ConservativeINC

Just in case you can’t make out what is going on here I will tell you. Here you have some Muslims and Christians putting up a cross together. And here’s what the photographer, Michael Yon, has to say from his perch in Iraq:

“I photographed men and women, both Christians and Muslims, placing a cross atop the St. John’s Church in Baghdad. They had taken the cross from storage and a man washed it before carrying it up to the dome. A Muslim man had invited the American soldiers from ‘Chosen’ Company 2-12 Cavalry to the church, where I videotaped as Muslims and Christians worked and rejoiced at the reopening of St John’s, an occasion all viewed as a sign of hope. The Iraqis asked me to convey a message of thanks to the American people. ‘Thank you, thank you,’ the people were saying. One man said, ‘Thank you for peace.’ Another man, a Muslim, said ‘All the people, all the people in Iraq, Muslim and Christian, is brother.’ The men and women were holding bells, and for the first time in memory freedom rang over the ravaged land between two rivers. (Videotape to follow.)”

Where is all the footage of this on the regular news? I would think that this type of cooperation would be the type of news story that any journalist would love to cover. But things are different now and we are only exposed to the horrible things that go on in Iraq. AP ran a story the other day saying how we’ve lost more soldiers this year than any other. Of course they should have put it into context; the surge put us at greater risk for a short time so we can have longer lasting security and a comparison to previous wars would be nice. Anyways, Michael Yon is doing yeoman’s work in Iraq and I commend his efforts.

Elsewhere in the wide, wide world of the Middle East there seemed to be an iota of hope coming out of Pakistan earlier today. Musharraf declared today that elections would only be delayed one month to February, which gives some hope that he will step down as general and become solely a civilian. But then later on today Pakistani police put Bhutto, the West’s darling, under house arrest. This goes along with the thousands more who have been rounded up by the government because they oppose Musharraf.

Joe Biden and Bill Richardson, both Democrats with extensive foreign policy experience (according to Yahoo!), warned today that history may be repeating itself with Pakistan going down the same road that Iran did more than two decades ago. They both say that we need to vigorously support democracy and human rights (where were they on Iraq!) and without this steadfastness we’re going to get a radicalized nuclear state. My only problem with their scenario is the fact that there are no black and white solutions here.

Sure, we could bring our military into Pakistan and hope all goes well. But that is not going to happen because we just don’t have the forces available to do something like that. All we can do is give aid both in money and political support. We all want democracy to take place in every country in the world. It’s just going to take longer in some locales for our wishes to come true. But if we don’t back Musharraf now we’re inviting another situation like we have with Iran. Real democrats would never ally themselves with radicals like al Qaeda and the Taliban. Bhutto (and Musharraf) has done just that in the past. Nothing is perfect and yet there is an option that is the most correct. Support the current regime any way we can and hope for the best.

There was some really exciting news for every politician in America today. The golden goose of taxes is still breathing! Yup, that’s right, the number of smokers as a percentage of the population is no longer decreasing. This is great news for everyone in the government because their money pinata is not running out of candy as quickly.

See, whenever any local, state, or even the federal government wants to start a program that is really expensive and might not get enough support from the electorate they inevitably attack the “sinners” among us. The story talks about how the government needs to do more to get people to kick the habit but I doubt they will really try to get less people to smoke. Less people smoking means less special projects to put on their resumes. Don’t fear you anti-smoking nuts, the government will eventually kill this golden goose because they’ll eventually get to the point with taxes where people just won’t be able to afford them anymore.

Two stories I did today dealt with terrorism. One at home and one in Baghdad, Iraq. Supposedly, our jihadi adversaries want to attack our Christmas shoppers in an effort to destroy our economy. That won’t happen because the reprisal against them would be devastating but if they’re looking for willing operatives they have a bevy coming out of Baghdad. Yes, we have eradicated the Sunni brand of terrorism in Baghdad (yeah, they might very well find their way back in, party pooper) and we’re seeing some good signs with regards to Sunni-Shia cooperation. They’re going to release a fatwa against, get this, violence. If this isn’t a good sign I don’t know what is.

A not so good sign is coming out of France. Even though their president, Monsieur Sarkozy, is a solid ally of the United States the same cannot be said of the French people with regards to their president. when he got back to his homeland he was met with a bunch of strikers (and not just script writers but cops and hospital helicopter pilots). Of course this all has to do with the radical liberalization Sarkozy wants to come to their economy. Their economy is moribund because it is in a straitjacket of regulations and taxes. At their respective current paces the Iraqi people are going to have a higher standard of living than the French people within a generation.

You could put us in with the Frenchies if Hillary gets elected and that’s just what her husband thinks will comfortably happen. At least that’s what he said in Iowa today. But is that going to happen? Well, not necessarily. According to a Wall Street Journal-NBC poll if it were Hillary Clinton against Rudy Giuliani for the presidential election as it stands right now it would be a statistical dead heat. Of course, I think polls are ridiculous and aren’t very accurate. But, hey, what else are we going to talk about?

I’m glad I asked that question because we can always talk about Hillary Clinton not tipping poor waitresses. Yeah, I know her campaign gave a nice tip (really nice actually) but this is politics and perception is what matters. She should have personally tipped the waitress. This story reminds me of a story about Ronald Reagan. He gave a speech of some sorts at a coffee shop and a lot of the press got some free stuff. Reagan wouldn’t have this so he wrote the owner a $100 check to amply cover the bill. About a month later he asked whether the man had cashed the check and when he found out he hadn’t he wrote out another check and this time the man cashed the check (he had framed the first one). If only she would have learned from the Gipper.

BigT’s Linkapalooza:
Christian right is a mindless voting bloc after all.
Mukasey is AG.
Bernanke says economy more like a tortoise.
Baseball collusion over A-Rod. Maybe now he’ll only get a $275 million contract.
Apocalypse Now: Yellowstone Rising.
I want my, I want my, I want my twenty - four.
Burma in the news again.
BigT

Tell Your Friends! Bookmark Me!



Take Me To Your Homepage!

There is a reason for this picture. If America is the hyperpower then Gisele Bundchen is the hypermodel of the world and when she demands a certain perk in her contract then everyone bounces to attention. The hypermodel wants to get into the hot currencies now and requires clients to pay for her vivacious services in something other than American dollars. But this is why this story is so important in my mind.

The most important part of this story for me was finding out that she has a twin! Not only that but as I was looking this important information up online I found out there are not only two of ‘em but many of ‘em!

To be exact there are six sisters. Oh, what, you want to know what the falling dollar is going to mean for the future of American supremacy? Let me put it this way: we use to be really far up on everyone and now they’re beating us. Things can switch back in a flash because for every percentage point our currency falls that makes our exports that much more enticing for foreigners. Eventually we’ll right the trade imbalance and our real estate prices are going to go back up. Everything is not going to be fine for the next year or two and things can always blow up but the ship will be righted. It better be with all the good scenery we’ve got to look at.

A more serious threat to America, however, is Islamoterrorism. And one of the things that has bothered me about the narrative surrounding Islamoterrorism is that somehow we are responsible for them being the way they are. Christopher Hitchens, he is one of the most influential “conservatives” in the world (how in the heck can one consider him a conservative?), has a piece out today called Isolationism Isn’t the Answer: Jihadists aren’t in Afghanistan—or Iraq—because we are there that deals with this vexation of mine.

The latest news is of a very nasty Islamic insurgency in southern Thailand, butchering Buddhist villages (remember the Taliban assault on the Buddha statues at Bamiyan?) and making demands for the imposition of sharia law. Perhaps someone will identify for me which Thai and Buddhist—or Western imperialist—crimes have led to this sudden development. Or perhaps it will be admitted, however grudgingly and belatedly, that there is something sui generis about Islamist fanaticism: something that is looking for a confrontation with every non-Muslim society in the world and is determined to pursue it with the utmost violence and cruelty. It is also seeking a confrontation with some Muslim states and societies.

I make the latter point with deliberation. Afghanistan has a constitution that reserves special privileges for Islam. Most Afghan women still cover at least their heads. Even those who fought long and hard against the Taliban and al-Qaida—the Northern Alliance forces, for instance, or the Shiite Hazara—are intensely Muslim by any non-Muslim standard. But that does not suffice to protect them from the attentions of suicide-murderers and throat-cutters, recruited from as far away as Chechnya or even the Muslim areas of China. So, can we hear a bit less about how the jihadists are responding only to those who “target” Muslims or who are “Islamophobic”?

Why was al Qaeda in Afghanistan in the first place? Why was the Taliban killing other Muslims there? Muslim terrorists are blowing up things in Saudi Arabia, killing Iraqis, torturing Afghanis, and causing havoc in every Islamic country. And even if we are attracting jihadists to Iraq that hardly means they wouldn’t have been jihadists otherwise. They will always be able to find someone who doesn’t live according to their strict rules and will want to let some blood. At least we can fight back.

One such place where we aren’t (but should have been allowed access) is Pakistan. Things are looking bleak for the country now that Pervez Musharraf has had to call martial law for the country. The Wall Street Journal has a piece out today that deals with how America should deal with this situation. According to the Journal

The main U.S. interest here is a stable Pakistan that can help defeat the jihadists. That interest won’t be served by precipitously moving to sever ties with Mr. Musharraf, or with the Pakistan military the way the U.S. did in the 1990s. That would only reduce whatever leverage the U.S. continues to have with Islamabad, as well as reduce the prospects for cooperation in pursuing al Qaeda safe havens.

The Bush Administration will have to speak clearly to Pakistanis that its support for its government is not limited to Mr. Musharraf, and to loudly and publicly urge the General to honor his pledge to relinquish his military commission and hold elections as soon as possible. After this weekend, it is clearer than ever that U.S. policy has to prepare for the post-Musharraf era.

I seriously doubt that Musharraf is going anywhere anytime soon. He is the power behind Pakistan and the only way he is leaving now is if he gets forced out by the United States or by the terrorists with an IED with his name on it. Other than that he will be at the helm for another few years at least.

Of course all of this worrying about the dollar falling and terrorists taking over the world could very well be eclipsed by the next ice age. Oh, wait, I’m sorry, the current environmental doomsday prognostication revolves around the world burning up like a march mallow that was held too close to the campfire for too long. But 112 years ago they were worried about the looming ice age that would kill “billions.” And then a quarter century later they were hot on global warming. That lasted until the 1950s and was followed by a cold front that started in the middle of the 70s.

It’s almost like they’re reporting on the swings of a pendulum: “Bill, the pendulum is going to the right and doesn’t look like it’s going to stop! Wait, now it’s going to the left and doesn’t look like it’s going to stop! Oh my God, I don’t know what we’re going to do! There’s no way we can time our piano lessons now!” But this is some serious stuff because countries are talking about spending and actually spending hundreds of billions of dollars on the environment and many more on regulations aimed at curbing pollution. Wouldn’t it be a kick in the ass if another decade and a half from now we’re arguing over what to do to prevent the coming ice age.

I remember years ago when people said those who thought anti-smoking laws would eventually lead to an outright ban were nuts. Well it seems like the nutsos weren’t so off. There is a movement afoot to outlaw smoking in apartments and condos.

This year, two California cities passed laws restricting smoking inside multiunit residential buildings. In the last 14 months, two large residential real estate companies with apartment complexes in several states banned smoking inside units.

Thousands of smaller apartment complexes across the country have taken similar steps, said Jim Bergman, founder of the Smoke-Free Environments Law Project, which is based in Michigan.

And about 60 public housing authorities across the country have smoke-free policies, compared with less than 10 three years ago, Mr. Bergman said.

Health advocacy groups call housing one of the smoke-free movement’s final frontiers.

You have to understand that you are just too stupid to lead your own life and if someone isn’t living their life up to your standards and you bitch a big enough fit you will eventually get vengeance. Maybe it’s time to start a movement aimed at eliminating whiny nanny-staters.

Maybe there is some hope because the nanny-staters’ biggest supporters, liberal newspapers, are dying off.

The Audit Bureau of Circulations released circulation numbers for more than 700 daily newspapers this morning for the six-month period ending September 2007. Of the top 25 papers in daily circulation, only four showed gains.

According to an analysis of ABC figures, for 538 daily U.S. newspapers, circulation declined 2.5% to 40,689,617. For 609 papers that filed on Sunday, overall circulation dropped 3.5% to 46,771,486.

Here’s a link to the chart that details this tale of woe for one of the mainstream media’s flanks. Personally I don’t see any reason to keep my subscription to the Wall Street Journal (OK, not a liberal paper but a paper nonetheless and the one with the second biggest weekly subscription base, USA Today cheats though). There is just no reason to keep it because I can get all of that information the day before online. It just doesn’t make sense reading through a bunch of stories I don’t care about to get to that nugget of information that is valuable to me.

First it was models who were too skinny.

Now the weight police are after Santa’s who are too “fat.”

This is all in an effort to set a good example for impressionable youths who will undoubtedly see Santa and think they should go all out and get a big beer gut. It is funny that these freaks aren’t worried about the kids kidnapping a bunch of midgets and making them into elves because that’s what I would do if I wanted to be like Santa. Plus, if the kids do get too fat that means they’re going to die and help prevent overpopulation.

BigT’s Linkapalooza:
Olmert against right wing zealots in Israel.
The real Tony Soprano was arrested in Italy.
Crying about health care.
Currency down, Buchanan down.
If we torture then the terrorists might torture too! Oh, wait….
Colbert’s presidential campaign is DOA.
BigT

Tell Your Friends! Bookmark Me!



Take Me To Your Homepage!

The pilot of the Enola Gay, which dropped the first atomic bomb, has died. He lived a good long life, he was 92 when he died. Unfortunately for him when he followed his nation’s orders he made himself one of the biggest targets of the anti-war left ever. In death he feared that he was going to become a target of protesters and vandalism. So he decided to make one more sacrifice for his country and requested that he be buried without a gravestone so that there wouldn’t a rallying cry for leftist agitation. God willing I hope this man is now safely in Heaven, where he belongs.

Torre is a Dodger. Maybe Mattingly will tag along to get some more seasoning under the tutelage of one of the greatest managers ever.

It is a sad fact about the country we live in that the President of the United States has to remind his opposition that we are still at war.

President Bush compared Congress’ Democratic leaders Thursday with people who ignored the rise of Lenin and Hitler early in the last century, saying “the world paid a terrible price” then and risks similar consequences for inaction today.

Bush accused Congress of stalling important pieces of the fight to prevent new terrorist attacks by: dragging out and possibly jeopardizing confirmation of Michael Mukasey as attorney general, a key part of his national security team; failing to act on a bill governing eavesdropping on terrorist suspects; and moving too slowly to approve spending measures for the Iraq war, Pentagon and veterans programs.

“Unfortunately, on too many issues, some in Congress are behaving as if America is not at war,” Bush said during a speech at the Heritage Foundation. “This is no time for Congress to weaken the Department of Justice by denying it a strong and effective leader. … It’s no time for Congress to weaken our ability to intercept information from terrorists about potential attacks on the United States of America. And this is no time for Congress to hold back vital funding for our troops as they fight al-Qaida terrorists and radicals in Afghanistan and Iraq.”

This is absolutely true and my only regret is that he has waited so long to make this point. He needs to be out there every day explaining the progress that we are making in the War on Terror so that the population won’t get lackadaisical and allow the democrats to succeed in surrendering. That is their aim. They are going to push for higher taxes “to pay for the war”, they are going to highlight any setbacks on the war front, they are going to continue to undermine any and all progress we make in Iraq and elsewhere because they think that is their best chance for election.

One area where they are putting a full court press on Bush’s prosecution of this war is with the President’s nomination of Mukasey for AG. The democrats have been asking ridiculous questions about confidential information regarding the techniques we are using to get information from the terrorists. If the president isn’t even allowed to decide how best to fight this war how on Earth are we expected to make any serious gains? Forceful questioning of men who would gladly die to kill twenty children at school won’t keep me up at night. Making them think they’re within a camel’s whisker of drowning seems fitting to me. Especially when that fear leads to actionable intelligence that is used to save civilians and our military men and women.

One of the biggest fronts in the War on Terror that could possibly catch on fire is with Iran. They are already supplying Shiite militias with EFPs, explosively formed penetrators, that have been used to destabilize Iraq and kill our soldiers. But are things changing for the better with Iran? According to Reuters we are seeing a downward trend in the number of these troop killers coming into Iraq. What could have caused this?

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that Iraqis that were working to undermine democracy have been changing their minds in droves in recent months. The Sunnis have rejected al Qaeda and now maybe the Shiites are rejecting Iran. This would be some really great news if this were the reason why violence has come down and I do think that this has a big thing to do with the reduction of arms coming in from Iran’s Quds Force.

But I think that the main reason why the Iranians have changed their stripes dates back to the Israeli’s strike deep within Syria that took at a nascent nuclear weapons facility. This show of force definitely did not go unnoticed by the Iranians because Syria is their terrorist baby brother. Couple this capability with the escalating threats from America, i.e. President Bush and his administration, and you have a docile thugocracy. My guess is that they are biding their time so they can either affect the presidential election next year or wait until Ms. Clinton ascends to the presidency to renew their demonic mission.

Or they could just decide to continue to fight their wars with proxies like Hezbollah. AP is reporting this:

Israel alleges that Hezbollah militants in Lebanon have rearmed with new long-range rockets capable of hitting Tel Aviv and tripled their arsenal of land-to-sea missiles since last summer’s war, the United Nations secretary-general said in a report Wednesday.

This is Iran’s MO; they fund terrorist groups to do their dirty work. Hezbollah and the rest spin their web of destruction all the while destabilizing the Middle East expanding the reach of Iran’s power. It is a brilliant gambit by the Iranians because they have many compliant Westerners who are more willing to blame America before they even think of putting down the messianic terroristas. Even if one of the useful idiot’s family members dies they will eventually come back to the flock and blame imperialistic America for pushing these poor goat herders into their horrible situation in the first place. If we would have more forcefully supported the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon, the one that we all hoped was a harbinger of greater democracy in the region, maybe Israel and the other democracies in the region wouldn’t be in such a perilous position.

Enough about apocalyptic predictions surrounding the eternal hot spot that is the Middle East, let’s talk about something more cheery like subsidies for big farm. YEAH!

Victor David Hanson, the agrarian classicist, has a piece out today called Please, Not Another Farm Bill. Here’s the most important part:

The farm subsidy program currently in place pays out over $7 billion directly to larger farmers for a few select crops like corn, cotton, rice, soy and wheat. But it pays nothing to most other — often smaller — farmers of fresh fruits and vegetables. Yet the former group of farmers is hardly in more need of welfare than the latter. And soy or rice isn’t more critical to the American diet than fresh fruit and vegetables.

Federal farm bills originated in Depression-era America when commodity prices crashed, forcing tens of millions of bankrupt small farmers to turn to the federal government to survive.

But that’s ancient history. Today’s corporate farm is about as similar to a 1930s homestead as a massive air-conditioned tractor combine is to a team of horses.

In the last two years, both farmland and produce prices have soared. They are likely to remain high as newly affluent populations in India, China and much of Asia have the cash to import American food on a massive scale.

These farm giveaway bills are always justified by promising to ensure Americans inexpensive food, the survival of family farmers, and national agricultural independence. But the opposite has occurred. Consumer food prices are rising each year. There have never been fewer family farmers. And in terms of gross sales, the nation is importing almost as much food as it exports.

I don’t like any subsidies. But I especially don’t like the ones that are given out to the most able among us. One of the biggest mistakes I think we make is giving subsidies out to companies because it significantly increases the prices we pay for the subsidized goods. Sugar, for example, is significantly subsidized and, if I remember correctly, quadruples the price we pay for it. Take away subsidies and allow countries to specialize in what they do best (i.e. effectively, efficiently, which means cheaply) and everyone will be better off.

Yesterday everyone was better off who was in the stock market. Nary a word was uttered about it though. Today the opposite is true for both how well everyone faired in the market and the amount of words spoken about it. I have four stories highlighted that deals with this but I’m not sure it’s worth the effort. See, the market fluctuates everyday. And going down a couple percentage points doesn’t mean that much. Neither does an increase of a couple points. I think that there are a lot of people who want to see the market take a tumble. The liberals want it to tumble because it would improve their election outlook, foreigners want it to tumble because it would improve the democrat’s election outlook, and our enemies want it to to tumble because it would improve the democrat’s election outlook. So here are the links in rapid fire: STOCKS TUMBLE, OIL AND GOLD FALL, BANKS EARNINGS DOWN, and FED PUMPS $41 BILLION INTO ECONOMY! AHHHHHHHHHHH!

BigT’s Linkapalooza:
Iran’s economy is too liquid, must be some of the fluid in Ahmadinejad’s head sloshing around.
Venezuelan students clash with police because Hugo is just too good to them.
More buttressing of Hillary at NY Times.
Mom gets hit called out on her because she wasn’t generous enough for son’s liking.
I’m not one of the most influential conservatives, sigh.
BigT

Tell Your Friends! Bookmark Me!



Take Me To Your Homepage!