Roscoe's Blog

They Just Can't Help Themselves

While I'm on the NYT, an editorial yesterday, entitled "Are We Stingy?  Yes" bashes Bush because America is not spending enough on the tsunami disaster:

The American aid figure for the current disaster is now $35 million, and we applaud Mr. Bush's turnaround. But $35 million remains a miserly drop in the bucket, and is in keeping with the pitiful amount of the United States budget that we allocate for nonmilitary foreign aid.

The editorial ignored that when the president announced the 35 mil figure - the day before the NYT's editorial - he expressly stated that the amount would be increased.  "'I assure those leaders that this is just only the beginning of our help,' he said."   Sure enough, the amount of aid was increased to 350 mil today (and almost certainly not because of anything that was said at the UN or the New York Times).   So the editorial was purposely misleading, in order to score political points.  (The editorial was also misleading because it didn't factor in the military and private help that Americans were providing).

At any rate, John Podhoretz calls out the NYT, for being so quick out of the blocks to attempt to make political hay out of a tragedy of this magnitude:

Even as tears spring into the most hard-hearted person's eyes at both the unimaginable scope of the tragedy and at the wrenching individual stories of loss, opinion leaders just can't help themselves.

They are using this cataclysm as little more than cheap debate fodder about the nature and character of the United States, its president and its citizens.

Unfortunately, as Jonah Goldberg at the Corner points out, I wouldn't count on Podhoretz succeeding in his attempt to shame the NYT. 

The NYT and Adware

A good story in the New York Times (rag that it  generally is) about some poor sap who had to have his hard drive erased to clean off all the spyware and adware.

This is likely a problem for everyone.  My main (work) computer keeps picking up some junk that shows me pop-up ads for American Express.  I can't tell what site is loading on the adware, but it will be a long time before I get an  American Express  card (Visa, its everywhere I want to be).

Despair, Inc.

The "Despair, Inc." 2005 Calender is out. 

How can you hate that?

L.A. Times Year in Review

Patterico whips up on the Los Angeles Dog Trainer (aka the LA Times) in his "Year in Review".  Here is Part One and here is Part Two.  The review is extensive and comprehensive, and anyone who doubts that the paper has a relentless liberal bias should doubt no more.
BTW, Pat has the occasional nice thing to say about the LAT, here.

Some Not Very Sensible Reaction to the Tsunami Disaster

The response to the tsunami disaster has been a little bit like the blind men and the elephant - everyone can see what they want to see in the calamity.  So while the Washington Post and the Daily Kos immediately use the tragedy as an excuse to Bush bash, the environmental types are just as quick blame the disaster on our failure to be sufficiently nice to our "mother" Gaia.  That's right, we in America caused the disaster, because we wouldn't sign the Kyoto Treaty.

This latest reaction response requires mocking, and nobody does it better than Iowahawk:

Entitled "Fire Bad: Fire Very Bad," the report warns that the planet faces additional catastrophies unless drastic regulatory action is taken to appease Earthen-furies.

"Unclean money devils anger sacred water spirit Tai-Waku," explained Martin Knudson of Scripps Oceanic Institute. "He now call angry to son the whale, 'make slap with anger-tails! Bring vengeance-surf to villagers!'" 

While most empirical evidence supports the theory of wrathful whale-tail slappings, some scientists are exploring alternative hypotheses for the weekend tsunami. Ecobiologist Jane Geary of UC Santa Cruz points to mounting evidence that the ocean spirit-world may have been driven to gastrointestinal rage by gas-guzzling SUVs.

"Thunder-wagon make smoke cloud of greenhouse gas," explained Geary. "hungry Tai-Waku eat smoke from thunder-wagon, pass giant wind with mighty fury."

Ramsey Clark to Join the Dream Team

Back when Chrenkoff profiled Saddam Hussein's legal defense team, he mockingly noted the absence of Ramsey Clark, former Attorney General under Lyndon Johnson.   Clark's absence was significant, given his willingness to represent any evil scum on the planet, so long as the evil scum was anti-American (as even the liberals at Salon have had to admit, dubbing Clark as "The War Criminal's Best Friend).

Well, the injustice has been remedied, as Mr. Clark is now a member of this latest dream team.   The first order of business?  Of course, "the U.S. itself must be tried for the November assault on Falluja, destruction of houses, torture in prisons and its role in the deaths of thousands of Iraqis in the war."

Ankle Biting from the Main Stream Media

It looks as if Nick Coleman is off his medication again.  A lot of folks are calling him a jerk, and with good reason.

The U.N. Thinks We Are Stingy

Apparently the U.N. thinks we are being too stingy in our response to the tsunami disaster.  This is according to Jan Egeland, an Undersecretary-General of that august body, who had this to say:

"It is beyond me why are we so stingy, really," the Norwegian-born U.N. official told reporters. "Christmastime should remind many Western countries at least, [of] how rich we have become."

Of course Jan thinks that the real problem is that we don't pay enough in taxes over here:

"There are several donors who are less generous than before in a growing world economy," he said, adding that politicians in the United States and Europe "believe that they are really burdening the taxpayers too much, and the taxpayers want to give less. It's not true. They want to give more."

I have a couple of thoughts.  First, don't you think Jan is a real dork?  I sure do.

Second, does anyone know what an Undersecretary-General at the UN makes?  In fact, our buddy Jan makes over 180 thousand (you will need Excel to read this file).  I don't know about you, but it really chaps my ass that this furinner who is making tall coin sucking at the public teat (with me and you picking up 27% of that, thank you very much) has the nerve to complain that us common folks who actually have to earn our daily bread aren't paying enough.  How much are you contributing to the relief effort, Jan?

And, in fact, America has never been "stingy" in response to any humanitarian crisis.  As George Bush noted this morning:

"In the year 2004, our government provided $2.4 billion in food and cash and humanitarian relief. ... That's 40 percent of all the relief aid given in the world last year," he said.

The President said that the 35 million we have pledged is only the beginning.  And, of course, we are doing a lot more.  We have a carrier group and an amphib group on the way, and C-130s loaded with stuff.  And this is just the first wave, we are taking over a Thai base to deploy air assets to assist with the relief efforts.  There is no way that Norway or any other country (or, frankly, the rest of the world combined) could match this level of effort, even if they had an inclination to.

Finally, when the hell are we going to tell the U.N. that they should take their act elsewhere?

Dan Rather, Peter Jennings, and a Marine

A joke going around:

Dan Rather and Peter Jennings, along with a U.S. Marine assigned to protect them, were hiking through the Iraqi desert one day when they were captured by terrorists. They were tied up, led to a village, and brought before the Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al Qaeda leader in Iraq.

Zarqawi said, "I am familiar with your western custom of granting the condemned a last wish; so, before we kill and dismember you, do you have any last requests?"

Dan Rather said, "Well, I'm a Texan; so I'd like one last bowlful of hot spicy chili." Zarqawi nodded to an underling who left and returned with the chili. Rather ate it all and said, "Now I can die content."

Peter Jennings said, "I am Canadian, so I'd like to hear the song 'O Canada' one last time." Zarqawi nodded to a terrorist who had studied the Western world and knew the music. He returned with some rag-tag musicians and played the anthem. Jennings sighed and declared he could now die peacefully.

Zarqawi turned and said, "And now, Mr. U.S. Marine, what is your final wish?"

"Kick me in the ass," said the Marine.

"What?" asked Zarqawi. "Will you mock us in your last hour?"

"No, I'm not kidding. I want you to kick me in the ass," insisted the Marine. So the leader shoved him into the open, and kicked him in the ass.

The Marine went sprawling, but rolled to his knees, pulled out a 9mm pistol hidden in his cammies, and shot Zarqawi dead.

In the resulting confusion, he leapt to his knapsack, pulled out his M4 carbine, and sprayed the remaining terrorists with gunfire. In a flash, they were either dead or fleeing for their lives.

As the Marine was untying Rather and Jennings, they asked him, "Why didn't you just shoot them? Why did you ask them to kick you in the ass?"

"What," replied the Marine, "and have you assholes call me the aggressor?"

Thanks to Evan's Journal and Instapundit.

More on the Mosul Bombing

In an earlier post I linked to an e-mail of a chaplain who witnessed the suicide bombing at Mosul.   Apparently there were a lot of military witnesses who have e-mailed on the subject, and The Mudville Gazette has a rundown of them.  (Thanks to Instapundit)