While the form of treachery varies slightly from case to case, liberals always manage to take the position that most undermines American security. -- Ann Coulter
The Politics Of The Nuclear Option: We've Got The Constitution And More Than 200 Years Of Senate Tradition On Our Side
There are a lot of different theories floating around about which way certain senators are going to go on the Nuclear Option and what the Republican leadership is going to do. The latest story is that Rick Santorum wants to apply "the brakes" because the polling data doesn't look all that hot. Do I believe that? My gut reaction is no, since "Priscilla Owen and Janice Rogers Brown, are expected to be discharged from the Judiciary Committee later this week." Once the Democrats filibuster Owen or Brown, it's time to do or politically die for the GOP.
In any case, the idea that this is going to be something that's going to hurt the GOP come election time is absolutely nuts.
First of all, the conservative base is going to flip out if this doesn't happen and they should. We have a 55-44-1 edge in the Senate. If Frist can't get at least 50 Republicans to go his way on something as important as this, then he should resign his leadership post because he doesn't have what it takes.
Furthermore, I can tell you that any Republican who votes against the Nuclear Option shouldn't bother running for President or sending me any sort of fund raising letters. I can absolutely guarantee you that I won't chip in a dime to the campaign of any senator who votes against the Nuclear Option and my guess is that a large percentage of Republicans feel the same way.
Secondly, the idea that this is going to hurt Republicans at the ballot box in 2006 is silly.
Just consider how this is going to play out:
1) Since 2003, the Democrats have been demanding that the GOP ignore the Constitution and more than 200 years of Senate tradition so they can be allowed to have veto power over which of Bush's judges are appointed to the bench.
2) After spending two years fruitlessly trying to compromise with the Democratic obstructionists in the Senate, the GOP has decided to make a stand and stop allowing the Democrats to run roughshod over Senate tradition and the Constitution.
3) When the Democrats are prevented from blocking the judges selected by the President, they've pledged to throw a tantrum, a strike; they've pledged to essentially shut down the government.
4) Then when the GOP wants to bring, let's say, the "Saving the Cuddly Kittens of Orphans From Being Tossed into a Paper Shredder Act of 2005" to a vote, the Democrats are going to block that bill from going to the floor.
5) At that point, Republicans are going to get on TV and say things like:
"We were hoping to get bipartisan support for saving those kittens, but I guess the Democrats are still angry that we wouldn't let them ignore the Constitution and more than 200 years of Senate tradition to block President Bush's judges."
or
"If you hired an employee and he got mad about a rule you set, would you just accept it if he told you that he wasn't going to work anymore? Of course not. Now, don't your Senators work for you? Didn't they make promises to you about what they were going to do once they got to Washington? Well, now, they're telling you that they're not going to work anymore. When they stop loafing on the job and get back to work or when you get tired of how they're behaving and replace them, we in the GOP, who never stopped working for our constituents, look forward to more bipartisan cooperation in the Senate."
Now, how long do you think this is going to last with Republicans on TV every day saying they'd love to get back to work and Democrats bawling, kicking their feet, and crying at the top of their lungs that the Republicans won't ignore more than 200 years of Senate tradition and the Constitution so the Democrats can have their way?
Someone tell these wimpy Senate Republicans to show a little backbone for once. The Nuclear Option is the right thing to do, it's constitutional, and it's good politics for the GOP.
So pull the trigger already because we've got ------- (Guess what on our side?) That's right -- more than 200 years of Senate tradition and the Constitution...
You know the phrase: "Is the pope Catholic?" It's supposed to be a rhetorical question, but, apparently if you asked that to some people a few days ago, they would have just stared at you with this dumb expression on their faces, not sure what the answer is.
All the (generated) controversy over Pope Benedict XVI is that he's a hardliner against abortion, against euthanasia, against ordaining women, against homosexual activity, and against priests marrying. In other words, THE POPE IS CATHOLIC!!!
Yes, a Catholic was actually elected as pope; who knew?
This content was used with the permission of Frank J. from IMAO. You can read more of his work by clicking here.
There are some folks in Bangor, Maine who're....well, I don't want to spoil it. Let's just say this is a great story. In fact, I'd actually call it "heart warming" or the "feel good story of April" if those terms hadn't been forever ruined by being applied to countless crummy, touchy feely movies. Take a look:
"BANGOR, Maine — Tired and bleary-eyed, Marines of the 1st Battalion, 7th Regiment, based at Twentynine Palms, Calif., were finally back on U.S. soil after seven months on the front lines in Iraq.
But they were still many miles and hours from their families and the homecoming they longed for. Their officers told them they would be on the ground for 60 to 90 minutes while their chartered plane was refueled.
So they disembarked and began walking through the airport terminal corridor to a small waiting room.
That's when they heard the applause.
Lining the hall and clapping were dozens of Bangor residents who have set a daunting task for themselves: They want every Marine, soldier, sailor and airman returning through the tiny international airport here to get a hero's welcome.
Even if the planes arrive in the middle of the night or a blizzard, they are there.
Composed mostly from the generation that served in World War II and Korea, they call themselves the Maine Troop Greeters. They have met every flight bringing troops home from Iraq for nearly two years — more than 1,000 flights and nearly 200,000 troops.
"Here they come. Everybody get ready," said Joyce Goodwin, 71, her voice full of excitement, undiminished by the hundreds of times she has shown up to embrace the returning troops.
As dozens more Marines came down the corridor, the applause grew louder and was accompanied by handshakes, hugs, and a stream of well wishes: "Welcome home." "Thank you for your service." "God bless you." "Thank you for everything."
Faces brightened. Grouchiness disappeared. Greeters and Marines alike began taking photographs. The Marines were directed down a corridor decorated with American flags and red, white and blue posters to cellphones for free calls to family members.
They found a table with cookies and candies. Plates of homemade fudge circulated.
...The airport gift store opens early. T-shirts saying "I Love Maine" are popular. So are adult magazines. The store takes military scrip from troops low on cash, even though there is no way for the store to get reimbursed.
...Kay Lebowitz, 89, has such severe arthritis that she cannot shake hands. So she hugs every Marine and soldier she can. Some of the larger, more exuberant troops lift her off the ground.
...Most of the greeters support the U.S. mission in Iraq, but their goal is historic, not political. Discussion of politics is banned. The greeters don't want America to repeat what they consider a shameful episode in history: the indifference, even hostility, that the public displayed to troops returning from Vietnam.
"I think there's a lot of collective guilt about the '60s," said greeter Dusty Fisher, 63, a retired high school history teacher now serving in the state Legislature.
...Marjorie Dean suffered a fatal heart seizure while she and her husband, Bill, were on their way to meet a late-night flight a year ago. She was 79.
Goodwin missed three days of flights when she was in the hospital for heart surgery.
"I felt like I was in withdrawal," she said. "It was awful not being able to be here for the boys."
Bill Knight, 83, one of the group's organizers, came to the airport just hours after his doctor told him that he has advanced prostate cancer. "It never occurred to me not to come," said Knight, who served in the Army and Navy for three decades."
Quote Of The Day: Democrat Hypocrisy On Patriotism
"One reads that Sen. Chuck Schumer called the head of the Family Research Council “un-American.” Ho-hum. That will hardly even raise a journalistic eyebrow. Remember when Howard Dean declared, “John Ashcroft is not a patriot”? Remember when John Kerry said he would “appoint a U.S. trade representative who is an American patriot” (meaning that Bob Zoellick wasn’t)? But nothing ever happens to these Democratic McCarthyites. You will never hear a peep of protest from the media establishment. A right-winger asserts himself this way, and, oh, boy: The Tailgunner has arrived, firing." -- Jay Nordlinger
Great Radio Lousy Radio At The Citizen Journalist Report
One of my advertisers, RightTalk, is running a radio show by Jeff Goldstein from Protein Wisdom & Bill Ardolino from INDC Journal called "The Citizen Journalist Report" (Incidentally, I've heard the show a couple of times before and thought it was pretty good).
Well, this week, they had an interview with wavering conservative John Cole of Balloon Juice and Michele Catalano from A Small Victory.
On her blog, Michele hinted that it was a bit of a tumultuous interview so I decided to tune into the replay on RightTalk to hear what happened.
Well, I tuned in, and caught some of John Cole and that was OK. But then, I turned it off for a while, and when I turned it back on, I lucked up and came in right as Bill was asking Michele a question about atheism that was either supposed to be funny, really snide, or some combination thereof....and Michele went INSANE. I'm talking about a TOTAL MELTDOWN right there on the air. She goes on this wild rant, every third or fourth word she says is bleeped, and then says something about Bill's "Jew partner" and hung up.
I don't know why Bill and Jeff aren't talking this up on their blogs (Maybe they understandably don't want to aggravate things with Michele), but it's MUST LISTEN RADIO, folks. You've got to hear this!
When you've got a little time, go here, click on "The Citizen Journalist Report," and listen. Once you've heard the part I was talking about, come back and post in the comments and tell people if it was as good as I said it was...
*** Update #1 ***: I went back and actually listened to the whole Michele Catalano interview (It's late, I still have work to do, and I don't have any episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer left to watch on TiVo) and in Michele's defense, Jeff & Bill really bent over backwards to pick a fight with her. Just about every question was goofball sarcasm. You have almost got to wonder if they were trying to provoke that kind of reaction...
*** Update #2 ***: In retrospect, this whole episode reminds me of the Jim Rome Vs. Jim Everett interview where Everett is deliberately pushed and prodded until he snaps, flips a table over, and goes after Rome.
Yeah, Michele shouldn't have flipped out like that, but why invite someone on your radio show just so you can ambush them like that? It's ridiculous and insulting. Bill and Jeff should know better...
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Let's be honest here: most of you don't normally click on my advertisers. You know it, I know it, we all know it. That's just life on the internet and allowances are made for it
So here's what I'm hoping: if you read RWN regularly and you seldom, if ever click on the ads, how about clicking on them now? I'm not saying you have to look at all of them, but how about looking at let's say 3 of them. Pick the three that look most interesting to you and give 'em gander.
You may think it doesn't make a difference, but it does. A click-through rate that's even a percentage point or two higher than normal can impress advertisers and make them more likely to spend advertising dollars.
So, come on, just click on 3 of these ads. Give it a shot...
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The 2008 GOP Primary Contenders – Rising and Falling Stock By Jayson Javitz
The NFL draft is coming up this weekend. In connection therewith, you often hear people saying, of a prospect, “his stock is rising,” or “his stock’s really fallen.”
And ever since the equities markets started their nice, healthy (and overdue) correction, there’s been chattering about the stock market in political circles. On the part of nervous conservatives and “librule,” Kos-ian college students alike.
Well, in keeping with the stock market theme, I figured I’d kill a bit of time by pontificating about the rising or falling prospects of the presumed contenders for the 2008 GOP presidential nomination.
Falling Stock
1) John McCain.
Sometimes I wonder whether he’s actually trying to commit political suicide. The vote against ANWR drilling was bad enough, but then announcing, in advance, that he’ll oppose the effort to allow President Bush’s judicial nominees an up or down floor vote??!!
Fah-get-a-’bout-it.
I’d be surprised if he makes it past the South Carolina primary.
2) Bill Frist
The irony with Limp Frist is that, with McCain utterly imploding, he could have set himself apart to some extent. Instead, he’s buried himself.
Not having a personality is bad enough. But not having a personality and also lacking cojones is far worse.
This guy is heading towards the dustbin of GOP political history.
3) Rick Santorum.
Sure, he might not really be in the loop, for ‘08, in any event. But if he doesn’t get it together soon, he’ll throw away any possible chance of being on the ticket.
First, he proposed some wacky minimum wage deal. Then, he got wobbly on the death penalty (or at least allowed the Associated Depressed to give that impression). Now, in recent weeks, he’s been all over the map on the judicial filibuster issue.
Memo to Santorum: Get your head screwed back on straight.
4) Rudy Giuliani.
FWIW, I honestly don’t consider him a viable national candidate in any event. But, putting that aside, if he wants the nomination, he needs to stop cavorting with {shudder} lawyers, to stop lapping up hedge fund money like it was milk, to stop kissing off chances to win or at least to compete for the GOP in major races, and to stop presuming that the “hero of 9/11? schtick will pay off winning dividends six and-a-half years later.
Memo to Rudy: How many people have gone straight from holding no political office, whatsoever, to the presidency???
Rising Stock
None.
Not that I can see.
In fact, it looks like the GOP field won’t really begin to take shape until after the 2006 election cycle. Which is fine. No problem.
But, at that point, the pretenders will be dead in the water, and the contenders better have their stuff together. Hillary is the most ruthless politician since “Landslide” Lyndon Johnson. The eventual GOP nominee better be prepared to slip off the velvet gloves, and to strap on the brass knuckles.
UPDATE:
P.S. - That rhetorical question about Rudy was meant to be taken colloquially, not as a literal question to be “contested.” In any event, do you really believe Rudy will have the kind of juice that Reagan or Ike did, by way of example? And, regarding Ike, keep in mind that it took a good measure of backroom dealings, involving Robert Taft and Earl Warren, to break a stalemate at the nominating convention, and thereby to make Ike the nominee, despite the fact he was one of the biggest heroes in American history at the time.
This content was used with the permission of Polipundit.
"In the April 5, 2005 issue of the Monthly Indicators, (Jeff Rubin, Chief Economist and Chief Strategist of CIBC World Markets' Economic and Strategy division) wrote: "The first two oil shocks were transitory, as political events encouraged oil producers to seize full sovereignty over their resources and temporarily restrict supply. This time around there won't be any tap that some appeased mullah or sheik can suddenly turn back on."
In a letter to CIBC World Markets, CAIR-CAN Executive Director Riad Saloojee wrote: "We are gravely concerned that Mr. Rubin is promoting stereotyping of Muslims and Arabs in a CIBC publication & We request that Mr. Rubin and CIBC World Markets issue a letter of apology and undergo sensitization training regarding Muslims and Arabs.
In his response, CIBC World Markets Chairman and CEO Brian Shaw stated: "First, let me state that we take the concerns expressed in your letter very seriously. While the comments were in no way intentional or meant to offend anyone in the Muslim or Arab community, we agree that, in hindsight, the
comments were insensitive."
CAIR is a ridiculous organization that has even gotten huffy in the past about how Osama Bin Laden was depicted. From Daniel Pipes:
"In reality, CAIR is something quite different. For starters, it's on the wrong side in the war on terrorism. One indication came in October 1998, when the group demanded the removal of a Los Angeles billboard describing Osama bin Laden as "the sworn enemy," finding this depiction "offensive to Muslims."
Given that, you can hardly be surprised that they're prattling on about the use of the words "mullah" and "sheik." Not only is there nothing wrong with using these words, I'm not even sure what their beef is supposed to be given that the Middle East is still filled with sheiks and mullahs who have their hands in the oil industry. Nothing that Rubin said was offensive or out of line in the least.
So what is the deal with the "sheiks of sensitivity" at CAIR? I mean, what are they: the "political correctness mullahs?" Ooops...I might be offending the folks at CAIR by saying something like that. But, tough luck, I don't give apologies to third rate, NAACP wannabe groups who funnel money to terrorist groups like Hamas...
"If the bill gains approval from the Texas Senate, the state will be allowed to investigate the backgrounds of current foster parents and remove children living in non-heterosexual households.
All future foster parents will be required to disclose their sexual preference on an application form, a legislative aide said.
The move was denounced by local activists.
"More than 43,000 gay and lesbian couples in Texas are forming families and raising children, and this attack on LBGT (lesbian, bisexual, gay and transgendered) Texans will tear apart our families and remove our children from loving, stable families," the Lesbian/Gay Rights Lobby of Texas said in a statement.
"In an already over-burdened foster care system, the effect of reducing the pool of foster parents does nothing to protect Texas children," it added."
This is going to be one of those extremely emotional and loud cases that gets followed around, bounced around the Texas Supreme Court, then the US Supreme Court, and even after it's officially settled, law suits and loud plaintive wailing will continue. I might as well jump in the fray right now.
Married heterosexual couples are the ideal. While gay and lesbian couples might be able to provide a very content home, they can not provide what children need most: a mother and a father. Genders, people and roles are not interchangable. I don't have any strong feelings one way or the other about it being a law as opposed to a preference, but I think that any person charged with ensuring that a child's best interest is being met should be forced to give preference to married heterosexual couples if all other factors are equal.
That being said, transgendered people should not be anywhere near children. I don't necessarily believe that they're child molestors or even that they'd be bad parents. I do, however, believe that their lifestyle is not conductive to raising well-adjusted children. It's simply too confusing for children to have a "parent" who is "between genders". The politically correct pressure to accept such people is based on social engineering experiments and not on what is good for society, families, or children. The law probably should protect children from these people in the same way it attempts to protect them from parents who do drugs or otherwise endanger their children's well-being.
Something that I find interesting is how rarely it is mentioned that heterosexual foster homes (and adoptive homes) are so much more readily available than homosexual ones. The spin is that there's a surplus of loving homosexual homes and society's bigotry is keeping children from them. This is not true. If a child is a ward of the State, the State has an obligation to put children in homes most reflective of normal, healthy families. It's not bigotry that what is normal is heterosexual homes. The reframing of the issue to one of tolerance will not change the fundamental fact that children need one loving, stable father, and one loving, stable mother.
This content was used with the permission of Right Thinking Girl. You can read more of her work by clicking here.
Teachers' Union Suit Sparks 'No Bureaucrat Left Behind' -- Satire By Scott Ott
President George Bush, faced with a teacher's union lawsuit over his 'No Child Left Behind' public education accountability mandates, announced a sweeping new reform proposal for the U.S. Department of Education.
Dubbed 'No Bureaucrat Left Behind' the new plan would address teachers' union complaints about unfunded federal mandates by removing the mandates, the funding and the federal role in public education.
"When I read the NEA lawsuit," said Mr. Bush, "I realized that as long as we funnel education money through Washington D.C., we provide teachers' unions with an excuse for their poor performance. Blame Bush. Blame Congress. Blame the Department of Education. But if all the money is raised and spent at the local level, then taxpayers can hold the unions accountable."
The 'No Bureaucrat Left Behind' reforms will completely shut down the federal Department of Education, however, all former employees are expected to find jobs with education lobbyist firms which will soon have to sell their ideas to thousands of school boards nationwide, instead of just a handful of Congressmen.
In Peculiar, Missouri, one unnamed local school board member remarked, "It sounds like a good plan to me. I'm looking forward to going on some of those lobbyist-funded junkets."
Satire used with permission of Scott Ott from Scrappleface. You can read more of his work by clicking here.
Take a look at this pic and caption lifted directly from Reuters:
"Military honor guard enter the Buenos Aires' Cathedral past graffiti left by unknown assailants that reads: 'Universal Nazi Church' and 'Benedict addict XVI' on April 20, 2005. The choice of conservative German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger as the new Pope divides Latin America, a region where he battled leftist priests and whose poor and hungry often cannot afford to follow Roman Catholic doctrine. Joy was tempered by disappointment the new Pontiff was not from Latin America, home to about half the world's Catholics. REUTERS/Ricardo Abad-DyN"
Two Things: #1: Note the anti-Christian bias reflected in what they DON'T SAY. There's no mention of a hate crime here, no worry about bigotry directed at Catholics, no concern of that sort reflected whatsoever in the caption. Can you imagine Reuters having the same attitude if a swastika were painted outside of a black church, a synagogue, or a mosque? Of course not. But when Christians are the ones targeted, well, shrug, who at Reuters cares, right?
#2: What exactly do they mean by the "whose poor and hungry often cannot afford to follow Roman Catholic doctrine" comment? Is this some sort of weird way of applying the same sort of propaganda liberals attack political conservatives with (They're the party of the rich!) to Catholics? Since when is Catholicism some sort of "Country Club Faith?"
If that's supposed to be the case, then how does it square with the inconvenient fact that John Hinderaker from Power Line pointed out: "Catholicism is experiencing explosive growth in Latin America, Africa and Asia, while languishing in the more affluent Europe and North America."
"If the Social Security financial wave that will hit us is a scary 25-foot wave of water, the Medicare wave will be something the wrathful Old Testament God would send if he was in an apocalyptic mood. Think in terms of Noah — or worse.
According to the Medicare trustees' report last month, Medicare costs currently consume the equivalent of 8.7 percent of all federal tax revenues. That number goes up to 32.8 percent by 2025 and an unbelievable but true 90 percent of all revenues by 2075. Calculated another way, the unfunded liability of Medicare by 2075 will be a little over $60 trillion — that's T as in totally insane.
Any way it is calculated , it can't be afforded. Medicare is not only challenged by all the same demographic forces that are hitting Social Security, but also by the fact that demand for health care is going up, on average, about 3 percent more than the gross domestic product every year." -- Tony Blankley
Jane Fonda is a despicable human who betrayed the United States during the Vietnam War. She collaborated with the enemy, made Tokyo Rose-style propaganda broadcasts for them, allowed herself to be pictured stationed at a NVA anti-aircraft artillery launcher, and she denied to the world that US soldiers were being tortured by the Vietcong. Jane Fonda should have been tried for treason and then after being convicted, she should have either been imprisoned or ideally hung.
So, just to make it clear: there's no love lost between Ms. Fonda and me. That being said: this sort of thing should be condemned even by Americans who quite correctly see Jane Fonda as a traitor:
"Police said they arrested a man for spitting on two-time Academy Award-winning actress Jane Fonda during a book-signing stop in Kansas City Tuesday night.
...At about 9 p.m., police said 54-year-old Michael A. Smith, who had been waiting in line for about 90 minutes, passed a book to Fonda and then spit a large amount of tobacco juice into her face.
They said Smith then ran away and was taken into custody by off-duty officers, who were providing security for the event.
Fonda declined to prosecute Smith.
A Vietnam veteran, Smith was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct, which is a city charge."
Any Vietnam Vet who detests Jane Fonda has good reason to do so. However, that is not an excuse to spit on her. We are a society of laws and rules and no matter how you feel about a particular individual, you do not have a right to punch him/her in the face, throw a pie at him/her, spit on him/her, or assault him/her in any other way.
Despite the fact that I have infinitely more sympathy for any Vietnam Vet than I do for a Benedict Arnold like Fonda, I sincerely hope the KC police throw the book at Michael Smith. This sort of activity has become way too prevalent of late and it cannot be allowed to continue. Whatever your ideology is, you should be willing to condemn this sort of unprovoked attack because it's wrong.
Details Of The Gallup Poll On Gay Marriage By Mark Noonan
We've been waiting for the details on the recent Gallup Poll which showed opposition to same-sex marriage at an all-time high, and now we've got it.
Some of the things which I thought especially interesting were the results which showed that younger people (18-29) support a Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage by a 56/39 margin (so much for the concept that gay marriage proponents just have to wait until the younger generation grows up), while the demographic with the least support for an amendment is people 50-64 (ie, the cream of the Baby Boomer generation), who only support such an amendment by a 51/45 margin.
As I've said elsewhere and often, I am quite suprised and the breadth and depth of both the opposition to gay marriage and the support for a Constitutional amendment (keeping in mind that while it takes a 2/3 vote in Congress and ratification by 3/4 of the States, it does not require such popular majorities in the States to ratify). Right now, I'd figure that such an amendment would have about a 50/50 chance of adoption within a year of being sent to the States by Congress...and as gay marriage proponents continue to blindly and foolishly push their views via the Courts, I think that the chances of adoption will rise rapidly over the next year or two.
The backlash, long-predicted, is here.
This content was used with the permission of Blogs For Bush. You can read more of their work by clicking here
Quote Of The Day: Maybe Crime Doesn't Pay As Well As We Think
"The upshot is that the crack trade, even at its market peak, was lucrative only for those at the top of a selling organization. The gang's foot soldiers made less than minimum wage and faced a 1-in-4 risk of being killed over four years. (In the same time, being a timber cutter, the most dangerous legitimate job in the U.S., carried a 1-in-200 risk.) These drug dealers struggled desperately to reach the gang's upper echelons, but few would make it."
I'm not a social conservative or a Catholic, so here's all I have to say about Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger becoming the next Pope:
#1) If someone as openly hostile to religious people as Andrew Sullivan is furious about Ratzinger becoming Pope, then that's obviously a sign that he's a great choice. The only way it could get any better for Ratzinger would be if the ACLU issued a press release denouncing him.
#2) All this talk about "modernizing the church" seems to miss the point. Fads come and go, but the church endures in part because it changes glacially, if at all. The church is supposed to set a timeless standard, not respond to polling data or try to accommodate social trends. Show me a church that is determined to "change with the times" and I'll show you a church that is likely dying.
*** Update #1 ***:WuzzaDem has created the "Sullivan Alert Level" to monitor Sully's fragile emotional state =D:
Any diehard footballs fans out there who love nothing better than sitting around on Sunday with a few friends and watching a game? Well, if that describes you, let me ask you a question: how much attention do you pay to referees? If you're like the average fan, you may complain about a bad call here or there, but that's about the extent of it. Certainly most fans don't know the names of the refs or get concerned about who the league appoints to work a certain game.
But, let's consider a different scenario: let's say you're an Oakland Raiders fan and they're playing the Carolina Panthers. The Raiders are up by 3 with thirty-five seconds to go in the 4th quarter and they've got the Panthers pinned on their own 15 yard line. The Panthers hike the ball and the quarterback uncorks a bomb to a receiver who somehow has gotten 1 on 1 deep down the field. But then, the Raiders get a lucky break! The Panthers' receiver trips and falls & the Raider cornerback intercepts the ball and runs it all the way back for a touchdown which gives the Raiders a 10 point lead! You think the game is as good as over...but then something funny happens. One of the refs calls "No Tripsies" and says that if the Panther receiver wouldn't have fallen down, he would have caught the ball and ran it in for a touchdown. The ref then waves off the Raider touchdown and awards 7 points to the Panthers! That leads to the Raiders losing the game. (Cont)
Michael Kinsley Doesn't Get Conservative Foreign Policy
Michael Kinsley wrote a post about "neocon" foreign policy that misses the point in more ways than one. Here's the crux of Kinsley's argument:
"The great neocon theme was tough-minded pragmatism in the face of liberal naivete. Liberals were sentimental. They believed that people were basically good or could easily be made so. Domestically, liberal social programs were no match for the intractable underclass or even made the situation worse. In the world, liberals were too hung up on democracy and human rights, refusing to recognize that the only important question about other countries is: Friend or foe?
(Jeane) Kirkpatrick's article, "Dictatorship and Double Standards," was a ferocious attack on President Jimmy Carter for trying to "impose liberalization and democratization" on other countries. She mocked "the belief that it is possible to democratize governments anytime, anywhere, under any circumstances." Democracy, she said, depends "on complex social, cultural, and economic conditions." It takes "decades, if not centuries."
Kirkpatrick thought that U.S. power should be used to shore up tottering but friendly dictators, such as Anastasio Somoza of Nicaragua and the shah of Iran. Carter sat on his hands, she complained. Now we have an administration that -- wisely or foolishly, sincerely or cynically -- claims to have the aggressive pursuit of democracy everywhere as the focal point of its foreign policy. And the Bush Doctrine is said to have the fingerprints of neoconservatives all over it.
This is quite a reversal by America's most influential group of intellectuals, yet it has received surprisingly little comment or explanation. The chief theoretician of the new neoconservatism is political scientist Robert Kagan. Writing in Commentary (where else?) in 1997, Kagan noted the difference between his notions and Kirkpatrick's and had some fun at the expense of opponents who had been all for a high-minded foreign policy until the neocons started calling for one. But he had little to say about the reversal of the neocons themselves."
Let's start at the top: First of all, there is no such thing as a "neocon" foreign policy. Neoconservatives are just right-wingers who used to be on the left -- nothing more, nothing less. Yes, they tend to have ideologically similar views about foreign policy, but that's because conservatives have relatively similar views. If anybody wants to compare the foreign policy views of prominent neocons like Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, & Bill Kristol to those of run-of-the-mill conservatives like Rush Limbaugh, Donald Rumsfeld, & Mark Steyn, go right ahead and try, but I don't think there's a dime's worth of difference in their views.
Secondly, the reason that Kinsley doesn't understand the shift in -- let's call it what it is, conservative foreign policy -- is that liberals don't subscribe to any sort of coherent foreign policy any more. That's why Carter and Clinton were so bad at it. They were buffeted by whatever the prevailing political winds were and made decisions on the fly. This is also why 9/11 seems to have made such a small mark on the liberal psyche in this country: because when it comes to foreign policy, they've never gone beyond handling events on a situation by situation basis. How can 9/11 effect your foreign policy strategy if you have no foreign policy strategy?
Last but not least, the conservative view of foreign policy shifted after 9/11 because in many ways, we were still geared up to fight the Soviets, 10 years after the Cold War had ended. Our intelligence agencies were handcuffed and we didn't have the inside info on these terrorist groups even though we knew they were a threat.
We were emphasizing containment, although as 9/11 proved, containment means little in the war on terrorism. After all, Afghanistan was completely contained on the very day Al-Qaeda hit the WTC & the Pentagon.
In the Middle-East, it was still all about stability. That made sense strategically in the eighties. We were using Saudi Arabia to keep oil prices low to help out our economy and to hurt the Soviets who needed high gas prices to help keep their economy afloat. Furthermore, back then, if we pushed too hard for Democracy in the region, all we would have accomplished would have been to push more countries into the waiting arms of the USSR.
Then after 9/11, conservatives woke up and said, "Hey, our foreign policy strategy isn't designed to meet the threat that we face today, so we've got to make changes." And so we have.
If Kinsley and his ilk don't get this, that's their fault because conservatives have been openly explaining it practically since a few weeks after 9/11. Maybe they should pay more attention...
Freedom Hating Terrorist Content Now That He's In Prison - Satire By Bob From Accounting
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba — Just six months after being captured by a Marine unit in Iraq, imprisoned terrorist and well-known "freedom-hater" Mohammed al Jaqar is finally content for the first time in his life.
According to officials, al Jaqar spent time at terrorist training camps in Afghanistan before returning to Iraq and pledging his allegiance to Saddam Hussein and declaring jihad on the U.S, Great Britain and Israel. But all that changed after a just few days behind a razorwire enclosure.
"Praise Allah that George Bush and the rest of the infidels have finally given me peace of mind I've prayed for all this time," al Jaqar said from his 4' x 6' cell. "I so deeply believed in my hatred of freedom that this was really only way out."
Al Jaqar was captured while trying to plant a roadside bomb in Tikrit. He resisted at first, but as soon as he was handcuffed his demeanor changed almost immediately.
"As soon as that plastic wire tie went around his wrists and I told him he was going to spend the rest of his life in jail, he looked relieved, maybe even thankful," said Sgt. James Lippon who caught the insurgent. "President Bush was right, these people just can't stand our freedoms."
"We feel strongly that prison has saved this freedom-hater's life," said a guard in charge of al Jaqar and hundreds of other captured insurgents. "He's so much happier now that we've taken away even the simplest freedoms, which he so despises. I think he appreciates that we don't even allow him to brush his own teeth."
Al Jaqar grew up in a small village outside Baghdad, always feeling right at home under the tyrannical rule of Hussein. He seemed happiest when soldiers rousted the families of his town for their money and demanded they vote for Saddam in the next election. After the US overthrew Iraq, things changed for the worse.
"The day Al Jazeera reported that we were now free Iraqis, Mohammed became enraged and left to join the insurgency," Mohammed's mother Shira said. "I told him he was free now to do as he pleased. He mocked me and then spat in my face."
Prison officials have tried to use al Jaqar to convince fellow inmates that the true heaven lies within the walls of their confines where the fulfillment of their freedom-hating ways can come to fruition.
"I've never been so content in all my life," Al Jaqar said from his cell. "And if I ever get out, I can live in Cuba, another land of limited freedoms. May all my brothers and sisters be as fortunate as me. Praise be to Allah."
If you enjoyed this satire by Bob From Accounting, you can read more of their work here.
Well, I had a "fun" afternoon. I did a little grocery shopping, picked up a few things for Patton at PETsMART and I picked up a nail in my tire. So I dropped the groceries off and headed to Wal-Mart where they took an hour and a half to patch it up (50 minutes to get it in the garage, 40 minutes to finish). If they were smart, they'd block off access to the garage so that you can't sit there and watch the guy who's supposed to be fixing your tire chat, drink soda, and piddle around for 40 minutes while you're waiting.
You know what the really scary thing is though? I bought the tires at TireKingdom and could have just as easily gone there -- but their customer service is so incompetent and annoying that I'm almost sure that I was better off sitting around Wal-Mart -- reading Free To Choose by Milton and Rose Friedman -- than I would have been had I gone to TireKingdom. Those guys are like the Best Buy of car care -- decent prices, but customer service so bad that it'll make you pull your hair out if you ever have a serious problem.
So in retrospect, I guess Wal-Mart wasn't so bad...
Even though liberal media personalities continually deny the obvious, that the mainstream press is biased to the left, William Raspberry's hyperventilation about Fox in his latest column was so willfully oblivious to reality that it bordered on being bizarre. Here's Raspberry:
"Fox News Channel -- though the people who run the operation are at great pains to insist otherwise -- is deliberately partisan. It is as though right-wing talk radio has metastasized into cable and assumed a new virulence.
The main difference is that radio's Rush Limbaugh, for instance, doesn't pretend even-handedness. As he has said, he doesn't seek to be balanced but to balance the rest of the media, which he sees as generally dominated by left-of-center attitudes.
Part of the FNC approach, on the other hand, is to promote itself as "fair and balanced." I suppose it does so with a wink and a nod to its far-right audience, who must know it isn't balanced. Certainly those near the center of the political spectrum know it."
One of the strange things about liberals like Raspberry is that they insist that Fox leans to the right -- which it does -- but then turn right around and adamantly refuse to admit that the reason Fox stands out is because ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, & MSNBC are all networks dominated by the left.
Furthermore, is Fox "fair and balanced?" I'd say that they're certainly as "fair and balanced" as CNN, CBS, and all the rest of the liberal networks -- if not moreso. When you consider that Fox's prime time line-up consists of a social conservative/populist (Bill O'Reilly), a conservative (Sean Hannity), and two liberals (Alan Colmes and Greta Van Susteren), they do seem to have a "fair and balanced" ideological split during the time when they have the most viewers.
Here's more from Raspberry:
"So why would I consider Fox such a generalized threat? Because I think the plan is not so much to convince the public that its particular view is correct but rather to sell the notion that what FNC presents is just another set of biases, no worse (and for some, a good deal better) than the biases that routinely drive the presentation of the news on ABC, CBS or NBC -- and, by extension, the major newspapers.
For the Foxidation process to work, it isn't necessary to convince Americans that the verbal ruffians who give FNC its crackle have a corner on the truth -- only that all of us in the news business are grinding our partisan axes all the time and that none of us deserves to be taken seriously as seekers of truth.
This is huge. As a friend remarked recently, time was when if you found it in the New York Times, that settled the bar bet and the other guy paid off. But if the Times and The Post or any other mainstream news outlet -- including the major networks -- come to be seen as the left-of-center counterparts of Fox News Channel, why would anyone accept them as authoritative sources of truth?"
But they ARE "left-of-center counterparts of Fox News Channel!" That's why conservative talk radio took off, it's what right-of-center bloggers complain about constantly; heck, it's why I got into blogging in the first place!
How any rational, intellectually honest person can look at newspapers where liberals outnumber conservatives usually by a 2-1 or 3-1 margin and then claim that those papers play it right down the middle is beyond me -- especially given that those very same people will immediately turn around and accuse the Washington Times or the New York Post of being biased because they have a much larger percentage of conservatives on staff than the average paper. Perhaps we're dealing with some sort of liberal blind spot here, but this seems to be a skull-splittingly obvious point.
Raspberry continues:
"What worries me is that journalism could become a battlefield of warring biases: I'll sock it to your guy, your party or your position on a public issue, and you'll sock it to mine. And we'll both believe we've done a good day's work. Come to think of it, a review of the stories on Social Security suggests that it is already happening to some extent. And one result is that you are less sure than you ought to be as to what the truth about Social Security really is."
Journalism is a "battlefield of warring biases" and has been for a long time. The only difference between today and let's say a couple of decades ago is that we actually do have "warring biases" now instead of a "battlefield" completely and utterly dominated by liberals.
Besides, there is no such thing as "unbiased" journalism (although admittedly some sources do a better job of it than others). There are so many ways to ideologically taint the picture your readers get of the world and they're standard operating procedure in most of the mainstream media. For example, common tactics include: stacking the editorial page with liberal columnists, burying stories that hurt Democrats while trumpeting damaging news to Republicans, tossing softballs to liberals and tough questions to conservatives during interviews, simply ignoring harmful stories to Democrats, running thinly sourced, shaky stories about Republican politicians or causes, misleading headlines, putting crucial information in the middle of stories, doing "man-on-the-street" interviews with people who support a liberal point-of-view and presenting them as the norm, doing warped push polls, on and on and on.
Raspberry is worried about the effect Fox is going to have on the mainstream media? Pshaw, Fox is nothing but a correction to the leftward tilting media in this country. In fact, had the MSM actually "played it right down the middle," I doubt if Fox would even exist today...
Excerpt Of The Day: The Air America Radio Death Watch
"The liberal Air America Radio, just past its first birthday, has probably enjoyed more free publicity than any enterprise in recent history. But don't believe the hype: Air America's left-wing answer to conservative talk radio is failing, just as previous efforts to find liberal Rush Limbaughs have failed.
Wait a second, you say, didn't I read that Air America has expanded to more than 50 markets? That's true, but let's put things in perspective: Conservative pundit and former Reagan official William J. Bennett's morning talk show, launched at the same time as Air America, reaches nearly 124 markets, including 18 of the top 20, joining the growing ranks of successful right-of-center talk programs (Limbaugh is still the ratings leader, drawing more than 15 million listeners a week).
And look at Air America's ratings: They're pitifully weak, even in places where you would think they'd be strong. WLIB, its flagship in New York City, has sunk to 24th in the metro area Arbitron ratings — worse than the all-Caribbean format it replaced, notes the Radio Blogger. In the liberal meccas of San Francisco and Los Angeles, Air America is doing lousier still." -- Brian Anderson
It’s time for another argument with liberal defenders of social security who argue that the social security trust fund is too real, because it’s got government bonds that have the Treasury secretary’s signature right on them! Any attempt to say that it isn’t real is a scurrilous attack on the sacred person of our government, denying that Our Fine American Politicians can be relied upon to pay their IOUs.
This is reductionism at it’s worst. In case anyone thought it was in any doubt, I do, in fact, believe that there are bonds, and that the government will note the interest rates on those bonds in its account books. But the failure to understand that there is a difference between IOUs written to yourself, and IOUs written to someone else, strikes me as willfully obtuse. Upon even a moment’s reflection, it’s obvious that the trust fund does not exist in the way that its proponents are claiming — as a guarantee of benefits — because the bonds are not obligations to Social Security beneficiaries. They are obligations to the Social Security Administration. And the Social Security administration has no legal obligation to turn the accounting entry representing interest payments from the federal government into cash. According to the supreme court, Americans have no property right in their social security benefits, as they would as creditors of an underfunded private sector pension plan.
She then offers an example of why the Social Security “trust fund” wouldn’t even remotely pass muster if it were a private-sector system:
Moreover, liberals understand this difference very well. If some conservative jackass proposed a plan to, say, let companies top up their underfunded pension plans by stuffing them with their own bonds, liberals would be justifiably outraged, because that’s not funding the pension plan; it’s promising to fund it at some later date, provided there’s money around to do so. When it’s companies doing these sorts of things, liberals understand very well why such “trust funds” aren’t, in any meaningful sense, real.
Of course, the US government is less likely to fold than a company is. On the other hand, if a company issued bonds like those, it would at least have to record the size of the liability on the financial statements it issues to its shareholders. Why we don’t demand that sort of accounting from our government, I’ll never know.
The Social Security Trust Fund isn’t like a T-Bill or another federal bond. In the latter case, Uncle Sam is making a promise to pay you a set amount. The Social Security Trust Fund doesn’t work that way. As McArdle points out, the bonds in the Trust Fund aren’t paid to recipients, they can only be redeemed by the Social Security Administration.. Flemming v. Nestor already extablished that there is absolutely no legal guarantee to Social Security benefits. Social Security could be legislated out of existence, and the money in the “trust fund” would simply be “paid back”by the SSA to the federal government (ie the obligations inherent in them would basically be wiped off the books). It’s a convenient legal fiction, and it’s essentially meaningless in real financial terms.
The facts of the case remain. Social Security will start going into the hole in 2017, and by that time it will be far too late to reform the system without painful cuts. The only way to put Social Security in a real “lockbox” is to ensure that the government cannot touch the assets designated for beneficiaries. The only way to do that is to get it out of the hands of government. Hoping that the mythical Social Security Trust Fund will save us from the impending fiscal crisis is about like hoping Superman will swoop to the rescue - it simply isn’t going to happen.
Michelle Malkin & Power Line have been having problems with trackback spam (spammers who post the address of their website in the trackback).
At one time, I also had a problem with trackback spam and comment spam (where spammers post advertisements in the comments section), but for the most part, I've managed to take care of the problem.
The first thing to keep in mind is that the spammers generally aren't trying to get your readers to look at their garbage; they're trying to improve search engine rankings by getting a link from your blog. So because of that, they go for old posts that you're less likely to see.
That's why I've found a plugin called MT-Close to be particularly helpful. It allows bloggers using Movable Type to close old comments and trackbacks. Generally, I use the default setting of the plug-in that closes everything more than five days old. In and of itself that almost totally corrected my blog's spamming problem and since none of those posts were on the front page of RWN anyway, they were unlikely to get further trackbacks or draw more comments from my readers anyway.
The second tool I use -- MT-Blacklist -- has many more features than MT-Close, but unfortunately -- perhaps because of some unique circumstances at RWN -- most of them don't work =D
Theoretically, if you have MT-Blacklist turned on, it will block comment/trackback spam cold in real time and will allow you to go back through all of your posts and remove the spam. However, neither of those features worked correctly on RWN.
When Mt-Blacklist is turned on, it hoses my comments. Of course, that's probably because my designer made some mods to Movable Type's comment system. Mt-Blacklist also produced server timeouts when I tried to get it to clean out the comments on my old posts. That may have something to do with the fact that RWN has had 116,162 comments made on posts which I'm sure is an unusually high number.
That being said, if I am hit with a spam attack -- let's say by a spammer promoting a poker site -- I can type in the word "poker" and have Mt-Blacklist scan the last few thousand posts and trackbacks. Then, I can delete all the spam with the punch of a keystroke, no muss, no fuss. That's also a good way to clean up posts by trolls across multiple posts.
Do keep in mind that both of these tools are for Movable Type, but I'm sure you can find similar tools for other types of content management systems that will do the same thing.
So if you're a blogger, you don't have to give up on trackbacks and comments because of spammers, you can just get the right tools to deal with them.
*** Update #1 ***: More on this sort of problem from Captain's Quarters.
Is Time Trying To Photographically Beat Ann Coulter With An Ugly Stick?
Ann Coulter is not pleased with the pic that Time used of her on the cover this week:
In the cover pic, the angle is such that Ann's face is subtly distorted and it makes her look more mannish & less attractive. She almost looks like she has a sloping forehead in the picture.
Just for comparison's sake, look at this non-cover shot of Ann and her mom that was also in the Time spread:
You know, beauty is a subjective thing, but in my opinion, based on the face alone, Ann looks 4-5 points better on a 10 scale in the second pic than she does in the first.
Is that a coincidence? You can browse Time's covers yourself and make up your own mind. But, whatever the case may be, Ann's still hot and any excuse to post at least one hot pic of her is a good excuse as far as I'm concerned =D...
If you advocate banning partial birth abortion, a procedure so gruesome that it belongs in a Quentin Tarantino movie, the left and some libertarians will castigate you for infringing on a woman's right to choose, getting between a woman and her doctor, etc.
Advocate banning ultrasounds, which are largely harmless and show parents their yet to be born children? You get your law passed (in the House) with bi-partisan support, at least in Illinois.
Pro-abortion forces won a victory in the Illinois House Wednesday as State Rep. Rosemary Mulligan (R-Park Ridge) successfully passed HB 2492 which would make it a criminal offense for an ultrasound to be administered without a doctor's order.
Mulligan said that Planned Parenthood and the Illinois State Medical Society encouraged her to sponsor the legislation because there was a concern about long exposure of fetuses to ultrasound waves.
"There's a new little industry that does ultrasound videos on babies before they're born for entertainment purposes," the Cook County legislator told her colleagues. "There is concern about the neurological development with long exposure."
Why would Planned Parenthood, an industry leader that aborts children and makes millions doing it, care a bit about the safety of children in the womb? Simple. It's hard to see an ultrasound and remain pro-choice. Once you see that your potentially aborted wad of tissues has fingers, toes, eyes and a nose and all the rest it becomes a person in your mind, and that makes you less likely to become one of Margaret Sanger's company's customers.
Abortion is a volume business, after all. Gotta keep that cash flow out of the red.
This content was used with the permission of Bryan Preston of JunkYardBlog. You can read more of his work by clicking here.
Quote Of The Day: Dean Plans To "Use Terri Schiavo"
"(W)hy is it that when a minor Republican staffer wrote that the Schiavo case was a "great political issue," it was a scandal that was reported in every newspaper in America, whereas, when the Chairman of the Democratic National Committee says, "We're going to use Terri Schiavo" in the 2006 and 2008 elections, the response is a yawn? I'm sure there must be a reason why Dean's comment is different, but offhand I can't think what it is." -- John Hinderaker, Power Line
There are always two different standards in the mainstream media: one for conservatives and one for liberals. As usual, the liberal Democrat is just taking advantage of the double standard...
This morning at 7:35 A.M. I'm supposed to be doing a radio show out of Jamaica called "The Breakfast Club."
We are going to be "discussing the impact of neoconservatism on US foreign policy. What is neoconservatism? What is its philosophy? Who are the neoconservatists? What is the extent of their influence?"
To the best of my knowledge, there's no way to catch this show on the web and I'm not sure that I have any readers in Jamaica (yet), but hopefully I can make it through 25 minutes on the air without creating an international incident =D...
*** Update #1 ***: I was on the show with Ian Williams who seemed to be a standard boilerplate lib and we were really talking about the philosophy behind conservative foreign policy more than anything else.
The hosts also seemed to lean a bit to the left a bit given that I was asked things like, "Does might make right?" and "Do conservatives want to have an imperialist foreign policy?"
On the upside, near the end I got to make it clear that I didn't think much of international law and the UN, that we in the US should act in our own national interests, and that I believe in American exceptionalism. I'm sure liberal heads are exploding all over Jamaica at this very moment =D
All in all, I had a blast although I'm not sure if the hosts enjoyed all the red meat or were appalled at the bare chested conservatism I was unleashing on their show =D
In "Sin City", good is the exception, not the rule. If you meet an honest cop, politician, or citizen who is a decent human being who's just living his life, he's the oddball, the freak, the person living outside the norm.
On the other hand, "Joe Citizen" in Sin City is a hooker with a heart of gold, a crooked cop who shoots to wound not to kill and the sort of murderer who might feel some pang of remorse after cutting your throat.
The real "bad guys" in the film? They are the sort of scum who give scum a bad name: child molesters, serial killing cannibals, and low rent thugs with swastikas carved on their foreheads.
In short, "Sin City" is the world Hobbes described in "Leviathan, "where men live in "continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."
Combine that with a decent plot, a visually stunning black and white color scheme that was occasionally streaked with red blood, white band-aids, or blonde hair, savage violence (if you consider that a feature, not a bug), and characters that catch your interest (Mickey Rourke's Marv & Elijah Wood's silent serial killer Kevin stole the show), and you have a powerful movie. Thumbs way up -- although this is definitely not a film for children...
Want to know the favorite blogs of the biggest bloggers on the right? Well, RWN wanted to know as well, which is why we emailed them and asked them to send us their 10 favorite blogs, in no particular order. Those who responded have their lists posted below. No comments were requested, but any commentary about their selections was added. Enjoy!
-- The Anchoress: Representing the rational religious voice.
-- Betsy's Page: The discerning reader's guide to blog events.
-- Citizen Smash: One of the first, still one of the best military voices.
-- The Fourth Rail: Representing History's critical voice.
-- GayPatriot: Representing the neglected Gay Conservative voice.
-- IMAO: Representing levity with lethal accuracy.
-- Insane Troll Logic: Covering the gamut, but not the one you expect.
-- Polipundit: In my opinion, the best blend of commentary and discussion out there.
-- Power Line: Still the blog's pulse.
-- Right Wing News: Voice of the Republican Party - or it should be!
-- Accidental Verbosity: Interesting stories, cute baby pix. Small-business in Massachusetts angle.
-- AMCGLTD.COM: Cool stories, great links, occasional good, funny smut.
-- Belmont Club: Big Thinker. Helping to fill the gap left by Den Beste.
-- Little Green Footballs: One-stop shopping for outrage, both Middle East and big media.
-- The Shape Of Days: Good take on events.
-- Sortapundit: Oughta be a New Englander,but decent enough sort for an Old Englander.
-- This Blog Is Full Of Crap: He writes the stuff I wish I could think of AND had the guts to say. He'll make you howl in offended amusement. Plus, probably one of the most community-minded bloggers around (but he'll deny saying that).
-- Weekend Pundit: Good blend of local color and national commentary.
-- WILLisms: Up And Comer. Big Thinker, lots of fingers and pies. Watch. This Guy. He's That Good.
-- Yourish: Sentimental reasons, mainly. Hers was the first blog I discovered, and she's still on top of her game -- if a bitmore intermittent now.
