playing to the MoveOn crowd by still running against Reagan.

“Ronald Reagan, the man who busted unions, the man who did everything in his power to destroy the organized labor movement, the man who created a tax structure that favored the richest Americans against middle class and working families, … we know that Ronald Reagan is not an example of change for a presidential candidate running in the Democratic Party,” Edwards said.

Reagan also “was destructive to the environment by removing a lot of the regulation that existed,” Edwards added in a later telephone interview with The Associated Press. “I would never use Ronald Reagan as an example of change.”

Well, that’s because you’re an idiot, John.  Then again, you’re kinda boxed in . The fact was and remains that Reagan in those acts revealed the way the left had been lying for years about such matters… and created an economic recovery the likes of which America hadn’t seen before or since. The American people don’t forget such successes quite so easily. Play to your ever smaller, if more vocal base if you must, but know that in the doing, you’re back to sliding toward irrelevancy, again. Your devotion toward leftist ideals is why you’re being rejected by the American people. … even by Democrats.

The Democrats are not the only ones playing this game… the Republican front runners, to a man are playing the same game in a slightly different way; Trying to lay claim to Reagan’s legacy, arguing which of them is more like Reagan…while laying out policy proposals, and in some cases, having voting records, of which Reagan would never have approved, and that he would have used the power of the veto to fight. Thus are all but one of them coming up short in the judgment. Interestingly, the ones making the most noise about being the reincarnation of Reagan are without a doubt in the world the least qualified for making the claim. We call them RINOs. McCain, for example. Huckabee. To a lesser degree, Giuliani and to a lesser degree still, Romney.

But…. Why?

Why would they all … from both parties…. be chasing after Reagan? Because history has made it’s judgment, outside and above the political heat of the moment…  the Reagan era was a success, is why.  A level of success seldom seen in American politics before, and certainly never since. Success they’re all desperate to capture a piece of. They recognize that Reagan’s ideas and ideals are still a potent force in American life and American politics today. They know the person who captures that mantle, and capitalizes on it, will be our next President.

In reality, there is but one man currently in the hunt for the White House that can legitimately lay any claim to the Reagan Legacy. Based on voting records and policies proposed, that man is Fred Thompson. And isn’t it interesting he’s the one making the least noise about Reagan? Perhaps he figures he doesn’t need to convince anyone on the point.

BBCT: Memeorandum

Related, Michelle Malkin, Fellow Swamp Stomper Sister Toldjah, Captain’s Quarters Q&O

I note from a mailnote from John that he’s managed to snarf an interview with  Jonah on his book.

A snip:

Before we really get started, give us the Jonah Goldberg definition of fascism.

A short definition would simply be — there’s a longer definition in the book — it’s one word we give for a totalitarian, religious impulse, where everything has to go together, where the state has to govern every aspect of society or at least direct every aspect of society towards some Utopian end. Something like that. It’s a hard thing to (define) which is why it’s important to define it better on paper, which I do in the book.

I think one of the things we get caught up with, when we talk about fascism, is that we think it is this incredibly unique thing and really, it’s just another name for a kind of socialism. Fascism is socialism, Mussolini was a socialist, the National Socialists — duh — were socialists.

Instead, what we’ve done is turn fascism into this shorthand for evil. Nazism was obviously evil and Italian fascism was really, really bad, but fascism meant something else as well.

…Take the word socialism. More people were rounded up, put in camps, and murdered in the name of socialism than were ever killed in the name of Nazism or fascism and that’s not even counting the National Socialists of Germany. Mao killed 65 million people in the name of socialism. Stalin killed, minimum, 20 million people in the name of socialism. But, if I call you a socialist, that’s like I’m saying you’re misguided, Utopian, idealistic, or goofy, but it doesn’t mean I am calling you a genocidal murderer. But, we do that with fascism, where we just say it’s sort of a codeword for evil. So, part of the book explains that fascism isn’t as exotic as you think it is, it’s really just a flowering of a different kind of socialism.

Quite correct. I’m going to have to see about getting a copy here.

Hat Tip: Don Surber.

The Clinton’s are vicious on the attack, provided they are attacking no more than a mere straw dog.  Barack incited the Clinton when he said that Ron Reagan changed the trajectory of the country in ways that B.J. Clinton never did.    It was argued at the time that Obama was baiting the Clintons.  Well both B.J. and Mrs. Clinton took the bait.

Mrs. Clinton said, Greg Sargent, TPM:

“I have to say, you know, my leading opponent the other day said that he thought the Republicans had better ideas than Democrats the last ten to fifteen years. That’s not the way I remember the last ten to fifteen years.”I don’t think it’s a better idea to privatize Social Security. I don’t think it’s a better idea to try to eliminate the minimum wage. I don’t think it’s a better idea to undercut health benefits and to give drug companies the right to make billions of dollars by providing prescription drugs to Medicare recipients. I don’t think it’s a better idea to shut down the government, to drive us into debt.”

B.J. Clinton in turn sputtered, TPM:

“Her principal opponent said that since 1992, the Republicans have had all the good ideas,” Clinton told a crowd in Pahrump this morning. “It goes along with their plan to ask Republicans to become Democrats for a day and caucus with you tomorrow, and then go back and become Republicans so they can participate in the Republican primary. I’m not making this up, folks

Oh course this what Obama actually said, Marc Ambinder, Atlantic:

“I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it.”

Reagan changed the trajectory of the country.  He ended the gas lines.  Then so too did, B.J. Cinton.  He gave us the common noun lewinsky.

More, Memeorandum.

I know by our counters we have readers in South Carolina.
I know today is your primary day, South Carolina Republicans.
I have two words for you: Fred Thompson

[wp_youtube]fmVJ7fQGC7Q[/wp_youtube]

Hard to imagine isn’t it, and repulsive to boot.  Say it could never happen.   Well that is what would happen if the idea of the Arkansas moron, a.k..a. Mike Huckabee were to beome law:

I personally wish that all of this was outlawed. I think that every candidates should speak for themselves, and that every thing that involves the candidate’s name or another candidate’s name should be authorized and approved by that candidate, otherwise it shouldn’t be spoken….

The point is that candidates can’t force these special interest 527 groups to stop. I wish we could.

Imagine the state of our political affairs if it were illegal to mention Chappaquiddick.

Hat Tip:  Byran, Hot Air.

Defense Dept. announces Marine units for Afghanistan deployment

Posted: 15 Jan 2008 10:30 AM CST

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Jan. 15, 2008) â?? The Secretary of Defense has recommended and the President has approved the deployment of additional units to Afghanistan in the spring of 2008. This extraordinary, one-time deployment involves approximately 3,200 personnel and will enable commanders in Afghanistan to enhance the training of increasingly-capable Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) to build on the military successes of 2007 and to expand the gains of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) mission.

Operation Phantom Phoenix: Pursuit of al-Qaeda continues

Posted: 14 Jan 2008 09:09 AM CST

TIKRIT, Iraq (Jan. 13, 2008) â?? Operation Iron Harvest – a division-level operation in support of Multi-National Corps – Iraq’s Operation Phantom Phoenix – continues to pursue al Qaeda across four provinces of northern Iraq.

Large cache, underground bunker system discovered during Operation Phantom Phoenix

Posted: 14 Jan 2008 09:04 AM CST

TIKRIT, Iraq (Jan. 13, 2007) â?? Coalition Forces discovered a complex cache site and underground bunker system inside a dense palm grove Jan. 12 near Esalwid, Iraq, during Operation Raider Harvest, a division-level operation that is part of the countrywide Operation Phantom Phoenix.

Coalition forces target al-Qaeda networks in Baghdad, Mosul; 15 detained

Posted: 12 Jan 2008 07:57 AM CST

BAGHDAD, Iraq (Jan. 12, 2008) â?? Coalition forces detained 15 suspected terrorists today and Friday during operations targeting al Qaeda networks in central and northern Iraq.

MND-North Soldiers kill 4 extremists, destroy HBIED with air strikes

Posted: 09 Jan 2008 04:15 PM CST

BAQUBA, Iraq (Jan. 11, 2007) â?? Soldiers killed four extremists and destroyed a house-borne improvised explosive device near Khan Bani Sa’ad, Iraq, with air strikes Jan. 6.

No fatalities as two F/A-18s crash in Persian Gulf

Posted: 07 Jan 2008 01:49 PM CST

PERSIAN GULF (NNS) — Teams from USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75) rescued all three aviators after an F/A-18E and an F/A-18F that crashed during operations in the Persian Gulf Jan. 7.

Troops target al-Qaeda in Iraq leadership; six suspects detained

Posted: 07 Jan 2008 08:06 AM CST

Coalition forces detained six suspected terrorists yesterday during operations targeting al-Qaeda in Iraq networks along the Tigris River Valley.

Three power projects completed, turned over In Basrah

Posted: 02 Jan 2008 12:11 PM CST

Army engineers continued their mission of helping the Government of Iraq jumpstart its electrical infrastructure by completing three essential power projects in the Gulf Region South district.

Afghan National Security Forces disrupted two major insurgent rings

Posted: 28 Dec 2007 10:04 AM CST

Afghan National Security Forces, advised by Coalition forces, disrupted two major insurgent rings by arresting key facilitators responsible for improvised explosive device attacks against civilian and military targets Dec. 24, 2007.

Coalition Forces disrupt al-Qaeda in Iraq operations; five killed, 14 detained

Posted: 28 Dec 2007 09:50 AM CST

Coalition forces killed five terrorists and detained 14 suspects during operations targeting al-Qaeda in central and northern Iraq Dec. 28, 2007.

 

Mrs. Clinton, and George Orwell have been a constant themes here.   Remember this YouTube from March of last year?

[wp_youtube]6h3G-lMZxjo[/wp_youtube]

Mrs. Clinton did  not like it.  However the theme of Mrs. Clinton and George Orwell does continue to resonate.  Judicial Watch has pried lose some 13,000 HillaryCare documents from the Clinton Library.   They only be described as chilling, or shall we say Orwellian.  Mrs. Clinton’s group drafted plans to spy on citizens, not enemies of the state, but rather opponents of HillaryCare, via Wake Up Ameica:

– A February 5, 1993 Draft Memorandumfrom Alexis Herman and Mike Lux detailing the Office of Public Liaison’s plan for the health care reform campaign. The memorandum notes the development of an “interest group data base” detailing whether or not organizations “support(ed) us in the election.” The database would also track personal information about interest group leaders, such as their home phone numbers, addresses, “biographies, analysis of credibility in the media, and known relationships with Congresspeople.”

No mention is cited to courts orders.  Evidently Mrs. Clinton feels that spying on America’s enemies requires a court order,  whereas spying on her political opponents does not.   You government spying on you from merely wishing to have choice.   Chilling.

 More, Michelle Malkin, Memeorandum.

Addendum:

Byran, Hot Air, has an I.D. for P.S.