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Roger Ebert's Brutally Funny Review Of "Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo"

Richard Miniter

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Somehow, I can't get too excited about the big Able Danger scandal:

"A. A SOCOM unit, run by Gen. Shelton himself, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, identifies Atta and the Brooklyn cell as a threat as early as 1999. (It doesn't hurt that the unit has a cool sounding name, too.)

B. A year before 9/11, they recommend that the FBI close down the cell. (Who was president a year before 9/11 again?)

C. DOD lawyers (lawyers!) overrule this recommendation, and refuse to allow the Able Danger guys to pass this information on to the FBI, because Atta has a legal immigration status, and they are worried about political fallout after Waco. They put Post-It notes over Atta's face so that all reference to him is kept secret (a nice touch, dont' you think?).

D. The 9/11 Commission chose to omit any reference to it or investigate. This is inexcusible, regardless of how accurate the story is. It clearly deserves to be addressed and the facts explored, to be proved or disproved."

Don't get me wrong, this was an enormous screw-up but really, it just reinforces things we already knew.

-- Yes, our intelligence agencies didn't go after a potential threat because of "Gorelick's Wall" and/or political correctness. But, we've known about that problem for more than a year now.

-- Yes, the Able Danger story shows we had an opportunity to have stopped 9/11 before it got started. But, had our immigration officials done their job and denied 15 of the 19 hijackers visas, that would have averted 9/11 as well. The truth is, had our government been more serious and proactive about stopping terrorism before 9/11, it's unlikely that 9/11 would have ever come off.

-- Yes, the Able Danger story shows that terrorism wasn't taken as seriously as it should have been during the Clinton administration. But again, I think we figured that out when Clinton turned down Sudan's offer to hand over Bin Laden on a silver platter. Prior to 9/11, it's pretty clear that stopping terrorism just wasn't a high priority in this country.

-- Yes, the Able Danger story proves that the 9/11 commission didn't do a great job. But, didn't we already know that, too? They were ridiculously partisan at times, Jamie Gorelick should have been testifying in front of the commission instead sitting on it, and it was obvious that they didn't seriously investigate some very crucial issues.

In any case, it's all water under the bridge at this point.

What's really scary isn't that we had the Able Danger fiasco, it's that the John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, Howard Dean types want to start treating terrorism like a law enforcement issue again -- which is what led to this sort of problem in the first place. The Able Danger story is tragic, but unfortunately, I don't think it's going to help enlighten any of the lefties who seem determined to force our country to repeat the same mistakes we made before 9/11.

The nationwide campaign to drum American Indians out of the public square chalked up another win this week as Norad announced it would stop using Indian names to describe its air defense exercises. This follows last week's decision by the NCAA to ban Indian mascots from its college sports tournaments.

"Naming things after Indians gives these tribal people recognition that they don't deserve," said an unnamed spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). "After all, we conquered them and occupied their land. Why give them the honor that comes from naming stuff after them as if they were brave, victorious warriors. They lost. Do you really want your children emulating a bunch of losers?"

In related news, the Indiana state legislature today will take up debate on a measure to change the state's name to Caucasia.

This satire was used with the permission of Scott Ott from Scrappleface.

"Once, after I had given a talk on the Constitution at a law school, a student approached and asked whether I thought the Constitution prevented a state from abolishing marriage. I said no, the Constitution assumed that the American people were not about to engage in despotic insanities and did not bother to protect against every imaginable instance of them. He replied that he could not accept a constitutional theory that did not prevent the criminalization of marriage. It would have been proper to respond that in any society that had reached such a degenerate state of totalitarianism, one which the Cambodian Khmer Rouge would find admirable, it would hardly matter what constitutional theory one held; the Constitution would have long since been swept aside and the Justices consigned to reeducation camps, if not worse. The actual constitution does not prevent every ghastly hypothetical law, and once you begin to invent doctrine that does, you will create an unconfinable judicial power." -- Robert Bork

Exactly.

Judges are supposed to be umpires, not managers, referees, not coaches. Their job isn't to make law or decide whether laws are good or bad, it's to measure laws already written against the Constitution. Assuming those laws pass muster, then the judges may be called upon to settle disputes between parties over the meaning of the law.

When judges overstep the Constitutional limits that are placed on them and make law or strike down laws they personally disagree with regardless of their constitutionality, it is an egregious abuse of power, one that unfortunately, happens rather regularly in these days and times.

*** This post was edited slightly for clarity's sake ***

Cindy Sheehan has gotten an enormous amount of fawning press coverage of late and she's in heavy demand on the left. They want her to do speeches, appearances; you have to figure that the donations are just pouring into the anti-war group she co-founded, "Gold Star Families For Peace," and can a book deal be far behind?

Now, given that Mrs. Sheehan is a full-time antiwar activist whose notoriety is based entirely on the fact that she lost a son in Iraq, there is a very basic question that needs to be asked at this point: is she making a profit off of her son's death?

Maybe the answer to that question is, "no."

After all, any parent would be heartbroken over the loss of a child and she certainly seems to be sincerely opposed to the war. But then again, most parents don't use the death of their child, which occurred more than a year ago, as a hook to get media coverage over the protestations of much of the rest of the family:

"The Sheehan Family lost our beloved Casey in the Iraq War and we have been silently, respectfully grieving. We do not agree with the political motivations and publicity tactics of Cindy Sheehan. She now appears to be promoting her own personal agenda and notoriety at the expense of her son's good name and reputation."

After reading that, you have to really wonder what's going on behind the scenes.

For example, does Cindy Sheehan take any money for speeches beyond her expenses? Does she get paid a salary by "Gold Star Families For Peace?" Does she stand to make more money if donations go up?

Some people might think it's not proper to ask those sort of questions. But, since Ms. Sheehan has chosen to blatantly exploit her son's death to promote "her own personal agenda and notoriety," I don't think it's unfair to wonder if this is really ultimately about grief or whether perhaps it could be about grief AND being able to afford a bigger house a few months down the road.

Maybe the next time some starstruck left-wingers are comparing her to Rosa Parks or are talking about what an incredible American hero she is for parroting the same anti-war lines they've been mouthing since the war started, they can publicly ask her if she's making any money off of this just to put the whole thing to rest once and for all.

Just for the heck of it (It's kind of a slow news day), I thought it might be worth taking a moment to address an argument that seems resurgent of late, that the Civil War wasn't really about slavery. Instead the claim is that it was really a states' rights issue.

The reasoning here goes that if the North had respected the right of the Southern states to secede, there would have been no war. Therefore, the Civil War was all about states' rights. Incidentally, when you run across people who say Lincoln was a tyrant and a rotten guy, instead of one of the greatest American Presidents, it's likely that they view the Civil war in states' rights terms, and given that, believe Lincoln started an unconstitutional war that led to hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths.

But when you get right down to it, the debate turns into sort of a, "which came first: the chicken or the egg" type of argument.

In this case, while I'll grant you that had both the North and the South agreed on the question of slavery and whether the states could secede from the union, there would have been no war; clearly slavery was what led to the Civil war.

The "Bloody Kansas" battles didn't occur over states' rights issues and that lunatic John Brown and his followers didn't go on a bloody rampage because they believed in a more centralized government. It was about slavery.

Furthermore, the aristocratic leadership of the Southern States chose to withdraw from the Union because they feared the balance of power was going to shift against slave holding states and that the practice would be ended (although I should note, the overwhelming majority of people in the South didn't own slaves and fought primarily to defend their homes and families from attack).

So, the split was over slavery, not states' rights. To say that the Civil War was actually about states' right is like saying WW2 was fought because the Axis and the Allies had different opinions about how much "living space" a nation was allowed to have. Of course, if both sides looked at it the exact same way (i.e. Germany could do whatever it wanted) there would have been no WW2, but to try to claim that was the root of the conflict sidesteps the real issues.

The same principle applies to the Civil War.

Most of the men fighting for the South may have been good and decent folks who just wanted to defend their homes and families. Moreover, many Southerners may have genuinely believed they had a right to secede from the Union. Yet and still, what brought the North and South to each others' throats and caused the war was the issue of slavery, not states' rights.

Oklahoma Man Held Before Boarding Plane With Bomb

'Able Danger' Intel Could Rewrite 9/11 History

The Family Of Fallen Soldier Casey Sheehan Pleads With Cindy Sheehan To Stop Her Political Grandstanding

Bush Says He Sympathizes With Protester President Adds That Pulling Out Of Iraq Now Would Hurt U.S. Security (Free WAPO Reg Req)

NARAL Withdraws Anti-Roberts Ad

Pentagon To Host 9/11 March, Show

Ex-WorldCom CFO Gets Five Years in Prison

GOP Pays Legal Bills In Vote-Thwart Case (Looks Sleazy)

The ACLU Collects $150,000 Taxpayer Dollars After Winning Anti-Ten Commandments Lawsuit

Texas Has Become The Fourth State To Have A Non-White Majority Population

Britain to Deport 10 Foreigners Seen as Threats (Free WAPO Reg Req)

A British Muslim Extremist Sparked Outrage Yesterday By Boasting He Would Be Proud To Become A Suicide Bomber

Extremist Cleric Omar Bakri Mohammed Will Not Be Allowed To Return To Britain For A Heart Operation On The National Health Service (Applause)

The New York Sun: Cindy Sheehan's Crowd

The Arizona Republic: NCAA Wrong To Put Chill On Traditions

Mark Steyn: All Men Are Not Equal

Cal Thomas: Rumsfeld's Cautious Optimism

Man Kills Another in Gunfight Over War

Whoops! 3 Wives Greet British Bigamist After Surgery (Free WAPO Reg Req)

Hong Kong: Man Murders His Bedridden Mother By Pouring Boiling Water Over Her

Web Site Of The Day: Power Line Blog News

Let’s hear it for the latest socialized medicine success!

"QUEENSLAND’S Government has been accused of forcing more than 100,000 people to languish on “secret” waiting lists for surgery at hospitals statewide.

Documents tendered to the Morris inquiry today revealed 108,571 patients in July last year were yet to receive an outpatients appointment, to determine if they should be placed on official surgical waiting lists.

Premier Peter Beattie today denied his government had covered up the true number of patients seeking surgery at the state’s public hospitals.

Mr Beattie said it was “dishonest” and “unfair” to compare official waiting lists to the 108,571 patients seeking appointments because many of them would not need surgery.

He also said he “stood by everything he said”, relating to his previous comments the Government enjoyed the lowest surgical waiting lists in Australia.

“It’s like comparing apples and oranges ... there have been no inconsistencies in what I have said,” Mr Beattie told state parliament.

Opposition Leader Lawrence Springborg said it was highly likely the majority of people waiting to see an outpatient doctor would require surgery.

Mr Springborg also alleged the Government had sought to conceal the unofficial waiting lists by taking them to Cabinet, preventing disclosure through Freedom of Information laws, and also refusing to regularly audit such patients.

“It’s true the premier says that many people won’t need to see a surgeon because they’ll be needing to see an undertaker they will be waiting for so long,” Mr Springborg said."

I don’t know why people are surprised by this. Economics 101: shortages are a function of price, not supply. When you have “free” medical care you remove the price aspect; therefore, you have a shortage of care. We’ve seen the same story time and time and time again in all the major socialized medicine systems. The goal is to give everyone everything they need, but in a world of scarce resources this is a utopian fantasy. In a free market system price determines the allocation of scarce resources; in socialized systems it is bureaucrats using arbitrary rationale.

As I said the other day, in the US people will receive the treatment they need, but they’ll go bankrupt because of it. In these “compassionate” socialized healthcare systems nobody goes bankrupt due to medical bills, because they die on waiting lists for treatment. Pick your poison.

This content was used with the permission of Right Thinking from the Left Coast.

Right Wing News emailed more than 215 right-of-center bloggers and asked them to send us a list of whom they considered to be their "Favorite People On The Right." Representatives from 52 blogs responded.

All bloggers were allowed to make anywhere from 1-12 unranked selections and were allowed to choose anybody on the right or generally perceived to be on the right that they liked: Republican, Conservative, Libertarian, politician, preacher, blogger, columnist, radio host, you name it! The bloggers were also told to keep in mind that their selections needed to be still alive and that the poll wasn't about electability. The goal was to get bloggers to choose the people they personally like &/or respect the most on the right.

Click here to see their responses.

12) Dick Cheney: Cheney is pugnacious, experienced, and hawkish. W. could not have had a better VP to complement him.

11) Tom Tancredo: I admire his leadership on the illegal alien issue.

10) Walter Williams: He's such a brilliant, crisp, clean thinker who can make complex subjects easily understandable.

9) Ann Coulter: As witty as she is beautiful, Coulter has a mind like a steel trap. She does great research, makes incisive points, and is absolutely fearless.

8) Michelle Malkin: The best blogger in the biz and I am continually amazed that she can blog, write books, fill in on Fox, and take care of a family. She's Wonder Woman...

7) Antonin Scalia: He just edges out Thomas and Bork as the preeminent conservative legal mind in America today.

6) Thomas Sowell: A prolific writer with tons of common sense. He's also the best writer on economic issues I've ever seen.

5) Mark Steyn: The best columnist and writer in politics, bar none.

4) Donald Rumsfeld: Rummy is sharp, scrappy, ruthless and a real long-term thinker. It gives me a lot of confidence to know we have a guy like him running the DOD in a time of war.

3) George W. Bush: He has had the guts to do the right thing on the foreign policy front, even when it has been politically risky. I'm as comfortable with him running our foreign policy as I would be with Reagan.

2) Newt Gingrich: Gingrich, along with Reagan and Limbaugh, is one of the 3 men most responsible for the resurgence of conservatism over the last 25 years.

1) Rush Limbaugh: As far as I'm concerned, Fox, the other talk radio hosts, and the whole right side of the blogosphere is just blazing a trail Rush Limbaugh started cutting back in the eighties. This country is a different place today because of Limbaugh.

Kevin Drum over at Political Animal wrote a short post speculating on 10 reasons why people won't vote for Democrats.

That was a good idea -- such a good idea that I decided to give it a try. Do keep in mind that I don't necessarily agree with these reasons and that some of them are structural (I.E.: If you take a position on an issue, somebody isn't going to like it). Still, it's a good idea to know what people don't like about the Party, even if we don't agree, so that we can try to counter incorrect perceptions and tailor our spin.

So here are the top 11 reasons, in no particular order, why I think people don't vote for Republicans:

1) Too conservative: Need to be move to the middle.
2) Too religious: In the pocket of the religious right.
3) The GOP is in the pocket of big business and hostile to the poor
4) Too aggressive: Ready to use the military too quickly.
5) The perception that we're not friendly to minorities.
6) Not conservative enough: Republicans get elected with conservative promises and then move to the middle.
7) The GOP hurts factory workers by being for free trade.
8) Spendthrifts: The GOP no longer cares about holding down spending or the growth of government.
9) Not friendly to seniors: The GOP might cut Welfare or Medicare.
10) We're anti-abortion
11) The Draft: college students are afraid the GOP will bring back the draft.

Christopher Hitchens has yet another brilliantly contrarian pice in Salon on the Iraq war. He asks the most critical question of the current time: does the antiwar side want us to lose in Iraq?

How can so many people watch this as if they were spectators, handicapping and rating the successes and failures from some imagined position of neutrality? Do they suppose that a defeat in Iraq would be a defeat only for the Bush administration? The United States is awash in human rights groups, feminist organizations, ecological foundations, and committees for the rights of minorities. How come there is not a huge voluntary effort to help and to publicize the efforts to find the hundreds of thousands of “missing” Iraqis, to support Iraqi women’s battle against fundamentalists, to assist in the recuperation of the marsh Arab wetlands, and to underwrite the struggle of the Kurds, the largest stateless people in the Middle East? Is Abu Ghraib really the only subject that interests our humanitarians?

I don’t think the left really gives a damn about the Iraqi people. Not anymore. They were perfectly content to use them as political pawns, lamenting the sanctions regime that was supposedly killing thousands every year - and that has not changed. To the left, the intrinsic worth of the Iraqi people is only in the fact that they can be used to achieve their political ends. The fact that they’re being murdered en masse by foreign jihadis and fascists really doesn’t seem to concern the self-righteous stewards of international law and peace.

For instance, how much ink and hot air have been spewed forth over Abu Ghraib compared to the token condemnations of terrorism in Iraq? Abu Ghraib, as reprehensible as it was, is nothing compared to the daily atrocities of the head-lopping child murderers of al-Qaeda in Iraq.

And yet where are the vigorous condemnations of that? Where is the equivalent to groups like Spirit of America? Where are the human rights groups when it comes to defending the fundamental and crucial right of the Iraqi people to be free of terrorism?

Suspiciously quiet, it would seem.

It is quite clear that the antiwar side thinks that their war against the Bush Administration outweighs civilization’s war against Islamofascist barbarism. The values of human rights should be universal values, and even if the antiwar side had principled arguments against the war when it began, the demands that the United States leave the Iraqi people to the wolves is either incredibly naïve or motivated by a horrendously twisted moral logic.

Hitchens continues:

Question: Why have several large American cities not already announced that they are going to become sister cities with Baghdad and help raise money and awareness to aid Dr. Tamimi? When I put this question to a number of serious anti-war friends, their answer was to the effect that it’s the job of the administration to allocate the money, so that there’s little room or need for civic action. I find this difficult to credit: For day after day last month I could not escape the news of the gigantic “Live 8? enterprise, which urged governments to do more along existing lines by way of debt relief and aid for Africa. Isn’t there a single drop of solidarity and compassion left over for the people of Iraq, after three decades of tyranny, war, and sanctions and now an assault from the vilest movement on the face of the planet? Unless someone gives me a persuasive reason to think otherwise, my provisional conclusion is that the human rights and charitable “communities” have taken a pass on Iraq for political reasons that are not very creditable.

Hitchens is correct - the Iraqi people are just pawns to the antiwar movement at this point. The constant defeatist rhetoric from the left betrays the complete and utter lack of principle behind the antiwar movement - they want Iraq to fail because then they can bask in their own self-superiority and wag their fingers at those evil “neocons” who dared to violate their pet project of subjugating all authority to the hopelessly corrupt United Nations.

And if that failure should cost a few thousand or a few million Iraqi lives? Well, the antiwar movement can then blame that on the US as well.

If the antiwar movement really gave a damn about the people of Iraq or the values of human rights, justice, and tolerance, they’ve be helping in Iraq. They’d be donating tons of food, holding benefit concerts for the Iraqi people, sending humanitarian workers to places like Baghdad and Basra to help restore Iraq’s shattered infrastructure and teach the basic values of democracy and pluralism.

But what has the left done for Iraq? At best they’ve sat on the sideline and bitched. At worst, they volunteered themselves to become “human shields” to protect the very regime that was raping and murdering the people of Iraq by the score.

In 1942, George Orwell wrote this passage in Partisan Review about British pacifists that applies just as well to the antiwar movement of today:

Pacifism is objectively pro-Fascist. This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side you automatically help out that of the other. Nor is there any real way of remaining outside such a war as the present one. In practice, ‘he that is not with me is against me.’

The left has to ask themselves where they chose to stand. Do they stand with Zarqawi’s brutal murderers, the Ba’athist thugs leftover from the tyrannical Hussein regime, and the radical right-wing Islamic fundamentalists who want to indiscriminately murder women, gays, and anyone else who doesn’t submit to their fundamentalist version of Islam or do they wish to stand on the side of a free and independent Iraq in which women have full political rights, Iraq’s various ethic groups live in peace, and dissent and freedom of expression is encouraged? The idea that they can stand on the fence has long since passed.

One can make a credible humanitarian argument that the war shouldn’t have happened. However, that doesn’t earn anyone the right to cheerlead for failure in Iraq. The left constantly whines that even though they don’t support the war they’re not for the other side - Orwell was right, that isn’t a defensible position.

Those who sit on the sidelines and do nothing but complain and spout the language of defeat and ignominious appeasement are the useful idiots of the enemy. Dissent is not a substitute for real patriotism, and arguments have consequences. It is time for the antiwar side to stop trying to run from the consequences of their positions and finally state which side they wish to be on.

This content was used with the permission of Single Malt Pundit.

Thanks goes out to the The National Journal's Hotline for doing a nice piece on the Conservative Blog Advertising Network I've put together for Blogads.

By the way, as the column notes, I do now have the ability to hand out invitations to Blogads (which is an invitation only advertising network). So, if you want to join up with Blogads, feel free to shoot me an email if you average better than a 1000 people a day or so and I'll be happy to look your blog over.

Four US Troops Killed; Iraqis Spar On Constitution

Terrorists Kidnap Senior Iraqi Official

Baghdad Mayor Is Ousted by a Shiite Group and Replaced (Free NYT Reg Req)

Britain And US Warn Iran Over Links With Iraq Rebels

For The Year: They Army Is 11% Behind Its Recruiting Goal, The Reserve Is 18% Behind, The Army National Guard Is 20% Behind (20% Behind For One Year Hardly Represents Some Kind Of Crisis)

Bush Signs $286.4 Billion Highway Bill

Package From 'Bin Laden' On Orlando Bus Investigated

Terry McAuliffe: Hillary May Not Run For Senate In NY If She Thinks She'll Have A Tough Race

Texas: Controversial Plan Would Force Principals To Learn Spanish

The Economist: Why Gas Prices Are So High

Ralph Peters: Not So Anti-American (Free NY Post Reg Req)

John Connly Walsh: Big Disappointments In Iraq

Thomas Bray: Union Breakup Won't Revive Declining Influence Of Labor

Ann Coulter: It's 'Let's Roll,' Not 'Let's Roll Over'

Patrick Hynes: Howard Dean's Questionable Strategy

Entrenched Epidemic: Wife-Beatings in Africa (Free NYT Reg Req)

Fly The Flag, Get Evicted? Patriotic Family Faces Boot For Displaying Old Glory

4 Time Indianapolis 500 Winner A.J. Foyt Stung 200 Times By Bees

An AF Reserve Lieutenant Colonel Get Caught Spray Painting Cars With Pro-Bush Bumper Stickers

Lefty Rock Band Puts Sean Hannity's Phone Number On Their Album Cover

Website Of The Day: Lance In Iraq

"Dean contends Democrats have become so obsessed with winning the Presidency — which, because of the Electoral College system, is really 50 statewide elections — that they have abandoned their efforts in a great many states where they can't win the big enchilada but could possibly win down-ticket races if only anyone in Washington had a little faith. Dean has nothing if he hasn't got faith. And Dean bets if he succeeds he'll create an unprecedented farm team of young, ambitious Democrats who will, over time, turn those red states blue.

I'm betting against Dean's strategy. Here's why.

There is a reason Democrats haven't spent a great deal of time, energy and resources in states like Mississippi and Utah in recent elections, just as Republicans have largely ignored, say, Vermont. Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman would love to make next year's Vermont open seat Senate race competitive by dumping hundreds of operatives and millions of dollars up there. But not only would such an effort be for naught, it would also rob genuinely competitive races of those resources.

Same for Dean's Democratic National Committee. Imagine all the DNC's resources for 2006 are a pie. Dean could cut that pie into 20 pieces and give healthy portions to the truly competitive states. Or he could cut the pie into 50 smaller portions and give every state a little piece. By choosing to distribute small pieces to more states, Dean might starve the candidates that can make the best use of resources.

And the DNC's pie is rather small to start with. While the Republicans have raised over $62 million through July of this year, Dean's DNC has raised just over $31 million. And whereas the Republicans have over $34 million in cash on hand, Dean's DNC has only $9.6 million. The RNC has more money on hand than Dean has raised all year. Now more than ever the DNC needs to target its resources to achieve maximum impact, not spread them thin." -- Patrick Hynes

...but they're pretty funny. More here.

"I don't really understand the point about carping about every casualty, every bombing, every death. War is hell. That's why people say war is hell. At no point during a successful war, I mean, nobody would say after D-day, "Well, that went well." When Americans are dying you never say that's a great thing. But to say we're losing the war is preposterous." -- Ann Coulter

Ya know, the bodacious blond one is absolutely right about that. You hear all these left-wingers who advocate tucking our tails between our legs, running out of Iraq, closing Gitmo on the way home, and then -- although they won't admit it -- they want to hunker down in America, hope we don't get hit with another attack, but still plan to blame George Bush if we do.

Why?

Because they don't think we can win -- or at least they say that they don't think we can win. Setting aside the fact that I honestly believe a lot of people on the left are such petty people that they'd love to see us fail in Iraq simply because they believe it would benefit them politically, this whole line of thinking is ridiculous.

It's not, "Why would anyone think we can win in Iraq," it's, "Why would anyone think we could lose," at this point?

The Coalition and Iraqis are fighting a bunch of terrorists who failed to stop the January election, who are going to fail to stop the Iraqis from creating a Constitution, who control no territory, and who are absolutely despised by the Shiites & Kurds.

The terrorists' base of support in Iraq consists of a fraction of the Sunnis who only make up 20% of the population. Furthermore, since the Sunnis plan to participate in the next election and the terrorists have nothing to offer but more murder, their support will only continue to dwindle.

Yes, they still kill people, but they're not popular, they can't topple the government with suicide bombers, and since their only chance of getting America to cut and run ended when John Kerry lost the election, they have no hope of victory.

Moreover, the Iraqis have had a wildly successful election, they're about to produce a Constitution, they have more elections coming up in December, Iraqi troops are out in the field gaining experience every day, and we keep hearing rumors that in early to mid-2006, our generals expect to pull out a significant number of troops because they won't be needed anymore.

Time is just not on the side of the insurgency.

Not only are there plenty of democracies -- like Israel, India, and Britain -- that have held up just fine under numerous terrorist attacks, but each day Iraqi troops become better prepared, Democracy moves forward and the insurgents become less popular. So, yes, they can still stab us in the ankle, but they're never going to be capable of pulling our boot off their throat.

Which brings us back to what Ann Coulter said:

"War is hell. That's why people say war is hell."

What we've done in Iraq has been expensive and bloody. We've lost 1800 of our people, many, many more have been wounded, and even the men and women who've come through unscathed have had to spend a long time away from their families, under extremely difficult conditions. Without question, our guys have had it tough over there.

But they've made those sacrifices for a reason. Our troops removed a hostile, anti-American dictator, with strong ties to terrorism and then, like the Greatest Generation before them in Germany, Japan, and Korea, they stayed on to help build a Democracy.

Furthermore, have we here in the States been spared more 9/11's because our troops have been fighting the terrorists in Iraq? That's entirely possible.

Will a free Iraq help spread Democracy around the region? Could the work our troops have done lead to hundreds of millions of Arabs eventually experiencing freedom for the first time? Since we've already seen free elections in Lebanon this year, we know it can happen.

By sticking in there when the going got rough, could we be avoiding other possible wars with rogue states by proving that we're not the "paper tigers" some people thought we were? Again, we've already seen Libya give up WMD's and Syria pull out of Lebanon in order to avoid conflict with the United States. Don't be surprised if we see other similar "diplomatic" victories in the War on Terror that have much more to do with our military than any smooth tongued emissary.

In the end, what it boils down to is that nobody likes having our troops in harm's way. But, for a while longer, our soldiers are going to have to continue to fight the good fight in Iraq because winning this battle in the War on Terrorism is crucially important to this country's national security. Our military has proven to be up to the challenge and the American people should stand behind the troops and their mission in Iraq until the job is done.

Jeff Jarvis over at Buzzmachine asked people to "list your favorite 10 TV shows ever — but not the dutiful ones, the ones you like for a reason."

Sure!

10) X-Files: For a while, this was a fun show. Mulder and Scully would find some monster or alien, they'd stop it in the end, but the proof would slip through their fingers. Then Mulder stopped regularly appearing, they starting drifting off into this over-arching government conspiracy, and the quality dipped. But, those first few seasons were a blast.

9) Xena: Again, simple concept: Xena and her lovely companion Gabrielle wandered around the countryside battling and defeating evil. A God would show up here and there, Bruce Campbell did a few walk-on appearances, Gabrielle was just unbelievably hot -- it kept my attention focused for an hour.

8) Hercules: Hercules was the exact same show as Xena, but without the eye candy. On the other hand, the suspension of disbelief during the fighting scenes was easier since Hercules was this immensely strong half-God. That's why this show edged out Xena.

7) The Twilight Zone: The show could sometimes be hit and miss and the quality was consistently bad once it went from 30 minutes to an hour, but there were so many fantastic episodes and a lot of them hold up even today. As a matter of fact, in many cases the Twilight Zone was more in touch with certain parts of America than what you see on TV today because the show's writers seemed be more comfortable with sympathetically portraying America, religion, the military, & country folk than the vast majority of TV shows do today.

6) The Young Ones: Along with Beavis and Butthead, I think the wild and outrageous humor of "Young Ones" was a forerunner of a lot of the best humor toons on today like "South Park" & "Family Guy."

5) Futurama: Futurama was always a better, more creative show than Matt Groening's more famous effort, "The Simpsons." In the end, Bender & Frye > than Homer and Bart.

4) Highlander: This was another brilliantly formulaic action/fantasy. Every week, a new immortal would show up looking to kill Duncan McCloud. Then there would be a few flashbacks to when they met a few hundred years earlier, there would be a climatic fight, and Duncan would take their head. In a lot of ways, this show was paced similarly to Xena & Hercules, but the action was better and Duncan McCloud was a deeper, more interesting character than the leads in either of those two aforementioned series.

3) South Park: SP is easily the funniest TV show ever made. Not only have there been very few "clunker episodes," the show is so good you can watch it over and over without ever becoming bored. SP is the cutting edge of humor.

2) Star Trek: Again, we have another show that stuck to a formula. The Enterprise encounters some sort of danger, the ship is threatened, they overcome the difficulty and then they win the day in the end. Granted, the show may seem a little dated these days, but in part that's because the show has been so heavily copied, for so long, that it's almost impossible for those old episodes to feel "fresh" anymore. That being said, any show that had two of TV's all-time great characters, Kirk & Spock, deserves a high rating.

1) Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The awesomeness of this show is impossible for me to overstate. I started watching the show for the vampire slaying, but the character development and plot twists really hooked me in. Not only did they do a great job of humanizing the characters and making them likable, the character development was just beyond stellar.

Take Spike, a vampire, for instance. Early on in the series, he's one of the main bad guys. Later, after having a government chip put in his head that keeps him from harming humans, he becomes sort of a pathetic figure. Then, over time, he manages to win Buffy's confidence and the two of them begin secretly sleeping together. But, after Spike screws that up, he gets a soul, comes back, proves himself to be a hero, and becomes a champion of good.

That sort of thing, along with a healthy plot and lots of action, was what made Buffy the Vampire Slayer such an incredible TV show.

While questions continue to be raised as to whether Judge John Roberts used his influence to fiendishly give two orphans a loving home, damning new evidence has come to light concerning his children - evidence that may put the kibosh on his Supreme Court nomination once and for all.

The Roberts kids are no strangers to controversy. Jack Roberts, a confirmed bachelor who enjoys dancing and thinks girls are "yucky", has the I.Q. of a four year-old boy and a rap sheet a mile long. In 2003, Jack was reprimanded by a superior court judge for vandalizing the walls of a private residence with Crayola crayons. Last summer, he stole several indigenous amphibians from a natural wetland, a crime against nature for which he has yet to be held accountable. His childlike demeanor and bizarre behavior have frustrated reporters for weeks. When pressed for details on his father's opinions concerning Roe V. Wade, it's not unusual for Jack to burst into giggles and spin around in circles until he falls down.

If Jack Roberts seems to revel in media attention, then his sister, Jane, shuns it. Living a life shrouded in mystery, Jane was rumored to be dating Tom Cruise - but it's widely suspected that the girl with the pageboy haircut "plays for the other team", if you know what I mean. While John Edwards has yet to officially acknowledge her as a lesbian, Jane is rarely seen without another woman at her side. Her dowdy style of dress and lack of frequent abortions have raised more than a few eyebrows. And like brother Jack, her mental instability is a thing of record. Prone to sudden emotional outburts and crying fits over trivialities, Jane is often seen talking to small plastic replicas of human babies, and her addiction to paste has been the talk of the tabloids for years.

If the behavior of one's children is any indication of how a man writes new laws, then I fear for an America with John Roberts on the bench. Sadly, it now it seems that Roberts' children can add treason to their long list of scandals. According to eyewitness accounts from MoveOn.org and NARAL spokespersons, the Roberts children leaked the identity of super-duper top secret agent Valerie Plame to Robert Novak, a Republican operative and closet homosexual. Plied with ice cream and a trip to Disneyworld by the diabolical and queer-as-a-three-dollar-bill Karl Rove, Jack and Jane Roberts had no qualms about destroying the life of an American hero and condemning her husband to an endless succession of lucrative book deals.

As new, more disturbing allegations spring forth from the *sses of New York Times editors every day, one must wonder if the flamboyantly gay John Roberts is fit to sit on the Supreme Court.

His children certainly aren't.

This content was used with the permission of BlameBush!.

When you finish up with RWN today, make sure to check out my other blog, Conservative Grapevine, for links to some of the best stories in the blogosphere today.

Like:

-- Cindy Sheehan: Using and being used.
-- Egyptian Prof: Muslims Had Nothing to Do with 9/11 -- "I believe a dirty Zionist hand carried out this act."
-- Why women don't like nice guys.

Check it all out at Conservative Grapevine.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld Says It Appears That Some Weapons In Iraq Are Coming From Iran

Australia: Islamic Leaders Won't Condemn Bin Laden

Rep: Officials Monitored 3 Hijackers Before 9/11 Attacks

Fact Check: NARAL Falsely Accuses Supreme Court Nominee Roberts

Claim: Illegal Immigration Costs Florida $4.3 Billion a Year

Conservative Group I've Never Heard Of To Oppose John Roberts

'Satanist' Dances On Reagan's Grave. Posts Photos On Net, Presidential Library Mum About Incident

Irshad Manji: Why Tolerate The Hate? (Free NYT Reg Req)

Mark Steyn: Trust Politicians To Do Nothing Useful

Debra Saunders: Cindy Sheehan's Bizarre Encampment

Rich Lowry: The Myth Of A Constitutional Right To Privacy

Michelle Malkin: The Democrats' 9/11 Slush Fund

Thomas Sowell: Trashing Our Troops In Iraq

Google Goes Ballistic After Getting Googled. Miffed After Personal Info Disclosed, Including CEO's Support For Al Gore

Helping Boys Become Men, and Girls Become Women. Is My Child Becoming Homosexual?

Arizona: Anti-Phone Town Not Willing To Change

New Zealand: Bush 'Evil B*Stard' In Billboard Spots. Restaurant Chain Features Image Of 'W' With Derogatory Slogans

S. Korean Man Dies After 50 Hours Of Computer Games

Video: Shark Vs. Octopus In A Battle To The Finish

Website Of The Day: The American Cancer Ablation Center

The extremist wackos who run PETA are so far out there that they've managed to even offend their liberal brethren in the NAACP by comparing how animals are treated to slavery:

"A two-hour animal rights demonstration on the Green Monday sparked outrage instead of sympathy from the public.

"This is the most racist thing I’ve ever seen on the Green. How dare you," roared Philip Goldson, 43, of New Haven at the protest organizers at Church and Chapel streets.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, a national animal rights group, posted giant photographs of people, mostly black Americans, being tortured, sold and killed, next to photographs of animals, including cattle and sheep, being tortured, sold and killed.

"I think it is an apt comparison," said Josh Warchol, 26, of Wallingford, president of the Southern Connecticut Vegetarian Society, which is aligned with PETA.

...The controversial display, which is on a national tour, is intended to drive home PETA’s point.

However, critics said the organization’s demonstration backfired.

One man demanded that the NAACP get involved immediately. Five minutes later, Scot X. Esdaile, president of the state and Greater New Haven chapters of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, arrived at the scene, surveyed the photos and blasted the organizers.

"Once again, black people are being pimped. You used us. You have used us enough," Esdaile said. "Take it down immediately."

"I am a black man! I can’t compare the suffering of these black human beings to the suffering of this cow," said Michael Perkins, 47, of New Haven. He stood in front of a photo of butchered livestock hung next to the photo of two lynched black men dangling before a white mob.

"You can’t compare me to a freaking cow," shouted John Darryl Thompson, 46, of New Haven, inches from Carr’s face. "We don’t care about PETA. You are playing a dangerous game."

Paul Tomaselli, 46, of North Branford took exception to an exhibit that included a photo of a black man being beaten to the ground by a white man with a stick while a white mob gathers.

Next to that photo was one of a man chasing a seal across the snow with a club.

"I think he’s right," said Tomaselli, who is white, in support of Thompson. "To compare people to animals is an unfairness to people."

The display, "Are Animals the New Slaves?" is on a 10-week, 42-city tour that started in early July. Today’s stop: Scranton, Pa., then on to Baltimore and Washington, D.C.

...(T)he Anti-Defamation League, a national civil rights organization, has publicly condemned PETA’s use of photos comparing human suffering in the Holocaust to animal suffering today; PETA apologized in May for the hurt it caused but stood by the comparisons.

..."I have relatives who were in concentration camps," said Alex Reznikoff, 47, of Newtown. "I think this detracts from PETA’s message. It doesn’t make me think about animals at all."

Ya know, it's always tempting to just have a "live and let live" attitude with the sort of nuts who buy into what PETA is selling. Ya know, "Oh, who cares if they don't see any difference between animals and people?"

The problem is that we live in a society where we regularly eat animals, make items out of their skins, and keep them as pets. So if these screwballs take their own rhetoric seriously, it can get dangerous.

If you really believe the murder of a cow is the moral equivalent of an innocent black man being lynched by an unruly mob, then logically, does it not follow that you believe butchers should be jailed or stopped, even by violent means if necessary, from butchering those cows?

Furthermore, if you think a slaughterhouse is the equivalent of a Nazi death camp, would it be morally wrong to machine gun the people who work there? After all, didn't the soldiers who stormed the Nazi concentration camps in WW2 do a good thing?

You have to wonder what Bruce Friedrich, PETA's Director of Vegan Campaigns, would have to say about that since he has already openly and publicly advocated violence against people who disagree with PETA's view of animal rights:

"I think it would be a great thing if you know all of these fast food outlets and these uh these slaughterhouses and these laboratories and the banks that fund them uh exploded tomorrow and uh I think it's perfectly appropriate...and I think it's perfectly appropriate for people to take bricks and toss them through the windows and uh you know, everything else along the line. Alleluia to the people who are willing to do it."

So despite the fact that I'm not very fond of the NAACP, I'm at least glad to see someone in one of the local chapters slamming the extremist loons in PETA. More people should do the same...

Hat tip to Michelle Malkin for the story.

Like most Americans, I believe in showing a certain amount of respect for the dead. When someone dies, whether you like him or not, you should at a minimum keep your mouth shut and send your condolences to his friends and family. If you like the person or even if you don't particularly like him and are feeling particularly generous, you may also say some nice things about him. In short, you don't want to do anything to add to the burden of people who are grief stricken.

Unfortunately, this tradition has been abused numerous times by anti-war activists since 9/11. Time and time again, we've seen left-wingers trot out and publicize people who lost loved ones in Iraq or in 9/11, so they can exploit their grief for political gain. There was Kristin Breitweiser & the Jersey Girls, Lila Lipscomb in "Farenheit 9/11," Michael Berg -- whose son was decapitated in Iraq, and now Cindy Sheehan, who's camped out at Crawford demanding to meet the President.

Of course, Sheehan has already met the President once, and had nice things to say about the experience at the time. But now, she doesn't feel the same way and the attitude far too many people on the left seem to have is: "How can we use the death of this woman's child to our advantage?"

So, they write about Sheehan in the blogosphere, they interview her on Air America, they dedicate whole websites to her: and why exactly?

There are certainly plenty of other families who've lost someone in Iraq who don't agree with Sheehan about the war. Furthermore, it's certainly understandable that Cindy Sheehan is upset about the loss of her child, but do wars become immoral or bad national policy decisions based on grief? If a grieving mother publicly complained to Roosevelt about WW2, should he have brought all of our troops home? Of course not, that would be foolish. But, the anti-war crowd still loves to take advantage of people like Sheehan because you're not supposed to criticize their views since they've lost a child.

That being said, I don't like saying this, but I find people like Cindy Sheehan and Kristin Breitweiser, who've parlayed the death of a loved one into 15 minutes of fame, to be more than a little bit ghoulish. Sheehan's son died over a year ago and Breitweiser's husband died on 9/11, yet they're still out publicly demanding attention and sympathy for their loss. Is there a time limit on their "Get out of criticism free" card or do they get to espouse their ridiculous anti-war views forever more without contradiction because someone close to them died?

Almost all of us have lost someone we care about deeply at one time and it's a traumatic experience, but very few of us have tried to indefinitely play on everyone else's heartstrings because of it. Maybe, at some point, Cindy Sheehan and her anti-war supporters should start to take that into consideration...

You've heard about the Big Air America scandal, haven't you? If not, I'll let the inimitable Mark Steyn explain it to you:

"Speaking of shivering coatless girls in Bush's America, spare a thought for the underprivileged urchins of the Bronx. The Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club, a nonprofit social-services organization in New York, receives millions of dollars in government funds to give disadvantaged youth in poor neighborhoods a leg up the ladder of life. But mysteriously much of the money wound up being diverted to the coffers of Air America, the liberal talk-radio network whose ratings are yet another example of "deferred success." The needs of disadvantaged Al Franken and his pals apparently outweigh those of Bronx welfare recipients. Perhaps Janeane Garofalo is the coatless girl John Edwards was talking about all those months. Air America looks like the broadcast version of the U.N. Oil-for-Food program, whereby money earmarked to save starving moppets somehow winds up in the bank accounts of bloated self-described do-gooders with political connections."

The lefty spin in the blogosphere has generally been "These are all trumped up charges by the right," but there is obviously a lot of meat to this story as the Radio Equalizer explains:

"Could the New York City Department Of Investigation have been more clear? It demanded Air America immediately repay $875,000, to be placed in an escrow account the DOI could access for later distribution.

Air America's response to the letter? It transferred a mere $50,000 into an account controlled by its own lawyer.

Maybe Air America thought it should repay Air America?

That's one of the major revelations contained in today's New York Post.

New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has now opened an investigation into the transfers of taxpayer-funded grants from the Gloria Wise Boys and Girls Club to Air America."

It's a delicious story, isn't it? Rich liberals looting money meant for poor children so they can fund their big capitalistic business venture?

Yet, the reaction of the liberal mainstream media to this huge story has been almost total silence.

Why won't they cover this story?

Because Air America is supposed to be the political counter to conservative talk radio and the liberal press doesn't want to hurt "their team," especially when Al Franken & Company are limping along with terrible ratings and questionable finances as it is.

Moreover, covering this story is more than a little humiliating for much of the MSM because not only did they shower Air America with kudos and publicity when they went on the air, right wing bloggers like Michelle Malkin & The Radio Equalizer have thoroughly beaten the MSM to the story.

In any case, this scandal still has legs. I mean, has anyone even asked Al Franken if he feels any remorse about perhaps having his salary paid in part by money stolen from poor kids?

This is still one fun scandal!

More on the "kidnap victim of the week" stories here, at RWN.

Hat tip to Something Awful for the graphic.

"Multiculturalism is based on the lie that all cultures are morally equal. In practice, that soon degenerates to: All cultures are morally equal, except ours, which is worse. But all cultures are not equal in respecting representative government, guaranteed liberties and the rule of law. And those things arose not simultaneously and in all cultures, but in certain specific times and places -- mostly in Britain and America, but also in various parts of Europe." -- Michael Barone

Tehran Ends Freeze On Nuclear Program

Pentagon Expects to Temporarily Send More Troops To Iraq Before Election (Free WAPO Reg Req)

UN Oil-For-Food Probe Names Two Suspects

Treason Threat Cleric, Omar Bakri Mohammed, Leaves UK

Bush Says New Energy Bill Vital To U.S. Economy

Oil Prices Top $64 A Barrel In New High (Free WAPO Reg Req)

Poll: 54% Of Adults Say Going To Iraq Was A Mistake. 56% Say The War Is Going Badly. 43% Say It Is Going Well

Protesting Soldier Mom, Cindy Sheehan, Changed Story On Bush

John Fund: Aloha, Apartheid -- A Court Strikes Down A Race-Based Policy In Hawaii, While Congress Considers Enshrining One

Christopher Hitchens: Can The Left Really Want Us To Lose The War In Iraq

David Francis: Time To Get Real About Enforcing Immigration Laws

Deroy Murdock: Hillary Clinton’s Rep Doesn’t Gel With Her Record (Excellent)

Michael Barone: Cultures Aren't Equal

Reuel Marc Gerecht: A Great Democratic Experiment Is Taking Place In Iraq

Florida: Sex Offenders Banned From Storm Shelters

Harry Potter Is The Favorite Reading Material For Islamic Terror Suspects At Gitmo

Italy: Man Forgets Wife At Gas Station

The Bush Conspiracy Theory Generator

Website Of The Day: Helping Our Troops

It's always fun to go moonbat gigging in the fever swamps of the Democratic Underground, find comments from a few choice loonies, and serve them up for entertainment.

But sometimes, you don't even have to work that hard because the moonbats charge right out of the swamp, yowling at the top of their lungs, and practically beg everyone to see how crazy they are. So it was at Saturday's "march to commemorate the Voting Rights Act of 1965."

Here are a few quotes from some of the lefty loons at that march:

From Harry Belafonte:

"[If] a black is a tyrant, he is first and foremost a tyrant, then he incidentally is black. Bush is a tyrant and if he gathers around him black tyrants, they all have to be treated as they are being treated," he added. See Video

When asked specifically who was a "black tyrant" in the Bush administration, Belafonte responded to this reporter, "You." When this reporter noted that he was a Caucasian and attempted to ask another question, Belafonte abruptly ended the interview by saying, "That's it."

Then Dick Gregory got into the act:

"They (black conservatives) have a right to exist, but why would I want to walk around with a swastika on my shirt after the way Hitler done messed it (the swastika symbol) up?" Gregory said in an interview with Cybercast News Service. (The swastika was an ancient symbol generally regarded an emblem of strength and luck before the Nazi Party adopted it in 1920.)

...Gregory trashed the United States, calling it "the most dishonest, ungodly, unspiritual nation that ever existed in the history of the planet. As we talk now, America is 5 percent of the world's population and consumes 96 percent of the world's hard drugs," Gregory said.

Gregory also accused President Bush of stealing the 2004 presidential election.

"They didn't win, and I got that from the white press. At four o'clock [on Election Day 2004], that evening, the white press said from the exit polls that [Democratic presidential nominee John] Kerry had won by a landslide and then three hours later something funny happened," Gregory said of Bush's eventual election victory."

Oh and we can't leave out U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.):

"The last two elections were stolen. They were stolen and so we will not rest until we reclaim our democracy and this is what today is all about."

We certainly don't want to forget the Judge Mathis either:

"A featured speaker at Saturday's civil rights march in Atlanta said the Bush administration and Republican Party leaders are "thieves" who "need to be locked up" for stealing the past two presidential elections and presiding over federal budget deficits and the war in Iraq.

"They all need to be locked up because they are all criminals and they are all thieves," said Judge Greg Mathis, the star of the syndicated television program "The Judge Mathis Show."

You know, I'm really glad RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman is working hard to reach out to black Americans, because there have got to be a lot of people who are getting tired of being associated with the sort of kooks & ultra-libs who have appointed themselves as spokesmen for black America.

In any case, your race? It doesn't matter. If you're a conservative -- particularly a Christian conservative -- who's against gay marriage, doesn't care about Affirmative Action & reparations, and furthermore you favor school vouchers, being tough on crime, and low taxes, then you belong in the Republican Party. That definition? It probably fits 25-40% of black America and all of those people should be voting for the GOP, the party that best represents their interests.

You ever been in pain?

Not minor pain, like a skinned knee or extremely intense agony, like the sort caused by a broken leg, but something inbetween?

Pain that's bad enough that it drastically cuts into your quality of life and just makes life miserable for you?

Now imagine feeling like that, hurting like that, and knowing that there's a fix for it -- but -- and this is a huge but -- finding out that you're going to have to wait an entire YEAR to have it taken care of properly.

That would be horrible, wouldn't it?

Well, if you lived in Britain, where they have the sort of "wonderful" socialized medicine that Democrats want to bring to this country, you wouldn't have to imagine that horrible situation. To the contrary, if we ever have government run healthcare in this country, this is the sort of thing that will likely happen here as well:

"HE has to wait 17 weeks just for an appointment. Then he has to wait at least another nine months for an operation in the UK.

So British mum Karen Knott, who couldn't bear to see her 14-year-old son, Elliot, in pain has decided to fly him to India for an operation.

...Her son is suffering from spondylolisthesis, a condition which developed after he injured his back while ice-skating. It is caused when a vertebra slips out of line and presses on a nerve.

Elliot can barely stand and has to be helped around his home near Dorchester. He was due to begin his GCSE courses next term, but has had to stop attending classes because of the pain.

His local hospital does not carry out the procedure and referred him to Southampton General Hospital.

But since the referral, he has not been seen by a doctor.

After making inquiries about going private, his parents, who are both design engineers for Westland Helicopters, discovered that the operation could be carried out in India for 4,700.

Elliot and his mother fly out on Tuesday and will be in India for 18 days.

...'It is the worst age for something like this to happen (to Elliot). He is still growing and active, and about to start his GCSEs,' said Mrs Knott, who has another son, Ryan, 10.

...A spokesman from Southampton General Hospital said: 'Even though our waiting times are within the national levels it is difficult when you are the person affected.

'Staff who have these specialised skills are in short supply and a lot of their time is taken up with emergency cases.'"

You know what they say about getting things for free? "You get what you pay for." That's something people should keep in mind when liberals start talking about how great it would be to have "free" healthcare in this country like they do in Europe and Canada...

*** Update #1 ***: From the comments section: another story about the joys of socialized medicine:

"Living in the Netherlands (where starting next year private health insurance will be banned, no matter what the propaganda flyers call the scheme) I understand all too well and from experience in my family.

My mother was diagnosed with an unknown growing object in her abdomen which was pressing on her urine tubes and bladder in february 2002.
She was told she needed emergency surgery, not just because she was in constant pain and could not shed urine, but because doctors feared it was a fast growing cancer.

She was told that there was however a waiting list for the surgery required that would mean at least a 3 months waiting period (remember this was AFTER the surgeons and everyone else agreed this was an emergency!).

Lucky for her she could go into hospital 2 weeks later after someone on the waiting list died and her doctor pulled some favours to get her priority treatment.

Not that it ended well, as errors introduced by misplaced costcutting measures meant she was in hospital 9 months instead of 2-3 weeks and lost her left food(sp) in the process.

We didn't sue the hospital btw., they admitted to the mistakes and offered to pay all expenses (had they not done so there'd have been hell to pay, though in our system it's unlikely there'd ever be a verdict as medical cases are treated by special courts made up solely of doctors who all protect each other as next time it could be them under charge...).

by jwenting on 2005-08-08 05:13:35"

Everybody with me now: "Awwwwwwwwwww, poor guy!"

"A hate-spewing imam who has collected over $450,000 in welfare payments from the British government is complaining it would be unfair to deport him because it would cause his four wives and their families to suffer.

...In past rants, Shiek Bakri has lauded the 9/11 hijackers as "magnificent" and declared as recently as January that Britain had become a "land of war."
According to the Daily Mail, Bakri "has supported suicide bombings and urged his followers to kill non-Muslims 'wherever, whenever.'"

The agitating imam has been living on the dole for 20 years. A childhood injury to his leg has allowed Bakri to claim a disability, which netted him a state-supplied car and $450-a-week benefit payments.

The Brit-bashing shiek also lives in a $350,000 home in North London."

This guy has been on welfare -- for 20 years -- and he lives in a $350,000 home? Oh -- and he "urged his followers to kill non-Muslims 'wherever, whenever?'" I guess someone must have forgotten to send him the "religion of peace" memo, huh?

All I can say is that we're lucky Bakri's not in the US because if you're selling anti-Americanism in this country, you can be sure that someone will be buying. Heck, Bakri wouldn't need welfare here because he'd either be doing the rounds on the lecture circuit with Ward Churchill or some liberal university would be begging him to take a job as a professor in their ethnic studies department.

But across the pond, it's not a good day to be a bad guy like Bakri because the Brits aren't just deporting radical Islamists, they're talking about tossing them in jail for treason.

Sounds like just deserts to me.

"Can you name great presidents who were known as moderates? Can you name any important historical speeches or writings that called for greater moderation?

By definition, moderates are not leaders. Leaders confront evil and pounce on opportunities. They ask us for excellence and sacrifice. They make decisions and take responsibility for them. Rather than accept the direction the stream is taking us, they pilot and they paddle. They take sides. Really good leaders respond to threats and opportunities which are far away, and can see beyond the way things are to the way things ought to be.

...Moderates don't take risks. They look at things the way they are now and the way they're headed - and split the difference.

Sometimes people call themselves moderates because they're not bright enough or interested enough to have positions on important issues. It's easy to see both sides, but it takes thought, knowledge and courage to decide which side is right." -- Alan Aker

If I were asked to vote for my favorite blogging trend, it would be attractive women creating blogs featuring lots and lots of pictures of themselves.

First it was Xiaxue and now I've found another one, Diary Of A Fired Flight Attendant.

You know what? Someone should do the Nick Denton thing with this whole concept. They could find maybe 15-20 attractive women, set up their blogs and advertising for them for -- let's say, keep 40% of the take? I bet they could make a bundle.

That's not just talk either. Xiaxue? According to her stats tracker, she's doing 9,000 to 10,000 daily uniques per day. The flight attendant? According to her blog she has had "1,822,124 visitors since January 11th, 2004."

Give me 20 blogs like those two to manage and with cross promotion I bet you I could get half of them over 10,000 uniques a day in a year, and maybe a few to 20,000+ in that same time frame. That would make a heck of a fall back career in case this whole conservative blogging gig doesn't pan out, right?

Today on my other blog, Conservative Grapevine, there are 14 links to the best stories in the blogosphere just waiting for you to take a look at them.

For example, you'll definitely want to see:

-- Moonbat Blog Taxonomy: More than you wanted to know about the big names on the left side of the blogosphere.
-- Planned Parenthood fantasizes about blowing up 'Anti-Choicers'.
-- The lead singer of Creed gets punk'd (A funny, true story).
-- The Democratic Underground: Bush had former British Labour minister Robin Cook killed! Loons =D.

So soon as you finish up with Right Wing News, make sure to head on over to Conservative Grapevine to see what's happening on the right side of the blogosphere today!

Trapped Russian Sailors Rescued By Brits

Britain: Mosque Tells Muslims It Is Their Duty To Become Terrorists And Praises The Tube Bombers As “The Fantastic Four”

Britain: Militants Who Praised London Attacks Could Face Treason (Applause)

Britain: State Seeks Control Of Muslim Schools

Netanyahu Quits As Israel Approves Gaza Pullout

Afghan Police Said Overnight They Have Seized Almost Four Tonnes Of Explosives

Peter Jennings Dies At 67 (My Condolences Go Out To His Friends & Family)

NY Times Questioned Legality Of Judge Roberts' Adoptions

Roberts Devoted Free Time to Liberal Cases

US Scientists Find Flexible Stem Cells In Placenta

At Least 80 Wealthy Liberals Have Pledged To Contribute $1 Million Or More Apiece To Fund A Network Of Think Tanks And Advocacy Groups (Free WAPO Reg Req)

GOP Plans More Outreach To Blacks, Mehlman Says (Free Reg Req)

O'Reilly Interviews Coulter On Iraq & Immigration

Binyamin Netanyahu Explains, In An Interview, Why He Thinks Pulling Out Of Gaza Will Hurt Security (Free Jersusalem Post Reg Req)

Mark Steyn: Democrats' New Strategy: Almost Winning

Alan Aker: Mainstreamers Have Lost Their Way

Rich Karlgaard: Paul Krugman's French Family Values

Scum-Of-The-Earth Michael Schiavo Receives Guardianship Award

Deep Into Sleep: Everything You Wanted To Know About Sleeping

Video: How The Marines Took Fallujah (AWESOME, But Some Bad Language)

A Man Filmed Himself Jumping To His Death On His Mobile Video Phone

Belfast Rapist Phoned Victim's Mother To Gloat

Pakistan: Man Swaps Daughter For Unopposed Win In Polls

Website Of The Day: Ultraquiet No More