Letter from Senator Obama

In response to my August 1 fax to my Senator Barack Obama, I received (today) the following letter. It reads, to me, like a lukewarm repudiation of Speaker Pelosi's position re: Lebanon and Syria.
Blaming Bush, of course.

Conservatives betrayed (or is there room under the GOP Big Tent for Conservative Principles? or just our votes, money and support)

Over at Captain Ed's place they are discussing the effectiveness of nutroot versus the dextrosphere (hat tip to the Cap'n) and the potential upcoming discussions with the GOP about upcoming tactics and ideas. I added this to the comments but thought it might be expanded on here to her is the comment and I will cogitate for a bit and expand. Late additions, expansions and clarifications will be in brown text I think.

Well, I would agree (with the desireability for discussion ed.) with one caveat. One of the things we need to discuss (put it on the table right up front) is if we stay in the Stupid Party.
What we got after 2002 was a rethinking on the part of the GOP leadership (read Pres. Bush, although Delay, Hastert and Lott merrily went right along for the ride ) of how little could we be promised and not have us stay home and keep our collective wallets closed. To use a later example, we were Promised strict constructionist judges.
We got Roberts and Alito instead. (yes, it is the President's perogative to select his choices, and both Roberts and Alito, unlike Meirs, were qualified; that doesn't make them "justices in the mold of Scalia and Thomas" and that should have been seen as a President's perogative but most definately a betrayal of one of the few campaign promises the Conservatives got)
For the 2004 election it was a bit of "We may rough you up a bit, and all your limbs may not come out of it intact, but the other guys will beat you up bad, and break a lot of your bones so you can't fail to support us." We held our noses and supported the GOP.
Emboldened by the successful mugging of the Conservatives in the GOP, they next tried to determine just how little of the 2004 campaign promises they could get away with actually delivering upon.
Hamstring OIF by christening Al-Sadr as a partner for peace.
Change the military ROE to forbid searching any mosques ever, let alone (not even) extremist mosques known for the vehemence of the "Death to America" chants".
Club everyone denying Islam is THE "Religion of Peace.
Inflict Islamic sensitivity training (suprisingly using the same textbooks as new muslims get to learn to be muslims) on everyone in any branch of the government "not sensitive enough" to Muslim concerns.
Steamroll everyone in the GOP not supporting Amnesty First, schedule meetings to discuss the possibility of talks regarding border security later.
Look at how much President Bush supported Spectre, and now little Santorum (even got Santorum to fritter away credability supporting Spectre)
Opose the border fence first option
Julie Meyers in charge of ICE (this one is bad enough I am going to repeat it again)
Julie Meyers in charge of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement.
Reductions in procecutions of illegal's employers, and drastic reductions in case load for deportations (advisory letters don't count since the recipients just change their name and move away instead of showing up to be deported)
Half of the Gang of 14 guarantying judicial appointment gridlock without repercussions for the Democrats.
Keep going back to the UN, keep pouring out our treasure and credability into that evil emdemically corrupt institution instead of filling in that roadblock and replacing the UN with something that might work.
P.S. when have you ever heard the White House (as oposed to Mr. Bolton) cut loose at the sheer corrupt nature and the absolute refusal to change or even just pretend to not be for sale to every two bit thug with a bribe-in-hand (the US doesn't succeed here because it is all carrot all the time and there are no negative consequences ever under any circumstances)

It starts at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and one of the questions is to ask if there is any room under the GOP big tent for any of our concerns and priorities, or just our vote and money.
(leave those "principles" whatever they are, outside our nice big tent because there certainly isn't room for them in here)

I will go on tomorrow night Hmm, gonna try trackback with Cap'n Ed's and see what happens

Baxter Black

Replay video | Share video | Watch more videos

a Tip "o the hat to Curmudgeonly

Blogspot is banned by US Department of the Interior

This is by Sean Gleeson.
It rocks

Time Stamps or even EXIF info not Proof

my post to the UK Telegraph, and I thought I would clean up a couple of typos and repost it here. The text in red is alterations to aid in clarity of parts I recognise are unclear or mistakeable. They use a webform like most and it is a bit awkward to edit for typos and/or clarity. Sorry.

I posted this already on Little green footballs about the same time another poster did and the time sequence issue isn't being pushed anymore because it cannot without co-operation from all the relevant media sources and the photographers in question, and all the media has to do to cover up is not disclose, and all the photographer has to do is lie about what time is set in his particular camera. There is no way to compel truthful revelation and there is a plausible excuse that everyone will go with, true or not, because it does cover the situation if it is true.
What time is set in each camera?
Is it fast or slow, and what time zone was the photographer in when he set the camera’s time.
America (which has 4 time zones), UK, Germany, Lebanon?
Maybe somebody’s camera was set when purchased in Hong Kong.
Without accurate information on what each camera was set to, both the accuracy and time zone, it is impossible to prove most of the accusations. Without a lot more shots from each photographer, it is not even possible to prove what time zone a particular camera was set at.
With the whole batch and some personal info on the photographers, you could likely get close. If a photog from Russia had similar shots and time stamps as Mohammed, it would be likely that he set his camera in Lebanon. Otherwise expect several hours ahead.
You would need access to enough of each photographer’s shots to pick one (mostly) identical pose and compare EXIF information from those shots.
We don't have that, and because it cannot do anything but hurt the media sources, it is extremely unlikely that they would provide the rope for a potential lynching party. Even if the media outlet is honest, they would be betting blind all their integrity upon a random stringer. They are not that stupid, even if they are honestly trying to constrain Hezbollah's propaganda. If they are not honest, the same action occurs. How do you (or anyone outside the media and the particular photographer) tell the difference?
We cannot.
Since there is a plausible excuse, and we do not have any expectation of obtaining the requisite information to backtrack this, most of the blogs pursuing this have gone on to other aspects like the abnormal # of severely handicapped children, the lack of concrete dust on those ostensibly killed in the blast/collapse, the career of "green helmet" as a mortician, "green helmet" having been in possession of a refrigerated truck serving as a temporary morgue in Tyre, the rigor mortis coloration and lividity of bodies supposedly only dead hours, and even the difference in a child's tricycle taken the day of the "rescue" and clean and shot again the next day in the same room and now the toy and whole room are covered in concrete dust as it was not earlier.
These things are capable of being examined at a remove, and evaluated and theorized upon based solely from the photos released (it would be better from the high-res photos in media hands, but it still can be done without media co-operation).
It still looks bad for media credibility as a stunt, and media frenzy, similar to Jenin.

LGF's Hezbollah Card Show

I saw a bunch of good cards, but didn't see Appeasment Chief Dhimmi Carter, so I "fixed" that.

My Letters to Congress

To My {Senators, Congressman}

The recent events in the Middle East have driven me to write to you. The terrorist group Hezbollah has been committing acts of war against Israel and war crimes against both Israel and Lebanon. These acts are in collusion with the efforts by the Syrian and Iranian puppeteers who are attempting to get international support for striking down Israel for having the audacity to defend herself against blatant acts of war. This sounds like our “War on Terror”.

The terrorist group Hezbollah is the same group responsible for

June 14, 1985 Hijacking of TWA Flight 847

Dec. 3, 1984 Hijacking of Kuwait Airways Flight 221

Sept. 20, 1984 Bombing of U.S. Embassy annex northeast of Beirut

Oct. 23, 1983 Bombing of Marine barracks in Beirut

April 18, 1983 Bombing of U.S. Embassy in Beirut

(1982-1992) The first American hostage, American University of Beirut President David Dodge, had been kidnapped in July 1982. Eventually, 30 Westerners would be kidnapped during the 10-year-long Lebanese hostage-taking crisis. Americans who were kidnapped included journalist Terry Anderson, American University of Beirut librarian Peter Kilburn, a Presbyterian minister Benjamin Weir, and U.S. Army Colonel William Higgins who was literally tortured to death.

Those responsible for these acts of war against the US have been promoted to leadership positions in Hezbollah for these same activities.

The “Human Shield” concept is one that civilization cannot validate or tolerate. Taken to its extreme, a Hezbollah member could ask for a volunteer, make them look harmless and pitiful, strap them into a bomb, carry a “dead man switch” and freely operate throughout all Israel executing every Jew in the country and nobody could stop him because of the human shield who would die. This premise is stupid. Any nation tolerating such thoughts is insane, and the Islamic agencies will gleefully kill or enslave the populations of such countries.

The “International Community” seems to be gearing up to force Israel to back down against Hezbollah once again. Hezbollah is our enemy whatever one defines the rest of the Islamic Fundamentalist community. Anything short of the release of the kidnapped IDF soldiers, the enforcement of UN Resolution 1559 (in its entirety) and no convict releases, will correctly be seen as another victory by the barbaric forces marshaled by various Islamic agencies like Al-Queda and the governments of Syria and Iran. Each such victory makes it harder for any other Islamic agencies to resist joining in.

As long as Israel is willing to “carry the ball” she should be encouraged to do so and we should shield her from the revisionist definitions of war crimes. According to the Geneva Conventions, military forces within civilian populations are legitimate targets and any deaths of the civilians during attacks to reach those military forces are war crimes by the military co-located within the civilians. No approbation appended to the military who struck the civilians in trying to reach the co-located military. It does not matter what kind of positions those co-located are. Fighting, communications, training, recruitment, munitions, general supplies, and even administration positions were, and are, legitimate military targets.