SPRING TRAINING T-MINUS 11 DAYS AND COUNTING!

 

 

 

The little ones, like baby birds, have left their nest.  I left the door to the nursery open this evening when I crashed.  I think they are under the sofa.  Rumsfeld (so far) is behaving himself.  Georgie did emerge from the bat cave this evening long enough to give him a good, and well deserved whack across the face.  Like any self-respecting bully, he came running and crying to mommy!  Charlotte, my cat sitter, is getting a friend whose father has a traq. gun and they’re coming hunting for the birth father.  I’ve reached that point.  I was going to have round-up today after I returned home from my 2nd ‘special guest writer’ appearance for my friend Alicia, but I was so tired I gave up and slept for 5 hours. Somewhere along the line I need to figure how to sleep off this insomnia. Today’s post is going to be limited, I think.  I do want to tell you about what I discovered this week on the state of education.  No Child Left Behind is not working.  Not because the kids who need help are being left behind, but because the kids who were ahead of them are being neglected.  The emphasis on so much reading has taken the fun out of reading. More tomorrow.

 

MY RUDY RANT

 

I finally realized why I like Rudy Giuliani so much – his personal life has been a mess!  I don’t know about you but it is time we quit dissecting a politician’s personal life, if it has not effected the way they handle business.  If you think back to 9/11 Rudy’s personal life was an abject disaster.  He was going through a messy divorce that was tabloid fodder.  But, he did not allow his personal problems to have any effect on his ability to handle one of the worst crises to hit the US, let alone NYC.  To me that is leadership.  I don’t give a rip if he has had a dozen divorces.  At least he’s getting married and divorced and married and divorced, etc. and not a terminal shack-up like Bill Clinton.  In many ways he is the perfect anti-Bill.  If Hillary decides to throw slings and arrows at his personal life, she’d better be careful.  I have a friend who is a friend of her lesbian lover!

 

Curt over at Flopping Aces comes to a similar conclusion about Giuliani.    Then there is the Political Pit Bull  If you want to know how you are being manipulated by the 'values' set, read this NRO commentary by Terrence Jefferys. I'm sick of these people.  I am sick of their rank hypocrisy.  For some strange reason the rank (and I use that word as in smells horrible) RIGHT conservatives have lost their grip of humanity.  Several months ago I was dismayed to discover a link from the minutemen et. al to a pro-life organization that advocated the shooting of homosexuals.  The link has been removed, but I think you get the picture.  Instead of putting the Love of Christ into practice, they are doing just the opposite, practicing hate.

 

HOUSTON WE HAVE A PROBLEM!

 

Read Wizbang’s commentary about the great NASA love triangle.  My first question is how this mess managed to slip through the checks and balances and psych profiles.  My next comment is rhetorical.  If NASA turned a blind eye to this, then Houston we do have a problem.  It has nothing to do with an affair and everything to do with the fact that someone in the powers that be in the Astronaut Office has slipped up, big time.  I know for a fact that there has been a little hanky-panky in zero G via one astronaut, who was married at the time (and I think still is) and another astronaut who, at the time, was married to yet another astronaut.  This was during the Reagan Administration.  There was a divorce, one remained in the shuttle program for years, the other did not.  Everything was handled quietly and discretely.  There have been many divorces and affairs over the years.  The job of astronaut is not conducive to family life.  Divorce is very common, as it is with many high pressure jobs that require marriage to the job and allow very little time for family life.  The difference is startling.  I blame who ever is in charge of assessing and profiling who gets in and who doesn’t.  Do you know how difficult it is just to be selected for consideration, let alone being chosen?  What the heck happened?  I am wondering if we’re not dealing with a complete mental breakdown of some sort.  If so, then once again someone in the front office was not doing their job.

 

 

RIP Lou Burdette.  He was one of the greats.  

Did you hear the one about the shark that sank a fishing boat.  Jaws?  

Outside the Beltway's Traffic Jam

 

IMMIGRATION

Mexico is accused of abusing illegals. 

 

But – in a follow- up to what I wrote yesterday:

“…The treatment of migrants held in borrowed jail cells has become an issue in the United States, as well. A Dec. 22 report by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security found that five county and privately owned jails used for detaining migrants failed to meet Immigration and Customs Enforcement standards. Inspectors found unsafe bunk beds at one jail, undercooked chicken being served at another and missing paperwork at four of the jails. At one jail, officials took 16 business days to approve a detainee's request to call his lawyer….”

 

I just bet this is one anti-immigration story you haven’t heard in the MSM.  Four “Anglo” wearing military style clothing, beret wearing gunman attacked a truck filled with illegals at a job site, shooting at least two and possibly three of them. 

 

Anti-minuteman legislator Kyrsten Sinema (D-very liberal AZ) has reported receiving threats from minutemen types over her proposed anti-minuteman legislation.  I take her allegations serious because I have a friend who made his thoughts on the subject known and he too was threatened.

 

THE WORLD GONE WILD 

 

The Miami Herald article gets it right, what is going in Latin America is fascism.  Does anyone remember how Jimmy Carter gushed about Chavez a few years ago and swore to the world that he did not steal the election in Venezuela?

 

Captain Ed has mentioned something that also strikes me as curious and curiouser.  Why was an Iranian diplomat abducted in Baghdad today? 

 

IRAN, TERROR, ISLAM

In the Bullpen on the difference between Islamists and terror.

Gateway on terrorists

Gateway on a possible Iranian agent in the Iraqi government

North African terror links

Counterterror Blog on more Saudi financing

Strata-Sphere on Al Qaeda in Europe

 

DEMOCRAT & LIBERAL FOLLIES

Jules Crittendon on the Dem Senate

 

 PRIMARIES 2008

It is interesting how Hillary and Obama are no going to do the early debates.     Hotline on Giuliani    - I like reason #9.  Because Giuliani will never have the endorsement of James Dobson or the religious right he doesn’t need to pander to them (i.e. PROSTITITUE himself for their vote) and can go out and find new GOP voters.  If I were fence sitting before, this reason alone, pulse the fact that Ann Coulter will not vote for him under any circumstance (she’s a babbling fool) also cements my vote.   It has also dawned on me Giuliani’s biggest foes are out of control conservatives.  Have you heard the one about Romney and stem cell research? The Canada Free Press on Hill.   There are several things I like about Giuliani.  1st, he isn’t perfect  2nd his personal life is messy, 3rd his most recent wife, Judi is considered sexy at 52!  Eye on 2008 wants to know when Romney is going to go after Giuliani, as well as our blessed whacked out ultra conservatives who are one issue voters.  Fascinating.  I don't know about you, but I am so sick and tired of the "values voter" telling the rest of us in the GOP how to act that I could literally puke.  I've had it with them.  Who died and made them the voice of God?  Read Political Pit Bull on Giuliani.  Flap on the duplicity of the RIGHT values voter and Giuliani.

 

The Opinion Journal’s Political Diary on John Edwards:

 

“"The stars of the weekend [meeting of the Democratic National Committee], judging from reactions in the ballroom and the lobby, were not Obama and Clinton, but former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina and Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico. Both of them played to the anti-war sentiments of this liberal-leaning audience by demanding that those now in Congress do more than pass resolutions decrying President Bush's decision to send more troops to Iraq. Edwards wants to pull out 40,000 soldiers now; Richardson said, Iraq 'is not worthy of one more lost American life.' Their view, which was echoed by former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, left Obama, Clinton and Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware -- who have to deal with the realities of a 51-49 Senate where nothing can pass without significant Republican support -- in the uncomfortable position of seeming to be less fervent about the war" -- Washington Post political columnist David Broder….”