Bill's Bites -- 2006.10.03
Contributed by Bill Faith
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Destitute Dog -- Please read this and help if you can.
Bill's Bites -- 2006.10.04
Instant messaging 101
Michelle Malkin
Earlier today, I heard some radio talk show hosts and callers who were casting doubt on the Foley instant messages and wondering out loud: "Who saves their instant messages?" And: "Can you even save them? I've never heard of that." I've also seen it on a few blogs and now people are e-mailing me: ABC better come up with the Instant Messages and verify that they are not fabricated before they continue this public hanging.
I do not know of anyone that would save their Instant Messages.
Please don't spread this meme. You can save them on Google Chat. You can save them on AOL. You save them on Yahoo!
And guess what? They are formatted exactly like the Foley IMs published by ABC News. Here's a Google chat I saved with my Hot Air pal Ian a few minutes ago: ...
Saving instant messages 101
Ian Schwartz
Michelle is giving a quick lesson on instant messaging to those who don’t understand it or question if the conversations between Foley and pages actually took place. In an example conversation with her, I commented some people barely understand e-mailing, much less instant messaging. To those who question if you can record and log conversations on instant messengers, to put it simply, yes you can. ...
Video: Former page says Foley was known as “FFF”
Watch the clip if you want to know what that stands for. This guy says Foley tried to initiate a little l’amour Internet with him too.
Sounds like he was scouting these kids while they were pages, then contacting them after they left. ...
When He Tells Us He Got Abducted By Aliens, Call Me
Ed Morrissey
After having salacious messages to teenage boys exposed by ABC News last week, disgraced former Congressman Mark Foley disappeared, later turning up at a mental-health facility claiming that he suffers from alcoholism. When that apparently didn't turn down the heat, his lawyer dragged out another pop-culture form of victimhood in a supposedly "blockbuster" press conference: Former Rep. Mark Foley's attorney said Tuesday that his client was molested between the ages 13 and 15 by a clergyman.
[...]
Ah, yes. Alcoholism has become rather passe' these days, what with Bob Ney ostentantiously checking himself into a treatment center after his guilty verdict for corruption. He needed another weepie-show affliction, and so Foley had his attorney float the molestation defense today. And note that it wasn't just molestation, but molestation by clergy. Very trendy indeed.
Maybe it's even true, but who cares? ...
Child Predation Bill Would Protect Most Vulnerable Parties
(2006-10-03) -- Just five weeks before national elections, in the wake of allegations that disgraced former Rep. Mark Foley, R-FL, preyed on teenage boys, the House of Representatives this week will take up debate on a bipartisan measure to protect "the true victims" of Congressional sexual predation. ...
- ??:?? Guess I'm still runnin' on about 3 cylinders today.
Irey within ten points of Murtha?
Allahpundit
The way things are going, by the time November rolls around, showcase races like this one and Liebs/Lamont will be all we’ll have to look forward to. Top of the page right now at Polling Report:
[image]
Knocking off Okinawa Jack would do an awful lot to soften the blow. I might be able to get away with hard liquor on Election Night instead of narcotics.
Breaking: Foley lawyer to announce “bombshell” at press conference? -- Update: Molested as a kid by a priest
So says Raw Story. The conference is due to start soon. We’ll have video.
Update: ABC’s hearing “bombshell,” too.
Update: Some of Foley’s colleagues are wondering why a guy whom they rarely saw drink would be checking into alcohol rehab? ...
Audio: Why are our elections less trustworthy than Mexico’s?
Allahpundit
Reminds me of this old Onion bit. Glenn and Helen talk to John Fund of the Wall Street Journal about tinkertoy electronic voting machines, whether photo IDs are inherently racist, and the “corrosive” effects of creeping skepticism about the integrity of U.S. election results.
Ted Koppel: Let ‘em have the bomb
Allahpundit
They think Iraq is Vietnam. I guess it follows that they’d think Iran is the Soviet Union. If Iran is bound and determined to have nuclear weapons, let it.
The elimination of American opposition on this issue would open the way to genuine normalization between our two nations. It might even convince the Iranians that their country can flourish without nuclear weapons.
[...]
Deterrence, in other words.
If a dirty bomb went off in Milwaukee and Bush answered with a nuke on Tehran, the left would start shrieking instantly about genocide, disproportionality, and the lack of evidence of culpability. ...
- ??:?? Guess I'm still runnin' on about 3 cylinders today.
Irey within ten points of Murtha?
Allahpundit
The way things are going, by the time November rolls around, showcase races like this one and Liebs/Lamont will be all we’ll have to look forward to. Top of the page right now at Polling Report:
[image]
Knocking off Okinawa Jack would do an awful lot to soften the blow. I might be able to get away with hard liquor on Election Night instead of narcotics.
Breaking: Foley lawyer to announce “bombshell” at press conference? -- Update: Molested as a kid by a priest
So says Raw Story. The conference is due to start soon. We’ll have video.
Update: ABC’s hearing “bombshell,” too.
Update: Some of Foley’s colleagues are wondering why a guy whom they rarely saw drink would be checking into alcohol rehab? ...
Audio: Why are our elections less trustworthy than Mexico’s?
Allahpundit
Reminds me of this old Onion bit. Glenn and Helen talk to John Fund of the Wall Street Journal about tinkertoy electronic voting machines, whether photo IDs are inherently racist, and the “corrosive” effects of creeping skepticism about the integrity of U.S. election results.
Ted Koppel: Let ‘em have the bomb
Allahpundit
They think Iraq is Vietnam. I guess it follows that they’d think Iran is the Soviet Union. If Iran is bound and determined to have nuclear weapons, let it.
The elimination of American opposition on this issue would open the way to genuine normalization between our two nations. It might even convince the Iranians that their country can flourish without nuclear weapons.
[...]
Deterrence, in other words.
If a dirty bomb went off in Milwaukee and Bush answered with a nuke on Tehran, the left would start shrieking instantly about genocide, disproportionality, and the lack of evidence of culpability. ...
Woodward Defends Holding Scoops for Book (H/T)
Interviewed by Matt Lauer on the Today show today, Bob Woodward revealed that he had deliberately timed his new book, "State of Denial," to come out before the November elections.
Lauer had challenged Woodward on the timing, since the charges in the book about the administration allegedly misleading the public on progress in the Iraq war are so significant. How could he hold that for a book? Why didn't he get them published in his newspaper, The Washington Post, or shout them from a "mountaintop" instead of waiting to "make a splash" with them in a book?
Woodward replied that he had not waited "to make a splash, but to assemble the whole story," and then go to the White House and Pentagon and CIA and ask, "What did you do?" He added: "Simon & Schuster and my bosses at the Washington Post said the only real obligation here is to tell it before the election.
Video: Inhofe gets snotty with Miles O’Brien over global warming
O’Brien’s taking a beating today for allegedly having cited “The Day After Tomorrow” as evidence of global warming. He didn’t, though, as you’ll see: he referred to a “Day After Tomorrow scenario” which could be a “potential outgrowth” of global warming. ...
Foley's IM trail
Michelle Malkin
***update: Hastert on Rush***
ABC News has new, stomach-turning details. It keeps getting worse and worse. Force yourselves to read the IMs: [...]
I have kept my emphasis on Foley's behavior and put politics aside because I believe every parent needs to see what went on in the Beltway and immunize their children against predatory authority figures--male and female, Republican and Democrat alike. I have been arguing that it was a mistake to rush to put the p.r. emphasis on attacking the Dems and the lib activists right now over a full accounting of Foley's predation. I hope the GOP will listen now. ...
Audio: Hastert and Limbaugh on Foleygate
Allahpundit
Hewitt’s urging Hastert to fight back and Ponnuru says the House Republican leadership is listening. We’re probably going to lose anyway — GOP control of the House is currently trading at 43 and dropping — so why not? The left has been screaming about October surprises for four years now, yet they’re the only ones who ever seem to pull any: the eleventh-hour DWI relevation against Bush in 2000, the “missing explosives” story in 2004, and now the Woodward book and this thing. Filthy Foley’s been purged; if Hastert’s as innocent as he claims, why not go down swinging?
The full interview was 13+ minutes but I’ve boiled it down to a solid three. ...
Foley had internet sex while awaiting House vote
Ian Schwartz
Brian Ross conveniently gets ahold of yet another chat between Foley and a former page. What. A. Surprise. For some reason I get the idea we will be seeing a “brand new” chat transcript every day until November 7. ...
Did the Dems know about Foley?
Ian Schwartz
Was this a liberal hit job? Yes, you read that right: the Democrats. It’s of course clear that Foley, a Republican representative from Florida, resigned for good cause. We don’t defend him or his inexcusable behavior — good riddance.
But it didn’t take long at all after Foley’s resignation for the Democrats to call for an investigation of the entire Republican leadership in the House, charging that GOP stalwarts knew early on that Foley, as they like to say in the rehab business, had a “problem.” ...
Breaking: Commercial airliner hijacked;
Update: Hijackers surrender;
Update: Hijackers sought political asylum
[... See previous excerpts at 12:46...]
Update: Just across on Fox — the hijackers are in custody. Looks like no one was hurt.
Update: Turkish security officials were quoted earlier as saying this was related to the Pope’s visit. Turns out it was related to the Pope — but not in the way they’d want you to think. Earlier reports on Tuesday that the hijackers were protesting Pope Benedict XVI’s planned visit to Turkey were apparently incorrect; authorities now say that the hijackers have requested political asylum.
Turkish officials said one of the hijackers, identified as Hasan Ekinci, wrote a letter to the pope in August asking for help in avoiding service in the Turkish army.
“I am a Christian and don’t want to serve a Muslim army,” he wrote, adding that he had been attending church since 1998.
Lazy Dog -- Update
It just took me half an hour to add what should have been a 5 minute Bites update. TypePad made the original mistake but it's one that happens often enough I should have spotted it right away. I have a quick errand to run outside the house then I'm going to crash for a while and hope I wake up in better shape.
PopeRage-inspired hijacking?
Looks likes it.
Yahoo! News: State-run radio says a commercial airliner has been hijacked in Greek airspace, and a Turkish Airlines spokesman says the aircraft has landed at an airport in Brindisi, Italy.
Private Turkish television NTV, quoting unidentified security officials, says the plane hijacked to protest the pope's visit to Turkey. ...
Breaking: Commercial airliner hijacked;
Report: Due to Pope’s visit to Turkey
In Greek airspace, according to Greek radio via Fox News. Standby.
Update: CNN says it originated in Albania and was headed for Istanbul.
Update: Looking for details, as well as for the first DU thread questioning the timing.
Update: Drudge says the plane has landed in Brindisi, Italy. Which I guess makes it an “old-fashioned” hijacking.
Update: Hijacking may have something to do with a visit from the Pope.
Update: Here’s the first news report. ...
Jet hijack to protest pope's visit
BRINDISI, Italy (CNN) -- A Turkish plane carrying 113 people was hijacked Tuesday by by two unarmed Turks protesting Pope Benedict XVI's upcoming visit to Turkey, and landed safely in Italy, according to a Turkish national airline official.
Authorities told CNN the two have indicated they were ready to surrender to authorities, but one of their demands was that a message be delivered to the pope.
The airline spokesman said the men commandeered the plane to protest the pope's visit to Turkey, and because they were angered over the pope's recent comments quoting a 14th century scholar about Islam. ...
Todays Vent: The Foley Scandal 
Lazy Dog
Or maybe I'm just getting old. Even accounting for staying up a while last night adding TorqueJaw-only things to the store (Thank you, Mike, some more) there's no way I should have needed to sleep as long as I did today. Aside from the "every day" stuff I should have posted by now I have pictures from Zero's trip to sort through and post some of and a nice Triumph Forsaken excerpt I want you to see. I'll try to do better from now on, but no promises. Johnstown rallies - at a glance
Contributed by Zero Ponsdorf
Still in Johnstown, gonna get this started, finish packing, and head back to West Virginia shortly.
Woke up this morning with a clear sort of snap-shot image of the two rallies. Now if I can only get it from the brain to the fingertips.
Set aside the specific political issues for a few minutes, if you will. ...
A Dog's road trip 'n stuff
Contributed by Zero Ponsdorf
[note: Posting this unfinished. I'll be adding more in the extended section as the day progresses.]
I don't get out much. It's just a fact that most of my life takes place within about 6 miles of home. I'm simply not a very sociable fellow in real life. I have little patience with idiots and knotheads so I avoid them.
I planned as best I could and gathered the few few wisps of tolerance and sanity I have left and hit the road.
Trip itself was uneventful save that it was cold and rainy. Johnstown is a maze of one-way streets and some of those were blocked off for the Pro-Murtha rally, but did make my way to the Downtown Holiday Inn with little trouble. ...
Jaded Journalism
Media bent on politically correct warfighting fail on the battlefront of truth.
Ralph Peters (Hat tip: Del Vecchio)
Last summer, the media featured two stories about our forces in Iraq. The first was the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the world’s most rabid terrorist, who was cornered and killed by special-operations troops working with the Air Force and the Army. For years, journalists had taunted military briefers about their inability to find and finish off Zarqawi. As long as he was on the loose, the terror master was portrayed as a dark, defiant giant.
After we got him, the moment of triumph was brief. Within 48 hours, pundits-for-hire assured Americans that Zarqawi really didn’t matter that much and that killing him changed nothing. In a week the story was dead. Our victories have no appeal to the group-think journalists who translate war to the American people.
The second story involved the fatal rape of an Iraqi woman and her family’s murder by U.S. soldiers. It was the first such incident in more than three years of war and occupation, and the media loved it. While Zarqawi’s death received only a few days of diminishing coverage, the rape-murder incident was – and as of this writing, still is – many weeks in the headlines. America’s mainstream media celebrated the rape-murder.
It “proved” that their anti-military bias had been right all along.
The facts are irrelevant to the press. ...
Resign, Mr. Speaker
Today's Washington Times Editorial
The facts of the disgrace of Mark Foley, who was a Republican member of the House from a Florida district until he resigned last week, constitute a disgrace for every Republican member of Congress. Red flags emerged in late 2005, perhaps even earlier, in suggestive and wholly inappropriate e-mail messages to underage congressional pages. His aberrant, predatory -- and possibly criminal -- behavior was an open secret among the pages who were his prey. The evidence was strong enough long enough ago that the speaker should have relieved Mr. Foley of his committee responsibilities contingent on a full investigation to learn what had taken place, whether any laws had been violated and what action, up to and including prosecution, were warranted by the facts. This never happened.
Rep. John Shimkus of Illinois, the Republican chairman of the House Page Board, said he learned about the Foley e-mail messages "in late 2005." Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, the leader of the Republican majority, said he was informed of the e-mail messages earlier this year. On Friday, Mr. Hastert dissembled, ...
Video: “You ain’t woman enough to run this land”
Audio alert: Michelle interviews John Ashcroft on Tues., 11 a.m. ET
Allhpundit
You can register to listen right here. I suspect she’s already got her questions ready, but feel free to offer suggestions in the comments. ...
Bill's Bites -- 2006.10.02
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