Remember the Lippo group and John Huang and Johnny Chung and Buddhist monks donating to Clinton/Gore.... yada yada yada? 

The Clintons' eastern connection is going strong.

One of the defenders of Mr. Hsu says in the story, "if Mr. Hsu's name was Smith or Jones there wouldn't be any story!", trying the old race card, with little effect.  

Because the truth is that Clinton DOES have a longtime connection with shady fundraising from Chinese and other eastern folk, and it's THIS HISTORY that makes a story about Mr. Hsu ring true. 

So you have a working class house with a decidedly unwealthy immigrant family living there, who have somehow managed hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign donations to Democrats in the last few years. 

Oh, and the previous owner of the house was Mr. Hsu, who was and is a bigtime Dem and Clinton fundraiser.

The obvious conclusion is that Mr. Hsu is somehow reimbursing this family in order to hide the source of this money.  

And lets face it, this is no more unlikely than that dozens of Buddhist monks, who've sworn a vow of poverty, each gave thousands to Clinton's campaign.  VP Gore, you'll remember, personally went to this Buddhist temple in California and picked up a paper bag full of cash from the monks.  

If it walks like a duck, yada yada.

BTW--  if you've ever wondered what the Lippo Group, famous investment capital firm in Indonesia, got for their shady campaign donations--  remember when Clinton went to the Utah desert and declared a big tract of land to be a federal preserve?  

That land holds the largest deposit of high grade coal in the world. 

The only other source in the world of that high grade coal?  A mine owned by---  wait for it----  

THE LIPPO GROUP.

Bizness as usual.  Sigh.  

... for the current credit crisis (to use the favorite Democrat term).

There are many reasons for this present problem, of course.

1)  Greed on the part of the buyers, many of whom are/were pure speculators, trying to cash in on home prices that seemingly doubled every few years....  but then, if prices are doing that, why WOULDN"T you cash in if you could? 

The problem is, anytime prices are run up by increased demand like that, there is an end coming, and whoever is holding the bag when it comes will get slaughtered.  So people rush in so that they can rush out again, trying to profit quickly without getting stung.  And this behavior runs up prices even MORE.  It also must be said that homes are a commodity, a necessary one, and that speculators flipping them forced families and first time buyers to take dangerous financial risks just to have a place to live.  And because the home market drove people to rent, it also forced up rents, making alternatives unaffordable for those same people.

2)  Artificial limits on supply, caused by leftist environmentalist restrictions on new home building.  One can't help but note that the highest prices and fastest increases always came in areas (Northern California, New Jersey, etc) where such laws made new homes nearly impossible to build.

3) Unethical lending practices, usually taking advantage of buyer ignorance.  The linked story is a classic example but not the only one.  And it must be said that many of these risky loans were made to speculators, who were so sure their property would quickly increase in value that they borrowed 100% of the price and did not pay any principal for several years, guaranteeing they'd be underwater if things didn't go perfectly.

But lenders like Countrywide were right there with them, cashing in on a boom that surely could not last, leaving financial destruction in their wake for millions of families, and flat out LYING to them about 'what's best for you'. 

I'm thanking heaven I live in Texas, where there was never much of a boom and thus there isn't much of a crash.  You know why?

In Texas we build new homes.  LOTS of them.  So there is never the leftist-induced shortage of properties caused by envirowacko laws. 

Give me land, lots of land, under starry skies above..   don't fence me in....  :-)

And of course, the leftist solution for this problem, as laid out by Chuck Schemer, (D) N.Y.?

Taxpayer bailout for mortgage loan defaulters. 

If he has his way, I'll be paying the price of other people's greed and of the liberals' poor management.

I wonder which relative or business associate of Schemer has recently lost money in property speculation.....?

It seems Barney Frank now has one less competitor on capitol hill for the glances of the boys....

And, although it's like pulling teeth, I think in the long run it is for the benefit of our party that Republican homosexuals, perverts and criminals be exposed and removed (not that Senator Craig has been removed yet, but it's inevitable now).   

Let our side regain its majority honestly, without deals with the devil.  We've seen how poorly they fare when we keep them there for the sake of the momentary advantage.  Let's rid ourselves of the spineless and the corrupt and the dull, and work our way to a slate of honest and principled people. 

If a Republican candidate were to run as an openly homosexual man, and were to be elected as such, let him stay; it is not for me to concern myself with a person's private behavior.  And I wouldn't hesitate to vote for a gay man if his stand on the issues that concern me was one with which I agreed (a far more plausible scenario than many on the left can believe). 

But a closeted homosexual is corruptible, through blackmail. 

Especially if he can't keep his tootsies to himself at the ole' urinals...... 

LGF links today to a story about American goodheartedness and Islamic whining.

If the World Cup ruling body insists on using the Saudi flag (with the word 'allah' written on it) as part of a national-flag-decorated soccer ball (thus causing athletes to 'kick allah', something very very upsetting to Muslims), I have only one question--

Why haven't their been any suicide bombings at World Cup Headquarters?

That is, after all, the standard for conflict resolution these days.... isn't it? 

Looks to me like the Saudi jihadders are falling down on the job here. 

But, just in time, along come the Americans.  They do an airdrop of a whole lot of soccer balls, to give Afghan kids something fun to do.  Said soccer balls are in context, World Cup balls with middle eastern national flags on them. 

One would think this would go over well.  But no.  The Saudi national flag has an Islamic declaration of faith printed on it, including "allah", and little Afghan boys are now going around kicking allah. 

So it's the Americans' fault.

D'OH!

...about the menace of fundamentalist Islam, ever growing and increasing its volume.

Note, toward the end, the complaint of the preacher, that his people show insufficient interest in imposing Sharia law on the western world of the infidel--

"why are we watching infidels prosper in this world and not stopping them?"

Seems almost innocuous, this shouted complaint by a preacher in the Palestinian territories.

But this opinion is shared by what I'd guess is the greater part of Islam itself. 

And that means hundreds of millions of people.

You see, Hizb ut Tahrir, the organization that held the gathering in Indonesia a couple of weeks ago, is not itself a violent organization.  It is nonetheless the driving force behind the new call for the return of the caliphate, that is to say Islamic rule over the whole world.  Violent organizations like al Qaeda recruit from the members of this group.

That shouted complaint from the imam aims directly at John Kerry, marrier of money.  Why do they watch you prosper, Senator Longface, and do nothing about it?  The implication is that they will not do nothing forever.  And what about the sole remaining brother of the luckless but wealthy Kennedy family, the senior balloon from Massachusetts?  Or the nouveau riche and classless John Edwards, he of the gigantic mansion with the indoor basketball court.....?  

How about Harry Reid, manipulator of government real estate and land prices in Nevada, peddling his influence to great prosperity....?  Or Hillary the commodity trader, who famously turned a hundred bucks into a hundred thousand...?  And whose husband misses no opportunity to remind us all how rich he is....?

These people all want to bring home the troops and surrender in Iraq.  That would result in an explosion of enthusiasm among Islamists worldwide, a sickening burst of propaganda about how they defeated the Great Satan, and a wave of new recruits that would dwarf any previous growth in the movement.  It would hasten the day in which they actually do take over the world and inflict Sharia law upon us all.  (Dems sneer at this notion, but do not explain how they will prevent it, seeing as how they deplore the use of our military.)

And thus these people, 'infidels who prosper in this world', will find themselves in the crosshairs of the nearest imam, tortured or enslaved or simply killed, their wealth vaporized or stolen by said imam, their influence instantly dissipated.

And the pompous windbags seem to welcome it; every word they speak and every action they encourage seems designed to hasten the day when Islam judges them and finds them wanting.

Suicidal fools.  Just listen to what our enemies say.  They speak clearly and do not attempt to deceive anyone.  They announce their motivations and their intentions, even their vision of the future.  And they laugh at us, at our weakness and our preoccupation with superficiality and political correctness.  They consider us cowards and hedonists, too addled with pleasure to fight for ourselves, trying to bribe the wolf to stay away from the door for another day while the orgy continues in the palace. 

And they remember that Rome, too, paid Attila and his Huns lots of money to leave them alone. 

And that the Huns sacked Rome anyway, and the Empire fell, because it either would not or could not defend itself. 

Appeasement, when practiced on the truly evil, never works.  Because the truly evil will not be satisfied with bargains; its purpose is to kill, enslave and oppress, and it will not stop until it does these things.

Liberals take, by default, the side of the Islamists; they never seem to realize that the Islamists will not grant them the favor of distinguishing between liberal and conservative when it comes time to enslave or kill the infidel.

Bush's speech this week was yet another masterpiece of clarity and simplicity.  He sees the truth.  Liberals are either suicidal or just dangerously stupid.  I cannot believe they want to be beheaded by turban-wearing wackos shouting allahu akhbar, so I must assume they're just dangerously stupid. 

The result for me is the same either way.  I can't let liberals prevail in my country.

Why hasn't George W. Bush spoken like this about once a week for the past year?

I hope he continues to do so.

As Hugh Hewitt points out, it is a relief to finally get numbers regarding enemies killed or captured.  The government has justified their decision not to do this by saying it might degenerate into a contest, where bounties are given for the lives of American soldiers.

But in not revealing numbers, the President has taken away 'the score', and the public has no way to feel confident in measuring success. 

Now we know that, since January, we've killed or captured over 10,000 enemies, and that is fortifying.  For every American killed or wounded, they lose dozens of theirs.  And the liberal argument (that we generate two new ones for every one we kill) is very much weakened by the fact that so many of the locals are now cooperating and turning in the terrorists.  In the early going, perhaps that argument had some substance; not now. 

Which brings me to the Democrats.

It is clear that part of the reason success has eluded us is that the Iraqis are forced by circumstance to side with 'the strong horse', as the arabs say.  They read our papers and watch our TV news, and cannot help but believe that our presence there is tenuous, that our public is demanding retreat. 

Believing this, they naturally fear what will happen to them when we leave and the terrorists take control-- and revenge.

After months of our new surge and counterterrorist strategy, these people are beginning to believe we will not leave prematurely, and are now siding with us against the terrorists. 

THIS will enable the kind of situation (peace, stability, the workability of government) that will in turn enable us to go home.

I have to believe that Democrats know this, and that they speak out for retreat and defeat KNOWING that the act of speaking out makes success more difficult in Iraq-- which they can then use as justification for more loud speeches against the war.

In other words, American soldiers are dying because Democrats are causing the locals in Iraq to fear the future, and consequently to choose to side with the terrorists.  Democrats are causing soldiers to die needlessly, fighting battles that should not be fought, causing alliances to shift against us when they would go our way without the public talk of retreat from the left.

It is not too strong an expression--  the Democrats have the blood of American soldiers on their hands.

Almost forgot...

The bride and I attended the Dallas episode of Sean Hannity's concert series a week or so back.

Generally, a very enjoyable time was had by all.  I learned that it definitely was Newt Gingrich who was standing in front of me in a line at the airport in Islip, N.Y. a couple of years ago. 

You never see people in full body view when they're pundits.  It's the 'talking head' thing.  So when I saw him, I thought he might be Newt but couldn't be sure.

But after seeing Newt on stage, I'm sure that was him.

Newt's nonstump speech is about government inefficiency, and it's funny.  We can't keep track of 12 million illegal aliens, but Fedex can keep track of ten million packages every single day, down to the last package. 

Newt's solution for the lost alien problem was to send them all a Fedex package so Fedex could tell us where they are.  :-)

We also heard from the petite Kay Bailey Hutchison (yawn) and the impressive Mitt Romney, who just OWNS a stage. 

Last, but least, Governor Goodhair graced us with his coiffed presence and received a notably muted round of polite applause.

Music came from the one and only Lee Greenwood, who couldn't have known all those years ago that he was recording what is essentially the modern National Anthem.  That one song has kept him in the spotlight (deservedly so) long past the time most recording stars are forgotten but not gone.  He's a bit wobbly in the vocals department at his age, but he can still produce some magical riffs. 

Needless to say, the crowd was on their feet and singing along with every word of "God bless the USA".  The opening lines of that song still bring tears to my eyes.

"If tomorrow all the things were gone (that) I'd worked for all my life,

and I had to start again with just my children and my wife,

I'd thank my lucky stars to be living here today,

because that flag still stands for freedom, and they can't take that away...."

and of course, the adrenaline shot of patriotism--

"... and I'd gladly stand up next to you and defend her still today,

because there ain't no doubt I love this land....  GBTUSA..."

Fabulous stuff.  Never more meaningful than now, when our best young people are in harms way day after day for exactly this reason-- defending our nation and defending freedom.

This sort of thing inspires disgust and contempt in the hearts (if they have them) of the Left.  It's so yesteryear, so simplistic, so lacking in nuance.  Only dumb people could be inspired by this hokey stuff, they think. 

But I am moved to tears by simple love of my country and appreciation for those who defend me.  In my youth, the Vietnam hangover still had a grip on the country, and volunteering to serve had little appeal.  I do not offer it as an excuse for my failure to serve, only as context for my decision.  The military life was all discipline and teamwork and deferred gratification, and (soft and selfish teenager that I was) there was simply no way I'd go that route.. 

I can only imagine how much better I'd have done in this life if I'd experienced the discipline and teamwork that military service teaches. 

Too late for that.  But the longer I live, the more I respect and appreciate the people who have worn the uniform (and I mean you, Ixman).   And the more Lee Greenwood's anthem means to me.

No other nation has given so much blood and treasure for the good of others.  America is unique and magnificent, and those who do not see it are morally empty, unable to distinguish between good and evil, insisting either that evil does not really exist or that evil is personnified by the United States. 

Or, as I read so often in the news, sometimes they insist on both of the contradictory positions at once. 

But nobody said they were as smart as they think they are.

Another entertainer was the powerful Colin Raye, now a resident of suburban Dallas.  His big hit from 17 years back was "That's My Story and I'm Stickin' To It".  But there is much more to him than lighthearted country fun, and his new song "Soldier's Prayer" is strong stuff.  We bought two copies of his newest album.  :-)

The headliner, hitting the stage after all the speeches and interactions were over, was Montgomery Gentry. 

They were awful.  The music was so loud as to render the lyrics unintelligible, and the performers seemed to think their audience was a bunch of beer-swilling 22 year olds.  They kept trying to get people up dancing, even though the average age of the audience was near 50 and they were firmly planted in their seats.  They also tried the old gambit of singing three lines of the chorus and aiming the mike at the audience for the last line, but it fell flat.  Nobody knew the lyrics and nobody wanted to sing. 

The overall impression was that Montgomery Gentry were full of themselves and a bit foolish.  Sad, unfortunate, and unnecessary.  A little audience research, a little forethought, and this didn't have to happen.

All in all, though, a thoroughly enjoyable evening, highlighted by a live satellite link to Iraq with several soldiers on the other end, proudly speaking to their wives and moms and kids who were in our audience.  Oliver North handled the stage duty while Sean Hannity was out in the seats with a microphone for the family members. 

It's good to gather with like minded folks from time to time, to cheer the team and enjoy the fellowship.  And Newt picked up on this, telling the crowd that our leaders and spokespeople are human beings and need to be cheered by the crowd from time to time, just to keep their spirits up. 

Makes sense to me....  :-)

And unlike a liberal gathering, there was no trash on the floor when we trooped out of the theatre. 

Seems like every war brings a few examples of this kind of story.

Man wearing body armor hit by enemy bullet, but Bible in pocket stops bullet from killing him.

Body armor didn't prevent the bullet from reaching this man.  And if the Bible had not been hit, the bullet would have ricocheted off the inside of the armor and done more damage, probably killing him.

Now he has a new reason to call it the Good Book.

This isn't the first time a Bible has been credited with saving a soldier's life.  And it isn't the only thing... sometimes it's a Zippo lighter, more rarely a metal flask of booze or a metal cigarette case.  The last two are generationally antiquated, but gave us a few good war stories in the 40s and 50s.

But the Bible travels with our soldiers in every war.  Perhaps these young men weren't allowed to read it in high school last year, but fortunately the military has yet to fully implement liberalism.

Here's the sort of thing that should be brought up on mainstream TV news and in the papers--

but it never is.

Remember a week or so ago, when Dean first became a concern and weathermaps were covered with the little lines that represented 'computer models' of where it would hit land?

I do.  One divergent line, blue I believe, meandered northward until it found land just east of New Orleans.  The rest were more or less of the same electronic opinion, that it would go further west and impact somewhere between Corpus Christi and the Mexican border. 

Consequently, the nation flew into hurricane fever.  They wouldn't admit it, of course, but I'm sure the TV news people sent reporters and crews to the Texas coast to be ready to interview suffering victims who blame Bush. 

And of course, Governor Goodhair of the great state of Texas mobilized all sorts of emergency personnel, hundreds of buses were commandeered and evacuation plans were scrutinized for flaws prior to implementation.

Now we know how it all came out.  Hurricane Dean apparently had nothing but contempt for the 'computer models', making them all wrong by anywhere from several hundred miles to well over a thousand. 

Even Brownsville is only now receiving a few mild thunderstorms at the far edge of influence as Dean goes on land hundreds of miles south, in central Mexico.  And Brownsville is the most southward part of the United States outside of the Florida Keys.

The 'computer models' were not just wrong at the far end; they predicted that the eye would pass over Jamaica, and they were off by a hundred miles or more.  That prediction was made only 24 hours beforehand.

Everyone can predict that an Atlantic hurricane will turn north at some point.  Even so, not all of them do.

So I'm left with a question that ought to be asked by everyone in the media, but will most certainly not be.

If computer models can fail so spectacularly over such a short time period, how can so many have such confidence in computer models which purport to tell us what the temperature will be in FIFTY YEARS!?!?!?!

I'm just sayin'.

...now witness the horrible reality.   Heh heh hee ha ha ha.

I mean really, you can't buy headlines like "DWARF PEN1S GETS STUCK IN VACUUM CLEANER".  

:-)

Don't go thinking I'm not compassionate.  I feel his pain.  But in the case of self evident humor, I cannot be held responsible for grinning.

This is one of the funniest 'serious' tv interviews I've ever seen.  The poster wonders whether it's actually serious, but I have NO doubt it is.

HT Real Clear Politics.

Er, um, correction--  today is the 21st, not the 20th.  Had the date wrong, but the temperature was right.  :-)

(where does the time go?)

*******************************

New Yorkers are staggering down 42nd street and tourists are passing out on 5th avenue today, as brutal high temperatures strike fear into the hearts of citizens over the destructive consequences of Global Warming.

Or not.

 New York's current temperature, just after 2pm on the 20th of August, 2007, is---

60 degrees.

And that's an inconvenient truth.

This is the sort of health care that Hillary and friends would impose on the USA.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6951330.stm

It's the story of a rare birth, identical quadruplets, to a Canadian woman who had to come to the United States for care, because in the entire NATION of Canada there were no neonatal intensive care beds available.

In a country of more than 30 million people, with government-provided health care for every citizen, this woman simply could not get the care she needed.  And it wasn't a rare tropical disease or a one in a million genetic defect; she was simply trying to give birth. 

Naturally, in the story itself, there is no comment and no awareness of the irony; in a nation with free health care for every citizen, a pregnant woman had to come to America for health care.

Remember basic economics....  when you put controls on the price of a commodity, you either reduce the supply or reduce the quality, or both.  Price is one side of an equation, and when you forcibly alter the one side, the other side is altered too.  Socialists cannot get past this basic economic problem, as this story graphically illustrates.

I have an inside track to the business of providing benefits to employees, and I know for a fact that many British and European employees of large corporations are incessantly demanding that their company pay for private health care, even though in their own countries health care is 'free'.  They have had their experiences with free health care and want nothing to do with it.   

Here is a classic example of how the news business takes the role of agitator for 'progress', i.e. socialism. 

http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/08/understanding_the_limits_of_he.html

Note that, in order to do this, the story must ignore all sorts of unanswered questions and overlook basic morality, and of course the author happily does both. 

It's an AP story, btw.

On Drudge today a story from ABC news is linked, by one Rick Klein, about John Edwards.

It seems he's called Ann Coulter a "she devil".

Klein describes how Coulter was ambushed on a talk show by a last minute "coincidence", a phone-in from Elizabeth Edwards, taking issue with the Coulter rhetoric.  Coulter had made wisecracks about Edwards' hair, using the term 'faggot', and was chastised for it.  She then said that from now on, she'll just wish he would be killed in a terrorist attack.

Klein's story has no reference to the context of that last remark, a liberal talk show in which the host happily wished that Dick Cheney had been killed in a terrorist attack that took place in Afghanistan during a Cheney visit.

This is what Ann Coulter does.  She mocks people over their own words and deeds.   With her, its always about context, and that leaves her open to be quoted without context and misunderstood.

Remember the Jersey Girls, the group of four women whose husbands were killed in the 9/11 attacks?  They were lifted up by the media, much like Cindy Sheehan was at first, and made into spokespeople who wear a suit of emotional armor preventing them from being attacked.  Anyone who says anything bad about them is automatically evil, and the media scream 'how can you say that about these poor women who lost their husbands!?!?!?!'

Well, Ann Coulter pointed that out in a book, saying she's never seen women enjoying their husbands' deaths so much.

You'd have thought she had dropped F-bombs all over the place.  Oh, the horror, oh, the evil. 

But she was RIGHT.  Those women got RICH and FAMOUS over their husbands' deaths, because they used their husbands' deaths to become untouchable spokespeople for the anti-Bush crowd, as Cindy Sheehan did with her son's death. 

And when the time came to publicly ambush Coulter over her remarks about Edwards, who did they use?  A cancer sufferer, a VICTIM, someone with public compassion on her side......  the WIFE of the candidate.  Coulter was handcuffed, because if she went after Elizabeth, she'd be once again the cruel evil compassionless harpie... 

And remember, when the time comes to write news stories about this stuff, the media in the form of Rick Klein are happy to quote Coulter without context,  to make it seem as if it's Ann who came up with the bit about dying in a terrorist attack, when it was actually Bill Mahre who said it about Cheney. 

Recently there was a liberal columnist in the Los Angeles Times who wrote an article about Obama in which Obama was called "the magic negro", ostensibly because white people finally had a black man they could vote for.  Rush Limbaugh's people created a spoof song out of 'Puff the Magic Dragon' called "Barack the Magic Negro", in which Al Sharpton could be heard singing over his megaphone and lamenting how he himself was NOT the magic negro, even though he was more 'authentic' than Obama.  Funny stuff.  I practically drove off the road laughing the first time I heard it.

But even now, today, many months later, whenever the media reference that song, they present the subject as if it was Rush Limbaugh who invented the phrase, 'the magic negro', and they loudly wonder if that is racist.  They never admit that Limbaugh was simply making jolly fun of a LIBERAL COLUMNIST IN A LIBERAL NEWSPAPER.

And now poor John Edwards has climbed out from behind his wife's skirts and stood up for himself, calling Coulter a 'she devil' during a rant about the right wing media.  I guess the taunting about hiding behind his wife the cancer victim has finally gotten to him, as it should.

But remember how easy it is for the news people to misrepresent things.  They are as responsible for what they leave out as what they put into the news, and they leave out anything that complicates their agenda or leads viewers or readers to see the right in a better light.  Truly, they are now happily and unashamedly the PR firm for the Democrat party.  This story by Rick Klein will be one of a hundred such stories, each of which will firm up, little by little, the idea that Coulter INVENTED the bit about the terrorist attack, just by leaving out the context of that remark.