Tax Foundation: State and Federal Treasuries, Not Oil Cos, Reap Profits from Higher Gas Prices
10.30.05 (2:40 pm) [edit]Interesting article- http://www.taxfoundation.org/...
The real news is not about indictments...
10.28.05 (6:46 pm) [edit]Forget the Miers withdrawal from her SCOTUS nomination, and forget the indictments against Scooter Libby, Dick Cheney's Chief of Staff. The real news this week happened in Asia and the Middle East.
In Iran, which is a state that is part of the United Nations, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called for genocide against Israel. This is the first time a state has ever openly endorsed genocide, and yet there are many that still believe Iran's nuclear program is peaceful, and that it is not the center of world terrorism.
Secondly, and just as ominously, Japan allowed a US nuclear warship to to base itself on its shores, a first. This is obviously a reaction to China's astounding growth and belligerence, which most people are hoping will go away. It will not.
There is a time for politics, but this isn't one of those times. We live in dangerous times. Let's pay attention to the important matters.
The Death of Mother Russia
10.21.05 (4:40 pm) [edit]Another great Steyn column-- http://www.spectator.co.uk/ar...
And right here is complete and total justification of the Iraq war
10.19.05 (6:54 am) [edit]Though the war in Iraq is justified on several ironclad fronts, perhaps this sentence alone from the linked news story on Saddam Hussein's trial best does the trick http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20... :
[i]Many Iraqis and others across the Middle East were glued to their television sets to watch the first-ever criminal trial of an Arab leader.[/i]
Another Katrina myth, the "toxic soup", exposed as false
10.13.05 (1:07 pm) [edit]From the Washington Post-- http://www.washingtonpost.com...
[i]The floodwater that covered New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina was not unusually toxic and was "typical of storm water runoff in the region," according to a study published yesterday.
Most of the gasoline-derived substances in the water evaporated quickly, and the bacteria from sewage also declined over time, the scientist leading the study said. The water's chief hazard was from metals that are potentially toxic to fish. However, no fish kills have been reported in Lake Pontchartrain, where the water that once covered 80 percent of the city was pumped.
"What it most looks like is the storm water that is present in New Orleans every time it rains," said John H. Pardue, an environmental engineer at Louisiana State University, who headed the team whose research was published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology. "We still don't think the floodwaters were safe, but it could have been a lot worse. It was not the chemical catastrophe some had expected."[/i]
Yet another reason not to trust the media. 10,000 dead? Nope. Raping babies? Nope. Widescale murders? Nope. Inappropriate federal response? Nope. Toxic floodwaters? Nope. Of course, the damage has been done: the libs have yet another cause to hate Bush ([i]he caused Katrina because he caused global warming and he didn't care about the poverty he caused and the floodwaters he caused to be so toxic!"[/i]), but the real scandal involves the media's eagerness to report rumor and hype as fact.
Why I hate columnists
10.09.05 (12:21 pm) [edit]Harriet Miers is why I hate columnists. In this case, conservative columnists. They are joining some conservatives in lambasting Bush's nominee because of her lack of experience and what they think are clues that she is probably a liberal.
I'm sure for some on the far-right her being a woman is reason enough.
Conservatives are also suspicious of Bush's pick because liberals like her, specifically Harry Reid of Nevada. In fact, as I understand it he recommended her. But she was also Bush's lawyer....so what's going on?
Who cares, really? I mean, I think to a certain extent no one would be happy with who Bush picked. Some consrevatives were initially upset with Chief Justice Roberts' nomination. In reality, I think Bush is being pragmatic with all of his picks; instead of nominating someone who will be outwardly zealous and polarizing, someone in the mode of Scalia, Bush picked people he thought were confirmable but socially conservative enough. What the columnists on the right wanted were nominees who think exactly like they do. In their own little world they have no appreciation for other ways of doing things. A lot like the Libertarians, I guess.
It doesn't really matter who takes over Sandra Day O'Connor's chair. If she is as bad as O'Connor, then the court is back where it was a year ago, and if she is a true blue conservative then the court will be firmly tilted to the right. And irregardless, Roe v. Wade will not be overturned. Much as I loathe a "constitutional right" to abortion, this right is so ingrained in the nation's consciousness, especially in the political arena, that it is unlikely to ever be overturned and put back to where it belongs (as a state's rights issue).
Every column I read on the right bashes Bush for Miers. But conservative columnists have been wrong many times (and leftist columnists many many more times than that). They get the luxury of never having to admit that.
Blogger's "conservative meltdown" pregnant with inaccuracies
10.06.05 (1:19 pm) [edit]It's been awhile since I've taken another blogger to task for his idiocies, but I had to with cos82005's "Loving the Conservative Meltdown"-- http://www.tblog.com/template... . The points he makes are simple and false, but it's usually the simple lies libs tell that are more readily believed by the public.
You may read his blog for his text, and then come back here for these points:
1. Bush refused to meet Sheehan [i]a second time[/i]. And this is because she wasn't being a grieving mother when she staged her little protest at Bush's ranch, she was being a political pawn of the far-left. The first time Bush met her, he met her personally and offered her a lot of support and sympath. And, Mrs. Sheehan at the time had nothing but praise for the president. Between 2003 and now Sheehan went off her rocker. Bush realized that the Sheehan's protest was a sham and wasn't going to play into the hands of the frothing far-left.
2. The government failure regarding Katrina was not the federal government's but the city of New Orleans and Louisiana's. We have something called a constitution that separates the power of the federal and state governments. The US cannot take over during a catastrophe without first getting permission from the local and state levels. Any fair assessment of the response to Katrina from local, state, and federal government will reveal that, in Louisiana at least, the local and state were hopelessly dysfunctional (there are a lot of poor black folks in Mississippi too, but Mississippi's government had their collective shit together. You don't hear of any problems there).
3. I know nothing about Bush's friend Harriet Miers, but she's about as qualified as anyone else to be a nominee for the Supreme Court. Bill Clinton appointed a lot of his friends to posts, including one Sandy Berger, a trade lawyer, for god's sake, who was appointed as National Security Adviser (and was caught stealing from the National Archives to cover the Clinton administration's disregard for national security regarding Osama Bin Laden). There have always been hardliners that break off with W in Congress, just as there are sane democrats and freakin' nuts. The difference is that the Republicans, differences and all, still know how to win elections. I mean, the Congress has been Republican for 11 years now. Wonder why that is.
As to the charge that all of Bush's appointments are his friends, let's look at the evidence:
1)Colin Powell and Bush were never friends. They are very ideologically different.
2)Bush and Donald Rumsfeld are not close.
3)Condoleeza Rice got her start in the Reagan administration and lived in California before being appointed by Bush.
4)Bush overlooked many of his father's appointees when establishing his cabinet, even though he knew them very well.
I could go on and on. But Bush hires and appoints those he thinks are most qualified. Even those that are detrimental (like keeping Clinton's CIA boss on, even though he was a complete boob).
I have to think it is quite funny that conservatives are having a meltdown yet it is the Democratic party that hasn't one a major election since 1996 (thanks to three candidates) and keeps imploding.
Until the Dems realize that the country is conservative, Republicans, meltdowns and all, will keep winning.
From bad to worse: Iran's "peaceful" nuke program now in hands of its Army
10.05.05 (12:28 pm) [edit]Iran, China, etc.....no one cares. But we will, when it's too late-- http://www.washingtontimes.co... .