Night Ramble: a Few Thoughts Before the Snore Shelf

• I know it’s the holiday weekend but ovoid as this place been slowed today.  From what I’m saying, everybody else is suffering from the same trend.  (Shrug)
• Second place at the OTB Caption Contest.
• Right Wing News is carrying an exclusive column from embed Matt Sanchez who’s writing from Ramadi, Iraq.
• I see someone offed himself at “Burning Man”. According to the story dangled for something like two hours at the top of a two story tall tent for a couple hours before someone thought to bring him down… his friends apparently thought he was doing an art piece. What kind of stuff do you need to smoke in jest or shoot up to become quite so slow?
• Senator John Warner is apparently going to announce tomorrow at the university of Virginia whether not intends to seek the White House.  Given his age, the lack of money, and lack of calls for his running, I’d have to say no, but then, he might just be stupid enough, anyway.
• The lefties are still making an awful lot of noise about Larry Craig.  Only, more than is justified for somebody that nobody’s defending.  There’s no real argument here.  Yet the company of voices is nearly deafening.  But have you noticed?  While we’re all busy worrying about Larry Craig, none of them are saying very much at all about Hillary Clinton and her funding sources.  Given that the Larry Craig arrest happened last June, and the Hillary Clinton / Norman Hsu thing is very much current, my first instinct is to raise questions about the timing of the Larry Craig story being released.  I don’t know, if there is a reasonable connection here, but it does seem to pop up in the news media had an awfully convenient time, when in reality it should have popped up anytime between the June 11th arrest date, and say, mid August. Certainly, there are somewhat more innocent reasoning behind this timing occurring; not least of which the mainstream news media wasn’t watching Larry Craig very closely.  But logic would seem to suggest that when you’re trying to get something /anything on those hated Republicans, that an opportunity like that would not normally have been missed.  It seems more likely that somebody held that card close to their vast until it was needed in the high-stakes poker game that Hillary Clinton is known to play.  And, did anybody notice, that the Iowa primaries are right around the corner?  Sure, there’s no connection there.

Ed Morrissey, Captain’s Quarters, writes of an interesting problem.  What happens when the ‘rats collect major campaign contributions from moonbats in order to elect blue dogs, read conservative, democrats:

The Left has finally started taking off the gloves. They may now realize that the Democrats overpromised in the 2006 elections, raising money among the more extreme groups while electing Blue Dogs to office. The demographics of their majority form the basis of the obstacles facing Reid and Pelosi, but without the conservative Democrats, none of their agenda could possibly pass.

Mrs. Pelosi and Dirty Harry Reid have made promises, on which they can not deliver.

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McQ, this morning points to a Daily Tech story I read as essentially saying that the scientific community has begun to back away from the suppose it consensus about the theory that humans are responsible for global warming.  He quotes a large portion of the text and then says:

Interesting. And the “why” of the supposed change?

These changing viewpoints represent the advances in climate science over the past decade. While today we are even more certain the earth is warming, we are less certain about the root causes. More importantly, research has shown us that — whatever the cause may be — the amount of warming is unlikely to cause any great calamity for mankind or the planet itself.

I think that’s a fair assessment and certainly one that reflects my thinking on the subject.

And my own.

But it goes directly against what has become both a political movement and a quasi-religion for some. And I assume they’ll continue to work ceaselessly and tirelessly to effect expensive and economy killing changes in the name of their movement.

We all need to calm down, cool down (no pun intended) and quit playing politics with something as important as this issue.

Well now, here’s where we diverge a little bit in terms of opinion.  If the amount of warming involved is unlikely to cause any great calamity for mankind or the planet, and if man is not responsible for the first place, could someone please explain to me why it’s supposedly so important?  Seems to me the only important point of this entire discussion is that we are allowing ourselves to be driven to destroying our economy and our standard of living by what even the scientific community is beginning to agree is total nonsense.

A parting shot on Michael Vick’s press conference, which I had a chance to review again this morning :

I totally ask for forgiveness and understand as I move forward to a better Michael Vick the person, not the football player.

Have you ever noticed when someone says they want to “move forward” that what they’re really saying is “please don’t talk about my misdeeds anymore” ?

Ah, yes. Leona Helmsley.

She already had a reputation as being a little crazy an extraordinarily mean.  Even with this reputation, disinherit in her two grandchildren and leaving $12 million to her dog does seem a little over the top.

In response to the flurry of bumper sticker requests, lately, I thought I’d make one of my own;

Hillary Clinton: The choice of Norman Hsu

Michelle Malkin has more on the sordid tale of Hilly Hsu

Jeff Jacoby in the Boston Globe this morning… a few clips, anyway, for discussion…:

For most Americans, positive developments in Iraq are very welcome. But good news is bad news for the Democratic left, where opposition to the war has become an emotional investment in defeat. House majority whip Jim Clyburn of South Carolina was asked by the Washington Post what Democrats would think if Petraeus reports next month that the war is going well. “That would be a real big problem for us,” Clyburn candidly replied.

…

The intensity of the left’s determination to abandon Iraq was reflected in the reaction to a single line in Hillary Clinton’s speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars last week. “We’ve begun to change tactics in Iraq,” she said, referring to the surge, “and in some areas, particularly al-Anbar province, it’s working.”

That mild comment instantly drew fire from Clinton’s Democratic rivals. John Edwards’s campaign manager, David Bonior, warned her against “undermining the effort in the Congress to end this war.” New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, another presidential hopeful, piled on: “The surge is not working. I do not give President Bush the same credit on Iraq that Hillary does.” When Barack Obama addressed the VFW one day later, he stuck to the defeatists’ script. “Obama Sees a ‘Complete Failure’ in Iraq,” The New York Times headlined its report on Aug. 22.

…

Today the left insists on defeat in Iraq. It beats up any Democrat who strays off-message. It treats good news from the front as “a real big problem.” Is that any way to win an election? In the short term, maybe. But we’re in the midst of a long-term war — one that Americans don’t want to lose

These are points that David and I have both made here on several occasions.  It’s a refrain that has become almost universal anywhere but the Democratic Underground and on Daily Kos.

But what interests me about this article the most, is a historical note which is also a warning to the Democrats:

That changed after Vietnam, where the Democratic left insisted on defeat and got its way, only to lose voters’ trust on national security for a long time thereafter.

Frankly, Jimmy Carter didn’t help matters much, either, but the point is taken. That way lies George McGovern for example.  Indeed; in my view the kind of non thinking that caused our withdrawal from Vietnam, is precisely the same kind of thinking that led to the foreign policy disaster that was Jimmy Carter.

What can be said about Jimmy Carter who led us into disaster, and then blamed the American people for it?  What can be said about a party that is heading the prayer mat every single night, for our defeat?

My friends, the lesson of the ’72 election, and the disaster that was Jimmy Carter, is that the American people detest a loser.  As General George Patton commented:

“Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser. Americans despise cowards. Americans play to win – all the time. I wouldn’t give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed. That’s why Americans have never lost, nor ever will lose, a war. The very thought of losing is hateful to an American.”

The idea that such a person would claim leadership of this country, Who would it as a part of their political history insist on leading us down the road of defeat, must on its face be considered even more hateful to an American.

But more… The dangers presented to both America individually and the world as a whole, as a result of America’s losing as the democrats currently council us to do, are two gruesome to seriously consider.  And on what basis would they counsel us so?  So that they might gain political power.

if as general Patton suggests, America it’s a loser, what should they feel about a supposed the leader who consuls us that we should lose ?
I submit that America cannot subject itself to such “leadership” in these times.

Hmmm.

Captain Ed, and James Joyner both note that Richard Jewel has died… kidney trouble, and complications from diabetes,  apparently. He was only 44.

Richard Jewell will always stand up my mind is a prime example  of how someone’s reputation can be damaged by a press bent on doing precisely that.  Ed suggests (amazingly) that the New York Times got one right, here:

Richard A. Jewell, whose transformation from heroic security guard to Olympic bombing suspect and back again came to symbolize the excesses of law enforcement and the news media, died Wednesday at his home in Woodbury, Ga. He was 44. …The heavy-set Mr. Jewell, with a country drawl and a deferential manner, became an instant celebrity after a bomb exploded in Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta in the early hours of July 27, 1996, at the midpoint of the Summer Games. The explosion, which propelled hundreds of nails through the darkness, killed one woman, injured 111 people and changed the mood of the Olympiad.

Only minutes earlier, Mr. Jewell, who was working a temporary job as a guard, had spotted the abandoned green knapsack that contained the bomb, called it to the attention of the police, and started moving visitors away from the area. He was praised for the quick thinking that presumably saved lives.

But three days later, he found himself identified in an article in The Atlanta Journal as the focus of police attention, leading to several searches of his apartment and surveillance by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and by reporters who set upon him, he would later say, “like piranha on a bleeding cow.”

What had Jewell done to attract suspicion? Ironically, he had performed too well in his role as a security guard. He noticed the backpack by the bench and quickly determined that it could be a threat. After inadvertently changing the position of the backpack — which thwarted the bomber, whose shaped charge went up and not out — he started clearing people from the area as fast as he could before the bomb exploded. The nail-packed charge killed one woman, but if it hadn’t been for Jewell, many more would have been killed or injured.

Indeed.  Obviously what we’re talking about here is somebody with heroic quality about him.  At the risk of drawing too tight a comparison I will tell you that what happened to Mr. Jewell is one reason I get so very annoyed with the left and the press coming to precisely the wrong conclusions as regards our military.  The results within what I will call “the first circle” are similar.  (Picture circles in the pond after you toss a stone in) The ramifications of damaging the reputations of our troops, is far more reaching, of course.  However, I don’t think there’s a better example of the press leaping to the wrong conclusion and damaging the reputation of the subject with almost a gleeful ignorance than the case of Richard Jewell.

Alberto Gonzalez was never my idea of a conservative, not much of an administrator, and a horrid politician.  Still, people the sane side of Charles Schummer can view Gonzalez as a nice guy in the wrong job.

I’ll skip past John Ashcroft, whom the left hated because he went to church, to worship.  Leftards only approve of a church as a place to campaign, but never to worship.

So I get to the one and only Clinton attorney general, Janet “Butcher of Waco” Reno.  While I had remembered that Reno was one vindicative bitch, I had forgot just how mean Reno was.  Ann Coulter summarizes Reno’s list of dead, persecuted, kidnapped and wrongly imprisoned victims. It extends way beyond the Davidians and Elian Gonzales, and include: Grant Snowden, Yankel Rosenbaum and the late Richard Jewell.

Mrs. Clinton said of Gonzalez “”[The] buck should stop somewhere.”  Yet the buck never stopped on Mrs. Cllinton hand picked choice, Reno.

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[The democrats are] thinking of making it a misdemeanor to be a US Senator or Member of Congress.

Then all of the Republicans will be forced to resign. The Democrats, en masse, will announce that they deeply apologize, but that the offense has no bearing on their ability to continue doing the job the American people expect them to do

Blackhedd, Red State.

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As to the consensus within the scientific community on the theory of anthropogenic global warming, there simplly isn’t any.   So reports Michael Asher:

Of 528 total papers on climate change, only 38 (7%) gave an explicit endorsement of the consensus. If one considers “implicit” endorsement (accepting the consensus without explicit statement), the figure rises to 45%. However, while only 32 papers (6%) reject the consensus outright, the largest category  (48%) are neutral papers, refusing to either accept or reject the hypothesis.  This is no “consensus.”

While Al Gore may beiieve, err profess, that the debate over anthopogenic global warming is ‘over”,  real scientists are still debating the subject.   Where do you think we should tell Gore to put his hockey stick?  

The Jawa report, yesterday:

Last April, the Thai government passed a law banning open-field trials of genetically-modified (GM) crops. Greenpeace was elated.

Recently, it was reported that the Agriculture and Cooperatives Ministry was going to seek cabinet approval for a lifting of the ban on open-field trials of transgenic crops. Assuredly, Greenpeace was not amused and reacted by dumping tons of papayas at the entrance to the ministry.

Three truck loads of transgenic papayas sent the message to the ministry that Greenpeace wanted the ban to continue. It was believed that public and political support to keep the ban would follow the papaya protest. But it wasn’t to be.

Passers-by and onlookers formed a flood of people grabbing up papayas.

The only way you could suggest that the stunt backfired on Greenpeace, is if you thought the Greenpeace actually gave a damn about what the average citizen thinks.   or, for that matter, what happens to the average citizen when their policies are followed.  How many people died because of the ban on DDT, for example?

Because of other commitments, today, I was unable to comment on this in a timely fashion. Perhaps it’s a good thing I didn’t, because the story updated itself, getting even better. I’ll cut right to the update :

WASHINGTON -AP- Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton will give to charity the $23,000 in donations she has received from a fundraiser who is wanted in California for failing to appear for sentencing on a 1991 grand theft charge.

The decision came Wednesday as other Democrats began distancing themselves from Norman Hsu, whose legal encounters and links to other Democratic donors have drawn public scrutiny in the past two days.

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., also planned to turn over Hsu contributions to his 2004 presidential campaign to charity. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., Al Franken, a Senate candidate in Minnesota, Reps. Michael Honda and Doris Matsui of California and Rep. Joe Sestak of Pennsylvania said they would divest their campaigns of Hsu’s donations as well.

And where were these donations ultimately coming from? Here. (PDF)

Let’s dig into this just a little bit, by showing you where this guy’s money is going… Here is a string of donations you have to see to believe. The total amounts to a little over a quarter million dollars, since 2004. Mind you, that’s just what’s above the surface. We don’t know what’s going on underneath.
Ladies and gentlemen, I’d like you to seriously consider several points

• First of all, what do you suppose the possibility of any of these people… John Kerry, Barbara Boxer, Al Franken, and so on… turning in that money to charity, if they hadn’t gotten caught?
• John Edwards, just recently had two similarly back away from a donation given his presidential campaign. He also claimed he was going to give the money to charity , but did not.
• The questions regarding the origins of the monies from China in the 2000 and 2004 election cycles were never properly answered. Those contributions that Hsu’s name is attached to suddenly started appearing, after the story about communist China’s involvement in funding the democratic party were quietly buried following the 2004 cycle. The timing of Norman Hsu’s appearance would seem suspect.. at least enough to raise a few eyebrows.

I’m sure this is going to be with us for a while, this story, at least as long as it takes for the mainstream media to bury it, again.

Addendum:  (David L)  Did da know, dey got calculators in Minnesota?  Ed Morrissey, Captain’s Quarters does the math.   While Mrs. Clinton is donating some of Hsu’s money to charity, she is keeping a large chunk of it.   The New York Times, notes the donation but forgets to mention the total.

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This would  be Molly…on her back, mouth wide open, on the bed, in front of the TV, reacting to the batteries in the TV remote being worn out again.

Just one of those chance shots.
Too bad, really, that I had the wrong camera in hand when this shot came along… this was done on my phone.

The Federal election commission, today put up a press release which I found interesting..interesting enough that I will forward it along in total, below the fold:

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