Colorado Right

Rescued from captivity where he was essentially starved. And his reaction?

- CBS News journalist Richard Butler said he believes he was kidnapped in Iraq by policemen with sympathies toward the Hezbollah but isn’t entirely sure who held him captive for two months or why.

Butler, a British journalist kidnapped with his interpreter on Feb. 10, was rescued by Iraqi troops on April 14 when he was found with a sack over his head in a house in Basra.

Butler said he felt it was better to be kidnapped in Iraq then taken into custody by Americans in Afghanistan.

“I was pleased I wasn’t being mortarboarded in Guantanamo or being held for six and a half years like an Al-Jazeera cameraman, for instance,” he said.

I tend to believe that mortarboarding is just someone misunderstanding waterboarding - unless the CIA has come up with a way to pound gypsum dust into the noses of these murdering turds at Gitmo.

But could there be any greater representation of the absolute anti-Americanism of the media?  And then they will 100% deny any sort of bias in their reporting.  Honestly - its too bad they found this idiot.  Better to let him experience the tender mercies of the Hezbos.

Update:

It was waterboarding - went to cbsnews:

 Pizzey: You were saying it is better to be kidnapped by Shi’ites in southern Iraq than by Americans in Afghanistan.

Butler: I was pleased I wasn’t being waterboarded in Guantanamo or being held for six and a half years like an al Jazeera cameraman, for instance.

He’s still an anti-American donk too.

An interesting observation from Frank J:

It’s a really horrible idea to denounce Middle America in San Francisco, but luckily the reverse isn’t true. McCain could bash San Francisco all he wants while in Pennsylvania, and that certainly wouldn’t hurt his chances in a national election. Pretty much the whole country considers San Francisco to be full of weird, useless people. The city is a punchline. The only ones who don’t consider it full of freaks are those who live there… and even half of them have to suspect something.

This is what passes for “normal” in the Democratic Communist People’s Republic

The Campaign Spot at NRO reminds us what is now part of The Obamamessiah’s standard stump speech:

The top mortgage lenders spend $185 million lobbying Congress, and we wonder why Washington looked the other way when they were tricking families into buying homes they couldn’t afford.

Tricking them?  Has anyone who has gone through the mortgage process knows (and as Jim Geraghty notes as well) it takes hours to go through all the documentation and sign everything.  That’s tricking someone?

These are supposed to be legal adults with the ability to freely enter into contracts - legally binding obligations.  They knew that getting a mortgage with absolutely no money down was a risk.  They knew that trying to buy a house and only being able to afford and interest-only loan is about as financially risky a more as a person could take.  They were all betting on the fact that “the good times will roll forever”.   The people “buying” the house (pretty much renting with the hope of getting some money out in a couple of years when they could flip it), the people originating the mortgage, the companies packaging the mortgages into complex debt obligations , the fund managers clamoring for something that paid them more than the 1% they could get from money funds - all these people were betting on something happening that didn’t.

But let’s do a little thought experiment.  What if the merry-go-round were still functioning today?  House prices in the Democratic Communist People’s Republics on the coasts were soaring at 20% a year, the money for mortgages was flying in to those NINJA (no income, no job, no assest) loans, the weasels in government were getting their big tax cuts from increased sales and increased property values.  What if all that were still going on?  Would the government be justified to jump in and say “its all our free money that’s fueling this - we need to get an extra 10% cut on every house sale for the next three years”?  Think that sort of “government intervention” in the markets would be welcomed?

Of course it wouldn’t.  But then why all the clamor for taxpayers to give even more money to this set of complete fiscal boobs?

From the “No Adults Here” category:

Voters in two Vermont towns approved measures Tuesday calling for the indictment of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for what they consider violations of the Constitution.

More symbolic than anything, the items sought to have police arrest Bush and Cheney if they ever visit Brattleboro or nearby Marlboro or to extradite them for prosecution elsewhere — if they’re not impeached first.

In Brattleboro, the vote was 2,012-1,795. In Marlboro, which held a town meeting on the issue, it was 43-25 with three abstentions.

Actually if I were advising the President I’d schedule a trip to both of those towns and just see if their police really wanted to take on the Secret Service. Or if the gutless turds who “voted” on this were willing to put their own butts on the line in that cause.

How many hippies are willing to get their geriatric heads broken now? 1968 was a long long time ago.

Its nice to know that the Democratic Communist People’s Republic of San Francisco has this kind of money to waste:

In his quest to make San Francisco the greenest city in the nation, Mayor Gavin Newsom recently created a $160,000-a-year job for a senior aide and gave him the ambitious-sounding title of director of climate protection initiatives.

San Francisco has at least two dozen other city employees already working directly on climate issues at a cost to taxpayers of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

In addition to the director of climate protection initiatives in Newsom’s office, San Francisco has an Energy and Climate Program team of eight people in the Department of the Environment, who combined earn more than $800,000 a year in salary and benefits, including a “climate action coordinator.” At least 12 San Francisco Public Utilities Commission staff members work on climate issues related to water and energy, including a $146,000-a-year “projects manager for the climate action plan.”

Also in the name of climate control, the Municipal Transportation Agency has a “manager of emissions reductions and sustainability programs” who works on making Muni’s bus fleet greener, and the San Francisco International Airport has a “manager of environmental services” who oversees such projects as the installation of energy-efficient lighting and solar panels.

The list doesn’t include the scores of staff members who work on broader environmental policies, like the recently hired $130,700-a-year “greening director” in Newsom’s office, or Jared Blumenfeld, who earns $207,500 a year in salary and benefits as the head of the city’s Environment Department, which has a staff of 65 and annual budget of about $14 million.

And you know you have completely gone off the deep end when the flipping Green Party commissioner questions what is going on:

“Although it sounds very well intentioned, and perhaps even necessary, I’m concerned this is a case where eco-chic has gone out of control,” said Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, the only Green Party member on the Board of Supervisors.

And the evidence continues to build that the whole global warming hysteria is a) religious in nature and b) a scheme for smart hustlers to shake down taxpayers.

Does scientific consensus know about this?

Satellite data shows that concerns over the levels of sea ice may have been premature.

It was feared that the polar caps were vanishing because of the effects of global warming.

But figures from the respected US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration show that almost all the “lost” ice has come back.

Ice levels which had shrunk from 13million sq km in January 2007 to just four million in October, are almost back to their original levels.

Will the sainted Algore have anything to do if the ice comes back?  And what about the polar bears?

Figures show that there is nearly a third more ice in Antarctica than is usual for the time of year.

The data flies in the face of many current thinkers and will be seized on by climate change sceptics who deny that the world is undergoing global warming.

A photograph of polar bears clinging on to a melting iceberg has become one of the most enduring images in the campaign against climate change.

It was used by former US Vice President Al Gore during his Inconvenient Truth lectures about mankind’s impact on the world. But scientists say the northern hemisphere has endured its coldest winter in decades.

They add that snow cover across the area is at its greatest since 1966.

 
Dear Al in Tennessee - what can be done to bring back manmade global warming?

Frank J has an excellent follow up on the issue of Hippie Punching:

Q. Where is best to punch a hippie?
A. About the face. That’s where the hippie is most annoying.

Q. What is a hippie?
A. Generally, a hippie is an annoying, useless. Actually, less than useless, as they are not happy until they prevent other people from being useful as well. In fact, Scientists have determined that the only evolutionary purpose of a hippie is for punching as a stress release for productive members of society.

Q. Are there any other uses for hippies than punching them?
A. No, there are no other uses.

Q. Couldn’t they be ground up and used as chum?
A. They’re too gummy.

Q. Where do hippies come from?
A. There’s basically waste products of a productive society, as they only come from middle class to upper middle class families. Thus its important for parents to make sure they tell children the importance of not being a hippie while also making them cut the lawn and do other non-hippie, productive activities.

Q. Where can hippies be found?
A. Their main habitat is the college campus and can be found in the vicinity thereof. Occasionally they have mass migrations to city areas to work as a large group (a group of hippies is known as a “protest”) to make loud noises and annoy people. In this way, they are like geese, except with more excrement. Also, they have large puppets.

A great feature over at National Review Online. There are many idiocies from this week in history, but I highlight this one:

Feb. 23 1993—When is a quota not a quota? The St. Petersburg Times reports that Florida chief justice Rosemary Barkett, a member of the Florida Commission on the Status of Women, defends a commission report that recommends passage of legislation requiring that all of Florida’s decisionmaking boards and commissions be half male and half female by 1998. Barkett explains: “It is not in the context of a quota system. It is simply an acknowledgment that women make up one-half of the population of this state.” Oh.

Impressed by her willingness and ability to deny the obvious, President Clinton months later nominates Barkett to an Eleventh Circuit seat, where she serves with distinction (of a sort) to this day. (For more on Barkett’s egregious record, see here—and stay tuned.)

And those who believe in “government investments” show just how much they actually put their money where their mouth is:

State lawmakers can rule out Virginian’s offering up more of their hard-earned money to fix the $1.4 billion budget shortfall Gov. Tim Kaine announced this week.

At least that is what a peek at the so-called “Tax Me More Fund” suggests.

Since its inception in 2002, the fund has collected a total of $10,217.04. 

In his book, “From Hope to Higher Ground,” Mr. Huckabee said that from 2001 to 2005, a total of 56 persons made contributions to the Arkansas fund, totaling $2,077. 

Don’t tax me or thee, but tax him over there behind that tree.

“The people of Virginia have voluntarily taxed themselves in the amount of 0.00000005 percent of Virginia’s budget since 2002, which is a good measure of their support for tax increases,” said Sen. Kenneth T. Cuccinelli, Fairfax County Republican. 

So why do we let Presidential candidates run around talking about how  wonderful it will be when everybody is taxed to death for “universal health care”?  Because everybody believes that it will be somebody else paying for it - not them!

And now we lay to rest the latest victim of manmade global warming - Nessie the Loch Ness Monster:

LEGENDARY Nessie hunter Robert Rines is giving up his search for the monster after 37 years.

After almost four decades of fruitless expeditions, he admitted: “Unfortunately, I’m running out of age.”

Despite having hundreds of sonar contacts over the years, the trail has since gone cold and Rines believes that Nessie may be dead, a victim of global warming.

Apparently running out of brain cells too Mr. Rines.