If this is how the memory of heroes gets treated in the U.S. today, then I wouldn't blame any U.S. soldier if they would stop caring about their own country -- not that any soldier has done so. I reported several months ago that a bunch of ignorant, ingrates in Colorado were trying to stop a memorial to a local hero from being erected where school kids could see the display. And now we have a story where a fallen Marine's grave is desecrated. Of course this report raises the question as to whether we will hear this story on the national news?

In fact, have we heard any story on the national news of our troops being mistreated once home by anyone other than our Veteran's Administration? In any case, it begs the questions; where is people's shame? Where is their patriotism? Where is their common decency? The Houston Chronicle reports that Marine Jeremy Burris' grave was desecrated in Liberty, Texas this week.

Thompson to Des Moines Register, "If a state chose to recognize it (gay marriage) and the Governor signed off and signed it into legislation so be it."

This shows there is no fight in Thompson to affect social conservative issues. Many are mad at his lazy attitude towards these vitally important issues. Arnold almost signed a change to traditional marriage, and did sign a vast gay indoctrination bill. Is this a "so be it" thing for Thompson also? This cavalier attitude does not help get conservatives to the polls.

How To Defeat the Hollywood Unions

by Ron Pisaturo  (October 19, 2007) 

In the looming strikes in Hollywood -- by the Writers Guild of America (WGA) on May 2 and both the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and the American Federation of Television & Radio Artists (AFTRA) on July 1 -- it is assumed that the adversaries are the film and television producers on one side, and the writers and actors on the other. But the real adversaries are: the producers, writers, and actors who want to work together by mutual consent vs. the unions who use physical force to stop them. The conflict is not over money, but over political ideology: political freedom vs. forced obedience to a group.

http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=5040

A rare upbeat story on Iraq ran Monday night on ABC's World News. Anchor Charles Gibson touted “an extraordinary comeback story” about Fallujah, the city of one of the war's bloodiest and longest battles, but now where reporter Miguel Marquez discovered bustling markets, Marines welcomed by kids and no car bombs or shootings of Marines in several months. Gibson effused about how “we have an extraordinary comeback story tonight from the place where the Marines suffered their worst losses of the war. Fallujah is undergoing a remarkable turnaround. Tribal leaders, local officials and the U.S. Marines have united behind a common cause. Bringing security to a place that had been one of Iraq's most insecure.”

Over matching video, Marquez described how “the markets bustle. Traffic chokes the streets. Marines, once despised here, are now a welcome sight.” Viewers saw video of a Marines with kids before Colonel Rich Simcook told Marquez: “This is one of my big measures of effectiveness, where, you know, kids will come up to you, you know, they feel safe to come out and play.” Speaking with a Marine Sergeant, Marquez wondered: “When's the last time you were shot at these days?” The Marine replied: “I'd say, end of March.” Marquez saw a corollary sign things are going well: “The last car bomb in Fallujah was in May.” Though Marquez added some caveats about high unemployment and the lack of weapons for the Iraqi police, he concluded on the bright side: “There are encouraging signs. Schools just opened, and enrollment is at its highest since before the war. Construction, from huge infrastructure projects to fixing sidewalks, is everywhere. Fallujah even sports solar street lights...”

This site is so much fun for us all....and one of my favorite things is the writing here.  By the bloggers....and us!

Like Noel's use of delicious....and a new one of Noel's....which I saw twice this weekend....metaphysical certitude.  Good one, Noel!

Mark added another great one to the NB lexicon today...on his thread about Chrissy's rather gross malapropism regarding Hillary's "Wide Stance" (okay....I didn't water my keyboard, but almost)...infelicitous metaphor.

So, for those of us who are addicted to clever turns of phrase...I am proposing the "Noel Sheppard Awards".

Any time someone posts something particularly clever....or something that just makes you laugh....post it here. 

First of all, I hope everyone here will forgive me for arguing earlier today with our resident Ron Paul advocate. I'm ashamed that I acted like a 5 yr old, but at least I got the info that I was alluding to in our argument. Thanks goes to Evil Capitalist for the info...

"Phone companies make lots of money on SMS. SMS is probably the only profitable at any unit of measurement service wireless phone companies have on their networks. To encourage those interested in sending SMS messages to phone company customers, most of companies offer access to SMS gateways over internet - my program connects to SMS gateway and pumps out messages in a form of 'destination number'->sms message. I pay the phone company a fraction of a cent to access their gateway and whoever receives the message gets billed their per-message rate, typically somewhere between $0.05-$0.25 depending on a plan.

File this one under "Mental Images We Could Do Without."

Discussing her attempt to straddle the Iran issue, Chris Matthews has accused Hillary Clinton of a "wide stance." For some time, the "Hardball" host has been making the point that while Hillary now claims she voted for the 2002 Iraq resolution only for purposes of authorizing more diplomacy, at the time everyone and his uncle knew that it was a war authorization.

For example, interviewing Hillary advisor Howard Wolfson on "Hardball" back in July, Matthews stated: "Anybody who didn't think we were going to war in the months leading up to the war in Iraq wasn't paying attention."

Today, Matthews employed the infelicitous metaphor for purposes of accusing Hillary of pulling a similar stunt on Iran.

View video here.

Two years ago, Time magazine did a story implying China was selling out on dictator Mao Zedong's communist legacy -- with a picture of Mao covered in Louis Vuitton bag logos. So it's a bit strange to turn around to the back cover of the October 29 edition of Time and see an ad that's -- why, it's former Soviet dictator Mikhail Gorbachev selling Louis Vuitton bags. Oh, how the anti-capitalist idealism is dwindling in Time's Man of the Decade!

The ad features a photo of Gorby in a car near the Berlin Wall, fancy bag by his side. The text says:

A journey brings us face to face with ourselves.

Berlin Wall. Returning from a conference.

The bold text is theirs. Underneath comes a note of disclosure: "Mikhail Gorbachev and Louis Vuitton are proud to support Green Cross International."

Both CBS "Evening News" anchor Katie Couric and "Early Show" co-host Harry Smith portrayed Valerie Plame and her husband, Joe Wilson, as innocent victims, even though Plame admitted to being "partisan" in a "60 Minutes" interview with Couric on Sunday.

On Friday’s "Early Show," Smith opened a segment previewing the upcoming interview by explaining that, "Valerie Plame spent nearly 20 years in the shadows of the CIA. Then suddenly, she became a public figure." He later played a clip of the interview in which Couric exclaimed how "18 years of meticulously crafted cover were gone in an instant." Strangely there was no mention of the "Vanity Fair" photo op that Plame and her husband posed for, which Couric asked about in the "60 Minutes" interview:

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day, the old saying goes. It's certainly applicable to liberal talk show host Bill Maher, who got a taste of venom from the far-left 9/11 conspiracy crowd during a recent taping of his "Real Time" program before a live studio audience.

Video (2:55): Real (2.14 MB) and Windows (1.79 MB), plus MP3 audio (1.33 MB).

MRC president and NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell reacted to the development in a segment on the October 22 "Fox & Friends" program. Said Bozell:

The mainstream television media, for the most part, ignored yet another potential Clinton scandal. As NewsBusters’ Richard Newcombe reported, the Los Angeles Times, certainly not a conservative publication, broke the story of the Clinton campaign raising a large sum of money from very poor Chinese immigrants. One third of these immigrants could not even be located and the vast majority of those located were not even registered to vote. Additionally, there is a possibility of coercion among those immigrants.

How did the morning shows cover it? On Monday, October 22, only FNC’s "Fox and Friends" covered the story. The remaining shows, NBC’s "Today," ABC’s "Good Morning America," CBS’s "The Early Show," and CNN’s "American Morning," all covered for Senator Clinton, ignoring the story.

CNN decided to not to break away from its almost non-stop coverage of the California wildfires as President Bush formally awarded a Navy SEAL killed in Afghanistan the Medal of Honor, as its competitors Fox News and MSNBC aired the ceremony at the White House live.

The Medal of Honor went to Lt. Michael Murphy of Patchogue, New York, who died in the line of duty in 2005 during operations against the Taliban in Afghanistan. Murphy received the first Medal of Honor awarded from Operation Enduring Freedom. President Bush made the decision to give Lt. Murphy the nation’s highest military honor on October 11.

http://www.worldnetd...

I heard this on Air America and since it is about a Democrat candidate, it must be true! (non-quote) Their are 5 to 10% of people supporting Hillary that are doing so because they want Bill back in the white house.

You have to wonder sometimes who comes up with the stuff in the news these days when it comes to Hugo Chávez.

The October 21 issue of Parade Magazine dismissed the perception that Venezuela under the leadership of Chávez is all that bad.

“Instead, trade between the two [United States and Venezuela] is soaring, with our exports tripling between 2003 and 2006,” Parade said. “Car sales to Venezuela grew from $9.3 million to $323.9 million, where exports of computers and related accessories rose more than 400% and organic chemicals increased 800%.”

"It’s a children’s show, folks. To think we would be putting sexual innuendo in a children’s show is kind of outlandish." -- spokesman for Itsy Bitsy Entertainment Co., which licenses Teletubby characters in the United States.

Yeah, outlandish. I mean, how could anyone imagine there could be undisclosed gay characters in pop-culture materials for children? That Jerry Falwell, what a Christian conservative crank! We all remember how the MSM rightly unloaded on him when he suggested that the Teletubby Tinky Winky could be a hidden homosexual, because "he is purple, the gay pride color, and his antenna is shaped like a triangle, the gay pride symbol." Not to mention that he carried a purse. What ridiculous speculation!

Nine years have passed since The New Republic came to grips with the fact that it had a serial fabulist on its hands in writer Stephen Glass. Now the liberal magazine is facing more scrutiny for more faulty reporting at the hands of Scott Thomas Beauchamp.

"I couldn't help but be struck by the similarities and differences at The New Republic, then and now," blogger Ed Morrissey wrote after viewing the 2003 film "Shattered Glass," based on the rise and fall of New Republic writer Stephen Glass. What's most damning, Morrissey argues, is that the Beauchamp scandal is much worse in terms of the gravity of the news material that was faked and the disparity in how the TNR editors have responded:

America should export generosity and hope instead of bombs and fear. Host Robin Roberts quoted these sentiments from Archbishop Desmond Tutu and columnist Thomas Friedman to Laura Bush on Monday's "Good Morning America." Roberts was traveling with the First Lady through the United Arab Emirates and other Middle Eastern countries as part of a tour to increase breast cancer awareness in that region. And while the ABC host mostly stuck to discussing the honorable nature of the trip, she couldn't resist a few pointed barbs.

The GMA anchor first cited New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman's suggestion that the U.S. "should export hope instead of fear." Roberts then regurgitated another bumper sticker slogan by mentioning a discussion with Archbishop Desmond Tutu. She recounted, "Desmond Tutu went even farther, saying the generosity of Americans, that's what we should export instead of our bombs." In a follow-up interview with Middle Eastern women who survived breast cancer, Roberts awkwardly asked, "Does it help with Mrs. Bush and the United States coming here?...Or is it seen as, 'Okay, the Americans are, again, trying to force something on us?'"

While everybody on the face of the planet seems most interested in whether or not Nobel Laureate Al Gore is going to run for president in 2008, an article was published by Slate Monday asking questions of the Global Warmingist-in-Chief far more crucial than his future political aspirations.

Though Steven Landsburg is likely not a household name, his article deliciously entitled "Save the Earth in Six Hard Questions: What Al Gore doesn't understand about climate change," should be must-reading for all Americans - including elected officials - that are seriously pondering radical changes to energy and economic policies in order to address the most recent environmental bogeyman.

Unlike most articles on this subject, Landsburg, a PhD-wielding economics professor at the University of Rochester, took a purely pragmatic and arithmetic approach (emphasis added throughout):

An update on an earlier Rush Limbaugh post: On her blog at Salon, Joan Walsh reports that the charge from New York magazine's David Edelstein’s suggestion that Rush Limbaugh had threatened Time’s Richard Corliss in 1995 with an old porn piece in the leftyVillage Voice drew a very hostile e-mailed cry of "BS!" from Corliss. Wrote Walsh:

I saw the post Wednesday night and was about to link to it, but I decided to track down Corliss for comment first. He strenuously denies Edelstein's claim. Here's what he e-mailed:

"The David Edelstein column, as it relates to me, is total [B.S.], unfounded and irresponsible. Rush Limbaugh never called me, ever, and never uttered a hostile word in my direction. He certainly never defamed me, which leaves him one up on Edelstein.