Good On Lantos!

clipped from blogs.dailymail.com The Dutch are threatening to remove their 1,600 troops from Afghanistan to protest Gitmo. Dutch politicians face growing problems with Islamic youths and likely fear a L’Intifada like France suffered in 2005. Peters said: “We have to close Guantanamo because it symbolizes for me everything that is wrong with this war on terror.” To which Lantos apparently replied: “Europe was not as outraged by Auschwitz as by Guantanamo Bay” He also said: “You have to help us, because if it was not for us you would now be a province of Nazi Germany.” Good for him. The Socialist Harry van Bommel said: “The comments killed the debate. It was insulting and counterproductive.” Excuse me, there is no debate. There never was.

Why Yes, I Have...

clipped from instapundit.com POL POT'S STRETCH LIMO for sale on eBay. Ever notice how the champions of the proletariat always have stretch limos?

The "Strictest Confidence"

clipped from instapundit.com Although the panel said it would not accept anonymous tips, it assured those who came forward that their identity would be held in the "strictest confidence." But in an email sent out today, the committee inadvertently sent the email addresses of all the would-be whistleblowers to everyone who had written in to the tipline. The committee email was sent to tipsters who had used the website form, including presumably whistleblowers themselves, and all of the recipients of the email were accidentally included in the "to:" field -- instead of concealing those addresses with a so-called blind carbon copy or "bcc: . . . Compounding the mistake, the committee later sent out a second email attempting to recall the original email; it, too, included all recipients in the "to:" field, according to a recipient of the emails. That's gonna make people want to come forward. Meanwhile, how about some remedial education in "how to use email" for the Judiciary staff?

I think the last congressional approval ratings were even below W's. This is in case you were wondering why...

Why Isn't Disbarment...

clipped from suitablyflip.blogs.com But the man is nothing if not bold. Disgraced political donor Norman Hsu wasn't hiding from anyone over the past few years, his lawyers say. If California authorities really wanted to find him, they could have asked Hillary Rodham Clinton or one of the other prominent Democrats he showered with cash donation. Hsu is asking a judge to toss his 15-year-old felony fraud conviction, arguing that his right to a speedy trial was violated because authorities weren't actively pursuing him. Yes, Hsu is arguing that his due process rights were trampled because he'd undertaken the life of a fugitive and the state wasn't holding up its end of the bargain by chasing him diligently enough.

... under consideration for any lawyer making such a fundamentally corrupt argument. Because our lawyers and our political class are inextricably intertwined -- and both fundamentally corrupt unfortunately.

HT Glenn.

Campus Fascisti Update

clipped from www.davidwarrenonline.com “I left the Middle East because there was no freedom of speech and now I am here and there is fascism,” Nonie Darwish shouted at the organized demonstrators trying to drown her out at Berkeley on Monday. Protected by a bodyguard, and with the help of campus police, who removed (but did not arrest) the most aggressive hecklers, she was nevertheless able to continue, against the background noise of the campus fascisti beating on the doors and walls outside the lecture hall. Mrs Darwish is the daughter of a famous Egyptian general, Mustafa Hafez, who was in charge of conducting terror raids into Israel from Gaza in the early 1950s. He was doing then, under the Nasser regime, what Hamas is doing today. His “total score” was 400 Jews killed, before he himself became the victim of Israel's first targeted assassination. At his state funeral, Gamal Abdul Nasser himself asked little Nonie and her siblings, “Which one of you will avenge your father's death by killing Jews?”

It's Official Now

clipped from www.liveleak.com Clinton's 50-minute speech, which started about an hour behind schedule, was derailed briefly by several hecklers in the audience who shouted that the 2001 terrorist attacks were a fraud. Rather than ignoring them, Clinton seemed to relish a direct confrontation. "A fraud? No, it wasn't a fraud," Clinton said, as the crowd cheered him on. "I'll be glad to talk to you if you shut up and let me talk." When another heckler shouted that the attacks were an "inside job," Clinton took even greater umbrage. "An inside job? How dare you. How dare you. It was not an inside job," Clinton said. "You guys have got to be careful, you're going to give Minnesota a bad reputation."

BJ is officially an "insider" with W on the 9/11 conspiracy.

Good Lord. Truthers -- they couldn't find the truth with both hands and a flashlight.

It's a stopped clock moment but don't say I never give credit even to the corrupt and manipulative when credit is due...

An Iraq Reality Update

clipped from www.strategypage.com The Shia Arabs proved more formidable than expected, and Shia death squads killed thousands of Sunni Arabs, often chosen at random. Al Qaeda showed that it could infuriate the Shia Arabs, but not defend Sunni Arabs against Shia retaliation. At first, growing Sunni Arab resistance to al Qaeda was met with terrorism. Sunni Arab leaders were kidnapped or killed by al Qaeda. That produced a growing number of Sunni Arabs that disliked al Qaeda, but was not organized well enough to resist the terrorists. This went on for over a year, until the U.S. Surge offensive began earlier this year. This put American troops into Sunni Arab communities, preventing al Qaeda from terrorizing the civilians. The Sunni Arabs then organized their own self-defense forces and pointed out the al Qaeda among them. Over the Summer, the al Qaeda organization was taken apart because of this cooperation.

In case you get your news from "journalists". I'll stop there.

And no, Iraq will never become a fairy tale. But I'm starting to believe their government will become more honest than ours.

Especially when I see our Porkmeisters berating Condi Rice about Iraqi corruption.

Pot. Kettle. Black.

The Corrupt And The Crazy

clipped from instapundit.com CONFESSIONS OF A former card-carrying Libertarian. I'm one of those, myself. Takeaway line: "From here, it looks as if the Republicans have become wrong and corrupt, the Democrats are stupid and corrupt, and the Libertarians have gone plain crazy."

Arrrrggghhhh

clipped from littlegreenfootballs.com

Plus Ca Change

clipped from www.guardian.co.uk Last question. Will health reform come first in your administration before the 2010 midterms or will you start smaller? A: It will be my highest prior as soon as I am inaugurated.

Vengeance

clipped from fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com After their departure, Qassemi went on to claim that Fidel Castro, the “supreme guide” of Guevara, was also a man of God. “The Soviet Union is gone,” he affirmed. “The leadership of the downtrodden has passed to our Islamic republic. Those who wish to destroy America must understand the reality and not be clever with words.” The deluded Guevara children are mistaken. Qassemi is correct. The sole remaining basis of Marxism from this point forward is no longer Dialectical Materialism. Not the Labor Theory of Value. Nor the principle of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. In fact nobody knows what any of these things means any longer except for some old codgers leafing through tattered volumes at the Revolution Bookstore. They are unimportant now. Nobody believes them any more. Nothing is important any longer but revenge -- vengeance for showing up all the lies in the 100 odd years in which Marxism tried to rule the world.

This And Nuclear Carbombs, Maybe...

clipped from fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com This article in the Weekly Standard (hat tip DD) describing the rehabilitation for former insurgents and how they are being redeployed as relatively functional persons is one more suggestion that politics is moving into the "post Iraq war" era. I use the phrase advisedly because combat in that country is likely to continue for some time. But as the diplomatic crisis between Iraq and Turkey over the Kurdish secessionists emphasizes, it is starting to become just another normal messed up Middle Eastern country with this crucial difference: it has gone through occupation, an abortive civil war and an ideological revolution all in about four years time. George H. Bush lost to Bill Clinton after winning Desert Storm and Winston Churchill to Clement Atlee two months after the surrender of Nazi Germany. Sometimes people react to the end of a crisis with a nostalgic yearning for their old messed-up lives. The crisis of course, never truly passes. It just changes form.

An Eye Opener From Kurtz

clipped from www.powerlineblog.com Stanley Kurtz gives a close reading to the Wall Street Journal column by Reps. Pete Hoekstra and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen on Israel's Syrian raid. Kurtz concludes: First, there is significant evidence of ongoing and recent North Korean involvement. Especially given the informed criticisms of Hoekstra and Ros-Lehtinen, apparent efforts by select administration sources to downplay North Korean involvement appear unconvincing. Second, especially in light of the informed concerns expressed by Hoekstra and Ros-Lehtinen, but also in light of press accounts, there is reason to fear significant Iranian involvement in Syria’s nuclear program, either as a facilitator, as a destination for North Korean nuclear material transiting Syria, or both. Third, there is at least some significant evidence for direct North Korean transfer of fissile material — perhaps even a nuclear warhead — to Syria and/or Iran.

Click through and RTWT.

Warming Wolves

clipped from www.opinionjournal.com Some colleagues who share some of my doubts argue that the only way to get our society to change is to frighten people with the possibility of a catastrophe, and that therefore it is all right and even necessary for scientists to exaggerate. They tell me that my belief in open and honest assessment is naïve. "Wolves deceive their prey, don't they?" one said to me recently. Therefore, biologically, he said, we are justified in exaggerating to get society to change. The climate modelers who developed the computer programs that are being used to forecast climate change used to readily admit that the models were crude and not very realistic, but were the best that could be done with available computers and programming methods. Oddly, the forecasts of computer models have become our new reality, while facts such as the few extinctions of the past 2.5 million years are pushed aside, as if they were not our reality.

If Only It Were Poppycock

clipped from www.michaelyon-online.com KABUL The top U.S. general in Afghanistan said yesterday he estimated that Afghanistan’s rampant opium poppy cultivation was funding up to 40 percent of the Taliban-led insurgency.

The Pakistan Front Finally Begins?

clipped from www.captainsquartersblog.com Karachi police chief Azhar Farooqi told Dawn News that Bhutto was rushed from the area under emergency plans prepared ahead of her return. The specially-designed truck ferrying her in Karachi apparently saved her life. The Taliban and al-Qaeda threatened to kill her if she returned. She has openly supported the American-led war on terror, and has even suggested that the Americans cross the border into Waziristan to assist Pakistan in wiping out the Islamists. They know that her return and pending alliance with Pervez Musharraf puts them at a strong disadvantage in Pakistan, where they had hoped to prevail politically. Instead, Musharraf appears ready to declare total war on the Islamists, according to the normally reliable Asia Times (via Rick Moran): An all-out battle for control of Pakistan's restive North and South Waziristan is about to commence between the Pakistani military and the Taliban and al-Qaeda adherents who have made these tribal areas their own.

The Difference

clipped from www.captainsquartersblog.com The conservative thinks of a free-market way of raising private funds to aid a worthwhile causes and backs his commitment with his own money. The liberal asks other people to donate funds, doesn't donate any of his own money, and tries to take credit for the generosity of others.

Resigned To Apocalypse

clipped from www.captainsquartersblog.com Top Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani has resigned from the government, effective immediately. Larijani apparently had significant differences with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on strategy in dealing with the West, and his departure might signal a split in Teheran that could mean trouble for the mullahcracy and their diminutive mouthpiece: The resignation allows the mullahs to promote deputy foreign minister Saeed Jalili in his place. Jalili is known to be a closer associate of Ayatollah Ali Khameini, which indicates that the mullahs want a tighter grip on the strategy of confrontation. It signals a hardening of position on the part of the Iranians and a move away from engagement. This could cause them more problems domestically, however. It also clarifies the situation for the West. The Iranians have no interest in negotiations or compromises. They want their nuclear weapons, and will not brook any interference with acquiring them.