Unclemeat Moving

I am moving the old Blog over to Wordpress as of today. Please come by for a look see when you can.

New Link is here...

Congressional Morons Vote For Oil Dependency

House Votes to Keep Offshore Drilling Ban

The House rejected an attempt late Thursday to end a quarter-century ban on oil and natural gas drilling in 85 percent of the country's coastal waters despite arguments that the new supplies are needed to lower energy costs.

Lawmakers from Florida and California led the fight to maintain the long-standing drilling moratorium, contending that energy development as close as three miles from shore would jeopardize multibillion-dollar tourism industries.

"It's a grievous assault on Florida and other (coastal) states," declared Rep. Adam Putnam, R-Fla., of attempts to end the drilling prohibitions that Congress first imposed in 1981 and has reaffirmed every year since.

The moratorium bars oil and gas development in virtually all coastal waters outside the western Gulf of Mexico, where most of the country's offshore oil and gas wells are concentrated. More @ AP

Meanwhile in Havana:
Cuba Plans Offshore Wells Banned in U.S. Waters -
NYT

Maybe these dummies would rather buy oil from Fidel.

Female Captain Latest Casualty

Proud to lead 'her guys'
In the middle of the night, lurching across the Afghan desert, it was her voice on the radio that served as an audible beacon, so calming, assured and assuring.

Mellifluous, almost like the intimate tones of a midnight DJ, except that Capt. Nichola Goddard was relaying streams of data about what was happening out there, in the dark: An unidentified car approaching from the left, somebody crossing a wadi by foot to the right, Apache helicopters circling overhead.

She wasn't the only commander contributing to radio chatter as this long military column zigged and zagged over hostile terrain — penetrating deep into Taliban territory — but her voice was the most distinctive, the most soothing, to troops huddled in their Bisons and LAVs, including those in vehicles that had gone astray and had to be lassoed back. - More @ Toronto Star

Prayers to the family of this Canadian hero.

Soldier's husband will miss his 'best friend' - Sun News

Clinton Program Bites Bush

Dialing and the Democrats - New York Sun

No sooner had the man who ran the National Security Agency for years been nominated to head the CIA than USA Today rushed out details of our efforts to use technical means to find terrorists using the phones. And no sooner had USA Today disclosed details of an apparent attempt by the National Security Agency to defend Americans from terrorists than the Democratic Party and its leading politicians and interest groups went on the attack. Not against the terrorists but against President Bush. "This is another example of the Bush Administration misleading the American people," said a spokeswoman for the Democratic National Committee, Stacie Paxton.

[...]

It was President Clinton who signed into law the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act of 1994, after it was passed in both the House and Senate by a voice vote.

[...]

The law that President Clinton signed into law and that was approved by voice votes in 1994 by a Democrat-majority House and a Democrat-majority Senate not only made clear the phone companies' "duty" to cooperate, it authorized $500 million in taxpayer funds to reimburse the phone companies for equipment "enabling the government, pursuant to a court order or other lawful authorization, to access call-identifying information that is reasonably available to the carrier."

Bet you won't hear that on CNN.

News To Good For The MSM

All Things Coservative has the numbers that are too positive for the MSM to bother with. Via Michael Barone

Liberal Final Solution

Roe attorney: Use abortion to 'eliminate poor'
In unearthed letter urged President-elect Clinton to 'reform' country

A letter to Bill Clinton written by the co-counsel who successfully argued the Roe v. Wade decision urged the then-president-elect to "eliminate the barely educated, unhealthy and poor segment of our country" by liberalizing abortion laws.

[...]

He said the new leader can "start immediately to eliminate the barely educated, unhealthy and poor segment of our country."

[...]

Weddington then argued that with 30 million abortions up to that point since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973, America is a much better place.

More @ WND

Penn & Teller On 9/11 Conspiracy Theories

Damien Penny has the video here...

Frum On Difficult Choices

It's not easy to be an enlightened liberal internationalist these days.

An enlightened liberal internationalist wants to send troops to the Sudanese region of Darfur to protect a majority Muslim population against murderous Islamic extremist militias.

On the other hand, he or she must oppose keeping troops in Iraq to protect a majority Muslim population against murderous Islamic extremist militias.

The enlightened liberal internationalist wants to use U.S. airpower to stop Osama bin Laden's allies in Khartoum from committing terrorist atrocities.

On the other hand, he or she must condemn the use of U.S. airpower to stop Osama bin Laden's allies in Iraq from committing terrorist atrocities.

NDP Leader Jack Layton summed up the two required points of view superbly in a pair of speeches he delivered last week. At a rally at Queen's Park in Toronto on April 30, timed to coincide with rallies in Washington, D.C. and across North America, Mr. Layton joined in a "scream" for Darfur. He declared: "Sometimes, there's a little too much thumb-twiddling." In a debate in the House of Commons the next day, he argued that it was immoral to stand by and do nothing as innocents are murdered.

On May 5, U.S. war protestor Cindy Sheehan passed through Ottawa--and afterward, Mr. Layton urged the Harper government to accede to Ms. Sheehan's request that Canada accept U.S. military deserters as refugees: "We should be looking at it. These young people are courageous individuals. They've made a decision of conscience."

But what if the U.S. deserter were running away from an assignment to Darfur? Would that be a "decision of conscience"? Or would that be standing by as innocents are murdered? More @ AEI


He Didn't Mention Iran But...

The Moral Lesson of Hiroshima - J. David Lewis
On August 6, 1945 the American Air Force incinerated Hiroshima, Japan with an atomic bomb. On August 9 Nagasaki was obliterated. The fireballs killed some 175,000 people. They followed months of horror, when American airplanes firebombed civilians and reduced cities to rubble. Facing extermination, the Japanese surrendered unconditionally. The invasion of Japan was cancelled, and countless American lives were saved. The Japanese accepted military occupation, embraced a constitutional government, and renounced war permanently. The effects were so beneficent, so wide-ranging and so long-term, that the bombings must be ranked among the most moral acts ever committed.

[...]

President Truman demonstrated his willingness to bomb the Japanese out of existence if they did not surrender. The Potsdam Declaration of July 26, 1945 is stark: "The result of the futile and senseless German resistance to the might of the aroused free peoples of the world stands forth in awful clarity as an example to the people of Japan . . . Following are our terms.

We will not deviate from them. There are no alternatives. We shall brook no delay . . . We call upon the government of Japan to proclaim now the unconditional surrender of all Japanese armed forces . . . The alternative for Japan is prompt and utter destruction."

The approach worked brilliantly. After the bombs, the Japanese chose wisely. More @ Capitalism Magazine

Never Again?

Charles Krauthammer on crazy Mullahs and the future of Israel:

When something happens for the first time in 1,871 years, it is worth noting. In A.D. 70, and again in 135, the Roman Empire brutally put down Jewish revolts in Judea, destroying Jerusalem, killing hundreds of thousands of Jews and sending hundreds of thousands more into slavery and exile. For nearly two millennia, the Jews wandered the world. And now, in 2006, for the first time since then, there are once again more Jews living in Israel -- the successor state to Judea -- than in any other place on earth. More @ TownHall.com

Injured Soldier Conscious & Joking

Canadian Press:
A Canadian soldier who suffered severe head wounds in an axe attack in Afghanistan has gone from a drug-induced coma to quipping with nurses about his beer-drinking skills, according to his wife.

The recovery of Capt. Trevor Greene, a civil-military co-operation officer, after the incident on March 4 is detailed in a blog by Debbie.

She responded by telephone to an e-mail request for an interview and confirmed she wrote the entry, but she declined to provide any more details or give her last name.

"Some would say it is a miracle he has made it this far," she said in the entry, dated Wednesday.

She said Greene began physiotherapy this week at Vancouver General Hospital, where he was transferred after a brief stay at a U.S. military facility in Landstuhl, Germany.

Greene, 41, was attacked while he was sitting down for what he thought would be a friendly gathering of elders in an Afghanistan village. More...

Atlas Shrugged On The Big Screen?

Interesting if true. This was one of my favorite books back in the 70's.

Variety:
Ayn Rand's most ambitious novel may finally be brought to the bigscreen after years of false starts.

Lionsgate has picked up worldwide distribution rights to "Atlas Shrugged" from Howard and Karen Baldwin ("Ray"), who will produce with John Aglialoro.

As for stars, book provides an ideal role for an actress in lead character Dagny Taggart, so it's not a stretch to assume Rand enthusiast Angelina JolieAngelina Jolie's name has been brought up. Brad PittBrad Pitt, also a fan, is rumored to be among the names suggested for lead male character John Galt.

"Atlas Shrugged," which runs more than 1,100 pages, has faced a lengthy and circuitous journey to a film adaptation.

The Russian-born author's seminal tome, published in 1957, revolves around the economic collapse of the U.S. sometime in the future and espouses her individualistic philosophy of objectivism. The violent, apocalyptic ending has always posed a challenge but could prove especially so in the post-9/11 climate. More...