July 31, 2004

BUSH BOUNCE!

        Horsefeathers found John Kerry's impersonation of a bold warrior quite entertaining. What made it so was the contradiction between the verbal insistence on his "strength", and the manner and content of his speech. The pathetically limp wristed salute and the self flattering introduction would have been painfully embarassing to any real warrior. The Neville Chamberlain like insistence that true strength consists in keeping the friendship of our foes like the French. The devious and cowardly manner of insinuating his opponent went to war for personal reasons. (What speech writer came up with this too clever by half technique, 'I promise as President I for one will never beat my wife'?). Additionally, any sentient viewer had to know that the John Kerry who boasted endlessly about his 4 month tour of duty in Vietnam was the same John Kerry who returned home and led the antiwar movement that helped Hanoi to victory. The more he played the bold warrior, the more viewers had to wonder why there was no mention of his anti-war role or his 20 year senatorial role attempting to eviscerate U.S. military and intelligence strength. Why wasn't he proud of the way he devoted himself to U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam? The mainstream media, desparate to elect a man more like themselves, went all out to portray the candidate as a Lincolnesque, eloquent leader. Can they make the sale? Horsefeathers finds polls and pollsters utterly unreliable. They still haven't factored out their own subjectivity, nor the reluctance of respondents to provide answers that go against the grain of political correctness. There is however, another way of gauging candidates. Instead of a poll, there is the market. The Iowa Electronic Market, set up by Iowa University, for real time trading in futures contracts created for the candidates. This is real money that individuals invest based not on their support of a particular candidate, but on their prediction of which candidate they think will win. The predictive value seems superior to polls. Guess what--that expected Kerry post convention bounce didn't happen. Instead it was more like a Kerry collapse. Saturday's trading showed a Bush bounce with a corresponding Kerry decline. Bush shares now are worth $.52 with Kerry at $.48.
Check out the Iowa Electronic Market here.

July 28, 2004

WELCOME TO THE FUNNY FARM: THE DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION

        The Democratic convention has almost overwhelmed Horsefeathers' cant detectors. According to most of what we've read, this gathering of appeasers, grievance mongers and angry utopians has been a great success. Why? Because it has managed to mask and disguise the authentic sentiments and beliefs of the party faithful! Hooray for the 90+% of the delegates who agree with Michael Moore, that the Iraq war was a devious plot manufactured by President Bush, but who hide their beliefs in hope of electing anybody but Bush. Anger is barely visible---except from old warhorses like Ted Kennedy. What an achievement! Hooray for the entire cast of self-reinventors. The party of feeling feels your pain and will take care of you, because you're just such a wonderful simple, hard working but unfairly treated American. Don't you want to go back to the peace and prosperity of the '90's? Well they'll take you there and not even mention that Muslim fanatics were working hard to destroy you all through that holiday from history. No mention of the Neville Chamberlain role of Jimmy Carter, who started it all with Iran. After all, Carter, the appeaser, has a Nobel Peace Prize, just like his good friend Yasser Arafat. They'll barely mention a war being waged by totalitarian fanatics to replace democracy with primitive Islamic Sharia law. If they do mention it, they'll assert how "strong" they are, although being "strong" seems to mean pursuing legal remedies rather than killing our enemies. And when it comes to legal remedies, the Democratic Party will find someone to sue if anything at all goes wrong in your life, and then will tuck you into bed and read you a fairy tale. This absurd Democratic nominating convention is considered a great success by pundits and deep thinkers in the media. Yet, if there's one thing Americans reject more than a wimp, it's a phony. The Mommy party might win by lulling everyone back to the sleep from which we awakened on 9-11, but more likely it will be regarded as a party of phonies, cowards and self-reinventors. Horsefeathers is not buying the fraud and suspects American will not buy it from those who are too timid to honestly state their beliefs.

"WOULD YOU SACRIFICE YOUR CHILD TO SECURE FALLUJAH?"

Michael Moore went toe to toe with Bill O’Reilly on the latter’s show last night (click HERE). He showed himself to be a crafty opponent and tough street-fighter in argument. He knows how to use brass-knuckles, and how to hit below the belt, and he gave O’Reilly, who was trained in Marquis of Queensbury rules, a good run for his money.

Bill stood his ground throwing left-hook logic and right-jab facts at Moore while the latter danced around the logic and ducked the facts. He threw irrelevant sand in O’Reilly’s eyes and used every rhetorical trick and trap in the book. And at the end Moore was still standing like the ideological terminator that he is. Nothing can or will change Moore’s viewpoint about Bush or the war in Iraq, extreme and paranoid as they may be.

There is one particular rhetorical trick that Moore has invented that has caught on among more centrist critics of the Iraq war. That seems to stump supporters of the war. It tends to take them by surprise and leave them fumbling for words as it did in last night’s interview.

O'REILLY: I know you are but…

MOORE: Are you against that? Stopping this war?

O'REILLY: No, we cannot leave Iraq right now, we have to…

MOORE: So, you would sacrifice your child to secure Fallujah? I want to hear you say that.

It is this rhetorical device that Moore uses to cloud men’s minds. And last night it worked again, forcing O’Reilly to avoid a direct answer to the question that would expose the trick and recover the offensive. The dialogue continued:

O'REILLY: I would sacrifice myself..

MOORE: Your child? It’s Bush sending the children there.

O'REILLY: I would sacrifice myself.

MOORE: You and I don’t go to war, because we’re too old…

O'REILLY: Because if we back down, there will be more deaths and you know it.

MOORE: Say, “I, Bill O’Reilly, would sacrifice my child to secure Fallujah.”

O'REILLY: I’m not going to say what you say, you’re a, that’s ridiculous…

MOORE: You don’t believe that. Why should Bush sacrifice the children of people across America for this?

The implication in the question is that the soldiers in Iraq are a) children, i.e. not grown-ups; b) are passive objects who have no motivation of their own; c) are like the soldiers in the Viet Nam war who were draftees and under the compulsion of the government; d) are like the soldiers in WW1 who were used as cannon-fodder by cruel and insensitive superiors.

The proper answer to Moore’s question is this.

O’REILLY: The men and women in the armed forces are not little children. They are grown men and women who have elected to join the armed forces for various personal reasons, at least one of which is to serve their country. They knew what they were doing. And they have been trained to fight in wars.

Except for a small number of anomalous soldiers who are usually uncovered by the New York Times and given the front page, most of our fighting men and women have confidence in their superiors, and most of their superiors cherish the lives of their men and women.

If my sons or daughters elected to enter the service I would be proud of them and admire and respect their decision. If they were injured or killed in the war, I would grieve and mourn their loss, but I would understand that it was their choice to make and I would honor their courage.

The President of the United States—the Commander-in-Chief—is charged with obligation and responsibility of protecting the nation and its interests, and he must use the armed forces to do that even though it may require the sacrifice of life and limb. The President has no alternative to that responsibility. It is his obligation to protect our national interests.

And the President and the Congress concluded that there was a strong possibility that the Saddam regime was or might become a serious threat to our national interests by allowing radiological material, for example, to fall into the hands of terrorists for the construction of a “dirty bomb.”

Because Saddam and his sons were unstable individuals themselves, and because they controlled a destabilizing force in the Middle East, with great capacity to make war on any of their neighbors or their own citizens, and because they had already given support to terrorists other than al-Qaeda, the President and Congress decided that it was in the national interest to get rid of the Saddam & Sons regime

This response may not convince Michael Moore or doves of any persuasion, but it will shut him up for a few minutes maybe.

July 27, 2004

POLITICALLY CORRECT ARTISTS AT WORK

The herd of independent minded 'artists' boldly working for Kedwards.:

KERRY-EDWARDS
Down on Bush PantyWare Party
WHEN: July 28 @ 7:00 PM
WHERE: Central Square

567 Massachusetts Ave

Cambridge, MA 02139
The Enormous Room

HOST: Dillon Paul
INFO: Join hosts Dillon Paul and Jennie Israel at the Enormous Room for the Down on Bush PantyWare Party, an evening of politics, panties, and performance! PantyWare Parties were founded by Axis of Eve (www.axisofeve.org), a coalition of brazen women on a mission to “expose and depose” President George W. Bush and his deceitful administration.

The Down on Bush PantyWare Party will include art and performance from some of Boston’s hottest artists, including the Ms. Dominica K, Frankie Cocktail, Sara Seinberg, Andi Sutton, Nicole Margaretten, Ben McCoy, Ingrid Schatz, and Catherine Musinsky.

AN OPRAH MOMENT IN RAMALLAH

The world's oldest terrorist, Yasser Arafat: not only in touch with his feelings but not hungup, like President Bush, on sexual differences. No wonder he's a favorite of Gail Collins and friends who recently called him a "romantic revolutionary", as well as Pinch (or is it Punch?) Sulzberger.
Top Palestinians Settle Dispute With a Kiss
"The Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat and his prime minister, Ahmed Qurei, hugged, kissed and settled their political dispute today with a pledge to pursue limited reforms that have been attempted previously without success..."

JOHN KERRY: ART LOVER

It turns out John Kerry is your all around metrosexual guy. Not only does he enjoy bicycling, deer hunting and tossing a baseball like a girl, he's also a lover of high culture. Here he is defending the "artists" like Whoopi Goldberg who recently spoke from their hearts and souls about President Bush .
"..When I talked about the heart and soul, I'm talking about the artistic expression. I'm talking about sort of the, I mean, I believe in the arts. I think that there's a great expression in it, and there's always this struggle. You know, does life imitate art or art imitate life? Which comes first? It's a little of both...

July 26, 2004

REALLY? AND SANDY BERGER WAS JUST PRACTICING THE HIDDEN BALL TRICK

BOSTON - John Kerry bounced the ceremonial first pitch during last night's Red Sox-Yankees game at Fenway Park, but he said he was just going easy on the National Guard soldier and Iraq war veteran standing in as catcher.
"I held back," Mr. Kerry told reporters early this morning, on the plane ride after the game. "He was very nervous. I tried to lob it gently."

ALLAHU AKHBAR! CONTEST ENDS WITH A WINNER

Back in March, Horsefeathers announced a contest to pick the date when Andrew Sullivan would bail out on President Bush and find a new love in the Democratic nominee. Following 9-11,Sullivan argued that an unbreakable emotional bond had formed with President Bush, but that was before Sullivan's gay issues preoccupation overtook his concern about winning the war. Horsefeathers thanks LGF for providing the news:

"...Much of the hard work has now been done. Nobody seriously believes that Bush will start another war. And in some ways Kerry may be better suited to the difficult task of nation building than Bush.

At home Bush has done much to destroy the coherence of a conservative philosophy of American government and he has been almost criminally reckless in his conduct of the war. He and America will never live down the intelligence debacle of the missing WMDs. He and America will be hard put to regain the moral high ground after Abu Ghraib.

The argument that Kerry must make is that he can continue the war but without Bush’s polarising recklessness. And at home he must reassure Americans that he is the centrist candidate, controlled neither by the foaming Michael Moore left nor by the vitriolic religious right.

Put all that together and I may not find myself the only conservative moving slowly and reluctantly towards the notion that Kerry may be the right man — and the conservative choice — for a difficult and perilous time..."

Drumroll please: The winner, whose pick of July 30 came as close as a Pedro brushback pitch, is... ALLAH !We should not be surprised at the ability to foretell the future by the shaper and knower of worlds. Oh fellow kufrs, Horsefeathers knows whose election predictions to follow: Allah ruler of the universe and slayer of infidels.

July 24, 2004

HE REALLY DID SERVE IN VIETNAM, DIDN'T HE?

        At age 3 my granddaughter, growing up in Boston, knows that Ted Williams, Johnny Pesky, Dom DiMaggio and Carl Yastrzemski are Gods. Her Nomar Garciaparra bear may be slightly worn but he is still a source of sustenance. She believes, in her childish, uneducated way, in the primacy of facts. A Red Sox player is not a Yankee and vice versa. And who is Eddie Yost?? Only John Kerry could imagine him a Red Sox star. Oh well, it's a PoMo world where reality is a narrative and 'facts' are malleable. Eddie Yost was a player of limited talent, a weak hitter, primarily known for his ability to work walks---for the Washington Senators! Peter Gammons tells us how John Kerry transformed Yost into his favorite Red Sox player.
        "We have been led to cynically believe that many politicians are disingenuous and generally phony, but few will ever beat Massachusetts Senator John Kerry. This man, who changed his middle initial to be JFK and at an anti-Vietnam rally threw someone else's medals into the water, made a self-promotion appearance with Boston talk-show maven Eddie Andelman and claimed he was a big Red Sox fan from his days growing up in Groton, Mass. And at the promotion he said Eddie Yost was his favorite player.The problem with that is just the simple fact that Eddie Yost never played for the Red Sox."

Posted at 07:51 PM by Stephen
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July 23, 2004

THE NYTIMES DISCOVERS: THE THREAT IS NOT MUSLIM JIHADDISTS, IT'S 'RELIGION'

"Religious Message Halts Train"--NYTimes

The New York Times has discovered the power of religion. It can halt trains! Those who might be tempted to suspect specific religious fanatics--Islamic jihaddists-- are no doubt misguided; the headline informs us it's a generically religious message; it could as well be Buddhist or Zoroastrian, or Jewish or Christian. Perhaps the message urged people to love their neighbors. But no, the story below the headline tells us "...a note containing Muslim and anti-Semitic phrases was found in a bathroom..." It must have placed itself there. Could it possibly have been left by a practitioner of the Religion of Peace? Is there a remote possibility that a Muslim left a threatening note expressing violent Jew hatred? Let's all keep a multiculturally correct open mind on the matter just like the New York Times. It might have been a Morrmon.

Posted at 05:22 PM by Stephen
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July 22, 2004

HORSEFEATHERS AWARD FOR POST-MODERN SLEIGHT OF HAND TO THE NYTIMES'S ERIC LICHTBLAU AND DAVE SANGER

        The challenge for young journalists, steeped in the wordsmith academic dogma of post-modernism, is how to create 'narrative truth', in the utopian socialist mode of Derrida, Foucault, and Judith Butler. This 'truth' should not be stated openly but rather should express itself through the narration. For the New York Times, the central organizing 'narrative truth' that emanates from its editors can be summed up in a few words: 'Bush is a clueless, reckless, macho Cowboy who is to blame for all bad things in the world--from war, to disease, to gender differences---they're all Bush's fault.' The challenge then is, in good Pomo fashion, to fit the facts into the narrative. A marvelous example is today's Samuel Berger story by Lichtblau and Sanger. The headline leads the reader to believe that the truly important question is what Bush knew and when he knew it and then what unfair things he did with the knowledge: White House Knew of Inquiry on Aide; Kerry Camp Irked

        The body of the story then goes on: The White House said Wednesday that senior officials in its counsel's office were told by the Justice Department months ago that a criminal investigation was under way to determine if Samuel R. Berger, the national security adviser under President Bill Clinton, removed classified documents about Al Qaeda from the National Archives.

        The White House declined to say who beyond the counsel's office knew about the investigation, but some administration officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said they believed that several top aides to Mr. Bush were informed of the investigation. President Bush himself declined to answer a question Wednesday about whether he had been told, saying: "I'm not going to comment on this matter. This is a serious matter, and it will be fully investigated by the Justice Department."

        By the time the article finishes, the rather startling information that former National Security Adviser, Sandy Berger was caught in a sting operation, stealing national security secrets, recedes. It is swallowed up by a narrative whose topic is the questionable, possibly nefarious motives and behavior of the Bush administration. After all, Sandy Berger is a liberal, a peace seeker who worked tirelessly for years to coax concessions from Israel and to bolster the oldest living terrorist, Yasser Arafat. He must be a noble victim.

        In Horsefeathers' opinion The New York Times should no longer be called a 'newspaper'; it should apply to become the official house organ of the Modern Languages Association.

Posted at 10:31 AM by Stephen
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July 20, 2004

KERRY ADVISER, SANDY BERGER, HAS A BRIDGE HE WANTS TO SELL YOU

Horsefeathers wonders: If Sandy Berger emerged from Bloomingdale's with jewelry stuffed down his pants and into his socks and was caught by surveillance cameras, would he have been given 8 months of freedom to pontificate on TV and in print about the nature and causes of crime? Would he have been provided the opportunity to defend himself by saying it was an unfortunate lapse of attention? Would he have had the opportunity to explain to a sympathetic NYTimes reporter that it was no big deal because he returned most of the stolen goods---except for the few items he inadvertently misplaced. Would the story have been buried on p.18 of the New York Times under the bland headline Clinton Aide Took Classified Material? (Has Condeleeza Rice ever been identified as an "aide" to the President? Instead it's always "National Security Adviser", Condeleeza Rice.) And if the "aide" were identified as the President's National Security Adviser--let's for a moment imagine it was Condeleeza Rice---would the New York Times have omitted the following details found in the AP account?-
"...The FBI searches of Berger's home and office occurred after National Archives employees told agents they believed they witnessed Berger place documents in his clothing while reviewing sensitive Clinton administration papers and that some documents were then noticed missing, officials said.

When asked, Berger said he returned some classified documents that he found in his office and all of the handwritten notes he had taken from the secure room, but could not locate two or three copies of the highly classified millennium terror report.

''In the course of reviewing over several days thousands of pages of documents on behalf of the Clinton administration in connection with requests by the Sept. 11 commission, I inadvertently took a few documents from the Archives,'' Berger said.

''When I was informed by the Archives that there were documents missing, I immediately returned everything I had except for a few documents that I apparently had accidentally discarded,'' he said..."

Curious minds want to know.

Posted at 12:20 PM by Stephen
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July 19, 2004

HORSEFEATHERS ALERT: WAR BETWEEN IRELAND AND FRANCE AVERTED

Jacques Chirac, The French Prime Minister, was sitting in his office wondering what kind of mischief he could perpetrate against the United States when his telephone rang.

"Hallo, Mr. Chirac!", a heavily accented voice said. "This is Paddy down at the Harp Pub in County Sligo, Ireland. I am ringing to inform you that we are officially declaring war on you!"

"Well, Paddy," Chirac replied, "This is indeed important news! How big is your army?"

"Right now," said Paddy, after a moment's calculation, "there is myself, me cousin Sean, me next door neighbor Seamus, and the entire dart team from the pub. That makes eight!"

Chirac paused. "I must tell you, Paddy, that I have one hundred thousand men in my army waiting to move on my command."

"Begorra!" said Paddy. "I'll have to ring you back!"

Sure enough, the next day, Paddy called again. "Mr. Chirac, the war is still on. We have managed to get us some infantry equipment!"

"And what equipment would that be, Paddy?" Chirac asked. "Well, we have two
combines, a bulldozer, and Murphy's farm tractor."

Chirac sighed, amused. "I must tell you, Paddy, that I have 6,000 tanks and 5,000 armored personnel carriers. Also, I've increased my army to one hundred fifty thousand since we last spoke."

"Saints preserve us!" said Paddy. "I'll have to get back to you."

Sure enough, Paddy rang again the next day. "Mr. Chirac, the war is still on!" We have managed to get ourselves airborne! We've modified Jackie McLaughlin's ultra-light with a couple of shotguns in the cockpit, and four boys from the Shamrock Pub have joined us as well!"

Chirac was silent for a minute and then cleared his throat. "I must tell you, Paddy, that I have 100 bombers and 200 fighter planes. My military complex is surrounded by laser-guided, surface-to-air missile sites. And since we last spoke, I've increased my army to two hundred thousand!"

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!", said Paddy, "I'll have to ring you back."

Sure enough, Paddy called again the next day. "Top o' the mornin', Mr. Chirac! I am sorry to tell you that we have had to call off the war."

"I'm sorry to hear that," said Chirac. "Why the sudden change of heart?"

"Well," said Paddy, "we've all had a long chat over a bunch of pints, and
decided there's no foo-kin way we can feed two hundred thousand prisoners."

Posted at 09:13 PM by Stephen
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COURTNEY LOVE: BUSH IS TO BLAME

        The Sixties lives! Oh for those heady days! Sex, drugs, rock 'n Roll-- and war protests---and for aging survivors like John Kerry, Wordsworth's dream fantasy: "Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very heaven" may explain a lot. One of the more notable features of the 1960's was the assertion that human nature was inherently innocent and good, but that social forces were to blame for its corruption. Mental illness was produced by the cruelties of bourgeois capitalism. The government, or the corporation, or ones parents were to blame. The English psychiatrist R.D. Laing, proclaimed that psychotics are actually nobly innocent victims, in touch with higher truths, while the slavishly normal were pathological victims of bourgeois cultural norms, cut off from their true selves. This stuff was taken seriously in the Sixties.
        And here now in 2004 is rocker Courtney Love, 21st century Bush basher, in touch with higher truths, the perfect embodiment of the contemporary angry Liberal mind. Shouldn't she be featured at the Democratic convention?
        "Despite everything, Love believes her predicament is the result of a coordinated financial, legal and personal smear campaign. In a recent interview with London's Sunday Telegraph, she was asked if she bears any responsibility for her current problems.

"The last thing I want to say is, 'I'm a victim', but I am. I believe it's a trickledown from Bush ... I should have done an audit. I should have done face-time with people. That is true. But did I bring it on myself? I don't think so."
See the rest here.

Posted at 06:43 PM by Stephen
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RESEARCH INDICATES THE SUN IS CAUSING GLOBAL WARMING: IT MUST BE BUSH'S FAULT

Gobal warming? Blame it on brighter Sun
MICHAEL LEIDIG AND ROYA NIKKHAH

London, July 18: "Global warming has finally been explained: the Earth is getting hotter because the Sun is burning more brightly than at any time during the past 1,000 years, according to new research.

A study by Swiss and German scientists suggests that increasing radiation from the Sun is responsible for recent global climate changes..."
See the rest here.

Posted at 01:49 PM by Stephen
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