IT'S IN THE KORAN...

I hate to post a lot of heavy stuff, but I'm gonna post a bunch of heavy but important stuff in this one post. The MSM doesn't want to discuss these things, but some things have to be faced up to for what they really are.

Here are some links about Radical Islam from Tammy Bruce:

The Religion of Ghouls
Look at what these sadistic Islamist freaks are putting Jill Carroll through. They have released their latest scream-fest featuring this young woman. Anyone who still questions the moral justification of the WoT and the need to completely vanquish these modern day monsters should offer themselves up to take Carroll's place.

Any takers? Barbra Streisand? Joel Stein? Christianne Amanpour? Cindy Sheehan? Yoo hoo...

You can read more HERE.

Song for the Ages
The indubitable Charles at Little Green Footballs brings to our attention a guaranteed addition to the Islamic Hit Parade: "It's in the Koran."

(UPDATE 02-17-06 This song has been removed from several places on the internet, due to complaints. I have updated the link to connect to a page at Little Green Footballs, where it is now being posted, along with an explaination by the author about why he wrote it.) The tune is amusing, but the song is disturbing, because the lyrics are, well ... it's in the Koran.


Gaza Not Enough; Hamas Demands Return of Seville
I couldn't believe this, even in this day and age when we should believe just about everything, but here it is. Courtesy of Charles at Little Green Footballs, Islamist terrorists now want the Spanish city of Seville returned to Islam...

I wonder if Spain is suprised? What did they expect when they decided to appease the train bombers? Tammy has a nice quote from Winston Churchill about appeasers:

"An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile - hoping it will eat him last."

Why the Hamas Victory is a Good Thing
Jeff Jacoby at the Boston Globe does an excellent job putting the Hamas election sweep into perspective, and why it should be viewed as a very good thing indeed...

Iraqis Taking Care of Business
Iraq the Model has great news of Iraqi tribes rejecting the bloody madness of al-Qaida as they continue to take their nation back. This is one more indication that the depraved al-Qaida message is repudiated by decent Muslims everywhere...


Tick, Tick, Tick Goes Iran
As the Mad Mullahs and the Terrorist President of Iran continue to enrich uranium, give the finger to the world, as they plan to return Earth to the year 600, the EU Three--Britain, France and Germany, have agreed to start "negotiating" again with these genocidal fanatics. What does this accomplish? The same thing "negotiating" with Hitler accomplished--it gives the madman more time to build and plan for world war...

You can read all of Tammy Bruce's posts about Radical Islam HERE.



Bill O’Reilly recently hosted Tammy Bruce on The Factor regarding the recent outrageous comments LA Times columnist Joel Stein made about not supporting our troops. The website Blogforbooks.com has about 4 minutes of video tape available on line.

Another link about Islam that is worth visiting is High School Conservative Clubs of America. The story of how this website was founded is in itself interesting. At the bottom of the front page is a warning, with links to all the terrorist videos that the MSN says are too terrible for you to see.

Yes, they are indeed terrible. They are also a big reason WHY we are fighting this war on terror. Since the MSN in only interested in reporting on why we shouldn't be fighting, they don't want to report on the whole picture. I find it extreamly ironic, that to find the whole story, we have to turn to websites run by high school kids, because our MSN is run by a bunch of chicken-sh*ts.

Ok, that was nasty, but I feel a little better now ;)

For REAL tax reform,consider The Fair Tax

I've wanted to do a post about the Fair Tax for a while now. Neil Boortz made a post today about how our tax code is strangling our nation, slowly collapsing our economy with an onerous tax system that punishes the very activities our economy needs.

Neal explains:

...Look at the list of issues. Trade deficit. Disappearing manufacturing jobs. Low savings rate. Tax reform is the answer to all of these problems. Sure, I favor the FairTax. It is the only tax reform proposal I've seen that addresses so many of the issues we are dealing with. Our current tax code is one that was designed by and for the benefit of politicians and lobbyists. It punishes achievement and rewards laziness. It punishes the voting blocks unimportant to politicians, and rewards voting blocks who keep them in office. Above all, the tax codes gives thousands of high-income Beltway lobbyists their fertile territory for exchanging campaign donations for changes in the tax code to benefit their clients.

The president appointed a tax reform commission. I don't know how much money they spent, but whatever it was, it was a waste. This failure of a commission merely recommended a repeat of 1986. Get rid of more deductions, set up a few flat tax rates, and let 'er rip. That's the 1986 tax reform act all over again, and as soon as it was passed the lobbyists went to work. That bill has now been amended and changed around 10,000 times, and nothing is better.

OK, I know I've been hammering this, but about 11 days ago there was a story in the Washington Post about the lack of Republican agenda. The story said that Republican congressmen were hearing from their constituents on gas prices and on the FairTax. One congressman, Zach Wamp from Tennessee, even "lamented" the fact that people are more interested in the FairTax than they are in changing Washington. Can it truly be that these politicians don't understand that the FairTax is all about changing Washington? Of course they realize it, that's why they're not on board! They know that passage of the FairTax would constitute a massive transfer of power from the inside to outside of the Beltway. These politicians want you to be taxed when they decide you should be taxed, not when you chose to be taxed. They want the control, and the FairTax takes that control away. They want to tell you how much you can save tax-free, not leave that decision up to you...

If we don't want to end up like a weak and stagnant socialist europe, we need to alter our course now. The Fair Tax is well worth considering.

You can read more of Neal's post HERE.

I've been tagged!...

By Patty at This That and Frog Hair.
So on to answer the questions:

Four Jobs that I have had:
1) Bank Teller.
2) Security Officer (Sgt.)
3) Admin. Asst. (Law Offices)
4) Restaurant Owner.

Four Movies I could watch over and over:
1) It's a Wonderful Life
2) Night of the Iguana
3) The 5th Element
4) Girls will be Girls

Four places in the U.S. I like:
1) Talcot Mountain, CT.
2) Ilseboro, Maine.
3) Fort Funston, San Francisco.
4) Misquamicut Beach, RI.

Favorite places I have vacationed:
1) Miami, Florida
2) Amanzimtoti, South Africa
3) Rome, Italy
4) Yosmite, California

Four t.v. shows:
1) The OLD "Law & Order"... not the current one.
2) "Mystery" on PBS
3) "Medium"
4) Gosh... There isn't much on TV anymore.

Four favorite dishes:
1) Pasta with Pesto
2) Lasagna
3) Prawns Alfredo
4) Surf'n Turf

Four places I would rather be:
1) Fortunately, I'm already THERE.
2) Would be nice to visit the beaches more.
3) Maybe see more water falls.
4) Visit more view spots locally.

Four sites I visit daily:
1) Nealz Nuze at Boortz.com
2) TammyBruce.com
3) Bornagain Redneck.
4) News Now - Linux.


Taggin’ 4 more huh. Well I am gonna’ Tag:

Suzie at Assorted Babble.
jgf at It's a Dog's Life
Pat at Born Again Redneck
Texas Fred at And THAT is MY Opinion...

Republicans, Reform Thyselves...

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich says it's time for the GOP to reform itself in the area of lobbying and corruption, before the public does it for them.

Senators John McCain and Tom Coburn are forcing the Senate to make a specific vote on the pork projects that were added to a large spending bill. 
Robert Novak writes that this could mean pork is in trouble.


Republicans need to realize that size does matter, according to Star Parker.  Of course, she's talking about the size of government.  But under George W. Bush, that government has increased in size faster than under any other president.

Hat tip to Nealz Nuze for the links.

Monster Man-Killer Grizzly Bear

My dad forwarded this to me in my email:


The downloaded pictures are of a man who works for the US Forest Service in Alaska and his trophy bear.

He was out deer hunting last week when a large grizzly bear charged him from about 50 yards away. The guy emptied his 7mm Magnum semi-automatic rifle into the bear and it dropped a few feet from him. The big bear was still alive so he reloaded and shot it several times in the head.

The bear was just over one thousand six hundred pounds. It stood 12' 6" high at the shoulder, 14' to the top of his head. It's the largest grizzly bear ever recorded in the world.

Of course, the Alaska Fish and Wildlife Commission did not let him keep it as a trophy, but the bear will be stuffed and mounted, and placed on display at the Anchorage airport to remind tourists of the risks involved when in the wild.

Based on the contents of the bears stomach, the Fish and Wildlife Commission established the bear had killed at least two humans in the past 72 hours including a missing hiker.

The US Forest Service, backtracking from where the bear had originated, found the hiker's 38-caliber pistol emptied. Not far from the pistol was the remains of the hiker. The other body has not been found. Although the hiker fired six shots and managed to hit the grizzly with four shots (the Service ultimately found four 38 caliber slugs along with twelve 7mm slugs inside the bear's dead body), it only wounded the bear and probably angered it immensely.

The bear killed the hiker an estimated two days prior to the bear's own death by the gun of the Forest Service worker.

Think about this :

If you are an average size man; You would be level with the bear's navel when he stood upright. The bear would look you in the eye when it walked on all fours! To give additional perspective, consider that this particular bear, standing on its hind legs, could walk up to an average single story house and look over the roof, or walk up to a two story house and look in the bedroom windows.

... Yikes!

UPDATE: Man-killer... NOT

The photos are real, but the story was altered. Here is an analysis from urbanlegends.about.com:

This email tale, circulating constantly in one form or another since November 2001, seems to grow taller year by year. Ironically, the first two snapshots — the ones showing a hunter posing beside the carcass of an incredibly large Alaskan brown bear — are authentic. We know where and when they were taken, and by whom. The origin of the third photo purporting to show the remains of the behemoth's final victim is unknown. It was appended to the already-circulating email in late 2002.

Not quite a world record

In real life, the big grizzly in the first two photographs measured 10' 6" from nose to tail and weighed an estimated 1,000 to 1,200 pounds — unusually large for the vicinity in which it was found, says the USDA Forest Service, but not quite a world record, nor even a record for Alaska. It was killed on October 14, 2001 by U.S. Air Force Airman Theodore Winnen on Hinchinbrook Island, Prince William Sound. The photos were taken by his hunting partner, Staff Sgt. James Urban. Both were stationed at Eielson Air Force Base near Fairbanks at the time.

Though the bear was within 10 yards of the hunters' position and moving towards them when he fired the first shot, Winnen says, it did not charge them, contrary to what the email claims. "I don't know if the wind was in our favor or what," he told the Anchorage Daily News. "We were dressed in camouflage. He might not have seen us." Winnen's weapon was a 338-caliber Winchester Magnum, not a 7mm semi-automatic as alleged. The first bullet pierced the bear's brain but left it standing; five more in the chest brought it down.

No man-eater

Was the bear a man-eater, as claimed in the email? No, says the Forest Service, there is no evidence of that. When asked by the Anchorage Daily News to comment on the horrific final image of what appears to be a partially-eaten human victim, Forest Service spokesman Ray Massey admitted he hadn't even looked at it. "I didn't want to see a photo of the body," he said. "I know it's bogus."

Here's another photograph of the hunters posing with the dead bear:


Notice how much smaller the bear's head seems. In the photo at the top, the head is simply in the forground closer to the camera, which makes it look so big. I would guess that is probably what inspired someone to exagerate the story.

I got this last photo at Snopes.com:

http://www.snopes.com/photos/animals/bearhunt.asp#photo

Snopes also gives a detailed account by the hunters. I'm not making the URL a hyperlink, because it also has a photo of a naked dead body that has been severly chewed by animals, and I didn't want to link to it directly. It's not related to the story but was included in some emails. The analysis above called the photo "bogus", but that's only in relation to the bear story, it IS a real body chewed on by animals. It's really grusome, so if you go there and chuck up your cookies, well, you were warned!

Sunday Funnies 01/29/06

In an earlier post about Ted Kennedy publishing a book for children, there was a link to Fark.com, where there were multiple entries by readers of book covers for books the senator might consider doing in the future. I will be sharing some of my favorites from there in future Sunday Funnies posts. Pictures like this one:




Hat tip to the forum thread at FARK.COM.

*************

It was entertainment night at the senior center and the Amazing Claude was topping the bill. People came from miles around to see the famed hypnotist do his stuff. As Claude went to the front of the meeting room, he announced, "Unlike most hypnotists who invite two or three people up here to be put into a trance, I intend to hypnotize each and every member of the audience.

The excitement was almost electric as Claude withdrew a beautiful antique pocket watch from his coat. "I want you each to keep your eye on this antique watch. It's a very special watch. It's been in my family for six generations."

He began to swing the watch gently back and forth while quietly chanting, "Watch the watch, watch the watch, watch the watch..." The crowd became mesmerized as the watch swayed back and forth, light gleaming off its polished surface. Hundreds of pairs of eyes followed the swaying watch, until, suddenly...... it slipped from the hypnotist's fingers and fell to the floor, breaking into a hundred pieces.

"SHIT!" said the Hypnotist...

It took three weeks to clean up the senior center....


*************


Everyone Needs a Cat

You don't have to own a cat to appreciate this one...

A couple was dressed and ready to go out for the evening. They turned on a night light, turned on the phone answering machine, covered their pet parakeet and put the cat in the backyard.

They phoned the local cab company and requested a taxi. The taxi arrived and the couple opened the front door to leave their house. The cat they had put out into the yard scoots back into the house.

They don't want the cat shut in the house because she always tries to eat the bird. The wife goes out to the taxi while the husband goes inside to get the cat. The cat runs upstairs, the man in hot pursuit.

Waiting in the cab, the wife doesn't want the driver to know the house will be empty for the night. She explains to the driver that her husband will be out soon. "He's just going upstairs to say good-bye to my mother."

A few minutes later, the husband gets into the cab."Sorry I took so long", he says as they drive away. "Stupid bitch was hiding under the bed. Had to poke her with a coat hanger to get her to come out! She tried to take off so I grabbed her by the neck. Then I had to wrap her in a blanket to keep her from scratching me. But it worked. I hauled her fat ass downstairs and threw her out into the backyard!"

The cabdriver hit a parked car...


*************
>
>
> HAVE YOU EVER BEEN GUILTY OF LOOKING AT OTHERS YOUR OWN AGE AND THINKING,
> "SURELY I CAN'T LOOK THAT OLD?" WELL... YOU'LL LOVE THIS ONE!
>
> I WAS SITTING IN THE WAITING ROOM FOR MY FIRST APPOINTMENT WITH A NEW
> DENTIST. I NOTICED HIS DDS DIPLOMA, WHICH BORE HIS FULL NAME.
>
> SUDDENLY, I REMEMBERED A TALL, HANDSOME, DARK-HAIRED BOY WITH THE SAMENAME
> HAD BEEN IN MY HIGH SCHOOL CLASS SOME 40-ODD YEARS AGO. COULD HE BE THE
> SAME GUY THAT I HAD A SECRET CRUSH ON, WAY BACK THEN??
>
> UPON SEEING HIM, HOWEVER, I QUICKLY DISCARDED ANY SUCH THOUG HT. THIS
> BALDING, GRAY-HAIRED MAN WITH THE DEEPLY LINED FACE WAS WAY TOO OLD TO
> HAVE
> BEEN MY CLASSMATE. HMMM ...OR COULD HE???
>
> AFTER HE EXAMINED MY TEETH, I ASKED HIM IF HE HAD ATTENDED MORGAN PARK
> HIGH
> SCHOOL.
>
> "YES. YES, I DID. I'M A MUSTANG," HE GLEAMED WITH PRIDE.
>
> "WHEN DID YOU GRADUATE?" I ASKED.
> HE ANSWERED, "IN 1969. WHY DO YOU ASK?"
>
> "YOU WERE IN MY CLASS!" I EXCLAIMED.
>
> HE LOOKED AT ME CLOSELY.
>
> THEN, THAT UGLY, OLD, WRINKLED SON-OF-A-BITCH ASKED, "WHAT DID YOU TEACH?"
>
>
>




Twelve Step Recovery Plan

1) I will have a cup of coffee in the morning and read my PAPER newspaper like I used to, before the Web.

2) I will eat breakfast with a knife and fork and not with one hand typing.

3) I will get dressed before noon.

4) I will make an attempt to clean the house, wash clothes, and plan dinner before even thinking of the Web.

5) I will sit down and write a letter to those unfortunate few friends and family that are Web-deprived.

6) I will call someone on the phone who I cannot contact via the Web.

7) I will read a book...if I still remember how.

8) I will listen to those around me and their needs and stop telling them to turn the TV down so I can hear the music on the Web.

9) I will not be tempted during TV commercials to check for email.

10) I will try and get out of the house at least once a week, if it is necessary or not.

11) I will remember that my bank is not forgiving if I forget to balance my checkbook because I was too busy on the Web.

12) Last, but not least, I will remember that I must go to bed sometime...and the Web will always be there tomorrow!


(I've really gotta listen to that last one...)

Wyo. a Battlegroundin Deadly Force Debate

By BEN NEARY, Associated Press Writer

CHEYENNE, Wyo. - In the "Cowboy State," where guns are present in more than half of all homes, an unlikely battleground is forming in the fight over the appropriate use of firearms.

Flush with victory in its push for state laws allowing concealed handguns, the National Rifle Association is lobbying lawmakers here and in 11 other states to make it easier for people to defend themselves with deadly force.

The NRA, backed by a growing membership of about 4 million, wants legislation specifying that people have no duty to retreat from an attacker before using deadly force. About half of all states have similar rules on the books.

But in Wyoming, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence is taking a stand.

James Brady, the former press secretary to President Reagan who was wounded in an attack on the president, called on Wyoming legislators in a statement last week to oppose the legislation, called it "a sham, a farce, a dangerous solution to a nonexistent problem."

"No one's in jail in Wyoming for acting in legitimate self-defense," Brady said. "The only thing this law might do is keep people out of jail who deserve to be there."

Neither state Rep. Stephen Watt, a Republican sponsor of the Wyoming bill, nor Uinta County Attorney Mike Greer, the president of the Wyoming County and Prosecuting Attorneys Association, could cite a Wyoming case in which someone was prosecuted but would have been spared if a no-retreat law were on the books.

But Watt says that's not the point.

"It's about a right to defend yourself," said Watt, a former policeman. "And that is a right that we all should have, regardless of whether there's been any cases where someone has been prosecuted for using self defense or not. It's something that we should not have to worry about, and this is to give back that right to the citizens of Wyoming."

Twenty-five states have such laws on the books, and the NRA says 38 states now have some provision allowing people to carry concealed handguns, up from just 10 in the mid-1980s.

NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam said the group is now pushing no-retreat bills in Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, South Carolina, South Dakota and Washington, in addition to Wyoming. He said it was eyeing other states as well.

"It is a priority," Arulanandam said. "In states where the statute calls for victims of crime to retreat, we think that that's wrong." ...

Laws that call for victims of crime to retreat... it's amazing to me that it's even come to this, that the rot has gone this far. You can read the whole article HERE.

An interesting related article:

"Nobody Wants to Take Your Guns."

Yeah, right. An excerpt:

Gun rights organizations are often criticized for not "compromising" or not agreeing to "reasonable" gun controls. Gun owners are chided for being paranoid, after all nobody wants to take away their guns.

First, the word compromise in this context is a misnomer. The term "give-back" or surrender is more appropriate because no guarantee against further erosion of gun owners' rights is ever put into law. The anti-control groups never receive concessions in return for any new gun control law.

Gun owners do have legitimate cause for concern. Although a majority of Americans do not want handguns outlawed, a significant minority does. In nation-wide polls taken over the last twenty-five years around 40% are in favor of banning the civilian possession of handguns. Almost 20% are in favor of banning the civilian possession of any kind of firearm. (Source: Kleck, Gary, Targeting Guns: Firearms and Their Control, p 105, 345-46. Walter de Gruyter, Inc., New York 1997) (Civilian handgun possession is outlawed in Washington D.C., Chicago, and in several Chicago suburbs [source].)

It is this significant minority which often makes it difficult for gun rights organizations to put their faith in what may seem like "reasonable solutions". For example, many have suggested firearms be controlled by the same consumer agencies that regulate other products. However the following quotes don't exactly engender trust in such an arrangement: ...

Hamas, the Mussolini Test and Iran

Here are some excerpts from a detailed article
by Richard Baehr:

...Will Hamas now moderate its views given its new role in government? This is not a tough one to answer.

If the role model is Hizbollah, the answer is no. Radical Islamic parties are driven by their God and their holy book, and a Jihadist mindset. This does not really allow for a lot of compromise. Sure they may say some things to make it easier for the international community to keep writing checks (as former President Carter encouraged them to do). Hamas’ leadership is not dumb, even if they are ruthless murderers.

Look to the founding DNA of the organization. Hamas is not on the scene today because it was needed to fill a social service vacuum (even if this may be a part of the reason for their electoral success). Hamas, since its inception, has existed to end the occupation of Palestine. But unlike Yassar Arafat, who tried at times to finesse the meaning of his desire to destroy Israel by calling for an to end to Israel’s occupation of territories captured in the 67 war (and, wink, wink, from the rest of Israel later), Hamas was always more direct. Tel Aviv was occupied. The Galilee was occupied. Haifa was occupied.

Hamas may now indicate a willingness to deal with Israel in an administrative fashion, as some Palestinian mayors who are Hamas already do, to ensure there is electricity, and water, and perhaps more importantly, to get tax revenues refunded. And there is talk of continuing the ceasefire, which helps Hamas in two ways: allowing them to consolidate their power without Israeli retaliation for any new attacks; and also signaling to the West the new leaf Hamas may be turning over that ensures the financial spigot remains open from Europe...

The Mussolini Test

...Hamas, of course, has been a major contributor to that madness and the near total breakdown of authority. But now it needs an accomplishment, like Mussolini’s supposed ability to get the trains running on time. Passing the Mussolini Test is much easier in the absence of armed opposition.

Hamas has a reputation for enforcing discipline (at the point of many guns) in some parts of Gaza. But now they will have to deal with disgruntled Fatah gunmen and officials, who cannot be thrilled to have lost their power base.

A state of nature consisting of powerful tribes and local militias and gunmen is not a state or a state-in-waiting. So Hamas must fear that it will fail the Mussolini test...

Iran

...The most important implication of the Hamas electoral victory may not be in terms of Israeli or Palestinian politics, but with regard to Iran. The recent unrestrained Iranian talk of wiping out Israel and their many years of playing the Europeans for fools with their nuclear program have changed the equation a bit in terms of how the West may choose to deal with their nuclear program. Waiting for the IAEA to recommend that the Security Council consider action against Iran may seem too tame, now that Hamas, another sworn enemy of Israel committed to its destruction, has become its direct neighbor.

I think this confluence of events will free Israel’s hand if it chooses to move militarily against the Iranian nuclear program. There was growing talk of the military option even before Hamas’ victory. But such talk will increase even more now, and if Israel moves against Iran, the reproach from the international community, given the new situation vis-a-vis Hamas, might be a bit more restrained than after the Osirak bombing in 1981, when Israel took out Saddam’s nuclear weapons facility...

You can read the complete article HERE.

Related Link:

Living With Hamas's Victory by Jim Hoagland of the Washington Post.

Hamas Lunatic Motherwins seat in Parliament

Perhaps that is too judgemental a statement; I think it might be unfair to lunatics. Decide for yourself. From FrauBudgie at the blog "Red Hot Cuppa Politics":

Hamas Mother of Murder Wins Seat in Pali Parliament ...

Miriam Farahat has lost three sons to suicide bombings against Israel; yesterday, she was elected to the Palestinian Parliament.

So, what has she promised to do for her constituents? Housing? Jobs? Education? Clinics?

Nope -- she's promised to get the rest of her kids to blow themselves up as well.

See, she didn't exactly "lose" her kids to suicide bombing. She told them to do it...

It's worth reading the whole piece HERE.

How long will it take for the liberals in the west to realise that what we are dealing with in the middle east is a very dangerous mental pathology of suicide/murder, propagated by the irrational religious fanaticism of the suicide murder cult that is Radical Islam? Treating it as a legitimate political movement is to support it, and anyone who supports it as such is also not in their right mind.

And to those who would say "This is why the middle east doesn't need Democracy", I would say, think more deeply, please.

The founding fathers of our own nation realized that pure democracies had a tendecy to self destruct; that they all eventually degenerated into mob rule.

That is why our form of government is not a pure democracy, but a republic, governed by democratically elecected representatives and the Rule of Law. Our laws are there to protect the individual from the tyranny of mob rule.

The middle east has no tradition of democracy, but it can be learned. However, the election of a government of suicide bomber fanatics is hardly a democracy that will last, nor is it an example of the kind of democratic governing we are attempting to cultivate in the middle east. To suggest that it is, is absurd in the extream.

The people in the west who do not support establishing real and lasting democracy in the middle east are often the same ones who have no use for democracy here at home, and think a totalitarian goverment would be fine here too, as long as it was the "politically correct" kind that reflected their views.

A politically correct Suicide Bomber cult isn't likely to create any kind of democracy, but only a totalitarian state. Even Nancy Pelosi and Barbara Boxer aren't doing what this woman does. But insofar as they would support a woman like this in her insanity, I say, shame on them.

Some links from Nealz Nuze,and DesktopLinux.com

From Nealz Nuze:

Lardass beats grandmother with 2x4 for beer money.

People who think that Iraqis had it better under Saddam Hussein than they do now should take note: a video has been released that shows some of Saddam's atrocities. It's not pretty.

LA Times columnist Joel Stein says he doesn't support the troops. At least he's being open and honest, unlike all of the other Democrats on the left who say one thing, but believe another.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is calling the crazy in charge of Iran 'the new Hitler.' Will the world do anything to stop Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?

GM....Ford....and now the New York Times.
Yet another corporate dinosaur in trouble because of an archaic, outmoded business model. That it happens to be a leftist newspaper just makes it all the more ironic.

John Stossel tells us about people getting busted for trying to get their kids into a good public school.  Even people who just want their kids to have a decent education are considered criminals.

Osama Bin Laden made that audiotape and offered a truce....but why? Former New York Mayor Ed Koch takes a look at the possible reasons.

From DesktopLinux.com:

PCLinuxOS gets its own website — PCLinuxOS, a three-year-old LiveCD desktop Linux distribution that originated as a fork of Mandrake, now has its own website. PCLinuxOS.com went live earlier this week. "We now have a home of our own, thanks to the support from donations received last month," distro founder "Texstar" wrote...

I've been experimenting with PCLinuxOS for the past year and a half. This Texas Linux distro on a live CD is very impressive; it's optimised for desktop use, and you can try it out by running it from the CD without installing it on your hard drive. If you decide you like it, you have the option of installing it to the hard drive.

You can download it for free. Technically it's still beta software but it's actually very close to it's offical release and is presently very functional; many folks are already using it full time as their primary OS. If you are at all interested in trying out Linux, without having to install it to your hard drive, this is one I would really recommend. It's a very friendly Linux for a first time user.

Choosing a desktop Linux distro — Ever since Linux came to the fore in the late '90s, people have had widely differing opinions about which distribution makes the best Windows desktop replacement. To his credit, DesktopLinux.com editor and inveterate operating system tester Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols isn't ducking this sticky question...

Free blogsite package makes publishing distinctive blogs easy — Bloggers wanting to rise above the blogosphere noise, but not prepared to tackle the likes of Drupal, would do well to check out Thingamablog, a free, open source blogsite publishing package. Thingamablog is a standalone blogging application that makes authoring and publishing weblogs as simple as possible...

Moonbat Protesters, pics and video interviews...

My partner Born Again Redneck has a post on his blog with a link to photos of the recent Walk for Life, and Pro-abortion Counter-demonstration in San Francisco. It brought back memories.

We moved from there over two years ago. Demonstrations and protests like this were so commonplace that it seemed almost ordinary. The city was filled with anti-war demonstrators with their faces covered in hankerchiefs, commiting vandalism, attacking the police, blocking traffic, getting up to all sorts of mischief.

The police would arrest them, the city attorney would not charge them, they would be let go without even their names being recorded, and do it all over again... month, after month, after month... it was like the city had been taken over by bandits.

The police were strained to the max, overtime costs went into the millions, it just kept getting kookier. Looks like the tradition continues.

Anyhow, those pics reminded me of some great video clips I found on the net, of the San Franciso war protesters. Conservative filmmaker Evan Coyne Maloney attended many of these marches and protests, and not only filmed them but talked with and interviewed the participating Moonbats, and the results were very telling, and sometimes outright amusing.

I haven't downloaded Maloney's most recent efforts yet, but intend to soon. In the meantime, if you are interested in looking at his works, many of them are free to view and download on this page of Evan's web site.

BBC poll, Clinton Corruption, Racist Soup, Ford Motor Co. & A Term Limit

Poll finds surprising optimists

Iraqis and Afghans are among the most optimistic people in the world when it comes to their economic future, a new survey for the BBC suggests.

Italians join people in Zimbabwe and DR Congo as the most downcast about their future, according to the poll of 37,500 people in 32 nations...

You can read more HERE.

Bill & Hillary Set a High Bar
for Culture of Corruption Enthusiasts
While Hillary bashes the Bush Administration as a "culture of corruption", Gateway Pundit does a great comparison of the current Administration with the Clinton one. An excerpt:

...The Bush Administration has a tall task ahead of it if it wants to catch the previous Administration in indictments
(1 indictment of VP Assistant, Scooter Libby),
convictions (0), and imprisonments(0).

For the sake of assisting the Former First Lady with her memory, here is a list of blemishes from the Clinton Culture of Corruption Years:

* Number close to the Clinton machine who have been convicted of or pleaded guilty to crimes: 44
* Number of convictions during his administration: 33
* Number of indictments/misdemeanor charges: 61
* Number of imprisonments: 14
* Number of presidential impeachments: 1
* Number of independent counsel investigations: 7
* Number of congressional witnesses pleading the 5th Amendment: 72
* Number of witnesses fleeing the country to avoid testifying: 17
* Number of foreign witnesses who have declined interviews by investigative bodies: 19

The Clinton machine now holds the record for the administration with:

* The most number of convictions and guilty pleas
* The most number of cabinet members to come under criminal investigation
* The most number of witnesses to flee the country or refuse to testify
* The most number of key witnesses to die suddenly
* The greatest amount of illegal campaign contributions
* The greatest amount of illegal campaign contributions from abroad.

The Bush Administration has quite a bit of catching up to do!

You can read Gateway Pundit's complete posting HERE.


FRENCH SOUP NAZIS?
French crackdown on 'racist soup'
Charity groups with far-right links serving pork soup to homeless people face a crackdown by French officials.

Protesters have accused the groups of deliberate discrimination against Jews and Muslims, who do not eat the meat.

Strasbourg officials have banned the hand-outs and police in Paris have closed soup kitchens in an effort to avert racial tension.

The charities have defended offering what they call traditional cuisine to French and European homeless people...

You can read more HERE.

Hat tip to TammyBruce.com for the above links.


WHAT COULD HAVE SAVED 30,000 JOBS?

From Neal Boortz: The news from Ford Motor Company's CEO hit hard across the country yesterday. Ford is going to cut from 25,000 to 30,000 jobs and will close 14 Ford plants over the next six years. The plant in Atlanta is one of those that will close. This is going to hurt a lot of people. That's sad. It's also sad that this could have been prevented.

Blame can be spread, though not equally shared, to Ford management, the workers and the federal government. No doubt management made mistakes in design, innovation and marketing. The workers made mistakes because they forgot who was actually providing them with paychecks, and the federal government takes a huge share of the blame for our punishing corporate tax code...

You can read more HERE.


Political Corruption
Thomas Sowell, on how to best deal with the corruption in our government. An excerpt:

...Term limits try to deal with the problem of re-election but the fatal weakness of term limits is the "s" at the end of the word "limits." So long as there are multiple terms, the first term is going to be spent trying to get re-elected to a second term -- instead of devoting that time to serving the public interest.

What really needs to be done is to put a limit of one term in one office and a waiting period of several years before being elected or appointed to another office in government. In other words, make political careers impossible.

Can people who are not career politicians run the government? People who were not career politicians created the government and the Constitution of the United States of America...

Sounds good to me! You can read the whole article HERE.

Hillary, Condi, Pandering and Power; who's REALLY running a plantation?

There is an aticle in The Opinion Journal called:

Hillary's Plantation
Hillary Clinton reveals her fear of Condi Rice.

BY SHELBY STEELE

Here is an excerpt from the article:

...A great achievement of modern liberalism--and a primary reason for its surviving decades past the credibility of its ideas--is that it captured black resentment as an exclusive source of power. It even gave this resentment a Democratic Party affiliation. (Antiwar sentiment is the other great source of liberal power, but it is not the steady provider that black and minority resentment has been.) Republicans have often envied this power, but have never competed well for it because it can be accessed only by pandering to the socialistic longings of minority leaders--vast government spending, social programs, higher taxes and so on. Republicans and conservatives have simply never had an easy or glib mechanism for addressing profound social grievances.

But this Republican "weakness" has now begun to emerge as a great--if still largely potential--Republican advantage. Precisely because Republicans cannot easily pander to black grievance, they have no need to value blacks only for their sense of grievance. Unlike Democrats, they can celebrate what is positive and constructive in minority life without losing power. The dilemma for Democrats, liberals and the civil rights establishment is that they become redundant and lose power the instant blacks move beyond grievance and begin to succeed by dint of their own hard work. So they persecute such blacks, attack their credibility as blacks, just as they pander to blacks who define their political relationship to America through grievance. Republicans are generally freer of the political bigotry by which the left either panders to or persecutes black Americans.

No one on the current political scene better embodies this Republican advantage than the current secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice. The archetype that Ms. Rice represents is "overcoming" rather than grievance. Despite a childhood in the segregated South that might entitle her to a grievance identity, she has clearly chosen that older black American tradition in which blacks neither deny injustice nor allow themselves to be defined by it. This tradition, as Ralph Ellison once put it, "springs not from a desire to deny the harshness of existence but from a will to deal with it as men at their best have always done." And, because Ms. Rice is grounded in this tradition, she is of absolutely no value to modern liberalism or the Democratic Party despite her many talents and achievements. Quite the reverse, she is their worst nightmare. If blacks were to take her example and embrace overcoming rather than grievance, the wound to liberalism would be mortal. It is impossible to imagine Hillary Clinton's "plantation" pandering in a room full of Condi Rices...

This has been a problem with the liberal/left for a long time. By pandering to groups of people as victims, to gain political power from their greivences, they become stuck in a relationship of needing their constituents to STAY and REMAIN victims, to harness that greivence power. The left has an investment in making sure the problems that make victims of people are never overcome.

Tammy Bruce also talks extensively about this dynamic in her books, and about what she calles the "Misery Merchants" of the left. They have an investment in NOT solving problems. They need to keep the grievences of blacks, gays, feminists and other groups alive and perpetuated, so they can use them for vote stumping and fund raising. But it's an entirely negative dynamic, and does not empower, uplift or help people. It's perpepual victimhood.

You can read the complete article HERE.

The plantation that Hillary loves

Here's a great article by Star Parker, a former welfare mother and author of the book:

"Uncle Sam's Plantation: How Big Government Enslaves America's Poor and What We Can Do About It".

She has some interesting things to say about Hillary Clinton and Plantations.

Some excerpts:

...Mrs. Clinton's portrait of the Republican stranglehold on the Congress is obviously a smokescreen for the fact that the Democrats do indeed wield a lot of power. The issue isn't whether they have it, but rather how they choose to use it.

I challenge anyone reading these words to identify a single idea or initiative addressing any serious problems like health care, education, retirement or anything else, that any Democrat has put forward.

There's a reason you're drawing a blank. There are none. Every new and creative initiative, the kind of innovations that would overwhelming help blacks and the poor _ private retirement accounts, health savings accounts, school choice _ have been Republican initiatives. Democrats have used power for obstruction and to preserve big government status quo.

This gets around to the question of Hillary's "plantation" accusation.

I wrote a book called "Uncle Sam's Plantation." I used the plantation analogy because the bigger government is, the less control individuals have over their own lives and the more dependent they are on the decisions that others, i.e., politicians, make for them. For poor folks, reliance on government builds a culture of dependency that often never ends. It is generally appreciated today the damage that the welfare state caused in poor, mostly black, communities.

We've got kids from poor families all over the country today trapped in pathetic, failing inner city public schools. Yet in a nation which prides itself on being free, we refuse to allow competition and allow parents to choose where to send their kid to school. This defines a big government plantation.

Mrs. Clinton analogizing the House of Representatives to a plantation is absurd. No one is forced to be there. Members are elected every two years. What Mrs. Clinton doesn't like is that Americans keep re-electing Republicans and putting them in control. And this means more initiatives to try and reduce the big government plantation that Hillary in fact loves. Recall that her answer to health care was to essentially nationalize it.

Rather than government-run "Hillary care," low income folks need health savings accounts that would give them the same tax breaks that big corporations have...

You can read the entire article HERE.

Sisters Unveil Database of Iranian Victims

It's chilling to think that the government that has executed so many for their revolution, is now going to posses nuclear weapons. The sisters who made this database have compelling reasons, some of them personal and close to home. Here are a few excerpts:

...On Friday, the two sisters unveiled what is believed to be the largest database dedicated to those executed under the Islamic regime. It is the result of years of examining human rights reports, media accounts, memoirs and other records. Of the more than 9,400 cases catalogued, one has a special place in the sisters' hearts: that of their father, Abdorrahman Boroumand, whose leadership in resistance movements is believed to have led to his murder.

The Boroumand sisters, who live in Washington, D.C., hope their work will serve as a tool for Iranians who want to deal with the country's history. The database's release coincides with the 25th anniversary of the release of 52 Americans held hostage for 444 days after the takeover of the U.S. embassy in Tehran...

In the early days of the revolution, the Boroumand sisters, who were studying in France, had great hopes for the new government. But time spent in Iran, where they heard accounts of speedy trials and mass executions, disillusioned them.

"A sense of shame and guilt overwhelmed me," Ladan Boroumand, 48, said of those days.

For years afterward, while living in France, their family was involved in Iranian resistance efforts. In 1991, their father, a social democrat who was a leader of the National Movement of the Iranian Resistance, was stabbed to death in his Paris apartment building, presumably by agents of the Iranian government.

"You theoretically know that people suffer," Roya Boroumand said. "But when it happens to you, you feel it, you sleep with it, you wake up with it."

A decade after his death, the women, both of whom have doctorates in history, decided to harness the power of the Internet — and its popularity in Iran — to set up the database...

You can read the entire article HERE.

I remember reading, years ago, how the Ayatollah Khomeini formed a coaliton of groups to overthrow the Shah, and then afterward, how he systematically started to eliminate the people who's backs he had used to climb to power on, so he could establish the Totalitarian Theocracy that rules Iran today.

The database itself is... sad. There are descriptions of the people, and brief descriptions of what was known about them and why and how they were killed. What horrible ways to kill people, and what sick reasons. These are the stories of what was done, by the very people who rule Iran now and who strive to possess nuclear weapons.

You can vist the database HERE.

Related link: Iran’s new President has a past mired in controversy.

Sunday Funnies 01/22/06

Gohan and Aochan make strange bedfellows: one's a 3.5-inch dwarf hamster; the other is a yard-long rat snake. Zookeepers at Tokyo's Mutsugoro Okoku zoo presented the hamster _ whose name means "meal" in Japanese _ to Aochan as a tasty morsel in October, after the snake refused to eat frozen mice.

But instead of indulging, Aochan decided to make friends with the furry rodent, according to keeper Kazuya Yamamoto. The pair have shared a cage since...

You can read more HERE.


Having Trouble with Microsoft Word

"Computer assistant. May I help you?"
"Yes, well, I'm having trouble with Microsoft Word."
"What sort of trouble?"
"Well, I was just typing along, and all words went away."
"Went away?"
"They disappeared."
"Hmm. So what does your screen look like now?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing?"
"It's blank; it won't accept anything when I type."
"Are you still in Microsoft Word, or did you get out?
"How do I tell?"
"Can you see the C:\ prompt on the screen?"
"What's a sea-prompt?"
"Never mind. Can you move the cursor around on the screen?"
"There isn't any cursor: I told you, it won't accept anything I type."
"Does your monitor have a power indicator?"
"What's a monitor?"
"It's the thing with the screen on it that looks like a TV. Does it have a little light that tells you when it's on?"
"I don't know."
"Well, then look on the back of the monitor and find where the power cord goes into it. Can you see that?"
......"Yes, I think so."
"Great! Follow the cord to the plug, and tell me if it's plugged into the wall."
......"Yes, it is."
"When you were behind the monitor, did you notice that there were two cables plugged into
the back of it, not just one?"
"No."
"Well, there are. I need you to look back there again and find the other cable."
......"Okay, here it is."
"Follow it for me, and tell me if it's plugged securely into the back of your computer."
"I can't reach."
"Uh huh. Well, can you see if it is?"
"No."
"Even if you maybe put your knee on something and lean way over?"
"Oh, it's not because I don't have the right angle -- it's because it's dark."
"Dark?"
"Yes -- the office light is off, and the only light I have is coming in from the window."

"Well, turn on the office light then."
"I can't."
"No? Why not?"
"Because there's a power outage."
"A power... A power outage? Aha! Okay, we've got it licked now. Do you still have the boxes and manuals and packing stuff your computer came in?"
"Well, yes, I keep them in the closet."
"Good! Go get them, and unplug your system and pack it up just like it was when you got it. Then take it back to the store you bought it from."
"Really? Is it that bad?"
"Yes, I'm afraid it is."
"Well, all right then, I suppose. What do I tell them?"
"Tell them you're too stupid to own a computer."



Hat Tip to The Voice for this Superdome Kiss.


Men are just happier people

> Men Are Just Happier People--What do you expect
> from such simple creatures? Your last name stays
> put. The garage is all yours. Wedding plans take
> care of themselves. Chocolate is just another snack.
> You can be President. You can never be pregnant. You
> can wear a white T-shirt to a water park. You can
> wear NO shirt to a water park. Car mechanics tell
> you the truth. The world is your urinal. You never
> have to drive to another gas station restroom
> because this one is just too icky. You don't have to
> stop and think of which way to turn a nut on a bolt.
> Same work, more pay. Wrinkles add character. Wedding
> dress $5000. Tux rental-$100. People never stare at
> your chest when you're talking to them. The
> occasional well-rendered belch is practically
> expected. New shoes don't cut, blister, or mangle
> your feet. One mood all the time.
>
>
> Phone conversations are over in 30 seconds flat. You
> know stuff about tanks. A five-day vacation requires
> only one suitcase. You can open all your own jars.
> You get extra credit for the slightest act of
> thoughtfulness. If someone forgets to invite you, he
> or she can still be your friend.
>
> Your underwear is $8.95 for a three-pack. Three
> pairs of shoes are more than enough. You almost
> never have strap problems in public. You are unable
> to see wrinkles in your clothes. Everything on your
> face stays its original color. The same hairstyle
> lasts for years, maybe decades. You only have to
> shave your face and neck.
>
> You can play with toys all your life. Your belly
> usually hides your big hips. One wallet and one pair
> of shoes one color for all seasons.
>
> You can wear shorts no matter how your legs look.
> You can "do" your nails with a pocket knife. You
> have freedom of choice concerning growing a
> mustache.
>
> You can do Christmas shopping for 25 relatives on
> December 24 in 25 minutes.
>
> No wonder men are happier.
>
> Send this to the women who can handle it and to the
> men who will enjoy reading it.
>


Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

One afternoon, I was in the back yard hanging the laundry when an old, tired-looking dog wandered into the yard. I could tell from his collar and well-fed belly that he had a home. But when I walked into the house, he followed me, sauntered down the hall and fell asleep in a corner. An hour later, he went to the door, and I let him out. The next day he was back. He resumed his position in the hallway and slept for an hour.

This continued for several weeks. Curious, I pinned a note to his collar: "Every afternoon your dog comes to my house for a nap."

The next day he arrived with a different note pinned to his collar: "He lives in a home with ten children - he's trying to catch up on his sleep."


by: Susan F. Roman,
Chicken Soup for the Pet Lover's Soul

The Moon, Mars, Politics & Economics...

In January of 2004, Bush announced unveiled an ambitious plan to return Americans to the moon by 2020 and use the mission as a steppingstone for future manned trips to Mars and beyond.

Tammy Bruce, in a recent post on her blog titled "Stardust, Pluto and the Mission to Mars", talks about several of Nasa's current projects, like the recently returning Stardust probe, and the recently launched Pluto probe. Yet she questions wether it wouldn't better for us to focus more on one project: The Moon. The Chinese are doing just that.

I've always imagined that a moonbase would require some international cooperation to undertake. But to be realistic, I doubt there would be too much funding from other countries, and even the US government is in no position to be funding mega amounts for NASA like they did in the '60s. Not to mention that government is ofen very inefficiant and wasteful.

I think a great portion of it would have to be financed by private enterprise. There would be benefits in created jobs and spin-off technologies. There are those who would argue that the money should instead be used domestically on entitlement programs, but that does not create jobs, new technologies or wealth, it just holds us all back. An excerpt from Tammy's post:

...My point here is this: I expect citizens to take care of themselves, pay their own bills and personally handle their medical cost issues. These are things the government has no business in. Why? Because we as individuals can handle it and know what's best in our personal lives.

The government, however, should be in charge (with some private company involvement as well) of things that our beyond the scope and capability of regular individual citizens. Efforts that require the power of government organizing and mass funding--like defense issues, and yes, space exploration.

The spending on entitlements on the domestic front will be all for nothing if we collapse economically internally, or create a nation full of people who expect the government to take care of them. That folly destroyed the Soviety Union, North Korea and Cuba, and has crippled all of Old Europe...

You can read more, with related reference links HERE.

Study: Most College Students Lack Skills

Jan 19 2:43 PM US/Eastern

By BEN FELLER, AP Education Writer, WASHINGTON

Nearing a diploma, most college students cannot handle many complex but common tasks, from understanding credit card offers to comparing the cost per ounce of food.

Those are the sobering findings of a study of literacy on college campuses, the first to target the skills of students as they approach the start of their careers.

More than 50 percent of students at four-year schools and more than 75 percent at two-year colleges lacked the skills to perform complex literacy tasks.

That means they could not interpret a table about exercise and blood pressure, understand the arguments of newspaper editorials, compare credit card offers with different interest rates and annual fees or summarize results of a survey about parental involvement in school.

The results cut across three types of literacy: analyzing news stories and other prose, understanding documents and having math skills needed for checkbooks or restaurant tips.

"It is kind of disturbing that a lot of folks are graduating with a degree and they're not going to be able to do those things," said Stephane Baldi, the study's director at the American Institutes for Research, a behavioral and social science research organization...

Heck, I can do those things, and I am a college drop out. I used to joke that people with college degrees could still be "educated idiots". But nowadays, it seems that study after study is showing it to be demonstratably true.

I was lucky to have a good High School education. One of the reasons I was so disappointed with my college experience, was that much of the coursework was less challenging than what I had already learned in Highschool, and taught by incompetent teachers.

My college "Science" teacher would ramble on a bunch of disjointed facts; my class notes looked like the ravings of a deranged street person. The "professor" actually fell asleep in front of the class one day, and everyone left class early. I was angry, because I was paying a lot of money to attend this school, and expected more. One of the other students laughed and told me "Don't worry - EVERYONE gets a passing grade in THIS class!" Yeah, that made it all OK, didn't it...

You can read the entire article HERE.

Hat tip to Tammy Bruce, who has her own excellent post on this topic HERE.

Bin Laden uses Democrats Talking Points...

I just have to share this post by the Lone Ranger, on the blog Important Stuff -- or Not. I couldn't agree more:

Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are
I don't know where Osama bin Laden is, but whether he's in a tent in Pakistan, a cave in Afghanistan or a mansion in Iran, he apparently has a FAX machine and is receiving Democratic talking points. Because he hit all of them in an audio tape released Thursday.

On the tape, Osama accuses President Bush of lying, misleading the American people, and ignoring polls saying the majority of Americans want to pull out of Iraq. Sounds like his entire speech was written by Kennedy, Murtha, Pelosi and Kerry.

The Democratic leadership is doing incalculable damage to this country. It is very obvious by now that the terrorists are using the tactics of the Viet Cong. They don't intend to win the war on the battlefield, but in the American media. All they have to do is hold out until the gutless left forces a pull-out without victory. It should be interesting to see if this ploy still works now that the old media have lost their strangle-hold on information.

# posted by Lone Ranger @ 5:23 AM

You can see the original post (with comments) HERE.

I should be a Journalism Major...

... if I went to college. At least that is what the test results said when I took this "What is your perfect major?" quiz at QuizFarm.com. The complete test results:

You scored as Journalism. You are an aspiring journalist, and you should major in journalism! Like me, you are passionate about writing and expressing yourself, and you want the world to understand your beliefs through writing. Journalism 92% Linguistics 83% Anthropology 83% Engineering 75% Mathematics 67% Biology 67% Sociology 67% Theater 67% Art 67% Philosophy 58% Psychology 58% English 50% Dance 42% Chemistry 25% What is your Perfect Major? (PLEASE RATE ME!!) created with QuizFarm.com

Hat tip to Mahndisa's Thoughts, where I found her link to the test.

So what should YOUR major be?

The difficulties inbombing Iran's nuclear facilities...

What to do about Iran? The press keeps saying President Bush "should have done something", but even they don't say exactly WHAT. And even if he did, or still does do something, I'm sure they won't approve anyway. But what CAN be done? Besides everything Europe and the UN already tried with Saddam, that didn't work with him either?

I know that many folks are holding out hope that Israel will bomb their nuclear facilities, like they did in the past. But I have come across an article that explains why this is unlikely to happen. An excerpt:

...So what can be done? Right now, Iran can count on at least two Security Council vetoes against any meaningful action by the "international community". As for the unilaterally inclined, the difficulty for the US and Israel is that there's really no Osirak-type resolution of the problem - a quick surgical strike, in and out. By most counts, there are upwards of a couple of hundred potential sites spread across a wide range of diverse terrain, from remote mountain fastnesses to residential suburbs.

To neutralise them all would require a sustained bombing campaign lasting several weeks, and with the usual collateral damage at schools, hospitals, etc, plastered all over CNN and the BBC. Meanwhile, Iraq's Shia south would turn into another Sunni Triangle for coalition forces. Every challenge to the West begins as a contest of wills - and for the Iranians recent history, from the Shah and the embassy siege to the Iraqi "insurgency" and Mr Straw's soundbites, tells them the West can't muster the strength of will needed to force them to back down...

The article discusses other options, such as destabilizing Iran by supporting and encouraging an uprising of dissent within it's own boarders, but I have my doubts about the effectivness of that, given the totalitarian nature of the Iranian government. The article correctly notes that the majority of Iran's population was born after Iran's revolution, and the unemployment rate is currently 25%. Wether that can be exploited, turning Iran's lethargic dissidents into something more serious is questionable; It might be worth a try, but who knows?

The article ends on a rather ominous note, with a quote a made last May by the Iranian President's chief advisor, which I have not heard in our own press. How hard is it to imagine what they will be like with nuclear weapons?

...But every risk has to be weighed against the certainty that Iran would use its nuclear capacity in the same way it uses its other assets - by supporting terror groups that operate against its enemies.

And Jack Straw's mullah-coddling is particularly unworthy in that, insofar as Iran has a strategy, the president's chief adviser, Hassan Abbassi, has based it on the premise that "Britain is the mother of all evils" - the evils being America, Australia, Israel, the Gulf states and even Canada and New Zealand, all of which are the malign progeny of the British Empire.

"We have established a department that will take care of England," said Mr Abbassi last May. "England's demise is on our agenda." Apropos the ayatollahs, England could at least return the compliment.

You can read the complete article "Let's give Iran some of its own medicine" by Mark Steyn.

BIN LADEN IS BACK

From Neal Boortz:
Yesterday's release of an audiotape supposedly from Osama Bin Laden was quite the media event. The world's head Islamic terrorist and most wanted man had some interesting things to say. Interestingly, though, bin Laden's script could easily been written by today's leading Democrats. Let's explore the finer points, shall we?

Offering a truce with the U.S. military, Bin Laden said "Our situation is getting better and better and your situation is getting worse and worse." Sounds like Cindy Sheehan or Nancy Pelosi, doesn't it? It's not true, of course. If it were, bin Laden wouldn't be talking truce. Then Osama commented on polls. "But I wanted to talk to you because of the lies that have been given to you by your President Bush when he commented on the results of the opinion polls in your country that showed the majority was for the pull out of U.S. forces in Iraq." Bin Laden went on to say Bush should follow those polls.

If indeed the voice on the tape is Bin Laden's, then that proves a point that's been being made for a long time. The Islamic terrorists we're fighting in the War On Terror know that the PR war is as important as the shooting and bombing war. When the mainstream media in the United States reports only bad news from Iraq and suppress the good, they are doing the work of Al-Qaeda, plain and simple. Bin Laden smiles...

You can read more HERE.

Is it really Bin Laden?

Again, from Boortz:

THE CIA HAS CONCLUDED ..

Do you think the latest audio is really Bin Laden?

(see orginal link to vote)

Once again we get an audio tape that is purported to be from Osama bin Laden. Once again the CIA says that the voice on the tape is authentic. Count me as a skeptic. The CIA has become as much a political as an intelligence organization. To some inside the CIA there would be no qualms about supporting the idea that OBL is still alive if doing so would serve certain political interests. By the way ... the FBI isn't so sure about the tape. Maybe they don't have as much of a political axe to grind.

You can visit the original link HERE.

Forget Hillary's Village; What About Her Plantation?

Hillary Clinton used her Martin Luther King Day tribute to accuse Republicans of running Washington like an Old South "plantation". Maybe she's comfortable talking about Plantations, because she and Bill ran one of their own in Arkansas:

Hillary Clinton's Arkansas Plantation.

I guess plantations are OK, when the Democrats are in charge. It certainly is a large part of their history:

From the blog of Born Again Redneck: Civil Rights.

By Larry Elder: Black support for Bush drops to two percent.

By Thomas Sowell: Liberals, Race & History.

By Thomas Sowell: Dems, GOPers and blacks.

The Peoples' (Conditional) Right to Know

By Jack Kelly

Last month Italian authorities arrested three Algerians who were members of the al Qaida -linked terror group GSPC.

The three were plotting attacks on ships, railway stations and stadiums in the United States in a bid to outdo the casualties caused on 9/11, said Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu.

The arrests made front page news in newspapers in Italy, Britain and France. But apparently the only U.S. newspaper to mention them was the Philadelphia Inquirer, in a short AP dispatch on page A-6. The AP did not mention that the principal targets of the plotters were in the U.S.

The incuriosity of our news media about the plotters and their plots is curious, especially in light of the mysterious death of Joel Hinrichs, 21, a Muslim convert who, wearing a suicide vest, blew himself up Oct. 1 on a park bench outside the stadium in Norman where the university of Oklahoma football team was playing Kansas State. When Hinrichs' apartment was searched after his death, the FBI found a plane ticket to Algeria.

Perhaps the Algerian plotters went unmentioned because describing how they were caught -- the Italian authorities were listening in on their telephone conversations -- would interfere with a current journalistic meme...

(bold emphasis mine) Where is the MSN on this story? Oh yeah, I fogot, the NYT has decided it's against wire-tapping, at least when Republicans do it (they had no problem with Clinton's even more invasive and indiscriminate domestic surveillance program. In fact, they called it a “a necessity”). Therefore the story isn't worth mentioning, even though it makes headlines in Europe.

Could it be that the NYT thinks this story is not worth reporting here in the USA, and that the rest of our MSN agrees, because it might make it look like Bush actually has REASONS to be conducting wiretaps? No need for us to know about that!

You can read all of "The Peoples'(Conditional) Right to Know" HERE.

Related Links:
Post from the Little Green Footballs blog.

From Militant Islam Monitor.org: Muslim students arrested in failed Oklahoma University stadium suicide bomb attack - bomber Hinrich suspected to be convert.

Local report, with photos: Gateway Pundit.

Mayor Nagin Wonka

"It's time for us to rebuild a New Orleans, the one that should be a chocolate New Orleans. And I don't care what people are saying in Uptown or wherever they are. This city will be chocolate at the end of the day. This city will be a majority African-American city. It's the way God wants it to be. You can't have it no other way."

New Orleans Mayor - C. Ray Nagin


Hat tip to Plus Ultra, where I first saw this graphic. You can read more about it there, and at World Net Daily, and don't miss this article, "Chocolate City" Sprinkled witn Nuts. For Tee-shirts and ball caps, you can visit Here.

Farris Hassan’s terrorist connections

He wasn't Farris Bueler. Excerpt:

Remember the high school kid who flew to Iraq without telling his parents, purportedly for some journalism project, and had to be flown back by the military? Douglas Hagman at the Northeast Intelligence Network has a few more details to add to the story: ...

From the blog of Plus Ultra. Where is the MSM with this?

Does the Islamic WorldNeed Their Own Version of Dr. Ruth?

There is a facinating article in the Guardian Unlimited By Brian Whitaker, called "Seminal questions". It's about things like scholars questioning the place of nudity in marriage, and Islamic clerics hotly debating exactly what sexual practices are acceptable to Islam.

Many clerics are issuing fatwas on the subject of sex, and some of these clerics are very, very ignorant of even very basic knowlege of sex. Others who are more educated, can still reach some bizaare conclusions, and some of the advice they give seems to be... conflicted.

I can't sumarize the entire article easily, it's chock full of stuff, but here are just a few excerpts to give you an idea:

A curious religious debate is raging in Egypt. The question is: should you keep your clothes on when having sex?

It began when Dr Rashad Khalil, an expert on Islamic law from al-Azhar university in Cairo warned that being completely naked during intercourse invalidates a marriage. His ruling was promptly dismissed by other scholars, including one who argued that "anything that can bring spouses closer to each other" should be permitted.

Another religious scholar suggested it was OK for married couples to see each other naked as long as they don't look at the genitals. To avoid problems in that area, he recommended having sex under a blanket.

It's not entirely clear whether Dr Khalil has considered the full implications of his edict. Doesn't the prospect of all those virile baton-wielding Egyptian riot policemen (for example) doing it in their boots and black uniforms sound just a little bit kinky? But we'll let that pass...

...Some of their answers about what "good Muslims" should or shouldn't do in bed are very explicit, so readers under 18 should stop here. While some of the advice is sensible, a lot of it is completely daft, so remaining readers over the age of 18 may wish to get a second opinion before putting it into practice...

... The "proven" medical effects of masturbation - which, of course, include damage to the eyesight - were once listed by Abd al-Aziz bin Baz, the late Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, and his list is reproduced on numerous Islamic websites. According to bin Baz, masturbation causes disruption of the digestive system, inflammation of the testicles, damage to the spine ("the place from which sperm originates"), and "trembling and instability in some parts of the body like the feet". In addition, there is a weakening of the "cerebral glands" leading to decreased intellect and even "mental disorders and insanity"...

There is lots more about other kinds of sex and situations, but since this isn't a sex blog I won't post all the details here, you will just have to read the article if you are curious.

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/
journalist/story/0,,1688285,00.html.

UPDATE: You can see a related link to this topic at the blog of Plus Ultra.

N.Y. Times caught in photo fakery

Pakistanis shown with 'missile'
allegedly fired by U.S.

© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com

The New York Times is accused of running a staged photograph of beleaguered Pakistanis standing with a missile in the midst of their damaged home after a U.S. predator-drone attack aimed at al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.

The problem, say analysts, is the "missile" actually is an old, unexploded artillery shell, possibly with its fuse intact.

But on its website, the Times captioned the photo by Agence France-Presse this way: "Pakistani men with the remains of a missile fired at a house in the Bajur tribal zone near the Afghan border."

The photograph adds fuel to the anti-American protests by Islamic groups over the purported CIA airstrike Saturday, which Pakistan claims killed innocent civilians. Investigators are trying to determine if Zawahiri was among at least 17 people killed in the attack...


Well, we ARE talking about the NY Times. But how does a newspaper that repeatedly does this kind of thing maintain it's credibility?

You can read the entire article HERE.

Myth: Schools Need More Money

In some earlier posts on this blog, I've linked to some articles about American public schools and education, and how many of failings of our public school system are caused by lack of competition and accountability.

John Stossel did a TV special for ABC on Friday (1/13) which suggested that public schools have plenty of money but that they squander it, because that's what government monopolies do.

That is a pretty serious accusation to make, but he can indeed back it up with examples, of money wasted with terrible results, and great success with small resources. A few excerpts from his article:

...What did spending billions more accomplish? The schools got worse. In 2000, five years and $2 billion later, the Kansas City school district failed 11 performance standards and lost its academic accreditation for the first time in the district's history.

A study by two professors at the Hoover Institution a few years ago compared public and Catholic schools in three of New York City's five boroughs. Parochial education outperformed the nation's largest school system "in every instance," they found -- and it did it at less than half the cost per student.

"Everyone has been conned -- you can give public schools all the money in America, and it will not be enough," says Ben Chavis, a former public school principal who now runs the American Indian Charter School in Oakland, Calif. His school spends thousands less per student than Oakland's government-run schools spend.

Chavis saves money by having students help clean the grounds and set up for lunch. "We don't have a full-time janitor," he told me. "We don't have security guards. We don't have computers. We don't have a cafeteria staff."

Since Chavis took over four years ago, his school has gone from being among the worst middle schools in Oakland to the one where the kids get the best test scores. "I see my school as a business," he said. "And my students are the shareholders. And the families are the shareholders. I have to provide them with something."

We need more educators like THAT, and less gold-bricking Union Drones. The NEA has a death-grip on our public schools, that prevents competition, avoids accountability and squanders resources. More attention needs to be paid to schools that get real results; successful educators need to be given a free hand to get results, and we need to LEARN from these successes, and perpetuate them.

You can read the whole of John's article HERE.