Centcom Post 12/14/07

JOINT STATEMENT BY AMBASSADOR RYAN C. CROCKER AND GENERAL DAVID H. PETRAEUS ON THE CAR BOMB ATTACKS IN MAYSAN PROVINCE

Posted: 13 Dec 2007 04:28 AM CST

JOINT STATEMENT BY AMBASSADOR RYAN C. CROCKER AND GENERAL DAVID H. PETRAEUS ON THE CAR BOMB ATTACKS IN MAYSAN PROVINCE

IRANIAN ROCKETS FOUND, TURNED OVER TO COALITION FORCES

Posted: 13 Dec 2007 04:25 AM CST

IRANIAN ROCKETS FOUND, TURNED OVER TO COALITION FORCES

IRAQI FORCES, U.S. SPECIAL FORCES DETAIN SUSPECTED AL-QAEDA IN IRAQ LEADER

Posted: 12 Dec 2007 09:20 AM CST

IRAQI FORCES, U.S. SPECIAL FORCES DETAIN SUSPECTED AL-QAEDA IN IRAQ LEADER

The Sleeze just keeps pouring out of Spitzer’s office:

December 12, 2007 — NY Post-ALBANY – A top state housing official – who is married to one of Gov. Spitzer‘s close aides – is set to quietly receive a $46,000-a-year pay raise, The Post has learned.

Priscilla Almodovar, who since Jan. 25 has been CEO and president of the State of New York Mortgage Agency, the state Housing Finance Agency, and three other small housing agencies, is due to have the raise approved tomorrow by the board overseeing the agencies.

Almodovar is the wife of Spitzer’s handpicked insurance superintendent, Eric Dinallo, a close friend of the governor who served under him in the Attorney General’s Office.

The planned pay hike to $250,000 a year, up from her current $204,350, has angered some officials at the agencies who say it not only dwarfs the salary of her more experienced predecessor but also comes at a time when state lawmakers and judges have been so far unsuccessfully pushing for their own raises.

“This is a very bad precedent,” said a senior SONYMA official.

It’s amazing what Democrats can do when they put the taxpayer’s backs into it, isn’t it?

Apparently, a fairly minor heart attack for Alex Trebek.

He’s resting at the Cedars Sinai in LA, and will be back after the first of the year.

….in OTB’s Caption Contest

If there is one thing I admire about Mrs. Pelosi is how clean her toes are: 

WASHINGTON (AP) – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi lashed out at Republicans on Thursday, saying they want the Iraq war to drag on and are ignoring the public’s priorities. “They like this war. They want this war to continue,” Pelosi, D- Calif., told reporters. She expressed frustration over Republicans’ ability to force majority Democrats to yield ground on taxes, spending, energy, war spending and other matters.“We thought that they shared the view of so many people in our country that we needed a new direction in Iraq,” Pelosi said at her weekly news conference in the Capitol. “But the Republicans have made it very clear that this is not just George Bush’s war. This is the war of the Republicans in Congress.”

Mrs. Pelosi needs to learn some basics.   Sane people do not like war.  Rather rational people accept that sometimes war is to the worst alternative of several bad alternatives.
Hat Tip:  Kathryn Jean Lopez, National Review.

So why do patriachal societies continue to exist?   Because they work.   And because they better accomadate the different desires of the two sexes.   From the gender feminist capital of the World, Sweden, by Sue Reid, Daily Mail(UK):

The backlash in Sweden against Government interference in family and work life is based on women’s realisation that they are missing out on something very precious: the chance to raise their own sons and daughters

My belief is that gender feminists are few, except in the media and academia.  

Hat Tip: Stanley Kurtz, National Review.

Why on earth would Hillary Clinton be focused on Obama’s drug use, when Bill Clinton has a record of it, himself? After all, who was it who said of Cocaine…

“Gotta get some for my brother. He’s got a nose like a vacuum cleaner!”

Nor was it just for his brother. 

NEW YORK —AP- Judgment Day arrived for baseball’s steroids era, with the Mitchell report set to be released and posted on the Internet for all to see.Many questions from a decade of doping will be answered, but many will remain and perhaps new ones will emerge.

The Mitchell Report exposes a “serious drug culture within baseball from top to bottom,” fingers MVPs and All-Stars and calls for beefed-up testing by an outside agency to clean up the game, The Associated Press learned Wednesday.

Don’t misunderstand the headline here. I don’t mean to imply that Major league baseball won’t decide to throw a couple players under the bus. Unfortunately, that’s probably all that will occur, here.

After so many years of leading this stuff slide, I can’t believe they’re actually going to get serious about it, now. If I see that situation changed, I will be among the first to say I was wrong, but I don’t think that’s going to happen… particularly given the pressures that the players union will undoubtedly bring.  The union has always been a large part of why MLB has never gotten serious before.  Everyone’s been making money off this situation… and there’s far too much to lose, financially,  to fully expose it.  Simply put, I don’t see any reason for that situation to change.

Ok, the debates was boring.  The moderator,  Carolyn Washburn, was insipid,  However if the of the Des Moines Register thinks that somehow Alan Keyes is a presidential contender in Iowa, why not invite Charles Krauthammer,.   Then at least the debate would have been amusing.    The K-Hammer pares the debate down to sizs.

Hat Tip:  Allah Pundit, Hot Air.

LGF:

Palestinians continue to attempt to commit random murder with barrages of rockets, even as they pretend to talk “peace:” Israeli-Palestinian peace talks resume.

JERUSALEM – The highly anticipated renewal of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians got off to a rocky start Wednesday, with the Palestinians criticizing Israel for a construction project planned in disputed east Jerusalem, and Israel complaining about continued rocket fire from the Gaza Strip. …

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the meeting with the media, cited a “tense atmosphere” and said Israel complained about ongoing Palestinian rocket fire from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.

Early Wednesday, Palestinian militants fired 20 homemade rockets toward Israel, causing minor damage and lightly wounding one woman, Israeli officials said. The barrage came hours after Israeli forces ended a broad incursion into the coastal strip that killed six militants and left a wide swath of damage in its wake.

The real story here, of course, is that the “Palestinians” are using the using these  “peace talks”  as they would any other weapon; against their enemy. They’re using the peace talks as one would use an overly heavy coat… to hide the bomb.  We have seen this play out again and again, over the last 100 years. So much so, that if there’s anything about this that amazes me, it’s that anybody continues to try to talk peace with these people.  They simply don’t want it.  I keep thinking that maybe someone will get a clue.  It never happens.

The bottom line is that while the Clinton “machine” has run a “machine” campaign — raising gobs of money and putting pressure combined with treats to generate support from party insiders — Hillary Clinton is an unlikeable person and a terrible candidate.  As the day draws closer when people have to decide if they really WANT her as President – at this point Democrats having to decide — they are staring into the abyss and not liking what they see.

Patterico.

I note Patterico and company taking major bits of backside off Chuckie, again. That’s OK. The guy can afford it.. as he’s amply demonstrated several times, he’s ALL ass. The documentation of that is here on BitsBlog, and in this linked post at Patterico’s place.

As is typical with Chuckie, he tries to place the blame for the attacks on his nonsense, on anyone and everyone else… just as he blames Bush for his living in his mom’s basement.

He claims to be a populist, but is clearly having problems understanding why he as a populist ain’t all that popular. Apparently he’s also got anti-social confused with Anti-socialist.

Regardless of his claims of ‘populism’, the guy’s pure leftist, one end to the other.  Given the mental concerns the guy obviously has, this speaks volumes to me about both Chuckie in particular, and leftism in general. I’m of the firm belief that he needs his meds adjusted, and his internet connection taken away.

Read the comments over there and tell me you don’t agree.

By the way, it doesn’t mean much within the framework of Chuckie’s nonsense, but I must say, I’d never seen a pic of Christiana Hendrix (Mike’s wife) before. Jim has one posted, of her with Mike.

What a beauty… a striking woman… and very clearly in love.

I hesitate to say this, but I can almost hear some jealousy in Chucky’s sniping about that whole thing. Given what Chucky must attract (See his pic at Jim’s, also) some jealousy is understandable… even if his vile comments are inexcusable.

Update: Chucky has erased his blog.

I give him about a day and a half. That’s been the average time he could keep his oversized yap shut on previous occasions.

Jason Zengerle,  from that stalwart bastion of right wing thought the New Republic, nails Mrs. Clinton for her doublespeak:

From today’s NYT article about Hillary’s struggles in Iowa, this is a bit of a damning admission from the candidate, isn’t it?

“I always thought that Iowa would be a challenge,” she said, “and I’m personally really pleased with how far I’ve come, never having done this with Bill. I’ve really been working to understand what was necessary to run a competitive campaign.” [Emphasis added.]

Is this what Hillary means when she talks about experience–things she watched her husband do? And if he hasn’t done them before, she’s basically clueless?

On one hand, Mrs. Clinton claims to be ready to govern from day one, but on the other she confesses to be a political rookie.  

Bat Tip:  Memeorandum.

Contrast Mrs. Clinton with Fred.  Byran, Hot Air, has a Glenn Beck interview wtth Fred, who makes the point that we need a President who can be trusted.  The Clintons have waved their fingers at the public too many times to ever be trusted again.

Billy Beck:

I have e-mailed Joe Scarborough as calmly and coolly and clearly as humanly possible, and now I’m saying it short and sharp: That disgusting microcephalic, Mika Brzezinski, must go.

Heh. Well, you keep watching PMSNBC, Billy… I told you the solution was change the channel… and I’ve been telling you that for bloody well years, now.  I gave up on watching anything from them years ago… I don’t like being lied to.

The Religion of peace rides yet again… Just down the road from me here…. Lots of coverage available to me, but this is from the Toronto Star:

A 16-year-old girl is dead and her father has been charged with murder after an attack in a Mississauga home.

Aqsa Parvez, a student at Applewood Heights Secondary School, had been on life support in hospital since yesterday morning.

Police went to the family’s two-storey home on Longhorn Trail about 8 a.m. yesterday after receiving a 911 call in which a man allegedly claimed to have killed his daughter.

Paramedics found Aqsa with a faint pulse and rushed her to hospital. She was later transferred to a Toronto hospital and placed on life support.

Peel police said this morning that she died overnight.

Friends at the victim’s school said she feared her father and had argued over her desire to shun the hijab, a traditional shoulder-length head scarf worn by females in devout Muslim families.

Homicide investigators had been standing by, as it soon became clear the young girl wouldn’t survive the attack.

Muhammad Parvez, 57, has been remanded in custody and was to make his first court appearance today in a Brampton court.

…

School chums say Aqsa had been arguing with her family for months over whether she should wear the hijab.

Pal Ebonie Mitchell, 16, and other friends said Aqsa still wore the hijab to school last year, but rebelled against dressing in it this fall.

They said she would leave home wearing the traditional garment and loose clothing, but would often change into tighter garments at school.

She would change back for the bus trip home.

Well, I’ve got a solution… a slow, painful death for this unspeakable bastard. Something involving a pair of pliers and a cattle prod, capped off with choking the moron to death with his daughter’s old, rejected Hijab. That would be justice.  Unfortunately, the country that provided for her death, in the name of ‘diversity’, will not provide justice for her killer, either… calling the lack of a death penalty ‘humanity’.

Make sense to you?

Fellow Swamp Stomper Blue Crab Boulevard has more. So does Mike Goldfarb, who says in part:

It’s a horrible story. But on the same day as this girl is murdered for her secularism, the left is busy defending the veil. See Danielle Crittenden’s piece at the Huffington Post, “Islamic Like Me: HuffPosters Defend the Veil.” Crittenden spent a week dressed in a full burqa just to see what it would be like–and surprise! she didn’t like it one bit. But her series for HuffPo earned her nothing but the animus of the site’s readers, and now she’s defending the piece:

I’m glad so many of you took the time to post comments. There were definitely some general themes among them: If a woman chooses to veil herself, shouldn’t we respect that as her individual choice? Isn’t the West just as oppressive towards women with its constant marketing of sex? Just because veiling is culturally different from our customs, why should we feel threatened by it?

I find it alarming that she should have to defend her piece, particularly in light of the story of Aqsa Parvez, from a band of leftists apparently intent on keeping women enslaved. But I find it a measure of the nonsense she was selling in her original article, when she comes up with lines like the last two she quoted.

First, no, Women of the west are not even on the same oppression scale. Anyone who considers the Bikini as oppressive as the Burkah, likely looks better in the latter. Oppressed? You’re kidding, right?Is Crittenden forced to perform sex acts for some reason she’s not telling us? (Somehow, I doubt it.)  And Goldfarb’s answer to the second point is spot on:

We aren’t the ones threatened by the veil–the threat is to 16-year-old girls who don’t want to wear it, and risk death at the hands of their own family should they refuse to do so. “Culturally different from our customs” is, in this case, nothing more than a euphemism for barbaric.

Correct.

And the sad capper on this story is that Canada will not do justice here, considering that concept ‘Barbaric’.

Think about that one , today.