July 27, 2002

IDIOTARIAN WEB SITE ALERT

: Check out Jihad Unspun. It's run from Canada, and it's decidedly pro-terrorist. Its Flash intro depicts the Taliban and Johnny bin Walker as the forces of freedom, while when US troops and hardware show up, the theme is conflict. They also offer some kind of premium pay service that claims to have new video of UBL.

What did I do with that FBI link again?
Posted by B. Preston at 12:58 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

YES!

The Senate has decided to fund a mission to Pluto. We'd better do it while we can--it'll get farther away over the next few decades. Pluto should be explored because a) we know very little about it, and b) it's probably made of the stuff that formed in the earliest days of our solar system. It's probably near pristine space detritus, and can tell us a lot about the makeup of the early solar system. And then there's c)--we should go there because we can, dang it.

Of course, this doesn't take into account the fact that Pluto probably isn't a planet at all. It's a) too small (much smaller than our own Moon), and b) it's "moon" Charon doesn't orbit it--they orbit a common center of gravity located in space between them. It's also not much different from a comet in terms of its composition-it's ice and rock, just like a comet, and resides on the fringe of fhe solar system called the Kuiper Belt, which is where comets live when they aren't doing earth flybys and causing mass cult suicides. Pluto doesn't have a tail like a comet because it never gets close enough to the sun to start shooting off gases--if its orbit were eccentric enough, it probably would be called Comet Pluto. But a mission to it will help clear up its status once and for all, and will give us some amazing pictures to look at. Imagine a shot from just outside Pluto's orbit, with Charon nearby and the sun a mere yellow dot in the distance. That would be one to frame and hang on the wall.
Posted by B. Preston at 12:52 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

PAT SAJAK

is one level-headed dude. Who knew that the guy on Wheel of Torture could make so much sense about the industry he works in.

An aside from my own life..I work on the fringes of TV production, but the attitude, politics and work environment of Hollywood have no appeal for me. The way it works if you're an editor, writer, animator or "other" like me (as opposed to big-shots of all stripes), you basically work short-term contracts in fairly well-paid sweat shops. This means you're constantly looking for your next job, since the longest you can expect to work on any one project is usually about two years and with an average job life of about 6 months. It's no life if you're a family type, since there are often gaps between jobs. Lots of folks in my field get their gumption up to move out to LA, only to spend a year or two there figuring out how bad a grind it is, then return whence they came if they can find a way. Pat Sajak is very fortunate (no pun intended) in that he gets to work a steady job that pays well and lets him get out of town regularly. It's a very rare situation.
Posted by B. Preston at 12:39 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

I'M OFF TO KANSAS

for a few days, on a bidness trip. Ordinarily, when I'm on travel I just let the blog hang and try to post when I can. This time I'm trying an experiment. Chris Regan has been one of my informants for a while now, in email he seems like he has ideas and so forth similar to my own, so I thought I'd hand the posting duties over to him while I'm gone. I'll still try and post when I can, but the likelihood of that happening is not great. I'll also be looking in on the JYB when I can, but again, if I can't post I probably can't check in much either. I'll be back in a week, and will resume normal JunkYard procedures at that point.

So, lllllllladies and gentlemen, a round of applause for Chris ......Regan (if we can get Blogger to cooperate)....
Posted by B. Preston at 12:29 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 26, 2002

WORLD WIDE WEIRD

: I'm proud to announce that this humble blog is the #1 return if you Google the following phrase: naughty bits clips cctv.
Posted by B. Preston at 06:20 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 25, 2002

A WEEK OR SO BACK

, I subscribed to Democrats.com's email newsletter (so they're probably claiming me as one of their 100,000 members--hehehe, I love screwing up their numbers). Today's offered up a gem of a hatemail, spawned by NewsMax's coverage of Democrats.com's Bushgate feature. Bushgate is basically a conspiracy to impeach Bush that's looking for justification (see the Pat Cadell quote below). Here's the hatemail:

Amy akburke@fuse.net

This is a vile and ugly website. You guys are seriously psychotic and evil. You've made me see what Democrats are really all about. "Political terrorists" is the term that comes to mind here. You want to defeat "all Republicans"? Are you Dr. Evil? Holy cow! Are you guys 5 years old or something? You want to get rid of your parents so you can eat all the candy you want. Gee, I wonder what life would be like if no one ever opposed us! You are psychos! It's almost funny! I think you guys need to find God or something. Maybe therapy. Anything that might help you find Earth again. I should say thanks for showing the Democrat's true colors. You guys should have the balls to put up a messageboard and allow others to respond to you. I bet you don't though. I'm curious to see what whacky response you'll have to my comments if any.


She should start up a blog. And Democrats.com should put up a comments section, but they're too yella.
Posted by B. Preston at 05:56 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

TERRORISTS HAVE GONE TOO FAR THIS TIME

: First, they blew up the WTC and the Pentagon. Now, they're threatening to disrupt the Miss World pageant in Nigeria in November. Listen to their reasoning:

The organisation condemned why Nigeria should be wasting millions of naira in hosting a beauty pegeant when "policemen and civil servants are being owned arrears of salaries."

"It also shows insensivity on the part of government to the feelings of muslims who constituted the majority in this country for the show of shame to be organised during the period of Ramadan fasting," he said.

"We therefore call on the federal government to cancel this senseless hosting of miss world competition. If our appeal goes on deaf ears we shall use all constitutional means to disrupt this programme," NACOMYO said.


Aside from the questionable constitutional scholarship, these guys sound like touchy-feely lefties--zero-sum economics, hurt feelings and insensitivity, the works. I'm sure Phil Donahue's producers have already booked them for guest spot.
Posted by B. Preston at 05:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

DON'T EAT THE CRUNCH CANDY BARS

: A Pennsylvania man was found dead in a 1200-gallon vat of chocolate at the factory where he worked.
Posted by B. Preston at 05:40 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

PAUL KRUGMAN

, the NY Times' anti-Bush hatchet man, has been soundly refuted, fact-for-fact, by William H. Cunningham, former chancellor and former chairman of the Board of Regents of the University of Texas System. The story is that Bush et al gamed UT's endowment system, turning public funds for the state of Texas into private funds for Bush and a few friends. Cunningham, a key player in Utimco (a creation of the state to invest endowment funds), says Krugman got the entire story wrong. Lest you think Cunningham is a Bush crony, chances are he isn't--UT is a very liberal school, run by a very liberal board of regents and located in a very liberal city. I don't know if Cunningham and Bush go back a ways, but chances are Cunningham isn't even a Republican, much less a fan of GWB.

I'm not weighing, much, on the alleged scandals of the Bush crew because I think they're garbage--an attempt to dent him and the GOP for narrow partisan reasons as we head into the mid-term elections. For the far left, it's also a way to weaken him as we go to war--I'm now pretty convince the Democrats.com crowd hopes Iraq goes badly so Bush will take the blame and lose in 2004. What are the deaths of US troops to them---their fair-haired boy famously loathed the military anyway? Need a little evidence? Here's former Dem pollster Pat Cadell, on Hardball during the election debacle of 2000 describing people at the center of his own party:

"I'm a liberal Democrat. I started in Florida politics. I worked for George McGovern. I worked for Jimmy Carter. I've worked for Ted Kennedy, Mario Cuomo. Nobody can question, I think, my credentials and my convictions. But I have to tell you, at this point it's hard to believe that my party, the party that I've belonged to since my great, great grandfather of my family, has become no longer a party of principles, but has been hijacked by a confederacy of gangsters who need to take power by whatever means and whatever canards they can say."


Terry McAulliffe, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, James Carville, Democrats.com--he's talking about you here, and the financial "scandals" are just the latest canard.

But back to Utimco. This refutation of Krugman seems thorough. It will be interesting to see how the scandal wonks respond.

On the other hand, Robert Rubin's role in the Enron collapse does look suspicious, at least to me. At Treasury, he presided over the expansion of the bubble economy, a bubble that started leaking in the spring of 2000 (for those of you at Democrats.com, that's before Bush even took office). Then Rubin left government and became a bigwig at Citicorp, one of Enron's creditors. Enron's financial games were in large measure facilitated, for years, by the big banks that lent them money--money Enron gamed to look like earnings, if I've got the story right. The banks apparently knew Enron was up to no good, but went along for the ride. Citicorp was such a creditor, and wanted to give Enron even more cash as it started to sink under the weight of its own web of legalese and money schemes. Enter Rubin, who made calls to the Bush admin on behalf of Citicorp and Enron to grease the skids. Interestingly, the White House (again if I've got the story right) nixed it--didn't intervene, and Enron eventually crashed. Enron's a Houston firm--if Bush were as corrupt as the Krugmans of the world allege, why didn't he do something to help out Kenny-boy and thousands of folks in his home state? Bush had to know that Enron's collapse would be bad news for him, yet took the bitter pill and kept the government out of the way of the market forces killing a corrupt, bloated corporation. No good deed goes unpunished, I suppose.

Bush didn't earn a dime off of all this, and neither did Cheney. But Rubin surely did, as Citicorp surely profitted from its loans to Enron over the years. So the question is--what did Robert Rubin know, and when did he know it? He must have known something, or he wouldn't have been ringing the White House.

Of course, we'll probably never know the answer to either--the Dems aren't interested in his testimony. Clinton crony capitalism, alive and well in 2002.
Posted by B. Preston at 05:28 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

MISPLACED

: Authorities in the US and Pakistan may have lost a couple of American Taliban types somewhere between there and here. Pakistan arrested them in a terror sweep, saw that they were US passport holders and deported them--just stuck them on planes bound for someplace other than Pakistan. But they didn't tell our guys, so now our guys don't know where the Taliban guys went.

I can understand the occassional mistake, losing a piece of evidence here, or a pile of clues there, but losing two whole suspects? That's a new one.
Posted by B. Preston at 04:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

A FOOL FOR A CLIENT

: After haphazard consideration, alleged 20th hijacker Zacharias Moussaoui has withdrawn his guilty plea. But he'd already plead guilty in today's meeting too, then asked for a recess, which the judge granted. Upon returning to the hearing, he retracted the plea.

Some reich we live in. The lone man charged with carrying out the worst terrorist attack on US soil, a non-citizen, pleads guilty to charges that carry the death penalty, and the judge basically makes him reconsider. Then she instructed his prosecutors not to mention his guilty pleas during the upcoming trial.

Along a similar vein, the American Taliban got a plea bargain preventing him from a life sentence. He'll only get 20 years, and probably won't even serve that--it'll be more like 12 to 15 years, and he'll be on the streets again.

Some reich.
Posted by B. Preston at 04:41 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

NORTH KOREA

is solidifying its place in the "axis of evil," getting ready to ship rocket fuel to an unknown country in the Middle East. Any connection to its recent meetings with Libya and Syria?
Posted by B. Preston at 01:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

BOTH STUPID AND EVIL

: When back-benchers from both political parties team up to sponsor legislation, it's usually a good sign that the legislation is bad. It seems that Reps. Howard Berman (D-Calif.) and Howard Coble (R-N.C.) are backing leglislation that will allow Big Media types to hack into and wreck your computer if they even think you're file sharing. And if you don't like having your machine sabotaged by nefarious operators, you have little recourse:

Anyone whose computer was damaged in the process must receive the permission of the U.S. attorney general before filing a lawsuit, and a suit could be filed only if the actual monetary loss was more than $250.


This bill should die, and soon.
Posted by B. Preston at 11:19 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

HE'S 35, UNEMPLOYED

, a university dropout living with his mom. It's always tough when you have to move back in with the parents, but this guy's situation is harder than most. He used to have a good job--he was the dictator of Sierra Leone.
Posted by B. Preston at 10:58 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

NEEDY STUDENT WANTS TO GET A DEGREE

, but doesn't have the money. So he applies for, and wins, a Washington state scholarship. Then he applies to school, but the state blocks him. There's a clause in the scholarship program forbidding students from studying religion as truth. They can study anything else--basketweaving, economics, womyn's studies, history of surrender from a 20th Century Parisian perspective--but not religion as truth.

The 9th Circuit (yes, that 9th Circuit) has struck down the state's law as being disciminatory. Good.

(thanks to Chris)
Posted by B. Preston at 10:44 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

IRAN'S ROLE IN ARGENTINA'S 9-11

, the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center that killed 85, may have been buried for six months by the NY Times.

Can we add the Times to the "axis of evil" yet?
Posted by B. Preston at 10:33 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

GUNS IN THE COCKPITS

: The White House may be rethinking its opposition to arming pilots as a last defense against hijackings:

Cause, effect -- The effort to let pilots have guns in the cockpit already has caused one casualty. After intense pressure from Capitol Hill and grassroots activists, Transportation Secretary Norm Mineta told a House subcommittee Tuesday the administration was reconsidering its opposition to arming pilots -- something insiders say was the real reason Transportation Security Agency chief John McGaw was forced out last Thursday. McGaw, sources say, remained steadfast in his opposition to the proposal, which has caused considerable angst inside the White House as those who are usually administration allies have hammered away at the issue, trying to engineer a position switch.


(from UPI's Capital Comment)
Posted by B. Preston at 10:29 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

ROBERT RUBIN

, former Treasury Secretary and now big-wig with Citicorp, isn't testifying before Congress about his bank's role in enabling Enron's shenanigans. Why? Well, he belongs to the Donkeys, and they control the Senate, which gives them say in who testifies and who doesn't.

Here's a nice little summary of why Rubin should be testifying, and perhaps securing legal defense.
Posted by B. Preston at 10:01 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

FREEFALLIN'

: Phil Donahue's running a .4 rating, half of Connie Chung's audience and a mere speck of O'Reilly's take.

Phil's solution? Town hall meeting with Ralph Nader about Enron. My eyes are glazing over just thinking about it.
Posted by B. Preston at 09:51 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

OHIO REP. JAMES TRAFFICANT

has been expelled from the House, by a vote of 420-1. Who was the lone voter?

Gary Condit.
Posted by B. Preston at 09:47 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

THE BRITS ARE SADDLING UP

: Prime Minister Tony Blair agrees that Saddam wants nukes, and must be pre-emptively dealt with.
Posted by B. Preston at 09:39 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

DON'T MAKE ME TAKE THAT LOGO DOWN:

That's the Air Force's new logo embedded in my masthead up there, but I'll rip it off if they keep using terror-supporting Islamic groups to recommend Muslim chaplains.
Posted by B. Preston at 09:36 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

THEY'RE LEARNING FROM THE BEST:

Colombia's FARC terrorist group has offered $2 million to the families of anyone willing to become a suicide pilot. The plan was to attack on Aug 7, the day Colombia's new president (and an enemy of FARC) will be sworn in.

(thanks to Dave)
Posted by B. Preston at 09:32 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

THERE'S NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG

: An Egyptian arrested in Morristown, NJ had more than 100 fake IDs. Let's see, Egyptian, enough IDs to outfit a small army, even got his own drivers license via false information. You don't think he might have ties to unsavory groups, do you?

The FBI doesn't think so, and isn't even investigating him.
Posted by B. Preston at 09:29 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

DID THE CLINTON WHITE HOUSE

actually block investigation of Islamic terror threats, while increasing scrutiny of its critics here at home? A few articles suggest so, including this one, which alleges that under Clinton the FBI all but stopped its counter-intel efforts on Islamic terror to focus on white supremacy groups.

And then there's this story, alleging that the Transportation Safety Administration's 1999 threat assessment omitted any reference to Muslim terror groups while playing up the threat from white militia groups. It's a curious stand to take, given the fact that no militiaman has ever hijacked a plane.

It's common knowledge that, in the wake of Oklahoma City, the Clinton administration used that bombing to tar all of its domestic critics. He later admitted that the OKC bombing made him "relevant" again, as it brought him back from the political wilderness and halted the Republican Congressional juggernaut that was overtaking him.

I'm not suggesting in any way that Clinton had a hand in OKC--there's no evidence to lead to any such conclusion. But I do see a pattern at work here, a pattern of burying Islamic terror while playing up less menacing threats from domestic groups. If true, it sheds new light on a few things and gives us a direct trajectory from the 1993 WTC attack to 9-11-01. It also says quite a bit about the deep cynicism that permeated the Clinton administration.

(both links courtesy Chris Regan)
Posted by B. Preston at 09:20 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

WE ALREADY HAD JOHNNY JIHAD, NOW MEET JAMES JIHAD

He's James Ujaama, an American Muslim who's in hot water for his alleged ties to al Qeada. He's a non-Arab, charged with supplying computer equipment to the terrorists at an Afghanistan camp, currently being held in Virginia after his arrest in Denver. He runs a lovely little web site called "StopAmerica.org." It's full of garden-variety Islamist (and lefty Democratic) anti-American conspiracy-mongering.

He forgot the "We Believe Cynthia McKinney" button, though.
Posted by B. Preston at 12:40 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 23, 2002

THE SARGE

offers up a fine can of whoop on the Air Force for its mandatory use of credit cards to pay travel expenses. The AF requires all airmen, even wet-behind-the-ears scrubs without two nickels to their name, to use credit cards to pay travel expenses, then takes months to reimburse them. In the mean time, the card gets hungry for its money and goes directly after the airman. It always was a pain.

Actually, DFAS was one thing that turned me off to a career in the AF. I went to tech school at Ft. Harrison, Indiana--an Army base. While I was there, the AF never got its paperwork on me straightened out so the Army paid me. Once out of tech and stationed at Yokota, the Army sent the AF a bill for my time there. The AF paid it, then came after me for the money. Keep in mind I hadn't been over paid, just paid. The AF took a month's pay from me to cover the Army bill, a bill the AF should have been paying all along. Having just joined, I had no savings, and losing a month's pay broke me. I got down to my last 5 bucks before I finally got paid again. I had taken a room off base which I had to give up, and couldn't put gas in my car. I decided at that point that if I couldn't count on the AF to keep its books on me in order, it couldn't count on me sticking around.

I never did get that money back. As far as I'm concerned, the AF still owes me a month's pay at 1993 E3 rates.
Posted by B. Preston at 12:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

TO BE YOUNG AGAIN

: This request makes me wish I was about to start my freshman year at the University of North Carolina. I hope they find their troublemaker. Here's what the controversy is about--another government-funded educational establishement requiring the study of Islam.

Where's the ACLU on all this?

(thanks to Dave)
Posted by B. Preston at 12:31 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

THE MIND OF A MUFTI

: The Middle East Media Research Center has posted an interview with Egyptian mufti Dr. Ahmad Al-Tayyeb, on the war, Western Civilization and life in general. It's not pretty.

Q: "Is what happened on September 11 in the U.S. a kind of terror?"

Mufti Al-Tayyeb: "All the Muslims, and the Arab world, rejected and condemned the event, because they wouldn't want it to happen to them, so they don't want it to happen to others. We say this because Islam prohibits such attacks on peaceful civilians. But the truth is that our feelings have changed somewhat, or considerably, because we have discovered that the American administration used this event [i.e. September 11] as a pretext to cause damage, killing, and exile throughout the entire Islamic world – and I refer primarily to Afghanistan and Palestine. Today, we still read in the Western [newspapers] that the perpetrator [of the September 11 attacks] cannot be determined with certainty, yet it was claimed from the first moment that Osama bin Laden was responsible!"

Israelis Might Have Done It

"Several days ago, we saw on television a group of Israelis deported from America because they had filmed the event – that is, they knew it was going to happen. I am not saying that the event was perpetrated by the Jews, the Muslims, or anyone else; these are things we do not know. But if it is not easy to determine who carried out the deed, how is it that the Afghan people was destroyed because of an accusation that is as yet unproven?"

"...The U.S. used these events as a pretext and an excuse to destroy the Islamic world and to accuse Islam of being a religion of terror and extremism. It destroyed Afghanistan and is now occupying the land of Palestine, killing the people and massacring the children, because of these false charges."


There's more, about how Arab men and women are "equal" (I guess it depends on the meaning of "equal"), about why the arts are largely forbidden, etc.

(thanks to Dave)
Posted by B. Preston at 12:25 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 22, 2002

I JUST GOT A NEW COMPUTER AT WORK

. Dual Xeon 1.8 gHz processors, a gig of RAM, Nvidia GE Force 4 display, surround sound. It has a DVD burner, USB and FireWire ports all over it (even on the back of the monitor, which is one of those Sony 24-inch jobs that does 16x9). It rocks, to put it midly--freakishly fast, and I am what you call a power user. I use it to animate, to edit video, to write music scores and for image processing. It's a great machine.

And it's a Dell--a PC. I switched to PC from the Mac a few years ago, when Mac and Avid were fighting. Avid makes the Media Composer, the tv industry's leading computer-based editing system. A few years ago it was a Mac-only system. Then Mac pissed Avid off by not putting enough PCI slots in the G3, making it impossible for Avid to put its hardware in them--there just wasn't room. Avid loved the Mac, had supported them for years and talked them up as building boxes a million times better than the PC. But Apple wouldn't listen, so Avid went to IBM to see if they could make Media Composer run on Windows. IBM offered up the Intellistation, a family of incredibly stable PCs, and it had lots of PCI slots. It could also talk fiber optics, a language foreign to Macs at the time, and fiber meant speed and therefore throughput, which translated into the first computer-based editing systems in wide use that offered uncompressed video. No compression means no degradation, which means a better picture. Avid knew that editors and producers would love uncompressed video, even if they had to migrate to the despised Windows operating system. In return, Mac offered...nothing.

So Avid went with IBM, and as an Avid editor I went with them. Though Avid and Apple have since made up, I've never looked back. Mac put out the iMac, then the Cube, then that silly lamp thing, and I yawned. Mac claimed it was faster, more reliable, able to handle big jobs better, but the IBM Avids could multi-task heavy duty functions without breaking a sweat--something that only the insane ever dared try on the Mac. Mac claimed to be the artist's machine, but the younger artists were gravitating toward the PC.

I'm not a PC partisan by any means. If the Mac makes a better machine with equal access to software titles (including games, for the home system), than I'd give them another look. But hyperbole and empty promises don't cut it with me, and neither do cutesy box designs. If Macs truly become faster, I'll give them another look. But independent tests done by graphics pros usually end up favoring the PC nowadays. With the new 533 mHz buses out, the PC speed gap will probably widen.

Oh, and by the way, the new Dell is a great looking machine. If Darth Vader had a desktop, it would look like mine. Dell has gone over to the dark side with their boxes. Mine is big and black, with a slick silver brushed metal discus-thing on the front that looks like it could stop a bullet. I've already had several people comment on how cool it looks, though that's not why I selected it. It's a side benefit, not an integral part of the decision-making process (Mac heads, take note).

Why am I talking about this? Macweek, and a little dustup going on over at USS Clueless. Apple has managed to irritate me no end over the years, the latest being their forays into the high-end graphics market that I work in. They move in, buy one of the top competitors in a niche market, cut off all cross-platform capability of the title they buy so that you must move to the Mac to use it, then buy a couple of its former competitors and shut them down. They've just done that in the compositing market, and would love to do it in the mid to consumer video editing market. They're anti-competitive in a way that Microsoft never was, but Microsoft gets all the grief. So any chance I get to weigh in on Mac-related disputes, I do.
Posted by B. Preston at 11:52 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

COUNT DE MONAY SHOT

offers a fine rant to counter the whining of Phil "the great white dope" Donahue, interviewing fellow relic Helen Thomas:

I heard the whines for the umpteenth time about how the public was so 'silent' to Helen's & Phil's left-wing contentions because they're 'afraid' or in 'fear' because they'd be called 'unpatriotic'.

Let's clear this up once and for all:
In this country, you can fight with the Taliban and have your defenders.
In this country, you can defend someone who lied under oath about a sexual harassment case and be awarded your own television show.
In this country, you can protest the war and guarantee your appearance on the news.
In this country, you can boorishly shout down the secretary of HHS and you have a segment airing your views without critique of your adolescent behavior.
In this country, you can take part in a break-in and cover-up and gain your own syndicated radio program.
In this country, you can be such a bad writer that single sentences make-up a good portion of your columns (Per Gato) and still get paid for writing.


Helen, Phil, let me explain it to you. People are not afraid to leap to your side and agree with you as you hold hands and chant 'kumbaya' while lamenting the tax cut checks you recently deposited - they think we should be bombing Al Qaida, cuttting taxes, saying 'under God' in the pledge and ignoring mindless rants from asswipes that lament the notion that the guy they voted against is currently running circles around you leftists. Deal with it.


Let's also be clear about this--the people can, when we choose, shout down our government's lamer ideas. TIPS--gone. National ID--gone. Military as domestic police--gone shortly. We're not afraid of much of anything. I think the left, and the rest of the world, has yet to realize this.
Posted by B. Preston at 10:38 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

BAD IDEA

: Don't use the military as a law-enforcement tool, even though we're at war. The present intention is to stop terrorists; the future uses will be less benign.

Ditto the TIPS progam, which seems to be on its way out anyway. We're big boys and girls--we'll rat out baddies when we see them. The Feds just need to make it easy and safe for us to do so--no program required. Heck, I rat out terrorist web sites for fun.
Posted by B. Preston at 07:38 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

HEADLINE:

WOMEN USE DIFFERENT PARTS OF THEIR BRAIN TO REMEMBER. That's probably because men often use different parts of our anatomy to think.
Posted by B. Preston at 07:33 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

TAG HIM AND BAG HIM

: Israel has terminated the head of Hamas' military wing.
Posted by B. Preston at 07:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

MY FRIEND DIANE

over at Gotham is losing her mind, I'm afraid. She praised Paul Krugman. She thinks he'll help make the Times readable again. All he's doing is trying to puncture the president's leadership in a time of war, and using whatever blunt, aging weapons he finds to do it.

If she starts agreeing with Rep. Cynthia McKinney (Idiotarian-GA), it's time to call the men in white coats.
Posted by B. Preston at 07:21 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

CHUTZPAH, CHUTAPAH, CHUTAPAH

: Our friends at Democrats.com are touting a parody of the Beatles' "Come Together" that chides Bush for avoiding Vietnam. Though he did join the National Guard, and became an F-4 pilot.

That reminds of a certain ex-pres who famously said that he "loathed the military." If I recall correctly, he said this during his own successful attempt to evade the draft, and in fact was slick enough to evade all service.

And we're supposed to take these people seriously when they drum up scandals against Bush? I don't think so.

They're also referring to the Bush Administration as "BushReich" now. Lovely.
Posted by B. Preston at 07:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

FROM THE DESK OF BILL CLINTON

: Note to self: when Hillary gets her presidential library, make sure it doesn't look like a double-wide squatting on a riverbank.
Posted by B. Preston at 06:55 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

TAKING THE HIGH ROAD TO RUIN

: Marc Racicot, RNC Chairman, says DNC Chair Terry McAulliffe apparently did nothing wrong in the process of turning $100k into $18 million off of stock in Global Crossing, another funny-money corporation al a Worldcom. Racicot's nice gesture will go unappreciated--look for McAulliffe to continue smearing Bush every chance he gets for a "scandal" that's much ado about nothing.

Here are my thoughts on the issue--first, this in no way clears McAulliffe. Racicot says he's seen nothing to indicate wrongdoing, but that's not to say definitively that McAulliffe did nothing wrong. Only an investigation will prove that one way or the other. Second, Racicot is being like most Republicans these days, cowed by the demagoguery of the past decade or so coming from the DNC. He's probably hesitant to bring down the Dem mouths and spinners on him, so he's being nice. That's one reason I think he was a bad choice for RNC Chairman--the party needs a fighter in there, not a wimp. Let Bush take the high road, let the party hack do the dirty work. Third, Republicans just aren't as agressive about these things as the Dems tend to be. Before you dismiss me and howl "What about impeachment?" consider the following: Whitewater started up when former Clinton cronie Jim McDougal got mad at his former business partner and sqealed to the NY Times. No Republicans in volved. Lewinsky resulted from the Paula Jones lawsuit, which wouldn't have happened had not Clinton et al made sexual harassment such a big topic. Additionally, Lewinsky wouldn't have happened at all had Clinton had more than the morals of an alley cat in heat. The Chinese money scandal, Lincoln bedroom, etc--press reports got those started, not Republicans. If you ask me, and since it's my blog I guess you did, the Republicans were far too easy on him for the campaign finance scandals (which have incredibly resulted in a mostly Democratic "reform" package being signed into law thanks mostly to GOP incompetence), and bungled the Lewinsky case. Now that he seems to have more to answer for on terrorism in general and Oklahoma City in particular, it becomes almost impossible to credibly allege that the GOP was too tough on Clinton.

But that won't stop anyone, I know. Credibility is fast becoming an anachronism--spinners tell crazier tales, accuse their opposites of doing the same things they do themselves, and act outraged over trivialities while ignoring the elephant-size problems in the middle of the room. That's why I don't watch cable net talking head shows much anymore. They're pointless. I'd rather watch Seinfeld re-runs or kick a soccer ball with my son.
Posted by B. Preston at 06:43 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

THE "ISOLATED INCIDENT" AT LAX

on the Fourth doesn't look so isolated anymore. Not that it ever did, really.

Asked on CNN's "Late Edition" whether the committee had developed any information linking LAX shooter Mohamed Hadayet to al-Qaeda, ranking Democrat Jane Harman, D-Calif., described a meeting she attended at LAX last Monday, where FBI and Transportation Security Administration officials revealed that "chatter" monitored by U.S. investigators pointed to a tie-in.

"They're investigating it. I mean, there is chatter, as we now say, that [Hadayet] may have been affiliated - but there's no proof," said Harman.

The California Democrat said U.S. intelligence intercepts have picked up "people suggesting that he might have been connected. He might have been a trial balloon to see how tight security is and then there may be other attacks on security lines."


It's not definitive proof, but very suggestive. As were the man's background, devotion to radical Islam, the abundance of weapons he carried, his target and the date of the attack.

(thanks to Chris)
Posted by B. Preston at 06:19 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

CONDI RICE

: is there anything sexier than a smart, attractive woman who knows football? Not likely. She has given Ben the scoop on what she sees happening this coming season in the NFL. I like the way she thinks. Rams--love 'em since they left LA and drafted all those supersonic space aliens. The Raiders--always loved 'em, though I can't figure out why. And the Cowboys as a dark horse--I bleed silver and blue and have been hoping for a return to glory for a long time. Better still, she didn't mention the Eagles or Redskins at all--like I said, I like the way she thinks.

That said, this probably isn't the year for my team. They will have a killer, and I do mean killer, defense this year. It's fast and brutal, and if the stories sneaking out of camp are to be believed, it's going to be a fun unit to watch. But the offense will still struggle unless the 'Boys get a quarterback. There's no obvious arm, no obvious gridiron general in the QB corps. Emmitt is still there and had a solid year last year despite the talentless crew that often surrounded him. If he stays healthy he'll do it again, and Larry Allen will continue to bulldoze holes for him like he always has. The WR corps is looking good, but the 'Boys always take an early-season hit there, mostly due to ill-advised passes that expose them to hits from opposing linebackers. With the inexperience in the pocket this season, that's not likely to change, so we can expect to see one or two of our speed weapons grounded by week three.

Are they the Ravens of '03, as Ben asks? I hope not--the Ravens of Super Bowl 35 were an abomination of one-dimensional football. They were absolutely unwatchable, and I know because I get the Ravens crammed down my throat around here while the local stations ignore teams that I either loathe and want to see beaten or love and want to see win. I can't stand the Ravens, and wish them ill (and ill they will be this season). So whatever happens this year, the Cowboys must not turn into a team that scores one measily touchdown and sits on it like a 70-point lead. That would be worse than all the evils Jerry Jones has visited on the team--yes, worse than firing Landry, worse than that stupid row with Jimmy Johnson, and well almost as bad as brining in the Bootlicker's Boy to coach for a couple of seasons. He's put us through a lot--he'd better not put us through that.

I think the Eagles will win the division, but no Super Bowl. I think the 'Boys will have a good season, building toward a strong showing down the line--might even be a wildcard this year if they stay healthy and the Redskins misfire again. In the Bowl--Raiders from the AFC, Rams or Bucs from the NFC (mostly because I'm hoping the Raiders get the chance to hand Gruden his head). But my pre-season football predictions almost never work out, so place no wagers on this post.
Posted by B. Preston at 06:15 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

TALKING POINTS MEMO

--great blog run by an honest liberal (bet you never thought those words would show up on this site)--has an interesting take on the Dems' failure to put the Enron albatross around the Bush administration's neck.

This whole thing is a manufactured scandal that sprung from the adverse actions of market forces, nothing morem, as will be proven in time. That many Dems want it to sink Bush says much about how little many of them understand markets and how they work.

(I said I don't like economics, not that I don't understand them. Oh yeah, and link via Andrew Sullivan, who I hope does not lay off the NY Times any time soon. You bash them well, and for things that invite bashing.)
Posted by B. Preston at 05:43 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

ANDREW SULLIVAN

wonders why social conservatives aren't up in arms over some new movie about a teenage boy's affairs with older women.

Two reasons--getting up in arms about trivial things has proven fruitless, and the cliched "there's a war on" reason. Our protests made a hit out of The Last Temptation of Christ, which was a lousy movie and would've been a flop without the protests. That's a mistake most of us don't want to make again. So, speaking for myself, when I hear about movies that seem beyond the pale, I just ignore them and they usually go away.

It is a cliche by now, but the war has also altered what we soc-cons get ticked about. It's more worrisome to me that the DNC seems to be actively undermining the war effort by going after Bush with a decade-old scandal that they've been waiting for this summer to spring. I just don't have time to care much about what the cesspool on the left coast is churning out. As for Hollywood itself, it's been busy making a collective idiot of itself over the war--protesting this movie might make them look like the forces of reason for a change, and no one wants that.

So it has nothing to do with anti-gay agendas, Andrew. We just have more important things to get worked up about.
Posted by B. Preston at 05:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

MUG SHOTS

: Here are a couple of comparisons of suspects past and present with the police sketches that ultimately led to their arrest:

Serial killer David Berkowitz:


Alleged child murderer Alejandro Avila:


Jose Padilla, and John Doe #2 one more time:


Which suspect looks most like the sketch next to him?

(thanks to Chris Regan)
Posted by B. Preston at 05:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

SCRANTON, PENN. AREA WEB SITE

with links to al Qaeda is causing a stir with Homeland Security. The story also points to one thing you and I can do--turn in terror-linked sites when we find them. These sites use an array of encrypted methods to communicate, relaying instructions and so forth to cells around the world, and need to be taken down.
Posted by B. Preston at 03:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

THE HEAD OF THE ISLAMIC SUPREME COUNCIL OF AMERICA

is urging Muslims to join the US in its war on terror. Instead of blaming others for the problems facing Muslims in the US since 9-11 (which have been minimal, but not entirely absent), Shaykh Muhammad Hisham Kabbani says Muslims can help change the view of their religion by getting involved in fighting terror wherever they find it.

Has CAIR heard this?
Posted by B. Preston at 10:23 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

THE OKLAHOMA BOMBING

cover-up story is gaining ground in the mainstream press. This story provides a motive for Clinton & Co. to bury the crime's true nature:

"The Constitution gives me relevance," Bill Clinton told the media the day before the Oklahoma City bombing. "The president," he said, "is relevant here." He was, of course, seeking to counter his growing irrelevance. After seeing Bill Clinton's first two years of performance in the Oval Office, voters in November 1994 had put Republicans in control of both the House and the Senate for the first time in 40 years.

Writing in The London Sunday Telegraph, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard describes how things had changed by election night 1996. "Relaxing on Air Force One after the election, Bill Clinton told reporters it was the Oklahoma bombing that proved the turning point in his political fortunes. It was the moment when the militias, the Christian Right and the Gingrich onslaught against government all melded together in the public mind as one rampant movement of extremism. `It broke a spell in the country as the people began searching for our common ground again,' Clinton explained."


In equating Newt Gingrinch and Christians with radical militias, then blaming them for Oklahoma City when the evidence pointed elsewhere, Clinton accomplished two things very neatly: he demonized legitimate critics and avoided the hard choices that following the bombing back to its source would have forced. It also gave Saddam Hussein more time, and more motivation, to strike again.
Posted by B. Preston at 09:20 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack