Hollywood Women	Afghan Women
Christina Aguilera: "It's embarrassing and shameful to know that I haven't been voicing my opinion as a female. It's disrespectful to the women who worked so hard in getting us to this point where we have a say." Cameron Diaz: "We have a voice now, and we're not using it, and women have so much to lose. I mean, we could lose the right to our bodies. We could lo--if you think that rape should be legal, then don't vote." [Link]	"Zalmay Khalilzad, U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, said those women were warned that Taliban remnants would attack polling places during the Oct. 9 elections. So the women performed the ritual bathing and said the prayers of those facing death. Then, rising at 3 a.m., they trekked an hour to wait in line for the polls to open at 7 a.m. In the province of Kunar an explosion 100 meters from a long line of waiting voters did not cause anyone to leave the line." [Link]

Take a good look at the photo on the left. In the foreground are four women. From the left, Drew Barrymore and Cameron Diaz. Two major movie stars who pull down roughly $15-20 million per movie...for 6 to 12 weeks work. Next is Christina Aguilera, a pop music diva. On the far right, of course, is Oprah Winfree. Three multi-millionaires and a multi-billionaire.

Three multi-millionaries and a multi-billionaire all made fabulously wealthy by modern media and communications sitting on the set of a talk show with world-wide syndication....saying these completely idiotic things and doing it in front of a graphic showing a woman with her mouth stitched closed.

On the right is a photo of women lining up to vote for the first time ever. Women who are not only prepared to die in the act, but have assigned enough of a probability to that outcome that they have gone through a death ritual in advance of leaving for the polls.

I can't really assign responsibility to anyone for the scene shown on the left.

I can, however, assign responsibility for the scene on the right to a very courageous and determined American President.

One that deserves very much to be re-elected.

Update: From the Mudville Gazette: Different angle, same conclusion.

From Chicago Boyz:

"Now the one thing that strikes me about the military efforts to date is just how incredibly successful they've been, and how masterfully planned and executed they turned out to be. Not perfect, of course (You mean there's terrorists setting off explosives? Against Americans and their supporters? In the Middle East, no less? Say it isn't so!). But a lot of the toys that John Kerry voted against turned out to be damned useful in the War on Terror. I don't want to even think about how an Afghanistan operation with Vietnam-era technology and tactics would have gone for us - I think in that case we'd have been wishing for another Vietnam. And if you've ever cracked a history book, you'll realize that only 1200 deaths in a year and a half of invading a dictatorship, overthrowing its dictator, and fighting a chronic insurgency is astoundingly good news, especially when added to the fact that the long-predicted flood of refugees never materialized, the terrorists that Saddam's regime had nothing whatsoever to do with suddenly got extremely interested in the fate of Iraq (and no, we're not turning peaceful, simple folk into bloodthirsty terrorists - at worst, we're forcing them to choose their side a little sooner than they would have on their own, and denying them the option of biding their time until the Great Satan looks sufficiently weak to try their hand at terrorism on their chosen terms), and Iraqis are still signing up to take on the battle for their country against these thugs and getting set to vote in their first-ever real election in a couple of months.

And the Commander-in-Chief at the helm during these amazing accomplishments is called incompetent? You've got to be kidding me."

Well, perhaps Osama bin Laden isn't bone-flecked jam on the wall of a cave in Tora Bora after all.

I do find it interesting that when Al Qaida wants to influence elections in Spain they provide training and explosives to those who would advance their interests.

And to influence elections in America they supply video-taped press releases.

Here is probably the best reason yet to vote Bush/Cheney. Think of all the people who: a. will be driven over the edge; b. become catatonic; c. will pitch a 2 month screaming fit; d. will move to Canada, or, e. who's heads will explode when he is reelected.

He really does have a wealth of unworthy enemies and they have been wrong on virtually everything. From the Times of London via Megan McArdle doing a great job subbing over at Instapundit. Go read the whole thing. Over a cup of tea.

Great News for Sen. Kerry this morning. It wasn't France or Germany.

Andrew Sullivan has endorsed John Kerry.

He thinks that John Kerry won't fail in the War on Terror because it would be bad for the Democratic party.

No. Really. He said that.

His article endorsing Kerry is the most unserious thing I have ever seen him write.

But even though Sullivan's piece collapses upon itself long before the end is arrived at...it is still fun to watch a pro go to work on it.

Kudos to the MRT for the increased level of detail on the actual cost of operations of the EZ Rider Transportation System (Reporter: Stephanie Miller). The...er...money quote:

"Monthly EZ RIDER operating expenses averaged about $142,000, and user fees from riders cover only about nine percent of operating costs, according to the transit district."

This is just some playing around with the numbers.

Column A is what has been reported for EZ Rider operations from October 2003 through September 2004. The next three columns are "what-ifs?"

Column B: What if ridership more than doubled to 500,000 passenger trips?

Column C: What if ridership more than doubled to 500,000 AND the fares collected per trip (on average) more than doubled to $1.00?

Column D: Holding expenses steady, and assuming the full fare is paid by every rider, what level of ridership would be required for the tax subsidy required per trip to exactly equal the fare? In other words, how many riders would it take to get to the point where the taxpayer were only paying for half of the cost of each trip.

(All of these scenarios do something that is both wildly generous and unrealistic: They hold the cost of operations steady at $1,699,315 even though the ridership more than triples by the last scenario.)

CAVEAT: And a big one at that. These expense numbers were reported as costs of operations in the original MR-T article. If a large portion of these Local/Federal and State subsidies went toward the purchase of vehicles and other non-recurring type expenses then a re-calculation is in order.

A big election-eve hit piece on Bush from the network who used badly badly badly badly badly forged documents to try and smear the Prez just a month or so ago. Turns out it is a non-story as per an NBC report.

So what is CBS' next step? Dan Rather interviewing an arms inspector who will say that while the initial CBS report is wrong, it is accurate.

It is as if Dan Rather and/or CBS News is trying to bring itself down.

Posted on NRO's The Corner today:

OFF TO (VERY) RED STATE AMERICA [Rich Lowry]
I’m heading to Midland, Texas for a speech. It’s tomorrow at 11:30 a.m. at the Midland Petroleum Club. For luncheon and ticket reservations, email stephen@teraco.com or call (432) 349-3073.
Posted at 11:36 AM

(VERY) RED STATE AMERICA! Can we get some T-shirts made up?

I just love it when communist dictators trip over their own feet and suffer fractures.

Here's hoping the self-decapitating BinLaden doll is next!

John Kerry had some unkind words to say about Dick Cheney having received a flu shot:

"The Kerry campaign accused the Bush administration of 'telling Americans to keep calm' while top officials like Cheney and Treasury Secretary John Snow get their flu shots.

'Once again the Bush administration proves that it is the 'Do as we say, not as we do' White House,' Kerry campaign spokesman Phil Singer said."

I guess no one told him that Cheney was ordered by his doctors to get a flu shot since he's a heart patient.

Oh yeah, heart patient Bill Clinton received one, too.

Not surprisingly, Kerry had no comment regarding the former president's innoculation.

According to the Midland Reporter-Telegram (page 2B) today, the local Young Republicans will be hosting Rich Lowry next week as guest speaker at their monthly meeting. The meeting is at 11:30 a.m. at the Petroleum Club, Tuesday, the 26th. Mr. Lowry is the editor of National Review, frequent contributor to NR Online (linked here regularly), author of Legacy, Paying the Price for the Clinton Years and a big (though currently sad) Yankees fan.

RSVPs are required. Call the Midland County Republican Party office at 682.7537 or check here. Cost is $15 for YR members and $17 for non-members and us non-young Republicans. I don't think that they will be charging extra for non-Republicans, but I could be wrong.

Lowry's latest NRO column is here.

Senator Joe Biden (D-Plagiarism) today:

Biden criticized the administration's prescription drug policies and their impact on consumers. "He is brain dead," Biden said of the president. His comment was greeted with loud applause at the UAW Local 435 union hall in Cranston Heights but quickly drew the ire of Delaware Republicans.

USA Today, today:

Well, you know, I don't know Laura Bush. But she seems to be calm, and she has a sparkle in her eye, which is good. But I don't know that she's ever had a real job — I mean, since she's been grown up. So her experience and her validation comes from important things, but different things. And I'm older, and my validation of what I do and what I believe and my experience is a little bit bigger — because I'm older, and I've had different experiences. And it's not a criticism of her. It's just, you know, what life is about.

What in the world is this woman talking about?

There's a culture of youth, and it's a phony culture. And it's a silly culture because, you know, gravity pulls you down. And what stays is inside your head, in your eyes and in your brain and in your heart. And that gets bigger as you get older.

????

That makes France one of the most corrupt countries not in the entire world, but merely in Western Europe. Alas, such dignity may come as cold comfort to the French, given that Mr. Annan did not actually deny that the Chinese, Russians and French had taken big payoffs from Saddam. Mr. Annan merely disputed that the Chinese, Russians and French would have delivered anything in return for the bribes. In other words, they may be corrupt, but at least they weren't honest about it.

Emphasis mine. Claudia Rosett on the U.N./Saddam Hussein joint venture Oil for Food, Palaces and Weapons Program today at OpinonJournal.com. I am glad she continues to be on the case. This is (still) the biggest story of corruption ever. EVER!

And we don't even know half of the tale. How much money ended up in French, Russian and Chinese politician's pockets? How many Iraqis were poisoned by the bad rations that reached them? How many more starved because no food got to their town? How much money went to palaces and weapons? How little was reinvested in the country's oil infrastructure? The Duelfer report has a lot more to tell us than what is being portrayed in the MSM. Big surprise. The U.N. is a joke. Annan is a joke. The U.N., the French government, the Russian government and the Chinese government have Iraqi blood on their collective hands and dirty money, billions of it, in their collecitve pockets. Read Rosett's article.

Posted yesterday is Jed Babbin's take on who really will lose this November:

If Mr. Bush wins, the clearest and most immediate loser will be the outrageously-biased mainstream media...

And,

IF MR. KERRY WINS, THE biggest loser will be the American soldier...

A very well written view of the election fallout. There is much more to the article. Read the whole thing.

But nearly better is a reader's letter published today. Scoll down to the letter that begins "Jeb [sic] Babbin's piece describing the losers following the elections in November is correct as far as it goes..." Excellent reading. Thanks to A. A. Reynolds of Chula Vista, California!

UPDATE: I realized that Mr. Reynolds' list reads a bit like P.J. O'Rourke's Enemies List from about 10 years ago. In searching for its text online (no link, but*) I ran across this online interview from September 10, 2001. Good reading on the "September 10th" mentality. Gary Condit, anyone?

*"Santa Has a List...Saint Peter Has a List...Joe McCarthy Said He Had a List...And Now, P. J. Has One of His Very Own...Check to See If You’ve Been Denounced! From Noam Chomsky to Yoko Ono, from Peter, Paul, and Mary (yes, they’re still alive) to all the people who think quartz crystals cure herpes, from Ralph Nader to the entire country of Sweden, P. J. O’Rourke has created a roster of the most useless, politically disgraceful, and downright foolish people around." circa 1996.

Here is an email circulating from a County Commissioner about the upcoming vote.

Dear fellow Midland County residents: On Nov.2 you not only have a crucial vote to cast on how our nation is to be run for the next four years, but there is an extremely important referendum on the back of you ballot to vote on. If passed, it will be disastrous to the health of our county budget! It will cost you $2,000,000 per year from now on to grant this absurd demand from certain ringleaders in the sheriff¹s office. We will either have to cut that much money from next year¹s budget (can you guess where I will want to cut?) or raise your taxes by about 13%.

Midland County
Randy Prude

Read Lileks. Now!

Look. The problem some people have with Bush isn’t that he believes in God, it’s that he really believes in God. To a certain stratum of our intelligentsia, you’re supposed to believe in God like you believe in continental drift, or the tides, or the yearly reappearance of Shamrock Shakes at McDonald’s.

And the real reason that The Day After Tomorrow is A Really Bad Movie:

6. Early in the movie we infer that Dennis Quaid is no longer married to Sela Ward because his demanding job as a paleoclimatologist drove her away. Given that this means he preferred drilling ice to – well, Sela Ward, do you expect us to have any sympathy for this idiot at all?

For those of us who are small business owners or own a piece of a small business. John Tabin:

One can almost imagine Kerry as a malign incarnation of the airport-shuttle driver in the AmeriTrade ad from a couple years ago who, overhearing his passenger remark on his ownership of certain large corporation, calls ahead to the hotel to arrange a VIP welcome for what turns out to be a ordinary stockholder. In this version, when Joe Investor gets to the hotel, the staff robs him.

Nice article, written with a sense of humor, here. Read the whole thing.

WANTED: Head Football Coach of prestigious, nationally recognized, and tradition rich Division One university. The successful applicant will have experience in all phases of a major college football program including but not limited to the areas of recruiting, developing talent, game day coaching, alumni relations, and adherance to NCAA regulations. In addition, the successful candidate will be expected to produce results on the field that enable every actual alumni or wannabe who ever purchased a ticket or sent in $750 to "support" the program to walk into the office on Monday mornings with that special aura of football superiority required to get them through life.

If you think you are such a candidate click here to begin the process by which all successful coaches hired are first screened, discussed, evaluated, and then ultimately recommended (or not) by a committee of several hundreds, none of which make a living with their knowledge of football.

From ThisLondon:

"A mass grave containing the bodies of children, babies and their mothers has been unearthed in Iraq.

Shocked investigators reported finding "thighbones the size of matchsticks" at what they believe is the site of one of Saddam Hussein's atrocities. Among the findings-were the skeletons of unborn babies and toddlers clutching toys.

A baby had been shot in the back of its head and was found still being clutched by its mother, who had been shot in the face."

Maybe the distinguished Senator from North Carolina and Vice Presidential Candidate can channel these infants to get their thoughts about this...er...ill-timed war.

Although, in all fairness, they probably do have a legitimate gripe with the timing of the war.

In any event...enough with the trivialities! Back to Abu Ghraib!

Living in Midland, it's hard not to notice the obvious media blitz being waged by the Midland County Sheriff's Department in their upcoming attempt via referendum to solicit yet more taxpayer dollars with which to pad their own personal bank accounts.

My question is, if there is no money for pay raises, where are all the advertizing dollars coming from? Hmmmmm. Unless some sort of advocacy group is paying for the many and various banners, yard signs, and media ads now fully saturating our humble locality, that must be our money they're squandering.

I've said it before, and I'll probably say it again before it's all overwith: Sheriff pay in Midland County is higher than in many other Texas counties, and deputies here already make more money than the average Midlander. Now they have the gall to perceivably use public monies as a method of begging the public itself to bestow upon them even more public monies (to the tune of a 13 percent hike in county taxes, I might add). It's a nasty cycle.

I won't tell anyone how to vote on this, but I'm certainly against it. In a part of the state where the flawed mentality of prosperity by taxation is put into practice at every turn, I cannot -- in all good conscience -- vote for any tax increase at this point, regardless of what it is for.

Of course, you never hear any county official mention the idea of trimming some fat to make more money available, which would certainly help these poor, indigent civil servants in their plight to escape poverty. Let's face it, for every county employee you see working, there are two standing around drinking coffee and talking about American Idol. And certainly none of them are starving. Let's be honest with ourselves, we have some fat, lazy, unskilled people working for the county.

I know a lot of these people personally, and they all seem to have things like bass boats, brand-new trucks, sizeable gun collections, and many other creature comforts most Midlanders can't even dream of. So don't let them use the MPD parity issue as an excuse to fleece you. If anything, MPD could use a little fat-trimming and pay reduction in and of itself.

The more you feed a hog, the fatter it gets. It's time for these entities to be put on a diet, rather than increasing the size of their trough.

From this funny little piece in the WaPo:

"Like the man who kept saying, 'I can't understand why you support Bush.' When my friend Kevin replied, 'If you can't understand why half the country supports Bush, you need to get out more,' the man deadpanned: 'I get out plenty. I'm a college professor.' As our group laughed in stereo, he yelled, 'Anti-intellectuals!' and stormed off."

"Giggly Afghans are unusual."

Not talking about dogs or blankets here. We're talking about people. Free people. RECENTLY FREED people. Who got to vote. No attacks. No Taliban telling them how to vote. No al-Queda blowing up voting places. The biggest story of the weekend, maybe the month and one of the biggest stories of the year. How did you hear about it this weekend? A story about the wrong kind of ink pen being used for marking the thumbs of those who had voted.

David Frum quoting his father in law, Peter Worthington of the Toronto Sun, here.

"We are now officially and finally a democracy," said another man - something all Afghans seem to relish. The hundreds of foreign journalists here feel a bit let down by the peacefulness and enthusiam of the people. No violence to speak of. What this election indicates is that the democratic "process" is more important than the election result.

Read the whole thing.

Oh, and the Shepherds drank a (great) bottle of Australian shiraz this weekend. Cheers to Mr. Howard, his party mates that picked up seats and to our staunch Allies, the Australians.

Response from Mr. Lileks:

"This matters: 'We have to get back to the place we were'.

But when we were there we were blind. When we were there we losing. When we were there we died. We have to get back to the place we were. We have to get back to 9/10? We have to get back to the place we were. So we can go through it all again? We have to get back to the place we were. And forget all we’ve learned and done? We have to get back to the place we were. No. I don’t want to go back there. Planes into towers. That changed the terms. I am remarkably disinterested in returning to a place where such things are unimaginable. Where our nightmares are their dreams.

We have to get back to the place we were.

No. We have to go the place where they are."

Friday Night Lights: A review from fellow Midland blogger George at Sleepless in Midland.

Apparently, the tin-foil hats have been working well for almost a year now.

Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs has done more than his share when it comes to debunking widespread and popular myths.

Here he de-bunks one of the biggest of all time.

UPDATE: Although, I have to admit that Comment #24 over there is very funny.

Speaking of the thousands and thousands who are finding different sources for their news.....

What will be the long term effect of this on journalism, and more specifically, journalists?

Every survey ever conducted on the subject shows a much greater sympathy for the ideals of the "left" over those of the "right" in the news rooms.

With pajamas donned, I cut to the instant analysis:

Do natural leftists become journalists because they want to change the world and being in the mainstream media is a great place to effect change?

or

Do natural journalists who, early on and taken as a whole, have no leanings one way or the other become leftists by (quite naturally, given their career interest) reading the major news organs of their day which are left leaning?

And if it is the latter......and now that technology has broken the grip of the mainstream news gatekeepers.....will the political makeup of journalists begin to more resemble the political makeup of the general population?

Uh, oh.

Number seven on the list for this search: Midland, Texas?

Is this a good thing or a bad thing?

Dan Rather's Forged Memos: "Fake, But Accurate".

Mark Halperin's Memo To ABC Staff to Hit Bush Harder Than Kerry: "Real, But Inaccurate".

And every day, in every way, more and more thousands find other sources for their news.

Of course, that is Fox News' fault.

I cannot tell you how glad I am that Mr. Walter Cronkite lived to see it.

This is bigger than it looks.

This has been referred to in The Corner and at least one other site I have visited today. It is the most coherent view of the election, our presidential candidates and the war I have read, contained in a single post. You have to read a bit to get the entire context of the following quote, but this should be seared - seared! - into our minds between now and November 2:

Terrorists don’t seem to be too afraid of stern language. But I do notice, that while the fear of death does not seem to deter these people, the fact of being dead does significantly decrease their operational effectiveness. That’s a casual observation on my part – no real Harvard study to back it up. More of a hunch, really.

That's Line of The Year Contest material. Take the time to read the whole thing, please. Regardless of your current view of the election.

Enormous Thanks to Bill at Eject! Eject! Eject!. You have done the country a great service. Hat tip to Jim Geraghty at The Kerry Spot, (Pajama Been Bloggin').

OutFront: "Stop Whining" by Michael K. Ozanian, 09.20.04

With oil having topped $45 a barrel, it's time again to panic about our dependence on foreign oil. Or is it? In 1970 it took the economy 1.31 barrels of oil to produce $1,000 of GDP (measured in 2004 dollars). This year oil intensity will fall to 0.64 barrels. We're driving as much as we ever were, but we're also producing more goods (Viagra, Spider-Man, tax software) that don't consume much oil. Improved energy efficiency and a shift away from oil in power plants also help. Joel Darmstadter, an economist with Washington, D.C. think tank Resources for the Future who has no position on SUVs per se, says,"The economic effect of oil price changes today is significantly less--in relative terms--than it was 30 years ago."

This kinda says it all, but (if the site admin is in the house) this chart from the article shows the story much better. Higher oil prices are a drag on the economy relative to lower prices, that is for sure. They just aren't nearly the drag that they used to be. The current issue of Forbes covers the positive aspects of $45 oil for the world economy, like a more assured and diverse supply. I'll work on a link/post on that soon.

"Pajama Been Bloggin'" today:

Okay, people — let's step back. We all know we're a month away from a big, big presidential election. The choice is stark. Ninety-some percent of us support one guy or the other, and don't think much of the other guy.

...on hyperbole in the coverage of the presidential race. Read the whole thing.

Jonah Goldberg yesterday in The Corner:

I listened to some of that panel discussion on C-Span with Rather, Jennings and Brokaw. While everyone's making a big deal about Brokaw's silly comments about the bloggers (Damn this Jihad by the automobile makers, everyone knows the horse-and-buggy's more reliable!), I think Rather's comments deserve some mocking too. It was hard to hear him from so deep inside his bunker, but he seemed to be saying over and over and over that his troubles are the result of the White House trying to destroy his reputation. Never mind that this thesis directly contradicts Brokaws Jihad-bloggerati thesis -- unless you believe that all these pajama-wearing nobodies (in Brokaw's telling), are also on the payroll of the White House. The arrogance it takes to say this is all about a White House trying to destroy him, rather than what he's done over his career to destroy himself is astounding.

There is a logic to Senator Kerry's flip-flopping that transcends his political opportunism: He is simply a captive of the pulse of the battlefield, without any steady vision or historical sense that might put the carnage of the day into some larger tactical, strategic, or political framework.

Victor Davis Hanson yesterday. More must reading.

(An aside: Laptop computer: $1500. Nice hotel room hotel with Wi-Fi: $200. Posting to the blog, wirelessly, from a Very Cool, Undisclosed Location: priceless!)