Hint to Rolling Stone

You're showing your irrelevance.

Football!

Utah wins 52 to 21. Fiesta Bowl here they come.

Rivalry Weekend

Here it's BYU against the University of Utah. BYU is playing pretty well, but Utah is just better coached. They don't make the mental mistakes that BYU seems to, although BYU has picked off Alex Smith twice. Even though my team is losing by 17 in the fourth quarter, I won't feel too badly about losing to Utah, which will break the BCS lockout of the smaller conferences. The Mountain West Conference and the WAC play good football, but the BCS system reserves the big bucks for the big audiences, not necessarily for the best teams. It isn't the size of the players or the budget of the athletics program. BYU and Utah have been playing against each other for over 100 years, so it isn't the tradition. Coaches like LaVell Edwards, whose offensive coordinator Norm Chow is now calling plays for USC, Urban Meyer and Dan Hawkins have proven that they can play with the best in the country, which is more impressive since they don't have the recruiting power that teams in the BCS do.

I hope Utah will help break down the BCS system which is built on the desire for a national championship in football, which can never really work without hurting the conferences that teams play in. People just need to appreciate the fact that a lot of the fun of being a football fan is in the arguing.

The Old World, same as the Old Media

Herbert E. Meyer politely asks the Old World, "Are you nuts?"

A few highlights:

We believe that rights must be balanced by responsibilities, that personal freedom is a privilege we must be careful not to abuse, and that the rule of law cannot be set aside when it becomes inconvenient.. . .

We recognize that other people see things differently, and we are tolerant of their views. But we believe that our country is worth defending, and if anyone decides that killing us is an okay thing to do we will go after them with everything we�ve got.. . .

It is your abandonment of these beliefs that has created the gap between Europe and the United States. You have ceased to be a Judeo-Christian culture . . ..

Your rate of marriage is at an all-time low, and the number of abortions in Europe is at an all-time high. Indeed, your birth rates are so far below replacement levels that in 30 years or so there will be 70 million fewer Europeans alive than are alive today. Europe is literally dying. And of the children you do manage to produce, all too few will be raised in stable, two-parent households.

Your economy is stagnant because your government regulators make it just about impossible for your entrepreneurs to succeed . . ..

And your armed forces are a joke. With the notable exception of Great Britain, you no longer have the military strength to defend yourselves. Alas, you no longer have the will to defend yourselves.

What worries me even more than all this is your willful blindness.. . .

These nations have been protected by the U.S. too long for their own good, but why they think this entitles them to tell us how to run our own country is beyond me.
Most of these countries are being infiltrated by Muslims as they bring in Arabs, Indians and Pakistanis to work in their industries, because their native populations are shrinking. Yet only the Netherlands seems to understand the danger it has taken into its own bosom.

Western civilization has invited immigrants from the Third World, educated them and employed them in the belief that this openness would prove that we were not a threat, but our own secularism has become the thing that elicited the hatred of their religious radicals. This onslaught is not a purely anti-American one. It is aimed at the most powerful, but Europe shouldn't comfort itself that America is the only one they want. The French are the ones who taught Arabs history, but part of that history is one of colonialism by the French and British, and I don't think that they will be spared, if America is dethroned.

Where did this insolent carping come from? Perhaps from the idea of the New World Order which we helped launch with the United Nations, an oxymoron if ever there was one. Our good will has been betrayed, but we will probably not abandon it, because we're a Judeo-Christian country. We believe in returning good for evil, which is why we're liberating the Iraqi people instead of leaving them to the tender mercies of Saddam.

If you want to know about blogs, don't ask a newspaper

Dave Barry explains why not. Most newspaper articles on blogs are hatchet jobs like the one Barry links to, but journalists who care about the quality of their work should welcome the criticism they get from blogs. They constantly tell us that we need freedom of the press to keep the government honest. By that argument, wouldn't the same thing be true of bloggers keeping a skeptical eye on the press itself? I think so, and the fury of journalists being challenged suggests that this is long overdue.

Who will rid them of this meddlesome press?

It's starting appear that the Democrats' lock on the MSM will hurt it in re-establishing a connection with Red State majorities. Jim Geraghty, back posting at Kerry Spot, is rounding up every tantrum posted by liberal writers and they aren't helping their cause. It seems that they prefer feeling superior and wallowing in it to winning elections. It pretty well confirms all negative stereotypes of liberals as arrogant scolds who don't live up to their own avowed ideals. Not only that, but they're crybabies and whiners. If this is the result of New Deal thinking, we're much better off without it. This exhibition should be a warning to everyone who thinks these people are more enlightened, intellectual or intelligent that the rest of us. They really do think they're better and more entitled. Remember that before you vote for another Democrat.

The Democrat Party is not evil per se. It doesn't have the support in the military to pull off a coup. But I'm starting to feel for the first time, that there are in the mainstream of the party who would seriously advocate one if they though they could pull it off. This has become so ugly, so personal, with them that I can't even give them the benefit of the doubt. Kerry and Carville, for crying out loud, seem to be the moderates now. What was once a cocoon is now a cyst, or a tumor.

James Wolcott . . .

isn't worth the time it takes to read his childish rants. Vanity Fair is no longer an ironic name for his magazine.

Presidential Lie-brary

I just saw clips from this interview of Bill Clinton by Peter Jennings. It just reminded me of how fortunate we are to have George W. Bush in the White House. Clinton feels sorry for himself, even as he maintains with a bitter sneer that "he doesn't care about what his detractors think about him." When Jennings contradicted him, his eyes narrowed,

You don't want to go here, Peter. You don't want to go here. Not after what you people did and the way you, your network, what you did with Kenneth Starr. The way your people repeated every, little sleazy thing he leaked. No one has any idea what that's like.

It's hard to feel sorry for a guy who doesn't seem to get the fact that he embarrassed every parent in America because he couldn't keep his pants up in the Oval Office. Is that really too much to ask of the man at the head of the country (No pun intended.)?

Of course, he's got this speech memorized by now, having honed it for four years. And of course, his subsequent actions, such as his midnight pardons, weren't discussed. Bill Clinton's career will probably mean nothing more to future generations than a question on a history pop quiz, like Warren G. Harding. That day can't come too soon.

Liberalism vs. merit

The WaPo is in dutch with its black employees for promoting a white man to its number 2 editorial post. It's also announced measures it hopes will stop its declining circulation.

Downie told staffers that the paper has made strides to increase newsroom diversity in recent years, and said that of the paper's 30 to 40 top editors, "white males are in the minority." But he said the paper needs to hire more minorities and to improve its coverage of the area's increasingly diverse population.

I could give them a hint, but if they don't know how Fox News became No. 1 in cable news and sometimes beating CBS in the ratings, nothing I can say would help. I would be more likely to read the Washinton Post if I thought there might be more than a predictable liberal spin in its reporting. Apparently, diversity doesn't include political diversity.

To all the chest beaters on the right.

This column should be required reading for all conservatives. John Podhoretz is pointing out a disturbing phenomenon that could cost Republicans their hard won gains.

Another blow to tolerance.

In an effort to avoid offending grinches, the school district of South Orange and Maplewood, NJ has ruled out students performing any music related to a religious holiday. This is what passes for diversity, today. I'm sure it will help students understand and respect other religious traditions.

Moral values

Not being a hypocrite counts. Roger L. Simon has a case in point, of liberals turning racist in their criticisms of Condoleeza Rice. Be sure to read the comments. Roger's blog is as valuable for the high quality of his commenters as for his own posts.

Get back, Rick!

Is Rick Santorum qualified to represent PA? Apparently his family resided in Leesburg, Virginia. His home in PA, which is where he is registered to vote, is rented by someone else.

This is a really stupid blunder for a conservative to make. The media would give him a pass if he were a Kennedy, but not a Republican. This is the kind of thing that would make me vote for someone else. He'd better have a good explanation.

A demonstrably stupid columnist

Jonathan Chait (rhymes with "hate") calls Bush "a demonstrably failed president." What does that make Al Gore and John Kerry?

Now scrub the Senate toilets with a toothbrush.

After suitable humiliation, including reading a written pledge not to block conservative measures he may disagree with, Specter gets his chairmanship. I'm being sarcastic. I don't think this sideshow was necessary, and it may still come back to bite conservatives.

"We have reason to believe you may be using a TIVO"

The new copyright law may make it illegal to skip commercials.

Why I wasn't on the Law Review

If I'd been asked about the case of the Marine shown shooting an apparently disabled, apparent insurgent in Fallujah, I'd have called attention to the fact that other Marines have been blown up and killed in similar circumstances, and added, "Are you nuts?"

Eugene Volokh shows how it should be done on a law school exam.

Christmas comes early

Ted Rall has been dropped by the WaPo

Is suigenocide a word?

The Final Solution was a bust, but post-war prosperity and political correctness are doing a number on the Germans themselves.

As Best of the Web keeps reminding us, Roe v. Wade may be responsible as much as anything else for the declining prospects of liberalism, and those sophisticated Europeans and Canadians so admired by the left are gradually eliminating themselves as well. The future of the world is looking browner all the time.

Now hear this! Politician keeps campaign promise!

Bush plans tax code overhaul. Gee, I think I heard this during the convention. The real question is whether it will get anywhere. Congress is built on such a scaffolding of corporate welfare that I doubt that anybody can really do much in simplifying the IRS Code if it would cost big business and rich people their favorite tax loopholes. Democrats get a lot of money from big business, especially when you include big labor and the special interest lobbies as just another type of business. P. J. O'Rourke had it right when he called Congress a Parliament of Whores. I think we have to accept that, and quit allowing politicians to shine us on with silly campaign finance reforms that don't really reduce the influence of big donors. Or has it been too long since the last campaign? The lucky ones were we in the "safe" states, because the big 527 organizations and national campaigns spent all their money in the "battleground" states. And Kerry still wound up with $22,000,000 in his accounts.

If Bush can pull this off for real, he deserves his own monument on the Mall in Washington, D. C.

Sorry, Hugh

I'm with James Lileks on this one. No one has shown me any evidence that the Salvation Army has been damaged because it won't be allowed to have it's Santa Clauses outside of Target Stores. I'm not exactly a Target partisan, since there isn't a Target within 100 miles of where I live. I just think that crusades like this one are pointless and bullying. I thought conservatives believed in property rights.

Most Targets I've seen are parts of shopping centers with large parking lots. I expect that there will be other places to set up the Salvation Army bellringers and kettles without being right at the entry to Target. I suspect that this will manifest itself more by the amount of email it generates to Target than in significant lost sales.

Update: I've read a little more about this now, and I was wrong about this not hurting the Salvation Army. It says it will lose $9,000,000 this season. Nevertheless, I'm still with James. The problem is one that afflicts everybody. The SA was very successful because it is a worthy charity, but that success has attracted all kinds of "charities" into the marketplace. We are now all in charity overload. Target has apparently decided that allowing some groups to solicit on their premises has created a big nuisance for it in the form of a zillion requests to make another exception to its no-solicitations policy.

Another realization I've had is that this kind of PR offensive against an otherwise good place to shop is the same technique used by thugs like Jesse Jackson to shake down big business. I don't feel comfortable with it because it lends itself to abuse. Target is a business, not a fundraiser. It's obligation to its shareholders is to make money.

Lastly, there's this: If it isn't voluntary, it's not charity. Rather than denounce Target, it is better to light a candle. Follow this link to donate to the Salvation Army.

Bush meets with leading Democrat

Details here!

Sorry, I just couldn't resist.

Another twist

The belongings of Wassef Ali Hassoun, the Marine who went missing in June, /have been discovered by troops in Fallujah. Hassoun later turned up in Lebanon.

Hey, why throw good money after bad?

Kerry's campaign ended up with fifteen million bucks in the bank, plus another $7 million for legal and compliance expenses. Apparently, some Democrats are upset that he didn't spend it all or donate it to other Democrats. Some think he's saving it for 2008. I think he should donate it to buy more armor for the troops in Iraq, but, in any case, confusion to him and his party!

What ever happened to that cute Linda Ronstadt?

There's a woman singer by that name whose song, "The Blue Train," I really like. But I'm really regretting ever spending money on her albums. She's as airheaded and silly as the lyrics of her first hit, Different Drum. I don't think I'll be buying her latest. I just don't think I'd enjoy it, knowing what an idiot she is. She's as dumb now as she was in the sixties.

But, read this comment by a woman named Monir Kazemi about what this war means to the women of Islam. Maybe if Ronstadt had had some experience like Monir's instead of being a rich celebrity, she'd have more than plastic, Hollywood opinions on important issues.

Another reason to hate Microsoft

Microsoft to spread software through U.N.

Contami-Nations

(Via Roger L. Simon): The payments for Palestinian suicide killers' families were coming from the Oil for Food Fund. Kofi must go. In fact, the U.N. must go. It's a contamination.

Dead men fleeing

Hard times for terrorists, but you have to go overseas to read it. This won't be in the NYTimes or the LATimes.

Update: Instapundit links to the same story. This is the kind of reporting that could have being done since this whole thing started but wasn't. "I wish the Americans had come here the very first day and not waited eight months," the words of "A man in his sixties, half-naked and his underwear stained with blood from shrapnel wounds from a US munition," should be branded on the masthead of every newspaper in this country that has spent the last three years sniping at President Bush. I hold them and the broadcast TV news responsible.

I learned a few years ago that the word "succor," which I knew from the Bible, means literally to run or hurry to the rescue. Our troops are there to succor the Iraqi people. It's a noble endeavor, despite the mistakes and false starts, and it could have happened sooner if it hadn't been for the stubbornly negative coverage in the American media and the political bitching from the left, especially from hypocrites who voted to authorize this war and then switched sides. But George W. Bush understands faith, which is a principle of power that can make things happen despite the opposition of evil.

Indeed.

Lileks: "If Patton were alive today he�d be slapping civilians."

the UNinvestigation

Bill Gertz reports that outside investigators hired by the U.N. to assist its look into the Oil For Food scandal are frustrated by the U.N. unwillingness to follow leads they have given the board conducting the review. Annan should go, fast.

How can we take you seriously . . .

when you keep peddling unserious ideas? Here are more candidates for the B-Ark (check the entry for Golgafrincham). Here's a goal for NASA: build some really big B-Arks and start launching them regularly.

Here's some free help for the knuckleheads suffering from PEST: welcome to the real world. It's a dangerous place, where pretending evil doesn't exist doesn't make it go away. But never fear. Adults are in control. While you have been away in your fugue state, the country has been protecting you. Find some photos of those airliners flying into the World Trade Center and remember that those planes were full of people who thought they were going to land in Los Angeles. And look at the photos of people who jumped from the 100th floors of those buildings, and the clouds of dust billowing down the streets of Manhattan. This is how the world is now. Fight back, or be ready to die. Pretending that the people who did this will not kill you if you show them you're friendly will not work, any more than offering your hand to a shark will make him your pet.

Rorshach test?

If you're fretting over the photo of the Marine smoking a cigarette, here's a reality check. I'm glad to say I'm normal (I think)

The Monopoly Strikes Back

Apparently, when you buy an X-Box game unit, you still don't own it. At least, if you've modified it to run any other software, like Linux, you'll be booted off Microsoft's online gaming site.

That's the end of my thinking about buying an X-Box. It's starting to resemble one of those pods from outer space.

Saddam's Haul

It's reportedly over $21.3 billion. Think what he could have done if he could write software!

What? No Minetta?

It's resignation season, but the DOT secretary isn't leaving? He should be fired for his insistence on searching children and old ladies while imposing fines if the airlines question more than 2 young Arab-appearing men.

The AP is reporting that Condi Rice will be nominee to replace Powell. Maybe the headrolling will spread from the CIA, and who knows after that?

Who knew?

Apparently, guerillas tend to avoid direct confrontations with our military. It seems that they prefer to melt into the background and re-emerge elsewhere. Thanks to Reuters for this analysis.

The Future of the Discovery Channels is assured.

Atlantis has been discovered again.

Put some fire into your presentation.

Finally, a protestor does something to raise the level of debate.

Another Idol proves to have feet of clay

John Kerry may not have received an honorable discharge, after all. "The 'honorable discharge' on the Kerry Web site appears to be a Carter administration substitute for an original action expunged from Mr. Kerry's record,. . .." My faith has been shattered. This should have come out back in February.

If it had been said by a Republican . . .

James Carville: "The only politician in America I know with a mandate is Jim McGreevey."--James Carville, Meet the Press, Nov. 14

The courts and values

David von Drehle writes:

Half a century after the triumph of Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark desegregation case, reliance on constitutional lawsuits to achieve policy goals has become a wasting addiction among American progressives.

He's right, and that could be the ultimate key to the whole "values voter" issue. American's expect democracy, not court-imposed dictates overruling it.

The Cure for Democrats

This is the best advice I've seen for Democrats on how to deal with "values voters." I expect it will be ignored, because it would cause too many defections.

The NYTimes editorial board seems to like bloggers . . .

when they cast doubt on the election results. Of course, they probably don't care for the ones who point out their stupidity. Harumphing about making the election system reliable is just another one of those CYA memos we've heard about lately, a way to give support to the unsupportable with plausible deniability. There have been "irregularities" in elections since they began. People screw up their ballots. Some get miscounted. Some fraud occurs in spots. Republicans don't do corruption very well, as Watergate demonstrated. To really steal an election you need Democrats.

This agency ain't big enough . . .

Bush is said to be cleansing the CIA of people who have been trying to sabotage his policies. Better late than never. If there's one agency the president must be able to trust it's the CIA. Without trustworthy information, he can't make policy. The Pentagon can resist but it has a different culture--one in which you take orders or you don't get promoted. It can't be driven by political vendettas, it must not be used as a PR tool, but it must serve the president by supplying correct and current information and analysis. If CIA people start leaking to the media, they lose the president's confidence and they become ineffective. I'm sure a lot of the current crew came in during the Clinton era, and have no love for Bush. If they can't be professional, they should leave. It's like war. The officers who are in place when the fight begins may be good in a peacetime army, but if they can't fight the enemy, they get by-passed, or should, in favor of people like Grant, Sherman and Patton.

I've assumed that Bush kept Tenet because he didn't want to have to go through the agony of finding a replacement and getting him through the confirmation process. But now that the campaign's over, and Congress has created a new intelligence czar, it sounds like a good time to tidy things up, including getting rid of many CIA leakers who tried to get Bush unelected.

For disconsolate Democrats

Here's some history to cry-in-your-beer to.

For the conspiracy theorists, here's something to worry about.

I think that Mitt Romney might make a run for president in 2008. If so, the first thing you'll read about him is that he's a "teetotaling Mormon." The link is about Harry Reid, who is LDS and now Senate Minority Leader. I guess it is possible to be a good Mormon and a Democrat, Utah politics notwithstanding. So is this now a Mormon cabal to control the government? It'll probably be painted that way at some point. There's an old prophecy attributed to Joseph Smith, but of uncertain provenance, that someday the Constitution will be preserved by the elders of the church when it is hanging by a thread. I don't think this is it. I've never been too fond of Senator Hatch, who is a reliable water-carrier for the Republicans, but not much else. I vote for him only because the Democrats here keep nominating welfare state liberals.

We've had Democrat representatives off and on for a long time, and I never felt they were too bad. The main thing was that they were beholden to the party. I really liked Bill Orton, but he got screwed by the Clinton administration when they announced a huge national monument in Southern Utah as a way to achieve wilderness without legislation as a payoff to environmentalists. They never breathed a word to Congressman Orton before the announcement. Clinton didn't even come to the state, because they knew Utahns would oppose it. He announced it at the Grand Canyon. And it cost Orton his seat. Our current rep is named Matheson. He's the son of a popular former Governor, and he runs as a Bush supporter. The Republicans keep nominating radical rightwingers against him, but he has part of Salt Lake County and all of Carbon County, a Democrat enclave, in his district, so he keeps winning because the Republicans haven't been successful at gerrymandering him out.

It's nice to know . . .

someone responsible is in charge when the big guy goes down temporarily.

The quality of hypocrisy

Democrats suffer from projection. Those now talking about secession and leaving the country are the same ones who demanded freedom of speech in the 1960s but when they got authority proceeded to deny it to students and faculty under their thumb.

The Republicans took the position that all those protestors in New York equating Bush with Hitler were exercising their rights, at least until they became violent.

Who would you trust to protect your rights? The left has a ratchetting effect, which is like a slippery slope except that you can never go back up if you regain your footing.

Good point

Chris McDonald in a letter to the editor observes that a lot of the same people who were indignant that anyone would impugn their patriotism are now talking about seceding or leaving the country. Makes you wonder what they though patriotism means.