From Dean Barnett in the Weekly Standard piece “Mugged by Reality” about the Randi Rhodes pratfall;
Obviously, each side of the political spectrum has its extremist lunatics. The only difference between conservatives and liberals is that on the conservative side, such people loiter on the margins. On the liberal side, when they hold a convention, all the Democratic presidential candidates come running.
The Washington Post reports this morning that a number of Virginia’s schools had to be closed for a thorough cleaning after a student died from staph infection recently;
Rappahannock Superintendent Bob Chappell said school employees also followed a local hospital’s advice to mop hallways and classrooms with a bleach solution. The cost of the cleanup: more than $10,000.
“It’s real easy . . . to point fingers all over the place,” said Larry Sells, a parent at Anne Arundel’s Severna Park High School, where several cases are suspected. “But the only finger-pointing that does any good is at the problem and how to get it fixed.”
Getting ahead of MRSA is a daunting challenge. Hospitals and nursing homes have been dealing for decades with the pathogen, which is especially risky for patients with weakened immune systems or those recovering from surgery or in intensive care.
A report this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association estimates that serious incidences of this strain are far more frequent than previously thought. Every year in the United States, the researchers said, MRSA causes more than 94,000 acute infections and nearly 19,000 deaths.
19,000 deaths. From infections. Almost sounds like a foreign country, doesn’t it? But it’s the US – the only civilized nation in the world (I’m completely serious when I write that – have you ever been to Europe? It’s a cesspool.)
The Washington Examiner reports;
As of Sept. 19, three MRSA outbreaks had been reported this year at other locations including a school, Virginia Department of Health spokesman Robert Parker said. Six outbreaks were reported in 2005 and five in 2004.
Well, here’s a hint where this stuff is coming from, in the Washington Times, by Audrey Hudson and Sara Carter;
A Mexican national infected with a highly contagious form of tuberculosis crossed the U.S. border 76 times and took multiple domestic flights in the past year, according to Customs and Border Protection interviews and documents obtained by The Washington Times.
The Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency was warned by health officials on April 16 that the frequent traveler was infected, but it took Homeland Security officials more than six weeks to issue a May 31 alert to warn its own border inspectors, according to Homeland Security sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. Homeland Security took a further week to tell its own Transportation Security Agency.
Comforting isn’t it?
Well, it had to happen. Adam Kokesh has gone ’round the bend. This is the banner on the primadonna’s website these days (thanks to Robin from Chickenhawk Express for twigging me to this);
He’s been on Hannity and Colmes and he thinks he did such a bang-up job defending himself and his exercise in racist behavior by calling Ann Coulter “Coultergeist” and David Horowitz a “two bit bigot”. Ann Coulter isn’t even scheduled to speak at the Islamo-facism Awareness Week events at George Washington University – but he has to show everyone how clever he is by making up a new hateful word for someone who engages in free speech that happens to run counter to Kokesh’s…um…ideas, so to speak.
Oh, and Adam, “two-bit” means 25 cents and has nothing to do with bigotry. I know they didn’t cover that at whatever art history or basketweaving class you’re taking at GWU, so I’ll give you a pass on that bit of ignorance.
Now suddenly, because he has the GWU administration cowed into not punishing him and his cohorts, he’s a “ruthless anti-facist attack dog for hire”. Well, in the real world, he’s a pestering poodle humping rational people’s collective leg.
But let’s look at stuff that points to Kokesh’s “gone ’round the bend” syndrome (well, besides the fruity banner);
Frankly, I would be honored to share a stage with Kucinich and Paul. For Kucinich, I’m not so much a supporter as I am an enthusiast. He is one of the few members of Congress who still have principles and stick to them. I’m much more a supporter of Paul because I think his principles about the Constitution and limited government are closer to my own, but I have the same respect for both of them. It’s funny to note that Paul is now lumped in with this communist slur when his (our) views of limited government are really the opposite of communism. It also says “congressman Dennis Kucinich and presidential candidate Ron Paul” when they are actually both congressmen and both presidential candidates.
That’s the kind of mental illness with which we’re dealing – someone so steeped in a false ideology that Kucinich and Ron Paul seem rational and worthy of support. And the reason Kokesh supports Ron Paul? “I think his principles about the Constitution and limited government are closer to my own” yet, he’s a Leftist and also supports Dennis Kucinich who wants to expand government – quite a disparate view – the view of an irrational person.
Kokesh should have been honest and told us that the only government he wants restrained is a Republican-led government. He wouldn’t have the same restrictions placed on a Democrat-led government. Kokesh is just another tool of the Democrat party – and he’d support a Ron Paul candidacy right up until after a Paul win in the Republican primary.
But according to his website, he’ll tell you what’s important for you to think after David Horowitz is done (in a larger room – if that’s even remotely significant).
We have a venue now for my speech for next week. I will be going on the day after Horowitz in the room (a larger room) next door in the Marvin Center at GWU. The flier reads:
RECOVERING
FROM RACISMOn the effects of war on racism and the dehumanization of the Iraqi people
Um, Adam, m’boy, I’ll clue you in; dehumanization of the Iraqi people includes jerking our troops out of Iraq immediately and leaving Iraqis to their own devices to establish a working government and security for their people – like you want to do. When your daddy is not selling polo ponies, maybe he can explain it to you.
And I noticed that Kokesh still calls himself Sergeant Kokesh – further perpetuating the “phony soldier syndrome”. Kokesh hadn’t been a sergeant for at least three years before his discharge, but he still clings to the title – despite the fact he was busted to private for smuggling an Iraqi pistol back from the war. That’s the real reason he’s dissatisfied with the war – he got caught being a sociopath.
Speaking of crackpots, Robin at Chickenhawk Express finds that Cindy Sheehan has discovered our plot to install George W. Bush as our Emporer for Life. My question is; who’s leaking our dastardly plans to the Left? Gateway Pundit has a report of Moonbats Vs. Move America Forward in Berkeley. Its too bad these folks can’t find jobs to occupy them gainfully. Speaking of moonbats Crotchety Old Bastard writes that their queen Cynthia McKinney is planning a run for president from California as the Green party candidate. But we here learned about her impending run from Zombie last week who has pictures of McKinney and Sheehan stumping at Beach Impeach IV.
Need some more moonbattery? Well watch Diane Watson on Redstate explain to a room full of them why the impeachment of George W. Bush can’t happen until 2009 – then watch out, buddy; narrative from Protein Wisdom. Watson claims Democrats have evidence of impeachable offenses – does anyone truly believe the Democrats have evidence and won’t show us?
NAJAF, Iraq — At what’s believed to be the world’s largest cemetery, where Shiite Muslims aspire to be buried and millions already have been, business isn’t good.
A drop in violence around Iraq has cut burials in the huge Wadi al Salam cemetery here by at least one-third in the past six months, and that’s cut the pay of thousands of workers who make their living digging graves, washing corpses or selling burial shrouds.
Few people have a better sense of the death rate in Iraq .
“I always think of the increasing and decreasing of the dead,†said Sameer Shaaban, 23, one of more than 100 workers who specialize in ceremonially washing the corpses. “People want more and more money, and I am one of them, but most of the workers in this field don’t talk frankly, because they wish for more coffins, to earn more and more.â€
The Islamofascists, on the other hand, are filling up holes like crazy:
On a recent day, after the ritual washing, four male relatives carried a coffin containing the scorched and torn body of Mohammed Hazim , 33. Three women trailed, weeping.
Hazim, a member of the radical Mahdi Army militia, had been killed in a U.S. attack in Diyala province, his brother, Ali , said.
“Death to infidel America and the agent Iraqi government,†the family chanted again and again.
Well, if they don’t mind, I say let’s give em’ all the al Qaeda, Iranian, and Syrian business they can handle….courtesy of the Infidels.
A COUPLE of days before Al Gore was awarded his Nobel Peace prize, Michael Burton, an English High Court judge and apparently a fine film critic, ruled that Al’s Oscar-winner An Inconvenient Truth was prone to “alarmism and exaggeration†and identified nine major factual errors.For example, the former vice-president predicts a rise in sea levels of 6m “in the near futureâ€. “The Armageddon scenario he predicts,†declared Burton, “is not in line with the scientific consensus.â€Â
I’ll say. The so-called scientific consensus of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change suggests rising sea levels across the next century of somewhere between 15cm and 60cm, with about 30cm being most likely. An Inconvenient Truth insouciantly adds a zero to the worst-case scenario.
And nobody minds. His Honour was examining the vice-president’s acclaimed crockumentary because the British Government, in its wisdom, has decided to force-feed it to hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren. It would be nice to think it would have to be preceded by a warning that any resemblance between this film and any actual planet living or dead is entirely coincidental, but it seems more likely that the Nobel Peace imprimatur will completely insulate the picture from even the most modest quibbles.
A schoolkid in Ontario was complaining the other day that, whatever subject you do, you have to sit through Gore’s movie: It turns up in biology class, in geography, in physics, in history, in English.
Link: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22584694-7583,00.html
Wow, talk about socialist-style indoctrination.Â
When it comes to practicing double standards, no group of individuals performs better than the legion of paranoid doomsday theorists, who find cataclysm behind every door, or in this case, Fahrenheit. This time around, their leader is Al Gore, who keeps getting ridiculous extensions on his 15 minutes. “Weatherman†Al’s Godzilla-sized carbon footprint, by the way, is large enough to squash Los Angeles:
Gore’s mansion, located in the posh Belle Meade area of Nashville, consumes more electricity every month than the average American household uses in an entire year, according to the Nashville Electric Service (NES) In his documentary, the former Vice President calls on Americans to conserve energy by reducing electricity consumption at home. The average household in America consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year, according to the Department of Energy. In 2006, Gore devoured nearly 221,000 kWh—more than 20 times the national average. Last August alone, Gore burned through 22,619 kWh—guzzling more than twice the electricity in one month than an average American family uses in an entire year. As a result of his energy consumption, Gore’s average monthly electric bill topped $1,359.
http://www.tennesseepolicy.org/main/article.php?article_id=367Â Â
Some dissenters of the Gospel according to Algore have even received death threats:
Timothy Ball, a former climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg in Canada, has received five deaths threats by email since raising concerns about the degree to which man was affecting climate change. One of the emails warned that, if he continued to speak out, he would not live to see further global warming. “Western governments have pumped billions of dollars into careers and institutes and they feel threatened,†said the professor. “I can tolerate being called a skeptic because all scientists should be skeptics, but then they started calling us deniers, with all the connotations of the Holocaust. That is an obscenity. It has got really nasty and personal.â€
Last week, Professor Ball appeared in The Great Global Warming Swindle, a Channel 4 documentary in which several scientists claimed the theory of man-made global warming had become a “religionâ€, forcing alternative explanations to be ignored. Richard Lindzen, the professor of Atmospheric Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology – who also appeared on the documentary – recently claimed: “Scientists who dissent from the alarmism have seen their funds disappear, their work derided, and themselves labeled as industry stooges.†“Consequently, lies about climate change gain credence even when they fly in the face of the science.â€
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/03/11/ngreen211.xml
The truth really is inconvienient.
It turns out that the condemnation of the Turkish genocide perpetrated against Armenians is a “twofer” for Nancy Pelosi. Not only does she get to stroke the weathered hags of Code Pink, but she also has a large Armenian community in her district. She can get the protesters off her lawn if she makes the war more difficult for the Administration and the troops by shutting down air bases and supply routes from Turkey – and pander for votes in her district.
But apparently, pelosi and her bill are falling on hard times, according to the Washington Examiner’s Susan Ferrechio;
House Democrats are slowly losing support for a resolution that would label mass killings nine decades ago as genocide committed by Turkey.
At least 10 sponsors of the measure — eight of them Democrats — have removed their names from the resolution in the past few days following warnings from State Department officials and the Turkish government that its passage would threaten relations between the two allies.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., whose district is home to an Armenian community, have been leading the fight to pass the resolution.
Hoyer acknowledged that the waning enthusiasm among members of the House could scotch plans to vote on the resolution any time soon. Initially, Hoyer promised to take up the measure by Nov. 16.
“There are a lot of people who are revisiting their position,†Hoyer said.
Six Democrats and one Republican lined up at the clerk’s desk in the well of the House late Monday, waiting their turns to strip their names from the resolution, which would direct the president to recognize the killings as genocide.
One of the lead sponsors, Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., said she has decided not to vote for the resolution because it is “highly destabilizing†to the region. She left her name on the measure, though, saying that she thinks genocide was committed but that “Congress acting now is incendiary.â€
With sponsors leaving Pelosi’s ill-considered attempt to defund the war and kill more troops while buying votes, her “twofer” could turn into a “twofer” for Republicans. With the polls showing general dissatisfaction with Congress, pelosi, trying to cut her negatives in half blames the Senate, according to The Hill’s Mike Soraghan and Manu Raju;
In March, the Speaker celebrated the first 100 days of the congressional majority by stating, “Democrats have brought the winds of change to the Capitol.â€
These days, she’s confined to claiming those winds are blowing on her side of the building. In the minds of her caucus members, the Senate is in the doldrums and House members are paying the price for Senate inaction on Democratic priorities.
With support dissipating for what should be her easiest piece of legislation to push through the House, Nancy Pelosi is losing her grip on the House. (Washington Examiner)
Rep. Wally Herger, R-Calif., who removed his name from the resolution Monday, said sponsors like the idea of condemning the killings, “but I think many people now realize we shouldn’t be sticking our finger in the eye of someone who is an ally.â€
Yeah, 90 years after the fact. The Democrats knew that Turkey was upset (Hoyer and Pelosi met with the Turkish Ambassador last Wednesday) and plowed ahead regardless of the sensitive situation.
My sources tell me that it’s intentional in order to cause a hardship maintaining our troops, and keeping them safe – forcing the administration to withdraw from Iraq. But, until I can dig up some hard paper, it’s has to remain just a rumor.Â
Can you imagine that we live in times in which one party can plot to undermine our war efforts – kill our own soldiers and plot to disintegrate their air cover and resupply – all for a few votes. Regardless of their intentions, Democrats know this bill will have that effect.
Is there another kinder and gentler definition of traitorous that I don’t know about?
Randi Rhodes wasn’t attacked by rabid republican meanies after all:
The NY Daily News has the story
Air America host Randi Rhodes wasn’t mugged
BY DAVID HINCKLEY and TINA MOORE
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Tuesday, October 16th 2007, 12:28 PM
There’s no truth to the rumors that Air America host Randi Rhodes (above) was mugged near 39th St. and Park Ave. Sunday night. She is scheduled to return to the air on Thursday.There’s no truth to the rumors that Air America host Randi Rhodes (above) was mugged near 39th St. and Park Ave. Sunday night. She is scheduled to return to the air on Thursday.
Air America radio host Randi Rhodes is temporarily off the air, but claims she was brutally attacked near her Manhattan apartment are bogus, her lawyer and a police source said today.
Fellow host Jon Elliott claimed on the liberal radio network that Rhodes had been mugged while walking her dog, Simon, on Sunday night. Elliot, who said Rhodes lost several teeth in the attack, waxed about a possible conspiracy.
“Is this an attempt by the right-wing, hate machine to silence one of our own?” he asked on the air, according to Talking Radio, a blog. “Are we threatening them? Are they afraid that we’re winning? Are they trying to silence intimidate us?”
A police source said Rhodes never filed a report and never claimed to be the victim of a mugging. Cops from Manhattan’s 17th Precinct called her attorney, who told them Rhodes was not a victim of a crime, the source said.
Rhodes’ lawyer told the Daily News she was injured in a fall while walking her dog. He said she’s not sure what happened, and only knows that she fell down and is in a lot of pain. The lawyer said Rhodes expects to be back on the air Thursday. He stressed there is no indication she was targeted or that she was the victim of a “hate crime.”
I guess it wasn’t her turn to “Speak truth to power…”
Its sad she isn’t an illegal alien, then she’d be: Faking the muggings Americans won’t…
Jonn added: Robin at Chickenhawk Express asks (with tongue planted firmly in her cheek) “But one thing we need to ask…. Where was Rove? Where was Cheney and his shotgun? Where was President Bush? And where the heck was Barney the dog?” Michele Malkin comes clean and admits (tongue planted firmly in her cheek, as well) “It was my fault!”
Horrors of horrors, the Social Security benefit for next year is only increasing 2.3% according to the Associated Press;
Come January, Social Security benefits for nearly 50 million Americans are going up 2.3 percent, the smallest increase in four years. It will mean an extra $24 per month in the average check, the government announced Wednesday.
Â
The cost of living adjustment means that the monthly benefit for the typical retired worker in 2008 will go from $1,055 currently to $1,079 next year.
And the fear mongers are out in force;
The 2.3 percent increase is the smallest since a 2.1 percent rise in 2004. It compares to an increase of 3.3 percent last year and a jump of 4.1 percent in 2006, which had been the biggest advance in 15 years.
The COLA is based on the change in consumer prices from the July-September quarter of this year compared to the same period last year. Benefit payments have been tied to inflation since 1975.
Advocacy groups for the elderly said that the small increase announced Wednesday underscored the need to revamp the cost-of-living adjustment to better reflect prices paid by retired people, including the money they spend on health care.
Um, folks, the Social Security benefit goes up with inflation. If inflation- the cost of the things you buy – only goes up 2.3%, that’s all you get. And guess what? If you got a 4% increase, that’s only $16 more a month. You and your advocacy groups will whine about that, too -Â I know I would if that was the only money I’d be getting. But Social Security isn’t the only thing you’re getting is it? You get breaks on heating fuel, you get food stamps, some states even give you property tax breaks.
And most important; Social Security isn’t intended to be your sole source of income. It’s a small amount that’s a guaranteed portion of your retirement income. So please don’t blame government if you don’t have enough to live on – hoping for an extra $40 instead of $23 every month. And please don’t tell people you were hoping for that $40 – as soon as you turn your back, they’re going to start laughing at you. I know I would.
A coalition named Divided We Fail has been pressing to get the presidential candidates of both parties to address issues regarding Social Security and affordable health care during the campaign.
“We want to get all of the candidates on the record and we want to let voters make up their own minds,” said Jim Dau, an official with AARP, an advocacy group for people 50 and older.
I wish they would go on record – and I wish they explain why they support whichever position they’ve taken. The only reason they won’t is because whichever position they take, they’ll lose voters on both sides.
Oh, here’s another piece of advice; stay away from AARP. There are better organizations and insurance companies that can give you better protection than AARP. AARP is nothing more than an insurance broker – they make money selling you higher cost protection. That’s why they want you dependent on Social Security.