Crowd Boos Gay Soldier's Question on 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell'?

Actually, Sarah Rumpf on Twitter says, "Only a few booed." But see GOProud, "Rick Santorum Owes Gay Soldier an Apology."

Towleroad has the transcipt: "GOP Debate Crowd Boos Gay Soldier Serving in Iraq: VIDEO":

And at Memeorandum.

Santorum doesn't owe anyone an apology. That said, I'd be surprised if restoring DADT became a plank in the GOP platform. We're at war and gays are serving honorably. Let's see how things go for a while.

Besides, I have much more respect for a guy like Stephen Hill than I do for folks like Dan Savage. The former's willing to lay his life on the line for his country. Dan Savage just makes freaked out butt-lube slurs against conservatives. ASFL.

Markets Are Pounded

At Wall Street Journal, "Markets Swoon on Recession Fears."

Global investors dumped everything from stocks to corporate bonds to foreign currencies and fled to the relative safety of U.S. Treasurys on fears of another recession and a Greek debt default.

Markets, already reeling from economic weakness around the globe, have been further destabilized by a growing sense that governments and central banks are unable to get growth back on track. Stocks began tumbling Wednesday after the Federal Reserve unveiled a new round of economic stimulus, and they kept falling Thursday.

RTWT.

Obviously, we're still a long way toward limiting the volatility. I'm just excited for election season. Economic turmoil brings change, and hopefully this time we'll have something genuinely to believe in.

United States Walks Out on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Speech at United Nations

At LAT, "At U.N., Iran president again denounces U.S.":

With his now-familiar mix of bombast, politics and theater, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Thursday denounced the United States and its European allies as colonialist "slave masters" intent on wrecking the world economy, prompting dozens of Western diplomats to walk out.

As in previous years, Ahmadinejad used his appearance at the United Nations General Assembly to condemn the United States and its allies, accusing them of causing centuries of misery. He charged that they were responsible for the suffering caused by slavery, world wars, nuclear attacks and the current global economic turmoil.

As before, his presence also sparked protests outside the U.N. But this time around, his influence seems to be ebbing in Tehran, and his speech was overshadowed by the week's dominant topic, the Palestinian Authority's bid for U.N. recognition.

Ahmadinejad had no comment on the Palestinian issue, keeping instead to his usual themes and invective. He accused Israel of causing "60 years of war," and railed that European nations used the Holocaust "as the excuse to pay ransom or fines to Zionists."

Perry, Romney Go on Attack at Debate

Last night was open house at my youngest's school, so I missed the debate, although I doubt I actually missed all that much. See Wall Street Journal":

ORLANDO, Fla. — Republican presidential front-runners Rick Perry and Mitt Romney, taking up where they left off in their last on-stage meeting, attacked each other over Social Security and health care in a televised debate Thursday, with the Texas governor on defense for much of the contest.

The third Republican presidential debate in as many weeks showed the same dynamics as the prior two, with many of the candidates jabbing away at the Texan. In one exchange on immigration, Mr. Romney said he couldn't understand why Mr. Perry signed a Texas law giving in-state university tuition to illegal immigrants, something he said amounted to as much as a $100,000 subsidy for each.

"Nobody on this stage…has spent more time on border security than I have," Mr. Perry responded, charging that his rivals don't "have a heart."

He also said, "I feel pretty normal getting criticized by these folks," a week after saying the previous debate left him feeling like a piñata.

Each time Mr. Perry tried to go on offense against Mr. Romney, the former Massachusetts governor brushed him off, twice with a dismissive "nice try."

More at the link.

And at Michelle's, "FOX News/Google GOP 2012 debate: The “Obama lite” label and venture socialism; Updated: Wrap-up," and "Video: Perry’s cringe-worthiest debate moment."

Georgia Executes Cop Killer Troy Davis: Progressive Heads Explode

I went to bed last night upon hearing the news that the Supreme Court was granting an 11th hour review. I didn't hear anything more until I was in my office this morning reading the Los Angeles Times, "Georgia puts convict to death despite protest." And then also at New York Times, "In Death-Penalty Debate, Execution Offers Little Closure."

And see the very even-handed piece from Associated Press, which notes that all the second thoughts on witness testimony were presented to jurors at the time of the trial, "Counting down, Ga. inmate nears execution in policeman’s killing despite pleas in US, Europe."

But the best piece on this is from Ann Coulter, "COP-KILLER IS MEDIA'S LATEST BABY SEAL":

It's nearly impossible to receive a death sentence these days -- unless you do something completely crazy like shoot a cop in full view of dozens of witnesses in a Burger King parking lot, only a few hours after shooting at a passing car while exiting a party.

That's what Troy Davis did in August 1989. Davis is the media's current baby seal of death row.

After a two-week trial with 34 witnesses for the state and six witnesses for the defense, the jury of seven blacks and five whites took less than two hours to convict Davis of Officer Mark MacPhail's murder, as well as various other crimes. Two days later, the jury sentenced Davis to death.

Now, a brisk 22 years after Davis murdered Officer MacPhail, his sentence will finally be administered this week -- barring any more of the legal shenanigans that have kept taxpayers on the hook for Davis' room and board for the past two decades.

(The average time on death row is 14 years. Then liberals turn around and triumphantly claim the death penalty doesn't have any noticeable deterrent effect. As the kids say: Duh.)

It has been claimed -- in The New York Times and Time magazine, for example -- that there was no "physical evidence" connecting Davis to the crimes that night.

Davis pulled out a gun and shot two strangers in public. What "physical evidence" were they expecting? No houses were broken into, no cars stolen, no rapes or fistfights accompanied the shootings. Where exactly would you look for DNA? And to prove what?

I suppose it would be nice if the shell casings from both shootings that night matched. Oh wait -- they did. That's "physical evidence."

It's true that the bulk of the evidence against Davis was eyewitness testimony. That tends to happen when you shoot someone in a busy Burger King parking lot.

Eyewitness testimony, like all evidence tending to show guilt, has gotten a bad name recently, but the "eyewitness" testimony in this case did not consist simply of strangers trying to distinguish one tall black man from another. For one thing, several of the eyewitnesses knew Davis personally.

The bulk of the eyewitness testimony established the following...

Continue.

Of course, the progressive left latched onto this case as a way to bring an end to capital punishment in the United States. It's just routine leftist conformity to be against the death penalty, even when the inmate's the classic poster boy for it. Progressives are stupid that way.

RELATED: At The Other McCain, "The Death of a Cop-Killer." And the reactions at Memeorandum.

'Proven Leadership'

Rick Perry's new ad, via Althouse:

Actually, Perry's fortunes are starting to slide a bit. But keeping with our thesis on the Republican enthusiasm for change, no matter who the nominee is, this administration's toast. See Gallup: "In U.S., Slight Majority Now Blame Obama for U.S. Economy."

Noam Chomsky Spews Lies About Palestinian Statehood on Democracy Now!

This video's a week old, but quite timely considering President Obama's speech at the United Nations today and postponement of the vote on Palestinian statehood. And just listen to Chomsky around 4:00 minutes:

The U.S. has blocked ceasefire efforts at the time of Israeli attacks. In fact, Obama himself—you can take a look at his—I don’t know if he still has it, but in his website prior to the election, there was a section on the Middle East. And it’s worth looking at. It gives you an indication of what’s been happening since. It’s full of, you know, adoration of Israel. You expect that. Practically not a word about the Palestinians, a few phrases saying maybe they should have some rights. But that was right in the middle of the latest Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 2006, a brutal, murderous invasion, without any credible pretext — you can go into that—actually, the fifth such invasion. And Obama took pride, in his webpage, in having co-sponsored a Senate resolution, right in the middle of the invasion, insisting that nothing be done to impede Israel’s attack in Lebanon and that the U.S. should censure and maybe sanction anyone who tried to interfere with it—Iran and Syria.

That's just one long astonishing stream of lies. It's not just this part about Israel's alleged "brutal, murderous invasion" of Lebanon in 2006, but notice how Chomsky piles on 4 more lies, with this part about "the fifth such invasion" by Israel, etc. So, counting back, we have Gaza in 2009, Lebanon in 2006, Lebanon in 1982, Yom Kippur in 1973, and the Six Day War of 1967. There are a few other conflicts, but these are probably the ones Chomsky's referencing. And in each case, Israel acted in self-defense, or as preemption in the case of 1967. That is, the "credible pretext" has been either border incursions into Israel, rocket attacks, terrorism against Israel civilians, or full-scale massed army warfare waged by "murderous" Arab regimes against the Jewish state. Here's Wikipedia, for example, on the origins of the 2006 Lebanon war:

The conflict began when militants from the group Hezbollah fired rockets at Israeli border towns as a diversion for an anti-tank missile attack on two armored Humvees patrolling the Israeli side of the border fence. The ambush left three soldiers dead. Two additional soldiers, believed to have been killed outright or mortally wounded, were taken by Hezbollah to Lebanon. Five more were killed in a failed rescue attempt. Israel responded with airstrikes and artillery fire on targets in Lebanon that damaged Lebanese civilian infrastructure, including Beirut's Rafic Hariri International Airport ,[35] an air and naval blockade, and a ground invasion of southern Lebanon. Hezbollah then launched more rockets into northern Israel and engaged the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in guerrilla warfare from hardened positions....

At around 9 AM local time on 12 July 2006, Hezbollah launched diversionary rocket attacks toward Israeli military positions near the coast and near the border village of Zar'it[60] as well as on the Israeli town of Shlomi and other villages. Five civilians were injured. Six Israeli military positions were fired on, and the surveillance cameras knocked out. At the same time, a Hezbollah ground contingent infiltrated the border into Israel through a "dead zone" in the border fence, hiding in an overgrown wadi. They attacked a patrol of two Israeli armoured Humvees patrolling the border near Zar'it, using pre-positioned explosives and anti-tank missiles, killing three soldiers, injuring two, and capturing two soldiers (Master Sergeant Ehud Goldwasser and First Sergeant Eldad Regev). In response to the Hezbollah feint attacks, the IDF conducted a routine check of its positions and patrols, and found that contact with two jeeps was lost. A rescue force was immediately dispatched to the area, and confirmed that two soldiers were missing after 20 minutes. A Merkava Mk III tank, an Armored personnel carrier, and a helicopter were immediately dispatched into Lebanon. The tank hit a large land mine, killing its crew of four. Another soldier was killed and two lightly injured by mortar fire as they attempted to recover the bodies.

Hezbollah named the attack "Operation Truthful Promise" after leader Hassan Nasrallah's public pledges over the prior year and a half to seize Israeli soldiers and swap them for four Lebanese held by Israel...

What's interesting about the Wikipedia entry is not only how devastating it is to Noam Chomsky's argument, but also that Wikipedia's widely perceived as hopelessly left-wing on top of that. See, "How the Left Conquered Wikipedia, Part 1."

I've seen Chomsky in person. It was a creepy experience, basically attending a function surrounded by hippies, progressives, and terrorists. And Chomsky just spewed lies the whole time. And here he is on Democracy Now!, and of course, cited as the high holy authority on the Middle East by activists on the communist left. And it's all a bunch of lies.

Anyway, William Jacobson has more on that, "The Palestinian bubble bursts again."

Sarah Palin Within 5 Points of Barack Obama in Latest McClatchy-Marist Poll: Will Decide on GOP Race by November

See: "Nearly Half Plan to Vote Against Obama, But Is There a Winner in the GOP Field?"

And at The Hill, "Palin suggests she'll make a 2012 decision by November." (At Memeorandum.)

PHOTOS: The scene at Newport Lido Theatre, "The Undefeated" screening, Wednesday, September 7, 2011.

Obama Rejects Palestinian Bid for Statehood Through the United Nations

Actually, I was pleasantly surprised by the president's comments on Israel. I thought he was going to come down harder on Jerusalem. His comments on the Middle East begin just before 19:00 minutues:

And here's this from the Business Week editorial:

... we were struck by the force of Obama’s description of the U.S.’s “unshakable” commitment to Israel. Rarely has a speaker at the UN rostrum spoken so clearly and obviously sympathetically on how Israeli and Jewish history shapes that nation’s security concerns. That point might seem self-evident, but it was a pointed and welcome rebuke to Holocaust deniers or minimizers in the Middle East and elsewhere.

Odder still was his silence on U.S. opposition to establishing a Palestinian state in the current UN session. Obama offered only a tepid endorsement of Palestinian aspirations to independence. Obama might feel that he made his stand against the Palestinian strategy clear by stating that negotiations and compromise offer the only path to Israeli- Palestinian peace and that “there are no shortcuts.” But we believe that most in the audience expected an explicit explanation of U.S. policy and its plan to veto a resolution of recognition in the Security Council.

Actually, I think New York's special election last week, and the role of Ed Koch, sent a huge message to the White House. The president's U.N. speech was just one of the first instances of Jewish outreach we'll be seeing a lot of over the next year.

See also New York Times, "Obama, at U.N., Explains Rationale for Opposing Palestinian Statehood Bid."

And at Business Week, "Palestinians to Delay Call for Fast UN Vote on Statehood Bid."

RELATED: Caroline Glick, "Obama's War on Israel." And from Pamela, "Obama Gaslights the Jews."

Tom Sizemore Wrongly Arrested After Clerical Error Shows Outstanding Warrant for Battery

The guy's unmatched as the contemporary big screen's iconic infantryman. He's had personal problems, including drug addictions, but appears to be getting it back together.

At Radar Online, "Tom Sizemore's Arrest Was ‘A Misunderstanding,’ Community Service Has Been Completed" (via Tom Sizemore on Twitter).

The dude had in fact completed community service, and was arrested on a clerical error. His letter indicating completion of community service is here.

Gay Extremist Dan Savage Organizes Hate Campaign Against Rick Santorum on Google

This is the progressive, tolerant homosexual left in action.

At Politico, "Rick Santorum contacted Google, says company spreads 'filth'."

And Dan Savage is apparently behind this: "That frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex..."

Yeah, I know. You're ready to puke. Gay "rights" will do that to you.

See also, TPM, "Search Engine Expert: Rick Santorum’s New Crusade Against Google Is Total Nonsense."

These people are the dregs of the dirtbag progressive homosexual dregs.

PREVIOUSLY: "Gay Sexual Abandon and the Perverse Inversion of Values by Same-Sex Extremists."

NewsBusted: 'Bad poll numbers are fueling speculation that Obama is too depressed to run for reelection'

Via Theo Spark:

Republicans Slam Obama's Mideast Policy

At LAT, "GOP candidates target Obama's Middle East policy":

With world leaders in New York for the United Nations General Assembly, Republican presidential hopefuls seized the opportunity Tuesday to blame President Obama for the most contentious issues looming over the gathering, saying he had emboldened the Palestinians to push for statehood and endangered Israel by kowtowing to Iran, Muslim militants, and, in the words of Texas Gov. Rick Perry, "the orchestrators of terrorism."

Perry, speaking at a Manhattan hotel, made a pitch to Jewish voters by calling for Jerusalem — including East Jerusalem, which the Palestinians envision as the capital of their future state — to be the undisputed territory of Israel.

More at the link.

Also, at Yid With Lid, "Was Rick Perry's Israel Speech Over-The-Top? Let's Look at the Facts."

Greta Van Susteren Interviews Her 'Friend' Tucker Carlson 'On the Record' (VIDEO)

Honestly, this is hard to watch --- and I mean Tucker Carlson debasing himself. When he pleads that he's got a wife and three daughters, that's it:

And see William Jacobson, "Can the Daily Caller survive?"

BONUS: Dan Riehl, "The Caller and How Not to Manage a Media Crisis."

What Comes After 'Europe'?

From Bret Stephens, at Wall Street Journal:

What is now happening in Europe isn't so much a crisis as it is an exposure: a Madoff-type event rather than a Lehman one. The shock is that it's a shock. Greece was never going to be bailed out and will, sooner or later, default. The banks holding Greek debt will, sooner or later, be recapitalized. The recapitalization will be borne by German taxpayers, and it will bring them—sooner rather than later—to the outer limit of their forbearance. The Chinese will not ride to the rescue: They know not to throw good money after bad ....

What comes next is the explosion of the European project. Given what European leaders have made of that project over the past 30-odd years, it's not an altogether bad thing. But it will come at a massive cost. The riots of Athens will become those of Milan, Madrid and Marseilles. Parties of the fringe will gain greater sway. Border checkpoints will return. Currencies will be resurrected, then devalued. Countries will choose decay over reform. It's a long, likely parade of horribles.

Man, that's harsh.

'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' Repealed

At LAT, "'Don't ask, don't tell' repeal lets gays, lesbians serve openly."

Cartoon Credit: Matt Bors.

RELATED: From David Horowitz, "Issues That Dare Not Speak Their Name":

“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is a way of containing the destructive force of sex on a combat capability called “unit cohesion.” To create the perfect killing machine, the military works hard to drain recruits of their individuality and their self-interested desires in order to make them think like cogs, well, in a machine. An essential part of the military mind is that the members of a fighting unit don’t think for themselves, but do as they are told. They work as a unit in which each performs an appointed task. The mission objective – not personal consideration – guides their actions. Suppose a commander were faced with the choice of risking his unit or risking the life of his own son, for example. Suppose the life of his son were threatened, but to save him would risk the military objective his superiors had set. Suppose he let the human override the imperatives of the machine. He would be doing what was natural, but the military objective he sacrificed might cost the lives of hundreds or thousands.

To avoid such breaches of military discipline, military policy does not allow family members to fight in the same unit. The same principle underlies its policy towards gays. Sacrifice of unit cohesion and military order is the threat that sex between soldiers poses for any combat force. The open inclusion of gays in the military is regarded by military men who oppose it a threat to effectiveness of the military as a fighting force.

Also, Mackubin Thomas Owens, "The Case Against Gays in the Military":

Winning the nation's wars is the military's functional imperative. Indeed, it is the only reason for a liberal society to maintain a military organization. War is terror. War is confusion. War is characterized by chance, uncertainty and friction. The military's ethos constitutes an evolutionary response to these factors—an attempt to minimize their impact.

Accordingly, the military stresses such martial virtues as courage, both physical and moral, a sense of honor and duty, discipline, a professional code of conduct, and loyalty. It places a premium on such factors as unit cohesion and morale. The glue of the military ethos is what the Greeks called philia—friendship, comradeship or brotherly love. Philia, the bond among disparate individuals who have nothing in common but facing death and misery together, is the source of the unit cohesion that most research has shown to be critical to battlefield success.

Philia depends on fairness and the absence of favoritism. Favoritism and double standards are deadly to philia and its associated phenomena—cohesion, morale and discipline—are absolutely critical to the success of a military organization.

The presence of open homosexuals in the close confines of ships or military units opens the possibility that eros—which unlike philia is sexual, and therefore individual and exclusive—will be unleashed into the environment. Eros manifests itself as sexual competition, protectiveness and favoritism, all of which undermine the nonsexual bonding essential to unit cohesion, good order, discipline and morale.

We'll of course see how these arguments play out in real life.

Don Henley Harrah's Rincon San Diego, September 25

My birthday's coming up and my wife scored some tickets. So, we'll be heading out on Sunday for Don Henley live, Open Sky Theater at Harrah's Rincon. Recall, my wife and I saw The Eagles April 25, 2010. At the clip is "Dirty Laundry," from the same tour:

And see "Don Henley extends solo trek of western U.S."

The Public Has Rejected the Left's Radical Agenda

From Victor Davis Hanson, at National Review, "Obama Becomes the Fall Guy":

From January 2009 through 2010, Obama advanced the liberal dream with a passion not seen since the New Deal days of Franklin Roosevelt. He bulldozed all opposition and rammed through most of what he wanted with the help of a Democratic Congress: Obamacare, record borrowing, record spending, and hundreds of hard-left presidential appointees and judges.

Far from being namby-pamby, Obama has gone after opponents like no president since Richard Nixon. He urged Hispanics to “punish our enemies.” He called his political opponents “hostage takers.” The affluent were lumped together with the super-rich and derided as “millionaires and billionaires,” “corporate-jet owners,” and “fat cat” bankers. His supporters in unions and the Congressional Black Caucus freely blasted the Tea Party with slurs — with the unspoken assurance that the president’s constant calls for civility certainly did not apply to them.

Critics may lampoon Obama’s use of a teleprompter, but he still uses it to good effect in his near-daily speeches. Obama is a far better megaphone for left-wing policies than was the lackluster Jimmy Carter, the pompous Al Gore, or the condescending John Kerry. He easily outshines the wooden Harry Reid and the polarizing Nancy Pelosi. Compared with Obama and his smoothness, an often gaffe-prone Vice President Joe Biden can seem a liability. Obama is as charismatic as “I feel your pain” Bill Clinton — as we saw in 2008, when Obama destroyed the primary challenge of Hillary Clinton.

So the Left cannot really complain that Obama either betrayed the cause or proved particularly inept in advancing it. Instead, what Obama’s supporters are mad about is that the public is boiling over chronic 9 percent unemployment, a comatose housing market, escalating food and fuel prices, near-nonexistent economic growth, a gyrating stock market, record deficits, $16 trillion in aggregate debt, and a historic credit downgrading. And voters are not just mad, but are blaming these hard times on the liberal Obama agenda of more regulations, more federal spending, more borrowing, more talk of taxes, and more “stimulus” programs.

A mostly moderate-to-conservative public has concluded that it does not like the new liberal agenda. After three years, it believes that the big government/big borrowing medicine made the inherited illness far worse. Voters may or may not like Obama, but they surely do not like what he is still trying to do.

In response, the Left needs a sacrificial lamb. So it has nonsensically turned with a fury on Obama as if he were culpable for pushing through the Left’s own agenda. If Democrats do not blame the public’s anger on their once-beloved messenger, then they are left only with their message itself. And that is something they simply cannot accept.

Obama's $1.5 Trillion Election Ploy

Check the editorial at IBD.

Obama's hoping to make the Republicans look obstructionist. And Professor Caroline Heldman's down with that. Indeed, she's even sold on the (voodoo) economics of it all, saying she's convinced the administration's jobs act will --- wait for it! --- actually create 1.9 million jobs.

Right.

Explaining the Enduring Pop Culture Fascination with Brad Pitt, Jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie

Well, since I've been writing about celebrity marriages, I'll admit this is something I've given some thought.

At Married Man Sex Life, "Why Brad Pitt is With Angelina Jolie and Not Jennifer Aniston":

Jennifer Aniston comes off as a "good girl" and possibly in need of fresh sheets on the bed to be able to come to orgasm. Well okay, maybe that's a bit much, I was saving that line for a Martha Stewart joke and got tired of waiting. Anyway... Angelina Jolie comes off as a fair bit slutty and into having sex. When she was married to Billy Bob Thornton she used to have a vial of his blood in a necklace - I think once bodily fluids become jewelry for a chick, anal is actively ruled in. Plus the tattoos are a fairly good sign of brazen sexuality too. Jennifer Aniston did get that whole cult following of women getting their hair cut in "The Rachel", but guys didn't give a toss about it. Angelina Jolie was Lara Croft for crying out loud, so guys care about that seeing polygon count was involved.

There's a lot more at the link, and that's an explicit analysis, but Angelina's no doubt got the rougher edges.

Image: "Angelina Jolie Quashes Rumors of a Secret Wedding and Admits to Fears About Writing and Directing Her First Feature Film."

HAT TIP: Kathy Shaidle.