Going Out In Style

Only in England: Tube drinks party sparks mayhem

Thousands of people have marked the banning of alcohol on London transport with a party that ended with arrests, assaults and cancelled trains.

Drinkers, many in fancy dress, gathered on Tube trains and station concourses in a last celebration before the ban came into force at midnight.

But police said what should have been a fun event came to an "unfortunate" end.

Six Tube stations were closed, while police made 17 arrests. Six assaults were reported on Tube staff and police.

There were also numerous reports of damage to Tube trains, which led to suspended services.

I've been to London, but I have to admit the first thing I said when I read this story was, "You could drink on the Tube? Really?"

Luckily, British folk from everywhere were ready to send the old tradition out with a little class:

Peter Moore, 35, a sailor from Brighton, said he had downed a can of beer in 10 seconds. "It's sweaty on there, but I'm going round and round until I vomit," he said.

It's the sort of thing that would bring a tear to Peter O'Toole's eye.

Out With The "Chicago" Way

There is a bipartisan effort on way in Illinois to curb the rampant corruption of the executive branch. Good on 'em: Bill a slap at Blagojevich

In a scathing, bipartisan slap at Gov. Rod Blagojevich, the Illinois Legislature today unanimously sent him a bill to outlaw a controversial method of fundraising that has brought him millions of campaign dollars, and all but dared him to veto it.

``We need to send him a very strong message . . . that we’re taking the government back,’’ said state Rep. Jack Franks, D-Woodstock, before the House unanimously voted to prohibit campaign contributions from state contractors to the elected officials who hold their contracts. ``We have to end the cycle of corruption. We have to end government-by-cronyism.’’

The bill would prohibit entities holding more than $50,000 in state contracts from giving political donations to the elected officials who sign their contracts. It would go into effect Jan. 1.

The Senate had earlier unanimously passed the bill, meaning it now goes to Blagojevich.

The Democratic governor has previously hinted he might veto the bill on grounds that its reforms don’t go far enough. His critics say that’s an excuse to preserve a form of campaign fundraising that he has employed more successfully than most. Blagojevich’s record-setting fundraising has come largely through millions of dollars in contributions from hundreds of state contractors whose contracts were awarded or maintained by his administration.

It is amazing that Blagojevich has almost stopped trying not to seem corrupt anymore. No one believes him and he knows it.

Weakness

How badly is Obama doing right now? Wisconsin looks more and more like a knock down, drag out fight all the time. That would be fine for the Democrats were this, say, 1999 or even 2003, but during a time of Democratic ascendency this is pretty dire.

Obama is a Democratic drag...in more ways than one.

The Very Definition Of "Not Getting It"

Some, I'll be charitable and call them "observers" are attempting to say that this:



is the equivalent of this:



Just another reason why Obama is heading for an embarrassing loss in November.

What?

You know, you can read a lot of stuff on the web that is ill considered or poorly worded. However, there are other times you read stuff where folks say exactly what they mean, but shouldn't have. Case in point from Michael Kinsley: Don't Link Obama to Former Radicals

Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, best known recently as friends of Barack Obama, disappeared in 1969 after two of their colleagues in the Weather Underground died while building a bomb. Ayers and Dohrn spent 11 years setting off bombs and putting out statements threatening violent revolution. They promised to kill innocent Americans and praised the lunatic murderer Charles Manson.

...

Ayers and Dohrn never posed any real threat to U.S. national security. Their asinine chatter about killing people and their anti-American sloganeering were as ineffective as their bombs. But they did real harm. Their victims were liberals:

...

But in a bigger way, the joke is on the rest of us. We thought they meant what they said.[emphasis added]

Yeah, I mean how dare they not carry out the murderous plans they talked about.

I mean, liberals expected so much more from them.

Hey Look! Obama's "New" Politics In Action

Thank God Obama is changing the political culture. I'd hate to think it was the same old crapola.

Who The Hell Believes This?

Another advisor has "disappointed" Barack Obama:

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) said in a statement he was "deeply disappointed" in Father Michael Pfleger, after the priest --in a scene caught on videotape-- mocked Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y) from the pulpit of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago--the home church of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

“As I have traveled this country, I've been impressed not by what divides us, but by all that that unites us. That is why I am deeply disappointed in Father Pfleger's divisive, backward-looking rhetoric, which doesn't reflect the country I see or the desire of people across America to come together in common cause," Obama said in a statement.

Why is it that everyone that Obama has praised as a "force for good" in his past turns out to be a freakin' lunatic? How did they ever impress Obama when he claims he never heard a word they said?

For chissakes, the only person from Obama's past that he has gone out front to discredit is his elderly grandmother.

Oh, c'mon.

Tell Me She Didn't

"Hello Mouth, meet Foot. Foot, may I present Mouth?" Pelosi Credits Iran for Surge Success

In an interview yesterday with the San Francisco Chronicle, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi claimed the U.S. troop surge failed to accomplish its goal. She then partially credited the success of the troop surge to “the goodwill of the Iranians,” claiming that they were responsible for ending violence in the southern city of Basra.

This is so dumb, from every possible perspective, that it beggars belief.

A Priest As Moron

Doesn't this guy have a Bishop around to at least attempt to keep the Catholic Church away from such garbage?

When Worlds Collide

I usually keep my blogging activities here strictly separate from my sports blogging over at (Get) A Sporting Life. This isn't merely because of the differences in topics discussed, but also because I try to run a PG shop here (ok, ok...PG-13), while over at GASL I swear like a ballet dancer.

But, I do have a post over there that touches upon the political, so if you have a strong constitution you can check out Bullshit In Washington (Shocking, I Know).

More Suspicions That Sneak

Drezner has a run down on the potential for Al Qaeda's running down: Al Qaeda is losing

Last week, we saw quantitative evidence that terrorist tactics in general -- and Al Qaeda in partcular -- appears to be on the wane.

This week, there's some qualitative evidence that Al Qaeda is losing, and losing badly, among its core constituency -- Muslims sympathetic to the cause of jihad.

Do Democrats still want to surrender?

Career Plagiarist Dislikes Bloggers

Evidently bloggers don't steal other people's work enough to suit the tastes of Mike Barnicle.

It amazes me that a profession populated by so many people with journalism "degrees" can be so full of itself.

Want to impress me? Go back to school and get a degree in a real major.

A Sneaking Suspicion

I suspect we have recently won the war in Iraq.

Alright, who wants to stand up and lose the peace?

"He's Making It Up As He Goes Along!"

Ace Of Spades seemed to pick up on it first: Obama rewrites WWII history

In one of his more egregious and easily demonstrated lies, made even more so by the day he decided to let it loose on, Obama has rewritten WWII history such that the allies liberated Auschwitz.

...Obama also spoke about his uncle, who was part of the American brigade that helped to liberate Auschwitz...

Auschwitz of course is in Poland. It was liberated by the Red Army on Jan 27 1945. Poland, on most maps is usually placed to the east of Germany, although we may need to investigate the geography textbooks the Messiah used as a child...

The Allies were wrapping up the battle of the bulge in late January of 1945 -- the Rhine crossings were still well into the future when Auschwitz was liberated. The first, the Remagen railway bridge which was discovered intact, was crossed on March 7 1945.

This would be easy to chalk up as yet another case of the dreaded "misspeak" if it were not for the fact that Obama had done it before. Here is Obama's speech against going to war with Iraq:

My grandfather signed up for a war the day after Pearl Harbor was bombed, fought in Patton's army. He saw the dead and dying across the fields of Europe; he heard the stories of fellow troops who first entered Auschwitz and Treblinka.

As Newsmax put it back in April:

All this would be great if it weren't pure fiction. For starters, the Nazis destroyed the Treblinka death camp in 1943 after shooting the last prisoners, a group of Jewish girls.

Then there is the problem of the locations of Treblinka and Auschwitz. Both Nazi death camps were located inside Poland. Thus, no American troops ever entered the camps until years after the war was over.

Auschwitz was taken by the Soviet Union after the Nazis evacuated most of the prisoners. The retreating Nazis left those too weak or sick to walk behind. The 322nd Rifle Division of the Red Army liberated them on Jan. 27 1945.

So unless Obama's Grandfather was working for Joe Stalin, liberating Europe in a Soviet Army uniform, he was not likely to hear stories about Auschwitz or Treblinka from his fellow soldiers.

I hadn't read Obama's Iraq war speech before, but it sure is telling. Here are the first individuals in the Bush administration that Obama critcizes:

What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other armchair, weekend warriors in this administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne.

Really, before critcizing Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rove or, even, Bush, Obama mentions Perle and Wolfowitz. Why would he do that I wonder??

Gee, could the answer be what Perle and Wolfowitz have in common with each other that they do not share with Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rove or Bush?

(Pssst...they are both Jewish.)

Kinda makes Obama's attempt to link his family history to the liberation of the death camps even more sickening.

This Is Inspiring?

I know Bush's lack of eloquence may have lowered the bar a bit over the years, but how does one get fired up about stuff like this? Obama says won't guarantee Ahmadinejad a meeting

Obama, the Democratic Party front-runner vying to face Republican Sen. John McCain in the November race for the White House, has said he was willing to meet with leaders of countries such as Iran, Syria, Cuba and Venezuela without preconditions.

McCain has criticized that view, saying that sitting down with someone like Ahmadinejad would give the Iranian president a spotlight and send the wrong signal to U.S. allies such as Israel.

Iran does not recognize Israel's existence and Ahmadinejad has called the country a "stinking corpse."

Obama, an Illinois senator, said Iranian presidential elections in 2009 would be a factor in the timing of any meetings, as would considerations of who wields the power.

"There's no reason why we would necessarily meet with Ahmadinejad before we know that he was actually in power. He's not the most powerful person in Iran," Obama told reporters while campaigning in New Mexico.

Oh, I'm sorry. I thought your saying you will meet with anyone without preconditions was the enunciation a principle, when what it really meant was you will not presuppose the name of the actual leader involved.

Oh, good God almighty.