From politics (moderates who lean to the right) to Pogo (drools during poker stare) to rants (Whatcha expect from savvy, sassy sexagenarians?) to raves (Have you had your kudo today?) -- we never take ourselves too seriously.
We do, however, reserve the right to slaughter an occasional sacred cow. And in case we fail to mention it -- we will never forget....
"Whatever?" WHATEVER? Bill Maher (with prettyboy-puppet Ben Affleck on his knee) is taken to task and intellectually whipped on his own show and all he can stammer is, "whatever???"
Those following YouTube's purging of anything-but-the-comedic-and-inane videos (and who aren't impressed by the over-statement, lies and/or hype of Bill Maher or Ben Affleck) should watch THIS video.
What a hoot -- a guest who has Maher and Affleck stumbling and mumbling ....
Danielle Pletka is the vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at AEI. Her research areas include the Middle East, South Asia, terrorism, and weapons proliferation. While at AEI, Ms. Pletka has developed a conference series on rebuilding post-Saddam Iraq and a project on democracy in the Arab world. She recently served as a member of the congressionally-mandated Task Force on the United Nations, established by the United States Institute of Peace. Before coming to AEI, she served for ten years as a senior professional staff member for the Near East and South Asia on the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.
It must be terrible to be upstaged and outclassed by a conservative woman.
If the Party of *BDS wins next month, Americans are in for a bad season. And for good reason.
* Bush Derangement Syndrome "BDS: The acute onset of paranoia in otherwise normal people in reaction to the policies, the presidency -- nay -- the very existence of George W. Bush."
Our economy is booming. The job market is the lowest it has been in years. National Debt has been reduced. There is progress in the fight against terrorism. Gas prices are way down. Our nation is more secure than it has ever been.
What's gone wrong?
Two fundamental, precipitating phenomena, in my humble opinion:
1) The Bush Derangement Syndrome has finally seeped through to middle-America.
While liberal media and talking heads have harped headlines and sound-bytes on the foibles of Foley-gate and Abramoff-gate (nevermind that these gates swing both ways), the party of hype and histrionics has dominated the media and the Internet. "Blame Bush" has also been the undertone from both sides of the aisle.
Can Bush awaken the nation during the next three weeks?
Yes, if he is allowed to focus on issues and rattle a few cages.
2) Americans FEEL secure. With security comes complacency. With complacency, comes low voter turn-out.
Low voter turn-out means that hype and histrionics will prevail.
Complacency at the ballot box also results in political laissez-faire, which, under the guise of band-aid diplomacy, has historically provided a fertile field for liberals to AGAIN front secret deals at taxpayers' expense and to AGAIN trade critical security secrets to appease our sworn enemies.
Think North Korea and Iran .... Think Clinton and his "secret deals" with China and Russia. Think Carter and his love-fest with North Korea and Chavez. Think Sandy Berger stuffing national security documents into his undies.
Think February 26, 1993.
Remember September 11, 2001.
I can't imagine an America that would vote for a party or congressional leadership that has YET to visit or commemorate the six victims of the first WTC attack in 1993: A terrorist attack that included unexploded biochemical weapons (which may be why Clinton did not visit the site) and a homemade 1,500-pound bomb that badly damaged the tower's inner support beams and caused $500 million in property damage. Yet the twin towers were repaired, cleaned, and reopened in less than a month .....
Amazingly, an MSM that devoted gallons of ink and immeasurable air-time to a forged document to discredit George Bush and HIS responsibility for 9/11/01 -- never investigated the responsibility of the Clinton administration or a correlation between the collapse of the WTC towers on 9/11/01 and the damages done to the structural integrity of the towers on 2/26/93 -- during the Clinton administration.
In addition -- I hold MSM responsible for feeding a growing anti-war frenzy; yet, neither the MSM nor its constituent Party of BDS have shared any viable suggestions (beyond the ole "cut and run" partisan puke) for how and when.
If the Party of BDS, the Party of Hype and Histrionics, wins in November -- we can blame ourselves for our own complacency.
And our inevitable self-destruction.
Vote, America. Have the foresight and resolve to vote.
With a war going on in Iraq and with Iran next door moving steadily toward a nuclear bomb that could change the course of world history in the hands of international terrorists, the question for this year's elections is not whether you or your candidate is a Democrat or a Republican but whether you are serious or frivolous.
That question also needs to be asked about the media. In these grim and foreboding times, our media have this year spent incredible amounts of time on a hunting accident involving Vice President Cheney, a bogus claim that the administration revealed Valerie Plame's identity as a C.I.A. "agent" -- actually a desk job in Virginia -- and is now going ballistic over a Congressman who sent raunchy e-mails to Congressional pages.
This is the frivolous media -- and the biased media. Republican Congressman Foley was wrong and is out on his ear. But Democrats in both Congress and the White House have gone far beyond words with a page and an intern. Yet the Democrats did not resign and Bill Clinton's perjury, obstruction of justice, and suborning of perjury by others were treated as if these were irrelevant private matters.
Even when serious issues are addressed, they can be addressed either seriously or frivolously. If you are content to see life and death issues of war and peace addressed with catch phrases like "chicken hawk" or to see a coalition of nations around the world fighting terrorism referred to as "unilateral" U.S. action because France does not go along, then you are content with frivolity.
You may deserve whatever you get if you vote frivolously in this year's election. But surely the next generation, which has no vote, deserves better.
Weak-kneed members of both parties have been calling for a timetable to be announced for withdrawal from Iraq. No other war in thousands of years of history has ever had such a timetable announced to their enemies. Even if we intended to get out by a given date, there is not the slightest reason to tell the terrorists that. It is frivolous politics at its worst.
There has never been any reason to doubt that American troops will be removed from Iraq. They were removed after the first Gulf War. Before that, they were removed from Grenada and from other Western Hemisphere countries throughout the 20th century. Millions of American troops were removed from Europe after World War II.
Why should there be the slightest doubt that they will be removed from Iraq? The only question is whether you can run a war on a timetable like a railroad and whether you need to announce your plans to your enemies.
All this rhetoric about a withdrawal timetable is based on trying to make political hay out of the fact that the Iraq war is unpopular. But all wars have been unpopular with Americans, as they should be.
Even World War II, won by "the greatest generation," was never popular, though the home front was united behind the troops a lot better than today. The last shot of that war had barely been sounded before the cry arose to bring our boys back home. The exuberant celebrations across this country when World War II ended showed that we weren't looking for more war or more conquests. We weren't even trying to hold on to all the territory we had conquered. There has probably never been a time in history when a military force in the millions was disbanded so quickly. Even after the first Gulf War, with its quick success and low casualties, the biggest ovation that the first President Bush got when he addressed Congress afterwards was when he announced that our troops would start coming back home. Those who discuss the current war in terms of frivolous talking points make a big deal out of the fact we have been in this war longer than in World War II. But, if we are serious, we would know that it is not the duration of a war that is crucial. It is how many lives it costs. More than twice as many Marines were killed taking one island in the Pacific during World War II than all the Americans killed in the four years of the Iraq war. More Americans were killed in one day during the Civil War. If we are going to discuss war, the least we can do is be serious.
If the vote next month focuses on the frivolous -- we will deserve what we get.
On Oct. 8, I posted Reaffirming US-Japan Accords, referencing the need to validate agreements which have evolved for approximately 60 years.
I had no idea those Accords would be tested so quickly.
What I did know was that we have pledged to defend both South Korea and Japan in the event they are attacked by other nations.
On the diplomatic front, we have literally dragged our mighty feet in confronting (albeit enabling proliferation during the Clinton era) Korea's development of nuclear weapons.
We now have a deceitful, irrational madman -- who we (ala Clinton) provided with nuclear reactors for non-military use -- in possession of a weapon of mass destruction.
Is the world going to wait until this madman either launches an attack on another country or shares his nuclear weaponry with another madman?
Kim Jong Il has already thumbed his nose at the prospect of U.N. sanctions.
Will Russia, France and China actually honor sanctions against Korea? They were deceitful in honoring sanctions against Saddam. They failed to intervene in either Syria or Iran -- why should they be trusted now? What effect would an air or sea blockade around Korea actually have when they share borders with China and Russia?
China is the key, but will China assume a responsible role in curtailing the Korean threat?
The U.S. must act quickly.
While this is not the ideal option, I anticipate that the only true deterrent to the proliferation of nuclear weapons among irrational nations is to inform our faux-friends in China and Russia that IF they don't intercede in Korea, we will make these weapons available to our reputable Asian-Pacific allies: Japan, Taiwan, Australia and South Korea.
It's time to call Congress back to Washington, Mr. President. Our nation needs a unified front in addressing this critical issue.
One key to bringing our troops home: Cut the hype and partisan rhetoric; allow Iraq to determine its own form of government.
Although government officials have delayed official discussions on federalizing Iraq's provinces into 3-4 aligned Iraqi states, political discourse is moving in that direction.
Critical to this decision will be a centralized, representative government which assures control (with equitable distribution of services and profits) from Iraq's greatest resource: oil.
Recently, Sunni tribal leaders united to form the equivalence of three infantry divisions (30,000 fighters) to combat insurgents and terrorists along the Syrian border.
The immediate impact? Over 80% of the al-Anbar region has now joined Iraqi government forces in confronting al Qaeda. A significant gain for Iraqi and coalition forces is that they are now joined by fighters who know the local terrain. The long-term effect? The region will receive critical government services administered by a more secular Shia-dominated government in Baghdad.
Most importantly, Shia and Sunni Iraqis have crossed ethno-religious barriers for a common cause.
And the third ethno-religious group located in northern Iraq, the Kurds?
Therein may lie the key to Iraq's nationalization.
The dark and light green areas in the map to the left indicate oilfields, pipelines and refineries in Iraq.
There are practical and political reasons underlying Kurdish cautions in fully accepting nationalization.
The Kurdish north has enjoyed self-rule and self-defense for 15 years -- enabling the region to escape Saddam's continuous domination experienced by other regions. The Kurdish North consists of two distinct zones, which, prior to 1998, were engaged in a civil war for control of the region. At the heart of this dispute was and continues to be control of Kirkuk, a city "Arabized" by the discovery of oil in the 1930's and by Saddam's "Anfal operation" in the early 1990's when approximately 250,000 Kurds were massacred.
The city of Kurkirk, once a prominent Kurdish city, is located on approximately 15-20 percent of Iraq's vast oil reserves. The area could produce as much as 800,000 barrels of oil a day.
While supporting Iraqi nationalization, the Kurds insist that their autonomy be protected. Why? Were the Kurds to secede from Iraq, they would need these oil revenues to sustain their independence.
"Without oil revenues of their own (as opposed to oil revenues earmarked for them by the central government) the Kurds' room for maneuvering would diminish appreciably. Kurdistan's neighbors – Turkey, Iran and Syria – concerned about the effects an independent Kurdistan would have on their own Kurdish populations, oppose the Iraqi Kurds having control of these oil revenues. In the eyes of an Iraqi, the controversy over Kirkuk has to do with its oil: 'Oil alone is the reason for the Kurdish insistence, Arab refusal, Turkmen protests and the regional austerity. If Kirkuk were not an oil city we would not have heard all the historical and geographical arguments from all sides.'"
The Kurds could (and likely will) negotiate with the central government an agreement that would guarantee them a reasonable percentage of oil revenues. Their concern is that such an agreement would make them dependent on political forces that could turn against them as was done in the past .....
To alleviate part of this caution, the Iraqi Constitution (Article 58) addresses the ethnic cleansing that occurred in Kirkuk:
Restore the original residents to their homes and property
Compensate those who were introduced to specific regions [e.g., Arabs in Kurdistan] and resettle them in or near the district from which they came
Provide compensation for those who lost their jobs by being forced to emigrate
Allow individuals to determine their own national identity and ethnic affiliation free from coercion and duress [again, this applies primarily to Kurds who were forced to declare themselves as Arabs for the purpose of population census]
What about the other two major ethno-religious groups? The Sunni and the Shia?
"Many Shiite (Shia) leaders – some allegedly encouraged by neighboring Iran – also want to split ... their area in central and south Iraq, which holds holy Shi'ite shrines and pilgrimage sites as well as rich oil fields. Sunnis, who prospered under Saddam Hussein's ousted regime while their neighbors suffered his repression, are more attached to the idea of a strongly centralised Iraq which would guarantee their rights as a minority."
Will federalization work in Iraq? Yes. The solution, however, will not be crafted on the battlefield. The solution will be found through discourse, negotiation and ethno-religious concessions. Will federalization be achieved in a timely fashion? Yes. But it cannot be mandated or measured by Western timelines. After all -- it took the United States 200 years to achieve our fundamental structure.
What is timely, however, is that our President begin to expound in detail the constitutional process and political achievements evolving in Iraq -- while concurrently exemplifying a successful War on Terrorism as a conduit for Iraq's road to peaceful co-existence -- nationally and internationally.
We've already piqued Europe's critical eye by recent economic accords with Japan .... Russia, and especially China, have long invaded Japan's maritime boundaries to search for oil reserves.
It is time to publicly announce our reliance on Japan as a primary co-negotiator with North Korea, in the Middle East AND beyond.
Why? One reason is that "Toshiba has become the dominant force in nuclear reactor construction worldwide. The firm currently holds a 35% market share in Japan. Its controlling stake of Westinghouse Electric will now give it a 28% share in the global market. Investors who fear that the recent slide in the price of oil will be short-lived, who are perhaps inspired by China's plans to build as many as 40 nuclear reactors over the next 15 years, might want to give Toshiba a serious look as one of the few 'alternative energy' plays that we know can actually work."
It is not a coincidence that Japan recently visited China and will visit South Korea in the immediate future.
It would also boost both the US and Japan's interests to re-affirm our agreement to support/defend Japan militarily if needed -- in exchange for continued strategic placement of our defense systems.
As important -- a public re-affirmation by President Bush would certainly divert current pre-election attention toward a region of critical concern.
Ben Stein can either jolt you with his humor or his perspective. Today, it's his perspective:
... in a world where 3,000 women and children are raped and/or murdered every day in Congo, a member of the United Nations, in which a genuine genocide is going on in Sudan, a member of the United Nations, in which more than fifty men and women per day are being tortured with electric drills and murdered in Iraq, in which two of the world's most dangerous and insane men, Kim Jong Il and Mohammed Ahmadinejad, are developing nuclear weapons, the e-mail of one deranged middle class white man does not really count to me as much as it might to some other people.
......
We do not devote more than a few instants each month to the rape and murder in Congo. We barely notice the rape and genocide in Darfur. No one on earth except George W. Bush and John Bolton and Condoleezza Rice is trying to stop two maniacs from acquiring nuclear weapons even though one of them has promised to wipe out Israel if he gets them. But we can devote 24 hours a day, day after day, to the e-mails of one nutty Member of Congress to a teenage boy.
A country with its priorities so out of whack does not deserve to be the world's shining city on a hill. Let's take a moment, pray for guidance, turn Mr. Foley over to the proper mental health authorities, and try to, as the moral exemplar of the world, use every bit of strength we have to stop the slaughter of the innocents now and in the future. Mark Foley is important, but to me, he's no more important than those teenage girls in Congo who get raped, have their arms chopped off, and then are murdered...and there are a lot of them. Let's get our priorities straight.
SUB-TITLE I: Don't let your kids grow up to be politicians. Or pundits. Or pages. Or punsters, for that matter.
SUB-TITLE II: Somebody Oughta Write a(nother) Book. Or as Nancy Pelosi's friend was supposedly doing -- script it like a B-grade movie!
Frankly, I'm far *too old to be electronically-stimulated by repulsive IMs between some latent-to-active homo-savvy page-boy and a power-pandering peccadillic poliwag.
*Euphemism for totally uninterested in some old-enough-to-know-what-he-was-doing political operative's edited exposè of an Over-the-Hill [pun intended] homosexual hag.
For those who want to read REAL "page" sex -- flip through that dog-eared paperback classic of yester-year:
"We're getting into very dangerous territory, and I've warned my colleagues to be careful." That's what a Democrat leadership aide was saying on Wednesday, as word circulated about David Corn's blog posting that revealed that a list of gay Republicans congressional staffers was circulating through emails.
Just as troubling are concerns among some House Democrat staff that there are potential scandals lurking of a similar vein for them. According to another Democrat source, "I've been warning my people to stay away from this story because you just don't know what will come back to bite you."
Of concern: that House Democrat leadership or Rep. Dale Kildee (Mich.), the Democrat member of the page board, who has served on it since 1985, or his staff have received complaints about Democrat colleagues' perceived inappropriate communications or contact with pages or former pages, and have not brought those complaints to the board or House management, such as the House Clerk's office. Kildee has been vocal about the Foley complaints not being brought before the full board prior to the scandal breaking, and the secretive nature of the Republican leadership's attempts to bring closure to the scandal.
"We all know this kind of scandal isn't just a Republican problem," says a Democrat political consultant in Washington. "We don't want to see what is out there about Democratic House members or former members."
But other Democrats say more is to come, that talk among Democrats around town is that researchers at CREW and the House Democrat Congressional Campaign Committee have in recent weeks been in contact, and that there are additional stories involving Republicans and questionable ethics behavior to be leaked closer to election time.
If this is the only way the far left can win in November -- then we deserve to be governed by hypocritical smutt-butts.
vote.vote.vote.vote.vote.vote. Foley is gone, but the slime trail continues ..... Don't let Pelosi's Posse win until we know the truth and players behind the "timeline" for the Foleygate disclosures.
Self-proclaimed Congressional cleaning-lady-in-waiting NANCY PELOSI might should begin by rinsing out a few rags ..... Including, but not limited to --
* An associate's son who allegedly "gay-baited" Mark Foley for a couple of years before releasing a series of disgusting IMs -- of questionable authenticity -- just in time for the November elections.
* Those expensive junkets she and hubby took to Asia and other parts -- oh yeah, she "reimbursed" the gov a portion of the expenses .....
* Her political action committees that were charged with attempting to circumvent to legal limits on campaign giving -- oh yeah, she reimbursed $21,000 ...
Hey -- Pelosi pledged to clean things up --- just wanted to suggest a few spots that need wiping up ....
to 
If the Party of *BDS wins next month, Americans are in for a bad season. And for good reason. 
Will Russia, France and China actually honor sanctions against Korea? They were deceitful in honoring sanctions against Saddam. They failed to intervene in either Syria or Iran -- why should they be trusted now? What effect would an air or sea blockade around Korea actually have when they share borders with China and Russia?
Although government officials have delayed official discussions on federalizing Iraq's provinces into 3-4 aligned Iraqi states, political discourse is moving in that direction. 
The US-Japan Accords: Remember them? 
I'm far *too old to be electronically-stimulated by repulsive IMs between some latent-to-active homo-savvy page-boy and a power-pandering peccadillic poliwag. 
Self-proclaimed Congressional cleaning-lady-in-waiting NANCY PELOSI might should begin by rinsing out a few rags ..... Including, but not limited to --