Now this is ridiculous.

Rush gets to say “See I told you so” so often he might as well patent the phrase.

Another thing he’s fond of saying is that jokes he tells about liberals end up becoming true surprisingly often. This is one of those, and incredibly, it took only about four hours to unfold.

From Rush’s program today, at about 1:40 Eastern Time on the port controversy (go to last paragraph at link; link will work until about 6PM on Tuesday, and then will go behind Rush’s subscription firewall):

Well, I have the compromise solution. Here you go, folks, for those of you out there that have problems with this. There’s only one entity that can bring peace to this whole deal. There is only one entity that we know could successfully run these operations, and that is Halliburton. Now, if somebody could persuade whoever it is that’s running Halliburton to intercede on behalf of America… (laughing) Ooh, would not that be great? Wouldn’t you love to see the steam? There would be calls, “This is a Rove trick. This is a Bush trick!” They knew that this would never go; they knew the American people would never stand for the UAE buying these ports. So Halliburton comes. “It was a trick all along! It was a trick all along, and now Halliburton’s going to get a steal of a deal,” blah, blah. I would love it. It’s one of those things that would make my week if Halliburton comes to the rescue.

I thought what he said was fall-over funny when he said it.

That shows what I know. Sometime during the 5PM ET hour on Fox News’s “Big Story,” John Gibson interviewed New York Senator Chuck Schumer (video HT Michelle Malkin):

Gibson: Suppose it is a Bechtel or Halliburton, that comes in and says ,”Well, we can operate that thing. Are you going to object —

Schumer: If they can do the best job and they get the contract on the merits, absolutely not.

Like Michelle says, “Chuck Schumer Hearts Halliburton.”

Those howls you’ll be hearing in the night will be lefty blogs and commenters wailing and gnashing their teeth over yet another “betrayal.”

I can’t miss the irony of mentioning an article by Gary Aldrich (HT to an e-mail from S.O.B. Alliance member Weapons of Mass Discussion) on a day when the supposedly hot topic is the Bush Administration’s “penchant for secrecy” — a phrase used by my count no fewer, and probably a lot more, than five different times by five different people in five different venues. The former president who uttered today’s talking-points phrase was the subject of a best-selling book by Mr. Aldrich in 1996 called “Unlimited Access,” which revealed over and over that administration’s obsessive “penchant for secrecy,” from enabling employees in trusted positions to avoid necessary background and security checks to installing a phone system in The White House designed (probably illegally) to block (i.e., keep secret) caller record detail.

Enough history. Aldrich is the Founder and current Director The Patrick Henry Center for Individual Liberty and a columnist for Townhall.com. His latest column gives a deserved rip to the addition of yet another government agency to the already incomprehensible pile, and to the site’s doublespeak:

Do you ever get the sinking feeling when reading a serious piece that the author didn’t realize the implication of his words? One is immediately stricken with such sentiment when having a glance at the website detailing a new Bush administration initiative called “expectmore.gov.”

….. Yes, government corruption, redundancy, power-hoarding, and plain bureaucratic idiocy are all grave problems. But think of the proposed solution—it takes a simple logical reduction to see that the prescription here is to combat ineffective and wasteful government programs with…another government program. Shouldn’t a flag go up if a surgeon proposes to fix your broken arm by taking a 2×4 to the other one?

….. Perhaps the most egregiously telling line on the page is, “If we believe a program is ineffective and can’t be fixed, or has outlived its usefulness, the Administration may recommend Congress spend the money on higher priority programs” (emphasis added). So, we might, possibly use expectmore.gov to cup out the government’s obvious and unsightly deposits of fat. Even leaving the possibility that OMB could deem a government program completely useless yet still not recommend that the thing be cut uncovers the dubious nature of the offices’ protests about government waste.

My immediate reaction to learning of this agency’s existence was that it duplicates some of what the Government Accountability Office does. Aldrich’s quick review shows that we don’t need expectmore.gov. We need to demand less government now, and efficiency and accountability from what remains after the scaleback.

……. and it deserves the thorough fisking he administers.

The lead scientist in the piece attempts to attribute it entirely to human activity, even though he is, as Porkopolis notes after doing the kind of digging CBS could easily have done, “ALSO conducting research that is producing evidence that solar activity may also be a contributing factor.”

That should be enough to convince you to read the whole thing.

It’s not like people are with or who fund Al Qaeda can claim that it’s a government entitled to sovreign immunity, so this seems perfectly logical to me (HT Instapundit):

GI, Widow Win $102.6M Judgment for Attack
Injured Soldier, Widow of Slain Medic Win $102.6 Million Judgment for Afghanistan Attack

SALT LAKE CITY - A soldier wounded in Afghanistan and the widow of his slain comrade were awarded a $102.6 million judgment from the estate of a suspected al-Qaida financier.

U.S. District Judge Paul Cassell said the lawsuit may be the first filed by an American soldier against terrorists under the Patriot Act.

But Sgt. Layne Morris, of West Jordan, and the family of medic Christopher Speer, could have a difficult time collecting their award, because the assets of the suspected financier are unknown.

Other soldiers have difficulty identifying their attackers, making it difficult to hold individuals responsible.

Morris cited news reports including interviews with his attacker’s immediate family indicating that Omar Khadr, then 15, had wounded him and killed Speer. The ruling, released Friday, cited similar evidence that the boy’s father, suspected financier Ahmad Sa’id Khadr, was linked to al-Qaida and trained his son to attack American targets.

Morris and Speer, who served with the 19th Special Forces, were attacked with grenades and automatic weapons in a remote Afghanistan village. Shrapnel severed the optic nerve in Morris’ right eye, blinding him.

Soldiers arrested the boy, who is being held at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay.

….. In November, the U.S. government charged the boy with murder, attempted murder, conspiracy and aiding the enemy.

The ruling said the younger Khadr was 4 years old when his family moved from Canada to Pakistan, where his father co-founded a humanitarian relief organization that supported al-Qaida terrorist training camps. The boy returned to Canada in 1994, where he attended school for a year while his father was imprisoned in Pakistan on charges of funding the bombing of the Egyptian Embassy in Pakistan, the court said.

The next year the family allegedly traveled throughout Afghanistan and Pakistan, meeting al-Qaida leaders including Osama bin Laden. It is believed the father was killed in a firefight in Pakistan.

Attorney Dennis Flynn said the U.S. and Canadian governments have frozen the assets of the elder Khadr.

Original Post:
- Feb. 18 — So Why Can’t Former Soldiers and the Families of Fallen Soldiers Speak Out?
____________________________

Here is the full text of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party’s February 16 home page demand that Minnesota TV stations take the first of two ads of Minnesota Families United, an organization of former soldiers and families of soldiers killed in action, off the air (ads can be found in various formats here; “Heroes” is the first ad, “Remember” is the second):

DFL CHAIR CALLS FOR MISLEADING AD TO BE TAKEN OFF THE AIR

ST. PAUL (2/16/06) – Today, DFL Chair Brian Melendez called on all Minnesota TV stations to follow the lead of KSTP TV and pull the ‘Midwest Heroes’ ad off the air. He was joined at a press conference at the State Capitol by Congressional candidate and veteran Tim Walz.

The ad states that the media only reports negative stories, a comment that is patently untrue. As reported on WCCO’s ‘Reality Check,’ 4 out of 10 news stories are positive and the majority of Sunday political news show commentators are conservative.

The ad then states that the enemy in Iraq are the same terrorists responsible for 9/11, and images of Saddam Hussein are shown along with the Twin Towers. This tactic is misleading at best, as the 9/11 Commission Report states that there is no connection between Iraq and the 9/11 terrorist attack.

“Minnesota has the chance to take a stand against this kind of misleading propaganda,” said DFL Chair Brian Melendez. “Right now, our state is a testing ground for this particular ad, and we can be sure that many more will follow this election season. Minnesota TV stations should pull this ad and send the message that we will not tolerate this kind of swiftboating anymore.”

“WCCO has called this ad ‘misleading’ and only ‘partly true,’ said Chair Melendez. “Well, partly false advertising insults Minnesotans intelligence. We won’t stand for propaganda that can’t be backed up with fact.”

Separately, Powerline has reported that the DFL has characterized the ads as “un-American.”

The “media only reports negative stories” comment in the ad, even if incorrect, is protected speech. The DFL can come back with its complaint when it is successful in having John Kerry retract the following slanderous remark on December 4 on “Face the Nation”:

And there is no reason, Bob, that young American soldiers need to be going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children, you know, women, breaking sort of the customs of the–of–the historical customs, religious customs. Whether you like it or not–

Schieffer: Yeah.

Kerry: –Iraqis should be doing that.

Kerry is entitled to his (deluded, and in his last sentence, incoherent) opinion. So is Lt. Col. Robert Stephenson, who spoke of “only negative media coverage” in the ad. (By the way, my observations are that wire service news stories originating from Iraq are largely negative, and I defy anyone to show me that they are anywhere near even 20% positive. DFL’s reference to Sunday talk shows is gratuitous, as those shows are about discussion and analysis.)

And while we’re on the topic of truth, the DFL disputes the claim that the “enemy in Iraq are the same terrorists responsible for 9/11.” I hate to break it to DFL, but they are all from the same terrorist organization, Al Qaeda, which is who we are fighting in Iraq. DFL is only worming out of a direct lie because the people we are fighting in Iraq are not the same individual people. Well, yeah, that’s because the 9/11 hijackers are all dead. Only the party of trial lawyers could come up CYA wording like that.

So who appointed the Minnesota DFL czars at the Ministry of Truth?

Go to Powerline to find an mp3 of an interview conducted by the Northern Alliance with Lt. Col. Stephenson.

Free Links:

• Winter Olympics TV ratings are awful — “The Turin games drew an average 12.4 percent of U.S. households with televisions in the first seven days of the games, according to Nielsen Media Research Inc. That’s down from the 19.5 percent who watched during the same period at the 2002 event in Salt Lake City, Utah.” NBC Universal may give out free or discounted ads because of the drop.
• You read it here second, but almost a month before one of the UK’s “premier” publications — Rebecca MacKinnon at RConversation wrote up Jingjing and Chacha, the cuddly cartoon characters whose purpose is to remind Chinese Internet users that there every keystroke is being watched, back on January 17, based on an article in the China Digital Times. BizzyBlog piggybacked her post January 21. The Financial Times got around to covering it — on February 17.
• Apple switching to Windows OS? John Dvorak thinks so (HT Mac NN and Return of the Conservatives). I doubt it. Now that new Macs are to be Intel-based (some already are), what will probably happen is that Apple will work to make Windows run significantly better on a Mac inside a new shell program than the only remaining commercial alternative I’m aware of (Virtual PC, which happens, effective about 3 years ago, to be a product of Microsoft) without enabling it to be the startup OS. Except on the fastest of Macs, Virtual PC, though vastly improved over its earlier incarnations, is still pretty slow (a big improvement over “horrid” before Microsoft bought Connectix, the program’s creator, in 2003), and even now is really only useful for limited tasks, such as making sure PowerPoint presentations that look good on a Mac are still visually fine in Windows. An Apple move to beef up Windows performance on a Mac might convince reluctant Windows users, who could credibly be told to take as much time as they need to cut over to the Mac OS while they stick with Windows, to make the switch. It’s also telling that Microsoft appears not to have upgraded Virtual PC since 2004. Perhaps Apple is protecting against Microsoft abandoning Virtual PC.
• In a related item, Apple is doing everything it can to make sure its OSX operating system doesn’t get ported over to PCs (HT Techdirt).
• Privacy enemy within — Houston’s police chief, in an AP story (HTs Information Liberation, Digg, and Techdirt), says he’d like to see suveillance cameras in apartment complexes, downtown streets ….. and even private homes.
• Most underreported tax story in the nation — massive local property tax increases fueled by rapid increases in home values.
• Most underreported tax story in Ohio — the State of Ohio has spent $376 million less during the first seven months of the fiscal year (through January 31) than it though it would, while revenues have come in only $15 million short of expectations (go to this page for the Office of Budget and Management, click to download the February 10, 2006 PDF, and look at pages 20 and 13, respectively).

Requires subscription:

• The Wall Street Journal notes that Arizona Senator John McCain switched his vote on the capital-gains rate extension to yes from no in 2003. Wouldn’t it have been just as easy to have said yes three years ago to avoid making Dick Cheney fly in just to break the resulting 50-50 tie in the Senate?

But the marriage of Daniel and Marie Ramey of Norton, VA has lasted for 61 years, through her paralysis, and through his miraculous recovery from a coal-mining accident:

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