J's Cafe Nette

Archive for September 21st, 2007

There is a great post at Politico rehashing the latest defeat in the Senate of another “surrender measure.”

Yet another Democratic amendment on Iraq failed Friday morning, and this one didn’t even earn a majority of Senate votes. The vote was 47-47 on an amendment sponsored by Sens. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and Jack Reed (D-R.I.) that would have required a change of mission in Iraq while mandating firm timetables for withdrawal. The amendment needed 60 votes to pass, and three Democrats voted against the measure, making it clear that no matter how Democrats craft their legislation, a majority of senators are uncomfortable mandating time tables for troop withdrawal. Three Republicans, Sens. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, Olympia Snowe of Maine and Gordon Smith of Oregon, backed the measure.

I don’t know what it is going to do to convince Harry Reid that he is fighting a battle he cannot win and in my opinion the longer he continues to present this type of legislation, the worse it will become for the Democrats.

“Harry Reid has called up the same amendments for the same votes and gotten the same results – more gridlock on Iraq,” said Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.). “Instead of posturing for political gain, it’s time for the Senate’s leaders to sit down with those of us trying to find a consensus.”

But Reid has clearly made a calculation that he would rather force votes on firm troop withdrawal amendments instead of allowing bipartisan votes on moderate measures that may win a lot of support but wouldn’t force the president’s hand on the war.

“I ask my Republican colleagues for the courage and wisdom to join the American people and bring our troops home,” Reid said Friday morning. “Courage and wisdom demands that we do such.”

I think if Mr. Reid wishes to understand courage and wisdom, perhaps he should take a few minutes and read this speech presented by Marine Maj. General John Kelly. He just might learn a thing or two.

This fight is today, not against some potential peer competitor that might emerge 30 years from now, and will be with us for another generation or more. Our enemy is on a 100 year campaign to victory, and believes without question that he is winning. We, on the other hand, look out two years at best and seem to be wavering and looking for a way to rationalize our way out. The problem is our enemy is not willing to let us go. Regardless of how much we wish this bad dream would go away, he will stay with us until he hurts us so badly we surrender, or we kill him first. To him this is not about jobs, economic opportunity, or solving social problems in the Middle East. It is about way of life, about everyman’s and every woman’s worth and equality in the eyes of the law, about the God given rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. He doesn’t believe in these cherished concepts – we do. Our positions are irreconcilable.

Both links provide a great read if you have a few spare moments on a Friday night.

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Remember the huge recalls of Mattel toys in the recent past? Mattel has finally issued an apology, the bulk of which is directed to China. Via Breitbart comes this story from FT.com.

Mattel, the world’s largest toy maker, has issued a humiliating apology to China for damaging the country’s reputation, saying that millions of product recalls that the company has made in recent months resulted from design flaws, not poor Chinese manufacturing standards.

“Our reputation has been damaged lately by these recalls,” Thomas Debrowski, Mattel’s executive vice president of worldwide operations, told the head of China’s quality control agency, Li Changjiang, in Beijing, according to news agency reports.

”Mattel takes full responsibility for these recalls and apologises personally to you, the Chinese people and all of our customers who received the toys.”

It’s nice to see they are accepting responsibility for their “mistakes.” Far too little, far too late.

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A great one liner by Fred Thompson courtesy of Dailymotion.

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There has been so much written about both Dan Rather and OJ Simpson that I hesitated to put up this post, but because this piece at Pajamas Media by Roger Simon takes a unique look at both situations I chose to pass it along.

OJ, as everyone knows was a huge sports, movie and media star. Rather was an anchorman of the most celebrated sort – the one to “interview” Saddam as if representing all of us, among other flak-jacketed, high profile activities. In fact, his demise helped put a stake in the heart of that particular occupation, the television anchor a la Cronkite. The idea that one individual has that much power over the public’s view of the world now seems almost Neanderthal and certainly reactionary.

In the case of OJ, we see our television lives dominated once again by the bizarre saga of an unpunished celebrity murderer.

We have lived for some time in a society in which stardom seems to motivate people to lose contact with reality. The more attention they get – the crazier that get. And if they feel that attention diminishing, they act out to regain it. It’s like a drug – media crack cocaine.

Thus we have a Sean Penn opining on Katrina, sailing about New Orleans like some junior Ahab or Sally Fields telling us – using an obscenity of course, lest we ignore her – that the world would be different with women in control. It can be argued that OJ’s looney break-in in Vegas was, more than anything, a plea for attention.

Rather’s new lawsuit against CBS also seems, most of all, the cry of a lonely desperate man – Remember me! Remember me!

I believe Mr. Simon is correct. Stardom has created monsters out of many. Hollywood “stars”, radio personalities, news and sportscasters, journalists and even politicians feel they are the authority on all topics and we like sheep should just listen and believe. Hope you enjoy the read if you choose to head on over to PJM.

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With Dan Rather’s announcement that he is suing CBS and Viacom over his dismissal from CBS, new life has been given to the Rathergate TANG report.

Mary Mapes has been writing at Huffington Post (I don’t read it) and I found this one piece of her quote to be quite interesting:

What was different in our case was the brand new and bruising power of the conservative blogosphere, particularly the extremists among them. They formed a tightly knit community of keyboard assault artists who saw themselves as avenging angels of the right, determined to root out and decimate anything they believed to be disruptive to their worldview.

Thanks to Captain Ed Morrissey for checking HuffPo and reporting on it. That’s where I got this quote.

I found the quote to be interesting because I have noticed something in the blogosphere.

The conservative or right wing bloggers (use your favorite term) have their blogs set up to have comments and trackbacks and are willing to share their information as long as they get credit for the original post.

It is hard to find a liberal or left-wing blog (use your favorite term) that allows trackbacks, although they do have plenty of comments. The difference is they delete any opposing views from their comments and almost always require the reader to subscribe and wait for a password to make a comment.

It’s something that has really dawned on me in the past week while helping Guss learn how to do trackbacks on his blog. There are no trackback codes to many of the liberal blogs and information is not shared easily.

To have Mary Mapes say the conservative blogosphere blew this story apart is indeed a compliment to the bloggers on the right, even if she didn’t mean it to be one.

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Right Wing News sent out a questionnaire to 240 right/center bloggers asking 7 questions ranging from their opinions of the two major parties’ positions on the military to the presidential candidates.

50 blogs responded.

I’m not going to give the entire post, but I am going to give you a couple of the questions and answers to them:

6) If your preferred candidate doesn’t win the GOP nomination, will you

A) vote Republican anyway: 44 — 96%
B) vote Democrat, stay home, or vote for a third party? 2 — 4%

7) If Hillary Clinton turns out to be the Democratic nominee, which candidate do you think would stand the best chance of defeating her?

Sam Brownback
John Cox
Newt Gingrich: 2 — 4%
Rudy Giuliani: 24 — 50%
Mike Huckabee
Duncan Hunter: 1 — 2%
Alan Keyes
John McCain
Ron Paul
Mitt Romney: 1 — 2%
Tom Tancredo
Fred Thompson: 20 — 42%

Go over and see the other questions and the responses to them. It’s all very interesting.

Hat Tip to Sister Toldjah.

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Sometimes I just think this world is going to hell in a handbasket, and I long for the day when I will be in God’s Eternal Kingdom and no longer have to worry about what’s going on in this world.

I feel that God has begun to withdraw His blessing from our own country and yet I pray for the sake of the believers He will not completely withdraw His blessing from us.

We turn our heads and look the other way on sin that God declared is sin from the beginning of our awareness of Him. We try to justify it as being a sign of modern times and modern thinking, but if God said it was wrong a million years ago it’s still wrong today.

We allow our unborn to be killed in utero because it’s the woman’s body. Guess what? Our bodies are God’s and not ours.

Yet, because we are human, we constantly sin. That’s why we should go to Him daily confessing our sins in order to be sanctified by Him. Sanctification is not something you can grab onto and keep unless you treat your mind and body as God wants you to treat it. It does not affect your salvation, but we are to be as pure as possible before our Lord. That’s why we pray for forgiveness of our sins, and we do it daily.

Our bodies are not our own and when people realize that maybe we can get back on track.

Unfortunately I just see us getting worse with demands of same-sex marriage, pedophilia, doing anything that is pleasurable to us and nothing that is pleasing to God, our Creator.

I have felt strongly about these issues for a long time.

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Kimsch from Musing Minds is having some gastrointestinal distress that has been going on for over a week now.

The doctors are stumped and I know from talking to her she has been in a lot of pain and discomfort.

I ask you to pray for her if you feel so inclined, that the Lord will put His healing hand on her and restore her health.

Kimsch is a very good friend who has done the design of this blog and I care for her very much on a personal level too.

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I was distressed to read that Israeli Vice Premier Haim Ramon wants to cede part of control of Jerusalem to the Palestinian Authority.

“The government does not have a majority (to support) Haim Ramon’s opinions on anything to do with Jerusalem,” Pensioners Party Chairman Rafi Eitan said Tuesday following the exposure of the vice premier’s letter calling for the division of Jerusalem and the establishment of joint sovereignty over the city’s holy sites.

I totally agree with that statement.

Where does this man get off thinking he can give away one grain of sand of the land given to the Jews by God Almighty Himself? He holds the deed to that property and Jesus even instructed us to pray for peace in Jerusalem, the city He loves so much.

There will never be real peace in that city until Jesus sets foot on it again, but praying for the peace in Jerusalem is something I do daily.

Israelis shed their blood and lost their sons and daughters in battles brought against them when they recaptured the land that had been taken from them for 2000 years.

Since the election of Olmert we are seeing a policy which is disturbing in that he seems willing to bend over backwards to do the bidding of the Palestinians, all in the name of a peace that will never come.

The Palestinians and all Muslims are sworn to destroy Israel. Not just destroy it, but push the people into the sea.

Now it seems members of the government are doing their level best to see to it the Palestinians get their way.

I’m not an Israeli citizen so I have no say in their internal affairs, but I can say I hope someone who is stronger against the threats to Israel will get elected and soon.

I have read reports Olmert is even considering granting the right of return to Palestinians who left Israel of their own accord when the state of Israel was re-created.

These people or their ancestors were given the opportunity in 1948 to remain in their homes on their property and become a part of Israel.

They can be elected to the Knesset and enjoy full citizenship. That’s for those who decided to stay. The others left and gave up any claim to the land when they did.

If they were to get the right of return to Israel it wouldn’t be long before they would take over the government and run the Jews into the sea.

I don’t see God allowing that to happen.

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When Hillary Clinton rolled out her new HillaryCare program she was asked if her plan included illegal immigrants.

The response of her campaign?

Senior policy adviser Laurie Rubiner–while acknowledging that undocumented immigrants are a “huge issue” in this country–said, “That’s one we’re going to have to think through a little bit.”

“We have not dealt with every single detail with this plan,” Rubiner continued.

When asked if it would be safe to assume that the Democratic frontrunner, at this point, has no position on coverage for illegal immigrants advisers answered “yes” and said the plan does not “at this point” deal with that issue.

To believe this one has to, in Sen. Clinton’s own words, have a “willing suspension of disbelief.”

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As I read the latest campaign quotes from Elizabeth Edwards I wondered why it is she’s the one talking and not her husband.

In the article referenced, she’s complaining that HillaryCare is the same as JohnCare. Either way it should be unacceptable to U.S. voters, but I wonder why it is she’s the one who goes on the attack.

Then I realized she attacks the women, ie Ann Coulter, Hillary Clinton and any other woman who may stand in the way of her husband’s hopeless campaign for the presidency.

Rick Lazio made the big “mistake” of walking over to Hillary’s podium during a senatorial debate to offer her a pen and a pledge to sign. Hillary proceeded to act as though she were afraid for her life.

John must have learned from that and made a decision to have his wife do the dirty work against Hillary instead of him. As closely as Mr. and Mrs. Edwards seem to work in this campaign are we to presume we will have another co-presidency in the unlikely event he gets elected?

Food for thought, huh?

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Just 36 hours after a suicide watch was lifted on assistant US Attorney John D.R. Atchison he tried to hang himself with a sheet in his jail cell.

Atchison is the assistant prosecutor from the western district of Florida who allegedly flew to Detroit in order to have sex with a five year old girl.

One of the other inmates notified guards he was trying to hang himself and he was rescued before hurting himself.

US Marshals have moved him to a different jail since that incident.

The sad part, apart from this man having a penchant for sex with little girls, is he is married and the father of three children. He was active in his community and has brought disgrace upon his wife and family for something they didn’t do.

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