Just Me And My Pal Johnny Walker
Modern Drunkard Magazine has listed the Ten Greatest Alcohol Icons Of All Time.
The list includes Johnny Walker, the Hamm’s Bear, Captain Morgan, etc. but why did they include the obscure Guiness toucan rather than the better known Budweiser eagle? Or St. Pauli Girl?
I’m crying foul—or fowl (Wild Turkey)!
h/t: Ms. Ann
I’m Abigail Beecher, Your History Teacher
Many people seem to think that history began when George Bush was sworn into office. One of the few advantages of being old is that I have actually LIVED history, which brings me to a recent Guardian (UK) article.
I love reading the Guardian—-their politics are whacked, but the reporting and writing are lively and informative, to say nothing of being slanted to the left. So when I read this article about how in 1998 the Brits would not hand over intelligence information to the CIA on bin Laden unless the CIA promised to not torture him, which the CIA would not promise to do, I had to laugh!
I was laughing because:
1) Clinton was POTUS in 1998 and all good partisans know that torture only began with the Bush Administration—facts be damned;
2) The Guardian blames Bush anyway, and
3) Who started extraordinary rendition? Bush? Nah, it was that paragon of human rights, Bill Clinton.
I love it when partisans try to rewrite history! Whenever they do, I always ask myself this question: Are they dumb or just dishonest?
What a hoot!
I’m No Sports Maven…..
but this just makes me happy. Iraq won the Asian Cup (soccer or football, depending on your nationality) 1-0 over Saudia Arabia.
The Iraqis have suffered so much, both before Saddam and after. This is a much needed and well deserved boost to their national pride and identity.
Allahu Akbar, indeed!
Campaign News You Can Use. Maybe.
Shocking news! Democrats play the victim card. In John Edwards’ case, he is claiming that the reason our feckless national press is paying so much attention to his hair is they are attempting to shut him up. Whatever. If the press REALLY wanted to shut Edwards up, they have more efficient ways that would not bore the hell out of the rest of us.
Also, Hillary is playing the victim and exploiting her cleavage to get campaign donations. Hmmmmm. I wonder how much her cleavage is worth?
GOP don’t want no questions from snowmen! So far only two GOP candidates (McCain and Paul) have agreed to participate in the YouTube/CNN “debate” in September. Romney and Guiliani, who both have dozens of videos on YouTube, have declined. There is a debate going on among right wing bloggers about whether or not it is good idea to skip this venue. On the one hand, the Democrats haven’t suffered by refusing to appear on Fox, but on the other hand the “questions” are picked by CNN staff, which a Rasmussen survey indicates is liberal and left-leaning. On the third hand, this will be spun by both CNN and Democrats as GOP candidates refusing to take questions from “real people”, even though it is the liberal CNN staff who chooses the questions, not the “people”.
Somewhere I read that the Dem YouTube event had lots of submissions asking the candidates about impeaching Bush, but those were killed by CNN. Frankly, I would LOVE to know what the Dem candidates think about impeachment—-especially Hillary!
The Tipping Point
Those who follow politics will know what I mean by the tipping point. The tipping point is the point that you realize that Candidate X either will or will not make it. In most cases, it something incredible trivial or obscure, but it is enough.
Events of this week have proven to be the tipping point for me to realize that Obama will not be POTUS—-at least not any time soon.
While his message of “hope and change” is appealing, it won’t be enough, and his performance at Monday’s YouTube/CNN entertainment event proved to be his tipping point. One minor slip-up about how he would meet with every despot on the planet without pre-conditions gave Hillary her chance to pounce, and pounce she did. She immediately summoned her husband and the ridiculous Maddy Albright to reinforce her position of no meetings without preconditions, and she further sent out memos to the press for good measure. Obama fired back with his own press memos and the two continued to duel in the pages of the QCTimes until finally Obama did something really stupid—-he showed himself a hypocrite by saying Hillary’s position was just “Bush-Cheney lite”. Remember how Obama said he was going to run a different campaign, or the “politics of hope” as he called it? That didn’t last long did it?
The final tipping point for me was reading his biography, memoir, whatever this week. After reading it I knew he was the soft, fragile man I suspected he was.
Don’t get me wrong—-Dreams From My Father is an engaging book and Obama is a gifted writer and I do hope he will write more like this, but he wrote “Dreams” back in ‘95 before he (maybe) knew he would be running for POTUS and that books proves he is not right for the world as it is now. Maybe when we are a 3rd rate power and don’t need to be concerned about protecting our global interests and Al Qaeda is either defeated or they aren’t, Obama’s social reform type of government would be appropriate. Obama would have been ideal in the ’90s when we were on our holiday from history, but the world is too dangerous now for someone like Obama to be our leader.
His time is either in the past or in the future—-but not now.
Dear Mr. Fantasy Play Us A Tune, Something To Make Us All Happy
Illinois Rep. Rahm Emanuel said at the recent La Raza (NCLR) convention that the Democrats wll not attempt comprehensive immigration reform until the second term of a Democrat president. He’s assuming there there will be a veto-proof Democrat Congress and Democrat POTUS for the next 8 years. Considering the current Democrat Congress has a 14% approval rating, it appears Mr. Fantasy is doing some serious fantasizing!
Needless to say, Hispanic immigration reform activists were less than impressed with Emanuel’s 8 year long promise to kick the can down the road of their pet issue. Juan Salgado, board chairman of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrants and Refugee Rights said “I interpret (Emanuel’s) comments as a lack of courage on what they know is right”. To say the least.
Poor Juan! He is just now getting a clue about what we have known from the beginning and what Emanual has proudly stated—-that the Democrats are not interested in reform or governing—-they just want power and all the perks that go with it. The Democrats will do anything to get power, even if it means throwing those unpopular illegal immigrants under the bus.
This is your wake-up call Juan. The Democrats don’t care about you or your issues, they just care about your vote.
Mr. Fantasy just told you so.
Another Reason John Barleycorn McCain-Feingold Must Die
Some totally uninformed blogger claims to have filed an FEC complaint against Daily Kos on the grounds that it is an organization committed to electing Democrats to office and provides contributions that exceed those allowed by McCain-Feingold.
What a clueless twit! As you might have guessed, I am not a Kos reader, but anyone with a memory longer than yesterday will remember we went through all this two years ago and bloggers were given an exemption from M-F because we are considered “media”. Personally, being considered part of the “media” isn’t exactly a compliment, but I’m for whatever works.
Which brings me to my larger point, and the point I make over and over—-campaign finance laws, and especially M-F are an assault on free speech and the First Amendment and they do not work. The government has no business deciding who gets to speak out against or promote a candidate. The whole aim behind M-F is to suppress criticism and protect incumbents.
Decades of trying to take money out of politics has failed and instead our free speech rights have been curtailed.
The Washington Post reported that since the November 7 election, presidential candidates have raised more than 2 million outside of their official campaigns by using congressional or state committees or Section 527 political groups. No matter how clever our lawmakers think they are, loopholes will be found and exploited.
Repeal all campaign finance laws and instead require timely reporting and complete transparency on all donors. This is absolutely the only way to go.
Hix From The Stix Fight Back
An article in the Monroe County Clarion reports that eleven Illinois counties have signed resolutions stating they oppose any further gun control measures by the state.
The money quote comes from the Monroe County Sheriff, a Democrat: “This stuff (more gun control laws) is coming out of Chicago and Cook County where they have gangbangers who don’t obey any gun laws that are on the books now anyway—and the books are full of them. If Cook County wants these laws, let them pass them for Cook County and let the rest of the state alone.”
It should be noted that Chicago bans handgun ownership and still has the highest crime rate in Illinois.
We have already lost one gunsmith in Rock Island County to LeClair, Iowa. There are several other gunsmiths in the area who are also nervous about more oppressive laws that will hurt or destroy their perfectly lawful and legitimate manufacturing businesses.
It’s time for Rock Island and Henry Counties to join the other eleven counties and send a message to Springfield that we are tired of being ruled by the extremists in Chicago/Cook County and the rights of downstaters will not be trampled on by Chicago bullies.
I Used To Love Him, But It’s All Over Now
As I’ve mentioned previously, I was a big fan of Russ Feingold’s—-not because of his politics, but because I thought he was one of the few politicians of either party who not only HAD principles (besides winning at all cost) but stood by and was guided by them.
No more.
I don’t usually watch the Sunday morning news shows, but when I saw Feingold was going to be on Meet The Press, I had to watch.
I could hardly believe my eyes/ears—-Feingold said he was going to introduce a bill to censure George Bush. Jeez! The fact is that there is no basis in Constitutional Law or Rules of the House and Senate for censuring a POTUS. In fact, the last time a POTUS was censured was in 1834 and three years later it was ‘expunged”.
Congress has the power to show disapproval for the Executive Branch in two ways: by exercising legislative power (veto) and impeachment.
On MTP, Feingold blathered on about Bush’s “repeated assault on the rule of law” and how Bush was “responsible for some of the worst abuses of the law in American history”. Really? History must have started in 2001 for Feingold, because otherwise that statement is just unhinged partisan hyperbole. Needless to say, our very own special Senator Dick Durbin supports this piece of political theatre.
Feingold claims Bush has committed impeachable offenses but refuses to take action allowed by the Constitution. Feingold calls censure a “moderate course”. I call it more political bullsh*t.
Russ, put up or shut up. I can’t believe I actually thought Feingold was an honest liberal instead of just another partisan hack.
No wonder the approval ratings for Congress are at 14%—even lower than Bush’s or even the press.
Yeah Russ, you represent the “will of the American people”—-at least 14% of ‘em.
What a disappointment!
