Morons Reached on Mount Hood

I just can't work up any sympathy for climbers being stranded on Mount Hood. Did they not pay any attention to what went on up there a couple of months ago?

Authorities say search and rescue teams have located and reached three climbers stranded on Mount Hood.

Rescuers received several signals from an emergency beacon, which helped them zero in on the location, the office said. The site was believed to be around the 8,300-foot level on the 11,239-foot mountain.

The three well-equipped climbers, two women and a man, fell off a ledge Sunday. They are believed to be good shape. Rescue officials were in frequent cell phone contact with them.

I hope they get the bill for the rescue effort. They should consider themselves fortunate to be alive.

The mountain can be treacherous, particularly in the winter. In December, search teams scoured Mount Hood for days in the hopes of finding a group of missing climbers alive. The bodies of Brian Hall, of Dallas, and Jerry "Nikko" Cooke, of New York, have not been found. Another climber in their group, Kelly James, of Dallas, died of hypothermia.

In the past 25 years, more than 35 climbers have died on the 11,239-foot mountain, one of the most frequently climbed mountains in the world.

Bleak Future for Newspapers

It's Red All Over.

The news about newspapers could hardly be more dismal: falling circulation, repeated rounds of layoffs, disappearing ads and a chain of bad earning reports. It's an unsavory stew of ills, one that shows little prospect of becoming more appetizing.

Many journalists--and having spent the first slice of my career reporting for the New York Times, I still regard myself as one--would prefer to blame the nasty folks in their corporate offices. By this reckoning, it was the layoffs that degraded the quality that cost the readers that led the advertisers to flee that caused more layoffs and so forth.

That smacks of a vicious circle, or perhaps more of a perfect storm that began with the loss of readership. The Washington Post, a model of journalistic excellence, has lost 14% of its circulation since 2000. Across the industry, circulation has been dropping for 20 years, and worse, the pace of decline seems to be accelerating. In the 12 months ending in September of last year, the 50 largest papers lost 3.2% of their daily circulation. Only two newspapers in the top 25--the two New York tabloids--grew circulation during this period, a statement in itself.

Perhaps most worrisome is the loss of young readers, who have drifted away steadily since the early 1970s, long before there was an Internet, when more than 70% of 18- to 34-year-old Americans read a daily newspaper. Last year that figure stood at 35%.

Forget the laughable assertion the Washington Post is a model for excellence. I have the obvious reason for Mr. Rattner why circulation continues to plumment: Liberal Bias.

Until that problem is remedied, expect the losses to pile up.

Iranians Hang Alleged Bomber

Justice, if you want to call it that, is rather swift over there. Gateway Pundit has the details and photos.

Good News Is No News

Larry Kudlow likes to call it "The greatest story never told," and Donald Lambro points out all the good news that never seems to make it onto the media radar.

Contrary to all the worrying and hand-wringing over the budget deficit from Democrats and insecure newspaper pundits with too much time on their hands, Mr. Bernanke said he expected deficits to continue their sharp decline this year and next.

This remains one of the major, underreported success stories of the Bush administration. After all those nightmare scenarios about the nation being plunged deeper into a sea of red ink because President Bush had the temerity to cut taxes, well, just the opposite is occurring.

Last year, the projected deficit was essentially cut in half as a result of an explosion in tax revenues from healthier corporate profits, more capital gains and millions of workers added to the nation's payrolls.

The deficit in the fiscal year's first four months has fallen sharply "as the government continues to benefit from record levels of tax collections," the Associated Press reported last week.

When the intellectual pygmies of the left blither on about economic news they have no knowledge of, smack them down with facts.

Global Warming and Eugenics

Just throwing this one out there. Could lead to some fiery debate, no doubt.

"Global Warming" had a precursor in capturing the hearts and minds of the world. Michael Crichton, in his novel "State of Fear," brilliantly juxtaposes the world's current political embrace of "global warming" with the popular embrace of the "science" of eugenics a century ago. For nearly 50 years, from the late 1800s through the first half of the 20th century, there grew a common political acceptance by the world's thinkers, political leaders and media elite that the "science" of eugenics was settled science. There were a few lonely voices trying to be heard in the wilderness in opposition to this bogus science, but they were ridiculed or ignored.

Believers in eugenics argued that we could improve the human race by controlling reproduction. The most respected scientists from Harvard, Yale, Princeton and other bastions of intellectual rigor retreated to a complex on Long Island named Cold Spring Harbor. Their support came from the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Harriman fortune working with the U.S. Departments of Agriculture, State and other agencies.

The "science" was not lacking important public supporters. Theodore Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Woodrow Wilson were enthusiastic believers. The theory won approval of Supreme Court justices, leaders in higher education and Nobel Prize winners. The founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger, was one of the most vocal adherents. She established the first "birth control" clinic in 1916.

Read it all.

UPDATE: Yawn. Today's Reuters drivel. No holiday for the hysterics.

Two GI's Killed in Iraq Base Attack

They're feeling comfort from the aid they're getting from the Democrats.

Insurgents attacked a U.S. combat post on Monday, killing two soldiers and injuring 17, the military said. The assault began with a suicide bomber exploding a vehicle outside the base north of Baghdad, said the statement, which gave no further details. The names of the soldiers killed and wounded were not immediately made public.

A string of bombings killed at least 15 people Monday in the Baghdad area, a day after a massive car bomb attack in a Shiite area market delivered the first major blow to the U.S.-led security crackdown. Attacks in other parts of Iraq pushed the overall death toll near 30.

In the meantime, Mookie has told his goons to lie low since Murtha is busy buying time for them.

Dangerous Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has ordered his fanatical Mahdi Army to stand down during the U.S. security crackdown in Baghdad so that his organization can live to fight another day, The Post has learned.

U.S. officials, citing intelligence gleaned from electronic surveillance as well as informants, said the radical cleric recently ordered top aides to put the civil war with Sunnis on hold, stay out of Baghdad and keep a low profile during the new U.S. effort.

Al-Sadr is believed to be in Iran along with several close advisers.

Meanwhile, Peter Brookes says there's no doubt Iran is supplying the insurgency and says something better be done now.

But in the end, there seems to be three things there is no question about: Iranian weapons are present in Iraq today, and they are killing U.S., Coalition and Iraqi forces. And something has to be done about it - ASAP!

Kenneth Timmerman says Bush need to hangtough against the weasels.

THERE'S a new myth being pumped by the anti-Bush crowd, that somehow the president is once again "hyping" intelligence to make the case for war.

This time it's Iran and the allegedly hyped intelligence concerns Iran's involvement in Iraq, as well as the administration's interpretation of Iran's motives and intentions.

The anti-Bush crowd is concerned that Bush's new, hard-headed approach to Iranian terrorists operating in Iraq is actually beginning to show results, and it is desperate to sabotage any political benefit the president might derive from this success.

Any success for Bush means bad news for the Democrats, who are far more interested in scoring political points than actually winning in Iraq, to their eternal shame.

Finally, Allahpundit opines on a NY Times report saying Al-Qaeda is reinforcing in Waziristan. Just great.

UPDATE: Jules Crittenden has Tet for Tat?

Ankles Aweigh: Pantsuit Being Swiftboated

So says the Los Angeles Times, doing their best to carry water for Mrs. Clinton. The nerve of some people, pointing out her many shortcomings.

Old enemies of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton are out in force. Just weeks after she joined the Democratic Party's flock of presidential contenders, Clinton is being targeted by conservative and Republican-allied activists intent on derailing her campaign before the start of next year's primaries.

They have surfaced with a flurry of planned projects: a Michael Moore-style documentary film, book-length exposes, and websites such as StopHerNow.com and StopHillaryPAC.com.

Conservative admirers of the Swift Vets and POWs for Truth media blitz that helped torpedo Democratic Sen. John F. Kerry's presidential candidacy in 2004 are now agitating to "Swift-boat" Clinton.

"People are doing what they're doing because they want to defeat her before she has a chance to win. You can't hold off your silver bullet to the end," said veteran Republican operative David N. Bossie, who is involved in the film project with Dick Morris, a former advisor to Bill Clinton.

They even mange to work Willie Horton into the story. Will they ever let that go?

More at Newsbusters.

Hateful Obsession

Edward Alexander has an excellent piece in the New York Post today examining the strange obsession some leftist Jews have with Israel.

TOO many writers and pundits today are obsessed, almost pathologically, by the conviction that Israel is the most evil country that ever has existed, and that its removal from the family of nations is a precondition of world peace.

Such lethally utopian dreams are not strictly the playground of anti-Semites, but also the common coin of much liberal Jewish writing and speechifying about Israel. As Brit George Steiner put it, "Might the Christian West and Islam live more humanely, more at ease with themselves, if the Jewish problem were indeed 'resolved' (that is, endlosung or final solution)."

Read the whole thing. Sadly, this odd epidemic is rampant and plays into the hands of Israel's enemies.

Pantsuit Wants Out of Iraq in 90 Days

She's really becoming delusional.

Under fire over Iraq, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton went on offense yesterday, with a bill to start pulling out troops - and a clear sign that those demanding an apology for her 2002 war vote can back someone else.

The two-pronged approach was bolstered with a five-minute campaign Web site video, where the Democratic presidential front-runner explained her bill to cap troop levels and require a phased redeployment within 90 days, or else Congress will have to reauthorize the war.

Among her main rivals, the Iraq war is seen as Clinton's big vulnerability. Sen. Barack Obama, who wasn't in the Senate in 2002, vocally opposed the war from the outset, and former Sen. John Edwards has repudiated his own vote for it.

Really showing principle and core convictions. This is why when you vote for something, make sure you know what you're doing so you don't have to try and wiggle out of it at a later date.

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin and Allahpundit have much more.

Wiesel Weasel Nabbed in New Jersey

The punk who attacked Elie Wiesel in San Francisco a couple of weeks ago was arrested Saturday in New Jersey. As is usually the case, those who know him are shocked.

A Sussex County man who authorities say attacked Nobel peace laureate Elie Wiesel in San Francisco earlier this month and then fled back to New Jersey was arrested yesterday on several charges, including committing a hate crime.

Friends and former acquaintances of Eric Hunt, 22, of Vernon struggled to reconcile the friendly, bright, articulate young man they remembered with the Holocaust denier, attempted kidnapper and possible Neo-Nazi authorities say he has become.

"I'm stupefied," said Mary Ann Kaicher, who coached Hunt on the debate team at Vernon High School, which he graduated in 2002.

"He was a lovely kid. Very bright, very idealistic," Kaicher said, reacting with shock to the news that Hunt had been charged in the Feb. 1 attack on Wiesel. "He must have gotten in with some crazy people or had a breakdown or something."

Yesterday afternoon, a day after being named by the San Francisco police, Hunt was arrested at the Carrier Clinic, a substance-abuse rehabilitation center in Montgomery Township, Somerset County Prosecutor Wayne Forrest said. He is being held on a fugitive warrant pending extradition to California.

"This was a brutal assault on a man who's dedicated his life to peace," District Attorney Kamala Harris said. "He was viciously attacked for who he is, and we won't stand for that."

More from LGF.

Headed for Defeat?

Certainly the Democrats are striving for us to lose in Iraq. That much is clear. Their all-consuming hatred for the President has rendered them into unpatriotic, vengeance-drenched enemies of freedom. Still it's sobering to read the brilliant Mark Steyn reminding us of the perhaps inevitable conclusion.

So "the Murtha plan" is to deny the president the possibility of victory while making sure Democrats don't have to share the blame for the defeat. But of course he's a great American! He's a patriot! He supports the troops! He doesn't support them in the mission, but he'd like them to continue failing at it for a couple more years. As John Kerry wondered during Vietnam, how do you ask a soldier to be the last man to die for a mistake? By nominally "fully funding" a war you don't believe in but "limiting his ability to use the money." Or as the endearingly honest anti-war group MoveCongress.org put it, in an e-mail preview of an exclusive interview with the wise old Murtha:

"Chairman Murtha will describe his strategy for not only limiting the deployment of troops to Iraq but undermining other aspects of the president's foreign and national security policy."

"Undermining"? Why not? To the Slow-Bleed Democrats, it's the Republicans' war. To an increasing number of what my radio pal Hugh Hewitt calls the White-Flag Republicans, it's Bush's war. To everyone else on the planet, it's America's war. And it will be America's defeat

Lampley Violates Restraining Order

Looks like sportscaster Jim Lampley has himself some issues. He'll probably blame Bush.

SAN DIEGO -- Sports announcer Jim Lampley was charged Friday with violating a temporary restraining order filed by a former beauty queen. The 57-year-old Lampley faces up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine if convicted of the misdemeanor charge, the district attorney's office said.

The charge stems from his January arrest in connection with a report of domestic violence. According to court records, 28-year-old Candice Sanders claimed that Lampley attacked her in her Encinitas apartment on New Year's Eve.

"I received injuries to my head, neck and back from his throwing me against the walls and door," she wrote in her request for a straining order.

Sanders, Miss California USA 2003, also alleged that Lampley had been drinking and smoking marijuana before attacking her. She claimed he threw her to the floor at a New York restaurant two months ago.

More here.

Outside of his career in sports broadcasting, the moonbat Lampley also enjoys delving into weird conspiracy theories.

At 5:00 p.m. Eastern time on Election Day, I checked the sportsbook odds in Las Vegas and via the offshore bookmakers to see the odds as of that moment on the Presidential election. John Kerry was a two-to-one favorite. You can look it up.

People who have lived in the sports world as I have, bettors in particular, have a feel for what I am about to say about this: these people are extremely scientific in their assessments. These people understand which information to trust and which indicators to consult in determining where to place a dividing line to influence bets, and they are not in the business of being completely wrong. Oddsmakers consulted exit polling and knew what it meant and acknowledged in their oddsmaking at that moment that John Kerry was winning the election.

And he most certainly was, at least if the votes had been fairly and legally counted. What happened instead was the biggest crime in the history of the nation, and the collective media silence which has followed is the greatest fourth-estate failure ever on our soil.

Maybe he ought to lay off the whisky.

Malkin Derangement Syndrome

I thought the leftwing blogosphere's raging case of Malkin Derangement Syndrome had reached its zenith Friday after the WaPo story. Obviously these intellectual titans just can't get enough and tuned in to see her host The O'Reilly Factor last night, with predictable results.

These racist, sexist liberals sure do know how to sink to the lowest levels. Maybe they're itching for a spot on the Edwards campaign.

In fairness, Michelle does note there is an outpost of sanity in the sea of madness.

Victim for the Cause

Amanda Marcotte strikes a blow for the cause. The narcissistic bigot divulges all about her favorite subject--herself. Even more here if you can take it. A regular celebrity now.

Britney Goes Bald

Britney Spears goes back to her roots. Is it too late for an intervention?

Britney Spears checked into a rehab facility and then abruptly checked out, a source confirms to PEOPLE. And then on Friday, she returned to Southern California – and she shaved her head completely bald.

A Blog For All has more.

UPDATE: Allahpundit wonders. You think K-Fed ever finds it funny that he’s considered “the responsible parent”?

7.62mm Justice also weighs in.

Toensing Issues Indictments in CIA Case

Victoria Toensing goes nuclear. Fitz and Joe Wilson get frogmarched. Along with a whole lot of others.

THIS GRAND JURY CHARGES PATRICK J. FITZERALD with ignoring the fact that there was no basis for a criminal investigation from the day he was appointed, with handling some witnesses with kid gloves and banging on others with a mallet, with engaging in past contretemps with certain individuals that might have influenced his pursuit of their liberty, and with misleading the public in a news conference because . . . well, just because.

THIS GRAND JURY CHARGES THE CIA for making a boilerplate criminal referral to cover its derrière.

THIS GRAND JURY CHARGES JOSEPH C. WILSON IV with misleading the public about how he was sent to Niger, about the thrust of his March 2003 oral report of that trip, and about his wife's CIA status, perhaps for the purpose of getting book and movie contracts.

THIS GRAND JURY CHARGES THE MEDIA with hypocrisy in asserting that criminal law was applicable to this "leak" and with misreporting facts to wage a political attack on an increasingly unpopular White House.

Guilty.

It continues. Read it all.

UPDATE. Check out Byron York and What the CIA Leak Case is About. It's about as big a farce as one can imagine.

Cowards Give in to Evil

Ralph Peters is fired up. For good reason.

PROVIDING aid and comfort to the enemy in wartime is treason. It's not "just politics." It's treason.

And signaling our enemies that Congress wants them to win isn't "supporting our troops."

The "nonbinding resolution" telling the world that we intend to surrender to terrorism and abandon Iraq may be the most disgraceful congressional action since the Democratic Party united to defend slavery.

The vote was a huge morale booster for al Qaeda, for Iraq's Sunni insurgents, and for the worst of the Shia militias.

The message Congress just sent to them all was, "Hold on, we'll stop the surge, we're going to leave - and you can slaughter the innocent with our blessing."

We've reached a low point in the history of our government when a substantial number of legislators would welcome an American defeat in Iraq for domestic political advantage.

Read the rest. The New York Post editorial calls it the Dems' Disgrace. That's putting it mildly.

It's really great timing, considering the successes we're beginning to have.

Sunni tribes in troubled Anbar province have begun working closely with U.S. and government forces, contributing nearly 2,400 men to the police department and 1,600 to a newly organized tribal security force, authorities say.

U.S. troops are training and equipping the new tribal forces, which are called Emergency Response Units (ERUs), and are charged with defending the areas where they live, according to the local U.S. commander.

By a U.S. count, 12 of the Ramadi area's 21 tribes are cooperating in the security effort, six are considered neutral, and three are actively hostile. That is almost the reverse of the tribal posture last June, when three were cooperative and 12 were hostile.

If you haven't quite had your fill of the sickening Democrats, Michelle notes how they're playing the body armor card again. Weak. Sure, they care about the troops.

FNC Fires Chetry

No great loss, considering that babe machine they have over at Fox. One out, another in.

THE William Morris Agency tried to play hardball with the Fox News Channel, but it struck out big time - with its client, news cutie Kiran Chetry, getting cut from the network.

TVNewser reports William Morris super-agent John Ferriter - who'd recently started representing Chetry, co-host of "Fox & Friends" weekend shows - told the network to fire Gretchen Carlson, co-anchor of the higher-rated weekday "Fox & Friends," so Chetry could take her place.

But the backstabbing request backfired on Thursday, when Fox executives fired off an angry letter to Ferriter saying they were terminating their contract with Chetry for the treachery.

Sources tell the Web site the dark-haired, Nepalese beauty had been pulling down $300,000-plus a year, and Fox offered to bump her salary to $400,000 in a new contract that could have started March 6. But Ferriter countered with a salary demand of more than $700,000, plus his insistence that Chetry take over the morning job from Carlson, a blond former Miss America.

Chetry has already landed a substitute gig at CNN, the cable news graveyard. Guess I'll never see her again. Meanwhile, Fox announced the hiring of another fresh face, one Courtney Friel. Like I said, one out, another one in.

Remote Control Inventor Dead

An American icon has passed away. You may not know him, but he's affected all our lives.

Hit the mute button for a moment of silence: The co-inventor of the TV remote has died.

Robert Adler, who won an Emmy Award along with fellow engineer Eugene Polley for the device that made couch potatoship possible, died Thursday of heart failure at a Boise nursing home at 93, Zenith Electronics Corp. said Friday.

In his six-decade career with Zenith, Adler was a prolific inventor, earning more than 180 U.S. patents. He was best known for his 1956 Zenith Space Command remote control, which helped make TV a truly sedentary pastime.

Gore Rules Out 2008 Run, Madonna Undecided

Hey, why bother? He's made himself into a cottage industry with his global warming nonsense. Keep playing the suckers and enjoy the wealth.

Former US vice president Al Gore has ruled out a bid for the White House in the 2008 elections and will carry on his fight against global climate change.

"I have no intention to run for president," Gore said in an interview conducted in Los Angeles and broadcast Thursday by the BBC.

"I can't imagine in any circumstance to run for office again," said the former Democratic vice president under then-president Bill Clinton.

This is one time I'd like to take him at his word.

Another gasbag I'd like to see less of is Madonna, someone who, despite vast wealth and privilege, seem to have a continuing identity crisis.

Madonna says she is not content to be the Queen of Pop - she wants to be like Gandhi.

The singer adds peace campaigners John Lennon and Martin Luther King to her roll call of individuals she emulates.

Madonna, 48, said: "For me the best thing in the world is to see something or hear something and go 'damn, I wish I did that, damn, I wish I could do that. That's inspiring'."

Why not just be content with having accomplished so much with so little talent? Why push it? As the saying goes, shut up and sing. Or better yet, just shut up.