Q: Why? A: FREEDOM

I was reading Malkin's blog this morning and ran across a post about a liberal political cartoonist named Mike Luckovich. You see back in October Mike did a cartoon by using the names of the then 2000 Americans killed in Iraq to form the word WHY as an obvious anti-war image. Then comes Danielle Ansley (17) who after seeing the WHY cartoon daily, as her mother had cut it out of the paper and put it on the refrigerator, created a response. I have to give it to Luckovich who put the response on his own blog and that he didn't delete the comment on his blog that sums things up best on this: "Is this only sad to me, that ML asks a question ‘WHY’ and the 17 year old, Danielle, knows the obvious answer, FREEDOM. Of course, Danielle, is not blinded by bias."

How my commute could be 90 seconds

My work commute is 6.5 miles and takes on average about 15 minutes, which is extremely short in silicon valley. My current daily driver is capable of making this commute in much less time but the abundance of many less qualified vehicles (and drivers) make this unachievable. Being the performance junky and car buff that I am, I manage to do some spirited driving in my daily commute even if it's only the boyish game of seeing everyone several hundred feet back in my review mirror after only a few seconds of leaving a stop light. My daily driver will do 0-60 in a tad over 5 seconds and has a wind limited top speed just over 140 mph...but this is with a 4800 lbs pickup. There is a strange exaggerated feeling when you have this kind of performance in the unexpected and heavy form of a truck. That's why I can appreciate the eye popping performance numbers of the new Bugatti Veyron. At 4200 lbs these numbers are more like what you would expect from a car weighing 1000 lbs less with the same power. Bugatti has obviously figured out how to best translate scary power (to go and to stop) in a way not achieved in any other production car to date. If you're not a car buff all of this is probably uninteresting and the physical experience I imagine from reading these numbers will be lost on you.

• Quad turbo 8-liter 16-cylinder 1001 hp, 922 ft/lbs power plant
• 10 radiators (what?)
• 7 speed transaxle, 4 wheel drive
• 0-60 in 2.5 sec
• 0-150 in 7.5 sec
• 253 mph top speed (limited to 234 until you use a special key and lower the cars ground clearance from 4.9 to 2.6 in!!!!)
• 250-0 in less than 10 sec
• $1,200,000

Killer Chihuahuas?

Five Chihuahuas attack a policeman! Ok, this raises so many questions: Why does anyone own one, let alone five, of these rat-dogs? Was this a great example of restraint shown by a police officer? Or maybe he left his gun or baton in the car? Maybe he was unaware that an average man can kick or throw a Chihuahua a good 50 feet? Why hasn't a REAL dog in the neighborhood eaten these mice? And in case you didn't know, the Chihuahua is the one under the chair!

Will MSM & Democrats support this leak probe?

Now that there is an official probe into the leak of the NSA eavesdropping program , approved by Bush post 9/11, it will be interesting to see the reaction of the press and hard left Democrats. The press will probably not like how the investigation will treat those at the NYTimes who received the leaked information. The usual Democrat's (like the Three Stooges in the post below) will likely show their typical liberal hypocrisy and denounce this investigation as an effort by the White House to deflect the issue of whether the NSA program was illegal. But of course they supported the Plame leak probe with enthusiasm!

Update 1, check the NYTimes' own article on this probe....sure enough the hypocrisy begins with the Times saying "Privacy advocates said today that the leak investigation should be set aside, at least for now, in favor of an investigation of the warrantless eavesdropping itself." Of course the privacy advocates they're talking about are the leftist ACLU and Electronic Privacy Information Center both of which are worried more about protecting terrorists and promoting anti-Bush projects than they are about civil liberties.

Update 2, Brent Baker at NewsBusters has a post on a biased piece done by ABC on the issue. Just goes to show you the little things you can do (like the choice of an a supposed expert, a piece of text on the TV screen, or something left out) to bias a story.

Associated Press & CNN's anti-Americanism

Bias in reporting by the MSM is nothing new, but I think the AP actually manufactures stories into anti-American hit pieces. This week what appears to be gang violence on a Toronto street, busy with holiday shoppers, took the life of a 15 yr old girl and wounded 6 others. The AP story appears on the CNN website with the headline Canada blames U.S. for gun violence. The mayor of Toronto and the Canadian Prime Minister are quoted as blaming the U.S. for a surge in violence and the use of guns. The Mayor and Prime Minister have made such comments about the U.S. and guns, but I can't find it related to this 15 yr girls killing. They are comments made prior and in regard to a growing youth and gang violence problem in Canada. As you peruse the Canadian press you don't find that "Canada" blames the U.S., you find that a few politicians are making excuses for other root cause problems they have failed to deal with. Interesting coverage from the Canadian Free Press, The Globe and Mail, and the largest paper The Star. When you look at the Canadian news coverage, and reaction of Canadian citizens, you would never come up with the headline that CNN used or focus the story on blaming the U.S. for increased violence in Canada as the AP did...unless your purpose was to create an anti-American story.

Three Democrat Stooges

Ok, there's a lot more than three Democrat stooges, but three get the distinction for being especially stooge like in the last few days. This was all sourced from today's WSJ Opinion Journal blog by James Taranto where you'll find a blurb on all three are worth a visit.

Stooge 1: Ted Kennedy whose op-ed in yesterday's Boston Globe calls Mao Tse-tung's "little red book" the Communist Manifesto which was actually written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Ted was trying to point to a supposed abuse of government reach by referring to the likely made up story about a college student checking out the aforementioned book from a library which got him a visit from homeland security agents..NOT!

Stooge 2: Tom Daschle had an op-ed in today's Washington Post where as Taranto put it "the defeated Senate Democratic leader, weighs in on today's Washington Post op-ed page with a piece in which he argues that he and his erstwhile Senate colleagues never meant to authorize President Bush to fight terrorism in the U.S" Taranto also links Ed Morrissey's blog who sums up Daschle's newly reached position thusly: "Democrats have to be the worst historical revisionists still received by polite society or have been truly clueless about the nature of the war on Islamofascist terror since its start. Daschle actually makes a case for both in his essay" and "Perhaps Daschle didn't notice, but the entire reason that Congress passed the war resolution was that the United States got attacked--inside the United States. It's as if that context never occurs to Daschle."

Stooge 3: Harry Reid apparently told a gathering that "we killed the Patriot Act." and then on Monday decided to clarify what he meant by saying the maybe he should have said was "we killed the conference report" and went on and on blaming his poor choice of words on his lack of education and not having had an English class. Tarranto pounces on this in the following way; This is the same Harry Reid who, a little over a year ago, called Justice Clarence Thomas "an embarrassment to the Supreme Court" because "I think that his opinions are poorly written." If Reid's literacy is as defective as he himself claims it is, doesn't this make him, by his own standard, an embarrassment to the Senate?

Further, if Reid never even had an English class, what qualifies him to evaluate Justice Thomas's writings? Or was he merely stereotyping Thomas as unintelligent because of his race, in the manner of ignorant men throughout history?

You've Got To Be Freaking Kidding Me!

Grinchy remark sends kids home in tears:

Who says there's no war on Christmas! Now they've taken the battle to 6 year olds.

"Theresa Farrisi stood in for Schaeffer’s regular music teacher one day last week. One of her assignments was to read Clement C. Moore’s famous poem, “A Visit from Saint Nicholas” to a first-grade class at Lickdale Elementary School.

“The poem has great literary value, but it goes against my conscience to teach something which I know to be false to children, who are impressionable,” said Farrisi, 43, of Myerstown. “It’s a story. I taught it as a story. There’s no real person called Santa Claus living at the North Pole.”

Farrisi doesn’t believe in Santa Claus, and she doesn’t think anyone else should, either. She made her feelings clear to the classroom full of 6- and 7-year-olds, some of whom went home crying."

Nice, let's have teachers tell our kids what they should believe in.

Left Paranoia

The NSA story continues to have legs beyond any legal questions. The left is, of course, always convinced that a Republican administration has no noble effort when they use the FBI, CIA, NSA and military for anything. There is always a conspiracy! Bush really isn't trying to prevent the next 9/11, he is instead trying to find out what ordinary citizens (that have a tie to a known terrorist) are talking about. Ya, sure that makes sense! So, to try to convince those who don't fully understand what we must do to properly fight this war, the media likes to throw out "parallels" or "echoes"! Like this "phone-spying program has disturbing echoes of arguments once used by South AfricaÂ’s apartheid regime" piece. Ya, and Iraq parallels Vietnam, or the NSA spying echoes Hitler's Nazi Germany and so on. If you have actual evidence of wrong doing or why an approach to a problem is wrong present it on it's face value. Trying to attach some other unrelated negative event or person to your argument weakens, not strengthens, it.

Update, some informed points on the NSA and the Patriot Act I found on Hewitt's blog by a former FBI profiler that support my view.

Colleges Aren't Asking & Aren't Telling

Here's something I find most interesting:

Many colleges (especially on the left coast) are prohibiting military recruiters from visiting their campii due the military ban on gays serving openly (don't get me started on that one) yet they gladly take money from Suadi royalty to expand programs that "study Islam and the Muslim world".

Georgetown University recently accepted $20 Million from Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal.

Now last time I checked the Saudi's were vehemently anti-gay (it's a crime punishable by beheading) and anti-women's rights (they're not allowed to drive, or to leave the country without a male "guardian's" permission).

But I guess that's okay with the leftists.

The evolution of man is a THEORY!

The U.S. District court ruling this week that said teaching intelligent design violated a constitutional ban on teaching religion in public schools is a joke. First, go and do some research on intelligent design theory (IDT) and tell me what religion it teaches? This ruling is so wrong not just from its religious connection being off base but on what it says about schools. The religion hating crowd (mostly liberals and funny that they aren't tolerant isn't it) is apparently afraid of people making up their own minds. It's also interesting that from religious fanatics to the more broad minded IDT supporters, they all would support teaching all three THEORIES on how man got on planet earth; creation, evolution and intelligent design. Those who wish only evolution to be taught wouldn't except presentation of other theories. Students are capable of understanding the application of deductive reasoning in order to absolutely prove any of these theories as fact is not possible with what we know today. The students can also understand that millions around the world will believe one of these theories to be true, that is their belief. To only present a young mind with a single theory, evolution, on the question of the origin of man is tantamount to brain washing.

RNC versus DNC, which looks good to you?

In hearing that Howard Dean put out an email letter to donkey supporters I had to check the DNC website. Wow, just go there and contrast it with the front page of the RNC website! The energy the DNC site spends on attacking others is amazing. Their site is full of "Bush lies", "Republicans are corrupt", and the like. No matter where you navigate around the DNC site you will find the overwhelming focus is on attacking people (being Bush and republicans) as opposed to offering up solutions to deal with issues. The comparison is telling. It's also interesting that the DNC has a People link, and page, on their home page. Under it are sections for African Americans, Asian, Pacific Islanders, Disability Community (doesn't this mean all dems?), Hispanics, GLBT community (I had to look this up, are you kidding me?), several others and oh yes...Women. Ok, now visit anyone of these and it's just more about how Bush, or some other GOP agent, is doing your particular group wrong. I like how in the African American (read BLACK) section are stories about how Bush or the administration has done poorly responding to Katrina. So the DNC is saying Kartina is a BLACK issue? And, what if you're a Women Transexual do you visit the GLBT page or the Women page? Both parties should treat all those who align with their philosophy, or even don't, the same. You Democrats must be so proud of your leadership's divisive, hateful, separatist, finger pointing and inability to except that Bush is your president.

Thank You for Wiretapping

The WSJ Review & Outlook opinion piece today called "Thank You for Wiretapping" nails it. Once again senators (even some Republicans) are playing fast and loose because of political ideology with the result being to impede presidential powers and to undermine our military and our security agencies during a time of perpetual war to thwart terrorism against us and our allies. Tell me how I'm wrong? Tell me how this isn't a case of it's Bush so it must be wrong, abusive or illegal? You can't have it both ways "Stop them, catch them, but don't watch them or listen to them".

Update 1, Hugh Hewitt has a post on Jay Rockefeller's letters to the Vice President on his concerns over the NSA program he was briefed on. Like Hugh, and some liberal Bloggers, I agree that it appears Rockefeller wanted to distance himself without any outright disapproval of the program. As Hugh put it "Rockefeller's "feeble" note, as one lefty put it, is a great symbol of the entire Democratic Party's approach to the war. These are not the people you want running it, or even close to the controls."

Update 2, we now see that Carter and Clinton approved searches and surveillance without court orders. Michelle Malkin also has a nice post on the "spying on Americans" uproar with links to other sources. It turns out it was just made public that as part of the ongoing law enforcement work just after the Oklahoma City bombing the U.S. government used a spy satellite to gather intelligence on a white separatist compound in Oklahoma. Where is the outrage on this? From Michelle's post "The Left believes the government should do whatever it takes to fight terrorists--­but only when the terrorists look like Timothy McVeigh. If you're on the MCI Friends and Family plan of Osama bin Laden and Abu Zubaydah, you're home free."

Update 3, the ACLU demands (whatever) records regarding the NSA's surveillance...ya right! They don't however demand any records for the spying that was done on the skin heads in Oklahoma! The ACLU looks out for your civil liberties as long as you think like them or are a Muslim!

Update 4, John at Powerline posts his email exchange with one of the reporters at the NYTimes who "scooped" the NSA story. John's exchange is typical of a well thought out fact and referenced based conservative position on an issue, and the reporters responses (which have stopped coming) reflect the typical liberal terse hollow response that ignores the last retort! As I have said previously, numerous bloggers spent several days (versus the NYTimes having a year+) researching the NSA story and the legality of what has happened. It's pretty easy to build the case that this was legal based on the constitution and on recent precedent set by the actions of other presidents as well as rulings by SCOTUS. In fact, it's so easy to build the case for this being legal one could only conclude to put out a story suggesting the contrary was done knowingly to mislead.

Update 5, Democrats thankfully cave in (6 month Patriot Act extension) probably only because they checked polling numbers and found that most American's think their idiotic sky-is-falling civil liberties stance on intelligence measures that help keep us safe is just plain wrong.

A masterful FU

I have to give my compliments to Arnold who pulled off a friendly and eloquent FU today. Government officials in Graz, his Austrian hometown had poor things to say about Arnold not granting clemency to the Tookster. Arnold was their beloved son, who they named a sports stadium after and who they gave a ring of honor, whose name they use to promote the city. In a friendly letter, written as if he was doing the mayor of his hometown a favor, Arnold told them to remove his name from the stadium and to stop using his name to promote the city. He also wrote "Since, however, the official Graz appears to no longer accept me as one of their own, this ring has lost its meaning and value to me. It is already in the mail," and noted city officials would receive follow up letters from his attorney.

Who should profit from our oil use?

And the hypocrisy continues as the Democrats threaten a filibuster on the defense spending bill that just passed in the house because it includes drilling for oil in ANWR. So the Republicans used the system to attach ANWR to defense spending so as to show opponents are soft on defense, good move! The Democrats are pissed off, once again being schooled by the Republicans. First, the arguments against drilling on ANWR's 1.5M acres are a joke. Modern drilling uses very little land and has very little effect on wildlife habitat especially considering how little space the facilities would take. But worse is the lefts complaint on our reliance on foreign oil. You have the possible minor disruption of caribou, polar bears, migratory birds and other wildlife over our dependence on middle east oil and Democrats choose the later? Explain that to me! They would rather us continue our dependence and force restrictions on SUV's. New Jersey's Sen. Frank Lautenberg said "This is a Christmas package designed for delivery to the oil industry, and we have got to fight as hard as we can to stop that delivery". SO WHAT...you would rather have the money go to the Saudi's, Iran, Kuwait, Libya, Iraq, United Arab Emirates, etc.? And if not, your concern over a few animals being disrupted in the boonies trumps your concern over 250M Americans? What the hell is wrong with US oil companies doing well? WHAT THE F!!!!! Ted Kennedy is all for wind power as long as you don't put the wind mill in his ocean view. Democrats think everything we do in the middle east is about oil and fail to embrace a head on approach to fix that. They would rather F*** the consumer, and business, instead of an animal. Putting ANWR on the bill is fair game, this is how the system works. We should have been drilling there 30 yrs ago. The Democrats take the PETA approach when it comes to our energy dependence and security...but they're patriots and support the troops! NOT

Political Amnesia or Hypocrisy?

Gee, have any of those rule-of-law Democrats who cried for heads to roll for the outing of not-so-secrete secret agent Valerie Plame asked for the same in the case of the NSA's program to eavesdrop on dozens of Al-Qaida linked targets leaked to the NYTimes? Of course not, and I even bet if you ask one of them they will argue that the Plame joke is as serious as the NSA program! Of course they want the President to explain the eavesdropping program and its legality. They however don't seem to care about an NSA leak or that a dozen times top members of both parties were briefed on the program. If anyone who was briefed those twelve times thought a law was broken wasn't it their duty to expose it? The democrats take positions and lob criticism purely based on political winds...there are so few in that party who are not overtly hypocritical or show a consistent core set of beliefs...good God!

Update: Let's see what happens when a few folks are killed or maimed with stolen high tech plastic explosives...I bet the general public will be happy to give up a few so called civil liberties then!

To secure, or not to secure?

If things continue to improve in Iraq and we draw down troop levels as Iraqi's take over their security the Dems will suffer dramatically in the mid term elections next year. The divide on making our country secure between the left and right has become as polarizing as say abortion or the death penalty. So while the House passed tougher immigration legislation the Dems then block extension of the Patriot Act. The Dems get all fired up when maybe the Quran is flushed, or terror suspects are made uncomfortable, and so it will be interesting to see who denounces Bush's ordering eavesdropping of a few dozen people of interest shortly after 9/11 without a court order. You would think the result of poor intelligence (Iraq) would improve support for our ability to gather intelligence (Patriot Act and yes secret eavesdropping). Music concerts I attended 25 years ago had clothing searches for bottles, and such, prior to entry. Fast forward to today and civil libertarians are suddenly up in arms (NFL entry searches) when the old alcohol search is labeled as anti-terrorism security. It's sad that a tragedy like a suicide bombing at a large ACLU gathering probably wouldn't convince the civil rights all costs crowd that their stance on homeland security in general is wrong.

Democrats vs. America Part II

Just when you think they can't get any more pathetic they find a way to top themselves.

"House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said yesterday that Democrats should not seek a unified position on an exit strategy in Iraq, calling the war a matter of individual conscience and saying differing positions within the caucus are a source of strength for the party."

So your party shouldn't seek a unified position about winning a war? I wonder why not. Why wouldn't you want the brave US troops fighting that war to know that you back them 100%?

Oh wait, I get it! It's so that no matter which way the war goes you can continue to criticize without having to offer any freaking ideas about how it could go better. Other then just pulling a surrender that would make the French proud of us.

The MSM & the Democrats vs. America

One day after the historic vote in Iraq, a vote where Iraqi insurgents were actually safeguarding the polls, what is the main focus of the MSM?

This of course: Bush Approved Eavesdropping, Official Says .

Oooh, scary! The facist Bush is once again destroying our so called civil rights, right?

Wrong! The NSA is an evesdropping agency, that's its primary mission. They are authorized to monitor US citizens when they are outside the US. So what's the big problem? Well, the President decided (he issued an executive order and informed the Senate Intelligence Committee-including the democrats who sit on that committee, and he went through all the proper channels after making this decision) that it would be alright to monitor phone calls between suspected terrorists when they are in the country and they are calling somewhere outside the country. Egads!

Not only is it not illegal or improper for the NSA to do this, this program has been very effective in the past. In fact, in November of 2003 John Ashcroft gave a speech to the 2003 National Lawyers Convention and talked about this very program!

Here's part of what he said:

"Here's an example of how we use the act. Some of you are familiar with the case of Iman Ferris, a naturalized United States citizen who worked as a truck driver out of Columbus, Ohio. Using information sharing allowed under the PATRIOT Act, law enforcement pieced together Ferris' activities -- how Ferris met senior al Qaeda operatives in a training camp in Afghanistan; how he was asked to procure equipment that might cause train derailments and sever suspension systems of bridges; how he traveled to New York to scout a potential terrorist target. Now, Ferris pleaded guilty on May 1, 2003, and on October 28, he was

sentenced under the PATRIOT Act's tough sentences. He'll serve 20 years in prison for providing material support to al Qaeda and the conspiracy for the terrorist organization, providing them with information about possible U.S. targets for attack.The Ferris case illustrates what the PATRIOT Act does. One thing the PATRIOT Act does not do is to allow the investigation of individuals "solely on the basis of activities protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States." We know that it does not do that. And even if the law did not prohibit it, the Justice Department has neither the time nor the inclination to delve into the reading habits or other First Amendment activities of our citizens. "

There were other plots in England and Ireland that were exposed by this very program. A program that affected perhaps 500 people a year. The administration asked the New York Times not to publish this story so the NYT sat on this story for more than a year. So, why come out with the story now?

To take a great victory from President Bush, there's simply no other reason.

So the question is how does exposing this program make America safer? It doesn't. But it gives the Democrats another avenue of attack on the administration.

Don't you find it curious that the Democrats only care about leaks if they have absolutely nothing to do with national security? I guess the Democrats feel so safe here in the US that they need to spend their time attacking the institutions that make them safe.

Nice.

2005 is the hottest year ever?

Yes, according to U.K. scientists 2005 was the warmest year since the 1860's when temperature records started being kept. Of course the studies authors say this is more evidence of human-induced global warming. Really? Let me get this straight, first you're saying 2005 was 0.65 C above the average from 1961 to 1990 which represents the baseline. And you say your calculations on that have an error of 0.1 C. And your baseline time window is only 0.00000058% of the earth's approximate 5 billion year history, but you're claiming only a 15% error rate? Ya, right! This is a joke. This is simply a miniscule sampling of surface temperature with nothing to connect human produced gas emissions to that temperature. Scientists and meteorologist have already come out saying that our unusual global hurricane season is part of a normal cycle. Whose to say that we aren't in a normal temperature cycle given the base line is only 29 years for christ sake! Even when global warming studies do talk about human produced gas and particulate emissions they almost never compare those to naturally occurring carbon particulate and various gas emissions from say volcanoes (annually the volcanoes beat out man each year).

Minority Report: abuse or free market?

Today, a report by the California Reinvestment Coalition (CRC) was released and the conclusion the local media drew was reflected in the headline "Minorities pay more for home loans". Of course the CRC is happy with that headline since their mission is advocating for increased access to credit on behalf of California's low income communities. Wouldn't it be important, for the analysis of home loan data, to compare loan costs and rates for consumers with the same income level, job history, credit report score all against race?

Of course it would. That would in fact be the only way to say "minorities pay more for home loans" Otherwise you better say "minorities who as compared to a white counterpart make less, have less job history and have poorer credit scores pay more for home loans"! This study is so flawed its a total joke. For all we know even if they took into account the variables I mentioned it might be that yet another variable is the key, like education. In the end this is a free market, you don't need to take a loan from any particular bank or institution. You can shop for the best deal, but you have to be smart enough to do so. If you're not smart enough to open up a simple bank account so that you don't have to pay a fee to one of those strip mall check cashing stores then whose fault is that? In case you like to do your homework, the CRC's study is 50 pages and I scanned it. They do admit they don't have the ESSENTIAL credit score as part of the study but they, of course, blame it on the industry. The only mention of credit score is this two sentence disclaimer on the very last page.

"HMDA data is limited in that certain elements of conventional underwriting such as credit scores, loan to value ratios, and debt to income ratios are not available. While CRC and other community groups continue to call for HMDA reporting requirements to be strengthened, the industry continues to fight adamantly against any and all expansions of HMDA."

Groups like the CRC are why the HMDA (Home Mortgage Disclosure Act) exists. It requires lenders to report certain data but the key piece of data is race. Any guesses how many lenders asked for race on their loan applications prior to the passing of the HMDA? Oh, I'm sure before the HMDA the loan officer was secretely tagging applications for higher rates and fees based purely on the applicant being a minority! This is the same failed logic employed by affirmitive action propenents. They believe most business owners and hiring managers will not hire the best candidate if that candidate is of a certain race. You would only think that's a systemic problem if you have never been a business owner or hiring manager, or you work in a government or union job where there is no reason to hire the best.