Snark of the Day: Rusty Shackleford

Huckabee: go to a Mormon church. Prove to me that you aren’t a narrow-minded bigot like so many of your supporters seem to be

Rusty Shackleford, Jawa Report

The Sister has yet another story about global warming lies.  

The IPCC falsified data showing a sea level rise from 1992-2002 according to Dr. Nils-Axel Morner, former head of the Paleogeophysics and Geodynamics department at Stockholm University in Sweden.  In an interview by George Murphy,  Morner cites  various examples of falsification of evidence claiming sea level rises

Falsified, that is when you wave your little finger and lie out your teeth.

John Hawkins at Right Wing News quotes a reader at The Corner who mused…

“You know what would really be funny? If Romney declares on Thursday that he has been saved and shows a YouTube clip of his baptism, and a hearty endorsement by Dr. Dobson.” — From a reader at The Corner

Yeah, well… he got the endorsement, anyway. Well, OK, maybe not an endorsement, per se’, but the next best thing.

Personally, I don’t know how much weight I would put in anything James Dobson says.  But, there it is.

Don Surber:

WaPo reports 2 pages were dismissed for “public oral sex” and 2 for shoplifting.

Republican Mark Foley’s weird fascination with a congressional page cost Foley his seat in Congress and helped a Democratic takeover of the House.

Drain the swamp and all that.

Well the swamp’s still there and the pages are turning.

Politico’s Patrick O’Connor:

Two Republicans on the House Page Board resigned Thursday because the House clerk failed to notify them of two incidents involving high school-age students, including shoplifting charges and improper sexual conduct.

Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite of Florida sent House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) a letter Thursday announcing her intention to step down from the bipartisan panel that monitors the congressional page program in the House. And Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) followed later with her own statement.

The page incidents did not involve members of Congress.

Brown-Waite said she was resigning “due to the failed leadership of the clerk of the House and the continued lack of oversight,” according to the letter obtained by Politico.

As Don suggests, here; Whatever happened to the idea of draining the swamp, Mrs. Pelosi?

If there is a more annoying person in the world of punditry than Arianna Huffington, I certainly don’t know of it.

The way that Mike Huckabee has handled the furor caused by the Huffington Post’s coverage of his role in the release of Wayne Dumond, a serial rapist who went on to rape and kill at least one other woman, has been very revealing. And troubling.

For the record, I’m not happy about the candidacy of Mike Huckabee, for several reasons.

That said… Did you catch the lean, there?

What she’s saying is, it’s all about her and her publication, that’s what got this whole thing under way. Which of course is utter nonsense; This stuff has been simmering on the surface for years, now. If we take her word on the matter, it is to be considered a major feet of investigative reporting to come up with information that’s already out there in the public sector, and has been since Bill Clinton was in office. I mean, look; If you’re going to be spreading your brightly colored feathers, Mrs. Peacock, let’s make sure you get some feathers to spread. (Yes, I know the female peacocks don’t have such plumage. Make of that what you will.) The fact of the matter is the HuffPo isn’t all that good, or even all that influential, unless you’re a member of the MSM, or a died in the wool, flaming liberal.

Put another way, Arianna, it’s not all about you. Frankly it’s been this attitude that has kept me off of HuffPo since its inception. Someone who is that busy blowing their own horn, I cannot take seriously. Particularly, when there is apparently nothing to be blowing one’s horn about.

It’s amazing to me that she gets such creds from the left. On what basis other than she had enough money to start a web site… Money she obtained by way of a failed marriage… does the left give her such respect? Other than she’s telling them what they want to hear, of course.

That, apparently, is her biggest strength at this point; Rather like Kos, no?

I’m not arguing that she should be silenced for this lack of gravitas. Not by any stretch. But, please, Airanna, I’m begging you…. spare me the pretense of making out like you’re some kind of master investigative reporter. You’re simply not that good.

(12-06) 15:29 PST San Francisco – –SFGATE.COM-Bernie Ward, a popular liberal San Francisco radio talk show host and former Catholic priest, has been indicted on federal child pornography charges, authorities said today.

Ward, 56, surrendered to federal authorities earlier today but the specifics of the allegations against him are under seal, officials said.

Ward hosts a nightly news talk program on KGO 810 AM as well as GodTalk on Sundays. He had been a priest with the Society of the Precious Blood order.

Gee…. No indicators there. Wonder what tipped off the cops? (/Snork)

BBCT: Memeorandum

The comparisons between the event that happened in Pearl Harbor 66 years ago today, and the events at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and in that Pennsylvania field, are unavoidable.  As are, unfortunately, the comparison of our reactions to each.

One cannot help but look at the two separate situations, in progression, and wonder at how much we as a people have forgotten.

The battleship in this picture, at the time of the attack, had something on the order of a million gallons of heavy fuel oil. It ended up on the bottom of the harbor.  Along with  about half her crew. There is a dribble of oil that comes up from the wreckage that amounts to about a quart of oil per day.  It’s been doing that for all of these 66 years.  Sad, that we were unable to hold the memory as long as the oil in that tank held out.

It’s cold up here in the great lakes region.  We’ve been down into the teens most nights, lately.  We caught perhaps 8in. of snow total, so far.  Most of that has retreated.  It’s still a driving issue, if your vehicle isn’t prepared for it.

So into of the middle of all of this, comes the smell of hot coolant inside the cabin of my brand new truck, and steam on the windows, which in the temperatures quickly turns to ice. Fortunately, the leak was relatively small, and therefore I didn’t lose much in the way of coolant.  The truck was still drive the ball on a somewhat emergency basis.  Like for example getting into work.  Unfortunately the only way to drive and however is to leave the windows wide open and the heat off.  Which one it 17° outside, produces rather predictably blue fingers.

Good thing the seats are heated, or I’d not bother at all.  As it happens, I managed to get the thing over to the dealer before it quit on me entirely.  $100.00 worth of deductable, for the repair item, and I should be back on the road tomorrow afternoon.  A little unusual for this to be happening, just now; the truck only has about 40,000 miles on it.  I’ve had heater cores quit on me before like this, but usually that occurs when the car has 150,000 miles on it or better.  In years gone by I’ve done the work myself.  Bastard of a job.  So, as you can imagine, I’m appreciative that they were able to turn the part and the installation as quickly as they did.

All this experience of the last couple of days has made me attend just how much we depend on the vehicles  we drive  for our everyday existence.  I  suppose most people don’t think about that until such time as they don’t have that anymore.  It’s simply impossible to survive without a reliable vehicle and more in most cities.  And I wonder if any of the people running for office, both for the presidency and for various lower level seats understand what a central issue fuel prices are.  What happens to our economy when people find they can afford to get back and forth to work?

It’s amazing how thoughtful you can get when your face and your hands are freezing….

Captain Ed, who clearly is getting bored, or something. Early winter doldrums?

 How does one address a letter to the dictator-for-life of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Kim Jong-Il? Would it be a “Dear Jong” letter?

(Slap!)

Steyn:

Up north, the Canadian Islamic Congress announced the other day that at least two of Canada’s “Human Rights Commissions” – one federal, one provincial – had agreed to hear their complaints that their “human rights” had been breached by this “flagrantly Islamophobic” excerpt from my book, as published in the country’s bestselling news magazine, Maclean’s. Several readers and various Canadian media outlets have enquired what my defense to the charges is. Here’s my answer:

I can defend myself if I have to. But I shouldn’t have to.

If the Canadian Islamic Congress wants to disagree with my book, fine. Join the club. But, if they want to criminalize it, nuts. That way lies madness.

Just so.  And this is precisely what I warned about back in 2001. 

A look around provides the idea that open hostility to Christians, and others who hold traditional American values, is growing rapidly, and government is doing much to foster this hostility. Let’s be honest enough to say that this is the real purpose of “hate crime” legislation; to provoke hatred against politically incorrect groups, such as those who dare to try and uphold traditional cultural values, and/or those who are Christians.

I suggest that this double standard is just one more front on the culture war … a war so many deny exists. Yet, it is a war that continues to claim victims. As in this case.

Let me be clear, here. I am not suggesting that we give ‘hate crimes’ status to those crimes that we have not. I’m suggesting that we should grant ‘hate crime’ status to NO crime. By their design, and certainly by their implementation, the Hate Crimes statutes tend to reveal motives on the part of the government, which have racial and cultural motives, which are directed against the majority. Lincoln once observed that a house divided against itself cannot stand. Hate Crimes laws, far from being the healing tool they were supposed to be, have only served to deepen our division. It’s time to remove so called hate crimes from the books.

Unfortunately, Canada is much further down the sled ride to hell than are we. The chances of them taking my advice as regards ‘hate crime’ are non existant. I said at the time,back in ’01 that they were the canary in the hate crimes coal mine.  Steyn’s note reminds us that’s still a problem, and the problem is getting worse, up there.

BBCT: Michelle and Memeorandum

For reasons beyond realm of understanding,  Bill Schneider of the Clinton News Network, a.k.a. CNN, attempted to trot out Ted Sorensen to hold former President Jack Kennedy as some sort of gold standard for religion.

Speaking to CNN Senior Political Analyst Bill Schneider, Sorensen discussed Kennedy’s famous 1960 speech and compared it to the speech on faith in politics delivered Thursday by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who would be the first Mormon in the White House if he is elected

Bill the difference between Jack Kennedy and Mitt Romney on religon is stark.   Romney professes to be a Morman and is faithful to his religon.   Kennedy only pretended to be Catholic.

As promised, I’ve had the opportunity to look over the Romney “I have a Religion” speech.

As such things go, it wasn’t bad.  Romney  demonstrated a better public speaking ability than I thought he had.  That was my first surprise.  He articulated his thought fairly well, I thought.

That said, let’s get down to what those thoughts amounted to.  The main direction, of the speech, by my reading, was that all believers are American.

Hmm. While I’m sure the words were heartfelt, I can’t help but think that it sounds alarmingly like the patronizing inclusiveness pap that leftists invariably toss around almost as a knee jerk reaction every time a microphone gets shoved in their faces, and usually within a few hours of leveling the charge of “Bigot” at someone.  I am left with the uncomfortable feeling that one gets in the office of an overly aggressive used car salesman.

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 presumptious on the part of Mr. Romney to try and recast the argument, now.

My feed alarm just went off, telling me there’s an article for something or another involving Harry Reid.  That name, being among the many strings that I have my systems surging four, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.  And that name brings to mind the fact that Mr. Reid is also a Mormon.  This, in turn, brings to mind almost immediately the question of can we possibly see senator Harry Reid running for the presidency, finding himself in the position of having to give such as speech.  The answer, of course, is “no”.  Then again, the democrats don’t have a large number of clergy along the lines of a Mike Huckabee running, either.  So much for the oft talked about but never evidenced resurgence eight of the “religious left”.

I think the concern about all of this can be traced down to the same kind of politics which insists that a representative of a given district must be black to properly represent a district filled with blacks.  Or, of Irish descent, if he is  in such a district and so on. It’s not very often that you see people are calling such things bigotry.  Yet why is it that in this case, people looking for representation by someone who understands their values and their moralities immediately gets labeled as bigots ?

Perhaps the reason that you will never see Harry Reid  making such a speech, is driven by the same set of factors that insists a black person cannot be bigoted.

In any event, I tend do agree with a large number of the pundits looking at this, who suggest that it probably isn’t going to make a whole bunch of difference in terms of raw numbers at the primary polls.   Then again, I’m beginning to suspect that it isn’t going to take much difference, deflect the Republican nomination race one way or the other.  Much the same as it’s not going to take a great deal to tip the presidential race itself, one way or the other. as I suggested earlier today, it’s pebbles that start avalanches.

Memeorandum has lots more as you would expect.

In an Op-Ed in the WaPo today , John Bolton says, in part:

Rarely has a document from the supposedly hidden world of intelligence had such an impact as the National Intelligence Estimate released this week. Rarely has an administration been so unprepared for such an event. And rarely have vehement critics of the “intelligence community” on issues such as Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction reversed themselves so quickly.

All this shows that we not only have a problem interpreting what the mullahs in Tehran are up to, but also a more fundamental problem: Too much of the intelligence community is engaging in policy formulation rather than “intelligence” analysis, and too many in Congress and the media are happy about it. President Bush may not be able to repair his Iran policy (which was not rigorous enough to begin with) in his last year, but he would leave a lasting legacy by returning the intelligence world to its proper function.

He goes on to list the flaws he finds. (RTWT.)

I think his initial comment is spot on; What we’re seeing is far too much of the INtel agencies trying to second guess, and alter policy, and far too little of their effort is on the ground intel gathering. It comes as no shock to anyone that the people issuing this report have been raling at White House middle east policy since day one. So, the report, given the massive changes in assessment between this report and the last, is suspect on it’s face.  Better, a goodly chunk of the people forming this more recent report, are people who until recently were working at the State Dept… who has had it’s own policy fights with the White House.

Of course that problem is far deeper than this, as Bolton notes:

Second, the NIE is internally contradictory and insufficiently supported. It implies that Iran is susceptible to diplomatic persuasion and pressure, yet the only event in 2003 that might have affected Iran was our invasion of Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, not exactly a diplomatic pas de deux.

Exactly. The people opposing White House policy in the middle east are hoping, apparently, that we’ll pay not attention at all to that linkage… that if the Iranians had abandoned their nujes in ’03, the president’s actions in Iraq were the only reason for that shift. This would seem to be confirmed by Gaddafi quite publicly giving up his nuke programs quite publicly at about the same time… something nobody seems to recall until forced to. We’ve already stated that the report is at least problematic for the Democrats for that reason… and most certainly equally problematic for the ex-state Dept wonks who fed us this more recent NIE.

And still, those centrifuges are churning away over there, by all reports, including that of the UN.

So, if we take the report on face value, our conclusion is that Iran giving up their nukes was the result of Bush getting tough with Iraq. If we question the report… and there is certainly much to question… we are left with the conclusion that Iran is still a threat.

The left must be having lots of headaches of late. They’re being forced to admit that Bush did something right in invading Iraq, or admit to intentionally flubbing a report so as to create a situation they could use to foul up an existing… and apparently quite successful… foreign policy. I won’t lay bets on which of these two poisons the left will chose.

Discussion at Memeorandum.

All of a sudden, Memeorandum isn’t crawling BitsBlog.

Not sure why.

Update: I’m breathing, again. Memeorandum has us listed.

What concerned me is I’d made a change to the search engine optimization, and I thought I’d trashed it. Guess not.

Boortz;

Would some Rudy Giuliani supporter, or perhaps a campaign staffer, please write and explain to us the value of a home mortgage interest deduction to someone who does not pay income taxes.

Simple question … someone should have an answer.

Neal… come to me in the first place.

The purpose is twofold;

The deduction, comes back to the homeowner in the form of a bigger refund. They just don’t CALL it that, in Rudy’s proposal.

The other purpose of course is buying votes.