Saturday, February 03, 2007

Operation Baghdad starts on February 5

Iraq The Model blogged The preparations for Baghdad's security operations and the reactions of politicians, people and militant groups are still taking the most prominent headlines of local news in Iraq. The head of one of the two city councils in Sadr city told AFP that he's ready to cooperate with the Iraqi forces in implementing the security plan. In the statement that appeared on al-Mada Kareem Hassan said "The presence of popular armed committees [Sadr militias] will end automatically when Iraqi forces enter the city because the need for the committees will cease to exist"

If the need for the committees (like the Sadr militia) will cease to exist, will the committees themselves cease to exist, and will they turn their arms into the government, or will they just hide them, and when the Americans leave will they pull them back out and begin killing Sunnis again?

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School Voucher

Salt Lake Tribune reported A school voucher bill passed the Utah House by a single vote today. It is now expected to sail through the Senate and win the governor's signature.

Good for Utah
After weeks of back-room arm-twisting and spirited lobbying on both sides of the issues, supporters managed 38 yes votes to the 37 opposed -- there were no representatives absent.... The pro-voucher Parents for Choice in Education called the vote a victory for Utah children.... Opponents from the state's largest teachers' union said out-of- state money and politics drove the decision more than children's best interests.
Why isn't it in the children's best interests to allow them to be taught at the best school possible. If the public school wants to teach the children, all it has to do is make sure it is the best school.
"This isn't the way I teach my fifth-graders the system works," said Kim Campbell, president of the Utah Education Association.
Maybe you are teaching your fifth-graders incorrectly. I don't know how much Civics is taught in fifth grade, but a bill becomes law if passed by both houses of the legislature, and is signed by the governor.
HB148 will let parents spend public money on private school tuition. Every Utah family, with the exception of current private school students,
I am not sure I understand why they should be left out, but at least the families with children in the public school system will have a way out.
would be eligible for a voucher ranging from $500 to $3,000 depending on family income.
The state appropriates some amount of money per student to teach them in the public school system. It is that amount of money that should be the voucher amount, which they could use in a public school of their choice, a private school, or a religious school. I don't think it should depend on family income. But at least it is good that some parents will be able to afford to take their children out of the public school system.

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Hillary Clinton calls Iran a threat to U.S., Israel

International Herald Tribune reported Calling Iran a danger to the U.S. and one of Israel's greatest threats, U.S. senator and presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton said "no option can be taken off the table" when dealing with that nation.

Why don't you put your money where your mouth is and introduce Authorization of Force legislation supporting agressive action against Iran.
"U.S. policy must be clear and unequivocal: We cannot, we should not, we must not permit Iran to build or acquire nuclear weapons," the Democrat told a crowd of Israel supporters. "In dealing with this threat ... no option can be taken off the table."

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Drop The Gloves

Investor's Business Daily wrote Global Jihad: The ghastly plot by Muslim terrorists in Britain to kidnap and behead a British soldier to blackmail the U.K. into leaving Iraq is a grim reminder of the enemy we’re fighting. And sadly, we need reminding. While the bare-knuckled British press condemned the “evil Muslim terrorists,” our media by and large shrugged, preoccupied as they’ve been with more important news, such as the sandbox spat between Rosie O’Donnell and Donald Trump. You’d never know we were at war with a barbarian culture bent on destroying our way of life..... Following is a sample of atrocities from the list, showing how peace-loving and tolerant Muslims are. They:

  • Blew up three Israelis at a bakery.
  • Slashed the throat of a non-Muslim teenager in Thailand.
  • Butchered a Buddhist man in Thailand as he drove his 7-yearold son home from school.
  • Murdered a teacher on her way to a girl’s school in Baghdad.
    These savages really don't like to see girls educated.
  • Gunned down an “infidel” advocate for the victims of Armenian genocide in Turkey.
  • Slaughtered at least 70 students at a mostly women’s university in Baghdad, using a car bomb followed by a suicide bomber on foot to kill survivors.
    Another example of opposition to the education of girls.
  • Murdered a married couple in Thailand, pinning a note to the beheaded body of the husband reading, “We kill all Buddhists.”
  • Beat to death an Indonesian police officer at a funeral for a fellow terrorist. Beheaded a newspaper journalist in Pakistan.
  • Beat to death a Christian with a metal bar in Ethiopia.
  • Shot and set on fire two Buddhist teachers in Thailand.
  • Killed three Afghan police officers with a bomb.
  • Decapitated 26 Afghan men and strung their bodies from trees.
  • Killed 15 civilians in Chad, including a man who was disemboweled and a woman set on fire.
  • Hacked to death a Hindu leader in India.
  • Blew up a passer-by outside the U.S. Consulate in Peshawar, Pakistan, using a bicycle bomb.
  • Blew up two dozen innocents at a Shia wedding in Baghdad.
Violence from the so called "Religion of Peace" is happening all over the world.

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U.S. Not Planning for War With Iran, Gates Says

WaPo reported Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates denied today that the United States is planning for war with Iran,

The Defense Department always should have plans for dealing militarilly with any country that presents a potential risk to the United States or its allies. That does not mean we should attack everyone, but we certainly should know what it would take, and how we would do it, if military action is on the table (and even if it is "off the table")
saying that U.S. military efforts are focused on countering alleged Iranian activities against American troops in Iraq.
And that is proper that we should do so. But what if Iran invades Iraq. Iraq started the last war between those two countries, but Iran may do it this time, and we have a lot of military in Iraq.

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Friday, February 02, 2007

France Tells U.S. to Sign Climate Pacts or Face Tax

NYT reported President Jacques Chirac has demanded that the United States sign both the Kyoto climate protocol and a future agreement that will take effect when the Kyoto accord runs out in 2012

Jacques Chirac can take those agreements and file them where the sun does not shine. If China and India are not going to follow them, they will do nothing to prevent Global Warming, but they will just hurt the US economy. Even EU nations that have signed are not meeting their obligations under Kyoto.
.... But he warned that if the United States did not sign the agreements, a carbon tax across Europe on imports from nations that have not signed the Kyoto treaty could be imposed to try to force compliance.
We should respond with an immediate boycott of all goods from France, and if the EU imposes such a tax, we should respond with similar duties against items manufactured in the EU
The European Union is the largest export market for American goods.

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The Hands of God

Michael Yon wrote in Online Magazine reported He was dressed as a woman as he walked down the alley toward the mosque full of worshippers.

The hijab (or nijab) is a good way for a man wearing a suicide belt to hide that fact.
It was Friday, just before Ashura, and the air was chilled. The bomb strapped to his body was studded with ball-bearings so that he could kill more villagers as they gathered for prayer. The detonation would eviscerate and dismember those closest, shattering bones into fragments, but the ball-bearings would ensure lethality beyond the percussive edge of the blast wave, ripping through the flesh of people who might not have been knocked down by the explosion.

There were no soldiers in his path to stop him; no police to alert to the man in women’s clothes. There were only villagers. The man dressed as a woman was to be the agent of their deaths. He kept walking down the alley toward the mosque where more than one hundred people were praying, a mass murderer masquerading in a woman’s garb.... The closer a counterfeit comes to the genuine article, the more obvious the deceit. As the murderer dressed in women’s clothes walked purposefully toward his target, there was a village man ahead. But under the guise of a simple villager was a true Martyr, and he, too, had his target in sight. The Martyr had seen through the disguise, but he had no gun. No bomb. No rocket. No stone. No time. The Martyr walked up to the murderer and lunged into a bear hug, on the spot where we were now standing.
He was a true Martyr, unlike the coward dressed in women's clothes. May Allah/God grant him prompt entry into Paradise/Heaven, and may the coward dressed in women's clothes go directly to Hell (without passing Go, and without collecting $200).
The blast ripped the Martyr to pieces which fell along with pieces of the enemy. Ball-bearings shot through the alley and wounded two children, but the people in the mosque were saved. The man lay in pieces on the ground, his own children having seen how his last embrace saved the people of the village.
I hope they are proud of their father, and I hope that the village takes care of his widow and children.

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Israel Fans Groan Over Hill Speech

New York Post reported Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton drew grumbles at a pro-Israel dinner in Times Square last night when she encouraged "engaging" with Iran before taking stronger action to keep it nuke-free. Clinton said she wasn't sure "anything positive would come out of it" and she didn't know if it was "the smartest strategy to take,"

But it is what the extreme left wants, and she has to have their support to get the nomination.
but added, "There are a number of factors that I think argue for some attempt to do what I have suggested." She called for a better understanding of how Iran "really functions,"
Their president is a certifyable nut job that wants to destroy Israel and also hurt the US, and the ultimate authority is an a bunch of clerics that kidnapped everyone in the US embassy when they took control during the Carter Administration. What more do you want to know?
warning actions beyond sanctions could increase danger in the region.
But not as much as inaction, once they have nuclear weapons.
"I also want to send a message, if we ever do have to take more drastic action, to the rest of the world that we exhausted all possibilities," said Clinton, who earlier rapped President Bush for refusing to engage Tehran.
And if Israel is a radioactive pile of rubish then, do you think American Jews will still support you?
Clinton's remarks at the Marriott Marquis were met with little applause , and after she left the stage, several people said they were put off by the presidential candidate. "This is the wrong crowd to do that with," said one person at the dinner, noting the pro-Israel crowd wanted to hear tougher rhetoric.
She believes that blacks and Jews will vote Democratic no matter what she does.

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Non-Muslim students experience a day 'Behind the Veil'

Technician Online reported As participants in "Behind the Veil," 28 non-Muslim female students

At North Carolina State University
learned about life as Muslim women as they wore head dresses, or hijabs, on Wednesday.
Will they also spend a day learning about life as a Christian woman, or a Jewish woman?????
"Behind the Veil," an event Sara Yasin, a junior in textile and apparel management, said she thought up last summer, invited students to experience firsthand the life of Muslim women by mirroring their attire for a day, which includes covering their hair and entire bodies minus their faces
Why just the hijab? Why not wear a nijab, and just have a slit for them to see through.
and hands. Yasin encouraged participants to abide by Muslim guidelines, such as not eating pork or drinking alcohol when wearing the hijab.
Were they also forced to stay in their homes unless accompanied by a male relative?

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Female Students Call for Sharia Law

Daily Times reported The girl students of Jamia Hafsa have refused to vacate a children’s public library until the government enforces Sharia law in Pakistan.

Are they stupid or what? Under Sharia Law they inherit 1/2 of what a man inherits, their word in court is worth 1/2 of a man's word, and they can be raped unless there are four men who witness the rape and are willing to testify. And I don't think they would be able to go to school under Sharia Law.
“We want Sharia or we are ready to embrace martyrdom,” representatives of the ‘Students Action Committee’ told reporters here on Thursday. They said they would not vacate the library until Sharia was enforced in the country and action against mosques did not stop. They said they wanted an assurance in this regard from the president. The girl students occupied the library after the government demolished a part of their Lal Masjid seminary, which was constructed illegally on state land. The Council of Islamic Ideology had ruled that such mosques and seminaries built on encroached land were un-Islamic and should be demolished.
"The Council of Islamic Ideology" sounds like a bunch of clerics who would be the ones to enforce Sharia Law.
Around 4,000 female students of the seminary have been standing guard at the library with batons in their hands for over two weeks. Earlier, the administration of Lal Masjid had said that the library would be vacated if the government stopped its campaign to demolish mosques built on encroached land. But the students’ representatives - Hamna Abdullah, Khola Abdur Rehman, Ume Aimen and Amna - said that they were ready to carry out suicide attacks if the authorities took any action against their madressa. “We are ready to give our lives for our religion. If any commando action is taken, it will be retaliated. We are ready for Fedai (suicidal) attacks,” they said.
They should go to real schools, and learn something useful, and not to madrassas.
Asked whom they would carry out such attacks against, the students said: “Those who are against Islam.”
Pakistan is an Islamic country. Whose interpretation of Islam are they concerned about?
They said Islam permitted suicide attacks.
Ah yes, the Religion of Peace permits suicide attacks.
“We are oppressed and an oppressed community has the right to register its protest,” they added. The students said that the government had demolished seven mosques in the capital, and as per Sharia, seven public buildings should have been demolished, but “we did not adopt a extreme step”. MMA President Qazi Hussain met the deputy administrator of Lal Masjid and assured the students of his full support. staff report

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Plots and paranoia

reported To wander the streets of Sparkbrook yesterday, from shabby corner shop to proud, white-domed mosque, was to enter a world where conspiracy theories are the breath of life. Many ordinary Muslims did not believe that Wednesday’s arrests were an act to foil a terrorist plot aiming to visit unspeakable barbarity on a young British soldier.

Not just a young British soldier but a young Muslim who was also a British soldier.
Rather the entire operation was a giant con trick. This fits a growing perception of a post-9/11 world in which innocent Muslims are demonised, and the terror threat manufactured to suit the dark designs of the West’s Judaeo-Christian elite.
These people need to think for themselves, rather than listening to conspiracy stories told by clerics in their mosques.
The decision to distribute 5,000 multilingual leaflets, carefully setting out details of the anti-terrorist operation and the events leading up to it, may have sought to offer a well intentioned reassurance “that the police are not targeting communities or faiths, but suspected criminals”.
The next thing you know, those leaflets will be said to contain poison, as the ridiculous story that some ballons released by a Jewish bank that floated over to Lebanon were said to be poisoned ballons dropped from planes.
To many Muslims that message has fallen on deaf ears. That many seem not to believe police reassurances is at least in part because they are listening to a very different message from mosques across the city.
The authorities should really pay special attention to what is said in the mosques

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Senate ups wage to $7.25 over two years

Yahoo! News The Senate voted overwhelmingly Thursday to boost the federal minimum wage by $2.10 to $7.25 an hour over two years, but packaged the increase with controversial tax cuts for small businesses and higher taxes for many $1 million-plus executives

Why is it controversial. They are raising taxes on $1 million-plus executives. Do the House Dems oppose tax cuts so much, even on small mom-and-pop businesses that are going to be hurt the most by the minimum wage increase, that they are willing to risk the increase in the minimum wage.
.... The bill must now be reconciled with the House version passed Jan. 10 that contained no tax provisions. House Democrats have insisted they want a minimum wage bill with no strings attached, though some have conceded the difficulty of passing the legislation in the Senate without tax breaks.
Maybe they will be so stupid as to refuse to pass the bill at all, and the small businesses will not be hurt, and the fat cats can avoid a tax increase.
Republicans stressed the importance of the business tax breaks in the bill, though it was a significantly smaller tax package than Republicans had sought during previous attempts to raise the minimum wage.

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Thursday, February 01, 2007

A Tide For School Choice

George F. Will wrote in WaPo Fifty-seven years later, Sumner Elementary School in Topeka is back in the news. That city's board of education is still wrongly preventing the right people from getting into that building. Two educators wanted to use Sumner for a charter school, a public school entitled to operate outside the confinements of dictated curricula and free from many work rules written by teachers unions. Their school would have been a back-to-basics academy from kindergarten through fifth grade, designed to attack Topeka's 23-point gap between the reading proficiency of black and Hispanic third-graders and that of whites.

I can understand why they would want to be able to choose a school that would work.
When the school board rejected the application of the two educators -- African American women -- but praised their dedication to children, one of the women was not mollified: "A bleeding heart does nothing but ruin the carpet."
Good point. The reason they don't want your children to get educated is that they might get smart enough to vote Republican.
.... Sumner, which has been closed for years, would have needed costly repairs. Still, clearly one reason for the rejection was the usual resistance of public educators to innovations that challenge the status quo, meaning centralized control of schools.
Absolutely. That is why they fight school choice so hard. They don't want to have to compete with an alternative school.

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Pakistani rape victim says attacks increasing

Khaleej Times Online reported A Pakistani rape victim who became a prominent women’s rights campaigner said on Thursday violence against women was increasing in Pakistan because authorities were not serious about punishing the perpetrators.

They got the western law against rape on the books, but the clerics oppose inforcing it because it is "unislamic" to convict someone of rape unless there are four male witnesses.
Mukhtaran Mai, who was gang-raped in 2002 on the orders of a traditional village council,
I bet there were four male witnesses to that.
said she was appalled by a similar attack on a 16-year-old girl at the weekend. “Such inhuman acts are increasing in Pakistan as the government is not sincere about punishing offenders,” Mai told Reuters on Thursday. “When I read about this girl’s ordeal, I felt the work we have done for women in the last four years was for nothing,” she said.

A group of Pakistani men has been accused of raping the 16-year old girl in the southern Sindh province at the weekend and forcing her to parade naked through her village because one of her relatives eloped with a young woman from the men’s family.
And how was that the girl's fault?
Such attacks, known as honour crimes because they are committed in response to a perceived slight on a family’s honour, are common in predominantly Muslim Pakistan, especially in backward, rural communities.
They should be called Dishonor crimes, because there is certainly no honor involved in committing them.
“When I read about it I realised what this girl must have gone through, and all this in the name of honour,” Mai said. Mai, who runs a community centre for women and a school in her home village in Punjab province, urged the government to provide swift justice for the girl.

Mai was gang-raped in Punjab province in 2002 as a punishment because her brother had had a relationship with a young woman without the approval of the woman’s family
And how was that Mai's fault.
.... In a separate incident, a man and woman were stoned to death by their relatives in Punjab province last week on suspicion of committing adultery.
Death penalty on SUSPICION of committing adultery., and no trial or ability to appeal. Does anyone think that is civilized?

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Ice cream vendor beheaded

NEWS.com.au An ice cream vendor was killed and his headless body left sitting on the bicycle seat of his cart in Thailand's rebellious Muslim south today, police said.

Is there anything in the Qur'an that forbids selling ice cream????
The vendor, a 45-year-old Buddhist originally from the country's northeast, was shot three times in the back of his head while riding his cart into a Muslim village in Pattani, one of the three provinces hit by the violence, police said. "They chopped his head off and walked away with it, leaving his body sitting on the ice cream bike's seat," a Pattani policeman said by telephone.
Savages
"Under current circumstances, he shouldn't have ventured into such a village," the policeman said.
No, under current circumstances, there should be more police enforcement to protect innocent ice cream salesmen.

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Rampage behind the wheel

StarTribune reported As Arie Ford went inside to gather her two children from her Minneapolis home Wednesday morning, a man stole her idling car. A few blocks away, he repeatedly rammed that car into a cab driven by her brother and injured a well-known 79-year-old North Side clothes store owner. Within minutes, the man was at the intersection of N. 7th Street and Plymouth Avenue, bouncing off cars and between buildings, stealing a van and then crashing that, too, police said. The five minutes of chaos ended when a group captured the man and held him down until police arrived.... When asked by investigators why he went on the crime spree, the 22-year-old suspect said, "Allah made me do it," according to a source with knowledge of the case.

This explains a lot. I have never heard of a Christian doing anything like this and saying God made me do it, but I have certainly heard people saying "the devil made me do it." We have been trying to understand Muslims thinking Allah was God. It looks like Allah might not be God, he might be Satan.

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Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Jail loos turned from East

The Sun Online reported Jail bosses are rebuilding toilets so Muslim inmates don’t have to use them while facing Mecca.

I think they are just trying to see how far they can push governments to accomodate them.
Thousands of pounds of taxpayers money are being spent to ensure lags are not offended.
We certainly don't want to offend them, do we.
The Islamic religion prohibits Muslims from facing or turning their backs on the Kiblah — the direction of prayer — when they visit the lav.
What is wrong with turing their backs to it.
Muslim lags claimed they have had to sit sideways on prison WCs.
Why sit sideways. I bet few of them are pointed directly toward Mecca. It would seem that if they were 10 or 15 degrees off, they would not be facing Mecca.
But after pressure from faith leaders the Home Office has agreed to turn the existing toilets 90 degrees at HMP Brixton in London. The Home Office refused to reveal the cost of the new facilities — part of an “on-going refurbishment”. One Muslim former inmate said: “The least the Prison Service can do is make sure people can practise their religion correctly in prison.”
Do they pray while sitting on the toilet?
But a Brixton jail officer said: “If they didn’t get locked up for committing crime they would not have this problem. Yet we have to sort out their loos. If we weren’t paying for it as taxpayers I’d laugh my socks off.” Around a quarter of prisoners at the Category B jail are Muslims. Labour MP Khalid Mahmood said: “As far as I understand this rule only applies in a place of worship.”
Much of what they do is evil. Maybe a jail is a place of worship to them.
Tory MP Ann Widdecombe said: “Some common sense needs to be applied.”

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Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Bipartisan Bumper Sticker


This is a Bipartisan Bumper Sticker.

Democrats put it on their rear bumper

Republicans put it on their front bumper

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Monday, January 29, 2007

If we can't share a toilet, can we share a country?

Herald Sun reports How to make trouble for moderate Muslims with noisy “tolerance” for the extremists:

A row has erupted over Muslim-only washrooms at La Trobe University that can be accessed only with a secret push-button code.
What are they doing in there that they need to make sure that non Muslims can't get in?
Muslim students have exclusive access to male and female washrooms on campus, sparking claims of bias and discrimination.
What possible reason could there be for going to this expense in dividing Muslim students from everyone else, reinforcing the unhelpful notion that the two are so dangerously different?
Victorian Muslim community leader Yasser Soliman said the washrooms were necessary…“Muslims need to wash their feet before prayer and in the past there have been complaints about them washing their feet in sinks, so this is a happy medium,” he said.
Let’s pretend we actually believe Soliman. Solution: Just put up notices explaining the feet-washing. Or install a separate sink in the communal toilets, at a handy foot-washing height.
That makes a lot of sense.
But insist all faiths share the same toilets. If we can’t even share them…

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Peretz orders IDF to launch operations inside Gaza

Jerusalem Post Barhoum called the attack a "natural response" to IDF policies in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, as well as its ongoing boycott of the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority government.

So violence is a "natural response" to a boycott? And this from the supposed "Religion of Peace."
"So long as there is occupation, resistance is legitimate," he said.
You should get a job at Reuters.
He also said attacks on Israel were preferable to the recent bout of Palestinian infighting in Gaza. "The right thing is for Fatah weapons to be directed toward the occupation, not toward Hamas," he said.
Weapons paid for by the US and Israel.
Meanwhile, the Islamic Jihad, which claimed responsibility for the attack together with two other groups, posted a statement on its Web site Monday saying that it had engineered the bombing in an attempt to "focus Palestinians' attention away from killing each other," Sky News reported.
All they know is killing. Why not let them kill each other? Eventually we might have peace in the area, after they killed each other off.

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No Free Lunch: New Ethics Rules Vex Capitol Hill

WSJ reported To cut down on wining and dining by lobbyists, the House and Senate have drafted new rules that bar lawmakers and congressional aides from accepting almost any meals from lobbyists. Hors d'oeuvres are an exception. So is "food that you have to eat standing up using a toothpick," explains Washington lawyer Brett Kappel, who advises lobbyists and companies about ethics rules. Oyster pasta, the seafood lobbyists decided, would be difficult to eat with toothpicks.

Wouldn't it be simplier to just say no food, travel, gift, or anything else from a lobbyist or anyone else seeking to influence legislation?

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Lieberman Might Back Republican in 2008

BREITBART.COM reported Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee in 2000 who won re-election as an independent last year, says he is open to supporting any party's White House nominee in 2008.

There is a shot across the bow of the Democrats who think they can continue to kick him, and that he will take it without saying anything.
"I'm going to do what most independents and a lot of Democrats and Republicans in America do, which is to take a look at all the candidates and then in the end, regardless of party, decide who I think will be best for the future of our country," Lieberman said Sunday.
Sounds reasonable. He may be a Democrat at heart, but not a Yellow Dog Democrat.
"So I'm open to supporting a Democrat, Republican or even an Independent, if there's a strong one. Stay tuned," said the three-term lawmaker who caucuses with Senate Democrats. Lieberman is an ally of GOP Sen. John McCain of Arizona, a 2008 hopeful, and supports President Bush's new Iraq strategy. Lieberman won re-election as an independent last fall when Democrats backed an anti-war candidate who won the party primary.

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Was 9/11 really that bad?

David A. Bell wrote in Los Angeles Times

The attacks were a horrible act of mass murder, but history says we're overreacting.
Well you, and history, can take that thought, and the entire issue of the Los Angeles Times that printed it, and stick it where the sun does not shine.
Imagine that on 9/11, six hours after the assault on the twin towers and the Pentagon, terrorists had carried out a second wave of attacks on the United States, taking an additional 3,000 lives. Imagine that six hours after that, there had been yet another wave. Now imagine that the attacks had continued, every six hours, for another four years, until nearly 20 million Americans were dead. This is roughly what the Soviet Union suffered during World War II, and contemplating these numbers may help put in perspective what the United States has so far experienced during the war against terrorism.
How long did the Soviets wait before they retaliated.
It also raises several questions. Has the American reaction to the attacks in fact been a massive overreaction?
No. The Left seems to have forgotten what we are fighting against, and if they are successful in taking the White House in 2008 I suspect they will relax our guard, and we will be attacked again, probably killing more than 3,000 people, and dooming the Democratic Party into not taking the White House again for at least 40 years.
Is the widespread belief that 9/11 plunged us into one of the deadliest struggles of our time simply wrong?
We are definitely in a major struggle, against a foe that wants to dominate the entire world. And the number that will be killed before they stop will certainly make it the deadliest in our time. Whether it is now or not depends on your definition of "our time". Certainly we lost over 10 times as many people in Vietnam as in Iraq, yet they call Iraq another Vietnam.
If we did overreact, why did we do so? Does history provide any insight?
Only if you are able to understand the problem.
Certainly, if we look at nothing but our enemies' objectives, it is hard to see any indication of an overreaction. The people who attacked us in 2001 are indeed hate-filled fanatics who would like nothing better than to destroy this country.
And they would not have attacked if we had not withdrawn from Lebanon after the Marine Barracks bombing, and if we had not pulled out of Somalia after Black Hawk Down.
But desire is not the same thing as capacity, and although Islamist extremists can certainly do huge amounts of harm around the world, it is quite different to suggest that they can threaten the existence of the United States.
They certainly threaten Western Europe right now.
Yet a great many Americans, particularly on the right, have failed to make this distinction. For them, the "Islamo-fascist" enemy has inherited not just Adolf Hitler's implacable hatreds but his capacity to destroy. The conservative author Norman Podhoretz has gone so far as to say that we are fighting World War IV (No. III being the Cold War).
And he is right.
But it is no disrespect to the victims of 9/11, or to the men and women of our armed forces, to say that, by the standards of past wars, the war against terrorism has so far inflicted a very small human cost on the United States.
Actually it is disrespect to both, and saying it is not does not remove the disrespect.
As an instance of mass murder, the attacks were unspeakable, but they still pale in comparison with any number of military assaults on civilian targets of the recent past, from Hiroshima on down.
So should we wait until the body count of Americans is higher?
Even if one counts our dead in Iraq and Afghanistan as casualties of the war against terrorism, which brings us to about 6,500, we should remember that roughly the same number of Americans die every two months in automobile accidents.
Why don't you point that out to the rabid left that wants us to pull out of Iraq before the job is done.

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Young, British Muslims 'getting more radical'

Telegraph reported A bleak picture of a generation of young British Muslims radicalised by anti-Western views and misplaced multicultural policies is shown in a survey published today. The study found disturbing evidence of young Muslims adopting more fundamentalist beliefs on key social and political issues than their parents or grandparents.

What do you expect with the Saudi's sending extreme Wahhabi clerics to preach in the mosques?
Forty per cent of Muslims between the ages of 16 and 24 said they would prefer to live under sharia law in Britain, a legal system based on the teachings of the Koran. The figure among over-55s, in contrast, was only 17 per cent
Did they ask the majority of the country, who are not Muslim?
.... "There is clearly a conflict within British Islam between a moderate majority that accepts the norms of British democracy and a growing minority that does not."
Really? Do you think so? When did you come to that realization?
.... Shahid Malik, the Muslim Labour MP for Dewsbury, said: "This report makes very disturbing reading and it vindicates the concern many of us have that we're not doing enough to confront this issue."
And you better get cracking.
Baroness Uddin, the Muslim peer, said: "Unlike their parents, our young people feel that this is their country and are saying why are we being told we do not belong here
It is your country if you want to behave like Britons. If you want to behave like savages, go to a country where you can live under Sharia law, and see how well you like it then.
..... But he will also challenge elements of the Muslim community for denying women access to work, education, politics and even to mosques.
Tell them that if they accept Christ as their personal saviour, they can come to the churches. There still are a few of those left in Secular Britain, aren't there?

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Sunday, January 28, 2007

Bin Laden, The Left and Me

Dinesh D'Souza wrote in WaPo As a conservative author, I'm used to a little controversy. Even so, the reaction to my new book, "The Enemy at Home," has felt, well, a little hysterical.... Why the onslaught? Just this: In my book, published this month, I argue that the American left bears a measure of responsibility for the volcano of anger from the Muslim world that produced the 9/11 attacks. President Jimmy Carter's withdrawal of support for the shah of Iran, for example, helped Ayatollah Khomeini's regime come to power in Iran, thus giving radical Islamists control of a major state; and President Bill Clinton's failure to respond to Islamic attacks confirmed bin Laden's perceptions of U.S. weakness and emboldened him to strike on 9/11. I also argue that the policies that U.S. "progressives" promote around the world -- including abortion rights, contraception for teenagers and gay rights -- are viewed as an assault on traditional values by many cultures, and have contributed to the blowback of Islamic rage

That is an interesting point. Certainly the Islamists way of handling abortion (stoning the woman to death, once she has delivered the baby), conception for teenagers (making the women wear the hijab or the nijab and never leave the house unless accompanied by a male relative), and gay rights (hanging or beheading gays) is different from what the left promotes.
.... Bin Laden isn't upset because there are U.S. troops in Mecca, as liberals are fond of saying. (There are no U.S. troops in Mecca.)
Actually he never said there were U.S. troops in Mecca, he said they were in Saudia Arabia, and they were there, and now he objects to them being in any Islamic country.
He isn't upset because Washington is allied with despotic regimes in the region. Israel aside, what other regimes are there in the Middle East?
Actually he objects to the US supporting the despotic regimes because he would prefer to replace them with despotic theocratic regimes that would impose extreme Sharia law on their citizens, like the Taliban.
It isn't all about Israel. (Why hasn't al-Qaeda launched a single attack against Israel?) The thrust of the radical Muslim critique of America is that Islam is under attack from the global forces of atheism and immorality -- and that the United States is leading that attack.....the far left seems to hate Bush nearly as much as it hates bin Laden. Bin Laden may want sharia, or Islamic law, in Baghdad, they reason, but Bush wants sharia in Boston.
If they think that, the left really does not understand Sharia Law. It is not just allowing faith based charities to compete on an equal footing with secular charities for government support, or allowing occasional prayers.
Indeed, leftists routinely portray Bush's war on terrorism as a battle of competing fundamentalisms, Islamic vs. Christian.
Islam was spread by the sword. Christianity was spread by teaching Christ's message.
It is Bush, more than bin Laden, they say, who threatens abortion rights and same-sex marriage and the entire social liberal agenda in the United States.
They should really look at what the Taliban did to the Afghans.

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