I just got done reading this eloquent defense of Sarah Palin over at DPUD, which was written by our very own Eddiebear. If the Moronosphere were "Animal House", he'd definitely be our Stork. Or maybe even D-Day (can Eddie run a welder? I don't know).

Go. Read. Comment. Do I need to remind you that I'm a big Palin fan and agree pretty much 100% with everything Eddie just said? Effing-A, man. Effing-A.

And while you're over there, check out MoronPundit's declaration of his Presidential Candidacy for 2012. Would I support MP for Prez? Yeah, just as long as Sarah doesn't run. If she does run, I would LOVE to see him serving a vital role in her administration. White House Press Secretary, anyone?

Posted by: Russ from Winterset at 09:26 AM | Comments (1)
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Disgusting. Though it does change the subject from Nancy "The CIA Misled Me" Pelosi.

"I think he smells some blood in the water on the national security issue," Mr. Panetta said in an interview published in the New Yorker magazine's June 22 issue.

"It's almost, a little bit, gallows politics," said Mr. Panetta, a former Democratic House member from California. "When you read behind it, it's almost as if he's wishing that this country would be attacked again, in order to make his point."

Mr. Cheney has said in several interviews that he thinks Mr. Obama is making the United States less safe, remarks Mr. Panetta called "dangerous politics."

Remember when questioning someone's patriotism was bad and dissent was what all the cool kids were doing? Now it's fine to claim someone wants to see Americans killed in an attack simply because they had the temerity to criticism Obama.

Cheney for his part doesn't take the bait.

For all the vitriol hurled at Bush and his administration, I don't remember them stooping to this kind of personal attack. Once again, liberals demonstrates how badly they suffer from a mass case of projection.

If a Bush official had said this about a Democrat, he'd be the subject of spittle inducing Special Comment, instead there's no doubt Panetta will be the subject of a loving profile tonight.

Intellectual honesty or consistency has never been a strong suit of your average liberal.

MORE: Hell freezes over...McCain defends Cheney takes a swipe at Panetta (a Democrat).

"I disagreed with the Cheney policy on interrogation techniques, but never did it cross my mind that Dick Cheney would ever want an attack on the United States of America," the former Republican presidential candidate said during an appearance on Fox News. "It's unfair, and I think that Mr. Panetta should retract, and retract immediately."

Well, now I've seen it all.

Posted by: DrewM at 07:26 AM | Comments (1)
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The government banned protests but that didn't stop thousands from turning out in Tehran. Mir Hossein Mousavi, the defeated candidate, made his first appearance since the protest began at the rally.

The demonstrators gathered in Tehran's Revolution Square, chanting pro-Mousavi slogans as riot police stood by.

"Mousavi we support you. We will die, but retrieve our votes," they shouted, many wearing the green of Mousavi's election campaign.

And Mr Mousavi eventually appeared, addressing the crowd from the roof of his car.

"The vote of the people is more important than Mousavi or any other person," he told his supporters.

Before Mr Mousavi arrived, Reuters reported that his supporters had scuffled with stick-wielding men on motorcycles - apparently supporters of the president.

Following two days of unrest, the interior ministry warned earlier on Monday that "any disrupter of public security would be dealt with according to the law".

Meanwhile, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has ordered an investigation into the allegations of election fraud. Gee, I wonder what that report is going to say?

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ordered the powerful Guardian Council to examine the allegations by opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, who claims widespread vote rigging and fraud in Friday's re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, state television reported.

"Issues must be pursued through a legal channel," state TV quoted Mr. Khamenei as saying. The supreme leader said he has "insisted that the Guardian Council carefully probe this letter." The day after the election, Mr. Khamenei urged the nation to unite behind Mr. Ahmadinejad and called the result a "divine assessment."

Meanwhile, protesters are telling reporters they need Obama's support (just words, really) or they are doomed. Given the silence from D.C. I think they are going to have to get in a growing line of people who are coming to realize He doesn't always deliver.

MORE: Protest Photo From Iran via StopAhmadi

Protest size isn't the best way to determine a cause's level of popular support but that's a lot of people defying a government ban, especially given the level of violence the government has already been willing to employ. I think Ahmadinejad and Khamenei are going to need another plan.

UPDATE: Uh oh. They've started shooting.

Civil War? StopAhmadi says police killed 4 protesters and then protesters killed police.

Posted by: DrewM at 06:19 AM | Add Comment
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Geoff's chart on Obama's bullshit unemployment projections went viral in several incarnations and has been featured here in all of them.

I couldn't help thinking that the chart has been noticed in the right places, when I saw this quote from Vice President Joe Biden on Meet the Press Sunday morning:

Vice President Joe Biden says “everyone guessed wrong” on the impact of the economic stimulus.

Geoff:

There have been few cases in politics where one party so completely and unequivocally owned a piece of legislation. Joe is a desperate, desperate man to even try to revise that history.

Geoff ruthlessly dispenses with Biden's pap here.

Check out the bullet points, especially. "Everyone," Joe?

Posted by: LauraW at 05:54 AM | Comments (5)
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HereÂ’s a couple of nuggets to help you waste the last few precious hours of freedom you have this weekend. Then itÂ’s off to bed so you can wake up bright and early to trudge off to your soul-crushing job for the next five days.

Item #1: Of course, some people actually have interesting jobs (again, not you) and get to pilot very large and complicated aircraft. Instead of sitting in the middle of a cube farm somewhere filling out TPS reports, their office is the cockpit. Of course nearly all of the switches and controls in the 747, for example, are actually inactive, much like the thermostat at your office. But it provides at least the illusion to the pilots that they actually have some kind of control over the aircraft. Again, much like your office thermostat.

Thanks to Pocono Joe, who reminds us that the word “cockpit” may also have some secondary meanings. I can’t imagine what those might be. He’s kind of twisted like that.

Item #2: In other aviation news, ABC (Australia) brings us the tale of an Air India flight from Mumbai to Frankfurt that had to return to Mumbai following a cockpit warning about a fire in the cargo hold. The culprit? The escape of particles from a bag containing two to three kilograms of curry powder. All of which means nothing except that some tandoor chicken sounds really good about right now.

Item #3: LetÂ’s end on an automotive note. IowahawkÂ’s posted outtakes and a script for his most recently failed project, a reality show called D.C. Garage. This being Iowahawk, thereÂ’s absolutely no possible way the post could be funny, but you could always stop by and read it out of a sense of pity.
more...

Posted by: Open Blog at 05:57 PM | Comments (2)
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Much anticipated and quite frankly much better to my mind in laying out the state of play than Obama's Cairo speech.

The big take away has been Netanyahu's acceptance of the so-called 'two-state solution'. It's mostly a big deal because his coalition partners are on record opposing that and he's never personally endorsed the idea. My guess is he got them to go along by pointing out everyone has been talking about this for 15 years or so and it's not an inch closer to happening, so what the hell.

More interesting to me was Netanyahu's conditions for bringing about this much hoped for around the world state of affairs.

This policy must take into account the international situation that has recently developed. We must recognise this reality and at the same time stand firmly on those principles essential for Israel. I have already stressed the first principle – recognition. Palestinians must clearly and unambiguously recognise Israel as the state of the Jewish people. The second principle is: demilitarisation. The territory under Palestinian control must be demilitarised with ironclad security provisions for Israel. Without these two conditions, there is a real danger that an armed Palestinian state would emerge that would become another terrorist base against the Jewish state, such as the one in Gaza. We don't want Kassam rockets on Petach Tikva, Grad rockets on Tel Aviv, or missiles on Ben-Gurion airport. We want peace.

In order to achieve peace, we must ensure that Palestinians will not be able to import missiles into their territory, to field an army, to close their airspace to us, or to make pacts with the likes of Hizbollah and Iran. On this point as well, there is wide consensus within Israel.

It is impossible to expect us to agree in advance to the principle of a Palestinian state without assurances that this state will be demilitarised.

On a matter so critical to the existence of Israel, we must first have our security needs addressed.

Therefore, today we ask our friends in the international community, led by the United States, for what is critical to the security of Israel: Clear commitments that in a future peace agreement, the territory controlled by the Palestinians will be demilitarised: namely, without an army, without control of its airspace, and with effective security measures to prevent weapons smuggling into the territory – real monitoring, and not what occurs in Gaza today. And obviously, the Palestinians will not be able to forge military pacts.

Yeah, um, who is going to enforce those commitments? US troops maybe? In the past Samantha "Hillary Is A Monster" Power suggested using US troops to impose an agreement, why not if the parties ask for them? Power by the way, was appointed to NSC staff.

If that's what Bibi is hinting at, it's a clever way to say to Obama, "Ok, put your money and US lives where your big mouth is". As Netanyahu knows, it also has the benefit of being a non-starter in the US. Can you imagine US troops patrolling the West Bank and Gaza? It would make Iraq and Afghanistan look like a kid's birthday party.

This is why so much of US involvement in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is simply window dressing. It's great to talk about peace and co-existence but when the rubber meets the road, no one knows what step 2 is. Contrary to popular belief

Step 1: Talk about peace

Step 2: ?

Step 3: Unicorns for everyone!

is not actually a workable policy. This is especially true when a large segment of the Palestinian population actually voted for Hamas, which you may recall, is still dedicated to driving the Jews into the sea.

This brings me to the next interesting contrast between the dueling Obama/Netanyahu speeches. more...

Posted by: DrewM at 01:17 PM | Comments (9)
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HereÂ’s another one for you to chew on.

Submitted: "If you could go back to any point in your life and undo or redo something, when and what would it be?"

Note: This one has a caveat. It has to be something that YOU could change or redo…not a situation governed by outside forces or beyond your control. (I.E.: Saying you wish you could go back to age 16 where a genie appears and gives you a Ferrarri is a little out of the scope of this question. Unless of course you actually did have a genie.) Also, when I say “redo,” I don’t mean “relive,” but rather redo in a different way. The point of the question is about decisions you’ve made in the past.

Posted by: Open Blog at 12:52 PM | Comments (1)
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Ahmadinejad says he won, Mousavi files protest and all hell breaks loose.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says his re-election was "real and free" and cannot be questioned — but that isn't stopping his campaign rival from appealing the results.

Reformist Mir Hossein Mousavi accused the government of voter fraud and many of his supporters have clashed with police in Tehran's streets.

"Today, I have submitted my official formal request to the council to cancel the election result," Mousavi said in a statement. "I urge you Iranian nation to continue your nationwide protests in a peaceful and legal way."

Protesters set fires and smashed store windows Sunday in a second day of violence as groups challenging Ahmadinejad's re-election tried to keep pressure on authorities. Anti-riot police lashed back and the regime blocked Internet sites used to rally the pro-reform campaign.

PJ Media has a rundown of the reports getting out of Iran. Some highlights...

* From Tehran and Tabriz to Mash’had, Esfahan, Kerman, Shiraz, Sanandadj, Babol, and many other cities and towns across Iran people are out in the streets, rioting against the Khomeinist regime’s election results, chanting “Death to the Dictators.”

* Following KhameneiÂ’s order of disconnection of the text messaging and SMS system across Iran on Thursday, since late Saturday evening, June 13, all the cellular phones in Tehran have also been entirely disconnected.

* Entekhab News Agency reported on late Saturday night (June 13) that the other three candidates, AhmadinejadÂ’s opponents, Mir-Hossein Moussavi, Mehdi Karoubi, and Gholam-Hossein Karbashchi, are now all under house arrest. This report adds that thirty of the journalists who write for the newspaper EtemadÂ’eh Melli (National Trust), owned by Karoubi, are all now also under arrest.

There are unconfirmed (via StopAhmadi Twitter feed) that there are tanks on the streets of Tehran. Please add the appropriate amount of salt to that. One of the benefits of local reports is immediacy, while confirmation can be an issue.

The White House is taking a wait and see approach, which in fairness is about all they can do.

We've been hearing for years about the need for the people of Iran to change their government and how much the US should support dissidents. Well, here's their chance. Are the people of Iran able to change the course of their country or will the regime beat them back? Also, the last time the Iranian people overthrew a government, things didn't turn out so well, so let's not delude ourselves that there's some silver bullet here.

While everyone seems to be pinning their hopes on Mousavi as a moderate and reformer, it's helpful to remember that he was Prime Minister under Ayatollah Khomeini.

Update: Haaretz: Mousavi arrested. Plus this YouTube channel of Iranian street protests.

Speaking before the election, John Bolton wasn't optimistic that much would change (especially on foreign and nuclear policy). more...

Posted by: DrewM at 11:30 AM | Comments (120)
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That's what the July /August issue of "the Atlantic" offers or at least claims to offer. Some of the fixes are stupid - Redesign the dollar, End the Vice Presidency, and Pay the artists in my opinion, but most deserve some serious consideration.

Among them:

Rent your own home - Require or strongly encourage banks to banks to allow the current resident to remain in recently foreclosed homes as long as they remain current in fair market rent. The goal is to stop an artificial race to the bottom of home prices.

Privatize the seas - Improve fishery management by auctioning off permits that can be used year round instead of having short open seasons. The concept has already been proven in Alaska's halibut fisheries as well as in Australia and New Zealand and a study by the University of California has shown that fisheries privatized in this manner are much less prone to collapse. (Normally I would link to this study rather than accepting the articles word for it but I can't find it. I have heard the results reported on BBC and I believe CNN previously however)

End all taxes except the property tax and End the corporate income tax - Instead of punishing success by taxing it while rewarding people who happend to buy land in the right place at the right time reverse the formula. Only tax property while eliminating the income tax. If taxes are to remain then stop punishing job creators (corporations) and tax those who recieve the benefits. Different takes on the same issue. Both are worth consideration. According to the author of the property tax proposal Milton Friedman was an advocate of such an approach.

I'll let you read the rest of the suggestions for yourself. Amazingly Andrew Sullivan's suggestion for immediate disclosure of Trig Palin's birth records didn't make the cut in this article. Maybe there is hope for the world after all.

Posted by: Open Blog at 08:15 AM | Add Comment
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The odds of this happening have to be quite literally astronomical:

Fourteen-year-old Gerrit Blank was hit in the hand by a pea-sized meteorite that left him in severe pain and with a three-inch scar.

The meteorite bounced off his hand and left a foot-wide smouldering crater in the tarmac. Gerrit was on his way to school when he spotted the fireball hurtling towards him out of the sky.

Gerrit, from Essen in Germany said: “I suddenly felt a pain in my hand. A split second later there was an enormous bang like a crash of thunder."

Something about this story just feels wrong, but if it's true he is one lucky, lucky kid.

Posted by: LauraW at 06:23 AM | Comments (1)
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