9/11. 24 years later, I can't, don't, and won't forget.

I also find it difficult to keep talking about. Partly because of the subject matter. Partly because of the way some people politicise it. And partly because I did a lengthy post about it once:

The 9-11 jumpers; they didn't "jump"

This is an issue that isn't talked about a lot, because it's so unpleasant, and extremely emotional. It's about the people who supposedly "jumped" from the WTC towers before they collapsed.

So many in the media seemed to claim at the time that they were jumping out of "despair"; as if it were just an emotional response, a suicide choice; an act of will, that they could simply choose to do or not do.

That just seems like such an unfair judgment to me. I don't believe that most, if any, of those people "chose" to jump. I think SMOKE, HEAT and FLAMES simply FORCED them to their deaths by falling.

You can't "choose" whether or not you want to stand close to burning jet fuel; you simply can't. If there is nowhere safe to move away to, you move anyway. Just the smoke alone, making it impossible for you to even breath... if you were suffocating, what would you do for air?:

To call it jumping, like it was a choice, just seems wrong. When people went to work at the WTC that morning, they were not expecting to have to jump to their deaths. These poor souls did NOT choose this... [...]

If you follow the link to the rest of that post, it's filled with pictures of people jumping. I don't want to re-post them here. Some things get easier to deal with over time... for me, this is not one of them. That post also includes commentary about jumping, falling and suicide, and how those terms do and don't relate to what actually happened.

I don't post about it much anymore, because I eventually said all I had to say about it. Some people left some very thoughtful comments on that post; they understood what I was getting at. Many others left some really shitty, ugly, horrible comments that were sickening to read. I deleted all of those. And will continue to do so.

I used to have Site Meter on this blog, and for a long time it said that that particular post was more popular than any other blog post I've done. I've gotten rid of site meter since then, so I don't know if any or many see it anymore. I don't particularly care about being popular or having huge amounts of traffic to this blog.

I post what I care about, and things I've been reading about, and if it resonates with someone, fine. If it doesn't, fine, no one has to read it or like it. But I also am not obligated to post other peoples drek; they can make their own place to post that, I'm not interested in hosting it here.

But I still remember. The people who faced impossible choices. It can still make me cry. May they Rest In Peace. Condolences to their families.

     

Whose Islam is it anyway?

I've noticed more articles like this lately, about Muslims who live in Western countries, complaining about being asked to apologize for terrorist acts that have nothing the do with them:

This British teen hilariously captures why Muslims are tired of being told to condemn ISIS

Within hours of the attacks in Paris, the familiar ritual began: the calls for Muslims to denounce ISIS rolled in, as they inevitably do after a terrorist attack by a group claiming to act in the name of Islam.

This is a common occurrence, and Muslims — myself included — are tired of it. We're tired of being held responsible for the atrocities committed by individuals whose actions and beliefs are abhorrent to us and completely at odds with our values and our understanding of our religion. We're also tired of people acting as if we haven't already condemned ISIS, al-Qaeda, and terrorism over and over and over, loudly, publicly, "unreservedly," and in great detail.

It just starts to get old after a while.

[...]

It wasnt the views or opinions of politicians that made me respond but the views of the general public when fridays terror attacks happened which were extremely unfortunate there were only 2 opinions on my twitter time line the first was of people demanding an apology for what happened which was met by either muslims apologising for the acts that occured or the other view, which was my view of muslims asking why we should apologise as ISIS has nothing to do with Islam? [...]

The last part I put in bold. I get tired of hearing Muslims saying that. Why? Because ISIS and other terrorist groups commit their acts in the name of Islam. Looking at it quite objectively, the majority of terrorist actions in the world are being committed by Muslims, in the name of their religious beliefs. To keep saying that it has nothing to do with Islam, treats the rest of us like we are stupid, or not paying attention.

Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that ISIS has nothing to do with YOUR interpretation, YOUR understanding of Islam? In fact, the author of the article practically says as much later on:

[...] This isn't the first time Muslims have used social media to express irritation at being told to "do more" to counter extremist ideology and to apologize for the actions of strangers who have perverted our beliefs and who actually kill way more Muslims than they do any other group. [...]

Yes, very true. As is true the fact that many Muslims and Muslim groups often denounce the acts of terrorists, which is good news. Which is ironically, why you don't hear about it much. The Media tends to focus primarily on bad news. Muslims denouncing terrorism, not so much. If you follow the above link to the article, there are embedded links to many such denunciations. Much like many I've seen elsewhere. But it's not typically front-page, headline news.

I essentially don't disagree with the author. I would just balance it a bit by adding that the reasons people ask for denunciations by Muslims living in Western countries is, that we like to believe that our Muslim neighbors and coworkers really do denounce the violence, that YOUR interpretation of Islam genuinely is peaceful, and therefore you wont murder us at the next holiday office party.

It's human nature for you to complain about the unfairness you feel in your situation. It's also human nature for us to not want to be murdered, to wish for and welcome immigrants who want to join us and support our culture, not kill us and destroy it. We have already had too many refujihadis. If people are getting fed up with that, it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.

Ideally, peace loving Muslims who wish to join Western cultures should be our allies against terrorism. Unfortunately, it's not always easy to tell who is who, or when a seemingly integrated immigrant may "convert" to more extremist views and act on them. It's doubly unfortunate, because the extremists want us to be distrustful and alienated from those Muslims who would be our natural allies.

And talking about "Whose Islam is it anyway", have a look at this really, uh, "different" perspective:

How a Blonde Tattooed Texas Girl Became an ISIS Twitter Star

Last Monday, I had 60 followers on Twitter. Today, I have more than 4,300. Not to brag or anything, but that's more than Benjamin Wittes; more than Bobby Chesney; more than Jack Goldsmith; more than my boss, Daniel Byman. But here's the problem: A healthy number of them are Islamic extremists, including no small number of supporters of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). A lot of them live in Saudi Arabia.

And some of them want to marry me.

The reason is a single tweet.

Early last week, the hashtag “#MuslimApologies” began trending on Twitter. The hashtag was a tongue-in-cheek response to those—such as right-wing radio host Laura Ingraham—who, in the wake of the beheadings of Westerners by ISIS, have questioned why Muslims have not been more vocal about denouncing terrorism carried out in the name of Islam (except that many have). Tired of constantly being asked to apologize for the acts of a few vile individuals who twist Islam to justify their barbarism, Muslims on Twitter decided to take a humorous stand—by apologizing for everything: the Twilight saga, World Wars I and II, that Pluto is no longer a planet, and, my personal favorite, that Mufasa had to die in The Lion King. Some also used the hashtag to sarcastically apologize for the important contributions Islamic culture has made to the world, from algebra to coffee to the camera obscura.

Of course, I wanted to get in on the fun.

[...]

If you were to pass me on the street, you would never suspect I’m a Muslim: I don’t wear hijab. I have platinum blonde hair and blue eyes. And I am heavily tattooed. I grew up in Texas and was raised Southern Baptist. I use the word “y’all” a lot—and not ironically. But I am Muslim. I also speak Arabic and hold a Master’s degree in International Security with a focus on terrorism and the Middle East. Several years ago, I realized that although I had long studied, analyzed, and written about Islamic political theory and how jihadist ideologues like Osama bin Laden use the Qur’an to justify their heinous acts of violence, I had never actually read the Qur’an. So I read it—and what I found in its pages changed my life. I found answers to questions about faith and belief and morality that had been plaguing me since my youth. I found the connection to God I thought I had lost. And three years ago, I converted to Islam.

Just to be clear: I detest the twisted interpretations of Islam espoused by the likes of Al Qaeda and ISIS just as much today as I did before I converted—in fact, probably more so, since now I see it not only as a sick bastardization of a beautiful religion, but a sick bastardization of my beautiful religion. When I read the Qur’an, I find a God who is beneficent, who is merciful, and who cherishes mankind. I find a religion that encourages independent thought, compassion for humanity, and social justice. The jihadis claim to love these same things about Islam, but have somehow decided that the best way to share God’s message of mercy and compassion with the world is to blow up mosques and behead humanitarian aid workers. Great plan, guys.

After sending my tweet, I went to bed. When I awoke the next morning, I was pleasantly surprised to find that my humble little tweet had been retweeted numerous times and I had picked up dozens of new followers. Several people—almost all Muslims—had responded expressing their happiness for me and welcoming me to Islam. So that was nice. I also got a few trolls, of course: people telling me I was brainwashed, trying to convince me that the CIA created ISIS, or asking me if I had engaged in female genital mutilation yet. That was less nice, but to be expected; it is Twitter, after all. Then things took an unexpected turn. My tweet went viral—at last check, it had been retweeted more than 11,300 times—and I soon began to notice a disturbing trend: of the thousands of people who were retweeting and following me, many of them had the black flag of ISIS as their Twitter profile photos. Others had pictures of themselves holding swords, standing in front of the black ISIS flag. Uh-oh.

[...]

You know all those articles (some better than others) that have sprung up lately about how ISIS is this social media juggernaut that is remarkably adept at spreading their propaganda online? Well it turns out that you don’t become a propaganda juggernaut by conscientiously vetting your sources or fact-checking. Who knew?

So it doesn’t matter that I also happen to tweet things in support of LGBT rights, post YouTube videos of The Clash, or actively try to get the “#No2ISIS” hashtag trending. All that matters are the tweet about becoming Muslim and the tweet with the picture of pro-ISIS graffiti.

Here’s the thing: it’s clear that my tweet about becoming Muslim struck a nerve with a lot of Muslims, both here in America and in the broader Muslim world. Non-Muslims sometimes don’t realize how much hatred and negativity gets thrown at Muslims and how utterly soul crushing it can be to have to defend yourself and your beliefs on a daily basis, and it’s really nice to see someone saying something positive about Islam.

At the same time, though, it’s precisely the actions of ISIS and their followers and the words of intolerance emanating from the Salafi camp that provoke this reaction against Muslims. And I, for one, do not appreciate having my conversion story used to attract more people to a repugnant ideology that spawns suicide bombings and beheadings. [...]

Read the whole thing for embedded links, her twitter posts, responses to those posts, and more. Not to mention her photo; she definitely IS a platinum blond without a hijab. Her story is fascinating. Just when you think you have it figured out, it takes another twist or turn. Two things I gained from reading this are:

One: There certainly is more than one way to interpret Islam. Your mileage may vary. And...

Two: Be careful of what you say on social media, and who you say it to. Your words can easily be taken out of context and used by other people for purposes you never intended.

At first it confirmed what I've always thought about social media like Twitter; that it is inherently shallow, and because you can't use it to speak about anything in depth, it's way too easy to be misunderstood. But, on the other hand, any one who follows up her story (actually bothers to find out more about it and her) might have their minds blown.

Islam isn't going away, and if it finds more ways to peacefully coexist with the rest of the world, so much the better. Many of it's adherents keep insisting it's a religion of peace. Well, let's see more of it, folks. Seeing is believing. Actions speak louder than words. Although I'm sure many would argue that the majority of Muslims in the world are peaceful, are not terrorists, and in fact are often victims of terrorists. So, what do we do?

I would like to see a follow up to this story, to see what happens next. Will Jennifer regain control of the Twitter message SHE wants to communicate? I'll be watching.


Also see:

Bombing Syria Won’t Make Paris Safer

The CAIR Effect: See something, do nothing
     

Canada severing ties with Iran

Canada closes embassy in Iran, gives Iranian diplomats in Canada 5 days to leave

TORONTO — Canada shut its embassy in Tehran on Friday, severed diplomatic relations and ordered Iranian diplomats to leave, accusing the Islamic Republic of being the most significant threat to world peace. The surprise action reinforces the Conservative government’s close ties with Tehran’s arch foe Israel but also removes some of Washington’s eyes and ears inside the Iranian capital.

[...]

Baird said Canada was officially designating Iran a state sponsor of terrorism and gave a long list of reasons for Canada’s decision, including Tehran’s support for Syria’s embattled President Bashar Assad in that country’s civil war.

“The Iranian regime is providing increasing military assistance to the Assad regime; it refuses to comply with U.N. resolutions pertaining to its nuclear program; it routinely threatens the existence of Israel and engages in racist anti-Semitic rhetoric and incitement to genocide,” Baird said in a statement. “It is among the world’s worst violators of human rights; and it shelters and materially supports terrorist groups.”

Baird said he also was worried about the safety of diplomats in Tehran following attacks on the British embassy there.

Britain downgraded ties with Iran following an attack on its embassy in Tehran in November 2011, which it insists was sanctioned by the Islamic Republic’s ruling elite. After the attack, Britain pulled all of its diplomats out of Iran and expelled Iranian diplomats from U.K. soil.

Most European countries maintain a diplomatic presence in Tehran despite increased tensions over European Union sanctions that block imports of Iranian oil. The Swiss represent diplomatic interests of the United States, which broke ties with Tehran after protesters stormed the U.S. Embassy in the chaotic months following the Islamic Revolution in 1979. Fifty-two Americans were held for 444 days. [...]

   

The Next Level of Cyber Terrorism?

Are we there yet? See what you think:

Science fiction-style sabotage a fear in new hacks

[...] For years, ill-intentioned hackers have dreamed of plaguing the world's infrastructure with a brand of sabotage reserved for Hollywood. They've mused about wreaking havoc in industrial settings by burning out power plants, bursting oil and gas pipelines, or stalling manufacturing plants.

But a key roadblock has prevented them from causing widespread destruction: they've lacked a way to take remote control of the electronic "controller" boxes that serve as the nerve centers for heavy machinery.

The attack on Iran changed all that. Now, security experts — and presumably, malicious hackers — are racing to find weaknesses. They've found a slew of vulnerabilities.

Think of the new findings as the hacking equivalent of Moore's Law, the famous rule about computing power that it roughly doubles every couple of years. Just as better computer chips have accelerated the spread of PCs and consumer electronics over the past 40 years, new hacking techniques are making all kinds of critical infrastructure — even prisons — more vulnerable to attacks.

One thing all of the findings have in common is that mitigating the threat requires organizations to bridge a cultural divide that exists in many facilities. Among other things, separate teams responsible for computer and physical security need to start talking to each other and coordinate efforts.

Many of the threats at these facilities involve electronic equipment known as controllers. These devices take computer commands and send instructions to physical machinery, such as regulating how fast a conveyor belt moves.

They function as bridges between the computer and physical worlds. Computer hackers can exploit them to take over physical infrastructure. Stuxnet, for example, was designed to damage centrifuges in the nuclear plant being built in Iran by affecting how fast the controllers instructed the centrifuges to spin. Iran has blamed the U.S. and Israel for trying to sabotage what it says is a peaceful program.

Security researcher Dillon Beresford said it took him just two months and $20,000 in equipment to find more than a dozen vulnerabilities in the same type of electronic controllers used in Iran. The vulnerabilities, which included weak password protections, allowed him to take remote control of the devices and reprogram them.

"What all this is saying is you don't have to be a nation-state to do this stuff. That's very scary," said Joe Weiss, an industrial control system expert. "There's a perception barrier, and I think Dillon crashed that barrier."

One of the biggest makers of industrial controllers is Siemens AG, which made the controllers in question. The company said it has alerted customers, fixed some of the problems and is working closely with CERT, the cybersecurity arm of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Siemens said the issue largely affects older models of controllers. Even with those, the company said, a hacker would have to bypass passwords and other security measures that operators should have in place. Siemens said it knows of no actual break-ins using the techniques identified by Beresford, who works in Austin, Texas, for NSS Labs Inc.,

Yet because the devices are designed to last for decades, replacing or updating them isn't always easy. And the more research that comes out, the more likely attacks become.

One of the foremost Stuxnet experts, Ralph Langner, a security consultant in Hamburg, Germany, has come up with what he calls a "time bomb" of just four lines of programming code. He called it the most basic copycat attack that a Stuxnet-inspired prankster, criminal or terrorist could come up with.

"As low-level as these results may be, they will spread through the hacker community and will attract others who continue digging," Langer said in an email.

The threat isn't limited to power plants. Even prisons and jails are vulnerable. [...]

The complications of the modern age. Our Brave New World.
     

"It's in Oregon, and in Oregon, like, you know, nobody ever thinks about it,"

Somali's bomb plot foiled at Oregon holiday event

A Somali-born teenager attempting to detonate what he believed was a car bomb at a packed Christmas tree-lighting ceremony in downtown Portland, Ore., was arrested by the authorities Friday night. They had spent nearly six months tracking him and setting up a sting operation, officials in Oregon said.

The bomb, which was in a van parked off Pioneer Courthouse Square, was a fake — planted by FBI agents as part of the elaborate sting — but "the threat was very real," said Arthur Balizan, the FBI's special agent in charge in Oregon. An estimated 10,000 people were at the ceremony Friday night, the Portland police said.

The suspect was identified as Mohamed Osman Mohamud, 19, a naturalized U.S. citizen living in Corvallis, Ore. He was charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction.

"Our investigation shows that Mohamud was absolutely committed to carrying out an attack on a very grand scale," Balizan said in a statement released by the Department of Justice.

The New York Times said it was told by a federal law enforcement official that the FBI, tipped off by a Portland Muslim concerned about Mohamud's increasing radicalism, started monitoring his e-mail activity.

[...]

The FBI said that during the operation, Mohamud repeatedly expressed his desire to kill Americans. Reminded by FBI agents posing as accomplices that many children and families would be at the Christmas ceremony, Mohamed said that he was looking for "a huge mass" that could "be attacked in their own element with their families celebrating the holidays."

Federal agents also said that Mohamud thought Portland would be a good target because Americans "don't see it as a place where anything will happen."

"It's in Oregon, and in Oregon, like, you know, nobody ever thinks about it," the affidavit quotes him as saying.

Well thank goodness for the concerned Muslim citizen in Portland who reported this guy.

Now I only wonder how long it will be before some of the Leftists in Portland start protesting that this would-be bomber is, like, you know, a victim of the FBI?


Also see:

Oregon bomb plot teen sought ‘spectacular’ site

This second link gives a lot more details. The bomber's Imam sounds like he's got an attitude. And if you look at the comments at the bottom of the article, you'll see my prediction come true: Leftists claiming that the FBI creates terrorists. I'd say that distinction belongs to certain Imams, and their teachings.

And anyone wondering why this would happen in Portland Oregon, should consider this:

Just another bomb-plotting jihadist yelling “Allahu akbar!”

[...] You may recall that loony Portland officials several years ago threatened to pull out of the Joint Terrorism Task Force under the Bush administration and refused to cooperate with federal efforts to conduct voluntary interviews of of local Muslims in order to uncover terrorist plots.

You may also recall the Portland 7, black Muslim converts convicted in a conspiracy to wage war against the United States, provide material support and resources to Al Qaeda and contribute services to Al Qaeda and the Taliban. [...]

But the Leftists in Portland blame the FBI. The suicidal Lunatic Left is always ready to cut off the branch we are all sitting on.
     

Iranian Gun Smuggler? Where is the MSM?

Media ignore Iranian caught smuggling arsenal of sniper rifles across border

An illegal immigrant from Iran named Hamid Malekpour was discovered last month smuggling a huge load of sniper rifles and high-powered weaponry across the Canadian border into Washington State. He has since been arrested and charged with entering the country illegally with firearms and ammunition, as well as filing a false report with a federal agency.

It has been covered locally and by some bloggers, but that's pretty much it.

From the Yamhill Valley News Register: [...]

Read the details. It's chilling. Is it not newsworthy? More so than make-believe stories about potentially violent tea party protesters?
     

Britain's Con-Dems and the Islamists

The UK and Islamist Terror: Conservatives Putting the Nation at Risk?

[...] The Conservative-led coalition government faces serious challenges, perhaps most especially in regard to Islamist extremism, which it seems intellectually ill-equipped to combat.

Pundits suggest that the coalition ("Con-Dem") government will collapse, possibly within a year or two, and that the Labour party might even be swept back into office. With the Conservatives having abandoned their defining values, and having aligned themselves with the left-wing Liberal Democrats, another threat comes from the right, both from within and from without the party.

Three days before the election, the Conservatives issued their A Contract for Equalities - arguably their real manifesto – articulating how the party would make anti-discrimination "central" to a Conservative government. The problem is not that the Conservatives want people to be judged by their character rather than by the skin color, etc. That is entirely right and proper – as virtually everyone in Britain recognizes.

The problem is that this sort of "anti-discrimination" is ideological: those who openly reject cultural relativism, believe in Britishness, democracy, etc., constitute an oppressor class, that has, and that is, dominating various oppressed classes. This is not an ideology in which Whites are regarded as the exclusive oppressors of non-Whites, but, rather, one in which the West oppresses the non-Western. The Sikh that champions democracy and inveighs against radical Islam is also certain to be deemed a "racist" and lumped in with neo-Nazis.

Cameron believes that people become Islamists – and, perhaps eventually commit acts of terror – not because they are attracted to, and eventually believe in, Islamist ideology per se, but because they have been oppressed. Islamist ideology is not a factor, as attraction to it must be preceded by discrimination. The nation is to blame.

This was perfectly clear from his statements and actions in the lead-up to the election.

By pushing female, gay, ethnic and religious minorities into safe seats, and thus into government, Cameron asserted, other members of these groups would realize that they were equal citizens in Britain, with equal rights and opportunities. By merely seeing more "minority" MPs, the rifts in society would magically repair themselves.

According to the party's pre-election statement on national security, "Government cannot provide security without the trust and support of its citizens." In other words, if Muslims do not trust or support the government, then they might drift into extremism. The Conservatives thus promised to "review and consolidate […] counter-terrorism and security laws introduced by Labour," and especially to review the "Prevent" scheme, "supposed to stop vulnerable people from becoming terrorists but which has been accused of spying on innocent Muslims." (Prevent was set up by the previous government, specifically to combat the growth of Islamist extremism and terrorism, by working with Imams, and so on.)

Cameron shares his "anti-discrimination" worldview with coalition partners, the uncompromisingly left-wing, LibDems. Of greater consequence, though, it has also now become the defining ideology of most of those at the top of the "progressive" Conservative party. [...]

The full article gives examples of what the dangers are, and where this appears to be going.

Regardless of what anyone may think of "identity politics", one can argue that this strategy of the Brits has had some success in politically co-opting and placating some groups that might otherwise be more hostile. It may even work with some Muslims. But with the hard-core Islamists, who actually implement terrorist attacks? Will they not just see it as more appeasement and weakness, and cause them to attack even more furiously and intently? That's what the author of the article seems to think. That Cameron and the Con-Dems are putting themselves and the country in harms way. In any case, regardless of what any of us thinks, we shall see what happens.


Meanwhile, we have a similar dynamic at work in our own government:

The Alien in the White House
The author goes on about the President in particular, but also about people in his administration and their views, which on matters of terrorism, are similar to Great Britain's government:

[...] And who can forget the exhortations on jihad by John Brennan, Mr. Obama's chief adviser on counterterrorism? Mr. Brennan has in the past charged that Americans lack sensitivity to the Muslim world, and that we have particularly failed to credit its peace-loving disposition. In a May 26 speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Mr. Brennan held forth fervently, if not quite comprehensibly, on who our enemy was not: "Our enemy is not terrorism because terrorism is just a tactic. Our enemy is not terror because terror is a state of mind, and as Americans we refuse to live in fear."

He went on to announce, sternly, that we do not refer to our enemies as Islamists or jihadists because jihad is a holy struggle, a legitimate tenet of Islam. How then might we be permitted to describe our enemies? One hint comes from another of Mr. Brennan's pronouncements in that speech: That "violent extremists are victims of political, economic and social forces."

Yes, that would work. Consider the news bulletins we could have read: "Police have arrested Faisal Shahzad, victim of political, economic and social forces living in Connecticut, for efforts to set off a car bomb explosion in Times Square." Plotters in Afghanistan and Yemen, preparing for their next attempt at mass murder in America, could only have listened in wonderment. They must have marvelled in particular on learning that this was the chief counterterrorism adviser to the president of the United States. [...]

Can you say "Dhimmitude"? You can be sure that Muslim extremists can.
     

Another Clueless Obama Administrator

National security nightmare: John Brennan and the notorious flying imam
It's outrageous. Is ANYONE in the Obama administration paying attention to what's going on around them, or even who they are talking to?

     

Napolitano should step down ... now

From Neal Boortz: THE REPORT

[...] After much delay, Barack Obama finally made his speech on the crotch bomber and the failure of our intelligence community to stop him from boarding a plane to the United States. If you would like to read the report in its entirety, you can click here. After reading the report, it seems to boil down to this: We had the intelligence, but we got lazy. Or comfortable. Whatever adjective you want to use, the fact is that we had the information but no one put it together.

Actually ... I really think Obama has paid heed to his wakeup call. He's serious about this. Health care is one thing .. but negligently allowing a terrorist attack on our soil would do much more to doom his presidency than would the failure of ObamaCare. He's not yet at the point where he's willing to abandon a lot of the political correctness that goes hand-in-hand with our anti-terrorism efforts (at least not in the open) but hopefully that will come.

Are you upset that no heads rolled yesterday? Yeah .. me too. But in retrospect maybe it is a good idea to concentrate on the mission right now and deal with those not mission-capable down the road. Just bypass them for the time being. My guess is that Napolitano's influence as Homeland Security Director is quite a bit less than it was .. and that she's brushing up her resume as we speak.

You did hear what she said yesterday, didn't you? She said that she was really surprised by the dedication of these Islamic terrorists .. and then she indicated her surprise that they were using individual operatives in their efforts to kill non-believers. Come on now. That guy in the dump truck who cut you off this morning knew this ... and our Homeland Security Director is surprised?

This particularly Obama appointment could cost American lives. She needs to go .. as soon as possible.

Bold emphasis mine. I have to agree. The more Napolitano speaks, the more incompetent she sounds. Keeping her there will only make things worse.
     

Maj. Hasan, Ft. Hood, and the painfully obvious: say it, and deal with it, or get out of the way

Dr. Phil and the Fort Hood Killer
His terrorist motive is obvious to everyone but the press and the Army brass.

[...] What is hard to ignore, now, is the growing derangement on all matters involving terrorism and Muslim sensitivities. Its chief symptoms: a palpitating fear of discomfiting facts and a willingness to discard those facts and embrace the richest possible variety of ludicrous theories as to the motives behind an act of Islamic terrorism. All this we have seen before but never in such naked form. The days following the Fort Hood rampage have told us more than we want to know, perhaps, about the depth and reach of this epidemic.

One of the first outbreaks of these fevers, the night of the shootings, featured television's star psychologist, Dr. Phil, who was outraged when fellow panelist and former JAG officer Tom Kenniff observed that he had been listening to a lot of psychobabble and evasions about Maj. Hasan's motives.

A shocked Dr. Phil, appalled that the guest had publicly mentioned Maj. Hasan's Islamic identity, went on to present what was, in essence, the case for Maj. Hasan as victim. Victim of deployment, of the Army, of the stresses of a new kind of terrible war unlike any other we have known. Unlike, can he have meant, the kind endured by those lucky Americans who fought and died at Iwo Jima, say, or the Ardennes?

It was the same case to be presented, in varying forms, by guest psychologists, the media, and a representative or two from the military, for days on end.

The quality and thrust of this argument was best captured by the impassioned Dr. Phil, who asked us to consider, "how far out of touch with reality do you have to be to kill your fellow Americans . . . this is not a well act." And how far out of touch with reality is such a question, one asks in return—not only of Dr. Phil, but of the legions of commentators like him immersed in the labyrinths of motive hunting even as the details of Maj. Hasan's proclivities became ever clearer and more ominous.

To kill your fellow Americans—as many as possible, unarmed and in the most helpless of circumstances, while shouting "Allahu Akbar" (God is great), requires, of course, only murderous hatred—the sort of mindset that regularly eludes the Dr. Phils of our world as the motive for mass murder of this kind. [...]

There are plenty of people who think just like Dr. Phil. If it's not "politically correct", then they don't want to see it. And they don't. Which is how this travesty was allowed to happen at Fort Hood in the first place. Political Correctness may be the death of us all. If we keep on being in denial of the obvious, where will that lead us?

J.R. Dunn at the American Thinker blog has some thoughts on that.

     

The Lockerbie bomber - Guilty or Innocent?

At home with the Lockerbie bomber

Is he the evil perpetrator of the deadliest terrorist attack in British history, or a sick old man, a loving father and grandfather, who has suffered a terrible miscarriage of justice? Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi put on a virtuoso performance when The Times came calling yesterday.

[...]

Asked who, then, was responsible for the deaths of 270 people who died in the Lockerbie bombing, al-Megriah smiled. “It’s a very good question but I’m not the right person to ask.” He insisted that it was not Libya and would not be drawn on suggestions that it was Syria, Iran or the Palestinians.

He said that he understood why many of the victims’ relatives were angry at his release. “They have hatred for me. It’s natural to behave like this,” he said, although he pointedly added that others had written to him in prison to say that they forgave him whether he was guilty or innocent. He appealed for the families’ understanding. “They believe I’m guilty which in reality I’m not. One day the truth won’t be hiding as it is now. We have an Arab saying: ‘The truth never dies’.” [...]

I can't say a lot about it, as I did not follow his trial closely when it happened. He claims to have evidence to prove his innocence. Let's hear it then.


UPDATE 09-02-09:
Did al-Megriah even have life-threatening cancer? Seems highly questionable now. Plenty of lies are being exposed.

With Friends Like Gaddafi Who Needs Enemies?

Read it, and weep.
     

The motives behind the terrorism in Mumbai

From Maynard at the Tammy Bruce blog:

India and Pakistan: To War?

Why was Mumbai attacked? Here's a theory:

Since the 9/11 attacks, America has bribed and pressured Pakistan to take further control over its lawless border with Afghanistan, which has effectively given militants a safe haven. This has been a delicate situation, but there seems to have been progress in recent months. We've lately heard news stories about American attacks inside Pakistan, and more aggressive moves by Pakistan's army. Such things only happen after behind-the-scenes diplomatic agreements have been reached.

The attack on Mumbai leaves the Indian people demanding revenge, and Pakistan is the obvious target. Does Pakistan deserve the Indian reprisal? Maybe, maybe not. The point is, if hostilities break out, Pakistan's army will have better things to worry about than the Afghan border. So a conflict between Pakistan and India serves al-Qaida's interest, in that it gives the terrorists additional breathing room. This may be why the Mumbai attack was launched. [...]

It makes a lot of sense. Condi Rice is no doubt very busy right now. As Maynard suggests, let's hope cool heads prevail.
     

Bill Ayers; has Obama's terrorist chicken come home to roost at last?

I hope so. It's long overdue. From Nealz Nuze:

FINALLY ... SOMEONE SAYS SOMETHING ABOUT OBAMA-AYERS

And it is the Republican vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin. On Saturday, Palin said that Barack Obama is "palling around with terrorists who would target their own country." She was referencing Obama's association with Weatherman Bill Ayers. Here's the quote, "Our opponent ... is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect, imperfect enough, that he's palling around with terrorists who would target their own country ... This is not a man who sees America as you see America and as I see America." View the video.

Finally, someone from the McCain campaign comes out and says what has been on the mind of many. On the same day that Palin made this comment, The New York Times published a piece, which tries to explain the ties between Obama and Ayers: "Obama and '60s Bomber: A Look Into Crossed Paths." Seems that the Times hasn't been keeping up with the research of Stanley Kurtz, who has been endlessly shuffling through files at the library of the University of Illinois at Chicago to find the truth.

The Obama campaign has chalked Palin comment to a "smear campaign." Obama says that the Republicans are using "smears" in order to distract the voters from real problems. A presidential candidate who befriends or is befriended by an unrepentant terrorist is a real problem in my eye ... though perhaps not in the eyes of those who hate America.

But Sarah Palin is standing behind her comments. She says that this issue is fair to talk about. She said, "The comments are about an association that has been known but hasn't been talked about, and I think it's fair to talk about where Barack Obama kicked off his political career, in the guy's living room." Man, sure glad the McCain campaign finally let her out of her cage.

Before we get to the most asinine part of this story ... let it be noted that in 2001, Bill Ayers took the infamous photograph of him standing on the American flag. That was also when he told The New York Times that he had "no regrets" about his actions in the Weather Underground. In fact, he wishes he could do more. Now during this same time, Barack Obama was serving on the board of the Woods Foundation with none other than Bill Ayers. [...]

I've blogged about this, plenty of people have. It's seldom mentioned in the campaign, because predictably, any criticism of Obama is met with charges of racism.

The McCain campaign needs to:

a.) Realize that discussing facts is never racist. What is, is.

b.) Realize the Obama campaign is going to try to label them as racists anyway, no matter what they do.

That doesn't mean the McCain campaign has to start flinging mud, but it does mean they ought to stop acting as if they are walking on egg shells that they have to worry about breaking. Let the Obama campaign worry about his thin-as-eggshell excuses. Let him explain himself and his associations. That's his job.

I appreciate that John McCain doesn't want to run a dirty campaign. I admire his wanting to keep standards high. But certain things have to be talked about, things that ought to have been addressed long ago, that weren't.


Maynard at the Tammy Bruce blog has a thoughtful post on this topic:

Obama: The Final Word

With the political arguments swirling fast and furious, here's what I see as the bottom line on Obama.

I don't place much faith in what a candidate says and does after declaring his or her candidacy. Once he steps into the spotlight, he's playing to the crowd. He's on good behavior, and he'll tell us whatever we want to hear. This is a demonstration of his acting ability...and a politician is indeed part actor, but there's more to the job than that. The true measure of the man is what he did with his life when he didn't think he was being watched. That's what you're going to get when the candidate is in power, and never mind the speeches.

As we do with celebrities, we tend to project our fantasies onto politicians. The less we know about a person, the easier this is. With Obama's charisma and short history, and with the sympathies of the mainstream media behind him, he's been allowed to remain too much of a blank slate. This is slowly changing, as the reality becomes known and eats away at his mystique. Note that Obama's greatest string of victories in the Democratic primaries came when he was a new thing. As information trickled out, he lost steam. If more facts had been on the table earlier, Hillary certainly would have been the Democratic nominee.

Our job as voters isn't to nitpick and debate every nuance and gaffe. In a world of trivia and spin, we must seek the most essential truths and make them known. [...]

(bold emphasis mine) Maynard goes on to look at the essential truths about Obama, the man and what he did prior to being in the national spotlight. He addresses many of the concerns I and others have had all along. He looks at the eggshell-thin excuses that have been offered for those concerns, and finds them desperately wanting for credibility.

Read the whole thing. This is the vetting the Democrats should have done. This is the vetting process the MSM should have done, but didn't. Why? Because it's not a pretty picture, folks. I'm amazed that he's gotten as far as he has. I try to imagine a Republican equivalent, who could escape such scrutiny, but I can't.

It seems the Obama campaign's biggest defense is accusing any of his critics of racism: "Don't step on our egg shells, or we will call you a racist". It's not good enough, we need real debate and intelligent discussion. America deserves better.


Related Links:

Obama Needs to Explain His Ties to William Ayers

Obama, Ayers and Dohrn - birds of a feather

Barack Obama; the larger, complete picture

     

"World Opinion" about Obama, and 9-11

Many claim that World Opinion wants us to elect Obama for president.

World wants Obama as president: poll

US Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama may be struggling to nudge ahead of his Republican rival in polls at home, but people across the world want him in the White House, a BBC poll said.

All 22 countries covered in the poll would prefer to see Senator Obama elected US president ahead of Republican John McCain.

In 17 of the 22 nations, people expect relations between the US and the rest of the world to improve if Senator Obama wins.

More than 22,000 people were questioned by pollster GlobeScan in countries ranging from Australia to India and across Africa, Europe and South America.

The margin in favour of Senator Obama ranged from 9 per cent in India to 82 per cent in Kenya, while an average of 49 per cent across the 22 countries preferred Senator Obama compared with 12 per cent preferring Senator McCain. Some four in 10 did not take a view. [...]

It's a BBC poll. In other words, a bunch of commie-socialists want to see a weaker America. No surprise there. And the worlds tin-pot dictators, authoritarians and fascists also want us to have the weakest president possible, for obvious reasons. Duly noted.

It's also worth noting what another poll on world opinion says about 9-11:

No consensus on who was behind Sept 11-global poll

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Seven years after the Sept. 11 attacks, there is no consensus outside the United States that Islamist militants from al Qaeda were responsible, according to an international poll published Wednesday.

The survey of 16,063 people in 17 nations found majorities in only nine countries believe al Qaeda was behind the attacks on New York and Washington that killed about 3,000 people in 2001.

U.S. officials squarely blame al Qaeda, whose leader Osama bin Laden has boasted of organizing the suicide attacks by his followers using hijacked commercial airliners.

On average, 46 percent of those surveyed said al Qaeda was responsible, 15 percent said the U.S. government, 7 percent said Israel and 7 percent said some other perpetrator. One in four people said they did not know who was behind the attacks. [...]

It goes on to give a break-down for individual countries. Much of it is predictable, but there are some surprises. More of the French and the Germans believe al Qaeda was responsible for 9-11, than do the British. A whopping 30 percent of Mexicans believe we did 9-11 to ourselves! Conspiracy theory is alive and well south of the border, apparently.

I take all polls with a grain of salt. Polls often reflect the views of the people paying for them, and are used to shape public opinion as much as report on it.

While I can't be certain how accurate polls are, I am certain there are many people in the world that I would rather be hated by, then loved by. Their endorsement for a president is a sign, to me, of who we should NOT pick.


Related Links:

Obama: Community Organizer-in-Chief

"Citizen of the World" needs history lessons

The world should be given the right to vote in American Elections to make "correct" choices
     

The Internet's DNS Vulnerability; is it hype, or can the World Wide Web be destroyed?

Is the web that vulnerable? When it comes to networking type stuff, I find it hard to follow, I'm just not that geeky. But this sounds pretty serious:

Web Doomsday Averted: Kaminsky
Security researcher Dan Kaminsky argues that the recent DNS vulnerability wasn't just hype: it could have destroyed the Web.

LAS VEGAS -- The recent Domain Name System (define) caching flaw that had security experts scrambling to protect the Web wasn't just hype. The Internet as we know it was at risk, according to a security researcher Dan Kaminsky.

During a discussion on front of a packed hall at the Black Hat conference today, Kaminsky detailed flaws in the system that translates domain names into IP addresses, which he's been trying to hide for the last thirty days.

In a 70-minute session with over 50 slides, Kaminsky explained in excruciating detail the flaw in DNS and the myriad ways it could have been exploited to destroy the Internet as we know it.

Kaminsky was quick to point out that the patch for the DNS flaw has been widely deployed, protecting users from what otherwise could have been a nightmare scenario. [...]

Some will argue that it's hype. But do we have to wait for the web to fail before we take it seriously enough? A near disaster may have been averted for now, but apparently it's not over yet:

Updated: The patch for critical Internet flaw may be flawed itself

A Russian researcher has reported there are holes in the patch for the DNS flaw that threatened the foundations of the Internet.

Just a month ago, Dan Kaminsky told the world that the Internet’s Domain Name Server system for routing Internet users to the proper addresses for web sites could be compromised. He had organized a months-long effort to create a patch to fix the problem. But not it appears the patch doesn’t do the job, according to a story in the New York Times. It confirms Kaminsky’s own warning that the patch was a stopgap measure and that there were worse things coming out. [...]

I read somewhere that DNS is an inferior system that needs to be replaced with an alternative, however I can't find the article presently. I admit the technical aspects are over my head, so I can't comment on it extensively. But this story, as a security matter, does bear watching. So many businesses rely heavily on the internet now, and a major problem with it could affect world markets, and thus all of us.


Related Link:

Russia and Georgia continue attacks--online
     

Two excellent videos by Newt Gingrich

While I'm not a big fan of his, he is occasionally right on the mark with some of his observations. And that is the case with these two videos.


Newt Gingrich: 3 Ways to Lower Gas Prices



This video is 3 minutes and 41 seconds. He makes it clear that the problem we are facing does have viable, workable solutions. The real problem is the people who are blocking us from proceeding with the solutions that are in our control to implement.


Newt Gingrich on the War on Terror



This video is 5 minutes and 24 seconds. He's very blunt about spelling out the reality we are facing. Is he right about what it's going to take for us to wake up to what we are dealing with, and act accordingly? I'm afraid if it is, that by the time we are ready to face reality, it will be too late to act. 9-11 wasn't enough. What's it gonna take?

We must abandon the principle of free speech

WHAT!?! If we want to reconcile with Islam, that is what we must do, according to some Islamist "authorities". American writer Joshua Trevino at the Brussel's Journal has the details:

Too Good to Win. Is the West Losing the War?

[...] Last week, I returned from the Third International Conference on the Muslim World and the West in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The aim of the conference was to “bridge the gap,” as they put it, between the Muslim world and the West.

Now, this seems like a worthy thing. Surely we of the West ought to find our common ground with the Muslim world, and vice versa. Surely there is common ground to be found. Surely the problems between us are predominantly problems of understanding and comprehension… and surely they are solvable with a little goodwill.

I admit to having been a bit dismayed when, at a pre-conference interview, the chairman — a Columbia University alumnus named Imam Feisal Rauf — told me that Muslim violence was “predominantly” the fault of Westerners. Nonetheless, I soldiered on in the belief that we could — how to put it? — bridge the gap.

To say that the luminaries of the conference disappointed my hopes is to understate things. But to say that that were luminous is to be perfectly accurate. I’ll just name three of the most prominent and powerful:

• Secretary-General of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, Ekmeleddin Ihsanouglu of Turkey.
• Former Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz.
• His Royal Highness Prince Turki bin Faisal al Saud, former director of Saudi intelligence, and until recently the Saudi Ambassador to the United States.

These men are educated… well traveled… experienced… wealthy… and Westernized. And each of them told the conference that for the West and Islam to reconcile, the West must abandon the principle of free speech. [...]

(bold emphasis mine) Josh give the details of what they said, and it's shocking. It's bad enough that the whole conference was like that. But even worse, all the representatives from the West who were invited to speak agreed with them! Josh speculated about that:

[...] The deputy speaker of the French National Assembly was there, as was a Spanish ambassador, an Australian MP, and various other mostly European functionaries. Every single one of them accepted the demand for an end to free speech without complaint.

We might call this the mindset of the quisling. Or, to invoke the opposite side of that historical allusion, we might say that they merely adhere to Winston Churchill’s admonition that “it is better to jaw-jaw than to war-war.”

There is tremendous wisdom in Churchill’s statement — but to take it at face value is to ignore that the man himself would not “jaw-jaw” with simply anyone, on any terms. This, after all, is a man for whom Mohandas Gandhi was deemed a morally unfit interlocutor. (I believe Churchill was right on this, but that’s for another speech.) Churchill rightly understood that to talk with someone in the absence of conditions gives some measure of moral sanction to that person.

For Churchill, to sit down with Hitler on equal terms, conceding from the start the legitimacy of the Nazi’s desires, was to lose the battle before it began. [...]

Churchill wasn't a fool, and we would do well to follow his example. And lest you think this is merely a Muslim bashing article, it's not. Josh does not agree that these attitudes represent the whole of the Islamic world. He maintains that we must not accept the "logic" that our freedom is responsible for Islamic terror, and insists that we have an obligation, to ourselves and the Islamic world, to stand up and defend our freedom. He ends the article with an explanation of why he became a Republican at the tender age of nine. Way to go, I say.
     

Obama: A Change Hamas can believe in

Why is the terrorist group Hamas so enthusiastic about supporting Obama? From Nealz Nuze:

THE MESSIAH "UNDERSTANDS" HAMAS

I touched on this briefly on the program yesterday. Barack Obama says that he understands why top Hamas advisers support him for president. Isn't that sweet? He says, "It's conceivable that there are those in the Arab world who say to themselves, 'This is a guy who spent some time in the Muslim world, has a middle name of Hussein and appears more worldly and has called for talks with people, and so he's not going to be engaging in the same sort of cowboy diplomacy as George Bush."

My translation? Horsesqueeze.

Are we really to believe that Hamas would endorse a candidate for the US presidency based on the fact that he has spent some time in the Muslim world? Not exactly. Muslim terrorists and radicals will endorse and support Barack Obama because they know he will not be a bother to them. He will not stand up to Islamic extremism. This is a guy who wants talk, not action. They absolutely love talk, Muslims have managed to become about 25% of the population of Europe while all this talking is going on. When people are just sitting around talking it leaves radical Muslims free to act. You talk. We'll act.

There's more Obamanation news out there. Now we read that Obama referred to Israel as a "constant sore" that infects all of our foreign policy. Well, that certainly ought to really bring on the support from Jewish voters.

OBAMA'S SUPPORT ... IN PALESTINE

Al-Jazeera has produced a report showing Palestinians in Gaza campaigning for Barack Obama. In fact, not only are they campaigning but they are working at a phone bank, calling people in America to ask them to vote for Obama. One of the pro-Obama Palestinian organizers says that he is voting for Barack Obama because he studied his campaign manifesto and thought that he was a man capable of change.

Change? Well, if we stopped fighting Islamic radicalism ... that would be a change, wouldn't it? That would be change that Muslims can believe in.

(bold emphasis mine) I'm sure Hamas agrees with Obama's "constant sore" remark about Israel. And an aggressor always finds an appeaser more appealing. Hamas favors not only Obama, but the Democrats generally. It's a fact.

Now Obama is making a fuss about a speech President Bush made to the Israeli Knesset. Obama was not singled out in the speech, but he apparently sees himself in the remarks. Obama has said that we should be talking to Iran, just as many other Democrats have too. Obama's remarks are a matter of public record. He did say it. Yet he wasn't singled out in the speech. So what's the fuss about? Is no one allowed to disagree with Obama? Is it too distracting from his efforts to get himself elected?
     

A death toll greater than 9-11...

The plot was foiled. But if it hadn't been, it could have been worse than 9-11. See the details as to how and why:

Liquid terror plot jury shown controlled explosion of Oasis bottle bomb destined for Transatlantic airliners

Footage of the devastating impact of home-made liquid bombs eight British Muslims allegedly plotted to set off on transatlantic airliners was shown at their trial today.

Protective 12mm thick laminated glass shattered and polyethylene panels surrounding the test were left strewn on the floor following the filmed controlled explosion.

Explosives expert Keith Ritchie told Woolwich Crown Court a series of explosives tests were carried out in January this year at the Ministry of Defence's Kent base Fort Halstead.

The replica bombs were made using the same materials as those found dumped in woodland and at the flat in Forest Road, Walthamstow, east London used by the alleged terrorist cell.

The prosecution claims the gang planned to disguise their deadly devices in soft drinks bottles such as Oasis before smuggling them on board passenger jets in August 2006. [...]

Read the whole thing for more details about the probable consequences of the plot had succeeded. And for photos of the Islamic goons who were going to carry out the attack. May they rot.
     

"Fitna", the Geert Wilder's Film, is here

I believe it's been banned from Youtube, you can see it posted on LiveLeak for now, here is the URL:

Fitna the Movie: Geert Wilders' film about the Quran (English)

Michelle Malkin has posted about it here:

Fitna has arrived; Update: “Restraint?” We’ll see; Plus: A case of mistaken identity

[...] It’s 15 minutes with scenes of jihad interlaced with quotes from the Koran. We are reminded of 9/11, Madrid, the murder of Theo van Gogh, and the threats to Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s life.

The film ends not with any blasphemous image of Mohammed, but with an image of a hand about to tear out the murderous verses of the Koran and a sound effect of tearing (with a caption explaining that the sound was actually the sound of a page being torn from a phonebook).

Prepare for more March Madness. I don’t know what “solidarity” is in Dutch, but show it by embedding the video, e-mailing it, and writing about it. Their fight for the right to criticize the Religion of Perpetual Outrage is our fight. [...]

(bold emphasis mine) The phonebook page caption is an interesting gesture, to try to avoid offending Muslims. I'm sure it will make no difference at all to those who are determined to be offended, or looking for any excuse to riot. There is only one message for thugs like that:


"I will not submit"


UPDATE 03-28-08:

It got pulled off-line, due to threats by Muslims. Surprise surprise. That's what happens when you bend over backwards to tolerate the intolerant; they feel they have the "right" to silence any criticism of themselves, even by the force of violence and death threats. Fascism knows no limits in the face of weakness. When will the appeasers among us understand this?

There may be some bit-torrent links that still work, but I don't use bit-torrent. If a reliable, lasting link to the film appears anywhere, I'll post it here.


UPDATE 03-31-08:
Here is a new link with the movie:

Fitna the movie

Let's see how long it lasts. Also, Maynard at Tammy Bruce's blog has more links here:

"Fitna"

So "Fitna" ended up on YouTube. Click to view the English-subtitled Part 1 and Part 2. The 15-minute film consists of verses from the Koran interspersed with violent media clips. (Here is an abridged 10-minute version without the Netherlands-specific material).

You can read his entire post for more details and commentary.


Related Links:

Censorship from the Cowards at Youtube

Worse than Wilders. But No Death Threats

Algerian Journalist Posts Geert Wilders' "Fitna" Film On His Blog

Appeasing the Islamists: Geert Wilders’s Ordeal and the Lessons of the Past