Also2

Iran is still blazing, not that you'd know it from the MSM.

Also

The President has injected himself into individual policing decisions (for an exceedingly fair look at this, see Bill Cosby).

Ugh

Obama has officially shoved himself in where nobody wanted him: individual medical decisions.
At one meeting, he told a woman that her mother (who had received a pacemaker at 99 years old), would perhaps be told that she was better off taking a painkiller than having a pacemaker under his health care plan. The American Academy of Otolaryntology has objected to Obama 's characterization of its doctors:

President Obama said, “Part of what we want to do is to make sure that those decisions are being made by doctors and medical experts based on evidence, based on what works…. Right now, doctors a lot of times are forced to make decisions based on the fee payment schedule that's out there. … the doctor may look at the reimbursement system and say to himself, 'You know what? I make a lot more money if I take this kid's tonsils out … I'd rather have that doctor making those decisions based on whether you really need your kid's tonsils out, or whether … something else would make a difference…."

Please. No doctor is "forced" to make a decision like that. Any doctor that makes a decision based on the process you just described should be sued for malpractice. Obama thinks his legislation will change good doctors into "hope and change!" doctors. And that's what they will be-- doctors who offer the hope that their patients' conditions will change, because the care that they'll be able to give will be rationed. By government bureaucrats. Who know nothing about medicine, as the President exemplifies. Lovely.

Also notice the continuation of the "greedy evil" meme. Doctors? Greedy evil people who perform unnecessary procedures to make an extra buck off their patients' suffering. Private sector employees? Evil greedy people who could be "making a difference" if they were doing community organizing or some such thing, but chose instead to go for the money (side note: have you noticed that the democrats' student loan forgiveness program will forgive your student loans after 10 years, but ONLY if you become a public employee?). Investors and their lawyers who put money into American companies and then insisted that their contracts and the law be honored? Greedy evil (although the unions who insisted on contract abrogation to give themselves a larger slice of the pie than the law gave them are honored, noble folk). Tax-evading cabinet members? Gre... oh, wait!

It must needs be

that you watch this:


and read this and this.

In other news...

Mark Sanford is the scum of the earth. "Yes, I'm going to try to save my marriage. Yes, I made a mistake. With a few women. Did I mention that the Argentine woman is my soul mate?"

Jerk. His poor wife, heaven bless her for standing up to him. He needs to hie him hence. Perhaps to Argentina (on his own dime this time). He can spend the rest of political oblivion there, and stop disgusting the rest of us.

Narratives

Sane people hate to sound like conspiracy theorists.

Really, we do.

Nevertheless... Check out CNN's homepage. Heck, see if you can find screen shots for the past couple days. Iran, front and center? Honduras, maybe? Uh, no. Michael Jackson (not one, nor twice, but thrice above the fold today). Also, "Disco tune saves man's life", "Biden visits Iraq for Fourth of July weekend", "Kids with autism graduate, achieve dreams"... oh wait. There is one on Iran, buried in the 21 articles under "Latest News". "Latest News", by the way, includes all the articles listed above (except the MJ ones. One of those is "Latest", one is "Breaking", and one is "Most Popular". Sounds kinda like your high school yearbook, doesn't it). In fact, the autism article is apparently not only breaking, but more important than the Iran article-- it's the first listed. The Iranian headline reads "Attacks, arrests slowing online news from Iran". It could just as easily read, "Utter lack of attention from American media dampens revolutionaries".

And as far as Honduras goes, not a single article above the fold on my 24-inch monitor. Meanwhile, Obama throws his support behind the leftist power-grabbing law-breaking thug that was the president of Honduras, while a gazillion people protest in favor of the new president. Apparently it's okay to meddle in this one. And to throw our support behind Hugo Chavez, the Castro brothers, and Daniel Ortega. Lovely. Doesn't that look like the lefty hall of fame? Obama, Chavez, Castro, and Ortega. Maybe we could call them COCO for short? OCCO? Such nice abbreviatory possibilities.

The U.S. foreign policy is an abomination. And the media is growing more complicit every day (that's the conspiracy theory part). Every White House tries to control the narrative, but they've never had a press corp so bent on helping them (maybe their tingly legs have something to do with it). Even Helen Thomas called the administration/media collusion out. I'm not a fan of Thomas', but dang, this is impressive (h/t Instapundit):

Gibbs: “Which question did you object to at the town hall meeting, Helen?”

Thomas: “It's a pattern. It isn't the question—”

Gibbs: “What's a pattern?”

Thomas: “It's a pattern of controlling the press.”

Gibbs: “How so? Is there any evidence currently going on that I'm controlling the press--poorly, I might add.”

Thomas: “Your formal engagements are pre-packaged.”

Gibbs: “How so?”

Reid: “Well, and controlling the public—”

Thomas: “How so? By calling reporters the night before to tell them they're going to be called on. That is shocking.”

Gibbs: “We had this discussion ad nauseam and—”

Thomas: “Of course you would, because you don't have any answers.”

Go read the whole transcript. It's fatalistic schadenfreude-- schadenfreude because FINALLY someone is "speaking truth to power". Fatalistic because you know it will make no difference at all.

No!

Iran massacred the protesters today.

http://threatswatch.org/rapidrecon/2009/06/unimaginable-horror-in-tehran/

Don't scroll all the way down without knowing that the last picture is horrific.

?!?!

Who on earth (except the mullahs) thinks that THIS is still a good idea?? Or that it ever was?!

From a State Department briefing yesterday:

QUESTION: This isn’t a frivolous question, really. Do you think it’s still appropriate to have Iranians come to these July 4th parties under the circumstances? I mean, is there any thought being given to like, rescinding invitations?

MR. KELLY: No, there’s no thought to rescinding the invitations to Iranian diplomats.

QUESTION: It’s appropriate to have a social dialogue with them if they come?

MR. KELLY: Well, we have made a strategic decision to engage on a number of fronts with Iran, and we tried many years of isolation and we’re pursuing a different path now.

QUESTION: Have they said yes?

QUESTION: The President keeps saying that —

MR. KELLY: I don’t know, Arshad.

Absolutely disgusting. We're having Iranian officials for a barbecue on INDEPENDENCE DAY, while they're murdering their own people who are asking for... independence. This administration is pathetic. Let's list, shall we?

This is the State Department that:
Told China that its brutality towards its own people was of less concern that global warming.

Gave Russia a "reset" button (mistranslated, by the way) for relations-- as at least three administration-critical journalists' murders were being investigated.

Pledged millions of dollars in aid to Palestinians (and indirectly to Hamas) and regularly shafts Israel.

Turned their backs on Eastern Europe, leaving them at the mercy of a newly-imperial Russia/USSR.

There are other things. I just don't feel like throwing up this early in the morning.

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

What do you think?

This is another video from JibJab-- their political videos are fantastic, but I can't quite decide if I like this one or not-- although the part with the rainbows and bunnies in Iraq is pretty darn good. What do you guys think?

UPDATE: I couldn't get the video to embed in this post, so it's in the next one up

And by the way

If you're wondering about the time stamps on recent posts, they're set to Tehran time (GMT +3:30). Make a million extra virtual Iranians and you make it that much harder for the regime to find the ones who really matter.

Oh no

"Official" reports are saying 19 are dead in Tehran after today's protests. The protesters are saying that it's more like 150. You'd have to be crazy or grossly uninformed to believe anything with the word "official" on it coming out of Iran.

Ahmadinejad, Khameini, and the whole crew: COWARDS. Despicable cowards.

God bless the men and women who stood against them. God bless the families of the dead.

***

People are now saying that this "discredits" the Iranian government. Yet according to CNN, Iranian officials are still invited to the G8 meeting. All Obama has brought himself to say is a brief statement that includes the sentence, "Iran must understand that the world is watching."

As we used to say in elementary school, "No duh". Obama must understand that while he cares that the whole world is watching, Ahmadinejad and Khameini don't, nor have they for years. Come to think of it, China didn't seem to care that the world was watching when they sent tanks against unarmed students. I wonder if anyone said that Chinese communism was "discredited". If they did, it didn't seem to take.

It makes you wonder if we're cowards too. Sure, a different, much more benign variety. But still-- cowards. We deal with governments like China for money. We give reset buttons to Russia. Our president still hasn't amended his "no preconditions" statement on Iran. Two American journalists have been sentenced to a decade of hard labor in North Korea, which, by the way, has tested two nuclear bombs and has a missile aimed at Hawaii set to launch on Independence Day. And all we can do is wag our collective finger.

May it be that the "election" in Iran was as the falling of small stones on a mountainside that start an avalanche. May the Iranians wake up and realize that they are strong.* As are the Chinese, and the North Koreans, and the Burmese, and the Cubans, and the Venzuelans, and the Belarusians, and the Vietnamese... may all those who live without freedom in this world.

*With all due respect to Tolkien

Wow

Read this article from the London Times. Fantastic. For years we've been hearing how we can't "impose" democracy on people.

Turns out it wouldn't be an imposition.

Look at the hundreds of thousands of people pouring into the streets in Iran. It's one of the most beautiful and heartbreaking things I've seen since I started following politics. All these people want is the freedom to choose their own leaders. Keeping that from them is an "imposition". If, by imposition, you mean an abominable atrocity.

H/T Gay Patriot

Go green!

Not Greenpeace green.

This Green:
This photo seems to me to be a perfect summing up of what I hope turns out to be a revolution: a woman in black and green-- armed with a cell phone.

Michael Totten over at Contentions has been consta-blogging the Iranian protests. Head on over for the news.

Eowyn is back!

Well then. My son has arrived, and I'm getting significantly less sleep, but I no longer feel like a demotivated beached whale, and regular blogging will re-(re-re-re-)commence.

First up today: This, from Instapundit. Apparently Ed Whelan over at The Corner took it upon himself to "out" an anonymous liberal blogger who had been annoying him. And, as much as I've enjoyed Whelan's posts and respected his opinion, I've gotta say that that's pretty low. Yes, lots of trolls are anonymous. Anonymity is one of the great banes of the internet. Whelan should try being a woman who plays Team Fortress 2-- idiots who use their anonymity to ask for nudes, descriptions of my anatomy, etc. are far more annoying than a snarky liberal.

But anonymity is also one of the great gifts of the internet. There's a reason I don't use my name-- namely that I have a family. Should a miracle occur and I write something that gains attention, I don't want my kids brought into it in any way, be it miniature trolls in school or fatwas from some offended jihadi. Anyway, the point is that people often have a good reason for their anonymity, and one had better have a darn good reason for blowing someone else's cover. Whelan didn't have a good reason.

Moving on: Presumably everyone has seen this graph by now (via Gateway Pundit):


Is anybody taking bets on someone in the MSM taking one for the team and admitting that the stimulus bill has failed?

Yeah, me neither. We've exceeded the administration's unemployment numbers they were projecting without the stimulus. In fact, according to Obama's projections, unemployment wasn't supposed to peak (at levels below today's) until 2010. We've shot past his predictions-- a year early.

Fun.

More Tea Party pics are coming soon...

but I had to put this up first:

This is the entire lead page off CNN this morning at 9:20. You have to scroll clear down to their "iReport" section (which is one page down from the top, even on my gigantic monitor) to find something involving the Tea Party protests yesterday, and when you finally get something, what is it? A video of an average-looking man saying that he and his wife just want to pay their taxes to "fund the military and build bridges", that he doesn't "know what they're upset about" and that the Tea Parties are "frightening".

Absolutely unbelievable. The media as we knew it no longer exists.

Seattle Tea Party Protest, Part I

The Tea Party protests started in Seattle, with a protest set up by a blogger named Liberty Belle in February. A month and a half later, this happened (sorry about the image size, click on it for full):


I'd guess there were 300-400 people there, and I left less than half-way through (late-term pregnancy and protesting are not the best match known to man).

Best signs (part I):


(Liberty and Tyranny is a new book out by Mark Levin. It's a conservative manifesto of sorts-- and has been number 1 on Amazon and the New York Times since its release.)

Eowyn is attending a Tax Day Protest

Tea Party
Seattle
5:45- 7:45

I'll be the massively pregnant one with a sign and a rockin' awesome camera. I'll update this post with pics as the day goes.

I'm a little nervous-- I've never been to anything like this. I promise not to riot (not that I think there's going to be one, but I keep remembering the Seattle WTO riot in the 90's... maybe all that caffeine goes to people's heads?). Pajamas Media and Instapundit have Tea Party links, and are well worth looking at.

UPDATE: Way too many good pics to add to this post. They're in later posts, so scroll up.

Cri de Coeur

I imagine you're probably wondering why I haven't posted in so long (it's not the migraines-- see earlier post).

The answer: too depressing.

Democrats have been in total (legislative and executive) power for two and a half months. And I figured it would be bad, I did. Truly, I wasn't one of those conservatives or moderates who thought that Obama was lying during his campaign, when he wanted to "spread the wealth", or when he took slam after slam at the rich (of which he is one), or when he ran from "victim" to "victim", reassuring them all that he was going to save their homes/paycheck/entitlements/self-respect. Oh, no. I believed him. I did. Which is why I voted for McCain, in spite of my misgivings (which I had. Palin reinvigorated me for a time, as she did many conservatives, but the effect turned out to be only palliative, not curative). Even John Derbyshire, in spite of vowing not to, voted for McCain, knowing how bad the alternative could be. Conservatives knew that an Obama administration could be damaging to the country.

But I don't think any of us knew how across-the-board horrifying it would be. Certainly I didn't. I'll take it in sections.

FOREIGN POLICY:
Obama promised "smart diplomacy". He promised to "rebuild our relationships" with other countries. He promised engagement and strength at the same time.

Instead, we have kissed Iran's butt, and then had it handed back to us on a platter for a second round, and a third with the March Video to the Mullahs. Meanwhile, while all this engaging was happening, an Iranian blogger died in prison. He was 29. His crimes were insulting religious leaders and producing anti-Iranian propaganda.

We've also been sucking up to China. Our vaunted SecState, Hillary Clinton recently told the Chinese that not only was the economy (and, by extension, all of our debt that the Chinese hold) more important than Chinese human rights, but that the "environment crisis" was too. "Sorry Tibet! Your yaks produce methane, you know. Sorry, members of Falun Gong whose organs are harvested before you're dead! Your philosophy doesn't produce anything "sustainable" or "green", so no support for you. Sorry, Taiwan! You're a stable democracy staring into the maw of hell (and producing goods that Americans routinely buy), but the Chinese premier holds some of our IOU's, you know. So sorry, all! I've got to board my helicopter now. Pilot, shake off those people clinging to the runners." Oh, and as a bonus rubbing in of salt, she said it from the comfort of Seoul, South Korea.

In between these disasters, we have also managed to screw over the most loyal supporters we had in Europe (the Czechs, Poles, Romanians, Ukrainians, Georgians... you know, all those people who have only just escaped the Iron Curtain) by blithely abandoning promises we made in exchange for Russia's support in our Iranian policy. The Russians said thanks, but no thanks, but guess what? We haven't apologized to our friends, we haven't redressed the damage we did, and we're still not putting missiles there for defense. We're just rolling over, playing poodle to Russia's wolf.

We have insulted Britain three times at last count: we sent Winston Churchill away without even a passing glance, we failed to treat Gordon Brown and his family with any measure of respect, let alone pomp and circumstance, and the treasury department can't even return its calls from a fellow member of the G7.

Oh, and we're sending 900 million American taxpayer dollars to Gaza. At the same time that we agreed to attend preparations for Durban II, the UN anti-Israel hate fest (which we later backed out of, but only after rejecting Israeli and Canadian requests to not attend). The American taxpayer is now not only funding AIG, GM, and trillions of dollars worth of other companies, but now we're funding Palestinians, who voted in a terrorist organization which is sure to get its hands on any money we send.

DOMESTIC POLICY:

Where do I even start? With the "stimulus"? TARP II? The omnibus? Obama's mortgage plan, enacted almost entirely by executive order with no legislative vote or debate whatsoever? GM? The fact that I am now on the hook for GM buyers' warranties? Or that Obama fired GM's CEO? Perhaps I should start with the cabinet full of tax cheats? Or the fact that the administration names critics (private citizens) and singles them out for attack? Or the rumors that the administration is considering wage controls for ALL banks, ALL insurance companies, and perhaps all PUBLICLY TRADED COMPANIES?

Or I could start with the administration floating the idea of making Iraq and Afghanistan veterans pay for treatment of wounds they received in the course of duty. Or that Obama seems unable to bring himself to cut spending in any major area (except defense, of course). Or that he routinely apologizes for the U.S. in every statement he makes to foreigners.

Business

Regular blogging will now recommence.

No, I haven't had my second son yet. I've discovered that a can of Mountain Dew (or the generic equivalent) in the morning usually keeps the migraines at bay, so I should be able to post most of the time. There are still a couple nasty days every few weeks, but I can deal with that.

On with the show!

Fear Her*

M. Sara Rosenthal is a "bioethicist" at the University of Kentucky's College of Medicine. She spoke to CNN concerning the woman in California who just gave birth to octuplets. Behold:

Rosenthal, on the other hand, questions the woman's capacity to make a good decision under the circumstances. Some neonatologists believe that when pregnant women are told about dangers of prematurity or have great expectations about giving birth, their judgment can be impaired, she said.

The situation raises the issue of whether a doctor ought to override a patient's wishes for the sake of saving lives, she said. Although the health care system in America gives patients autonomy in making decisions about their own bodies, when emotionally distraught, some people decide poorly, she said.

A mother deciding not to kill any of her children is "decid[ing] poorly"? A bioethicist is even considering whether a doctor should override the wishes of the patient if they think that their patient is making the wrong decision? What would she do, arrest people and perform forced abortions a la China?

This is disgusting. It should terrify any woman looking to get pregnant, or indeed, who is pregnant and believes that motherhood doesn't start in the delivery room. As alarmist and crazy as it sounds, there are bioethicists who question your right to not have an abortion.

It's only more frightening when you realize that this woman is a teacher.

*Bonus points to any sci-fi fan (or Briton, for that matter) who gets the post title reference.

Doomed, doomed

to quote John Derbyshire. I saw this article, by Amir Taheri, yesterday while catching up on the news. Opener:

In his "first message to the Muslim world" Tuesday, President Obama on Al-Arabiya TV invited the Is lamic Republic in Iran to "unclench its fist" and accept his offer of "unconditional talks." A few hours later, after Obama had appeared on the Saudi-owned satellite-TV channel, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told a crowd of militants that no talks are possible unless the United States met a set of conditions.

Ahmadinejad: You aren't going to set conditions?
Pres. Obama: That's right.
Ahmadinejad: Oh, that's great. We will.

Ahmadinejad's requests are only modest, of course. They include an apology for U.S. "crimes", and not only those against Iran, but the entire Muslim world-- apparently the whole religion elected Mahmoud, not just Iran. He also demands that U.S. troops leave not just Iraq, not just Afghanistan, but every foreign base.

Give a donkey a carrot and he'll take the entire farm.

American Invertebrates

First off, where on earth have I been? I have been fighting the Black Breath-- in this case, pregnancy-induced migraines. Sorry for the lack of posting recently. I get visual migraines, which leave me functionally blind for a while. Which makes blogging hard.

Anyway, I finally got enough vision back to start reading the news yesterday. I have never seen Instapundit so torqued as he seems to be over the "stimulus" bill-- he's calling it the looting bill. Click through the links you'll find over there, and (as I did), you'll find out why. Will someone (other than Nancy Pelosi, please) explain how $335 MILLION in teenager STD prevention will create jobs, or stimulate the economy? Or any of the other liberal monstrosities that are tucked away in there? See Ron Brownstein:

"[T]he bill also emphatically expands programs targeted more at the far term than the near term — from aid to schools in low-income areas ($13 billion) to expanded college loans ($16 billion) and scientific research ($10 billion). In normal times, Congress might never enlarge so many programs at once. But, as with Reagan's tax cut, the crisis-induced demand for action may suspend the normal laws of political gravity — and allow Democrats to redirect federal priorities as boldly as Reagan did. "This is a once-in-a-25-year opportunity to [implement] a lot of our agenda," a top House Democratic aide says."

This is no stimulus bill. This is a liberal reworking of society. There's even wording in there with the capability to undo the welfare reform of the 90's, according to Charles Hurt. Support for the bill is falling rapidly, but (surprise!) the Democrats that we elected simply do not care.

As they are fond of saying over at National Review's Corner, elections have consequences. As a people, we elected Barack Obama. We put in a nearly filibuster-proof Dem majority with only a few conservatives and weak-kneed "compassionate conservatives" to oppose them. We did this. I remember the incredulous tone over at The Corner a couple of days before the election-- "Are we really going to do this? Elect the most liberal, inexperienced member of the Senate to the office of the President?" Well, yeah. We did. Or rather, as a people, we became so complacently ignorant that we let Hollywood and the main-stream media do it for us. We let ourselves be railroaded. This is what happens when America loses its collective spine. This is what happens when we lose any sense of self-reliance, let alone fair play.

This is what happens when we decide to let the liberal, nobody-should-have-to-lose playground mentality of the left take over.

This is what happens when we decide to let the government take care of us.

Unalienable rights

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."

I've seen two or three posts on the Corner over the past couple days, regarding the question, "When should Israel stop?" When should Israel stop its bombarding of Gaza, the ground troop incursion it recently began, etc.? And there were a few answers: Victor Davis Hanson, who originally posed the question, said, "When they think there is a good chance the rockets will stop — and not until then." Responding to Hanson, Andrew Stuttaford said that there were no easy answers, but that, from the U.S. point of view, it would be a mistake to ignore the propaganda Israel is giving terrorist recruiters in the form of dead Gaza civilians.

Here is a good place to point out of that I have great respect for both Hanson and Stuttaford, and that I agree with them on most things. But here, they are wrong. Very wrong.

When should Israel stop? She should stop when her children are safe. She should stop, not when there's a good chance of the rockets stopping, but when they have stopped, and Hamas offers complete and unconditional surrender. She should stop when she has secured the rights of her citizens. Americans hold that ALL people are given the right to life-- but how secure is that right when you're a civilian and cowards are dropping bombs in your (civilian) city? How secure is your right to liberty when you're terrified to leave your bomb shelter? And how happy can you be when your children are under constant, deadly threat?

The people of this world who think they are enlightened like to portray the Palestinians as victims. And maybe, in the beginning, they were. I don't know, and can't speak to that. But Israel and Israelis have been in existence as long as three of your average suicide bombers. If every country in the world dealt with every historical grievance as they seem to condone Palestinians doing, the world would be in constant, never-ending war. If any other country tried it, the "elites" would be quick to point out the idiocy. But Israel, according to the "elites", may not defend herself. She may not defend her children. She may only accede to the demands and whims of the barbarians across the way.

Palestinians as a whole are not victims. They have the right to life-- and they blow it away in order to strip that right from others. They have the right to liberty-- and they exercised it by electing terrorists and launching rockets. They have the right to happiness-- and every time they failed to condemn a suicide bombing, a rocket launch, or incitement to another Holocaust, they forfeited that right by terrorizing others, including the innocent of their own people, whom they use as living shields with one hand and dead propaganda with the other.

Propaganda value is not more important than doing what is right. International opinion is not as important as drawing a line in Israeli sand and saying that barbarism has come thus far, but no farther. If Israel can stand up for herself, she has a golden opportunity to show terrorists that civilized people are not something to be trampled over on the way to the caliphate. If Israel can win first and then show mercy, she can show the Muslim world another light-- not one that requires murder, mayhem, and conversion or death, but one that allows all peaceful people to live. Without barbarians like Hamas.

There is an easy answer-- just not one that most people like to hear. It is to do what our grandfathers would have done, and did do: defeat evil, and defend their children.