An Early Christmas Wish

May you all have a great and joyous Christmas.

May everyone feel the love of family, friends and G-d, and may your families have the blessings of G-d as we move into a New Year.

But more importantly may everyone get a chance to hear The Kink's "Father Christmas" just once before the 25th. It is IMNSHO the best, funniest, and rockingest Modern Christmas song.

Will Wonders Never Cease?

Arlen Specter (RINO-Pa) is trying to get the Senate to keep the Patriot Act alive.

Specter said he is trying to broker a deal that would allow the Senate to pass the current legislation "on my commitment to take up issues that they are so worried about. We'd have hearings early next year and consider the amendments, no commitment as to passage, but give consideration to that so we don't have the Patriot Act lapse, since it's important to America."

Specter held out hope that a deal could be made quickly. "I think there's a fairly good chance at this moment," he said.

President Bush, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Republicans congressional leaders have lobbied fiercely to get the Patriot Act compromise passed by the Senate. The House passed the compromise last week.

Am I missing something? This does seem like good news, but ...

Senator Laffey... I Like The Sound Of That

Liberal Republican Senator Lincoln Chafee has voted AGAINST ending the filibuster of the defense appropriations bill over ANWR.

So The missing Linc and Jumping Jimmy from Vermont,both think that talking about the rights of Caribou trumps the needs of the troops.

These are the other Senators that they would rather be siding with:

Baucus, Mont.; Bayh, Ind.; Biden, Del.; Bingaman, N.M.; Boxer, Calif.;Byrd, W.Va.; Cantwell, Wash.; Carper, Del.; Clinton, N.Y.; Conrad, N.D.; Corzine, N.J.; Dayton, Minn.; Dodd, Conn.; Dorgan, N.D.; Durbin, Ill.; Feingold, Wis.; Feinstein, Calif.; Harkin, Iowa; Johnson, S.D.; Kennedy, Mass.; Kerry, Mass.; Kohl, Wis.; Lautenberg, N.J.; Leahy, Vt.; Levin, Mich.; Lieberman, Conn.; Lincoln, Ark.; Mikulski, Md.; Murray, Wash.; Nelson, Fla.; Obama, Ill.; Pryor, Ark.; Reed, R.I.; Reid, Nev.; Rockefeller, W.Va.; Salazar, Colo.; Sarbanes, Md.; Schumer, N.Y.; Stabenow, Mich.; Wyden, Ore.

Enough said!

And they wonder why Steve Laffey is getting support from the members of the Republican party that vote. Meanwhile the National Republican Senatorial Incumbent Protection Committee continues to fight for a man who couldn't pour piss out of a boot if the instructions were printed on the heel.

Fascism Is...

From Modern History Sourcebook: Benito Mussolini:

What is Fascism, 1932

Fascism conceives of the State as an absolute, in comparison with which all individuals or groups are relative, only to be conceived of in their relation to the State. The conception of the Liberal State is not that of a directing force, guiding the play and development, both material and spiritual, of a collective body, but merely a force limited to the function of recording results: on the other hand, the Fascist State is itself conscious and has itself a will and a personality -- thus it may be called the "ethic" State....

...The Fascist State organizes the nation, but leaves a sufficient margin of liberty to the individual; the latter is deprived of all useless and possibly harmful freedom, but retains what is essential; the deciding power in this question cannot be the individual, but the State alone....

Does that answer the critics of this administration?
Probably not. But it looks more like what the Left wants this nation to look like than what the POTUS wants.

More From Iraq

Thanks to LGF, I found a post from Omar over at Iraq The Model. He shows some concern for the way that the local media (Iraqi) and local politicians are reacting to the slowly leaking bits of results from last weeks great election. He sees the problems of who will get together with who, as interesting and at the same time dangerous.

What I personally prefer to see is a government formed by the Kurds, the Accord Front and Allawi, not that I like the Accord Front but more because this will make the Sunni understand that they can have their share of power and this will help persuade them abandon violence and stick to the democratic way instead of arms.
But unfortunately I'm afraid some religious parties in the UIA have not matured enough to act in a civilized way and do their job as positive opposition.

The situation is critical now and it will take maybe two months before the new government emerges and this interval will show how much Iraqi politicians care about Iraqi people.
If they act wisely, the next few months can be a shortcut to a better future for Iraq

I hope that this is what happens and I pray that democracy is allowed to grow there.

Now for my own soapbox moment.
These things will only happen if we stay until the new government asks us to leave, not on some artificial Kennedy-esqe time table.

Thank G-d for George W. Bush.

Rich Nations Tell Poor: "Drop Dead"

I had to use a variant on a great New York Daily News Headline from the 70's.

It seems that in the recent round of multilateral trade talks, the interests of the EU, Japan and sadly the US, have gotten in the way of the developing world.
Trade talks that would have made it easier for the developing nations to sell their products and produce to the developed north, have been weakened or destroyed in the effort to keep artificial farm and product subsidies flowing to the farmers of Europe and Japan, and to the dwindling textile workforce in America.

Add this to the Kyoto agreement that denies those nations that have not already built factories and other engines of industry, the ability to do so because they might cause global cooling (or warming or global weather or whatever the answer is now)

So undeveloped nations are not allowed to build industry to give their people jobs and futures. Also they are then not allowed to sell products that they grow in the earth, because they have no factories.
So how exactly are they supposed to become economically healthy enough to survive with out help?

Let's ask Time Magazine's co-Man Of The Year; Bono.
Forgive them their debt, but don't let them do anything to get past the need to borrow money from the developed world.
So then we have a cycle of loans, inability to pay those loans, insolvency and then debt forgiveness.
Man if that doesn't symbolize LIBERALISM and the way it HELPS then I don't know what does.

Let Me Get This Straight.

We live in a Media world where this piece is ignored while a response like this from the POTUS

In the weeks following the terrorist attacks on our nation, I authorized the National Security Agency, consistent with U.S. law and the Constitution, to intercept the international communications of people with known links to al Qaeda (my emphasis added) and related terrorist organizations. Before we intercept these communications, the government must have information that establishes a clear link to these terrorist networks.

This is a highly classified program that is crucial to our national security. Its purpose is to detect and prevent terrorist attacks against the United States, our friends and allies. Yesterday the existence of this secret program was revealed in media reports, after being improperly provided to news organizations. As a result, our enemies have learned information they should not have, and the unauthorized disclosure of this effort damages our national security and puts our citizens at risk. Revealing classified information is illegal, alerts our enemies, and endangers our country.

to the NYT's TREASONOUS tripe are glossed over.

What the linked piece is, is a transcript of a 60 Minutes program from 2000 where the NSA was given the power to spy on DOMESTIC phone and internet traffic.

Now let's think about that for a minute.
GWB is an evil SOB for authorizing the listening in on INTERNATIONAL communications between KNOWN al-Qaeda operatives and people living in America.
While "that other guy" was just doing his job of protecting America, while blatantly trashing the Constitution.

We do not even know if the recipients of those calls were American citizens, all we know is that those calls came from some real bad guys and now we can't do it any more.
not because it was illegal (it wasn't) but because the bad guys know about it.


Once again, thank you New York Times.