ORACULATIONS

Google: anybody still in the stock is an idiot. The first sell signal was the gap down day. The second was when it cracked the 50 day moving average. You can always buy back in. See this chart. And that red line you see? It's the 200 day moving average that has just been pierced.

Nora Jones kicks ass on the Hank Williams song: "Cold Cold Heart" on the album titled, Come Away with Me. Then she kicks ass on everything.

And Perez Hilton has some shots of cuz Paris together with her sworn enemy, Nicole Richey(?) both of them dressed to the nines. Take a look, the sluts girls look much better dressed than they do naked. Paris Hilton safe for work? What can I say?

Threats Watch TW lets us in on the phony (what?) reporting about the Iran nuclear story. Iran is still enriching at breakneck speed and the Russian deal was a phony from the get-go.

And MSM CBS, the slimiest of the MSM pond scum, has been caught deliberately slanting a so-called poll. And lots of other "mistakes" are being reported. CBS News is one more agitprop Dem outlet.

Finally some sanity is coming into the UAE posts deal, BUT the oh so Liberal Democrats are going to pay dearly for their attacks as much of the Arab world, and plenty of EU liberals, are calling the opposition to the deal racist. All tell us how many terrorists occupy Britain and nobody ever raised a stink about them; and all seem unaware of the huge financial clout of Dubai. For a short primer, GO HERE

“Could Dubai become the most important place on the planet?” was the, not insignificant, question that the article asked. “Dubai sits on the all-important strategic routeway of the modern world: China, India, Middle East, Europe and the US.

This is one stupid attack by our so-called leadership and nothing in the world will stop them from racism if it will get them elected and nobody knows how to race bait better than the Democrats who have a hundred years experience supporting the KKK. Kudlow, a hard Right guy, also piles on, calling the criticism "Islam o Phobic." However, later posts (below) rervealing the rampant anti-Semitic slant of the Dubai leadership mean the deal is dead.

Even More Finally: if this item on Little Green Footballs is correct (and is Charles Johnson ever wrong?) the port deal will die. It seems the entity that will control the terminals hates Jews, Israel, and bans all trade with them. The implied threat to shipping to and from Israel is too clear to ignore. Add: stick a fork in the deal. Debbie Schlussel is all over it like grease on lightning with two posts. Her last post is timed at 12:03PM PST. They flat won't allow anyone to associate with either Jews or Israel. Duh deal is dead as W's third term.

Heather MacDonald, my personal Newsbabe of the year, has a killer piece in City Journal on Harvard, "diversity," and things about thinking, or sort of thinking.

.....the university has brought forth the next best thing: a report on “diversity” that, like all such products, possesses the power of shutting down every critical faculty in seemingly intelligent people....

If untapped pools of highly qualified female and minority candidates existed out there, schools would have snapped them up long ago—if not your college, then its dozens of competitors, just as desperate to placate the quota gods.

As usual, MacDonald lays it in there but because Harvard thinks they are better than everyone else, they will continue on the path to mediocrity.

Questions on the way to Drug Rehab: Is Pajamas Media the piece of rat shit it seems to be? Are "Pod Casts" just more hot air dominated cotton candy for the people who have nothing to do with their time other than blog or read blogs? Can I sue my old school district because none of the teachers sexually "molested" me, a failure that has damaged my self esteem beyond repair? Shouldn't we ban the spoiled beyond belief NBA and the NHL "stars" from participating in the Olympic Games and allow real amateurs to compete? Will this year's Oscars permanently place the U.S. movie business into a USA Network status, simply another awards show for niche narcissists? Do morons like Vince Young deserve even one year of a college scholarship? He "allegedly" scored a 6 (Yes a fucking six) on the feared Wonderlick Test, (sample of which IS HERE.) Deadspin asks this question:

And you just gotta, like in just gotta, read this in today's WSJ. You have to actually live in California to understand the Left/Liberal tilt to all politics out here. Liberals mask their confiscatory income schemes behind good sounding things that "somebody else who is undeservedly richer than you are" has to pay for. Never you. Well the state has lost half it's high earners and nine billion in tax revenue in the past few years and it's getting worse due to the passage of some Hollywood Looney (yes, rhymes with Cloony) Left propositions on the ballot.

After you read the Journal piece you might ask yourselves "don't liberals pay taxes too and don't liberals get hurt by them?" The Hollywood Left hides behind every phony tax shelter there is. Out of State earnings are the best: you work on a picture that shoots in Nevada so you establish residence there etc., and then you are a citizen of Nevada avoiding California taxes, and so on and so forth. And you don't realize the power and scope of the motion picture business until you check out a business yellow pages. At least half the town is connected in some way to that business, and all know how to dodge taxes.

Reynolds, who has been quite good for several months now, raises some interesting stuff today. I know a lot of you think he's a waste of time, but when he opines on his own or refers to things in the news he can be good, and right now he's good. He focuses all of us to the Coast Guard memo that isn't anything at all as a case in point. And no I'm not kissing his ass hoping he will build my traffic because, as I've mentioned here many times, my "traffic" has gone bonkers without him or anybody else.

While Bush barely stands upright in a nuetral corner after running into the ring posts TWICE, all of us on the Right better think about what we are doing. The inability to stand up for himself, and that is what it is, masked as being inarticulate is doing him in.

Consider: the Mississippi Coast is still a shambles with nobody in government doing anything to help clean it up, especially Bush; Bush has zero policies in place to cut our consumption of fuel because he just doesn't know what to do; this latest crap with the UAE port deal, which is now compounded with RINO Susan Collins pretending to care about security slobbering all over herself over a Coast Guard intel query that was resolved long ago; and and and

His appointments are awful, he doesn't (or cannot) mind the store, and let's admit it folks: he is one lousy president.

And he is OUR lousy president.

Congress will investigate the UAE port deal. Jesus, get ready for mass posing for Holy Pictures, a Chuck Schumer special, an anti-UAE movie starring----ta daaa---George Clooney, and a rap lyric.

Da UAE's takin' ovah da ports
My teen age sistah made me cum in my shorts
I seen a Ay-rab sellin' coke to some kids
Lurkin' in da shadows like bunch of orchids
He got it off a ship the UAE let thru
They thought it was a A-Bomb goin' to some Jew...

More at Oscars

Mudville Gazette echos Iraq the Model (down a lot of the time) in stating that the news accounts of damage in Iraq are way overblown. Model says damage is:

Mosques attacked/shot at without damage: 21 not 51
Moderately damaged: 6 not 23
Mosques destroyed totally: 1 not 3
Mosques occupied by militias: 1 not 2 (evacuated later).
Civilians killed: 119 not 183

Mudville points out that the US Army is STILL giving out bad data after three years.

Libertas is a great read today.

A second article is HERE

A very scholarly article on the Tribes of Iraq written in 2000 that will help you see what is happening. The original has been taken down. I republish it below.

MOSUL, Iraq—For a glimpse of one of Saddam Hussein’s oldest weapons, look at a sign along the desolate highway that leads to this city: Territory of the Al Dulaimi Tribe—Sword in the Hands of the Leader. Or look in a nearby suburb at a ranch house with an SUV out front, or across the border in Damascus, Syria, where plots are hatching against Saddam Hussein.

These are all modern manifestations of the tribes of Iraq. When loyal, they refer to themselves as the leader’s sword and provide a guide to how Saddam Hussein clings to power. When rebellious, the tribes suggest that his grip is slipping. They also are one possible lever that Western officials have largely ignored in their long campaign to unseat the Iraqi dictator.

At least three-quarters of the Iraqi people are members of one of the nation’s 150 tribes, which originated in the Arabian peninsula and moved north in search of water. They are bound more by family ties and a strict honor code than by ethnic background or religion. All of Iraq’s rulers—the Ottoman Turks, the British and then a British-backed monarchy—had to win their cooperation.

Decline and Recovery
But tribes grew weaker when nomads settled into towns and cities, and as the state took responsibility for schools, roads and power. By the 1960s, Iraq was a modern state, with an educated elite. Who cared about the sheiks now?

The answer was Saddam Hussein, who seized control of Iraq after a 1968 military coup. Most of his co-conspirators came from cities, but he grew up surrounded by tribes near his birthplace in the poor town of Tikrit. He identified the sheiks as good friends to have in a fight, and he later called on them to battle Iran.
Over the years, he has helped to restore a tribal identity that had been ebbing in Iraq for generations. Saddam Hussein regularly dons traditional Arab dress and makes televised visits to tribal elders, sipping thick coffee and negotiating what amount to power-sharing agreements with the sheiks.

Source of Power
The result is that the tribes have become his prime source of power outside Baghdad -- a combination of mercenary army, local government and loyalty club, paid and patronized for maintaining order and fealty. Favored tribes get better roads and schools, welcome bounty in a country withered by sanctions for the past decade. (The United Nations is debating a plan that would revive a weapons-inspection regime in Iraq and could pave the way for at least a partial lifting of sanctions over the next several months. But U.N. officials say there is little hope for a breakthrough soon.)

“The only way to get a job for many Iraqis today is by returning to the tribe,” says Falath Abdul Jabar, a writer and sociologist in London. “Sanctions created a vacuum, and the tribes filled it.”
Bassem Abed Al Shammari is a typical urban sheik, living in a comfortable ranch house in a Mosul suburb—with about 30 members of his extended family. Cooperation with the Iraqi regime earns him perks that seem modest but go far under sanctions. He drives a 1999 GMC Suburban and receives $2,000 a month to distribute among the Shammar tribe’s 500 families. The tribe recently got a new garbage truck from Baghdad. The 49-year-old Mr. Shammari also acts as mayor, judge and social worker for the tribe.
A year ago, for instance, farmer Abas Al Shammari killed his city-dwelling brother-in-law in a fistfight. His parents, fearing reprisals, asked the sheik to hold a fasal, or mediation. He sat members of the two families on opposite sides of the room, and the aggrieved family made its demand: about $1,000 in compensation, the return of Abas’s wife, and the betrothal of Abas’s sister to one of the murdered man’s relatives. After two months of haggling, the two sides agreed on $250 and a wedding. Abas was able to keep his wife.

Manpower for Militia
But the patronage system also can nourish a threat to Saddam Hussein. The greater the bounty from Baghdad—much of which comes from the smuggling trade that has formed around the trade sanctions—the more manpower the clans generate for their militia. The stronger the tribes become, the more the Iraqi leader has to worry that they will become a weapon for his enemies.
“Saddam knows it is the tribes who can destroy him,” says Ghanim Jawad, a director at the London-based Al Khoei Foundation, an Islamic research institution. “The men who died fighting his wars were from the tribes.”

Some of the swords that have fallen out with the leader have turned sharply against him. One example is Machann Al Jaburi. His father, a sheik, was killed by members of another tribe, and the son’s older relatives were locked in a succession struggle.
Just 17 and the youngest member of the sheik’s family, Mr. Jaburi was in a weak position. That, he believes, is exactly why Saddam Hussein summoned him to Baghdad. “He asked me what I needed, and I told him I wanted to be a sheik,” Mr. Jaburi says in an interview. The Iraqi leader gave the young man a watch, $10,000, a car and a villa, and a high-paying job in Baghdad. His state-backed appointment as sheik quickly settled the tribal power struggle.

Payback time came in 1980, when war broke out between Iraq and Iran. “I went to my hometown with 50 buses, and came back with 50,000 men,” Mr. Jaburi says. Whatever the real number was, the Al Jaburis were the country’s most powerful clan by the time the war ended in 1989. Mr. Jaburi’s territory was transformed with public-works projects.
But Saddam Hussein apparently concluded the tribe had become too powerful. He cut off their patronage, played down their contribution to the war effort and excluded the tribe from his first postwar government. Forced to choose between the state and his increasingly resentful tribe, Mr. Jaburi chose the tribe. He and his family members plotted to assassinate the Iraqi leader and take over the government. The coup plan was discovered in early January 1990, when Mr. Jaburi was in Paris, and the other plotters were arrested and executed.

But the Al Jaburi problem didn’t go away. Saddam Hussein purged the tribe from the military, prompting another coup attempt from them in 1993. Machann Al Jaburi moved to Damascus, and although he lost authority over his tribe, he kept his connections to other, increasingly restless clans. He says he has allied himself with clan leaders in the Kurdish north, and diplomats believe he also has formed ties with tribes in the Shia south, where many opposition groups are based under the protection of the allied Western forces’ no-fly zones. His office is adorned with photos of him alongside tribal leaders in traditional garb.
“We are trying to make small incidents into large ones,” says Mr. Jaburi. “But it won’t happen overnight.”

Republican Guard
In April, the Arab-language Al Shark Al Awsat newspaper reported that security units arrested 40 Republican Guard officers who were allegedly planning a coup. A U.S. government official said one of the seniormost plotters was an Al Jaburi tribesman who escaped from the country through the Kurdish north. The incident also provided some confirmation of diplomats’ belief that the loyalty of Republican Guard members, once Saddam Hussein’s janizaries, can no longer be taken for granted.

Before that, in March, members of the Bani Hasan tribe clashed with regular troops in the marshes of southern Iraq, according to diplomats in Baghdad and dissidents abroad. The fighting, in which two dozen soldiers were killed and 14 tribesman executed, was over a government land-distribution and tax plan. Last year, according to the same sources, the regime had to put down a much larger challenge from forces related to the Al Dulaimi tribe, whose turf lies in northwestern Iraq.

While the drumbeat of opposition has been steady since the mid-1990s, diplomats in Baghdad say the incidents have grown more serious. Shia opposition groups say they can buy guns from the military, according to a U.S. official in the Middle East. Parts of Iraq, particularly in the impoverished south, are no longer safe for Iraqi troops to enter after dark.

With their standing militias, “the tribes can rise up overnight if the sheiks give the word,” says Sami Alzara al Hajam, a sheik of the 8,000-strong Bani Hajam tribe and now a dissident living in London.
Mr. Hajam is still a tribal sheik, and says he keeps in touch with his fellow tribesmen in southern Iraq. Three years ago, Saddam Hussein summoned young Hajam members to Baghdad, in a clear attempt to win loyalists the same way he wooed Mr. Jaburi. “We sent dozens, even men who weren’t invited,” Mr. Hajam says. “This way, Saddam doesn’t know who he can manipulate.”

He says he has frequent contact with British officials about the situation in Iraq, though not so much with Washington. “The British know us, because they understand how the tribes work,” he says. “But not the Americans.”

Washington’s Efforts
U.S. officials are starting to take notice of these outbreaks. Having failed to unseat the Iraqi leader by war and sanctions, Washington has occasionally tried to seed the clouds of opposition in the hope of a desert storm from within. Two years ago, the U.S. Congress passed a resolution that provides funding for opposition groups formed along religious and ethnic lines. They include Kurdish militia leaders, Shiite-Muslim Arabs with ties to Iran, and Sunni-Muslim Arab intellectuals. Now, some State Department officials are communicating with dissident tribal leaders in the hope of developing ties with clans on the ground.

The idea isn’t an easy one to swallow, though. “Many in the U.S. establishment feel more comfortable dealing with their own type,” says Sharif Ali, a cousin of Iraq’s last king and an Iraqi dissident who meets regularly with U.S. officials. “When I talk about the tribes, they give me blank stares,” he says. Mr. Ali, who heads an opposition group from exile in London, says he is in frequent contact with tribal leaders in Iraq. “They can take any town, but they can’t hold it,” he says. “For that, they need outside support.”

A big problem with the U.S. approach, according to a senior diplomat in the region, is that it tends to focus on cultural, ethnic and religious differences—instead of the family ties that bind tribes and offer the most fertile sources of opposition when they unravel. U.S. officials concede that their efforts haven’t been fruitful. Now their strategy involves waiting to see whether opposition groups can work together and muster a substantial force worth backing.

Saddam Hussein reacts to trouble by drawing loyal tribes even closer—and rehabilitating those that fall out of favor, as he has with the Al Jaburis. His meetings with the sheiks have become more frequent. State-controlled newspapers react to each crisis by listing, on the front page, tribesmen loyal to the leader. And the regime has hinted it will transfer some legal authority to the sheiks.

A Lid on Problems
One man who makes the loyalty list is Rashid Abdula Salem Al Jaburi, an Al Jaburi leader, responsible for about 20,000 people throughout Iraq, who has stuck with the regime throughout its confrontation with his tribe. The government recently built a school in Al Jaburi territory, not far from the sheik’s orange and date farm just outside Baghdad. Unlike most other schools, this one even has new textbooks.

“When we ask for help, the government doesn’t hesitate to provide it,” says Mr. Jaburi, 55, who greets two visitors—including the minder sent along by the Iraqi government—in a brown checked robe and carrying a bamboo walking stick.

Part of what the regime expects of Mr. Jaburi is to keep small problems from developing into big ones. From dawn to noon, he tends his orchards. After lunch, he leads a caravan of automobiles in his marine-blue Chevy Impala to see to the needs of his people. In a few days, he must travel to Dialla, several hours away, to head off a blood feud after one of his tribesmen murdered a member of the Bani Said.
“We’ll sit down and talk it out,” Mr. Jaburi says. “Although this may take mediation from a third-party tribe.”

Mr. Jaburi is a popular sheik, praised by some Iraqis who privately complain about the government. When his father died last year, thousands of mourners attended the funeral, including a senior delegation sent by Saddam Hussein. But the regime still keeps an eye on the clan’s latest sheik, sometimes assigning an official to “coordinate” between tribe and state, as Mr. Jaburi puts it. He says he doesn’t mind. “Our responsibilities are getting so big,” he says, keeping one eye on the minder. “We can use the help.”

Fuck them Ayrabs. I want another drinkiepooo......


Be sure to double click on the picture




Tough Job but somebody's got to do it.

It's the Longshoreman's Union, stupid. If you didn't already get it, the racist attacks on the UAE port deal are sponsored in their entirety by the ILU which is contributing money to all who will vote against the UAE deal. It's the protectionist wing of the Democrat Party. The WSJ is as good as any place to catch up on this. Without a doubt it was the ILU that leaked to the mayor of Miami, the labor loving Dem governors, and to the press. This deal had no chance of passing without anyone knowing and it proves that the "genius" class, both left and right, has no clue.

Check out LGF who has a serious column opposing the Port Deal....

Iraq updates are best obtained from Iraqi websites, some of which are down. An example from one:

Another group dressed in black in one Daewoo and two Opel vehicles passed the Interior ministry forces' checkpoint at Abu Dshir square, south of Dora, with no resistance and entered the Yassin mosque with explosives in tin containers. The keeper was killed and the mosque blown up.

Iraq the Model is now up with a fresh post that details the actual damage being done. He says it is way overblown. Hamorabi is up and is really laying into the U.S. Ambassador and says he's a Sunni and never should have been sent there. Ham is blaming Wahabis and his overall posts are full of bile. Healing Iraq has best first person account of the chaos and note that he says the Iraqi Police just let things happen, which is what we have always been afraid of. Iraqi Bloggers Central says that the Sunnis have been responsible for all the American and Iraqi dead and now it's "blowback."

There would be no Al Qaeda in Iraq without the support of the Sunnis in the Triangle. And now, my dear lovelies, comes the BLOWBACK. The Sunnis are a minority in Iraq and for thirty years they and their NATIONAL LEADER Saddam Hussein have repressed and tortured and killed the Shia of the south. On top of that, for the last three years the Sunnis have been killing the Shia with the help of Al Qaeda in Iraq, whose hatred of the Shia was spelled out in no uncertain terms by Zarqawi. So how long did you expect the Shia to take it lying down? There's no question now that the Shia have put together hit-squads to take out Sunnis.

Threats Watch has an interesting POV up in that he says the Al Qaeda fear democracy and is losing while getting all the press, that their goal now is to create a new Lebanon of continually warring factions forever.

If Iraq survives this deadly test thrust upon it by the camera magnets of al-Qaeda in Iraq, can anyone possibly deny that this has been a war on a steady - though not unhindered - path to victory without the public ever getting the sense that we and the Iraqi people are and have been winning?

Soldier blogging is non existant, natch, so best read the few Iraqi blogs up and running. Michael Yon, once the best blogger in Iraq, has now fallen in love with himself and nothing is up but hype for his pictures and book. Raed is blaming America and wants us out

When the Iraqi volcano erupts, it won't burn Iraqis. Unlike what the bush administration is trying to promote and claim, Iraqis never had a civil war, and they’ll never have one unless the occupation troops stay in Iraq. The US troops should leave Iraq as soon as possible so that Iraqis would have the time and space to heal their wounds and deal with their internal issues. The US army shouldn't be left in Iraq to face the ire of millions of Iraqis.

Former Spook sees things a little differently seeing the mosque bombing as the Zarqawi Tet Offensive if we allow it to be. He sees Al Qaeda as a fading force because everyone hates them.

If Zarqawi was behind the bombing, then it was tantamount to a "Hail Allah" play from the terrorist handbook. Until this week, the insurgency in Iraq was on a noticeable downswing; the number of "effective" IED attacks had dipped below 10%, and according to Pentagon statistics, the number of U.S. casualties declined in Iraq in 2005. Meanwhile, the Iraqis continue to make significant progress in building a democratic government, and playing a greater role in securing their nation.

Read him, his background is CIA and he has sources. How will this turn out? Who really knows, as in knows, but next week could be a big one.

And then.....it's a weekend and time for reading some serious stuff. Pinkerton has a "crunchy con" serious view of what to do about Iran. Very interesting.

But the read of reads this weekend is Lee Harris's "On the Brink" which is realistically scary about Iraq. I have posted many times on this blog that the real power in Iraq is the tribes and tribal loyalties.

Iraq, in short, is not on the brink of a civil war, as we understand it from our own experience; rather it is on the brink of something that no American, based on his own experience of civil life within his nation, can possibly hope to grasp in its full horror -- namely, tribalist anarchy.

My first posting about tribes, which was in June of '04, is HERE. I did another very long post about the similarities between incestual relationships and tribal reward system, HERE and I concluded with the observation that it was the Magna Carta in England that started the west on the road to democracy, not the Enlightenment, the journey down that long road from Magna Carta to an eventual working democracy took 500 years. We expect the tribally centered Iraqis to take the journey in 500 days. And don't forget the always thought provoking VDH at NRO, he's hitting a triple to right today.

....the question now is an existential one: Can the United States — or anyone — in the middle of a war against Islamic fascism, rebuild the most important country in the heart of the Middle East, after 30 years of utter oppression, three wars, and an Orwellian, totalitarian dictator warping of the minds of the populace? And can anyone navigate between a Zarqawi, a Sadr, and the Sunni rejectionists, much less the legions of Iranian agents, Saudi millionaires, and Syrian provocateurs who each day live to destroy what’s going on in Iraq? The fate of a much wider war hinges on the answers to these questions

Most of you who have read me over the past three or four years know I was never a believer in building a democracy in Iraq because their entire history is one of despot after despot ruling the area. As Civil War threatens,GO HERE and see another POV, this one from CATO, which is hardly a Soros think tank.

As they confront realities that repeatedly defy their rosy scenarios, the democratic crusaders are sounding more and more like the Marxists of Germany in the ’30s. They are always ready with a spin that transforms what looks like a worst case into an historic success. So the Shi’ites are in the process of establishing a theocracy in southern Iraq, the Kurdish nationalists in the north are preparing to secede, the Sunnis are turning their areas into havens for Osama’s jihadists, and the whole of Mesopotamia may be on the verge of a civil war?

My own opinions began on April 4, 2003 and concluded with this:

The Iraqi people have had 30 years of being "taken care of". Housing, medical care, food, and income was "handled". All you had to do was go along. Most of the population went along just as most of the population of Germany went along with Hitler until it didn't pay to do so; til their country had been destroyed. One need to look no further than East Germany today. Communism was good to them. They were taken care of. They didn't pay the price of disagreeing. Everything was OK. They demand the Welfare State.

I sincerely doubt that more than ten percent of Iraqi people want to think about anything. They don't know what thinking is, what having choices is, what being "free" means. The concepts are from Mars. I don't think they want it and what they will end up with is another Islamic State dominated by Mullahs, Imams, and enforcers of "Shiria Law".

That's how this will end.

And it looks like a lot of guys died for nothing.

Maxed out has a few first person remarks about the falling RE market in quite a few states and then bemoans the poor slobs who bought at low rates who now can't make the payments. Boo hoo. I wrote here several times that if you have a problem making payments at 1-1/2% how the hell will you manage at 4 or 5 percent? RE has been operating on the "greater fool theory"---no matter how much I pay today I'll find a moron to pay me more tomorrow---for the past six or seven years now, and for the last year or so as rates have been rising. Three things you have to know about RE investing: It ain't liquid, it ain't liquid, and it ain't liquid, BUT for the last several years speculators have been "flipping" homes, meaning they buy today and sell tomorrow at a higher price. The last people to buy homes they intended to flip deserve to get burned, they were speculating.

I'd add here the observation gleaned from real time: the Jane Lunchbuckets never know they are speculating, the Lunchbuckets think they are just smart and those who warn them are either envious or stupid. When I was a broker in the markets in the late Clinton years and warned people that they were speculating in a wildly overbought market, most prospective clients flat out told me I was stupid. Months before the crash Barron's ran a major article about the zero caps of most of the high flying tech stocks but the stocks kept rising like a hot air balloon from deep water.

What does the sell off in RE mean? It means that first time buyers will have to pay 5% interest on a loan for a house that is at least 25% cheaper than a few years ago, and in some cases 30% cheaper; in other words for many first time buyers it is a wash, only this time it's a reality wash. It is impossible to spot a top in the RE market because there are no charts or national futures contracts to guide you. So now the prices are falling. How far? Who knows, but it is a lead pipe cinch that they will fall too low and nobody will know it til afterwards.

Malkin has wedgee over this quote from Hillary:

CLINTON: Suppose that you were meeting today to decide who got the vouchers. First parent comes and says 'I want to send my daughter to St. Peter's Roman Catholic School' and you say 'Great, wonderful school, here's your voucher. Next parent who comes says, 'I want to send, you know, my child to the Jewish Day School. Great here's your voucher! Next parent who comes says, "I want to send my child to the private school that I've already dreamed of sending my child to.' Fine. Here's your voucher.

Next parent who comes says, 'I want to send my child to the school of the Church of the White Supremacist.' You say, 'Wait a minute. You can't send...we're not giving a voucher for that.' And the parent says, 'Well, the way that I read Genesis, Cain was marked, therefore I believe in white supremacy. And therefore, you gave it to a Catholic parent, you gave it to a Jewish parent, gave it to a secular private parent. Under the Constitution, you can't discriminate against me.'

Suppose the next parent comes and says 'I want to send my child to the School of...the Jihad.' Wait a minute! We're not going to send a child with taxpayers dollars to the School of Jihad. 'Well, you gave it to the Catholics, gave it to the Jews, gave it to the private secular people. You're gonna tell me I can't? I'm a taxpayer. Under the Constitution.'

Now, tell me how we're going to make those choices.

And she is correct. I've made the same point many times. There is no way to stop this from happening under a Federally funded voucher system, especially with the court sytem dominated by the Left. Malkin blah blah blahs about Hillary being crazy without saying where she is wrong. When a PC government in local areas certifies these madrassas, Black Muslim schools, and just plain nut case schools tell me exactly how to Constitutionally keep vouchers from going to people who want to send their kids there.

Just when you thought you might have a handle on the UAE ports deal, along comes Niel Bush (the Billy Carter of the Bush family) who is in bed with entire Dubai political establishment.

Neil Bush is a frequent visitor to and paid speaker in Dubai, showing up there right after 9/11 trying to get investors for his failed Ignite! educational software company. While there, "[Neil] Bush held talks with Dubai's Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammad bin Rashid al-Maktoum and Information Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan on the 'world economy in light of recent events, as well as higher education in universities," Arab American Business reported. Bush was in Dubai so much that he e-mailed his wife of his desire for a divorce from his Dubai hotel room

It smells. Debbie Schlussel has the goods, actually the bads and a MUST READ complete with sources, natch. Keep in mind that there is no evidence yet of any wrong doing, but this is trouble....... Thoroughly vetted my ass. And oh yeah, also prominent in Dubai high rolling circles are Clintonistas Sandy Berger, Al (it's getting hotter) Gore, Tipper Gore (there's pictures of all this, guys), former CIA director Dr. Robert Gates (see how the "vetting" process goes?), and , and, and, get ready---Dr. Howard Dean, yes THAT Howard Dean. All are here courtesy of Debbie. There's lots more from both parties complete with pictures

The Ports Deal: first, I have learned by now that Senator Schumer from NY is the worst demagogue in the Congress and to side with him is almost always a mistake. Second, When the worst president in my lifetime likes something you know it's awful. Third, the political whore of all time, Hillary Clinton, is opposed to the deal because it seems to bolster her hawk on terror image.

So what to do?

The ports decision was made by unelected officials behind closed doors, as is usual with this tone deaf administration. Nobody thought about anything in the real world. We all believe that had the port of Miami not protested via law suit the deal would have become law with no one the wiser. None of the Administration geniuses thought about what would happen if the company that lost the bidding war for the Brit company in possession of the thirty year Port Contract decided to leak about the U.S. turning over our sensitive ports to the Muslims. Nobody among our best and brightest considered that somebody with an axe to grind would leak to a port city mayor and thus bring the entire deal to its knees. Nobody in the Bush Administration thinks about anything past tomorrow until it's five minutes before midnight.

We are left with the catastrophic prospect of kicking out a company only because they are Arabs and Muslims, an act of bigotry that will cause more than just cartoon riots among Muslims world wide. Our troops are in serious danger. I refer you again to the James Robbins piece in the NRO yesterday for the enumeration of the favors the UAE has done for us since 2002. Add to that the fact that Dubai is the most westernized of all Arab countries; the women wear dresses, the press is relatively free, it is about to become the Las Vegas of the Middle East and even worse for us, they are about to control banking in the entire Muslim world because they have gotten around Shiria Law prohibiting interest; their banks will be financing all growth in the Middle East with interest rates set by a government and not any markets.

The UAE has also assisted the Coalition effort in Iraq, in particular training Iraqi security forces and sending material assistance to the Iraqi people. As further reasons for awarding the contract to the company that won the bidding war against the Singapore company for the former Brit port operator, try these: Dubai and the UAE were alone in Middle East in refusing to join the cabal against Israel. They have shut down terrorist bank accounts wherever they could. They have been an undercover ally against the insurgents in Iraq and against Al Qaeda in the Middle East. They have allowed us to fly over their territory, provided safe haven when we needed it, and according to all reports they are the main source of intel to the CIA. They are a huge buyer of our Boeing aircraft which creates thousands of jobs here. They operate ports all over the world with no problems. Under this contract the U.S. would be responsible for all phases of security at the ports. Arab NATIONALS will NOT be employed at the ports in the U.S. as all employees will still be Americans. And the contract ONLY covers commercial cargo it does not cover military or defense cargo.

In fact the more you look at this "deal" the worse it looks for us if we cancel it now. Malkin is going over the top (what else is new?) rallying bloggers against this deal, conveniently forgetting that when an Arab loses face he is your enemy for life. Barring our friends at UAE will clearly be seen as racist by all the usual suspects, and they will be correct. The only reason to keep the port from the UAE is that they are Arabs and Muslims. We run catastrophic risks if we throw this deal out now. Once an Arab loses face in public he becomes your enemy for life. Making our friends into enemies is the only possible result if we cancel this deal, and when we have the UAE as an enemy in Iraq it is all over for us.

This entire stink is a result of our president not minding the store AGAIN. This fiasco is the result of Bush's incompetence, and there is no other word for the way in which it has been handled. It's about time we stopped blaming his advisors and blamed the guy who appoints them. He has appointed a group of incompetents to run key agencies and then refused to fire them. As I've said over and over again, we cannot afford an inarticulate political trust fund baby to be in office ever again. Nor can we elect a political lead head who can't sniff the air.

Getting to the facts on this deal is going to be very difficult. If you want some real insight on the country of Dubai, go here to the Air Cargo News and open your eyes and brain. Then go here to see all the tourist things in that country. Info of the move toward democracy is here. Don't go off like a maniac. Don't be a Michelle Malkin or a Chuck Schumer.

Think.

UAE being awarded contract to run our ports is being debated very well HERE (NRO) Particularly go to James Robbins defense of the contract. It will clarify your thinking. BTW this is just one more example of a tin eared inarticulate GWB. All the stink is his fault and nobody elses. George Bush should be a clerk to the president and anyone else should be president.

James S. Robbins:
I have to wonder if the approval of Dubai Ports World is payback for recent support by Dubai and the UAE in the war on terrorism. Some data points:

December 2004: Dubai was the first government in the region to sign on to the U.S. Container Security Initiative to screen all containers heading for the United States for security risks.

May 2005: Dubai signed an agreement with the U.S. Department of Energy to bar passage of nuclear material from passing through its ports, and install radiation-detecting equipment.

June 2005: The UAE joined the International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings and the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism.

October 2005: The UAE Central Bank directed banks and financial institutions in the country to tighten their internal systems and controls in their fight against money laundering and terrorist financing. UAE banks routinely cooperate with U.N. and international law-enforcement agencies in supplying information about suspect accounts.

Robbins has much much more, read ALL of the great debate, we can all learn from it. One more time, why did I vote for this guy?

An addition to my consumer alert regarding Jardin Direct. This AM I received a USPS tracking number, which is a week after they told me there wasn't one. Just the facts.

The LA Times, believe it or not, has a very good piece about the politics of the CIA up today. I still say the late Senator Moynahan was right more than a decade ago when he said the CIA had outlived its usefulness and should be shut down.

And this one at Power Line is a must read regarding the attempts in Minnesota to surpress ads run by former military people. One more item of proof that the Left is basically a fascist Left and not a liberal left. Nobody in the MSM has uttered a peep. So what else is new?

Next we have "Crunchy Cons" (book title at all the usual places) as a description of a new kind of Conservatism. "Crunchy Cons" is a term like "Granola Heads" on the left, but is coined because it is catchy and because it is a different view of the world. Take a look at this piece in today's WSJ; you might want to buy this book. A slap at Shopping Mall Conservatives, Left Wing Libertarians, and just lazy intellectuals.

Little or no blogging today....

TV Sports: I just don't get NASCAR. I kept switching back to the Daytona 500 and the same cars, or cars that looked like the same cars, were circling the track. However, I did watch the last twenty minutes and that part was good. It's like an NBA game where you catch the last five minutes.

Olympics: shrug........ I'm glad I have Adelphia On Demand because I'm watching the last two years of The Sopranos that I missed. Watching a bunch of foreigners with names like Otto and Swen go down hills with sticks on their feet doesn't get to me either. If naked chicks were sking down a mountain I'd watch.

And be sure to check out Power Line today. If there is any doubt in your mind that the America hating extreme Left represents the heart of the Domcratic Party, this entry WITH SOURCES (WTF are they, you at the MSM might ask) will awaken you to the truth.

Say you and I each have $2 and you buy a flange from me for $1, meaning I now have $3 and you have $1 less than you had. Technically, one might say you are running a $1 trade deficit. Now because I have $1 in extra money I invest the $1 you gave me in one of your companies. Now what? You didn’t get your money back directly, but I have increased the value of one of your companies by $1 and that $1 will increase even more in value over time and will help finance the growth of your company so you can make more flanges and sell more flanges. Are you still running a trade deficit? Only to the MSM which, as is usual, tries to make our elected Republican Administration look bad.

In addition, because you have a lot of money coming in and you can afford to buy flanges from me for the foreseeable future and I will be investing my surplus money in enterprises all over the world and most will benefit you either directly or indirectly your "debt" isn't really a debt.

We have a ton of extra money because our economy is so successful. We buy from places like China and they turn around and buy our bonds, invest in our businesses, and actually buy some businesses.

There is no such thing as a trade deficit unless we spend more than is reinvested in our economy and our growth stops. Reporters, all of them Left and Liberal to their cores, know this but they ignore it. They report everything they can in such a way as to make the country look bad. They know what the score really is, but continue to color the difference in trade as a net loss of money when it is not. No money sits in vaults in any country. Ever. But the money coming back in cannot be measured each month, so they don't bother trying to figure it out.

So forget about trade deficits. There is no such thing. The awful Arabs? They use our cement, buy our farm surpluses, invest in our bonds and companies, and buy everything. Our money comes back. Period. The “trade deficit” finances our economic growth. It exists only in the minds of liberals.

2/20 add: TCS has a good and easy to understand piece up this AM. File it under great minds think alike.

Retraction, sort of: I labeled all our Olympic athletes as louts, bums, and spoil sports (HERE), a statement that is stupid. One of our speed skaters, Joey Cheek, has donated all his winnings to the refugees in Darfor and has persuaded many others to do the same. I'm sure that we have other athletes who don't sulk and pout after a loss.

oUR bRAVE AND wONDEFUL pRESS strikes again. This via Debbie Schlussel:

Beirut, Lebanon - A new "Hit List" of prominent Lebanese figures has surfaced over the weekend. The list includes new names of prominent outspoken Lebanese journalists that pointed fingers at Syria for its role in the assassination of former PM Rafik Hariri (list of journalists targeted)

This without a single protest from our MSM. Not a whisper. Journalists targeted for execution are making Paris their home, not the USA, the home of gutless journalism. The entire story is here. The updated Hit list follows:

* Walid Jumblatt
* Saad Hariri
* Marwan Hamadeh
* Nayla Mouawad
* Wael Abu Faour
* Samir Franjieh
* Elias Atallah
* Farid Makari
* Marcel Ghanem
* Ali Hamadeh
* Fares Khashan

Let us hope this isn't a RIP list. And we could only wish NBC's David Gregory was on somebody's butt fuck list.

Good piece over at Captain's Quarters who nails it. MSM is afraid.

Last words on the cartoons: Start with Gateway Pundit who shows us the blurred CNN display of the cartoons and THEN Cox and Forkum have this one on the left. CNN has completely removed their Wolf Blitzer segment where he excuses CNN cowardice and misinformation. Consensus is that MSM is, as usual for them, completely gutless and unprincipaled. Most cartoons are HERE. And a short round of applause for the Rocky Mountain News for finally publishing all of them PLUS these awful cartoons showing what the Muslims are posting too. I'm not a reader of that paper, but from what I can gather they take their responsibilities seriously.

NewsMax is reporting that ABC deliberately mis-translated a Saddam tape to make it appear that he had no WMDs and so on, which if true is totally disgusting, but we all expect disgusting from the MSM, don't we?

Consumer Alerts
The Good: I bought a digital camera on the web from a company called I Buy Plasma. The experience could not possibly have been better. The prices are the lowest, or within a buck or two of the lowest, they shipped instantly and I got my purchase within days. Two weeks after I received it I discovered that a strap for the camera case was not included. I called their customer service, I was treated great, and they sent me a new case with a strap for free and it arrived within days. The price for a Sure Shot A 520 was between $45 and $50 lower than either of the local discount retail outlets in town (Best Buy and Fry's). A really great company.

The not so Good: I purchased a vacuum food sealer for foods from a place called Jardin Direct, a company that tells you a ton about themselves and is rated highly by consumers, or so it says. Experience is not so good. They deducted from my cc before they shipped, which is illegal. I called to complain and was treated to a disingenuous response to say the least. At first I was told it was shipped, then that it was in process, and then told that I was never told that it was shipped. I called the next day and was told it had been shipped, when I asked for a tracking number I was told it was sent by the USPS and so there was no tracking number, meaning it must have been sent parcel post instead of Priority Mail, a shipping and handling fee of $5.95 more had been charged. Also, though this is not their fault, California demands that tax be added to purchase. They were the only company carrying the item charging less than $50, the nearest price being $99 on the web and over $100 local discount retail. I'd urge caution before buying because their customer service is certainly not what I'd call real good.

The insane: Let me start by saying, in the words of Cramer on Mad Money: sellsellsellsellsell AT&T stock. I received a very expensive forty page full color brochure by mail from AT&T. They offer every kind of cable TV service, internet connection service, phones and so on for very cheap rates. It looks great. BUT within the very expensive to produce near book size sales piece there is a two page insert with the smallest possible print, so small that I had to use both eye glasses and a magnifying glass to read it. Holy shit. First, the TV offer is only good for single family residences from which I infer, no "stacked" apartment like condos or apartments. This means they have pissed away God Only Knows How Much Money mailing to apartments and condos (I live in an apartment building). Second, within the four page statement their almost microscopic type size there is something that states that the dish TV service requires that I install my exterior "dish" myself or there could be huge installation charge, HOWEVER when you go online the explanation is that AT&T will install, IF. There is no mention of the exterior dish in the gorgeous part of the mailing, nor is the caution that I must have an unobstructed view of the Southern Sky, something I found out from people at work, not in the microscopic insert. Third, I also have to sign a contract, the low low rates are only good for six months, and the great offer is only good if you order over the internet; in other words nobody wants to answer any questions you might have or it's gunna cost ya. When I totaled the "offer" without calling for an installer the price is only $10 cheaper than my cable and high speed internet for the first six months and more expensive later. A hell of a lot more if I have somebody come out and install the dish and a "PROBLEM" develops. AT&T has wasted at least a half a million dollars sending this very expensive mail piece to every "stacked" condo and apartment building in Southern California, places that don't qualify for the offer. The price obfuscation regarding installation of the dish will not be recognized by enough people until it is too late and AT&T will be sued. If you get the offer be sure you read it carefully. And sellsellsellsellsell their stock.

Systemic: Relating to or affecting the entire body or an entire organism: systemic symptoms; a systemic poison.

It is the systemic poison affecting our entire corporate business structure that needs addressing, not that we can do much about it. It is not just a fluke or an aberration that the Main Stream News Media, the Hollywood to Broadway entertainment complex, and the U.S. auto businesses show the same symptoms of a disease that is racking our entire business structure. I'll call it the "Give Me a Raise and I'll do Better Next Time" syndrome. A type of wishful thinking that once injected into a system becomes "systemic."

An on-line news site called "New Yorkish" lists hundreds of sons and daughters, wives and girl friends, or just plain family who have jobs in Tinsel Town. The first dozen out of a hundred are:

Adam Arkin (son of Alan)
Jake Busey (son of Gary)
Michael Douglas (son of Kirk Douglas)
Kiefer Sutherland (son of Donald)
Scott Caan (son of James)
Kate Hudson (daughter of Goldie Hawn)
Brandon Lee (son of Bruce)
Chad McQueen (son of Steve)
Angelina Jolie (daughter of Jon Voight)
Timothy Hutton (son of Jim)
Charley Boorman (son of John)
Jamie Lee Curtis (daughter of Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis, married to Christopher Guest)

Even near ugly sister of Michelle, Dedee Pfeiffer, (that's great looking Michelle on the left) and Joey Travolta who appeared in a movie with Anna Nicole Smith, have cracked into the system which even has a Nepotism Award page.

Auto giant GM has corporate and labor nepotism. Favors given out to both management and the UAW are listed here and a UAW insertion of more than 300 friends and relatives into the GM work force while the union was on strike is on line here.

The cozy family that runs the New York Times, the Tribune Companies, and The Atlanta Constitution are public knowledge. The legion of family hacks in TV news was listed in an NRO piece here.

On CNN there's Andrea Koppel, daughter of Ted and Benno Schmidt, son of the former president of Yale. CNN also boasts anchorman Anderson Cooper, son of Gloria Vanderbilt Â? as well as Jeffrey Toobin, whose mother, Marlene Sanders, was one of the first women to make it at CBS News as a correspondent and whose father, Jerry Toobin, was at NBC for many years.

Sell fewer cars year after year and the suits get bonuses. See circulation and ratings drop for more than a decade and everyone gets more money. Make movies nobody wants to see and the "creative end" gets twenty mil per picture.

You don't have to think too much to see that the corporate leaders will keep their jobs no matter what. The Adam Smith model of competition which weeds out the losers, a model composed of competitive pressures making sure that only the "best and brightest" rise to the top, doesn't apply to our elites these days.

Trust Fund Babies have taken over many news "businesses" and nepotism has ruled Hollywood for the better part of the last fifty years. Detroit is completely ingrown where nobody not educated in the right universities need apply, design cars, or even create and implement minor features on cars. In short, there is no competition within these large businesses. The incompetent keep their jobs, get raises, and retire with Golden Parachutes.

Spread to the political class, note that The Bush Administration has never fired anyone---well they did punish Benedict Arnold---in spite of some of the worst agency performances this country has ever seen. In fact even after repeated agency failures they continue to appoint political hacks who hire their incompetent pals as assistants; the recent appointment of Julie Myers and her subsequent appointment of an assistant with no experience at all is the latest nepotism example.

Critics outside of this country think we are too tough. They call it "Economic Darwinism," when in fact what we actually have is "economic insulation from every mistake."

Nobody in top management at either GM or Ford should have their jobs, but they do. Nobody running the studios or the financing arms of the motion picture business should be employed at all. And the obvious incompetence from top to bottom in the "news business" is plain for all to see.

Our business model has failed. The wheels have come off the comptetive system and we run on rails by using sled skids because nobody is forced to change to newer and better wheels. The price for failure is more success, a success that is measured only by take home pay and perks.

Oh, and did I mention the university "system" of guaranteed employment for life no matter what?

We have a lot of cleaning up to do and I don't think we are up to the job. The system we have now has degenerated into Free Market Capitalism for the suckers and monopoly mercantilism for the smart---and well connected.

Keep up the fiction, be sure your Ferrari is insured, and don't rock the boat.

This fabulous Administration has to tap telephones of U.S. Citizens to "protect" us from terrorist attack but turns our ports over to UAE terrorist supporters.

In fact, many of the 9/11 hijackers transited through the UAE, and a significant amount of al-Qaeda cash came through UAE-based accounts. If they run their own country's borders so poorly, why would we trust them to run ours? The White House needs to deep-six this deal, or cancel the contracts and re-bid them. Putting our ports in the hands of Arab authoritarians isn't just putting the fox in charge of the henhouse, it's tantamount to cooking him eggs for breakfast every morning and bringing him KFC for supper every night.

Captains Quarters has most of the gory, and I do mean gory, details.

Notes on a Zig Zag Paper

Al Qaeda is giving benefits to members most details of which are at Austin Bay. The document outlines medical, loan, furniture , vacation, disability, and severance benefits (arms? legs? or life?).

The real bounty on killing the writers/artists who drew the cartoons is only $25,000. Mohammed Yousaf Qureshi, prayer leader at the historic Mohabat Khan mosque in the conservative northwestern city of Peshawar, announced the mosque and the Jamia Ashrafia religious school he leads would give a $25,000 reward and a car for killing the cartoonist who drew the prophet caricatures — considered blasphemous by Muslims. The one mil offered by an association of jewelers appears to be bogus. The good imam says it is a universal fatwa. Details at Front Page.

More Bush Administration tapping our phones while ignoring actual terrorist training on our soil. WND has a big article

Popular Mechanics scoops the MSM regarding the actual Katrina story. Watch that MSNBC jackass David Gregory have a snit because he didn't get the scoop while sitting on his butt at the White House. PM not only tells what went RIGHT as well as wrong, they have suggested real solutions, unlike those preening face time seeking congress representatives. As an aside here, I am very familiar with reverse osmossis water purification systems and as PM points out, they should be available at all locations.

Movie site worth bookmarking called "Movie Criticism for the Retarded" and I post one small sample of their reviewing writing:

"Brokeback Mountain is a movie about two pretty cowboys who get drunk on whiskey and then have violent buttsex without so much as five seconds of foreplay. The film then tells us that this is true love and spends the next two hours convincing us of that."

Need you know more? Well you do, as the full review will tell you. Good site and run by guys who love movies not their own clever writing skills.

Olympics: Spoiled rotten American athletes, both men and women, continue their pouting trash talking loutish behavior. Undisciplined and under achieving, the USA is producing nothing but a bunch of preening pretenders who don't work hard enough to win and aren't even focused enough to win. Boo hiss.

You know I never shill for Amazon, but Prayers for the Assassin sounds like it could be very good, and because of the subject matter it hasn't a prayer of getting good reviews in the MSM (rave reviews from the New York Times, LA Times, and CNN may make you think twice before buying it). Take a look HERE and see if it's something you'd like to read. Me? I almost never read fiction because it's so fucking boring, so it follows that I have no intention of reading this book unless my plane crashes into the New Fiction part of a book store.

The stupid so-called Kid Rock Sex Tape is here. Trust me, it stinks. So bad that it should be safe for work church.

The psychotic self absorption of the White House Press Corpse is obvious to all but the Left. The main thrust of the MSM assault on the Bush Administration is that a teen-aged $200 a week Mexican American GIRL got the story first. That can't mean that any teen with a pen and a brain can report the news, can it? I mean it's well known that only a Washington reporter with Ivy credentials and a six figure income who sits on his lazy ass inside the White House can report. A very intelligent (but long) view on this is over at Tapscott.

Vice-President Dick Cheney's decision to inform a local Texas newspaper instead of the White House Press Pool about his hunting accident sparked outrage in the daily briefing room and a flood of hot commentary in the mainstream media elite and the Left side of the Blogosphere.

The shamelessly gutless and inarticulate Bush Administration uttered the following disgusting statement regarding the cartoon war

"Anti-Muslim images are as unacceptable as anti-Semitic images, as anti-Christian images, or any other religious belief."

Unacceptable? WTF does that mean? Maybe it's about time we stopped excusing a morally adrift administration as being inarticulate. It is clearly gutless. Christopher Hitchins weighs in on this subject, seemingly alone on the Left (don't forget he is Left, in his case it is Honest Left) in his awareness of the creeping philosophical convolutions of the GOP which increasing sounds a lot like "it all depends on what "is" is.....

I have cautioned for the last few years that "going after" Hillary is mistakeo el primo. Hate directed toward her will destroy the haters in the Republican Party, not Hillary. Power Line has an excellent piece up which similarly warns all of the perils of hate politics. Alas, I don't think enough Republicans "get it." Led by the usually funny Limbaugh and followed up by the always lame Sean Hannity, the "base" is already swinging from their hairy heels at the "smartest woman in the world" instead of focusing on her absolutely terrifiying politics. Don't bet that Hillary can't win. If "hate" is her opponent she will win and she ought to win. If Christianity is one of the core values of the GOP it's about time the evils of hate were explained to the Republican spear carriers before the voters do it. And don't hope that the haters on KOS will take care of the Democrats. We first have to be accountable to ouselves.

ENERGY: Note that the active contract in the futures market is now April. All quotes will be for the April contract which closed at 59.58. The cash market, while hard to quote accurately because it's always cash "where?" closed at 54.70 Feb 10th. Active Gold is also April.

Where is oil going? Could go to $58, and if it breaks $58 God only knows. Chart here. We will now find out for sure if the manipulation many have said has been going on really is the cause of the sky high prices. New production has come on line, we are awash in crude supplies, BUT we are also facing huge new demand. GM and Ford are coming out with the biggest SUVs yet, but with big changes in engines and supposedly much fuel economy. However if you will check the CRB, the Commodity Research Bureau Index which measures a basket of commodities, you will see a virtual collapse. This shows up as cattle prices come down, hog prices come down, grains come down, and now gold is coming down. It has broken through initial support and the next stop is $499; who knows. Keep in mind that the "normal" range of the CRB index is in the very low 200s and the current reading of 325 reflects the metals and crude inflation as well as the still very high meats.

US Auto market
The new guy that Kirkorian has inserted into the Detroit ingrown board of directors at GM will not do a thing to turn the company around. The thinking among the people who know the business is that the main problem facing GM and Ford is the perception among car buyers that neither company can make a good car. While this perception is no longer correct, it is an image that will not go away. I believe the slide began way back in 1968 when, after Ford cleaned the clocks of every car company in the world by winning every car race on the planet--especially including Le Mans---GM and Ford slinked off the racing scene leaving the unmistakable impression that they were afraid to compete head to head with MCB, Ferrari, Honda, and the rest. It's going to take a return to WINNING racing for the two companies to recover their image.

The phony media and Cheney shooting: These total creeps in the MSM and their envy over a small town Texas newspaper scooping them (with reporters who actually leave Washington D.C. and work) is best told today HERE in the WSJ. Jesus, just watching that White House Press Corps makes me yearn for Capital Punishment for parking tickets and any reporter who stays on the job more than six months.

No more blogging today and perhaps tomorrow

Today's Bullshit
1. The Algore story All of us can't wait for this Brokeback Politician to say something we can get outraged about, and on a daily basis. He didn't disappoint.
2. The Cheney attempting to murder his hunting partner story is obvious crap, but the entire corrupt media is crawling all over it like maggots on a dung heap. Just like we'd all expect.
3. The pretentious posing by a very few second line media as they "publish the cartoons" but in small enough type so that nobody can read them.
4. Michelle Kwan Give me a break, she shouldn't have been on the team in the first place and her insertion into the competition robbed a real skater of her rightful place. The "sport" is as corrupt as the rest of the Olympics.
5. Gonzaga becomes faggot friendly as faculty bans a "Brokeback" chant students were using against sensitive opposing players. The Advocate is in a typical snit. Oh yeah, before I forget, Gonzaga won again and is probably the only team west of the Ohio River capable of making the Final Four. Morrison, their star player, is really really good but he's college good not necessarily NBA good.
6. Wayne Gretzky's story is beginning to take on the look of Greek, well Canadian, tragedy. Both he and his wifiepoo have a real gambling habit, he has been known to bet 25k on ONE HAND of blackjack and his wife makes stupid proposition bets in excess of 25k. According to the Post

Both Gretzky and his embattled wife, actress Janet Jones, routinely gamble at the Mansion at the MGM Grand, an exclusive Sin City casino that requires guests to risk at least $250,000 over several days if they want to stay gratis in its luxurious suites.

News at eleven.

Any real stories under all this crap?
Yes, because the "cartoon wars" are beginning to look like serious stuff for Muslims. Europe has awakened at last to exactly what Islam is, has been, and always will be: a threat to every Western value.
In addition, Turkey has no chance of getting into the EU now and they are within a whisker of becoming an Islamic state; the interesting part of this is that it is the Turkish people themselves who want Islam, not the leadership. This Turkish emergence does not bode well for the "New Iraq." Blame the developing firestorm on a few imams from Denmark? Hell no, this was a gasoline saturated dung pile ready to be set off. If the cartoons didn't do it there were plenty of other sparking devices around, all equally stupid to us but serious to them.

Now for the BIG ACTUAL NEWS Sports Illustrated coming out with their annual Swimsuit Edition, not being "big news." Ho hum big yawn and wake me up later. Compared to a weekly Maxim (one of a thousand Maxim hot babes left) or a ton of others, Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition is really yesterday's news.

Question of the Day:
Name two movies, besides "5 Day Abs," that Gretzky wifiepoo, 45 year old Janet Jones (left), has appeared in.... Her sexy pics, taken when she was under thirty, are here (not viewable on Firefox--what else is new?)

More than one emailer has pointed to this story on the web right now (link from Drudge) regarding the videotape of Brit soldiers beating four or five Iraqi rioters. All suggest that while the MSM won't show the cartoons ALL will wallow in the shots on this one. Hypocrisy? No. Just honest reporting. You see it's like this......

Well, you are all too stupid to understand what educated elites understand. Trust me, this is honest reporting 101 at all the right universities.

Drudge headlined the emergence of former Virgina governor Mark Warner as the front runner against Hillary Clinton, referring to him as "Senator Nobody" on his link to the story. Here's a the easiest bet since Katrina vs New Orleans: if Warner continues to look stronger than Hillary he will be smeared faster than you can get an erection at the sight of Jessica Simpson.


That's her daughter on left sulking on her bed after her mom told her she couldn't go to the zoo. Double click on the picture to see the animals




The history of these slimy Clintons is to mud ball everyone who dares challenge them. Will it be the New York Times "digging" something up, or will it be sombody else? The Times becoming a smear merchant on behalf of the Clintons will happen as sure as water is wet. The "leak" may not appear there first but you can rest assured that Kristoff and the rest will pile on. The first shit ball will more than likely come from some secret Hillary front group like Salon or Nation, or even Vanity Fair. How dare Warner become a front runner against the smartest woman in the world? The only woman in America who is the result of an abortion? The first black woman president? Warner had best be ready. Jessica is.

Althouse is very very good today. She also links to a Times piece on telegrams that is terrific; sample:

The humorist Robert Benchley, arriving in Venice for the first time, cabled Harold Ross, editor of The New Yorker.

STREETS FULL OF WATER. PLEASE ADVISE.

Good read today. But Althouse is another of the PJ Media who censors all comments. Today only four of the 22 have been allowed to remain posted. Great group those PJs.

Hillary Care to be replaced by Hillary Bailout? This item was news this week:

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton told the United Auto Workers on Wednesday that she backs their efforts to launch a so-called Marshall Plan for the U.S. auto industry. Under the proposal the UAW has been touting to lawmakers this week, automakers that invest in fuel-efficient technologies, such as hybrid vehicles, could get federal aid to support retiree health benefits.

This is going to blow up in her face even bigger than her health care plot. Starting with the near 100,000 laid off workers collecting full pay forever for doing nothing. Collecting full health care for ditto. And the grossly overpaid and underworked remaining work force at both GM and Ford being paid by you and me. My bet? She'll say she was misquoted out of context by a Right Wing conspiracy hell bent on destroying her and her husband.

I just used the word "fuck" that proves I'm brave. Many of us are commenting on the spineless U.S. media behavior in the face of the supposedly "offensive" cartoons that they say they refuse to publish out of concern for the feelings of a minority group, when we all know that they fear offending our bi-coastal elites, elites who use the word "fuck" as proof of their liberated state and their courage. What our elites actually fear more than anything in the world is to lose clout. And money. In the current cartoon wars, contrast our blogosphere and MSM with Europe, and especially our favorite whipping boy France, whose absolutely "not free" press has found balls aplenty at last and is standing up for a principal called Free Speech, something our elite media --- especially including FOX News--- refuses to stand up for, preferring instead to be "responsible," sensitive to minority feelings, and completley safe.


Blogger group meeting with MSM (left) to discuss courage, freedom to sodomize your best friends, and other really important things before a morning group cop out on publishing cartoons.



The latest to point out the gutlessness of our media, but without publishing the cartoons, is City Journal.

Let me be clear here, only a few on the web have dared publish the cartoons either, preferring the safety of phony lofty criticism to the courage of actually informing their readers. That is because it might cost them money if their ISPs decided to pull the plug. Far too many "blogs" have morphed into groups of writers publishing under a single roof (Pajamas Media) trying to become a small tributary stream of media instead of just just one truly free--and lonely---voice. Whenever you combine forces with others, guts goes out the window first---assuming you actually had guts in the first place.

Using the word "fuck" is a coward's courage, and boy are we all brave.

These cartoons are reproduced below in order to foster evil relations with the world wide Muslim community and to make a freedom of expression statement.... Keep in mind that the New York Times thought these cartoons too offensive to print. Below them is the obscene elephant dung spattered Virgin Mary that the New York Times did print, and on the same day that they ran an article condemning the Danish cartoons as too offensive.

All cartoons are available here, and only at that link (BTW his ISP is threatening him). Site is called Faith and Freedom. Go there, it's a great site and it is run by ex-Muslims. Take note that freedom loving Google, Yahoo, and all the rest of the search engines have pulled all links to the "offensive" cartoons, right after turning names of dissenters over to the Chinese of course. Below the Virgin Mary is a painting called Yo Mama's Last Supper which features a nude woman as Christ; you will have to blow it up to see clearly.






WHAT THE NEW YORK TIMES CONSIDERS GOOD AND RESPONSIBLE ART is reproduced below. The dung is from an animal on the Endangered Species list called an elephant which makes it doubly OK for the Times. Again, keep in mind that the NYT ran this picture on the same day that they condemned the Danish cartoons as being offensive to Muslim sensitivities.

Below is an art du jour painting called Yo Mama's Last Supper, which is run in all the usual Left places and depicts the Christ as a nude woman. When shown in tax payer subsidized Brooklyn Museum (also a recipient of Red Cross 9/11 contributions) protesters showed up. All were thrown out by our liberal elites. Double standard, Anti-Christian Left, or just plain shitty art?

Notes on a Zig Zag paper:
Things economic include the fact that you are a piece of shit if you invest in Cisco Systems Inc., Microsoft Corp., and Yahoo Inc., the three companies collaborating with China. If you have any pride at all you will sell their stock if you own any.
Energy: because of the warm winter our heating oil supplies are on the moon. And so are the prices. These energy companies should be broken up as they continue to gouge. Prices? We may be coming off a "double top" on the weekly charts (it is a stretch of one's imagination to say the nearly always bearish "W" formation has formed) a bottom at $58 crude is possible.
The Evangelical Outpost has enough good posts today to last you twenty minutes. Really good. Their short piece on Yak Shaving is classic.

Winter Olympics: if you think I'll spend as much as five seconds watching some so-called man dressed in pants two sizes to small with spangles dangling from beneath his arms and eye makeup on his eye sockets ice skating to Judy Garland vocals you must be out of your mind.

DESIGNER VAGINAS are the "new thing" Us guys have viagra, but those old broads with vaginas you can park your car in are "tightening it up" so they can lure unsuspecting horny guys into their lairs with tight pussy sex. Face lifts are still number one with women trying to look younger but face it, when a guy sticks his dick into the Bat Cave instead of a hot and slippery canary nest, the relationship is in serious danger. So all these former babes who have slept with nothing smaller than a 747 for thirty years are going for the gusto.

"What? You think I might be nearly fifty and not a 31 year old who has only had sex with her three of her four husbands? Wait til you take a test flight on this one, honey." This conversation takes place only after she has run a D&B on you and verified your credit worthiness and FICA score.

Link is here to the only news org in Los Angeles that actually reports the news.

The same radio station reported, but hasn't posted, that high level officials were warned two days prior to the local prison riots that they were going to take place. Not only that, but they also were told about the second and third. The "fights" are between two of the most violent gangs in LA and in ACLUville they are not segregated out of the population. I hate to tell you all this, but I spent a short time in the LA Jail system many eons ago. The reality of that "life" is this: within twenty minutes of being tossed into the general population it became clear that I was far and away the smartest guy in there. Using law that I learned from TV shows I began advising prisoners of their rights and told them what to do. Within hours I actually had a line in front of me waiting to talk. So I had a "social network" and whenever a gang killing or stabbing was going to take place both blacks and Mexicans warned me and told me where to hide. The inmates always know in advance when these things will happen. The are all planned in advance.

Salud France: I'm taking back a lot of the shit I've dished out about the French. As you know I've been a basher for several years, but mag called Charlie Hebdo has guts and is standing up for free speech by publishing "those cartoons" PLUS a few more today. I'd like to email them but their website has so much traffic you can't get there from here. Their site is HERE. Late note: you won't get on because they only have a web page and not a site.

Pipes does not think the present "cartoon war" a Clash of Civilizations, a term taken from a book of the same title (by Huntington at all the usual places) which paints a gloomy picture for the West in terms of the "clash" (declining birth rates, the abandonment of religion and the accompanying vanished moral floor, the rise of both Asian and Muslim civilizations and so on). Hope he's right, but when a couple of clown imams can start a world wide series of riots it makes one at least pause. This could be the dying ember of Muslim extremism or the start of the tide. As a second read you might look at Tony Blankley's "The West's Last Chance: Will We Win the Clash of Civilizations?" in which he backs up Huntington's thesis but sees a solution, something Huntington does NOT see. BTW the Huntington book is a very important one, one that was trashed by all the Lefties when it first came out but is now read by everyone. I urge you to buy it if you haven't read it already.

Violence works: For decades Black thugs have attacked and burned any college newspaper that printed things "they didn't like." For the last five years Muslims have successfully broken up speeches on college campuses, demanded and received special graduation ceremonies or privileges, and have infiltrated the faculties of most major universities. As anyone can see from news reports, the Muslim violence has forced countries to censor speech, to arrest people who say bad things, and will clearly force Europe to "put a lid" on what is published when it comes to Muslims. So how about us? The cowardly and disgraceful response to the riots by the Bush Administration coupled with the near complete silence by the American (?) Left indicates that we are cowed once again, afraid to stand up for freedom of speech when it is risky to do so.

We lost our balls long before Europe and we set the example for Europe to follow.

Stupor Bowl: Tell me again that the NFL game is more exciting than the college game. Tell me that the Rose Bowl game wasn't more exciting than every NFL playoff game. Tell me that the Pioneer PureVision Las Vegas Bowl wasn't better; that the Sheraton Hawaii Bowl (final score 49-48); Motor City Bowl (final score: 39-38) and I could go on and on. The Super Bowl was dull and the dullness was compounded by the worst officiating in years. The fake pass interference call and that "blocking below the waist" call on a tackle, are just two examples of the lousy NFL officiating that carried over from the playoff officiating.

But the fact of the matter is that the NFL has become dull dull dull. What the game needs are two new rules. 1: Permit any shift, meaning any so long as one second elapses from the time of the shift until the snap of the ball a rule that would open the game up in a big way. Rule 2. A tackle or guard eligible would not have to report it to the refs. The Super Bowl exposed both the dullness of the game and the awful officiating for all to see.

The PC police strike again, this time with hundreds hurt and one dead. We've had a prison riot in LA, the umpteenth in the last two years, and all, save this one that resulted in a death, went unreported by the always PC MSM.

What? See it's like this, the Feds have a PC law that demands the jails and prisons be racially "integratged." This means that people who regard one another as "niggers" or "spics" or "slopes" must live together. That, in the view from the Ivy League and the NYT, will solve everything.

So we've had a race riot among gangs that are all racially pure. The only reason that this brawl was kept between Blacks and Mexicans is that the whites and Asians stayed out of the prison yard.

I long ago ceased using credit cards for any reason, but for those of you who do HERE is a cautionary tale regarding your contract with your cc company. After reading it you may want to pay your balances down right now and do what I have done: use a debit card only. Once you actually get the habit of not buying anything you can't pay for, you will be surprised at the serentiy you feel. I have "missed" a thousand sales and discounts and when I had the money I found that I could buy what I want cheaper anyway.

I totally love Black Five regarding the over coverage the MSM lavished on their media darling. Katie Couric slobbering tears all over the TV set while ignoring soldiers who have died is a priceless observation. The above link has been corrected.

A new military blog is up that features the good stuff we are doing and videos to back it all up. Take a look, it's HERE

Lots of conservative blogs are commenting on the complete silence from the Left regarding the cartoon issue. Malkin has a good rundown on the whole thing. Keep in mind that there is this Muslim fatwa against Salman Rushdie for writing a book called "Satanic Verses":

The author of The Satanic Verses, a text written, edited, and published against Islam, against the Prophet of Islam, and against the Koran, along with all the editors and publishers aware of its contents, are condemned to capital punishment. I call on all valiant Muslims wherever they may be in the world to execute this sentence without delay, so that no one henceforth will dare insult the sacred beliefs of the Muslims.

A hell of a lot of European cartoonists are going into hiding.

In so far as the Left Silence is concerned, a party or movement that stands for absolutely nothing is making a statement by their silence. Their silence speaks volumes well reams no not that either. Speaks pages, well it speaks notes (like in dough ray me) about their high pricipals and commitment to freedom. Sean Penn and Alec Baldwin will comment tomorrow. Or the day after. Babra Streissand is writing a song. And the usual suspects will run a full page ad in the New York Times as soon as it is safe to do so.

Somehow the Democratic Party -- for 180 years the most electorally successful political party on the planet -- has now almost completely mutated into a party too loathsome to be seen in public, and too nihilistic to be trusted with control of even a single branch of government.---Tony Blakely

In response to several thoughtful but anonymous emails regarding my post on the Anti Muslim cartoons and my belief that gratuitously denigrating anyone's religion should not be tolerated anywhere. I then listed a few paintings of horrid anti-Christian "art" that is shown in tax supported museums etc.

The respondees pointed out quite accurately that Muslims ain't protesting the mass murder by Muslim terrorists in Jordan recently, and five or more recent Muslim terror attacks on civilians, all of which go unreported in the Arab press. Both also point out to the vicious anti-Semitic cartoons, movies, and false stories routinely promulgated in Arab countries by all the usual suspects.

Both say my POV endorses a double standard. I think they may be correct if I said that. I quite clearly said that no religion should be ruthlessly attacked. The Arab response IS a double standard (we can do all sorts of awful things to you and your religion but you can't even run a cartoon about ours) and it is this double standard that is revealed now. Keep in mind that this response has been orchestrated by Imams imported from Denmark.

QUESTION OF THE WEEK: The PTA or School District arbitrarily bans all junk food and sodas from all high school and junior high campuses. In a capitalist society what would be the most likely result?

A. Kids would go along because they know junk food is bad
B. Kids would start a black market in all banned foods
C. Parents would sue because kids should have a choice

If you picked B, you are a capitalist running dog and you are correctomento. The LA School District, prodded by well off Politically Correct and Left parents, banned all junk foods from all vending machines on all campuses. Within a week kids were coming to school with backpacks filled to the brim with candy and cokes AND SELLING THEM to ususpecting users, creating addicts all over the place. Next step? Well the Junk Food Police will show up on campus armed with the authority to arrest and charge all dealers of the addictive junk foods with dealing in banned substances. Want to bet the cases get thrown out of court?

As an aside for all those revolting PC parents and teachers: the replacement "health foods" are no different in sugar content than the "junk" variety. Check out Gator Aid and some of the "health bars."

I'll get back to you on this one.

Ingredients of really good for you Gator Aid (note that fructose is sugar): water, sucrose syrup, glucose-fructose syrup, citric acid, natural and artificial flavors, salt, sodium citrate, monopotassium phosphate, ester gum, sucrose acetate isobutyrate, yellow 5

Ingredients of horrible junk 7UP: carobonated water, apple juice from concentrate, less than 2% of calcium gluconate, calcium lactate, ascorbic acid (vitamin C), natural flavors, sucralose (splenda brand, a non-nutritive sweetener), acesulfame potassium (sunnett brand, a non nutritive sweetener), fruit and vegetable juices (for color), malic acid, potassium sorbate, sodium bexametaphosphate and calcium disodium edta (to protect flavor)

Sugar content: Gatoraid 14 gram, horrible 7UP one gram.

Traffic building tip for bloggers: just mention her name in print and your traffic from search engines will explode. A total babe. No pix with her clothes off.

Emailer RM in response to my post below on the "cartoons and HERE regarding Hollywood, e-mails this question regarding the uproar over the anti-Muslim cartoons:

Where are the Hollywood freedom loving Liberals regarding censorship, freedom of the press, and murder of artists (Van Gogh in Dutchville)? Good question, RM. So here's your answer, Mr. Wise Ass:

Susan Sarandon: "Where the fuck are the keys to the Bentley, Tom? Er, I mean Tim. Sorry.
George Clooney: "What do you mean 'you don't have my private jet ready? I have a meeting with George Soros in an hour".
Alec Baldwin: "Muhammad, Muhammad, why in the fuck didn't those fucking low box office receipt Danes do cartoons on Judge Alito? I'll tell you why, they knew that the fascist George Bush would destroy their country."

So there, Mr. R.M

Notes on a Zig Zag paper.... From Commentary:

Somehow the Democratic Party -- for 180 years the most electorally successful political party on the planet -- has now almost completely mutated into a party too loathsome to be seen in public, and too nihilistic to be trusted with control of even a single branch of government.

Read the entire piece by Tony Blankly here. I'm afraid he's right.

Just in case you haven't read about the hopelessly corrupt Jack Murtha anywhere else, go here for a disgusting rundown on both Jack for being a corrupt bum for the past twenty years, and the media for conspicuously ignoring his corruption. Of course Murtha is a Democrat but that isn't why the Left Media......oh, never mind.

Iran nukes...............guys lots smarter than me (link is to India
Times) are saying that the real Iran nuke threat lies in the never ending fued between Sunni and Shia in the Middle East. Sunnis will never allow Shia Iran to dominate them and the suggestion is being made that the recent trip to China by the Saudi honchos was for the purpose of an oil for nuclear under the table deal. The long long long piece in the India Times reminds us that Muslims in India see themselves as Indians first and Muslims second and that the Saudis are seeking some practical alliances.

Algore is not as crazy as the Unibomber, but he's close. For proof go here.....

If a Terrorist Army hasn't snuck across the Mexican Border by now they never will. If, as suspected, one percent of the illegal crossings are Muslims, there are enough of them here to be at least as dangerous as MS 13 only with bombs and an even worse attitude. My bet? Nobody has snuck across because as easy as it seems to get from Iraq to Mexico, just try it some time when you can't speak Spanish. So if you spot someone looking sort of Middle Eastern at a Taco Bell in your area there is an 800 number to call, and you can bet it is tapped and it will be YOU that is arrested.

After all is said and done Bush is STILL an incompetent manager, administrator, and president. Read this at Power Line and ask yourself WTF is in charge here.

Found: a use for a newspaper. I am supposed to take a few kids to a movie and tried to find showtimes for Narnia. No way on the web unless you tell them what theatre and what zip code. So I buy a cage lining and Bingo, just like that. BTW, Yahool flat out stinks.

Late comment on post below: to a man, the Left men at work label all religion as superstition and fantasy. They think all religion should be trashed on a daily basis because it is the "only way to stamp it out." They were quite loud in their condemnation.

The time has passed when western democracies believed in God, the Ten Commandments, or doing anything other than what is convenient. The European and American countries that tolerate and encourage art that depicts the Virgin Mary smeared with elephant dung complete with cut-out photos of female genitalia; or embraces the painting called "Piss Christ," which is a photograph of a crucifix submerged in urine; or paying homage "Yo Mama's Last Supper," which depicts Christ as a nude woman standing with her arms outstretched and 11 black men disciples sitting or standing on either side of her and one white man as Judas; societies that declare vicious attacks on a religious group as "art," has no ability to imagine what it is like to believe in God anymore, to revere both God and His laws is the stamp of stupidity.

Not only is anti-Christian "art" displayed, shown and performed, anyone who dares criticize it is harassed in the press and other media as Nazis, fascist, or "Extremist Christian." No one has the "right" to rise up in rage over these attacks on the religion of Christians. No one has the right to stop the dissemination of these putrid depictions. Anyone who tries to prevent the displays in tax supported public museums and theatres is bashed to death by the MSM. We are now an "enlightened" society, one that spits on Biblical utterings and any depiction of a Supreme Being in places other than churches. Religion has been declared as organized superstition, the opiate of the masses, a threat to our entire system should it take over.

That is the West these days. It should come as no big shock that these types of societies produce leaders who cannot imagine anyone actually "believing in that God shit" either. They think that people who do believe are stupid. Nobody who believes in God is wanted in government anymore. The New York Times will not darken their editorial pages with any respect for the religion of Christians; Hollywood cannot understand how millions of morons could pay to see "The Passion of the Christ," they cannot imagine a world where reverence to anything other than the next buck, piece of ass, or similar self indulgent act can exist. Every event can be logically explained and every group misfortunes explained away in Marxist terms of economic deprivation, not spiritual emptiness.

Given that the above examples of "socially relevant art" are to be respected, placed in museums so kids can see them too, and sent on tour at public expense so everyone in the country can marvel in them, it should come as no big shock that we have declared it also to be a "right" to depict anyone else's God in a disrespectful way. We now have the "right" to to ridicule the followers or believers in any God. After all, these blindly obedient flocks of jerk off God lovers are displaying their ignorance and stupidity if they object to the denigration of their beliefs. Anyone who objects to this series of intentional insults is subjected to what the Muslim world is being subjected to now.

We, and our leaders, have successfully put the Christian God in his proper place, one which is away from prying eyes, and kept Him there through insult and ridicule. We cannot begin to understand why the Arab world hasn't followed our example, why they revere their God. We simply cannot understand. Period.

The "Piss Allah" ain't playing very well in certain sections of the world.

Academy Nominations become labels, and this is exactly what Hollywood deserves. There wasn't that much discussion of the movies and stars nominated down at my work place. The Lefties all sort of loved them and the Righties all hated them. Period. End of story. And so I think the outright politicization of the one art form developed and grown in this country has been snuffed by Left Wing orthodoxy, Soviet Style realism, and just plain bad propaganda movies; ones that depict PC heroes and villains, orthodox plots, and all the usual dialogue. They are the inevitable result of nearly a quarter century of political hacks hiring their friends and the relatives of their friends (How many "stars" are there because they are the offspring of the connected?). What I sense is that Red Staters will not watch the Awards nor patronize the movies they celebrate and the Blues might not go to that many of them either. Movies are now exclusively a "Blue State Thing" and since the Left will accept no other than PC scripts we can safely say that the form is dead. Were I a stock holder in any theater chain I'd be dumping their stock about now; have long ago bailed on Blockbuster; and would carefully watch any multi-national that owned entertainment entities like movie studios, theatres, and distribution companies.

Brain damaged heirs created by incestuous relationships aren't something new. They are inevitable; ugly like Syriana and deformed like Brokeback Mountain.

State of Union Speech: are you kidding? Not only does it not make any difference what was said, it doesn't make any difference period. I fell asleep watching an old movie. The Iraq War is still going; Iran is still going nuclear, ditto North Korea; everybody with an SUV will continue driving their kids three miles to school; the criminals will continue criminaling; and the rest of us will continue to keep as much income from the government as possible. Strictly for those of you who are totally into politics and who have your minds already made up about everything.