Content by EagleWatcher
Posted at 1:24pm on Apr. 6, 2006 Wiggle and spin: Bush authorized leak!
By EagleWatcher
Via Drudge:
Bush Authorized Leak to TIMES, Libby Told Grand Jury...
If you follow the link and read the last line of the article.
"Vice President Dick Cheney's former top aide told prosecutors President
Bush authorized the leak of sensitive intelligence information about Iraq,
according to court papers filed by prosecutors in the CIA leak case.Before his indictment, I. Lewis Libby testified to the grand jury investigating
the Valerie Plame leak that Cheney told him to pass on the information and
that it was Bush who authorized the leak, the court papers say. According
to the documents, the authorization led to the July 8, 2003, conversation
between Libby and New York Times reporter Judith Miller.There was no indication in the filing that either Bush or Cheney
authorized Libby to disclose Plame's CIA identity. "
This is old news in more ways that one. First the same story was pitched two
months ago with almost the same headline. Second, it is designed to throw more
mud on the Bush administration by misleading people who don't bother to read
the article into assuming that Bush approved the leak of Valerie Plame. How
can anyone doubt the media bias and the naked hatred the MSM has for the Bush
Administration? This is irresponsible.
I think Republicans and good conservatives need to understand that the liberal
media is not going to give up. We have to be just as determined to get the truth
out when they do stuff like this.
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Posted at 1:27pm on Apr. 5, 2006 The Curious Controversy of "United 93"
By EagleWatcher
United 93 is billed as an accurate depiction of the events aboard
the United Airlines flight that crashed in the fields of Shanksville, Pennsylvania on 9-11. The film is directed by Paul Greengrass who directed The Bourne Supremacy
and Bloody Sunday. Universal has promised to donate 10% of the opening
weekend's receipts to the Flight 93 National Memorial Fund.
From the movie site:
"FLIGHT 93 intends to dignify the memory of those on that flight, the
men and woman whose sacrifice remains one of the most heroic legacies of the
incomprehensible tragedies that unfolded on that autumn morning."
The movie unfolds in real time; one minute of screen time equals one minute
of actual time on 9-11. It stars mostly un-known actors to avoid overshadowing
the fact that these were ordinary people.
Comments on the movie run the gamut of opinions; from those strongly against
to those strongly in favor. From the forums on the United
93 official web site:
This is the most disgusting and shameless act of capitalizing on a horrible
event to make money! And have no doubt..it's about making money! Forget the
so called......"View of the shape of our world today"!!! Go watch
Fahrenheit 9/11 for that! And this from the director of the Bourne supremacy?
I suppose being good at something doesn't mean u have any integrity.....so
I shouldn't be surprised.
A comment from one of those in favor:
How can you put down this film without ever seeing it? I admit I'm not impressed
by Hollywood's efforts in the last several years. They take us for a bunch
of sheep that will fall all over ourselves to see their mediocre projects.However, I am very interested in the 9/11 story and look forward to seeing
this. I don't see how a dignified chronicle of that infamous day and flight
is offensive.
Talk radio has started to discuss the implications of the movie saying it is
important that the country be reminded that we are fighting a real enemy. They
are presaging the potential controversy this movie will stir. How will a painfully
accurate move be received by a country that is still healing from the experience
of 9-11? People reacted with shouts of "too soon" at Grauman's Chinese
Theatre. Those who have seen rough cuts of the film say it is well produced
and one of the most powerful movies they have ever seen. At first I was stunned
that the movie was coming out so soon, but after listing to Debra Berlingame
I realized that this was not a cheap Hollywood money grab. Debra Burlingame,
whose brother was a pilot on the flight, has said in interviews on FOX and Rush
Limbaugh's show that the movie is a must see. She assures us that the producers
of the movie have obtained permission from everyone of the families who lost
loved ones on United 93 and treats the subject with respect.
Regardless of your feelings this will likely turn into a shameless, full blown,
political controversy. You can imagine how the battle lines will be drawn. The
MSM is already giving it the "Passion of the Christ" treatment, raising
questions of exploitation. I wonder if they will raise the same objections when
Oliver Stone releases his 9-11 movie in August. As for me, I plan to see it.
Too many people, including conservatives, have forgotten the events of 9-11
and how United 93 was the first battle in the war on a brutal enemy bent on
the destruction of the US.
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Posted at 9:19am on Apr. 2, 2006 Lifeboat America
By EagleWatcher
A parable of two lifeboats
Two lifeboats took to sea as an ocean liner tragically sinks beneath the waves.
One life boat is full of conservatives the other full of liberals. In the water
are dozens of people screaming for help. The conservatives pull in an elderly
man, a pregnant woman and some young children; the weakest and most likely to
drown. But soon the boat begins to get dangerously full. They refuse to take
on any more for fear their boat will be swamped. The people in the water beg
and plead, but the conservatives are resolute.
The liberals witnessing this shout out to the conservatives, "How can
you be so heartless? Where is your compassion? Don't you care about the suffering
of these people?" With this the liberals begin pulling people into their
boat from all sides. People in the water swim frantically to the liberals' boat
and begging pulling themselves in. In the frenzy and panic, the liberals' lifeboat
capsizes and sinks drowning all on board.
The lesson is simple. With conservatives in charge, some people will drown.
With liberals in charge, everybody will drown. The bad news is that our lifeboat
is getting full and conservatives are not in charge.
A plea for leadership
Americans are faced with a crisis of compassion. They want to help those less
fortunate, but they don't want to sink their own lifeboat in the process. Liberal
Democrats and nominal conservatives offer no solutions to the illegal
immigration problem; a problem that threatens our country on so many levels.
Conservatives need to show some courage and sensibility on this issue before
our lifeboat sinks.
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Posted at 2:02pm on Jan. 28, 2006 Google technology in service to censorship
By EagleWatcher
The executives at Google have abandon their liberal ideals and put profit above
human rights and free speech. The ringing of the cash register has drown out
the cries of an oppressed people. They have agreed to use their powerful technology
to help the Communist government of China keep the Chinese people from learning
about the failure of Communism around the world and the liberating dignity of
self-determination. Not only can they filter out words like freedom, Democracy
and human rights, their filtering technology allows them to filter out images
as well. To demonstrate this, our friends at Little
Green Footballs put together a simple demonstration.
Search Google
USA for the word "Tiananmen"
Search Google China
for the word "Tiananmen"
Some of my Chinese friends participated in the Tiananmen Square protests. They
gathered in small groups with other students to fill out their last will and
testaments, fully realizing they may not survive an encounter with the Communist
government of China. Today they are proud US citizens.
What Google has done is an affront to the good people of China. People who
have suffered torture, starvation and death at the hands of a totalitarian government
that killed 70 million of its own people under Chairman Mao. What Google has
done is far worse than the child labor violations liberals are so quick to point
to as evidence of the evils of capitalism. Google's hypocrisy is simply staggering.
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Posted at 1:52pm on Jan. 15, 2006 Adventures in Conservative Podcasting
By EagleWatcher
Steve Jobs recently announced that Apple has sold over 42 million iPods with
14 million being sold this Christmas. In addition to music, the success of the
iPod is driven by the podcasting of all kinds of content like books on MP3,
news, sports shows and talk radio programs. For conservatives this is another
way to smash the MSM's information monopoly and go directly to the people with
their message. Blogs4Bush, RedState, Instapundit and the RNC have begun dabbling
in podcasts with more to come.
Here's a short list for the inquisitive, well informed conservative. Not all
links are exclusively conservative, but they do offer informative and provocative
content.
Digital Debates - National Constitution
Center
They don't update as often as I would like, but when they do it's fascinating
stuff. Checkout their debate on Intelligent Design. Free download.
Beyond the News Weekend Journal
This is a great weekly wrap up of highlights culled from the national conservative
talk shows like Hugh Hewitt and Bill Bennett. If you're too busy to listen to
talk radio this is the next best thing. Free download.
The Senate Republican Conference
Podcasts include Republican Senate news conferences and floor statements as
well as other events. This week the podcasts included Sen. Cornyn's Q/A on final
day of confirmation hearings for Judge Alito to the U.S. Supreme Court. This
is a must choice for the political junky. Free download.
C-SPAN
You can subscribe for free using iTunes and get audio of their Q&A
interviews, After Words interviews and a Podcast of the Week.
Voice of America
VOA podcasts a number of programs including panel discussions, debates and science
and technology news. They cover news the MSM ignores giving you an insight into
world politics you won't get from CNN. Free download.
For those willing to pay a yearly subscription fee you have a lot of excellent
conservative podcasts to choose from:
Rush Limbaugh
For those who may not know, Rush offers his show as a podcast. The show downloads
as 3 MP3's of about 40 minutes each; all without a single commercial. The show
is rich with sound bites, conservative history and political satire. Yearly
subscription required.
Laura Ingraham
The show downloads from iTunes as a single file about 2 hours long without commercials.
Laura's show is rich with interviews with people like Don Rumsfeld, Gary Sinise
and a variety of others. The show is a great mix of politics, culture and satire.
Laura's show is one of the top 5 talk shows in the country. Yearly subscription
required.
Podcasting has been a successful outlet for conservative talk radio. Bill Bennett,
Michael Medved, Denis Prager, Albert Mohler and Sean Hanity offer podasting
subscriptions with Hugh Hewitt and others coming in the near future.
The value proposition is that you can listen to podcasts while commuting, working
out at the gym or working around the house. Instead of listening to your favorite
Barry Manilow tune for the 500th time, you can listen to Steve Forbes explain
his flat tax plan, former Attorney General of the US under Bush 41 William Barr
explain why Gitmo should not be shut down or listen to Randall Wenger and Jeremy
Gunn, Director of the ACLU's Program on Freedom of Religion debate the Dover,
PA intelligent design case.
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Posted at 3:59pm on Jan. 8, 2006 Slouching Toward a Brave New World
By EagleWatcher
Ray Kurzweil was ebullient
as he spoke about his latest
book on C-SPAN and described a day when nanotechnology would create tiny
robots the size of blood cells that would course through our veins and help
cure diseases like Diabetes. These cell-bots would work by sensing our sugar
levels and releasing insulin automatically. Another type of cell-bot would act
as anti-bodies. We would be able to download virus patterns from the Internet
and transfer them to these cells as new disease were discovered. Eat your heart
out, Norton AntiVirus.
His vision is optimistic. Kurzweil's predictions draw validity from what he
calls "The Law of Accelerating Returns." Simply put, it states that
the growth in technological capability is exponential. In 100 years we will
not be just 100 years more capable, but thousands of years more capable.
"The implications include the merger of biological and nonbiological
intelligence, immortal software-based humans, and ultra-high levels of intelligence
that expand outward in the universe at the speed of light."
Mr. Kurzweil doesn't drive around in a Delorean with Michael J. Fox. He is
a respected scientist who developed technologies like optical character recognition,
musical synthesizers and text to speech readers.
Developments in the biotech industry are moving toward a horizon not all that
different from Kurzweil's. As I write this, mice exist who have had small amounts
of human DNA spliced into their own. This is the first step toward creating
human-animal hybrids or "chimeras." This could produce creatures that
will be able to grow humanly compatible organs to be used in transplants. In
the future it could lead to creatures that are as strong as elephants with enough
human intelligence to do difficult or dangerous work, like coal mining or fighting
wars, so humans don't have to.
So what's so bad about living until your 900 years old? What parent would balk
at the idea of having children that were genetically "modified" to
have above average intelligence and the physique of an Olympic athlete? Who
would complain if society were able to clone up a batch of 1,000 Einsteins?
I could fill a dozen diaries with the ethical questions that will be raised
by these new technologies.
The horses of the technology chariot are strong and are pulling us to a point
where we will have to reconsider the very definition of what it means to be
a human being. In spite of the ethical controversy, I fear that scientists like
Kurzweil are presenting a package that is too appealing to pass up.
While the scientists and ethicists fight it out on Mount Olympus, we mortals
will be making decisions at the grass roots level that will make their debate
seem moot. Most of you reading this would never condone cloning or embryonic
stem cell therapies, but consider the following scenario. Your daughter is suffering
from cancer and the prognosis is that she will certainly die of her illness.
None of the conventional cures have worked. One day the doctor calls and says
there's a radical new therapy that could save your daughter's life. The catch:
it's based on embryonic stem cells or one of the other ethically questionable
technologies. How many of us could say no to the doctor for ethical reasons
and watch our daughter die?
Pandora's box will not be opened with a golden key by one of our political
leaders; it will be smashed open by millions of people desperate to ease the
pain and suffering of their loved ones. Yes, I am pessimistic. I fear that we
will not be able to rouse enough people to fight the ethical and legal battles
ahead and demand that progress is not made at the expense of ethics. These battles
will make the abortion debate look like a trivial dispute. The Brave New World
will not just appear suddenly one day. It will arrive one brick at a time.
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Posted at 10:54pm on Jan. 6, 2006 Your land is my land: takings case in Massachusetts
By EagleWatcher
This
is another reason why the Alito nomination is so important. I fear we will see
a lot more of these before any real challenge is mounted. The land in questions
is in a prime location next to major highways with a lovely view of the water.
The bottom line is that the city took the land from a private interest and gave
it to another private interest.
Kenneth Fiola Jr., executive vice president of the Fall River Office of Economic
Development, said United Textile owner Samuel Shapiro has received a $1.6
million check for his property.The announcement comes three weeks after the authority voted unanimously
to take the land by eminent domain."This doesn’t mean we are kicking Mr. Shapiro off the land. His
business is still operating on the site for now," Fiola said. "This
just means we now officially own the property."
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Posted at 11:21am on Jan. 4, 2006 The MSM's Cruel Mistake
By EagleWatcher
I turned on FOX News late last night to hear Geraldo Rivera celebrating hysterically.
He was wandering through a crowd of people asking them what they had heard and
they were saying that "they're alive!" He compared it to the miracle
in Pennsylvania. Anderson Copper at CNN was reporting the same thing with slightly
less emotion.
This morning I turned on FOX and read the caption under the screen. It said
that 12 miners were found dead and only one was alive. The earlier jubilation
was apparently sparked by a forman at the mine who had overheard a speaker phone
conversation and assumed that all 12 miners were found alive.
This is another tragic example of rumor being reported as fact. It is reminiscent
of the reporting from New Orleans and the stories that hundreds of people had
died at the Super Dome including the rape and murder of a seven-year-old. It
is cruel and irresponsible. The MSM's credibility continues to plummet.
Our prayers and sympathies are with the families in West Virginia.
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Posted at 11:37am on Dec. 26, 2005 Winners and Losers of 2005
By EagleWatcher
It was a pretty good year to own a cable news network. You certainly didn't
lack for stories to cover. As the dust settled some emerged in a better
position than they were 12 months ago while others may wish 2005 never happened.
Those who came out on the losing end:
- National Security
If you read the 911 Report you might likely conclude that the one thing that
would have prevented September 11 is the Patriot Act. In spite of 30 new civil
liberties protections added to the revised version, the Democrats proudly
defeated it and put us on a path back to a September 10th world. - Cindy Sheehan
Some people may despise her, but I see her as tragic figure. After being seduced
and manipulated by the liberal media and the American Left she has been cast
off to put her life and her sanity back together. She has been abandoned to
bounce around like a loose ping-ping ball in the clockworks of world politics. - The MSM
The New York Times, L. A. Times as well as others reported substantial drops
in circulation and profits. Their credibility continues to sink even after
a brief bump from their Katrina coverage. - Social Security Reform
Even the Spruce Goose got further off the ground than this one. In spite of
the fact that we face more than 50 Trillion in benefit liability for Medicare
and Social Security in the next 75 years, President Bush failed to convince
anybody that the house is on fire. - New Orleans
First you had 60% unemployment, a murder rate 7 times the national average
and one of the most corrupt police departments in the country and then...the
levees broke. The colossal bungling of Ray Nagin on up to FEMA made the worst
natural disaster in US history even more devistating. Is there any wonder
that 50% of people who used to live there don't want to go back?
The Winners:
- The Blogosphere
The conservative blogosphere muscled up quite a bit this year. I think it
was instrumental in getting the Miers nomination withdrawn and in motivating
the President's current set of speeches defending the war and promoting the
economy. - The US Economy
In spite of the devastation of Katrina and a spike in oil prices, the US economy
survived and even grew at almost 4%. - John McCain
Love him or hate him, he succeeded in creating a fourth branch of government
in The Gang of Fourteen. He then went on to appoint himself maverick-in-chief
with veto power over the President. - The Liberal Left
In spite of a re-energized Conservative base, the liberal Left scored some
important victories this year. They managed to codify their powerful influence
on our society by defeating parental notification in California. They advanced
the secularization of America by getting Intelligent Design banned in Pennsylvania.
They succeeded in using the courts to make a "quality of life" judgment
in the Terri Schiavo case. And they managed to give the state more control
over our lives in the Kelo decision. - The Alaskan Caribou
The caribou handily won the right to an unspoiled view of the snow and rocks
in ANWR. Without making a single phone call they managed to trump the energy
needs of 280 million human beings and the needs of our military fighting in
Iraq. Perhaps Republicans would find it easier to win elections if they ran
with antlers on their heads.
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Posted at 11:42am on Dec. 21, 2005 Outlawing the Scientific Method
By EagleWatcher
I have always loved science. It led me to take apart all our appliances when
I was a kid to see how they worked. I had very understanding parents. It later
led me to go to college and study engineering and now to work as a computer
programmer.
One definition of the scientific method reads:
principles and procedures for the systematic pursuit of knowledge involving
the recognition and formulation of a problem, the collection of data through
observation and experiment, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses
This week a judge in the Middle District of Pennsylvania amended this definition
to forbid the examination of evidence that would suggest an intelligent designer.
Think about this for a minute. A judge is prohibiting the presentation of scientific
evidence because it might support a particular religious view.
What would Federal Judge John Jones have said to Belgian Catholic priest Georges
Lemaître? Mr. Lemaître was the guy who first proposed the Big Bang
theory. Would he have outlawed it because it defies the conventional belief
that the universe always existed and suggests a "beginning" to the
universe and thus an ultimate beginner?
The Big Bang theory is not based on the Bible, it is based on scientific evidence.
- The Red Shift
Most people know about the Doppler affect. As a sound source comes toward
you the pitch shifts higher. As it moves away the pitch seem to lower. This
is true of light waves as well. By looking at light sources in the cosmos
they seem to be shifting to the lower frequency end of the light spectrum
indicating that they are moving away from us. This suggests that
the universe is expanding as if some force, like a cataclysmic explosion,
has sent all stars and galaxies out in all directions. - The Hydrogen to Helium ratio
According to Georges Lemaître's theory, hydrogen and helium would exist
in specific ratios in the universe if there had been a Big Bang. Scientific
study has shown that the hydrogen/helium ratio is precisely as Georges Lemaître
predicted it would be. - The Echo of the Big Bang
Lemaître theorized that the Big Bang was so powerful we should be able
to hear "echoes" of it even today. Scientists have found that there
are "echoes" in the form of microwave radiation. No matter where
they pointed their receivers they picked up this residual microwave energy.
You can hear it for yourself when you tune your radio manually looking for
your favorite station. About three percent of the static you hear between
stations is actually caused by the echo of the Big Bang.
I can't begin to tell you how controversial this theory was when it was first
proposed. It was apposed not because it was bad science, but because it violated
the religious views of an agnostic scientific community. Could some people interpret
the judge's ruling to prohibit the teaching of the Big Bang theory as well?
I fear that the judge in this case has crossed a line that will prevent young
minds from considering scientific evidences based on a fear that it may make
them believe in something spiritual. Let all the evidence be examined and let
the people decide. Let the investigation go were the evidence takes it.