Charles Krauthammer has a particularly trenchant column on how silly the left's claim that George W. Bush has destroyed our alliances.

As usual, a symptom of BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome) is balderdash.

Over at National Review Online, Jonah Goldberg has an excellent column this weekend on the left's never-ending quest to get more people to vote.

I think he makes a valid point toward the end, but I would take a different tact.

Wade Kach has taken the time to write to his constituents explain his vote on HB 4.  I produce it here in its entirety without comment (which I will do later in another post).

According to Roll Call, Senate Majority Leader Harry "Gambling Mormon" Reid plans to keep the US Senate in Session through the Thanksgiving holiday and weekend in order to prevent President Bush from making any recess appointments.

What will be interesting is how many Senators actually stay in town for the session.

Why?

Because under Senate Rules, ANY Senator can initiate a quorum call on the floor of the Senate.  If a quorum is not found to be present (because there aren't 51 Senators present), a motion can be made to adjourn for the lack of a quorum.

My question:  do the Republicans possess the cajones to do it, and are the Democrats prepared?

Should make for some interesting C-SPAN moments.

I hate to say it, but Wade Kach let us down in the House Slots Bill vote.  That bill will send the slots referendum "to the people" in a bizarre move generally not available under the Maryland Constitution.

Unless the Soddomites on the Severn are trying to punt the ball.

The lovely Michelle Malkin is blogging tonight on how the Canadians no longer want our pathetic deserters.

Bravo to the Canadians.  For all the jokes about them, they are a brave and honorable people.  And frankly, they were carrying our water in World War I long before our own leaders had the courage to step up and stop the Kaiser.

On the deserters, I will say this:  they are hypocrites.  Why?  Jeremy Hinzman and Brandon Hughey deserted their posts on the eve of deployment becaue they felt the war in Iraq was illegal and immoral.

So to counter what they believed was illegal and immoral, they committed an illegal and immoral act?  They betrayed their oaths, the commanders, and most importantly -- their unit brothers.  They shirked their duty and violated their honor.

It's a shame that they don't shoot soldiers for desertion in a time of war anymore.

Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty are reporting that the Russian Parliament has voted to suspend the Conventional Forces In Europe Treaty, a Cold War era agreement that limited the deployment of tanks and troops west of the Ural Mountains.

This is not good.

The White House announced today that Rod. J. Rosenstein, Maryland's US Attorney, has been appointed to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.

The Fourth sits in Richmond, VA, and hears appeals from Federal District Courts in Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina.

Warren Buffet -- arguably the world's most successful investor alive today -- is an unadulterated communist, who believes in income redistribution and confiscatory taxation.

There is no way around this statement after his testimony before the Senate Finance Committee.

Buffett recommends taking the revenue from the Estate Tax, and offering a $1000 tax credit to all families who make less than $20,000 per year.

Hail Comrade!

Yes, on the "drivers licenses for illegal immigrants", but also on counting Amazon affiliates as a "substantial business presence" in order to invoke the sales and use tax.

Michael Swartz over at Monoblogue had posted about this yesterday, wondering if Guvnah Marty the Mick might try it here.

Our friends the Saudis.  That beautiful kingdom of sand, oil, harems, and Islam.  A very radical Islam, where women are little more than property.  No-- strike that, because most people treat their property better than the Saudis treat women.

Especially gang rape victims.

And these are the ones we consider moderate?

There is a lot of talk in the blogosphere as of late that there is a great schism coming in Evangelical circles because of the Republican primary endorsements of people like the Rev. Pat Robertson (Giuliani), James Dobson (Huckabee) and the NRLC (Fred Thompson).

Liberal commentators are in a state of bliss, as this supposed "dismemberment" of the Christian Right is one of their chief goals.

Conservative commentators wonder if the influence of the Christian Right is waning because the "movement" has become more of a big-government, seize-the-power, impose-their-agenda movement akin to, well, liberal orthodoxy.  Over at National Review Online, they even use the term "Social Gospel" and "Religious Progressives" to describe the movement.

But I think there is something more afoot here from a different perspective.

Jihad Joe Albero, the Salisbury Cyberterrorist Extraordinaire, loves to bill his site as "Salisbury's Most Reliable and Unbiased for Your Local News".

Unfortunately, Jihad Joe has a horrible problem with doing any actual fact checking, and instead, relies upon his aural diarhea for what he calls "news".

In the post "I Thought These Lights Were Outlawed?", Jihad Joe launches a new fatwa against Peninsula Regional Medical Center, throwing a baseless accusation that the spotlights they used the other night were a) illegal and b) nothing more than advertising.

Of course, had Jihad Joe bothered to do any actual reporting or investigation, he might have learned what was going on.

Tommy Bromwell is about to be sentenced for his corruption as a State Senator, and it turns out, he has lots of friends in low places.

According to The O'Malley Gazette, over 70 pages of letters from a host of officials, businessmen, and others have flooded the court in anticipation of the sentencing.

Folks like Ed Hale, Nelson Sabatini, former State Senator Francis X. Kelley, Dutch Ruppersberger, and Tommy Phelan have been putting their markers down for this corrupt, bloviating jackass who used his office for personal gain.

Get a clue people:  he violated the public trust.  And I don't care what he did in the Maryland General Assembly, that violation should be punished and punished harshly.

We don't send Delegates and Senators to Soddom on the Severn to enrich themselves.  We send them to conduct the people's business.  To spend wisely.  To legislate wisely.  Not to get jobs for your wives and get hooked up with home renovations.

Lock his corrupt ass in a real Federal Penitentiary (not a Club Fed) and make him do some real time.

Please say it ain't so.  Unfortunately it appears to be true.

Good to know that the President and his subordinates are really working hard to "protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America."

I voted for the man twice.  Yes, in both cases, it really was the lesser of two evils.  And I have like some of the things he has done.

But if he doesn't get his head out of his trousers soon, I might stop stepping up for him.

STOP HIRING FRAKKING ILLEGAL ALIENS!

This just in from the Eastern Shore...

As many of you know, the Peninsula Regional Medical Center Foundation has been raising money for the last 10 months or so to purchase a new mobile health care van.  The van was named in honor of late stepmother, Debbie Wagner, to honor her thirty-plus years of service to healthcare on the lower Eastern Shore.

Community outreach was a huge part of Debbie's vision.  The drive-through flu clinic conducted by PRMC every year and the Wound Center were just two of her innovative and highly successful ideas that have affected thousands of Lower Shore residents.

Well, the latest fundraising update is in, and to date, the Foundation has raised $363,000 for this important project.

The response from the community, friends, and families has been tremendous, and I want to thank everyone who has contributed to this tremendous project.

The New York Times lives in Fantasy Land when it comes to Mukasey nomination (and vote) for attorney general.

Sorry I haven't been posting as of late.  It's been a busy weekend.  Had some work projects to wrap up at the end of the week.  Then, I had dinner with the old man on Friday.  His 55th birthday was today-- so if you see him, congratulate him.

Then I spent Saturday prepping for my nephew's birthday party today. He turns 4 on Tuesday, so we got together for cookies and cake and then an afternoon a Chuck E. Cheese.

Editor and Publisher are reporting pretty serious declines in circulation at some of the nations's major papers.  As "news" becomes more of a commodity, newspapers will continue to see their circulations decline if they don't change their business models.

It was 28 years ago today that Iranian students -- including Mahmoud Ahdamindejad -- stormed the United States Embassy in Iran, committing an act of war, and beginning 444 days of capitvity for (eventually) 52 United States citizens (including the Marine guards).

Well, that is what Robert X. Cringely thinks.

Cringely makes some serious points.  Google -- at $700 per share -- is a very secretive company that dominates a large part of the web space.  I know that I spend many of my hours working with clients on Search Engine Optimization -- a specialty that Google literally created with their search engine rules.

The problem?  Google doesn't publish any rules on optimizing your site for their search engine.  It's really an art.

Their behavior is very much like Microsoft's when it comes to business partnerships.  I know this all too well -- as a product manager for InterAct Accessories in the 1990s, I saw how Microsoft liked to bring in "potential" partners, then steal their ideas.

Microsoft plays for keeps.  So does google, especially when it comes to web advertising.

It's something to keep in mind.  We could very easily see a dichotomy build up, with Microsoft's virtual monopoloy on the desktop versus a Google monopoly on the Net.  Soon enough, we could have a substantial oligolopy that breaks down innovation and harms the consumer experience.

Be sure to read the article. Cringely is smart, and sees things a lot of others don't.

I recently started trying out the new Amazon Unbox service in conjunction with my much-beloved TiVO.

Unbox is a neat service which allows you download videos to your TiVO or your PC at a very low cost.  From a rental perspective, the price isn't as good as what you would get with Netflix or Blockbuster.  But from a purchase standpoint, it's pretty good.

The one downside, though, is that the downloads aren't "immediate".  Depending on the speed of your connection, it could take some time to download the video to your system.  Because of the bizzarre way that TiVO has to encode video for display, it's pretty much a 1:1 download.  A one-hour show will take you at least an hour to download.

But that is the only drawback I have seen so far, other than the limited library.

Give it a try... I am sure you will like it.

Hey Harry Reid-- yeah, you, the Majority Leader.  Still think the war in Iraq is lost?  We haven't heard much out of your fat mouth lately on this, since you declared unequivocally in the spring that the war was lost.

Yet, the daily count of combat deaths has shriveled in Iraq.  Between October 19 and 23 there were no deaths among coalition forces.

However, here in Baltimore -- the city where your gal-pal Nancy Pelosi grew up -- there were a number of murders.  Is the city of Baltimore lost?

You can read more about it here.

Thanks to Michelle Malkin for bringing this up, since the drive-by media has no interest in reporting good news out of Iraq.  I guess if it doesn't bleed, it can't lead.

Just like the Majority Leader.

Ever since Hillary Clinton's doublespeak debate event last week over NY Governor Eliot Spitzer's new "Driver's Licenses for Illegals" program, there has been much said about the complete lunacy behind such programs.  Why?  Well, thanks to the left's vaunted "Motor Voter" act in the 90's, states are now REQUIRED to provide voter applications to anyone granted a driver's license.

Smart people immediately realize the danger here:  if you give a driver's license to anyone who wants one, and you don't verify their legality, then you open the voter registration rolls to all sorts of corruption.

The Left in this country says "oh no you don't." Unfortunately, you do.  As we found out after 9/11...

Michael Medved has an outstanding article about the failure of Hollywood to grasp what its audience wants -- demands -- when it does war movies.

Make sure you read it.

In their attempts to hide their own yellow streaks, the Democrats keep trumpeting their attempts to avoid the "quick march to war" in Iran.  It's a straw man argument designed to deflect the fact that their own feckless lack of leadership is what makes Iran stronger.

Gail Collins over at the New York Times begins her latest column with an astonishingly stupid comment, even for a lefty.

About the latest Democrat debacle -- I mean debate -- she writes:

Hillary Clinton stood on a stage for two hours Tuesday night, being yelled at by six men. Now this is what they mean by pressure.

That is pressure?  Ohh puhlease.

The word is out that Dennis the Menace plans to introduce a resolution next week in the House of Representatives to impace Vice President Dick Cheney.

Baltimore County Circuit Court Judge Patrick Cavanaugh has shown that there are still judges "with a pair".  He has denied the defense motion to throw out the finger print evidence in the murder trial against Bryan Keith Rose for the brutal slaying of a Cingular store owner at Security Square Mall last year.

Cavanaugh's comment?  "In this case, a jury is going to be the trier of the facts."

Maybe he read my previous post on this matter.

According to WBAL-TV.com, Mayo Shattuck and BGE plan to ask for a rate increase on the electricity delivery charge in 2008.

He is nuts.

The Stalinists -- oops, I mean, Democrats -- in Congress are planning to hide behind their human shield children.

They are tying passage of the standalone Defense Authorization and Veterans Affairs spending bills to their new version of the rapacious SCHIP bill.

That's right.  Hiding behind children to reverse a string of bad news cycles.

This is leadership?

I received the following email from a reader in the beautiful town of Delmar (not sure if it was Delmar, MD or Delmar, DE, but that isn't important):

Might I ask that you refrain from using Delmar in conjunction with, or reference to, JJ?.  Each time I see it, it makes me cringe.  Most people in our small town consider him to be worthless and vile and it really throws us in a bad light.

Because the email was so nice and polite, and I feel for Delmar's pain, I shall willingly oblige their request.

And I wish them all the best.

If member of Maryland's House of Delegates and the Maryland State Senate refused to present themselves for the Special Session