AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT: An actual examination of the Constitution and a review of the historical context of the Fortas filibuster. But let's not have facts get in the way...

Do what I say...

Thanks Bangor!

The part they leave out...

The concise critique...

Today's Air Safety Announcement

Things you didn't know that will prepare you for things you may find yourself needing to do:

Hey guys, there's a way to open those lavatory doors on an airplane. There's usually a small metal plate underneath the "locked" sign. You can lift it up, and there is a latch underneath. Slide it over. Then open the door. Have a cup of hot coffee in your hand, that you just got from the galley. If he's doing nothing bad, say "excuse me". If he IS up to no good, throw the hot coffee in his face, and scream TERRORIST! HELP!

Do this if some of these middle east goons are on your flight making synchronistic hand-signals and going to the lavs together and staying in there a long time.

No one else is going to save your lives. There's not air marshalls on every flight.

THAT will teach THEM a lesson.

Good practical advice...

Hoot! Hil's hot!

On The Lamm

Glenn has it right on the recent Richard Lamm row. What DU admin is saying by not publishing it is that they have (or believe they have) largely left wing donors -- and they're too stupid and easily offended to read Dick's piece.

Of course, that's true of leftists in general so we're really not plowing any new ground but rather rehashing leftist projection.

Anyway, here's "Two Wands" (reproduced here in its entirety since it's not getting enough exposure):

Two Wands
Richard D. Lamm
Center for Public Policy and Contemporary Issues

Let me offer you, metaphorically, two magic wands that have sweeping powers to change society. With one wand you could wipe out all racism and discrimination from the hearts and minds of white America. The other wand you could wave across the ghettoes and barrios of America and infuse the inhabitants with Japanese or Jewish values, respect for learning, and ambition. But, alas, you can t wave both wands. Only one.

Which would you choose? I understand that many would love to wave both wands; no one can easily refuse the chance to erase racism and discrimination. But I suggest that the best wand for the society and for those who live in the ghettoes and barrios would be the second wand.

This metaphor is important in correctly diagnosing one of the most significant problems facing contemporary America: the large economic, education and employment gap between Black/Hispanic America and White/Asian America. The problems of crime, educational failure, drugs, gangs, teenage pregnancy, and unemployment that burden certain groups threaten our collective future. They form a nation-threatening social pathology that must be addressed in broader terms than we have done to date.

Most discussion of minority failure blames racism and discrimination. I m an old civil rights lawyer and such racism and discrimination clearly still exists. But the problem is, I fear, deeper than the current dialogue. We need to think honestly about these problems with new sophistication. One of these new areas is to recognize that increasingly scholars are saying culture matters.

I m impressed, for instance, that minorities that have been discriminated against earn the highest family incomes in America. Japanese Americans, Jews, Chinese Americans, and Korean Americans all out-earn white Americans by substantial margins and all have faced discrimination and racism. We put Japanese Americans in camps 60 years ago and confiscated much of their property. Yet today they out-earn all other demographic groups. Discrimination and racism are social cancers and can never be justified but it is enlightening that, for these groups, they were a hurdle, not a barrier to success.

The Italians, the Irish, the people from the Balkans America has viewed all these groups and many more with hostility and suspicion, yet all have integrated and succeeded. Hispanic organizations excuse their failure rates solely in terms of discrimination by white America and object vociferously when former Education Secretary Lauro Cavazos observes that Hispanic parents don t take enough interest in education. But Cuban Americans have come to America and succeeded brilliantly. Do we discriminate against Hispanics from Mexico but not Hispanics from Cuba?

I suggest that those groups whose culture and values stress delayed gratification, education, hard work, success and ambition are those groups that succeed in America regardless of discrimination. I further suggest that, even if discrimination was removed, other groups would still have massive problems until they develop the traits that lead to success. Asian and Jewish children do twice as much homework as Black and Hispanic students, and get twice as good grades. Why should we be surprised?

A problem well defined is a problem half-solved. We must recognize that all the civil rights laws in the world are not going to solve the problem of minority failure. Ultimately Blacks and Hispanics are going to have to see that the solution is largely in their own hands. Lionel Sosa, one of America s leading Hispanic businessmen, in his book The Americano Dream, titles his first chapter Escaping the Cultural Shackles.

Daniel Patrick Moynihan has insightfully observed, the central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society. The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself.

Thus, morally, I would want badly to wave both wands; if I had to choose, I would wave the second wand. A Confucian or Jewish love of learning would gain minorities far more than any affirmative action laws we might pass.

[Emphasis mine.]

Biology AND culture. Or should I say CULTURE (with a hint of biology)?

“Can I just sit here and read?”

DON'T. MISS. THIS!

Vacuuming Out The MSMemory Hole

Freedom for Lebanon? Vanished down the MSMemory Hole of course. This one is a real eye-opener including stats on AP newswire content!

And of course, demonstrations in Iraq are not what the MSM wants you to believe...

UPDATE: In case you missed it, the entirety of the Steyn "Bish" column is worthy of redux on this topic as well...

"Unable to prosper in the medium, liberals have taken to denouncing talk radio as a threat to democracy."

Yes, OF COURSE astroturf is fake!

Unbalanced Redux

I bet you missed my post on "What the h*ll are they thinking?"



It's short. I'm patient. Come back when you're done.

Now read this series by Dr. Sanity. (Kudos Roger and a tip from the comments as well)

Narcisism is pretty scary huh? When you're not balanced then you're, well, unbalanced! Why didn't YOU think of that?

And you never thought evil might seem almost understandable did you?

Yikes! A completely new imperative for the virtue of moderation.

Something Is Finally Missing!

Can you believe it?



I can't.

I never thought I'd be glad to see Old Glory taken down...

Accurate but fake.

On Hating Lincoln Today

In case you were wondering how much the libs would hate Lincoln if he were alive today:

“Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.”
-- Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), 16th President of the United States

The venom shown to Bush and Reagan would be a pittance compared to what he'd be dealing with today.

And it was plenty bad back then...

On The Gaming Of Near Martyrdom

As if my last post regarding the Palis didn't open your eyes. The child victims of Hamas et al are figuring out how to game their captors!

And yes, that would be Hamas.

You see, the Palestinian children have now figured out that they can escape Hamas brutality via "near martyrdom" with its positive rep in the PA and still safely end up with a better education than they could get in Yassar's burnt-out shell -- in Israeli prison!

There is justice in the world! Leave it to the children to show us the way.

The last laugh may be on the neanderthal thugs after all -- even in the land of al-Husseini...

Apparently, the Japanese think it's finally robot time...

I'm guessing you haven't read Strategy Page on Iraq yet today?

Steyn on Bish. Glenn has the key para not to be missed!

By All Means Let's Give Them A State (Not)

Hamas sees the Taliban -- an apparently raises them even though I didn't think that was possible. Don't follow this link if you're squeamish...

I think we have a rival for Beslan and the Taliban's public execution of women at the Kabul soccer stadium.

What's Beslan you say? If you don't believe in evil after reading this then your soul is dead.



Beasts on earth. Keep your children close.

And when they're ready, teach them to defend themselves.

UPDATE: Somewhere around 100%.

The AP In The MSMemory Hole Again

Power Line returns AP's ludicrous accusations with a fast ball:

Now, it's possible that Jack Stokes, the AP's director of media relations, was incorrect. But for the AP to express outrage that we thought there was collusion between the photographer and the terrorists, without even acknowledging that we based that conclusion on the AP's own statements to that effect, is ridiculous.

Followed by a curve from an ex-NYeT photographer who had covered the civil rights movement:

I pointed out [to the person who showed him the uncropped photo] that the photo depicts a lynching . Lynchings are always local and specific. Their purpose is "educational" in that the lynchers want as wide a distribution of the event as possible. In other words, lynchings fail if they do not have the implicit or explicit support of the media.

Who then proceeds to analyze the "prize winning" AP photo:

THE DISTANCE FROM CAMERA TO SUBJECT:
We do not have the original photo to make a judgment about. It is difficult to tell if the image has been enlarged, or if it has degraded through numerous duplications. However, assuming that this is the original dimension of the finished photo, I would estimate that the lens is the rough equivalent of a 180mm lens on a 35mm format. I would estimate the distance between 15 and 25 meters. The distance would be the same if the lens were "normal" but an enlargement of the print had occurred. This may be a "blow up," in other words.

A PHOTOGRAPHER'S "FEEL":
Leaving aside the ethical specifics of this situation, if I knew that an event was about to occur that included possible violence, I would do exactly what it appears the photographer did in making this picture:

(1) I would choose an elevated mobile platform where I had an unobstructed view of the scene, and where I had maneuverability to observe as well as rapid exit...such as a pick up truck

(2) I would be at enough distance to be somewhat protected and inconspicuous

(3) I would choose a medium telephoto lens that could be hand held in a moving vehicle, yet give me large enough images to be clearly recognizable.

So, the assassination picture has all the earmarks of a planned image, indicating that the photographer had taken most of the considerations that I have written about above.

It's also possible that a passing Iraqi, riding in the back of a pick-up truck, carrying a Nikon with a 180mm lens happened onto the scene, made a few snaps and dropped them off at the AP office in the Green Zone of Baghdad.

The latter is possible of course. But interesting that in the primary hypothesis case -- that the "AP photographer" was a terrorist sympathizer -- or the latter very unlikely case the AP's continuing anonymity cover for the photographer smells of corruption at minimum.

Or of being on the other side in all liklihood...

UPDATE: Wretchard says to bring on the investigation into perfidy -- and tips his hat to Power Line.

"To have remembered everything and to have learned nothing."

World's Smallest Violin Department: "Very, very depressed."

Cuckoo, eh?

"Even Hirsi Ali cannot escape the geometric absurdity that European politics has become: a fantastic creature with two extreme Rights and a Left hovering above the dimensional plane, forever blameless, beyond criticism and past hope."

RAT BASTARDS

Canadian rights hypocrisy update: "Unless, you know, it's embarrassing to people in power or something."

Tonight's Flag Viewing Brought To You By

my neighbor across the street:



I lit it with my flashlight and then enhanced the contrast of the .jpg or you wouldn't have been able to see it at all in the darkness. What? Light a flag at night?

Like I said, I've become morbidly fascinated...

Did I forget to mention that Nichols was trained in the Phillipines by Islamists?

Nazi Prof Fired ...

Because he took too many sick days????? LOL

It's hard to figure out who's nuttier, the university or the Kos Kidz analysis...

Wryly Reading Reuters

Today seemed as good a day as any to analyze Reuter's spin via this Saturday Yahoo News Headlines snapshot ("-->" denotes my snarky analysis of the spin the headline is meant to impart) :

• World leaders praise pope as force for peace --> That Iraq war was d*mn bad

Amazingly, W's praise for "a faithful servant of God" and Schroeder's positive comments about his having "changed our world" actually appeared in the article before Hugo Chavez' praise for the Pope's opposition to the Iraq war -- but Kofi was immediately after W with his recollection that the Pope "felt that in war, all are losers". Well, except for those damn uppity Iraqis that actually think freedom is a good thing and worth sacrificing for...

• Rome prepares for influx of pilgrims --> Suprisingly neutral

• Pope's death triggers scripted ritual --> Damn scheming Catholic morons

• Selection of new pope shrouded in secrecy --> Damn scheming Catholic morons

• New pope unlikely to be from United States --> Serves that unilateral warmonger W right

• Daylight-saving time returns this weekend --> Even Reuters doesn't screw W in one like this -- yet...

Worthy Of Praise? -- Preemptively NYeT!

And of course, the NYeT has its smears all ready and primed for the barely passed away Pope. He was instrumental in wrecking the rag of Duranty's Communist icons don't you know...

WHOOPS! (via Roger)

AP Sights Reality, Can't Quite Get There

Via James the AP seems to be getting dangerously close to reality:

Influential Sunni scholars encouraged Iraqis to join the country's security forces and protect the country, issuing an edict Friday that departed sharply from earlier warnings against participating in the fledgling police and army. . . .

Friday's edict, endorsed by a group of 64 Sunni clerics and scholars, instructed enlistees to refrain from helping foreign troops against their own countrymen.

But Ahmed Abdul Ghafour al-Samarrai, a cleric in the influential Association of Muslim Scholars who read the edict during a sermon at a major Sunni mosque, said joining the Iraqi security forces was now necessary to prevent the country from falling into "the hands of those who have caused chaos, destruction and violated the sanctities."

If heeded, the announcement could strengthen Iraqi security forces, who are trying to take over the fight against the Sunni-led insurgency.

But of course reality is both more positive and complex:

IRAQ: Sunni Arab Clerics Giving Up On Al Qaeda
April 1, 2005: Another major Shia religious festival, which lasted from 29-31 March, ended without incident. The government made a major effort to provide security for the large gatherings of Shia Arabs attending religious ceremonies and moving around in southern Iraq. Sunni Arab terrorists, especially al Qaeda, consider these ceremonies a major insult to Sunni religious beliefs. The government deployed a security effort on the same level as the one rolled out for the January elections. Coalition troops deployed mostly as back up and quick reaction forces. Al Qaeda tried to use suicide car bombers, but none of them got through to large assemblies of Shia Arabs. In one incident, a car bomb went off and killed five people, which was the most any of the attacks were able to do.

Another reason the attacks were not successful was that, in the days before March 29th, police arrested hundreds of Sunni Arabs and foreigners suspected of being terrorists. Many were, and this is because an increasing number of Sunni Arab religious leaders have changed their minds about armed resistance to democracy, and coalition forces. This has made it easier for Sunni Arabs to pass on information to the police. The Sunni religious leaders have done the math and concluded that they were backing the losing side. Some have made deals with the government, to provide information, or pro-government sermons, in return for favorable treatment (money, access to jobs for their followers, reconstruction projects). But most have simply stopped preaching violence, or cut back on the intensity of their calls for violence against Kurds, Sunni Arabs and infidels (non-Moslems). Many Sunni Arab clerics have also noted that most of their followers are not in favor of terror attacks that kill Iraqis, no matter what their religion or ethnicity. The terrorists have largely given up attacking American troops. The level of such attacks is about half what it was a year ago. The reason is that the attackers are much more likely to fail, and get killed, when they attack American troops. It's much easier, and safer, to attack Iraqi civilians, or even Iraqi police and troops. But the Iraqi government forces are becoming more lethal as well, and Iraqi government forces usually have American troops backing them up.

The impact of all this has been striking. The overall level of terrorist violence has fallen by about half in the last month. Terrorist attacks that target Iraqis has been very unpopular in Iraq, and caused even many Sunni Arabs to turn against al Qaeda and Sunni Arab terrorist organizations. But at the street level, most Iraqis are more concerned with criminal gangs (who commit far more violence against Iraqis than terrorists) and corruption (which is encountered daily, while you might go weeks without even hearing about a terror attack in your neighborhood.)

Maybe the AP should venture out of their hotels a bit more...

Just A Misdemeanor Ma'am -- And I'll Keep What I Wanted Thanks Very Much

Don't worry -- our judges and legal system are right on top of things. Sandy Burglar only gets a misdemeanor and gets to keep hidden what he stole:

He returned most of the documents, but still missing are some drafts of a sensitive after-action report on the Clinton administration's handling of al-Qaida terror threats during the December 1999 millennium celebration.

You don't want to know what I really think of this...

UPDATE: Glenn has much more and is lots more civil about it than I would be so I suggest you go there instead.

ANOTHER: Thank you ScrappleFace!

Cuckoo Courts Continue

Getaloadofthis:

Moreover, whatever happened to the public's "right-to-know?" I find it ironic that every deeply personal detail of a politician's life is fair game for the press --- and if that same politician stands on a stage full of reporters screaming that his political enemies are "liars," "queers," and "child molesters," --- that there are judges who think it should be ILLEGAL to let the public even know what was said.

Furthermore, have these justices really considered the chilling effect --- of not allowing a neutral reporting privilege -- that this could have on free speech? Consider this real world example cited by press lawyers:

"Otherwise, they said, for example, the press could not have reported last year on the charges lodged against Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth because Kerry's supporters said their charges were false."

Imagine simply reporting on a story like the Swift Boat Vets for Truth and getting a cease and desist letter from the Kerry campaign threatening legal action for simply detailing their allegations.

Depending on how this court case comes out, in a future election, we may not have to just imagine it...

WTF, over? LOL RTWT!

Churchill At Home

Check out Ward-baby at the Anarchist Bookfair! (Warning: Not for minors!)



Any more questions? [via Charles]

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.