On taxes....

Charlie Rangel wants to do away with the Alternative Minimum Tax.

Naturally, as it was not indexed for inflation and therefore has now encroached down into the upper middle class, where it was never intended. there are 20 million new AMT payers this year who are going to be VERY upset, and they are voters and people of influence. Nobody in congress wants to defend the AMT, and everyone wants credit for abolishing it.

But Rangel says there needs to be a way to "pay for it". In other words, to replace its revenue with new tax revenue, so the government doesn't lose.

First of all, if it's taxing people it was not meant to tax, can't it be said that the government shouldn't have that money? That they should just give it back, and find a way to make do without it? After all, it is 'ill gotten gains', isn't it? Aren't the newest AMT payers being victimized by it, overtaxed?

OF COURSE.

Logic says if its a tax that shouldn't be happening, then the government should be getting by without that money.

But Democrats never use logic, only class envy. The AMT was, after all, a "soak the rich" tax plan that got lots of publicity for that, back in the day.

One should also point out that the US government is on a roll, revenue wise. They've collected record amounts of money for several years in a row, and last year's was again an all time high.

Seems to me they're awash in money, and the reason is that Bush CUT taxes. So, rationally speaking, the more they cut, the higher their revenues.

So if they do away with the AMT, they'll collect even more money without having to institute any new taxes at all, right? OF COURSE.

But don't expect to hear this from the Dems. No new taxes means no new wealth redistribution, and without wealth redistribution they've got no way to pay for all the votes they buy.

Back in the early '60's, JFK cut taxes, and did so specifically to boost government revenue. It worked, as he publicly said it would.

Back in the '80's, Reagan cut taxes, on principle, because they were too high, punitively so.

Revenues tripled during his tenure as president.

Bush's tax cuts have grown government revenue as well, but the Dems want to roll them back AND add new taxes.

Folks, history proves that when taxes are cut, the government gets more money, because of increased economic activity and spending on all levels. More jobs, more expenditures, more growth, more government revenue, it all happens when taxes are cut.

And the opposite happens when they're raised. Fewer jobs, more people on welfare, less spending, shrinking business (which mean shrinking business tax revenues), etc.

If Charlie Rangel wants more money in government, he would not be proposing new taxes, PERIOD. He knows full well the history here.

And this proves that Dems do NOT want "more money", in general. What they want is more control of YOU, more of YOUR money, so they can make decisions on where it goes. If government gets less revenue because of it, if people lose jobs because of it (poor, minorities hardest hit, as the headlines go), well that's just the way she goes.

And this isn't just Rangel's plan. It's Hillary's plan, it's Obama's plan, its the Dem plan.

Hillary-- "I've got a million ideas, America can't afford them all!"

Note to Hillary-- we can't afford ANY of them.

Mohammed is upset...

That would be Mohammed El Baradei, the UN's chief nuke bureaucrat, who apparently is not happy about the Israeli bombing of the Syrian nuke installation.

Specifically, he decries the fact that nobody gave the UN any evidence at all of this installation before it was bombed. "We have a system", he says, and he's upset that it was ignored. He thinks the system is undermined by bombing first and asking questions later.

I have a couple of questions for Mr. El B:

How many years would have been required for your official UN investigation of Syria?

Could they have finished their reactor and had fuel for nuclear weapons before you even sent in the first inspector?

Would you have even instigated an investigation on the evidence that Israel had, given that nobody else had that evidence or even suspected a nuclear site in Syria?

And, on a related note, are you going to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons with this system of yours? Pardon my spasm of doubt.

The Israelis were ON THE GROUND at this location, with at least one spy on the scene. Their soldiers, special ops people, had arrived there and used lasers to target the building for the bombers.

There is NO DOUBT this was a nuke facility, given the silence from all the other Arab countries about the attack. The Arab nations are afraid that Iran, and its puppet Syria, will build their capabilities to the extent that they will be able to easily win the coming Sunni-Shia war, and the Arabs were consequently glad that Israel attacked.

There is no other explanation for the lack of loud whiny complaints from them about "Israeli aggression" and so forth.

Instead of whining about being out of the loop, Mr. El B, how about becoming part of the solution instead of part of the problem?

But of course that will not happen. The U.N. is, after all, the world's largest anti-Semitic institution, with fully 50% of the resolutions of the past ten years being essentially anti-Israel resolutions; and they just ignore the other 50%, a dozen of which would have prevented the Iraq war had they been enforced in the first place.

But all they do is make resolutions against Israel and then complain about Israel. The U.N., as a going concern of good intent and real influence, is over. Now it is simply an extension of Eurabia, a voice for anti-Israel and anti-Bush sentiments, and cannot at all be trusted to do any good in this world.

amazing....

I tried the link to the Christian Science Monitor on Michelle Malkin's site today, but it wouldn't connect.

So I'll just link to her page and you can read her account of the media myths surrounding the Jena 6 story from earlier this year.

Irony abounds, considering how far the real story varies from the media's reporting of it.

Most ironic, though, is the bit about the nooses hung from the tree.

The truth? It was white kids playing a prank on other white kids by evoking a scene from "Lonesome Dove". These kids had NO IDEA that a noose was an unpleasant reminder of violent racism in America's past. When they found out, they were HORRIFIED, and rushed to apologize to everyone they knew who might have been offended.

That's right-- we are so far removed from the racist history of Louisiana and of this country, this newest generation has no idea about it. No clue. As it SHOULD BE.

If anything, this story should be used to prove that we are NOT the racists we used to be, that our efforts at removing racism from this nation are WORKING. How else could we raise a generation that had no idea the noose was a Klan warning to black people in the south 60 years ago?

British "Conservatives"

I am sufficiently jaded these days to say confidently that it's hard to shock me.

But this shocks me.

British conservatives are, apparently, not.

It's bad enough that so many erstwhile American conservatives are so hungry to fill our nation with legal illegals, to give them drivers' licenses and welfare and privileges even citizens don't receive.

Now British conservatives are making anti-Israel stances a matter of party policy. The Conservative Muslim Forum, a large and influential group within the conservative party, has issued a paper of policy which can be assumed to have strong influence with party leadership. We've been blindly supporting Israel, they say, and it's made 1.5 billion Muslims angry with us. We've got to see their side and be tough with Israel. We've got to stop calling terrorists Muslims, because Islam forbids terrorism and our language matters.

These are CONSERVATIVE policy recommendations, folks, according to the document. It speaks optimistically of a future position of power for conservatives, leadership in government, etc.

But I seriously doubt conservatives will ever find themselves governing as long as they do not denounce this CMF paper. It is just too much to tell the real conservatives, the citizens of the heartland, to abandon the Israelis to the butcher knives for no good reason and to placate the Islamofascists by giving them treatment they have not earned and do not deserve.

Remember, it isn't the violence by the few that tells the story; it's the lack of clear and consistent statements by the mainstream Muslims AGAINST the violence.

It's complicated, of course. Some fear the jihadists so much they're afraid to speak out against violence. It's the old "we know where you live" thing.

But I'm afraid the evidence is that most mainstream nonviolent Muslims simply don't disagree with the overarching principle that it is the Muslim's duty to work for a future Islamic government wherever they are. They might not personally commit or endorse violence, but they do not speak against it, and that is the tell.

The sanitizing of violence involves changing the public perception, making it seem that violence is a response to an original provoking act of violence. That's why, of course, so much hay is made of the occasional clenched fist of Israel-- a fist which is made necessary in the first place only by Islamic violence!

If any British conservative voter should happen by this blog, please lodge a protest against Cameron and the coinservative leadership on my behalf. Israel is a functioning liberal democracy of six million, many of whom are Arabs, a tiny spot of sanity in a sea of dictatorships and Islamic fundamentalist sewers with moribund economies and citizens who cover their women and live in fear.

Support of Israel is the only decent response to any reading of the history of the past hundred years. I do not pretend they've not made mistakes; nevertheless their history cries out of sanity and decency and civility under incredibly difficult circumstances. Would that one could say the same of ANY neighbouring nation.

The English are famous for being of two minds about Israel; they were the most helpful of the Euro empires back in the founding days of the early 20th century, and yet they were never faithful to the notion. They changed their minds often, withdrawing support when the Jews needed it and counted on it, making it harder than it needed to be. And of course, by the 1930's the British had taken many steps to prevent Israel from coming into being-- this after the Balfour paper had clarified their SUPPORT for it only ten years before!

Today, sadly, the conservative party of Britain has revealed that it is considering taking the side of the left regarding Israel. Clearly the Muslims have begun a serious effort to turn the heads of the 'other' party in Britain.

Cameron should be ashamed, and Israel should be afraid.

Gritty reality

Here is yet another example of the phoniness of the left.

It's small in itself, but it's telling-- not only in the truth of it, but in how the left will doubtless respond to this knowledge.

James Lipton is the erudite and oh so perfectly turned-out host of the Actors' Studio. It's a sort of live shrine to actors and movies, wherein Lipton invites famous actors onto his set for interviews and insight. Lipton himself is well-spoken to the point of foppishness, and when the show goes High Def I have no doubt you'll be able to see his cuticles are pushed back and his handkerchief is ironed.

The actors love this show, because Lipton and his audiences universally adore whichever Hollywood elitist shows up to get his strokes. The show I enjoyed the most was the Simpsons' cast show, during which they were asked to do their character voices and obliged most humorously. But almost all the shows are boring love-fests wherein the actor/actress is fed grapes and massaged continuously.

Now we learn, and it isn't clear why we are learning it, that Lipton was a penniless American in the streets of Paris (why, again we are not told) when he was young-- and that he resorted to the sex trade to make a living.

Apparently his girlfriend, or at least a friend, was a prostitute, and invited him to be her "mec", which is French slang for "guy" or "dude", with all its concomitant connotations in the Rue Pigalle. He did the administrative work, the preparatory appointment-making and so forth, and accompanied her to her 'shows' or renseignements.

He excuses himself by crying poverty, of course. Morality takes a back seat to economics in liberal-land, as we often see when they say that 'poverty causes terrorism'.

Now that this news is out (and again, it isn't clear why this is now public knowledge), expect the left to make of Lipton a sort of hero, a man who achieved his foppish haut couture by dragging himself up off the mean streets of Paris, a role model for all liberals who want to become elitist pandering fops themselves. Which is all of them.

Heck, the story itself (AP, on ABCACTIONNEWS.COM) claims that Lipton is "revered" TV presenter. And I think he is.

But not by normal people. To us, he's exactly the kind of guy who perpetuates the stupid idea that actors are wonderful, perfect, superior people and that we the grimy public are anxiously laughing at their every joke and hanging on their every word.

Lipton is phony. He's high culture, he's the man who turns a perfect phrase, he's polished and charming and...


Yuk. He's no better than you or me, folks. And probably worse.

Message to NYT- LOOK IN THE MIRROR

This is a spectacle, and not in the way the Times appears to intend.

It's about the Drudge report website and how it works, and now how the Clinton campaign has developed a rapprochement and working relationship with Drudge.

But along the way the Times seems to be looking in a mirror when it critiques what Drudge does, with key lines like "peddling scandal gleefully", "with no apparent effort to determine truth", and this really interesting bit here:

<...what appears on Drudge can, for a few minutes or an entire day, drive what appears elsewhere, making it, “a force in the political news cycle for both the press and the campaigns,” said David Chalian, the political director at ABC News.>

I suspect this is a thinly disguised bit of jealousy, as the province of driving the news cycle was once occupied exclusively by the Times. They wish, no doubt, that it still was. Drudge does now what they proudly did for decades, and still do on the left side of the news.

This little column, which Drudge himself is featuring today on his site, is a real insight for those quick enough to catch it. The Times is jealous of Drudge's ability to influence the news and the public, and are eager to ascribe to him dubious motivations and sloppy practices; they themselves are intimately familiar with both traits.

I would not be surprised if, in some sort of thorough independent audit, it turned out that there was more truth to be found on average at the Drudge Report than on the first ten pages of the New York Times.

And there is more truth in this blogpost than in the entire op-ed section.

famous last forecasts....

Tim Blair has a note on this little tidbit about Gullible Warming.

Here is the Telegraph's (UK newspaper) March outlook on British summer weather for this past season-- hot, dangerously so, hotter than ever, sweltering, flowers will die, as will people.

And here is the Met office's summary of how the weather actually was over the previously mentioned British summer of 2007. Cooler than average.

File this with the horrible, terrible, very bad forecasts of ginormous dreadable hurricanes coming our way in 2006. You'll recall it turned out that we had just about half as many named Atlantic storms that summer as we did the year before.

The Gullible Warming crowd is at it again. But even the AP is hedging its bets on the coming American winter, as the last paragraph reveals--

across the country, according to NOAA's heating degree day forecast, December through February will be 2.8 percent warmer than the 30-year norm, but still 1.3 percent cooler than last winter.

So this winter will be warmer than usual, except that it will be cooler than it was last year.

Riiiight.

Now rush out and buy a Prius right away. And a sackful of carbon offsets while you're at it.

group versus group

I love this.

As Instapundit and several others have pointed out, it's either proof that there really isn't an energy 'crisis', or that America really doesn't need to do anything about CO2--

or it's proof that Ted Kennedy and the rich libs of Taxachusetts are total complete utter hypocrites, NIMBY types who want the little people to take all the hits in terms of lifestyle change.

They have torpedoed the project to bring a windfarm to the Cape.

Not in my backyard.

best part?

"... Ted Kennedy... ...oppose... ... own property from where.... .... see the turbines on a clear day... along with some environmental groups...

the project's supporters... along with other environmental groups.... "

So some groups support it, other groups oppose it, but there is no doubt where the Royal Kennedys stand. Leftist principles be damned, you'll spoil my view, my good man, it's out of the QUESTION!

Same old story, still written in Mandarin

Not so long ago the press was awash (but not as much as it should have been) in stories about Chinese involvement with Clinton campaigns.

Legally dubious deals where American tech companies gave China important information that has helped them modernize their military and undertake a space program? Sure. Chinese arms dealers donating to Clinton campaigns? Mm hmm... Chinese spies involved in Silicon Valley and White Sands? Yep. Chinese and Indonesian money men wheeling and dealing for favors in return for donations? but of course.

So why would we be shocked, shocked to find that Chinese involvement with Hillary is on that same level?

We're not. Norman Hsu was our first clue, but now there are hundreds-- hundreds of campaign donors who cannot be found and whose manual labor low-paying jobs would preclude their being able to afford four figure donations.

Remember back in the '90's, when Gore collected a paper bag full of money (over $200k) from a Buddhist monastery in L.A.? From hundreds of monks who have sworn a vow of poverty?

This isn't much different.

Ron Paul's real supporters

UPDATE-- the Ron Paul website linked below has now been altered, and the announcement I referenced no longer appears. I'm shocked, shocked that he would do this. :-)

**************************

Do you remember hearing Ron Paul in that Republican debate on Fox the other day? How he spoke in a perpetually raised and whiny voice, and everything he said seemed to come from the edge of lunacy?

I've had some trouble understanding how Mr. Paul could draw any support at all from the right, even though he's nominally a libertarian. His followers are loud and confrontational, sometimes even threatening, not at all like the Libertarians I know or even conservatives in general.

But his own website makes it clear where his actual support lies.

Note the instruction at the top of the page--

"You must be registered with the correct party to vote for Ron Paul in closed primaries!"

Or in other words, "don't forget to switch your registration from Democrat to Republican so you can vote for Paul. You can always switch back later for the general election."

Now you understand why you have a natural dislike of Ron Paul supporters. They're just liberals trying to mix flies into the ointment.

Attribution-- it's just too much work

I hate it when I find a web page or news story that moves me to blog.

You see, it is my duty to attribute the site or the link, to explain how I found it or who led me to it.

And I"m usually too careless and lazy to keep track of such things. Mr. ShortAttentionSpan, that's me.

Thus it is with today's story from the BBC.

Please note the confluence of points; a liberal group calling themselves moderate (par for the American Leftist course), a 'rock concert for change' to 'mobilize voices' and 'raise awareness' (another feelgood leftist stunt that accomplishes NOTHING), and of course an uncomfortable meeting between leftist ideals and the reality of evil, which the leftist ideals usually ignore or deny.

They wanted to have moderate Palestinians sign their petition for a Palestinian state and harmony between Pals and Israelis-- but the problem is, the real Palestinians demanded hardcore concessions like the 'right of return' be a part of this petition, and they casually threatened the concert organizers and stars over their concessions, and so the whole thing had to be cancelled.

Can't we all just get along? NO.

Isn't this Bush's fault? NO.

Aren't the Jewish oppressors to blame? NO.

For Islamic radical fundamentalist terrorist fascists like Hamas, the answer is always "death to whoever". Israel, America, even Canadian rock star Bryan Adams.

And they usually achieve the goal to which the threats were an incentive. Makes me want to reevaluate my tactics in my own personal life negotiations.

If that side order of bacon is too crispy, DEATH TO THE KITCHEN STAFF.

If I have to wait too long in line, DEATH TO THE TICKET TAKER.

If I have to live in a mediocre neighborhood because the prices are too high where I wanted to live, DEATH TO THE PROPERTY SPECULATORS AND THE MORTGAGE LENDERS WITH TERMS THAT WERE TOO EASY, CAUSING DEMAND TO SKYROCKET AND PRICES TO INCREASE BEYOND THE NORM FOR THE CURRENT TIME FRAME, and of course DEATH TO THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT FOR IMPOSING ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATIONS WHICH PREVENT USELESS LAND FROM BEING DEVELOPED AND ADDING TO THE CURRENT INVENTORY OF HOMES ON MARKET, THUS EASING UPWARD PRICING PRESSURE.

Okay, but you get the picture. Give me a world of accommodating cowards who all just want to get along, and this 'death to you' thing could be very effective.

And that, of course, is what the terrorists believe they're dealing with, and too often they are right.

Mohammed al-Dura, anyone?

The modern intefada against Israel was largely born in the course of one event; the death of a young Palestinian boy named Mohammed al-Dura, shot during a clash between Israelis and Palestinians.

At present, the truth about that incident is under investigation, and France 2 has been ordered by a court to turn over the raw, unedited footage of that day several years ago. There is good reason to believe the boy was either accidentally or purposefully killed by Palestinians themselves, and that they used the incident to blame Israel and inflame passions against the Jews.

Al-Dura's death was, of course, captured on video and made into a thousand propaganda pieces, and reported unflaggingly by all major media as having been at the hands of the IDF.

Whatever the truth (and it seems now that the IDF is innocent of that death), it is startling how the story changes when the 'guilty' party is not a Jew but a Palestinian.

There is no more clear evidence of the selective outrage of the modern media; when a young Palestinian boy is killed, the size of the headline and the world-wide spread of the story is completely and entirely dependent on whether a Jew pulled the trigger, or someone else.

Dave sprains shoulder patting self on back

When the story first broke about the Iranian-born German soccer player who refused to travel to Israel to play, some rushed to attribute the worst motives to this young man.

I, on the other hand, displayed nothing less than superior understanding of this young man's predicament. :-)

(I grade myself on my own curve, dear reader; abject failure on numerous occasions has brought the bar comfortably low for this old fat guy.)

Nice to see I was right. A cosmopolitan young athlete with a stylish close-shaven head and an almost Miami Vice-like stubble is on first sight not a motivated Muslim, at least not a radical one. And he in fact was concerned primarily about the safety of family members back home in Iran, worried about the mad mullahs' response to his visit to the Jewish homeland.

I cannot say for sure that this young man does not harbor the fundie's antipathy toward Jews, but he has not expressed it, and such expression is usually not withheld by those of that persuasion.

The Germans have suspended him, and that is his consequence. It is a modern tragedy that this young man's bright career in Western sport should be so blighted by fear of retribution from the medieval mullahs so many miles away.

as it hits me...

.. so I share it here.

I happened upon the Jerusalem Post site and saw happy smiling people pictured as part of their family announcements.

You know, births, engagements, aliyahs.... well okay maybe you don't know the last one, but it's the Hebrew word for the specific act of emigrating to Israel as a Jew, a homecoming in the spiritual and national sense of the word.

And in those photographs I saw JOY, happiness of all sorts, especially on the faces of the young.

And I wondered for the thousandth time, where is the joy in Islamic countries? Is it simply hidden?

Or is it genuinely hard to come by?

I suspect the latter, in my state of relative ignorance... because life and experience tells me that joy leads to productivity.

When a person is happy, and in the company of other happy people, he or she tends toward higher productivity in whatever daily tasks are undertaken. It is a part of the human spirit, this link between energy and creativity on the one hand and personal peace and happiness on the other. One need only look at the lives of the clinically depressed to see the contrast, as they sleep too much and do little or nothing for themselves. Depressed people see no point in striving.

Happy people want to achieve, for their own sake and that of the ones they serve in life. Parents work to have something to give their children, and children work to please their parents. People work to take care of each other and themselves when they are happy.

Is it just coincidence, then, that the Islamic world is now and for hundreds of years famous for an almost complete lack of productivity? Economies are in a shambles and have been as long as I can remember.

Indeed the only thing Muslims can be counted on to strive at is the spread of Islam and the head-bobbing mindless rote of an Islamic "education".

And you know, much as I'm tempted now to clarify that 'I don't mean all Muslims, and I'm only speaking in generalities', I won't. What I'm saying is obvious to any dispassionate observer, and I do not lie or speak against Islam by pointing out the obvious.

Where is the joy in Islam?

Yet another proof...

... that the classical western education is now extinct.

Ann Coulter ruffles feathers again, by stating Christian doctrine to a liberal Jewish media guy on CNBC.

The guy assumes she is advocating the end of Jewry, and compares her to Ahmadinejad for it. Myopic and indicative of a narrow and misdirected world view.

But she is simply saying what the New Testament says, albeit not in the most diplomatic or educational way.

But the problem here is not the needlessly confrontational Coulter; she is simply being true to form, presenting the world with facts and realities that these days it does not wish to consider or even see.

Deutsch is the real eye-opener here. He has absolutely no comprehension of the theological reality she presents him, and he instantly chooses to be insulted and provoked by her language rather than try to think about what she is saying.

He claims to be a practicing Jew, but if that's true than he is certainly missing some classes and sermons at the very least.

If anyone really wants to understand Christian theology, and how lucky Donny Deutsch is to be a Jew, I'll be happy to try to explain it as best I can.

Only not here. Too long, too boring-- unless you really really want to know. :-)

Iranian-born German refuses to play soccer in Israel

I'll give this young man the benefit of the doubt in this case.

He has said nothing inflammatory about Israel personally, only declining to travel there.

It may be that he is personally committed to an anti-Israel world view, but he has not thrust it upon the public. For that I am grateful. But I can't imagine the position he is probably in.

Family certainly remains in Iran, subject to the vengeful treatment of its government. Perhaps family members are prejudiced in the manner of a previous generation and expect him to share their view.

Much rides on his behavior and his words, much more than for most such young athletes. His restraint is admirable, even if he is holding back his own vitriol.

It was obvious

The moment I heard that a so-called witness to Haditha was "a film student", I knew it was a setup.

That description was designed specifically to explain why the guy had a video camera and was taping everything there.

But the man was 43, and not attending any school! How hard is this, folks?

Now the details of the careful plan to set up our Marines to kill innocents are available here.

Tip o' the hat to the fiercely attractive (and attractively fierce) Pamela at Atlas Shrugs. She's right... this story will be printed on the same page of the New York Times that carries Murtha's apology to our troops.

Meaning never, of course.

I now have to wonder if Murtha knew all along about this, and if his accusations (from a former Marine, remember, for credibility) were merely a distant part of the same setup. I wonder if George Soros knew about it, or Kos, or even Hillary Clinton. Who knew that this was all a setup, and when did they know it?

Another question that will never be asked. And careers and lives have been ruined; the best our country has to offer have been stained and jettisoned like garbage, all for the sake of leftist politics from Bush-haters.

The longer I live, the more revulsion I feel for the American political left.

Mellencamp moralizing

Just heard that in the new Mellencamp song "Jena, take your nooses down" (already makes me want to barf just reading the title) there is a line that includes this--

"all white jury hides the executioner's face"

Does anyone know if Mellencamp knows that there were THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTY jury summonses sent out to black people in Jena?

And that NONE OF THEM BOTHERED TO RESPOND?

Lots of people, perhaps even most people (although that is just a guess), don't bother to respond to a jury summons, especially if its the first one they ever received. It is possible that one ethnic or racial group might be predisposed to ignore such things in slightly larger numbers than another such group, and I don't intend to ignore reality or its pressures here.

But not one response to 350 summonses? And Mellencamp has the audacity to imply in a song, one with which he clearly intends to guide public opinion, that somehow it is someone's fault, for the same reasons that caused the nooses to be hung in the tree? That evil white racists prevented good honest black people from sitting on that jury?

Nooses = ugly, mindless, provocative behavior that is to be maligned and rejected every time it is seen, as it has been on this case.

Almost every other fact of this case = an opportunity for professional leftist megaphone moralizers to be vague and loose and deceptive, to enhance their own reputations while destroying those of people who do not deserve it.

And Mellencamp has long been one of that group. He has demonstrated amply over the years that he has little command of the actual facts, only a left-wing jerk of the knee which makes it amazing that he can stand on a stage, let alone maintain something resembling rhythm.

Middle East machinations

The things to take away from this story (about hesitation and dawdling by the US state dept over the attack on Syria's nascent nuke site by Israel) are simple--

1) the Arab countries are assumed to always be ready to complain and mobilize troops and so forth whenever Israel breaks out its big guns, and this was Rice's assumption as well. This time they stayed silent. Rice was wrong. The Arabs are clearly more concerned at this point about the rising power of Iran and its puppets, Syria and Hezbollah, than about the intentions of Israel. While they do not say as much, Arab ideas are made clear by their lack of protest to the Israeli attack. They regard Israel as an insult but not as a danger to them; they know the Jews just want to live in peace.

But the Shi'ites want world domination, and the Sunni wing of Islam would be among the dominated.


2) American intelligence was not the least bit informed about this new nuclear site in Syria; it was the Israelis who got the in depth info and shared it with the United States.

Do not trust our intelligence agencies. Too many of their people seem to think Bush is the world's most worrisome threat. The Israelis are a bit more circumspect; their existence hinges on getting these matters right.