November 28, 2007 • 7:56 pm
It’s been a grueling couple weeks with the holiday and moving offices, so I’m getting back into posting slowly. I get these wonderful email Chronicles from the Patriot Post. The following extract was particularly interesting. Therefore, I felt it worthy of sharing.
A lesson in obfuscation:
“’The group’s purpose was to make it appear Al Qaeda in Iraq was responsible for the attack,’ Admiral Smith said, using the military’s name for Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. ‘The special groups’ aim was to demonstrate to Baghdadis the need for militia groups to continue providing for their security’.” —The New York Times **“’Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia,’ of course, is the Times’s name for what everyone else calls al Qaeda in Iraq.” —James Taranto
It depends on the meaning of “values”:
“On foreign policy, [Hillary] is a little more hawkish than the rest of the Democratic Party, and certainly more than the primary base is. It seems that on social issues, by which I mean kind of welfare and economic issues, she’s fairly liberal. But she’s a moral conservative. Which is to say that she also gets behind, you know, things like values issues.” —Time’s Amy Sullivan
Not exactly a sycophant:
“And the part of the Clinton administration that worked best—the economy, stupid—was run by Robert Rubin. Hillary did not show good judgment in her areas of influence—the legal fiefdom, health care and running oppo-campaigns against Bill’s galpals.” —New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd
Definitely a sycophant:
“If it’s not you, how disappointed will you be?” —CBS’s Katie Couric (aka the Clinton’s personal, gushing Useful Idiot) and her “in-depth” interview with Mrs. Bill Clinton—Hillary responded, “Well, it will be me.”
This week’s “Non Compos Mentis” Award:
“My nominee was a woman—a victim of abuse. A strong, resilient woman who is a constant topic of discussion these days: Mother Earth.” —NBC’s Brian Williams on his nomination for Time’s “Person of the Year”
Reference is here.
Filed under: Politics, Thoughts
November 19, 2007 • 7:35 pm
November 17, 2007 • 10:26 pm
I noticed this morning that my page counter just rolled over 10K. Not sure whether that’s good in terms of traffic for other folks blogs, but I feel a bit of honor that at least a fair portion of those hits must have stuck around to read what I had to say. And I also know that a number of you folks actually return to my humble site every now and then. So to all you who stop by, whether just traveling through or coming here to visit, thanks. Hope you enjoy yourselves and maybe learn a little bit. Again, welcome and thanks.
Filed under: Thanks, Thoughts
November 15, 2007 • 9:49 pm
Oye, thought I’d give a try at watching Blitz Wolffer’s presentation of the Democratic Candidates. Already 9 minutes into it and I’m losing interest. Hillary, Obama and Edwards garner the most applause.
The Big O starts by pointing out ‘lary’s flip-flopping on the issues. A nod towards her support/non-support of driver’s licenses for illegal’s. Hoo boy, they’re getting heated already after only 15 minutes into the show. Almost a free-for-all and Blitzer is having a difficult time getting them reined in.
Sen. Biden gets his chance and is actually doing a great job. He’s great at working the crowd may have scored some big points for his down-to-earth, non-antagonistic approach. Up to this point, they’ve all shown themselves to almost be quarreling children, except Joe Biden who appeared unwilling to denigrate himself.
Cheez Edit, now Kucinich is debating the term illegal alien. What a dork. All Blitzer asked was do they support driver’s licenses for illegal aliens.
Guess my ADD has kicked in, my mind wandered and now they’re talking education. Pretty much droning except for Biden, who seems to have a good stage presence. I’ve reached liberal saturation point.
Oops, the Senator from New Mexico seems to have just stepped into it; “human rights are more important than national security”. Not sure where he’s going with that. That was a land-mine question…
to be continued…
Filed under: Democrats, Politics, Thoughts
“There are very few people over the generations who have ideas that are sufficiently original to materially alter the direction of civilization. Milton is one of those very few people.” –Alan Greenspan
….
Nobel Laureate economist and Red Planet hero Milton Friedman passed away one year ago this week at age 94. He was, as Thomas Sowell once said, “one of the very few intellectuals with both genius and common sense.”
RedPlanetCartoons » Milton Friedman
Milton Friedman is the twentieth century’s most prominent economist advocate of free markets. He was born in 1912 to Jewish immigrants in New York City. He attended Rutgers University, where he received his B.A. at the age of twenty, then went on to earn his M.A. from the University of Chicago in 1933 and his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1946. In 1951 Friedman won the John Bates Clark Medal honoring economists under age forty for outstanding achievement. In 1976 he won the Nobel Prize in economics for “his achievements in the field of consumption analysis, monetary history and theory, and for his demonstration of the complexity of stabilization policy.” Before that time, he had served as an adviser to President Nixon and was president of the American Economic Association in 1967. Since retiring from the University of Chicago in 1977, Friedman has been a senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
Friedman established himself in 1945 with Income from Independent Professional Practice, coauthored with Simon Kuznets. In it he argued that state licensing procedures limited entry into the medical profession, thereby allowing doctors to charge higher fees than if competition were more open.
Read the rest of this entry »
Filed under: National Budget, Thanks, Thoughts
November 12, 2007 • 11:21 am
Someone sent this to me in one of those email chain letters. And I actually thought it somewhat amusing.
Why
Do we press harder on a remote control when we know the batteries are going dead?
Why
Do banks charge a fee on ‘insufficient funds’ when they know there is not enough money?
Why
Does someone believe you when you say there are four billion stars, but check when you say the paint is wet?
Why
Do they use sterilized needles for death by lethal injection?
Why
Doesn’t Tarzan have a beard?
Why
Do Kamikaze pilots wear helmets?
If
People evolved from apes, why are there still apes?
Is
There ever a day that mattresses are not on sale?
How
Do those dead bugs get into those enclosed light fixtures?
Why
Is it that whenever you attempt to catch something that’s falling off the table you always manage to knock something else over?
In
Winter why do we try to keep the house as warm as it was in summer when we complained about the heat?
How
Come you never hear father-in-law jokes?
Filed under: Thoughts
November 10, 2007 • 6:35 pm
November 9, 2007 • 11:52 am
November 6, 2007 • 6:26 pm
Been a hectic and long couple weeks since my last post, during that time I’ve grown one year older (somewhere in my forties) and put another rotation of soldiers through the wringer of a field training exercise. Dynamics were much different this time, new contractors, new role-players and new chain of command.
We managed to muddle through the gauntlet of VIPs and their entourages and completed a fairly successful training event.
But, I’m recuperating, need some time to catch my breath. Whew…
Filed under: Civil Affairs, Military, Thoughts
Ham
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