Notes & Asides (nod to WFB)

TANG Colonel Speaks:

"I never pressured anybody about George Bush because I had no reason to,"
says Ret. Col. Walter Staudt to ABC News. Staudt avers that GWB did
not use political influence to get into the Guard.

I'll meet your secretary and raise you a Colonel!


Fish Don't Need Bicycles

An AP report brings great news on the feminist front with Female Inmate Population growing at twice the rate of men.

The DOJ states that "the number of women in state and federal prisons grew 5 percent from 2002 to 2003, compared with 2.7 percent for men. The annual rate of growth for women inmates has also been higher for women than men since 1995."

Great work girls! We are finally closing in on gender equity!

Good News From The MTV Crowd

Another item from the AP talks about the current Miss USA, Shandi Finnessey. While speaking to the State Joint Interim Committee on Veteran's Issues and later to State Legislators she said:

"focusing on the needs of veterans and those still in the military is a priority during her time as Miss USA."

She has visited the troops both in Korea and in Cuba and plans to travel to Iraq soon. Miss Finnessey's father is a Marine and Vietnam Veteran.

You know, I gave up caring about beauty pageants about the time I hit junior high school but I do have very fond memories of them from when I was in grade school. My Mom and I would curl up on the sofa in the family room, munching popcorn and drinking sugared iced tea and cheering for our state's girl. It's nice to know that there are some young people out there who seem to have pretty good heads on their shoulders.

A Bientot

Irony Alert

The AP has an item out in papers today whining about the growing support for a conscience clause for health care professionals who are pro-life. What amuses me about the article is the quote from Gloria Feldt of Planned Parenthood.

"We've seen increasing organization and networking to get more pharmacists to refuse to provide (emergency contraceptives)- not just in the Bible Belt but all over. It's part of the anti-choice arrogance in which they believe they have the right to impose their ideology on everyone else."

I guess the pro-choice side is not organized and doesn't network.

(Here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here,
and one of my particular favorites here, and the motherload here.)

The above list of "non-organization" and "non-networking" was compiled in less than five minutes and I could have gone on for weeks.

As for the arrogant imposing of ideology: Gloria! Hello! Do you even hear yourself? Talk about arrogant! Talk about imposing ideology!

Just another example of the left projecting the tactics that they use themselves onto anybody who dares to disagree with them!

(Note to self: I think I will start a running list of this little projection trick.)

Bad Boys, Bad Boys. Watcha Gonna do?

Have you ever watched that television show Cops? One recurrent theme of the show is an officer busting a mangy looking character who when confronted with a crackpipe pulled right out of his own pocket, denies that it is his. He usually says that the pants belong to someone else.

Remind you of anyone in the news (pun intended) lately?

Come on Dan. Give it up. We'll forgive you; we won't forget, but we will forgive you. But only if you admit that you made a mistake. And let this be a lesson to all the media, old and new: be carful what you put out there. With the technology today, veracity is easily checked!

Kerry's New Theme

I just heard a new Kerry soundbite. His newest Bush bashing theme is to claim that the Bush administration "...is the excuse presidency." Wow! That's catchy. I wonder who came up with that scorcher? I'm beginning to think that all those Clintonistas that have hired on with the Kerry campaign are really just out to sandbag him.

Kerry's #'s Don't Add Up

An interesting analysis of the Kerry campaign attack ad assertion that over $200 billion has been diverted from after school programs and the like to pay for the Iraq war. The DNC also has a similar ad using the same figure.

However, The Annenberg Public Policy Center now summarizes that "...Kerry takes liberties with the facts..." According to their research, Kerry is overstating the cost by up to $80 billion. They go on to say that by exaggerating the cost, he is "...straining for effect and going beyond what the facts will bear."

It seems like Sen. Kerry not only suffers from issue "bipolarity" but also "fact inflation disorder." This sounds like a scare tactic to me and is just another example of the "tactic projections" the Kerry campaign employs.

Stock Tip: Buy Sony (or any other electronic co. that makes micro recorders)

Earlier today I was digging through the cluttered gallimaufry that is my desk's junk drawer. I don't even remember what I was looking for because my attention was diverted. I came across my cute little Sony M-677V voice activated microcassette recorder which I bought for a journalism course back at university. It got me to thinking about how I use to carry the recorder around with me everywhere I went (as I per my J101 prof's instructions). It actually saved a higher grade for me with a different professor one time. I used it to prove to him that he had given me a specific instruction on a project when he recalled giving a different instruction.

Which brings me to my stock tip.

It seems to me that if you are a person who has even a remote chance of being interviewed by some kind of writer or journalist, it would behoove you to record it. CYA just in case you ever have to dispute what is eventually written. Misquotation appears to be becoming quite popular these days. This is a sad state of affairs but in today's charged political environment, a little pragmatism could go a long way. The following are just a few people that I imagine would be much happier today if only they had recorded their conversations with particular inquisitors:

1) Retired Maj. Gen. Bobby W. Hodges: Gen. Hodges was touted by CBS as the "trump card" in the authentication of the "newly found" Bush Texas Air National Guard (TANG) memos. Hodges spoke with CBS producers by phone about the memos. However, the fact that he never actually saw the documents didn't quite make it into the CBS reports. I can't blame Mr. Hodges for feeling misled. He later expressed that he now believes that the documents are not real. CBS responded by saying "We believed General Hodges the first time we spoke with him." Ouch! See...tape recorder...no problem.

2) Philip D. Bouffard: In a New York Times article, Mr. Bouffard stated that he was suspicious of the CBS TANG documents because of the fonts and because it would be unusual for the military to have had the kind of large IBM machine that might possibly have had that font. A couple of days later, The Boston Globe claimed that though he was initially suspicious of the documents, that after additional research, he told them that he now believed that "the documents could have been prepared on an IBM Selectric Composer typewriter available at the time." Sounds like a pretty damning source. However, Mr. Bouffard now protests that The Globe has misrepresented what he said to them and that he never gave them a positive confirmation for their story.
Doh! See...tape recorder...no problem.

3) Sharon Bush: In an unauthorized biography of the Bush family, author Kitty Kelley claims that during a four hour lunch, Mrs. Bush (the ex-wife of presidential brother Neil Bush) told her that she witnessed current Pres. Bush using cocaine at Camp David during his father's tenure as president. However, Mrs. Bush categorically denies ever telling Kelley this explosive story and we now have a she said/she said situation going on. Who's to say who's lying? Bad news! See...tape recorder...no problem.

Who knows? If enough people take my advice and buy recorders, maybe this disintegration of the MSM could have a positive effect on the stock market. Being the optimistic person that I am, I'm sure there is some kind of silver lining out there somewhere.

Helicopter Update

Yes, I really sent the preceding e-mail to Rush and much to my surprise, he actually read part of it during the closing segment of his show on Monday. Too funny!

"Little Black Helicopters" State Of Mind

Today on the Rush Limbaugh Show, Rush announced that he has hired on with the Bush/Cheney '04 campaign as an unpaid adviser (ala James Carville and Paul Begala). Having just come out of the thrilling forgerygate weekend in the blogosphere, I began to have some Oliver Stonian ruminations. I quickly e-mailed my felicitations to Mr. Limbaugh:

To: Rush Limbaugh
From: Bohemian Conservative
Re: Congrats on new post!

Hey Rush,

Congratulations on the opening salvo in your new position as an unpaid adviser to the Bush/Cheney '04 campaign. What a great idea: put out some fake memos that not only take attention off the actual Guard service canard but also prove that the MSM outlets are acting as
hitmen for the DNC. Just brilliant! You have established the fact (once again) that a charter member of the elite media will bypass the appropriate rigor in thoroughly vetting a story just so that they can cause harm to an "R". This is yet another item to add to the mounting list of evidence of liberal media bias. And on a personal note, you were able to make a fool out of a network and its representative "icon" who have spent years trying to marginalize you. Not bad, not bad at all! I guess this is the start of EIA (Excellence In Advising).

Dittos
L.T.