Declining Stock Market Have You Down?
Try the huggable investment. Go to I Love Alpacas.
I just saw this on television- and I think they were serious. Actually, I am frightened they are serious.
Who woulda Thunk It? Our
Who woulda Thunk It?
Our biggest threat to free speech is not the government, but whacko leftist feminists and trial lawyers. At least that is what Eugene Volokh is saying, albeit more politely (via the Blogfather).
New links: The Safety Valve
New links:
The Safety Valve
The Politburo (someone I have read on and off and have in my browser bookmarks but had forgotten to add to my permalinks)
Tone Cluster
The Blogs of War
Glenn Frazier
Read ’em, bookmark ’em, and you will be better for it.
Also, Sgt. Stryker is now renamed Beers Across America, and I have fixed my Cold Fury link. Sorry for any problems.
Compare this quote: The U.S.
Compare this quote:
The U.S. and others are helping to train a new Afghan national army, a force committed not to one group or faction but to the defense of the entire nation, which we hope will allow Afghans to take responsibility for their own security rather than relying on foreign forces. Already 28 countries have offered weapons, equipment, funds and support for this effort.
We’ve averted a humanitarian catastrophe. The U.S. and coalition partners have delivered some 500,000 metric tons of food since the start of the war, enough to feed almost 7 million needy Afghans. Thanks to those efforts, the grim predictions of starvation last winter never came to pass. De-mining teams from Norway, Denmark, Britain, Poland and Jordan have helped clear land mines from hundreds of thousands of square meters of terrain, although I must say there is still an enormous number of land mines in that country. U.S. civil affairs team have dug wells, built hospitals, repaired roads and rebuilt schools. Jordan built a hospital in Mazar-e Sharif that has now treated more than 86,000 patients, including 18,000 children. Russia’s cleared out and rebuilt the Salang Tunnel, the main artery linking Kabul with the North, allowing transportation of thousands of tons of food, medicine and supplies.
Together with coalition partners, we rounded up some 600 terrorists in Afghanistan and many hundreds more worldwide. They’re being interrogated. They are yielding information that is helping to prevent further violence and bloodshed.
But perhaps the most important measure of progress is the flow of people. Since January, many — literally many hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees and internally displaced persons have returned to their home. When it comes to coalition efforts, the Afghan people are voting with their feet. They’re coming back to their homes. And indeed, it is a vote of confidence in the progress that’s being made in Afghanistan.
To this quote:
The American air campaign in Afghanistan has produced a pattern of mistakes that have killed hundreds of Afghan civilians.
The first is the daily briefing on the status of Afghanistan and the War on Terror by Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld. The second quote is from the NY Times, which was observed and commented on in detail by Michael Moynihan at the Politburo.
If you do not read the Politburo, you should. It is a damn fine blog, and I find it to be one of the most aesthetically pleasing blogs out there. Thanks to the Blogfather for the heads up on this post.
Which Peanuts Character Are
Why We Can Not Trust
Why We Can Not Trust Congress With Our Money, Period
Because they spend it like crack addicts in a flop house on Saturday night. In the 28.9 billion dollar terrorism bill that was passed today, these items were ‘slipped’ in:
Such projects included $6 million to upgrade a U.S. Geological Survey data center near Sioux Falls, S.D.; $10 million to help farmers near the Rio Grande River involved in a water dispute with Mexico; $7 million for enhancing water supplies in New Mexico; and a provision pressuring the Agriculture Department to reimburse poultry producers in West Virginia and Virginia for losses from avian influenza.
Also carried were funds having little to do with the fight against terror. These included $1 billion for Pell grants for low-income students; $417 million for veterans’ medical care; $400 million to help states improve voting systems; $205 million to bail out Amtrak; $200 million for fighting AIDS and other diseases abroad; and $100 million for countering western wildfires and floods.
BTW, conservatives- this is the chamber that the Republicans control.
White House Rebukes Israel for
White House Rebukes Israel for Attack, Calls It ‘Heavy-Handed’
President Bush issued one of his sharpest rebukes against Israel today, denouncing as “heavy-handed” the attack that killed a Hamas leader and expressing regret over “the loss of innocent life.”
“This heavy-handed action does not contribute to peace,” said the president’s chief spokesman, Ari Fleischer. “This message will be conveyed to Israeli authorities, and the United States regrets the loss of life.”
At least 14 other people, including several children, were killed in the missile attack that killed Salah Shehadeh, a founder and the top commander of Hamas’s military wing. Scores of others were wounded.
I feel awful about the tragedy that occurred in regards to the innocent children, and I am sure that this will be a major piece of propoganda for the anti-Israel crowd. I do not excuse the action, but I have a hard time believing the death of innocents was intentional.
The larger message, though, should be: “Hang out with murdering, terrorist thugs who spend their entire lives plotting and fomenting violence against innocents, and you might end up dead.” I can live with that message, and I hope some of the Hamas scum take it to heart.