HOT5 Daily 10/19/2010

1. "Venezuela-Russia nuke deal a new headache" Following in the footsteps of Iran, also with Russian help.

Representative Sample: The problem isn't so much the introduction of nuclear energy to the Latin American country, which has growing electricity needs, but the unpredictable policies of populist President Hugo Chavez.

2. "Homer Simpson 'is a true Catholic'" Ok, I had to link this.

Representative Sample: He is an idle, pea-brained glutton with a permanent craving for doughnuts and Duff beer, but Homer Simpson has been declared a true Catholic by the Vatican's official newspaper.

3. "Swiss Suicide Clinic Advocates Suicide for Victims' Healthy Relatives Too" Crossing the line from assisting suicides to encouraging them.

Representative Sample: Swiss suicide clinic Dignitas has called for the healthy partners of chronically ill euthanasia patients to be allowed to kill themselves too.

4. "Your Beliefs Are Crazier than My Beliefs" I encounter this attitude all the time. Religious people routinely derided the ridiculous beliefs of other faiths while believing in all sorts of nonsense of their own.

Representative Sample: Funny how one religion’s myth is ridiculous and laughable, while one’s own myth is “logical and scientific.”

5. "Japan Launches New, Stealthy Destroyer " Includes some good links. Things to keep in mind the next time someone overrates Chinese naval power.

Representative Sample: Japan has just launched the first in a new class of stealthy destroyers that outweighs and outguns anything in the Chinese fleet.

To submit a blog post for HOT5 Daily, please e-mail me at unrright@NOSPAMgmail.com. Put HOT5 in the subject.

HOT5 Daily 10/18/2010

1. "Why God Makes Middle Fingers II" Right on target. 

Representative Sample: After years of witnessing the customary liberal accusations of racism, homophobia, evil, and just plain stupidity at their political opponents, it prompted me to respond with the rhetorical “Why God Makes Middle Fingers“. The left routinely denigrates the right and should they later find themselves on the losing end of an election, liberals then demand the demeaned now reach out to them.

2. "Myth Busted? Obama, Dems Use More Foreign Money…" What, you mean Obama is a lying hypocrite? Who knew? 

Representative Sample: At this point, it is really in doubt why anyone takes anything that our President says at face value. At this point, this has transformed from simple election year political grandstanding to something far, far worse.

3. "Most Think Federal Workers Are Overpaid" And those who don't are probably federal workers and their families.  

Representative Sample: More than half of Americans say they think that federal workers are overpaid for the work they do, and more than a third think they are less qualified than those working in the private sector

4. "Are atheists aggressive?" Excellent points. 

Representative Sample: why do people think we are aggressive? Are they afraid of being "converted"? Are they afraid of a different opinion? Why not label door-to-door proselytizers like the Mormons and Seventh Day Adventists as aggressive?

5. "The right to voter fraud" It almost amounts to that.

Representative Sample: Democrats have so cowed people on civil rights and racism that voter fraud is now a right.

To submit a blog post for HOT5 Daily, please e-mail me at unrright@NOSPAMgmail.com. Put HOT5 in the subject.

HOT5 Daily 10/17/2010

1. "BELTWAY ADVENTURE" Obama's presidential term as a text adventure. If you've ever played one this is a must-read.

Representative Sample:  YOU ARE IN AN OVAL OFFICE. YOUR APPROVAL HEALTH IS 61%. UNEMPLOYMENT IN THE FOREST IS 8.3% THE FOREST PEASANTS ARE COMPLAINING. WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO?  >DEMONIZE BANKS, DEMONIZE INSURANCE, BLAME BUSH

2. "$900 Million for What?" For our enemies. 

Representative Sample: It's well worth our while as Americans to pay more attention to what the so-called Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) is doing. That's because we American taxpayers are footing the bill for much of it. President Obama and Sec. Hillary Clinton have promised $900 million in U.S. funds to the PLO, our supposed "peace partners" in the latest round of Mideast peace talks.

3. "It is Congress that is exporting American jobs" Along with the anti-business administration.  

Representative Sample: What’s the sense of the nation exporting anything or expanding overseas if the profits are not reinvested here? China repatriates its earnings. Taxing foreign income is the equivalent of a business encouraging investors to put their money into competitors across the street.

4. "Thoughts on Arguing" Something to think about. 

Representative Sample: I have been wondering about arguing lately. How we argue, how we get set in our world view and dig in like a donkey sits back on its hind legs and won’t budge.

5. "Memo to GOP: The national debt wouldn't be where it is now without your active participation" Good points.

Representative Sample: The GOP needs to understand that many of the people who will be voting for them this time will be doing so as the most efficient means of stopping the runaway Democrat train, and not necessarily because they trust the Republicans.

To submit a blog post for HOT5 Daily, please e-mail me at unrright@NOSPAMgmail.com. Put HOT5 in the subject.

How Progressive Am I? Guess.

Left-wing operation Center for American Progress has an interactive quiz called, "The Progressive Quiz," that evaluates how progressive or conservative you are. Let's see what they think of my answers.  According to the quiz I got 102/400, with 400 being a full-blown communist progressive. This makes me "very conservative." Supposedly the average score for Americans is 209.5.

Either this quiz is horribly designed, or is yet another representation of just how clueless and out of touch the activist left is with ordinary Americans. If someone like me qualifies as "very conservative," what does that make Rush Limbaugh? This type of attitude is typical of the fringes on both left and right, the tendency to label even moderate political opponents as far right or far left. When people are ideological extremists themselves, anyone who disagrees with some of their fundamental beliefs is automatically labeled as an extreme political enemy.

No HOT5 Today

It will return tomorrow.

HOT5 Daily 10/15/2010

1. "Follow Napoleon’s Advice on the Chamber Pot ‘Scandal’" A nice take on the Democrats' amazingly stupid campaign against the Chamber of Commerce.

Representative Sample: the harder he presses this the more he’ll alienate the middle. That’s a surefire losing tactic. There’s no better way to make the Republican majority even larger than it’s going to be than to press arbitrary charges against millions of small businessmen.

2. "A Glimpse At The Coming Post-November Mythology... " There has to be some reason for Democratic electoral losses other than their own failures.

Representative Sample: Yep, it's 2010's variation of the Stolen Elections of 2000 and 2004 Thingy that remains so near and dear to Democratic PWCPs (Partisans Who Can't Process).

3. "Diplomatic Muscle" How's a 7000-person private State Department army in Iraq sound?

Representative Sample:All this is nothing new. For nearly a century now, the Department of State has been building a security organization, to provide guards for embassies, bodyguards for key personnel and, more recently, quick reaction and commando units for emergencies. This operation is currently called the Diplomatic Security Service (DSS).

4. "Robert Gibbs Shrugs Off Michelle Obama’s Illegal Campaigning – Update: Video Added" Laws only matter if it's a Republican who appears to be breaking one. Then it's a really big deal. Besides, any criticism of Michelle Obama is obviously racist.

Representative Sample: Members of the ruling class don’t believe rules and laws apply to them. Michelle Obama was in Chicago and went to her polling place to cast an early vote. While there she was seen campaigning for the agenda of her husband. In doing so, she violated Illinois law.

5. "Should I lick this?" Just in case you were wondering.

Representative Sample: When I lived in Northern California, I would often hear stories about people scouring the back country for psychedelic toads. In popular imagination, these toad wranglers would then gather around bonfires and with great ceremony and earnestness, they would lick hapless bufoids

To submit a blog post for HOT5 Daily, please e-mail me at unrright@NOSPAMgmail.com. Put HOT5 in the subject.

Re-Rape in the Congo

The Congo continues to cement its reputation as one of the worst hellholes on earth, as well as serving as a prime exhibit for the uselessness of UN peacekeepers. According to the BBC, an area that suffered mass rapes at the hands of rebels back in July and August now has to put up with rapes from the government forces sent to secure the area.

the UN special representative heard directly from locals on her visit last week and said UN peacekeepers in the area had also told her of rapes, killings and lootings perpetrated recently by government soldiers.

The UN peacekeepers who stood by helplessly while 300 women and 50 children were raped in the summer, are now doing nothing but reporting still more rapes. The UN representative made a couple of comments illustrating that she might be out of touch with reality.

She urged the DRC government to investigate the new attacks and "swiftly hold any perpetrators to account".

Yeah, good luck with that.

"The possibility that the same communities that were brutalised in July and August are now also suffering exactions at the hands of the FARDC troops is unimaginable and unacceptable,"

Unfortunately, it's not at all unimaginable. When you have a situation where rape is endemic, and employed as a standard tactic by all sides, it's actually likely that there are going to be instances where women are raped by one side and then raped again by the other. And what's unacceptable are troops that are supposed to be keeping the peace doing nothing to intervene even in major atrocities such as mass rape.