J's Cafe Nette

Archive for April 16th, 2007

Ever wonder why some days you simply can’t think straight. Or perhaps a coherent sentence is difficult to come by. Burt Prelutsky has some thoughts on why this might be happening.

What got me thinking about this was my realization that my own brain is jam-packed with garbage. Worse yet, I have no idea how it got there. It’s almost as if strangers, instead of tossing out their junk or donating it to Goodwill, have been sneaking their trash into my house and stowing it in my attic until they decide what to do with it.

I realize this must strike some of you as the ramblings of a raving paranoiac. But if you’re all so smart, tell me how it is that even though I make it a point not to watch tabloid TV or read the tabloid press, I know a ton of tabloid names. Now, understand I have never watched The View, American Idol, so-called reality shows, MTV, the Jimmy Kimmel Show or Greta Van Susteren — and have not tuned in Leno or Letterman in at least 10 years — and yet I know who Howard K. Stern is. And please explain why I know all kinds of nonsense about about Simon Cowell, Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, Donald Trump and Rosie O’Donnell.

At least we know we are not alone!

Read the rest here.

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This is a tragedy of the utmost proportion. Prayers are offered to the families of those taken from them in such a senseless fashion.

Police: 22 Dead After Virginia Tech University Shooting

Read the story here.

Update: AJ Strata attended VA Tech and offers information and updates at the Strata-Sphere.

Major updates available at Hotair.com

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Patricia Aldyn Austin Taylor Buckley — Pat Buckley, as so many knew her, WFB’s beloved — died last night at Stamford Hospital in Connecticut.

She died of septic poisoning following a vascular operation on her left leg.

Pat had been married to WFB since July 1950 and is mother of the acclaimed writer Christopher Buckley.

She’s been a core part of the NR family — hosting editorial dinners in her home, among many other intrusions — since its conception and her loss will be felt by many.

Bill and Christopher are in so many of our prayers today. R.I.P, Mrs. Buckley.

UPDATE: A more official obituary is here.

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I had thought the concentration of Muslims in this country was in or around Detroit, but I’m beginning to wonder about Minnesota. First, they elected the first Muslim to Congress and now this from CaptainsQuarters:

Katherine Kersten follows up today on her column last week regarding the installation of foot-washing basins for Muslims at Minneapolis Community Technical College. Kersten digs deeper into the process by which MCTC will modify its facilities to accommodate the requirements of a specific religion, and discovers the less-than-tolerant agenda of the group advising them (via Power Line):

But I also discovered something more important for colleges seeking guidance on “accommodations”: Projects like MCTC’s are likely to be the first step in a long process.
The task force’s eventual objectives on American campuses include the following, according to the website: permanent Muslim prayer spaces, ritual washing facilities, separate food and housing for Muslim students, separate hours at athletic facilities for Muslim women, paid imams or religious counselors, and campus observance of Muslim holidays. The task force is already hailing “pioneering” successes. At Syracuse University in New York, for example, “Eid al Fitr is now an official university holiday,” says an article featured on the website. “The entire university campus shuts down to mark the end of Ramadan.” At Henry Ford Community College in Dearborn, Mich., “halal” food — ritually slaughtered and permissible under Islamic law — is marked by green stickers in the cafeteria and “staff are well-trained in handling practices.”

We are getting too PC for these people and yet we won’t let Christians put up a Nativity scene at Christmastime.

Go to the Captain’s site to read the rest and be sure to tune in to his Blog Radio program at 3 this afternoon.

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I had promised my brother Tonto the other day I would not talk about Imus anymore on this site, but Betsy Newmark had this video on her site, and it’s just too good not to use.

Hat Tip: Betsy’s Page. <):)

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From RealClear Politics is this essay by Peter Brown.

Once upon a time in Washington, D.C. there was an informal agreement that partisan political differences within the United States did not extend to America’s dealings with the rest of the world.

Congress’ current attempt to offer its own foreign policy marks the end of that doctrine, which, truth be told, has been on life support for some time.

How one sees this development almost certainly depends on his or her view of President George W. Bush, but clearly the once-universally accepted notion that America speaks with one voice, that of the president, to foreign nations, is no more.

The informal agreement that once existed between the two political parties not to offer conflicting signals to America’s friends and foes is another casualty of the “D.C. disease” that has made bipartisan cooperation on virtually everything an anachronism.

In fact, as the Washington Post, hardly a Republican mouthpiece, recently editorialized, the Democratic Congress seems intent on developing its own foreign policy.

Consider:

* Congress has publicly told the world that it, not the president, makes foreign policy. Both the House and Senate have passed versions of spending bills that limit Bush’s power to wage war and force the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.

* House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the nation’s highest ranking Democrat, rejected White House pleas to follow Bush’s policy against any high-level contacts with Syria, a country he says sponsors terrorism.

* Steny Hoyer, the House’s second-ranking Democrat, did much the same in meeting with the leader of Egypt’s outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, whom U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has refused to meet.

Of course these developments are not the first to demonstrate that the notion of a bipartisan foreign policy has gone the way of the dinosaur. During the Vietnam-era and the Cold War there were obvious policy differences between the two parties. But, for the most part, Democratic and Republican leaders gave lip service to the ideal of the president speaking for America.

Two decades ago, it would have been impossible to imagine House Speaker Tip O’Neill, every bit the Democratic partisan as is Pelosi today, meeting a foreign leader against Ronald Reagan’s wishes.

The old saying used to be “Politics stop at the water’s edge.” It seems not to be true anymore.

What I actually see happening is new people in charge who were never in those lofty positions or close to them for long before. Ms. Pelosi was only the Minority Leader for either 2 or 4 years before being the Speaker of the House. Hoyer was just one of the leadership but not the high man on the totem pole.

They remind me hourly employees who have recently been promoted to management positions and think they are on top of the world, until someone greases it and they slide off.

Right now they’re feeling their oats, but if the President doesn’t stand firm on not allowing them to encroach on Executive Branch powers they will continue to grow until it is out of control and it will be a given they run everything from foreign policy to domestic policy. All this from people who were elected to serve one congressional district each in the entire country.

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According to this report evangelical Christians are dissatisfied with the current crop of Republican presidential candidates.

Evangelical Christians have long been a key constituency for the Republican Party, but leading religious conservatives are expressing dissatisfaction with the party’s current crop of presidential candidates.

“What’s different is that evangelicals had desirable candidates in 2000,” said Marvin Olasky, who helped define the “compassionate conservative” message that was central to President Bush’s 2000 campaign. “Now, many evangelicals are negative about the whole leader board.”

Eight years ago, Christian conservative stalwarts Gary Bauer and Alan Keyes sought the Republican nomination in a presidential field led from start to finish by Mr. Bush, who proudly proclaimed his born-again faith.

Each of the three Republicans most often mentioned as front-runners for the 2008 presidential nomination — Sen. John McCain of Arizona, former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney — present significant problems to evangelical voters, said Mr. Olasky, a University of Texas professor and Christian journalist.

“The question is what will be less distasteful to many evangelicals: Mitt Romney’s one-wife Mormonism, Rudy Giuliani’s marital mayhem or John McCain’s recent disdain,” he said.

I am an evangelical Christian Republican. I’m not overly excited about our choices so far but that doesn’t mean I am more satisfied with what the candidates on the other side have to offer.

I hope and pray Fred Thompson decides to run so I have a clear-cut choice, but if he doesn’t…well, sometimes you have to suck it up and vote for the one you think better believes as you do on the issues.

At any rate, I won’t stay home on election day. A lot of Republicans did that last November and have come to rue the day.

Off topic, but I’m wondering if anyone knows about these presidential and congressional popularity polls. Are they polling all people, registered voters, or likely voters? Likely voters are the ones to poll because they are the ones who really matter.

The others just want to express an opinion but don’t bother to either register to vote or to vote at all.

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While out for a walk with my grandchildren it occurred to me that the little things in which they marvel become commonplace all too soon.

As we strolled we talked of why the grass is not so green in winter, why most flowers begin blooming in the Spring and how many worms a robin must eat in a day to survive (that I must admit, was a tough question). Did I know how beautiful a dandelion is or that a buttercup must be the tiniest flower ever? Why do some trees have leaves and others needles? How do you know if a caterpillar is still living in his cocoon? I delighted in being asked if the sun was older than me.

It has never ceased to amaze me how children universally relish the simple things in life. Curling up with a good book or building sand castles just close enough to the waters edge for them to be washed away. Colored chalk drawings on a driveway which bring tears when the rain washes a masterpiece away. Squeals of delight when bubbles appear from a bubble wand and excitement when that duck at the park wants their piece of that almost stale bread. The wonderment when a rainbow appears is something to behold and the care taken to produce that piece of art which hangs on the refrigerator is second to none.

I am blessed to have been surrounded by children most of my adult life and could think of nothing more fulfilling than their first recitation of the alphabet or repeating that often told nursery rhyme, no wait, maybe it was when they learned their numbers or colors or perhaps it has been just the open, uncluttered minds they exhibit.

Tomorrow perhaps I will return for a while to the stories of politics, prejudice and pundits but for today I would prefer to admire that bouquet of dandelions still thriving in an old jelly glass which were gathered with love.

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Tonto’s and my maternal grandmother would have been 100 today had she lived that long.

I’m going to insert a photo and then tell you about it.

This was a photo taken of my sister and me when I was back home in Maine a couple of years ago. (I’m the one on your left—the short one. ) Please pardon my messy hair. It had been a long day and I had attended a funeral that day.

Our grandmother had had a portrait done of her in Indian costume a couple of years before she died. Tonto took that picture and photo-shopped it into the picture of my sister and me to make it look as though Grammy were looking over us.

I cherish this picture and thank Tonto so much. I also thank you for sitting next to me during her funeral so you could help me in my hour of grief, even though you grieved too.

And to Grammy, you have ten thousand more birthdays multiplied by infinity. I’ll see you at the Eastern Gate.

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From the Examiner:

Congress is keeping Andrews Air Force base plenty busy this year ferrying lawmakers all over the globe at taxpayers’ expense. Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi took his wife, nine Democrats and two Republicans – Reps. Dan Lungren of California and Mike Rogers of Alabama – on a whirlwind tour of the Caribbean last week. After stops in Honduras and Mexico, they stopped in the U.S. Virgin Islands, where the delegation stayed at the five-star Caneel Bay resort.

In a separate trip to the Caribbean last week, Rep. Eliot Engel of New York squired his wife and four Democratic members to Grenada and Trinidad.

All told, the military flew at least 13 congressional delegations to various destinations during the Easter recess — at an estimated rate of $10,000 or more per flying hour.

The congressional delegation trips, known as CODELs, are paid for by taxpayers. They are supposed to be directly related to members’ official duties, and House guidelines also stipulate that delegations include members of both parties to qualify for military planes — a requirement that Speaker Nancy Pelosi waived for Engel’s group and two other delegations.

“There was a good faith effort made to include Republican members,” a Pelosi spokesman said. “For one reason or another, that did not work.”

In one instance, he said, a Republican slated for a Democrat-led trip had to cancel because of a “family emergency.”

In their successful campaign to win control of Congress last fall, Democrats accused Republicans of extravagant travel paid for by lobbyists. Some of these trips carried a strong whiff of influence peddling. The worst that can be said of CODELS, and critics often say it, is that they’re junkets.

Thompson’s office said he toured the Caribbean because he now chairs the Homeland Security Committee and wanted to see vacation hot spots to “examine border security and port security.” Three other members of the delegation also brought along their spouses.

“They are going from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. everyday,” a committee spokeswoman told The Examiner. “They do not have down time.”

At the Caneel Bay resort, where room rates reach $1,100 per night, the spokeswoman said Thompson and his wife paid the “government rate.” But, according to the reservations department, Caneel Bay doesn’t “offer any government rates.”

After Caneel Bay, the group headed to Key West, Fla., for a “classified briefing on inter-jurisdictional agency task forces,” a Thompson spokeswoman said.

The Caribbean trip led by Engel, who is chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, explored the “best practices for emergency disaster relief” and energy policy, according to his office.

Traveling with Engel and his wife were Reps. Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y., Sheila Jackson-Lee, D-Tex., and Barbara Lee, D-Calif. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., who went to Belgium in a delegation led by Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., earlier in the week, also joined Engel’s Caribbean trip. She brought her husband with her.

I don’t know about anyone else but these sound like vacations to me. A five minute to an hour briefing here and there and you can charge your vacation off to the taxpayer. If not a vacation, why bring your spouse?

I wonder if this comes out of the Pentagon budget or if Congress has a special budget for ‘junkets’.

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I guess I was wrong.

The donors helped Mr. Obama, a first-term senator little known outside Illinois four years ago, best Mrs. Clinton in the first quarter of fund-raising for the Democratic primary by $5.7 million, according to reports filed Sunday with the Federal Election Commission.

But her campaign proved it still had the support of some deep pockets. About 5,100 big contributors accounted for about three quarters of the $26 million combined that she raised for the primary and general election, pulling her very slightly ahead of Mr. Obama by just $200,000 in total fund-raising for the quarter. And, with $10 million rolling over to her primary campaign from her last Senate race, Mrs. Clinton was well ahead in cash in the bank.

The first quarter financial reports, which were due at midnight Sunday, offer a glimpse into an aspect of the presidential election that sets it apart from all before. All of the leading candidates have elected to forgo public campaign financing in order to raise and spend private donations without any limits. Several have raised more than three times as much as any candidate did during the same period before the last election.

The leading Republicans filed their reports Friday and Saturday, and Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama were the two top fund-raisers in either party. Mrs. Clinton raised $19.1 million for the primary, and $6.9 million for use in the general election (accessible only if she wins the nomination). Mr. Obama raised $24.8 million for the primary and $1 million for the general election.

The primary campaign of former Senator John Edwards said in its filing that he had spent less than $3 million of the $13 million he raised in the quarter, leaving him with $10.7 million in the bank. He raised less than $1 million for the general election.

Although Mr. Obama has sought to publicize his campaign’s emphasis on small contributions, he, too, depended heavily on a relatively small number of big checks. About 4,800 supporters gave the maximum $2,300 to his primary campaign, accounting for about $11 million, nearly half his total. About 75 of those donors gave another $2,300 to his general election fund, according to an analysis of his campaign’s filing.

On Sunday, his campaign released a list of about 130 bundlers who had each raised $50,000, for more than $6.5 million, about a quarter of his total for both races.

Mrs. Clinton, though, depended even more heavily on on a relatively narrow base of wealthy and committed donors. More than 5,100 gave the legal limit of about $2,300 to her primary campaign, contributing more than $11.7 million, nearly two thirds of her primary fund. What is more, nearly 3,000 of those who had already hit the $2,300 limit for the primary also contributed $2,300 toward her general election fund , adding up to $19 million for those elite donors.

Mrs. Clinton’s campaign also released its own list of 84 bundlers who had each collected $100,000 or more in checks for her campaign, together accounting for at least $8.4 million.

How many poor people could they help with all that money to be spent on an office that pays $400,000 per year?

My eyes glaze over the numbers I read from both the Democrat and Republican presidential candidates.

Money is what has corrupted our political system. You give a lot, you expect a lot and that means special interests every candidate is beholden to if he or she ultimately wins.

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With all the drums from every quarter beating out the message that President Bush is corrupt, runs a corrupt administration, lied on purpose to us to go to war, I still believe in his decency.

Maybe I’m the only one on the planet who does other than his family, but I doubt it.

I respect the office he holds and I respect the man who holds that office, and unless something like a smoking gun tape that exposed Nixon to be complicit in the cover-up of Watergate happens I’m still going to trust this man who is in the world’s toughest job.

What I don’t trust are newspapers and news channels that constantly tell us how bad everything is without mixing in some good news.

When I start seeing letters home from GIs saying everything is hopeless and useless over in Iraq and Afghanistan I will believe them before I believe a news story written by someone with an agenda.

When I start to see the economy tank I’ll believe we have a bad economy. Until then I believe we are in good shape economically due to the economic policies put in place by this president and the previous congress.

When I see President Bush push his press secretary in a very aggressive manner as former President Nixon did at the height of Watergate, then I’ll believe this is a beleaguered president who is consumed with all the investigations. Until then I will believe he is doing his job to the best of his ability.

When I see legitimate proof and not fishing expedition things I will believe his top aides have betrayed him and need to go and be punished to the full extent of the law. Until then I will trust them.

Call me naive, but I like to see for myself what’s going on and I have the ability to make up my own mind. I don’t need someone who rarely leaves Manhattan or the Beltway to tell me what’s going on in my part of the country. I am perfectly capable of talking to my neighbors and friends to gauge their thoughts. After all, we’re the ones in ‘fly-over’ country and we’re the ones who actually matter. We are the majority of America and yet the news is directed to the powerbrokers in New York, Washington D.C., Los Angeles and San Francisco. The majority of Americans don’t live there and couldn’t care less what the people in those cities think.

Show me the smoking gun and I will turn on this president, but not until you show it to me. If his aides committed crimes without his assistance or knowledge I will also turn on them and demand their dismissal and punishment but not his. If I am shown proof he is complicit in these activities I will call for his ouster also. Until then I’m going to keep my options open and trust this president with my life. After all, it does come down to that, doesn’t it?

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