The media war against Israel

"Certain conclusions are now inescapable. First, hatred of Israel and the irrationality associated with that hatred have now reached unprecedented proportions within Britain and the west. Second, with a few honourable exceptions the mainstream media are no longer to be believed in anything they transmit, either in words or pictures, about the Middle East. It is only the blogosphere which is now performing the most elementary disciplines of journalism: to aspire to objectivity, to separate facts from prejudices, to apply basic checks to claims being made by partisans to a conflict, and to be particularly wary of those with a proven track record of lying. Third, the mainstream media must now be regarded as active accessories to the war being waged against the free world and therefore as a fifth column in that world – an enemy within. Fourth, the impact of the lies and distortions transmitted by the mainstream media in inflaming the already pathological hatred of the west within the Arab and Muslim world is incalculable. Fifth, the mainstream media’s vilification, demonisation and delegitimisation of Israel, based on outright fabrications and malevolent distortions, is imperilling the very existence of the country that is the front line of defence of the free world. Sixth, that vilification is also imperilling the safety and well-being of Jewish communities around the world, subject now to the double victimisation of attack by Islamists and attack by non-Muslims for belonging to a Jewish people that refuses to submit passively to a second attempt at genocidal slaughter and instead fights to defend itself.

To date, as far as I can determine, not one mainstream editor or proprietor has acknowledged this corruption of the western media. The scale of this corruption now threatens to have a lethal impact on the course of human history. Hatred now drives not just the jihadists but their western dupes, too. Truth and freedom are indivisible. The deconstruction of the former inevitably presages the destruction of the latter. This is the way a civilisation dies."

Back to the simpler life of yesteryear...

... living in caves, tents, or the open air. No industrial polution, no wicked "corporations" creating such things as houses and flush toilets. Good thing few people lived past 30! And just imagine the filth of 100 people living together under such circumstances...

Shoot the Messenger

"Whenever I think about it, everything bad that has ever happened to me has involved a black person." My eldest daughter certainly can't say that any white folks have ever done her wrong. I would say that all of her obsticles derive from a single source: her own choices. And she's black! The major external wrong done to her was Prairie View A&M's administrators failing to provide her a dorm room that she paid for; they're black, too. But she wasn't doing anything productive in school anyway, regularly dialing-down her major from one cake walk to another, and never studying much. Where other black college kids facing this same outrage find a way to push through (even those who don't get a new car given to them by their daddy!), this dear child packed it back home, got pregnant, and now aims for... trade school!

When my buddy Vassar sent his teen son to live with me for a school year, can't say any white folks ever did that boy wrong. Perhaps no black folks either... except his own self. He's now 22 years old, and a bum.

Speaking of bums: reminds me of a few childhood chums now flopping around Austin. Can't say they ever even spent enough time with white folks to ever get done wrong by them. To get around white folks in Austin, TX, you have to at least try to get a job or go to school.

Now, I've sure been done wrong by some honkies. But I don't count, since I'm a honkey. Also been done wrong by many more black folks. But since I spend 78% of my non-work time with black folks, that's just the odds. I reckon that's the point of this drama, "Shoot the Messenger."

Has Canada Got the Cure?

Since 1970, Canada has had a publicly funded, single-payer health system. Today, all Canadians are equally healthy, regardless of income.

Beginning in the 1930s, both the Americans and the Canadians tried to alleviate health care gaps by increasing use of employment-based insurance plans. Both countries encouraged nonprofit private insurance plans like Blue Cross, as well as for-profit insurance plans. The difference between the United States and Canada is that Americans are still doing this, ignoring decades of international statistics that show that this type of funding inevitably leads to poorer public health.

Katrina Bridge Blockade: Facts vs. Myth of Racism

Many of my friends are absolutely certain that when Getna, LA's police blocked NOLA refugees, that this constituted "racism." They reached this conclusion before learning the facts. The facts disprove this conclusion:

1. Gretna erected the blockade after THREE DAYS of welcoming and accomidating NOLA refugees.

2. Getna is white-majority, but it has a sizable black population, about 30%. That population and the whites have a similar view of NOLA, and a smilar view of the decision to blockade.

3. Black Gretna cops participated in the blockade.

4. The blockade denied white refugees as well as black.

5. The decision to blockade was triggered by an explosion of looting (not for food) by NOLA refugees, which culminated with a mall catching fire, amid reports by NOLA cops on TV of massive looting and gang violence in NOLA.

6. Gretna did not go under water, but lost all water and electricity during this time, and was thus dealing with its own severe problems.

7. Whereas a large fraction of NOLA cops fled or quit, Grenta's cops stayed on-duty, though they were overwhelmed. A similar description applies to Gretna's mayor and city council (which includes blacks) and NOLA's mayor and council members; one stayed and operated, while the other disappeared. Can we now accurately judge how Gretna leaders EVENTUALLY responded to one of the few factors that they could control?

Katrina Life & Property Loss Equal Accross Class, Color Lines

...if you care to dig up, and open-mindedly consider the facts.
============================
...endless repetition of statements such as this one, also in The Post: "The storm disproportionately impacted those who were left, abandoned by the government, in its path -- most of whom were black and poor." Or this one, in Newsweek: "Hurricane Katrina exposed the harsh disparities between rich and poor in this country." Only it didn't. Rather, Hurricane Katrina exposed the establishment media's obsession with race and poverty, to the point of ignoring reality.

Katrina's Needless "Refugee" Definition Controversy

One of my smartest, most informed, and best buddies today insisted to me that the term "refugee" in the US only gets used to describe "non-white" people. My friend is incorrect:

1. In 1938 Woodie Guthrie -- as hard-core an anti-capitalist leftist who ever lived -- wrote a song, "Dustbowl Refugee" about poor white folks fleeing 1930s draught areas:
http://www.fortunecity.com/tinpan/parton/2/refugee.html
This website illustrates the song with a photo of white Americans traveling from Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, etc., to California, and includes an excerpt from Grapes of Wrath, also about these same honkies.

2. Here's a honkey from Virginia writing about his boyhood during the US Civil war. He titled his autobiography, "Recollections of a Refugee":
http://www.geocities.com/TheTropics/Cabana/1018/recall.html

3. Here's another autobiography of a honkey in the US civil war, title: Diary of a Southern Refugee During the War: By a Lady of Virginia
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0803282230/002-8729905-8599268?v=glance&n=283155

4. Bosnians are crackers. And when they flee their homes, even in modern times, in search of REFUGE, media call them REFUGEES:
http://www4.army.mil/ocpa/soldierstories/story.php?story_id_key=8980

5. Of course we cannot forget the Irish Potato Famine Refugees (yes, they were and are still called that, in the press and by academics) which transformed the US population in the 1840s:
http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=255681020711176

6. Spaniards are honkeys. They had a civil war. During it, many people lost their homes. Those people suddenly found themselves traveling to points distant in search of REFUGE; they were REFUGEES, and refered to as such in books about them:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0964804263/ref=sib_aps_ref/002-8729905-8599268?ie=UTF8&keywords=refugee%20us%20civil%20war&v=search-inside

7. Here's a photo entitled, "Refugees in WW II." It exclusively comprises honkies, as does any of the hundreds of photos containing these words that you will find via a web search. This one contains Belgian refugees; you can hardly get any whiter than that.
http://history.acusd.edu/gen/WW2Timeline/refugees.html

8. This link describes "refugee physicists" from 1930s Germany, including Einstein. Yes, Jews are crackers (at least European Jews are).

9. This website lauds a "WWII refugee, writer" who is also an ofay.
http://www.jewishsf.com/content/2-0-/module/displaystory/story_id/8954/edition_id/170/format/html/displaystory.html

10. This autobiography of a German boy during WWII is titled, "A Refugee's Story"
http://www.jewishsf.com/content/2-0-/module/displaystory/story_id/8954/edition_id/170/format/html/displaystory.html

11. This article from 2002 describes German civillians who survived allied bombing as... what's th word for people leaving their homes in search of REFUGE? It applies even to honkies... Oh, yes: REFUGEE!
http://www.jewishsf.com/content/2-0-/module/displaystory/story_id/8954/edition_id/170/format/html/displaystory.html

12. Here's an article about Germans after WWII living in facilities openly known as, "Danish Refugee Camps". The word "Danish" here does not refer to breakfast pastries, and the word "Refugee" refers to honkies whose homes had been destroyed, living for extended periods of time in filthy camps. 10,000 German children died in these camps (!!!), with many named on their death certificates: "unknown refugee child." I wonder if during *that* catastrophe anybody wasted time arguing over terminology.
http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,355772,00.html

13. Poles are honkies, too, and during WWII many lost their homes. Such persons traveled in search of refuge. Historians called, and continue to call them, REFUGEEs:
http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~sarmatia/106/261mcgin.html

My conclusion: Like all the other charges of "racism" pertaining to Katrina, this one collapses upon scrutiny, and wastes time. Because the ignorant raised such a fuss, and the informed instantly surrendered, here we have once a gain another ratchet-down of the overall intellectual standards in the US. The word "refugee" has take on a perjorative meaning that it never had before, and it is now off-limits for use. How many kids will get this word wrong now on the SAT, thanks to this senseless controversy?

Plame - Wilson Non-Story

Nadir & Tom: Will you guys now admit that you were wrong about L'Affaire Plame? I'm not even refering to the authentic Hussein-Nigeria nuclear connection, just the accusation that Bushies "outed" Plame as punishment for Wilson's NYT article.

=========
"That the initial leak, seized on by administration critics as evidence of how far the White House was willing to go to smear an opponent, came from a man who had no apparent intention of harming anyone."

FEAR FACTORY: Today's Racist/Terrorist Profiling Story

I thought the United States was "The Land of the Free and The Home of the Brave."

From the airlines' banning of harmless liquids (my wife had to throw her dangerously swanky designer lip gloss away before boarding a red-eye in Detroit this morning) and the jetisoning of passengers from planes because of their skin color or t-shirts, to FBI investigations of US scientists, teachers and peace groups, the US is fast becoming "The Land of the Meek and The Home of the Scared!"

The FEAR FACTORY has become a profitable venture. Americans are SCARED $H!TLESS!!
It is true that the "terrorists" and those who propagate that terror (the Bush Regime, Homeland Insecurity, the mainstream media) are winning.

Here is another racist/terrorist profiling story, another example of an innocent person victimized by cowards who scream with fear every time they see someone who looks different from them.

"An Iraqi architect says he was not allowed to board a Jet Blue flight at JFK because of the Arabic inscription on his t-shirt."

Iranian Prez Challenges Grand Wizard GDub to a Duel

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called on U.S. President George W. Bush to participate in a "direct television debate with us," so Iran can voice its point of view on how to end world predicaments.

"But the condition is that there can be no censorship, especially for the American nation," he said Tuesday.

The White House called the offer to debate Bush a "diversion" from international concerns over Iran's nuclear program, Reuters reported.

And the president of the United States would be stomped in a duel with this guy. Say what you want about Ahmadinejad, he is intelligent and he has been successful in his manipulation of the US, the UN and the media.

Bush, on the other hand, looks dumb even on the rare occasions that he says something smart or articulate.

Were New Orleans Levees Intentionally Blown Up?

NBC's Brian Williams: What about this widely held perception in New Orleans that the federal government somehow played a role in the blowing of the levees? So many people believe that now. Does that break your heart that that exists?

President Bush: Yeah, I've heard that. And when I went to one of the shelters, remember one of the ladies saying to me and Governor Blanco, "You know, why did the federal government, or why did government, blow this up?" And I said, "Ma'am, I really can assure you it didn't happen." But yet there's a perception, particularly in the Ninth Ward, that that's the case.

Williams: What do you do about that?

President Bush: You just try to tell the truth. You know, it was really interesting. If you read the book about the great flood in the late '20s, the levees were breached in order to save New Orleans. And so maybe that's part of why people are thinking that way. It just didn't happen. And I'm so sorry people feel that way, because one of the things that's important is for people to trust, you know, the government. And if they thought that the government had helped destroy their lives, then obviously there would be no trust.

Joan Bennet Ramsey Suspect vs. Duke Suspects

The prosecuter in the Joan Bennet Ramsey case has set a fine example for the Duke rape hoax prosecuter. The Ramsey suspect confessed to the crime, but in response to this we never even saw or heard the prosecuter. She quietly set about aquiring DNA and other info, then *after* obtaining information she made a decision. Imagine if she had appeared before the cameras and declared to the world, "We've got our man. The DNA tests will confirm that we have cracked this case."

The same legal TV analysts who have come to view the Duke rape allegation as a hoax also began developing doubts about this Joan Bennet confession. Very interesting that when the Joan Bennet DNA returned negative, the prosecutor dropped the case, and without first declaring that the DNA analysis would "identify the guilty and exonerate the innocent." The Duke rape hoaxer had DNA in her from sex with her boyfriend which occured several days earlier, but zero DNA from the three men she claims raped her without condums just hours earlier. And the alleged crime scene hadn't even bee cleaned by the supposed violent attackers (who had carefully eliminated all evidence of drinking, which was the charge that they feared!) three days later when the police came, and it contained no DNA indicating a violent rape.

Activist's Remark Starts FBI Probe

Jim Bensman thought his suggestion during a public hearing was harmless enough: Instead of building a channel so migratory fish could go around a dam on the Mississippi River, just get rid of the dam.

Instead, the environmental activist found himself in hot water, drawing FBI scrutiny to see whether he had any terrorist intentions.

Anyone could be labeled a terrorist for saying anything.

Watch out! You could be next!

Fox Journalists Released

Steve Centanni and Olaf Wiig have been released, following a bizarre “conversion to Islam:”

Kidnapped Fox journalists released.

Hours before their release, a video from Ramattan showed the two reading statements proclaiming that they had embraced Islam with the Prophet Mohammed as their leader.

“Islam is not just meant for some people — it is the true religion for all people at all times,” Centanni said in the video while garbed in a beige robe his captors may have given him. Wiig was dressed in the same attire. “Islam helps people to love mercy, brotherhood, equality and justice.”

But speaking to Fox News after their release, Centanni indicated the conversion was not real.
“We were forced to convert to Islam at gunpoint, and don’t get me wrong here, I have the highest respect for Islam, and learned a lot of very good things about it, but it was something we felt we had to do, because they had the guns, and we didn’t know what the hell was going on,” he told Fox.

Allahpundit points out this mujahideen video showing their gunpoint “conversion,” accompanied by the Koranic verse that there is “no compulsion in Islam.”



(Video player requires Flash Player.)

DEBKAfile (not always the most reliable source) says a six-figure ransom was paid to the Palestinian kidnappers: A Hostage Affair in Gaza is Ended by a Three-Part Ransom.

Various Palestinian middlemen were used by British agents at the request of the US to bring the Fox journalists home. They worked out a convoluted deal which entailed their public conversion to Islam, an anti-American harangue on air and a six-figure cash ransom paid under the table to Dughmush to fund his terrorist militia’s operations in Gaza. While the first two parts of the ransom were publicly aired, the third part will no doubt be vehemently denied. But the face remains that a terrorist chief who freelances for at least three fundamentalist terrorist organizations walks free with a strong incentive to develop his profitable hostage-taking business.


I hear a song coming on now!

"In other words we rest 'til everyone on the west is a slave, a muslim, or dead."

Yeah, I think that pretty much describes these two gentlemen's conversion to Islam; Convert or die.

A little more ominous I'd say than Pee Diddle's "Vote or Die!" line.

Freedom of Information Denied in Brooklyn

Javed Iqbal, a.k.a. "John Iqbal," 42, of Staten Island, N.Y., has been arrested and charged with conspiring to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), RAW STORY has learned.

A complaint announced today by the FBI alleges that through a company called HDTV Ltd. located in Brooklyn, Iqbal and others provided customers in the New York area with satellite broadcasts of al Manar, which is a television station owned and/or operated by Hezbollah.

If viewers are forced to watch pro-Israeli propaganda on Fox News and all the rest of the mainstream news outlets, why are they not allowed to see pro-Hezbollah propaganda on one station? Doesn't the FBI believe US citizens are smart enough to realize the truth is somewhere in the middle?

What is the FBI afraid of? If Israel is in the right, then Hezbollah's propaganda won't sway anyone's opinion, will it?

Katrina Exposes NOLA's Horrible Legal System

Nadir, how do you blame Bush and/or racism for *this*? NOLA's legal system is apparently a special outrage, and like all local problems, got exaggerated by the city joining the ocean. Racism and Bush cannot explain this problem, no?

Katrina Worse than 911? Yes!

I agree with Nagin. Although the Katrina calamaty resulted from profound neglect and incompetence by the leaders of Louisiana along with the Army Corps (I suppose), once it struck, having a major metropolitan city sunk under water represented a MUCH worse situation than the World Trade Towers collapsing. Sure, Nagin's response was no good, and neither was that of any other leader, including Bush. But in NYC, Gulliani, who had a much easier job, got universal praise, for ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

In NYC perhaps the same number or fraction of people acted as deplorably as the looting louts (including all those looting fire fighters), but 911 only lasted a few hours and was confined to a small area. Katrina effectivley sunk an entire city perminantly. NYC's thugs never had the entire city over an entire week to run free. And NYC's surrounding areas (Brooklyn, Bronx, etc.) did not also suffer their own devistation, as was the case in NOLA. So Brooklin and the Bronx never had to contend with both their own devistation PLUS a mass of refugees, including retarded thugs, as was the case of cities surrounding NOLA, who had to block NOLA refugees in order to protect themselves from NOLA thugs.

Nagin had a much harder job. He didn't do anything before or during the catastrophe to warrent any praise; he fell down on the job just as all his predicessors did, as did his fellow area politicians, as did the citizens, all of whom never cared about their levess, even as they knew that the levess were inadequat.

Amazing Speed of USA Advance of Civilization

George Will in this column about Gone with the Wind notes that she wrote it in Atlanta, and it got published in 1936, when the future Martin Luther King, Jr was 7 years old, living then in Atlanta. Comparing that racist, wildly populur book in 1936 Atlanta with 2006 Atlant represents one of many "stunning" examples of the amazing speed with which America has changed for the better.

Indeed, the USA was not distinct on this earth in 1936 for practicing brutal and stifling racism, for denying represetative citizenship and individual liberties to a large fraction of its residents, for subjugating large fractions of its residents and denying them access to a civilized legal system. In 1936 slavery still existed on this earth, for example in Liberia, where the descendants of black US slaves played the role of "owner" of "indiginous" blacks. This blog isn't big enough to document all the places on this earth in 1936 which were at least as bad as the USA. But most of those places where just as bad in 1836; surely the subjugated population in Liberia was no better off in 1936 than it had been in 1936. But in the US much had changed for the better since 1836. In fact, many non-subjugated Americans during that 100 years had fought feircely to end this subjugation, and they had succeeded in moving civilization forward. Meanwhile, most of the rest of the world had stood still, practicing a mean, cruel existance.

In the years after 1936 America, unlike Liberia and most other nations, would lurch forward even more, transforming civillization ever on into never before achieved levels of advanced conduct.

Muslims want... Dignity?

Terrifying NYT article. Muslims around the world celebrate Hezbollah's "victory" over Isreal. In this victory they see a "solution", and want more of whatever Hezbollah is offering, which ain't paved roads, self-sustaining economies, freedom, and protection of personal liberty. Over and over again the people interviewed want "restoriation of dignity", not in the form of achieving civilization, but in the form of smiting the US and Isreali military. Such a low road is easier than the high road: launching a missle at an Isreali/US tank and drawing fire into a civillian apartment building is ever more easier than establishing a tolerant and sensible socio-political order in which free people trade goods and services with each other, resulting in paved, safe streets, bustling economies, ample, various, and inexpensive grocery stores, running water, electricity, and the many other hard-earned fruits of civilization.

Katrina Devistates Local Honkey Businesses

Purposefully neglecting the levees and then purposefully neglecting to rescue flooded people as a way to target blacks defies logic. Clearly the black and white leaders of New Orleans simply behaved with incompetence over the past decades, exemplifying the moniker, "Big Easy."

Inventing Racism for Katrina

" Images of seas of black faces begging for help that took days to arrive, and stories of sheriffs from adjacent white suburbs turning desperate evacuees away at gunpoint as they tried to flee New Orleans, horrified the nation."

What absolute nonsense. FEMA took 7 days to arrive, just as it ALWAYS has, for every disaster it's ever attended, including to assist rich crackers in Florida. The sheriffs turning away "desperate evacuees" acted only in response to earlier refugees pillaging these towns and overwhelming their services with massive breakins and looting. These "white suburbs" contain large fractions of blacks, including city council members who voted in favor of blocking further refugess from entering. Included amoungst those blocked refugees: white tourist honkies from the pricey French Quarter hotels.

What about "images of seas of WHITE faces begging for help that took days to arrive" in OTHER cities? Did no such images exist, or did news outlets choose not to display them? FEMA took its customary 7 days to arrive to New Orleans, but took EVEN LONGER to arrive to many other cities along the Gulf Coast.

It only takes logic and a consideration of the facts to reveal clearly that racism played no role in Katrina. If you were a racist white person, would you choose THIS as a mechanism for visiting suppression upon blacks? Have your own businesses and homes destroyed, black thugs rampaging around further destroying your property, plus immessurably more demands placed on your social services?

The white and black city, county, and state leaders in this area failed to ensure that the levees protecting their wealth were adaquate. Leaders in Alaska were able to bilk the US treasury for a worthless "Bridge to Nowhere", but the black and white leaders of southern Louisiana -- business and political -- simply made bad choices over the past decades, and all of them -- rich and poor, black and white -- paid steep prices for this incompetence.

Walmart Reduces Poverty in China

US firm makes money from Chinese, while reducing poverty there. Participation in free markets reduces more poverty than charity.

The President Explains How He Misled the Country

Other than being hideously misleading, this “part of the world” excuse is also flat out racist. The Al Qaeda guys were Arab Muslims, the Iraqis are Arab Muslims – good enough. There is absolutely nothing else that connects 9/11 and Iraq and it is a great discredit to our country that we have not been able to see through that for all this time simply because some of the people in Iraq are the same ethnicity as the 9/11 attackers.

Of course, as all racists do, we have also maligned the wrong people. Iraq is mainly Shiite and they are not the same religious sect as Al Qaeda. In fact, they are mortal enemies. The Kurds in northern Iraq aren’t even Arabs. And the Sunnis who ruled Iraq under Saddam Hussein were secular and hence the direct opponents of Al Qaeda.

Bush Cuts And Runs At Tora Bora, Helps Bin Laden Escapes, Now Blames America for Iraq

Scratch what a neocon says, and we often find the exact opposite of the truth. They dodge the draft or shirk their service, then attack war heroes of the other party. They dont give the troops enough armor, helmets and bandages then say they always listen to the commanders. They try to cut airport screeners for liquid bombs, then tell us not to drink the bottled water

The President takes the cake for his campaign press conference yesterday, misuing the White House podium for a partisan politcal speech.

Communist Hypothesis vs. Capitalist Theory

The word "theory" in science means a hypothesis that has been tested; conversely, scientists define "hypothesis" as an untested theory. Both are explanations for observed phenomena, and which predict future observations. Such ideas begin as hypothesis, and graduate to class of "theory" only by passing tests. Within this setting, let's explore Nadir and Tom concepts advocated by Nadir and Tom, such as "universal healthcare", "mimimum wages", and "price controls." Capitalist theory (tested hypothesis) predicts that attempting these concepts (government imposition on individuals and groups) results in fewer people getting less than when free people negotiate amoungst themselves to address these areas of human needs (capitalism).

"Othen, when people evaluate capitalism, they evaluate a system that exists on Earth. When they evaluate communism, they are talking about a non-existent Utopia. What exists on Earth, with all of its problems and shortcomings, is always going to fail miserably when compared to a Utopia. The very attempt to achieve the utopian goals of communism requires the ruthless suppression of the individual and an attack on any institution that might compromise the loyalty of the individual to the state. That's why one of the first orders of business for communism, and those who support its ideas, is the attack on religion and the family."

I just spent nearly a week on Tom's organic farm in North Carolina. All the stakeholders in this farm, like Nadir with his band, are devoted leftists who advocate such socialistic concepts as universal healthcare, minimum wages, and price control. Yet they practice none of these concepts. Like Nadir and his band, they negotiate wages without government control, and at levels that no individual could raise a family of 4 working 40 hours a week with daycare; and they provide no medical insurance; nor do they sell their goods and services according to any price schedule other than maximum of what they can get their customers to pay.

Outrageous!

Bin Laden: Racist? Slave Owner?

This might crush Nadir's heart. The guy leading a fight to unchain the muslim world from US white racist imperialism might himself be an anti-black racist who owns black slaves. One woman, a black Sudanese novelist and poet, who identifies herself as one of his former slaves, quotes Laden: "African women are only good for a man's lower pleasures. What need do you have for a womb?"

Her website links to the book, "Escape From Slavery," by another black African enslaved by Muslims, Francis Bok, who lives today as a free man in... racist USA!:
http://www.kolaboof.com/naima.htm

Russell Simmons backs Michael Steele

It's happening.

"Mr. Simmons, who often has used his music empire to advance liberal political activism, has backed the Republican administration in Maryland. He applauded Maryland Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., a Republican, in February 2005 for winning over black voters with urban initiatives... Mr. Simmons campaigned in 2002 for Mr. Ehrlich's Democratic rival."

Sexing Up The News

[Swedish] public broadcaster SVT has said it plans on investing more on drama programs to lure in the younger audience, but the station’s news program last night has left some sceptical.

Last night, as responsible late night TV viewers in Sweden were watching an informative presentation of the latest political poll numbers on the country’s public service SVT station, hard core group sex could be seen playing on one of the numerous video screens over the presenter's shoulder.

Talk about HARD news...

Driving with Cash is a Crime

A federal appeals court ruled [last week] that if a motorist is carrying large sums of money, it is automatically subject to confiscation. In the case entitled, "United States of America v. $124,700 in U.S. Currency," the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit took that amount of cash away from Emiliano Gomez Gonzolez, a man with a "lack of significant criminal history" neither accused nor convicted of any crime.

Gee, I wonder if the assumption that this man was involved in a drug related activity had anything to do with his race or his inability to speak English...

Wrath of the Thetans

"The Simpsons" claimed U.S. television's highest honor for a prime-time cartoon on Saturday as Emmy voters shied away from giving the prize to "South Park" for an episode lampooning Scientology and Tom Cruise.


Cruise swore he would get his revenge...

Racist Profiling Grounds Plane

British holidaymakers staged an unprecedented mutiny - refusing to allow their flight to take off until two men they feared were terrorists were forcibly removed.

Patrick Mercer, the Tory Homeland Security spokesman, said last night: "This is a victory for terrorists. These people on the flight have been terrorised into behaving irrationally.

"For those unfortunate two men to be victimised because of the colour of their skin is just nonsense."

Racial profiling only results in the vicitimization of innocent people.

This is ignroance and madness in what is supposed to be a civilized society. Characterizing another person by the color of their skin is stupid and counterproductive.

The fearmongering that is practiced by the media, the governments of the US and UK and right-wing pundits on both sides of the Atlantic only contribute to the feeling that people of color are hated by white Europeans.

Shameful.

And another thing...

Those right-wingnuts who oppose affirmative action, but promote racial profiling as a good thing reveal their racist tendencies. It's all about fear. That's the bottom line.

Flying Pigs Sighted in Hollyweird

A group of Hollywood stars, directors, and studio suits has taken out an ad in the LA Times condemning terrorism.

And for once, they aren’t talking about the United States. Kidman condemns Hamas, Hezbollah.

NICOLE Kidman has made a public stand against terrorism.

The actress, joined by 84 other high-profile Hollywood stars, directors, studio bosses and media moguls, has taken out a powerfully-worded full page advertisement in today’s Los Angeles Times newspaper.

It specifically targets “terrorist organisations” such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine.



Hats-off to them.

Memorizing A Bible = Wasted Mind

"The children, ages 7 to 14, are full-time students, in class 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, even in the summer. But they are not studying math, science or English. Instead, they are memorizing all 6,200 verses in the Koran, a task that usually takes 2 to 3 years."

And what will their mind be prepared for after this task? After having read the first 1/4 of the Koran, I can assure that war against the stinkin', rotten Jews would certainly be one qualification!

Irshad Manji on Muslim Myopia

"(But) violent jihadists have rarely needed foreign policy grievances to justify their hot heads. There was no equivalent to the Iraq debacle in 1993, when Islamists first tried to blow up the World Trade Center, or in 2000, when they attacked the American destroyer Cole. Indeed, that assault took place after United States-led military intervention saved thousands of Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo."

Have you heard the one about the Jews?

"But what is going on in Edinburgh now is no satire. For me, Hughes represents a growing trend among left-thinking people in this country and around the world to accept as dogma that those on the Left should hate Bush, Blair, American imperialism, Israel and, while we’re at it, the Jews. It is a cultural trend that I’ve found increasingly evident but never before has the Jew-hating element been so overt. This week has confirmed that my Jewish paranoia is not entirely unfounded. As the old saying goes: “Just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get me.”

Hughes wasn’t one for the odd remark or the clever comment; he waxed lyrical on how Osama bin Laden is far less of a threat than Dick Cheney, before defending Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian President, saying he has no intention of destroying Israel, he has just been misquoted.

Yet I sat in that audience and I didn’t heckle. In hindsight it is heartening that half of his audience sat in stunned silence, as I did, for most of his show; but at the time it was the other half of the audience who were whooping along and lapping him up that made the greater impression.

As for Hunter, he seems like a nice guy, well meaning and at times very funny. While Hughes did little to hide his Jew-hatred, in a way it is even more disheartening that Hunter is so keen to make the Holocaust fair game."

Driving While Talking

This study shows what many of us predicted: cell phone talking causes the same driving problems regardless of "hands free" versus non-"hands free". But the professor who conducted the study added -- without including any data to support him -- that talking with a passenger is safer. How does he know this? Because, when taking to an adult passenger, the driver "has an interest in driving safely. He can say 'I should stop talking.'" Does this even make sense? And why didn't he include such a scenario in his testing?

I can imagine a good reason for why an in-person discussion would be *more* distracting: the allure of looking over to the passenger, particularly one who is attractive. And what of the possibility of a passenger contributing something to the conversation which a cell-phone partner can't: "What's this? Look at that!" I am very curious to learn real facts comparing cell phone discussions with passenger discussions, cell phone distractions with other distractions (grooming, reading, eating, etc.), and the negative impact of cell phones with positive (distress calls, directions keeping people from getting lost in high-crime areas, etc.).

This article assumes a legal implicaion for studies showing a problem with cell phones. That is the Big Govt view: laws to protect people against choices that smarter people disfavor. This failed logic here would cause us to outlaw other normal behavior. Sounder logic would cause us to abandon laws in such situations, and permit people to make their own choices, and pay for their own consequences.

Diversity, not racism, the US Norm

The continuing and substantial influx of non-whites to the US -- in combination to an absence of non-whites ever leaving -- stands as a towering and irrefutable testiment to a lack of racism in the US. Consider the difference between stagnant North and South Carolina in 1960 and today's boom economies there, marked by a massive influx of fully integrated non-white immigrants.

This article includes a rarely examined topic: "Hispanic is a term for people with ethnic backgrounds in Spanish- speaking countries. Hispanics can be of any race, and most in the U.S. are white. When demographers talk about the shrinking percentage of white people in America, generally they are talking about whites who are not Hispanic." Sadly, though, the article charges on without considering the implications of this meaningless definition (including the qualification of white people for "Affirmative Action" if they have spanish sirnames).

Also the article joins the ignorant trend of using the term "minority" to describe white people who fall below 50% of a population; when the largest group comprises less than 50%, it's properly called a "plurality", not a "minority", a term which applies only to all the other groups.

Strike Up The Band!

Roll out the red, white and blue-state bunting!

Wal-Mart Sees 1st Profit Drop in 10 Yrs.

Woo-hoo! Down with big-box stores! Up with the minimum wage! Yahoo!

Muslim Has To Tame Muslim

"A survey of the Muslim community has uncovered that a third feel that mass murder of British civilians is justified because of Britain's participation in Iraq. This alienation is the most important political phenomenon in British politics today, yet no politician has stooped to try to understand it, preferring to mouth homilies about the "majority of Muslims being peace-loving." Opponents of the war crow about Tony Blair's foreign policy generating jihadis. Liberal opinion falls back on mantras about racism breeding alienation.

They ignore the fact that 9/11 preceded Iraq, and that other unemployed communities haven't resorted to mass murder. No, something else is happening. It is significant that 22 universities have been named as epicenters of jihadist recruitment. The leader of the latest terror attempt is alleged to be a biochemistry student. These educated young men have ventured the farthest from the enclosures of their communities: The well-fed bite the hand that feeds.

Frustration and aimlessness are the seeds of alienation. British identity gives them no goals. They turn, instead, to the disciplines that were instilled in them from birth. Al Qaeda's aim to dominate the world with a universal Shariah kingdom makes them part of an elite. Their stance is fundamentally ideological, and being the ideology of religion, with 72 virgins on offer in paradise, it is fundamentally illogical. Their basic Western education makes them aware that they may be challenged in their fantasies of faith by more enlightened arguments of other Islamic persuasions. Instead, their spokesmen and suicide notes refer to British policies and lend a veneer of logic, of cause and effect, to their murder. Yet no spending plans in poor areas, multicultural reform of education or antiterrorist detention laws, or, for that matter, withdrawal of Britain's armies from Iraq, will deal conclusively with this ideology of murder."


"Al Qaeda's aim to dominate the world with a universal Shariah kingdom makes them part of an elite."

Really? Well, that certainly runs counter to what some would have us believe, doesn't it? And this coming from someone who would know from first-hand experience, not from someone viewing from the outside looking in and whose opinion is purely politically-driven.

Maybe certain folks need to re-think their stance on this.

Revisiting Muslim Terror at Beslan

On the first day of school in 2004, a Chechen terrorist group struck the Russian town of Beslan. Targeting children, they took more than eleven hundred hostages. The attack represented a horrifying innovation in human brutality. Here, an extraordinary accounting of the experience of terror in the age of terrorism.

Mavis Staples and Bob Dylan?

Nadir, comments, please.

Cult of Cuba Personality

What will "the people" do when their Dear Leader eventually dies? An entire nation devoted to the praise of one man, while people drive 50 year old cars...

Photographer Alleges Unearthing of Bodies

From the international photographer’s forum Lightstalkers.org, photojournalist Bryan Denton, in a message from Beirut Lebanon, describes the most vile sort of photo staging imaginable: Lightstalkers :: Staged Shots from Lebanon? Please comment...

i have been working in lebanon since all this started, and seeing the behavior of many of the lebanese wire service photographers has been a bit unsettling. while hajj has garnered a lot of attention for his doctoring of images digitally, whether guilty or not, i have been witness to the daily practice of directed shots, one case where a group of wire photogs were choreographing the unearthing of bodies, directing emergency workers here and there, asking them to position bodies just so, even remove bodies that have already been put in graves so that they can photograph them in peoples arms. these photographers have come away with powerful shots, that required no manipulation digitally, but instead, manipulation on a human level, and this itself is a bigger ethical problem.

whatever the case is—lack of training, a personal drive as a photographer to show what is happening to your country in as powerful a way as possible, or all out competitiveness, i think that the onus is on the wire services themselves, because they act as the employer/filter of their photogs work. standards should be in place or else the rest of us end up paying the price. and i’m not against the idea of local wire photographers, but after seeing it over and over for the past month, i think it is something that is worth addressing. while i walk away from a situation like that, one wire shooter sets up a situation, and the rest of them follow.......

by Bryan Denton Fri Aug 11 07:36:08 UTC 2006 | Beirut, Lebanon

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words. Sometimes More.

No anti-semitism here folks, move along...

[Photos of protestors and their placards at a "Stop the US-Isreali War Rally" in SF. -- Paul]

LA Times: Take a Closer Look

Here's something all you moral equivalence patsies need to read. It won't be pleasant for you I'm sure;

"What the major news organizations ought to be doing is to make their own analysis of the images coming out of Lebanon and if, as seems more than likely, they find widespread malfeasance, some hard questions need to be asked about why it occurred. Some of it may stem from the urge every photographer feels to make a photo perfect. Some of it probably flows from a simple economic imperative — a freelancer who produces dramatic images gets picked up more and paid more. Moreover, the obscenely anti-Israeli tenor of most of the European and world press means there’s an eager market for pictures of dead Lebanese babies.

It’s worth noting in this context that there is no similar flow of propagandistic images coming from the Israeli side of the border. That’s because one side — the democratically elected government of Israel — views death as a tragedy and the other — the Iranian financed terrorist organization Hezbollah — sees it as an opportunity. In this case, turning their own dead children into material creates an opportunity to cloud the fact that every Lebanese casualty, tragic as he or she is, was killed or injured as an unavoidable consequence of Israel’s pursuit of terrorists who use their own people as human shields. Every Israeli civilian killed or injured was the victim of a terrorist attack intended to harm civilians. That alone ought to wash away any blood-stained suggestion of moral equivalency.

That brings us to the most troubling of the possible explanations for these fraudulent photos, which is that some of the photojournalists involved are either intimidated by or sympathetic to the Hezbollah terrorists. It’s a possibility fraught with harsh implications, but it needs to be examined thoroughly and openly.

Johnson and his colleagues have done the serious news media a service. Failure to follow up on it would be worse than churlish; it would be irresponsible."

Even this LA Times writer can admit there is no moral equivalence between Hezbollah (Did I spell that right? I'm never sure since no one seems to agree on one f*cking spelling.) and Israel. Can you? Didn't think so.

Gunter Grass - Celebrated German novelist, playwright, poet, essayist, sculptor, commentator, Nobel Laureate...

And...(drum roll)...former member of the Nazi SS!!! Does this mean he has to give back his Nobel Prize? I didn't think so. I don't know though, with Reuters lousy accuracy record as of late, maybe this isn't true either.

"Nobel Laureate Flays Bush". Ooooooooooh..... "When this Nobel laureate speaks, people listen." I'm sorry, did he say something? BWAAAAAHHH-HA-HA-HA!!!

Pallywood: Palestinians Faking News

Put this in your hookahs and smoke it UI's. A short film about Palestinian manipulation of the world’s all-too-cooperative media. Oh those poor, innocent, oppressed Palestinians. You wouldn't suppose the same sort of shenannigans are going in Lebanon at the moment, would you? Noooooo.

[The film shows how Palestinians stage fake news stories showing civillian casualties. They use reporters and cameramen working for international news agencies, and footage gets used by corporate US news outlets such as 60 Minutes, and in Nadir's accusations of Isreali atrocities. -- Paul]

'Mass Murder' Foiled: A terror plot is exposed by the policies many American liberals oppose

"This wasn't supposed to happen today," a U.S. official told the Washington Post of the arrests and terror alert. "It was supposed to happen several days from now. We hear the British lost track of one or two guys. They had to move." Meanwhile, British antiterrorism chief Peter Clarke said at a news conference that the plot was foiled because "a large number of people" had been under surveillance, with police monitoring "spending, travel and communications."

Let's emphasize that again: The plot was foiled because a large number of people were under surveillance concerning their spending, travel and communications. Which leads us to wonder if Scotland Yard would have succeeded if the ACLU or the New York Times had first learned the details of such surveillance programs."

"Ted Kennedy chimed in that "it is clear that our misguided policies are making America more hated in the world and making the war on terrorism harder to win." Mr. Kennedy somehow overlooked that the foiled plan was nearly identical to the "Bojinka" plot led by Ramzi Yousef and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to blow up airliners over the Pacific Ocean in 1995. Did the Clinton Administration's "misguided policies" invite that plot? And if the Iraq war is a diversion and provocation, just what policies would Senators Reid and Kennedy have us "focus" on?

Surveillance? Hmmm. Democrats and their media allies screamed bloody murder last year when it was leaked that the government was monitoring some communications outside the context of a law known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. FISA wasn't designed for, nor does it forbid, the timely exploitation of what are often anonymous phone numbers, and the calls monitored had at least one overseas connection. But Mr. Reid labeled such surveillance "illegal" and an "NSA domestic spying program." Other Democrats are still saying they will censure, or even impeach, Mr. Bush over the FISA program if they win control of Congress."

The Sad Saga Of Ms. McKinney - Part 2

"Media reports have since surfaced of anti-Semitic remarks hurled at media by McKinney supporters as they left the headquarters. One reporter for a major national newspaper claimed she was threatened with being "thrown down the stairs or the escalator" if she didn't vacate an area near where McKinney was holed up.

Every corner of that headquarters emanated fear and hatred.

I have to make this clear. In last week's column, I recalled the bright and personable Cynthia McKinney I knew back in 1990. And it's not my place to summarily judge her in 2006.

But I now know why our polling of this primary runoff election showed so accurately that McKinney would be trounced. Clearly, this heavily African-American district she represented no longer wanted to be associated with her brand of representation."

Is it still a Revolution after 50 Years?

What's "revolutionary" about Cuba's nearly 50 year old govt, which has had a single, totalitarian leader its entire existance? Haven't controlled economies already been tried, with consistently disasterous results, including in Cuba? Here's the latest crackdown on free speech in Cuba. Nadir thinks that this is no worse than the Patriot and Homeland Security Acts, of course. Bush's policy to "destroy the Cuban revolution"? Simply to assure Cubans that if they permit free speach and erect a democracy, he'll open relations with and support them. Castro has led this fake threat from the US into a fifty-year tyrany with eternal excuses for a failed economy and for the tyranny itself. I don't understand why his supporters in the US never move there! Afterall, his opponents in Cuba regularly risk their lives move here. Nadir says that they're "mostly elitists". Have there been any "elitists" in Cuba for 40 years other than high ranking communist appointees?

Demos think US unfair, poor example for world

This sounds right to me. Republicans do generally think that the US is a generally "fair and decent" country, and that the world would be better "if more countries were like the US." And Democrats do generally think the opposite. It's a wonder that the Demos win as many elections as they do.

The Sad Saga Of Ms. McKinney

What do Fox News pundit Juan Williams and Georgia Democratic Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney have to do with each other?

Criminal Thugs Seek to Protect Themselves from Future Prosecution

The Bush administration has drafted amendments to the War Crimes Act that would retroactively protect policymakers from possible criminal charges for authorizing humiliating and degrading treatment of detainees, according to lawyers who have seen the proposal.

The White House, without elaboration, said in a statement that the bill "will apply to any conduct by any U.S. personnel, whether committed before or after the law is enacted."

These are the kinds of leaders you right-wingnuts respect. Those who would commit war crimes and then change the laws to protect themselves from their evil deeds.

I have no respect for these thugs or for anyone who approves of these degrading actions. These people have no respect for the law, for human rights or for their country.

This amendment would give them a blank check to commit attrocities all over the planet. It is abominable and stupid. If this passes, it will give the entire world a reason to turn against US.

Some Leadership

McKinney Supporters Hate Jews

Supporters of Cynthia McKinney (Moonbat - Ga.) were in a foul mood when she lost the election, and showed it with openly antisemitic remarks.

(Video player requires Flash Player 8.)

Nice.

How to Hack a Diebold Voting Machine

Marty Kaplan provides instructions for rigging electronic voting records to insert your own vote count.

Glad they've switched back to paper here in Westland...

Gore isn't quite as green as he's led the world to believe

"For someone who says the sky is falling, he does very little. He says he recycles and drives a hybrid. And he claims he uses renewable energy credits to offset the pollution he produces when using a private jet to promote his film. (In reality, Paramount Classics, the film's distributor, pays this.)

Public records reveal that as Gore lectures Americans on excessive consumption, he and his wife Tipper live in two properties: a 10,000-square-foot, 20-room, eight-bathroom home in Nashville, and a 4,000-square-foot home in Arlington, Va. (He also has a third home in Carthage, Tenn.) For someone rallying the planet to pursue a path of extreme personal sacrifice, Gore requires little from himself.

Then there is the troubling matter of his energy use. In the Washington, D.C., area, utility companies offer wind energy as an alternative to traditional energy. In Nashville, similar programs exist. Utility customers must simply pay a few extra pennies per kilowatt hour, and they can continue living their carbon-neutral lifestyles knowing that they are supporting wind energy. Plenty of businesses and institutions have signed up. Even the Bush administration is using green energy for some federal office buildings, as are thousands of area residents.
But according to public records, there is no evidence that Gore has signed up to use green energy in either of his large residences. When contacted Wednesday, Gore's office confirmed as much but said the Gores were looking into making the switch at both homes. Talk about inconvenient truths.

Gore is not alone. Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean has said, "Global warming is happening, and it threatens our very existence." The DNC website applauds the fact that Gore has "tried to move people to act." Yet, astoundingly, Gore's persuasive powers have failed to convince his own party: The DNC has not signed up to pay an additional two pennies a kilowatt hour to go green. For that matter, neither has the Republican National Committee.

Maybe our very existence isn't threatened."


If only someone could come up with a way to harness all the hot air coming from his big mouth and methane coming from his fat ass.

Britain facing 'most sustained threat since WWII', says Reid

Nope, no threat.

Leadership with Courage

Cynthia McKinney, Election Night Remarks, August 8, 2006:

Ladies and gentlemen, there comes a time when people of conscience are compelled to dissent.

Bobby Kennedy said, "The sharpest criticism often goes hand in hand with the deepest idealism and love of country."

We love our country, and that is why we dissent: because we care.

In a nation that was founded in the spirit of freedom and liberty from oppression and tyranny, the brave souls who speak out are vilified and punished. This is the tragedy that America has become. I applaud McKinney's courage and her continued leadership.

British police thwart aircraft bomb plot

But-but, Michael Moore said there is no terrorist threat!

LONDON - British authorities said Thursday they had thwarted a terrorist plot to simultaneously blow up several aircraft heading to the U.S. using explosives smuggled in carry-on luggage. British Airways canceled all flights between London's Heathrow airport and all points in Britain, Europe and Libya for the day.

American Apathy Prevails

Other nations beg for the right to go to the polls, but Americans are apathetic about voting.

Did you vote in yesterday's primary? As expected, turnout was underwhelming.

Paul's affirmative action candidate, jackleg preacher Keith Butler, seems to have lost his bid for Senate. His ads imploring Detroiters to vote GOP and ignore the Democratic primaries in straight ticket Michigan apparently didn't work. Funny that he didn't come out and say, "I'm a Republican" on those radio ads...

Meanwhile Detroiters proved once again that they vote on name recognition when a young man who went by the moniker Joel Loving a few short months ago was elected to the state legislature. He changed his name to Coleman Young, Jr. in an effort to advance his political career, and it's working for him. He unseated incumbent Maureen Stapleton in the Democratic primary. The former Detroit mayor denied the child was his when he was born to a woman in California who was not Coleman Young's wife. I wonder if the mayor is a smiling proud papa now...

I'm upset that Cynthia McKinney lost her primary bid to retain her congressional seat in Georgia, but hopefully now she will leave the traitors in the Democratic party behind for good. They have shown her nothing but contempt over the last 5 years though she is a strong voice for real change in America. A true leader. She will probably do a better job outside the elective realm. The voters in Georgia get what they wanted, Hank Johnson, a self-proclaimed "pothole politician" who won't rock the boat and will lay down and let the political machine run him over.

Joe Lieberman lost his primary perhaps giving a boost to the anti-war wing of the Democratic party in the push toward the polls in November. Bush's buddy, Joe, will run as an independent, and may succeed since he could easily pull votes from both the Republican and Democratic sides of the electorate.

Who says politics is boring?

Racial Profiling Is Good

To the extent that racial profiling exists and actually figures into the daily lives of anybody (Nadir, how many times have you been pulled over in our honkey subburb in the past year? For Andrew it is zero, for me it is one.), it is usually based on reality. White guys driving in certain high-crime black areas get profiled because they are much more likely to be purchasing drugs or hookers than random black guys; I have experianced this myself in my travels. How do I know that I got "racially profiled"? The cops (sometimes black, sometimes white) told me.

In those black neighborhoods, a car with multiple young black males has, relative to cars with a single young black male, or cars with older blacks, women, or children, a much, much greater likelihood of containing illegal drugs, firearms, open alcohol containers, stolen goods, and passengers with outstanding warrents. Unlike cars containing one or more white guys, cars with multiple young black males is much more common in these areas. Cops know these facts, even black cops. Tom Sowell and Walter Williams point out that when police in high-crime areas target cars comprising multiple young black males, they are making a rational effort to suppress crime, and these actions enjoy some support from constructive members of these communities. "Anti-profiling" laws hamper such efforts. Sowell and Williams opine that those who wish to eliminate such profiling should themselves target not cops acting rationally, but rather the wayward young black males who are giving their fellows such a bad reputation.

In this report: "Having a number of students from an Arab country arriving on student visas and disappearing is cause for concern." Yes, it is. Such a situation involving students with non-Arab names from France, Canada, Nigeria, Ghana, China, and India would not. This is racial profiling, and I'm glad that law enforcement officials are concentrating their efforts in this manner. Also from this article: " It would be regrettable if the misadventures or irresponsibility of a number of students damaged these kinds of programs." I agree. This is how reputations form.

Indians and Chinese used to have the following reputation, documented clearly Holliwood films from before 1970: stupid and lazy. Is this the reputation that they have now? Why not? Answer: the average actions of Indians and Chinese compared with the American average. Cops hoping to score a big bust will drive past ten cars carrying young male Chinese and Indians just to scrutinize one car carrying three black teen males, and to some lesser extent, three white teen males. Why?

A Glimmer Of Hope

Thomas Sowell once again exposes the fallacy that minimum-wage laws are a good thing. And folks in and around Chicago seem to agree.

"What was uncommon was the reaction. Chicago's Mayor Richard M. Daley denounced the bill as "redlining," since it would have the net effect of keeping much-needed stores and jobs out of black neighborhoods. Both Chicago newspapers also denounced the bill.

The crowning touch came when Andrew Young, former civil rights leader and former mayor of Atlanta, went to Chicago to criticize local black leaders who supported this bill."

"A survey has shown that 85 percent of the economists in Canada and 90 percent of the economists in the United States say that minimum wage laws reduce employment. But you don't need a Ph.D. in economics to know that jacking up prices leads fewer people to buy. Those people include employers, who hire less labor when labor is made artificially more expensive."

"In the United States, the group hardest hit by minimum wage laws are black male teenagers. Those who refuse to admit that the minimum wage is the reason for high unemployment rates among young blacks blame racism, lack of education and whatever else occurs to them.

The hard facts say otherwise. Back in the 1940s, there was no less racism than today and black teenagers had no more education than today, but their unemployment rate was a fraction of what it is now -- and was no different from that of white teenagers. "

All seems like common sense to me.

Down With Hiphop

I have zero toleration for music and videos of this sort. I am certain the popularity of this garbage does not result from a conspiracy of rich guys seeking to create negative images of blacks. Instead, I am sad to conclude that black music consumers are getting what they want. I believe that this represents just one symptom of a larger problem in which black folks in 2006 are on average choosing to make poorer choices than other groups.

How Aweful to be an average USAer

Average US home sizes have increased by about 50%, and during a time in which family size has decreased by about the same. Yet Nadir still views the US economy as abysmal. I wonder how home sizes have progressed during this time in Cuba...

Castro the Fraud (Che Schme)

I'm watching a documentary about Castro. Outline: Batista ruled Cuba as a brutal dictator, and many people gradually began opposing him in favor of democracy. Communism existed as a minor, seldom expressed, component of an anti-Batista movement that grew, and which centered on American-style democracy. Castro -- illegitimate son of a sugar cane plantation owner -- joined this anti-Batista, pro-democracy movement as a Havana law student. He led a military strike against a government facility, but failed. Batista's government sentenced him to 15 years in prison, but released him after just a year, without torturing him, believing that leniency would temper his fire. Other democratic activists -- college students, and, increasingly, middle class professionals and merchants -- received similar treatment. Few but Castro attempted military strikes. Most of the others received free speech suppression in the form of police beatings and short prison stints.

Upon his prison release, Castro fled to Mexico, along with his brother Raul. There they linked with Che Guevara -- a much wealthier scion, a young physician from Argentina. Eighty-one of them piled onto a small boat (designed for about 20) and embarked on a seven day voyage to a remote Cuban beach. Military planes intercepted them and killed all but about 20. The survivors began a guerrilla campaign against an unmotivated army. As they maneuvered they drew converts, and increasing success in the countryside. Supportive pro-democratic riots in Havana formed a pincer, and drove out Batista and the rest of his government. Five days later Castro's militia stomped in and took control of a crowd eager to receive the fabled, armed countryside, fellow democrat rebels.

At this point, Guevara was not a top Castro lieutenant. But Guevara qualified as the chief booster of a surprising path taken by Castro: dictator. The promised elections would never occur. And those middle class revolutionaries, with their businesses, practices, and corporate positions: confiscated, and collected into state institutions. These people had played crucial roles in undermining Batista, and in supporting the supposedly democratic Castro. They led the applause of Castro's entry into Havana. Now they felt betrayed. Those that expressed this conclusion suffered, and this suffering administered by Castro exceeded that administered by the inarguably detestable Batista. Castro's number 2 and number 3 resigned in protest to the imposition of dictatorship. Where Castro's violent strike against Batista led to a 15-year sentence that manifested as a one-year, torture-free stint, these guys' expressions of discontent with their comrade Castro resulted in 15-year sentences that manifested as 20 years of brutal torture... and the elevation of Guevara to number 2.

Guevara and Castro's partnership derived from agreement on three principles that shocked and offended a large fraction of the anti-Batista population: dictatorship, socialism in the form of rigid communism, and little or no mercy for their opponents, certainly less then Batista ever showed. Much less. Physicians, engineers, accountants, and proprietors who had played a sentinel role in Castro's victory had their properties and businesses confiscated. This triggered a wave of objections from the democratic revolutionaries, who felt that Castro had sold himself as one of them. The American revolution produced a similar conflict, with the democrats winning. Unfortunately here, as in Cuba's Caribbean neighbor Haiti a century before, a revolution for democracy produced an even worse tyranny.

Castro and Guevara achieved folk hero status in the USA. Like Marx and Engles before them, these rich kids promised a paradise, but achieved a stagnant, rampant poverty. I once revered them. Then I learned the facts.

Media Manipulation Against Isreal

I'm re-reading the history of Isreal's foundation. What a horrible idea it was was! But, it happened, and the non-Jews have a pretty obvious choice for a bright future: accept it a move on. Meanwhile, the current war inspires reporters to manipulate coverage against Isreal, where -- in the current day rather than 70 years ago -- they're the most sensible actors on the stage.

A Proud Antisemite at Indymedia

It’s become commonplace for “progressives” to explain away their fellow travelers’ anti-Jewish remarks by claiming they’re not “antisemitic”—they’re only “criticizing Israel’s policies.”

The “progressives” at Indymedia, however, are proudly dispensing with the excuses: Mel’s Real Crime: Not Loving the Jews Unconditionally.

"Why then should otherwise ethical people be judged negatively if they consider collective Jewish actions deplorable? This is the absurd choice imposed on us by defenders of organized Jewry. Many of us understand that a lot of today’s Jewish leaders act as foreign agents, representing the interests of an ethnostate, headquartered in Tel Aviv, and whose grasping, aggressive tentacles penetrate nearly every nation on earth. The global, Zionist movement undermines national sovereignty world-wide and threatens freedom-loving people everywhere. To discourage any whistleblowers, Jews propagandize every corner of the globe with Holocaust lore and then tar their political opponents as “Nazis” or “anti-Semites”. They also work tirelessly to censor their political opponents. These anti-democratic tactics deserve to be tossed in the trash bin of Orwellian mind control.

At this moment in history, world Jewry is deliberately doing damage to America, Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan and many other countries as they militantly advance Israeli interests over all others. Many people are suffering greatly, enduring constant fear, and/or being killed. This is wrong.

If this makes me an anti-Semite then I wear the badge proudly."



Well, there you go. No punches pulled here. Wow. Kristallnacht here we come.

Melanie Phillips: Hezbollah cells await Iran’s orders

Melanie Phillips also dissects and explains the morally confused West:

"But then Britain at this moment isn’t really sane. It is gripped by a kind of collective derangement in which, blinded by hatred of Israel, it thinks that the current war against Israel by Iran’s proxy, Hezbollah, and its ally Syria, is a war by Israel against ‘innocent’ Lebanon. As a result, it is quite unable to grasp that Hezbollah’s war against Israel, which is desperately trying to bring Israel to an end once and for all, is a key salient in Iran’s escalating war against the free world."

VDH: The Brink of Madness

Victor Davis Hanson dissects and explains the morally confused West:

"These past few days the inability of millions of Westerners, both here and in Europe, to condemn fascist terrorists who start wars, spread racial hatred, and despise Western democracies is the real story, not the “quarter-ton” Israeli bombs that inadvertently hit civilians in Lebanon who live among rocket launchers that send missiles into Israeli cities and suburbs.

Yes, perhaps Israel should have hit more quickly, harder, and on the ground; yes, it has run an inept public relations campaign; yes, to these criticisms and more. But what is lost sight of is the central moral issue of our times: a humane democracy mired in an asymmetrical war is trying to protect itself against terrorists from the 7th century, while under the scrutiny of a corrupt world that needs oil, is largely anti-Semitic and deathly afraid of Islamic terrorists, and finds psychic enjoyment in seeing successful Western societies under duress.

In short, if we wish to learn what was going on in Europe in 1938, just look around."

US Military Leaders Acknowledge Iraq is Going From Bad to Worse

Under tough questioning from U.S. senators, the head of U.S. Central Command, Gen. John Abizaid, acknowledged Thursday that Iraq could descend into civil war.

Playing "Chicken" in "The Hog Butcher for the World"

Small retailers have long complained that big-box stores run them out of business, and they are right. The council's tactic, it seems, is to force the giants to make a choice: pay a premium wage because they exert an unfair advantage over smaller stores, or don't come to town at all.

Lobbying for Armageddon

Christian extremism is alive and well in the United States and more dangerous than most would care to admit. Republicans and other right-wingers will gladly tolerate these zealots as long as it helps keep them in power. If religious nuts can offer votes and support that will help advance imperialist notions of world conquest and power, then excuses will be made. Even by so-called Reformed Leftists.

"And he who overcomes, and keeps My works until the end, to him I will give power over the nations - He shall rule them with a rod of iron; As the potter's vessels shall be broken to pieces..."

Revelations 2:26-27

9-11, terrorism a laughing matter? The BBC obviously thinks so

That worthless, propagandizing operation, the British Broadcasting Company, has really hit bottom this time.

Huff-n-puffington Com-post Racist Photo Of The Day

Unbelievable.

'Potentially incendiary' at the Brooklyn Public Library

This spring, in my capacity as publisher of Encounter Books, I had the honor to publish Melanie Phillips's book Londonistan, a brilliant, but also harrowing, look at the ways in which radical Islam has established itself in England. The book carries endorsements from such well respected experts on the subject as Natan Sharansky, Daniel Pipes, and Steve Emerson. It has been widely reviewed here and in England, to admiring praise from those (like me) who regard radical Islam as a terrible threat, and to sometime hysterical consternation from those who believe that Islam is a religion of peace or who at least cannot bear the spectacle of anyone actually defending Western civilization (that's capitalist, Christian civilization) against its enemies. Last week it was the Communists, this week it is the mullahs: the bottom line is that in the battle of Us against Them, We are always to blame.

For those in doubt about how deeply ingrained the latter sentiment is in the institutional life of our culture, I offer the following communication from Wayne Roylance, Adult Selection Coordinator at Brooklyn Public Library in New York. A reader had asked that the Library purchase Londonistan. He received this reply from Mr. Roylance:

Thank you for your question. Normally, the library doesn't add a nonfiction title to the collection (and especially one that is potentially incendiary) unless a review from a trusted source (professional journals) can be found. Unfortunately, we have not found such a review for Londonistan. Therefore, at this time, the library will not be adding Londonistan to the collection.

Very high-minded of you, Wayne, to forbear adding "potentially incendiary" stuff to the pristine shelves of the Brooklyn Public Library. But wait, what counts as "potentially incendiary" to the guardians of the public purse at The New York Public Library? We know that Londonsitan counts, never mind that the historian Daniel Johnson, writing in Commentary, said that "Anyone who cares about Britain, or indeed about the survival of Judeo-Christian civilization, should read Melanie Phillips's brave and disturbing book." But what about some of the Library's other recent acquisitions? Consider Empire by the Duke University professor Michael Hardt and the Italian terrorist Antonio Negri. Apparently that book is not "potentially incendiary," though it argues that "militancy today is a positive, constructive, and innovative activity." Or how about Al Franken's book Lies (and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them): A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right? Brooklyn readers can find that little bijou on the shelves of their public library. They can also find, to move from the political to the pornographic, Toni Bentley's paean to sodomy, The Surrender: An Erotic Memoir. That, too, is available to readers at the Brooklyn Library. (Nor does Bentley's book represent an aberration for Brooklyn's Selection Committee: readers can also edify themselves with Ron Jeremy: the long hard life of a porn star or, moving back to politics, From Oslo to Iraq and the Road Map by the late Edward W. Said, the left-wing Columbia professor PLO sympathizer.)

According to the Brooklyn Public Library's website, "Contemporary materials representing various points of view . . . including materials that reflect current conditions, trends, and controversies" are among those that the Library seeks to acquire--except, as Mr. Roylance has demonstrated, "contemporary materials" that might be regarded as "potentially incendiary" by the Left. I do not happen to live in Brooklyn. If I did, I might wonder about how my local public library chose to spend my tax dollars.

Update: Andrew Cusack writes to point out that one needn't be a Brooklynite to be outraged by the Brooklyn Public Library's boycott.

Actually, Brooklynites aren't the only ones whose tax dollars fund the BPL. 81% of their revenue comes from the City of New York as a whole, with a further 10% from the State of New York. The remaining 9% comes from "individuals, corporate and foundation support, as well as competitive government grants, the Federal e-rate program, investments, fines and fees." (acc. to their Annual Report).

So every New York City resident, every New York state resident, and indeed every federal taxpayer has a right to at least a little outrage.

Indeed.

More Harm from Minimum Wage

Here's another possible way that mimimum wage laws harm the people they're intended to help: If Nadir and his wife own a small sandwhich shop and can hire a few people at minimum wage, the new law will hurt them more than McDonalds. In this way these laws disproportionately harm small businesses.

Media Missiles: Working For The Enemy

I realize this article will be dismissed by certain folk simply because it was published in that "neocon" outfit National Review Online.

When pressed a few days later about his reporting on the CNN program Reliable Sources, Robertson acknowledged that Hezbollah militants had instructed the CNN camera team where and what to film. Hezbollah “ had control of the situation,” Robertson said. “ They designated the places that we went to, and we certainly didn’t have time to go into the houses or lift up the rubble to see what was underneath.”

Robertson added that Hezbollah has “ very, very good control over its areas in the south of Beirut. They deny journalists access into those areas. You don’t get in there without their permission. We didn’t have enough time to see if perhaps there was somebody there who was, you know, a taxi driver by day, and a Hezbollah fighter by night.”

Yet Reliable Sources, hosted by Washington Post writer Howard Kurtz, is broadcast only on the American version of CNN. So CNN International viewers around the world will not have had the opportunity to learn from CNN’s “Senior international correspondent” that the pictures they saw from Beirut were carefully selected for them by Hezbollah.

Another journalist let the cat out of the bag last week. Writing on his blog while reporting from southern Lebanon, Time contributor Christopher Allbritton, casually mentioned in the middle of a posting: “ To the south, along the curve of the coast, Hezbollah is launching Katyushas, but I’m loathe to say too much about them. The Party of God has a copy of every journalist’s passport, and they’ve already hassled a number of us and threatened one.”

Robertson is not the only foreign journalist to have misled viewers with selected footage from Beirut. NBC’s Richard Engel, CBS’s Elizabeth Palmer, and a host of European and other networks, were also taken around the damaged areas by Hezbollah minders. Palmer commented on her report that “ Hizbullah is also determined that outsiders will only see what it wants them to see.”

Palmer’s honesty is helpful. But it doesn’t prevent the damage being done by organizations such as the BBC. First the BBC gave the impression that Israel had flattened the greater part of Beirut. Then to follow up its lop-sided coverage, its website helpfully carried full details of the assembly points for an anti-Israel march due to take place in London, but did not give any details for a rally in support of Israel also held in London a short time later.

Govt Funded Sports - Big Mistake

I think this guy is correct: Chicogoans should hope that their city loses its Olympic bid. Something about sports makes people act irrationally, starting with people refering to the local teams as if they themselves belong to the team. "We won!" No, *you* didn't win. The poeople who won are those millionare players who don't care about you and who only play in your city because the owner there agreed to pay them more than the owners in other cities. And, by the way, the owners can afford to pay those guys more because *you* agreed to pay some of the owner's operating costs with your tax dollars.

And don't get me started on the irrational actions of schools caused by our collective interested in spectator sports.

Growing Up Colorblind In Our Household

I’m going brag a little on my wife and myself.

There is a public swimming pool/water park near us in Oak Park, MI; a very nice, clean, well-maintained facility. My wife and I have taken our 4 year-old son there quite a bit this summer for swimming lessons and also because it’s just a nice place to go to relax and to let my son frolic and to cool off a little, especially with this stifling heat we’re experiencing at the moment.

Yesterday evening, as I watched my boy splash about having a grand old time, I was struck by something that made me feel truly proud and hopeful for my kid’s future. As you can imagine, on a day where the temperatures had reached the upper 90’s, the place was packed. As I looked around, it occurred to me that, with the exception of maybe an employee or two and a couple of the lifeguards, we were the only white folks there. I watched him playing and splashing around with the other kids there and I realized how completely unaware he was that there were any differences between him and the other kids, meaning obviously the color of his skin.

I felt very proud at that moment of the fact that racism in our household is not an issue. I can honestly say that my 4 year old son has no prejudices, racial, or otherwise (what kind of food he will or won’t eat is another subject altogether however). We live in a very ethnically, racially and socially diverse community, where my kids play and interact with kids of all colors, shapes and sizes.

Now I’m not so naïve to think there won’t come a day someday when he’ll come home from school with that inevitable question for my wife and me “Mom, dad, what’s n*gger?”, or worse yet, actually using the term. If and when that happens I’ll address the issue at that point. But until that day I see no reason to taint his innocence.

It was such a hopeful scene, especially for someone like me, having grown up in a fairly sheltered community as a kid. It showed me that someone’s race, ethnicity, or skin color doesn’t have to be an issue. That the only reason it ever is, is because someone was brought up that way and was taught to think and feel that way. And that goes for all parties involved, not just white folks.

All in all it was a very simple, uneventful, yet very enlightening experience.

RoP Launches Multiple Attacks in Thailand

And who are these “assailants?” Are they Methodists? Lone gunmen with histories of mental illness? Space aliens? Freedom fighters resisting occupation?

BANGKOK, Thailand - Assailants carried out at least 40 bomb and arson attacks Tuesday night in Thailand’s three Muslim-dominated southernmost provinces, police said. At least three people were reported hurt.

The attacks are the latest in a series believed to have been carried out by Muslim separatists, regional deputy police chief Maj. Woraphong Siewpricha said. Thai media said government installations were the targets.

More than 1,500 people have been killed in sectarian violence since a resurgence in January 2004 of a violent Islamic separatist movement in Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat, the only provinces with Muslim majorities in Buddhist-dominated Thailand.

Targetting of Civillians: US & UK vs Germany

The US and UK brought "Total War" to Germany and Japan. This is not what Isreal is bringing to Lebanon.

Obsession: What The War on Terror Is Really About.

A film about radical, Islamic, fascistic, Nazism.