Off for a week of much needed vacation.

Not nearly as much fun as it sounds. At least they have WiFi at the hospital.

Yet again, the smirking cowboy annoys lefties in the way only he can.

Was it the blood oil for palaces food scandal has deteriorated confidence in him? Or was it failure to stop genocide in Rwanda? Nope, this is the result of his whitewashing of a sexual harassment investigation against one of his deputees. The institution run by this guy is the one that lefty moonbats thinks can solve all the problems in the world?

Something is going on in North Korea. Hard to say what, just yet, but it can't be good for Dear Leader. I expect the asshats from ANSWER and their apologist Progressive brothers to protest any reduction in Kim's power or ability to waste more oxygen.

The Geneva Conventions provide rules governing warfare. The only one violating any of those rules in this story (the headline is bullshit, btw - the guy was not a prisoner) is the dead terrorist. He isn't wearing an identifiable uniform. He is holed up in a religious facility. He isn't surrendering - he is pretending to be dead for reasons unknown. Just days before, another Marine was killed when a "dead" terrorist blew himself up as the Marine was examing his body. Gee, now this Marine comes across another guy playing dead who isn't surrendering. Rather than wait for him to detonate a booby trap, he shot him. And the lefties are in a lather. Funny, just a few weeks ago they were defending John Kerry getting a medal for chasing down a wounded, unarmed, Viet Cong guerilla and killing him. Those who understand nothing of combat and even less of honor, should just shut the hell up unless they have facts that support the charges they are throwing around. Don't have any facts? Go read this and then STFU. If you are still confused as to what a war criminal is, read this, and then STFU some more.

update: the Corner has an email from a Marine that is a must read. The contents are in the extended entry.

Read More »

The Marines have a similar message for their murderers. Maybe the last line was for Kos, too.

Hat tip to Ace.

They aren't Iraqi and the real Iraqis or getting damn sick of them.

Aren't you blue staters supposed to be the smart people? Then why do you keep believing such obviously batshit stories like Bush stole the election by getting Jesusland to vote against gays? Damn inconvenient facts ruining such a good moonbat theory. You would have gotten away with it if it weren't for those meddling facts! Now quit being smug, condescending, douchebags and move to Canada like you promised threatened!

Many on the left couldn't let Ronald Reagan go gently into that good night with getting in one last vitriolic blast. His crime? Apparently he hated poor people, in spite of winning re-election in a landslide, which by definition would have required votes from some people who were probably poor. It is hard to keep up with the definition of poor since it changes depending on whether you are talking to some lefty about the problem of wealth concentration (only 2% have anything!), tax reform (the middle class majority is getting screwed!), or job creation (sure there are new jobs, but they are all at Taco Bell or picking vegetables for Taco Bell!).

But I digress. These people couldn't mark Reagan's passing with grudging respect, or maybe some minor acknowledgement, or at the very least, with silence. After all, he thought Communism was evil (gasp!), and even worse, that ketchup should be considered a vegetable when determining school lunch dietary guidelines. Compare that to the reaction to Yasser's death - the glorification, the weepful mourning, the lack of condemnation - from those same people - at the passing of Yasser Arafat, father of terrorism and murderer of children.

To summarize, Reagan helped free and save the lives of millions of people in a bloodless victory. Yasser invented modern terrorism. Which one do America's lefties imagine burning in hell again?

Remembering Yasser. Suha says "we'll always have Paris. Well, I will, anyway." Congratulations Rachel Corrie - this is what you died for.

Is that Bush won.

To those threatening to leave over the election results - You don't even have to put up, just shut up. Others are even willing to foot the bill. No takers? What a surprise. Gutless whiners.

From The Speculist:

I can't help but wonder - if two planets so close to each other are both experiencing a rise in surface temperature, isn't it just possible that it might have to do with that nearby star they both orbit? I'm just asking is all. I mean, what if...

Now wake the hell up.

This time from students in Saint Paul, Moonbatland Minnesota. Funny thing (in a sad way, not a ha-ha way) is that the Kerry supporters said only gays would vote for Bush. I thought the Moonbat conventional wisdom was that Jesusland was full of gay haters? True to form, the moonbats politely expressed their disagreement with the Bush supporters by beating them with baseball bats. Nice.

update: Christopher Hitchens notes that one party's followers do actually seem to consist of a large number of apologists for fundamentalist extremism in the expression of religious beliefs.

update: more facts about the effect of gay marriage amendments on the election with which to confound the Jesus jumpers and the Canada jumpers.

It seems that the moonbats think that they lost the election because the hicks in the sticks like Jesus and don't like gay marriage and not because of their own embrace of the likes of Michael Moore and other America haters.

Never mind that two of the states that passed anti-gay initiatives were blue states (Oregon and Michigan), or that Kerry was the one who spent the last few months campaigning in churches. Never mind that the exit poll questions were mind bogglingly worthelss. Was someone who voted based on morals talking about gay marriage? Or that they viewed on candidate as more honest? Or more concerned about genocide? Was asking if the most important issues was Iraq and having another question asking if the most important issue was terrorism falsely differeniating between the two, forcing those who think they are the same thing to choose when they really believe it is one issue and was the reason they voted for Bush?

While some earlier generations of moonbats would often become dazed and confused when confronted with facts, the new species seems unfazed. Fortunately, it appears that these new unfazed moonbats are now engrossed in the logistics of Canada migrating, secession planning, koolaid drinking get-togethers and shouldn't be of much concern. This document was obtained from a mole monitoring on of these clandestine sessions:

It isn't much cause for concern, though. What the moonbats don't realize is just how isolated their colonies are:

That is the advice DJ Drummon has for Gersh Kuntzman after getting a personal reply from Gersh to a post he had made. Really, the advice is good for all the tantrum throwing moonbats. Of course, they won't take it, being tantrum throwing moonbats and all.

Maybe they will take comfort, as do I, in the confirmation of the rumor that John Ashcroft is stepping down as Attorney General.

Is that what we are hearing from the far left when they try to claim that this election is the result of backwards homophobic red state rednecks? David Brooks thinks so.

I think it is going to be important for the President and the people of this country to start talking to instead of at each other again. Many are suggesting that President Bush needs to reach out to the Left to make this happen. Wrong. The Left needs to do the reaching out to middle America. A lot of people voted, and one side won, fairly handily if you look at the totality of the Senate, House, Gubernatorial, and Presidential elections. The Left lost after running a very vitriolic campaign and needs to do the reaching out right now. The Republicans won by reaching out to middle America and welcoming them to their newly erected Big Tent. The outcome of this election, however, holds a clear message for both the Left and the Right:

For the Loyal Oppositionists on the Left: You need to do the reaching out. You spewed hatred and venom for the last year or tacitly approved of those who did - insulting anyone and everyone that disagreed with you as stupid, backward, and Nazi-like. You don't get someone to reach out to you by comparing them to Hitler or embracing those who do. Middle America isn't swayed by the politics of hate - from either party. Your fellow Americans are not the enemy. Interanalize that first word in the label "Loyal Opposition." Bush reached out to Libertarians, conservative Democrats, and those concerned about national security and terrorism more than any other issue - and he won an election with the highest turnout in history. Nobody can argue that the populace was not motivated this time around. This was a repudiation of the politics of hatred and smears. The faster you distance yourselves from 9/11 conspiracists, Kitty Kelly, Michael Moore, and the like, the sooner you will be trusted again by those in the middle who are turned off by that nonsense. If you really needs those crutches to keep your base motivated, you have bigger problems than I thought.

For the Big Tent Republicans: keep the implicit promises made to those who came over to help elect President Bush, the promise to be a more inclusive party, to be uniters and not dividers. The election was not won by the religious right alone and they had better understand that. Only a few million votes out of over 100 million separate the "values" on the left from the "values" on the right. Those of you on the religious right need to realize that you are not a majority even in your own party. If you start speaking as if the election were a mandate for religious beliefs to be passed into law and for an ultra-conservative agenda to be enacted, you are going to see the the Big Tent empty out and collapse in the next national election, and it will be a long damn time (if ever) until you can convince us to come back. Don't doubt this. Think about what a weak candidate Kerry was. Think about the fact that the economy is improving. Think about the fact that we were attacked on our own soil and that our President responded decisively and effectively and there have been no further attacks. Then think about how close he came to losing the election. The Big Tent is the only way to remain nationally relevant.

From the Daily Dish:

We are often caught up in a moment to see how good we really have it. I am one who believes that civil marriage is the ONLY way to have equal rights for gay Americans in the US. That said I am not the least bit surprised with the losses in all 11 states -- I expected it!

We live in a wonderfully diverse country, and I know that some do not appreciate my "lifestyle", but that has not hindered me from having a satisfying life. There are many forms of bigotry and hatred, we just can not allow those fears to blind the path to success. I am now 45 years old -- If you would have told me back in college (1980) that I would be living openly as a gay American, with a successful career and a wonderful partner of over eleven years - I do not think that I would have thought that possible.

Social change is a gradual process-- different in every society - push too hard and you get "don't ask don't tell" - or the hateful "Defense of Marriage Act" - and now the the current losses. John Kerry or the Democratic party is not the place that gay America should be placing all their faith in the future -- they will surely be disappointed. Bill Clinton signed 'don't ask don't tell" twelve years ago! - A huge setback.

I for one, am very grateful for the social freedoms that I have, and look forward to the expansion of them that will naturally come in the future. I have nothing but optimism on this front, and fully except to see civil marriage in my lifetime."

From another Daily Dish reader:

"You are wrong. Gays were NOT the issue. I'm a born again Christian, (raised Baptist, then Pentecostal!) Morals were my deciding factor also. Not anything to do with "gay" I live next door to San Francisco and have gay family and dear friends since 1976. BEFORE it was cool. BEFORE it accepted like it is today, I have had 4 friends die of AIDS.

The morals I cared about? A president who meant what he said. A man who is faithful to his wife. A man who doesn't pander to Hollywood. A man who is not ashamed to say he prays and give credit to a higher power, who helps him. A man who doesn't try to please all the people all the time. A man who shares my deeply held belief about freedom and what a GREAT country America is, and someone who knew Saddam Hussein has murdered 400,000 innocent men, women and children. I did not care if there were weapons of mass destruction, Saddam himself was a weapon of mass destruction. We are better off today, with this man gone from power, who can argue that? Who are these people that say we should have not gone in there, I thought we should of done this YEARS ago." I hope this emailer is representative (although I fear she is not of many in the organized religious right). I agree with much of it. And I'm sick and tired of having the notion of homosexuality being disassociated from "moral values." Homosexuality, like heterosexuality, is morally neutral. And the fight for gay marriage is about celebrating the difficult moral tasks of fidelity and love and commitment and responsibility. I wish we gays could find common cause with more Christians in exactly this kind of endeavor. And I know that many of us have. But the fear of both sides has caused this great and painful rift. I pray that enough people of good will can overcome their fear and help to heal it.

Fuck me?

No, fuck you.

Fixing politics - Lifelong Democrat The Backseat Philosopher gets it.

The mainsteam media working in cahoots with the Kerry campaign to suppress the Republican vote? And having the audacity to blame bloggers? This should be investigated.

Boycott these junkmailing bastards.

Ashcroft may be resigning from Bush's cabinet.

Arafat may be is resigning from the planet. Click here to get a glimpse of the level of corruption embodied in this man.

I don't mean to conflate the two, but neither will be much missed by infidel cowboys.

update - a third piece of good news:

Please, please, please be true!!!!

There are a lot of post-mortems going on assessing who the winners and losers from this election. I submit that the American electorate is the biggest winner of all. Americans showed that when it really matters, they will get out and vote. They also showed that they know better to put much stock in the rantings of the fringe lunatics. Michael Moore made a movie with the sole purpose of defeating President Bush. Kitty Kelly authored a piece of trash tell all book with the same purpose. MoveOn compared Bush to Hitler. After being bombarded with all of this hatred, the electorate ignored it and voted based on the issues that were important to them.

Exit polling shows that the issues broke down pretty evenly between moral values, the economy, and the war. Noticeably absent was a sizable block saying they voted against Bush because he knew about 9/11 before hand and/or that he is a coke-head chimp faced Hitler. Unfortunately for Kerry, there was actually a backlash against that kind of idiotic rhetoric. Even though he was not responsible for it, it hurt him by association. Kind of like the Bin Laden video last Friday - Bin Laden ripping into Bush could only hurt Kerry. Kerry of course had his flaws, so did Bush. Yet both men got more people to vote for them than almost anyone who has ever run for president - because there are people who agree with the ideas embodied in them and their parties, not because of the rantings of madmen.

BTW, this business about this election being about rejecting gay marriage is getting old already. This election was NOT exclusively an endorsement of one candidates stance on moral issues. Sure, religious conservatives make up a portion of the coalition of interest groups in the Republican party - they also do in the Democrat party. Many are pointing out that moral issues edged out all other issues for most important among those that voted for Bush. That interpretation is faulty, however, if based on the common questions in the exit polls which treated Iraq and terrorism as separate issues. Both of those issues polled nearly as strongly individually as moral issues did. The important bit of information about that is that a majority of people see Iraq and terrorism as one issue - so it would be more accurate to say that the majority of people who voted for Bush listed the war on terrorism as the number one issue. InstaPundit has a roundup of links on this that is worth checking out if you are interested in more information.

What did the Dutch ever do to the Islamofascists? Muslims have been welcomed into that country and greeted with tolerance. But many refuse to return that tolerance or accept that Western culture values free speech. Film maker Theo Van Gogh was brutally murdered by Islamofascists for daring to make a film depicting the misogynistic tendencies of some practitioners of Islam.

The murder is part of a group that includes a man arrested for plotting attacks on a nuclear facility and an Amsterdam airport. Again, I ask, what did the Dutch do to deserve this? Bush is doing the right thing going after these people - there will be no peace through ignoring the threat or worse, yielding to it as Spain did and which finds itself facing threats of attack.

Update: compare the comments from the murdered in the story in the trackback ping from Memetank to the comments by the murderer of Theo Van Gogh. Seems a bit of a stretch to compare the two.

To Kerry for an eloquent and reasonably timely concession speech:

"America is not only great, it is good."

To Andrew Sullivan for expressing what should be the reaction of those who opposed President Bush with intellectual honesty:

But the most fundamental fact of this campaign - and one of the reasons it has been so bitter - is that we are at war. Our opponents at home are not our enemies. The real enemy is the Jihadist terror network that, even now, is murdering innocents and coalition soldiers in Iraq. Our job now - all of us - is to support this president in that war, to back those troops, and to pray for victory. We saw yesterday, in the cold-blooded murder of a Dutch film-maker for his open criticism of Islamist misogyny, that the enemy is still at large; and aiming directly at our freedoms and security. In Fallujah, our troops are poised for a vital battle against terrorists and theocrats intent on derailing a free future for Iraq. Democracy is on the line there and throughout the world. I've been more than a little frustrated by the president's handling of this war in the past year; but we have to draw a line under that now. The past is the past. And George W. Bush is our president. He deserves a fresh start, a chance to prove himself again, and the constructive criticism of those of us who decided to back his opponent. He needs our prayers and our support for the enormous tasks still ahead of him. He has mine. Unequivocally.

To those who voted their conscience instead of their hatred (see the 10/5 entry).

To the American populace for showing that it understands when a vote is important and for taking its civic duty seriously.

And finally, to President George W. Bush, whose leadership hasn't always been perfect, but hasn't gotten us through some pretty trying times and will hopefully lead us forward in a way befitting the honor bestowed upon him by the electorate.

Pink Floyd - Poles Apart

Did you know...it was all going to go so wrong for you
And did you see it was all going to be so right for me
Why did they tell you then
You were always the golden boy then
And that you'd never lose that light in your eyes

Hey you...did you ever realise what you'd become
And did you see that it wasn't only me you were running from
Did you know all the time but it never bothered you anyway
Leading the blind while I stared out the steel in your eyes

The rain fell slow, down on all the roofs of uncertainty
I thought of you and the years and all the sadness fell away from me
And did you know...

I never thought that you'd lose that light in your eyes

There is a certain species of stark raving mad lunatic barking moonbat out there whose rotting stinking carcass I am only to gleeful to spit upon. These people are beneath contempt and they are the ones responsible for the ugliness in politics today. I am talking about the rabid Bush haters who say he knew about 9/11 and did nothing, the Michael Moore's, the Kitty Kelly's with their slander, the Terry McCauliffe's with their AWOL bullshit, the Dan Rather's and the rest of the MSM media that decided that its job was to be Kerry campaign workers by relentlessy attacking Bush (even going so far as to use fraudulent documents) and puffing up Kerry, the Hollywood elitist tantrum throwers, the military hating Ted Rall's, the people tearing up campaign signs and shooting up campaign offices, the Geore Soros's and the Bush is Hitler MoveOn types, the Daily Kos's who think that their fellow Americans and the President are the enemy when there is a real enemy that we are at war with - FUCK YOU ALL! Quit trying to destroy the democratic process in this country with your politics of hatred. Convince people with your ideas or accept that your ideas aren't what the majority of people in this country want.

Sorry, I had to get that out of my system. Going forward, Infidel Cowboy will be on a crusade against the practitioners of the politics of hatred, intolerance, and personal destruction, regardless of who is practicing it. I feel that it is going to be important for President Bush and Congress to work together to make the United States more united. Bush is freed from the constraints of having to pander to religious extremists to win re-election. The Democrats have hopefully taken note of what pandering to their extremists has wrought. It is time for the intelligent rational people on both sides of the political divide to take back the debate.

Infidel Cowboy's Greatest Hits in the words of Pink Floyd

I was spending my time in the doldrums
I was caught in a couldron of hate
I felt persecuted and paralysed
I thought that everything else would just wait

While you are wasting your time on your enemies
Engulfed in a fever of spite
Beyond your tunnel vision reality fades
Like shadows into the night

To martyr yourself to caution
Is not going to help at all
Because there'll be no safety in numbers
When the right one walks out of the door

Can you see your days blighted by darkness?
Is it true you beat your fists on the floor?
Stuck in a world of isolation
While the ivy grows over the door

So I open my door to my enemies
And I ask could we wipe the slate clean
but they tell me to please go fuck myself
You know you just can't win

On the day the wall came down
They threw the locks onto the ground
And with glasses high we raised a cry for freedom had arrived
On the day the wall came down
The Ship of Fools had finally ran aground
Promises lit up the night light doves in flight

I dreamed you had left my side
No warmth, not even pride remained
And even though you needed me
It was clear that I could not do a thing for you

Now life devalues day by day
As friends and neighbors turn away
And there's a change that, even with regret, cannot be undone
Now frontiers shift like desert sands
While nations wash their bloodied hands
Of loyalty, of history, in shades of grey

I woke to the sound of drums
The music played, the morning sun streamed in
I turned and I looked at you
And all but the bitter residues slipped away...slipped away

-Pink Floyd

Watching the election results tonight, and flipping through ABC, CBS, and NBC; you could almost feel the disgust, coming through the screen, as the election results rolled in. Dan Rather looked like he wanted to beat someone with his cane. In the upcoming days we will be hearing how the evil bloggers threw the election to Bush. When are these people going to understand that they created the need for bloggers, because of the bias that they bombard their viewers with?

They bitch about Fox News being a voice for the Republican party, but it's still at least 5 against 1 when you factor in cable networks. I guess they call that a fair fight. Just a comment, I watched all the networks and George Stepanopolus is such a political lightweight, who did he sleep with to get his job?

Bush won Ohio and if the Democrats and their lawyers try to put us through another 2000, they are not going to gain any followers. Hopefully by the time this is printed, Kerry will have sucked it up and conceded, but I'm sure he needs to employ some trial lawyers as long as possible. We need to tell the world that America has spoken and if you are a terrorist, your life is worth naught, and will shortly end, unless you change your ways. We will stay the course in Iraq, which should be a great boost to the moral of the pro-American Iraqis. This gives a special message to Osama; that message is that time is running out, dude.

Exit polling was interesting in that it said that people were voting against Bush, not for Kerry. Kerry's message was that Bush is bad, America is bad, the military was bad in Vietnam and is even worse today, big business is bad, tax cuts are bad, healthcare is bad, rich people are... Did he ever say that anything in America was good, that our future was bright and held promise, that America is the superpower it is through it's hard work, moral values, and generosity we show around the world? What did he sell that was positive?

Dear Mr. Kerry,
When Nixon lost a close race to John F Kennedy during the height of the cold war, he conceded without a fight, because he put the needs of the nation ahead of personal ambition. He did what was right for the country. We are in just as dangerous a time, today. Please put your country ahead of your ambition, and call off the lawyers.