The Nutty Professor

Michele Malkin reports that Colorado academics go on the warpath for embattled professor Ward Churchill. Despite outrage at his calling 911 victims "little Eichmann's," Churchill refuses to bury the hatchet, and in the meantime considers offer by "Trailer Living" to mass produce his Great Plains Indian art.

UPDATE: Churchill teaches law at The Belmont Club." Declares Christopher Columbus off the reservation.

And You're Another One

Chris Rock got his start some years ago telling jokes about "big asses," and La Shawn Barber thinks that particular routine was autobiographical.

Thomas Friedman Continues Talking to the Roanoke Times

New York Times' columnist Thomas Friedman says the Middle East is at a "tipping point," and says things will be "incredible" if they fall the right direction.

Bush Revolution Continues in Middle East

We continue to fill in the gaps left by the Roanoke Times:

More good news, this time from Saudi Arabia.

WaPo Columnist Jackson Diehl wonders: "As thousands of Arabs demonstrated for freedom and democracy in Beirut and Cairo last week, and the desperate dictators of Syria and Egypt squirmed under domestic and international pressure, it was hard not to wonder whether the regional transformation that the Bush administration hoped would be touched off by its invasion of Iraq is, however tentatively, beginning to happen."

While Michael Barone says "Minds Are Changing."

No Wonder They Confuse Fantasy and Reality

Democrats three times more likely to watch Oscars than Republicans.

Lets's Take Other People's Money and Enslave Doctors

Yesterday's Roanoke Times carried commentary by senior editor Tommy Denton that opined the real reason behind a failing Medicare program is a lack of altruism among Americans. Quoting Biblical scripture, Denton suggests raising taxes and forcing doctors into a universal health care system.

Never mind that Viagra is now covered by Medicare and that such extravagence endangers the program's solvency. It's only altruistic to pay for Grandpa's Erection.

Or maybe it's time to reverse the liberal formula of giving the government more money and citizens less freedom?

More discussion here.

UPDATE: Hmmm. Could this be one of the sources for Tommy Denton's talking points?

Geoff Seamans' 99th Nightmare

"... see, I thought Susan Sarandon and I were in New Orleans, on Jackson Square, enjoying the morning after-glow of our night at Lucky Pierre's. And then it hit me...the surrounding buildings weren't early-French colonial, but pre-dictatorship Middle Eastern, and then I saw the statue. It wasn't Andrew Jackson depicted at the Battle of New Orleans. My God. It was a 30 foot tall Bush McHitlerburton right in the heart of Baghdad."

Bush Revolution Continues in Middle East

Bush Revolution Continues. Roanoke Times Editorial Staff Nears Collapse

"Regional election fever catches up with Emirates

DUBAI (AFP) - Academics and members of the appointed consultative council in the United Arab Emirates came out in favor of elections in the Persian Gulf state, arguing that it could not stay out of the regional trend toward elected bodies.

When millions of Arabs in Palestine, Iraq and Saudi Arabia have gone to the polls, the UAE cannot continue to lag behind, Professor Abdul Khaleq Abdullah of the UAE University told the English-language daily Khaleej Times."

Read more here

VA. Legislature Approves Amendment to Ban Gay Marriage

By a surprisingly large margin.

Bush Revolution Continues in Middle East

After Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice announced yesterday that she was cancelling a visit to Egypt, Egyptian President Mubarak announced he will allow opposition in his country's next election.

Maybe it was the the boots. Or it might just be that Mubarak believes George W. Bush when he hints he's reconsidering our $2 billion dollars in annual aid to Egypt. Credibility is a valuable diplomatic tool.

Good analysis at Captain's Quarters.

And Protein Wisdom provides zany, moonbat-mocking humor under "Chimpy McHitlerburton's Smirky Rodeo Ride Through History."

New Europe Supports Bush

"The prime minister of Slovakia yesterday blamed the media for unfairly turning the European public against President Bush by negatively slanting coverage on Iraq."
Read the whole thing.

More "Bush Might be Right"

Chrenkoff adds Colonel David Hackwith and British Labour MP Harry Barnes to the growing list.

The Vagina that Keeps on Giving

Today's Roanoke Times (New River Valley Current edition) carries an article on the continuing happiness a production of "The Vagina Monologues" gave its cast members. One cast member said performing in the play liberated her "from feeling like I need to be quiet and need to be small."

Some women have no such problems.

The Nutty Professor

Michelle Malkin shows pseudo-academic, drug-store Indian Ward Churchill is also an art fraud. He'd have been better off just painting by the numbers.

Positively Fourth Street

Bob Dylan disrespects Twenty-First Century rock.

Hopeful story out of Iraq

Read about it at Cold Fury.

NYT Magazine -- caught moving the goalposts

A great fisking of the New York Times Magazine's agenda-driven reporting by Jeremy
Brown.

MORE: A similar fisking by Austin Bay, who served in Iraq.

Terror High in Virginia?

Some are calling a certain Alexandria, VA school "Terror High" after it produced a student accused of conspiring to assassinate President Bush.

From the Philadelphia Daily News:

"You could call it Terror High - the Islamic Saudi Academy in suburban Alexandria, Va., near Washington - a more- than-1,000-student high school at the center of these high-profile incidents. The academy is funded by the Saudi government, a supposed ally of the United States in the fight against terrorism.

Daniel Pipes, director of the Philadelphia-based Middle East Forum and a well-known advocate of aggressive anti-terror policies, said the school is like "having a little piece of Saudi Arabia" in northern Virginia. He claimed the Islamic Saudi Academy is a classic case of pitting free speech against protection from future attacks."

UPDATE: Commonwealth Conservative carries more information on the legal machinations in the alleged would-be student-assassin's case.

The Nutty Professor

Pseudo-academic Ward Churchill gets layed in spite of maybe admitting he's not really an Indian.

Judge Robert Merhige, Jr -- RIP

Famous mostly for ordering the desegregation of Richmond Schools Judge Robert Merhige has died. Also read this interview conducted last May.

The Richmond Times Dispatch recounts in part that --

"In 1970, 16 years after the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark Brown v. Board of Education ruling, Merhige determined that insufficient desegregation had taken place under Richmond's earlier freedom-of-choice plan. So, he approved a cross-town busing plan drafted by school officials.

Within two years, white flight was in full soar as the city school system's white enrollment had fallen from 17,000 to 10,000.

The Richmond plan was modified several times until 1986, when the U.S. District Court withdrew from the case and the city returned to neighborhood schools.

Busing has been described as an emotional wedge driven through the heart of the city. There's no doubt about that, and there's no doubt the accompanying white flight changed the face of Richmond and its schools forever.

Looking back, Merhige believes it was 'foolish' for whites to flee the city, and he remains convinced he ruled correctly, from a legal and moral perspective."

Who the hell do bloggers think they are?

Funny, funny stuff.

Germans -- Maybe Bush was Right?

If the Germans are starting to reconsider, how long will it take the Roanoke Times?

Hat tip to Roger Simon.

Blogs Check the Mainstream Media

John Leo compares the talents of bloggers and the MSM.

Middle East Dominoes?

Lebanese leader cites American invasion of Iraq as the spark behind a growing democratic spark in the Middle East.

"The president thought he could improve on the ending to his father's gulf war. Wrong again." Maureen Dowd, New York Times, April 8, 2004.

What's Going on in Your Local Saudi Academy?

Abu Ali, the Virginian accused of conspiring to assassinate President Bush, was born in Houston and moved to Falls Church, a Washington suburb. He was valedictorian of the Islamic Saudi Academy in nearby Alexandria, Va.

More here.

Who's Really the "Puppet?"

A Middle Eastern student at Virginia Tech berated a speaker there yesterday as a
"puppet" of the Bush administration. Meanwhile, Iraq students visiting America for the first time breathed "the air around Tom Paine," and thought for themselves.

Read about it Chrenkoff.

More Reasons for Optimisim in the Middle East

Via The Belgravia Dispatch, here are some optimistic takes on the Bush Revolution in the Middle East.

Why doesn't the Roanoke Times report this stuff?

Europeans -- Forgotten Liberty?

Many of us familiar with Europeans know Janet Daley nails why they wanted to avoid the risks of fighting terrorism in Iraq.

"Europeans have found something better, and more readily controlled, as a substitute for personal liberty. They have found wealth: mass prosperity and the kind of government-subsidised economic security that their countries, traumatised by generations of war and unrest, have never known."

Read the whole thing.

Liberals Hoping for American Defeat?

Writer Roger Simon examines the failure of Kofi Annan's UN and quotes liberal publisher Martin Peretz on a similar failure among the world's left.

"Peter Beinart has argued, also in these pages (New Republic, A Fighting Faith,' December 13, 2004), the case for a vast national and international mobilization against Islamic fanaticism and Arab terrorism. It is typologically the same people who wanted the United States to let communism triumph--in postwar Italy and Greece, in mid-cold war France and late-cold war Portugal--who object to U.S. efforts right now in the Middle East. You hear the schadenfreude in their voices--you read it in their words--at our troubles in Iraq. For months, liberals have been peddling one disaster scenario after another, one contradictory fact somehow reinforcing another, hoping now against hope that their gloomy visions will come true.

I happen to believe that they won't. This will not curb the liberal complaint. That complaint is not a matter of circumstance. It is a permanent affliction of the liberal mind. It is not a symptom; it is a condition. And it is a condition related to the desperate hopes liberals have vested in the United Nations. That is their lodestone. But the lodestone does not perform. It is not a magnet for the good. It performs the magic of the wicked. It is corrupt, it is pompous, it is shackled to tyrants and cynics. It does not recognize a genocide when the genocide is seen and understood by all. Liberalism now needs to be liberated from many of its own illusions and delusions. Let's hope we still have the strength."

George Washington -- Great Virginian, Great American

A recent poll found Americans rating Presidents George Bush and Bill Clinton higher than George Washington. This is a shame and an indictment of the American public education system.

As recorded at Powerline Washington's was a "Rare Greatness." It's no wonder historian James Thomas Flexner termed him "the indispensable man." And he truly was.

People are Suffering and it's all YOUR Fault

The Roanoke Times recently carried an article describing the plight of a local artist who has incurred large medical bills, yet has no health insurance. Several letters to the editor have expressed no sympathy, pointing out the artist and her husband chose to save their money to buy a house, and voluntarily did without health insurance. They have a point, regardless of how bad we feel at seeing someone in such a terrible fix.

This morning the paper carries commentary by a woman who basically states it is the artist's mistake to have been born in a society that doesn't value artists enough to pay their health care bills.

Uh, huh. And also to be born in one where personal responsibility and independence are seen as antiquated values.

Love the One You're With -- And Another, And Another?

Today's Roanoke Times carries an article on a freedom to marry rally among whose sponsors are mentioned the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Alliance at Virginia Tech. Even Virginians sympathetic to the notion of legally recognized homosexual partnerships might pause at exactly how supporting bisexuality honors marriage. Or is respect for marriage perhaps beside the point?

Freedom Bug Spreading in Middle East?

Omar at Iraq the Model reports on demonstrations in Egypt and other signs of George Bush's freedom movement in the Middle East.

President's Day books

In case you are looking for books appropriate to today, The Examiner offers a suggested list.

Howard Dean Get's Down

Sit down for a rest at the Country Store and prepare to laugh at its take on Howard Dean's comments about people of color in hotel staffs. Nobody does it better.

Mainstream Media Tries to Silence Criticism

Want to see an example of mainsream media thuggery in Oklahoma? These folks have had it all their on way for years and they don't like criticism. Good information is collected at this site on bloggers' rights.

Good News Out of Iraq

It's obviously too early to call this the "end game," but the signs are that Iraq is on its way to becoming a free and stable democracy.

See this at Roger Simon's blog, and this at returned soldier Austin Bay's blog.

When Hillary Clinton proclaims the insurgents' efforts at disrupting the election "an abject failure," it's a sign there is no longer any hope in riding refraain of "Iraq is George Bush's Vietnam."

Gonzo Journalism? So Why Doesn't Today's Roanoke Times Include a Funeral Banner?

Hunter S. Thompson, father of "gonzo journalism," has committed suicide.

James Lileks describes a tortured by talented life. He also mentions the happier story of Sandra Dee, who died yesterday, also.

RIP.

Is Liberalism out of ideas?

Great analysis of a piece by liberal Marin Peretz over at The Belmont Club. Read the entire thing. Especially if you lean liberal (or were liberal, as in the case of many neo-cons.)

RT Covers UN Scandal!

Kind of.

See page 12, below the fold, five sentences long, a mention that a UN oversight chief is stonewalling the US Senate investigation of the massive ($21 billion and counting) Oil for Food Scandal.

Well, it's not nearly as important to investigate a world body that protected Saddam Hussein and aided terrorism as it is to expose a possible "scandal" involving the mother and family of a Republican candidate for Governor. (See "Yo Mama" below.)

KEEP DIGGING, RT! FIGHT THE POWER!

We are comfortable. You must be provoked.

Senior Roanoke Times editor Tommy Denton's Sunday column ("Distressing Wit and Idealism of Editorial Cartoons") is the usual combination of arrogance and disingenousness readers have come to expect from the RT. Denton responds to complaints that editorial cartoons run by the RT are too rude, confrontational and judgemental by saying these cartoons are "supposed to shove readers out of their comfort zone."

Fair enough, but regular readers of the RT will ask why is it that only Republicans and conservatives need to be so "shoved", since the RT only occasionally runs cartoons that provoke Democrats or liberals?

Perhaps the answer lies in how Denton ends his piece. "Alas, like beauty, a cartoon's meaning so often lies in the eye of the beholder." This follows a sentence in which Denton says he can't wait for the replies about a recent cartoon showing President Bush as a snake-handler.

Oh yeah, snake handler. We all disagree about what that means.

Yo Mama!

You know a campaign is going to be dirty when nine months before the election one of the candidate's newspaper-mouthpieces starts attacking his opponent's mother. Today's Roanoke Times plumbs new lows with its "investigation" of Willie Mae Kilgore's role as voter registrar of Scott County. The possible "scandal" involves an election in which a total of 712 people voted. The Roanoke Times devotes almost THREE full pages to the story.

What's next, Roanoke Times? Maybe someone in the Kilgore family is gay? DIG DEEPER ROANOKE TIMES! FIGHT THE POWER!

Meanwhile, farmers in Albemarle County discover that Kilgore's opponent gets their goat.

RT's "jump" to cover this story is also noted at Southwest Virginia Law Blog .

The Nutty Professor

Commentary at "The New Criterion" -- Is higher education is being held captive by the anti-American, politically-correct left?" Is Ward Churchill, the Colorado professor who called 911 victims little Nazis, a symptom of a greater problem? Read the entire thing.

Respect for UN Sinks

Possibly because of the Oil for Food Scandal (which the Roanoke Times has not yet covered), respect for the UN has sunk considerably. Looks like folks are awakening to the fact that it's a corrupt, anti-Semitic, thugocracy. Yes.

Success Has a Thousand Fathers

Liberals and nay-sayers pretend like they aided the liberation of Iraq , meanwhile moving the goalposts.

More Good News Out of Iraq

Good Things are happening in spite of the Islamofascists attempts to stop civilization in Iraq.

Mainstream Media Must Accept Bloggers

In a Wall Street Journal article Peggy Noonan advises the media to get over their disdain for bloggers.

"Blogging changes how business is done in American journalism. The MSM isn't over. It just can no longer pose as if it is The Guardian of Established Truth. The MSM is just another player now. A big one, but a player."

Read the whole thing. It's excellent.

CNN Exec Resignation Fallout in the MSM

If you are unfamiliar with the term "fisking," here is an excellent example on a New York Times article attacking bloggers for their role in exposing Eason Jordan's slander of US troops.

Look for the NYT article to run in the Roanoke Times soon.

Geoff Seamans to Leave Roanoke Times

The RT announced Geoff Seamans is leaving the Roanoke Times. We had no idea "The Salt Lick" would be so effective so fast. It was not our intention to drive Mr. Seamans from his editorial post; vigorous and honest debate is what keeps our nation healthy.

Nevertheless, in his tenure at the Times, Mr. Seamans inability to control his vindictiveness and spleen usually added more heat than light to public debate. We hope the Roanoke Times will use this opportunity to add intellectual diversity to its the present uniformly Bush-hating anti-Republican staff.

It certainly would be good for Southwest Virginia and the Times itself.

New Website Explores Academic-Media Complex, and Friends

Former leftist radical David Horowitz has started a new website to explore the connections between left-wing institutions, such as the media and academia, which have joined forces to wage war against American ideals. It is called Discover the Network .

The Nutty Professor

Anyone who's been around a university in the last 30 years knows something of the political correctness that allows unqualified candidates to obtain lucractive, tenured teaching jobs. Law Professor Paul Campos examines the tale of Ward Churchill , the Colorado Ethnic Studies professor who called the victims of terror on 911 "Little Eichmanns."

Roanoke Times-- The Dog That Wouldn't Bark

The scandal at the UN continues to pick up steam. Captain's Quarters reports that Kofi Anan's role in the corruption is much greater than previously believed.

Yet the Roanoke Times has carried not one substantive story on this, the biggest ($21 billion) scandal in history.

Letting Teddy Drive...

Democrats elect Howard Dean as party chairman. What a scream.



#

Geoff Seaman's 98th Nightmare

"...had just sat down on the sofa in my 'Howard Dean Loves You" pajamas. So I flipped on the tube to see who was replacing Eason Jordan at CNN and there was Rush Limbaugh right there where Kathleen and Renay should have been and..."

CNN Executive Resigns -- Not Mentioned in the Roanoke Times

Michele Malkin gives a complete roundup of the Eason Jordan Scandal. Like Dan Rather, Jordan has only himself to blame.

Look for coverage in the Roanoke Times in two days ("Maybe if we just close our eyes...").

Do You Speak "Smoky Mountain English?"

An interesting book that is getting some play on NPR and elsewhere The Dictionary of Smoky Mountain English. No doubt containing language we hear in Southwest Virginia, also.

Roanoke Times Turns Blind Eye (and Back) on Scandals?

"Easongate," the enormous scandal growing out of CNN's President lying about US soldiers targeting journalists, continues to grow. Those relying solely on the RT for news remain ignorant (and probably watch CNN).

UPDATE: It's starting to break out all over . Expect the RT to cover it in three days.

Thomas Friedman Keeps Talking to the Roanoke Times

Friedman urges rationale thought in Calling All Democrats to support the Iraqi war effort.

Drug Store Indian Fascist Part 2

Ward Churchill, the Colorado professor who says that the people killed on 911 deserved to die because they were little Nazis, is just the tip of an iceberg, says The Belmont Club, a great place for analysis of Iraq and other foreign affairs problems.

Iraq -- His Boots are on The Ground

A very good antidote for the Ronanoke Times' slant to news out of Iraq is Mudville Gazette, one of many blogs run by a soldier code named "Greyhawk" in Iraq. Other links are listed at the site.

Godspeed Greyhawk.

North Korea Agrees with Roanoke Times

It's all Bush's fault.

Roanoke Times -- The Dog That Wouldn't Bark?

More on the scandal exposing CNN bias.

Geoff Seaman's 97th Nightmare

"...and then I realized he wasn't giving me a journalism excellence award for that terrific column I wrote -- the one where I related how I remembered the exact day George Bush disgusted me -- but walking past me to hand the Nobel Peace Prize to George Bush-Hitler..."

Roanoke Times Turns Blind Eye to Scandals?

Someone close to the Roanoke Times should inform them two huge scandals, one involving the UN and the other CNN, are being carried by reputable news sources. The
UN scandal has been developing for almost a year now, though we haven't seen the RT carry a full article on it yet. More on this here and here. The scandal at CNN involves false allegations by that organization's president that the US military has been
deliberately killing journalists in Iraq.

Of course, each instance involves an organization whose political thought on George Bush and Republicans pretty much mirrors that of the RT.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Bush Approval Rating Up

Bush approval numbers leap upwards in latest Gallup Poll.

Study Finds I-81 is not Crowded

Ha, ha, ha, ha

Tim Kaine Afraid to Show his Face?

Who's acting French now? Heh.

There are Three Universities in SW Virginia

"...there are some ideas so idiotic only intellectuals will believe them."

Virginia Tech Honors Alums KIA in Iraq

A distinctive car magnet pays tribute to the legacies of U.S. Army 1st Lt. Jeffrey Kaylor, of Clifton, Va., and Army 1st Lt. Timothy Price, of Midlothian, Va.

Thomas Friedman talks to the Roanoke Times?

"...whatever you thought about this war, it's not about Mr. Bush any more. It's about the aspirations of the Iraqi majority to build an alternative to Saddamism. By voting the way they did, in the face of real danger, Iraqis have earned the right to ask everyone now to put aside their squabbles and focus on what is no longer just a pipe dream but a real opportunity to implant decent, consensual government in the heart of the Arab-Muslim world." Read the rest in the The New York Times.

Vagina Day at Virginia Tech?

Do you reckon that by running these on the same day the Roanoke Times meant to imply any connection between this and this?

Well, as long as there is happiness all around.

Yes

"Americans finally got a good look at who they are fighting for: millions of average people who have suffered for years under dictatorship and who now desperately want to live in a free and peaceful country. Their votes were an act of courage and faith -- and an answer to the question of whether the mission in Iraq remains a just cause."

Read the rest in the Washington Post.

But as Debra Saunders found out, even Iraqis wonder at the justice in some American's hearts. "I ask Al-Bander what he thinks of those who pronounced Iraqis as incapable of ruling themselves. 'I think it is racism,' he answers. 'What amazes me, it is coming from liberals.'"

Who'll Follow Ted Kennedy into Deep Water?

Well...

It's called "Turd in the Punchbowl" Syndrome

and the Roanoke Times has it bad when it comes to anything done by the Bush Administration. Instead of lauding the bravery of the Iraqi people and the historic day in the Middle East, the RT runs a front page article entitled "Low Sunni turnout may undermine election, some say." You have to wonder how upset the RT was when white Afrikaners didn't vote in South Africa.

Fortunately, there are people like Arab scholar Fouad Adjami who can offer us more than wishful thinking. With regard to the Sunnis, Dr. Adjami mentions in an interview at weblog Belgravia Dispatch that:

"A lot of people have been predicting that now that the election is over, there will be a big effort to bring the Sunnis into the constitution-writing process.

Everyone I've spoken to in Iraq, Kurdish leaders and Shiite leaders alike, will tell you no one has any intention to put together a new political process in Iraq that eliminates the Sunni Arabs. The Sunni Arabs will have a place at the table. By the way, no one really knows for sure what the Sunni Arabs are as a percentage of the population. I've seen figures as low as 13%. I've seen figures as high as 20%. So, cut it any which way you want, the Sunni Arabs are at best 20%, at worst 13% of the population of Iraq."


Likewise, columnist Mark Steyn says "Iraq Will Be Just Fine.