A hotel that refused an injured soldier a room, forcing him to spend the night in his car, was backed into issuing a grovelling apology yesterday after receiving a barrage of abusive phone calls.
The Metro Hotel, in Woking, Surrey, called the police as its phone lines were flooded with angry and threatening calls from the public.
The attack on the switchboards came after it emerged that Corporal Tomos Stringer, 24, had been told that it was company policy not to accept members of the Armed forces.
A soldier since the age of 16 and veteran of multiple tours in Northern Ireland, Iraq and Afghanistan, Corporal Stringer had travelled to Surrey to help with funeral preparations for a friend killed in action.
The corporal, who was not in uniform, presented his warrant card when asked by the hotel for proof of identity. After being refused a room, he had to bed down in his car, with his wrist, broken during a convoy ambush, encased in plaster.

That it’s the hotel’s policy to shun veterans is shameful. Good for everyone who called in to shame the hotel into an apology.

Crossposted

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com)—As news of the pregnancy of vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s daughter Bristol makes the headlines, she is coming under attack from backers of pro-abortion candidate Barack Obama. But few have gone as far as former Planned Parenthood president Gloria Feldt, who suggested Palin is making her daughter keep the baby.
“She probably feels powerless right now,” Feldt said on Tuesday responding to the news about Bristol Palin.
Feldt said Governor Palin’s pro-life views may have made it so she and her husband Todd prevented Bristol from getting an abortion.
“Because of her family’s attitude she probably doesn’t feel that she has a choice in terms of what will happen to her,” Feldt said.

Not only is Palin not a woman, she’s forcing her child into slavery! /sarcasm

What a twisted worldview. Assuming that the girl looks at her child as a burden and her family is forcing her to have it is a sign of sickness. As the article nicely sums up:

“In Gloria Feldt’s bizarre world, families that cherish children are toxic. If the goal is to reduce the number of abortions, surely the first step is to allow families to love and embrace their children, not reject the weak and inconvenient,” Wright said.

But the goal of Planned Parenthood has never been to reduce abortions. If abortions stop Planned Parenthood goes out of business. These are twisted people who see babies as a curse. As Obama said “I don’t want my daughters ‘punished’ with a baby.

As McCain ran up to his announcement for VP, one of the most absurd demands made on him was that he draft Romney as his vice. Even before the pick was announced, this was a weird rallying cry for conservatives “Romney or bust”, but now AFTER the pick, it’s utter insanity.

Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not some huge Palin fan, but Romney? Please.

In order to shore up support with the conservative base that hates him, McCain was going to pick the one man who was to his left on almost every issue? That’d inspire hope in conservatives. And would’ve ushered in the first ever Democrat 49-1 state sweep ever.

While Romney is charismatic and likable in debates, he’s got a record to rival Hillary Clinton in the liberal department. Matched up to Palin, the man looks like a conservative lightweight.

Romney ignored his faith to become the only pro-choice Mormon in history. His support of gay marriage is pretty well documented. He was in favor of McCain’s amnesty plan and has never been serious about illegal immigration. His record on taxes is mixed at best, with him STILL refusing to endorce the Bush tax cuts.

And most importantly, while all of his supporters love to credit his private industry successes...as a public official, he almost bankrupted his state with the ridiculoud “Romneycare” proposal, that put Hillary care to shame.

Romney wasn’t the worst candidate in the bunch, but any honest supporter has to realize that Romney and McCain was a losing ticket to at least 4 years of Obama.

Crossposted

If there’s a case to be made against democracy, few countries make it better than Pakistan.
On Saturday, Pakistani legislators will elect a new president to replace Pervez Musharraf, the general-turned-strongman who resigned the office last month.
In one corner there is Mushahid Hussain Sayed, a former journalist and one-time political prisoner of Mr. Musharraf who is nonetheless running as the candidate of the general’s old party. Mr. Mushahid, probably the best of the bunch, stands next to no chance of winning.
In another corner there is Saeeduzzaman Siddiqui, candidate of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s party. Mr. Sharif—whose record includes bankrupting his country, presiding over a disastrous military campaign against India, and attempting to implement Sharia law while awarding himself near-dictatorial powers—has made it clear he intends to gut the powers of the presidency should he return to office.
And then there is Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of slain former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and leader of the Pakistan People’s Party. Mr. Zardari, who has compared himself to Jesus (an innocent accused of crimes he did not commit), is easily one of the most notorious figures in the long parade of horribles that make up the country’s political history. He is, of course, expected to win Saturday’s ballot handily.
Just how bad is Mr. Zardari? It would be a relief if it were true that he was merely suffering from dementia, a diagnosis offered by two New York psychiatrists last year. But that diagnosis seems to have been produced mainly with a view toward defending himself against corruption charges in a British court.

Read the whole thing.

Thank God Musharraf resigned, right? Right? Ah crap.

Crossposted

WHAT A TWIST!

Who knew?

It was the feminist dream of the 1960s – a world in which men and women share the load equally.
But it seems the fairer sex has all but abandoned the struggle. According to research published today, most men want a traditional wife – and women are often only too happy to oblige.
In turn, it claims that the husband women most desire is a ‘retrosexual’ – meaning they are more hunter gatherer than a ‘metrosexual’ stay-at-home father.
...
Tanya Jackson, corporate affairs manager at the building society, said: ‘A lot of women used to think they wanted a metrosexual man.
‘But then they realised they were fed up with a man who spent longer in the bathroom than they did.
‘Many women now feel they actually want a hunter-gatherer and they will look after their man in return.’

Despite a constant drumbeat about how women and men should be interchangable, they aren’t. We are born with different natures and seek out the other to complete ourselves. While lots of people bought into the feminist claptrap, it didn’t take long to see that the Feminist Empress had no clothes and, even worse, no grasp of reality.
While women tried the guru’s nonsense for years, the basic nature of women told them they wanted a real man. Because gender roles aren’t “societally defined”, they are genetically instilled. While every girl wanted the sensative guy who was into girly movies, once she had it...she was disappointed. The feminist noise ruined a lot of families and left a lot of broken people. But basic human nature is correcting new age silliness. Even the feminists are abandoning their fancy ideas. Little Miss “like fish need a bicycle” has even gotten married. Stupid ideas can only hold out so long against people’s basic nature. It’s about time the cycle is correcting itself.

Crossposted

BAGHDAD - American forces on Monday handed over security responsibility to the Iraqis in a province that the U.S. once feared was lost — a sign of the stunning reversal of fortunes since local Sunnis turned against al-Qaida in Iraq.
But a Sunni Arab leader criticized the Shiite-led government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for failing to embrace its newfound allies, underlining the threat that sectarian tensions still pose to a lasting peace.
Nevertheless, the transfer of Anbar province, the cradle of the Sunni insurgency and the birthplace of al-Qaida in Iraq, marked a dramatic milestone in America’s plan to eventually hand over all 18 provinces to Iraqi control so U.S. troops can go home.
The 25,000 American troops remaining in Anbar will focus on training Iraq’s military and police forces and standing by to help if the Iraqis are unable to cope with any surge in violence.

If Obama had had his way, we’d have been turning over Anbar to al Quida, not to the Iraq government. Remember that everytime says that Obama was right on Iraq. Al Quida would’ve been just like putting Saddam back in power.

That’s not change. That’s more of the same.

Crossposted at Insane Reindeer

That’s the America that George Bush has left us, and that’s the future John McCain will give us. These are not isolated discussions among families down on their luck. These are common stories among middle-class people who worked hard and played by the rules on the promise that their tomorrows would be better than their yesterdays.

That promise is the bedrock of America. It defines who we are as a people. And now it’s in jeopardy. I know it. You know it. But John McCain doesn’t get it.

...

John McCain is my friend. We’ve known each other for three decades. We’ve traveled the world together. It’s a friendship that goes beyond politics. And the personal courage and heroism John demonstrated still amaze me.

But I profoundly disagree with the direction that John wants to take the country. For example,

John thinks that during the Bush years “we’ve made great progress economically.” I think it’s been abysmal.

And in the Senate, John sided with President Bush 95 percent of the time. Give me a break. When John McCain proposes $200 billion in new tax breaks for corporate America, $1 billion alone for just eight of the largest companies, but no relief for 100 million American families, that’s not change; that’s more of the same.

Even today, as oil companies post the biggest profits in history--a half trillion dollars in the last five years--he wants to give them another $4 billion in tax breaks. But he voted time and again against incentives for renewable energy: solar, wind, biofuels. That’s not change; that’s more of the same.

Millions of jobs have left our shores, yet John continues to support tax breaks for corporations that send them there. That’s not change; that’s more of the same.

He voted 19 times against raising the minimum wage. For people who are struggling just to get to the next day, that’s not change; that’s more of the same.

And when he says he will continue to spend $10 billion a month in Iraq when Iraq is sitting on a surplus of nearly $80 billion, that’s not change; that’s more of the same.

...

As we gather here tonight, our country is less secure and more isolated than at any time in recent history. The Bush-McCain foreign policy has dug us into a very deep hole with very few friends to help us climb out. For the last seven years, this administration has failed to face the biggest forces shaping this century: the emergence of Russia, China and India as great powers; the spread of lethal weapons; the shortage of secure supplies of energy, food and water; the challenge of climate change; and the resurgence of fundamentalism in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the real central front against terrorism.

...

Again and again, on the most important national security issues of our time, John McCain was wrong, and Barack Obama was proven right.

Folks, remember when the world used to trust us? When they looked to us for leadership? With Barack Obama as our president, they’ll look to us again, they’ll trust us again, and we’ll be able to lead again.

You know, I believe the measure of a man isn’t just the road he’s traveled; it’s the choices he’s made along the way.

“That’s not change; that’s more of the same.”

These locals have long viewed the dragons as a reincarnation of fellow kinsfolk, to be treated with reverence. But now, villagers say, the once-friendly dragons have turned into vicious man-eaters. And they blame policies drafted by American-funded environmentalists for this frightening turn of events.
“When I was growing up, I felt the dragons were my family,” says 55-year-old Hajji Faisal. “But today the dragons are angry with us, and see us as enemies.” The reason, he and many other villagers believe, is that environmentalists, in the name of preserving nature, have destroyed Komodo’s age-old symbiosis between dragon and man.
...
“For us, giving food to the dragons is an obligation, our sacred duty,” says Hajji Adam, headman of the park’s biggest village, Kampung Komodo.
Indonesia invited the Nature Conservancy, a Virginia-based environment protection group, to help manage the park in 1995. An Indonesian subsidiary of the group, called Putri Naga Komodo, gained a tourism concession for the park in 2005 and is investing in the conservation effort some $10 million of its own money and matching financing from international donors.
With this funding and advice, park authorities put an end to villagers’ traditional deer hunting, enforcing a prohibition that had been widely disregarded. They declared canines an alien species, and outlawed the villagers’ dogs, which used to keep dragons away from homes. Park authorities banned the goat sacrifices, previously staged on Komodo for the benefit of picture-snapping tourists.

Not surprisingly, this led to some rather tragic consequences, the dragons going for the next easiest food source…

A year ago, a 9-year-old named Mansur was one such victim. The boy went to answer the call of nature behind a bush near his home in Kampung Komodo. In broad daylight, as terrified relatives looked on, a dragon lunged from his hideout, took a bite of the boy’s stomach and chest, and started crushing his skull.
...
A few months later, Jamain’s neighbor Mustaming Kiswanto, a 38-year-old who makes a living selling dragon woodcarvings to tourists, and whose son had been bitten by a dragon, was attacked by another giant lizard after falling asleep. In June, five European divers, stranded in an isolated part of the park, said they successfully fended off an aggressive dragon by throwing their weight belts at it.
To the villagers in Komodo, the recent incidents provide clear evidence of an ominous change in reptile behavior. “I don’t blame the dragons for my boy’s death. I blame those who forbade us from following custom and feeding them,” says Jamain. “If it weren’t for them, my boy would still be alive.”

A centuries old truce, for lack of a better word, has kept the lizards mostly docile. And when they got out of line, the villagers dogs would help protect them. Without the incentive of free easy food, and the disincentive of fighting off protective dogs, the dragon has turned to vulnerable humans as an easy food source. Small children, sleeping people, anything that looks like easy prey is fair game. After all, the Komono Dragons haven’t had to get their own food for centuries. It’s not likely they’d go back to trying to hunt. Well, at least we know the liberals are sorry for their actions…

The boy “shouldn’t have crouched like a prey species in a place where dragons live,” says Marcus Matthews-Sawyer, tourism, marketing and communications director at Putri Naga Komodo. “You’ve got to be very careful about extrapolating and drawing any conclusions.”

Oh.

Despite such disbelief in the Komodo villagers’ theories, executives at the Nature Conservancy’s headquarters in the U.S. pledge to reach out and tackle local fears. “Any concern expressed by the villagers will be taken seriously and we will address it if we can,” says Chief Communications Officer James R. Petterson. “The Komodo effort is a work in progress.”

No measures have been taken as of yet, and it’s doubtful any will. Because the conservancy doesn’t care about the people, just this fantasy Utopia for the animals. For liberals, it’s never about the consequences of the action, just the action itself and how it makes them feel. What’s a dead child here and there when you’re busy saving the Earth. As the soviets used to say, you have to break a couple of eggs to make an omelet.

It’s funny that, even though Republicans are the “Racist ones”, it’s always liberal ideas that rack up the piles of little colored bodies.

Crossposted

On the eve of the Democratic National Convention, John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, used his weekly radio address to make some of his most pointed attacks yet on Barack Obama’s abortion record, ending a summerlong d�tente on a hot-button culture war issue that still deeply divides many voters.
...
Many political experts do not agree with McCain’s characterization of Obama’s views as extreme. According to polls conducted this summer, nearly two thirds of likely voters continue, like Obama, to support Roe, while almost 40 percent believe, like McCain, that abortion should be illegal in most or all cases.

Every “political expert” who disagrees with McCain is wrong. As Carville noted in his last book, something like 96% of Americans are against Partial Birth Abortion. Barack Obama is not. That would indeed make him an extremist. Michelle sent out a letter criticizing the ban as unconstitutional. Hardly a “normal” view.

We also have Barack Obama’s ridiculous opposition to the Born Alive Infant Protection Act. This act was so uncontroversial that 100% of liberals in the Senate, 100% of pro-choicers voted for it, 98-0, the 2 missing later also supporting it. Barack Obama was against it, claiming that it put additional hurdles in front of a mother who wanted an abortion.

How are these views not extreme? Many Americans do indeed support abortion. But apparently Barack Obama is the only person in America who supports partial birth abortion and letting infants die without medical care.

Thank God it was clarified that he wasn’t an extremist. Whew.

First, Gardasil’s long-term effectiveness is unclear. Because cervical cancer takes years to develop, critics say the current information is insufficient to determine whether Gardasil works.
“The overall effect of the vaccines on cervical cancer remains unknown,” Dr. Carolyn J. Haug, the Journal of Norwegian Medical Association’s editor, wrote in the New England Journal editorial. “The real impact of HPV vaccination on cervical cancer will not be observable for decades.”
...
“Most of the information people have right now leads them to believe that if they’re vaccinated with Gardasil, they’re protected for life, and that’s just not true,” said Dr. Diane Harper of Dartmouth College.
There is also the issue of side effects. FDA records reveal that, since Gardasil’s approval, nearly 9,000 girls had “bad health events” after receiving their shots. These included 78 reported outbreaks of genital warts, 18 deaths and six cases of Guillain Barre Syndrome, which can result in paralysis. It is unknown whether there are unseen side effects, like decreasing the body’s ability to fight off other strains of the HPV virus.

To compare this against an unsafe drug...Fen Phen had less than 200 negative side effects, and 1 death, when it was pulled from the market. Guardasil has about 4500% more health problems related and 1700% more deaths than the “unsafe” Fen Phen. Far from being considered a health risk, it is potentially going to be forced on young girls by several different states. By any objective standard of risk, this drug qualifies. The lead toy, and date rape drug toy scandals of last Christmas claimed no lives, and injured few, yet they held the headlines for days. This drug has killed almost 20 and has maimed thousands, and yet may be forced upon unwilling teens?

Where the hell is the FDA?

Crossposted at LFTL