Friday, February 29, 2008
Ladies and Gentlemen, allow me to introduce…
Barack Hussein Obama’s spiritual adviser!
The audio is a bit muffled sometimes, and the video is distracting - a small group of people (I detected at least three voices, not counting the loudmouth coming over the speakers) driving around, listening to Wright preach - but the important parts shine through clearly. Y’know, the hate and raw-gum Crow Jim racism that has been preached at the probable Democratic nominee for President for heaven only knows how long with Obama likely in the audience smiling and nodding in agreement...?
I wonder if anyone would think to ask Obamassiah whether he agrees with his preacher’s political views, above and beyond the endorsement of Louis Farrakhan, just as McCain has had to do after John Hagee endorsed him?
*V-8 headslap* Of course not. Sorry. I didn’t know what I was saying…
h/t Protein Wisdom
Hypocrisy, thy name is Democrat
Remember back when the Dems took back Congress and set themselves some goals?
And remember when they had set the Iraqi government some deadlines?
Remember when they were claiming that Iraq was a “failure” because they had failed to meet all of those benchmarks?
Well, let’s review the facts, shall we?
The Iraqi government was assigned 18 benchmarks:
- Forming a Constitutional Review Committee and then completing the constitutional review.
- Enacting and implementing legislation on de-Ba’athification reform.
- Enacting and implementing legislation to ensure the equitable distribution of hydrocarbon resources to the people of Iraq without regard to the sect or ethnicity of recipients, and enacting and implementing legislation to ensure that the energy resources of Iraq benefit Sunni Arabs, Shi’a Arabs, Kurds, and other Iraqi citizens in an equitable manner.
- Enacting and implementing legislation on procedures to form semi-autonomous regions.
- Enacting and implementing legislation establishing an Independent High Electoral Commission, provincial elections law, provincial council authorities, and a date for provincial elections.
- Enacting and implementing legislation addressing amnesty.
- Enacting and implementing legislation establishing a strong militia disarmament program to ensure that such security forces are accountable only to the central government and loyal to the constitution of Iraq.
- Establishing supporting political, media, economic, and services committees in support of the Baghdad Security Plan.
- Providing three trained and ready Iraqi brigades to support Baghdad operations.
- Providing Iraqi commanders with all authorities to execute this plan and to make tactical and operational decisions in consultation with U.S. Commanders, without political intervention to include the authority to pursue all extremists including Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias.
- Ensuring that Iraqi Security Forces are providing even-handed enforcement of the law.
- Ensuring that, as President Bush quoted Prime Minister Maliki as saying, “the Baghdad Security Plan will not provide a safe haven for any outlaws, regardless of [their] sectarian or political affiliation.”
- Reducing the level of sectarian violence in Iraq and eliminating militia control of local security.
- Establishing all of the planned joint security stations in neighborhoods across Baghdad.
- Increasing the number of Iraqi Security Forces units capable of operating independently.
- Ensuring that the rights of minority political parties in the Iraqi legislature are protected.
- Allocating and spending $10 billion in Iraqi revenues for reconstruction projects, including delivery of essential services, on an equitable basis.
- Ensuring that Iraq’s political authorities are not undermining or making false accusations against members of the ISF.
Well, the Dems only had six, and so they should have had a much easier time of it, right?
Wrong. In fact, while the Iraqi government has managed to complete 13 of the 18 (and made “satisfactory progress” out of the other 5), the Democratic leadership has managed to accomplish exactly ZERO of those alleged reforms.
Not. One. Not so much as a mechanical sausage.
And they wonder why their approval rating is even lower than the Lame Duck’s…
So much for protecting the borders
The race for President is coming down to our final two competitors, and both of them have agreed that we apparently don’t need to worry about defending our international borders any more.
In this corner, we have the most liberal Senator in Congress who has started using the war cry of the Aztlan and MEChA ( ¡Si, se puede! ) radicals whenever he is speaking about immigration and border security, and then we have the most liberal Republican Senator, who has apparently decided (along with the Lame Duck) that we don’t even need that “virtual” fence that was supposed to replace the physical fence that they had started out with…
“But… but… President Obama! Booooo! C’mon, you gotta vote for the guy promising no border security and terrorists getting Constitutional Rights, or else we’ll end up with no border security and terrorists getting Constitutional rights!” 
Thanks, but I’m still gonna not waste - yes, WASTE - my sovereign franchise on someone who doesn’t believe that my nation should be protected as much as the house he wants to live in.
Which reminds me - if a virtual fence is so effective at protecting property lines, why not take down the fence around the White House and install a virtual fence instead? We want the very best, don’t we? 
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
I wonder if they will take back his Oscar?
Or, Global Whawassatagain?
Over the past year, anecdotal evidence for a cooling planet has exploded. China has its coldest winter in 100 years. Baghdad sees its first snow in all recorded history. North America has the most snowcover in 50 years, with places like Wisconsin the highest since record-keeping began. Record levels of Antarctic sea ice, record cold in Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Australia, Iran, Greece, South Africa, Greenland, Argentina, Chile—the list goes on and on.
No more than anecdotal evidence, to be sure. But now, that evidence has been supplanted by hard scientific fact. All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA’s GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously.
You can see the data for yourself here, but the amount of cooling over the last year has wiped out an entire century’s worth of warming.
You can expect the anti-human types out there to start screaming “OMG we’re gonna freeze to death, the government’s gotta DO SOMETHING!” any second now…
Heads up, y’all
This is your official notification.
I will recap the rules, as well as the general rules of mathematics you’re gonna need.
There will be twenty trivia questions, the answer to which will be a positive integer. That means no negative numbers, decimals or fractions among the answers. Some of the questions are easy, some are tougher. None are impossible. None of them are in the least ambiguous or dependent upon a poll, election, or opinion.
The questions will be numbered with a capital letter from ‘A’ to ‘V’, excepting the letters ‘I’ and ‘O’, since I wished no confusion between those letters and the numbers ‘1’ and ‘0’. This also leaves the letter ‘x’ free to be used as the multiplication indicator. There are going to be no exponents in the equation itself, nor any roots. But you will be using the major four operations (Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication and Division), plus parenthetical expressions.
The letters are then placed as variables into a equation which will be published at the same time as the questions. You must solve the equation and arrive at the correct answer.
Your submission should include all twenty answers, and the answer to the equation. You can either post just the final answer here (if you got the correct answer to that equation, you had to have gotten all of the questions correct as well), or post your attempts to my e-mail address (Dee Are Emm Double-You Ess Tea Are At gmail Dot com) if you aren’t sure and don’t wish to announce that fact to your competitors. This opens up the contest to the lurkers out there, too, hint hint....... 
First correct submission receives $125, second receives $75, and Show pays $50. (No bonus for a perfect score this time, since that’s kind of the point...) If no one has gotten the correct answer, the person with the most correct answers to the trivia questions will win, with second and third determined similarly and any ties broken by earliest submission. Multiple submissions are permitted, but only the entry received last will count.
Contest starts Monday morning at 8 am Pacific and runs until we have three winners or until Monday the 10th, whichever comes first, so vote early and vote often!
Okay, I’ve got it
And yet, at the same time, I’m stumped and looking for suggestions from you folks.
See, I have the questions - twenty of them. I have the formula drawn up, with all the variables in place and I know the answer. I just don’t have a clue how I’m going to post that formula here (or anywhere else on the web) so that the precision needed to get the right answer will come through. (No, it isn’t that complicated, but if it shows up as a ‘C’ instead of a opening parenthesis, you WILL get it wrong.)
I’m halfway tempted to just scrawl it on a sheet of typing paper and post a photograph of it.
But that seems like… cheating, somehow.
Suggestions?
(Once I figure this out, we can get this show on the road and start giving money away again, so don’t be reticent.)
UPDATE: Never mind. I’ve got it.
Monday, February 25, 2008
Looking for recipes
I’ve always thought I should expand my repertoire when it comes to matters culinary. I know how to make about half a dozen different kinds of each major meal of the day, above and beyond the simple “pour from can into medium cooking pan, heat, then serve” variety, plus a few desserts.
But there are some dishes I have never had reason to make myself, and find that I am somewhat interested in learning them…
So, does anyone have a good (tested) recipe for tuna casserole? Or any other good “comfort food” that they wish to share?
I only WISH I were this eloquent
Robb Allen (he of Sharp As A Marble fame) cross-posted a link to a GREAT article about the most recent school shootings.
Robb quoted it over at The Line Is Here, and I’m reproducing it here because we need to start replicating this mindset.
“I am drained from these shootings, the feeling of helplessness they bring, the fear they create which hangs over every campus like a dark cloud, and the net cast out for causes which always comes back empty of solutions. Instead, it is filled only with speculation, blaming everything from video games to guns to the lack of legally concealed firearms to mental illness to Godlessness to the Internet. Shooters share three traits: they are unhappy, they blame others for their unhappiness, and they don’t know how to express or deal with their problems within socially acceptable norms. It’s not just shootings among youth that’s on the rise; it’s drug use, alcoholism and violence in general. More and more, our children are growing up in a culture of irresponsibility and blame (as an educator I have witnessed this first-hand), and are being taught that their community is responsible for their unhappiness. They are not learning how to function properly in their community or how to deal with their shortcomings. Whatever we do, little ears are listening, little eyes watching, and little minds forming. If you lose the Presidential election, the other guy cheated; 26,000 Patriots fans are contesting the Super Bowl, blaming inaccurate timekeeping for the loss; when schools punish student misbehavior, parents intervene by threatening to sue and schools renege; the most influential Presidential candidate plagiarizes and shrugs it off; simple games like tag are being outlawed because some students aren’t as skilled as others. The erroneous message is that you don’t have to learn to function within your community; rather, the community will change to cater to your needs and whims. In an increasingly complex world we are robbing our children of the tools they need to cope. The battles I fought on the playground and in school built my character, enabled me to deal with my shortcomings, and prepared me to face the realities of life and disappointment, leading to my successes. It is our culture to where we need to turn our studies to find a solution to shootings. An exceptional response strategy is not the solution. NIU taught us that; they are to be commended on their strategy and quick response but even that proved ineffective to stop bloodshed. I don’t know if this statement will make a difference or circulate; I only know that I had to make it.”
More of this, please. And faster.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Working on the trivia contest
I’ve come up with a few good questions for you guys, but I need to go over some basic rules, since the format is changing.
To start with, there will be some basic math, but nothing a high school graduate couldn’t handle.
You should remember that once you get all of the numerical values of the various variables, there is still the math formula you will have to solve.
Nothing too difficult, but one that is likely to get a wrong answer if any one of the answers is incorrect.
So, just to save space, I’m going to tuck the rules below the fold.
Why LOST Sucks
Excellent!
I think I found a new favorite website about the show that I love to hate.
The New York Times v. McCain and the Republicans
A war of educated elitism.
Victor Davis Hanson has a great column about why should worry about the NY Times, why we shouldn’t worry about the NY Times, and why we shouldn’t care about the NY Times.
1. The Descent. Is this more of the same—when we remember the Jason Blair mess, the leaks of National Security information, the Moveon.org discounted ads, and the serial stories about defeat in Iraq and relative silence about the surge? The Times in the ideological sense has become indistinguishable from the Nation, and in its lack of craftsmanship no different from the British Tabloids or National Inquirer. Like Dan Rather and the crash of CBS, its directors know what their disease is, but also that the medicine is worse, so they will keep at it until they will expire.
2. Why Now? What are we to understand about the timing? That they held it to ensure a scandal-free McCain in the primaries, as the least offensive of the Republican candidates? They hoped he would win the nomination, as they argued in their own endorsement, but almost immediately upon becoming the veritable winner he should be weakened to favor the Democratic candidate in the general election? It is surreal to see the New Republic of recent Scott Beauchamp infamy in a tussle with the New York Times, on matters of conscious and probity. Name an old standby: CBS—Rather and the “memo”; Newsweek—the Periscope flushing of the Koran lie; Reuters—the photoshopped smoke over Beirut; New Republic—the Beauchamp mythology. The examples could be multiplied, but the theme is the same: a media elite, well educated and sophisticated, believes that their own biased means are necessary to achieve a utopian and just ends for the rest of us.
3. Open Season? Does the McCain story establish new benchmarks? Now we are going to go carefully through the last ten years of Obama’s personal and professional life to discover whether anyone ever wondered about attractive women in his general vicinity, and whether he was ever familiar with lobbyists?
The bottom line - the NY Times knows what is better for us than we do. If they have to lie, cheat, steal, and end up with dead bodies lying at their feet just to make it happen, then so be it. That kind of reminds me of the attitude of every communist dictator in the past 100 years.
Friday, February 22, 2008
In the spirit
B. Hussein Obama - not just for guilty white liberals anymore!
I’m surprised it took this long, but we now have a website at which you can find out all the ways B. Hussein is Hoping for (your) Change.
Keep clicking to see all the ways Obama deserves to get your vote (seeing as how his campaign hasn’t managed to do so yet)
Thursday, February 21, 2008
This is how the NYT endorses Republicans
Remember a while back when everyone was talking about the NYSlimes endorsing John McCain?
Well, their first “in-depth” story on John McCain shows exactly what their “endorsement” is going to consist of.
- Possible sex scandal? Check!
- Mention of ”Keating Five” banking scandal from almost twenty years ago? Check!
- Mention of personal and political hypocrisy? Check!
- Mention of divorce almost thirty years ago? Check!
- His attacks on free speech (aka McCain Feingold)? Check!
- Close ties to (and collecting for campaigns from) lobbyists? Check!
This is what the New York Times calls an “endorsement”? I’d love to see what kind of stories they are running about Hillary…
Yeah, yeah, I know, what liberal media, right?
UPDATE: As Mike from Cold Fury (quite rightly) points out:
The point I wanted to make, though, is this: what in the ever-loving blue-eyed world did you Shit Sandwich Republicans think was going to happen, anyway? Were you really delusional enough to think that “reaching out across the aisle” to “moderates” and “independents” (read: liberals) was going to turn out any way other than it always, always does: with you dopes reeling and smarting from the crisp smack in the chops your newest, bestest buddies invariably deliver when you least expect it?
You RINOs let Leftymedia pick your candidate for you, on the basis of his supposed “electability” among other fact-free nonsense. Now you get to live with the inevitable result. Eat up, chumps. Enjoy watching McVain tack leftward in an ever-widening spiral of desperation, as he tries to regain the support of cunning liberal-media types who were never, ever going to vote for him anyway.
These 49 states?
From WND:
Montana officials are saying that the United States already has resolved any questions about the 2nd Amendment’s application, defining that “any person” has the right to bears arms.
That’s the issue at hand in a pending U.S. Supreme Court case originating in the District of Columbia, where authorities have banned handguns under the claim that such a limit is “reasonable” and therefore enforceable even given the rights granted by the 2nd Amendment.
...
But officials in Montana, including dozens of state lawmakers as well as Secretary of State Brad Johnson, have joined together in a statement that the U.S. already has determined the application, and 2nd Amendment rights apply to “any person.”
In a joint resolution from the Montana leaders, including Congressman Denny Rehberg, they caution that should the Supreme Court decide to change the U.S. interpretation of the 2nd Amendment and allow those rights to apply only collectively, it would violate the contract under which Montana entered the union as a state.
“The Montana Resolution cautions that a collective rights decision would violate the Montana contract for statehood because when that contract was entered the collective rights interpretation had not yet been invented and the individual rights view was an accepted part of the contract,” an announcement from the leaders said.
“A collective rights decision in [the pending court case] Heller would not only violate Montana’s contract for statehood, but also Montana’s customs, culture and heritage. We hope the Supreme Court will recognize and credit the contract argument, an argument unmentioned in any of the briefs submitted in the Heller case,” said Gary Marbut, the president of the Montana Shooting Sports Association.
If Montana’s contract for statehood is invalidated, will the US Government send in the military to force them to remain part of the United States?
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Obama ‘08
I think we’ve got a winner!
Welcome to Drumwaster.com, the official Obama for President ‘08 Presidential Headquarters for the Election of the President. Here is our first campaign web banner. Please feel free to post it wherever you like:
Enjoy, and thank you for your support!