What is that Sally Struthers always whining about?

L.A. Times on the “Euphoria” of Being Starved to Death:

The L.A. Times has a story today about how much fun it is to be starved and dehydrated to death. I kid you not. The story describes the “characteristic sense of euphoria that accompanies a complete lack of food and water.”

Euphoria.

There is zero mention of the perspective provided by Kate Adamson, who was mistakenly diagnosed as being in a persistent vegetative state, had her feeding tube pulled, and lived to tell about it.

And the AP gets on the party train too, but doesn't even read it's own expert interview.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 11:50 PM -

 
Job related injury alert!

(Via LGF) Mark Dodd in The Weekend Australian has a more detailed report on the UN "peacekeeper" scandal in Timor which features this gem:

The deployment of Jordanian peacekeepers to East Timor was probably one of the most contentious UN decisions to follow the bloody independence ballot. It was eclipsed only by the cover-up and inaction that followed when the world body learned of their involvement in a series of horrific sex crimes involving children living in the war-battered Oecussi enclave.

Children were not the only victims - in early 2001, two Jordanians were evacuated home with injured penises after attempting sexual intercourse with goats.

It's great to see the United Nations at work! It certainly gives me hope ... hope that'll we'll dump the chumps. And what do you bet that either the US or Australian taxpayers or both paid to fly these two beauties home?

Besides the low comedy, there's much more in the article about the United Nations "peacekeeping" in Timor. If wishes were horses, beggars would ride and the United Nations would be more than a sad, sick joke. In the meantime, why are we wasting time and money?

But wait, there's more! Even UN bigs are having work related trauma - Depressed Annan close to quitting over UN scandals:

KOFI ANNAN, the United Nations secretary-general, is said to be struggling with depression and considering his future. Colleagues have reported concerns about Annan ahead of an official report this week that will examine his son Kojo’s connection to the controversial Iraqi oil for food scheme.

Depending on the findings of the report, by a team led by the former US Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, Annan may have to choose between the secretary-generalship and loyalty to his son.

Sniff! Where's my violin?

American congressional critics of the UN are already pressing him to resign over the mismanagement of the oil for food programme, and even his supporters have been dismayed by the scandals on his watch, including the sexual abuse of children by UN peacekeepers in Congo.

And apparently just about everywhere else they've dropped by to "help".

One close observer at the UN said Annan’s moods were like a “sine curve” and that he appeared near the bottom of the trough.

Maybe he can compare notes with the little kids in Timor?

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 10:21 PM -

 
I'm so confused!

Yesterday, The Sun said Chirac stabs Blair in back, but today the PM says he conned ole Jacques:

TONY Blair yesterday claimed that Britain now has the power to force France and Germany to open up to foreign workers and accept the European Union Services Directive against their will.

The Prime Minister told MPs that, far from losing a battle with Jacques Chirac over the directive, he has returned home with an agreement that it will be decided by a vote in the enlarged European Union.

He believes this means Britain can join forces with Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Slovakia to force their vision of a reformed Europe on France and Germany - representing a landmark defeat of "New Europe" over "Old Europe".

Reporting on what is expected to be his last EU summit ahead of the general election, Mr Blair told the Commons that he was prepared for a battle over the future of the European "social model", to be defined for all 25 member states.

And here I thought the European "social model" mostly involved a leisurely lunch. But now they're going to do battle over it before enshrining the definition. Sounds like bureaucratic heaven to me!

"Some, notably France, believe this model should remain in its existing form. Some, like Britain, believe firmly in Europe’s social dimension but want it updated to take account of modern economic reality," he said.

Reports suggested that he had caved in to Mr Chirac’s demands, by agreeing to redraft the directive. But Mr Blair said: "Fortunately, the final decision will be by QMV [qualified majority voting]."

Mr Blair’s official spokesman said that at a dinner for heads of governments on Tuesday night, the Prime Minister became satisfied that he had enough support among the new members to win a vote.

"The opinion round the table was very much in our favour," said the spokesman.

When asked whether France and Germany would ever be forced to open their markets, he said: "It’s a Europe of 25, and it’s 25 who will decide."

Ruh roh! Sounds like a steel cage match is coming. Break out the pork rinds!

In case this is all rather impenetrable, the real argument is the following:

The EU Services Directive would mean that people who work abroad can abide by the regulations of their home state, not their host country. The aim is to create a free market in services, as exists with goods at present.

This has alarmed France and Germany, who have high labour protection laws and have secured higher salaries for their workers. This, critics argue, makes companies reluctant to take on staff and explains unemployment rates of 10 per cent in France and 11 per cent in Germany.

Still impenetrable? The idea is that a French company could hire an Eastern European worker and only pay the salary and benefits enshrined in law in his home country which would be rather cheaper than hiring a French worker. You can see why some knickers are nastily knotted.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 5:36 PM -

 
I guess we should think of the MSM as the Strategic IQ Reserve

Here's proof.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 11:29 AM -

 
All the phony news that fits



The Prowler:

It's Rathergate all over again, and the same vigilant entities that brought about to the collapse of CBS News could now also cause heads to roll among Democratic Senate leadership staffers and further shame multiple news organizations that would appear to have fallen for another document hoax.
...
Republican leadership staffers now believe the document was generated out of the Democratic opposition research office set up recently by Sen. Harry Reid, and distributed to some Democratic Senate staffers claiming it was a GOP document, in the hope -- or more likely expectation -- that it would then be leaked by those Democrats to reporters. In fact, the New York Times stated that it was Democratic staffers who were distributing the "talking points" document.

The NYT can congratulate themselves for dodging this bullet, but ABC and the rest of the talking heads who transmitted it ought to be ashamed of their stupidity. We know they won't get worked up over their bias. And did you think they would be quick to issue corrections? Well, they're in good company - Air America's new star, Jerry Springer, took time out from his busy transgender lesbian mudwrestling schedule to blather about "the memo".

UPDATE: Fred Barnes in The Weekly Standard - The ABCs of Media Bias.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 9:20 AM -

 
Always keep your eye on a snake

How about these two prime specimens Tony Blair has to keep an eye on? (Both links via BrothersJudd - here and here.)

Chirac stabs Blair in back:

BACK-STABBING Jacques Chirac last night repaid Tony Blair for helping him by trying to sabotage Britain’s £3billion EU rebate.

The double betrayal came only hours after Mr Blair rescued the French President from angry French unions.

FIRST Mr Chirac joined calls for Brussels to axe our refund.

THEN he accused British and American economic policy of exporting death to the Third World.

Wait for it.

Mr Blair had been banking on France to help save the 20-year-old rebate.

Even with the rebate Britain pays more than TWO AND A HALF TIMES as much as the French.

Without it, the Treasury’s share of running the EU would be a staggering 14 TIMES that of France.

Maybe Jacques left his wallet at home? But then he always does.

He went on to rub it in by accusing Britain and America of “fuelling dangerous global conflict” through free-market economic policies.

He claimed they create an “explosive” poverty gap between the West and the developing world.

And then he whines about where the money came from. I guess nothing breeds envy like success. Drat that pesky free market, eh Weasel Boy? Oh wait, we're doing snakes.

Hours earlier, the PM risked EU fury by helping Mr Chirac to delay new Brussels employment rules while they are reviewed.

French unions believe the laws — aimed at loosening controls over EU service jobs — will flood France with cheap east European labour.

Their threatened national strike would have increased Mr Chirac’s chances of defeat in his referendum on the EU Constitution.

Next time let him pick up the check.

And speaking of the "developing world," They may be continents apart, but Mugabe blames Blair for everything:

FORGET about education. Forget about job creation, even though unemployment is running at 80 per cent. The 2005 parliamentary election in Zimbabwe is all about the threat posed by a middle-aged man living thousands of miles away.

President Mugabe, who since 2000 has made no secret of his contempt for Britain, has dubbed next week’s vote the “anti-Blair election”. Demonisation of the Prime Minister has become the central platform of the ruling Zanu (PF) party’s campaign.

We all know Bobby Mugabe and his entourage aren't the sharpest tools in the drawer, but how's it playing with the little people?

The bizarre campaign has many urban voters perplexed. Foster, a security guard in Harare who did not want to give his full name for fear of reprisals, said: “Why is he talking about Blair when people are starving in this country?” Primrose, a young professional, said: “This has to be one of the most irrelevant platforms ever.” Munya, who owns an IT company, said the focus on Blair was “ nonsense propaganda”.

But Zanu (PF)’s campaign is designed to woo, or rather scare, rural voters by suggesting that if the opposition wins, Zimbabwe will became a de facto colony of Britain once more, and that land will be returned to white farmers. In a rally near the South African border on Tuesday, President Mugabe told the crowd: “Our heritage needs to be protected from neocolonialists like Blair.”

Sheesh, who would want the place? The poor UK taxpayers are already footing the bill for the layabout Frenchies!

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 1:20 PM -

 
Speaking of class acts

Original artwork from Glenn Beck, lyrics by Michael Schiavo.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 7:44 AM -

 
Air America gets a touch of class!

Springer liberal talk radio show to expand nationwide:

Trash T-V talk show host Jerry Springer is taking his liberal radio program nationwide.

He has reached a deal today to go live weekdays on the Air America Radio network beginning April First.

Good choice of start date. But ole Jerry won't be the same if he doesn't have fodder like:

3/24/05 “I Got Your Man”
Devonte made a mistake by sleeping with Michelle! Not only is he gay, but he loves his transsexual girlfriend, Ashley. He's here to tell Michelle to back off! Next... Amanda believes Aaron is the love of her life, so she is devastated by the news he delivers. He’ll tell her that he loves his ex, Kristine, and he's going home with her, not Amanda! Then... Timmy promised Alice he'd treat her right after he pulled her out of an abusive relationship, then Alice finds out Timmy enjoys threesomes with her friend, Sky, and other girls from local bars. Not her idea of “treating her right!” Later… Arielle has been stripping for a year and now she wants out! Her friend,, Carmen and her pimp, Cody are livid and think Arielle is ungrateful given all that they have done for her.

Deviates, pimps and whores - good practice for Air America.

By the way, his radio show has a "blog" which, aside from some stale leftoid wingnuttery, has got gems like:

Megan caught it and leaned over to me and motioned something. So I killed my mic, lifted my headset and she whispered, "The caller's in the bathtub. I hear the water slurping."

So when June finished all her points with Jerry, I said that Megan wanted me to ask, "Are you calling our show from the tub?"

She laughed and admitted, yes. So she is definitely our caller of the month, maybe of the year.

If she e-mails me a pic, I'll post it.

It'd really be cool if she was using one of those vibrating cell phones, eh Jer?

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 7:30 AM -

 
No need to worry about a pondscum shortage

How about making up a phony "Republican" memo and publicizing it via the usual MSM mouth breathers? Oh wait, ABC is getting a tad nervous. As well they should - they're supposed to be push polling for euthanasia, not touting bogus documents. That job belongs to CBS!

Then ole Ernst Blofeld, er, George Soros is financing a smear campaign against Tom Delay via SPECTRE, er, his foundation, the Open Society Institute, with the help of the same media and Congressional dung beetles. Gosh, I thought the Open Society Institute was busy defending radical lawyers who play post office with Islamic terrorists. One thing you can say about ole George though, he really shaped up that SPECTRE organization.

A tax free, nonpolitical foundation, eh? That sounds familiar! Kinda like the nobs at the Pew "Charitable" Trust that Ryan Sager exposed last week. Other folks are noticing too, here and here:

And the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:

Pew did not hide the fact it was supporting the ultimately successful attempt to limit free speech to a whisper before elections. But Mr. Treglia said Pew did everything it legally could to hide the $40.1 million donated to front groups.

Congress must demand that Pew's tax-exempt status be revoked for engaging in politics. And it must repeal this abomination to free speech. Otherwise, Congress cannot credibly claim it was conned if it continues acting like a co-conspirator.

These guys know how to party.

Why not pull the tax-exempt status from all of the members of the SPECTRE alliance?

Of course, if you want primo pondscum, there's always the United Nations. When their 3rd world peacekeepers aren't molesting all the local children, the higherups are busy raiding the till to pay the legal defense costs of their corrupt buddies. I mean, gosh, it's not as if the UN bigs didn't have other sources of income. But it's an equal opportunity ripoff as the Economist (via Viking Pundit) notes:

In the run-up to the Iraq invasion, there was the revolting spectacle of Britain and France sucking up to Lansana Conté, the tinpot dictator of tiny Guinea, because the UN’s rules had given him one of the Security Council’s rotating seats.

Now you know why Kofi's "big plan" involves expanding the "Security Council." There's gold in them thar seats!

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 9:04 PM -

 
I wonder what a job like this pays?

NRO's Beltway Buzz:

“I was walking through the Dallas airport with some colleagues and one of them recognized two of the same protestors we had seen outside the event in Albuquerque. We had some extra time, so we decided to talk to them. They were very polite and explained to us they had just come from protesting an event nearby. One of them very quickly identified themselves as professional protestors.”

“Not that they just liked to protest, but that they actually got paid by liberal interest groups to travel the country protesting. Here they were, sitting in the airport TGI Friday’s having a burger and getting ready to travel to New Orleans for another protest. They were good kids and wanted to talk. We tried discussing some of the benefits of Social Security reform. They listened, but weren’t too interested. Not because they had opposing views, they just said they weren’t too educated on the details. They even admitted they didn’t know who it was they were going to protest in New Orleans.”

And here I thought they put ads in the local counterculture and Socialist newspapers and the usual suspects turned up with their costumes and fleas.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 7:22 PM -

 
Can I get a witness?

(Via Powerline) MoveOn held a tent revival meeting for wingnuts and Senator Foghorn, er, Bobby "Sheets" Byrd showed 'em how it's supposed to be done, much to their dismay:

At times during MoveOn.org's "Rally for Fair Judges," held yesterday at the Washington Court Hotel near the Capitol, it was hard to tell if the left-wing organizing group had planned a political rally or a revival meeting.
...
But the star of the show was the 87-year-old senator from West Virginia, Robert Byrd, who had been an advocate of the "nuclear option" back in the 1970s, when his party was in the majority. Now, he opposes it with every fiber in his body, and he portrayed stopping the GOP as a religious crusade.

"Praise God!" Byrd yelled as he waved the copy of the Constitution he famously keeps in his coat pocket. "Hallelujah!"
...
When other speakers came to the podium, Byrd sat in a front-row seat, thrusting a shaking fist in the air and engaging in a church-style call-and-response. As Durbin spoke, for example, Byrd called out during nearly every sentence.

"You started a movement," Durbin told the crowd.

"Yes!" shouted Byrd.

"When I look at the people assembled here, I'm looking at democracy."

"Tell it!" shouted Byrd.

"It's about freedom," Durbin said.

"Yes!" shouted Byrd.

When Byrd began his performance, some in the audience didn't quite know what was going on — they were far back in the crowd and couldn't see who was calling out up front. The speakers didn't seem to get it, either. When MoveOn organizer Ben Brandzel warmed up the crowd by vowing that he would not surrender to a president trying to "sell out our democracy for right-wing corporate hack judges," Byrd yelled out, "No!"

"That's right, Senator Byrd," Brandzel said, looking a bit surprised.

Maybe ole Sheets would have calmed down if he had borrowed Ted Kennedy's pocket flask:

Kennedy, for example, referred to Barbara Boxer as Barbara Mikulski. He referred to William Myers, the Bush judicial nominee, as William Morris. And he kept telling the crowd to "speak truth to justice," apparently confusing that with the more common liberal exhortation to "speak truth to power."

More japery by following the link.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 11:06 AM -

 
And speaking of international clambakes

President Bush is hosting one Wednesday for just our closest neighbors and the usual suspects are all atwitter:

Canada, the US, and Mexico should decide to hold annual trilateral summits. There is ample consensus on many issues that need constant refinement.

I mean, gosh, it's a summit right? It must be good! And it's right neighborly.

But there are a few flies in the love oil, particularly the neighbor on the south side who plays narcocorrido music all night; perennially wants to borrow stuff and never returns it; and whose kids are constantly playing in our yard and who we always seem to end up feeding. Like all bad neighbors, he has some rather strange fixations:

Mexico wants its North American neighbours to move more quickly towards integration on a continental scale, the country's foreign secretary said on Friday.
...
"We have been pushing for this. And we have been encountering a receptive ear both in Canada and the United States at a certain level of intensity," he said. "We would like to move more quickly. We would like to move more deeply."

Mexican President Vicente Fox has spoken in the past about those deeper moves, such as adopting a common currency, a customs union, and the entire elimination of border controls.

And he gets real mouthy about our lack of enthusiasm:

President Vicente Fox said Wednesday that walls along the U.S.-Mexico border, such as one approved last month by the U.S. House of Representatives, "must be demolished" because they are "discriminatory" and "against freedom."

"No country that is proud of itself should build walls . . . it doesn't make any sense"

According to him, it's not his fault he can't control his kids:

Still, Fox said, it was impossible for Mexico to post military or police patrols all along the border to prevent crossings.

"We can't keep them against their will by force," he said.

But he likes to threaten to sic the law on our kids:

Mexico's National Human Rights Commission recently issued a warning about several new grass-roots movements inspired by Arizona's Proposition 200. Other Mexican officials have cited the Minuteman Project, a plan by activists to patrol the Arizona-Mexico border during April, as a sign of rising extremism.

"There are signs of these kinds of problems present today, and (they are) progressing," Fox said during a news conference for foreign reporters. "We have to act quickly and on time to prevent these kinds of actions."

He said Mexico was watching the Minuteman Project carefully and would take action in U.S. courts or international tribunals if any of the activists break the law.
...
Organizers of the Minuteman Project say they have signed up more than 950 volunteers, including 30 pilots with aircraft, to patrol the border for 30 days beginning April 1. The activists say they will notify the Border Patrol if they see border-crossers and will not confront them directly.

Minuteman co-organizer Chris Simcox said participants were exercising their constitutional rights.

"Vicente Fox can rant and rave all he wants, but he obviously doesn't understand what a democracy means," Simcox said. "We have been working within the law."

But there is some good neighborhood news - Fox Calls on Bush to Halt Flow of 'Greenbacks':

Mexican President Vicente Fox today called on the Bush administration to increase patrols along the U.S.-Mexican border in order to halt the immigration of so-called 'greenbacks' into his country.
...
"If these greenbacks can't find anything to do in the United States, why would we want them in Mexico?" Mr. Fox asked. "Our pesos go unemployed while illegal, alien money does their job."

Oh wait, that's Scrappleface. Never mind.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 7:55 AM -

 
Rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic



Kofi Annan launched his big plan today and he had his butt boy, Mark Malloch Brown, out dispelling those nasty rumors:

He refuted press accounts suggesting that the report is “a panicked response to the current crisis affecting the UN.” To the contrary, he said the timing “is highly propitious because it allows us to lay out an ambitious agenda for the future.”

I guess "ambitious agenda for the future" is Mark's quaint term for putting lipstick on the pig. Oh wait, I mixed my metaphors!

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 7:31 PM -

 
What, we worry?



Wizbang! had a Weekend Caption Contest for this fetching snap with lots of good humor. But after the news today about the big EU summit coming up this week, a better line might be "Rules? What rules?":

Germany and France simply will not abide by the fiscal rules that they had once conceived as a tool to discipline the "Club Med" countries on Europe's southern periphery, not as a weapon to be used against themselves. As Germany and France are too powerful to be coerced into tightening fiscal policy against their wishes, it is obvious that the old Stability Pact is dysfunctional. Whether the document is ignored, buried, changed or just re-interpreted to suit Paris and Berlin is only a secondary matter, to be resolved with appropriate diplomatic finesse if possible.

The dynamic duo are real good at that finesse stuff. More here.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 7:02 PM -

 
More proof that technology does not increase IQ's

Dial E for extortion:

After discovering that her cell phone went missing, according to KEPR-TV, a woman in Washington state dialed her own number, hoping a Good Samaritan had picked up the device and would offer its speedy return.

Instead, 33-year-old Jason Dawson answered and threatened to publish explicit pics from the phone on the Net if the woman didn't fork over $50.

She agreed to meet him, then called the police, who arrested her Not-So-Good Samaritan upon the exchange and charged him with second-degree extortion.

On the other hand, it does wonders for your fashion sense. More here. Hey, maybe I could do a geek version of SondraK's fashion reviews!

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 5:30 PM -

 
Build a better mousetrap...

Turn Them Off. Turn Them All Off. The subversive joys of TV-B-Gone.:

Mitch's invention is called TV-B-Gone. He carries one on his keychain, as, God willing, you will someday carry one on yours. It fits snugly in the palm, a near-weightless lump of black plastic. Its shape vaguely suggests the Batman logo. A tiny diode rests on the very tip of Batman's head, between his pointy bat ears. Press a button and from this diode a beam of invisible light escapes that can turn off any television--any television--within a radius of 45 feet.

Yes, yes, yes: Imagine the possibilities. You sit in a doctor's waiting room, casting your mind forward to the grisly procedures he has in store for you (you can almost hear the snap of the rubber gloves) and hung high above you in a corner near the ceiling, well out of reach, Maury Povich is interviewing an adulteress, her daughter, and her daughter's transgendered lover, as the studio audience whoops and yelps and stomps its hairy feet. You reach in your pocket and withdraw your key chain. You tilt Batman's head toward the screen: TV-B-Gone! And it's gone!

Or the airline has delayed your flight, again, and all you want is to go home, and as you pace the soulless terminal from one end to the other the voice of Wolf Blitzer trails you like a police siren, roaring out from the CNN television monitors which have been spaced every 10 yards, so you're never out of earshot. The TSA guards may have taken your Swiss Army Knife, but they've left you with your lump of plastic. You point and press. Wolf-B-Gone!

Be still, my heart!

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 10:37 AM -

 
"THE STENCH FROM PEW"

This story was broken last week by Ryan Sager and it's more than ripe. Today's NY Post editorial:

Reports in The Post last week con cerning the political activities of the supposedly above-the-fray Pew Charitable Trusts were, in a word, shocking.

A former program officer for Pew, Sean Treglia, was caught on videotape bragging about how the foundation worked behind the scenes to create the false impression that there was a "mass movement" afoot clamoring for campaign-finance reform.

The intent: to hoodwink Congress.

It worked.

With more than a little help from other leftoid tax-free foundations, good ole George Soros, and the dung flies at National "Public" Radio.What Treglia admitted to was an attempt to deceive Congress and the public within the limits of the law — quite a stunning bit of hypocrisy from a foundation ostensibly in favor of clean and transparent government.

Pew — not to put too fine a point on it — has some explaining to do.

And so do the politicians — such as Sen. John McCain, Sen. Russ Feingold, Rep. Chris Shays and Rep. Marty Meehan — whose speech-regulation schemes directly benefited from this scam.

So, what did they know?

When did they know it?

It's time to find out.And put the hammer down on everyone associated with this monstrous attack on free speech.

UPDATE: John Fund hits this in today's WSJ and has some interesting stats:

Mr. Treglia admits that campaign-finance supporters had to try to hoodwink Congress because "they had lost legitimacy inside Washington because they didn't have a constituency that would punish Congress if they didn't vote for reform."

So instead, according to Mr. Treglia, liberal reform groups created a Potemkin movement. A study last month by the Political Money Line, a nonpartisan Web site dealing with campaign funding issues, found that of the $140 million spent to directly promote liberal campaign reform in the last decade, a full $123 million came from just eight liberal foundations. Many are the same foundations that provide much of the money for such left-wing groups as People for the American Way and the Earth Action Network. The "movement" behind campaign-finance reform resembled many corporate campaigns pushing legislation. It consisted largely of "Astroturf" rather than true "grass-roots" support.

More follow-ups at Ryan Sager's blog as well.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 9:54 AM -

 
Today's Hoot!

I'll buy houses and a flash car, says yob awarded £567,000:

A teenage criminal who received £567,000 in compensation after falling through a roof while trespassing boasted about his wealth yesterday, saying that he was looking forward to buying "a few houses and a flash car".

Carl Murphy, 18, got the payout last week, nine years after being injured in a 40ft fall at a warehouse in Bootle docks, near Liverpool, prompting angry protests from crime victims and politicians.

In his first public interview since receiving the award, Murphy - who has convictions for robbery, burglary and assault - said that he did not care about the response.

"I deserve this money and I don't care what anybody says about me," he said. "I'm going to buy a big house so I have a place to live with me mum when she gets out of jail."

What a good, caring lad!

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 11:41 AM -

 
More United Nations fun with Mark Steyn and John Bolton

As I mentioned last night, tomorrow's the big day for UN weenies. You can just hear their hearts go pitter pat over the big bureaucratic doings at UN HQ. It's a summit, it's a commission, it's a Security Council resolution!

Anyhow, Mark Steyn provides a useful antidote in another column on John Bolton, President Bush's nominee for UN Ambassador. As usual, it's hard to quote just a little, but here are some highlights:

The New York Times wondered what Bush's next appointment would be:

"Donald Rumsfeld to negotiate a new set of Geneva conventions? Martha Stewart to run the Securities and Exchange Commission?"

OK, I get the hang of this game. Sending Bolton to be U.N. ambassador is like . . . putting Sudan and Zimbabwe on the Human Rights Commission. Or letting Saddam's Iraq chair the U.N. Conference on Disarmament. Or sending a bunch of child-sex fiends to man U.N. operations in the Congo. And the Central African Republic. And Sierra Leone, and Burundi, Liberia, Haiti, Kosovo, and pretty much everywhere else.

All of which happened without the U.N. fetishists running around shrieking hysterically. Why should America be the only country not to enjoy an uproarious joke at the U.N.'s expense?

Why, indeed?

Yet the assumption behind much of the criticism of Bolton from the likes of Kerry is that, regardless of his government's foreign policy, a U.N. ambassador has to be at some level a U.N. booster. Twenty years ago, Secretary of State George Schulz used to welcome the Reagan administration's ambassadorial appointments to his office and invite each chap to identify his country on the map. The guy who'd just landed the embassy in Chad would invariably point to Chad. "No," Schulz would say, "this is your country" -- and point to the United States. Nobody would expect a U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union to be a big booster for the Soviets. And, given that in a unipolar world the most plausible challenger to the United States is transnationalism, these days the Schulz test is even more pertinent for the U.N. ambassador: his country is the United States, not the ersatz jurisdiction of Annan's embryo world government.

And that's the part that really sticks in their craw.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 10:53 AM -

 
The horror!

The WaPo laments the sad state of the nation in Conservative's Book on Supreme Court Is a Bestseller:

The Supreme Court is not often the stuff of bestsellers, but in recent weeks a conservative lawyer's full-throated attack on the court has been flying off the shelves, reaching as high as third place on the New York Times bestseller list.

The 288-page book, "Men in Black: How the Supreme Court is Destroying America," by Mark R. Levin, arrived amid expectations of a pitched battle in Washington over a replacement for ailing Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist. It argues that the court's decisions in favor of abortion rights, gay rights, economic regulation and affirmative action have created "de facto judicial tyranny" and an economy "lurching toward socialism."

"The judiciary, operating outside its scope, is the greatest threat to representative government we face today," writes Levin, a former Reagan administration official turned talk-radio host.

With endorsements for the book from Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and other conservative media icons, Levin has also reached millions through appearances on radio and television, providing his audience with intellectual ammunition for the impending struggle over the court's future.

Yet this publishing phenomenon has gone almost completely unnoticed outside conservative circles.

What they really mean is in limousine liberal circles as the rest of the article reveals.

Mark Tushnet, a liberal law professor at Georgetown University who clerked for the late Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, said he has watched the rise of Levin's book with some bemusement.

Tushnet's own book, "A Court Divided: The Rehnquist Court and the Future of Constitutional Law," was aimed at "the educated general public," he said. It argues that the court is a relatively moderate institution and chides writers who "cheer or boo" the court's rulings depending on their own ideology.

"A Court Divided" came out a week before "Men in Black"; it has been reviewed, mostly favorably, in the Los Angeles Times, The Post and the New Republic. Tushnet has been interviewed on National Public Radio's "Talk of the Nation" -- but not on conservative radio or television. Sales of "A Court Divided" have been respectable for a nonfiction book but still nowhere near "Men in Black's" numbers.

"This book is being sold just as would be expected for a serious, critically acclaimed, nonfiction book -- that is, under 10,000 copies," said Alane Mason, Tushnet's editor at the New York-based publisher Norton.

Asked about Tushnet's book at the reception for "Men in Black," Regnery's Carneal said he had not heard of it.

Tushnet said he has not read "Men in Black" and does not know anyone who has.

Perhaps Mark ought to broaden his horizons. And a Freeper recalls the famous Pauline Kael line - "I simply don't understand McGovern's defeat -- I don't know anyone who voted for Nixon!"

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 10:39 AM -

 
But I'm really a multilateral kind of guy

That's why this just brings a smile to my face - Government kills food ads as ‘too British’:

A £1m campaign to promote quality food has been scrapped after the government refused to support it, claiming a picture of Jersey cows in rolling green fields was “too British” and thus broke European regulations.

One photograph, headlined One Day with Daisy, was deemed to be too obviously of a British landscape and thus risked breaching articles 20 and 28 of the Treaty of Rome, designed to curb illegal state subsidies.

Should have used a snap of a mound of Daisy byproducts. That would provide the proper Euro atmosphere.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 12:29 AM -

 
Monday's the big day!

For Kofi Annan's bodacious United Nations reform proposal, that is. And his toadies are out circulating drafts to the media. A few of the highlights:

LA Times:

Secretary-General Kofi Annan will propose restructuring a U.N. human rights panel, ask for a swift decision to expand the Security Council and request sweeping changes designed to prevent new scandals in a report Monday to the General Assembly on reforming the beleaguered United Nations.

The blueprint for reform, according to a draft copy obtained by The Times, also proposes ways to keep the U.N. the primary setting for global security decisions and the key player in international development issues.

And keep the UN gravy train on the tracks. But scandal prevention intiatives are way cool!

Annan has framed the plan as providing a historic opportunity to reinvent the U.N. to better meet the challenges of a changing world. But the plan is also seen here as a last-gasp bid to restore the organization's relevance at a time when both he and it are under heavy fire.

Last gasp and then bury it.

Many of the ideas in the document have been floated in recent months by special panels on U.N. reform and global development that Annan commissioned. But fierce reactions from some governments led Annan to temper a proposed definition of terrorism, stop short of requiring criteria for membership on the human rights panel and caused him to refrain from choosing between two options to expand the Security Council, U.N. officials said.

Er, what exactly are the big reforms? Sounds like a typical UN deal - all chaff and no wheat. There's a bulletized list of the "initiatives" at the end of the article for our edification. Keep it handy if you have trouble sleeping.

WaPo:

Secretary General Kofi Annan on Monday will propose establishing new rules for the use of military force, adopting a tough anti-terrorism treaty that would punish suicide bombers, and overhauling the United Nation's discredited human rights commission, according to a confidential draft of a report on U.N. reform.

Punishing suicide bombers? And Kofi is going to to have the thugocracies lay down rules for the United States on the use of military force? I can hardly wait.

Annan cast his report as an attempt to reconcile the security interests of wealthy countries, which want the world body to focus on combating terrorism and stemming weapons proliferation, and poor nations, which are more concerned with the consequences of poverty and disease. He noted that a catastrophic terrorist act in a major Western city could cripple the economies of poor nations on the other side of the world while an outbreak of disease in a poor region could spread to the developed world.

Wait for it.

Annan said that wealthy countries must dramatically increase development aid and debt relief to poor countries that govern responsibly.

Let's just say the UN definition of "govern responsibly" is a tad flexible, but they have a firm grasp on the concept of cash.

UK Telegraph:

The security of America and other wealthy countries will for the first time be declared a key priority for the United Nations under reforms designed to restore confidence in the crisis-ridden international body.

You mean it wasn't before?

Chidyan Siku, Zimbabwe's ambassador to the UN, gave the proposals a cool reception. "My feeling, and the feeling of colleagues from developing countries, is that the Secretariat is trying to please America by slanting towards the strategic agenda of the North. That will not find favour with us," he said.

Gosh, months pass without my caring what the thugs ruling Zimbabwe want.

So there it is. Better get out the hip boots for the PR campaign - it's going to be deep. Which makes me even more glad that John Bolton is going to be the new United Nations ambassador from the USA.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 12:11 AM -