Michelle's got a great overview.

Murtha's a dick.

We are looking for a puppy. I made a comment recently that may have put some people off. I don't want a puppy with any Pit Bull in it. I know that lots of people have Pits and they think that they are great. I know I sound closed minded when I say that I'm avoiding that breed.

The fact is that I have two small children and I'm not willing to risk them in any way. I know that the vast majority of Pit Bulls are perfectly fine but whenever you hear a story about a sweet dog that turned on his owner and ate half his face off, that dog was a Pit Bull. That is a risk I'm unwilling to take with my children. Period.

On the subject of adult dogs. I'm a big believer of adoption from Rescues and the Humane Society. If I didn't have a baby in the house, I'd consider an adult dog. Really and truly I would. I'm not going to right now because I want a dog that doesn't have any "issues" that could come out if my kid pulls his tail a bit hard. I want a pup that I know has a natural affinity for children. I want to raise him myself because I'm damn good at raising well behaved and well loved dogs.

If our kids were older or grown, I'd definitely be looking for an adult dog because housebreaking is a pain in the ass.

Yeah, no lie, Michelle!

When our dog Buttons died, we weren't sure when we'd get a new one. I knew that we would eventually because Jake and I are dog people (Dean is too, he just won't admit it) and recently Draco started showing a major interest in dogs. I've been browsing the Humane Society website and I figured that when the right dog appeared, I'd know it.

It happened today. I saw him and my heart skipped. I'm hoping that he hasn't been spoken for already. I plan to go Monday morning, if Dean is on board, and check him out in person. He's an 8 week old Shepherd mix and I'm having trouble figuring out what he's mixed with. My guess is Rottweiler and I'm fine with a Rott/Shepherd mix. Both breeds are great with children. I want to know what you think.

Go take a peek at Riley and let me know your best guess. I ask because I have small children and if he's part Pitt, I'll have to pass. I really don't think he is but I want second opinions.

Wow, the Redstate gang is in high dudgeon and they wax effusive. krempasky got hold of the talking points for this Speech and Debate debate. Then Dales does a fine job of fisking the talking points. For Hastert and Co. to piss these guys off is like knocking down a load-bearing wall during a home remodel.

(Caution: These are long posts so if you find this subject fascinating, block out some time)

Blanton over at Redstate signals the Assphants in Congress to wake up in a hurry:

You have said that the NSA program is not a violation of our civil rights.

You have said the Patriot Act is not a violation of our civil rights.

You have said the detainment of prisoners in Gitmo is not a violation of their civil rights.

What exactly now gives you the right to tell the American people that the FBI has violated your rights?

Regardless of the merits of your legal argument (which is crap), this is not the political argument you want to be making.

As of this day, the conservative grassroots' motto should be Hastert Delenda Est.

A SPECIAL NOTE TO GOP MOC's: We are your allies. Do you really think the left is going to be more supportive of you? If you do, you are really screwed.

Dr. Robert Balling, professor in the climatology program at Arizona State University, specializing in climate change and the greenhouse effect. Balling takes on a few truths that Gore left out of his movie.

Gore discusses glacial and snowpack retreats atop Kenya's Mt. Kilimanjaro, implying that human induced global warming is to blame. But Gore fails to mention that the snows of Kilimanjaro have been retreating for more than 100 years, largely due to declining atmospheric moisture, not global warming. Gore does not acknowledge the two major articles on the subject published in 2004 in the International Journal of Climatology and the Journal of Geophysical Research showing that modern glacier retreat on Kilimanjaro was initiated by a reduction in precipitation at the end of the nineteenth century and not by local or global warming.

Many of Gore's conclusions are based on the "Hockey Stick" that shows near constant global temperatures for 1,000 years with a sharp increase in temperature from 1900 onward. The record Gore chooses in the film completely wipes out the Medieval Warm Period of 1,000 years ago and Little Ice Age that started 500 years ago and ended just over 100 years ago. There is evidence from throughout the world that these climate episodes existed, but on Gore's Hockey Stick, they become nothing more than insignificant fluctuations (Gore even jokes at one point about the Medieval Warm period).

Gore claims that sea level rise could drown the Pacific islands, Florida, major cities the world over, and the 9/11 Memorial in New York City. No mention is made of the fact that sea level has been rising at a rate of 1.8 mm per year for the past 8,000 years; the IPCC notes that "No significant acceleration in the rate of sea level rise during the 20th century has been detected."[ed. note: There's your link Ara]

There is more but you are going to have to click the link to read it. I gave you just a taste to start the discussion.

"Al Gore: An Inconvenient Story"

WMV: Hi - Low

Quicktime: Hi - Low

This is so funny. The biggest (loudest) alarmists tend to be the biggest abusers of the precious resources they are crying about.

VIA: Pam in the comments

I can't believe that Taylor Hicks won!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

After, getting screwed twice (Clay and Bo) we finally picked a winner.

Now that Republicans in Congress have ramped up their lemming-march to the sea and are now rushing headlong over the cliff, I believe that the Democrat party will retake the House of Representatives in November. It was already going to be difficult to convince disaffected Conservatives to turn out for this crap-fest of yahoos. Now we have them calling fiscal conservatives traitors, giving the country away to illegal aliens, and telling us all that they are so above the law that we better not even think of investigating them properly. If they think of any more ways to alienate us, they may even lose the Senate.

What I pray will happen is that after two years of impeachment hearings, no judicial confirmations, tax increases, economy tanking, open borders, Iraq abandonment (the same way they killed the Republic of South Vietnam), a resurgent Conservative movement will have purged the ninnies who forgot what the Contract with America was all about, and we will elect another, stronger Conservative President and Congress in 2008.

Win the war. Confirm the judges. Cut the taxes. Control the spending. Secure the border.

And stop acting like you are better than us. You may believe it, but we sure as hell don't.

Everyone is going crazy about Sterling Burnett supposedly comparing Al Gore to Josef Goebbels. Here's the quote:

Burnett: That's the problem. If I thought Al Gore's movie was as you like to say, fair and balanced, I'd say, everyone should go see it, but why go see propaganda? You don't go see Joseph Goebbels’' films to see the truth about Nazi Germany. You don't go see Al Gore’' films to see the truth about global warming...

Is he calling Gore a Nazi? Nope, he's calling him a propagandist. Perhaps he should've used a different example, cuz ya know we are ALL sick of being compared to Nazis no matter how innocuous the comparison.

I would've compared Gore to Tubby Riefenstahl but that's me.

To sum up my feelings for both last night's show and the season in general, I have just two words.

SOUL PATROL!

Now all of you Liberals clap your hands really hard to show that you do believe in a Rove indictment...

Oops, you didn't clap hard enough yet. Sorry.

I killed the post Dean wrote about the mystery caller. I know who he is and all is well. His phone must've been acting up because there was no reason for him to not talk to me.

He's a my old neighbor's son. He's a Detroit cop, I've been to his home and made him pierogis. He's the hero type, bigtime. I have no fear of him at all and so I thank you all for your concern.

Everything is just fine!

FARKers are commenting about this story on TaxProf Blog. In particular, there's this guy:

2006-05-23 08:46:03 AM LyleDAL [TotalFark]

Kansas, Colorado, and most of the top ten on that list are places most of us would rather fly over than live in anyway.

Seriously, have most of you ever been to Kansas? It is a wonderful place to leave.

That list proves the general rule that you get what you pay for.

Ignoring the snark, taxation discourages the activity being taxed, and, conversely, lower taxes are more encouraging than higher taxes. So if you are the government of a place that isn't as 'charming' or 'popular' as some other places, then maybe you want to encourage people to live there by making taxes less onerous.

Another theory is that the heaviest users of government services tend to gravitate to where the weather is most amenable and/or where the public teat services are juiciest or easiest to get to.

Having said that, I would totally not mind living in Virginia, Delaware (away from Wilmington), Idaho (panhandle), with maybe New Hampshire (far from Boston), and Colorado (not the flat part) thrown in.

Last year, Detroit voted to reelect the very corrupt and slimy Kwame Kilpatrick. Here is a little background on the Detroit Mayor:

In early 2005, the Detroit media began reporting on the issue of Mayor Kilpatrick's overspending of city funds. One example is a $24,995 lease on a new Lincoln Navigator. Of particular interest, had this lease come to an amount of $25,000, then the Lincoln Navigator would have required City Council approval first. Kilpatrick disavowed any knowledge of this. And although he said it was for his wife, no proof supports this claim.

By April 2005, Kilpatrick's approval rating in Detroit was sharply declining due to the scandals and the perceived lack of improvement in the city. As a result, the April 17, 2005 issue of Time Magazine listed him as one of the three worst big-city mayors in the United States.[1][2] The other two mentioned in the article are Dick Murphy of San Diego and John F. Street of Philadelphia.

In May 2005, the Detroit Free Press reported that over the first 33 months of his term, Kilpatrick has charged over $210,000 on his city-issued credit card for travel, meals, and entertainment. Kilpatrick has also been under scrutiny for an allegedly inappropriate party at the mayoral mansion.

In June 2005, Kilpatrick threatened to cancel the International Freedom Festival if the council overrode his veto of the council's budget plan. City Council did indeed override Kilpatrick's veto, and the mayor was forced to back down from his threat.

In October 2005 Kilpatrick caused controversy with an ad which compared media criticism of him to lynch mobs.

The peeps of New Orleans just reelected Ray "what schoolbusses?" Nagin. Nagin will be sworn in one day before the 2006 Hurricane season starts.

And still the Lefties think that stupid people trend Republican.

I have ice, a variety of meat, veggies, pierogis and some ice cream. New Orleans Congresscritter, William Jefferson [D-LA], had $90,000 stashed in food containers that he received as bribes stemming from some Nigerian money scam. This guy is just ruining the name "William Jefferson" for politics.

I thought Democrats only screwed interns and pooches...

Just watched the trailer for Oliver Stone's WTC.

I cringed when I heard he was making this movie. I think that he may have actually done the story justice. Jake was almost 4 when 9/11 happened. He remembers all of it. He said that he got that same tight feeling in his throat and water in his eyes when he viewed the trailer. We both did.

Haaaa! These guys just won some big European "American Idol" type contest, with like the biggest vote count ever:

Those Euroweenies are so much more sophisticated than us dumb Americans!

(Via Dean.)

The Liberals think that Conservatives are stupid.

At least, we are smart enough not to abort ourselves into extinction. Keep up the good work Lefties!

From Val Prieto:

You can order one if you like!

I love it! I'm gonna wear it everywhere. Nothing feels better, on my ample bosom, than a murderous thug with a bullet in his head.

Need glasses?

Via: Dean

Did the liberals get their pony yet?

I told Dean that I don't comment on his blog much because he pisses me off and I don't want to crush him. I warned him that I would start slamming him for posts that piss me off. He told me to go for it whenever I feel justified. I have felt justified plenty but I have held my tongue out of respect for my spouse.

That ends now.

His post on LGF was both disingenuous (a fancy word for LIE) and an ad hom. I HATE, HATE, HATE when someone slings shit rather than argues a point. I HATE IT EVEN MORE, when someone complains bitterly about others doing it but holds himself to a different standard.

Here's what Dean wrote:

I'm interested to see that Charles Johnson has now come out and admitted his problem is with Islam, and Muslims in general, and not just with terrorists and anti-semites.

I suppose this probably means that Dean's World won't be renewed as a Pajamas Media contributor when the contract is up. Disappointing, but confusing. Did you guys not know that I'm both a hawk on the War on Terror AND pro-Muslim? It's not like I ever made a secret of either stance.

Here is what the post linked:

Spencer Dissects Esmay

Robert Spencer completely deconstructs a series of straw man attacks by Dean Esmay (who knows a lot less about Islam than he would like us to believe): Esmay’s dismay, and his response. Read the whole thing; Esmay’s ad hominem rants don’t really deserve such a thorough rational response, but the arguments Spencer makes are fact-based and very compelling, and will be useful in other situations.

If you disagree with Dean on Islam, then you are automatically anti-Islam. You obvioulsy hate ALL muslims and therefore are entitled to being mocked. Well, that just ain't true but you can't tell Dean that it ain't true because he'll ban your ass.

Well, fuck that. He can't ban me.

The Ensign Amendment would reverse a law that allowed illegal immigrants who obtain legal status to use their previous illegal work to apply for Social Security benefits. To get Social Security benefits, a worker must have 10 years of work.

SA. 3985 to S. 2611 (Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006 ) Statement of Purpose: To reduce document fraud, prevent identity theft, and preserve the integrity of the Social Security system, by ensuring that persons who receive an adjustment of status under this bill are not able to receive Social Security benefits as a result of unlawful activity.

Are hookers, pimps and drug dealers allowed to register their "work" to collect SSI?

Mary Katherine Ham sums up my feelings best:

But here's the substance of the debate-- Should ILLEGAL immigrants, once made legal by the McCain legislation, be entitled to receive the Social Security benefits they have paid into the system while ILLEGALLY using FRAUDULENT Social Security numbers STOLEN from actual, legal citizens of the United States of America.

The fact that this is even up for debate is just beyond insane. Everyone knows we will never have enough Social Security funds to serve, you know, actual citizens.

Every single one of those senators knows that, and they're debating whether we should extend such non-existent, unsustainable, budget-busting, generation-saddling benefits to millions of people who fraudulently entered the system by stealing the identities (and sometimes ruining the credit) of legal Americans?!?

Sen. Ensign, God bless him, offered an amendment suggesting illegals should not be eligible for Social Security benefits accrued while illegal.

Here are the jerks that voted to kill the bill. Basically, the "usual suspects" voted to fuck us over. Most of the Dems and these fucks:

• Brownback (R-KS)
• Chafee (R-RI)
• DeWine (R-OH)
• Graham (R-SC)
• Hagel (R-NE)
• Lugar (R-IN)
• Martinez (R-FL)
• McCain (R-AZ)
• Specter (R-PA)
• Stevens (R-AK)
• Voinovich (R-OH)

The only standout Democrats with the stones to fight for actual citizens of this country and join the majority of Republicans to save the amendment were:

Byrd (D-WV)
• Conrad (D-ND)
• Dayton (D-MN)
• Nelson(D-FL)
• Nelson (D-NE)

Via: Allah

I've learned a bunch of fun new words since I started reading blogs. For example, 'blog', 'troll', 'sock puppet', 'pwned', etc. But is there a word that describes a post on a group blog that links to the writer's own site, to a one-sentence post that links BACK to another post on the group blog? What's the point of this, other than to artificially boost your own hit count?

(The link in question is under the phrase, 'imperialist leanings' toward the bottom)

Does anyone out there want to try Gmail? I have 47 invites to give away. If yes, leave a comment with a current email address.

Her days of looking remotely compelling and tough are numbered.

You know how college graduation season is always full of stories about student body X or faculty Y or outraged local citizens from group Z protesting the college administration's choice of commencement speaker? Are the speeches these people give always political in nature or do they mostly adhere to the idea that a commencement speech is a time to give the baccalaureate candidates some encouraging words? I was debating whether to post about this until I read at Gateway Pundit that Missouri Congressman Lacy Clay was booed off the stage for turning his speech into a Bush-bash.

I attended the commencement exercises at SUNY Brockport last Saturday. The commencement address was actually given by Ursula Burns, President of Business Group Operations at Xerox Corporation. But before that a speech billed in the program as "Remarks" was given by US Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY). I braced myself, wondering how offensive he would have to get before I could overcome family obligations and walk out. However, I needn't have worried. Not only did Senator Schumer steer completely clear of current politics in his speech, he was entertaining and self-depracating. He told a story about how, when he was a young man, he had been given a chance to travel the world on a full ride scholarship and decided to stay home because he loved a girl who proceeded to dump him three weeks later. The point being that the new graduates should go for it and never pass up a chance. Way classier than Lacy Clay.

I'm not gonna get too deep into this post, I'm just gonna post keywords. It'll be like a game.

March: Odd mushroom thingies growing through carpet in storage room. Storage room loaded with ten years worth of boxes. Dean unfazed. Blamed cat's.

April: Rosemary doesn't like implications (Rosemary allergic to mold, notices that asthma seems worse). Continues probing. Moves some boxes. Mushrooms growing underneath. Dean still not worried, Rosemary in high panic mode.

May: Rosemary points out that storage room borders bathroom, Dean raises eyebrow. Ha! Rosemary calls uncle. Uncle's here now. Pulling carpet and finds half inch of standing water. Half of the (12X12) room destroyed. Checking joists.

We're fucked.

Did I mention that we just bought a new roof?

Via Gateway Pundit.

Good on ya, mate!

So, has Rove been indicted yet?

Just checking, cuz that was supposed to have happened by now, right?

Through an unfortunate convergence of events, (an illness, a business trip, and a four-day road trip to attend niece's college graduation), I was, to my disappointment, unable to respond to this comment from Dean before Robert Spencer did. I'm not going to get into the middle of that. These guys are both way better writers than I. But I can't continue to blog here without addressing what Dean said to me personally.

I want to start by emphasizing my ignorance of this particular corner of the blogosphere. I don't read every post on Dean's World, and I read even fewer posts on Jihad Watch. I haven't previously been interested in Carnival of the Liberated because I tend to stay away from blog carnivals in general. I AM aware of muslim bloggers such as Iraq The Model and The Big Pharoah. I tend to read them only when they are linked by others I DO read. So no, Dean, I don't need you to find Muslim blogs for me. I just wanted to know which ones YOU were talking about. You're a busy guy, with a fulltime job and one of the most successful blogs in the 'sphere, so I wasn't going to fault you for not creating links to prove your point in a mere comment. But thanks for the list, anyway.

As for the "SHAME ON YOU", I guess it doesn't apply since I am very well aware that there are Muslims fighting on our side in the GWOT. I fail to see how Robert Spencer and Hugh Fitzgerald at Jihad Watch do these allies damage by keeping us informed about what the jihadists believe and how they channel these beliefs into actions. I do not understand the mission of Jihad Watch to be getting touchy feely with Muslim moderates (to use the well-worn adjective) since the MSM does enough of that for everyone. I go to Jihad Watch to understand the mind of the enemy who declares that his religion compels him to act as my enemy.

Not every blog is as helpful as Dean's World (and I mean this sincerely) as to provide a cool search tool, so I may have to work at it to discover how the moderate Muslim bloggers explain taqqiya and hudna. There is much in the way jihadists interpret Islamic writings that can, indeed, be called EVIL. So much so that I don't have to try that hard at all to understand the considerable reluctance of non-jihadist (I like that better than 'moderate' since it will include religious liberals as well) Muslims to stand up and speak out about how they presumably believe that their religion is being perverted by fringe extremists. A man or woman with family to protect and provide for must think twice before drawing attention to oneself in such an atmosphere as non-jihadist Muslims now find themselves.

But I won't hide my head in the sand and pretend that it is just a few crazy misunderstood whack-jobs on the fringe who are exploding car bombs and train stations and flying airplanes into buildings. We can do more for your beleaguered Muslim friends by ditching the multi-culti political correctness of the MSM and facing the nature of the enemy head-on.

One last thing: rather than focusing on the aptness of the "Jew Watch" analogy, I'd just like to say that most of us who read Jihad Watch or merely use the word jihad correctly in a sentence can be trusted to understand that it does not have the same meaning as the word Muslim.

The last thing I ever wanted was to get into it with Dean, whom I have always highly regarded. The intent of my original post was to draw attention to what I thought was going to be a reasoned discussion, not to be the Gavrilo Princip of a blogwar.

People are dumb.

They believe the MSM and talking point spouting bloviators about Iraq and the economy being complete horrors and Bush's numbers tank. Then they listen to one bullshit, same old same old speech and they buy it.

Sigh

We The People are dangers to ourselves and others.

I think that McDreamy is a McFucker and he should McFuck off. McCheating Mcbastard should have just told his Mcwife they were Mcdone.

One more thing. My pallor used to be as ashen as Meredith's. It's called anemia, someone should get that chick some iron and a sandwich. Am I the only person in America that thinks the actress that plays 25 year old Meredith Grey, looks to be in her mid-forties and thinks that her head is weirdly small?

(Via Sandi.)

FYI: YouTube is temporarily down.

To all the Mommies in blogland and beyond.

No cooking, cleaning or laundry today. We gals are taking a much deserved break.

My gift to you this year is a display of some fine lookin' Right Wing studs. I just love men, don't you?

My Favorite Liberal said this is the NSA thread:

The Soviet Union had the ability to destroy us 10,000 times over at any moment. Yet we overcame them. And without using the NSA to spy on ordinary Americans.

He was given some examples but they didn't sink in. You'd think that a guy who appears to idolize Harry Truman would have done some reading about the Truman presidency. How about cracking open a book on American history in general? If he had then he would never have made the following statement:

I know of no instance where the NSA was used to spy on American citizens until now. Do you?

You are welcome to do your own research and I suggest that before you start talkin' smack about history, you do just that. In the meantime, I'm going to help school YOU on this one.

Even before President Harry Truman established the NSA in a Cold War era directive in 1952, government cryptologists jumped in the domestic spy hunt with Operation Shamrock.

That was a super secret operation that forced private telegraphic companies to turn over the telegraphic correspondence of Americans to the government. The NSA kicked its spy campaign into high gear in the 1960s. The FBI demanded that the NSA monitor antiwar activists, civil rights leaders, and drug peddlers. The Senate Select Committee that investigated government domestic spying in 1976 pried open a tiny public window into the scope of NSA spying. But the agency slammed the window shut fast when it refused to cough up documents to the committee that would tell more about its surveillance of Americans. The NSA claimed that disclosure would compromise national security. The few feeble Congressional attempts over the years to probe NSA domestic spying have gone nowhere. Even though rumors swirled that NSA eyes were riveted on more than a few Americans, Congressional investigators showed no stomach to fight the NSA's entrenched code of silence.

...

During the 1950s and 1960s, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover kicked FBI domestic spying into high gear. FBI agents compiled secret dossiers, illegally wiretapped, used undercover plants, and agent provocateurs, sent poison pen letters, and staged black bag jobs against black activists and anti-war groups.

Next...

Enter the USA Today reporting that the Feds have a massive database of phone records. Big deal. They have records of numbers that call other numbers.

The NSA program reaches into homes and businesses across the nation by amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans — most of whom aren't suspected of any crime. This program does not involve the NSA listening to or recording conversations. But the spy agency is using the data to analyze calling patterns in an effort to detect terrorist activity, sources said in separate interviews.

It's not like they are listening in to our calls. That's the thing that freaked you out last time, the Feds were eavesdropping on your big plans to go to TGI Friday's with the Islamofacist thugs guys after killing some Jews or blowing up a major metropolitan area work.

So the Feds know what phone numbers were dialed from my phone. Big. Fucking. Deal. Privacy is a fucking joke.

A JOKE.

My insurance company knows how much I weigh, how many yeast infections I've ever had and that my colon is as healthy as a 20 year old. My OB knew me for about 2 minutes before his head was inches away from my vagina and he didn't even buy me dinner. I'm not even going to mention what he did with his pinky finger.

Do the idiots that are complaining (and I mean that lovingly) even understand the purpose of the NSA? NSA Mission Statement

"The ability to understand the secret communications of our foreign adversaries while protecting our own communications — a capability in which the United States leads the world — gives our nation a unique advantage."

Executive Order 12333, dated 4 December 1981, describes the responsibility of the National Security Agency and the Central Security Service (NSA/CSS) in more detail. The resources of NSA/CSS are organized for the accomplishment of two national missions:

* The Information Assurance mission provides the solutions, products, and services, and conducts defensive information operations, to achieve information assurance for information infrastructures critical to U.S. national security interests.

* The foreign signals intelligence or SIGINT mission allows for an effective, unified organization and control of all the foreign signals collection and processing activities of the United States. NSA is authorized to produce SIGINT in accordance with objectives, requirements, and priorities established by the Director of Central Intelligence with the advice of the National Foreign Intelligence Board.

John McIntyre sums it up best:

Many of the people decrying these violations of civil liberties are the same ones who ripped the government for its inability to "connect-the-dots" prior to 9/11.

But the paranoia on the left, and in particular, the hatred for the Bush administration has become so intense there is an automatic assumption that the NSA has to be engaging in nefarious activity, spying on you and your neighbor. The idea that the agency is thinking creatively and proactively about how they can legally monitor the bad guys instead of just going about business as usual is, apparently, out of the question for some. The sad truth is it is probably going to take another devastating attack to convince many in this country that we are actually at war against Islamic jihadists.

That is something true civil libertarians should think long and hard about. The more vigilant we are today in preventing attacks, the more it will pay off in spades in terms of protecting our civil liberties in the future. Because if this country gets hit with a small nuke and 30,000 or 100, 000 Americans die, all of the debating will be over. The ensuing crackdown will be massive, and the loss of REAL civil liberties will become very, very possible.

Yeah.

AI's Chris Daughtry singing Hemorrhage, my personal favorite performance by Chris.

You can view the original Fuel version here, I like Chris' voice better.

Good news for Chris fans:

On February 7, 2006, Fuel announced through their website that singer Brett Scallions had left the band. The band (now just Carl Bell and Jeff Abercrombie) said that he left on friendly terms. "We will all miss him and we wish him the best", Bell wrote in a letter on their website.

Fuel had already laid down the instrumental tracks for their fourth album and soon started auditioning singers so the band could move forward. Abercrombie and Bell took notice of American Idol contestant Chris Daughtry after he performed "Hemorrhage (In My Hands)" on the show and the single shot up to the Top 10 download list on iTunes and stayed there for a number of days. This also sparked interest in other Fuel songs, which began to appear the Top 100 download chart on iTunes. On March 3, 2006, judge Randy Jackson stated in an interview that Daughtry had been offered the opportunity to become Fuel's new lead singer. Fuel confirmed their interest on their official website. On May 11, 2006, Abercrombie and Bell appeared on the TV show Extra to officially offer Daughtry the job.

LaShawn Barber was attempting an exercise. The exercise was drafting hypothetical Articles of Impeachment against Bush. As expected, people went crazy telling her that she was wrong, attacking her or just bloviating. She didn't restrict comments unless they were abusive but her quest for answers failed.

"But I asked for two things on this post: other examples of abuse of power and other possible articles of impeachment. Exactly one commenter attempted to answer one of the questions. The rest disagreed with the post. A few told me I was crazy (although most of those didn’t make it past the troll filter). Even commenters who agreed with the post didn’t answer the questions.

The hypothetical Article I drafted was deliberately vague. You’ll notice that I created a (1) but didn’t add (2). I wanted readers to come up with additional articles and examples. It was an exercise, an experiment to see what commenters would come up with."

But most didn’t bother. I could have added something like, “If you don’t think he should be impeached, don’t comment,” but people would have commented anyway. That’s the way we are. Whether someone asks for it or not, we want to tell them what we think. I know my opinion about what should be done with Bush is controversial. Controversy sells. I can handle controversy. It’s the reason I’m a high ranking blogger. But this little impeachment hypothetical failed. Oh, well. On to the next post.

In fairness to her readers, LaShawn should admit that she made the first mistake not her readers. She said, "I could have added something like, 'If you don’t think he should be impeached, don’t comment,' but people would have commented anyway." My response and I'm sure many of her readers would agree, if you don't want people to comment about whether or not Bush should be impeached then don't title the post "Should George Bush Be Impeached?".

It doesn't take a lot to derail a thread but you can't blame the commenters on this one. She asked for three things not two. The very first thing she asked was her title. Perhaps next time, she'll choose a title that isn't a question she doesn't want answered.

Now do any of you want to help her out with ideas on impeachment? Here are the questions she actually wanted answered:

Questions for you:

A. What other examples of Bush’s actions would make a case for Abuse of Power?

B. What additional articles of impeachment could be presented? Obstruction of Justice? Contempt of Congress? Why?

When I read "Fisking the Islamophobes" over at Dean's World, I knew it wouldn't be long before I read this over at Jihad Watch.

Everyone agrees that the target of Dean's ire had it coming. Poor scholarship, bad writing, and sweeping generalizations make it hard for the "Trust, but verify" crowd to win hearts and minds when there are guys like this claiming to be on their side.

I think Robert Spencer tried to be civil and respectful toward Dean in his commentary while attempting to clarify certain ideas he thought needed clarifying. Spencer's point was while he and Dean assuredly know many Muslims who don't interpret their faith the way the jihadists do;

So far the Muslims who don't have not been able to convince those who do that their way of looking at the Qur'an is incorrect.

I look forward to Dean's response. He hasn't exactly given Jihad Watch the thumbs up lately. Dean admonishes readers to talk to actual Muslims and read actual Muslim blogs. I didn't read the whole Interfaith Dialogue thread. Were there any links to Muslim blogs that Dean has in mind for me to read? I'd really be interested in seeing them because I don't think that the type of Muslim blogs that LGF and Jihad Watch link to are what he means. (Just went back and clicked the link to The Anchoress, RTFA and found Unwilling Self-Negation.)

I agree with Dean that it is wrong to tar all Muslims with the same brush but I also think that Spencer performs a valuable service when he sheds light on the scriptural underpinnings of the dudes with the boxcutters and explosive vests.

I signed on to MySpace because I noticed that people are using pics of my kids. I guess I should've put something on them. No biggie, since they aren't being rude or anything.

Anyway, I've been on less than 24 hours and I'm getting lots of hits from guys looking for chicks. I guess the words "married" and "proud parent" aren't a real turn off. Some of the email messages are really funny. I just respond back with "Dude, I'm married but thanks for thinking I'm hot".

Any of you doing the MySpace thing? If you are let me know cuz I need more friends.

Charles Johnson at LGF doesn't like the Moussaoui verdict. He thinks that life in prison means that Moussaoui gets to exploit the system and keep exploiting it to America's detriment.

Moussaoui is much more valuable to the global jihad (and its Western enablers) as a living symbol of Western “oppression” than he would be as a failed attacker, ignobly executed by infidels.

I don't disagree with this statement. However, since I oppose the death penalty on pro-life grounds, I have to say that just because I don't support official government executions doesn't mean I'm going to lose any sleep if one of Moussaoui's butt-buddies offs him in the back of the prison laundry room.

UPDATE: Captain Ed says it way better than I just did.

UPDATE and BUMP: Fox News reports that Moussaoui is trying to call 'takebacks' on his guilty plea. The purpose of this can only be to mock us some more. However,

At sentencing, [U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema] told Moussaoui: "You do not have a right to appeal your convictions, as was explained to you when you plead guilty" in April 2005. "You waived that right."

Would our resident legal minds care to call the play-by-play on this particular snowball as it rolls through the Seventh Circle of Hell?

We are planning a bash on July 15th for Dean's 40th birthday. I'm extending the invite to my friends here at the blog. We did this a couple years ago and it was pretty successful. If you are thinking that this is something you'd like to do, let me know. I need to get an estimate so I can plan properly. I will be cooking, obviously, and we'll have some refreshments but for hard stuff it will be BYOB.

Any takers out there? Email me privately or leave a comment. All are welcome and I do mean all.

I'm a little empty today. You got anything you want to discuss or you want me to comment on or post about today?

Leave your suggestions in the comments. I need some ideas.

You can be a person that is considered to be a minority and still be a racist or make racist remarks. I don't care what the Jacksons and Sharptons of the world want us to believe, it's bullshit.

Hate is hate and racism is hate. Individuals, regardless of race, can hate. When that hate uses speech that is racist, your brown skin isn't going to shield you from the truth. Not from me.

I'm not afraid to call you a racist. I have no fear of you, your skin color doesn't scare me anymore than mine would scare me. I don't duck my head down, clutch my purse and try to go unnoticed in your neighborhood because your neighborhood is mine.

I'm not colorblind, I'm color-neutral. I see all the different shades that surround me and I love it. That's why I bought my house here, that's why I'm raising my sons here and that's why I'm not afraid to tell you that your speech is offensive and shameful.

You, with your lovely brown skin, are a racist.

I would never call someone a name just because of their skin color. I would call you an ass, if I thought you were one. I would call you a jerk, if I thought you were one. Skin color or nationality doesn't make someone an asshole or a jerk and it doesn't protect them from getting it pointed out. I know plenty of Polish people that I thought were assholes and I told them so, I know plenty of black people that I thought were jerks and I told them so too. They weren't assholes & jerks because they were Polish or black, they were because their behavior made them so.

I've been called plenty but mostly I get called bitch. And you know what? I am a bitch sometimes, I'm not a bitch because I'm white or a woman. I'm a bitch because I'm having a bad day and I'm particularly talented at bitchiness.

Racism: it isn't just for whitey anymore and I'm sick and tired of being told differently.

Via: Malkin

Be the American political party in power and go along with THIS idea.

(HT: Michelle Malkin) (again, bwa ha!)

UPDATE: If what one commenter over at Captain's Quarters says is true, I'm willing to give the French Foreign Minister the benefit of the doubt and retract what I said below in the comment thread:

If the President of the United States of America (whoever he may be) ever hands Zacharias Moussaoui over to the French, he will single-handedly and permanently destroy the chance of his entire political party ever being elected to office again. Jean-Baptiste Mattei knows this. His statement in the light of this reality reveals more about his contempt for America and Americans than about his concern for his 'countryman' Moussaoui.

The mitigating comment:

Looking at the LeMonde article and the Babelfish translation with the help of recently acquired college-level French (and five years of Spanish), I have a slightly different take on the French _government's_ attitude. According to the foreign ministry spokesman, the French government is willing to *examine* a request by Moussaoui's family for the French Government to ask that Moussaoui be transferred to France.

In the days of the monarchy, a French king would respond to a petition he did not wish to grant with "Le roi s'advisera," literally "The king will consider this." It meant no. I read the comments of the Foreign ministry spokesman as the present French government's "The king will consider this" to Moussaoui's family and its lawyer.

- David L.

Je suis désolé, pour maintenant.

Hitchens vs. Cole.

Cole vs. ???

Cole's Farsi Ability vs. Iranian guy that thinks Cole's Farsi skills suck in a big way.

After all of that you can enjoy the rewrite of Juan Cole's original piece by Iowahawk.

[Monitor/keyboard Spew Warning: Be careful when drinking and reading this piece. Coke can seriously fuck up your keyboard.]

HT: Armed Liberal

I'm a stay at home mom and according to this study, I should be getting paid about $134K a year for my effort.

Stay-at-home moms work an average of 92 hours a week. That seems a bit low to me but that is just an average. Dean and I talked about this recently. Sometimes I'm a bit, ahem, bitchy in the morning. Dean comes home from work about 6am and occasionally I wake up and snarl at him. He finds it annoying. I told him that while I do admit that I am on occasion a tad bit grumpy, it isn't fair that he get mad at me.

Why? I'll tell you.

Dean is also a grumpy waker but somewhere in our 10 years of marriage, I was instructed not to speak to him until he's been up for at least a half hour. I'm a fast talker and I tend pepper him with questions and comments like a machine gun. He can't deal with that upon rising from slumber, so I try really hard to leave him be and respect the fact that he needs time to get it together. I also make sure that Dean's days off are free from home stresses and hard labor. In general, I rarely ask Dean to do anything other than taking the trash out and cleaning the litter box. On his days off, I leave him be. He works hard and he deserves to relax.

On the flip side, I pretty much do everything else. I do all the yard work, the snow shoveling, and the repairs. If I can't do it, I find someone who can and barter a trade of service (usually with my brother). I wake up around 6:30-7:00 most days (weekends too) and do all the mommy stuff. Mommy stuff includes but isn't limited to: cooking, lots of cleaning, laundry, baby care, tutor, playmate, bake sales, shopper, mediator, banker, billpayer, baseball practice, teacher of all things sports, cheerleader, driver, etc.

I don't normally go to bed until 1:00 or 2:00am. If one of the kids gets sick, mommy is on the job day or night and in my house it always seems to be the middle of the night. I am on call 24/7 (most moms are). I rarely ever have any personal time but I don't mind because I LOVE being a mom.

Now, back to why it isn't fair to get mad at me for occasional grumpiness. Dean is at work all night and he gets home having ZERO knowledge of what went on the night before. My last grumpy episode, I was up cleaning vomit at 3am and then again at 4am. Dean woke me because he was louder than normal and I was bitchy. I said that my brain isn't always aware that my mouth is nasty after only a couple hours of sleep, he needs to cut me some slack. You can't just assume that your wife is always fully rested because "rest" is like a mythical creature to most moms.

Even though we beat ourselves into exhaustion, most of us wouldn't trade it for anything.

I just saw a comment from a reader named Michael and I decided I needed to protect my nascent brand. In other words, I don't want people to think that comments by Michael are coming from me, and, I'm sure, vice versa. I toyed with the idea of using Rosemary's nickname for me, but I decided that would make it harder for Powerline and Hugh Hewitt to link to me seriously.

[moment of silence to hush the adulation of the crowds in my head]

The name I have chosen actually originates with a long-deceased distant cousin of my mother-in-law. In Ireland, while you can find almost any surname in almost any corner of the island, you will also notice that certain regions have significant concentrations of a certain surname. (Note to wags and other critics: When a particular name goes back 800-1000 years, you can skip ahead past all the racist inbreeding jokes and go right to the practical problem and its solution.)

So when an area has a large number of unrelated families with the same surname, coupled with the tendency to name children after grandparents and other second-generation relatives, another naming scheme comes into play. In fact, one can see the origin of surnames in the first place. So John Simon was, in fact John, Simon's son and Maggie Mike Tom was Maggie, the daughter of Mike whose father was Tom.

Enter place names, to cut some of the confusion, and you can guess that the Caurauns were your distaff cousins from Cauraun or that Michael The Rock lived in the house next to (or on top of) the big rock.

So henceforward, I will sign my posts and comments as Michael The Rock©. Conservatives can take this to connote my steadfast adherence to my principles. Liberals, you already think that this connotes the contents of my skull, so go right on ahead with that.

My email address is still hard for some of you to find. I decided to take this moment to update the blog with my personal address.

buttgrape(AT)yahoo(dot)com

You are welcome to contact me with complaints, compliments, ideas for a post or whatever.

Steny Hoyer [D-MD], didn't like some of Stephen Colbert's jokes at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner.

Hoyer came to the defense of the commander in chief after Saturday's White House Correspondents' Association dinner, where the president took a drubbing from comedian Stephen Colbert.

"I thought some of it was funny, but I think it got a little rough," Hoyer said. "He is the president of the United States, and he deserves some respect."

"I'm certainly not a defender of the administration," Hoyer reassured stunned observers, but Colbert "crossed the line" with many jokes that were "in bad taste."

Colbert crossed the line with jokes in bad taste????!?!?!?!?!?!?! HE'S A C-O-M-E-D-I-A-N. Crossing the line with jokes in bad taste is practically the definition of comedian.

Did you weep into your hanky when Bush joked about Cheney shootin' that guy in the face? That wasn't exactly in "good taste" but it was funnier than hell.

Man, you libs will cry about anything these days. You want to cry about being out of line and saying things in bad taste that don't respect the POTUS? Go after your leadership, leave the comics alone.

Aziz has a rudimentary plan for Dafur.

From what I understand, the genocide in Darfur operates like this: janjaweed militias surround a village, the Sudanese bomb it, the militia then moves in to rape/pillage the survivors.

What we should do at a bare minimum is declare the airspace a no-fly zone. Take down any Sudanese plane that violates it.

Second, the janjaweed militias themselves have camps, move in numbers, etc. A search and destroy campaign needs to be inititiated so that the janjaweed can no longer oerate openly. You can't obliterate them but you can hamstring them.

Third, we call for medical and civil service volunteers - from the US, UK, Australia, Europe, and Turkey - to join a Darfur Renewal Program. Volunteers would rotate in for two months. NATO would assign detachments of troops to protect the volunteers.

Fourth, we create train and equip a civil defense force from the native Sudanese. No heavy armaments but simply light pistols and basic training.

He wants critiques and ideas to improve the plan.

I have an idea and it's not too expensive. Everyone donate a few bucks to the cause and we buy guns, lots and lots of guns. We send some NRA instructors with the guns to Darfur and we train and arm the black Sudanese. Nothing says ENOUGH like a loaded Smith & Wesson.

Any other ideas?

Some liberals are afraid to address my comments here, preferring the cocoon of safety they find elsewhere. I was going to respond there but why should just a few enjoy my words, when so many more can enjoy them here on my frontpage.

Here is part 1:

Jesus, and I thought they struggled with simple math. Apparently, simple statistics are just as hard, even for those with impossibly high IQs:

"ex·trem·ist n. One who advocates or resorts to measures beyond the norm, especially in politics."

FOX News/Opinion Dynamics Poll. Feb. 28-March 1, 2006. N=900 registered voters nationwide. MoE ± 3 (for all registered voters):

"Recently the South Dakota legislature passed a law that bans abortion in all cases other than to save the life of the mother. Would you support or oppose this law in the state where you live?"

Support 35% Oppose 59% Unsure 6%"

See, I knew that was for me because the liberals like to make fun of my obscenely high IQ. I guess it's like hating the pretty girls or the guys with big pricks. Jealousy is so 1990. I can't help being brilliant anymore than I can being beautiful, you should blame my mom. I had no control over my genetic makeup but she could have picked an ugly, stupid man to marry instead of one that just complimented her brains and looks. She chose not to do so.

Now back to the comment. Where did I ever write that the SD abortion ban was not extremist? [...chirp, chirp]

I was talking strictly about Tony Snow and the article he was writing for the very conservative Town Hall.com. My rebuttal was a defense of Snow and only Snow. Snow was needling the Pro-Lifers of SD and basically calling out South Dakota's ban as hypocritical. He made his point well and the liberals went crazy over verbiage rather than substance.

Part 2

Of course, I understand that Snow didn’t actually take this position:

”If one argues that a woman would suffer trauma by bringing such babies to term, what would prevent other women from citing trauma as an equally cogent reason for their abortions? Trauma introduces an obligation to pay special heed to the victims of rape or incest.

Offer counseling. Provide lavish pre- and post-natal care. Take time to grant them as much support as the state can provide. And prosecute ruthlessly the creeps who violated them. That alone could do as much as anything else to help such mothers get a decent night's sleep. It also would remove a popular bit of cover for sexual predators, who try to "undo" their crimes by urging their victims to abort.”

Just an argument, you see? Like “how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?”

You know, they don’t have to apologize for being wrong about everything or even for helping to bring the country to its nadir. They could at least show the good grace to keep their delusions of mainstream thinking to themselves.

Talk about delusions, this from a guy who thought John "Did you know I was in Vietnam?" Kerry would've brought integrity and honor to the White House.

Snow DIDN'T take that position, he was arguing that allowing the loophole was hypocritical because they used the sanctity of life to justify the fucking abortion ban. If life is sacred, the it is sacred. Allowing the loophole for rape/incest invalidated their whole "sanctity of life" argument. That was Snow's point. He never, ever said that was his position and he never said tht should be the country's position. Ever. If you can't "see" the difference, it's because you are a closed-minded Republican hater and not much else. Using your logic, the ACLU is an extremist organization because of their unfettered support of Neo-nazi skinheads, the KKK and NAMBLA. Do you support the ACLU?

I know losing can really screw with your perspective and you guys have lost, a lot. You have to shake it off or you'll go crazy never get better. You're still going to lose a few more and if you keep this up it'll be a lot more. Just remember that we Republicans love your crazy liberal asses, you make us smile. You are like the little dog down the street that chases his own tail, so freakin' cute.

In the "Why Don't Some Liberals Know What An Extremist Is?", one our liberal buddies makes this comment:

I also think a lot of anti-abortion hardliners are hypocritical because they aren't willing to go wholeheartedly into prosecuting women for their abortions. If they contract someone to kill a human being, they're murderers, right?

What do you anti-abortion hardliners (or pro-life patriots) say?

Sometimes when I go off on the liberals I feel like I'm giving my readers a little cyber-frottage.

Does that make us bloggers creaters of a new fetish? Would we call it cyber-frotteurism?

Mark Adams writing for E Pluribus Unum calls Tony Snow an extremist.

Tony Snow an extremist. Yes, that is what he is arguing. The new Press Secretary, former Fox News anchor and I'm guessing past choir boy, an extremist.

I almost spewed my diet Coke all over my monitor when I read that. It's too early on a Monday to read something so preposterous. Mark Adams, liberal lawyer that links to all the whackos in the liberal universe calls Tony Snow an extremist. Is "extremist" the liberal word for conservative these days?

ex·trem·ist n. One who advocates or resorts to measures beyond the norm, especially in politics.

Why is he calling Snow an extremist? Well, because he wrote an article articulating the pro-life position and he had the nerve, the apparantly extremist nerve, to call the "rape/incest exception" a loophole.

As we all collectively gasp, can we at least acknowledge that Tony Snow seems to have a better understanding of the English language than Mark does? Okay, that was snotty, let's just all agree that Snow owns and uses a dictionary and Mark's is dusty on a shelf somewhere.

loop·hole

1. A way of escaping a difficulty, especially an omission or ambiguity in the wording of a contract or law that provides a means of evading compliance.

Mark states:

Now I really don't care all that much for the down and dirty abortion mudfest, but "loophole?" I'm sorry. Calling the rape and incest exception to all out abortion banning a frickin' "loophole" is no better than the girls at Pandagon calling the South Dakota statute the "Rapist Rights" law.

It's just ridiculous hyperbole.

No baby, sorry. Providing an "out" in an abortion ban for victims of rape and incest is indeed creating a loophole. Please see above definition for further proof of my obviously correct summation.

Look here, you don't have to agree with his "argument" but it is an argument, a "moral" argument. He's making an argument, not stating his position. You have no idea what his actual position is. I can make any argument you desire, if you pay me, but that doesn't mean I believe it. Kinda like lawyers and since Mark is one, you'd think he could recognize the difference.

I know that I should believe Mark when he calls Snow an extremist, since it takes one to know one and all that. I just don't think that Mark knows that he is one.