Michigan has a New Chief Operating Officer

Nick at Right Michigan has a good post today on the gentleman hired by our beloved Governor to be Michigan's first state COO. The position was created to help the state streamline its bureaucracy while attempting to issue in an atmosphere of economic expansion and job creation--two things this state desperately needs.

The promise of the new position had many people within the private sector encouraged until, that is, Daniel Krichbaum proved to be the selection. Nick has a checklist:

[...]so lets see how the new Governor... errr.... COO measures up.

Methodist minister... yep, check.

Former taxpayer funded employee of the city of Detroit... uh huh, check.

Leader of a non-profit who's goal is to further regulate businesses... got it, yes, check.

Experienced business leader... hmm... don't see that on his resume.

Respected for his ability to cut costs and get through red tape... no, looks like his roles have been much more aligned with creating red tape then cutting it.

Matches the criteria of the group of female executives we've heard were so influential in the process... no, not really.

This guy's kind of a curious choice, isn't he? Maybe I'm all wet. Let's see what the experts are saying about the Governor's new COO, Daniel Krichbaum.

Well, he is a curious choice when you consider his current position as president and CEO of the Michigan Roundtable for Diversity and Inclusion.

Read Nick's whole article and then write down a date when you think the first department head in state government will be asked to attend a diversity training session to be offered by the Michigan Roundtable for Diversity and Inclusion. Because that, my friends, will help to catapult this state to the top of the heap!

For Sale...

I don't think Allah is going to like this item for sale on ebay...

For sale due to a change in the school curriculum.

Mo is a delightful little bear who all children would love, but not some adults.
Condition: As new, but by time of delivery may have 40 scratch marks on back.
Any proceeds to Prisoners Abroad http://www.prisonersabroad.org.uk/

h/t Dhimmi Watch

A Christmas Holiday Festival in Mt. Pleasant

If Scrooge were a modern day character the Ghost of Christmas Present could march the contemporary version of the classic old fart right into the school board offices of the Mt. Pleasant School District where bitter tea could be enjoyed over crumpets and mutual grumblings of the tortuous Christmas season.

According to a news report this morning delivered by Scott Michael Trager at 9/10 News, the Mt. Pleasant Dickens Christmas Festival has had a name change to the Mt. Pleasant Dickens Holiday Festival. Why? Because local school officials refused to allow dissemination of information about the festival to school children without the name change.

What remains unclear is if the policy was applied to festival materials because certain people feared an establishment clause issue—where a student might become a state-forced victim of Christian brainwashing by touching the offending paper, or if someone is only running interference so no offense need be suffered by cranky atheists from the mere recognition of Christ's name at a festival ostensibly organized around a holiday that celebrates Jesus' birth.

The blame may not rest upon the shoulders of any school employee as this might be an issue forced upon them by a third party. Regardless, it is testament to a sad trend in American life and a reason to get children out of public education.

No word yet on whether school district librarians have been forced to pull copies of A Christmas Carol off the shelves.

What's In A Name?

I'm so glad I don't live in the Sudan where having a dog called Mohammad might land me in some serious hot water.

Spare the Rod or Go To Jail

I guess because the nannystate has been so successful in every other endeavor it has attempted, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts' legislature will begin debate on a bill that would outlaw the corporal punishment of children by their parents.

As everyone in Massachusetts knows, nothing says "well behaved child" like youthful years of gratuitous indulgence and blatant disrespect with no fear of any consequence.

I suppose it might work for all the little angels they raise today in the Bay State but here in Michigan, if junior lips off to me in public there just might be a swift swat. Call the sheriff if you like. That time-out shit ain't gonna cut it.

h/t Protein Wisdom

Apologize! Apologize!

The scene is a classic one from A Fish Called Wanda. Jamie Lee Curtis (Wanda) wants to get a safety deposit box key from John Cleese (Archie) that he doesn't know he even possesses. She must schmooze him for it and the seduction is working.

Unbeknown to either Wanda or Archie, Wanda's jealous boyfriend Otto (Kevin Kline) has broken into the flat to keep his eye on Wanda whom he suspects is not trustworthy. From his hidden outpost in the corner of the room Otto angrily is subjected to first the heavy petting between Archie and Wanda but loses his temper entirely when Wanda candidly confides in Archie how stupid she believes Otto truly is.

At this Otto jumps from his hiding spot, pushes Wanda out of the flat and demands an apology from Archie to which Archie asks incredulously "Me to you?" The apology is eventually made but only after Otto hangs Archie out of an upper story window by his heels and threatens to drop him on his head. The most polite apology in history is delivered as the world watches from the ground below, completely unaware of what caused the commotion to begin with.

A criminal gets angry over what he eavesdrops during the commission of a crime and demands an apology. What could be sillier than that?

How about a boatload of groveling Christian appeasers begging for forgiveness for crimes of retribution they did not commit, to people against whom the crimes of retribution were not committed. There is no honesty in claiming responsibility when there is none. There is also no benefit in giving ground, whether it is physical or philosophical territory, to people that see appeasement as proof positive of their own righteousness.

Many Words Are Necessary For the BBC To Adequately Not Describe French Rioters

French youths, teenagers, teenagers, local youths, teenagers, rioters, youths named only as Moushin, 15, and Larami, 16, teenagers, teenagers, teenagers, dying teenagers, teenagers, young people.

By my count the BBC had 13 opportunities in this article to accurately describe either the youths that were killed in the accident or the rioters. Perhaps there is some sort of connection between those deceased and the marauding thugs. Serious readers would like to know if any connection exists and, it would seem, that serious journalists would want to deliver this news--not just the nuance.

Could it be that the BBC is afraid of being labeled with that most dreaded of curses, Islamophobia?

Or could it be that roving bands of Congregationalists are causing all the trouble?

Pajamas Media has more while the Brussels Journal wonders if France will mourn the loss of Anne-Lorraine who was murdered but hours after the suspiciously non-religious youths crashed into a police car.

Closing in on Annapolis

The time is getting close for the great meeting in Annapolis, this the latest of initiatives to bring peace to Israel and the Middle East. Of course any and all concessions to be given up to buy that lasting peace is for Israel to give--there is nothing new about that.

The more moderate Palestinians (those 45% that don't believe in suicide bombing) are demanding at minimum a two state solution while some other regional Muslims like the Ba'aths in Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the mullahs in Iran (and some Mennonites) lobby publicly for a one state solution--with Israel eliminated entirely.

Every time I hear the two-state solution trumpeted by the most sane of those involved I am reminded of this article in Front Page Magazine from several years ago that speaks to the true history of this dispute and doesn't resemble the monolithic narrative we hear from the MSM.

The only thing about the Middle East that goes without argument and even without saying is that the Palestinian Arabs are a stateless, homeless people.

You can`t pick a fight on that anywhere in the world, including Tel Aviv. The fact that four wars have been fought for the ostensible purpose of resolving the plight of the Palestinians has solidified this consensus. Everyone believes it.

The Oslo peace process lies in ruin, and the road map plan is off to a shaky start, due to the inability of the parties involved to agree on a formulation of principles concerning the right, or lack thereof, of the Palestinians to determine their own future on the West Bank of the river Jordan -- the area universally regarded as the historic, political, geographic, and demographic landmass of Palestine.

But even as the arguments rage over whether or how this should or can be accomplished - a state, a homeland, an entity? - a lot of well-intentioned people will tell you that there is not now and never has been a Palestinian nation.

The problem with this notion is that it is not true. There is and has been a Palestinian nation since May 14, 1946 - only two years to the day before there was an Israeli nation.

Good article.

US to Train Terrorists (seriously)

Why must the enemy of our enemy have to be treated as a friend when they have been our bitter enemy for decades--a pack of remorseless murderers, weaned on hatred, and dedicated to the goal of regional and ultimately world domination--a domination that includes the elimination of our true friends? Why must we fawn after thugs only because of recent political dynamics?

I guess because we are idiots.

According to WorldNetDaily, The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, that foremost practitioner of the suicide bomb over the past 30 years, is now our training partner. There has been no idealogical shift in Aqsa's philosophy toward Israel, merely the rise to power of a rival band of fanatical killers in Hamas.

Anyone feeling warm and fuzzy over Al Aqsa today has forgotten the Intifada. How short exactly is the memory of the Bush Administration?

h/t Dhimmi Watch

Shia Militias Target Shias In Bombing

Given the latest bombing in Baghdad that killed 13 people, it is difficult to think that main stream Shia will find a path to the end of their darkness that does not include the US military or the Iraqi government.

We knew al Qaeda had the moral emptiness to target innocent civilians in their quest for political chaos in Iraq. We also knew that Shia militias in Iraq were capable of killing Sunnis indiscriminately for retribution against the Sunnis who controlled political life in Iraq during the Saddam years.

However, I'm not certain that the average Shia believed that his own militias would intentionally target him and his children while pretending to be al Queda, just to mislead the public into thinking that the value of the Shia militias had not ceased.

It appears as if it is now time to believe.

A Casual Observer Advises The ACLU on Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of the Founding Fathers: Volume 1

You guys should sue George Washington's lily white butt over this outrage!

"Tomorrow being the day set apart by the Honorable Congress for public Thanksgiving and Praise; and duty calling us devoutly to express our grateful acknowledgements to God for the manifold blessings he has granted us, the General... earnestly exhorts, all officers and soldiers, whose absence is not indispensably necessary, to attend with reverence the solemnities of the day."

---George Washington, December 17, 1777

Found via today's Patriot Post.

"Get Osama" Too Controversial for New York DMV

Good grief, even Nancy Pelosi wants this guy dead (providing, of course, that no terrorist was forced to endure the torture of waterboarding while being softened up by Dick Cheney's CIA killbots before spilling the beans on his location) but that doesn't mean that the tender touch-me-nots at New York's Department of Motor Vehicles are as calloused as San Fran Nan'.

In fact, according to the DMV, the vanity plate "Get Osama" is patently offensive.

From wcbsty.com via DhimmiWatch:

He's the most wanted man in the world, or as President Bush once put it: "He's wanted dead or alive."

Just like the president, Arno Herwerth of Hauppauge on Long Island wants to get "Osama" also, and he's making it known.

Herwerth sports a "Kill Bin Laden" T-shirt, and one look at his boldly adorned vehicle will tell you his campaign against the 9/11 mastermind is at the forefront of his patriotic-led life.

"I feel the man's a mass murderer. He should be killed. He should be dead," Herwerth told CBS 2 HD.

So when Arno, a retired NYPD sergeant, ordered personalized "Get Osama" license plates from the DMV, he said he thought he was being patriotic.

"It's the only way to deal with him. He's killed thousands of people. The man is akin to Adolph Hitler," said Herwerth.

But now he told CBS 2 HD, the DMV has put the brakes on his plates, claiming they are offensive.

In a letter addressed to Herwerth, the DMV said they "prohibit the issuance of any license plate combination that is, 'in the discretion of the commissioner, obscene, lewd, lascivious, derogatory to a particular ethnic group or patently offensive.'"

Masterminding the deaths of 3,000 Americans isn't worthy of a Get Osama plate because it offends someone? The world has gone mad.

AP Misleads on Iraq (Again)

The AP's headline reads "General says N. Iraq most violent region".

What else can I do but dive into Pauline Jelinek's article for the dirt...

WASHINGTON - Despite a decline in violence in Iraq, northern Iraq has become more violent than other regions as al-Qaida and other militants move there to avoid coalition operations elsewhere, the region's top U.S. commander said Monday. Army Maj. Gen. Mark P. Hertling said al-Qaida cells still operate in all the key cities in the north.

"What you're seeing is the enemy shifting," Hertling told Pentagon reporters in a video conference from outside Tikrit in northern Iraq.

Hertling said militants have been pushed east to his area from Anbar by the so-called Awakening movement, in which local tribes have allied with the coalition against al-Qaida. Others have been pushed north to his area from the Baghdad region, where this year's U.S. troops escalation has made more operations possible.

Nuts! All the news was too good to be true out of Iraq. We slow the terrorists down in one part of the country just to see them escalate in others. But please read on...

"The attacks are still much higher than I would like here in the north, but they are continuing to decrease in numbers and scale of attacks," he said.

Hertling said 1,830 roadside bombs were placed in his region in June, compared with 900 last month.

The U.S. military says overall attacks in Iraq have fallen 55 percent since nearly 30,000 additional American troops arrived in Iraq by June, and some areas are experiencing their lowest levels of violence since the summer of 2005.

Wait a second. I thought it was just implied that northern Iraq had gotten more violent but I suppose you have to read to paragraph four to get the truth of the matter (if you bother to read that far) after the first three paragraphs persuade you to believe otherwise.

If roadside bombs are any measurement of overall violence, northern Iraq has seen a reduction of 51%. This is not as robust as the 55% decline in overall attacks in Iraq as is reported in the article, but nothing to sneeze at either.

The AP and Pauline Jelinek are misleading the readership either intentionally or through poor writing. It would be nice to believe she is simply a poor journalist but it is hard to provide her or the AP with the benefit of any doubt when their finished product, as misleading as it is, falls precisely within the leftist narrative.

You don't suppose Harry Reid is ghost writing at the AP, do you?

If Bad News Is Reduced Either Keep Silent Or Report Worry Over Bad News Returning

It isn't that the mass media is biased, it is simply being careful to, you know, make certain that any short term positive signs in Iraq are weighed carefully against longer term trends to determine if a new trend can be established, and in what direction that trend might be aimed.

While good journalists should not report a downturn in violence because of incomplete evidence, they would be negligent for not reporting that some leaders are worried that the alleged downturn in violence might not last, well, if it even exists at all.

I'm not understating the situation in Iraq because I certainly recognize its fragile state, but I'm also not overstating when I say that journalists and the media at large are more concerned with framing the news out of Iraq than they are in reporting it objectively and without bias.

Big shock there.

Dolly Cloning Professor Abandons Embryonic Stem Cell Research

I strongly disagree with the government financing of embryonic stem cells. This does not mean that I'm against stem cell research as many on the left would say, clearly ignorant of my support for adult stem cell research, ignorant of the woeful success record of using embryonic cells, or too beholden to the abortion industry to take a stance that might cross the directorship of Planned Parenthood.

Now, we have another begrudging convert to alternative stem cells, and this is no waif in the stem cell industry but the very guy who cloned Dolly the sheep and, in case no one has noticed, has been cloning humans for the sole purpose of stem cell harvest for years. Now, this guy is no hero in my book. I find him, like most intellectuals, morally barren because he takes all his directives only from himself.

From the BBC:

The scientist who led the team that controversially created Dolly the sheep is abandoning the cloning of human embryos in stem cell research.

Professor Ian Wilmut, of Edinburgh University, believes a rival method developed in Japan holds the key to curing serious medical conditions.

The new method creates stem cells from fragments of skin and could remove the need to use human embryos.

Pro-life groups opposed to the use of embryonic cells have welcomed the move.

But Prof Wilmut said: "We've not made this decision because it's ethically better.

"To me it's always been ethically acceptable to think that if you could use cells from a human embryo to develop a treatment for a disease like motor neurone disease, for which there is no treatment at present, then that is an acceptable thing to do."

He is basically admitting what opponents of embryonic stem cells have been saying for years, that adult stem cells hold much more promise than embryonic stem cells--the primary reason why private funding for embryonic stem cell research has all but dried up over the past few years.

Professor Wilmut doesn't see anything wrong with embryonic stem cells--he just thinks there is a better way.

One can only hope the American left will figure it out too.

Endangering A Child for Political Purposes

If you were a garden variety dreg you might spend your Friday night at a protest designed to block military shipments to our brave men and women fighting overseas in the military.

If you were the lowest form of scummy dreg, however, you might well raise the ante by taking your children to the protest with you and placing them in front of the trucks you are trying to stop--daring the driver to put his foot on the accelerator. All the while, of course, willing to take the chance that an accident will not occur, but if it does, gladly cashing in those children's lives for the movement.

Lock this monumental moron up for child endangerment and get those kids out of her malfunctioning, disaster-waiting-to-happen home.

From Michelle Malkin.

Words cannot express the contempt I have for this useless lump of flesh.

The French Strike!

Socialists hate the free market system because of its basis in greed--all those suits scurrying around chasing the almighty dollar. Capitalists are in it, so they say, for personal gain with little thought of the "common good." There is little argument for reform by socialists, however, when top-heavy governments begin their destined and predictable spiral into decay and chaos which, if you think about it very long, isn't a real boon to your average cheese buyer either.

Evidence: France (from the BBC.)

In Paris on Wednesday, more than 50,000 people took to the streets to protest against Mr Sarkozy's reforms. Other demonstrations were held across France.

Nationwide fewer than a quarter of trains and only 90 of the 700 high-speed TGVs ran normally, while just one in five subway trains on the Paris metro and only 15% of bus services were operating.

Across France, commuters were forced to find other ways to get to work - car sharing, cycling or roller blading along traffic-choked roads.

Ostensibly all done out of kindness and concern for the wellbeing of others.

In Wednesday's other developments:

* French electricity grid power output was down by 8,000 megawatts amid walkouts by EDF electricity and GDF gas workers

This electric cut-off in a country where over 10,000 people died during a heat wave only a few years ago. You would think a third world country like France could use all the electricity it could muster for, you know, little things like heaters, defibrillators and oxygen machines.

* Shows at the Paris opera and Comedie Francaise were cancelled as performers joined the strikes

* Thirty-five of France's 85 campuses were disrupted by blockades as students protested against a law letting universities accept private donations and charge tuition.

The next generation of socialist sympathizers refusing to be weaned off the government teat--not for themselves but for the common good!

This is the inevitable course of socialism--slow descent into fiscal and moral collapse.

Vote Hillary!

MySpace Scheme Leads To Child's Death

Nothing in this world makes me as angry as seeing meanness in people. A new apex of meanness has arrived when parents seek to to hurt the emotional wellbeing of a child. I'm not talking about the passionate mistakes that are made on no notice which are bad enough, but the cold and calculated moves made by adults to deliberately harm a child--a child they knew to have self esteem issues and bouts of depression.

Two young teenagers living on the same street develop an on-again, off-again friendship. This is not unusual especially among teenage girls.

Enter one of the girls' busybody parents who is unable to discern that children need positive influences in their lives and not private investigators and gardeners of discontent. The parent and her daughter concoct a scheme in which they create a fake Myspace.com account for the sole purpose of luring the other girl into their confidence. The confidence could then be used to dig up information on what what the girl might be saying about the failed friendship. The contrived account was that of an attractive boy who could use his manufactured charm to get a grip on the girl's emotions. Then, at a later date once the fake friendship and emotional bond had been established, the charm was changed to meanness and savagery.

From the police report:

"(She) stated in the months leading up Meier's daughter's suicide, she instigated and monitored a 'my space' account which was created for the sole purpose of communicating with Meier's daughter.

"(She) said she, with the help of temporary employee named ------ constructed a profile of 'good looking' male on 'my space' in order to 'find out what Megan (Meier's daughter) was saying on-line' about her daughter. (She) explained the communication between the fake male profile and Megan was aimed at gaining Megan's confidence and finding out what Megan felt about her daughter and other people.

"(She) stated she, her daughter and (the temporary employee) all typed, read and monitored the communication between the fake male profile and Megan …..

"According to (her) 'somehow' other 'my space' users were able to access the fake male profile and Megan found out she had been duped. (She) stated she knew 'arguments' had broken out between Megan and others on 'my space.' (She) felt this incident contributed to Megan's suicide, but she did not feel 'as guilty' because at the funeral she found out 'Megan had tried to commit suicide before.'"

This story is ugly beyond belief.

And this time a child is dead for it. They may not have put the belt around the young girl's neck but they are responsible for it.

The identity of the parent perpetrating this monstrous deed is being withheld to protect the identity of her own complicit child. The evil parent should have her identity plastered across billboards nationwide and not protected.

She feels little guilt because the victim had already suffered from emotional problems. Wow, that must be a huge relief. Knowing this should make her feel additionally guilty, not safe from it.

In an ironic twist, it is the parent's of the dead child that are being sued by the Myspace site creator because the bereaved parents after finding out about the scheme and in a fit of rage, destroyed a foosball table and dumped the remains on the lawn of the perpetrator. Damages sought--$1,000. The police report information above stemmed from those charges.

I. Am. Angry.

h/t Conservative Grapevine

Veto Pen Flurries

Perhaps the lambasting that President Bush received from conservatives over his losing of the Presidential Veto Pen has finally started to bear fruit because the vetoes are flying now.

Last week he vetoed the bacon riddled Water Bill and just today he has vetoed the Human Services-Education Appropriations Bill, a measure replete with over 2,000 earmarks.

Why? Pork!

The President has proven to be no conservative when it comes to lavish spending schemes designed to persuade improvement out of systems that are essentially designed to fail such as the Medicare Program and the public education system. So I find great comfort in knowing that there are some wasteful measures even he won't support in its entirety.

Despite it being FOR THE CHILDREN!

Naseem Should Grow Up

What hypothetical situation could have Naseem so worked up?

....to be looking at and possibly droolling [sic] over his pregenant [sic] wife's abdomen and possibly her private parts....I mean he will have failed in his faith...and his muslima understands completely what he is going through....she will risk her life to ensure he does not shirk from his faith...

all I can say is that thank Allah SWT that there is a good supply of Imams in that part of the world to resolve important life and death situations, without loss of faith.

As it turns out this is no hypothetical, and the horrid situation being described here by Naseem took place when a male anesthetist tried to ease a wife's pain of emergency c-section surgery over the protestations of a husband's Islamically induced irrationality.

Naseem is a commenter at Dhimmi Watch and he is in full support of the blathering husband.

This didn't occur in some third world country where we routinely expect to see women treated as pets of convenience, but in Belgium, that shining monument to multiculturalism and non-judgmentalism. And never has there been a clearer example of what can occur when a society refuses to recognize the evil of other cultures for what it is--the evil encroaches ever farther into the host society while the citizenry becomes either too cowed or indifferent to balk.

Why should a Muslim man feel he can infiltrate a western culture and insist it must respond to the demands of his backwardness? Why, because too few people have stood up and said that he cannot.

Belgium, that pearl of Europe, is a lot closer to America than many think.

Host Countries Responsible for Immigrant Crime and Xenophobia

Western countries are responsible for causing immigrants to turn to crime and for xenophobia according to an award winning Priest in Italy.

Many of Italy's immigrants were turning to crime because they were given a poor reception and too little support, according to a priest honored for his scholarly work.

Father Enzo Bianchi, who founded the Monastic Community of Bose outside the northern Italian town of Turin, was one of two authors awarded the Premio Grinzane prize at a special ceremony in Puglia at the weekend.

Bianchi (photo) said Italy was facing a "critical situation" because waves of immigrants were coming from poor countries. He said the government and individuals needed to do more to make immigrants welcome.

"There is no will to really do something for them, we push them into crime," Bianchi said. "We should ask ourselves what is the meaning of reception if we can't give them a house or food."

"There is no will to really do something for them, we push them into crime and this causes xenophobia."

In other words give them food and a house before they feel the need to steal it from you.

From Adnkronos International.

Denmark Collecting the UK's Terrorist Trash

I really rag on my kids when they refuse to at least consider the experiences of others when they make their decisions. So far this seems to have worked, at least as far as such methods can be measured on teenagers.

So, when a national government accomodates people that have already been evicted out of another country for what amounts to a desire to overthrow the government, I have shake my head in wonder over the abject stupidity.

But, here you have it, Denmark throwing its arms wide open to Al-Muhajiroun, a group banned in the UK for throwing its support behind terror groups such as al-Qaeda and supporting the institution of an Islamic state in Britain.

Some people just have to learn for themselves, and quite often at great cost.

h/t Dhimmi Watch

Measuring Gender Fairness

Our society and the world is obsessed with the concept of fairness probably because jealousy is one of humanity's more primal emotions. Though the good book commands that we should not covet it seems that the downtrodden, sociologists and politicians are pretty interested in at least measuring what it is that we should not be coveting in the first place.

Enter The World Economic Forum's colorful study titled "The Global Gender Gap Report 2007."

To be clear, this study does not necessarily measure the quality of life, but simply some of the major disparities between men and women in categories such as education, work force penetration, and salary. In such measurements the professional measurers of fairness must lump everything together and then determine who is getting screwed. According to this latest study, Cuba (rated 22) is kicking the United State's (rated 31) butt in gender issues.

No word yet as to whether American feminists have organized a flotilla to leave Miami to head to Havana. Because, as we all know, the ability for women to live equally in a tin shack with dirt floor is more desirable than living in relative wealth and comfort whilst being governed by fewer women.

h/t Protein Wisdom

Law and Order: Indonesia

Forty one evangelical Christians have been sentenced to five years in prison for the vicious crime of praying that Muslims might come to know Jesus.

Meanwhile, Abu Bakar Bashir is free to enjoy long walks on the beach and an occasional sunset.

Praying for another--five years. Masterminding the bombing and mass murder of 202 innocent people--26 months.

Surely, that religion of peace is a marvel of modern jurisprudence.

Pork Barrel Congress

I hope we remember the next time that we face a national disaster (think Hurricane Katrina) where our Congress wants to find a few billion bucks really quick, that this is the type of crap we have already wasted our borrowed money on.

Throw the bums out!

No Child Left Inside

You just have to love the Detroit Free Press.

There's at least one proposal in the pending No Child Left Behind bill that Congress should have no quarrel with.

Why is that? Is it a proposal that doesn't cost any money, doesn't add to the bureaucracy, and doesn't heap more responsibilities onto the local school districts while it does provide something of value to our children? Because that is something that I really could support.

An aptly titled plan, No Child Left Inside would finally raise the profile of environmental education in the nation's classrooms. The bill would grant states $100 million for five years to help schools train teachers, design environmentally themed curricula, and increase opportunities for students to "directly experience nature."

Gosh. I guess that would mean no, no, no and no.

Has anyone proposing this crap spent any time in the past few years reading a science or history book? Anyone that does will find out pretty quickly that environmental education is already a very high priority amongst educators and textbook writers. To suggest otherwise is either disingenuous or ignorant.

The $100 million will go to help schools train teachers. Right. By the time the $100 million trickles down to teachers it is going to amount to some audio visual aids and a half-day inservice program--all to provide guidance to teaching professionals that either do or should have this sort of thing figured out by now.

$100,000,000?

I think not.

Terrorists Running Out of Iraqi Targets

Some people have claimed that the recent drop in violent deaths in Iraq has much to do with "The Surge." Others have opined that the drop is likely the result of that internal Sunni movement against al Qaeda called "The Awakening." Still more have speculated that Moqtada al Sadr's militia has taken some time off to regroup and this is at least partly responsible for reduced sectarian violence inside Baghdad.

An entirely different theory entered the debate Monday, at least one that I hadn't heard before. From TheHill.com:

If violence is decreasing in Iraq, it may be because insurgents “are running out of people to kill,” House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-Wis.) said Monday.

“There are fewer targets of opportunity,” Obey said in a speech to the National Press Club.

Obey was responding to a question about reports touted by Republicans that security is improving in Iraq and that President Bush’s “surge” strategy is working. He stressed that military success has not led to political reconciliation.

Apparently most of the civilians in Iraq are already dead.

I hope the Republicans are able to identify this guy's seat as a target of opportunity in the next election. Presenting this sort of crap as an argument is beyond dumb.

h/t Protein Wisdom

Allah Inspires in Afghanistan

From Reuters:

MAZAR-I-SHARIF, Afghanistan (Reuters) - A suicide attack on a parliamentary delegation killed at least 50 people in northern Afghanistan on Tuesday, a provincial official said, in the worst such blast in the country's history.

Five members of the Afghan parliament were among the dead and the toll was expected to rise among the delegates and schoolchildren who were among the victims.

"We have recorded 50 people dead so far, but there are still bodies on the streets we have not counted and some of the dead have already been taken away by their relatives," Baghlan provincial security chief Abdurrahman Sayedkhail told Reuters.

Any sane person would have to wonder what sort of God would command a follower to commit such a crime against humanity, and what sort of sick follower would follow such a command in the first place.

Perhaps the Methodists are responsible.

The Netherlands Give as Malaysia Takes Away

From Dhimmi Watch.

On one side of the planet a Muslim country is actively engaged in a campaign to destroy Hindu temples while on the other side of the planet a secular democratic government is busy lending money to Muslims to help them build a place of worship.

The Dutch might want to make a long distance call to some traditional Hindus in Malaysia. You know, to see how this whole Muslim thing is working out.

The Bad Dog Triathelon

My dog has been in training for this and things have been progressing nicely.

Yesterday she was able to complete the BDT (getting into the cat litter box, crapping on the floor and running loose in the street) all in less than 30 minutes. This is a personal record for her, though other dogs in the kennel-rescue wiener dog division might very well nip her in a competitive situation at higher altitude.

Despite her suggestions otherwise, however, I've determined that she should not even think of training for the decathlon. Ever.

Andy McKee -- Ebon Coast

Some days are just too involved for politics. It probably sucks to be a politician on days like that, eh?

Rise above it with some Andy McKee.



Buy the CD at Candyrat records.