Posturing

You know, I really dislike Harry Reid's constant posturing for the press. This one really gets my goat, though. After hurling one verbal bomb after another at the President over his conduct of the war, Harry comes out with this gem.

"It is shocking that the Iraqi prime minister is reportedly considering granting amnesty to insurgents who have killed U.S. troops," said Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.). "On the day we lost the 2,500th soldier in Iraq, the mere idea that this proposal may go forward is an insult to the brave men and women who have died in the name of Iraqi freedom. I call on President Bush to denounce this proposal immediately."

Gee, Harry, maybe if you weren't always playing to the anti-war left and pandering, the President could actually get on with the war. Which I believe you voted to authorize. I call on Harry to stop posturing and really support our troops, not make a frankly meaningless show of outrage.

Just saying.

Wow

My buddy Rick over at The Real Ugly American sent me this link.

I strongly advise that you do not watch this video. Really. I mean it. No kidding. Honest.

(If you do watch it, drop me a line next week when you get done.)

The Sycophant Six

Full and complete credit for this one to Shawn at Joab's Blog Empire. In comments he he said that the six Senators who voted against a motion that pulling the troops out of Iraq was against the best interests of the US should have a very special title.

The Sycophant Six.

They are: Senators Kerry and Edward M. Kennedy, also of Massachusetts; Russell D. Feingold of Wisconsin, Barbara Boxer of California, Tom Harkin of Iowa and Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, all Democrats.

High-freaking-five, Shawn.

UPDATE: Don Surber on mistakes and the remedy for them.

Get Thee Away…

… Jefferson. The Democratic leadership met today and voted to strip William Jefferson of his committee post. The Congressional Black Caucus is crying foul.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — With members of the Congressional Black Caucus crying double standard, House Democrats met behind closed doors Thursday and voted to strip Rep. William Jefferson of his seat on the Ways and Means Committee.

The move was led by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California, who already had asked Jefferson to step down voluntarily, a request her embattled counterpart rebuffed.

"This isn't about proof in a court of law. This is about an ethical standard," Pelosi said in a brief statement after the vote. "I wish that the White House would take our lead on this."

Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina, Democratic Caucus chairman, said the vote on Jefferson was about 2-1, but he would not divulge the exact tally of the secret ballot, nor would he divulge his own vote.

Ways and Means is a powerful committee that oversees tax legislation. Now that the Democratic Caucus has approved Jefferson's suspension from the committee, the matter will head to the full House for a vote. Clyburn said he didn't know when.

Jefferson, 59, an eight-term Louisiana congressman facing a corruption investigation, attended Thursday's caucus meeting, where he addressed his colleagues, briefly spoke to reporters and left.

Well, the mandatory swipe at the White House aside, I actually think Pelosi got it right in her statement. It is about ethical standards. More, it's about the appearance of wrongdoing here. Jefferson killed the corruption issue for the Democrats just by keeping cold, hard cash. In his freezer. The CBC hurt themselves defending Jefferson, I suspect. Which is a pity, they should not have spent their political capitol on this issue. If Jefferson had stepped aside right from the start, the Dems would have been in a better position then I suspect they are at the moment.

UPDATE: AP article here. Brand new nickname for the people who voted against the measure here.

UPDATE: More details in today's Washington Post.

Oops, They Stole My Thunder

That's what John "Wanna See My Hat?" Kerry has got to be saying to himself right now. As he's punting the family dog, of course. After all his telegraphing how he was planning to introduce a measure to require an American withdrawal from Iraq, he got flanked by a pretty slick political move. Kerry got smoked on the vote, too.

Today's 93-to-6 Senate vote came after a maneuver by Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the second-ranking Republican, who introduced a measure that he said was taken from a proposal by Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, calling for President Bush to agree with the new Iraqi government on a timetable to withdraw most troops by Dec. 31.

Mr. Kerry has not yet offered his own measure because, he said, language is still being worked out. He and other Democrats accused Republicans of gamesmanship by engineering a surprise vote today, according to The Associated Press, and said they would push for an authentic debate next week. The vote was to table a proposal that only those forces essential to completing the mission of "standing up" the Iraqi security forces remain in the country in 2007, and it reflected a deep reluctance in both parties to commit to a firm withdrawal schedule.

The six "no" votes were cast by Senators Kerry and Edward M. Kennedy, also of Massachusetts; Russell D. Feingold of Wisconsin, Barbara Boxer of California, Tom Harkin of Iowa and Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, all Democrats.

93 to 6 is pretty convincing. The measure used the words, "that it is not in the national security interest of the United States to set an arbitrary date for the withdrawal or redeployment of the United States armed forces from Iraq." Which pretty well wraps it up.

Kerry painted himself into a corner on this one with his blatant play to the left. Cue the hamster. Keep working on the words, Kerry. You ought to about have them down in 2085. Or a bit later.

Bikini Blogging

Well, this is just the gift that keeps on giving. Having blogged before on Lisa Lewis, the young woman from New Zealand who semi-streaked a soccer match wearing a bikini, I just have to update on the very latest news. As you will recall, Lisa ran out onto the field during the last few moments of a soccer game because streaking a soccer match was on her lifetime things to do before she died list. She was promptly arrested. 

Sadly for all the hopeful guys out there, she accomplished her "streaking" wearing a bikini. On the bright side, she is trying to auction the bikini to raise money to pay the fines and court costs she will incur from her little escapade. Now for the update.

It seems that her former boyfriend, a truck driver, paid for the bikini. He also paid for breast enhancement surgery for Ms. Lewis. And he wants the bikini back (no word on the breasts).

A New Zealand woman who dashed into a rugby match wearing a skimpy bikini wants to auction the garment online to help pay a fine, but the truck driver who claims he bought the outfit for her wants the sale halted.

If the sale can't be stopped, the man says, the proceeds should rightly should be his.

The Waikato Times newspaper identified the man as a 32-year-old truck driver who used to be the woman's boyfriend, but said that he did not want to be named.

….

"Counting the boobs and the bikini," Lewis was baring more than 15 thousand New Zealand dollars ($9,340) worth of presents he had given her, the man told the newspaper.

Lewis said she had been friends with the man but added, "he does not own me."

She put the swimsuit up for auction on the TradeMe web site, and said proceeds would go toward paying the fine and court costs she faces after being charged with disorderly behavior.

Bidding had reached NZ$3,520 ($2,190) by mid-afternoon Thursday.

Who in the world would have thought this tempest in a C cup would be so entertaining? I suspect the boyfriend is being a bit of a boob here. Unless the law is completely different down in the land of the Kiwi, a gift is a gift and you can't claim it back later. I think a judge would tell him "tough (fill in the blank yourself)".

UPDATE: In the latest news, Lisa Lewis has been fined by the New Zealand court $200 NZ plus an additional $130 NZ in court costs. Since the latest figures on bidding show the bikini at over $4,000 NZ, she stands to turn a hefty profit.

Best Wishes, Captain Ed

Captain Ed from The Captain's Quarters has been in the hospital with a ruptured disk in his back. Tomorrow he is scheduled to undergo surgery. I think everyone, left or right will join me in wishing him the very best of luck. My wife had to have surgery on a degenerative disk problem a few years back. When she came out from under the anesthetic, she looked at me and asked, "Why didn't I do this earlier". (She could tell right away, I thought that was amazing).

May your surgery be as successful. All the best to your wife as well.

101st Blog Of The Day

Today my continuing mission to visit one member of the fighting 101st each day took me over to Hillbilly White Trash. Lemuel Calhoon has a number of interesting posts up. I was surprised to see that he had a post up about the "Hadji Girl" marine, but hadn't listed the addresses to write to. I helped out with that, though.

Cause And Effect

I had a drive-by commenter the other day who took exception to a graph I had posted showing temperatures versus CO2 concentration. The commenter didn't like that the graph ended in 1950 and demanded that I use another graph from Wikipedia. The graph I posted came from the UN, incidentally. Well, the absurdity of a commenter ordering me what to do on my site aside, the Wikipedia graph he pointed to had no provenance, so I wasn't inclined to go along, anyway. In a couple of ensuing exchanges, the commenter informed me, with great authority, that the graph proves CO2 increases cause global warming. I told him the graph shows no such thing.

What the graph shows is a high degree of correlation between CO2 and temperature. There is no cause and effect here. The argument that higher temperatures cause rising CO2 levels is equally valid.

Now scientists are warning that thawing of permafrost will release trapped carbon into the air.

This vast carbon reservoir, contained in permafrost soil in northeastern Siberia, contains about 75 times more carbon than the amount released into the atmosphere each year by the burning of fossil fuels, the researchers said in a statement.

Siberia isn't the only place on Earth with massive lodes of permafrost — parts of Alaska, Canada and northern Europe have them too. The Siberian area is possibly the world's largest, covering nearly 400,000 square miles, with an average depth of 82 feet, and probably holds about 500 billion metric tons of carbon.

By any measure, this is a lot, and it is in fact twice what scientists previously believed was there, ecologist Ted Schuur of the University of Florida said in a telephone interview.

"There's a huge pool of carbon, even more than people thought before, perhaps double the amount of carbon that we thought," said Schuur, one of the article's co-authors. "If you have twice as much carbon there, essentially in the future twice as much could be released into the atmosphere."

Cars, power plants and other fossil fuel burners release at least 6 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere annually, contributing to global warming, the scientists said.

As the Siberian permafrost thaws, it will release the carbon contained in old grass roots and buried animal bones into the atmosphere, in what could be an unstoppable contributor to global climate change, according to the researchers.

Which tends to support that rising temperatures cause rising CO2 levels. What if what the alarmists are so worried about is just a natural cycle? If the scientists who are now sounding the alarm about permafrost carbon are correct then it may very well be the rising temperatures that are to blame for the concentrations of CO2 we are seeing. Don't get me wrong, I think man contributes to the CO2 levels, but I can't say how much. And neither can anyone else. You can measure and quantify how much man emits, but you cannot tell how much of the rise we are seeing comes from man and how much from natural causes.

Incidentally, the scientists quoted then state that this could trigger a vicious circle. More CO2, more heat, more CO2 release, still more heat. Rather than a vicious circle, this is circular logic. The above graph does not support that contention at all. Instead it supports the idea that at a certain point natural factors kick in to reduce the CO2. They weren't doing Kyoto 400,000 years ago after all.

Whoa! Big News

Bill Gates is stepping away from a day to day role at Microsoft to devote more time to his charity work.

Can we still pick on him?

UPDATE: A lot more detail coming out now. Washington Post has this.

Gates said he intends to keep his title as chairman "for the rest of my life" but he is giving up his job as chief software architect at the company he founded with Paul Allen 30 years ago. He will step down in July 2008, he said, to focus on global health and education goals at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

"With success, I have been given great wealth. And with great wealth comes great responsibility to give back to society, to see that those resources are put to work in the best possible way to help those in need," Gates told a group of reporters from the company's Redmond, Wash., headquarters this afternoon. "Obviously, this decision was a hard one for me to make. I'm very lucky to have two passions."

Gates and Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer immediately appointed several executives from within to be groomed as the company's next generation of top leaders. Gates said the company's chief technical officer Ray Ozzie, a recently hired leader at Microsoft, would immediately assume the title as chief software architect so that he could work along with Gates during the transition. Similarly, chief technical officer Craig Mundie will immediately take on the title of chief research and strategy officer to work with Gates on the company's research efforts.

I've done more than my share of cursing over the years at Microsoft. Still, I wish him luck. Hopefully some of that money I've sent him over the years will go to good causes.

Support The Troops

I just got word of this via Protein Wisdom.

First, from Hot Air, an email encouraging supporters of “Hadji Girl” songster Cpl Belile to resist the PC sensibilities that have turned an ironic, fictional narrative set to music into the newest incarnation of the Danish Mohammed cartoon gambit—a way to delegitimize criticism of “Islamic culture” by claiming “offense” and decrying the “insensitivity” of the offender:

Please contact:

Commandant of the Marine Corps
Phone: (703) 614-1034
Fax: (703) 614-2358
comrel@hqmc.usmc.mil

And then this via Blackfive:

I asked the PAO  Mike Barton a few questions:

Had he seen the video? Yes

Did he think it was funny? Can't comment, and he didn't chuckle or anything, guy's a real pro.

What part of the video did he consider clearly inappropriate? Can't comment

What type of inquiry is being conducted and what sections of the UCMJ are in play? This is a quick and informal inquiry, an investigative tool that will determine if there were any violations. Just a fact-finding mission

I would like to believe that this inquiry would conclude that he did nothing wrong and USMC HQ was shameful for kow towing to CAIR, but they have showed zero spine thus far…….so. I'm back corresponding again. This time to:

Robert E. Milstead, Jr.
Brigadier General, U.S. Marine Corps
Commanding General, 2D MAW

robert.milstead@usmc.mil

So please contact the above individuals and make it known that there are Americans who do not subscribe to the beliefs of certain vocal pressure groups who know how to make a lot of noise with their publicity machines.

This Is Kind Of Sad

Four flags from the American revolution that were captured by a fairly notorious British cavalry officer have been sold at auction by one of his descendants. The flags were auctioned by Sotheby's for a record $17.3 million dollars.

The final price of 17.3 million dollars was way in excess of the high estimate of 10 million dollars.

All four flags were bought by a telephone bidder whom Sotheby's said wished to remain anonymous.

The flags had been taken as trophies of war by a British cavalry officer, Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton, who provided the model for the extremely unlikeable British commander in the 2000 movie "The Patriot," starring Mel Gibson.

The highlight of the sale was a flag belonging to a regiment of the Continental Light Dragoons that was captured during a 1779 engagement in New York.

Bidding on what was the earliest surviving American flag to display 13 red-and-white stripes opened at 800,000 dollars and closed five minutes later at 12.3 million dollars.

The three remaining flags, captured near the border of North and South Carolina in 1780, were sold as one lot for five million dollars.

Only around 30 Revolutionary War flags are known to exist, and the Sotheby's lots were notable for being in unusually good condition.

The auction house identified the seller of the collection as Captain Christopher Tarleton Fagan, a direct descendant of the officer who captured them.

It's kind of sad to see relics like those going to a private collector. On the other hand, they were in private hands all along. Too bad, though. For however long Sotheby's leaves the site functional, there is a place to view the flags in detail. It can be found here. They are in beautiful condition.

Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton was the British commander of a Tory cavalry unit known as the "Green Dragoons". Tarleton's methods and tactics led to many charges of atrocities against Americans.

Manhattan Spared!

Manhattan, Montana, that is. Yesterday we brought you the story of Buddy, the lawn mowing goat who was rudely evicted from his job by the town council. It turns out that the town council was completely correct in it's decision and that by their swift action, they may have saved the very town itself. For keeping goats can be very dangerous indeed, it seems.

Goats attract lighting.

SOFIA (Reuters) - Lightning killed an entire herd of 70 goats in central Bulgaria on Thursday, but their goatherd escaped unharmed, civil defence officials said.

The herd was sheltering under a large tree during a summer storm when the bolt struck, killing all of them.

The goatherd knew about the dangers goats pose, too. He was sheltering under a different tree. That's why he lived.

It occurs to us that if you happen to live in the area of the American Midwest, you're probably aware of the urban legend that mobile homes attract tornadoes. We shudder to think what would happen if one kept goats and lived in a mobile home.

A Mutually Beneficial Spiral Of Death

Here's a report on a study by two economists on terrorism and the media coverage it generates. It shows that there is a disgusting symbiotic relationship between the two.

"Both the media and terrorists benefit from terrorist incidents," their study contends. Terrorists get free publicity for themselves and their cause. The media, meanwhile, make money "as reports of terror attacks increase newspaper sales and the number of television viewers."

The researchers counted direct references to terrorism between 1998 and 2005 in the New York Times and Neue Zuercher Zeitung, a respected Swiss newspaper. They also collected data on terrorist attacks around the world during that period. Using a statistical procedure called the Granger Causality Test, they attempted to determine whether more coverage directly led to more attacks.

The results, they said, were unequivocal: Coverage caused more attacks, and attacks caused more coverage — a mutually beneficial spiral of death that they say has increased because of a heightened interest in terrorism since Sept. 11, 2001.

They suggest it would be helpful to stop naming the perpetrators of the terrorist acts. That would at least take the publicity factor away. That would seem to be a reasonable step. How about it, media? 

Smart Lawyer

Here's an interesting story from the Washington Times. It seems that the defense lawyer for one of the Marines currently being investigated over the incident at Haditha plans to call John Murtha as a witness should charges be filed.

A criminal defense attorney for a Marine under investigation in the Haditha killings says he will call a senior Democratic congressman as a trial witness, if his client is charged, to find out who told the lawmaker that U.S. troops are guilty of cold-blooded murder.
    Attorney Neal A. Puckett told The Washington Times that Gen. Michael Hagee, the Marine commandant, briefed Rep. John P. Murtha, Pennsylvania Democrat, on the Nov. 19 killings of 24 Iraqis in the town north of Baghdad. Mr. Murtha later told reporters that the Marines were guilty of killing the civilians in "cold blood." Mr. Murtha said he based his statement on Marine commanders, whom he did not identify.
    Mr. Puckett said such public comments from a congressman via senior Marines amount to "unlawful command influence." He said potential Marine jurors could be biased by the knowledge that their commandant, the Corps' top officer, thinks the Haditha Marines are guilty.
    "Congressman Murtha will be one of the first witnesses I call to the witness stand," Mr. Puckett said yesterday.
    Mr. Puckett represents Staff Sgt. Frank D. Wuterich, an eight-year Marine who was a key participant in the Haditha operations that resulted in the 24 civilian deaths.

VERY smart move. Murtha has jeopardized the Marine's right to a fair trial by his statements and actions over this. This will put Murtha on the spot for his behavior.

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