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September 30, 2006

Death to America

Al Jazeera Action News Team

Even funnier (creepy funny) are the comments left on this thread finding the parody "offensive."

Hmmmmm...will Mad TV be the next object of calls to convert or die?

(h/t Cranky at Six Meat Buffet)

Posted by Darleen at 11:50 AM | Comments (1)

September 28, 2006

Sins of the father

Here's a family picture, circa early 1900's
front l/r George, Anna, Norris, Linsey. Back Ulysses, Robert Greenville
In the front, from left to right, George Click, Anna Haywood Click (my great-great grandmother) Norris Click, Linsey Click (my great-great grandfather). Back, Ulysses Samuel Click (my great grandfather) and Robert Greenville Click.

Not exactly a rich group of folk. Hardworking, but far from rich.

Clicks were brought to the New World, through England, in 1697 as bond slaves. They were sold to work on a Virginia plantation. Being a bond slave was not much different than a chattel slave except that bond slaves could "work off" the bond and earn their freedom.

It took approximately sixty years for my family to do so.

By the time of the first 1780 census, Clicks were living in Kentucky -- rural farmers, sawmill operators, coal miners and an occassional teacher (James Kenton Ellis). A good deal of the family still lives in Kentucky today.

Who knows where any of the descendents would be if the first bond slaves weren't brought and sold in the New World? Certainly some died in bondage, other descendents have had a hard scrapple life, from serving the Union in the Civil War through the Great Depression and all the vagaries that decades of time bring.

Click sawmill at the mouth of Arkansas Creek

But there comes a time when family history is but just an interesting, anecdotal look at a country's history, with no direct effect on an individual in 2006. It is an interesting tidbit that William Jennings Bryan wrote a "thank you letter" to James Bartley Click thanking him for riding his mule six miles to vote for him in the presidential election of 1896 when James was 106 years old, but my daughter's grades in college are entirely of her making.

So I have yet to understand the continued popularity of the so-called "slave reparations" movement, in the news yet again.

CHICAGO - Lawyers for slave descendants asked a federal appeals court Wednesday to revive a landmark reparations case that demands 17 of the nation's insurers and banks publicize and pay for their roles in the country's slave trade.

The case, which names Wall Street behemoths JP Morgan Chase & Co., Aetna Inc., Bank of America, Lehman Brothers and others, says the companies' predecessors issued loans to slave owners and, in some cases, owned, insured and transported slaves — all at a financial profit that helped ensure their success today.

"We were left in poverty. My family's hardship and free labor was not in vain," said Antoinette Harrell, a genealogist from Kentwood, La. who clutched raw cotton as she spoke inside federal court Wednesday.

No, Antoinette, you were not left in poverty, anymore than I was by our families' shared past as non-citizens. Slavery was pernicious and an admittedly permanent blot on our nations history. However, the institution of slavery was ubiquitous in all of human history from about the time humans formed rival tribes and raided each other for captives. Leave aside the fact that the institutions that are being targeted for "reparations" were engaged in an activity fully legal at the time, there is something unseemly about the demand from individuals who are free agents in American society calculating ...
...the current day "market value" of the company-owned slaves would be at least $850 million.
This less looks like mere acknowledgement of historical ties and more a case of unbridled greed (in the true meaning of the word "greed"... ie coveting the wealth of others).

And the "reparations" movement had better come to grips that, in accordance with their template, there are a lot of others in this country with as many family claims to wealth as theirs.

As a descendent of bond slaves and Union Civil War soldiers, I'd be happy to serve a lawsuit on the "reparations" movement to share their ill-gotten gains with me.

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Posted by Darleen at 07:42 AM | Comments (4)

September 27, 2006

Democrat Fairy Tales


by the Pulitzer prize winning Michael Ramirez

Posted by Darleen at 09:05 PM | Comments (1)

'Progressives' are clear

They are entirely unserious about Islamism and its threat to Western Civilization.

Read the NIE document. The key judgments are only four pages. Read it and no longer wonder why the anti-American elements of the Left gleefully seized on snippets that, in fuller reading, gave an impression the opposite of what the whole section actually says. "Progressives" continue to conflate and obfuscate these four pages and what they think others have said.

I have a challenge. Read the four pages and then reverse it. Imagine that post 9/11 America took the opposite path it did ... no toppling of the Taliban, no deposing of Saddam, no tearing down of the Gorelick wall between foreign and domestic intelligence. For example:

The loss of key leaders, particularly Usama Bin Ladin, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and al-Zarqawi, in rapid succession, probably would cause the group to fracture into smaller groups. Although like-minded individuals would endeavor to carry on the mission, the loss of these key leaders would exacerbate strains and disagreements. We assess that the resulting splinter groups would, at least for a time, pose a less serious threat to US interests than does al-Qaida.
With the Euro/Progressive/Leftist approach of appease, apologize, bribe and no military action, key leaders of al Qaida would still be as operative as it was on 9/10/01 and the threat to US would be ... do I really need to finish this sentence?

This isn't rocket science, people. Telling a thug we "feel your pain" doesn't engender sympathy and gratitude in the thug. It tells them they are pursuing a successful strategy.

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Posted by Darleen at 07:09 AM | Comments (9)

September 26, 2006

Holy crap

Jeff Harrell has turned his comments back on!

Go say "hi" and if you can't behave yourself, you'll answer to me.

heh.

Posted by Darleen at 09:49 PM | Comments (0)

September 24, 2006

Poster candidate for the Death Penalty

Tiffany Hall.

EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. - A woman accused of killing a pregnant woman and her fetus told police she drowned the woman's three young children and stuffed them into a washer and dryer at their apartment, an official said Sunday.

Preliminary autopsies on the dead children Sunday appear to show they were drowned, Ace Hart, a deputy St. Clair County coroner, told The Associated Press.

As of Sunday, Tiffany Hall, 24, had not been charged in the children's deaths, but prosecutors on Saturday accused Hall of killing their mother, Jimella Tunstall, 23, and her fetus. The fetus had been cut from her womb, authorities said.

Posted by Darleen at 03:49 PM | Comments (0)

On A.P.'s 'trustworthiness' and a Thank you

Thank you to all of you that have emailed, or left comments alerting me to Glenn's link to this Boston Herald column by City Editor Jules Crittenden, wherein yours truly is quoted. Mr. Crittenden succinctly points out the problems with AP's collusion with people like Bilal Hussein. He rightfully wonders

Last week, the AP gave us a lengthy series on the U.S. detention of terrorism suspects. The AP’s opinion was evident. Bilal Hussein was the poster boy. The salient fact that Hussein was captured with an al-Qaeda leader was buried. Al-Qaeda has killed and abducted dozens of journalists, Iraqi, American and European. Mainly Iraqi. I wonder: What’s so special about this particular Iraqi journalist that he could associate freely with al-Qaeda?
My father has over fifty years experience in advertising, starting out at newspapers in So Cal in the 1950's (Citizen News, The Examiner). I grew up discussing journalism, ethics and how to critically read any print article, column or ad at the dinner table. Everyone has biases, including journalists. How we handle them, how honest we are in confronting and dealing with them, is what inspires trust in others. This is no more important than with reporters and journalists. It is either cynical or naive to act as if "amoral" is synonomous with "neutral".

What the AP seems to be ignoring is that when they betray the implicit trust with their readership they are losing something they may never get back.

Is covering for Bilal Hussein worth that?

Thank you, too, Mr. Crittenden.

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Posted by Darleen at 11:15 AM | Comments (4)

Craving Rice

Rarely do I read the Rall Scrawler ... looking at what passes for "cartooning" causes as much pain to my eyes as listening to the opening rounds of American Idol does to my ears.

However, Linda brings this to our attention:

Rall Scrawler

For a moment, leave aside the bad drawing, the sloppy error that Peter MacKay is not Prime Minister of Canada, but the Foreign Affairs Minister, and the knee-slapper that Secretary Rice is "history's biggest mass murderers of Muslims" (Saddam Hussein, anyone?) ... Let's look at how Teddy has portrayed Condi as an over-sexed slut.

Stripped down to its essense, Teddy is clear on his message that Secretary Rice earned her way on her back. This is the usual misogynist dismissal of achievements by women. He also mixes that stereotype with another by portraying her as a black dominatrix with a submissive white male begging for her attention in the second panel. This is the dismissive stereotype of black woman as Jezebel ... the wanton sexpot who can control men, especially white men, merely by shaking her breasts and hips at them.

The Jezebel has replaced the Mammy as the dominant image of Black women in American popular culture. These women are willing, sometimes predatory, sexual deviants who will fulfill any and all sexual fantasies.
Portraying Sec. Rice as a sex predator excuses Ted's own barely concealed lust for her. Her sexual attraction as Jezebel is so powerful he can't help himself and he has to attack her in self defense.

Considering this in light of his sympathies for radical Islamists (misogynists extraordinare) and his hysteria over Ann Coulter's joking snark about him submitting a cartoon to the Iran Holocaust Cartoon Contest, and one can be forgiven for assuming that poor Teddy has issues with women, especially black women, in positions of power.

Oh. And back to the Ann Coulter thing? Ted solicited over $20,000 by whining he was going to sue Coulter over the snark. No lawsuit has ever been filed.

Hmmmm.... a little of the old "theftinomics",eh, Teddy?

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Posted by Darleen at 08:45 AM | Comments (2)

Ouch! That one's gonna leave a mark ...

Click for larger

9 Chickweed Lane

Posted by Darleen at 08:10 AM | Comments (2)

September 23, 2006

Twin Blogging! Birthday party ....

Nikolas and Sean turn four next week and today was their party ... BBQ'd hamburger and hot dogs, tons of family, a jumper to play in and lots of presents.

Sean and Nikolas

Sean and Nikolas

Sean & Nik's mom setting up race car track for the boys

Where did these bright and bouncy boys start out four years ago? check across the jump:

They were six weeks early and these first pics were taken in the NICU ...

Nikolas @ 2 lbs, 13 oz

Sean @ 4 lbs, 4 oz

Amazing, isn't it?

Posted by Darleen at 08:29 PM | Comments (4)

Cat blogging!

Condi and Leeza -- Four months old

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Posted by Darleen at 08:15 PM | Comments (3)

September 22, 2006

Joyous Rosh HaShanah - year 5767

L'Shanah Tovah Tikatevu

Posted by Darleen at 06:05 PM | Comments (0)

'Religion of Peace' issues clear threats

... Yet again

LAHORE, Pakistan - About 1,000 Muslim clerics and religious scholars meeting Thursday in eastern Pakistan demanded the removal of Pope Benedict XVI for making what they called "insulting remarks" against Islam.

Benedict "should be removed from his position immediately for encouraging war and fanning hostility between various faiths" and "making insulting remarks" against Islam, said a joint statement issued by the clerics and scholars at the end of their one-day convention.

The "pope, and all infidels, should know that no Muslim, under any circumstances, can tolerate an insult to the Prophet (Muhammad). ... If the West does not change its stance regarding Islam, it will face severe consequences," it said.


Pakistani protesters hold a rally to condemn Pope Benedict XVI for his remarks about Islam which hurt the sentiments of Muslims, Thursday, Sept. 21, 2006 in Multan, Pakistan. Protesters continued to demand that Pope apologize fully for his remarks on Islam and violence. (AP Photo/Khalid Tanveer)
Note the professionally printed, in English, signs.
Supporters of the Pakistan Muslim League party burn an effigy of Pope Benedict to protest against his remarks about Islam, during a demonstration in Multan September 21, 2006. European Union countries should take 'very seriously' the threat to Pope Benedict after his comments on Islam sparked outrage in the Muslim world, the EU's top security official said on Thursday. REUTERS/Asim Tanveer(PAKISTAN)
Note here, aside from the fact that the sign holder was a little to anxious to get into the photo op to realize she was holding the sign upside down (pretty happy that her husband let her out of the house, eh?), we are looking at another professionally printed, in English, sign specifically referring to jihad.

Does anyone seriously think the protesters want us to know "jihad" as a "individual, personal, internal struggle against sin" in this context?

Recently I've encounted, on my own comment threads and in others, a Leftist meme that stands reason on its head: Americans have more to fear from Christians in America than from Muslims 'over there'. Even Rosie O'Donnell has put her considerable mouth into spreading this fantasy.

I know there are Muslims that are aghast that Islamism is becoming the dominant, public face of Islam. At least, I keep hearing that.

:::knock:::knock:::: Hello? Moderate Muslims? Where are you? You would have my support, if I knew where the hell to find you!

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Posted by Darleen at 06:36 AM | Comments (3)

September 20, 2006

The devil and Mr. Chavez

by Michael Ramirez

It occurs to me that if the Dictator Troll was complaining about the odor of sulfur ...

He might lay off the black beans and rice a bit.

Or shower once in a while.

The troll is a bit ripe.


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Posted by Darleen at 06:18 PM | Comments (5)

September 19, 2006

Boobs, Bloggers and the Pope

I spent most of my weekend having fun with the twins, so I missed the big boobie brouhaha. Oh, geez … am I ever ….zadhoei;zzzzzzz.

Oh. Sorry. Guess I dozed off there for a moment.

People … boobs happen! Usually to about fifty percent of the world’s adult population and it seems that almost one hundred percent of the adults want to obsess about them.

Scratch that. Adults have, so to say, come to peace with boobs. We deal with them with either matter-of-factly, with admiration or with humor … even risqué humor.

Juveniles of all ages, however, use them as political symbols, promotional objects or just plain get stupid over them.

There's this attitude out there, a perception, that there's something wrong with beautiful women using their looks to draw readers. The idea is supposed to be that it's all about their brains, it's all about their writing, that it's cheap or improper for them to have guys checking out their web pages just to ogle them.

That's bullcrap.

Yes sireebob and I’m sure Johnny reads Playboy for the articles.

Honestly, that piece is so stunning in its puerile inanity, it is hard to know where to start. But I think Beth covers the stupiboobty quite effectively.

And while a whole section of bloggerville feels like keeping the Fight Over Boobs and What.It.All.Really.Means as dominate discourse, truly serious issues get shoved to the side.

No where more obvious as the continued calls from Islamic governments and leaders across the world for the arrest of the Pope or his murder.

There should be no … none, nada, nyet … argument over radical Moslems as a mere “tiny minority” that have nothing to do with the majority of “peaceful moderates.” Whole swathes of the “Islamic” world are clearly demonstrating they believe the worldwide Caliphate is at hand. Islam as so clearly superior to any other religion that any perceived slight is to be met with violence. Yes, burning churches and shooting nuns is a reasonable reaction to the Pope.

Where were the Moslem condemnations over the gunpoint “conversion” of the Fox News team? Or any number of the continuing terrorist murders done in the name of Islam?

Keep arguing about boobs now and continue to ignore the threat at the door.

A threat that will make all these boobs arguments moot when the boobphobic, misogynist Moslems gain even more concessions from a flabby Western Civilization infested with suicidal multiculturalists.

Posted by Darleen at 07:33 AM | Comments (12)

September 16, 2006

More Democrat myth busting - 'Soak the poor'

Of the two-step dance the Dems are running on this summer, the other step is the Bush taxcuts. From Tom Daschle to Nancy Pelosi to Charlie Rangel, the hue and cry was "Bush taxcuts are for the rich and ultrarich." However, the numbers not only show the Dems to be wrong, but it clearly demonstrates putting Dems in charge of Congress, with their promises to defeat making these cuts permanent, will actually harm the people they pretend to champion

The untold story of the Bush tax cuts is the fact that they wiped millions of poor and low-income Americans off the income tax rolls. A large block went from paying small tax bills to paying no income taxes at all. As many as 43 million Americans, nearly a third of all taxpayers, now have no income tax liability. [...]

According to the Treasury Department, a family of four with two children making $56,300 in 2011 -- that's not rich -- will be hit with a tax bill that's bigger by $2,092, a 132% hike.

That same family making $67,600 a year -- still not rich -- would see its tax bill go up by $1,858, an increase of 58%.

What is scheduled to expire in 2010?* Say hello to more marriage penality, bumping the 10 percenters into 15 percent and screwing over struggling single moms and dads vis a vis the EIC. niiiiiiiccce

And let's not forget that Dems are opposed to getting rid of the death tax.

Tell me again, which party is it that truly believes in property rights and wants to let people keep more of their own money??

Remember that this November.

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Posted by Darleen at 09:37 AM | Comments (4)

September 15, 2006

Watch out! Offended Muslims!

This time it was the Pope that has raised their ire for daring to allude to the history of Islam. Of course, moslems also want to raise the spector of the Danish Cartoons.

I'd be laughing at the tempest if these moslems didn't feel the right to blow themselves up when "offended."

No, no fascism there. Nothing to see. Move on.

Fuckers.

(here's the speech)

BTW, when was the last time all these Brit moslems, Pakistan parliment, and all the rest of the "leaders" so loudly expressed their "offense" at the jihadists in their midst? Which moslems condemned the forced conversion of the Fox News reporters?

Nevermind... we'll just have to endure the repeated asshattery from the Left that America has more to fear from radical Xtains and Zionists then from "peaceful" moslems.

Posted by Darleen at 07:09 AM | Comments (3)

September 13, 2006

The myth I wish would just shut the f**k up

One day after 9/11, Dem Senator Russ Feingold is trolling for votes in front of the Arab American Institute and scolds President Bush for using the phrase "Islamic fascism."

We must avoid using misleading and offensive terms that link Islam with those who subvert this great religion or who distort its teachings to justify terrorist activities
Feingold doesn't offer a specific alternative for the radical Islamic ideology that is, indeed, fascist in its tenets and goals.

And "fascism" is a mild label considering Islamism's stated views of how to treat the kafir.

However, this kind of blinkered pc-ism from the cut-n-run appeasers goes hand-in-glove with the myths that they continue to perpetrate. One I find particularly annoying (especially when I continue to run across it presented as a "given" by any number of commenters on 9/11 threads) is the one that claims

"The world loved us after 9/11 and the Shrub squandered all that goodwill!"
Leave aside the creepy beauty-pageant aspiration writ international in that phrase and lets just address the general assertion that an act of war on American soil changed the way "the world" felt about America and it was Bush and Bush alone who "pissed it all away." Usually such advocates of this view make reference to an editorial from Le Monde on 9/12/01 that declared

We are All Americans

Nice title, eh? But read the whole thing. After a nice opening paragraph the writer cannot help but start to engage in the usual "America brought this on itself" trope.
The reality is more certainly that of a world with no counterbalance, physically destabilized, and thus more dangerous since there is no multipolar balance. And America, in the solitude of its power, in its status as the sole superpower, now in the absence of a Soviet counter-model, has ceased to draw other nations to itself; or more precisely, in certain parts of the globe, it seems to draw nothing but hate. [...]

But the reality is perhaps also that of an America whose own cynicism has caught up with. If Bin Laden, as the American authorities seem to think, really is the one who ordered the Sept. 11 attacks, how can we fail to recall that he was in fact trained by the CIA and that he was an element of a policy, directed against the Soviets, that the Americans considered to be wise? Might it not then have been America itself that created this demon?

And the writer doesn't want war against this evil. No, no. In the hours after learning civilian jets were slammed deliberately into the WTC and the Pentagon to murder and maim, watching people leap to their death, learning that hundreds of firemen and police died in their attempts of rescuing, what response did he pen?
This situation requires our leaders to rise to the occasion. They must act so that the peoples whom these warmongers are seeking to win over and are counting on will not fall in step behind them in their suicidal logic.
Yes. Don't defeat 'em! Bribe 'em, understand 'em, appease 'em, don't speak honest of 'em, get them to love us!

I fear for the segments of Western civilization that have gone gangrene with such self-inflicted "multiculturalist" chic.

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Posted by Darleen at 06:39 AM | Comments (6)

September 12, 2006

''The moving finger writes, and, having writ, moves on ...''

nor all your Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it. ~~Omar Khayyam
Before I took the twins to pre-school yesterday morning, they helped me put out my flag in the front yard. A neighbor leaving for work drove by, happily shouting "thank you" at us.

The air was already warm at 7:30 am and the sky a brilliant blue.

Just like it was five years ago.

I let the day wash over me, watching some of the rebroadcasts of the 9/11 coverage out of New York, listening to the radio. I read tribute and testimony, one after another. Beloved brother, beloved wife - picture after smiling picture of ordinary people posing in ordinary times who disappeared in an instance on an extraordinary day.

Sunday, CBS finally rebroadcast "9/11", after an absence of four and a half years. I caught snippets of it, and the follow up at the end to see what five years has wrought on the survivors. One fireman said simply "I wake up to a sunny day and it's 9/11. I wake up when it's snowing, it's 9/11." For him, every day is 9/11.

The twins turn four in a couple of weeks and I realize the whole their existence is outside of 9/11 and they will never fully grasp the impact that day had on us that held our breath at the edge of unreality and beheld evil in its human form. No day for them will be 9/11.

Just like no day for me is Pearl Harbor, while it is a real memory for my parents.

The resentment that our world changed on 9/11 is palatable. Americans have always had a rather skewed way of looking at the future. We eagerly embrace innovation, dream modern dreams and relish the benefits of moving forward. Yet we ignore, and then become shocked, at the negative tradeoffs that come our way.

When I was a child, travel outside your home town, especially for leisure, was the stuff of the retired, who had saved for years. Today, even those of us with more modest incomes travel regularly. The world has gotten very small, with news of what happens on the other side of the world reaching us as fast as it reaches people in the town where the news happened. Modernity has provided cheap cell phones and cheap internet access and cheap travel and is a perfect means for those with bad motives to take advantage.

We can no more wish for a return to 9/10/01 then we can to 12/6/41. On 9/10/01, we had no metal detectors at my court house, and the receptionist's desk was open to the public. Now lines form in the early morning to set purses and briefcases on belts through x-ray machines, and our receptionist talks to the public through a sheet of bullet proof glass.

And when the next terrorist attack does take place on American soil, we may have to accept these measures at shopping malls and supermarkets.

Democracies are notoriously bad at war. At least when it comes to first getting into it. I believe its because we all have better things to do and the freedom to do those things. We just want to raise our families, have a little fun ... we act like the Hobbits who frown on adventure least it interfere with the good life. It takes something Really.Bad. happening to us for us to get the lead out. This is the reason that long stretches between wars has our military is ignored, defunded and shrunk. Don't "think" about war and maybe it won't show up.

Like a child "hiding" by covering his eyes.

I wish the two oceans were large enough to protect us. But that hasn't been true since 1812, even less true today. We don't get a choice in this war on whether to fight or not; we only get to choose where.

I say that with sadness and a little dispair. I don't want war, I don't like war. But I also believe sometimes it is necessary to fight. I will not be like the idiot with the bumpersticker that says "I'm already against the next war". The moral cretin doesn't realize (or doesn't care) that s/he is issuing a free pass to any monsterous evil that comes down the road.

Evil was perpetrated on 9/11 by an ideology as virulent as the one my parents' generation faced on 12/7. Our worlds changed and we adapt or we die. Move along with the finger, or stay behind and become irrelevant.

I have a stake in the future -- never so clear as when hanging the American flag with my grandchildren. Some day I will tell them about 9/11, I will show them DVD's of the events of that day. They will not emotionally connect with it, but they won't forget it. And that's the most important thing.

Never forget.


Posted by Darleen at 12:13 PM | Comments (1)

September 10, 2006

Democrats: The Censorship Party

Durbin, Reid, Stabenow, Schumer and Dorgan

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Posted by Darleen at 02:41 AM | Comments (13)

September 09, 2006

UK designers engage in blatant Jew-hatred

This is unfuckingbelievable!

A UK-based group of design professionals has petitioned the organizers of an architecture exhibition in Venice to withdraw an Israeli entry, expressing "dismay and concern" that the prestigious event has agreed to host Israelis.

In the petition, Architects and Planners for Justice in Palestine (APJP) called on the organizers of Biennale Architettura, which begins Sunday and runs until November 19, to withdraw Israel's entry. They said, "We request that the Biennale committee consider withdrawing the Israeli entry as being provocative and counterproductive to the aims of the Biennale, and particularly distasteful in the context of the aftermath of an ugly and unnecessary war in neighboring Lebanon, and a continuing one-sided war in Gaza."

Anyone want to keep up the mendacious pretense that being anti-Zionist is not being anti-semitic?

Fuckers.

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Posted by Darleen at 04:30 PM | Comments (5)

'I Just Called to Say I Love You'

Peggy Noonan on the sounds of 9/11 and the messages left by ordinary people facing their imminent death.

I think too about the sounds that came from within the buildings and within the planes--the phone calls and messages left on answering machines, all the last things said to whoever was home and picked up the phone. They awe me, those messages.

Something terrible had happened. Life was reduced to its essentials. Time was short. People said what counted, what mattered. It has been noted that there is no record of anyone calling to say, "I never liked you," or, "You hurt my feelings." No one negotiated past grievances or said, "Vote for Smith." Amazingly --or not--there is no record of anyone damning the terrorists or saying "I hate them."

No one said anything unneeded, extraneous or small. Crisis is a great editor. When you read the transcripts that have been released over the years it's all so clear.

Flight 93 flight attendant Ceecee Lyles, 33 years old, in an answering-machine message to her husband: "Please tell my children that I love them very much. I'm sorry, baby. I wish I could see your face again."

I dare anyone to read the whole thing without weeping.

I couldn't and I'm not ashamed to say so.

(h/t Michelle)

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Posted by Darleen at 08:19 AM | Comments (1)

September 08, 2006

More on Democrat Thuggery

Cassandra comes out swinging.

Every newspaper editor and liberal pundit in this country should be up in arms about Harry Reid's strong arm tactics. For five years now, comics, actors, and mostly ridiculous pundits like Keith Olbermann have warned American about the face of censorship and fascism in our midst. They tell us this looming danger comes from the Bush administration, from the overbearing pressure of having men like Don Rumsfeld say they are intellectually and morally confused.
I don't think people like Reid are "confused." They are illiberal leftists who don't brook infidels and apostates. Whatever means necessary, including unconscionable government intimidation, they will use to revise or suppress views that make them feel uncomfortable.

At this point I would like to see any reporter with cajones start asking any Dem candidate whether they agree or disagree with this thuggery. ANY Dem candidate, from Senate to House to Governor to State Legislatures.

Hello? Phil Angelides?

I just left the following comment on Angelides' blog

You recently ran a campaign ad where snippets of Gov. Schwarzenegger's speech at the last Republican National Convention in support of Bush's nomination. After a scroll tying Gov. Schwarzenegger negatively with the war in Iraq, detainees and high gas prices you ask "Schwarzenegger is for Bush. Is he for you?" Let me ask then, are you supportative of the recent move of Senate Democrats threatening the broadcast license of ABC over the mini-series "The Path to 9/11"? Could we not seriously ask "Angelides is for government censorship. Is he for you?"
Interesting to see if I get a reply or the comment disappears. The latter is a Dem m.o.

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Posted by Darleen at 06:53 AM | Comments (7)

September 07, 2006

Democrat Party threatens ABC license - Uncle Joe would be so proud!

In a clear demonstration on how the Dem party has been thoroughly corrupted and co-opted by the far Left, ABC's caving to Bubba is not enough to satisfy the apparatchiks. In a naked display of an old Soviet refusenik saying -- The future is known, it is that past that keeps on changing -- Senate Dems threaten to pull ABC's broadcast license if they don't immediately cancel The Road to 9/11. Salient excerpts:

Presenting such deeply flawed and factually inaccurate misinformation to the American public and to children would be a gross miscarriage of your corporate and civic responsibility to the law, to your shareholders, and to the nation.

[...]

The Communications Act of 1934 provides your network with a free broadcast license predicated on the fundamental understanding of your principle obligation to act as a trustee of the public airwaves in serving the public interest.

[...]

We urge you, after full consideration of the facts, to uphold your responsibilities as a respected member of American society and as a beneficiary of the free use of the public airwaves to cancel this factually inaccurate and deeply misguided program. We look forward to hearing back from you soon.

Don't you love that last bit?

Maybe I was too hasty to cite Uncle Joe?

Bubba blubbering is amusing in a "jumps the shark" kind of way, and watching the utter assholiness of Markos and the denizens of demoncratic underground is wearisome; but this is different, in a sobering way. This country deserves two serious parties, and this thuggish stunt by so-called Dem leaders currently in office shows that the Democrat Party has lost its last claims of being a serious party.

It's bad enough to see Jhimmi Quisling Carter wax anti-semitic on the pages of Der Speigel or liberal (not not left enough) Joe Lieberman be purged from the party and threatened; but now we witness the hypocritical chutzpah of Dems who gave Michael Moore honors at their convention going all Soviet on ABC.

How can Dems be trusted?

For further details on how disengenuous this campaign against ABC is, see:


Cassandra
Hot Air
Sister Toldjah
Texas Rainmaker
Patterico
Ace of Spades

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Posted by Darleen at 09:40 PM | Comments (2)

Quick question

Billy Jeff is alternately threatening and blubbering over ABC's 9/11 miniseries.

I may have missed it, but has Billy Jeff said anything about the British film that depicts the assassination of GW?

It's always been about Bubba for Bubba.

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Posted by Darleen at 07:20 AM | Comments (5)

September 06, 2006

Mitt Romney - profile in morality

No appeasement here

Governor Mitt Romney declared yesterday he would not allow any state resources to be used to protect a former Iranian president during his visit to the Boston area this weekend, and he sharply criticized Harvard University for inviting Mohammed Khatami to speak on the eve of the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

``There are people in this state who have suffered from terrorism, and taking even a dollar of their money to support a terrorist is unacceptable," Romney, a potential candidate for the Republican Party's 2008 presidential nomination, said in a telephone interview yesterday.

Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, which invited Khatami to speak on Sunday, issued a statement yesterday saying it was ``surprised and disappointed" by Romney's stance.

``We can understand and often share his disagreement with the positions of Khatami, the school nonetheless believes that active and open dialogue are a critical part of effective education and policy," the statement read.

Don't you love the chutzpah of Harvard holding forth on "open dialogue" when they still ban ROTC from its campus? Where the few conservative speakers brought to campus are interrupted and harassed with no consequence?

Let's see the Harvard audience reaction to this Islamist speaker and find out just where its morality resides.

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Posted by Darleen at 07:17 AM | Comments (6)

September 05, 2006

Any program that causes the Left to gnash its teeth, rend its shirt and tinkle down its leg

...is certainly worth a looksee.

No one is more in need of Depends than this hysterical female on a website known for its out-in-left-field-hate-filled-bleachers screeching.

Even "Screw'em" Kos himself has a spreading crotch stain.

Jennie-babe hasn't even seen the show but she knows exactly that it is all "fanstasy". Why? Because she thinks 9/11 is all, completely, solely and in a hermitically sealed bubble, George Bush's fault. Jennie-babe claims that this all the work of "extreme conservatives"... Oh? Harvey Keitel is an extreme conservative? John Miller (former ABC News Anchor who interviewed Osama Bin Laden)? I'd say "WTF?" but Jennie-babe is very clear that anyone sitting to her right is a goose-stepping brownshirt who was probably in on the 9/11 plot to begin with... gotta love this

Those are OUR airwaves, after all.
Ya know she only means "airwaves" that spew the correct Left cult dogma ... like the doctored Reuter photos. The Left would love its own form of Sharia (never wonder why they excuse Islamic fascism).

What a tool! (but what else could we expect from someone who snuggles with a legendary sockpuppet?)

Justin Levine, who actually saw the whole program reviews it here.

I don't watch much television...but I'm going to watch this one.

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Posted by Darleen at 12:23 PM | Comments (1)

September 04, 2006

Labor Day Weekend - Random thoughts - Steve Irwin, John Stossel and Murder in LA

Typically, I treat this weekend as a the kickoff for fall. Sure, it was 104 degrees the last couple of days, even as the department store ads show turtleneck sweaters and suede jackets, but the days are getting shorter and the bright greens of summer have dulled as much by season as by heat.

The last couple of days I have eschewed both the 'puter and television as I've been involved in several around the house projects. It was a surprise to log-on this morning to find out this hasn't been the lazy last weekend of summer I always expect. Steve Irwin - Reuters

My step-son was particularly enamored of The Crocodile Hunter and the enthusiasm of Steve Irwin in declaring "look at this beauty" for all manner of weird creatures was a natural for television. Yet, for all the dangerous creatures he handled, it was a freakish accident while snorkling that took Irwin's life.

About three weeks ago, we had a particularly difficult week at my office as we processed a slew of murders, attempted murders, armed robberies and assaults. Statistical cluster? Heat? Full moon? Well, it looks like Los Angeles is having their own problems as Labor Day weekend has (as of Sunday night) brought forth 7 slayings.

The Labor Day weekend got off to a bloody start with seven homicides reported through Sunday night - including a mother killed by her teenage son and two sisters killed by their drunken stepfather at a family get-together. [...]

The LAPD's 77th Street Division covering South Los Angeles saw most of the violence, accounting for six of the deaths since Friday at 5 p.m. when police began tracking Labor Day weekend violence.

Friday night I happened to catch ABC's John Stossel's Stupid in America special report on Publik Skools in the U.S. I wish it surprised me, but it just underlined a particular pet peeve of mine. American children, in k-12, are a "captured class", delivered as commodities to union-dominated, spinelessly administered warehouses where learning is mostly an accident. As Stossel writes here
This should come as no surprise once you remember that public education in the USA is a government monopoly. Don't like your public school? Tough. The school is terrible? Tough. Your taxes fund that school regardless of whether it's good or bad. That's why government monopolies routinely fail their customers. Union-dominated monopolies are even worse.
Vouchers, please now!

My flag is out and the heat is already starting to make itself known. Time for me to go fill the hummingbird feeder and water the patio plants.

Later.

Posted by Darleen at 07:45 AM | Comments (3)

September 01, 2006

Omeed Popal and the swallows of spring

The stories on Omeed Popal's murderous rampage are still bringing forth new details. SFGate

"Everyone needs to be killed," Omeed Aziz Popal calmly told officers as he sat in the back of a police car after a hit-and-run rampage that left one person dead in Fremont and 19 injured in San Francisco.
[...]
...his comments, as recorded in police reports filed by three officers who spoke with Popal, suggest a level of planning that may belie claims of mental illness, authorities say.
[...]
Popal told one officer that he "wanted to come to San Francisco and kill people," and another officer that "everyone needs to be killed," the police reports said.

"I planned to kill those people I ran over last night -- they needed to be killed," Popal said at one point.

At this point in time it would appear that Popal is an equal opportunity murderer, and his statements not jihadist oriented as were the statements by Naveed Afzal Haq ("These are Jews and I’m tired of getting pushed around and our people getting pushed around by the situation in the Middle East.") or Mohammed Taheri-azar ([I did it to] "avenge the deaths or murders of Muslims around the world.").

Some would argue that even asking the questions about Popal's motives is "racist". Or even labeling the other murderers "terrorists" is wrong because Haq or Taheri-azar weren't part of an organized terrorist cell.

I would argue committing criminal acts in support of, or to benefit a particular criminal ideology/group does constitute terrorism. That's the criteria used in California when determining gang enhancements in criminal court. I don't see why we should hold Haq or Taheri-azar to any lesser standard then we would Valentino Mitchell Arenas, who was not part of a gang, but who murdered a CHP officer in cold blood in order to "impress" Pomona 12th Street gang.

Consider, too, that if Popal had been a skinhead running over people outside of the African-American Cultural Center, the media would have been just as remiss over not asking questions about motive as they were in this case.

At the present time, it looks as if Omeed is more the cuckoo than the swallow.

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Posted by Darleen at 07:01 AM | Comments (1)