Sharp Knife

Jeff Jacoby on the Death Penalty:

"Of the 875 prisoners executed in the United States in modern times (since 1976), not one has been retroactively proved innocent. Widely trumpeted claims meant to illustrate the system's sloppiness — that more than 100 innocent men have been freed from Death Row, for example, or that death-penalty cases have a 68 percent error rate — fall apart under scrutiny. In fact, so exacting is the due process in these cases that the death penalty in America is probably the most accurately administered criminal sanction in the world."

"The propaganda has taken its toll, however. (Gov.) Romney knows that many people who would otherwise support capital punishment now hesitate for fear it may lead to an awful miscarriage of justice. Hence his call for "a standard of proof that is incontrovertible" — an uncompromising benchmark endorsed by members of the new panel. "In this work," says co-chairman Frederick Bieber, a geneticist at Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital, "there is no room for error.""

"That is a worthy goal, but it cannot be an absolute criterion. No worthwhile human endeavor is utterly foolproof. Dr. Bieber's hospital would have to shut down its operating rooms if surgeons had to guarantee their infallibility. Even at hospitals as renowned as the Brigham, patients sometimes die on the operating table because of blunders or inadvertence. Is that an argument for abolishing surgery? Should air travel be banned because innocent passengers may lose their lives in crashes? Should the pharmaceutical industry be shut down because the wrong drug or dosage, mistakenly taken or prescribed, can kill?"

"To make the perfect the enemy of the good is irrational and counterproductive. The benefits of surgery, air travel, and prescription drugs are enormous — far too valuable to give up even though we know that people will die because of the fallibility of doctors and pilots and people who handle medicine. The same is true of capital punishment: The benefits of a legal system in which judges and juries have the option of sentencing the cruelest or coldest murderers to death far outweigh the potential risk of executing an innocent person. And there is this added reassurance: The risk of an erroneous execution is infinitesimal, and getting smaller all the time."

"And the benefits? First and foremost, the death penalty makes it possible for justice to be done to those who commit the worst of all crimes. The execution of a murderer sends a powerful moral message: that the innocent life he took was so precious, and the crime he committed so horrific, that he forfeits his own right to remain alive."

"When a vicious killer is sent to the electric chair or strapped onto a gurney for a lethal injection, society is condemning his crime with a seriousness and intensity that no other punishment achieves. By contrast, a society that sentences killers to nothing worse than prison — no matter how depraved the killing or how innocent the victim — is a society that doesn't really think murder is so terrible."

Just so. Mr. Jacoby goes on to cite recent studies proving that capital punishment saves innocent lives.

875 executions since 1976.

For comparison's sake, have a look at this:

1976 18,780
1977 19,120
1978 19,560
1979 21,460
1980 23,040
1981 22,520
1982 21,010
1983 19,310
1984 18,690
1985 18,980
1986 20,610
1987 20,100
1988 20,680
1989 21,500
1990 23,440
1991 24,700
1992 23,760
1993 24,530
1994 23,330
1995 21,610
1996 19,650
1997 18,210
1998 16,910
1999 15,533
2000 15,517

That's the number of US homicides since 1976. Let's guess at another 45,000 for the last three years, and by my poor math, the total is...

495,610 homicides.

And that doesn't include other state & Federal capital crimes. Or some other crimes that cry out for it.

"If we execute murderers and there is in fact no deterrent effect, we have killed a bunch of murderers. If we fail to execute murderers, and doing so would in fact have deterred other murders, we have allowed the killing of a bunch of innocent victims. I would much rather risk the former. This, to me, is not a tough call."
-John McAdams

Five won't even get you ten, anymore...

but 875 will get you a half-million.

First Lady Laura Bush went to Paris, lookin' for answers to questions that bothered her so. There, she was graciously received by the First Lady of France, Jaques Chirac.

However, the meeting soon took a bizarre & frightening turn, as Chirac began nibbling on her fingers, whispering in her ear "My beloved Iraqi leader...you've come back to me...take me, take me now!"

Mrs. Bush was in town to attend the opening of "Rugrats in Baghdad; Zee Quagmire", starring Prime Mistress Jaques Chirac as "Angelica" and George W. Bush as "Rep.tar", the giant Texas horned lizard , bent on world domination.

Then it was off to Moscow for the First Lady, and a meeting with Russian first lady Lyudmila Putin.

When Mrs. Bush returns, she is expected to be charged by Democrats with the dastardly act of revealing that Mr. Putin was, in fact, a KGB agent.

Gray Davis is desperately trying to claw his way to survival.

He just released Ahnuld's voting records: he voted in 13 of 21 elections.

Rummaging around in a citizen's official records for political purposes...that sounds a lot like that funny-looking man they call 'Attorney General'...what's his name? Oh, yeah; Janet Reno.

Besides, that gives Ahnuld a better voting record than half the Democrat presidential candidates. And that's their JOB!

(Apologies to cornered rats everywhere.)

Anna's in the Hutch!

Right on.

This week is Sharp Knife's one-year anniversary (in human terms, that's one year), so I decided to lose the 60's-kitchen color scheme. I know; I'll miss it too, Brokaw.

Blogroll links appear at the bottom, and I urge you to patronize these many fine bloggers.

At some point, I'll move off Blogspot. Although I would thank them for the service they provide. It's not right to bash someone who provides you with something freely. There's a name for those kind of people...Europeans.

Anyway, thanks for helping me fritter away hours, even whole days, months and now an entire year of my life, precious time I'll never, ever see again.

Seriously...it's been a blast.

From Fox News, a division of the CIA:

"The Justice Department is investigating allegations that White House officials revealed the identity of a CIA agent whose husband had questioned President Bush's claim that Iraq had tried to buy uranium from Africa."

"Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., sent a letter to FBI Director Robert Mueller asking him to order an immediate criminal investigation into government leaks that might have unmasked the CIA agent."

""To reveal an agent's identity is a despicable and dastardly act ... that could endanger lives or the security of the country," Schumer said."

When asked if Democrats had violated that law by identifying Osama bin Laden & Saddam Hussein as agents of the CIA, Schumer said "Oh, we just made that up to bash Bush. Everybody knows that. We'll say just about anything to discredit him."

When pressed by reporters, Schumer claimed that bin Laden & Hussein were actually "Super-Duper Double-Secret Agents" and therefore the law didn't apply to Democrats, as is the custom.

Mr. Schumer then retreated to the 'Cone of Silence' under Bob Woodward's desk, a gift to Mr. Woodward from Bill Casey on his death-bed.

Midnight Basketball Court Docket #02184947

When asked if Kobe Bryant should continue to wear a funny costume and run around with a rubber ball while playing a children's game, National Bastardball Association Commissioner David Stern replied "Absolutley. We don't have a Patriot Act in the NBA. That means that you're innocent until proven guilty."

"It's outrageous that 145 out of 211 House Democrats and every Democrat Senator except two voted to repeal the Bill of Rights...that's why I'll be strongly supporting Pres. George W. Bush in 2004," Stern added.

"And, while we don't have a 'Patriot Act' in the NBA, we do have a fabulously successful 'Hug-A-Thug' outreach program. In conjunction with the other major sports leagues, we now seek to identify youngsters who have what it takes to be professional athletes. For example, we provide kids with legal counsel to make excuses, intimidate witnesses and litigate for the kids when they bully other children and skip kindergarten classes. We want to bring them into the professional system as early as possible," said Stern.

"Each year, I've seen our players, as young as they may be, become more sophisticated in their understanding of our league, the business issues and the life-skills issues, the importance of community issues..." said Stern, "and, of course, the value of having a team of ruthless, amoral lawyers on permanent retainer."

"And teamwork is what we're all about."

Oliver Stone

crawled out from under his rock today, long enough to refer to Castro's summary executions and show-trials as a "brouhaha"...and call Bush a liar. Of course. How bold.

On his latest celluloid love-letter, "Commandante":

"'I hate controversy," says Oliver Stone."

So does Fidel, Ollie. And he often does something about it. While you provide cover.

""People in Cuba are far, far better off than people in places like Honduras, Brazil, Salvador, Mexico, Nicaragua," he argues. "The kids do not drink bad water. They go to school. That's not to say that Cubans aren't pissed off about a lot of things.""

"And if they get really pissed off, they should do what I do; go have a few intimate candlelit dinners with Fidel and discuss their differences in a civil manner, over lobster and champagne. Then make a fawning documentary and fly off to Europe to wild acclaim," said the film-maker.

""I raised the question of informants in the film. It's true: I hate that, we all do. But frankly, informants are everywhere....""

"Why, we even have informants in Hollywood. For instance, The National Enquirer brutally reported what I ate for breakfast the other day. It's the same thing, really" claimed Stone, conspiritorially.

Stone's next project will deal with the life of Alexander the Great. Stone will explore his thesis that Alexander invaded Greece and Asia in order to seize the patron records at Aristotle's Library in Athens, and to build an oil and narcotics pipeline in Afghanistan to generate obscene profits for his company, Al-liburton.

Then, it's back to Cuba for the filming of "Commandante II...The Squeal", which will describe the glories of "FidelCare", the much-vaunted Cuban health care system.

In the film, Mr. Stone's lips will be permanently attached to Fidel's posterior by a crack team of Cuban plastic surgeons. When asked for comment about the unusual procedure, Stone said:
"Ummmfff!...Ummmmmmfff!!...UMMMMMMMMMMMFFFFF!!!".

Historian John Keegan

has written a very good "Winston Churchill" bio for Penguin, providing a good overview of Churchill's life, career & beliefs.

Some points:

Churchill learned about guerilla war in Cuba a century ago.

The Pearl Harbor attack was modeled on the successful British attack on the Italian fleet moored at Taranto a year earlier.

The Italian Campaign was Churchill's effort to stymie Stalin in the Baltics. The Americans...and Stalin...wanted an immediate invasion in France instead. Keegan doesn't mention it, but some of FDR's advisors were Soviet sympathizers, even agents. We paid for our short-sightedness for years.

Churchill sponsored unemployment benefits and other welfare programs. He was not a caricature war-monger, but sought military victory for a moral purpose.

He supported a United Europe...but on the condition that France & Germany be "spiritually great" nations. So much for that idea.

Anyway, it's an easy read and not a million pages long.

This is going to be a long war; we'd better grasp the whys & wherefores...like this great man did before us.

Check it out.

You may be a Democrat if

you believe...

"That it is evil to be rich, unless you got that way by marrying Teresa Heinz."

"That the Patriot Act is denying Americans their liberties, and John Kerry, Joe Lieberman, John Edwards or Bob Graham should be elected president after having voted for it."

"That library records are sacred, but the Constitution -- a "living document" subject to manipulation by judges -- is not."

Rich Lowry nails it.

"Is our children learning Diversity with all this Free Speech stuff goin' on?"

Item: Conservative Students hold an "Affirmative Action bake sale", selling cookies to white males for $1.00, 75 cents to white women, 50 cents to Hispanics and 25 cents to black customers. The school shut down the sale after 45 minutes.

Southern Methodist University's Dean of Free Speech Prevention, Mario Savio, issued a statement today explaining why the sale was shut down.

"They may not engage in discriminatory practices through the sale of goods priced according to race, ethnicity or gender," said Dean Savio. "Why, imagine if the University treated it's staff & students differently based on pigmentation or gender...that's just plain wrong!"

"We will never go back to the time of segregated lunch-counters!" the dean insisted, speaking at the People of Color Only Cafeteria.

He lambasted the conservative students for creating a hostile environment; "If they insist on challenging our 'tolerance' policies, we'll be forced to tar & feather them...in a non-threatening, nurturing way, of course. Don't they know how incendiary a bake sale is? Why can't they just participate in the "Reparations Now!" or "Atzlan Maize Daize" celebrations like everyone else? They could even sell '72 Raisins' raisin-cookies at our annual "Free Mumia" fundraiser!"

"Equal Justice Under Law demands that they be punished thusly: white male conservatives will be expelled. The white females will wash the glass ceilings in the "Sun God, Ra" Foyer of the Intellectual Freedom Auditorium. The Hispanic conservatives will attend mandatory "How to be Hispanic Enough" classes, and the Black conservatives will be forced to watch hours Gangsta videos to help them re-learn respect for diversity & women," spoke Savio, freely.

In other news, Southern Methodist University announced that it would no longer accept Southerners or Methodists as students, and would henceforth be known as "The Universal Center for the Free Exchange of Pre-Approved & Correct Ideas".

Lying Boot-Licking Lackeys and the Boots They Lie About Licking

Michael Kelly interviewed about conditions in Baghdad during Desert Storm:

"There are a lot of individual stories from that night that you can't see because they're not what TV shows—how people react to things. Some of that I wrote about, some of that I didn't. Some people had reactions to that night that I didn't want to write about. There were a lot of people there who were mad at CNN—you didn't see that on TV.

Because?

Well, because CNN had this special relationship with the Iraqi government that they had earned, in part, through what I thought was corrupt reporting.

Sort of the mouthpiece for Saddam

More than that. Specifically, they were allowed to fly on Iraqi planes to go into Kuwait City when it was occupied, and they were taken there by the Iraqi government for the specific purpose of shooting down the story that the Iraqi occupiers had killed babies in incubators. And they did shoot that story down for the government. As [Robert] Wiener, the producer for CNN, has written for his book, which has recently been made into a movie, they acquiesced to the Iraqi government's demand that they not tell the world the rest of the stuff they saw in Kuwait City. They did that to protect their special standing. Their special standing was not only access to interviews that nobody else could get, but they also had this land line that allowed them twenty-four-hour open telephone.

So in effect, they were enabling.

Well, I didn't blame them politically for that. But I thought the decision to suppress what they knew they had seen in Kuwait City was wholly corrupt and wrong and indefensible. That night, the people who were there—we all passed the same night. They passed it in glory on TV. But everybody was in the same hotel. In the morning—I was talking the other day to a guy I had spent a lot of time with that night, a reporter from a Sydney paper— and he reminded me that he and I had gone up to CNN's suite at dawn and knocked on the door. They had locked the door so nobody could get into their suite, because they had the only working phone line and they wanted to protect it, of course. I knocked on the door and slipped them a note asking them if they would, not file our stories for us, but if we could give them a list of phone numbers of wives and others that they would call and tell everybody we were okay. They pushed the note back under the door and said, "Haven't you ever heard of competition?" So a lot of people who were there have never forgiven them for that.

That was not competition.

No, what competition? It's just being a complete jerk.

What did they think, it was encoded messages?

No, I think they were just jerks. I think the producer, Wiener, was just a jerk."

Not content to rest on their forward-artillery-siting-for-Saddam laurels from Desert Storm, Christiane Amanpour weighs in with this:

""I think the press was muzzled, and I think the press self-muzzled. I'm sorry to say, but certainly television and, perhaps, to a certain extent, my station was intimidated by the administration and it's foot soldiers at Fox News. And it did, in fact, put a climate of fear and self-censorship, in my view, in terms of the kind of broadcast work we did."

(Tina) Brown then asked Amanpour if there was any story during the war that she couldn't report.

"It's not a question of couldn't do it, it's a question of tone," Amanpour said. "It's a question of being rigorous. It's really a question of really asking the questions. All of the entire body politic in my view, whether it's the administration, the intelligence, the journalists, whoever, did not ask enough questions, for instance, about weapons of mass destruction. I mean, it looks like this was disinformation at the highest levels.""

Since when do Chrissy and the Pretenders have a problem with "disinformation at the highest levels"? Good Lord, had they swallowed any more of the Clinton Kool-Aid, they would have moved corporate headquarters from Atlanta to Jonestown.

Funny; I don't remember her uttering a word of protest about being "intimidated by the administration and it's foot soldiers"...when it was the Hussein Administration intimidating reporters with REAL soldiers.

She claims that she & CNN didn't do their jobs properly. Agreed. What can I say, Christiane? Get used to it...we have.

But, in the Grand Liberal Tradition, it's always someone else's fault she didn't do her job.

Let's all try that at work:

Boss: "Where are those files, Jones?"
Jones: "I can't find them."
Boss: "Why not?"
Jones: "It's not my fault. I used the Clinton Filing Method.
Boss: "What?!!"
Jones: "Don't worry, Boss; the files will show up the day after the Statute of Limitations expire."
Boss: "Say, Jones; ya' know, you could be president of this company someday."
Jones: "No thanks, Boss. I just want to be a CNN reporter."
Boss: "That does it...you're fired!"
Jones: "You can't do that! You're muzzling me!"

In an effort to support Ms. Amanpour in her very public battle with dementia, Eason Jordan released this letter he recieved. It proves once & for all that CNN is not susceptible to political pressure, except, well, when it is:

From The Luxurious Coconut Throne Room, (just across the street from the landmark Secret Police Headquarters) in Beautiful Downtown Havana, Cuber:

Year of Our Lenin, 2003

Dear Easy,

Ola', mi compadre'!

I have heard of your troubles, and in light of our ongoing enterprise, I thought I'd write a letter of support for you and your wonderful, wonderful network:

"To Whom It May Concern:

I have worked fist-in-glove with the CNN News Network for years and have found them to be completely professional, useful & pliable partners. Any suggestion that they are biased or victims of their own greedy Faustian bargains will be dealt with harshly.

No, these CNN reporters manufacture the finest News product in the world, and often scoop the competition. For example, it was CNN who electrified the world with the latest figures on Cuban sugar-cane production quotas.

And it was only on their broadcasts that I myself learned that I was indeed a "duly-elected leader". I can't tell you how many times they have willingly, lovingly even, bent over backwards without even being asked, to accommodate this insignifigant member of the Cuban people.

That's 'Access'. That's CNN. 'I'm watching you, CNN.' Closely."- Fidel Castro, Educator, Medical Administrator, Agrarian Reformer.

Well, Easy, I hope that helps. Call me on the private line if you need any further instructions.

Your Loving 'Journalissimo',

Fi-Fi

Compare & Contrast

When PT 109 was split in half by a Japanese warship, Jack Kennedy pulled his injured crewman to safety. He put the guy's shirt in his teeth, and swam through miles of shark-infested water. That's courage.

When Teddy drove his Oldsmobile off the bridge, he pulled only himself to safety, leaving a young girl to drown in 6 feet of water. He sat on the beach, too stoned to worry about anything but his own political career. That's beyond cowardice.

Sen. Swimmer seems to have transferred his personal guilt to American society. That would explain why he is hell-bent on refusing to defend this country. For all their faults, personal & political, his brothers believed in defending America. You've got to feel some sympathy for a family that had one brother shot down by Hitlerite Nazis, another by a Castroite Communist, and yet another by an Arafatist assassin; a perfect 20th century tri-fecta of evil. But Ted shot himself in the foot...and insists on doing the same for us.

Teddy has become everything that JFK despised.

David Frum: "The Kennedys notoriously disdained Stevenson as soft, weak-willed, far too liberal, out-of-date. According to Chris Matthews' interesting study of Kennedy and Nixon, Kennedy told friends in 1960 that if Stevenson {or any other liberal} defeated him for the Democratic nomination, he would have {personally} voted for Nixon."

"Stevenson’s liberal supporters in turn loathed John F. Kennedy. They thought Kennedy was too ruthless, too hawkish, and too openly contemptuous of their hero. The mutual dislike between Kennedy and Stevenson is the reason that President Kennedy named Stevenson as his ambassador to the UN, rather than (say) Secretary of State or Justice of the Supreme Court: Kennedy seems to have thought Stevenson and the UN deserved each other."

Chris Matthews at TAE: "He didn’t like Communists; he hated deprivation of freedom. He saw Castro as the man trying to sell the keys of this continent to the Communists. And JFK didn’t have any sympathy for all these people who had been Stalinists in the ’40s and ’50s. These were writers who wrote about individualism and romance—and they’re arguing for collectivism? What did they expect that they would be, the guardians of the state, and that they’d have a free life above the sweat of the poor who were locked in chains? Kennedy saw the evil of communism. To him, it was never complicated; it was Manichaean... JFK had that wonderful line in the West Berlin speech where he said, "There are many people in the world who really don’t understand, or say they don’t, what is the great issue between the free world and the Communist world.""

For decades, Teddy has promoted measures designed to appease the unappeasable, weaken our military, blindfold our intelligence agencies and handcuff law enforcement. Now he claims that Bush is bribing foreign leaders for support. Perhaps he's just angry that the real experts in bribery weren't consulted; Congress.

(from 'Profiles in Courage':)

Foreign diplomats maintained that "...the Reciprocity Treaty of 1854...'floated through on waves of champagne...If you have to deal with hogs, what are you to do?' A cabinet member, possibly recalling this metaphor, impatiently told Henry Adams in 1869, "You can't use tact with a congressman! A congressman is a hog! You must take a stick and hit him on the snout." And in quiet derision Adams, who thought most members of the Senate "more grotesque than ridicule could make them," had replied, "If a congressman is a hog, what is a Senator?""

What indeed?

Sorry 'bout the light posting

This whole Bennifer break-up thing has afflected me deeply.

I knew you'd understand.

Carol Moosely Braun,

heir to the Moosely coffee-maker fortune, formally announced today that she is running for the Presidency.

Braun, whose father was an Austrian policeman & Nazi Party member, has been running informally for about a year already. It is widely believed that she was recruited by the Clintons to dilute Al Sharpton's support, though even the Clintons acknowledge that Sharpton has prettier hair.

She kicked off her announcement tour with speeches at two historically-segregated colleges, and has been endorsed by women's groups, promising to "bring our baby-killers home from Iraq" and put an abortion clinic in every Jr. High School.

In other news, Sharp Knife formally announced today that it's crack staff would begin blogging, after blogging informally for about a year.

"So they go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent." -Winston Churchill, November 12, 1936

The bold, decisive leadership of Weasly Clark:

""Mary, help!" he called to his press secretary, Mary Jacoby, at the front of the plane, as he faced questions about Iraq."

"On both the question of the initial authorization and the latest request for financing, General Clark said he was conflicted. He offered the case on both sides of the argument, as he appeared to struggle to stake out positions on issues that have bedeviled four members of Congress who supported the war and are now seeking the Democratic presidential nomination."

"General Clark said that he would have advised members of Congress to support the authorization of war but that he thought it should have had a provision requiring President Bush to return to Congress before actually invading. Democrats sought that provision without success."

""At the time, I probably would have voted for it, but I think that's too simple a question," General Clark said."

"A moment later, he said: "I don't know if I would have or not. I've said it both ways because when you get into this, what happens is you have to put yourself in a position — on balance, I probably would have voted for it.""

This guy's claim to fame is his military expertise, but he still can't say for sure! He can't even say where he stands on 'Don't ask/don't tell'...as a officer he says it's the politician's decision, and as a politician, he says leave it to the officers.

"Clark endorsed a moratorium on the death penalty, saying there has been ''a lot of discrimination and a lot of injustice'' and saying cases should be reviewed with DNA evidence. Asked if he would back a halt to executions, Clark sat up straight."

''Stop. Stop,'' he said. ``I promised I wasn't going to take a strong position.''

"On the trade embargo with Cuba, an issue critical to hundreds of thousands of Cuban-American voters who could play a decisive role in the election next year, Clark said he understood both positions and said ``there are a lot of complexities there.''"

Puh-lease. This man is soooo not ready for prime-time.

"They said yes. Then no. Now it's yes again: Wesley Clark will participate in next week's Democratic presidential debate after all, his campaign said."

"On Thursday, Clark aide Barbara Leyton called the Democratic National Committee and said the retired general would participate in the debate and the party's fund-raising dinner afterward. But other campaign officials said she was wrong; Clark had not decided to attend."

The other candidates are going to eat him alive.

"The White House actually...tried to get me knocked off CNN, and they wanted to do this because they were afraid that I would raise issues with their conduct of the war...I don't have all the proof on this because they didn't call me."

They didn't call you the last time either, contrary to what you said on Meet the Press...it was your imaginary friend. How Gore-esque.

"THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY HAS “TWO STARS,” Senator Hillary Clinton of New York and retired four-star General Wesley Clark. This is what former President Bill Clinton, according to the New York Times, told a gathering of big campaign donors in Chappaqua in early September."

He's a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Clinton Crime family. It's HILLARY!/WEASLY! in '04! Place your bets.

Jed Babbin says "He is enough of his own man to want the prize, and not settle twice for second place." But Hillary has the nomination if she wants it and will never consent to the Veep slot. Her pride won't let her ride yet another man's coat-tails into the White House.

Then there is his "cavorting with Hermann Goering", his role at Waco, etc. Yes, he served bravely in Vietnam...but George McGovern served bravely in WWII.

Yet he seems unable to take a real stand, except to insinuate that "BushLied!"; sorry, Weasly. The parking lot is full of cardboard candidates staking out that territory.

Oh, what the hell;

What's one more?

Welcome our brother,

Hilario Bermanis...American.

That's what I'm talkin' about.

Der Sturmin Vermin

"Good Evening, Ladies & Gentlemen. This is Stone Brook Willow Forrest Bay Hill reporting for the Nature Worship Network."

"Hurricane Isabel Jackson-Lee struck the East Coast today with explosive fury. As all thinking people know, bad weather is always the fault of Republicans, so before we go to a live update, let's get the Democratic response":

Howard Dean: "This is Bush's fault for not signing Kyoto! When I'm president, I will sign pieces of paper, and bad weather will go away forever."

Wesley Clark: "This is an elective hurricane. When I served in Kosovo, we didn't have any hurricanes."

John Kerry: "I would ban hurricanes in my first 500 days in office. When I served in Vietnam, we didn't have any hurricanes, either, Wes."

Wesley Clark: "Yes, but you did have typhoons, Lieutenant.

John Kerry: "Bastard."

Al Sharpton: "I'm hungry. The Jews didn't go to work today. What's the number for 'Domino's'? "

Dennis Kucinich: "We weren't prepared for the aftermath...I mean, when there is an aftermath. We need to ask "Why do the hurricanes hate us?""

Sheila Jackson-Lee: "How dare you name this disaster after a black person? That's racism!"

Hillary: "This Adminstration knew the hurricane was coming, yet they did nothing to stop it. And they won't tell us how it will affect the air quality at Ground Zero. And what is the storm's exit strategy?"

John Edwards: " 2 million people are without power because this Administration will not rebuild the power grid. All they have to do is not disturb one single blade of grass, pay union scale for 5 hr. workdays, and make sure no consumer has to pay an extra nickel for this multi-billion dollar upgrade. As your president, I would pass out neck braces and sue everybody!"

Al Gore: "See; if you would have elected me, I could have used my long-standing personal relationship with Mother Nature to stop this. But nooooo!"

"Okay, let's go to our reporter, Cumin Outze Raines, who is standing on the beach. Come in, Cumin?"

"Yes, Stone. I'm standing here on the beach. It's raining heavily and the wind is really blowing."

"Anything else, Cumin?"

"Well...the sand is hitting my face and I think I'm permanently blinded in one eye...a piece of driftwood is embedded in my thigh...and here comes a 30 ft. wave...but it's worth it to be able to tell our viewers that it's raining really hard and the wind is really blowing."

"Thanks, Cumin. We'll check back in with you later, okay?... Cumin?...We seem to have lost contact with our reporter, but there you have it: hurricanes are very windy and rainy and Bush's fault."

"We now return to our regular program, "Panic Now!: How Republicans Shamelessly Hyped the Dangers of Iraq For Their Own Benefit!", but we'll be back in a few minutes to scare the bejeezus out of you with more on the worst natural disaster in the entire history of the world. Don't touch that remote, or you are surely doomed!"

The Nth Circuit

decreed today that California's entire Constitution was, indeed, unconstitutional.

"It's not that we don't think minorities are too stupid to vote; we do," said Judge Roy Milagro Beanfield. "But we think EVERYONE is too stupid to vote. Elections are too messy, anyway. The citizens of California can just relax and trust us to run things. We know what's best."

In other California news, after his meeting with Bill Clinton, Gray Davis offered to pardon Sirhan Sirhan and Charles Manson if they could come up with the money. Davis also declared himself the sole remaining member of the Grayfoot Indian tribe, and announced plans to install gaming tables & slot machines in the state capitol, open to the public and schoolchildren on civics fieldtrips.

Meanwhile, the legislature approved a bill granting law, medical & liquor licenses to illegal aliens.

When those heroic city councils

declare their cities "immigration-enforcement free" zones, they all pat themselves on the back and tell each other how wonderful they are.

Tell it to the victims of these child molesters & rapists.

When we don't screen immigrants for criminal records, foreign criminals come in with everyone else. California's jails are bursting with them.

By encouraging illegal immigration, those city councils are condemning a number of their citizens to be raped, robbed & murdered.

Guess that's a small price to pay to feel morally superior.

An astonishing New York Times editorial

on the anniversary of the attack:

"We have no instinct for glory. What we do surely have, collectively, is a determination to put all we possess into this necessary and unpleasant task. Our emotions are deep and not noisily expressed but we know that we are destined to play a decisive part not on this continent alone but throughout the world. The knowledge steadies us, and brings us together."
(More at Polihale, the West of the West!)

Unfortunately, that editorial was written one year after Pearl Harbor.

Six decades later, as Dick Morris points out, the Time's internal compass always points, not true North, but true Left. The editors don't get that worked up about anything now except women golfers at Augusta, gay 'marriage' and the Gulag Ashcro-peligo.

"It is a general popular error to suppose the loudest complainers for the public to be the most anxious for its welfare." - Sir Edmund Burke


(via the Dark Side , via our friend, Wild.)

She loves her and he loves him:

"And the Clintons won't shut up. If that marriage were any more about convenience, they'd have to install a Slim-Jim rack and a Slurpee machine at the base of the bed."

"Dick Gephardt. Most politicians are transparent, this guy's literally translucent. I sometimes think I can see Janet Leigh showering on the other side of him." - Dennis Miller on the Leno show (via World Net Daily-- more here and here.)

Hat tip DANEgerus!

P. J. O'Rourke

interviewed at the Onion A.V. Club:

"And I feel like now, I guess, everybody pays lip service to libertarian and, indeed, many conservative ideas, and yet they keep moving forward with an increasingly bureaucratic state. It shows itself in all sorts of little ways. I'm not screaming about injustice here, or gulags. I buy a tractor two years ago, and four-fifths of the tractor manual is about not tipping over, not raising the bucket high enough to hit high-tension wire... not killing yourself, basically. The tractor itself is covered with stickers: Don't put your hand in here. Don't put your dick in there. And in that manual, I found out and it cost me a thousand dollars that when the tractor is new, 10 hours into use of the tractor, you have to re-torque the lug nuts. If you don't, you will oval the holes. This is buried between the moron warnings. I never found it. I take the tractor in for its regular servicing, and they say my wheels are gone. A thousand dollars worth of wheels have to be replaced because I didn't re-torque after 10 hours. How am I supposed to know that? "It's in the manual." You fucking read that manual! You go through 40 pages of how not to tip over!"

And in 17 languages, including Tagalog and Urdu.

The solution: a warning label on the manual in Legalese, of course!

Instead of arguing that Michigan law schools should not discriminate in admissions, perhaps we should argue they shoudn't admit ANYONE. Period.

(The aforementioned statement in no way implies or endorses any discrimination against Tagalog-speaking tractor-drivers or South Florida physicist/attorneys and does not represent the views of this weblog, it's sponsors or this station and/or it's assignees or heirs, yea, unto the fourth generation. Or even me...and I wrote it. Not available in all states of consciousness, contest open to legal US residents or California license-holders only, see your dealer for details. He'll be outside the rave around midnight. Your mileage may very well have been rolled-back. Residents of VT. don't stand a chance. Objects in mirror are stranger than they appear. In case of a tie, you lose. All decisions of judges are Final, Arbitrary & Capricious, Attys. at Law. )

(Hat tip to Jeff Brokaw's Opinions Galore, who also hits a hot Les Paul riff here.)

I love Ronald Reagan.

He, more than anyone, brought down the Soviet Union, thus bringing freedom to millions around the world.

But his Mid-East policies were much more mixed.

The Iranian hostages were released on the day of his inauguration; the revolutionaries could smell the B-52's being fueled up. It was one final slap at an impotent Pres. Carter, but also a challenge to Reagan.

When Reagan inserted Marines into Lebanon to support the Lebanese Christian government, Hamas & the Iranians saw their chance and killed 241 Marines. When the troops were withdrawn, the terrorists were emboldened. Navy ships shelled the coast, but we were bombing the wrong country.

Then followed the kidnappings & murders of Americans. Iran-Contra was an effort to get the captives released, but the search for "moderate" Iranians was predictably futile.

Reagan did strike at Kadhaffy, but that didn't stop Lockerbie. (Nor did French obstructionism stop Libya from downing a French jetliner.) And the Achille Lauro captures were a success, yet a fearful Italian government let the guilty off with a slap on the wrist.

The arming of the Afghani resistance to the Soviets proved troubling, but was justified in light of the Cold War.

But the largest failure came when Reagan bought the State Dept. line, and argued for the return of Arafat from exile. Israel begrudgingly accepted for it's own reasons, but the fact is that this policy has clearly, unequivocally failed.

And Reagan was the best of our recent presidents on terrorism, until our current one. His shortcomings pale in comparison to others, who still insist on stinking up the joint with bad advice.

Now, thousands of deaths later, the Israelis and anyone with sense knows that no progress will be made until Arafat is gone. And I don't mean exile. Been there, done that.

I'm thinking the same fate that Arafat dished out to Ambassador Cleo Noel, Charge d' Affaires C.Curtis Moore, and Belgian diplomat Guy Eid...a machine gun was involved, I believe.

If the murdering rat-bastard should be found slumped over his baby wipes one fine morning, his soul slithering back to Hades, his cronies would merely bomb his office and blame it on the Israelis anyway. Might as well do the right thing.

The 'world community' would scream "Assassination!". But they have long ago adopted Orwell's reverse language; even the phrase 'world community' is an Orwellian concoction. Arafat's execution would announce "Justice".

Justice, at long, long last.

Yep.

That's me, alright.

(via the shiny new Judds)

Sept. 11

was why I started blogging.

Or, more accurately, it was Sept. 10th.

We are in a two-front war--one with our enemies, and another with those who can't or won't take civilization's side in this conflict. They insist it is still Sept. 10th.

Of course, it hasn't been "Sept. 10" for a long, long time; such is the power of denial. Should they stumble across this little website, I want it to be like daylight to a vampire.

I know that a lot of you also became bloggers after 9-11. I want to say that I'm proud to associated with you all. There is a lot of fine work in the blogosphere, and it's a pleasure to read & learn. I believe we are changing hearts & minds.

But today, I'm especially proud to be from a country that produces a Johnny 'Mike' Spann.

A country that grows police & firefighters that run to danger, and not away from it.

A nation that attracted a Rick Rescorla, who understood completely the lesson of the first WTC attack, when no one else wanted to. And died in harness, pulling others to life.

So forget if you want to.

But you won't do it around me.

So help me God.

Germany & France

agreed to participate in a new Marshall Plan with Iraq, to rebuild an economy and society ravaged by war.

"We have lost a lot of money since zee war," said French Foreign Minister Dominance N. Submissyion. "We no longer keep zee books for zee 'Oil for Food' program and suddenly no one is buying our African yellow-cake anymore."

"Und strangely, no one iss buying our Zyklon-B, C, D, E, F, or G chemicals anymore," said German Trade Minister Schick L. Gruber, "although vee haff had a good year selling police batons to Iran."

"Oui," said the Foreign Minister, "Zerefore, we have decided to accept zis money from Iraq. We are owed 87 billion dollairs...and an apology, of course. It is zee least the Iraqis could do, after all zee inconvienence they have caused us," Submissyion submitted.

Gov. Gray Davis (D., Cultifornia)

said he will sign the law providing driver's licenses for illegal aliens.

But in a bizzare intra-party bidding war for support, Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante (D., Aztlan) announced a plan to provide pilot's licenses for illegals as well. Davis responded, saying that was a great idea, as long as the illegal alien pilots were unionized. Bustamante said that of course they would be unionized and that the throttle control of the jets would be replaced with slot-machine handles, linked to Indian casinos. Davis replied, saying the term 'one-armed bandit' was a hate-crime, and proposed that half of the illegal alien, unionized, gambling pilot jobs should go to cross-dressers and the blind, who have traditionally been under-represented in the pilot community. Bustamante agreed, and added that the new pilots should be allowed to conduct gay marriage ceremonies in Spanish on board the craft. Davis agreed, and urged any other group with an interest in aviation to send a large check immediately. Bustamante agreed.

In unrelated news, the 9th Circuit ruled that only unionized, cross-dressing, blind, gambling, illegal alien pilots with criminal records would be allowed to vote in the upcoming election.

I'm driving down the street

and see a hippychick with two bumperstickers on her car:

"Free Tibet" and "No War On Iraq". What the?!!!

Why not "Free Iraq" and "No War on Tibet", lady?

Actually, it's China that needs freedom...then Tibet will be free also.

But it won't happen because of a bumpersticker.

I see London

I see France, I see Madonna's underpants.

But then, who hasn't?

Fight the Power

Gov. Gray Davis signed a new energy bill today in Sacramento.

The 2003 California 'Will to Power' Act bans all new power plants, refineries, transmission grids, drilling and mining. Instead, it requires Californians to hold hands, close their eyes and visualize lots & lots of energy coming into their state.

"That's what being governor is all about; making the hard calls," said Davis, adding "I'd like to teach the world to sing."

Somehow, they misplaced my invitation

to the 'International Conference of Civil Society in Support of the Palestinian People' at the UN Thursday. For the record, there are no 'Palestinians'...only Egyptians & Jordanians purposefully disenfranchised by their own countries in order to keep hate alive.

The Jerusalem Post:

"Israel's security fence came under harsh criticism at the United Nations, where an annual conference meant to bolster Palestinian civil society instead spent its energies denouncing Israeli self-defense policies."

The journalists & delegates solemnly nodded their heads in agreement and left the building, walking past the UN's security guards. Some joined their own bodyguards and all left for the comfort of their secured apartments, gated communities and walled embassy compounds.

Many slept peacefully, secure in the knowledge that they would never be called to account for the excuses they made for the Berlin Wall.

In this life, anyway.

UN Relief

The United States and the Iraqi Ruling Council announced today that they would join forces to rebuild the war-torn United Nations.

Spokesman for the Council, Ahmed Aman, said " Sure, we've got problems here in Iraq, but ours are small compared to the quagmire faced by the UN. We want to help them in their struggle to achieve democracy after years of struggling under the burden of an oppressive kleptocracy."

He said that Iraqi troops would first be sent to France, where they would offer humanitarian assistance to those still struggling with the after-effects of the brutal Parisian summer.

Then, the troops will proceed to UN Headquarters in New York, to prevent any more food riots at the UN cafeteria.

California Reamin'

Gov. Gray Davis has been signing every piece of oppressive Leftist legislation that lands on his desk in an effort to pander to every Democrat interest group out there.

He resembles not so much a governor, as a drowning rat clawing his way to survival.

Take a good look, folks; this is what Democrat governance looks like with the mask ripped off.

Bustamante is openly for sale. Davis has no principle except ambition. The Legislature is exploiting the situation to impose it's wish list of New Age Stalinism on Californians.

The Exodus continues.

All too often

we focus on the negative here at Sharp Knife.

It's just that there are so many fiskable bastards, ranging from the merely useless to the need-killin'-now variety, that we sometimes forget to stop and smell the roses and celebrate triumphs of the human spirit; those sweet moments which affirm our commitment to a more just & humane world.

Moments such as this:

JESSE JACKSON ARRESTED AT YALE

However, the case soon took a saddening and bizzare twist, which brought tears to the eyes of millions of Americans:

Jesse made bail.

As part of the terms of his release, Mr. Jackson agreed to mentally remain in Selma, Alabama, circa 1962.