PoliticAlex

The BBC on PBS, or Hard News, England-style...

as spoofed at thespoonsexperience. Too funny, (hat tip: Steve, thx for the laugh).

Laser beams track plane in Cleveland...FBI investigates...

(via Drudge) - this story out of Cleveland is alarming, in the sense that the common laser can be used to wreak havoc, if employed by malevolent users.

Authorities are investigating a mysterious laser beam that was directed into the cockpit of a commercial jet traveling at more than 8,500 feet.

The beam appeared Monday when the plane was about 15 miles from Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, the FBI said.

"It was in there for several seconds like (the plane) was being tracked," FBI agent Robert Hawk said.

The pilot was able to land the plane, and air traffic controllers used radar to determine the laser came from a residential area in suburban Warrensville Heights.

Hawk said the laser had to have been fairly sophisticated to track a plane traveling at that altitude. Authorities had no other leads, and are investigating whether the incident was a prank or if there was a more sinister motive.

Michelle Malkin has an interesting discussion going about this as well, along with some informative emails from her readers on the subject. One retailer has gone so far as to stop selling this type of laser:

Unfortunately, we have decided to STOP selling these lasers to the general public. Too many people have been doing stupid things with lasers recently, and this product is misunderstood.  This laser DOES NOT pose a threat to airplanes or pilots, but due to the media hype and hysteria, I can't risk being blamed for such a thing. This laser does have the potential to do damage at close range however, and I can't sleep at night thinking that something I sold could fall into the wrong hands and be used to hurt people.  It's unfortunate that that the actions of a few idiots have caused me to take these steps.

Check out the rest of Michelle's post for more info.

Tsunami video headquarters...

at a new blog, Cheese and Crackers, is generating a ridiculous number of hits from the curious (ht: Michelle Malkin). Rightfully so, the video coverage of this horrific disaster is stellar.

In Michelle's musings on the subject of video blogging, she notes James Lilek's comments that:

In a sense, blogging is so 2004. The next big thing will be videoblogs. You can fit a rudimentary TV studio in a suitcase -- a laptop, a camcorder, a few cables, and a nearby Starbucks with Wi-Fi you can leech onto to upload your reports...

Definitely true - my faithful readers, I'm sure, will recall that one of my favorite sites during the 2004 election was the DailyRecycler, with lots of great videos - both straight video of news and cleverly spliced entertainment. It'll be interesting to see this trend explode in the coming year. Get ready.

67 year old Romanian woman pg with twins...

Please please say it isn't so...(via Drudge). I don't understand the need to repopulate after your body tells you the time for motherhood has passed. As a mother, I understand the love that a child from our own womb can inspire - and I appreciate the gifts of children given by modern fertility treatments. I have a dear friend pregnant via IVF who tried for several years to get pregnant with a sibling for her son. However, she is in her early 30's, not her late 60's for goodness sakes. Who will care for the children when mom and dad are headed for a nursing home? Even in excellent health, the elderly need their energy to care for themselves, and believe me, children require a LOT of energy.

I pray all goes well for her and her babies, but I also pray that this trend of elderly women giving birth does not continue in an upward direction. That possibility is simply too disturbing to contemplate.

Nice reply to UN's claim of US "stinginess" in wake of Tsunami...

(one of the most horrific natural disasters in memory) by Jonah Goldberg at Townhall yesterday. (ht: TS, Regan - tx) Choice bits:

Nobody objects when the United Nations helps victims of natural disasters, so U.N. defenders always use disaster relief and peacekeeping as their chief tool for fundraising. The problem is that the United Nations is not an impartial philanthropic organization. It is a political institution where a broad coalition of nations hope to curtail the power and influence of the United States. France uses the organization to leverage its relatively meager power by rallying African and Arab nations against us. Kofi Annan uses his megaphone to decry the moral and legal legitimacy of American foreign policy. Its Human Rights Committee is festooned with torture states, but it seems capable of issuing only condemnations inconvenient to the United States. And we foot the bill.

This is the Catch-22 of the United Nations. Politically, it's often reprehensible and inimical to American interests. But we're never asked to pay for that stuff. This comes out of the general budget. It's only when human beings are suffering in vast numbers that we're shamed for being "stingy" - because the United Nations understands how to exploit America's decency. If only we could be shaken down for more money to pay the light bill in the General Assembly when they play whack-a-mole with the United States.

and:

Meanwhile, American citizens, partly thanks to those stingy low taxes, send some $34 billion in private aid around the world every year. That's 10 times the United Nations total budget. America's Christian ministries, private foundations and agencies all do far more in direct charity and aid than the United Nations. But bureaucrats - some who've grown fat on oil-for-food money - measure stinginess in terms of support to the bureaucracy, not to the constituency the bureaucracy was intended to help.

It is our prosperity that drives global development, our courage and goodwill that keeps the peace, and our example that shines the path to liberty, not "blue papers" from Turtle Bay.

And, as described in the Washington Times yesterday, although the UN spokesman, Jan Egelund, has said his statements were "misinterpreted" (in the necessary backtracking yesterday, in an attempt to take back his offensive remarks made on Monday), yet he clearly said Western countries were stingy and the US was a pointed example (as gleaned from the transcript of his press conference on Monday):

Mr. Egeland complained that the United States gives only 0.14 percent of its gross domestic product to foreign development aid, compared with 0.92 percent given by his native Norway. In this category, Norway ranks first and the United States ranks last on a list of 22 industrialized nations compiled by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
    "The foreign assistance of many countries now is 0.1 or 0.2 percent of their gross national income," Mr. Egeland said on Monday. "I think that is stingy really. I don't think that is very generous."
    He pointed out that only Scandinavian countries like Norway, Sweden and Denmark, as well as the Netherlands and Luxembourg, give at least 0.7 percent of their gross national income, a level suggested by the United Nations 25 years ago.
    Mr. Egeland — a former journalist, deputy foreign minister of Norway and head of that nation's Amnesty International chapter — did not mention that the U.S. government gave $15.8 billion, more than any other nation, to development aid last year, compared to $2 billion by Norway.

The U.S. figure does not include massive infusions of cash to Iraq and Afghanistan. Nor does it include the category of food aid, where the United States is the largest donor in the world, or charitable contributions by private American individuals, churches and other organizations. (emphasis added)

Um, "misinterpreted"? I think not. Glad that some of our media is clearing this up for us. Just the facts, ma'am.

Word from a serviceman who was there when Rumsfeld visited the troops...

in contrast to the media coverage of the event (ht: Teresa S, with thanks...).

From 1SG Rikard, who was there.

His letter......

This is a shotgun blast response to the media reports on Secretary Rumsfeld's visit to our Camp.  I was fortunate enough to be there and even shake the man's hand.  When the media reports were released concerning the event, I could not believe what I saw and heard.  There are over 12,000 troops on our base. Only 2,000 or so had the opportunity to attend the gathering and I can tell you, those  were hotly contested seats.
Not as the media would have you believe, so we could voice our displeasure, but rather to have the opportunity to see and hear the man we admire.  Mr. Secretary spoke for 10 minutes or so on the war in Iraq and what freedom meant to the people of Afghanistan.  He was there for the recent elections and shared his wonderful insight.  After his prepared remarks he opened up the floor for questions and made it very clear that nothing was off limits.

Folks, this is extremely unusual for a dignitary to do.  Also, we as leaders,  were instructed to not screen our soldiers questions.  They were to be  honest and from the heart.  Mr. Rumsfeld fielded a number of questions, took down notes for the ones he did not have answers to and genuinely enjoyed talking to the soldiers.  Afterward, he spent over an hour with the enthusiastic troops who literally mobbed him and would not let him leave.  He smiled for all, shook hands and had pictures taken.  It ended only when his security forced us away.  He was applauded, he was given a standing ovation and he was loved.

He stood there like a professional, like a man, and he took the heat because that's what leaders do. And yet somehow, the American media turned that wonderful event into a"disgruntled troops meet with Secretary Rumsfeld" headline.  Incredible. The morale is high, the equipment is good and improving daily. Disregard what you read and hear from the media and trust in the American fighting men and women to do the right thing.  We have excellent leadership and are doing what we signed up to do.

1SG Timmy Rikard

As I've said when commenting on the Rumsfeld media ambush - [remember the "armored vehicle shortage" - yeah, even though the number of armored vehicles has increased exponentially since the beginning of the war - remember the Clinton rape of our Reagan military (via huge cuts in bases and supplies - yeah, that's the way to "balance the budget") - don't get me started on that....] - the media piece was strategically cut to minimize the troops' admiration for Rumsfeld, and to amplify the effect of one lazy reporter's planted question (if you don't HAVE news, then make it...).

Sorry to have been MIA - the holidays are a killer and I'm working on a couple of screenplays. With four kids home for the holidays - well, I'm sure you can only imagine.

Thanks for sticking with me...Alex

Chevy Chase drops F bomb at Kennedy Center honors...

as Drudge reported yesterday and featured in the Washington Post this morning. Apparently, the host of the Kennedy Center event put on by the organization People for the American Way, couldn't contain his visceral dislike of the President, and unleashed comments such as:

"This guy in office is an uneducated, real lying schmuck ... and we still couldn't beat him with a bore like Kerry."

He was so out of line that he threw nearly everyone in attendance for a loop, even his lib friends in People for the American Way (as reported in the WaPo) were put off:

People for the American Way distanced itself yesterday from the actor's rant. "Chevy Chase's improvised remarks caught everyone off guard, and were inappropriate and offensive," Ralph Neas, the liberal advocacy group's president, said in a statement. "It was not what I would have said, and certainly not the language People for the American Way would ever use in discussing any president of the United States."

Wow, what a loser. He's up there with Whoopi (who lost a lucrative Slim Fast contract last summer as a result of her boozy, obscenity laced comments at a John Kerry event last summer). From USA Today:

"The West Palm Beach, Fla.-based maker of diet aids said Wednesday that it is pulling the 8-month-old ad campaign that features Goldberg calling herself "a big loser." Terry Olson, Slim-Fast general manager and vice president of marketing, said the company regretted that Goldberg's remarks "offended some of our consumers."

Yes, Whoopi, you are a loser. And now Chevy Chase, with his tasteless display in a completely inappropriate venue, has joined you in the ultimate loser pile. Maybe the two of them could be the next contestants on a round of Celebrity Survivor - except they can just stay on the island with Babs, Alec Baldwin and Paul Begala (after all, they clearly have no love for this country anyway).

Chevy Chase mysteriously disappeared immediately after his remarks, his rep citing a back injury as the reason he was unavailable after 9 pm.  Um hm.

And the dems wonder why their party is disintegrating. Doesn't take an IQ over 80 to figure that one out. Score one for Bush (a man with "class", according to Elton John - not a Bush fan) for staying above the fray.

Founder Norman Lear agreed, telling us: "I thought it was utterly untoward, obviously unexpected and unscripted and all that stuff. And, uh -- it was Chevy Chase. He'll live with it, I won't."

Sen. Tom Daschle, the former minority leader, looked taken aback when he went on directly after Chase. His opening line: "I've had to follow a lot of speakers, but -- "

Busy with holiday madness...

four children and research for some projects I'm working on, but will be posting more soon. Thanks to all that have signed on to Operation AC to support our troops. Check it out, if you haven't already - a great opportunity to let a soldier know you care. It may be too late to get a package to a soldier by Christmas, but they'll still be there in January and would love to hear from a family back home.