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He entertained millions for years by putting his body and his life on the line. Godspeed Evel Knievel:

Evel Knievel, the hard-living motorcycle daredevil whose exploits made him an international icon in the 1970s, died Friday. He was 69.

Knievel’s death was confirmed by his granddaughter, Krysten Knievel. He had been in failing health for years, suffering from diabetes and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, an incurable condition that scarred his lungs.

Evel Knievel Tribute Video

Murtha must have taking a verbal beating from the Nancy Pelosi and the other liberals working for MoveOn.org. He’s flipping his script:

The surge, he said in a statement, “has created a window of opportunity for the Iraqi government,’’ but so far the Iraqi government has “failed to capitalize on the political and diplomatic steps that the surge was designed to provide.”

“The fact remains that the war in Iraq cannot be won militarily, and that we must begin an orderly redeployment of U.S. forces from Iraq as soon as practicable,” said the chair of the House Appropriations Committee’s Defense Subcommittee.

Murtha, who recently returned from a trip to Iraq, told reporters Thursday that the “surge is working.” The statement stunned his colleagues – Democratic leadership, led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, is currently blocking approval of full funding requested by the Bush administration for combat operations in Iraq next year without a timetable for U.S. troop withdrawal.

Let me translate from leftist/liberal to normal citizen: “The surge is working and giving the government a chance to succeed. But we need to retreat as soon as possible.”

Does that make any sense to you?

Hat Tip: Hot Air

Turns out it was more than just the Kitty Hawk:

According to a defense official, a request for the USS Reuben James, a Navy frigate, to make a New Year’s holiday stop in Hong Kong was formally denied by the Chinese last Thursday. The denial came the same day the Chinese turned away the USS Kitty Hawk and five ships accompanying it for a Thanksgiving port call.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the denial has not been publicly announced, said the Reuben James, based in Pearl Harbor, had made the port visit request in October.

I made two trips to Hong Kong aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) and understand the anger these sailors must be feeling right now. Hong Kong is a great port. But there is a bigger problem than the hurt feelings of a few thousand sailors.

In addition to the Kitty Hawk and the Reuben James, the Chinese also refused to let two Navy minesweepers enter Hong Kong harbor to escape an approaching storm and receive fuel — an incident Navy officials said it found far more disturbing since it violates an international rule of the sea to provide safe harbor for vessels in trouble.

The minesweepers, the Patriot and the Guardian, were instead refueled at sea and returned safely to their home port in Japan.

It’s getting more and more serious with this communist state. We need to roll up our sleeves and start dealing with them, before it’s too late. Red China is a threat, and I don’t mean just lead tainted toys. And with Russia looking more and more like the old Soviet Union, this could get a lot worse before it gets better.

Remember the brilliant words of P.J. O’Rourke: “If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it’s free.” :

Medicare spends billions of dollars each year on products and services that are available at far lower prices from retail pharmacies and online stores, according to an analysis of federal data by The New York Times. The government agency has paid above-market costs for dozens of items, a comparison of Medicare figures with retail catalogs finds.

For example, last year Medicare spent more than $21 million on pumps to help older and disabled men attain erections, paying about $450 for the same device that is available online for as little as $108. Even for a simple walking cane, which can be purchased online for about $11, the government pays $20, according to government data.

These widespread price discrepancies, including those for oxygen services, have been noted in dozens of regulatory reports.

The oxygen services he mentions in the last sentence refer to the fact that I personally can go into a pharmacy and purchase a basic oxygen setup for my home, including three years worth of deliveries for around $3,500. The government pays $8,280 for the same deal. No lie.

But adjusting the budget down is dangerous when you are talking about something 43 million Americans are using. The lobbyists associated with companies that make money off Medicare only have to tell seniors that their benefits are being lowered and there is Hell to pay:

“These industries rely on a basic threat: If you mess with us, we can turn the seniors against you,” said former Senator Alan K. Simpson, Republican of Wyoming, who tried cutting Medicare payments while he was in Congress. “Angering seniors is the quickest route to political suicide.”

And:

While any industry can hire lobbyists, few can marshal tens of thousands of older citizens to accuse politicians of trying to take away their lifelines. That ability, say lawmakers and their staff members, is the real clout of home medical equipment companies and other industries that sell to the elderly.

When Congress proposed cutting oxygen payments last year, for instance, trade groups and companies began warning patients that if the law changed, there might be no one to repair their equipment or provide emergency services.

“I’m scared to death that they are going to cut us off,” said Beverly Karagin of Morning Sun, Iowa, whose husband has used oxygen equipment for about 11 years. Mrs. Karagin wrote her senators and congressman after her oxygen delivery company told her about proposed payment cuts, she said.

“If something goes wrong with the machine and Medicare won’t pay to repair it, my husband could die,” Mrs. Karagin said in an interview. “I told them that this is a matter of life and death.”

Lawmakers say such fears are unfounded. After patients take ownership of the equipment, Medicare pays for repairing machines and backup systems.

Even so, last year “our office received over a thousand phone calls from oxygen patients in two days, and all of them said they were going to die if we passed this law,” said a high-ranking Congressional staff member who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

The lobbyists have a lot to lose if they change the way Medicare is funded and distributed. And those running the oxygen companies understand that better than the old folks who are used to keep the money flowing:

Other companies that sell medical equipment have also flourished. More than 114,000 home medical equipment suppliers billed Medicare last year, according to HME News, an industry newsletter. Over 1,500 of them collected more than $1 million. One of the largest oxygen equipment suppliers, the publicly traded Lincare, collected over $789 million from Medicare last year, according to corporate filings.

Large private investment firms have also jumped in. Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe, a $16 billion private equity group, has invested in numerous companies that profit from Medicare. One of its executives is Thomas A. Scully, who ran Medicare for almost three years, until 2003.

Thank you President Johnson for this Great Society, where my tax dollars can be taken from me and given to an oxygen peddler with an army of scared and angry elderly voters.

The people of Venezuela are not so happy with Hugo Chavez’s power grabbing Constitutional amendments. Chavez has said that anyone who votes against it is a traitor. Look at all the traitors:

As polls predicted an agonisingly close result in Sunday’s referendum, legions of protesters stormed along the Venezuelan capital’s central avenue, blowing whistles, waving placards and shouting “Not like this!”

Some taunted “Shut up!” echoing a outburst by King Juan Carlos of Spain at a recent summit, which has become a popular ring tone among students.

There were no official counts of those present but Leopoldo Lopez, an opposition politician, estimated that at least 160,000 had taken part in the demonstration, the official close of the campaign against the proposed reforms.

Enemy of the people. Minions of the U.S. Government. Traitors.

John Murtha has been to Iraq, and believe it or not, he saw progress:

“I think the ‘surge’ is working,” the Democrat said in a videoconference from his Johnstown office, describing the president’s decision to commit more than 20,000 additional combat troops this year. But the Iraqis “have got to take care of themselves.”

Violence has dropped significantly in recent months, but Mr. Murtha said he was most encouraged by changes in the once-volatile Anbar province, where locals have started working closely with U.S. forces to isolate insurgents linked to Al Qaeda.

That’s weird. I thought that had been talked about already. Months ago. But Murtha has been more focused on losing the war on Bush’s watch than paying attention to what was going on in Iraq. The article continues:

He said Iraqis need to duplicate that success at the national level, but the central government in Baghdad is “dysfunctional.”

Dysfunctional? I guess we should be pulling our troops out of America now too. He has the gall to call Iraq dysfunctional, after this year’s Congress?

He can get a tiny speck of credit for seeing the progress in Iraq, but that’s all. He’s still a disgusting man who refuses to apologize for saying our Marines intentionally kill innocent people in cold-blood.

Robert Spencer will be on our podcast December 7th, discussing his new book: Religion of Peace?: Why Christianity Is and Islam Isn’t

Mike Huckabee is responding to his critics concerning his stance on illegal immigration. Huckabee has been very liberal on illegal immigration and it is a sticking point for a lot of conservative voters, myself included.

Huckabee said he supports construction of a border fence, opposes amnesty for the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants already in the country and backs penalties for employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants.

He says that now. But when he was governor of Arkansas, he sang a different tune:

And former state Sen. Jim Holt, R-Springdale, said Thursday that Huckabee “has his head in the sand” when it comes to immigration policies.

…

“In 2005, he told me personally in his office there was no illegal immigration problem,” said Holt, who introduced legislation two years ago that would have denied all government benefits to illegals.

…

Romney called out Huckabee on the scholarship issue in a debate Wednesday and has repeatedly criticized him for his position.

Romney’s campaign Thursday said Huckabee fails to mention that legislation in Arkansas included tuition breaks for illegal immigrants. The original bill contained provisions for both academic scholarships and in-state tuition breaks.

If Huck wants to win, he better get a grip on this quick. Most Americans I know are sick and tired of our borders being wide open. I would stop making silly ads with Chuck Norris and start making some serious comments on border security.

The USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63) was denied a port visit in Hong Kong on Thanksgiving. At first, there was some confusion about the reasoning for that. China has cleared all that up:

China’s last-minute cancellation of a U.S. Navy visit to Hong Kong was not the result of a misunderstanding, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said Thursday, adding that ties had been “disturbed and harmed” by Congress’ honoring of the Dalai Lama and U.S. arms sales to Taiwan.

…

He pointed to Congress’ awarding its highest civilian honor to the Dalai Lama last month. Although the Tibetan spiritual leader is lauded in much of the world as a figure of moral authority, Beijing demonizes the monk and claims he seeks to destroy China’s sovereignty by pushing for independence for Tibet.

…

The Global Times, a tabloid published by the official party mouthpiece People’s Daily, cited an unidentified People’s Liberation Army senior colonel, as blaming Washington’s decision to sell Taiwan an anti-missile defense system.

That “obviously sent the wrong signals” to Taiwan’s leader, Chen Shui-bian, whom China abhors for his campaign to assert the self-ruling island’s independent identity, the paper quoted the colonel as saying.

“At a time when the U.S. side is seriously harming China’s interests, there is no logic under heaven by which China should then be expected to open its heart and embrace it,” the paper said Thursday.

These folks are not our friends in any way, shape or form. This behavior shows that clearly. We have a future confrontation looming with China, and we are funding so much of our operations with money borrowed from them. This is another good reason to start cutting programs and the budget.

“The rich rules over the poor, And the borrower becomes the lender’s slave.”

Who owns who here?