The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

LIVE AT FIVE – 04.11.11

Posted on | April 11, 2011 | 2 Comments

TOP NEWS
Obama To Call For Broad Plan To Reduce Deficit

Finally getting serious about the deficit, now that the campaign is underway

But not Paul Ryan’s plan.

Gadhafi Approves Ceasefire Plan, Allow OAU Peacekeepers
Zuma positive, but will rebels accept a plan that leaves the Khadafy family in power?


Japan PM Weakened By Local Election Losses, Ongoing Atomic Crisis
Coalition government for recovery doomed?



POLITICS
Debt Ceiling Looms As Next Battle In DC

Coming Soon: The Debt Brawl On The Mall

Harsh rhetoric dims chances for cooperation on upcoming budget battles

Thousands Attend Expanded Sikh Temple In San Jose


“Massive Crisis” Snarls Immigration Courts

Maryland Legislature May Increase Alcohol Tax By 50%

Dwindling Detroit Faces Fresh Financial Strains



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
NYSE Rejects NASDAQ Takeover Bid
PRC Reports First Quarterly Trade Deficit In Seven Years
Gas Prices Spike, May Threaten Record High
Gold Advances To Record High, Silver Tops $41/Ounce On Inflation
Gartner Predicts Windows Phone 7 To Outsell IPhone By 2015
Scientists Speak Out To Discredit “Gay Caveman” Media Reports



SPORTS
Given Unexpected Chance, Stars Blow Finale And Miss Playoffs

The Wild's Antti Miettinen celebrates a second-period goal against the Stars

Third consecutive season out of contention for the Stars

Brilliant Beckett Gives Yankees Taste Of History

Heat Tops Celtics, Closes In On Second Seed In East



Weaver Fans 15 Jays In Angels Win

Lakers Lose 5th Straight, Fall To Thunder

Wire To Wire Win For Will Power In Alabama Indy Car Race



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
KNEEL BEFORE MICHAEL SHANNON!

Oscar nominee to play villain in Superman reboot

Ladies and gentlemen, your new General Zod

Dennis Quaid: My Favorite Mistake

Lindsay Lohan – Hiding From Dad?

Charlie Sheen Rebounds In The Big Apple

“Rio” Wins World, “Hop” Tops Domestic Box Office

Sidney Lumet Dies, 88

Liam Neeson Cameo Cut From “The Hangover Part II”

“Jersey Shore” Cast Gets Six-Figure Raise

“Housewives” Star Mistakenly Handcuffed By Feds



FOREIGNERS
Ouattara Appeals To France, UN To Neutralize Gbagbo Militia; Strikes Against Loyalist Heavy Weapons Already Underway
Egyptian Prosecutors To Question Mubarak
Britain To Sue Iceland Over 2.3 Billion Pound Bailout
France Becomes First European Country To Ban Burqa
Humala Leads, Kuczynski Second As Peruvian Elections Head For Runoff



BLOGS & STUFF
Riehl World View: So Jennifer Rubin Is Now The Arbiter Of The Right?
Shot In The Dark: Trump Card
PJ Tatler: And I Thought The Role Of The Journalist Was To Report Facts
Jawa Report: Triple Irony – British Fascist Arrested For Violating Fascist Law Prohibiting Burning Of Fascist Book
Jihad Watch: Former Chief Of UK Defence Staff Sounds Alarm On Mosque Towering Over Sandhurst Parade Field
Israel Matzav: Challenging The Leftist Domination Of The (American) Jewish Community
Katherine Kersten: Always Room In The Budget For White Guilt

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Category: Live at Five

Obama: Let Them Eat Hybrids!

Posted on | April 10, 2011 | 6 Comments

Jim Lakely of the Heartland Institute points out that Obama appears to mock the questioner with 10 kids who asked about high gas prices:

The president talks oil prices as if he actually knew something about either oil or economics. What Obama neglects to mention is that his administration’s own policies are a key factor in the price increase. But now it appears that the civil war in Libya (which Obama witlessly escalated three weeks ago) may soon end in a negotiated peace:

Embattled Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, in negotiations with the African Union, has agreed in principal to a deal that would end the conflict in the nation he’s ruled for 42 years, South African President Jacob Zuma told reporters Sunday.
Negotiations remained under way Sunday night between Gadhafi and the African Union delegation.
Details of the agreement were not available, though it is believed to include an immediate ceasefire in the nearly two-month long war between Gadhafi’s forces and those fighting to unseat him. . . .
After staying overnight in Tripoli, the African Union delegation will fly Monday to the Libyan rebel stronghold of Benghazi to meet with opposition leaders there.

So on March 3, Obama declared Qaddafi “must leave.” Now he’s like Emily Litella: Never mind.

Category: Barack Obama, Economics, Libya

FMJRA 2.0: I Am What I Am

Posted on | April 10, 2011 | 6 Comments

REPORT: Deal Struck, Averts Shutdown (Insert ’30 Pieces of Silver’ Joke Here)

Gone, Wisconsin!

Hey, Obama’s Running for Re-Election!

Wound + Salt = ‘Hey, Liberals, How Are You Liking That Wisconsin Result?’

New Motherf–g Tone Update: Government Shutdown Edition

World’s Youngest Blogger Needs Name

Sarah Steelman vs. Claire McCaskill?

Feminism: What They Said

Is The Wisconsion Union Self-Aware Enough To Grasp That It Is Behaving In The Taliban Fashion?

URGENT: BOMB IN DETROIT

Rule 5 SundayMonday: Jesus Is The Answer

FMJRA 2.0: Ride The Lightning

Is This the Hope or the Change?

“LIVE AT FIVE – 04.04.11”

It Was Not Until I Went Looking for a Photo to Illustrate This Post …

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Large Pair)

Funny Video: Meatloaf Goes Psycho vs. Gary Busey on ‘Celebrity Apprentice’

Cleanup Crew To Lindsay Graham’s Office. Or: With Senators Like That, Who Needs The Constitution?

Obama’s NCAA Bracket, Revisited

T-Paw: It’s Going To Take A New Pres.

Conor Friedersdorf: Now Turning the Atlantic into Media Matters Lite?

Arguments To Spike The Heart Of The Entitlement Vampire

Eric Holder Blames Congress for Blocking Trial for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

In Defense of Conor Friedersdorf

Isn’t It Cute When Progressives Pause From Raping The Poor Long Enough To Express Concern About Them?

Ivy League Administration Reacts Quickly to Ivy League Sexual Harassment Charges

It’s All Harmless Fun and Games …

LIVE AT FIVE – 04.06.11

I Guess Katie Couric Turned It Down

Trog Summarizes Ryan, And Had Me Until The Last Sentence

Prosser Wins in Wisconsin
UPDATE: Kloppenburg Steals It?

So, Monica Potts: When’s the Wedding?

REPORT: Beck to End Daily Fox Show

Meet a Typical Anti-American Elitist

Insty’s Sarcasm Exceeds Caustic Level

One Does Hope This Is Pure Bluff

Libya: Even the New York Times Admits the Rebels Are Militarily Hopeless

Not To Go Blaming The Victims, But ‘Ezra Klein Urban Planning’ Is A Wash

$39,978 a Year

Daniel Hannan Palate Cleanser

BREAKING: Air Strikes Hit Libyan Rebel Tanks, Spark ‘Mass Panic’ in Ajdabiyah

“LIVE AT FIVE – 04.08.11”

I Dig Getting Paid, But Which Is Cheaper: Five Months Pay Lost, Or ObamaCare?

I’m In Favor Of A Constitutional Convention, In A Few Years

Libya: ‘Obama’s Worst Failure to Date’

Democrats Draw the Line, Will Shut Down Government Over Planned Parenthood

Inventory The Pitchforks And Torches, And Stand By, Patriots

Let’s Laugh Now: Palin Edges Huckabee Among Mississippi Segregationists?

Thad McCotter On The House Floor With A Rock Reference So Old, Even Stacy McCain Gets It

Rep. Ryan Pulls Weekly GOP Address Duty

New Orleans, Again?

Not Trying to Play ‘True Conservative’ Here, But the Budget Deal Is a Problem

A Rasher Of Bacon As A Unit Of Measure

Bad To Worse For Libyan Rebels

Cry Havoc! And Let Slip Jim Moran

Word Of The Day: Creeptastic

More On Lindsey Graham (Don’t Speak Those Four Words Too Quickly)

Top linkers for last week:

  1. (tied) Lonely Conservative and That Mr. G Guy (15)
  2. Da Tech Guy (8)
  3. Little Miss Attila (7)
  4. (tied) Maggie’s Notebook, Pirate’s Cove, and POWIP (6)
  5. Republican Redefined (5)

Thanks to all for linking, and especially to those Blogspot bloggers who made the extra effort to mail in their linkagery. You, too, can be numbered among the worthy! Send an e-mail to Wombat-socho with “FMJRA” or “Shameless Blogwhoring” in the subject line by April 16 and be included in next week’s roundup!

Category: FMJRA Award

Is Steven Crowder Taking Estrogen?

Posted on | April 10, 2011 | 7 Comments

by Smitty

I suppose he doesn’t owe anyone an explanation for this sort of behavior:
I’m generally in the ‘fan’ column where Crowder is concerned. Furthermore, I shouldn’t get too judgmental before understanding the context. And I’ve taken any number of affectionate swipes at Stacy McCain here in the blog. Keeps the place lively.
Yet general denigrations of manhood are clearly in the Bridge Too Far category. This sort of attack is usually delivered by a beta male in a vain attempt to impress some radical feminist. Typically, the beta male hopes that cowering in the whipped puppy fashion will excite some maternal instinct within my two dimensional radical feminist stereotype, and that she will clutch him to her radical bosom.
I’ve met Crowder, and I wouldn’t accuse him of being a beta male at all. Which makes this behavior all the more curious.

Category: humor

Failure Is The New Success

Posted on | April 10, 2011 | 2 Comments

by Smitty

Just a Conservative Girl brings this ad:

Update: linked by DaveC.

Category: Barack Obama

Half A Century In Space

Posted on | April 10, 2011 | 3 Comments

by Smitty (via Digg)

Mashable has a nifty graphic showing major space vehicles over the last 50 years.

It was 50 years ago when people first flew in space. Here’s an infographic that shows you the spacecraft humans have flown to reach that great void over the past half-century.
With just two flights of the space shuttle left, what’s next? You can see Richard Branson‘s SpaceShipOne in the infographic, giving us a look forward at what’s waiting in the wings — vessels that might find a different financial route to space, relying on private funding rather than governmental largess.
All is not lost, though, for the U.S. manned space program. Even though NASA‘s Ares launch vehicles and their associated Constellation program were canceled because of budget constraints, NASA selected SpaceX and its Falcon launch vehicles and Dragon spacecraft for the space agency’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program.

Space is one of the areas where having the federal government scoop up cash from everyone makes some sense. It’s important from a national defense standpoint, which is a proper federal task. It also drives technical innovation, for example, integrated circuits. This is the law of unintended consequences playing out in a good way.

I was born in the year that Niel Armstrong put the first human print on the moon. I hope that the Apollo program does not prove to have been the peak of U.S. space endeavor. However, the federal government has looked down to the individual on the ground, through social programs, rather than up. Sure, they’ve secured votes now, at the expense of the frontier above.

A big chunk of the national come-to-Beavis meeting over the next 18 months will have to focus on what level of government owns what tasks. Why Planned Parenthood is a federal task eludes me. If they screwed up and left me in charge, PP would be an individual state task, and those resources would go to NASA.

Category: Planned Parenthood

Icelanders, For Some Reason, Not Interested In Getting Bent Over

Posted on | April 10, 2011 | 12 Comments

by Smitty

Icelandic banks like Icesave were wrecked in the 2008 economic fracas. The Dutch and the Brits had dropped $5 billion into Icesave, which also died. So the British and Dutch governments bailed out their citizens, and then tried to get the government of Iceland to cut a deal with the governments to repay them.
And now, for a stunning second time:

Voters in Iceland have rejected a government-approved deal to repay Britain and the Netherlands $5 billion for their citizens’ deposits in the failed online bank Icesave, referendum results showed Sunday.

The result complicates Iceland’s recovery from its 2008 economic collapse.

With about 90 percent of the votes counted, the “no” side had 59.1 percent of the votes and the “yes” side 40.9 percent.

It’s as if people somehow resent having their ruling class overlords tell them to accept a haircut. Bankers have run amok, hurting individual citizens, and now we have governments playing musical chairs as they try to find a group of slow-moving citizens to target with the pain.
One thing the British could do is use the HMS Ark Royal, which has been decommissioned but apparently not yet sold, to put pressure on Iceland. Just give it enough maintenance and fuel to be seaworthy, and start having it buzz Icelandic fishing fleets at speed, until the Icelanders relent and pay up the money. Make it the most polite form of extortion ever. “Sorry, but we fear we must pester you until you pony up.”
Seriously, I would like to know why countries can’t support more and smaller banks and spread risk across more institutions. In the US case, across the other 49 states beside North Dakota that lack a state bank. Then, when the fertilizer hits the air circulator, which it will, the state can manage the problem at a lower level. A bad bank can be let die. Sell the thing off. Purge the banker pool of fools. Don’t just let everything fail upward, or internationally. Make the bankers take the haircut, and quit throwing innocent taxpayers under the bus.
The game of musical risk chairs will be helped by stopping the music sooner, rather than later.

Category: Uncategorized

Bad to Worse for Libyan Rebels

Posted on | April 10, 2011 | 14 Comments

Just look at a map. As recently as Thursday, the rebels were trying to re-take Brega. Today, they’re fighting to hold onto Ajdabiya:

Ajdabiyah had been the launch point for insurgents during a week-long fight for the oil port of Brega further west and its fall would be a serious loss.

Updating this morning at the American Spectator, I wrote:

To say that Gaddafi’s capture of Ajdabiya “would be a serious loss” is an understatement: Losing the town would be a disaster for the rebels, who have already been forced to retreat more than 200 miles eastward since March 28, when their advance threatened Gaddafi’s hometown of Sirte. As the Associated Press says, if the rebels lose Ajdabiya, “the way is open for a siege of Benghazi.”

What I cannot understand is how Qaddafi’s troops were able to advance from Brega — across 50 miles of open highway in the desert — if NATO’s air forces were on the job. While it is reported that NATO jets knocked out several of Qaddafi’s tanks near Ajdabiya, a vigilant air patrol would have destroyed anything moving up the coast out of Brega. Yet now we have reports of Qaddafi’s artillery pounding Ajdabiya?

NATO has screwed the pooch. Here’s an al-Jazeera video report:

Like I said, look at the map: Two weeks ago, on March 27, the rebels were advancing in a major offensive, pushing west to capture the oil ports of Brega and Ras Lanuf, with Gaddafi’s troops reported abandoning artillery and fleeing in civilian vehicles. By March 28, the rebels were “jubilant” as they advanced toward Sirte, Gaddafi’s hometown. By March 29, however, the rebels retreated in a “panicked scramble,” with fighting reported in Bin Jawwad and artillery fire audible in Ras Lanuf. By March 30, Gaddafi’s forces had retaken Brega “forcing rebel fighters into a chaotic retreat.”

It was last Sunday, April 3, that we saw the video of Geraldo Rivera under fire as rebels were fighting to re-take Brega. Now, a week later, the Gaddafi troops are reportedly closing in on Ajdabiya, where the rebels are trying desperately to hold onto their forward base. From Bin Jawwad to Brega is about 115 miles, and Gaddafi’s forces advanced that far in less than two days. After 10 days of fighting around Brega, Gaddafi’s forces have now apparently pushed another 50 miles to Ajdabiya.

It’s only 100 miles from Ajdabiya to the rebel capital at Benghazi, and they’ve already been pushed back more than 200 miles in two weeks. If another one of those “panicked scramble”/”chaotic retreat” scenarios develops for the rebels, Gaddafi could retake Benghazi within a week.

To quote myself, “the war in Libya is beginning to look like President Obama’s worst failure to date.”

UPDATE: Mark Steyn checks in on Libya: “You remember, it was in all the papers for a couple of days. So I guess things have gone quiet because it’s all wrapped up now?” Or not, as Professor Reynolds observes: “War seldom rewards half measures.”

There was just now a Fox New report from Benghazi that seemed strangely optimistic, but I’m checking other reports online now and it looks like a rebel collapse may be underway at Ajdabiya.

UPDATE II: Via Memeorandum, C.J. Chivers of the New York Times recounts Saturday’s fighting at Ajdabiya:

The assault was more determined and organized than the ambushes and exchanges of rocket and artillery fire of recent days. Barrage after barrage of incoming fire thudded and exploded within the city, and loyalist troops advanced behind it. . . .
Many of the rebels fled once again, streaming north up toward Benghazi, the rebel capital, their horns blaring. One rebel fighter shouted at vehicles as they passed: “Qaddafi’s forces are coming! Go! Go! Go!” . . .
As the gun battle raged, the main rebel force rallied about 10 miles north of Ajdabiya.

Still checking reports of today’s fighting. Remember that there may be a gap of several hours between the time something happens in Libya and the time reporters there can get it on the Web. It’s not like they can just pop into a Starbucks, open their laptops and live-blog the war.

UPDATE III: Now here’s Chivers reporting the Sunday battle:

Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s military forces appeared to falter on Sunday in a second day of assault against the rebel city of Ajdabiya, as opposition fighters aided by heavy NATO airstrikes retook positions through much of the city.
Occasional skirmishes between small units within the city on Sunday morning appeared to be dying out. And other than an apparent mortar attack against a rebel checkpoint, the loyalists’ artillery and rocket batteries were mostly silent by the afternoon . . .
It was a sharp turnabout from the fighting on Saturday, when heavy artillery barrages sent rebel forces running several times through the day and caused heavy damage here. [Qaddafi’s] forces were able to infiltrate the city, fighting gun battles in the city center against local rebels who had stayed to defend their homes. But by Sunday, that threat appeared to have passed. . . .
By 4 p.m., a long rebel column of pickup trucks passed through the city’s main street, firing their weapons in the air in celebration.
The rebels’ gains were at least in part because of heavy NATO airstrikes throughout the morning and afternoon outside Ajdabiya . . .

OK, 4 p.m. Libya time was three hours ago (it’s now 1 p.m. ET, 7 p.m. in Libya), and the fact that Chivers was still able to file stories under an Ajdabiya dateline suggests that Qaddafi’s troops have been pushed back.

UPDATE IV: In another report datelined from Ajdabiya, apparently filed about two hours earlier than Chivers, Chris McGreal of the U.K. Guardian writes:

Muammar Gaddafi’s forces continued to fight their way toward Benghazi . . .
Rebel defences around Ajdabiya appeared to be failing as Gaddafi’s soldiers broke into the heart of the strategic town, 90 miles from Benghazi, and engaged in running street battles after again outmanoeuvring the revolutionaries. . . .
Shelling around the southern entrance to Ajdabiya continued, with loud explosions heard and thick black smoke rising over parts of the town.
Much of Ajdabiya was deserted after civilians fled amid the prospect of Gaddafi’s troops taking the town for the second time in as many weeks. . . .
“Gaddafi’s military is in the town,” said Saleh Mufta, a 25-year-old who was a science student before becoming an armed rebel.
“There’s been a lot of shooting. Gaddafi has copied our techniques. He is not using so many tanks now after the air strikes. His men are in pickups. They move very fast. We don’t know where they are. They just pop up.” . . .
Asked what he thought the government army’s intent was, Mufta said: “They don’t want Ajdabiya. They want the road to Benghazi. They want Benghazi.”
Nato faces humiliation if Gaddafi’s army is able to force its way through Ajdabiya again to threaten Benghazi . . .
Other than a line of artillery about 15 miles from the city, rebel defences around Benghazi are little in evidence.

Comparing these two accounts, from Chivers and McGreal, you see how hard it is to tell what the military situation is now.

Saleh Mufta’s explanation that the Qaddafi troops are traveling in pickup trucks, and just “pop up” to attack the rebels, explains a lot of the confusion. In the span of an hour, a pickup truck carrying five or six men with AK-47s and mortars could easily move 30 or 40 miles cross-country in the desert. Mufta’s assertion that truckloads of these light forces are attempting to cut off the road from Ajdabiya to Benghazi explains why the rebels are so prone to panic: Without proper communications, the rebels currently fighting in Ajdabiya might get cut off by an attack on the Benghazi road many miles to the east. And they wouldn’t know they were cut off until it was already too late to retreat.

UPDATE V: Here is a CBS/Washington Post video report (you’ll have to watch a 30-second commercial):

UPDATE VI: Greyhawk at Mudville Gazette has some good analysis of the Libyan situation, and here is a new BBC video report from Ajdabiya (click the image to watch):

The BBC reporter is Orla Guerin, who has one of those Gaelic-inflected accents that Americans seldom hear except on NPR programs about Irish folk music.

UPDATE VII: Ed Morrissey says, “It doesn’t take a Sir Bernard Law Montgomery to read the map. Ajdabiya is the key to Benghazi and Tobruk. . . . How badly is it going? Gaddafi felt sanguine enough to make a public appearance, making sure that the media noted today’s date on the school’s whiteboard.”

Diplomats are now trying to negotiate a ceasefire in Libya, which suggests that “kinetic military action” has become a synonym for “getting our butts kicked by Qaddafi.”


Category: Libya
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