Who's Stupider? Rosie O'Donnell or Keith Olberman?

Is Criticism of Islam Racist?

By the way, I knew that Ibrahim Hooper's irresponsible smear of Robert Spencer was a lie, but Spencer presents his own refutation.

What I Did On My Summer Vacation

Well, not my summer vacation. We didn't have summer camps like this when I was a kid.

Nashi's annual camp, 200 miles outside Moscow, is attended by 10,000 uniformed youngsters and involves two weeks of lectures and physical fitness.

Attendance is monitored via compulsory electronic badges and anyone who misses three events is expelled. So are drinkers; alcohol is banned. But sex is encouraged, and condoms are nowhere on sale.


Bizarrely, young women are encouraged to hand in thongs and other skimpy underwear - supposedly a cause of sterility - and given more wholesome and substantial undergarments.

Twenty-five couples marry at the start of the camp's first week and ten more at the start of the second. These mass weddings, the ultimate expression of devotion to the motherland, are legal and conducted by a civil official.

Attempting to raise Russia's dismally low birthrate even by eccentric-seeming means might be understandable. Certainly, the country's demographic outlook is dire. The hard-drinking, hardsmoking and disease-ridden population is set to plunge by a million a year in the next decade.

But the real aim of the youth camp - and the 100,000-strong movement behind it - is not to improve Russia's demographic profile, but to attack democracy.

Under Mr Putin, Russia is sliding into fascism, with state control of the economy, media, politics and society becoming increasingly heavy-handed. And Nashi, along with other similar youth movements, such as 'Young Guard', and 'Young Russia', is in the forefront of the charge.

Sounds like more fun that smores and burnt weenies on a stick.

Two Pinkos Endorse the Surge

In the New York Times, no less.

VIEWED from Iraq, where we just spent eight days meeting with American and Iraqi military and civilian personnel, the political debate in Washington is surreal. The Bush administration has over four years lost essentially all credibility. Yet now the administration’s critics, in part as a result, seem unaware of the significant changes taking place.

Here is the most important thing Americans need to understand: We are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms. As two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration’s miserable handling of Iraq, we were surprised by the gains we saw and the potential to produce not necessarily “victory” but a sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with.

A Hate Crime?????????????

A Pace University (New York)student tosses a Koran in the toilet and he's charged with two felonies and is facing 23 years in prison.

As Michelle Malkin points out, he'd have been okay if he'd burned a flag or submerged as crucifix in a jar of urine.
I'm thinking of painting a picture of Mohammed using poop.

Apparently, the school and the police knuckled under to Muslims who complained about the incidents. So, in New York, if Muslims complain everybody jumps. If Christians complain, the desecration receives public funding.

Respecting the Sport

On February 10th of this year, San Diego’s superstar linebacker Shawne Merriman took the field as a starter in the NFL’s Pro Bowl in Hawaii. Considering his phenomenal athleticism, this wasn’t too surprising. What made his participation remarkable was that earlier in the season, Merriman spent four Sundays watching his team on television as he was suspended by the league for using performance enhancing drugs.
Meanwhile, his primary employer, the San Diego Chargers, enjoyed one its greatest seasons ever, going 14 – 2 and entered the playoffs as a Super Bowl favorite.
This past week, Rabobank, one of the most successful cycling teams in the world, fired its top rider, even as he was on the brink of winning the world’s most prestigious bicycle race, the Tour de France. His crime was suspicious behavior that apparently calculated to evade out-of-competition doping tests.
Earlier teams Astana and Cofidis, were asked to leave the Tour after riders on their teams were found to have violated doping rules.
Rasmussen was fired shortly after his victory in Wednesday’s stage 16. That stage began 11 minutes late as riders protested the shadow that drugs have cast over their sport. Rasmussen was booed as he was one of the first riders to break the strike. The athletes’ attitude today contrasts dramatically from the peloton’s attitude toward doping just 9 years ago. After the number one ranked Festina team had been kicked out of the Tour for using erythropoietin (EPO), the entire peloton staged a sit down strike during a stage to protest enforcement of anti-doping rules.
EPO stimulates red blood cell production and is used legally to treat chemotherapy patients. In endurance athletes, EPO can dramatically enhance the blood’s oxygen carrying capacity.
Today’s riders demand adherence to the rules to restore credibility to their sport. Contrast that with the US professional sports unions that obstruct any attempt to police their ranks.
Cycling’s anti-doping rules are probably the most onerous in sports. To maintain their eligibility, riders must be willing to submit to surprise blood samplings at any time of the year. In fact, riders are not even allowed to travel without informing their federation of where they can be found at anywhere in the world. Imagine having to tell somebody where you are all the time so that they may drop in on you unannounced and draw your blood. That might be a little too intrusive even for a Cialis commercial. Failure to keep his federation informed was what cost Michael Rasmussen his all but certain championship. Even though Rasmussen had skated just to the brink of, but not over the line that would have mandated suspension, his conduct created an air of suspicion that his team could no longer tolerate.
Contrast that with the Chicago Bears’ Tank Johnson, for whom every effort was made by his team, the league, and the Illinois criminal justice system to get him to the Super Bowl on time.
Cycling has a fiduciary interest in cleansing its ranks of dopers. The sponsors demand it. Cycling teams are named after the companies that write the paychecks, and without those sponsors, professional cycling would wither.
Try to imagine what the reaction would be if professional US sports took doping as seriously as cycling. Shawne Merriman would have been suspended from the sport for at least two years and his team’s season would have been over. Nobody would be speculating on how Barry Bonds’ home run records will be treated. His achievements would be wiped off the books.
Unlike cycling sponsors, American manufacturers of beer and erectile dysfunction medication would be object strenuously to similar banishments, as fewer fans would be tuning in to view their advertisements. How many Charger fans would order DirectTV’s NFL Sunday Ticket if the home team were suspended for the season?
Until and unless American professional sports are willing to accept the pain of sincere enforcement, all records and achievements should be viewed skeptically. Cycling is losing sponsors and money in the short term because it desires an honest sport in the future. It’s really too bad that American sports care so little for their own authenticity.
To achieve legitimacy, any sport’s participants must respect the sport itself. That means the sport must be bigger than its biggest stars. Cycling has done that. US football is on its way to joining professional wrestling.

General Patton - Tanned, Rested, Ready and Pissed Off

hat tip: Tom Forbes

Go Green, Destroy the Earth

Green techonologies promoted by greenies would despoil the earth. Nothing left to do but go nuclear.

[I]n order to meet the 2005 electricity demand for the United States, an area the size of Texas would need to be covered with wind structures running round the clock to extract, store and transport the energy.


New York City would require the entire area of Connecticut to become a wind farm to fully power all its electrical equipment and gadgets.


You can convert every kilowatt generated directly into land area disturbed, Ausubel said. “The biomass or wind will produce one or two watts per square meter. So every watt or kilowatt you want for light bulbs in your house can be translated into your hand reaching out into nature taking land.”

A Feline Grim Reaper

When this cat curls up at your feet, your time is up.

Oscar the cat seems to have an uncanny knack for predicting when nursing home patients are going to die, by curling up next to them during their final hours. His accuracy, observed in 25 cases, has led the staff to call family members once he has chosen someone. It usually means they have less than four hours to live.

"He doesn't make too many mistakes. He seems to understand when patients are about to die," said Dr. David Dosa in an interview.

Kinda creepy, I think.

Republicans Should Pound Democrats On This

Rudy Giuliani has raised the Democrats' refusal to protect alert citizens from lawsuits if they point out suspicious behavior from potential terrorists to the level of presidential politics. The rest should do so as well.

Republican presidential hopeful Rudolph W. Giuliani yesterday endorsed a provision to protect citizens from being sued for reporting potential terrorism-related activity and criticized congressional Democrats for blocking the legislation.



"Congressional Democrats are once again showing they just don't get the terrorists' war on us, by attempting to strip important protections for those who report suspected terrorists on airlines," said Mr. Giuliani, who was mayor of New York City during the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.



The provision is the sticking point in a conference committee between the House and Senate to settle differences in legislation that will enact the final recommendations of the September 11 commission. A final draft report could be released as early as tonight.

John Edwards' Great Sacrifice

John Edwards has finally decided to join us in sacrifice. No, he's not giving up his mansion.
He's giving up tangerines.

The politics of global warming got very concrete, and oddly difficult, In a meeting with local environmentalists in the coastal town of McClellanville today, where Elizabeth Edwards raised in passing the importance of relying on locally-grown fruit.

"We've been moving back to 'buy local,'" Mrs. Edwards said, outlining a trade policy that "acknowledges the carbon footprint" of transporting fruit.

"I live in North Carolina. I'll probably never eat a tangerine again," she said, speaking of a time when the fruit is reaches the price that it "needs" to be.

Edwards had talked about "sacrifice," at the meeting, but Elizabeth's suggestion illustrated just how difficult it is to sell the specifics of sacrifice.

Asked about her comment immediately after the event, John Edwards avoided the question twice, then said he isn't sure.

"Would I add to the price of food?" he asked. "I'd have to think about that."

The price it needs to be? So, until her husband attaches a tangerine tax, she's not going to eat them?

Wow, they really do live in another America.

The Word That Must Not Be Spoken

The Democrats managed to shuffle through their presidential debate without once using the words "Islamic terrorists."

Honor Serial Rape and Torture

A family upholding the Religion of Peace's concept of honor rapes and tortures a woman, before strangling her.

Banaz Mahmod, 20, was subjected to the 2-1/2 hour ordeal before she was garroted with a bootlace. Her body was stuffed into a suitcase and taken about 100 miles to Birmingham where it was buried in the back garden of a house.

Her badly decomposed body was found in April 2006, three months after the killing.

Last month a jury found her father Mahmod Mahmod, 52, and his brother Ari Mahmod, 51, guilty of murder after a three-month trial. Their associate Mohamad Hama, 30, had earlier admitted killing her.

Water Under the Bridge

What a country! Or perhaps I should say, what a state? Washington is celebrating the opening of its brand new, $700 million Tacoma Narrows Bridge. And I must say that, for a state-funded project, $700 million for a mile-long plus bridge sounds pretty frugal. I congratulate our usually wasteful and profligate state government. Considering the estimates bandied about for replacing the 520 floating bridge across Lake Washington, I would have guessed that a new Tacoma Narrows bridge would have cost several times that much.
And one more thing – bridge users are paying tolls. That means that less comes out of my pocket and the greater burden for building and maintaining the bridge will fall upon those who actually use it. I don’t believe that I have ever driven across the old Tacoma Narrows Bridge and I consider it quite likely that I will never use the new one.
The only thing that could have made me happier would be if the bridge were free, there were no tolls and, as a bonus, the northwest power grid were flooded with great bushels full of megawatts of clean, green electricity.
Am I dreaming? Been smoking something, Costello, you might ask? No and no. And no to any other speculations regarding any altered mental conditions. What I describe above was in fact the deal that was offered to the state 7 years ago when plans for replacing the Tacoma Narrows Bridge were on the drawing board.
A Vancouver, B.C. company, Blue Energy Canada, approached former governor Gary Locke’s office 6 years ago and offered to build a brand spanking new Tacoma Narrows Bridge in exchange for the rights to harness the electrical generating potential of the powerful tidal currents that flow through the narrows daily.
This was no pie-in-the-sky proposal. The project would have relied upon proven technologies that were widely in use in a number of other countries. All the state had to do to get a free bridge and oodles more carbon dioxide free electricity without splitting an atom or a salmon fingerling was to say “yes.”
Gary Locke said “no.”
Gary Locke’s energy advisor, David Danner, declared, “I don't think the proposal is ready for prime time. There's (sic) going to be transmission issues. There's (sic) going to be shoreline issues. There's (sic) going to be (State Environmental Policy Act) issues."
If anyone ever wonders why I can’t take anthropogenic global warming seriously, it’s because liberals don’t take it seriously themselves. Whether it’s Ted Kennedy and John Kerry opposing wind farms within sight of Martha’s Vineyard, the playpen for America’s most prominent limousine liberals, or Al Gore burning more coal in a month heating one of his three mansions than most people burn in a year, the left simply doesn’t treat energy seriously. They demand hair shirt solutions for those of us who can’t afford to buy carbon offsets, while dismissing legitimate solutions, such as tidal power or nuclear energy.
And, in the case of the Tacoma Narrows, not even a free bridge and extravagant promises of environmental responsibility would close the deal. There were no “crush points” in the design that would have killed fish. If a whale or a seal approached, sensors would detect it and shut down the system until the animal moved away.
“Anything larger than a beach ball” would shut the system down promised the company’s president and CEO, Martin Burger.
No deal.
As a consequence, the state is out $700 million and drivers have to fork over between $1.75 and $3.00 for the privilege of crossing the bridge. And, the northwest power grid has 440 fewer megawatts (enough to nourish 1/3 of Seattle’s power demands) to distribute or sell to other regions.
Ironically, the electricity-generating potential of the Tacoma Narrows was rediscovered two years ago, when the city of Tacoma commissioned a study by the Electric Power Research Institute.
"We want to become the preeminent utility when it comes to tidal and wave generation. I’m optimistic we will be on the leading edge," said Tacoma Power superintendent, Steve Klein.
If I were in charge, every toll receipt would have a reminder of Gary Locke’s dismissal of the free bridge. One could say that it’s just water under the bridge. But it’s worth recalling the fecklessness of the past when deciding whom to cast votes for in the future.

A Peaceful Baqubah

Michael Yon's latest has a story about the new rules for a lasting peace in Baqubah. The interesting point is that all Iraqis embraced a non-discrimination policy. Plus, they all felt free to argue of changes to the rules.

The other points were subject to briefer discussion and easier agreement, although the easiest of all parts of the Oath was point Six—I will not support sectarian agendas. Every Iraqi in the room immediately was aboard on this one, and they even seemed enthusiastic about it.

At Least She Didn't Show Up Wearing Blue Examination Gloves

Hillary Clinton decided NOT to stay at a gay bed and breakfast - then denied it.

Hillary Clinton's fundraiser July 27 in Hardy County has apparently been moved from a gay-friendly bed and breakfast to a more traditional family inn, according to an invitation that was circulating on Tuesday.

This is Golf on Steroids

I always suspected that golfers were juiced. Now, Gary Player says it's true.

Harry Reid Unfurls His White Flag

Harry Reid is so eager to surrender that he rather quickly gave up on his all-night Iraq debate.

Only In France

Only in France is the discovery of testosterone in a man's blood considered suspicious.

Maybe he wasn't doping. Maybe he dined on this the previous evening.

Listen to the Generals, Listen to the UN

Is that what Democrats were demanding not so long ago?
So what are they going to say about this during their surrender debate tonight?

Outgoing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs says, we're winning.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon says that we shouldn't quit until the job is done.

From Captain Ed.

The Death of a Friend - General Lee

Our defeatist media frequently takes shots at the Stryker. The soldiers who actually use them and know just a bit more than our media love them. They even give them names.

Michael Yon's latest article describes the final hours of the General Lee, a Stryker that protected its crew from a massive IED.

Of special interest is how the media got the story wrong.

As the bomb detonated beneath it, the General Lee arced like a dolphin from the sea of Hell. LT Brad Krauss can be seen flying out like Superman, if you look closely and imagine real hard. PFC Devon Hoch can clearly be seen standing in the back hatch. And that was it. Our guys’ lives seemed to be reduced to propaganda. The terrorists published reports that the soldiers were killed.

The story might have ended in the American press:

Four Soldiers Killed by Roadside Bomb Northwest of Baghdad

Four U.S. soldiers were killed today northwest of Baghdad when their Stryker vehicle was destroyed by a roadside bomb. Names of the service members are being withheld until notification of next of kin. The controversial Stryker vehicle is increasingly under fire by critics who claim that its armor is insufficient to protect troops in Iraq. Elsewhere, Iraqi and U.S. forces killed at least 50 people in Baghdad after three days of fighting in the area around Haifa street. About 130 people have been killed since Saturday. Separately, 27 bodies thought to be Shia were found shot. . . .

But that’s not exactly how it turned out.

It's interesting, is it not, that our media are so eager to tell the enemy's side of the story.

Speaking of which, you're probably not reading or hearing very much about this, as it reveals how the media fell right into line behind the enemy's propoganda line.

It all began in 2005, when the ambush of Marines led to a battle in which eight terrorists and a number of civilians were killed. That said, the aftermath of the incident was mishandled, giving a reporter and a human-rights group enough room to make claims of a massacre. The initial Haditha investigations uncovered some apparent discrepancies in the Marines' stories, and a criminal investigation by NCIS was launched. NCIS filed criminal charges, and internal investigations showed that officers failed to ask the right questions. It was, in essence, a more refined version of the Palestinian claims after the battle of Jenin in 2002, in which 52 people, a majority of them combatants, were killed.



Al Qaeda faced the same problem that the Palestinian terrorists at Jenin faced in 2002. They have been unable to win in a straight fight with troops that are highly trained and motivated – and American and Israeli troops tend to be among the best in the world on a soldier-for-soldier basis. The terrorists needed to try a different approach. What they came up with was media manipulation, where lies and deceptions would make the Americans (or Israelis, as the case could be) look bad while winning. Sometimes, this involves exacting a high price on the attacking force in terms of casualties, but this is difficult. More often, it involves creating the impression that the American or Israeli troops are indiscriminate killers who routinely slaughter civilians. This would boost both recruiting (to avenge a massacre by the Americans/Israelis) and it would also get media play, undercutting the American war effort (by giving opponents of the global war on terror ammunition).

If we lose this war, historians (if any from our side survive) will declare our own media as our enemy's most effective weapon.

The Price of Surrender

Defeatists always avoid discussion regarding what the world would look like if they manage to force a preemptive surrender. Today's Washington Post takes a look at what Iraq would look like if we abandoned the country before it is stabilized.

History is replete with bad withdrawal outcomes. Among the most horrific was the British departure from Afghanistan in 1842, when 16,500 active troops and civilians left Kabul thinking they had safe passage to India. Two weeks later, only one European arrived alive in Jalalabad, near the Afghan-Indian border.

The Soviet Union's withdrawal from Afghanistan, which began in May 1988 after a decade of occupation, reveals other mistakes to avoid. Like the U.S. troops who arrived in Iraq in 2003, the Soviet force in Afghanistan was overwhelmingly conventional, heavy with tanks and other armored vehicles. Once Moscow made public its plans to leave, the political and security situations unraveled much faster than anticipated. "The Soviet Army actually had to fight out of certain areas," said Army Maj. Daniel Morgan, a two-tour veteran of the Iraq war who has been studying the Soviet pullout at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., with an eye toward gleaning lessons for Iraq. "As a matter of fact, they had to airlift out of Kandahar, the fighting was so bad."

Virgins For Thee, But Not For Me

From the safety of a deep cave, Osama Bin Laden encourages everyone else to die for the cause.

Bin Laden glorified those who die in the name of jihad, or holy war, saying even the Prophet Muhammad "had been wishing to be a martyr."

"The happy (man) is the one that God has chosen him to be a martyr."

Michael Yon Has Two Words Describing Harry Reid.

He's wrong.

HH: Now yesterday, Harry Reid said on the floor of the Senate that the surge has failed. Do you think there’s any factual basis for making that assertion, Michael Yon, from what you’ve seen in Iraq over the last many months?

MY: He’s wrong, he’s wrong. It has absolutely not failed, and in fact, I’m finally willing to say it in public. I feel like it’s starting to succeed. And you know, I’m kind of stretching a little bit, because we haven’t gone too far into it, but I can see it from my travels around, for instance, in Anbar and out here in Diyala Province as well. Baghdad’s still very problematic. But there’s other areas where you can clearly see that there is a positive effect. And the first and foremost thing we have to do is knock down al Qaeda. And with them alienating so many Iraqis, I mean, they’re almost doing it for us. I mean, yeah, it takes military might to finally like wipe them out of Baquba, but it’s working. I mean, I sense that the surge is working. Reid is just wrong.

There is much more. And anything Michael Yon says is worth reading. He has an advantage over most journalists and politicians - he knows what he's talking about.

War by Other Means

I count myself among those who do not take anthropogenic (man-made) global warming all that seriously. Recent predictions are far less apocalyptic than those of just a year ago, and a new school of thought attributes most global warming to solar activity and the resultant reduction in cloud cover. And even if we are responsible for global warming, who’s to say that we’re not actually making the world a better place. I personally find the world too cold most of the year.
Although, I would have to say that I take global warming just as seriously as Al Gore, John Kerry, and Robert Kennedy Jr. put together. More on that later.
Nevertheless, I would gladly join hands with all the aforementioned greenies, even Al Gore himself, to wean the United States from foreign oil. I’m not worried about carbon dioxide. For me, it’s about starving our enemies of the hard currency they need to wage war against us. And so I am willing to set aside my free market, libertarianism on this one commodity in the name of national defense. I consider it fighting war by other means. If we spent a few tens of billions of dollars subsidizing biofuels, we could purchase some peace. Call it surge light.
It’s not as though the big oil companies don’t enjoy government subsidies. Aside from favorable tax laws, big oil depends upon big military to keep the oil flowing from our enemies’ oil fields. Years ago, I read an analysis that calculated that keeping oil flowing from the Middle East added about $60 billion per year to our military budget. That number is certainly much higher today and likely to rise. If that number is $100 billion today, then might we consider investing about half that number to undermine our enemies’ economies and thereby win some big, bloodless battles?
The old cliché reads that armies are always fighting the last war. This is certainly true in that our strategies are informed by our experience. And while we have fought this latest war by fairly conventional means, with bullets and bombs, we have also employed a new tactic of nurturing and encouraging democracy and capitalism in the heart of enemy territory. Islamic fundamentalism recognizes the threat that enlightenment presents and has made Iraq the main battlefield. Osama bin Laden himself has declared freedom and democracy anathema to Islamic fundamentalism.
But, there is another strategy that has so far attracted too little attention, and that is severing the enemy’s economic lifeline – oil. For example, Saudi Arabia’s oil money underwrites 90% of the world’s Islamic “charities” and other Islamic institutions. The mosques and schools it funds espouse the same Wahabi doctrine that informs Al Qaida’s interpretation of the Koran. While liberals blame George Bush for radicalizing Islam, it is in fact our “friends” the Saudis who export Wahabiism around the globe. The day that the world no longer buys Saudi Arabia’s oil will be the day that these imams will have to give up teaching hate and get real jobs to pay their rent. My impish fantasy is that these former preachers of hate will find themselves spending 12 hours a day stitching and gluing my Nike running shoes together.
Cutting imported oil out of our economic picture might eventually improve the human rights picture. Although I am not nearly smart enough to connect the dots, the fact remains that oil producing countries are not friendly to human rights. The United States is the world’s tenth largest producer of crude oil. The nine nations ahead of us are all among the most repressive regimes on earth. The likely explanation is that oil revenues allow these governments to maintain a large and loyal military and police that keeps it’s boots on their peoples’ necks. If so, then starving the tyrannies would weaken their grip.
Deep thinkers estimate that we could free ourselves of foreign oil by committing only 7% of our farmland to ethanol production. Advances in cellulosic ethanol production hold out the promise of gaining freedom from fewer acres. There are other steps we could take to free ourselves. Nuclear power is clean, green, and one plant could heat and light a million of Al Gore’s mansions.
But greenies oppose nuclear power, which means that they fear anthropogenic global warming as much as I do.

Michael Yon's Latest

Michael Yon took advantage of an opportunity to inteview the leader of one of our former enemies in Iraq. It's quite illuminating and should inform quivering Republicans resolve.

It's all worth reading, but this is the part that I wish Republicowards would read.

In closing, I asked Abu Ali if there was something he would like to say to Americans. The markets that had been closed under al Qaeda were bustling around us.

Ali thought for a moment as some local people tried to interrupt him with greetings, and he said, “I ask one thing,” and now I paraphrase Ali’s words: “After the Iraqi Army and Police take hold and the security forces are ready, we want a schedule for the leaving of the American forces.”

In other words, even the insurgents understand the need to stabilize Iraq before the US leaves.

Two Americas

Important liberals live a life of privilege. The rest of us....

In 2003, radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh admitted his addiction to prescription painkillers and underwent 30 days of inpatient treatment. Though he was a first-time offender and got hooked while treating severe back pain, he was persecuted by the mainstream new media and liberal politicians and hounded by prosecutors. After dragging out their inquiry for 30 months, publicity-hungry prosecutors decided they couldn't convict him of "doctor shopping" and agreed to let him off with a $30,000 fine to cover the cost of their investigation.

On July 4, the spawn of a pothead from way back was stopped after California police clocked him going more than 100 mph on the San Diego Freeway. Al Gore III, 24, told police he had just smoked pot, and a search of his car turned up marijuana and four pharmaceuticals for which he had no prescriptions.

After a brief celebrity-arrest frenzy, the media turned sickeningly sympathetic. "Drug abuse experts say the arrest of Al Gore's son underscores the growing problem of prescription drug abuse among America's youth," swooned The Associated Press "... 'Al Gore's son is just like everyone else's,' said Dr. Donald Misch, director of health services at Northwestern University."

That, of course, is hyperbole on the stilts of exaggeration. The National Survey on Drug Use and Health says just 2.6 percent of Americans 12 or older use prescription drugs illegally in any given month. Rather than being just a typical son, Al Gore III is spoiled-brat pothead who has had more than a few scrapes with the law.

He was just 13 in 1996 when he and several classmates at his exclusive prep school were caught smoking pot. While the other kids were expelled, he was only suspended because he was the vice president's son. In 2000, Al III was busted for driving 97 in a 55-mph zone in North Carolina. In 2002, he was ticketed for DUI near a military base in suburban Washington, D.C. In 2003, he was charged with pot possession in Maryland, but unlike the Limbaugh prosecution, his case ended quickly with court-ordered substance-abuse treatment.

Prince Al III was lucky his latest arrest occurred in Hippie Heaven where people who possess and abuse drugs get their wrists slapped by the "Drug Court." He's also lucky he's not a conservative talk-show host; rather than endless ridicule, he can look forward to piles of pity from the left-wing journalists and politicians.

Jesus As A Ventriloquist's Dummy

Cal Thomas has a fine article digesting the New York Times' nauseating gibberish about Hillary Clinton's "faith," and finds that Hillary's faith is mostly in her politics and channels her wisdom through Jesus's mouth.

Liberal faith, which is to say a faith that discounts the authority of Scripture in favor of a constantly evolving, poll-tested relevancy to modern concerns - such as the environment, what kind of SUV Jesus would drive, larger government programs and other "do-good" pursuits - ultimately morphs into societal and self-improvement efforts and jettisons the life-changing message of salvation, forgiveness of sins and a transformed life.

We Call it "The View"

Spanish feminists are demanding that Pamplona also hold a "running of the cows" along with the running of the bulls.
Considering that we already have something similar here, why would anyone want to replicate it?

Not Settled Science After All

The scientific community seems to be having second thoughts about this "settled science" nonsense.

The last issue of SCIENCE is waffling like mad on the global warming fad, warning its readers that it may not be so settled a question. Under the headline "Another Global Warming Icon Comes Under Attack," SCIENCE writer Richard Kerr writes:
"...a group of mainstream atmospheric scientists is disputing a rising icon of global warming, and researchers are giving some ground." ...

"Robert Charlson of the University of Washington, Seattle, (is) one of three authors of a commentary published online last week in Nature Reports: Climate Change. ... he and his co-authors argue that the simulation by 14 different climate models of the warming in the 20th century is not the reassuring success IPCC claims it to be."
(IPCC is the supposed international scientific consensus document on global warming - JL).
"... In the run-up to the IPCC climate science report released last February ... 14 groups ran their models under 20th-century conditions of rising greenhouse gases. ... But the group of three atmospheric scientists ... says the close match between models and the actual warming is deceptive. The match "conveys a lot more confidence [in the models] than can be supported in actuality," says Schwartz. [....]

"Greenhouse gas changes are well known, they note, but not so the counteracting cooling of pollutant hazes, called aerosols. Aerosols cool the planet by reflecting away sunlight and increasing the reflectivity of clouds. Somehow, the three researchers say, modelers failed to draw on all the uncertainty inherent in aerosols so that the 20th-century simulations look more certain than they should." [Italics added]
What? "Somehow" they missed the biggest unknown factor in climate prediction?

Some people have had doubts for years. It's happened before.

A growing community believes that cosmic rays admitted by a brightening sun influences cloud formation and is the primary cause of global warming.

Remembering the Fallen

The Washington Post has a very moving story about soldiers marching 4 miles through hostile territory to attend a brother soldier's memorial service.

Everything in the Army is supposed to have a task and a purpose, and this simple mission was no different. The task was to get 27 soldiers from Point A to Point B, from their neighborhood combat outpost to an Army base four miles away. The purpose was to attend a memorial service for one of their fellow soldiers, who had died eight days earlier while attempting to make the very same trip.

And so the leaders of Alpha Company had a decision to make: drive in Humvees and risk getting blown up by a roadside bomb, which is what happened to their friend, who bled to death as they worked to save him, or try to minimize the risk of a bomb by walking the four miles in searing summer heat, which would increase the chances of being shot by a sniper.

Such were the choices last week in eastern Baghdad, an area that has become more dangerous since the inception of the Baghdad security plan earlier this year. A largely Shiite area, it had once been less deadly than those parts of Baghdad with Sunni-Shiite fault lines. It was now twitching with daily gunfire, mortars, rockets, grenades and, most of all, roadside bombs, all targeting U.S. soldiers. The attackers were thought to be affiliated with the militia of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

New York Times For Genocide

As the surge continues to yield good results, as described by its own embedded reporter, Michael Gordon, The New York Times wants the US to hurry up and surrender before the news gets any better, even though, it realizes that genocide will be a likely result.

Americans must be clear that Iraq, and the region around it, could be even bloodier and more chaotic after Americans leave. There could be reprisals against those who worked with American forces, further ethnic cleansing, even genocide. Potentially destabilizing refugee flows could hit Jordan and Syria. Iran and Turkey could be tempted to make power grabs. Perhaps most important, the invasion has created a new stronghold from which terrorist activity could proliferate.

Just wondering, Grey Lady, after this, who would ever want to ally with us again?

America's International Reputation Damaged

President Bush not at fault.

Colapsa la relación de Colombia con Estados Unidos
The headline above -- The collapse of Colombian-U.S. relations -- comes from an article in Nova Colombia, detailing how an anti-trade contingent in Congress, aligned with organized labor, is using every political weapon to block the new, bilateral free trade agreement. Its failure could be devastating for democratic progress in Latin America.

On Friday, Investor's Business Daily editorially explained the real crisis facing trade and democratic progress in Colombia and Latin America, "Congress Holds Colombia Hostage." It's a harsh editorial, one that does not adequately acknowledge the level of internal congressional debate on Colombia, but it does powerfully paint the stakes of a failed FTA.


The trade pact Colombia negotiated in good faith with the U.S. and which it needs to sustain its dramatic economic recovery from the ruins of a 44-year war must wait until Democrats arbitrarily decide they're satisfied with the violence level. This gives every anti-free trade Colombian thug an incentive to keep killing.
And what do the Colombians think? Again, IBD:
Millions of Colombians instead issued a people's cry last Thursday against the more serious enemy of their country's well-being — the Marxist FARC narcoterrorists. They marched through the streets of Bogota, Medellin and Cali — calling for an end to the violence from the radical left. Led by Uribe himself, the first million-plus protest in Colombia in decades was triggered by the cold-blooded murder of 11 legislators by FARC, who held the elected leaders for five years before killing them.
The NAM supports free trade agreements as a means to expand export opportunities for manufacturers in the United States, and the US-Colombia FTA certainly meets that goal. Most U.S. exports to Colombia are industrial goods, and nearly 80 percent of Colombia’s tariffs on these goods will fall to zero when the FTA takes effect.

But we are cognizant of the broader foreign policy issues, as well. Destabilization of Colombia -- the collapse of relations, as the headline calls it -- will be a damaging blow to democracy in South America, empowering anti-American, anti-trade forces like Venezuela's Hugo Chavez. The domestic political game being played here in the United States with the U.S.-Colombia FTA is extremely dangerous.

The Fixaroo Is In

What wonderful timing. Hillary Clinton's chutzpah brings the Clinton pardon auction back to the news, something she would like to bury again. So when a court case threatens to bring it all back to the forefront, suddenly there's a settlement.

We Had To Destroy the Village to Save It.

Those of us with more than a few tree rings recall that phrase from the Vietnam war. So how does it apply to Al Gore's crusade to save the Earth?

Someone ran the numbers and has determined Al Gore's Live Earth concerts will generate more carbon dioxide in one day than some countries produce in an entire year.

It has been estimated that between the actual concerts, web streaming and television broadcasting, the Live Earth concert series could produce as much as 200,000 metric tons of carbon, after the conversions from electricity have been calculated. In other words, the Gore concerts could produce more carbon dioxide than was produced by all of Afghanistan in 2006.

How To Get a Haircut That Costs as Much as John Edwards'

Now that we know that John Edwards will spend at least $1250 for a haircut, it's worth learning what that kind of money will buy.

Mary Katherine Ham goes undercover, although admittedly not very deep undercover.

Politically Incorrect Truths

Truth and political correctness are, for the most part, mutually exclusive. So it comes as a great surprise when one of the world's most politically correct magazines, Psychology Today, publishes a list of Politically Incorrect Truths.

None of this will come as a surprise to conservatives, who are grounded in experience. But liberals will be going nuts.

Here are a few.

1) Men like blond bombshells (and women want to look like them)

4) Most suicide bombers are Muslim

5) Having sons reduces the likelihood of divorce

Michael Yon's Latest

Michael Yon reports that the battle for Baqubah is nearly over and that, after a very brief visit, most of the MSM has packed up and left. They missed the beginning and now they're missing the end.

This is what they don't want to report.

The big news on the streets today is that the people of Baqubah are generally ecstatic, although many hold in reserve a serious concern that we will abandon them again. For many Iraqis, we have morphed from being invaders to occupiers to members of a tribe. I call it the “al Ameriki tribe,” or “tribe America.”

I’ve seen this kind of progression in Mosul, out in Anbar and other places, and when I ask our military leaders if they have sensed any shift, many have said, yes, they too sense that Iraqis view us differently. In the context of sectarian and tribal strife, we are the tribe that people can—more or less and with giant caveats—rely on.

Most Iraqis I talk with acknowledge that if it was ever about the oil, it’s not now. Not mostly anyway. It clearly would have been cheaper just to buy the oil or invade somewhere easier that has more. Similarly, most Iraqis seem now to realize that we really don’t want to stay here, and that many of us can’t wait to get back home. They realize that we are not resolved to stay, but are impatient but to drive down to Kuwait and sail away. And when they consider the Americans who actually deal with Iraqis every day, the Iraqis can no longer deny that we really do want them to succeed. But we want them to succeed without us. We want to see their streets are clean and safe, their grass is green, and their birds are singing. We want to see that on television. Not in person. We don’t want to be here. We tell them that every day. It finally has settled in that we are telling the truth.

What do you suppose would be the American reaction to this story?

At first, he said, they would only target Shia, but over time the new al Qaeda directed attacks against Sunni, and then anyone who thought differently. The official reported that on a couple of occasions in Baqubah, al Qaeda invited to lunch families they wanted to convert to their way of thinking. In each instance, the family had a boy, he said, who was about 11-years-old. As LT David Wallach interpreted the man’s words, I saw Wallach go blank and silent. He stopped interpreting for a moment. I asked Wallach, “What did he say?” Wallach said that at these luncheons, the families were sat down to eat. And then their boy was brought in with his mouth stuffed. The boy had been baked. Al Qaeda served the boy to his family.

If the MSM carried this, people would understand why we need to finish the job there and we wouldn't have chickenshit Republicans jumping ship to act like Democrats.

As is the case with everything Michael Yon writes, it's all worth reading. This snippet is just to whet your appetite.

Leave the Fake News to Jon Stewart

I think that I could be talked into a sort of “fairness doctrine” – except that instead of requiring radio stations to present opposing opinions, I would require mainstream news organization to balance lies with truth.
Two massacres have come to light in the last couple of weeks. One was real and one was fantasy. One was widely reported and the other sort of slipped into nearly total obscurity. Unfortunately, it was the imaginary massacre that made the news and the real massacre has been ignored.
You might have read or seen on the evening news the story about the twenty beheading victims discovered along the banks of the Tigris River in Um al-Abeed, Iraq. The Associated Press story was dated June 28, 2007 and quoted two anonymous Iraqi police officers. The story set off alarms among media watchdogs as locations cited were nowhere near the as the policemen’s jurisdiction. It was precisely this sort of geographical incongruity that first alerted skeptics to the improbability of the AP’s former ubiquitous source for all things embarrassing to the war effort – Jamil Hussein.
The imaginary police captain Jamil Hussein managed to serve as the AP’s witness to all sorts of atrocities from just about everywhere in the vicinity of Baghdad, until the Associated Press reported his account of 4 Sunni mosques being blown up and Sunni worshippers being burned alive in the street under the approving gaze of the Iraqi Army. All one had to do to disprove the story was visit the neighborhood, which the AP didn’t bother with. Had they done so, they would have found the mosques standing and no eyewitnesses to the corroborate Jamil Hussein’s tale. When asked to produce Jamil Hussein, the AP couldn’t.
That lesson didn’t have any lasting effect on the AP, because they reported the story about the 20 headless bodies without really looking into the matter and, guess what? It never happened. The AP sent out a brief retraction but, if you saw the original story, I’ll bet that you heard nothing about the story’s retraction.
But there was a massacre that should have been reported, but so far, it has not. One day after the Associated Press disseminated its fairytale, now known as “Decapigate,” freelance journalist Michael Yon posted a story from al Hamira, a village just 3.5 miles from Baqubah. Al Qaida had taken over the town and the US military was there to wipe them out and free the population. Al Qaida was successfully eradicated and all the booby traps neutralized, but there were no villagers to be liberated. Where were they?
As it turned out, they were in a mass grave. Al Qaida had apparently beheaded every last man, woman and child in the village and dumped their bodies into a shallow ditch. The grave was so shallow that it was easily discovered by the stench of decaying flesh.
It should come as no surprise that Al Qaida is comprised of barbarians capable of such savagery. What’s remarkable about this story is the lack of interest from the mainstream media. Several news services (including the Associated Press) have reporters in Baquba to cover the Arrowhead Ripper offensive. As mentioned earlier, Baquba is only 3.5 miles away from this village. But other than Michael Yon, none have bothered to take the trip to see the atrocity with their own eyes and none have reported a word about it. Michael Yon was so distressed by this failure that he offered his own report free of charge to any newspaper that wished to print it. So far, none have. If you wish to read it, and can bear graphic photos, go here:
A poorly sourced, imaginary slaughter gets headlines and a real slaughter is ignored. Why?
The AP’s reporting on the recent terrorist attacks in London might give us a clue. Reporter David Rising noted that the terrorists came “from diverse backgrounds.” He quotes an investigator who speculated that, “they discovered that they shared some common ideology, and then they decided to act on this while here in the UK."
And what might that “common ideology” be? David Rising wouldn’t even speculate, although if you did, you would almost certainly be correct.
The mainstream press has its own common ideology. And that ideology drives it to highlight fake massacres and ignore real ones. You can probably guess why.

Who Is Al Gore Trying To Fool?

Check out Al Gore's picture on this Live Earth website.

Are we supposed to believe that he's not the butterball we've come to know and loathe?

Islam's "Cancerous Tumor"

Thomas Friedman nailed it in yesterday's New York Times. It's too bad that so few people will be allowed to read it. Here's a snippet or two (two actually).

In the past few years, hundreds of Muslims have committed suicide amid innocent civilians — without making any concrete political demands and without generating any vigorous, sustained condemnation in the Muslim world.

Two trends are at work here: humiliation and atomization. Islam’s self-identity is that it is the most perfect and complete expression of God’s monotheistic message, and the Koran is God’s last and most perfect word. To put it another way, young Muslims are raised on the view that Islam is God 3.0. Christianity is God 2.0. Judaism is God 1.0. And Hinduism and all others are God 0.0.

One of the factors driving Muslim males, particularly educated ones, into these acts of extreme, expressive violence is that while they were taught that they have the most perfect and complete operating system, every day they’re confronted with the reality that people living by God 2.0., God 1.0 and God 0.0 are generally living much more prosperously, powerfully and democratically than those living under Islam. This creates a real dissonance and humiliation. How could this be? Who did this to us? The Crusaders! The Jews! The West! It can never be something that they failed to learn, adapt to or build. This humiliation produces a lashing out.

Here's another.

Of course, not all Muslims are terrorists. But it’s been widely noted that virtually all suicide terrorists today are Muslims. Angry Norwegians aren’t doing this — nor are starving Africans or unemployed Mexicans. Muslims have got to understand that a death cult has taken root in the bosom of their religion, feeding off it like a cancerous tumor.

This cancer is erasing basic norms of civilization. In Iraq, we’ve seen suicide bombers blow up funerals and schools. In England, seven out of the eight people detained in the latest plot are Muslim doctors or medical students. Doctors plotting mass murder? Could that be? If Muslim leaders don’t remove this cancer — and only they can — it will spread, tainting innocent Muslims and poisoning their relations with each other and the world.

Is This Journalistic Progress?

According to the Associated Press, Israeli Defense Forces killed "8 militants."

Usually, the MSM reports these as "civilian deaths."

We might want to start a headline death watch, to see how long it takes to rewrite this one.

Hamas Rescues BBC Reporter From Itself

And the Mainstream Media buys it.

Today, Haniyeh must be rejoicing. Hamas has pulled off a propaganda coup which has worked out exactly as it intended, thanks in large measure to the willingness of the BBC to be thus used. Of course, the release of the BBC’s Gaza correspondent Alan Johnston from his four-month captivity at the hands of the Army of Islam is a great relief. But it comes with a terrible price tag — the strengthening of an organisation committed to the extermination of Israel, the mass murder of Jews and the overthrow and Islamisation of the free world. Only a few weeks ago, Hamas were the people binding the hands and feet of fellow Palestinians and hurling them off the tops of tall buildings. But today, by managing to extricate Johnston from the Army of Islam, they are posing as saviours of kidnap victims, honest brokers against the men of violence — people with whom the world may now think it can therefore do business.

Maybe This Is Why Immigrants Watch Spanish Language TV

They can't get honest news from English Language MSM. So mayber the Governator was wrong.

Forbidden Thinking

Highlight climate change by wasting electricity?

Rock group Arctic Monkeys have become the latest music industry stars to question whether the performers taking part in Live Earth on Saturday are suitable climate change activists.
"It's a bit patronising for us 21 year olds to try to start to change the world," said Arctic Monkeys drummer Matt Helders, explaining why the group is not on the bill at any of Al Gore's charity concerts.

"Especially when we're using enough power for 10 houses just for (stage) lighting. It'd be a bit hypocritical," he told AFP in an interview before a concert in Paris.

Bass player Nick O'Malley chimes in: "And we're always jetting off on aeroplanes!"

It's kinda like telling everyone to cut their energy use while running $30,000/year energy bills at just one of your three mansions.

Headlines I'd Love To See

Wouldn't you love to see this headline in the New York Times?

HERO CABBIE: I KICKED BURNING TERRORIST SO HARD IN BALLS THAT I TORE A TENDON

"I'm Gonna Keep Pointing It Out Until They Blow Me Up"

Two Americas - Actually Three Americas

Maybe John Edwards was wrong. I used to think that there two Americas - the America where I live in which people pay 12 buck for a haircut and the other America, where people pay $400 for a haircut. Now I understand that there are three Americas.

For four decades, Joseph Torrenueva has cut the hair of Hollywood celebrities, including Marlon Brando and Bob Barker, so when a friend told him in 2003 that a presidential candidate needed grooming advice, he agreed to help.

The Beverly Hills hairstylist, a Democrat, said he hit it off with then-Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) at a meeting in Los Angeles that brought several fashion experts together to advise the candidate on his appearance. Since then, Torrenueva has cut Edwards's hair at least 16 times.


At first, the haircuts were free. But because Torrenueva often had to fly somewhere on the campaign trail to meet his client, he began charging $300 to $500 for each cut -- plus the cost of airfare and hotels when he had to travel outside California.

Torrenueva said that one haircut during the 2004 presidential race cost $1,250 because he traveled to Atlanta and lost two days of work.

"He has nice hair," the stylist said of Edwards in an interview. "I try to make the man handsome, strong, more mature, and these are the things, as an expert, that's what we do."

I'm guessing that, in John Edwards' world, he's mulitcultural for being able to live in either of the latter two Americas.

At Least Al Gore III Breaks the Law Staying Green

The bad news is that Al Gore's son was busted for driving 100 mph and possession of dope. On the other hand, he was driving a Prius.

Al Gore Son Arrested: Police Find Illegal, Prescription Drugs In Car!

By Jack Ryan
Jul 4, 2007

Al Gore's son, Albert Gore III, has been arrested. Al Gore III was pulled over for speeding Wednesday morning when police discovered drugs in his car.

Al Gore III was pulled over for doing 100 mph when police discovered illegal drugs and several prescription drugs in the vehicle.

On the other hand, who knew that a Prius could go 100 mph?

Biggest Balls in the Democratic Party?

Flopping Aces has a good roundup of the Clinton pardon scandal, while Ed Morrisey reminds us of the role that Hillary's brother played in the great 2001 pardon auction.

Red Ken: What? Me Worry?

London mayor Ken Livingstone can't think of any reason why security should be increased for this Saturday's Tour de France prologue. Perhaps Red Ken might check into current events.

High-ranking British officials have confirmed that increased security measures in London, the result of a recent spate of bombing attempts, will not affect the execution of its well-oiled plans for the Tour de France's Grand Depart in the metropolis.

"Our plans for hosting the Tour de France Grand Depart are unaffected by the present increase in security," Transport for London special projects technical manager Gary MacGowan declared to Cyclingnews. "We have been working closely with the Metropolitan Police on the delivery of this event and plans for dealing with any security issues are already in place."

MacGowan's comments were echoed by London's Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), who confirmed its organisation is working closely with British Transport Police and City of London.

"We have thoroughly reviewed the policing plans for all events over the coming days, including the Tour de France, to ensure that they are fit for purpose," the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) told The Guardian. "An appropriate policing plan will be in place. Enhanced policing continues across the Capital. The MPS is well versed in delivering the policing of high profile events and this is well within our capacity to deliver."

Meanwhile London's Mayor, Ken Livingstone, said it would be 'mad to build this up and make people worried', adding that he doesn't expect the recent activities to affect crowd numbers this weekend. Livingstone joked that the only real concern ahead of the Tour de France's debut in the city was the weather.

"We don't expect those figures to be in any way diminished," said Livingstone at a press conference in London. "I'd be more worried about the weather.

"This is a small group of mostly young people, disaffected and disillusioned, who are able to claim lives," added Livingstone. "We shouldn't work ourselves up to a hysterical panic. It would be mad to build this up and make people worried."

Apparently, Red Ken gets his information from the New York Times, which declared that the terrorists were "disenfranchised south Asians."

Of course, there's a lot of denial going on in Britain.

I'm an American

Al Qaida Atrocities Go Unreported - Why?

Michael Yon asks why Al-Qaida's atrocities in Iraq are being almost universally ignored and offers blanket permission to the MSM to use his reporting.

Today, late afternoon on 3 July in Baqubah, Colonel Hiduit from 2nd Brigade 5th Iraqi Army was able to provide some additional details about the murders, as the ongoing investigation begins to yield more facts. The name of the village was not on any maps I examined while preparing the dispatch, but Colonel Hiduit said the name is al Hamira. Coordinates to the area of the gravesites are MC 679 381.

In my dispatch, I reported that six people were killed, but mentioned that Iraqi soldiers were still digging out bodies when I left. A few hours ago, Colonel Hiduit put the number at 10-14, and said the search for bodies had ended. I made video of the graves, bodies and of interviews with Iraqi and American soldiers while we still were at the scene and have been working to make material from this available on this website.

As the investigation unfolds more pertinent details, I’ll continue to update the story. But the biggest question rippling across the internet–“Why hasn’t the mainstream media picked this up?” –is something only representatives of mainstream media can answer.

In fairness, several large outlets did publish it online: National Review Online and Fox News were both quick to place the story prominently on their websites. A few others also published excerpts. It was even briefly up on the Drudge Report. On the blog front, Instapundit, Hugh Hewitt, Blackfive, Andrew Sullivan, Captain’s Quarters and many others picked it up.

But for those publications who actually had people embedded in Baqubah when the story first broke and still failed to cover it, their malaise is inexplicable. I do not know why all failed to report the murders and booby-trapped village: apparently no reporters bothered to go out there, even though it’s only about 3.5 miles from this base. Any one of the reporters currently in Baqubah could still go to these coordinates and follow his or her nose and find the gravesites.

Unforgivable.

He Should Have Burned a Flag

Nobody would believe me if I tried to make this up, but, a man was arrested in New York City for reciting the First Amendment.

Reverend Billy says he wants the New York Police Department to get right with the Constitution.

The performance artist — a cross between a street-corner preacher and an Elvis impersonator (but blond) — was arrested on harassment charges last week while reciting the First Amendment through a megaphone in Manhattan's Union Square. On Monday, he donned his trademark white suit and returned to the scene of his alleged sin to demand that police repent.

"It feels so good to be back on the very spot where I was denied my First Amendment rights by reciting the First Amendment," he told reporters over the din of an NYPD helicopter hovering overhead.

Have a happy Fourth celebrating your freedom!

Have Democrats Been Taking This Stuff?

Someone has developed a pill that erases bad memories. Is this why Democrats have forgotten September 11, 2001.

Date fixed, with thanks to the vigilant Dale C.

The Democrats Embrace Michael Moore

It would seem that whoever invited Michael Moore to sit in the VIP booth at the 2004 Democratic National Convention was prescient. The Democrats really have become the party of the screwball left.

From today's Boston Herald:

When Brian Williams asked the Democratic presidential candidates to answer (by a show of hands) if they believe “there’s such a thing as a global war on terror,” the only top-tier candidate whose hand shot up was Hillary Clinton. Barack Obama reluctantly gave an insincere wave. But Edwards? Never.

So, if there’s no global terror threat, how does the left explain the guy on fire climbing out the window of an explosives-laden car as shown on CNN? Spontaneous human combustion?

Poverty.

Poverty causes terrorism, the left insists, despite the fact that a) there are at least 1 billion impoverished non-Muslims in the world who aren’t blowing up nightclubs; and b) two of the plotters just arrested are doctors. In fact, most of the 9/11 and 7/7 attackers were relatively affluent and well educated.

Advocates of the “bumper sticker” theory sometimes claim that terrorism is the last resort of the desperate. The New York Times [NYT] calls the latest would-be bombers part of Europe’s “disenfranchised South Asian population.”

Got that? Not “terrorists.” Certainly not “Muslims.” Disenfranchised.

Remarkable isn't it, that even physicians are disenfranchised?

You'd Think That They Would Have Learned Something By Now

Remember Jamil Hussein? Apparently, the Associated Press doesn't.

When the major wire services ran stories claiming that 20 headless bodies had been found in a village southeast of Baghdad, with sources that looked dubious, Confederate Yankee blogger Bob Owens didn’t just sit back and complain. He got on the case and started asking questions. Days later, both the AP and Reuters retracted their stories.

Why don't we just leave the fake news to Jon Stewart.

Hillary - The Only Democrat With Balls?

It takes really big ones to say something like this:

"Today's decision is yet another example that this Administration simply considers itself above the law. This case arose from the Administration's politicization of national security intelligence and its efforts to punish those who spoke out against its policies. Four years into the Iraq war, Americans are still living with the consequences of this White House's efforts to quell dissent. This commutation sends the clear signal that in this Administration, cronyism and ideology trump competence and justice."

After all, she and her husband sold pardons in the final days of their reign.

Update: Here's a list of Clinton's pardons. Some pretty salty dudes on that list, including some terrorists. He pardoned the terrorists to pick up some Puerto Rican votes for his wife's senatorial campaign.

Not Long For the Times?

Michael Gordon's reporting from Iraq has been so crisp, honest and unbiased that I can't believe that he's going to survive much longer at the New York Times. His reports are quite frankly the best to be found anywhere in the MSM.

Here's the most recent example.

Exerpt:

American military officials have long asserted that the Quds Force, an elite unit of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, has trained and equipped Shiite militants in Iraq. The Americans have also cited extensive intelligence that Iran has supplied Shiite militants with the most lethal type of roadside bomb in Iraq, a bomb called the explosively formed penetrator, which is capable of piercing an armored vehicle.

But today’s assertions, which were presented at a news briefing here, marked the first time that the United States has charged that Iranian officials have helped plan operations against American troops in Iraq and have had advance knowledge of specific attacks that have led to the death of American soldiers.

In effect, American officials are charging that Iran has been engaged in a proxy war against American forces for years, though officials today sought to confine their comments to the specific incidents covered in their briefing.

When the Karbala attack was carried out on January 20 this year, American and Iraqi officials said that it appeared to be meticulously planned. The attackers carried forged identity cards and wore American-style uniforms.

One American died at the start of the raid, but the rest of the American soldiers were abducted before they were killed.

Some officials speculated at the time that the aim of the raid might have been to capture a group of American soldiers who could have been exchanged for Iranian officials that American forces detained in Iraq on suspicion of supporting Shiite militants there.

But while Americans officials wondered about an indirect Iranian role in the Karbala raid, until today they stopped short of making a case that the Quds Force may have been directly involved in planning the attack.

General Bergner declined to speculate on the Iranian motivations. But he said that interrogations of Qais Khazali, a Shiite militant who oversaw Iranian-supported cells in Iraq and who was captured several months ago along with another militant, Laith Khazali, his brother, showed that Iran’s Quds force helped plan the operation.

Similar information was obtained following the capture of a senior Hezbollah operative, Ali Musa Daqduq, General Bergner said. The capture of Mr. Daqduq had remained secret until today.

“Both Ali Musa Daqduq and Qais Khazali state that senior leadership within the Quds force knew of and supported planning for the eventual Karbala attack that killed five coalition soldiers,” General Bergner said.

Documents seized from Qais Khazali, General Bergner said, showed that Iran’s Quds Force provided detailed information on the activities of American soldiers in Karbala, including shift changes and the defenses at the site.

I doubt that any other Times reporter could string together that many words without once calling Bush or Cheney a liar, or without a body count or some drivel from Nancy Pelosi.

Two Americas

Once again, we learn that there are two Americas: There's the America that views the world realistically, then there's John Edwards' world of make believe.

More Michael Ramirez cartoons here.

Red Ken Makes an Ass of Himself Again

Here's something you probably didn't know: ""In this city, Muslims are more likely to be law-abiding than non-Muslims and less likely to support the use of violence to achieve political ends than non-Muslims."

Yep, them Presbyterian terrorists have been quite a problem lately.

The Latest From Michael Yon - Baqubah, Iraq

Michael Yon has posted another dispatch from Iraq. As one of the few embedded journalist in Iraq, he reports what he actually sees, not rumors that turn out to be false.

Bless the Beasts and Children

Where did they go?
On 29 June, American and Iraqi soldiers were again fighting side-by-side as soldiers from Charley Company 1-12 CAV, led by Captain Clayton Combs, and Iraqi soldiers from the 5th IA, closed in on a village on the outskirts of Baqubah. The village had the apparent misfortune of being located near a main road—about 3.5 miles from FOB Warhorse—that al Qaeda liked to bomb. Al Qaeda had taken over the village. As Iraqi and American soldiers moved in, they came under light contact; but the bombs planted in the roads, and maybe in the houses, were the real threat.

The firefight progressed. American missiles were fired. The enemy might have been trying to bait Iraqi and American soldiers into ambush, but it did not work. The village was riddled with bombs, some of them large enough to destroy a tank. One by one, experts destroyed the bombs, leaving small and large craters in the unpaved roads.

The village was abandoned. All the people were gone. But where?

As often happens in Iraq, the first time I meet American combat soldiers, we are going off to do something serious. Although the soldiers usually do not know me, they are courteous and professional, and always watching out for me. And so it was with LT Baxter, who was commanding the M-1 tank that I’d be riding along in, and who made sure I didn’t break my neck getting into the tank. I nearly pulled him off the tank while climbing aboard.

Captain Clayton Combs has been fighting hard in Diyala for about ten months, much of it side-by-side with Iraqi soldiers from the 5th Division. Each time I’ve come into contact with the 5th, they seem far better than most. American officers and sergeants who work with the 5th have good things to report about them, saying that although the 5th still has far to go, and cannot sustain itself logistically, it can fight.

Captain Combs said this particular Iraqi unit, the 3-25, has never run away from combat, and never refused to close on the enemy. Combs said, “I’ve fought with 3-25 for 10 months in Diyala and they have always come when I am in trouble. They always go on patrols when I ask. They never back down.”

I asked Captain Combs to repeat what he said, making sure he knew I was planning to quote him directly. A veteran like Combs would be unlikely to append his name to such words if he weren’t dead serious. Captain Combs repeated his words and stuck by them. He then demonstrated that faith when we took off deeper into the danger zone with nine soldiers from 5th IA: just Captain Combs, Iraqi soldiers and me. As we passed through the village, Captain Combs pointed out the nice houses, saying the people had been simple farmers with comfortable homes and lives.

Until al Qaeda came.

Read it all. Michael Yon deserves to be read.