Look who’s thinking about getting into the race. Hey, I voted for him in 2000.
I hope that Bloomberg gets in, too. With Hillary!/Obama, McCain, Nader and Bloomberg in the race, the so-called liberal vote would be split four ways, perhaps leaving an opening for an actual conservative to run on an independent ticket.
Europeans are coming to the conclusion that Islam is dangerous:
“An overwhelming majority of the surveyed populations in Europe believe greater interaction between Islam and the West is a threat.” Backbench Tory MP David Davies told the Sunday Express: “I am not surprised by these findings. People are fed up with multiculturalism and being told they have to give up their way of life.”
“Most people in Britain expect anyone who comes here to be willing to learn our language and fit in with us.”
Mr Davies, who serves on the Commons Home Affairs Committee, added: “People do get annoyed when they see millions spent on translating documents and legal aid being given to people fighting for the right to wear a head-to-toe covering at school.”
…But leading Muslim academic Haleh Afshar, of York University, blamed media “hysteria” for the findings. She said: “There is an absence of trust towards Muslims, but to my mind that is very much driven by an uninformed media.”
An “uninformed media.”
Yes. That must be it.
It couldn’t have anything to do with riots over cartoons, or bombings in the tube.
That well-known right winger, Alexander Cockburn, confesses his sins on the climate change religion.
That well-known right winger, Alexander Cockburn, confesses his sins on the climate change religion.
That well-known right winger, Alexander Cockburn, confesses his sins on the climate change religion.
I don’t know where Iowahawk finds these things. I barely remember Makaniak myself.
From Patricia:
I voted in the middle of the day, when lines were short at my polling location, in the assembly room of a neighborhood Catholic church. At the beginning of the sidewalk to the polling place, I was met by a woman who asked me if I wanted to participate in an exit poll. Being the suspicious person that I am, I declined, noting that she was sitting close to people with Obama and Clinton campaign signs. Not accepting my decline, she asked again, telling me in a serious tone that my participation would allow them to assure that the voting machines were working correctly. I laughed, and declined again and continued walking toward the polling place passing by the exit-poll table set up in the shade of the building, manned by three or four nicely dressed men. I was met just outside the door to the polling place by an official in a vest who asked to see my voter registration card, which I showed him. After looking at the card, he directed me to the table right inside the door.
Once inside, I could see that other tables were set up for other precincts voting at this location. I went to my precinct table right inside the door as directed and found about five people in the line in front of me. The table was set up with signs designating alphabetical groupings and women in chairs on the other side of the table to look up voter names in printouts of registered voters matching the alphabetical groupings. Apparently, all the people in front of me had last names in the same alphabetical grouping as mine. There were no people in front of the other alphabetical groupings. And they were all problem voters. None of them had voter registration cards, or knew what precinct they were from, but nevertheless ended up at my precinct table. One by one their names were looked up in the one copy of S-Z and not found. After a few irrelevant questions from the women behind the tables: Are you married? Did your husband vote here? Did you move? Are you sure you are registered? These generally provoked irritated responses from them. After wasting time thusly, they were then sent to another table where a man with a computer would help them.
I finally got to the front of the line, but since the S-Z printout was in use, I had to wait a bit longer for my name to be found in it. Finally, my name was found in the S-Z printout. I signed on the appropriate line in the printout and, after the woman behind the desk scrutinized my sloppy signature for a match with my registration card, she gave me my ballot and sent me to the voting booths. Immediately available for my use were at least ten booths. Since the process of signing in created such a delay, getting a ballot and the amount of time to vote was short, due to only a couple of items on the ballot, and no lines had formed to use them. The bottleneck was clearly the sign-in process, not the number of machines.
Voting took me only a few seconds on the new touch-screen voting machine. I returned my ballot and received my “I Voted” stamp. Pleased with myself for exercising my voting rights in this wonderful democracy, wadding up my stamp, I walked past the exit-poll table where several poor schmucks who had agreed to take the exit poll were filling out paperwork, surrounded by three or four men ready to answer questions, or ask them, I really don’t know.
Ah, democracy, how confusing for those who don’t know what precinct they live in, or bother to change their address on their voter registration, or read their mail when they get their card, or believe campaign workers who assure them that voting machines are working correctly.
Remember, this is from the heart of “hanging chad country.”
Such is the state of my disgust with the Bush administration that, it being my birthday, I probably won’t bother to listen to his State of the Union speech tonight. But I recall another SOTU speech, exactly five years ago (on a previous birthday), that contained the sixteen words that the media continues to tell the Big Lie about, in their continuing attempt to maintain the conventional wisdom that it was wrong to remove Saddam Hussein.
Here’s another news item out of Britain this week: A new version of The Three Little Pigs was turned down for some “excellence in education” award on the grounds that “the use of pigs raises cultural issues” and, as a result, the judges “had concerns for the Asian community” — ie, Muslims. Non-Muslim Asians — Hindus and Buddhists — have no “concerns” about anthropomorphized pigs.
This is now a recurring theme in British life. A while back, it was a local government council telling workers not to have knick-knacks on their desks representing Winnie-the-Pooh’s porcine sidekick, Piglet. As Martin Niemöller famously said, first they came for Piglet and I did not speak out because I was not a Disney character and, if I was, I’m more of an Eeyore. So then they came for the Three Little Pigs, and Babe, and by the time I realized my country had turned into a 24/7 Looney Tunes it was too late, because there was no Porky Pig to stammer “Th-th-th-that’s all, folks!” and bring the nightmare to an end.
Just for the record, it’s true that Muslims, like Jews, are not partial to bacon and sausages. But the Koran has nothing to say about cartoon pigs. Likewise, it is silent on the matter of whether one can name a teddy bear after Mohammed. What all these stories have in common is the excessive deference to Islam. If the Three Little Pigs are verboten when Muslims do not yet comprise ten per cent of the British population, what else will be on the blacklist by the time they’re, say, 20 per cent?
And some related thoughts from Roger Kimball.
I am at the point where I think that we should say that no more mosques will be built in this country with Saudi money until there are churches and synagagues in Riyadh.
Charles Martel rolls in his grave.
The New York chapter of NOW is slamming Ted Kennedy. It is either going to be a very ugly campaign, or a very ugly convention in Denver. Maybe both.
I just wish that he’d offered Hillary! a ride home in his car.
[Update late afternoon]
I am loving this. Al “Race Baiter” Sharpton is telling the first black president to shut up.”
Wish he’d said that sixteen years ago.
I’m going to have to order a couple more barrels of popcorn just to get me through to the convention in Denver.
[Update at 5 PM EST]
Read the comments at this post by Megan McCardle. One example:
I believe it is closer to a null set than Hillary is counting on. I am a southern, middleaged, working-class white guy who has voted for the Democrat in every election since I turned 18 and will not vote for Sen Clinton regardless of who her oponent is. She would hurt the Democratic party almost as much as Bush has hurt the GOP. I will not be a party to it.
Posted by Larry Geater | January 24, 2008 8:57 AM
I’m a Dem and will never vote for Hillary in the general after the last few weeks. What she’s doing to cling to power is simply nauseating.
I will be abstaining, or I will take a good look at the republican candidate to see if his character is better then hers.
I also think she’ll find that she poisoned her chance, as I and many others Dems would have voted for her if she wasn’t trying to tear the party apart.
She’s going to have a hard time come next Nov
Posted by Donkey | January 24, 2008 9:00 AM
When we were over in Naples this weekend, someone told us that he hates George Bush, but that he’s seriously thinking about voting Republican this year for the first time.