The Iceman Cometh

OKLAHOMA CITY — (AP)- A wintry storm caked America’s center with a thick layer of ice, blacking out more than 600,000 homes and businesses, and more icy weather was on the way. At least 17 deaths in Oklahoma and Missouri were blamed on the conditions, with 15 of them killed on slick highways.A state of emergency was declared for all of Oklahoma, where the sound of branches snapping under the weight of the ice echoed through Oklahoma City.

“You can hear them falling everywhere,” Lonnie Compton said Monday as he shoveled ice off his driveway.

Yeah, I’m hip. I don’t know if I”ve ever mentioned it in the blog, but we had a major ice storm here in Rochester back in ’92.  We were without power for a week and a half after that one. It’s amazing, how quickly your brain shifts gears into “survival” mode.  I expect there’s a lot of that going on out in Oklahoma and Missouri, this morning.

By the way, KMOX is the big 50,000 watt blowtorch on 1120 out there… they’re in St Louis. The signal is pouring in up here in Rochester, just now. A little unuusal for it to be so strong, here.  It’s interesting listening to the local coverage of the event.  Of course, when you’re 50kw, ‘local’ takes on a different meaning. They ahve coverage all over the region, there… and even though the storm hasn’t really hit them directly, they seem to be the only sizable station in the area.

 ST. LOUIS (KMOX News)  — The National Weather Service reports that significant ice accumulations are anticipated from southwest Missouri through southwest Illinois overnight Sunday into Monday morning. For the St. Louis region, including the Metro East, around a quarter-inch of additional ice accumulation is likely today.

Currently, ice storm warnings are in effect for portions of southwest through central, east central and southeast Missouri, as well as parts of southwest Illinois.

For those who can’t pick it up directly, as I can here, they also stream 

I don’t know, not having tried it yet, but the big Chicago stations… WGN, WCFL, and WLS have reach down to the southern part of Illinois and so may be trying to program their coverage to that direction, too.

We’re breathing a sigh of relief up here in western NY. Looks like we’ll be too warm for any real ice threat, today.

TALIBAN EXTREMISTS DETAINED IN KANDAHAR PROVINCE

Posted: 10 Dec 2007 04:23 AM CST

TALIBAN EXTREMISTS DETAINED IN KANDAHAR PROVINCE

SEVERAL MILITANTS KILLED, 10 DETAINED, TWO WOUNDED CIVILIANS FOUND AFTER HELMAND OPERATION

Posted: 10 Dec 2007 04:15 AM CST

SEVERAL MILITANTS KILLED, 10 DETAINED, TWO WOUNDED CIVILIANS FOUND AFTER HELMAND OPERATION

PRESS RELEASE: COALITION PRECISION STRIKE KILLS SEVERAL MILITANTS

Posted: 10 Dec 2007 04:11 AM CST

PRESS RELEASE: COALITION PRECISION STRIKE KILLS SEVERAL MILITANTS

Billy Beck asks:

 How in the world does someone get to be the White House Press Secretary and know nothing about the Cuban Missile Crisis?

Simple; they’re not teaching it anymore, particularly in government schools.

And why not?

Because a Democrat icon was running the show at the time. Can’t have a Democrat looking like a war monger, ya know.

Mrs. Clinton’s remaining supporters believe she is tough, via Memeorandum:

This isn’t an anti-Hillary crowd. She gets high marks for her experience, intelligence and toughness; these qualities, they suspect, are what voters demand.

Mrs. Clinton’s s supporters are deluded.

When Don Imus refered to Rutgers women’s basketball team as ho’s, Mrs Clinton was all too willing to wade in, but only after the Reverend Al Sharpton has fired his first broadside.

Now Mrs. Clinton supporter, and stooge, Andrew Young has seconded Imus.   The Reverend Sharpton blasted Imus for refering to the Rutger’s women as ho’s.    While Imus suggested the Rutger women were whores, Young has suggested that black women should be whores,  or just the free version sluts.    Young suggested that men only acquire power by having sex with many different black woman.   Having a lot of sex with one woman, does not count.   Sorry about that Barack Obama.

So what matters, to go Young’s B.J. Clinton route, is have sex with lots of different black women.   Funny thing, while the Reverend Al got all kinds of upset when Imus impugned the morals of twelve women, the cat seems to have gotten the Reverend;s tongue with regard to Young disparaging the sexual morals of all black women.

Yet this supposed strong, tough defender of women, Mrs. Clinton,  stands by in utter silence , while  her supporter’s utterly misogenic comments about black women stand?    With defenders like Mrs. Clinton, who needs enemies?   Mrs. Clinton were is your courage?

We’ve had a bit of Email discussion, more or less centered on my most recent post about Mitt Romney. Specifically, the topic ends up being whether not there is a religious test for high office. As a basis for the ongoing discussion, let me quote one paragraph from the previous post:

We dig further into the patronizing nonsense, when Romney starts invoking the will of the framers, as regards a religious test for high office. It seems a little out of place to be talking about whether or not Americans should you’d be talking about such things, when the question at hand is not whether or not run the is to be president, but whether or not the republican party of these United States should be nominating him to run for that office. Those two situations represent rather dramatically different things. Certainly, there is no governmental tests for running for high office. The question of whether not there should be a test within the minds of each of the voters, is left unaddressed by the framers, however. It is therefore presumptuous on the part of Mr. Romney to try and recast the argument, now.

A good deal of the discussion that we are engaged in with this currently, has to do with some confusion over the line I’m drawing here. I am by no means suggesting that the government should have a religious test attached to it. That said, the question of whether or not individual voters should consider the matter as they vote, is something else again. There is still more of a difference involved, when the question is not whether or not an individual should be elected to high office, but whether not a particular political party should nominate this person to run for that office.

I will grant, that individual voters who add religion to their list of variables, are most likely engaged in identity politics. There is much in the way of history to discourage us from doing that. However, reality exists. (Wow… reality…. what a concept!) Unless you’re going to get into policing thought, which I consider even more distasteful, you’re never going to overcome that. Nor, I think, should you.

Government entering that equation is the only thing that can truly be controlled to any extent. The framers saw wisely that it is the only place where such control should be attempted.

And what about frothing nutcases like Lawrence O’Donnell who showed up on McLaughlin over the weekend? I make the assumption that such people will out themselves as O’Donnel did handily, in the process making Pat Buchanan of all folks seem utterly reasonable. you see, when such yardsticks are used in a reasonable fashion, they can be useful. Although, O’Donnell’s measurement, certainly, is not one of these. When such unreasonable sentiments are exposed thus, they do tend to make a large number of other people reconsider their own positions, to something more reasonable. After all, people generally tend to try to avoid being associated with unreasonable positions. The allowance, therefore, for such concerns about religion on the part of the individual voter, tends to be self regulating, and self controlling. THere are no such limits on a government mandated religious test for high office.

At this stage, there are a number of other concerns about Romney which should be concentrated on. HIs religion simply isn’t high on that list of concerns.

All that said, what apparently started O’Donnell’s tirade was Romney’s comment..”Freedom requires religion”. Odd that O’Donnell… and so much of the left, over the weekend, should be wasting so much spit on this point. Perhaps they’ve forgotten John Adams point on the matter:

Our Constitution was made only for a religious and moral people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other.

• Letter to the Officers of the First Brigade of the Third Division of the Militia of Massachusetts (1798–10-11)

Seems to me by bringing up that point, Romney is putting himself in some pretty important company… and it also seems to me that O’Donnell exposes soemthing of himself that he’d rather we not see… Religious bigotry of the first order… as well as a lack of a sense of history on the matter.

Addendum:  (David L)

Rats, Bit stole by thunder.   They say that a mind is terrible thing to waste.   Yet I think it the case of Larry O’Donnell the waste is a rather small one.   The video of the exchange is priceless, 

Hat tip:  Allah Pundit, Hot Air.

The Constitution restricts the power of the state.  As such the state has no authority to administer any religous test for office.   The Coistitution does not restrict the power of the individual.   As such the citizen has every right to impose any religous test for office as he alone may see fit.

What I suggest is appropriate to determine of a canidate is if he can distingish between theology and public duty.    I see no indication that Mitt Romney has any such problem.

On the other hand, Mike Huckabee does not even see the need for such dsitinctions.    Huckabee fails my religous test for any office not part of the Southern Baptist church.   What say you?

I commented over the weekend about Sitemeter screwing up.
I got a nice note from the sitemeter folks, saying taht they’d had some database issues with the sm5 database…(Which this site is on) and they’d be OK shortly. It seems to be working at the moment.

I must say, I am impressed with the speed with which they got back to me about it.

Kudos from here. Now if only I could get Sitemeter’s figures to agree with the internal hitcounters….

I mentioned, the other day, about how the NBC lawyer who rejected that “thank you to the troops” video, turns out to be rather generous source of donations for congressional Democrats.  Here’s the article I wanted to link to edit the time, but couldn’t find. It’s over at Red State.

The Majority Accountability Project has found that the NBC lawyer who refused to allow a non-profit group to air an advertisement thanking American troops for their service has donated at least $45,000 to a host of Congressional Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, New York Senator Hillary Clinton and the campaign committees of House and Senate Democrats.

According to a Fox News report, Richard Cotton, the general counsel for NBC/Universal, was one of two network officials who decided not to sell ad time to Freedom’s Watch, which describes itself as “a nonpartisan movement dedicated to preserving, protecting, and defending conservative principles and promoting a conservative agenda.”

Freedom’s Watch prepared a series of television ads thanking American troops stationed abroad for “their service and for spending time away from their family and friends this Holiday season.” The ads will run from December 6 until December 21, and while CNN and Fox are both airing the group’s commercials, NBC refused to sell airtime on their cable networks, MSNBC and CNBC.

So what we have, here, is an entrenchment of liberalism exposed at NBC.  Boy, the cockroaches were headed for the walls when the light came on this time, weren’t they?  But watch this:

Ironically, it was one of NBC’s networks, MSNBC, that earlier this year created a stir when they detailed the political giving of journalists and news organizations.

“Because appearing to be fair is part of being fair, most mainstream news organizations discourage marching for causes, displaying political bumper stickers or giving cash to candidates,” the cable news station reported.

“The pattern of donations, with nearly nine out of 10 giving to Democratic candidates and causes, appears to confirm a leftward tilt in newsrooms,” according to the MSNBC study, which found that 125 journalists gave to Democrats and liberal causes since 2004, 16 to Republicans, and two gave to both parties.

(Snicker)

I’m shocked… shocked, I tell you, to find liberal bias here.

Michelle is doing a good job of keeping up with this one, including several possibilities for a new NBC logo sent along by readers…. one of which is above.

I don’t know if there is a god or if he exists what he wants.   Nobody does.  Yet that does not preclude bigots like Fred Phelps and Mike Huckabee from proclaiming they know what God wants,  Linda S.  Caillouet,  Arkansas Democrat=Gazette::

SALT LAKE CITY — Government may have dropped the ball in modern American society, but religion dropped it first, Gov. Mike Huckabee told Southern Baptist pastors Sunday night.
    “The reason we have so much government is because we have so much broken humanity,” he said. “And the reason we have so much broken humanity is because sin reigns in the hearts and lives of human beings instead of the Savior.”
    Huckabee, an ordained Southern Baptist minister,

Hat tip:  Matt Drudge.

Mike, take a long walk off a short pier.

Fellow Swamp Stomper Sister Toldjah, guesting over at Right Wing News:

One of their favorite retired Generals, Major General John Batiste, who appeared in an ad for the anti-war Vote Vets website, and who had an op/ed published on the liberal anti-war website Think Progress in August in which he called for the US to “begin a responsible and deliberate redeployment from Iraq,” has apparently changed his tune.

He, along with Vets for Freedom executive director Lt. Pete Hegseth had an opinion piece published in Saturday’s Washington Post (h/t: Jim Addison) in which they, together, call Iraq the “central” fight in the war on terror, discuss what steps they believe need to be taken in order for us to win the war on terror, and chastize Congress for not being able to move past their partisan differences in order to fund our troops. The key part of the piece which will cause the Nutroots heads to explode:

Second, whether or not we like it, Iraq is central to that fight. We cannot walk away from our strategic interests in the region. Iraq cannot become a staging ground for Islamic extremism or be dominated by other powers in the region, such as Iran and Syria. A premature or precipitous withdrawal from Iraq, without the requisite stability and security, is likely to cause the violence there — which has decreased substantially but is still present — to cascade into an even larger humanitarian crisis.Third, the counterinsurgency campaign led by Gen. David Petraeus is the correct approach in Iraq. It is showing promise of success and, if continued, will provide the Iraqi government the opportunities it desperately needs to stabilize its country. Ultimately, however, these military gains must be cemented with regional and global diplomacy, political reconciliation, and economic recovery — tools yet sufficiently utilized. Today’s tactical gains in Iraq — while a necessary pre-condition for political reconciliation — will crumble without a deliberate and comprehensive strategy.

I hope none of this surprised anybody too badly.   Batiste has always struck me as a finger in the wind pragmatist. He wants to be on the winning side.

One wonders if you will have the courage to admit that he was wrong about Rumsfeld.  I tend to doubt it. “Leaders need to be held accountable”  he said, back then. since we are now making progress after his retirement, does that mean he, Major General John Batiste(Ret)  should be held accountable?  I think so, but I doubt he does.  Funny, how that works.

So, leaving aside, for the moment, the angry observation of where we would be right now had we taken his advice given all too freely in that nonsense that “Think Progress” posted, there is something positive to be taken away from his more recent comments.  That being, that our actions in Iraq have now been elevated to being unquestionably the correct thing to do.

Welcome back to reality, General.   I wonder if you realize the implications of that transition.  It’s clear that the drooling idiots who were so thrilled when you showed up at “Think Progress” won’t.

Melissa, guesting over at Right Wing News:

Can identity politics get any more ridiculous? In trying to establish cred with minorities, civil rights leader Andrew Young says what could be nominated for the most ridiculous quote this electoral season:

In a media interview posted online, Young also quipped that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton has her husband behind her, and that “Bill is every bit as black as Barack.””He’s probably gone with more black women than Barack,” Young said of former President Clinton, drawing laughter from a live television audience. Young, 75, was quick to follow his comment on Bill Clinton with the disclaimer, “I’m clowning.”

Are you kidding me?Imagine if you will, a live televised talk extolling Rudy Giuliani’s prowess with Latino women. Imagine the hew and cry on the Right, never mind the Left. It would be perceived as racist, because, well, it’s racist.

Well, what I think you’re missing, is that for liberals, arguments don’t actually have to make sense.  They have to make emotion.  Which, I hasten to point out, is why liberal arguments ten to fall apart when analyzed.  They are not designed for analysis.  Emotion carries the day.

Look, I’m not suggesting for a minute that we should all be Spock.  But we should let logic enter our lexicon, particularly when we’re talking about national leaders, whose decisions, be they good or bad, can affect so many people.

Expanding the thought; Billy Beck has often made a point, both to me in private mail, and in public comments on his site,  that one of the most disastrous aspects of voting is the gravity of the decisions being made with other people’s lives, and other peoples wherewithal.  While I tend to disagree with him and his attitude of avoiding such altogether on moral grounds, I think I ought to point out that Americans don’t take the responsibility with nearly the gravity they ought.  Billy’s got that much right; it’s a hell of a big responsibility , this voting business.  Most people don’t understand that.

The situation that Melissa notes in her post is to my mind part and parcel of that lack of seriousness.  That lack of gravity.

Frankly, also symptomatic of that lack of gravity, is the entire concept of identity politics….  The concept that so long as  someone is of my race, or my religion, or are my gender, that they’re the better person to represent me, and mine. I reject the concept outright.  Alas, most Americans do not. Hence, do we have Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama arguing not about substance of policy, but gender and race identity politics.

Makes no sense to me, but there it is.  That’s what America is up against.

From Little Green Footballs:

In 2002, Nancy Pelosi was a member of a bipartisan group that was made aware of harsh interrogation techniques being used with Islamic terrorists in US custody—and the group not only approved of the tactics (including waterboarding), they asked the CIA to push harder.

In September 2002, four members of Congress met in secret for a first look at a unique CIA program designed to wring vital information from reticent terrorism suspects in U.S. custody. For more than an hour, the bipartisan group, which included current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was given a virtual tour of the CIA’s overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators had devised to try to make their prisoners talk.

Among the techniques described, said two officials present, was waterboarding, a practice that years later would be condemned as torture by Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill. But on that day, no objections were raised. Instead, at least two lawmakers in the room asked the CIA to push harder, two U.S. officials said.

“The briefer was specifically asked if the methods were tough enough,” said a U.S. official who witnessed the exchange.

I hope that none of you were surprised by this turn of events.  The bottom line is, that even the democrats came to the conclusion that what we were doing was the right thing to do.  So, their complaints about ‘Torture” now, are all so much sewage.

Not an unusual turn of events for the democrats, I must say.  I’ve been telling you all along the Democrats don’t give a damn about ‘morality’ of any stripe. Their objections now are exactly what I told you they were about: Democrat party power, and nothing more. AS I said elsewhere, only yesterday:

… let’s not be fooled here. The largest part of the screaming these days is coming from a group of people who is looking desperately for something / anything to hang on the current administration so as to gain political power. The people who were screaming the loudest about this business, don’t give a damn about our morality. They are only interested in political power.

Memorandum has more, of course.

 And obviously since 2002 Congressional Democrats[Mrs. Pelosi] have gotten a lot more complacent about terrorism. Hey, why worry? We haven’t had a terrorist attack since 2001 on our soil … it’s Bush’s fault! Er, or something like that. Yeah, I’m digressing.

Swamp Stomper Sister Toldjah, evidently wearing ten and half wide combat boots.

OK, this is the second day I’ve noted Sitemeter going crazy. Along about 4 or so, on both Saturday, and Sunday, I’ve noted “Today’s” hit count being at zero… where it’d been at normal levels before that.

What’s going on, here?

Well,, that certainly was the vibe I got while watching this story unfold over the last few days.

Michelle’s been doing a fabulous job of keeping us up to date with all of this. But you might not have heard the story that really tripped my trigger:

It turns out that the guy who originally turn down the ad, because the link it was attached to was two political, is a HUGE Democrat donor… to the tune of $45,000.

like, I never would have guessed, that the real reason that the ad got turned down by NBC was that they were protecting their party.

Let’s see NBC and the rest of the MSM try and talk their way out of this one. they’ve labeled themselves, but good, this time.

1. War is not an intellectual exercise.
2. There are no rules in war, other than the rules dictated by the winner, afterward.
3. The Geneva Convention which purports to be civilized warfare, is in fact nothing of the sort, and is not worth the paper it was written on, having repeatedly been broken in every war ever waged since it’s signing.  There’s a reason, here; Warfare is not civil under any conditions. War is, instead, the utter lack of civility. It is therefore unrealistic to assume or demand any degree of civility in wartime.
4. Those seeking closer adherence to the Geneva Convention during wartime, even on moralistic ground, particularly when the enemy is overtly not adhering to said convention, are themselves immoral, given they end up costing their own side lives, by causing their own military to, in effect, fight with one hand tied behind their back.
5. When a people go to war, it is by definition a last resort against an immoral enemy. It’s understood that war of itself is an immoral act. In going to war the line of immorality has already been crossed…  but it is also understood that the greater immorality is to allow the enemy to continue it’s immoral activity. It is assumed, thereby, that whatever actions are taken in pursuit of winning said war against said immoral enemy, are in the immediate sense, of lesser moral consequence than the defeat of the enemy, and the actions of the enemy, both before and during said war.
6. Hindsight is a luxury a nation at war cannot afford. For example, consider the post 9/11 world, and the discussions about ‘How far would you go to stop another 9/11?” We succeeded in stopping any more such attacks on us, and we continue to hold them back. Being concerned now with the ‘rights’ of those attacking us is at least counter-productive, and self-defeating.
7. One does not win a war by respecting the rights, the beliefs, or the demands, of the enemy. One wins a war by killing the enemy in as great a number as possible, and barring that, by breaking their will to fight.