Is it not enough that as the father of a two year-old, I already hear “Hot Potato” by The Wiggles in my sleep, that now Special K has to use it for their idiotic diet commercials?
Month: January 2006
MacBook Pro.
MacBook Pro.
MacBook Pro.
MacBook Pro.
How soon do you think it will take for a spoof ad to show up that shows the new Intel-powered Macintosh portable, with the golden arches in place of the Apple logo, and the tagline “Do you want fries with that?”
I realize this may be part of some new marketing scheme by our favorite fruit company to get “Mac” into all of its Macintosh product names. It’s just shocking that Steve and Company would ditch “PowerBook,” which has for so long almost been a brand unto itself, not unlike “iPod”.
A Patriot Post reader:
In their eagerness to inflict as much damage as possible to the Bush administration record, the Democrats once again are being reckless with the truth and with national security. Some say that the president is spying on American citizens. The president has made clear from the start that the wiretaps were limited to targeting communications from outside the country to individuals in the U.S. with known links to terrorist groups. It’s not an “unreasonable search” to look for the bad guys when fighting international terrorism. The Democrats don’t have a leg to stand on in this issue…and they know it.
How can the Democrats in all honesty criticize the president for intelligence failures and then attack him for being too aggressive in doing surveillance? How do you explain dismantling protections in the midst of a terror war? The Democrats by their duplicity are playing a very dangerous game that could derail the president’s strategy to defeat a
deadly enemy. The Fourth Amendment to the constitution protects its citizens from “unreasonable searches and seizures” but who will protect us from “unreasonable” self-serving, seditious and self-destructive politicians?” –Fredericktown, Ohio
Dana Priest of The Washington Post sounds shocked – shocked! – to discover that George W. Bush ordered a complete remobilization and reinvigoration of the CIA immediately after September 11th:
The effort President Bush authorized shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, to fight al-Qaida has grown into the largest CIA covert-action program since the height of the Cold War, expanding in size and ambition despite a growing outcry at home and abroad over clandestine tactics…
This is news? Isn’t this just what W. told the country he would do in the aftermath of September 11th?
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Apparently W. meant it. According to the Post’s Ms. Priest, the president signed an order six days after September 11th empowering American intelligence agencies in a way not seen since the Second World War.
Gosh, just as if we had suffered a surprise attack and thousands of our people had been killed in a second Pearl Harbor.
Do you think maybe the president decided to fight this like a world war because, far ahead of his critics, he realized we were in one?
What do the senior senator from Massachusetts and quadruple murderer Stanley “Tookie” Williams have in common? The Associated Press provides one answer:
Meet the latest children’s author, Sen. Ted Kennedy, and his Portuguese Water Dog, Splash, his co-protagonist in “My Senator and Me: A Dogs-Eye View of Washington, D.C.”
Scholastic Inc. will release the book in May.
So Ted Kennedy has a dog named Splash? How witty.
Mary Jo Kopechne’s children could not be reached for comment.
I would be more excited about Google Pack if (a) the Google-specific apps worked with Mac OS; (b) I didn’t already have some of these apps, or equivalents, installed on my wife’s PC; and (c) if she had any interest in the ones that are not installed.
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I believe John is being very kind when he describes the latest shots of Windows Vista as “really ugly”. My reaction contained the type of words my mother told me were not nice to say aloud. Or even think.
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Speaking of his Gruberness, it doesn’t sound as though he’s impressed with Kodak’s new logo either. I know I’m not. That font is hideous.
Ron Moore, creator and executive producer of the best show on television, shares his favorite science-fiction tomes.
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From the “You’ve Got to Be Kidding Me” Department
“Hi, we’re Western Digital. Since our hard drives are slightly above average in performance and reliability, rather than making them top-notch, the industry’s best, we thought we would throw our research and development in to making clear cases for the drives, so you can see the inner workings…”
It actually is a rather impressive drive, specification-wise. I just prefer Seagates, when I can get them.
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From the “You’ve Got to Be Kidding Me” Department: Part Two
The mail arrived at the house today at approximately one o’clock this afternoon. I know this only because I was walking down the stairs at that moment, and saw the postal worker depositing today’s mail in our box.
Within today’s delivery was my latest order from the BMG music club of which I am still a member. I don’t order from them very often, waiting for the really good sales they have from time to time, but that’s not really the point here.
The point is that at approximately two-thirty, an hour and a half after I pulled the order out of the mailbox, an e-mail from BMG hit my In box, informing me my order had shipped.
Way to stay on top of things, guys.
Tim Beyers ruminates that if the rumors are true, and Google is set to introduce either a low-priced computer running the “Google OS”, or roll out the Google Pack software package, or a for-pay video download service, or any combination of the above, this could drive more Windows users in to the open arms of Macintosh.
Today’s featured article on OpinionJournal, while highlighting the Abramoff ugliness, shows why many conservatives, this one included, are relatively unhappy with the Republicans in Congress:
The party that swept to power on term limits, spending restraint and reform has become the party of incumbency, 6,371 highway-bill “earmarks,” and K Street. And it’s no defense to say that Democrats would do the same. Of course Democrats would, but then they’ve always claimed to be the party of government. If that’s what voters want, they’ll choose the real thing.
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Republicans won’t escape voter anger by writing new rules but only by returning to their self-professed principles. Gradually since 1994 they’ve decided they want to reform and limit government less than they want to use government to entrench their own power, and in the case of the Abramoffs to get rich doing so. If Speaker Dennis Hastert, interim Majority Leader Roy Blunt and other GOP leaders are too insulated to realize this, then Republicans need new leaders, and right away.
What’s the adage, “Lead or get out of the way”? That’s what the Republican congressional leadership needs to do. Show some backbone and lead, or let a willing someone step up and take over. There should be no more talk of DeLay returning to the Majority Leader position. Even if Mr. DeLay is found to be completely innocent (and in the case of the Texas charges, I believe he is), he has been tainted by allowing himself to be put in that position in the first place. Mr. Blunt or another Republican congressman needs to be named the new Majority Leader, so the floundering of the party can be put to a stop.
The Republican Party, lead by Reagan, and then briefly from ’94-98 by Gingrich, was the party of smaller government. This message resonated with the American people, and this put and kept the Republicans in power so long as they abided by that message. If Republicans are so interested in remaining in power, as the OpinionJournal piece opines, perhaps they should look to their recent past.
Not content to see the U.S. surrender in Iraq, the “peace” activists want us to lose in our own hemisphere as well. Notes Mary Anastasia O’Grady:
Congressional proposals to cut and run from Iraq are not the only dumb ideas emanating from Capitol Hill that threaten the security of Americans. Another is the insistence that the U.S. should stop its training efforts to increase the professionalism of Latin American militaries.
Since the late 1940s, the U.S. has operated a training facility at Fort Benning, Georgia for Latin American soldiers. Prior to 2000, it was known as the School of the Americas (SOA). Today it is the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, or Whinsec. Some 60,000 Latin military professionals have come through the two schools in the past six decades to improve their warfare skills while imbibing U.S. respect for democratic values.
In a region flush with political instability and insurgent activity, promoting military professionalism among our Latin allies might seem like a good idea. But Rep. Jim McGovern, a Massachusetts Democrat, and 122 other House members have a problem with Whinsec. In March 2005, Mr. McGovern sponsored House Resolution 1217, which called for a suspension of the Whinsec program and an investigation of human rights violations that it allegedly contributed to.
It might be tempting to climb on board this “peace train” if not for the low credibility of Mr. McGovern and his activist admirers. The National Journal recently named the Massachusetts congressional delegation the most liberal in the nation and Mr. McGovern one of its most liberal members. Not incidentally, many of those demanding that Whinsec be shut down on “human rights” grounds are wholesale opponents of U.S. policy in the region.
One of the favorite targets of our adorable pacifists is the Colombian military, which a Gallup poll two years ago found was the most respected institution in that war-torn country with an 87% positive image (beating even the Church). Since Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has committed to raising the professionalism of Colombia’s armed forces, the country’s bloodthirsty guerrillas have been set back on their heels. That seems to make Mr. McGovern’s supporters very unhappy.
There is also the habit of linking U.S. training to any misdeed committed by any individual that passed through the school. For example, SOA Watch, a Web site dedicated to closing Whinsec, blames the killing of a leader in the “peace community” on “troops commanded by General Luis Alfonso Zapata Uribe.” Whether that’s true or not is a matter for Colombian investigators. However, as evidence of U.S. complicity, SOA Watch cites Gen. Zapata Uribe’s SOA attendance. What it doesn’t mention is that he was there for six weeks in 1976 just after cadet school, according to Whinsec records. Even if Gen. Zapata Uribe — who may well be innocent — did spend six weeks in Georgia 30 years ago, does that really have any bearing on what constitutes good U.S. policy in the region today?
The notion that the U.S. should simply withdraw from military relationships in Latin America, abandoning not only alliances but also its role in promoting a U.S. human rights agenda, is about as stupid as, well, the Democratic idea of withdrawing from Iraq.