Air America Radio and the Agreement "Months Ago"

If Air America Radio had agreed to return the ~$480,000 of tax payers' money intended for a Bronx Boys and Girls Club, as has been stated by them, when do they actually plan to... you know... follow through and return the money?

In a comment by erp over at Brian Maloney's Radio Equalizer it was asked whether the Gloria Wise Boys and Girls Club had gone under. It being Sunday morning I'm not going to blow a call in, but their website is still up and running here.

If you wish to donate to help make up that $480,000.00 used to help Air America Radio instead, click here and tell 'em the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy sent ya.

UPDATE: Greetings, Radio Equalizer readers. See anything you disagree with? Feel free to comment. I want the record straight, even as the statements from Air America Radio tend to shift.

UPDATE II: August 1 - They do answer the phone as the "Gloria Wise Boys and Girls Club". I'm left to wonder about AAR's statement "A link on our web site sent those interested in contributing to the camp to the Gloria Wise web site. Regrettably, the camp did not survive the closure of the Gloria Wise organization." [source] Indeed, as pointed out in the Newsmax article, the Camp Air America Experience is still there on the GloriaWise.org site. And Gloria Wise.org is soliciting donations for it by phone, mail, or most prominently, PayPal. Here's the menu:

* $35 – Sponsor a morning hike in the camp’s 5000 acre park that helps 15 kids learn more about the world around them
* $75 – Sponsor an afternoon of fun-filled activities at camp that help 30 kids discover new skills and interest[sic]
* $150 – Sponsor a lifeguard for a day of waterfront activities for 50 kids, including swimming and canoeing
* $350 – Sponsor a life week at camp that builds self-esteem and self-confidence for one child
* $750 - Sponsor a life changing week at camp for two children of the same family

Why doesn't Air America Radio just cut them a check for the $480,000.00 as they agreed 'months ago'? That would sponsor

* 640 pairs of kids for 2 weeks at a time
* 'life weeks' for more than 1300 kids
* A lifeguard for 50 kids for 3200 days
* 6400 afternoons of fun for 30 kids per session
* More than 13,000 morning hikes for groups of 15 kids at a time
(but see below...)

Then again, maybe they just see the "Air America" name being worth that much. Ask 30 kids if they've heard of it; with their ratings, I can't imagine you'll get much reaction.

UPDATE III - Is it possible that Air America Radio's holding company doesn't have the cash to make the payment? That would be the simplest answer.

UPDATE IV - The New York Sun has found that, in fact, AAR has promised over $800,000.00 to the Gloria Wise Boys and Girls Club. Multiply all of the above activities by 1 and 2/3. C'mon Air America Radio! Make the kids' day! (via Michelle Malkin)

Over There

No, not the TV show. The real deal. Check out Michael Yon, who I had been remiss in adding to the blogroll until today. (I should probably take my whole Bookmarks folder over to Blogrolling and be done with it, eh?) Michael is embedded with the US Army's 1-24th Infantry Regiment, otherwise known as "Deuce-Four".

While some decry the "Law Enforcement Model" as a throwback to Clintonian weakness, there is an element of law enforcement investigation in the way our troops are operating. Michael's most recent dispatch describes the chain-reaction of events from bust to bust: Foreign jihadist gets caught --> Foreign jihadist blabs to everyone who will listen --> some kernel of information leads to the next series of busts. The fan out is what is keeping the increasingly effective Iraqi police ahead of the terrorists, insurgents and assorted criminal element at work in the new Iraq.

Read Empty Jars and then hit his PayPal tip jar.

Air America Gets Funds - Women and Children Hardest Hit

Funds came into Progress Media from the Gloria Wise Boys and Girls Club. The funds should have been used for activities for kids. Instead they went to fund a superfluous radio network.

AAR sez that Progress Media was defunct as of 2004 and that the head of that organization, Evan Cohen hasn't had any contact with Air America (shouldn't it be Air Amerikkka using wacky lefty spelling?) since May 2004. So don't blame the current managers of the network, 'kay?

Brian Maloney's got a great fisking of Air America Radio's latest statement on this over at Radio Equalizer.


(Hat tips: Michelle Malkin and Power Line)

Incidentally Air Amerikkka Radio is back on the air in Chicago. Sort of. They have a 2500 Watt transmitter in Crystal Lake. Not sure too many people in Chicago can actually hear that. But I can when I'm home and the sun is up. They go to bed at sundown. (source) I really thought they'd fold after November 2004.

New location, look at the Cotillion

The Cotillion is over at MuNu now (see the updated link to your right). It also has a hot new look courtesy of a logo by Shano.

This week, I especially dig their tribute to Sweet's Ballroom Blitz here. Oh yeah!

License Applied For

Around Illinois--and probably a lot of other states, too--you often see new cars rolling down the highway without plates, but with a "License Applied For" sticker in the back window.

Well, yesterday LOML and I went down to the DC courthouse and put in for a marriage license. After a 5 Day Waiting Period, we'll have the license in hand.

They didn't give us one of those stickers, though.

Van Gogh Killer Wants Death, 'Martyrdom'

Picked this tidbit up at the Potbelly Stove.

[Theo Van Gogh's killer] has two weeks to lodge an appeal but has said he hoped to receive the maximum punishment, preferably death, in his quest for martyrdom.

To which, hbl asks "Martyrdom. And for what? Who is deceiving these people?"

Well, there are a lot of factors, but I'm convinved it comes out of the madrassa system, particularly the ones funded by Saudi Arabia. Imams urging the faithful to take the jihad concept and apply it to literal war. What's waiting at the other end for the shaheed? 72 virgins.

For a culture that is sexually repressed beyond belief, that has to be a pretty potent enticement.

She "Regretted" the Anti-Aircraft Photo...

...but did Jane Fonda learn anything?

Now she's on about the Iraq theater of the War on Islamofascism. She'll be traveling around on a bus in opposition to the war. And she'll just happen to be hawking her book.

No word if she and her famous votin' vagina will be accompanied by a husband or male relative during the trip. After all if the Islamist's were to get their way, her life would depend on it.

(Hat tip: La Shawn Barber, who's collecting a lot of other bloggers' takes on it)

Never Too Early to Think 2008

Patrick Ruffini's got a straw poll of his own right now. There are 5 candidates listed. The commentary is interesting as well, as various people wonder about various candidates not on the list, such as Tancredo and Newt.

Here's the link (via Hugh Hewitt. Hugh's got a nice new look, too.)

Booga-dog online

There's a pic of Booga-dog (aka Wendy) over at the Potbelly Stove. Thanks to them for watching her while I'm in Maryland.

Australian PM John Howard's Remarks from London

Hugh Hewitt has posted John Howard's remarks.

Here are some choice bits:

Can I remind you that the murder of 88 Australians in Bali took place before the operation in Iraq? And can I remind you that the 11th of September occured before the operation in Iraq? Can I also remind you that the very first occasion that bin Laden specifically referred to Australia was in the context of Australia's involvement in liberating the people of East Timor? Are people by implication suggesting that we shouldn't have done that? When a group claimed responsibility on the website for the attacks on the 7th of July, they talked about British policy not just in Iraq but in Afghanistan. Are people suggesting we shouldn't be in Afghanistan? When Sergio DeMillo was murdered in Iraq, a brave man, a distinguished international diplmat, immensely respected for his work in the United Nations, when al Qaeda gloated about that, they referred specifically to the role that DeMillo had carried out in East Timor because he was the United Nations adminsitrator in East Timor.

His delivery was measured and calm. I don't know how he does it, but then that's why I'm an engineer and not an elected official, I guess.

Here's the rest of it.

Carol Platt Liebau Invites Ann Coulter to Knock it Off

"Moreover, as a strategic matter, it's a real mistake to attack Roberts from the right. What's the point -- to force the Administration to hand out conservative red meat, which may satisfy Ann Coulter, but at the same time hands Kennedy/Leahy/Durbin more targets to hone in on?"

So writes Carol Platt Liebau. It's a good point among others. Read it here.

John Roberts

By now everyone in America, as well as anyone else who reads American blogs, knows that GWB has tapped John Roberts to be his nominee to the Supreme Court. Judge Roberts, 50, currently sits on the DC Court of Appeals. Prior to that he was one of the most successful litigators in front of the Supreme Court. The majority agreed with him quite often, and Sandra Day O'Connor was part of that majority more often than not. That will make it difficult to argue that he is out of step with the court and with Justice O'Connor's positions. He's also said to be a great guy with a disarming personality, but that won't stop the Democrats from trying to slime him as the very death of Western civilization.

If you are going to be living on the edge of your seat for the next few months, worrying about the fate of Roe v. Wade, ask yourself these questions: Why are you worried? Do you have a sense of the Constitutional basis on which it should be overturned?

Even if Roe were overturned, abortion clinics nationwide wouldn't be bulldozed overnight. It would become a matter for the states to decide. If you would rather live in a state that allows it, get up and move! A good 80% of life's barriers are self-imposed.

See also: Hugh's writeup following his 6-hour show yesterday. Hugh worked with John Roberts back in the Reagan administration.

Also Beldar's blog, and Power Line.

Facts About Maryland: What the heck is King's Contrivance?

So I'm moving to Maryland. Part of that process has been looking for a new job, and one possibility is located in the city of Columbia, which is not too far from BWI.

While going to the airport one night to pick up a friend of ours, LOML spotted a sign for "King's Contrivance". I didn't have time to stop in and find out just what that was, and for awhile I forgot about it.

(It turned out, too, that the job opportunity I was looking at in Columbia fell through due to a casualty of some government agency's budget priorities. Oh well.)

For whatever reason, though, I happened to think of it and this is what I found:

King's Contrivance takes its name from the restaurant of that name opened in 1962 in the converted boyhood home of Judge James Macgill, descendant of Reverend James Macgill, the first reverend of Christ Church.

The 370-acre farm on which King's Contrivance is located was granted by one of the Lords Baltimore in 1730 to the Reverend James Macgill who was among the first Episcopal ministers appointed to the Province of Maryland. It remained in the Macgill family until 1961, a total of 230 years.

So there ya go. It's a village in or near Columbia in Howard County, Maryland. And it's named for a restaurant.

SCOTUS Derby

Here's a name I don't remember reading before. And I thought I was paying attention...

From a ConfirmThem story on Priscilla Owen:

"...Joy Clement remains VERY much in the running, or at least was in the running still late last week. The president personally has asked top Louisiana politicians about Clement, supposedly, and his college roommate is a big booster of hers, supposedly."

Louisiana, eh? Perhaps they'd be looking at way to ensure that Mary Landrieu of 'Gang of 14' fame votes for cloture against a filibuster.

She's from the 5th Circuit, where Priscilla Owen is on the bench now, and to which Charles Pickering had also been nominated. She was confirmed in November 2001 in a 99-0 vote of the Senate whereas the other two had been blocked. (source: Left-wing 'Independant Judiciary')

Her specialty appears to be maritime law, as is cited all over the place. I don't see the Dems getting too worked up over that, at least not without great effort.

She'd be about as moderate a pick as we're likely to see GWB make. I'm hoping, though, that whatever his decision is, he won't have made it based on a race- or sex-based calculus.

The Low Road to the Senate: Pennsylvania Style

Remember when that stiff, John Kerry, gratuitously mentioned that Dick Cheney's daughter is a lesbian during the debates? It was widely believed that it was an attempt--and an exceedingly lame attempt, at that--to drive a wedge between the Bush-Cheney ticket and religious conservatives.

It didn't work then, and it shouldn't work in Pennsylvania, either, where the Philadelphia Inquirer has announced that one of Rick Santorum's top aides has been outed on a gay website. (Hat tip: K-Lo at the Corner)

Considering the heat Santorum has taken in the past over his personal beliefs about gay sex, I suppose the Inquirer felt they could get that fire ignited once more. I'm guessing that sites that are left-wing and gay (as opposed to, say, GayPatriot.org, who is not Left wing) are going to be left scratching their heads over this one. (Andrew Sullivan is mum as of this writing.)

The solution to the conundrum is simple: Santorum may not endorse gay sex--may in fact find it "icky"--but that doesn't mean he has to have a problem with gay people.

I wonder if anyone will get that... at least on the Left.

CBS Announces... a Website!

CBS has announced the launch of a 24-hour focused web presence called CBSNews.com.

It is going to feature all the great digital gewgaws you would expect like news clips on demand and even a blog. From Adrants.com: "a blog to be called "Public Eye" designed to provide greater openness and transparency into the newsgathering process."

This has been my favorite quote so far (from USA Today):

"We're talking about having the A-team produce for the Web," says CBS Digital Media president Larry Kramer.

Does this mean that it will be something like The Corner, but with Mr. T, George Peppard, Dirk Benedict and Dwight Schultz instead? "I pity, K-Lo!"

Scorched

Went to the ballgame yesterday with my coworkers. It was a day game and thanks to our position in the right field bleachers, I managed to bring home a nasty sunburn. This is the worst I've had since Brazil in 1997 when the tops of my ears got all blistery.

Thankfully there's nothing like that this time.

Anyone got a good home remedy?

Plame Name Blame Game... part 341,503

The hope is palpable. The hope, that is, that Democrats can pin something actionable on Karl "The Architect" Rove. (Sidebar: did you notice he resembles Rush Limbaugh?)

Will it work? Nope, but the Dems are going to huff, and puff and look generally silly in the process. Jack Kelly has a good round up of the coverage and also coverage of the coverage. Today he follows up with an invaluable timeline of events.

Newsmax is reporting that Karl Rove is NOT the target of Federal Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation. (Hat tip: Rantburg)

Interesting. Now given that Karl Rove is legally free to discuss his actions, including his own GJ testimony, he's not talking. The stated reason being that Fitzgerald specifically asked him not to. Could be part of a massive "Rope-A-Dope" as Rush likes to say.

So who is Fitzgerald looking for? Obviously the prosecutor isn't saying, so we are left to opine. According to John Podhoretz writing yesterday on the Corner, it could be none other than Judith Miller of the New York Times. Yes, the Judith Miller who is in jail right now for not giving up her source.

And to top it off, Powerline has a piece on a NYT editorial on the affair called "Is Hypocrisy Still Considered A Vice?" In it they note a pretty huge "outing" of CIA operatives... committed by the NYT itself.

The BBC and 'scare quotes'

The BBC has a way with words. Not so much using the words themselves, but by setting them apart with single quote marks. Like 'this'. As if the thing called within the quotes is something they would never deign to say. Only a fool would call it that.

I was browsing Rantburg this morning and came upon the headline "'Bomb' found in Dutch boy's room"

Here's what I wrote as a comment:

Love Auntie Beeb's scare quotes: 'Bomb'

The office said in a statement that the device consisted of a tube filled with gun powder, small bullets and a detonation mechanism.

Okay, I give up. What is that? What would be a better, BBC-approved word for that? 'Amusement'? If it had been found outside of the Beeb's bureau, something tells me they would recognize it as a device intended to destroy their property and kill as many people standing nearby as possible.

But I'm still having a hard time coming up with the right word for that. Any help?

The comments are trickling in after. I especially like dot-com's answer to my query.

Divisive Elections Defined

Aaron over at Lifelike Pundits has a nice post up describing Chuck Schumer's column for the NY Daily News. From Schumer's bleating, he has inferred that a divisive election is... any election where the Democrat loses. Even Reagan's 1980 triumph.

Take a look at Aaron's post here. Good stuff.

(Hat tip: Confirm Them)

Dr. Demarche Writes to the G8 Reps

Dr. Demarche over at the Daily Demarche has written a letter to the G-8 reps. In it he calls for the kind of help the nations of Africa really needs:

The first step will be the hardest- the establishment of rule of law and the basic infrastructure of a stable, self-perpetuating economy. Micro loans, trade partnerships and co-ops allow local populations to have some say in their own economic recovery.

It doesn't go as far as Hernando De Soto's suggestions, but I guess it is a start. Read the whole letter here.

See also: this post from April 26, especially including the link to Ronald Bailey's article at Reason.

Ruffini to GOP: Quit Yer Whining and Fight!

Patrick Ruffini outlines a campaign-style communications strategy for the President's nominees. He notes that since fully 86% of people polled believe that Democrats will oppose the President's nominees for reasons previously considered taboo, there is no sense continuing as we have been:

Complaining about ideological opposition to a nominee is about as effective as whining about your opponent running a negative campaign.

He goes on to outline how the GOP should communicate in kind, exposing the Left-wing social agenda that drives the Senate Democrats and contrasting that with an "anti-agenda".

Well worth reading the whole thing.

(via Confirm Them)

London

The best comment I've read so far with respect to this morning's attack on London has been on Rantburg:

What makes al Q think they can achieve with a handful of suicidal primitives what the combined strength of the Luftwaffe failed to do sixty five years ago? Morons.

You said it, Bulldog.

Michelle Malkin's got a number of posts up already.

The "Nuke Mecca Now" crowd is warming up, too. That's an option I think needs to be saved for later. Air strikes on Damascus... that has some appeal.

UPDATE: The Corner passes on an email from another Londoner sitting in his office: "Is this the best they can do?"

UPDATE II: Hugh Hewitt has posted a series of links with chronology, as well as an excerpt from Belmont Club.

UPDATE III: Does this make Chuck Schumer's comment about "going to war" over a Supreme Court nomination sound... small?

UPDATE IV: Irish Pennants weighs in with a brief tribute to England.

UPDATE V: CAIR has come up with a statement.

UPDATE VI:

"We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender...

-- Winston Churchill (Hear it at the BBC History Site -- requires Real Player)

That's the spirit of Britain that we all hope comes to fore now that violent jihad has come to the heart of London. God save the Queen.

Update VII: (via Hugh) Mark Steyn's piece on the choice before the UK, as it was before Spain.

Blogosphere Synthesis - July 6

Before logging into work, I decided to tool around the blogosphere.

Michelle wonders about O'Connor's replacement overturning Roe v. Wade here.

Over at Right Thinking People, Trodwell notes that PMPM appears set to

speak "forcefully" to Bush at the G8 to convince him of the scientific evidence that the world is getting warmer and that manmade sources are the cause.

"Obviously, accepting the validity of the science is the first step toward dealing with the issue," he said Tuesday during a visit to Ireland.

"I intend to make the point and I'll make the point very forcefully in terms of the science."

Ah... a man of science, that Paul Martin. He ignores the body of evidence--all equally scientific, if you will--that suggests that even if the world's climate is changing, there is nothing we could do about it.

Which brings us to Roe v. Wade. Robert P. George argues from a scientific basis that a new, genetically distinct life is created at conception. That this aligns with a religious position is well and good, but not necessary to the argument.

However in Roe v. Wade, the majority (7) held that

[The State] has legitimate interests in protecting both the pregnant woman's health and the potentiality of human life, each of which interests grows and reaches a "compelling" point at various stages of the woman's approach to term.

(quotes are indeed in the decision)

No science involved there. They postulated some sort of arbitrary changes in the nature of the developing baby (the "potentiality of human life" in their terms), but didn't specify really what they were.

From this I gather that the liberal view is that science is a wonderful thing when it supports your position--and especially great when it allows for a little bashing of the United States--but it can be safely disregarded when it is inconvenient to your position.

Plame Name Blame Game... part 341,502

A surprising entrant in the "Who outed Valerie Plame?" game: Vanity Fair.

One could argue that the horse was already out of the barn, but here's a post (via Michelle) with a picture of the elusive, exceedingly private, and socially low-key Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame.

Nice looking woman. He certainly married up. (Then again, don't we all?)

I wonder if they got to meet Sean Combs in person at the event? I mean, that would have to be a major thrill for a couple of privacy-loving, socially low-key people like them, yeah?

(See also: Irish Pennants for a recap of the Plame Name Blame Game, particularly the wishful thinking that somehow Karl Rove is responsible.)

(Now continued above and also here.

A Very Good Reason to Not Choose Alberto Gonzales to SCOTUS

Bench Memos picks up on a WashingPost article describing 3 high profile cases that would obligate would-be justice Alberto Gonzales should they come before a court that has him as a member. They involve doctor-assisted suicide, parental notification of an abortion and the military's ability to recruit on public university campuses.

Should GWB go with Gonzales as his pick, I'd really have to wonder where his head is on those three issues.

I'm pretty sure he's not going to go with conventional wisdom... at least that 'wisdom' touted in Big Media.

(WashingPost article)
(Hat tip: Bench Memos)

Turning on Each Other in Iraq

Iraqi factions are battling the al-Qaeda contingent led ostensibly by Musab al-Zarqawi. The locals are apparently not pleased about the killing of local leaders and al-Qaeda's desire for a strict Islamic code.

There's definite hope there that Iraq won't turn into another Islamic state.
(Hat tip: Michelle Malkin)
(See also: This post on al-Qaeda in Iraq at least as early as 2002.)

L-l-l-l-l-l-let's get ready to rumbl-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-e!

Sandra Day O'Connor has announced her retirement, effective upon the confirmation of her successor.

The President is expected to make an announcement soon.

Confirm Them and Bench Memos become daily reads.

Update: Not today with respect to Bench Memos, though. Their last thought before apparently going on vacation was "Go ahead and take the day off", intimating that the Chief Justice was not going to announce a retirement.

They were right, but they forgot about Sandra Day O'Connor...

al-Qaeda and Iraq

Among the multitude of 'whereases' in Senate Joint Resolution 46 of October 2002, was this:

Whereas members of al Qaida, an organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United States, its citizens, and interests, including the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, are known to be in Iraq;

The sponsors of this resolution were Joe Lieberman (D-CT), with 16 cosponsors, among them John McCain and John "Silky Pony" Edwards of North Carolina. They purported to know that al-Qaeda was there more than 3 years ago.

Why all the pissiness now regarding the events of September 11, 2001, al-Qaeda and Iraq being all part of a world-wide war?

For the record, here were the people who voted against the bill in the Senate:
Akaka (D-HI), Bingaman (D-NM), Boxer (D-CA), Byrd (D-WV), Chafee (R(?)-RI), Conrad (D-ND), Corzine (D-NJ), Dayton (D-MN), Durbin (D-IL), Feingold (D-WI), Graham (D-FL), Inouye (D-HI), Jeffords (I-VT), Kennedy (D-MA), Leahy (D-VT), Levin (D-MI), Mikulski (D-MD), Murray (D-WA), Reed (D-RI), Sarbanes (D-MD), Stabenow (D-MI), Wellstone (D-MN), Wyden (D-OR).
(source: the Daily Kos Encylcopedia, entry on the Iraq War Resolution)
A pretty Left-leaning group. But you know? I don't see Harry Reid's (D-NV) in there.

That's because he voted for it. (No one abstained in the 77-23 Senate vote.) Will the Minority Leader claim that he didn't really believe the part about al-Qaeda in Iraq and therefore had his fingers crossed behind his back? That he didn't read the resolution carefully?