"People like Reid, Hastert, Pelosi are complete mediocrities who should be at much lower levels in our society. Something is fundamentally wrong on both sides of the aisle if they are the upper leadership of our Congress."

UPDATE: And check out the ending of this comment: "So, more and more people, generations now, grow up in symbol manipulating and think reality is an inconvenience, at best. They live in a dream. They think their lives are fake and TV is real. And they have no clue how everything was made and how we got here, and how it can slip away, fall apart, be gone by inattentive erosion or in a flash. And, for all of my life, the left has ripped at every single, boring institution, and the hum drum work a day values that built it all." Wow. Looks like he just read David Warren not far below...

"What time is it in Russia? Twilight, Yakovlev’s memoir seems to tell us."

"As I’ve written before, Iran and North Korea, which are active partners in the development of nuclear weapons and missiles, take turns in creating crises that put the U.S. and allies in a game resembling “monkey in the middle”. Just as the heat is rising against the one, the other will perform an outrageous, attention-getting stunt. But China quietly and happily benefits from their cooperative effort to keep Western eyes off the Chinese ball.

This picture I am giving of world affairs may seem over-simple, and pessimistic. I wish it were. Postmodern man -- who votes, and swings the opinion polls, in the constitutional democracies -- is remarkably unable to cope with the reality of evil in the world around him. He has an attention span too short to assimilate even a sustained challenge from a single source, let alone multiple challenges. He knows little history, and what he does know tends to be seriously wrong. More deeply, he lacks tradition -- the kind of wisdom that could operate on his instincts, even when his rational mind were neither well-trained nor well-informed. Yet he is also poorly informed about current events, and his native ability to reason is vitiated by cheap and disintegrative “relativist” ideas. He is personally a coward, and a voluptuary: he lives for the day, and for pleasure, even in the absence of satisfaction or joy. His role models in popular culture are all narcissists. He is the pure consumer of morally poisonous entertainment. He lives selfishly; yet in his own loveless, self-regarding world, he avoids thinking of his own death."

"A JoongAng newspaper poll, several days after the reported nuclear test Monday, found 78 percent of respondents thought South Korea should revise its policy, and 65 percent said South Korea should develop nuclear weapons to protect itself.

Protesters have held nightly candlelight vigils, and some have burned North Korean flags."

"Secretary Rice describes herself as a student of history, though she herself seems to be dreaming here. She is dreaming, perhaps, of Yasser Arafat's January 2002 remarks in which Arafat likened himself to George Washington. When she wakes up, I wonder if she'll identify a few active Palestinian political figures who dream of a Palestinian state living side by side in peace with Israel rather than dream of a Palestinian state in its place. Dreamers of the latter dream seem to constitute a conspicuous majority of the followers of Hamas and Arafat's Fatah Party. In any event, perhaps Secretary Rice can contemplate how the latter dream is also one of those that may seem impossible before it happens and inevitable afterward."

"This book isn’t an argument for more war, more bombing, or more killing, but for more will. In a culturally confident age, the British in India were faced with the practice of “suttee” — the tradition of burning widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands. General Sir Charles Napier was impeccably multicultural: “You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.”

India today is better off without suttee. If you don’t agree with that, if you think that’s just dead-white-male Eurocentrism, fine. But I don’t think you really believe that. Non-judgmental multiculturalism is an obvious fraud, and was subliminally accepted on that basis . . . . But if you think that suttee is just an example of the rich, vibrant tapestry of indigenous cultures, you ought to consider what your pleasant suburb would be like if 25, 30, 48 percent of the people around you really believed in it too. Multiculturalism was conceived by the Western elites not to celebrate all cultures but to deny their own: it is, thus, the real suicide bomb."

"Nonproliferation efforts don't seem to be working very well. [ The perfect understatement. -ed. ] "

"Finally, note the silence from the numerous critics of the “Path to 9/11” who objected to the film’s adaptation of the 9/11 report. But that docu-drama clearly identified itself as a fictionalized rendition of a document, and made no claims as history. In contrast, this new genre of journalistic exposé purports to give us the real story of Iraq, but denies us the very tools of determining whether what we are reading is true, half-true, or simply made up."

"And even if Bush were to hold direct talks—so reminiscent of World War II appeasers’ sigh that a chance to have talked to Hitler could have been prevented the war—the contrarians like Sens. Kerry, Biden, Kennedy, Boxer, Durbin et al. would then be screaming about the need for “multilateral” six-party talks with China and other regional partners. How odd this political season that all the failures of the past—Cyrus Vance, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Warren Christopher, and Madeline Albright who variously presided over the Iranian hostage mess, the failed Oslo accords, and the al Qaeda serial provocations of the 1990s that led to 9/11—are now evoked as sober and judicious exemplars."

"The Palestinians can't blame Israel for this. Shootings such as the one that took Rafiq Siam have their origins in a divide that war alone can address now. In the end, neither side can win, because both are essentially nihilistic and will not stop. The Palestinians have created a death cult in two different flavors, and both sides value martyrdom so much that both will fight until everyone is dead in order to keep power in their own hands, once the fighting starts."

"Given the ease with which the North Korean leaders suckered ambassador Jimmy Carter, and the Clinton administration, in 1994, they know big threats can earn them big rewards. And with the Democrats poised to make large advances in the mid-term U.S. Congressional elections, they may be negotiating with idiots again, soon.

From John Bolton’s remarks at the U.N., and several statements in Washington, we can see that the Bush administration, at least, has seen through this rather pathetic ruse. What we need, instead of a fresh aid package, is to cut off the regime from all Western contact and help, including all the pointless diplomatic chatter that encourages more stunts, and all the humanitarian aid that seldom gets through to its intended recipients anyway. Step up anti-missile defences, and as I’ve argued for years, invite Japan, South Korea, and all other regional allies to join NATO. This, moreover, is a precaution against the aggressive intentions of China -- the smooth fist behind North Korea’s spiky glove."

Iraqi Kite-Flying Innumeracy

Omar gets some serious backup in the comments:

"A real response? I see, a man who actually lives in Iraq can not be trusted but this nonsensical report can.

According to this report about 770 people have died every day. Every day. Where are they? They do not say. According to this report 14% of the 655,000 people died as a result of suicide bombers, that would be about 91,700 people. When and where were these people killed? They don't have a clue.

A bad month in Iraq is about 2600 casualties, but according to this socalled survey, 22,800 people have died every single month.

A third, or more than 200,000 would have died in air raids. That is more than Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

According to this report 57% were killed by gunfire, that would be about 373,000 people.

Where are the bodies? When and where they buried? Did the BBC and AP, UPI, Reuters, AlJazeera all conspire to help hide the truth? Are the US and the Iraqi government together with all the doctors and mayors part of the plot ot hide these hundreds of thousands of dead people?

They took the deaths of a few hundred people and exptrapolated them into more than 600,000 and they compared numbers to the preinvasion Iraq saying there had been virtually no violent deaths in Iraq the 14 months before the invasion. Think about how absurd that is.

Oh yes, Iraq was just a paradise of kite flying children."

Halabja? What Halabja? Mass graves? What mass graves?

"I wonder if anyone has mentioned to Mr. Peanut that the agreement of which he was so proud went almost immediately into the NoKo shredder."

"What a pity! We first failed to see that we would inevitably have to fight a regional war if we were to win in Iraq. Then, insisting on our myopia, we designed tactics to play defense in Iraq alone. And now we seem to have turned to the diplomats to “solve” the problem. They can’t do it. They can only guarantee the war will expand, the Iranians will become stronger and more aggressive, and many more people will die even as the diplomats celebrate their own surrender.

On the other hand, the template of American foreign policy seems to dictate that we be saved by our enemies, and rarely through our own brilliance. It may seem paradoxical that our best hope lies with the fanatics in Tehran, but there you have it."

"Anger dwells only in the bosom of fools. -- Albert Einstein"

"But if Putnam is correct, then one of the central tenets of multiculturalism — that it brings people together if they simply "respect" each others differences — immediately requires qualification. In fact, it becomes entirely conceivable that the multiculti program is actually the driver behind many of the tensions which are now rising in places like France, the Netherlands and the UK."

"One may think that this is an arcane philosophical point, but many civilizations have been shipwrecked on its rocks. The Muslim world, for example, decided long ago that science was unnecessary, because if it discovered something that contradicted the Koran, then it was false, whereas if it discovered something that confirmed the Koran, it was unnecessary. With this tautology, Muslims said ta-ta ta' modernity.

In fact, I believe this epistemological problem is at the heart of the three-headed civilizational battle we are currently waging between leftism, Islamism, and classical American liberalism. The problem of Islam speaks for itself. But the same problem applies to the left, for it too attempts to seal the book of knowledge and prevent thought from straying into forbidden areas. Just as it believes in a topdown command economy, it believes in a “command intelligentsia” that enforces a particular view of reality from on high. Its means is the takeover of the elite media and of academia from preschool through graduate school, and its method is political correctness. And the higher you move up through the system, the greater the pressure to conform to a certain tacit worldview."

Let's do the math, shall we?:

"Some experts go further, suggesting that Japan may have a design on the shelf.

"I'd be surprised if they didn't," said Frank Barnaby, a British nuclear physicist and nonproliferation advocate who's studied Japan's nuclear energy industry. "They have stocks of plutonium. They have the know-how. All that is lacking is the political decision."

Japan is third, after the United States and France, in nuclear power output. Its 54 reactors produce as much as 35 percent of the electricity consumed here, and its 43 tons in plutonium stockpiles are among the largest in the world. A nuclear bomb can be built with 17 or 18 pounds of plutonium."

[ 43 tons X 2000lbs/ton / 18lbs/bomb = 4778. But I'm sure you figured that out already. -ed. ]

Michelle remembers how we got here:

You might wonder why Anna Politkovskaya was killed by the Kremlin:

"Today's regime in Russia, as personified first and foremost by Putin, is interested only in power — to keep it, consolidate and augment it, and do it in such a way that opponents would not even be able to raise their heads[.]"

Any questions?

"The North has said it would boycott the nuclear talks until the U.S. lifts financial restrictions imposed for its alleged counterfeiting and money laundering. [ Alleged? AP = All Propaganda. All the time... -ed. ] "

"On January 20, 1981, Reagan was sworn into office and within minutes all of the hostages were released.

After so many months and so much groveling, what led to the Iranians’ sudden reversal? In the answer to that question lies a significant moral. Bowden ends his book without explicitly spelling out what the moral is, but his entire narrative is one long case study in the perils of appeasing violent fanatics. For our current efforts to effectuate another and even greater reversal in Iran, few things are more vital than learning what his book has to teach."

"KATE WRITES: "By the time you read this, seven more women will most likely have been stoned to death after being convicted of committing adultery.""

"As I said at the debate I was in last night: who does the average American fear more—the FBI or the IRS? The local zoning board, or the NSA? What does he fear more: the ten commandments on the wall of his child's school, or having the new addition to the house disallowed by the zoning board, the EPA, or the Americans with Disabilities act? On what does he spend more time: preparing his taxes, earning the money to pay for them, and arguing with the various tax authorities about what he owes . . . or checking for roving wiretaps?

Let's face it: one of the biggest problems civil libertarians are battling in the war against warrantless wiretaps, and so forth, is that 99% of the citizenry (correctly) believes that the government is not planning to use such measures against them. I'm on the side of the civil libertarians, mind you, but I recognize that this is why all the cries about America descending into a dark night of fascism, and Bush being the worst president ever on civil liberties (which even a light perusal of history reveals as silly), are falling on deaf ears."

Gagdad rocks out on Polanyi. RTWT without delay:

"Although the postmodernists have done their best to undermine the principles underlying western civilization, nevertheless, the memory of Christianity remains, since it is in our very blood and bones. This memory produces a “passionate urge to pursue righteousness,” even though the assumptions of postmodernism deny the very reality of objective moral truth. Once traditional morality has been shattered, in the words of Polanyi,

“moral passions are diverted into the only channels which a strictly mechanistic conception of man and society left open to them. We may describe this as a process of moral inversion. The morally inverted person has not merely performed a philosophical substitution of material purposes for moral aims; he is acting with the whole of his homeless moral passions within a purely materialistic framework of purposes.”

Thus, at the foundation of postmodern moral inversion is always the same thing: “the combination of skeptical rationalism and moral perfectionism, which is nothing more than the 'secularized fervor of Christianity.’” But whereas “moral perfectionism within a Christian context is moderated by the doctrine of original sin and deferral of perfection to the end of history, the perfectionism of a post-Christian world provides no such moderating counterbalances.”"

It's very short. But one of the best concise introductions to the origins of Islamo-fascism. Two printed pages that you need to read over and over until it sinks in:

"Fascism emerged in the early 20th century in Italy, Spain and Germany. The slogan "Long live death!" was made notorious by Spanish fascists. In a famous confrontation in 1936, the great Spanish philosopher and writer Miguel de Unamuno responded in Salamanca to a speech by fascist General Millan-Astray in which the general had repeated the slogan "Viva Muerte!" ("Long Live Death!") with a speech of his own, declaring "There is a time when to be silent is to lie." He then denounced General Millan-Astray and the Spanish fascists for their assault on Spanish civilization and culture. (The next day, Unamuno, in his 80's, was arrested and he died soon thereafter.) After France fell in 1940 and its fascist Vichy puppet regime was created, French colonial territories throughout the world were left to choose their own sides. In the Middle East, the French territories chose Vichy. It should be no surprise to hear from the leader of Hamas in Lebanon today that the difference between his group and the Israelis is that whereas the Israelis cherish life, his group celebrates death (including the suicide bombers). As the great Islamic scholar Bernard Lewis points out recently in his essay "Freedom and Justice in Islam," Nazi organizers came from Germany in the early 1940's to restructure social regimes in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, promoting a permanent vicious hatred against the Jews, and forming Ba'athist (fascist) parties throughout the region. (I would add that the grand mufti of Jerusalem, the Muslim leader in British-mandated Palestine, and who later provoked the 1948 war there, was also a Nazi sympathizer who went to visit Hitler in Germany in 1941 and returned to inflame existing local conflicts into deep hatred against Jewish settlers.) Islamo-fascism IS literally Islamo-fascism.

When American apologists for terrorists, and others who feed on their own political correctness or other grievances, recently criticized the use of the phrase "Islamo-fascism," they attempted, consciously or unconsciously, to avert the world's attention from actual and historical origins of the hatreds in the Middle East, and the womb of the ideology of much of the terrorism from which has grown a supranational threat and a gathering world storm.

Recent gloating by these apologists that they had successfully suppressed the term "Islamo-fascism" by associating it with their negative perceptions of President Bush, Prime Minister Blair, and the efforts to prepare for and combat the gathering storm, was premature. The term is exactly and historically accurate. It will not go away. Nor will the storm."

And after you get it, go order yourself a DVD of "Obsession". And watch that over and over until you get it.

"But it's not enough. There are liberal causes that have nothing to do with opposing Bush and his Republican henchmen. In fact, some of those causes might even place liberals and Republican henchmen on the same side. And liberals must be passionate about them nonetheless. Partisan militancy may be necessary to combat Republican power. But it cannot define what it means to be a liberal in the United States today.

Except that it pretty much does."

"A Muslim minicab driver refused to take a blind passenger because her guide dog was “unclean”.

Abdul Rasheed Majekodumni told Jane Vernon she could not get into his car with the dog because of his religion. Islamic tradition warns Muslims against contact with dogs because they are seen as impure. [ Civil rights for blind people? Why would that matter? -ed. ]

The case emerged as Jack Straw was embroiled in a controversy over Muslim women wearing veils and the row continued after a Muslim police officer was excused guard duty at the Israeli embassy. [ And why should us Western Kuffar not be forced to talk with a straight face to black sacks as if they're not being abused. "Elephant in the room" indeed. -ed. ] "

"Let's see, GDP growth is strong, productivity is way up, unemployment is low, family incomes are rising, inflation is down, the stock market is up, and the federal deficit is down. Yet polls show that we are about to put more Democrats into both the House and the Senate.

So much for "it's the economy, stupid!" Wixted has lots of interesting charts and data."

QandO brings us an analysis of today's blinding glint off the giant sheet of tinfoil in Asia:

"Hilarious if it wasn't so serious. "Farewell to the nuclear non-proliferation regime", but NoKo promises to "faithfully implement its international commitment in the field of nuclear non-proliferation as a responsible nuclear-weapons state and to prohibit nuclear transfer."

You simply can't get anymore schizo than that.

This is a definite "ratcheting up" of the rhetoric coming out of North Korea. But it seems clear that, like many puffed up little potentates, Kim Jong-il has no idea what he's really messing with. It is worrisome that he sees his nuclear weapons as tools to force his will in the region. It is also worrisome that he thinks his use of his tools is survivable. It is that sort of irrational thinking which increases the chance of a nuclear exchange.

For all our concern about Iran and the 12th Imam, this screed (if it is indeed the voice of Kim Jong-il as implied) is just as irrational.

There have been reports that Kim Jong-il is suffering bad health. You have to begin to wonder, if true, whether he is thinking he has to act on his fantasy of Korean unification before he loses the ability to do so. No matter how odd some of the reasoning in this article may seem to most, it is something to be taken very seriously. It may indeed seem like the ravings of a isolated and slightly mad man who really doesn't have a firm grasp on reality (or what he could potentially unleash). But that doesn't mean he won't act on it if, for whatever reason, he concludes he must.

Does that mean he actually can attack the US? That's not really clear. That doesn't mean, however, that he won't try or won't end up attacking something. North Korea is a very serious diplomatic situation. And like Iran, there just aren't very many good options. [ It's possible that the underground test will fail just like the recent insane missile tests. It's only a matter of time until one succeeds, however... -ed. ] "

"It has come to my attention that Jihadis organized a campaign against us to have our videos removed by You Tube. Some people’s accounts have even been terminated. I don’t know exactly how the You Tube suspension system works, but it looks like a video will be removed if it gets a certain number of complaints (which may be accepted without investigation), and an account gets closed when the third video is removed. One of my videos was recently removed for “inappropriate content.” The video, ‘It’s In The Koran’ could be viewed at http://www.terrorfreeoil.org/videos/ItsInTheKoran.php, second screen (alternative video source). This video contains no sexually explicit content and could only be offensive to Muslims who reject any notion of criticism. At the same time, many al-Qaeda propaganda videos, Nazi videos, etc. are posted on You Tube."

"When asked, Kurds attribute their peaceful neighborhood to the fact that Kurds are not Arabs. But this is not the main reason, for the Kurds have, in the past, been as factious and violent as the Iraqi Arabs are now. But during the 1990s, when the U.S. and Britain agreed to keep Saddam's forces out of the north (to prevent another large scale massacre of Kurds), the Kurds sorted out their differences and learned the benefits of cooperation and law and order. In effect, the Kurds had a ten year head start on the rest of Iraq, in the "how to create peace and democracy" department. The Iraqi Arabs, Sunni and Shia, who come north on business, or for a vacation, note this. The Arabs believe they are superior to the Kurds ("a bunch of hillbillies," to most Arabs), and find it irritating that the Kurds have made things work, while down south, especially in central Iraq, things are still a mess. Given another seven years, the Iraqi Arabs will probably catch up. But this is not a popular solution to the "Iraq problem," and no career-conscious journalist is going to talk about it."

"They refused to say what they were doing in an illegal tunnel that inexplicably blew up? Why would they need to spell it out for anyone?"

"In its sharpest criticism yet, China pointedly warned Wednesday "no one is going to protect" North Korea in the event of a test.

"I think that they have to realize that they will face serious consequences," Chinese UN Ambassador Wang Guangya said. [ Airborne pigs spotted again... -ed. ] "

"U.S. officials say the decision of some tribal leaders to begin going after insurgents reflects growing public anger over attacks that have killed or injured more than 8,000 Iraqis, according to local government figures. They also say there has been growing alarm on the part of some tribal leaders over insurgents' demands for adherence to strict Islamic law. U.S. military leaders say that alarm has inspired a sense of partnership that didn't exist earlier.

"It's only frankly been the last six months that they've recognized two things: One, they can't do it themselves, and two … they had much more in common with the coalition than they do with Iran," said a senior U.S. military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. ..."

"In his 1908 masterpiece Orthodoxy, G. K. Chesterton explored the phenomenon of modern theologians who deny the reality of sin. "The strongest saints and the strongest skeptics alike took positive evil as the starting point of their argument," Chesterton wrote. "If it be true (as it certainly is) that a man can feel exquisite happiness skinning a cat, then the religious philosopher can make one or two deductions. He must either deny the existence of God, as all atheists do; or he must deny the present union between God and man, as all Christians do. The new theologians seem to think it a highly rationalistic solution to deny the cat.""

"Every source in Cobra II, Fiasco, or State of Denial, may be accurate, but we will never know that, because for a variety of reasons the authors who claim they worked from notes and recordings, chose not to identify the most inflammatory sources by name. It would be as if I [Hanson] wrote a history of the Peloponnesian War and, to support my most controversial points, added footnotes that stated "A manuscript in the Vatican," or "Private letter to author from anonymous Greek shepherd attesting a stone altar in his field""

"But let me ask you one thing, if the best those tents can come up with to lead the largest deliberative body of the most powerful country on Earth are Dennis Hastert and Nancy Pelosi, isn't it time to start asking some serious questions? [ Roger can be rather difficult to argue with at times... -ed. ] "

"This young man's name is now one of Technorati's top search terms thanks to the conservative outing mob. Are you proud of sinking to the level of the liberal witch hunters? Shall we all shrug our shoulders now and accept the inevitability of turning into our own worst enemies? [ Let's be clear and this will end my commentary unless there's some new truly astounding revelation. Foley should be prosecuted to the maximum extent the law (ironically his I suspect) allows. And if the Republican leadership really did try to hide this in any significant way then they should be replaced. But making this the centerpiece of the current off year election campaign's denouement does nothing but reveal the true nature of our corrupt, National Enquirer minded media. And the sad level of mind control they have achieved over an educationally shortchanged electorate. Somehow the compare and contrast with the Gerry Studds and Barney Frank travesties seem not to come up -- I can't imagine why? Could it be that it wouldn't be to the Dems advantage? It would be risible if it didn't have such dire consequences for the very survival of Western Civ. Those few of us free-thinkers that remain anyway... -ed. ] "

"Nonproliferation efforts don't seem to be working very well. [ The perfect understatement. -ed. ] "

"WASHINGTON - Convicted terrorists locked up in U.S. prisons can still use mail and verbal communications to conduct terrorist or criminal activities, according to a report issued Tuesday by the Department of Justice’s inspector general.

The inspector general launched a review after a series of NBC News Investigative Unit reports in February and March 2005 revealed that jailed terrorists — even those responsible for the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center — were continuing to support jihadists and encourage violence around the world. [ I'm not surprised ... are you? -ed. ] "

I have obviously not been giving John Howard his due:

"PRIME Minister John Howard has launched a scathing attack on Australia's left-wing intelligentsia, questioning its loyalty to the nation over the past decades.

In a speech delivered last night for the 50th anniversary of the conservative magazine Quadrant, Mr Howard said the left had a history of denigrating the nation and was now doing the same with the war in Iraq, describing Islamic terrorism as the new tyranny.

He said Australian universities were still breeding leftists and described pro-communists of decades past as “ideological barrackers for regimes of oppression opposed to Australia and its interests”, Fairfax reports today.

Mr Howard said the left was wrong in its view that the Cold War was an equal struggle between the ideologies of the United States and the Soviet Union."

Kudos!

"So the label should have said -- in Day-Glo green letters on a phosphorescent-pink background -— “THIS IS A BED. USE ONLY WHILE AWAKE.” Or perhaps “IF YOUR IQ IS NOT THIS TALL, YOU CANNOT RIDE ON THIS BED.” Or how about an arrow pointing downward, with the legend “FALLING IN THIS DIRECTION COULD BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH. FALL ONLY UPWARD OR TO THE SIDE.” ..."

"In proportion to their numbers, homosexual males seem to be significantly more likely to engage in sex with minors. Let’s take the homosexual priest problem that afflicted the Catholic church. It is again deceptive to call this a “pedophile priest” problem, since the majority of victims were post-pubescent teenage boys. This is apparently consistent with studies indicating that “While no more than 2% of male adults are homosexual... approximately 35% of pedophiles are homosexual. Further, since male-on-male pedophiles victimize far more children than do heterosexual pedophiles, it is estimated that approximately 80% of pedophilic victims are boys who have been molested by adult males.”"

I could implore you to RTWT, but that would be an understatement:

"12) Our civilization is destroying theirs. We cannot share a world in peace. They understand this; we have yet to learn it.

Another culturally-imposed blindness we have is the notion that everybody can get along with enough good will. There is absolutely no evidence to support this and a great deal to oppose it. Can the subjugation of women coexist with Western Civilization with Western media ubiquitous throughout the world? Can a pluralistic and tolerant society be governed by Islamic law? Can a modern economy exist where interest is forbidden and many forms of business risk-taking are considered gambling, and thus forbidden? Can a society that educates its young men by a process of rote recitation produce critically thinking, technically educated men to build and operate a modern economy? Can you even teach elementary concepts of maintenance to a people who believe that anything that happens is inshalla (As God will it)? To compete, or even just survive in the world they must become more like us and less like themselves – and they know this. "

[ Print it out and re-read it about a hundred times... -ed. ]

Careful Or Your Head Might Explode

Looks like another obvious fake propagated by the lying W:

"The path is long and difficult, and the enemy isn?t easy, for he is great and numerous and he can take quite a bit of punishment as well. [Ed.: This is very different from how al Qaeda wrote about the U.S. after the flight from Somalia.] I command you, my brother, and I am your brother and I have nothing except these words that are between the two of us and God as the third party, that you send messengers from your end to Waziristan so that they meet with the brothers of the leadership, and the rational and experienced people and the shaykhs here, because you have a greater chance to send messengers (brothers that you choose) than your brothers have here. [So al Qaeda's leadership is so pinned down that they can't even send messengers to Iraq.]

I am now on a visit to them and I am writing you this letter as I am with them, and they have some comments about some of your circumstances, may God guide you, with due confidence, affection, respect, and esteem. They wish that they had a way to talk to you and advise you, and to guide and instruct you; however, they too are occupied with vicious enemies here. [That would be us, I assume.] They are also weak, and we ask God that He strengthen them and mend their fractures. They have many of their own problems, but they are people of reason, experience, and sound, beneficial knowledge. [Note: al Qaeda's leadership is "weak."]

Know that we, like all the mujahidin, are still weak. We are in the stage of weakness and a state of paucity. We have not yet reached a level of stability. We have no alternative but to not squander any element of the foundations of strength, or any helper or supporter."

Whatever you do, don't go read it. It might remind you of the turnspeak all around you...

"But I wasn't thinking of it in operational so much as psychological terms: What does that degree of abasement before their prejudices tell them about us? Mulling it over since I got back, I'd go further: It seems to me that one sign this war is over is when Muslims are grown-up enough not to go to full-blown baklava nuts over other folks touching their Qurans.

Of course, for the likes of Sen. Leahy, not only is the war far from over, it hasn't even begun. Almost every argument in this area isn't "about" the war so much as whether there even is a war. As the Washington Post reported, "The Senate joined the House in embracing President Bush's view that the battle against terrorism justifies the imposition of extraordinary limits on defendants' traditional rights in the courtroom."

Well, they're only "extraordinary" if you regard these men as traditional "defendants." If you regard them as traditional wartime detainees -- rather than OJs in turbans -- the only "extraordinary" aspect of this is the kid gloves with which not just their Qurans but the jihadists themselves are handled. This is the only war in American history in which enemy detainees have been freed before the end of hostilities. Of those released, at least 22 are known to have returned to the battlefield in Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere. The ones who remain are dangerous men, no matter how "sensitive" you are. They unscrewed the foot pads from those Asian-style toilets and used them as bludgeons to attack the guards. After listening to Pat Leahy's contribution to the debate, I wonder if the Gitmo medical facility's lavish team of mental health experts might not be more usefully deployed to the U.S. Senate."

"Rather than punish the electorate for the sins of the politicians, the BCRA contingent should have focused on the behavior of Congress first. If the Democrats and Republicans want to take the smell of cash out of politics, perhaps they would have been better suited getting the stink off of leadership assignments in the House."

"All of this is most interesting when placed alongside the other big news of last week, the National Intelligence Estimate’s assessment that the Iraq war is a “cause celebre” among Islamic extremists and a great recruiting tool for them. The NIE’s less-trumpeted conclusion was that Iraq only works for the jihadis if the jihadis are perceived to be winning in Iraq. Even before the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the U.S. military was reporting that al-Qaeda in Iraq was severely compromised. But if you don’t trust the U.S. military, you don’t have to take the military’s word for it. You can listen to Al-Qaeda’s own propaganda and the United Nations."

"For you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given.... Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand."

"Well, well, well. It appears the Republicans actually can make the Foley controversy worse. As if it wasn't bad enough that John Boehner knew about Foley's track record of sexual harassment of his underage pages, now it turns out that Speaker Denny Hastert lied about what he knew and when he knew it. [ Washington: the eternal battle of mental midgets. GW -- you know, the one the capitol is named after? -- must be a veritable whirling dervish in his grave by now... -ed. ] "

"But the part I emphasized is the part that the Democrats keep coming back to...better intelligence, surgical military operations, using 'soft power to marginalize extremists', and getting allies...and there are more than a few problems with that.

The first one is that the same Democrats are the ones who keep kneecapping intelligence programs like SWIFT and they are the ones who led the charge to get the 'icky people' out of the humint business. They don't have a lot of credibility there.

The second is the classic Clinton 'ninjas from helicopters' fantasy. I've blogged my criticism of it several times in the past, but I'll lay out the three core objections here: a) it probably won't work (because we need huge networks within the target country to make such an attack work, and we can't and won't assemble intel networks in that depth everywhere in the world); b) it's immoral - we're talking a covert war of assassination here. Think the film Munich times 2,356; c) it consists of our committing acts of war in a number of foreign countries - something they may have a say about and a response to."

"In his dotage, Carter is proving once again that he is as malicious and mean-spirited a public figure as he is historically ignorant. And for all his sanctimonious Christian veneer, and fly-fishing, ‘aw shucks blue-jeans image, he can’t hide an essentially ungracious and unkind soul. . . . Carter’s Waterloo, of course was the Iranian hostage crisis. It was not just that his gutting of the military helped to explain the rescue disaster. Far more importantly, we can chart the rise of radical political Islam with the storming of the American embassy in Teheran and the impotent response of Jimmy Carter. [ It may be hard to comprehend, but yes, when history is finally pulled out of the Memory Hole, Clinton will seem like a boy genius compared to JC. Scary, isn't it? -ed. ] "

"Many people wondered about the connections between the ISI and the two Islamist groups. The ISI was instrumental in assisting the Taliban to power in the 1990s and has always had Islamist sympathies. If India has evidence of the connections it alleges, one has to conclude that either the ISI has gone rogue or Musharraf's surrender was worse than first imagined."

"War is rough work, incompatible with the postmodern, “gliberal” mindset, that permits fighting only if there will be no casualties, and assumes all offensive warfare is morally tainted. Mr Rumsfeld has moulded a fine offensive army, but for diplomatic and political, rather than military reasons, it is being used only on defence."

"This is true, and Pelosi is right to demand an ethics probe, to which John Boehner immediately agreed and the House supported unanimously. However, let's please recall the case of Gerry Studds and his sexual relationship with a 17-year-old page in 1983. This didn't involve a few e-mails and explicit instant messaging; Studds started a sexual relationship with a minor, and then announced in a press conference that people should mind their own business about his private life. The House censured Studds (he turned his back on them as the censure was read), but the Democrats endorsed Studds for five subsequent elections. The only reason he no longer serves in the House is because he retired. He didn't even lose his chair on the House Merchant Marine and Fishing Committee until 1995, when the Republicans took over and abolished the committee. [ To be clear: Foley should be locked up and they should thow away the key. I'm sure that's "disproportionate" to the current laws but that's how strongly I feel about anything even resembling child molestation. However, notice that there were no dissenting Republican votes. That, and the kind of Dem history noted by Ed is why I would never in a million years consider the Dems as anything but hypocrites with their latest puffing. -ed. ] "

"He also said more than 4,000 foreign militants have been killed in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 -- the first known statement from the insurgents about their death toll. It was unclear why al-Masri would advertise the loss of the group's foreign fighters, but martyrdom is revered among Islamic fundamentalists, and could be used as a recruiting tool. Analysts said the announcement was likely a boast aimed at drumming up support. "It's showing the level of dedication to their cause, the level of sacrifice jihadists are making," said Ben N. Venzke, director of the Washington-based IntelCenter, which monitors terrorism communications. "In a strange kind of way, it's almost showing a sense of strength and purpose in their cause to other people around world who might be thinking about joining the fight," Venzke said in a telephone interview.

In the topsy-turvey world of perception, analysts regard the admission of a heavy losses as a demonstration of al-Qaeda strength. Now for the bad news. Since conventional war does not seem to be working too well for al-Qaeda in Iraq, it is now seeking to acquire nuclear, biological or chemical weapons. [ Now that's just shocking. 4,000 dead al-Qaeda? Why the Fascifists claim they would do way better than that. Especially since there aren't any al-Qaeda in Iraq. It's a proven fact you know. And everyone knows there will be no Tinfoil Apocalypse. Not a chance. Never. Why W is the great Satan after all. He's the one who's going to nuke the world don't you know? Wake up! Would Hugo lie to you? Why, he has an IQ vastly greater than Einstein -- it's irrefutable. -ed. ] "

"So there is history and mythtory. But with the right eschatall tale, you can know the end of the story and place contemporary events in their proper context. You may--dare I say--know the signs of the times, and discern them from the designs of the Times."

"2006 - 58 = 1948."

"Zawahiri knows that because of the incompetence (or worse) of American journalists, he can ridicule the idea of connections between al Qaeda and Iraq, even though he himself attended, according to multiple reports, a conference of Islamic extremists in Baghdad in 1999.

It's interesting to think about the possible explanations for the fact that al Qaeda's leaders believe that their most effective public relations strategy is to repeat the Democratic Party's talking points."

"When Catholicism first arrived there, northwest Europe was as barbaric as sub-Saharan Africa was, much later. What we call “European” today is the result of centuries of civilizing action, by a Church that exalted reason as well as faith, and which instituted and enforced rules to prevent its own clergy from “going bush”. African Catholics today -- I know several -- are among the least likely to suggest concessions to African tribal customs. The continent itself is slowly rising above the murky relativism of its past, just as we in Europe and America are sinking back into the relativist welter. Some day Africans may have to re-civilize us, by faith and reason.

In the meantime, we of the West have another opportunity to recall that we are not “Western” by some accident of geography, but by the authority and responsibility, the laws and rules, that supply the very conditions of our freedom."

"The mounting death toll in Darfur tests Annan's stirring words. But when it comes to ending genocide, words require swords. Fine words cannot protect the vulnerable from dedicated killers -- that job demands soldiers. . . . Despite Annan's fine words, outside of London and Washington such leadership is not in evidence. Until it appears, 'the international community' deserves to be shamed."

"So apparently it is OK for the government to listen in on phone call regarding a marital problem - and then publicize it during an election - but we cannot listen in on terrorists because that is a threat to privacy!???? Did someone slip dumb-dumb pills into the DNC water??"

"I tried. I really really extremely really tried. They didn’t try and I did, and this is the real difference, the trying. And also, I tried."

"Congress can certainly fix most of this. Or they can run around making speeches about how pro-business they are. That's a whole lot easier."

"The heavily awaited National Intelligence Estimate has turned out to be “The Heaven’s Gate” of government reports. I say this not because The Estimate vindicates the Bush administration and humiliates the New York Times. The Estimate is such a dud because it is so wondrously uninteresting, and so magnificently obtuse. If this is the best our intelligence community can produce, we might consider shutting the whole intelligence system down and instead funneling the funds saved into crash Arabic lessons for the American populace."

"When Pakistan has its own version of The Daily Show, we will have won. [ But don't hold your breath. For you would be somewhat more than blue... -ed. ] "

First classical music is cancelled in Iran. Now Germany. Then ?

"Chancellor Angela Merkel warns against bowing to fear of Muslim violence.

BERLIN (Reuters) - Chancellor Angela Merkel urged Germans on Wednesday not to bow to fears of Islamic violence after a Berlin opera house canceled a Mozart work over concerns some scenes could enrage Muslims and pose a security risk.

“I think the cancellation was a mistake. I think self-censorship does not help us against people who want to practise violence in the name of Islam,” she told reporters. “It makes no sense to retreat.”"

Mozart, Schmotzart if you're a dhimmi I guess...

"“Muslims have never nurtured dreams of world conquest,” wrote Karen Armstrong, a prominent representative of this view, shortly after September 11. “They had no designs on Europe, for example, even though Europeans imagined that they did. Once Muslim rule had been established in Spain, it was recognized that the empire could not expand indefinitely.”

This assertion couldn’t be further from the truth. Not only was the conquest of Spain, some 2,000 miles from the Arabian homeland, a straightforward act of imperial expansion, it hardly satisfied Islam’s territorial ambitions. No sooner had the Muslims established themselves in that country than they invaded France in strength. Had they not been contained in 732 AD at the famous battle of Poitiers in west central France, they might well have swept deep into northern Europe."

"Now consider the east London mosque. Its backers are the Tablighi Jamaat, a missionary organisation that says it is non-political and peaceful. Yet a senior FBI anti-terrorism official has called it a recruiting ground for al-Qa’eda, and the French secret services described it as “an antechamber for fundamentalism”. Its current European headquarters are in Dewsbury, home town of Mohammed Siddique Khan, leader of the July 7 suicide bombers, who attended the local mosque. Much of the funding for the Markaz, which will cost about £100 million, is expected to come from Saudi Arabia. ...

It is suggested that the Markaz complex will become the “Muslim quarter” for the Olympics, acting as a hub for Islamic competitors and spectators, something that is surely contrary to the spirit of the Games, which are meant to bring people together, not keep them apart. Futhermore, in an irony not lost on Mr Craig, just a mile or so from where the mosque is due to go up, the Kingsway International Christian Centre, the biggest evangelical church in Europe with 12,000 worshippers on a Sunday, is coming down to make way for the Olympic stadium."

Gagdad rocks today: "Memo to the NY Times: Conservatism is Caused by Fighting It":

"For example, the typical liberal unreflexively believes that “poverty causes crime” (thus the New York Times clueless headline, "Crime Down Despite Rise in Prison Population") whereas I believe that bad values cause crime. The difference is that the typical liberal has never thought this through. They are generally quite naive about their beliefs, for the simple reason that they have never been challenged. They don’t experience the kind of constant cognitive friction that a conservative does, so they don’t even know how to argue or defend their ideas, which we saw with Clinton last Sunday.

Liberals will typically say that Israeli policies somehow have something to do with Palestinian terror, while I believe that Palestinian terror is caused by their psychotic death cult theology. After all, there are no Christian Palestinian terrorists. They are just as “occupied” as Palestinian Muslims, and yet, it doesn’t occur to the Christians to strap on bombs with pieces of twisted metal and rat poison in order to kill and maim as many women and children as possible. You and I are not even able to entertain thoughts so evil. We cannot even go there. Under no circumstances whatsoever can we imagine decapitating an innocent journalist or murdering a baby. But could I waterboard a terrorist? In a hearbeat. I literally cannot understand the mind of the person who wouldn’t.

If you unreflexively believe that poverty causes crime or that the cause of terror is fighting it, then all of your reporting is going to reflect those basic assumptions, something we constantly see in the liberal media. For them, these notions are simply “reality,” whereas the idea that bad values cause crime is a “conservative” idea.

Likewise, for liberals, it is simply gospel that “the war on terror causes terrorists” instead of terrorists are the cause of terror. If you give it a moment’s thought, their whole world view is just so stupid. Would they ever report that terrorists are the cause of the American military, and that if terrorists would only appease us, the American military would stop trying to harm them? Or that Islamo-nazis have to stop their unwinnable war on the west, because it will only create more George Bushes?

Or that they simply must stop mindlessly attacking conservatives, because it will just make us stronger?"

"Consequently the one thing the Press left out of discussing the NIE, which heavily emphasizes the role of perception, is the role of the Press itself. Iraq the battlefield -- with its success and failures -- is largely what the combatants have made it. Iraq the symbol is largely the manufacture of observers. Both are factors in the War on Terror."

"You know, to suggest that if we weren't in Iraq, we would see a rosier scenario with fewer extremists joining the radical movement requires us to ignore 20 years of experience. We weren't in Iraq when we got attacked on September the 11th. We weren't in Iraq, and thousands of fighters were trained in terror camps inside your country, Mr. President. We weren't in Iraq when they first attacked the World Trade Center in 1993. We weren't in Iraq when they bombed the Cole. We weren't in Iraq when they blew up our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. My judgment is, if we weren't in Iraq, they'd find some other excuse, because they have ambitions. They kill in order to achieve their objectives. [ And did I forget to mention that the objective of the 1993 WTC bombing was to kill 250,000 people by toppling one tower into another? -ed. ] "

"If our intelligence agencies are laboring under the moonbat illusion that Muslim hatred of the infidel West didn't really start bubbling until the year 2003, we are really in deep, deep doo-doo.

Well, it appears we are, in fact, in deep doo-doo."

"Is this the Animal House suspension? Did Dean Wormer advise Ali Larijani to put their uranium-enrichment program on double secret suspension? If a uranium-enrichment program freezes in a forest and no one is around to see it, does it make a noise later when strapped to a Shahab-3 missile?"

The Emperor Manuel II Paleologus pondered this question in his debate with the learned Persian. How can a god who commands conversion by the sword be the same god as the emperor's god--a god who wished to gain converts only through the use of words and reason? If Allah is happy to accept converts who are trembling in fear for their lives, with a sword hovering over their necks, then he may well be a god worth fearing, but not a god worth revering. He may represent an imaginary construction of god suitable to slaves, but he will not be an image of god worthy of being worshiped by a Socrates--or by any reasonable man.

In fairness, I found Chomsky to be a readable apologist for genocide.

Sadly, I don't think the answers to these questions are much in doubt. The bureaucrat leakers are Democrats who wanted to advance their party's interests, and the reporters at the New York Times and Washington Post were also Democrats, and were happy to oblige. The bottom line is that you just can't get adequate information from these news sources. Their grotesque biases outweigh the resources that, in theory, they are able to devote to covering the news. They can't even provide a balanced account of a single bureaucratic report, let alone of a war.

"For, although they are the benefecesaries of liberal academics who teach the false absolute that truth doesn't exist, they don't believe that for a second. Rather, they simply use the means of leftist relativism to advance their own absolute end of religious totalitarianism. For when truth is denied, raw power fills the vacuum, destroying love and everything else in its wake."

"One major spoke cogently of the lessons he drew from interacting with Arab officers. Another stressed the criticality of education for women in breaking the chain of societal failure (and this guy was an aviator, a category of officer better known for fly-by targeting of the human female - tell Ms. Steinem we're making progress). A Navy SEAL raised the lessons medieval Europe offers for analyzing the Middle East today.

Not exactly The New Yorker's snitty view of military officers. There was no bluster or swagger, no trace of close-mindedness (for that, you have to go to a liberal arts faculty). No matter how controversial the discussion became, no one raised his or her voice.

The quality of their questions and observations was signally higher than those on any campus I've ever visited. It's the same story every year at Ft. Leavenworth. If the readers of this paper only could meet these magnificent Americans, you'd be immeasurably proud of them."

The CCoC: Clinton's Crock Of Crap:

"All this to say, militarily, Clinton's spouting a crock of crap. We did, in OEF, what he said he couldn't do because of Uzbekistan and night air-refueling. Nonsense.

3. "The CIA and the FBI refused to certify that Bin Laden was responsible while I was there. They refused to certify."

So what? That's why the president gets paid the big bucks. To make decisions like that. Everyone but the CIA and FBI apparently knew who was responsible. Since when do those agencies get a defacto veto on whether or not to strike an enemy? [ It seems the CIA (and the Fourth Estate) gets the final say on everything under W also ... in spite of W of course... -ed. ] "

"The most sensible proposal this week came from Chavez, who demanded the U.N. relocate to Venezuela. You go, girl! [Reform advocates] would be better off trying to get America expelled from the U.N., and encouraging it to join a new group of nations serious about defending freedom in the world: It would be a very small club. . . .Anyone who thinks the U.N. is the body to mediate Iran's nuclearization or anything else is more deluded than Ahmadinejad. At this rate, the Twelfth Imam will be the next secretary-general."

"Who has conquered the Middle East ...? See 5,000 years of history in 90 seconds. [ COOL! -ed. ] "

"The pro-Clinton Richard Clarke has managed to capture in a paragraph why Clinton, despite his enormous gifts, was unfit for high office, and why President Bush deserves credit for being willing to push the bureaucracy, ignore partisan criticism, and make the tough calls."

"ANGLE: So, just to finish up if we could then, so what you’re saying is that there was no — one, there was no plan; two, there was no delay; and that actually the first changes since October of ‘98 were made in the spring months just after the administration came into office?

CLARKE: You got it. That’s right. [ Did Bush take Osama seriously enough? No. And Clinton did? Hardly. -ed. ] "

And Wretchard writes hauntingly of the real crux. RTWT:

"A friend of mine –he's a Colombian politician in a small town- receives frequent death threats. Last year he denounced the paramilitaries for skimming a percentage off public contracts, and there’s a strong chance that he'll now be murdered (they've already tried once). He thinks they might try to abduct him.

I'm going to order him a copy of On Becoming Fearless by Arianna Huffington, in the hope that it will inspire him as much as it has inspired American women. It isn't easy being a multi-millionaire in California, and Arianna has shown real courage in standing up against the detentions and disappearances that go on in Beverly Hills, not to mention the gossip columnists, intimidated by the idea of a strong, independent woman."

More Consequences of 9/11?

Well this is interesting from Dallas:

"When one of the mothers saw him and asked Burke what he was doing, he tried to run and the woman started screaming, said Elizabeth Williams, the mother of another child. According to a police report, Burke said about 15 men "jumped him and hit him repeatedly on the face with their fists." He suffered minor injuries, police said.

At least four children saw the nude pictures, police said. Burke was arrested on suspicion of harmful display to a minor."

Why do I find this interesting?

I was sitting on the plane yesterday next to a man who of all things decided to watch "United 93" on his laptop. My first thought was that he certainly wasn't superstitious (at least we weren't flying United!). Then through the course of the movie, I found it more and more irresistable to shift from the work I was doing to watching the movie as the focus shifted to the action onboard the plane -- you really didn't need the sound much though now I know I need to really watch it for that aspect.

As I chatted with him a bit as we landed I finally realized that it's really not just a movie about events on an airplane -- it really should be made available to passengers on a free channel as in-flight training for the post-9/11 world! As I told him, it was people like us on the plane that would have to react as the real last line of defense if -- as the Islamofascists so often do -- they "return to the scene of the crime". Everyone who thinks more than a few minutes a day realizes this with or without movies like this of course.

Ironically, as I left home for the trip I had accidentally left a pocket knife in my carry-on -- which doubles as my briefcase -- and had it confiscated by security! So negative stories about TSA to the contrary, the good guys will be unarmed.

And maybe now there are higher odds of an air marshall being on the plane to help, but we have to assume we'll have nobody to help us. It will be "vigilante justice" if we succeed.

So was this little incident in the park a consequence of the new 9/11 mentality? Or just why none of the 9/11 flights originated in Texas?

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is home at last in America:

"Slender, elegant, stylish and articulate (in English, Dutch and Swahili), she has found an intellectual home here at the American Enterprise Institute, where she is writing a book that imagines Muhammad meeting, in the New York Public Library, three thinkers -- John Stuart Mill, Friedrich Hayek and Karl Popper, each a hero of the unending struggle between (to take the title of Popper's 1945 masterpiece) "The Open Society and Its Enemies.'' Islamic extremists -- the sort who were unhinged by some Danish cartoons -- will be enraged. She is unperturbed.

Neither is she pessimistic about the West. It has, she says, "the drive to innovate.'' But Europe, she thinks, is invertebrate. After two generations without war, Europeans "have no idea what an enemy is.'' And they think, she says, that leadership is an antiquated notion because they believe that caring governments can socialize everyone to behave well, thereby erasing personal accountability and responsibility. "I can't even tell it without laughing,'' she says, laughing softly. Clearly she is where she belongs, at last."

"I don't want to make too much of a single example, but I think it is reasonable to say that the international system is starved for effective action. The incessant back and forth between the United Nations and Iran over the issue of its uranium enrichment program is classic example of Zeno's paradox as applied to international affairs. Every diplomatic moment halves the distance between warning and activity but the distance, though ever decreasing, never quite crosses the line between thought and deed. We will always almost, but never quite, come to the rescue of Darfur; just as we are condemned to be forever on the verge of stopping Iran's nuclear program. The moment of action never comes; and the process of warning never ends. [ It will end. There will eventually be no "warners" left. They will have been slaughtered by the "warnees" of course... -ed. ] "

"We fight tastefully, too. Last week one of America’s unmanned drones could have killed 200 Taliban bigshots but they were attending a funeral and we apparently have a policy of not killing anybody near cemeteries out of sensitivity.

So even our unmanned drones are obliged to behave with sensitivity. But then these days the very soundtrack to our society is, so to speak, an unmanned drone."

"In the Thailand military coup, the acting prime minister installed by the army is a Muslim who wants to negotiate with the jihadis in the south. [ Luckily, it's all a conspiracy by W to make the Muslims seem stronger so he can lie to us more about the non-existent Jihadi threat. And certainly no evidence that Islam comes to power by the sword. Why they used the army and tanks so that doesn't apply. Silly you. -ed. ] "

"I think one of the reasons for the collapse of religious observance, is the development of this strange “cargo cult”, in which prayer is replaced by whining and voting. The God to whom we once turned for favour, has been replaced by Kafkaesque government agencies, that do not demand we be good or industrious, or even reasonable. They only demand the sacrifice of our adulthood."

"While the Sunni Arab terrorists have not brought down the Shia dominated government, they have kept the Sunni Arab tribal and religious leaders terrified. That may be changing, as more tribal leaders improve their own militias, and learn from the tribes that have chased out the terrorists and assassins. The government has made it clear that, until the terrorist violence stops, the entire Sunni Arab community will be held responsible. The government is saying, in effect, that they will not try too hard to halt the anti-Sunni death squads until the Sunni Arab leadership makes an effort, a real effort, against the terrorists. [ How much longer can the Golden Hour last? -ed. ] "

Wretchard on the Necromonger Fascifist Way:

"The challenge of Iran is forcing Washington to face the same type of questions it faced in 2003, before OIF. How should it act in Iran or has that now become an impossible question to answer because of the controversy over Iraq? One way to dodge the issue is to argue that any position toward Iran has been precluded by Iraq. Or put another way, confronting Iran would have been possible if only we didn't ruin everything by first getting involved in Iraq. This is a specific version of the more general belief that the West is precluded from acting on anything because of its historical burden of guilt. Got it wrong for the start and therefore need to earn the right to begin again. Therefore the crazy emphasis in modern politics on expatiation as a way of acquiring the "moral authority" to act in the world. How this moral authority can be acquired without actually doing anything becomes a recursive problem. It also reduces politics to a kind of perverted theology. One day people may discover liberalism is actually a primitive form of Necroism, after a fictional religion in the Chronicles of Riddick Universe. "The Necromongers practice a religion known as Necroism. The primary belief of this religion is that life in this universe is a mistake which must be corrected." And so the Necromongers go through the galaxy destroying everything because it's all tainted in the hopes of eventually attaining the Underverse, where everything gets recreated perfectly."

"For the most part, why is it that every time Islam is given an opportunity to demonstrate its claim to be the "religion of peace", people die and places are burned?

A general question to start your Monday off right."

"Vatican researchers said the application is already being processed and they need only find one more verifiable after-death miracle attributed to Muhammad.

“The first is indisputable,” a Vatican source said, “We already have ample evidence that the long-dead prophet miraculously caused a major religious leader, with a reputation for infallibility, to apologize for telling the truth.”"

"It does a disservice to children to call the wild-eyed statements and deranged behaviour of the past days childish."

"It's a rule that George W. Bush's chief political strategist Karl Rove knows well. And it's a rule that he and Bush -- and events -- have put into operation over the last few weeks. For months, the central issue of the off-year election has been, Hasn't Bush kept us too long in Iraq? Now, the issue seems to have become, Who can keep us safe against the Islamofascist terrorists who want to kill us and destroy our society?

The first question tends to help the Democrats. The second tends to help Bush and the Republicans."

"If Islam is ever to peacefully co-exist with other faiths in the manner that Christendom finally learned how to do, then it has to start abiding questions and criticisms without resorting to violence. Islam has to learn to persuade and to attract people through reason, not through forced conversions and coexistence through violent supremacy. Muslim leaders around the world still believe that our faith can only exist at their sufferance, and any question of their doctrinal beliefs has to be met with violence or demands for apologies, not with rhetoric, facts, and reason."

"Incredibly, the Associated Press, rather than expressing any embarrassment that it has been publishing propaganda photos taken by an apparent associate of al Qaeda in Iraq, is campaigning for Hussein's release, saying that it is normal for journalists to have "relationships with people that others might find unsavory."

In recent months, we have learned a great deal about the deep corruption that pervades the use of Middle Eastern stringers by the international news services. The Bilal Hussein story adds another piece to the puzzle."