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Sunday, December 18, 2005
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I don't know anything about this video, but it sure is fun to watch.
9:30:02 PM 
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Over at Ledger's Liquors the other day I picked up, among other things, a bottle of Russian River's Temptation Ale. I split it with the boys last night, to mixed results. I very much liked the taste of it -- it was clear and definitely showed the influence of the Chardonnay cask it is aged in. It went down quick. Lyal liked it, too, but Richard didn't care for it. I just wish that Russian River would bottle some Pliny the Elder.
6:02:48 PM
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RedState.org
You may recall that during the run-up to the 1992 election, the media — out of the blue, puns aside — decided that everyone should be deeply concerned about the hungry people in Somalia. Why Somalia? Who knows.
Golly, why would the media notice Somalia. It’s not like anything happened in ‘91-’92 of note in Somalia, why the world would pay attention, right?
From November 1991, there was heavy fighting in the Somali capital of Mogadishu between armed elements allied to General Mohamed Farah Aidid, or to Mr. Ali Mohamed Mahdi, the appointed “interim President”, and yet other factions. In addition to Mogadishu, there was conflict in Kismayo, and in the north-west, local leaders were pushing to create an independent “Somaliland”. The country as a whole was without any form of central government. Banditry was rife.
The fighting that followed, with clans and sub-clans constituted in loose alliances without central control, took place at a time of serious drought. That combination proved disastrous for the population at large. By 1992, almost 4.5 million people, more than half the total number in the country, were threatened with starvation, severe malnutrition and related diseases. The magnitude of suffering was immense. Overall, an estimated 300,000 people, including many children, died. Some 2 million people, violently displaced from their home areas, fled either to neighbouring countries or elsewhere within Somalia. All institutions of governance and at least 60 per cent of the country’s basic infrastructure disintegrated.
It’s a good thing us liberals and our pals in the MSM could conspire so that the relatively unimportant death of 300,000+ human beings in a famine became an issue of note just so that we could make life inconvenient for a Republican president.
(Via Oliver Willis - Like Kryptonite To Stupid.)
4:54:13 PM
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I'm a few days late with this, but my friend Jon Ponder, at Pensito Review, came up with a few more questions for people still supporting the presidency of George W. Bush after my piece on the same subject last week.
A sample of Jon's thoughts:
"One of the reasons Bush has given us for the occupation of Iraq is that we will create a foothold for democracy among the Arabs. Wouldn’t it have been less costly in blood and treasure simply to convince the Kuwaitis to hold elections? After all, we literally saved their asses from Saddam in 1992. Becoming a beacon for democracy in the Middle East would seem to be the very least they could do in return."
Please go to Pensito Review to read the rest.
(Via Yellow Dog Blog.)
4:50:29 PM
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"It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are 20 gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."
- Thomas Jefferson, quoted in the Washington Post
(Via Pensito Review.)
4:50:11 PM
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The administration's greatest hits in their lying or at best criminally wrong, proclamations about this war. The best is Bats Left's concluding graphs:
1000 days after the German invasion of the USSR, the Soviets were staging the Byelorussian campaign, which would throw the Germans back across their borders. The Lenningrad-Novgorod offensive, which had lifted the seige of Lenningrad after 900 days, was on its way to annihilating the German forces in the Baltic.
1000 days after Pearl Harbor, Allied forces in the West were pushing into Belgium, had broken the Gothic Line in Northern Italy and were moving toward Bologna, and had landed in southern France to link up with the other two forces. In the Pacific, still the "second theatre", US forces had captured Saipan, Tinian, and Guam in the Marianas, taken Tarawa, at a terrible cost, Kwajalein Island and the rest of the Marshalls, and Allied forces had recaptured New Guinea. Intense carrier bombings and submarine activity were preparing the way for the invasion of Leyte.
1000 days after the invasion of Iraq, we've produced a 38-page plan.
4:38:00 PM
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Not only did George Bush rank #1 in a survey evaluating the least popular of the last ten Presidents, but George also comes out #1 in Mad Magazine's annual list of the "20 Dumbest people, events, & things" of the past year. Here's their writeup:Hurricane Katrina - The Bush League Response
Shattering his old record for totally ignoring a national disaster (8 minutes of slacking following the 9/11 attacks), President Bush set a new standard this year for utter cluelessness. As Katrina grew to a Category 5 hurricane and smashed the Gulf Coast, leaving New Orleans underwater and thousands stranded and suffering, Dubya spent his time clearing brush, presenting a birthday cake to John McCain, strumming a guitar at a GOP fundraiser, and sleeping. By the time he apologized to the nation two weeks later, it was painfully clear that the President had a lot in common with the citizens of New Orelans: he, too, was in way over his head. I can't not mention the other gem in the same article, the citation for the "Terri Schiavo Media Circus":The Most Shameless Show on Earth
Witness the Presidential Human Cannonball...as he flies through the air from his Texas ranch all the way to Washington just to sign a law that applies to only one person!!!!
Thrill at political trapeze artist Governor Jeb Bush...as he tries again and again to soar above the law!!!
Behold Reverend Jesse Jackson...as he parades around from ring to ring on his high horse!!!
Marvel at Bill Frist...the mind-reading "doctor" who can diagnose a patient he's never met from thousands of miles away!!!
Wonder at circus geek Sean Hannity...as he bites the head off of anyone who dares to disagree with him!!!
Roar with laughter at the antics of the TV reporter clowns...as they trip and fall all over themselves sensationizing a family tragedy!!!
See the bizarre contortionist Tom DeLay...as he performs the breath-taking feat of putting his foot in his mouth and head up his ass at the same time!!! Of course you lose something without the graphics. :-)
(Via Left I on the News.)
4:31:04 PM
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Xeni Jardin:
A Massachussetts paper is reporting that a college student was visited by Department of Homeland Security agents in October after requesting a copy of Quotations From Chairman Mao Tse-Tung -- better known as "The Little Red Book" -- from a university library:
Two history professors at UMass Dartmouth, Brian Glyn Williams and Robert Pontbriand, said the student told them he requested the book through the UMass Dartmouth library's interlibrary loan program.
The student, who was completing a research paper on Communism for Professor Pontbriand's class on fascism and totalitarianism, filled out a form for the request, leaving his name, address, phone number and Social Security number. He was later visited at his parents' home in New Bedford by two agents of the Department of Homeland Security, the professors said.
The professors said the student was told by the agents that the book is on a "watch list," and that his background, which included significant time abroad, triggered them to investigate the student further.
Link to news report.
Attention, comrades! Subversive cesspool Amazon.com sells copies of this watchlisted terrorist manual. Here's the link where you can buy a copy before you invite the DHS over for tea. Hey, is that someone knocking on my door? BRB. (Thanks, Nat, and the approximately ten gajillion other fellow travelers who suggested this item.)
(Via Boing Boing.)
Now, don't you feel a lot safer knowing that the DHS is on the trail of those who would read Mao? Certainly there must be greater threats to our safety. But I guess we can see where the priorities really are.
4:06:05 PM
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Harold Bloom on the state of America today.
...the American people seem benumbed, unable to read, think, or remember, and thus fit subjects for a president who shares their limitations. A grumpy old Democrat, I observe to my friends that our emperor is himself the best argument for intelligent design, the current theocratic substitute for what used to be called creationism. Sigmund Freud might be chagrined to discover that he is forgotten, while the satan of America is now Charles Darwin. President Bush, who says that Jesus is his "favourite philosopher", recently decreed in regard to intelligent design and evolution: "Both sides ought to be properly taught." I am a teacher by profession, about to begin my 51st year at Yale, where frequently my subject is American writers. Without any particular competence in politics, I assert no special insight in regard to the American malaise. But I am a student of what I have learned to call the American Religion, which has little in common with European Christianity. There is now a parody of the American Jesus, a kind of Republican CEO who disapproves of taxes, and who has widened the needle's eye so that camels and the wealthy pass readily into the Kingdom of Heaven. We have also an American holy spirit, the comforter of our burgeoning poor, who don't bother to vote. The American trinity pragmatically is completed by an imperial warrior God, trampling with shock and awe.
3:34:37 PM
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Corky Siegel has new music out -- just pick your album. The blues harmonica player has released three separate recordings this year, each featuring different players and styles.
(Via NPR Programs: Weekend Edition - Saturday.)
12:31:42 PM
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You think that C.S. Lewis was an exemplary Christian writer and that The Chronicles of Narnia are a beautiful Christian allegory? Wrongo. Instead he and his works are tools of Satan:
Clive Staples Lewis has been perhaps the single most useful tool of Satan since his appearance in the Christian community sometime around World War II. With his strong belief in non-denominational Christianity, which he termed "mere Christianity", and his apparent orthodoxy in doctrine, the influence of his pen has reached across many years. When the light of God's Holy Bible is focused upon his writings, however, his heresy and outright love of Satan comes into bold focus.
12:05:33 PM
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Representative Tom Davis (R-Va):
"Republican Congresses tend to overinvestigate Democratic administrations and underinvestigate their own," said Davis, who added that he has tried to pick up some of the slack with his committee. "I get concerned we lose our separation of powers when one party controls both branches." Democrats on the committee said the panel issued 1,052 subpoenas to probe alleged misconduct by the Clinton administration and the Democratic Party between 1997 and 2002, at a cost of more than $35 million. By contrast, the committee under Davis has issued three subpoenas to the Bush administration, two to the Energy Department over nuclear waste disposal at Yucca Mountain, and one last week to the Defense Department over Katrina documents. Some experts on Congress say that the legislative branch has shed much of its oversight authority because of a combination of aggressive actions by the Bush administration, acquiescence by congressional leaders, and political demands that keep lawmakers out of Washington more than before. "I do not think you can argue today that Congress is a coequal branch of government; it is not," said Lee H. Hamilton, president of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Hamilton, a former Democratic congressman and vice chairman of the Sept. 11 commission, told reporters this month: "It has basically lost the war-making power.
There is one reason the GOP Congress won't investigate the Bush Administration now and that is they are afraid of what they will find.
It is the press that has to step up here to "force" their hand to do so in the interest of saving their own skins.
Once the rock is looked under in this Administration there are two many cockroaches to hide.
(Via Rising Hegemon.)
11:48:16 AM
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© Copyright 2006 Steve Michel.
Last update: 1/1/2006; 11:09:51 AM.
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