Anti-Americans Show Characteristic Unsportsmanlike Hatred

UPDATE: President Bush and Nationals win 3 -2.

On the opening day of the National League baseball season, President Bush attended and threw out the first pitch at the new between the Nationals and the Braves. Bobby Cox, Atlanta Braves manager was excited to play in the new stadium and that President Bush was going to be there.

Bobby Cox has seen the President throw out the first pitch on Opening Day before.

Nearly 40 years later, the Atlanta Braves manager is looking forward to being part of the spectacle again.

President George W. Bush is scheduled make the ceremonial toss on Sunday night as the Braves help Washington debut its new Nationals Park. In 1969, Cox was a member of the New York Yankees when President Richard M. Nixon did the first-pitch honors for the old Washington Senators.

"It'll be exciting," Cox said on Saturday, looking back as well as ahead. "I can still remember Nixon. This time, we'll have the President, plus a new stadium. I'm really looking forward to seeing that ballpark."

How incredibly boorish of the liberals in the stadium to boo when President Bush walked out.

Top of the second inning, Washington Nationals are leading 2 to 0.

President Bush was very enjoyable and conversational in the ESPN broadcasting booth chatting away about the ballpark, about the new stadium, and being a Texas Rangers fan. I can see the liberal loonies frothing at the mouth over his happy go-lucky manner, having images of Nero fiddling while Rome burned. What a world they live in.

Recession? Career Professions To Avoid

Take a look at the job market for 2009. Make note of any of the following professions to stay away from.

They can add mortgage brokers, bankers, hedge fund operators. Thank goodness I work for myself.

Gracias Les for the muy bueno laugh.

Lies Lies Everywhere Are Lies

Dick Morris, ex-confidant, advisor to the Clintons gives us background and facts on the lies that the pathological Hillary is trying to distort and elevate as her political career.

• Chelsea was jogging around the Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. (She was in bed watching it on TV.)
• Hillary was named after Sir Edmund Hillary. (She admitted she was wrong. He climbed Mt. Everest five years after her birth.)
• She was under sniper fire in Bosnia. (A girl presented her with flowers at the foot of the ramp.)
• She learned in The Wall Street Journal how to make a killing in the futures market. (It didn't cover the market back then.)

Whoppers She Won't Confess To

• She didn't know about the FALN pardons.
• She didn't know that her brothers were being paid to get pardons that Clinton granted.
• Taking the White House gifts was a clerical error.
• She didn't know that her staff would fire the travel office staff after she told them to do so.
• She didn't know that the Peter Paul fundraiser in Hollywood in 2000 cost $700,000 more than she reported it had.
• She opposed NAFTA at the time.
• She was instrumental in the Irish peace process.
• She urged Bill to intervene in Rwanda.
• She played a role in the '90s economic recovery.
• The billing records showed up on their own.
• She thought Bill was innocent when the Monica scandal broke.
• She was always a Yankees fan.
• She had nothing to do with the New Square Hasidic pardons (after they voted for her 1,400-12 and she attended a meeting at the White House about the pardons).
• She negotiated for the release of refugees in Macedonia (who were released the day before she got there).

Voting For Obama Not With Her Vagina

Who says feminazis aren't classy? How disgusting that a woman thinks that voting for any woman is a sign of weakness? Are vaginas weak, I dont' know... I've never thought of it.

I wonder how many aborted babies from Democratic social programs would agree with Marianne Williamson, spiritual New Age and Hollywood femme guru of the last twenty years.

Come to think of it? How many intelligent men would say "I'm not voting with my penis - I'm voting for Hillary." In this the 21st century, when hopefully you think the human race has come so far - we have ignorant women voting or not voting with their vaginas, blacks dealing with their racism and pseudo-victimization, and politicians being politicians.

Can't wait to hear Rush's perspective on this tomorrow.

Nothing Good Will Come Of It!

'A man who is not afraid of the sea

will soon be drownded,' he said,

'for he will be going out on a day he shouldn't.

But we do be afraid of the sea

and we only do be drownded now and again.'

John Millington Synge ~ The Aran Islands

Lá Fhéile Pádraig! Happy St. Patrick's Day! Don't you remember the television leprechauns on cereal boxes and Star Trek shows that can be magically delicious, jumping up and clicking their heels with mirth and glee but did you know that leprechauns and the bean sidhe (pronounced banshee) are not the best company to keep? The Irish known for their dour, dark ways, their empassioned songs and dire dirths, singing their nights away around a peat fire out among the sheep, or in a warm pub, but did you know they are good fun to be around?

My better half (who teaches medieval literature) gave me the following sage Irish advice to read and I couldn't stop laughing at the truth in the reasoning of Celtic ballads. I thought what better way to celebrate St. Paddy's Day than to give you "Making Light's" Jim MacDonald's cautionary advice on things in Celtic ballads that have helped him through life. Just remember: Nothing good will come of it.

• Don’t ignore warnings. If someone tells you to beware of Long Lankin, friggin’ beware of him. If someone tells you not to go by Carterhaugh, stay away. Same goes for your mother asking you not to go out hunting on a particular day. Portents about weather, particularly when delivered by an old sailor who is not currently chatting up a country maid, are always worth heeding.


• If someone says that he’s planning to kill you, believe him.
  
• If someone says he’s going to die, believe him.
  
• Avoid navigable waterways. Don’t let yourself be talked into going down by the wild rippling water, the wan water, the salt sea shore, the strand, the lowlands low, the Burning Thames, and any area where the grass grows green on the banks of some pool. Cliffs overlooking navigable waterways aren’t safe either.
  
• Broom, as in the plant, should be given a wide berth.
  Stay away from the greenwood side, too.
  
• Avoid situations where the obvious rhyme-word is “maidenhead.”
  
• If you look at the calendar and discover it’s May, stay home.
  
• The flowing bowl is best quaffed at home. Don’t drink with strangers. Don’t drink alone. Don’t toss the cups or pass the jar about in bars where you haven’t arranged to keep a tab. Drinks of unusual or uncertain provenance should be viewed askance, especially if you’re offered them by charming members of the opposite sex. Finally, never get drunk and pass out in a bar called the “Cape Horn.”
  
• Members of press gangs seldom tell the truth. Recruiting sergeants will fib to you shamelessly. They are not your friends, even if they’re buying the drinks. Especially when they’re buying the drinks.
  
• If you’re drinking toasts, mention your One True Love early and often.
  
• If you’re a young lady, dressing yourself in men’s array and joining the army or the navy has all sorts of comic possibilities, but you yourself aren’t going to find it too darned humorous at the time.
  
• If you are an unmarried lady and have sex, you will get pregnant. No good will come of it. If you are physically unable to get pregnant due to being male, the girl you had sex with will get pregnant. No good will come of it. You’ll either kill her, or she’ll kill herself, or her husband/brother/father/uncle/cousin will kill you both. In any case her Doleful Ghost will make sure everyone finds out. You will either get hanged, kill yourself, or be carried off bodily by Satan. Your last words will begin “Come all ye.”
  
• Going to sea to avoid marrying your sweetie is an option, but if she hangs herself after your departure (and it’s even money that she’s going to) her Doleful Ghost will arrive on board your ship and the last three stanzas of your life will purely suck.
  
• If you are a young gentleman who had sex it is possible the girl won’t get pregnant. In those rare instances you will either get Saint Cynthia’s Fire or the Great Pox instead. No good will have come of it.
  
• New York Girls, like Liverpool Judies, like the ladies of Limehouse, Yarmouth, Portsmouth, Gosport, and/or Baltimore, know how to show sailors a good time, if by “good time” you mean losing all your money, your clothes, and your dignity. Note: All of these places are near navigable waterways. In practical terms this means that if you’re a sailor you’re screwed (and so are any young ladies you happen to meet). See also: Great Pox; Doleful Ghost.
  
• If you are a young lady do not allow young men into your garden. Or let them steal your thyme. Or agree to handle their ramrods while they’re hunting the bonny brown hare. Cuckoo’s nests are right out. And never stand sae the back o’ yer dress is up agin the wa’ (for if ye do ye may safely say yer thing-a-ma-jig’s awa’).
  
• Never let a stranger teach you a new game. No good will come of it.
  
• Sharing a boyfriend with your sister is a bad plan.
  
• Having more than one True Love at a time is a non-starter.
  
• If you’re a brunette, give up. Not that being a blonde will improve the odds much.
  
• If your name is Janet, change it.
  
• If you are a young lady and an amorous soldier, sailor, ploughboy, blacksmith, cavalry officer, or other young man fails to stop the first time you tell him he’s being too bold, knock off the maidenly protests and take more direct measures. If saying “no” the first time didn’t stop him, you’ve no reason to believe that twice will work any better.
  
• Professions to be particularly wary of: clerks, salty sailors, serving maids, blacksmiths, highwaymen, gamblers, rank robbers, stonemasons, soldiers, tinkers, and millers. Anyone described as “jolly,” “bold,” or “saucy.” Supernatural creatures are best avoided. If they can’t be avoided, they should be addressed respectfully. If a supernatural creature sets you a task you’re well and truly screwed.
  
• If you are a young lady and a soldier promises to “marry you in the morn,” it means he’s already married. And has kids. And he’s not going to marry you anyway. Even if you’re pregnant. Which you will be.
  
• If you’re a young unmarried lady with child, and your pregnancy embarrasses or inconveniences someone else, consider yourself a sitting duck. Don’t meet with your young gentleman alone, or at odd hours, or in isolated locations, even if he says he’s taking you to be married. Next thing you know your Doleful Ghost will be telling your mother all about it. While he may say “Come all ye….” in the last stanza or two this will be small comfort.
  Young ladies who feel uneasy should always act on their feelings. If in your good opinion you fear some young man (however handsome, rich, and well-spoken) is some rake, depend upon it: He’s a rake. Rakes will protest that you have them all wrong. They’ll be fibbing. Never go anywhere with a rake, particularly to isolated spots. See above: Doleful Ghost.
  
• If you are a young lady and someone arrives to tell you that your boyfriend was slain on a foreign battlefield, take it with a grain of salt. Especially if you’re carrying a broken token.
  If a former significant other turns up unexpectedly after a long absence, don’t throw yourself into his/her arms right away.
  
• That goes double if they refuse to eat anything.
  
• Triple if they turn up at night and want you to leave with them immediately.
  
• Have nothing to do with former boyfriends who turn up and say it’s no big deal that you’re now married to someone else and have a child. If their intentions are legit, that’s got to be a problem. If it’s not a problem, their intentions are not legit.
  
• You are justified in cherishing the direst suspicions of a suddenly and unexpectedly returned significant other who mentions a long journey, a far shore, or a narrow bed, or who’s oddly skittish about the imminent arrival of cockcrow.
  
• If you are a young lady and you meet a young man who says his name is “Ramble Away,” don’t be surprised if, by the time you know you’re pregnant, it turns out he’s moved and left no forwarding address.
  
• A fellow who’s a massively accomplished flirt hasn’t been spending his time sitting around waiting for his One True Love to come along. Furthermore, odds are poor that you’ll turn out to be his One True Love who will reform him.
  
• If you arrange an assignation with your new sweetie, a little foot page will be listening in and will carry the news to exactly the last person you’d want to hear the story.
  
• If your girlfriend insists that you go back to sleep after some odd sound woke you, it’s time to dive out the window and run for the hills right then.
  
• If you’re hiding in the hills, don’t inform anyone exactly where you’re sleeping, particularly not an attractive member of the opposite sex.
  
• If your girlfriend serves eels in eel broo, make sure you see her eat some first.
  
• Informing your current significant other that you’re about to be wed to someone else is … risky. Even if you’re doing it as a joke, or to test their love. Especially if you’re doing it as a joke or to test their love. Testing someone’s love in general isn’t too bright.
  
• Not even sending a talking goshawk to tell your significant other that the engagement is off will help you. You’re going to find yourself at the bottom of a well full fifty fathoms deep. A Doleful Ghost may get involved.
  
• If, after you inform your current significant other that you’re to be wed to someone else, he or she suggests that the two of you meet in some lonely spot for one last fling, do not go.
  Inviting your old flame to your wedding is a bad idea.
  
• If your old flame invites you to his/her wedding, leave town.
  
• If your old flame shows up uninvited at your wedding, start eyeing the exits. There’s a chance he/she is a Doleful Ghost. Be that as it may, no good will come of it.
  
• If you’re out hunting, make sure of your sight picture before you pull the trigger/loose your bow. Especially so if you’re near a navigable waterway or the greenwoodside.
  
• Do not allow the words “I wish” to pass your lips.
  
• Avoid oaths, particularly when you’re near navigable waterways or the greenwoodside.
  
• If the jailer indicates his willingness to take your gay gold ring to carry a message to your sweetheart, see if he’ll take that same gay gold ring to leave the door open and look the other way for five minutes while you or the sweetheart (as appropriate) escape.
• Always use the buddy system. “Bare is brotherless back,” as Grettir the Strong put it; and if Grettir was worried about going places alone, you’d better worry too. So bring a friend with you. Friends keep bad things from happening. If things go badly anyway, you’ll need their help. And if things go well (hey, it could happen), it’ll be nice to have a friend along to share the laughs.

Now, take some time to visit Jim MacDonald's blog to see the 400+ comments, ballad lyrics, and hilarious Celtic humor, along with some serious ballad links if you are so inclined. As you know: Nothing good will come of it but you never know. You really don't. Hey, come on?!!??? You're not that cynical and dour, are ye?

St. Patrick's Day Moves

Reading The Landscape

Irish Gaelic Gains Official European Union Status

The History of St. Patrick's Day

Official St. Patrick's Day 2008

Great Irish Website

Irish Folk Culture

Wolftones Ballad Group

UPDATE: Who's Watching The Vatican? Thou Shalt Not Call The Kettle Black

UPDATE: Now the Vatican is denying that it had seven new sins. including paedophilia, pollution, being too rich, and cloning. The conference maintained that it was the opinion of Bishop Gianfranco Girotti not the Vatican and was misinterpreted by the media. Don't church officials have to get permission before speaking to the media?

Reports that the Vatican has published a new list of the seven deadly sins of modern times that includes littering and economic inequality is simply not true, affirmed the episcopal conference of England and Wales. The conference released a statement today clarifying that an interview published Sunday by L'Osservatore Romano with Bishop Gianfranco Girotti, regent of the tribunal of he Apostolic Penitentiary, was misinterpreted in the media as an official Vatican update to the seven deadly sins, laid out by Pope Gregory the Great in the sixth century."

The Vatican has not published a new list of seven deadly sins; this is not a new Vatican edict," said the conference. "

The story originated from an interview that Bishop Gianfranco Girotti gave to the L'Osservatore Romano in which he was questioned about new forms of social sins in this age of globalization."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In a move to modernize the ten commandments, Monsignor Gianfranco Girotti has given his opinion on the new sins. Now what possibly could be a sin these days?

You got it: Capitalism, Free Enterprise, and the infamous Inconvenient Truth: Pollution. The ivory tower church official stated, let me paraphrase: "Its' a sin for the pot to call the kettle black" when asked about the church's own scandalous sins, referring to the media's attack on the Catholic Church's as discrediting it. I'm sorry but the Church did that to themselves, not the media. There were many sins committed in the paedophilia cases by many church officials.

Also receiving fresh attention by the Vatican was social injustice, along the lines of the age-old maxim: "The rich get richer while the poor get poorer."

It couldn't be because socialism and welfare are bad for people? Although not biblical scripture, it's an intrinsic truth that "God helps those who help themselves."

In the Vatican's latest update on how God's law is being violated in today's world, Monsignor Gianfranco Girotti, the head of the Apostolic Penitentiary, was asked by the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano what, in his opinion, are the "new sins."

He cited "violations of the basic rights of human nature" through genetic manipulation, drugs that "weaken the mind and cloud intelligence," and the imbalance between the rich and the poor.

"If yesterday sin had a rather individualistic dimension, today it has a weight, a resonance, that's especially social, rather than individual," said Girotti, whose office deals with matters of conscience and grants absolution.

So, it's not the Devil made me do it, it's blame everybody for the sins of one. Where is the common sense of Aesop's Fables of the ant and grasshopper when you need it?

It's not the first time that the Vatican has sought to put a modern spin on sin. Last year, the Vatican took on the problem of highway accidents, issuing a kind of "Ten Commandments" for drivers against the sins of road rage, alcohol abuse and even rudeness behind the wheel.

I would love to see a poll of priests saying that road rage and rudeness behind the wheel have taken over the top spots on the confessional list. I doubt it.

Vatican officials, however, stressed that Girotti's comments broke no new ground on what constitutes sin.

On the environment, both Pope Benedict XVI and the late Pope John Paul II frequently expressed concern about the fate of the Earth. During Benedict's papacy, Vatican engineers have developed plans for some Holy See buildings to use solar energy, including photovoltaic cells on the roof of the auditorium for pilgrims' audiences with the pontiff.

While it's good to see the Church upgrade it's technology to derive financial benefit from solar energy, Environmentalism has become sanctified. It is the new religion of liberals.

John Paul also dedicated much of his long papacy to condemning the gap between have and have-nots in speeches in his travels throughout the world as well as in writings.

"The poor are always becoming poorer and the rich ever more rich, feeding unsustainable social injustice," Girotti said in the interview published Sunday.

Jesus said the poor will always be with us, here as well. I would like to see the Church living more humbly and less palatial, giving us the example we need to be more Christ-like. It's easy to say "You do it."

Closer to home, Girotti was asked about the many "situations of scandal and sin within the church," in what appeared to be a reference to allegations in the United States and other countries of sexual abuse by clergy of minors and the coverups by hierarchy.

The monsignor acknowledged the "objective gravity" of the allegations, but contended that the heavy coverage by mass media of the scandals must also be denounced because it "discredits the church."

The response to the paedophilia turpitude question was incredulous! Is this official saying that the media is sinful as well in trying to discredit the Catholic Church because the Church tried to hide its sins? But that's exactly what the Catholic Church did - and tried to pay its way out of its own crimes.

Benedict has been leading the Vatican's campaign against abortion, and Girotti was asked about the "widespread perception" that the church doesn't consider the "difficult" predicament for women.

Girotti rejected that view, saying that Catholic organizations help unwed mothers, educating "their children who come into the worth because of their lack of foresight" and facilitating adoption.

If the Church was truly serious in modernizing sins, rather than giving us "hip" service, it would declare that giving birth was worthy of receiving sacramental grace. Women would have higher respect for being co-creators of life, equal with men in their ability to have seven sacraments in which to obtain grace, and maybe young girls would have more respect for themselves and young boys would know the impact of staying virginal and keep themselves for marriage.

That would bring the Church and the issue of modern day sins into the 21st century - not choosing cafeteria solutions to modern day interpretation of mankind's sins.

UPDATE - Witty Zoo & Tiglet Too

UPDATE: I posted this awwwww-inspiring post in 2006. Well, it turns out that this story wasn't the whole hog. Urban Legends.About.com has the facts.

Comments: The photos above are genuine, but there is more to this story than meets the eye.

To begin with, the snapshots were taken at the Sriracha Tiger Zoo in Chonburi, Thailand (near Bangkok), not some nameless zoo in California. Moreover, it would appear that the sad tale of the tigress falling into a deep depression after losing a litter of cubs was fabricated, as was the claim that the piglets were substituted for the deceased cubs by zookeepers in order to console the "mourning mother."

As it happens, this sort of intermingling of species is not at all unusual at the Sriracha Tiger Zoo, where "creating successful relationships with animals of different species" is something of a guiding principle. The facility, more accurately described as part zoo and part circus, boasts offbeat attractions like basketball-playing elephants, "lady crocodile wrestlers," and a petting zoo where customers can bottle-feed baby tigers with their own bare hands. Visitors have reported seeing tigers, pigs, and dogs all housed together within the same enclosure, with sows nursing tiger cubs and tigresses nursing piglets "adorned in tiger-print costumes."

The costumes are strictly for show, by the way. The mother tiger pictured above, who has been photographed on other occasions suckling piglets au naturel, was herself nursed by a pig in infancy and apparently regards the other species as family, not prey.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We all know the heart felt loss when a mother loses their baby shortly after birth. It seems that animals go through the same depression when they experience a death of their litter.
This tiger was overwrought and sinking into deep depression after losing premature triplets, when the zoo came up with the idea to put little piglets in her cage to nurse. The tiger mother took to them completely since she too was nursed by a pig as a cub.

She came out of her depression and is doing fine. The piglets don't have to wear those tiger pj's for Momma tiger to love them. She takes care of the cubs as if they were her own fur and blood.

Okay, I'm not going to make any horrible references to delicious pigs in a blanket.

Part II - Voting For Obama And Friends? Think Again...

Welcome Conservative Beach Girl, Cathlete, and Rezkorama readers!

Part II - A reader, RMY writes and says:

It seems that the mansion and the lot next door were available but Obama could only buy the house ($1.65m) and the seller wanted to close both simultaneously. So, as a favor, Rezko's wife purchased the vacant lot, closing the deal on the same day and deeding the property to Obama.

This makes him one of the people. Obama's problems in life have been typical of the poverty-stricken unemployed in the United States that allows him to understand their experiences. Remember Obama is running on change. Changing the ethical climate in Washington, D.C.

So this is the real story but the NPR version: Obama Land Deal Clouds Senator's Image doesn't even mention that the investor is Syrian immigrant Rezko and his wife's links to slumlording while being chummy and charitable to Democrat politicians.

While Obama was president of the Harvard Law Review, Rezko's firm offered Obama a job. When Obama first ran for the Illinois Senate in 1996, Rezko was among his first political donors. And when Obama ran for the U.S. Senate, Rezko was a major fundraiser.

On the same day that Obama purchased a stately South Side mansion for $1.65 million in 2005, Rezko's wife, Rita, closed on a $625,000 vacant lot next door. In January 2006, Obama paid Rezko $104,500 to purchase part of the vacant lot to expand his own yard.

The Sun-Times reported that Rezko donated to Obama at the same time residents were without heat at one of the troubled properties operated by Rezko's firm, Rezmar Corp. The firm received taxpayer help to rehab 30 buildings, including 11 in Obama's state legislative district on the South Side.

Obama said in the interview Monday that he was unaware of the scope of properties owned by Rezmar or the problems surrounding them. He said none of the affected residents personally sought his help and that aides at his state Senate district office did not recall any inquiries. Still, he said it was "possible" that during his tenure in the legislature that a constituent may have written or called his office "saying, 'We're in a building, and we're unhappy with the service here."

Chicago Sun Times cites Sma' Talk Wi' T.

--------------------------------------------------------

If you thought Bill Clinton's under the desk set and disappearing friends, either deceased or jailed, was scandalous, just wait till Barack Obama's White House guest list becomes public knowledge. Investor's Business Daily fills us in:

Hillary Clinton may have been casting the first stone in a recent debate when she blasted Obama's cozy relationship with Syrian immigrant and "slumlord" Rezko, who rose to become a player in Chicago and Illinois politics. But she was right on target.

Rezko was among Obama's earliest supporters. In 1995, when Obama ran for a seat in the Illinois Senate, Rezko, through two of his companies, gave Obama $2,000. Obama won election in 1996 in a district that coincidentally included 11 of Rezko's 30 low-income housing projects.

In 2003, when Obama said he'd run for the U.S. Senate, Rezko held a lavish fundraiser at his Wilmette, Ill., mansion. Rezko has raised a lot of money for Obama, who is returning $150,000 raised by Rezko and his associates and is giving $72,650 in Rezko contributions to charity.

Rezko is known by the Chicago press as a "fixer" who can make things happen for a price. Little is done out of the goodness of his heart. He's on trial for bilking up to $6 million from the people of Illinois through kickbacks while working for the administration of current Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Did Rezko find jobs for Obama supporters? That is one of the questions the Chicago press wanted to ask before Obama cut short a recent press conference.

--------------------------------------------------

An interesting sidebar to the deal was that just weeks before, an Iraqi billionaire by the name of Nadhmi Auchi, who has a French conviction for corruption to his credit, had loaned Rezko $3.5 million through the Panamanian company Fintrade Services FA.

A 2004 Pentagon report obtained by the Washington Times identified Auchi as a global arms dealer and Iraqi billionaire "who, behind the facade of legitimate business, served as Saddam Hussein's principle international financial manipulator and bag man."

The report states that "significant and credible evidence has been developed that Nadhmi Auchi has engaged in unlawful activities" such as bribing "foreign governments and individuals prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom to turn opinion against the American-led mission to remove Saddam Hussein." He also helped "arrange for significant theft from the U.N. Oil-for-Food Program to smuggle weapons and dual-use technology into Iraq."

Yet Auchi, despite his French conviction and other activities, was somehow able to get permission to come to Chicago in 2004. John Batchelor of Human Events says that in April 2004 Auchi met with Rezko, Gov. Blagojevich, State Senate President Emil Jones Jr. and reportedly then-state Sen. Obama, who'd just won the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination.

----------------------------------------

Why would an Iraqi billionaire, a "fixer" like Rezko and a Saddam protege, be interested in a rising U.S. politician who was also opposed to the ousting of Hussein by U.S. forces? Why would that billionaire lend that much money to Obama's fundraiser, Rezko, with the two buying adjacent properties from the same seller on the same day?

Among Obama's circle of friends is William C. Ayers, currently a professor of education at the University of Chicago and a former aide to Chicago's current mayor, Richard M. Daley. He served with Obama on the board of the Woods Fund of Chicago.
Back in the 1970s he was known simply as Bill Ayers, a terrorist with the Weathermen who was quoted in the New York Times as finding "a certain eloquence in bombs." Married to fellow Weathermen terrorist Bernadine Dohrn, he writes openly about his role in the 1974 bombing of the U.S. Capitol Building.

His memoirs appeared in the New York Times, oddly enough, on Sept. 11, 2001. In them, he wrote: "I don't regret setting bombs. I feel we didn't do enough." Does Barack Obama agree? Or will he denounce these words of his friend as he did with Louis Farrakhan after Farrakhan's endorsement of Obama?

If liberals are so delusionally rabid about Cheney's Haliburton connections and George Bush's oil connections, how oblivious to Obama's closet of scandalous skeletons will they be? Read all of Investor's Business Daily's details for the facts.

Must Read ~~> Hugh Hewitt along with Kithbridge is on the trail of Obama shenagins.

Democrat Governor Caught In Prostitution Crime Ring

Where are the liberal MSM's wanting New York Democrat Governor Eliot Spitzer to resign immediately!!!??!!! Where is the vitriole from the DNC like they had for Tom Delay and Trent Lott???? This isn't just a little blow job under the desk - this is a prostitution ring with ties to the mob. Spitzer wasn't just a customer, he's been linked to the underworld, susceptible to being a blackmail pawn for the crimelords.

Hillary's Camp Mum Why isn't Hillary screaming at Spitzer "Why won't you tell us what you knew and when did you know it?" But instead she said: "I don't have any comment on that. Obviously I am sending my best wishes and thoughts to the governor and to his family." Awww, she's sending best wishes to Spitzer. Of course, she knows exactly how Spitzer's wife feels. Maybe she could loan her a couple of lamps to break over her husband's head. Maybe Spitzer's wife should make him announce that he's gay, too. That would relieve her of all responsibilities of the marriage.

You won't hear anything from the Republicans on this - not because they know they're not perfect either (there but for the grace of God go I ) but because Republicans don't wallow in another's human being's demise. I just wish the Democrats would respond in kind.

Hillary's Broke Back In Wyoming Mountains

Democrat Delegate Counts

Republican Delegate Counts

Hillary's aching back having to force this presidential election in her favor. Barack Obama winning in Wyoming on Saturday with 5,378 votes for a total of 61%, while Hillary Clinton eked by with 3,312 votes, only 38%.

Today on Meet The Press, Tom Daschle, former Senate Majority Leader, (D-SD) supported Barack Obama, while Pennsylvania's governor, Ed Rendell, (D-PA) supported Hillary Clinton. I can't stomach Daschle's bottom line that Obama brings out the voters. Obama has won in 29 states while Hillary has only won in 13 states.

Hillary seemed so pathetic when she stated this weekend that "voting for both [Obama and Clinton] may be possible someday." I have never seen an election where the second runner up is taunting the lead candidate for co-presidency. She would never be vice president and she won't let him do anything that will make her look bad. She's losing and she's acting as if she's winning. Governor Rendell saying that Hillary Clinton is better prepared than Bill Clinton when he ran for presidency is ludicrous.

This is going to be a sick election. I can't help but shudder.

Hillary Luring Obama With Vice Presidency?

Have you heard the saying "Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer?" Hillary's actions this weekend epitomize her willingness to sell her lackluster soul to win the White House. In an absolute example of hypocrisy, Hillary (who lost the primary in Wyoming on Saturday) says Obama doesn't have the experience to be president but she now wants him to be her Vice President?

Hillary and Bill Clinton are again teaming up on Barack Obama -- this time saying the first-term U.S. lawmaker, whom they have derided as inexperienced, would be a strong running mate on a Democratic presidential ticket headed by the former first lady.

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"The Clintons are in a difficult position," said Dennis Goldford, a political science professor at Drake University in Iowa, who has tracked the presidential race.

"If she wins the Democratic presidential nomination, she would need Obama's supporters. But she needs to be careful. If this talk of him on the ticket is seen as a cynical maneuver, it could backfire and hurt her," Goldford said.

Former Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota, an Obama backer, mocked the idea.

"It may be the first time in history that the person who is running number two would offer the person running number one the number two position," Daschle told "Meet the Press."

Hillary won't take no for an answer if she loses in next month's primaries.

Obama needs to fight back.

Add to Hillary's mythical claims of being named after Sir Edmund Hillary that she helped bring peace to Northern Ireland. Nobel Peace Prize winner, Lord Trimble of Lisnagarvey, calls her a "wee bit silly" but it's really pathological lying that affects Hillary Clinton and her husband, Bill.

How can Obama or the United States voters trust anything Hillary says she will do?

Spring Training - Dodgers Beat The Red Sox

Spring Training Dodgers Vs Red Sox - Holman Stadium

Today was a beautiful day for spring training in Vero Beach. Holman Stadium had it's 17 year record broken by 9,293 attendance, highest in its history. Score was 3 - 0 with no scores after the first inning's three run homer by outfielder #27 Matt Kemp. Tommy LaSorda was even there, albeit in a Slim-Less uniform.

Dick Morris Confirms Hillary's Political Death

UPDATE: Obama Wins Wyoming

Obama had 59 percent, or 4,459 votes, to Clinton's 40 percent, or 3,081 votes, with 22 of 23 Wyoming counties reporting.

Obama won seven delegates and Clinton won five. In the overall race for the nomination, Obama led 1,578-1,468, according to the latest tally by The Associated Press. It will take 2,025 delegates to win the Democratic nomination.

Dick Morris, former advisor for Bill Clinton, autopsied Hillary's gasping victory in last week's primary.

The real message of Tuesday’s primaries is not that Hillary won. It’s that she didn’t win by enough.

The race is over.

The results are already clear. Obama will go to the Democratic Convention with a lead of between 100 and 200 elected delegates. The remaining question is: What will the superdelegates do then? But is that really a question? Will the leaders of the Democratic Party be complicit in its destruction? Will they really kindle a civil war by denying the nomination to the man who won the most elected delegates? No way. They well understand that to do so would be to throw away the party’s chances of victory and to stigmatize it among African-Americans and young people for the rest of their lives. The Democratic Party took 20 years to recover from the traumas of 1968 and it is not about to trigger a similar bloodletting this year.

His autopsy report concludes it's all over but the rigor mortis. Is he correct? Well, despite being political savvy, Morris hasn't always been right. I would like to see Hillary go down in flames politically, but I also understand the Obama wave heading for the shoreline. It's not a wave but a tsunami. A President Obama will be devastating for the country, economically and socially. It will bring about socialism, more welfare, more abortions, and less self-responsibility. And who will pay? The forgotten man. You and me.

It's bittersweet thinking that Hillary won't be in the race to beat. Or will she?

Previous Posts:

A Possible Hillary/Obama Deal

A Possible Clinton/Obama Deal

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton will have to make a deal on who will get the Democratic nomination or they will destroy the Democratic Party. Given the nature of the candidates, their supporters and their party, there appears to be only one way they can do it: Clinton takes the nomination now, and the super delegates guarantee support for Obama the next time around.

Hillary Clinton will do anything to claim the power of the presidency, including destroy the Democratic Party. She and Bill never cared how poorly their party fared as the cost of their rise to power, and their desperate attempts to cling to it once there. If she loses this time, she and her husband will be history.

Barack Obama wants just as desperately to be president. While time will only make him a stronger candidate, this campaign has been lightning in a bottle. Who knows if his popularity will remain strong enough for a second run. The nomination, and the office of the presidency, are so close he can taste it.

So the already internecine warfare already going on in the Democratic party is only going to intensify without a deal. The Democratic party has for a couple of decades only been able to win national elections on the basis of appeals to victim hood based on race, gender and economic status, so the resulting chaos at the Democratic convention seems inevitable no matter who loses the nomination.

So what is a liberal Democrat politician to do? There is only one way out, bribe Obama to quit, and use the Florida and Michigan delegations to cover the deal. Neither candidate can win a majority of pleged delegates. With the result now depending on backroom deals with "super" delegates, Obama does not really have a chance. The Democratic Party's leaders know they cannot talk Clinton out of destroying the party in her search for power. When she won the Texas and Ohio primaries, any hope that she would voluntarily quit evaporated. This is her one shot. Her and Bill's power in the party came from winning. A loss of this magnitude will free those who have been chafing under their arrogant control for over a decade and they will never be a serious factor again.

Obama is another story though. His political career has really just started. He wants to be president, maybe as much as Clinton. But just a few years ago he said himself that he was not ready. And that will be the basis for the deal.

The Democratic super delegates will meet with Obama, and pledge him their unconditional support in 2012 if Hillary loses this election, or 2016 if she wins. They will have a good case. He is a phenomenon right now, but he is vulnerable in the general election on two principal issues: experience and his overwhelmingly liberal voting record. If Obama faces McCain now, his claims to be someone who crosses the aisle to get things done will be met with citations to his overwhelmingly liberal voting record in the Senate.

Letting the party survive now will give him both the super delegates' promises of support in the future, and even more importantly the time to gain experience, whether as a vice president or Senator. He will also have time to learn the Clinton art of triangulation. As a vice president, he could even be given the chance to work with liberal Republicans on a host of minor issues creating the appearance of bipartisanship. As a senator, he could still vote as liberal as ever on major issues, while again pushing for the appearance of bipartisanship on lesser matters. In a later run for the presidency he would not have to worry about alienating the net roots because he is already established as a rock star type personality and they wil know his true nature as a "dyed in the wool" liberal. Plus he will have the backing of all those party hacks formerly known as super delegates. Obama will see that it is better to have the full party's support in 4 or 8 years, rather than be seen as one of two egomaniacs who wrecked the party for a decade. The Democratic leadership would love to have a more experienced, more "nuanced" Obama as their candidate, without Clinton as an albatross around everyone's neck.

The question is how to do this without Obama looking like the complete sellout he would actually be. His fan base is...well...fanatical. It does no good to bribe someone if you destroy his credibility in the process. The risk would be that his supporters would still man the barricades at the Democratic convention and beyond, throwing the election to McCain.

Democrats have to make it look like Clinton won the nomination fair an square, on the basis of the primaries not a backroom deal. The answer is Michigan and Florida. The Democrats can not simply seat those delegations and give Clinton a lead in delegates and votes. They will have to have a re-vote, timed for when Clinton's popularity has recovered. If Clinton can win even a one vote edge in either the popular vote or the delegate count, that will provide the fig leaf for the deal. Obama could then be offered the vice presidency, perhaps with a prior understanding that he will respectfully decline, while pledging his support to Clinton and urging his delegates to vote for her. She will have the nomination, and he will be guaranteed the next slot in line.

Clinton has been laying the groundwork for this deal for some time. Her remarks at the last debate about it being an "honor" to campaign alongside Obama, and the later floating of the possibility of Obama being her vice president, cleared the way for the deal. No matter how much Clinton savages Obama to keep him from winning a clear victory in the meantime, she has already laid out the first installment she is willing to pay.

How will we know if the deal has been done? Easy. Clinton will never abide by the rules everyone agreed to before Michigan and Florida voted. Those results are her only chance to get even a slim lead in votes or delegates. Obama will not agree to re-running the primaries while Clinton's poll numbers are climbing back because he is impossible to catch now. He won't risk running in states that are exactly the kind Clinton has won, particularly with her poll numbers are rising.

Any deal on Florida and Michigan that has the support of both Clinton and Obama will mean they both know that the results of those votes are irrelevant to the outcome, and have accepted it. Which will mean they have agreed to let Hillary win, with Obama next in line. On the other hand, if the blood bath that seems to be looming starts in earnest when the Michigan/Florida issue is resolved, then we will know that there was no deal and the real fun will begin.

Politics' Most Embarrassing Question: Are You Still In?

With all the ado about Hillary and Obama, with McCain waving from the White House side door - has anyone even had a thought of Ron Paul? No, not the 70's porn star... that's Ron Jeremy. I mean Ron Paul, the liberatarian flake who wants the military to pull out immediately, allow unpasteurized milk to be sold, and talks about seeing aliens. Wait - that last one is Dennis Kucinich's neurosis. Yes, Ron Paul has reared his ugly head to make noise for one final climax.

GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul is hinting to supporters that he is ending his long-shot campaign for the presidency.

The Texas Republican congressman addressed supporters in a 7 1/2- minute video on his campaign Web site Thursday night and did not specifically say he was quitting the race.

He said that although victory in the conventional political sense is not available in the presidential race, many victories have been achieved due to the hard work and enthusiasm of his supporters.

He said that he hoped that one day he and his supporters could look back and say his campaign was a significant first step that signaled a change in direction for the country.

Paul said their job now was to plan for the next phase of their effort.

Next effort????? Goodness gracious, is Ron Paul the new Ralph Nader?

French Burglars Know Culture When They See It

A thief in Paris planned to steal some paintings from the Louvre. After careful planning, he got past security, stole the paintings and made it safely to his van. However, he was captured only two blocks away when his van ran out of gas. When asked by police how he could mastermind such a crime and make such an obvious error, he replied, "Monsieur that is the reason I stole the paintings...

I had no Monet...

To buy Degas...

To make the VanGogh...

I did not have DeGaulle to work honestly...

and I have nothing Toulouse.

The gendarmes shook their head and led the thief away.

Padre Pio's Body Exhumed

After 40 years since his death, Padre Pio is being exhumed again for display.

The body of the Capuchin friar, who was said to have had the stigmata -- the wounds of Christ's crucifixion -- on his hands and feet -- is to be conserved and put in a part-glass coffin for at least several months from April 24.

A Church statement said the body was in "fair condition", particularly the hands, which Archbishop Domenico D'Ambrosio, who witnessed the exhumation in the southern Italian town where Pio died, said "looked like they had just undergone a manicure".

A spokesman for the monastery at San Giovanni Rotondo said he believed morticians would be able to conserve the face of the bearded monk well enough for it to be recognizable.

Having to use morticians to preserve, I mean, conserve Padre Pio's face, means his body isn't incorruptible, it's just that the body is not being allowed to decompose naturally.

No rest for the saintly either it seems.

Incorruptibles

St. Bernadette

Top 10 Incorrupt Corpses - Best line "Okay, someone has to say it: I see dead people."

Relics and the Incorruptibles

Magnificent Corpses: Searching Through Europe for St. Peter's Head, St. Claire's Heart, St. Stephens' Hand And Other Saintly Relics. This is a wonderful, irreverent traipse through European medieval churches and relics. Reading Magnificent Corpses, I vaciliated between sacrilegious laughing and being aghast at the visuals Rufus invoked. It's not science here folks, not academic, just wonderful reading and laughing at one's own religious history. I also learned to be conscious of what I was wearing and doing when visiting Catholic tourist locales.

Nazi Hall Monitors

Toccata, fellow blogger extraordinaire, has been ordered to stop trying to research if a landscaping company's Hispanic employees are legally in this country. Threatened by an ominous letter with a cc to an attorney just to prove they are serious, Toccata is stunned.

How did this woman know that I called the head gardener? More of this story will unfold. She has not returned my 2 phone calls of today. But I'll just sum up by saying this letter tried to infringe on my first amendment right of free speech, infringe on my right of free association, accused me of trying to talk to the workers--I didn't--hey! they don't speak English!--but would that have been illegal anyway? My conversation with the landscape contractor was referred to as "invasive research" yet I was told the gardeners were hired because of their "superiority in the field." I wonder if they had to do "invasive research" to discover how splendid these gardeners are?

Read the rest of Toccata's adventure. What would you do?