Not Your Average Rockets Red Glare

Rocket launch from Gaza, aimed at Israeli civilians.

Imagine living in a tiny strip of land, where some parts are only about 10 miles wide.

Then imagine in the part where you do have a lot of space, raving lunatics shoot off randomly targeted semi-pro rockets at you. One or two of you might die every once in a while. But you'll have to head inside in case there is a barrage coming.

How long would you put up with that? For those psychos that are bombing you - would you want to provide them with electricity? Water? Imports to let their economy run so they can build more rockets and buy more machine guns? Again, these madmen live only miles away from you, sometimes not even behind a big cement wall. (Israel does just that - provides electricity, water, and allows Gaza to carry on commerce with the outside.)


Visualize this - you are the small blue part below inside California.

And all of the rest of California wants you out of that blue part.
And, even inside the blue part there are vast swaths where those enemies live.
In the rest of the blue part, one in five or so of the citizens are friends with those who want to kick you out. Not exactly comfy. And all that yellow California part are states controlled by dictators, proxies for Iran (who wants you wiped off the map), and outright terrorist-controlled countries. 30 years ago they tried to wipe you out - not politically. Really. As in all of you dead, and all of 'we' take your land.



Such is the state of Israel today.

Zippy The Foregin Minister Speaks

And she's livid...

actually, she's so boring you don't even need to watch it.





Sorry for the stupid name puns.

But why is it liberal governments, like that which currently runs Israel, just love bombing? Sending in the troops they can't stand - but bombs? You betcha. Remember Clinton and his bomb-lobbing at Al-Qeada camps? Several donkeys were injured. Then he bombed Sarajevo in the Balkans war.

Israel in 2006 bombed everything in sight during their war against Hezbollah. They crippled Lebanon but not Hezbollah, turning world opinion radically against them. Then the Olmert government lamely and belatedly sent in ground troops - a few miles or so into Lebanon.

Troops, no. Bombs, yes.

How many more targets can there possibly be in the backwards and tiny Gaza strip?

I'm all for Israel defending itself. But I seem to recall that when Israel actually occupied the Gaza strip and regularly conducted ground raids, there were no suicide bombers, nor Hamas, the terrorist organization that rules Gaza, nor the need to bomb everything.

Let's get the real men and women back in control in Israel, the ones who can deal with terror as it warrants.

Terrorists in Gaza have been shooting rockets nonstop for years. Why all the bombing now? Could it be their upcoming election, with political opponent Bibi Netanyahu knocking at the door? This massive bombing right before an election smacks of cowardice and craven politics over real action.

You Know...

This is, you know, that Kennedy, who wants Hillary's, you know, Senate seat. I say auction to the highest bidder in that great, you know, Democratic Party tradition.

"I'm really coming into this as somebody who isn't, you know, part of the system, who obviously, you know, stands for the values of, you know, the Democratic Party," Kennedy told the Daily News Saturday during a wide-ranging interview.
"I know how important it is to, you know, to be my own person. And, you know, and that would be obviously true with my relationship with the mayor."
- Caroline, You Know, Kennedy

Full, you know, story, uh, you know, here.

Huge Raid In Gaza Strip: Israel Rains Down Bombs

Full story here at the Jerusalem Post....

Funny how when Israel decides, once in a while, to defend itself, suddenly there calls for "restraint". And no one in the press can figure out who actually "broke the truce". You, know that 6-month cease-fire kind of truce where the Gazans rained down rockets in southern Israel every week. You, know, that kind of truce. That's the "truce" that the Israelis let expire.
And now the bombs begin.

It's very sad, because a lot of lives are in hell right now.

But this problem is easily solvable if all the Palestinian Arabs want is some land. But they don't, they want the annihilation of Israel. That one's pretty much impossible to solve. Even if Iran puts a nuke off the coast of Israel they won't cease to exist and just go away.

It seems we'll just continue in this cycle of violence, then fake peace talks, until the Arabs decide that peace is the only route and Israel has right to exist. Sad.

Awesome Weather Pix

From Weather Underground...

... no, not that Bill Ayers' terrorist friend-of-Obama thing..

The Pelosi Man's Kind of Car...

From the inimitable Iohawk...

Congressional Motors brings you...

MERRY CHRISTMAS 2008!!!!

From Russia, With Love and Treason

Oh, those Russians love their pride.

They'd rather, apparently, be proud than free.

I recently asked a woman from Belarus, a Russian satellite country, what she thought of Putin.
"Thumbs up", she said and gesticulated. Then she changed her mind: "Two thumbs up", as she shook her head an affirmative yes.

And what's not to like about Vladimir Putin? State-controlled radio and TV, state-owned oil companies, after taking over and liquidating the companies and literally jailing their CEO's. Then there's all that nuclear technology they're so willing to sell. I thought it was a nice touch that they sold Saddam Hussein advanced surface-to-air missiles right before we invaded.
And can anyone even count the number of murders of dissidents? The Forbes Russian Editor, the famous woman critic of the Chechnyan war, and man others (see below).

Now, Russia looks like it's going to enact a treason bill which counts as treason acts that are "damaging" to Russia's constitution. In other words, any protest.

Full article here: Russian treason bill could hit Kremlin critics

"New legislation backed by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin would allow Russian authorities to label any government critic a traitor—a move that rights activists said Wednesday was a chilling throwback to times of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin."

And you think Iraq is a failure of diplomacy on our part? Letting Russia slide back into abyss of first lawlessness in the 90's and now into Stalinism under the guise of "sovereign democracy", is a massive failure on the part of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

And to add some frosting to this sweet cake of a story, let's end with a 2006 WaPost piece on all of Russia's assassinations, written by a former Soviet KGB Colonel...

Russia's Killing Ways

Quotes...

"orders for assassinations no longer have names or signatures on them, according to what I am told by my connections. Directives such as the one to assassinate Alexander Litvinenko are written to say, for example, "Request permission to carry out inquiry abroad," with no mention of the target. The document goes to an archive with nothing tying those involved to an assassination."

Now, with Litvinenko, they have dared to kill a citizen of Britain on the soil of that country. Yandarbiyev, Shchekochikhin, Politkovskaya, Litvinenko: Russia has become a terrorist regime."

You're Welcome, Iraq

NY Times' international paper has a story on the the Arab reaction to the Bush shoe-throwing incident.

Thousands have demonstrated in Iraq in support of this, which implies that many more support this absurd and otherwise irrelevant act.

I wonder what the reaction would've been if the brave journalist had decided to throw his shoes and call a dog Saddam Hussein. Saddam just might have reacted a little differently. Say, cutting the guy into little pieces using a pocket knife, and maybe eliminating his family, maybe even his whole village. Who knows, but maybe Saddam's sons could have had their own brand of fun with the man's female relatives. That was the Hussein way.

Indeed, the only reason he could do this in the first place is that a free and open society was having a press conference with a freely elected leader of a free country.

It's hard not to get steaming angry at these mobs of ignorant protesters.
But they are just that - ignorant.

Who in their right mind, after being freed from Saddam Hussein and given a chance at freedom and prosperity, would insult the leader of the nation that brought you this chance? And, that after the nation had sacrificed thousands of its sons and daughters to do so?
Even if you no longer desired to have that nation have a say in your national affairs, you wouldn't dare treat it with the worst insult your culture can come up with (aside from all that rape and torture and mass-grave kind of stuff).

No, you wouldn't do that unless you are supremely ignorant. A violent tribal culture doesn't help either.

Perhaps these ingrates would prefer to have been treated like Japan and Germany towards the end of WWII - carpet-bombed and ruled by martial law. Maybe that's more their language.

It Is Cold...

The Evil of All Roots

Killer cartoon from Glenn Foden on Townhall.com...

Newt on Blago Scandal

Including some terrifying stats, like 82% of retiring CHP's (California Highway Patrol) in 2000 claimed a disability. 82%. No fraud there.

How About A Shark INSIDE of your Shark Cage???

Whoa.

That is a big freaking shark....

A View From The Hubble...

Click here to view a killer Hubble photo gallery.

Click here to view some of the best, with explanations.


And now, some more pics from your tax dollars at work...


How about 800 billion suns, 50,000 light-years across, and 28 million light-years away? El Galaxy De Sombrero:

Why Not "Culture of Corruption" Now?

Funny how we've heard no media mantra of "culture of corruption".

Chicago, the city that brought you the John F. Kennedy presidency after his daddy bought votes there, has apparently always been a cesspool of political corruption.

Jonah Goldberg has some seriously funny (eh?) things to say about it in his column: A Little Blago for Everybody. I had no idea this guy was this funny...

Oh, last thing, in no way is Obama connected to any of this graft, and he in no way was influenced by the corrupt machine that made him powerful. Nope. Not a bit. Getting all his opponents in the state senate race thrown off the ballot - leaving only him - was his own idea and kind of a fluke. So don't even ask or think about it...


Quotes:

For the more historically minded, it's a time for nostalgia. The past comes alive as Chicago's grand tradition of corruption is sustained for another generation. As the Chicago Tribune once wrote, "corruption has been as much a part of the landscape as corn, soybeans and skyscrapers." According to the Chicago Sun-Times, as of 2006, when Blago's predecessor, George Ryan, was sent to prison for racketeering, 79 elected officials had been convicted of corruption in the past 30 years. Among the perps: 27 aldermen, 19 judges, 15 state legislators, three governors, two congressmen, one mayor, two turtledoves and a partridge in a stolen pear tree. Especially in this holiday season, it's so very important to keep traditions alive for the kids. In a sense, Blago did it for the children.

For partisans, there's the schadenfreude that comes with watching the Democrats -- self-proclaimed anti-corruption zealots in recent years -- explain why Blagojevich shouldn't be lumped in with Congressmen Charlie Rangel (cut himself sweetheart deals), William Jefferson ($90,000 in his freezer) and Tim Mahoney (tried to bribe an aide he was sleeping with not to sue him; and you thought romance was dead) as part of a new Democratic "culture of corruption" storyline.

Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., himself the son of a shakedown artist, is alleged to have offered (through a minion) a half-million bucks for Barack Obama's vacant senate seat. Jackson replaced former Rep. Mel Reynolds, who went to jail for getting jiggy with a 16-year-old campaign staffer and stayed in jail because of various fraud convictions. Reynolds, in turn, was the "reformer" who had replaced Rep. Gus Savage, the thug-congressman who groped a Peace Corps volunteer in Zaire while on a "fact-finding" trip. Savage held off Reynolds' attempts to replace him for several years by claiming Reynolds was financed by "racist Jews."

Man, what isn't there to love about Chicago politics?

How Much Does it Cost to Buy a US Senate Seat?

About $1 MILLION buckaroonies.

From the Guardian...

Describing the offer in an October 31 conversation recorded by the FBI, Blagojevich said: "We were approached 'pay to play'. That you know, he'd raise me 500 grand. An emissary came. Then the other guy would raise a million, if I made him [Senate Candidate 5] a senator."

Senate Candidate number 5 is none other than Jesse Jackson, Jr. I quoth...

which yesterday widened beyond the figure of Blagojevich to Jesse Jackson Jr, a son of the civil rights leader, who wanted the president-elect's old Senate seat.

A lawyer for Jackson, a congressman and ally of Obama, acknowledged that he was the man identified as Senate Candidate 5 in the FBI wiretaps. Senate Candidate 5 is the only one of the contenders for Obama's seat alleged to have acted improperly, news reports said yesterday.

So the family who purports to stand for the little guy, tearing down discrimination, and raising the plight of the poor, can afford 1 million dollars just to buy a Senate seat. That's perfectly emblematic of liberal politics.

Have we heard one word about the "culture of corruption" in liberal politics? Not from Big Media.

Iowahwak: Feds Seize Blago's eBay Account

the humor averse be forewarned...

BREAKING: Feds Seize Blagojevich eBay Account

I love this page...

"Day Without a Gay" Not So Gay

Not very good participation in "Day Without a Gay", an attempted stoppage of work for all gays to protest those evil straight people who will simply not normalize the gay lifestyle.

Day without a gay? I'm thinking they should try "Whole Year Without a Gay."

Our New Sec. of State: HillBilly

From noblesseoblige.org...

Palin Put To Jazz

I love this...

Listen as the piano plays the exact melody and pitch used in her speaking voice.
[hat tip: LGF]

Governors Who Out-spent Growth Come, Hands Outstretched

And here come the state governments, looking for a handout from the Feds.

These are the same governors who increased their spending at 3 times the rate of economic growth, and now everyone else is supposed to bail them out. Disgusting.

Do you get the shell game governments play? During economic expansion times they can spend more than the rate of the expansion itself, growing government ever bigger in proportion to everything else. And why not, we'll pay down the debt with a ever-growing economy. Then, during recessions, they of course can't cut spending in the name of trying to stimulate the economy.

Yes, California is cutting back spending right now, after decades of out-of-control growth, but they (we!) are still left with tens of billions in debt and a still-huge budget deficit.