Starting now…

U.N. Security Council OKs Syria Resolution
By EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press Writer 46 minutes ago

UNITED NATIONS - The U.N. Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution Monday demanding Syria’s full cooperation with a U.N. investigation into the assassination of Lebanon’s former prime minister and warning of possible “further action” if it doesn’t.

The United States, France and Britain pressed for the resolution following last week’s tough report by a U.N. investigating commission, which implicated top Syrian and Lebanese security officials in the Feb. 14 bombing that killed Rafik Hariri and 20 others. The report also accused Syria of not cooperating fully with the inquiry.

The three co-sponsors agreed to drop a direct threat of sanctions against Syria in order to get support from Russia and China, which opposed sanctions while the investigation is still under way. Nonetheless, the resolution was adopted under Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter, which is militarily enforceable.

Okay, so I haven’t been around the blogosphere much. I had various neck and back ailments that made it relatively uncomfortable to sit at a computer and do any serious blogging.

Anyway, I’m back now, and man did I miss a lot!

Harriet Miers:
Wasn’t qualified anyway. It’s nice that Bush wanted to appoint a friend, but I’d much rather have a judge with a judicial track record than someone who was so timid she wouldn’t even go through the hearings. Let’s be honest… They would’ve been a cakewalk. The Democrats loved her (yet another reason for any right-thinking conservative to hate her). And ultimately, all she had to do, if she didn’t want to break White House privilege, was to just sit in the Senate and tell the Senators to F off and that constitutionally, they have no right to ask certain questions. A class in constitutionality would’ve made her detractors look like fools and she would have come out smelling like roses. Instead, she cowers and withdraws. If you ask me, that proves she just doesn’t have the chops for the job, plain and simple.

Scooter Libby:
The man who admitted to leaking the name of super-top-secret-vanity-fair-centerfold Valerie Plame was indicted for doing so. Not that this really matters… If it ain’t Rove or Cheney, the libs are never going to be happy. They don’t want the man who did it convicted, they want the man they convicted already to have done it.

2,000th Death in Iraq
Big shock that one came, huh? Leading up to that 2,000th death, we were informed again and again how any of the planned protests around the event would be respectful and somber. What they were, in fact, was a cocktail party for the radical left with very little actual respect shown for any of the soldiers who died. No shock there, and zombietime was there for one of these mixers. Look at all the forlorn and contemplative faces. Saddened, aren’t they? Moveon.org jumped right on the media saying it didn’t cover the 2,000th death sufficiently. It ran as the top story in every single New York paper and the lead story on every newscast that night. What the hell are these idiots even talking about?

George Galloway Knocked
As the left circle-jerked around Galloway’s testimony in front of the Senate, he probably had his fingers crossed behind him the whole time. Michnews has a neat little summary of the dimpled-darling of the anti-war zealots:

Leftist “anti-war” activists make their way into the report in the person of George Galloway, the British MP who was booted out of the Labor Party for a number of reasons, one of which is that Labor found that he incited Arabs to fight against British troops. What are the allegations against this vitriolic grandstander who prefers the USSR, Iraq, and Syria to “rogue states” such as the U.S and Great Britain?

They are these: (1) Some of the proceeds from allocations of 18 million barrels of oil given “either directly in the name of George Galloway . . . or in the name of one of his associates, Fawaz Zureikat” were deposited into the account of the Mariam Appeal, an organization dedicated to providing health care for Iraqis and to work “against sanctions in Iraq” and with which Mr. Galloway was associated as an officer. (2) Deposits of illicit oil money were made to “the bank account of Amineh Naji Daoud Zayyad, Mr. Galloway’s wife” and “officer for the Mariam Appeal.”

It should be noted also that this hero of the American Left may face perjury charges as a result of his testimony regarding his involvement in the Oil-for-Food scandal before the U.S. Senate.

Nice guy. I can’t help but recall the breathless orgasmic description of Galloway’s “testimony” in front of the US Senate from the likes of Stageleft:

I saw a bit of George Galloway and the US Senate committee while on the gym treadmill yesterday evening and I gotta tell ya, the urge to clap and cheer was heavy upon me…. if I hadn’t been quite so winded from the workout itself I might have, for verily I say unto you, from what I saw he did well and truly kick their asses.

Oh yeah… I guess when you’re lyin’, it’s easy to kick ass because you don’t have little barricades like the truth to impede you. Stageleft chose to title his piece, “It Was Grand.” I tend to think the look on Galloway’s face as the report was delivered by Volker was probably a hell of a lot more grand.

Of course, that’s if he found it on the news at all…

Another interesting angle of the report is that France and Russia were the biggest violators of the Oil For Food program, which I’m sure is a complete coincidence and has nothing to do with their anti-war lobbying in the UN.

World Series a Ratings Flop
Who outside of Houston and Chicago cared about either team, anyway?

Printer Snitchin’
The EFF has found that a large number of newer color laser printers contain identifying information that can be traced back to their respective printers. Isn’t that nice? Big Brother is checking out your printouts whether you know it or not. Isn’t it great how readily the printer companies cooperated with law enforcement despite an actual law? Doesn’t it just warm your wee heart?

DUI’s want Source Code for Breathalyzer
Guess getting caught driving drunk isn’t as slam dunk as it used to be. I love the assumption that if a machine determines your guilt you have a right to know its intricate inner workings. Of course, Boing Boing thinks that everyone should have access to all information (note the framing of the machine versus your constitutional rights). Sure. Let’s open the floodgates and turn every DUI into a technical dispute.

Safran Apologizes in Advance
Steve Safran, of Lost Remote, is one of my least favorite people in the blogosphere. A mostly self-important jerk, he consistently toes whatever left-wing line the media spits out and does so while constantly claiming his impartiality. Well, this time, in an article about an FCC / Radio Station debacle, he apologizes in advance for doing what he does every time he writes something; editorializing. Not that there’s a problem with that, but his tripe is rarely presented as an editorial. Anyway, some of his more eagle-eyed readers lay into him for his lack of impartiality and he defends himself, albeit not very well. Lots of kicking, screaming, and crying for mommy ensue. Makes ya wonder… If the station involved wasn’t a religious one, would the great one even care about it?

Boing Boing finds belief God created man scary
Boing Boing, anti-religious zealots in many ways, found this to be utterly terrifying:

Fifty-one percent of Americans say God created humans in their present form, and another three in 10 say that while humans evolved, God guided the process. Just 15 percent say humans evolved, and that God was not involved.

These views are similar to what they were in November 2004 shortly after the presidential election…

Americans most likely to believe in only evolution are liberals (36 percent), those who rarely or never attend religious services (25 percent), and those with a college degree or higher (24 percent).

White evangelicals (77 percent), weekly churchgoers (74 percent) and conservatives (64 percent), are mostly likely to say God created humans in their present form.

The bastards! They believe God did all this! That’s terrifying! Of course, the 51% is wrong. Not the other 49%. I find it more scary that millions of people believe that man started as a drop in a puddle of primordial ooze and so many unbelievable coincidences happened to cause man to be born.

But that’s me.

And that’s what caught my eye while I wasn’t blogging. I have some more stuff, but I’d rather write about it in depth a bit later. See ya in the ’sphere!

I’m back to blogging… My absence to be explained later…

Libby, who admitted he leaked will be indicted.

Rove won’t.

The left will go nuts and call Libby a fall guy, patsy, or whatever…

This indictment won’t satisfy any of the anti-Bush zealots.

Watergate comparisons will be flying about and Libby will be convicted before he ever even testifies because of who he is and who he works for.

If he’s not convicted, it’ll be a travesty.

The special prosecutor, unlike Ken Starr, will be treated like a hero, a great patriot, and so on.

The left won’t be happy until Karl Rove is in jail.

Does anyone else find it convenient that the media has forgotten about the wackjob, Cindy Sheehan?

I mean, she was the dimpled darling of the american left for months and months, and people were falling all over themselves to hear what she had to say.

Suddenly nobody cares about her anymore…

Could it have something to do with who she’s criticizing these days?

Sheehan thrashing ‘war hawk’ Hillary
Cindy tears into Clinton for Iraq support, compares her to radio’s Rush Limbaugh
Posted: October 19, 2005
2:15 p.m. Eastern

By Joe Kovacs
© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com

Cindy Sheehan, the so-called “peace mom” on a crusade to end U.S. involvement in the Iraq war, is publicly blasting Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., for her continued support of the ongoing conflict.

“I think she is a political animal who believes she has to be a war hawk to keep up with the big boys,” Sheehan writes in an open letter posted on anti-Bush filmmaker Michael Moore’s website. “I would love to support Hillary for president if she would come out against the travesty in Iraq. But I don’t think she can speak out against the occupation, because she supports it. I will not make the mistake of supporting another pro-war Democrat for president again: As I won’t support a pro-war Republican.”

“I believe that the intelligent thing for Democrats to do for 2006 and 2008 would be to come out strongly and correctly against the botched, bungled, illegal, and immoral occupation of Iraq,” Sheehan added.

Hmmmm… Got very little mention. No, check that. This got no mention at all today.

Isn’t it odd that every move this woman used to make was televised for the world to see, and now all of a sudden she isn’t worth writing about? There’s gotta be a reason… Guess her target selection offended someone.

Well, the politically correct thought police are at it again.

Three radio jocks were suspended for playing a hoax on their listeners last Thursday. They pretended they were going to perform some kind of wacky science experiment stunt, and that while setting up the balloon and basket, a kitten named skittles jumped in and the balloon got away.

Hilarity ensued as hundreds of listeners scoured the city from the ground looking for the bunch of balloons and the lost kitten, Skittles.

Only problem is that none of it ever happened!

And the jocks were suspended!

Why?

Because they upset people!

I swear to God…

Anyway, the suspended jocks wrote the most idiotic thing on their site:

A Statement from Lambert and Lindsey

First we would like to thank the senders of thousands upon thousands of voice and emails of support for our morning show. Your demands that we be put back on the air are the reason we are here this morning. Your outcry far outweighed those who called in with complaints.

We would like to issue an apology to anyone who was upset, stressed, or in any way put out with our broadcast regarding the kitten named Skittles. We deeply regret any emotional distress you may have suffered as a result of our practical joke. All members of this show are pet lovers, and if you listen to the show, you realize that we donate more airtime to pet causes than any other media in town, radio or otherwise.

There never was a kitten named “Skittles” in a basket. Let us repeat for those who feel the suspension was a ploy to cover up the fact that we harmed this kitten. There NEVER WAS A KITTEN in a balloon talking to us on a cellphone.

The entire show was a practical joke.

As with all practical jokes, some people will think it’s hilarious. Others, when they realize they have been fooled, are not amused. Does it have anything to do with our treatment of a kitten? No, because there was no kitten. It’s about hurt feelings, and for those we are very sorry.

We are truly blessed to have the support of our listeners and the community, and please know that we would never endanger a living creature for comedy, nor would we violate your trust on a serious matter. But we promise to entertain to the best of our abilities, so you had better keep on your toes.

Sincerely,

George Lindsey

Lynda Lambert

Aaron Miller

They apologized!?! Give me a damned break!

My apology would’ve read something like this:

Screw you, you hypersensitive morons. It was a joke. Not every joke is funny to every person. If you don’t like our jokes, listen to another show.

Anyone so offended by this prank that they wanted the jocks suspended should be ashamed of themselves.

Then they should be smacked.

You know what’s worse than a Democrat / Liberal bringing up Hitler incessantly?

A Republican doing the same, seeing as Republicans are regularly called fascists and nazis, and compared to Hitler.

From Factcheck.org:

Rosenbluth states that “Tim Kaine says that Adolf Hitler doesn’t qualify for the death penalty.”

The Kilgore campaign says that this refers to a Sept. 19 interview with the editorial board of the Richmond Times-Dispatch newspaper. But an audio recording of that interview shows Kaine didn’t actually say what the ad claims. In fact, at one point he said Hitler and two other genocidal dictators “may deserve the death penalty” for their heinous acts.

The interviewers were questioning Kaine on what has become a central issue in the campaign. Kaine has a long history of opposition to the death penalty – and also abortion – on grounds that his Roman Catholic faith teaches that human life is sacred. That’s not a popular position in Virginia, which has executed more prisoners than any other state save Texas.

But Kaine has said that he will carry out executions if elected. He appears in one of his own ads, saying “I take my oath of office seriously, and I’ll enforce the death penalty.” In another ad, Kaine says “I’ll enforce death sentences handed down by Virginia juries because that’s the law.”

You know, you would think that after all the rightwingers in the country having meltdowns over being compared to Hitler and fascists, Republicans would stop bringing up Hitler. Period. In this case, Kilgore’s campaign brings up something his opponent never even said!

And they wonder why voter turnout is so low. Stupid politicians on both sides have basically given up discussing issues. It’s one thing to attack the leadership of a candidate or the candidate’s past actions, but this is just downright stupid.

More chilling effects:

Jib can Jab, but TBL has the Legendary K.O.
Unfortunately the people over at JibJab felt that the usage of clips from their animation ‘This Land’ was a copyright violation. They state that they don’t “sanction the use of their original work to further any political agenda.”

Their lawyers sent me a cease and desist letter demanding me to stop distributing the video. I find the whole situation ironic considering the history of JibJab’s “This Land” animation. I guess the fair-use doctrine only applies to a elite few.

No Fret…. I’ve re-edited the video sans the “infringing” clips. The new edit should be streaming now, the downloads should be accessible as well! Big thanks to David from TooStupidToBePresident.com who offered up replacement clips.

Free speech for me, but not for thee… Screw you Jib Jab…

I thought parody was protected? Anyone wanna weigh in on this one?

Josh Benson’s Sunday article for the New York Times on the suddenly-close race for New Jersey governor between Democratic Sen. Jon Corzine and Republican candidate Doug Forrester discusses the outside political celebrities each campaign is calling in: Karl Rove and Dick Cheney on the Republican side, Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama for the Democrats.

But while Rove and Cheney are labeled as “two distinctively conservative and polarizing figures,” neither Clinton or Obama are labeled as polarizing or even liberal, but instead are “two of Mr. Corzine’s more celebrated colleagues.”

So… Cheney and Rove are polarizing, but Hillary Clinton, of all people, isn’t?

She’s probably the most hated person in American politics by her opponents, and few people hold anything even close to a middle-of-the-road opinion of her. Wouldn’t that classify her as polarizing?

The insufferable Cory Bergman over at Lost Remote whines:

NBC’s The West Wing has dropped 30 percent in the ratings after the network moved it to Sunday night. I love the show — TiVo it religiously — but it’s a bad fit for Sunday night, especially when you consider ABC’s juggernaut (although you could argue Wednesday night against Lost was worse). Bottom line, the ratings drop may get the show canceled.

Hmmm… A supposedly brilliant show that everyone supposedly loves that can’t compete against another show. Guess people don’t love it enough to watch it instead of Extreme Makeover, Home Edition, eh?

If The West Wing was such a great show that everyone loved, it would slaughter a simplistic touchy feely feel good reality show. It’s not; the ratings bear it out. Guess its ratings are only good when nothing else is on.

Is your software EULA particularly bitchy? Well, here’s a great way to find out.

Link

Bias by placement? Probably… Considering those who dare think Intelligent Design is legitimate are usually castigated for it, I wouldn’t be surprised…

When the trial began in late September, the ACLU went first, bringing their witnesses to the stand. Powell’s articles on those testimonies were placed on page A3 on successive days (September 27-28). Now that the trial has progressed to the point where the respondents, the Dover, Pennsylvania school board, is calling its witnesses, and the story centered on the testimony of an ID defender is placed on page A13.

10 pages later. Now, I understand that the news cycle dictates the placement of the story, but let’s be honest… In the last two weeks, we haven’t exactly seen a rush of news in any area. And it is the Washington Post, which is not a tabloid sized newspaper.

In fact, just for the hell of it, I checked out today’s front page to see what really important stories are there. All of them are relatively timely news stories, except for one on ethnic beauty pageants. Way to hit that hard news, boys! Page appears after the jump if you care.

Read More »

Wilma Now Most Intense Atlantic Storm Ever
Oct 19 8:53 AM US/Eastern

By FREDDY CUEVAS
Associated Press Writer

SAN PEDRO SULA, Honduras

Gathering strength at a fierce pace, Hurricane Wilma swirled into the most intense Atlantic storm ever recorded Wednesday, a Category 5 monster packing 175 mph wind that forecasters warned was “extremely dangerous.”

Wilma was dumping rain on Central America and Mexico. A hurricane watch was in effect for the east coast of Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula, parts of Cuba and the Cayman Islands, and forecasters warned of a “significant threat” to Florida by the weekend.

“All interests in the Florida Keys and the Florida peninsula should closely monitor the progress of extremely dangerous Hurricane Wilma,” the National Hurricane Center in Miami said.

Wilma’s top sustained winds reached 175 mph early Wednesday in the most rapid strengthening ever recorded in a hurricane, said meteorologist Hugh Cobb of the National Hurricane Center in Miami. At the same time Tuesday, Wilma was only a tropical storm with winds of 70 mph.

Its confirmed pressure readings Wednesday morning dropped to 882 millibars _ the lowest ever measured in a hurricane in the Atlantic basin, according to the hurricane center. The strongest on record based on the lowest pressure reading is Hurricane Gilbert in 1988, which dipped to 888 millibars.

Wow… Makes Katrina and Rita look like puppies.

Alan Houston, shooting guard for the New York Knicks yesterday announced his retirement from the NBA. Many people wonder what the Knicks will do without the presence of the 11th best three-point shooter in NBA history.

I just wonder what the difference is, seeing as he’s hardly played since signing his name on a Knick contract anyway.

Well, it’s true. I’ve arrived at the conclusion that they really are the scum of the earth.

My father in law bought a 2002 Dodge Grand Caravan Sport from a used car dealer locally. The night he bought it home, we took my wife’s grandmother out for dinner. Afterward, he took me over to the van to show it to me. Truth is, it was in awesome shape. Clean as a whistle, well kept, and so on.

“I have one problem,” he tells me. “I can’t seem to get the dashboard lights to come on.”

Thinking this was a simple enough request, I head over to the car. I plotz into the driver’s seat, turn the nob, and bammo. Nothing. Not a single light to be had. I played with buttons, switches, clickers, and everything else for twenty minutes and ended up not figuring it out. Not wanting to be the one to let him down, I was as persistent as all hell, but gave up when I realized that Grandma was waiting to get in the van and be driven home. He told me he would check out the owner’s manual when he got home, and if that didn’t have an answer, he would visit the dealer.

Made sense to me. The dealer would know.

Yesterday was grandma’s 95th birthday. Sam and Helaine (my mother and father in law) took Beth and I up to New City to the cousins that were having the party. On the way up, I asked Sam if he had gotten an answer from the dealer. He told me, “The dash doesn’t light up. That’s why the dials are white.”

I almost punched my fist through the window I was so angry.

I told Sam that I thought it was one of two things. Either a bulb, or a fuse, and that tomorrow (today) we would check out his car after I went to church.

We went to the party, and when it was time to leave, we all piled back into the van. Sam readied everything, and we headed off. In the suburban “no-streetlight-town” of New City, there was no light whatsoever to be found anywhere outside, making the unbelievably dark inside even darker. It was at that point, I realized something.

It wasn’t a bulb, it was actually a fuse.

If it was a bulb, the console lights would be on but not the dial lights. As it was, everything was out. I told Sam that, and promised to keep my appointment after church today. After church today, I grabbed lunch, then went over there, meter in hand, to check the fuses. One by one I pulled them, while reading the list of what they were on the lid of the panel. Finally, I saw a relay that said “Accessory Relay.” JACKPOT! It was the oldest looking one in the panel. I pulled it, looked it over, and it looked okay, just old. I took the relay and jammed it hard back into the panel, got inside and turned on the dash lights.

Guess what?

They lit.

As it turns out, the dealer lied, and the relay was either bad, going bad, or just poorly seated. Not wanting to find out which, we went to Pep Boys and picked up a new one. I opened the hood right there, put the new relay in, and voila. Everything works beautifully.

What annoys me most is the way my father in law was taken advantage of. He didn’t know any better, so he took the dealer on his word. I guess the dealer didn’t want the car to appear defective, so he just bs’ed his way out of it, and instead of taking a look at it and finding out it really was just a $10 part, he left my father in law to drive an unsafe vehicle.

Honestly, I now understand quite clearly where these guys get their reputation from. Used car dealers are the scum that they’re portrayed to be. Anyone who would let a 65 year old man drive a car with no console lights and tell him that’s normal, is scum. Period.

My father in law is quite happy now, and I scored major son in law points.

All in all, a very productive and rewarding day. I even suggested that Sam take the van back to this jerk at night so he can see the dashboard lights all lit up, exactly the way he said they weren’t supposed to.

TWO former French ambassadors have admitted earning hundreds of thousands of dollars from the sale of oil that Iraq had assigned to them under the United Nations Oil-for-Food programme.

The disclosure tarnished France’s moral stand against the invasion of Iraq, and its Foreign Ministry scrambled to distance itself from the alleged illicit activities of Serge Boidevaix, a former director of the ministry, and of Jean-Bernard Mérimée, a former French Ambassador to the UN. Both are facing corruption charges.

Jean-Baptiste Mattei, spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, said: “There is no link . . . with the decision of France not to participate in the Iraq war. This stemmed from our concept of international law.”

Word that the two men had acknowledged payoffs from Baghdad has embarrassed the ministry, which fears that the actions of two retired diplomats will be used to discredit President Chirac’s opposition towards the invasion of Iraq.

I’m sure they’re completely unrelated, and Mr. Chirac’s opposition is purely coincidental and heartfelt.

Now, about this monkey flying out of my bum…

And one more quick question: Why are the activities “alleged” if the people involved copped to doing it?

Link

Ladies, if you’re single, please be careful when ordering stuff… You never know when this could happen to you! And bear in mind, this isn’t a guy impersonating a Fresh Direct driver, it was an actual driver:

I normally order Fresh Direct once a week as you do when you are either too lazy to go to the store or just too busy with work and life in general. I’ve had problems in the past like my eggs being crushed, my entire frozen order of ice cream sandwiches and fudgesicles being completely luiquidized by the time they get to my door, but it seemed worth it just to pay $2.39 for a 16oz tub of cottage cheese as compared to $3.99 around the corner.

And thus started the problem. Click here for the rest of the story, and please do be careful.

I hope they throw the book at this sonofabitch.

You know what the funniest thing about this clip is? It was only a few seconds long, and of the 1 1/2 hours of Saturday Night Live, it was by far the funniest thing on it.

View this clip on Vimeo

Go figure.