Too Much Time Online Strains Marriages!

Via Glenn Reynolds, "Too much time online strains Irish marriages":

The key areas causing conflict "are internet gambling, infidelity and one partner spending too much time online rather than with their spouse and family ...

Yikes! (And it's not infidelity!)

Daily Kos: Malicious is as Malicious Does

Kos gets some nasty mail. No one - repeat, no one - should ever be attacked like this. That said, while ignorant and racist, the e-mailer actually nails it on this one:

(3) FACT: you are also OBJECTIVELY ANTIAMERICAN!!!!!!!! dont even try to deny this for there is ample prof: in 2004 you openly supported the murder of four brave american soldiers in falluja. you tryed to weasel out of your responsiblity, but you cant hide the fact that you hate america and american soldiers and you love al queda and other muslim terrorists who have killed THOUSANDS OF AMERICANS!!!! and will never stop unless they are killed. and whose going to kill them? you? LOL you dont even own a gun because you leftofascists want to repel the second amendent.

Kos apparently later claimed to be "vindicated" by events on the ground. AOSHQ responds:

How does anything that happened, or could happen, "vindicate" his "I feel nothing... screw 'em" statement? That's not saying "Iraq is unwinnable," a statement which could be vindicated by the right facts.

It's just a statement of pure uncaring maliciousness.

Hmm ... "maliciousness." Yep, pretty standard on the left - not hate-mail standard (like the guy writing in to Kos), just standard everyday blogging for these folks.

GOP Sees Narrowing List of Presidential Prospects

From Fox News, "For Republicans, a Narrowing List of Presidential Prospects." My hunch is that Governor Palin will be a much bigger player in '12 than is implied here:

The Grand Old Party's 2012 presidential pool isn't looking so grand these days.

Add Nevada Sen. John Ensign's and South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford's extramarital affairs to Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal's unconvincing TV speech and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's family dramas, and the Republican presidential herd is thinning fast -- leaving many to wonder who will lead the party in its attempt to reclaim the White House.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, Virginia Rep. Eric Cantor, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels are the names now being whispered in Republican circles as potential winners -- although observers admit political speculations can change overnight.

"It's way too early to be playing the name game," said Dana Perino, former White House press secretary for President George W. Bush.

"I believe it will be a governor," said Nick Ayers, executive director of the Republican Governors Association.

Ayers also stressed that it is far too early to make projections, but he said Pawlenty, Jindal and Romney are among the most promising prospects.

But, he added, "The list goes on and on."

Ayers said Republicans are well-positioned for a comeback in 2012, but focusing on a candidate short list now is "totally irrelevant to the rebuilding of the party."

He added that the nomination could very well go to someone with little name recognition.

"When George W. Bush got re-elected in 2004, Barack Obama was a state legislator," Ayers said.

Obama Gives Realism a Bad Name

From James Ceaser, at the Weekly Standard, "Giving 'Realism' a Bad Name":

Democrats are clinging stubbornly to their new religion of "realism" and "pragmatism" in foreign affairs. Even where prudence dictates otherwise, as it surely does in responding to the fraudulent Iranian election and its aftermath, President Obama has been tepid at best in condemning the conduct of the mullocracy. So as reformers in Tehran are being hosed and rounded up, our "realists" stand mute, fearful that any critical comment might upset the one the president dignifies as the "Supreme Leader" or interfere with our Great Reset policy of "engaging" adversaries. The administration will not even await the outcome of events before signaling its eagerness to deal with the current government. Realists will pay any price and bear any burden to avoid anything that resembles the democracy agenda of George W. Bush.

Democrats were not always so tough-minded. For decades, they supported the causes of democracy and humanitarianism, regularly excoriating Republican presidents for coddling antidemocratic leaders. President Reagan was taken to task for his cozy relations with dictators like Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos (whom he eventually succeeded in moving aside), and the first President Bush was accused of fighting the first Gulf war to do the bidding of the Saudi king. Even George W. Bush, when it was politically convenient, was whipped with the lash of the Democrats' idealism. Almost all the Democratic contenders for the nomination in 2008 criticized his close relations to Pakistan's Pervez Musharraf, with considerations of realism providing him no relief. Barack Obama was no exception:

I said very early on, when emergency rule was initiated by Musharraf, that we should suspend military aid     until you had full restoration of democracy, including releasing political prisoners, and insuring that there's freedom of expression and freedom of the press during the election period.

But the Iraq war - and partisan politics - gradually changed the Democrats' calculation. As conditions deteriorated in Iraq, and as many finally accepted that President Bush was in earnest about his commitment to the spread of democracy, liberals flipped. They abandoned their previous commitment to principle, condemned Bush for idealism and ideological blindness, and embraced with fervor the position they labeled realism. Realism, if the word is taken at face value, seems to mean nothing more - or less - than seeing the world as it is, without blinders or excessive hopes or fears. But in the context of the debate in recent years, it came to refer to something much more specific: It meant a cessation of all principled talk about democracy and universal rights, including their philosophical foundations, and a willingness to engage with any and all forces that could claim to have created order. Democracy, realists say, is for the long run; in the short run our job is to deal with the forces of order.

I made similar points last night. See, "Devastating: Obama's Abandonment of Democracy and Human Rights."

The West Betrays the Iranian Protest Movement

From Matthias Küntzel:

The Iranians who are resisting the electoral putsch are not only being humiliated and beaten by the batons and bullets of the Pasdaran but also by the inaction of the so-called freedom-loving world: no call for a special session of the UN, no threats of sanctions, no boycott declaration, no economic embargo, not even the smallest warning—let's just not take sides or make any commitments as long as the result of the struggle in Iran remains open. The West, so the argument goes, has to be careful to avoid providing any pretext to vilify the Iranian opposition. So Obama doesn't need days but weeks to slowly pull back his outstretched hand, while the German Foreign Ministry argues all the more emphatically for a dialogue with the putsch-regime. Undauntedly, the German-Iranian Chamber of Industry and Commerce in Tehran advertises the building of a German-Iranian Business Center in Berlin, while the German-Iranian Chamber of Commerce in Hamburg reported today that its upcoming seminar on "Export Certification in Iran Trade" (July 13) is already overcrowded. And haven't we gotten along somehow or other with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during the past four years?

But this time this optimistic hope that things will just go on is a self-deception. Khamenei and Ahmadinejad represent the apocalyptic wing of the regime that has just carried out a coup d'etat. Both of them have politicized the mystical image of the Shiite Messiah, the "twelfth Imam," and they have mystified politics through appeals to the alleged will of that imaginary creature. In his Friday sermon, Khamenei attributed even the high electoral participation to the influence of that same twelfth Imam. For Ahmadinejad the return of the Messiah, so longed for, depends on maximal chaos and unrest in the world and on the destruction of Israel. It is therefore only consistent for him to regard the "nuclearization of Iran" as the "beginning of a fundamental change in the world."

More at the link.

See also, "Devastating: Obama's Abandonment of Democracy and Human Rights."

Additional commentary at Memeorandum, especially, José María Aznar, "Silence Has Consequences for Iran," and Astute Bloggers, "Aznar: "This is no time for hesitation on the part of the West."

No Going Back to Ayatollah Khomeini's Islamic Republic

Reuel Marc Gerecht, at the Weekly Standard, "The June 12 Revolution":

What's happening in Iran now is all about democracy, about the contradictory and chaotic bedfellows that it makes, about the questioning of authority and the personal curiosity that it unleashes. Khamenei knows what George H.W. Bush's "realist" national security adviser Brent Scowcroft surely knows, too: Democracy in Iran implies regime change. Where Iranians in the 1990s could try to play games with themselves - be in favor of greater democracy but refrain from saying publicly that the current government was illegitimate - this fiction is no longer possible. Khamenei has forced Mousavi and, more important, the people behind him into opposition to himself and the political system he leads. Unless Mousavi gives up, and thereby deflates the millions who've gathered around him, a permanent opposition to Khamenei and his constitutionally ordained supremacy has now formed. Like it or not, Mousavi has become the new Khatami - except this time the opposition is stronger and led by a man of considerable intestinal fortitude.

More at the link.

Barack Obama and North Korea's March to War

From Pamela Geller's new piece at the American Thinker, "North Korea's March to War"

North Korea has been busy, busy, busy since the election of our weak President. This week, they have sharply increased their war rhetoric. On Wednesday they issued this threat: "If the U.S. imperialists start another war, the army and people of Korea will ... wipe out the aggressors on the globe once and for all." And on Thursday they promised a "fire shower of nuclear retaliation" if the U.S. attacked them. The media is pretending that it isn't happening, whistling in the dark, but how can anyone avoid noticing that since Obama's failed policies have been introduced, the evil forces of the world have been unleashed?

The full essay is here.

Added: Hot Air, "US won’t use force to inspect NoKo ship." And Memeorandum.

Kick Sanford to the Curb

Mark Steyn's got some comments today on L'Affaire Sanford, "Big government more or less guarantees rule by creeps and misfits":

In a lousy week, Mark Sanford had one stroke of luck: Michael Jackson chose the day after the governor's news conference to moonwalk into eternity, and thus gave the media's pop therapists a more rewarding subject to feast on – or at any rate one of the few stories whose salient points are weirder than Sanford's. Not that the governor didn't do his best to keep his end up on the pop culture allusions: "I've spent the last five days crying in Argentina," he revealed, in presumably unconscious hommage to Evita.

It's good, and the whole thing is here; and lots more commentary at Memeorandum.

But don't miss Mary Grabar's piece at Pajamas Media, "Republicans Should Kick Sanford to the Curb":

What a public relations nightmare Mark Sanford’s revelations about his affair present to the GOP.

But I suggest that we not concern ourselves with public relations, or with sympathy for Sanford. And we should certainly not follow the path taken by Democrats, whose betrayed wives, like Elizabeth Edwards, go on a book tour or try to rationalize their husband’s affairs, as Hillary Clinton did.

Sanford’s affair proves that one’s personal life — contrary to the claims of the “Clinton lied but no one died” contingent — does affect one’s ability to govern. Sanford’s disastrous press conference revealed that he is a man still torn between his mistress and his wife. That as a governor he could take off for Argentina and place his state in jeopardy proves that the emotional turmoil of an extramarital affair clouds one’s thinking and actions. It gives the lie to the claim that one’s personal life has nothing to do with job performance. It proves that politicians’ personal lives should be the subject of scrutiny. Only a conscienceless person could carry on an affair without it clouding his thinking. Of course, there are the sociopaths, but we don’t want them in office either.

Sadly, this revelation provides fodder for the left-wing attack corps, whose favorite charge is “hypocrisy!” — especially when the cheater promotes family values and has gone after the opposition for the very same sins, as Sanford did during Clinton’s impeachment. There is nothing more that the left would like to do than disprove conservatives’ contentions that high moral values are important. There is nothing better they would like to see happen than a concession to their idea that morals are relative, that such failings are common and therefore not to be condemned too harshly.

More at the link.

Democratic Epic Moral Fail!

Regarding my recent blogging on the Democratic nihilists, Skye from Midnight Blue asks,"Why bother with Casper? He is an embarrassment even with the fringe folks."

Democratic blogger, epic moral fail, at bottom, jonesing for traffic.

Why? Well, with all due respect to my beautiful friend Skye, I mainly do it because it's worth highlighting the total moral bankruptcy and infinite hypocrisy of these freaking idiots.

Nihilist netroots bloggers called out conservatives for their outrage on the Linda Biegel story. What's the problem with a little Photoshop of Trig Palin as a ghoul? It's not about the baby. It's the "evil" "Homophobic, Red Shirt, Bible Thumping Nazi, Gay Bashing, Tea Bagging, Racist, White Guy, Bigots."

Well, remember John Hawkins' suggestion, that it's "time to give them a taste of their own medicine"?

It turns out when you turn the Photoshop tables, the nihilists don't like it one bit! Here's this from Repsac3, in response to my Photoshop yesterday on the "Commissariat for Internet Affairs":

A college professor with a Ph.D., and this is the level of discourse you're choosing?

As before, all I can say is wow.

If I were your employer, your student, or your friend, I'd be embarrassed to have to admit it.

Politics of the personal, at it's finest.

And worst of all, not even funny.

A loss on all counts.

Sad, to see what you've become. But I guess I should've expected it. The hinges have been coming off for awhile.

My sympathies to all those who knew you back when...

Hmm ... pretty indignant right?

The increasingly frequent "wow, just wow" line is when leftists realize they're TOTALLY F*****!!

I don't recall Repsac3's outrage, or that of his radical allies, at David Hoogland Noon's Photoshop of me from last year. Nope, it's totally cool when it's done by your side!! No matter that nihilist Noon boasts a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota. Hey, anything to take down the "evil" neocons! Even left-wing anti-Semitism is cool with these jerks.

What was that Black Flag song again? Oh yeah, "No Values":

I've got no values
Nothing to say
I've got no values
Might as well blow you away

And they would too. They would blow away Sarah Palin if they had the chance. Look how they've mercilessly stalked the Palin family for almost a year now. Recall how this whole controversy erupted? With the awful, just reprehensible Photoshops of Baby Trig? Hey, no problem for the Democrats. The leftists are fully down with it! And it's understandable. "Sarah Palin is the most dangerous threat to the Obama administration with no close second." And to the radical left as well.

Of course, look at this picture ... this is who the nihilist leftists want to destroy:

And what does Brain Rage have to say about Trig Palin? It's all at the blog:

There's nothing worse than an ugly baby....

And about Trig's mother, Governor Palin?

... an incurious dullard.

A Downs child? An "ugly baby."

God help these people, seriously? I blog about this stuff all the time. It's time consuming, I know. And like Skye, many others have said, "don't waste your time on these moral reprobates."

The point's well taken, but you have to see it to believe it, so I continue to blog this stuff, to get this pure hate out in the open for all to see. John Hawkins is right: You have to get down and dirty, but you can never GET THAT DIRTY.

Repsac3 and James "Barebacker" Webb are not some fringe contingents of the Democratic Party. These people ARE the Democratic majority. THIS IS WHAT THEY DO!!

Even this morning, James "Barebacker" Webb has a post up saying it's all a joke, and that American Power has suffered a "Humor Fail."

Actually, the post in question wasn't comedy. My parody was only half in jest, as anyone familiar with the left's secular demonology knows.

Besides, we can just appeal to the marketplace of ideas to see who's really epic fail here.

Let's compare: Here's my traffic report for last week:

Here's James Webb's traffic report for last week:

So, my friends. There you have it. James B. Webb. Total. Epic. Moral. Fail.

Pretty freaking lousy blogging too! See Robert Stacy McCain, "How Not to Get a Million Hits On Your Blog, And Not Score With Hotties. Ever."

PWNED!! TOTALLY!! DUDE!!

**********

Cartoon Credit: David Horsey.

Iran Protests Winding Down?

Pamela Geller ran this yesterday, "Iran Revolution Day 14: Makeshift Hospitals, News Blackout, Ayatollah Khatami: Iran Protesters Will Be Punished "Without Mercy" "Worthy of Execution", BOLTON: Mullahs Must go!"

Also, via Gateway Pundit, this video shows a democracy protester shot in the head by Basij militia:

There's also been unrest in Sweden. Protesters there have stormed the Iranian embassy. See Allahpundit, "Sweden Invades Iran." And Fox News reports, "U.S. Officials: Iran Opposition Leader's Web Site Shut Down, Supporters 'Tortured' Into Confessions."

Pamela at Atlas Shrugs has a new report, "Iran Revolution Day 15: Deadly Silence." And from PoliGazette, "Iran’s Protests Ending After Clerics Calls for Executions?"

The urgency of mainstream Iran reporting seems to be fading, however. As the New York Times reports, "Iranian Leaders Gaining the Edge Over Protesters." The Lede's taking the weekend off from Iran reporting. And while Nico Pitney continues live-blogging the revolt, Trita Parsi and Reza Aslan at Foreign Policy have an analysis on the implications of the uprising, "The End of the Beginning: What Will be the Legacy of the Green Revolution?"

One implication: The world now knows that America today is an enemy of democracy promotion and human rights worldwide. "Realism" is de rigeur. Meanwhile, hardliners have welcomed the green light from the Obama administration. See the Washington Post, "Authoritarian Regimes Censor News From Iran."

More updates throughout the day.

ADDED: The Washington Post, "Iran's Lessons: Shouldn't 'Realism' Mandate Regime Change?"

Devastating: Obama's Abandonment of Democracy and Human Rights

Joshua Muravchik's essay at Commentary, "The Abandonment of Democracy," is absolutely devastating:

The most surprising thing about the first half-year of Barack Obama’s presidency, at least in the realm of foreign policy, has been its indifference to the issues of human rights and democracy. No administration has ever made these its primary, much less its exclusive, goals overseas. But ever since Jimmy Carter spoke about human rights in his 1977 inaugural address and created a new infrastructure to give bureaucratic meaning to his words, the advancement of human rights has been one of the consistent objectives of America’s diplomats and an occasional one of its soldiers.

This tradition has been ruptured by the Obama administration. The new president signaled his intent on the eve of his inauguration, when he told editors of the Washington Post that democracy was less important than “freedom from want and freedom from fear. If people aren’t secure, if people are starving, then elections may or may not address those issues, but they are not a perfect overlay.”

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton followed suit, in opening testimony at her Senate confirmation hearings. As summed up by the Post’s Fred Hiatt, Clinton “invoked just about every conceivable goal but democracy promotion. Building alliances, fighting terror, stopping disease, promoting women’s rights, nurturing prosperity—but hardly a peep about elections, human rights, freedom, liberty or self-rule.”

A few days after being sworn in, President Obama pointedly gave his first foreign press interview to the Saudi-owned Arabic-language satellite network, Al-Arabiya. The interview was devoted entirely to U.S. relations with the Middle East and the broader Muslim world, and through it all Obama never mentioned democracy or human rights.

A month later, announcing his plan and timetable for the withdrawal of American forces from Iraq, the president said he sought the “achievable goal” of “an Iraq that is sovereign, stable, and self-reliant,” and he spoke of “a more peaceful and prosperous Iraq.” On democracy, one of the prime goals of America’s invasion of Iraq, and one toward which impressive progress had been demonstrated, he was again silent.

While drawing down in Iraq, Obama ordered more troops sent to Afghanistan, where America was fighting a war he had long characterized as more necessary and justifiable than the one in Iraq. But at the same time, he spoke of the need to “refocus on Al Qaeda” in Afghanistan, at least implying that this meant washing our hands of the project of democratization there. The Washington Post reported that “suggestions by senior administration officials . . . that the United States should set aside the goal of democracy in Afghanistan” had prompted that country’s foreign minister to make “an impassioned appeal for continued U.S. support for an elected government.”

This is actually sad to read. One more passage, for example:

Obama seems to believe that democracy is overrated, or at least overvalued. When asked about the subject in his pre-inaugural interview with the Washington Post, Obama said that he is more concerned with “actually delivering a better life for people on the ground and less obsessed with form, more concerned with substance.” He elaborated on this thought during his April visit to Strasbourg, France:

We spend so much time talking about democracy—and obviously we should be promoting democracy everywhere we can. But democracy, a well-functioning society that promotes liberty and equality and fraternity, does not just depend on going to the ballot box. It also means that you’re not going to be shaken down by police because the police aren’t getting properly paid. It also means that if you want to start a business, you don’t have to pay a bribe. I mean, there are a whole host of other factors that people need . . . to recognize in building a civil society that allows a country to be successful.

Whether or not the President was aware of it, he was echoing a theme first propounded long ago by Soviet propagandists and later sung in many variations by all manner of Third World dictators, Left to Right. It has long since been discredited by a welter of research showing that democracies perform better in fostering economic and social well being, keeping the peace, and averting catastrophes. Never mind that it is untoward for a President of the United States to speak of democracy as a mere “form,” less important than substance.

The full essay is here.

Compare and contrast Muravchik with folks like Greg Scoblete, in "The War on Obama's Realism."

Scoblete evinces an astonishing degree of Bush-hatred and Sullivan-esque neoconservative derangement. With Scoblete, it's clear that the abandonment of America's historic values is a virtue for the Democrats - a party that has spent the better part of six years denigrating GOP foreign policiy and stabbing the American military in the back. This is the unfortunate result of the full-on maturation, since the 1960s, of what Fred Baumann has called the "moral condemnation of nearly any use of American military might." It didn't used to be this way. Republicans in earlier decades adopted a "realist" persuasion to put a hard gloss on events during the Cold War. Memories of World War II were still vivid for many statesmen. The idealism and pacifism of the interwar years is widely seen as contributing to the deaths of tens of millions of people worldwide. Sadly, the Western democracies stood up against tyranny much too late. When we commemorate historical anniversies like D-Day, June 6, 1944, the message of firm resolve in the furtherance and preservation of liberty is essential to the dignity of these solemn occasions.

Recalling these points makes it that much more stomach-churning to read the new "realists," who adopt the paradigm simply to provide academic cover to a postmodern epistemology of appeasement and weakness. It's evil, frankly, and fundamentally dishonest. Daniel Larison's writing comes to mind, in addition to the hack, Scoblete. A verbose essayist at the American Conservative, Larison's writings on foreign policy would be equally at home at extreme left-wing propaganda organs as the anti-American Counterpunch.

Larison's hobby is to pick on writers who he thinks are less capable, or those of enough prominence to throw him enough hits to match his buddy RAWMUSLGLUTES. Larison's overriding obsession, it's clear, is to attack neoconservatives. What's especially interesting, though, is Larison's pathetic grasp of international history, which he combines with an aggressive use of half-truths and distortions (to essentially smear those who advocate a robust international policy). Contrary to Larison at the post cited above, in 2003, the Russians, French and Germans opposed the Iraq build-up for reasons of naked greed and political interest - oil - and not because they were unified in opposing some kind of neo-imperial project in the Middle East. Larison's just one of those hate-addled progenitors of the Big Lie when it comes to the previous administration. Funny how a putatively conservative journal like the American Conservative ends up in bed with the radical left; but for the left-libertarians, it's simply an alliance of convenience in opposition to a moral role for America and the world. Often influenced by nativist sentiments at home, paleo-isolationism would not only abandon America's commitment to democracy promotion and human rights, it would do so in those Third World countries that most need the moral clarity of U.S. power and leadership.

A Study in Defeat: Review of Surrender: Appeasing Islam, Sacrificing Freedom

From Jacob Laskin at City Journal: "A Study in Defeat: Bruce Bawer calls out Western apologists for radical Islam":

With the release of his new book, Surrender: Appeasing Islam, Sacrificing Freedom, the American writer and critic Bruce Bawer (some of whose work has appeared in City Journal) may have committed a crime in his adoptive Norway. In 2005, Norway’s politically correct parliament passed the so-called Discrimination Act, a law that, among other curbs on free speech, criminalized “utterances” that may be “insulting” to those of certain religious beliefs. Since Surrender is a searing indictment of Western opinion makers, especially in the media, for capitulating to the rise of radical Islam in Europe, and since Islamic extremists are bound to take issue with the author’s appeal for a sterner defense of Western freedoms, it’s a real possibility that Bawer could be prosecuted for what he has written.

That it has come to this in politically progressive Norway makes Surrender urgent reading. It also serves to bolster Bawer’s chief contention: that many in Europe, and to a lesser extent in the United States, are prepared to roll back essential civil liberties in order to pacify (or so they hope) Muslim radicals. Bawer embarks on a broad offensive, counting leading political, religious, and academic figures among the defeatists. Mainly, though, he directs his rhetorical fire at the press. In their eagerness to forfeit the free-speech rights on which they depend—whether through self-censorship or through craven reporting that casts avowed Islamists as “moderates”—journalists may present the most agonizing illustration of Bawer’s theme that, for too many in the West, surrender is indeed an option.

Read the whole thing, here.

The Amazon link is the Bawer here: Surrrender: Appeasing Islam, Sacrificing Freedom.

Video: Billie Jean Moon Walk; L.A. Times, Jackson 'Just Beaming With Gladness' at Last Rehearsal

This first video features the clip that I keep seeing over and over today: Michael's Jackson's moonwalk to Billie Jean (1983):

The second video is more recent, and is billed at the YouTube page as the "slickest moonwalk ever done":

If anyone's jonesing for more Michael Jackson gossip, head over to the WeSmirch page. TMZ's got "Michael Jackson — The 911 Call," and "Jackson Family — Demerol Shot Caused Death." Also interesting: X17 Online, "Lisa Marie Says Marriage To Micheal Jackson Wasn't ‘A Sham’."

Plus, check the Los Angeles Times, "Michael Jackson's Last Rehearsal: 'Just Beaming With Gladness'."

Barack Obama vs. International Law

From Caroline Glick:

US President Barack Obama consistently couches his demand that Israel prohibit Jewish people from constructing or expanding our homes and communities in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria in legal-sounding language.

Obama has called settlements "illegitimate." And he has said that Israel "has obligations under the road map," while referring disparagingly to "settlements that, in past agreements, have been categorized as illegal."

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Obama's Middle East envoy George Mitchell have repeatedly uttered similar statements.

By characterizing its demand that Israel prohibit Jews from building homes in Israel's capital city and its heartland as a legal requirement, the Obama administration portrays Israel as an international outlaw. After all, if building homes for Jews is a crime, and Israel is not prohibiting Jews from building homes, then Israel is at best guilty of enabling a crime to take place, and at worst, it is a criminal state.

It makes good political sense for the Obama administration to make its case against Israel in this fashion. According to a survey of US public opinion published in early 2006 by the Boston Review, whereas only 7 percent of Democrats support going to war to spread democracy - versus 53% of Republicans; 71% of Democrats - versus 36% of Republicans - support going to war to help the United Nations "uphold international law." What this poll shows is that for Obama supporters, the idea that Israel should be treated poorly because it is in breach of international law resonates deeply.

The problem with the Obama administration's characterization of a ban on Jewish building in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria as an Israeli legal obligation is that Israel has never taken upon itself a legal obligation to prohibit such building activities. Israel has never signed an agreement that has characterized any Jewish communities as "illegal."

Moreover, both former prime minister Ariel Sharon's chief of staff Dov Weisglass and former president George W. Bush's deputy national security adviser for the Middle East Elliott Abrams have gone on record stating that Sharon's much vaunted decision to curtail Jewish building in Judea and Samaria (never Jerusalem), in line with the road map negotiating framework, was based on a series of explicit understandings with the Bush administration that spelled out the scope of Jewish building that Israel would maintain for the duration of the peace process. As Abrams wrote on Thursday in The Wall Street Journal, "Not only were there agreements, but the prime minister of Israel relied on them..."

More at the link.

Comrade Repsac3: Commissar of State Security, People's Commissariat for Internet Affairs

This is Comrade Repsac3, the USA People's Republic Netroots Commissar 1st Rank of State Security, Commissariat for Internet Affairs. Comrade Repsac3 grips feverishly to his sinecure as hardline enforcer for the USA radical left-wing netroots people's movement, the paramilitary base of the Democratic People's Party USA. Comrade Repsac3 models his program as akin to the notorious Lavrenti Beria, the CPSU's butcher of internal security from 1938 to 1946.

As internal security chief for the netroots party appendage apparatus, Comrade Repsac3 leads the Godless nihilist cadres in the left's purge of "Homophobic, Red Shirt, Bible Thumping Nazi, Gay Bashing, Tea Bagging, Racist, White Guy, Bigots."

Comrade Repsac3's shock troops include:

* Comrade Biobrain, State Chief for the Final Extermination of Truth.

* James "Barebacker" Webb, Master Enforcer for the Annihiliation of Non-Hypocrisy.

* (O)CT(O)PUS: Netroots High Commissioner and Chief Breaker of Men, Supreme Enforcer of Internet Security and Conformity.

* Truth101, Minister of Hate, Animal Bestiality Division.

The central organizational directive of atheist collectivists will stop at nothing to implement its totalitarian system of eradication of tradition and values. No one in conservative America is safe.

Change! Obama Will Hold Terror Detainees Indefinitely!

Breaking!

From the Washington Post, "White House Drafts Executive Order to Allow Indefinite Detention of Terror Suspects":

The Obama administration, fearing a battle with Congress that could stall plans to close Guantanamo, has drafted an executive order that would reassert presidential authority to incarcerate terrorism suspects indefinitely, according to three senior government officials with knowledge of White House deliberations.

Such an order would embrace claims by former president George W. Bush that certain people can be detained without trial for long periods under the laws of war. Obama advisers are concerned that bypassing Congress could place the president on weaker footing before the courts and anger key supporters, the officials said.

After months of internal debate over how to close the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, White House officials are growing increasingly worried that reaching quick agreement with Congress on a new detention system may prove impossible. Several officials said there is concern in the White House that the administration may not be able to close the facility by the president's January deadline.

Whoa!

Compare that to the news from January, "Obama Signs Order to Close Guantanamo Bay Facility."

Here's the video:

The full text of Obama's January executive order is here.

Commentary at Memeorandum.

**********

UPDATE: From Andrew Malcolm, "Obama prepares to hold Gitmo guys indefinitely, just as Bush did":

In yet another sign of political perfidy, the White House of President George W. Bush has drafted a presidential executive order that would allow that double-dealing Republican chief executive to hold suspected terrorist detainees indefinitely.

According to the president's intentions, such suspects could be detained for long periods of time, virtually indefinitely. Is this really what the nation voted for last November?

Oh, wait. No. According to an exclusive Washington Post report this afternoon, it's the refreshing new Democratic administration of Barack Obama that's now preparing this new executive order to hold certain terrorist suspects indefinitely.

***********

UPDATE II: See also, Heidi at Big Girl Pants, "Hurry, Hurry, Hurry, Hurry - Now Wait," Wordsmith at Flopping Aces, "Drafting a new EO that supports Dubbya’s Claims?", and Moe Lane, "Annnnd There’s the White House Turning Back to Inefinite Detention."

Jackson Death Fetishism Swarms Coverage of Farrah Fawcett

This Farrah Fawcett video care of This Ain't Hell, But You Can See It From Here...:

My wife and I were watching all the news coverage of Michael Jackson's death last night. She's always been a Jackson fan, but was concerned that the coincidental timing of the deaths would drown coverage of Farrah Fawcett. My wife wrote at her Facebook:

R.I.P. Farrah Fawcett. You will not be forgotten. I was so sorry to hear that Farrah had lost her battle with cancer on the same day that Michael Jackson passed. She will be lost in the circus of "Michael Jackson." She was a true hero in her fight with cancer. So instead of hearing about her life we are only hearing of Michael Jackson. Don't get me wrong I loved Michael Jackson but really who was he at the end???

See also, Allahpundit, "Video: House Holds Moment of Silence for Michael Jackson," and Jonah Goldberg, "Some Quick Thoughts on Michael Jackson."

Related: CNN, "Jackson Dies, Almost Takes Internet With Him," and the Los Angeles Times, "Michael Jackson-related traffic doubled Twitter's update frequency, tripled Facebook's [UPDATED]." See also, Memeorandum.

Bonus: Jim Treacher on Michael Jackson, Carrie Prejean, and pop-cult hypocrisy.

Cap and Trade Follies

Check out Punditte & Pundette, "The Growing Backlash Against Global Warming.

Also, here's this from Kimberley Strassel, "The Climate Change Climate Change":

Steve Fielding recently asked the Obama administration to reassure him on the science of man-made global warming. When the administration proved unhelpful, Mr. Fielding decided to vote against climate-change legislation.

If you haven't heard of this politician, it's because he's a member of the Australian Senate. As the U.S. House of Representatives prepares to pass a climate-change bill, the Australian Parliament is preparing to kill its own country's carbon-emissions scheme. Why? A growing number of Australian politicians, scientists and citizens once again doubt the science of human-caused global warming.

Among the many reasons President Barack Obama and the Democratic majority are so intent on quickly jamming a cap-and-trade system through Congress is because the global warming tide is again shifting. It turns out Al Gore and the United Nations (with an assist from the media), did a little too vociferous a job smearing anyone who disagreed with them as "deniers." The backlash has brought the scientific debate roaring back to life in Australia, Europe, Japan and even, if less reported, the U.S.

Also Blogging: Michelle Malkin, "Cap and tax liveblog: Democrats limit debate, stampede toward national energy tax," and Ed Morrissey, "Cap and trade vote today, complete with AP spin; Update: 300-page, last-minute amendment; Update: Greenpeace opposes."

Cartoon Credit: Ed Driscoll, "2009: A Smoot-Hawley Odyssey."

(P.S. Don't miss the Greenpeace opposition!)

More at Memeorandum.

James "Barebacker" Webb

You can't make this stuff up!

From "Brainrage," who thrives on informality in his insistence on calling me "Don." And then, in another example of his glorious hypocrisy, turns around and demands that folks use his full name:

... it's James B. Webb. Get it right, Don ...

Actually, I NEVER gave James B. Webb permission to call me by my first name, AND THEN TO SHORTEN IT INTO CRUDE MONIKER OF MAN-CRUSH AFFECTION!

Obviously, James B. Webb ignored my earlier memo:

I think all of my readers should call me Dr. Douglas. 'It's just a thing. I worked so hard to get that title.

Hey, man ... it's cool. If he insists, James "Barebacker" Webb it is!

And I mean, SERIOUSLY!! James's link to that OUT website is like a buffed-gay gold mine!

Here's another blog that came to my attention through James B. Webb's blogging: "Best Gay Bloggers." (BUT WAIT!! EDDIE BURKE TRUTHERISM CONTENT WARNING: DON'T GO THERE!!)

And don't forget what I said earlier, "I don't do the flip-floppy on the side!"

Photo Credit: "Best Gay Bloggers."

**********

UPDATE: My friend Stogie at Saberpoint has joined the debate, "Jimmy B. Webb: What's a Libertarian-Socialist?"

Robert Stacy McCain: "I’m Going to Beat You Today"

From Robert Stacy McCain's moving essay on family and Southern heritage:

My two brothers and I grew up in a handsome brick home on a large tree-shaded lot in Lithia Springs—now a booming Atlanta suburb, but then still a relatively sleepy small town—where our middle-class status was always haunted by the shadow of our parents’ childhood poverty. We were constantly reminded of how fortunate we were, a message reinforced by frequent visits “down home” to Randolph County, where my father’s mother still lived in a four-room farmhouse, hoed her own garden, and drew her water from a well. By the early 1970s, with her health beginning to decline, Maw McCain consented to let her children pay to install plumbing at the home place. For most of my childhood, however, there was not even an outhouse at Maw McCain’s, where one attended to calls of nature at a designated area behind the dilapidated old barn.