Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Sarah Palin's Book 'An Unprecedented Success'



Not even in the stores yet, but already at the top of the charts at both Amazon and Barnes and Nobel 48 days out from its actual release date of November 14th. It's apparently the only non-fiction book ever to accomplish such a feat in pre-order.

And her publisher is already gearing up for Way Huge Mega Sales:

Two days after the release date of Sarah Palin’s book was announced, it's already become the top seller at both Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com.

Palin’s publisher announced Monday that the former governor of Alaska and Republican vice presidential candidate had finished her memoir, "Going Rogue: An American Life," early and was moving the release date up from the spring to November 17. {...}

HarperCollins will print 1.5 million copies for the book’s first run, the same number that was printed for late Sen. Ted Kennedy’s memoir "True Compass."

Kennedy’s book, published earlier this month, currently stands at number six on the Amazon list.

A publishing industry source told POLITICO that they "cannot remember a non-fiction book taking off like this in the pre-order market. It became number one only a couple of hours after nothing more than a date announcement. It is truly unprecedented."

Much of the 400-page book is based on journals Palin kept during her vice-presidential run.

Palin collaborated on the book with Lynn Vincent, a San Diego-based writer who has co-written several books and was previously a features writer for World magazine, a conservative Christian publication.


Not bad, Guv.Not bad at all.

This is her chance to tell her side of the story and talk directly to the American people, and I think she's going to make the most of it.

The popping sound you hear is the sound of the Angry Left's collective heads exploding.

Trig Birther nut and Zionist conspiracy theorist Andrew Sullivan is all over this as you might expect, and Mad King Chuckie over at Little Green Footballs (sorry, no links for either of these creatures) is absolutely frothing over the fact that Palin's collaborator is *gasp!* a CHRISTIAN...which in Chuckie's mind means she must of course be raa-aaa-cist.

Of course, that's one of the big reasons both Chuckie and Sully have such a lunatic hatred for her.

The vile attacks on a plain spoken, decent woman from Alaska and her family by the cretins on the Left is simply a reflection of how deeply they fear her. As I predicted, targeting her and her family and driving her out of office is the worst mistake they ever made.

For Sarah Palin, this opens up a number of possibilities. If the book sells as well as it appears it will, she can begin negotiating for another more in depth one a bit closer to election time, hitting the talk radio circuit, building her national organization making speeches around the country and piling up IOU's by fundraising for Republicans..which could be a very nice lead in for her to 2012, ala' Reagan in 1980. After four years of Prez Zero, I have a feeling she's going to look awfully appealing.



Louisiana Guv Bobby Jindal Proves He's Not Ready For Prime Time - Again


Sorry, but it is what it is...

“I think that in some circles, (health care) was viewed as a Democratic issue,” said Jindal, who served in top posts at the Department of Health and Human Services during the Bush administration and ran his state’s health department in the ’90s.

Jindal urged congressional Republicans to go to the White House and find common ground with Obama.

“Let’s start anew,” he said they should tell the president. “We’re willing to work with you in a bipartisan way.”


Sigh.....here are few clues, governor. Please take notes.

  • First, the GOP does have a plan for cutting health care costs and improving affordability. But since it involves stuff like lawsuit reform, help for small businesses,and allowing people to shop across state lines for health insurance, Obama and the Democrats absolutely want no part of it.

  • Second, working with a president whose response to bi-partisan approaches is 'I won' and a Democrat-run Congress whose idea of bi-partisan approaches is locking the other party out of the room ( literally) and shoving bills through via reconciliation is an exercise in futility.

  • And third, any 'bi-partisan' deal the GOP cuts with Obama would of necessity involve selling out to the trial lawyers, the big drug companies, the abortion lobby and the public employee unions..because Obama already owes them on this.

Any bill the leadership of the Democrats would allow to be voted on, let alone signed by the president would involve government run health care, special deals for Big Pharma, no provision to exclude illegal aliens or avoid funding abortions, zero tort reform and huge taxes to pay for it all. It can't be any other way.

Aside from angering the GOP base who are already waiting to see if the Party mans up, a deal with Obama and the Democrats would involve a major sell out of principles and hand Obama a victory he doesn't deserve at the expense of the American people.He needs to be fought tooth and nail.

Back when Jindal gave that incredibly lame reply speech to Obama's State Of The Union, I put his poor performance down to nerves.Obviously it was more than that. And John McCain already has the bi-partisanship-at-all-costs blow up doll franchise covered very nicely, thank you.



Today's Must Reads 9/30/09



Feel free to send anything you find that you feel is worthy of a look to me at rmill2k@msn.com and I'll review it. This includes stuff you write yourself.Or if you prefer, you can send it to Natasha, our must reads Avatar..

  • The SCOTUSblog:Supreme Court to rule on Chicago anti-gun laws


  • Richard Cohen/WAPO: Time for Obama to act like a president



  • Politico:GOP's Boehner blasts Obama Olympics trip


  • Mark Steyn:What the Left is Telling Us


  • Stanley Kurtz /NRO:ACORN's close ties with the White House


  • Telegraph : Backlash against Hollywood defense of Polanski


  • Melissa Clouthier :Polanski deserves to do time for the crime now


  • WSJ:Sarkozy rips Obama's 'virtual disarmamment'


  • Caroline Glick :An enfeebled Obama


  • Jennifer Rubin/Commentary : Netanyahu's Speech for the Ages



  • Daniel Pipes: Netanyahu's quiet success



  • melanie PhillipsThe Human Rights Witch hunt



  • Jerusalem Post: Ashkelon rocket victim livid Goldstone report ignored her plight .



  • Gideon Rachman: Iran tests the world's collective will


  • Foreign Policy : What else is Iran hiding?


  • ABC News : Obama mulls Afghanistan decision on troops


  • FOX : McCain introduces amendment to require General McChrytal's testimony before committee


  • WAPO :Diverse Sources Fund Insurgency In Afghanistan


  • Ann Coulter :Liberal lies about healthcare, #5 in a series


  • Politico: Dem Congressman - "Republicans want you to die quickly"



  • WSWJ:Why tort reform is off-limits to Democrats


  • The Hill :Dem senators gut photo ID requirements for immigrants on proposed federal health care more: Dem Senators on finance committee vote down abortion amendment


  • WSJ: Why Obama bombed on health care



  • ABC News: Special Congressional health care perks


  • WSJ:Country Wide burned tapes of conversations with Public Officials discussing `sweat heart' mortgages...







  • Watcher's Council Nominations, 9/30/09



    The Watcher's Council is a group of some of the most incisive blogs in the`sphere. Every week, the members nominate two posts each, one of their own and one from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council.

    So, let's see what we have this week....and do check out the Watcher's excellent take on America's wealthiest Congress critters and their gold plated health care...

    Council Submissions


    Non-Council Submissions






    Tuesday, September 29, 2009

    Welcome To The Babi Yar Hotel


    There's a place in the Ukraine that was originally on the outskirts of Kiev, but has become a suburb of the city as it has expanded. To the Kiev city council,it was an ideal site for a tourist hotel to service the expected trade for the 2012 European soccer championship.

    It's called Babi Yar.

    Sixty eight years ago, it was the scene of something uniquely horrible in a time of horrors. The Nazis, with the cheerful assistance of Ukrainian 'Blue' police rounded up 33,741 Jewish men, women and children who lived in Kiev, made them strip naked and then forced them into a ravine and machine gunned them to death in one mass grave.



    While the killing was going on, some of the Jews' Ukrainian neighbors looked on, enjoyed the show and ate a picnic lunch.

    Babi Yar was part of the War Against the Jews in the Ukraine.It was the culmination of an effort that murdered over 700,000 Ukrainian Jews at the hands of the Germans and their Romanian and Ukrainian allies. The ravine itself became a favorite killing ground of the Nazis and their collaborators, and the site for the murder of Gypsies and Russian POWs as well as Jews, although it was overwhelmingly Jews whose corpses populated the ravine.

    Babi Yar was never the site of any kind of memorial, although dissident Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko wrote a haunting poem in 1961 decrying the massacre and the attitude of the locals to what happened to the Jews there.

    The Soviets finally put a memorial there in 1976, but it referred to 'the murder of innocent Soviet citizens by the fascist occupiers', and there was no mention of the fact that the victims were mostly Jews or about the extensive collaboration by the locals. The Soviets weren't interested in memorializing victims or regurgitating old memories. They had their own ghosts in the Ukraine they wanted forgotten, several million people they deliberately starved to death with an artificially created famine.

    The first prominent Ukrainian to address Babi Yar honestly was the first president of independent Ukraine, Leonid Kravchuk, who made a fiery speech at a memorial gathering in October 1991. He actually admitted that Ukrainians shared some responsibility for carrying out the massacre, something that evoked a decidedly mixed response among his countrymen.

    Babi Yar popped back into the news again when the Kiev City Council voted to build a tourist hotel on the site of the old killing ground. The original plans actually called for the place to be called the Hotel Babi Yar, believe it or not.

    I'm sure the hotel theme restaurants and gift shops would be unique.

    Fortunately, there is a happy ending to this sordid story. After the plans leaked out, widespread outrage from around the world caused the city's mayor, Leonid Chernovetsky to veto the plan. I don't doubt that took considerable courage on his part.

    After all, this is a country where mass murderer and anti-Semite Bohdan Chmielicki is still regarded as a national hero, memorialized with a statue in the middle of Kiev.

    Why write about this? Well, time passes for all things, and that is how it should be. But there are things we need to remember, simply to make sure they don't occur again.

    There have been some very recent and public attempts to pave over history or deny it ever happened in the first place. Seeing that, I think that remembering is a more pressing need for human society just now than another spiffy new hotel. Not so much just to memorialize the dead, as to help save the living.

    Selah.

    Jordanian parliamentary bloc calls for abolishing Jordan/Israel peace treaty


    Now that the libelous fiction on Gaza known as the Goldstone report is out, it's providing cover for people to push for doing what they've wanted to do all along anyway:

    Jordan's Lower House National Fraternity bloc on Tuesday called for closing the Israeli embassy in Amman and presenting a draft law to the house to discuss abolishing the peace treaty with Israel, after Israeli troops' breaking into al-Aqsa Mosque along with Jewish radicals on Sunday.

    The 21-member bloc urged the government to cut all ties with Israel after Sunday's clashes resulted in injuries and arrests of many Palestinians.


    What they're talking about is a violent riot that occurred on the Temple Mount by Arab provocateurs when a group of Jewish visitors to the Temple Mount were stoned by Muslim worshipers on Sunday morning.


    The bloc voiced condemnation of what it said "silence" by entities concerned with the law and preserving holy sites, over the Israeli "escalation" and violations against the Palestinian Muslims holy shrine in eastern Jerusalem.

    It also voiced support to the Palestinians in their efforts to stand up to the Israeli violations and defend holy sites in Jerusalem.

    "The systematic Zionist aggression against Jerusalem and the holy sites in the city necessitates that the Arabs and Muslims stand up and confront Israel and not to be deceived by illusions of reaching settlements and agreements," the bloc said
    .


    This is almost comic coming from members of the parliament of a country that has killed and expelled more Palestinian Arabs than any country in Middle East and even now is arbitrarily depriving Palestinians of Jordanian citizenship they've held for years.

    And I loved the bit about defending Holy sites in Jerusalem. Most Israelis still remember well how the Jordanians treated Jewish property and holy sites during the 19 years Jordan occupied East Jerusalem.

    But let's give these people the courtesy of taking them seriously.At present, Israel and Jordan have what would be more correctly titled an armistice that dates from 1994 than an actual peace.There are no real cultural exchanges and few if any tourists, and Jordan has never really observed the provisions of the treaty that call for a prohibition of hostile propaganda and `negative expression', but there is an absence of hostilities.

    Fair's fair. If the treaty were abrogated and the embassies closed, I would expect the Jordanians to be willing to give up the material concessions they got from Israel as part of the deal:

    • Israel gave Jordan 300 square kilometers, and leased 2850 dunams (just under 3 kilometers) in the Arabah (Muvlaat Tzofar).Those properties obviously need to be swapped back, with the Jordanians returning the 300 kilometers of land they received back to Israel and the Israeli lease over the 3 kilometers at Muvlaat Tzofar being terminated.

    • As part of the treaty, Israel and Jordan agreed to cooperate on a fair division of the water of the Jordan River and the Arava's underground water resources. Since the Treaty is going to be history, Israel is no longer required to give Jordan 50 million cubes of water each year or to share the Yarmouk River so that Jordan has 3/4 of it.

    • Jordan was supposed to be given preference by Israel as a guardian or keeper of the Muslim holy places in Jerusalem in any future peace agreement with the Palestinians.Let's strike that as well, shall we?

    • And for good measure, the next time the Palestinians try to overthrow the Hashimite monarchy and take over the country Israel will just stand by and watch instead of fending off interested and greedy neighbors like the Syrians.


    Nice deal while it lasted, but all things come to an end, don't they?

    Or maybe, just maybe, it might be worth living in peace with the hated Yahoodi in the Zionist entity for now, yes Saddiq?




    Obama Votes 'Present' - And Flees To Copenhagen



    Your approval ratings are plummeting and it's obvious the honeymoon is over. The nation is in a fiscal crisis, with unemployment and a huge deficit of historic proportions.The dollar's status internationally is threatened.Your administration has been directly linked with some of the most corrupt and radical elements in American political life and you're at the final stages of a battle to control America's healthcare, which doesn't look like it's going your way.

    It's time for a major decision on Afghanistan, your vaunted diplomacy is a colossal failure especially in the Middle East, and other world leaders are snickering at you behind their hands. Russia is increasingly aggressive and Iran has responded to that famous unclenched hand you offered by contemptuously testing new missiles as the knowledge of other previously hidden Iranian nuclear sites becomes public.

    So whaddya do?

    Barack Obama has the answer all right....road trip!

    Yes, the president decided to bug out and vote 'present' by fleeing to Copenhagen, Denmark for the essential, urgent task of lobbying the International Olympic Committee to make Chicago the site of the 2016 Olympics.

    And he's taking Michelle and Oprah with him.That's not unexpected,given that Obama has spent more time with Oprah than he has with General McChrystal, the commander he appointed to make sense of the mess in Afghanistan. For that matter, forget about Oprah - he's probably spent more one-on-one time with David Letterman then with McChrystal.

    This little excursion is a presidential payback to Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, who expects that he and his cronies can expect to make millions on the deal. It will involve no less than two other luxury 757's including Air Force One - one for backup and communications , and another for Michelle and her multi-million dollar entourage, not to mention Oprah's people.

    This doesn't include the cost in man hours for the dozens of staffers employed in taking care of every detail, or the several Air Force cargo planes that precede the president's party and are loaded with security personnel, armored limos, communications gear, and other vital supplies like extra arugula and spare stocks of $100 per pound wagu beef should the president or his guests not find Danish cuisine to their liking, or just want a special little snack to remind them of home.

    This particular road trip will cost the American taxpayer at least $10 million dollars and probably more..but who's counting?

    This is what happens when you stick someone in the White House who lacks any semblance of understanding about what the job involves and who's only discernible qualifications are a slick image, a signature baritone and the ability to read a teleprompter.

    When the going gets tough, people like Obama get going...in the other direction.

    We'll undoubtedly see more of this behavior during the rest of Obama's time in office. Although sometimes, it will simply involve avoidance and hiding in the White House rather than actually hitting the road.

    Remember, you can't say I didn't give him a chance.


    UPDATE:
    Bill Kristol senses that the natives on both sides of the aisle are not pleased at this behavior and figures Prez Zero will try to generate some nice PR and appear presidential with a surprise trip and photo op in Afghanistan in time to hit the evening news cycle on Friday.

    I think it's a pretty good bet.



    Strength Beats Fear - Merkel Wins Major Victory In Germany


    The German elections are over, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel has won an historic victory, symbolic of the gradual defeat of socialism across Europe.

    The results for her center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU)are lower than in 2005. But what's radically changed Germany's political landscape are the vastly increased totals for the pro free-enterprise business-friendly Free Democratic Party (FDP).

    She will now be able to form a center right coalition government that leans further right than the previous one.

    The biggest losers were Germany's left center Social Democrats, who had their worst results since the 1950's and will now be out of government.Led by its candidate Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the SPD attempted to track Left in a bid to stop the run off of votes to the more radical Left and Green parties. It proved to be a spectacularly unsuccessful tactic.

    The undertone of all this was al-Qaeda's threat to unleash a major attack on Germany if Merkel were re-elected.

    It remains to be seen whether they will attempt to make that threat good.

    Today's Must Reads



    Feel free to send anything you find that you feel is worthy of a look to me at rmill2k@msn.com and I'll review it. This includes stuff you write yourself.Or if you prefer, you can send it to Natasha, our must reads Avatar..

  • Wes Pruden:Reality bites Obama's 'West Wing'


  • Richard Cohen/WAPO: Time for Obama to act like a president



  • Mickey Kaus:Did ACORN elect Al Franken?


  • Mark Steyn:What the Left is Telling Us


  • Stanley Kurtz /NRO:ACORN's close ties with the White House


  • Jim Nolte. Big Hollywood : Hollywood unites to defend Polanski


  • Hot Air :Celebrities and diplomats unite behind child raping degenerate


  • WSJ:Sarkozy rips Obama's 'virtual disarmamment'


  • Hugh Hewitt: How appeasement works - a month here, a month there..



  • Caroline Glick :An enfeebled Obama


  • Jennifer Rubin/Commentary : Netanyahu's Speech for the Ages



  • melanie PhillipsTh eHuman Rights Witch hunt



  • Laura Rozen: Experts weigh in on Iran enrichment



  • Gideon Rachman: Iran tests the world's collective will


  • Foreign Policy : What else is Iran hiding?


  • AP/My Way : Iran tests new, advanced range missiles


  • WAPO :Diverse Sources Fund Insurgency In Afghanistan


  • Ann Coulter :Liberal lies about healthcare, #5 in a series


  • WAPO: Obama's Deal With Big Pharma Stays



  • WSWJ:Why tort reform is off-limits to Democrats


  • Michelle Malkin :Obamacare does fund abortions


  • Las vegas review-Journal : Reid Blocks ACORN probe



  • Amity Schlaes:Barney Frank Thinks Homebuyers Are Infants


  • WSJ:Country Wide burned tapes of conversations with Public Officials discussing `sweat heart' mortgages...



  • IowaHawk : Earn Big $$$ The NEA Way!




  • Monday, September 28, 2009

    Hey, Let's Give Child-Rapists A Pass!


    I would have bet money this would happen. Hollywood is rallying behind confessed child-rapist Roman Polanski and urging that the charges be dropped.

    The surprise detention of Roman Polanski has been met with indignation in Hollywood and sparked a flurry of media speculation over the real reason behind Saturday night's arrest in Zurich:

    Film mogul Harvey Weinstein has got behind a campaign by French film-makers calling on US authorities not to extradite the Oscar-winning Polish director in connection with a charge of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor dating back more than three decades.

    Weinstein entered the fray at the personal behest of Cannes film festival director Thierry Fremaux and will now use his considerable influence and campaigning heft to enlist the support of Hollywood.

    "We're calling on every film-maker we can to help fix this terrible situation," Weinstein said, reviving a theme he adopted earlier in the year after he bought international distribution rights at Sundance to the HBO documentary Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired.


    Let's take a minute and once again recall what this sleaze actually did back in 1977.

    He used his status as a famous Hollywood director to get close to a 13-year-old girl in the neighborhood, taking photos of her and talking to her about helping her get into the movie business. One night after he lured her over to Jack Nicholson's house, he fed her a quaalude and a lot of champagne and essentially used her as a blow up doll, with all three inputs involved.

    Because he was able to buy some good lawyers and because Hollywood is a celebrity crazed town, he was allowed to cop a plea for one count of illegal sex with a minor -no rape charges or contributing to the delinquency of a minor raps like anyone else would have been charged with. And then he jumped bail and fled to France before he was sentenced, becoming a fugitive from justice.

    Now, I would expect Hollywood's degenerates in to come to Polanski's defense.To them 'talent' excuses anything.Well, almost. I mean, it's not like he did something truly evil like voting Republican.

    Even the L.A. Times film critic Patrick Goldstein weighed in on this.

    His profound wisdom is that with California's fiscal crisis, we ought to let celebrity child rapists walk because, after all, it was a long time ago and "Polanski has already paid a horrible, soul-wrenching price for the infamy surrounding his actions. The real tragedy is that he will always, till his death, be snubbed and stalked and confronted by people who think the price he has already paid isn't enough."

    Goldstein is a self-important ignoramus who deserves to know what it feels like to have somebody drug him and abuse him sexually.I have a feeling his opinion on the matter might change.

    Yeah, Polanski paid a price all right. Instead of rotting in a cell, he got to live a life as a pampered wealthy celebrity in Europe. Frankly, he deserves to be snubbed and confronted, just like any other child rapist.

    Another argument that has surfaced is that there were 'irregularities" in Polanski's trial and that his victim, the now 44-year-old Samantha Geimer (nee Gailey)wants the charges dropped.

    The L.A. District Attorney's office had an agreement with Polanski that in exchange for pleading guilty to a lesser charge, he would confess what went on that night at Jack Nicholson's house, and it's exactly as I related above. Since Polanski became a fugitive from justice, that plea bargain is null and void but his confession, given under oath still stands. There's no question of his guilt and if Polanski is extradited, the DA ought to throw the book at him.

    As for Ms. Geimer's feelings on the matter, she already testified in the case back in 1977 and that testimony stands, unless she repudiates it, which would leave her open to charges of perjury.I appreciate that she wants to move on and not relive it, and that testifying against Polanski might be in violation of the agreement she made with Polanski's lawyers when they settled the civil suit she brought against him for an undisclosed sum, but the pursuit of justice is a societal matter, not a matter of personal choice. The charges against Polanski were brought by the People of California, not Ms. Geimer.

    And as far as Polanski's Hollywood allies go...well, let's be kind and just say they live in a different moral universe. It's a pity it has to interact with ours.



    I'm Back....

    A little fasting, repentance and hopefully forgiveness was the order of the day...




    Sunday, September 27, 2009

    The Fumbler-In-Chief


    "We're in trouble with this joker and no mistake!" - Willie Keith, talking to Exec Maryk about Captain Queeg during the typhoon in "The Caine Mutiny"

    President Obama's performance last week at the UN and the G-20 summit has to be unique in American history.

    The president of the United states, the leader of the Free World went onstage before an audience mainly composed of third world despots at the UN and provided the world with a reprise of his Lap-Dance-of-The Seven-Veils speech in Cairo earlier this year.

    But like any good show-biz act, he knew he had to deliver more to keep his audience interested.

    He made it clear that in his view, America is to blame for the world's ills and he was there to apologize and abase himself. He let the approving audience know that he rejects any notion of American exceptionalism, and even American sovereignty over its own destiny.

    He then proceeded to throw our ally Israel to the wolves to prove how sincere and hip he was about it all.

    Later, he chaired a UN Security Council meeting and came up with a boffo resolution attempting to outlaw nuclear weapons.

    To those of you who think this was a brilliant, principled action, riddle me this: when have international attempts to ban weaponry ever been successful?

    I'll save you the trouble of digging...the answer is never.

    The so-called international community has been trying to ban advances in weaponry ever since the days of the crossbow, and have always failed dismally because in a war, countries will always opt for winning a war over losing one. The technological genie never gets put back in the lamp.

    Just before WWI, every European country solemnly pledged not to use poison gas as a war weapon...until the Germans were losing on the Western front and decided it would help them win. Ditto for the submarine.

    Obama's resolution is exactly the same kind of naive pinhead thinking. And at least one world leader, France's Sarkozy, had the courage to label it that way.

    When the French are packing more equipment than an American President, it's downright embarrassing.

    But wait, there's more.

    This week, it came out that Iran has a secret nuclear facility near Qoms. Actually they have a number of secret facilities, as I pointed out some time ago, which is why I consider this a colossal non-story, but what was really worth observing was Obama's reaction:



    Obama's still rambling on about non-proliferation as if the Iranians are going to suddenly give up their nukes because he says so, and once again he announces his commitment to engagement and diplomacy...as though the Iran haven't just punked him out one more time. In a word, he's pathetic.

    Even more revealing was this bit, when Obama was caught without a teleprompter at the G-20 summit and unwittingly revealed his real thoughts on the matter:



    Yes, Obama's not interested in victory over Iran. And Ahmadinejad and Khamenei have known for some time exactly whom they're dealing with.



    Fugitive Roman Polanski Finally Arrested



    Justice moves slowly, but it does move...

    Oscar-winning filmmaker Roman Polanski has been arrested in Switzerland on a decades-old arrest warrant stemming from a sex charge in California, Swiss police said Sunday.

    Polanski, 76, was taken into custody trying to enter Switzerland on Saturday, Zurich police said. A spokesman for the Swiss Justice Ministry said Polanski was arrested upon arrival at the airport.

    He has lived in France for decades to avoid being arrested if he enters the United States and declined to appear in person to collect his Academy Award for Best Director for "The Pianist" in 2003.

    The director pleaded guilty in 1977 to a single count of having unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor, acknowledging he had sex with a 13-year-old girl. But he fled the United States before he could be sentenced, and U.S. authorities have had a warrant for his arrest since 1978.


    What Polanski actually did was to use his status as a famous Hollywood director to get close to a 13-year-old girl in the neighborhood, taking photos of her and talking to her about getting into the movie business.One night over at Jack Nicholson's house, he fed her a quaalude and a lot of champagne and essentially used her as a blow up doll, with all three inputs involved.

    Polanski was able to afford good lawyers and Los Angeles has always been friendly to the movie industry, so he ended up pleading guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor, rather than drugging and raping a thirteen-year-old. But afterward, he fled to France before he could be sentenced ( can you imagine a non-celebrity getting bail after being convicted of an offense like that?). The French refused to extradite him and he's been there ever since.

    Part of what changed was that Polanski's lawyers made a strong attempt earlier this year to have the charges tossed out, onth ebasis that the Los Angeles D.A.'s office hadn't made an effort to extradite Polanski inyears because of alleged prosecutorial misconduct. But Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Peter Espinoza rejected the request, correctly noting that those arguments needed to be made with the defendant present in the court, not overseas.

    That stirred the waters a bit, and L.A. prosecutors, who were always disturbed at the way Polanski had essentially walked made a formal request to Swiss authorities to arrest him when they learned Polanski was going to be in Switzerland. They'll now have to go through formal extradition proceedings, so hopefully Polanski will be on his way home soon and on his way to a cell.



    Saturday, September 26, 2009

    Hannah Giles Naked On Florida Beach..Explicit Photo!




    This is it, the real deal...explicit private photo from my collection, taken on a beach in Florida from a window with a telephoto lens, excellent quality.

    Awww...you were expecting some Leftard smear photoshop weren't you? Since we both know there's no tactic too dirty for the Left to embrace in trying to demonize its enemies, think of this as a little Google bomb to diminish and forestall these tactics. And protect and support someone who deserves it.

    However, you can enjoy the fine product officially endorsed by Obama above to help you get over your disappointment.

    You know me, anything I can do to help.




    Friday, September 25, 2009

    Today's Must reads - Fantastic Friday Edition



    Feel free to send anything you find that you feel is worthy of a look to me at rmill2k@msn.com and I'll review it. This includes stuff you write yourself.Or if you prefer, you can send it to Natasha, our must reads Avatar..

  • Politico:NEA communications director resigns after propaganda phone call


  • Instapundit: NEA SpokesKommisar Yosi Sargent has resigned



  • Andy McCarthy/NRO:Obama to give $400,000 in taxpayer funds to foundations run by Muammar Qaddafi's two children


  • Dallas Morning News:FBI arrests Jordanian in Dallas bomb plot


  • Reuters:Illinois Muslim arrested in plot to bomb federal offices


  • Reuters : North Carolina suspects targeted Marine base at Quantico


  • Con Coughlin/Telegraph :Diplomacy won't stop Iran's bomb building


  • WAPO:Iran caught with second secret nuke plant


  • Foreign Policy : Obama ordered Generals Petreaus and McChrystal to 'scrub' assessments on Afghanistan



  • Laura Rozen: Experts weigh in on Iran enrichment



  • Ron Radosh/Pajamas media: Did Barack Obama write "Dreams of my Father?"


  • Gallup : Seniors lean against Obama's healthcare plan


  • Ann Coulter :Liberal lies about healthcare, #5 in a series


  • Mark Steyn :Dislike Obama? You must be racist!


  • Las vegas review-Journal : Reid Blocks ACORN probe



  • ACE:Obama administration moves to obscure ACORN, Union ties


  • Newsbusters:
    Breitbart Blasts MSM on ACORN Coverage; Reveals Defense Fund Initiative


  • WAPO: Obama's Deal With Big Pharma Stays



  • Jennifer Rubin/Commentary : Netanyahu's Speech for the Ages



  • WAPO :White House regroups On Guantanamo



  • Pajamas Media Obama and ACORN- a love story




  • Washington Times:ACORN to sue Breitbart, filmamkers


  • FOX:Treasury Agrees to Formal Review Of ACORN


  • The Other Mccain : Mckenzie Phillips- Too Much Information


  • IowaHawk : Earn Big $$$ The NEA Way!




  • ACORN Plans to Sue Over Prostitution SCAM

    I have to applaud ACORN pulling this...because it has to be the absolutely stupidest thing they could do:

    Community activist group ACORN is suing the makers of a hidden-camera video that showed employees of its Baltimore office giving tax advice to a man posing as a pimp and a woman posing as a prostitute.

    The liberal group contends that the audio portion of the video was obtained illegally because Maryland requires two-party consent to create sound recordings.

    The two employees seen in the video were fired after it was posted online. The lawsuit says the employees, Tonja Thompson and Shera Williams, suffered "extreme emotional distress."

    The multimillion-dollar lawsuit seeks damages from James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles, who played the pimp and prostitute in the videos, and from conservative columnist Andrew Breitbart, who posted the videos on his Web site.


    There are so many things legally and tactically bogus about this that the only explanation I can imagine for ACORN going this route is sheer hubris.

    Congress has already voted to defund them, the IRS, HUD and the census bureau have already cut ties with them and they're the subject of a treasury department investigation. And there are calls in Congress for further investigation of ACORN's practices and maybe even a special prosecutor.

    So far, their patron Obama has managed to sit on the legislation and Bertha Wright, ACORN's CEO has been making the rounds saying that this is just a few rogue employees and she plans on doing some housecleaning and her own review.Instead of allowing the story to smother, ACORN is putting more gasoline on the fire.

    Legally, this is a swamp for ACORN.For one thing, ACORN was the one who actually made the decision to fire the employees and inflict 'severe emotional distress' on them.There's no legal way that ACORN can be a co-plaintiff here in suing someone else for actions done by ACORN!

    Breitbart's lawyers could actually countersue ACORN, claiming that any 'damages' the ACORN employees collect should in fact be paid by ACORN.

    Another aspect of this has to do with ACORN as an employer. If they truly were rogue elements and departed from how they were trained, it's going to be very difficult for ACORN to maintain that they were unjustly fired and thus entitled to damages.

    Finally, there's the whole basis of the suit itself, that the two ACORN underage prostitution abettors had their privacy rights violated.Except there's a whole carload of precedents showing that this right to privacy only applies when there is a reasonable expectation of privacy, which doesn't apply when dealing with the public because virtually all workplaces define themselves as places where there is no reasonable expectation of privacy.That's why your local market or bank can't be sued for videotaping its employees and why Eyewitness news types get away with those exposes of auto mechanics, fast food chains and the like.

    In addition, ACORN might be targeted in a SLAPP suit. SLAPP stands for a strategic lawsuit against public participation an dhere's the statute directly out of the Maryland State Code:

    § 5-807. SLAPP suits. (a) "SLAPP suit" defined.- In this section, "SLAPP suit" means a strategic lawsuit against public participation. (b) Nature.- A lawsuit is a SLAPP suit if it is: (1) Brought in bad faith against a party who has communicated with a federal, State, or local government body or the public at large to report on, comment on, rule on, challenge, oppose, or in any other way exercise rights under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution or Article 10, Article 13, or Article 40 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights regarding any matter within the authority of a government body; (2) Materially related to the defendant's communication; and (3) Intended to inhibit the exercise of rights under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution or Article 10, Article 13, or Article 40 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights. (c) Scope of immunity.- A defendant in a SLAPP suit is not civilly liable for communicating with a federal, State, or local government body or the public at large, if the defendant, without constitutional malice, reports on, comments on, rules on, challenges, opposes, or in any other way exercises rights under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution or Article 10, Article 13, or Article 40 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights regarding any matter within the authority of a government body. (d) Remedies of defendant.- A defendant in an alleged SLAPP suit may move to: (1) Dismiss the alleged SLAPP suit, in which case the court shall hold a hearing on the motion to dismiss as soon as practicable; or (2) Stay all court proceedings until the matter about which the defendant communicated to the government body or the public at large is resolved. (e) Applicability.- This section: (1) Is applicable to SLAPP suits notwithstanding any other law or rule; and

    (2) Does not diminish any equitable or legal right or remedy otherwise available to a defendant in a SLAPP suit.


    (hat tip, Ace.)

    Like I said, I think they're operating out of instinct or sheer hubris,unless they know something I don't know...like the location of a videotape of their own showing the judge they anticipate getting being intimate with a corpse or some livestock.



    Another 'Secret' Iranian Nuclear Facility Found


    The big story today concerns the discovery of a what's described as a previously unknown and hidden Iranian nuclear site:

    President Obama and the leaders of France and Britain blasted Iran's construction of a previously unacknowledged uranium enrichment facility and demanded Friday that Tehran immediately fulfill its obligations under international law or risk the imposition of harsh new sanctions.

    "Iran is breaking rules that all nations must follow," Obama said, detailing how the facility near Qom had been under construction for years without being disclosed, as required, to the International Atomic Energy Agency. "International law is not an empty promise."

    The new Iranian plant, the country's second uranium enrichment facility, is believed by U.S. officials to be part of a broad effort by Iran's leadership to pursue the ability to build nuclear weapons. Iran has repeatedly denied having any such goal, insisting that its nuclear program is aimed at generating electricity. U.S. officials said they believe the Qom plant is not yet operational but is intended to produce highly enriched uranium -- suitable for nuclear weapons -- and will be capable within months of producing enough material for at least one bomb per year.

    In an early indication of Iran's reaction, President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad warned Western officials against pressing their case about the new enrichment plan during the upcoming talks.

    "If I were [President] Obama's adviser, I would definitely advise him to refrain making this statement because it is definitely a mistake," Ahmedinejad told Time magazine Friday in an interview in New York that took place even as Obama was publicly revealing the plant's existence. "It would definitively be a mistake."


    As far as I'm concerned, this is a huge non-story.


    Anyone with an iota of common sense who's been following this knows that Iran has been pursuing its clandestine illegal nuclear weapons program for over a decade.

    And this latest discovery is by no means the total story. This is just another one that leaked out.

    We already know that Iran is working on perfecting nuclear weapons. The heavy water plant at Arak, which has no peace time applications proves this if nothing else does.

    We also know (or we should) that we're not dealing with rational actors here.

    And finally we know that after six years of going around and around with the mullahs, diplomacy and carrots are not going to work. Iran is an economic basket case, and if 'incentives' were going to do the trick, they already would have.

    Ahmadinejad and the Mullahs have been quite clear on numerous occasions that they have no intention of even discussing their nuclear program any further. Why we refuse to take them at their word is a mystery.

    The story goes on with quotes about the Western leaders resolve to *Hold. Iran. Accountable* but what that means exactly is anyone's guess.

    If they're talking about UN sanctions, they might as well save their energy. Russia and China will veto anything substantive and violate any watered down sanctions that manage to be approved by the UN Security Council.

    If the Western powers plan on implementing sanctions on their own, it gets even worse. Russia can ship to Iran overland or by water via the Caspian Sea, and even if Europe was inclined to cooperate, Russia has the ability to blackmail Europe because of their control of the energy pipelines coming from the East. And interdicting Iranian shipping via the Persian Gulf is going to involve the West instituting a naval blockade and stopping ships, something I doubt Obama or the other Western leaders have the will to do.

    So the real story remains, what are we prepared to do the stop Iran from getting its hands on nuclear weapons? Will we go to war over it? Will we bomb the sites ourselves? Will we wait for the Israelis to get tired of waiting and take out the nuke sites for us?

    Or will we just sit there and continue to vote "present"?

    I guess we'll see.



    Thursday, September 24, 2009

    Sign A Petition To Indict Ahmadinejad


    My good friends over at Christians United For Israel (Pastor John Hagee's heroic group) have a petition you can sign to indict Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for the Crime of Incitement to Genocide, an actionable offense under the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide signed by 138 member nations in 1952.

    It's addressed to UN General Secretary Ban K. Moon and US Ambassador Susan Rice, and ordinarily I'd pass it off as a well meaning gesture.

    But in this case, it's well worth the detour since it's Hagee.He has a reputation for accomplishing things that appear impossible to us mere mortals.

    Those of you so inclined might want to join CUFI or help along his work with a donation. It's money well spent. Tell 'em Rob Miller at Joshuapundit sent you.



    Obama Gets Played on Iran Sanctions...


    Today there was a small ripple in the blogosphere when Russian President Dmitri Medvedev announced that Russia might support some sanctions on Iran..nothing definite, you understand, it would depend on what was involved and Putin would have to OK it, but as Medvedev said, "...sometimes they become necessary."

    Even FOX news began trumpeting as a possible diplomatic quid pro quo for Obama tossing Eastern Europe under the wheels.

    Better press that reset button.

    Even assuming Putin decided to go along and didn't cheat,the Chinese promptly weighed in and announced that there was no way they were going to support sanctions on Iran.

    They're actually right of course. Sanctions are not going to convince the mullahs to give up their nuclear weapons program.if 'diplomacy' or carrots were going to work, they already would have.

    But I can't suppress a grim chuckle at how quickly the brathless media excitement over whole idea of Russia being onboard for sanctions turned into a blind alley.

    As a matter of fact, I wouldn't be a bit surprised if the Russians and Chinese cooked it up between themselves...just to turn the knife a bit.



    Netanyahu Had Few Things To Say At the UN...

    Netanyahu didn't exactly get the applause President Obama got from the UN General Assembly for throwing Israel and America under the bus yesterday. But his words bear listening to, nevertheless.










    (Thanks and a h/t to Bookworm for finding the full version)



    Today's Must Reads, 9/24/09



    Feel free to send anything you find that you feel is worthy of a look to me at rmill2k@msn.com and I'll review it. This includes stuff you write yourself.Or if you prefer, you can send it to Natasha, our must reads Avatar..

  • Breitbart:Video - Netanyahu slams UN For giving Ahmadinejad a forum..'Have you no shame?'


  • Powerline: Obama takes the supplication of America to a new level



  • Dr. Sanity:Obama and the UN Lords


  • Victor Davis Hanson/NRO:Barack Obama as National College Administrator


  • Megan Fox:At UN Barack Obama comes across as gullible sap


  • Washington Times : Worst Foreign Policy Ever


  • Barry Rubin : The Obama doctrine - Force Your friends to give in, bribe your enemies


  • Ralph Peters: Afghan agony: More troops won't help


  • Huffington Post: McChrystal Report: 500,000 Troops Will Be Required Over Five Years in Afghanistan



  • Leslie Gelb/WSJ: Obama's befuddling Afghanistan policy



  • Ace of Spades: Sarah Palin takes Hong Kong


  • Breitbart : Palin slams Obama's spending in debut speech


  • Ann Coulter :Liberal lies about healthcare, #5 in a series


  • The Hill : Vulnerable Democrats say they lack political cover from Pelosi


  • Politico: GOP threatens strong reaction if Dems use reconciliation to push through health care bill



  • The Hill:Pelosi torpedoes public option 'trigger'


  • Jim Geraghty/NRO:Did Dem Senator Admits pay-for -play deal between Obama and Big Pharma ? more at Redstate


  • A/P News : Budget chief contradicts Obama on MediCare cuts



  • Dinah Lord :The Case of the Rocky Mountain Jihadi - Heads are rolling...dogs are sniffing.



  • WSJ:US al-Qaeda cell suspected



  • Pajamas Media Obama and ACORN- a love story




  • Washington Times:ACORN to sue Breitbart, filmamkers


  • FOX:Treasury Agrees to Formal Review Of ACORN


  • Michelle Malkin : Inside SEIU President Andy Stern's culture of corruption


  • IowaHawk : Earn Big $$$ The NEA Way!




  • Barack Obama Soils Himself At The UN


    Yesterday, President Obama made a speech to the UN General Assembly that was historic because it represented what ex-UN Ambassador John Bolton aptly called a post-American speech by our first post-American president.

    It expanded on the theme of Obama's famous Cairo speech, the Lap Dance of the Seven Veils... America is to blame for the world's ills and he was there to apologize, abase himself and then sell out our ally Israel as sort of a Special Free Offer to prove how sincere he was about it all.

    Obama made it crystal clear that he rejects any notion of American exceptionalism, and even American sovereignty over its own destiny, saying:

    "In an era when our destiny is shared, power is no longer a zero-sum game. No one nation can or should try to dominate another nation. No world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will succeed. No balance of power among nations will hold. The traditional divisions between nations of the South and the North make no sense in an interconnected world; nor do alignments of nations rooted in the cleavages of a long-gone Cold War."

    After the expected kumbaya intro, Obama started just like he did in Cairo, apologizing for absolutely all the sins America has supposedly committed against the Muslim World - Guantanamo, our interrogations of al-Qaeda terrorists, Iraq, our efforts in Afghanistan and the like. He implicitly accused America of 'torture' and mentioned America's new membership in the racist UN Human Rights Council and his efforts to gut our nuclear weapons arsenal as applause getters. Given the audience, those parts went over very well.

    In this context, he mentioned the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty and said that "those nations that refuse to live up to their obligations must face consequences..Because a world in which IAEA inspections are avoided and the United Nation's demands are ignored will leave all people less safe, and all nations less secure."

    He then went on to mention North Korea and Iran and said he was "committed to diplomacy that opens a path to greater prosperity and more secure peace for both nations if they live up to their obligations" but that if they ignore what he termed 'international standards', "..the world must stand together to demonstrate that international law is not an empty promise, and that treaties will be enforced."

    The translation? Obama apparently is punting on Iran and North Korea and leaving matters in the hands of the UN, which of course will do nothing given the realities. He'll try to bribe these two rogue nuclear powers and hope for the best, but otherwise he'll simply continue his non-policy, vote "present" and just shrug his shoulders at the inevitable result.

    Mentioning the NPT and the IAEA is also interesting in the context of the remarks he made about world wide nuclear disarmament. The sub-context obviously referred to two non NPT signatories regarded as adversaries by the Muslim world, Israel and India.While he didn't mention either country in this particular part of his speech, he clearly implied that non-signatories should be forced to abide by the NPT. And I doubt that implication was lost on his audience.Think of this speech as a lead in to US-supported UN resolutions calling for a nuclear free Middle East and demanding that Israel comply or face major sanctions.

    Obama also officially endorsed forcing Israel to return to the indefensible pre-1967 borders and let the appreciative audience know that the US opposes Jews having the right to build houses on land they legally purchased and now own, including in East Jerusalem. He has adopted the Arab narrative of referring to the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria ( AKA the West Bank) and in East Jerusalem as 'settlements' and part of an ongoing 'occupation.'

    Since the president is reportedly a graduate of Harvard Law School, I'd dearly love to see him try to prove that any of this land is under occupation as the word has always been defined, but I digress.

    And then there's this...

    "The United States does Israel no favors when we fail to couple an unwavering commitment to its security with an insistence that Israel respect the legitimate claims and rights of the Palestinians. (Applause.) And -- and nations within this body do the Palestinians no favors when they choose vitriolic attacks against Israel over constructive willingness to recognize Israel's legitimacy and its right to exist in peace and security."

    Here, Obama has directly coupled US support for Israel's right to exist with Israel's acquiescence of what we are now supposed to refer to as 'legitimate claims and rights of the Palestinians' - creating a Jew-free reichlet in all of the West Bank including half of Jerusalem, the creation of half a million Jewish refugees, and the right of the Palestinians to flood the remainder of Israel with genocidal 'refugees' of their own. And it bears remembering that the Palestinians and the Arab League are adamant that none of this is legitimate. In exchange for Israel committing what amount to national suicide via major strategic concessions, all Obama asks from the Arabs is words.

    Somehow, I doubt the Israelis have much confidence in Obama's 'unwavering commitment.'

    In a uniquely shameful act, the president also explicitly equated the IDF with Hamas terrorists, comparing "the Israeli girl in Sderot who closes her eyes in fear that a rocket will take her life" with "the Palestinian boy in Gaza who has no clean water and no country to call his own."

    He seems to have no conception that the violations of the human rights of both of the hypothetical people he mentions are a direct result of the policies of Hamas, the Palestinian leadership, and the refusal of the Arab nations to accept Jews living next to them in peace and equality. Nor did Obama's supposed concern over human rights extend to the almost one million Jewish refugees of the 1948 conflict, or to the Iranian people so brutally repressed by their own government in recent months.

    The president of the United States, who prides himslef on his supposed concern for human rights and his commitment to help the oppressed kept silent on Iran. At the same time, outside the UN during Obama's speech, hundreds of protesters were demonstrating against the brutality of the Iranian regime.

    The rest of the speech essentially dealt with pious homilies about climate change and the world economic crisis..both, of course, which are America's fault.

    In one speech, we have the spectacle of the president of the United States throwing both a long time ally and American exceptionalism overboard in the hopes of appeasing people who have no intention of being appeased. It was a despicable exercise in hypocrisy, selective morality and abasement rare even in the UN, which has seen plenty of both in the past.

    After looking at what he had to say, you literally have to wonder how President Obama thinks about his country.

    Obama has savored the best America has to offer. He was able to live a privileged life and go to the finest schools and by his own account never experienced overt racism. In fact, doors were opened for him in a way few people of any background experience in America.

    So his disdain for American exceptionalism can't come from any deprivation he himself has ever experienced. Instead, it appears to come from a visceral dislike of the country's basic nature and institutions, a deep commitment to the idea that America needs to be taken down a peg, to submerge itself in 'the international community.'

    His attitude towards Israel is to be expected, considering the sort of people Barack Obama has taken for mentors and political allies over the years.

    But it is his attitude towards his own country that provides the most food for thought.

    The change Americans voted for only a few months ago is coming back to haunt them...with a vengeance. One can almost hear Obama's old America-hating mentor Jeremiah Wright chuckling about chickens coming home to roost.