Maybe We Need To Keep The Trapdoors ...

for the Demo donkey when it dies. Via Rantburg comes some Baghdad insights:

Some learning will need to take place among the population. The old Iraqi sewage system used large trap doors instead of manholes. When one Iraqi saw a new US-sized manhole, he protested. They are too small. How, he wondered, would he fit his donkey down them when it died? (That tells you something about the state of the sewer system in Baghdad under Saddam.)

A quick and worthwhile read. Go. Now.

Suddenly Within Reach?

Strategy Page provides a perspective update:

March 30, 2005: For most of March, enemy attacks have been running at less than half the level of the past few months. Attacks have not been this infrequent since last April. It is believed that the attacks are fewer because of poor morale among the attackers, and the loss of many terrorist and Sunni Arab leaders. The anti-government forces never really recovered from the beating they took in Fallujah last November. While most of the enemy leaders got out of Fallujah and set up shop in other Sunni Arab cities, the failed effort to stop the January 30th vote exposed many of the surviving terrorist groups to attack by Iraqi and coalition forces. The terrorists also suffered from the increasingly bad reputation they were getting. When the “resistance” began 18 months ago, it was pitched as a “popular uprising” against “foreign occupation.” But the foreign troops proved to be deadly opponents, and they were aided by a growing number of Iraqi police and troops. In fact, the Iraqi government forces were seen as a deadlier enemy to terrorists and anti-government gunmen. An Iraqi cop could more quickly identify who was bad, or hiding guns, or bomb making equipment. So the terrorist increasingly turned their guns on Iraqis. Over the last six months, the anti-government efforts turned increasingly into brutal terrorism against Iraqi “collaborators.” Recently, the terrorists have been releasing more video tapes of Iraqis, or foreign civilians (particularly Arabs or Turks), working for the government or coalition forces. But pure terror often doesn’t work, and tends to backfire. It’s backfiring now, and the terrorists are trying to come up with a new tactic. There aren’t many options. Iraqis have gotten numb to all the suicide bombings and assassinations. Moreover, people have more to fear from criminal kidnappings (there are several hundred a month), robbery, hijacking and burglary. Foreign terrorists are in greater danger than ever before, with more Iraqis willing to turn them into the growing number of Iraqi police. In more cases, Iraqis are taking the law into their own hands, and killing foreigners, or Iraqis, suspected of terrorist, or criminal, activity.

The war isn’t over by any means. As terrorists and anti-government gangs fade, Iraqis have to deal with the always larger number of criminal gangs, and the long tradition of government corruption. In the West, we take “law and order” for granted, but in Iraq, that sort of thing is seen as an impossible dream that is suddenly within reach.

And read the preceding March 28 entry for a real eye-opener...

(Remember residues? The Tinfoil Apocalypse dictates that no more escapism is allowed.)

Democrat Patriotism Watch

This is how my Democrat neighbor flies his flag:



I kid you not.

In fact I look straight at it out my front door every day and it's been this way for months now.

I've now developed a sort of morbid fascination as to how long this will go on.

Did I mention that he never lights it and never takes it down? You could have guessed the latter of course...

Happy Easter!

"I don't give a hoot about the school's uniform guidelines."

"Seven Faces and No Name"

MSMemory Hole Watch

"How many American newspapers do you think will carry this story tomorrow?"

Or this one? (via Glenn)

And never mind hearing about this one ESPECIALLY. After all, the Iranians just love their brutal thugs...

TigerHawk To The Blogroll

Laser-like posts such as this:

As much as I believe that the world would be better off if Israel would define its borders clearly and settle up with the Palestinian Arabs, I have very little sympathy for Palestinian Arabs. They sided with our enemies, or the enemies of our allies, in every war since the beginning of the 20th century. They sided with the Ottomon Turks during World War I, their primary religious leader was a Nazi ally during World War II, they supported the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and they were just about Saddam's only friend during the Gulf War. They publicly cheered on September 11. Even if you don't like Israel, it is hard to think of the Palestinian Arabs as anything other than America's enemies. Indeed, their hostility to the United States long ante-dates American support for Israel, which did not begin in any meaningful way until 1967.

This photograph is a useful reminder of that fascist history. According to the A.P., this picture is of "[m]ilitants of the Palestinian ruling Fatah party salute during a pre-election rally for the students council at the Al-Quds university in the West Bank town of Hebron Monday March 21, 2005." Who in today's world would adopt such a salute if they did not want to honor Hitler's legions? [My emphasis]

Get you on the blogroll in these parts.

These are the real Fascists that our home-grown fascifists support. We have somehow managed to turn the arts and humanities faculties our campuses and social research institutions into mental hospitals for those with low emotional intelligence and dysfunctional analytical and social skills.

For the fascifists it's all about raising themselves up by tearing others down. That would be Bush (it was Reagan previously in case you had forgotten), America and Israel of course...

"I surely missed something, but it seems like some young people are missing even more."

"BTW, did you notice that a four-star general is blogging?"

OUCH. Me Neocon.

No news is good news!

A Portrait Of The Preening

"The great advantage that conservatives have over liberals is that we are bilingual. We can speak our language and we also know theirs. They however even now still don’t know ours and cannot be bothered to learn."

"It was a dictum in Field Marshal Zhukov's Army that a good commander never reinforced failure only success. It is a maxim of the United Nations that progress is achieved by doing everything that never worked all over again."

I Didn't Decide To Write This Post

Now this is a good way to start a post: "The Nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools." - Thucydides

And this post ain't bad either. Does the left believe in free will? Well, I would say they're the only candidate pool for that sort of idiocy -- how many Christians do you know who don't??? (via Glenn)

The Game

Power Line points out that Steyn has a bead on Bush's new game:

Most of the American media are equally stunned [by the appointment of Bolton as the spokesmen of "the international community" are]. The New York Times wondered what Bush's next appointment would be:

"Donald Rumsfeld to negotiate a new set of Geneva conventions? Martha Stewart to run the Securities and Exchange Commission?"

OK, I get the hang of this game. Sending Bolton to be U.N. ambassador is like...putting Sudan and Zimbabwe on the Human Rights Commission. Or letting Saddam's Iraq chair the U.N. Conference on Disarmament. Or sending a bunch of child-sex fiends to man U.N. operations in the Congo. And the Central African Republic. And Sierra Leone, and Burundi, Liberia, Haiti, Kosovo, and pretty much everywhere else.

Ummm ... yup. RTWT and be sure to click thru to Steyn.

The alarming future of Eurabia...

Blogger is a mess. I'm equally unhappy and having similar and worse problems. My apologies -- I will start looking elsewhere soon...

Today's Best (Obvious) Comment

"There are nuts who would argue against gravity, but I wouldn't put them on TV."

It's actually quite a commentary on our times that today's best comment is another resounding "restatement of the obvious". (Look up at the masthead.)

For the rest of you who actually understand the horror of Auschwitz, a little fact to remind you of what real hell consists of: if 10 Jews represented the Jewish population of Poland before the war, there would only be 1 alive at the end. Three MILLION dead out of approximately 3.3 million!

Did I mention that Holocaust deniers are the scum of the earth?

"What's all this about "looting"?" (via Charles)

"Also, while a sane world would not employ 5-foot-tall grandmothers as law enforcement officers, a sane world would also not give full body-cavity searches to 5-foot-tall grandmothers at airports."

Anti-Fascifists Pictured

Seen here (via Glenn):

He looked round the canteen again. Nearly everyone was ugly, and would still have been ugly even if dressed otherwise than in the uniform blue overalls. On the far side of the room, sitting at a table alone, a small, curiously beetle-like man was drinking a cup of coffee, his little eyes darting suspicious glances from side to side. How easy it was, thought Winston, if you did not look about you, to believe that the physical type set up by the Party as an ideal — tall muscular youths and deep-bosomed maidens, blond-haired, vital, sunburnt, carefree — existed and even predominated. Actually, so far as he could judge, the majority of people in Airstrip One were small, dark, and ill-favoured. It was curious how that beetle-like type proliferated in the Ministries: little dumpy men, growing stout very early in life, with short legs, swift scuttling movements, and fat inscrutable faces with very small eyes. It was the type that seemed to flourish best under the dominion of the Party.

The man who understood fascifism would understand today's events effortlessly. And he would spit with glee on the fascifists...

"Is it because many of these Leftist organizations are remnants of totalitarian European socialism?"

"Universities not in the business of asking these these questions are arguably not institutions of higher learning at all."

MUST READ: Hugh interviews Claudia Rosett who's now in Lebanon covering the protests.

So Let Me See...

The Comma,ists think that this:



and this:



is a perfectly rational alternative to this:



What the h*ll are they thinking???!!!

There are only two rational explanations for this: they're either completely brain dead or simply on the other side.

In conclusion, here's a reminder of what side I'm on:



UPDATE: And even Slate is on to the fact that they're out to topple an EVIL MORON. But they forget that it's a "package deal" with the complete lunatics responsible for the first picture in this post! Did I forget to mention that this is what the ex-president of the oh-so-rational "Republic" of Iran said in public:

"If a day comes when the world of Islam is duly equipped with the arms Israel has in possession, the strategy of colonialism would face a stalemate because application of an atomic bomb would not leave any thing in Israel but the same thing would just produce damages in the Muslim world", Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani told the crowd at the traditional Friday prayers in Tehran.

"It seems that Mr. Hashemi-Rafsanjani is forgetting that due to the present intertwinement of Israel and Palestine, the destruction of the Jewish State would also means the mass killing of Palestinian population as well", observed one Iranian commentator.

Just what part of Cuckoo don't the Comma,ists understand? I submit that to defend this modern reincarnation of Hitler you must be of the same mind yourself. Hence the Goebbels cribbed strategy of projecting what you are on to your enemies.

And THANK GOD Bush IS their enemy. Include me in.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Totten gets it and raises me a bunch...

Brother Fidel medicates his people. Or is that electrocutes them? Just how stupid do you have to be to believe the utter garbage that Fidel dishes out???

Welcome to the Wa-Po Daily. It was bound to happen...

All You Need To Know About North Korea

It is a black hole as seen from space at night:



Even China (look left, Japan is to the right) looks like a comparative paradise.

Of course our Dhimmi-environmental-wackos will argue that it's just proof of how environmentally aware they are.

That's true -- if you believe it's environmentally aware to make the populace eat maggots...

Today's Cuckoo Watch

Well of course these people deserve nukes -- and what better proof could we have of their rationality? I'm sure that when they get in a knock-down drag-out the hijabs will come off exposing Wonder-Woman-like regalia...

And then there's these gentlemen neanderthal thugs...

Wack-ademic Update: On "sh*tcanning 3500 hundred years of human moral development." This from a "top 5" philosophy program. Churchill was just the warm-up as is now apparent...

QandO has all you need to know about the left and their rabid opposition to Social Security reform: "I'd love to give you all that money back in a tax cut, if I thought you'd spend it properly."

And then there's all the plagiarism of Chomsky...

Here a bribe, there a bribe, pretty soon there would be no more sanctions.

But Not For Thee

Have you signed yet? And Glenn is a MUST READ on this.

Three times two ridiculous.

More apocalypse sightings.

Ghandi Down The Memory Hole?

It's not bloody so it's not news. Really.

The real next test in this drama will be in the upcoming Lebanese elections. The forces of democracy have disarmed and Hezbollah has not.

I suspect our forces will have to "accidentally" take out Syria to get over and help the Christians/ Druze/ Shiites when Hezbollah lunatic thugs come unhinged as they certainly will.

Then we'll see how the Iranian people react when they see we're serious about supporting them...

Judges Judging Against Judges

I've often commented in conversation on how sheer stupidity is self correcting. Michelle has how it applies in the case of liberal judges:

[T]he California Supreme Court issued an opinion in 2002 that sent ripples through the legal community. They ruled it was a violation of a defendant's rights to have him fitted with a shock belt as a security measure.
The case sent shockwaves through the system, and has had a chilling effect
on the use of stun belts which would have stopped the carnage in Georgia
today.

One judge dissented: George W. Bush nominee Janice Rogers Brown. Here's what she said:

"We are a court of review. The question for review here was whether the judgment of conviction must be overturned because defendant was required to
wear a stun belt, and the answer is, we should have affirmed the judgment
because no prejudice was shown. Full stop. The question in this case was not
whether stun belts pose serious medical risks for persons with heart
problems or other medical conditions, nor was it whether the current design
of the stun belt could be improved upon. There is absolutely no evidence in
the record bearing on these questions. In the absence of such evidence, we
had two choices. We could have deferred to the Legislature, which can make
law after hearing from distinguished experts on all sides of controversial
issues. Or we could have waited for a case that raised these questions on an
adequate record.

Instead, the majority, rushing to judgment after conducting an embarrassing
Google.com search for information outside the record, has tied the hands of
the Legislature, to the likely peril of judges, bailiffs, and ordinary
citizens called upon to do their civic duty."

Preiscent, no?

Let me make this clear: No matter what their ideology, threatening or harming a judge in any way ABSOLUTELY MAKES MY BLOOD BOIL -- whether in the U.S. or Iraq. But I'm guessing that the new Iraqi judges wouldn't spend a nanosecond contemplating the -- literally -- suicidal horsepucky that Judge Brown tried to stop.

And is now reaping a terrible harvest.

LOL

QOTD

"If you can read this, thank a teacher. If it's in English, thank a soldier." Donald strikes again...

Ugghhh

Sorry to any of you who viewed the site in the last few days and saw lots of duplicate posts! Needless to say, Blogger was out to lunch and frustrating the bejeebers out of me. All better now anyway...

Can You Say Ethnic Cleansing?

Via Normblog:

There once was a vibrant presence of nearly 1 million Jews residing in 10 Arab countries. Our Middle Eastern Jewish culture existed long before the Arab world dominated and rewrote the history of the Middle East. Today, however, fewer than 12,000 Jews remain in these lands -- almost none in Iraq.

What happened to us, the indigenous Jews of the Arab world? Why were 150, 000 Iraqi Jews -- my family included -- forced out of Iraq? Why were an additional 800,000 Jews from nine other Arab countries also compelled to leave after 1948?

When the world of the 1930s and '40s was divided between the democratic Allies and the Fascist Axis, Arab nationalists in Iraq and Palestine chose to form an alliance with Nazi Germany. The father of Palestinian nationalism and the mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, began his close collaboration with Nazi Germany in the mid-1930s.

The British put out an arrest warrant for the pro-Nazi Palestinian leader, but he escaped when war broke out in Europe in the spring of 1939. Later that year, he arrived in Baghdad and linked up with pro-Nazi Iraqi nationalist Rashid Ali al-Gaylani. In 1941 al-Husseini and al-Gaylani engineered a pro- German coup against the pro-British Iraqi government, which brought a reign of terror to Iraq's Jews. This culminated in what we remember as the Farhud, an Arabic word akin to "pogrom."

In a two-day period Arab mobs went on a rampage in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq, murdering, raping and pillaging these cities' Jewish communities. Nearly 200 Jews were killed, more than 2,000 injured; some 900 Jewish homes were destroyed and looted, as were hundreds of Jewish-owned shops. My father was a survivor of the carnage. He hid in a hole dug in the ground to save his life. He saw Iraqi soldiers pull small children away from their parents and rip the arms off young girls to steal their bracelets. He saw pregnant women being raped and their stomachs cut open.

Britain eventually regained control, but al-Husseini and other Palestinian nationalists had already fled to Berlin where they became honored guests of the Nazi state. Hitler told a grateful al-Husseini that "Germany's only remaining objective in the [Middle East] would be limited to the annihilation of the Jews living under British protection in Arab lands."

Later, in a speech over Radio Berlin's Arabic Service, al-Husseini voiced support for the Nazis' "Final Solution" and became the first Arab leader to call openly for the expulsion of Jews from Arab lands -- some eight years before there was a single Palestinian refugee.

Even though Hitler lost the war, al-Husseini's call was heeded. In 1948, Iraq rounded up and imprisoned hundreds of Jews. Others were removed from their jobs in the civil service, business licenses of Jews were revoked, and quotas were placed on Jewish high school and college students. Later, discriminatory restrictions were imposed on Jewish travel abroad and the buying or selling of property. Thus, even if Jews wanted to escape Iraq, they could not do so legally, and they could not liquidate their assets.

In 1950, the Iraqi parliament passed a law called Ordinance for the Cancellation of Iraqi Nationality for Jews, Law No. 1 that stripped Iraqi Jews of their citizenship. In 1951, the Iraqi parliament passed another law, confiscating all Jewish property. Within a year, most of Iraq's ancient Jewish population, my family included, fled to Israel.

Why haven't you bought "Why The Jews?" yet?

Craven Cuckoo Commie Commentary

By way of LGF a soldier points out the insanity of the whole Sgrena scenario:

My son, who is home from Baghdad on for two weeks R&R, was mad as hell about the reports that Sgrena claimed US troops intentionally tried to kill her. He told me that his platoon (and, presumably hundreds or thousands of other US troops) spent considerable time searching for her, trying to find and release her. Each time he and his troops stop a car or enter a building they put their lives at risk. They did this — putting themselves at risk — following orders to try to find and rescue her, not to kill her. If US troops were trying to kill her instead of rescue her, it hardly could have been kept a secret, since all hundreds or thousands of troops searching would have to have received similar orders. At the risk of stating the obvious, it would have been pointless to give orders to one roadblock team to shoot her if everyone else had orders to find and rescue her. What nonsense!

The Americans who lend aid and comfort to the people floating these conspiracy theories should not be tolerated when they next claim to “support the troops.”

Du-oh!

And never mind her story about picking bullets out of the car's interior -- the exterior of which having no more than a handful of bullet holes at BEST.

Oh. And it was speeding crazily -- but slowly so it wouldn't be shot at passing the checkpoint.

Cuckoo. And then some.

UPDATE: Tinfoil hats for the tinfoil apocalypse...

Iraq The Model

Has some comments worth considering on Lebanon. (via Glenn)

"The absence of a single Arab president or king at the funeral of Hariri, a man whom every Arab leader knew personally, is telling."

Hallucinations and (The Wrong Kind Of) Paranoia Italian Style

Sgrena via "Pravda". You won't be surprised. (Hat tip Roger)

AND: No wonder we're losing the war -- part deux.

Hateful Idiots Devastated

Check this out from Eugene:

Anti-Semite Forum Posting Pictures of Allegedly Jewish UCLA Faculty Members:

So far here, here, here, and here. I must admit that I was the proximate cause of this: I was quoted (though somewhat incompletely) in an article about white supremacist groups and free speech in the wake of the murders of Judge Lefkow's husband and mother; a white supremacist e-mailed me, and let's just say that I wasn't overly friendly to him. I regret that this has gotten my colleagues involved in all this, but this is America and I'm not going to be nice to Nazis to try to get them to go away.

So, yeah, we're Jews. Yeah, we're overrepresented on university faculties, in law and medicine, in the Senate, on the Supreme Court. Speaking of Nazis, we were overrepresented on the Manhattan Project, too.

The most powerful country in the world, America, is one of the ones that has been most open to Jews. Look at the most anti-Semitic countries in recent history: Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, the Arab world. Right up there at the forefront of civilization and power, aren't they? Is it all the workings of The Conspiracy? Or is it just that the sorts of idiots who hate Jews do other idiotic things, too?

Perfect.

I just finished reading Prager and Telushkin's "Why The Jews?" so this just hit me in the solar plexus.

Get the book and read it. It's integral to the apocalypse...

Glenn on "anti-American protest that was allowed by the Americans."

McCarthyism for thee but not for me -- Betsy Hoffman...

And not an SUV in sight.

"Michael Moore could not withstand Michael Moore's scrutiny for more than 15 seconds."

Clinton cuckoo about the moolahs? Sure looks that way to me. Is there something in the water that Southern Dhimmicrats drink?

Klux Little Byrdie

And even if you avert your eyes from the Klan, any serious Byrd watcher isn't really looking if they don't see this:

However, Steven Taylor has done some research which indicates that I shouldn't feel quite so sorry for those poor, oppressed Democrats. As it turns out, Senator "Not in the Senate, you don't!" Byrd was the Majority Whip in 1975, when a bill was introduced to reduce "the number of votes required for cloture from two-thirds (67) to three-fifths (60) of the 100-member Senate". A fact that he left unmentioned when he took the floor of the Senate to rail against "men with motives and a majority [who] can manipulate law to cruel and unjust ends".

Oh, and while he was speaking out against "pernicious, procedural maneuver to serve immediate partisan goals", he also neglected to mention that he'd previously been of the opinion that "Congress is not obliged to be bound by the dead hand of the past", and—approvingly—that "rules have been changed from time to time".

What's more, he also neglected to mention that the originator of the 1975 bill to amend the cloture rules was.....er, Senator Robert Byrd.

I'm sorry folks but I've about had enough of this horsepucky twice over...

Nazi Israelis?

They're getting quite good with their disguises don't you think?

Frenchies Encore

Heure de choisir le côté de gain?

Et seulement six heures?

Recherche!

With a tag line like this blog's, how could I not point to this post? Roger is rollin' today...

Ummm -- That Would Be The Strategy Behind The Strategery...

Roger points out this analysis of Friedman:

The most important mystery about the war concerns the Bush administration. In some ways, we find the other players much easier to understand than Bush. The administration has been portrayed as strategically simplistic and politically adroit and opportunistic. In fact, the exact opposite seems to be the case, from our point of view.

Strategically, the United States appears to have a well thought-out approach that makes the most of a very weak hand. The trend lines are satisfactory, particularly considering where they started. We suspect that very few people on September 12, 2001, would have thought that the situation would be as well contained today as it is. Apart from a low but tolerable level of violence in Iraq, the broader war has evolved very much in favor of the United States. This is partly due to the nature of the war and partly due to the strategic and operational choices made by the administration.

Politically, the administration has acted with massive incompetence. Its failure to give a plausible defense to a policy that can certainly be defended is amazing. Instead, the administration has stumbled through a series of untenable and incoherent justifications for its actions until the political foundations of its war plans have been undermined. From WMD to democratizing Iraq, the administration has constantly undermined its own credibility.

GO. READ. NOW!

What's that? You think I'd point you to the NYeT's Friedman with this pointy an arrow.

That would be a NYeT of course...

Some Brownish Sarcasm

Don't they understand that they are under the thumb of Karl Rove??? This is of course why the libs didn't want to liberate all those stupid brown skinned people in the Middle East -- why they'd be so stupid as to not wash the libs feet!

And just look at this for heaven's sake! The oh so haughty libs are cheering for the nutball mutilating himself with a knife and his buddies . I'm cheering for everyone else you see pictured.

But I'm the ogre and don't you forget it!

And then I have the misfortune to catch some of the Black Summit on CSPAN recently. No Thomas Sowell. No Condi. No Colin. No Thomas. No Walter Williams. No, no, no, no ... grey matter in the room whatsoever!

The libs have enslaved the blacks in this country through a vile and hateful brainwashing campaign. And they fully support what has been done by the oil ticks / Islamofascists to enslave their folks.

Is there any wonder for all the sputtering, hateful expletives hurled at the diverse leadership of Lincoln's party for working to free MORE slaves?

And Bobby "Ku Klux" Byrd is their rotweiler. Why should THAT be a surprise? After all, anyone can be rehabilitated according to the libs.

Just not me, of course...

No wonder we're "losing" -- being such lousy shots and all...

It would appear that the ambulance chasers in England are part of the Tory coalition???

Today's Scare Quotes

Notice that "free-slave" is in scare quotes. The BBC makes me want to puke a river.

It's where NorKorCom dhimmi Demick cribbed her trade from...

Strategy Page: The Price Is Right

Strategy Page strikes again:

March 5, 2005: American troops often get the feeling they are in the middle of the ultimate gang war. Most of the Iraqi gangs are strictly about crime. Often, the crime is extortion and kidnapping, two techniques also used by the terrorists trying to bring the government down. The terrorists demand that people not work for the government (including providing information), or else. The gangsters demand money, and not to call the police, or else. When foreigners are kidnapped, the first thing you have to figure out is whether the victim was grabbed for ransom, or for political reasons. Increasingly, it's always for money, with politics often used in an effort to throw off the police investigation. The criminal and political gangs frequently work together, and the gangsters will help out with the terrorism, if the price is right.

...

In the past, Americans would pick up everyone in the vicinity of a raid. But Iraqi cops conduct, or are along, on most raids now, and they are able to spot the innocents, and leave them alone. Arrested Iraqis are in despair if Americans haul them off to prison, because the American guards cannot be bribed, although there are constant attempts. American prison officials are wondering how long it will be until Iraqi corruption taints American soldiers.

Of course, it's well known that prison guards in the U.S. often develop myriad behavior problems if not corruption. The left would think you dim enough to use that as justification to free the thugs -- in both Iraq and the U.S. of course.

You, on the other hand, know you don't want your son or daughter killed and are willing to spend the money on the prison guards. And both you and the prison guards are willing to make the deal.

Nuff said.

Hugh has the definitive diss of dhimmi Demick. Definitely deserved.

Help the Captain! I will be later today. Time for Tea Party II, I'm afraid.

"After all, how do we know for sure this blog isn't written on a typewriter?" Ra^ther to Pyongyang -- I'll pay for the ticket.

Do not watch that hand!

Salamabit!

Imagine a 1938 Los Angeles Times piece, "Germany, Without the Rancor": "There is love among the Nazis. There is hate. There is fighting. There is charity....People marry. They divorce. They make blond children..." Yes. Definitely time to institute the Duranty prize. And no question as to the first recipient either...

UPDATE: And don't miss Power Line's fisk!

OK, HOW COULD I FORGET THIS?

"Duane,

Following up on our conversation earlier this afternoon, here's our position regarding today's North Korea article:

Today's article was not intended to be a comprehensive look at life in North Korea today, or a broad report on the history of the country. As the article said, it was the view of one person close to the government of North Korea -- a "rare insight into the view from the other side of the geopolitical divide." The man had been a diplomat. He was trying to solicit foreign investment, although he said it was his personal view.

The Times has published as well the perspectives on the history, the living conditions, the point of view of the U.S. government and general Western view of North Korea. However, for obvious reasons, reporters cannot get to North Korea and rarely speak with official or elite North Koreans. That's why today's story sought to capture a point of view for readers that The Times is not normally able to present in regular coverage.

Regards,
David

Director, Media Relations
Los Angeles Times "

This astonishing bit of clap-trap does not even attempt to answer why the paper would carry this piece without any context about the regime --context that is not debatable. It is as though Murrow or Shirer were reporting on German repression of the Jews in 1938, but only parroting Goebbels' line.

Here's Why Should Just Go To Glenn's Today

Nuttier than a Ku Klux Clock.

And did you know I'm headed for prison?

McCain and Feingold have managed to foster real bipartisanship -- they've gotten liberal and conservative bloggers alike to detest them. Jerome Armstrong at MyDD, Atrios, and DailyKos all agree -- this legislation has become a serious threat to political speech, and John McCain and Russ Feingold have become two of the most dangerous politicians to American liberty since Huey Long. Jerome makes the point that the problem at the moment are the three Democratic FEC commissioners who appear intent on enforcing the law as McCain and Feingold insist, but both parties had a hand in creating this fiasco.

And Kos and I will be cellmates in the new gulag? Who'd a thunk it???

"All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?" (Hat tip Glenn)

Hold that missile bacon, eh?

Ever Wonder?

Have you ever wondered why libs are still frothing at the mouth about how Saddam was "getting better" and was "no threat" to the world? Never mind gassing the Kurds and the Iranians. [Oops -- flush that reference to the Iranians down the memory hole pronto! Evil. Mullahs. Good. There. All gone.]

As I was saying, those Kurds were some nasty people and had it coming!



Anyway, since the libs don't believe in either grace or actually exerting themselves to achieve good works, they roll up a synthetic substitute of effortless rehabilitation.

Anyone can get better they tell you.



After all, they will need their own doctrine to forgive themselves for what they have been doing to the world lately...

This Could Be Unbelievable!

It's scary for Democrats, I have to say.

And then be absolutely sure to scroll down to read about Ted Kennedy's Klansman soulmate in the memory (hole) department. Makes me want to change my first name...

Never mind the Ten Commandments. Holy. Freakin. Sh*t.

Apocalypse MSM: NYeT.

Why The Left Hates The Military: A Comment

Found on MJT's blog:

The left hates the military because it is made up of young people, many of whom are women and minorites, that for the most part come from lower income families. That's their demographic! But these people are different. They have the nerve to take responsibility for their lives, rather than rail against "the man", wrap themselves in vicim-hood status and sue for equality through watever legislation that can be packaged as "levelling the playing field" or "giving a leg up".

What's even more perplexing to the left is that many in the military really love their country. I'm talking about real pride here, not the "I support the troops, but" category that is the best most on the left can do. Benjamin from yesterday illustrates this. MJT posts some nice pictures from PR, and all Ben can do is run off to dig up whatever dirt he thinks casts America in a bad light. Typical and disgusting.

Yessum massa lefties...

W's trust is working...

Sleeping Too Many Times

Just caught Richard Miniter on Hannity and Colmes saying a congress-critter had told him the FBI said it had broken up / interrupted 106(!!!) sleeper terror cells in the U.S. in the last 3 years!!!

Can you say nearly one a week?

I thought you couldn't.

Wait. I have an idea! Let's spend all our energy making sure that we don't introduce any uncertainty in terrorists about whether we'll be nice to them. Why hasn't anyone thought of that yet?

I love the ACLU. Not.

199 Cuckoo clocks on the wall...

A Comment On "Democracy At The Point Of A Gun"

Comment caught on CQ:

Those same people that made "democracy at the point of a gun" statement always overlooked the fact that the dictators were keeping democracy out at gunpoint. I doubt they didn't realize it, they just didn't want to mention it because it showed how much they truly hate the freedom we have. They know that free people will never willingly give in to the socialism they crave and firmly believe that they will be part of the ruling elite of if they can ever force it on us. It has to really bother them when they realize the only way they'll ever impose it on us is at that proverbial gunpoint., not that it will ever stop them if they think they have a chance of getting by with it.

Well, yeah.

Preview: The Paranoid Roots Of The Apocalypse

Deacon and Dr. Sanity (see here also) have some comments on paranoia today. Sound familiar?

Dr. Sanity has the better of the scrimmage:

The Paranoid solution to unacceptable thoughts or feelings is to say, "If I am having these bad thoughts or feeling or behaviors, then someone else must be to blame and is making me do it." The Paranoid person does not take responsibility for his own thoughts or feelings or behaviors.

The healthy individual's solution is to take responsibility for his or her thoughts,feelings, and behaviors. Even if it is painful to acknowledge. But by owning his or her feelings, the healthy individual is able to exert control over inappropriate behavior that might spring from those feelings.

Another way of saying this is that you cannot choose the feelings that you experience- emotions are not generally under conscious control; but you can choose how to act on those feelings, because behavior is under conscious control.

Paranoia strikes deep. It will creep into your heart when you are afraid of your own feelings and try to disown them by blaming the "Jews", the "Blacks", or "Gays" or even President Bush. History has been littered with millions of dead bodies resulting from the denial, distortion and projection of paranoid leaders like Hitler,Stalin, Hussein, and Bin Laden. But those people had followers who believed just as they did, and did most of their dirty work.

You have to stop, look and see what's going down in your own heart if you want to understand how such evil can exist.

[My emphasis in red, bolding in the original by Dr. Sanity.]

Here my friends is food for thought that strikes at the heart of the apocalypse. Ponder it for I will have more to say -- but you should be able to put the pieces together for yourself in advance now...

Leo Circles Ward ...

... like this:

For a stark vision of what cultural liberalism has come to, consider the breakdown of the universities, the fortresses of the 1960s cultural liberals and their progeny. Students are taught that objective judgments are impossible. All knowledge is compromised by issues of power and bias. Therefore, there is no way to come to judgment about anything, since judgment itself rests on quicksand. This principle, however, is suspended when the United States and western culture are discussed, because the West is essentially evil and guilty of endless crimes. Better to declare a vague transnational identity and admiration for the United Nations.

Churchill would not be the least but surprising to me if not for the long list of "bonus" atrocities like outright incitement to violence caught on tape, bogus claims to minority status, and blatant copyright theft of artwork.

But now that I think of it I'm amazed this isn't more pervasive.

For I believe that large parts of our university system have become the replacement for our now-dismantled mental hospitals.

That Karl Rove is one smart dude I tell you...

Comment Of The Day

Goes to LizardAbroad on the Austin Bay blog re the Steyn / Bay debate on the Eurabian (lack of) future:

A couple points from an American who lives in Germany:

1. The politicians here don’t have any silent plans to deal with problems either. They’re not that bright. Education here has very little to do with the development of critical thinking skills and everything to do with reinforcing the dominant ideas. It is a rationalist intellectual tradition….empiricism takes too much time and effort. Furthermore, the paternalist Staat ensures that citizens are shielded from the vicissitudes of the real world (with the help of the American military shield). The result is a nation of whose adults think as do college sophomores. They don’t have so much to learn as to unlearn.

2. Independent thought and action required considerably more moral courage here than in the States. There is just simply not the same individualism here. Don’t forget also, that the government here is party-based and within the parties they play for keeps. Vicious. Mavericks are dealt with, and so the only real chance would be a new party. The Greens were the last to really bridge the gap from fringe to influential, and there is no Reaganite party on the horizon.

3. Fischer is just as teflon-coated as before. He is in insufferable ass, but that falls under “he says what I wish I could bring myself to say” here. There is alternative.

4. Let’s not forget our basic economics here, shall we? Why has this massive influx of Moslem immigrants occured? Political persecution at home and economic opportunities in Europe. Thanks to W and friends, persecution is heading for a serious decline, and economic opportunities in the Middle East will improve. As Europe declines, the difference won’t be worth packing the U-Haul and filling out the paperwork. In fact, expect a goodly number to head back.

5. Radical Islam never developed the “vale of tears” idea of this world that Christianity did. Islamicism is supposed to be a recipe for earthly happiness as well. So who’s doing more for the earthly happiness of the Moslem world that all the venom-spewing imams put together? Expect that as information becomes freer that disinformation will be easier to spot.

6. With the birthrates I can’t help much, or at least not much that wouldn’t get me in a great deal of trouble with the wife. They must have a basic idea here of how it’s done, because it’s on TV constantly. The problem is, what you see there makes you want to yell “No, no, no, that’s not right! That isn’t how it’s done! I’ve seen it done better in a kennel!". Seriously, what they show has all the romance of a dog humping a chair leg.

Actually, refer back to my college sophomores point. One’s not ready to be a parent until one is ready to stop being a child. Another strike against paternalism. But I imagine that they’ll manage to figure out some sort of financial incentive.

All these need development, but it’s late and I’ve got to work to support those who can’t or won’t.

Comment by LizardAbroad — 2/27/2005 @ 6:31 pm

I refer back to Spock's thesis on residue. Europe is America's residue and the Middle East is theirs.

Bush has realized that the only hope is an end run around Europe directly at their residue. It may not work of course. But at least we'll be able to sleep at night when things get really ugly knowing that we tried.

I couldn't support the effort more.

But I still suspect things are going to get really ugly despite our best efforts. How I wish it weren't so...

"Hotel journalists" struggle to invoke the memory hole to avoid the circular firing squad.

Lost In The KGB MSM Paranoia Time Warp

Roger has a stunning catch on Putin via Newsweek:

When Bush confronted his Russian counterpart about the freedom of the press in Russia, Putin shot back with an attack of his own: "We didn't criticize you when you fired those reporters at CBS."

It's not clear how well Putin understands the controversy that led to the dismissal of four CBS journalists over the discredited report on Bush's National Guard service. Yet it's all too clear how Putin sees the relationship between Bush and the American media-just like his own. Bush's aides have long feared that former KGB officers in Putin's inner circle are painting a twisted picture of U.S. policy. So Bush explained how he had no power to fire American journalists. It made little difference. When the two presidents emerged for their joint press conference, one Russian reporter repeated Putin's language about journalists getting fired. Bush (already hot after an earlier question about his spying on U.S. citizens) asked the reporter if he felt free. "They obviously planted the question," said one of Bush's senior aides.

No doubt they did. This squares with my experiences in Russia pre and post Soviet Union. Paranoia, alas, is buried deep in the Russian soul, probably from the time of the Tsars or even before. It destroys their society. At least there's a funny part in this case. We all know something those "crafty" KGB-types would never believe - that Charles Johnson had more to do with the "firing" of Dan Rather and company than George Bush.

Now we know why Putin baldly claimed recently that Iran is not trying to build nukes! Mentally wrenched by paranoia or cynical equivocation designed to manipulate -- will it matter to the end result?

We do know that the Soviets were just rational enough to refrain from pressing the button in the MADness of WWIII. The question is whether it was from a morose, resigned, defeated paranoia or from one that has not actually surrendered -- and in fact only declared a hudna.

Unfortunately, my money is on BOTH.

The Primary Victims ...

will continue to be Muslim women, as Captain's Quarters notes:

The Germans have hate-speech regulations that deter criticism of Muslim practices, although not as strict as those in Sweden, but the political correctness has taken its toll on the protection of Muslim women. The Germans have allowed moral relativism to supplant the one-law construct that Western societies have gradually adopted since the sealing of the Magna Carta, creating a substructure of de facto shari'a to develop in its Muslim community with little pushback from the German government.

That PC instinct spells trouble for Germany in dealing with its Muslim population, and for any country that does not enforce its laws equally among its population -- as American history demonstrates more than adequately in its civil-rights struggles. Germany needs to decide whether it wants to remain a united social construct or allow itself to become balkanized internally, with various minority groups conducting their own law enforcement, legislative, and judicial functions independent of the elected German government. If they do not have the will to enforce German law in Muslim communities, they will have begun the process by which civil wars start. In the meantime, the primary victims of German PCism will continue to be Muslim women, at the hands of their own families.

Very sad yet very true...

Can we remember who we are?

Quote Of The Day

Tolstoy: "Everyone thinks of changing humanity but no one thinks of changing himself." (via Doug Wead, author of "The Raising of a President")

Wiki whacked?

And the cavalry arrives to rescue Larry...

INDC strikes hard with the last half of this post.

Power Islam.

Another Bush failure!

All The Linkagery You Need Today

Wretchard is on fire and flying upside-down...

On Rehabilitating Chamberlain

This Powerline post on Sharon's strategy covers lots of ground including:

And it's not true, pace Steve Mytkyn, that "British politicians, including Chamberlain, that had favored appeasement changed their position after Poland and were strong supporters of defeating Hitler whatever the cost." As the Cabinet minutes show, both Chamberlain and Halifax tried to force Churchill to negotiate with Hitler after the fall of France. After one grim session, Churchill marched out of the war Cabinet, called a meeting of the rest of his ministers, and insisted on carrying on the fight. He was given a standing ovation and used this display of resolve to put down Halifax. I think it was this confrontation that led to Halifax's subsequent dismissal and appointment as ambassador to the U.S.

What a surprise.

What the Kos-sacks have left...

But don't worry: Syria is not at war with the Iraqi/American coalition. Nada. Zip. Absolutely not!

The fake but accurate face of Eurabian mental illness.

This one's for the LLLunatics... (Hat tip Charles)

The 911 of the Middle East? ... but the Pali-monsters think not.