An Impeachable Offense: Bush Admits to Federal Crimes

Jonathan Turley, professor at the George Washington University School of Law, is no Democratic partisan; he testified to Congress in favor of Bill Clinton’s impeachment. “Many of my Republican friends joined in that hearing and insisted that this was a matter of defending the rule of law, and had nothing to do with political antagonism,” he says. “I’m surprised that many of those same voices are silent. The crime in this case was a knowing and premeditated act. This operation violated not just the federal statute but the United States Constitution. For Republicans to suggest that this is not a legitimate question of federal crimes makes a mockery of their position during the Clinton period. For Republicans, this is the ultimate test of principle.”

LA Times: Patriot Act By The Numbers

BY THE NUMBERS

July 10, 2005
Civil libertarians argue that the Patriot Act curtails American freedoms. Fans of the act say those fears are overblown.
By the numbers, since inception of the Patriot Act through 2004:
Civil rights complaints to the Justice Department's inspector general: 7,136
Number of those deemed related to the Patriot Act: 1
"Sneak and peek" warrants, allowing searches without telling a subject: 155
Roving wiretaps: 49
Personal records seizures under Section 215 of the act: 35
Source: Justice Department inspector general

Number not mentioned: Terrorist attacks on U.S. soil: 0

Iraqis voting from fear? But voting against US-backed candidates?

Nadir: If the Iraqis are voting because they fear the US troops, then why are US-supported candidates losing? If the voting is a big sham rigged by the US, why are the "wrong" candates winning?

9/11: Missing Black Boxes in World Trade Center Attacks Found by Firefighters, Analyzed by NTSB, Concealed by FBI

One of the more puzzling mysteries of 9-11 is what ever happened to the flight recorders of the two planes that hit the World Trade Center towers. Now it appears that they may not be missing at all.

A source at the National Transportation Safety Board, the agency that has the task of deciphering the date from the black boxes retrieved from crash sites-including those that are being handled as crimes and fall under the jurisdiction of the FBI-says the boxes were in fact recovered and were analyzed by the NTSB.

"Off the record, we had the boxes," the source says. "You'd have to get the official word from the FBI as to where they are, but we worked on them here."

The cockpit voice recorders, which should have the last 30 minutes of cockpit coversations on them, would be evidence that either supports the official story, or refutes it. Why do you suppose they are being hidden?

Media Bias Is Real, Finds UCLA Political Scientist

It took a study to figure this out? More taxpayer money wasted on telling us something we already knew.

Germany Releases Convicted Terrorist

This is sickening:

Hizballah terrorist Mohammed Ali Hamadi, convicted in Germany of murdering US Navy diver Robert Dean Stethem aboard a hijacked airplane, has been freed.

BEIRUT - Hezbollah member Mohammed Ali Hamadi has returned to Lebanon after being secretly released in Germany, where he was serving a life sentence for the 1985 hijacking of a TWA jetliner and killing of a US navy diver, Hezbollah and Lebanese security sources said Tuesday.

Hamadi returned a few days ago, a Hezbollah source told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa in Beirut. A Lebanese security source confirmed that Hamadi entered Beirut four days ago aboard a commercial flight from Germany.

The sources did not indicate whether Hamadi stayed in Beirut after his return. He had been arrested on 13 January 1987 at Frankfurt airport after customs officials found liquid explosives in his luggage.

He was sentenced in 1989 for possession of explosives, hijacking a U.S. commercial passenger airliner in Athens to Beirut - TWA flight 847 - on 14 June 1985, beating and holding passengers aboard that flight, and murdering Robert Dean Stethem, a US Navy diver, on the same flight.


Looks like business as usual in Germany under Angela Merkel. Chalk one up for those in favor of the death penalty. What's the point of a issuing life sentence if you don't mean it? 19 years of a life sentence served. What a sick joke.

Ohio Patriot Act Would Allow Arrests For No Reason In Public Place

The Ohio Patriot Act has made it to Governor Bob Taft's desk, and with the stroke of a pen, it would most likely become the toughest terrorism bill in the country. The lengthy piece of legislation would let police arrest people in public places who will not give their names, address and birth dates, even if they are not doing anything wrong.

Venezuela gives Exxon ultimatum

Venezuela has given the world's biggest oil company, ExxonMobil, until the end of this year to enter a joint venture with the state.

"Much of the oil revenue in Venezuela goes into social projects in shanty towns and poor rural areas."

I supposed Paul and Slinger are outraged that a rich country would actually go out of its way to help its poor people. They should just let them starve and die like the U.S.

Sunni bloc rejects Baghdad vote

The three main Sunni Arab parties that make up the Iraqi Accord Front said the election in Baghdad had been rigged and demanded that Iraq's electoral commission order a new vote.

Imagine that... accusations of voter fraud in a U.S. run election?

Clinton NSA Eavesdropped on U.S. Calls

Former President Bill Clinton: A Fascist?

Mark Steyn: Iraq vote leaves Dems looking like the losers

Yep, Steyn nails it again. One of his best yet:

"Bush lied, people dyed. Their fingers. That's what this is about: Millions of Kurds, Shia and Sunnis beaming as they emerge from polling stations and hold up their purple fingers after the freest, fairest election ever held in the Arab world. "Liberal" in the American sense is a dirty word because it's come to stand for a shriveled parochial obsolescent irrelevance, of which ''Good Night, and Good Luck,'' Clooney's dreary little retread of the McCarthy years, is merely the latest example. (Clooney says he wants more journalists to "speak truth to power," which is why I'm insulting his movie.)

The Anglo-American political tradition is the most successful in the world in part because of the concept of "loyal opposition." Yes, the party out of office opposes the party in office and hopes to supplant it, but not at the expense of the broader political culture. A party that winds up cheerleading for a deranged loser death cult is the very definition of pointless self-defeating sour oppositionism. So, as Zarqawi flails, Dean and Murtha and Kerry flail ever more pathetically, too. Just wait till the WMD turn up."

Senate Rejects Extension of Patriot Act

There you go Nadir, you can relax now. Just don't start screaming though about the failure of the intelligence community should we get hit with another terrorist attack.

Freedom From Fear Lifts Sunnis in Iraqi Election

This NYT article doesn't seem to jibe too well with Nadir's assessment of why there was such an enormous turnout (Sunni's included) for yesterday's Parliamentary election in Iraq.

Saddam's WMD Moved to Syria?

I'm sure this will be discounted by many seeing as it comes from an evil Zionist Jew.

Also, just wondering; If stockpiles of WMD do end up turning up in Syria, or Iraq, or wherever, will there be apologies offered forth by the likes of Kennedy, Pelosi, Levin, Kerry, Boxer, Reid, Moore, Carter, etc.? I highly doubt it, so I won't hold my breath should it happen.

Freeman Criticizes Black History Month

Anybody heard about this? Probably not. All I can say is wow. I think it's safe to say this isn't something the NAACP and Hollywierd want getting around. This is extremely powerful coming from this gentleman, who is not only one of the finest film actors in the world, but also one of the most respected.

Wait! This Has GOT to be Fascism, Right??

President Bush allowed security agents to eavesdrop on people inside the US without search warrants after 9/11, the New York Times has reported.

But the folks from World Can't Wait are EXTREMISTS when they insist that Bush is a Fascist!

We've got to get these psychos out of office!!

Is The King Kong Tale Racist?

I heard last night on the radio a discussion of the racist overtones of the tale of King Kong (Kong brought back in chains from an island inhabited by dark-skinned natives, etc.), equating it with colonial-era slavery.

Now, maybe it's because of my naive, white, middle-class upbringing that this notion never occurred to me before, but I must admit, after it was brought to my attention the parallel's are interesting.

Any opinions on this?

Conservative Hero McCain Strikes a Victory (Sort of) Against Bush Regime Human Rights Abuses

Okay. So they changed the definition of torture in the Army field manual and added a nice little classified addendum. Well, a lot can be said for improving your PR, I guess. Though I doubt much will change in practice.

McCain is almost a sane voice in the Republican party. I disagree with him on a lot, but I give him kudos on this.

Hopefully John McCain doesn't have an unfortunate hunting accident over the holidays...

A Nation Under God

Let others worry about the rapture: For the increasingly powerful Christian Reconstruction movement, the task is to establish the Kingdom of God right now—from the courthouse to the White House.

Turnout Strong for Iraq Parliamentary Vote

Not bad, for an illegal, immoral election that is.

And THIS Isn't Fascism??

The Patriot Act, approved after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, made it easier for the FBI to conduct secret searches, monitor telephone calls and e-mails, and obtain bank records and other personal documents in connection with terrorism investigations.

George Will: ANWR: Our Fake Drilling Debate

Collectively Hiding Behind ANWR.

"For some people, environmentalism is collectivism in drag. Such people use environmental causes and rhetoric not to change the political climate for the purpose of environmental improvement. Rather, for them, changing the society's politics is the end, and environmental policies are mere means to that end."

Wikipedia: "Pretty Accurate"

Hardly a glowing assessment.

By Any Means Necessary

This perfectly illustrates my point about how all too often the Left exhibits no desire in participating in honest debate. On the contrary they would prefer using the tactic of disruption and shouting down those with whom they disagree rather than debating in a civil way the issue at hand.

"The meeting was disrupted by an opposition group, By Any Means Necessary, which recruited students from Cody, Cass Tech, Crockett and Mumford high schools in Detroit and Oak Park High School to swarm the meeting and keep the board from voting."

"At one point, many of the protesters rushed toward the board members, overturning a testimony table. Lansing police officers were called to restore order."

"Mitchell, an African-American, earlier had said he was prepared to vote to certify, and tried to explain that to the angry crowd above shouts such as "be a black man about it."

Ashley Boykin, a protesting 15-year-old student from Oak Park High School, said it was "a great day. It made me feel good. It gives us a chance for a future."

That's nice Ashley.

Katrina Racist... Against Whites?

So, a higher fraction of honkies died due to Katrina than blacks. Since liberals blame all racial discrepancies on racism, applying their logic here compels them to conclude that all the factors contributing to the Katrina catastrophe (poor city planning, poor reponse, etc.) constituted anti-honkey racism. When the disaster struck, if you wanted to increase your chances of survival, it was better to be black than white!

Bashing the Movement to Oust the Bush Regime

Sixstringslinger sent an email with this link (the one above) to an article on Frontpage Magazine's website. David Horowitz, the "reformed leftist" who publishes the magazine, is a right-wing extremist in his own right. His bashing of the World Can't Wait(WCW) organization lends no credibility to the debate whatsoever.

Yes, it is true that the Revolutionary Communist Party is one of the founding organizations in WCW. There are also other highly respected non-socialists who have signed the call for Bush to resign and take his entire regime with him. This is a non-partisan movement that is picking up steam.

Once again the right-wing tactic is to attack the messenger instead of responding to the points of the debate. If you think Bush is so great, why can't you effectively argue that he should remain in office?

Here is World Can't Wait's response to criticism from Horowitz and Faux News commentator Bill O'Reilly. http://worldcantwait.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=538&Itemid=184

Anywhere but Here...

Speaking to thousands of people in south-eastern city of Zahedan, Mr Ahmadinejad brushed aside criticism of his views, saying it was orchestrated by supporters of Israel.

"If someone were to deny the existence of God... or prophets and religion, they would not bother him. However, if someone were to deny the myth of the Jews' massacre, all the Zionist mouthpieces and the governments subservient to the Zionists tear their larynxes and scream against the person as much as they can," he said.

"If you [Europeans] committed this big crime, then why should the oppressed Palestinian nation pay the price?

Cafe Hayek economists support illegal immigrants

I have been a tepid supporter of Pat Buchannan's immigration position. But my free market heros (George Mason U professors, including the chairman) at Cafe Hayek are changing my mind. They make a nasty assessment of the Minute Men that Tom and Nadir will like, thought I don't think that it will sway them from their support for Pat Buchannan's Iraq policy!

http://cafehayek.typepad.com/hayek/2005/12/what_is_it_abou.html

http://cafehayek.typepad.com/hayek/2005/12/what_about_the_.html

http://cafehayek.typepad.com/hayek/2005/12/minutemen_vs_mi.html

Clinton Says Bush Is 'Flat Wrong' on Kyoto

What the hell is he talking about?!!! He refused to sign the damn thing too! Still honing that "legacy" of his I guess.

What a hypocritical jackass.

Iranian leader condemned for Holocaust remarks

"Germany, Russia and Switzerland joined the European Union on Friday in a chorus of condemnation of the Iranian president for suggesting the Holocaust might not have taken place and that Israel should be moved to Europe."

Sorry Paul. You must be disappointed.

Charles Krauthammer: Man for a Glass Booth

"This has become a platform for Saddam to show himself as a caged lion when really he was a mouse in a hole," said Vice President Ghazi Yawar. "I don't know who is the genius who is producing this farce. It's a political process. It's a comedy show."

Another Twisted Headline From The Mainstream Media

Passengers: Alpizar Didn't Say 'Bomb'

This is an absolute misrepresentation of the facts. The headline should read: We didn't hear Alpizar say 'Bomb'.

I am so sick and tired of the MSM and their perverse desire to create controversy where there is none, or to add to it where it already exists as is the case with this tragedy. I'm sure there will be a thorough investigation into this tragic event, as well there should be, but until then the MSM should cease and desist in creating controversy based on comments of one eyewitness.

This kind of shit infuriates me.

What if?

"Counterfactual" is the ungainly term for such speculation. But political leaders have no choice but to guess what might happen, and it doesn't require excessive imagination to dispel the idea that the world would be a happier place if U.S. troops hadn't removed Saddam and weren't now trying to make something better arise in his place."

Why I'm Willing to Defend Hussein by Ramsey Clark

Former U.S. Attorney General explains why he has chosen to serve as one of Saddam Hussein's lawyers, and his belief that the tribunal setup to try Saddam defies international and U.S. law.

Does Saddam have the right to a fair trial?

Move Isreal to Europe

I agree with this proposal, by Iran's retarded president. Or pick some island. Surely some Isreali-sized land somewhere contains either zero people, or a people who would vote to have a few million jews move there and proclaim it the Jewish State, with special recognition for Jews. And without millions of ignorant murderers clammoring to kill the Jews and end the country (instead of focusing developing a civilization themselves), the "Islrealis" will be more secure and productive. Then with Isreal gone from Palistine, we can all watch what the muslims will do, with no more excuses. Maybe they'll even build a sensible, productive (ie, capitalist democracy) nation. I am not being facious here; I genuinely endorse this proposal. Some small region somewhere surely must comprise a population of people whose majority sees the establishment of Isreal in their land as an enormous economic and political benefit.

Naturally, the million or so Arab Muslims who currently live in Isreal so prosperously and freely (much more so than in any other nation in the region!) will want to make the trip, and must be entitled to do so. Surely the retarded muslims who want to eradicate Isreal would agree to a 5-10 year cease fire that would enable Isreal to move its infrastructure to the new location. The money spent now to defend against the retards would substantially pay for development in the new location, and transportation there of Isrealis and their belongings.

Cop Tasers Granny; NAACP doesn't care 'cause she's a honkey

When I spotted this article, I knew that the old bag was a honkey, because nobody was making a big deal about it.

Intollerant Leftists Halt Ann Coulter Speach

"They criticized her for spreading a message of hate and incolerance"... so they shouted her down so much that she couldn't talk. "We encourage diverse opinion, but this is blatant hate speach." Thank god that we have sensitive liberals to define "hate" for us.

I sure do miss those days of being a liberal. Not that the conservatives are much better. They don't shout down people, but they are just as likely to try to block somebody from speaking (in which case they would helpfully label Louis Farrakan as a hate speaker, and then protect us all from his comments), get a person fired, or extract an apology. And wanting to imprison people for burning their own flag is disgusting. But we must unify against all of this behavior, from both sides. Right?

PS: Will the anti-speach people ever learn that these actions just give their opponents more publicity? Would Ann Coulter have made the papers if her "hate" speach had merely gone forward?

Marc Cooper and Michael Ledeen duke it out

Killing Kyoto

The world climate is changing.


"It's no secret that the United Nations has struggled with corruption lately. And its critics maintain, not without evidence, that it is at best a fair-weather friend of freedom. But perhaps its sincere concerns about combating the threats raised by global warming will prompt it to push harder to expand freedom and promote good governance and transparency around the world."

Carrying the 'White Man's Burden' in Iraq

One of the many rarely spoken reasons why conservatives in Washington won't let us leave Iraq is the old notion of civilizing a primitive nation.

Bush's energy-policy bubble

Or, Bush and the Oil Barons, Part 250

Guess the source on this one, boyz. Hint: it ain't the nation.

The possibility of Senate action [on climate change] is another blow to President George W. Bush, who is becoming increasingly isolated on his own ice floe. On June 14, a nervous Administration fired a shot across the Senate's bow, warning in a statement that it "will oppose any climate change amendments that are inconsistent with the President's climate change strategy" -- in other words, anything with mandatory limits on greenhouse gases. Bush can count on the House GOP to block any significant climate change package for now. But the White House has already been embarrassed by recent revelations that a political appointee watered down global warming reports by government scientists. (The appointee, Philip A. Cooney, chief of staff at the Council on Environmental Quality, has resigned and is taking a job with Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM )). And Bush justifiably faces heat not only from scientists and foreign allies but also from business and members of his own party.

The War on the War on Language

Tom, let's hereby declare a war on the following non-sense or illogical phrases (with more to come):

- "Agree to disagree."

- "The fact of the matter is..."

- Using the term "the fact" to refer to a claim that you are disputing, such as: "OJ Simpson cites the fact that he didn't kill his wife as the reason that he got found 'not guilty', when we all know that the jury simply made a mistake."

- Using the non-existant legal term, "innocent," instead of "not guilty."

- "To be perfectly honest..."; "To be honest with you..."; "Honestly,..."; "To tell you the truth...".

- "It is what it is." Very popular now, and desperately in need of outcry.

- Saying, "I don't neccessary like it when you call my mom a whore" when what you really mean is, "I detest your calling my mom a whore."

- Saying, "I could care less" when what you mean to say is, "I could **NOT** care less."

Any objections? What else must we eradicate?

No wetlands, no New Orleans

"Katrina destroyed the Big Easy—and future Katrinas will do the same—not because of engineering failures but because one million acres of coastal islands and marshland have vanished in Louisiana in the last century due to human interference. These land forms served as natural 'speed bumps,' reducing the lethal surge tide of past hurricanes and making New Orleans habitable in the first place.

But while encouraging city residents to return home and declaring for the media audience that 'we will do whatever it takes' to save the city, the President earlier this month formally refused the one thing New Orleans simply cannot live without: A restored network of barrier islands and coastal wetlands.

....

Just since World War II an area of land the size of Rhode Island has turned to water between New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico, most of it former marshland. And every 2.7 miles of marshland reduces a hurricane surge tide by a foot, dispersing the storm's power. Simply put, had Katrina struck in 1945 instead of 2005, the surge that reached New Orleans would have been as much as 5-10 feet less than it was."

Oil Conspiracy can't prevent price drop.

Oil conspiracy to increase prices, eh? Here oil exec's meet and lament prospect of drastic price drops.

Reponse to my critcs, 2

For some reason I couldn't post this under the original "Response to my critics" post. So I'll put it here.

Paulie, the U.S. has been selling arms to Saudi Arabia for decades, as a sort of quid pro for its support of Israel. Especially post Gulf War, Saudi Arabia has by far the strongest army in the region, save of course for Israel. Syria would be third (behind SA and Israel). Has Bush ever seriously said different? I don't think so. Iraq has been the historical leader? Iraq didn't exist until Great Britain created it after WW1. Turkey ran the area before the Brits got hold of it. When Arabs speak of the region, they speak of "Greater Syria"--not "Greater Iraq." (Which isn't to say that Mesopotamia doesn't have vast historical significance; but it's generally ancient, not modern.)

So the neocons got to looking at the map of the middle east, mulling a ripe target for invasion and occupation, solely for the purpose of attacking "Islamo-fascism" (which sounds like a Limbaughism)? And they chose Iraq, with no consideration of its oil reserves?

First, if they believed their rhetoric about democracy, they would have earnestly pitched this (rather mad) plan to the public. Instead, they trumped up a bunch of garbage about WMD.

Second, Cheney should, then, have nothing to hide. I suppose the vice president, presumably when he gets done haranging John McCain to let the CIA torture people, will come clean about his Energy Task Force. What? Is energy policy somehow to take place outside of the political process? Will Alito and Roberts find that idea tucked into the Constitution, the idea that energy policy is to be left to industry players? Now, I'm not one to throw around the phrase "fascist," which arose from a specific set of historical conditions and is drained of meaning when it gets bandied about by shock-jock radio hosts, but there are fascist overtones to mobilizing a nation to war under false pretenses, while the real decisions get made behind locked doors among captains of industry.

Maybe you're right; maybe the administration brought us into war based on your assumptions (many of which have never been publicly uttered by any official). I would say, after the brilliantly planned "Shock and Awe" invasion, followed by the inept and unhappy occupation, the burden is on Cheney to show that oil interests weren't the controlling factor. The country is shattered; the security situation is a wreck. The oil contracts are safe though. Let's see the minutes to those meetings.

As for those nations that opposed the war and their profit considerations, sure, they would have made out better if there had been no war. But was it their only reason for opposing the war? When war became imminent--when it became clear that "Shock and Awe" was coming no matter what Hans Blix and the UN said--why didn't they cut a deal with the US that would have ensured them post-war contracts? US diplomats indeed offered France and Germany just such a last-minute deal; they declined. Why? I don't know enough about their internal politics to say. After the 20th century calamities of Europe, might their citizens get nervous when empires begin acting like empires. Hell, the war was even more unpopular in Germany and France than it was in the US. Maybe the governments of those countries were actually listening to their publics? Surrender monkeys, indeed. Democracy is for cheese-eating, wine-sipping Frenchies who don't know when it's time to lower the hammer.

(The Hoover hack I referred to was the fellow who penned the dumb sentence I skewered a while back.)

That Nation article from "Oil, not so slick"

I didn't realize the Nation piece was available only to subscribers. Here it is.
Waist deep in big oil
By Mark Levine
The mid-November revelation in the Washington Post that as early as February 2001 senior executives of at least four of the country's biggest oil companies met with aides to Vice President Cheney has reopened the debate over Big Oil's influence on the Bush Administration's energy policy. The immediate controversy concerns whether executives of ExxonMobil, Conoco, Shell and BP America misled the Senate Energy and Commerce committees when they denied knowledge of the meetings in testimony on November 9. The leaked documents confirm that these meetings in fact took place, but because Republican chair Ted Stevens declined to oblige the executives to testify under oath--which committee Democrats strongly protested at the time--they cannot be charged with perjury. (They could, however, be charged with making false or fraudulent statements to Congress.)

The executives' evasive answers have renewed questions about the functioning of the secretive White House Energy Task Force, especially its unwillingness to draft policies that transcend the interests of Big Oil. The focus on industry profits and prevarication, although it's important, misses a much more important reason for the Bush Administration's desperate attempts to keep documents related to the task force secret. In a word: Iraq.

While Iraq was absent from the oil executives' November 9 testimony, it is clear that the country and its immense petroleum reserves were on the minds of the Administration and its industry friends from the moment Bush assumed office, and for good reason: With Americans consuming one-quarter of the world's daily petroleum production of 84 million barrels, scientists and industry leaders were by 2001 increasingly considering the possibility that the "age of peak oil production" was approaching much sooner than had previously been acknowledged.

Once peak oil is reached, it will no longer be possible to extract enough oil from the earth to replace what we consume, thereby setting off a potentially explosive competition for the world's remaining supplies. In such a scenario, insuring American access to, and where possible leverage or even control over, the world's major oil deposits would be a natural concern for an Administration umbilically tied to Big Oil, particularly in the context of escalating competition with an aggressive, energy-hungry China.

The belief in peak oil, while not universally shared, has had increasing scientific support in recent years. And it is reflected in the November 9 testimony of Chevron chair David O'Reilly, who explained that in the context of "growing demand for energy, particularly in Asia...oil production in mature basins, particularly in Europe and North America, has been declining.... Meanwhile, OPEC production has increased, but is now approaching its current capacity to deliver." Yet Iraq has, in addition to its proven reserves--second only to Saudi Arabia's--vast untapped fields that remain, in the words of one industry analyst, "virgin territory."

In this context, the few documents that have been made public from the Energy Task Force (thanks to the conservative watchdog Judicial Watch) reveal not only that industry executives met with Cheney's staff but that a map of Iraq and an accompanying list of "Iraq oil foreign suitors" were the center of discussion. The map erased all features of the country save the location of its main oil deposits, divided into nine exploration blocks. The accompanying list of suitors revealed that dozens of companies from thirty countries--but not the United States--were either in discussions over or in direct negotiations for rights to some of the best remaining oilfields on earth.

It's not hard to surmise how the participants in these meetings felt about this situation. As Deutsche Bank explained in a 2002 report titled "Baghdad Bazaar: Big Oil in Iraq," with upward of $38 billion in projects already agreed to by the Iraqi government, the major US companies would lose if Saddam made a deal with the UN, whereas the Europeans, Russians and Chinese would come out ahead. In a post-Saddam Iraq, however, the US oil majors--specifically, according to the report, ExxonMobil and ChevronTexaco--could manage the country's resources. No wonder the executives of those companies denied meeting with Cheney's staff only weeks after George W. Bush's inauguration--and fully half a year before September 11 and the subsequent concrete planning of the Iraq War.

The centrality of Iraq to the task force meetings requires us to reconsider the calculus used by senior Bush Administration planners in judging the risks and benefits of invading and occupying Iraq, and its resulting definitions of success. The thinking they reveal suggests that neither democracy nor a reduction of violence in the country, however desirable in theory, is necessary to achieve core US objectives.

Instead, insuring a long-term US military presence in Iraq and a significant (if behind-the-scenes) role in managing and developing its petroleum sector together constitute a prize of immense economic and geostrategic value for the Administration and its corporate sponsors. In fact, at the very moment the first Energy Task Force meetings with industry officials were held, in February 2001, the National Security Council issued a directive for staff to cooperate with the task force in the "melding" of new "operational policies towards rogue states" with "actions regarding the capture of new and existing oil and gas fields." No place on earth was more amenable to such melding than Iraq.

From this perspective, it is possible to argue that despite great human and financial costs, the United States--or rather the oil, arms and related industries, if not US citizens--may still "win" a war for which planning could well have commenced as early as the first weeks of the Bush Administration. While increasing numbers of politicians and pundits are calling for troop withdrawals, the subject of a total US withdrawal remains largely unbroachable within the political establishment. Senator Joseph Biden put it succinctly when--after the furor over John Murtha's courageous demands for a pullout--he warned that if the United States brings the troops home, nothing will protect "our core interests," which, tellingly, he did not define. For their part, Iraqis have been so overwhelmed by the daily grind of violence and failed reconstruction efforts, they were unable to challenge Washington by including in the recently approved Constitution provisions prohibiting foreign military bases or foreign management of the oil industry--two crucial markers of genuine sovereignty.

"Maybe after the next election," one senior Iraqi government adviser explained to me. Perhaps; but if the United States can manage the chaos and violence in Iraq in a manner that avoids a significant escalation of US casualties while making it too dangerous for Iraq's elected government to "ask us to leave" anytime soon, the sponsors of Operation Iraqi Freedom can look forward to a happy retirement indeed.

Mark LeVine, associate professor of modern Middle Eastern history at the University of California, Irvine, is the author of Why They Don’t Hate Us: Lifting the Veil on the Axis of Evil (Oneworld).

Response to my critics, re: Oil not so slick

You guys are consuming and regurgitating official nonsense as uncritically as babies gulp down pabulum. I exhort you to think about what happened in iraq, not as conjured up by court philistines over at the Hoover Institution.

The article I linked to points to a study by Deutsche Bank about the pre-war oil situation in Iraq. Now, Deutsche Bank may conjure up Rumsfeldian fantasies of of a spineless "Old Europe" institution unwilling to rise to challenges, etc., etc. But I can assure you that it is now essentially a U.S. investment bank in the business of making money for its mainly U.S., and quite well-heeled, clients. When I say Deutsche Bank, I urge you to read, "Wall Street."

Now, here is how our author characterizes the Deutsche Bank report:

"As Deutsche Bank explained in a 2002 report titled 'Baghdad Bazaar: Big Oil in Iraq,' with upward of $38 billion in projects already agreed to by the Iraqi government, the major US companies would lose if Saddam made a deal with the UN, whereas the Europeans, Russians and Chinese would come out ahead. In a post-Saddam Iraq, however, the US oil majors--specifically, according to the report, ExxonMobil and ChevronTexaco--could manage the country's resources."

Leading up to big events such as U.S. presidential elections, Wall Street analysts routinely issue reports that handicap the various possible outcomes for clients. Here, a Wall Street analyst, speaking not to the broader public but rather to well-heeled clients (including institutional investors such as mutual funds and pension funds), bluntly stated that the end of sanctions would have delivered a blow to U.S. oil interests. From this perspective, the way forward was invasion and occupation.

Now let's look at the infamous Cheney Energy Task Force, charged with cobbling together energy policy for the United States. Who did the great man speak with? He has staked a huge amount of political capital keeping this top secret. I don't want to lecture you boys on how democracy thrives on open government, and chokes and withers on officially sanctioned secrecy. But I do find this fellow a rather dubious crusader for democracy abroad, given his clear disdain for same on the home front.

At any rate, we now know that he met with execs from the U.S. oil majors, that they recently lied to Congress about their participation in the task force (although a friendly senator had the foresight to remove them from the burden of testifying under oath), and that at said meetings (here I quote from the Nation article again):

[T]he few documents that have been made public from the Energy Task Force (thanks to the conservative watchdog Judicial Watch) reveal not only that industry executives met with Cheney's staff but that a map of Iraq and an accompanying list of "Iraq oil foreign suitors" were the center of discussion. The map erased all features of the country save the location of its main oil deposits, divided into nine exploration blocks. The accompanying list of suitors revealed that dozens of companies from thirty countries--but not the United States--were either in discussions over or in direct negotiations for rights to some of the best remaining oilfields on earth.

So, well before September 11, here we have a bunch of oilmen--one of them the vice-president of the United States--rubbing their paws together at the prospect of oil riches in Iraq--and quite possibly squirming a bit at the prospect that China would, if the status quo remained, get control of a large portion of that precious black stuff.

Now one of you guys, or maybe it was one of your prized kept intellectuals over at Hoover, said something about how the price of crude has skyrocketed since the invasion, and that somehow means it wasn't about controlling oil.

First, how does record profits for U.S. oil companies argue against the idea that the invasion's chief motivation was control of oil? Second, no one who's intelligent argues that the war's motivation had to do with short-term swings in the price of oil, which are set by traders in London and New York. It was about contracts and control.

Saudi Arabia: Despotic regime whose citizens carried out the bulk of planning and execution of the Sept. 11 atrocities: Good. Why? Because its regime has been very, very good to U.S. oil companies.

Iraq: Despotic regime whose citizens took no part in Sept. 11 atrocities: Bad. Why? Because its regime broke with U.S. oil interests in 1991. And why attack the regime? Oh, it's not about oil not at all! It's all about Sept. 11. Don't believe me? I know a real smart guy over at the Hoover Institute who can explain it to you.

Oil, not so slick

"The centrality of Iraq to the [Cheney energy] task force meetings requires us to reconsider the calculus used by senior Bush Administration planners in judging the risks and benefits of invading and occupying Iraq, and its resulting definitions of success. The thinking they reveal suggests that neither democracy nor a reduction of violence in the country, however desirable in theory, is necessary to achieve core US objectives.


Instead, insuring a long-term US military presence in Iraq and a significant (if behind-the-scenes) role in managing and developing its petroleum sector together constitute a prize of immense economic and geostrategic value for the Administration and its corporate sponsors. In fact, at the very moment the first Energy Task Force meetings with industry officials were held, in February 2001, the National Security Council issued a directive for staff to cooperate with the task force in the "melding" of new "operational policies towards rogue states" with "actions regarding the capture of new and existing oil and gas fields." No place on earth was more amenable to such melding than Iraq.


From this perspective, it is possible to argue that despite great human and financial costs, the United States--or rather the oil, arms and related industries, if not US citizens--may still 'win' a war for which planning could well have commenced as early as the first weeks of the Bush Administration."

If this analysis is crap, then I'm sure Cheney will clear everything up by releasing documents/data/information on his Energy Task Force meetings. Right?

Give Walmart employees a raise yourself!

George Mason University must be a great place to be an economics student. Walter Williams and this guy, the author of Cafe Hayek, are professors there. Tom and Nadir should start shopping at Walmart, and tip the cashier $10 everytime. This won't bring back those better jobs ad the mom-and-pops, but if just one person an hour tips the cashier $10, that's a pretty hefty raise.

Muslims turing against retarded, murderous behavior?

There may be a shift among Muslims in Arabia against tolerating retarded, muderous behavior. Here's an idea: Since the American military did the dirty work for you of removing your despot, why not at least give it a year or two of support, to see if their plans will work? Imagine the difference between these two hypothetical scenarios:

1) Iraq today, if the US had never invaded, with Hussein still in power.

2) Iraq today, if there had been no post-Hussein, anti-US violence.

We have an excellent idea of (1), obviously, but we even have a good indication of (2): the Kurdish area. From what I've read, there really isn't any anti-US violence there. People are working and thriving, and liberal, leftist peaceniks will be shocked to learn that in the absense of a bunch of retarded, despotic killers, the US military isn't killing or destroying, and evil US oil corporations haven't stolen oil, leaving starving locals wallowing in the sand. Rather the locals are thriving... and flying American flags.

More debunking Wison & Plame

I think that Wilson and Plame are deplorable. They perhaps knowingly, but more likely unknowingly, set a bear trap for the Bushies.

Wordpress has better features, but is unusable

Our experiment using Wordpress as a blogsite has failed. It has better features that blogger.com (which is TERRIBLE), but Wordpress mysteriously provides no mechanism for creating accounts for anybody other than the blogsite owner. So effectively nobody but the blog owner can post anything, even comments. So let's resume using this usable (but in all other ways, terrible) site.
=====
Let's move Reformed Leftist over to this alternative blogsite, which seems to lack most of the unbearable problems that render blogger.com such a frustrating fiasco. Let's at least give the new site a chance. The only problem with the new blogspot is that I haven't figured out how to create multiple users. For example, I have to post as the user, "reformedleftist", not "paulhue." Also, others like Tom and Six can't post. I have this proposal: I have added Six's blogspot (which hasn't been used in months) to the new reformedleftist's link sheet. Six, you can either start using your old blogspot, or create a new blogspot at the new service (and I'll change the link at the new Reformedlefist). If you use the new service, maybe you can figure out how we can have multiple users, then we can resume mutual postings at Reformedleftist. Tom, I also want you to make a new blogspot and start posting as well. Let's see how this works, kids. Republican Brother, I also want you to checkout the new blog site, because I think that blogger.com is TERRIBLE.

DEPP: 'I CAN'T STAY IN RIOT-RAVAGED FRANCE'

As a friend of mine pointed out, talk about a man without a country!

We simply have to find a place for Johnny Depp, the noted thespian cum political philosopher par excellence who departed the land of his birth a while back to settle down with his paramour in France, calling America "a big dumb puppy."

(I suppose if he hadn't left in a George W. Bush-inspired huff a while back we could refer to him as a national treasure.)

He's so incredibly gifted, the star of "Charlie & The Chocolate Factory," who based his portrayal in that film on Mr. Michael Jackson, another national treasure who has been driven from our shores merely because his innocent penchant for sleeping with small boys ran counter to the dark desires of Bush, Cheney, Rove, Irve "Scooter" Libby, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Dr. James Dobson, Pat Robertson and the rest of the right wing cabal calling the shots here in Les Etats Unis.

More Price Gouging nonsense

Here's Tommy Sowell trying again, brilliantly and vainly, to explain simple economics to an ignorant, uninterested public that already "KNOWS" everything. This morning Imus called pretro station owners "criminals" for doubling their prices in response to Hurricane Katrina... BEFORE THERE WAS EVEN TIME FOR THE PRICES OF THEIR SUPPLIES TO INCREASE!!! A Republican senator on the phone agreed, stating that he saw a petro station attendant take a phone call, then go increase the prices!!! This observation isn't amazing, but the senator's assumption that it indicated a repuslive, dastardly act *IS* amazing. With republicans like him, who needs democrats?

What is better durring a hurricane: Gas stations with empty gas tanks displaying pre-hurricane prices, or Gas stations with full gas tanks, displaying prices that are as drastically different as are the weather conditions?

French Muslim leaders reject blame for riots

"Urban violence, which some politicians in France and some media abroad portrayed as a kind of Muslim uprising, fell back to normal levels on Thursday after three weeks in which 9,000 vehicles and many buildings were set on fire."

"Normal levels". My God, the MSM really is sick.

Why did the 9/11 Commission ignore "Able Danger"?

You Want Something Worth Investigating? Here It Is. Instead of quibbling about "exit strategies" and throwing around sissified terms like "winning the peace", someone ought be looking into why this was allowed to happen! Where's your precious NYT on this subject, Tom? Nowhere to be found from what I can tell.

Bush lied? LOL

Bush's defensive and slippery readings of how he used intelligence leading up to the war have gotten an obsequious hearing here on RL; they've been cited repeatedly and heatedly as fact. Here they are debunked, by an organ--the NYT editorial page--that has been (despite its caricature on Fox and in right-wing blogs) extremely receptive to Bush's agenda re: Iraq. You may think, pace Bush, that you are being patriotic by believing and repeating such official non-sense (I remove Paul Hue at least partially from this charge). I disagree.

"Mr. Bush says everyone had the same intelligence he had - Mr. Clinton and his advisers, foreign governments, and members of Congress - and that all of them reached the same conclusions. The only part that is true is that Mr. Bush was working off the same intelligence Mr. Clinton had. But that is scary, not reassuring. The reports about Saddam Hussein's weapons were old, some more than 10 years old. Nothing was fresher than about five years, except reports that later proved to be fanciful.

Foreign intelligence services did not have full access to American intelligence. But some had dissenting opinions that were ignored or not shown to top American officials. Congress had nothing close to the president's access to intelligence. The National Intelligence Estimate presented to Congress a few days before the vote on war was sanitized to remove dissent and make conjecture seem like fact.

It's hard to imagine what Mr. Bush means when he says everyone reached the same conclusion. There was indeed a widespread belief that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons. But Mr. Clinton looked at the data and concluded that inspections and pressure were working - a view we now know was accurate. France, Russia and Germany said war was not justified. Even Britain admitted later that there had been no new evidence about Iraq, just new politics."

Bob Woodward Should Be Fired. Immediatley.

This is unbelievable. How does this chump rate where he hasn't been implicated in this whole charade? Must be his residual starpower from his Watergate days.

He's gotta go. NOW!

Where Did Iraq's WMD Go?

Good question, but this guy certainly seems confident Saddam had them. And he oughta know. He was there.

Vouchers for displaced New Orleans school kids

Imagine if those kids each had $7,000 to spend at a private school.

Clinton says Iraq invasion was a big mistake

Well that does it then. I'm convinced now. If B.J. says so, then it must be.

Bad prose gets a life

"The world is changing as we speak. The great untold story of our age is that others need to get a life and the United States needs to move on."
Is anyone here not appalled by this? Here we find no fewer than five cliches/truisms mounted in service of ... what? These two sentences are utterly meaningless. Can anyone guess who had the nerve to put them into print?

Andrew Sullivan, Against US Torture

Andrew Sullivan is a Reformed Leftist. Like me, he is a social liberal and a fiscal conservative. Really, this is just saying a libertarian. He is a big supporter of Bush's war, but a very critical one. I highly respect his commentaries about opposing turture by US troops as they prosecute the war against the islamibastards.

Thomas Sowell: Ignoring economics

Nov 15, 2005


Many people are blaming the riots in France on the high unemployment rate among young Muslim men living in the ghettoes around Paris and elsewhere. Some are blaming both the unemployment and the ghettoization on discrimination by the French.

Plausible as these explanations may sound, they ignore economics, among other things.

Let us go back a few generations in the United States. We need not speculate about racial discrimination because it was openly spelled out in laws in the Southern states, where most blacks lived, and was not unknown in the North.

Yet in the late 1940s, the unemployment rate among young black men was not only far lower than it is today but was not very different from unemployment rates among young whites the same ages. Every census from 1890 through 1930 showed labor force participation rates for blacks to be as high as, or higher than, labor force participation rates among whites.

Why are things so different today in the United States -- and so different among Muslim young men in France? That is where economics comes in.

People who are less in demand -- whether because of inexperience, lower skills, or race -- are just as employable at lower pay rates as people who are in high demand are at higher pay rates. That is why blacks were just as able to find jobs as whites were, prior to the decade of the 1930s and why a serious gap in unemployment between black teenagers and white teenagers opened up only after 1950.

Prior to the decade of the 1930s, the wages of inexperienced and unskilled labor were determined by supply and demand. There was no federal minimum wage law and labor unions did not usually organize inexperienced and unskilled workers. That is why such workers were able to find jobs, just like everyone else, even when these were black workers in an era of open discrimination.

The first federal minimum wage law, the Davis-Bacon Act of 1931, was passed in part explicitly to prevent black construction workers from "taking jobs" from white construction workers by working for lower wages. It was not meant to protect black workers from "exploitation" but to protect white workers from competition.

Even aside from a racial context, minimum wage laws in countries around the world protect higher-paid workers from the competition of lower paid workers.

Often the higher-paid workers are older, more experienced, more skilled or more unionized. But many goods and services can be produced with either many lower skilled workers or fewer higher skilled workers, as well as with more capital and less labor or vice-versa. Employers' choices depend on the relative costs.

The net economic effect of minimum wage laws is to make less skilled, less experienced, or otherwise less desired workers more expensive -- thereby pricing many of them out of jobs. Large disparities in unemployment rates between the young and the mature, the skilled and the unskilled, and between different racial groups have been common consequences of minimum wage laws.

That is their effect whether the particular minimum wage law applies to one sector of the economy like the Davis-Bacon Act, to the whole economy like the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 or to particular local communities like so-called "living wage" laws and policies today.

The full effect of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 was postponed by the wartime inflation of the 1940s, which raised wages above the level specified in the Act. Amendments to raise the minimum wage began in 1950 -- and so did the widening racial differential in unemployment, especially for young black men.

Where minimum wage rates are higher and accompanied by other worker benefits mandated by government to be paid by employers, as in France, unemployment rates are higher and differences in unemployment rates between the young and the mature, or between different racial or ethnic groups, are greater.

France's unemployment rate is roughly double that of the United States and people who are unemployed stay unemployed much longer in France. Unemployment rates among young Frenchmen are about 20 percent and among young Muslim men about 40 percent.

There is no free lunch, least of all for the disadvantaged.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Find this story at: http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/thomassowell/2005/11/15/175548.html

Al Gorge

Wow, old Al's really beefed up! He's starting to look a lot like Jackie Gleason!

Petro back down to $2/gal

Oops, I mean, $1.99-9/10. Those evil petro companies have no doubt turned their profit dials down due to pressure from congress.

New fast-pour beer taps

I'm gonna have to get me one of these!

Paging Dr. Dean, paging Dr. Dean...

What a putz. And liar to boot.

MR. RUSSERT: But those are words that will appeal to people. But when you go behind them, for example, what is the Democratic position on Iraq? Should we withdraw troops now? What do the Democrats stand for?

DR. DEAN: Tim, first of all, we don't control the House, the Senate or the White House. We have plenty of time to show Americans what our agenda is and we will long before the '06 elections.

(That's not an answer doctor)

MR. RUSSERT: But there's no Democratic plan on Social Security. There's no Democratic plan on the deficit problem. There's no specifics. They say, "Well, we want a strong Social Security. We want to reduce the deficit. We want health care for everyone," but there's no plan how to pay for it.

DR. DEAN: Right now it's not our job to give out specifics. We have no control in the House. We have no control in the Senate. It's our job is to stop this administration, this corrupt and incompetent administration, from doing more damage to America. And that's what we're going to do. We're doing our best. Look at the trouble they're having putting together a budget. Why is that? Because there's still a few moderate Republicans left who don't think it's OK to cut school lunch programs, who don't think it's OK to do some of the appalling things that they're doing in their budget. I saw a show last night which showed a young African-American man in California at the UC of Davis who hoped to go to law school. The Republicans want to cut $14 billion out of higher education so this kid can't go to law school. We're going to do better than that, and together, America can do better than that.

(No specifics, eh? That's because you have no plan.)

MR. RUSSERT: But is it enough for you to say to the country, "Trust us, the other guy's no good. We'll do better, but we're not going to tell you specifically how we're going to deal with Iraq."

DR. DEAN: We will. When the time comes, we will do that.

(Another non-answer)

MR. RUSSERT: When's the time going to come?

DR. DEAN: The time is fast-approaching. And I outlined the broad outlines of our agenda. We're going to have specific plans in all of these areas.

(And another. What a putz.)

MR. RUSSERT: This year?

DR. DEAN: In 2006.



What an asshole. Here's an idea, doctor; TRY ANSWERING A QUESTION FOR ONCE!!!

A "Diehard" War Supporter

Poor fool. Doesn't he realize that Iraq is a "miserable failure"? I mean, he was there for Christ's sake! Couldn't he see it?! Doesn't he listen to his Hollyweird friends when they tell him this is an illegal, immoral war?

Go figure.

War is peace

Looks like Karl Rove is back off the mat.
Do you guys really deny that the Administration manipulated intelligence? There was plenty of evidence they were doing so at the time. Colin Powell's UN speech was widely derided in Europe as a "load of bollacks"--I'm quoting the UK Gaurdian--an assessment later confirmed by Powell himself. It's a bit rich for Bush, at this date, to be blaming the debacle in Iraq on his critics. But then, in Rove/Cheney/Rumsfeld world, war is peace, etc.

France Is Burning

Now ponder that map, and ask yourselves what kind of European (and American) media noise would we be hearing if we’ve had fifteen continuous days of rioting and arson not only in every major city in the country, but coast-to-coast? Would the press be clamoring 24/7 for the Président de la République’s head on a platter, or at least for his ousting? Can you think of one, just one, of the 3 networks and cable TV stations that wouldn’t be on this all the time?

Metal Council Convenes To Discuss 'Metal Hand Sign' Abuse

Now for something really serious.

Mark Steyn: It’s the demography, stupid

Steyn's in rare form with this one. Hilarious, serious and spot-on:

"My colleague Rod Liddle writes elsewhere in these pages about the media’s strange reluctance to use the M-word vis-à-vis the rioting ‘youths’. I’m sure he’s received, as I have, plenty of emails arguing that there’s no Islamist component, they’re not the madrasa crowd, they may be Muslim but they’re secular and Westernised and into drugs. It’s the lack of jobs; these riots derive from conditions peculiar to France, etc. As one correspondent wrote, ‘You right-wing shit-for-brains think everything’s about jihad.’

Well, it’s true there are Muslims and there are Muslims: some blow up Tube trains and some rampage through French streets and some claim Mossad’s put something in the chewing gum to make Arab men susceptible to the seduction techniques of Jewesses. Some kill Dutch film-makers and some complain about Piglet coffee mugs on co-workers’ desks, and millions of Muslims don’t do any of the above but apparently don’t feel strongly enough about them to say a word in protest. And it’s also true that it’s better to have your Peugeot torched than to be blown apart on the Piccadilly Line. But what all these techniques — and those of lobby groups who offer themselves as interlocutors between bewildered European elites and ‘moderate’ Muslims — have in common is that they advance the Islamification of Europe."

Go to comments for the entire text.

VDH: Moving On

"...for all our pride, we are not like the once-powerful — and scary — Soviet Union, so Latin Americans and Europeans know that there is rarely any price to be paid for attacking the United States. Slandering us is a win-win situation — cowardly and expedient to be sure, but hardly like indicting bin Laden or embargoing Iranian oil. No Argentinean is furious over Chinese unfair trade; no Spaniard protests Russian oilmen for spoiling the arctic. And worse still, we know why."

And then of course there's always the wacko Christian Right

But at least they don't saw peoples heads off while chanting "Jesus is Lord!".

Well jeez, that explains everything then

al-Qaida in Iraq explains their justification for the murder of innocents in Jordan.


"Striking a moral tone, the al-Qaida manifesto said the hotels were a "secure place for the filthy Israeli and Western tourists to spread corruption and adultery at the expense and suffering of the Muslims in these countries."


I feel so silly now.

Did Abu make a boo-boo? Appears so.

"Hundreds of angry Jordanians rallied Thursday outside one of three U.S.-based hotels attacked by suicide bombers, shouting, "Burn in hell, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi!" after the terrorist's group claimed responsibility for the blasts that killed at least 56 people."

Is it just me, or does intentionally killing innocent Muslims seem like a really odd way to win support for your cause from other Muslims? Either way, it looks like it ain't workin' there Abu-boo.

Money Quote

"What we mistakenly see as a craven, anti-Semitic, insecure, hypocritical, hysterically anti-American, selfish, overtaxed, culturally exhausted country, bereft of ideas, fearful of its own capitulation to Islam, headed for a demographic cul de sac, corrupted by lame ideologies, clinging to unusually unsupportable entitlements, crippled by a spirit of multilayered bureaucracy," writes Denis Boyles in his book, "Vile France: Fear, Duplicity, Cowardice and Cheese," is "actually worse than all that."

It's all about poverty and oppression, huh?

Right.

As Paul Belien, writing from Brussels this weekend, observed: "It is not anger that is driving the insurgents to take it out on the secularized welfare states of Old Europe. It is hatred. Hatred caused not by injustice suffered, but stemming from a sense of superiority. The 'youths' do not blame the French, they despise them." As Mr. Belien reports, look what a typical radical Muslim leader, Dyab Abou Jahjah, the leader of the Brussels-based Arab European League, says: "We reject integration when it leads to assimilation. I don't believe in a host country. We are at home here and whatever we consider our culture to be also belongs to our chosen country. I'm in my country, not the country of the Westerners." Or consider the statement of a German radical Islamist that I recounted in my book (based on a National Public Radio news-story broadcast): "Germany is an Islamic country. Islam is in the home, in schools. Germans will be outnumbered. We [Muslims] will say what we want. We'll live how we want. It's outrageous that Germans demand we speak their language. Our children will have our language, our laws, our culture" (The West's Last Chance, page 75).

This is not about Muslim poverty (the Islamist terrorists who hit London all had good jobs. Mohammed Atta, who struck us in New York, was well-born and came from a prosperous family.) It is about radical Islamist self-confidence and contempt for the West. And, it is about Western weakness.

Norman Podhoretz: Who Is Lying About Iraq?

"So, too, the Washington Post, which greeted the inauguration of George W. Bush in January 2001 with the admonition that

[o]f all the booby traps left behind by the Clinton administration, none is more dangerous—or more urgent—than the situation in Iraq. Over the last year, Mr. Clinton and his team quietly avoided dealing with, or calling attention to, the almost complete unraveling of a decade’s efforts to isolate the regime of Saddam Hussein and prevent it from rebuilding its weapons of mass destruction. That leaves President Bush to confront a dismaying panorama in the Persian Gulf [where] intelligence photos . . . show the reconstruction of factories long suspected of producing chemical and biological weapons."

As I stated the other day, being popular, in this case as President Clinton was, is easy when you stand by and do nothing and stand for nothing. He was always more concerned about what his legacy was going to be rather than making the hard and difficult decisions of defending the nation.

We're left with his legacy alright.

Thanks B.J.

The media and the unhinged Marine

"Jimmy Massey was Michael Moore, Cindy Sheehan and John Kerry all wrapped up into one tidy, soundbite-friendly package -- a poster boy for peace topped off by a military uniform and tattoos to boot. But like a lot of the agitators who pose as well-meaning, good-faith peace activists, Jimmy Massey was something else:

A complete fraud."


The media really are the enemy.

Are enough smart people left in Detroit?

The election returns will tell...

De Villepin Springs Into Action

Here, this oughta satisfy the poor, repressed, unassimilated lads:


De Villepin Springs Into Action

French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin has a plan for stopping the orgy of destruction and violence in his country—give the rioters lots of money, preferential treatment, and expanded social services, and crack down on discrimination against them: French PM announces raft of measures for riot-hit poor suburbs.

The intiatives are:

- the creation of an anti-discrimination agency with special officials appointed to be in charge of certain regions, and making the fight against discrimination a national priority;

- 20,000 job contracts with local government bodies or associations paid a minimum wage would be reserved for those in the suburbs struggling to find work;

- an extra 100 million euros (120 million dollars) for associations that work in the neighbourhoods;

- 5,000 more teaching assistant posts in the 1,200 schools in districts designated as troublespots;

- the creation of 15 more special economic zones that provide tax breaks to companies that set up inside them as an incentive to boost local employment.

Villepin also said ‘social imbalances due to an insufficiently controlled flow of clandestine immigration’ would be tackled.

No word on whether similar handouts are planned for those who lost cars and shops at the hands of these poor disaffected youths.


More socialism will make everything better. I mean, it's worked so far, hasn't it? Well hasn't it?

War Crimes And Torture In Iraq?

This is an example of why you need to take those sorts of claims with a grain of salt.

"One of the checkpoint shootings is apparently the basis for one of most
poignant recollections claimed by Massey in numerous speeches and interviews:
The shooting of a 4-year-old girl in the head.

While touring with Sheehan in Montgomery, Ala., he told of seeing the girl's
body. "You can't take it back," he said, according to the local newspaper.

But in the interview with the Post-Dispatch, Massey admitted that he never had
seen the girl."

France's "Balance Sheet" Is Bankrupt

"Another reason is that both Mr. Chirac and his heir apparent, Mr. Villepin, were not entirely unhappy about the rioting, at least in its first stage, since it was a blow to their political rival within the conservative camp, the minister of the interior, Nicolas Sarkozy."

"The temptation to sack Mr. Sarkozy - as a token of appeasement - may have loomed over them for several days at least. Moreover, Messrs. Chirac and Villepin have built their political identity on a Gaullist pro-Arab and pro-Islamic stand that became fully apparent three years ago, when France distanced itself from America in respect of Iraq. They may expect to harvest a large "immigrant vote" in the coming presidential and parliamentary elections, in 2007, and be reluctant to jeopardize it by taking an aggressive law and order line now."

"The fact also remains, according to many witnesses, that the rioters torch only "white" cars, meaning white owned cars, and spare "Islamic" or "black" ones. One way to discriminate between them is to look for ethnic signs like a sticker with Koranic verses or a picture of the Kaaba in Mekka or a stylized map of Africa."


Unbelievable. The French had best not criticize American politics and society ever again.

EU Springs Into Action

Whew! I feel better now. I'll bet Israel's relieved as well.

Thomas Sowell: Riots In France

"Not all Moslems, nor necessarily a majority of Moslems, are either a cultural or a physical danger. But even "moderate" Moslem organizations in the West who deplore violence and try to discourage it nevertheless encourage their followers to remain foreigners rather than become part of the countries they live in.

So do our own intelligentsia and political and cultural elites. Balkanization has been glorified as "diversity" and diversity has become too sacred to defile with anything so gross as hard facts. But reality is not optional. Our survival may in the long run be as menaced by degeneration within -- from many sources and in many ways -- as was that of the Roman Empire."

Oops, I was wrong. You can blame it on Bush.

That is, at least according to moonbat central, The Daily Kos.

The Violation of Muslim Civil Rights in France

TEHRAN, Nov. 6 (MNA) — Iran’s Association of Muslim Journalists (AMJ) issued a statement on Sunday condemning the violation of Muslims’ civil rights in France and calling on the French government to cooperate with them in establishing a fact-finding commission in order to investigate the conditions of French Muslims. The AMJ said that the mistreatment of Black French Muslims over the past two weeks has deeply influenced Iranian public opinion.

“We suppose that the French government has carried out the recent discriminatory and anti-human rights acts under the influence of the Zionist lobby in France to limit the social and personal freedoms of the Muslims residing in the country, which is quite unacceptable on the part of a country that claims to be democratic,” part of the statement read.

“The rough treatment of Black people whose countries were colonized by France for decades shows that colonialism is still dominant in the policies and the thoughts of the officials of France, who claim to uphold freedom and patience.

“The Association of Muslim Journalists wishes to express its protest about the organized suppression of poor Muslims residing in the suburbs of Paris, who have been living as second-class citizens and deprived of social and political rights for many years.

“Therefore, the Association of Muslim Journalists, as a non-governmental organization, seeks to establish a fact-finding commission to study the situation of Black Muslims in France and hopes that the French government will cooperate by granting them visas.”




Well, there you go then. Inability or refusal to assimilate into society = violation of civil rights. It also gives the victim the right to riot and burn. How could I have been so blind? It's so obvious to me now.

Newsweek: Don't Panic

Newsweek assures the readers that even though the disaffected youths are crying “Jihad!” it’s really nothing to worry about:

The Fire This Time.

"Night after night last week rage spread through the ghettos that ring Paris, then beyond—to the slums of Dijon in Burgundy, Rouen in Normandy, Toulouse, Rennes, Marseilles. When, on the fourth night, a tear-gas canister exploded near the entrance to a warehouselike mosque in Clichy-sous-Bois, forcing hundreds of worshipers to flee barefoot and gagging into Place Anatole France, a new cry went up from the vandals. “Now this is war,” said one. Others cried “jihad.”

It was neither, in fact, and the Paris known to tourists was not burning.

Good night, and good luck.

France rioters: 'Each night we make this place Baghdad'

A lot of good opposing the invasion of Iraq has done our wine and cheese-consuming, surrender-monkey friends across the pond.

Europeans Watch Rioting With Trepidation

This pretty much says it all:

Abdelkarim Carrasco, a leader of Spain's estimated 1 million-member Muslim community, said the French experience poses a key test for Europe.

"Either Europe develops and supports the idea of a mixed culture, or Europe has no future," he said. "Europe has to learn from what the United States has done. It is a country that has taken in people from all over the world."

A Big Terror Bust By Our Friends Down-unda

Australia foils major attack

Australian authorities foiled what they believed to be a large-scale terrorist attack, arresting 15 people during raids in the country's two biggest cities of Sydney and Melbourne, the Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported on Tuesday.

"I am satisfied that we have disrupted what I would regard as the final stages of a large-scale terrorist attack, or the launch of a large-scale terrorist attack here in Australia," New South Wales Police Commissioner Ken Moroney told ABC radio.

The arrests come less than a week after Prime Minster John Howard said Australia received intelligence about a "terrorist threat."

Australia, a staunch U.S. ally with troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, has never suffered a major peacetime attack on home soil. The country has been on medium security alert since shortly after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

Moroney said more than 400 officers were involved in the overnight raids of 15 homes in Sydney's southwest, resulting in the arrest of six males.

"They are currently being interviewed by police and my expectation is that those persons variously will appear in Sydney courts this morning."

Nine arrests were made in Melbourne, the ABC reported.

Australia's parliament rushed through urgent amendments to anti-terror laws on Thursday to allow police to charge people in the early stages of planning an attack.

Jeez, those Iraqi's must be missing something

They're obviously not hearing what a miserable failure their new-found democracy is. Poor, pathetic fools.

The French Intifada Continues

Looks as if France is on the brink of civil war and it's spreading to Germany and Belgium:


Rioters Set Fire to Bus in Southern France

Nov 7, 1:56 PM (ET)

By ANGELA DOLAND

(AP) Youths listen to Claude Dilain, the mayor of Clichy-sous-Bois, a suburb east of Paris, during a ...
Full Image



PARIS (AP) - Rioters in the southern city of Toulouse set fire to an empty bus Monday evening, then pelted police with firebombs and rocks, an official said. A 61-year-old man died of wounds sustained in the spreading violence, the first fatality in 12 days of civil unrest that has shocked the country.

The rioters stopped the bus and ordered the driver to get out, then set the vehicle afire, said Francis Soutric, chief of staff at the regional prefecture in Toulouse. No passengers were inside. Clashes broke out when riot police arrived on the scene and officers responded with tear gas, he said.

The new violence came after rioting by French youths spread to 300 towns.

As urban unrest was reported in neighboring Belgium and Germany, the French government faced growing criticism for its inability to stop the violence, despite massive police deployment and continued calls for calm. One riot-hit town in suburban Paris said it was preparing to enforce a curfew.

Sen. Coleman: The UN Must Not Control the Internet

Senator Norm Coleman has words of warning in today’s Wall Street Journal, as a cartel of repressive dictatorships plans to seize control of the Internet’s root servers: Beware a ‘Digital Munich’.

It sounds like a Tom Clancy plot. An anonymous group of international technocrats holds secretive meetings in Geneva. Their cover story: devising a blueprint to help the developing world more fully participate in the digital revolution. Their real mission: strategizing to take over management of the Internet from the U.S. and enable the United Nations to dominate and politicize the World Wide Web. Does it sound too bizarre to be true? Regrettably, much of what emanates these days from the U.N. does.

The Internet faces a grave threat. We must defend it. We need to preserve this unprecedented communications and informational medium, which fosters freedom and enterprise. We can not allow the U.N. to control the Internet.

The threat is posed by the U.N.-sponsored World Summit on the Information Society taking place later this month in Tunisia. At the WSIS preparatory meeting weeks ago, it became apparent that the agenda had been transformed. Instead of discussing how to place $100 laptops in the hands of the world’s children, the delegates schemed to transfer Internet control into the hands of intrigue-plagued bureaucracies.

The low point of that planning session was the European Union’s shameful endorsement of a plan favored by China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Cuba that would terminate the historic U.S. role in Internet government oversight, relegate both private enterprise and non-governmental organizations to the sidelines, and place a U.N.-dominated group in charge of the Internet’s operation and future. The EU’s declaration was a “political coup,” according to London’s Guardian newspaper, which predicted that once the world’s governments awarded themselves control of the Internet, the U.S. would be able to do little but acquiesce.

I disagree. Such acquiescence would amount to appeasement. We cannot allow Tunis to become a digital Munich.

Bush didn't lie about pre-war intelligence

And war is peace, etc.

"We do not torture"

And war is peace, etc.

Key quote:

Over White House opposition, the Senate has passed legislation banning torture. With Vice President Dick Cheney as the point man, the administration is seeking an exemption for the CIA. It was recently disclosed that the spy agency maintains a network of prisons in eastern Europe and Asia, where it holds terrorist suspects.

Che': “If in doubt, kill him”

Read the article referenced by Cafe Hayek. When I was a liberal, I, too, wore Che' T-shirts. I have a surviving Che' placard hanging in my basement. Since actually learning about Che', I have added a "do not" slash to the placard. I saw Motor Cycle Diaries. It was pretty good. I assume a similar film could be made about the early days of Hitler, Robert E. Lee, or any other monster.

Mark Steyn: Wake Up Europe

Steyn years ago called the current events that are taking place in France. By his own admission though it's happening a lot sooner than even he predicted.

The French Intifada: Day Eleven

So much for that successful European social-welfare state I guess, huh? Multiculturalism my ass. Wake up guys, this is just the beginning for our European friends. Reports have it the rioting is spreading into Belgium and Germany now. The media is still trying to ignore all of this.

And you can't even blame it on Bush. How sad.

An Illegal, Immoral, Booming Economy

The mainstream media has apparently missed this story entirely, except for the WaPo blog quoted above. Go figure.

From DRUDGE

Rioting in French suburbs 'well organized'
Thu Nov 03 2005 14:56:34 ET

French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said Thursday that the riots in several Paris suburbs over the previous night were "not spontaneous" but rather "well organized."

"What we saw in the department of Seine-Saint-Denis overnight was not spontaneous, it was perfectly organized. We are looking into by whom and how," Sarkozy told French news channel i-tele.

The interior minister also said the government would not allow "troublemakers, a bunch of hoodlums, think they can do whatever they want" in the country.

A force of 1,000 police were assigned late Thursday to Seine-Saint-Denis, following the previous night of violence which affected about half of the 40 towns in the department, mostly communities of immigrants from Africa, officials said.

Italians Demonstrate in Support of Israel

This is good news from Italy, where a large crowd of citizens turned out to demonstrate against the Iranian president’s appalling genocidal remarks: Italians demonstrate in support of Israel.

However, this demonstration took place without government support; Italian officials chose appeasement instead.

VDH: The Real Global Virus

"First, despite the various professed grievances (e.g., India should get out of Kashmir; Russia should get out of Chechnya; England should get out of Iraq; Christians should get out of Indonesia; or Westerners should get out of Bali), the perpetrators were all self-proclaimed Islamic radicals. Westerners who embrace moral equivalence still like to talk of abortion bombings and Timothy McVeigh, but those are isolated and distant memories. No, the old generalization since 9/11 remains valid: The majority of Muslims are not global terrorists, but almost all such terrorists, and the majority of their sympathizers, are Muslims."

French Fried

Seems, as Ward Churchill would say, the chickens are coming home to roost in France. Must be the rioting "youths", as the media vanillafies them as are retaliating against France's support for the Iraq war.

Phil Jackson A Racist?

Madrid Bomber Nabbed in Pakistan

Barcepundit reports that one of the perpetrators of the 3/11 Madrid bombings has been arrested in Pakistan—after hiding in Venezuela.

http://www.elconfidencial.com/noticias/noticia.asp?id=6879&edicion=17/10/2005&pass=

Mainstream media seems uninterested.

Black kids acting white in North Carolina

God forbid.

Who lied, Joe Wilson or Bush?

I think that Joe Wilson has a credability gap, though that doesn't come across in the press.

Bush caused New Orleans levees to be mis-built

If it is true that local New Orleans contractors built the levees by taking illegal shortcuts in violation of the contracted designs, how can George Bush's lack of "care" for "black people" explain that?

That's a rap

50 CENT SLAMS KANYE'S 'BUSH IS RACIST' COMMENT


Rapper 50 CENT has lashed out at fellow hip-hop star KANYE WEST for accusing US President GEORGE W BUSH of racism in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
The IN DA CLUB star believes human intervention could not have prevented the effects of the hurricane, which killed over a thousand people in the US gulf states in August (05), and sees no point in reprimanding the President for something which was beyond his control.
He says, "The New Orleans disaster was meant to happen. It was an act of God.
"I think people responded to it the best way they can.
"What KANYE WEST was saying, I don't know where that came from."

Black Dems hurl racist names at Black Repo

This would be shocking, except that it happens all the time. Woa be unto any black who dares break from the liberal/leftist mindset. When Thomas Sowell was a young man, he was a Marxist, and considered "brilliant" by all the "black activists". When he came to embrace Free Markets, etc., he became loudly denounced with all the horrible, race-based names described in this article. Why is it impossible for a black person to support free markets and oppose afffirmative action without the debate jumping off the tracks of facts and logic, and into a mud pit of personalized, race-based name-calling? What if "collard conservatives" started showing up at Cornell West speached and pelted him with donuts? Surely such conduct would get the denounciation deserving of the black leftists in this article who are pelting the black conservative with oreo cookies.

Simplifying the Tax System

Now maybe Bush can do something that his supporters voted for him to do, in this case, simplify the tax system. Now we'll see if everyone who complains about the tax complexity will be willing to let go of the various special tax breaks that they like, such as mortgage interest and property tax deductions. I don't think that "the American people" are collectively smart enough to understand the benefits of giving up such tax breaks in favor of a simplified system. Afterall, these are "the people" who would rather have empty petro stations during a disaster, so long as the posted price reflects pre-disaster conditions.

Miers the only non-white guy qualified originalist?

I feared that Bush would further embarrass his supporters by replacing the white girl nominee Miers with another white guy. I hope the entire Bush administration goes down in flames. Sure, I know that no matter what he does, the leftists will hate him. If he had nominated a black chick, (Judith Rogers Brown), the leftists would have given him no credit for being a non-racist and valuing diversity. But he would have added new energy for those of us who defend him against those charges. Yes, I am excited about the prospect of having a supreme court that interprets laws rather than creates laws. But I am not excited about a white guy rescuing the supreme courte when a black chick could have. Plus, I think that Bush during the Meirs embarrassment revealed that he his no better than the liberals in wanting a justice who imposses her views (such as opposing abortion) rather than enforces constitutionality.

Miers Bails Out

Thank God.

I Hope Ms. Noonan's Wrong

...but unfortunately I think she's spot on.

(see postings for the entire text)

Thomas Sowell Weighs In On The Rosa Parks Story

Interesting and informative. A part of the story of which I was never aware.

Anti-Gouging Laws Cause Gas Shortage in Florida

Well, well, well. Florida's impure capitalist Gov. Bush makes "the people" happy by passing stringent "anti-gouging" law preventing evil petro station owners from raising their prices to meet rising demand during an "emergency." Florida's latest hurricane now leaves millions without electricity, including petro station owners, who now have no way to pump their petro into people's car tanks and carry cans. Well, these evil station owners **COULD** invest money to rent generators, rush them in from points distant, and utilize them to pump their petro, now *COULDN'T* they? But this would cost MONEY, and since we don't live in a fairy tale, money comes from somewhere. But the feel-good "anti-gouging" law in Florida won't permit that evil money to come from consumers in the form of increased petro prices. Instead, the petro prices remain at pre-emergency levels... never mind that the petro remains unobtainable in the stock tanks. Thus people who could afford to purchase free market petro have to join *everybody* in state dependancy: only "the state" can no provide petro.

Florida Wilma Relief Problems... for whites?

This can't be. White hurricane victims waiting days for relief? And PRICE-GOUGING? "At one gas station, a man went car-to-car selling fuel from a 10- gallon plastic tank. The price was $20 for about a gallon, and people happily paid." Somebody should arrest that man.

Marriage closes White-Black Poverty Rates

Here economist Walter Williams shows that personal choices dominate the economic disparity between blacks and whites today. This essay only looks at blacks and whites, and only considers a single variable, marriage. Other essays by other eonomists (and by Williams) have examined other "races" in America, and other factors, such as college degrees, and types of college degrees. Examining these different groups, and accounting for other personal-choice factors, it becomes clear that whites are not the most successful group in the US, and that "race" catagorization does not explain relative differences in overall success. Rather, the cummulative choices by people in these groups determines their collective success. Whites have a higher marriage rate than blacks, and hence lower poverty rates. Whites are also more likely to go to college, and in college to select higher quality majors. Asian and Arab immigrants have even higher marriage and college rates than whites, and are more successful as well.

Republicrats

John Stossel on the Republicrats insatiable appetite for spending our money.

No big deal

Technology is supposed to bail us out of the oil crunch; can it bring back the glaciars? And if it can't?

Witness: Blacks, whites, and the politics of shame in America.

By Shelby Steele (weblink available only to WSJ subscribers)

...in the immediate aftermath of Katrina, when so many black people were plunged into misery that it seemed the hurricane itself had held a racial animus. I felt a consuming empathy but also another, more atavistic impulse. I did not like my people being seen this way... Here--40 years after the great civil rights victories and 50 years after Rosa Parks's great refusal--was a poverty that oppression could no longer entirely explain. Here was poverty with an element of surrender in it that seemed to confirm the worst charges against blacks: that we are inferior, that nothing really helps us, that the modern world is beyond our reach. [Full text printed in "Comments"]

Gold (and Diamonds) Is for Losers

If I ever get married, it's stainless steel bands for both of us, and a cubic zorkonia on hers. This article reveals to me that gold jewelry is at least as stupid, tasteless, and unconsionable as I already know diamonds are.

Wisdom from Professor (Retired) Victor Davis Hanson

You educators will probably find this especially interesting.

She Invented The Sit-In

God's peace, Rosa. You deserve it.

A few bad apples

[I]n a 45-minute meeting last Thursday, Vice President Dick Cheney and the C.I.A. director, Porter J. Goss, urged Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican who wrote the [anti-torture] amendment, to support an exemption for the agency, arguing that the president needed maximum flexibility in dealing with the global war on terrorism.
--From today's New York Times

Bush has long insisted that the Abu Graib and other torture scandals amounted to the work of a "few bad apples." He may be right. Unhappily, those people occupy such positions as attorney general, vice president, and president.
Note the way the Times politely employs the euphemism "abusive treatment" for the more pungent "torture."

Look At All The Little Piggies

The Dhim-witted British appeasement monkeys are at it again.


Little Piggies - Lennon/McCartney

Have you seen the little piggies
Crawling in the dirt
And for all the little piggies
Life is getting worse
Always having dirt to play around in.

Have you seen the bigger piggies
In their starched white shirts
You will find the bigger piggies
Stirring up the dirt
Always have clean shirts to play around in.

In their styes with all their backing
They don't care what goes on around
In their eyes there's something lacking
What they need's a damn good whacking.

Everywhere there's lots of piggies
Living piggy lives
You can see them out for dinner
With their piggy wives
Clutching forks and knives to eat their bacon.

As predicted: Petro Prices Down

The price of gasoline at my usual station, a Shell station, is now $2.68/gallon, down from a peak of $3.39 maybe a month ago. The price is lower because;
A. The owner of the station is in a good mood today and felt like "giving something back."
B. The owner of the station forgot how to gouge.
C. The owner of the station can't blame outside forces for keeping price high so he lowered it.
D. The owner of the station has enough profits from the recent run-up in prices so he can afford to lower the price.
E. The owner of the station felt guilty for all the money he made recently
F. Any of the above replacing "owner of the station" with "CEO of Shell."
G. None of the above. The owner of the station doesn't set the price of gasoline.

White twin sister pop act sings for White Supremacy

My apologies for my lack of intellectuality here, but this is f*cked up.

Voting Rights for Criminals Cont'd

How about this freak? Should he be allowed to vote?

"Neighbors reported that he often slept naked in the doghouse with the family dog, Mayra, the statement said. They said they saw Huizar sexually assault the animal with a broom handle and his hand and heard the dog cry in pain when he was in the doghouse, the statement said.

Neighbors also reported seeing Huizar in his back yard dressed in a woman's bra and panties, dancing with a broom handle, police said."

Exterminate Whitey? The Final Solution

That's exactly what's being proposed by a professor of African Studies at the University of North Carolina.

The Death Of Mother Russia

Mark Steyn explains the disastrous effects the implosion of the former Soviet Union would have.

Oscar composer Bacharach's Anti-War Tune

"I heard (then U.S. Secretary of State) Colin Powell tell the United Nations there are weapons of mass destruction. I totally believed him. I love this guy. He's like a hero. This was such a bad, bad blemish mark on his life, that he was so wronged. Then we go into Iraq. It looked like the heroic, right thing to do. It was the wrong thing to do. There was fabricated information. There are no weapons of mass destruction."

Goodbye, Mr. Goodwrench

"When Delphi, the nation's largest auto parts supplier, declared bankruptcy, it was the end of a way of life for American automobile workers, the last large group from the smokestack era." Maybe it's time we ALL moved to North Carolina and started raising chickens...

Bush calls domestic problems "background noise"

President George W. Bush, hit by a series of domestic woes that have eroded his popularity, said on Thursday he was focused on his job and not on what he called "some background noise."

"Stop all this nonsense! You're killing my buzz!"

U.S. War Crimes Continue - Part 2 Cont'd

Well-well, our journalist friend was released without incident, head still attached and everything. Good for him.

He must've been given the opportunity to explain his apologistic stance on and sympathy for his jihadist captors. They must've figured he was more valuable to their cause alive than dead. Let him live and he can continue spreading his slander and propaganda about U.S. troops.

Lop his head off, and he's, um,...dead. Dead men aren't too good at spreading slander and propaganda, are they?

Reflections on the Millions More Movement

Obadiah Holder is an IT professional from Nashville, Tennessee who attended the Million Man March in 1995 and returned for the Millions More Movement in 2005. He offers his thoughts on the latest rally in an exclusive article for Blues Talkin.

Muhammad Cartoon Triggers Death Threats

"Internet collages threatening Denmark and daily newspaper Jyllands-Posten with death and retribution have begun circulating on the internet after the newspaper published caricatures of Muslim prophet Mohammed"

Another isolated incident I guess.

U.S. War Crimes Continue - Part 2

Wouldn't it be ironic if this fellow's neck (And head. Literally) were saved by those evil U.S. troops he accused recently of purposely targeting journalists?

U.S. War Crimes Continue

The US Defence Department said reports that US troops burned the bodies of two suspected Taliban fighters and used the charred corpses in a propaganda campaign in Afghanistan are being "aggressively investigated".

Jack Kemp: Reformed Rightist?

Jack Kemp Urges Congress to Restore the Right to Vote to Felons Who Have Served Their Time

Jack Kemp, the former Republican vice presidential candidate and HUD secretary, urged Congress on Tuesday to require states to restore voting rights for felons once they complete their sentences.

Why Can't the Left Face the Stolen Elections of 2004 & 2008?

If some of its key publications are any indicator, much of the American left seems unable to face the reality that the election of 2004 was stolen. So in all likelihood, unless something radical is done, 2008 will be too.

Misguided and misinformed articles in both TomPaine.com and Mother Jones Magazine indicate a dangerous inability to face the reality that these stolen elections mean nothing less than the death of what's left of American democracy, and the permanent enthronement of the Rovian GOP.

Bill Gates Dumps Dollar for Euro

Bill Gates, whose net worth of $46.6 billion makes him the world’s richest person, is betting against the U.S. dollar.

“I’m short the dollar,” Gates, chairman of Microsoft Corp., told Charlie Rose in an interview late yesterday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “The ol’ dollar, it’s gonna go down.”

She dishonored your family?

...simply kill the bitch.

Liberal Talker Schultz Pulled From Armed Forces Radio Before He Starts

Schultz says his program was pulled to punish him for airing audio embarrassing to President Bush. At issue is an audio tape that Schultz aired of assistant Secretary of Defense Allison Barber allegedly helping troops in Iraq rehearse for their broadcast video teleconference with the President..

"INNOCENT" vs. "NOT GUILTY"

Compare the above article, which uses the legal term, "Not Guilty", to this article:

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/10/19/D8DB6JD80.html

which used the term, "Innocent." While preparing for work this morning at home, every cable newscast that I saw claimed that Saddam (still don't know why we call him by his first name) pleaded, "Innocent." I wondered if the Iraqis had established some sort of retarded legal system that required defendants to prove their "innocence." I am relieved now to learn that the Iraqi legal system sensibly employs the term, "Not Guilty," and that it is only reporters who are retarded. (They probably all have "journalism" degrees.) I suppose that since we can't get reporters to discern between the correct verdict/plea "Not Guilty" and the nonsense term, "Innocent," there's no way to get them to stop using other nonsense terms such as:

1) "The fact of the matter is... prices have increased." What's wrong with simply saying, "Prices have incraeased"?
2) "You are basing your policy on THE FACT THAT Hurricane Katrina only harmed blacks, but actually it harmed even more whites." Why would you refer to a claim that you dispute as a "fact"? Oh, I forgot: you have a journalism degree. Correct: "You are basing your policy on the ASSUMPTION that..."
3) "Senator Biden will join Sara and **MYSELF** after this commercial." How about using the break to brushup on your grammar?

Nigeriens Kept Poor by Government

"Commerce is the foundation of civilization, the font of prosperity, and the key to peace. Niger's government -- either because of foolishness or evilness (take your pick) -- squashes commerce in that country. No amount of aid, mosquito nets, op-eds..., or serenading of Bono and Paul McCartney will do Nigeriens any good until commerce is allowed to florish there."

A Tale of Two Cities: From DC to Toledo

The well heeled politicians and elite who spoke at us for twelve hours on Saturday in Washington D.C., would do well to heed the anger, resentment, and rage that boiled over in Toledo-or they quickly run the risk of irrelevance to those whose lives are being destroyed by the forces the Million More Movement was said to have been organized against.