Hillary Polarizing? 52% Negative in Can't Stand 'Em Race

Hillary Clinton is a sort of Katie Couric of politics--accepted on a low level but a hard sell when it comes to the POTUS job her husband loved so well. Here's some numbers that show that Romney is not far behind, ostensibly because he's a Mormon:

"More than half of Americans say they wouldn't consider voting for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton for president if she becomes the Democratic nominee, according to a new national poll made available to McClatchy Newspapers and NBC News.

The poll by Mason-Dixon Polling and Research found that 52 percent of Americans wouldn't consider voting for Clinton, D-N.Y. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, a Republican, was second in the can't-stand-'em category, with 46 percent saying they wouldn't consider voting for him.

Clinton has long been considered a politically polarizing figure who would be a tough sell to some voters, especially many men, but also Clinton-haters of both genders.
Thursday's survey provides a snapshot of the challenges she faces, according to Larry Harris, a Mason-Dixon principal. "Hillary's carrying a lot of baggage," he said. "She's the only one that has a majority who say they can't vote for her."
Clinton rang up high negatives across the board, with 60 percent of independents, 56 percent of men, 47 percent of women and 88 percent of Republicans saying they wouldn't consider voting for her.

Romney struggled most with women: 50.9 percent said they wouldn't consider voting for him. "It's the flip-flop of Hillary," Harris said of Romney. "One could suppose it's the Mormon issue -- we didn't ask follow-up questions -- but his religion is an issue."

On name recognition, Clinton also led the 2008 presidential pack in voter disapproval, with 42 percent saying they recognized her name and were unfavorable toward her, versus 39 percent favorable. That gave her a double-digit lead in that bad-news category over Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, a Democrat. They each had 28 percent unfavorable recognition.

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani had the highest favorable recognition at 43 percent, with Clinton close behind at 39 percent. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., was third at 36 percent, followed by McCain at 33 percent and Edwards at 32 percent.

McCain rang up the highest favorable rating among independent voters with 39.4 percent, followed by Giuliani with 37.3 percent. Edwards scored well with independents, too, with 31.1 percent favorable; Obama had 28 percent favorable.

My own spouse worked as a Legislative Assistant for Paul Sarbanes, a real old-time lefty, but she doesn't like Hillary. Something hard and brittle, she says.

Some Sanity from Shrinks

The best laid plans of mice and men oft gang agleigh, or whatever,the Muddled East proves again and again. But why do blueish Marxist feminists and academicide victims continue to boost violent reactionaries who would snuff their female [and often Jewish} asses in a heartbeat? Here's Sigmund, Carl & Alfred:

Marx always expected that the middle class--which he described as composed of the small manufacturer, the shopkeeper, the artisan, the peasant etc--would own some property, but not sufficient to have all work done by employees or workers. Those in the middle class must also work in order to survive and are thus simultaneously members of Marx's proletariat as well as his bourgeoisie. He expected that the middle class would disappear as capitalism developed, since the only sustainable positions were the ones of his dialectic.

This, however, is not what actually happens in the real world as it turns out.

Whenever the workers are given liberty and allowed to pursue their own happiness (and not the state's), the middle class has continued to expand. In fact, the values of this particular economic group have come to anchor society in the United States. Far from wanting to ignite a worker's revolution as Marx predicted, they enjoy the creature comforts of the capitalist system and feel themselves empowered by it. Worse (from the communist/socialist's perspective anyway), the typical person in the middle class believes that he or she can better themselves by using the many opportunities offered by a liberal, capitalistic democracy.

Even in Communist China, capitalistic pursuits and entrepreneurship have become the true "opiates" of the masses--in the sense that to the degree people are free to pursue their own happiness and work for their own interests--i.e., where they have economic freedom, even if they don't have political freedom-- they are relatively content, and are unlikely to fulfill the ardent communist/socialist's revolutionary fantasies.

Let's switch gears now and look at the scenario that has been playing out in the Middle East for the last half century or more. The Palestinian-Israeli conflict has all the trappings of a perfect Marxist drama: the oppressed and poverty-stricken proletariat who have been dispossessed from the land that should be rightfully theirs; and the evil, oppressive and exploitative Jew.

There is only one way that the Israelis could have achieved a country of plenty in the midst of the arid and empty desert --and that must be by exploitation, oppression and abuse of the Palestinians. I mean, just look at what Israel has been able to accomplish since its founding! Not only have they managed to create a country that exemplifies western values, but their people are prosperous, industrious, educated, and contribute to the advancement of humanity in every way. And, they managed to do all this in only a few decades; while their Arab counterparts (including the Palestinians) have not been able to create much of anything over hundreds of years. In fact, if it wasn't for the discovery of oil in the Middle East, there would not be any wealth at all to sustain most of the countries surrounding Israel.

As this Marxist play continues act after repetitive act, highlighting the dialectic of oppressor versus oppressed, we can begin to understand why the political left have supported the Palestinian and Arab cause against Israel; and why jihad and shar'ia have become the preferred "revolt of the masses".

But despite the ongoing stasis in Gaza and the West Bank, the Arabs appear stuck on stupid. Why can't they adapt in Palestine? And why is the Arab world so backward despite the most massive oil resource base in the world? The knee-jerk loser response that it is the US, Israel, and other outside oppressors is familiar to me, although thoughtful Arab intellectuals will admit the religious component does hold Islamic societies back. After all, Islam means "submission [to the will of God] hardly a dynamic cultural meta-narrative. Blaming lack of Nobel Prizes on conspiracies just is silly when so few western books are translated into Arabic. SC&A continue:

It is in the interest of both Palestinian and Arab leaders to blame the failures and poverty of Palestinian society on Israel. In this, they are simply acting out the middle eastern variation of the Marxist drama by claiming that they have been “oppressed” by the very existence of Israel and cashing in on their victimhood. Thus an empowered middle class with a stake in peace and a desire for prosperity and commerce is the last thing the tyrants and terrorists of the middle east would want to emerge from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A middle class demands accountability. A middle class demands responsible government and a middle class demands opportunity. Thus, the Palestinians are forever doomed to exist in poverty and misery (whether in the primitive “camps” in Gaza; or Lebanon or anywhere in the ME) as an everlasting testament to Israeli and Western “oppression.”

The Palestinian political, cultural and religious leadership in both Hamas and Fatah are united in one area: they are afraid they will rightly be held accountable for the poverty, misery, havoc and destruction they have wrought for the last half century; and for the dark curtain they have drawn around the Arab world. It is the Arab world that has kept generations of Palestinians impoverished and without hope.

The Palestinians have bet on their Arab brothers ever since the UN Decision in 1947 and supported Saddam in '90-91 in his takeover of Kuwait. There are prices to pay from refusing to recognize reality, as the Marxist feminists and academicide victims in the USA are beginning to understand. Back to the Marxist template:

Marx believed that the capitalist system would ignite a worker's revolution, but the reality is that those workers began to enjoy the creature comforts of the capitalist system and felt themselves empowered by it. As stated earlier, the worse aspect of this reality--from the communist/socialist's perspective anyway--is that the typical person in the middle class believes that he or she can better themselves by using the many opportunities offered by a liberal, capitalistic democracy. The middle eastern variant of the Marxist dialectic holds that Palestinians--indeed, all Muslims--are oppressed by the decadence of Western/Christian/Jewish capitalism and democracy and that the only way to get rid of this oppression is through jihad. Thus the elites are invested in encouraging jihad and endless war as they live off the oil profits and bask in their own corruption; while the Arab (especially the Palestinian) proletariat can only look forward to blowing themselves up for Allah as the highest achievement they can aspire to. The pursuit of their own happiness or working for their own interests is simply not an option.

Or, in any way of phrasing it, "success is not an option."

US Role in World Still Unchallenged

The Economist has an interesting article on US predominance in the world, despite bad press. The US still produces 27.5% of the world's GDP [Japan is second at 9%] and predominates in every category, though New York is ebbing as world financial capital. This jibes well with a lot of the statistics and polling results of last week's Foreign Policy article on Failed States, which puts the US [and Ireland] at the top end of the least risky states in several categories, including religious tolerance. The article ends on an upbeat note which puts recent history after WWII into perspective:

Robert Kagan, a prominent commentator, is confident that the American-dominated "unipolar" world will endure. America has weathered worse disasters than Iraq, he says, not least soon after victory in the second world war, when the Soviet Union developed the hydrogen bomb and communists took power in China. Certainly America faces stronger regional antagonists, but none is yet competing for global supremacy, whether alone or in concert. If anything, many states want America's help to “balance” a rising China and a growling Russia. “A superpower can lose a war—in Vietnam or in Iraq—without ceasing to be a superpower,” says Mr Kagan, "so long as the American public continues to support American predominance, and so long as potential challengers inspire more fear than sympathy among their neighbours."

Although there are nutroots and moonbats who want to abolish US borders and turn the country over to nanny-state hyper-gov, the common sense of the American people, which mouth-breathing slack-jaws like Michael Moore calls "the dumbest people on the planet," values individual freedom much more than self-centered navel-gazing.

Though in California and the other left coast, this might not be as true as it used to be.

Global Poll says Most Countries Have Favorable View of US

The International Herald Tribune reports:

overall views of America remain very or somewhat favorable among majorities in 25 of 47 countries surveyed in a major international opinion poll, the Pew Research Center reported Wednesday.

Of course, the headline actually reads "Global poll shows wide distrust of U.S," but unfortunately only reflects the editorial views of The Trib's staffers. The actual facts of the Pew Survey are much less negative than the leftardo slackers lounging in Gay Paree who put the rag together. Where is the story in dog bites man?

The chief Pew spokesman says:

"Anti-Americanism since 2002 has deepened, but it hasn't really widened," said Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Global Attitudes Project. "It has worsened among America's European allies and is very, very bad in the Muslim world. But there is still a favorable view of the United States in many African countries, as well as in 'New Europe' and the Far East."

I'm going to cry myself to sleep tonight that the appeasing military cowards in Western Europe and the violent reactionaries in the Muslim world are "anti-American." Indeed, I'd be worried if they weren't. New Europe, the Far East and Africa are more important to the US than the moribund obsolescent societies seeking a nanny-state Nirvana. This would include shrinking demographic societies like Germany, France, Spain, Italy, and other abortion-oriented western societies that have cradle-to-grave benefits where children are not needed to take care of parents in old age. And these countries are rapidly importing the workers needed to replace their native kids---someone has to pay the taxes to keep the benefits coming.....

Oh yeah... it turns out that the co-chair of this Pew study is Madeleine "Chubby Thighs" Albright, whose lack of bias is non-existent and whose tenure at State was an unmitigated disaster which led up to North Korea getting the bomb and 9/11 becoming inevitable. Although Albright was helped in achieving US insecurity against terrorism by fellow distaffers Janet Reno and Jamie Gorelick---whose incompetence was fully matched by their arrogance and whose only usefulness was getting Florida into the Bush column in 2000 [Remember Elian Gonzalez?].

And finally, there is this glass three-quarters-empty lowlight at the end of the IHT article:

Asked about the crisis in the Middle East, Western publics were generally optimistic that a solution can be found that accommodates the needs of both Israelis and Palestinians, and Israelis also took that view. But Arabs in the region were pessimistic, with more than 70 percent in Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait and the Palestinian territories believing that "the rights and needs of the Palestinian people cannot be taken care of as long as the state of Israel exists."

So much for the "Two State Solution"---or shall we say "Three States" since Gaza was usurped by a Hamas Putsch?

Is Mass Psychosis Contagious?

Some observations from Dr. Sanity:
To those multiculturalists out there who insist that cultural traditions cannot be interpreted psychodynamically; or claim that all cultures and cultural practices are equally good, I beg to differ. Palestinian culture, along with the wider Arab/Islamic culture of the Middle East, is so pathological and so unbelievably dysfuntional that I simply cannot resist pointing it out as often as possible.

Consider for a moment the supposedly educated speaker in the TV program quoted above who authoritatively comments about the priority of jihad duty over wearing a veil; and then also consider the following TV interview translated from the always enlightening MEMRI . The discussion is an attempt to explain why more Muslims have not won Nobel Prizes :

Samir 'Ubeid: "Why has the prize been awarded to 167 Jews, and to only four Arabs out of 380 million Arabs - and all four are considered traitors? For example, Al-Sadat got the prize during the normalization process, and as a price for Camp David, together with Begin, who carried out the Deir Yassin massacre, and who was in the Hagana gangs. Later, the prize was awarded to [Ahmad] Al-Zewail, in order to buy his invention, and Al-Zewail has disappeared since."

Interviewer: "You mean the Egyptian Ahmad Al-Zewail?"

Samir 'Ubeid: "Yes, the Egyptian chemist. The prize was also awarded to Muhammad ElBaradei, and in this case, it is soaked in the blood of the Iraqi children and people. [...]

"Mother Teresa was brought, along with a group of people like her…"

Interviewer: "Some say the prize was awarded to her for her missionary activity in Africa, India, and so on..."

Samir 'Ubeid: "Let’s assume she was righteous, according to the logic of the media, which is now controlled by the Jews and Hollywood. When they awarded the prize to Teresa, they were trying to award an 'artificial hymen' or 'artificial honor' to this prize.
"My colleague said that there is democracy. What democracy is there, if out of 1.5 billion Chinese, only two or three were awarded the Nobel? If you examine the Russian scientists and writers, who shook the world with their literature and their knowledge...

"What about Sakharov, what about Tolstoy? In addition..."

Interviewer: "But Sakharov was awarded the Nobel prize."

Samir 'Ubeid: "I meant Chekhov. Chekhov! Chekhov! [...]

"Are we Arabs not included in the transfer of the scientific genetic code? We, the descendants of Al-Khawarizmi, Al-Jahez, Al-Razi, Avicenna, and Ibn Al-Haytham - are we all born idiots? Is there not a single scientist among us? Are we not included in the genetic code? Is intelligence not transferred down among us Arabs?"

Interviewer: "Scientific creativity occurs in freedom and democracy, brother."

Samir 'Ubeid: "Democracy does not explain how it was awarded to 167 Jews, from among those 15 million scattered around the world, while abandoning 1.5 billion Chinese, a billion Indians, and 380 million Arabs. This is racism. [...]

"The [Grameen] bank for the poor won the prize because some of its shareholders are giants like Haliburton and others. [...]

"They infiltrated this bank, which came to be in the pocket of the Freemasons. This prize stems from the core of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion."

Let us analyze the remarkable cri de coeur of the interviewee. His is a hearfelt and passionate exclamation that stems from his righteous outrage and indignation at the unfairness of it all: "Are we all born idiots?"

That is a very important question, indeed. Are idiots of the magnitude displayed by the two experts above born--or are they made? If the former is the case, then there is not much hope that the culture or the religion will ever be able to function normally in civilized society.

I am not aware of any research that suggests that the differences in intelligence between different religious groups is large enough to account for such a significant discrepancy in outcome regarding the Nobel Prize. And it is worth noting, that, not only is the Nobel Peace Prize not awarded much to Islamic politicians (I wonder if that could it have something to do with the fact that many of them are psychopathic tyrants, despots, and religious bigots?) or even to citizens of the rigidly controlled Islamic regimes; there is also a noticeable lack of Arab/Islamic winners in all the other categories--i.e., medicine, physics, chemistry; as well as in literature and economics. Other subtle clues that might explain this state of affairs might found here, here, and here.

According to the second interviewee, this unfair outcome has something to do with a deliberate Jewish plot/conspiracy and is likely the reason why the learned doctor in the first interview so delightfully encourages women to kill Jews with girlish abandon.

If all this Islamic intellectual discussion sounds familiar, it should. Jewish Conspiracies is another discipline (along with Genocidal Studies) that is a favorite academic field of study in the institutions of higher learning (such as they are) of the Middle East. Indeed, these complex disciplines are taught even in institutions of lower learning, so that a vast majority of the Islamic population are completely conversant with them and find them extremely helpful for explaining away the oppressive, barbaric, and primitive aspects of their culture and religion.

The ubiquitous unwillingness to look within themselves or their cultural and religious practices to understand the serious defects that keep them among the most backward and ignorant people on the planet, despite their access to great wealth, is the psychological foundation of their dysfunction.

The psychodynamic explanation has been discussed many times on this blog, and it is a psychological defense mechanism called projection--which in more extreme and bizarre forms is referred to a paranoia. And this cultural projection and paranoia serves a very important purpose for the culture: it allows them to maintain a delusional sense of grandiosity and superiority, despite the obvious evidence to the contrary in the real world. Thus, they never have to confront their own inadequacies and failures. If everything is the fault of the Jews, then the solution is to eradicate the Jews and all will be well!

SC&A once observed:

By the year 2020, the projected Arab population will reach 400 million. Currently, there are less than 100 universities in the Arab world. Of that number, at least 10 are 'Islamic' universities that do not teach anything other than theology. Notwithstanding the obscene wealth generated by these oil rich nations, there is not a single Arab institution of consequence. There is no major research and no important scholarship that originates in the Arab world. In fact, the greatest scholarship concerning the Arab world and Middle East, originates outside the region, in America or Europe.

This is but one example of the consequences of the cost of dysfunction and repression.
...
Indeed, the total number of books translated into Arabic during the 1,000 years since the age of Caliph Al-Ma’moun [a ninth-century Arab ruler who was a patron of cultural interaction between Arab, Persian, and Greek scholars—WPR] to this day is less than those translated in Spain in one year.

The abysmal backwardness found in this culture and region of the world has been studied and several explanations just seem to leap out at the investigators :

The barrier to better Arab performance is not a lack of resources, concludes the report, but the lamentable shortage of three essentials: freedom, knowledge and womanpower. Not having enough of these amounts to what the authors call the region's three “deficits”. It is these deficits, they argue, that hold the frustrated Arabs back from reaching their potential—and allow the rest of the world both to despise and to fear a deadly combination of wealth and backwardness.

Or here:

The oil wealth is matched by social backwardness, and the only other region of the world with an income level lower than ours is sub-Saharan Africa. Productivity is decreasing, scientific research is virtually nonexistent, thzione region is suffering a brain drain, and illiteracy afflicts half of Arab women.

Or here:

The report mentions a number of factors that block the dissemination of knowledge. Among these factors are authoritarian and over-protective child rearing, the deteriorating quality of education in many countries in the region, curricula in schools that encourage submission, obedience, subordination and compliance rather than free critical thinking, the lack of autonomy at universities and the poor state of university libraries.

Note that nothing in these three separate reports implicates the fictitional Protocols of the Elders of Zion as the cause of Arab/Islamic intellectual stagnation! Nor do they provide any evidence of a Zionist conspiracy to restrict the development of Muslim IQs.

Yet, I would venture to say that a significant number of Muslims, like the good "doctor" who exhorts women to be suicide bombers and the gentleman interviewed by Al-Jazeera, are unwilling to consider their own cultural and religious beliefs and practices as causative and find it completely "logical" to blame Jewish conspiracies for their impoverished status in the middle east and elsewhere.

No, the members of this culture and this religion are not born idiots...rather their idiocy is carefully and deliberately crafted and molded by the societal and religious dysfunction so rampant in the Islamic world. Ignorance, stupidity, violence and blind obedience are rewarded; clear thinking is not particularly valued and often punished.

"Intellectual" debates about whether women should wear a veil when blowing themselves to kingdom come; or how grateful they should be to Allah that her sacrifice of her son has been accepted are not the hallmark of a sharp cognitive capacity, but rather indicative of a societal brainwashing that is so deep and totally pervasive that it has stripped women not only of their individual identity, but also separated them completely from their brains.

The stupid and the willfully blind are never willing to confront the true malignancy within and will forcefully denounce anyone who exposes their self-delusion, since that self-delusion is all that stands between them and a complete collapse of their basic assumptions about themselves as a culture or religion (i.e., that they are "religion of peace" is one, often-mocked self-concept).

To maintain the psychological denial, projection and paranoia on a cultural level takes quite a bit of group psychic energy. Constant vigilance must be maintained to prevent reality from undermining the fantasy. Consequently, there is little encouragement of independent thinking (too dangerous) or autonomous functioning (rules must be developed for even the most simple interpersonal interactions). Reality, truth and reason are the natural enemies of delusion, and all the cultural institutions must strive to eradicate any fertile ground for these to develop.

SC&A again:

This is the kind of environment that allows for and justifies ‘honor killings.’ This is also how many young women are recruited into terror. If they are thought to have shamed the family, an act of terror serves as act of redemption for their family as well as themselves. The higher ‘morality’ of indiscriminate killing of innocents makes up for their transgressions.

This highlights another reality. In Arab cultures, there is no real reward or recognition for loving the sanctity of life. Those who profess a desire for real peace, non-violence, less corruption and less oppression are considered reformers.

In societies and cultures where increased violence is often seen after religious services (unique in the Abrahamic faiths), little emphasis is placed on self improvement, the betterment of society (the ‘real jihad,’ we are told) or humility. Rather, worshipers are whipped into a murderous frenzy directed at non- members. Each week, the hate is elevated.

These realities have brought Arab nations to their knees. Repression, oppression, terror, genocide and hate flourish. Entire populations are groomed to know only hopelessness, and not hope. There are failed economies, failed civil infrastructures and failed educational infrastructures. A child born in the Arab world today has little hope of achieving success on his own. There is little in the way of opportunities or a way out if the bleakness. There is no bright future to look forward to. The only promise and guarantee that child can count on, is being taught to hate.

The only equality a woman in this sick culture can aspire to is as a suicide-bomber (and do they also get 72 virgins for their trouble? Inquiring minds want to know). Death, death, wonderful death is drummed into them during practically every waking moment because life is impossible when there is so much psychopathology. I can only imagine how the poor bastards--male and female alike, but perhaps specially the invisible women-- raised in such a pathological and dysfunctional environment must absolutely long for death after a lifetime of being hit over the head repeatedly by this cultural garbage.

The indoctrination into cultural idiocy starts young and continues throughout life, but the good news is that there is little evidence that the rampant idiocy found in Islam is biological or genetic. On the contrary, all evidence points to the fact that the underlying ideology of Islam as it is now practiced in many places around the world deliberately ensures the "dumbing down" of the intellectual and moral functioning of its adherents.

So developing just a teensy bit of psychological insight into the denial, projection and paranoia that has run amok in the dysfunctional culture and religion of Islam could be an extremely helpful first step to finding real solutions to your very serious problems. Blaming the Jews is fun and all, but if you want to get serious about those Nobel Prizes, then you need a complete intellectual, moral and spiritual overhaul.

Sadly, Al-Astal represents compelling evidence that it is unlikely any insight will be developed in the present generation of Palestinians; and, since they have taken great pains to make sure that the next generation remains handicapped by the pervasive cultural idiocy, we might as well not expect any at all for some time to come.

Sick Schticko!

Andrew Sullivan may be the proverbial broken-clock traditionalist. Here he is on Moore:

Moore is both a practiced liar and not-too-smart. The implication that "free healthcare" run by the government is somehow immune to the laws of economics is classic Moore boilerplate

The MSM are trying to tout John Daly [oops, Michael Moore's] mediocre movie though it is getting damned by faint praise as A O Scott and other illuminati swallow their pride and dole out boilerplate kisses.

Reason Magazine is not impressed and The New Yorker's David Denby sums up the silly flick thusly:

Michael Moore has teased and bullied his way to some brilliant highs in his career as a political entertainer, but he scrapes bottom in his new documentary, "Sicko...... Moore winds up treating the audience the same way that, he says, powerful people treat the weak in America-as dopes easily satisfied with fairy tales and bland reassurances. And since he doesn't interview any of the countless Americans who have been mulling over ways to reform our system, we're supposed to come away from "Sicko" believing that sane thinking on these issues is unknown here. In the actual political world, the major Democratic Presidential candidates have already offered, or will soon offer, plans for reform. A shift to the left, or, at least, to the center, has overtaken Michael Moore, yielding an irony more striking than any he turns up: the changes in political consciousness that Moore himself has helped produce have rendered his latest film almost superfluous.

Moore told an English interviewer that Americans are "possibly the dumbest people on the face of the earth..."

Now that's a case of psychological projection!

Muslim Rage and Murder Abetted by International Media

I was watching CNN today as it respectfully interviewed an Indonesian terrorist advocating murder and suicide-bombing. This has been the umpteenth time in the last few weeks that I have noticed extremists advocating murder or journalists noting in a blase fashion that political murder is now a quasi-legitimate part of the political scene in the Islamic world. BBC has reporters in Lebanon who call murders of Christian and Sunni politicians by Syrian operatives "chipping away" at the slim majority the Christian/Sunni hold in the Lebanese parliament are a prime example of the acceptance of barbarism and violent extremism as just another political tool.

Michael Totten echoes the sentiments that Christopher Hitchens describes in his Slate piece by noting that the Western media are generally layabouts or aggressive drunks like the CNN chief Michael Ware in Baghdad who alternately fulminate or pander depending on whether they are attacking the USA/Israel or appeasing Islamic stage-extras who represent "insurgents" and "oppressed minorities."

The real story gets lost in the fake Sturm und Drang these BBC/CBS hacks and slackers allow as representing a "story" which the late Daniel Boorstin called a "pseudo-event" or "photo-op."

Bookworm sums it up as "Dianification" of the news in her piece "Media Chicanery." Here she derides the media doing close-up shots of events attended almost exclusively by "THE MEDIA:"

The same kind of dishonest close shot reporting appeared when Cindy Sheehan was doing her book tour. Tight shots carefully hid the fact that, while the media swarmed, ordinary people weren’t there.

In a way, it’s become the Dianification of the news, where the media eventually becomes the only audience that cares. Everyone else has tuned out, but the media still crowds around, pretending there is a story, and (as was the case with pathetic Di’s death and is the case with these ill-attended rallies) sometimes making the story.

Not only are the MSM 9/1 Democrat stateside, it appears that internationally the same tilt obtains for the ultra-left Ink-stained Wretchery called the International Media!

What if Rupert Buys the Wall Street Journal?

The New Yorker has a look-see by Ken Auletta of ensuing consequences that might occur if the News Corp. takes over Dow Jones Inc. Although Auletta has a kind word or three:

Bruce Page, who left the Sunday Times before Murdoch took control, and who wrote the 2003 book “The Murdoch Archipelago,” said, "Rupert is a very kind man personally. He bailed out old war correspondents who have hit hard times. He has great charm, in a certain dry way. There’s a lot to be said for Rupert Murdoch the man. There’s nothing to be said for Rupert Murdoch the journalist."

Murdoch does deserve credit for modernizing England’s newspaper industry and weaning it from wasteful union work rules. When he took over the daily Times, it was losing money; it still is, yet he keeps it alive. The Times is not nearly the paper that it was in 1981—stories are increasingly cursory, there is more crime and celebrity news, and since 2004 it has been printed in tabloid format—but it is still a respectable newspaper, as is the Australian, which Murdoch launched as that country’s first national newspaper, in 1964, and which didn’t earn a profit for twenty years. Neither publication, though, can compare to the Wall Street Journal, one of the best newspapers in the world. And because the Australian and the Times are so unlike typical Murdoch newspapers—tabloids like the Post in New York and the Sun in London—neither really represents his dominant brand of journalism.

The overwhelming thrust of the long piece is an archeological excursion into setting up straw men and knocking them down, as Auletta avoids the journalistic integrity he simultaneously accuses Murdoch of avoiding.

But as much mud as Auletta throws against the wall, and leftist journalists have made careers out of snarking News Corp at the behest of their ideological paymasters, not much sticks. Everything Auletta says could be said of the NYT, Washington Post, or Los Angeles Times, more or less. What catches in Auletta's craw is that Murdoch is successful, and the NYT is in slo-mo free-fall as is the LAT and WaPo.

And here's vintage Auletta damned-if-you-do and vice-versa:

In the interview with Stecklow and Peers, published in its entirety on the Journal’s Web site, he said that he would consider making WSJ.com—one of the few successful subscription models (it has nine hundred thousand subscribers paying up to a hundred dollars annually)—free, because “you’d have ten times as many visitors and let’s say five times as much advertising.”

What's so bad about free access to the best journalism in the USA, Ken? While Pinch has an iron curtain that is asphyxiating his columnists behind a pay-to-play wall, the WSJ makes money doing the opposite with free access to better columnists. Only loons PAY for twitterings and squeaks from the moonbattery or Rich, Krugboy, or Dowd.

I do agree with Auletta on Murdoch's editorial weakness on the murderous slave-culture of Chinese business, and also his takeover may mean that the resolute WSJ stance against Clinton Inc may falter due to RM's softness on Hillary.

But bigger may mean better if the WSJ grows its bureaus in Washington and Asia. The only competitor in the world to the Financial Times could get bigger AND better if Murdoch ratchets down his hands-on editorial habits to a more remote supervisory mode.

Shuffling North toward Freedom While Elitists Beckon

I am reading Marcel Pagnol's marvelous La Gloire de mon Pere and La Chateau de ma Mere both of which largely take place near Marseilles, Pagnol is originally of Catalan origin as he notes in his book, and Steyn has a francophone style and The Count of Monte Cristo is a great place to make an analogy on the hordes of unwashed peasants shuffling across our borders to become instant grifters:

Faced with a sustained systemic assault on US sovereignty, the federal government simply surrendered - and, in effect, sued for terms. Last year’s offer was rejected as being unacceptable to the vast legions of the “undocumented” and so, for example, the requirement to pay three out of five years’ back taxes was replaced by a total tax amnesty.

But just so we’re all clear what happened: An army of peasants defeated the soi-disant hyperpower. America’s closest allies - the Australians, say – periodically seek some modest advantage for their citizenry in return for their steadfast support, and generally get nowhere. But a population the size of Australia’s simply moved across the border and, despite huge public hostility to the strains imposed on local education and health care, the US government simply shrugged: There’s nothing we can do except give in.

This is not an immigration issue. Rather, this is a fascinating template (to put it at its mildest) on how to subvert national sovereignty. When I referred to an “army of peasants”, by the way, I wasn’t being pejorative, only marveling at the leverage brought to bear by some of the poorest people in the hemisphere. They were aided, of course, by forces inside the perimeter – the business class and the political elites. And this is where the template starts to look more familiar. There has always been human migration: “One day a mysterious colony set out from Spain and landed on the narrow strip of land which they inhabit to this very day,” as Dumas writes of the small Catalan village near Marseilles at the beginning of The Count Of Monte Cristo. But mass immigration as a conscious instrument of the host society’s domestic policy is very much a phenomenon of the modern age, and not an especially reassuring one. Listening to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff jeering at the yahoos boorish enough to oppose amnesty, I was reminded of the British and European establishments a generation or two back. In the late Sixties and early Seventies, when the anti-immigration working class of northern England fretted that they would lose their cities to the “Pakis”, the sophisticates mocked them as paranoid racists. Racist they may well have been, but they weren’t paranoid: In little more than a generation, Oldham and Blackburn and Batley went from mills to mosques. Yorkshire and Lancashire have adopted Mirpuri practice on arranged cousin marriage and can now boast among their native sons the July 7th Tube bombers.

And a generation from now, the "silent integration" that lying elitists like Chertoff, Bush, Lott, and the Big Brother Dhimmi-party will all be comfortable while the offscourings of humanity clamor for integration with a narco failed-state oligarchy to the South. And Cinco de Mayo becomes violent while cringing Anglos shuffle off to Canada---or pick up their firearms and resist the invasion.

Lott Says Talk Radio Rules; Reporters Give to Dems 9/1 over GOP

Having worked on all three of the former big three networks, plus PBS, I can inform you that "marketplace rules" don't operate when you have a trifecta of trivia like the closed circuit that existed until FOX News came and broke the liberal daisy chain.

We know you illuminati on the left believe you are sophisticated and we conservatives are hoi-polloi. But I read the Duino Elegies in German, Proust in French [as well as Layla wa Majnun in Arabic] and I still think Rush Limbaugh is the best thing to listen to while driving from Point A to Point B in the afternoon here in Boca!

The fact that Liberals have to twist and contort stats and polls to get around the fact that the US population is 5/2 or 3/1 self-described as conservative [versus “liberal” which few want to stain their resume with]. Polls from Pew, Gallup, Zogby and Jeffrey Goldberg’s wonderful article on Midwest Democrats all confirm that most Americans, even if they may vote or call themselves Democrats, are people of religious faith and a “Show Me” disposition—-except for “opinion-makers” in the MSM, Hollyweird, and Academicide, where life-long slackers with an attitude congregate.

I had Democratic credentials from way back until 9/11 when I underwent a rite of initiation, grew up, became an adult, began to let the scales fall from my eyes, and smelled the jasmine gardens of South Florida’s best radio person on air. [Actually, I just began late last year to listen on the advice of a PhD medical expert—who thinks Rush is great, but B O’R is primarily an entertainer.]

Talk radio is the ONLY "marketplace of ideas" except for the WSJ and Fox News out there [plus Drudge]. The reason the NYT is in a tailspin approaching death spiral is that the country is hungry for honest commentary, not the patty-cake bromides that libs on the three "broadcast" networks [ex-FOX] pretend are the parameters of debate.

So when a poll comes along that demonstrates again the results of the UCLA/UofCHICAGO study in 2003 that the MSM are liberal at a rate of around 90%, that's nothing new.

And when the greatest British PM [with the exception of Maggie] since Churchill,Tony Blair has a problem with the International Left Press, that's also endemic. I worked a while as a newsie/pressie in London and the drunken ink-stained hacks who constitute the majority of the London-based Press Corps make US journalists look like striped-pants diplomats.

Of course, the completely ethically-challenged Nibelungs at the World's Great-HypeShark, AKA the NYT allow their Ethics Columnist to contribute to liberal causes, that's because the NYT plays by different rules. But here is the conclusion of the UCLA/U of Missouri Study by Groseclose/Milyo & students over a twenty-year period:

"One of the most curious and surprising statistics in all of American politics is that an overwhelming number of journalists are liberal. For instance, Elaine Povich (1996) reports that only seven percent of all Washington correspondents voted for George Bush in 1992, compared to 37 percent of the American public. Lichter, Rothman and Lichter, (1986) and Weaver and Wilhoit (1996) report similar findings for earlier elections.

The reason this statistic is curious and surprising is that many consider the media the watchdog of government, sometimes calling it the “Fourth Branch of American Government.” If so, it is by far the least representative of the branches. These statistics suggest that journalists, as a group, are more liberal than almost any congressional district in the country. For instance, in the Ninth California district, which includes Berkeley, twelve percent voted for Bush, nearly double the rate of journalists. In the Eighth Massachusetts district, which includes Cambridge, nineteen percent voted for Bush, more than triple the rate of journalists. In the 14th California district, which includes Palo Alto, 26 percent voted for Bush, more than four times the rate of journalists."

The media is hardly a "watchdog of government," but more like a Cerberus guarding the gates as liberals enter their just-deserved after-life existence!

Flabbergasted by Too Much Celebrity? There's More

The cascades of hyperbole emitted on behalf of "A Mighty Heart" and its Supernova star Angelina Jolie have moved a Slate amanuensis to our culture's descent to write about The Worst Celebrity Interview ever Done.

Of course that would be in print, as the absolute worst celebrity interview ever would have to be done by the fawningly senile Larry King, who tossed softballs the size of cotton candy to AJ during her condescending responses to his obsequious queries.

But Esquire, unread as it is, does perhaps have the worst interview in print, by a master of self-referential narcissism named Tom Junod. Check the link at the top for details.

Skank Investigated by Skankiest---NYT Sleuthes Out News Corp.

The newspaper that prints all the news that's unfit to print---if it damages American interests---now is plotting an "investigation" of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, which is beating that newspaper along the head and shoulders in every department.
The New York Times assigns Jill Abramson, whom I intersected with when she worked at the Wall Street Journal, to lead a team of sleuths to find any wiggly things under the rocks they turn over. Jill has the temperament and mindset to do this sort of stuff in her sleep---she is an inveterate enemy of traditional values and other manners and mores practiced west of the Hudson River.

Perhaps this "investigation" can be linked somehow to the fact that Rupert's Rangers are in the process of looking at The Wall Street Journal, whose circulation is far higher than the hemorrhaging NYT [although a Newsweak story on the subject failed to mention that salient fact...., hmmmm]

And another little vignette published by The New York Observer could provide clues for the NYT crusade for facts on Rupert's operations. Murdoch may be supporting Bloomberg in his crusade to lead a "tertium quid" into the fray between the sluggish Republicans and the hysterical 'Dhimmi'crats [whom Roger Ailes castigates in the linked article as being afraid to debate on FOX News, hence afraid to fight Al Qaeda].

Also interesting that Newsweak and perhaps the Washington Post might be pushing a Bloomberg tilt at the windmill, although Lally Weymouth [another acquaintance in my distant past] may not represent the editorial arm of either publication.

Given Clinton's "inevitability" [and strong support from the NYT] and the dearth of exciting Republican candidates, perhaps Rupert and the Newsweak/Post phalanx could march in tandem to put forward a third candidate, an independent whose basic values would not upset the fundamentally conservative American electorate.

Carter Demonstrates He Deserved Nobel Less than Arafat

I was thinking to myself that we still haven't heard from the worst US president since before the Civil War on the latest events in the West Bank and Gaza. As if on cue, Jimmy Carter stepped forward and demonstrated again that there is no fool like an old fool [h/t: Ben Franklin].

Let's see where this serial idiot got it wrong this time. The US should not favor Fatah over Hamas because...."[it would be an] effort to divide Palestinians into two peoples."?

Fatah has renounced violence and has recognized the possibility of recognizing Israel. Abu Mazen has met with the Israeli PM in an effort to achieve a peaceful solution down the road.

Hamas has espoused terrorism, kidnaps Israeli soldiers and launches missiles into Israel while attempting terrorist attacks on Israel. Its leadership refuses to consider any diplomatic measures toward Israel. I could go on.....

So the US should treat them the same?

How long ago did this terminal moron Carter lose the last of his marbles?

California a Kaleidiscope of Cultures and Disconnects UPDATE

My bizarre adventures in the occult long ago woke me up to synchronicity, which Jung explained as an acausal connective principle based on coincidences. Or some such inexplicable trick of paranormal psychology. At any rate, in the seventies it would happen to me on a number of occasions. The other day an article written by John Leo concerning the fragmentation of student graduations at UCLA triggered the memory of the strangest of my coincidences.

UPDATE: I now do remember reading a book at that very time which built upon my Jungian interests, Arthur Koestler's epiphany The Roots of Coincidence which had spurred my interest tenfold---with this following event, I plunged much more enthusiastically into occult matters, visiting Lyon's premier astrologer and pursuing a few books in French, but I digress from the following absolutely true rendition of events as witnessed by two or three U.S. Embassy FSO's:

The date was May 3, 1973, and I was in Paris to help a female FSO friend in the Embassy there celebrate her 30th birthday. Everything that day started to turn up threes. Little things and bigger things. I bought an African musical instrument called a balaphon for 300 francs and then we went to the Parc de Luxembourg to lie on the grass on a perfect Spring day.

I recall telling my FSO friends about a book I was reading on Native American tribal differences. And how on the East Coast, vast tribal confederations had formed like the Five Nations and sophisticated trade and negotiating protocols had evolved even before the advent of the Europeans. Yadda yadda, but the same book had stressed how in California and parts of Oregon, the exact opposite phenomenon had occurred and the tribes had split again and again and tended to assert the fissiparous tendencies that isolates in language and tribes often do.

I had taken off my shoes a half-hour before and wiggled my toes while making a joke about how California then was like the weird hippies etc. of the counterculture today [in 1973]. I then digressed onto my little obsession-phase of the moment, coincidences and synchronicity.

I then went to put on my shoes and perhaps the weirdest of the many weird coincidences that have happened to me during a coincidence-filled lifetime occurred. In one of my shoes, a French banque cheque for 30,000 francs made out by a French gentleman named "Berger" which of course means "Shepherd" was stuck. How it had arrived in my shoe, which was lying less than three feet away as we lay on a blanket in the gorgeous confines of the Luxembourg Gardens is a perfect mystery.

John Leo's article linked above suddenly reminded me of the coincidence, as California is still demonstrating the multipolarity of its kaleidoscopic various factions who are refusing to assimilate to America or any known new synthesis. A perfect stew of special interests.

At the time, we talked for a few minutes joking about it's being a birthday present to my FSO friend who should share it in flying us all to Tahiti [at the time the check was worth about $9000 US], but of course I did the right thing and tore it up.

May 3,1973 was certainly a day for threes!

One for Ripley's Believe it or Not!

Greeniacs Set to Tax Everything and Control Everything Else!

Kimberley Strassel alerts us to another prong in the massive offensive being waged by the ultra-left to make lawn care and cheap roofing available throughout our country [Immigration] and to save money on defense spending [pre-emptive unconditional surrender] and finally to make every single decision about public lands and animal life contingent on the agreement of those friendly tree-huggers and NIMBY-acs who want to control every clod of dirt and drop of water inside the borders of the USA["Energy"].

Kimberley is gentle before she lowers the boom:

First came Big Labor. Then the tort lawyers. What special interest lobby remains for the Democratic majority to reward for services rendered this past election?

The answer rests in the ecstatic press releases tumbling out of the nation's largest environmental groups, as they oversee the House's pending energy legislation. That is, if "energy" is the right word for West Virginia Rep. Nick Rahall's green-payoff of a bill. Ostensibly the legislation is a rollback of any energy production advances of recent years. But also tucked deep in its heart is an extraordinary new tool to allow environmentalists to lock up private property across the country. Bill presented; bill paid.

Connect to the link above and see some of the Big Government plans to make Greeniacs and AGW fanatics your prospective landlords in fact if not in name. A snippet:

Broadly, the bill fulfills one big ambition of environmental groups in recent years: a rollback of any smarter use of public (or even private) lands for energy use. Gone are previous gains for more drilling, more refineries, more transmission lines. But the big prize was an unprecedented new power allowing green groups to micromanage U.S. lands. That section creates "a new national policy on wildlife and global warming." It would require the Secretary of the Interior to "assist" species in adapting to global warming, as well as "protect, acquire and restore habitat" that is "vulnerable" to climate change. This is the Endangered Species Act on steroids. At least under today's (albeit dysfunctional) species act, outside groups must provide evidence a species is dwindling in order for the government to step in. This law would have no such requirements. Since green groups will argue that every species is vulnerable to climate change, the government will be obliged to manage every acre containing a bird, bee or flower.

It's a green dream come true, carte blanche to promulgate endless regulations barring tree-cutting, house-building, water-damming, snowmobile-riding, waterskiing, garden-planting, or any other human activity. The section is vague ("protect," "assist," "restore") precisely so as to leave the door open to practically anything. In theory, your friendly Fish & Wildlife representative could even command you to start applying sunblock to your resident chipmunks' noses.

The avalanche is still waiting to be triggered by the slightest noise or tremor, but there is hope we will not be buried in a cascade of frozen anti-capitalist snow:

Mr. Rahall's bill still has a long way to go. Other sections of an energy policy are still mired in the House; the Senate has yet to weigh in; and President Bush, with any luck, will veto any legislation that grants a freeze of every dirt clod in America--publicly or privately owned. Still, when it comes to rewarding their friends in the green community, don't blame House Democrats for not trying.

The busiest beavers are the ones that dam the rivers of commerce.

Arrogant Creep Trent Lott: Talk Radio "that Problem."

If there was any doubt that unaccountable political elites are trying to ramrod a Sneaky Piece of Garbage sponsored by special interests like business, immigrant groups, and left-wing rich liberals, a remark by the preposterous fraud from Mississippi who was removed from the Senate Majority Post by his racist comments---non other than former cheerleader Trent Lott. His remark: "Talk Radio is running America. We have to deal with that problem."

Sounds like this mouth-breathing, slack-jaw, knuckle-walking Appalachian [h/t: 30 Rock on NBC] wants the Fairness Doctrine to shut up those pesky voters and citizens from trying to influence shoddy legislation from being enacted by a Praetorian Parliament of Dunces. Or am I wrong?

Hardy Perennial: The World is Running Out of Oil

It used to be that every year or two an article would come out predicting the end of the era of cheap and affordable oil. When that eventually came true with the advent of OPEC and geopolitical craziness in the Middle East, North Africa, and Venezuela, another trope began to assert itself.

Yes, not that the price of oil will rise, but that the world will run out of oil, and very soon...... This started in the early '80s about once a year and is now rearing its inaccurate scarified head every six months or so. Running out of oil is a Chicken-Little campanion-piece bookend to Anthropogenic Global Warming, and is just as speculative and selectively based on a few facts which are true by themselves, but counterbalanced by other facts which are never mentioned or are summarily dismissed in these Running-out-of-Oil set-pieces.

I remember back in the late '80s attending a Meeting of the World Geophysical Union, a group of geologists that meets every three years or half-decade to commune on matters geological.... I started a conversation with Saddam's chief oil geologist about how much oil there was in Iraq. He replied, no one knows because the geologists don't want to drill in the desert----the Mesopotamian Foredeep had about 200 BILLION recoverable reserves, so why bother to go offshore or into the desert wastes, even though the geology was favorable.

In the ensuing twenty years, the technological and geophysical equipment for finding and pumping oil to the surface has improved exponentially with each rise in oil prices. And salt domes, horizontal drilling, and many offshore improvements have more than doubled the proven recoverable reserves in places like Saudi Arabia, Brazil, the Gulf of Mexico, and other accessible regions, not to mention politically sensitive regions like ANWR in Alaska, where the footprint of a huge oil apparatus would be less than a quarter square mile. Froth-at-the-mouth tree huggers and caribou humpers still screech and the Left Coast is NIMBY central.

So all this talk about "running out of oil" basically has become a quarterly phenomenon driven by politics and greeniacs rather than science or common sense.

Hamas-stan in Gaza Equals Israel's Fault: Boston Globe

The world's daffiest newspaper which allows for home delivery has an editorial that proves that blame works both ways---when it comes to Israel. Only the Boston Globe editorializes that:

[The Gaza Strip] long suffered from Israel's suffocating occupation, and then from Ariel Sharon's foolishly unilateral withdrawal in 2005, a move that allowed Hamas to bid for power with the misleading claim that its rockets and suicide bombings had driven Israeli soldiers and settlers out of Gaza.

So Israel's relinquishment of direct control in 1993 is overlooked and the incredibly corrupt regime of Yasser Arafat that ensued is, in the view of the Globe:

Gazans were victimized as well by the corruption and misrule of Yasser Arafat's Fatah cronies.

But Arafat was in charge from 1993 until his death in 2004, so it wasn't just his cronies who were guilty of "corruption and misrule."

And those familiar with the history of the Middle East know that Israel conquered Gaza in 1956, then relinquished it back to Egypt, which promptly began using it as a staging area for terrorist attacks on Israel. So when the Israelis won it back in '67, they kept control, which the Globe saw as "suffocating." What was the status in the 12 years between '93 &'05, when the Israelis dismantled their settlements in what the Globe calls their "foolishly unilateral withdrawal?" They don't mention that interim period. What other sort of withdrawal would the Globe have wanted, and what would these clueless editorial writers have blamed Israel for if the withdrawal had been "bilateral" or "multilateral?"

When it comes to blaming Israel, the Boston Globe would have creatively come up with some reason to find fault. Because when it comes to the Globe, it's either Bush's fault or Israel's fault, or both if they can stretch the facts into their own hallucinatory parallel universe.

Daniel Pearl: Freedom of Press---except for Fox

Orwell is becoming more and more relevant as the years pass since his demise.Animal House is where the pigs are more equal than the other animals, and a political fraud is being committed in the name of the martyred Wall Street Journal journalist Daniel Pearl. Serial adoptioneer Jolie has banned Fox News from her premiere of a movie purporting to demonstrate that the press must be free.

UPDATE: Here is the National Ledger on serial-whore and brother-kissing Angelina's gallant support of freedom of the press. Larry King and his Jason Eason-crew at CNN won't have any trouble signing anything, or making up stories about anything about the US in Iraq. They are serial suck-ups.

You just can't make up the cowardice and stupidity of the International Left!

I could go on and mention a 95-pound weakling named Harry Reid insulting our military commanders [Reid never served in the military] as "incompetent." But just let the foolish nitwits prattle on about AGW and other displacement phenomena. They are trying to ignore the three-ton elephant in the living room---their own foolishness.

Reid, Pelosi Plump for Pre-Emptive Surrender: THREE UPDATES

The ABOMINABLE LEFT COAST tiny SASQUATCH Twins, Harry and Nancy have discovered a new way to end a war. These two exalted legislators demonstrated why Congress has an approval rating much lower than President Bush's by decreeing today a pre-emptive surrender. This surrender would be by us, of course, in Iraq. This has been decided because their vast Military Intelligence network, largely centered in MoveOn.org and the Kossack/Puffington Host Leftist cadres and agitpreppies, has divined that "the surge is not working."

Let's see if the Far-Left MSM move lockstep with their Dhimmi-crat Masters and become the sock-puppets of the screechiest blogs of the fever-swamp miasmic quicksand-left.

This will demonstrate the moral fiber of the USA to the terrorists and tyrants of the world. Dingey [or is it Dingy?] Harry and Nancy the Burka-Girl have made their metaphorical trip to Damascus and the scales.........[you get the biblical reference]. In this case, the scales are reptilian and their eyes are blind to American national interests beyond cheap political electioneering.

UPDATE#1: First of all, h/t: Taranot: WSJ

* Hans Blix: "Let me see your whole palace or else." Kim Jong Il: "Or else what?" Blix: "Or else we will be very, very angry with you. And we will write you a letter telling you how angry we are."--from "Team America: World Police" (2004)

* "Top US congressional Democrats bluntly told President George W. Bush Wednesday that his Iraq troop 'surge' policy was a failure. Senate Majority leader Harry Reid and House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi challenged the president over Iraq by sending him a letter."--Agence France-Presse, June 13

UPDATE#2: Oooh, this is so going to leave a mark!

The Politico says Dingy Androgenous girlie-man accuses Generals Pace and Petraeus of "incompetence." Coming from a fellow whose poll ratings are plunging faster than the Congress's after the elections, his PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEM seems to be PROJECTION of his own ineptitude onto those much superior to himself in every way, shape or fashion. The sissy at the schoolyard finally gets his revenge, beating up on the brave and talented.

[Oh yeah, the ultra-left bloggers, or at least two of the three interviewed, deny remembering any use of the word "incompetent." The third evidently is not fessing up. Wonder if they made the WHOLE THING UP!?!] You can bet Alan Colmes tonight on Hannity will claim that "it's been denied." Without, of course, mentioning that the ultra-left bloggers may have every incentive to "dis-remember" the witless imbecility Dingy Harry Reid uttered to them without a recording taking place. And, BTW, how did Politico get ahold of this dynamite-revelation? Hmmm.... Inquiring Minds would like to know!

UPDATE #3: He should quit while he's ahead.

Latest thing is that this faineant goofball is bringing the Immigration Bill back to the Senate Floor [Committee hearings on such a momentous undertaking are obviously being avoided because he and the similarly incompetent GWB would be unmasked as fraudulent and deceptive.]

This will be good for more laughs, as even the MSM is beginning to admit that the US public is about two-thirds against ANY bill that does not have BORDER FENCES FIRST and then settling other problems later.

Paglia on Al Gore as The Mamma's Boy From Hell?

As one of the few thoughtful Democrats remaining with some centrist credibility, Camille Paglia raps Democratic knuckles in a new Salon article up called "Don't Run, Al, Don't." Paglia packs zingers for just about every Dem presidential candidate, not excluding Hillary.

But she reserves her most scathingly probing commentary for Al Gore:

"Nevertheless, Hillary's abundant negatives don't make a Gore candidacy any more attractive. Sure, all the über-journalists who've mixed with Gore are dazzled by him. Big deal! Personal charm and a silver tongue in private don't make a president, who must be a public performer on the world stage. Whatever his high ideals, Gore is a mass of frustrated yearnings and self-defeating vacillation. Raised in a bubble of wealth and privilege, he has never fully emerged from his senator father's judgmental shadow. Women (wife, daughters, wifty hired hands) have to buck him up and prod him in this direction or that.

"What exactly were Gore's achievements in his eight years as vice president? What steps did he take at the time to shape public policy on global warming? What did the Clinton administration do to win U.S. adoption of the Kyoto accords? (Answer: next to nothing.) What political role did Gore play in the world after leaving office? There are some mighty big blanks in Gore's record.

"As a global warming agnostic, I dislike the way that Gore's preachy, apocalyptic fundamentalism has fomented an atmosphere of hysteria around this issue and potentially compromised the long-term credibility of environmentalism. Democrats who long for his return as the anti-Hillary may not realize how Gore has become a risible cartoon character for much of the country at large. Anyone who listens to talk radio has been repeatedly regaled by clips of Gore bizarrely going off the deep end at one speech or another. And Gore, far worse than Hillary, is the Phantom of a Thousand Accents -- telegraphing his supercilious condescension to whatever audience he's trying to manipulate.

But Hillary still came in for a drubbing by the relentlessly perceptive Camille:

...TV pundits who rushed to proclaim Hillary the winner of the second debate were off by a mile. Hillary excelled in the first half by the greater specificity of her responses, but her gains were nearly wiped out at one point by her bone-chilling mirthless chuckling (like a sound effect for the Blood Countess in a horror film).

In the second half, when everyone was seated, she overplayed her hand and began to intrude and domineer. The men sank into passive torpor. What was surfacing in Hillary was the old family psychodrama of the bright, brittle, high-achieving daughter contemptuously outflanking her befuddled, resentful, mediocre brothers at the dinner table. It wasn't a pleasant sight -- and all too reminiscent of the bullying Rosie O'Donnell compulsively hogging the spotlight on "The View."

When Joe Biden tried to break out of captivity by boldly addressing the live audience with a foot-stomping crescendo (nearly a Howard Dean moment in the crazily strident way it played on TV), Hillary unwisely tried to match him by instantly raising her voice and keeping it at that abrasive level for the rest of the debate -- thus losing the capital she'd gained in the first half.

Paglia thinks the Republicans sparkled in comparison:

The second Republican debate, in contrast, overflowed with spontaneous energy. Yes, the contenders are all middle-aged white men, but they sure know how to give and take a punch! There was drama, humor and electricity (literally, when a bolt of lightning cut out Giuliani's mike). I continue to be alarmed at what I perceive as Republican momentum toward next year's national election. The confident Republican foregrounding of military and security issues is going to present a very high hurdle to the Democratic nominee. Democrats are already acquiring a dismaying reputation for underestimating the threat of global terrorism.

But might Hillary be the inevitable Democratic candidate anyway?

Despite her problems with projecting a consistent or even human character, Hillary has certainly proved thus far that a woman can play in the big league in American electoral politics. She's resoundingly surpassed the first serious woman candidate for president, Elizabeth Dole, who took to wandering like an officious inspirational speaker through the audience, a bold tactic that quickly became cloying. In the two major debates thus far, Hillary has projected mental alertness and speed, as well as a wide-ranging knowledge of public policy.

For many Democrats like me, however, Hillary's history of prevarication, rigidity and quasi-divine sense of election is profoundly unsettling. And who exactly would be running the government -- that indefatigable buttinski, Bill Clinton? Spare us! But Hillary's intricate experience with the Washington bureaucracy makes Edwards (toward whom I've been leaning) and Obama (whom I may shift to) look like shaky tyros. After eight years of managerial ineptitude under Bush, will the general electorate realistically choose a work-in-progress like Edwards or Obama who needs so steep a learning curve?

Paglia finishes her observations on Hillary, Gore, and the Democrats with a fresh perspective on the Anthropogenic Global Warming indoctrination campaign, reminding us that there is depth-of-field in her optic on this quasi-religious cavalcade of hysterical inaccuracies:

Toronto's National Post has been running a fascinating series by Lawrence Solomon [free subscription] on global warming dissidents, who don't get much press in the U.S. My own philosophy about earth's titanic, humanity-dwarfing operations is contained in a curious video I recently found on YouTube.com. Clips of volcanic eruptions and magma flows are set to the abstract "psychedelic" music of a California rock group, the Danbury Shakes. This eerie fusion of lurid natural images with a distorted, clashing soundscape is richly evocative of a 1960s vision that has been lost. The '60s revolution, as I've argued elsewhere, was about much more than politics. Fanaticism about global warming reduces the eternal terrors of nature to a banal political melodrama.

Paglia is always controversial and seldom disappoints when displaying her quirky eclectic views on politics and the fads of the moment. But her trenchant takes on Al Gore and Hillary Clinton have a special bite, as she remains a practicing Democrat who is constantly dismayed by her party of choice.

Did an Illegal Immigrant Kill Self and five others in Wisconsin?

We'll never know because the last thing a PC fever-swamp backwater like southern Wisconsin would want is to have its dirty laundry looked at in public. Wisconsin is a "sanctuary state," for all practical purposes.

And that suits the national MSM just fine. The story was a three-hour wonder, and then it turned out that a "gentleman" named Ambrosio Analco killed his girl-friend, twin kids, and a couple others before he shot himself. The national media seemed to make this story disappear so quickly, you'd think it was the Immigration Bill zooming by Committees to go straight to the floor of the Senate.

O'Reilly Tops ABC News & Stewart as "Most Credible."

A recent survey commissioned by Adweek shows that a larger percentage of viewers seeBill O'Reilly as a dependable source of news than ABC-News, which ranks highest in viewers among the Network shows.

Jon Stewart's Daily Show and ABC are roughly tied in the credibility sweepstakes.

Of course, the reason many watch O'Reilly is that he does have different points of view on his Factor, unlike Keith Odorboy whose program is a non-stop-in-endless-feedback-loop DNC talking point and cheerleading session.

Charlie Gibson is somewhat fair-minded, unlike the twin parades of DNC PC rectitude that Williams and Couric display each evening. Brian Ross may have a larger percentage of exposes against Repubs than Dems, but he does share the blame.

O'Reilly is strident and preachy, but he does expose frauds like Andrea Mitchell when they do a streak-session during Republican debates on NBC. Williams is beyond help---exulting in his adulation of Jimmy Carter, whose WH he served in as an intern.

Stewart is funny. And does have some conservative viewpoints aired on his show.

But Dennis Miller is the funniest ranter on the news---getting in digs on Pelosi and Reid that no one else could pull off.

Conyers Mistaken for Dollar Bill Jefferson

Easy mistake to make as among other resemblances, it's about one crook being mistakenfor another.

Anthropogenic Global Warming? A Shortlist of Demurrals

The funniest quote of the Nineteen-Nineties may have been uttered by Algo-rhythm Gorebot

"Only an insignificant fraction of scientists deny the global warming crisis. The time for debate is over. The science is settled."

No, the simpleton with the elitist claque behind him didn't say that to push his incredibly factitious imbecilic movie---Michael Moore with less slapstick. The droning boring intoningly anxious student of climate, the information superhighway, and lockboxes actually said this far earlier.

So said Al Gore ... in 1992. Amazingly, he made his claims despite much evidence of their falsity. A Gallup poll at the time reported that 53% of scientists actively involved in global climate research did not believe global warming had occurred; 30% weren't sure; and only 17% believed global warming had begun. Even a Greenpeace poll showed 47% of climatologists didn't think a runaway greenhouse effect was imminent; only 36% thought it possible & a mere 13% thought it probable.

Now anyone with a brain has long ago figured out that Lyin' Al just can't tell the truth without gilding the lily, exaggerating, or just plain spewing his own brand of "Happy Horsesh*t." His fans in Tennessee knew him well, and his lost his native state in the 2000 election because they know he is a specious phony baloney boy from decades of watching him disgrace himself in public life. Where do the Dems come up with specimens like The Goracle and Airy-Hairy-Kerry? Just lyin' flip-floppers from breakfast to bedtime---and lots of help from a double-digit IQ peanut gallery of leftardos and females with second-rate minds and first-rate libidos. [John-Boy Edwards in this case]
Here's a recent article from the respected British publication The Telegraph with an update on Al's little joke on all of us undereducated skeptics.

The National Post is perhaps one of the few outposts of sanity in Eastern Canada. A few recent articles from this Ottawa-based publication have some of those benighted
skeptics
raising their objections as in the case of a Professor Svensmark.

The paper has had other skeptical articles here
and another article here by Nigel Weiss.

Not only the frozen Canadians, but The Australians are not buying the Goracle's Pied Piper tune to the lemmings on AGW.
And the eminent respected dean of Canadian climatologists, a professor named Tim Ball has pointed out some of the shortcomings of the "scientific" community.
Betsy's Page has some good links on the continuing depantsing and factual spanking of the continuously silly ex-VP and all-time biggest US election loser Al Gore, who also doubles as the morally superior Gore, the zinc magnate who parades his lame excuses in the WSJ. Al also had lots of oil industry connections besides his Occidental ties.

Just a short list of the most recent skeptical scientific and political links to anyone who wants to investigate more than the received wisdom of the airhead hairy-headed "climatologists." Couldn't find the link of the NASA Chief, but will update when found.

Rasmussen's Straightforward Polls Show Massive Opposition to Amnesty Bill

That masterful intellect, GW Bush, insists that those who call his Immigration fiasco
amnesty are ill-informed or worse [bigot or racist, depending on if you are a super RINO like McCain/Graham].

Some supporters of the bill have tried to suggest it is politically popular by citing polling data for selected features of the bill. However, President Bush yesterday implicitly acknowledged the strong public opposition to the bill by stating that elected officials will need political “courage” to pass the measure. Senator Jon Kyl (R), a major supporter of the legislation, acknowledged in interviews that the lack of support measured by Rasmussen Reports is an accurate reflection of the public mood.

Rasmussen Reports polling, like that of other firms, has found that Americans may be willing to accept a compromise proposal that includes legalizing the status of the 12 million illegal aliens already living in the United States. Sixty-five percent (65%) said they would accept such a compromise provided that it accomplished the primary goal of reducing illegal immigration. However, arguing about the nuances of amnesty, guest-worker programs and other provisions will do nothing to build popular support without proof that the government is serious about controlling the border.

Seventy-two percent (72%) of voters believe it is Very Important for “the government to improve its enforcement of the borders and reduce illegal immigration.”

Many times, voters doubt that reasonable alternatives exist. But, 68% of Americans believe it is possible to reduce illegal immigration while just 20% disagree. A New York Times/CBS News poll found a similar result--82% believe the federal government could do more to reduce illegal immigration.

The belief that the issue could be addressed adds to the frustration of those who oppose the Senate bill. Sixty-six percent (66%) believe it doesn't make sense to debate new immigration laws until we can first control our borders and enforce existing laws.[Emphases Mine]

Other recent surveys have found that Senator John McCain (R), a strong proponent of the Senate bill, has slipped to third place in the race for the Republican Presidential nomination. President Bush’s Job Approval ratings have fallen to the lowest levels of his Administration since the immigration debate began dominating the news.

Looks like both the right and the left have serious problems with the bill.

LeBron Rules, Kobe Fools, Donovan Drools

Yesterday, I was glued to ESPN and TBS, to get my fix of baseball & NBA playoffs. I watched the new MJ/EarvinMagicJ work his wizardry on the hated Pistons, who mugged the Cavs pretty thoroughly in what the NBA commentators called Detroit's "stellar defense." I remember the Chicago Bulls in the playoffs against the same type of stellar defense before MJ hit full stride. Rasheed Wallace had to be restrained at the end of the game last night and led off the court before he disqualified himself for games six and seven.

Kobe meantime is off his meds. Yesterday morning he told ESPN he wanted to be traded "anywhere"[evidently because Mitch Kupchak was not being replaced as GM by Jerry West.]
That afternoon he recanted, and had a quick phone call/meeting with owner Jerry Buss last night Kobe has already removed the Lakers from even being the best team in LA, let alone the highly competitive Western Conference, with his high-handed tantrums driving Shaq to Miami which resulted in last year's NBA championship.

Kobe appears to be lacking one element of leadership that LeBron possesses, and that is selflessness. His mysterious "alleged rape" in Colorado has been airbrushed from NBA annals as surely as Trotsky disappeared from the Soviet Encyclopedia after 1928. But his mental unfitness remains.

And after last night's performance by LeBron, Kobe is no longer "the best player in the NBA," as the sycophant crew on ESPN keep braying [one of whom, Dan Patrick, has Keith Odorman as his bosom buddy.]

Let's hope LeBron can get the Cavs into the finals Saturday night.

Finally, Billy Donovan succumbed to the sirens of the NBA, and will not even have to move to coach the Orlando Magic, a team that seems poised to return to its former first-rank status. Can Billy avoid the NBA jinx that kills top-rank college coaches?
$5.5 million/year for five years makes him want to try and see. Plus he was an actual pro point guard for the Knicks for a couple of years, so he knows a bit about the crazy schedule and ceaseless heartaches of an NBA season.

Lastly, the BoSox play NYY at Fenway, and I'm just wishing Clemens had been scheduled to face Schilling, who credits the Rocket with giving him advice back in the day that turned around Curt's career. Perhaps later this season.

UPDATE: Bill Simmons over at SI has the compleat precis of possible deals for Kobe, including a nugget about Kobe going to the Phoenix Suns:

The most selfish player in the league (Kobe) playing with the most unselfish player in the league (Nash). What a fascinating sociological experiment. If Nash can turn Kobe into a team player, I'm voting him for our 2008 president even though he's Canadian.

Born in South Africa, yet.

Two potential problems: First, it's unlikely that the Lakers would be dumb enough to trade Kobe within their own division, although with Kupchak involved, anything's possible. And second, assuming that Nash has a say in front-office decisions at this point, would he really want to green-light a scenario that has him managing two enormous egos in Stoudemire and Kobe?

Well, lemme throw this at you: What if the Suns then swapped Stoudemire to Minnesota for KG, as I proposed in a May 14 column? That would give them the following crunch-time lineup: Nash, Kobe, Bell, Diaw and KG. Ladies and gentlemen, your 2008 World Champions! Just send them the trophy right now.

So that's my vote: Black Mamba, you're going to Phoenix to play with KG and Nash. And if it happens, I can guarantee that the 2008 playoffs will be more entertaining than the 2007 playoffs.

My guess is something that Simmons has earlier in his column:

First, Kobe has a complete no-trade clause and is too image-conscious to play in a small market. He's not going to Memphis. He's not going to Milwaukee. He's not going to Sacramento. Kobe will want a big market that keeps him in the national limelight. Second, he'd want to play for a team that could contend right away; there's no way he'd agree to shepherd another rebuilding project or youth movement. And third, as much as a mega-deal makes sense with Kobe and Carmelo as the principals, you'd see O.J. move back to Brentwood before you'd see Kobe accept a trade that puts him in Colorado......As Shaq and Kareem proved, NBA stars will always want to play in Los Angeles if they can pull it off. Between the weather, the women, the wealth and the Hollywood scene, the Lakers have an enormous free agency advantage over every NBA team but New York, Phoenix, Orlando, Miami and maybe Dallas. Keep that in mind.

Can't wait to see how Bill Simmons puts LeBron in HIS place!

Peggy Noonan Finds Bush Deranged

Since the Bush Administration's full-court press on the Immigration fiasco-mess,Peggy Noonan has discovered what many independents, conservatives [both Republican and Democratic], and patriotic Americans have also realized. The two Bushes are of a piece, wobbly and even worse, disloyal to their own base. Poppy with taxes & Jr. with immigration:

What I came in time to believe is that the great shortcoming of this White House, the great thing it is missing, is simple wisdom. Just wisdom--a sense that they did not invent history, that this moment is not all there is, that man has lived a long time and there are things that are true of him, that maturity is not the same thing as cowardice, that personal loyalty is not a good enough reason to put anyone in charge of anything, that the way it works in politics is a friend becomes a loyalist becomes a hack, and actually at this point in history we don't need hacks.

Peggy is being too kind. GWB has the lack of depth and perspective a C-student at Yale who never cracked a book might be expected to have. Although his reasons for invading Iraq were not ironclad, we gave him the benefit of the doubt. But he devolved the peace after the war into the hands of a total arrogant incompetant named Rumsfeld, who grabbed the development of democracy from seasoned professionals like Jay Garner and his team, and gave it to a loyalist hack named Bremer. And GWB was somnambulent as Ken Lay was at Enron, allowing "experts" like Cheney and Rumsfeld to overrule Shinseki and do a peace on the cheap. Of course, it was new wine into old wineskins and the seams broke.

Peggy does a somber sum-up that reflects my own misgivings---especially about Poppy Bush and his singular insouciance about taxes and the economy. His son squandered trillions with a Republican Senate resembling Ali Baba and his forty thieves. GWB is now realizing that the Dems write the history books and is trying to salvage his reputation by serving as Teddy Kennedy's tea-boy, the same Kennedy who in '65 promised that that Immigration Law would "not allow a million immigrants a year nor change the ethnic composition of the country." both of which it eventually did.

Now REAL conservatives will have to latch onto a real Republican of the Reagan/Goldwater stripe---not transplanted Rockefeller Easterners affecting drawls and down-home cowboy charm. Like Fred Thompson. Peggy continues with a sad summary of the Bush Betrayal Family Tradition, both father and son wobbly and spineless:

One of the things I have come to think the past few years is that the Bushes, father and son, though different in many ways, are great wasters of political inheritance. They throw it away as if they'd earned it and could do with it what they liked. Bush senior inherited a vibrant country and a party at peace with itself. He won the leadership of a party that had finally, at great cost, by 1980, fought itself through to unity and come together on shared principles. Mr. Bush won in 1988 by saying he would govern as Reagan had. Yet he did not understand he'd been elected to Reagan's third term. He thought he'd been elected because they liked him. And so he raised taxes, sundered a hard-won coalition, and found himself shocked to lose his party the presidency, and for eight long and consequential years. He had many virtues, but he wasted his inheritance.

Bush the younger came forward, presented himself as a conservative, garnered all the frustrated hopes of his party, turned them into victory, and not nine months later was handed a historical trauma that left his country rallied around him, lifting him, and his party bonded to him. He was disciplined and often daring, but in time he sundered the party that rallied to him, and broke his coalition into pieces. He threw away his inheritance. I do not understand such squandering.

No Giuliani palliatives for Peggy and her old-time religion:

Now conservatives and Republicans are going to have to win back their party. They are going to have to break from those who have already broken from them. This will require courage, serious thinking and an ability to do what psychologists used to call letting go. This will be painful, but it's time. It's more than time.

Actually, I'd vote for Rudy in a pinch, but only with a Fred Thompson or Romney as VP.