Ruh Roh, Ruke…. Ruh Roh….

iowahawk has outdone themselves.

The Ward Churchill saga continues on a downward spiral.

Michelle Malkin displays some rather interesting artwork, thta looks rather strangely like that of other folks.

The Kerry Spot on National Review Online quotes a rather annoyed Newt:

Ward Churchill is a viciously anti-American demagogue. He has every right to free speech, and I support his free speech… We should give him free speech by not paying him.
…
The question here, is ‘What obligation does society have to fund its own sickness?’

We ought to say to campuses, it’s over…We should say to state legislatures, why are you making us pay for this? Boards of regents are artificial constructs of state law. Tenure is an artificial social construct. Tenure did not exist before the twentieth century, and we had free speech before then. You could introduce a bill that says, proof that you’re anti-American is grounds for dismissal.

Quite correct.

But for Mr. Churchill, I’d say a jailcell would be the best place.
Or DNC Chair. I suppose there to be somehting of a simalie there somewhere.

You Big Mouth, You! has been doing a number of extended posts on the Chinese economy. the nut of it:

” I’m one of a number of pundits, a small number to be sure, that hold a contrarian view of the Chinese economy. Most opinions that you will read about China suggest that the nation is on the verge of becoming a world economic super power, an awakening giant. I have opined here and elsewhere that China today more closely resembles a Ponzi scheme, not a burgeoning economy. ”

I link the Front door becuase there’s acutally quite a number of posts there on this topic… you would be well advised to scrool down and search within the page.

Billy Beck makes mention this morning of the Guckert thing, and says:

It’s not like GanGuckertnon made off with two thousand FBI files or anything.

True.

Normally, this wouldn’t be enough to trip my “blog this” trigger. But I did get to thinking about this again, as a result of his comments, and I wanted to capture the thought;

The complaint here is that the guy was not an ‘official Journalist’, and that Talon isn’t really a news service.

Actually, Talon News Service has been around online for several years… I take their feeds here though I seldom use them; they’re generally behind the ball by a couple days.

But, in looking at the MSM reaction to this story, I can’t help but consider that much of Gannon story is that the MSM is pissed People in Pajamas are invading their private club. Think; Would the reaction have been any different had some right-side blogger been asking such questions?  Well, Gannon was as close to being a right-side Blogger as no matter, given he worked for an online service.  So are Bloggers to be Gannon’ed in the future if they try to attend press conferences? Is this just a turf war, at the root of it?

Well, no. It’s most certainly that, with all the dangerous implications for Bloggers and editorial freedom and information freedom both now and in future….but it’s more… far more;

There’s bias here as well in the MSM, as we’ve always known.. as Billy does a good job of pointing out.  Let’s Demonstrate this bias further. Postulate a John Kerry Administration (Shudder) with Left Side Bloggers asking Gannon-like questions. Think for a second this wouldn’t be hailed as a GOOD thing by the MSM? Do you think for one hot second they’d be raising this much stink?

And by the way; If the Democrats (and I include the MSM in this) had anything else to be yelling about, don’t you think they WOULD be?

What of it, my fellow Bloggers? Do you see this case limiting our access to news makers, and thereby limiting the informational flow to the Public? Must that informational flow always be limited to the small select few?

WASHINGTON (AP) –: ” The economy grew at a solid 3.8 percent annual rate in the final quarter of 2004 – stronger than previously estimated- and an encouraging sign that the business expansion was firmly entrenched at the start of the new year.”

Is THIS the massive economic failure that the Leftist moonbats keep screaming about?

Horowitz has a new website, and it’s a winner.  It’s called Discover the Network

The Big Trunk, over at Power Line asks a question I have gotten rather a lot over the last few years:

As a distant lover of Israel, I have been genuinely puzzled by its failure to produce a statesman equal to the challenges faced by the country over the past 20 years. In every area of modern life the country boasts a genius that on a per capita basis must be unrivaled. Yet on the world stage its politicians seem almost retarded.

The reaction is understandable, and the points are taken, but the answer Trunk seeks is simple enough;

Statesmen, in the end, are a product of peace, and the military and industrial power behind the voice to maintain such peace. ,

Military and some industrial power, Israel certainly has had each over it’s life.  But, I fear that they are the victims of their own peaceful intentions; never having, and certainly not using, any more military power than needed to secure the country; certainly not enough to deter attacks. And in any event, as we discovered on 9/11, overall might, means little in terms of deterence against the kind of Arab Terrorists Israel’s been fighting.

Israel has been fighting what amounts to a holding action against Arab terrorists bent on their destruction for over 50 years. Such a state of continuous war being thrust upon them does not create a situation from which what we call statesmen emerge.

As a reinforcement for my thought; consider the other side of the long war Israel had thrust upon them; who and when was the last Arab statesman you’ve heard of?

For statesmen to come forward, the war needs be won first.

In watching the changes in Middle East following Mr. Bush’s actions against the Extremists, I suspect we’re closer to that day than we’ve been in many decades. Witnes the recent back-peddling by Syria for example, where a lot of the suport for Terrorism has been coming from. And so, I figure 15 years or so hence, Trunk will have his Israeli statesmen… and we’ll also see Arab statesmen as well.

Patrick Ruffini is back online with his own website. Check it out. It’s worth it.

Remember that Scen Cleaner on the British Telecom site I found a month or so back?Here ’tis again
Flash based.

Yeah, Billy I heard about that one.

Now, perhaps, you better understand why MSNBC is not on my ‘need to watch’ list. Matthews is a major reason.

At Power Line, Decon wonders how far the Democrats will sink into the Litmus test.

Judge Luttig’s father was murdered, and liberals may be poised to argue that this fact would render him impermissibly biased in death penalty cases (but doesn’t he hear such cases now as a U.S. Court of Appeals judge?) Liebau notes that, “under this reasoning, every potential female justice should be asked whether she’s ever had an abortion — because abortion cases would come up before the Court. And minority candidates would have to discuss how/whether they ever felt discriminated against.” Indeed, it would be appropriate to investigate whether, or to what extent, minority nominees have benefited personally from affirmative action.

Memo to Senate Democrats: Are you really sure you wanna go down that road?

I just spent the last half hour trying to clean up a mess on this site.
(sigh)
Not sure where the issue is, but it looks OK at the moment.

Captain’s Quarters weighs in on the Schiavo case… a subject I’ve not Blogged about much.

Bill at INDC Journal points out a quote from Walid Jumblatt that brightens my day… and makes that of the naysayers all the darker.

After spending the day, working and taking care of some family health issues, my wife and I decided that it was time to take the Kids to a movie as a treat.  You know how it is; we’ve been concentrating on Donna’s Mom, given her health concerns, and getting her settled into her new situation. Trouble is, the kids more or less get ignored through this process.

So, as a reward for putting up with all of this we went to the 3D version of “The Polar Express” which both kids loved. ANd, frankly, it was more than I had expected, too. If the 3d version shows up in future, and you’ve not seen it, do so. Great stuff.

At any rate, as a result of that chain of events, I didn’t get to my mailbox until quite late last night. (Sorry, gang, the last few weeks has been a bloody nightmare, and geting my mail from the Bithead Box is perhaps a twice daily affair. Remember, I can only hit the box from home.) When I did finally get my mail at about 23:00 last night, I noticed a couple notes from Steve Orr, from the local dead tree news….The Chronic Democrat…. err… Democrat and Chronicle. (Ed- Be nice for a change, Bit)

Steve, it appears, is doing some local flavor on blogging in his Sunday column. I left him my phone number, and we’ll see.
I had wondered who it was from that domain that was checking out the Blog every day. Perhaps it’s Steve, though I doubt it.

Steve has done other web stories before…. like this one.

We didn’t hook up apparently in time for his deadline…. and being an old Radio hand I fully understand deadlines.  I told him by all means, let’s chat… and I’m sure we’ll hook up in future.

What I find interesting is that the local press is taking the time to examine locally generated and maintained websites to this extent. Has the web upset the applecart to that degree?
Hmmmm.