"Barack Obama's equivalent of Bill Clinton's "bimbo eruptions" just won't go away. As the voters learn more and more about Obama's past dealings, the more he looks like Jesse Jackson with a personality transplant." - (Source)

Incredibly, Obama's now booted Jerimiah Wright only to jump into cohoots with the radical Farrakhan-loving, bad boy priest - Father Michael Pfleger:

Gateway Pundit has more on the story....

This guy is unlike any Catholic priest I've ever known, and as a Catholic, I've been in a lot of Catholic churches in my life; to say that the Archbishop of Chicago has a problem on its hands, is putting it mildly.

That a candidate for the presidency of the United States of America would call this guy one of his spiritual advisors, is far more than just disturbing, it calls his judgement and beliefs deeply into question. And let's not forget bout Obama's other spiritual advisor, the very radical James Meeks who inveighs against white mayors as "slave masters" and scorns blacks who disagree with him as "house [servants]."

Julian Sanchez has a piece in Ars Technica analyzing my recent outing by PFF as a communist. Or socialist. Or quasi-socialist utopianist. Whatever. I'll leave the criticisms of the criticisms of my scholarship to the reader to judge. One perfectly framed point of the piece, though, is something I completely agree with: There is a divide in the libertarian camp about IP extremism. And when, as I'd put it, "libertarians ... 'start to defect' from a strong-IP stance, copyright incumbents [will] be left with only their wholly-owned-subsidiaries as defenders."

Then, I suggest, real progress will be made.

Last week the AP reported that the Bush administration has launched a ridiculous and naive front in the war on terrorism (my description - not the AP's), this time targeting language. Federal agencies, including the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security and the National Counter Terrorism Center, do not want people to describe Islamic extremists as "jihadists" or "mujahedeen," or "Islamo-fascism." In other words, Don't call jihadists - jihadists any more. Don't call Islamo-fascists - Islamo-fascists, and don't call the Islamic terrorist group - a terrorist group, and don't call the al-Qaida movement - a movement. By doing so the Bush administration endorsed the vocabulary pushed by pushed by the jihadists that live inside America - the Islamic organizations identified by the Justice Department as being directly tied to terrorism (Council on American-Islamic Relations, Islamic Society of North American, Muslim American Society, the Institute for International Islamic Thought, et al.).

Patrick Poole puts this into perspective:

Imagine that following the bombing of Peal Harbor in December 1941, that FDR had prohibiting the use of the terms "Nazi" or "Japanese Imperialism" due to pressure brought to bear by German and Japanese-American lobbying groups. Or at the height of the Cold War that the US government had determined to ban the use of "Soviet" or "communism" for fear of offending the sensibilities of Russian-Americans or European socialists.

Yet that is precisely what has happened following the revelation last week by the Associated Press that the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security has issued guidelines banning the use of "jihad", "mujahedeen" and other Islamic terminology with reference to Islamic terrorism. This move lays bare the ideological prison house of political correctness in which our top policymaker's reside. The strictures are so ridiculous that even President Bush can't help himself in violating the guidelines.

No one can claim in defense of this move that it has been rooted in years of serious study and assessment of the issue at the highest levels of government. If so, where might these studies and assessments be found? What series of government publications outlines the strategic threat doctrine of our enemy in the War on Terror, similar to that prepared on Soviet doctrine in the early years of the Cold War? What comprehensive doctrinal assessment may our military and political leaders consult to inform themselves on the tactics and strategy of our enemy? Such does not exist, and the adoption of the government's new "lexicon" is an admission that such a strategic threat assessment of our enemy will not be done. This new effort means that in essence we have chosen to fly blind in the Global War on Terror (GWOT).

The categorical failure of our political leadership nearly seven years after 9/11 to engage in even the slightest effort to assess exactly who the enemy is and how they propose to attack and defeat us borders on treason. What could possibly represent the complete abdication of responsibility by our political leaders than deliberately avoiding addressing this pressing, and for our men and women in uniform a life-and-death, issue?

So on what basis have our public officials made this recent decision? This new effort is being driven by politics, not public safety, as demonstrated by the fact that such pandering measures adopted by the British government which the State Department guidelines appear modeled after have completely failed to abate the terrorist threat there. And it reveals that our national security policy is being determined more by public affairs officials driven by political correctness than sober reflection by our nation's intelligence, military and law enforcement personnel.

No one can claim in defense of this move that it has been rooted in years of serious study and assessment of the issue at the highest levels of government. If so, where might these studies and assessments be found? What series of government publications outlines the strategic threat doctrine of our enemy in the War on Terror, similar to that prepared on Soviet doctrine in the early years of the Cold War? What comprehensive doctrinal assessment may our military and political leaders consult to inform themselves on the tactics and strategy of our enemy? Such does not exist, and the adoption of the government's new "lexicon" is an admission that such a strategic threat assessment of our enemy will not be done. This new effort means that in essence we have chosen to fly blind in the Global War on Terror (GWOT).

Continue reading: Flying Blind in the War on Terror

Political correctness run amuck and beyond? Indeed, by endorsing the guidelines proposed by the jihadists that live openly in our midst, the Bush administration has embraced the ridiculous, naive, and dhimmitudious assumptions that what's good for our enemy, is good for us, that we can conquer Islamic terrorism and convince jihadists to love us - if only we speak kindly to them or pretend they aren't what they are, and that people in the Muslim world will be influenced by what non-Muslim authorities say about Islam; yet, clearly, there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever to warrant these assumptions. As Robert Spencer writes, "In reality, jihadists routinely claim "moral and religious legitimacy," and that has to be confronted, not ignored."

Last week the AP reported that the Bush administration has launched a ridiculous and naive front in the war on terrorism (my description - not the AP's), this time targeting language. Federal agencies, including the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security and the National Counter Terrorism Center, do not want people to describe Islamic extremists as "jihadists" or "mujahedeen," or "Islamo-fascism." In other words, Don't call jihadists - jihadists any more. Don't call Islamo-fascists - Islamo-fascists, and don't call the Islamic terrorist group - a terrorist group, and don't call the al-Qaida movement - a movement. By doing so the Bush administration endorsed the vocabulary pushed by pushed by the jihadists that live inside America - the Islamic organizations identified by the Justice Department as being directly tied to terrorism (Council on American-Islamic Relations, Islamic Society of North American, Muslim American Society, the Institute for International Islamic Thought, et al.).

Patrick Poole puts this into perspective:

Imagine that following the bombing of Peal Harbor in December 1941, that FDR had prohibiting the use of the terms "Nazi" or "Japanese Imperialism" due to pressure brought to bear by German and Japanese-American lobbying groups. Or at the height of the Cold War that the US government had determined to ban the use of "Soviet" or "communism" for fear of offending the sensibilities of Russian-Americans or European socialists.

Yet that is precisely what has happened following the revelation last week by the Associated Press that the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security has issued guidelines banning the use of "jihad", "mujahedeen" and other Islamic terminology with reference to Islamic terrorism. This move lays bare the ideological prison house of political correctness in which our top policymaker's reside. The strictures are so ridiculous that even President Bush can't help himself in violating the guidelines.

No one can claim in defense of this move that it has been rooted in years of serious study and assessment of the issue at the highest levels of government. If so, where might these studies and assessments be found? What series of government publications outlines the strategic threat doctrine of our enemy in the War on Terror, similar to that prepared on Soviet doctrine in the early years of the Cold War? What comprehensive doctrinal assessment may our military and political leaders consult to inform themselves on the tactics and strategy of our enemy? Such does not exist, and the adoption of the government's new "lexicon" is an admission that such a strategic threat assessment of our enemy will not be done. This new effort means that in essence we have chosen to fly blind in the Global War on Terror (GWOT).

The categorical failure of our political leadership nearly seven years after 9/11 to engage in even the slightest effort to assess exactly who the enemy is and how they propose to attack and defeat us borders on treason. What could possibly represent the complete abdication of responsibility by our political leaders than deliberately avoiding addressing this pressing, and for our men and women in uniform a life-and-death, issue?

So on what basis have our public officials made this recent decision? This new effort is being driven by politics, not public safety, as demonstrated by the fact that such pandering measures adopted by the British government which the State Department guidelines appear modeled after have completely failed to abate the terrorist threat there. And it reveals that our national security policy is being determined more by public affairs officials driven by political correctness than sober reflection by our nation's intelligence, military and law enforcement personnel.

No one can claim in defense of this move that it has been rooted in years of serious study and assessment of the issue at the highest levels of government. If so, where might these studies and assessments be found? What series of government publications outlines the strategic threat doctrine of our enemy in the War on Terror, similar to that prepared on Soviet doctrine in the early years of the Cold War? What comprehensive doctrinal assessment may our military and political leaders consult to inform themselves on the tactics and strategy of our enemy? Such does not exist, and the adoption of the government's new "lexicon" is an admission that such a strategic threat assessment of our enemy will not be done. This new effort means that in essence we have chosen to fly blind in the Global War on Terror (GWOT).

Continue reading: Flying Blind in the War on Terror

Political correctness run completely amuck? Indeed, by endorsing the guidelines proposed by the jihadists that live openly in our midst, the Bush administration has embraced the ridiculous, naive, and dhimmitudious assumptions that what's good for our enemy, is good for us, that we can conquer Islamic terrorism and convince jihadists to love us - if only we speak kindly to them or pretend they aren't what they are, and that people in the Muslim world will be influenced by what non-Muslim authorities say about Islam; yet, clearly, there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever to warrant these assumptions. As Robert Spencer writes, "In reality, jihadists routinely claim "moral and religious legitimacy," and that has to be confronted, not ignored."

It would be comical if it weren't so pathetic, and potentially dangerous - should Obama and his "pastor" wind up in the White House!

When the controversy surrounding the "God Damn America" and other vitriolic, hate-mongering, anti- American, racists comments spewed by Rev. Wright first flared up, and how was it possible that Barack Obama could have sat in the pews for twenty years listening to it all, claiming Rev. Wright was not only his "pastor," but his "mentor and spiritual advisor," Obama nonchalantly brushed it off by throwing his white grandmother "under the bus" to trivialize Rev. Wright's comments, by comparing the Reverend's "Black Liberation Theology," Afro-centric, doctrines of anti-white bigotry, resentment, and hate, to his own white, grandmother's, "innate racism," supposedly the fear of "black men," quote:

"I can no more disown [Rev. Wright] than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe."

In spite of the "cringing" at least he owned to the fact that his ailing, white, maternal grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, is the one who raised him, gave him the privileged opportunities that have brought him to where he now is, and dealt with the regrettable consequences of her rebellious, feminist, atheist, daughter's irresponsible actions - namely him - and not the mother of the black, Kenyan, Muslim, Marxist father that left Obama, and his unbearable mother when he was a child, that he so "Lionizes" in his book "Dreams From My Father" (perhaps poor, old, grandma was justified in fearing "black men" after all).

http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2008/03/barack-throws-his-ailing-grandmother.html

Then, amusingly, Obama threw Rev. Wright "under the bus" when, though not quite disowning him or condemning the despicable comments of Rev. Wright, he yet distanced himself from the Reverend as "persona non grata" and suffered a convenient episode of amnesia about what he had heard the "good" Reverend spew in twenty years of sitting in the pews at Trinity.

Meanwhile, double-faced "Janus" Obama, though distancing himself in public from Rev. Wright, yet he secretly would sneak to "pray" with him in basements and seek his "spiritual guidance" while avoiding him upstairs at the functions and rallies. Now, all politicians have "skeletons in their closets," but one has to wonder if Obama becomes president, and is faced, for instance, with Iran or Syria attacking Israel, if in spite of all his pro-Israel rhetoric, and empty promises, he will really defend Israel, or most likely pull Rev. Wright out of some "closet" of the White House to "pray" with him (God Damn America!), and get Rev. Wright's anti-Semitic "spiritual guidance" on how to better "betray" Israel and surrender the Israelis to their rapacious Arab neighbors!

Of course, it would have taken a bit of humility on the part of caustic, narcissistic, megalomaniac, Rev. Wright, to simply keep a low profile in order not to further "muddy" Obama with his detestable twenty year "association" with him, and the "good" Reverend launched into a whirlwind "Rock-Star" tour of public appearances and engagements, where Obama's unrepentant pastor, not only reiterated his "God Damn America" but would not budge an inch from his vitriolic black resentment doctrines of anti-Semitism, bigotry, and hate, culminating in throwing Obama "under the bus and stepping on the gas," when in his interview with Bill Moyers (that other "Hate America" luminary), Rev. Wright commented about Obama's "two-facedness" with a shrug, quote:

"He's a politician, I'm a pastor. We speak to two different audiences. And he says what he has to say as a politician. I say what I have to say as a pastor."

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/04/wright_throws_obama_under_the.html

Oh, you mean to tell us, Reverend, that "Empty Suit" Obama is not what he wants the gullible American electorate to believe he is?!?! That there are other hidden "agendas" to the toothy "Black Messiah"?!?! You don't say!

And now it is a coy Obama, with his monkey tail between his legs (forgive my "innate" racism about this man, guess I'm like good, old, white "grandma"), who threw Rev. Wright "under the bus and ran him over," and disingenuously wants to make us "oafs who cling in our bitterness to our guns and to religion" believe that this time around he truly condemns Rev. Wright's vile utterances, has finally disowned him for good, and voters should give him credit and credence for it - after all, it only took Obama twenty years to realize and do it! Quote:

"The person that I saw yesterday was not the person that I met 20 years ago," he said. "His comments were not only divisive and destructive, but I believe that they end up giving comfort to those who prey on hate, and I believe that they do not portray accurately the perspective of the black church. They certainly don't portray accurately my values and beliefs... If Reverend Wright thinks that's political posturing, as he put it, then he doesn't know me very well and based on his remarks yesterday, I may not know him as well as I thought either."

"I gave him the benefit of the doubt in my speech in Philadelphia, explaining that he has done enormous good in the church," he said. "But when he states and then amplifies such ridiculous propositions as the U.S. government somehow being involved in AIDS; when he suggests that Minister Farrakhan somehow represents one of the greatest voices of the 20th and 21st century; when he equates the U.S. wartime efforts with terrorism - then there are no excuses. They offend me. They rightly offend all Americans. And they should be denounced, and that's what I'm doing very clearly and unequivocally here today."

"It is antithetical to my campaign. It is antithetical to what I'm about. It is not what I think America stands for," he said.

http://www.blog.newsweek.com/blogs/stumper/archive/2008/04/29/obama-throws-wright-under-the-bus-runs-him-over-puts-the-vehicle-in-reverse-and-repeats.aspx

Yeah, right! Sure, we believe you Obama. Heh!

Of course, that doesn't even begin to explain his own wife Michelle's "Wright-like," "Hugo Chávez-styled," anti-American comments and attitude, or explain away that privileged resented negress' huge "racial chip" on her shoulders. But then that is another "can of worms"!

Wow! If only many of our cities would have as much "bus service"!

I wonder if Obama and Rev.Wright will still secretly meet in basements, though!

Althor

This morning I noticed that this website was very slow to load, which is very unusual as it sits on a pretty powerful dedicated machine. When I was finally able to SSH into the server what I found surprised me.

This machine was essentially under attack in that bots were trying to submit comments to the site in the 100’s along with that their was a huge number of instances of TrackBack request coming in.

The IP’s were from a couple of machines so I simply added those machines to my firewall IP denial list. Within 30 seconds of doing that a new set of IP’s started hitting the machine.

So I played this game for about 30 minutes and to no relief as soon as I blocked a IP another would pop up. It looks like the comment spam and trackback spam bots are evolving and somewhat out of control.

I would normally be sleeping when this attack happened so I am going to have to go back and look at the log files to determine how long this has been happening.

Yesterday we were subjected to a preview? reminder? of the consequences of an "everything" state regime. There was a major blackout that covered more than 50% of the country and which lasted several hours, some areas like San Felipe for over 4 hours according to my digital clocks. The official reason? Some problem at Guri dam which compounded with excessive temperatures in the country, a surge in consumption, combined with forest fires resulted in some local surge that melted down something and for safety reasons the whole central system was shut down until it could be fixed.

This might all be true or all be false, we will never know probably because by the time the folks in charge are finally audited, nobody will care anymore. We can at least be happy that the VTV first reaction claiming that it was a sabotage from the Empire or some other nonsense was not taken up when the ministers in charge finally talked to the country. But at least we could appreciate how trigger ready has become a chavismo now on the defensive. However there is one thing we know for sure: the largest share of the blame is due to governmental incompetence and political shenanigans.

Incompetence: ever since my return to Venezuela I have been hearing specialists, even from pre Chavez era, saying that there is not enough investments in the electric grid and generating plants and if that situation keeps going on, major blackouts will become the norm. In fact in some areas of the country today electricity is all but officially rationed. Here in San Felipe we now get at least a monthly blackout. They are not as long as the one we suffered yesterday but in the last 8 years they have tended to increase in frequency and length. At work we have been forced to buy very expensive surge protectors and heavy substitute battery systems for all sensitive equipment so that when a black out comes we have enough time to do a proper shut down. Even at home I have all on power surge protector and my computer with such a battery system which allows me 10 minutes to save all work and shut down. Needless to say that I have all sorts of candles ready to go as necessary.

But chavismo cannot be bothered with that: they had no problem spending billions for effect in buying Electricidad de Caracas early 2007, the private utility that had the best electrical system in Venezuela. There was no need for Chavez to order that purchase when he already controlled how much could the electrical rates increase in Caracas. The objective was strictly political. And of course the billions given to the share holders of EA&S left Venezuela, were not reinvested at home... How much improvement to the electrical grid of Venezuela with those billion sunk at EA&S?

But to add insult to injury YESTERDAY Venezuela has announced the shipment of an extra 50 000 oil barrels to Nicaragua to "alleviate" the energy crisis over there. A perfect example of the old saying "luz en la calle, oscuridad en al casa" light outside, darkness at home. The mockery continues....

"Mirror, mirror on the wall, which of the nationalized industries will be prettier?"

PD: of course the country was in total chaos as numerous press reports can attest. I happened to be in Barquisimeto and was stuck at Las Trinitarias where I was buying supplies for work at a famous hardware store, EPA. Since all cash registers are electric, a SENIAT obligation, there was only one of the exits that was open to leave the parking. The line was so huge that I went back inside the mall to loiter. Loitering was the only thing you could do anyway as no cash register was working. Finally when I left I had to face the Barquisimeto chaos (no traffic lights working) since I had to do another errand next to the Cathedral. I can hardly imagine the Caracas situation with the subway down at peak hours! Ah, and by the way, some areas of the country were totally cut of since some cel phone centers were out of commission. Half of my phone calls could not even hook.

-The end-

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