Outside The Beltway : “Law & Order” Star Jerry Orbach Dies

Outside The Beltway notes an ABC report that Jerry Orbach has diied of cancer. He was 69.

Sad. Always rather liked him, even though I didn’t watch the show much.

Outside The Beltway notes an ABC report that Jerry Orbach has diied of cancer. He was 69.

Sad. Always rather liked him, even though I didn’t watch the show much.

WaPo Is trying WAY too hard to come up with something, ANYTHING to throw at President Bush. Fellow Blogspotter Steve Sturm seems to agree.

The United States has committed $35 million (out of a total of $100 million in worldwide pledges of international aid), 9 military planes filled with relief supplies, and has set up a regional support center at a US Air Force Base in Thailand, which will be manned with US Marines. In addition to this, there are millions more dollars in contributions from Americans pouring into the bank accounts of relief groups worldwide.

Yet, what does the Washington Post decide to highlight in a Page A1 article?. Complaints about Bush not taking a more visible role! Not what we ARE doing, but what Bush is supposedly not doing. Considering US aid already dwarfs any other country’s contributions, the writers can’t fault Bush for the substance of his response, so they attack him because he hasn’t rushed back to Washington, because he hasn’t gone on TV to deliver a Clinton-esque “I feel your pain” speech.

I guess I can’t say that any better.
I’d add, however a question. Let’s say Mr. Bush took a more visible role. What would the charge be?
“Why, he’s just trying to make political points off the deaths of 100 thousand people.”

You KNOW it’s what they’d say about it.

As usual, there’s an interesting discussion going on over at
QandO , this time regarding the idiot I mentioned yesterday, Jan Egeland, and his comments about how we’re being stigy when it comes to funding the UN. 

One chap pipes up and says he charge was pretty even handed against ALL western countries. To which I responded:

Even handed?
Let’s see, here.
The US is already up to $35 milion to the UN as of this morning.

Historically, the US pulls about 40% of the world’s relief freight, money wise, and that’s just with the UN and doesn’t include the private conbtributions, which by some estimates will triple that number.

France, on the other hand has thusfar managed to come up with $135,000 dollars. Sound ‘even handed’ to you?

Look, let’s call this what it is, shall we? We’re going to end up investing a billion dollars in getting things right over there again, all the while being harped on by the world socilaist debate society that we’re not givng them enough. When we get all done spending that billion, we’ll go right back to where we were before… them hating us for having the wealth and the means that saved their asses in the first place.

Already, we’re being blamed for causing the problem….

Another angle covered in an e-mail to my blog this morning, that I’ve not written up yet… the writer reminds us that the majority of the countries in question are heavily Muslim. I wonder how our aid efforts will play on that stage, and how it will affect the GWOT?”

Another thought; isn’t it interesting, that the first words out of the mouth of the vaunted UN isn’t “How can we best help these people with what we have, and what nations can bring what resources to the area”… no, what we first hear is we should be raising taxes so as to support the UN.

Sorry, that’s not going to sell with me.. and I suspect, most Americans.

Captain Ed has a few words to say on all of this, too.

So, Susan Sontag has died.

You will pardon me, please if I find it a little hard to come up with much in the way of sorrow for the woman’s passing.

Those needing a reason for my response should consider her words in the New Yorker, after the 9/11 attacks:

“The disconnect between last Tuesday’s monstrous dose of reality and the self-righteous drivel and outright deceptions being peddled by public figures and TV commentators is startling, depressing. The voices licensed to follow the event seem to have joined together in a campaign to infantilize the public. Where is the acknowledgment that this was not a “cowardly” attack on “civilization” or “liberty” or “humanity” or “the free world” but an attack on the world’s self-proclaimed superpower, undertaken as a consequence of specific American alliances and actions? How many citizens are aware of the ongoing American bombing of Iraq? And if the word “cowardly” is to be used, it might be more aptly applied to those who kill from beyond the range of retaliation, high in the sky, than to those willing to die themselves in order to kill others. In the matter of courage (a morally neutral virtue): whatever may be said of the perpetrators of Tuesday’s slaughter, they were not cowards.

Our leaders are bent on convincing us that everything is O.K. America is not afraid. Our spirit is unbroken, although this was a day that will live in infamy and America is now at war. But everything is not O.K. And this was not Pearl Harbor. We have a robotic President who assures us that America still stands tall. A wide spectrum of public figures, in and out of office, who are strongly opposed to the policies being pursued abroad by this Administration apparently feel free to say nothing more than that they stand united behind President Bush. A lot of thinking needs to be done, and perhaps is being done in Washington and elsewhere, about the ineptitude of American intelligence and counter-intelligence, about options available to American foreign policy, particularly in the Middle East, and about what constitutes a smart program of military defense. But the public is not being asked to bear much of the burden of reality. The unanimously applauded, self-congratulatory bromides of a Soviet Party Congress seemed contemptible. The unanimity of the sanctimonious, reality-concealing rhetoric spouted by American officials and media commentators in recent days seems, well, unworthy of a mature democracy.

Those in public office have let us know that they consider their task to be a manipulative one: confidence-building and grief management. Politics, the politics of a democracy?which entails disagreement, which promotes candor?has been replaced by psychotherapy. Let’s by all means grieve together. But let’s not be stupid together. A few shreds of historical awareness might help us understand what has just happened, and what may continue to happen. “Our country is strong,” we are told again and again. I for one don’t find this entirely consoling. Who doubts that America is strong? But that’s not all America has to be.

-Susan Sontag

I’m sorry she suffered cancer and died. Unlike some liberals talking about conservatives, I wished her none of what she suffered, and I find myself sorry for it, though I must in all logic wonder if she in her liberal delusions would be so generous in thought, toward such a backward person as a conservative.  I doubt it, based on my experience with liberals in general.

While that may be unfair to Sontag to lump her in with the extremist left that I often write about in these spaces, experience counsels that there’s not enough gap between them to fit water into, in the end.

I can only hope she has a firmer grip on reality from her newly acquired side of the veil than what she revealed to us as having on this side of it. Perhaps those already on the other side, as of the 9/11 attacks, will be good enough give her a few pointers on what she got wrong.

You’re offended by my remarks?
Let me check and see if I care. Wait a minute.

Ummmmmmm…. Nope.

Captain Ed has comments not unlike my own.

James at OTB is a little gentler. Too gentle, I think.

Mark Steyn:

“Last year, I was strolling down the boulevard de Maisonneuve in Montreal and saw across the street a Muslim woman, covered from head to toe in black, struggling home with her groceries past a ‘condom boutique’ whose front window was advertising massive discounts on a, er, item of useful gay-sex paraphernalia. I wish I’d had a digital camera: there, in a single image, were the internal contradictions of the multicultural society. It seems highly improbable to me that gay hedonism and creeping sharia can co-exist for long. As yesterday’s dispirited poll results implied, the modern multicultural state is really a nullity, a vacuum. The question is what’s likely to fill it.”

Likely, a war, Mark. Particularly, if we let the hard liners win in the Middle East now.  Sadly, in the case of Canada, they’re fostering such internal struggles, and fanning the flames of internal war, by putting both the Sha’ira and the homosexual lifestyle on equal legal ground.

I logged onto my page this morning, and my system sampled the TTLB lists. The data it returned is of course impossible… It shows Bit’sBlog as having a better reletive ranking than such fine blogs as GoDubya, Q&O Clayton Cramer, Signifying Nothng, Colorado Conservative, David Limbaugh, etc.

Based on these relative rankings, I must assume something weird is up at TTLB again.
I love the look of ‘Large Mammal’ next to my name, but I don’t believe a word of it.

The WaTi this morning is running a story about how the UN thinks we’re being ‘stingy’ on aid to the quake/tsunami aid efforts.

“The Bush administration yesterday pledged $15 million to Asian nations hit by a tsunami that has killed more than 22,500 people, although the United Nations’ humanitarian-aid chief called the donation “stingy.”
“The United States, at the president’s direction, will be a leading partner in one of the most significant relief, rescue and recovery challenges that the world has ever known,” said White House deputy press secretary Trent Duffy.
But U.N. Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland suggested that the United States and other Western nations were being “stingy” with relief funds, saying there would be more available if taxes were raised. ”

So,$15 million, particularly given the demonstrable corruption of the UN where money is concerned, isn’t enough for these socialists… and they want us to raise our taxes to deal with the UN’s financial demands.

But here’s how a socialist thinks, people…

“There are several donors who are less generous than before in a growing world economy,” he said, adding that politicians in the United States and Europe “believe that they are really burdening the taxpayers too much, and the taxpayers want to give less. It’s not true. They want to give more.”

Well, they’ve always had that chance. Why do such fund raising efforts require governmental involvement? The fact is, they don’t. People around the world can give f their own accord, assuming the government hasn’t taken it all already.

And Americans, by actual dollar count, are among the most generous, when you consider all the sources of funding… most of which is NON governmental funding.  Indeed, the White House points this up very well indeed.

“In response to Mr. Egeland’s comments, Mr. Duffy pointed out that the United States is “the largest contributor to international relief and aid efforts, not only through the government, but through charitable organizations. The American people are very giving.”

And in light of this, I’d like to ask Jan Egeland a question; What is the status of private, non-governmental giving to such relief… Including non-UN-based relief.. in other countries? Which is the most generous overall?  It’s a question the UN and it’s supporters will never answer.

Oh, and by the way… that $15 million pledged so far is not the end of the governmental involvement, either.

“Secretary of State Colin L. Powell hinted that the $15 million U.S. offer was only the first installment of a larger aid package to those countries devastated by 30-foot waves triggered by a massive underwater earthquake.
“We also have to see this not just as a one-time thing,” he said. “Some 20-plus thousand lives have been lost in a few moments, but the lingering effects will be there for years.
“The damage that was caused, the rebuilding of schools and other facilities will take time,” he added. “So you need a quick infusion to stabilize the situation, take care of those who have been injured, get immediate relief
supplies in, and then you begin planning for the longer haul.”

The bottom line here we we’re doing our part and more.
And the UN is being it’s usual self. Greedy, ungrateful, and anti-American.

And in light of THAT, we now see the UN for what it is; Not needed.

Do you recall the UN wanting to tax everyone in the world, particularly the US?
We’ve seen the corruption in Oil-For Food. Can you imagine the corruption not only possible, but likely, should any of their wet dreams of being able to tax us, come into being? 

Someone accused me yesterday of using this tragedy for my own political ends, when I mentioned that I’d not seen the UN becoming involved in the relief efforts there. Indeed, those not getting UN finding were first on the scene, and have been thusfar doing the majority of the work.
I’d like to ask those making that accusation against me to consider; What do you suppose the UN to be doing, when it uses this event to call for increased taxation on the US, to pay for UN programs?

Not that I expect an answer.

Q and O has more.

Update: So does Captain Ed, who says in part:

How despicable that Jan Egeland uses the deaths of at least 55,000 people to pursue his political ambitions. The UN undersecretary should already know these figures. He should also understand that when governments don’t steal everything they can from their citizens, the citizens can be trusted to do the right thing with their money. Egeland’s sneering Eurocentrism symbolizes everything that is wrong with the UN: politics over people, ideology over humanity. Egeland provides yet another reason for the US to stop paying UN salaries until they clean house at Turtle Bay.

UPDATE:Now, Egeland claims ‘I was misrepresented’.
Bull. I saw the text of the press conference. He wasn’t misrepresented at all.
It’s what he said. And based on the fact that what he said is very consistant with UN policy, one can only assume it’s what he meant…. and I’m not buying the rather hasty and half-hearted, butt -covering retraction now.

That quake in Sumatra, that resulted in all those Tsunamis is apparently responsible for Mt. St. Helens being back on the watch list Here’s a live shot from 5 miles out. Apparently the USFS has the area closed down… nobody’s getting any closer than the ranger station where this camera is.

Hints:
*You may get a version of this picture that’s cached on your system. If the time and date in the picture isn’t current, refresh the page by hitting F5.
* If the frame is dark, it’s nighttime there.

The Red Cross is putting together relief efforts in the Ring of Fire, for all hte Tsunami victims. Death estimates range to 20,000 people at the moment, and my take is we’ll see thtat rise. The Red Cross of course needs funds to do their thing and are taking donations. They’re doing that here, while they get their stuff going.

Meanwhile, I note a rather dramatic silence from the UN on all of this.
Hey, Kofi… is it only stuff you and your kid can make money on that you actually respond to?

Update:

New info, apparently posted at Michele Malkin’s place after my original comments.

Interesting that this word had to come from, of all places, the Hindustan Times.

And as Michele points up; Let’s hope the ‘help’ provided look better than what hey’ve been up to with the Congolese.

I wonder if the UN knows it’s butt is on the line, here.

Power Line notes the Times is still trying to push this bogus ‘uparmor’ issue. Gee.. the Times stretching the truth to make an attack on the Bush administration. Gee, who’d have thought?

But unlike he who doesn’t need the links, and unlike Jon @ Q&O, who incredibly, seems to agree with the Times on the Armor issue, I note that the bit with the uparmor issue is one part of many points about which the Times is lying.

Again, big shock.

But I wonder if Jon actually read the Powerline article.

Given the holiday, and the subject, I’ve posted this coming weekend’s Bit’s Bit early in the long-form page. It’s called A BitHead’s New Year: A reluctant visit to an old friend

It’s actually one I wrote a few years ago and for some reason never posted. I think you’ll enjoy it though. I hope so, anyway.

I commented last in last week’s Bit’s Bit week that I took the pics of the neighborhood display for fear that it’d be gone because of one sour apple. The Arizona Republic today reports on just such a happeneing in the Scottsdale area.

All it takes is one grinch.

A while ago, I commented on one Judge Paul Friedman, incidentally to his releasing Hinkley for unsupervised visits. I suggested at the time he was letting politics into his rulings.  A fresh article in .WorldNetDaily suggests hishonorless is making this kind of ‘make the world safe for the far left’ ruling a bit of a habit.

Judge Paul Friedman upheld the military’s conviction of former Army specialist Michael New, who refused to don the U.N. cap and shoulder patch and to serve in a peacekeeping mission in Macedonia nearly 10 years ago, the New York Sun reported.

This is an intensely bad move, and should be overtruned… and it does look like this will be appealed.

I knew when I saw the quake in Antartica that the other shoe wasn’t far from dropping.  I can’t say I’ve ever been quite so disturbed about being right, before.

Current estimates as of just now, are 10,000 dead, whith numbers being projected far higher.

Here’s the USGS data