This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Author: Jonn Lilyea

  • Just one of those days…

    Sorry, but I can’t find anything that lights my fire today.

    Everyone seems wrapped up in the Iowa caucus, Democrats and Republicans eating their own tails – Huckabee’s campaign manager wants to punch Mitt and Rush says Huck’s not a conservative. At Ace of Spades; Hillary is pre-spinning her loss. National Review Online writes that Zogby has Thompson with a late breaking surge. And Drudge writes that Michael Moore hasn’t picked a horse yet. Grasping at straws, Hairplugs picks at Clinton’s nits. Like his campaign will eventually, Edward’s bus breaks down. Paul Marks says Thompson is just too sane to be President.

    It all has a “Hollywood” feel to it. Wake me when Fred has the nomination.

  • Chavez theater

    Chavez Hostages Columbia

    Photo from Reuters

    As I predicted last week, FARC’s hand-over of their hostages ochestrated by Hugo Chavez has failed – and it’s Columbian president Uribes’ fault (if you listen to Chavez, FARC and Oliver Stone). From the Miami Herald this morning;

    The plan to secure the release of three hostages held by Marxist rebels crumbled on Monday after President Alvaro Uribe said that intelligence information suggests that the youngest of the captives — a 3-year-old boy — may have been released more than two years ago and living with a foster family.

    The revelation came amid Venezuela’s accusations that Uribe’s government had been interfering with the hand-over plan, dubbed ”Operation Emmanuel,” after the alleged captive toddler.

    The Herald calls it a “surprising twist”, but its really not surprising at all – Chavez and FARC have been dangling this in front of the media for months and the reason it hadn’t happened was because FARC and Chavez both need this drama play – and they both need it to continue and they both need the continuance blamed on Uribe for political and media points.

    Sunday, Daniel at Venezuela News and Views wrote;

    Chavez declarations are even becoming indecent, inappropriate, vulgar. I heard him for example declare that in spite of all the falling out with Uribe (“platos rotos” broken dishes) if this one would allow him he would jump in a plane and fly over to Colombia to retrieve the hostages himself. But do not be fooled in thinking that maybe it is just Chavez high on something. No, it is a well concerted propaganda effort. These days watching the Venezuelan state TV one assists at a full fledged viva Chavez show. We have reached now such a crescendo over that that now the FARC have become guerilla victims of Colombian aristocracy. Never mind that Uribe was reelected with more than 60% of the votes. And we hear such incongruities as Isturiz speaking of a certain guerilla as been “an excellent guerilla” (excelente guerillero). No, I am not making this up. How do you rate such a guerilla? Kills only cops? Sends flowers on Mother’s day? Is from the FARC rather than the ELN? Feeds his hostages?

    Even to Venezuelans, who are treated to Chavez bizarre behavior daily, he’s really outdone himself with this one. At The Devil’s Excrement, some history of FARC’s hostage politics;

    As I have suggested before there is no reason for this to be so complicated, but the diverging goals of those involved: Chavez, Uribe and the FARC made it complex as each group wants the other to look bad. What is a mystery is why the FARC have so far left Chavez out in the cold each time he has tried to mediate the handover of some hostages. In the past, the FARC has broken truces with the Colombian Government, failed to return hostages when promised and once killed eleven Deputies who were in captivity and were supposed to be about to be returned. The Colombian Government recently released the Foreign Minister of the FARC to the French Government as a goodwill gesture. There has been no reciprocal gesture from the FARC, who had only agreed to release these three hostages, two women and a kid, despite having thousands of hostages in their hands.

    The Herald writes that the changeover went sour before Uribe made his comment;

    Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez — who is serving as the key mediator between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, and the Colombian government — said he received a letter from the rebels saying that military operations in the jungle region where they are hiding the hostages made the hand-off impossible.

    Uribe dismissed the FARC claim as a lie, saying his government would permit a cease-fire corridor to let the rebels turn over the long-held captives.

    ”The FARC terrorist group doesn’t have any excuse,” Uribe said from the central Colombian city of Villavicencio, which had served as the base for coordination efforts. `They’ve fooled Colombia and now they want to fool the international community.’

    Can you guess which side Oliver Stone takes?

    ”Shame on Colombia, shame on Uribe,” Oliver Stone, the American filmmaker, told The AP shortly before boarding one of three Venezuelan jets carrying the observers back to Caracas.

    I’m sure if he tries hard enough, Stone can blame President Bush, too.

  • Happy New Year

    A year ago, the media and the Democrats counted President Bush out. He was a lame duck and Congress was going to walk all over him. They were wrong. He kicked their asses while he was kicking al Qaeda’s ass in Iraq. He didn’t do that all by himself – he never lost hope that he was doing the right thing, and he knew a whole lot of us still had faith in his inner strength.

    I hope we all learned a lesson – a lesson we’ll all take through the upcoming election season and the challenges we’ll no doubt face overseas and in our own country during 2008. I have faith in the American people to do the right thing this November, just like they’ve done the right thing over the last 200 years. I have faith in our new allies in Old Europe, I have faith in our new Iraqi allies. I have faith in those troops that sacrifice everything for us, asking so little, relatively speaking, in return.

    Thank all of you for taking time out of your lives this last year to read my blog and for sending me tips. I hope I’ve lived up to your expectations and, even more, I hope you keep up your good work of keeping this blog and this nation going.

    This first one is to all of you, America, and to my new friends across the world who stand with us and with whom we stand.

    First round

  • Somehow you just knew it was our fault

    Jay Solomon in the Wall Street Journal reports that Bhutto’s group are blaming the US, specifically the Bush Administration, for her death last week;

    In the wake of Ms. Bhutto’s death, some of her aides are charging the U.S. didn’t do enough to protect the former prime minister after she returned to Pakistan.

    They note that the Bush administration played a central role in brokering an agreement with Mr. Musharraf that allowed her return after an eight-year exile. And they say Washington should have done more to guarantee her safety once she was on the ground and facing numerous threats.

    Husain Haqqani, a longtime aide to Ms. Bhutto based in Boston, said he twice held talks with senior State Department officials in recent weeks concerning the former prime minister’s safety. He said Ms. Bhutto specifically wanted Washington to pressure Mr. Musharraf to allow her to hire a private security company, similar to the one used by Afghan President Hamid Karzai upon his return in Kabul. Mr. Haqqani said that Ms. Bhutto’s aides had sent a letter to Pakistan’s Interior Ministry requesting permission to hire such a firm, but hadn’t obtained clearance.

    Now, I watched the video that was released today, I saw a whole butt-load of Pakistanis standing there looking at a guy with a gun while he fired at Mrs. Bhutto. None made a move towards him, one guy right next to him ducked instead of knocking the gun away after the first shot. Pakistani authorities stopped two other homicide bombers from reaching Bhutto’s rally.

    I guess it’s just fashionable to feed crap to the American Left to use in their campaign against common sense – even in Pakistan where the American Left would gladly surrender the Pakistanis to Islamofacism.

    AP weighs in with;

    The United States provided a steady stream of intelligence to Benazir Bhutto about threats against her before the former Pakistani prime minister was assassinated and advised her aides on how to boost security, although key suggestions appear to have gone unheeded, U.S. officials said Monday.

    So I guess we should have just assigned the 82d Airborne Division to her.

  • Lawyers suck

    Blackfive writes about a young Marine sergeant who has been victimized by a smart-assed punk lawyer with shit-for-brains;

    While saying goodbye, at about 11am, he noticed a man leaning up against his car. Mike left his friend’s apartment and caught the man keying his car on multiple sides.

    After caught in the process, the man told Mike, “you think you can do whatever you want with Department of Defense license plates and tags”. (In Illinois you can purchase veteran, Marine, or medal plates. Mike has Illinois Marine Corps license plates.) During the exchange, he made additional anti-military comments.

    Mike called the Chicago police and had the man arrested. A citation against the man was issued for misdemeanor criminal damage to private property.

    The story all boils down to this; the scumbag piece-of-shit is a lawyer (sorry for being redundant) named jay Grodner, the Marine sergeant is deploying to Iraq in two days and the scumbag piece-of-shit lawyer plans on filing a continuance so he can avoid paying for his malfeasance.

    Blue Star Chronicles has Grodner’s contact information, if you’re so led.

    And, yes, I’m impugning an entire profession based on the underhanded behavior of a few – if the rest of you scumbag piece-of-shit lawyers would police your ranks the way you should, maybe I wouldn’t. Cry me a friggen river.

    And this guy should have been disbarred a loooooooong time ago;

    In addition to being disciplined for being involved in a scheme to forging documents, it has been reported to CLR that attorney Jay Robert Grodner has since then engaged in a conflict of interest with his clients, has abandoned his clients, has engaged in false billing, has engaged in a fraud upon his clients, provided ineffective assistance of counsel, and has engaged in a “fraud upon the court”.

    Um, forging documents – isn’t that like the most heinous crime for a “man of letters”? Of course, in Chicago that resume` could get him a judgeship – maybe even mayor.

    Crotchety Old Bastard is contemplating a legal fund for the Marine.

  • Status of Chavez’ FARC rescue mission

    58-853-COLOMBIA_VENEZUELA_FARC_HOStages2_embedded_prod_affiliate_56.jpg

    Heavily armed Colombian policemen stand guard on Sunday

    around a Venezuelan Mi-172 helicopter

    sitting on the tarmac of the airport of Villavicencio,

    department of Meta, Colombia.

    Photo by Mauricio Duenas (AFP)

    But not to worry, look who’s on the job;

    0_21_stone_large.jpg

    U.S. film director Oliver Stone waves to journalists upon his arrival to Villavicencio’s airport in southern Colombia.

    With its fearsome record of kidnapping and violence, Colombia’s largest guerrilla army might seem a nightmare group to encounter. But not to Oliver Stone.

    The American filmmaker is jumping at a chance to meet with a group the U.S. classifies as a terrorist organization.

    Leaving the glamor of Hollywood far behind, Stone arrived in the steamy Colombian city of Villavicencio on Saturday as part of a mission led by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to retrieve three hostages held for years by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

    “I have no illusions about the FARC, but it looks like they are a peasant army fighting for a decent living,” Stone said in an exclusive interview with The Associated Press at his hotel bar. “And here, if you fight, you fight to win.”

    Yep, just a peasant Army fighting for decent livng – bombing and kidnapping innocent civilians instead of working for a decent living. What a dumbass. I guess that’s why I’ve never watched “Platoon” all the way through.

    Seems the only thing Chavez MAY succeed in rescuing is Stone’s career – but I think it’ll take a few more helicopters.

  • What’s Maryland’s government hiding?

    Tony Lobianco writes in this morning’s Washington Times that the Maryland Attorney General’s Office is trying to block testimony in a lawsuit aimed at blocking impending tax hikes;

    The state attorney general today will ask Maryland’s highest court to block a key witness’s testimony in a lawsuit aiming to overturn the results of last month’s General Assembly special session.

    The state will file a writ of certiorari with the Maryland Court of Appeals seeking to block testimony from Mary Monahan, the chief clerk of the House of Delegates, said Raquel Guillory, spokeswoman for Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler.

    “I am very surprised that the attorney general is exercising this degree of desperation,” said Irwin Kramer, attorney for Republican lawmakers and a Carroll County businessman who filed the suit this month. “It makes it all the more important that we find out exactly what the attorney [general] is trying to hide.”

    The Washington Examiner reports that it’s a pretty straightforward complaint and the testimony of the clerk is germaine;

    Attorneys representing Republicans want to question Mary Monahan, who records and validates House proceedings, about records kept during the session, which resulted in about $1.3 billion dollars in tax increases.

    They contend the Senate adjourned too long without permission from the House, which they say violates the constitution.

    A deposition has been scheduled for 4 p.m. Monday in Easton, said Irwin Kramer, who is representing the GOP. Kramer said the state is simply trying to keep the facts from becoming public.

    “For me it shows the intense desire to silence the witness,” Kramer said Sunday afternoon.

    But Raquel Guillory, a spokeswoman for Attorney General’s office said Monahan’s testimony is not germane to the legislative process.

    “We believe that the deposition is unnecessary, one, because of legislative privilege and, two, anything that she has to offer is irrelevant” to the results of the special session, She said.

    Who else but the chief clerk could testify to the length of the session? I mean that’s whole purpose of the clerk’s office, isn’t it? Methinks Democrats doth protest too much. Mary Monahan must have intimate knowledge of more nefarious activities among Democrats enough so that the details of their whole scheme may have a political cost this year.

    [Attorney General’s Office spokesperson Rachel] Guillory said Sunday that a court stay on the new taxes would “cause undue hardship in the state.”

    How? Because the government would be forced to operate on the same amount of money operated on in 2007? Because taxpayers could keep a few pennies of their own money a little longer? Pompous arrogance in the extreme.

    (Crossposted at Red Maryland)

  • Burma deathly quiet

    Protest in September at Myanmar Embassy, Washington, DC

    Other than airlines discontinuing service and India suspending arms sales to Myanmar, it seems that the world has forgotten about this summer’s “Saffron Revolution”. A dutch journalist hiding behind the letter “N” so as not to be identified and targeted says that the political situation in Burma is like a “frozen river”(Radio Netherlands Worldwide link);

    September’s demonstrations were violently suppressed, but this doesn’t mean that calm has returned to Myanmar. “The present situation can be compared to a frozen river,” says N. “All sorts of things are moving below the surface. The demonstrations have given the people the feeling that it’s possible to change the situation in the country.”N thinks the people of Myanmar are very proud of the monks and the fact that they had the courage to speak out. “But of course people also wonder what has happened to the monks who were arrested. It’s a very odd situation, of course, because the monasteries and pagodas have never been so empty.”

    BurmaNet News (h/t Have Coffee, Will Write) reports that the government is still cracking down on monks and their public Buddist teachings;

    The Burmese military government has ordered a ban on Buddhist dhamma talks and seminars in Rangoon, according to monks in the former capital.

    The monks told The Irrawaddy on Thursday that dhamma [the Buddha’s teachings] talks by four well-known monks were forced to cancel in December. The monks were named as: U Kawthala, also known as Dhamma Sedi Sayadaw; U Kawvida, also known as Mizzima Gon Yi Sayadaw; U Nadapadi, also known as Pyu Sayadaw; and U Sadila, also known as Lu Yay Chun Sayadaw.

    Township authorities in Rangoon had been ordered to ban dhamma talks by the Regional Commander of Rangoon, said the sources. On Wednesday, U Kawvida, who is also a PhD in Buddhism, prepared to conduct a Buddhist tutorial in Insein Township, on the outskirts of Rangoon. However, officials arrived at the scene and ordered the dhamma talk to be stopped immediately.

    Since the media decided to let the events in Burma drop from our screens, the UN is right there with the media – MIA.