Blog Change

I've switched over to Wordpress at

http://ithinkthereforeierr.wordpress.com

Blogger has been great, but I had a week of down time that was frustrating. By the time I switched over, blogger was back in business. Now to choose......I'm opting for a change. It'll bee two years come March.
Thanks for reading and come on over to the new joint!

Barack Quote

Let's be the generation that ends poverty in America. Every single person willing to work should be able to get job training that leads to a job, and earn a living wage that can pay the bills, and afford child care so their kids have a safe place to go when they work. Let's do this.

And for those unwilling to continue school? Or search for a job? Or for those people who's job it is to provide child care that's affordable?
I'm sorry, but right now, every single person is given a chance for job training. There are tons of job training services out there at cost/below cost/no cost depending on your circumstances. Same goes for interviewing skills.

What more is he suggesting? That the government, have a person that will take you to this job training and then drive you to the interviews? And watch your children for you? Let's get specific.

Global Warming Prize

Tim Blair deserves the award for finding a global warming solution.

Simply ban automatic cars, as I advised in 2005.

Makes sense to me!

Some Good News

Iraq the Model sees hope. Here's a snippet.

Today I heard unconfirmed news about plans to return the remaining 9 Sunni mosques to the Sunni endowment department. I hope this gesture be met with a similar move on the Sunni end in areas where Shia are minority.

In other encouraging news, I saw on the local Baghdad news that US and Iraqi soldiers have discovered about 60 weapon caches since the beginning of this month, and detained more than 140 suspects during the same period.

Other incidents that indicate a positive change in Maliki's policy are the arrest of deputy minister of health Hakim al-Zamili, and the deployment of IA soldiers to provide security for hospitals in Baghdad instead of the FPS.

Amir Taheri sees cooperation.

The 6+2 (a bloc of moderate Arab states)message is clear: Even if the Americans run away post-Bush, these nations won't submit to a Pax Khomeinista dictated by Tehran.

They still don't get it

The Dixie Chicks won 5 grammys last night and good for them. I've heard that album and it is very good. And I still won't listen to them on purpose. And I suspect their income will continue to be in the tank.
1) Who doesn't get it? The media for one. In this story, here is the story:

The Dixie Chicks are Nashville refugees for reasons of politics and personality — after stinging comments about President Bush, country radio banned them and country fans shunned them

No, it was after stinging comments about President Bush while in a foreign country. The same reason Jimmy Carter is "over the top". You don't piss on your own family while in the company of your neighbors. Unless your neighbor is your therapist!

2) Who else doesn't get it. The Dixie Chicks themselve.

"I think people are using their freedom of speech tonight with all these awards," said Natalie Maines, the lead singer of the Texas-bred band and a firebrand figure for much of America.

Yes, in a way, that is freedom of speech. As is country music fans deciding we no longer want to listen to them!

Freedom of speech goes in all directions. Thank God.

Global Warming Deniers

I am certain that Ellen Goodman by now has regreted her idiotic choice of words that put global warming deniers "on par" with Holocaust deniers. But since she hasn't issued an apology yet, I'll direct you to Mark Steyn today. He has a nice little piece on it. I loved this part....after going over some of ths science, he says

Are you thinking maybe it's time to turn over the page to the Anna Nicole Smith "A life in pictures" double spread? Well, that's my point. Most of us aren't reading the science, or even a precis of the science. We're just reading a constant din from the press that "the science is settled," and therefore we no longer need to think about it: The thinking has been done for us.

That's the part that the media doesn't get. We no longer trust them. And for good reason. Add in a bit from Bjorn Lomborg who is an environmental scientist who also notes

But scientists and journalists - acting as intermediaries between the report and the public - have engaged in greenhouse activism. Elsewhere calling for immediate and substantial cuts in carbon emissions, the IPCC's director even declared that he hoped the IPCC report would "shock people, governments into taking more serious action".

It is inappropriate for somebody in such an important and apolitical role to engage in blatant activism. Imagine if the director of the CIA published a new assessment of Iran, saying: "I hope this report will shock people, governments into taking more serious action."

Climate change is a real and serious problem. But the problem with the recent media frenzy is that some seem to believe no new report or development is enough if it doesn't reveal more serious consequences and more terrifying calamities than humanity has ever considered before.

Which leads us back to Iraq. The media has declared that we can't win.

Victory, as the president sees it, requires a stable liberal democracy in Iraq that is pro-American. The NIE describes a war that has no chance of producing that result. In this critical respect, the NIE, the consensus judgment of all the U.S. intelligence agencies, is a declaration of defeat.

Oddly enough, I don't read that in the NIE report. I read that unless X happens then there will be a disaster and X will be hard to do. That's different than "Victory is not an option".

Kind of like in the Global warming debate where the media has declared that humans are responsible and nothing can be done. It also has declared that unless the US signs on to Kyoto there will be disaster.

Iraq is lost and we need to bring our troops home and nothing can be done to fix it. At the same time, we can expect complete chaos and killing and more trouble if we leave.

Hindsight works well. Which is why there is a HUGE difference between global warming deniers and Holocaust deniers. My only hope is that the Iraq can be a stable democracy deniers are wrong!!

Congress and Money

These stories crack me up.

Congress Finds Ways to Avoid Lobbyist Limits

It's congress who makes the laws! If you're going to find ways to go around it anyway, then why bother with passing the law? Oh, yeah, voters....
Here's the circle.....
Congresspeople appear to have favoritism towards certain interests.....
Why?
There must be lots of money involved.
Research occurs and sure enough there is lots of money involved in a lot of things.
Voters are outraged (even though they are the money givers)
Congress has to do something to fix it or they'll be out of a job
A vote is cast to deny congress the money
but
a) they need the money
workarounds ensue
b) voters want to give the money
workarounds ensue

and the Times has a new story.

US Plan to attack Iran

I should hope they have a plan! OPFOR gives the headline a

Well duh.

notation. And suggests that we probably have a plan to invade Canada too! (again, I should hope so!)

Suicide Bomber Insurance

Saddam used to cover those suicide bombers of Palestine but now it appears the Arab Bank has them covered. Captain Ed today notes a man who survived a suicide bomb to sue the Arab Bank. Good for him. Between that and the Saudi contributions to this bank, maybe, just maybe............

Headlines

I loved all the headlines this morning regarding the Senate Resolutions vote. All around the world they were similar to this:GOP Stalls Debate On Troop Increase Read the whole article to see what really happened but bottom line is:

The Democratic leadership gave Republicans a choice: Allow all four versions to come to a vote, with a simple majority needed for passing any of them, or debate and vote on the Warner and McCain resolutions, with both needing 60 votes to pass.

That's what didn't pass.

Something Fishy

Kidnappers dressed like Iraqi Army kidnapped an Iranian diplomat. The Iraqi Police opened fire and detained 4 of the abductors. The papers don't really have a full story yet so they are filling the lines with fluff.... ie

President Bush last fall secretly authorized the killing or capturing of Iranian intelligence operatives or Revolutionary Guard members operating in Iraq, the Washington Post reported last week. Bush has warned Iran that if it acts against U.S. troops or Iraqis in Iraq, the United States will respond firmly.

Does that mean that the US has become a kidnapper of diplomats? I doubt it.
But the funny part of this story is here:

"The Islamic Republic of Iran considers it a responsibility of U.S. forces in Iraq to protect members of the diplomatic community, including Iranian diplomats, and will hold them responsible for obtaining the release of the abducted Iranian diplomat," Hosseini told the news agency.

So they expect the U.S. to protect their diplomats eh? Is that while we detain them for 444 days?

My prediction? These kidnappers are thugs who had Iraqi Army uniforms. OR the US/Iraqis have evidence against this particular diplomat and the US is trying to pretend we're not part of it.

My Guy Joe

Has Power! Thank Goodness!

Unfortunately, unless Reid can get a Republican to switch caucuses, he has no choice but to limit their efforts to meaningless non-binding resolutions. Lieberman, smarting over the support given to Ned Lamont by Democrats he believed were his friends, now says that his loyalty to them has suffered serious damage. His "sentimental" attachment to the caucus extends only to the point of cutting off funding for the fight in Iraq. Not only would such an effort fail in the Senate -- it would require 60 votes to overcome the filibuster -- but it would effectively hand over control of the Senate to the GOP and Mitch McConnell.

Take that you back stabbing Dems!

Democrats as the enemy?

Too much. Way too much.

This past Friday the Democratic National Committee welcomed a radical imam -- one Husham Al-Husainy -- to offer its invocation at its winter meeting. Last year Al-Hussainy reportedly led demonstrations of Dearborn locals supporting Hezbollah.

The Media

The NYTimes today has a story blaming the new plan (surge) for the widespread violence this weekend. In particular the suicide bombing that took place.

BAGHDAD, Feb. 4 — A growing number of Iraqis blamed the United States on Sunday for creating conditions that led to the worst single suicide bombing in the war, which devastated a Shiite market in Baghdad the day before. They argued that the Americans had been slow in completing the vaunted new American security plan, making Shiite neighborhoods much more vulnerable to such horrific attacks.

(Far be it from me to note that no plan anywhere in the world except perhaps a big wall has ever stopped a suicide bomber) (Whoops, too late, I already noted it!)

What I do want to officially note is the 'notes on the ground' version of what happened this weekend from Mohammed.

about a huge explosion in al-Sadriya market and casualty tolls were increasing every other minute—25, then 40, then 75…an hour later news was talking bout more than a hundred killed in what the media like to call a "predominantly Shia neighborhood".

Al-Sadriya doesn't belong to a certain sect; it's a commercial area where shoppers and shopkeepers are simply Baghdadis but sadly the media is keen on adding sectarian descriptions of the attacked targets in their reports. These descriptions draw the path for blind retaliators who in this case shortly responded by showering what the media calls "predominantly Sunni neighborhoods" with mortars to kill and wound dozens.

Remember that part, "but sadly the media is keen on adding sectarian descriptions of the attacked targets in their reports.......for blind retaliators......"

So then what happens? Well just what Mohammed predicted.

Sunni neighborhood attacked

More than 70 people were reported killed, including 42 whose corpses were dumped around the city and 15 killed in the mortar barrage against Adhamiya, a Sunni neighborhood that is typically targeted in the aftermath of bombings against Shiite neighborhoods.

It's getting pretty bad when people can predict bad reporting and the results of such before it actually happens!

China/Sudan

In todays Washington Post Sebastian Mallaby notes the Chinese sucking up to the President of Sudan. While the west works to sanction this hell hold, the Chinese are giving them money. Greeeaat.

But China's talk of "sovereignty" is code for the opposite policy. As well as paying for a presidential palace, Hu used his trip to cancel $80 million of Sudanese debt, to announce a plan to build a railway line and to visit an oil refinery that China partly owns, basking in the fact that 80 percent of Sudan's oil goes to his country.

Palestinian Civil War

Those Palestinian are finally figuring out that fighting each other might be a media disaster for them. There's no need for them to worry though. If it can happen at all, the media will twist things so that it's either Bush's or Israel's fault.
They're very clever. Read the post, but here's a snippet from Captain Ed:

Did you get that? Their insensitivity to death comes from all of the Palestinians killed by Israelis, rather than the countless men, women, and children killed by Palestinian terrorists since Yasser Arafat first formed the PLO. Their culture of death comes from the Israelis and not their own twisted culture that lionizes lunatics who blow up pizzerias and falafel stands.

Dem resolutions

Will they really just end up going away??? I'm generall a glass half full kind of gal, so as long as Captain Ed is noting the possibility I'm going with hope today! I agree that if Warner filibuster's his own resolution, then

In the end, though, I suspect, a filibuster might work in everyone's interests. The Democrats can claim they tried to pass a useless resolution scolding the White House, the Republicans can claim they protected the effort to win in Iraq, and the White House can get on with its surge strategy for Baghdad. In a weird way, all three had better hope the new strategy works, or the political fallout from these efforts around non-binding resolutions will be harsh indeed.

Global Warming

by Mark Steyn.

War on Terror Update

Scott gathers it all together. He just missed this story of an Iraqi Police officer and an Iman securing a couple of al-Qaeda guys in a mosque and handing them over to coalition forces. Score.

Holly Barnes Higgins writes today in the Washington Post about the feelings of futility she went through in Afghanistan trying to get some honest work going in one of the hell provinces. The big problem being the poppy trade. I'm not at all sure why we can't put all this USAID money into paying whatever the going rate is for poppy but instead of buying poppys buying wheat with it at the same rate. Or even buying the poppy's and burning it. The point of the money right now is to get the Afghans on their feet, not to create a perfect capitalistic society. Anyway, the article was a good read and I admire her for having given it her best.

Resolution Number 3 (on Global Warming)

Whether or not I trust the numbers coming out of the UN, I resolve to only laugh at folks who want something "done" about Global Warming until a)

they ban private jets and stretch limos.

and b) they quit writing headlines like

U.N. says there's no stopping global warming

but with the expectation that we need to "do" something!

Resolution on Iraq: Number 2

Whereas myself and everyone else trusts and likes General Petraeus;

Whereas General Petraeus has suggested that a non-binding resolution in opposition to the President's plan would give comfort to the enemy;

Whereas the GOP may finally be listening to the latest resolution (or rather 'pledge') brought to you by Hugh Hewitt promising no funds for the NRSC in support of a Senator who voted for one of the non-binding resolutions criticizing the additional troops;

Whereas the Senate Democrats are splitting up because some are requiring even stronger language than is currently being tossed around;

Whereas the almost 100 resolutions passed by the UN Security Council in 2006 only made the UN even more inconsequential in the world; (Did you see any effect in Cote d'lvoire from their many resolutions? Me either.)

I resolve to:

1) Continue to let the troops know they have my full support and not in a William Arkin sort of way.

2) Not vote for any Senator who votes for a non-binding, or a binding resolution requesting extra benchmarks or no extra troops as requested

3) Actively campaign against Senator Salazar who has decided to now call the Iraq war a quagmire along with his Democratic colleagues because he thinks it's expedient I'm sure. He was voted in as a moderate and now he thinks he was voted in because of a Democrat "surge". He's incorrect.

4) Continue calling the numbers on Hugh's website to voice my opinion!