Friday, September 28, 2007
Thursday, September 27, 2007
New Auschwitz Photos: The Ordinariness of Evil
The ordinariness of evil...or something to that effect. I recalled those words from long ago by Hannah Arendt when I saw these photos posted on the BBC. They were recently handed over to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum by a former US Army officer who found the album in Frankfurt in 1946. The pictures were in the collection of Karl Hoecker, a Nazi SS officer.
These frolicksome Nazi men and fraulein played while Jews were murdered in the Auschwitz death houses. According to Iran's President Ahmadinajad, such photos as these prove that nothing but smoke was going up the chimneys at the Nazi death camps.
The group of SS Officers in the foreground picture included handsome Doctor Josef Mengele. He's the one with folded arms, contemplating new atrocities and sadistic acts. Is it just me or is there a strong family resemblance with the late Abu Zarqawi?
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Morning Joe:Scarborough, Brezinski, Burnett
Iran’s President Amadinajad gave a much-needed boost to the morning news/talk/social networking shows. At this point, I must concur with all the lofty talk about “free speech” which preceded the visit. I did learn two things from Amadinajad’s visit:
1) Iran has no homosexuals. (They are all sent to America or killed)
2) Women are highly prized in Iran, and completely free to operate within the restrictions imposed by Sharia. (They are all sent to America or killed)
I like Fox News, and tune into it as a matter of routine, just as I tune into all the others in a paroxysm of morning channel switching. Fox’s coverage of the visit was straight forward and negative toward the hirsute public face of Iran’s ruling Ayatollahs.
Sometimes I like to tune into the morning show called “Morning Joe” feature Joe Scarborough, Mikah Brezinski, and Willie Geist.
Willie Geist is the latest addition to the program and he is a welcome addition. Pulled down from the production staff, Geist has an intelligent and deadpan crossover manner which plays simultaneously to trend and tradition.
Scarborough is a Republican of some sort. I think he represents a disenchanted element of the “Reagan Revolution”. He’s all over the charts, but then what else could you be on a show that would identify itself as “center-liberal-left”, if that is a proper category.
Mika Brezinski, daughter of Zbigniew Brezinski (national security advisor under Carter’s failed presidency), was put on earth to make people feel uncomfortable, especially morning news guys. Mika found the lost chord of American television back in July of this year when she refused to do a story on Paris Hilton’s release from jail. Not only did Ms. Brzezinski refuse, but she grabbed a cheap plastic cigarette lighter from co-host Willie Geist’s pocket and proceeded to ignite the baloney script on live tv.
Willie Geist must have trained with Homeland Security because he defused the incident by snatching the torch from the hands of the rebellious Mika. Undaunted by the intervention, Mika proceeded to push the script through a paper shredder. You’ve got to admire a woman with that kind of determination.
Today, Mika Brezinski’s Carter state-department Old World mentality was piqued because Lee Bollinger introduced Amadinajad on the point of a pike. Mika Brezinski didn’t think that was polite. She said so too many times, and I expect she considers polity the weapon of choice against the blunt truths of a terrorist regime.
The “Morning Joe” went downhill from there except that now I must reveal a state secret and my strongest reason for tuning in: the appearance of Erin Burnett. In a bewildering blitz of information, wit, and sharp business instinct, Ms. Burnett righted the listing ship of morning news babble with the following news:
• The half-percent federal rate cut was not the “panacea” folks expected, as Burnett previously told viewers.
• Retail spending at stories like Target, Lowe’s, and some others had shrunk to worrisome levels.
• Home builder and financial services provider Lennar announced severe losses for the third quarter and a cut of 35% of its work force.
• G.M workers want job security, having lost 34,000 workers in the past year.
• The first new application for a nuclear power plant since 1968 was submitted today.
Purple is the new black which is the new brown. Or something to that effect. Having no fashion taste, and caught flat-footed by THE most intelligent and witty and well-dressed woman in the history of daytime television, I missed that.
All of this was delivered in less than 2 minutes along with some quick repartee arising from Joe Scarborough’s probe about Burnett’s television partner, the affable Mark Haynes. Unlike herself, Burnett wryly remarked, Haynes was probably not aware of the roadblocks near the United Nations home on the east side of Manhattan.
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Ahmadinajead at Columbia: Free Speech or Hate Speech?
What a joke it is to hear Columbia University’s President defending the Ahmadinejad visit as a concern for Free Speech. If everything else can fall under the protective umbrella of free speech then I am free to denounce him as a Nazi Holocaust Denier and killer of American soldiers.
The despicable and toxic little dweeb has called for the extermination of Israel and has been one of the chief sponsors of terrorism around the world. It was through Ahmadinejad’s support of Hizbollah that hundreds of Marines were killed in 1983. Iranians are held in a condition of virtual slavery in a medieval state that will not permit women to show their ankles and wrists.
While Ahmadinejad conducts his charm offensive in the halls of a left-liberal elite academia fed on the milk-fat of left-wing pablum, his murderous robots are supplying terror weapons which are used in political assassinations, mass terror attacks, and political suppression around the world. Columbia University does not have to provide an additional podium for hate-mongering among nations. Ahmadinejad’s anti-semitic slime is peddled often enough and loudly enough throughout the Middle East.
The Islamo-nazis have not come up with an original thought in five decades, so what is there in a prepared speech at Columbia U. which must be protected as “free speech?”?
Kick his Nazi ass back to the U.N curb.
The despicable and toxic little dweeb has called for the extermination of Israel and has been one of the chief sponsors of terrorism around the world. It was through Ahmadinejad’s support of Hizbollah that hundreds of Marines were killed in 1983. Iranians are held in a condition of virtual slavery in a medieval state that will not permit women to show their ankles and wrists.
While Ahmadinejad conducts his charm offensive in the halls of a left-liberal elite academia fed on the milk-fat of left-wing pablum, his murderous robots are supplying terror weapons which are used in political assassinations, mass terror attacks, and political suppression around the world. Columbia University does not have to provide an additional podium for hate-mongering among nations. Ahmadinejad’s anti-semitic slime is peddled often enough and loudly enough throughout the Middle East.
The Islamo-nazis have not come up with an original thought in five decades, so what is there in a prepared speech at Columbia U. which must be protected as “free speech?”?
Kick his Nazi ass back to the U.N curb.
Friday, September 21, 2007
Potpourri and Stupidity: MoveOn, M.I.T, and Norman Hsu
It’s the You Tube effect. People are vying with each other to achieve greater stupidity. The virus has reached Congress which, to its credit, today issued some kind of censorious statement about the recent MoveOn ad sliming General Petraeus. That part is good, but you shouldn’t wonder why Hillary Clinton, Barak Obama, and Chris Dodd refused to condemn the scurrilous propaganda of left-leaning social elite and WALLs.
The reason is that MoveOn dumps millions of dollars into the campaign coffers of all three Democrats. Gee, I’m glad those people are promising to “reform” the politics of Washington. I guess Hillary might make good on giving back some of the campaign money which came from convicted felon Norman Hsu except that the feds could seize those moneys first. Hsu was the beneficiary of a multi-million dollars Ponzi scheme.
And did you hear the one about the M.I.T student who shut down Boston’s Logan Airport this morning? She was carrying a fake bomb on her sweatshirt, made of play-doh to resemble plastic explosive and wired for visual effect. That was funny, funny, funny…watching the police overreact. What would have been funnier, and really, really funny is if the cops put two .40 calibre holes in her forehead.
The reason is that MoveOn dumps millions of dollars into the campaign coffers of all three Democrats. Gee, I’m glad those people are promising to “reform” the politics of Washington. I guess Hillary might make good on giving back some of the campaign money which came from convicted felon Norman Hsu except that the feds could seize those moneys first. Hsu was the beneficiary of a multi-million dollars Ponzi scheme.
And did you hear the one about the M.I.T student who shut down Boston’s Logan Airport this morning? She was carrying a fake bomb on her sweatshirt, made of play-doh to resemble plastic explosive and wired for visual effect. That was funny, funny, funny…watching the police overreact. What would have been funnier, and really, really funny is if the cops put two .40 calibre holes in her forehead.
The Jena Six: Learning to be Stupid
I’m late to the party with anything to say about the Jena 6. Though I can no longer handle crowds, I have to be grateful for the Louisiana demonstrations for bringing it to my attention. I did a little review of background, consequently. The first dumb thing I encountered was that some idiots hung up some hanging nooses under the “white tree” of the campus after an African-American youth sat under it on sunny day.
School officials get the Giant Dunce and Bigotry Award for treating the issue like a schoolboy prank. Their idea of discipline was ISS, or in-school suspension. Nooses hanging in the summer breeze of Louisiana isn’t my idea of a prank. Treating it as a prank creates the impression that psychological intimidation is okay in the Jena schools. If the “prank” can’t be prosecuted under the hate crimes laws, then school officials should have levied the harshest punishment they could inflict, which is to kick the offenders out of the mainstream school permanently.
In the shadow of that stupidity and others which followed the incident, young man Mychal Bell gets a heavy jail term for participating in the beating of a white student in an altercation. There’s no reason for anyone to be beating on anyone and that needs to be punished but it seems as if that’s the only punishment that was meted out for anyone involved in the Jena 6 fiasco. People in the Jena schools seem not to comprehend that they have a great responsibility in dealing with America’s kids. What they do can teach valuable lessons or it can do great harm.
In this case, it did great harm. There ain't no "white trees" in America.
School officials get the Giant Dunce and Bigotry Award for treating the issue like a schoolboy prank. Their idea of discipline was ISS, or in-school suspension. Nooses hanging in the summer breeze of Louisiana isn’t my idea of a prank. Treating it as a prank creates the impression that psychological intimidation is okay in the Jena schools. If the “prank” can’t be prosecuted under the hate crimes laws, then school officials should have levied the harshest punishment they could inflict, which is to kick the offenders out of the mainstream school permanently.
In the shadow of that stupidity and others which followed the incident, young man Mychal Bell gets a heavy jail term for participating in the beating of a white student in an altercation. There’s no reason for anyone to be beating on anyone and that needs to be punished but it seems as if that’s the only punishment that was meted out for anyone involved in the Jena 6 fiasco. People in the Jena schools seem not to comprehend that they have a great responsibility in dealing with America’s kids. What they do can teach valuable lessons or it can do great harm.
In this case, it did great harm. There ain't no "white trees" in America.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Zawahiri – Bin Laden Film Opens in Tora-Bora
Scene: Two rather comfortable caves in the mountains between Iraq and Pakistan. Split screen: UBL in one, Ayman Zawahiri in another.
UBL: So where is that little fat bastard, Gadahn? He was supposed to call my office this morning with a prepared statement for release.
Zawahiri: Gadahn!... Ah, don’t remind me. Every morning, when he should be praying, Gadahn goes down to the internet cafĂ© to play that stupid computer game.
UBL: Dungeons and Dragons again? How many times have I told him the game is banned in the Holy World of Islam?
Zawahiri: But don’t worry, Usama….I have prepared today’s statement myself.
UBL: Read it to me, please, Zawahiri…
Zawahiri: Okay, here goes:
The Crusaders themselves have testified to their defeat in Afghanistan at the hands of the lions of the Taliban. The Crusaders have testified to their own defeat in Iraq at the hands of the mujahideen, who have taken the battle of Islam to the heart of the Islam world.
UBL: That sounds a little…how you say... mechanical… I like the idea, Zawahiri, but it says nothing of us.
Zawahiri: But the tape will begin with an audio taken from the cockpit where the admirable Mohammad Atta takes control of the plane which hit the….
UBL: But won’t that make the Crusaders angry?
Zawahiri: It will make only one-half of the Crusaders angry, by my own estimate. The other half of the Crusaders will be overjoyed at the prospect of defeating the Republicans at the American polls.
UBL: Polls? What is that again? Polls?
Zawahiri: Polls, I tell you again Usama, is the method by which the Westerners misjudge the direction of history. And having done so, they go on to choose a leader who will mismanage their countries in a way that most benefits their own enemies.
UBL: Which is us….
Zawahiri: Right again, Usama. And so now I must have your approval to release the statement.
UBL: Still, I still wish we could run it by that fat little pederast, Gadahn.
Zawahiri: But don’t worry so much, Usama. I too have been listening to the patterns of American speech among our Western allies.
UBL: Western allies?....my mind is not so clear these days….the bomb, the bomb….so close…. Tell me again, Zawahiri…..
Zawahiri: Let me read the entire list: John Murtha, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, John Kerry, Howard Dean, Chuck Hagel, Wolf Blitzer, Keith Olbermann, and most powerful and might of all our friends, Dennis Kucinich.
UBL: Kucinich? Ugly little dwarf, that one.
Zawahiri: But we need him right now. And when the revolution is complete and you are head of the World Caliphate, I will personally cut off his head before a live audience on CBS-TV.
Opens September 20. Admission is Free to Adults. Children under thirty must be accompanied by their parents.
Monday, September 17, 2007
Boxing Impresario Don King: Only In America
Okay, I’ve got weird heroes. Don King, for example. I guess one of the reasons why I like Don King is because everyone was always trying to brainwash me so I’d hate the guy. The sportswriters from the most schmuck newspapers in the world would always have an unkind word to say about Don King. The only reason they could cite, as far as I could see, was that their fellow schmuck sportswriters also hated Don King. In calling such people “sportswriters”, I’m taking extreme liberties with the language. In reality, most of the sportswriter schmucks care nothing about boxing and do not have the intellectual curiosity to learn anything about it. Boxing coverage in most newspapers is about as interesting as reading the text on a box of Cheerios. Like cows accustomed to being fed and fattened, the schmuck sportswriters feed on a steady diet of what I call the “Beer Sports” (baseball, football, golf, etc.). The monotony and hum-drum of this rather thin fare is broken up by the occasional photo story about some high school tennis girl or hockey player who can be photographed in knickers.
I’ve noticed that the more insignificant and untalented the sportswriter is, the more he (or she) tended to pile on Don King. Truth to tell, it had just the opposite effect on me. I figured a guy who had so many insignificant and effete so-called sportswriters as enemies must be doing something right.
Okay, I get it that Don King is a player and that he woos fighters with an eye to making money. But how is it that different from the owner of a baseball team or team of NASCAR drivers? Don’t they all court the type of players or drivers who will make them rich? Or are we supposed to believe that there is philanthropy in the selection of football draft picks and ignominy when Don King goes after a fighter he thinks will make it big?
Anyway, I always had a soft spot for the rebel. Don King’s a rebel. He’s a guy who came up from nowhere, and he’s taken his own path to success and redemption. It’s true that boxing made Don King rich but don’t forget that Don King also made boxing rich. Don King and others like him pulled together multi-million dollar purses by seeing the opportunities presented in developing media like PPV and the cable companies. That type of effort benefited a large number of people in addition to boxers and their families. The broadcast media companies (HBO, ShowTime, etc) profited and so do the casinos, the newspapers, hotel chains, and just about everyone else who ever made money from sport.
In an age where so many celebrities are vying with each other to prostrate themselves publicly before a Hollywood film and music audience which doesn’t read books or know the difference between the butt end of a rifle and the butt end of an elephant, it’s kind of refreshing to see the legendary African-American boxing impresario enthusiastically waving the American flag, raising money for the 101st airborne, visiting the troops, visiting the death camps at Auschwitz, and following his great heart wherever it might lead him.
Y'all ought to take a look at his website.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Dweeb and Company: Reed, Reid, and Levin; Attorneys At Law
I guess I’m not telling state secrets when I say the New York Times has been afloat in a bog of left liberal bias. Now it comes out that the NYT gave a 60 percent discount to MoveOn, an organization dedicated to liberal toadyism and much worse. I wonder if billionaire America-hater George Soros will declare the New York Times gift as income on the organization’s tax records. By the rules which apply to the rest of us, we would have to declare it on our own taxes as “in-kind income” and it would be assigned a dollar value.
Maybe the laughable Democratic Party “fairness in media” crowd will demand that similar gifts be made to conservative social activists. Hell will freeze over before that happens.
Meanwhile, Diaper Dennis Kucinich, the appeasement dwarf, has been shown on Fox TV belly crawling through Syria with hat in hand talking about how embarrassed he is with America. Every time I see his pathetic mug, I think of that old David Bowie song “Earth to Major Tom” but I’m not so sympathetic as the singer. I’d like to see the leach Kucinich cut off from his lifeline to America and set adrift with his butt-buddy pal Assad in Syria if not in outer space with Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and Carl Levin.
You know, Levin, don’t you? Chairman of the Armed Services Committee. That’s a danger for America more insidious than AQ. He was on TV yesterday with his own little assemblage of dwarfs (Reid, Pelosi, and the schmuck from Rhode Island (Jack Reed?) who’s supposed to give the Democrats’ counter to the impending Bush speech). They all begin their b.s. the same way, you know, with a nod to the troops they’re working so hard to undermine.
I know I’ve told you before how Levin hides behind those Ben Franklin goggles to make himself look statesmanlike. The real effect is to make him look like a fat little pederast. Or maybe he needs those bi-focals to see his….never mind!
Levin was bragging about his “conversation” with General Petraeus and how the general was a great guy and how Petraeus’ view contrasted with the President’s. Beside him were Reid and the schmuck from RI. If ever there was a need for a picture of bureaucracy, it was those three petty bureaucrats prating about legislation they’d pass to “DEMAND” a troop drawdown. Redundant and tautological. Yeah, and like it was punks like that who beat the Nazis in WWII right?
And since those dweebs are so fond of left-wing rhetoric, let me end this with a genuine 60s quote which seems tailor-made for the appeasement monkeys.
“If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.”
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Monday, September 10, 2007
Most Annoying Television Advertisement Ever: Vonage
Vonage phone service is a good idea that can save you money yet their television ad is having a disastrous effect on my psyche. I'v nothing agains the content of the commercial except for the attention-getting sound effects. Whoo-hoo-hooo-hooo-wooo-hoooo ad infinitum. The creating ad agency is apparently of the fascist sort which doesn't care so much if the consumer buys the product as much as it cares that the consumer listens to the ad.
On that score, the ad is superb. If you have the tv on, you've got no choice other than to listen to it...who-hoo-hoo-wooo-hoooo....an insouciant, grating rhythmic nonsensical electronic noise which indelibly scars brain tissue and leaves listeners in a state of mind more suited to a session of obsessive weapons cleaning than buying a phone service.
It is only me? Let me know... post a short comment. Save me!
On that score, the ad is superb. If you have the tv on, you've got no choice other than to listen to it...who-hoo-hoo-wooo-hoooo....an insouciant, grating rhythmic nonsensical electronic noise which indelibly scars brain tissue and leaves listeners in a state of mind more suited to a session of obsessive weapons cleaning than buying a phone service.
It is only me? Let me know... post a short comment. Save me!
John Edwards' Purloined Email
Appearing slightly embalmed, Usama Bin Laden poses for his latest video.
Email to: John Edwards:
CC: Hillary Clinton
Bcc: Barak Obama
Dear sir or madam:
I’m writing to clue you in about something you should know. The terrorist cell recently busted in Germany was uncovered in part by American electronic surveillance of phone calls between two German nationals embedded in a terrorist network in Pakistan.
As you know, the would-be bombers had assembled a large batch of high concentration Hydrogen Peroxide which, when mixed with other material, makes the kind of bomb that was used in the London train bombings.
At the risk of sounding like a right-wing conspirator (one of Hillary Clinton’s favorite pejoratives) , I wish to inform you that I have been conducting my own surveillance of Al Quaeda email communications and have decided to release a verbatim excerpt of an email communication between American Adam Gadahn and UBL.
GADAHN: Hey, Usama!....Happy 09-11!...
UBL: Adam!...Word up, dude!...that was a great script you sent me to accompany my 9-11 photo greeting to your country.
GADAHN: Thanks, Usama…. …All I had to do was cut and paste some language from certain American newspapers…. And much of it came directly from the new presidential candidates.
UBL: Ha—ha-ha!... You crazy, guy, Gadahn!.... Always make jokes!
GADAHN: No joke, Usama…. John Edwards said Bushie’s War On Terror was a “bumper sticker.”
UBL: Ha-ha-ha!... that’s another good one, Gadahn! Where you get this stuff?
GADAHN: From the new Democratic Congress, boss. They help us plenty with all them lawsuits against electronic surveillance. That surveillance been killin’ us!...it’s got to stop. Arrests in Denmark, arrests in Germany, arrests in Pakistan…all over the world our peeps been getting busted.
(changes subject)
Hey, how about this one for a bumper sticker, Usama: “Piss on Patriots!”
UBL: Ha-ha-ha!... You killing me, Gadahn! That’s a good one. You think we can put one on Edwards’ car?
GADAHN: The new Democratic congress got you covered, Usama… So far we’ve got Dick Durbin, Harry Reid, Howard Dean, Nancy Pelosi…..We got a ‘maybe’ from the candidates. Understand how sensitive this is?….
UBL: What about that Kucinich?
GADAHN: Kucinich? You kiddin’? Slam dunk!
UBL: Ha-ha-ha….”Slam Dunk!” You killin’ me, Gadahn! What means that?
GADAHN: Slam Dunk? American basketball expression, UBL. Means how quickly Democrats likely to fold up tents, retreat, and give us time to rebuild and repair terror cells.
UBL: Ho-ho,ho!... You killin’ me, Gadahn! Ha-ha… Slam dunk!.... love those American expressions!... Reminds me of my college days at Beirut University…how you say?....party-boy Usama, ha-ha!.... (longingly) Those were the days, my friend: limousines, lackeys, booze, broads….
GADAHN(tearing up): Stop it, Usama. You’re making me homesick. Besides, we got work to do…
Friday, September 7, 2007
Hillary Clinton Fugitive Fundraiser Nabbed in Colorado
I wonder if Hilary Clinton will trot out the “vast right-wing conspiracy” line again now that her chief fundraiser, Norman Hsu, has been arrested on “unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.”
Hsu’s troubles stem from 1991 charges of felony theft. Hsu plead “nolo contendere” to those charges and then skipped out. Court and law enforcement authorities in the state of California were apparently too busy to follow up on the matter because the charges were left to float until the Wall Street Journal wrote a story about two weeks ago detailing how Mr. Hsu was one of Hillary Clinton’s chief fundraisers. The WSJ reports also that Mr. Hsu was a fund-raising dynamo for Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell who describes Norman Hsu as a long-time personal friend.
In the strictly subjective sense, I would say that acknowledgement of a friendship with the shady Pennsylvania governor casts more of an aspersion upon Mr. Hsu than the other way around. Governor Rendell, in typical lawyerly fashion, crafted a careful statement that, although Norman Hsu was still his friend, “his failure to appear casts a new light on his assertions regarding the original case.” Well, duh! As an amateur and dilettante in the world of journalism and political highjinks, I am bewildered that the Wall Street Journal’s quote of Mr. Rendell’s statement came before Norman Hsu’s arrest. How does that stuff happen? Was it only last week that Rendell began keeping such a sharp eye on Mr. Hsu’s fortunes and misfortunes? Rendell’s latest statement is a transparent attempt at redemption. Just last week, Rendell said he’d planned to keep the $40K he’d got from Hsu even though Hsu pleaded “no contest” to charges he’d ripped off a million bucks from investors.
Apparently the California authorities had a change of heart after reading about Mr. Hsu’s activities in the WSJ and decided to pursue the 1991 matter. Mr. Hsu dutifully surrendered himself to California authorities, posted a two million dollar bail, and then skipped out again, failing to appear at his scheduled hearing.
When Hsu took his latest bounce, California law enforcement requested the help of the FBI which located and arrested him toute-de-suite. Hsu’s arrest has worried other Democratic big-wigs including prez candidate Chris Dodd who issued a statement about refusing to take campaign contributions “raised, solicited, or delivered by fugitive from justice.”
It should be clear from all this that the current administration’s greatest critics are making good on their pledges to clean up sordid Republican politics.
Hsu’s troubles stem from 1991 charges of felony theft. Hsu plead “nolo contendere” to those charges and then skipped out. Court and law enforcement authorities in the state of California were apparently too busy to follow up on the matter because the charges were left to float until the Wall Street Journal wrote a story about two weeks ago detailing how Mr. Hsu was one of Hillary Clinton’s chief fundraisers. The WSJ reports also that Mr. Hsu was a fund-raising dynamo for Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell who describes Norman Hsu as a long-time personal friend.
In the strictly subjective sense, I would say that acknowledgement of a friendship with the shady Pennsylvania governor casts more of an aspersion upon Mr. Hsu than the other way around. Governor Rendell, in typical lawyerly fashion, crafted a careful statement that, although Norman Hsu was still his friend, “his failure to appear casts a new light on his assertions regarding the original case.” Well, duh! As an amateur and dilettante in the world of journalism and political highjinks, I am bewildered that the Wall Street Journal’s quote of Mr. Rendell’s statement came before Norman Hsu’s arrest. How does that stuff happen? Was it only last week that Rendell began keeping such a sharp eye on Mr. Hsu’s fortunes and misfortunes? Rendell’s latest statement is a transparent attempt at redemption. Just last week, Rendell said he’d planned to keep the $40K he’d got from Hsu even though Hsu pleaded “no contest” to charges he’d ripped off a million bucks from investors.
Apparently the California authorities had a change of heart after reading about Mr. Hsu’s activities in the WSJ and decided to pursue the 1991 matter. Mr. Hsu dutifully surrendered himself to California authorities, posted a two million dollar bail, and then skipped out again, failing to appear at his scheduled hearing.
When Hsu took his latest bounce, California law enforcement requested the help of the FBI which located and arrested him toute-de-suite. Hsu’s arrest has worried other Democratic big-wigs including prez candidate Chris Dodd who issued a statement about refusing to take campaign contributions “raised, solicited, or delivered by fugitive from justice.”
It should be clear from all this that the current administration’s greatest critics are making good on their pledges to clean up sordid Republican politics.
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Terrorist Arrests in Germany and Denmark: The Peroxide Bomb
I can just about hear the pundits on Sirius’ TalkLeft radio kibbutzing about the one ton cache of liquid hydrogen peroxide found in Oberschedorn, a quaint little vacation spot in West Germany. Like maybe those people arrested for being terrorists were actually intending to dye a lot of hair or use it for strictly humanitarian purposes. Perhaps they were intending to ship it to Darfur as a bacteriological defense. Can anyone prove otherwise? I guess detonators and other electronic components, also discovered in the German cottage, were planted by the American CIA.
That amount of hydrogen peroxide could have been turned into a powerful batch of explosive materials in a matter of days. It’s not the stuff you find in your medical cabinet. Hydrogen Peroxide gives off a vapor that can detonate when exposed to a temperature of only 158 degrees. It was the stuff used by the terrorists in the deadly London bombings of 2005. It may explain the term “unstable explosives” mentioned in news stories about the terrorists arrested in Denmark.
I wonder why many Democratic presidential candidates are rendered speechless when terror plots are uncovered. Aren't we being too conspicuously timid?
That amount of hydrogen peroxide could have been turned into a powerful batch of explosive materials in a matter of days. It’s not the stuff you find in your medical cabinet. Hydrogen Peroxide gives off a vapor that can detonate when exposed to a temperature of only 158 degrees. It was the stuff used by the terrorists in the deadly London bombings of 2005. It may explain the term “unstable explosives” mentioned in news stories about the terrorists arrested in Denmark.
I wonder why many Democratic presidential candidates are rendered speechless when terror plots are uncovered. Aren't we being too conspicuously timid?
Larry Craig and the Lead Balloon
Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter
Everybody's talkin' about faggots, faggots....
It’s a line from an old Beatles song. Weren’t they prescient? I suppose there are free speech advocates out there who would prosecute me for using the “other” f-word. Let me say right now that I love my gay brothers and sisters as much as a misanthrope could love anyone. But with the media all hyped up about Idaho Senator Larry Craig, I think it’s only fitting to focus on the general identity confusion and hypocrisy which extends well beyond the obvious family values hypocrisy of the aforementioned Senator.
Glad (Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders) will be wasting their time pillorying Jerry Lewis for using the “faggot” word while trying to chide a member of his staff. The long-time advocate of Muscular Dystrophy victims apologized almost immediately:
"I apologize to anyone who was offended. Everyone who knows me
understands that I hold no prejudices in this regard. In the family atmosphere of the telethon, I forget that not everyone knows me that well."
Nothing more needs to be said on the subject but plenty will be, I’m sure.
As for Larry Craig, the lead balloon has been given new air by Pennsylvania’s increasingly dodgy Senator Arlen Specter. In typical lawyerly fashion, Specter jumped to the cameras to begin a parsing of words that would tempt your eighth grade English teacher. The only kind of “sense” revealed by the Specter statements in defense of Craig is legal sense. If Specter believes so much in defending Craig, then he should take up the case in his own legal offices and not in the court of public opinion. You’d almost think he was hired by Hillary’s campaign manager.
Of Hillary, she’s clearly honed in on the gay vote and her comic appearance on TV with Ellen DeGeneres was witty. And while it may not pass the legal and ethical tests, I find it churlish that the suddenly appearing highly indignant moral Democrats find it politically acceptable for Barney Frank to cavort with a seventeen-year old Senate page. And I marvel at the married-with-children former NJ Governor Jim McGreavy’s decision to join the Episcopalian Seminary. Whatevah…
The real tragedy of all this is that every breath, every utterance, every painful sigh becomes political to the degree that the truth is abandoned. A U.S. congressman shouldn’t be trolling for sex in a public bathroom or in a Senate cloakroom. Those people are where they are to conduct the business of the people.
Barney Frank, no matter his indiscretions, has a kind of moral authority by being who he is and not pretending to be anyone else. Jim McGreavy pretended to be someone else for a long time. I might feel greater empathy for Larry Craig if he dropped the charade and went quietly into that good night. Americans will forgive nearly anything except being lied to.
Sunday, September 2, 2007
Senator Patrick Leahy: Lawyer di Tutti Lawyer
The Republicans are at war with the terrorists and the Democrats are at war with the Republicans. It’s understandable, under the circumstances, that the Democrats would be gloating over the resignation of Attorney General Gonzalez, but the country needs an Attorney General and it’s not likely to get one soon considering that Patrick Leahy is chairman of the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee.
Patrick Leahy, a world-class dunderhead, loves the procedures of law more than he loves the law because, if he didn’t, he’d realize the President has the constitutional authority to appoint a new Attorney General and not stand in the way of the best interests of the United States. It’s likely that the blockheaded Leahy will strangle any appointment that Bush makes without regard for the constitution. His smug conceit of pretending to be defending rights when really he is a diabolical power monger degrades the process of government.
I don’t see any relief in sight. Leahy won’t be happy until every person in the U.S. has his/her own personal special prosecutor. It’s a wonder he didn’t recommend one for Dick Cheney who told Leahy what we’d all like to tell him, that is, to eff off and give us some breathing space. Leahy’s such an imperial nuisance that he had to “remind” Fox News’ Chris Wallace just this evening that he was the “chairman” of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Apparently, Wallace wasn’t suitably impressed or fawning enough.
I do wish that my forever hero Dick Cheney would apologize for his “eff you” remark. Then maybe they could go off hunting together with Cheney wearing a blindfold.
Patrick Leahy, a world-class dunderhead, loves the procedures of law more than he loves the law because, if he didn’t, he’d realize the President has the constitutional authority to appoint a new Attorney General and not stand in the way of the best interests of the United States. It’s likely that the blockheaded Leahy will strangle any appointment that Bush makes without regard for the constitution. His smug conceit of pretending to be defending rights when really he is a diabolical power monger degrades the process of government.
I don’t see any relief in sight. Leahy won’t be happy until every person in the U.S. has his/her own personal special prosecutor. It’s a wonder he didn’t recommend one for Dick Cheney who told Leahy what we’d all like to tell him, that is, to eff off and give us some breathing space. Leahy’s such an imperial nuisance that he had to “remind” Fox News’ Chris Wallace just this evening that he was the “chairman” of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Apparently, Wallace wasn’t suitably impressed or fawning enough.
I do wish that my forever hero Dick Cheney would apologize for his “eff you” remark. Then maybe they could go off hunting together with Cheney wearing a blindfold.
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