Joe Gringo

2008-01-25T14:38:00.001-08:00

JoeGringo.com

is my new home, please click on link.

Thanks all!

Today in History....January 25

2008-01-25T14:35:00.000-08:00

* 1776, the first national memorial is ordered by Congress. It was built in in honor of Brigadier General Richard Montgomery, who had been killed during an assault on Quebec on December 31, 1775

* 1905, at the Premier Mine in Pretoria, South Africa, a 3,106-carat diamond is discovered during a routine inspection by the mine's superintendent. Weighing 1.33 pounds, and christened the "Cullinan," it was the largest diamond ever found

* 1915, the inventor of the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell, inaugurated U.S. transcontinental telephone service

* 1919, in Paris, delegates to the peace conference formally approve the establishment of a commission on the League of Nations

* 1956, in a long interview with visiting American attorney Marshall MacDuffie, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev adopts a friendly attitude toward the United States and indicates that he believes President Dwight Eisenhower is sincere in his desire for peace

* 1959, American Airlines opened the jet age in the United States with the first scheduled transcontinental flight of a Boeing 707

* 1961, President Kennedy held the first presidential news conference carried live on radio and television

* 1968, the Israeli submarine Dakar, carrying 69 sailors, passes the island of Crete and radios its position --- then disappears. The exact fate of this vessel remains a mystery to this day

* 1971, Charles Manson and three women followers were convicted in Los Angeles of murder and conspiracy in the 1969 slayings of seven people, including actress Sharon Tate

* 1981,the 52 Americans held hostage by Iran for 444 days arrived in the United States

* 1997, responding to recent cases of deadly food poisoning, President Clinton said in his weekly radio address that he would seek $43 million dollars to implement a state-of-the-art early warning system for food contamination

* 2002, J. Clifford Baxter, a former Enron Corp. executive who'd reportedly complained about the company's questionable accounting practices, was found shot to death in a car, a suicide

* 2006, Hamas won a large majority of seats in Palestinian parliamentary elections

* 2007, Ford Motor Co. said it had lost a staggering $12.7 billion in 2006, the worst loss in the company's 103-year history

Today in History....January 24

2008-01-24T07:00:00.000-08:00

* 1848, James W. Marshall discovered a gold nugget at Sutter's Mill in northern California, a discovery that led to the gold rush of '49

* 1908, the first Boy Scout troop was organized in England by Robert Baden-Powell

* 1924, the Russian city of St. Petersburg was renamed Leningrad in honor of the late revolutionary leader (however, it has since been re-named St. Petersburg)

* 1943, President Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Churchill concluded a wartime conference in Casablanca, Morocco

* 1972, the Supreme Court struck down laws that denied welfare benefits to people who had resided in a state for less than a year

* 1978, a nuclear-powered Soviet satellite plunged through Earth's atmosphere and disintegrated, scattering radioactive debris over parts of northern Canada

* 1985, the space shuttle Discovery was launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on the first secret, all-military shuttle mission

* 1989, confessed serial killer Ted Bundy was put to death in Florida's electric chair

* 1995, the FDA approved Olestra, the nation's first zero-calorie artificial fat. ALSO: Specialist Michael New was discharged from the U.S. Army after a court-martial jury convicted him for refusing to wear a UN beret for a peacekeeping mission in the former Yugoslavia

* 2003, the new Department of Homeland Security officially opened and its chief, Tom Ridge, was sworn in

* 2004, the United Nations for the fist time commemorated the 60-year anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi, ym"sh, death camps, directly linking its own founding with the end of the Holocaust in some of the strongest language ever

* 2007, Democratic-controlled Senate Foreign Relations Committee dismissed President Bush's plans for a troop buildup in Iraq as "not in the national interest" of the United States

One Down, Three To Go

2008-01-23T08:55:00.001-08:00

It is strange that the qualities we are looking for in a sitting President - thoughtful, calm, and serious - are exactly the qualities which we penalize in those running for President, sorry to see Fred Thompson withdraw.

Now who? Don't know, but Romney is intriguing, The American Thinker has an interesting article on Mitt......Why they Hate Mitt Romney.

We can't forget that we are at war with a relentless enemy. Victory in Iraq or Afghanistan is not victory in the war. It will take years of relentless pursuit of our enemies to put an end to the evil of Islamic terrorism.

And we also have extremely dangerous rivals, if not enemies, in Russia and China. As Russia provides Iran with anti-missile defenses, specifically designed to shoot down American planes in the event we should need to take military action against Iran, it should be clear to us all that the so-called "end of history" and "peace dividend" were, to say the least, premature.

We need, above anything else, a president who can be trusted to be both careful and dogged in pursuing our foreign policy. The Democratic Party has no candidate fit to be trusted with our foreign policy in this dangerous world. And the Republican Party has only Rudy Giuliani who shows that he already understands how the job is done, with McCain as a decent second and Mitt Romney as a lightweight who might be able to learn the job, hopefully in time.

A nice preview of what we can expect on the world scene took place with assasination of Benazir Bhutto. Rudy and McCain showed worldly presence and leadership, Romney too, but not as much and Huckabee was a disaster. I'll vote for whoever is the nominee, Rudy, Mitt and McCain get the nod here............and Rudy/Mitt battling it out for my vote.

Today in History....January 23

2008-01-23T07:44:00.000-08:00

1368, in a coronation ceremony, Zhu Yuanzhang ascends to the throne of China as the Hongwu Emperor, initiating Ming Dynasty rule over China that would last for three centuries

* 1556, the deadliest earthquake in history, the Shaanxi earthquake, hits Shaanxi province, China. The death toll may have been as high as 830,000

* 1793, Russia and Prussia partition Poland

* 1845, Congress decided all national elections would be held on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November

* 1897, Elva Zona Heaster is found dead in Greenbrier County, West Virginia. The resulting murder trial of her husband is perhaps the only case in United States history where the alleged testimony of a ghost helped secure a conviction

* 1904, the Ålesund Fire: the Norwegian coastal town Ålesund is devastated by fire, leaving 10,000 people homeless and one person dead.
Kaiser Wilhelm II funds the rebuilding of the town in Jugendstil style

* 1920, the Netherlands refuses to surrender ex-Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany to the Allies

* 1941, Charles Lindbergh testifies before the U.S. Congress and recommends that the United States negotiate a neutrality pact with Adolf Hitler, ym"sh

* 1943, Jewish-led Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

* 1950, the Knesset approved a resolution affirming Jerusalem as the capital of Israel

* 1964, the 24th Amendment to the United States Constitution, prohibiting the use of poll taxes in national elections, is ratified

* 1973, President Richard Nixon announces that a peace accord has been reached in Vietnam

* 1985, O.J. Simpson becomes the first Heisman Trophy winner elected to the Football Hall of Fame

* 1996, the first version of the Java programming language is releasedn

* 1998, fighting scandal allegations involving Monica Lewinsky, President Bill Clinton assured his Cabinet during a meeting that he was innocent and urged them to concentrate on their jobs

* 2001, the Chinese Communist Party stages a self-immolation in Tiananmen Square to frame Falun Gong and escalate the persecution

* 2002, reporter Daniel Pearl is kidnapped -- and subsequently beheaded
-- in Karachi, Pakistan by practitioners of that "religion of peace"

2008-01-22T19:56:00.001-08:00

PUSS in boots???

2008-01-22T11:51:00.000-08:00

DAMN, sort of not surprised after last week.

WOW.... if true,....... John McCain wtf are you thinking??? I think I'll go over to his house and ask.......I can see his house (condo....a cool $4.5 Million) from our office 2 blocks away........... whoop-di-effen-doo.

........if it is Ronald Reagan that Republicans want, Mr. X is extraordinarily close to that venerated man. Ronald Reagan stood for two great beliefs: that big government is a big problem for a free society and that America must be militarily strong and lead the war against global communism.

Substitute "global jihadism" for "global communism" and you have Mr. X's twin pillars, here's Dennis Prager's endorsement for POTUS.

Speaking of Ronald Reagan, VDH writes about Mr. Reagan... "the candidates try to "out-Reagan" each other by claiming they alone are the true Reaganites while their rivals in the primaries are too liberal, flip-floppers or without consistent conservative principles.

In short, Ronald Reagan has been beatified into some sort of saint, as if he were above the petty lapses and contradictions of today's candidates. The result is that conservatives are losing sight of Reagan the man while placing unrealistic requirements of perfection on his would-be successors.

They have forgotten that Reagan — facing spiraling deficits, sinking poll ratings and a hostile Congress — reluctantly signed legislation raising payroll, income and gasoline taxes, some of them among the largest in our history. He promised to limit government and eliminate the Departments of Education and Energy. Instead, when faced with congressional and popular opposition, he relented and even grew government by adding a secretary of veteran affairs to the Cabinet.

Two of his Supreme Court appointments, Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony Kennedy, were far more liberal than George W. Bush's selections, the diehard constructionists, John Roberts and Samuel Alito.

Reagan's 1986 comprehensive immigration bill turned out to be the most liberal amnesty for illegal aliens in our nation's history, and set the stage for the present problem of 12 million aliens here unlawfully.

Republicans forget all this — but so do Democrats, who for their own reasons want to perpetuate an unflattering myth of Ronald Reagan as an extremist right-wing reactionary.

In foreign affairs, Reagan was not always sober and judicious. He shocked Cold Warriors by advocating complete nuclear disarmament at his Reykjavik summit with Michel Gorbachev.

In the middle of Lebanon's civil war, he first put American troops into a crossfire. Then, when 241 marines were blown up, he withdrew them. That about-face, and the failure to retaliate in serious fashion, helped to embolden Hezbollah's anti-American terrorism for decades.

The Iran-Contra scandal exploded when a few rogue administration officials sold state-of-the-art missiles under the table to Iran's terrorist-sponsoring theocracy, and prompted opposition talk of impeachment.

In other words, a great president like Ronald Reagan made mistakes. Here's the rest.

Today in History....January 22

2008-01-22T07:08:00.000-08:00

* 1905, Bloody Sunday in St. Petersburg, beginning of the 1905 revolution

* 1917, during World War I: President Woodrow Wilson calls for "peace without victory" in Europe

* 1946, creation of the Central Intelligence Group, forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency

* 1957, the New York City "Mad Bomber," George P. Metesky, is arrested in Waterbury, Connecticut and is charged with planting more than 30 bombs

* 1963, Elysee treaty of cooperation between France and Germany is signed by Charles de Gaulle and Konrad Adenauer

* 1973, the Supreme Court of the United States delivers its decision in Roe v. Wade striking down state laws restricting abortion during the first six months of pregnancy. ALSO: George Foreman breaks Joe Frazier's professional career undefeated heavyweight world boxing champion status

* 1984, the Apple Macintosh, the first consumer computer to popularize the computer mouse and the graphical user interface, is introduced during Super Bowl XVIII with its famous "1984" television commercial.

* 1987, Pennsylvania politician R. Budd Dwyer shoots and kills himself at a press conference on live national television, leading to debates on boundaries in journalism

* 1990, Robert Tappan Morris, Jr. is convicted of releasing the 1988 Internet worm

* 1995, two practitioners of that "religion of peace" from the Gaza Strip blow themselves up at an Israeli military transit point killing 19

* 1997, Madeleine Albright becomes the first female secretary of state after confirmation by the United States Senate

* 1998, Theodore Kaczynski pleaded guilty in Sacramento, Calif., to being the Unabomber in return for a sentence of life in prison without parole.

* 2002, Kmart Corp becomes the largest retailer in American history to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection

2008-01-21T10:44:00.000-08:00

A). moron

B). coke-head

C). commie loving, freedom hating prick

D). narcissistic megalomaniac midget with a severe god-complex

E). model for all of Hollywood to follow

F). all of the above

......chewin' the.....coke with Hugo.

Check this out.... The 5 most horrifying bugs in the world....."They then descend upon the beehive like an unholy plague of hell-born death engines and proceed to make this world a scary ******* place. This is maybe 30 wasps against 30,000 bees and the 30,000 bees do not stand a chance." Wanna bet PETA gets involved?? Heh. Warning....strong language warning.

Today in History....January 21

2008-01-21T06:40:00.000-08:00

* 1789, the first American novel, The Power of Sympathy or the Triumph of Nature Founded in Truth, is printed in Boston

* 1793, after being found guilty of treason by the French Convention, Louis XVI of France is guillotined

* 1861, during the Civil War: Jefferson Davis resigns from the United States Senate

* 1908, New York City's Board of Aldermen passed an ordinance prohibiting women from smoking in public. (However, the measure was vetoed by Mayor George B. McClellan Jr. two weeks later)

* 1924, Vladimir Lenin dies and Joseph Stalin begins to purge his rivals to clear way for his leadership

* 1950, Alger Hiss is convicted of perjury

* 1954, the first nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Nautilus, is launched in Groton, Connecticut by Mamie Eisenhower, then the First Lady of the United States

* 1976, commercial service of Concorde begins with London-Bahrain and Paris-Rio routes

* 1977, President Jimmy Carter pardons nearly all American Vietnam War draft evaders, some of whom had emigrated to Canada

* 1985, because January 20 had fallen on a Sunday, Ronald Reagan's public inaugural ceremony (for his second term as President) was moved to Monday, January 21. Due to bad weather, the ceremony was held indoors in the United States Capital Rotunda

* 1997, Newt Gingrich becomes the first leader of the United States House of Representatives to be internally disciplined for ethical misconduct

* 1999, in one of the largest drug busts in American history, the United States Coast Guard intercepts a ship with over 9,500 pounds (4,300 kg) of cocaine on board

* 2004, NASA's MER-A (the Mars Rover Spirit) ceases communication with mission control. The problem lies with Flash Memory management and is fixed remotely from Earth on February 6

* 2003, the Census Bureau announced that Hispanics had surpassed blacks as America's largest minority group

2008-01-18T15:15:00.000-08:00

Joe Jr., 3.5 yrs of age, battles the effects of Global Warming here in Arizona.

2008-01-18T13:37:00.000-08:00

Dude has STONES OF DIAMONDS........ or whatever the hardest substance is

Terje Haakonsen's incredible descent snowboarding down almost a vertical face. How the hell the guy could even stand on top of that mountain is a feat in itself. It gets good at 1:20.

Feels good to be a Swede/Norwegian.....finally.....whatever team this cat is on, I'm on it.

Screw Islamofascism, Let's Get To The Important Stuff

2008-01-18T12:01:00.000-08:00

Sen. Clinton will reportedly hold a news conference next week to decry the lack of African-American characters in fairy tales, and note that her husband was “doing what he could to advance Civil Rights in this arena.”

“Each night, as American children go to bed,” Sen. Clinton will reportedly say, “they hear fantastic tales from which blacks are almost entirely absent. African-American children are made to feel that there’s no place for them in imaginary society. While caucasian children live in blissful ignorance, in a fantasy world that’s lilly, or should I say snow, white.”

From none other than ScrappleFace ....heh.

Speaking of fairy tales.....
......this photo was/is the biggest load of BS around .......here's our conniving lovebirds one week before Lewinsky becomes a part of the American vernacular

2008-01-18T07:17:00.000-08:00

LIMBAUGH ENDORSES FRED THOMPSON:

Well, David Limbaugh, anyway.

Today in History....January 18

2008-01-18T07:10:00.001-08:00

1778, English navigator Capt. James Cook discovered the Hawaiian Islands, which he dubbed the "Sandwich Islands"

1803, Thomas Jefferson requests funding from Congress to finance the Lewis and Clark expedition. Jefferson officially asked for $2,500 in funding from Congress, though some sources indicate the expedition ultimately cost closer to $50,000

1912, English explorer Robert F. Scott and his expedition reached the South Pole, only to discover that Roald Amundsen had beaten them to it.
(Scott and his party perished during the return trip.)

1919, the Paris Peace Conference, held to negotiate peace treaties ending World War I, opened in Versailles, France

1943, during World War II, the Soviets announced they'd broken through the long Nazi siege of Leningrad (it was another year before the siege was fully lifted). ALSO: The deportation of Jews from the Warsaw ghetto to the concentration camp at Treblinka is resumed-but not without much bloodshed and resistance along the way. AND: A wartime ban on the sale of pre-sliced bread in the U.S. -- aimed at reducing bakeries' demand for metal replacement parts -- went into effect

1950, People's Republic of China formally recognizes the communist Democratic Republic of Vietnam and agrees to furnish it military assistance; the Soviet Union extended diplomatic recognition to Hanoi on January 30. China and the Soviet Union provided massive military and economic aid to North Vietnam, which enabled North Vietnam to fight first the French and then the Americans

1990, at the end of a joint sting operation by FBI agents and District of Columbia police, Mayor Marion Barry is arrested and charged with drug possession and the use of crack, a crystalline form of cocaine. ALSO: A jury in Los Angeles acquitted former preschool operators Raymond Buckey and his mother, Peggy McMartin Buckey, of 52 child molestation charges.

2002, two Israeli tanks and an armored personnel carrier parked outside the headquarters of Yasser Arafat, ym"sh, confining the terrorist to his office complex a day after a Palestinian gunman burst into a banquet hall and gunned down six Israelis

2008-01-17T14:46:00.000-08:00

There is no racial difference between India and Pakistan, but one has democracy and the other has Islam - and oh what a difference that makes!

Indians and Pakistanis have the same Y-chromosome haplogroup. They have the same genetic sequence and the same genetic marker (namely: M124). They have the same DNA molecule, the same DNA sequence. Their culture, traditions and cuisine are all the same. They watch the same movies and sing the same songs. What is it that Indians do and Pakistanis don't: read it here.

h/t ROP

Capitalism & Billionaires

2008-01-17T12:35:00.000-08:00

.......that evil pair for the most part, leads to altruistic motives.

"I am impressed that the strong majority of the world's richest individuals (about 30 out of the 39 richest Americans) made their money rather than inherited it. The wealthiest individuals are mainly self-made because inherited wealth gets dissipated over a couple of generations through bad investments, or is given to various charities, or gets broken up and divided among many
grandchildren, cousins, and divorced members. For this reason, no descendants of John Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, or other titans of the beginning of the century are among the very wealthiest."

Read the rest by Gary Becker, Nobel Laureate in economics on The Proliferation of Billionaires

Couldn't Have Said It Better.....

2008-01-17T10:22:00.000-08:00

.....so instead of re-skinnin' a post, here's John Hawkins take on rooting for Hillary......

Today in History....January 17

2008-01-17T07:23:00.000-08:00

* 1595, Henry IV of France declares war on Spain

* 1819, Simón Bolívar proclaims the Republic of Colombia

* 1893, Hawaii's monarchy was overthrown as a group of businessmen and sugar planters forced Queen Liliuokalani to abdicate

* 1899, United States takes possession of Wake Island in the Pacific Ocean

* 1916 , the Professional Golfers Association (PGA) is formed

* 1917, United States pays Denmark $25 million for the Virgin Islands

* 1929, Popeye the Sailor Man, a cartoon character created by Elzie Crisler Segar, first appears in the Thimble Theatre comic strip

* 1945, Soviet and Polish forces liberated Warsaw during World War II.
ALSO: The Nazis, ym"sh, begin the evacuation of the Auschwitz concentration camp as Soviet forces close in. AND: Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, credited with saving tens of thousands of Jews, disappears in Hungary while in Soviet custody

* 1946, the UN Security Council holds its first session

* 1949, "The Goldbergs", the first American TV sitcom, debuts

* 1950, the Great Brinks Robbery, 11 thieves steal more than $2 million from an armored car Company's offices in Boston

* 1961, President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivers a televised farewell address to the nation three days before leaving office, in which he warns against the accumulation of power by the "military-industrial complex"

* 1973, Ferdinand Marcos becomes "President for Life" of the Philippines

* 1977, convicted murderer Gary Gilmore is executed by a firing squad in Utah, ending a ten-year moratorium on Capital punishment in the United States

* 1982, "Cold Sunday" in the United States sees temperatures fall to their lowest levels in over 100 years in numerous cities

* 1985, British Telecom announces the retirement of the United Kingdom's red telephone boxes

* 1991, Operation Desert Storm begins early in the morning. Iraq fires 8 Scud missiles into Israel in an unsuccessful bid to provoke Israeli retaliation

* 1997, a court in Ireland granted the first divorce in the Roman Catholic country's history

* 2003, on the 12th anniversary of the Gulf War, a defiant Saddam Hussein called on his people to rise up and defend the nation against a new U.S.-led attack. ALSO: Tom Ridge sailed through Senate confirmation hearings on his way to becoming the nation's first Homeland Security Department chief. AND: Gertrude Janeway, the last known widow of a Union veteran from the Civil War, died in Blaine, Tenn., at age 93 (she had married John Janeway in 1927 when he was 81 and she was barely 18)

2008-01-15T08:48:00.000-08:00

Off to Houston to see these boys about, among other things, a potential consulting gig in this dump by the water......heh........back thursday.

Potential infidel invasion?

Today in History....January 15

2008-01-15T06:49:00.001-08:00

* 69, Otho seizes power in Rome, proclaiming himself Emperor of Rome, but only rules for three months before committing suicide

* 1759, the British Museum opens

* 1870, a political cartoon for the first time symbolizes the United States Democratic Party with a donkey ("A Live Jackass Kicking a Dead Lion" by Thomas Nast for Harper's Weekly)

* 1885, Wilson Bentley takes the first photograph of a snowflake

* 1892, James Naismith publishes the rules for basketball

* 1936, the first building to be completely covered in glass is completed in Toledo, Ohio (the building was for the Owens-Illinois Glass
Company)

* 1943, the world's largest office building, The Pentagon, is dedicated in Arlington, Virginia

* 1967, in the first ever Super Bowl, the Green Bay Packers defeat the Kansas City Chiefs, 35-10.

* 1970, Muammar al-Qaddafi is proclaimed premier of Libya

* 1973, during the Vietnam War: Citing progress in peace negotiations, President of the United States Richard Nixon announces the suspension of offensive action in North Vietnam

* 1976, President Gerald Ford's would-be assassin, Sara Jane Moore, is sentenced to life in prison

* 1991, the United Nations deadline for the withdrawal of Iraqi forces from occupied Kuwait expires, preparing the way for the start of Operation Desert Storm

* 2003, Mickey Mouse and The Walt Disney Co. scored a big victory as the Supreme Court upheld longer copyright protections for cartoon characters, songs, books and other creations worth billions of dollars

* 2005, an intense solar flare blasts X rays across the solar system.
ALSO: ESA's SMART-1 lunar orbiter discovers elements such as calcium, aluminum, silicon, iron, and other surface elements on the moon

* 2007, Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, former Iraqi intelligence chief and half-brother of Saddam Hussein, and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, former chief judge of the Revolutionary Court, are executed by hanging in Iraq

2008-01-14T11:28:00.001-08:00

Iran: We Agree With American Democrats And John McCain, Waterboarding Is To Severe, That's Why We Chop Off Hands And Feet.

Joe Movie Critic.......Vitus

2008-01-14T08:19:00.000-08:00

Vitus.....it's a foreign film with english subtitles about a child piano prodigy who is uncomfortable with his inbelievable talents (piano playing, math & reading skills) and because of this, a source of tension is created between he and his parents. The boy, Vitus, takes a liking to his eccentric grandfather, hangs with him, has thoughts of being a pilot and really learns a lot about life from his loving gramps. Does Vitus use his superior intelligence to make his family's dreams come true or is there another twist to the story? Check it out.

This isn't one of those heady foreign films, but sort of an old fashioned flick that has a great story to it that is set in the present day. It's a hell of a good movie...rent it or buy it. In real life, the boy who plays Vitus (Veetus) is in fact a true child prodigy himself. The gringo household, the Mrs., the 3 Little Joe's, ages 10, 5 and 3 enjoyed it as well......it doesn't hurt that our 10 yr old boy eerily has the same expressions, quirks and mannerisms as Vitus.

2008-01-14T07:24:00.000-08:00

Barack Hussein Obama vows for change, so he shakes things up and embraces Shaggy's dad (Scooby Doo) John Kerry endorsement....(snore)... meanwhile Republicans look for real change and battle for Hannah Montana endorsement.

Today in History....January 14

2008-01-14T07:01:00.001-08:00

* 1639, the "Fundamental Orders", the first written constitution that created a government, is adopted in Connecticut

* 1784, during the American Revolutionary War: The United States ratifies a peace treaty with England

* 1832, American author Edgar Allan Poe publishes his first short story, "Metzengerstein"

* 1858, Napoleon III of France escapes an assassination attempt

* 1943, Franklin D. Roosevelt becomes the first President of the United States to travel via airplane while in office when he travels to meet Winston Churchill at the Casablanca Conference to discuss strategy and study the next phase of the war

* 1950, the first prototype of the MiG-17 makes its maiden flight

* 1951, the National Football League has its first Pro Bowl Game (Los Angeles, California)

* 1967, the Human Be-In, takes place in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, launching the Summer of Love. Between 20,000 to 30,000 people attend

* 1973, Super Bowl VII: The Miami Dolphins defeat the Washington Redskins. The Dolphins become the first NFL team to go undefeated in a season

* 1975, teenage heiress Lesley Whittle is kidnapped by Donald Neilson, aka "the Black Panther"

* 1994, U.S. President Bill Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin sign the Kremlin accords

* 1998, Whitewater prosecutors questioned Hillary Rodham Clinton at the White House for 10 minutes about the gathering of FBI background files on past Republican political appointees

* 2000, the Dow Jones Industrial Average reaches a record high of
11,722.98

* 2003, Kmart Corp. announced its biggest round of cutbacks yet, saying it would close 326 more stores and eliminate 37,000 more jobs in hopes of getting out of bankruptcy by the end of April 2003. (Kmart emerged from Chapter 11 protection in May 2003.)

* 2004, the national flag of Georgia, the so-called "five cross flag", was restored to official use after a hiatus of some 500 years

2008-01-12T08:47:00.000-08:00

The case against John McCain.......or for it, depends what you stand for.

It's a must read.......pass it on. My how the party has shifted......Barry Goldwater must be rolling over in his grave.

2008-01-11T14:33:00.000-08:00

I guess you've got to call 'em like you see 'em, so here goes......... Bush Likes Dead Jews More Than Live Ones.

I guess this proves his consistency with refusing to protect our own borders, why should he protect Israel's? Just sayin' there neighbors.......

For those who love the NFL.........you have been blessed with an upcoming awesome weekend!

2008-01-11T08:46:00.000-08:00

Global Warming in Full Force.

Today in History....January 11

2008-01-11T06:51:00.000-08:00

* 1759, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the first American life insurance company is incorporated

* 1787, William Herschel discovers Titania and Oberon, two moons of Uranus

* 1805, Michigan Territory is created

* 1861, Alabama secedes from the United States

* 1880. a total solar eclipse blackens the sky of San Francisco one day after the funeral of Emperor Norton

* 1902, Popular Mechanics magazine is published for the first time

* the Grand Canyon National Monument was created with a proclamation by President Theodore Roosevelt. (It became a national park in 1919.)

* 1913, the first sedan-type automobile, a Hudson, went on display at the 13th Automobile Show in New York

* 1922, first use of insulin to treat diabetes in a human patient

* 1935, Amelia Earhart is the first woman to fly solo from Hawaii to California

* 1943, the United States and United Kingdom give up territorial rights in China

* 1949, first recorded case of snowfall in Los Angeles, California.

* 1962, an avalanche on Huascaran in Peru causes 4,000 deaths

* 1964, the United States Surgeon General Dr. Luther Leonidas Terry, M.D., publishes a report saying that smoking may be hazardous to health.
It is the first such statement ever made by the U.S. government

* 1972, East Pakistan renames itself Bangladesh

* 1974, the world's first surviving set of sextuplets are born to Susan Rosenkowitz in Cape Town, South Africa

* 1977, France set off an international uproar by releasing Abu Daoud, a PLO official and practitioner of that "religion of peace" who was behind the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics

* 2001, the Federal Trade Commission approves the merger of AOL and Time Warner to form AOL Time Warner

* 2003, calling the death penalty process "arbitrary and capricious, and therefore immoral," Illinois Gov. George Ryan commuted the sentences of
167 condemned inmates, clearing his state's death row two days before leaving office

* 2007, President Bush's plan for a surge of American troops to Iraq ran into a wall of criticism on Capitol Hill as administration officials drew confrontational challenges from both Democrats and Republicans

Man The Oars

2008-01-10T12:07:00.000-08:00

Right Wing Nut House is organizing another blogburst for Fred. With Romney pulling his ads from South Carolina, and Huckabee's star dimming, there is a real opportunity for the Thompson campaign — and it's an opportunity Thompson needs to take advantage of. Fred's also stepping up some of his media efforts, and he'll be on the Sean Hannity show later this afternoon. Now is the time to help Fred Thompson in his push in South Carolina. Something like 43% of Republicans there are undecided, me included but I'm close, and only those who picked Fred Thompson are extremely firm on their choice.

Throw Fred a bone here.

Today in History....January 10

2008-01-10T06:47:00.000-08:00

* 1776, Thomas Paine published his influential pamphlet 'Common Sense'

* 1863, London's Metropolitan, the world's first underground passenger railway, opened to the public

* 1920, the League of Nations was established as the Treaty of Versailles went into effect

* 1918, the U.S. House of Representatives voted for female suffrage

* 1928, the Soviet Union ordered the exile of Leon Trotsky

* 1946, the first manmade contact with the moon was made as radar signals were bounced off the lunar surface ALSO: The first General Assembly of the United Nations convened in London

* 1984, the United States and the Vatican established full diplomatic relations for the first time in more than a century

* 1995, Russian troops allowed a convoy of Chechen rebels and 160 hostages to head for Chechnya, then surrounded them in the village of Pervomayskaya. (After a five-day standoff, Russian troops launched a massive military assault that resulted in the deaths of most of the rebels and some of the hostages.)

* 1998, President Clinton denounced Chicago physicist Richard Seed’s expressed desire to clone humans, calling it "morally unacceptable."

* 2000, America Online announced it had agreed to buy Time Warner for
$165 billion, in what would be the biggest merger in history

* 2003, North Korea withdrew from a global treaty barring it from making nuclear weapons

* 2004, CBS issued a damning independent review of mistakes related to a "60 Minutes Wednesday" report on President Bush's National Guard service and fired three news executives and a producer for their "myopic zeal"
in rushing it to air. ALSO: Gunmen
assassinated Baghdad's deputy police chief and his son; Al-Qaida in Iraq claimed responsibility. Ukraine's Election Commission declared Viktor Yushchenko the winner of the presidential vote

* 2007, the Democratic-controlled House voted 315-116 to increase the federal minimum wage to $7.25 an hour

Quotes of the Day

2008-01-09T11:57:00.000-08:00

A couple of beauties......

#1) Mrs. Clinton: Barack Obama Hasn't Done the Necessary "Spadework" - Does it really get any better than that? Of course she'll get away with it. There is a black lady in our office building who is a partner for a Real Estate Law firm....I think I'll ask her if she's done her spadework to get to where she is today.

#2)“As I say, I suspect that her tears were genuine. After all, she cried not because of some real or imagined affront to herself, to her family, or to a favored political group; nor did she cry over any of her failures. Instead, Sen. Clinton cried over her own lust for power. Her emotion was sparked by her self-admiration. She got all choked up when she suggested how indispensable she is to America and when she reflected upon - perhaps a better phrase is “wallowed in” - her own magnanimity at being willing to endure the awful hardship of being President of the United States….Sen. Clinton “never cried over the betrayal in her marriage but what made her cry was the possibility that she would lose power.”" — Don Boudreaux

h/t HispanicPundit

2008-01-09T10:57:00.000-08:00

Some like looking at sunsets, taking a walk after a rain.....really, this is all you need.

2008 Politics - The Pet Rock Craze

2008-01-09T07:34:00.000-08:00

Never, ever understimate the Clinton machine, if the so-called teary eyed Hillary moment (real or not, who cares?) convinced you to vote for her, you're an unstable nut.

The truth is that what a few thousand Americans think in Iowa and New Hampshire does not trump the tens of millions in states like Florida, New Jersey, New York, and California, the Clinton and Giuliani campaigns are based on this fact. An 18 hole golf match is not won on the 2nd hole, Hillary and Rudy know this......should get real interesting here in a few weeks.

Oh, and if anyone can HONESTLY tell me what Hillary has accomplished, or Obama for that matter, please fill me in. I heard Obama on FOX this morning....he had this line...."we're all seasoned politicians here"......wow, half way through your first Senate term qualifies you as seasoned?

You know what really blows about this early election hype? It's getting in the way of the best back-to-back weekends in sports.........the NFL playoffs.....doubleheaders Sat/Sun each weekend!!!

Today in History....Janurary 9

2008-01-09T06:46:00.000-08:00

* 1349, the Jewish population of Basel, Switzerland, believed by the residents to be the cause of the ongoing bubonic plague, is rounded up and incinerated. The bubonic plague originated in Asia, specifically China in the early 1300's

* 1768, Philip Astley stages the first modern circus (London)

* 1799, British Prime Minister William Pitt introduces income tax to raise funds for the war against Napoleon

* 1839, the French Academy of Sciences announces the Daguerreotype photography process

* 1861, during the American Civil War: The "Star of the West" incident occurs near Charleston, South Carolina. It is considered by some historians to be the "First Shots of the American Civil War".)

* 1863, the first section of the London Underground Railway opens -- between Paddington and Farringdon Street.

* 1880, the Great Gale of 1880 devastates parts of Oregon and Washington with high wind and heavy snow

* 1905, according to the Julian Calendar which was used at the time, Russian workers stage a march on the Winter Palace that ends in the massacre by Tsarist troops known as Bloody Sunday, setting off the Russian Revolution of 1905

* 1951, the United Nations headquarters officially opens in New York City

* 1968, the Surveyor VII space probe made a soft landing on the moon, marking the end of the American series of unmanned explorations of the lunar surface. ALSO: The only known snowfall occurs in Mexico City, additional snow falls on Jan. 10 and 11

* 1972, reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes, speaking by telephone from the Bahamas to reporters in Hollywood, said a purported biography of him by Clifford Irving was a fake

* 1986, after losing a patent battle with Polaroid, Kodak exits the instant camera business

* 1991, the Soviets storm Vilnius to stop Lithuanian independence

* 2002, the United States Department of Justice announces it is going to pursue a criminal investigation of Enron

Vote For Change

2008-01-07T13:59:00.000-08:00

Got to hand it to Barack Hussein Obama.....he made Hillary cry!
As far as a vote for change, I'm down with that. What would be great if the Republican Party were to have someone who can electrify people the way Barack Hussein Obama can.......the guy has appeal, fire, he's not a D.C. politician and is gaining quite a bit of support worldwide, something we could use.

But what exactly is it he believes in and this change he hypes?

He believes in his destiny. He believes in his charisma. He has the confidence of the annointed. He has faith in the magic of the man who meets his moment. He also believes in the power of good nature, the need for compromise, and the possibility of comprehensive, multitiered, sensible solutions achieved through good-faith negotiations. But mostly it seems to be about him, his sense of destiny, and his appreciation of his own particular gifts.

What else?

Well.... first off it was Mohammad and now Jesus Christ....got his bases covered there, John Kerry couldn't have scripted this one better! The bad thing here is that Muslims believe everyone is born a Muslim, now that he's Christian convert, he's an aposate, and apostacy ranks right at the bottom rung of the Islam ladder.....off with his head! No visiting Middle East for Barack Hussein Obama!

A Vote For Change would mean:

Higher taxes, government health care (see Canada and Europe), fight international terror with wet socks...err, diplomacy and a ban on guns. Obama voted against the Induced Infant Liability Act, which would have protected babies that survived late-term abortions. That same year a similar federal law, the Born Alive Infant Protection Act, was signed by President Bush. Only 15 members of the U.S. House opposed it, and it passed the Senate unanimously on a voice vote.

He flip flopped on, but mostly against funding for the troops, and according to the Liberal Americans for Democratic Action, his voting record was 97.5%, nearly perfection for liberal Democrats!

What we've got here is a Presidential contender with a half of one term in the U.S. Senate and a 1 page resume.

Dude gives great speeches though!

I would suggest you download this 33 page .PDF file written by the folks at Human Events and read about the man. Stop reading the empty platitudes from the MSM and instead read about the real man and his policies.

Below is an excerpt from John Hawkins:

"Anybody who got into the Senate by beating Alan Keyes and who hasn’t yet served a full term, isn't by any objective standard even qualified to be President. Still, America's most vapid politician, a guy who should have had his presidential campaign sponsored by Hallmark greeting cards -- because in a whole year's time, I'm not sure he said anything deeper than something you've read on the back of one of those cards -- is now the favorite to be the Democratic nominee."

"Hillary's people have been trying to start fake whispering campaigns that the guy is secretly a Muslim and a former coke dealer, but they should be trying to get Fabio and the "Let's Get Ready to Rumble" guy to endorse her campaign instead. Why? Because the only two things Obama has going for him are that he's nice looking and he has a great voice and maybe Fabio and Michael Buffer combined could help Hillary's campaign match Barack strength for strength."

Defining Quote: "The truth is that right after 9/11 I had a (flag) pin. Shortly after 9/11, particularly because as we're talking about the Iraq war, that became a substitute for I think true patriotism, which is speaking out on issues that are of importance to our national security." -- Barack Obama explaining why he refuses to wear a flag pin.

Defining Photo: Vote for Obama, get that much closer to Marxism.

That photo really pisses me off.

Joe Schizo

2008-01-07T11:31:00.000-08:00

But will he have the stones to say the same about Islam? I guaran-eff'n-tee you not a snow ball's chance in.....in........well his future home.

Not The Kind Of Leader Or Headline You Want To See

2008-01-07T09:31:00.000-08:00

"Huckabee vs. Obama would pit an unelectable Republican against a Democrat who would wreck our economy and weaken our security. And both have blasted the president's success in the war on terror. "

Read Full Article from IBD

Today in History....January 7

2008-01-07T07:01:00.001-08:00

* 1610, astronomer Galileo Galilei began observing three of Jupiter's moons

* 1789, the first U.S. presidential election was held. Americans voted for electors who, a month later, chose George Washington to be the nation's first president

* 1904, the Marconi International Marine Communication Co. of London announced that the telegraphed letters "CQD" would serve as a maritime distress call (it was later replaced by "SOS")

* 1927, commercial transatlantic telephone service was inaugurated between New York and London

* 1942, the World War II siege of Bataan began

* 1953, President Truman announced in his State of the Union address that the United States had developed a hydrogen bomb

* 1999, for the second time in history, an impeached American president (this time Clinton) went on trial before the Senate

* 1999, U.S. Representative Dan Burton, R-Ind., subpoenaed Elian Gonzalez to testify before Congress in a bid to keep Elian in the United States for at least another month while courts decided whether the 6-year-old should be returned to Cuba. (Elian never actually testified.)

* 2003, police in London announced they had found traces of the deadly poison ricin in a north London apartment and arrested six men in connection with the virulent toxin that had been linked to al-Qaida terrorists and Iraq

* 2004, President Bush proposed legal status -- at least temporarily -- for millions of illegal immigrants working in the U.S.

Quote of the Day

2008-01-04T11:56:00.000-08:00

The difference between the right and the left:

- Huckabee's supporters thank God for giving them Huckabee.
- Obama's supporters thank Obama for giving them God.

h/t Ace of Spades

2008-01-04T10:47:00.000-08:00

In terms of answering Huckabee’s charge that he is “the fellow you’d like to work with,” Romney should tout the fact that his enterprises have created thousands of jobs and Huckabee has never met any private sector payroll. Unless you own your own business, you can’t have a co-worker without a boss. - Rich Lowry

Global Banks Adopting Islam

2008-01-04T09:46:00.000-08:00

“… the love of money is the root of all sorts of evil” (1 Ti. 6:10) So, just when you think you have just about seen it all, something even more shocking turns up. Like this…

Either global bankers are seducing Islamic dictators, or vice versa. Even if they are seducing each other at the same time, the result will be the same: Islamic/Shari’a banking is coming to the United States and other western nations, thanks to global banks such as Citigroup, HSBC, Deutsche Bank, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs.

With Great Britain now pledging to become the Islamic banking center of the world, the stampede by all global banks to enter the world of Islamic banking is well underway.

What is Islamic banking?

Simply put, "Islamic banking and finance" creates, sells and services products that are in strict accordance with Shari'a. In the Islamic culture, it is referred to as "Shari'a finance" and covers the practices of banking, investment, bonds, loans, brokerage, etc.

To insure Shari'a compliance, banks must hire Shari'a scholars to review and approve each product and practice as "halal," the Muslim equivalent of kosher in Judaism. Because there is a shortage of such scholars, there is competition between banks to find the best expert to sit on their boards of directors. This provides the highest legitimacy to each ruling because it is made at the director rather management level.

It should be noted that most of these scholars are from the school of radical Wahhabi/Salafi Shari'a in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere, holding views diametrically opposed to the basic values of Western civilization.

Patrick Woods of NewsWithViews.com has the rest.

2008-01-04T09:00:00.000-08:00

Caucus break......bonfires & beer, cool rides, guitars, a 'neck rippin' on a banjo.... just big timin' in a small town.....crank it.

News For Hillary

2008-01-04T07:51:00.000-08:00

Nearly 70% of Democrat voters in Iowa don't want you......ouch!!

The results in Iowa are no guarantee that Obama and Huckabee will be the eventual nominees. Neither got as much as 40% of the votes in Iowa last night meaning more than six-in-ten supported someone other than the winners.

Obama portrayed himself as the agent of change. Clinton ran as the voice of experience.

Change won. I know it's early but, Republicans....stand up and take notice!

Brooke at NeoCon Command Center has a great clip of Glenn Beck on Huckabee's win last night, the tide's gonna change for the Huckster once he steps out of Iowa, go here.

Today in History....January 4

2008-01-04T06:50:00.001-08:00

* 1493, Christopher Columbus leaves the New World, ending his first journey

* 1717, the Netherlands, England, and France sign the Triple Alliance against Spain, attempting to maintain the agreement of the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht. The three states were concerned about Spain becoming a superpower in Europe. As a result of this militarisation took place, causing great havoc to civilians. This enraged Spain and other states, leading to brinkmanship. It became the Quadruple Alliance the next year with the accession of Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI

* 1762, England declares war on Spain and Naples

* 1847, Samuel Colt sells his first revolver pistol to the United States government

* 1865, the New York Stock Exchange opens its first permanent headquarters at 10-12 Broad near Wall Street in New York City

* 1936, Billboard magazine publishes its first pop music charts

* 1944, Operation Carpetbagger, involving the dropping of arms and supplies to resistance fighters in Europe, begins

* 1951, during the Korean War: Chinese and North Korean forces capture Seoul

* 1962, New York City introduces a train that operates without a crew on-board

* 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson proclaims his "Great Society" during his State of the Union address

* 1974, President Richard Nixon refuses to hand over materials subpoenaed by the Senate Watergate Committee

* 1995, the 104th Congress convened, the first entirely under Republican control since the Eisenhower era

* 2004, Spirit, a NASA Mars Rover, lands successfully on Mars at 04:35 UTC

* 2006, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel suffers a second stroke.
His authority is transferred to Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who still holds the position

* 2007, the 110th United States Congress convenes, electing Nancy Pelosi as the first female Speaker of the House in U.S. history

2008-01-03T12:16:00.000-08:00

Hillary on tape courting the Iowa folk this afternoon in the Iowa Caucus.

Thanks to Ace of Spades for the 'ol stein hoist, err.... h/t 'ing the above video at his site.

Today in History...January 3

2008-01-03T06:42:00.001-08:00

* 1496, Leonardo da Vinci unsuccessfully tests a flying machine

* 1777, American general George Washington defeats British general Charles Cornwallis at the Battle of Princeton

* 1815, Austria, the United Kingdom, and France form a secret defensive alliance treaty against Prussia and Russia

* 1823, Stephen F. Austin receives a grant of land in Texas from the government of Mexico

* 1870, construction of the Brooklyn Bridge begins

* 1871, Henry W. Bradley patents oleomargarine (butter substitute)

* 1888, the 91 cm refracting telescope at Lick Observatory of the University of California is used for the first time. It was the largest telescope in the world at the time. ALSO: Marvin C. Stone patents the drinking straw

* 1899, the first known use of the word automobile, in an editorial in The New York Times

* 1924, English explorer Howard Carter discovers the sarcophagus of Tutankhamen in the Valley of the Kings, near Luxor, Egypt

* 1925, Benito Mussolini announces he is taking dictatorial powers over Italy

* 1947, proceedings of the U.S. Congress are televised for the first time

* 1953 , Frances Bolton and her son, Oliver from Ohio, become the first mother and son to serve simultaneously in the U.S. Congress

* 1961, the United States severs diplomatic relations with Cuba

* 1967, Jack Ruby, the man who shot accused presidential assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, died in a Dallas hospital

* 1988, Margaret Thatcher becomes the longest-serving British Prime Minister in the 20th Century

* 1990, former leader of Panama Manuel Noriega surrenders to American forces 10 days after taking refuge in the Vatican's diplomatic mission in Panama City

* 1993, in Moscow, George H. W. Bush and Boris Yeltsin sign the second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START)

* 2000, the last new daily "Peanuts" comic strip by Charles Schulz ran in 2,600 newspapers

* 2004, NASA's Mars rover, Spirit, touched down on the red planet

2008-01-02T11:36:00.000-08:00

Hillary re-invents "GirlPower".......the NAGS and feminazi groups go nuts. Nowwwwww I know why she is the smartest woman in America...or the world....or the universe, or whatever it is they say.

h/t A Small Dose of Reality

Today in History....January 2

2008-01-02T06:53:00.000-08:00

1492, Muhammad XI, the sultan of Granada, the last Arab stronghold in Spain, surrendered to Spanish forces

* 1757, the United Kingdom captures Calcutta, India

* 1793, Russia and Prussia partition Poland

* 1882, John D. Rockefeller unites his oil holdings into the Standard Oil trust

* 1893, Webb C. Ball of the General Railroad Timepiece Standards in North America introduces railroad chronometers

* 1900, Secretary of State John Hay announced the "Open Door Policy" to facilitate trade with China

* 1905, the Russian garrison surrenders at Port Arthur, China

* 1923, U.S. Interior Secretary Albert Fall resigns over the Teapot Dome scandal

* 1929, Canada and the United States agree on a plan to preserve Niagara Falls

* 1935, Bruno Hauptmann goes on trial for the murder of Charles Lindbergh, Jr., infant son of aviator Charles Lindbergh. (Hauptmann was found guilty, and executed.)

* 1941, during World War II: The U.S. government announces its Liberty ship program to build freighters in support of the war effort

* 1946, unable to resume rule after World War II, King Zog of Albania abdicates but retains his claim to the throne

* 1957, the San Francisco Stock and Bond Exchange and Los Angeles Oil Exchange merge

* 1974, President Richard Nixon signs a bill lowering the maximum US speed limit to 55 MPH in order to conserve gasoline during an OPEC embargo (Federal speed limits were abolished in 1995)

* 2006, a methane gas explosion at the Sago Mine in West Virginia, claimed the lives of 12 miners, but one miner, Randal McCloy Jr., was eventually rescued.

2007-12-31T14:03:00.000-08:00

A personal note here.........Mi Compadre, Oscar Galarza and his wife Irma are the God Parents to our 5 year old daughter Daniella, and the annual hosts of their usually awesome New Years Eve Party, is currently undergoing brain surgery as I type at St. Joseph's Hospital in Phoenix. Throw in a good word for him....they are great people, and he, a great guy.
UPDATE: After nearly 8 hours in surgery for a brain aneuryism, Mi Compadre Oscar is recovering and doing okay, thanks all for the kind offerings.

An Infidel's Insight Going Into 2008

2007-12-31T08:49:00.002-08:00

...........or a gringo's, same damn thing 'ya know. For newer readers, be sure to read my piece after the 6th bullet point........btw...Happy New Year!

- I really hope Hillary lands the Democrat nomination for President, then we get to hear and watch her extract her foot out of her mouth (along with them ankles) when she tries to explain her quote to General David Petraeus regarding the successful SURGE........."I think that the reports that you provide to us really require the willing suspension of disbelief." What an absolute b*tch ....calling one of the most upstanding Generals ever pretty much a liar, this one WILL come back to bite her in the buttinksi.

- Your religion must be effed up when your dream of a worlwide caliphate can't even take hold in your region.

- Iraq, the worst and most dangerous state in the Middle East now has the possibility of becoming the best. Islamic radicalism in its abhorrent manifestations suffered a terrible defeat in Iraq, its frontline fighters killed en masse, its agendas rejected freely by Arab peoples, and its overall prestige lowered in the Islamic world — with beneficial repercussions from Libya to Lebanon.

-The question of oil and the war is largely forgotten. Critics once chanted “no blood for oil,” but they quieted when the price shot up and the Iraqis themselves profited enormously from it. Supporters of the war did not wish to prove that cheap, accessible oil was not the main reason to go to war by the painful reminder that its price is now disastrously high and imperils the economy of the United States.

- Bring this up tonight when everyone's having a few bebida's....... ask the folk if they remember why we invaded Iraq, in VDH's own words (BTW....he's a Democrat, the left's huge nightmare when it comes to clarity on the war) ....."After the victory of the 1991 Gulf War, a bipartisan consensus had emerged that Saddam Hussein had to be contained — by both arms and sanctions. Our government wanted to prevent him from using oil revenues to obtain more dangerous weapons, destroying more of his own people, and from attacking or invading yet a fifth nearby country. Few, if any, disagreed.

But after September 11, and the realization that state-sponsored terrorists from the Middle East had the desire to destroy the United States and the capability to do it great harm, the decade-long containment of Saddam Hussein, in light also of his serial violations of both armistice and U.N. accords, was considered inadequate. Few disagreed.

So both houses of Congress, backed by an overwhelming majority of the American people, authorized the use of military force to remove Saddam Hussein, at the vigorous request of the President."

- We didn't go to war for WMD's alone, there were 22 other reasons formulated by Congress, but the WMD's were just that the hardest one to prove and became the anti-war battle cry.....so to speak.

And now I'm going to throw up a re- post from earlier in the year.......

W.W.M.D?
What Would Mohammed Do?

As a Muslim, you know that life is full of tough choices. Do you behead or not behead? Have adult relations with your buddy's 9-year-old child...? Take a female sex slave... ?

For followers of the Religion of Peace, it all comes down to knowing what Muhammad did when faced with the same decisions (based on reliable Muslim sources, of course). In fact, the more you know about the founder of Islam the better, even if you aren't Muslim.

Forget all those shifty-eyed apologists, trying to make Muhammad out to be some sort of "Jesus clone" based on a few obscure anecdotes. The prophet of Islam definitely wasn't one to turn the other cheek or keep his worldly appetites in check.

You want the truth? Think you can handle it? Well, here you are then...

WOULD MOHAMMED........?????

Have sex with a 9 year old girl?
Answer: YES
Source: Hadith

Advocate beheadings?
nswer: YES
Source: Qur'an

Reequire woman to cover their faces?
Answer: YES
Source: Qur'an & Hadith

Make friends with Christians, Jews or other non-Muslims?
Answer: NOSource: Qur'an

Own slaves?
Answer: YES
Source: Qur'an & Hadith

Marry his daughter-in-law?
Answer: YES
Source: Qur'an

Approve of prostitution?
Answer: YES
Source: Qur'an & Hadith

Recommend wife beating?
Answer: YES
Source: Qur'an & Hadith

Hit his own wife?
Answer: YES
Source: Hadith

Kill prisoners of war?
Answer: YES
Source: Hadith

Advocate suicide attacks?
Answer: YES
Source: Qur'an & Hadith

Kill apostates?
Answer: YES
Source: Qur'an & Hadith

Tell sick persons to heal themselves by drinking camel urine?
Answer: YES
Source: Hadith

Beat children who don't pray?
Answer: YES
Source: Hadith

Have eleven wifes (at one time)?
Answer: YES
Source: Hadith

Lie?
Answer: YES
Source: Qur'an & Hadith

Enslave women and children?
Answer: YES
Source: Hadith & Ibn Ishaq

Stone adulterers to death?
Answer: YES
Source: Hadith

Torture a man out of greed?
Answer: YES
Source: Ibn Ishaq

Consider men and women equal partners?
Answer: NO
Source: Qur'an & Hadith

Kill someone for insulting him?
Answer: YES
Source: Qur'an & Hadith

Preach love for people of all religions?
Answer: NO
Source: Qur'an & Hadith

Extort money from other religions?
Answer: YES
Source: Qur'an & Hadith

Keep women as sex slaves?
Answer: YES
Source: Qur'an

Force conversions to Islam?
Answer: YES
Source: Qur'an & Hadith

Commit acts of terror?
Answer: YES
Source: Qur'an & Hadith

Kill a woman?
Answer: YES
Source: Biographers

Capture a woman and rape her?
Answer: YES
Source: Hadith

Encourage the rape of women in front of their husbands?
Answer: YES
Source: Hadith (Abu Dawud: 2150)

Pretty sick huh?Oh, and don't forget that according to Allah himself (speaking through Muhammad, of course) Muhammad is the most "beautiful pattern of conduct" and "example" for mankind to follow (Qur'an Sura 33:21)!

Jingle Frickin' Bombs

2007-12-31T08:49:00.001-08:00

2007-12-31T07:44:00.000-08:00

AMERICAN HERO: Marco Martinez Tells His Courageous Story

Gateway Pundit has a great piece to end up the year. Here's a snippet:

Marco A. Martinez, a young Marine and war hero, describes his early years as a gang-banger to his days in boot camp to the heat of battle in Iraq. Martinez has a gift for writing and gritty style that keeps you interested. Perhaps the best review listed for his book came from this young man:

My name is Paul Gardner, known in the book as just "Gardner", and as someone who fought in battle with Sgt Martinez, I can and will vouch for this book. If it wasn't for Marco Martinez' actions that day, April 12, 2003, I would not be alive today. The enemy was trying their hardest to shoot me again and finish me off after the initial gun shot wound I suffered, hitting my spinal cord and immediantly paralyzing my body. I was forced to just watch the insurgents shoot round after round at my limp and motionless body. I was so scared and knew I was going to die. I passed out from shock.

What unfolded in the next five minutes while I was passed out was simply the most brave and selfless action I never got to see, just hear about and read about later.

Here's the link.

2007 Person Of The Year

2007-12-31T07:00:00.000-08:00

..........this from the U.K., this rightful winner right here, without a doubt.

Today in History....December 31

2007-12-31T06:46:00.000-08:00

* 1862, during the American Civil War: Abraham Lincoln signs an act that admits West Virginia to the Union (thus dividing Virginia in two)

* 1879, Thomas Edison demonstrates incandescent lighting to the public for the first time

* 1891, a new immigration depot is opened on Ellis Island, New York

* 1904, the first New Year's Eve celebration is held in Times Square, then known as Longacre Square, on Manhattan

* 1923, Big Ben's chimes are broadcast on radio for the first time by the BBC

* 1929, Guy Lombardo performs Auld Lang Syne at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City for the first time

* 1944, during World War II: Hungary declares war on Germany

* 1946, President Harry Truman officially proclaims the end of hostilities in World War II

* 1955, General Motors becomes the first U.S. corporation to make over
$1 billion in a year

* 1961, the Marshall Plan expires after distributing more than USD $12 billion in foreign aid to rebuild Europe

* 1963, the Central African Federation officially collapses and splits into Zambia, Malawi and Rhodesia

* 1974, private U.S. citizens were allowed to buy and own gold for the first time in more than 40 years

* 1983, the AT&T Bell System is broken up by the United States government

* 1991, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is officially dissolved

* 1994, this date is skipped altogether in Kiribati as the Phoenix Islands and Line Islands change time zones from UTC-11 to UTC+13 and UTC-10 to UTC+14, respectively

* 1997, Quaker Oats settles a lawsuit involving the immoral use of child subjects in radioactivity experiments circa 1945-1956

* 1998, exchange rates between the euro and legacy currencies in the Eurozone become fixed

* 1999, Boris Yeltsin resigns as President of Russia, leaving Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as the acting President. ALSO: Five hijackers, practitioners of that "religion of peace", who had been holding 155 hostages on an Indian Airlines plane, leave the plane with two Islamic "clerics" that they had demanded be freed. AND: The United States Government handed Panama Canal control over to Panama as well all the adjacent land to the canal known as the Panama Canal Zone. This act complied with the signing of the 1977 Torrijos-Carter Treaties

* 2004, the official opening of Taipei 101, the current tallest skyscraper in the world, standing at a height of 509 metres (1,670 feet)

* 2006, the United Kingdom pays final installment of Second World War debt to the United States

2007-12-28T13:34:00.000-08:00

Bhutto Shot By 5 Snipers? No Al Qaeda involvement?

It's getting interesting, theories abound....

And then this....Bhutto Names Man Who Killed Osama bin Laden?

The assassination of Benazir Bhutto looks more like a complex operation, planned carefully, with decoys and serious preparation. Eli Lake at The New York Sun reports that the murderers used one explosion as a feint to draw Bhutto into a sniper's line of fire. The killers had already prepared to shoot through her defenses:

American and Pakistani military leaders are seeking to account for what may be renegade commando units from the Pakistani military's special forces in the wake of the assassination of Pakistan's opposition leader and former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto.
The attack yesterday at Rawalpindi bore the hallmarks of a sophisticated military operation. At first, Bhutto's rally was hit by a suicide bomb that turned out to be a decoy. According to press reports and a situation report of the incident relayed to The New York Sun by an American intelligence officer, Bhutto's armored limousine was shot by multiple snipers whose armor-piercing bullets penetrated the vehicle, hitting the former premier five times in the head, chest, and neck. Two of the snipers then detonated themselves shortly after the shooting, according to the situation report, while being pursued by local police. ...

A working theory, according to this American source, is that Al Qaeda or affiliated jihadist groups had effectively suborned at least one unit of Pakistan's Special Services Group, the country's equivalent of Britain's elite SAS commandos. This official, however, stressed this was just a theory at this point. Other theories include that the assassins were trained by Qaeda or were from other military services, or the possibility that the assassins were retired Pakistani special forces.

"They just killed the most protected politician in the whole country," this source said. "We really don't know a lot at this point, but the first thing that is happening is we are asking the Pakistani military to account for every black team with special operations capabilities."

The operation described by Lake does not sound like a typical al-Qaeda operation. While their attacks have a certain level of coordination, they do not have much sophistication beyond bomb-making. They usually use fairly banal devices, while their hallmark has been multiple attacks synchronized within minutes of each other. Until now, their assassination attempts have not involved skilled snipers with the kind of weaponry or ammunition Lake describes.

Stay tuned.........

2007-12-28T11:40:00.001-08:00

Go fill 'er up.......need $10k an hour for the next 5 hours, commencing at 6pm this evening. Not an official Gringo endorsement, but getting close!

UPDATE: From Blogburst to the TV, he has apparently succeeded in raising the dough via blogs.

(scroll down, fixed the "Meat and Potatoes Ticket" link)

2007-12-28T09:07:00.000-08:00

Michael Ramirez is the Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist for Investor's Business Daily and former Claremont Institute Lincoln Fellow. Below is yesterday's cartoon. Apart from the conception of the cartoon, I love how recognizable the gentleman to the right is despite the surgical mask. The caption reads: "Don't worry, I have experience. I'm not a surgeon, but I was married to one for eight years."
The cartoon appears to have been inspired by Patrick Healy's excellent New York Times article "The résumé factor: Those 8 years as First Lady." Healy writes of Ms. Hillary's vaunted White House experience:

"Mrs. Clinton did not hold a security clearance. She did not attend National
Security Council meetings. She was not given a copy of the president’s daily
intelligence briefing. She did not assert herself on the crises in Somalia,
Haiti and Rwanda."

"And during one of President Bill Clinton’s major tests on terrorism,
whether to bomb Afghanistan and Sudan in 1998, Mrs. Clinton was barely speaking to her husband, let alone advising him, as the Lewinsky scandal sizzled."

h/t Power Line

Today in History....December 28

2007-12-28T07:25:00.001-08:00

* 1612, Galileo Galilei becomes the first astronomer to observe the planet Neptune, although he mistakenly catalogued it as a fixed star

* 1832, John C. Calhoun becomes the first Vice President of the United States to resign

* 1835, Osceola leads his Seminole warriors in Florida into the Second Seminole War against the U.S. Army

* 1836, Spain recognizes the independence of Mexico

* 1867, United States claims Midway Island, first territory annexed outside Continental limits

* 1869, William E. Semple of Mount Vernon, Ohio patents chewing gum

* 1895, the Lumière brothers have their first paying audience at the Grand Cafe in Boulevard des Capucines marking the debut of the cinema

* 1902, the first indoor professional American football game is played in New York City at Madison Square Garden

* 1945, the U.S. Congress officially recognizes the Pledge of Allegiance

* 1973, the Endangered Species Act is passed in the United States

* 1981, the first American test-tube baby, Elizabeth Jordan Carr, is born in Norfolk, Virginia

* 2000, U.S. retail giant Montgomery Ward announces it is going out of business after 128 years

* 2005, a U.S. immigration judge orders John Demjanjuk deported to Ukraine for crimes against humanity committed during World War II

The Meat and Potatoes Ticket

2007-12-27T13:23:00.000-08:00

How Does This Sound?

President of the United States, Mr. Fred Thompson

Vice President of the United States, Mr. Bill Bennett

Just received yesterday via mail Bill Bennett's books, "America, The Last Best Hope, Volumes I & II".....smokin' deal, 2 hardcover books and a Ronald Reagan Rememberance CD for $30!

2007-12-27T08:48:00.000-08:00

The murder of Bhutto moves foreign policy, the war on terror, and the threat of Islamofascism back into the center of the 2008 campaign. How candidates respond to it, and issues like it that will come up in the next 10 months, will determine whether they are fit for the presidency. I'm liking the GOP chances more and more, can't imagine Hillary, Obama or The Breck Girl wrapping their heads around a very real war that they don't believe in.

The Religion of Peace, Another Day at the Office

2007-12-27T07:14:00.000-08:00

This was bound to happen, they also tried to kill her yesterday. A Fifteen year old boy was caught with a bomb at a security check.

Update: One report says al Qaeda is claiming credit…

This war is far from over. This war is no artificial Bush creation or figment of anyone’s imagination, and should still be very much part of our own election, wishful thinking notwithstanding. For those who continue to believe that this is "George Bush's War", do yourself a favor and read The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 ..., it's written by a leftist and will convince you that we are not fighting a few thugs in the Middle East, but a worldwide disease that may be uncontrollable if we don't something about it...........now.

Also, not to forget, at least 20 others were blown to pieces and scores of others maimed.

Joe History.......China Raises 800 Year Old Ship

2007-12-26T14:11:00.000-08:00

Back tomorrow to continue the battle against evil, jihad, liberalism and all things Hillary....but first, this is cool, as in very cool ......A 100 foot long Chinese junk (ship), dating from the Southern Song dynasty, has been raised from the sea bed off the coast of China, as part of a hugely ambitious archaeological project. "It is hoped that the Nanhai will prove the existence of a marine silk road that linked southern China with Europe as well as Africa and Southeast Asia".

Folks are trying to make the case that the Chinese were in fact the first to navigate the world via ship. You may recall that the US Congress was able to obtain the Waldseemueller Map ( a map of the world) from Germany earlier this year (which was purchased for $10MM in 2003) so we can have it in the archives in the Library of Congress for display, this map was made in the late 1400's, someone charted the route that Ferdinand Magellan got credit for...in his journey in 1520. Who was it??

At the height of the Ming Dynasty, China's most celebrated mariner, Admiral Zheng He, sailed the world's largest wooden armada, nearly 300 ships, in an epic voyage of discovery and trade. 600 years later, in a small Chinese store, a copy of a 1418 map delicately drawn on bamboo paper is discovered, detailing Zheng He's epic voyages and the lands his expedition circumnavigated - lands that include the Americas, Australia and Antarctica. Three continents that history records were not discovered until many years later. Did Zheng He beat Columbus to America by 71 years? 1421: The Year China Discovered The World? is a fascinating and compelling documentary which is currently re-writing history. With in-depth investigations that delve deep into historical archives from around the globe, this extraordinary film re-traces the journeys of Zheng He alongside a wealth of evidence and contemporary historical accounts presented by modern scholars while examining bestselling author and historian Gavin Menzies remarkable evidence which sets out to prove that the Chinese discovered America long before Columbus. Part forensic investigation and part historical mystery 1421 is a fascinating, gripping and dramatic journey through a modern day controversy and into a brave new world.

Cool, fun and pretty fascinating stuff, at least I think so.

Today in History....December 26

2007-12-26T12:14:00.000-08:00

* 1606, first Performance of William Shakespeare's King Lear

* 1811, a theater fire in Richmond, Virginia kills the Governor of Virginia George William Smith and the president of the First National Bank of Virginia Abraham B. Venable

* 1825, several Imperial Russia army officers lead approximately 3000 soldiers on the Senate Square in the failed Decembrist uprising. ALSO:
The Erie Canal opens

* 1861, during the American Civil War: Confederate diplomatic envoys James M. Mason and John Slidell are freed by the United States government, thus heading off a possible war between the United States and Britain

* 1906, the Story of the Kelly Gang is released, widely considered to be the world's first feature film

* 1917, during World War I, President Wilson issued a proclamation authorizing the government to take over operation of the nation's railroads

* 1919, Babe Ruth sold to the Yankees

* 1933, FM radio is patented

* 1941, Winston Churchill became the first British prime minister to address a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress

* 1947, 26-inches of snow falls in 16 hours in New York City

* 1979, Soviet Special forces troops take over presidential palace in Kabul, Afghanistan

* 1982, Time Magazine's Man of the Year was for the first time given to a non-human, the personal computer

* 1991, the Supreme Soviet meets and formally dissolves the USSR

* 1996, 6-year-old beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey was found beaten and strangled in the basement of her family's home in Boulder, Colo. (To date, the slaying remains unsolved, despite a widely publicized "confession" by John Mark Karr.)

* 1998, Iraq announced its intention to fire upon U.S. and British warplanes that patrol the northern and southern no-fly zones

* 2004, more than 200,000 people, mostly in southern Asia, were killed by a tsunami triggered by the world's most powerful earthquake in 40 years beneath the Indian Ocean

* 2006, Iraq's highest court rejected Saddam Hussein's appeal of his conviction and death sentence and said the former president should be hanged within 30 days. (Saddam was executed on Dec. 30, 2006, Iraq
time.)

2007-12-21T13:46:00.001-08:00

The Mrs., the 3 Little Joes and myself wish everyone a Merry Christmas, a Prosperous New Year and a Happy Holiday Season ...thanks for stopping by!

(scroll down)

Hunting down some blue agave w/ the crew in Tequila, Jalisco, México this past summer. Below is in Tequila as well, the mountains in the backdrop are the Sierra Madres, the butte in the foreground is called "El Chiquihuitillo", a place where the Tiquila Indians fought off the Spanish during the Inquisition.....and won. Lots of awesome caves, underground tunnels, hideouts and hiking in this area.

(click to enlarge for a great view.......and notice some rows of blue agave grown by locals on the side of the mountain in forefront)

2007-12-21T11:10:00.000-08:00

The ghost of Howard Dean's decline revisited???
........lesson #1, mess with Rush, you pay.

2007-12-21T07:56:00.000-08:00

Leading Catholic Bishop in the United States: "God Willing, Saudi Arabia Will Soon Be Annihilated....We Will Reach Saudi Arabia....The Eyes of the Nation of Jesus Christ are set on Riyadh, Tehran, Baghdad, Kabul, Istanbul, Mecca"

Whooooopsie..... now if that were really said, the left across the United States and the world would absolutely FREAK out. What was actually said is below:

Dec 21 SD# 1791 - Leader of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan: 'Allah Willing, America Will Soon Be Annihilated… We Will Reach America… The Eyes of the Nation of Muhammad are set on Washington, London, Moscow, Paris, Delhi, Beijing'

.....and yet we, or shall I say the left, ignores this type of dangerous rhetoric....because they don't want to offend.

Judeo-Christian values are just a tad different than those of Islam don't you think? We choose to celebrate life, they......death.

Today in History....December 21

2007-12-21T06:25:00.001-08:00

* 1620, William Bradford and the Mayflower Pilgrims land on what is now known as Plymouth Rock in Plymouth, Massachusetts

* 1844, the Rochdale Pioneers commence business at their cooperative in Rochdale, England, starting the Cooperative movement

* 1861, Public Resolution 82, containing a provision for a Navy Medal of Valor, is signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln

* 1913, Arthur Wynne's "word-cross", the first crossword puzzle, is published in the New York World

* 1937, the film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the first feature-length animated cartoon in Technicolor, is premiered at the Carthay Circle Theater in Los Angeles

* 1945, Gen. George S. Patton died in Heidelberg, Germany, of injuries from a car accident

* 1967, Louis Washkansky, the first man to undergo a heart transplant, dies in Cape Town, South Africa, after living for 18 days

* 1968, Apollo 8, the first manned mission to the moon, is launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. At 2h:50m:37s Mission elapsed time (MES), the crew performs the first ever manned Trans Lunar Injection and become the first humans to leave the Earth's gravity field

* 1970, Elvis Presley meets with President Richard Nixon to discuss the war on drugs. ALSO: The F-14 Tomcat flies for the first time

* 1971, the United Nations Security Council chooses Kurt Waldheim to succeed U Thant as Secretary-General

* 1976, the Liberian-registered tanker Argo Merchant broke apart near Nantucket Island almost a week after running aground, spilling 7.5 million gallons of oil into the North Atlantic

* 1988, a bomb explodes on board Pan Am flight 103 by practitioners of that "religion of peace" over Lockerbie, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, killing 270

* 1995, the city of Bethlehem passes from Israeli to Palestinian control; immediately Christians there begin to suffer

* 2002, President Bush received a smallpox vaccination, fulfilling a promise he'd made when he ordered inoculations for about a half-million

* 2007, the Schengen Agreement area increases to include 9 European Union member states; Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia and Malta on land and sea borders

2007-12-20T12:27:00.000-08:00

My 3 yr. old, Derrek and 5 yr. old, Daniella, are victims of the '80's hairband craze, their favorite, and I mean favorite song is here, and yes, they know all of the words. Dad was hoping for a Stevie Ray Vaughan tune, but at least it's okay for them to sing, and boy do they ever. No real importance here with this post, only that I have this documented to use against them when they get older. ;-)

Disclaimer - Joe Gringo owns no Hair band tune-age

Did Jew Know?

2007-12-20T11:29:00.000-08:00

A Jew for Jesus? Heh..... just sayin' 'cause of the whole gospel aspect......not buying into it though, however it's more ammo for the muslims to hate us. ;-)

h/t K-Lo at The Corner

2007-12-20T07:42:00.000-08:00

What is going on over at TIME Magazine? Losing these heavyweights is not a good sign.
......and then Putin, Person of the Year? JK Rowling, Hu Jintao as runners up?

I got shut out again this year
;-)

Video of the Day........By Far

2007-12-20T07:10:00.000-08:00

An autistic kid gets his shot to play on the high school team. Maximally heartwarming, and you would not have believed it if Hollywood had made it up.....2 minutes 45 seconds, don't miss a second.

h/t TigerHawk

Today in History....December 20

2007-12-20T06:47:00.000-08:00

* 69, Vespasian, a former general under Nero, enters Rome to claim the title of emperor

* 1192, Richard the Lion-Heart was captured and imprisoned by Leopold V of Austria on his way home to England after signing a treaty with Saladin ending the crusade

* 1522, Suleiman the Magnificent accepts the surrender of the surviving Knights of Rhodes, who are allowed to evacuate. They eventually re-settle on Malta and become known as the Knights of Malta

* 1606, the Virginia Company loaded three ships with settlers and set sail to establish Jamestown, Virginia, the first permanent English settlement in the Americas

* 1790, the first successful cotton mill in the United States began operating at Pawtucket, R.I.

* 1803, Louisiana Purchase completed at a ceremony in New Orleans

* 1835, first signing of the Texas Declaration of Independence at Goliad, Texas

* 1860, South Carolina becomes the first state to secede from the United States

* 1864, Confederate forces evacuated Savannah, Ga., as Union Gen.
William T. Sherman continued his 'March to the Sea'

* 1941, during World War II: First battle of the American Volunteer Group, better known as the "Flying Tigers" in Kunming, China

* 1945, the Office of Price Administration announced the end of tire rationing, effective Jan. 1, 1946

* 1951, nuclear power first harvested when EBR-1 powers four light bulbs

* 1973, Spanish Prime Minister Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco is assassinated by a car bomb attack in Madrid

* 1978, former White House chief of staff H.R. Haldeman was released from prison after serving 18 months for his role in the Watergate cover-up

* 1984, the Summit tunnel fire becomes the largest underground fire in history, when a freight train carrying over 1 million litres of petrol derails near the town of Todmorden in the Pennines

* 1988, the United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances is signed at Vienna

* 1989, the United States sends troops into Panama to overthrow government of Manuel Noriega

* 1991, a Missouri court passes the death sentence on two practitioners of that "religion of peace", Zein Isa and his wife Maria, for the "honor killing" of their daughter Palestina

* 1995, NATO begins peacekeeping in Bosnia

* 1996, NeXT merges with Apple Computer, starting the path to Mac OS X

* 2002, US Senator Trent Lott resigns as majority leader. ALSO: The nation’s 10 biggest brokerages agreed to pay $1.44 billion and fundamentally change the way they did business to settle allegations they’d misled investors by hyping certain companies’ stocks. AND: Ted Williams’ eldest daughter, Bobby-Jo Williams Ferrell, dropped her objections to her siblings’ decision to have the Hall of Famer’s body frozen at a cryonics lab in Arizon

* 2005, New York City's Transport Workers Union Local 100 goes on strike, shutting down all New York City Subway and Bus services. ALSO:
US District Court Judge John E. Jones III ruled against mandating teaching "intelligent design" in his ruling of Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District

Hillary: "I'm not saying John Edwards had anything to do with Britney Spears' 16 Yr. Old Sisters Pregnancy.....

2007-12-19T14:41:00.000-08:00

......but I can't confirm that he is not associated with Ms. Spears".

Heh...couldn't resist that one.

Teen idol Jamie Lynn Spears' mother says.... "I don't understand how this could have happened?" When does the White Trash'n end for the Spears'? Poor girl, very sad, 2 girls who had the world by the tail.......at least they live in a country where they can bounce back....hopefully.

2007-12-19T10:09:00.000-08:00

This has been floating around.......Mohammed now second most popular boys' name in Britain...

What's more frightening is that Mohammed is the most popular baby boys' name in Sweden!

Source.....Mark Steyn's excellent book "America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It"

Finally, Legit Proof That Global Warming Is For Realsies....

2007-12-19T09:44:00.000-08:00

I was never on the fence on global warming, but with compelling evidence such as this (below)....I am thoroughly convinced.

"Women must stop admiring men who drive sports cars if they want to join the fight against global warming, the Government's chief scientist has urged."

........what about dudes admiring chicks in sports cars.............or gay guys googling over gay guys in sports cars......or gals 'n gals?

Jus' wondering.

2007-12-18T07:54:00.000-08:00

Joe Under The Weather.....and ill, before I leave for the day, was just talking with one of the boys here at the office about who we're going to vote for President in the 2008 elections. I'm not sure yet, but I can tell you who I'm NOT voting for and why you shouldn't either.

UPDATE: More supporting info from Hugh Hewitt.

That goes for the Cackling Hag, Hussein Obama, the Breck Girl and all other unqualified posers on the left.

Late.

2007-12-18T06:41:00.000-08:00

RAGE BOY sings us a holiday song........"Infidels, Infidels, in the Holy Land........"

Today in History....December 18

2007-12-18T06:34:00.000-08:00

* 1620, passengers on the British ship Mayflower come ashore at modern-day Plymouth, Massachusetts, to begin their new settlement

* 1777, the new United States celebrates its first national day of thanksgiving, commemorating the American victory at the Battle of Saratoga after the surrender of General John Burgoyne and 5,000 British troops in October 1777. In proclaiming the first national day of thanksgiving, Congress wrote, "It is therefore recommended to the Legislative or executive Powers of these UNITED STATES, to set apart THURSDAY, the eighteenth Day of December next, for solemn THANKSGIVING and PRAISE; That at one Time and with one Voice the good People may express the grateful Feelings of their Hearts, and consecrate themselves to the Service of their Divine Benefactor…"

* 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified by Georgia, fulfilling the two-thirds requirement for ratification, and banning slavery in the United States

* 1892, the first performance of Tchaikovsky's ballet The Nutcracker is held at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg

* 1916, the Battle of Verdun, the longest engagement of World War I, ends on this day after ten months and close to a million total casualties suffered by German and French troops

* 1932, the Chicago Bears defeated the Portsmouth Spartans 9-0 in the first ever NFL Championship Game. Because of a blizzard, the game was moved from Wrigley Field to the Chicago Stadium, the field measuring 80 yards long

* 1941, Japanese troops land in Hong Kong and a slaughter ensues

* 1944, during World War II: 77 B-29 Superfortress and 200 other aircraft of U.S. Fourteenth Air Force bomb Hankow, China, a Japanese supply base

* 1966, Saturn's moon Epimetheus is discovered by Richard L. Walker

* 1972, Nixon announces start of "Christmas Bombing" of North Vietnam

* 1987, Larry Wall releases the first version of the Perl programming language

* 1996, the Oakland, California school board passes a resolution officially declaring "Ebonics" a language or dialect

Today in History....December 17

2007-12-17T07:49:00.000-08:00

* 1718, Great Britain declares war on Spain

* 1777, France recognized American independence

* 1807, France issues the Milan Decree, which confirms the Continental System

* 1862, during the American Civil War, General Ulysses S. Grant issues General Order No. 11, expelling Jews from Tennessee, Mississippi, and Kentucky. Shortly after the uproar, President Lincoln ordered Grant to rescind the order. Grant later admitted to his wife that the criticism of his hasty action was well deserved. As Julia Grant put it, the general had "no right to make an order against any special sect."

* 1878, the rise of the silver movement and rampant currency deflation had taken their toll on gold. The premium on the precious metal had virtually vanished, leaving gold traders with little work to do. So, rather than twiddle their thumbs and wait for a turnaround, leaders of the nation's Gold Exchange decided to close shop on December 17.
However, the dawn of 1879 saw a reversal of gold's fortunes and the Exchange re-opened its doors for business.

* 1903, the Wright Brothers made their first powered and heavier-than-air flight in the Wright Flyer at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina

* 1939, the German pocket battleship Adm. Graf Spee was scuttled by its crew, ending the World War II Battle of the River Plate off Uruguay

* 1941, Rear Admiral Husband E. Kimmel was relieved of his command of the U.S. Pacific Fleet as part of a shake-up of officers in the wake of the Pearl Harbor disaster

* 1944, during World War II, the Battle of the Bulge -- Malmedy massacre
-- American 285th Field Artillery Observation Battalion POWs are shot by Waffen-SS Kampfgruppe Peiper

* 1957, the United States successfully test-fired the Atlas intercontinental ballistic missile for the first time

* 1969, the SALT I talks begin. ALSO: The USAF closes its study of UFOs, stating that sightings were generated as a result of "A mild form of mass hysteria, Individuals who fabricate such reports to perpetrate a hoax or seek publicity, psychopathological persons, and misidentification of various conventional objects."

* 1973, 30 passengers are killed in an attack by practitioners of that "religion of peace" on Rome's Leonardo da Vinci Airport

* 1975, Lynette Fromme was sentenced in Sacramento, Calif., to life in prison for her attempt on the life of President Ford

* 1979, driver Stan Barrett became the first person in the world to travel faster than sound on land. He drove the Budweiser Rocket car at a top speed of 739.666 in a one-way run at Rogers Dry Lake, California.
The ultrasonic speed set an unofficial record, but an official record requires trips in both directions, whose speeds are averaged.

* 1991, Yeltsin supporters announce Soviet Union will cease to exist by New Year's Eve

* 1997, the United States and 33 other countries signed a convention in Paris aimed at eradicating bribery in international business

The Meat and Potatoes Ticket

2007-12-14T13:19:00.000-08:00

President of the United States, Mr. Fred Thompson

Vice President of the United States, Mr. Bill Bennett

2007-12-14T10:11:00.000-08:00

Blog Title of the Year.........IMO.
....the one below ain't bad either.

The Religion of Naked Chicks?

2007-12-14T09:54:00.000-08:00

.....sorry Mom.

The Religion of Naked Chicks? Hardly.

Could be a winning slogan though. Ridicule is a powerful weapon against the mighty, even when they claim to act in the name of the Almighty. Have a look...

GatewayPundit .........."I say we put our money together and drop porn leaflets from a plane over Tehran.We'll bring down the regime in a matter of hours. Who's in?"

Today in History....December 14

2007-12-14T08:03:00.000-08:00

I must start off the day with this........my Mom turns 80 today!

Yours truly, the Mrs., the 3 little Joe's, younger 'bro Gringo Grande, wife Gloria, Alexis, Christopher, oldest 'bro Ron, wife Cindy, Carrie, Erica, oldest sister Jane, husband Jerry, Tony Kate, older 'bro Cameron, Justin & Kelly, older sister Karen, Uncle Carl - Aunt Minnie, Uncle Howard, Aunt Eileen, Uncle Leonard, friends Vinberg & Judy, Billy & Kathy, Bobby-DebbieUncle Bob-Aunt Judy, Uncle Dave-Aunt Barb, cousins all over the board.....
Happy Birthday....we all love you!

* 1799, George Washington, died at his Mount Vernon, Va., home at age 67

* 1911, Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen became the first man to reach the South Pole, beating out an expedition led by Robert F. Scott

* 1939, the Soviet Union was dropped from the League of Nations

* 1945, Josef Kramer, ym"sh, known as "the beast of Belsen," and 10 others were hanged in Hameln for crimes committed at the Belsen and Auschwitz Nazi concentration camps

* 1946, the United Nations General Assembly voted to establish U.N.
headquarters in New York

* 1962, the U.S. space probe Mariner 2 approached Venus, transmitting information about the planet

* 1967, first time DNA created in a test tube

* 1975, six South Moluccan extremists surrendered after holding 23 hostages for 12 days on a train near the Dutch town of Beilen

* 1981, Israel annexed the Golan Heights, which it won in a defensive war against Syria in 1967

* 1986, the experimental aircraft Voyager, piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, took off from Edwards Air Force Base in California on the first nonstop, non-refueled flight around the world

* 1988, America agreed to talk to PLO (the first time in 13 years)

* 1990, Right to Die case permits Nancy Cruzan to have her feeding tube removed; she dies 12 days later

* 1995, Presidents Alija Izetbegovic of Bosnia, Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia and Franjo Tudjman of Croatia signed the Bosnian peace treaty in Paris. ALSO: AIDS patient Jeff Getty received the first-ever bone-marrow transplant from a baboon (however, the experimental procedure at a San Francisco hospital was criticized by animal rights activists. The transplant failed, but Getty survived)

* 2000, President-elect George W. Bush conferred by phone with congressional leaders of both parties and planned a goodwill tour of Washington, D.C.; he also received a flood of congratulatory calls from world leaders on his first full day as president-elect. ALSO: U.S.
businessman Edward Pope was pardoned and released by Russia after being convicted of espionage. The Federal Trade Commission unanimously approved the $111 billion merger of America Online and Time Warner.

* 2006, a British police inquiry concluded that the deaths of Princess Diana and her boyfriend in a 1997 Paris car crash were a "tragic accident" and that allegations of murder were unfounded

Joe .Dot Com

2007-12-13T10:10:00.000-08:00

He may, or may not be mine, but he's Your Jewish Master and with his prodding, I secured my own domain......joegringo.com.....she ain't up and running yet..... too busy to complete, to post and to comment, end of year stuff. Stay tuned............$$$$$$??? Heh.

2007-12-11T13:25:00.000-08:00

Off to San Diego for some golf and parasailing........ back thursday.
Yah right.........off to San Diego for work but will be 3-4 minutes from this spot....Torrey Pines Golf Course!
(click to enlarge for a nice view)

2007-12-11T08:26:00.000-08:00

Random thoughts from Thomas Sowell here..... here's one:

"Since electricity is generated mostly by burning coal, has anyone calculated how much pollution is created by electric cars, even though none of that pollution comes out of their tailpipes?"

.....and here's another one from me:

Behead Those Who Insult Judaism!

Teh Cure For Teh Ghey's

2007-12-10T12:11:00.000-08:00

Gay 'Cure' Is All the Buzz

Scientists make fruit flies gay, then straight again — using both drugs and genetic manipulation.

From Ace.......So, I guess, science is telling us that "teh ghey" could be cured with just a little help from the aromatherapy section at Bed, Bath and Beyond.

Which confuses me, because as we all know, aromatherapy is completely gay.

It's the little unexpected irony's in life that make it worth living. Well that and the invariable Andrew Sullivan freakout.

We might even have to resurrect the Sullivan Freak Out Index once he gets word of this development!

Photo of the Day

2007-12-10T09:53:00.000-08:00

Barry G. has one beauty of a photo.

Today in History....December 10

2007-12-10T06:55:00.000-08:00

* 1684, Isaac Newton's derivation of Kepler's laws from his theory of gravity, contained in the paper De motu corporum in gyrum, is read to the Royal Society by Edmund Halley

* 1868, the first traffic lights are installed outside the Houses of Parliament in London. Resembling railway signals, they use semaphore arms and are illuminated at night by red and green gas lamps

* 1898, the Treaty of Paris is signed, officially ending the Spanish-American War

* 1906, U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt wins the Nobel Peace Prize, becoming the first American to win a Nobel Prize of any kind, for helping mediate an end to the Russo-Japanese War

* 1907, the worst night of the Brown Dog riots in London, when 1,000 medical students clashed with 400 police officers over the existence of a memorial for animals who have been vivisected

* 1932, Thailand adopts a Constitution and becomes a constitutional monarchy

* 1948, the UN General Assembly adopts the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This Day is also International Human Rights Day

* 1949, during the Chinese Civil War, the People's Liberation Army begins its siege of Chengdu, the last Kuomintang-held city in mainland China, forcing President of the Republic of China Chiang Kai-shek and his government to retreat to Taiwan

* 1963, the United States Air Force's X-20 Dyna-Soar spaceplane program is canceled by Robert McNamara

* 1971, Jim Hart throws a football for a record 98 yards, the longest recorded throw

* 1978, Prime Minister of Israel Menachem Begin and President of Egypt Anwar Sadat are jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
* 1981, the United Nations General Assembly approves Pakistan proposal for establishing nuclear free-zone in South Asia

* 1989, Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj announced the establishment of Mongolia's democratic movement that peacefully changed the second oldest communist country into a democratic society

* 1997, the Supreme Court narrowed double-jeopardy protections for people who face both civil fines and criminal prosecution for the same conduct, ruling that three Oklahoma men could be prosecuted in a bank failure case even though they'd already paid civil fines for their action

* 2006, one million Lebanese opposition supporters gather in downtown Beirut, calling for the government to resign

2007-12-07T13:48:00.000-08:00

"scheduled to make a major political statement".....an idiot set to endorse a martian.

The Modern Feminist Manifesto Redux

2007-12-07T12:21:00.000-08:00

Pamela Bone to Germaine Greer in Melbourne last week:

I then asked why it was that Western feminists seemed so reluctant to speak out against things such as honour killings.

Greer: "It's very tricky. I am constantly being asked to go to Darfur to interview rape victims. I can talk to rape victims here. Why should I go to Darfur to talk to rape victims?"

Questioner (me): "Because it's so much worse there."

Greer: "Who says it is?"

Questioner: "I do, because I've been there."

Greer: "Well, it is just very tricky to try to change another culture. We let down the victims of rape here. We haven't got it right in our own courts. What good would it do for me to go over there and try to tell them what to do? I am just part of decadent Western culture and they think we're all going to hell fast and maybe we are all going to hell fast."

Too "tricky" to speak out against honor killings, and you can't teach an old feminist new tricks.

2007-12-07T06:41:00.000-08:00

In the style of a Toby Keith tune, in fact if he recorded it, this would probably be a hit, but it's done by one of our men in the military in Iraq.

h/t The Mrs.

Did You Ever Wonder What To Give Your Favorite Jihadist For Christmas.......or Better Yet, Hanukkah?

2007-12-06T11:01:00.000-08:00

CAIR Bears!

Well.....like it says in the subtitle up top.......hanker down.....crack one open....'cause you've come to the right place.

Here we go folks..........

Scare Bear - Scare Bear has many hats. Sympathizer, Talking Head and even Film Producer. Whether its phony protests, fighting cartoons, blaming Israel or filming atrocities for Allah, Scare Bear is ready to indulge the Western media.
Dhimmi Bear - Dhimmi Bear gets to pay Jizya to his respective Islamic Government. Historically in the U.S., we know Jizya as “protection money” paid to the Siclilian Sharia.
Sharia Bear - Sharia Bear is properly clothed, otherwise she will be stoned to death.

Here are some more for 'ya all......

Today in History....December 6

2007-12-06T07:36:00.000-08:00

* 1768, the first edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica is published

* 1790, the U.S. Congress moves from New York City to Philadelphia

* 1884, the Washington Monument in Washington D.C. is completed

* 1897, London becomes the world's first city to host licensed taxis

* 1907, the worst mining disaster in U.S. history occurred as 362 men and boys died in a coal mine explosion in Monongah, W.Va.

* 1917, some 2,000 people died when an explosives-laden French cargo ship collided with a Norwegian vessel at the harbor in Halifax, Nova Scotia, setting off a blast that devastated the city

* 1922, one year to the day after the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, the Irish Free State comes into existence

* 1956, a water polo match between Hungary and the USSR takes place during the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne, representative of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution

* 1973, House Minority Leader Gerald R. Ford was sworn in as vice president, succeeding Spiro T. Agnew

* 2005, several villagers are shot dead during protests in Dongzhou, China.

* 2006, NASA reveals photographs taken by Mars Global Surveyor suggesting the presence of liquid water on Mars.

Ron Paul Schools The NAG's on "A View"

2007-12-05T13:03:00.000-08:00

I know, I know, it's "The View", but those blowhardettes believe their word/view is gospel, so I think "A View" is more appropriate.

Disclaimer - I got this from Flopping Aces , in no way did I partake in watching this show ;-) nor do I support Ron Paul.

Ron Paul smoothly wiped the floor with those dingbats and they didn’t even notice. Getting a liberal to admit that terminating even a late term pregnancy is murder…ha. “You want the government out of your home, right….” he says in that Grandpa voice (they nod) “..but yet you can’t murder a baby in your home” (they stop nodding). hahaha

He made Joy Behar and Whoopi look like fools. He twisted them and worked them over like they were his puppets. My favorite part was when Whoopi tried to correct him about the abortion laws. I mean seriously, who has the stones to try to correct an OBGYN/Presidential candidate about abortion laws??? What a dunce. And I also love how he almost backed Joy into admitting that she is not really pro-choice.

How are laws about abortion telling her what to do with her body? Joy Behar is proof that there is a village somewhere, missing its idiot.

Here's the video.

PS - Whoopi was great in Ghost.

2007-12-05T10:17:00.000-08:00

The NIE Report as a Vindication of the Iraq Invasion
Via Jawa Report, go to the above link, which is cool because Jawa Report is one of the biggies/best blogs, he linked me, referencing VDH's "Revisionism and the Iranian Non-Bomb"

Excerpt:

After all, what critic would wish now to grant that one result of the 2003 war — aside from the real chance that Iraq can stabilize and function under the only consensual government in the region — might have been the elimination, for some time, of two growing and potentially nuclear threats to American security, quite apart from Saddam Hussein?

War is unpredictable and instead of "no blood for oil" (oil went from $20 something to $90 something a barrel after the war, enriching Iraq and the Arab Gulf region at our expense), perhaps the cry, post facto, should have been "no blood for the elimination of nukes."

Today in History....December 5

2007-12-05T09:27:00.000-08:00

* 771, Charlemagne becomes the sole King of the Franks after the death of his brother Carloman

* 1360, creation of the French franc

* 1492, Christopher Columbus becomes the first European to set foot on the island of Hispaniola

* 1496, King Manuel I of Portugal issues a decree of expulsion of "heretics" from the country

* 1766, in London, James Christie holds his first sale

* 1776, the first scholastic fraternity in America, Phi Beta Kappa, was organized at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va.

* 1791, composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died in Vienna, Austria, at age
35

* 1848, in a message before the U.S. Congress, US President James K.
Polk confirms that large amounts of gold had been discovered in California and triggering the Gold Rush of '49

* 1893, first appearance of an electric car

* 1932, German-born Swiss physicist Albert Einstein is granted an American visa

* 1941, during World War II: In Battle of Moscow Zhukov launched a massive Soviet counter-attack against the German army, with the biggest offensive launched against Army Group Center. ALSO: Great Britain declares war to Finland, Hungary and Romania

* 1943, during World War II: U.S. Air force begins Operation Crossbow attacking Germany's secret weapons bases

* 1945, Flight 19 is lost in the Bermuda Triangle

* 1955, the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations merge and form the AFL-CIO

* 1958, Subscriber Trunk Dialling (STD) is inaugurated in the UK by Queen Elizabeth II when she speaks to the Lord Provost in a call from Bristol to Edinburgh

* 1977, Egypt breaks diplomatic relations with Syria, Libya, Algeria, Iraq and South Yemen. The move is in retaliation to the Declaration of Tripoli against Egypt

* 1978, the Soviet Union signs a 'friendship treaty' with the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan

* 2002, Strom Thurmond, the oldest and longest-serving senator in history, celebrated his 100th birthday on Capitol Hill. (It was at this gathering that Senate Republican leader Trent Lott, in toasting Thurmond, seemed to express nostalgia for Thurmond's segregationist past; the resulting firestorm prompted Lott to resign his leadership
position.)

* 2003, suicide bombers, practitioners of that "religion of peace", kill at least 46 people in an attack on a train in southern Russia

* 2006, New York became the first city in the nation to ban artery-clogging trans fats at restaurants.

2007-12-04T14:59:00.000-08:00

John Hawkins has compiled The 2nd Annual Worst Quotes From The Daily Kos (2007 Edition),
Democratic members of Congress post on the blog, Democratic presidential contenders cater to them, and Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas is considered to be a mainstream figure amongst Democrats.

Keep all of that in mind as you read these excerpts and quotes, all of which come from the Daily Kos writers, not from commenters on the blog. You've been warned.....................

Men In Dresses Sharing Bathrooms With 10 Year Old Girls?

2007-12-04T08:49:00.000-08:00

After reading that title, one has to think...."why, what an invitation for sex offenders". Get a load of this........right here in Arizona, tonight December 4, the Scottsdale City Council will consider creating a special legal status for homosexual behavior and gender-denying behavior, such as cross-dressing. The proposed ordinance would add "sexual orientation" and "gender identity" to the traditional protected classes in the law governing the City's employment practices. The traditional protected classes are race, color, religion, disability, sex, age, or national origin.

The City Council will also discuss adding these special rights to city law governing all contracts with businesses and the law governing places of "public accommodation" - like hotels and restaurants. But tonight, the Council will vote only on its own employment practices. Creating special legal rights for homosexual behavior and "transgender" behavior is a mistake. It likens these behaviors to immutable traits - race, color, disability, sex, and national origin - and to a constitutionally protected right-freedom of religion. In other words, the City will be saying that opposition to homosexual and "transgender" behavior is akin to discrimination and bigotry! How's about a sex offender taking advantage of this by dressing up as a chick and making his way into bathroom facility when your daughter or wife enters the facility........feeling safe? Cross-dress and be gay all you want, hell my younger brother dressed up as a cheerleader for Halloween when was 9 or 10 (sorry I outed you) and he's as hetero as they come, just don't make this policy. Coming down the pike along with affirmataive action, will we soon have to hire a certain percentage of gays and transsexuals?

A couple of things, employment decisions should be based on merit. This ordinance is inconsistent with merit-based employment decisions and inserts sexuality into the government workplace. The City is left wide open to legal liability from any employee who chooses to claim discrimination based on his or her sexual behavior.

The City should not take sides in a cultural debate over whether homosexual behavior is natural and ethical. With this ordinance, the City will be saying that ethical and moral reservations about these behaviors are nothing more than discrimination and bigotry.

Scottsdale used to be known as "The West's Most Western Town"......... them 'thar Brokeback Mountaineers who rode into town 'shore made their presence known here.