California Conservative

While thousands of worshipers expressed their adoration for the Obamessiah, John McCain took aim at Sen. Obama’s decision to not support the Surge which has dramatically reduced the violence in Iraq:

Senator Obama and I also faced a decision, which amounted to a real-time test for a future commander-in-chief. America passed that test. I believe my judgment passed that test. And I believe Senator Obama’s failed.

We both knew the politically safe choice was to support some form of retreat. All the polls said the “surge” was unpopular. Many pundits, experts and policymakers opposed it and advocated withdrawing our troops and accepting the consequences. I chose to support the new counterinsurgency strategy backed by additional troops, which I had advocated since 2003, after my first trip to Iraq. Many observers said my position would end my hopes of becoming president. I said I would rather lose a campaign than see America lose a war. My choice was not smart politics. It didn’t test well in focus groups. It ignored all the polls. It also didn’t matter. The country I love had one final chance to succeed in Iraq. The new strategy was it. So I supported it. Today, the effects of the new strategy are obvious. The surge has succeeded, and we are, at long last, finally winning this war.

Senator Obama made a different choice. He not only opposed the new strategy, but actually tried to prevent us from implementing it. He didn’t just advocate defeat, he tried to legislate it. When his efforts failed, he continued to predict the failure of our troops. As our soldiers and Marines prepared to move into Baghdad neighborhoods and Anbari villages, Senator Obama predicted that their efforts would make the sectarian violence in Iraq worse, not better. (more…)

Several portions of Barack Obama’s speech in Berlin caught my attention. Here’s the first thing he said that caught my attention:

The odds were stacked against success. In the winter, a heavy fog filled the sky above, and many planes were forced to turn back without dropping off the needed supplies. The streets where we stand were filled with hungry families who had no comfort from the cold.

But in the darkest hours, the people of Berlin kept the flame of hope burning. The people of Berlin refused to give up. And on one fall day, hundreds of thousands of Berliners came here, to the Tiergarten, and heard the city’s mayor implore the world not to give up on freedom. “There is only one possibility,” he said. “For us to stand together united until this battle is won…The people of Berlin have spoken. We have done our duty, and we will keep on doing our duty. People of the world: now do your duty…People of the world, look at Berlin!”

Isn’t it odd to hear Sen. Obama talk about “in the darkest hours”, Berliners “kept the flame of hope burning” just after visiting Iraq, which Sen. Obama voted to abandon in their darkest hour?

The man who talks about hope and change voted to cut off funding for the troops, which would’ve handed Iraq to AQI’s terrorists and Iranian-funded militias. Ironic doesn’t begin to describe it. (more…)

AP reports: Many Spaniards were so amused when their king told Venezuela’s president to “shut up” they want to hear the words every time their phone rings.

About half a million people have downloaded a mobile phone ringtone featuring the phrase “Por que no te callas?” or “Why don’t you shut up?” leading Madrid daily El Pais reported on its Web site Monday.

That’s what King Juan Carlos told Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez during a heated confrontation at a summit in Chile last week. We happily reported.

The ringtone is thought to have generated around $2.2 million for the companies selling it, El Pais said.

T-shirts and mugs featuring the words are also becoming a profitable business, and videos of the confrontation have been a hit on the YouTube Web site.

God bless the capitalist spirit!

Chavez’s opponents in Venezuela are no less obsessed.

Pirated copies of the quote have been popping up in the South American country.

In Venezuela, T-shirts with the slogan in Spanish have the “NO” in uppercase — a call for voting against constitutional reforms that would significantly expand Chavez’s power. The Venezuelan leader says the changes would empower neighborhood-based assemblies and advance the country’s transition to socialism.

“The king said what Venezuelans have wanted to say to Chavez’s face for a long time,” said Jenny Romero, 21, a student sporting one of the T-shirts in Caracas. “I’m wearing this T-shirt to protest everything bad that has happened in the country.”

God bless free speech!

Hopefully he won’t get beaten up and jailed for it. What would Hugo’s Hollywood friends say to that?

Michelle Malkin has more.

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Hillary’s op-ed says that we’ve had eight years of failed leadership. Candidates say that type of thing each election cycle but this time, I thought her claims were a bit hilarious. Here’s the opening paragraph:

After eight years of failed leadership under President Bush, the next president will face extraordinary challenges: a war to end; an economy to revive; an energy crisis to solve; 47 million Americans to insure; a homeland to secure; alliances to repair; and a world in need of American leadership.

Let’s examine her priorities. Hillary says that we have “a war to end” yet she refused to say at a recent debate that she couldn’t guarantee that she’d have the troops out by the end of her first term in office. This is typical Hillary, typical Clinton. She’s attempting to curry favor with the Nutroots by suggesting that she’d end the war ASAP without committing to ending it ASAP.

That isn’t any different than saying that Gov. Spitzer’s plan of issuing drivers licenses “makes alot of sense” right before she refused to say that she endorsed his plan which was right before she said she wouldn’t give drivers licenses which was right after Gov. Spitzer officially dropped his plan.

Does that sound like leadership to you? (more…)

If you’ve listened to any Democratic presidential candidate, you’ve likely heard them bemoaning the fact that we aren’t liked throughout the world, that we need to elect a Democrat for the world to like us again. Based on this article, I’d say that British Prime Minister Gordon Brown disagrees with that notion:

Mr Brown told the audience at Mansion House the UK had to work with “all those who share our vision of the future”, including Nato, the UN, the EU and the US.

He said: “It is no secret that I am a life-long admirer of America.

“I have no truck with anti-Americanism in Britain or elsewhere in Europe and I believe that our ties with America, founded on values we share, constitute our most important bilateral relationship.

“And it is good for Britain, for Europe and for the wider world that today France and Germany and the European Union are building stronger relationships with America.”

This follows French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s gushingly pro-American speech to Congress. Forgive me for being skeptical of the Democrats’ talking points but I don’t see alot of evidence that we aren’t respected. Forgive me but I don’t see the need in being liked as being more important than being respected. In fact, being respected is infinitely more important than being liked.

All it takes to be liked is to do what others tell you to do. Being respected often means doing things in our best interest despite knowing that we won’t be liked for doing what we have to do.

If the day comes that Democrats figure out the difference between being liked and being respected, then they’ll be worthy of running this country’s foreign policy. Until that happens, they shouldn’t be entrusted with that responsibility.

Technorati Tags: Gordon Brown, Nicolas Sarkozy, Foreign Policy, National Security, Democrats, Election 2008

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

Not just in America. What will they say?

AP reports: “An 18-year- old gunman opened fire at his high school in this placid town in southern Finland on Wednesday, killing seven other students and the principal before mortally wounding himself in a rampage that stunned a nation where gun crime is rare.”

Being raised in today’s violent video game “culture,” it’s no surprise to see this happening. Or the message he’s wearing.

Police were analyzing YouTube postings that appeared to anticipate the massacre, including clips in which a young man calls for revolution and apparently prepares for the attack by test firing a semiautomatic handgun.

Investigators said the gunman, who was not identified, shot himself in the head after the shooting spree at Jokela High School in Tuusula, some 30 miles north of the capital, Helsinki. He died later at Toolo Hospital in Helsinki.

The teen killed five boys, two girls and the female principal with a .22-caliber pistol, police said.

Revolution? Against what? Blondes?

At least he wasn’t wearing a Che Guevara shirt.

UPDATE: BREAKING 11/12/07
Lawyer: Finnish teen, Pa. boy chatted

AP reports: “A teenager who admitted plotting a school attack near Philadelphia had communicated online about the Columbine massacre with a teenage outcast who killed eight people and himself in a high school shooting in Finland, the Pennsylvania boy’s attorney said Monday.
. . .

Finnish police said material seized from the computer of Pekka-Eric Auvinen suggests the 18-year-old had communicated online with Dillon Cossey, 14, who was arrested in October on suspicion of preparing an attack at Plymouth Whitemarsh High School in suburban Philadelphia. The attack never took place.

Cossey’s attorney, J. David Farrell, said that he showed Auvinen’s online screen name to the Pennsylvania boy Monday and that his client remembered communicating with the Finnish teen in August or September about video games and the 1999 Columbine massacre in Colorado and exchanging videos they found on the Internet.

“They had discussed certain video games and shared videos with each other,” Farrell said. “Obviously, Columbine was a shared topic of interest.”

The two met through the YouTube video-sharing site, Farrell said. They also exchanged posts on a Web site dedicated to the Columbine killers, traded e-mail and likely chatted on certain Web sites, he said.”

–

..what were we saying about a “violent video game ‘culture’”?

AP reports: “Spain’s King Juan Carlos told Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Saturday to “shut up” during closing speeches by leaders from the Latin world that brought the Ibero-American summit to an acrimonious end.

“Why don’t you shut up?” the king shouted at Chavez, pointing a finger at the president when he tried to interrupt a speech by Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.

Zapatero was in the middle of a speech at the summit of mostly leftist leaders from Latin America, Portugal, Spain and Andorra, and was criticizing Chavez for calling former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar a fascist.

Chavez, a leading leftist foe of Washington, also attacked Spanish businessman Gerardo Diaz Ferran earlier in the week after he questioned the safety of foreign investments in Venezuela.

“I want to express to you President Hugo Chavez that in a forum where there are democratic governments … one of the essential principles is respect,” Zapatero told the leaders gathered in the Chilean capital, Santiago.

“You can disagree radically, without being disrespectful,” Zapatero, a socialist, said sternly, drawing applause from some of the other heads of state.

Imagine that. How civilized. How thoughtful. How proper.

But we’re talking about someone that is embraced by Hollywood. Sean Penn, Jane Fonda, Danny Glover and, of course, Cindy Sheehan. Liberals don’t ever apologize.

Chavez, a former soldier, made his mark on the three-day summit from the start, announcing his arrival earlier in the week with defiant lyrics from a Mexican ballad.

“With the truth in hand, I do not offend, I do not fear,” Chavez said on Saturday. “The government of Venezuela reserves the right to respond to any aggression.”

Speaking truth to power? Not exactly.

Little Hugo’s notion of truth is relative and certainly not democratic. From nationalizing (ie. taking over) the public utilities and airwaves to nationalizing any private school that refuses to submit to the oversight of his socialist government as it develops a new curriculum and textbooks.

“Society cannot allow the private sector to do whatever it wants,” said Chavez, speaking on the first day of classes.

All schools, public and private, must admit state inspectors and submit to the government’s new educational system, or be closed and nationalized, Chavez said.

Dictatorship. Censorship. Of course, all of this is just fine with the otherwise outspoken celebrities who adore him. After all, most of them didn’t get much schooling anyway.

Can you imagine Chavez with nuclear weapons?

According to this article, a British bomb squad defused a “potentially massive bomb”. Here’s what we know thus far:

A terror attack appeared to have been foiled in Haymarket, London on Friday morning when a suspected bomb was found and defused by sappers. Sky News sources said that the device, which was found in a silver Mercedes, was potentially “massive.”

Terrorist police were investigating after explosives officers were called to The Haymarket road, near Piccadilly Circus, shortly before 2 a.m., police said in a statement. “They discovered what appeared to be a potentially viable explosive device,” police said. “It was made safe.” Britain’s Press Association quoted an unidentified police official as saying: “The indications that we have got so far are that it was certainly a big device.”

The area around the vehicle was cordoned off as a precaution while explosives officers examined the vehicle. London transport officials said the Piccadilly Circus Underground train station was closed. An eyewitness told Sky News that he saw a car being driven “erratically” before crashing into some bins. Bouncers from the nearby ‘Tiger Tiger’ nightclub saw the driver of the vehicle running away.

Here’s what CNN’s article said:

CNN’s International Security Correspondent Paula Newton said the initial indications were that the suspected bomb was “a relatively crude device that was made with possibly petroleum or gas.”

She said it was potentially aimed at theatergoers or nearby nightclubs, echoing plots recently thwarted by anti-terror police in which Islamic militants intended to attack prominent dance venues and shopping malls.

Friday’s incident could prove to be the first major test for new Prime Minister Gordon Brown, the former finance minister who succeeded Tony Blair just two days earlier, appointing new Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, in charge of domestic security.

Let’s hope Mr. Brown passes with flying colors.

Technorati Tags: Gordon Brown, Piccadilly Circus, London, Terrorism, Tony Blair

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

Wonder what’s worse: Do they dislike Sarkozy for being conservative or for being pro-America?

Reuters reports: “Hundreds of people were arrested in France overnight in clashes between police and protesters angry over conservative Nicolas Sarkozy’s victory in Sunday’s presidential election, police said.”

Just like many American liberals, the notion of democratic elections is only embraced, evidently, when the votes go their way. If not, then they take to the streets in protest.

In France, that’s what happens when you cut off the socialist, goverment-sponsored gravy-train for the unambitious, paid for by taxpayers. We know the story.

But even in gay Paris (pah-reee), it appears that the voters have spoken: they want law & order even more than noblesse oblige. Maybe, they too, are looking for a cowboy to clean up the streets — because limp-wristed political correctness ain’t gonna do it.

Can’t sip champagne and smoke dainty little cigarettes if Muslims are rioting around you.

Official figures released early on Monday said demonstrators set fire to 367 cars and injured 28 policemen across France, and 270 people were arrested in the violent protests against the tough-talking former interior minister.

Sarkozy made his name as a law-and-order hardliner who also tightened France’s immigration laws, making him a hate figure for the left. Slogans spray-painted on the streets of Paris overnight included “Sarkozy fascist.”

He is also a controversial figure in France’s poor and multi-ethnic suburbs, where nationwide riots erupted in 2005.

At the time Sarkozy branded the troublemakers as scum.

If the shoe fits…

Since many whites are casually referred to (mostly by the Hollywood-set) as “trash” for no greater offense than simply being poor, uneducated and living in trailer parks, it’s hard to argue with calling people “scum” who resort to violence and chaos by setting cars on fire, committing burglary, assualt and murder, and other violent actions within a country.

Reports and eyewitness accounts suggested the violence was worse than the official statistics indicated because they did not include other incidents such as petrol bomb attacks on buses near Paris or smashed up shop fronts in large cities.

The national tally was also at odds with local figures. Paris officials said 33 police were injured in the capital alone.
. . .

Youths went on the rampage in adjoining streets, smashing phone cabins and shop windows.

“Everyone got hit,” said Sophie Wolkowitch, whose pharmacy suffered 14,000 euros ($19,000) of damage.

Similar attacks were reported in the southeastern city of Lyon and the southern city of Toulouse. Bus shelters were smashed in the northern city of Lille and a school was set on fire in the Paris suburb of Evry.

In the northern department clustered around Lille, about 100 cars were torched, the fire brigade said.
. . .
Cars and shop windows were also damaged in Nantes while to the northwest, in Caen, four police were hurt and an attempt was made to set fire to the local office of Sarkozy’s UMP party.

In other news, Johnny Depp and Sean Penn were nowhere to be found. They must both be taking this very hard.

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This AP article is contradicted by Kathy Kersten article. Here’s what the AP article said:

Islamic religious law forbids the carrying of alcohol.

That’s a pretty definitive statement. It isn’t nuanced; there aren’t any qualifiers in it. Now let’s examine a paragraph from Ms. Kersten’s article:

“I was surprised and shocked when I heard it was an issue at the airport,” said Faysal Omar. “Back in Somalia, there was never any problem with taking alcohol in a taxi.” Jama Dirie said, “If a driver doesn’t pick up everyone, he should get his license canceled and get kicked out of the airport.”

According to actual Somali Muslims, carrying alcohol isn’t forbidden. According to the AP, it’s forbidden. Given the AP’s credibility problems, I think I’ll trust the Somali Muslims quoted in Kathy Kersten’s article.

The quote from the AP article is part of an article about the MAC’s hearing today. Here’s what happened:

A Metropolitan Airports Commission panel approved on Monday tougher penalties for cab drivers who refuse service to customers carrying alcohol. Airport officials say more than 70 percent of the cabbies at Twin Cities Airport are Muslim, and many refuse to take customers who have alcohol.

Islamic religious law forbids the carrying of alcohol.

Under the new penalties, a driver’s airport taxi license would be suspended for 30 days for the first offense and revoked for two years for a second offense.

Cab driver Abdinoor Dolal called the penalties punitive and asked commissioners to take a measured approach.

Commissioner Mike Landy said the commissioners have carefully weighed the issue. It passed on an unanimous voice vote.

The full commission was scheduled to vote on the matter later Monday.

It’s nice to see the MAC put its foot down. I’ve said before that giving in on this would set a bad precedent. If the MAC had given in on this, it isn’t that far-fetched to think that Muslim cabbies all over the Twin Cities would’ve tried expanding this rule to the entire Twin Cities. (more…)