Smack of the day

First, some background:

Here's flimsy Lindsey Graham on Face the Nation being asked about the Koran-burning incident down in Florida and the resulting freak-out around the Muslim world that included 12 people being killed at the U.N. embassy in Afghanistan.

(skip ahead to the 2:05 mark)

"I wish we could find some way to hold people accountable. Free speech is a great idea but we're in a war."

Graham gives no operational definition for "accountable" because the 1st amendment pretty much makes that impossible and Graham knows it.

Graham continues:

"Free speech is a great idea but we're in a war."

Yeah, bummer about that "war", huh? Do those Afghan Muslims over there not freak-out and go on a killing rampage if we weren't at war?

And finally:

"During WWII you had limits on what you could say if it would inspire the enemy."

Wait. Does Lindsey mean to tell us that the Japanese and Germans were really going to get their hackles up if we portrayed them in a negative light? Go to this link and see if there is anything there that was printed back during World War II that could've been considered mildly offensive to Americans of Japanese descent.

Oh, but for the actual smack, we give you the incomparable Mark Steyn:

A mob of deranged ululating blood-lusting head-hackers slaughter Norwegian female aid-workers and Nepalese guards — and we’re the ones with the problem?

I agree with the Instaprof: Lindsey Graham is unfit for office. The good news is there’s no need for the excitable lads of Mazar e-Sharif to chop his head off because he’s already walking around with nothing up there. And, as for his halfwitted analogy with World War II, he’s too ignorant to realize it but he’s singing the dhimmi remake of an ancient Noel Coward satire.

Claire Berlinski has it right: The real “racists” here are not this no-name pastor and his minimal flock but Reid, Graham, and the Times — for they assume that a significant proportion of Muslims are not responsible human beings but animals no more capable of rational behavior than the tiger who mauled Siegfried’s Roy. If that is true, certain consequences follow therefrom. The abandonment of the First Amendment is not one of them.

That's a great point. The soft bigotry of low expectations somewhat excuses the bad acting of these people and lays this "accountability" crap at the feet of some wing-nut preacher in Florida.

And it's not just some nitwit Senators who are guilty of this as this soft bigotry has been institutionalized as evidence by the actions of our very own Justice Department in a municipal voting case in Kinston, North Carolina where it was determined that black voters absolutely had to know who the Democratic candidates were and another municipal voting case in Port Chester, NY, where the tried, true and democratic concept of one man - one vote was thrown out to ensure that at least some Hispanics would be elected to city council.

And you didn't think we could work in that miserable hack that runs the Justice Department into a post about murderous Muslims in such a seamless manner now did you?



We leave you tonight with a short little anecdote regarding competing customs and cultures as it relates to our friends overseas:

Gen. Sir Charles Napier in India explaining to the locals his position on suttee — the tradition of burning widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands. General Napier was impeccably multicultural:

You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows.You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.

Erin Brockovich...?

... eh, probably not.


You would think this was being pitched to Paramount or Miramax executives as we speak.

It's all there: whistle-blowing, speaking truth to power, pointing out fraudulent science generated by people with fraudulent credentials and fighting to keep one's job.

Unfortunately, Dr. James Enstrom is on the wrong side of the narrative. Leslie at Temple of Mut has the details, here.

Video clip of the day

Here's Veronique De Rugy on taxes/revenues and debts and deficits.

"Auto-pilot programs"

"Even if we raised taxes as much as we wanted, it would never be enough..."

Follower blog post of the day

The scene at the front:

Rebel forces lack any central command or organizational structure. They operate in small units, usually composed of groups of friends, neighbors or tribesmen who have armed themselves and deployed to the front on their own and make their own fighting decisions with little coordination with other groups ...

It is also hard for rebel commanders to control their youthful and inexperienced troops.

"I can't really give orders because they don't listen; instead, I give advice," said Mr. Khairy, the commander outside Darnah.

And this:

Another battlefield problem for the rebels is the scores of teenagers who have flocked to the front. They seem drawn by the idea of fighting and the spirit of revolution, but they carry no weapons ...

In Ajdabiya, eight teens from east of Benghazi said they had followed the rebels into battle for the last 17 days after hitching rides to the front. They sat gorging on food handouts, singing and mocking Kadafi with chants of "Forward to the front! No return!" — favorite phrases of the Libyan leader.

Compounding this problem is many of these same teens are loitering outside liquor stores soliciting older males entering to score six packs of beer and fortified wine for them.

O.K., We made up that last part but now with Diane Feinstein (D-CA) saying enough-is-enough and wanting to call the cops to shut down this nation-wide kegger, there is a level of unseriousness, across the board, to this whole affair that suggests a new name for our Libyan operation.

Anyone up for "Kinetic Spring Break Action"?

KT has the details, here.

Poll question of the week

It has been a while but our musings in our Quickies post yesterday led us to put up a poll in the right-hand margin asking you, dear readers, why it is we are engaged in "kinetic military action" in Libya.

New feature allows you to choose multiple answers depending upon your opinion. So, come on BwD Nation, let us know what you think and as always, feel free to opine in the comments section.

Free Captain Elliott's Party Boats (cont.)

Waiver-mania rolls on.


How is it that ObamaCare's biggest supporters are the first ones to head for the exits once ObamaCare begins to be implemented?

B-Daddy has the details on New York congressman Anthony Weiner begging off, here.

We'll have more on this later.

Quickies

A round-up of news items, articles, columns and blog posts that caught our eye this past week.


Our blog-buddy Harrison test drove a 2011 Smart Electric Car recently. For what he is describing, we would only be willing to pay half the sticker of $46,000, if that.

God put oil in the ground for many reasons. Accelerating and then safely merging into traffic at 65+ would be one of those reasons and this particular death trap does not accommodate that "amenity". Read about it here.



Michelle Malkin has a great wrap-up on the massive federally-funded eff-up on the border known as Project Gunrunner, here. Our previous posts on the subject can be found here and here.

The President, in an inteview with Univision, claims he knew nothing about Project Gunrunner and we believe him. After all, even an administration this incompetent would want to shield the boss from a plan this asinine.

Full disclosure: it appears this scheme to let guns "walk" back across the border was actually hatched back during the Bush administration. Natch. As Obama morphs more and more into W why would this come as any big surprise?









A study from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce claims that green projects in California could bring in 140,000 jobs and $60 billion to the economy annually. Unfortunately, these green jobs in solar and wind turbines among others are stalled by, wait for it... the green regulatory regime.

This:

"We have hundreds of laws with thousands of provisions, all of which can stop a project," said William Kovacs, the U.S. chamber's senior vice president of environment, technology and regulatory affairs. "As you delay these projects, you put them at economic risk."

And this:

"You have to be careful to not cast aside 40 years of environmental law in the name of short-term economic gain," said Christine Hersey, a solar analyst at Wedbush Securities.

The statists have granted themselves enough rope by which to hang themselves. Unfortunately, when it comes to developing new energy sources and coping with rising energy costs, we're all swinging together.









Via Patterico:

Yes, it's clearly a photo-shop but it sums up perfectly what we've been saying all along about the hypocrisy inherent to ObamaCare supporters and the sentiment expressed on the top half of the sign just being a hollow justification to kill the unborn.




And how's that whole Great Society thing working out for ya?

"Detroit is a classic example of how a culture that was legendary for enterprise and innovation was slowly eroded by toxic politicization from the 1960s on," says the Rev. Robert A. Sirico, president of the Michigan-based Acton Institute. "It's been class warfare on steroids, and the inevitable result is that so many Detroiters who had the means—black and white—have fled the city."

No slick yet rambling and non-sensical Super Bowl commercial is going to save Detroit.




More =

As a candidate, Obama defined his approach as the opposite of everything Bush. Whatever the issue, Obama would be the photographic negative. But as president, Obama’s foreign policy has been slowly evolving toward the views of his predecessor. Obama’s pride will not allow him to admit it. His rhetorical imprecision obscures it. But behind the fog is the Bush Doctrine.

Remember back in the day, we were told that if women were in charge of things, their inherent pragmatism would ensure we would not get entangled in unnecessary and messy military adventures overseas?

So we have 3 choices:

a) Obama really is a neo-con in sheep's clothing.

b) Libya is a distraction from everything else going on currently, chiefly the aforementioned Project Gunrunner debacle for which people should hang.

or...

c) he was nagged into action in Libya by three women: Hillary Clinton, Samantha Power and Susan Rice.

Take your pick.



OK, gang. That's it for now. We may check back in later before or after Final Four festivities










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Radio KBwD is on the air: the covers edition

Well, whaddya know? Today is the first day of the month and also the first Friday of the month so it's time to do a covers edition of KBwD. Kind of snuck up on us but we think you're going to enjoy this one.
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First up, it's the Beatles from Abbey Road performing, "She Came In Through the Bathroom Window"








And now for the cover and someone who made a living playing other people's music. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Joe Cocker, take it away...




By the way, that's Leon Russell looking completely stoned playing guitar.

Another excellent idea

Some read meat to wrap up the week for all our social conservative friends out there.




Time to defund Planned Parenthood and time to defund it now.

We always thought that the debate surrounding whether or not ObamaCare was going to fund abortions was a curious one as Planned Parenthood received approx. 1/3rd of its funding from the U.S. tax-payers.

If budget cuts are going to be across the board, why should Planned Parenthood's government funding be off the table? Republican leadership would be wise in framing this strictly as a budgetary matter rather than a "values" issue.

We're positive the liberal-Left in this country can scrounge around the seat cushions to come up with that missing $360 million to continue to fund one of their favorite pet causes. Picture it: bake sales outside the Grammys and Oscars.

And on a related matter, Rick Santorum (Presidential hopeful?) makes a complete ass of himself in statements regarding abortion and Social Security solvency. Negocious Loucos writing for W.C. Varones has the details, here. Check it out as well as the lively debate in the comment section.

Good news, perhaps, but some people still not getting the message

And speaking of unions, here's Daniel Henninger of the Wall St. Journal on states like California (yes, even California) getting wise to the idea of coming to grips with unsustainable obligations made to public employee unions.

(Last week, we had some thoughts on the inherent dangers of allowing states to manage and account for their own state employee benefit and pension plans, here)

(if embed no worky, please go here)






Unfortunately, as you just heard, the come-to-Jesus moments of reckoning are occurring exclusively at the municipal level rather than the state where we are finding out that there are indeed limits to what our too-old-to-give-a-crap governor, Jerry Brown, is willing to take on as he shows no interest whatsoever in even addressing this matter.

Follower blog post of the day

Our semi-daily effort to keep up with what our blog followers are up to and to show them some link-love.


Unions in Wisconsin coming up with new and inventive ways to manufacture consent.

Sam Foster at Left Coast Rebel has the details, here.