Monday, October 31, 2005
Why a lot of men from my primitive culture have the very bad habit of smelling their food.
Saturday, October 29, 2005
3 Young Christian Girls Beheaded in Indonesia
Michelle Malkin has come across some gruesome news on the beheading of three Christian high school girls in Indonesia:
Three teenage Christian girls were beheaded and a fourth was seriously wounded in a savage attack on Saturday by unidentified assailants in the Indonesian province of Central Sulawesi.
The girls were among a group of students from a private Christian high school who were ambushed while walking through a cocoa plantation in Poso Kota subdistrict on their way to class, police Major Riky Naldo said.
The area is close to the provincial capital of Poso, about 1000 kilometres northeast of Jakarta.
Naldo said the heads of the three dead victims were found several kilometres from their bodies.
In Jakarta, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono ordered the police to begin a hunt for the killers.
"In the holy month of Ramadan, we are again shocked by a sadistic crime in Poso that claimed the lives of three school students," he told reporters at the airport as he prepared to fly to Sumatra island.
"I condemn this barbarous killing, whoever the perpetrators are and whatever their motives."
Three teenage Christian girls were beheaded and a fourth was seriously wounded in a savage attack on Saturday by unidentified assailants in the Indonesian province of Central Sulawesi.
The girls were among a group of students from a private Christian high school who were ambushed while walking through a cocoa plantation in Poso Kota subdistrict on their way to class, police Major Riky Naldo said.
The area is close to the provincial capital of Poso, about 1000 kilometres northeast of Jakarta.
Naldo said the heads of the three dead victims were found several kilometres from their bodies.
In Jakarta, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono ordered the police to begin a hunt for the killers.
"In the holy month of Ramadan, we are again shocked by a sadistic crime in Poso that claimed the lives of three school students," he told reporters at the airport as he prepared to fly to Sumatra island.
"I condemn this barbarous killing, whoever the perpetrators are and whatever their motives."
Friday, October 28, 2005
Rove Will Not Be Indicted
Every jabberwocky in Washington has been broadcasting that Karl Rove is going to be indicted by today. Well, the news is out. He will NOT be indicted, as the Senescent Man has been predicting. I also think there won't be much in the way of indictments at all by the end of the day, but we'll see. The Left has been going absolutely bonkers over this, reminiscing about the days of the second terms of Reagan and Nixon and even Clinton's scandals. Baloney!
Update: Turned out I was partly wrong - Scooter evidently did get indicted. I didn't think there were going to be any indictments on Friday, but I was right aboout Rove.
Update: Turned out I was partly wrong - Scooter evidently did get indicted. I didn't think there were going to be any indictments on Friday, but I was right aboout Rove.
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
Money, Money, Money
Here's a connection between Rhode Island and national politics at the WSJ Opinion Journal website.
Monday, October 24, 2005
Is Andy playing the role of a Serial Souterizer?
From John Fund's diary of October 24:
[A] reason for conservative suspicion [about the Miers' nomination] is that it was [Andy] Card, a former moderate Massachusetts state legislator, who pushed the Miers choice. "This is something that Andy and the president cooked up," a White House adviser told Time magazine. "Andy knew it would appeal to the president because he loves appointing his own people and being supersecret and stealthy about it." Conservatives still recall that in the White House of the first President Bush, Mr. Card was deputy chief of staff to Mr. Sununu, the prime backer of Judge Souter. Mr. Card told me on Friday that "it would be a complete exaggeration to say I played a role in the Souter selection. I merely supported his nomination as I did all presidential appointments."
Ed Rollins, the GOP consultant who at the time headed the House Republican Campaign Committee and who was Mr. Card's boss in the Reagan White House, remembers it differently. "Of course Andy played a role," he told me. "He was Sununu's top aide." Two other aides who served with Mr. Card in the White House told me he was an enthusiastic backer of the Souter selection. "Now that he's brought us Miers we worry that 15 years later Andy is playing the role of a Serial Souterizer," one said.
[A] reason for conservative suspicion [about the Miers' nomination] is that it was [Andy] Card, a former moderate Massachusetts state legislator, who pushed the Miers choice. "This is something that Andy and the president cooked up," a White House adviser told Time magazine. "Andy knew it would appeal to the president because he loves appointing his own people and being supersecret and stealthy about it." Conservatives still recall that in the White House of the first President Bush, Mr. Card was deputy chief of staff to Mr. Sununu, the prime backer of Judge Souter. Mr. Card told me on Friday that "it would be a complete exaggeration to say I played a role in the Souter selection. I merely supported his nomination as I did all presidential appointments."
Ed Rollins, the GOP consultant who at the time headed the House Republican Campaign Committee and who was Mr. Card's boss in the Reagan White House, remembers it differently. "Of course Andy played a role," he told me. "He was Sununu's top aide." Two other aides who served with Mr. Card in the White House told me he was an enthusiastic backer of the Souter selection. "Now that he's brought us Miers we worry that 15 years later Andy is playing the role of a Serial Souterizer," one said.
Sunday, October 23, 2005
But Then What?
From George Will in a recent IMPRIMUS of Hillsdale College:
"...the enemies who attacked us on 9/11 failed to ask themselves the question, "But then what?" That is the question Admiral Yamamoto asked when the Japanese government summoned him in 1940 and asked him to take a fleet stealthily across the North Pacific and deliver a devastating blow against the American navy at Pearl Harbor. Yamamoto said he could do that if his government would design some shallow running torpedoes and a few other things. He said he could run wild in the Pacific for six months, or maybe a year. But he asked his government, "Then what?" Yamamoto knew America, and he loved America. He studied at Harvard and had been back to the U.S. as a diplomat in Washington. He knew that after Pearl Harbor, Japan would have an enraged, united, incandescent, continental superpower on its hands, and that Japan's ultimate defeat would be implicit in its initial victory. Our current enemies will learn the same thing."
"...the enemies who attacked us on 9/11 failed to ask themselves the question, "But then what?" That is the question Admiral Yamamoto asked when the Japanese government summoned him in 1940 and asked him to take a fleet stealthily across the North Pacific and deliver a devastating blow against the American navy at Pearl Harbor. Yamamoto said he could do that if his government would design some shallow running torpedoes and a few other things. He said he could run wild in the Pacific for six months, or maybe a year. But he asked his government, "Then what?" Yamamoto knew America, and he loved America. He studied at Harvard and had been back to the U.S. as a diplomat in Washington. He knew that after Pearl Harbor, Japan would have an enraged, united, incandescent, continental superpower on its hands, and that Japan's ultimate defeat would be implicit in its initial victory. Our current enemies will learn the same thing."
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
Monday, October 17, 2005
The National Republican Senatorial Committee is at it Again
Yes, just when you thought the National Republican Senatorial Committee might make an effort to curtail its self destructive behavior, the folks from Washington DC are at it again:
Carroll Andrew Morse from Anchor Rising has spotted another lambasting of Republican Mayor Steve Laffey.
Morse reports:
The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza has a preview of the next anti-Laffey ad being run in Rhode Island by the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Here is Cillizza’s description of the content…
This is from an e-mail received by National Review Online…
Carroll Andrew Morse from Anchor Rising has spotted another lambasting of Republican Mayor Steve Laffey.
Morse reports:
The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza has a preview of the next anti-Laffey ad being run in Rhode Island by the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Here is Cillizza’s description of the content…
The narrator says Laffey used taxpayer dollars to soundproof his mayoral office and spent ‘thousands on spy cameras to spy on employees.’A reaction to this?‘Bizarre...but the joke's on us,’ the narrator says, adding that Cranston had the highest property taxes in the state under Laffey and that Laffey raised taxes twice. ‘Tax and Spend Steve Laffey ... Nobody's laughing now,’ the narrator intones at the ad's close.
This is from an e-mail received by National Review Online…
For the past year or so, I've been sending the solicitation envelopes back with nothing in them but a note like this:To that I say: Is Lincoln Chafee really worth it? With his atrocious record on Republican issues?NOT ONE MORE DIME!! We do not donate our hard-earned money to the RNC so you lot can waste it financing the campaigns of squish candidates, working to defeat good conservatives in primaries, or to continue a cycle of begging us for more money to be used for more such nonsense. NOT ONE MORE DIME until RNC starts supporting conservative candidates. Meanwhile, we are sending donations directly to the campaigns of candidates we believe are worth supporting.
Sunday, October 16, 2005
A very good piece in today's Projo by Robert Duffy, a lawyer from East Greenwich, Rhode Island, on the importance of selecting competent originalists to the US Supreme Court.
An excerpt:
"Both liberal and conservative activists should poke their heads out of the wagons long enough to see that the fight over John Roberts, Harriet Miers or any other Supreme Court nominee should not be based on their personal religious, political or moral beliefs; that field is far too narrow and the power transferred far too great. Instead, the real battle is ensuring that the Supreme Court stick to its job of interpreting the Constitution, and leave off its recent habit of issuing moral edicts cloaked in constitutional penumbras."
An excerpt:
"Both liberal and conservative activists should poke their heads out of the wagons long enough to see that the fight over John Roberts, Harriet Miers or any other Supreme Court nominee should not be based on their personal religious, political or moral beliefs; that field is far too narrow and the power transferred far too great. Instead, the real battle is ensuring that the Supreme Court stick to its job of interpreting the Constitution, and leave off its recent habit of issuing moral edicts cloaked in constitutional penumbras."
Friday, October 14, 2005
Why the war in Iraq is necessary for us to fight and to win.
Monday, October 10, 2005
John Fund has convinced me that we need to be very concerned about the Miers nomination.
An excellent commentary in today's Projo about the Laffey - Chafee race by Pratik Chougule, a public-policy, history, and international-relations major at Brown University, who is also chairman of the Rhode Island College Republican Federation.
Saturday, October 08, 2005
Liberals Who Oppose Voter Initiative
What do Projo columnist M. Charles Bakst, Lt. Gov. Charles Fogarty, RI State Senator Elizabeth Roberts, and U.S. Senate Candidate Sheldon Whitehouse all have in common?
They all oppose voter initiative.
A couple of days ago Anchor Rising had an exquisite post by Carroll Andrew Morse on how these pols think " that lawmaking is solely the province of the elite." Bah!
The ancient Senescent Man and his buddies recall promoting voter initiative in RI in the 1970's and 80's, shortly after California successfully lowered their tax burden through va oter initiative there called proposition 13.
Only RI needs it now more than ever because, as Governor Carcieri realizes that a 7% sales tax is driving business to Massachusetts and Connecticut, as are tax free holidays while a Democrat legislature wants to hold taxes high; and as voters contend with the threat of legalized homosexual marriage while legislatures all around New England are ready to bend (no pun intended), the ONLY way people are going to have a voice is through voter initiative.
Why is it that those who oppose voter initiative by and large are the most liberal of the press and of those holding office?
Why is that?
You would think that liberals want a more democratic society where the people have more voice.
What are they are they afraid of?
They all oppose voter initiative.
A couple of days ago Anchor Rising had an exquisite post by Carroll Andrew Morse on how these pols think " that lawmaking is solely the province of the elite." Bah!
The ancient Senescent Man and his buddies recall promoting voter initiative in RI in the 1970's and 80's, shortly after California successfully lowered their tax burden through va oter initiative there called proposition 13.
Only RI needs it now more than ever because, as Governor Carcieri realizes that a 7% sales tax is driving business to Massachusetts and Connecticut, as are tax free holidays while a Democrat legislature wants to hold taxes high; and as voters contend with the threat of legalized homosexual marriage while legislatures all around New England are ready to bend (no pun intended), the ONLY way people are going to have a voice is through voter initiative.
Why is it that those who oppose voter initiative by and large are the most liberal of the press and of those holding office?
Why is that?
You would think that liberals want a more democratic society where the people have more voice.
What are they are they afraid of?
Sunday, October 02, 2005
Laffey to Get Lambasted Tomorrow
Tomorrow, Monday, October 3rd, a number of Republican regulars who support United States Senator Lincoln "Horseshoe" Chafee will be unleashing the hounds on Mayor Stephen P. Laffey, Republican primary candidate for Horseshoe's seat.
Nearly an entire year before an actual Primary election, television ads will begin to wallpaper the airwaves to complain of Laffey's past entrepreneurial ventures, insinuating that they were a little shady.
Are they doing this because the Mayor of the little city of Cranston ran a series of ads recently complaining about the way comfortable Republicans "in Washington" behave - indirectly pointing the finger at Horseshoe? Even comfortable Republicans have to be careful about those who run against Washington - it tends to be effective.
I can understand Chafee arguing about Laffey's flaws, and conversely, Laffey complaining about Chafee, but for a national Republican heirarchy to come down on Laffey - what do they do if he wins? What then? And the funny thing is, it's already happened a couple of times. Governator Arnold in California was not on the top of the ticket in the eyes of the Republican heirarchy, and they had to eat crow. They must enjoy a good bowl of crow.
Chafee faces a stiff challenge against Laffey, despite his coming across as what some call "rough around the edges." Yes, a recent Brown University poll has Chafee out ahead, and by a sizeable margin - this is the same poll - conducted by the same Brown professor and supported by the same mainstream media darlings - as the one that had Democrat Myrth York beating now Republican Governor Donald Carcieri by 10 points. Carcieri actually ended up beating York by about that same percentage.
What Independents dislike is flip flop and fibrilation - which is Horseshoe's modus operundi. He's more suspenseful than round robin of Alfred Hitchcock flicks. It will be the Independents along with the upstart Republicans in Rhode Island that will defeat the old money Republicans next year. And it will be about time.
Despite the seeming populism, Laffey is in favor of many conventional Republican ideals. How novel. A Republican in Rhode Island actually promoting and defending Republican principals of lower taxes, smaller government, less spending, more freedom, more entrepreneurship, less corruptoin, and in favor of the selection of Federal judges who are originalist in their interpretation of the Constitution.
Stay tuned.
Nearly an entire year before an actual Primary election, television ads will begin to wallpaper the airwaves to complain of Laffey's past entrepreneurial ventures, insinuating that they were a little shady.
Are they doing this because the Mayor of the little city of Cranston ran a series of ads recently complaining about the way comfortable Republicans "in Washington" behave - indirectly pointing the finger at Horseshoe? Even comfortable Republicans have to be careful about those who run against Washington - it tends to be effective.
I can understand Chafee arguing about Laffey's flaws, and conversely, Laffey complaining about Chafee, but for a national Republican heirarchy to come down on Laffey - what do they do if he wins? What then? And the funny thing is, it's already happened a couple of times. Governator Arnold in California was not on the top of the ticket in the eyes of the Republican heirarchy, and they had to eat crow. They must enjoy a good bowl of crow.
Chafee faces a stiff challenge against Laffey, despite his coming across as what some call "rough around the edges." Yes, a recent Brown University poll has Chafee out ahead, and by a sizeable margin - this is the same poll - conducted by the same Brown professor and supported by the same mainstream media darlings - as the one that had Democrat Myrth York beating now Republican Governor Donald Carcieri by 10 points. Carcieri actually ended up beating York by about that same percentage.
What Independents dislike is flip flop and fibrilation - which is Horseshoe's modus operundi. He's more suspenseful than round robin of Alfred Hitchcock flicks. It will be the Independents along with the upstart Republicans in Rhode Island that will defeat the old money Republicans next year. And it will be about time.
Despite the seeming populism, Laffey is in favor of many conventional Republican ideals. How novel. A Republican in Rhode Island actually promoting and defending Republican principals of lower taxes, smaller government, less spending, more freedom, more entrepreneurship, less corruptoin, and in favor of the selection of Federal judges who are originalist in their interpretation of the Constitution.
Stay tuned.
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]