GOP Debate — Wrapup

Here’s how I scored the debate.

McCain –B-

Romney — B-

Guliani — B+

Huckabee — A-

Hunter — B-

Brownback — C-

Tancredo — D

Paul — F

Gilmore — F

Thompson — F

It’s time for the bottom 3 or 4 to fold their tents and go on home.

Best line of the night….Huckabee: Congress is spending money faster than John Edwards at a beauty parlor…Priceless.

Strongest performer on National Security:  Rudy Guiliani.

Biggest disappointment:  Tom Tancredo

Al-Qaeda Kidnap Gang Cornered In Farmland

from AHN:

Mahmudiya, Iraq (AHN) – Backed by sniffer dogs and helicopters, U.S. forces in Iraq searching for three soldiers captured by an Al-Qaeda gang on Saturday have said the group is cornered in an area of farmland near Baghdad.

The three soldiers from Fort Drum’s 4th Battalion, 31st Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division were captured by the gang after being ambushed on a patrol sent to intercept roadside bombs.

“Right now our focus is on searching for the missing soldiers, and we’re trying to isolate the areas where we think they could be,” said Army Maj. Kenny Mintz, the brigade operations officer for the 2nd BCT, 10th Mountain Division in a Multinational Corps Iraq news release.

“The (captors) don’t have freedom of movement; if they have the soldiers, they can’t move them from where they are. We’re doing a deliberate search of the areas for the people responsible for the soldiers we’re looking for,” he said.

No confirmation has been received whether the U.S, soldiers are still alive and militants have mocked coalition attempts to rescue the missing soldiers.   LINK

DNC to FL: “Go to Hell”

Sources within the DNC are saying that the January 29 Democrat Primary may not count. Instead party activists and insiders would decide on some later date how to divvy up the state’s more than 200 delegates to the Democratic national convention.

“I think it’s much higher than 50-50 that we will make Jan. 29 a nonbinding” election, said Jon Ausman, a veteran Democratic organizer in Tallahassee and member of the Democratic National Committee.

Adam Smith in the St. Pete Times explains it this way:.

The confusion springs from the decision by Florida lawmakers to move the state’s primary from March to January. The move scrambled the carefully arranged schedule that both national parties had laid out for the primaries, aimed at giving a more diverse group of states say in the early nominating process.

National Democrats have particularly strict penalties for violating the schedule they set. Now they are looking at imposing penalties, including forfeiting any nominating delegates from Florida, that have some in the party worried the Democratic presidential candidates might wind up all but ignoring Florida.

I’m just loving this. Heh.

Chi-comms are nucking futs

In an eminent domain move that would make David Souter blush, the Chinese government is relocating some 250,000 Tibetans from their remote Himalayan villages to new “socialist villages.”

The project, which got under way last year, is formally titled the “comfortable housing program,” and although the villagers are being moved without their consent and having to build and pay for their own housing, China claims this will give them better access to schools, healthcare and employment. Tibetan sympathizers in the West see it as yet another Chinese drive, following the mass immigration of Han Chinese to the region, to overwhelm traditional Tibetan culture.

I remember reading something about this several months ago, and thinking to myself, “how odd,” and, “I wonder what those sneaky bastards are up to?”

Well, how’s about controlling 30-40% of the fresh water supply for India and Bangladesh for starters? And, when push comes to shove in the regional political arena, being able to withhold water for power generation and irrigation during the dry season and release water during the rainy season, with catastrophic consequences for the lower countries?

China wouldn’t do that, you say? Of course not (he said, sarcastically). They wouldn’t add an industrial additive like melamine to grain products either, would they?

Martin Walker (UPI) spells it out pretty clearly. Read it all.

Deonte Edward Bradley, 22, of Detroit

You’ve just become the next contestant on….“Do conceal carry laws really work?”

Deonte was arraigned Friday on assault with intent to do great bodily harm and carjacking. source

Ninety-one year old Leonard Sims was outside his car in the store parking lot about 8:30 p.m. when a man walked up and asked for a light for his cigarette, according to the prosecutor’s office.

The man then punched Sims at least a half-dozen times in the side of his head while Sims held onto the car door. The video also shows the man using the door to knock Sims to the ground before taking the keys and driving off in the 2005 Chevy Malibu.

Detroit police arrested the man (Deonte) last Thursday following a foot chase in Warren, just north of Detroit.

I ask you, would this story have turned out differently if old man Sims was carrying an equalizer? Probably so. Deonte might even have caught one between the eyes, saving society the expense of a trial plus room and board at the county farm. And the crowd of on-lookers (who did nothing to help Sims) wouldn’t have to feel bad about being total pussies, either. Win-win situation.

also pounding the keyboard:  Sunflower Desert

Falwell “Unresponsive”

BREAKING:
Jerry Falwell arrived at Lynchburg General Hospital today around noon after being found unresponsive in his office. Ron Godwin, the executive vice president of Liberty University, confirmed that Falwell was found unconscious in his office after missing an appointment this morning.

Update: He’s dead, Jim.

from wsj:

Mr. Falwell devoted much of his time keeping his university afloat. He dreamed that Liberty would grow to 50,000 students and be to fundamentalist Christians what Notre Dame is to Roman Catholics and Brigham Young University is to Mormons. He was an avid sports fan who arrived at Liberty basketball games to the cheers of students.

Mr. Falwell’s father and his grandfather were militant atheists, he wrote in his autobiography. He said his father made a fortune off his businesses — including bootlegging during Prohibition.

Mr. Falwell was a star athlete and student, but also a prankster who was barred from giving his high school valedictorian’s speech because he and other athletes were caught using counterfeit lunch tickets the entire senior year. He ran with a gang of juvenile delinquents before becoming a born-again Christian at age 19. He turned down an offer to play professional baseball and transferred from Lynchburg College to Baptist Bible College in Springfield, Mo.

“My heart was burning to serve Christ,” he once said in an interview. “I knew nothing would ever be the same again.” He returned home and founded his ministry.

Mr. Falwell is survived by his wife, Macel, and three children, Jerry, Jonathan and Jeannie.

Rudy’s pre-mortem

From Hot Air

…the false parallel from Muslims to Christians as though they’re two sides of the same coin when they’re not. [snip] It’s a pity that five years into this war, or nearly 30 if you’re dating its beginning to the Islamic Revolution in Iran, so few people actually understand this. Most of our political leaders in both parties don’t understand it, secular humanists constantly conflate Pat Robertson with the Taliban thereby demonstrating that they don’t get it, and most of our pundits and most of our major bloggers obviously don’t understand it either. Our dominant strains of voluntary ignorance may literally kill us.

I don’t assign any great significance to the false parallel that Bryan describes, nor do I equate the superciliousness of the secular conservatives with the “Christian Taleban” ad-hominems coming from the Rosie types. And, while I don’t like it, I realize that I don’t have to like it. They’re allies — kind of like the French.

Secular conservatives simply do not trust social conservatives. It’s nothing new. This is just the latest example. The sometimes uneasy electoral alliance between the two has held together because of the commonality of interests other than those based upon religious values. With the emergence of their favorite – Rudy – as the Republican frontrunner, I interpret these recent comments as nothing more than a pre-mortem on why Rudy’s candidacy will fail to win the nomination.

There are plenty of social conservatives, like me, who will hold their collective noses and pull the lever for Rudy, if he emerges as the Republican candidate. But support him in the Primaries? Nope.

related: Rudy’s gamble