30
Apr
Rosie O’Donnell, not too shortly before being canned from The View, informed all the world that fire can’t melt steel. Therefore, Bush had to have torn down the WTC’s by hand ( or something like that ).
Today in Oakland, fire melted steel:
Since no one was hurt too bad, I do see some humor in this as it proves the idiot of the day when she said it was Rosie. ( Has she ever elaborated what she actually meant or is she truly that stupid? One inquiring mind wants to know. )
I think everyone that comes here knows who George Tenet is.? I sort of doubt those who come here a lot have a clear idea of what I think of Tenet.? My feelings on George Tenet, in case you don’t want to look at the other posts, is quite simple.? Jamie Gorelick and Janet Reno were the principals behind the failures that led to 9/11, George Tenet is the primary failure that led to our involvement in Iraq.? I won’t belabor the point again, you can read my other posts to see why I state that so strongly.? However, Tenet’s in the news again.? He, ( drum roll please ), wrote a book: At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA
Now, the reason I came to the conclusion about Tenet that I did long ago is that my take on things is George Tenet was only concerned about one thing when he was director of the CIA.? That one thing was George Tenet.? I haven’t read his book.? I won’t read his book ( lack of time moreso than some political statement ).? But, from what I have gathered, he pretty much lays the blame for Iraq right in Bush’s lap.?
That’s what I expected him to do.? So, this doesn’t surprise me in the least bit.
Not one single atom of my soul is even curious as to why he would say what he is saying now.
Not one.
It is that predictable.? And, it proves what I’ve always felt about the man.? There has probably not been a more self-serving butthead in Washington in my lifetime.? And that, folks, is saying a LOT.
The claim he makes that has everyone talking right now is that there was very little debate within the Bush administration about going to war with Iraq.? At the time, I’m sure there wasn’t.? They relied on a ton of evidence to support their argument that Hussein had WMD’s.? They had a ton of evidence that Hussein was a military aggressor.? They had a tone of evidence that terrorist organizations existed in Iraq that were planning the US harm.? They had a ton of evidence that Iraq had violated just about every term of the United Nations imposed cease-fire.? They had a ton of evidence that the United States was at war with terrorist organizations sponsored by some unknown entity that had deep pockets ( a government perhaps? ).? In other words, the evidence was overwhelming that Iraq, in many ways, was a threat to the well-being of the United States.
All of that evidence was presented by George Tenet.
Now, he wants you to forget that and point your fingers at someone else for not doubting him at the time.
I’m not.? I hope others don’t as well.
If you want to point fingers at who was responsible for this Iraq mess right now, point it where the blame lies.? Point it at George Tenet for giving Bush everything he needed to justify it.? The reason George Tenet has remained at The Center of the Storm is because he created the storm.
Not quite a year ago I did a piece on what I thought was one of the most crass advertising campaigns I had ever seen. Well, they’ve done it again.
In the meantime, PETA continues to get naked:
Watch more PETA videos at PETATV.com.
28
Apr
Usually I’m pretty harsh on PETA. They do some pretty goofball things that in my opinion more often than not harm their cause more than helping it by putting fear in people that if they are concerned about helping animals too they might be perceived as being as whacky as PETA. However, today, I saw this letter in the news:
On behalf of PETA€™s more than 1.6 million members and supporters worldwide, I am writing to request that you revise The Associated Press Stylebook so that its grammatical rules reflect the fact that animals are living beings rather than inanimate objects. In magazine articles, popular literature, and advertising, writers are using “he,” “she,” and “who” to refer to animals€instead of the outdated and inaccurate “it” and “which.” Won€™t you consider making this transition as well?
As “the essential global news network,” the Associated Press (AP) should take a progressive step and give animals the respect that they deserve by revising AP style guidelines to reflect the usage of personal pronouns for all animals.
While the world accelerates through the 21st century, progressive ideas are challenging and changing conventional perspectives. Recently, the American legal system recognized that nonhuman animals deserve legal status beyond that of mere “property” and that abusive treatment of animals is more than simple vandalism.
The public now recognizes that whales, who sing across oceans; great apes, who share more than 98 percent of our DNA; sheep, who can recognize as many as 50 faces after not having seen them for two years; and pigs and chickens, who can learn to operate switches in order to control heat and light in factory-farm sheds, are feeling, intelligent individuals€not objects. Our language should reflect this.
I would greatly appreciate hearing your decision on this matter. Enclosed are PETA€™s Writing Style and Guidelines, which explain how to avoid language that portrays animals in a negative light.
Thank you very much for your time.
Sincerely,
Anna West
Director of Written Communications
Some points about this:
- I’m OK with this. Some animals obviously can comprehend things such as aggression and pain, etc.. De-humanizing the impact of these actions serves no purpose. We can do without intentional abuse of animals and should make the actions of such a little more personal than say, kicking a car. It can get carried a little too far, but referring to animals as “he” or “she” is no big deal. So, for the first time on the Webdream, I’m going along with PETA. It’s probably the last too.
- This does not mean that animals become immune to hunting or eating or the processes thereof. I’ve not been hunting for a long time. However, the last time I did go, whenever we bagged a dinner, we usually uttered our victory chant in the proper text. “I shot him!” or “I got her!” So, I think in this case, hunters apparently have been more politically correct than Associated Press has ever been. Which really doesn’t surprise me.
- I want a job that has the title “Director of Written Communications”. It must be nice to never have to deal with people face-to-face.
Just some of my thoughts
Moon, Director of Written Comunications, People Eating Tasty Animals
Got this from Milblogs:
BASH: The phrase “the war is lost” really touched a nerve.
Do you stand by that — that — that comment?
REID: General Petraeus has said that only 20 percent of the war can be won militarily. He’s the man on the ground there now. He said 80 percent of the war has to be won diplomatically, economically and politically. I agree with General Petraeus.
Now, that is clear and I certainly believe that.
BASH: But, sir, General Petraeus has not said the war is lost.
I just want to ask you again…
REID: General — General Petraeus has said the war cannot be won militarily. He said that.
<…>
BASH: Is there something to that, an 18- and 19-year-old person in the service in Iraq who is serving, risking their lives, in some cases losing their life, hearing somebody like you back in Washington saying that they’re fighting for a lost cause?REID: General Petraeus has told them that.
BASH: How has he said that?
REID: He said the war can’t be won militarily. He said that. I mean he said it. He’s the commander on the ground there.
BASH: But, sir, there’s a difference…
REID: Are they critical of him?
BASH: … between that and saying the war is lost, don’t you think?
REID: Well, I — as I said, maybe it’s a choice of words. I mean General Petraeus has said the war cannot be won militarily.
Doesn’t every soldier going there know that he’s said that?
I think so.
<…>
BASH: He also said that General Petraeus is going to come to the Hill and make it clear to you that there is progress going on in Iraq, that the so-called surge is working. Will you believe him when he says that?REID: No, I don’t believe him, because it’s not happening.
That’s your majority leader for ya. He’s not some average flake, he controls the United States Senate. He’s made his mind up, obviously. If you say anything remotely close to not asserted a complete and total victory, he’s going to put words in your mouth and flat out re-define what you said so that it means what he wants. And, if you DARE contradict him, then he’ll accuse you of lying.
Yeah buddy, there’s your kinder, gentler Congress you all voted for in 2006.
And yeah, Reid’s right. With his attitude and leadership we could never win any war and may as well surrender to anyone that threatens us.
But, I’m not EVEN going to question his patriotism.
Apparently “the Dems” picked up the endorsement of MSNBC, who claims unequivocally that Americans are siding with Dems. The headline leaves no room for error. It’s not “most”, “a majority”, or “some”. It’s all. Every single American. Mexican, Canadien, Brazillian, it’s all of them. That’s a pretty powerful block of people to be supporting “Dem”. That’s a good thing for the “Dems” I suppose. They are already extremely popular with Al Qaeda I would suppose.
However, I think the truth is much more likely that more people in MSNBC’s poll supported the “Dems”. Let’s test that theory wording the situation a little more realistically, shall we?
Now, you can assume I am a little over the top in my summary judgment. But, to support the “Dems”, you HAVE TO ASSUME that Al Qaeda will just quit their war against the US simply because we are not fighting them IN the Middle East.
And everyone knows what happens when you assume. Only this time, it’s a lot more serious.
26
Apr
Rosie O’Donnell is leaving The View. Good. I never watch the show as I have a life. However, she panders to conspiracy theories and the show is quite popular. The mix just stirs up stuff that doesn’t exist and doesn’t contribute one single thing to our culture. I get really tired of the news being dominated by flakes pushing conspiracy theories and not giving a rat’s patootie about the facts. She never would debate the facts, when confronted with the facts she resorts to bullying. That’s how these conspiracy theories stay alive. I don’t know if she quit or Barbara Walters pushed her out. I don’t care. As long as she’s off major media I’m happy. Some people are claiming she already has another show ready to roll and will be bigger than The View ever was. I doubt it. She’s done solo shows in the past and they all flopped. I think there’s only so much Rosie people can stomach regardless of whether they agree with her or not. Hopefully The View will get someone a little more grounded in reality this time around. It wouldn’t hurt if they were witty and funny as well.
Given the recent prosecution and sentencing of border patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Campean for doing their job correctly, this is how the border patrol is now forced to “secure” our borders:
After 2001, anti-terrorism spending in the US jumped from $20 billion to over $60 billion.
Yesterday, from what I have seen so far:
- The President of Virginia Tech had to make a decision on when or even IF he should send out notices to students that a shooting had occurred. By the time he made that decision, more people were being shot.
- The President of VT stated evacuating the campus was nearly impossible in the time it would have taken to precent this from happening. It takes probably five minutes to get out of a building.
- Two hours after the initial shooting, there were no police in Norris Hall where the gunman was allowed to barricade himself inside and shoot at will.
- At least one teacher ( possibly more ) died trying to keep the classroom door closed while the gunman was shooting his way inside.
It is just painfully obvious that the Virginia Tech administration was just making things up on the fly how to handle this.
It is also painfully obvious to me that hundreds of billions of dollars of Homeland Security spending has been pissed away.
How complicated is a lock down? Send a cop to every building UNTIL YOU KNOW the armed and extremely dangerous murderer is not wondering amongst the students.
No sooner than the news hit the tv’s of what was going on, people were immediately using this tragedy as yet another piece of evidence that we need to ban all guns.
That is so backward it’s amazing to me.
How many guns are there legally in the United States? How many are in Russia? How many are in North Korea? How many are in the world?
Now, what happens is if you ban guns, only those people who wish to kill other people will get them.
It’s that simple.
Now, yesterday, what happened is the people who obey the law that says they can’t have guns in the buildings were the victims of a person who didn’t obey the law. The argument has always been that if you ban guns, the only people that will have them will be criminals. Yesterday kinda proved that point, again. Now, if that idiot had known that 50 people would have been able to shoot back at him, we might have had a totally uneventful day in Blacksburg.
Understand this clearly, people like the guy wanting to kill as many people as he could don’t give a rat’s ass about the law that would ban guns.
