A Tribute to the Intellect of the Opposition

A Tribute to the Intellect of the Opposition

Below you will find an excerpt from comments to my January 7, 2004 post about "The 'S' Factor" OP/ED written by Neal Starkman. They were left by someone who gave his/her name as simply "N", their email address as fightbigmedia@yahoo.com, and linked to the site http://mediarevolution.blogspot.com/ as their hompage.

Now, I do not have any way to confirm that the information provided above is, in fact, authentic. So I will not make any blanket claim about whomever owns that email address or publishes that blog.

All I can say is that the person who left the comments is not demonstrating, in my parochial, limited, and obviously unsophisticated judgment, the sensitivity and intellect that the Left is famous for having and for finding lacking in the Right.

Observe.

How f-ing [edited from original vulgarity by owner] stupid can you get? GWB is the first president since Herbert Hoover to have net job losses in a presidential term. We've lost 3 million jobs since he's been in office, when we should have gained 3 million for those people who have entered the workforce. You're the kind of person who swears they see green when the light is red.

>Anyone who invests in the stock market (almost 150 million regular Americans - half the population)

Um.... because the Dow is just now getting back to where it was when he was put into office?

>Anyone proud to be an American again

Because our soldiers are off killing sand n----- [edited from original racist and ethnic slur by owner]?

Too bad the author did not give his/her name so that he or she could take credit for this monument to intellectual prowess and compassionate, diverse liberalism

An Interesting Complaint

An Interesting Complaint

Among other things the former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill has to say about George Bush is that the president actually listens to people when they give him a report on their area of expertise.

FOXNews.com - Business - Former Treasury Secretary O'Neill Calls Bush a 'Blind Man'

Speaking of his first meeting with the president, O'Neill said, "I went in with a long list of things to talk about and, I thought, to engage (Bush) on. ... I was surprised it turned out me talking and the presidnt just listening. It was mostly a monologue."

Great Response

A Great Response

Yahoo! News - Texas couple swimming in $7.7m water bill

She said she opened the letter from the utility seeking nearly $8 million and handed it over to her husband, saying: "Honey, you've got a bill."

Curse of the Bad Mustache

Curse of the Bad Mustache

Why do these guys always have a really wimpy, poorly groomed mustache? See the first picture on the right.

FOXNews.com - Top Stories - 'I Want Him to Sit and Rot in Jail'

BBC NEWS | Health | Africa HIV rates 'overestimated'

BBC NEWS | Health | Africa HIV rates 'overestimated'

Clinton Believed in Iraqi WMDs?

Clinton Believed in Iraqi WMDs?

It's a second-hand report so take it for what's it's worth. OTOH, the source, the Portuguese Prime Minister, is not some American right-winger.

Clinton believes Iraq had weapons of mass destruction: Portugal PM

Former US president Bill Clinton said in October during a visit to Portugal that he was convinced Iraq had weapons of mass destruction up until the fall of Saddam Hussein, Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Manuel Durao Barroso said.

"When Clinton was here recently he told me he was absolutely convinced, given his years in the White House and the access to privileged information which he had, that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction until the end of the Saddam regime," he said in an interview with Portuguese cable news channel SIC Noticias.

Home-grown Nut Jobs

Home-grown Nut Jobs

CBS News | Terror Plot In Texas? | January 8, 2004 02:27:42

In the wake of Sept. 11, there is concern that homegrown terrorists may be operating under the federal radar.

Apparently not all of them . . .

"It's scary when you look at the capabilities, look at the vulnerabilities of our society," says former FBI agent Danny Coulson. "We don't have to concern ourselves so much with only foreign terrorists, but we need to concern ourselves with domestic terrorists too, and these guys are dangerous."

Also unsettling is the fact that Krar and the others have refused to cooperate with authorities. If they did have a target for terror planned, they will likely take it to prison when they're sentenced next month.

Did this reporter actually believe that someone crazy enough to actively work towards carrying out a KKK terrorist attack would suddenly change their mind and give it all up?

WWDD: What Would Dowd Do . . .

WWDD: What Would Dowd Do . . .

. . . if an airliner had been hijacked during the holidays. Then she would have said something about Bush's inability to protect us. Damned if you do . . . You know, if I have to be damned, I would rather be damned for doing than not.

Thank you, President Bush, for doing all you can to prevent another 9/11.

Op-Ed Columnist: Tizzy Over Lezzies

They like him even though Osama and Al Qaeda are still lurking and frothing, even though we couldn't get through the holidays without an orange alert and flights being canceled, and even though Iraq is still a free-fire zone after a war to get rid of weapons that may not have existed.

In another part of the OP/ED, Dowd says

The president said making illegal immigrants legal would "honor our values," while conservatives went on TV to howl that Mr. Bush was rewarding criminal behavior. The president probably figures that the Republican-led Congress will never pass it anyway, so he can get the credit in states like Florida without having to deal with the results.

Two things here -

1. NB - CONSERVATIVES CRITICIZE THEIR OWN WHEN THEY DO SOMETHING WE DISAGREE WITH.

   Compare this with the reaction that Dem pols get from liberal pundits.

2. As for supposing Congress won't pass it, isn't that what was expected of the Campaign "Kill-the-First-Amendment" Finance bill? And then they thought that it would be put down by SCOTUS? Hopefully they have learned their lesson from that . . . but probably not.

Ms. Dowd continues:

Long regarded as the least glamorous of all minority groups, lesbians are now cover girls.

C'mon. Really? Ok, how many of you out there reading this used to think to yourself, "You know, of all the minorities I am bigoted against [and you obviously are if you are conservative], lesbians strike me as the least alluring, the most dull?"

Looney Left Conspiracy Site of the Day

Looney Left Conspiracy Site of the Day

What a way to start a category.

Bush Family Values Photo Album

More on Illegal Immigration "Reforms"

More on Illegal Immigration "Reforms"

Michelle Malkin gives us a healthy does of realism concerning some proposed Social Security "reforms" which would allow illegal aliens to collect Social Security even after they go back to their home country - most likely Mexico.

Michelle Malkin: The criminal raid on Social Security

According to Rep. Clay Shaw, R-Fla., chairman of the House Ways and Means subcommittee on Social Security, benefits paid to retirees will exceed revenues in just 15 years. The pay-as-you-go system could go belly up as early as 2030. These projections don't take into account the economic impact of the Bush proposal, which would allow untold millions of illegal aliens from Mexico to collect full cash benefits for themselves and their families from their home country -- without having to work the required number of years that law-abiding American citizens must work to be eligible for payouts.

The bureaucrats call this scheme "totalization." . . . .

Unbelievably, the White House is trying to convince us to embrace this global ripoff because it "rewards work." No, it rewards criminal behavior. The plan will siphon off the hard-earned tax dollars of American workers who may never see a dime of their confiscated earnings and fork it over to foreigners guilty of at least four acts of federal law-breaking: crossing the border illegally, working illegally, engaging in tax fraud and using bogus documents.

To be Poor in Heaven

To be Poor in Heaven

Quick: What does it mean to be poor or in poverty?

I would bet that most people thought of squalid conditions, bad/no housing, insufficient food, ratty clothing, disease, lack of medical treatment, overcrowded rooms, lack of material goods and pleasures, etc.

While being truly poor is terrible, compare what you thought of as "typically poverty-level conditions" to the average person in "poverty" as _defined_ by the gov't.

Executive Summary: Understanding Poverty in America

If poverty means lacking nutritious food, adequate warm housing, and clothing for a family, relatively few of the 35 million people identified as being "in poverty" by the Census Bureau could be characterized as poor. While material hardship does exist in the United States, it is quite restricted in scope and severity.

The average "poor" person, as defined by the government, has a living standard far higher than the public imagines. The following are facts about persons defined as "poor" by the Census Bureau, taken from various government reports:

• Forty-six percent of all poor households actually own their own homes. The average home owned by persons classified as poor by the Census Bureau is a three-bedroom house with one-and-a-half baths, a garage, and a porch or patio.
• Seventy-six percent of poor households have air conditioning. By contrast, 30 years ago, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.
• Only 6 percent of poor households are overcrowded. More than two-thirds have more than two rooms per person.
• The typical poor American has more living space than the average individual living in Paris, London, Vienna, Athens, and other cities throughout Europe. (These comparisons are to the average citizens in foreign countries, not to those classified as poor.)
• Nearly three-quarters of poor households own a car; 30 percent own two or more cars.
• Ninety-seven percent of poor households have a color television; over half own two or more color televisions.
• Seventy-eight percent have a VCR or DVD player; 62 percent have cable or satellite TV reception.
• Seventy-three percent own microwave ovens, more than half have a stereo, and a third have an automatic dishwasher.

Overall, the typical American defined as poor by the government has a car, air conditioning, a refrigerator, a stove, a clothes washer and dryer, and a microwave. He has two color televisions, cable or satellite TV reception, a VCR or DVD player, and a stereo. He is able to obtain medical care. His home is in good repair and is not overcrowded. By his own report, his family is not hungry, and he had sufficient funds in the past year to meet his family's essential needs. While this individual's life is not opulent, it is equally far from the popular images of dire poverty conveyed by the press, liberal activists, and politicians.

STOP IT!

STOP IT!

Email President Bush and your lawmakers today and tell him how you feel about the idea of giving ILLEGAL immigrants legal status.

See the top links on the left for ways to write to your congresspeople and the president.

FOXNews.com - Politics - Bush to Propose Plan to Let Illegals Stay in U.S.

Frost Doesn't Understand Judicial Activism

Frost Doesn't Understand Judicial Activism

Let me spell it out for you, Martin:

Judicial Activism is when the judges WRITE NEW LAWS. Not when they decide upon the consitutionality of laws already passed, as in this case.

HoustonChronicle.com - Judges approve Republicans' congressional map for Texas

A three-judge federal court today upheld a Republican congressional redistricting plan against claims that it harms minority voting rights, but the court sharply criticized the process of adopting the map as a threat to the system of fair elections.

"We decide only the legality of (the plan), not its wisdom," the court's opinion reads. "Whether the Texas Legislature has acted in the best interest of Texas is a judgment that belongs to the people who elected those officials whose act is challenged in this case." . . . .

"By judicial fiat, a three-judge federal panel has effectively repealed the Voting Rights Act and turned back the clock on nearly 40 years of progress for minority voters," said U.S. Rep. Martin Frost, D-Dallas.

JK Rowling's Influence?

JK Rowling's Influence?

Apparently, things got out of hand.

www.smh.com.au - Three boys tell of murdering playmate

Isaac Muggels, who was holidaying with his grandmother at her farm in the Western Cape province was hit with a plank, throttled and had his head bashed with a stone, a policeman investigating the case told the daily.

Note the following paragraph

Robertson said a second autopsy revealed that the boy "had blood on the brain, a broken Adam's apple, water in the lungs, a bruised face and a black eye". [Emphasis added.]

Looks like all those one-eyed gov't workers, the butt of jokes for so many years, are employed by the Aussie medical examiners office.

OP/ED: The S Factor

OP/ED: The S Factor

This OP/ED has gotten a lot of play in the blogosphere in the past few days. Here it is for your enjoyment in case you haven't seen it yet.

The S factor explains Bush's popularity

What, then, can account for so many people being so supportive of the president? . . .

It's the "Stupid factor," the S factor: Some people -- sometimes through no fault of their own -- are just not very bright.

It's not merely that some people are insufficiently intelligent to grasp the nuances of foreign policy, of constitutional law, of macroeconomics or of the variegated interplay of humans and the environment. These aren't the people I'm referring to. The people I'm referring to cannot understand the phenomenon of cause and effect. They're perplexed by issues comprising more than two sides. They don't have the wherewithal to expand the sources of their information. And above all -- far above all -- they don't think . . . .

Politicians have been aware of this forever; they cater to these people. They offer simplistic solutions to complex problems. They evade directed questions with non-sequiturs. They offer meaningless, jingoistic pap instead of thoughtful policy. And these people, the "S" people, eat it all up with a ladle.

I don't have a solution to this problem. To claim I did would belie my previous arguments. But I do have some modest suggestions that might provide a start for discussion: an intelligence test to earn the right to vote; a three-significantly-stupid-behaviors-and-you're-out law; fines for politicians who pander to the lowest common denominator and deportation of media representatives who perpetuate such actions.

My favorite part is that I suspect the author actually believes that the methods of remediation he proposes above would actually INCREASE Dem voting. . . . .

Riiiiiiiiight. ;-)

Earlier he makes some statements which just dazzle the mind in their umitigated arrogance.

What can explain his popularity? Can that many people be enamored of what he has accomplished in Iraq? Of how he has fortified our constitutional freedoms with the USA Patriot Act? Of how he has bolstered our economy? Of how he has protected our environment? Perhaps they've been impressed with the president's personal integrity and the articulation of his grand vision for America?

Is that likely?

Granted, there are certain subsections of the American polity that have substantially benefited from this presidency. Millionaires and charismatic Christians have accrued either material or spiritual fortification from Bush's administration. But surely these two groups are a small minority of the population. What, then, can account for so many people being so supportive of the president?

Yes, dear reader, only millionaires and charismatic Christians have benefitted from this president's policies.

Forget

• Iraqi women no longer being raped [UPDATE: by gov't thugs]
• Iraqi men no longer being tortured [UPDATE: by gov't thugs] and murdered
• Kurds no longer being gassed
• Afghans enjoying more freedom than ever before
• Americans who have received tax relief (the vast majority of Americans, BTW)
• Americans who have a new job or a better chance at finding a new job now
• Anyone who invests in the stock market (almost 150 million regular Americans - half the population)
• Anyone proud to be an American again

Yes, folks, no one but millionaires and charismatic Christians.

Haliburton Cleared/Questionable Use of Question Marks

Haliburton Cleared/Questionable Use of Question Marks

I like how, in a blockbuster story about how HALIBURTON HAS BEEN CLEARED OF ALL WRONGDOING, CNN puts a question mark after their headline ("Haliburton cleared of overcharging?"). compare the headline to the first paragraph of the story, reporduced below.

Army clears Halliburton of overcharging - Jan. 6, 2004

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Halliburton Co. has been cleared of any wrongdoing in a Kuwait fuel-delivery contract that Pentagon auditors allege overcharged the U.S. government by more than $100 million, according to a published report Tuesday.

more

The paper said Flowers' ruling came after lower-level Army Corps officials concluded that KBR had provided enough information to show it had bought the fuel and its delivery to Iraq at a "fair and reasonable price."

In December, the Pentagon said a draft audit found evidence KBR may have overcharged U.S. taxpayers $61 million to supply fuel to Iraq from Kuwait. Halliburton strongly denied any wrongdoing.

Not that this denial was given ANY credence by the press.

He's Sorry

He's Sorry

Well, then, ok. Let's forget all about it and just pretend it never happened. Pete Rose betting on baseball, that is.

"For the last 14 years I've consistently heard the statement: 'If Pete Rose came clean, all would be forgiven.' Well, I've done what you've asked. The rest is up to the commissioner and the big umpire in the sky."

Well, Pete . . . don't believe everything you hear.

People think that just because someone admits wrongdoing, it shoud be forgiven and forgotten.

Bull Spit.

Being sorry and admitting your wrongdoing means you get to BEGIN the process of TRYING to earn forgiveness.

NEWSFLASH: THIS PROCESS MAY NEVER END.

Too many people think that absolution is (and should be) automatic. Well, it's not. It is a process by which you make amends for you past misdeeds. Making amends means doing something active to fix what you did wrong. To repair the pain you caused others. To replace what you took or broke or damaged.

By starting this process you show yourself to be something better than the person you were when you committed the act. But that does not mean that those hurt by your actions must or even should forgive you, let alone honor you.

Pete, you may someday get into the HoF. . . but not now. And not until you do something to make amends.

SI.com - Magazine - Rose: I bet on baseball - Monday January 5, 2004 2:54PM

Cell Phones and Civility

Cell Phones and Civility

Mike S. Adams: Welcome to Civility 101