Tsunami Perspective

I've been getting what is actually fairly polite hate mail for my coverage of the 12/26/04 Sumatran earthquake and tsunami so far, with several people taking exception to my pointing out that:

• terrorist sanctuaries were the hardest hit areas;
• the media claim of a lost generation was sensationalism, not fact;
• this is not the worst natural disaster in human history, or even of the past 30 years.

Where was the global outcry and pledges of support when 800,000 Rwandans were slaughtered? Where is the indignation as Muslims in Darfur continue to rape and murder their way across Sudan with over 100,000 dead and no end in sight?

Why is this earthquake so much more cared about on the world stage than the one exactly one year before that killed tens of thousands in Iran? My guess is that all this sudden interest wouldn't be nearly as intense if thousands of light-skinned Europeans hadn't died as well.

So my critics can call me cynical (among other things).

But they shouldn't dare imply that they are somehow more caring or a better person when they finally decide to contribute when it is finally convenient for them, or suddenly in their societal interest. They've ignored greater preventable human tragedies in the past decade alone.

I think they have a word for that.

"We are doing very little at the moment."

"We are doing very little at the moment."

So speaks U.N. emergency relief coordinator Jan Egeland, just days after calling the U.S. "stingy" in our goverment's aid to tsunami victims.

As usual, the United States pulls the load, and the United Nations complains, but contributes next to nothing but rhetoric.

Par for the course.

Silent America goes Amazon

Talented blogger Bill Whittle's book of essays Silent America: Essays from an America at War goes on sale at Amazon today. As a big fan of his blog, I can highly recommend the book.

Update: Dropped the inline ad. I didn't like the way it looked. You can still see the book through the text link to Silent America above.

With Liberty and Eastern NC BBQ For All

Some say, "save 'em all and let God sort 'em out." That's a great sentiment, and we should provide aid for those affected by the 12/26 tsunami.

Despite my own personal reservations about providing money to suspected terrorist havens, I was this close to clicking over to Amazon and donating some money to the tsunami relief fund, and then I saw this picture from Getty Images (hat-tip LGF). Take a few seconds, you'll see "it" soon enough.

As of now, my cash goes to the first aid organization that promises to season all food shipments with ham hocks, and sends over appropriate clothing.

Let them eat pork.

Don't Believe Drudge's Hype

Parroting a sensationalist headline from The Independent, Drudge runs the banner headline "The Lost Generation" on his site for December 29th. A lot of people are buying that line, and running with it.

The only problem is, the headline isn't true.

Using the CIA World Fact Book for total population data and the This is London link from Drudge's own site for current casualty data, we can compile some rough figures using the calculator at Math.com.

• India, a country of 1 billion, has lost a confirmed 7,000 dead, or 0.0007-percent of their population.
• Thailand, a country of 64 million, has lost a confirmed 1,700 dead or 0.002-percent of their population.
• Indonesia, a country of 238.5 million, has lost a confirmed 42,000 dead, or 0.017-percent of their population.
• Sri Lanka, a country of 19.9 million, has lost a confirmed 22,500 dead, was the hardest hit per capita, with 0.113-percent of their population killed.

The deaths from this seismic event are tragic on a grand scale, but it falls far short of the massive casualties sustained at Stalingrad (1942-3, 1-2 million dead), and I've heard few claiming that an entire generation of Soviets or Germans were wiped out in that battle.

Perhaps the media should stick with the facts, and leave the propaganda to Michael Moore.

Edit: The phrase "The hardest hit countries lost less than one-tenth of one-percent of their overall population..." was corrected to read "The hardest hit country lost just over one-tenth of one-percent of their overall population."

Update: The death toll in Indonesia has nearly doubled to 80,000, raising their loses to 0.034-percent of their total population.

Writing on the Wall

Some cranky midwestern newspaper columnist just lit into the guys at Powerline with the maturity of my four year-old, but without as much skill. Read the rant, and then see what Powerline has to say on the matter here and here. Who do you think it more professional?

The Star-Tribune advertising department seems to know who is going to win this argument.

Check out the blog advertising at the bottom of the article.

Nick Coleman, your days are numbered.

Grieving

I apologize for the lack of posting today. I'm still grieving for the loss of Susan Sontag.

Yeah.

Will the Tsunami Curb SE Asian Terrorism?

The massive 9.0-magnitude earthquake that caused a tidal wave that has killed 50,000+ this week was centered in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of the Indonesian province of Aceh.

Interestingly enough this humanitarian disaster may have a small upside; a lessening of the potential for terrorism in Southeast Asia.

Aceh, the province of Indonesia closest to the epicenter of the quake, is a terrorist sanctuary that is the home to the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) and has been mentioned as a probable al Qaeda base as members try to reorganize their infrastructure. Other Indonesian terrorist organizations that may have been affected is Jemaah Islamiyah, which seeks to turn Indonesia, Malaysia and the southern Philippines into an Islamic state, and Lasker Jihad, which claims to have disbanded after the 2002 Bali bombing.

The violent Tamil Tigers have the most well-developed capacity for maritime terrorism according to the South Asia Analysis Group, and while it is too early to determine the extent of any damage inflicted upon this terrorist organization, their home country of Sri Lanka was among the hardest hit by the tsunami, particularly ethic Tamil regions on Sri Lanka's eastern coast.

The physical proximity of suspected terrorists to the impact zones of the earthquake and its tsunami suggest that some of these organizations took casualties and lost physical resources as a result, though only time will tell.

Relief Effort Update: The Command Post has the most updated information I am aware of if you want to help those affected by this massive natural disaster.

12/31 Update: Welcome Spring Starts Here! readers. While you are here, please be sure to visit my latest columns on the subject here (and be sure to check out the guy in the bin Laden tee shirt) and see if you can answer the important questions I ask here. Enjoy your visit, and be sure to come back soon.

Associated Hard-Pressed

Wretchard (an always excellent blogger) at Belmont Club has been hammering the Associated Press for their uncanny ability to have a terrorist photographer on-scene to capture the assassination of Iraqi election officials as it happened. Michael Ledeen over at The Corner reports in part in an email from Tom Holsinger:

"AP may have significant civil liability exposure to the victims' families in American courts, under the legal theory of civil conspiracy. The conspiracy objective would be to give publicity to terrorists. Every person or organization agreeing to act in concert to achieve a conspiracy's goals is liable for every act in furtherance of the conspiracy.
American courts have taken jurisdiction, and awarded huge civil judgments, in far more questionable cases."

The mainstream media coddling Muslim terrorists: would you believe such a thing?

Frank Perdue in Iraq?

I missed this on Christmas Eve when it was originally posted by MEMRI, but apparently our nominal allies in the Saudi government daily Al-Watan are accusing the U. S. Army of illegally harvesting organs from dead and dying Iraqis.
"Secret European military intelligence reports" indicate the:

"...transformation of the American humanitarian mission in Iraq into a profitable trade in the American markets through the practice of American physicians extracting human organs from the dead and wounded, before they are put to death, for sale to medical centers in America. A secret team of American physicians follow the troops during their attacks on Iraqi armed men to ensure quick [medical] operations for extracting some organs and transferring them to private operations rooms before they are transferred to America for sale. "The reports confirm the finding of tens of mutilated cadavers or cadavers missing parts. Some were found without a head. The American military command could not offer reasons to explain the bewilderment about the missing parts, suggesting that this may have been caused by the penetration of bullets to the [missing] parts."

Secret intelligence reports, vague reports of missing organs from the cadavers of combat casualties, and of course, the ever-available anonymous witness. Not one corpse has ever shown up, or course, or any other shred of physical evidence.

Years ago their was a Purdue chicken commerical talking about how the "parts is parts" approach is wrong when making good chicken nuggets. Apparently, the Saudis would have us believe the competitor's line from that commercial that anything would work, and that we were randomly hot-swapping Iraq kidneys into American bodies like so many USB drives.

I guess no one has explained to the Arab street about the complexities of organ transplants. They couldn't know that many organs could not remain viable for the amount of time it would take to type, match, and ship them half-way around the world.

But parts, after all, "is" parts, and one anti-American lie is just as good as another.

Going Hard Copy

So far Hugh Hewitt's new book Blog seems to be doing quite well (Amazon rank #287), Scott Ott's Axis of Weasels continues to sell, and Bill Whittle is finding success with Silent America.

A half dozen or more other bloggers are also getting into the publishing game, trying to turn their digital reputation into hard copy sales. It is going to be interesting to see who triumphs and who doesn't in this attempted transition from digital to print. Laura McKenna has an interesting take on it over at her blog, 11D.

I agree with her opinion that non-fiction is the way to go. I don't know how many bloggers have the ability to write good book-length fiction, such as the novel for which Wonkette scored a $275,000 advance. I'm sure there will be some, but I'd be surprised if blogger/novelists sell all that well.

This is going to be interesting to watch.

A New D.U. Record

In the wake of the massive 9.0 earthquake off Sumatra, and the resulting tsunami, tens of thousands are dead. Posters at the Democratic Underground get all the way to the second post of this thread before a poster named NYC offers up:

I haven't read any projections. An amazing number of dead in so little time. I have heard nothing about the U.S. offering aid.

They got to the second poster before finding a way to work their America-hating in. That has to be a new record. It took another five hours before another DUer named StopDiggingTheHole pointed out this was a global tragedy, not a chance to attack the administration.

For those of you keeping score at home, they got all the way to the 13th post on the thread before finding a way to fault Bush directly, and all the way down to the 72nd poster before they started ranting about the "wingnut Fundies."

They haven't yet found a way to hold Halliburton responsible.

Give them time.

Update 1: Michele at A Small Victory has a list of ways you can help the survivors of this natural disaster. Please help, if you can.

Update 2: I spoke too soon. As poster Abu Maven noted at Little Green Footballs, DU-ers did blame Halliburton, Lockheed-Martin, SIAC, etc before I even completed the original post. I just missed it.

Update 3: Those "wingnut Fundies" the DU-ers complained about are on the ground in affected regions. If you would like to help through one of these organizations, visit Scrappleface.com.

A Curious Desire

For years, I've had the desire to try solo primitive wilderness camping. This a somewhat odd fixation, as the closest I've ever come to "real" camping is a drive-in campground, but I've always had this unquenchable urge to light out on the open trail alone, subsisting with only what I could find, catch, or carry with me.

My wife thinks I'm nuts. I mentioned it once in passing to her and simply got "the look." Married men know what I'm talking about. And so I haven't mentioned it any more to her. Maybe she is right. But I still have the urge.

I think I could do it. Seriously.

Yes, I have a bum knee that has already required surgery once. But at my own pace on the terrain of my choosing, I don't see a touchy knee being an insurmountable issue.

I have basic outdoor knowledge, having hunted and fished with my father and brothers for years. I've just never tried to apply everything I know about nature all at once, and I think that is a key part of the challenge of this adventure.

I figure during the fall would be a nice time.

I'd start on a weekend morning at the drop off point, and go as far as I felt comfortable going until mid-afternoon, where I'd make camp, and if conditions warranted, build a simple lean-to for shelter. I'd then find some downed trees and choose a few well-seasoned limbs for my cooking fire, and once this basic camp-making was completed, set off in search of sustenance.

In most parts of the North America there is wild food literally for the taking, you simply have to know what you are looking for. I'd collect wild plants and tubers, maybe do some fishing or hunting nearby, and just play it by ear, simply getting back to nature…getting back to myself.

For the next days, I'd plan on doing nothing more complicated than try to figure out where my next meal was coming from and trying to relax. I'd have time to think. Time to reflect. Something you never seem to be able to find in our normal lives, even when on normal vacations.

Come the next weekend, I 'm sure a dirty, smelly, hungry man would return to the drop-off point to go back to civilization, but I'd think I'd also be a man that was a bit more at peace with himself.

If I can come back like that, it would have been worth it.

Note: I've finally posted my Amazon wish list after someone reminded me it wasn't available on my blog. For some reason, a lot of it seems slanted towards camping gear...

Link Policy

I have no problem with those sites that wish to add a link to Confederate Yankee. You don't even need to tell me. Part of the fun of blogging is discovering new sites that feel strongly enough about something I've said that they link to it or to the site in general. So link away.

That said, I do not often respond to reciprocal linking agreements, so don't bother asking.

I will tell you that I often read comments made on this site, and if someone says something thoughtful, original, and intriguing, I will often visit their site, and if I like their site, I'll add it to my blogroll. I will not knowing link to sites that regularly feature content that would rate more than a PG-13, or an R-rating on the outside. If it ever happens that I link to a site that would earn an NC-17 or higher rating, please let me know.

I don't have any set rules on those sites listed in my blogroll, other than the fact that for some reason, they were of interest to me at the time they were blogrolled. I occasionally drop sites from my blogroll when it gets unwieldy. This isn't personal, I'm just making room for new links. Keep developing engaging commentary, and you could very well wind up blogrolled again.

Commenting Policy (added 09/02/2006, amended 02/07/2007)
Allowing comments on a blog is a personal choice that some bloggers allow and some don't. I happen to fall into the "do" category with restrictions:

• Off-topic comments, irrelevant comments, or personal attacks are subject to deletion, without warning.
• Commentors prone to creating off-topic, irrlevant posts are subject to being banned, without warning.
• Any comments advocating violence towards individuals or groups are subject to deletion, without warning.
• The blog owner reserves the right to enforce these rules unevenly and unobjectively, and may change and and all rules on a whim-by-whim basis. Deal with it, or better yet, get your own blog.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas!

I got a new laptop case, some PJs, and sausage sizzling on the stove. Kid made out like a bandit (like she should), and the wife seemed happy with her new ironing board (jus' kiddin').

Now go spend time with those you love, and I'll be back posting tomorrow as my regular obnoxious self.

Happy Birthday, J.C.

It's Christmas Eve, GO HOME

While checking my Sitemeter stats this morning I noticed that someone from bellsouth.net has been on my site for over 940 minutes.

At first, I thought that I might have finally bored someone to death, and they were face-down on their keyboard. Then I noticed they had 94 page views as well, so that means they were actively clicking around at least part of the time.

And they--YOU--are still here.

Hey, I'm flattered.

Really, I am.

But go home.

It's Christmas Eve.

And at this point, it's just getting creepy.

Shoo.

Go.

Buh-bye.

Update: My overly loyal visitor finally logged off at 12:18 PM, after being on this site for 1050 minutes and 2 seconds. That has to be some sort of record...well, for a non-porn site.

Happy Birthday, Jesus

And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.

And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.

And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.

And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

Luke 2:8-14

Merry Christmas to all.

What, No Prize Money?

Sgt. Stryker apparently likes my sense of humor, and dubbed me the winner of his second Caption Contest. Check it out.

So far I'm 2-0 in contest posts (I've blocked out any losses), winning one over at IMAO a long time back with this one...

IMAO: I got an e-mail from the John Kerry campaign titled "What would you ask John Kerry" saying how if I set up a house party, I could ask a question to John Kerry. So, what would you ask John Kerry?

C.Y. Answer: "So, Senator, how does four months of actual combat experience make you a better candidate than say, Lyndie England?"

And yet, I'm stilling waiting on that invite to go write for Dennis Miller.

Call me, Denny babe. Ciao.

Festivus Does Not Impress Us

I don't "get" Festivus.

And I don't care that I don't get it.

I'm sorry that you aren't a Jew to celebrate Hanukah, or a Christian to celebrate Christmas. Deal with it. The vacuum of faith in your life does not mean that I should celebrate the inadequacies of your spirituality with a made-up holiday.

Have fun griping about inadequacies real and perceived if that is what mimics Confession for you. Enjoy the weak reflectivity of a stark aluminum pole, while I snuggle with my wife in the soft warm glow of lights on the Christmas tree.

Just don't expect me to help you celebrate a hollow, soulless holiday inspired by a a show about nothing.

Tasteless Formalwear Is Not Hate Speech

One potential downside of have the name Confederate Yankee for your blog is that you feel obligated to comment when someone does something stupid with the Confederate Navy Jack, the flag now most associated with the Confederacy becuase of the War of Northern Aggression.

And so people have asked me to comment on the young woman in Lexington, Kentucky who was kicked out of her senior prom for wearing a dress she designed that was patterned after the more popular cousin of the Stars and Bars.

Well, what exactly do you expect me to say?

It is a sequined dress folks, and I have a hard time associating formalwear with hate speech, even if her taste is questionable. Quite frankly I think the dress itself is ugly, but she has every right to sue on First Amendment grounds for being denied the right to be mocked and ridiculed by her classmates for her horrible fashion sense. Strapless with sequins? My date knew better in the late '80s.

I'm much more offended that citizens of a half-breed state like Kentucky think they're legitimately Southern, though I'll give them the benefit of the doubt based upon some of their cultural contributions.

Let's just hope that some of the scholarships that she claims she lost weren't for fashion.

Victory

After a few days of fitful tinkering, I finally have Haloscan fully implemented across the site, and the Blogger commenting system fully suppressed. For a while I was running parallel commenting systems, with Haloscan working off my main URL and Blogger taking comments for any other pages, including archived pages and direct links.

So What.

Well, that means any comments you may have made on the Blogger system are history. Sorry.

But at least we're all on the same page, now that I've beat my templates into submission.

Carry on.

Credit Where Credit is Due

With his usual amount of honesty, Daily Kos blames President Bush for a terrorist attack, with his headline, Bush destroys another 22 families.

As deaths continue to pile up from the flu, I'm sure Kos will be sure to credit Hillary with the headline, Hillary destroys another 11 families.

Somehow, I don't think he'll get around to writing that one, no matter how many toddlers die as a result of HillaryCare.

If Your name Is Margolis, You'd Better Stick to Modeling

Florida state senator Gwen Margolis is proposing Senate Bill 500, a ban on assault weapons and high capacity magazines that would not only to attempt to resurrect the flawed and failed 1994 Crime Bill on a statewide level, but would also seek to make the ban retroactive. She advocates nothing less than the confiscation of the very arms our Founding Fathers would most protect, and it is all based upon a series of lies.

Let us go through the fallacies perpetuated by Margolis, shall we?

Her bill states, starting on line 29 of the first page, "WHEREAS, the United States Congress passed, and the President of the United States signed into law, the Federal Assault Weapons Act on September 13, 1994, which prohibited the use and possession of assault weapons, and-"

And let's start right there.

The last I checked, there has never been a "Federal Assault Weapons Act." There was, however, the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. Perhaps if Senator Margolis is going to try and reinstate and expound upon a law, she should at least see if that law has ever existed.

But her lack of knowledge of the law neither starts nor ends with the name of the law, but extends into the most basic content of the law as well.

"-which prohibited the use and possession of assault weapons, and-"

And which did no such thing. Margolis is either ignorant of the law, or is exaggerating it to the point of outright fabrication.

The possession and use of assault weapons was never prohibited in the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (which from now on, we will simply call the "1994 Crime Bill" as it is commonly referred).

The fact sheet of the 1994 Crime Bill specifically states the fact that the law "bans the manufacture of 19 military-style assault weapons, assault weapons with specific combat features, 'copy-cat' models, and certain high-capacity ammunition magazines of more than ten rounds.'"

The 1994 Crime Bill did not, in letter or in practicality, ban the use or possession of assault weapons, or of their semi-automatic clones. As a matter of fact, it specifically protected existing lawfully-owned assault weapons, and allowed the manufacture of assault weapons throughout the entire period of the failed ban with only slight cosmetic and zero functional change to the basic design of the firearms whatsoever.

Shall we continue?

Margolis continues on line 6 of the second page of the proposed bill "WHEREAS, as a result of the expiration of the ban, UZI's, AK-47's, and other semiautomatic weapons are now available for purchase and possession in this state, -"

I have a news flash for Senator Margolis: semi-automatic weapons were available for legal purchase and possession every single minute of every single day that the 1994 Crime bill was in effect, not only in Florida, but in every state in the Union.

In fact, hundreds of new models and variants of semi-automatic rifles came to the public market in the past ten years, including, but hardly limited to, models from manufacturers such as Armalite, Benelli, Beretta, Browning, Bushmaster, etc.

Her contention that these firearms were not for sale during this time period is simply a fallacy. The only question that matters is this; does Senator Margolis spreads fallacies out of ignorance, or out of malice?

In either event, I saw no reason to continue reading a proposed law based upon shoddy research and blatant falsehoods, though there appeared to be far more of this proposed bill that would not stand up to closer scrutiny.

This flawed document should be regarded more as a work of fiction than a serious attempt at legislation.

Perhaps Senator Margolis should try to learn something about her subject matter before she tries to legislate it.

Update: text of email sent to Senator Margolis on 12/21/2004:

Dear Senator Margolis,

It is readily apparent that you lack even fundamental knowledge of a subject on which you are trying to legislate. Perhaps you should at least try to get your basic facts correct before basing legislation on incorrect or misleading information, as you have done with your proposed bill.

A few of your many fact errors have been noted in an article at the web link below.

(link to this article)

Have a Nice Day.

Sincerely,

Better Late Than Never

Afterglow grandstanding.

I think 41 is standing up for his victorious President, not for his embattled son, when he finally comes down on Michael Moore. I think that is a distinction worth making, as he didn't publicly say anything about Moore until well after the election was over.

Politically, 41 was soft, and it is clear than the spine 43 was bequeathed came from maternal DNA. Dad's rant was little more than a little boy shouting at a vanquished foe, granted this particular foe isn't intelligent enough to know he's been soundly beaten.

While I agree with his assessment of Moore being a new pariah on the Left, as is his due for his disingenuous propaganda, I must wonder if Bush 41 would have been as vocal if Moore's "Fiberal" party had won the election. Somehow I think not.

Bush 41 should be proud of his son, but attacking Moore now, when it doesn't matter, is simply beating a corpulent, dead horse.

Update: An apology to Bush 41 may be in order. Bill at INDC Journal thinks I'm coming down too hard on him, and believes he has spoken out against Michael Moore before. I haven't heard of such comments, but if they do exist, I'll apologize for that particular criticism.

Update 2: Basil found two pre-election comments made by Bush 41 hammering Moore. I stand corrected.

Earnhardt Fans are Smarter

According to the Monday morning edition of Paul Harvey News, an organization called the American Institute for Intelligence Testing has released a study claiming that NASCAR fans are ten-percent smarter than the average person.

Duh.

All it takes is listening to one disingenuous anti-American Noam Chomsky rant to figure out that his fans aren't as bright as they like to think they are. Hell, they voted for Kerry, cry for dead terrorists, and still think the media doesn't have liberal bias.

Luckily, it looks like the intelligence is spreading northward. There may be hope of turning New York into a Red state after all, once DEI, Richard Childress, Robert Yates, Roush Racing, etc help educate the unwashed blue masses.

Support Any Soldier

My better half, God bless her, is an angel with the most charitable and caring of souls, and she found an organization over the weekend that I'd like to share with you.

Any Soldier, Inc is a charitable organization with a simple, vital goal: delivering care packages and letters of support to our troops. If you are looking to contribute to a noble cause, you couldn't do much better.

While it is a little late for Christmas, you could help an American serviceman overseas get 2005 started off right with support from home. Any letters or notes you send let them know you appreciate what they are doing, and for those of you able to send Care packages, this page lets you know what soldiers need and provides links to where you can find items online.

Please check out Any Soldier, and pass along their Web address to those you know who might be interested in supporting our troops.

Fiberals

Fiberals.

Let's call them what they are. They don't support the troops, and they never will respect the military, even though they say the opposite. They don't respect minorities, and move quickly to quash any who fail to toe the party line. They don't respect the Constitution, and they don't respect the law of the land.

They don't have to. They're better than us.

The ACLU claims to fight for civil liberties, but was founded by socialists and communists with the express goal of undermining the Constitution. Planned Parenthood claims to be about choice, but was founded by a eugenicist and practices genocide. Fiberals shrilly attack conservatives and moderates of both parties as being "right wing," and then openly embrace a radical religion that admired Adolph Hitler.

Welcome to the Fiberals.

As Fiberals, they have the right to claim that the most inclusive President in history is a racist, when in fact their party founded the Ku Klux Klan and stood in the way of civil rights for over one hundred years. They can confidently call minorities that step out of line "Aunt Jemima" or "Uncle Tom" without reprisals, and certainly no complaints from the NAACP.

They have the right to claim Faux News and the Moonie Times are unbalanced in their news coverage because Maureen Dowd and Lawrence O'Donnell told them so, and Rather and Mapes were just telling the truth by other means, and Halprin was just trying to provide the right perspective.

They have the right to claim the War on Terror has nothing to do with Iraq, even though the World Trade Center bomb-builder came from and returned to Iraq in 1993, and Iraq was home to one, two, three, four terrorist organizations, and Saddam provided money to the families of terrorist bombers.

Fiberals claim the right to say that we acted illegally and without United Nations support in our invasion of Iraq as the corrupt organization of despots quietly pocketed hundreds of millions from Saddam as he continued to murder, rape and kill thousands of his captive people each year.

As Fiberals, they have the right to claim American soldiers are terrorists for killing men who purposefully shoot women and children and build bombs on holy ground, and question the moral fiber of those who fight against criminals who rape, behead, and torture in the name of a God Fiberals claim doesn't even exist.

As Fiberals, they get to register Mary Poppins for crack cocaine and claim voter fraud when the terrorist-meeting war protestor they support is beaten by a dunce from Jesusland.

As Fiberals, they get to believe our 51% of the country is so stupid that we cause mental disorders and flight to more tolerant climes.

As Fiberals they get to be a lot of things...

Just not in charge.

Note: Don't like Fiberals, and want everyone to know it? Visit the Luck Fiberals Store and view "Luck Fiberals" t-shirts, stickers, mousepads, and more.

Snotblogging

Sure, Glen Reynolds has his tireblogging, but does it come with Kleenex?

A nurse who should know better sent her SARS-infested twins to school yesterday, and now my curtain-climber is going to be home today with a nasty cough, hacking up green things that crawl away on their own. Poor kid.

Parents who send their Ebola-babies to school knowing (this one is a nurse!) that they will infect other kids deserve a nice beating with a ClueBat. Thanks to this momtard, an entire kindergarten class was exposed, and more than her kids will spend the weekend before Christmas sick.

Ho. Ho. Ho.

Courage and Heart

Love is stronger than hate, freedom is stronger than tyranny.

Read this, and try to convince me we're losing in Iraq.

(Hat tip: LGF)

Coming Down on Pixelated Porn

It looks like Illinois is going to be the first state to try to institute some sort of governmental control over the sale and distribution of violent or other adult-themed video games to minors.

It's about time.

I don't want to hear anyone who lives with their parents whining about "freedom of speech," either. Various levels of obscenity law have been upheld by courts for a very long time, and that is what these proposed laws are, and nothing less.

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) is promoting two bills to make selling or renting violent or sexually graphic materials to minors a crime, treating video games with the same kind of oversight governments have traditionally used to regulate cigarettes and alcohol distribution.

The Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB) and Video Software Dealers Association (VSDA) are both unhappy with these proposed laws, claming that they have their own ratings system, and feel they should be self-regulating.

I'm sure Larry Flynt felt the same way about marketing and selling Hustler.

But the fact of the matter is that the industries do not adequately self-regulate unless forced. I've never seen a store refuse to sell a violent videogame to a teenager, but these same kids know not even to try buying a copy of Penthouse or a six-pack of Coors.

The fact of the matter is that the software gaming industry has been under-regulated from it's inception, and enforcing a state-mandated minimum level of morality at the cash register or at the rental counter is precisely the kind of involvement that I do feel is necessary by state governments.

Whether the content is delivered via pixels or picas shouldn't matter.

We don't let our kids buy "adult" products in other forms until they meet minimum level of maturity, and we should not allow video games to be excepted from those rules.

Site changes

There may be some minor hiccups today as I try to update the blog template.

Sorry!

Update: Haloscan seems to be implemented correctly in my blog template, but a limited number of posts seems to stil be trying to use Blogger's old "comments" template. I was trying to troubleshoot this last night and again this morning, but decided that I don't care that much about a minor problem concerning old posts.

If you end up not seeing a comment that you posted, let me know and I'll see if I can hunt it down and put it where it belongs.

Normal blogging to resume later today.

A Blue Christmas? Not Quite

Seems like the liberal-run education system has failed us again.

A new generation of oxygen-starved liberals have now decided to color Santa blue instead of red, proving their mothers (the ones who chose to carry them to term, that is) ingested far too much THC during their pregnancies.

A group calling themselves "Buy Blue" has a web site up encouraging lefties to buy products from left-leaning businesses that directed the majority of their campaign contributions to Socialist Democratic candidates.

An offshoot of this moonbattery is their Blue Christmas campaign, alluded to above.

Yes, we're all shocked that a party allied with the Anti-Christian Liberties Union (PDF) would even mention the word "Christmas" without an overwhelming urge to sue themselves, but they obviously felt they corrupted the spirit of the season enough to suit their Godless existence.

That said, a wonderful benefit of the Blue Christmas campaign is this page, which not only tells you which "blue" companies donated heavily against freedom in Iraq and Afghanistan, against the rights of children to be born, and against the very mention of the name of the man who's birth we are celebrating with this holiday, but also includes a list of "red" companies that still support the principles this country was founded upon.

Please download the printer-friendly PDF version of their page (before they wise up and take it down), and be sure to send it to everyone you know, so that when they buy consumer goods, they are buying from the "red" companies that still support traditional American values.

These liberals want to take Christ out of Christmas and make Santa blue.

Thanks to your convenient list, liberals, I'll be confidently shopping "red" for 364 days, and I'll still be dreaming of a white Christmas.

Update: I visited Little Green Footballs after I posted this thread and noticed that Charles found another group of Shop Blue morons. Check it out.

S.H.P.W.N.A.S.

The following was culled from a series of emails sent back and forth between "R" at a small Southern software company and "J", one of their ornery Northern clients, after a software upgrade.

J,

I've taken care of item the issues please send in the latest executables. In regards to item b) there isn't a way for me to have this carry over. With the old transfer routine that was causing problems the Duplicate Value Entry Error the Customer PO Transfer was a part of the problem; thus it had to be done away with.

--R.

###

R,

What does this mean to me?

--J.

###

J,

It probably doesn't mean much to you, except that you'll have to hear D. bitch, moan, whine and complain about the Customer's PO Number in Other Order Entry not Defaulting to the Purchase Order Number for the Purchase Order when you transfer the items to it.

But as we all know, some things must be sacrificed in the name of progress; and I truly feel sorry that your sanity is part of what is being sacrificed.

If you want I could send up some ear plugs so you won't have to hear D. bitch, moan, whine and complain.

And just in case you're wondering yes I'm in a fabulous mood.

It's just another fabulous day in paradise down here.

--R.

###

R,

Is this what they call Southern Hospitality?

--J.

###

J,

I think it would be closer to southern hostility caused by the war of northern aggression; you guys call it the civil war. Maybe I'll coin a new psychological disorder SHPWNAS (Southern Hostility due to Post War of Northern Aggression Syndrome). You know if the damn liberals can claim Post Election Selection Syndrome and the ACLU / NAACP can claim that people of color my age have been directly affected by slavery, maybe the War of Northern Aggression is the cause of my mental instability.

R.

###

R,

It has come to my attention that you have lost your friggin mind and have started some new hostile grass roots organizations of hostility towards the northern (and smarter) section of this fine country we live in. You lost the damn war - it's over - now stop whining like hillbilly and get back to work.

J.

Of course, J. is supposed to think that the war is over. We're just in an extended phase of lulling you Yankees into a false sense of security.

Sleep tight.

And they say bloggers need oversight

I heard another yippee media figure on a talking head show last night (O'Reilly's) denigrating bloggers as needing some sort of "oversight."

It is just one rant of many in the media, and has been covered in enough blogs in enough detail that I don't need to discuss it here, other than to make one comment: bloggers are limited by the same legal checks and balances that affect the professional media. Indeed, it can be argued that since individual bloggers do not have the support of corporate conglomerations and their significant legal resources, that the professional media can get away with pushing the envelope further than bloggers.

But that envelope only stretches so far. As this case suggests, all media are subject to the limitations of libel and slander law, and if recent history is to be observed, the blogosphere, it can be argued, does the better job of staying within the ethical and legal constraints that big journalism claims to follow.

As I sit here marveling at how the print media forged their circulation numbers as well as their stories, and wait for results of the CBS Rathergate investigation, I think that perhaps Mr. O'Reilly, recently in his own bit of legal hot water for the alleged suggestive sexual abuse of a falafel, and also playing a role in the libel case cited above, should keep his mouth shut on media ethics until his own house is in order.

Kerik in 2008?

According to the New York Daily News, former NYPD commissioner Bernie Kerik didn't step down from his nomination as Homeland Security Director because of "Nannygate" issues, but rather, because of a slew of other allegations, including:

• two simultaneous extramarital affairs
• involvement with mafia-run businesses
• accepting expensive gifts without proper disclosure
• discriminatory retaliation against the co-workers of one alleged mistress

Happy Armed Jews Week

I hope everyone takes the time to celebrate Armed Jews Week. We're dead center in the middle of it, so read this fascinating piece over at PuppyBlender.com written by a moonlighting Dave Kopel, who knows a thing or two about the subject.

Update: While you're celebrating, why not buy a Bren from the JPFO? Proceeds go to raise funds for the pro-gun documentary Innocents Betrayed.

Spitzer Going for the Plantation Owner Vote?

I know politics makes for strange bedfellows, but I don't know that this approach will work in New York.

From Page Six of the NY Post:

STAFFERS at the engineering firm owned by Bernard Spitzer - the father of state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer - are accused of driving the office's lesbian receptionist positively batty.

Evelyn Quinones was fired from her job answering phones at Spitzer's Fifth Avenue firm last January. She has since filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleging that four female staffers at Spitzer Engineering harassed her so badly, she suffered panic attacks and had to check into a psychiatric ward.

Now her girlfriend, legal aide Lisa Padilla, charges in a letter to PAGE SIX that Eliot Spitzer is unfit for office because his "campaigns and lifestyle have been financed by his father . . . Since the younger Mr. Spitzer is attempting to build support in the gay and lesbian community for his gubernatorial run, it is akin to an abolitonist[sic] running for office financed by slavers."

That tactic (supporting slavery) is at least 140 years out of date, Elliot, but if you are going to hold one set of views privately and project another when it comes to minority relations, then at least you're in the right party.

Of course this allegation against Spitzer's father has absolutely nothing to do with Spitzer himself, but it is amusing to watch the moonbats turn on each other.

Time for an Impeachment

Michelle Malkin is talking about a bureaucrat who is very likely to get people killed in this country due to his paper-pushing incompetence. (Hat tip: Powerline)

Get the bumper sticker.

There's a chupacabra in my room

Did you know that when you combine four days of insomnia with a heavy workload, the mind can start to play tricks on you?

Either that, or I need to get a chupacabra trap.

The next thing you know, Terry McAuliffe will start to sound intelligent...

Nah.

Update: It turns out that I didn't see a chupacabra, but something else with similar physical characteristics.

The NAACP's Slow Suicide

Last Tuesday (11/30) I noted that as Kweisi Mfume was stepping down as president of the increasingly irrelevant NAACP, that Chairman Julian Bond needed to go next.

At the time I wrote that, I said Mfume had to go "for allowing the organization's credibility to be damaged severely, to the point where many feel it is no longer a civil rights organization, but instead a mouthpiece of the Democratic Party."

Well, it looks like I might owe Mr. Mfume an apology, based upon this article.

It now seems that Mr. Mfume was trying to right a sinking ship, one that the rest of the crew of the U.S.S. NAACP apparently wants to scuttle.

According to the Human Events Online story, Mr. Mfume had been reaching out across the aisle, trying to build a working relationship with Republicans. Mfume nominated Condoleezza Rice for an NAACP Image Award in 2003, and had realized that by voting lockstep Democrat in every election, black voters had given away their political bartering power.

After the election last month Mfume sent a letter to President Bush mapping out ways they could work together to help the community, which was against the wishes of a rabid Julian Bond.

Bond then had Mfume forced out, for this apparent sin of trying to bring political diversity to a once-meaningful civil rights organization.

Thank you Mr. Mfume, for trying to reach out and make the NAACP relevant again.

I'm sorry it didn't work out.

The Winter Blogger Investigation

Excerpts from John Kerry, Spokesman, for Liberal Veterans Against the Blog:

"I would like to talk on behalf of all those liberal bloggers and say that several days ago we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably pajama'd, and many highly caffinated, Daily Kossacks testified to blog crimes they committed at the 2004 Weblog Awards.

"They told stories that at times they had personally fisked, cut off or deleted dissenting comments, blocked dissenting IPs, dowdified quotes and turned up the rhetoric, cut off intelligent discourse, blown up childishly, randomly trolled at conservative sites, and hacked and scripted to falsify award poll results in a fashion reminiscent of Ghengis Khan, poisoned topics, and generally ravaged the blogosphere in addition to the normal ravaging of blogs and the very particular ravaging done by the applied hacking and scripting of the 2004 Weblog Awards Best Overall Blog in particular."

Admissions of Cheating at 2004 Weblog Awards

Simply pathetic.

LGF is reporting that Daily Kos fans are admitting to hacking the 2004 Weblog Awards and corrupting the vote for Best Overall Blog with scripts stuffing the virtual ballot box.

In addition to Koz, three other sites (LGF, Wonkette, Talking Points Memo) are also facing recounts because of hacking that manipulated their numbers.

Folks, these awards are about appreciating the blogging community. That some people would take the time to cheat for what is essentially an award of appreciation, is sad in the extreme.

I suggest that Daily Kos be tossed from this competition, or voluntarily withdraw on his own, if it can be determined to a reasonable degree that he knew of the cheating on his behalf (or should have) and did not report it. I would hold the other three blogs in question to this same standard.

Integrity, kids, is a beautiful thing.

Religion of Peace says the word-of-the-day is "legs"

...And so they continue spreading the word.

You've got to admire a religion like that. Yes, I'm being sarcastic, but it is the safest thing to be. You can't actually accuse Islam of being a bunch of mindless rutting pigs without respect for women. They don't respond well to criticism. Better to turn your head and be a good little dhimmi.

You know. Like Europe.

But guess what, kids: there's a nasty storm brewing of-dare I say it-biblical proportions.

We are in a clash of civilizations that some very astute thinkers are already classifying as World War IV and yet most people don't even recognize what is going on around them.

For the next few days, the mood here at Confederate Yankee is projected to be a little darker and more serious than the satirical charity work and reality show pilots of the past week, but I encourage you to stick around. Hopefully, I might say something profound.

And doesn't everyone enjoy a good surprise?

Blech

Some things just shouldn't be.

This is one of them.

Remember kids:

Love your grandmother, but don't loooove your grandmother.

A Worthy Cause

Election got you down? Are you suffering from Post Election Selection Trauma? You are not alone, little liberal.

Surely, there was something that could be done.

Something that should be done.

But after almost a month of incessant whining from the high-minded-but-functionally-useless libs milling around aimlessly, it was once again up to the conservatives to actually do it.

Back prior to the War of Northern Aggression, courageous early Republicans often outsmarted early pre-Klan Democrats and helped those held in servitude escape to the North. It seemed only fitting to resurrect this idea to assist our "friends" in their quest to reach their socialist Nirvana.

Yes, the Democratic Underground Railroad will help ferry the disenfranchised and downtrodden out of the land of Christian ayatollahs and non-stop Toby Keith, to the land of polar bear milk and honey.

It is, after all, for a worthy cause.

NOTE: I just added Haloscan for comments and trackback. Previous comments were unfortunately deleted in the changeover. Sorry, but it was necessary to be able to block Hate-Filled Lefties. Granted, I haven't had any to speak of just yet, but you know how we conservatives favor preemption.

Batter Up

Can you guess what's going to happen now, Brian?

French Twist

Let me see if I understand the game properly.

If terrorists in an American prison have to listen to loud music, it is torture.

If a terrorist is shot by American soldiers, it's a war crime repeated incessantly on the news.

Yeah, there's no such thing as media bias.

Update 12/3: Cox and Forkum noticed what the Red Cross considers "torture" and respond accordingly.