Today's Hoot!

Tim Blair:

Julia Baird in the Sydney Morning Herald:

The New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd described Australia to me as an “apocalyptic Bushworld”.

She may have meant that as an insult.

This just in - Modo is still a silly twit. So is Julia for that matter.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 11:47 PM -

 
Someone picked up the clue phone at the Guardian!

But not too willingly:

Grauniad gracious in defeat

Well, no, not really. They've given Hizb-ut-Tahrir member Dilpazier Aslam the elbow, but it seems from the snarling tone of their article on the subject that it's only because they're bowing to massive public pressure rather than because they realise there's actually something wrong with hiring an Islamic supremacist in the middle of a jihadi uprising.

Needless to say, they would have gotten away with it too, if it wasn't for those meddling bloggers!

That's the biz, sweethearts.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 10:06 PM -

 
Yep, that'll help

EU Referendum points us to this gem:

An oath for European citizenship to be asked of Muslims, so that they recognise our basic rights was suggested by the Vice President of the European Commission, Franco Frattini, who said that the London bombs mark a change. He wrote that we owe the victims of the London bombs a mature intercultural and antireligious dialogue and that there is a basic recognition of European citizenship.

Allowing for the crappy translation, I still think we could just call him Sherlock for short, because the lad's clearly a bloomin' genius.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 6:36 PM -

 
Pondscum chronicles (contd.)

In Pennsylvania, Lt. gov. crashed Marine's funeral, kin say:

The family of a Marine who was killed in Iraq is furious with Lt. Gov. Catherine Baker Knoll for showing up uninvited at his funeral this week, handing out her business card and then saying "our government" is against the war.

Follow the link for more including a snap of the scrofulous hag.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 11:35 AM -

 
Aren't they the pesky little twits?

Evilpundit observes the "vague uneasiness alleged" in an ABC Online news report:

Note all the attributions emphasised above. All are vague references to unnamed "some" or "Canadians". Overall, the item gives an impression of many opinions that support a particular viewpoint, but not one actual person is cited as supporting that point of view. It's an example of how an impression can be conveyed by the media, without any specific basis.

It's the polite way of describing them pulling another one out of their butts.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 8:21 AM -

 
Wait, it gets better!

From Kenya - Councillor who wanted to marry Clinton’s daughter:

As Former US President Bill Clinton makes his first visit the country, one man will be hoping for a man-to-man talk with him.

Councillor Godwin Kipkemoi Chepkurgor, who wanted to marry Chelsea Clinton (below).

Godwin Kipkemoi Chepkurgor, a nominated councillor in Nakuru, says he has some social business with Clinton that started in 2000, but of which the former American President has no clue. He seeks the former president’s only child’s hand in marriage.

In 2000 when Chelsea, her father and mother, now Senator Hilary Rodham Clinton, visited East Africa, Chepkurgor, then a Fourth Year student at Moi University, tried to make his intention clear. He wrote to Clinton, offering himself as a suitor for Chelsea.

He offered to pay 20 head of beef cattle and 40 goats to the Clintons in accordance to African traditions.

Sounds about right to me, even generous! But Godwin ran into a few snags as the full story explains.

Meanwhile, some homegrown fun from Oregon - BENCH WARMER: Local judge Sid Galton appears headed toward early retirement:

Sid Galton, the Multnomah County jurist who decorated his courtroom with a blue lava lamp and who asked lawyers to call him "Judge Perky," appears to be headed off the bench due to severe depression.

Did Katie Couric know about this?

While Galton's supporters praise him as funny, well-meaning and good with jurors, his critics call him vindictive and volatile-and a case study in how difficult it is to remove judges who don't have the right temperament for the job.

Last year, the state Commission on Judicial Fitness and Disability filed a complaint against Galton accusing him of swearing in court and bullying a rookie female prosecutor. The judge initially admitted to the complaint and signed an agreement that would have led merely to a reprimand and some anger-management counseling. But Galton then withdrew from the agreement and threw the legal equivalent of a "Hail Mary" pass-arguing to the state Supreme Court that the Fitness Commission, set up to oversee judges, lacked legal authority.

And the "Hail Mary" doesn't always lead to a touchdown.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 9:48 PM -

 
There's good news...

CA Grocery Clerk The Next Earl of Essex?

SACRAMENTO — A real life story that sounds like a Hollywood movie.

Imagine being Bill Capell, a retired supermarket clerk, who's lived his entire life in the small town of Yuba City, California. Then imagine you've just learned you are next in line to be the 10th Earl of Essex, a nobleman in England, a country you've never even visited.

Capell's family lineage goes back to William the Conquerer. Nearly a thousand years of ermine robes and powdered wigs, a world away from Yuba City, California.

Capell got a call on June 17th early in the morning telling him that his cousin the 10th Earl had died. That news now made Capell, former grocery store clerk, the next in line for the title.

As Earl of Essex, the Queen would address him as "our right trusty and entirely beloved cousin." And he could one day take a seat in the House of Lords.

And there's bad news...

There's no fortune. No castle. But there is a coat of arms.

Ingrid Seward, Editor in Chief, Majesty Magazine says, "You can get a table in a restaurant. It's quite grand being an Earl."

I've got to try that at Shoney's next time I drop by for some country fried steak.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 9:25 PM -

 
Pondscum chronicles

The Attorney General of the State of California has a painting of a map of the USA in a toilet in the lobby of his office. (Registration required.) Oh yeah, it's by effigy boy, Steven Pearcy.

(Hat tip: Brothers Judd)

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 9:30 AM -

 
Listen to the whine



The usual suspects are rallying the flying monkeys to oppose the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Roberts. Superbly coiffed Ralph Neas, the doyen of borking, already "is extremely disappointed that the President did not choose a consensus nominee." Hugh Hewitt also points out that Chucky Schumer getting in early:

Schumer is telegraphing the strategy of the hard-left Democratic Senaors: To ask question after question which a nominee will not and should not answer, and then to oppose confirmation on the basis of these refusals.

Chucky probably has his staff working overtime coming up with hypothetical legal cases on which he will ask for a snap decision, but he needn't bother - Ralph Neas will do it for him and all the other leftoid senators who pretend to an authority they lack.

My vote for best line - Viking Pundit:

And please, enough of the “unite the nation” or “in the mold of O’Connor” or “keep the balance” blather. Don’t like it? Win an election.

And in the meantime, Bill Frist should keep the nuclear option ready.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 7:04 AM -

 
Someone 'splain it to me

Hachem wins endurance test -- and $7.5 million prize:

LAS VEGAS -- This was the scene shortly after 6 a.m. Saturday inside Binion's Gambling Hall and Hotel.

The floor was littered with empties and unconscious humans. A green mountain of cash -- bundles of Benjamins wrapped, 50 per stack, in rubber bands -- rested on an unused card table while at another three men -- Derrick "Tex" Barch of Dallas, Steve Dannenmann of Baltimore and Joseph Hachem of Melbourne, Australia -- played poker. Inside the room two men in suits toted rifles while in an adjacent room two feather-boa-clad dancers sat on chairs and waited patiently.

Just another night in Vegas, really. Except that the three men were into their 14th consecutive hour of playing Texas Hold 'Em and whoever knocked out the other two stood to win $7.5 million. The longest final table in the history of the World Series of Poker was locked in what seemed to be an interminable struggle for what would be the largest (known) prize in gambling history. Perspective? The grand prize in the main event would be worth more than the purse for the entire field ($7,154,642) at the British Open this weekend.

"That may be the gaudiest thing I've seen my entire life," said tournament director Johnny Grooms, staring at the cash cliff before him.

But by this ungodly hour, it was difficult to summon interest. The media members splayed out on the floor behind a curtain just a few yards away -- the Nap Pack, let's call them -- had already lost the battle with their own eyelids. The dancers, bless them, were killing time with two young journalists in a corner who for hours had been much more intent on sweating them than the final table.

Reading the blow by blow account of the final "action" will put you to sleep too. What puzzles me is whether there is a more boring spectator sport than watching people play poker? The cable channels seem to love it, though. I guess I can understand the folks playing at online gambling casinos or even journeying to the real thing to put money in slot machines, but watching someone else do it? Zzzzzz.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 8:43 AM -

 
And while we're having a little United Nations fun...

Check out UN seeks to bolster ties between West and Islam:

The United Nations, acting after deadly suicide bombings apparently driven by Muslim extremism hit London, launched an initiative on Thursday to build new bridges between the West and Islam.

Never fear, the kleptocrats are here!

The campaign's aim was to "bridge divides and overcome prejudice, misconceptions, misperceptions, and polarization which potentially threaten world peace," U.N. chief spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.

Hmmm, is that like convincing Islamofascist wingnuts not to murder people?

Recent events had "heightened the sense of a widening gap and lack of mutual understanding between Islamic and Western societies -- an environment that has been exploited and exacerbated by extremists in all societies," he said.

I must have missed the Baptist suicide bombers, but tell me more - what exactly are the UN weenies going to do?

Secretary-General Kofi Annan was pursuing the "Alliance of Civilizations" initiative, at the suggestion of Spain and Turkey, after 54 people were killed in suicide bombings in London by three British Muslims of Pakistani origin and a Jamaican-born Briton.

The campaign has no firm plans yet but is expected to present recommendations and a plan of action in late 2006.

Golly! It's another UN exercise in padding expense accounts. They have that down pat.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 8:22 AM -

 
It's a joke, right?

With the United Nations it's always hard to tell - 'Aids risk' for UN peacekeepers:

The United Nations Aids agency has warned that UN peacekeepers still do not have the knowledge and means to protect themselves from HIV/Aids.

Sheesh, this one should be a beaut.

Leaders from numerous countries have now acknowledged HIV/Aids is a serious problem in their armed services, according to a new UN report.

More than 100 countries contribute personnel to UN peacekeeping missions.

The armed forces at the bottom of the list mostly consist of glorified street gangs. Nice to know that Uncle Sugar foots the bill for their foreign vacations. But there's bound to be problems, right?

A new UN report says uniformed service personnel are considered one of the high-risk groups for contracting HIV/ Aids and this could jeopardise the world's ability to generate future UN peacekeeping missions.

Gosh, that's my big worry too!

The head of UN peacekeeping, Jean-Marie Guehnno, said they had reduced the risk of peacekeepers contracting or transmitting the virus while on mission.

Told them to forego the usual UN practice of raping the natives?

UNAids chief Peter Piot said there had been some progress over the past five years, but more needed to be done.

He said peacekeeping operations now had Aids advisers, trainers and counsellors, while troops were given awareness training.

The peacekeeeping tab just went up. No word on when we have to foot the peacekeepers' tab for toilet training and literacy.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 11:11 PM -

 
Tis a puzzle

Mark Steyn in the Telegraph:

One of the striking features of the post-9/11 world is the minimal degree of separation between the so-called "extremists" and the establishment: Princess Haifa, wife of the Saudi ambassador to Washington, gives $130,000 to accomplices of the 9/11 terrorists; the head of the group that certifies Muslim chaplains for the US military turns out to be a bagman for terrorists; one of the London bombers gets given a tour of the House of Commons by a Labour MP. The Guardian hires as a "trainee journalist" a member of Hizb ut Tahir, "Britain's most radical Islamic group" (as his own newspaper described them) and in his first column post-7/7 he mocks the idea that anyone could be "shocked" at a group of Yorkshiremen blowing up London: "Second- and third-generation Muslims are without the don't-rock-the-boat attitude that restricted our forefathers. We're much sassier with our opinions, not caring if the boat rocks" - or the bus blows, or the Tube vaporises. Fellow Guardian employee David Foulkes, who was killed in the Edgware Road blast, would no doubt be heartened to know he'd died for the cause of Muslim "sassiness".

I'm sure it's a comfort to his family too.

But among all these many examples of the multiculti mainstream ushering the extremists from the dark fringe to the centre of western life, there is surely no more emblematic example than that of Shabina Begum, whose victory over the school dress code was achieved with the professional support of both the wife of the Prime Minister who pledges to defend "our way of life" and of Hizb ut Tahir, a group which (according to the German Interior Minister) "supports violence as a means to realise political goals" such as a worldwide caliphate and (according to the BBC) "urges Muslims to kill Jewish people". What does an "extremist" have to do to be too extreme for Cherie Booth or the Guardian?

Good question. And here in the USA, the Democrat establishment like Senators Barbara Boxer and Dickie Durbin have adopted "Screw 'em" Kos and his Kosmonauts as their pets.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 10:09 PM -

 
Today's Hoot!

Polipundit:

It is 36 years today since Ted Kennedy thought his car was a submarine.

And he decided to take Mary Jo to the submarine races.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 8:03 PM -

 
Is that cool or what?

Andrew McCarthy has been spending some quality time with the court filings of the paladins of our glorious mainstream media in the Plame case and discovers they are two faced crapsacks:

Have you heard that the CIA is actually the source responsible for exposing Plame's covert status? Not Karl Rove, not Bob Novak, not the sinister administration cabal du jour of Fourth Estate fantasy, but the CIA itself? Had you heard that Plame's cover has actually been blown for a decade — i.e., since about seven years before Novak ever wrote a syllable about her? Had you heard not only that no crime was committed in the communication of information between Bush administration officials and Novak, but that no crime could have been committed because the governing law gives a person a complete defense if an agent's status has already been compromised by the government?

No, you say, you hadn't heard any of that. You heard that this was the crime of the century. A sort of Robert-Hanssen-meets-Watergate in which Rove is already cooked and we're all just waiting for the other shoe — or shoes — to drop on the den of corruption we know as the Bush administration. That, after all, is the inescapable impression from all the media coverage. So who is saying different?

The organized media, that's who. How come you haven't heard? Because they've decided not to tell you. Because they say one thing — one dark, transparently partisan thing — when they're talking to you in their news coverage, but they say something completely different when they think you're not listening.

You see, if you really want to know what the media think of the Plame case — if you want to discover what a comparative trifle they actually believe it to be — you need to close the paper and turn off the TV. You need, instead, to have a peek at what they write when they're talking to a court. It's a mind-bendingly different tale.

I'm sure surprised, aren't you?

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 7:32 PM -

 
Today's Hoot!

Mark Steyn, of course:

Back when Woodrow Wilson was running for president, he had a campaign song called ''Wilson, That's All.'' If only. With Joe Wilson, it's never all. He keeps coming back like a song. But in the real world there's only one scandal in this whole wretched business -- that the CIA, as part of its institutional obstruction of the administration, set up a pathetic ''fact-finding mission'' that would be considered a joke by any serious intelligence agency and compounded it by sending, at the behest of his wife, a shrill politically motivated poseur who, for the sake of 15 minutes' celebrity on the cable gabfest circuit, misled the nation about what he found.

Joe, your 15 minutes are long gone. Time to hit the bricks.

posted by Cracker Barrel Philosopher at 1:31 PM -