Conjunction

Went outside about a half hour after sunset tonight to view the unusual three-planet (Venus, Mercury, Saturn) conjunction that starts tonight, gets better tomorrow night, and Monday is the best of all. It looked pretty good tonight, with all three planet easily visible, once we spotted Venus. There's a good article about the conjunction here.

Uncivil liberals

The moonbats are twittering again, disgusting everybody whose social and emotional development is anything approaching normal. Hat tip to Michelle Malkin, though I'm feeling a little ill after wading through the swamp she pointed out:

Death would be to good for Cheney....... Now, if God would leave him in a vegitative state, that would be awesome!!!

The weight of his lies is causing Cheney his physical heart problems. If his death will bring back any semblence democracy to America, then I have no problem with it. However, I'd much rather see him tried and convicted of war crimes.

And so begins the Conservatives plan to remove Cheney from the VP spot and put someone else on deck to be President. This will also distract everyone from Iraq, DSM, and give them a much needed bump in the polls.
I dont know if its sad, brilliant, or one of the most frightening things our country will ever face. Will the power machine ever be stopped?

It's OK Dick; you won't have to fight in the war. Your too old now, so take a deep breath,we have young poor men to do that just like the ones who took the bullits for you in Vietnam tough guy.....

Whenever Cheney draws his last foul breath on this earth, and can deceive the American people no longer, I bet we'll all get to see HIS flag-draped coffin.

Doesn't this just make you feel like taking a long, hot shower with antibacterial soap?

I can't help but be worried about the unthinking, knee-jerk raw hatred illustrated by these posts. If the political debate in this country is essentially two-sided (conserverative vs. liberal), and one side is heavily tainted by such non-thought, what does that mean for the country's future? Certainly my premise about the debate being essentially two-sided is over-simplified. But the notion of the liberal side being "heavily tainted" is, if anything, understated. And so I do worry...

Update: By the (low) standards of this blog, it's being subjected to something of a "Huffalanche", apparently all due to the trackback I made for this post. Something tells me I'm very glad right now that comments are disabled here...though I suppose I should thank them for the increase in traffic the blog experiencing. If this keeps up, I may have to consider blog ads <smile>...

Update 2: As best I can tell, the twittering on the Huffington Post was all caused by this (AP):

Cheney visits orthopedist in Colorado

June 25, 2005

VAIL, Colo. (AP) -- Vice President Dick Cheney visited a renowned orthopedist Friday while in town for a forum held by a conservative think tank, his spokeswoman said.

Cheney met with Dr. Richard Steadman to evaluate an old football injury to his knee, Cheney spokeswoman Lea Anne McBride said.

Which of course the twitterers mainly dismiss as a lie (see the comments linked above; a little vaseline under your nose will make the stench more bearable).

Update 3: Somebody seems to have wiped out all the comments on this post (around noon Pacific time), though the trackbacks are still there. If this is evidence of maturity and/or good taste on the part of someone over at the Huffington Post, then I commend them for this action. These were just awful...

Update 4: Found this post by Arianna. I commend her. Thank you, Arianna!

Some of the comments posted to the Cheney news story are highly offensive, and we will therefore delete them. While we at the Huffington Post believe that the public has the right to know what the Vice President was at the Vail hospital for, we only wish him the best of health.

Hardliner wins in Iran

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the hard-line mayor of Tehran, has won the runoff election for president of Iran. Based on all the reading I've been doing about the Iran situation, I believe the most likely meaning of this is that the mullahs (who are really the rulers of Iran, both in practical terms and in legal terms) have had enough of "placating" the West with reformist politicians, and have decided to go back to basics (as they see them).

At first blush, this may sound like a terrible development, a big setback for reform in Iran. Now some may accuse me of being cynical, but...I suspect this is actually the best thing that could have happened for the reformist cause. Think about it...all those people, frustrated with the slow pace of reform in Iran, now being told that even that was too much! I think the mullahs have most likely overplayed their hand. If they don't fear dissension, they certainly should — they and their hardline supporters are vastly outnumbered by the more reform-minded and secular-leaning public...

Update:It seems that Ed Morrisey at Captain's Quarters is having similar thoughts:

The mullahs fear dissension more than anything else. Unfortunately for them, they have chosen the course that almost guarantees a revolution, and probably sooner rather than later.

Update 2:Robert Mayer at Publius Pundit weighs in, and he's not optimistic at all:

To those of us who know Rafsanjani’s background, we know that he isn’t the “centrist” that he has been portrayed as being. But because of the mass coverage to the rest of the world, Rafsanjani was the pragmatic, “moderate” face of the Iranian regime. What is so scary is that Khamenei, realizing that the gravest and closest threat to the regime is coming from the inside, is ready to pull off the mask and take off the gloves by choosing Ahmadinejad. You want pragmatic? Khamenei now openly controls all elected functions of the government; headed by the most extreme, fascistic few in Iranian society. This is a battle for all-out totalitarian survival, and it is beginning anew with the revival of the Islamic revolution.

It’s only a matter of time now before the liberal forces inside of Iran are cut off at the knees and shot in the head. This election alone has determined the future of hundreds of thousands of families; willingly escape, or unwillingly be trapped.

But make no mistake. Ahmadinejad was not selected by accident.

Update 2:TigerHawk has some interesting thoughts on the same topic:

In many cases, a defeat in a context like this could lead to rejectionism and even insurgency by the defeated. Unfortunately, it may well be that the hard-line position in Iraq is the populist one, even if its election victory is built on an entirely unreprepresentative foundation. Populists are particularly good at fending off civil resistance to their rule.

This election also forecloses Western options in its dealings with Iran. The problem with Iran's nuclear weapons programs is not that Iranians or even Muslims per se will control the launch codes, but that people who specifically advocate war with the United States and Israel by suicidal means will control the launch codes. A moderate government bent on rolling back the power of the mullahs and building a consumerist economy in Iran would have been deterrable as all governments who look to the future are. Unfortunately, our enemies inside Iran have consolidated their control. Any failure of the new government will morph into rage at the United States, and pressure will increase on the West to do something about it.