Monthly Archives: November 2006
Earth To Prime Minister Tony Blair
Tony Blair, snap out of it.  The idea of a three-seat tea party isn’t going to work. These Muslims do democracy by the bullet, not ballot.Â
IE 7 Has News Feed Access
It’s not a political message, but the new version of IE, 7, has news-reading capabilities, and makes it easy to subscribe to news feeds, as easy as adding a ‘favorite.’
It’s not a ‘Feedreader‘ but it is a feed reader.  If you’re interested in monitoring blogs and news feeds of your choosing, then making this upgrade is highly recommend. The program recognizes RSS2 and Atom3 news feeds which have become industry standard.
For example, this is the RSS2 link to subscribe to The Lunch Counter’s feed. 
  When a webpage is visited using IE7 that has a RSS link on it, IE7 will let you know it found a link and give you the oppty to add it to your favorite feeds list. It’s pretty cool for a browser. Albiet just like Microsoft to incorporate all the cool toys into their browser or operating system (popup blockers, spam filters, firewall, networking, anti-virus, and now newsreaders).
New Orleans Justice System Damaged
The post-Katrina flood in New Orleans has all but wiped out the contents in the main evidence rooms in New Orleans. Some judges are subsequently handing out get-out-of-jail-free cards, witnesses are gone, the perps are gone, the evidence is gone, and there isn’t enough manpower (lawyers) available to make a dent in the backlogs.Â
May I suggest that the DNC re-deploy their 2006th Election Polls Lawyer Battalion to New Orleans to do something good for the people whose pain they feel. If that’s not happening then it seems the ABA ought to do something to help them out. Maybe the ACLU will help out the prosecutors and public defenders? Right! Letting perps walk is just one problem. Making suspected perps they are holding wait way too long to get their cases heard is another. The problem is bad for the public, the guilty, and the innocent.
NYT link: In New Orleans, Rust in the Wheels of Justice
Â
John Kerry, Outsourcing, Benedict Arnold Companies, HJ Heinz
A funny thing happened while unpacking a box of freedom fries the other day. I was surprised to see that the Ore-Ida french fries I’ve been using were not from Oregon or 
Idaho. I can vaguely recall the advertising jingle when I was much younger, something like ‘if it’s Ore-Ida, it’s all right-a.’ The Ore-Ida brand became a national favorite. It’s not national any more. Today Ore-Ida potatoes are a product of Canada, distributed by a ‘Benedict Arnold’ company (to use John Kerry’s words), HJ Heinz of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.
Similarly, as American Ore-Ida potatoes were, Heinz’s ketchup was too. Oh, but not any longer. Heinz ketchup is a product of Canada also. I wonder if outsourcing is no longer a democrat platform issue? Maybe it’s OK for John Kerry’s companies, just not yours?
Can’t wait to hear John Kerry say “I was against outsourcing when I was running for president, but now I’m not.”Â
More pictures like these in the gallery.
UPDATE note: Thanks to Tony @ HJ Heinz (see first comment to this post) for pointing out a factual error in the above post. That being that neither of the Kerrys have any controlling interest in the company, so the reference to “Maybe it’s OK for John Kerry’s companies, just not yours?” is incorrect. HJ Heinz is not his or her company. To say that I was surprised to find that those products are not from the USA was not a mis-statement of fact. Which begs the question, if Canadians can get fries and ketchup made in Canada, why can’t Americans buy fries and ketchup from the US?
UN Affirms Bias And Media Remains Mute
Congress needs to take sides when it comes to the United Nations and our temporary Ambassador John Bolton. The world could not be more dangerous a place to live than it is today and, this is not a time for a linguini-spined politician to represent our interests in the world. That’s why Congress needs to confirm John Bolton as Ambassador to the UN.
To find out what went on at the UN on Friday, you have to read the foreign press or you can check out the Democracy Project or PowerLine articles on this subject. The legacy media doesn’t want to leave the ‘democrats are united’ play. Discussing real-world problems that the UN is incapable of solving is too problematic politically.
Some highlights. . .
Bolton was furious over the adoption by the General Assembly of a resolution which said the assembly regretted the deaths of 19 civilians in an attack by the Israeli military in the town of Beit Hanoun last week.
Despite the resolution being significantly watered down at the behest of the United States, and being passing by 156 votes to seven, Bolton launched a blistering attack on the UN, and many of its members.
“Many of the sponsors of that resolution are notorious abusers of human rights themselves, and were seeking to deflect criticism of their own policies,” he said.
“This type of resolution serves only to exacerbate tensions by serving the interests of elements hostile to Israel’s inalienable and recognized right to exist.”
“This deepens suspicions about the United Nations that will lead many to conclude that the organization is incapable of playing a helpful role in the region,” Bolton continued.
“In a larger sense, the United Nations must confront a more significant question, that of its relevance and utility in confronting the challenges of the 21st century. We believe that the United Nations is ill served when its members seek to transform the organization into a forum that is a little more than a self-serving and a polemical attack against Israel or the United States,” he said.
Complete text of Ambassador Bolton’s statement here.
Hugo Chavez Jails Freedom & Democracy
Yes, the hemisphere’s idiot, President Hugo (Citgo) Chavez, of Venezuela, has put a 38 yr.old mother of three in
jail for 100 years for supporting a referendum to recall him.
Crossed-Fingers Diplomacy For Iran
It doesn’t sound like good foreign policy to me, trying to ‘save face’ in ending Iran’s nuclear program, or to ‘save face’ in letting Iran continue to develop their nuclear capabilities beyond just electricity production, while keeping your fingers crossed that Iran won’t follow through on wiping Israel off the map, while fueling and funding the insurgency in Iraq.
We’ve tried the crossed-fingers diplomacy with North Korea under the Clinton-Albright administration in the 90’s. The results of that effort is a nuclear bomb wielding North Korea, exactly the opposite of their goal. Buttressing Bush’s label as one of the ‘axis of evil’, future leaders in Iran seem comfortable enough to wear that moniker proudly.
An ultra-conservative Iranian cleric who opposes all dialogue with the West is a frontrunner to become the country’s next supreme spiritual leader.Â
In a move that would push Iran even further into the diplomatic wilderness, Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah-Yazdi, 71, who publicly backs the use of suicide bombers against Israel, is campaigning to succeed Grand Ayatollah Ali Khameini, 67, as the head of the Islamic state.
‘How do you save face while losing your head’ might be something to explore, since that’s what the current geopolitical environment seems to suggest. In an atmosphere where ‘trust but verify’ is viewed as radical, what else could be expected from an Ayatollah who backs suicide bombers and other extreme Muslim acts of ‘peace?’
Democrats Have Nothing To Say?
The great issues of today are not being addressed by the new democrats’ ‘new direction.’  Increasing the minimum wage and spending more on education are neither of them. The obvious ones are winning the war-on-terror, economic policies like making the tax cut permanent, fixing Social Security, educational policies like allowing school choice via the school voucher program (No child left behind), real tort reform, earmark removal just to name a few.  The party has nothing to say about the issues they just ran on. Oh that’s right, it was ‘Bush sucks.’ What is happening now is the party has nothing to say. The minimum wage issue is a standard election issue for every election. The fact that there never was a plan beyond ‘Bush is a liar’ is becoming evident as democrats are being seen as in some state of disarray.Â
I don’t know how this ever got passed the editorial board, but this New York Times headline is an example. After Win, Democrats Revert to Finger-Pointing
Not Exactly Hitting The Ground Running
For post-election democrats, it’s more like just hitting the ground. The great issues of today are not being addressed by the new democrats’ ‘new direction.’ And increasing the minimum wage and spending more on education are neither of them. The obvious ones are winning the war-on-terror, economic policies like making the tax cut permanent, fixing Social Security, educational policies like allowing school choice via the school voucher program (No child left behind), real tort reform, earmark removal just to name a few.  The party has nothing to say about the issues they just ran on. Oh that’s right, it was Bush sucks. What is happening now is the party has nothing to say. The minimum wage issue is a standard election issue for every election. The fact that there never was a plan beyond ‘Bush is a liar’ is becoming evident as democrats are being seen as in some state of disarray.Â
I don’t know how this ever got passed the editorial board, but this New York Times headline is an example. After Win, Democrats Revert to Finger-Pointing