Follow this link to view an effective video attack on Barack Obama. The video is well done and features footage of Jeremiah Wright’s GD America, um, sermon, interspersed with 9/11 footage, including some of those still-horrendous, still-haunting images of people leaping to their deaths from the WTC.  One of the more surprising aspects of this particular video is that it appears at a Dim site. Even more surprising than that: the video was posted there by a Hillbillary supporter, ostensibly because if the Dims do not say it, the GOP will. Well worth checking out…

 

To kno-o-ow Hill is to loa-o-oathe Hill...

And few people know Hillbillary any better than Dick Morris, campaign advisor for Bill Clinton’s successful 1996 reelection bid.

Hillary’s list of lies

Hillary simply cannot tell the truth. Here’s her scorecard:
 
Admitted Lies

• Chelsea was jogging around the Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. (She was in bed watching it on TV.)
• Hillary was named after Sir Edmund Hillary. (She admitted she was wrong. He climbed Mt. Everest five years after her birth.)
• She was under sniper fire in Bosnia. (A girl presented her with flowers at the foot of the ramp.)
• She learned in The Wall Street Journal how to make a killing in the futures market. (It didn’t cover the market back then.)

Whoppers She Won’t Confess To

• She didn’t know about the FALN pardons.
• She didn’t know that her brothers were being paid to get pardons that Clinton granted.
• Taking the White House gifts was a clerical error.
• She didn’t know that her staff would fire the travel office staff after she told them to do so.
• She didn’t know that the Peter Paul fundraiser in Hollywood in 2000 cost $700,000 more than she reported it had.
• She opposed NAFTA at the time.
• She was instrumental in the Irish peace process.
• She urged Bill to intervene in Rwanda.
• She played a role in the ’90s economic recovery.
• The billing records showed up on their own.
• She thought Bill was innocent when the Monica scandal broke.
• She was always a Yankees fan.
• She had nothing to do with the New Square Hasidic pardons (after they voted for her 1,400-12 and she attended a meeting at the White House about the pardons).
• She negotiated for the release of refugees in Macedonia (who were released the day before she got there). 

With a record like that, is it any wonder that we suspect her of being less than honest and straightforward? END EXCERPT, which appears courtesy The Hill.

Mark Steyn, on one of those Hillbillary lies:

The defining fiction arose back in the mid-Nineties when she visited New Zealand and met Sir Edmund Hillary, the conqueror of Everest, and for some reason decided to tell him he was the guy her parents had named her after.

Hmm. Edmund Hillary reached the top of Everest in 1953. Hillary Rodham was born in 1947, when Sir Edmund was an obscure New Zealand beekeeper and a somewhat unlikely inspiration for two young parents in the Chicago suburbs. If any of the bigshot U.S. newspaper correspondents on the trip noticed this inconsistency, they kept it to themselves. I mentioned it in Britain's Sunday Telegraph at the time, but like so many other improbabilities in the Clinton record it sailed on indestructibly for years. By 2004 it was preserved for the ages in Bill Clinton's autobiography, on page (gulp) 870:

"Sir Edmund Hillary, who had explored the South Pole in the 1950s, was the first man to reach the top of Mount Everest and, most important, was the man Chelsea's mother had been named for."

Eventually, when it was noticed that Hillary was born six years before the ascent of Everest, Clinton aides tried assuring skeptics that her parents had seen a press interview with Sir Edmund in his beekeeping days, Mr. and Mrs. Rodham apparently being the only Illinois subscribers to The New Zealand Apiarist. Then, in the early days of her presidential campaign, Sen. Clinton quietly withdrew the story, by which time the damage was done. Edmund Hillary passed away a couple of months back, and, as I recall, the New York Times headline read:

"New Zealander For Whom Sen. Clinton Named Dies; Also First Man To Climb Everest. Sen. Clinton Was At The Summit To Greet Him, After Landing Under Heavy Sniper Fire From The Abominable Snowman."

And more from Steyn, this time on the protracted battle between Obama and Hillbillary:

Alas, Sen. Sir Edmund Hillary Danger Rodham Clinton couldn't have foreseen that the Democratic primary season would dwindle down to the Palm Beach recount replayed as a civil war: Two 50-50 candidates slugging it out, but both Democrats – and so the party's formidable skills at the politics of personal destruction and its fierce determination to win at all costs are now turned in on itself: As Edwin Glover said of the British defenses at Singapore, the guns are pointing the wrong way. END EXCERPT

Scholars and diplomats who have closely studied civil wars describe them almost as forces of nature, grinding on until the parties exhaust themselves, shredding bonds that cannot be stitched back together even long years after the killing stops. James Fearon

Here’s hoping the Dims spiral out of control and into civil war, wherein Fearon’s assertion about irreparable damage is borne out…

Stay red

An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last ~ Winston Churchill

Since 2003, Europe — not the United States — has experienced a series of attacks, and near-constant threats, ranging from bombed subways and rail stations to Islamic demands to censor cartoons, operas, films, and papal exegeses. 

It is in Europe, not in post-Iraq Kansas, where a Turkish prime minister announces to Muslim expatriate residents that they must remain forever Turks and assimilation is a crime; it is in post-Iraq Europe, not Los Angeles, where politicians and churchmen talk of the inevitability of Sharia law; and it is in post-Iraq Europe, not the United States, where honor killings and Islamic rioting are common occurrences.

Why? A number of reasons, but despite all the misrepresentation and propaganda, the message has filtered through the Middle East that the United States will go after and punish jihadists — but also, alone of the Western nations, it will risk its own blood and treasure to work with Arab nations to find some alternative to the extremes of dictatorship and theocracy. Europe, in contrast to its utopian rhetoric, will trade with and profit from, but most surely never challenge, a Middle Eastern thug. Victor Davis Hanson, posting March 14, 2008 at National Review Online

Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are more pliable.  ~Author Unknown

 Global warming hucksters baffled over recent data…

Vow to press on until data support their assertions…

Another global warming oops

From climatologist Dr. Roy W. Spencer, formerly a senior scientist for climate studies at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center where he received NASA’s Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal:

“There are huge error bars on our observational estimates of feedback” used by the UN’s IPCC climate models. In other words, what scientists see doesn’t jibe with what is assumed to build the computer models. SNIP

“The fact is, we DON’T know how much of recent warming is natural,” Spencer says, “simply because we don’t have good enough global cloud observations back to the 1970’s (and earlier) to measure any long-term changes in cloudiness to the required accuracy – 1% or less. SNIP

“I fear that the sloppy science that too many climate researchers have lapsed into could, in the end, hurt our scientific discipline beyond repair. The very high level of certainty (90%) claimed by the IPCC for their manmade explanation for warming can not be justified based upon the scientific evidence, and is little more than an expression of their faith that they understand the causes of climate variability – which they clearly don’t. END EXCERPT, which appears courtesy OC Register.com

Then there’s The Mystery of Global Warming's Missing Heat, excerpted here from a posting at Free Republic (my bold emphasis):

Some 3,000 scientific robots that are plying the ocean have sent home a puzzling message. These diving instruments suggest that the oceans have not warmed up at all over the past four or five years. That could mean global warming has taken a breather. Or it could mean scientists aren't quite understanding what their robots are telling them.

This is puzzling in part because here on the surface of the Earth, the years since 2003 have been some of the hottest on record. But Josh Willis at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory says the oceans are what really matter when it comes to global warming.

In fact, 80 percent to 90 percent of global warming involves heating up ocean waters. They hold much more heat than the atmosphere can. So Willis has been studying the ocean with a fleet of robotic instruments called the Argo system. The buoys can dive 3,000 feet down and measure ocean temperature. Since the system was fully deployed in 2003, it has recorded no warming of the global oceans.

"There has been a very slight cooling, but not anything really significant," Willis says. So the buildup of heat on Earth may be on a brief hiatus. END EXCERPT

From the Australian (March 22, 2008) excerpted here are some “Climate Facts to Warm to”:

Jennifer Marohasy, a biologist and senior fellow of Melbourne-based think tank the Institute of Public Affairs, when asked whether the Earth is still warming: 

"No, actually, there has been cooling, if you take 1998 as your point of reference. If you take 2002 as your point of reference, then temperatures have plateaued. This is certainly not what you'd expect if carbon dioxide is driving temperature because carbon dioxide levels have been increasing but temperatures have actually been coming down over the last 10 years." SNIP

The head of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) has actually acknowledged it. He talks about the apparent plateau in temperatures so far this century. So he recognises that in this century, over the past eight years, temperatures have plateaued ... This is not what you'd expect, as I said, because if carbon dioxide is driving temperature then you'd expect that, given carbon dioxide levels have been continuing to increase, temperatures should be going up ... So (it's) very unexpected, not something that's being discussed. It should be being discussed, though, because it's very significant." SNIP

When asked to explain the temperature dip in spite of rising levels of greenhouse gases, Marohasy says:

(T)he head of the IPCC has suggested natural factors are compensating for the increasing carbon dioxide levels and I guess, to some extent, that's what sceptics have been saying for some time: that, yes, carbon dioxide will give you some warming but there are a whole lot of other factors that may compensate or that may augment the warming from elevated levels of carbon dioxide.

"There's been a lot of talk about the impact of the sun and that maybe we're going to go through or are entering a period of less intense solar activity and this could be contributing to the current cooling."

And it appears that the deep diving ARGO is not the only NASA system returning data that is baffling the so-called climate experts. In 2002, NASA launched its AQUA satellite, equipment specifically designed to collect data not only on temperature but also on cloud formation and water vapor. 

By way of backgroud, many of the climate models that predict global catastrophe are based on the assumption that warming caused by rising carbon dioxide levels will result in increased water vapor in the Earth's atmosphere. Feedback from AQUA indicates that carbon dioxide and water vapor levels have risen over the past several years. But the results are contrary to what most global warming models predict. Again from Marohasy:

“What this great data from the NASA Aqua satellite ... (is) actually showing is just the opposite, that with a little bit of warming, weather processes are compensating, so they're actually limiting the greenhouse effect and you're getting a negative rather than a positive feedback."

Marohasy thinks the global climate is more robust than has been portrayed by some of the doomsayers, many of whom are having trouble getting their heads around some of the latest findings:

These findings actually aren't being disputed by the meteorological community. They're having trouble digesting the findings, they're acknowledging the findings, they're acknowledging that the data from NASA's Aqua satellite is not how the models predict, and I think they're about to recognise that the models really do need to be overhauled and that when they are overhauled they will probably show greatly reduced future warming projected as a consequence of carbon dioxide. SNIP

The policy implications are enormous. The meteorological community at the moment is really just coming to terms with the output from this NASA Aqua satellite and (climate scientist) Roy Spencer's interpretation of them. His work is published, his work is accepted, but I think people are still in shock at this point." END EXCERPT

Even though the planet is not warming up, the argument about global warming figures to get a lot more heated in the next few months. Hey, Goreacle: the debate about global warming is not over; it is just getting started…

Stay red… 

"So I made a mistake," she said. "That happens. It proves I'm human, which you know, for some people, is a revelation." ~ The Hillinator, speaking about its latest deviation from the truth.

From the New York Post article "NOW BUNKO HILL IS UNDER FIRE"

Courtesy Breitbart.tv.com:

22% of Democrats Want Clinton to Drop Out; 22% Say Obama Should Withdraw

From Rasmussen Reports:

From Gallup:

Hat tip to reader Andrew P. for the cartoon.

(L)ast week, Barack Obama told America: "I can no more disown (Jeremiah Wright) than I can disown the black community."

What is the plain meaning of that sentence? That the paranoid racist ravings of Jeremiah Wright are now part of the established cultural discourse in African American life and thus must command our respect? Let us take the senator at his word when he says he chanced not to be present on AIDS Conspiracy Sunday, or God Damn America Sunday, or US of KKKA Sunday, or the Post-9/11 America-Had-It-Coming Memorial Service. A conventional pol would have said he was shocked, shocked to discover Afrocentric black liberation theology going on at his church. But Obama did something far more audacious: Instead of distancing himself from his pastor, he attempted to close the gap between Wright and the rest of the country, arguing, in effect, that the guy is not just his crazy uncle but America's, too. Mark Steyn, from his Saturday March 22, 2008 Op-Ed “So much for the 'post-racial' candidate”

Find me someone at 20 who is not a liberal and I’ll show you someone without a heart. Show me someone at 40 who is not a conservative, and I’ll show you someone without a head~Winston Churchill

Playwright David Mamet shares his after-forty epiphany, in “Why I Am No Longer a 'Brain-Dead Liberal”, excerpted here: 

I took the liberal view for many decades, but I believe I have changed my mind.

As a child of the '60s, I accepted as an article of faith that government is corrupt, that business is exploitative, and that people are generally good at heart.

These cherished precepts had, over the years, become ingrained as increasingly impracticable prejudices. Why do I say impracticable? Because although I still held these beliefs, I no longer applied them in my life. How do I know? My wife informed me. We were riding along and listening to NPR. I felt my facial muscles tightening, and the words beginning to form in my mind: Shut the f  up. "?" she prompted. And her terse, elegant summation, as always, awakened me to a deeper truth: I had been listening to NPR and reading various organs of national opinion for years, wonder and rage contending for pride of place. Further: I found I had been—rather charmingly, I thought—referring to myself for years as "a brain-dead liberal," and to NPR as "National Palestinian Radio."

This is, to me, the synthesis of this worldview with which I now found myself disenchanted: that everything is always wrong.

But in my life, a brief review revealed, everything was not always wrong, and neither was nor is always wrong in the community in which I live, or in my country. Further, it was not always wrong in previous communities in which I lived, and among the various and mobile classes of which I was at various times a part. SNIP

I'd observed that lust, greed, envy, sloth, and their pals are giving the world a good run for its money, but that nonetheless, people in general seem to get from day to day; and that we in the United States get from day to day under rather wonderful and privileged circumstances—that we are not and never have been the villains that some of the world and some of our citizens make us out to be, but that we are a confection of normal (greedy, lustful, duplicitous, corrupt, inspired—in short, human) individuals living under a spectacularly effective compact called the Constitution, and lucky to get it. SNIP

And I began to question my hatred for "the Corporations"—the hatred of which, I found, was but the flip side of my hunger for those goods and services they provide and without which we could not live.

And I began to question my distrust of the "Bad, Bad Military" of my youth, which, I saw, was then and is now made up of those men and women who actually risk their lives to protect the rest of us from a very hostile world. Is the military always right? No. Neither is government, nor are the corporations—they are just different signposts for the particular amalgamation of our country into separate working groups, if you will. Are these groups infallible, free from the possibility of mismanagement, corruption, or crime? No, and neither are you or I. So, taking the tragic view, the question was not "Is everything perfect?" but "How could it be better, at what cost, and according to whose definition?" Put into which form, things appeared to me to be unfolding pretty well. SNIP

And I realized that the time had come for me to avow my participation in that America in which I chose to live, and that that country was not a schoolroom teaching values, but a marketplace.

"Aha," you will say, and you are right. I began reading not only the economics of Thomas Sowell (our greatest contemporary philosopher) but Milton Friedman, Paul Johnson, and Shelby Steele, and a host of conservative writers, and found that I agreed with them: a free-market understanding of the world meshes more perfectly with my experience than that idealistic vision I called liberalism. END EXCERPT, which appears courtesy The Village Voice.

My grandmother’s brain was dead, but her heart was still beating. It was the first time we ever had a Democrat in the family~Emo Phillips

Some encouraging signs for Republican chances in November (my bold emphasis)…

The lengthy Democratic primary contest bodes well for Republican chances of holding the White House, a new poll suggests.

As Democratic Senators Barack Obama of Illinois and Hillary Clinton of New York slug it out for the nomination, many of their supporters -- at least in Pennsylvania, site of the next major primary -- aren't committed to the party's ticket in November, according to a Franklin & Marshall College Poll.

Among Obama supporters, 20 percent said they would vote for Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the Republican nominee, if Clinton beats their candidate for the nomination. Among Clinton supporters, 19 percent said they would support McCain in November if Obama is the Democratic nominee. (See poll) END EXCERPT, which appears courtesy CNS News.

White House strategists are feeling a new rush of optimism about President Bush's remaining 10 months in office. One reason is a new internal Republican poll, obtained by U.S. News, which indicates that while Bush's job-approval ratings remain low, some of his major policies have become quite popular. If Bush and his surrogates can make the policies better known, GOP strategists believe that will lift not only Bush's approval ratings but the overall standing of his party. SNIP

About 64 percent of likely voters approve of Bush's economic stimulus package passed earlier this year; 67 percent back his initiatives to help struggling homeowners survive the current mortgage crisis; 70 percent endorse his plan to allow monitoring of foreign communications of suspected terrorists; and 72 percent back his visit to the Mideast to promote peace. In addition, 52 percent approve of his surge of U.S. troops into Iraq. END EXCERPT, which appears courtesy US News and World Report

Looking ahead to the General Election in November, John McCain continues to lead both potential Democratic opponents. McCain leads Barack Obama 49% to 41% and Hillary Clinton 50% to 42% (see recent daily results). New polling shows McCain leading both Democrats in Georgiaand Arkansas.In Minnesota,the race is very close.

On Sunday, McCain is viewed favorably by 54% of voters nationwide and unfavorably by 42%. Obama’s reviews are 47% favorable and 51% unfavorable. For Clinton, those numbers are 42% favorable, 55% unfavorable (see recent daily results).   

The Rasmussen Reports Balance of Power Calculator shows Democrats leading in states with 200 Electoral Votes while the GOP has the advantage in states with 189. When “leaners” are added, the Democrats lead 247 to 229. Over the past month, McCain has gained ground in Ohio,Michigan, Minnesota,Colorado, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania. Both Democrats continue to lead in New York, Massachusetts, Connecticutand California (see summary of recent state general election polling). END EXCERPT, which appears courtesy Rasmussen Reports.

Hugh Hewitt has an idea to help McCain build on his momentum…

If Senator McCain selected a running mate early and set about the country with a team of advisors that will accompany him into the executive branch in some capacity, the contrast with the rapidly deteriorating Democratic front bench would be profound, just as this week's trip to Iraq, Jordan and Israel showcased the chasm between McCain and Obama.  Conventional wisdom says McCain waits as long as he can to name a running mate, but with a fund-raising gap that will only widen as the left gets more and more energized about having a nominee with a radical past and pastor, there's an opportunity to cement the GOP support and claim the center right and energize fund-raising and organization in front of Team McCain.  END

I like Hugh’s idea, but I would like to see McCain go even further. I suggest that the Republican nominee begin recruiting potential cabinet members and floating those names to the public. And I would like to see McCain reaching out to a couple of folks from outside the GOP; Joe Lieberman pops out as a real solid possibility…

Stay red…

RFTLC, rights reserved

The Hillinator: Badly damaged, and daily taking more hits, but not totally out of commission. It will not stop until it completes its mission or is totally destroyed in the process...

Giving Team Hillbillary hope is the potential for fallout from Obama’s association with Tony Rezko scandal. And this week Obama has been put on the defensive over controversial remarks made by Jeremiah A. Wright, Reverend of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. Obama has attended Trinity United for twenty years; Wright married Barack and Michelle Obama and christened the Obama’s daughters.  

Obama has been particularly weak in his attempts to explain his ongoing association with Wright who, among other things has:

·        Blamed the US government for creating the AIDS virus, which was ostensibly developed to kill blacks.

·        Asserted that 9/11 was America’s comeuppance for US foreign policy.

·        Suggested that American blacks should not sing “God Bless America”, but instead should sing “God D*mn America”.

Check out Ronald Kessler’s Op-Ed piece in today’s Opinion Journal for more on Wright and his pal Louis Farrakhan. 

Obama has mildly criticized Wright’s remarks, though his denunciation seems somewhat insincere. Obama compared Wright to “an old uncle who sometimes will say things that I don't agree with."

Relative or no, it is a pretty safe bet that many Americans, me among them, would head for the door the first time they heard anyone spouting racist or anti-American rhetoric. And, as others have pointed out, one may not be able to choose his uncle, but one can choose his friends; or his minister. Obama had a choice, yet he stayed….for twenty years. 

And Wright remains an advisor and “sounding board” to Obama.

In religion as in politics, leadership is about saying and doing things that resonate with the constituency. Essentially, we tend to follow and support people whose values we share. I wonder which part of Wright’s racist, divisive teachings so strongly resonate with Barack Obama (the great uniter) that he has stayed with the church for more than two decades….

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Just wondering: How does Barack Obama’s mother, a white woman, feel about her son’s willingness to remain close to a man who has spent so much time and energy attacking whites?

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The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported earlier this week that this year’s average winter temperatures are two-tenths of one degree above the average for the twentieth century. Yet this year’s temps are the lowest since 2001.

The report also noted “record Northern Hemisphere snow cover in January and above-average snow cover in February”.   

Television’s “big three”, ABC, CBS and NBC, have remained very quiet about the NOAA report. Does this merely reflect the big three’s lack of interest in global warming?

According to a recent study by BMI:

Over the last 6 months of 2007, the big three did 205 stories on global warming.

On the three networks, 80 percent of stories (167 out of 205) didn’t mention skepticism or anyone at all who dissented from global warming alarmism. CBS did the absolute worst job. Ninety-seven percent of its stories (34 out of 35) ignored other opinions. Williams’ own network, NBC, came in a close second with 85 percent (76 out of 89) excluding skepticism. ABC was the most balanced network, but still censored dissent from 64 percent of its stories (34 out of 53).

(P)eople with alternative views barely got face time on the networks. Instead, they received insults and hostile questions.

Journalists also called skeptics “deniers,” conjuring images of Holocaust deniers, and cast them as flat-earthers – ironically forgetting that there was once a scientific consensus that the earth was flat.

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Speaking of MSM bias, Newsbusters reports that it took awhile for the big three to get around to mentioning that Eliott Spitzer is a Dim:

On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, substitute NBC Nightly News anchor Ann Curry and reporter Mike Taibbi failed to identify disgraced outgoing New York Governor Eliot Spitzer as a Democrat, but on Thursday night Curry finally informed NBC viewers of the party affiliation -- a fact network journalists always consider relevant when a Republican gets caught in scandalous behavior.  SNIP

For the record, CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric cited Spitzer's party on Monday and Wednesday nights while ABC's World News didn't until Wednesday evening.

The morning shows have completely blacked out the fact Spitzer is a Democrat.   END EXCERPT

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For what it's worth: The same media suppressing dissent about global warming, and dragging its heels in citing Eliot Spitzer’s political affiliation is the same MSM covering Barack Obama…

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New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer has admitted that he has been involved in a prostitution ring. This is the same man who when he was attorney general went after the prostitution rings. So apparently for not giving him good service . . . Jay Leno

If Gov. Spitzer resigns over his prostitution scandal, he will reportedly go into private practice as a lawyer. When asked why he wanted to practice law again, Spitzer said, “I like businesses where you charge by the hour and screw your clients."  Conan O’Brien

Earlier today, the governor of New York, Eliot Spitzer, resigned. In his resignation speech he said, "To whom much has been given, much is expected." Which is the same thing he said to that $5,000-an-hour hooker.  Jay Leno

Political experts say that before the scandal, Hillary Clinton had considered him for a possible running mate. Now, Hillary is considering Spitzer as a possible husband. Conan O’Brien

Stay red…

N.Y.'s Spitzer linked to prostitution ring

One of my favorite Op-Eds on the Spitzer Scandal is "Eliot Rex", appearing in today’s American Spectator. Here are some excerpts:

But Spitzer himself does not deserve an ounce of sympathy for the public humiliation he is set to endure, because he built his career on the public humiliation of others.

Back in 2002, as a wave of corporate scandals rocked Wall Street and the Securities and Exchange Commission was seen by some as too slow to respond, Spitzer cleverly seized on an opportunity to make his name. By broadly defining his role as New York's Attorney General and using any angle he could, Spitzer aggressively prosecuted corporate malfeasance, whether it was real or perceived.

HIS TARGETS WERE always unsympathetic -- insurance companies, mutual funds, Wall Street investment banks, and greedy CEOs -- and the victims were always average investors who lost money as a result of corporate skulduggery.

The media, which was clamoring for action and in no mood to empathize with big business, ate it up. They affectionately dubbed Spitzer the "Sheriff of Wall Street" and compared him to legendary mob-fighter Eliot Ness.

It never mattered whether companies or individuals actually did anything illegal, because his cases rarely made it to court. Wall Street investors abhor uncertainty more than anything else, and when publicly traded companies watched their stock prices crater amid a barrage of Spitzer-generated negative headlines, it was always in their best interests to reach a settlement to put the scandal behind them. On the few occasions when his targets did fight back, Spitzer's success rate was far less impressive.

Spitzer's arbitrary choice of targets highlighted his political opportunism. When Richard Grasso was forced to resign from his position as head of the New York Stock Exchange because Spitzer filed a lawsuit charging him with receiving excessive compensation, Spitzer also went after NYSE board member Ken Langone, a prominent Republican.

But he didn't lay a finger on Carl McCall, an influential New York Democrat, even though McCall served on the NYSE board as chief of the compensation committee that had approved the $140 million pay package that Spitzer deemed not only outrageous, but illegal. END EXCERPT (the article is worth a complete read)

In honor of Chuck Norris’ 68^th birthday on Monday March 10, here are some Norris legends (a few courtesy the Boston Globe):

With the end of the first week of March, there has so far been only a single American fatality this month (incurred in a non-combat Iraqi helicopter crash). If that were to continue (and it could change tomorrow), we are in a period in which the entire war could be redefined as something analogous to ongoing operations in Afghanistan or even the Balkans. And that, coupled with Iraq’s strong economic performance and political improvement, would radically change the Obama message of Iraqi as an ungodly horror worthy of abject withdrawal.  Victor Davis Hanson

As Hanson’s comments suggest, things have quieted down in Iraq. But there is still some fighting and Michael Yon is on scene in Mosul, one of the last bastions for al Qaeda in Iraq. In his most recent posting, Yon reports on an extraordinary group of fighters he calls the Guitar Heroes.

Kiowa Warrior (the OH-58D Kiowa Warrior, an economy-sized helicopter that would make a Ford Pinto seem spacious) pilots (in Mosul) spend part of their time on call, often playing Guitar Hero to pass the time. SNIP

One day after a long mission, LTC Jamison was just coming down to a hover back at the airfield when mortars exploded nearby. Before touching down, he lifted straight off. The counter-battery radar gave Jamison and his left-seater, Chief Warrant Officer 2 George Siegler, a Point of Origin (POO) to the firing site about four kilometers away in the Al Uruba district of Mosul. Swooping in, Siegler spotted a mortar team through the Plexiglas under his feet, and a split second later about four enemy machine guns and two RPGs fired at once. Ambush! Three bullets struck the helicopter and one hit Jamison’s helmet. The flight helmets have no ballistic protection because Kevlar is heavy, and when you crash it can break your neck or even snap your head off. The bullet went straight through the back of Jamison’s helmet, through the Styrofoam and out the other side, missing his head by maybe an inch. Jamison told me it felt like getting whacked with a bat. "Just a little bat," he said. Last year, a helicopter pilot in Mosul was shot in the head and killed.

Just as Jamison got whacked, he felt a strong blast come in from Siegler’s side. Jamison pushed the helicopter lower and started doing S-turns to break out of the kill zone.

Jamison asked Siegler if he were okay, but Siegler didn’t know. Jamison started patting down Siegler for blood while still flying low because oftentimes soldiers are seriously or even mortally shot and have no idea they were even hit. When Siegler saw bullet holes in Jamison’s helmet, he started patting down Jamison for blood. Jamison thought it strange because Siegler didn’t bother to tell him about the holes in his helmet, and Jamison didn’t know he had been helmet-shot. Meanwhile, Jamison had flying to do. The aircraft was badly damaged, almost no instruments were working. They flew back toward the base. The moment Jamison touched skids to tarmac, Siegler unstrapped and ran to another helicopter and started the engine. While those rotors were picking up speed, Jamison quickly shut down his broken helicopter, unbuckled, joined Siegler in the other helicopter and they flew back to the ambush site.

These pilots are fighting every day. They get into so many gunfights, rocket-fights (where pilots are launching rockets and the enemy is launching RPGs), and Hellfire attacks, not to mention flying so low the left-seater is shooting the little M-4 out the door, that it’s hard to know what fight the reader might want to hear about. It would take a book to explain half of them. END EXCERPT

Guitarist Jeff Healey passed away on March 2, 2008. Healey finally succumbed to lung cancer, but he had battled cancer in one form or another for his entire life. Retinal cancer had robbed him of his eyesight as an infant. 

Back in the 90s, I had the good fortune to see Healey perform at Los Angeles’ Roxy Theater. These many years later, I still vividly remember that show.

With the notable exceptions of Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughn-who was responsible for bringing Healey to the attention of the music world-I saw just about every one of the great rock guitarists of the 70s and 80s, many of them multiple times; some more than a dozen performances. Healey’s performance that night at the Roxy ranks in the top twenty percent of all the shows I have ever seen. It was definitely one of the most unusual performances I have witnessed.

Healey usually played with the guitar across his lap, sometimes while seated, sort of like a pedal-steel player. The style looked a little awkward, but it did not prevent Healey from playing blisteringly fast, soaring, fluid runs. And neither his style nor his blindness restricted Healey’s showmanship.

Adding a little visual flash to his virtuosic playing, Healey picked with his teeth; he played behind his back.  We’re not talking gimmicky stuff here, either. In his lap or behind his back, Healey played searing, don’t-miss-a-lick, amazingly melodic blues-rock. 

Watching him play that night, it was easy for me to see why Guitar Player Magazine in 1990 named Healey “Best Blues Guitarist”. Jeff Healey was a player. He was just 41 years old when he died.

Saying he was “mentally tired”, quarterback Brett Favre on Tuesday announced his retirement from professional football. Favre, 38, played 17 seasons in the NFL, all but one of them for the Green Bay Packers. He is a first ballot Hall of Famer.

Favre played the game with boyish exuberance and reckless abandon, a style that made him unpredictable and a bit like Mother Goose’s “little girl with the curl”: when he was good, he was very, very good; and when he was bad he was horrid. 

Favre threw an NFL-record 288 interceptions, many of the errant throws coming at very inopportune times.  In the Packers’ last 8 playoff games (3-5 record), Favre threw 16 interceptions. His interception during overtime of this year’s National Conference final set up the Giants’ winning field goal. 

But those pickoff throws were often the result of Favre trying to force something good to happen, something Favre did plenty of times.

He set NFL career records for touchdown passes (442), passing yards (61,655), pass completions (5,377), and pass attempts (8,758). Those personal stats helped Favre win the NFL MVP three times.

More importantly, under Favre’s leadership the Packers won 160 times, a record for a starting NFL quarterback.

Perhaps no statistic, personal or team, tells as much about Brett Favre as his streak of 253 consecutive regular season starts (275, including playoff games). For perspective, Favre went nearly 16 straight seasons without missing a single start.

The message was faint but unmistakable: the small UN force was outnumbered and outgunned, pinned down on open ground and taking heavy fire from Taliban forces holed up in a well-fortified building. The pilot on call broke off his approach to the base in Afghanistan and immediately turned his plane around to help. Several minutes later, the pilot released a 500-pound laser-guided bomb, steered toward the enemy stronghold by the plane’s sensor operator.

The bomb scored a direct hit, though the building remained standing. The crew could see that there were no “squirters”, people who run in all directions from the point of impact, but to be on the safe side, the pilot dropped a second bomb on the building.

The soldiers on the ground, just a few hundred yards from the bomb strikes, confirm that the building has been destroyed; no sign of any Taliban survivors. 

Welcome to the future of war.

The Taliban combatants probably never knew what hit them, their annihilation delivered by a whisper-quiet aircraft, flying nearly 5 miles above the battlefield. The plane that exterminated those Taliban vermin was an MQ-9 Reaper, the US Air Force’s next generation of unmanned aircraft. The military calls the Reaper, which has as much firepower as an F-16, the world’s first remote-controlled hunter-killer.

The Reaper has several big advantages over a piloted aircraft. It costs less than a third of what an F-16 costs. Where fuel capacity often reduces to mere minutes the time an F-16 can spend over a battlefield, a Reaper can spend hours in the air. This extended flying time allows the Reaper to find the enemy-including tracking him if he moves, assess the surroundings, target, engage and destroy the enemy, and then assess the damage. And the Reaper can do all of that without putting a pilot in harm’s way.

Current plans call for a fleet of 60 Reapers, which will compliment the US military’s 160 unmanned Predator aircraft.

Michele Malkin has linked to a site that allows visitors to “Name that Collectivist”; it’s clever and fun. It is also very enlightening and worth the time to check out.

Samantha Power, then an advisor to the Obama campaign, speaking to a reporter from The Scotsman:

"We f***** up in Ohio," she admitted. "In Ohio, they are obsessed and Hillary is going to town on it, because she knows Ohio's the only place they can win.

"She is a monster, too – that is off the record – she is stooping to anything," Ms Power said, hastily trying to withdraw her remark.

Ms Power said of the Clinton campaign: "Here, it looks like desperation. I hope it looks like desperation there, too.

"You just look at her and think, 'Ergh'. But if you are poor and she is telling you some story about how Obama is going to take your job away, maybe it will be more effective. The amount of deceit she has put forward is really unattractive." END EXCERPT

Chief Clinton spokesperson, Howard Wolfson, in a May 6, 2008 conference call to reporters (courtesy My Way News):

"After a campaign in which many of the questions that voters had in the closing days centered on concerns that they had over his state of preparedness to be commander in chief and steward of the economy, he has chosen instead of addressing those issues to attack Senator Clinton," Wolfson told reporters in a conference call. "I for one do not believe that imitating Ken Starr is the way to win a Democratic primary election for president." END EXCERPT

Robert Novak, posting Thursday at Real Clear Politics, does not see a ceasefire any time soon:

(There is now) the prospect of seven weeks of fierce campaigning by the two candidates stretching out to the next primary showdown April 22 in Pennsylvania, but also perhaps what Democratic leaders feared but never really thought possible until now: a contested national convention in Denver the last week of August. SNIP

A showdown in Denver may be unavoidable.

Such a showdown would reveal consequences of eight years of Democratic procedural decisions that made no sense save for the premise that Hillary Clinton, as she expected, would be handed the nomination on Super Tuesday Feb. 5. Holding the convention unusually late raises the prospect of not knowing the identity of the Democratic nominee until shortly before Labor Day. The decision to deprive Michigan and Florida of delegates because their primaries were scheduled too early cannot stand in a contested convention. That Hillary Clinton's candidacy still lives forces Democrats to cope with their mistakes. END ARTICLE

Even the libs are onto Hillbillary’s scorched-earth tactics. Lefty loon Jonathan Chait, who most frequently puts crayon to grocery bag for the Los Angeles Times, had this to say today in hard-left leaner the New Republic:

Clinton's path to the nomination is pretty repulsive. She isn't going to win at the polls. Barack Obama has a lead of 144 pledged delegates. That may not sound like a lot in a 4,000-delegate race, but it is. Clinton's Ohio win reduced that total by only nine. She would need 15 more Ohios to pull even with Obama. She isn't going to do much to dent, let alone eliminate, his lead.

That means, as we all have grown tired of hearing, that she would need to win with superdelegates. But, with most superdelegates already committed, Clinton would need to capture the remaining ones by a margin of better than two to one. And superdelegates are going to be extremely reluctant to overturn an elected delegate lead the size of Obama's. The only way to lessen that reluctance would be to destroy Obama's general election viability, so that superdelegates had no choice but to hand the nomination to her. Hence her flurry of attacks, her oddly qualified response as to whether Obama is a Muslim ("not as far as I know"), her repeated suggestions that John McCain is more qualified. SNIP

Clinton's path to the nomination, then, involves the following steps: kneecap an eloquent, inspiring, reform-minded young leader who happens to be the first serious African American presidential candidate (meanwhile cementing her own reputation for Nixonian ruthlessness) and then win a contested convention by persuading party elites to override the results at the polls. The plan may also involve trying to seat the Michigan and Florida delegations, after having explicitly agreed that the results would not count toward delegate totals. END EXCERPT

Look for Hillbillary to hit Obama often and hard over the next few months. One target for Hillbillary, and eventually for Republicans, is Barack Obama’s connections to Chicago area (ahem) businessman and fundraiser Antoin "Tony" Rezko. Rezko is a businessman the same way Tony Soprano is "in sanitation".

Rezko is also Obama’s neighbor-literally-and there have been questions about his involvement in the real estate Obama made to get the property.

Conservative talker Hugh Hewitt, came up with the concept of a web-based clearing house for all things Rezko, Rezkorama.com. It’s worth a look, especially if Obama manages to hang on and win the Dim nomination.

Cartoon courtesy Townhall.com

Opinions vary regarding the number of deaths that directly resulted from the Chernobyl meltdown. Great Britain’s Lancet-the same medical journal that claims the US liberation of Iraq resulted in 655,000 "excessive" Iraqi deaths-published a study alleging that Chernobyl’s meltdown killed every human being on the European Continent and in Asia. More serious and reliable estimates place Chernobyl’s death toll at around 4000 people. Between 50 and 100 of the deaths were plant workers or clean up personnel, most of whom received extremely high radiation exposure and died within a couple of weeks of the meltdown. The remaining deaths were spread over a number of years and were mostly attributed to exposure-related ailments such as cancer.