imkittymyers at hotmail dot com
Saturday, October 23, 2004
JESSE VENTURA?
Yes, yes, I heard: ex-Gov. Jesse Ventura, from Min-ne-SO-ta, has endorsed John L'Frog Kerry. Like that endorsement will do much. But what I want to know is, What happened to Jesse? He's lost some weight and colored his hair, but look closely and you'll see BRAIDS in his beard!
SEEING A BRIGHT FUTURE
Iraqis are more optimistic about Iraq’s future than John Kerry is
By STEVEN E. MOORE
In a recent speech, Kerry charged that Saddam Hussein’s brutality “was not, in itself, a reason to go to war.” Iraqis disagree, as should any supporter of human rights. Nearly 55 percent of Iraqis say that toppling Saddam was worth the price of the current difficulties. These figures are easy to understand when you look at another set of numbers. In an op-ed article circulated this year among the more than 200 independent newspapers now published in Iraq, an Iraqi democratic activist observed that Saddam tortured and killed as many as 750,000 of his own people. Iraqis don’t understand the debate about whether Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. To them, Saddam was a weapon of mass destruction.
UNICEF, hardly an apologist for the Bush administration, estimates that 5,000 Iraqi children a month died of starvation and malnutrition while Saddam siphoned funds from the U.N.’s oil-for-food program to build his palaces and enrich French politicians.
CALLIN’ THE SHOTS UPDATE
Reader Myria suggested in her comment below that I check out the link she provided to Snopes concerning the Flu vaccine issue. This is what I found:
Claim: The current flu vaccine shortage is attributable to a lawsuit handled by Vice-Presidential candidate John Edwards.And yet their own conclusion does not support their own “False” claim:
Status: False.
Regarding the claim that John Edwards secured a $5 million judgment against a U.S. pharmacutical company on a flu vaccine case, while it is true he had a highly successful legal career representing individuals who had been badly harmed by malfunctioning products or the mistakes of doctors and hospitals, with some even saying he won $175 million for his clients over 12 years, at this point it's not known if he ever litigated a flu vaccine case, or if so, what the outcome of such a trial was.
Thanks to Lorie at PoliPundit, I was directed to this update:
Liability Lawsuits and the Influenza Vaccine
Unfortunately, Snopes does not have the whole story, since the Vaccine Injury Compensation program does not cover the influenza vaccine.
Vaccines covered under the program include those that protect against diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis (whooping cough), measles, mumps, rubella (German measles), and polio. The program continues to evolve consistent with medical science, and recently, HHS expanded coverage to four new vaccines: hepatitis B, varicella (chicken pox), Hemophilus influenzae type b, and rotavirus; pneumococcal vaccine will soon be covered, too.
Friday, October 22, 2004
IMUS GOOSING KERRY
Update: According to our Texas Techie, LoanCat, Imus has not yet renounced Kerry. But he does make some choice comments about Kerry’s huntin’ clothes, and he weighs in on Teraaaaaza, too :)
SEX? LIES? AUDIOTAPE?
Bill O’Reilly is a gasbag; it’s easy to believe her story. But if Mackris is trying to set him up, she should fry. Frankly, they sound as though they deserve each other.
O'REILLY GAL'S DEBT A MAJOR FACTOR
The Fox News employee suing Bill O'Reilly is drowning in debt, Page Six has learned. Andrea Mackris, who's being countersued by Fox and O'Reilly for trying to extort them out of $60 million with "scurrilous" sex-harassment charges, is $99,000 in the red, thanks to credit-card bills and student loans, a source said. On Wednesday, Fox lawyer Ron Green told ABC that Mackris had confessed her money woes to co-workers before she filed her suit last week. "She was a financially challenged woman, maybe financially desperate, when she told co-workers she intended to bring down O'Reilly and Fox, get $1 million from them and buy the apartment in New York City that she always wanted and couldn't afford," he said. Mackris' lawyer, Benedict Morelli, and Green did not return calls for comment yesterday.
O'Reilly accuser to cut deal?
Mackris has told the Daily News there have been no negotiations since Tuesday, but pointed out it always was her intention to settle the case out of court.
…
Meanwhile, O'Reilly's lawyers filed new papers yesterday in Nassau Supreme Court specifying what evidence they want Mackris and Morelli to disclose.
It includes any tape recordings, telephone and credit card statements and communications between Mackris and liberal radio host and author Al Franken.
BATTEN DOWN THE HATCHES
PERFECT POLITICAL STORM
By John Podhoretz
Has there ever, ever, ever been an election as exciting as this one?
The answer, after some consideration, is: No way, not by a long shot.
…
Most exciting and most addicting are the blogs — the citizen-journalist news sites. They offer campaign coverage of the highest order, from viewpoints spanning the political spectrum.
…
This week, for example, they gave some eye-opening comments on the much-ballyhooed increase in voter turnout this year.
Gerry Daly of DalyThoughts crunched some Harris Poll numbers to see what it would take for John Kerry to overtake President Bush due entirely to increased turnout. He found that Kerry will need 9.6 million new voters. And he doesn't mean new voters between the ages of 18-21 who've never been able to vote for president before. He means "nearly 10 million people, aged 22 and over, who did not vote in 2000 but are going to this year."
CALLIN' THE SHOTS
It never fails. Tell someone they can’t have it and suddenly they demand it. I never get a flu shot. I’m praying those won’t be my famous last words.
BLAME CONGRESS
By ROBERT M. GOLDBERG
AMERICA'S flu vaccine shortage has become a campaign issue, with Sen, John Kerry blaming President Bush for failing to take steps to assure a reliable supply of shots this year. That's a typical Kerry tactic: Blame the president for a problem he's been trying to solve — and which Kerry and other politicians created.
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The answer is that Congress decided 10 years ago to have the government buy up most of the vaccines at fixed, below-market prices. The Vaccines for Children Program, established by the Clinton administration and a Democratic Congress in 1994, federalized much of the once-private U.S. market for vaccines — vastly expanding the government's role as price-setter and production manager. (Despite the name, it covered many shots for adults, too.)
Pitched as a way to improve development and supply, VFC wrote price controls on vaccines into federal law. Faced with government-set low prices — and with development and production costs soaring thanks to frivolous lawsuits, other new regulations and the need to invest in new technology — companies have been pulling out of the vaccine business in droves.
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Bush has also tried to reduce development costs, to no avail. His effort to limit the liability of companies that make vaccines for the public health and fight bioterror has been thwarted by Kerry, Edwards and other leading Democrats. And the same politicians that blame the president for not getting the FDA to speed up vaccine approvals were responsible for demanding that the agency set up tougher and more expensive regulations for testing and manufacturing shots.
WHY THIS FLU CRISIS IS HAPPENING
In the late 80's a man from North Carolina who had received the vaccine got the flu. The strain he caught was one of the strains in that years vaccine made by a US company.
What did he do? He sued and he won. He was awarded almost $5 million!
After that case was appealed and lost, most US pharmaceutical companies stopped making the vaccine. The liability out weighed the profit margin.
Since UK and Canadian laws prohibit such frivolous law suits UK and Canadian companies began selling the vaccine in the US. By the way...the lawyer that represented the man in the flu shot lawsuit was a young ambulance chaser by the name of John Edwards.
FLU FEARS AND FACTS
By MARC K. SIEGEL , M.D.
THIS year's first flu-related death came not from the disease, but from an elderly woman who fell while waiting for the vaccine. Throughout history, panic has killed far more than the disease that causes it.
The news that the nation was was some 50 million doses short created a sudden rush for the shot that is based on fear, not medical science. This vaccine is useful, but it is not a sudden panacea to good health. Plenty of people will make it through this winter safely without it.
Thursday, October 21, 2004
WELCOME FELLOW L.DOTTERS!
I had no idea Lucianne had chosen my humble blog until I logged on to L.com and noticed that there was something mighty familiar about the description of her blog du jour. I posted I’M TALKIN’ ‘BOUT MEN when one of KerryHaters’ regular lefty loonies began lobbing charges of homophobia in his “comments.” The guy pissed me off! Although I co-blog with Pat and Aaron at KerryHaters, I decided to post my reply here at Litter.
And while I have your attention, please help Lucianne remain on the Net. She’s an original, truly the doyenne of bloggers. Where would we be without her and Drudge?
I’M TALKIN’ ‘BOUT MEN
Does lipstick make you feminine? Is a man who primps, using a compact mirror, gay? I’ll say right up front that, in my humble opinion, all four men in this election are straight, and I don’t base my opinion simply on the fact that all four are married men with children. John Kerry is not gay; he’s foppish. Picture him as Vicomte Sébastien de Valmont (John Malkovich in the movie) in the 1782 story of Les Liaisons Dangereuses (Dangerous Liaisons). All the windsurfing in Nantucket won't change that. John Edwards is not gay; he’s prissy, like George Constanza on Seinfeld, maybe, but without the sense of humor. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I look at George Bush and Dick Cheney and I’m not distracted by their clothing and accoutrements (except maybe that flight suit:). They’re fine, don’t get me wrong, but they’re not the first thing I see. Let’s just say I prefer strong men who don’t feel the need to primp.
The Geek Factor
By Pamela Yates
George W. Bush is a throwback to the strong male that, until 30 years ago, was the accepted norm. It is only because America's sexual culture has become genderless that Bush's normal masculine qualities are treated with suspicion. The election this November will determine whether the nation still wants to be led by an Alpha male.
The only place to showcase one's gender these days are in the fields of entertainment, fashion, and pornography. Men and woman are confused, with men acting like women -- "girlie men" -- and women acting like men.
…
When it comes to making strategic decisions, soft men are useless. More preoccupied with emotion than reason, they seek to please everyone rather than solve the problem. And what do they do when they need to show they're real men? They don't show it; they talk about it. Can one imagine Winston Churchill or Dwight Eisenhower flaunting their war experiences in the Boer War or World War II in order to prove that they were real men?
…
George W. Bush's "bring it on," in your face, real guy approach vs. the more feminine model of international consensus-building and "sensitivity" in John Kerry raises the question: Could the latter instill the leadership and inspiration necessary to lead our troops into battle? And why would a "sensitive" coalition builder like John Kerry sprint outside to make cowardly, defamatory statements to the press after the courageous and hopeful speech that the new Iraqi Prime Minister Allawi recently made before the U.S. Congress?
Imus
The I-Man discusses Kerry and the manly art of goose hunting.
Hat to to my Texas techie, LoanCat!
ROUNDUP
8 Pat wonders if they aren’t
Gaming the Iowa Electronic Markets?
Be sure to read the comments!
8 Check out Aaron’s new photo!
8 Wild Bill is BACK!
And it’s about time, too! Wild Bill is back with, of all things, a post on (I kid you not)
Times Looks at "Laura's Bush"
8 Chris, at KerryWaffles, always serves up tasty treats:
"Chariots of a Liar"
For dessert, check out the actual Heinz-Kerry e-mails that keep popping up in HIS e-mailbox!
8 Check out CrushKerry’s
Observations on the News
We Wish He Had Hit His Head on a Rock and Died a Slow Agonizing Death
Kerry Getting Desperate
We cannot explain the Bush success among black voters.
PREDICTION
The "Global Test" - Damn Videotape!
HUNTIN', GOOSE & KERRY
ACE (who has posted a great shot of Bush on the ranch) talks about Kerry’s manly goose hunting and wonders How long until Kerry mentions the Red Sox?
CLINTON, CLINTON & KERRY
RET is one of my favorites, so when he disappears … especially during a campaign! … I sink into withdrawal. Well, he’s back! How can you not love someone who refers to Slick’s cohort in crime as “his lovely wife Bruno”!
Permanently Wrong
By R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr.
Boy Clinton with characteristic obliquity has spoken from both sides of his mouth on the war in Iraq, but those of us who follow his cavortings fastidiously recall that he and his lovely wife Bruno were the first Democrats to say that ousting Saddam was a "diversion" from the war on terror. Thus began one of the liberal Democrats' favorite dodges from taking resolute action against America's enemies, to wit, they call out their intellectualoids to bog us down in tendentious arguments about the nature of our enemies, their whereabouts, their true intentions, and the proper way to pacify those enemies. Both the Clintons and Senator Kerry would deal with them ferociously though at the United Nations, the Hague, or why not the Cannes Film Festival?
…
In his mammoth autobiography My Life (the wags call it My Lies) Clinton heaves off precisely one paragraph on airport security during his Administration, though he had ample warning that threats were afoot similar to the assault that came on September 11, 2001. For instance, on December 4, 1998, according to The 9/11 Commission Report, the President received a Presidential Daily Brief whose headline read: "Bin Ladin Preparing to Hijack U.S. Aircraft and Other Attacks." Last July 23 the New York Post noted chillingly that the December 4 briefing "cited information indicating that bin Ladin and his allies were preparing an aircraft hijacking and other attacks in the United States to free three jailed Arabs, including the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Ramzi Yousef, and 'Blind Sheik' Omar Abdel-Rahman." The Playboy President did nothing.
The first World Trade Center Bombing was but the first of a series of terrorist provocations that failed to sober up the Boy President. There were also the attacks on the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, the American embassies in Africa, and the USS Cole. Nor did he do much to enforce U.N. sanctions against Saddam.
Tuesday, October 19, 2004
A HELLUVA TOWN!
New York (NY) that is. Fellow blogger, GOPandtheCity, has posted his 6th hilarious installment of:
You are so Liberal if... Part 6
Beware, Bush's "January Surprise" is coming, but an bigger "October Surprise" would be John Kerry telling the truth and not spreading Internet legends. Don't be surprised if John Kerry warns people from accepting drinks from George Bush, because you could end up in a bathtub filled with ice with one of your kidneys removed. According to John Kerry, in January we'll see a draft, no social security, and the boogieman will come out from under your bed to eat you. While these might not be true, a few things you can count on are we have more polls than a strip club, more lesbian talk than a Howard Stern show, and it's Tuesday. That means it is also time for You are so liberal, part 6.
If your party's crack voter registration drive does indeed involve crack, you might be a liberal.
You are a liberal if it takes more time to do your Vice Presidential candidate's hair, than it does to explain John Kerry's stances on Iraq.
TOUGHIN’ IT OUT IN NYC
Live From N.Y.: A Republican!
By Julia Gorin
It's a "Bush-Cheney 2004" table that graced a street corner near Madison Square Garden for a dozen Saturdays recently.
We sold pro-Bush pins, bumper stickers and T-shirts, with slogans like "Ten out of Ten Terrorists Agree: Anybody but Bush." Our aim was to let the odd conservative in New York City know that -- believe it or not -- he or she is not alone. And to show our more "traditional" fellow New Yorkers that we're not hiding anymore. No, we're proud to be red (if you must call us that) in this blazingly "blue" city
…
I've also been exchanging war stories with other members of this sapphire city's silent minority.
My favorite belongs to 26-year-old John Fitzgerald, who as a college senior in 2000 went to cast his presidential primary vote on the Upper West Side. The other night at a local bar, he told me his tale of travail. He tried to pull the knob for his preferred candidate, he said, but it wouldn't budge. After several unsuccessful attempts, he exited the booth to report that the machine wasn't working. This apparently confounded everyone, since no one had complained about the machine all day. The poll workers conferred, until finally a light bulb went off. "Are you a Republican?" someone asked.
The room fell silent. All eyes turned toward the extraterrestrial in their midst. Fitzgerald fessed up. Yes, he was trying to cast his ballot for a GOP candidate. And therein lay the malfunction: After checking voters' affiliations all day, the poll workers had found the task superfluous and had overlooked Fitzgerald's party. The machine, like all the others in the polling place, was set for the Democratic primary and had to be reset before he could vote. "I've heard about the Democratic machine in New York," Fitzgerald chuckled, "but I didn't know it was an actual one."
Hat tip GOP & the CITY!
ANOTHER NEW YORK CITY TREASURE!
If you have never visited CommunistsForKerry, you’re missing something fabulous!
It’s a helluva satire site with great photos. On their current agenda:
Operation Red Nuisance Rising
When: Saturday, 23 Oct. 2004, 12:00 - 6:00 pm
Where: Union Square, NYC, near N/R Subway Stop
Who: Politburo and all Lumpenproletariat
Consider this an official call to arms. Mark your calendars! It is time to don your CommunistsForKerry uniforms and rally with your Politburo in Soviet Union Square this Saturday. The hour is upon us to stage our final revolutions leading up to the last free election of our Motherland. We can NOT take over the Red House without your help! It is your duty to spread the word. We will have your favorite CommunistsForKerry Pink-O ladies on the front lines for photo archiving purposes.
Attendance is mandatory. We know where you live. If you are wheelchair bound we will send Komrad Kerry for emergency healing.
Kerry Declares Terror A Non-Word, Americans Feel Safe Again
Kerry's Plan For America: He is Jesus!
October 2004: Introducing Lenin's New Economic Policy (NEP)
State Store
Which sells this t-shirt among other items.
U MAIL CALL
Chris’ KerryWaffles always has something interesting to offer:
"Who is Tim Burga?" 2 incriminating emails on this page. Kerrywaffles nails the AFL-CIO,
USAction, DNC, Kerry donors.
PLUS, look what Chris discovered!
Guess who funds the NAACP Voter Fund that hands out crack for votes?
And from Louis
ROPE-A-DOPE CONTINUED
t-shirt
THE L-WORD STICKS
By Dick Morris
WITH only two weeks to go, President Bush and his campaign demonstrated once again that they are playing chess while Kerry is playing checkers.
…
By declaring in the third debate that Kerry inhabits the far left bank of our politics, well away from the mainstream, Bush hit pay dirt.
Knowing that Kerry would seek to win the domestic issues by promising the moon, Bush, in great jujitsu style, used the Democrat's strength against him, coming around his right flank adding up the cost of the promises and underscoring his adversary's liberalism.
…
The beauty of the Bush attack is that it is fueled as much by Kerry's proposals as by the Republican jabs. With every new speech, Kerry shows his liberalism and makes promises that dig him an ever deeper hole. Should he try to tack to the right to rebut the accusation, he will run into the old charge of flip-flopper and rekindle doubts about his ability to stick to a position
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An October surprise this year is most likely to come from al Qaeda, which is probably determined to leave its mark on our elections as surely as they did in those already held this year in Spain by blowing up a train and in Australia by attacking their embassy in Jakarta. Just as the terrorists attacked in Israel before every recent election, so they will probably try to get at us here in the United States.
Hopefully they will not succeed in their acts of terror, but even their attempts are likely to remind us of what a dangerous world we inhabit, another factor that will boost Bush's chances.
ROUNDUP
8 Jaaaaay-zus! He didn’t kill anyone!
BUSTED BUST (link outdated)
ONE angry ex-Miramax employee decided to drop a dime on ex-boss Harvey Weinstein. According to insiders, someone "called the Health Department and complained that Harvey was smoking in the office and elevators." But the disgruntled staffer's plans were foiled when an inspector showed up at Weinstein's TriBeCa offices — and found nothing. "We passed the inspection," the spy said. A rep for Weinstein quipped: "In this case, there was neither smoke nor fire."
8 Shoulda thought of that before you sued that obnoxious gasbag (who probably did it). Next time, dearie, just hang up the f'n phone!
I want my life back!
In an explicit lawsuit filed in Manhattan Supreme Court, Mackris claims that O'Reilly subjected her to phone sex against her wishes on three separate occasions in August and September.
…
O'Reilly, 55, a married father of two, has teamed with Fox to file his own suit in Nassau County. He accuses Mackris and her lawyers of a politically motivated scheme to extort $60 million in "blood money."
8 Lorie, at ByrdDroppings, reminds us of the scandal which gets little attention these days.
Journalistic Malpractice
I watched the Fox News special Sunday night about the U.N. Oil for Food scandal and could only think about how ashamed the mainstream media should be for largely ignoring one of the most important stories of the decade.
8 A cup of high octane to go, please.
EXXON'S NEW FUEL: CAFFEINE
Today, the oil titan will announce the national launch of its "Bengal Traders" branded java, The Post has learned. ExxonMobil invested more than $10 million to buy high-end beans, update its equipment and train its staff on keeping the brew fresh.
ExxonMobil's convenience stores will peddle Bengal Traders flavored coffees, cappuccinos and chai lattes — among other hot beverage offerings. A basic cup of joe will cost less than a dollar.
8 FACT OF THE DAY (no link)
World history takes a major turn today in 1781 as British forces under General Cornwallis surrender to the combined armies of American General George Washington and French Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau. This is the last major battle of the American War of Independence and assures the freedom of the United States of America.
Sunday, October 17, 2004
DIGITAL BROWNSHIRTS NEWS
Operation Gratitude Makes A Difference!
Pt.1) Aaron tells you how to talk to a liberal ... if you must (WARNING: strong language!).
Pt.3) Pat at KerryHaters reminds us that Kerry is desperate, so be prepared.
Pt.4) Wild Bill at PassionateAmerica.
