Archive for September, 2007

Kingdom Intro

Posted by: Ion | September 29th, 2007 · 11:30 PM

Here’s the first four minutes or so of the new Michael Mann movie The Kingdom. Now I’m not very fond of the selectivity they exercise drawing a line through history, but I can’t deny this is one of the coolest intros I’ve seen in many, many years. A brilliant exercise in establishing a historical context for a movie. The movie would have to be seriously downhill after this high-tempo intro. You won’t be able to take your eyes off it:

Video Link>>>

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“Newt Is Not Running”

Posted by: Jason | · 9:57 PM

(image: truthdig)

Apparently it’s difficult to raise $30,000,000 in 3 weeks. Yeah… if you’re a lightweight!

In case you haven’t heard (or don’t read Drudge on Saturday nights), Newt Gingrich will not seek the White House. Of course, as I’ve mentioned, this was reported hours ago. However, lets all take a minute to laugh at WHY this is. Ehmm:

Today, the spokesman, Rich Tyler, said Gingrich had just discovered that he could not legally explore a political opportunity like running for president while remaining head of American Solutions, his tax-exempt political organization. So he was giving up the presidential bid. “Newt is not running,” Tyler said.

So it appears this was either all one big hoax to get viewers to Newt’s site this weekend to watch his American Solutions nonsense, or Gingrich couldn’t acquire the necessary funds for a run. No matter. This now relieves Fred Thompson from any potential headaches, where a Gingrich candidacy could have ensured a Giuliani victory in the primary due to splits among conservatives.

We’s happy either way to have officially escaped this potential nightmare within the party : ).

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No Excuses for Iran: Responding to Joshua Foust (Part I)

Posted by: Ion | · 2:21 PM

(photo: Department of Defense)

I noticed two days ago that Joshua Foust wasn’t very pleased with my criticism of his apologia for Iranian actions in Afghanistan. Good. The bad sort of apologist would have considered my remarks highly complimentary, those of merely mislaid judgment would have been gravely offended, as he is.

Unfortunately, despite a justified offense, he doesn’t appear to have relinquished his views and thus our work is not yet done. To recap, Joshua has argued that Iran serves no strategic purposes in aiding the Taliban and that evidence to the contrary found in Afghanistan (Iranian military explosives, etc) is manufactured, or misattributed by NATO to Iran to stimulate “war fever.” This is utterly false and foolhardy as I shall demonstrate herein.

But before I begin dealing with this, I should apologize to Joshua for just now getting round to responding. After reading his lengthy defense on Wednesday, it was clear it would require an equally lengthy response by me and as you can see, it did. That of course had “deal with it over the weekend” written all over it. So here we are. It’ll be a long post, but hopefully a fun one. If nothing else, Joshua’s attempted defense of himself is certainly entertaining.

Now, it begins:

Lee at postpolitical is under the impression that I am Iranian, or that I carry water for that regime, or in some way defend them. I don’t really understand why he would think that, but I also don’t like him spreading patent falsehoods about my beliefs and intentions, so let’s set the record straight, shall we?
(The Conjecturer)

As stated, I’m under impression that Joshua excused Iranian actions. Or I should say Iranian inactions, as he would have it. Not only did he submit that the Iranians were not aiding the Taliban despite evidence to the contrary, he argued that they could not aid them. To accomplish this, he volunteered for them in their absence, a little rationale which serves to completely exculpate them from not just blame, but any possible blame. Said he:

I mean, the Iranians have NO reason to try to destabilize a friendly government in Kabul to benefit a terrorist group they almost went to war with.
(A Secondhand Conjecture)

This is enormously worse than merely saying the evidence is insufficient to draw conclusions and we should err on the side of trusting Iranian intentions (a passive defense), or that failing that, the Iranians had plenty of good reasons for having those weapons in Afghanistan (an active defense). As you can see, Joshua goes far beyond either of these two tacks and counterfactually argues that evidence not only doesn’t exist, but cannot exist, as there is “NO reason,” no motive, for it ever existing to begin with.

I should say that I’m not of the mind that this comprehensive of an apology was his intention, as I shall make clear below. But let’s face it, if you wanted to sit down and deliberately devise a rationale which would totally absolve Iran of any current or future culpability in Afghanistan, no matter what evidence has been or will be uncovered, you would soon end up with something approximating Joshua’s argument.

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Billboards & Bias

Posted by: Ion | September 28th, 2007 · 3:40 PM

It’s one of the Democrats’ many contheories about Clear Channel Communications, that their billboard division is some sort of conservative Republican front group determined to suppress the “truth.” As with most of their grievances, this view is ordinarily accompanied by fate-of-the-republic-hangs-in-the-balance breathless hysterics. Here’s how the leftist Campaign for America’s Future once put it:

Clear Channel has a distinct right-wing political bias….Clear Channel executives are entitled to their own political views, but the company must not be allowed to suppress views that conflict with right-wing ideology on its billboards. Billboards are a public media. Clear Channel owns more of them than any other company. It cannot be allowed to leverage its ownership for partisan political purposes, or to suppress the truth.
(Democratic Talk Radio)

Sure, sure. Seems an odd allegation from my vantage point here in New Mexico, where Clear Channel is pleased as punch to publish Sierra Club billboards denouncing Republican Senator Pete Domenici, but flatly prohibits the use of its boards for anyone wishing to criticize Albuquerque Democratic Mayor Martin Chavez.

Video Report>>>

Don’t expect the hypocrites at the Campaign for America’s Future to get too upset about this anytime soon.

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Thompson’s Cool Head on Fundraising

Posted by: Ion | · 2:20 PM

(photo: Fred Thompson)

Fred Thompson doesn’t care much about his late-entry fundraising disadvantage. As he amusingly puts it, it’s just a generous savings to supporters:

Thompson doesn’t think much of the conventional wisdom. “Conventional wisdom was, you had to raise $100 million this calendar year,” he said to reporters in Franklin Thursday, between fundraisers. “I was halfway into the year and I’d hardly raised any, so I figure I saved my supporters $50 million already.”
(Tennessean)

It’s hard to disagree that much really, given that his rivals have spent much of the money raised and have almost nothing to show for it:

In the first six months of this year, his fellow Republicans had raised and spent millions. Mitt Romney raised more than $44 million and spent $32 million; Rudy Giuliani raised $32 million and spent $17 million. Meanwhile John McCain’s campaign was under scrutiny because the candidate had managed to raise only $24 million, $21 million of which he has already spent.
(Tennessean)

However, the comparative Democratic advantage remains truly staggering:

On the Democratic side, Barack Obama raised $59 million and spent $22 million and Hillary Rodham Clinton raised $63 million and spent $17 million.
(Tennessean)

Historically speaking it’s a little unusual for Democratic presidential candidates to command such a direct hard money price advantage. But it probably doesn’t mean that much in the final analysis. I don’t mean to minimize the Democrats commendable achievement in this area, but one of the many myths of the Democratic self-assessment is that they are an underdog party in a perpetual fundraising disadvantage to their adversaries, “the party of the rich.” That’s almost never been true.

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The Party’s Long Over Larry

Posted by: Ion | · 1:58 PM

Larry Craig is becoming that annoying guy who can’t take a heavy hint that the party’s over. You’ve turned off the lights, pointed out how late it is ten or fifteen times, locked up the beer, shut off the stereo…and yet he just won’t get off your couch and call it a night:

Idaho Republican Larry Craig has decided he wants to be a U.S. senator a little longer.

Craig’s lawyers asked a Minnesota judge Wednesday to let the three-term senator withdraw his guilty plea in a sex sting at a Minneapolis airport restroom. Afterward, Craig issued a statement saying he will stay in office “for now.”

People close to Craig said that means until the judge rules.
(FNC)

Gag. Everyone in the United States thinks you’re a perverse, lying creep, Larry. There’s no vindicated victory here. There’s only exits of varying degrees of grace and wisdom.

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Top Tier Republicans, Scheduling Problems, and the “Black Debate”

Posted by: Jason | · 8:53 AM

(image: colorado college)

I must admit, last night, when watching the debate on PBS hosted by Tavis Smiley and Morgan State University, that I was a little disappointed in the top tier no-show Republican candidates. No… no… Not because I believed the forum to be important, but for a missed golden opportunity to take a conservative message into a traditionally non-conservative base.

Let’s be frank however, before I get into why I’m upset today. It was a very uncomfortable moment, the beginning of that debate. These folks were dreadfully upset that they couldn’t give a real voice to Republicanism last night (cough cough… bullshit), and there was a real sense of sadness in the room (cough cough… more hatred). But then… suddenly… all sympathy turned to laughter on my part after the first debate question. A black woman asked, “most know the first Republican president was Abraham Lincoln, yet, most black folks cannot name a single Republican president since Lincoln’s death that has made a lasting mark on the black community”.

Ehmm. All I can say is thank God for Tom Tancredo, who reminded us all of Dwight Eisenhower’s roll in desegregation and the majority Republican congress who passed the Civil Rights Act. And in his defense, Alan Keyes set the story straight on that, and many other questions (I especially liked his tirade against “liberal blacks”). But it’s exactly this type of nonsensical, racist thinking, which spews from the political black community which I applaud the top tier candidates for thumbing their nose at. Duncan Hunter gave the simplest answer to that question, which shines a light on what is wrong with debates on “minority issues” all together. He talked about his desire to help ALL people with his policies, and that the achievements of men such as Ronald Reagan in making this world a peaceful place benefited black Americans and white Americans alike. Amen to that!

But the true reason, as I’ve said above, that I regret candidates Giuliani, Thompson, Romney, and McCain, was the inability for a top tier candidate to speak directly to political black America and tell them one simple message: “DEBATES ON RACE ARE RACIST IN NATURE!!!”.

Maybe I’m clueless here. After all… we’re talking Romney, Giuliani, and McCain, and no such bold conservative plea for an end to racial politics would have been uttered. Thompson? Maybe… But one thing’s for sure, Republicans oughta defend WHY they skipped such a debate, and go after the true culprits in the arena of race-baiting hate politics: The greater political black community who casually ignores the fact that a debate on THEIR PEOPLE alone is a concept that is segregationist, paranoid, and racist.

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Cossiga’s Stand Against Iran and Columbia

Posted by: Ion | · 8:51 AM

Former Italian president Francesco Cossiga, has returned his honorary doctorate to Columbia University, in explicit protest against their hosting Iranian despot and psychopath Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s lecture.

Signing his letter “without respect” he writes that he has burned his toga and denounces the invitation in appropriately condemnatory terms:

Senator Cossiga wrote that he was indignant organizing the lecture of the Iranian leader by the chancellor of UC , whose he called “a threatening neonazi and a Islamic terrorist.”
(Ace of Spades via Baldilocks)

A great effort, to be sure. Yet how many Columbia grads do we have in our own government who’ve said and done nothing? Quite a few.

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