"Soldiers dying in Iraq are dying to defend the US against terrorism as a victory in Iraq is a victory in the war on terror. They are dying to defend freedom and democracy in the US and to spread freedom and democracy to Iraq. They are dying for the interests of the US, her allies, and by extension, all Americans (whether they understand it or not). They are not dying for Haliburton, oil, or any other ridiculous shit / slant the anti-war types or conspiracy theorists want to spin. Haliburton is a company (among many others, both US and foreign) that seized a chance to profit in REBUILDING Iraq. There is a big difference between that and war-profiteering. Haliburton did not start the war, terrorists and those that support them did. Putting the chicken before the egg just won’t fly."
-polymath
"[B]efore you [Europeans] write us off as just a bunch of sweaty, hairy-chested, Bible-thumping morons who are more likely to break their fast by dipping a Krispy Kreme into a diet cola than a biscotti into an espresso - and who inexplicably have won more Nobel prizes than all other countries combined,
host 25 or 30 of the world's finest universities and five or six of the world's best symphonies, produce wines that win prizes at your own tasting competitions, have built the world's most vibrant economy, are the world's only military superpower and, so to speak in our spare time, have landed on
the moon and sent our robots to Mars - may I suggest you stop frothing at
the mouth long enough to consider just what are these ideas we hold that you find so silly and repugnant?"
- LynnKramer
"Democracy may have been invented in Greece, but cowardess was invented in France where it lives and thrives to this very day."
- RedTigress
"I'm referring to the Iraqi terrorist bastard fighters. The ones liberals insist are either not in Iraq, or are there by the thousands, depending on which liberal you listen to."
- noguru
"How is it that the Left can believe absolute crazy shit, like the Bush-Saudi Arabian money connection, or the even worse and totally false Bush-bin Laden connection (based on 100% lies) and look at you straight and say there was absolutely no way that Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda had ties?"
- reducto
There are Never Enough Deaths to Play Politics With
Surely 125,000+ dead would be horrific enough to not play politics with? First there was the "OMG!! Bush took 3 days to make a public statement!" Sure enough, Kofi's 4 day absence shut them up, but do you really think these people care that Bush took 3 days to make a public statement? Do they think Bush was just sitting there in a corner doing absolutely nothing for those 3 days? Do they think he didn't have contact with anybody and he couldn't do anything? No, of course not. They just want to take advantage of this horrible disaster and take a cheap shot at Bush. Isn't there a line you're not supposed to cross?
Then there's this whole "stingy" thing. Fox has gone on about it nonstop, I don't know about the other networks. Sure, we could give more, we will give more, but that doesn't stop the rest of the world from playing politics with the disaster.
PARIS -- One-upping the United States, France nearly doubled its aid pledge for tsunami victims to $57 million Thursday and briefly claimed the role as leading donor nation, following barbs from Washington about France's generosity.
But Britain quickly topped France by more than tripling its donation to $95 million and Sweden promised $75.5 million. Spain's Cabinet, meanwhile, approved a $68 million package.
After Sunday's huge earthquake off Indonesia sent tsunamis around the Indian Ocean, the United States had announced a $35 million aid package.
But Secretary of State Colin Powell said Thursday that was ''just a beginning.''
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher ticked off a string of relief flights and declared: ''Any implication we are not leading the way is wrong.''
Nations one-uping eachother just so they aren't the "stingy" country. This isn't about how much is actually needed, but looking better than the other guy.
We offer more than France, France doubles it's offer to upstage us, Britain triples it's offer to upstage France, and sure enough, we'll probably jump in the game and upstage Britain. Of course, it won't make a difference because we're the wealthy country and anything short of billions of dollars will be seen as stingy. Even if we did give a couple billion dollars, then we'd be seen as playing politics with the disaster. No matter what happens, we will be the bad guys.
I first heard this on the way to get my new keyboard. I, of course, don't know which is which. I can't spell or pronounce either's name correctly. I think I'm rooting for the guy that wasn't poisoned, and I think he's the one not winning.
Ukraine's Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych has refused to concede defeat in the presidential election won by his rival Viktor Yushchenko.
"I will never recognise such a defeat, because the constitution and human rights were violated," he said.
Earlier, international observers praised the conduct of Sunday's re-run vote, held after the second round was annulled over ballot-rigging.
With nearly all votes counted, Mr Yushchenko has an eight-point lead.
The pro-Western opposition leader, who wants Ukraine to push through liberal reforms, is on 52%, against Mr Yanukovych's 44%, official results show.
But Mr Yanukovych said his campaign team had close to 5,000 complaints about how the third round of voting was conducted.
He pointed to the reported deaths of eight voters, linking them to a last-minute constitutional court decision on voting rights for the disabled.
Refused to concede defeat eh? How do you just refuse to concede defeat? If you're the challenger I can see how you can keep fighting it while the prime minister continues about his duties, but when you're the current prime minister? What happens if the guy just sits there and says he's not leaving? Eventually those protesters sitting out there in subzero temperatures are going to either die or start rioting.
I don't think he's going to leave until he gets another revote, and I don't think he's getting another revote. The longer he stays there, the longer those protesters stay there, and the more it puts you liberal protesters to shame. Gore won the popular vote and came so close to winning the electoral vote, and there were no massive mobs outside the Whitehouse demanding a revote. You've been upstaged by the Ukranians, you should be ashamed.
The vast left-wing conspiracy is at it again. The liberals over at eCollegePC.com thought they could keep me away by sending me a defective keyboard with my new computer, but I had managed to type up my blogs using spanglish and various symbols that looked like letters. Sure enough, as soon as I got ready to post this mangled rant, the power shuts off. Some liberal must have cut the power lines. Well a day later and after buying a new computer, I have proven that good triumphs over evil.
Now about this new computer. You have got to see this thing. It's a fire-breathing behemoth. It's got these huge eyes on the front of it that are lit up as long as the thing is running, and it has a semi-seethru case with this huge orange glowing emblem on it. I won't get into it's specs, but trust me, they're awesome.
WASHINGTON – New Mexico, Idaho, Utah and other states blessed with wide-open spaces are seeing steady population growth as increasingly cramped Americans look for ways to spread out.
Overall, the U.S. population grew by almost 3 million people over the last year to just under 294 million, the Census Bureau reported in annual population estimates being released Wednesday. The top 10 list of fastest-growing states was dominated by those in the West and South, with Nevada leading the way for the 18th consecutive year.
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While favorable weather and jobs continue to be primary lures, people also are looking for places that offered space, affordability and the great outdoors. That helped place Idaho fourth on the list of fastest-growing states. Utah was seventh and New Mexico 10th.
Robert Lang, a demographer with the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech, said those states are appealing to people who want to escape the urban sprawl of big cities such as Los Angeles and Denver.
``This is part of a long diffusion of population of the country because of the interstates, airports and the Internet,'' Lang said. ``We use the whole country now.''
Fern Bull, 74, moved from Colorado to Layton, Utah, about 25 miles north of Salt Lake City, to be near her two young granddaughters. In the five years since arriving, a Wal-Mart, a small shopping mall and two new fast-food restaurants have been built on once-empty parcels of land near her home, she said.
Utah's population is 2.4 million, up 1.6 percent over the past year and up 7 percent since 2000. Bull, who is involved in a social group that welcomes new residents, said local officials were trying to keep infrastructure on a pace with the influx.
``We're just trying to get highways and transportation,'' she said. ``As more people keep moving in, we need more.''
Idaho's population rose 2 percent over the last year to nearly 1.4 million. There is growth around the capital of Boise and in Kootenai County in northern Idaho.
That is where the shoreline of scenic Lake Coeur d'Alene has been increasingly fenced by million-dollar homes, and subdivisions are climbing higher up the county's hillsides, said Rand Wichman, the county's planning and zoning director.
``We're struggling to keep the infrastructure up with the growth, and schools and roads and all those kinds of things are perpetually behind the curve,'' he said. ``The question is how long we can keep this a great place to live before the pressure overwhelms us.''
Nevada, spurred in large part by the sprawling growth around Las Vegas, grew by 4.1 percent to 2.3 million people.
Retired utility worker Lloyd Wicliff, 58, moved from the Los Angeles area to North Las Vegas last year. ``Your money goes a little further here,'' he said. ``A nice house in Southern California can be a nicer home in southern Nevada.''
Arizona had the second-largest growth, up 3 percent to 5.7 million. Florida was third with a 2.3 percent increase to 17.4 million. Georgia, Texas, Delaware and North Carolina also were in the top 10.
I know what you're all thinking, "But what about Massuhchewsets?" Well my babies...
Massachusetts was the only state that had a population decline, albeit down a slight 3,800 people, or 0.1 percent, to 6.41 million. Demographers speculated it could have been caused by an exodus of people leaving to escape rising costs in the Boston area.
Well I'm speculating that Kerry had something to do with this.
So, now to figure out whether this is a good thing or not.
On one hand, increased population in the red states will add to their electoral count, I think we got 9 more votes this election year than last one. Once these red states, which have got to amount to like 3/4 of the country, start to fill out, the democrats are going to be screwed.
On the other hand, if these are people escaping the cramped cities in the blue states, my money's saying they're pretty liberal. If a bunch of liberals move into the red states, that could throw off the monopoly we have on the South and Midwest. In most states, namely the ones Bush won by 20% or more, it would just add to the electoral votes for the republican candidate, but in those battleground states like New Mexico and Florida, it could be enough to tip the scales. Then you've got to throw in the whole urbanization of the red states which could turn them more liberal.
Despite all that, I think the increased power to the overwhelmingly red states will outweigh the possible risk of losing the battleground states.
A friendly jab at the American Civil Liberties Union has turned into a financial bonanza for a tiny nine-member Boy Scout troop from Chesterfield County.
Troop 828, with an unexpected boost on Wednesday from nationally syndicated talk show host Glenn Beck, watched its struggling popcorn sales explode.
Scouts at a downtown booth had to call for fresh supplies. A Web site was flooded with orders from buyers in 39 states.
At last count, sales had topped $28,000. That set a record for the Boy Scouts' Heart of Virginia Council.
Last year the troop sold less than $300 worth of popcorn.
The windfall came after Beck got wind of the Scouts' decision to set up a booth near the ACLU's Virginia headquarters in downtown Richmond.
For years the ACLU has raised legal questions as to how closely the government should be aligned with the Boy Scouts of America.
"We're kind of a conservative troop," said Scoutmaster Jim Carpenter, whose two-year-old unit meets at St. Joseph Catholic Church. "They're a very devout group of young men, and God and country are extremely important to them."
"And at one of our Monday night meetings, they decided that it would be real cool to sell popcorn in front of the ACLU. This was their idea. We're a boy-run troop."
Sales were initially poor Wednesday morning.
"We had two customers between 10 and 10:30, and the guys were just about ready to call it quits," he said.
But after an unsolicited plug from Beck, a well-known conservative talk show host who airs on WRVA (1140 AM), hundreds of people from across the country began ordering popcorn from the Chesterfield Scouts.
As of yesterday afternoon, the troop had topped $22,700 in sales from 586 people ordering online from the Boy Scouts' national popcorn distributor, local scout officials said. Beck put a link to the company on his Web site.
But that wasn't all. Richmonders flocked to the Scouts' booth at Seventh and Main, buying about $4,200 more, Carpenter said.
"We supplied them with everything we could," said Robert "Alf" Tuggle, Scout executive for the Heart of Virginia Council.
Said Carpenter: "Things just went nuts. It didn't slow down until about 3:30, 4 o'clock. We had cars pulling off and lots of people honking the horn, we had a couple of police officers stop by and buy popcorn. We had fire trucks going by and tooting their horns. It was incredible."
The downtown sales trip, Carpenter said, was "kind of a last-ditch effort" to sell about $1,250 worth of popcorn they had left from a consignment order.
In addition to plugging the troop's efforts on national radio, Beck personally bought about $380 worth of popcorn during his sold-out appearance Wednesday night at the Science Museum of Virginia, Carpenter said. Some of Beck's fans purchased popcorn, too.
Beck invited the Scouts to his show, where he signed and took pictures with the boys, who gave him the troop's American flag. "He mentioned during the show that he collected flags," Carpenter said.
Tuggle, the local Scout Executive, applauded the troop's "ingenious strategy."
"They weren't out there trying to get in the face of the ACLU," he said. "They conducted themselves in a Scout-like manner and took advantage of an opportunity to get a lot of customers."
The troop will get to keep 30 percent of the total, the standard commission. Carpenter said some of that will go toward a troop ski trip to West Virginia in March.
HAHAHA!! This is what I'm talking about, and you've got to love the ACLU's response:
Kent Willis, executive director of the Virginia ACLU, said he doesn't begrudge the Scouts for exercising their First Amendment right to free speech or using the ACLU name to generate sales.
I could've showed up and took pictures, Richmond is only about an hour from here, but I didn't know about it.
The US looked likely to succeed on Friday night in blocking discussions on the next stage of the Kyoto protocol on climate change, to the chagrin of the European Union.
At the conference of the parties to the United Nations framework convention on climate change on Friday, negotiations continued in an attempt to break the deadlock on the talks.
MUAHAHAHAHA!! Did we hide their copies of "The Day After Tomorrow" or something?
Although the US had long-term plans for tackling climate change, it would be “premature” to begin discussions in 2005 on what would happen from 2012, said Paula Dobriansky, the under secretary of state for global affairs.
She said the programmes the US already had under way to tackle climate change, outside the provisions of the Kyoto protocol, were more pressing concerns. “I'm focused on what is, not what if,” she said.
The US has refused to ratify the Kyoto protocol on the grounds that it unfairly favours developing countries and might limit economic growth, but it remains a signatory to the UN framework convention on climate change. This gives it a voice in discussions on the future direction of the framework.
I run into so many liberals who aren't aware of this, so remember, the Kyoto protocol was shot down unanimously in the Senate, 95-0, so don't go complaining about us big bad republicans on that one.
I'll take any victory we can get against these climofascists. Isn't it great how you can just add fascist onto anything?
I know to you superbloggers that's probably not much, especially since I'm not even on hotblogs, but I need to cherish it. This will be the last landmark I hit for a while. After November 2nd, I'm getting literally 10 times less traffic, of course, that could also be because I'm not blogging much anymore.
I'd like to thank the celebrities for Bush post, which single handedly delivered me 3000 hits. And of course John Kerry who, if it weren't for the celebrities for Bush post, would be my number one search engine keyword. Oh, and Ann Coulter, who could forget her. Back before I got this new tracker, mentioning Ann Coulter nude pics brought me hundreds of hits.
Now something needs to happen so I can start blogging about it, and not these supertrials. I can't stand them.
December 13, 2004--If the next Presidential Election were held today, 46% of voters would vote for a generic Republican candidate over Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. A Rasmussen Reports survey found that 39% of voters would cast their ballot for Senator Clinton.
The New York Senator holds a narrow 45% to 42% lead among women, but trails by 17 points among men.
The national telephone survey of 1,500 Likely Voters was conducted by Rasmussen Reports December 3-5, 2004. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.
An earlier Rasmussen Reports survey found that 42% of Democrats believe that Senator Clinton is the Democrats' strongest candidate for 2008. Other survey data shows that 51% of Democrats want their next Presidential candidate to be more of a centrist than John Kerry.
Forty-five percent (45%) of voters have a favorable opinion of Senator Clinton while 42% have an unfavorable opinion. The fact that 87% of voters have an opinion about her is remarkably high for a United States Senator.
So all we need is a generic republican candidate.
Assuming terrorists aren't running amok in Iraq next election, if they were ever there to begin with ( <-- see noguru quote to the side ), all we need to do is pick a guy that isn't a complete loser, because lets face it, Hillary will get the nomination even if it means she has to slip dioxin into the soup of her competitors.> Why is there no news!!
[i] NEW YORK — A British philosophy professor who has been a leading champion of atheism (search) for more than a half-century has changed his mind. He now believes in God — more or less — based on scientific evidence, and says so on a video released Thursday.
At age 81, after decades of insisting belief is a mistake, Antony Flew (search) has concluded that some sort of intelligence or first cause must have created the universe. A super-intelligence is the only good explanation for the origin of life and the complexity of nature, Flew said in a telephone interview from England.
Flew said he's best labeled a deist like Thomas Jefferson (search), whose God was not actively involved in people's lives.
"I'm thinking of a God very different from the God of the Christian and far and away from the God of Islam, because both are depicted as omnipotent Oriental despots, cosmic Saddam Husseins," he said. "It could be a person in the sense of a being that has intelligence and a purpose, I suppose."[/i]
I had never even heard of the guy, but then again, I'm not an atheist nor do I participate in much religious debate, but I still think it's interesting. If one of the leading evangelists, suprisingly I can't name any of them either, decided to convert to athiesm, I'd be pretty shocked too.
Sure, he doesn't believe in the Judeo-Christian God, but belief in any kind of supreme being is a big step. If more people start accepting that there is a God, even if there's no proof it's any one religion's God, it should do a lot for the major religions.
Maybe we'll end up with like a, what is this, 5th Great Awakening?
I might as well make this political so my little liberal buddies have an excuse to call me a fascist. If all that holds true, you can expect the republican party to remain as strong as ever.
Anybody know if there's a negative term for Christians? Muslims have Islamofascist. If we don't already, we need something cool like that. Something that just rolls off the tongue. I don't mean Bible thumper or something of the sort, but a cooler word, something with a harshness to it.
Haha, I found these 2 things on wikipedia when searching for a term:
Jewspaper Jew York
They don't sound offensive, so don't take them that way, I just think they're clever.
Bristol said he makes the trip nearly every day. Frank Freeman, who works at the marina, recognized the plane because "Re-elect George W. Bush," with the R painted out, is in large red letters on the fuselage. Bristol said the political statement was the work of his boss at Miami Air Lease, an air cargo company.
The doomed flight began about 8:40 a.m. when Bristol and Villavicencio took off from Opa-locka Airport headed for Nassau, Bahamas. The plane was loaded with electronics, toys and furniture.
Bristol began experiencing problems about four miles offshore. He felt the plane vibrating and saw smoke coming from the left engine.
Procedure called for the pilot to give the good engine full power and "feather" the dead engine, or lock its propeller to a stop, allowing the plane to maintain altitude or even climb. A propeller allowed to keep spinning creates drag.
However, the pilot said the feathering mechanism failed to work, and he was unable to maintain altitude. He knew he wouldn't be able to make it back to the airport and began looking for a safe place to land. The lake was his only option.
When a plane with "Re-elect George Bush" painted in huge letters on the side crashes because an engine cathces on fire then the feathering mechanism fails, I'm going to assume liberals sabatoged it. Maybe those liberals suffering from that post-election trauma. They couldn't stand the sight of a big Dubya advertisement flying around every day.
Sure, I don't have "proof" or anything like that, but I don't care because there is not enough news.
Majority of Democrats Want a More Centrist Candidate
Saturday November 20, 2004--Half (51%) of the nation's Democrats say it would be best for their party to nominate a more centrist candidate in 2008. Twenty-five percent (25%) believe that it would be best to nominate a more liberal candidate than John Kerry.
Unaffiliated voters, by a 52% to 20% margin, also believe that a more centrist candidate would be best for the Democrats.
Now I just need to find a poll about how many republicans want a more centrist candidate in 2004.
Sunday November 21, 2004--Forty-two percent (42%) of Democrats say New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton would be the party's strongest Presidential candidate in 2008. A Rasmussen Reports survey found that 16% think 2004 nominee John Kerry would be the best bet for Democrats in the next Presidential contest. Thirteen percent (13%) named Kerry's running mate, John Edwards.
Among unaffiliated voters, 27% named Senator Clinton as the Democrats' strongest candidate. Sixteen percent (16%) named Senator Edwards and 10% Senator Kerry.
Please. If that's the best democrats can come up with, it's going to be a tough decade. For one, Senators haven't done well as far as winning elections is concerned. Two, Hillary doesn't have a shot in hell of winning a southern state. She's way too polarizing to have a chance in this year's battleground states unless the republicans put up Rush.
And look at these other coices. Kerry again? Have they lost their minds? Kerry couldn't win against Bush. Bush people. The man, who from what I hear, is the most hated man on the planet right now. Edwards? A loser running mate running for president the next time around, I can't see that happening either.
Poor democrats, you're screwed. Your best shot is pulling a southern governor out of the blue and doing what we did with Bush in 2000, force him into the spotlight.
