http://soccerdad.baltiblogs.com/ With something like a 10-60 record as coach of my children's soccer teams why do I do it? Because I'm Soccer Dad! en-us dhgerstman@hotmail.com 2008-10-10T03:56:55-05:00 hourly 1 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00 http://soccerdad.baltiblogs.com/archives/2008/10/10/nancy_pelosi_does_not_compute.html What's wrong with this paragraph? House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday that a $150 billion economic stimulus plan is needed now because of the faltering economy and she may call the House into session after the election to pass it. "...needed now...after the election..." If we need the bill right away why wait until after the election? 1) It's not really that important. 2) It might not work. 3) It might backfire and hurt Sen. Obama's chances and Democratic aspirations for a filibuster proof Senate. Yes the article gives a fourth possibility. If Democratic nominee Barack Obama wins the White... 22873@http://soccerdad.baltiblogs.com/ 2008-10-10T03:56:55-05:00 http://soccerdad.baltiblogs.com/archives/2008/10/10/fooling_with_tools.html Sen. Obama from the debate Tuesday night. I don't understand how we ended up invading a country that had nothing to do with 9/11, while Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda are setting up base camps and safe havens to train terrorists to attack us. The United States did not attack Iraq because of 9/11. Or not exclusively. This little tidbit is a reminder that Sen. Obama's worldview is much different from that of George W. Bush or John McCain. The reason why the Bush administration - with overwhelming Congressional support - decided to attack Iraq was because Iraq under... 22872@http://soccerdad.baltiblogs.com/ Foreign Policy 2008-10-10T02:43:28-05:00 http://soccerdad.baltiblogs.com/archives/2008/10/10/putting_on_ayers.html Obama & Friends: Judge Not? (or here) Charles Krauthammer argues that bringing up Sen. Obama's ties to Bill Ayers, Rev. Wright and Tony Rezko isn't unfair, concluding: He doesn't share the Rev. Wright's poisonous views of race nor Ayers's views, past and present, about the evil that is American society. But Obama clearly did not consider these views beyond the pale. For many years he swam easily and without protest in that fetid pond. Until now. Today, on the threshold of the presidency, Obama concedes the odiousness of these associations, which is why he has severed them. But for the... 22870@http://soccerdad.baltiblogs.com/ media bias 2008-10-10T01:38:48-05:00 http://soccerdad.baltiblogs.com/archives/2008/10/09/friedmans_kind_of_punditry.html Thomas Friedman was bothered by something Gov Palin said at the vice presidential debate: Criticizing Sarah Palin is truly shooting fish in a barrel. But given the huge attention she is getting, you can't just ignore what she has to say. And there was one thing she said in the debate with Joe Biden that really sticks in my craw. It was when she turned to Biden and declared: "You said recently that higher taxes or asking for higher taxes or paying higher taxes is patriotic. In the middle class of America, which is where Todd and I have been... 22871@http://soccerdad.baltiblogs.com/ Politics 2008-10-09T23:55:31-05:00 http://soccerdad.baltiblogs.com/archives/2008/10/08/abysmal_abbas.html Yesterday I expressed some qualified optimism about an upcoming Middle East summit planned for November. I figured that if Abbas would attend because he needed Israel, perhaps he'd be less stubborn. The Hashmonean, in comments, though, differed: Now, progress on agreements which has resulted in capitulation to Palestinian demands previously off the table are clearly being codified in a maintenance summit, who's sole purpose in November can be to prepare a hand-off to the next administrations, thus codifying Olmert's govts concessions & tying Israel's hands with Livni or without her going forward. Rice is solidifying the damage she has done... 22844@http://soccerdad.baltiblogs.com/ Israel 2008-10-08T04:55:41-05:00 http://soccerdad.baltiblogs.com/archives/2008/10/08/well_tell_you_whats_important.html via memeorandum and Instapundit. James Taranto yesterday critiqued the latest fad in "journalism:" fact-checking. Like movie reviewing, the "fact check" is a highly subjective process. If a politician makes a statement that is flatly false, it does not need to be "fact checked." The facts themselves are sufficient. "Fact checks" end up dealing in murkier areas of context and emphasis, making it very easy for the journalist to make up standards as he goes along, applying them more rigorously to the candidate he disfavors (which usually means the Republican). Specifically he critiques this "fact-check:" Like movie reviewing, the "fact check"... 22843@http://soccerdad.baltiblogs.com/ Politics 2008-10-08T04:13:29-05:00 http://soccerdad.baltiblogs.com/archives/2008/10/08/so_what_do_israelis_really_think_of_obama.html At this point--who knows? If you like, you base yourself on the video from Israelis4Obama: Then again, there is Willy Stern who made the rounds in Israel for The Weekly Standard and came to the conclusion that: "One thing Israelis and Palestinians can agree on is that Obama is bad news." Palestinians think that Obama is bad news? The going theory is that Palestinian Arabs think that Obama is good for the Palestinians... To test the theory, I go to see Ramallah's top pollster, Khalil Shikaki. He has a Ph.D. from Columbia University, writes op-eds for the New York... 22842@http://soccerdad.baltiblogs.com/ 2008-10-08T02:19:13-05:00 http://soccerdad.baltiblogs.com/archives/2008/10/07/biden_on_the_pakistani_threat_to_israel.html I posted earlier about Biden's gaffes about Israel during the debate--that Hezbollah has been kicked out of Lebanon and that the Hamas elections were held in the West Bank.It turns out that Biden made a third error about Israel during the debates--the nuclear threat Israel faces from Pakistan:Pakistan already has nuclear weapons. Pakistan already has deployed nuclear weapons. Pakistan's weapons can already hit Israel and the Mediterranean.Jim Geraghty, who has a list of 22 gaffes Biden made during that debate, explains:The distance between Israel and Pakistan is 2,085 miles, or 3355 kilometers...They are working on developing longer-range missiles; maybe Biden... 22831@http://soccerdad.baltiblogs.com/ 2008-10-07T11:35:06-05:00 http://soccerdad.baltiblogs.com/archives/2008/10/07/ayers_ready_to_rumble.html via memeorandum and Instapundit David Bernstein writes: In short, Obama's ties to Ayers and Wright suggest to me NOT that Obama agrees with their views, but that he is the product of a particular intellectual culture that finds the likes of Wright and Ayers to be no more objectionable, and likely less so, than the likes of Tom Coburn, or, perhaps, a Rush Limbaugh. Not only that, but he has been in his particular intellectual bubble so long that he was unable to recognize just how offensive the views of a Wright are to mainstream America, or how his ties... 22826@http://soccerdad.baltiblogs.com/ Education 2008-10-07T06:01:27-05:00 http://soccerdad.baltiblogs.com/archives/2008/10/07/one_more_crisis_not_of_israels_making.html Yes we've heard of the terrible siege that Israel has laid against Gaza. Mere Rhetoric catalogues all of the charges against Israel and shows them to be bogus. The latest to fall is how Israel's blockade harmed the sick and injured in Gaza. Israel actually allows the vast majority of those who apply to leave for medical treatment to get treatment in Israel. Elder of Ziyon has more. Which means that during this horrible "siege," Israel has been doubling and re-doubling the number of patients allowed from Gaza to Israel or the PA for treatment. Additionally as the JCPA -... 22825@http://soccerdad.baltiblogs.com/ Arab World 2008-10-07T05:39:29-05:00 http://soccerdad.baltiblogs.com/archives/2008/10/07/abbas_at_the_abyss.html Secretary Rice is apparently planning to celebrate the first anniversary of the Annapolis summit with - another summit. Shmuel Rosner describes this proposed summit as maintenance as opposed to a desperate, ill fated and misguided attempt (like Taba in 2001) to reach a final agreement. A summit in November is unlikely to provide a definitive answer as to which of these assessments is closer to reality. Nevertheless, Secretary Rice can make a strong argument for such a summit. She'll argue that this event should not be seen as a last-minute attempt at reaching an agreement in the mode of Clinton's... 22824@http://soccerdad.baltiblogs.com/ Israel 2008-10-07T04:58:35-05:00 http://soccerdad.baltiblogs.com/archives/2008/10/07/down_on_jstreet.html via memeorandum A recent pro-Obama video has some of the Israeli officials who appeared in it upset, for they feel that it misrepresented their views. Former head of the Mossad Ephraim Halevy and former IDF deputy chief of staff Maj.-Gen. Uzi Dayan accused the group of taking their words out of context, saying that when filmed they had been told that the issue at hand was the challenges facing the next man in the White House, and not that the film was aimed at endorsing Obama for president. "It's not only misleading, it was an interview about what the next... 22823@http://soccerdad.baltiblogs.com/ Israel 2008-10-07T04:31:05-05:00 http://soccerdad.baltiblogs.com/archives/2008/10/06/right_about_wright.html Bill Kristol quoting Sarah Palin: I pointed out that Obama surely had a closer connection to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright than to Ayers -- and so, I asked, if Ayers is a legitimate issue, what about Reverend Wright? She didn't hesitate: "To tell you the truth, Bill, I don't know why that association isn't discussed more, because those were appalling things that that pastor had said about our great country, and to have sat in the pews for 20 years and listened to that -- with, I don't know, a sense of condoning it, I guess, because he didn't get... 22814@http://soccerdad.baltiblogs.com/ Politics 2008-10-06T05:56:48-05:00 http://soccerdad.baltiblogs.com/archives/2008/10/06/no_runs_no_hits_plenty_of_errors.html In his column yesterday, the NYT's public editor, Clark Hoyt asserted: By my count, The Times has published more tough articles on Obama, 20, than on McCain, 13, since the beginning of last year. I have posted links to the stories on my blog, The Public Editor's Journal, and you can decide for yourself. Before then he inserted this precious tidbit: Until Thursday, when The Times published a front-page article on Biden's lifestyle and personal finances, he seemed like a forgotten candidate, while three tough articles about Palin had been on the front page. (Several readers called the Biden piece... 22815@http://soccerdad.baltiblogs.com/ media bias 2008-10-06T05:10:08-05:00 http://soccerdad.baltiblogs.com/archives/2008/10/06/juggling_carnivals_100608.html Incoming Carnivals Thanks to the Greenbelt for linking to me in the latest Carnival of Maryland illustrated with pictures of lots of cute fuzzy creatures. J-Pix #19 is up. Some really nice pictures of the Shomron - and LA! Thanks to Writes like she Talks for featuring one post of mine and two others that I suggested for the latest Haveil Havalim. I was especially impressed with A Simple Jew's post this week! And finally thanks to Dr. Sanity for including a post of mine in today's Carnival of the Insanities along with posts from Israeli Matzav, and Wolf... 22813@http://soccerdad.baltiblogs.com/ Blog Carnivals 2008-10-06T02:46:03-05:00