RWN is going to have button and text ads available for February. Also, keep in mind that I have special going on the text ads for next month. They're only $5, that's right, $5 for a text ad in Feb. Considering that RWN pulled 183,794 daily uniques & 352,090 pageviews last month, I don't think you're going to find a better advertising deal on the entire internet. You can get more details on button and text ads by clicking here.

Hey George Bush! You put forth an immigration plan that is wildly unpopular with the American people & that infuriated most of your base -- and for what? Ostensibly so you could pander to pro-illegal immigration Latinos & dirtball business owners who want to hire illegal aliens and let the rest of America pick up the tab. Well, guess what W? Unsurprisingly, you just got "outpandered" by the Democrats...

"House Democrats yesterday proposed granting legal residency and the eventual option of U.S. citizenship to millions of illegal immigrants now working in the United States.

...Democrats propose allowing foreign-born minors who are here illegally to stay in the United States, attend college and eventually earn legal status. Democrats said that "at minimum" they support a bill, already approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee, to allow states to grant in-state college tuition rates to illegal-alien students. That bill would also authorize federal officials to halt deportation of such students and allow the students to eventually become permanent U.S. residents.

Mrs. Pelosi said if Mr. Bush were serious about improving the system, he would call for immediate action on the House counterpart to that Senate bill, as well as another House bill that would allow 500,000 illegal agricultural workers to become legal permanent residents."

So was it really worth it, W?

Paris, France - Speaking from his presidential campaign headquarters this morning, Senator John F. Kerry-Heinz denied accusations from his opponents for the Democrat nomination that he is a “glorified gigolo” and “playboy” who has used his wife’s millions to garner a top position in the crowded field for the Democrat nomination.

Kerry-Heinz seemed particularly upset at the Rev. Al Sharpton’s characterization of him as a “lazy @ss cracker who’s never worked a day in his life.” Kerry-Heinz’s voice almost displayed emotion as he told the press, “I’ll have you know that I worked very hard to become Mr. Heinz and have access to my wife’s inheritance. I had to work out three hours a day and undergo a strict nutritional regimen to be able to compete against the young gigolos out there, many of whom are two decades younger than me. And I did it before viagra.”

Kerry-Heinz then stormed out of the session, but returned briefly to announce, “And another thing. Bagging an older wealthy widow has changed me in many ways. I have a lot more respect for Richard Gere now.”

In related news, Senator Kerry-Heinz announced that if he is elected president he will divorce his current wife and will marry either Queen Noor of Jordan, Anna-Nicole Smith or a widow to be named later.

If you enjoyed this satire by William Grim, you can read more of his work at Broken News.

Wealthy U.S. Senators from both sides of the aisle today agreed to use their personal funds to make up the difference between the promised cost of the new Medicare drug benefit and the latest Bush administration cost estimates -- a gap of about $130 billion over 10 years.

"Like any other business, when you make a mistake you have to eat it," said an unnamed aide to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-TN. "We can't go to the taxpayers and say 'Oops! We said we needed $400 billion of your money, but it's really $530 billion.' They'd tar and feather us -- or at least vote us out of office."

Although only 11 Democrats voted for the measure, the other 35 agreed to help plug the funding gap because they only voted against it because they want a more expensive plan.

"If we had our way," said an unnamed Democrat senator, "We'd be talking trillion, instead of billion. It's only fair that we pony up for this."

The Senators said they would get some help paying for the new entitlement program by lifting the cap on contributions to legislators by pharmaceutical industry lobbyists.

Meanwhile, independent Vermont Sen. Jim Jeffords introduced a bill calling on the Bush administration to reduce its estimate of the cost of the Medicare drug plan.

If you enjoyed this satire by Scott Ott, you can read more of his work at Scrappleface.

Dallas (AP) - released 9 minutes ago. Junior Senator Hillary Clinton of New York was flying cross-country tonight in her private plane and was forced to make a emergency landing in southern Texas because of bad weather. She was unhurt and the National Transportation Safety Board officials have determined that pilot error was the cause of the accident.

The accident scene pictures including the wreckage of Hillary's plane have been released prior to being returned to upper New York State for major repairs. NTSB officials have also indicated that the Junior Senator was not wearing the appropriate seat belt or safety restraints and will be sited for those violations accordingly. NTSB officials also say the absence of a post crash fire was due to the lack of sufficient fuel on board to sustain flight. There were no on ground fatalities. A pciture of the crash site is shown below.
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I got this one in my email and yes I know it was cheesy, but it just struck me as funny.

Because I believe we can learn from all living creatures -- well, except the French -- I have been observing my dog Patton in an effort to gain an insight into his keen doggy wisdom.

Now after watching Patton, I am ready to share...

The Top 10 Things I've Learned From Watching My Dog

10) The proper way to greet new people is bark insanely at them and then run and jump on the back of their legs when they turn around.

9) Used cat litter is apparently much tastier than you'd think it would be.

8) If it's cold outside, the area beside the couch is a perfectly acceptable alternate place to poop.

7) Anything that runs from you, be it a child, a cat, or even a car, is just begging to get chased.

6) If you suspect someone is snooping somewhere they shouldn't be, like at your work cubicle, marking your territory with your own urine will make them think twice before invading your space.

5) There's nothing that says, "I'm happy to see you" to a good friend like jumping up and down in a circle and then trying to lick them on the mouth.

4) The garbage is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to find when you go rooting through it looking for something to eat.

3) You can never really know another living creature unless you sniff its butt.

2) When you meet a female you're attracted to, just immediately start trying to hump her. If she likes it great, but if she growls, it was never meant to be...until she's in heat.

1) Drinking out of the toilet bowl in a pinch is A-OK!

Robert B. Reich had a column in the New York Times today about building a "progressive movement". Here are a few excerpts that'll give you the gist of column...

"The dismal fifth-place showing by Senator Joseph Lieberman in the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday serves as both reminder and motivator to the other Democratic presidential candidates on what it will take to win in November. For so long now, everyone has assumed that recapturing the presidency depends on who triumphs in the battle between liberals and moderates within the party. Such thinking, though, is inherently flawed. The real fight is between those who want only to win back the White House and those who also want to build a new political movement — one that rivals the conservative movement that has given Republicans their dominant position in American politics.

...As we head into the next wave of primaries, the Democratic candidates should pay close attention to what Republicans have learned about winning elections. First, it is crucial to build a political movement that will endure after particular electoral contests. Second, in order for a presidency to be effective, it needs a movement that mobilizes Americans behind it. Finally, any political movement derives its durability from the clarity of its convictions. And there's no better way to clarify convictions than to hone them in political combat."

I've heard similar sentiments to the ones Reich expresses in this column, quite often from the left. You know, it's "All we have to do is get a few think tanks going, break into talk radio, get a liberal television network, and then we're home free".

But, I think there's a simple reason why conservatives have been gathering strength since 1980 or so as liberal influence has slowly waned. Simply put, conservative ideas have worked a lot better than liberal ideas. Free trade produces economic growth and protectionism hurts it. Tax cuts have spurred economic growth. Government is too big, its spending is too high, and the deficit is having a negative impact on our country. Getting tough on criminals does reduce crime. American military can produce results international law never has and probably never will. I can go on and on with this.

Given that and the fact that conservatives have broken the liberal stranglehold on the media, I don'tthink there is ever again going to be a "progressive movement" that matches conservatism. If the left wants to beat the right, they're not going win long-term campaigning as politically correct, big government, protectionists, who want to hand over much of our sovereignty to the UN. However, ironically, because of triangulation, the Dems may actually get more of their agenda implemented by REPUBLICAN Presidents looking to "take issues away from them" than they would by a liberal President who would face vehement opposition from Republicans in Congress. Just to name two examples, if we had a Democratic President, I don't think campaign finance reform or the prescription drug act would have become law because the GOP would have been true to their instincts and fought them all the way.

Last but not least, the left is going to find it very difficult to have the kind of open debates, that actually lead to "clarify(ing) convictions". I say that because despite what you hear many left-wingers claim, on the whole, the left is much more dogmatic and less open to debate about ideas than the right. Conservatives may be hard on RINOS for example, but the left will practically excommunicate people who take certain positions. For instance, think of how Christopher Hitchens has been treated because of his stand on the war. As another example, simply agreeing with Bush on just about anything is enough to get you called a "Rove plant" or a "disruptor" at hard core left haunts like the Democratic Underground.

Without that open debate, without that changing of ideas, there isn't going to be a new "progressive movement" that takes on the right. So unfortunately for the left, I think they've had their heyday, and slowly, but surely, they're going to continue to lose ground.

When I heard last night that George Bush intended to increase the budget of the National Endowment of the Arts for 15-20 million dollars, the largest increase in two decades, I just could not believe it. Bush is already being blasted for spending too much money, his base doesn't like the National Endowment for the Arts, and I seriously doubt that NEA funding is going to be a significant campaign issue.

More importantly, the very idea that a country running nearly a 500 billion deficit should be funding artists is simply asinine. Even if we weren't running a deficit, the government would have no business funding art. This isn't ancient Rome and we don't need a coliseum to keep the people entertained so they won't riot. There is no dearth of entertainment or art in our country, nor would there be without government funding.

"But John, but John, they might have to close a playhouse, a museum, or a symphony if the government funding dried up. What about our cultural values?"

I have to admit something to you here; I am a real philistine when it comes to art. I think the whole idea that there's something inherently better about going to the symphony than let's say a country music show, or going to see "Cats" instead of a movie, is just elitist snobbery that's drummed into us from the time we're small. If you want to see a play or a symphony, fine, go do it. But, let's not pretend there is something so special about playhouses or symphonies that the government needs to step in to keep them open if the public doesn't want to buy the tickets.

We live in a rich, capitalistic society and there is plenty of money out there for deserving artists. But, if an artist can't make it without the government's help, then I'd suggest they either quit or get a day job and treat their art like a hobby. If it's good enough for bloggers, it's good enough for artists.

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) announced today it would fund a special production of Arthur Miller's 'Death of a Salesman' as a tribute to President George Bush.

The announcement comes on the same day as news that the President will request $15-$20 million in additional funding for the NEA, a government agency which distributes taxpayer dollars to artists whose work is so good they cannot make a living doing it.

The play tells the story of Willy Loman, a salesman whose highest value in life is to be well liked. The production will debut at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. this fall.

"We just saw a parallel between Mr. Bush and Mr. Loman that was both touching and tragic," said an unnamed NEA spokesman. "And Mr. Bush will be well-liked among artists and liberals as long as the cash keeps flowing."

If you enjoyed this satire by Scott Ott, you can read more of his work at Scrappleface.

Now that David Kay is saying that Iraq didn't produce significant quantities of WMD in the nineties, we've had the same old people, making the same old ridiculous claims that "Bush lied" about WMD. That's simply not true. The intelligence community has been consistently saying all along that Saddam had WMD and the easiest way to prove that is the case is to show you the quotes from Democrats who like Bush, also said that Hussein had WMD. Furthermore, there are Democrats on the committee on intelligence, so there's no way any Dem can credibly claim they were misled by Bush. This time around, I've added new quotes from Tom Harkin, Wesley Clark, John Kerry, Joe Lieberman, Ted Kennedy, John Edwards, Sandy Berger, & Jim Jeffords.

These quotes should be all the proof you'll need to convince any open minded person that George Bush didn't lie about WMD...(Cont)

Just for entertainment's sake, I thought I'd post all the TV shows I regularly watch...and yes, in case you were wondering, I may be the most lowbrow conservative pundit on the net when it comes to the television I watch. All that's missing HBO's Real Sex and Slamball....

Carolina Panthers Football
CSI
Futurama
Highlander (It's in reruns now)
Reno 911
The Simpsons
South Park
Star Trek Enterprise
Star Trek: The Next Generation (Did I mention reruns?)
WWE Smackdown
WWE Raw
X-Files (More reruns)

We often hear left-wingers moaning about the "crushing of dissent," but in reality, many left-wingers see, quite comfortable with trying to silence people with whom they disagree.

The latest example of this is in Tennessee which, "has more than 100 specialty license plates, supporting everything from the Great Smoky Mountains National Park to out-of-state colleges." In the past, the...

Tennessee chapters of the American Civil Liberties Union and Planned Parenthood have sued the state over the Choose Life plate, saying it restricts free speech."

Of course, the ACLU and Planned Parenthood had a problem with the message of the plate, but because that alone wouldn't fly in a court of law, they ironically claimed that they were supporting free speech by preventing people from putting "Choose Life" license plates on their car.

Fast forward to today and there is another specialty license plate controversy in Tennessee. This time a Sons of Confederate Veterans license plate is being opposed by the NAACP. I want you to just take a look at why Johnnie R. Turner, executive director of the Memphis branch of the NAACP says these plates shouldn't be allowed...

"In this day and age when we’re trying to be inclusive, promoting diversity and when we’re developing an appreciation of the uniqueness that each group brings, it is appalling that any one group would have the legal authority to display any emblem or symbol that any segment of the population would find insensitive. To give legal sanction that is contrary to what the national agenda should be is unthinkable and inexcusable."

I'm not sure if that quote reminds me more of "1984" or the type of conversations they must have had in the Soviet Union before Stalin's purges, but in any case, it's a deplorable sentiment. No one who has even the tiniest shred of respect for the First Amendment could actually believe that it should be illegal to "display any emblem or symbol that any segment of the population would find insensitive." Furthermore, this line, "To give legal sanction that is contrary to what the national agenda should be is unthinkable and inexcusable" sounds like something that was lifted out of a Fidel Castro speech.

These left-wingers in Tennessee need to spend a little less time filing lawsuits and grandstanding and a little more time contemplating that great quote often misattributed to Voltaire,

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"

Hat tip to Tongue Tied for finding this story.

I'm still trying to work on my book that will analyze the methods and motives of liberals. I meant to get a whole chapter done yesterday, but something came up and I didn't finish it. Anyway, here is what I got so far, and I'd love to hear some opinions. Is it too zany? Not zany enough?

“Look! Federal Government!”

Liberals want to take my money and spend it on poor people and children, but I hate poor people and children and like my money. So, you ask, why I don’t I just throw a stick at liberals when they come for my money?

I wish it were that simple.

You see, a long time ago liberals infiltrated the government and its tax system, and now I have to give money to be spent on all the crazy ideas liberals come up with or mean men will beat me up and throw me in jail. It’s horrible but true.

It all happened back in 1913 when people wore funny clothes and hats because they didn’t know any better. Some people were complaining that the rich weren’t paying their “fair share”(1) and thus proposed an amendment to the Constitution to allow income tax. Why the rich people back then didn’t use their wealth to have people with those viewpoints killed is unknown(2), but now we are stuck with the 16th Amendment which allowed the government easy access to our incomes. Soon followed all the programs like welfare, social security, Medicare, etc.; all things that a young, gainfully employed person like me has absolutely no use for.

But in liberals’ twisted sense of reality, this is charity, except that it’s forcefully taking money for others for worthless boondoggles thus making it nothing like charity. When I think of charity, I think of Jesus, and his modus operandi was not to help the poor by taking the money of others at gunpoint and then pistol-whipping them. Actually, I don’t think Jesus pistol-whipped anyone at all.(3) Still, liberals convince themselves that by stealing the hard earned money of others they are doing good, and there is method to their madness. What does control of people’s money equal in simpler terms?

If you raised your hand and said, “Power,” please be quiet while reading. But yes, control of other people’s money is one of liberals’ main paths to power. It will be a reoccurring theme throughout the discussion of liberal viewpoints that they believe that they are the only smart ones and that everyone who doesn’t agree with them is very, very dumb. Thus, in their simple mind processes, the more money they take from people as taxes and spend themselves, the more money that is spent wisely. They think that is a great policy, when, in fact, the more money taken from conservatives, the angrier we get. And making us angry is always a very bad idea.(4)

Now, the taking of the money is one thing, but what these liberals spend it on is just insult to injury. They try to make the federal government help people. Help people! As we common folk(5) know, the federal government is a massive lumbering entity mainly useful for making foreign people dead(6), but the idea of having the federal government help individuals makes as much sense as having Godzilla run a daycare center – it’s more likely to crush people than to help them. But, as the federal government runs amok, breathing fire on people and knocking over buildings, do liberals finally realize their programs don’t work? No! They always answer that the problem is that the programs just need more funding. Why? Because they’re insane – insane with power from your money.

NOTES
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1. No one yet as to exactly figure out what a “fair share” is by liberal “logic”. All that is known is what a fair share is not: it’s not whatever the rich are paying now.
2. Some theories are that the rich were lazy back then or had too much opium in their diet.
3. The Bible is sketchy on Jesus’ teenage years, though.
4. I’ll get to the topic of guns later.
5. “Common folk” is my shorthand for “people who are not pompous morons”.
6. For more information on America’s skill at killing evil foreign people put into a Google search “America war –Vietnam”. Damn hippies.

If you enjoyed this satire by Frank J., you can read more of his work at IMAO.

Since John Kerry -- or as I think of him, Senator Flip-Flop -- has won in New Hampshire, he now has to be considered the odds on favorite to take the Democratic nomination. So, I thought it was time to put out my first batch of John Kerry quotes. While Kerry is not as wacky as Howard Dean or Wesley Clark, he still has his moments. Kerry has flip-flopped far more than anyone else in the race, has been talking about Saddam's WMD since before the Gulf War, and I suspect that a lot more is going to come out about Kerry's radical, pro-Communist, anti-war activities after Vietnam before it's all said and done. But in the interim, let's get things started with a few quotes...

Misc

"Mr. Kerry voted for the USA Patriot Act, Mr. Bush's No Child Left Behind education bill and the Congressional resolution authorizing the president to use force in Iraq, only to sharply criticize all three once he became a presidential candidate. Mr. Kerry counters that his quarrel is with Mr. Bush's execution of the policies, but he struggled for months to explain his shifting stance on the Iraq war." -- Todd S. Purdum, Jan 25, 2004 in the New York Times

"For those of us who are fortunate to share an Irish ancestry, we take great pride in the contributions that Irish-Americans" -— Senate floor statement by John Kerry, 3/18/86

"(John Kerry) has never indicated to anyone that he was Irish and corrected people over the years who assumed he was" -- Kerry spokeswoman Kelly Benander said in Feb, 2003

"I voted for what I thought was best for the country. Did I expect Howard Dean to go off to the left and say, 'I'm against everything'? Sure. Did I expect George Bush to f*ck it up as badly as he did? I don't think anybody did." -- John Kerry in Rolling Stone

"Everybody always makes the mistake of looking South. Al Gore proved he could have been president of the United States without winning one Southern state, including his own." -- John Kerry

"I don't believe in litmus tests, but I believe very strongly that the right to choose and the right to privacy are fundamental constitutional rights and I can't imagine supporting a Supreme Court nominee who doesn't share my view of the Constitution." -- John Kerry explains his Roe Vs. Wade litmus test after explaining that he doesn't believe in litmus tests

"John Kerry. In his 20 years in the Senate, he's been a standard-issue Massachusetts liberal, with a lifetime rating from Americans for Democratic Action of 93 on their 0-100 scale. By contrast, the other Senator from the Bay State, Teddy Kennedy, has a lifetime rating of 88. "That makes Kennedy the conservative of the two," chortled Republican National Chairman Ed Gillespie as he visited New Hampshire last week on an anti-Democratic strafing run." -- James Pinkerton, 1/26/04

"Sen. John F. Kerry has said he was ‘very proud’ of his vote to increase the (gas) tax by 4.3 cents per gallon..." -- Michael Kranish, The Boston Globe, 5/4/96

Vietnam

"I am saddened by the fact that Vietnam has yet again been inserted into the campaign, and that it has been inserted in what I feel to be the worst possible way... What saddens me most is that Democrats, above all those who shared the agonies of that generation, should now be re-fighting the many conflicts of Vietnam in order to win the current political conflict of a presidential primary." -- John Kerry back in 1992

"Under Kerry's leadership, VVAW (Vietnam Veterans Against The War) members mocked the uniform of United States soldiers by wearing tattered fatigues marked with pro-Communist graffiti. They dishonored America by marching in demonstrations under the flag of the Viet Cong enemy.” -- Vietnam Veterans Against John Kerry

"(N)o one in the United States Senate pushed harder to bury the POW/MIA issue, the last obstacle preventing normalization of relations with Hanoi, than John Forbes Kerry." -- US Veteran Dispatch

On The War In Iraq & WMD

"[W]e urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs." -- From a letter signed by Joe Lieberman, Dianne Feinstein, Barbara A. Milulski, Tom Daschle, & John Kerry among others on October 9, 1998

"The threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real, but as I said, it is not new. It has been with us since the end of that war, and particularly in the last 4 years we know after Operation Desert Fox failed to force him to reaccept them, that he has continued to build those weapons. He has had a free hand for 4 years to reconstitute these weapons, allowing the world, during the interval, to lose the focus we had on weapons of mass destruction and the issue of proliferation." -- John Kerry, 10/9/02

"(W)e need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime. We all know the litany of his offenses. He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation. ...And now he is miscalculating America’s response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction. That is why the world, through the United Nations Security Council, has spoken with one voice, demanding that Iraq disclose its weapons programs and disarm. So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real, but it is not new. It has been with us since the end of the Persian Gulf War." -- John Kerry, 1/23/03

"Iraq may not be the war on terror itself, but it is critical to the outcome of the war on terror, and therefore any advance in Iraq is an advance forward in that..." -- John Kerry 12/15/03

"When it was popular to be a Massachusetts liberal, his voting record was that. When it was popular to be for the Iraq war, he was for it. Now it's popular to be against it, and he's against it." -- Jay Carson, a Dean campaign spokesman

Here's David Frum on the support Bush is currently getting from his conservative base,

"I’ve been traveling from one talk-radio station to another, listening both to the callers and the hosts, when the mikes are on and when the mikes are off. Twelve months ago, the support for President Bush among conservatives was rock-solid: I mean, Reagan 1984 solid. Today, that support is still more solid than not – but just enough softer that if I were a Bush political adviser, I’d be concerned."

I agree completely with David Frum's analysis and I do think it could be a real problem for Bush. A base that is unhappy doesn't contribute as much money, doesn't rave about you to their independent friends, and may decide to stay home on election day. So how should Bush handle it? Well, if I were in Karl Rove's shoes, I would tell Bush to...

1) Stick to his guns on limiting non-defense spending to 1%. In fact, when Congress inevitably comes back to Bush with spending way above that level, I'd recommend that Bush use the first veto of his presidency. That would go a long way towards convincing conservatives that Bush is actually serious about controlling spending.

2) Bush's immigration reform is a huge loser overall. Sure, it MIGHT bring in a FEW more Latinos, but if it infuriates half of your base, is it really worth it? So what I'd tell Bush to do is set up a committee to study the issue for 6 months. Then he should load it up with anti-immigration conservatives, and after the results come out in 6 months, scrap the old plan and say the reform is being made tougher, but the new plan won't be ready until after the election. This has been the biggest misstep of Bush's Presidency in my opinion and killing it can only help his chances.

3) I'd also advise Bush to stop being coy about gay marriage and declare that since judges are taking the decision away from state legislatures, he has no choice other than to support a Constitutional Amendment to protect the sanctity of marriage. Gay marriage is not an issue like abortion, where you have two highly motivated sides that are roughly equal in size and intensity of feeling (I actually think the pro-life side is a bit stronger, but that's a debate for another day). Proponents of gay marriage are significantly outnumbered, are for the most part not members of Bush's base, and this is not a big issue for most of them. So by coming out against gay marriage, Bush is throwing red meat not only to his base, but to a majority of Americans who also feel very strongly about this issue.

Now combine those 3 issues with cutting taxes and continuing the fight in the war on terrorism and I think Bush can really firm up support from his base without alienating a significant number of independents who might otherwise be inclined to vote for him.

Just for entertainment's sake, here is what I'm listening to right now...

3 Days Grace -- I hate everything about you
3 Doors Down -- Here without you
Chris Cagel -- Chicks dig it
Cold -- Stupid girl
Sheryl Crow -- Soak up the sun
Creed -- One last breath
The Delphonics -- Didn't I blow your mind
Tomoyasu Hotei -- Battle without honor or humanity
Inner Circle -- Bad boys
Linkin Park -- Numb
Ludacris -- Stand up
Nelly, P. Diddy, Murphy Lee -- Shake your tailfeather
No Secrets -- Kids in America
Outkast -- Hey ya
Outkast -- I love the way you move
Rage Against The Machine -- How I could just kill a man
Stabbing Westward -- Save yourself
Tool -- Sober
Trapt -- Headstrong
The Who -- Behind blue eyes

It's not a shoe-in that Bush will be elected president once again, so I'd thought I'd list what could most likely throw off his campaign.

TOP TEN WAYS BUSH COULD LOSE THE ELECTION

10. New double-butterfly ballot causes stupid voters to accidentally vote for who they meant to vote for.

9. For his T.V. spots, he hires the people who did those original Mentos commercials.

8. Is unable to prove that that prostitute was already dead before he got there.

7. Loses conservative base by increasing spending, raising taxes, and aborting every baby in sight.

6. Before the election, he fails to find WMD's, Osama bin Laden, and pants.

5. Finally convinces everyone there are no similarities between him and Hitler just before Hitler has a huge popularity boost.

4. Alienates Catholic voters by murdering the pope.

3. It's revealed he is an illegal immigrant and is deported to Mexico.

2. Loses his loveable dumb guy image by curing cancer.

1. Starts new space program; sends men to wrong moon.

If you enjoyed this satire by Frank J., you can read more of his work at IMAO.

I consider David Kay to be a credible source, so if he says that , "I don't think there was a large-scale production program in (Iraq in) the '90s," I think that is highly likely to be the case.

That means that I and a lot of other people including George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, the CIA, Tony Blair, Wesley Clark, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Joe Lieberman, John Kerry, Nancy Pelosi, Tom Daschle, were wrong about Iraq's WMD.

So why were so many people, both Democrats and Republicans, wrong about Iraq's WMD? Well, do keep in mind that Saddam DID have WMD programs and intended to produce more WMD. As David Kay mentioned in his first report,

"...New research on BW-applicable agents, Brucella and Congo Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF), and continuing work on ricin and aflatoxin were not declared to the UN."

...Saddam, at least as judged by those scientists and other insiders who worked in his military-industrial programs, had not given up his aspirations and intentions to continue to acquire weapons of mass destruction. Even those senior officials we have interviewed who claim no direct knowledge of any on-going prohibited activities readily acknowledge that Saddam intended to resume these programs whenever the external restrictions were removed. Several of these officials acknowledge receiving inquiries since 2000 from Saddam or his sons about how long it would take to either restart CW production or make available chemical weapons."

In his latest comments, David Kay added,

"Regarding biological weapons, he said there was evidence that the Iraqis continued research and development "right up until the end" to improve their ability to produce ricin. "They were mostly researching better methods for weaponization," Dr. Kay said. "They were maintaining an infrastructure, but they didn't have large-scale production under way.

He added that Iraq did make an effort to restart its nuclear weapons program in 2000 and 2001, but that the evidence suggested that the program was rudimentary at best and would have taken years to rebuild, after being largely abandoned in the 1990's...."

Furthermore, Kay says that the Iraqis themselves appeared to have overestimated their own capabilities,

"The whole thing shifted from directed programs to a corrupted process," Dr. Kay said. "The regime was no longer in control; it was like a death spiral. Saddam was self-directing projects that were not vetted by anyone else. The scientists were able to fake programs.

"They all said they didn't have it, but they thought other units had it," Dr. Kay said. He said it appeared they were the victims of a disinformation campaign orchestrated by Mr. Hussein."

Kay was also quite hard on our intelligence services and made it very clear that they clearly believed Saddam had WMD,

"As a result, virtually everyone in the United States intelligence community during both the Clinton and the current Bush administrations thought Iraq still had the illicit weapons, he said. And the government became a victim of its own certainty.

"All the analysts I have talked to said they never felt pressured on W.M.D.," he said. "Everyone believed that they had W.M.D."

So what's the long and short of all this?

First of all, as Kay says, "virtually everyone in the United States intelligence community during both the Clinton and the current Bush administrations thought Iraq still had the illicit weapons," so the people trying to claim that "Bush lied" about WMD are either ill informed or are deliberately trying to mislead the American public.

Secondly, it's pretty clear that our intelligence agencies were off the mark about what Saddam actually had. So, we need to try to find out why that happened and try to take some corrective steps to make sure it doesn't happen again. That being said, given the nature of work that they do, I have to question how our intelligence agencies were supposed to know Iraq didn't have stocks of WMD when everything needed to produce them was in place, Saddam himself apparently believed in the existence of fake programs, & the senior officers of the Special Republican Guards believed the WMD existed.

Last but not least, even if Saddam did not have significant stocks of WMD when we invaded, it's very clear that he had the capability and intention of creating them when the heat was off. And the reality is that Saddam couldn't be contained forever. At some point, even the anti-war crowd has to acknowledge that if a decade of sanctions and the threat of war didn't get Saddam to give up on WMD for good, then nothing short of an invasion was going to keep WMD out of his hands once for all. That's the reality of the situation and as far as I'm concerned, we made the right decison. Heck, even if Saddam wouldn't have had any WMD programs or a desire to create them, taking him out would have still been the right decision.

Take a look at this Q&A from John Pilger, a popular, "mainstream," lefty pundit in Australia who has been published at the BBC, LA Times, New York Times, The Guardian, Daily Mirror, & The Sydney Morning Herald among other places ...

Q: Do you think the anti-war movement should be supporting Iraq's anti-occupation resistance?

John Pilger: Yes, I do. We cannot afford to be choosy. While we abhor and condemn the continuing loss of innocent life in Iraq, we have no choice now but to support the resistance, for if the resistance fails, the “Bush gang” will attack another country. If they succeed, a grievous blow will be suffered by the Bush gang.

So here we have a prominent left-winger who is openly rooting for American troops to die, rooting for the terrorists to win, rooting for a resistance that murders many more Iraqi civilians than American soldiers, & in effect rooting for Democracy in Iraq to collapse, as long as it hurts Bush.

How sad is it to see left-wingers like Pilger making common cause with the likes of Al-Qaeda & Saddam Hussein just because George Bush is their mutual enemy? After making comments this beyond the pale, John Pilger shouldn't be able to get a job as a janitor at any reputable newspaper, but I'll be surprised if he's even condemned by a significant number of well known left-wingers. Maybe, just maybe, the left will rise to the occasion for once and slam one of their own for siding with the terrorists against America, but somehow I doubt it...

Hat tip to Whacking Day for finding this one.

Last night, I listened to a two hour long show on National Public Radio called, "The Blogging of the President." To be blunt, it was punishingly dull. The show featured a host who knew almost nothing about blogging, columnists like Richard Reeves and Frank Rich who knew almost nothing about blogging, callers who for the most part knew almost nothing about blogging, and really boring bloggers like Joshua Micah Marshall and Ed Cone being duller than I thought was humanly possible. The only interesting part of the show was the end where Atrios, Andrew Sullivan, & Jeff Jarvis were going back and forth.

You know, we see programs and articles like this all the time and usually, they're not very good. So can I make some suggestions to these old media types who are trying to learn something about blogs?

#1) How about taking a few minutes to talk to some bloggers and learn what the heck blogging is all about? How hard is that?

#2) Stop talking to snooty journalism professors and condescending columnists who aren't even bloggers. Asking someone like Frank Rich about blogging is like asking Magic Johnson to be a commentator on Monday Night Football. He may be a big name, but does he know enough to talk about it intelligently?

#3) Talk to some fresh faces. There are so many GREAT blogging stories out there for a journalist to explore. Bloggers who; are anonymous, have moved from left to right, done great charity work, have risen from obscurity to notoriety.

Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs for example has gone from being a nobody to being read by lots of big name conservative columnists. What about Michele Catalano at A Small Victory and all the projects and charity work she has done through blogging? How about Scott Ott at Scrappleface, a humor blogger who is now published in the Weekly Standard? What about Steven Den Beste, Bill Quick, Citizen Smash, Daily Kos, or Dean Esmay?

There are a lot of great stories out there for journalists if they just want to put a little effort into digging them out...

A shocking and strongly worded advertisement placed in The New York Times and signed by "A. Hitler" has compared MoveOn.org to President Bush. All sides are now offended.

The full page ad was at first misplaced by Times staff, and found just yesterday under copies of book manuscripts Jayson Blair was working on before he got fired, including "The Old Man and the Sea" and "Un-Civil War: My Firsthand Account of the Battle of Antietam."

The ad ran in this morning's edition of the paper.

In the advertisement, Hitler writes, "you morons don't know what real evil is. MoveOn.org has compared Bush to me, when in fact MoveOn.org has a lot more in common with Bush than he does with me, and vice versa ... hold on, I'm getting myself mixed up."

Hitler's ad continues, "In fact, none of you hyperbolizing pinheads are as evil as me... probably the closest things you have are Carrottop and Bryant Gumbel, but they're still miles away from the hellborn monstrosity that I am."

It's not known if the ad is a hoax, or if somehow Hitler himself has managed to reach out from his seat on the end of Satan's fork at the Hades Bar & Grill to compare MoveOn.org to Bush.

Hitler's blurb has for now put a stop to MoveOn.org's comparisons of Bush to Hitler. Bush fans are also putting on hold plans to compare MoveOn.org to Stalin while both organizations try to figure out how to counter the fact that they're now being compared to each other by Hitler, who was the object of the original comparison.

For now, everyone's just plain confused.

If you enjoyed this satire by Doug Powers, you can read more of his work at The Spoof.

Mark Dubbin, the author of "Shadow Patriot" bought a main page ad on RWN to get the word out about his book. Here's the description of it from Amazon...

"The events of 9/11 affected many things in New York and the Mafia was no exception. Business suffered for Don Remondini after the attack, but he wasn't about to let it go. The cowards who cost him would receive a message from the Family if he had anything to say about it. They would think twice about their actions in the future. That much was certain.

Jim Pearce is Don Remondini's chief of security. As an Ex-Special Forces sniper, discharged from duty with diabetes, he is assigned to send al-Qaeda a powerful message from the Family. Operating outside the law, and using his CIA contacts, Shadow Patriot is a web of action and intrigue where the guilty will be made to pay, and payback can be a b*tch!"

I've done ads for this book before and one of RWN's readers had actually read the book. Jay said the following,

"I bought it after seeing the link to it on Amazon posted on here last time. The book itself is very short, only about 110 pages I believe. It was a little far fetched, but all in all a very good read."

Here's what a couple of people on Amazon had to say about the book,

Reviewer: A reader from Las Cruces, NM United States

A wonderful story taking a different approach to the effects of 9/11, and how it was dealt with. Rather than sit back and complain about what happened on that eventful day, a plan was set to take out a terrorist cell. Neat idea and easy flowing writing. Makes for a good, sunny afternoon read.

Reviewer: nicothefabulous from Littleton, CO United States

In a world where justice can be hard to come by, sometimes you have to make your own. Reminds me a bit of The Rocketeer, with the FBI agents and Mafia guys fighting the Nazis side-by-side. Maybe more people with the financial means to do so should take note of this story! I want to see the movie. A classic tale of good old-fashioned American payback.

It's short so you can knock the book out quickly and it features gangsters killing terrorists. If you're looking for some light reading material, this sounds pretty doggone good.

In any case, if you're looking for some interesting fiction to read, check out "Shadow Patriot."

On Friday, I got together with David Frum for a phone interview. For those of you unfamiliar with David Frum, he was once a speechwriter for President Bush, is a Resident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, writes for National Review, and has a new book out that he co-authored with Richard Perle entitled, "An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror".

I discussed a number of topics with Mr. Frum including Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Syria, Israel, Hizbollah, neocons, a national ID card, the draft, and several other topics. I think you'll really enjoy this interview... (Cont)