Crush Liberalism

Liberalism: Why think when you can “feel”?

If a suicide bombing goes down and no one sees it, does it make a sound?

According to the MSM, “yes, it does”!  From Confederate Yankee:

Via a reader in the comments of my most recent TNR post, a story about a solider wounded and a squad virtually wiped out in an apparent youth suicide bombing in Iraq in the Cleveland Daily Banner in Cleveland, TN:

Christopher H. Bagwell, grandson of Nancy and Richard Hughes of Cleveland, was severely wounded Tuesday, Sept. 18, in Iraq.

Bagwell and his squad leader were the only two survivors of a 12-member squad decimated when an Iraqi youth detonated explosives wrapped around his body.

A graduate of York Institute and Tennessee Technological University in Cookeville, Bagwell spoke with his grandmother last week.

She said the young soldier told her he had just passed the youthful bomber with his squad leader, with his squad following behind handing out candy to children. The Iraqi village was believed to be a friendly zone for the U.S. military.

The youngster, believed to be 10 to 12 years old, detonated the explosives as the soldiers were walking by. Ten members of the squad were killed, along with the youngster.Bagwell was severely injured.

The thing is, I can’t find any such record of a young suicide bomber causing so many fatalities among U.S. troops in Iraq, or for that matter, even ten U.S. fatalities on Sept. 18 in total.

Anti-war casualty clearinghouse icasualties.org has no record of such an attack, or even anything similar. According to U.S. Central Command Casualty Reports, there was one attack on Sept. 18, where 3 soldiers were killed and 3 wounded near Tikrit. There was nothing like a suicide bombing attack that killed ten soldiers and wounded two. A search of Google News also fails to uncover a similar account.

Update: The military weighs in:

Sir,
After reviewing available information, we are unable to confirm the
story’s legitimacy. Thank you.

V/R,

BRYON J. MCGARRY, 1Lt, USAF
OIC, JOC Public Affairs
Multi-National Corps – Iraq

Well, thank goodness the MSM has all of these “multiple layers of fact-checkers” at their disposal! Otherwise, one might get the silly notion they don’t thoroughly vet their stories. I know, I know, that’s just crazy talk!

Nope…no liberal media bias!

October 15, 2007 Posted by | Iraq, media bias | 3 Comments

Navy: You’ll take this expensive boat, and you’ll like it!

From Seattlestan’s fishwrap:

Tucked away on Seattle’s Portage Bay, a sleek, 85-foot speedboat sat idle for years — save for an annual jaunt to maintain its engine.

The Navy paid $4.5 million to build the boat. But months before the hull ever touched water, the Navy gave the boat to the University of Washington. The school never found a use for it, either.

Why would the Navy waste taxpayer dollars on a boat that nobody wanted?

Blame it on Sen. Patty Murray and Congressmen Norm Dicks and Brian Baird. All three exercised their political muscle to slip language into a 2002 spending bill to force the Navy to buy the boat from Edmonds shipbuilder Guardian Marine International.

Year after year, the Washington lawmakers did favors for the tiny company, inserting four “earmarks” into different bills to force the Navy and Coast Guard to buy boats they didn’t ask for — $17.65 million in all. None of the boats was used as Congress intended.

The congressional trio say they were helping Guardian Marine because it had a great product. But each has also received generous campaign donations from the company’s three executives, its sole employees: $14,277 to Baird, $15,000 to Murray, and $16,750 to Dicks.

Earmarks are federal dollars that members of Congress dole out to favor seekers — often campaign donors. In the process, lawmakers advocate for the companies, helping them bypass the normal system of evaluation and competition.

This can result in earmarks that are wasteful or potentially harmful.

For example, Murray directed $6 million to a Redmond company for high-tech battle gear that the Army had rejected as flawed for its armored-vehicle Stryker Brigade.

Rep. David Wu, D-Ore., directed the Marines to buy $2 million of combat T-shirts from an Oregon company. But they couldn’t be used in battle in Iraq due to a subsequent ban on polyester garments that could melt under fire and badly burn the troops.

Until recently, the earmark process was secretive. Congress did not have to publicly reveal the names of companies getting the contracts or those of the sponsoring lawmakers.

The Seattle Times investigated the 2007 defense bill, examining the relationships between who got money in the bill and who gave to lawmakers’ campaign funds. Reporters were able to tie nearly half of the bill’s 2,700 earmarks to their sponsoring lawmakers. 

Government waste and corruption at its finest.

October 15, 2007 Posted by | big government, corruption, pork | Leave a Comment

NYT fails to cover first Operation Enduring Freedom Medal of Honor winner

From the New York Post:

Every major daily paper in New York took note of President Bush’s decision to bestow the first Medal of Honor of Operation Enduring Freedom on Navy SEAL Lt. Michael Murphy – a Long Islander who gave his life for his country and his fellow SEALs.

Every paper but one, that is.

And it shouldn’t be particularly hard to guess which one.

By now, most folks know exactly how much The New York Times despises the U.S. military.

How it detests any mission that involves U.S. troops – whether to protect Americans by killing terrorists or to help stave off a bloodbath in the Middle East.

How the paper works tirelessly to promote its anti-war, anti-military agenda – even in its supposedly objective news pages.

So while Bush’s announcement merited stories and appreciative editorials in The Post, The New York Sun, the Daily News and even the front page of liberal Newsday, it shouldn’t be all that surprising that the Times didn’t publish a single word about Murphy’s well-deserved honor.

What did the paper of record focus on yesterday? No fewer than three stories reported on how Americans had killed innocent Iraqi civilians.

Regarding the war, of course, the Times’ “coverage” was pernicious long before the fighting began.

Since then, it has focused obsessively on the mistakes and sins of American GIs (Abu Ghraib, anyone?) – and rarely has it played up U.S. victories.

Indeed, it would be hard to cite a news outlet more responsible for sapping U.S. morale – and emboldening America’s enemies – than the Times.

But Murphy was a New Yorker.

He served with unusual valor and distinction in Afghanistan.

When Taliban militants ambushed his four-man team in 2005, he risked his life scrambling to an open spot to radio for help. He got his call through, but was later killed in the battle.

Surely even editors at the Times could have had the heart to report - if not honor – such courage and self-sacrifice.

Unless, of course, they’re so blinded by their disdain for America’s fighting men and women and their missions that they just can’t muster the decency to do so.

That must be it. 

One of their own, the first to win a prestigious (unlike the Nobel “Peace” Prize) award, and the Old Gray Hag can’t see fit to put it in their fishwrap?  You can be sure that had this guy been accused in a Murthaesque fashion of killing innocent civilians, the NYT would have been on that story like Jimmah Carter on peanut butter.

Nope…no liberal media bias!

October 15, 2007 Posted by | Afghanistan, media bias | 2 Comments

GA in drought to save mussels

Congrats, environuts. You guys trump common sense more often than not. From AJC:

If Georgia orders watering restrictions in metro Atlanta beyond the current outdoor ban, it will be taking drought-fighting steps that not even arid Southern California or Las Vegas has had to make.

As the state considers restrictions on commercial and industrial users, water experts around the nation say they don’t recall any major U.S. metro area being forced into such dire drought measures in about two decades.

“Most large metropolitan areas have systems in place where they try to be better managers of the resource than that,” said Don Wilhite, who founded the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and has been involved in drought responses for at least three decades.

Within two weeks, Georgia Environmental Protection Division director Carol Couch is expected to send Gov. Sonny Perdue options to tighten water restrictions.

Couch has authority to limit water use as necessary with as little as five days’ notice.

Missing from that AJC article is this one that gives us the main culprit:

Pat Stevens, an environmental planner for the Atlanta Regional Commission who regularly keeps tabs on how much water is available for Fulton, Gwinnett, Cobb, DeKalb and other metro Atlanta governments, said the Corps’ “wastes water unnaturally.”

“When you move into a drought like we’ve moved into, you’ll drain the system,” Stevens said.

The Corps’ water releases are based on two key requirements: the minimum flow needed to operate Plant Scholtz, Gulf Power’s small coal-fired facility just below Lake Seminole, and federal mandates to protect two mussel species in a Florida river.

If the Chattahoochee were undammed and running freely, Mother Nature would be providing only half the water the Corps is sending, Corps officials have said.

Val Perry Jr., a homeowner and officer of the Lake Lanier Association, told the Corps last week that “If there were no dams at all, some mussels would die and [the species would] not become extinct. … Does a couple of mussels trump 5 million people? What I hear from the Corps is that the answer to that is yes.”

Nice job, feds. The big, bloated, common-sense-devoid federal government is solely to blame for this, and we should trust these guys to manage our health care? No thanks.

October 15, 2007 Posted by | big government, environuts | 2 Comments

In CA, “Mom”, “dad”, “husband”, “wife” are sooooooo yesterday!

From Neal Boortz:

According to this story from WorldNetDaily, California government schools have banned the words “Mom,” “Dad,” husband,” and “wife.” Well .. at least that’s the argument from the Capitol Resource Institute, and since we’re talking about California here … they may not be too far off. All it will take now is a lawsuit or two to get things rolling. Governor Schwarzenegger signed the bill which also orders government schools to allow boys to use girls’ restrooms and locker rooms and vice versa.

One of the bills signed is SB777, which ban anything that could be interpreted as negative toward homosexuality, bisexuality and alternative lifestyles. Another is AB394 which targets parents and teachers with “anti-harassment” training.

Any text, reference or teaching aid that alludes to the idea of marriage as only between a man and a woman is banned. Any materials that say that people are born as either male or female – and does not offer an ‘in between’ option – is officially banned. Any sources that do not include transsexual, bisexual and homosexual historical figures can no longer be used. And sex education materials must offer the option of a sex change.

Moving on, homecoming kings can no longer be limited to just males. The same goes for homecoming queens. And students can choose which restrooms and locker rooms they want to use, the restrooms that correspond to what they believe their sexual orientation to be.

This same bill will promote these issues by using taxpayer money to create publications, postings, curricula and handouts for students, teachers and parents. It also says that parents who refer to marriage by only its “traditional” terms in the presence of a gay teacher could be convicted of harassment. And students who believe that you are born just male and female could be reported as a harasser.

Analysts are afraid that this legislation will affect schools across the county. This is because textbook publishers must cater to their largest purchaser … and that is often-times California. It would be too expense (sic) to have separate editions of textbooks for other states.

Californiastan…who knew?

October 15, 2007 Posted by | California, gay, moonbats, public education | 1 Comment

Leftists: Leave kids alone…unless they’re Republican kids

Recall the Graeme Frost kerfuffle from last week, where the Dems trotted out a kid to make the mean ol’ GOP look like they’re trying to kill children (ironic, coming from the party of unfettered access to abortion, but I digress). When people like me questioned whether a family of the Frosts’ means (over $80k in income, two SUV’s, four kids in private schools, nearly a half million in real estate equity, etc.) warranted the taxpayers paying for their health insurance, the left resorted to the predictable and dishonest tactic of accusing us of attacking not the program, but the kid. Again, why think when you can feel?

Anywho, I’d say it’s about time to ignore the faux outrage on the part of the left when it comes to “attacking the children”, wouldn’t you agree? From Hot Air:

As if to reward the righty bloggers for their fidelity to facts, leftwing pundits and bloggers have taken to childish name-calling and assertions of moral superiority. Say the folks over at blackfacing Firedoglake:

The difference between the far right wing and the far left wing: the far right will do anything — anything — so long as the ends justifies the means. The far left folks have ethical boundaries that they try very hard not to cross: things like attacking other people’s minor children is bad form . . .

Really? Is that your final answer?

Cuz it’s a lie.

2005. The Republicans trot out a kid to tout their Social Security reform. His name was Noah McCollough, and he was nine years of age at the time.

And the bloggers on the left savaged him. They made sexual references to him, called him a “budding young fascist” and made up a derogatory nickname for him. Q&O has the details.
What was is that the Firedoglakers said again?

Noah McCollough wasn’t the only one to incur the moonbats’ wrath. Remember the John Roberts confirmation hearings? His four-year-old son Jack was mocked by the nutroots as being gay (odd, considering the left purports to be champions of all things queer), adopted (“I think we should research Jack”), or Nazis redux.

Then there’s former Senator Rick Santorum’s young children, which are clearly fair game for the “don’t attack the children” hypocrites on the left. Ugly, pouty, slutty, destined to be a pole dancer…you get the idea. Yes, those kind and compassionate liberals sure do care about the children, don’t they?

As Bryan puts it:

…Wonkette is one of about 7 or 8 large leftwing blogs whose archives prove that many leftwing bloggers don’t regard attacking the minor children of political enemies as out of bounds. They seem to regard it as perfectly acceptable, except when they believe that they can score points by saying otherwise.

These vermin are evil, pure and simple. They know no shame.

October 15, 2007 Posted by | hypocrisy, moonbats, shameful | 10 Comments

DC liberal elitists wanted immunizations from “Redneck Rash”

Tell me again why liberals are seen as aloof elitists far removed from normal America?  From MyWay News:

It got the GOP’s engines revving – a Democratic official suggesting staffers get immunized for several diseases before heading south from Washington and into the Red State wilds of NASCAR country to conduct research at a pair of races.

The reaction on both sides illustrates just how valuable candidates for elected office consider the votes of NASCAR fans who pack grandstands by the thousands every weekend and the donations of business leaders who spend millions to sponsor the sport.

It started last month, when an official with the House Committee on Homeland Security suggested that staff aides get immunizations before visiting health facilities at Alabama’s Talladega Superspeedway and North Carolina’s Lowe’s Motor Speedway, where the Bank of America 500 was run Saturday.

In an e-mail, a staffer who works for committee chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., noted an “unusual need for whomever attending to be vaccinated against hepatitis A and B,” as well as “the more normal things – tetanus, diphtheria, and of course, seasonal influenza.”

The note didn’t explain why the committee saw such concern. It didn’t mention NASCAR or the races at the tracks at all. But the implication was enough to draw a snarky complaint from Republican Rep. Robin Hayes, whose district includes Lowe’s Motor Speedway.

“I have never heard of immunizations for domestic travel, and … I feel compelled to ask why the heck the committee feels that immunizations are needed to travel to my hometown,” wrote Hayes.

Thompson responded to Hayes that such immunizations are “are recommended for public safety professionals working in areas such as hospitals, holding areas and similar locations.” But the staffers were only scheduled to visit a few health care facilities – not work at them.

“What do they know about NASCAR that we don’t?” said Dr. David Weber, a professor of medicine and public health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Weber said everyone should be up to date on standard vaccinations, he but saw no need for special vaccinations to visit a health care facility or a NASCAR event. Debbie Crane, a spokeswoman for the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, said such shots are recommended for “general health” for all adults – but not for any specific circumstance.

“The very idea of immunization is laughable,” said Lowe’s Motor Speedway President Humpy Wheeler. “It’s like taping your ankles to go to the mailbox.”

He noted that no NASCAR event has ever sparked an outbreak – “other than a few headaches because somebody’s favorite driver ran out of gas, or maybe a morning hangover.”

There are lots of voters at the track, and that makes politicians of both parties regulars at NASCAR. There’s no doubt the crowds trend Republican, but the hasn’t stopped Democrats from seeking support at the races.

In the days leading up to the Bank of America 500, Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue held a political reception near the track’s Turn 4. Among those hosting the Democratic gubernatorial candidate were Wheeler, NASCAR president Mike Helton, as well as team owners Rick Hendrick and Felix Sabates – both registered Republicans.

Democratic Gov. Mike Easley is one of the sports biggest fans, even wiping out after climbing behind the wheel of a stock car. The Democratic-led state Legislature has paid special attention to NASCAR, granting tax breaks to the many teams based in the Charlotte area.

“Democrats in North Carolina know that their success is built on not conceding business interests to Republicans,” said Ferrel Guillory, who heads the program on Southern politics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. NASCAR “is big business. This is big economic development.”  

Ah, yes.  Let’s not risk getting cooties at a NASCAR event with all of “those people” there.  Brilliant move, leftards.

October 15, 2007 Posted by | moonbats, shameful | 1 Comment

Al-Qaeda In Iraq devastated

As are Democrats, I’m sure.  From the Washington comPost:

The U.S. military believes it has dealt devastating and perhaps irreversible blows to al-Qaeda in Iraq in recent months, leading some generals to advocate a declaration of victory over the group, which the Bush administration has long described as the most lethal U.S. adversary in Iraq.
…
There is widespread agreement that AQI has suffered major blows over the past three months. Among the indicators cited is a sharp drop in suicide bombings, the group’s signature attack, from more than 60 in January to around 30 a month since July. Captures and interrogations of AQI leaders over the summer had what a senior military intelligence official called a “cascade effect,” leading to other killings and captures. The flow of foreign fighters through Syria into Iraq has also diminished, although officials are unsure of the reason and are concerned that the broader al-Qaeda network may be diverting new recruits to Afghanistan and elsewhere.

The deployment of more U.S. and Iraqi forces into AQI strongholds in Anbar province and the Baghdad area, as well as the recruitment of Sunni tribal fighters to combat AQI operatives in those locations, has helped to deprive the militants of a secure base of operations, U.S. military officials said. “They are less and less coordinated, more and more fragmented,” Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the second-ranking U.S. commander in Iraq, said recently. Describing frayed support structures and supply lines, Odierno estimated that the group’s capabilities have been “degraded” by 60 to 70 percent since the beginning of the year.

If true, this is good news for America…which means it’s bad news for the left.

October 15, 2007 Posted by | defeatism, Iraq, religion of peace | 1 Comment

Prominent meterologist: Global “warming” is crap

Someone is raining on the Goron’s parade.  From Oz:

ONE of the world’s foremost meteorologists has called the theory that helped Al Gore share the Nobel Peace Prize “ridiculous” and the product of “people who don’t understand how the atmosphere works”.

Dr William Gray, a pioneer in the science of seasonal hurricane forecasts, told a packed lecture hall at the University of North Carolina that humans were not responsible for the warming of the earth.

His comments came on the same day that the Nobel committee honoured Mr Gore for his work in support of the link between humans and global warming.

“We’re brainwashing our children,” said Dr Gray, 78, a long-time professor at Colorado State University. “They’re going to the Gore movie [An Inconvenient Truth] and being fed all this. It’s ridiculous.”
…
But Dr Gray, whose annual forecasts of the number of tropical storms and hurricanes are widely publicised, said a natural cycle of ocean water temperatures – related to the amount of salt in ocean water – was responsible for the global warming that he acknowledges has taken place.

However, he said, that same cycle meant a period of cooling would begin soon and last for several years.

“We’ll look back on all of this in 10 or 15 years and realise how foolish it was,” Dr Gray said. 

I don’t know if we will, Doc.  I mean, we had the “new Ice Age” impending doom towards the end of the 1970′s, which never materialized, and we have never really heard “OK, so we were wrong!” coming from the same scientific community that now has jumped feet first into the global “warming” pool.

As for the absurb notion that global “warming” is responsible for hurricane activity:

During his speech to a crowd of about 300 that included meteorology students and a host of professional meteorologists, Dr Gray also said those who had linked global warming to the increased number of hurricanes in recent years were in error.

He cited statistics showing there were 101 hurricanes from 1900 to 1949, in a period of cooler global temperatures, compared to 83 from 1957 to 2006 when the earth warmed.

“The human impact on the atmosphere is simply too small to have a major effect on global temperatures,” Dr Gray said.

Just as I and many others have suspected the same thing, the good doctor makes the same observation:

He said his beliefs had made him an outsider in popular science.

“It bothers me that my fellow scientists are not speaking out against something they know is wrong,” he said. “But they also know that they’d never get any grants if they spoke out. I don’t care about grants.” 

Like I’ve said before, it’s a crying shame that even science is no longer immune to political agendas.

October 15, 2007 Posted by | global warming, Gore | 1 Comment

   

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