Dirty, Sneaky Cheese Eating Surrender Monkey Exposed

The UCI has suspended Dr Zorzoli, the manager of its own health department for handing over Lance Armstrong's supposedly positive EPO results from 1999.

Originally the sport's governing body had said it had allowed him to hand over one dope test sheet because Armstrong had agreed to it.

But now it says that the doctor concerned in fact handed over 15 examples and knew that the angle of the article on Armstrong was to show that the Texan had never asked permission to take medication he required after suffering from cancer.

The UCI's admission was triggered by information it had received from Dick Pound, president of the World Anti-Doping Agency, and had held an internal enquiry.

Actually, Zorzoli looks like an Italian or even a Polish name, but it was the French "newspaper," Le Equipe that accused Armstrong of cheating.

I Thought The Bush Administration Was Incapable of This

According to the Washington Post, the Bush Administration employed some rather nuanced diplomacy to bring Iraq back from the brink of civil war.

By Saturday morning, the crisis had reached a turning point. After discussions at the White House and with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, President Bush called leaders from each faction to give them the final push toward an accommodation, Khalilzad said.

After the call, the Sunni leaders announced their willingness to rejoin the talks, and later that evening they met with various representatives. At the end of that meeting, just before midnight on Saturday, the Iraqi prime minister, flanked by the leaders of the major political parties, solemnly announced at a news conference that the country would not have a civil war -- a moment of "terrific political symbolism," the Western diplomat said.

The diplomat said that the outside pressure helped but that the Sunni decision to seek an agreement was also made from a cold calculation of what could happen if they fought it out.

"I think these guys don't just react to pressure," the diplomat said. "They measure their own interests. And they understood that staying out of the political process put them back to where they were a year ago," when they had largely boycotted Iraq's first election and found themselves with almost no political power.

Somehow, this sort of stuff gets missed when it involves Bush. I'm surprised the Post noticed. I don't expect the New York Times to even mention it. I recall when Bush diplomacy pulled Pakistan and India back from the brink of what would have been nuclear war. Because Bush is disinclined to toot his own horn, that sort of got overlooked too.

You Say You Want a Reformation?

Call it the digital printing press. It's doing the same thing for Bush that it did for Luther.

Double Weasel?

If a double agent is one who works for both sides simultaneously, does this make Germany a double-weasel, stabbing both sides in the back at the same time?

A classified US military study states categorically that the Germans provided details about Saddam Hussein's plans for the defence of Baghdad. Since the spy issue first arose last month, the Berlin government has been repeatedly forced on the defensive. It issued a denial yesterday.

A copy of the US study was obtained by Michael Gordon, chief military correspondent of the New York Times, who has co-written Cobra 11: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq, to be published by Pantheon in America and Atlantic Books in Britain next month. A New York Times report yesterday was based on the book.

The study, which reconstructs Saddam's military strategy, was prepared in 2005 by the US Joint Forces Command. It says that two German agents based in Baghdad gained access a month before the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 to a sketch, covered in clear plastic, showing the proposed defensive lines for Baghdad, and that a German intelligence officer based in Qatar handed it to US intelligence. The sketch is identified as a plan presented at a meeting of Saddam and his senior commanders in December 2002.

A German government spokesman said yesterday: "This account is wrong. The Federal Intelligence Service, and therefore also the government, had until now no knowledge of such a plan."

hat tip: Ed Morrisey

More Dreary Political Correctness From Seattle

Twenty years ago, Washington's biggest and most liberal county decided that "King County" was politically incorrect, indicating royalty and male oppression and the like. For some reason, they did not rename the county, Queen County, which would have been more descriptive of the place.

Instead, they decided that it was in fact named after Martin Luther King.

Now, they've changed the logo, removing the crown and replacing it with Martin Luther King's image.

Too bad they didn't name it Mohammend County. Replacing the crown with that logo would have been entertaining.

Gratuitous Offensive Mohammed Cartoon of the Day

In some ways, this is my favorite. You'd kill or die for this, right?

Missing the Story

I've seen this story in many forms and all miss the main story. It's about how the Coast Guard raised security concerns regarding the port deal. Those concerns were addressed to the Coast Guard's satisfaction and the Coast Guard has no problems now.

Susan Collins of Maine "leaked" this document to the press to support her opposition to the deal. The story should be that Susan Collins is too dumb or has too short an attention span to realize that the document actually supports the deal.

If the press were really honest, somewhere in one of these stories, one might read this statement from the Coast Guard.

Press Release

STATEMENT BY COAST GUARD SPOKESMAN CMDR. JEFF CARTER ON COAST GUARD PORT TRANSACTION ANALYSIS

WASHINGTON - "What is being quoted is an excerpt of a broader Coast Guard intelligence analysis that was performed early on as part of its due diligence process. The excerpts made public earlier today, when taken out of context, do not reflect the full, classified analysis performed by the Coast Guard. That analysis concludes ‘that DP World's acquisition of P&O, in and of itself, does not pose a significant threat to U.S. assets in [continental United States] ports.’ Upon subsequent and further review, the Coast Guard and the entire CFIUS panel believed that this transaction, when taking into account strong security assurances by DP World, does not compromise U.S. security."

Yep, and Islam is a "Religion of Peace"

It will come as a big surprise to Israelis that Hamas "are not lovers of blood."

Question: Israel has agreed to a two-state solution, and Israel has signed agreements with the PLO, and it withdrew from Gaza. So, will Hamas accept any of the agreements that the PLO made with Israel?

Hamas leader and prime minister designate, Ismail Haniyeh: The withdrawal from Gaza was based on a unilateral decision and a unilateral plan. It was not [done] out of the generosity of Israel. We ask, is Israel committed to all these agreements? We are not war seekers nor are we war initiators. We are not lovers of blood. We are oppressed people with rights. If peace brings us our rights, then this is good.

For that matter, the news would come as a surprise to most Palestinians.

Condi Rice for VP!!!!!!!!

If this story is true, then I would like to recommend a replacement.

Vice President Dick Cheney is expected to retire within a year.

Senior GOP sources envision the retirement of Mr. Cheney in 2007, months after the congressional elections. The sources said Mr. Cheney would be persuaded to step down as he becomes an increasing political liability to President Bush.

Vice President is a much better position from which to run for president than Secretary of State.

Gratuitous Offensive Mohammed Cartoon of the Day

In honor of Princeton University and their presitigious student, former Taliban ambassador at large, Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi.

And You're Worried About A Port Deal?

When will Chuckie Schumer hold a press conference to denounce the former Taliban ambassador-at-large's admission to Princeton University?

"In some ways," Mr. Rahmatullah told the New York Times. "I'm the luckiest person in the world. I could have ended up in Guantanamo Bay. Instead I ended up at Yale." One of the courses he has taken is called Terrorism-Past, Present and Future.

Unbelievable. No, I take that back. It's all too believable.

Democratic Race Baiting

There really is no other way to characterize Democratic opposition to the Dubai ports deal other than pandering to racism. Newsweek has a story about how the Bush administration's tin ear on the issue can be traced back to the absence of racism.

Many security experts saw no cause for concern from a company so multinational in its makeup that it has been criticized in its own backyard for not hiring enough Arabs. Regardless of who owns the ports, the experts said, security would still be handled by the Coast Guard, the Customs Service, and dockworkers hired through U.S. unions. The United Arab Emirates, home to the Dubai firm, drew fire when money to fund the 9/11 attackers sloshed through their wide-open banking system. But since then, they've cooperated extensively with the U.S. military and intelligence services.

Dubai Ports World already works closely with the United States, shutting down its commercial traffic whenever the Navy sails in. So when it first approached the Feds about a takeover in mid-October, there were no red flags. American officials asked the company to sign assurances that it would follow their security orders and allow access to records. They finished their formal review in mid-January with no public fanfare and no extended inquiry.

On the other hand, Arabs have big noses and some of them are really mean. Perfect targets for race baiting politics.

Gratuitous Offensive Mohammed Cartoon of the Day

Because your courageous local and national newspaper lack the balls for it.

Intolerance of Intolerance

The cartoon controversy has finally shaken sense into Europe and revealed that there is one thing Europeans cannot tolerate - intolerance.

Dutch borders have been virtually shut. New immigration is down to a trickle. The great cosmopolitan port city of Rotterdam just published a code of conduct requiring Dutch be spoken in public. Parliament recently legislated a countrywide ban on wearing the burqa in public. And listen to a prominent Dutch establishment figure describe the new Dutch Way with immigrants. "We demand a new social contract," says Jan Wolter Wabeke, High Court Judge in The Hague. "We no longer accept that people don't learn our language, we require that they send their daughters to school, and we demand they stop bringing in young brides from the desert and locking them up in third-floor apartments."

"All the burden of change is placed on the immigrant." notes Tariq Modood, director of the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Citizenship in Bristol.

Which is as it should be. If you don't like the country you're emigrating to, then don't.

"Next year I expect to speak to you in Dutch," said Dutch Integration Minister Rita Verdonk through an interpreter to an Imam who refused to shake her hand because she was a woman.

Banned in San Francisco

The City Lights bookstore has stacks of Ward Churchill books for sale - but none one by Oriana Fallaci. Why you ask? "We don't carry books by fascists," the answer given by a clerk when asked if the bookstore would be stocking his "Force of Reason," and indictment of militant Islam.

A friend of mine took his young daughter to visit the famous City Lights bookstore in San Francisco, explaining to her that the place is important because years ago it sold books no other store would — even, perhaps especially, books whose ideas many people found offensive.

Apparenly, Fallaci's crime is that he defends western culture against radical Islam.

"You're welcome to buy her book elsewhere, though," my friend was told helpfully when he visited. "Let's just say we don't have room for her here."

Who Would Want to Be a Member of a Club that Admits Bill Clinton

Our disgraced ex-president is turned away from a round of golf at an exclusive country club.

Of course, these higher standards were excercised in Australia.

Gratuitous Offensive Mohammed Cartoon of the Day

Will Mentioning Army of Davids Get Me Instapundited?

I have not yet read Army of Davids. I'm not important enough to be sent a copy of Army of Davids to review. I'll have to wait until March 6 to buy Army of Davids, like all other ordinary people.
I do intend to read Army of Davids though, just as soon as my son is done with Army of Davids. He's planning to use Army of Davids as a reference for a term paper he's writing about blogging, which is what Army of Davids is all about.

Thanks to the Blogfather for Army of Davids.

So Why Are Arkansans so Damned Fat?

According to this report, 81% of Arkansans are "food insecure."

On the other hand, 63% of Arkansans are either overweight or obese.

The President Praises Dubai

“Dubai is a role model of what could be achieved despite the other negative developments in the region. When I went to Dubai for the first time, I was taken to a technology facility where I hooked up to a bank kiosk and found that one can use a conventional banking service, while at the same time opt for an Islamic Sharia compliant service, which I thought was wonderful. This is a very good example of how cultures and values could be merged and offered to the rest. I was amazed and I have a lot of admiration for Sheikh Mohammed for what he’s doing in Dubai.”

Oh, did I mention that this was President Clinton? That was then, this is now.

“This sale will create an unacceptable risk to the security of our ports,” the Senators wrote to Frist. “We therefore request that emergency legislation we are introducing to ban foreign governments from controlling operations at our ports be slated for immediate consideration when the Senate convenes on February 27.

This issue transcends philosophical posturing and partisan bickering – it is about our nation’s security.”

All Arabs are terrorists, you know. We don't need any friends in the region, they're all enemies.

Giving Valuable Intelligence to the Mullahs

If we decided to bomb Iran, there isn't a damned thing they could do to prevent it. But giving them a heads up still seems rather irresponsible.

PC Heroism At the University named for a Rich, White Male Oppressor

Clearly the student senators at the University of Washington have earned their certifications for that school’s upper division political correctness curriculum. Asked if they would approve a memorial to World War II hero and University of Washington graduate Gregory “Pappy” Boyington, the senators gave a thumbs down on the basis that the University already had too many memorials to “rich white men.” In doing so, they demonstrated the clarity of thinking that would qualify them to write for the news division at the New York Times, sit in the anchor’s chair at a major broadcast network, or get a teaching certificate from WSU.
In characterizing Pappy Boyington as a rich white man, the senators were correct once: Pappy Boyington was a man. That gives them a score of 33% on content, which easily deserves at least a B+. There’s no reason to pollute their minds with the facts that Pappy Boyington was a Coeur d’Alene born Indian who was poor throughout his life.
What really matters is the A+ the senators earned by slurring all men, all people of pallor, and all who prosper after graduation from the “U” as unworthy of recognition. Historical accuracy be damned! What matters is that these senators have properly absorbed the proper measure of cultural bigotry. The only thing missing from their smear is a reference to his sexual orientation. Surely there exists nothing on this planet more loathsome than a rich white heterosexual man.
Further, Pappy Boyington warranted his disrespect from the student senate for killing people. Murderers like Pappy Boyington are not the sort of person that the University of Washington should be producing, the senators concluded.
Pappy Boyington was the Marine Corps top fighter ace in the Pacific theater during World War II. He is credited with destroying enemy planes, including 6 he destroyed with the “Fighting Tigers” in China before the United States was officially in the war. For defending the evil United States and killing his nation’s enemies, he deserved no more plaudits than that other famous serial murderer and Ewe Dub graduate, Ted Bundy.
Now that they have gained certification for upper division education, I would advise the senators to step up and take on a real rich white man who also killed people who is certainly even less deserving of recognition than Pappy Boyington. This vermin’s name was George Washington, and the Ewe Dub is named after him. And so, every building, tree, every blade of grass on campus is a monument to the murderous rich white male who killed people and is even more disgusting than Pappy Boyington because George Washington owned slaves. And as Pappy Boyington fought to defend his country, Washington is actually the father of this, the most oppressive and imperialist nation on earth.
If the University of Washington student senators are to move up to the next level, they should introduce a resolution demanding that the university rename itself, with a suggestion that the Washington State Legislature rename the entire state.
Future projects for Ewe Dub students could be renaming the Columbia River. After all, this river is not named for the country that supplies one of the Puget Sound’s favorite recreational drugs. It’s named after that genocidal monster, Christopher Columbus. As an historical teammate of Adolph Hitler, he deserves to have his named expunged from the maps of the world.
Renaming the city of Seattle is another worthy project. After all, Seattle is an Indian name and a favorite cause of the cultural left is assuming that any use of Indian names is disrespectful and should be ended. When the Seahawks played the team from Washington, DC in the NFC championship game, the Seattle Times rewrote their stylebook to minimize uses of their opponent’s nickname. The Puget Sound culture is clearly prepared for this.
Those are just a few suggestions. I have more ideas. If Ewe Dub’s upper division political correctness majors need an advisor, I humbly offer my services. As you can plainly see, I know what earns points with people you need to impress.
On her website, Jill Edwards, one of those senators, tried to explain herself: "I talked more than I ever have before and realized exactly why I never talk. I am thouroughly (sic) regretting opeining (sic) my mouth."
Well said. You shouldn’t let English or history distract you from your education.

A Plethora of Gratuitously Offensive Cartoons

Click here.

al-Gore for President?

Don't laugh, unless your name is Karl Rove. Dick Morris thinks that it's entirely possible that al-Gore has the looney left sufficiently swooning to win steal the Democratic nomination from Saint Hillary.

Could Al beat Hillary? If Mrs. Clinton persists in her support of the Iraq war, he could. But never count on Hillary losing an election over a principle. It’s a bad bet. If she moves to the left on the war, as she already shows signs of doing, she would preempt Gore and Kerry and use her tremendous lead in fundraising and ex-officio delegates to cruise to the nomination.

Please God, let it be so. al-Gore might win in Berkeley, Greenwich Village, Tehran, and Damascus, but nowhere else.

SHUT UP!

If you have a point of view that departs from Cindy Sheehan, then the Minnesota Democratic Party will try to deny you your free speech rights.

In Minnesota the Democratic Party has undertaken a campaign to suppress two television advertisements giving voice to the sentiments of Iraq war veterans and Gold Star Families who support the war. Brian Melendez is the chairman of the Minnesota Democratic Party. This past Thursday Melendez called a press conference and condemned the first of the two advertisements -- the one featuring the veterans -- as "un-American, untruthful and a lie."

Piss off the Democrats. Watch the videos here.

The Cowering Press

Alan Dershowitz and Bill Bennett agree on at least one point, the United States mainstream media are (almost) all cowards.

Since the war on terrorism began, the mainstream press has had no problem printing stories and pictures that challenged the administration and, in the view of some, compromised our war and peace efforts. The manifold images of abuse at Abu Ghraib come to mind -- images that struck at our effort to win support from Arab governments and peoples, and that pierced the heart of the Muslim world as well as the U.S. military.

The press has had no problem with breaking a story using classified information on detention centers for captured terrorists and suspects -- stories that could harm our allies. And it disclosed a surveillance program so highly classified that most members of Congress were unaware of it.

In its zeal to publish stories critical of our nation's efforts -- and clearly upsetting to enemies and allies alike -- the press has printed some articles that turned out to be inaccurate. The Guantanamo Bay flushing of the Koran comes to mind.

But for the past month, the Islamist street has been on an intifada over cartoons depicting Muhammad that were first published months ago in a Danish newspaper. Protests in London -- never mind Jordan, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Iran and other countries not noted for their commitment to democratic principles -- included signs that read, "Behead those who insult Islam." The mainstream U.S. media have covered this worldwide uprising; it is, after all, a glimpse into the sentiments of our enemy and its allies. And yet it has refused, with but a few exceptions, to show the cartoons that purportedly caused all the outrage.

Gratuitous Offensive Mohammed Cartoon of the Day

Why not? It's Thursday.

From Cox and Forkum

There's a New Sheriff in Town

Meet the New York Times new ombudsman, Ali bin-Zabar.

Recently, The Times— along with virtually every other American news organization—decided to show “sensitivity to Islam” by declining to publish cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad. At the time, some of you wondered: “What kind of slippery slope are we on here?”

With this column, I am prepared to provide the answer.

Allow me to introduce myself: I am Ali bin-Zabar, the new public editor of The New York Times.

Reporting to no one but the Prophet himself, my goal here is not to defend “All the News That Fits,” but to make sure The Times publishes only “All the News That’s Halal.”

In short, there’s a new imam in town. And with no further ado, let us proceed down the path to righteousness.

Dear Ali bin-Zabar:

All praise to Allah. Peace be upon him. My question is threefold: 1) Wasn’t it just a little hypocritical of The Times to illustrate the story of the Danish cartoons by using a portrait of the Madonna painted with elephant dung? 2) What happened to their so-called “journalistic integrity”—their vaunted “freedom of speech” and cherished “First Amendment rights”? 3) Would you agree they capitulated and (pardon the pun) “caved” into political correctness here? Akbar Z, Brooklyn

Dear Brother Akbar:

Indeed, you raise interesting issues. So allow me to preface my answer by quoting from The San Francisco Chronicle, whose editors declared “Islam is not a violent religion.”

On the one hand, you’re right: If The Times were really interested in not wanting to incite violence, they probably wouldn’t have published the torture photographs from Abu Ghraib prison. (Fortunately for us, they ran them.) Likewise the tank photographs from Tiananmen Square. (Fortunately for them, this kind of censorship is now being outsourced to Google. It’s the American way.)

From a theological standpoint, however, I would remind you: There are no “puns” in the Koran. There are no “Amendments,” first or otherwise. And to those who would disagree, I reply: Death to the infidels. A fatwa upon your house. May your embassies go up in flames, your flags burn in hell, and may your S.U.V.’s meet their fate at the hands of an I.E.D. on the Grand Central Parkway.

P.S.: Starting next week, the Escapes section will be renamed Hostages.

So, It Really is all About Racism

CBS says so. I'm glad somebody in the MSM is doing something other than parrotting Chuckie Schumer and Hillary Clinton.

A nefarious multinational corporation secretly controlled by a hostile Arab government has engineered a covert takeover of six major U.S. ports. America is at risk of losing control of its borders and compromising national security in an entirely preventable way.

Horselips.

Never have I seen a bogus story explode so fast and so far. I thought I was a connoisseur of demagoguery and cheap shots, but the Dubai Ports World saga proves me a piker. With a stunning kinship of cravenness, politicians of all flavors risk trampling each other as they rush to the cameras and microphones to condemn the handover of massive U.S. strategic assets to an Islamic, Arab terrorist-loving enemy.

The only problem -- and I admit it's only a teeny-weeny problem -- is that 90 percent of that story is false.

Gratuitous Offensive Mohammed Cartoon of the Day

I almost forgot!

Unfunny Panther

As comedies go, I would rank Steve Martin's "Pink Panther" somewhere between Star Wars Episode II and Janet Jackson's Superbowl halftime show.
How can you combine a hilarious franchise like Peter Sellar's Pink Panther, combine it with one of the very finest stand up comics of all time and yield a movie without a single laugh.
I dunno. Neither does James Bowman, although he seemed to like it more than I did.

The new Panther is a movie for the dimmer sort of children who can't tell the difference between an immortal comic creation like Sellers's Inspector Clouseau and Martin's pale imitation. The difference, in case they want to know, is the difference between a comic character -- like Charlie Chaplin's tramp or W.C. Fields's bank dick or Laurel and Hardy in their screen personae -- and a comedian with an array of gags in his box of tricks but no character of his own to make him interesting apart from the gags. Mr. Martin's most unforgivable bit of tampering with the classic prototype of Clouseau's character is to make him smart. Or rather, to make him smart and dumb. First he's dumb. So dumb that he's even dumber than Sellers's Clouseau. So dumb that he makes a sack of stones look smart. But then he gets smart in the end, instead of merely lucking into his success -- which of course only makes the caricature more offensively false.

No Racial Profiling Here - NYT Sees No Evil

How can the New York Times do a story about the port kerfuffle without mention that Democrats are pandering to racism?
Actually, when you're as intellectually dishonest as the Times, anything is possible.

The Selective Moral Authority of Gold Star Moms

The Minnesota Democratic Party is pressing a vicious attack upon Gold Star Mothers who support the causes that their sons gave their lives for.

In Minnesota we are in the middle of a story that has dropped from view in the media, but it is a story that should attain national prominence. The Democratic Party has undertaken a campaign to suppress two advertisements giving voice to the sentiments of Iraq war veterans and Gold Star Families who support the war.

Brian Melendez is the chairman of the Minnesota Democratic Party. This past Thursday Melendez called a press conference and condemned the first of the two advertisements -- the one featuring the veterans -- as "un-American, untruthful and a lie."

Will Maureen Dowd defend the "absolute moral authority" of these moms?

Jug 'em

Freedom of the press does not include freedom to break the law. Expect the New York Times to whine.

The Bush administration said that journalists can be prosecuted under current espionage laws for receiving and publishing classified information but that such a step "would raise legitimate and serious issues and would not be undertaken lightly," according to a court filing made public this week.

"There plainly is no exemption in the statutes for the press, let alone lobbyists like the defendants," Justice Department lawyers wrote in response to a motion filed last month seeking to dismiss charges against Steven J. Rosen and Keith Weissman, former lobbyists for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

The Barbarians Breach The Gates

The politically correct jihad takes down Larry Summers.

That's what happens when you speak truth to power.

Adult Stem Cells Provide Hope for Diabetes Sufferers

Adult, not fetal, stem cells seem to hold the greatest promise for curing diabetes.

Researchers said this week that adult stem cells in the pancreas can be transformed into insulin-producing cells.

This newfound ability of endocrine progenitor stem cells in the adult human pancreas provides a major key to developing new treatments for diabetes, said researchers at the Burnham Institute for Medical Research and the Rebecca and John Moores Cancer Center at the University of California at San Diego.

The findings will be published in the March 1 edition of Nature Medicine.

"We hypothesized that the inductive factors in developing pancreatic cells might work on cells in the adult pancreas and that turned out to be true," said Fred Levine, adjunct professor at the Burnham.

"We have shown, in as rigorous a manner as possible, proof-of-concept for the existence of progenitor stem insulin-producing cells within the adult human pancreas. Our proven ability to transform these progenitor stem cells into insulin-producing cells greatly expands the possibility that beta cell regeneration therapies can be developed for the treatment of diabetes," he said.

"Prior to our study, it was thought that replication of beta cells arising from injury to the pancreas was the only regenerative source of beta cells in the adult pancreas. We now know that we have another, potentially more abundant, reservoir," Levine said.

Not only do adult stem cells do what we only wish fetal stem cells would do, but using one's own stem cells avoids all those immuity issues.

Why We Hate Them

Ever since 9/11, our navel gazing press has been asking, "why do they hate us?"
Carol Platt Liebau thinks that journalists should be asking the question a little differently: "Why do Americans hate journalists?"

It's amazing. The same press that encourages Americans to "understand" why some Islamofascists pressed a sneak attack upon unsuspecting innocents is, itself, either unwilling or unable to look at the reasons that Republicans -- at least half the body politic -- routinely operate under the assumption that the mainstream media will be hostile in its coverage of them, their ideas, and their politicians.

Just last week, in an egregious slur, former NBC newsman Bryant Gumbel volunteered that the dearth of African Americans competing made the Winter Olympics "look like a GOP convention" (minus, presumably, Condi Rice, Colin Powell, Ken Blackwell, Lynn Swann and Michael Steele, among others). His views were remarkable in big-time media circles only in that the anti-Republican bias was so openly expressed -- and it's worth wondering how many current big-time anchors share the same opinion, deterred from voicing it publicly only by the chimera of "journalistic objectivity."

Similarly, the hysteria over the Cheney accident itself only underlines the monolithic mindset and life experience of most of the national press -- nary a hunter in sight -- and its psychological and physical distance from everyday Red State values and pursuits.

A recent UCLA study, published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, found that nearly all major media outlets tilt to the left. The findings were surprising only to those who have never observed the mainstream media's treatment of the GOP. The bias explains why Republicans are happy to offer stories to local, rather than national, press; they have a greater chance of being treated fairly.

As of March of 2005, some polls were showing that journalists were less well thought of than lawyers, auto mechanics, and even politicians. Episodes like the media frenzy of last week explain why. So even as members of the media excoriate the Bush Administration for its failings after the Cheney birdshot accident, perhaps they would be well-advised to take an equally persistent look at their own.

Not David Gregory's Kind of Courage

Must reading.

Have you ever seen a man turned to mush? A man with a wife and kids. An educated man who spoke several languages. A man who long knew the leader of his country was vicious and who joined the enemies of the leader. A man in his 40s who voted in his first election only a few months before?

It is easy to opine about abuse and torture and rules of engagement on paper, thousands of miles away from the crack of an AK or the bone jarring concussion from a shaped charge or when you have never looked into the eyes of a terrorist who has sawed the head off another human.

Have you ever stood on a narrow ribbon of asphalt on a 110 degree day in Al Anbar?

Have you ever seen your roomate bleeding out on that narrow ribbon of asphalt? Then minutes later, finding the man who detonated the bomb hiding in a building filled with South African tank rounds and pagers?

What would you do if you had?

hat tip, the Blogfather.

When I watched 'Ali', an Iraqi national working with the Marines, being pulled out of a smoking humvee, his body charred and limbs hanging by threads the world changed for me. For if the bomb had gone off a minute earlier, it would have been me they pulled out of that smoldering humvee. My limbs would have been dangling. And the Marines would have seen me turned into mush.

You see, it is easy condemn extremely tough interrogation techniques, rough handling of detainees and use of force exceeding the rules of engagement from 8,000 miles away where your decisions hold no weight and the responsibility for your decisions affect no lives.

Imagine for a moment, you were charged with protecting the lives of 300,000,000 people. Could you even handle that responsiblity?

Gratuitous Offensive Mohammed Cartoon of the Day

Because this isn't China - yet.

Or Sweden for that matter.

Racism? Xenophobia?

I'm uncomfortable with the idea that a Dubai company will be administering United States' ports, but I can't help think that if Repbublicans had raised these kinds of objections to Arabs, they would be called racial profilers and worse.

Gratuitous Offensive Mohammed Cartoon of the Day

Because, we still can.

Under-Reported Story of the Millenium

Okay, the millenium is only 5 years old, but this story deserves far more attention than Dick Cheney's hunting accident.

The Bush administration has been farsighted on this issue. With China rising and Europe and Japan declining, it sees India as a natural partner. It also recognized that 30 years of lectures on nonproliferation and sanctions have done nothing to stop, slow down or make safer India's nuclear program. Most important, it recognized that India was a rising and responsible global power—India has never sold or traded nuclear technology—that could not be treated like a rogue state. So the administration has proposed reversing three decades of (failed) American policy, and aims to make India a member of the nuclear club.

The benefits for the United States—and much of the world—are real. This agreement would bring a rising power into the global tent, making it not an outsider but a stakeholder, and giving it an incentive to help create and shape international norms and rules. For example, India is becoming more worried about a nuclear Iran for this reason, and not because it is being pressured to do so by the United States. When India was being treated like an outlaw, it had no interest in playing the sheriff.

India will be the next economic and military super duper power, and cultivating an alliance with this awakening giant, while keeping good relations with Pakistan has required a delicacy of diplomacy that few would have considered possible, even if we had a president and brilliant and nuanced as John Kerry.

It's a testiment to Bush's non-narcissistic approach that getting this done has flown under the MSM's radar, who generally need to have things not just spoon fed, but predigested for them.

Hand Slap For Dana Milbank

The Washington Post's Dana Milbank's childish appearance on Keith Olberman's childish show has drawn a rebuke from his boss. Well, from his paper's ombudsman anyway. It's just a bone thrown our way I think.

The column concludes: It all comes down to what Stephen Stanford of Saltillo, Miss., wrote: "If you are going to keep using his work, how about labeling it as opinion and not news?"

Exactly.

Allah: "Nuke the Infidels"

Iranian Mullahs have concluded that Allah wants the bomb and wants Iran to use it.

Muslim clerics for the first time have questioned the theocracy's traditional viewpoint that Shariah law forbids the use of nuclear weapons.
One senior mullah has now said it is "only natural" to have nuclear bombs as a "countermeasure" against other nuclear powers, a reference considered to be the United States and Europe.

Scott Ott has uncovered another fatwa worthy of note.

Cowardly Media

David Gregory of NBC hails himself as brave because he asks rude and beligerent questions at daily press briefings. But, NBC won't show cartoons of the Mohammed.
They all say that they're being respectful of religious beliefs, but that didn't prevent them from publishing pictures of Piss Christ.
One newspaper has admitted the real reason - fear.

''Our primary reason," the editors confessed, is ''fear of retaliation from . . . bloodthirsty Islamists who seek to impose their will on those who do not believe as they do . . . Simply stated, we are being terrorized, and . . . could not in good conscience place the men and women who work at the Phoenix and its related companies in physical jeopardy. As we feel forced, literally, to bend to maniacal pressure, this may be the darkest moment in our 40-year-publishing history."

Give them credit. Except for those very few news outlets that showed the pictures, confessing cowardice is probably the most courageous act I've seen the MSM. Certainly beats David Gregory's hissing fits.

Why Reporters Shouldn't be the Story

An former editor of mine once said that is wasn't good jouralism for the place kicker to comment on his own field goal efforts. That's why it was not good journalism for David Gregory to report on his own questioning of Scott McClellan earlier this week.

I do not apologize for asking tough questions about this story. I'm in the business of getting information -- as much of it as possible. The public and I don't always get as much as I think we deserve, but I keep trying. I also try to demand straight answers. Covering politicians, I have to work harder to get them. I have not made any judgments about the facts of this story as it pertains to what happened on the Armstrong ranch. I have stuck to reporting the facts. I do, however feel it's appropriate to push hard for full and immediate disclosure from our country's highest leaders about their conduct -- public and private.

Personally, I don't recall David Gregory asking "tough questions." I recall David Greagory asking uninformed, unfocused question in a rude and abusive manner.

Secret War

There's another war going on. We're winning that one too.

What Is It With Oil Exporting Countries?

Quick! Name a country that derives most of its foreign exchange from oil that is not run by a lunatic (other than Iraq, that is).
This country proves that you don't have to be a Muslim to fails the test.

We Need A Congression Investigation

Talk about a slow response to Hurricane Katrina.

Another Good Reason to Cut Off Aid To the Palestinians

The Russians say that they would be willing to sell weapons to the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority.

If, Israel agrees they say. Why in the world would Israel agree to arming their enemies?

Quck! Call al-Gore

Somebody's being mean to Arabs!

Hint: Her initials are HRC.

Culture of Corruption

Over the last 15 years, Democrats have taken more money from lobbyists than Republicans.

"Since the 1990 election cycle, Democrats have accepted more than $53 million from lobbyists while Republicans have taken more than $48 million for their election campaigns, according to the Center for Responsive Politics."

But, of course, this is not about Democrats.

Union Goon Blue Balls

"If we didn't get it this year, we're going to get it next year." Washington governor Christina Gregoire promised an assemblage of union goons Thursday. What she wants, but couldn’t deliver this year, and threatens to inflict next year, is the seductively titled “Fair Share Health Care.” Fair Share Health Care was a law that would have forced large employers (read Wal-Mart) to impose health insurance upon their employees who currently choose not to buy it.
The law would have required employers with more than 5000 employees to spend 9% of their payroll on health insurance. Wal-Mart currently employs 16,000 Washingtonians, and 3000 of that number availed themselves of the state’s Medicaid program in 2003, costing the taxpayers about $12 million. So, it’s being peddled as fiscal responsibility for taxpayers.
But before we go further, let’s get one thing straight. Regardless of what any union goon or their Olympian puppets might say, it is not the Wal-Mart corporation that declines to provide its employees with health insurance. It’s you and me.
Wal-Mart bears no more responsibility for that condition, than Exxon or Shell deserves blame for all of the pump jockeys who lost their jobs when most gas stations went to self-service in the 1970’s. We, the consumers, made that decision when we decided that the pump jockey’s job was not as important to us as saving a few cents per gallon on gas.
I know. I was trying to put myself through college working at a gas station. Once self-service pumps were offered, my job and the jobs of my coworkers were doomed. The same goes for big box retail. Given a choice between the lowest prices and the supposed moral high ground of buying from a retailer that charges more, but includes health insurance as part of its compensation package, we will choose the lower priced retailer.
Wal-Mart’s success is that it sells for less. If forced to raise prices, they will be made vulnerable to the same market forces that spelled the doom of Montgomery-Wards and others who were displaced by Wal-Mart. And you can forgive Wal-Mart if it doesn’t wish to suffer the same fate that now hangs over the heads of General Motors and Ford. Both of these big automakers are facing bankruptcy in large part due to the generous health insurance packages forced upon them by unions.
And incidentally, big labor has embraced the practice of hiring non-union labor to perform dirty jobs its members find beneath their dignity.
Last summer, the United Food and Commercial Workers Union hired non-union help to picket a Wal-Mart in the Las Vegas area for only $6.00 per hour. The picketers were recruited from the ranks of the unemployed, bussed to the Wal-Mart, handed signs, and pushed out into triple digit heat.
Real union members and real Wal-Mart employees on whose behalf this was supposedly done did not think the effort was worth the discomfort. And of course, these picketers receive no health insurance or other benefits from the union.
The Carpenters’ Union uses the same tactic. It hires the homeless to picket nonunion construction sites.
"We're giving jobs to people who didn't have jobs, people who in some cases couldn't secure work," was the excuse proffered by George Eisner, the head of the mid-Atlantic regional council of the Carpenters' Union.
Why can’t Wal-Mart use that excuse? They’re giving jobs to uneducated and unskilled people who otherwise couldn’t get them. And, unlike their union mercenary picketer counterparts, Wal-Mart employees are offered health insurance subsidies. But, they are optional. To get health insurance, individual Wal-Mart workers only have to pay $17.50 from their biweekly paycheck. Purchasing for a family only costs $70.50. The company kicks in the rest, which is considerable. If most Wal-Mart employees choose not to take advantage of this, that’s their decision. The unions don’t believe in this sort of freedom. And if, as the union goons and their puppets maintain, these employees end up costing the state’s Medicaid program, it would seem that the voluntarily uninsured employees should be held accountable for their irresponsibility. Maybe they should be required to shoulder more of the expense, and the taxpayer less, so that Wal-Mart’s offer seems a better deal.
But, it is more in the nature of union puppets to blame evil big business than to hold individuals accountable for their own irresponsibility.

Son of Freedom Fries

Iran has officially abolished Danish pastries. From now on, to order these treats, pastry patron will have to ask for, "Roses of the Prophet Muhammad."

Allied With India

Along with getting serious about the war with Islam, the other foreign policy success that history will reward this administration for will be the alliance with India.

India will soon be an economic and military super duper power soon. And, they are the world's biggest democracy, and will be an essential ally in the defense of civilization.

"The War Has Already Started"

The New York Times and CNN will probably never figure it out, but the "cartoon war" is only a small skirmish in a cataclysmic clash of civilizations. Islam and western liberalsim cannot coexist, and in the age of electronic communications and open borders even stay out of each other's way.

"The way I see it, the war has already started," said Daii al-Islam al-Shahal, a Sunni Muslim cleric in the coastal Lebanese town of Tripoli, who helped organize protests this month against the cartoons in his home town and in Beirut. "Will it end soon, or will it come to a close only after it has completely wiped out the two sides? That is up to God."

Fix It, or Exploit It?

Republicans and Democrats are having very different reactions to a house report on Hurricane Katrina responses.

"As GOP Focuses on Restructuring Response, Democrats Call for Further Investigation"

Will Division Defeat Us?

Are we too polarized to win a protracted war?

A final drawback of polarization is more profound. Sharpened debate is arguably helpful with respect to domestic issues, but not for the management of important foreign and military matters. The United States, an unrivaled superpower with unparalleled responsibilities for protecting the peace and defeating terrorists, is now forced to discharge those duties with its own political house in disarray.

We fought World War II as a united nation, even against two enemies (Germany and Italy) that had not attacked us. We began the wars in Korea and Vietnam with some degree of unity, too, although it was eventually whittled away. By the early 1990s, when we expelled Iraq from Kuwait, we had to do so over the objections of congressional critics. In 2003 we toppled Saddam Hussein in the face of catcalls from many domestic leaders and opinion-makers. Now, in stabilizing Iraq and helping that country create a new free government, we have proceeded despite intense and mounting criticism, much of it voiced by politicians who before the war agreed that Saddam Hussein was an evil menace in possession of weapons of mass destruction and that we had to remove him.

Denmark or Luxembourg can afford to exhibit domestic anguish and uncertainty over military policy; the United States cannot. A divided America encourages our enemies, disheartens our allies, and saps our resolve--potentially to fatal effect. What Gen. Giap of North Vietnam once said of us is even truer today: America cannot be defeated on the battlefield, but it can be defeated at home. Polarization is a force that can defeat us.

Clearly, many in the Democratic Party would prefer winning the next election to winning the war and in fact would be happy to lose the war if that would help them defeat Republicans.

Gratuitous Offensive Mohammed Cartoon

And the beat goes on.

150 Million Americans Can Be Wrong

Credit the media's talent for distortion, but a majority of Americans still believe that we are in the economic doldrums and that Democrats could revive the economy.

That of course, flies in the face of actual facts, like this one.

U.S. retail sales surged 2.3 percent in January, nearly triple the expected increase and the largest gain since May 2004, as post-holiday spending on cars, clothing, gasoline and furniture galloped ahead, a government report showed on Tuesday.

Excluding demand for cars and parts, retail sales were up 2.2 percent last month - the largest monthly gain in more than six years, the U.S. Commerce Department said.

It just goes to prove that, if you lie every single day, eventually people will start to believe it. Congratulations MSM, you could convince the US public that the world is flat.

I'm Sure He'd Pee on You to Put You Out

CBS's Bill Plante whines that, "if it were up to Dick Cheney, he wouldn't tell us if our shirts were on fire, for heaven's sake."

I don't suppose that this would have anything to do with Cheney's animosity toward the press.

The most heated public moment occurred during McClellan's off-camera "gaggle" with White House reporters yesterday morning. It featured NBC's David Gregory, one of McClellan's most persistent inquisitors over the last year, who raised his voice while asking a question about the incident.

"Hold on," McClellan interrupted, pointing out that "the cameras aren't on right now. You can do this later."

"Don't accuse me of trying to pose to the cameras," Gregory replied. "Don't be a jerk to me personally when I'm asking you a serious question."

"You don't have to yell," McClellan said.

"I will yell," said Gregory, jabbing his finger in McClellan's direction. "If you want to use that podium to try to take shots at me personally, which I don't appreciate, then I will raise my voice, because that's wrong."

"Calm down, Dave. Calm down," said McClellan evenly.

Or maybe this?

I'd Rather Hunt With Dick Cheney

That didn't take long.

Dear Leader's Kidnapping Ring

Calling all touchy-feely, give-peace-a-chance useful idiots: How do you propose that the civilized world deal with a nuclear-armed psychopath like this?

Starting in 1977, North Korean agents were "ordered to bring foreign nationals in magjabi [a Korean term mean-ing 'grab anybody']," says Tsutomu Nishioka, vice president of the National Association for the Rescue of Japanese Kidnapped by North Korea (NARKN), who has interviewed former North Korean agents. Many were put to work as cultural trainers for North Korean spies in an elaborate stage set built in a huge tunnel beneath Pyongyang. According to a book written by Ahn Myong Jin, a former North Korean agent who defected to the South in 1993, "There were re-created examples of South Korean supermarkets, banks, high-class hotels, a night district, police stations, and elementary and middle schools." Ahn recalled "more than 80 people who trained us to become 'South Koreans.' Most of them were abducted from the South to be used as our teachers." Ahn said that the South Koreans he met "all seemed to have deep pain inside their heart. One teacher who taught us how to behave at drinking joints in the South said, 'You are sneaking into the South, but please do not bring [back] innocent South Korean children playing on the beach'."

The motivations of North Korea's rulers are often murky, but apparently Pyongyang geared up its abduction program to train better spies. In the mid-1970s, when his father, Kim Il Sung, was still alive, Kim Jong Il was in charge of espionage operations. He decided that North Korea's spies needed to look, dress and act like capitalists in order to blend in with their targets. The North Koreans were already in the kidnapping business by then. They had been snatching South Koreans ever since the end of the Korean War in 1953. In 1969, a South Korean airliner was hijacked and flown to Wonsan, a city across the DMZ. Pyongyang agreed to repatriate 39 people, but 11 South Koreans were held back—and have never returned.

You Think Cartoons are Bad?

Michael Adams is conducting an experiment.

In the spirit of the “separation of church and state,” my demand is that you commission a painting – fully funded with tax dollars – that has one intention and one intention only: To offend Muslims everywhere.


This new painting will help the NEA avoid any accusations of state sponsorship of religion by insulting some religion other than Christianity. In the past, you’ve supported the “Piss Christ” and the “Elephant Dung Mary.” Now, I’m asking you to fund the “Queer Muhammad.”

For this painting, I want the artist to put the Prophet Muhammad in a pink bathrobe. I also want him holding a little toy poodle. Finally, I would like you to feature him reading a copy of “Playgirl” magazine. If you want to get daring, you can also feature him French-kissing Salmon Rushdie. Or better yet, feature him French-kissing Jacques Chirac.

Regardless of the precise form it takes, I want five million reproductions of the “Queer Muhammad” in poster form. It may sound like a large order for a first printing. But here’s what I intend to do with them:

First, I’m going to staple a “Queer Muhammad” on the door of Barbara Streisand. She’s been a real pain in the ass throughout this whole War on Terror. I want to see whether she gains some respect for George W. Bush after Islamic fascists torch her Southern California estate – all for expecting adherents to the “religion of peace” to be as tolerant of homosexuality as Hollywood liberals.

And, then, I’m heading to the Upper West Side to place a “Queer Muhammad” on the door of Michael Moore. That fat joker will be begging Charlton Heston for a gun by the time the New York City Muslims throw their first Molotov cocktail.

Next, we’re off to Colorado to the home of Ward Churchill. After I place a “Queer Muhammad” on his home, I’ll put one on his office door at the university. And, while I’m at it, I’ll hit the office doors of every anti-war professor in America.

I also plan to visit all those professors who have “Darwin fish” on their university office doors. For years, they’ve been desecrating a sacred Christian symbol with impunity. Come to think of it, many have been desecrating an Old Testament religious symbol by using rainbows as a backdrop for those “celebrate diversity” bumper stickers. When they place those on their office doors, they do more than just promote acceptance of sodomy. They ridicule a covenant between God and Noah.

Maybe after the Muslim Student Associations begin ripping down the “Queer Muhammad” posters – always leaving the Darwin fish intact - some of these professors will begin to realize that white Christian heterosexual males really aren’t so bad after all. And maybe some will realize that young Muslim males are the most dangerous demographic group on the face of the planet.

But the professors and the movie stars won’t be the only ones included in my little experiment in tolerance and diversity. I want to make sure to include members of the gay community, too. That’s why the “Queer Muhammad” will be posted on the door of every gay bar in San Francisco.

Under my plan, when California Muslims attack these businesses, the gay political lobby will finally have some use for politically correct and seldom-used “hate crimes” legislation. It will also give that large segment of the gay population – the ones who always need something to whine about – something legitimate to whine about. And it will give Christians a break from the gay mission to invade and pervert the Christian clergy.

That will leave me with about four million “Queer Muhammad” posters for the most ambitious aspect of my plan. This involves hanging posters on the doors of every active member of the National Rifle Association. When the Islamic fascists begin hurling stones at the houses of NRA members, many of my brothers (and sisters)-in-arms will start heading for the nearest gun safe. I know I will.

Maybe a few of these violent Muslims will survive their attack on the First Amendment, after it is thwarted by the Second Amendment. If so, I have a special plan for the Islamic fascist survivors. This plan was inspired by my realization that so many members of the anti-war movement are also members of the pro-gay movement. Here it is, in all its leftist-inspired brilliance:

The NRA members whose homes were attacked will all petition local Democratic prosecutors, the media, and even their Democratic legislators to charge the fascists with hate crimes for attacking the image of the “Queer Muhammad.” This will draw a line in the sand for these Democrats. Will they side with the Muslims against the gays? Or will they side with the gays against the Muslims?

If things work according to my plan, we will be able to kill off a lot of these Muslim terrorists and simply claim self-defense. Even better, we’ll cause significant division and strife among the American Left. After it all goes down, I’ll head to my refrigerator instead of my gun safe.

Then I’ll drink a nice, cold Carlsberg. Bottled and brewed by our allies in Denmark.

Screw the UN

The UN wants the United State to close Gitmo.

A United Nations' inquiry will call for the immediate closure of the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and the prosecution of officers and politicians "up to the highest level" who are accused of torturing detainees.
The U.N. Human Rights Commission report, to be published this week, concludes that Washington should put the 520 detainees on trial or release them.
The report calls for the United States to halt all "practices amounting to torture," including the force-feeding of inmates who go on hunger strike.
U.S. officials, informed yesterday of the report's contents, rejected the findings as "a hatchet job."
"This shows precisely what is wrong with the United Nations today," said a senior official, who spoke on the condition that he not be identified. "These people are supposed to be undertaking a serious investigation of the facts relating to Guantanamo.
"Instead, they deliver a report with a bunch of old allegations from lawyers representing released detainees that are so generalized that you cannot even tell what they are talking about. When the U.N. produces an unprofessional hatchet job like this, it discredits the whole organization."

I say fine. Let's close Gitmo - just as soon as the UN closes North Korea, Iran and Syria.

Gratuitous Offensive Mohammed Image

Just because.

Buy Danish.

Here too.

Must Read, From P. J. O'Rourke

Chistendom's greatest political satirist sympathizes with cartoon jihadists - sort of.

Sample: I'd also like to thank the angry mobs for giving the Europeans a lesson in free speech. Europeans are unclear on the concept. It's against the law in Germany to deny the Holocaust. (A little late, I'd say.) Many European countries have laws against "hate speech" that don't seem too different in intent from what Muslim protesters want to do to Danish cartoonists--although the penalty phase of the trial probably would be less dramatic in Europe. Europeans suppose free speech is harmless--nattering in cafés. Americans know that the right to self-expression, like the right to bear arms, is dangerous. That's why we keep a firm grip on those rights. In America the worst kind of people can shoot their mouths off. And they can get shot.

Not shooting the worst kind of people is, of course, the cornerstone of European foreign policy. Now we see the fruits of this nuanced and sophisticated diplomacy all over the Muslim world. I haven't been so satisfied by a policy outcome since half the cars in France were set on fire last year. But if the past is anything to go by, the Europeans will learn nothing from any of this. (Although the French are these days, maybe, less inclined to ridicule the American obsession with finding a good parking place.)

"Kill Danes! Down with Denmark!"

The ROP still comforting its believers.

United States Cartoon Rage

Of course, the United States has experienced home-grown rage when a cultural icon was caricaturized. Who can forget the day when the NAACP stormed the Art Institute of Chicago and forcibly removed a painting of former mayor Harold Washington dressed in women's underwear.

Psychosis, Left-Wing Resume Builder

In order to get a job with a Democratic US Senator, or as a reporter for the Seattle PI, it helps to be a psychotic traitor.

An ex–Seattle Post-Intelligencer reporter and former U.S. Senate and House aide, Lindauer, 43, was charged in March 2004 with conspiring to act as a spy and being an unregistered Iraqi agent. U.S. prosecutors allege the antiwar activist accepted $10,000 from Hussein's intelligence unit over five years and sought to support resistance groups after the U.S. invasion of Iraq. She insisted her efforts—principally, to get economic sanctions lifted against Iraq—were misunderstood. She was not specifically charged with spying or espionage. The bigger question, however, was always her sanity. She had a history of mood swings and paranoid fears. People were watching her, she often said, although, as it turned out, federal agents indeed had set up surveillance and tapped her phone. Still, if she betrayed her country, did she do so knowingly?

Her mental illness is now official. Two court-appointed doctors determined, according to a ruling last fall by U.S. District Judge Michael Mukasey, "the defendant is suffering from psychotic disorder not otherwise specified, delusional disorder, hallucinatory phenomena, and mood disturbance that render her mentally incompetent to the extent that she does not understand the nature and consequences of the proceedings against her and is unable to assist properly in her defense at this time." Lindauer is undergoing observation to determine if she'll ever be able to defend herself in court, perhaps aided by antipsychotic drugs.

Point Made

If you're still among those wondering why the Bush Administration elected not to funnel critical US intelligence gathering through the FISA court, this might be one really, really, really good reason.

"We'd like to thank the Washington Post for publishing a story yesterday that so quickly proved our editorial point of the same day about the folly of putting judges in control of national security decisions. That's what we call service.

The front-page story reported that on rare occasion the Bush Administration has used information from the NSA's warrantless foreign-linked wiretaps to seek domestic wiretapping authority from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. This was said to have upset chief FISA judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, and the tenor of the story is that this is one more example of how the warrantless wiretaps are an abuse of power. But the better question is, Who elected Ms. Kollar-Kotelly?

The story's real news is that Judge Kollar-Kotelly, and her predecessor, Judge Royce Lamberth, took it upon themselves to erect a new "wall" concerning how intelligence is to be used to protect America. They decided that pertinent information gleaned from a warrantless wiretap should never be used later to justify a domestic warrant. But why not? If a tip gathered from an email from Pakistan leads to suspicion about an American-based contact, what's wrong with using that news to get a legal warrant to track that suspect in the U.S.? It might even prevent a domestic attack.

In any event, why is an unelected judge such as Ms. Kollar-Kotelly making these decisions? Under the Constitution, those calls ought to be made by the President, who swears to defend the U.S. and can be held accountable by the voters if he fails. Under the current FISA court process, Judge Kollar-Kotelly answers essentially to no one.

GOP Senator Arlen Specter is saying he wants to write legislation putting even more power in the hands of FISA judges. This isn't merely unconstitutional. As the Post story shows, in a world of WMD and fast-moving transnational terrorists, it's dangerous."

Just My Little Way of Sticking it to the Imam

When the hijackers flew those planes into the Twin Towers, the San Francisco/Seattle/Greenwich Village Axis of Drivel all raced to their therapists’ couches and asked, “Why do they hate us?” These Blame-America-First lefties theorized that it must be our imperialism, our greedy capitalism, our alliance with Israel, or even our failure to ratify the Kyoto Accords that invited this catastrophe.
Well now, everyone who wondered why must surely know by now why they hate us. They hate us for movies like “Brokeback Mountain.” They hate us for Brittany Spears and Snoop Dogg. And, they burn down embassies and attack businesses because western newspapers and magazines can publish irreverent cartoons. They hate us for being free.
I keep trying to square the events of the last couple of weeks with the concept of multiculturalism. How can a society house cultures with such irreconcilable differences as erupted as a consequence of Danish editorial cartoonists drawing caricatures of Mohammed? If you’ve seen the drawings, you’d be struck by how truly mild they are. Nevertheless, Muslim clerics have incited violence and Muslim governments have threatened economic boycotts. Ask yourself: How can a free and liberal society coexist with such uncompromising intolerance?
Some have tried. In Great Britain, banks have stopped giving away free piggy banks to children out of fear that the trinkets might offend Muslims. Frankly, this sort of thing strikes me as cultural cowardice.
Can we even imagine the self-censorship that would be required to keep peace? Would our creative community suffer such a muzzling? U.S. editorial cartoonists do not just content themselves with irreverence, but often descend into gratuitous cruelty. The same can be said for much of the arts community. Not long ago our cultural gatekeepers vigorously defended Andres Serrano’s artistic masterpiece, “Piss Christ,” which consisted of a crucifix submerged in a jar of urine. If a cartoon can set off an intifada, imagine what “Piss Mohammed” would have provoked.
And, there was another work of art by Chris Ofili that was featured in a city-owned art gallery in New York City called, “Holy Virgin Mary.” This pinnacle of the artist’s craft was a cartoonish representation of the mother of Christ covered with real elephant dung.
You may wonder what all this is about. It’s entirely possible you have not seen the cartoons as most of the United States media have limited themselves to descriptions, supposedly out of cultural sensitivity. Few American newspapers have printed the offending cartoons. The New York Times’ selective cultural sensitivity was displayed when it chose to reproduce Ofili’s painting in the course of a story about the Mohammed cartoons. It’s odd that the media that spent much of the last week celebrating the courage of Coretta Scott King shows so little when it’s their turn.
We’ve seen this before. In the mid-1980’s, bookstores were fearful of selling Salman Rushdie’s “Satanic Verses.” Something in that book enraged the Iranian mullahs and they pronounced a death sentence upon Rushdie and offered a huge reward to the martyr who killed him. For months, many, perhaps most, United States’ bookstores refrained from selling or displaying the book out of fear. I thought they all had a moral obligation to aggressively promote the book, considering that so many join the American Library Association’s “Banned Book Week” celebrations.
The affair seems to have revived European courage in a few isolated pockets as many European newspapers have reprinted the cartoons to demonstrate support for beleaguered Denmark. In a very un-French move, a major newspaper there ran the cartoons in support of Denmark and freedom. In a more typical French move, the editor responsible was fired and the newspaper apologized. But several other French papers published the cartoons on principle. In a rare display of backbone in a region of the world known for its spinelessness, several other newspapers in other countries printed the cartoons, even as the politicians preached appeasement.
Last week, I happened to be in the Clarkston Costco, loading up on cheap jeans and bottled water, when I happened past the dairy case. Sitting there was a large chunk of Havarti cheese. I really don’t care for Havarti, but after verifying that it was indeed imported from Denmark, I dropped it into my cart. I think of it as my little way of sticking it to the Imam.

A Nation That Does Not Forgive

The leader of Hezbollah declares that Islam cannot and will not tolerate transgressions.

“Defending the prophet should continue worldwide,” Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, told the crowd. “Let (U.S. Secretary of State) Condoleezza Rice, (President) Bush and all the tyrants shut up: We are a nation that can’t forgive, be silent or ease up when they insult our prophet and our sacred values.”

“Today, we are defending the dignity of our prophet with a word, a demonstration but let George Bush and the arrogant world know that if we have to ... we will defend our prophet with our blood, not our voices,” Nasrallah added.

Now, if they would only spill their own blood, I wouldn't have a problem.

Did You Remember to Send Your Ashura Day Cards?

They're celebrating right now! Join in the fun.

You've Come a Long Way, Baby

Girls now smoke more cigarettes and abuse drugs more than boys.

"It's really sad the girls are winning," said Warren Seigel, chairman of pediatrics at Brooklyn's Coney Island Hospital. "This isn't the game they should be winning at."

Another tribute to recently departed Betty Friedan.

Democrats, The Party of Fraud

If only Democrats took democracy as serious as Iraqi Sunnis. Maryland's Democrat dominated legislature has just enacted a series of laws that will certainly enable fraud. And liberals have intimidated prosectors away from pursuing voter fraud.

Several [say] they fear being accused of racism and aiding voter-suppression tactics if they pursue touchy fraud cases. One district attorney told the U.S. Government Accountability Office that he doesn't pursue phony voter registrations because they are "victimless and nonviolent crimes."
When voters are disenfranchised by the counting of improperly cast ballots or outright fraud, their civil rights are violated just as surely as if they were prevented from voting. The integrity of the ballot box is just as important to the credibility of elections as access to it. The Maryland lawmakers who are opening up new opportunities for fraud weaken the civil rights of all their constituents.

At least one Democrat finds his colleagues behavior unacceptable: Blair Lee IV, the son of a former Democratic governor who is supporting an Ehrlich opponent this year, questions why Democrats are "pushing through such dangerous election laws opposed by nonpartisan election officials." He warns his party that "nothing is more important than the integrity of elections--not even defeating the Republicans in November."

Not all Maryland Democrats agree however, resorting to rhetoric that would embarass Zarqawi lieutenant: State Senate President Mike Miller boasted this month to his caucus that "we're going to shoot [Republican leaders] down. We're going to bury them face down in the ground, and it'll be 10 years before they crawl out again."

The Party Of Nothing

Even the New York Times has come around to the realization that the Democratic Party stands for absolutely nothing, and has chosen it national leadears and spokespeople very poorly.

Given the chance to explain what the party stood for, stood silent: One of the party's most prominent members, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, has been relatively absent for much of this debate, a characteristic display of public caution that her aides say reflects her concern for keeping focused on her re-election bid. Mrs. Clinton, who has only nominal opposition, declined requests for an interview to discuss her views of the party.

John Kerry, who's too stupid to appreciate what he is actually saying about himself complained that, the party's authority had been diluted because of the absence of one or two obvious leaders.

Actually, the Democrats' problem are just the opposite. The party does have leaders. Those leaders are named Nancy Pelosi, Howard Dean, Al Gore, Michael Moore, Ted Kennedy and, ahem, John Kerry.

The Mullahs Will Be Disappointed

I'm laying odds now that not one Iranian embassy will be burned down over this.

A prominent Iranian newspaper says it is going to hold a competition for cartoons on the Holocaust to test whether the West will apply the principle of freedom of expression to the Nazi genocide against Jews as it did to the caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed.

Hamshahri, which is among the top five of Iran's mass circulation papers, made clear the contest is a reaction to European newspapers' publication of Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, which have led to demonstrations, boycotts and attacks on European embassies across the Islamic world.

In fact, I'll bet that not one westerner even throws a rock. We get bothered about real things, like homocidal fanatics with nuclear bombs.

A Whiff Of WMD's

Saddam's weapons of mass destruction are back. It seems that evidence as to their whereabouts is effervescing to the surface again, inspite of the Bush Administration's curious lack of interest in finding out what happened to them.

The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence is studying 12 hours of audio recordings between Saddam Hussein and his top advisers that may provide clues to the whereabouts of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

The committee has already confirmed through the intelligence community that the recordings of Saddam's voice are authentic, according to its chairman, Rep. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, who would not go into detail about the nature of the conversations or their context. They were provided to his committee by a former federal prosecutor, John Loftus, who says he received them from a former American military intelligence analyst.

Mr. Loftus will make the recordings available to the public on February 17 at the annual meeting of the Intelligence Summit, of which he is president. On the organization's Web site, Mr. Loftus is quoted as promising that the recordings "will be able to provide a few definitive answers to some very important - and controversial - weapons of mass destruction questions." Contacted yesterday by The New York Sun, Mr. Loftus would only say that he delivered a CD of the recordings to a representative of the committee, and the following week the committee announced that it was reopening the investigation into weapons of mass destruction.

And, there's this interesting tidbit: Mr. Hoekstra has already met with a former Iraqi air force general, Georges Sada, who claims that Saddam used civilian airplanes to ferry chemical weapons to Syria in 2002. Mr. Hoekstra is now talking to Iraqis who Mr. Sada claims took part in the mission, and the congressman said the former air force general "should not just be discounted." Mr. Hoekstra also said he is in touch with other people who have come forward to the committee - Iraqis and Americans - who claim that the weapons inspectors may have overlooked other key sites and evidence. He has also asked the director of national intelligence, John Negroponte, to declassify some 35,000 boxes of Iraqi documents obtained in the war that have yet to be translated.

"I still believe there are key individuals who have not been debriefed and there are key sites that have never been investigated. I know there are 35,000 boxes of documents that have never been translated. I am frustrated," Mr. Hoekstra said.

He added, "Right now, it's not my job to investigate the specific claims. We are doing this a little with Sada. But we still don't fully understand what happened in Iraq three years after the invasion, three years after we control the country. There are enough people coming to the committee, Sada is not the only one, saying, 'you really ought to look under this rock.' This gives me cause to take up the issue again."

I guess we'll know more in about 10 days.

Even Europe is Catching On

A light is dawning on the special education students in Europe.

Recent polls show a majority of Europeans are becoming increasingly tired of current liberal immigration policies and foreign aid programs that have given billions of dollars to the Palestine Authority that they now learn in the aftermath of Yasser Arafat’s death resulted in both rampant corruption and the Hamas backlash. It is one thing to subsidize a double-talking Arafat, quite another to keep giving money to terrorists who openly promise to finish the European holocaust.

More importantly, despite distancing themselves from the United States, and spreading cash liberally around, the Europeans are beginning to fathom that the radical Islamists still hate them even more than they do the Americans—as if the fundamentalists add disdain for perceived European weakness in addition to the usual generic hatred of all things Western.

Later Than You Think

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wants nothing more than to plunge the world into bloody chaos. It's part of his religious faith, the one that had him believing that he was aglow when his gave his psychotic speech, and that Allah prevented his audience from blinking during the entre screed.
And so, his nuclear ambitions and his confrontationalism are all part of the prophesy so far as he is concerned. I say we send him to his virgins and stop wasting time with diplomacy.

A Mile Wide, And a Millimeter Deep

Doing things the French (and Democrat) way with Iran has assembled a large coalition firmly committed to doing absolutely nothing about Iran's nuclear ambitions.

"To win support, the United States had to agree that the Security Council wouldn't discuss Iran before March. Even then, as Greg Schulte, U.S. ambassador to the IAEA, put it, "we foresee a graduated approach to bring additional pressure on the leadership in Tehran to achieve a negotiated settlement." That means the Security Council won't do more than issue statements, at least at first. Any action with teeth, such as sanctions, will require more help from Russia and China than either appears likely to agree to."

Even the Washington Post seems to grasp that we might have to go it alone - again.

Not Only is the House Like A Plantation....

Bill Clinton is attempting to retore hiw wife's political credibility by "revising and extending" her Martin Luther King Day comments.

Not only is the House of Representatives being run like a plantation, but Democrats are treated like "sharecroppers."

Overstock.com Attacked by "Naked Short Sellers"

Yikes! I'm sure it's not exactly what is sounds like. But, is certainly conjures up some unappealling images.

How to make traffic disappear

Beginning about a month ago, traffic on my blog suddenly fell off precipitously and continued to decline. I was a bit surprised and wondered if something was wrong with my sitemeter.
Then, suddenly today I discovered that my posts had been going into the netherworld of a practice blog that I pretty much only use for testing ideas so that, when I actually employ them on my real blog, I'll know that I won't be screwing it all up.
Because of that error, the last time I actually posted on this blog was January 6.
Proof positive that, if you want people to keep visiting your site, you have to give them something fresh.
If you want to visit my practice blog and see what you've been missing, it's at: http//pajamahadin.blogspot.com

Short and Ugly, Unite!

As a student, teacher and observer of academia for the last 35 years, I have noticed that the achievement required to earn a grade of “A” or “B” has declined. Once upon a time, a “C” grade once indicated average performance. Today, a C represents well-below average performance, while A’s and B’s grow on trees. But, the contagion escaped the confines of the ivy and brick and now infects every part of our culture.
Al Gore’s courage is celebrated for sermonizing to a wildly cheering MoveOn.org audience and telling them precisely what they want to hear. Bill Clinton stands before the anti-American World Economic Summit in Davos, Switzerland and condemns the United States for not doing enough to combat global warming, and is applauded for his bravery, even though he never mustered the nerve to submit the Kyoto Treaty to the Senate for ratification.
But it seems that westside liberals are the worst grade inflators of all as they are now applauding their own courage. "History is going to look kindly upon the legislators who had the courage to vote for this," said Rep. Dave Upthegrove. (I did not make that name up,) "It's a great day for equality, for fairness."
On Tuesday, Christine Gregoire’s signature made Washington the latest state in the union to enact so-called gay civil rights. The editorialists and commentators looked down upon it and saw that it was good. Lawyers certainly approve.
But, if Washington’s legislature really wanted to do something courageous and strike a real blow for fairness, they would pass an ugly rights law or a short person’s rights law. It’s a simple matter to document discrimination against us short, ugly types. It’s very easy to draw correlations between height and income. In men, it comes out to about $1000 per inch annually. And although more difficult to express mathematically, we all know that attractive people get all the breaks.
Meanwhile, we can just as easily document the absence of discrimination against homosexuals. Seattle, Spokane and Tacoma already had gay civil rights protection ordinances on the books and heard few complaints. Considering that there will always be a background noise emanating from the chronically indignant, one must conclude that there is essentially no discrimination based upon sexual orientation. The legislature may as well have passed a law that forbids elephants from trampling gardens.
According to the 2000 census, homosexuals earn much more money per capita than do heterosexuals. So where is the discrimination that homosexuals need protection from?
What the heroes of Olympia have done is pass a law that protects a wealthy bunch of people from discrimination for which there is little documentable evidence.
So why did they do it? Well according to Jamie Pettersen, a lawyer for the gay rights group Lambda Legal, "I think the first and most important thing is that people around the state will feel safe. A lot of them have been really afraid."
So, this law was passed to help assuage fears that were inflamed for political gain in the first place.
And it must be pointed out that, unlike the hurdles faced by blacks, the short and the ugly, one’s sexual preferences are not immediately discernable. We have no difficulty identifying race, height and, although we may not be able to define ugly, we know it when we see it. Homosexuals look like everybody else.
On the other hand, there are mountains of evidence proving that the short and the ugly are discriminated against. Where is the political courage to protect them? Do the guarantors of equality need a well-financed political action committee to move them? Is the promise of a pat on the head from newspaper editorial page editors needed?
Maybe what we need is a politician with a name like “Representative Upthecreekwithoutapaddle” to champion our cause. We need movie producers to make cowboy movies about the short and ugly. We don’t need anymore violence committed against us. I know that while I was growing up my short friends and I got the tar kicked out of us by playground bullies every time the teachers weren’t looking.
We certainly need more real courage, and not the kind paraded around Olympia last week. While celebrating his own courage, Upthegrove didn’t even possess the courage to declare gay rights one of his own legislative priorities on his personal website.