Great quotes page.

Happened to run across this quotes page courtesy of JustRight.com. Many excellent quotes I hadn’t heard before. Some of my favorites:

“The sociological truths are that America, while still flawed in its race relations...is now the least racist white-majority society in the world; has a better record of legal protection of minorities than any other society, white or black; offers more opportunities to a greater number of black persons than any other society, including all those in Africa.”
- Orlando Patterson, Harvard University sociologist.

“If I were in the President’s place I would not get a chance to resign. I would be lying in a pool of my own blood, hearing Mrs. Armey standing over me saying, ‘How do I reload this damn thing?’”
- Congressman Dick Armey’s (R-Texas) response when asked if he would resign if he were in President Clinton’s place.

“I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.”
- James Madison

“Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other.”
- John Adams, 1789.

“..Christianity is a statement which, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The one thing is cannot be is moderately important.”
- C.S. Lewis, April 1945.

“George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin are not included in the revised version of the New Jersey Department of Education history standards… the Pilgrims and the Mayflower also are excluded, as well as the word ‘war,’ which has been replaced with ‘conflict’ in lessons about the early settlers, colonization and expansion. Also gone are most references to the inhumane treatment many American soldiers endured in wars overseas during the 20th century.”
- The Washington Times, August 2000.

Okay, I’ve given this long enough: To hell with Patty Murray.

And all the criticism I’ve seen is from the invaluable ScrappleFace. Let’s run over the facts one more time and take this anti-American, pro-al-Qaeda asswipe Patty Murray down once and for all:

Patty Murray, a United States senator from Washington (which explains the fact that a completely brainless Internet cash-in dolt could sit in the U.S. Senate, she roused the Seattle coffee shop and body-piercing parlor vote, the vote you want making decisions for your life), has gone on public record as saying that Osama bin-Laden has done more for his people (“his people?” I’m sorry, what office does he hold again?) than America has, that “he’s made their lives better. We have not done that.”

First off, I forget exactly when it became America’s responsibility to ensure the living standard of every person in the world. Wait, I hear there’s someone in northern Finland who would like a school built closer to his house, so why the hell isn’t America doing something? Quick, take American tax money and build him a school or else Patty Murray will say it’s America's fault when he starts killing innocent Americans.

In the meeting with students at an advanced placement class in Vancouver the brain-dead Blame America First Murray asked rhetorically why her hero Osama bin Laden is so popular in some places around the world. Her answer was caught on tape by the school’s video department.

“He’s been out in these countries for decades building schools, building roads, building infrastructure, building day care facilities, building health care facilities and people are extremely grateful,” the ignorant twit said with a sparkle in her eyes and a girlish longing in her voice. “He’s made their lives better. We have not done that.”

That happened December 18th. Weeks ago. Heard of it? This is the first time? Gee, imagine that. But you’ve heard all about Trent Lott, right? The advantages of being a liberal in America: National media ignore every stupid anti-American thing you say in their rush to catch President Bush in yet another “uh.”

Screw this brainless, worthless wench. Just screw her, keelhaul her and strap the suicide bombs on her she’s so enamored of. She didn’t even bother to issue the standard smug offhand I-know-I’m-going-to-get-re-elected-so-screw-you “retraction” written by some flunky before his coffee break, she issued a defense of what she said. Trent Lott goes everywhere and anywhere to publicly eat his boots in apology and this brainless bitch defends her praise of Osama bin Laden and the media gives her a free ride and crucifies Lott? No, there’s no liberal bias in the media.

Patty Murray is the perfect example of somebody who could be where she is today only in America, yet as she flops her overweight ugly self in her Senate seat she’s daydreaming of wrapping her arms around her big, strong beloved Osama bin Laden as they gallop on an Arabian charger across the desert, Julie Christie and Omar Sharif, dispensing favors and boons to a fawningly grateful citizenry. Of course under bin Laden's favored style of governance she’d be spending her evenings getting beaten by her husband – on the night it’s his turn to beat her instead of one of the three other wives – yet this idiot is fulsome in her praise of her dashing hero, the tall, dark and handsome Osama.

In Murray’s eyes one Palestinian life, one Afghan life is worth so much more than 3,000 American lives. Barbra Streisand must be so proud of Patty for standing firm for their shared beliefs.

Murray’s blatant hatred of America – as well as stunningly ignorant idiocy, even by Democrat standards – was widely ignored by the media still wiping the remains of Trent Lott off their chops. When asked why this comment, which had it come from the mouth of a Republican would have been front page news elicited a yawn from the alert national watchdog media, The New York Times, The Washington Post, CBS News, ABC News and NBC News all yawned “No comment.” And they wonder why FOX News is cleaning their clocks every night.

The most rudimentary, cursory examination of the facts reveals that bin Laden built roads for the purpose of taking soldiers to and from training camps, built “schools” designed as madrasas, males-only bin Laden-approved militant Islam indoctrination centers and built hospitals not for average Muslims who need medical care, they have to go to Western Christian missionary hospitals for that, but for injured mujahadeen fighters battling the Soviets. But as always it’s only conservatives who check the facts. Certainly Patty Murray can’t be bothered to know what the hell she’s talking about every time she opens her stupid filthy yap.

Diplomats, biographers and aid workers all say bin Laden’s popularity does not stem from his benevolence, but from his message of hate towards Israel and the United States. Against this collected wisdom and experience America-hater Patty Murray stands by her man and says no, he’s popular for all he’s done for the common man, and would that we Americans were more like my beloved Osama bin Laden, the Great Benefactor of Arabia.

Not that Murray knows or cares but the United States is the largest international donor of aid to several countries where bin Laden is popular, and was so even before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Recently, the United States gave $320 million in aid to Afghanistan, mostly in the form of food and refugee assistance, thus providing 80 percent of the international relief given to that country.

Murray dismisses all this as she doodles hearts around the name “Osama” on her Senate desk, saying it means nothing compared to the fact that her social role model Osama bin Laden built roads for his armies, schools to mold replicas of his and Murray’s beloved ideology and hospitals to put the fighters dear to his and Murray’s heart back in airplanes, where both he and Murray think they belong.

I never thought anyone could make me wish Slade Gorton, D.-MSFT was back in the Senate, but I would vote for the hack for president if it would send the brainless, worthless Murray back to the Seattle coffee shop of her choice.


Where’s a good Christian fatwa when you need one?

Beer In Bozeman.

A year ago I had the distinct pleasure to travel to Bozeman, Montana for a business trip. I stayed in the home of Greg Gianforte, the personable and gracious CEO of RightNow, one of the best Web self-service companies alive today.

One of the many highlights was spending an afternoon sampling the local beer available in Bozeman. I sat in a pub and had sampler tray after sampler tray brought to me – much as I’d like to be welcomed into Heaven. These notes surfaced recently, and after fishing around in them I think they’re coherent enough to post:

MacKenzie River Driftboat Amber, brewed by the Blackfoot River Brewing Co., Helena – Light, too light for my taste but my wife would love it, I found it a bit limp and without a real finish. It’s billed as “An English-style amber ale brewed exclusively for MacKenzie River Pizza Co. from Northwest & British pale malts,” so they must know their local clientele certainly better than I do. It’s best described as a local substitute for Budweiser, but better than Bud. Doesn’t linger, and really not much body going down.

Black Star Golden Lager, brewed by the Great Northern Brewing Co., Whitefish – Billed as a “crisp, refreshing double-hopped lager,” it continued the trend of overly light brews – granted I did start from the light end of the beer menu and work up. If anything it melted away even faster than the Driftboat Amber did. This beer would be for people who think Miller has a little too much forceful individuality, and who cherish the memory of their first Pabst.

Sidewinder Pilsner, Lighting [sic] Boy Brewing Co., Belgrade. Billed as “A Bohemian Pilsner light in color but big in flavor,” with hops from Germany and the Czech Republic for a “classic style aroma and crisp, dry finish.” There you go, a beer with some personality, a nice tart zing to it. Not sweet, more fruity and bitter, really, with that wild hair streak of bitter zap that outlaws it from mainstream breweries. The first beer so far that you would know to be a micro from the taste and feel alone. Melts away a bit too fast, but don’t most all good things in life? I mean, really? Nice finish.

Missouri River Steamboat Lager, Blackfoot River Brewing Company. This brewery’s second chance to win my affection. It’s not like, you know, mutual funds, which only get one chance as far as I’m concerned, I’ll give a brewery any number of chances to prove they can do something to win my money. This is the first beer I’ve thought worthy of writing about the color. That’s one of those silly affectations of beer critics, who the hell cares what color a beer is, except as a guide to drinkability for a particular taste along the lines of “Interchangeable With Water, God What A Beautiful Color, Break Out the Fork.” The Missouri River looked like a Sam Adams – ah, now that’s a beer that you know is in your mouth. Tart without overdoing it, bitter but pleasant like an Ambrose Bierce short story. It’s billed as “A crisp, complex common lager” with “an assertive hop character.” It’s a beer that picks a fight with your taste buds and well, it’s up to you to determine if your taste buds are up to it. For my money – correction, for my expense account’s money – it’s a fight like a fourth-grade playground dustup – not much real hitting takes place, and you end up being pretty good friends after it’s all over. I’d actually pony up to buy a pint of this beer.

Ah, now for the one I’ve wanted to try ever since I saw its name on the menu – Moose Drool Brown Ale, from your good friends at the Big Sky Brewing Co. of Missoula. If I found a Moose Drool t-shirt I’d buy it. By the way, should you venture up to these parts, watch out for moose. According to my business contact up here, who escaped from Hoboken – seriously – six years ago to Bozeman, moose are mean suckers who’d rip Bullwinkle a new butthole if they had half a mind to. Evidently half a mind is all the mind a moose possesses. Again, the color is of a finely-aged motor oil, and billed as an “honest brown ale,” as opposed to those brown ales who’ll tell you the place has been under termite service contract for three years, the Moose Drool is, as the menu states, “sweet from malted barley, with a hint of hops presence, creamy and light-bodied for its color.” In other words, it looks like Guinness, but doesn’t taste like liquid Vegemite. I like this beer. If you like Guinness but find that you can’t drink too many of them, then this might be the beer for you. If you happen to live in the northern Rocky Mountains, that is. If not, well, tough luck, I’m sure your pitiful little bar has Coors Light.

Got one more swallow of the Moose Drool here to go before going on to #6 of the tray – the last time I did a sampler tray like this was in New Zealand, a couple days before my wedding to a lovely Kiwi lass. Jim and Paul had come down from the States to attend my wedding – sure, more like they jumped at a good excuse to visit New Zealand – we went to Shakespeare & Co., a great brewpub in Auckland which sold sampler trays. But they didn’t have Jackie the waitress, who helpfully wrote out all the beers for me here in order on the clever Lazy Susan-type wooden sampler tray. God bless Jackie.

Now for the last of the six – Red Lodge Wheat, from the Red Lodge Ales brewery in Red Lodge. The owner, Harvey “Red” Lodge… nah, just kidding but I wouldn’t be surprised.

The Red Lodge came with a lemon, and honestly I don’t know what to do with a lemon in a beer other than a Corona. I mean, do you squeeze it over the beer like an order of shrimp, do you drop it in like an iced tea, or do you just politely ignore it, a la parsely garnish? Hell with Corona it doesn’t matter what you do to that, there’s really no way you can either improve or wreck a Corona, but I needed to be somewhat professional about all this, so my solution was to dip the lemon in the beer once and put it aside. After sucking the lemon, of course. I mean, there’s beer on that thar lemon.

I’ve had wheat beer before, and I’m sorry to say the Red Lodge was a disappointment. It didn’t have the confidence other wheat beers I’ve had did. And I wanted to like the Red Lodge, I really did. I love this town – guy beside me just ordered two Guinnesses and they brought it to him without demur, someone across the street just parked in front of a fire hydrant but moved out of courtesy, and nobody wears seat belts. This Red Lodge is billed as a Red Lodge Hefeweizen, a “golden, unfiltered wheat beer” with “citrus and clove flavors” – maybe that’s what did the poor beer in, it’s like putting a good-looking girl in a potato sack dress, she doesn’t really have a fighting chance – “combined with low hop bitterness” – bitterness? I didn’t notice any bitterness, heck I would’ve welcomed some bitterness, something to give some texture to the beer – “make this German-style ale a refreshing thirst quencher.”

And I’m afraid that last part of that sentence is all too true, it’s the kind of beer you’d use as an expedience, a beer you’d use to fill the function of plough juice, not a beer you’d savor and get to know on its own.

So there you go, that was my sampler tray of six of the nine micros MacKenzie River Pizza Co. of Bozeman, Montana offers – what’s that? I’m not fulfilling my journalistic duty by finding out about the other three? Oh all right, if you insist…

… and let me tell you, campers, this does come as a genuine search for TRVTH, since I’m not a fan of pale ales and I can take or leave Guinness, quite honestly. The first beer of the second round I had was Headstrong Pale Ale, from Big Hold Brewing Co. of Belgrade. It had that smirking “bitterness,” that not real bitterness but pretends to be of all pale ales, the kind that stays in your mouth just until you start to get into it then runs away. Billed as “A rich textured, British-style pale ale with” – here comes one of the most meaningless monikers you’ll ever run into in beer criticism – “a floral hop aroma and a well-balanced malt finish.” Come on, guys, this isn’t the Bordeaux Ladies’ Society Annual Wine-Tasting here, it’s beer, for crying out loud. Say “When you drink this you’ll get a quick mental image of Grandmother Vaughn’s sittin’ room” and let it go at that.

Okay, next up: Tri-Motor Amber, from the intrepid Lang Creek Brewery of Marion. This is, according to the menu, “A British-style” – what is it with this Anglophilia here? Not that I’m looking or anything, but the teenage lovelies around here, all of whom look like they’ve spent their lives on ski slopes and in triathlons, are more often than not sporting a Union Jack somewhere, usually somewhere on their body I’m not looking at – “A British-style, full-bodied amber ale, rich in flavor and a crisp, distinctive aroma.” I gues the only time I missed this first time around was because I was committed to trying a little bit of everything out of journalistic integrity, but this is a damn fine beer. It delivers everything an amber promises, but doesn’t give you everything on the first date, you end up wanting another pint for some further conversation.

There’s a guy over there at the next table pounding a Bud Light. What the hell… boy, just outside the window right now a guy tossed a candy wrapper at a garbage can, missed, so he took a few steps to bend over and pick it up, and while he was down there he picked up another small bit of paper somebody – no doubt a tourist from back east – had left. What a great place. East Coasters sniff that places like Bozeman lack kultcher – oh, what’s this beer I’m on now? Snake River Pale Ale, from Wyoming’s Snake River Brewing Co.? Sorry, didn’t notice. All it reminds me of is Evel Knievel. Hell of an artist, Evel, not many people know that. Aw, this is an okay beer, but nothing to order when there are options on the menu. I mean, it’s not aggressively bad, but it’s probably the same as somebody who knows nothing about literature who reads anything Bret Easton Ellis or Jay McInerney writes and says “Um, it’s not… very, uh, good, is it?”

Next up is a Guinness. That’s right, nine microbrews on this menu and Guinness. Who can blame ‘em? Me, I’d put nine micros and a Bass Ale, but everybody’s entitled to their own opinion.

What great music here. There are differences to an overwhelmingly white community, I guess one of them is great music. I’ve heard bluegrass and thinly-veiled Irish tunes ever since I sat down in this place, and if I could figure out a way to get my mail forwarded here I probably wouldn’t move from this booth. I mean, what sweeter sound is there than a song starting with a slamming banjo riff, joined by an Appalachian fiddle? Hey, all you multicultural types, this is my culture, and if you can’t respect it maybe you need some more diversity training.

Now that’s the novel to write – a guy who honestly doesn’t have a problem with other cultures, just doesn’t like having his nose rubbed in them, moves to Montana as a way to live in his own culture – these multicultural asswipes thought they were doing themselves a favor by forcing black, Hispanic, Caribbean, Indian, Native American and whatever the hell cultures down the throat of the 87% of Americans who are of British ancestry, what they really did was reduce America to a series of ghettoes. White Americans have proven, over time, to be the most fair-minded, open-minded, culturally sensitive people on the face of the earth in world history, but never has any identifiable cultural demographic been more vilified for being culturally insensitive. Nobody ever – ever – criticizes blacks for not listening to bluegrass, but whites are routinely criticized for not listening to the rap stool pounding out at offensive volume from the car next to you at the stoplight, where your three-year old has to listen to “F-word my ho’” this and “F-word” that. That’s the end result of “multiculturalism,” being forced to endure absolute garbage just because a non-WASP is perpetrating it.

It’s not that I like Bozeman because it’s 95% white, it’s that white culture is the most racially and ethnically tolerant culture in the world and I’m damn proud of that. So there.

Oh yeah, and we do good beer too.

More with Thomas Walkom.

After blogging yesterday on a column written by Thomas Walkom (see Wednesday’s “I didn’t think it possible” post below) I sent him the following e-mail taking (polite) issue with his statements in the Toronto Star opinion piece he published:

Dear Mr. Walkom,

Interesting article about the U.S. and North Korea. I must say you put forth an argument I've never heard before, that North Korea's following a “sensible” path.

As to your claim that the United States never signed a nonaggression pact with North Korea in 1994, I'd like to direct your attention to Section III part 1 of the Geneva Framework Accords signed by the United States and North Korea on October 21, 1994:

III. Both sides will work together for peace and security on a nuclear-free Korean peninsula.

1) The U.S. will provide formal assurances to the DPRK, against the threat or use of nuclear weapons by the U.S.

Full text can be found at [http://www.ceip.org/files/projects/npp/resources/koreaaf.htm].

Got back the following:

Dear Mr Sims:

Thanks for the e-mail. The point is that so far the US has not delivered on the article 1 that you cite -- ie has not yet provided such formal assurances. Mr Bush is now making noises that suggest the US will do so. We shall see.

Regards,

Thomas Walkom

Frankly that the United States signed the agreement as written would be taken by any half-sane country as good enough, but let’s see why the United States never “delivered” on that promise according to a history worked out by Henry Sokolski in The Weekly Standard:

In 1987, North Korea publicly broke its 1985 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty obligations by barring International Atomic Energy Agency inspections and constructing a military production reactor that had no connection to its electrical power grid. Washington didn’t attack.

In 1992 Washington agreed to pull its nukes from South Korea if North Korea would cool it with the nukes. North Korea agreed. Washington “delivered” and pulled the nukes. North Korea promptly built a plutonium chemical separation plant in clear violation of the terms of the agreement and was caught by international nuclear inspectors lying about how much nuclear weapons material it had produced. Washington didn’t attack.

By 1993 Pyongyang had at least a bomb's worth of separated plutonium on hand. They again blocked further nuclear inspectors and announced they were leaving the NPT. Washington didn’t attack. Anybody can plainly see by now that they never will.

Along comes Bill Clinton. He studies the history of North Korea’s reliability and decides hey, if we bend over further, they won’t kick us again. He agrees to supply 500,000 tons of fuel oil welfare – nearly 10 times the amount of energy North Korea might have produced if it had completed all the reactors it was planning – for the tatty little dictatorship, and build two modern U.S.-designed reactors in the bargain. Peace in our time, right? As Henry Sokolski explains:

The deal required Pyongyang to prove it was out of the bomb-making business when roughly half of the U.S.-promised power reactor project was built. An accompanying classified minute – which Clinton agreed to and the North Koreans revealed only last week – secretly undermined this requirement. Unbeknownst to the public and most of Congress, this confidential memo freed Pyongyang from having even to begin to allow International Atomic Energy Agency inspections until after the reactor was half completed.

The deal stunned observers with its completely unmerited generosity on America’s part. Pyongyang’s reaction? Within twenty-four months of its signing in October of 1994, U.S. intelligence judged that North Korea had already built two nuclear weapons. That means they must have left the signing table, gone straight to the munitions plant, rolled up their sleeves and started work.

Why anybody would sign any agreement whatsoever with North Korea after that is beyond me. But the fuel oil shipments continued. Sokolski explains what happened next:

Late in 1997 and 1998, though, additional intelligence emerged that Pyongyang was testing high-explosive implosion devices for nuclear weapons and was working at several potential covert nuclear weapons sites. The Clinton administration, heckled into action by Congress and news leaks, again slow-rolled the matter. After more than a year of “tough” consultations with North Korea (and a promise of an additional half million tons of food aid), Clinton at last sent U.S. experts to visit just one of the suspect sites. In the interim, newspapers reported that U.S. satellites photographed North Koreans removing equipment from the site. When finally inspected – surprise – the site was empty.

Several months later, Congress weighed in. It required Clinton to certify that North Korea was not secretly enriching uranium before giving North Korea any more heavy fuel oil. Clinton’s response was nothing if not cheeky. He claimed North Korea was fully compliant with the nuclear deal, and that he lacked sufficient evidence to prove it was covertly working to enrich uranium. This drew congressional protests, but construction of the two promised U.S.-designed reactors – each capable of producing over 50 bombs’ worth of weapons-grade plutonium in the first 12 to 15 months of their operation – continued, as did the heavy fuel oil shipments.

When Bush was elected such nonsense ceased abruptly and North Korea started squawking, echoed by their useful idiots in the press and Toronto Star who still maintain the whole thing is America’s fault and it could all be ended tomorrow if only the belligerent, unreasonable United States simply signs another piece of worthless paper with their honest, reliable North Korean friends.

T-shirt of the week.

Available at Those Shirts.

Look, no Margaret Trudeau panties here, okay?

Would you just cut it out?

Some poor clown keeps running Google searches for “Margaret Trudeau panties.” Revoltingly, due to the evils of algorithms Clubbeaux comes up as the #1 provider for twisted souls anxious for the underwear selections of Canada’s former First Dingbat.

What with all the work we do here at Clubbeaux to keep you informed of the flaws in George Will’s analyses of campaign contributions and who’s wanking off about North Korea and the true history of the Crusades it’s disheartening to think there are folks reading Clubbeaux with their pants down around their ankles, but what with the failure of modern state-supported education what else does one expect?

Clubbeaux has never run anything about Margaret Trudeau’s panties. Clubbeaux has no opinion on and no interest in what Margaret Trudeau wears next to her skin. But so this yob will find some measure of satisfaction here’s fetching Maggie –



– and some panties you’d probably fancy Maggie wearing, with a bra thrown in for good measure.



Okay? Happy? Great. Now leave Clubbeaux alone.

Archaeology supports the Bible – again.

Skeptics still fumbling around for some way to throw cold water on the authenticated James ossuary – as well as those who dispute Jews’ claims to Temple Mount – now have something else to worry about (thanks to Not A Fish for the heads-up), from Ha’aretz:

An inscription attributed to Jehoash, the king of Judea who ruled in Jerusalem at the end of the ninth century B.C. has been authenticated by experts from the National Infrastructure Ministry’s Geological Survey of Israel following months of examination.

The 10-line fragment, which was apparently found on the Temple Mount, is written in the first person on a black stone tablet in ancient Phoenician script. The inscription’s description of Temple “house repairs” ordered by King Jehoash strongly resembles passages in the Second Book of Kings, chapter 12.

Dr. Gabriel Barkai, a leading Israeli archaeologist from Bar Ilan University’s Land of Israel Studies Department, says that if the inscription proves to be authentic, the finding is a “sensation” of the greatest import. It could be, he says, the most significant archaeological finding yet in Jerusalem and the Land of Israel. It would be a first-of-its kind piece of physical evidence describing events in a manner that adheres to the narrative in the Bible.

According to Dr. Barkai, such a finding, which appears to furnish proof of the existence of the Temple, must be made available for examination by scholars, and can not be kept a virtual secret.

Detailed research findings about the inscription are to be disclosed in a collection of articles published by the Geology Survey of Israel, a government research institute. Research studies have been prepared by Dr. Shimon Ilani, Dr. Amnon Rosenfeld and Michael Dvorchik, the institute’s chief technician who carried out electronic microscope tests of the inscription that, the three say, were largely responsible for the finding’s authentication.

Apart from noting that the discovery was made in Jerusalem, the researchers do not disclose where the inscription was found. But sources have indicated that the writing surfaced in the Temple Mount area as a result of widescale excavation work done in recent years in the area by Muslims, and that Palestinians relayed the fragment to a major collector of antiquities in Jerusalem.

The Jerusalem collector is represented by attorney Isaac Herzog, a former cabinet secretary and currently a Knesset candidate on Labor’s list.

The collector offered to sell the inscription to the Israel Museum, but museum curators who examined the fragment cast doubt on its authenticity, though they did not state categorically that the writing was a forgery.

Ilani and Rosenfeld refused yesterday to discuss the Israel Museum’s response with Ha’aretz. But officials from the Geology Survey said that results of the battery of examinations that were carried out must be taken as conclusive: It’s inconceivable that such extensive testing would fail to reveal a forgery, they said.

The inscription is authentic, they insisted, and the finding is an archaeological sensation that could have global repercussions and that effectively vindicates Jewish claims to the Temple Mount.

The inscription lauds repairs carried out by King Jehoash in ways reminiscent of the description in the Second Book of Kings. It includes the king’s request that priests collect public money to be used for the repair of the First Temple; and there are references to the purchase of timber and quarried stones for the carrying out of repairs on the Temple.

The inscription contains fragments from 2 Kings 12:15: “And they did not ask an accounting from the men into whose hands they delivered the money to pay out to the workmen; for they dealt honestly.”

The researchers believe that the sandstone used for the inscription was brought from southern Jordan, or the Dead Sea region. Materials that covered the inscription over the years date from 200-400 B.C., they suggest.

Ilani and Rosenfeld speculate that during this period, the inscription began to be covered up as a buried object. Should this hypothesis be correct, it would mean that the inscription was exposed to the elements for hundreds of years, before being buried some 500-600 years after it was written.

In his conversation with Ha’aretz, Dr. Barkai noted that “the problem here is that circumstances of the finding are not clear... We should wait for the official scientific publication, at which time we will be able to probe this finding carefully. Right now, of course, we can’t rule out any possibility. It’s too bad that a matter of this sort was kept under wraps, apparently due to business concerns.”

… and another blog to recommend.

I think I could have a couple beers with Steve over at Little Tiny Lies:

Let the Pelting Begin

Ladies and gentlemen, we have just witnessed television history. “Joe Millionaire” is without a doubt the finest hour of television ever produced.

Okay, maybe I’m bitter. I have two ex-girlfriends who owe me money. Conceivably, they really intend to pay me back. And maybe when I go outside tomorrow, Jennifer Lopez will by lying on my porch with a cold beer in her hand and her knees behind her ears.

Wait, no. That would be Ben Affleck’s porch.

For those of you who didn’t watch, this show is about a really stupid guy who runs a bulldozer for a living. I mean, God bless him, but his eyes are about a quarter of an inch apart, and he froze when one of the women asked him his middle name. And the marvelous people at Fox told 20 gold-digging whorelets he was sitting on 50 million clams. And right away, they all knew that there was a special little light inside this guy that burned just for them. All 50 of them.

These pathetic chippies let Fox trot them out to France, where they had penned Joe Backhoe up in a chateau so he could view them in style. It’s not clear to me whether the winner gets to marry him or if she just gets to spend the night in a Motel 6 with him, doing her damndest to get herself pregnant, but they showed up in France with their claws freshly sharpened and their suitcases full of the most interesting panties a Target charge card can buy.

This guy is dumb as a stump, and broke to boot, and these bimbos are sucking up to him so hard it makes your ears pop. They’re stabbing each other in the back and lying their asses off and pretending not to be reptiles when the piggy bank...I mean “Joe”...is around, and when the series is over, the meanest bitch in the bunch is going to stand amid steaming piles of freshly extracted female guts with her fangs bared and her implants thrust forward, and some guy with a microphone is going to take her by the hand, smile warmly, and inform her that she just won the hand of a guy who qualifies for FOOD STAMPS.

Oh, my GOD. What could be better than that? Guys, back me up here! Anyone out there ever have a woman date you because you had a nice car? Anyone ever have a woman dump you for the BBD? The “Bigger, Better Deal”? Can I have an “AMEN”? YEAH! TESTIFY!

I hate reality TV like poison, but I’m going to watch EVERY STINKING SECOND of this series while giggling like the bitter little fart that I am.

Women like the Joe Millionaire trollops are the reason I came up with what I call “The Gorilla Test.” It comes from the movie, “The Man With Two Brains.” In that movie, Steve Martin falls in love with a brain floating in a jar of preservative. The brain belongs to some lady who had a heart of gold. She’s sweet, she’s funny, she’s kind. But some vital--I mean REALLY vital--parts are missing. So Steve persuades a mad scientist to transplant her into the body of a woman. When it looks like the body isn’t coming, the scientist tells Steve he can put the brain into a gorilla. And Steve looks into the camera, grimaces, and says, “I can’t f___ a GORILLA!”

If you want a good woman, you have to be flexible about appearance. But setting the bar somewhere above gorilla level is not unreasonable.

The single greatest asset a woman can have is a good heart, and that’s what I look for, and she doesn’t have to be a beauty queen. She just has to be substantially better than a gorilla. I mean, hey, big zoomers are always a treat, but they’re no substitute for true love. Maybe they are. Let me think. No, I guess not. I’m pretty sure they’re not. Can I get back to you on that?

God bless Joe. I hope he vigorously rogers every last one of them, partly because they deserve it, and partly because now that every woman in America knows he makes $19,000 a year, the only place he’ll be seeing naked women will be in old National Geographics.

Okay, now I’m crawling back into my burrow before female readers pelt me with rotten fruit.

posted by Ann Coulter’s Thong at…

Dr. Seuss at war.

Just ran across an interesting New York blog, Who Censored BloggerRabbit?, which has something I’d heard about but had never seen: Dr. Seuss’s World War II cartoons.


And proving that dimwit celebrities aren’t a pain in the arse only for George W. Bush, Seuss shows how Nazi apologist and sympathizer Charles Lindbergh was running around saying we should fear Roosevelt more than Hitler (above right) and support Nazi Germany (below):

I didn’t think it possible.

Just when you thought the Lockstep Left couldn’t get any more dishonest, meretricious or downright stupid, here comes Thomas Walkom from the Toronto Star.

I really didn’t think it possible for anyone, even yet another dreary America-hating Canadian liberal such as Walkom to suggest that North Korea’s the “sensible” country in this whole mess, and that America’s really The Bad Guy, as if we were the ones threatening the world with nuclear war, tearing up signed agreements and starving our population. But this brainless toad has managed just that. Gems abound, of course, here are some pulled out more or less at random:

North Korea is usually presented as crazily paranoid. This is only partly true.

Which part – crazy or paranoid?

We in the press like to mock the Kim regime for its cult of leadership…

Translation: “Stupid American cretins in the press like to mock the Kim…”

In 1994, when Kim Jong-il succeeded his father as North Korea's top leader, Pyongyang entered into an agreement with arch-enemy Washington…

Arch-enemy? Nobody in Washington gave the first damn about North Korea in 1994. If they’re obsessed with us and think we reciprocate their paranoid obsession that’s their unreality.

...agreeing to give up its nuclear weapons program in exchange for oil and a non-aggression pact. For the then-Clinton administration, this agreement was about nuclear proliferation. But for the North, the promised non-aggression pact was key.

Wrong again, stupid. Why is it conservatives always have to teach history to dumbass liberals? For North Korea the free oil was the key. See, Mr. Walkom, after Russia and China cut subsidies to the hopelessly incompetent North Koreans, they couldn’t fend for themselves. So rather than retool their economy to produce a sustainable living standard for their people they decided to go out and shake down Uncle Sam. Imagine a dark-alley mugging without the dark alley.

As it turned out, neither side kept its promise. The North did not entirely give up nukes; the Americans never signed a non-aggression pact. For North Korea, the latter was not an idle matter.

“The North did not entirely give up nukes.” Don’t worry about Muffy, she’s just a little bit pregnant. And America delivered the last 500,000 tons of oil to the helpless North Koreans after North Korea had announced they were cheating on the agreement. America and North Korea: Morally equivalent in this idiot’s eyes.

The United States and North Korea signed the Geneva Framework Agreement on October 21, 1994, which stipulated the United States would provide welfare in the form of 500,000 tons of fuel oil a year while the United States and Japan built two light-water reactors and the North Koreans would give up their nuke program. Until the reactors were ready the U.S. would continue with the fuel welfare payments.

And as for that red herring about the U.S. not signing a nonaggression pact, which is what North Korea seems to be yowling about now, Walkom’s just hoping you’re as stupid as he assumes you to be. See, liberals rarely take the time to learn the facts behind claims – an emotional reaction suffices – so he’s not used to being fact-checked.

Anybody can read the terms of the 1994 agreement signed by both North Korea and the United States, but I’ll reproduce here the pertinent section:

III. Both sides will work together for peace and security on a nuclear-free Korean peninsula.

1) The U.S. will provide formal assurances to the DPRK, against the threat or use of nuclear weapons by the U.S.

Where I come from that’s called a non-aggression pact. The United States signed that and lo and behold, hasn’t used nuclear weapons against North Korea since. In other words, we held up our side of the deal we signed.

Well la dee dah, in 2002 North Korea announces that not only do they have a nuke program running, they have two programs. The United States delivers the shipment of oil as promised, and says hey look, either you abide by your terms of the agreement or we won’t feel bound by ours. North Korea then announces that the U.S. has abrogated the treaty and demands a new one. From all this Thomas Walkom gets the idea that it’s as much America’s fault as North Korea’s. Must be nice to be a Canadian liberal, where your beliefs don’t have to be bound by any pertinent facts.

Walkom then argues – it must be read to be believed – that North Korea’s bleeding the country white and starving its citizens to build nuclear arms is the “sensible” course of action for Pyongyang to deal with American rhetoric one-tenth as threatening as what North Korea itself churns out weekly. Me, being a cold-hearted conservative bastard, I would have thought the “sensible” response to an unwinnable arms race would be to drop the rhetoric and nuclear programs and free things up, sign joint business agreements and attract investment and feed your people – Russia’s solution to an arms race it couldn’t win, by the way – instead of ramping up the paranoia and fostering more international tension, but then again I’m not a liberal like Thomas Walkom.

Required reading.

Yes it’s rather long, but Victor Davis Hanson’s op-ed in Opinion Journal is worth the twenty minutes or so it takes to fully absorb. Too many good points, trenchant observations and thoughtful conclusions to highlight here, but one paragraph might stand for his thoughts on why anti-Americanism seems to burn brightest among those who benefit the most by America’s wealth and freedoms:

Is it because these elite Americans are so insulated and so well off, and yet feel so troubled by it, that they are prone to embrace with religious fervor ideas that have little connection with reality but that promise a sense of meaning, solidarity with a select and sophisticated group, moral accomplishment, and importance? Is it because of its very freedom and wealth that America has become both the incubator and the target of these most privileged, resentful, and unhappy people? And are their perceptions susceptible of change?

If the answer to the first two questions is yes, as I believe it is, then the reply to the third must be: I doubt it.

And then for a breath of fresh air click over to Fred On Everything , where the cop columnist for The Washington Times lets fly. His thoughts on voluntary resegregation? It’s “news for people who are surprised by sunrise… I’m all astonished, like I am when teenagers think about sex.”

Clubbeaux’s favorite paragraph: Go to a party of a hundred rich, white, unrelentingly good, racially correct people in Washington, and you will find three blacks to shuffle and look embarrassed and be credentials. The ninety-seven white people will make a point of talking awkwardly to them so everybody will know they are not prejudiced. Ask the whites in a loud voice where their kids go to school.

And now for the news.

Oakland schools to hold You Will Oppose The Iraq War Dammit teach-in.

OAKLAND, Calif. - Oakland’s school board drew criticism for authorizing a You Will Oppose The Iraq War Dammit teach-in on Iraq that was dominated by opponents of a possible war.

But organizers, who called the event a timely exercise in critical thinking, said they simply couldn’t find pro-war speakers who were willing to appear.

“We made every effort to find pro-war speakers who would consent to wearing a large scarlet ‘M’ for ‘child murderer’ on their chests,” said Dan Siegel, a member of the school board. “And heck, we threw in the mandatory re-education classes free, I really don’t know what more we could have done.”


Peace advocate Barbara Lubin presenting the only side of the Iraq war debate allowed at the Oakland “teach-in.”

Siegel said he didn’t think the obvious bias in the You Will Oppose The Iraq War Dammit presentation would be a problem. “Our teachers and our students here in Oakland are too smart to be victims of propaganda, seeing as how our kids have some of the lowest test scores outside of Mississippi and our teachers backed the whole ebonics fiasco. Our goal is to do education and to have people make up their own minds. Besides we’ve already taught them how to recognize propoganda, and they have a handout explaining the difference between truth and propaganda on the social, economic and political issues today.”

Kathi Steele, a 31-year veteran of Oakland public schools said the teachers and administrators were excited about recapturing the spirit of the ‘60s with “a real teach-in. I attended these in Berkeley, and it’s great to be able to bring that same idealism, that same commitment, that same spirit to Oakland public schools.” Steele said the students would be encouraged to smoke reefer and drop acid “to make it just like we remember. Students have been tie-dying shirts and drawing peace signs on everything to get in the mood.” Plus “I won’t wear a bra that day,” Steele promised.

No one on the list of speakers at Tuesday’s You Will Oppose The Iraq War Dammit event supported the Bush administration’s assertion that war may be necessary to remove Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Critics also maintained that Oakland’s first priority should be fixing its low test scores and multimillion-dollar deficit.

A similar effort stirred debate in San Francisco, where the school board has proposed a day of public education on war with Iraq. Sponsors of that event had toned down their strong anti-war wording, but parents and the local PTA complained the event remained one-sided. PTA member Walter Ross derided such fears. “We’ll be very even-handed, we’ll have speakers saying it’s all about oil and speakers saying it’s all about Bush’s personal vengeance,” Ross declared. “Both points of view will be represented.”

In Oakland, organizers of You Will Oppose The Iraq War Dammit said they tried to get different points of view to educate the school district’s 53,000 students, but pro-war speakers were unwilling to participate. “I don’t know why they don’t trust us,” Siegel said. “We promised we’d be as fair and impartial as their disgusting child-murdering warmongering for the sake of oil beliefs warrant.”

During a morning session of You Will Oppose The Iraq War Dammit at Oakland High, speakers denounced military action, saying bombing Iraq would kill innocent civilians as well as U.S. soldiers and decimate the U.S. domestic budget. When a student raised his hand to ask if the United States’ reliance on smart bombs wouldn’t cut civilian casualties to levels unheard of in modern warfare and if the cost wasn’t going to come out of the already-appropriated defense budget he was sent out of the room. “This is a teach-in,” one teacher explained. “It’s not for them to ask questions, it’s for us to tell them what – I mean, teach them.”

“People are really missing the big part of this,” said student Mohamed Mohamed, who has relatives in Iraq. “If our Leftist teachers – which is all we get in class, all day every day, leftover leftism 24/7 – wants to try to remind themselves of the ‘60s I guess we have to go along with it. Gets us out of class for a day, so I guess it’s okay to put up with their nostalgia trip. My mom’s making a Mao jacket for me to wear.”

Oakland school officials defended the You Will Oppose The Iraq War Dammit teach-in even as they said they’ll need a $100 million bailout from the state to avoid bankruptcy, and students’ test scores remain low…

Harry Potter Due June 21st.

LONDON (Reuters) - Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the fifth book of adventures of the boy wizard by author J.K. Rowling, is due to be published on June 21, its British publisher said Wednesday.

“Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is absolutely superb and will delight all J.K. Rowling’s fans,” Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. chief executive Nigel Newton said in a statement. “Our accountant, for one, simply can’t wait.”

The book, which at 38 chapters and 255,000 words, will be a third longer than the last book – Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire – is also being published by U.S. children’s book publisher Scholastic Corp.

Fans will have had a three-year wait for Order of the Phoenix, the better to “shake every last nickel out of kids’ allowances,” Newton explained. “I mean, there was the movie, and all the Harry Potter calendars and notebooks and pens and stuffed animals they had to buy at Christmas, and then the DVD, so no sense putting out a $20 book before they’ve saved up some more, right?”

Goblet of Fire was published Saturday, July 8, 2000, and was the fastest-selling book in history on the first weekend of its publication.

The first few sentences of the book are: “The hottest day of the summer so far was drawing to a close and a drowsy silence lay over the large, square houses of Privet Drive ... The only person left outside was a teenage boy who was lying flat on his back in a flowerbed outside number four.”

The book may have a darker side than the earlier escapades.

Bloomsbury said Rowling also writes: Dumbledore lowered his hands and surveyed Harry through his half-moon glasses. “It is time,” he said, “for me to tell you what I should have told you five years ago, Harry.

“Please sit down. I am going to tell you everything.”

“No! You can’t!” Harry exclaims. “I’ve still got at least two books to go! Think of the merchandising…”

U.S. begins training Iraqi opposition.

WASHINGTON - Iraqi exiles who want to help the American military in its campaign against Saddam Hussein will report for training this week, defense officials said.

The first batch of opposition members who’ve volunteered to serve with U.S. forces – for this week, anyway – have been told by the Pentagon to assemble at marshaling centers in the next several days, three officials said late Tuesday on condition of anonymity.

The call-up of recruits kicks off the largest known U.S. effort to train Saddam’s enemies since passage of the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act, which called for his overthrow and said $97 million could be spent to train and equip his opponents.

It reminds observers of how the CIA trained anti-Soviet fighters in Afghanistan, the very people who later formed the backbone of al-Qaida. Osama bin-Laden himself received military training from the United States.

“Hey, these guys won’t do that, they won’t ever lift a finger against the United States,” a defense official said. “They promised…”


Anna Kournikova’s heat patch, by far the biggest story of the 2003 Australian Open.

Kournikova loses at Australian Open, sponsors despondent.
Russian tennis star Anna Kournikova was bounced from the Australian Open in the second round, prompting loud wailing and handwringing from tournament organizers and sponsors.

“Oh great, just great,” one official said after Justine Henin-Hardenne humiliated the former top ten player, 6-0, 6-1. “Like anybody from the States is going to tune in to see which Williams sister lost the coin flip at the breakfast table to fake some injury or tank the final match this time…”

Three in Seventeen.

Clubbeaux thanks Dave at Greeblie for selecting three of Clubbeaux’s entries for this week’s Carnival of the Vanities. Lots of other good stuff as well – be sure to read A Small Victory’s A Day In The Life – Parts 1, 2 and 3. The Gleeful Extremist is worth a click as well.

Quote of the week.

Clubbeaux can sympathize:

Lara Flynn Boyle on the problems of fame: “You hear some celebrities say they can’t go anywhere, even to the grocery store, but who the hell wants to go to the grocery store anyway?”


Boyle in an outfit you won’t be seeing at your local Safeway.

Goodbye, Mr. Hussein.

According to reports in The Washington Times and Salt Lake Tribune, here’s how much better American military capability is today than during Desert Storm in 1991:

“Precision weapons… are far superior today to the ones in Desert Storm. It’s unbelievable,” says retired Rear Adm. Phillip Smith, a former P-3 Orion pilot. “I think militarily we will be successful in not too much time. I’m not one of those who thinks we can do it in three days, like I recently read.” Some analysts have concluded that Iraq could be effectively defeated in 24 hours, as opposed to 100 hours in Desert Storm.

“We had good capability in situational awareness in the Gulf,” says Claude Bolton Jr., the Army’s assistant secretary for acquisition and logistics and a retired Air Force major general and former jet fighter test pilot. “I would say it’s much improved now.”

The greatest improvement since 1991 according to Bolton is the satellite-guided bomb, the Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM). Using the Global Positioning System, pilots can independently program each 500- or 2,000-pound bomb to hit different targets. Accuracy is measured in feet. But more importantly, JDAMs is impervious to the elements. In the 1991 Gulf war, poor weather caused some laser-guided bombs to go off target, or forced pilots to abort missions. Today “if you know where the target is, you can drop it.” Or as one analyst put it, “We can pick which window of the building we want to hit.”

JDAM can be used by the B-2 bomber or tactical aircraft. Air Force F-15s and F-16s, as well as Navy F-18s and F-14s, can drop the bomb. In 1991, the only Navy plane equipped with laser-guided weapons was the since-retired A-6 Intruder. F-18 pilots had to rely on less-accurate radar guidance, and too often missed battlefield targets, pilots said.

· War plans call for an unprecedented use of the B-2 (perhaps 16 of the 21 bombers) to drop independently targeted JDAMs on critical targets. If the B-2s successfully strike command centers, air defenses and Saddam’s security forces, the strikes could shorten the war.

· In Desert Storm, only one manned plane could penetrate downtown Baghdad in the first days — the F-117 stealth bomber with its limited arsenal of two laser-guided bombs. The B-2 can carry 16 2,000-pound bombs.

· In Desert Storm the lag time between target identification and missile launch was hours. Today it’s real time. Missiles are actually fired before a target is selected. The missile hovers in the air until target coordinates are programmed in, then instantly destroys the target.

· Today more than 80 percent of all air-to-ground munitions can be precision-guided, compared with 10 percent in Desert Storm. The ability to hit more targets, using fewer missions, is one reason the number of American troops being sent to the region is half the 550,000 deployed in 1991.

· Today’s military has well-developed unmanned spy planes, such as the Air Force Predator and Global Hawk, and the Army’s Shadow. The remote-controlled drones can loiter aloft for long periods of time, sending back video images. Commanders can use the “real-time” intelligence to direct air strikes or reposition ground forces. Such technology was unavailable in Desert Storm: “If we had had a handful of Predators in the Gulf war, we probably would have found and killed Saddam Hussein,” one military analyst says.

· The M-1A2 Abrams battle tank, now assigned to the 4th Infantry and 1st Cavalry divisions, has improved armor and a better fire-control system. The infrared system allows gunners to watch the round all the way to the target. The older system goes blank for a few seconds after the gun barrel flashes.

· In 1991, America and its allies had to conduct an air campaign to gain control of the skies before the ground campaign could be launched. Today, American and British planes already dominate Iraq’s air space.

· In 1991, it took months to position troops, tanks and other equipment before Desert Storm could commence. Today, a substantial amount of allied equipment is already in the region, as are a number of troops, thanks to the Afghanistan campaign and the assistance of allies. Further, America’s air transport capabilities are substantially greater than they were in 1991, which increases our ability to rapidly deploy troops and equipment in the area of operations

“When you roll it all together, I say we’re 10 times more powerful” today than in Desert Storm, says retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney. “And [Saddam] is about 30 percent what he was before.”

The military today uses an “effects-based” approach to bombing campaigns. Critical parts of the target are destroyed, not the entire complex or network. For example, planners target electrical nodes instead of the much larger generation plant to get the same effect – no military electrical power.

The Predator’s superior performance in Afghanistan and Yemen is one reason top Army officials are so optimistic about the Shadow 200 RQ-7A. The 300-pound spy plane is slated to be assigned to the Army’s Stryker Brigade Combat Teams – the mobile ground units of the future – and the 4th Infantry Division at Fort Hood, Texas.

As one American soldier interviewed recently said, “I almost feel sorry for those guys. This isn’t 1991. The weapons we have today don’t miss.”

Grouchy Old Cripple.

Clubbeaux likes finding worthwhile new blogs and found one this morning, Atlanta-based Grouchy Old Cripple. Here’s his take on Gephardt’s promise that Democrats “want to help those who have not won life’s lottery:”

Howza ‘bout me you asshole? I didn’t win life’s lottery. I’m a fucking cripple. But I don’t want any help from you or the gummint. I would just like to keep some of the money I’ve worked my butt off to earn and that you assholes want to take from me for wasteful gummint programs like naming every bridge and building in West Virginia after Robert (Kleagle of the KKK) Byrd. Why don’t they just rename the whole fucking state after him?

Put that side by side with his writing about his 15-year old cat Doofus who’s currently battling diabetes, and a great Fisking of an article about the death of small towns along the Rio Grande which are principally used as way stations for illegal border crossings and you have a blog worth checking out.

Well, there’s “black” and then there’s black, see.

According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch,the only Republican member of Virginia’s Legislative Black Caucus said last week she has been excluded from meetings of the group because of her political affiliation.

Del. Winsome E. Sears, the first black Republican woman elected to the Virginia House of Delegates, said “Democratic members of the caucus did not include her in discussions over the group’s response to the Republican- drawn redistricting plan last summer. They also did not tell her about an informal meeting of the group when the legislative session opened on Wednesday.”

“Sometimes I ask myself, ‘Is it worth it? Is it worth it to try to prove that I’m black?” she said.

As black columnist Thomas Sowell once said, he spent the first half of his life keeping whites from defining who he was, and the second half of his life keeping blacks from defining who he was.

“Sears, a 38-year-old ex-Marine who upset a Democratic incumbent in 2001 to win her Norfolk seat, said she believes the caucus would be stronger with a bipartisan exchange of ideas, but Democrats have rebuffed her attempts at being involved.”

Well, there’s “our” kind of black, and then there’s just the wrong kind of black. See, Ms. Sears, it’s not about being black, it’s about being black. It’s not really about skin color, it’s more about a preset liberal political agenda. If you’re not for preferential treatment of the less qualified, governmentally-enforced racial quotas and blaming Whitey for all your problems then you’re not black, sorry.

“Sears is the first Republican member of the caucus. The only other black Republican elected to the House in the last 100 years, former Del. Paul Harris of Albemarle County, chose not to join. He was a member of the House from 1997 to 2001.

“Hampton Del. Mary T. Christian, leader of the caucus, said Sears has not been intentionally excluded. However, both she and Del. Fenton L. Bland Jr., D-Petersburg, admitted the caucus can sometimes be more effective with a Democratic agenda. ‘It is very difficult considering we are Democrats in the majority, and we have certain ambitions we are talking about,’ Christian said. “When she goes to that other caucus (the Republican Caucus) ... we don’t expect them to be addressing our problems.’”

Just a minute, but who’s the “our” in “our problems?” Blacks? Clearly the Virginia House of Delegates’ Black Caucus doesn’t speak for Virginia blacks when they don’t even let certain black delegates join. Sears’ election as a Republican is a repudiation of the idea that there are any distinct “black” problems apart from white “problems” the House can effectively address, doesn’t it? Christian must mean “the black caucus’s problems” as “our” problems, that’s all Clubbeaux can figure.

“We need more black Republicans and maybe black Libertarians, and then it will be less of me against them,” Sears said.

Amen, sister.

The rosary for modern man.

“Jewellers in Milan have started to offer the world a new line in heavenly credit – the rosary shaped like a credit card,” reads Ship of Fools’s explanation for what we have here:



Clubbeaux likes to be an equal opportunity jerk, making fun of anything and everything. Islam certainly gets its lumps here, but Clubbeaux sees no reason to imply that Islam has some sort of monopoly on stupidity. The above-pictured rosary is but one of dozens of Christian products on the site dedicated to giving kitsch a bad name.

“The card comes in various forms: plastic for ‘those who can afford to pay the least’, brass or copper-embossed for middle-income earners (pictured) and a de luxe version in gold, studded with diamonds,” Ship notes. According to The Times of London, the card is said to have the approval of the Vatican.

Don’t leave Rome without it.

One way to improve police stats.

Thanks to Emperor Misha over at Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler for the heads-up on how English police intend to boost their crime investigation success rates: Only investigate crimes they know they can solve.

The Telegraph reports that “Police have been ordered not to bother investigating crimes such as burglary, vandalism and assaults unless evidence pointing to the culprits is easily available.” In other words, if it requires a modicum of thought or effort, smoke it.

Under new guidelines, The Telegraph reports, “officers have been informed that only ‘serious’ crimes, such as murder, rape or so-called hate crimes, should be investigated as a matter of course.”

So the P.C.-construct of “hate crimes,” wherein a Pakistani feels someone looked at him cross-eyed on the street and files a police report, now takes police precedence over burglary. Pity the poor Brits who have to live under this evil stupidity.

In all other cases, unless there is immediate and compelling evidence, such as fingerprints or DNA material, the crime will be listed for no further action.

“It might mean that people who have had their bikes stolen from outside a shop might not get any investigation into it,” a police spokesman said. “It is looking at the high priorities for crime in the community.”

Or as Misha says, Making off with somebody’s valuables, wrecking their property and/or beating the snot out of them is all very good and fine, but Heaven FORBID that you should call somebody “raghead” or “kike.”

It’s wonderful to see how the Brits have got their priorities straight at last.

In related news, the English national soccer team announced that they have cancelled scheduled international friendlies against Brazil, Germany and Turkey, and henceforth will only play matches against San Marino, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Vatican City and Kiribati.

… and the shakedown continues.

Jesse Jackson must be advising North Korea or something: “Shake ‘em down, Kim baby, they have this silly notion about wanting to be fair and decent, and if you learn to cheat ‘em that way, as I’ve made a career of doing, you never have to work again.”


Madeleine Albright with the Clinton Administration’s trusted friend, Kim Jong-Il.

As a Clubbeaux reader wondered last week, how is this North Korean shakedown of the West any different from 1994’s? The drill back then was that the West would play nice with North Korea, treat them as if they were intelligent, rational people instead of crazy loons, and in gratitude the North Koreans would just give up their nuclear arms program and not bother us again. That was Bill Clinton’s idea, anyway. Of course it failed.

North Korea enjoys brinkmanship because they know the West doesn’t have the stomach for it they do. They know our standards of morality far exceed theirs, they know we at least try to be honest and fair whereas they don’t give the first damn about honesty or fairness, they know we care about the welfare of our citizens whereas the welfare of his citizens who are eating bark and boiling inedible greens to stay alive never flits across Kim Jong-il’s “mind.”

So basically they know they have us. Rattle some nuclear sabres and they can force us to pay for their heating oil, which all goes to government buildings anyway and not to actual North Korean citizens who simply freeze through the winter. I see in the news today the same schtick’s working against Bush as worked against Clinton, although admittedly the insane idiots running the North Korean disaster of a state had to put up with more guff from the Americans before we bent over again.

What to do? Clubbeaux’s impressed with the way Israel handles its nuclear reactor problems: Send a plane over, bomb the installation, let it be known if there’s any more construction the same thing’ll happen again. Clubbeaux doesn’t see why it wouldn’t work with North Korea.


Displaying more common sense than the rest of the country put together, 30,000 South Korean Christians on January 11th held a massive pro-American, please-stay-American-army-pretty-pretty-please-because-we’re-dog-food-if-you-don’t prayer rally in downtown Seoul.