On Sweatshops:
Sweatshops compared to living in a trash heap. Sweatshops 1, trash heep -1000.
………………
On battery hens:
Relative freedom before death, but more disease vs 0 movement and less disease. Which would you choose?
…………
On Medicare Part D.
Hmmmmm.
…………
On Loony Hugo
He’s quietly begging for help as oil prices drop. Operative word: Quietly.
Anatreptic has a very good post on Bush, his graciousness, his values, his happieness and the Presidency in general.
UPDATE: I have to update this post with this column from Andrew Roberts in the Telegraph. He was invited onto a show to discuss whether history would judge Bush as the worst President in this century (20th) or the worst President ever. He said, I think he’s a good President and explains why.
Needless to say, he didn’t get the part in the show.
Osama bin Laden challenges the US to a long fight.
After noting that they will continue jihad for years and years to come he says:
“The question is, can America continue its war with us for several more decades to come? Reports and evidence would suggest otherwise.”
Guess what dimwit – there is no need to keep fighting in places we’ve already won. Yes, we’ll be leaving Iraq to go to Afghanistan – and if Obama gets his way, Pakistan. Loser.
Osama’s current request for jihad is to stop the aggression against Gaza.
Maybe he’d like to suggest jihad to stop the stealing of humanitarian supplies by Hamas from Gazans, given by Israelis.
(ht Insty)
Maybe the UN could mention that this should be a no, no.
In the meantime, police in Germany turn dhimmi and break into an apartment to remove Israeli flags that were bothering the Islamist protest march outside.
Lawsuits to come. Luckily there is some sanity there:
The actions of Duisburg officials have since caused outrage — sparking criticism from the Central Council of Jews in Germany. Rainer Wendt, the head of the German Police Union for the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, said: “It is intolerable that German Islamists be able to determine police actions.”
Victor Davis Hansen on the ironies of 2008.
…….
Again with the equality of women theme, today we have a product that will re-hymanize you without surgery.
(ht to Tai Chi Policy on both links above.)
………
Somehow the miracle man is going to remove 150,000 troops safely from Iraq in 16 months, yet it will take 12 months to remove 268 prisoners from Gitmo. Hmmmm.
……….
David Brooks in Defense of Death. I always feel particularly bad for people who have no faith in things that come after life. Death to them must be very frightening and lonely. Concerning the recent death of Richard Neuhaus after an otherworldly experience:
It also made him almost indifferent about when his life would end. People would tell him to fight for life and he would enjoy their attention, but the matter wasn’t really in his hands, and everything was ready anyway.
There is so much out there about hurt feelings, not enough pay, too much mentioning of Hillary’s cleavage, and other ridiculous things that I’d like to spend 2 minutes pointing out where the real problem lies.
This column in the LATimes is from a guy who hung out with the Taliban for awhile. Treasoness, yes, but let’s stay focused on the sexism for a bit.
Imagine for one minute a reporter hanging with white folks in South Africa under apartheid. And then writing a story about how one minute they were driving down this road, another they were chuckling under their breath about not being afraid of anything and how they would forever lead the country, another they were being served tea.
And in the whole story the author never once mentions black oppression. Not once.
Yeah – it would never, ever happen.
Yet that’s exactly what’s going on in the LATimes article. Not one mention of a woman. Ever. Even when discussing the busload of Korean missionaries kidnapped last year, most of whom were women, this is the paragraph.
In July 2007, militants abducted 23 South Korean Christian aid workers along the highway as the bus they were on passed through a district bazaar. Two men were killed; the others were later released.
This part below almost makes it sound like the author is praising the Taliban for allowing things like tobacco and cassettes. Again – without once mentioning women!!! Even in the context of discussing education and Sharia.
One reached into a camouflaged vest bulging with a bayonet and banana clips of ammunition for his AK-47 and pulled out a small round tin to enjoy a pinch of chewing tobacco.
Any indulgence that harms the body is haram, or forbidden, to strictly observant Muslims. But in Taliban-held villages, the guerrillas’ taste for chew wasn’t the only hint that the mullahs may be taking a softer line on at least some of their old edicts, though they continue to execute people deemed un-Islamic enemies, such as teachers and other government workers.
The Talibs’ van carried a selection of music cassettes for their tape deck. When the Taliban ran most of the country, cassettes were seized at checkpoints, and countless strands of shiny brown tape were strung up on poles to blow in the wind like raffia dolls.
Taliban enforcers used to grab men’s beards, and anything less than a fistful of facial hair warranted a severe beating on the spot. But several men walking the roads in Taliban territory were cleanshaven. Even one who attended the meeting was without a whisker. The others called the bashful, baby-faced Talib “The Doctor.”
The Talibs admitted burning government schools, but argued that doesn’t mean they are against education, as long as it conforms to their idea of proper Islamic schooling.
“Now the government is doing voter registration in schools, and we are against elections as long as foreigners are in the country,” said the second Talib. “They are using schools as trenches against us. So when schools get burned, it is their fault.”
The Taliban’s courts mete out justice under Islamic Sharia law. It is harsh, yet popular with many Afghans tired of seeing justice go to the highest bidder in government courtrooms, and angry that Western donors have pressured President Hamid Karzai to stay the executions of most convicted criminals on death row.
Isn’t anyone curious about how popular Sharia law is with HALF of the population of Afghanistan??
This guy, Paul Watson, has taken it upon himself to find out what’s going on behind enemy lines and he can’t ask a single question about Taliban law and women?
South Africa’s “culture” included oppressing black people. And they were properly shamed for it. I’ll know women have achieved equality that is important when other “cultures” are questioned about their treatment of women.
HACMA is going to be a useful abbreviation so go ahead and memorize it. JK coined it. “Hope and Change My Ass”.
He’s concerned that Obama is going to get away with all the crap he’s been spewing. Particularly in regards to saying that closing GITMO will be harder than people realize. As Jk notes, it won’t be any harder than a LOT of us realized.
Luckily William Kristol is calling him [Obama] to task. After being asked what Obama thought about Dick Cheney’s advice to hear what has been going on in the current administration before making big decisions for the new one, Kristol notes:
“I think that was pretty good advice, which is I should know what’s going on before we make judgments and that we shouldn’t be making judgments on the basis of incomplete information or campaign rhetoric. So I’ve got no quibble with that particular quote,” said Obama. Usually, presidents pretend their campaign positions are more than “campaign rhetoric.” Not Obama.
LOL
Israel clearly won this round.
After the either accidental or rogue rocket launched from Lebanon into Israel, Hezbollah – AFTER 3 DAYS – says “You better not shoot any rockets back!”.
ROFL
Using energy, Uses energy!!
Who knew.
But no worries, because physicists are handling the conundrum.
Performing two Google searches from a desktop computer can generate about the same amount of carbon dioxide as boiling a kettle for a cup of tea, according to new research.
In related news research has shown that showering takes energy as does all other reasons we have for living in a modern world.
In other related news kidnapped Natalie Maltais much buys shares of Al Gore’s business to offset the carbon used while officials google earthed her location through her cell phone.
From Tzipi Livni: (they are done with terrorism)
Israel is not going to show restraint anymore. . . . it is not a missile against a missile. We are going to attack strongly if they continue.
…………….
In a story on Egypt’s noninvolvement in the war we get this quote from the author, Sudarsan Raghavan:
While many Egyptians celebrate Hamas for fighting Israel in an attempt to achieve Palestinian self-determination, Egypt’s secular middle class, including those who oppose Mubarak’s autocratic rule, are wary of the movement’s ideology and tactics.
They’re fighting for self-determination??? Isn’t Hamas fighting Israel in order to kill them and make them go away? I love it when the US media comes up with US softened ideas for why people do what they do.
…………
Read this too. The US media are tools.
Just thought you’d like to hear what Germans are thinking of Americans. Because apparently Americans don’t know any black people. ??
This article is about Michelle Obama. I didn’t read the whole glowing thing but did get to this paragraph. The writer thinks that all of America sees only rap artists and hoodlums when we think black person. ?? Puhlease.
They [the Obamas] are black, and that is important. In fact, perhaps this is even their most important task: to demonstrate to America’s whites and blacks alike that an African-American couple can easily glide into the role of president and first lady — and be clever and charming and glamorous, all at the same time. This is all a matter of course, and yet America still maintains a different image of black men and women
UPDATE: I just re-read this to check spelling and I am still astounded. Why on earth would Americans think that a black couple could not “glide in the role(s)…and be clever and charming and glamorous”….??
Do we not have Condi Rice? What about Colin Powell? Were/are these people troglydytes? What about your neighbors? Journalists. ptui
