The Spin Cycle

You know, I don't know how journalists come to such conclusions as the following one, but I can only guess it's because this kind of journalists lives and works in Washington, D.C. and has no real perspective on the actual country:

The latest crisis in the Middle East has disrupted President Bush's plans domestically and internationally at a sensitive juncture, reopening divisions with allies abroad and jeopardizing attempts to restore public confidence at home, according to officials, analysts and diplomats.

Personally, the Israeli-Hezbollah mix-up in Lebanon has no effect on the United States of America, President Bush, or anybody else. It's another front in the war on terror, sure, and it's being fought by the Israelis, who were attacked, but otherwise, since nobody can do anything about it -- nobody, absolutely nobody -- I don't know why so many people are wringing their hands in worrry over the fact that nobody will do anything about it.

Think about it: there isn't a single European country that has the military ability to do anything about the conflict. None. Well, maybe Britain, but Britain is already "over-extended" by its involvement in Iraq. Nobody on the continent can do anything except complain.

This is just spin and can be ignored:

And the images of mayhem from the two-week-old war, combined with the rising death toll in Iraq, have further rattled a domestic audience that polls show was already uncertain about Bush's leadership.

His poll numbers are low? Who cares, since all the questions asked of respondents are skewed to produce low poll numbers as a matter of the media's attempt to undercut the president's authority. And, anyway, what the hell good are high poll numbers? You can't eat them, can't spend them, can't trade them.

And this bit is just ridiculous as "analysis:"

Bush advisers who have been buffeted in the past year by a catastrophic hurricane,
--not his fault nor problem to solve--
rising gasoline prices,
--counters that whole "blood for oil" meme, doesn't it?--
a failed Social Security initiative,
--a positive result in the WaPo mind--
Republican revolts,
--not sure what these are, since the WaPo and rest of the MSM say the Republicans all walk in lock-step with the president--
criminal investigations
--you mean investigation, right? one that will quickly fall apart in court--
and a relentless overseas war
--just saying "relentless" doesn't make it a bad war--
said they have grown accustomed to constant crisis. "This is a new normal for our administration in the last couple years," said one senior official. "You begin to expect the unexpected."

But this bit is actually humorous in how wrong it gets the situation:

If anything, some Democrats are trying to position themselves as even more pro-Israel than he is, attacking the president because Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has condemned Israel's military strikes in southern Lebanon.

These Democratic Party members aren't pro-Israel, they're anti-Iraq, using the Iraqi denunciation of the hositilities in Lebanon as cover to call the Iraqi governmnet anti-semitic and dismiss it as unhelpful and perhaps illegitimate, which is really nothing more than an oblique way to slam Bush, Operation Iraqi Freedom, and the installation of a US-friendly democratic government in the Middle East. Pure partisan cynicism distilled to a tar-like substance.

Are You Freaking Kidding Me?

In America, where education is handed out free to all comers, this should not be possible:

Daniel Schorr is used to producers popping into his Washington, D.C., office at National Public Radio to ask, on deadline: Which war came first, Korea or Vietnam? (Answer: Korea.)

First off, if you're in the news business and you don't know some basic history of the 20th Century - like, for instance, what the major wars your country participated in were - then you shouldn't be in the news business. Two, if you have to actually ask someone for the answer to this and expose your blatant idiocy, you shouldn't be in the news business. Third, if you use this information in a fluff piece about another professional journalist and you feel it is necessary to provide the answer to the question in the paragraph, you shouldn't be a journalist (because you've just shown how stupid you think your readership is).

Turth, Unvarnished

Mark Steyn points out what the enemy has been saying:

In one of the most admirably straightforward of Islamist declarations, Hussein Massawi, the Hezbollah leader behind the slaughter of U.S. and French forces 20 years ago, put it this way:

"We are not fighting so that you will offer us something. We are fighting to eliminate you."

Everybody clear on that? Now, can we go about the dirty business of killing all these sons-of-bitches?

Human v. Cat

The cats win.

Okay, read this article and ask yourself this: they were worried about the friggin' cats?!?!?!?! I mean, c'mon, we're talking about a human being here, and this story and the others involved in it are more worried about the fate of some freakin' cats.

Hello, society, hello? Anyone out there with their priorities straight? Cats? They eat cats in China. It's the man in the story who needs the help, not the cats ... THE MAN. Help him. Not. The. Cats.

Sheesh.

Lies, Damn Lies, and Newspaper Articles

The AP and the Phinqy want you to believe something that just ain't true on any level:

Most Americans plan to vote for Democrats

The article doesn't support that headlines at all, but you can't fault a newspaper for trying to push through its agenda. Oddly, newspapers haven't yet figured out that they are either preaching to the choir or being scrutinized by skeptics, that there are very, very few uninformed swing-voters out there who can be swayed by a passing glance at a newspaper headline.

Now, there's a lot of dissatisfaction with Republicans in Congress these days, but that doesn't translate into wanting them out of office. It translates into wanting them to stop being idiots when it comes to spending. Everybody knows in their DNA that the Democrats won't change the direction of that habit.

If anything, Democrats should be prepared to lose seats this November; they ain't taking over control, that's for certain. I'm sure Nancy Pelosi will be shocked and awed the day after the ellection when she has fewer colleagues of her party going to Washington. Then, she'll gulp and tell CNN that it's a positive thing that proves Americans are in favor of the Democratic blah blah blah...

Militant Terrorism Defined

I just wish the media would come out and call a spade a spade:

Basayev, 41, was behind some of Russia's worst terror attacks, including the seizure of a Moscow theater in 2002 in which dozens of hostages and militants died, the 2004 school hostage taking in Beslan that killed 331, and the seizure of about 1,000 hostages at a hospital in Budyonnovsk that killed about 100.

If "militants" are conducting "terror attacks," they're terrorists, not militants.

The NJ Tax "Compromise"

Okaaaaay. After days of government shutdown, Gov. Corzine and the Assembly have finally reached a compromise on the budget and the tax hike:

This plan would constitutionally dedicate half of the one-penny increase in the sales tax for property-tax rebates, Corzine said, providing "billions of dollars of funding for property-tax relief over 10 years, while implementing meaningful progress toward financial responsibility."

Un-hunh. They're going to tax you the full tax anyway, but at the end of the tax year, they'll give you some of it back, according to how much your property tax is. It's almost impossible to keep your own money in your own pocket anymore.

Coward

I hope they convict the sonuvabitch and lock him up. You sign up, you sign up to go anywhere.

NJ Tax Hike Impasse Cont'd

You have to love that it's Democrats in the NJ legislature that are opposing a tax hike and spending increase, which, you know, considering that theyr'e Democrats and all. Tax'n'spend indeed. But this bit is hilarious:

Lashing out at Assembly Democratic leaders who have blocked the passage of his $30.9 billion spending plan, the freshman governor accused them of putting concern for their own political survival ahead of the best interest of the state.

Doesn't sound at all like Corzine has considered that maybe, just maybe, the citizens of New Jersey don't want to pay more in taxes so the government can expand its bureaucracy and spend more of their hard-earned money. In that case, well, of course the Assembly Democrats are going to be concerned about their own political survival. Corzine is pretty much trying to ensure he's a one-termer as governor.

When Retards Speak

And this idiot is a college professor. Oh, wait, yeah, then it does make some sort of sense, in an idiot-spotting sorta way:

''The physics of those collapses clearly could not have resulted from plane crashes and jet fuel fires with office materials.'' Barrett says jet fuel does not burn hot enough to melt steel, and says recent tests on melted steel from the building prove his theory that it was wired to collapse, by the Government.

Barrett says the Bush Administration is fooling the American public with the Adolf Hitler 'Big Lie Technique'... ''Tell them a little lie and they'll wonder about it - weapons of mass destruction in iraq was a relatively little lie - and people are getting called on it.'' Barrett says. ''Tell em a big lie like 9/11 and they have a huge resistance to questioning it.''

Occam's Razor comes in handy in this case, which shows that in order to pull this off, Bush and Rove and Cheney would've needed to know they would win the election in 2000 about two years in advance of standing for election. They'd have needed to recruit 19 Islamic Jihadis and ... oh, never mind. If you believe this kind of nonsense you're an idiot who can't be argued with.

Weird N.J.

I don't know what's more incredible about the mess Gov. Corzine is making of the Garden State, but I think it's utterly unbelievable that the state government et. al is shutting down because the governor wants to increase taxes and government spending. This is something along the lines of proof positive that lefty Democrats of the kook fringe type shouldn't be allowed to run anything. New Jersey is already highly taxed and over-regulated, and here you have a wealthy political dilettante trying to fiddle with the system even more because he deigns to pretend to know something about running a government, he thinks you need more of it, and it needs more of your money.

But, then, the longer the government is shut down, the less harm it can do to the people. Maybe, if it's shut down long enough, everyone will realize they can get by with relatively little of it.

The Decline and Fall

Well, I'm not quite that far in my thinking, yet. Yeah: yet. There's a serious attempt to weaken and eliminate The West as it's currently conceived, but there's a serious contingent of US citizens working hard every day to prevent the fall. But, sometimes, as with the most recent US Supreme Court decision sorta kinda legitimizing terrorists as legal actors in an undeclared war, it's hard to disagree with this from Mark Steyn:

Oh, well. It wasn't all bad news this week. In Kuwait, women voted in parliamentary elections. In Afghanistan, the National Police opened a new regional command center in Kandahar.

I wish them well. It's good they seem to be getting the hang of this functioning society routine because in the long run they won't be getting much meaningful help from what's left of Western civilization.

We'll see.