Fantasy Land

QandO points up this morning that

Teresa Heinz Kerry has broken her silence of weeks to wade into the fray about her husband’s VN service and war-protesting. Perhaps she shouldn’t have:

“I believe that discussions or attacks on [my husband’s] service undermine the peace of mind not only of Vietnam veterans but of those now fighting for their country,” she told the Dayton Daily News.
“Let us hope that if they volunteer for service their reviews are not going to be so nefarious in the future,” she added.

I can’t stop laughing long enough to write a serious comment.
Q&O has lots on the subject, though.

Michelle Malkin points out this morning:

* O’Neill voted for Al Gore in 2000;
* he has described President Bush to several friends as an ’empty suit;’
* of the leading candidates for national office, regardless of party, his favorite is Sen. John Edwards.”

And… of all things she points out these facts are being related in two of the most left-wing papers in the country. Can it be that the left outside the DNC inner circle are starting to admit that the Kerry ‘nam story has serious legs?

A year of O&O already?

Seems like only yesterday I stated pounding on Henke’s posts. (GRIN)

Seriously… quite an accomplishment in a year, guys. Best of luck.

Update: So is Tom Kohl’s Blog… as of the 22nd. Best wishes to Tom, as well. Sorry I missed it, Tom. I’m slightly red-faced, here… I’m usually better than that.(sigh)

I have been making lots of noise recently about moving off Blogspot.
Now, I’m less than sure on this. Blogspot, it appears is trying something rather new. they’re offering a pay scale for running ads on free Blogspot Blogs, and I’ve made an application to the program. It may not be worth much, but we’ll see what happens.

Look, I hodl no illusions of getting rich, here. If it pays my beer tab, it’ll be interesting. At the moment, it would appear I don’t have a whole lot to lose by trying it.  Of course if it does amount to some cash, it may be worth the risk to start a blog on my own domain.  We’ll see about THAT, too.

I’ll keep you posted, of course.

“MOSCOW (AP) – One of two Russian airliners that crashed nearly simultaneously was brought down by a terrorist act, officials said Friday, after finding traces of explosives in the plane’s wreckage. A Web site connected to Islamic militants claimed the action was connected to Russia’s fight against Chechen separatists.”

Of all of this, one thought keeps floating around in the back of my head; Interesting that we’ve had no further attacks here at home. This seems to me to underline our need NOT to under-estimate the job that W is doing on the homeland security front. Do we really want to change away from the curent strategy?

Mona Charen says today

“John Kerry played a leading role in curdling this country’s self-image and, in a long senate career, he has rarely voted to defend the country. His salute is insulting.”

Good read, this.

BBC NEWS, apparently missing totally the irony, reports today on artwork being tossed in the trash by a cleaner because it looked like trash. 

I think I’ll just leave this one alone.

Robert Novak‘s new column seems to poke some serious holes in Kerry’s image….

NEW YORK — Retired Rear Adm. William L. Schachte Jr. said Thursday in his first on-the-record interview about the Swift boat veterans dispute that “I was absolutely in the skimmer” in the early morning on Dec. 2, 1968, when Lt. (j.g.) John Kerry was involved in an incident which led to his first Purple Heart.

“Kerry nicked himself with a M-79 (grenade launcher),” Schachte said in a telephone interview from his home in Charleston, S.C. He said, “Kerry requested a Purple Heart.”

I have been saying to the enviro-nuts… sit back and wait until the technology comes along to deal with this stuff… it takes time. Well, looks like I was right, if we can trust ths story from New South Wales.

A team of Australian scientists predicts that a revolutionary new way to harness the power of the sun to extract clean and almost unlimited energy supplies from water will be a reality within seven years.

Using special titanium oxide ceramics that harvest sunlight and split water to produce hydrogen fuel, the researchers say it will then be a simple engineering exercise to make an energy-harvesting device with no moving parts and emitting no greenhouse gases or pollutants.

It would be the cheapest, cleanest and most abundant energy source ever developed: the main by-products would be oxygen and water. Rooftop panels placed on 1.6 million houses, for example, could supply Australia’s entire energy needs.

“This is potentially huge, with a market the size of all the existing markets for coal, oil and gas combined,” says Professor Janusz Nowotny, who with Professor Chris Sorrell is leading a solar hydrogen research project at the University of NSW Centre for Materials and Energy Conversion. The team is thought to be the most advanced in developing the cheap, light-sensitive materials that will be the basis of the technology.

“Based on our research results, we know we are on the right track and with the right support we now estimate that we can deliver a new material within seven years,” says Nowotny.

Now; there are some safety issues with this stuff in an automotive environment that still need to be worked out, in my view. But the auto makers are all over it, already.

A tip of BitsBallcap to Dean Esmay.

As I go to post this, a thought occurrs; what will the environuts do when they can no longer bitch about SUV’s and gas milage? (Snicker… I’m sure they’ll find something)

Well, I’m a litle annoyed this morning, but at least I have an answer for a question that’s been bugging me about my old site.

Last night, I moved most of my in-story graphics to my Roadrunner server. Trouble is, I find that server is a little balky this morning, and most of my stuff isn’t showing up as it should. I’ll look at tihs today.

But it looks like the reason my old site never really got the hitcounts I wanted is because the stupid thing simply isn’t fast enough. (Shrug) This is going to push me to geting a hosting arrangement a bit faster than I’d planned, I think.

I’ve noted that Google finally has all of my long form stuff in the database via the BitsBits site, so I have taken down all of the old site now. I’ll be using that space to support graphics for this blog. I won’t hide form you that things were a might tight on space around here.

That’ll help me out a lot. You likely won’t see any changes, here because of it. I make mention of it, though because many people who are doing research on John Kerry are finding my old site through Google and Dogpile and AltaVista and whatnot, and may wonder why the links are dead.

Well, now they know.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Some 1.3 million Americans slid into poverty in 2003 as the ranks of the poor rose 4 percent to 35.9 million, with children and blacks worse off than most, the U.S. government said on Thursday in a report sure to fuel Democratic criticism of President Bush.

So why all the talk about poverty?
Check the calander, with reference to the first Tuesday in November, and the fact that there isn’t a Democrat in the White House. Funny how poverty isn’t a word you’ll her at any other time than this.

Well, let’s be generous, and give the story the benefit of the doubt, for just a moment. Let’s see what defines ‘poverty’ in America, shall we?

The fact is that ‘poverty’ is not an absolute level, but an arbitrary one set by Democrats wishing to remain in power.

Walter Williams points out:

“Seventy percent of “poor” households own a car; 27 percent own two or more cars. Ninety-seven percent have a color television; nearly half own two or more televisions. Two-thirds of “poor” households have air conditioning. By contrast, 30 years ago, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning. America’s “poor” people aren’t hungry, either. In fact, “poor” people are more likely to be overweight than higher-income people. The average consumption of proteins, vitamins and minerals is virtually the same for poor as middle-income children, and in most cases above government recommended minimums. ”

Williams then concludes:

“Real material poverty, to any significant degree, simply does not exist in the United States. The bulk of our “poor” live under conditions that would have been judged comfortable or even well-off a few generations ago. The nonsense maxim that “the rich get richer and the poor get poorer” just doesn’t stand up to the evidence. The fact is everyone has become richer.”

You’ll note in the story linked that Mr. Kerry is concerned that more money be spent on poverty. However, as Thomas Sowell has noted:

“The assumption that spending more of the taxpayers’ money will make things better has survived all kinds of evidence that it has made things worse. The black family—which survived slavery, discrimination, poverty, wars and depressions—began to come apart as the federal government moved in with its well-financed programs to “help.”

But this is exactly what Kerry is proposing we do. It’s the same thing as has been proposed by every Democrat Since LBJ…. whose failed policies dumped millions upon millions of dollars into ‘poverty’ and have not eradicatied it. The reason, as I say is the definition of poverty keeps getting moved up so as to allow for poverty pimps to use your money and mine to buy votes.

In short, Mr. Kerry, like so many other Democrats with an utter void of qualifications, and a deep and abiding void of real answers to the real problems we face, has become a poverty pimp.

Update: Boortz has some similar thoughts, and some added details.

Billy Beck makes an interesting point this afternoon. He points to a question that the Instant one asks, and then answers it:

“Glenn Reynolds, in the item linked below, asks, “Question: Was the press more professional decades ago, or was it just harder to tell when they cheated?”

Would I be a crashing bore if I mentioned the name of Walter Duranty?

I would suggest looking at Reynolds’ question like this: could Duranty have gotten away with what he did in the 30’s if a worldwide network of insignificant nobodies had been able to essentially talk back to and reject the presumption of a Duranty (and a New York Times) that they were, in fact, insignificant nobodies?…..

He goes on to compare, favorably, the internet, to the ground shift that occurred at Gutenberg.

Now, this is an interesting comparison. And he’s right, so far, I think;

The reaction of the Mainstream Press is perhaps the biggest indication of this situation. And that worried reaction, at least from their viewpoint, is perhaps justified. A look at the situation John Kerry finds himself in just now is instructive; Can you imagine that the press, and it’s thinly veiled support for Kerry, would have found itself being routed around, with the result being Kerry behind in the polling, if the net in general, and Blogs in particular, didn’t exist?

I know I can’t.

However, Beck tries to take it a step farther, and fails, I think:

“The fact is that “authority” is an individual matter”

Well, no…You’re warm, here, Billy, but not quite spot on.

Reconsider the revolution that was Gutenberg. Wasn’t that revolution centered around the understanding and the acknowledgement of an authority? After all, was not the biggest output of the presses of Gutenberg, The Bible? Granted that there was a great deal of other information that also flowed from the presses. But the biggest was the idea of getting that understanding out to the people… an idea Martin Luther himself thought paramount… and Pope Leo thought important enough to set fire to. As a result Luther perhaps better than anyone of his day understood how a lack of correct information could and did subrogate the under-informed.

Luther was bold enough to assert that religion was a personal choice,and a personal relationship between God and man was needful… and by that choice first, (though other bindigs followed) you were bound into the group of Christians. This concept of man as an individual within a group…a duality if you will, was in itself a revolution. Gutenberg’s printings of the Bible did much to extend and complete this revolution, because it brought an understanding of the scripture to the common man, whereas before that, such understandings among the common man were at best rare.  The pope lost that authority in such matters because by way of the information the presses put out, the people found out the real story, and made their choices accordingly. Thus was the Pope reduced from the singular voice of auhtority, to the status of one voice among many.

(For my part, this is by no means an idle connection to Luther… I’ve been re-reading “The Freedom Of the Christian” in the past week. Beck mention of Gutenburg made the ‘switch click’ for me.)

All this bottom lines at a rather different conclusion than Billy’s.

Even in the secular world, authority of ANY kind, is ultimately a group thing, as are all culturally awarded and ascribed roles. Where the individual gets into the act is decideing if they’re to be part of the group calling ‘x’ an athority.

With that relationship a little more tightly drawn, we can get back to Glenn’s question and the first part of Billy’s answer, then;

The so-called mainstream press has, I think lost it’s authority status because so many individuals have decided to seperate themselves from the group that considers them so.  This transition is part and parcel of the transition away from what passes for liberalism in the west.  And it’s occurring because the press has demonstrably abused that authority. The net has given the people that understanding and that opportunity.

Thus was the “mainstream press” reduced from the singular voice of authority, to the status of one voice among many.

Personally, I’m rather tickled at being one of those voices.

Tom Kohl.. (who by the way, has applied a nice fresh look to his website!) ..notes the smell of death on John Kerry’s run for the White House… and of greater import, he points to signs his supporters are, too.

“If the contender was to have any chance in November, he should have been leading by 5+ points by now. Perhaps his supporters are aware of that, and perhaps this is why they are they are screaming louder and louder hoping that they will scare the numbers away. “

He cites and links a few of the bigger examples. Check it out.

Fox News today is reporting:

“CHICAGO — A woman claims in a lawsuit that William Kennedy Smith (search), a member of the prominent Kennedy family, sexually assaulted her in 1999, and her lawyer said Thursday that she did not come forward at the time because she was intimidated by his wealth and connections.”

Well, here we go again. Why couldn’t we have jailed this creep for life the last time?

Oh… a Kennedy. What was I thinking….