“We Win And They Lose”

What He Said 2 Comments

Pejman Yousefzadeh on the millionth Bloomingdale’s customer.

Farenheit Heating Up

Insufferable Twits 2 Comments

Predictably, Ebert and Roper gave “two thumbs up” on Michael Moore’s Farenheit 911.
[Is it just me, or is there something very creepy lately about Roger Ebert’s face? There’s a Men In Black thing happening under there….]
Well, Ray Bradbury, author of Fahrenheit 451 has a different opinion.

“Michael Moore is a screwed asshole, that is what I think about that case.”

Asked about the Palme d’Or;

So what? I have won prizes in different places and they are mostly meaningless. The people there hate us, which is why they gave him the d’Or. It’s a meaningless prize.

hat tip – Flea

Everything Old Is New Again

Moonbats 2 Comments

As legislation expands here and across North America to ban smoking of tobacco products in public places, the anti-smoking crusaders (whose bandwagon I jumped off a couple of years ago) are claiming victory.

More recently, Nanny State has been treating us (at taxpayer expense) to brown eyed toddlers telling us how they “smoke a cigarette” on the way to school, on the way to grandma’s house. – through the noxious fumes they inhale in mommy’s car. I suspect the family sedan is next.

While the progressive forces of leftist “we know what’s good for you and if you don’t believe us, it’s jail for you!” clan marches forward with their zero tolerance agenda, their brothers-in-arms are busy campaigning – and succeeding – for the decriminilazation and normalization of marijuana
Which, last I checked, one rolls into cigarettes and inhales into their lungs.

Despite any scientific evidence to support their claims, (Pfizer should have it so good), marijuana is now being grown and sanctioned for medicinal purposes, courtesy of Health Canada.
And everything old is new again.

A Bright Light On Past Pundits

Political Animal No Comments

Steven Taylor has an amusing collection of past punditry about Reagan from the 80’s this morning.

Voiceless

Blogging 3 Comments

On days like yesterday and today, I really have come to appreciate my blog.
I have larengitis. I cannot speak at all above a whisper, and I avoid it, because it makes me cough. The dogs are sort of weirded out over it all – nobody has yelled at them in over 48 hours. Luckily, I’ve had only a couple of phone calls to deal with and some quiet work here at home. But if my posting frequency increases, that’s why. It’s the only communication I’m capable of at the moment.

Kurt Leavins’ Extremely Difficult Radio Quiz Show

Roadkill No Comments

650 CKOM’s news director is a decidedly left-leaning Bush critic. Leavins has an afternoon show in which he interviews different newsmakers and shares his opinions. Those opinions are typically hinged upon Michael Moore-ish cherry picking of fact, and bolstered by ignorance of historical chronology and context.
But it would be unfair to leave an impression that Mr. Leavins is all gloom and “tsk tsk” anti-Americanism. He is on throughout the day doing general announcer duty, and much of it is lighter fare. This morning featured a prize on offer for the caller with the right answer to the following timely question: “How many beer can fit in the bowl of the Stanley Cup”
As each person called in and guessed incorrectly, he hung up to allow the next one to try. This is a paraphrase of how the contest progressed. Read carefully.

Leavins: How many beer fit inside the Stanley Cup?
Caller: 43!
Leavens: Nope. Too high, next caller..
Caller: 40.
Leavens: Too high.
Caller: 25?
Leavens: Still too high. Caller, how may beer?
Caller: 20.
Leavens: Still too high…
Caller: 10?
Leavins: Oh, that’s close! But too low.
Caller: 12?
Leavens: Oh ! … too high!
Caller: 11!!!!!
Leavens: Too low!
Caller: eh… 13?
Leavens: Too high! Oh, everyone is so close!
Caller: 11 1/2?
Leavens: No, too low! It’s between 13 and 15!
Caller: 14.
Leavins: right!

So, now, I think I have little better insight about how he comes up with op-eds like this one.

The New Iraq

Radioactive 1 Comment

Via Jeff Jarvis this commentary from an Iraqi blogger;

The beginning for the new Iraq has started and the people of Iraq finally got a government they should be proud of. I was so happy this morning watching the new Iraqi government and the names of those ministers and of course the new president. There was one moment during the whole ceremony that equated to the moment when they announced the capture of Saddam and that is when they announced the new president of Iraq, to me that was a dream comes true. I believe most of us young Iraqis when we hear the phrase president of Iraq, we think of Saddam and only Saddam. Well, history was made today Saddam and his clans have no chance of getting the power or any position in the new Iraq. Iraq is changing and I believe it is changing toward a free and democratic Iraq. I spoke with my family in Baghdad twice today and they are so excited about the new government, my brother was telling me that we all are praying for these guys and Inshallaha god will be with them. I think this is a new era for us and for the Middle East as a whole. Listening to all the names that were announced today, you can not, but think that this new government is the most educated individuals among all the governments in the Middle East. Most of them have a doctorate in their fields of expertise not to mention a lot of them have lived and gained there experience in the west. With the help of the US and the rest of the world, I believe these guys will definitely get Iraq out of this mess.

Don’t sit up late tonight watching for this on Canadian network TV.

Political Animals React To Lincoln’s Death

Not Quite News 3 Comments

ABRAHAM LINCOLN
Comments

I’m not going to participate in the whitewash. Laurak
Posted by: laurak on April 16, 1865 at 3:16 PM | PERMALINK

The idolatry exhibited on even the supposedly objective rags should put paid to the idea of a “liberal” media. It won’t, but it should.
Posted by: Linkmeister on April 16, 1865, at 3:19 PM | PERMALINK

Are they seriously trying to complain that there was praise and admiration, but not quite enough praise and admiration?
I’d say the grief was making them irrational, but they make idiotic arguments like that on regular days too.
Posted by: Gordon on April 16, 1865, at 3:24 PM | PERMALINK

lincoln was controversial and did things good and bad we still feel today. republicans need to lighten up and accept the sum of this important man especially now in his passing. geez, who’s the whiny party now?
Posted by: travy on April 16, 1865, at 3:29 PM | PERMALINK

Nobody has mentioned the irony of Mr. Lincoln’s getting shot with a revolver. During his presidency, Mr. Lincoln sent many men to their graves with the bullets of war.
Posted by: W, The Great Prevaricator on June 6, 2004 at 3:36 PM | PERMALINK

Let’s take the high road and insist that Dred Scott not be mentioned when Buchanan dies 🙂 Think we can hold them to it?
Posted by: dude on April 16, 1865, at 3:43 PM | PERMALINK

And in the words of Moms Mabley (about her husband):
“They say you should only speak good of the dead.
“He’s dead.
“Good.”
Posted by: hexatron on April 16, 1865, at 4:23 PM | PERMALINK

Now is not the time to remain silent, not while the wingnuts rewrite history. Now is the time to set the record straight.
Abraham Lincoln as America’s Sun King
Posted by: Alice Marshall on April 16, 1865 at 4:43 PM | PERMALINK

I’ve had about enough of Aby worshipping for one weekend. I doubt chimpy will get much of a boost from this, and not a lasting one either. As bad as lincoln was, he looks like a towering genius next to johnson.
Why is it that chimpy is always either smirking or looking constipated? Or is it chronic gas?
Posted by: fourlegsgood on April 16, 1865 at 4:48 PM | PERMALINK

I just hope there are no political statements in any eulogies. Those who were so outraged by the
Taylor funeral surely wouldn’t be hypocritical enough to condone such behavior.
Posted by: KCinDC on JApril 16, 1865, at 3:52 PM | PERMALINK

I, too, remember why I looked down my elitist nose at Lincoln: he was a useful idiot.
Posted by: Hedley Lamarr on April 16, 1865 at 6:18 PM | PERMALINK

Ding-dong the witch is dead, the wicked with, the wicked witch. Maybe now the evil spell will be lifted which fell across America …
Posted by: The Fool on June 6, 2004 at 7:13 PM | PERMALINK

Trading Seats?

Political Animal 1 Comment

Secret plot by the Tories and Liberals to rig key ridings in 2000 election?

Just when it seemed federal politics couldn’t get any sleazier, Sun Media has learned that a group of powerful Tory and Liberal backroom operatives secretly conspired to bolster the Grit national campaign and skew the results in a number of ridings in the last federal election. Two weeks before Jean Chretien called the country to the polls in October 2000, reliable sources say, a small group of top Tory officials cut a secret deal to help Chretien’s ultimately successful national campaign for a third majority government.
In return, the Liberals agreed to throw the vote in the Calgary Centre riding of then Tory leader Joe Clark.
In what may have been a series of similar deals, sources say the Tories also agreed to “stand down” to help Liberal Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan hang on to her Edmonton seat, which she won by only 733 votes.
…
Clark had entered the campaign with abysmal polling numbers pointing to an almost certain defeat.
Instead, the former Tory leader won by 4,304 votes after a bizarre campaign in which a group called “Liberals for Clark” suddenly popped up from nowhere to back him.

It might help explain that “devil we know” endorsement of Martin by Clark a few weeks ago.
hat tip – An American in TO

Bittersweet

What He Said No Comments

Watching the ceremonies today on Juno Beach, I wonder how many of us were uncomfortable with the juxtaposition of commemorations being led by Liberal politicians whose policies have been responsible for the evisceration of the Canadian military over the past 30 years.
Nicholas Packwood says it best.“Bring back this Canada.”

Bagpipes played their eerie sound as the Royal Highland Regiment left the harbour in England. They played the pipes on the transports as they rocked up the shore. They bagpipes howled as the Black Watch hit Juno Beach. The bagpipes gave a simple message to the Germans defending Juno beach: we are crazy, we are coming, and you are going to die.

Mr. Martin – I hope you and your Liberal government members and your social engineering, leftist career beaurocrats looked long and hard into the faces of those elderly veterans today.
For every one of them is twice the man of the lot of you combined.

Milestone

Blogging 5 Comments

Looking at my sitemeter and current traffic levels, there’s a good chance SDA will see the 50,000 visit sometime today.
Due, in no small part to “Flames Girls”.
I suppose this means I should mark the event by flashing a little skin of my own.
On the other hand, I do want people to come back.

El Sadr Is Finished. So Is The Story.

Roadkill 1 Comment

The Command Post covers this NYT story, that will remain virtually unreported in Canada.

Shiite leaders and American officials said the armed followers of Mr. Sadr, known as the Mahdi Army, had cleared out of many parts of Najaf, and seemed to be getting ready to leave altogether. The Shiite leaders said American forces, who encircled the city in recent weeks, had also cleared out of the city center and areas near the Imam Ali Shrine, one of the holiest sites in Shiite Islam.
[. . .]
“The people of Najaf are walking the streets, the cars are moving on every avenue and the Iraqi police have moved back in,” said Adnan Ali, a senior official with the Dawa Party, whose leaders took part in the negotiations. “This is a good step forward.”
Iraq’s new prime minister, Iyad Allawi, declared in an interview that the fighting was over. “The armed presence in Najaf and Kufa has ended,” he told Associated Press Television News.
[. . .]
A coalition official said American forces had pulled out of the center of town but were running joint patrols with Iraqi forces within the city.
A senior Iraqi official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, suggested that Mr. Sadr had grown demoralized in the face of political isolation and relentless military pressure. American commanders claim to have killed hundreds of Mr. Sadr’s fighters in the past weeks.
“There is every indication that the man is in a deplorable state of affairs,” said the senior Iraqi official. “He feels very weak. The Mahdi Army has suffered big losses.”

Not news for anyone who has been following reports on the fighting on the blogosphere. But it will never be news for Canadians who depend upon the mainstream media here. The El Sadr story has always been reported as being – at best – a “stalemate” between the American troops and his militia. Now that they are all but anhilated, there will be no further comment at all.
One can’t leave the impression that American troops are capable or successful.

“Freedom Is The Victor”

What He Said 2 Comments

“In the 1950s, Khrushchev predicted: “We will bury you.” But in the West today, we see a free world that has achieved a level of prosperity and well-being unprecedented in all human history. In the Communist world, we see failure, technological backwardness, declining standards of health, even want of the most basic kind–too little food. Even today, the Soviet Union still cannot feed itself. After these four decades, then, there stands before the entire world one great and inescapable conclusion: Freedom leads to prosperity. Freedom replaces the ancient hatreds among the nations with comity and peace. Freedom is the victor.
And now the Soviets themselves may, in a limited way, be coming to understand the importance of freedom. We hear much from Moscow about a new policy of reform and openness. Some political prisoners have been released. Certain foreign news broadcasts are no longer being jammed. Some economic enterprises have been permitted to operate with greater freedom from state control.
Are these the beginnings of profound changes in the Soviet state? Or are they token gestures, intended to raise false hopes in the West, or to strengthen the Soviet system without changing it? We welcome change and openness; for we believe that freedom and security go together, that the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace. There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace.
General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

Rest In Peace, Mr. Reagan. And thankyou.
Outside The Beltway has a roundup of photos and links.
Dean Esmay;
“I hated him when he was President.
Now I’m a 38 year-old man who can’t stop crying.
And that’s the truth.”
Kathy Shaidle remembers when she stopped hating him, too. “It’s too late to say I’m sorry, but not to say that he was right about a lot of things and I was wrong.”
Wretchard, at the Belmont Club;
“The man who won Cold War died today. He couldn’t take it with him, but left his legacy to billions of human beings. He was characterized as an idiot, an automaton and charlatan by many of his critics. Yet none of his detractors, however polished and poised, have changed the world so profoundly as this one man.”

The European Folly

Military No Comments

I’ve lifted this in its entirety from the New Zealand blog, Silent Running.

Rumors circulating in London talk of an impending major operation. Britain, which has been transformed into an armed camp, has been eerily quiet, due in large part to the wide spread cancellation of leaves and passes for practically all military personnel.
Speculation about an imminent assault on ‘Fortress Europe’ abound, often mentioning ‘the butcher of Sicily’, Gen George S. Patton. There are numerous unconfirmed reports however, of rubber airplanes and tanks in the areas believed to be garrisoning Patton’s men. These men, mere boys for the most part, would be going up against well prepared defenses, referred to by the German High Command as “The Atlantic Wall”. The available information on the preparations in the area of Calais appear to indicate that any such attempt would certainly be tantamount to suicide under the best circumstances, but with a phantom army? Some critics question if the proper equipment for the job is really on hand.
Does SHAEF really have a plan? SHAEF spokespeople refuse to make a comment on the record, and are unusually tight-lipped on background, as well. They do claim, however, that their plan is more than to simply to send thousands of young men to certain death in a Hail Mary attempt to get through the insurmounable German defensive works. Critics wonder if the Americans aren’t being driven to do something against their better judgement, even that of the notoriously extreme British Prime Minister, Mr. Churchill, who has to date exhibited absolutely no remorse concerning the massive casualties sustained so far.
Prime Minister Churchill and the British High Command have reportedly argued against an invasion of Northern Europe directly for months – preferring the ‘soft underbelly of Europe’ via Italy. Soft underbelly, indeed! So far it has been a colossall quagmire mired in the Italian mud – a miscalculation bordering on incompetence which has already cost tens of thousands of Allied casualties in a bitter slog up the Italian boot. And that was against a dispirited mix of Italians and Germans. Casualty rates are sure to be astronomical if we go head to head with the German’s best, led by their most capable leader – Irwin Rommel, the Desert Fox, who is rumored to be in command of the nightmare tangle of concrete and steel that anyone foolish enough to attempt a direct landing anywhere from Bordeaux to Jutland would have to overcome.
However, the Allied Commander, General Eisenhower, ostensibly with the backing of American Chief of Staff Marshall, and US President Roosevelt, have telegraphed for months that such an ill considered assault on the shores of the Continent is their goal. Who will be first to wake from this madness and implement a saner policy, one which puts the lives of our boys first?

Part of a continuing series of media blasts from the WWII past.

Big Day For Underdogs

stuff 35 Comments

Go, Flames !
	Go, Smarty !

update. blah. bad day for underdogs.

Requesting Toby Keith

Moonbats 2 Comments

Just about every time I drive into the US, I hear Toby Keith’s post 9/11 song “Courtesy of the Red, White, & Blue”. And I quite like it.
I don’t imagine the song has ever been played here in the frozen north, [disclaimer – I don’t listen to country] – outside perhaps a furrowed-brow analysis of ~~Canadian moral superiority over warmongering America~~ cultural differences between our country and the US, on CBC Radio.

Hey Uncle Sam put your name at the top of his list,
And the Statue of Liberty started shaking her fist.
And the eagle will fly,
And there’s gonna be Hell,
When you hear Mother Freedom start ringing her bell!
It’s gonna feel like the whole wide world is raining down on you…
Brought to you courtesy of the Red, White and Blue!

Which got me to thinking. On occassion, local CBC radio has a phone-in song request show.
Heh.

Peaktalk

Blogging No Comments

British Columbia blog, “Peaktalk”, is back.

Juno Beach

Media No Comments

Canadians moving inland, says first news dispatch from beach head
By Ross Munro

WITH CANADIAN FORCES LANDING IN FRANCE, June 6, 1944 (CP Cable) – In two hours and 45 minutes of fighting on the beaches here, the Canadian invasion force won its beach-head and shoved on inland.
At 10:45 this morning the Canadian commander (Gen. Keller) sent this message to Gen. Crerar, G.O.C. 1st Canadian Army: “Beach head taken. Well on way to intermediate objective.”
The strip of coast won by the Canadians in this initial assault was quite narrow, but it gave them the beaches and provided a base for further penetration.
There was some stiff street fighting in the little coast towns and the Canadians also met considerable enemy fire on the beaches and as they worked their way into the defences. They had to overcome numerous steel and wooden obstacles which were placed out on the tidal part of the beach and which were covered at high tide to trap landing craft. However, the assault went in at 7:15 a.m. just as the tide began to rise and many of these obstacles were cleared away by engineers before the water covered them, thus enabling followup craft to beach and unload.
Some casualties were suffered in the assault by the Canadians from enemy machine-guns, mortars and artillery fire.
By 10:00 a.m. the Canadians were about 1,000 yards inland and going strong, meeting only small pockets of Germans. The first prisoners were taken and identified as belonging to a coastal unit.
On other parts of the front near us the operation is moving along. Canadian and British airborne troops did a good job when they dropped and came in by gliders at 3:30 this morning. They captured several bridges and held them.
Cruisers provided very effective support to the Canadians and one cruiser knocked out a troublesome battery about a mile and a half from the coast with six direct hits.
Enemy tanks are reported about 10 to 15 miles south of the beach-head and some enemy transport is also moving.
Up to noon the German air force has not shown up. It is estimated to have 2,350 aircraft in western Europe but it looks as if the air attack will come tonight.
The French coast is still wreathed in smoke driving far down the Channel. In some of the bombarded towns, fires are burning ….

So far the operation seems to have gone as well as could be expected. Destroyers and gunboats are cruising up and down the coastline banging away at last coastal points of resistance on our beach.
Now the rest of the assault troops are going in. I am going ashore with them.

The rest is here.
(Ross Munro, war correspondent for The Canadian Press, died in Toronto in 1990 at the age of 76. Why can’t our war reporting of today be as clear and unobstructed by bias as this?)
Hat tip – Rick Hiebert

Burning Diesel, Greening Grass