Christmas comes a little early

From American Thinker:

The Tea Parties have had their first major victory, as Harry Reid pulled the pork-laden omnibus spending bill from Senate consideration, in the face of Republican opposition capable of winning at least 41 votes to sustain a filibuster. GOP senators like McConnell who had helped put pork into the bill woke up and realized the electorate was serious when it rejected earmarks. McConnell, aware of the changed mood of the country, worked hard to persuade GOP senators. Robert Costa and Andrew Stiles of NPR report:


[. . .]

The Democrats had planned to cram the bill down the nation's fiscal throat using the threat of a government shutdown. Now, facing serious opposition to this trick, they will have to settle for a simple continuing resolution, keeping spending at current levels instead of nearly 2000 pages of complexity with no time for scrutiny. The new Congress, where the GOP controls the House of Representatives, where spending bills must originate, will craft next year's budget.


Good news indeed.  It is possible to change the way things are done in Washington as long as the public is willing to stay engaged.

And that will be the challenge, to keep a public that mostly doesn't enjoy involving itself in politics deeply and on a daily basis (the way bloggers and talk radio listeners do) engaged.

The reason for the season

Hollywood can learn from this

The coming cool down?

From American Thinker:

Guess who wrote this.

"The Sun is the primary forcing of Earth's climate system. Sunlight warms our world. Sunlight drives atmospheric and oceanic circulation patterns. Sunlight powers the process of photosynthesis that plants need to grow. Sunlight causes convection which carries warmth and water vapor up into the sky where clouds form and bring rain. In short, the Sun drives almost every aspect of our world's climate system and makes possible life as we know it.


"... According to scientists' models of Earth's orbit and orientation toward the Sun indicate that our world should be just beginning to enter a new period of cooling -- perhaps the next ice age...


"Other important forcings of Earth's climate system include such "variables" as clouds, airborne particulate matter, and surface brightness. Each of these varying features of Earth's environment has the capacity to exceed the warming influence of greenhouse gases and cause our world to cool. " [Emphases added.]

Lord Monckton didn't write that. Neither did physicist Richard Lindzen, physicist William Happer, or physicist Hal Lewis. Nor was it Steve McIntyre who blew the whistle on the "hockey stick." It was none of the usual suspects among the "skeptic" community.


It was NASA, home of our space program, the currently unmuzzled James Hansen and one of the major centers for collecting climate data and analyzing it. (HT: Ace.)


The NASA statement is simply astounding to me. It says, quite unambiguously, that our climate is dominated by the sun and our orientation to it. It also credits non-carbon sources as "important forcings" of our climate: clouds, particulate matter and surface brightness. Finally, it warns of coming global cooling!

Of course, the NASA statement still says there is human-caused warming. But, it will be swamped by these other forces to yield net cooling. In short, whatever man is doing to the climate, it is insignificant in the face of natural forcings.

The science "consensus" has not only collapsed, it has raised the white flag and confessed that the skeptics were right all along. I think we can stick a fork in the climate change agenda. A few nuts will continue to wander the streets, mumbling to themselves and each other. But as a significant political agenda, I think it's over. I sure hope it is.

It is all very amusing to see the left's favorite hobgoblin having the wind knocked out of its sails but the far more serious point is that the earth might very well be headed into the next ice age.

We are due for one and some scientists think we may already be in it but won't know for sure for a couple more decades.

This is a big deal.  While an increase in global temperatures would be a good thing overall (longer growing seasons, more land becoming productive for agriculture, less disease, less hunger, lower heating bills and so on) an ice age would be a global catastrophe of massive proportions.

Here is a map of what North America looked like during the last ice age:

Everything north of the heavy black line was covered with glaciers up to a mile thick.

That's all of Canada and Alaska and New England and the upper Midwest.  Tundra would extend south of the line of glaciation for more than one hundred miles in some areas.  The territory south of the tundra would have a much colder climate as far south as Florida and Northern Mexico.

Here is what Europe would look like:

While no one would miss Russia very much Great Britain and Ireland would be a different matter.

Growing seasons would be shorter.  World food production would drop and large numbers of displaced people would begin migrating south looking for warmer weather.

Some say that it would be the end of civilization as we know it.  I personally doubt that as I think that the human race is more resilient that that but it would unquestionably be the greatest disaster to ever befall the human race.

Our guys aren't dunces

Want to know the difference between the left's celebrites like Sean Penn and Woopi Goldberg and conservative celebraties like Adam Baldwin and Gary Graham? 

The left-wing actors, singers, producers and such spout mindless liberal talking points.  For an example just surf over to the Huffington Post.

Celebrites on the right however have enough sense not to open their mouths unless they can actuall back up what they are saying.  For an example check out this essay by Adam Baldwin.

Want a good laugh?

Then check out this post on Big Journalism.

Washington Times – Off-the-record exchanges and thousands of confidential e-mails dating back almost four years reveal that high-profile journalists have been aiding and advising President Obama since he announced his candidacy in early 2007.

 Provided by WikiLeaks to the Washington Times, the material was originally discovered by a cleaning lady at CNN. Surfing on Wolf Blitzer’s computer during her 4:00 a.m. break, Emalina Ortiz inadvertently opened a window to “BO-WeServe”–a private forum for journalists supporting Obama’s campaign and, later, his administration’s agenda.


[. . .]

A sampling of the e-mails:

From: BKeller@TheTimesSheIsaChanging.com
To: OhMama08@IMD1.net
Date: September 19, 2007



Stop waffling on Iraq, Senator. Raise the ante. Pledge to airlift out the entire American presence to Okinawa within two days after your oath. It’ll be the Berlin Blockade in reverse, a shining example of American ingenuity. How does ”Operation Iraq Excursion” sound?


From: kcouric@seebs.com
To: OhMama08@IMD1.net
Date: May 1, 2008

 Subject: Hillary

 Hillary’s a pit bull, Senator; you’re a poodle. You schmooze with a glass of Zinfandel; she throws down a shot and a beer. Change perceptions, sir. Go to a bar in Trenton, play setback with the locals, get falling-down drunk. And if you order a bitters, don’t cling to it.

 Also, Bill’s been quiet. Get under his skin so he pops. How about a 3:00 a.m. Oval Office ad with a Hillary lookalike yelling at someone just off camera, ”I warned you! Starting Monday, all the interns will be male.”Stop waffling on Iraq, Senator. Raise the ante. Pledge to airlift out the entire American presence to Okinawa within two days after your oath. It’ll be the Berlin Blockade in reverse, a shining example of American ingenuity. How does ”Operation Iraq Excursion” sound?Subject: Iraq

Random act of culture

I saw this video on American Thinker:



The saddest thing was from the commentary:

Drawing on the genius and power of the best of our civilization, this kind of demonstration can't be easily savaged by judicial tyrants. The Messiah is, after all, a cultural touchstone. Unfortunately for the miserable zealots who can't tolerate religious expression, it also unabashedly praises the Christian God.


Is there a clearer sign of our slide into barbarism than the idea that a public performance of one of the greatest works of our culture borders on sedition? Yet it's impossible to watch the video and not wonder how the organizers got away with it.

How indeed?

This is happening all over the Northern Hemisphere in Canada and the US. How much longer will it be tolerated?

Miss Ann is talking

That means that YOU are listening!

DON'T ASK, DON'T TELL, DON'T CALL OUR TROOPS HOMOPHOBES
by Ann Coulter
December 8, 2010


The Pentagon's poll on "don't ask, don't tell" is beyond idiotic. Instead of asking whether the troops support repeal of DADT, the Pentagon asked only if they can learn to play nice with the gays.


Even more absurdly, the Pentagon polled all military "personnel" -- and their spouses! Only a small portion of what is known as "the military" actually does the fighting. The rest is a vast bureaucracy along the lines of the DMV.


Today's military features "victim advocates" and sensitivity training facilitators, the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services personnel and a million other goo-goo positions. How did we ever take the shores of Normandy without a phalanx of "sensitivity training" counselors?


No one has any need to be reassured that the military's "social action" staff will enjoy working with gays. Whatever a career in "social action" entails, it better be gay-friendly. Frankly, it's appalling the Pentagon's poll of all military personnel and their families didn't produce better numbers for the gays.


We're interested in what the men who fight think. As the Pentagon study itself reports: "A higher percentage of service members in war-fighting units predicted negative effects."


So gays openly serving in the military will harm the "war-fighting" part of the military, but the "social action" part will thrive!


Naturally, Marines are the most resistant to overturning "don't ask, don't tell," with 58 percent of those in combat opposed.


Who cares if the Pentagon's sexual harassment task force supports gays in the military? The combat units don't, and they're the ones who do the job. The rest of us shouldn't get to vote on gays in the military any more than we get to vote on the choreography of "Chicago."


Military combat is a very specialized field comparable to nothing in civilian life. There has to be a special bond among warriors -- and only one kind of bond. The soldierly bond gets confused if some guys think their comrades are hot or if they suspect their superior is having a relationship with a fellow soldier.


It's the same confusion that results from putting girls in the military. When an officer makes a decision, nothing should enter into it except his views on the best military strategy.


The military part of the military has valid reasons for wanting to separate the idea of martial ardor and sexual attraction. Combat units can't have anything that interferes with unit cohesion, such as, for example, platoon members who are dating one another. Racial prejudice is not the same thing as sexual attraction, so please stop telling us this is just like integrating blacks in the military.


A Military Times survey in 2005 found that nearly half of all women in the military claim to have been the victim of sexual harassment -- ludicrously more than women in civilian life. By contrast, two-thirds of minorities said they were treated better in the military than in society at large.


The Pentagon's report found that service members "repeatedly" said that allowing gays to serve openly would "lead to widespread and overt displays of effeminacy," as well as "harassment" and unwelcome advances. (To which I would add, "and the occasional leak of massive amounts of classified documents.")


Gays in the military understand this better than heterosexuals in civilian life. According to the Pentagon's survey, only 15 percent of gays currently serving said they would want their units to know they're gay. (Also, 2 percent of gays currently serving giggled when asked about their "unit," which is down from 5 percent from last year.)


There are far more discharges for pregnancy and "parenthood" than for homosexuality. In the past five years, less than 1 percent of all unplanned military discharges (i.e. not due to retirement or completion of service) were for homosexuality.


Here's a record of the discharges for 2008, according to the Defense Department:
-- Drugs: 5,627
-- Serious offenses: 3,817
-- Weight standards: 4,555
-- Pregnancy: 2,353
-- Parenthood: 2,574
-- Homosexuality: 634


The main lesson from these figures isn't that we should have gays openly serving in the military, but that we need to get girls out of the military, inasmuch as they are constantly being discharged for pregnancy, parenthood and weight issues.


According to a 1998 Department of Defense report, most discharges based on homosexuality involved "junior personnel with very little time in the military" and "the great majority of discharges for homosexual conduct are uncontested and processed administratively." More than 98 percent of discharges for homosexuality were honorable.


So gays and girls can join the military, get taxpayers to foot the bill for their education and then, when it comes time to serve, announce that they're gay or pregnant and receive an honorable discharge. Indeed, there's no proof that all the discharges for homosexuality involve actual homosexuals.


Why can't the Army and Marines have their own rules? Why does everything have to be the same? Whatever happened to "diversity"?


Maybe we could have an all-gay service! They'd be allowed to wear camouflage neckerchiefs (a la Paul Lynde) and camo capri pants. To avoid any sexual harassment claims, they'd have to have their own barrack, which we could outfit with a dance club, a cosmo bar and a counseling center called "The Awkward Place." Their band would mostly play show tunes, and soldiers captured by the enemy would be taught to reveal only their name, rank and seasonal color analysis ("I am Private First Class Jeffrey Smith and I'm a 'winter.'")


They wouldn't be allowed in combat, however, for the same reason women aren't –- it takes them too long to get ready.


Most people have no clue what military life is like, least of all the opinion makers in New York, Los Angeles and the nation's capital. The military is not representative of the country at large. It is disproportionately rural, small-town, Southern and Hispanic.


We ask our troops to do a lot for very little money. Sometimes they die for us. The least Democrats could do is not pass grandstanding bills while self-righteously denouncing our servicemen as homophobes.


COPYRIGHT 2010 ANN COULTER
DISTRIBUTED BY UNIVERSAL UCLICK
1130 Walnut, Kansas City, MO 64106

Ann's last paragraph sums the entire issue up completely. We ask our troops to sacrifice a great deal, sometimes their very lives, for not much pay. The very least we owe them is to not use them for politically correct social experimentation.

All this amounts to is the fact that homosexual activists see an area in which they are excluded and throw a tantrum. Their goal is not that society should tolerate homosexuality but that it should be celebrated.

The Army and the other services should be delighted to have as many homosexuals as possible in their ranks. They should aggressively seek them out and it should be decreed as their official policy that homosexuals serving openly make the armed services better able to perform their mission (regardless of how the presence of open homosexuals actually affects the military's war fighting ability).

This is the true reason for the push to legalize homosexual "marriage". Gay activists see an institution from which they are excluded and demand that the doors be flung wide open for them regardless of the effect which their inclusion would have on the institution.

As I said in a previous post homosexuality is a mental disorder (this is equally true whether its causes are genetic or environmental). There is a scale of how badly homosexuality impairs a person's ability to function within society just as there is a scale of how badly autism affects an individual’s ability to live a normal life.

Think of a San Francisco gay pride parade. The gay firefighters and police who are marching in uniform represent the "high function" end of the scale. The float done up to look like the Sistine Chapel with men dressed as Jesus and the apostles having oral sex with each other represent the "low function" end of the scale.

There are more than a few of the "high function" homosexuals who wish to serve in the military. And they are serving. They are the 85% of gays currently serving who do not want their units to know that they are gay.

I say let them continue serving under those conditions. The purpose of the military is to keep the nation safe by defeating our enemies on the battlefield or by being so good at their jobs that no enemy attempts to challenge us on the battlefield. The military is not an agent of social change (unless you mean that changes that occur in a society that we have defeated on the battlefield like Germany or Japan) and it should not try to be.

Correcting racial injustice is a completely different matter. The basis of treating blacks differently from whites was a stereotype of black inferiority which had no connection to reality. The behavioral differences manifested by homosexuals are very real and impact upon parts of our psychology which are not socially constructed but are hard wired.

This is why ancient Rome which was very accepting of homosexuality in civilian life punished homosexual acts in the legions with death. They understood the damage that would be done by open homosexuality in a combat unit.

Modern America needs to realize that the accumulated experience of all of human history and all of the wisdom that experience teaches us cannot be made moot by a diktat from Washington.

It just wouldn't be Christmas

Without the Sinterklaas song!

Hollywood castrato sings a bitter song

Aaron Sorkin (creator of television series The West Wing - what else do you really need to know) has a problem with Sarah Palin going hunting with her father:

"Unless you've never worn leather shoes, sat upon a leather chair or eaten meat, save your condemnation."


You're right, Sarah, we'll all just go fuck ourselves now.


The snotty quote was posted by Sarah Palin on (like all the great frontier women who've come before her) her Facebook page to respond to the criticism she knew and hoped would be coming after she hunted, killed and carved up a Caribou during a segment of her truly awful reality show, "Sarah Palin's Alaska", broadcast on The-Now-Hilariously-Titled Living Channel.


I eat meat, chicken and fish, have shoes and furniture made of leather, and PETA is not ever going to put me on the cover of their brochure and for these reasons Palin thinks it's hypocritical of me to find what she did heart-stoppingly disgusting. I don't think it is, and here's why.


Like 95% of the people I know, I don't have a visceral (look it up) problem eating meat or wearing a belt. But like absolutely everybody I know, I don't relish the idea of torturing animals. I don't enjoy the fact that they're dead and I certainly don't want to volunteer to be the one to kill them and if I were picked to be the one to kill them in some kind of Lottery-from-Hell, I wouldn't do a little dance of joy while I was slicing the animal apart.


I'm able to make a distinction between you and me without feeling the least bit hypocritical. I don't watch snuff films and you make them. You weren't killing that animal for food or shelter or even fashion, you were killing it for fun. You enjoy killing animals. I can make the distinction between the two of us but I've tried and tried and for the life of me, I can't make a distinction between what you get paid to do and what Michael Vick went to prison for doing. I'm able to make the distinction with no pangs of hypocrisy even though I get happy every time one of you faux-macho shitheads accidentally shoots another one of you in the face.


So I don't think I will save my condemnation, you phony pioneer girl. (I'm in film and television, Cruella, and there was an insert close-up of your manicure while you were roughing it in God's country. I know exactly how many feet off camera your hair and make-up trailer was.)


And you didn't just do it for fun and you didn't just do it for money. That was the first moose ever murdered for political gain. You knew there'd be a protest from PETA and you knew that would be an opportunity to hate on some people, you witless bully. What a uniter you'd be--bringing the right together with the far right.


(Let me be the first to say that I abused cocaine and was arrested for it in April 2001. I want to be the first to say it so that when Palin's Army of Arrogant Assholes, bereft of any reasonable rebuttal, write it all over the internet tomorrow they will at best be the second.)


I eat meat, there are leather chairs in my office, Sarah Palin is deranged and The Living Channel should be ashamed of itself.

Mr. Sorkin if you are willing to eat the meat or wear the skin but unwilling to kill the animal then you ARE a hypocrite.  And furthermore you seem to be too stupid to know it.

You think that shooting an animal with a high powered rifle is "torturing" it?  Would you prefer that humans do what other apex predators (look it up you dunce) do and eat our prey alive?

You think that what someone who hunts for the table does and what Michael Vick did are exactly the same?  So trying to kill an animal with one shot and finishing it off as quickly as possible if it is still alive then feeding your family with the meat is EXACTLY THE SAME as pitting dogs against each other in an illegal dogfight then killing those who fail to win in a slow and agonizing way for the amusement of yourself and your friends?

Mr. Sorkin if you truly believe this you are not only a hypocrite but an abject fool and a moral leper (look up what Hanson's Disease does to the nerves - this is what moral leprosy does to the conscience).

You are not only a fool and a hypocrite you are a pathetic and contemptible weakling.  You are happy enough to have the steak sizzling on your plate but you lack the balls to put it there.  Not only do you lack the guts to kill the animal yourself but you actually imagine yourself to be better than the people who do have the courage to face up to what eating meat involves (the death of the meat animal). 

Just look at the little dweeb

Mr. Sorkin you are a weak and wretched little gelding.  You should get down on your knees every day and thank God that there are plenty of people in the world like Sarah Palin, who are ready and willing to do the heavy lifting so that you can live the comfortable life of a Hollywood screenwriter and producer.  Because you are utterly incapable of surviving in a world in which all of life's necessities are not handed to you on a silver platter by anonymous but hardworking people - the least of who's ass you are not worthy to wipe.  You miserable mincing little metrosexual capon.

Tradition!

Let us do all we can to keep these wonderful holiday traditions alive in an increasingly secular and cynical world.

Krampus:

Krampus is a mythical creature. In various regions of the world – especially Austria and Hungary – it is believed that Krampus accompanies St. Nicholas during the Christmas season, warning and punishing bad children, in contrast to St. Nicholas, who gives gifts to good children.

The word Krampus originates from the Old High German word for claw (Krampen). In the Alpine regions, Krampus is represented by a demon-like creature. Traditionally, young men dress up as the Krampus in the first two weeks of December, particularly on the evening of 5 December, and roam the streets frightening children with rusty chains and bells.[1] In some rural areas the tradition also includes birching – corporal punishment with a birch rod – by Krampus, especially of young girls. Images of Krampus usually show him with a basket on his back used to carry away bad children and dump them into the pits of Hell.

From Wiki

Merry Christmas, Welcome Home (The Fa, La, La, La, La Song)

One of Sean Hannity's producers thought we needed some new Christmas music so she wrote this then sang it and made the music video.  All by herself.

He began every day with a naked woman

Andrew Klavan has a new short story in the current City Journal which is posted on their website.

For those of you who are unacquanted with Mr. Klavan he is a sucessful novelist and screenwriter (works include Don't Say A Word and True Crime) and is one of the small, but growing, number of Hollywood personalities willing to publically admit to being a conservative.

It is said that conservatives in TV, the radio and internet do not do enough to support the work of conservatives in the arts.  There is much truth in this.  When, for example, was the last time you saw Sean Hannity or Glenn Beck invite a conservative writer, director or actor on their television show to discuss their latest project?

Conservatives need to do more than just complain about how left-wing the entertainment industry is.  They need to aggressively support other conservatives when they venture into the arts.

To that end I highly recomend that you pop over to City Journal and read The Windows.  Here is a taste:

He began every day with a naked woman. FemArt.com had a new one each week. He didn’t subscribe to the site. The free 30-second sample video was enough. Explicit, even exploratory, without being overtly sexual or pornographic. Just a nude girl or sometimes two posing or laughing or running on a beach or through the grass or by a lake or near a railroad track. Not the likeliest scenarios, admittedly—he sometimes pitied the women for the harsh stones or gritty sand against their bare flesh—but their images beguiled his imagination and brought him to life.



Then there was e-mail. Notes from the Fever Swamp. Fears; conspiracies; dire predictions. I hear my upstairs neighbors whispering at night. . . . The president is one of them. . . . It’s all foretold in Revelation. . . . They have the materials they need for the Times Square attack. . . .



Sometimes there was a personal threat as well. There was one today, in fact. We’re getting closer, Stein. You can count your days on a single hand. A single finger maybe. . . .

Merry Christmas

The sour and humorless left-wing usual suspencts' heads are exploding over this :)

H/T KisP

That terrible lost Senate seat

Misha has a post up that's just too good not to spread around:

We are getting quite a bit more than just “weary” of listening to Establishment GOP “Pragmatists” whining about O’Donnell and how she “cost us” a Senate seat by letting the primary voters decide who their nominee should be rather than leaving it to the Establishment as they did with ScuzzyFlavah. And what a roaring success that turned out to be, we might add.


But never you mind, you silly peasants who believe that voters should choose their candidates, ousting that outstanding “centrist” Castle meant that we wouldn’t have an “R” in that seat, his actual positions be damned.

He is a forty year career politician who happens to call himself a Republican, as once did Charlie Crist, Arlen Specter and Jim Jeffords. Mr. Castle is a habitual tax raiser. He is unwaveringly pro abortion and he has earned an F- rating from The NRA. He voted for TARP, Porkulus, the auto and banking industry takeovers, Cash for Clunkers as well as Cap and Trade. Most recently, he co-sponsored the disclose act which is nothing more than an assault on the first amendment designed to muzzle his political opposition.


While on the topic of opposition; Mr. Castle has made it clear that were he elected senator, regardless of his political affiliation, he has no intention of opposing current Democrat policies.

What a tremendous loss to the cause of conservatism. How we missed out on never-ending repeats of having to pander to his every whim in order to at least get him to vote with his (allegedly) own party.


We weep, weep we tell you for the future of conservatism now that we have been cruelly robbed of having to tongue-bathe that cretin every time something was up for a vote in the Senate!


Which leads us to the bonus feature of this post. It’s so deceptively simple that we can only feel ashamed that we didn’t see it before. It was right there in front of our bloody eyes!


The solution to Ogabe’s woes is right there. All he needs to do in order to avoid being a lame duck for the next two years and even give him a decent shot at re-election in 2012 is to, wait for it, switch parties!


As soon as the “pragmatists” of the GOP see that “R” after his name, all of his previous actions as well as all of his future proposals with get the full backing and endorsement of the “pragmatist” wing.


He’ll be, nominally, a Republican, and that’s all that matters to those spineless milquetoasts.


There is not enough daylight between Ogabe and Mike Castle’s agenda to register on a thermal sight, yet they’re all tearing their hair out over the horror, the HORROR of the Delaware primary voters ignoring that magnificent “R” after his name. Principles and agendas be damned. To the Rove wing of the GOP, all that matters is party affiliation and whether you can plop a fake “R” in a seat.


If Josef Stalin was still around and chose to run as a “Republican”, they’d have a lip lock on his butt so tight it would take surgery to detach them.


Thatisall.

I coundn't agree more.  The GOP needs to wake up fast to the fact that our own party establishment RINO leadership is our enemy just as much as the Democrats.

I'm kind of with Hitler on this one

CCP NEVER grants that kind of petition.

They just say that the game is functioning as intended.

The best decription of the game I've ever heard was in the YouTube comments to this video:

The point of EVE online is that CCP gave 50 thousand sociopaths WMD's and said "Go play!"

If you're interested in playing respond in the comments and I can get you an extra week of free play.

Remember the left is only one of our enemies

From our friends at Red Planet.

Global Warming DOA

Wes Pruden has a nice post mortem of the global warming hoax in today's Washington Times:

Scams die hard, but eventually they die, and when they do, nobody wants to get close to the corpse. You can get all the hotel rooms you want this week in Cancun.


The global-warming caravan has moved on, bound for a destination in oblivion. The United Nations is hanging the usual lamb chop in the window this week in Mexico for the U.N.'s Framework Convention on Climate Change, but the Washington guests are staying home. Nobody wants to get the smell of the corpse on their clothes.


Everybody who imagined himself anybody raced to Copenhagen last year for the global-warming summit, renamed "climate change" when the globe began to cool, as it does from time to time. Some 45,000 delegates, "activists," business representatives and the usual retinue of journalists registered for the party in Copenhagen. This year, only 1,234 journalists registered for the Cancun beach party. The only story there is that there's no story there. The U.N. organizers glumly concede that Cancun won't amount to anything, even by U.N. standards.


Rep. Henry A. Waxman of California, who wrote and sponsored the cap-and-trade legislation last year, says he'll be too busy with congressional business (buying stamps for the Christmas cards and getting a haircut and a shoeshine) even to think about going to Cancun. Last year, he joined Speaker Nancy Pelosi and dozens of other congressmen in taking staffers and spouses to the party in Copenhagen. The junket cost taxpayers $400,000, but Copenhagen is a friendly town and a good time was had by all. This year, they're all staying home, learning to live like lame ducks.


The Senate's California ladies, cheerleaders for the global-warming scam only yesterday, can't get far enough away from Cancun this year. Dianne Feinstein says she's not even thinking about the weather. "I haven't really thought about [Cancun], to be honest with you," she tells Politico, the Capitol Hill daily. She still loves the scam, but "no - no, no, no, it's just that I'm not on a committee related to it." She's grateful for small blessings.


Barbara Boxer, who was proud to make global warming her "signature" issue only last year, obviously regards that signature now to be a forgery. She would like to be in Cancun, but she has to stay home to wash her hair. She's not even sending anyone from her staff, willing as congressional staffers always are to party on the taxpayer dime. "I'm sending a statement to Cancun." (Stop the press for that.)


This is another lesson that Washington's swamp fevers inevitably subside. Who now remembers Smoot-Hawley, Quemoy and Matsu, and the Teapot Dome? But these were once issues on which the survival of the known world rested. The only global-warming news of this week was the announcement that the House Select Committee on Global Warming would die with the 111th Congress. Mrs. Pelosi established the committee three years ago to beat the eardrums of one and all, a platform for endless argle-bargle about the causes and effects of climate change. The result was the proposed job-killing national energy tax, but with the Republican sweep, there's no longer an appetite for killing jobs.


Rep. Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts, the chairman of the doomed committee, organized one final event this week, a splashy daylong exercise in gasbaggery starring the usual suspects assigned to drone on for most of the day about the coming global-warming disasters, the melting of the North Pole and the rising of the seas that would make Denver, Omaha and Kansas City seaside resorts. Wesley Clark was the only former presidential candidate to accept an invitation, and he was a no-show. The star witness of the afternoon session was Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an "environmental attorney" who talked about how "clean energy" is nicer than the other kind. Mr. Markey himself, as bored as everyone else, didn't bother to return after lunch.


The members of the committee can now retire with their scrapbooks of clippings to recall the happy days of hearings about global warming (some of them before "global warming" became "climate change" and "liberals" became "progressives"), about how clean energy could replace smelly oil wells and provide Democrats with the means to enact sweeping climate-change legislation. Who could have foreseen that the only "sweeping" would be the sweeping out of so many Democrats?


When the thrill is gone, the thrill is gone, as star-crossed lovers have learned through the ages, and when a scam collapses, it stays collapsed. The thought is enough to warm hearts all across the globe.

The lie does have a little bit of life left within it but the handwriting is on the wall.

The question now is what shape the boogie man the global left will bring forward to replace it will take.  After all they will not allow themselves to go long without some kind of hobgoblin designed to frighten the masses into surrendering their wealth and liberty.

From now on ask

That means that YOU are listening!

BRADLEY MANNING: POSTER BOY FOR 'DON'T ASK, DON'T TELL'
by Ann Coulter
December 1, 2010


The two biggest stories this week are WikiLeaks' continued publication of classified government documents, which did untold damage to America's national security interests, and the Democrats' fanatical determination to repeal "don't ask, don't tell" and allow gays to serve openly in the military.


The mole who allegedly gave WikiLeaks the mountains of secret documents is Pfc. Bradley Manning, Army intelligence analyst and angry gay.


We've heard 1 billion times about the Army translator who just wanted to serve his country, but was cashiered because of whom he loved.


I'll see your Army translator and raise you one Bradley Manning.


According to Bradley's online chats, he was in "an awkward place" both "emotionally and psychologically." So in a snit, he betrayed his country by orchestrating the greatest leak of classified intelligence in U.S. history.


Isn't that in the Army Code of Conduct? You must follow orders at all times. Exceptions will be made for servicemen in an awkward place. Now, who wants a hug? Waitress! Three more apple-tinis!"


According to The New York Times, Bradley sought "moral support" from his "self-described drag queen" boyfriend. Alas, he still felt out of sorts. So why not sell out his country?


In an online chat with a computer hacker, Bradley said he lifted the hundreds of thousands of classified documents by pretending to be listening to a CD labeled "Lady Gaga." Then he acted as if he were singing along with her hit song "Telephone" while frantically downloading classified documents.


I'm not a military man, but I think singing along to Lady Gaga would constitute "telling" under "don't ask, don't tell."


Do you have to actually wear a dress to be captured by the Army's "don't ask, don't tell" dragnet?


What constitutes being "openly" gay now? Bringing a spice rack to basic training? Attending morning drills decked out as a Cher impersonator? Following Anderson Cooper on Twitter?


Also, U.S. military, have you seen a picture of Bradley Manning? The photo I've seen is only from the waist up, but you get the feeling that he's wearing butt-less chaps underneath. He looks like a guy in a soldier costume at the Greenwich Village Halloween parade.


With any luck, Bradley's court-martial will be gayer than a Liza Minelli wedding. It could be the first court-martial in U.S. history to feature ice sculptures and a "Wizard of Oz"-themed gazebo. "Are you going to Bradley's court-martial? I hear Patti LaBelle is going to sing!"


Maybe there's a reason gays have traditionally been kept out of the intelligence services, apart from the fact that closeted gay men are easy to blackmail. Gays have always been suspicious of that rationale and perhaps they're right.


The most damaging spies in British history were the Cambridge Five, also called "the "Magnificent Five": Kim Philby, Guy Burgess, Anthony Blunt, Donald Maclean and John Cairncross. They were highly placed members of British intelligence, all secretly working for the KGB.


The only one who wasn't gay was Philby. Burgess and Blunt were flamboyantly gay. Indeed, the Russians set Burgess up with a boyfriend as soon as he defected to the Soviet Union.


The Magnificent Five's American compatriot Michael Straight was -- ironically -- bisexual, as was Whittaker Chambers, at least during the period that he was a spy. And of course, there's David Brock.


So many Soviet spies were gay that, according to intelligence reporter Phillip Knightley, the Comintern was referred to as "the Homintern." (I would have called it the "Gay G.B.")


Bradley's friends told the Times they suspected "his desperation for acceptance -- or delusions of grandeur" may have prompted his document dump.


Let's check our "Gay Profile at a Glance" and ... let's see ... desperate for acceptance ... delusions of grandeur ... yep, they're both on the gay subset list!


Obviously, the vast majority of gays are loyal Americans -- and witty and stylish to boot! But a small percentage of gays are going to be narcissistic hothouse flowers like Bradley Manning.


Couldn't they just work for JetBlue? America would be a lot safer right now if gays in an "awkward place" psychologically could do no more damage than grabbing a couple of beers and sliding down the emergency chute.


Look at the disaster one gay created under our punishing "don't ask, don't tell" policy. What else awaits America with the overturning of a policy that was probably put there for a reason (apart from being the only thing Bill Clinton ever did that I agreed with)?


Liberals don't care. Their approach is to rip out society's foundations without asking if they serve any purpose.


Why do we have immigration laws? What's with these borders? Why do we have the institution of marriage, anyway? What do we need standardized tests for? Hey, I like Keith Richards -- why not make heroin legal? Let's take a sledgehammer to all these load-bearing walls and just see what happens!


For liberals, gays in the military is a win-win proposition. Either gays in the military works, or it wrecks the military, both of which outcomes they enthusiastically support.


But since you brought up gays in the military, liberals, let's talk about Bradley Manning. He apparently released hundreds of thousands of classified government documents as a result of being a gay man in "an awkward place."


Any discussion of "don't ask, don't tell" should begin with Bradley Manning. Live by the sad anecdote, die by the sad anecdote.


COPYRIGHT 2010 ANN COULTER
DISTRIBUTED BY UNIVERSAL UCLICK
1130 Walnut, Kansas City, MO 64106

Miss Ann is correct that allowing gays to serve openly in the military would be a mistake, however the handwriting is on the wall.  With a Pentagon report that the disruptions would be small and temporary congress will cave and end "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" in favor of open acceptance.

I'm sorry but in the majority of cases homosexuality is only one of the abnormal characteristics of most homosexuals.  Ask any police officer in a large city with a large gay population and they will tell you the same thing.  Of course there are some who are relentlessly average in everything other than their sexual preference, but they are the minority.

I happen to know a gay couple who moved into my neck of the woods from San Francisco in order to escape the soul destroying toxic weirdness of the San Francisco gay community.  There are similar refugees from San Fran' and Greenwich Village and other gay Meccas living in the suburbs and small towns all across America.

Homosexuality is a mental disorder like autism or schizophrenia.  It may have a genetic basis like Down's Syndrome or it may be the kind of condition that can strike anyone given the right kind of environmental factors early in life.  Or it may be a combination of genetic predisposition that requires environmental factors to activate.  I don't know and as long as the mental health profession continues to bow to political pressure from the homosexual lobby and refuses to classify homosexuality as a mental illness no one else will either.

Bringing people who are inherently unstable into positions where they have access to classified information (not to mention weapons of mass destruction) is a bad idea.

Earning his pay

Joe Scarborough was once a Republican congressman from Florida.  During his time in the House he had a solid conservative record.  However after resigning from the House and failing as a radio talk show host he has aligned himself with the über-left cable channel MSNBC as their token "conservative".  However his actions since becoming Keith Olbermann's butt-boy have shown that he is very aware of who is signing his paychecks.

The latest incident of Joe dancing to the tune of his progressive paymasters is a hit piece on Sarah Palin penned for the left-wing political blog Politico:

Republicans have a problem. The most-talked-about figure in the GOP is a reality show star who cannot be elected. And yet the same leaders who fret that Sarah Palin could devastate their party in 2012 are too scared to say in public what they all complain about in private.

The Republican "leaders" who are worried about the unelectability of Mrs. Palin are the same people who backed Charlie Christ because Marco Rubio was just a crazy Tea Party candidate that had no chance of getting elected.  These are the "leaders" who care far more about being invited to the right Georgetown cocktail parties and getting a friendly reception on the Sunday cable shows than they do about saving the country.

Everybody knows that Palin is a busy woman. The former half-term governor of Alaska stays so busy these days that one wonders how this mother of five manages to juggle her new reality show, follow her eldest daughter’s dancing career and launch her latest frenetic book tour while still finding the time to insult a slew of revered presidents and first ladies.


You’ve got to admit hers is a breathtaking high-wire act.


What man or mouse with a fully functioning human brain and a résumé as thin as Palin’s would flirt with a presidential run? It makes the political biography of Barack Obama look more like Winston Churchill’s, despite the fact that the 44th president breezed into the Oval Office as little more than a glorified state senator.

This is funny in a sad and pathetic kind of way.  Obama was a "community organizer" (translation: gutter thug street agitator) in the most corrupt city in the nation (and that's saying something in a nation that also includes New Orleans, LA and Marshall, NC) who became a state senator, an office he resigned from to run for the US Senate, an office he resigned from after actually working at for 185 days to run for president.

As a state senator he distinguished himself by voting "present" a record number of times.  In the US Senate he distinguished himself by quickly surpassing Ted Kennedy as the most liberal Senator (a real accomplishment since Kennedy had a decades-long head start).  And as president Obama has surpassed all his earlier achievements by driving the nation's economy into the ground like a tent peg, insulting our oldest and most important allies, bowing and scraping before our enemies and doing absolutely nothing while Iran, the most dangerous rogue regime on the planet develops nuclear weapons.

Sarah Palin, on the other hand, was a multi-term mayor, the most popular governor in the nation and as vice-presidential candidate almost single handedly managed to drag the rotting corpse of John McCain to victory in the 2008 election (unfortunately a VP candidate no matter how strong cannot overcome a wretchedly bad presidential candidate).

Since leaving the governors office she has taken a leading position in the Tea Party movement where she played a key role in the historic gains made by the GOP in the 2010 mid-term elections.  She routinely frames the terms of national debate on issues like Obama's health care takeover through something as simple as a Twitter post and she has side stepped a relentlessly hostile mainstream media through the writing of two best selling books and a popular television show.

Anyone who thinks that Barack Obama's record is somehow more impressive that Governor Palin's is delusional on the order of someone who believes that the CIA has implanted a computer chip up his ass and that the aliens from Zeta Reticuli are beaming messages into his brain.

Still, Palin is undeterred, charging ahead maniacally while declaring her intention to run for the top office in the land if “nobody else will.” Adding audacity to this dopey dream is that Palin can’t stop herself from taking swings at Republican giants. In the past month alone, she has mocked Ronald Reagan’s credentials, dismissed George H.W. and Barbara Bush as arrogant “blue bloods” and blamed George W. Bush for wrecking the economy.


Wow. That’ll win ’em over in Iowa.

One can only guess what comes next on Palin’s bizarre road show. Maybe the publishing world’s favorite reality star can keep drawing attention and selling billions of books by spitting on John Wayne’s grave or “manning up” by shooting an American bald eagle.


Or how about this? Maybe Palin could show up on Fox News and build her weak résumé by tearing down Reagan’s.


Oh, wait. Been there, done that.

When Sean Hannity asked Palin whether being in a reality show diminished her standing to be president, the former half-term governor mocked Reagan’s biography, dismissing him as “an actor.”

Sounding like every left-wing politician and media elitist who ridiculed Reagan for decades, Palin sneered that she could be president if the actor from “Bedtime for Bonzo” managed to do so.

Except that isn't what Mrs. Palin did.  The left dismissed all of Ronald Reagan's accomplishments as Governor of California and as president of the Screen Actors Guild as well as the years he spent traveling the nation giving lectures on the greatness of America and the evils of communism - just like they dismisse Mrs. Palin's record by calling her a former beauty contestant.

As far as the Democrat party was concerned Ronald Reagan was entirely defined by the movie Bedtime for Bonzo.  And it wasn't only Democrats who wanted to dismiss Mr. Reagan.  Republican establishment leaders also wanted to dismiss the Gipper as well.  Remember how George H.W. Bush told Gorbachev (the leader of the USSR - our enemy in the Cold War) that Reagan was "very conservative, all the dummies and blockheads are with him"?

Both the political left and Republican elites hated Reagan in the same way and for the same reasons that they hate Sarah Palin.

After Palin mocked Reagan’s credentials, the TLC reality show star took aim at the 41st president and his wife. Borrowing again from old left-wing attacks that Democrats used against GOP presidents, Palin channeled Ann Richards by bashing Bush and his wife as “blue bloods” who had wrecked America.


Palin was perturbed that a former president and his wife would dare to answer a question about whom they preferred for president in 2012. Perhaps her anger was understandable. After all, these disconnected “blue bloods” had nothing in their backgrounds that could ever make them understand “real America” like a former governor from Alaska who quit in the middle of her first term and then got rich.

Clearly Scarborough has been hanging out with his Marxist buddies at MSNBC for too long.  Why else slam Mrs. Palin for "getting rich"?

Let us also remember that Mrs. Palin didn't take issue with Barbara Bush because she expressed the opinion that Palin was not her choice for President.  It was the insulting and dismissive way that Mrs. Bush expressed her opinion.  It is the difference between saying that one does not believe that Barack Obama should be president because his position on important issues is wrong and saying that Mr. Obama shouldn't be president because "a jungle bunny shouldn't be in the White House unless he's pushing a broom".

Scarborough then goes on to express his admiration for George H.W. Bush's record as a combat pilot in WWII. 

Let me say that I (along with most readers of this blog) honor former President Bush's military record.  However an honorable record of military service is no guarantee that a politician will be a conservative (remember John Glenn?) or even an honorable man (remember Jack Mrutha?).

The senior Bush was one of the old line "blue blood" elites who used to dominate the Republican party.  Ronald Reagan did not like him and did not want him as a running mate but was forced to accept him on the threat of having to run against the open opposition of significant elements of the Republican party as well as the Democrats.

After becoming president Mr. Bush amply repaid his anti-Reagan backers by running away from Mr. Reagan's economic policies as fast as he could.

And now a point of personal privilege. I work hard every day to assume the best of Americans who engage in public service. But I am offended by Palin’s attempt to build herself up by tearing down great men like Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

Ronald Reagan was a great man in every sense of the word.  However George H.W. Bush had a great war record for which he deserves the nation's respect and thanks but a very poor record as a politician.  He is the man who pissed away the Reagan majority and apparently did it deliberately.  Apparently Mr. Bush found a Republican party in the minority to be preferable to a dominant GOP under the control of real conservatives.

Palin is not a stupid woman. But like the current president, she still does not know what she does not know. And she does know how to make millions of dollars, even if she embarrasses herself while doing it.

There's that class envy again.  Keep sucking up to your MSNBC masters Joe.

That reality hardly makes Palin unique, but this is one Republican who would prefer that the former half-term governor promote her reality shows and hawk her books without demeaning the reputations of Presidents Reagan and Bush. These great men dedicated their lives to public service and are too good to be fodder for her gaudy circus sideshow.

Again, she didn't "demean" the reputation of Ronald Reagan.  She pointed out that the Democrats and their allies among the GOP establishment elites trashed Reagan in the same way and for the same reasons that they trash her. 

Also Joe, when you call yourself a Republican in the interest of accuracy make sure you write it like this, "Republican".

If Republicans want to embrace Palin as a cultural icon whose anti-intellectualism fulfills a base political need, then have at it. I suppose it’s cheaper than therapy.

Since the Wilson administration the United States of America has been tormented by "intellectuals" in high places.  Men like Woodrow Wilson, FDR and his "brain trust", the Kennedys and their "best and brightest" and now B. Hussein Obama and his swarm of "Czars" have done incalculable damage to this nation.  It is long past time when we turn our backs on Ivy League incompetence and embrace the real intelligence represented by common sense and real world experience.  The kind of common sense and real world experience embodied by Sarah Palin, successful businesswoman, mayor and governor.

But if the party of Ronald Reagan, Paul Ryan and Marco Rubio wants to return to the White House anytime soon, it’s time that Republican leaders started standing up and speaking the truth to Palin.

Note how Scarborough drops George H.W. Bush here and invokes three real conservatives as the standard bearers of the GOP.  Except that we have already showed how Palin has more in common with Reagan than Scarborough ever will and Rubio was a Palin/Tea Party backed insurgent conservative who had to overcome the opposition of "blue bloods" within the GOP who are fighting tooth and nail to keep it from becoming a conservative party.

When he was in the House or Representatives Mr. Scarborough has a record he could be proud of.  Since then he has sold out by working for the most insanely left-wing media outlet he could find.

What has happened to Scarborough since that sellout proves the old proverb.  "When you dance with the Devil the Devil don't change.  The Devil changes you."