Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Union front group talking points

A group from Wake Up Wal-Mart was working the parking lot in front of the Germantown, Maryland Wal-Mart when I emerged from shopping. One of them handed me a glossy 5 ½” by 8 ½” card that read, “Nothing’s scarier than Wal-Mart and China.” It featured a jack-o-lantern and a prominent web address for Wakeupwalmart.com. The flipside had some stale quotes and suggested “Get the facts at: www.wakeupwalmart.com/china.”

I found the brightest looking of the bunch and asked, “So, is your group trying to unionize Wal-Mart?” He shook his head. “No, no. That isn’t going to happen in my lifetime or your lifetime," he explained. "We’re just trying to get the facts out about Wal-Mart and China.” Um, okay.

Wake Up Wal-Mart is a group funded by the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW), a 1.3 million-member (and flling) union that has failed repeatedly to unionize Wal-Mart. The link between the groups is overt: Every page I looked at on the Wakeupwalmart.com website was copyrighted by the UFCW.

Monday, October 29, 2007

Thought for another day

"You don’t need a weatherman,” sang Dylan, “to know which way the wind blows." The New Left terror group that lifted their Weatherman moniker from those lyrics watched a public fail adequately to comprehend their senseless violence-revolution-smelly hippie trip any better than I can understand every fifth word Dylan sings.

Today, for every Weatherman there are a million global warming ninnies with Weather Channel anxiety to advance the Left’s political agenda and mistake partisan talking points for science.

With occasional warm days in cold months, turning points in Iraq, and befuddled by the earliest-ever primaries in 2008, pundits are spinning noisily like so many rusty weathervanes, pointing this way and that. Meanwhile the dollar makes new lows daily against oil, gold, and any confetti currency you can name. Votes that matter are being cast.

You don't need to wait for an election to find out which way the wind blows.

Sunday, October 28, 2007

Apple to sell unlocked iPhones? Keep waiting.

Apple tries to limit iPhone sales to two per person, and the reason is simple enough.

Saturday, October 27, 2007

Under Time Pressure

Mark Steyn waxes nostalgic for laconic leadership:

So what I look for in a candidate is, first, an absence of phony energy and, second, signs of real energy. I can live with a Fred Thompson "senior moment" compared to most of the alternatives. In that same debate, the more damaging answer came from Mitt Romney in response to an arcane hypothetical about whether bombing Iran required congressional approval. "You sit down with your attorneys," began the former governor. "We're going to let the lawyers sort out what we needed to do and what we didn't need to do." There was no pause. Romney just rushed in to fill the dead air with all the frantic energy of an old-school disc jockey whose traffic jingle has jammed. And, as a consequence, a war-on-terror hawk came over like a Kerryesque legalistic ass-coverer. A "senior moment" to collect his thoughts might have helped.

Hillary would have created space. Sure, it might be creepy, but the frightening laugh ploy buys her ten seconds, while the trademark admonition about hypothetical question tacks on another five. After a quarter minute of cogitation and smoke out the ears, “You sit down with your attorneys” is the 15,000th best answer, not the best.

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Suppress Dissent the Soviet Way

There is positively no hackwork on the L.A. Times op-ed page, and by that I mean some gets by from time to time.

In Straitjacket Bush, columnist Rosa Brooks argues that the President and Vice President “should be treated like psychotics who need treatment.” This is edgy writing, see. She asks, “What's a constitutional democracy to do when the president and vice president lose their marbles?” Her solution is involuntary committal: “In Washington, the appropriate statutory law is already in place: If a "court or jury finds that [a] person is mentally ill and . . . is likely to injure himself or other persons if allowed to remain at liberty, the court may order his hospitalization." Yes, Comrade Stalin would get a hearty laugh out of that, would he not?

Saturday, October 20, 2007

Shocked

The video Hillary does not want you to see. Watch part two as well.

Like an IRF flag, except uglier.

Life is cheap, but it's the accessories that kill you. Still, what's a souvenir without a great story?

Hat tip: Vodkapundit

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Official Secrets Act Needed

Whether a leak or a dump, it does not matter: A Classified report is a classified report. Journalists are not able to understand what sources and methods they compromise when they publish one. A simple rule: If it is classified, do not publish it. Is this complicated?
WASHINGTON — Security screeners at two of the nation's busiest airports failed to find fake bombs hidden on undercover agents posing as passengers in more than 60% of tests last year, according to a classified report obtained by USA TODAY.

Screeners at Los Angeles International Airport missed about 75% of simulated explosives and bomb parts that Transportation Security Administration testers hid under their clothes or in carry-on bags at checkpoints, the TSA report shows.

At Chicago O'Hare International Airport, screeners missed about 60% of hidden bomb materials that were packed in everyday carry-ons — including toiletry kits, briefcases and CD players. San Francisco International Airport screeners, who work for a private company instead of the TSA, missed about 20% of the bombs, the report shows. The TSA ran about 70 tests at Los Angeles, 75 at Chicago and 145 at San Francisco.

We get mad at the Mexican government for printing guides on how to hop our border, but it's somehow okay to tell terrorists which airports to use?!?! Am I missing something here?

Franken? Franken? Franken?

The increasingly populist Ben Stein throws $2,000 to old friend Al Franken.

NewsMax reports:

Stein, a former speechwriter for President Nixon, has contributed thousands of dollars to Republican candidates and to GOP committees, such as the National Republican Senatorial Committee _ charged with helping Republicans take over the Senate. Doesn't the donation to Franken undercut those efforts?

"Well, it does to a very slight extent," Stein said. "There is some contradiction there. But not all senators are as good as Al Franken."

I weep for the future.

"Give me my book back!"

In A 'Bergler' Steals Clinton's Credibility, Kathryn Jean Lopez is amazed at the hubristic Clinton Camp hiring document-grabber Samuel R. “Sandy” Berger:
When Bill and Hillary Clinton did their online "Sopranos" spoof after the HBO show's finale, they may have been trying to tell us something more than we realized. The Clintons, sans the New Jersey accent, subtly yet unmistakably were announcing: "We and our posse are back. Burglars and all."

Maybe they should do new spoof showcasing their document-grabber. How about, say, the opening scene of Reservoir Dogs -- the one where Messrs. Pink, Blue, Brown, Orange, Blond, White (as well as Nice Guy Eddie and his dad) gather for breakfast before the big heist. Berger, of course, would be Mr. White, who grabs Joe Cabot’s address book and refuses to give it back after Joe keeps reading from it.

Anyway, K-Lo thinks the hire it is a huge judgment issue:

That the Hillary Clinton campaign would even take Mr. Berger’s phone calls, never mind hold him close as an adviser, is an outrage. Moreover, it is a bright-red, screeching siren signaling a huge judgment problem on Mrs. Clinton’s part.

The Berger hire is indeed a wailing Klaxon, except in the way of an office fire alarm people ignore as they keep working. Until voters start paying attention, the Clinton campaign figures they can keep tapping that bad judgment switch like frenzied lab rats getting happy jolts.

With a perfect plan, what could possibly go wrong?

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Top 10 Things going through a Liberal’s Mind When it Rains on his Washed Car

In her latest piece at Human Events Online, the great Ann Coulter writes:

If it rains after a liberal washes his car, they say it's a right-wing dirty trick.

This is undeniably true, and it got me thinking.

Top 10 Things going through a Liberal’s Mind After it Rains on his Washed Car

1. What kind of hell is this without taxis?
2. If the squeegee men were not all in for-profit jails or drafted to fight endless wars for Cheney and Haliburton, my windows would be spotless by now.
3. I must keep those windows clean to observe jack-booted thugs planting nooses or shoving liberal talk show hosts to the curb to silence them.
4. What if the people cannot read my edgy Re-Defeat Bush bumper sticker?
5. The chief cause of this possibly-carcinogenic particulate matter on my Prius is the Republicans’ obstinate refusal to ratify Kyoto.
6. Said particulate matter doubtless belched from SUVs and coal-fired plants keeping all those plasma screens in flyover country aglow with Fox News.
7. Each acid rain droplet is another nail in the coffin of those global warming denialists. What more proof could those criminals require that Mother Earth is dying?
8. Is it warm out here for this time of year?
9. There should be more undocumented laborers to do this for me so I could rebut that Chomsky smear.
10. Hey...hey! Why didn't my domestic partner help me wash the car, anyway?

Belling the Cat: A Necklace of Earmarks

Kevin Hassett of AEI argues that the voter disgust over spending that swept Democrats to power in Congress could again prove decisive in 2008. Republican candidates, he points out, have been transparent, while the Democrats -- ex Obama -- have ducked and dodged the issue. Nobody, however, has more exposure here than Clinton, he says, noting she has stuffed $2.2 billion of pet projects into various spending bills 2002-06. “If Dennis Hastert was the king of earmarks,” he writes, “Hillary Clinton was his queen.”

Hassett is absolutely, convincingly right. Read the article here.

Home Builder, Nation Builder

In Gore’s Nine Lives, Andrew Walden recognizes Jimmy Carter as “co-creator of the modern Islamic Republic of Iran.”

Long-lost relative line two, not collect

Lynne Cheney’s research reveals that Obama and her husband are eighth cousins. Call it random, but half the countries we buy oil from can't claim anyone is more than a third cousin of anyone else.

Friday, October 12, 2007

Hitting That High C

Google has Luciano Pavarotti on their austere home page. The deceased tenor is the “l” in "Google" and he is singing. I’m quite sure that has nothing – nothing – to do with Gore’s Nobel Peace Prize. Gosh, look at the time.

UPDATE
Um, it is in fact his birthday. My bad.

Gore Predictions

In the aftergow of Gore's Nobel Peace Prize (co-)victory, an excited James Carville lofted up a Hail Mary of predictions: A 25 percent chance the Man of Peace will enter the race, according to the Yeas and Nays blog. He adds, "I don't think it's too late." Please. Any suggestion Gore wants to dive into the thick of looming state registrations, no organization, and a cashed-up Clinton, is arrant blather. You can't blame the guy for willing a little suspense into a snoozer race, though.

I predict that in the next 48 hours there is a 39.5 percent chance Mr. Carbon Footprint will hear there is no earthly way to convert a Gulfstream V to run on vegetable oil. He will then decide to fly commercial-only to global warming cocktail parties (86 percent chance), where there is a 99 percent chance he will air kiss thousands of champagne socialists out of a few billion (over/under: 5) in the next year as he gets a free pass on science questions because he is “raising awareness.”

Oh, and speaking of the Peace Prize, I predict the indignant backlash against the politicization of the Nobel Peace Prize will shame those clowns to into actually sticking to donor intent for a year or two (Just kidding -- 10 percent chance of that). Hey, comrade, if we’re all toast, what's debasing a medal?

Thursday, October 11, 2007

Prize for Vocal Critics of Republicans

If the Nobel Committee keeps cheerleading for Vocal Critics of Republicans (VCRs), would it be a shocker if the folks who gave Mahatma Gandhi thumbs down fell over each other to redefine peace for a propaganda filmmaker?

One person who should be thrilled at the prospect of Al Gore accepting a Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of Mother Earth is the 2002 winner, Jimmy Carter. On a desperate quest to be have someone – anyone – be remembered as the worst President ever, Carter would seem to benefit from another voice trashing the Bush presidency.

It is odd then that Carter launched an embarrassing (even for him) rant against a sitting President just as Gore ducks out of a fundraising commitment for some double-secret climate-saving meeting. By popping up to rant about Cheney, Obama, Bush, Hillary Clinton, and all the Republican candidates (apologies if I left anyone out), Carter reminds the Nobel folks the prize has enough political baggage already.

I think Carter is playing a long game and understands one thing the Nobel geniuses do not: One too many blood-caked terrorists or partisan hacks and the Nobel Peace Prize stops being the punch line to a joke, and becomes a joke itself. And when Vegas starts offering odds on future Nobel Peace Prize Nominees such as Nancy Pelosi, Dick Durbin, and that guy with the cash in his freezer, how much will Carter’s prize count toward his legacy?