Kos' Kudos For Kerry

Kos doesn't think there's much to make of a "junior senator not running for reelection" '[mangling] a sentence in a public appearance." Turning the matter over on Daily Kos, he concludes:

Kerry has nothing to apologize for. The people who have turned their backs on the troops do. And even though this ridiculousness will lead the evening news, fact is, we should embrace the opportunity to remind Americans how Republicans rally to the "troops" defense only when it suits their own cynical political ends.

I don't think he's talking about the people who made a hyper-deal out of Abu Ghraib and relished in the phoney flush-the-Koran story. I don't think he's talking about the people who call our soldiers murderers even before investigations have been initiated. I don't think he's talking about the people who rally against the troops for their own cynical political ends.

The comment section is the usual cesspool:

I hate these lying f***s. It's obvious to anyone, who's not retarded (no offense to the retarded), that he was talking about Bush.

I want to marry Kerry tonight. :) Think my hubby would accept me starting my own male harum (including Keith Olbermann, Russ Feingold, etc.?)

I'm glad Kerry didn't apologize. Democrats owe no apolgies for ANYTHING EVER!

Behind the brash Bush-bashing bravado, there's a deep fear among these commentors that the Dems' big lead won't be enough to hold them 'til election day. There's a lot of anger at Kerry -- not as much as there is at Bush, natch -- and a frustration that the media isn't killing the story quickly enough.

At last, we have a last week that will be interesting!

Related Tags: Politics, Kerry, War on terror, Kos

Preview Of Tomorrow's Kerry Coverage

Dem immunity from press scrutiny should come of no surprise to people who are smart, ... you know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and do your homework ... and understand how the media works. And it will be working for John Kerry (right, in Holloween garb) tomorrow morning.

The source of my definitiveness? The afternoon SacBee political alert. The SacBee, as you probably know, is very typical of Demdominated media. Here's the rundown of the headlines on its daily eblast:

We start with some good news for Bush: Bush hails possible new North Korea talks. Then: Webb has slight lead in Virginia Senate race followed by Poll has Democrat trailing in Tennessee race.

After a couple non-campaign related stories, we come to:

AP Poll: GOP outreach to blacks falters, and after an IRS story, GOP reins in spending in 3 House races

Then, finally, we get to the 12th story on the afternoon summary of the day's top news: White House, Kerry exchange accusations. The story itself is relatively balanced, with a forceful lead:

The White House and Sen. John Kerry traded their harshest accusations since the 2004 presidential race on Tuesday, with President Bush accusing the Democrat of troop-bashing and Kerry calling the president's men hacks who are "willing to lie."

I'd say advantage Bush on that exchange -- but given that this is already deemed a 12th-ranked story, one thing you can count on is that this story will drop off the media's radar in no time.

Related Tags: Politics, Kerry, Media bias, MSM

As The (Sniff!) French See It

Let's take a look at how AFP, France's version of AP, looks at our news. Jim Mannion, Yankee snail-eater for hire, reporting:

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The Pentagon is expanding its public affairs operations to counter "inaccurate" news stories and editorials and exploit "new media" to get its message out, its chief spokesman said, denying the effort was linked to the US elections.

Shall we give him the quotes around "inaccurate?" He later attributes the word to a Pentagon spokesperson, but gosh, doesn't it make you think he doesn't really consider any Pentagon criticisms he's read to be the least bit inaccurate?

Quickly on to "exploit" -- a loaded word, for sure. American Heritage defines it positively first, "To employ to the greatest possible advantage," but then there's this:

To make use of selfishly or unethically: a country that exploited peasant labor. See Synonyms at manipulate.

So, 17 words in, M. Mannion has questioned the need for the campaign and its ethics. What's left? Just forcing the Pentagon spokesperson to deny that "the effort was linked to the US elections."

A bit of background is necessary here: The RFP for the Pentagon PR program was sent out months ago and the contract was awarded on Sept. 25, over a month ago, so it's hardly news. Mannion's tardy reporting makes it possible for him to ask a stupidly naive -- or devilishly clever -- question, all to cast more negative light on the Pentagon and the US war effort.

I won't bore you with the other troublesome parts of the article, which as you read this is being read throughout Europe and doing its carefully constructed damage to the American war effort. I will, however, provide you with the one heartwarming quote the story contained:

US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, a strident critic of media coverage of Iraq, also has pushed for a sweeping overhaul in the way the military communicates with the public.

In a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations in February, he called for 24-hour press operations centers and an approach that would give Internet operations and other channels of communications equal status to "20th century press relations."

"It will result in much less reliance on the traditional print press, just as publics of the US and the world are relying less on newspapers as their principal source of information," he said.

Absolutely! I've been banging this drum for some time, but it is worth saying again: We are losing the information war, and we have to turn that fact around.

Rumsfeld hit the nail on the head ... another reason to call for his resignation, eh?

Related Tags: War on terror, Pentagon, Rumsfeld, Media bias, MSM

How We Almost Lost Her

That's Incredible Daughter #2 looking ... incredible.

I've been thinking a lot about her lately because she's going through a rough patch dealing with the suicide of a close friend. Having a heart that's as dazzling as her smile, she thinks she could have saved him, if only, if only ....

Watching her, just 18 and coping so well with so much, I am very impressed with her and amazed at how much clearer my love for her has become in the last few years, as she's rapidly moved from the chief source of my worrying to my great delight, a girl who makes me laugh, who makes me smile just by walking into the room.

(Disclaimer: So do Incredible Daughters #1 and #3.)

I tell you all this because this morning I was remembering when we first learned that Incredible Wife was pregnant with ID #2. The doctor, apparently provided by Central Casting to play the HMO doc from Hell, coldly told us that due to the medications my wife was taking at the time, we really shouldn't go forward with the pregnancy. "You should have an abortion," she matter of factly told my wife. Not consider. Have.

So the stunned young couple left the doctor and drove away in silence, overwhelmed by the sudden emptiness we felt in our chests. Both of us were trying to deal with a death sentence for someone we'd only just found out about, someone we were already excited about getting to know. I've never been so frightened and so sad.

My Incredible Wife added another emotion to the mix: anger. Anger at her illness, anger at her doctor who prescribed a medication that wasn't working anyway and now had supposedly led to gross deformations of our new baby and, blessedly, anger at the HMO for having such a cold doctor dealing with such heartbreaking matters.

That last one carried the day and drove us to seek a second opinion. That doctor was as warm as the first was cold, and was incredulous at the earlier diagnosis. We were told to forget about it and move forward with the pregnancy.

We did and from ID#2's perspective, it was fine. Not so for my wife, who struggled with fibroids and kidney stones, hospitalization and bedrest at home, then a torn placenta and the loss of so much blood ... but finally, there was ID#2, who came out so healthy and pink and beautiful ... and goofily doped up from a too-late painkiller in a final bit of HMO medical incompetence.

There are those who think of preborns as dispensible bits of flesh, and there are those who think of them as Incredible Daughters and Sons in Waiting. Looking at this delightful creature, I am forever in the latter category, forever against Planned Pelosi Parenthood and people like John Kerry who say they oppose abortion but not as much as they defend the right of someone to have one, in a stunning example of oratorial hypocrisy.

Thank you, God, for saving our daughter. I weep for those who were lost.

Related Tags: Parenting, Fatherhood, Abortion, Planned Parenthood, Pelosi, Kerry

Quote Of The Day: Obamarama Edition

Contrary to what you might think from the way the media cover politics, elections are not about the careers of politicians but about the fate of the country. That fate is definitely on the line now with a nuclear Iran and a nuclear North Korea looming over our children's future.
-- Thomas Sowell

The quote is from Sowell's Town Hall column, which leads with:

Perhaps nothing so captures the superficial, frivolous and irresponsible spirit of our times like the sudden boomlet for Barack Obama as a candidate for President of the United States.

There is nothing frivolous and much irresponsible about thinking candidates like Obama and Harold Ford, who offer a pleasant-seeming alternative to the Dem bombasity of Nancy Pelosi and Howard Dean, would be nice guys to elect.

Electing them, Sowell reminds us, means putting people in power who should not be in power at this time. Not so much because they'd end the world as we know it, but because they would fritter time away on unnecessary platform planks and revenge impeachments at a time when the nation needs to be focused on the critical issue of the threat posed by radical Islam and L'il Kim Jong Il.

With Bush so hated and Cheney having a faulty ticker and getting more than his fair share of hate, we need to remember that if the Dems take the house, Pelosi is two heartbeats away from the presidency.

Related Tags: Politics, Obama, Sowell

BBC Trying To Win One For The Donkey

In the pre-dawn (very pre-dawn) hours this a.m. as I drove to the office listening to BBC on Sirius, my mood was darker than the night.

Justin Webb, BBC's chief DC correspondent, was analyzing that morality thing; you know, how conservatives, particularly Christian conservatives, bring issues like abortion and the promotion of homosexuality into the voting booths with them.

For Webb, this was bad news for the GOP and good news for the Dems. He quoted an evangelical church leader who said something like, "When a social movement is involved in politics, you understand that the parties' positions will change, and because the issues are real and unchanging, your affiliation or satisfaction with a particular party could change."

He added that to a line or two on Christian conservatives' frustration with the Bush Admin's failure to deliver its evangelistic promises, and summed up that this was a collection plate full 'o bad news for the GOP.

Gosh. How did Webb manage to totally avoid to tell his global audience about the Dems? Not a word of the Dems' positions on morality issues or the evangelicals' reaction to the party that stands behind partial birth abortion, no parental notification, stem cell research, homosexual advocacy in classrooms, Christianity out of classrooms.

But it is BBC. A look at its "US mid-term elections" page reveals stories like:

• Iraq violence 'linked to US vote,' which includes a table of military deaths and complains that no withdrawl timetable has been set.
  
  
• Will economy help Democrats? in which asks the assumption-loaded question: "Now, with terrorism no longer such an advantage for the Republicans and economic growth slowing after two years in which it powered ahead, will the economy help the Democrats?"
  
  
• Fox 'not acting' in campaign ads, complete with a photo of Fox with a particularly contorted expression.

In other words, business as usual at BBC -- as if they were thinking, "Since we couldn't beat them in the 1700s, let's take another shot at them in 2006."

Related Tags: Politics, Media bias, MSM, BBC, DNC, GOP

The End Is Near -- Just For Laffs

Hee hee. For some substance behind the humor, check out this post on Blogotional.

Related Tags: Global warming

It's The Ego, Stupid

How could we not want to shower money on Bill as the ex-prez turns 60? Isn't he our greatest living president?

Apparently not. Reports the Daily Mail:

When America's liberal elite were offered the chance to pay up to $500,000 each ... to attend Bill Clinton's 60th birthday extravaganza tonight - with the added promise of a private Rolling Stones concert - a packed house was expected.

Wife Hillary and daughter Chelsea sent out about 10,000 invitations to Hollywood tycoons, movie stars, captains of industry and Wall Street - with all proceeds to go to the former President's charitable foundation. ...

The minimum price, with inferior concert seats and no brunch, was set at $60,000 ... . But with many rich Democrats sending their regrets, The Mail on Sunday can reveal that last Wednesday the Clintons drastically slashed prices to $12,500 ... for one reception and the concert, or $5,000 ... for just the Stones.

With the looming possibility of Bill and his long-suffering wife and daughter finding themselves amid a sea of empty chairs at the 2,900-seat Manhattan venue, tickets then went on sale to the public for as little as $1,710 ....

If they could only throw in a night in the Lincoln Bedroom ....

hat-tip: Best of the Web
Related Tags: Politics, Clinton

Yeah, But Are We Really Sure He's Alive?

Proferred by Cuba's communist youth newspaper (a publication only slightly more biased than the NYT) as evidence Fidel's still kicking, this photo is hardly convincing evidence. Even Lenin looks better.

Related Tags: Castro, Cuba

Seymour Hersh: We Are The Insurgents

Seymour Hersh, who won a Pulitzer for helping lead the media charge against the war in Vietnam and is credited with breaking the Abu Ghraib story, thinks he's a step or two above we plebian Americans.

Unlike those of us who shuffle about looking at our shoes, muttering "God bless America" and other senseless phrases while we drool a bit, he has a different view of America's role in Iraq, and he shared it with our Canadian friends:

If I lived in a country and a bunch of people came in and started raiding my house, and capturing people and killing willy-nilly, I think I would take up arms against those people. Am I an insurgent then? Are the insurgents insurgents or are the Americans insurgents? I think the whole nomenclature is bizarre. We’re the insurgents. It’s their country.

Hmmm. And I thought we didn't raid houses unless we had a pretty good hunch there was a bad guy living there ... and even then, that we did so under rules of engagement that put our soldiers at greater risk, in order to be better global citizens.

But what do I know? I can't even figure out whether I'm wilfully or generally ignorant:

Montreal Mirror: Why does so much of the American public often seem wilfully ignorant? Much of the populace seems intent on not knowing what is going on in terms of political and foreign affairs. ...

SH: The ignorance may not be wilful. The problem with this is, in order to answer your questions, I have to buy into what it is you’re saying. I have no f***ing way of knowing whether they’re ignorant. I mean, Americans are pretty f***ing ignorant. What we don’t know is pretty huge.

You could never accuse Americans of learning from history or learning from past mistakes. You’re talking about a country that went to war in Vietnam with the theory that we had to bomb North Vietnam in order to keep the hordes of Red China from coming, right? Not knowing that Vietnam and China had fought wars for 2,000 years and would fight one four years after the war was over, in ’79. What we don’t know is just breathtaking in my country.

To call this ignorance wilful as opposed to general ignorance, I don’t know. On any issue, Americans can display an incredible lack of information. I doubt if there’s a society which has paid less attention to the facts than any else.

I'm just a rube, but as I recall, after we stopped trying to stop China (which had about as much to do with the war as WMDs had in Iraq), not just Vietnam but also Cambodia and Burma fell like dominoes, and Communist insurgencies fired up in several other southeast Asian countries.

I may be either generally or wilfully ignorant, but I do know that there were a lot of reasons for us to fight in Vietnam, some having to do with China, for sure, but others having to do with the North Vietnamese and the Russians. But I guess I'm not smart enough to oversimplify.

Does Seymour think the French are smarter? Apparently they weren't any smarter between 1946 and 1954 when Ho Chi Minh was wuppin' their derriers right up to Dien Bien Phu. And today, as they apply all their much greater savvy to oppose the War on Terror, they are losing their own nation to Muslim terrorists ... or insurgents.

If the French fight back, Sy, who are the insurgents? Just wondering.

As for why we're not getting attacked while the French are, it's probably because we're just too ignorent for them to bother with.

Related Tags: War on terror, Media bias, Seymour Hersh

China Fighting Global Warming Restrictions

You have to read the Reuters report, China Hopes for Post-2012 Kyoto Deal within 2 Years, carefully and to the end to figure out what's really going on with China and global warming restrictions.

It might be because the story is posted on Planet Ark, a greenie-fest of a Web site where Reuters consolidates and runs all its enviro news. It was as if AP decided to run all its pro-DNC stories on a site called Donkey Time.

Anyway, the story poses China in a conciliatory pose:

China would like the world to agree a new framework for trading and investment in reductions of greenhouse gas emissions by 2008, and to see a longer-lasting commitment period, top policy officials said on Friday.

Sounds good ... China's in the warmie game, wants to reduce emissions and wants to commit to it for a long time. But read on ... on and on ... and find:

China is the world's number two emitter of the gasses that cause global warming, but like India and other developing nations, its emissions are not capped under current Kyoto rules.

Beijing argues that as industrialised nations bear historical responsibility for the majority of carbon dioxide in the world's atmosphere, and still have far higher per capita emissions than its population, it should be allowed to pursue economic growth without emissions limits.

It sounds like a varient on affirmative action or reparations. If global warming is such a crisis, how is there room for a "you guys were bad first, so we get to be really bad longer" philosophy. Besides, the argument is false because it focuses on industrialization as the sole source of warming.

For centuries, China's large population has burned wood for fuel and used methane-emitting horses and oxen as their engines of industry, so their fingerprints are on global warming -- unless, of course, you're one of those who only count industrially produced greenhouse gasses and come up with elaborate studies to discount other sources.

"You cannot tell people who are struggling to earn enough to eat that they need to reduce their emissions," Lu Xuedu, deputy director at China's Office of Global Environmental Affairs, told a meeting on the [UN's global warming talks in Nairobi] sidelines.

The statement is a shameless exploitation of the Chinese people who, as a matter of fact, struggle more with obesity than they do with starvation.

We can demand that China reduce emissions, and we should. The Chinese people may be poor, but the Chinese government is rich. It just chooses not to allocate its wealth fairly. There is no reason not to force the Chinese government to clean up its air and its water now.

In fact, cleaning up China would be much easier than cleaning up America, were disproportionate amout of greenhouse gas emissions come from non-point sources, primarily cars, trucks and locomotives. In China, the majority of the pollution still comes from point sources: factories, smelters, refineries and the like. These are owned by the government or government-owned corporations, not by poor people trying to eat (or eating too much!).

Will the world stand up to China and demand it to clean up its act? Don't count on it.

Related Tags: Global warming, China

Dead Vote Dem

A study conducted by the Paukeepsee Journal compared voting databases with databases of the dead and found that in New York a lot of dead people vote. Not suprisingly, voting dead Democrats outnumbered dead voting Republicans by more than 4 to 1.

One example:

One Bronx address was listed as the home for as many as 191 registered voters who had died. The address is 5901 Palisade Ave., in Riverdale, site of the Hebrew Home for the Aged.

In New York, "Jew" and "Dem" are pretty much synonymous, of course. But the GOP's hands aren't clean in this fraud; just cleaner.

Last week, I was talking to my doctor of 18 years, a Greek immigrant. We've gotten to know each other over the years ... we know not to talk about the war in Iraq if we want a short office visit, for example ... and I admire him as a man who thinks and cares deeply.

When we talked about voter fraud, we were on the same page. He cannot understand how we diminish our democracy, a democracy he worked hard to become a citizen of, by making it so easily corruptible. In Greece, he said, it's some work to vote -- getting registered, having an ID, taking it to the polls, where it's checked rigorously by poll workers. But not here.

Voter reform has come down to this: Either you love democracy and want to save it, or you love your agenda and are willing to sacrifice democracy to attain it.

Why are we letting the latter group win? There is no excuse -- other than the agendas of the electeds, not the electorate -- for America not to have a universal photo voter ID by the 2008 presidential election. Sadly, there's little expectation it will happen.

hat-tip: mememorandum. art: anti-john kerry
>Related Tags: Politics, DNC, GOP, Voting fraud, Election fraud

24

Incredible Wife and I are off for a deluxe weekend shack-up to celebrate our 24 years of marital bliss. Understandably, Blogging will be light through the weekend.

Incredible Daughter Opines

At 20, Incredible Daughter #1 has become quite the policy wonk. Here's a letter the local OCRegister weekly ran from her:

AG Lockyer and auto lawsuit

Last month, Attorney General Bill Lockyer filed a nuisance lawsuit on behalf of California against six major automobile manufacturers: Chrysler, General Motors, Ford, Toyota, Honda, and Nissan.

The press release on the lawsuit started: “their vehicles’ emissions have contributed significantly to global warming, and cost the state millions of dollars to address current and future effects.”

For those who don’t know what a nuisance lawsuit is, it is an action brought against someone for interfering with one’s use and enjoyment of property. I wouldn’t be able to enjoy this state without an automobile.

Lockyer said, “Vehicle emissions are the single most rapidly growing source of the carbon emissions contributing to global warming, yet the federal government and automakers have refused to act. It is time to hold these companies responsible for their contribution to this crisis.”

However, five out of these six manufacturers make vehicles that the Environmental Protection Agency has rated green for their lowered emissions. He also seems to forget that the California Clean Air standards are higher than the federal government, so what do the federal standards have to do with California?

Why was the lawsuit even filed? The answer to that is in the press release from Lockyer. “Today’s filing comes as Lockyer fights the auto industry’s attempt to invalidate California’s landmark global warming regulations.” So your tax dollars are going to fight a feud that Lockyer has against the automobile manufacturers for believing that the new tailpipe emission standards break federal law. Lockyer’s name will be on the ballot Nov. 7 th as a candidate for Treasurer… I, for one, don’t want a man who brings frivolous lawsuits as a way to get back at those who disagree with him in charge of my money, do you?

Parental pride moment ....

Mufti: It's Bush's Fault Women Are Meat

Islam ... can't live with it, and they won't let us live without it.

Three weeks after giving a hot-headed, intolerant, mysogynistic Ramadan "sermon" in which he refered to Western women as "meat" fit for "eating" (raping), Sheikh Taj El-Din Hamid Hilaly (left), the Mufti of Australia's biggest mosque in Sydney, blithely blamed George Bush for the hot water his comments have put him in.

Australians of non-Muslim persuasion are understandably a bit miffed at the Mufti's muff. And the fact that he doesn't even see it as a muff miffs them more. Here's the original "teaching" in which he was addressing the dressing habits of non-habit-wearing women:

"If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the garden or in the park, or in the backyard without a cover, and the cats come and eat it ... whose fault is it, the cats or the uncovered meat? The uncovered meat is the problem."

So, West, drop your ways and adopt our ways and cover your women head to foot in demeaning hijabs and burkhas, as if they are mere embarassments you'd rather not see. And if they don't cover up and get raped, who's fault is it but the woman's? There's an enlighted view for you!

The statement, which follows on an earlier Hilaly rant in which he praised the 9/11 terrorists and called their act a work of God, has brought criticism from the public, the prime minister and more moderate Muslims. Is that Hilaly's problem? No! It's George Bush's.

Asked if he would resign his post -- from which he's temporarily suspended -- Hilaly said:

"After we clean the world of the White House first."

Those who think we can appease Muslims best think again. The only appeasement is accepting their unacceptable faith and practices.

Christianity teaches women should dress modestly -- a teaching that is shamefully ignored at most contemporary Christian churches -- but it understands the difference between "modesty" and "using clothes as a weapon of abuse." Islam does not. Moderate Muslim women who dress in even modest Western clothes are beaten, yelled at, shamed.

And it's W's fault. Why? Simply because he acknowledges that he leads a Christian nation, a nation that will defend itself against people like Hilaly, who wish us harm.

The Aussies, unfortunately, have granted citizenship to Hilaly, so they can't deport him. Let that be a lesson to them. Citizenship should be reserved for those who want to accept the nation they hope to become a citizen of, and should be revocable when new citizens begin advocating violence against their adopted nation.

That's a lesson we'd best learn here, too.

Source: Reuters via Breitbart
Related Tags: Hilaly, Islam, Women's rights, Human rights

So, Some Guy With The Name Hugh Hewitt Wants Me To Change My Name?

In between his Constitutional Law Class and an interview with three big-time evangelicals for his upcoming book,which will probe Mitt Romney and the electability of a Mormon president, Hugh Hewitt stopped by for a quick lunch with three friends, Sam, John and me.

Hugh said he is more excited about this book than any of his previous books, and immediately launched into some field research.

"As a Christian, would you vote for Mitt Romney?" he asked me.

"In a primary, assuming no one else running wasn't more aligned with me than Romney, sure. In a general election, I'd certainly vote for him over a Dem."

John answered the same, and Sam, who thinks Harry Truman was the last great president, said Romney's Mormon faith wouldn't keep him from voting for Mitt -- if he were ever to vote GOP.

"But 30 percent of Christians say they'd vote against him simply because he's Mormon," Hugh said.

"Will your evangelicals say they'd vote for him?" I asked.

"I have no idea."

Not surprisingly, that was the only thing Hugh had no idea about during the lunch, when the conversation seems stuck on fast-forward. At one point, the conversation turned to the subject before you now, Cheat-Seeking Missiles.

"How's your traffic?"

"Well," I spun ... er, answered, "I'm always heartened by something you wrote in Blog, that if I have even 50 readers a day, I'm reaching more people than most pastors."

He wasn't buying. "I think it's the name. Too hard to remember, too long a URL. It's all about branding."

Easy for a guy named Hugh Hewitt. Maybe if I were Vince Vincent it would be easy to consider changing the name.

But I have to say c h e a t s e e k i n g m i s s i l e s dot b l o g s p o t dot com is one heck of a nasty URL ... especially since about the same amount of people know how to spell "missiles" as know how to spell "Ahmadinejad."


What do you think? Let me know: Should I rename the blog?

Hugh/Indians art: Sharon Burns via Radio Blogger

Lean To The Left! The Left! The Left!

How big is the advantage Dems get from a left-biased media, Harry? Oh, about that big?

Yes, it's true. Only the Foley story can withstand to the flitting attention of the leftward-charging media herd. The C-SM Media Bias Index is showing that all the other scandals are starting to slip from the media's consciousness but -- at least through the election -- the Foley story appears to have the stuff to hang on.

Don't confuse "stuff" with newsworthiness. This is not a newsworthy story -- it just offers the enticing mix of prurient content and GOP-bashing. But as the index shows, newsworthiness has nothing to do with significance.

The oldie:
The Reid/Foley Index: Left 139

Foley's count is down significantly, from 262 Nexis hits to 139, but because the media is really staying away from Harry Reid's dual scadals, the index is actually up from yesterday's Left 106. Today, only the Conservative Weekly Standard turned up on Nexis.

The adjustment:
The Reid/Weldon Index: Left 15

This index compares a financial scandal with a financial scandal; not a whiff of sex. As the media finally feel justified in pretending there are no Reid scandals, the Reid/Weldon index climbs from Left 6 to Left 15. MSM just won't shake loose of this junior congressman's financial misdoings. Who cares if Harry is the Dem's senior senator and has run afoul of ethical standards? Not our "objective" media! Weldon: 15 stories, Reid: one.

The big one:
The Hanauer/Foley Index: Left Infinite (or Left 139 for the ilnumerate)

How many times greater is 139 than zero? There's the mathematical cunundrum in today's Bias Index, as the story about the alleged leaker of the story that roadblocked GOP momentum, put our soldiers at risk and violated the rules of the Intelligence Committee dropped off the media radar? Searching the English-language globe for mentions of Larry Hanauer, Nexis came up with nothing! This is not about news judgment; it's about election-rigging.

* How the Index works: Perfect MSM balance yields an index of 0; in the Reid/Foley index for example, stories of Senate Minory Leader Harry Reid's financial scandals would balance stories of Mark Foley's homosexual lust scandals. Less coverage of Reid/more coverage of Foley yields a "left" score, indicating leftist bias, with the number preceding "left" indicating the number of times greater Foley's coverage is. Greater Reid/lesser Foley coverage yields a "right" score with a similar multiplier. It's the same with the other indices. The findings are from a qualified each Nexis search, i.e., "Harry Reid AND real estate OR gift," when necessary.

Related Tags: Politics, Media bias, MSM, Reid, Foley, Hanauer, Weldon

Hit And Miss Blogging

I'm leading a media training session this morning, then having lunch with three old friends ... including a very prominent blogger you all know well ... then coffee with someone who's just starting an agency and needs to talk to an old fart mentor ... then a much-needed haircut ... then ....

So if it's pretty light over here at C-SM today, you know why.

Bioneers Connect With Their Inner Al Gore

Where else but in Babs Boxer's own Marin County would they descend each year, like bio-fueled Monarch butterflies? Yes, the Bioneers are back in Marin for their twelth annual alt-fest. Not the keyboard key; the scientific lifestyle.

Prius, solar, alternative sewage disposal techniques, holistic medicines; it's all there, and if we were there, we'd see the future ... or at least the tiny part of it that didn't end up on the junk heap of visionary but way, way wayward ideas. Most of what's unveiled at Bioneers stays pretty much veiled, for good reason. Today's NYT article on the alt-fest reveals:

• A small device capable of circulating five million gallons of water, using only a light bulb’s worth of electricity. “It’s all about flow...”
• The new buzz word, energy genocide for the "environmental exploitation of native lands for oil and gas development."
• There's a patent now on the mold state of the Cordyceps mushroom, which reportedly can kill 100,000 to 200,000 species of insects.

Call it hippies with business sense. Or at least wild business fantasies.

No doubt, from conclaves like Bioneers will come some great inventions, large and small, that will make our world a better place. The environmental movement can't afford to remain in the hands of stop-everything litigators; it is time for it to create some value in the hands of idealistic capitalists.

But is anyone cautioning these folks? Just because the mold comes from a mushroom, for example, doesn't mean it's better than good old Spectracide? Organically grown spinach comes to mind. A lot of the complex chemicals (mushroom mold) and organisms (e coli) that nature produces are far more harmful than our chemicals, so let's have a little skepticism blended into the dreaminess.

Like skepticism (alarm?) directed at the Napa olive grower who, thanks to last year's Bioneers meeting, now has South African guinea fowl wandering his orchards, eating larvae, so he doesn't have to spray chemicals.

I don't know anything about guinea fowl from South Africa, but in my book it's a non-native species. Think kudzo and mosquito fish and bunnies in Australia. A lot of bad happens in the name of good ... but idealists are the last to see it.

Related Tags: Bioneers, Alternative energy

The Most Bizarre Political Story Of The Season?

This has got to be the most bizarre political story of the season. So bizarre it screams for a word more bizarre than "bizarre."

Absurd, balmy, cockeyed, derisory, eccentric, fantastic, fatuous, foolhardy, foolish, goofy, half-baked, harebrained, idiotic, ill-conceived, impracticable, imprudent, inane, inappropriate, insane, irresponsible, imprudent, inane, inappropriate, loony, ludicrous, nonsensical, odd, outrageous, peculiar, potty, preposterous, puerile, quixotic, ridiculous, senseless, short-sighted, silly, strange, unworkable, wacky, wierd, wild. Thank you Mr. Roget.

Yesterday, the NYT ran a story that took not one but two effete Ivy school journalists to compile. It was a detailed analysis of the words Joe Lieberman has used not just during the campaign but since 9/11:

As the battle of interpretation continues, The New York Times sorted 362 of Mr. Lieberman’s war-related comments since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks into content-related categories, and found that he has alternated his arguments about the parties and the war’s prosecution, shifting tone at critical points as political circumstances have evolved.

No way! Really? The more newsworthy story would be if the NYT had found a single national politician who didn't shift tone at critical points as political circumstances have evolved. I voted for the war before I voted against the war. Or was it the other way around?

Don't worry it'll be the other way around next year.

But the really big news in this story was ... well, really big:

Never, in the statements reviewed, did Mr. Lieberman utter the words “stay the course.”

How painful it must have been for our two intrepid Lamont-lickers to write those words. How delighted they would have been if only they could have found Lieberman staying some course somewhere.

Well, guess what? This little expose, all tied up neat to give Ned Lamont a desperately needed boost, isn't even the bizarre, goofy, inane, ludicrous, wacky, etc., story. That story ran today.

Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut has used the phrase “stay the course” several times in discussing the war in Iraq in recent years, echoing a key phrase of the White House, contrary to an article published Tuesday in The New York Times.

The angst! He REALLY did say "stay the course," but to get that story out, the NYT had to run a complex, authoritative explanation of how their two highly trained reporters and their crack editing and fact-checking crews all screwed up:

It is unclear why, when the database was checked for the phrase before publication, three times, it did not come up.

How did the mistake get discovered? Readers called them. Even NYT readers are smarter than NYT reporters.

What the hell, they got to stretch a one-day Lieberman bashing into a two-day bashing.

... they just proved in the process that to support Lamont you've got to be kinda dumb.

Related Tags: Media bias, MSM, Joseph Lieberman, Ned Lamont, New York Times

A Pelosi-Evangelical Alliance?

One of the great shames of six years of GOP leadership is the free hand China has been given. Nothing is a greater telegraph signal that the GOP is not concerned about human rights than letting Beijing continue is repressive policies -- and get nothing but rewards for it.

Favored nation. Global warming forgiveness. International clout.

Until they respect the rights of their citizens -- who have no protections to speak of in the workplace, who still are the recipients of forced abortions, who are forced out of their ancient homes so government officials and their developer friends can get rich, who are killed or jailed for thinking outside party lines -- they should get nothing more than recognition as a global pariah.

Now as speculation that the dawn of Nov. 7 will see Nancy Pelosi as Speaker in Waiting, could things begin to change on our China policy? Tom Pate, writing in the Seattle Times, thinks so:

Politically, [Pelosi] is no knee-jerk leftist, and offers a wide range of nuanced views. One of the most interesting is her long-held perspective on China. She is rarely amused by Beijing, generally unforgiving and thoroughly skeptical in ways that link her directly to the human-rights wing of the Democratic Party.

Unlike fellow San Franciscan Dianne Feinstein, who has been California's senior representative in the U.S. Senate since 1992, Pelosi does not take a relaxed attitude toward China's intentions to execute its much-proclaimed "peaceful rise."

In a long conversation with her some years ago, I was struck by her firmly held view that China should get no free ride from the West simply because of its many problems, its titanic population and its tortured historic background. For sure, she argues, nothing can justify its many human-rights violations.

Pate deftly points out that there's one other group that is just as angry about China as the human rights wing of the Dems is: Conservative Christians. We don't like how they use near-slave labor, how they violently suppress Christianity, how they force abortions on their people.

Could James Dobson share a dias with Nancy Pelosi? For this purpose, yes, he should ... should the unthinkable Pelosi leadership become real. (Or how about even if it doesn't?) The dynamic tension between the allies on this matter would ensure a US policy towards China that is highly focused and carefully nuanced.

Hat-tip: Real Clear Politics

Related Tags: Pelosi, China, Human rights, Dobson

MSM Bias Indices: What NIE Leak?

I as just set to click "Publish Post" on a Cheat-Seeking Missile MSM Bias Index yesterday when my battery ran out and all those carefully lined up electrons disappeared into wherever they disappear into. So today's update is a two-day summary.

The findings are much more accurate because I qualified each Nexis search -- Harry Reid with real estate or gift, Mark Foley with page and Curt Weldon with daughter. For Larry Hanauer, as you'll see, there was no need for further qualifications.

The oldie:
The Reid/Foley Index: Left 105

Congress was quick to call hearings on the Foley matter, ensuring this story would have legs through the election season. Not so with Reid, in one of the more stupid tactical moves to date of GOP Congressional "leadership." As a result, there were 525 Foley stories and only 5 involving the minority leader of the Senate's real estate and gift-giving scandals. That's 2.5 stories per scandal.

The adjustment:
The Reid/Weldon Index: Left 6

In this measure of competing financial/influence scandals, the junior GOP House member got six times more coverage than the senior Dem Senate member. Weldon 30, Reid 5. Oh where, oh where did my little objectivity commitment go?

The big one:
The Hanauer/Foley Index: Left 262

Who was the alleged hand behind the leak that singlehandedly stopped GOP momentum in its tracks and put our soldiers and national security at risk? Larry Hanauer! And who acted out on homo fantasies and could be an easy whipping boy for GOP-bashers? Mark Foley. So, should MSM go with the significant or the incidental? The Dem-harmer or the GOP-harmer?

The speed with which Larry Hanauer's name has fallen out of the media is nothing short of stunning. Over two days, two stories. Two. It's a leak story; the last big leak story was who leaked a two-bit CIA operative's name to a newspaper columnist ... you might remember that one because it got a tad more coverage.

* How the Index works: Perfect MSM balance yields an index of 0; in the Reid/Foley index for example, stories of Senate Minory Leader Harry Reid's financial scandals would balance stories of Mark Foley's homosexual lust scandals. Less coverage of Reid/more coverage of Foley yields a "left" score, indicating leftist bias, with the number preceding "left" indicating the number of times greater Foley's coverage is. Greater Reid/lesser Foley coverage yields a "right" score with a similar multiplier. It's the same with the other indices.

Related Tags: Politics, Reid, Foley, Weldon, Hanauer, MSM, Media bias

A Bias-Fest At The LA Times

The pilot of our Southwest flight from OC to Phoenix today had everyone sit down and belt up, and suspended drink service because rough weather was ahead ... but the plane barely bounced.

Could this foretell what will happen to the GOP in November? A lot of doomsaying but a pretty good election?

It just might happen, if you use the LATimes as your doomsaying source. I had the opportunity (I can't say pleasure) to read today's edition on the flight out, thanks to a seatmate who contributed 50 cents of his own money to that sinking enterprise.

What can I say? The paper appeared to be just a wee tad biased. Since I'm supposed to be seeking out cheats on this blog, here's a list of the political stories run today in LAT's effort to cheat the election.

Front page:

• Latino and Black voters reassessing ties to GOP. A few black and Latino leaders express their frustration on faith and border issues, respectively. It's pointed out that blacks and Latinos helped Bush win previously. Really?
• Sort of related, Old rivals united in Nigaragua -- a portrait of the "new" Daniel Ortega. As if he's suddenly palatable or something.

Inside A section:

• Bloodletting continues in Iraq's south -- Hunting up bad war news.
• GI is possibly kidnapped in Baghdad -- Refers to the insurgents as "daring."
• Beating the torture horse, Countries cite U.S. to deflect criticism on jails, official says -- Uh, huh. A UN lackey says countries -- naming only Jordan -- "are kind of saying, 'But why are you criticizing us; we are not doing something different from what the United States is doing.'" Kind of? Pathetic news-mongering.
• Following a death trail in Sadr City -- A profile of the Shi'ite human dump in Baghdad, emphasizing that the US can't control it.
  
• For Jefferson, anger and applause -- Yes, the vastly corrupt Louisiana Dem (Dept. of Reduncancy Department ...) still has constituents who love him. Many more lovers than critics are quoted.
• New voting systems, rules may spell trouble at polls -- The set up story for the inevitable Dem election challenges. "Some of the voting changes have alarmed political partisans. Democrats, in particular, are concerned...." Duh.
  
• Hastert aide questioned about Foley -- Gotta keep that story alive!
• GOP attack ad draws heat for racial overtone -- Big display for a seemingly insensitive DNC ad in Tennesee. Close race; gotta find a way to attack Corker ...
• Web activists have a plan for Democrats -- What are the chances of finding a story on GOP web activists?

Editorial

• Immigration's front line -- In which one Arizona Congressional race takes center stage. The GOP candidate's position is "quite unrealistic" while the Dem's position is "sensible." The difference? The GOP guy opposes guests workers.

And that's just the A section. The B section added a couple more. Sports, Food and Entertainment probably chimed in, but I didn't read them.

If there had been a GOP-leaning story, I would have told you, but there wasn't. Nary a one.

Yes, LA is a Dem county, but there are a few GOP folks there, as there are in OC, SD and the Inland Empire. No news for them. Which is why my 50 cents is still in my pocket!

Related Tags: Politics, Media bias, Los Angeles Times, GOP, DNC, Republicans, Democrats

I'm Sorry. No, I'm Not, I'm Not, I'm NOT!

Li'l Kim Jong Il has thought about it and he's not sorry he tested a nuke after all. Liu Jianchao, who's not really identified in the AP story but apparently is an aparatchik of China's State Councilor Tang Jiaxuan is the source of this news:

Despite the apparently conciliatory tone of the meeting, Liu said that Kim did not apologize for his regime's nuclear test, as some South Korean media had reported.

"These reports are certainly not accurate," Liu said. "We haven't heard any information that Kim Jong Il apologized for the test."

The earlier report was published in the mass-circulation South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo cited a diplomatic source in China.

But anyway, now he's not sorry ... even as the nuke test has lead to even more suffering of his already downtrodden people.

The reluctance of donors to provide aid to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) following its reported nuclear test is causing rising hunger in the country and exacerbating the suffering of groups already facing a grim human rights situation, a United Nations independent expert warned today.

Food aid to the DPRK has already been cut drastically this year, leaving close to 2 million of the country’s most needy people without adequate calories, warned Special Rapporteur Vitit Muntarbhorn ...

In a report submitted to the General Assembly last week, he noted that the UN World Food Programme would be attempting to distribute aid to 1.9 million of the most needy North Koreans but that this year the amount available had been slashed to 75,000 tons of food, down from 500,000 tons per year previously.

“There are major concerns in regard to the rights to food and life, the rights to security of the person and humane treatment, the rights to freedom of movement, asylum and refugee protection, and various political rights such as self-determination, freedom of expression, association and religion,” Mr. Muntarbhorn wrote in his report. (UN news release)

No surprise there.

In fact, there's no surprise in any of this. Li'l Kim's beggardly, bruttally repressive ... er, Socialist ... state has used lying as a pillar of its foreign policy for years. It's the give a little hope, crush a little hope school of international relations.

Li'l Kim likes to see himself as a puppetmaster on the world stage, and these tricks give him the opportunity to get his world leader jollies. Of course, we see him not as a puppetmaster, but as a criminally insane despot who's willing to be responsible for the deaths of millions of those he rules so he's got a better strut on the world stage.

This kind of insanity should have died out long before the 21st Century. That it hasn't just is more proof of the doctrine of original sin.

Photo courtesy of Moonbattery
Related Tags: North Korea, Kim Jong Il, UN, Human rights

Google As GOP-gle? Oh, Puh-leeze

Over at Huffing and Puffing Post, they're ranting about Google going GOP:

Looks like Google's been watching Fox News — its new Google NetPAC, launched last month, made contributions to three Republicans congressional candidates, according to the San Jose Mercury News. The Merc's Frank Davies reports $1,000 contributions to each of Reps. Heather Wilson of New Mexico, Deborah Pryce of Ohio, and James Sensenbrenner, head of the House Judiciary Committee and sometime gavel-wielding control freak. At least two of the candidates, Wilson and Sensenbrenner, have porfolios that implicate the use and regulation of the Internet.

Three of Google's new lobbyists were drawn from Republican rankss: Jamie Brown, former legislative liaison in the Bush administration, and former GOP senators Connie Mack and Dan Coats (Davies does not mention what proportion of Google's lobbying staff that comprises).

First of all, $1,000 is nothing. Second, behind those three GOP donation-getters, there are two Dems at the receiving end of Google largesse: Anna Eshoo of Google's home, Palo Alto, and Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan.

Besides, Google's guilty of kissy-face with Commies in order to get into China ... hardly a Conservative ploy. And there's Googles longstanding support of leftist politics. And their ongoing refusal to admit that they live in a Christian nation -- like their ignoring of Christian Christmas and Easter themes on their cute little logo re-dos.

This is left-think at its finest. Take one modest step towards reason and the lefties will pile on and pummel.

Related Tags: Politics, Leftism, Google, Democrats

MSM Bias Indices: All Left

Over the last few days, emerging news and efforts to improve the meaningfulness of the index have led to multiple Cheat-Seeking Missiles MSM Bias Indices. So, without further adieu:

The oldie:
The Reid/Foley Index: Left 33

Foley stays strong as the scandal both grows and gets investigated. Reid is getting the kid glove treatment by MSM. They're staying away in droves ... and where, oh where, is a GOP call for hearings? Nexis revealed 991 Foley stories and 30 Reid stories.

The adjustment:
The Reid/Weldon Index: Left 3.5

Both financial scandals; one centered on a Republican middleweight, the other on a Dem heavyweight. Guess who the media's paying attention to? Nexis revealed 115 Weldon stories to those 30 Reid stories.

The big one:
The Hanauer/Foley Index: Left .5

Larry Hanauer and the story of the leaked NIE report is the clear winner in scandals having true import on our national security. As a scandal, it's head and shoulders above any greedy real estate deals or tawdry page-panderings. Yet MSM, faithful to its liberal core, gives the aging Foley story 50% more coverage than the emerging Hanauer story -- 641 for Hanauer, 991 for Foley.

Can we call a hearing on this one, too? Sometime soon? Maybe get some news out before November 6? Is anyone awake in the GOP leadership? I swear ... sometimes the GOP reminds me of Reagan in a cabinet meeting. (Just kidding!)

* How the Index works: Perfect MSM balance yields an index of 0; in the Reid/Foley index for example, stories of Senate Minory Leader Harry Reid's financial scandals would balance stories of Mark Foley's homosexual lust scandals. Less coverage of Reid/more coverage of Foley yields a "left" score, indicating leftist bias, with the number preceding "left" indicating the number of times greater Foley's coverage is. Greater Reid/lesser Foley coverage yields a "right" score with a similar multiplier. It's the same with the other indices.

Related Tags: Politics, Reid, Foley, Weldon, Hanauer, MSM, Media bias

Quote Of The Day: Fruits & Nuts Edition

Let us run that by you again: The idea here is to tax California oil in order to get Californians to use less Saudi oil. Brilliant.
-- Wall Street Journal Editorial

California's Prop 87 is attracting liberal glitterati of the first order, and I mean first order. The TV commercials feature Al Gore and Bill Clinton.

And, as usual, they're opening their mouths and garbage is coming out.

For non-garbage, the WSJ editorial (subscribers only) is a pretty good source:

If approved, the law would raise costs on California's oil producers by as much as $4 billion over the next 10 years. California would overnight become the state with the highest tax on oil producers in the U.S. -- which makes as much sense as Vermont levying the highest tax on maple syrup. ...

A Law and Economic Consulting Group (LECG) analysis concludes the bill would in fact increase dependency on foreign oil because the tax increases the price only on domestic oil. Meanwhile, to make it seem as if the tax will be paid by "greedy" energy companies rather than voters, Proposition 87 would make it illegal for producers to pass on the tax costs to consumers. But wait. The "Yes on 87" lobby also claims that the law would reduce California oil consumption by 25%. How does a law that doesn't allow the retail price to rise reduce gasoline consumption? These are logical niceties that no one much cares about when fads are in season -- and taxing energy is the biggest fad of them all these days. ...

Its main financial supporter is Hollywood producer [and Elizabeth Hurley impregnator/loser dad] Stephen Bing, who is also rich enough not to care about any increase in energy prices; his $40 million contribution is believed to be the largest individual donation to a ballot initiative in history. One co-chairman of the initiative, Vinod Khosla, a venture capitalist, has contributed $1 million to the campaign. Mr. Khosla happens to own an ethanol plant outside of Fresno -- just the operation that, who knows, might be eligible for funding from this new energy welfare fund.

The biggest impact of Proposition 87 would be to make California oil relatively more expensive to produce than Saudi, or Venezuelan, or Canadian oil. So if 87 passes, Californians will be approving the equivalent of a tariff on their own oil. So the tax would actually make America slightly more, not less, dependent on foreign oil. This is an energy plan that only Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez could love.

Yep, Prop 87 has it all: An utter lack of logic, featherbedding, billionaire-baby supporters (Bing's $600 million was inherited from grandpa) and an excuse for more government.

Unfortunately, the ads by No on 87 are not as strong as they should be. Sure, they have most of the right talking points, but no glitterati, and they miss the most telling talking point of all. All they have to do is show how inept all existing government-sponsored programs, and how the major innovations in energy conservation came from the private sector, not the public sector.

(Disclaimer: Chevron and Aera, the major funders of the No campaign, are both clients. I do not, however, work on Prop 87 for them. Wish I did.)

Related Tags: California, Politics, Prop. 87, Stephen Bing

Significent, Essential & Momentous

I was greeted by quite an Outlook in-box this a.m.:

• Significant letter. You must read.
  
• Essential letter. You must read.
• Very important message. You require to read.
• Momentous letter. You must read.
• Significant letter. You require to read.
• Very important letter. You must to read.
• Grand note. You have to read.
• Serious letter. You need to read.

They are all hyping an investment of some sort ... now who would ever, ever invest in something so spam-hyped as this? The fact that spam even exists after all these years of ticking us off and over-flowing our in-boxes must be evidence that either (1) crooks are dumb, (2) people are dumb, or (3) both.

Related Tags: Spam, Internet, Microsoft Outlook

Show Fernandez The Door

Is three the charm for Alberto Fernandez?

First, the director of the Office of Press and Public Diplomacy in the Bureau of Near East Affairs told Al-Jaz there is a strong possibility history will show the United States displayed "arrogance" and "stupidity" in its execution of the war in Iraq.

Then he said it was a matter of mistranslation.

Now, he has told CNN that he stands by his quote and offers up an explanation and apology:

"Upon reading the transcript of my appearance on Al-Jazeera, I realized that I seriously misspoke by using the phrase 'there has been arrogance and stupidity' by the U.S. in Iraq." ...

He was defending U.S. policy in a region where everyone dislikes the United States, he said, and was doing so in an aggressive way that was faithful to U.S. policy, and trying to put it in the best light. Fernandez said he was "not dissing U.S. policy."

I know what he's talking about. Sometimes it is better to take a strong line in defense of a strong position -- politicians do that when they say, "If you're not satisfied with me, you can vote me out." It's best to say it when you know you've done well and you've got strong support.

But Fernandez, as a press officer, should know better than to use the tactic in this situation with a medium that will carry his words thought the Arabic-speaking world. One might say it is evidence of "arrogance" and "stupidity" on his part.

He needs to be transferred immediately. He is damaged goods in an area we can have only the best of the best at work.

Related Tags: Fernandez, Diplomacy, Iraq, Al Jazeera, War on terror, War in Iraq

Japan, USSR Part Of NoKo's 50-Year Nuke Search

During the Korean War, NoKo leaders, afraid the US would use nukes on them, asked the Russians for nuclear-tipped missiles. The Russians deferred, starting the NoKo nuke quest.

In the 50 years that followed, there was little to nothing indigenous about NoKo's nuclear effort despite propaganda that declared the bomb to be 100% homegrown. Propaganda ... interesting, then, that a very clear window into the NoKoNuke has been offered by a former chief of that country's nuclear propaganda forces, Kim Dae Ho, right.

Kimo's story, told in today's International Herald Tribune, reveals:

• The two fathers of NoKo's bomb were both educated in Japan.
• One of the two, Lee Sung Ki, was kidnapped by NoKo soldiers at the outbreak of the Korean War.
• About 100 NoKo scientists were trained at the USSR's Joint Institute for Nuclear Research at Dubna. "I would not single one out as an outstanding scientist," the director of the Institute said to the IHT.

As the photo shows, Kim has a book out on the subject, with the typically Asian title, "Azaleas Do Not Bloom in the Mountains of Yongbyon."

Kim was a reluctant refugee. Sent to Beijing on business in 1994, he wrote his wife that he was troubled by the greater freedoms the Chinese had (!). NoKo intelligence intercepted the letter, Kim was tipped off, and that was that. He sought asylum in the SoKo embassy, leaving a wife and two daughters behind.

A small tragedy, perhaps, but the sort that is all too common with North Korea. The country might not have enough brainpower to assemble much of a nuclear team, but it has been entirely content to let its people starve so that it might pursue Socialist perfection and nuclear armaments.

Before fleeing, Kim had a position that gave him an insider's view of the NoKo nuke program:

Kim's work in the nuclear program over a period of 10 years - first as a propagandist, then as vice president of a plant that refined minerals from uranium ore - offered him a valuable insight into the scientists and administrators who made the regime's dream of nuclear weapons a reality.

Do read the article; it's well worth it and it's just a quick one-clicker.

Related Tags: North Korea, Nuclear bomb, Kim Jong Il

More French Riots; Muslims Apparently Not Involved

Just a few days shy of the anniversary of the start of last year's French riot season, things are heating up.

According to Australia's The Age,

• 30 "youths" forced passengers off a bus then burned it in broad daylight. When firefighters arrived, the youths threw stones at them.
• Police investigating a murder were lured into a housing project where they were attacked by "youths." One officer needed 30 stitches to close a gash in his face.

The closest the article come to say just who might have been involved in this matter is this:

The riots last year laid bare rampant discrimination in the housing projects surrounding France's big cities where numerous French of immigrant origin live, separated from mainstream life.

It seems to me that if you are going to honestly confront prejudiced behavior on the one hand and crminal, anti-social behavior on the other, you need to start from a position of honesty.

Interestingly, I just scanned the front page of Le Monde's Web site; no photos of riots and my High School French, rusty at best, indicates no stories, either.

hat-tip: memeorandum
Related Tags: France, Muslim, Islam, Riots

Media Indices: Waaaay Left

Hanauer/Foley Index: Left 2
Reid/Foley Index: Left 50+

This morning there were 566 Nexis hits on Larry Hanauer and 954 on Mark Foley, reflecting not just the fact that hearings are being held on the Foley matter, but also that Congress and the media are working hard to keep the story alive through the election.

Meanwhile, they've all but forgotten the ethical failures of the man who would be Senate Majority Leader if they get their way. The pathetic 21 hits on Harry Reid included many on other topics than the scandal, hence the 50+ ranking; it's actually much higher.

The Foley scandal unfolded fast and resulted in hearings in no time. Meanwhile, the GOP drags and shuffles. No hearings called on Reid yet. And if we get through tomorrow without an announcement that hearings will be coming soon on Hanauer, Harmon and the leaking of the NIE, then Speaker Hastert really should be on his way out of the door.

Letting this opportunity go by is a political sin of greater significance than the moral sins involved in the Foley affair.

* How the Index works: Perfect MSM balance yields an index of 0, as stories of alleged NIE report leaker Larry Hanauer balance stories of Mark Foley's homosexual lust scandals. Less coverage of Hanauer/more coverage of Foley yields a "left" score, indicating leftist bias, with the number preceding "left" indicating the number of times greater Foley's coverage is. Greater Hanauer/lesser Foley coverage yields a "right" score with a similar multiplier.

Related Tags: Politics, Democrats, Republicans, DNC, GOP, Foley, Hanauer, Reid

Beating Muslim Wifes

There's an op/ed in WaPo this morning that should stir things up in the Muslim community and may cause some real pain to its brave writer, Asra Nomani. She writes that such instruction comes directly from the Koran:

"Such appalling recommendations ... are inspired by as authoritative a source as any Muslim could hope to find: a literal reading ofthe 34th verse of the fourth chapter of the Koran, An-Nisa , or Women. "[A]nd (as to) those on whose part you fear desertion, admonish them and leave them alone in the sleeping-places and beat them," reads one widely accepted translation."

Compare that to Biblical advice. In the Old Testament from the fifth verse of Numbers, which deals with the most dreadful situation that can confront a marriage, in this case, by the wife:

Then the LORD said to Moses, "Speak to the Israelites and say to them: `If a man's wife goes astray and is unfaithful to him by sleeping with another man, and this is hidden from her husband and her impurity is undetected (since there is no witness against her and she has not been caught in the act), and if feelings of jealousy come over her husband and he suspects his wife and she is impure--or if he is jealous and suspects her even though she is not impure-- then he is to take his wife to the priest.

He must also take an offering of a tenth of an ephah of barley flour on her behalf. He must not pour oil on it or put incense on it, because it is a grain offering for jealousy, a reminder offering to draw attention to guilt.

"`The priest shall bring her and have her stand before the LORD. Then he shall take some holy water in a clay jar and put some dust from the tabernacle floor into the water. After the priest has had the woman stand before the LORD, he shall loosen her hair and place in her hands the reminder offering, the grain offering for jealousy, while he himself holds the bitter water that brings a curse.

Then the priest shall put the woman under oath and say to her, "If no other man has slept with you and you have not gone astray and become impure while married to your husband, may this bitter water that brings a curse not harm you. But if you have gone astray while married to your husband and you have defiled yourself by sleeping with a man other than your husband" -- here the priest is to put the woman under this curse of the oath--"may the LORD cause your people to curse and denounce you when he causes your thigh to waste away and your abdomen to swell. May this water that brings a curse enter your body so that your abdomen swells and your thigh wastes away."

"`Then the woman is to say, "Amen. So be it."

"`The priest is to write these curses on a scroll and then wash them off into the bitter water. He shall have the woman drink the bitter water that brings a curse, and this water will enter her and cause bitter suffering. The priest is to take from her hands the grain offering for jealousy, wave it before the LORD and bring it to the altar. The priest is then to take a handful of the grain offering as a memorial offering and burn it on the altar; after that, he is to have the woman drink the water.

If she has defiled herself and been unfaithful to her husband, then when she is made to drink the water that brings a curse, it will go into her and cause bitter suffering; her abdomen will swell and her thigh waste away, and she will become accursed among her people. If, however, the woman has not defiled herself and is free from impurity, she will be cleared of guilt and will be able to have children.

"`This, then, is the law of jealousy when a woman goes astray and defiles herself while married to her husband, or when feelings of jealousy come over a man because he suspects his wife. The priest is to have her stand before the LORD and is to apply this entire law to her. The husband will be innocent of any wrongdoing, but the woman will bear the consequences of her sin.'"

Now we can layer this reading with the current thinking of the day, questioning what the husband might have done that may have caused the wife to stray, but the significance of this verse is that the matter is placed in the hands of God, and the punishment of the woman is also in God's hands. His choice for her is a lame leg or an empty womb -- hardly the stoning prefered to this day by some Islamic nations.

(Yes, I know, Jesus had to save an adultrous woman from a stoning at the hands of a Jewish crowd. That was a sign how far the religious elite had strayed from the word of God.)

I'm sure there's been a case of an American Muslim trying to get off a wife-beating charge by pleading the Koran, but I haven't heard of it. It's sure to become a milestone in how Muslims will -- or won't -- assimilate into America.

That'll be a sight, as the PC intelligensia stuggle between "We must accept Islam" and "We can't have wife-beatings."

Art: Free Republic
Related Tags: Islam, Christianity, Marriage, Culture

Curious Juxtaposition

U.S. official admits "arrogance" in Iraq

Sen. Obama says he's weighing 2008 run

Which is the more arrogant, our Iraq policy, or a man who came out of nowhere to become a US Senator, for no other reason than a total meltdown of the opposing party in his state, thinking that just four years later he will have the maturity necessary to be president?

The Illinois Democrat said he could no longer stand by the statements he made after his 2004 election and earlier this year that he would serve a full six-year term in Congress. He said he would not make a decision until after the Nov. 7 elections.

"That was how I was thinking at that time," said Obama, when asked on NBC's "Meet the Press" about his previous statements. (AP)

That's what we need in a president: A man who sticks to his word. Gotta hand it to Barack; he's Clintonian.

Related Tags: Politics, Democrats, DNC, Obama