Fat Steve's Blatherings

Well, I'm Up

2006-03-17T01:24:00.000-06:00

I just dropped in because Betsy Newmark of the fabulous Betsy's Page can't find her blog. And when the rest of us try, we get an "access not authorized page." Viking Pundit, Stolen Thunder, and Polipundit are all having this problem too.

Look like I got out at the right time (see previous post, or use the link).

Technorati tags:

Blogger, incompetence, Betsy Newmark.

Google's Motto: Don't Be Evil — UNLESS IT PAYS REALLY WELL!

And That's ALL Folk's

2006-03-01T05:10:00.000-06:00

Now that Blogger is working again, I'm leaving, for good.

As I said here, with Google cooperating with Chinese tyranny, I'm gone. Being lazy, it took me a while, but now I'm out of here.

The NEW blog with the NEW title is here. Same old opinionated blathering, soon to have RSS and Atom Feed when I can figure them out.

To all blogger employees, I say: 'Nothing personal, just principle.' Sincerely, it was nice while it lasted.

I'd like to take this opportunity to extend my thanks to "Towering Barbarian" for the suggestion that led to my new title, and to Pamela Geller Oshry of Atlas Shrugs for suggesting the new hosting site.

My last substantive Blogger post is here. But I'm not here, anymore.

Technorati tags: "Atlas Shrugs", Blogger, Google, Pamela Geller Oshry, Rants and Rayguns, Stephen M. St. Onge, Towering Barbarian.

Google's Motto: Don't Be Evil — UNLESS IT PAYS REALLY WELL!

Back to the Grind

2006-03-01T05:06:00.000-06:00

I've been busy the last two days, sending an e-mail to every member of Congress (or trying to; some, the delivery failed, a few I couldn't defeat their protections against being bothered by citizens). The subject was the idiot decision to fund the Palestinian Authority, which I execrated here.

And currently (12:08 CST, 3/1/06), Blogger appears to be down. Oh well, I'm writing this in Notepad TM***, and will post it later.

Catching up on the web, Powerline has a fine post on a UN "human rights" conference. Glenn sums it up nicely:

WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH, and The U.N. cares about human rights.

Glenn also has an item immediately under that one, about a manifesto against Islamofascism that's worth reading. Significantly, the writers reject multi-culturalism, and by name.

Blogger update: Now its up, at 12:31, sort of, with new colors on the html composition pane. Almost makes me regret I'm leaving them because Google owns them.

No, it's not up, the attempt to post fails. But I cleverly saved the text first.

3:32 AM: Trying again. Failed. 4:03, trying again. No, "This server is currently experiencing a problem. An engineer has been notified and will investigate.

Status code: 1-500-11"

And now it's 5:07, I'll try again . . .

Technorati tags: Blogger, Islamofascism, lies, United Nations.

Google's Motto: Don't Be Evil — UNLESS IT PAYS REALLY WELL!

Today's Religious War News

2006-02-26T14:45:00.000-06:00

Today's news mostly revolves around the will to dhimmitude.

As Mark Steyn says in the Chicago Sun-Times:

Something very remarkable is happening around the globe and, if you want the short version, a Muslim demonstrator in Toronto the other day put it very well:

"We won't stop the protests until the world obeys Islamic law."

Stated that baldly it sounds ridiculous. But, simply as a matter of fact, every year more and more of the world lives under Islamic law: Pakistan adopted Islamic law in 1977, Iran in 1979, Sudan in 1984. Four decades ago, Nigeria lived under English common law; now, half of it's in the grip of sharia, and the other half's feeling the squeeze, as the death toll from the cartoon jihad indicates. But just as telling is how swiftly the developed world has internalized an essentially Islamic perspective. In their pitiful coverage of the low-level intifada that's been going on in France for five years, the European press has been barely any less loopy than the Middle Eastern media.

The I'd-like-to-teach-the-world-to-sing-in-perfect-harmonee crowd have always spoken favorably of one-worldism. From the op-ed pages of Jutland newspapers to les banlieues of Paris, the Pan-Islamists are getting on with it.

(HT: Dr. Sanity)

You should read all of Steyn's column. The only thing I can add to what he said is that the one-world crowd always expected that they would be in charge of the global dictatorship. But still, they'd rather see a Muslim-run global dictatorship than no global dictatorship at all.

There's a little resistance going on (story also archived here):

Plans by a Republican student group at UC Irvine to showcase the controversial cartoons of the prophet Muhammad that led to violent protests around the world are drawing condemnation from Muslim groups and university officials.

The caricatures will be part of a panel discussion sponsored by the campus College Republicans scheduled for Tuesday at 7 p.m. in UCI's Crystal Cove Auditorium.

"We are firm believers in the 1st Amendment," said Kristin Lucero, a 21-year-old UCI senior and president of the campus College Republicans. "The public has the right to discuss as well as view the cartoons."

Lucero said the cartoons depicting Muhammad, first published by a Danish newspaper, would be displayed along with what she called anti-Semitic and anti-Western cartoons that have been published in Muslim nations. Depictions of Muhammad are prohibited under Islamic law.

[Muslim studen Marya] Bangee has asked the College Republicans to hold the event without showing the drawings. She said Muslim students fear the cartoons will incite violence locally.

That is the primary concern of university officials as well, said Sally Peterson, UCI's dean of students.

Five things worth noting in that story: first, the University officials are eager to surrender; second, the labeling of the Danish Muhammad cartoons as controversial, while the Jew hating and West hating cartoons are qualified "what she called;" third, the false statement that it's against Islamic law to depict Muhammad — we're weeks into the story, and a crucial detail like this is still wrong in a major metropolitan newspaper, the Los Angeles Dog Trainer. Fourth, the lameness of liberals and Democrats, who are letting the campus Republicans be the ones who stand up for freedom of expression.

Fifth, and most important, the crap about being afraid the cartoons will incite violence. BY WHOM? This is a threat by Muslim students that they will break the law if you displease them, and in any sane society legal steps would immediately be taken to them. But as noted, the University officials want to surrender.

The Washington Post has a story about four British cartoonists. All of them are cowards who wouldn't dare offend Muslims, but only one has the moral courage to admit that his motivation is fear of what the ragheads would do to him.

The World Council of Churches is also eager for dhimmitude and dictatorship. But that's nothing new for them.

In Germany, a man who printed "Koran" on rolls of toilet tissue and offered them for sale has been convicted of insulting a religion, namely Islam. I have no quarrel with this, if the law is also used against those who insult any other religion. Somehow, though, I doubt it is being enforced evenhandedly.

And in a story so disgusting, it makes me consider voting Democratic, I find the U.S. will apparently continue funding the Jew hating Palestinians. Predictably, the Palis responded to this by threatening us. And who can blame them? Anyone still stupid enough to attempt to appease Muslims deserves to have the Muslims spit on him.

I'll be writing the Republican leadership in Congress, and my Congresscritters, saying that this must be stopped, and that I will vote against anyone letting this go through.

Technorati tags: blackmail, British cartoonists, Bush Administration, cowardice, Danish Muhammad cartoons, Democrats, dhimmitude, dictatorship, freedom of expression, intimidation, liberals, Muslims, Palestinian Authority, Republicans, sharia law, Mark Steyn, stupidity, University of California, Irvine, War With Islam, World Council of Churches.

Google's Motto: Don't Be Evil — UNLESS IT PAYS REALLY WELL!

Reality is NOT Important!

2006-02-25T21:52:00.000-06:00

The International News Safety Institute says that journalists shouldn't carry guns in Iraq, just because journalists get murdered there:

"A journalist with a gun says 'some people in the situation I'm covering are my enemies and I am prepared to kill them if necessary'. That is not the position of a neutral civilian."

Yes, much better to die than to seem non-neutral.

Technorati tags: MSM, stupidity.

Google's Motto: Don't Be Evil — UNLESS IT PAYS REALLY WELL!

"Show Courage!"

2006-02-25T20:06:00.000-06:00

So The New York Times advises "moderate Muslims" to show courage. They must stand up to the "radical Islamists" who are using the situation to intimidate political enemies.

This from "the newspaper of record" that refused to reprint them.

HT: Little Green Footballs, and stunned disbelief from Michelle Malkin, Captain Ed, Judith Klinghoffer, and All Things Beautiful.

Technorati tags: buffoonery, courage, cowardice, hypocrisy, MSM, New York Times.

Google's Motto: Don't Be Evil — UNLESS IT PAYS REALLY WELL!

MSM Dishonest

2006-02-25T19:08:00.000-06:00

It's not just American anymore.

HT: Betsy Newmark.

Technorati tags: bias, MSM.

Google's Motto: Don't Be Evil — UNLESS IT PAYS REALLY WELL!

If You're Not a Fellow Minnesotan . . .

2006-02-23T16:21:00.000-06:00

. . . you may be unaware of the ad surpression efforts being made by our local Democrats. But they're worth knowing about, regardless of where you live.

Google's Motto: Don't Be Evil — UNLESS IT PAYS REALLY WELL!

I Don't Know Whether to Be Encouraged or Discouraged

2006-02-23T16:12:00.000-06:00

Iraq remains tense, but the violence doesn't seem too bad, yet. And A Free Iraqi thinks the worst is endurable, perhaps beneficial in the long run.

God's mercy on Iraq, I pray.

Technorati tags: Iraq, mosque bombings, terrorism.

Google's Motto: Don't Be Evil — UNLESS IT PAYS REALLY WELL!

Shreds of Courage

2006-02-23T15:41:00.000-06:00

The Washington Post shows a few shreds of courage by publishing this op-ed on the MSM's cowardly refusal to publish the Muhammad Cartoons.

Technorati tags: courage, cowardice, Danish Muhammad cartoons, MSM, Washington Post.

Google's Motto: Don't Be Evil — UNLESS IT PAYS REALLY WELL!

Unconscious MSM Bias

2006-02-23T13:37:00.000-06:00

I always find it interesting to watch the ways the MSM reveals its hidden assumptions without intending to. There's an excellent example up from the New York Times (here; also here when the Times free link goes bad).

The Times reports:
French Officials Now Say Killing of Jew Was in Part a Hate Crime
By ARIANE BERNARD and CRAIG S. SMITH
Published: February 23, 2006

PARIS, Feb. 22 — French authorities say a young Jewish man who was tortured and killed here this month was singled out because of his religion, supporting claims by French Jews that his killing was in part a hate crime. . . .

France has struggled to strike a balance between suppressing anti-Semitism within the country's large Muslim community and addressing rising anti-Islamic sentiments in the broader population. The government was widely criticized several years ago for responding sluggishly to an outbreak of anti-Semitic incidents.

Now tell me, why should "anti-semitism," or, as it's known in honest language, Jew hatred, have anything to do with Muslims? Why would suppressing Jew hatred, among Muslims or anyone else, cause "anti-Islamic sentiments in the broader population" to rise? The Times doesn't say. The Times doesn't care to admit the fact that almost all Muslims hate Jews, that this Jew hatred is systematically stirred up by Muslim religious and political leaders, that the Muslim leaders do this as a way of diverting the Muslim masses from their own dictatorship, and that Western civilization is engaged in a war with Islam. The Times, after all, hates Western civilization too, and wants to see it destroyed.

The Times won't admit this, not even to itself, because it's afraid of what will happen when the enemy wins — and with reason. A lot of the MSM will be the first beheaded if the Muslims ever take us over. But as they kneel, they'll partially exult at the thoughts of all the others who'll be following them. Ayn Rand nailed this sentiment in Atlas Shrugged.

But admit it or not, the Times knows that the Muslims hate the Jews and the West, and are at work to destroy both. The Times knows that France is in the process of a long surrender to its next set of conquerors, and that French officials will dance back and forth on this issue, periodically pretending to crack down on Muslim violence against Jews, while not actually taking any decisive acts. Even Nicolas Sarkozy, who's supposed to be a hard-ass on the subject of Muslims, can't bring himself to say that flatly that the people who kidnapped a Jew, held him for ransom, and tortured him to death because he was a Jew are just plain Jew haters.

If I were in charge of the U.S. government, I'd be trying to make a list of "left wing" and "right wing" Europeans, and making sure that only those on the "right wing" list were approved if they wanted to immigrate here. We'll be getting a lot of scared Europeans as the scimitar falls. European leftists, especially French ones, deserves what will happen to them when the Muslims rule there.

Technorati tags: bias, France, Ilan Halami, Jew Hatred, Jews, MSM, Muslims, New York Times, Nicolas Sarkozy, War with Islam.

Google's Motto: Don't Be Evil — UNLESS IT PAYS REALLY WELL!

Concealed Good News For Republicans

2006-02-22T21:24:00.000-06:00

Update: Dr. Sanity has more news about the Democratic Dilemma.

Larry Summers, President of Harvard, resigned after five years on the job.

As this article notes, Summers was hired by the Harvard Board to modernize the institution. But attempting to do so angered the Leftists, who kept pushing to get rid of him. They succeeded.

Summers was Treasury Secretary under Clinton, and was known as tough. But as Stanley Kurtz points out, he's part of the "moderate" wing of the Democrats, rather than the Leftist wing. The Leftists despise Summers and all he stands for. Summers, according to Kurtz and the Times, wants to advise a Democratic Presidential nomination candidate. Apparently, Summers figured that if he didn't resign, the Left would fight him at Harvard and in the Donkey party.

As with all appeasement of radicals, this won't work. The Left will continue to jump on Summers, Harvard will stay left wing, and the Democrats will almost certainly nominate a lefty or someone who appeases the leftists for the Presidency.

Which means, a likely Republican victory in 2008.

All articles linked to above are also here.

Ht: Dr. Sanity.

Technorati tags: 2008 Presidential Campaign, Clinton Administration, Democrats, Alan Dershowitz, Harvard, Stanley Kurtz, leftists, moderates, Republicans, Amy Shales, Larry Summers.

Google's Motto: Don't Be Evil — UNLESS IT PAYS REALLY WELL!

Image Problem

2006-02-22T04:13:00.000-06:00

I used up my free monthly quota at Flickr, and when I tried to buy a "Pro" account, they made it so inconvenient that I said "forget you, Flickr," or words similar to that (I think the first one was shorter, but I'm sure it started with 'f').

So that means I can't post this 'cartoon' of seriously anti-Islamic images on this site, or at my Archives. But I suggest you go take a look. You shouldn't have any trouble figuring out which one I mean.

Update: See also the cartoons on this page, this one, this one, this one, and this one.

Technorati tags: terrorism, terrorists, War With Islam.

Google's Motto: Don't Be Evil — UNLESS IT PAYS REALLY WELL!

Hello, All

2006-02-20T19:46:00.000-06:00

Sorry to have been gone the past few days, but I wasn't feeling very well. Also, it's mind-numbingly cold, which tends to slow me down. And I seemed to be coming down with a cold. And I had things to catch up on, after the weekend of torture. And my dog ate the internet.

So, let's look at the West's War With Islam. The Cartoon Flap Continues, with at least ten killed in Libya, sixteen in Nigeria, and more elsewhere. The current known deathtoll is 45. For the moment, the best place I've found to keep up with developments is Yahoo's religion news.

The Washington Post had an "anatomy" of the controversy that was interesting as much for what it didn't say as what it did. The thing about the protests is that nothing happened until Danish Muslims got in touch with various Middle Eastern governments. This, and other things, raises the suspicion that the whole protest was deliberately stirred up by anti-Western, anti-democratic governments. The Post, in a stunning display of stupidity, put just enough references to this into their story to say that they were aware of it, while absolutely refusing to pursue the issue. You can read both the story, and my letter to the Post, here.

To their credit, the Post did publish an op-ed by Flemming Rose of Jyllands-Posten, explaining why he ran the cartoons in the first place. If you're registered with the Post, you can read it here. Otherwise, it's here in my archives, along with my letter to Mr. Rose.

And I finally found a source for the other cartoons the Danish Muslims took with them to the Middle East. You can find them here.

Technorati tags: Danish Muhammad cartoons, Fake Danish Muhammad cartoons, Flemming Rose, War with Islam, Washington Post.

Google's Motto: Don't Be Evil — UNLESS IT PAYS REALLY WELL!

What a Bunch of Self-Righteous Idiots

2006-02-15T23:16:00.000-06:00

The Washington Post won't publish the Muhammad cartoons. They'd be offensive, and in bad taste.

But they did publish the armless, legless veteran cartoon, without worrying if anyone might be offended by that. And the Post Omsbudswoman says:

Most good newspapers don't set out to offend readers. But newspapers shouldn't avoid controversy, and if they don't occasionally offend readers, they're probably not doing their job.

So if you're offended, they did their job, and if your not offended, they did their job. The important thing to remember is, they're always right. The MSM is right not to publish the cartoons, and if they did publish them, that would be right too.

And what's truly amazing is, they expect us to believe they aren't flinching from cowardice.

Technorati tags: courage, cowardice, Danish Muhammed Cartoons, MSM, Washington Post.

Google's Motto: Don't Be Evil — UNLESS IT PAYS REALLY WELL!

More on the Orchestration of the Cartoon Flap

2006-02-15T19:56:00.000-06:00

Jyllands-Posten has a new article on way Danish Muslims brewed up the present "controversy," in cooperation with diplomats from Muslim countries, and by using a lot of lies. It's available in Danish, or translated into English on Captain's Quarters. Go read.

Meanwhile, there's a nice article in The Australian about the manipulation of Muslims, the value clashes between East and West, and the idiocy of it all. Here's one very good shot:

Monty Python's biting satire of religion, Life Of Brian, as well as Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation [of Christ] and Terence McNally's Corpus Christi, each triggered protests, but not violence.

"With Life of Brian we were vilified," recalls Monty Python's Terry Gilliam. "Yet Christianity is alive and well. If your religion is so vulnerable that a little bit of disrespect is going to bring it down, it's not worth believing in frankly."

Perhaps that's the most important revelation in all this otherwise meaningless brouhaha. The Muslim world isn't ready for prime time. Muslims, as a group, aren't mature enough to deal with the modern world.

Google's Motto: Don't Be Evil — UNLESS IT PAYS REALLY WELL!

Nightmare

2006-02-15T18:51:00.000-06:00

The Anchoress channels Stephen King, conceiving of a John McCain/Hillary Clinton ticket.

And then, it gets worse.

Google's Motto: Don't Be Evil — UNLESS IT PAYS REALLY WELL!

Who Knew

2006-02-15T16:48:00.000-06:00

that Popular Mechanics did investigative reporting?

Google's Motto: Don't Be Evil — UNLESS IT PAYS REALLY WELL!

This is Droll

2006-02-15T10:17:00.000-06:00

The New York Times had a story on Democratic Party woes a few days ago (also here), and it revolves around the dilemma the Democrats have faced since 2002. They need to be:

Different from Bush and the Republicans;
Specific about their proposed policies;
Acceptable to the lefties who control the primaries;
Convincing to the general public.

Well, they failed in 2002, and in 2004, and for 2006:

Democrats said they had not yet figured out how to counter the White House’s long assault on their national security credentials. And they said their opportunities to break through to voters with a coherent message on domestic and foreign policy — should they settle on one — were restricted by the lack of an established, nationally known leader to carry their message this fall.

Yeah, I can see how not having any policies is a problem for a politician.

But it's very funny to see some reactions from lefties that I happened across. "Atrios" is mad because reporter Adam Nagourney didn't fawn on Kerry during the 2004 campaign. Instead, Nagourney emphasized Kerry's troubles in coming up with a message. Apparently, he thinks that if Nagourney and the Times had kept saying Kerry would win, it would have been a self-fullfilling prophecy.

And Matt Stoller apparently thinks the Democrats should just say 'If you don't like the way things are, vote Democratic,' without proposing any alternative policies.

Digby (whom I may have known in California, but I'm not sure), says the Democrats should lay it on the line. 'This is what I believe, this is what I'd do,' all in very specific terms. Alas, when someone like Dean does this, he alienates vast numbers of swing voters. When someone like Lieberman does it, he alienates Democratic activists. Would you rather lose the primary, or the general election?

As Tom Lehrer said, if people can't communicate, the least they can do is shut up. So, guys, stop screaming at reporters, and 'party leaders,' and start telling us what you want the government to do.

Google's Motto: Don't Be Evil — UNLESS IT PAYS REALLY WELL!

The Phony Mohammad as Pig Cartoon

2006-02-15T08:41:00.000-06:00

See where it really came from.

Google's Motto: Don't Be Evil — UNLESS IT PAYS REALLY WELL!

I Don't Think This Will Play

2006-02-15T07:27:00.000-06:00

Mickey Kaus thinks Democrats should run in 2006 and 2008 on a "Return to Normalcy" platform. The advantages, as he sees them:

1) It covers a lot: The essential premise is that Bush has stretched the military, the Constitution and the civility of our politics to the limit in reaction to the threat of future 9/11s. All this fevered straining and leveraging may have been appropriate at the time, but there's no real need to keep running in hyperdrive. We can routinize the anti-terror struggle the way we routinized the Cold War, when just as much was at stake. We don't have to make an end run around the Constitution or a duly-passed statute (wiretapping). We don't have to torture prisoners or hold them forever without hearings. We don't have to slight disaster relief (Katrina) because the Department of Homeland Security worries only about terrorists. We don't have to unmask CIA agents in a desperate effort to build a case for war. ** We don't have to alienate our allies. We don't have to run giant deficits to finance our armed forces, as if the "Global War on Terror" were a temporary crisis that will be over in three years. It's not. It's a semi-permanent part of the landscape. Democrats can contain the terrorist threat the way, for four decades, they helped contain the Russians--while (as during the Cold War) we allow ourselves to turn our attention to domestic problems such as health care and Social Security.

2) It not only changes the focus from foreign policy (on which Dems tend to lose) to domestic policy (where Dems are poised to win)--it does this a) without minimizing the importance of the anti-terror effort but also b) without requiring the public to decide that Democrats are actually better equipped to fight Al Qaeda. All they have to decide is that the Dems are right to say, "We can handle it. " Wright wants a full-blooded campaign that tells voters the Bush approach to the terror, including the Iraq War, is "completely wrongheaded." But Iraq has already been invaded--whoever is president is going to have to deal with the reality that exists now. The abnormal--an experiment in Iraqi democracy--is now the normal. Or, rather, it needs to be the normal. Isn't it easier to simply convince the public that a Dem approach will be just as effective at making the best of that situation, at a tolerable casualty level? Democrats, after all, already have the votes of Americans who think Bush's approach is "completely wrongheaded." And the mere goal of "returning to normalcy" will by itself do a lot to decathect the terror war abroad, without suggesting a reversal or retreat.

3) It bridges over the rift within the Democratic Party without seeming to be a vague compromise. The idea that Bush has gone a bit crazy trying to remake history after 9/11 incorporates a fairly severe critique of his presidency, all the more powerful because it is accurate. At the same time, "normalcy"--or whatever synonym you prefer--rhetorically counters the idea that Dems are the wacky, fringe, cultural boundary-pushing party of drugs, gay marriage, euthanasia, etc. Mudcat Saunders will be happy. (Or else it implies that gay unions, tolerance, self-medication, etc. now are the normal American institutions--so Frank Rich will be happy too. Win-win!)

Kaus frequently writes about liberals and Democrats being in a cocoon that keeps them from hearing dissent, but I think this shows that he's stuck in it too. Let's examine this.

First, the phrase "Return to Normalcy" echoes Harding's "Back to Normalcy" of 1920. We were washing our hands of stupid European affairs. We'd be just fine, disdaining the old world. The results of that policy were Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and the Soviet Union. Hundreds of thousands of USAmericans died in the wars we could have stopped pretty easily if we'd acted in 1918-1920. Not a great slogan.

"The essential premise is that Bush has stretched the military, the Constitution and the civility of our politics to the limit in reaction to the threat of future 9/11s." Well, there haven't been any more 9/11s. Mickey's essential platform here is going to be that the Democrats can do just as well, but with much less effort.

Cue the news stories about the first World Trade Center bombing; the retreat from Somalia; the defiance of Clinton by Saddam; the embassy bombings in Africa; the USS Cole; 9/11 itself, planned during the Clinton years. The last time the Democrats were in charge of stopping terrorism, they didn't do so well. Are they going to advocate a return to failed policies? If not, just what will they do?

"We can routinize the anti-terror struggle the way we routinized the Cold War, when just as much was at stake." During the "routine" Cold War, the Democrats threatened war with the Soviet Union over Iran; supported Greece and Turkey against the USSR and it's puppets; rebuilt much of Europe, kept our first large scale peacetime standing military, and entered an "entangling alliance;" ran the soft-on-Communism crowd out of the Democratic Party; went to war in Korea (33,651 dead); built the H-bomb; went to war in Viet Nam (58,868 dead); and threatened "central war" with the Soviets in 1963. Compared to that performance, Bush doesn't look like he's straining the country. Wasn't the left decrying our lack of civilian "sacrifice" not long ago? Now the story is, we're doing too much. And the casualties in Iraq are horrible, but after the Gulf War, the problem was, our casualties were too low! This kind of 'Whatever is, is wrong' sentiment won't win elections.

"We don't have to make an end run around the Constitution or a duly-passed statute (wiretapping)." And we don't have the faintest idea of whether Bush did that or not. We don't know if the program violated any laws. There are suspicions, though, that it was leaked to the media, illegally, by a Democratic senator. Kaus proposes that Congress be told all about this, and then they will, in utter secrecy, pass a law that will allow the NSA to do something, we won't know what, and limiting the amount of surveillance currently being done, but without increasing the risks of successful terrorist attack. Good luck on accomplishing all that.

Then, having pulled off this legal tour de force, the Democrats will run as the people who will protect the U.S. from terror while obeying the law. Well, if the Democrats want to run on a platform of 'If a known terrorist abroad calls someone in the U.S., we promise we won't listen in till a judge says we have probable cause to believe the person in the U.S. is going to commit a crime, and if that means we miss another 9/11, well, that price is worth paying,' than as a Republican I say "YIPPEE!" As a patriot, though, I think it's awful for the country for the Democrats to do that to themselves. If, on the other hand, they aren't going to restrict the present surveillance activities, then they'll be running on the platform of 'We were against wiretapping before we were for it.' That will be fun.

"We don't have to torture prisoners or hold them forever without hearings." Cue stories of released prisoners who took part in later terrorist attacks. I await the campaign speeches about how letting terrorists go free improves U.S. security with eagerness.

"We don't have to slight disaster relief (Katrina) because the Department of Homeland Security worries only about terrorists." Cue stories about incompetence of Louisiana Democrats, and the exaggerations of the media concerning Katrina.

"We don't have to unmask CIA agents in a desperate effort to build a case for war." You going to try that one?!?!?!?! We still don't know who in the MSM knew Valerie Plame Wilson was a CIA employee, we don't know that she was "unmasked," we don't know who said what to whom, but we do know that the MSM is desperate to avoid answering questions on these issues — AND that the Democratic-leaning media has exposed covert CIA air operations; done stories about secret prisons; and exposed an anti-terrorist intelligence operation that most people approve of. And the Donks are going to run as the non-leakers? ROTFLMAO!

"We don't have to alienate our allies." 'We'll let the French have a veto power over our foreign policy' — yeah, that's a real electoral winner. And if you say that they won't have a veto, then some nasty GOP person is going to ask 'What will you do when you disagree with our so-called allies, and how can you guarantee that you'll never have to make a choice between alienating them and protecting the U.S.? Explain to us how you'll decide when to do what the "allies" approve of, and when you'll just act unilaterally.' Kerry couldn't give a straight answer to that question, because it would alienate a large part of the electorate if he did. Now Kaus wants to do a replay. Unbelievable.

Kaus wants to convince the voters that the Democrats can handle national security competently. To do that, the Dems have to say, 'These are the actions Bush took that we will stop . . ., and these are the actions he isn't taking that we will do . . .' And they're going to have to be specific, as well as convince the voters their plan would work. Yet Kaus has no idea what that plan would be. In fact, he thinks the lack of specifics is a virtue, because it won't alienate any Democrats.

More vagueness: "We don't have to run giant deficits to finance our armed forces, as if the "Global War on Terror" were a temporary crisis that will be over in three years. It's not. It's a semi-permanent part of the landscape. Democrats can contain the terrorist threat the way, for four decades, they helped contain the Russians--while (as during the Cold War) we allow ourselves to turn our attention to domestic problems such as health care and Social Security." And during the Cold War, I don't think the Democrats ran a single balanced budget. This is the old 'Gut the armed forces and spend 150% of the savings on domestic programs' strategy. As soon as Democrats start yelling about deficits, Republicans will ask them to propose cuts in spending to balance the budget. The Donks won't comply. This will appeal only to the anti-military crowd, who are already on board.

Kaus's whole strategy can be summed up as 'Pretend 9/11 never happened, and go back to 1993. Hope that nothing bad happens as a result.' I can see why a Democrat would want to run on that (it's something that might allow Clinton or Bayh or Biden to get the nomination without moving so far left a loss is guaranteed in the general election), but again, it didn't work for Big John, so why assume it will work for anyone else? The Republicans will brand the Dems as flip-floppers, and it will work because they will be flip-flopping.

But for really insane wishful thinking, you can't beat paragraph 3). A plan with no specifics won't be seen as vague. Refusing to tell anyone what you will do will satisfy the hate-America left, the liberal hawks, and enough swing voters to get elected. Saying 'We're normal' is going to make all those cultural and religious issues that cost the Democrats victories in the last five elections go away. This is totally detached from reality.

What we have here is denial. Kaus knows what's wrong with the Democratic Party: it's in thrall to special interests and single issue groups that damage the country. He knows that this has to end. And he doesn't believe it will end. But his sentimental attachment to the Democrats is so strong, he can't bear to say that they have no reasonable prospects for a national victory in the foreseeable future.

Once upon a time, the Democratic Party faced a similar challenge. It was 1946, and the Cold War was heating up. Henry A. Wallace, former Vice-President, current Secretary of Commerce, was apologizing for the Soviets. Truman fired him, and the liberals of the day created the Americans for Democratic Action and forced the Wallace Democrats right out of the party (that story is also here), and Truman went on to win the election, and cement the Democrats as the majority party of the U.S. Today's Democrats need to repeat the performance of the old ADA. But they won't. Sad.

Google's Motto: Don't Be Evil — UNLESS IT PAYS REALLY WELL!

A Valiant, Doomed Effort

2006-02-15T05:14:00.000-06:00

Glenn Reynolds tried to explain reality to CNN. Predictably, they didn't get it.

Technorati tags: CNN, MSM.

Google's Motto: Don't Be Evil — UNLESS IT PAYS REALLY WELL!

Same Old Song

2006-02-14T20:33:00.000-06:00

There's a story in The New York Times (and also here) about how many Democrats are getting nervous they'll blow the elections in the fall because they don't have a message.

*YAWN* No, they don't have a message. That's because a large part of their party is anti-Americans whose only desire is to see the country 'as it is' destroyed, and a large part stands for nothing but bigger government, higher taxes, and more regulation under all circumstances. The majority doesn't agree with this, or with the pre-emptive surrender, contempt for the U.S., and worship of Europe that makes up the entirety of the Donks foreign policy.

The only interesting question left concerning the Democratic Party is 'How long till they either collapse or wise up?'

Technorati tags: Democrats.

Google's Motto: Don't Be Evil — UNLESS IT PAYS REALLY WELL!

A Much Needed Clarification

2006-02-14T19:38:00.000-06:00

We'll Take That as a 'Yes'
"They want to test our feelings. They want to know whether Muslims are extremists or not. Death to them and to their newspapers."--"protester" Mawli Abdul Qahar Abu Israra in Afghanistan, quoted by the BBC, Feb. 6

Also here, if the above link stops working. Hat tip: Best of the Web Today.

Meanwhile, Austin Bay puts the controversy into the context of information warfare, Amir Taheri tells the truth about depictions of Muhammad and jokes about Islam, and Stratfor had a very interesting analysis on this, which I got in the mail, and archived here. (It may also be available on their site somewhere.) Who are the winners from all this? The answer may surprise you.

Google's Motto: Don't Be Evil — UNLESS IT PAYS REALLY WELL!

Funny Picture

2006-02-14T17:28:00.000-06:00

Here. Look closely at the hands.

Technorati tags: Hillary Clinton, lies, U.S. Military.

Google's Motto: Don't Be Evil — UNLESS IT PAYS REALLY WELL!

News of the Weird

2006-02-07T00:40:00.000-06:00

Blind woman has a heart attack, lives, and her sight is restored. Is this for real?

Google's Motto: Don't Be Evil — UNLESS IT PAYS REALLY WELL!

Good Shot, Sir!

2006-02-06T23:33:00.000-06:00

Tim Blair nails the press's reaction to Islamofascists:

Major American newspapers, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times and The Chicago Tribune, did not publish the caricatures. Representatives said the story could be told effectively without publishing images that many would find offensive ...

Most television news executives made similar decisions. On Friday CNN ran a disguised version of a cartoon, and on an NBC News program on Thursday, the camera shot depicted only a fragment of the full cartoon. CBS banned the broadcast of the cartoons across the network, said Kelli Edwards, a spokeswoman for CBS News.

They won’t publish cartoons, but they will run anything they can get out of Abu Ghraib. Both sets of images provoke Islamic anger; note how the media behaves when that anger is directed at them

Yeah, the MSM only criticizes those it isn't afraid of.

Technorati tags: Tim Blair, Danish Muhammed cartoons, MSM.

Google's Motto: Don't Be Evil — UNLESS IT PAYS REALLY WELL!

One thing About Left-Wingers . . .

2006-02-06T23:25:00.000-06:00

. . . they're friends of all humanity.

Feel the love.

Technorati tags: George Herbert Walker Bush, leftists.

Google's Motto: Don't Be Evil — UNLESS IT PAYS REALLY WELL!

A Blast From the Past

2006-02-06T22:18:00.000-06:00

Cathy Seipp, last August:

Whenever liberals remind us that not all Muslims are terrorists or anti-American rioters, I always think that not everyone in the pre-civil-rights south was a church bomber or member of the Ku Klux Klan. Even then, there was lots to like about the south. Southerners always have been known for charm and hospitality — rather like Palestinians today, whom the foreign press finds much more appealing than brusque and bossy Israeli soldiers.

It's fair to say, however, that despite the existence of many decent people and even the occasional Atticus Finch type, southerners a generation or two ago were not exactly unsympathetic to ideas the Klan had about uppity blacks or busybody federal lawmakers trying to come in and destroy their way of life. But liberals then did not tsk-tsk about the observation that the segregated south was a toxic, racist culture that had to change — nor did they explain to blacks impatient about local traditions like "colored" water fountains that really, this is a different culture after all, and we need to be sensitive and understanding.

Certainly I realize that there are differences between the pre-civil-rights south and Islamists today. The animosity of segregationists was focused on blacks; Islamists especially hate Jews, but also aren't fond of Americans, Christians, women, homosexuals, Buddhist statues, Hindus, irreverent Dutch filmmakers or the entire Western way of life. And even at its worst, the segregated south wasn't expansionist, at least not in the 20th century. When George Wallace stood in that schoolhouse door, he didn't mean that schools across the entire planet should conform to his notions of separate but equal — or watch out for the suicide bombers.

Google's Motto: Don't Be Evil — UNLESS IT PAYS REALLY WELL!

Verrrrrrry Interesting

2006-02-06T20:23:00.001-06:00

Captain Ed alerts us to a Guardian story on the "spontaneous" demonstrations against Denmark in Lebanon:

The mob grew fiercer, and finally the police withdrew. As they moved back, the crowd smashed their way into the building housing the Danish embassy and set it ablaze. From the burning building they hung a banner that read: "We are ready to sacrifice our children for you, O Prophet Muhammad." [Gee, I thought sacrificing your children for religous reasons was a pagan thing -- St. Onge] By now dozens of people had been wounded or arrested and at least one person was killed, a protester apparently caught up in the fire at the embassy building. . . .

Asad Harmoush, a leader of Jamaía Islamiya, the conservative Sunni Muslim group that had helped organise the protest, tried to deflect the blame. "We can't control tens of thousands of people. We tried to limit the harm and we extend our excuses to our brothers in Achrafieh and to the security forces. There has to be an investigation. Obviously there were infiltrators."

And then in the early afternoon, as suddenly as it had all begun, it ended. The leaders of the mob turned to the angry young men beside them and told them it was time to leave. Obediently the crowd thinned out and began walking back to the buses, even as the Danish embassy continued to burn. By 3pm there wasn't a single protester left on the street. [My emphasis -- St. O.]

Google's Motto: Don't Be Evil — UNLESS IT PAYS REALLY WELL!

Well, Well, What a Coincidence!

2006-02-06T18:55:00.000-06:00

Betsy notes that the Cartoon War has broken out just before Denmark is scheduled to take up the UN Security Council chairmanship, and the Security Council is getting set to discuss Iran's attempts to get a nuke.

Technorati tags: Danish Muhammed Cartoons, Denmark, Betsy Newmark.

Google's Motto: Don't Be Evil — UNLESS IT PAYS REALLY WELL!

The Whole Dang World Has Gone Crazy

2006-02-06T18:27:00.000-06:00

Evidence here, via Dr. Sanity.

Technorati tags: insanity.

Google's Motto: Don't Be Evil — UNLESS IT PAYS REALLY WELL!

Why We Need to Support the Cartoonists

2006-02-06T17:52:00.000-06:00

Hugh Hewitt misses an essential point when it comes the cartoon flap.

Go here and here, and you'll see the kinds of cartoons Muslim media routinely print about those they hate. They are at least as offensive as the worst of the ones the Jyllands-Posten printed.

For much of the Muslim world, this is an attempt to intimidate the West. They can stir up Jew hatred and hatred of the West at will, and call for our murder, we can't criticize them in return.

Which is why we need to resist. Support the Jyllands-Posten, the Danish cartoonists, and a Free Press!

Technorati tags: Danish Muhammed Cartoons, freedom of the press, Hugh Hewitt, Jew hatred, Jyllands-Posten, War with Islam.

Google's Motto: Don't Be Evil — UNLESS IT PAYS REALLY WELL!

Getting to the Heart of the Matter in the Cartoon War

2006-02-06T15:37:00.000-06:00

Glenn prints an e-mail from a reader:

Coming from an all Muslim family, I'm forced to listen to the sense of perceived injustice of Muslims concerning the depiction of their revered prophet. It's quite sickening.

I tell my family that that's just how things work in a free society: while I don't agree that the newspaper should have done something so culturally insensitive, they do have the right to do that, and attempting to make Danish society pay as a whole for it is utterly ridiculous.

It doesn't matter, I'm told. It literally means nothing to them, because in their world, everything should revolve around them and their culture, and God made the world for Muslim Arabs to control.

And this is the kind of mindset the Danish people are contending with.

Dr. Sanity has a great post on the workings of shame/honor cultures, which concludes:

The last such culture the West dealt with was Japan during WWII. Interestingly, they also had their suicide bombers (kamikaze) and their ritual killings for honor and vengeance related to shame avoidance.

The conundrum facing the West in dealing with Islam is that if Islam backs down from its demands, the resulting humiliation only increases the entire culture's sense of shame (which has been high for some centuries now) and brings it closer to the reality of a ticking time bomb that can blow up the rest of the world.

And sadly; the reverse situation--if the West, out of guilt and a sense of justice and fair play, backs down and permits Islam to restore its honor over the Danish cartoon issue at the expense of the West's cultural values; Islam will perceive such appeasement as the ultimate weakness and will be encouraged in thinking that it is the superior culture that will conquer and dominate the world. Hence even that scenario offers no relief for the world from the ticking time bomb that is Islam.

In other words, there appears to be no way to avoid a final confrontation.

Read it all, then go see a post from Michelle Malkin, who has pictures from the London demonstration that show what Muslims want.

We are at war with Islam. Wake up, people.

Technorati tags: Danish Muhammed Cartoons, "Dr. Sanity", Instapundit, Islam, Michelle Malkin, War with Islam, World War Two.

Google's Motto: Don't Be Evil — UNLESS IT PAYS REALLY WELL!

The ACLU Shows Its True Colors

2006-02-06T15:08:00.000-06:00

Much as they like to pretend they 'protect civil liberties,' the ACLU is really a group dedicated to the overthrow of Western Civilization.

Once, I heard a spokesman for the ACLU explain that members of the terrorist "Symbionese Liberation Army" were not guilty of any crimes, which he knew to be true because they hadn't been convicted in any court.

Today, the ACLU is proclaiming that the NSA intercept program is illegal, before any court has ruled on the program in any way, and after five appellate courts have upheld the President's right to do some warrantless surveillance.

As my buddy Frank Gasperik says, the proper expansion of the acronym ACLU really stands for "American Communist Lawyers Union."

Technorati tags: ACLU, Bush Administration, NSA, NSA intercepts, Symbionese Liberation Army, warrantless surveillance, wiretaps.

Google's Motto: Don't Be Evil — UNLESS IT PAYS REALLY WELL!

Muhammed Through the Ages

2006-02-06T14:38:00.000-06:00

A great collection of images, many of them by Muslims, is available here. It also has the original Jyllands-Posten cartoons, plus the three phony ones that Muslims find REALLY offensive. The one with the "pig snout," by the way, looks more like a walrus to me, but it's very fuzzy in any case. Those cartoons are offensive, but they weren't published by the Jyllands-Posten. They were distributed by "Danish Muslim activists."

Technorati tags: Danish Muhammed Cartoons, Danish Muslim activists, Jyllands-Posten.

Google's Motto: Don't Be Evil — UNLESS IT PAYS REALLY WELL!

A Reasonable Request

2006-02-06T13:43:00.000-06:00

Hugh Hewitt has been writing on the Danish Muhammed cartoons, and NOT defending the Danes. As a result, he's been heavily criticized by some bloggers. So he asks:

The debate begins with these questions: Are we at war with Islam? Do you want a war with Islam?

My answers and the answers of any sensible person ought to be "no," and "no." IU'd [sic] like to see blogggers who are opining on the caroons answer these questions up front.

Well, Mr. Hewitt, my answers are "Yes" and "No" respectively.Sorry if that makes me lack sense in your eyes.

Some members of the Muslim world have declared war on us, and most Muslims support them. As I see it, that puts us at war with Islam. I'm not happy with this, but it's the facts on the ground. And until we convince the world's muslims to back off, the war will continue.

Yeah, I can see how Muslims would find those cartoons offensive — they tell the truth, and Muslims don't like that. They want their clergy to get up in the mosque every Friday and support the murder of 'Zionists and Crusaders,' calling for it in the name of their religion, and then to get angry when some suggest that they're right, that support for murder of the innocent goes back to the foundations of their faith. Like honesty, support for logic isn't big in the Muslim world.

I share your appreciation for good manners, but they aren't relevent to a war. The fact that "Danish" Muslims went travelling to the East, carrying a dossier of the cartoons from the Jyllands-Posten, looking for support because they'd lost their legal action against the newspaper, shows that the "Danish" Muslims regard themselves as part of a larger Islamic whole that is above the laws of Denmark. In addition to the newspaper cartoons, they took lots of other cartoons that have never been printed in Danish papers, trying to stir up violence. They've succeeded. This is no longer, if it ever was, a question of good manners, but a question of Muslims threatening and attacking non-Muslims, of Muslims trying to make sharia binding on the West. And that has to be resisted.

Technorati tags: Danish Muhammed Cartoons, Danish Muslim activists, dhimmitude, Hugh Hewitt, Jyllands-Posten, sharia law,War with Islam.

Google's Motto: Don't Be Evil — UNLESS IT PAYS REALLY WELL!

Nice Job by Tom Maguire

2006-02-04T15:14:00.000-06:00

He notes the way leftists are assaulting Chris Matthews for comparing Osama bin Laden to Michael Moore. As Maguire notes, the Left is pretty dishonest in its methods.

Technorati tags: Osama bin Laden, Tom Maguire, Chris Matthews.

Google's Motto: Don't Be Evil — UNLESS IT PAYS REALLY WELL!

Maybe I Should Take This Danish Cartoon Flap Seriously

2006-02-04T11:00:00.000-06:00

In The Telegraph, David Rennie has a great scoop about the Danish Muslims who called attention to these cartoons in the Arab world, and Charles Moore has a very important column which begins:

It's some time since I visited Palestine, so I may be out of date, but I don't remember seeing many Danish flags on sale there. Not much demand, I suppose. I raise the question because, as soon as the row about the cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in Jyllands-Posten broke, angry Muslims popped up in Gaza City, and many other places, well supplied with Danish flags ready to burn. (In doing so, by the way, they offered a mortal insult to the most sacred symbol of my own religion, Christianity, since the Danish flag has a cross on it, but let that pass.)

Why were those Danish flags to hand? Who built up the stockpile so that they could be quickly dragged out right across the Muslim world and burnt where television cameras would come and look? The more you study this story of "spontaneous" Muslim rage, the odder it seems.

It turns out that Islamofascists have been planning this whole thing for months.

We are at war with Islam, people. Wake up a smell the liberty burning.

The post and the column are also here. And big hat tips to Dhimmi Watch and Hugh Hewitt.

Technorati tags: Danish Muhammed Cartoons, Dhimmi Watch, Islamofascism, liberty, Charles Moore, The Telegraph, War with Islam.

Google's Motto: Don't Be Evil — UNLESS IT PAYS REALLY WELL!

This Modern World

2006-02-04T09:45:00.000-06:00

At the Independent Women's Forum, a site I highly recommend, Charlotte Hays notes an interesting contrast between the past and today.

It used to be, people trying to get money and fame made themselves out to be better than they are. Lillian Hellman's Pentimento is the example Hays points out. Now they make themselves out to be worse, as the James Frey story shows. The cult of victimhood has spread wider than most of us realize.

Technorati tags: cult of victimhood, James Frey, Charlotte Hays, Lillian Hellman, Independent Women's Forum, A Million Little Pieces, Pentimento.

Google's Motto: Don't Be Evil — UNLESS IT PAYS REALLY WELL!

It's Amazing . . .

2006-02-04T09:24:00.000-06:00

. . . how widespread cowardice and stupidity have become. The MSM in the U.S. won't show the Danish Muhammed cartoons, out of "respect for Islam." The U.S. State Dept. has criticized them. The Vatican has come down on them.

And none of this will help the MSM, the State Dept., or the Vatican deal with Islamofascism. Appeasing totalitarians never works — but denying unpleasant realities is something some people never get over.

Technorati tags: appeasment, cowardice, denial of reality, Islamists, Islamofascism, MSM, State Department, stupidity, totalitarianism, Vatican, war with Islam.

Google's Motto: Don't Be Evil — UNLESS IT PAYS REALLY WELL!

Advice For Political Pundits

2006-02-03T14:26:00.000-06:00

From John Podhoretz:

So is Hillary in trouble?

Oh, excuse me, I had to pause there for a minute because I was rolling around on the floor laughing.

Hillary in trouble? You should have such trouble.

Read it all, for a reminder of how easily people can overlook things that don't change.

Technorati tags: Hillary Clinton, John Podhoretz.

Google's Motto: Don't Be Evil — UNLESS IT PAYS REALLY WELL!

The Mohammed Cartoon Flap

2006-02-03T08:17:00.000-06:00

I was ignoring this story, because I didn't take it seriously. I still don't take it seriously, but it's become too big to ignore.

If you go here, you can see the Mohammed cartoons, plus an AP photo and two AP stories on the subject. A few thoughts:

A) Some of the cartoons are quite harmless, by any rational standard, some are dumb, and some are deliberately offensive. But they're all the kinds of things Muslims will have to get used to. The right of foreigners and non-Muslims to live by their own laws is something else Muslims will have to get used to.

B) Now that its own ox is gored, the press is beginning to realize that Islamofascists aren't quite the fluffy bunnies some in the MSM have made them out to be. But not all, by any means. The Associated Press still lacks the balls to refer to terrorists and terrorism by their proper names, for instance.

C) Europe may not be doomed after all, but the issue is in doubt:

Austrian Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik said EU leaders have a responsibility to "clearly condemn" insults to any religion. But French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said he preferred "an excess of caricature to an excess of censorship."

D) Sarkozy joined journalists in rallying around the editorial director of France Soir, who was fired by the newspaper's Egyptian owner. France Soir and several other newspapers across Europe reprinted the caricatures this week in a show of support for freedom of expression. . . .

The Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, had asked 40 cartoonists to draw images of the prophet. The purpose, its chief editor said, was "to examine whether people would succumb to self-censorship, as we have seen in other cases when it comes to Muslim issues." . . .

Danish Prime Minister Fogh Rasmussen, in a meeting with the Egyptian ambassador, reiterated his stance that the government cannot interfere with issues concerning the press. On Monday, he said his government could not apologize on behalf of a newspaper, but that he personally "never would have depicted Muhammad, Jesus or any other religious character in a way that could offend other people." . . .

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw criticized European media outlets for republishing the caricatures as demonstrators prepared to take to the streets of London.

E) I thought Jews were supposed to be smart, not idiots. And certainly after the Holocaust, they should have learned the futility of appeasement:

Critics say the drawings were particularly insulting because some appeared to ridicule Muhammad. One cartoon showed the prophet wearing a turban shaped as a bomb.

France's Grand Rabbi Joseph Sitruk said he shared Muslim anger.

"We gain nothing by lowering religions, humiliating them and making caricatures of them. It's a lack of honesty and respect," he said. He said freedom of expression "is not a right without limits."

F) This whole episode has been valuable in that it temporarily dispelled some illusions. That won't last, of course — human beings can't bear too much reality. But it should help concentrate the mind temporarily.

G) Attention Muslim terrorists: I'm in the Minneapolis phone book.

Technorati tags: appeasement, Associated Press, Austria, Britain, courage, cowardice, Danish Muhammed Cartoons, Denmark, Egypt, Europe, France, Holocaust, Islam, Islamists, Jyllands-Posten, Minneapolis, MSM, Anders Fogh Rasmussen , Grand Rabbi Joseph Sitruk,Jack Straw, Stupidity, terrorism, terrorists, War with Islam.

Google's Motto: Don't Be Evil — UNLESS IT PAYS REALLY WELL!

Blogger Troubles

2006-02-03T05:54:00.000-06:00

I've been having trouble connecting tonite, and my previous connection worked while I wrote the post, then failed when I tried to upload.

For the two of you who may be interested, I no longer will be posting at Cut Steve's Blatherings. My personal life blogging will take place at The Thrilling Adventures of Stephen. While Blogger has seldom annoyed me the way it has many others, I can't possibly keep posting on a Google subsidiary.

Meanwhile, I still need a new host for THIS blog, one that accepts ads and is free or at least very cheap.

Technorati tags: Blogger, Google, Livejournal, Stephen M. St. Onge.

Google's Motto: Don't Be Evil — UNLESS IT PAYS REALLY WELL!

Betraying the Troops and the Future

2006-02-02T08:19:00.000-06:00

Ralph Peters indicts Pentagon bureaucrats:

At a time when our Army and Marines bear by far the heaviest load of our nation's security burdens, OSD proposes reducing the number of soldiers to free up funds for wasteful Cold-War-era weapons systems.

I wish I could say this surprises me, but after the last thiry years of watching Washington, it doesn't.

Read it all.

Technorati tags: Pentagon, Ralph Peters, Sagotaging the War Effort.

Google's Motto: Don't Be Evil — UNLESS IT PAYS REALLY WELL!

Articles Worth Reading

2006-02-02T01:58:00.000-06:00

Karl Zinmeister of The American Enterprise reports on the situation in Iraq as he found it.

Sheehan and Young, by the way, were tossed from the SOTU in error. This one also has an interesting statistic: the number of service people who've died in Iraq is about, after almost three years, to top the number killed in Viet Nam during the worst month.

Hat tip, both, Instapundit.

The Danes have been fairly courageous in their defiance of the Islamofascists. France, by contrast, is showing its cowardice. HT to HNN.

James Taranto writes on how the MSM have shot themselves in the leg with Bush hatred, and still failed to defeat the U.S. in the war.

Leftists don't know what a "fact" is. Juan Cole writes about the "Top Ten things Bush won't Tell you About the State of the Nation", but many of them are opinion. For instance, "9.In fact, The US and Iran are tacit allies in Iraq." Follow the link, and it turns out to be an opinion column by two guys in the International Herald Tribune (a subsidiary of the New York Times, who say the U.S. ought to find common ground with Iran, and claims without evidence that Iran wants democracy and stability in Iraq. The possibility that Iran really is determined to do what it says it aims to do (destroy Israel, acquire nukes, spread its version of Islam by force) is "refuted" by not mentioning such unpleasant thoughts. By the way, when Cole does actually have a fact in the list, he tends to distort his source, or exagerate the signifigance of the fact. HT: Tigerhawk.

Technorati tags: Iraq, Iraq Campaign, MSM, Sabotage of the War Effort, stupidity.

Google's Motto: Don't Be Evil — UNLESS IT PAYS REALLY WELL!

The Oscar Nominations Are Out

2006-02-01T05:03:00.000-06:00

You can find them here.

It's fascinating, really, to see how little most of them have grossed at the box office, and how politically correct they tend to be.

Apparently Hollyweird ain't interested in making money anymore.

Technorati tags: Hollywood, Oscar® nominations, political correctness.

Google's Motto: Don't Be Evil — UNLESS IT PAYS REALLY WELL!

Arghh!

2006-02-01T04:14:00.000-06:00

I should have waited before posting about this story. Bill Roggio reports that no one in the U.S. military knows anything about Iraqi militia capturing 270 terrorists — and they would know. Therefore, the story is almost certainly false.

So it's a time for me to eat a heaping plate of crow.

Hat tip: Jerry Pournelle, from whom I stole the picture above.

Google's Motto: Don't Be Evil — UNLESS IT PAYS REALLY WELL!

What's the Matter With the MSM?

2006-02-01T02:42:00.000-06:00

Here's an example. The Louisville KY Courier-Journal covered New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin's remarks on rebuilding NOLA, the ones that said:

It's time for us to come together. It's time for us to rebuild New Orleans -- the one that should be a chocolate New Orleans. This city will be a majority African-American city. It's the way God wants it to be. You can't have New Orleans no other way. It wouldn't be New Orleans.

As the Courier-Journal's Ombudswoman Pam Platt notes, though:

Courier-Journal readers got pretty much all of the AP-reported God stuff in the version of the paper they received on Jan. 17.

But Nagin's reference to "chocolate New Orleans" had been edited out of that same story in these pages. Instead, our version read, "Nagin also promised that New Orleans will be rebuilt and again will be 'a majority African American city.' "

C-J readers would not see the controversial "chocolate" reference -- which was all over TV news and the Internet starting at the crack of dawn on the 17th -- in their own newspaper until a day later, on Jan. 18. That's when the Courier printed an AP story about the mayor's apology for his earlier invocations of God and chocolate.

A copy editor editor decided to remove the remarks, allegedly because he thought they "might give offense" to some readers.

As Platt says:

In trying to address potential sensitivities of some readers by excising the controversial remark, it could be taken by other readers -- and believe me, it was -- that the newspaper was trying to cover or protect this particular public official from his own articulations.

And those other readers would, and did, question whether the paper would allow the same editing grace to a white politician who promised a "vanilla" future to his city, or to the ever-dependable Pat Robertson the next time he said God would rain misery and worse on people whose views the reverend also happened to scorn.

The "chocolate" quote should have been in the first day's story, as reported by AP. Period.

All well and good as far as it goes, but note what questions it doesn't answer:

Is the copy editor who removed Nagin's words is black or white?
Is copy editor is a Democrat, Republican, or Independent?
Whom did the copy editor voted for in the last election?
Does the copy editor support Nagin or not?
Does the copy editor support Nagin's goal of a majority black New Orleans or not?
How often do "mistakes" like this get made?
How do they stack up politically — pro-Democrat, pro-Republican or neutral?
If Nagin's remarks hadn't been widely available in other fora, would the paper have ever caught the "mistake"?
If they had caught this without the readers knowing about it, what would the paper have done?

These questions are all relevant to a consideration of whether or not the editing reflected bias. None of them are raised, though the last two are implicitly answered. Instead, we get polite sneering at those who suspect bias:

It's not a monumental goof, but it's one that fuels suspicions some readers have about the news media in general and this newspaper in particular. That's why I'm addressing it today. . . .

[The Copy Editor's] couching of the mayor's statements made the newspaper a target for familiar broadsides of bias. This time, though, we provided the ammo for the salvos. . . .

In trying to address potential sensitivities of some readers by excising the controversial remark, it could be taken by other readers -- and believe me, it was -- that the newspaper was trying to cover or protect this particular public official from his own articulations.

The implicit line is, 'We made a stupid mistake, but there was no bias involved. Trust us.'

Except, of course, we increasingly don't trust them. And they know it. In fact, the whole thing reminds me of the song from Irma la Deuce: "Don't Get Caught (that's a crime)." So the Ms. Platt's whole piece ends up, in the eyes of those whom she is trying to convince, as spin control. And badly done spin control at that.

So I guess the answer to the question in my title is: The MSM is biased, gutless and stupid. It won't root out its bias, it won't admit the bias, and its attempts to cover up the bias are so pathetically bad, the efforts to appear neutral only make them look worse.

Hope you enjoy your declining circulation, MSM. So long, and thanks for all the propoganda.

Hat tip: Screedblog.

Technorati tags: "chocolate city", Louisville Courier-Journal, MSM, Ray Nagin, New Orleans, news bias, Pam Platt.

Google's Motto: Don't Be Evil — UNLESS IT PAYS REALLY WELL!

The Wages of Appeasement

2006-01-30T13:10:00.000-06:00

In this post, I mentioned that Diane Feinstein had flip-flopped on the filibuster issue, apparently because of the threat of a primary challenge from Cindy Sheehan.

Now, Feinstein reaps her just reward:

Cindy Sheehan, the peace activist who set up camp near President Bush's Texas ranch last summer, said Saturday she is considering running against Sen. Dianne Feinstein to protest what she called the California lawmaker's support for the war in Iraq.

"She voted for the war. She continues to vote for the funding. She won't call for an immediate withdrawal of the troops," Sheehan told The Associated Press in an interview while attending the World Social Forum in Venezuela along with thousands of other anti-war and anti-globalization activists.

"I think our senator needs to be held accountable for her support of George Bush and his war policies," said Sheehan, whose 24-year-old soldier son Casey was killed in Iraq in 2004.

And the marathon crackup of the Democrats goes on and on . . .

Technorati tags: appeasement, Diane Feinstein, Cindy Sheehan, stupidity.

Google's Motto: Don't Be Evil — UNLESS IT PAYS REALLY WELL!

"Spying on Americans Without a Warrant"

2006-01-30T12:48:00.000-06:00

Debra Burlinghame reminds us of some facts concerning surveillance and terrorism:

NBC News aired an "exclusive" story in 2004 that dramatically recounted how al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar, the San Diego terrorists who would later hijack American Airlines flight 77 and fly it into the Pentagon, received more than a dozen calls from an al Qaeda "switchboard" inside Yemen where al-Mihdhar's brother-in-law lived. The house received calls from Osama Bin Laden and relayed them to operatives around the world. Senior correspondent Lisa Myers told the shocking story of how, "The NSA had the actual phone number in the United States that the switchboard was calling, but didn't deploy that equipment, fearing it would be accused of domestic spying." Back then, the NBC script didn't describe it as "spying on Americans." Instead, it was called one of the "missed opportunities that could have saved 3,000 lives."

Among the lives that could have been saved was that of Charles F. "Chic" Burlingame III. He was a pilot on Flight 77, and died That Day.

More from Ms. Burlingham:

Another example of opportunistic coverage concerns the Patriot Act's "library provision." News reports have given plenty of ink and airtime to the ACLU's unsupported claims that the government has abused this important records provision. But how many Americans know that several of the hijackers repeatedly accessed computers at public libraries in New Jersey and Florida, using personal Internet accounts to carry out the conspiracy? Al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi logged on four times at a college library in New Jersey where they purchased airline tickets for AA 77 and later confirmed their reservations on Aug. 30. In light of this, it is ridiculous to suggest that the Justice Department has the time, resources or interest in "investigating the reading habits of law abiding citizens."

We now have the ability to put remote control cameras on the surface of Mars. Why should we allow enemies to annihilate us simply because we lack the clarity or resolve to strike a reasonable balance between a healthy skepticism of government power and the need to take proactive measures to protect ourselves from such threats? The mantra of civil-liberties hard-liners is to "question authority"--even when it is coming to our rescue--then blame that same authority when, hamstrung by civil liberties laws, it fails to save us.

This is what the people who claim to be protecting our "civil rights" want to return us to — a country where thousands can die one morning, because law enforcement wasn't allowed to catch terrorists before they struck. Or as Ms. Burlinghame put it:

The public has listened to years of stinging revelations detailing how the government tied its own hands in stopping the devastating attacks of September 11. It is an irresponsible violation of the public trust for members of Congress to weaken the Patriot Act or jeopardize the NSA terrorist surveillance program because of the same illusory theories that cost us so dearly before, or worse, for rank partisan advantage. If they do, and our country sustains yet another catastrophic attack that these antiterrorism tools could have prevented, the phrase "connect the dots" will resonate again--but this time it will refer to the trail of innocent American blood which leads directly to the Senate floor.

Read it all.

Hat tip: Captain Ed, who asks:

Do I fear the FBI more than al-Qaeda and Islamofascist terrorists? That's the question that Americans have to ask themselves.

Technorati tags: NSA, surveillance, War on Terrorism.

Google's Motto: Don't Be Evil — UNLESS IT PAYS REALLY WELL!

If You Somehow Forgot that Bill Clinton is a Crook . . .

2006-01-30T11:49:00.000-06:00

read this.

Technorati tags: William Jefferson Clinton, fraud.

Google's Motto: Don't Be Evil — UNLESS IT PAYS REALLY WELL!

Good News For the Sane

2006-01-30T11:18:00.000-06:00

A Republican Congresswoman from Florida, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, will introduce a resolution this week

to slash American funding to the Palestinian Authority and the United Nations; designate the Palestinian Authority as a "terrorist sanctuary," and close down some Palestinian Authority offices in America as part of a reduction of Palestinian-American diplomatic ties.

The Congresswoman's opinion:

"You are either with us or against us on the war on terror," Ms. Ros-Lehtinen said yesterday. "I think the response of Abu Mazen and the PA leadership relating to Hamas clearly shows where they are."

Go, Congresswoman! Though I have to say, if any people deserve the evil of having foreign aid inflicted on them, it's the Palis. Still, despite the harm it would do them, on balance they should be cut off.

And I hope when the Republicn nominee for President is chosen in 2008, he'll seriously consider Ms. Ros-Lehtinen for veep.

Hat tip: Pamela Geller Oshry

Technorati tags: foreign aid, Hamas, Pamela Geller Oshry, Palestine, Republicans, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, United States House of Representatives, War on Terrorism.

Google's Motto: Don't Be Evil — UNLESS IT PAYS REALLY WELL!

Even For President Penis, That's Pretty Stupid and Hypocritical

2006-01-30T10:09:00.000-06:00

Bill Clinton at Davos: 'Global inequality and climate change are bigger threats to the world than terrorism.'

Try telling the family of the victims of a terrorist attack "It could have been worse. Instead of your loved one being murdered, the climate might have changed, or the rich might have gotten richer."

By the way, Big Bill is the guy who amassed a net worth of over a million dollars while serving as the lowest-paid governor in the U.S., and has earned millions since he left office. Somebody let me know when he reduces his annual income, net worth, and standard of living to whatever is the median average for the world.

Technorati tags: William Jefferson Clinton, Davos, hypocrisy, stupidity, Switzerland.

Google's Motto: Don't Be Evil — UNLESS IT PAYS REALLY WELL!

Want a Laugh?

2006-01-30T09:35:00.000-06:00

Read Peter Daou's explanation of how the MSM is slanting storylines to favor Republicans.

Technorati tags: Peter Daou, insanity, liberals, MSM.

Google's Motto: Don't Be Evil— UNLESS IT PAYS REALLY WELL!

Even for Liberals, This is a New Low

2006-01-30T08:37:00.000-06:00

Vichy Democrats (and oh, what a perfect name) is calling for Senators to vote no today on cloture. In itself, that is perfectly legitimate. But for those Senators who don't, suggest that they wimp out and abstain, since under Senate rules, that's the same as voting no.

That's political cowardice (perfectly in tune with a group that calls itself "Vichy Democrats," of course), but if even that's too much, then they urge Senators to go over to Walter Reed and visit wounded soldiers, as political cover for their anti-Alito stance.

'Use wounded soldiers as cover for anti-conservative, anti-Republican activities.' Even for liberals, that stinks. I hope for the sake of the country that none of the Senators are stupid and craven enough to do it.

Hat tips: National Review's The Corner and Instapundit.

Technorati tags: Samuel Alito, cloture, cowardice, Democrats, filibuster, liberals, stupidity.

Google's Motto: Don't Be Evil— UNLESS IT PAYS REALLY WELL!

Courage

2006-01-30T08:20:00.000-06:00

It's being displayed by Denmark, the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, it's editors and illustrators, and Danish Prime Minister Anders Rasmussen.

Technorati tags: Denmark, Jyllands-Posten, Anders Rasmussen.

Google's Motto: Don't Be Evil— UNLESS IT PAYS REALLY WELL!

The Veridicator Arrives

2006-01-30T07:20:00.000-06:00

The late science fiction author H. Beam Piper used to feature a device he called a "veridicator" in his science-fiction stories. It was a device that hooked to someone's head and told whether they were telling the truth or not.

And now it seems to be here, with an accuracy of 90%. (Also here, if you're not registered with the Post.)

Hmm, wouldn't it be fun to see the investigations into the NSA leaks investigated with this? Or politicians explaining what they intend to do, and why, under one of these? Or the detainees at Gitmo that claim they never, ever, were Islamofascist terrorists?

But this is much more important than law enforcement. A society without the possibility of lying would be almost unimaginable to us, different in every way.

And it's coming, soon. Probably. Unless we decide to stop it. Are you willing to trade a the ability to deceive for the assurance that no one will be able to deceive you?

Beats me. But I don't think it will be possible to stop.

Technorati tags: fMRI, functional magnetic resonance imaging, lie detectors, H. Beam Piper, veridicator.

Google's Motto: Don't Be Evil— UNLESS IT PAYS REALLY WELL!

What's the Matter With the Democrats?

2006-01-28T21:15:00.000-06:00

Stephen Green asks that in these two posts. Money quotes:

In the space of 48 hours, the three top Democrats for 2008 proved themselves to have all the staying power of a nervous virgin on the set of a porn shoot.

Look at me. I'm pro-choice. I support gay marriage. I think porn is OK and that drugs (which aren't OK) ought to be legal. My tastes in music and movies and entertainers are a lot more New York and LA than they are Nashville or Branson.

But with the exceptions of maybe Zell Miller and Joe Lieberman, there's not a Democrat today I'd vote for without first chewing through my own forehead.

Democrats: I'm your target voter! Appeal to me! I'm sick of the Republicans already! Don't make me perform impossible physical acts! Please!

Meanwhile, over at the Washington Post (or here, if you aren't registered), Jim VandeHei writes:

Democrats are getting an early glimpse of an intraparty rift that could complicate efforts to win back the White House: fiery liberals raising their voices on Web sites and in interest groups vs. elected officials trying to appeal to a much broader audience.

These activists — spearheaded by battle-ready bloggers and making their influence felt through relentless e-mail campaigns — have denounced what they regard as a flaccid Democratic response to the Supreme Court fight, President Bush's upcoming State of the Union address and the Iraq war. In every case, they have portrayed party leaders as gutless sellouts.

One Dem strategist comments:

"The bloggers and online donors represent an important resource for the party, but they are not representative of the majority you need to win elections," said Steve Elmendorf, a Democratic lobbyist who advised Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign. "The trick will be to harness their energy and their money without looking like you are a captive of the activist left."

Well, Kos is having none of that, fuck you very much:

Mr. Elmendorf almost got it right. The trick, in reality, is to stop appearing like our Democrats are held captive to sleazebag amoral lobbyists.

Here's notice, any Democrat associated with Elmendorf will be outed. The netroots can then decide for itself whether it wants to provide some of that energy and money to that candidate.

There's nothing "extreme left" with demanding Democrats act like Democrats, no matter how much these out-of-touch and self-important beltway insiders think it is.

We can leave it to history to decide if it's Elmendorf, Kos, or both who are "out-of-touch and self-important." What I find interesting is Kos's automatic assumption that 'acting like a Democrat' equals 'sharing my political positions.' It's not at all obvious to me that Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, James K. Polk, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Harry S Truman, or John F. Kennedy would have shared the Kos wing's ideas. Nor is it obvious, to say the least, that a majority of the country shares Kos's views. But the Kos wing is determined to bully the Democratic Party into going their way.

And the fact is, the Kossites can do it. Kerry called for a filibuster of Alito, in order to placate the Kos wing when he tries for the Donks' nomination in 2008. Hillary immediately went along. Feinstien flip-flopped, following a threat to run against her in the primary by Cindy Sheehan! When a Sheehan can threaten a Feinstein, you know that the process the Democrats use to pick their candidates is broken.

If the Democrats are to recover, they need to weaken the influence of primary voters. An "insider" dominated process will pick people who have a chance of winning the election. Nothing else will help.

Technorati tags: blogs, Hillary Clinton, Democrats, Steve Elmendorf, Diane Feinstein, filibuster, Stephen Green, Andrew Jackson, Thomas Jefferson, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, John Forbes Kerry, Kos, leftists, liberals, Joe Lieberman, Zell Miller, James Knox Polk, primaries, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Cindy Sheehan, Harry S Truman, Jim VandeHei, Washington Post.

Google's Motto: Don't Be Evil— UNLESS IT PAYS REALLY WELL!

It's Time to Move

2006-01-28T21:09:00.000-06:00

With Google's sell out to the Chinese mass-murderers, it's time to say goodbye to Blogger.

Recommendations for a new free hosting service would be welcome.

Advice on a new title would not be amiss either.

Technorati tags: Blogger, censorship, China, Don't be Evil, Google, weblog hosting services.

Google's Motto: Don't Be Evil— UNLESS IT PAYS REALLY WELL!

Kerry Does it Again

2006-01-28T03:27:00.000-06:00

Makes an idiot of himself, that is, trying to organize a filibuster of Alito from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. As you might expect, it doesn't seem to be working.

Ann Althouse flays him, and for a bonus, links to an old post showing how Kerry's rhetoric determined that she'd vote for Bush.

Technorati tags: Samuel Alito, Ann Althouse, Davos, filibuster, John Forbes Kerry, Switzerland, United States Senate.

THE HOUSE OF SAUD MUST BE DESTROYED — AND WILL BE!

Our Second Cheapest War, Ever

2006-01-27T22:34:00.000-06:00

NRO Financial gives us the cost of the Iraq Campaign as a percentage of GDP, as calculated by Prof Robert Whaples of Wake Forest University and Jerry Bower of National Review Online. The Iraq campaign consumes 2% of GDP, compared to 1% for the Gulf War. All other wars were more expensive.

In terms of absolute number of deaths, it's our third costliest war, soon to be fourth. As a percentage of our population, it's second lowest.

                                                        Proportionate Deaths
                       Population     Total      Pop.   for a population
Conflict                (millions)    Deaths    Ratio   of 300 Million
Revolutionary War            3.5     4,435      85.71     380,143
War of 1812                  7.6     2,260      39.47      89,211
Mexican War                 21.1    13,283      14.22     188,858
Civil War: Union            26.2   359,528      11.45   4,116,733
           Confederate       8.2   198,524      35.59   7,263,073
           Combined         34.3   558,052       8.75   4,480,921
Spanish-American War        74.6     2,446       4.02       6,684
World War I                102.8   116,708       2.92     341,584
World War II               133.5   407,316       2.25     915,316
Korean War                 151.7    33,651       1.98      66,548
Vietnam War                204.9    58,168       1.47      85,165
Gulf War                   260.0       293       1.15         877
Iraq War                   300.0     2,377       1.00       2,377

Data for above table here, except Iraq Campaign deaths,
from here. To put it another way, in proportion to population, casualties in the Civil War Between the States were about eighteen hundred eighty five times higher than the Iraq Campaign (around eight hundred thirty times higher if you include the Sept. 11th casualties and other terrorist attacks).

Perhaps the best comparison is with World War III, the Seventy Years War against the late Soviet Union ("late Soviet Union" — WHOOPEE! We beat you!). We took 91,819 deaths pulling them down (in the proxy wars of Korea and Vietnam). Adjusted for the smaller populations, that's 151,713 out of today's population. Compared to that figure, deaths in World War IV, military and civilian, are maybe 4% of WWIII. Of course WWIV isn't over, but it's hard to see us ever suffering anything like 150,000 deaths, barring a major WMD attack on the U.S.

So we're not only winning a war for our survival, we're winning damn cheaply.

Technorati tags: casualties, cost of wars, deaths, Iraq War, population of the U.S., United States.

THE HOUSE OF SAUD MUST BE DESTROYED — AND WILL BE!

Big News From Iraq

2006-01-27T21:35:00.000-06:00

Omar reports that a combined sweep by the Iraqi army and tribal militias in Anbar province has arrested 270 al-Qaida members, including both native Iraqis and foreigners, plus some who were sheltering them.

This is tremendous. This is a watershed, a turning point. With Iraqis fighting against them effectively, the terrorists won't be able to last long. And with people being arrested for cause and held for trial, the danger of civil war is much diminished. Nor is it easy to use the anti-terror campaign as a means of private revenge when people are arrested and get to tell their side of the story. And of course, captives will be interrogated, and will give us more information that leads to the arrest of further terrorists and supporters, as well as leading to arms caches and bomb factories.

With Zaqari being an idiot who accidentally and intentionally murderss Iraqis, he can be predicted to help this process along. But if he stops attacking Iraqi civilians, his organization has a chance of stopping it's decline, or at least slowing it. However, if he stops attacking Iraqi civilians, he must attack Iraqi government forces and Allied troops only, a recipe for death. If al-Qaida goes severely underground and does little, they'll be exposing their weakness, itself a moral defeat for them. They're caught in a trap.

We are winning, and they are losing. Given the probable upcoming campaigns in Syria, Lebanon, and Iran, this is very big, very good news.

Update: alas, it appears to be false news as well.

Technorati tags: al-Qaeda, al-Qaida, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, War on Terrorism.

THE HOUSE OF SAUD MUST BE DESTROYED — AND WILL BE!

Steyn on Osama

2006-01-27T05:59:00.000-06:00

Mark Steyn's latest column (here or here), notes:

The Left likes to bleat that “America created Osama bin Laden” and, like so many of its cheap sneers, it never thinks beyond that to the logical question: why did it create bin Laden? Right now, the Democrats and media are engaging in a big ol’ song’n’dance about oversight of intelligence operations. Congressional oversight, judicial oversight, bureaucratic oversight, the more memos to fill, the more forms to file, the better. Whether or not any country needs an intelligence service, nobody needs an intelligence service that has to do everything with the lights up, in public, in triplicate. In the 1970s, Congress dramatically reined in the CIA, gutting clandestine and covert operations. Then at the end of the decade the Soviets invaded Afghanistan and, with the loss of the Shah in Iran, even the Carter administration was smart enough to wonder: what if they don’t stop in Kabul? What if they decide to press on — to Tehran and the Gulf?

So they decide to take the precaution of bogging them down in Afghanistan. In post-Watergate Washington, you can’t put down “Covert Operation to destabilise the Hindu Kush” as a line item on the Federal budget. So the administration has a quiet word with their chums in the region, and the House of Saud, whose expenditures are subject to less rigorous audits than the CIA’s, agrees to pony up the cash and run the recruitment ads, and Pakistan’s ISI comes on board as the local liaison. The Democrats rage all the time about the “outsourcing” of American jobs to the Third World, but the outsourcing of a critical anti-Soviet operation reverberated all the way to 9/11. It dramatically enhanced both the reach and prestige of Saudi Wahabism and the ISI, and it deluded the jihadi into believing they’d overthrown the Soviet Union because the Great Satan was a big sissy who was too scared to do it himself.

Read it all.

THE HOUSE OF SAUD MUST BE DESTROYED — AND WILL BE!

Terrorist Tactics

2006-01-27T05:03:00.000-06:00

Captain Ed has an interesting post here. Columbians supplied false passports to al-Qaida and Hamas operatives, including some Iraqis. The passports were used to illegally enter the U.S.

As the Captain says, just how are we to find these terrorists? Maybe by bugging overseas phone calls? Or shall we take an increased risk of terrorist murders?

Technorati tags: al-Qaida, Columbia, Hamas, Iraq, terrorism.

THE HOUSE OF SAUD MUST BE DESTROYED — AND WILL BE!

Kim Jong-Il Makes Parade Magazine's List of Worst Dictators

2006-01-26T21:50:00.000-06:00

But he's only #2. It's who you know.

Technorati tags: dictators, Kim Jong-Il, Parade Magazine.

THE HOUSE OF SAUD MUST BE DESTROYED — AND WILL BE!

OK, It's All Uphill From Here.

2006-01-26T19:16:00.000-06:00

You've lived through the worst day of the year.

Hat tip, my close personal friend Dave.

THE HOUSE OF SAUD MUST BE DESTROYED — AND WILL BE!

Another Sign We're Winning?

2006-01-26T18:46:00.000-06:00

Howard Kurtz comments on main stream media in Iraq:

Is there at least one exit strategy in Iraq? Columbia Journalism Review's Paul McLeary seems to find one for the press when he gets to Baghdad:

"Getting a room wasn't a problem; while the hotel used to be full of journalists, many either left the country after the December elections or were pulled out by their publications, which have been cutting back on Baghdad staff as things have gotten progressively more dangerous. The day I checked in, the only people I saw were a few middle-aged Iraqi men in leather jackets forlornly smoking by the front desk, and a lonely cafeteria attendant, sitting at his cash register watching a soap opera.

"In fact, I didn't see any Westerners at all until my second day, when I contacted the acting bureau chief for an American paper who was staying in my hotel. As we were discussing the state of reporting in Baghdad and Iraq in general, he told me that I was a little late to the game. These days, more American reporters are leaving Iraq than arriving. In large part, for the U.S. press, 'The party's pretty much over.'"

I suspect they're discouraged by a lack of bad news.

Technorati tags: Howard Kurtz, MSM.

THE HOUSE OF SAUD MUST BE DESTROYED — AND WILL BE!

Conservatives Winning in Canada

2006-01-23T22:44:00.000-06:00

As expected, their party is getting the largest number of seats.

It was interesting, and amusing, to see that Michael Moore had tried to influence Canadian voters to retain the Liberals. His only concern is that Canadians not do something that might make George Bush's life easier. The fact that the Canadian government has been shown to be almighty corrupt is unimportant.

Which is a typical leftwing attitude. For all their talk, leftism from its beginning has regarded other people as carbon copies of leftists, who ought to agree with the left on everything. And when they don't, as needing to be coerced into agreeing with leftists. See this book for an extended discussion.

THE HOUSE OF SAUD MUST BE DESTROYED — AND WILL BE!

"Please Don't Throw Me In That Briar Patch Over There"

2006-01-22T23:19:00.000-06:00

The Democrats are suddenly talking tough. Rep. Tom Lantos (D, San Mateo County) says the U.S. must push for UN sanctions to bring Iran to heal, and if they won't do it, we must use unilateral sanctions, and retaliate against nations trading with Iran. Hillary Clinton says 'Yes, immediate sanctions, and be ready to use military force.' The New York Times is floating trial balloons on an Iran attack. What's going on? Here's Fat Steve's fearless analysis and prediction: Bush is playing rope-a-dope, conning the Democrats yet again.

'You want multi-lateralism? I'll multi-lateral till you choke on it. I'll keep negotiating till you say we have to act, alone if necessary, militarily if necessary. And if you don't say it, then the time will come when you'll have to say that you'd rather Iran got nukes than the U.S. use military force. Let's see how that works for you, electorally.'

The fact is, in the current regime isn't going to back down. It can't. It will come to revolution in Iran, or attacks on the nuclear facilities. Whether the Dems walk the walk will be interesting. When the time comes, I think Joe Lieberman and Hillary will have the stones to do what's necessary, while most of the rest of them won't. The left wing of the Democrats will screw them up, and after the Republicans take Congress in 2006, and Congress plus the Presidency in 2008, the Donkey Party will finally regain some sanity.

Interesting times. Remember, you heard it here first.

Technorati tags: President Bush, Hillary Clinton, Democrats, Iran, nuclear weapons, Republicans, sanctions, United Nations, United States, War.

THE HOUSE OF SAUD MUST BE DESTROYED — AND WILL BE!

Democratic Nobility

2006-01-22T17:53:00.000-06:00

Senator Patty Murray, (WA, D.) wants to keep the $40,980.00 and change that Jack Abramoff had various Indian tribes donate to her.

How noble of her, to make sure that she and her party are the ones that stay tainted. As a Republican, I sincerely thank her for demonstrating anew her party's corruption and hypocrisy. And also, for giving my party a talking point to use when the Dems try to use Abramoff against us in the upcoming elections.

Hat tip: Instapundit.

Technorati tags: Jack Abramoff, corruption, Democrats, hypocrisy, Patty Murray, Republicans, scandal.

THE HOUSE OF SAUD MUST BE DESTROYED — AND WILL BE!

Overseas is Not Necessarily Cheaper

2006-01-22T17:39:00.000-06:00

Here's an interesting story about Texas Instruments, who challenged their engineers to build a chip-fabricating plant in Texas that could compete with an oversees fab. They succeeded.

Hat tip: Dean Esmay.

Technorati tags: Dean Esmay, manufacturing, Texas Instruments, trade.

THE HOUSE OF SAUD MUST BE DESTROYED — AND WILL BE!

Our non-Friends the Pakistanis, Saudis, and Turks

2006-01-22T14:48:00.000-06:00

An interesting analysis at Dhimmi Watch.

During the Cold War, this inability to see Islam for what it was, is, and will be -- a totalitarian threat at least as great, and probably a good deal greater, than Communism -- led to certain obvious failures, and certain failures that remain unobvious. Among the obvious failures was the CENTO military organization, with Iraq, Turkey, and Pakistan enrolled in a supposedly non-Communist military alliance meant to mimic NATO, under American (and British) leadership. It came to nothing, for it was nothing -- except that the Americans were locked into the myth of stout Muslim allies.

The second was the firm entrenchment of the myth of a benevolent Saudi Arabia, our "staunch ally" -- a notion promoted by ARAMCO in its official publications and through a powerful network of Washington agents. This began in the 1950s, and the power of this myth only grew. No one knew much about Saudi Arabia, and Islam itself was hardly understood; in the State Department, it remains [mis]understood. . . .

Still another country misperceived was Turkey. Turkish troops performed bravely in the Korean War. Turkey was a member of CENTO, so temporary and so silly as it was. Turkey was a place that supplied airbases and listening posts. And Turkey was both “secular” and straightforward, just like those mustachioed Pakistani generals who were so much more pleasing than the messy, fussy, dangerously leftist Indians (so they were perceived) in the 1950s and 1960s. So Turkey became a “staunch ally.” There was certainly more truth to this than in the same label affixed to Saudi Arabia. But it depended on Kemalism, on the constraints on Islam. And as we now know, when Islam came back, and it has come back (or rather, since it had never left, but had been tied down) to Turkey, that inevitably means the kind of anti-Infidel (i.e., anti-American) attitudes that can be seen in the Turkish press, and in the Turkish government, and among the Turkish public.

Read it all. And reflect on the difference between allies of convenience and real friends.

Technorati tags: Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, United States, War with Islam.

THE HOUSE OF SAUD MUST BE DESTROYED — AND WILL BE!

Liars Caught

2006-01-21T19:19:00.000-06:00

The lefties at Code Pink doctored some photographs of Iranian demonstrators to turn them into a recruiting poster for Code Pink. Publius Pundit caught them at it.

The Iranian women were protesting the mullahs tyranny in Iran. The Code Pink females are protesting the U.S. presence in Iraq. I guess Code Pink figured that was close enough to use them for their recruiting. Hey, truth is only a matter of viewpoint, right?

Technorati tags: Code Pink, Iran.

THE HOUSE OF SAUD MUST BE DESTROYED — AND WILL BE!

Oppression in the U.S.

2006-01-21T11:18:00.000-06:00

<sarcasm> The Patriot Act is used to violate the privacy of a poor illegal immigrant and terrorist wannabe, with the help of unprincipled vigilantes. Why isn't the MSM covering this assault on our precious liberty to recruit people for mass murder at the public library?</sarcasm>

And write your Congresscritters urging renewal of the Patriot Act.

Technorati tags: MSM, News bias, Patriot Act, terrorism.

THE HOUSE OF SAUD MUST BE DESTROYED — AND WILL BE!

The UCLAProfs Flap

2006-01-21T11:03:00.000-06:00

I was going to write a post about this, but Robert Hayes at "The Argument Clinic" has written it for me. Aside from my not having nearly as negative view of St. Joe the Drunken as he does, I agree with everything he writes. So go read.

Hat tip: Instapundit, who is also being fairly sensible about all this.

THE HOUSE OF SAUD MUST BE DESTROYED — AND WILL BE!

Unbelievable

2006-01-20T07:17:00.000-06:00

Observe how the AP captions a picture of Osama bin Laden.

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Mass murder and terrorism are "dissent" at the AP.

THE HOUSE OF SAUD MUST BE DESTROYED — AND WILL BE!

Funny Coincidence

2006-01-20T01:46:00.000-06:00

You may remember that the New York Times ran a lot of stories about the Augusta National Golf Club, and it's heinous policy of not allowing women as members.

So of course, when they found out that Senator Edward M. Kennedy belonged to a men-only club, the Times immediately published lots of stories on it. . . Oops. It didn't. The Times didn't break the story, and it didn't write about it until Teddy decided to resign. Then, they mentioned it, on page 14.

But it is just a coincidence. Don't ever get to thinking the MSM is biased in favor of Democrats. That would be a sin against objectivity. They'd never be unobjective. No, the lack of Times coverage is because . . . somebody help me here.

Technorati tags: Edward Moore Kennedy, MSM, New York Times, news bias.

THE HOUSE OF SAUD MUST BE DESTROYED — AND WILL BE!

Remembering a Great USAmerican Hero

2006-01-19T22:10:00.000-06:00

His name was Hugh Thompson, Jr. He died recently, of cancer. He was a hero of the Viet Nam War. You can find Michael Fumento's tribute to him here or here.

Technorati tags: Michael Fumento, heroism, My Lai, Hugh Thompson, Viet Nam.

THE HOUSE OF SAUD MUST BE DESTROYED — AND WILL BE!

What is Iran Trying to Do?

2006-01-19T18:53:00.000-06:00

Openly challenging the Europeans on uranium enrichment, calling for the destruction of Israel, "green auras". . . What's the game?

You can find one answer here. It comes from George Friedman of Stratfor.

Basically, Friedman thinks that Iran is trying to regain the leadership of Radical Islam it once had. To do that, it needs to shed an image of unprincipled collaboration with the West.

So, the mullahs defy Europe and dare the U.S. and Israel to bomb them. If they aren't bombed, they'll get nukes. If they are bombed, they've stood up to the Crusaders and Zionists. A win either way.

Read it all.

Technorati tags: Europe, Iran, Israel, nuclear weapons, Stratfor, United States.

THE HOUSE OF SAUD MUST BE DESTROYED — AND WILL BE!

Algore Makes an Idiot of Himself. Again.

2006-01-18T08:53:00.000-06:00

From Best of the Web Today:

Powerlessness Corrupts
Al Gore used the occasion of Martin Luther King Day to deliver one of his trademark angry orations, at the Daughters of the American Revolution Constitution Hall in Washington. His topic: President Bush's spying on terrorists.

As National Review's Byron York notes, Gore tried to have it both ways:

"The threat of additional terror strikes is all too real and their concerted efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction does create a real imperative to exercise the powers of the executive branch with swiftness and agility," Gore told the audience at the Daughters of the American Revolution Constitution Hall. "Moreover, there is in fact an inherent power that is conferred by the Constitution to the president to take unilateral action to protect the nation from a sudden and immediate threat, but it is simply not possible to precisely define in legalistic terms exactly when that power is appropriate and when it is not."

Nonetheless, Gore asserted that he had found a controlling legal authority:

The president has been "breaking the law repeatedly and persistently," Gore said, and his war on terror has "brought our republic to the brink of a dangerous breach in the fabric of the Constitution." Gore stopped short of calling for Bush's impeachment, but he seemed to be suggesting it--and the crowd certainly seemed to be thinking about it--when he said that Congress should hold hearings into "serious allegations of criminal behavior on the part of the president, and they should follow the evidence wherever it leads."

All this despite Gore's acknowledgment that "we still have much to learn" about the program.

So, we don't know much about this program, and the President does have certain inherent powers to protect the nation regardless of statute, but we definitely know that this program is over the line, unwarranted, and illegal, because . . . well, that's what I'm finding hard to get a handle on. Anyone caring to delve into the swamp that is Gore's rhetoric can explore here. Personally, I'm not sure how much is confusion, how much is stupidity and ignorance, and how much just plain lies.

But with Gore, the only thing you know for sure is that he's mad about not being President. That Republicans are bad, while Democrats are good. And that truth doesn't matter when you're making a political speech, and trying to win the 2008 nomination.

What a joke of a politician Gore has become.

Technorati tags: Democrats, Al Gore, lies, Politics, Republicans.

THE HOUSE OF SAUD MUST BE DESTROYED — AND WILL BE!

Crimes of Commission and Omission

2006-01-14T11:56:00.000-06:00

John Podhoretz writes about them:

MY daughter is 19 months old. She weighs 26 pounds. Nixzmary Brown was 7 years old. She weighed 36 pounds.

If she had not been murdered by a blunt trauma to her skull in the Bedford-Stuyvesant apartment that was at once her home and her torture chamber (complete with child's chair with ropes), Nixzmary might have died of starvation sooner or later.

It appears her torturer, rapist and murderer was her stepfather, Cesar Rodriguez. Of course, Rodriguez could have done none of these things to Nixzmary had her mother, Nixzaliz, done something to stop it.

Read it all.

THE HOUSE OF SAUD MUST BE DESTROYED — AND WILL BE!

Right Method, Wrong Enemy

2006-01-14T11:09:00.000-06:00

One of the "whistleblowers" concerning the NSA surveillance story explains what was wrong with the program:

But now, Tice tells ABC News that some of those secret "black world" operations run by the NSA were operated in ways that he believes violated the law. He is prepared to tell Congress all he knows about the alleged wrongdoing in these programs run by the Defense Department and the NSA in the post-9/11 efforts to go after terrorists.

"The mentality was we need to get these guys, and we're going to do whatever it takes to get them," he said.

<sarcasm>Right. Doing 'whatever it takes,' including breaking the law, is not appropriate when dealing with minor enemies like terrorists. It must be reserved for the real enemies of the country: Republicans.</sarcasm>

Technorati tags: ABC, NSA, Republicans, Sabotage of the War Effort, terrorism, Russell Tice, wiretaps.

THE HOUSE OF SAUD MUST BE DESTROYED — AND WILL BE!

Seek, and Ye Shall Find

2006-01-14T08:15:00.000-06:00

I've been looking for this article (Warning — PDF!) for a while, and now I at least have a line on it.

The founder and director of the ACLU explains how the Soviet Union under Stalin is superior to the United States under Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt, and thus justified in using repression to keep in power.

THE HOUSE OF SAUD MUST BE DESTROYED — AND WILL BE!

Atheists' Panic

2006-01-14T08:04:00.000-06:00

See this article from The Guardian:

On Monday, it's Richard Dawkins's turn (yet again) to take up the cudgels against religious faith in a two-part Channel 4 programme, The Root of All Evil? His voice is one of the loudest in an increasingly shrill chorus of atheist humanists; something has got them badly rattled. They even turned their bitter invective on Narnia. By all means, let's have a serious debate about religious belief, one of the most complex and fascinating phenomena on the planet, but the suspicion is that it's not what this chorus wants. Behind unsubstantiated assertions, sweeping generalisations and random anecdotal evidence, there's the unmistakable whiff of panic; they fear religion is on the march again.

Read it all.

The problem with atheism is that many of the most interesting questions are of the form "What shall we do with our lives? How shall we live?" The answers to such questions are not testable hypotheses, and are thus not withing the realm of scientific inquiry. Admitting this bugs the Hell out of scientists.

Hat tip: Clayton Cramer.

THE HOUSE OF SAUD MUST BE DESTROYED — AND WILL BE!

What is WRONG With These People?

2006-01-13T15:21:00.000-06:00

Summary:

Timothy Garton Ash demonstrates that Europeans don't have a clue about what to do about Iran.

At Length:

Writing in The Guardian, Timothy Garton Ash says that Europe's plan A for preventing Iran's acquisition of nuclear arms has failed.

What's plan B? Garton Ash says it's the UN, which will consider sanctions. And how will these work? They won't: Russia, China, France, Germany, and Italy will undercut them, he avers.

How about Plan C? Garton Ash doesn't have one. "Europeans and Americans" should get together, pool information on Iran, develop a "common analysis," deciding how any action will affect Iranian society, and then — well, that's where things break down. Apparently, once all these heads are put together, they'll come up with some diplomatic steps that will somehow do what all previous diplomacy has failed to do, and prevent Iran from acquiring nukes. Unless diplomacy fails again.

But there are a few things he's sure of — don't use military force:

For the hawks in Washington and Tel Aviv, Plan C would be to bomb selected Iranian nuclear facilities, in order to slow down Iran's progress towards the bomb. Despite all the famous pinpoint precision of state-of-the-art US bombing, one can be quietly confident that this would take the lives of innocent civilians - or, at least, of people whom Iranian television could credibly claim were innocent civilians. A recent trip to Iran convinced me of two things: first, that there is a large reservoir of anti-regime and mildly pro-western feeling in Iran; and, second, that this reservoir could be drained overnight if we bombed.

. . . Americans, for their part, should not confuse European warnings about the need to proceed cautiously with cowardice, euroweeniness, and all those other failings of "cheese-eating surrender monkeys" attributed to us by red-blooded American anti-Europeans.

. . . I feel deeply uncomfortable when I hear the American neoconservative Frank Gaffney calling for a revolution in Iran.

No, instead, we must attempt to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons by diplomacy. And if there is no such diplomacy available, and the only alternatives are military action, or letting the Iranian regime acquire nuclear weapons? Garton Ash won't say. What he will say is that force musn't be used, and that no attempt to stir up revolution in Iran should be made. Objectively, that means let the mullahs acquire nukes, and maybe wipe out Israel (but after all, they're only Jews), and maybe attack Europe sooner or later (but then, as Rand noted in another context, some people really just want to do).

Now, you can make a case for the position 'Let the Tehran regime acquire nuclear weapons, and rely on deterrence to keep them from using them.' But Garton Ash is so cowardly, he can't even say that out loud. He just professes to hope that somehow, someway, someone will find the magic words that will keep Iran from going nuclear — even though his own column says that the only explicit idea he has, sanctions, won't work.

And that's why we red-blooded Americans despise Europe, and consider it irrelevant, when we think of it at all. To be cautious about getting into a shooting war with Iran is prudent. To allow Ayatollah Khamaeini nuclear weapons may be the best alternative. But to so lack balls that you can't even say that out loud? Go away, coward.

Technorati tags: cowardice, Europe, Timothy Garton Ash, Iran, Israel, nuclear weapons, United States.

THE HOUSE OF SAUD MUST BE DESTROYED — AND WILL BE!

Sounds Good to Me

2006-01-13T09:05:00.000-06:00

Mr. Barry Suggests Improvements to the Senate's Supreme Court Nominee Confirmation Process:

Instead of a live human being, the Senate Judiciary Committee should have an inflatable doll sitting in the witness chair while the senators ask their 37-minute-long questions. On those rare occasions when they need an actual answer, staff people could go fetch the actual nominee from the golf course or wherever.

Technorati tags: Samuel Alito, Dave Barry, United States Senate.

THE HOUSE OF SAUD MUST BE DESTROYED — AND WILL BE!

Should We Be Frightened . . .

2006-01-13T07:51:00.000-06:00

or LOL.

Right now, there's a cat thinking: 'At least mine wasn't permanent!'

Hat tip: My close personal friend Dave Barry.

THE HOUSE OF SAUD MUST BE DESTROYED — AND WILL BE!

The Ribicoff Scandal

2006-01-13T07:33:00.000-06:00

I don't think it will help the Democrats much.

As Glenn put it, "He got around."

THE HOUSE OF SAUD MUST BE DESTROYED — AND WILL BE!

_________________
From Right Side Redux:

Per FEC records here is the list of monies received by Republicans and Democrats by Abramoff:
source

UPDATE: To clarify, these are not donations from Abramoff directly but from groups that he represented. Right or not, many of these sources are seen "tainted".

Let's be clear on three points:

1) This is, as Rich Lowry noted, a Republican scandal
2) But Democrats are still liable for the coming impact
3) Republicans are cleaning house... will the Dems follow?

Recipient

Democrat Republican

Total

2002 President's Dinner/Non-Fed Trust

$50,000

Spencer Abraham (R-Mich)

$12,000

Rodney Alexander (D-La)

$2,000

Wayne Allard (R-Colo)

$4,000

$3,000

$2,000

$6,000

$9,000

Xavier Becerra (D-Calif)

$5,523

Ann Womer Benjamin (R-Ohio)

$3,000

Helen Delich Bentley (R-Md)

$1,000

Shelley Berkley (D-Nev)

$500

Jeff Bingaman (D-NM)

$2,000

Jack A. Blossman Jr. (R-La)

$3,000

Roy Blunt (R-Mo)

$8,500

John Boehner (R-Ohio)

$32,500

Christopher S. 'Kit' Bond (R-Mo)

$12,500

Henry Bonilla (R-Texas)

$1,000

Mary Bono (R-Calif)

$16,000

Dan Boren (D-Okla)

$2,000

Charles W. Boustany Jr (R-La)

$2,000

Barbara Boxer (D-Calif)

$1,000

John Breaux (D-La)

$13,750

Sam Brownback (R-Kan)

$1,000

Ginny Brown-Waite (R-Fla)

$500

Jim Bunning (R-Ky)

$1,000

Conrad Burns (R-Mont)

$59,590

Dan Burton (R-Ind)

$7,000

George W. Bush (R)

$13,000

Ken Calvert (R-Calif)

$1,000

Dave Camp (R-Mich)

$27,000

Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-Colo)

$11,000

Chris Cannon (R-Utah)

$9,000

Eric Cantor (R-Va)

$13,000

Maria Cantwell (D-Wash)

$5,000

Shelley Moore Capito (R-WVa)

$4,000

Dennis Cardoza (D-Calif)

$1,000

Tom Carper (D-Del)

$4,000

Brad R. Carson (D-Okla)

$18,300

Steve Chabot (R-Ohio)

$4,000

Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga)

$5,500

Rick Clayburgh (R-ND)

$1,000

Max Cleland (D-Ga)

$2,500

Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY)

$1,000

Thad Cochran (R-Miss)

$65,500

Tom Cole (R-Okla)

$5,000

Norm Coleman (R-Minn)

$3,000

Mac Collins (R-Ga)

$2,000

Kent Conrad (D-ND)

$4,000

John Cornyn (R-Texas)

$1,000

Jon S. Corzine (D-NJ)

$5,000

Jim Costa (D-Calif)

$1,000

Larry Craig (R-Idaho)

$3,500

Phil Crane (R-Ill)

$9,750

Ander Crenshaw (R-Fla)

$1,000

Henry Cuellar (D-Texas)

$500

Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-Calif)

$12,500

Tom Daschle (D-SD)

$26,500

Tom Davis (R-Va)

$3,250

DC Republican Cmte

$1,250

Peter DeFazio (D-Ore)

$1,000

Rosa L. DeLauro (D-Conn)

$2,000

Tom DeLay (R-Texas)

$28,000

Democratic Congressional Campaign Cmte

$270,200

Democratic National Cmte

$40,520

Democratic Party of Michigan

$17,000

Democratic Party of Minnesota

$9,000

Democratic Party of Montana

$5,000

Democratic Party of New Mexico

$6,250

Democratic Party of North Dakota

$10,000

Democratic Party of Oklahoma

$15,000

Democratic Party of South Dakota

$8,000

Democratic Senatorial Campaign Cmte

$373,980

Peter Deutsch (D-Fla)

$8,500

Mike DeWine (R-Ohio)

$1,000

Norm Dicks (D-Wash)

$1,500

John D. Dingell (D-Mich)

$2,000

Doug Dodd (D-Okla)

$2,000

Elizabeth Dole (R-NC)

$1,000

Pete V. Domenici (R-NM)

$2,500

John T. Doolittle (R-Calif)

$48,000

Byron L. Dorgan (D-ND)

$28,000

Ned Doucet (D-La)

$2,000

John J. "Jimmy" Duncan Jr. (R-Tenn)

$1,000

Dick Durbin (D-Ill)

$8,000

Bob Ehrlich (R-Md)

$500

Mark Emerson (R-Utah)

$500

Eliot L. Engel (D-NY)

$1,000

$4,000

$10,000

$1,000

$2,000

$4,000

Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif)

$1,000

Mike Ferguson (R-NJ)

$2,000

Lee Fletcher (R-La)

$1,000

Ernie Fletcher (R-Ky)

$3,000

Francis E. Flotron (R-Mo)

$1,000

Mark Foley (R-Fla)

$5,000

Tom Foley (3-Minn)

$1,000

J. Randy Forbes (R-Va)

$5,000

Barney Frank (D-Mass)

$11,100

Kalyn Cherie Free (D-Okla)

$3,000

Bill Frist (R-Tenn)

$2,000

Scott Garrett (R-NJ)

$1,000

George W. Gekas (R-Pa)

$1,000

Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo)

$9,000

Charles R. Gerow (R-Pa)

$500

Phil Gingrey (R-Ga)

$500

William L. Gormley (R-NJ)

$3,000

Lindsey Graham (R-SC)

$4,500

Kay Granger (R-Texas)

$2,000

Carolyn W. Grant (R-NC)

$1,000

Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa)

$14,000

Sam Graves (R-Mo)

$3,000

Stewart Greenleaf (R-Pa)

$2,000

Judd Gregg (R-NH)

$12,000

Felix J. Grucci Jr. (R-NY)

$1,000

Chuck Hagel (R-Neb)

$4,000

James V. Hansen (R-Utah)

$4,000

Tom Harkin (D-Iowa)

$14,500

Katherine Harris (R-Fla)

$2,000

Melissa Hart (R-Pa)

$1,000

Dennis Hastert (R-Ill)

$63,500

Sydney Hay (R-Ariz)

$1,000

Robin Hayes (R-NC)

$2,000

J. D. Hayworth (R-Ariz)

$83,620

Van Hilleary (R-Tenn)

$12,500

Dave Hobson (R-Ohio)

$6,067

Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich)

$5,000

Tim Holden (D-Pa)

$1,000

Fritz Hollings (D-SC)

$5,000

Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md)

$16,000

Kirk Humphreys (R-Okla)

$500

Tim Hutchinson (R-Ark)

$8,000

Claude B. Hutchison Jr. (R-Calif)

$1,000

Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas)

$3,000

James M. Inhofe (R-Okla)

$21,500

Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii)

$5,000

Jay Inslee (D-Wash)

$2,000

Johnny Isakson (R-Ga)

$9,000

Ernest J. Istook (R-Okla)

$1,250

Bill Janklow (R-SD)

$250

William J. Jefferson (D-La)

$1,000

Bobby Jindal (R-La)

$2,000

Chris John (D-La)

$15,000

Sam Johnson (R-Texas)

$2,000

Tim Johnson (D-SD)

$4,250

Walter B. Jones Jr. (R-NC)

$2,000

Kimo Kaloi (R-Hawaii)

$1,000

Thomas P. Keefe Jr. (D-Wash)

$2,000

Ric Keller (R-Fla)

$2,000

John Neely Kennedy (D-La)

$2,000

Mark Kennedy (R-Minn)

$1,000

Patrick J. Kennedy (D-RI)

$33,000

John Kerry (D)

$1,400

Dale E. Kildee (D-Mich)

$14,500

$4,000

$17,000

$3,000

$1,000

$4,000

Mary L. Landrieu (D-La)

$11,500

John B. Larson (D-Conn)

$3,000

Rick A. Lazio (R-NY)

$1,250

Patrick Leahy (D-Vt)

$1,000

Carl Levin (D-Mich)

$2,000

Sander Levin (D-Mich)

$4,000

Jerry Lewis (R-Calif)

$8,000

Joe Lieberman (D-Conn)

$1,000

Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark)

$2,000

John Linder (R-Ga)

$1,000

Frank A. LoBiondo (R-NJ)

$2,000

Trent Lott (R-Miss)

$22,000

Nita M. Lowey (D-NY)

$2,000

Frank D. Lucas (R-Okla)

$2,500

Bill Luther (D-Minn)

$1,000

Don Manzullo (R-Ill)

$3,500

Robert T. Matsui (D-Calif)

$2,000

John McCain (R-Ariz)

$5,000

Bill McCollum (R-Fla)

$4,000

Mitch McConnell (R-Ky)

$19,000

Jim McCrery (R-La)

$47,250

Charles J. Melancon (D-La)

$3,100

Robert Menendez (D-NJ)

$2,000

John L. Mica (R-Fla)

$2,000

Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md)

$5,000

Dick Monteith (R-Calif)

$1,000

Connie Morella (R-Md)

$2,000

Willie Landry Mount (D-La)

$2,000

Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska)

$5,000

Patty Murray (D-Wash)

$40,980

Marilyn Musgrave (R-Colo)

$1,000

Grace Napolitano (D-Calif)

$1,000

National Republican Congressional Cmte

$505,500

National Republican Senatorial Cmte

$419,000

George R. Nethercutt Jr. (R-Wash)

$6,000

Bob Ney (R-Ohio)

$37,500

Don Nickles (R-Okla)

$35,000

Anne M. Northup (R-Ky)

$1,000

Devin Nunes (R-Calif)

$500

Jim Nussle (R-Iowa)

$2,000

James L. Oberstar (D-Minn)

$3,000

Rico Oller (R-Calif)

$1,000

Doug Ose (R-Calif)

$3,000

C. L. "Butch" Otter (R-Idaho)

$2,000

Michael G. Oxley (R-Ohio)

$9,000

Frank Pallone, Jr (D-NJ)

$11,100

Ed Pastor (D-Ariz)

$3,000

Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif)

$3,000

Tom Petri (R-Wis)

$11,000

David Phelps (D-Ill)

$1,000

Charles W. "Chip" Pickering Jr. (R-Miss)

$17,500

Elia Vincent Pirozzi (R-Calif)

$1,500

Joe Pitts (R-Pa)

$894

Richard Pombo (R-Calif)

$54,500

Earl Pomeroy (D-ND)

$4,500

Rob Portman (R-Ohio)

$4,000

Deborah Pryce (R-Ohio)

$8,000

Adam H. Putnam (R-Fla)

$500

George Radanovich (R-Calif)

$7,000

Nick Rahall (D-WVa)

$8,000

Charles B. Rangel (D-NY)

$32,000

Bill Redmond (R-NM)

$1,000

Ralph Regula (R-Ohio)

$14,500

Denny Rehberg (R-Mont)

$29,000

Harry Reid (D-Nev)

$30,500

Rick Renzi (R-Ariz)

$6,000

Republican National Cmte

$226,000

Republican Party of Delaware

$1,000

Republican Party of Kentucky

$10,000

Republican Party of Mississippi

$15,000

Republican Party of New Hampshire

$20,000

Republican Party of New Jersey

$5,000

Republican Party of Oklahoma

$2,500

Republican Party of Oregon

$2,000

Republican Party of Wisconsin

$1,000

Tom Reynolds (R-NY)

$7,000

Bob Riley (R-Ala)

$1,000

Charles S. Robb (D-Va)

$1,000

James E. Rogan (R-Calif)

$2,000

Hal Rogers (R-Ky)

$32,000

Mike Rogers (R-Mich)

$1,000

Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif)

$12,500

Craig F. Romero (R-La)

$2,500

Richard M. Romero (D-NM)

$3,000

William V. Roth Jr. (R-Del)

$3,000

Ed Royce (R-Calif)

$500

Paul Ryan (R-Wis)

$949

Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif)

$500

Rick Santorum (R-Pa)

$6,000

Jim Saxton (R-NJ)

$1,000

Brian David Schweitzer (D-Mont)

$1,000

Pete Sessions (R-Texas)

$19,500

Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala)

$1,000

Brad Sherman (D-Calif)

$3,000

Ronnie Shows (D-Miss)

$2,000

Bill Shuster (R-Pa)

$1,000

Rob Simmons (R-Conn)

$2,250

Mike Simpson (R-Idaho)

$1,000

Bob Smith (R-NH)

$9,160

Gordon H. Smith (R-Ore)

$12,000

Arlen Specter (R-Pa)

$6,000

Deborah Ann Stabenow (D-Mich)

$5,000

Pete Stark (D-Calif)

$1,000

Ted Stevens (R-Alaska)

$11,500

John Sullivan (R-Okla)

$2,000

John E. Sununu (R-NH)

$3,000

John E. Sweeney (R-NY)

$2,000

James M. Talent (R-Mo)

$3,000

Billy Tauzin (R-La)

$30,000

Billy Tauzin III (R-La)

$2,000

Charles H. Taylor (R-NC)

$25,750

Gene Taylor (D-Miss)

$2,250

Suzanne Terrell (R-La)

$6,000

Bill Thomas (R-Calif)

$6,500

Craig Thomas (R-Wyo)

$7,000

Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss)

$3,000

Mike Thompson (D-Calif)

$1,000

John Thune (R-SD)

$2,000

Patrick J. Tiberi (R-Ohio)

$2,000

Pat Toomey (R-Pa)

$1,000

Gloria Tristani (D-NM)

$1,000

Michael R. Turner (R-Ohio)

$1,000

John W. Warner (R-Va)

$1,000

Derrick B. Watchman (D-Ariz)

$1,000

Maxine Waters (D-Calif)

$2,000

J. C. Watts Jr. (R-Okla)

$2,500

Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif)

$1,000

Rick Weiland (D-SD)

$1,000

Curt Weldon (R-Pa)

$2,000

Jerry Weller (R-Ill)

$9,500

Paul Wellstone (D-Minn)

$1,000

Roger Wicker (R-Miss)

$21,600

Heather Wilson (R-NM)

$5,000

Joe Wilson (R-SC)

$5,000

Ron Wyden (D-Ore)

$1,000

C. W. Bill Young (R-Fla)

$1,000

Don Young (R-Alaska)

$19,708

Tom Young (R-Ala)

$500

Grand Total

$4,434,761

Because Sometimes, There's No Need to Comment

2006-01-13T06:50:00.000-06:00

From a news story:

BERLIN (AP) - The British, French and German foreign ministers said Thursday that negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program had reached a "dead end" and the Islamic republic should be referred to the U.N. Security Council.

The ministers did not specify what action should be taken by the Security Council, which could impose sanctions. They called for a special session of the International Atomic Energy Agency to decide the referral.

The action came two days after Iran broke U.N. seals at a uranium enrichment plant and said it was resuming nuclear research after a two-year freeze. . . .

"From our point of view, the time has come for the U.N. Security Council to become involved," German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said after meeting with his French and British counterparts and the European Union's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana. . . .

Steinmeier said the three countries would inform the board "that our talks with Iran have reached a dead end."

Solana said the EU and national governments were left with no choice but to call for Iran's referral. But he would not rule out a new round of negotiations with Tehran.

THE HOUSE OF SAUD MUST BE DESTROYED — AND WILL BE!

Editing As Lying, Again

2006-01-13T05:49:00.000-06:00

On March 10th, 1981, Wanda McCoy was raped and murdered in the town of Grundy, Virginia. Her brother-in-law, Roger Coleman, was convicted of the rape/murder in 1982. In 1992, as the countdown to his execution drew to a close, I read of his case in The New Republic (dead tree only, no link).

Coleman insisted he was innocent. He and his defenders insisted it was unlikely he could have committed the crime. Another man allegedly confessed to the crime, a man with a history of rape and violence. And Coleman refused to allow DNA testing that might have shown his innocence.

BINGO! As soon as I read that, I said to myself "He's guilty." Virginia went ahead and executed Coleman, who proclaimed his innocence to the last minute.

Just this month, the state of Virginia did a DNA test anyway. Care to take a wild guess as to what it showed?

But somehow, the fact that Coleman wouldn't allow a test that might have saved his life, that other physical evidence pointed to him, that he had been convicted of exposing himself to a woman, and convicted of attempted rape had no affect on those who proclaimed his innocence.

Well, it's over now, the results are in, and he was guilty. Remember this, the next time your sympathy is solicited for a convicted murderer under sentence of death: the reason people get convicted of crimes is usually because they're guilty. The MSM won't mention that when they try to get you to oppose the death penalty.

Technorati tags: Roger Coleman, Wanda McCoy.

THE HOUSE OF SAUD MUST BE DESTROYED — AND WILL BE!

The Alito Confirmation Hearings

2006-01-13T03:43:00.000-06:00

Summary:

Jeff Goldstein is on the job, capturing the essence of the wisdom of the world's greatest deliberative body:

Biden: “Now, my question, if you’ll indulge me for a moment, is this: If you could — that is to say, were the medical technology available, and were you to find the Constitution silent on the matter under the concept of enumerated powers — would you be averse to ruling in favor of a state statute — say, from Mississippi, or some other pitiable redneck backwater — that allows for an interested local government, by legislative fiat, to take control of a woman’s uterus?”

Alito: “I’m not sure I understand the question, Senator.”

Biden: “Take control of it. Take ownership. Have it physically removed from her body so that the municipality can monitor it for appropriate, Godly, reproductive use.”

Alito: “You mean...like what, exactly? Put it in a jar, or ...?”

Biden: “Consitutionally speaking, yes. Certainly. Or perhaps carry it around with them like tiny little uterus purses, ones that are roughly equivalent in size and function to the pouches of marsupials? Only, you know—appropriately decorative, with sequins and buckles and piping and the like.”

Alito: “Why on earth would I want to do that?”

Biden: “With all due respect, Judge, please don’t dodge the question. Will you or will you not allow hillbillies to take control of a woman’s uterus by removing it from her body and using it as a kind of mini-accesorized rucksack? A simple yes or no will do, sir!”

THE HOUSE OF SAUD MUST BE DESTROYED — AND WILL BE!

Protecting Our Civil Liberties

2006-01-13T03:01:00.000-06:00

Summary:

The New York Times has pushed this NSA blanket surveilance issue before, in the Clinton Administration, where it said:

“ Few dispute the necessity of a system like Echelon to apprehend foreign spies, drug traffickers and terrorists. . .

“ ... [an N.S.A. official assured the Times] that all Agency activities are conducted in accordance with the highest constitutional, legal and ethical standards.”

The story, by the way, was broken by an Australian television news show. But I'm sure NSA officials must have leaked to the Times too. And it goes without saying that they had a story in the works on this. They couldn't possibly let such intrusion into our rights go unmentioned, could they?

And isn't it good to know that the unbiased MSM covers these issues exactly the same way in Democratic and Republican Administrations?

And in other news, I now own the Brooklyn Bridge. I bought it from James Risen today. Got a really great deal on it too.

Hat tip: the guy who says "Heh" a lot.

Technorati Tags: Echelon, hypocrisy, MSM, New York Times, News bias, NSA, James Risen, Sabotage of the War Effort.

THE HOUSE OF SAUD MUST BE DESTROYED — AND WILL BE!

And More Washington Post Lying

2006-01-11T08:58:00.000-06:00

Just after putting up my previous post, I find out that the Washington Post has finally corrected some factual errors in its hit piece on Bill Roggio.

And in a perfect example of editing-as-lying, it fails to mention the principle criticism of the article: the implication that Bill Roggio was a paid flack for the U.S. military. (Roggio replies here.)

Yesterday I finished Six Days of War by Michael Oren, a history of the June, 1967 Arab-Israeli War. Two of the recurring themes are the way the Arab armies promoted people without regard for competence, and the habit of lying to superiors to please them. Then, when the war started, the Arabs were surprised at how badly their armies performed. Really, they were sincerely amazed.

The MSM pulls this crap, and we catch them at it easily with the 'Net at our disposal. And they wonder why we don't trust them. Really, they can't figure it out.

Technorati tags: "editing-as-lying", MSM,
Bill Roggio, Washington Post.

THE HOUSE OF SAUD MUST BE DESTROYED — AND WILL BE!

More MSM Lying

2006-01-11T06:28:00.000-06:00

Summary:

Powerline catches the Washington Post falsely claiming that:

A report by Congress's research arm concluded yesterday that the administration's justification for the warrantless eavesdropping authorized by President Bush conflicts with existing law and hinges on weak legal arguments.

The Post adds:

The administration's legal justification "does not seem to be . . . well-grounded," they said.

Only problem is, if you read the report, which is here, in PDF, you find that what it really said was:

Whether an NSA activity is permissible under the Fourth Amendment and the statutory scheme outlined above is impossible to determine without an understanding of the specific facts involved and the nature of the President's authorization, which are for the most part classified. . . .

Given such uncertainty, the Administration's legal justification, as presented in the summary analysis from the Office of Legislative Affairs, does not seem to be as well-grounded as the tenor of that letter suggests.

So was the NSA surveillance illegal? 'Definitely maybe,' answers the Congressional Research Service.

And the MSM wonder why we hold them in contempt. Really. They can't for the life of them figure it out.

Technorati tags: bias, lies, MSM, NSA, Washington Post.

THE HOUSE OF SAUD MUST BE DESTROYED — AND WILL BE!

Hypocrisy

2006-01-11T06:03:00.000-06:00

Summary:

I mentioned here that there was a report by Stephen F. Hayes that documents found in Baghdad showed Saddam had trained thousands of Islamofascist terrorists at three seperate training camps around Iraq.

Now, comes Jason van Steenwyk, who writes that the reason the MSM hasn't covered the story is because none of Hayes's eleven sources will go on the record, and Hayes hasn't published copies of the documents.

Yeah, we all know that when the MSM publishes, it never quotes anonymous sources, unless it has a copy of a document to back the story up. Why, otherwise, they might make a serious mistake.

Technorati tags: Stephen F. Hayes, Saddam Hussein, hypocrisy, Iraq, MSM, terrorism, Jason van Steenwyk.

THE HOUSE OF SAUD MUST BE DESTROYED — AND WILL BE!

Ralph Peters Column

2006-01-11T03:37:00.000-06:00

Summary:

Peters asks:

1) Has a single reader of this column suffered personally from our government's efforts to defend us against terrorists? Have any of your relatives or even your remotest acquaintances felt our intel system intrude into their lives?

That's what I always ask the group-think lefties. Not one has ever been able to answer "Yes."

Read it all, here or here.

Technorati tags: Democrats, intelligence, leaks, left wing, lies, MSM, Ralph Peters, treason.

THE HOUSE OF SAUD MUST BE DESTROYED — AND WILL BE!

Some Interesting Correspondence of Mine III

2006-01-08T10:46:00.000-06:00

Summary:

Protect Your HealthCare.Org doesn't follow through on its word.

At Length:

I have previously blogged about this new wrinkle in identity theft, in which people write to your Senators and Representative, pretending to be you, and pushing some cause or other.

The specific issue in my case was "Association Health Plans," which are opposed by "Protect Your Health Care.Org." This group said they were shocked, shocked, that anyone would do this, and they'd take steps about it. But I never heard from them again. So, the bottom line would seem to be that "Protect Your Health Care.Org" is run by liars.

I still don't know anything about "Association Health Plans," the things the group is fighting against. But if you have to tell lies to advance your political cause, the cause probably isn't a good one.

Meanwhile, remember, be careful who you trust over the Internet.

Technorati tags: Association Health Plans, fraud, health care, identity theft, lies, Protect Your Healthcare.Org.

THE HOUSE OF SAUD MUST BE DESTROYED — AND WILL BE!

Prof. of Religion Gets Surprising News

2006-01-08T07:24:00.000-06:00

Summary:

Iowa is predominately Christian.

At Length:

Drake University hired a New Yorker, Jennifer Harvey, to be a professor of Religion. To her great surprise:

Iowans and other Midwesterners are much more likely to link their patriotism and their religion than people on the east coast.

Her Chrisitian students take their religion seriously too:

"Even in my (Drake) classrooms where students are quite liberally inclined, they are looking for ways to make sense out of their stances or views on the war or same sex marriage through a Christian framework, many times," Harvey says.

By contrast, New Yorkers are uncomfortable with religion in patriotism:

American politicians often say "God Bless America" at the end of a speech, and Harvey says while that may seem perfectly normal to Midwesterners, it seems odd to people who live on the East Coast. . . . "and where I came from it was, you know, folks wished the (2004 Democratic presidential candidate John) Kerry would not put God's blessing on his speech, even if they were going to vote for him," Harvey says.

The things you learn online.

Technorati tags: Iowa, New York, patriotism, religion.

THE HOUSE OF SAUD MUST BE DESTROYED — AND WILL BE!

Saddam and Islamic Terrorism

2006-01-07T13:36:00.000-06:00

Summary:

Yet Another Connection, detailed here.

Technorati tags: Iraq, Islamofascism, Saddam Hussein, terrorism.

THE HOUSE OF SAUD MUST BE DESTROYED — AND WILL BE!