Please, Mr. Feingold...Bring It On!

Lots of the wise men on the editorial pages are jumping up and down in support of Senator Russ Feingold's proposal to introduce a formal censure measure against President Bush. E.J. Dionne critisizes the Democrats for not snapping at the jugular:

Russ Feingold tossed a political grenade at President Bush this week, but it fell into the middle of the Senate Democratic Caucus. Many Democratic senators ran away.
The grenade was the Wisconsin senator's proposal to censure the president for violating the law by ordering electronic surveillance on Americans without explicit congressional or court authorization.

Consider the disparity between the response to Feingold's initiative among Democratic senators and the reaction among Democratic activists.
Senators mostly scampered away from the cameras earlier this week, because they didn't want to say publicly what many of them said privately. Most were livid that Feingold sprang his censure idea on a Sunday talk show without giving them any notice. Many see Feingold as more concerned with rallying support from the Democratic base for his 2008 presidential candidacy than with helping his party regain control of Congress this fall.
But at the grass roots and Web roots, Feingold has become a hero -- again. They already loved him for his courage in opposing the USA Patriot Act and his call for a timetable for troop withdrawals from Iraq....

The difference between the two party's grassroots loyalists is that one group spends the weekends in church; the other out protesting, usually against America. Makes one group a little easier to swallow than the other, wouldn't you say? And America still hasn't forgotten what happens when these liberals elect their own - runaway crime, retreat overseas, and apologies to all whom apply are usually what follows. Dionne shouldnt forget, while lionizing his left-wing activists, that 16 out of 16 candidates supported by The Daily Kos in the 2004 elections lost. Is that the kind of cohesiveness you are looking for?

Dionne admires these people; but he fails to see that mainstream America does not. Bringing this type of "censure" lunacy to the forefront is what usually helps Mr. Bush survive his periodic downswings. The Senate Democrats are smart enough to know this; Dionne hasn't grasped the lesson yet.

Has the Times? From their editorial today:

We understand the frustration that led Senator Russell Feingold to introduce a measure that would censure President Bush for authorizing warrantless spying on Americans. It's galling to watch from the outside as the Republicans and most Democrats refuse time and again to hold Mr. Bush accountable for the lawlessness and incompetence of his administration. Actually sitting among that cowardly crew must be maddening.

Still, the censure proposal is a bad idea. Members of Congress don't need to take extraordinary measures like that now. They need to fulfill their sworn duty to investigate the executive branch's misdeeds and failings. Talk about censure will only distract the public from the failure of their elected representatives to earn their paychecks.

So don't censure the President - just launch a full-out series of investigations, committees, and op-ed essays to constantly barrage the public with the evil that George Bush does. Er, note to the Times - your newspaper has been doing that for years already; see how well it has worked so far? The Republicans hold the Presidency, Congress, the Senate, a majority of governerships, and a majority of the statehouses in the Union. Keep it up; maybe you will match Kos' perfect record...

Hollywood, At War With...Itself

'Crash' director to lead Hollywood anti-Iraq war Protest

Paul Haggis, the Canadian director of "Crash", this year's Oscar winner for best picture, will lead a protest in Hollywood this weekend against the war in Iraq, now three years old, organizers said.
Haggis will be joined by other celebrities and politicians in the vanguard of the demonstration Saturday, which will assemble at noon at the legendary intersection of Hollywood and Vine and march through the heart of Tinseltown, the organizers said.

The Canadian director, whose gritty racial drama won three Oscars in the March 5 Academy Awards ceremony, will be flanked by US actors Martin Sheen and Maria Bello and singer and social activist Harry Belafonte.
"This protest will commemorate the third anniversary of the criminal US 'Shock and Awe' invasion of Iraq, in which more than 100,000 Iraqis and 2,300 US troops have died," said ANSWER Coalition-LA, the anti-war umbrella organization organizing the protest.
Other notables expected to march are Vietnam War veteran Ron Kovic, the author of the book "Born on the Fourth of July," which later became an academy-award winning film; Gloria Romero, a state Democratic senator; and Dolores Huerta, the co-founder of the United Farm Workers of America.

More on the ANSWER spitbags here
More on "social activist" Harry Belafonte here
State Senator Gloria Romano is here - perhaps a world record for affiliation with liberal groups?

And fighting back, in the right corner, is South Park's Trey Parker and Matt Stone; ignoring Comedy Central's plea to just keep quiet about the Tom Cruise affair:

" So, Scientology, you may have won THIS battle, but the million-year war for earth has just begun! Temporarily anozinizing our episode will NOT stop us from keeping Thetans forever trapped in your pitiful man-bodies. Curses and drat! You have obstructed us for now, but your feeble bid to save humanity will fail! Hail Xenu!!!
- Trey Parker and Matt Stone, servants of the dark lord Xenu."

My heroes!

Hollywood, France Squelch Free Speech

Flippin' hypocrites...first, a story from today's NY Post on how Tom Cruise forced the cancellation of an episode of South Park:

HOLLYWOOD bully Tom Cruise got Comedy Central to cancel Wednesday night's cablecast of a controversial "South Park" episode about Scientology by warning that he'd refuse to promote "Mission Impossible 3," insiders say.
Since Paramount is banking on "MI3" to rake in blockbuster profits this summer, and Paramount is owned by Viacom, which also owns Comedy Central, the tactic worked.
The "South Park" episode, "Trapped in the Closet," pokes fun at Scientology and shows Cruise, John Travolta and R. Kelly (who is not a Scientologist, but has a song called "Trapped in the Closet") literally in a closet.
The episode, which first aired last November, was set to rerun Wednesday night, but was mysteriously pulled at the last minute.
Now, hollywoodinterrupted.com reports Cruise went straight to the top - to execs at Viacom - and warned he'd boycott the promotion for "MI3" unless the "South Park" episode was pulled.
Series creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker have been told not to discuss the matter - to avoid embarrassing Cruise as they did Isaac Hayes last week when Hayes, also a Scientologist, quit his role as the voice of the Chef character.
Hayes claimed he couldn't stand by while "South Park" made fun of religion, but Stone pointed out that Hayes had cashed plenty of checks while the show made fun of Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Stone hinted that Hayes was pressed to quit by his minders in the Church of Scientology.

Now the question is whether Comedy Central will ever again air "Trapped in the Closet" and whether it will be included on the DVD of the show's ninth season

Remember - showing respect for other people's religion only extends to Islam and Scientology, not to Judiasm or Christianity. Got that straight?

Now let's look to France, where E-Nough! keeps us abreast of the latest attempts to appease the Islamists hordes:

[A] text recently submitted to the French National Assembly by a member of parliament . . . proposes an amendment to existing law, making it a crime to insult or defame a religion. It specifically mentions that no cartoons mocking religious beliefs will be tolerated. The author of the proposed law makes specific reference to the Danish cartoon controversy. . .
The Member of the parliament explains:
The freedom of expression could in no way give the right to ridicule, to misinform or to slander religious feelings of any community or any State. Hence, the French Republic must penalize, by a proposition of law, any speech, shout, threat, document, leaflet, drawing or poster voluntarily offending the foundations of religions.

So now speech which hurts someone's feelings is about to become a crime in France. This is the liberal utopia of Western Civilization? Let France's decay be an example to America of what happens when you give the Left an opportunity to create their PC dream state...

The irony, of course, are that France and Hollywood are the two biggest screamers against Nazi Fuhrer George W. Bush and his Republican Police State. They are the only ones that should be allowed to determine what free speech is, you see?

"All The Lies That Are Fit To Print"

No sign of those cartoon Mohammeds at the New York Times; but plenty of room to re-run their favorite Abu Ghraib photos. After a lengthy front page interview with the famous hooded and cloaked detainee; it turns out that, well, the man they profiled was not the man in the photo at all:

The online magazine Salon is challenging the identity of a man profiled by The New York Times who says he is the hooded figure in a published photograph who was abused by Americans at Abu Ghraib prison in 2003 and 2004.

Salon bases its challenge to the article that appeared Saturday in The Times and the International Herald Triubune on an examination of a set of 280 Abu Ghraib photographs it has been studying for several weeks and an interview with an official of the Army's Criminal Investigation Command, known as the CID, who says the man identified by The Times is not the detainee in the photograph.

On Monday, Chris Grey, chief spokesman for the investigations unit, asked about the challenge, confirmed to the paper in an e-mail message: " We have had several detainees claim they were the person depicted in the photograph in question. Our investigation indicates that the person you have is not the detainee who was depicted in the photograph released in connection with the Abu Ghraib investigation.

"As always, we will take this information into consideration in the course of our investigative duties to determine if there is any credibility to the person's allegations."

The man identified by The Times, Ali Shalal Qaissi, often called Haj Ali, was also interviewed and described as the hooded man forced to stand on a box attached to electric wires in an article in Vanity Fair and a broadcast on PBS.

Susan Chira, foreign editor of The Times, said: "We take questions about our reporting very seriously, and we will carefully investigate Salon's findings. We attempted to verify the claims of Mr. Qaissi thoroughly. We spoke with representatives of Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, who had interviewed Mr. Qaissi and believed him to be the man in the photographs."

Geez, you think that a paper that actually claims to be all about reporting standards would inquire of someone other than Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Says something about the standards of the Times when this is whom they choose to source on stories of this type…

Incidentally, it appears as if the Times has also anointed Hillary as heir apparent to the White House throne, as they disfigure and distort anyone, even a Democrat ,who dares stands in her way:

Friends of the man who could be Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's top Democratic 2008 presidential rival, Mark Warner, saw red when the New York Times Magazine cover featured his photo with a weird purple tinge - and now the Gray Lady has apologized.
"The Times's policy rules out alteration of photographs that depict actual news scenes and even in a contrived illustration, requires acknowledgment in a credit," said an editors' note yesterday.
"In this case the film that was used can cause colors to shift and the processing altered them further."

The photo made Warner - the former Virginia governor - look cartoonish with a sallow and saturnine look featuring huge white teeth, a maroon velours jacket and a lavender shirt.
The Times yesterday noted he was actually wearing far more traditional colors - a charcoal jacket and a light blue shirt with a dark blue striped tie.

Can it get any worse for the Old Grey Whore? Oh, boy, we are gonna find out:

Lawyers for former vice presidential aide Lewis "Scooter' Libby are seeking records from reporters at several news organizations that might help in his perjury defense, the media outlets said on Thursday
The New York Times, NBC News and a lawyer for a Time magazine reporter said they received subpoenas from the defense team for Libby, once chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney. The Washington Post said it expected to receive a subpoena as well.

Times spokeswoman Catherine Mathis said the newspaper had not yet decided whether to comply with the subpoena. ..

So the Times uses falsified sources to re-hash the Abu Ghraib story; photoshops distortions onto their political enemies, and debate whether the rule of law applies to them when issued a subpoena.

By comparison, the Times makes the Oil Companies look like good global citizens…

UPDATE: LGF link to the Times' correction on this issue:

The Times did not adequately research Mr. Qaissi’s insistence that he was the man in the photograph. Mr. Qaissi’s account had already been broadcast and printed by other outlets, including PBS and Vanity Fair, without challenge...

Well, if it's in Vanity Fair...

Stratagems of War

President Bush re-affirms America's right to act pre-emptively, without permission from France, or the United Nations:

In the earlier report a year after the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush underscored his administration's adoption of a pre-emptive policy, marking the end of a deterrent military strategy that dominated the Cold War.
The latest report makes it clear Bush hasn't changed his mind, even though no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq.
"When the consequences of an attack with weapons of mass destruction are potentially so devastating, we cannot afford to stand idly by as grave dangers materialize. ... The place of pre-emption in our national security strategy remains the same," Bush wrote.
The report had harsh words for Iran. It accused the regime of supporting terrorists, threatening
Israel and disrupting democratic reform in Iraq. Bush said diplomacy to halt Tehran's suspected nuclear weapons work must prevail to avert a conflict.
"This diplomatic effort must succeed if confrontation is to be avoided," Bush said.
He did not say what would happen if international negotiations with Iran failed...

Nothing makes one's words carry weight more than backing them up with action:

U.S. forces and Iraqi troops launched what the military described as the largest air assault since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion Thursday, targeting insurgent strongholds north of the capital.
The U.S. military said the raid, dubbed Operation Swarmer, was aimed at clearing "a suspected insurgent operating area" northeast of Samarra and was expected to last several days
"More than 1,500 Iraqi and coalition troops, over 200 tactical vehicles, and more than 50 aircraft participated in the operation," the military statement said.
The U.S. command in Baghdad said it was the largest number of aircraft used to insert troops and the largest number of troops inserted by air, although larger numbers of troops overall have been involved in previous operations.
Hoshyar Zebari, the Iraqi interim foreign minister, said the attack had been necessary to prevent insurgents from forming a new stronghold such as they had established in Fallujah, west of Baghdad.

Seems as if Iran gets these two combined messages loud and clear:

A top Iranian official said Thursday that Tehran was ready to open direct talks with the United States over Iraq, marking a major shift in Iranian foreign policy. Washington also said it was prepared to open discussions, although U.S. officials appeared to play down the offer.
"To resolve Iraqi issues and help the establishment of an independent and free government in Iraq, we agree to (talks with the United States)," Larijani told reporters after a closed meeting of the parliament Thursday.
Larijani's statement marked the first time since the 1979 Islamic Revolution that Iran had officially called for dialogue with the United States, which it has repeatedly condemned as "the Great Satan"...

Speak softly, and carry a big stick, folks...still an effective strategy today...
George Bush gets it, Iran gets it, the Iraqi insurgents are getting it (and how!); do the Democrats grasp the concept yet? Or do they still believe that apologizing and groveling are the way to proceed?

The EU, in Rare Form...

Watching any gathering of EU officials is always a double-downer sideshow; oberving them, I feel a great sadness at what the Continent has de-evolved into. Today's meeting of EU "deputies" is a helping of infantile pique, sniveling, and anti-Semitism, all rolled into one:

European parliamentarians roundly criticised Israel for an army raid on a West Bank prison which forced Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas to cut short his visit to Europe.
Deprived of a long-awaited address by Abbas, whose impoverished Palestinian territories receive vast amounts of EU aid, the deputies condemned the attack and the wave of revenge kidnappings it fuelled.

Party group leaders and even the president of the assembly, Josep Borrell, condemned the action and questioned whether it had really helped Israel or if it was a ploy ahead of the elections on March 28.
"It was a useless and unfair military operation. How could an operation of this kind, with its humiliating images, reinforce Israel's security?" he said.
"The future of this region has been sacrificed," said Greens bloc leader Daniel Cohn-Bendit for a "tactical manouevre" motivated by the general elections.
"If this is what Israel's domestic political goals are, it will be fatal," said the head of the Socialist group, Martin Schulz.
Others said that Israel's actions on Tuesday, which netted people wanted for killing a cabinet minister, had undermined the authority of the relatively moderate Abbas as the militant group Hamas tries to form a new government.
"The fact that he had to return home early illustrates even more the gravity of this new and deliberately humiliating Israeli escalation in Palestine and its sadly predictable consequences, like the unacceptable abductions," the parliament's United Left/Nordic Green Left group said in a statement.
"Will the Union once again fail to react to this torpedo on peace which as usual will weaken those Palestinians who seek a peaceful solution the most...[what, all six of them?? - ed.]

What I find particularly repugnant here is the fact that this rage was brought on by the fact that these deputies were "deprived of a long-awaited address by Abbas". Yeah , I know, it must somehow be a violation of their civil rights. But it seems as if they were about to feel an almost sensual relish in watching Mr. Abbas thank them for their alms, and then plead for even more. Do these militant leftists really care about helping the poor Palestinians so much, or do they also act in order to feed some type of darker need in themselves? Their anger, displayed above, reminds me of nothing more than fury a bar lout who is denied a conquest by a girl still sober enough to refuse.

Note also, the repeated use of the word "humiliation" as an adjective to the Palestinian state. To these Euros, justice is letting prisoners involved in the assasination of a high governent walk free; injustice is forcing them to feel "humiliated" by being forced to serve their time. Incidently, I didn't hear any Palestinians themselves say they were shamed at all; the label is being affixed onto them by their humanitarian European benefactors.

Perhaps it really is time to let Europe go; perhaps it is destined to collapse, and our well-meaning sacrifice for them in two world wars did nothing more than to delay the inevitable. Better, to grow tighter with India, Japan, and the Aussies than to sucked into a final European maelstrom as its withered body is finally sucked dry by its corrupt soul.

It will still be our duty to stand at attention, and hold our hats over our hearts...

LGF has more links...

"V for Vicious"

We saw this coming back in August 2005 - "V for Vendetta" arrives in theaters shortly, and what a twisted, hateful look at America it appears to be... Daimnation! links us to Libertas, with some pre-reviews giving us the scoop:

....the movie plays like a clumsy assault on post-9/11 paranoia. It references “America’s war,” uses imagery direct from Abu Ghraib and contains dialogue likely to offend anyone who’s not, say, a suicide bomber. Buildings are symbols, V tells a haunted young woman named Evey (Natalie Portman), after saving her from some vile, rampaging cops: “Blowing up a building can change the world.”

How do you think this will play to friends and relatives of the victims of 9/11? Doesn't matter, Hollywood folk don't know many of them, and besides, any enlightened person knows who the real victims are, right? Another review, from Debbie Schlussel at FrontPage Magazine:

“V” comes complete with all the bogeymen the far left loves to hate: NSA spying and wiretaps; government renditions and torture complete with Abu Ghraib hood fashions; lecherous, elderly Christian clerics in collars raping young girls; Islam, gay rights, and free speech under attack; and even a Bill O’Reilly-esque evil cable talk show host/wicked pharmaceutical billionaire/heinous military officer combo rolled into one character.
Oh, and by the way, the hero of the movie: He’s a terrorist in a Guy Fawkes mask, who blows up important government buildings. Sound familiar? His mask might as well be a kefiyeh wrapped around his head in a Nick Berg video.

Now to finish the Hollywood wet dream:

...“the United States of America” doesn’t exist anymore. America is in the midst of a civil war.
And America and the war on Iraq are the enemies–along with Christians and the right–in this movie. We are treated to newscasts about how “America’s War [on terror] spread to England.” One character–a gay, British Jay Leno type who hosts a latenight show–keeps a secret vault of prohibited items, including a giant poster of “the Coalition of the Willing,” depicting the American and British flags surrounding a swastika …
...Also in the secret vault of sacred prohibited items: a Koran. Portman, whose Evie is the “heroine” of “V,” asks, why the Koran? “Are you a Muslim?” she asks the late-night host. “No, but its [the Koran’s] images are beautiful.”

Un-flippin'-believable.

Hollywood has become nothing more than a niche entertainment provider. Their target audience is the American Left; the angry Democrat, the Cindy Sheehan fan, the "Bush lied!" crowd. They make movies for them such as Syriana, V for Vendetta, Munich, and Brokeback Mountain, and earn what monies they can. There is undoubtly a market for these films, as a place the angry and disaffected liberal can slip for two hours into escapist dreams, of America turning out to be the evil place they always knew it was! A place they can openly root against America, guilt-free! However, there is no potential for a "blockbuster" movie in this genre; Hollywood is intentionally making movies that disgust a large swarth of the population, and in doing so forfeits their reciepts.

It is a questionable strategy at a time when moviegoers are a lot harder to come by, preferring to watch flicks in our home-theater heavens. Instead of luring them back with broader-based entertainment, the choice to target only one segment of the audience (while marginally profitable), may turn off an even larger portion of the audience, leading these disaffected customers to seek out, via alternative entertainment vehicles, films that are more to their liking.

To serve their own intellectual vanity and to reap the profits of the conspiritorial left, Hollywood may be dealing themselves a blow from which they may never recover. No tears will be shed in this corner of Jersey, however...

We'll follow this one at the box office, and see which critics rewarded this leftist dreck with high praise...

Belgium Cracks Down!

No, not on the barbarian hordes, silly! After all, it is self-evident that all cultures are equal, right? No, they are cracking down on speech that is critical, even in a humerous way, of Muslims! In the You-Cannot-Make-This-Up department, we hear from the Brussels Journal:

The City of Antwerp...has requested that the Belgian courts prosecute a member of the city council...
The Centre for Equal Opportunities and Opposition to Racism (CEOOR), a tax-funded government inquisition office that under Belgian law has the competence to prosecute for discrimination and incitement to hatred, has also started a prosecution.
The councillor’s crime? He forwarded an e-mail that has been circulating widely on the internet for weeks:

A Danish website offers apologies to all “offended” Muslims. Here is what it says [excerpt - ed.]:
We’re sorry we gave you shelter when war drove you from your home country…
We’re sorry we took you in when others rejected you…
We’re sorry we gave you the opportunity to get a good education…
We’re sorry we gave you food and a home when you had none…
We’re sorry we let you re-unite with your family when your homeland was no longer safe…We’re sorry we never forced you to work while WE paid all your bills…
We’re sorry we never forced you to learn our language after staying 30 years…
We’re sorry for everything else…And we’re sorry for having to say sorry…!

Probably most readers of this blog has gotten emails of the type above (or, say, some extremely sexist ones? ) and forwarded them onto a few friends who you know will get a smirk out of it. Could you imagine, with your finger poised on the "send" key, knowing that you could be sent to jail for doing so?
This is what Free Europe has descended to. Or is this the ultimate evolution of all liberal governments -whether hardcore Communist or softcore Labor - one of repression of free speech, based on the credo of "the common good"?

At least when they had the chance, the citizens of Europe voted against the constitution of the EU. They knew where a dictatorship of the bureaucrats would lead, but alas, it is already upon them. "The Center for Equal Opportunity and Opposition to Rascism", indeed...

"The Last Warning to the American People"

From al-Qaeda operative "Rakan Ben Williams"; translated via MEMRI :

"I discern your wonder about this warning in which you do not quite recognize what to make of it. You are probably asking: Why would Al-Qaeda Organization announce its upcoming operations inside the mainland? Why the repeated warnings?
However, coming from Al-Qaeda, a disclosure like this reflects one thing and one thing alone: full faith and trust in Allah.
"You ought not to be intolerably upset; for whoever survives this upcoming blow will have a probability to learn an amazing lesson in the art of conducting 'expeditions.'

Let me also inform you that we are talking about two operations, not one. The scale of one of them is larger than the other but both are large and significant. However, we will start with the smaller, and temporarily put the larger on hold to see how serious the Americans are about their lives. Should you value your own life and security, accept Muslims’ demands, but if you shall prefer death (over giving in to Muslims’ demands). Then, we, by the grace of Allah, are the best in bringing it (death) to your door steps.

"Let me now inform you why we opted to inform you about the two operations and your inability to stop them before they are carried out. The reason is simple; you cannot uncover or stop them except by letting them be carried out...
"This is the last warning you will receive from us. Consequently, if you ignore it, we regret to inform you that we will carry out devastating operations against the States of America and we will not show mercy whatsoever, you would have brought destruction to yourselves.

Sounds like Rakan is claiming to have two nuclear devices already implanted in US cities; awaiting bin Ladin's orders to detonate. There is no way of knowing if any of the above threats have a grain of truth in them, except the lines bolded above - surrender to Islam, or we will slaughter you.

Bring it on, Rakan...every hear of Mutual Assured Destruction?

Michelle Malkin has an analysis of who Rakan Ben Williams might be here.

A Nation of Hate

"We are a nation that drinks blood, and we know that there is no blood better than the blood of the Jews."
- a video statement on Hamas' website.

And yet, the EU falls over themselves to grant aid to the Palestinians. The home of the Holocaust has grown tired of shedding crocodile tears for its slaughter of millions of Jews, so now it has turned to financing a group that promises to finish the job for them.
Humanitarian aid, you say, for the average Palestinian? Sorry, no guilt here - they voted for Hamas, they must live (or die) with the results of their actions. Did we send hundreds of millions in economic aid to Germany after they voted in the Nazis?

But by providing humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people, Europe not only frees Hamas to use its limited resources for its primary goal of a second generation Holocaust; it is essentially an act of suicide as well...from Mort Zuckerman in today's New York Daily News:


...the lust to kill Jews is only part of it. Hamas, like Osama Bin Laden and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has ambitions that threaten us all. Khaled Mashal, Hamas' top leader, spelled them out: "The nation of Islam will sit at the throne of the world ... Muhammed is gaining victory in Palestine [and] in Iraq. ... The Arab and Islamic nation is rising and awakening... Tomorrow we will lead the world." Not to be outdone is the Hamas leader in Gaza, Mahmoud al-Zahar: "We are part of the great world plan whose name is the world Islamic movement."
...Just a few days before the Palestinian election, Ahmadinejad met Mashal and Hamas' other leader-in-exile, Musa Abu Marzuk, in Damascus, along with the leaders of nine other Syria-based terrorist groups. The Palestinian conflict, they concluded, will become a "focal point of the final war" between Islam and the West.
Hezbollah has already moved its operational headquarters from Beirut to Gaza; Al Qaeda elements are already there. These are omens of an evil confluence, the formation of a Tehran-Damascus-Hezbollah-Gaza axis in which Iran will fund and arm a new front of terrorism with its head in Iran, its body in Iraq and Lebanon, and its feet in Gaza and the West Bank.

Hamas is joining with Iran, Syria, al-Qaeda and Hezbollah to form an axis of terror and death that will soon threaten the world. And yet Europe, in an amazing case of moral blindness, becomes the sixth side of this hexagon of hate by providing funding for the people who voted these monsters in.

The Islamists will most likely make their next move against the West in Europe - it is a softer target than the United States, with weak leadership and a population that is interspaced with pockets of Islamist allies. What the leadership of the EU is thinking is beyond me - is it appeasement again, hoping that by throwing those Jews to the wolves they can buy more time for themselves? Or is it an ideological zeal, one which states that "now that Hamas is in power, they have to reform", even thought Hamas has stated clearly and often that its goal of warfare against Israel and the West will never be usurped?

Either way, it becomes critical policy for the United States to distance itself from the European moves in the Middle East - let us not associate ourselves with their weakness of character, lack of strength, and their desire to commit cultural suicide...

Washington Post Sunday Jihad Edition

Well, it wouldn't be a Sunday issue of the Washington Post unless they were forking over editorial space to terrorists, or their sympathizers. Today, under the headline "The Crime of Being a Muslim Charity" (wow, really tugs at the heartstrings, huh?), we get this tale of poor Muslim woe:

The Treasury Department is playing target practice with American Muslim charities. On Feb. 19 Treasury seized the assets and froze the operations of KindHearts, a Toledo-based humanitarian organization, acting on the dubious allegation that it is financing terrorism...
...the message we are hearing is this: "All Muslims are suspected of supporting terrorism. Your charities are guilty of this crime until proven innocent. But don't bother trying to prove your innocence because you won't have the chance."
...Our crime is that we care about what happens to the children of Palestine. Who knows what price we will have to pay for our hot-breakfast program for hungry kids in Gaza, for our playground project in the West Bank, for our psychosocial trauma center in Hebron...

World smallest violin, please...thank you.
Let's learn a little bit about why our friends at KindHearts were closed...from WTOL in Toldeo:

A federal magistrate ordered a terrorism suspect held without bond Tuesday on charges of plotting with two co-defendants to wage attacks against U.S. and allied troops by recruiting and training others to fight overseas. The government argued in U.S. District Court that Mohammad Zaki Amawi, who has dual U.S.-Jordanian citizenship, should not be released because of the risk of harm to the community or the chance that he would flee the country....
...According to a federal indictment that was unsealed a week ago, government prosecutors say El-Hindi and Mazloum conspired with Mohammad Zaki Amawi to wage a "holy war" against America and its service people overseas. The three reportedly met to plan attacks, but also to gather equipment, money, supplies, and information needed to carry out those attacks.
Amawi is also facing separate charges that he distributed bomb-making information, and twice threatened the life of President George W. Bush.

And the connection to KindHearts, from the Toldeo Blade:

A fourth man identified in the federal indictment only as "the Trainer," but identified by local Muslims as 39-year-old Toledoan Darren Griffin, or "Bilal," worked part time at KindHearts for more than three years.
Jihad Smaili, a Cleveland lawyer who is a member of KindHearts' board and the brother of the man whose home on Woodley was searched by federal agents, said the inventory and the investigations have shown the group to be innocent. He said the shutdown exposes the U.S. government's desire to discredit and cut off all support, even humanitarian, to Palestinian territories because of Hamas' political victory.

Well, thanks for your opinion, "Jihad"...if you guys wonder why many Americans are distrustful of your motives, look at the name of your lawyer...I doubt a representative for the German Bund in the '40's named "Hitler" would have gotten to much love either...

Look, my poor charitable Muslim friends, you had a man working for you who was actively supporting warring factions against the United States. No matter what race/religion you are, that's a crime. The "poor little persecuted us" meme may work on the liberals at the MSM op-ed pages, but it si not going to play well anywhere else. If you want to be left alone, make sure your employees are not actively plotting the downfall of America, OK?

And while you are at it, remember that the United States has declared Hamas to be a terrorist organization (maybe because of all of those buses full of schoolkids they bombed?); and the fact they have obtained politcal power does not change that fact, nor absolve them of any responsibility of their past misdeeds. There is a difference between recognizing a foreign government, and supporting a foreign government, and if you want to stay out of jail you had better learn the distinction.

And when does the Washington Post, in all of its evenhanded glory, intend on giving some editorial space to the victims of Hamas, anyway?

Profiles in Cowardice

The John F. Kennedy Library Foundation gives out annual "Profiles in Courage" awards; named after a pre-inaugeration speech given by JFK in 1961. This year's reciepients show the hateful bias of the Kennedy clan and their Democratic ilk, if these are men they deem courageous:

In the year marking the 50th anniversary of the publication of Profiles in Courage, the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation today announced that U.S. Representative John P. Murtha (D-PA), and former U.S. Navy General Counsel Alberto Mora have been selected as the recipients of the 2006 John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award. Murtha and Mora will be presented the prestigious award for political courage by Caroline Kennedy and Senator Edward M. Kennedy at a ceremony at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston on Monday, May 22.

Congressman Murtha, a ranking member and former chairman of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, a Vietnam combat veteran and a retired Marine Corps colonel with 37 years of service, was recognized for the difficult and courageous decision of conscience he made in November, 2005, when he reversed his support for the Iraq war and called for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the conflict. Murtha’s distinguished service in the Marines and the Marine Corps Reserves, and his expertise on defense policy issues, had long made him an eminent voice on matters of military engagement. His unexpected call for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq generated protracted and substantive national debate on the progress, policies and objectives of the U.S. presence in Iraq. But his dissent also made him the target of withering political attacks and resulted in efforts by political opponents to discredit his Vietnam War decorations.

Alberto J. Mora, the former general counsel to the United States Navy, was recognized for the moral and political courage he demonstrated in waging a 2 1/2 –year behind-the-scenes battle with Pentagon brass and civilian leaders over U.S. military policy regarding the treatment of detainees held by the United States as part of the war on terror...

While Murtha might have shown some bravery back in 'Nam, his "unexpected call for withdrawal" was no act of courage, but of political expedience of the moment. Calling for immediate withdrawl was an act of military insanity, and in case the Kennedys forgot, was voted down 435-1 by Congress. The political firestorm that swirled around him was due not to his newfound embrace of pacifism, but his virulant anti-military comments during wartime and his attachment to leftist radicals like Code Pink and anti-Semite James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.). I guess to a Democrat, and a Kennedy, beating down our soldiers overseas fighting to protect us from an utterly ruthless enemy now constitutes "courage"...

And awarding "turn 'em loose" Mora an award for courage while ignoring the true nature of the detainees at places like Guantanamo is simply another way to beg for America's defeat at the hands of vicious insurgents or Islamic terrorists. But I guess that's the Kennedy way...

And when this war is finally won by the smart, tough and brave American soldiers fighting overseas (OK, I saw Gunner Palace last night!), how will we view the awards given to men like Murtha and Mora, and the Kennedy clan that granted them?

A once-great family, tarnished and decimated, awarding borderline traitors while wallowing in indulgence and avarice...an award from this family has become a badge of shame.

A Sad, Yet Ironic, Death

American hostage Tom Fox has been killed and his body, showing signs of torture, left on a garbage dump in Baghdad, police said on Saturday.

Fox, who had been in Iraq to campaign against the U.S. occupation and to work for the release of Iraqis held by U.S. forces, was taken hostage with three colleagues in November by a group calling itself the "Swords of Truth."

Fox, a father of two, had expressed concern in an article written the day before his abduction about the dehumanization of Iraqis amid a raging insurgency and U.S. responses that he said often claimed the lives of innocents.
One of the policemen who found the body said the 54-year-old peace activist, wearing a gray tracksuit, appeared to have beaten by electric cables before his death. He had a single gunshot wound to the head and his hands were tied behind him.

A 54 year old man beaten and tortured to death simply for being an American is symbolic of the raging hatred of the terrorists masking themselves under the cloak of "insurgents". And yet, Mr. Fox was in Iraq essentially to defend these people against any real or perceived U.S. injustices. He was singled out as a soft target because he was acting under the guise of "peace"; the terrorists knew he was unlikely to be packing heat. He was killed because these animals hold a special hatred for Americans; one that existed well before this war (remember 9/11, anyone?) .

But will there be any lessons taken from this? Will Michael Moore still compare these murderers to Revolutionary Minutemen? Will the Christian Peacemaker Teams, of whom Mr. Fox was a member, still critisize the Bush administration and America as the "real criminals" in this case? Note the transference of guilt here, by both Reuters and Christian Peacemakers; they campaign against alleged American "dehumanization" and "death of innocents", yet their own innocent people are kidnapped and killed, after being dehumanized by forced propoganda and torture at Iraqi hands...
And will the anti-war activists open their eyes to the true nature of their beloved "insurgents"; or will they still root for their eventual victory in Iraq?

Alas, nothing will change; nobody on the left - media, Democrat, or otherwise - dares open their eyes to the true nature and aims of the terrorists in Iraq and worldwide. Because, you know, that means that George Bush may have been right, and the Left would literally rather die than admit that horrible, horrible, truth...

UPDATE: Evidence of above, from Mr. Fox's pious Christian Peacemaker Teams...via The Washington Post:

In a statement released last night, Christian Peacemaker Teams said the group mourned Fox, who combined "a lightness of spirit, a firm opposition to all oppression and the recognition of God in everyone."
The statement added, "We believe that the root cause of the abduction of our colleagues is the U.S.- and British-led invasion and occupation of Iraq."

Well, not to speak ill of the dead, but if you were really opposed to all oppression, why wern't your teams in North Korea? Saudi Arabia? Iran? Sudan? Or were you only in Iraq because the Americans let you into Iraq to document their "misdeeds"?
And, speaking for myself, maybe the "root cause" of Mr. Fox's death was the fact he was in a war zone, working with the bad guys, intentionally blinding himself to their true nature in order to advance his particular cause. And maybe I believe that one of the "root strengths" of the continued unrest in Iraq is the moral and physical support given to insurgent groups by organizations like the Christian "Peacemakers"...

Update 3/23: here

Friday Night War-of-Ideas Watch

Via Little Green Footballs, our first stop is in Great Britian, where we see that the Muslims have essentially won the war for British culture. First we learn:

The Telegraph has apparently removed a story about shari’a law from their web site: This story has been removed for legal reasons. (Hat tip: No Pasaran!)
Notice the URL of the article: .../news/2006/02/19/nsharia219.xml
The story has also been deleted from Google’s cache.
UPDATE : Here’s the article they removed: ENGLAND: The day is coming when British Muslims form a state within a state.

And what is so heineous that the Telegraph felt they had to pull the article? Why, the truth, of course:

For the past two weeks, Patrick Sookhdeo has been canvassing the opinions of Muslim clerics in Britain on the row over the cartoons featuring images of Mohammed that were first published in Denmark and then reprinted in several other European countries.
"They think they have won the debate," he says with a sigh. "They believe that the British Government has capitulated to them, because it feared the consequences if it did not." The cartoons, you see, have not been published in this country, and the Government has been very critical of those countries in which they were published.
To many of the Islamic clerics, that's a clear victory. " It's confirmation of what they believe to be a familiar pattern: if spokesmen for British Muslims threaten what they call 'adverse consequences' - violence to the rest of us - then the British Government will cave in. I think it is a very dangerous precedent."
Dr Sookhdeo adds that he believes that "in a decade, you will see parts of English cities which are controlled by Muslim clerics and which follow, not the common law, but aspects of Muslim sharia law. "It is already starting to happen - and unless the Government changes the way it treats the so-called leaders of the Islamic community, it will continue."

So much for the vaunted European multiculturalism, and "tolerance" for those whom are "different" - apparently, it is only a policy designed to make the surrender of one's one culture (and freedoms) more gradual and acceptable.

Speaking of surrender, Jimmy Carter keeps urging those pesky Jews to give it up, and just die quietly. In Pakistan, no less, he goes a-Jew bashin', with enough lies to make Herr Goebbels smile in his cold cold grave:

Israel has announced a policy of isolating and destabilising the new government (perhaps joined by the United States)...
As part of the Quartet, including Russia, the UN, and the European Union, [George Bush] has endorsed a “Road Map” for peace. But Israel has officially rejected its basic premises with patently unacceptable caveats and prerequisites...
The pre-eminent obstacle to peace is Israel’s colonisation of Palestine...
Although President Bill Clinton made strong efforts to promote peace...

Read it all...how many of Jimmy Carter's lies can you find?

Next up, Hamas leader Khaled Mashal claims that Isreal has declared war on the Palestinians with their announced intention of drawing up borders unilaterally {well, maybe if they had someone sane to negotiate with...}. Roger Simon has some thought on Hamas' position:

I don't know why Mr. Mashal is so upset. This is nothing new. He's been at war with the "Zionist entity" since the founding of his organization...

So where to go for Mr. Mashal? Renewed terror is one gambit, but likely to put him and many of his friends at the short end of a helicopter missile attack. (And I can promise you one thing - some of them have their doubts about that virgins fairy tale.) A serious escalation of terror (if they are capable of it) would probably result in worse, since with Hamas running the government their actions would be state actions and dealt with accordingly. Mashal could run to the Western Europeans and the Russians for support - and he already has - but with his ally Iran parading their nuclear ambitions and acting like international lunatics his leverage with them will be less. So, for the moment, Hamas seems not to have many options...

They have one option, Mr. Simon...they can declare for peace and recognition of Israel. If they are incapable of performing that one simple act, they deserve whatever death Israel rains upon their ungodly headwraps...

Oooh, NOW I'm Convinced !

Because "250 doctors from seven countries" signed a petition urging the United States government to allow Gitmo innmates to die for their cause:

More than 250 doctors from seven countries urged the U.S. government on Friday to abandon force-feeding and the use of restraints on hunger strikers at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp.
The doctors from Britain, the United States, Ireland, Germany, Australia, Italy and the Netherlands said prisoners at the camp in eastern Cuba have the right to refuse treatment and that physicians must respect their decision.
"We urge the U.S. government to ensure that detainees are assessed by independent physicians and that techniques such as force-feeding and restraint chairs are abandoned," the doctors said in an open letter published in The Lancet medical journal.

Amazingly, Reuters treats this suggestion with respect, as if it is something we should consider. Why? Because 250 freakin' doctors from seven countries signed a petition? Folks, I can dig up at least 250 doctors from seven different countries in my central New Jersey county alone! Should they advise on foreign policy as well?

Incidently, the Lancet Journel is the Weekly World News of medical thought. Remember, they printed one of the most offensive lies of the Iraq war, one that has been gleefully reported as fact within the media and hurled against the Bush administration from the Democratic Left:

Britain’s medical journal Lancet rushed a report to print in the final days leading up to the US election, claiming that there have been 100,000 civilian casualties in Iraq, half of them women and children. Oddly enough, this figure is almost ten times the already inflated estimates...

Al-Reuters knows propoganda when they see it; they know their source, and they are going with it. Then they toss is some America-bashing of their own, free of charge and without rebuttal:

Human rights groups, religious organizations and some governments have criticized the treatment of Guantanamo prisoners and have urged Washington to close the camp.
Only 10 of the nearly 500 terrorism suspects held at the naval base have been formally charged with a crime. Their indefinite detentions and lack of legal rights have been condemned by human rights activists.
Authorities at the camp have been accused of inserting a tube into the nose and down to the stomach of a prisoner on hunger strike and keeping him strapped in a chair for hours at a time, forcing him to defecate and urinate in his clothes.
The prisoner, Mohammed Bawazir, has been held at the base since May 2002. He claims he was tortured when he was force-fed and forced to end his 5-month hunger strike.

Well...maybe I'll toss in some balance, here:

Fearing militants or even their own governments, some prisoners at Guantanamo Bay from China, Saudi Arabia and other nations do not want to go home, according to transcripts of hearings at the U.S. prison in Cuba.
Uzbekistan, Yemen, Algeria and Syria are also among the countries to which detainees do not want to return. The inmates have told military tribunals that they or their families could be tortured or killed if they are sent back.

And from Moscow:

Two former Guantanamo prisoners, extradited to Russia in 2002, have been detained in Moscow on suspicion of preparing a series of terrorist attacks, the Vremya Novostei newspaper reported Tuesday....They are charged with preparing and carrying out a series of terrorist acts in the Central Russian Povolzhye region.
All in all, of the seven Russian Guantanamo prisoners extradited from Cuba in 2004, only two are not in custody.

And these are the people those kind, humanitarian doctors of the Lancet Medical Journel want to unleash upon the world...

Hollywood Hypocrites II

May I present Miss Ann Coulter:

In case you missed the Oscars last Sunday night, here are the highlights:

-Best song went to a musical tribute to the overseers of human sex slaves, an occupation known as "pimping";
-best picture went to a movie about racism in Los Angeles;
-best supporting actor went to the movie about how oil companies murder people; and
-best supporting actress went to the movie about how pharmaceutical companies murder people.
Curiously missing from Oscar night's festivities was any reference, even in passing, to the 150,000 brave Americans currently risking their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan.

On behalf of red state America, let me be the first to say: "Screw you, Hollywood."

Nice slapdown on B-rate blowhard George Clooney follows:

George Clooney made the only stand for liberal Hollywood, smugly declaring:
"We are a little bit out of touch in Hollywood every once in a while. I think it's probably a good thing. We're the ones who talked about AIDS' when it was just being whispered, and we talked about civil rights when it wasn't really popular. ... (T)his group of people gave Hattie McDaniel an Oscar in 1939 when blacks were still sitting in the backs of theaters. I'm proud ... to be part of this community, and proud to be out of touch."

The point is: The Hollywood set didn't start wearing AIDS ribbons to the Oscars until 1992:
10 years after The New York Times described AIDS;
seven years after AIDS was the cover story on Life magazine;
seven years after AIDS was in People magazine;
five years after Oprah did a show on AIDS.
Only recently has George Clooney heard about segregation. (He's against it.) But he still can't nail down the details of something that ended nearly half a century ago.
Contrary to Clooney's impassioned speech, no theaters ever forced black people to sit in the back. If you were trying to oppress people, you would make them sit in the front, which are the worst seats in the house...

Oh, Ann!

Great Clooney links:
Liberal quotations aplenty here ; great display of his inability to grasp complex issues here as well. Sample of Clooney at his most childish:

"I believe he thinks this [war against Iraq] is a war that can be won, but there is no such thing anymore."
"We can't beat anyone anymore."

Even more, here .

Hollywood Hypocrites

From Ben Stein, in yesterday's Spectator:

I did not see every second of it, but my wife did, and she joins me in noting that there was not one word of tribute, not one breath, to our fighting men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan or to their families or their widows or orphans. There were pitifully dishonest calls for peace -- as if the people we are fighting were interested in any peace for us but the peace of the grave. But not one word for the hundreds of thousands who have served and are serving, not one prayer or moment of silence for the dead and maimed.

Basically, the sad truth is that Hollywood does not think of itself as part of America, and so, to Hollywood, the war to save freedom from Islamic terrorists is happening to someone else... They live in dreamland and cannot be gracious enough to thank the men and women who pay with their lives for the stars' ability to live in dreamland. This is shameful.

The idea that it is brave to stand up for gays in Hollywood, to stand up against Joe McCarthy in Hollywood (fifty years after his death), to say that rich white people are bad, that oil companies are evil -- this is nonsense...
There is no greatness there in the Kodak theater. The greatness is on patrol in Kirkuk. The greatness lies unable to sleep worrying about her man in Mosul. The greatness sleeps at Arlington National Cemetery and lies waiting for death in VA Hospitals...

And check out, via LGF, tales of real Hollywood heroes of yesteryear; those whom actually fought to help keep America safe...notice how their films differ from the ones put out by the privileged thespians of today...

Chirac: "Hostile"? Towards Whom?

Finally, Jacques Chirac gets hostile, but against whom? Terrorists who riot in the Paris suburbs? French Muslims whom torture and kill young Jews? Islamists who wage war to limit free speech? No, silly...he is hostile towards America, of course! For once, I believe al-Jazeera:

The French president has endorsed Hamas's view that sanctions against the Palestinian Authority will serve only to hurt ordinary people.
Speaking on Monday in Saudi Arabia, Jacques Chirac said he was against any international sanctions on the Palestinian Authority (PA), which is now lead by the resistance group Hamas.
"I know well that there are some who envisage sanctions," he said
"For my part, I am hostile to sanctions in general and in this case in particular ... basically the Palestinian people would bear the brunt of it."
Hamas won an election landslide in January, prompting Israel, the US and the European Union, which includes France, to threaten to withhold funding unless Hamas renounces its armed struggle and recognises Israel.

Since it is America who is leading the charge against Hamas' policies of war, Chirac can only be referring to the U.S. (and perhaps more conservative elements within the EU) when he states he is "hostile" towards sanctions. Note he does not state he is hostile towards Hamas' refusal to end its war against Israel, nor does he show any anger towards terrorism in general. No, his ire is directed only to those whom wish to fight Hamas and what they represent.

Chirac is blinded by ideology; he is worse than the devoutly religious that his ilk so regularly deride. By aiding Hamas, he aids terror - every dollar less that Hamas has to pay to take care of its own people is a dollar more they can spend on warfare against Israel. He absolves the Palestinians of their choice for war over peace by rewarding their election of modern-day Nazi with hundreds of millions in aid. And despite Hamas' continued call for war against the Jews, Chirac feels that Hamas works under some sort of biological imperative that states once they obtain power, they will become peaceful, because...that's what liberal ideology states! Chirac has no proof for his claim, no historical precedent to back him up; in fact all of recent history flies in his face, yet he stubbornly sticks to his leftist script.
What a zealot!

What else was this pathetic dhimmi up to on his trip to Saudi Arabia?

French President Jacques Chirac on a trip to Saudi Arabia preached on Sunday greater tolerance and respect after the publication of satirical cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad a month ago whipped up protests around the world.
The president's comments to the Saudi consultative council were also made the day after Al Qaeda's deputy leader in a message on the Internet called on Muslims to boycott countries where the countries had been published, including France.

Was Chirac calling for Muslim nations to show tolerance for Western Values? If you believe that, I've got a bridge I'd like to sell ya....

In his last act of surrender, and his final display of refusing to bow to reality, we have Chirac's comments on Iran:

"In Iran, the voice of reason that France, the United Kingdom and Germany wanted to be heard on the nuclear file has not been heard, for the time being,” Chirac told the appointed advisory council. But despite the failure of negotiations between Tehran and the EU, “the hand remains stretched out, and Iran can, at any moment, take it back by restoring its commitment to suspension of sensitive (nuclear) work”.

Iran has defied the United Nations, declared its desire to nuke Israel, waged war against American soldiers (not that Chirac cares about that), and has supported terror across the globe. But none of that will cause Mr. Chirac to withdraw his extended hand from Iran; his rigid appeasement ideology will not allow it. I honestly believe Chirac would rather be killed while trying to sue for peace from an implacable foe than to die fighting them, defending his honor and his country. Again, note that Chirac does not consider the U.S. to be a "voice of reason", and was probably beaming when he heard this from his Saudi hosts:

Shura Council president Sheikh Saleh bin Humaid praised Chirac for his opposition to the US-led war in Iraq and described him as “the president of the friendly French republic. “The foreign policy of your government is marked with political wisdom,” he said in his speech welcoming Chirac. “Events (in Iraq) show that foreign interference in the affairs of nations is not in the interest of people nor world peace.”

The very fact that the Saudis so oppose the war in Iraq is a sign of its rightousness; but Chirac is such the dhimmi syncophant that he most likely ate up this twisted praise.

"Political wisdom", indeed...didn't Hitler praise the West for the same thing at Munich?

Iran: Already at War With The US?

While we wait to be attacked so that we can claim some type of moral high ground, or wait until Iran develops nukes so that they may threaten the world with impunity, the Iranian government is acting procatively (a al George Bush) and killing American soldiers now. From Gateway Pundit, reports that Iran is supplying Iraq with deadly new bombs:

They are a very nasty piece of business, capable of penetrating U.S. troops' strongest armor. What the United States says links them to Iran are tell-tale manufacturing signatures — certain types of machine-shop welds and material indicating they are built by the same bomb factory.

U.S. officials say roadside bomb attacks against American forces in Iraq have become much more deadly as more and more of the Iran-designed and Iran-produced bombs have been smuggled in from the country since last October. "I think the evidence is strong that the Iranian government is making these IEDs, and the Iranian government is sending them across the border and they are killing U.S. troops once they get there," says Richard Clarke, former White House counterterrorism chief and an ABC News consultant. "I think it's very hard to escape the conclusion that, in all probability, the Iranian government is knowingly killing U.S. troops."

Meanwhile, Dick Cheney speaks:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Iran will not be allowed to have nuclear weapons and faces "meaningful consequences" if it persists in defying the international community, Vice President Dick Cheney said on Tuesday.
Cheney, speaking to the pro- Israel lobbying group AIPAC, also reaffirmed that the United States was keeping all options on the table -- including military force -- in its determination to prevent Iran from developing nuclear arms.
"The Iranian regime needs to know that if it stays on its present course the international community is prepared to impose meaningful consequences," Cheney said.

If he is talking about UN-approved sanctions as "consequences"; then we should count ourselves among the walking dead (or walking dhimmis). Iran already has a war plan; and is testing it out in Iraq; and we wait for Russian and Chinese approval before even going to the Security Council. Great...

Meanwhile, the Israelis are going to take things into their own hands:

JERUSALEM - Israel's defense minister advised the incoming Palestinian prime minister Tuesday to fear for his life if Hamas militants start attacking Israel again.
...Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz's warning to Hamas, recently elected to rule the Palestinian Authority, was the first to identify Hamas' prime minister-designate, Ismail Haniyeh, as a potential target for an Israeli pinpoint attack.

And speaking of Israeli targets - via LGF:

RAMALLAH, West Bank - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Tuesday he would free from prison the mastermind of an Israeli Cabinet minister’s assassination, but he would not be responsible for any Israeli actions against him.
Ahmed Saadat, head of the radical Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the group responsible for the October 2001 assassination of Cabinet minister Rehavam Zeevi, is imprisoned under international supervision in the West Bank town of Jericho. Israel has repeatedly warned the Palestinians that if Saadat is freed, they will get their hands on him.

I have the feeling "Get their hands on him" is a euphamism...
So we are fighting in Iraq, Iran is building nukes and killing American soldiers, Israel has a new government on its border hell-bent on killing as many Jews as possible, and Syria is mixed up in trouble everywhere. Meanwhile, Muslims are rising up violently in Europe and demanding sharia law, and new American allies India are buttressing their front with Pakistan with new, sophisticated weaponry.

Sound like a world war to you yet? When do we engage more fully (especially with Iran)? Are we waiting for Teddy Kennedy and Jimmy Carter's permission as well?

Oscar Night Notes!

As I predicted a few days ago; the Oscar ratings were horrendous:

LOS ANGELES - ABC is in for a "Crash" landing in the Oscar ratings.
The Academy Awards were down 10 percent from last year's ceremony, based on preliminary Nielsen Media Research ratings from the nation's 55 biggest markets. If the full national ratings follow suit later Monday, this year's ceremony will likely be the second least-watched Oscars telecast behind 2003, when "Chicago" won best picture.

Ed Driscoll talks about the failure of hollywood to unite Americans behind a single picture anymore:

But the most envied business model in Hollywood is the one at Lionsgate Films, whose two "Saw" horror movies, made for a combined cost of $6 million, have racked up $142 million in domestic box office alone.
Talk about the power of niches. For all their accolades, none of this year's best picture nominees — "Brokeback Mountain," "Capote," "Crash," "Good Night, and Good Luck" and "Munich" — has made as much money as "Saw II." The biggest hit is "Brokeback Mountain," with just over $75 million so far.

There is another, even more radical shift in today's pop culture that is helping to undermine the Oscars and other tradition-bound award shows. For years, the Oscars have mattered because the awards served as a barometer of cultural heft. Just the name alone — the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences — has the air of high-minded authority.
Millions of moviegoers who would've been wary of seeing a challenging film like 1969's "Midnight Cowboy" or 1999's "American Beauty" caved in and plunked their money down, soothed by the academy's best picture badge of distinction.
But this elite, top-down culture is being supplanted by a raucous, participatory bottom-up culture in which amateur entertainment has more appeal than critically endorsed skill and expertise.

How about this?

Pride and anguish at first Palestinian Oscar party
For once, the cacophony in Ramallah was not over an Israeli army raid or infighting between militant factions . It came, instead, from the first Oscar party held by Palestinians elated at a kinsman's nomination for Hollywood's top honor.
In the end, "Paradise Now," a controversial drama about two Palestinians recruited to carry out suicide bombings in Israel, did not win the Academy Award for best foreign-language film.
Despite their disappointment, many of those watching Sunday night's Oscar ceremony on a big-screen television set up in the Almond Bar enjoyed the brief glimpse of glamour and opportunity far from the hardships of the occupied West Bank.
"I was hoping it would win and I am disappointed," said Vivienne Sansour, organizer of the event in the bar. "At the same time it is a good feeling to see ourselves represented in the world."

Represented as indiscriminate murders? Er, OK, I guess...

Still waiting for "Hollywood/America prejudiced about gay cowboys" story...but as Philip Seymour Hoffman was named best actor for playing homosexual writer Truman Capote in "Capote, the left cannot complain too loudly...

Well, how's this:

"Brokeback" screenwriter Larry McMurtry told reporters backstage he believed that Crash's setting in Los Angeles helped it because many of the 6,000 members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences live in the city.
"Americans don't want cowboys to be gay," McMurtry said.

Smartest thing I've heard said by a nominee...