Totten In Israel

Michael Totten has a really fascinating post up about the forgotten Palestinians. The ones who happen to be Israeli citizens. It's very revealing.

I Was Trying To Figure Out

How to post about this without making a direct link. Fortunately (for me, if not him), John Hawkins linked it and I can do an indirect link to the post through him.

The Huffington Post, home of many far left posters, sees fit to host a thuggish, misogynistic "radio host" that nobody outside of the far left has ever heard of as one of their bloggers. Mr. Cenk Uygur has made a public challenge, via the internet, to kick Michael Smerconish's butt. Physically or via the internet, makes no difference to Uygur.

Aside from the fact that Uygur is a very, very lame bully (calling someone out via the internet for Pete's sake) he's also a sexist pig. Which doesn't seem to bother that left-wing bastion at the HuffPo. They saw fit to publish his (very) sleazy word play. He frankly uses a lovely term that would get him hospitalized if he were to use it to anyone of higher physical capacity than a 97 year old quadriplegic. With emphysema.

So the fringe elements now want to duel (one of Uygur's fellows offered to act as second (exact words). Wow, just wow.

Any feminist who tolerates sleazeoid verbiage like Mr. Uygur uses is not - remotely - playing with a full deck. Any leftist who tolerates it is exactly - exactly - as bad as Mr. Uygur. HuffPo needs to take a shower after hosting that particular piece.

UPDATE: Chez Diva has even more on this one. Plus additional festivities. She's declared it National Tin Foil Hat Week. I'll bet we could get Congress to vote for it.

UPDATE: Thanks to Riehl World View For linking.

Gee, This Is Encouraging

The former head of Pakistan's army, retired General Mirza Aslam Beg, has just revealed that an Iranian delegation came to him and asked how to head off military action against Iran. General Beg, being helpful and all, gave them advice - take a hostage. Israel to be specific.

Retired Gen. Mirza Aslam Beg said he suggested their government "make it clear that if anything happens to Iran, if anyone attacks it — it doesn't matter who it is or how it is attacked — that Iran's answer will be to hit Israel; the only target will be Israel."

Since Beg spoke in an interview with The Associated Press, echoes of his thinking have been heard in Iran, though whether they result directly from his advice isn't known.

Mohammad Ebrahim Dehghani, an Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander, was quoted last week as saying that if "America does make any mischief, the first place we target will be Israel." The threat was disavowed the next day by Brig. Gen. Alireza Afshar, deputy to the chief of Iran's military staff, who said it was Dehghani's "personal view and has no validity as far as the Iranian military officials are concerned."

And on Tuesday, Israel's vice premier, Shimon Peres, warned that "Those who threaten to destroy are in danger of being destroyed."

In the AP interview that took place several weeks before these threats were exchanged, Beg said a delegation from the Iranian Embassy in Pakistan had come to his office in January, seeking advice as Western pressure mounted on Iran to abandon its nuclear effort. Beg said he offered lessons learned from his experience dealing with India's nuclear threat.

So, there are helpful people all over just now, aren't there?

This is real simple - all the helpful people who think only of short term political gain are virtually guaranteeing that there will be a nuclear war.

UPDATE: And The Anchoress is burned out on politics, too. I understand where she's coming from. The toxicity is becoming a major problem.

Now This Is Serious!

If you go to a park in Honolulu, you may not be able to go in the park. Someone has been stealing brass toilet valves from parks all over Honolulu. More than 100 have been stolen to date along with various other plumbing fixtures.

"It's very upsetting, in a sense, to have to deal with this — to have taxpayers to repair something like this that we could use for so much better purposes," said Les Chang, director of the city's Department of Parks and Recreation.

He said in addition to being expensive, the repairs will be an inconvenience to park users. There's also the hidden cost of other work not being done because crews will be busy repairing the toilets.

Police suspect the thieves are either selling the valves on the black market or even selling them for scrap. We here at Blue Crab Boulevard want to go on record as saying that this is a crappy way to make a buck.

We apologize. We tried to stop ourselves, but we just couldn't.

101st Blog Of The Day

Continuing the project to visit a member of the 101st Fighting Keyboardists each day (a task that may never end the way that blogroll keeps growing!) I visited The Violence Worker. Quite an interesting comment there about polls and why its not a real good idea for the Democrats to start counting those chickens just yet. As VW points out, what makes the Dems think conservatives would vote against their core beliefs?

We Simply Don’t Know What To Say About This

Ok, this has got to be the crime of the century and someone has to do something about it right away. I mean drop everything else to catch this horrible thief. This could be bigger than the Brinks job.

Someone in Middlefield, Ohio is making off with the horse manure.

Lisza Wright, who gets paid $25,000 a year by Middlefield to clean the three dozen hitching rail areas daily, told police last month that someone has been taking manure, with the manure left behind getting spread out and packed down, making her job harder.

But, isn't there less to pick up? Oh never mind.

Maybe we should start referring to this as the Stinks Job? Not your job, Lisza, the robbery. Or maybe your job, too.

Their Lips Are Moving Again

Strange silence over on the left on this report in the Washington Post. Nancy Pelosi has informed other party members that impeachment is "off the table".

Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) told her caucus members during their weekly closed meeting Wednesday "that impeachment is off the table; she is not interested in pursuing it," spokesman Brendan Daly said.

This is, of course, to try and head off the Republican party using that issue as a rallying cry. Pelosi started the uproar with her questionable tactic over this past weekend, which we posted about here. Pelosi promised investigations and that "you never know where it leads to".

But, she's a politician. And her lips are moving.

Which just gives us an opportunity to repost this. Because it's funny. And you know what? It always will be.

UPDATE: And proving that there is no new thing under the sun (and great minds think alike) We have this from Don't Go Into The Light. See, I told you, it would always be funny!

UPDATE: Oh no, he's got the franchise on the Reiddler. This means war.

Ewwww

There's a new Ewwww de perfume out there for all you true Cheeseheads. Lovingly crafted to carry the aroma of Stilton cheese. I swear I am not making this up.

"Blue Stilton cheese has a very distinctive mellow aroma and our perfumier was able to capture the key essence of that scent and recreate it in an unusual but highly wearable perfume," said an association spokesman.

Um. Okay. Be sure to let us know how that works out for you.

Oh Great

UN officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, have revealed that traces of highly enriched uranium were discovered in an Iranian military facility.

The diplomats, who demanded anonymity in exchange for revealing the confidential information, said the findings were preliminary and still had to be confirmed through other lab tests. But they said the density of enrichment appeared to be close to or above the level used to make nuclear warheads.

For those who are scientifically challenged, there is only one use for highly enriched uranium. Weapons. Period. (Strictly speaking there is one other use, which I will not discuss, but believe me, it is not something the Iranians could ever have.)

UPDATE: Others Blogging: Barking Moonbat Early Warning System (GREAT name!), Flopping Aces, Texas Rainmaker, Strata-Sphere, A Blog For All, Captain's Quarters, Rightwinged, The Sandbox and Cake or Death.

Bush To Address Nation On Immigration

Well, this should be interesting. Fox News is reporting that Bush will give an address tonight Monday night on the immigration issue. There is no word yet on content, and I'm guessing there will not be any forewarning of what he will say. I know what he should say.

UPDATE: Corrected date. 8pm EDT.

Sometimes We Wonder

If columnists and editorial writers are reading Blue Crab Boulevard for inspiration. In the Examiner today, there is an editorial that sounds an awful lot like what we have been saying around here for a long, long time.

Even worse, Bush’s refusal to veto pork-barrel spending has compromised the efficacy of his tax cuts. Indeed, “limited government” never looked so big. Adding to Bush’s problem is the stench of scandal stinking up Capitol Hill on both sides of the aisle. Conservatives look at 12 years of GOP control of Congress and wonder why they don’t have much more to show for it.

And

Karl Rove reportedly has a plan to “stir up” the base to again save the Republicans’ electoral bacon, but conservatives won’t be satisfied this time around with more token efforts on issues like marriage and dire warnings that “the Democrats would be far worse.” Conservatives have heard that song before and know it never has a second verse.

And

Most important, Mr. President, secure the borders. Build the wall now. Tell Mexico the border is officially closed to illegal immigration and demand respect from that country for all U.S. laws. And stop using our own Border Patrol against patriotic Americans who are simply trying to help protect this nation from intruders who mean us ill.

The time is short, Mr. President.

Now, of course, since we have held these positions for quite some time, we wholeheartedly agree with the unidentified author. We would however like to point out that we here in the Crabitat do not get paid for what we do. If by any chance a paid member of the media is using us for inspiration, we wouldn't be offended if a few bucks got kicked our way. Honest.

What We Really Should Be Worried About

How about rigged voting machines? Some folks on the left have been screaming about stolen elections for quite some time. Shouldn't this absolutely terrify you? Some one the right have been afraid of dirty poll tricks as well. Shouldn't you be terrified of this? Everyone in the middle who doesn't want to see extremists rig elections, shouldn't you be terrified about this?

We ALL should be. Demand paper ballots NOW.

VERY Interesting Poll

The Washington Post did a fast Poll about the NSA revelations from yesterday. Public opinion is 2:1 in favor of the program. Now that's a real fast poll and it's unclear how opinion will change as the spin gets applied.

Just to try to ask another rational question here: There are reports that some members of Congress are "demanding explanations" from the White House. Wouldn't it be a good idea to demand explanations from the members of Congress who apparently knew about this program? I mean, heck, they could do that in the hall on the way to the rest room.

It's important that since this has been leaked that some questions get answered. Including the one I just asked.

I've already had commenters who declare, with an air of authority, that the program is illegal. That is not apparent as yet. Consider this: many on the left have praised Qwest for not participating. The company is painted in heroic terms because apparently their lawyers asked for a warrant first. But the other companies' lawyers must have approved going along with the NSA, right? That actually makes Qwest an outlier. What if it also turns out it is wrong?

UPDATE: Many thanks to Sister Toldjah and Protein Wisdom for linking.

UPDATE: Bradley over at Southwest Left Coast cheerfully dismantles a Boston Globe "survey". Rightfully so.

Campaigning In The Press

The House members who are trying to do an end run around the constitution and pass a bill giving full voting representation in Congress are holding press conferences and declaring victory. Only it doesn't sound like they have one just quite yet. By presenting it this way, they are trying to build positive buzz about it. This is a tactic to try to make any opposition to this look bad. But using a law to go around the constitution is a bad thing.

All they need to do to do it right is what has been tried before: A proper constitutional amendment. If this is, indeed, the right time for this, then it should have no trouble getting ratified.

Stop trying to circumvent the constitution. People on the left and the right should be very upset with this. This would be an ugly, ugly precedent if it is allowed to stand. Think about what other laws you would not want to be passed that would alter the constitution.

Warnings

In a new video just released on the internet, Mohammed Hassan (who escaped US custody in Afghanistan) calls for a sea of blood to engulf Denmark, Norway and France. This follows close on the heels of this call for terrorist activity.

"Destroy their buildings, make their ground shake and transform them into a sea of blood," said Hassan, dressed in military fatigues and a black turban, and holding an assault rifle.

This situation is spiraling. Our internal disarray here in the US is not helping at all. I hope Europe is going to pay attention to these threats.