The Missouri Kidnappings: Beyond Reason

Now I don’t put too much faith the supposed Stockholm Syndrome.  Yet as Brian Masters writes, in the Daily Mail(UK) the case is simply “Beyond Reason:”

The case of Shawn Hornbeck is, so far, utterly baffling. 

Rescued by police from a four-year imprisonment in the house of a stranger, this normal, healthy, cheerful 15-year-old boy should be traumatised and stunted by his experience.

I think psychologists use the phrase Stockholm Syndrome to mean that they are baffled.   As am I.

NORTH COUNTY -North County Times – U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter’s long-shot bid for the 2008 GOP presidential nomination got a boost over the weekend when he emerged on top in a straw poll of Republican precinct committeemen in Arizona’s most-populated county.

Hunter, R-El Cajon, got 96 votes among the 458 ballots in the non-binding poll of Maricopa County party officials asked to list their first choice for president.

Hunter easily beat Arizona’s own U.S. Sen. John McCain, considered a front-runner in the GOP presidential race, who drew a comparatively paltry 50 votes. Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney came in second in Saturday’s poll with 82 first-place votes.

Campaigning in South Carolina on Monday, Hunter said he believes his long-held positions on two key national issues carried the day with the conservative Arizona Republicans from the county that includes Phoenix.

“It’s great news,” Hunter said during a telephone interview. “I think the message of a strong national defense and border security issues has resonated in Arizona.”

Yeah, well, what it also says… and Hunter is gracious enough not to… is that John McCain does NOT represent a strong national defense and border security issues. The “Gang of 14” nonsense didn’t set well, either, as I suggested it would not.

NOW, the issue is, do the Republicans run someone better qualified for his seat, or do we simply turn it over to the Democrats at the next election?

Mre. Pelosi promised to “drain the swamp.”  Not only has Mrs. Pelosi not drained the swamp, she is lost in it.   Rather than completing her promised one hundred hours of legislation, she is in San Francisco.  . 

So what is Mrs. Pelosi doing in San Francisco?  I had thought that Mrs. Pelosi had promised to  pass her critical one hundred hours worth of legislation.  I write this on January 16  Congress took office on January 4.  That is darn near two weeks and Mrs. Pelosi has yet to complete her one hundred hours of work.

From the San Francisco Chronicle

(01-15) 12:37 PST SAN FRANCISCO — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, returning to her hometown of San Francisco, strongly warned today that President Bush “should not abuse his power” with regard to troop escalation in the Iraq war and said it is the duty of Congress to “exercise oversight over his power.”

Oversight! Unlike Mrs. Pelosi, I have read the Constitution the United States.   No where in the Constituion is Congress given  oversight over the war powers of the President as Commander-in-Chief. 

Escalation!  What escalation?   We stepped over the line with about three hundred thousand troops.  We have had over one hundred fifty thousand troop in country within the last year.  Now the President is taking the troop level from about one hundred ten thousand to one one hundred thirty thousand.  Troop levels have flucuatated.   Now Mrs. Pelosi wants to call the lastest flucuation an escalation.  Give me a break.

“If the president doesn’t have a plan, Democrats will hold him accountable,”

Sure the President has a plan.  That is about what Mrs Pelosi and Jack Murtha are throwing a hissy fit.

“We have a plan, and he knows it,”

IF Mrs. Pelosi, the one woman Congress, has a plan for Iraq, it sure has escaped the attention of the talking pundits, ala Tim Russert, the entire MSM and Google.   If Mrs. Pelosi has a plan, nobody in the media is talking about it and I can’t find it.  Yet I am sure that Karl Rove with his telepathic powers has somehow divined Mrs. Pelosi’s plan and briefed the President.  Maybe Mrs. Pelosi needs to subpeona the appropriate PDB? 

Mrs. Pelosi do  you need a loan of a compass?  San Franciso is on the West Coast.  The House of Representatives is on the East Coast.

Update:  When Mrs. Pelosi returns from San Franciso, it would help if she would read the Washington Post:

The Framers did not establish a parliamentary system.

Hat Tip:  Paul, Poweriine.

Some short shots here as I shiver a bit from the cold:

* It occurs to me that Michael Devlin could run for Congress. He seems uniquely qualified. The True Crime Blog has some additions to that case, by the way, and has been feeding us hits all day, pretty much, since David put up his Devlin post. Here’s the return of the favor.

*Speaking of Hits, I see Memeorandum has again linked us. I’m grateful.  Between the two of them, we’ve had a outstanding day, hit-wise.
* The ice storm left a lot less ice than they were predicting in our part of the woods, but a bit more to the east of us in the Syracuse area. Apparently the ice caused a 30 car pileup on I-81 around Mattydale, and caused three deaths over to Senett which is around 20 miles this side of Syracuse, on US20. Could have been much much worse. The real deal, though is going to be when this cold snap breaks… which is when the wind will come up, and we’ll lose some trees… and power lines.

* Oops. Dd you notice that Paul Pelosi owns 17 million in DelMonte Stock? Yes, the same DelMonte exempted from Pelosi’s minimum wage hikes? John Hawkins did. So did Riehl and Bruce. Gee, now why would they want to exempt the company that they owned from that manditory pay hike? Do you suppose it was because they knew that company would do better, and likely wouldn’t hurt the workers?  Not through the 100 hours yet, and Pelosi already has a scandal on her hands… as if the ones the members under her provided were not enough. Culture of corrption, indeed.

(H/T photo:  Fox News )

[cue the Addams’ Family theme]

Ok the  photo a mug shot and mug shots look creepy.  This just plain looks creepy.   Non custodial kidnapping for companionship are rare but inherently strange stories.  Recall the Elizabeth Smart kidnapping.   It is not easy to understand such kidnapping where purported victim stays in plain sight.  I do not offer one.

The Shawn Hornbeck kidnapping appears to be even stranger than the Smart one.  Reallly hard to say, because families, for natural reasons, try to keep the details from ever emerging.

The victim appears to have had is own personal web page, complete with picture.   Apparently the kidnapper left the Hornbeck family messages on their web page.

Steve Huff runs CrimeBlog.US,  Huff may the the K.C. Johnson of the Hornbeck case.  In any case, Huff seems a very prudent and careful blogger who has assembled quite bit information on the case.

One, I don’t profess understand all the information Huff has gathered, and two I simply don’t care to try.   However don’t let me stop you from trying.

Where is the apology from Sen. Barbara Boxer to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice? Tony Snow called the senator’s question to Rice a “great leap backward for feminism.” And Tony nailed it. Feminists like Barbara Boxer want it both ways. They want abortion rights, they want women to have access to the workplace, but if the woman takes that freedom, does not marry, does not have children, evidently Boxer thinks that woman is unqualified to use her education, experience and judgment in her career. Now, according to Boxer, that woman has to have children to have her career. Sound confusing? Sure is. It is Boxer logic that only applies to one woman: a single, conservative black woman who happens to be secretary of state.

Boxer wouldn’t say to anybody else, you have to have kids to hold your job. She wouldn’t dream of saying that to a CEO or to a sales manager. But she thinks it’s OK to say it to a secretary of state because this particular woman secretary of state has supported a decision to go to war. Only when it comes to a conservative black woman would Boxer think to ask that question.

That’s John Gibson, who has nailed it, at last insofar as he is clearly seeing the double standard being applied, here.

But, Gibson says all he wants is an apology for Rice. That’s a start, but it falls short, in my view; I want Boxer’s resignation. She clearly is unqualfied for the position she holds if she is that disconnected from the people she’s supposed to be representing.

There are those who will suggest that this is a bit over the top. To them, I submit this is no less over the top than leftists cling for the resignation of conservatives convicted of far lesser sins…

Time to pack it in, Barbie.

(H/T photo:  BBC ) 

One of the conclusions of the Iraq Study Group(ISG) or the Baker-Hamilton Report is that we could achieve stability in Iraq by negotiating with our enemies like Syria and Iran.   The Telegraph (UK) exposes Baker-Hamilton as delusional.

Rather than desiring stability in Iraq, Iran is funding the instabiity:

In a further development, US intelligence has learnt that the Shia-led Islamic regime is backing Sunni insurgents in Iraq, as well as the murderous militia operated by its fellow Shia clerics.

Iran’s policy of pursuing “managed chaos” in Iraq is mainly conducted by the Revolutionary Guards’ Quds (Jerusalem) Force, the military’s foreign arm, which also supports the Shia Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Sunni Hamas in the Palestinian territories.

Well the president was asked to examine different options for Iraq.   It is a shame that Jim Baker, Lee Hamilton and company failed to produce any. 

More: Scott, Powerline.

FEDERAL WAY -The Olympian- The school board in this suburb south of Seattle has restricted showings of Al Gore’s movie on global warming, including requiring that it be balanced with an adequate opposing viewpoint.

The board also required Superintendent Tom Murphy to approve when the former vice president’s film, “An Inconvenient Truth,” can be presented.

The decision was sparked by complaints from parents who said their child was taking the film as fact after viewing it at school.

“Condoms don’t belong in school, and neither does Al Gore. He’s not a schoolteacher,” said Frosty Hardison, a parent of seven who doesn’t want the film shown at all.

And therein lies the crux of the matter: Parental choice. This propaganda flick put together by Gore and company has no relationship with fact whatsoever. And yet the school is teaching it as fact. Parental choice, in this case, should be the safety valve. But because it’s a government school, there is little in the way of choice.

 Which is of course why the left wants this film in schools… it is there they have a captive audience, of mush-minded early teens.  How better to propegate the liberal nonsense, than to teach it to kids when they’re young and impressionable?

Worked for Mao, and Castro.

Word about a new Book by Tom DeLay keeps showing up in my searches on various matters. IN the mail this morning, comes word that he’s due for a book release on March the 20th.  Apparently, they’re holding it under rather tight wraps until then. Unclear to me why they’d do that, given the usual book cycle afforded liberal authors, (Jimmy Carter, for example) where we hear leaks about the book for months in advance of it’s actual release date.

 No story I can link yet, either. Strange.

BAGHDAD, Iraq – AP-  Revolutionary Court were both hanged before dawn Monday, officials said, two weeks and two days after the former Iraqi dictator was executed in a chaotic scene that has drawn worldwide criticism.

Another case of slanted news.

Consider; Isn’t it equally true, that the hanging of Saddam drew worldwide cheers, and created celebrations over the whole world?

As for the scum they hung… well that’s another cause for celebration.  End of story.

Apparently, that story of the Yale singers being attacked for singing the national anthem in Nancy Pelosi’s hometown is still hot, out there

-AFP- Economists are hastily upgrading their forecasts for the US economy after a series of surprisingly strong reports suggesting the so-called “soft landing” may be over and growth is accelerating.

Over the past week, surprises have come in stronger-than-expected reports on US job creation, the trade balance and retail sales — all key contributors to economic activity.

Lehman Brothers chief US economist Ethan Harris on Friday boosted his forecast for fourth quarter 2006 growth to an annualized rate of 3.3 percent, a leap from the firm’s prior call for just 2.0 percent growth.

“After slowing in November, the economy seems to have regained its stride,” Harris said.

“With the last of the major data in, we are now revising fourth quarter GDP to an above-trend 3.3 percent. A wide range of indicators have been stronger than expected. Most important have been the strong consumption data and the surprising improvement in the trade balance.”

I have to tell you that this sounds to me rather suspiciously like the figures reported, which are now being revised, were unrealistically low so as to make Democrat victory easier in the most recent elections.

A very self-important college freshman attending a recent football game  took it upon himself to explain to a senior citizen sitting next to him why it was impossible for the older generation to understand his generation. “You grew up in a different world, actually an almost primitive one.” The student said, loud enough for many of those nearby to hear. “We, the young people of today, grew up with television, jet planes, space travel, men walking on the moon, our spaceships have visited Mars. We have nuclear energy, electric and hydrogen cars, computers with light-speed processing and…,” pausing to take another drink of beer.

The Senior took advantage of the break in the student’s litany and said, “You’re right, son. We didn’t have those things when we were young ……..so we invented them. Now, you arrogant little fart, what are you doing for the next generation?”

The applause was resounding.. I love senior citizens.

From Mike via e-mail…

Today is federal holiday, a unique one.   Today is Martin Luther King Day, the only oficial national holiday in honor of a single person.   George Washington and Abraham Lincoln are forced to share one holiday, President’s day.    Millions of living veterans are lumped together for Veterans Days.   Not even one of our nations most honored dead heros, have a singular holiday. 

So does this mean that King was the singular most  significant figure in American history?   And if so, why is there such dearth of King coverage and why are so many Americans so uninformed about King?

Consider this quote:

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

Anybody who dares to quote King or has the nerve to advance King’s vision of color blind society is denounced as a racist.   At one hand we profess to honor King, all the while we repudiate him.   No wonder King is such blank to so many and why his hoiliday is little more than day without mail.

(H/T photo:  Aspen Valley Film )

It seems everybody is blogging about Chuckles, a.k.a. Charles Williiams.  Hard to find anything unsaid about Chuckles. 

Five Iranians were picked by the U.S. military in Iraq.   Not much is being said about that.

Meanwhile on the Duke front, Dr Mellissa Clouthier does not quite call CNN anchorette Paula Zahn, pictured, a moron, not quite.  The doctoir does call Zahn a “dull-witted bottle-blond.”   Read K.C. Johnson.   The doctor’s point is well made.

Johnson knows quite a lot about the Duke faux rape case.   Zahn’s producers and CNN do not.   Maybe Zahn  should spend less time  getting her hair done and more time reading about what she reports.