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It's the tragedy, stupid!
IT'S ABOUT THE TRAGEDY - NOT MORE BUSH-BASHING
By JOHN PODHORETZ
December 31, 2004 --
THE political and ideological exploitation of perhaps the worst natural disaster in all our lifetimes is almost beyond belief — were it not for the fact that nothing these days is beyond belief.
Even as tears spring into the most hard-hearted person's eyes at both the unimaginable scope of the tragedy and at the wrenching individual stories of loss, opinion leaders just can't help themselves.
They are using this cataclysm as little more than cheap debate fodder about the nature and character of the United States, its president and its citizens.
Don't misunderstand.
It is fine and proper to have a debate and discussion about the degree of generosity the United States could, should and must show in the wake of this literally earth-shaking event.
But at this moment, the United States is not the issue.
The foreign-aid budget of the United States is not the issue.
Our government should not be the focal point of the discussion right now.
Don't we owe the dead, dying and injured the minimal grace not to convert their suffering into a chat-show segment — the latest left-right clash over the Bush presidency?
And couldn't the editorialists at The New York Times have forborne — even just for a week — making use of the tsunami to complain about U.S. government spending on "development aid"?
Development aid is the blanket term for American grant money handed out to other countries, supposedly to help their economies grow. Development aid has nothing — nothing — to do with what has happened.
The aid at issue now is disaster relief.
Secretary of State Colin Powell found himself in the position of having to remind the world that over the past four years the United States has provided more such aid than all other nations on the planet combined.
It is appalling that he had to mention this, and that President Bush was compelled to cite the same information on Wednesday, because you're not supposed to brag about how charitable you are. But once a United Nations official decried the American aid pledge as "stingy," the administration had little choice.
Any rational person would have understood without having to be told what the president told the world on Wednesday morning, which is that the $35 million pledge "is only the beginning of our help."
But maybe people are looking for a sideshow to distract them from the sickening pictures and the keening cries of the untold numbers of mothers whose babies were swept away.
2004 - The Year In Review II
2004 will probably be long remembered as the Year of the Blog. This year, online bloggers, such as PowerLine and Little Green Footballs managed to successfully take on the MSM and expose their left-leaning bias.
Probably the most talked about success of the Blogoshpere was the exposing of blatantly-forged documents aired by Dan Rather on CBS's 60 Minutes II. Within hours of the "news" segment, PowerLine provided sufficient cause to doubt the credibility of Rather's documents. Almost immediately after posting the CBS documents and an identical document that was reproduced in Microsoft Word - using the default settings - the Blogosphere picked up the ball and ran with it. For almost two weeks, Rather maintained that the documents were scrupulously and thoroughly verified, despite mounting evidence to the contrary. Finally, after ten days, Rather admitted that the documents are not as "verified" as he had originally claimed. Instead of saying "Oops, I screwed up," Rather went with the approach of claiming that, even though the documents were not proven to be authentic, they still told a bigger story, and demanded that President Bush answer the allegations made by these "fake, but accurate" documents.
Dan Rather was noted for his tenacity at attempting to unseat President Richard Nixon after the Watergate incident. In attempting to unseat another president, George Bush, he appeared to repeat the same mistakes that Richard Nixon made. And, in so doing, utterly destroyed his both his credibility as a journalist and that of the entire CBS news organization.
In an effort to hide their culpability, the other MSM outlets - like ABC, NBC, and CNN - jumped on the story, hoping that doing so would shield them from the fallout of the CBS disaster. Once again, the Blogosphere came into play. Hot on the heels of Rather-gate came the exposure of another memo pointing out the left-wing bias of the MSM. This time, it was an internal ABC memo saying that they needed to hold George Bush more accountable for the things he says, and to cover up for John Kerry as much as possible. The MSM refused to report on this story, but the Blogosphere - which now had more attention than ever before - ran it. Eventually, the story grew legs, and other MSM outlets had to run the story in order to keep up with the Blogs.
Major news executives dismissed the Blogosphere as a bunch of people sitting at home in their pajamas who had no accountability. On the contrary, the Blogoshpere had become self-correcting. If one Blogger was off on his facts, other Bloggers stepped in with more information to correct these inaccuracies.
The MIPs (Men In Pajamas) show no signs of stopping to rest on their laurels. In fact, as time progresses, more and more Blogs come into play - such as the one you're reading now.
Welcome to the media of the future. Welcome to the Pajamahudeen.
2004 - The Year In Review I
2004 has been a busy year on many fronts. Probably the biggest story this year was the extremely bitter and vitriolic Presidential Election in which we mourned the death of civil poilitical discourse in the US. The campaign started early this year with a record-setting nine Democratic contenders - all trying to unseat the current sitting president, George W. Bush.
The hate started in January when the left-wing organization MoveOn.Org hosted their "Bush in 30 Seconds" contest where they sought campaign commercials made by their constituents. The judges of this contest included such unbiased and mentally stable persons as Jeneane Garofolo and Michael Moore. As a result, there was little real surprise when two of the semi-finalist entries compared President Bush to Adolf Hitler. MoveOn pulled the entries when it became apparent - even amongst all but the fringe element of the Democratic Party - that such comparisons were wrong and, quite frankly, in very poor taste.
February soon rolled around and brought us the Iowa Primaries. Howard Dean, the presumptive Democratic pack leader and the man who effectively mobilized the MoveOn.Org grassroots campaign fundraising efforts, fell flat on his face as voters overwhelmingly selected Massachusetts Senator John F. Kerry to be their candidate. This event led to the famous "Dean Scream" that echoed through the MSM and the Blogosphere. As other states held their primaries, it became increasingly clear that Kerry would be the candidate the Democratic Party would throw against President Bush.
With the selection of Kerry as the Democratic nominee, the campaign started to go into full swing. So did the mud-slinging. Cries of "Bush is a moron/Nazi/puppet/evil genius/etc." and "Kerry is a gold-digger/communist/puppet/etc." came from both sides. Obvious and not-so-obvious attempts at electioneering by third parties also became prevalent. The most obvious being the infamous CBS documents meant to "prove" George Bush was AWOL from his National Guard service that were proven to be horribly perpetrated forgeries, and the attempts from the British left-wing newspaper The Guardian doing a mail campaign designed to affect voters in Clark County, Ohio. The not-so-obvious attempts included Hungarian billionaire George Soros donating literally tens of millions of dollars to various anti-Bush causes, such as MoveOn.Org and Air America Radio.
Another organization of note was the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth - a group of Vietnam Vets - consisting of members of all political persuasions - who served in the same capacity that John Kerry served in Vietnam. Their stated goal was to expose what they called falsehoods in John Kerry's Winter Soldier Testimony in which he painted American soldiers as uncontrolled psychopaths who rampantly engaged in war crimes - crimes that John Kerry himself admitted to performing. Rather than dispute the allegations of the SBVTs, John Kerry tried to sue them into silence. When that failed, Kerry turned his lawyers on the media outlets who gave the SBVTs any exposure.
The hostile tone of the election carried on - intensified, even - up until the very last votes were counted in Ohio, when it became clear that the winner of the election was George Bush. Learning from the mistakes of former Vice President Al Gore, Kerry conceded the election when it became obvious that a legal challenge would be futile. There were some who still held out hope that Kerry would pull out a last-minute victory. The most notable of these were the constituents of MoveOn.Org and from the online forum Democratic Underground.
UN gripes about US aid - again
First they gripe that we're not giving enough aid, now they gripe that, even though we're giving more aid than anyone else, we're not doing it through them.
I guess the Useless Nitwits think we've forgotten about their history of theft and skimming.
Bush 'Undermining UN with Aid Coalition'
By Jamie Lyons, PA Political Correspondent
United States President George Bush was tonight accused of trying to undermine the United Nations by setting up a rival coalition to coordinate relief following the Asian tsunami disaster.
The president has announced that the US, Japan, India and Australia would coordinate the world’s response.
But former International Development Secretary Clare Short said that role should be left to the UN.
“I think this initiative from America to set up four countries claiming to coordinate sounds like yet another attempt to undermine the UN when it is the best system we have got and the one that needs building up,” she said.
“Only really the UN can do that job,” she told BBC Radio Four’s PM programme.
“It is the only body that has the moral authority. But it can only do it well if it is backed up by the authority of the great powers.”
Ms Short said the coalition countries did not have good records on responding to international disasters.
She said the US was “very bad at coordinating with anyone” and India had its own problems to deal with.
“I don’t know what that is about but it sounds very much, I am afraid, like the US trying to have a separate operation and not work with the rest of the world through the UN system,” she added.
Still here
I just want to let everyone know that absolutely no nukes were detonated over Houston yesterday. So much for this guy's impecable sources.
Waiting
It's Monday, Dec. 27th. Where's the nuke?
Update
It's 2:00pm. No nukes yet. I'll be sure to keep you updated if the situation changes. ;)
Update #2
7:15pm and still no nukes. I'm beginning to get disappointed. ;)
Snow?
It's snowing outside.
That's right - snow. In Houston, Tx.
Hell has officially frozen over.
Lighten up, folks!
Online conversation I had yesterday:
Person 1: "It's about time Christians started getting mad at they way they're being treated."
Person 2: "Amen brother! I'm sick of people belittling our faith."
Me: "Ooooh...Angry Christians. So when can I expect the Spanish Inquisition?"
At which point the discussion degenerated into name-calling and Christians whining about how they're being oppressed. It was TWO HOURS before anyone got the joke. For fuck's sake, people, Jesus never said you couldn't have a sense of humor!
Oh, and for those who either don't know, or are too wound up to think about it, the answer to the above question is " No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!"
Something worth a chuckle
Hat tip to Fark.
Normally, I don't pay too much mind to the extremist moonbats of the world, but every so often, one comes across my path that practically screams for attention.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you Darth Apathy's First Annual Moonbat of the Year Award.
4 days to go
It’s 4 days until Christmas, and the sheep are out in legion, trying to find that “perfect gift” for their undeserving offspring. Children are masturbating themselves raw at the thought of a new Playstation to replace the old one they got for their birthdays last month. And should Mommy not get the much-desired game console, well, that’s just fine as Junior has the number to CPS memorized so he can report her for child neglect.
Faux cheer and simulated charity permeate the air. The Salvation Army Rangers are camped out in front of every store (except Target, who had to sense to tell them to bugger off) to guilt people out of their hard-earned money in an effort to cash in on the phony feel-good atmosphere.
Aunt Martha is trying to remember where she put the Christmas turkey so she can have it cooked by the time the family arrives for Christmas dinner later today. Or is tomorrow Christmas? Or was Christmas yesterday? What’s that smell? It smells like something is burning in the oven. Now where’s that damn bird?
Religious nuts are apoplectic at the thought that there are still evil unwashed heathens in this country who haven’t accepted Jesus as their Personal Charlatan…*ahem*…Savior and choose not to celebrate Christmas by standing in endless lines holding a Playstation for Junior like good Christians.
And, of course, there are all those Christmas carols. Who could possibly forget all those rancid songs, no matter how hard we may try?
Just 4 more days, and this whole fucking mess will be over.
Not quite a happy ending....
Imagine
I'm currently listening to some banal Clear Channel radio station at work that's playing the Perfect Circle remake of John Lennon's "Imagine." Never in my life could I possibly have believed that the song could sound even more whiney than the original, but I have been proven wrong.
Where's a chainsaw when you need one?
Accident? Or deliberate?
Plants sow seeds of hate
Fiona Hudson, city editor
10dec04
A FLORAL foul-up has left a city street lined with swastika shapes in a week of major Jewish celebrations.
Gardeners hired by Melbourne City Council intended to arrange the purple and white pot plants into neat geometric shapes.
But they left six 3m garden beds along Swanston St displaying large Nazi symbols.
Jewish community representatives were appalled last night by the timing of the blunder.
City venues including Federation Square are hosting hundreds of Jews this week to celebrate the eight-day Hanukkah festival.
The council sent hired green thumbs to rearrange the six offending garden beds last night, about an hour after Herald Sun inquiries.
"The arrangements, even if done inadvertently, are in appalling taste," Lord Mayor John So said. "I have asked that they be changed immediately."
Vandals were initially believed to have rearranged the plants as a racist slur. But closer investigation showed gardeners had inadvertently used the pattern.
Jewish-born councillor Carl Jetter at first said he was appalled by the arrangements, which he thought were vandalism.
"It's sad and it's unnecessary. It makes us, as an international destination, more uncomfortable," he said.
"I disagree with and don't want to see any racist activity in our city."
When told the swastikas appeared to be unintentional, Cr Jetter dismissed concerns.
"It just sounds like an accident," he said.
A spokeswoman for deputy mayor Gary Singer, who is also Jewish, declined to make a comment.
Holocaust Museum president Shmuel Rosenkranz described the flower fiasco as offensive to most Melburnians.
"Any swastika anywhere would be of offence to anybody who lived through the Hitler era," he said.
She's at it again
Once again, my good friend Nicki opens up with a full broadside on the idiots on the left. This time, her target is knife-banners of Britain.
Yes, Dear Reader, you read that correctly. Britain is considering "knife control laws." As Nicki so elloquently states "It appears the Brits have climbed the Cliffs of Insanity and taken a collective nosedive into the River of Outright Absurdity."
Congratulations are in order
Gimme a f*cking break, revisted
Gettin' Geeky Wit' it!
For those of you who use Norton Antivirus and are having trouble downloading your email after a recent update, follow these instructions, and your problem should be fixed.
The DNC needs YOUR help!
DraftHoward.com.
Show your undying support for the DNC and help Howard Dean replace Terry McAuliffe as the worst possible thing that could happen to the Democratic Party.
MoveOn to Democratic Party: "We own it."
After reading this article, the only thing I can think that will cause the Democratic Party to fade further into irrelevency is appointing Howard Dean as chair of the DNC. And I'll be damned if they aren't actually considering it.
MoveOn to Democratic Party: 'We Own It'
Thu Dec 9, 6:37 PM ET Elections - AP
By SAM HANANEL, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - Liberal powerhouse MoveOn has a message for the "professional election losers" who run the Democratic Party: "We bought it, we own it, we're going to take it back."
A scathing e-mail from the head of MoveOn's political action committee to the group's supporters on Thursday targets outgoing Democratic National Committee (news - web sites) chairman Terry McAuliffe as a tool of corporate donors who alienated both traditional and progressive Democrats.
"For years, the party has been led by elite Washington insiders who are closer to corporate lobbyists than they are to the Democratic base," said the e-mail from MoveOn PAC's Eli Pariser. "But we can't afford four more years of leadership by a consulting class of professional election losers."
Under McAuliffe's leadership, the message said, the party coddled the same corporate donors that fund Republicans to bring in money at the expense of vision and integrity.
"In the last year, grass-roots contributors like us gave more than $300 million to the Kerry campaign and the DNC, and proved that the party doesn't need corporate cash to be competitive," the message continued. "Now it's our party: we bought it, we own it, and we're going to take it back."
Pariser urged MoveOn supporters to help support a DNC chair with a bold vision to represent Democrats outside Washington. Democrats will vote at their February meeting in Washington on a successor to McAuliffe.
DNC spokesman Jano Cabrera declined to engage in a tit-for-tat with MoveOn, but praised McAuliffe's efforts.
"Call me crazy, but I think the fact that for the first time in party history we outraised the Republicans, and did so primarily through grass-roots fund raising is something to be proud of," Cabrera said.
Among those vying for the party chairmanship is former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean (news - web sites), an early darling of MoveOn's cybernetwork of activists when he ran for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Student suspended for "Jell-O shots"...
...despite there being no evidence of alcohol in the Jell-O.
La. School Suspends 8-Year-Old Girl
By DOUG SIMPSON
Associated Press Writer
December 7, 2004, 4:27 PM EST
NEW ORLEANS -- An 8-year-old girl was suspended for nine days for bringing to school what appeared to be about 30 "Jell-O shots" -- though it was unclear whether they contained alcohol.
The incident occurred Nov. 29, as the girl stood after classes outside Geraldine Boudreaux Elementary School in Terrytown, a New Orleans suburb. A teacher spotted liquid dripping out of the student's bookbag and found what looked like the small cups of alcohol-laced gelatin that are sold in bars, schools spokesman Jeff Nowakowski said.
The girl told the principal that her mother, who works in a bar, makes alcoholic shots at home and sells them at work. The fourth-grader said her mother had instructed her to take the shots to school and sell them, three for $1, to make some money for Christmas, Nowakowski said.
The gelatin was turned over to the sheriff's department for testing to see if it contained alcohol.
The girl was suspended for violating school rules against possessing or trying to distribute a "lookalike," or something that appears to contain drugs or alcohol.
Under the lookalike rule, the girl's suspension will stand no matter what the sheriff's department finds.
"The school system's position is, it doesn't matter if it had alcohol in it or not," Nowakowski said.
The names of the girl and her mother were not released.
The mother must also allow school officials to test her daughter's hair for signs of drug use, Nowakowski said.
Copyright © 2004, The Associated Press
Those wacky environmentalists
Hat tip to Michelle Malkin for providing a comprehensive list of ecoterrorist activity on her blog. If you don't know who Michelle Malkin is, then read her blog or her syndicated columns at Town Hall.
Despite vehement environmentalist protests against the housing development where 26 suburan Maryland homes were torched earlier this week, authorities are telling the press that arson-happy Earth Liberation Front members are "not something we are focusing on."
Read the rest here.
This about sums it up
A Hush Over Hollywood
by Pat Sajak
Posted Nov 30, 2004
Picture this:
Somewhere in the world, a filmmaker creates a short documentary that chronicles what he perceives as the excesses of anti-abortion activists. An anti-abortion zealot reacts to the film by killing the filmmaker in broad daylight and stabbing anti-abortion tracts onto his body. How does the Hollywood community react to this atrocity? Would there be angry protests? Candlelight vigils? Outraged letters and columns and articles? Awards named in honor of their fallen comrade? Demands for justice? Calls for protection of artistic freedom? It’s a pretty safe bet that there would be all of the above and much more. And all of the anger would be absolutely justified.
So I’m trying to understand the nearly universal lack of outrage coming from Hollywood over the brutal murder of Dutch director, Theo van Gogh, who was shot on the morning of November 2, while bicycling through the streets of Amsterdam. The killer then stabbed his chest with one knife and slit his throat with another.
The presumed murderer, a Dutch-born dual Moroccan-Dutch citizen, attached a 5-page note to van Gogh's body with a knife. In it, he threatened jihad against the West in general, and specifically against five prominent Dutch political figures. Van Gogh’s crime? He created a short film highly critical of the treatment of women in Islamic societies. So, again I ask, where is the outrage from Hollywood’s creative community? I mean, talk about a violation of the right of free speech!
Perhaps they are afraid that their protests would put them in danger. That, at least, is a defensible position. If I were Michael Moore, I would much rather rail against George W. Bush, who is much less likely to have me killed, than van Gogh’s murderer and the threat to creative freedom he brings. Besides, a man of Moore’s size would provide a great deal of “bulletin board” space.
Maybe they think it would be intolerant of them to criticize the murder, because it would put them on the side of someone who criticized a segment of the Arab world. And, after all, we are often reminded that we need to be more tolerant of others, especially if they’re not Christians or Jews.
There’s another possibility; one that seems crazy on the surface, but does provide an explanation for the silence, and is also in keeping with the political climate in Hollywood. Is it just possible that there are those who are reluctant to criticize an act of terror because that might somehow align them with President Bush, who stubbornly clings to the notion that these are evil people who need to be defeated? Could the level of hatred for this President be so great that some people are against anything he is for, and for anything he is against?
As nutty as it sounds, how else can you explain such a muted reaction to an act that so directly impacts creative people everywhere? Can you conceive of a filmmaker being assassinated because of any other subject matter without seeing a resulting explosion of reaction from his fellow artists in America and around the world?
As I said, it’s a nutty-sounding explanation, but we live in nutty times.
WAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!
International Terrorist Supporters Whine About "Abuse" of Guantanamo Prisoners.
The questions I have to ask is these: What is this abuse that's "tantamount to torture?" One lump of sugar instead of two and no creamer in their coffee? The crumpets were day-old? Not being allowed to pleasure themselves with goats whenever they wish? Being forced to watch Barbara Streisand movies? Having to wake up with pictures of Jeneane Garofalo pasted to every square inch of their cell walls?
Define "tantamount to torture," please.
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