Category: Internet

The front page of my local paper looks like this today:

What does it mean?

My guess is that with the election taking place in Iraq this Sunday, we’re down to the last few days of relevance for the Iraqi terrorists (and their buddies from Iran, Syria, and the rest of the Al Qaeda states) so they’re desperate to make their mark. Zarqawi revealed – no surprise – that democracy is the enemy of his movement and condemned all who participate in the election. He does this because he has no popular support to speak of.

After the election Sunday the terrorists will have no ticket to the anti-imperialist, anti-occupation, anti-America sweepstakes, so it’s down to condemning democracy, and by implication, the very people that Zarqawi and his boys want to rule. If the people of Iraq say “no thank you, terrorist nutbag dudes, we can handle it without you” then Zarqawi is out of business, and he knows it.

So he may as well blow up all his bombs this week, because it’s all over but the shouting.

Now that brings us to the question of what sort of emptiness the Bush-hating papers like the Oregonian will lead with next week, after they’ve been deprived of their moral suasion as well. Teddy Kennedy’s troop withdrawl plan? Maggie Gallagher’s conflict of interest? The South Beach Diet?

UPDATE: Jeremy Brown has a much better version of this story at Michael Totten’s site.

Classic.

The VW suicide bomber ad is cute, even if it’s not genuine.

Many of the neo-cons are in the curious position of supporting the Intelligent Design silliness while not signing up for belief in a god, for reasons that Ron Bailey explained very well in a classic essay in Reason magazine a few years ago. So it’s heartening to see an outbreak of good sense at NRO on the part of John Derbyshire, especially since NR founder Bill Buckley is soft on creationism himself. Now if somebody can just talk some sense into Hugh Hewitt we might make some real progress. (H/t Instapundit.)

Evolution isn’t a hard issue to understand, and even the Pope is on the right side of the question (he accepts natural selection as “more than an hypothesis”). So how can you trust the political analysis of people who can’t get it right?

Rich Lowry gets the Alberto Gonzales nomination fight right:

The confirmation hearings for Al Gonzales’s nomination as attorney general ostensibly are about his suitability for the job. But the real issue is how we conduct the war on terror. Are terrorists soldiers, just like any other? Do we have a right to pressure them for information upon capture? The Democrats’ answers are, by implication, “yes” and “no” respectively. Which is why the Bush administration should welcome a big, high-profile fight over this nomination.

The endless posturing about torture is clearly beside the point. Gonzales was asked for a legal opinion on the scope of the Geneva Conventions, and he gave a sound legal answer. What’s right isn’t always in line with what’s legal, either. See Andrew McCarthy in NRO:

For hours, the confirmation hearing for the Attorney General designate, Alberto Gonzales, was grueling ? for his detractors. The White House Counsel handled often strident questioning with aplomb. But, as strongly as Judge Gonzales held his ground on such matters as the non-applicability of the Geneva Conventions to alien enemy combatants, his critics provided just as strong a justification for his inevitable confirmation. In a word, they were fatuous.

For a good example of a fatuous reaction to Gonzales, see former Mercury News tech columnist Chris Nolan compare Al Qaeda to the American civil rights movement. No, I’m not kidding, she really does. Good thing for her she doesn’t allow comments on her blog.

Yes, there’s something flaky about a guy with a radio show taking money to push a bill, even if most of the money is for commercials that are obviously commercials. Anytime money changes hands for message there’s something shady. All advertising is suspect.

But why are the complaints limited to conservatives like Williams and the Thune bloggers when it’s obvious to anybody with half a brain that Atrios, Josh Marshall, Markos, and Oliver Willis are absolute and total whores of the Democratic Party?

Josh Marshall’s infamous Strom Thurmond/Trent Lott campaign was a project of the DNC, where Carville carried the orders to Marshall to proceed. Markos and the rest of the lefty blogosphere are paid handsomely (OK, except for Willis who’s probably cost-effective) to shill, tout, spin, lie, or whatever it takes to advance a policy interest and a set of candidates.

So what did Williams do that was so god-awful exciting? Everybody knows he’s conservative who’s worked for Clarence Thomas and Strom Thurmond. Everybody knows he’s black. So he’s obviously an important asset in the Republican consciousness-raising effort on education, where the task is to show blacks that the Democratic Party will never educate their children properly because they’re whores to the Teachers’ Union.

If the issue is the tax money, my god that’s pretty damn lame. Tax money flows into the pockets of advocates every day under such noble causes as the Violence Against Women Act and nobody complains.

I’m trying real hard to honor these complaints, but I’m having a hard time getting over the idea that Democrats are caught in their traditional hatred of black conservatives. Maybe I shouldn’t have read racist Democrat Steve Gilliard:

Brother, them white folks is gonna jump up on your ass like you were a trampoline. You’ll be lucky to avoid jail. The conservative lynching is already starting.

It’s like that line from Trading Places: “Of course I would never let a nigger run our company” Well, of course, if Williams is a crook, they would never defend his lying nigger ass.

Josh Marshall asked who else is taking payments from the White House.

He would, wouldn’t he?

So help me out, outraged liberals, show me the beef.

UPDATE: See Williams’ apology and clarification here. Not surprisingly, the reporting on this fiasco has been biased.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Dan Flynn is not impressed by Williams’ apology, which he finds disingenuous, and neither is LaShawn Barber.

People wishing to make contributions for tsunami victims can check the status of their charities with the charitywatch.org list of Top-Rated Charities According to the American Institute of Philanthropy

Accion International
Africare
American Friends Service Committee
American Near East Refugee Aid
American Refugee Committee
AmeriCares
CARE
Catholic Relief Services
Church World Service
Doctors of the World
Doctors Without Borders USA
FINCA International
International Rescue Committee
Lutheran World Relief
Mennonite Central Committee
Oxfam-America
Save the Children
U.S. Committee for Refugees

If your charity isn’t on this list, it’s not among the best in efficiency. The two highest-rated in International Relief and Development are Lutheran World Relief and the American Refugee Committee.

…and happy new year.

Marc Cooper reports that Hugo Chavez will receive the presigious Ghadafy Human Rights Award for his efforts in media censorship:

Venezuelan con man, Bolivarian Revolutionary, Great-Thinker and sitting President Hugo Chavez has just returned home from a tour of showcase democratic countries including Cuba, Iran and Libya. Chavez dropped in on Colonel Ghadafy, by the way, to pick up his prize as this year?s winner of the Ghadafy Human Rights Award. No, I?m not making this up. Seems that Chavez had to rush home to enact a new press censorship law. This one?s no laughing matter?drawing a rebuke from Reporters Without Borders and Human Rights Watch among others. Randy Paul, as usual, has all the dope.

No question that the Bushies don?t like Chavez. Hardly reason, though, for the rest of us to like this clown or, worse, apologize for his continuing thuggish deportment. Nice going, Randy.

Link via Dr. Frank.

Tomorrow’s your last chance to give to the Spirit of America blogger challenge.