The repository of one hard-boiled egg from the south suburbs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin (and the occassional guest-blogger). The ramblings within may or may not offend, shock and awe you, but they are what I (or my guest-bloggers) think.
(H/T – Bryan)
Back in February, the House had to cancel a hearing on Gorebal Warming because of too much snow. Now, it’s the Senate’s turn to cause a significant snowfall in DC by having a committee schedule a vote on a “cap-and-trade” on carbon dioxide emissions to shove Kyoto through the sphincter…
Wednesday: Snow likely. Cloudy, with a high near 36. South wind 5 to 8 mph becoming east. Chance of precipitation is 60%. New snow accumulation of 1 to 3 inches possible.
The last step to getting The Blogfather’s blog up to full blogging standards happened recently with the restoration of the archives. Congrats, WTMJ web monkeys.
Editor’s note; as you can tell, I’ve once again got nothing.
Today is not the second Tuesday of the month, so you have a week to clear off your calendars for December 11. As always, a bunch of us right-wing co-conspirators will be gathering at Papa’s Social Club, 7718 W Burleigh in Milwaukee, at 7 pm on the 11th to prove once again…
It’s not about being right, it’s about being drinking!
(H/T – AndrewsDad/Ace of Spades HQ)
When said Democratic aide is fired several hours after being arrested for attempting to solicit sex from a minor:
WASHINGTON (AP) – A former aide to Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., was in federal custody after being arrested on a charge of attempting to sexually exploit a minor.
James Michael McHaney was fired Friday from his job as a scheduler for Cantwell, hours after he was arrested by FBI agents. The FBI said in court papers that McHaney is accused of trying to set up a meeting with a witness posing online as a teenage boy.
Does anybody really think that the AP would have used “former” had Cantwell been a Republican?
(H/T – LGF)
Or so says the unclassified version of a fresh National Intelligence Estimate. I’m certain the Left half of the blogosphere, like the media already has, is seizing upon the opening phrase of the ‘Key Judgements’ section – “We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons
program;…”. Allow me to point out a couple of key equivocations.
The first is the footnote to that phrase – “For the purposes of this Estimate, by ‘nuclear weapons program’ we mean Iran’s nuclear weapon design and weaponization work and covert uranium conversion-related and uranium enrichment-related work; we do not mean Iran’s declared civil work related to uranium conversion and enrichment.” Given that the particular method of “declared civil work” selected by the Iranians is at the least approximating one of the popular methods used to create weapons-grade uranium rather than simply the much-less-militarily-useful reactor-grade uranium, I have to strongly question the claim that the program has been completely stopped.
The second is the phrase immediately following – “…we also assess with moderate-to-high confidence that Tehran at a minimum is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons.” That is an understatement. Judging by what the Iranians have claimed about that “declared civil work” noted above, Iran has transitioned the semi-open portion of its nuclear program to a “turn-key” nuclear weapons program, requiring upon full implementation simply a directive to assemble nuclear weapons.
Interestingly, the NIE notes that the Iranians had spent “considerable effort from at least the late 1980s to 2003 to develop such weapons.” I don’t exactly remember hearing too much about the Iranian nuclear weapon program until after the fall of 2003. Related to that time frame, I also remember another WMD program not in a country that started with an “I” that very-publicly stopped, rather than the covert “stop” the Iranian program supposedly had, right about that 2003 timeframe, and that stoppage was directly attributed to a unique certain event that happened in 2003.
This part is chilling; “We do not have sufficient intelligence to judge confidently whether Tehran is willing to maintain the halt of its nuclear weapons program indefinitely while it weighs its options, or whether it will or already has set specific deadlines or criteria that will prompt it to restart the program.” Given that a possible American pincers movement from Iraq and Afghanistan undoubtedly weighed in on the “cost-benefit approach” the NIE claims the Iranians are using, given the kick-the-can-down-the-road assessment of 2010-2015 for sufficient HEU uranium, and given the claim that Iran was spending “considerable effort” on its nuclear program through the 1990s, I’ll guess that the election of a Democrat or Ron Paul would be all the criteria Iran would need to resume a full “Manhattan Project” program.
The laugh of the day, however, comes from point F, which says that the Iranians might use covert facilities, had in fact used covert facilities in the past, and stopped using covert facilities in 2003. Wasn’t that the assessment of North Korea’s nuclear program between 1994 and 2002, which was completely invalidated by the discovery of said covert facilties and their use between 1994 and 2002?
Revisions/extensions (4:48 pm 12/3/2007) – There’s a lot more linkage to the Right half’s react over at Hot Air.
Revisions/extensions (7:02 pm 12/2/2007) – D’OH! I transposed Detroit’s and Minnesota’s division records, so it’s not quite official yet.
I’ll admit it; I was way the hell wrong about the Packers this year. I was way the hell wrong about Mike McCarthy (alternately known as E. Michael McCanthy). I was even wrong about Ted (Wile E.) Thompson.
Because the Vikings beat the Lions early today, and the Giants came all the way back to beat the Bears, the Green Bay Packers are our 2007 NFC North champions will finish no worse than tied for first in the NFC North.
1. Green Bay, 10-2
2. Minnesota, 6-6
3. Detroit, 6-6
4. Chicago, 5-7
The tiebreakers situation (direct from the NFL):
– Green Bay holds the head-to-head sweep against Minnesota.
– Green Bay has clinched the conference record tiebreaker against Detroit (at worst a 7-5 conference record for Green Bay, at best a 6-6 conference record for Detroit; they would finish split in the season series, identical 3-3 division records and identical 7-5 records against common opponents if both teams finished at 10-6).
– If it is a two-way tie between Detroit and Green Bay, Detroit would hold the better division record (4-2 versus 3-3).
– Green Bay has clinched the head-to-head-to-head against Minnesota and Detroit (Green Bay would be no worse than 3-1, Detroit would be no better than 2-2, and Minnesota finished at 1-3). I am uncertain whether this would give the Packers the division or bring it back to a 2-team tiebreaker.
(H/T – Allahpundit)
Wednesday, I brought you the news that the Virginia Republican Party was planning to have voters in its Presidential primary sign “loyalty oaths” promising to vote for whoever the Republican candidate was come November. Never mind (from the Washington Post):
Virginia Republican leaders decided yesterday to scrap plans to require voters to sign a loyalty pledge before they cast their ballots in the Feb. 12 presidential primary.
The decision by the 86-member Virginia Republican State Central Committee, meeting in Crystal City, came after a public outcry over the pledge and mounting concern among party leaders that it could drive independents and moderate Republicans away from GOP candidates.
The story goes on to note previous Virginia Republican efforts to require “loyalty oaths”. It would be interesting to see if the Virginia Democrats have had a similar bent. As I said before, if they can’t stand an open primary paid for by the taxpayers of Virginia, go to caucuses paid for by the parties.
I may not get the traffic Owen and Jed do over at Boots and Sabers, but the warning still holds. Various law-enforcement agencies do read their blog, and I do get a generous amount of traffic, which may well include some of those agencies, that originates over there. One of those agencies twigged onto a comment left on one of Owen’s posts, and took very decisive action against that commenter. While I believe the authorities overreacted in this case by arresting that individual, it does go to prove that you are not anonymous on the Internet.
Related to that, I have updated the General Policies page.
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