Wolfowitz: Hitchens Defends...

... Buchanan lambastes. Not sure who is correct; both make good cases.

I found Hitchey's essay very illuminating. Have seen nowhere else discussed the implications of the supposedly racist neocon leader developing a serious love relationship with a muslim Arab woman, or intellectual and professional credibility of this woman. Hitchey describes her as a passionate and courageous advocate of personal liberties, including freedom of (and from!) religion and gender equality, as well as self-rule, within Arabia.

Buchanan takes the popular view against Wolfie, but adds a very sensible case against even having a World Bank. What does it do besides enable horrible dictators?

Here Hitchey takes down former CIA chief Tenent, who now has a "I tried to tell them..." book explaining how he warned Bush about lack of WMD and the probability of violent anarchy following a Hussein take-down.

Holiday In Iraq

Our man Hitchens takes his son for a holiday in Iraq's Kurdistan.

How the Media Partnered With Hezbollah: Harvard’s Cautionary Report

Tell me again that there is no leftist media bias:

While the war between Israel and Hezbollah raged in Lebanon and Israel last summer, it became clear that media coverage had itself started to play an important role in determining the ultimate outcome of that war. It seemed clear that news coverage would affect the course of the conflict. And it quickly transpired that Hezbollah would become the beneficiary of the media’s manipulation.

A close examination of the media’s role during the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war in Lebanon comes now from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, in an analysis of the war published in a paper whose subtitle should give pause to journalists covering international conflict: “The Israeli-Hezbollah War of 2006: The Media as a Weapon in Asymmetrical Conflict.” Bernard Kalb, of Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, methodically traces the transformation of the media “from objective observer to fiery advocate.” Kalb painstakingly details how Hezbollah exercised absolute control over how journalists portrayed its side of the conflict, while Israel became “victimized by its own openness.”

The lessons from the Harvard paper go well beyond historic analysis. Kalb’s thoroughly and persuasively documented case points to the challenges to journalists in future “asymmetrical” conflicts in which a radical militia provides access only to journalists agreeing to the strictest of rules.

Journalists did Hezbollah’s work, offering little resistance to the Islamic militia’s effort to portray itself as an idealistic and heroic army of the people, facing an aggressive and ruthless enemy. With Hezbollah’s unchallenged control of journalists’ access within its territory, it managed to almost completely eliminate from the narrative crucial facts, such as the fact that it deliberately fired its weapons from deep within civilian population centers, counting on Israeli forces to have no choice but defend themselves by targeting rocket launchers where they stood. Hezbollah’s strong support from Syria and Iran — including the provision of deadly weapons — faded in the coverage, as the conflict increasingly became portrayed as pitting one powerful army against a band of heroic defenders of a civilian population.

Gradually lost in the coverage was the fact that the war began when Hezbollah infiltrated Israel, kidnapping two of its soldiers (still held to this day) and killing eight Israelis. Despite the undisputed fact that Hezbollah triggered the war, Israel was painted as the aggressor, as images of the war overtook the context."

The media (The AP, Reuters, CNN and so on) really are the enemy.

Mark Steyn: Let's be realistic about reality

From one of the leading voices of the "right-wing blathersphere";

"I live in northern New England, which has a very low crime rate, in part because it has a high rate of gun ownership. We do have the occasional murder, however. A few years back, a couple of alienated loser teens from a small Vermont town decided they were going to kill somebody, steal his ATM cards, and go to Australia. So they went to a remote house in the woods a couple of towns away, knocked on the door, and said their car had broken down. The guy thought their story smelled funny so he picked up his Glock and told 'em to get lost. So they concocted a better story, and pretended to be students doing an environmental survey. Unfortunately, the next old coot in the woods was sick of environmentalists and chased 'em away. Eventually they figured they could spend months knocking on doors in rural Vermont and New Hampshire and seeing nothing for their pains but cranky guys in plaid leveling both barrels through the screen door. So even these idiots worked it out: Where's the nearest place around here where you're most likely to encounter gullible defenseless types who have foresworn all means of resistance? Answer: Dartmouth College. So they drove over the Connecticut River, rang the doorbell, and brutally murdered a couple of well-meaning liberal professors. Two depraved misfits of crushing stupidity (to judge from their diaries) had nevertheless identified precisely the easiest murder victims in the twin-state area. To promote vulnerability as a moral virtue is not merely foolish. Like the new Yale props department policy, it signals to everyone that you're not in the real world.

The "gun-free zone" fraud isn't just about banning firearms or even a symptom of academia's distaste for an entire sensibility of which the Second Amendment is part and parcel but part of a deeper reluctance of critical segments of our culture to engage with reality. Michelle Malkin wrote a column a few days ago connecting the prohibition against physical self-defense with "the erosion of intellectual self-defense," and the retreat of college campuses into a smothering security blanket of speech codes and "safe spaces" that's the very opposite of the principles of honest enquiry and vigorous debate on which university life was founded. And so we "fear guns," and "verbal violence," and excessively realistic swashbuckling in the varsity production of ''The Three Musketeers.'' What kind of functioning society can emerge from such a cocoon?"

U.S. releases terror suspect

No long slog in Gitmo for this fella.

Nikki Giovanni: The Idiocy Of The Contemporary College Education

It's a wonder college graduates can think and reason at all after eduring 4 years or more of this sort of idiocy:

“We are Virginia Tech. We are sad today and we will be sad for quite awhile. WE are not moving on, we are embracing our mourning. We are Virginia Tech. We are strong enough to know when to cry and sad enough to know we must laugh again. We are Virginia Tech. We do not understand this tragedy. We know we did not deserve it but neither does a child in Africa dying of AIDS, but neither do the invisible children walking the night to avoid being captured by a rogue army. Neither does the baby elephant watching his community be devastated for ivory; neither does the Appalachian infant in the killed in the middle of the night in his crib in the home his father built with his own hands being run over by a boulder because the land was destabilized. No one deserves a tragedy. We are Virginia Tech. The Hokier Nation embraces our own with open heart and hands to those who offer their hearts and minds. We are strong and brave and innocent and unafraid. We are better than we think, not quite what we want to be. We are alive to the imagination and the possibility we will continue to invent the future through our blood and tears, through all this sadness. We are the Hokies. We will prevail, we will prevail. We are Virginia Tech. "

Huh? WTF is she smoking? This woman is a college professor, eh? What a complete imbicile. What an insult to the victims and their families to use and twist this occasion into a political statement.

Skeptical Enviornmentalist

"Compliance with Kyoto would reduce global warming by an amount too small to measure. But the cost of compliance just to the United States would be higher than the cost of providing the entire world with clean drinking water and sanitation, which would prevent 2 million deaths (from diseases such as infant diarrhea) a year and prevent half a billion people from becoming seriously ill each year."

Also asserted here: Those hybrid cars that burn less petro require so much energy to produce and process their batteries that they create a larger "carbon footprint" than a Hummer!

America Is A Cross-Dressing Nation

Q: What’s that you say? America is not a cross-dressing nation? But wait, you cannot deny that there are cross-dressers in America.

A: That’s true, of course. However, just because a certain portion of the population prefers to clothe themselves in the same manner as a member of the opposite sex does not mean the entire U.S. population can be classified as cross-dressers.

Q: I see. That makes sense. Well then, I guess the same could be said about the claim that America is a “racist” nation.

A: That is also correct. Just because a percentage of our society – which, by the way would include members of every racial and ethnic group - are racists, that does not, despite the claim by some, qualify America as a racist nation. Of course there are racists in America, there always will be, of every color and ethnicity, but that does not even remotely mean that America qualifies as a racist nation. As a matter of fact, America is probably the least racist nation on the planet.

You’re right. Wow, thanks for clearing that up. I feel much better now.

No problem.

Might Be Changing My Mind On Imus Firing

Warning: I am reconsidering my view on the Imus situation, and I might be changing my mind to support firing him. Not sure, but I am undergoing a reconsideration. I will add comments documenting my thoughts as they progress...

As I learned as a novice writer in college: "writing is thinking... of the most profound sort."

Innocent Black Naval Cadet Charged With Rape

I am trying to get to the bottom of this news story about a black Naval cadet and football team quarterback, Lamar Owens, which RL commenter Uptown Steve offers as a case of a black guy having done to him what got done to the the cracker Dukesborro Boys: a false rape allegation. Steve faults me for not publicizing this like I have the Duke guys; I'm certain that I would have publicized this if massive daily protests materialized declaring for certain that Owens was guilty, if his local DA had gone on national TV declaring his guilt prior to DNA testing, maintained the assertion of guilt after DNA testing produced negative results, and if media personalities and local citizens on national TV had declared that this rape of a white girl represented ongoing massive degradation of white women by black men. Or if simply I encountered any article showing that an innocent guy of any "race" got unjustly accused and arrested of raping a girl of any "race".

Perhaps all the hysterical personalities who invested so much time into declaring the Duke boys guilty should have invested their energies into exposing the innocence of Owens. That way I might already know about this, and why it is that Owens is innocent. Instead, my web search uncovers very little. One of the few articles shows that Owens is getting lots of official support by his hometown Georgia honkey Republican US Rep, Jack Kingston, who has taken Owens' case to the US congress, according to an article proudly carried by none other than a republican website:

"A military aide for Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga., said the Owens' visit only solidified the congressman's resolve to help the midshipman. Congressman Kingston has been involved in Lamar's case since the beginning. He's written two letters to (the Navy secretary), one in the fall and one this past week, wanting to reiterate this concern that this case comes to a fair and impartial resolution, both for Midshipman Owens and for the Navy."

Here's the best I can find about the Owens case: He claims that a honkey ho classmate invited him to her academy dorm room for consensual sex (making them both guilty of violating military law), after she had been drinking all night. He says that during consensual intercourse, "she became unresponsive, after which he stopped and left." Owens got charged in military court, because the alleged incident occurred at an academy dorm. The military judge commented in the trial record that the "defense had taken the alleged victim's testimony apart like a Swiss watch." Result: jury (presumably mostly white) found him not-guilty of rape, but guilty only of "conduct unbecoming an officer for having sex with the woman in her dorm room and disobeying an order to stay clear of her," with no jail time.

I agree that in a case depending only on two conflicting testimonies that we mustn't assume that one testimony represents "beyond reasonable doubt" resulting in one of the parties being convicted of rape and imprisoned. Thus I certainly agree with that verdict of acquittal, but find no evidence that any white folks protested that verdict, or had prior to trial excoriated Owens in any way as was done to the Dukesborro Boys. The question of justice here, as best I can tell, breaks down as:

1. Should the accusations here even have gone to trial? I think not. A girl says "he raped me", and a guy says, "we had consensual sex." A text page from this girl proves that she invited him to her room late at night after drinking. On what basis can a prosecutor or even a police officer have for believing the accuser over the accused here?

2. Should Owens have gotten charged and convicted of "unbecoming" behavior? Should his accuser? It appears possible that the accuser here might have invented a false allegation to shield herself from getting these very charges leveled against her! If he didn't rape her, how does only he get these charges? Were they both not guilty of this? I welcome more info on this. The issue remains about his possible expulsion from the Navy, and it is this that the evil honkey republican southern Rep is trying to defend him against. I assume that this Rep has some good reason for us to believe that Owens is innocent, and am eager to find the case for that view.

A similar case running concurrent with Owens' involves his teammate, a honkey named Kenny Ray Morrison, has people on the internet insisting he along with Owens is innocent. However, I can't yet find articles explaining why I should believe this. This article about Morrison's trial has him on the stand claiming that he had consensual sex with his two accusers (I assume white) on different nights; one testified that he raped her while she was passed out from a date-rape drug that he slipped her, and the second described him raping her while she was awake. Result: conviction by a city jury, two year's prison, and expulsion from the Navy.

As far as I can tell, Morrison has no US Congressman advocating for him, as does Owens, and will have prison time and a hard core prison record, which Owens will not.

Thus I see here as yet no reason why this case shows that black guys are getting any less consideration from the legal system than white guys are, or how Owens' case matches that of the Dukesborro Boys. I await Steve to demonstrate this to me.

Beware Speech Police; Who's Next?

"We want justice. We want peace. Imus must no longer speak," protesters chanted.

Now it all makes complete sense. Those chanters always provide unassailable logic. I can only pray that:

1) The people defending Imus learn to tolerate those who say things that "offend" them. Many of the people on TV now defending Imus were leading the charge to fire TV host Bill Mahr for calling the 911 murderers "courageous" and state university prof. Ward Churchill for attributing 911 to a Bush conspiracy. I hope that the people who succeeded in getting Mahr fired, and who have worked so hard to get Churchill fired, realize that the logic and mechanisms employed in those efforts are working now against Imus.

2) Some of the people demanding the firing of Imus themselves get fired for "offending" some group of people. I particularly cite Al Sharpton getting fired from his radio show, for having never apologized for falsely accusing the officials in that ancient Tawana Brawley false rape hoax, and for supporting the false accuser Crystal Magnum in the Duke rape hoax. Surely some people should choose to be "offended" by this. However, it is possible that Sharpton's show lacks any substantial sponsors or enough listeners for this to work. Too bad. Perhaps instead all the cable journalists who so frequently include him as a guest should take a stand for free speech and ban him from their airwaves.

Very sad that people on the right and left agree to keep chopping the heads of those who "offend" them, and the masses in the middle don't mind.

Imus Fired, Free Speach in Free Fall

Way to go, Al Sharpton. Let's see if MSNBC replaces his show with one in which the host advances so many of your views such as impeaching Bush and blaming Katrina on "racism", or if now zero talk hosts advance those views. And let's see if now the mechanisms are in place to eventually get you canned from your broadcasting job for "insulting" some group of people.

Barack Obama now advocates firing Imus because he'd fire any of his staff for making those remarks. Shall we now have fired all TV and radio hosts who say things that would result in Obama firing them from his senatorial or election staffs? Is that the standard we now want to govern our TV and radio shows? Say nothing on TV or radio that would get a politician's staff member fired.

RIP morning TV's only intelligent discourse, all because it included barroom humor offensive to polite company and sensitive ears. Now with Imus gone, see if you can tell any difference among the other shows as you flip around; see if you can find anybody pushing any boundaries, asking tough questions of important political figures, and probing and nakedly criticizing those in power.

"Enough N***s for Million Tarzan Movies"?

That's what a writer for blacknewsweekly.com says in a commentary on the Imus and Duke stories. Shall we try to have her banned from that website, or shut down that website?

Duke Rape Hoax Charges Dropped

New state prosecutor says that not only is there insufficient evidence to go forward with a case, but that the evidence convinces him that no assault took place. Yes, Nadir, a prosecutor can indeed conclude that an accused person is actually innocent, though such a finding holds no legal meaning as far as I can tell. It is quite remarkable for a prosecutor to make such an assertion, and certainly opens the door for a criminal charge of false police report against the accuser, Crystal Magnum. By definition, the state prosecute here believes that she did file a false police report.

That raises the question: does he believe that enough evidence exists to successfully prosecute such a charge? Prosecutors are not duty-bound to pursue every case where they believe a crime has occurred and a culprit identified, but rather only in those cases where they believe that enough evidence exists to convince a judge or a jury "beyond a reasonable doubt" that the identified person is "guilty" of the identified crime.

Devastating official statement by State AG, using the word "innocent." Very bad news for disgraced prosecutor Mike Nifong, certain faculty of Duke, the institution of Duke University, and the false accuser Crystal Magnum; very good news for anybody interested in minimizing the numbers of innocent people prosecuted.

Here's an accurate account of what happened, published by Newsweek in the wake of the dropped charges. Why didn't Newsweek publish this earlier? We see here that:
- The strippers started the racial slurs, but of course the only racial slurs that count are those committed by honkies against blacks, no matter the context.
- In the dispute over money that started the entire episode, one Dukesborro Boy slipped the girls an extra $100 under the bathroom door to get them to leave, and another one of the guys snuck the accuser's money out of her purse. So the boys were fighting amongst themselves, some demanding a refund, others just wanting the girls to leave.
- The boys had requested cracker girls, but didn't care that they received a black girl and one that they assumed was "hispanic", but was in fact black. Some have insisted that the guys requested black girls, and that this indicated an intention to rape.

Prosecutor drops charges in Duke case

Well, I guess that's that. Let the lawsuits begin! And justifiably so. I hope that piece of human excrement Nifong gets sued by those Duke kids and their families for every penny he's worth and then some. He deserves jail-time, not just disbarment.

Nappy Heads For Imus

I predict a swell of support for Imus from black folks. Here Earl Ofari Hutchinson talks what I consider to be good sense. I just got a phone call from a nappy-headed female (at least she was when I left her this morning) incensed by all the rage against Imus, whom she watches every morning; I sure hope that she and Nadir will cross swords on this topic in my presence, while I sit back and enjoy a nice stout.

I also hope some national commentator will recognize that Imus also called the other black team "cute"; why doesn't this constitute a blanket endorsement of the physical appearance of all black women?

Camille Paglia: Real inconvenient truths

The cracks are forming in the Global Warming monolith, which accounts for the increasing hysterics from its purveyors. They're in panic mode. With every contrarian scientist who comes out against this stupidity, and with every notable personality - Ms. Paglia for instance - that speaks out and questions it the more apocalyptic their predictions get. The lemmings who have bought into GW like a religion are now feeling forced to defend the theory at all costs. Now we even have diehard leftists like Nadir starting to question the Global Theory theory.

From Ms. Paglia's article:

"I voted for Ralph Nader for president in the 2000 election because I feel that the United States needs a strong Green Party. However, when I tried to watch Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" on cable TV recently, I wasn't able to get past the first 10 minutes. I was snorting with disgust at its manipulations and distortions and laughing at Gore's lugubrious sentimentality, which was painfully revelatory of his indecisive, self-thwarting character. When Gore told a congressional hearing last month that there is a universal consensus among scientists about global warming -- which is blatantly untrue -- he forfeited his own credibility.

Environmentalism is a noble cause. It is damaged by propaganda and half-truths. Every industrialized society needs heightened consciousness about its past, present and future effects on the biosphere. Though I am a libertarian, I am a strong supporter of vigilant scrutiny and regulation of industry by local, state and federal agencies. But there must be a balance with the equally vital need for economic development, especially in the Third World."

Yep, the cracks are showing. But expect the hysteria to get worse before it gets better. This thing has taken on a life it's own. It's like a runaway train and runaway trains are awfully hard to stop.

Celebrating Hitler's Birthday in the Hood

The American National Socialist Workers Party, (not to be confused with Paul Hue's and my neighbors in the Westland, Michigan based American Nazi Party) are trying to stir up racial hatred in Cincinnati.

The group wants to celebrate Hitler's birthday by marching through the Queen City's Over-The-Rhine community - ground zero for Cincinnati's 2001 rebellion which was sparked after Cincy police killed over a dozen Black men in five years.

Recognizing the provocative and potentially violent nature of the Nazi request, the city wants to find a legal way to move the march.

The police department initially granted the permit to march through predominantly black Over-the-Rhine, but City Manager Milton Dohoney Jr. on Friday revoked it and said the group would get a new permit only if organizers agreed to a new route – just three blocks along Central Parkway on the edge of downtown.

Council members have been researching the possibility of using the “fighting words” exception to the First Amendment. The Constitution protects freedom of speech, but the U.S. Supreme Court has held as long ago as 1942 that some speech can be regulated. The court, in a 1942 case from New Hampshire, defined those unprotected words as those which “by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace.”

That's right. Cincinnati's police department, well known for their love of Black people, granted the first permit. According to the Nazis, the ACLU may sue the city for revoking that license. The city also wants to send the Nazis a bill for the additional police needed to protect the white supremacist hatemongers.

If the march, scheduled for April 20, does happen and police are needed, she said, the group should be billed. There’s precedent here for that – in 2000, the city billed the Ku Klux Klan more than $10,000 for the time spent by police officers in monitoring a cross the group erected on Fountain Square. The KKK, former councilwoman Alica Reece said, didn't pay the bill and “never came back.”

Paul Hue will shout from the rooftops that these friends of his neighbors have a right to march through public streets and say anything hateful that they want to in front of Black people's homes.

(Of course, the Nazis don't march down Paul's street in a town where they would find willing supporters. Where's the fun in that?)

Paul will also claim that if Black people react to the Nazis' demonstration of hate with violence, then it is the Black people who are "uncivilized".

In Paul's world, the racist act of provoking a violent reaction is "civilized" and should be protected because though sticks and stones may break your bones, namecalling and defiant marches by organized paramilitary terrorist groups in front of your home will never hurt you.

P.S. Like Paul's non-racist hero Don Imus, the Nazis are against the war in Iraq. And they want to stop the spread of AIDS. Certainly their racism should be excused if they agree with Blacks on these issues, right Paul?

Not a Nappy Head in the Bunch

The Rutgers Women’s Basketball team responded with class and poise to racist comments from Don Imus’s “Imus in the Morning” show at a press conference on Tuesday.

The radio/television host and his producer, Bernard McGuirk, referred to the Big East champions as “nappy-headed hoes” and “jiggaboos” last week after their loss to Tennessee in the NCAA Women’s National Championship game. Imus will serve a two-week suspension beginning on Monday, April 16.

Rutgers team members refused to comment on the severity of the punishment or on whether they thought it was just. The university used the opportunity to highlight the accomplishments of the group this season and to focus on their intellectual prowess. Rutgers has tough academic standards, and according to Coach C. Vivian Stringer

“These young ladies before you are valedictorians, future doctors, musical prodigies… these young ladies are the best this nation has to offer and we are so very fortunate to have them at Rutgers. They are young ladies of class, distinction. They are articulate. They are gifted.”

Imus Racism Controversy

I love the Imus show. I watch it every morning. But I usually turn the channel during the comedy bits. The jokes in question -- calling the girls from a college basketball team some "nappy headed hos" -- I find mildly funny. Two black folks that I discussed this with yesterday (Nicole) and this morning (Andrew) found Imus' joke funny, and both said: "That sounds like what most black folks would have to say about that team".

What I find disgraceful is the conduct of the people demanding that Imus get fired. Imus (and when I say Imus, I mean him and the other guys on his show) didn't say that all black women are hideously unattractive, just that one group of girls. What triggered Imus' comments was that these girls have lots of visible tattoos, which I believe are indeed disgusting. I have spent nearly all of my social life with regular black guys, and I am certain that a very sizable portion of them had some similar comments for those girls, and "nappy-headed" would not have been one of the typical terms, but rather something even worse. Also, Imus commented on how "cute" the other team was, which was a team just as dominated by black players as was the insulted team.

When Imus had the guts to got to Al Sharpton's radio show and sit there for two hours taking a full-frontal assault, Sharpton brought out his own overweight, unattractive daughter and paraded her in front of the cameras to declare that when Imus insulted that one group of black girls, that he insulted all black girls, even Al's unattractive daughter. That is illogical nonsense. Imus in this incident called another group of black girls (ones with no obvious displays of tattoos!) "cute"; why doesn't that assessment apply to all black girls, including Al's chubby daughter? And by the way, Al's daughter isn't unattractive because she "fails to meet European standards of beauty". She's chubby, for one thing, and let's just leave it at that.

In addition, Imus regularly insults the appearance of many honkey women, including Ann Coulter, whom I can guarantee got even worse than these basketball girls, and yes, he has called her a ho... and even a skank! He also called his own honkey coworker Contessa Brewer a "fatass skank," and Hillary Clinton a fatass lesbo. No calls for his firing in any of those cases. Does that mean that Imus believes this of all cracker women? Imus even regularly refers to his own wife as a ho, and his show mates regularly claim that she cheats on him with various people.

Listening to popular black music, as well as popular morning FM black radio music shows every day, I cannot say that anything that Imus said in this incident is any worse than what I hear from those other sources, all without any significant fallout.

Then there are the fierce political positions that Imus takes, which usually coincide with those of the people now trying so hard to get him fired:
1. He hates Bush, and daily skewers the war in Iraq.
2. He led crusades to increase the veteran death benefit from about $10k to half a mil, and to improve disabled benefits, including the conditions at Walter Reed. In all these cases he held Bush and Cheney personally responsible. I do not think it could be possible to skewer and insult Bush and Cheney any worse than Imus does.
4. He advocated Harold Ford, Jr for a senate run for the past several years, and is perhaps singularly responsible for Ford's senate campaign, and for Ford becoming a national figure.
5. Imus loudly and regularly insisted that Bush's Katrina mishandling resulted from "racism".
6. Imus lambasted the anti-Ford ads featuring the white girl asking Ford to call him as "racist", heavily promoted Ford's senate bid, and denounced Ford's loss as a result of white racism.

Also:
- Imus regularly gives national radio and TV time to black musicians who otherwise get zero radio play, even from black radio and TV shows. This includes the Blind Boys of Alabama, which is all I can remember off the top of my head.]
- Imus also regularly publicized famous black Tennessee pastor Bishop Paterson, whom Imus credits with saving him from drug and alcohol addiction. Every day of Imus' broadcast he would play at least one Paterson excerpt as commercial segues, always praising Paterson's ministry.
- Has led, on his show, in the midst of all his "insults", very effective campaigns to replace toxic, chemical cleaning products with all-natural alternatives, and to get congressional inquiries into the toxic aspects of immunization.

I wonder how many honkies know, and have a favorable impression, of these black folks only due to Imus' advocacy. All this will be lost simply because some people just cannot permit other people to say certain things in public.

Imus' insult humor really does touch absolutely everything, including himself, his family, and the other members of his cast. In a nation composing 12% blacks, I doubt that as much as 12% of his insults go to black folks. He regularly says the worst imaginable things about fans of car racing, golf, hockey, about any white celebrities you can think of. If you haven't heard his almost daily imitation of NYC's Catholic Cardinal, including all-out mockery of the most sacred catholic rituals, leading a prayer, you are really in for something. The performer of this shtick puts a FedEx envelope on his head, and directs each sermon at Imus, regularly calling him all sorts of sexual deviants.

I do find it distasteful for a powerful person like Imus to ridicule people like the armature young women on that basketball team for things that they can't help, though choosing to disgrace your body with tattoos I call on all humans to help make that a source of disparagement. And I find Imus to be racist and sexist in the following way: He employs zero non-honkey males, and doesn't book enough non-honkey males. At least two of his cast members offer nothing of any interest, so there is no reason to believe that they represent the best-possible talent. He should at least replace the personality-less sports guy with somebody other than a honkey boy. He has promised to have a black person join his cast. If Rev. Al has his way and gets Imus fired, what are the chances that the replacement show will get the Rev. Al-endorsed issues publicized and pushed that Imus has, and a black cast member for a morning humor-politics show as Imus has promised?

The only solution I can imagine: people who are incensed by this need to toughen up and increase their toleration.

Will Iraqis Finally Unite - Against the Americans?

The AP reports that Iraqi Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has ordered his militiamen to stop attacking Iraqis and to increase their efforts to get rid of American soldiers. In Najaf thousands of Iraqis protested on the fourth anniversary of the US invasion of Baghdad.

US government officials keep saying they are waiting for the Iraqis to stand up and take care of their own country. Will they finally do so by turning on the US?

This is why a US surge is such a BAD idea...

Sometimes It Snows in April

Sometimes it snows in April. That's what Prince said anyway.

And that's what happened this Easter weekend. After most of the US experienced a warmer than normal December, a colder than normal February, an early spring in late March, we now get a cold snap in the beginning of April.

Akanke and I thought we'd escape the cold in Michigan with a weekend trip to my hometown of Elizabethton, Tennessee. When we got here there was snow on the ground.

Snow in Texas. Sleet in Louisiana. What's going on? What about global warming, Mr. Gore?

First Iraqi Petro Contracts Go To...

...not US oil firms! If they had, of course Tom and Nadir would proclaim this as evidence of what they know to be true: that Bush invaded Iraq in order to steal its oil. But since the first round of Iraqi petro contracts have instead gone to non-US firms, this cannot contradict Tom & Nadir's 100% certain conclusion. It just means that the oil theft will come later. Just wait! (Not that US oil contracts represents theft of oil!)

Cheney: every word a lie?

Speaking her nemesis Lillian Hellman, the great Mary McCarthy once said that "Every word she writes is a lie, including and and the."

Might the same be true of the utterances of our vice president? The Washington Post reports (linked in headline) that well before the war, the U.S. intelligence community had debunked talk of a Saddam Hussein/Al Qaeda link. (Saddam was a staunch secularist, despised by fanatically religious Al Qaeda higher-ups.) But Cheney is still trying to make hay out of the discredited link. You have to wonder if this fellow won't someday do time.

Here's the Post:

Captured Iraqi documents and intelligence interrogations of Saddam Hussein and two former aides "all confirmed" that Hussein's regime was not directly cooperating with al-Qaeda before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, according to a declassified Defense Department report released yesterday.

The declassified version of the report, by acting Inspector General Thomas F. Gimble, also contains new details about the intelligence community's prewar consensus that the Iraqi government and al-Qaeda figures had only limited contacts, and about its judgments that reports of deeper links were based on dubious or unconfirmed information. The report had been released in summary form in February.

A report criticizes an intelligence assessment by the office of Douglas Feith, then a Pentagon official, before the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The report's release came on the same day that Vice President Cheney, appearing on Rush Limbaugh's radio program, repeated his allegation that al-Qaeda was operating inside Iraq "before we ever launched" the war, under the direction of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the terrorist killed last June.

Student Hair Policy Fiasco

I don't know which is more stupid: a school rigidly enforcing a haircut code on an excellent student, or the student and his parents refusing to conform. The result: 15 lost days of school for the boy, and untold time and money devoted by the school in getting dragged to court.

If it was my school and my decision, I would not have imposed this rule; I would not want my teachers spending their time enforcing hair rules on kids who are behaving themselves and earning high marks. If it was my kid, I would have made her conform to the rule; I would not want her wasting her teachers time with challenges to their rules.

Phony Uranium Niger - Iraq Letter

This article explains the origins of the phony letter from the Niger dictator promising Iraq's dictator annual shipments of Uranium. Bush agents didn't create the letter; rather, some huckster trying to sell intelligence did.

But the article inexplicably assumes that falsifying this letter constitutes falsifying the contention that Hussein sought to obtain uranium from Niger, and that Niger's tyrannical government complied with this effort. It appears, though, that other evidence supports that contention, and no evidence clearly falsifies it. Believing that Hussein was complying with this portion of the 1991 cease fire agreements requires believing that as his sworn and feared enemy, "the Persians", sought a nuclear arsenal, he did not.

Exodus, Jewish Slavery in Egypt a Myth

“Really, it’s a myth,” Dr. Hawass said of the story of the Exodus, as he stood at the foot of a wall built during what is called the New Kingdom.
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A very interesting contention. I'm aware of this assertion, that Egyptians did not employ slaves to build the pyramids, that Jews or Hebrews never lived in Egypt, that a Jewish/Hebrew Exodus from Egypt never happened. I can certainly understand why a group of people during the times that this story emerged would want to link themselves with the famous land of pyramids. A question that remains unanswered by me, and apparently unasked by most: how is it that so many white folks are "Jewish" when that religion started among non-white Arabs, and is essentially a racist religion, one confined to lineage?

Daylight Savings Time Bust

This is one of the reasons that I became a libertarian, and why I think that "the government" cannot create the best-possible healthcare or education systems: the busybodies in DC decided for all of us that an early start to Daylight Savings Time would save us all on energy costs, and that they should therefore force us to adopt their brilliant scheme. This article reports that the extra two weeks produced no cost savings.

The article does mention all the hassle we had to go through to set our digital devices to the new time shift... and then the hassle when those same devices all smartly set themselves again when the original (and equally stupid, for the same reasons) daylight savings time date appeared.

These are the same people who think that they can stop Americans from consuming recreational drugs, who approved an Alaskan "bridge to nowhere" even as they failed to build sound levees in New Orleans, and who believe it makes sense to spend tax dollars on massive farm subsidies. Yet Tom and Nadir believe these people can construct a healthcare system for us; these same people who've played such a role in our deteriorating US school system.

LAPD's blinding new flashlights too light to beat suspects

"It's kind of sad when one of the main features being touted by the LAPD about its new flashlights is their inability to provide suspects with a good beating, but after that very public 2004 incident in which a motorist took 11 blows from a heavy 'torch,' we guess the new model's light weight is indeed an important selling point."

Chicago Cop Beating of Innocent Citizen

An off-duty Chicago cop savagely beat a chick bartender who refused to serve him any more booze because he seemed too drunk, seemed unable to pay his tab, and was fighting with other patrons. The cop preceded to beat her savagely, in an action that the bar's security cameras caught. Uniformed officers arrived, but -- learning that he was a cop -- declined to arrest him. Enough publicity followed that they did later arrest him, but only charged him with a minor offense, and afforded him special treatment in avoiding a media "perp walk."

Why do you suppose that you have never heard of this situation? Where's the Revs. Al & Jesse?

Another article
Youtube video

Black Durham Residents Turn on Nifong, Magnum

"The African-American community of Durham wants fairness, and the view is that if Mr. Nifong was not fair in this case, what's he going to be like in other cases?" said Floyd McKissick, a prominent African-American lawyer who is chairman of the Durham Democratic Party and a Duke Law School graduate.
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I'm glad that these people aren't taking Nadir's position: "I wasn't there, so I will form no opinion."

McCain vs. CNN's Ware: Is Baghdad Safer?

BLIZTER: Sen. John McCain, a Republican presidential candidate speaking here in The Situation Room within the past hour. Let’s go live to Baghdad right now. CNN’s Michael Ware is standing by.

Michael, you’ve been there for four years, you’re walking around Baghdad on a daily basis. Has there been this improvement that Sen. McCain is speaking about?

WARE: Well, I’d certainly like to bring Sen. McCain up to speed if he ever gives me the opportunity. And if I have any difficulty hearing you right now Wolf, that’s because of the helicopters circling overhead and the gun battle that is blazing away just a few blocks down the road.

Is Baghdad any safer? Sectarian violence, one particular type of violence, is down. But none of the American generals here on the ground have anything like Sen. McCain’s confidence.

I mean, Sen. McCain’s credibility now on Iraq, which has been so solid to this point, is now being left out hanging to dry. To suggest that there’s any neighborhood in this city where an American can walk freely is beyond ludicrous. I’d love Sen. McCain to tell me where that neighborhood is and he and I can go for a stroll.

Has Iraq Broken the US Army?

With fewer enlistments, lowered standards and no relief in sight, the notion of escalating the US Army's occupation force in Iraq is at best unwise - at worst it is sending our young men and women on a suicide mission.

From the Slate article linked above:

Of all the signs of breakage, perhaps the most acute is the decision to redeploy Army brigades to Iraq sooner and for longer tours in combat. The entire active-duty force is either deployed, set to deploy soon, or within one year of coming home from Iraq or Afghanistan.

Short of conscripting millions of Americans to rapidly build a larger military, contracting out for a larger force, or mobilizing the entire reserves at once, military leaders say they have no other choice—to surge in Iraq, they must reduce the time soldiers spend at home between deployments and lengthen their combat tours from 12 to 16 or 18 months. But sending troops to Iraq after such a short time to reorganize, refit, and retrain is a recipe for disaster.

About half of Bush's occupation escalation force is in place, but because of the security crackdown inside Baghdad, areas outside the city are becoming more violent. Who will secure these outlying areas once they become unmanagable?

In reality the best answer seems to be for Congress to force Bush's hand by cutting off war funding, but the punk Democrats won't even stand behind their own timetables for withdrawl. As distasteful as retreat seems to be, the suicidal deployment of 30,000 exhausted or undertrained men and women will be much harder to stomach for the American people. Admitting that this invasion was ill-conceived, ill-managed and illegal is the best bet.

Tough guy war hero John McCain can't even walk through an Iraqi market without an armed brigade to protect him. I have family and friends in the military, and I have no desire to see them put in harm's way for an imperial excursion that is only getting worse by the day.

Stop the madness NOW!!!