Please post your off-topic and general interest items here.

Your Monday Message from the Libertarian Party:

Since its creation as a Jewish state in the late 1940s, Israel has been one of the main sources of tension and unrest in the Middle East. Now, more than 50 years later, Israel once again finds itself at odds with its Palestinian neighbors, forcing the hand of the United States to show where it stands on one of the most polarizing issues in modern history.

The tension between Jews and Arabs in the Middle East goes back thousands of years, and there is no easy solution to the issues in the Israeli/Palestinian dispute. Many U.S. presidential administrations have tried to act as brokers of power or arbiters of peace without any success.

Libertarians aren’t foolish enough to think we have the answer to solve the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. However, we do realize that steps can be taken by the United States to remove itself from injury in the conflict, and perhaps begin the process of long-term stability in the region.

The biggest of these steps is to eliminate all economic and military aid to Israel and all other foreign countries.

In case you wonder why I don’t call myself a “Big-L” Libertarian.

Lawyers for both campaigns have laid the groundwork for lawsuits through public comments and legal maneuvering. In recent weeks, as Franken clung to a small lead, Coleman’s lawyers promised a lawsuit over their claim that some ballots duplicated on election night wound up being counted twice in the recount.

I hope Coleman’s lawyers sue, and I hope they take it all the way to the US Supreme Court, if necessary. Al Gore invented this template in 2000. Let’s see how the Party of Corrupt Clowns likes having it used against them.

The corrupt Democrats in Minnesota are trying to steal this election, and intend to select, not elect, a ludicrous clown to the U.S. Senate.

I have said earlier that I don’t intend to cut the Democrats one single break, any more than they did the GOP, and, more, I intend to employ all of their tactics against them, and any more I can come up with.

They need to learn that others than themselves can play this game. Let’s get to it.

This was taken with a (now ubiquitous) cell phone camera. Yes, these sorts of videos may not tell the whole story - a jury acquitted the police in the Rodney King beating.

Still, it doesn’t look vary good for the cop who shot this guy, at least on the surface. One of the problems with tough economic times is that social unrest is much more easily triggered, and such unrest can easily turn violent, which makes this all the more worrisome.

You can bet, though, that the reaction of police departments all over the nation will be to continue to try to ban filming of their actions, if not legally, then at least unofficially.

It won’t work. The surveillance society works both ways.

That’s because you’re just another narcissistic Hollywood-liberal brat with an overdeveloped sense of martyrdom. And the only “oppressors” you have the guts to go after are the ones you know will never do you the slightest harm.

Mike has Hollywood (hell, the whole arts scene) well and truly pegged.

I’m with Verizon, and the current offer would let me get either a Blackberry Storm 9350, or a Samsung Omnia for $99. I’ve decided to move to a touch-screen smartphone with a decent camera capability for my next phone. Either of these seem as if they would fill the bill.

Is anybody using one of them, or have an opinion? I’m sort of leaning toward the Samsung model, for the 5.0 mpx video cam. I envision using this thing for some on-the-scene photoblogging.

Politicians and Management of the Big 3 are both infected with the same entitlement mentality that has spread like cancerous germs in UAW halls for the last countless decades, and whose plague is now sweeping this nation, awaiting
our new “messiah”, Pres-elect Obama, to wave his magic wand and make all our problems go away, while at the same time allowing our once great nation to keep “living the dream”… Believe me folks, The dream is over!

I have no idea if this is a real letter, but the sentiments within it are worth the read. Keep telling it like it is!

Rather than accepting the implications of John McCain’s recession-driven loss–that Americans, perhaps, might be growing weary of Republican economics–the conservatives intend to trigger a popular revolt, like the one they provoked over drilling, against Democrat-led socialism itself.

It’s a bit murky, but is this TNR writer admitting that the Democrats are the Socialist party now?

That’s Brit for “Waterford went bankrupt.”

These pathetic sheep are the self-congratulatory mob who assume they are ever so much smarter than the rest of us.

Of course, why should they actually think? They’re liberals. Thinking is for peasants and conservatives. Instead, they believe and feel. Ever so much better.

Easier, too.

Obama’s economic recovery plan depends on swiftly pumping hundreds of billions of federal dollars into the economy to create jobs. The focus is on tax cuts and government spending that can provide an immediate lift to the economy.

However, the $675 billion-$775 billion plan emerging in talks between Obama’s team and Democratic allies in Congress also appears to contain lots of money that won’t be spent for years — like for water projects, rebuilding the electric grid and buying billions of dollars of computers and software for the health care sector. Much of that money won’t get spent until the economy starts growing again.

That’s because it’s not a true recovery effort. It’s merely the biggest lefty financial Christmas tree in history, upon which crazed Democrats (and their GOP enablers) plan to dangle every piece of tinselly crap they can dream up.

Yeah, you’ve got an Al Franken Center for the History of Clown Comedy in your distant future, Minnesota. It should be completed just before he runs for re-election, and it will be built entirely of ground sausage.

Barack Obama’s transition team pressed Bill Richardson about a federal probe into “pay-to-play” allegations against his office – the same investigation Richardson cited Sunday in withdrawing his name as commerce secretary.

But a Democratic source said Obama’s questioners came away empty handed. “Those guys were pressed for information and they gave nothing,” the source said.

So, on getting nothing, they just let it drop and went ahead and appointed him?

That doesn’t bode well. I thought Obama’s administration was supposed to be infinitely more intelligent than Bush’s.

A 9-year-old Bakersfield boy is being called a hero after he saved a girl from a vicious pit bull.

He put a choke hold on the dog and held it for twenty minutes.

By the way, I finally figured out what Twitter is good for. I saw a brief squib about this on the local toob, with few details. I couldn’t find a report I could cite, so I searched Twitter, and came up with a report immediately.

Twitter may become the text equivalent of cell-phone cameras.

Minnesotans like to think that their state isn’t like New Jersey or Louisiana, and typically it isn’t. But we can’t recall a similar recount involving optical scanning machines that has changed so many votes, and in which nearly every crucial decision worked to the advantage of the same candidate. The Coleman campaign clearly misjudged the politics here, and the apparent willingness of a partisan like Mr. Ritchie to help his preferred candidate, Mr. Franken. If the Canvassing Board certifies Mr. Franken as the winner based on the current count, it will be anointing a tainted and undeserving Senator.

There go your pretentions of squeaky-clean government, Minnesota. Welcome to the election shenanigans club, where every decision favors the Democrat, every judgement call favors the Democrat, and recounts continue until the Democrat wins. You might have a chance to clean house if the corruption hasn’t sunk in too deeply yet, but given the track record of every other state to follow this path, I doubt you will.

The Government of the United States was reading the private e-mails of a U.S. citizen (me). The Department of “Homeland Security” was at work, intimidating visitors with legitimate visas. They had at least 24 hours to check her out before she landed in the United States. What kind of security is this? The Department of Homeland Security was at this moment more like the Department of Intimidation.

Of course. That’s always how these things turn out. You know how it is said that for an alcoholic anything is a good reason to get drunk? Well, for statists, anything is a good reason to expand the overwhelming power of the state at the expense of individual liberties.

UPDATE:

Mr. Knapp was a rude smart aleck. The call is likely recorded and that recording would bear out my claims.

These cockroaches count on hiding behind a blank, impenetrable wall of official secrecy, which protects them from any personal responsibility for their actions. Remember - organizations, departments, and governments don’t do things - people do them. Make those people responsible for what they do, and don’t accept, “I was acting under orders,” as an excuse. We didn’t accept that from the fascists at Nuremberg, nor should we do so for the petty nazis of the state.

Barack Obama’s chances of making a fresh start in US relations with the Muslim world, and the Middle East in particular, appear to diminish with each new wave of Israeli attacks on Palestinian targets in Gaza. That seems hardly fair, given the president-elect does not take office until January 20. But foreign wars don’t wait for Washington inaugurations.

Hell, yes. Obama is letting down people like this liberalfascist, Jew-hating Brit by not joining in with the rest of the mob of Jew-haters baying for Jewish blood.

Even a $2 trillion increase would push the U.S. debt to about 53 percent of the overall economy, “only a few percentage points above where it was in the early 1990s,” Lilly writes, noting that plummeting interest rates show that “much of the world seems not only willing but anxious to invest in U.S. Treasurys, which are seen as the safest security that an investor can own in a risky world economy.”

Sometimes a bit of perspective helps. Of course, the reason that our massive debt is relatively small compared to our GDP is the huge surge in productivity we’ve seen in the US over the past couple of decades.

If that should change, the growing debt could suddenly seem much more problematic.

This is the essence of intellectual elitism. “I care deeply about . I will write about how noble my sentiments are. Now give me your money and just accept my superiority.” In the end, there is not a single university that has done as much to advance freedom as any platoon sized unit of the US military. Intellectuals think that we can dispose with force, usually until the barbarians burn them alive in a bonfire of their own books.

Posted by: Ken Hahn | January 05, 2009 at 03:06

There’s a bunch of comments of this caliber in the thread. Check’em out!

It’s amazing how much intelligent analysis can be called forth by putting one pathetic, disgusting lefty faux-intellectual dumbass on display.

Both Richardson and Blagojevich deny any wrongdoing. In his statement today the New Mexico governor, who sought the Democratic presidential nomination himself, and whose perfectly-timed rejection of Sen. Hillary Clinton’s candidacy and endorsement of Obama boosted the Illinois senator’s campaign significantly.

Say…you don’t suppose any Clintonites have been feeding investigators some juicy bits about Richardson, by way of revenge for his treachery, do you?

Nah. BJ and the Broad wouldn’t be that evil, would they?

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, tapped in December by President-elect Barack Obama to serve as secretary of Commerce, has withdrawn his name for the position, citing a pending investigation into a company that has done business with his state.

“Let me say unequivocally that I and my Administration have acted properly in all matters and that this investigation will bear out that fact,” he said Sunday in a report by NBC News’ Andrea Mitchell. “But I have concluded that the ongoing investigation also would have forced an untenable delay in the confirmation process.”

Who vetted him? The same people who tell us that Obama and his henchmen like Rahm Emanual are pure as the driven snow in regards to the Blagojevich scandal?

Today, Sunday, is the nineth day of the Channuka war, Operation Cast Lead. We are sending pizza to soldiers, regular and reserves, who have been relocated to the outskirts of Gaza. With your help, we can send them lots of Pizza, letting them know that they have global support. Thank you.

Please tell your friends about this way to show support for our combat troops.

You can now also send Pizza and Soda to families in Sderot baked in a Sderot Pizzeria. This way you can help the local Sderot economy while cheering up the locals.

An easy way to show your appreciation for those in the front lines of the War on Islamofascism.

Drug-resistant bacteria are a growing problem in hospitals worldwide, marked by the rise of superbugs such as methicillin-resistant Staphyloccus aureus, or MRSA. Such infections kill about 19,000 people a year in the United States,

2005, United States
Homicide/Legal Intervention Firearm Deaths and Rates per 100,000
All Races, Both Sexes, All Ages
ICD-10 Codes: X93-X95,Y35.0, *U01.4
Number of
Deaths 	Population 	Crude  Age-adjusted
                                rate       rate
12,682 	295,895,897 	4.29 	  4.27

2005, United States
Suicide Firearm Deaths and Rates per 100,000
All Races, Both Sexes, All Ages
ICD-10 Codes: X72-X74
Number of
Deaths 	Population 	Crude  Age-adjusted
                                rate        rate
17,002 	295,895,897 	5.75 	   5.65

The number of deaths due to MRSA may be higher because they don’t usually perform autopsies on people that die under medical “care”.

(Edit by SteveF: put ‘pre’ tags around the table data. Not too good but all I have time for now.)

Ugh is right.