Don Singleton

Tuesday, March 14, 2006

Censure???

Tim Chapman wrote in Townhall Democratic Senator Russ Feingold has introduced a resolution that would censure the President of the United States for "eavesdropping" in the wake of 9/11.

Feingold just asserts that the President broke the law, ignoring all of the legal opinions which hold that what was done was legal for at least two different reasons, and since he knows he will not be able to prove that, he wants to just assert that it is true, and then censure the president for doing it. Like Alice learned in Wonderland: "sentence first, trial later"

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, moments ago, made a unanimous consent motion that the Senate vote on the resolution tonight.

That makes a lot of sense. There is no way it would pass, but Democrats would have to decide whether to vote for censure, which would endear them to the Loony Left Bloggers (like the KosKids), but which would be very bad for them in the 2006 and 2008 elections, when they had to face voters who like the idea of listening to Al Qaeda talking to their cells in the US.

Maryland Democrat Paul Sarbanes rose to object to the motion. Frist then motioned to vote on the resolution again tomorrow. Sarbanes objected, saying no vote should take place on the resolution until Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid had cleared the timing. In other words, Democrats know this is a political stunt, without a chance of passage, but want to time it politically for maximum impact.

Dems dont know how to run a country, but they know how to play politics.

Later, Harry Reid took the floor to say he was offended that Frist would go to the floor and motion for unanimous consent on such an "important issue" without talking to him first.

Did he talk to Frist first last year when he pulled his own political stunt?

Reid's two-facedness knows no bounds. Does he not remember last year taking the Senate floor and invoking Senate Rule XXI, thereby shutting down the Senate? When he made that parliamentary move to score political points over pre-war intelligence, he broke all Senate precedent by invoking the draconian measure without first seeking the compliance of the Senate Majority Leader as has always been done in the past.

Mark Noonan has the right idea: Censure Senator Feingold

Monday, March 13, 2006

Anti-Semitism seen rising among France's Muslims

Boston Globe reported Anti-Semitism seen rising among France's Muslims

Semites are peoples whose ancestry can be traced back to Shem, Noah's eldest son. This includes Arabs, Aramaeans, Jews, and many Ethiopians. So if an Arab is anti-semetic, he must hate his own people.

In the bleak housing project where a young Jew named Ilan Halimi was held captive and tortured before being dumped in a vacant lot to die, there's scant sympathy for the victim. 'It's too bad this happened, because we immigrants are always blamed," said Ibrahim Ag Ahmalou,

Maybe the fact that they blame immigrants is because they are the ones filled with hatred.

a lanky man of West African heritage who shares his girlfriend's apartment in the project. ''But Jews have all the money and power.

Or at least that is what the people that taught you to hate told you to think.

Everyone knows this and resents them. That's why they have these problems."

Anchoress said We keep hearing that the majority of Muslims in France do not consider themselves to be French.

They are willing to share the French's dislike of Jews, but they certainly don't want to be French. And if the French area stupid enough to let them stay in their country, they will deserve what happens

And besides, how can Muslims be Anti-Semitic when they are themselves Semitic peoples?

The point I made above. However I think they are merely anti Zionist (or anti Jew), and they are just not smart enough to realize they can't be Anti Semetic because they are Semites.

Unless….they’re self-loathing….

You have a good point there. The Islamofascists have done some pretty despicable things, and any sane person would loath them. Perhaps there are some sane French Muslims. (And I wish there were more).

Arghgh…it’s all too much. Let’s go have chocolate milk!

Krekar claims Islam will win

Aftenposten.no reported Norway's most controversial refugee, Mullah Krekar, told an Oslo newspaper on Monday that there's a war going on between "the West" and Islam. He said he's sure that Islam will win, and he also had praise for suspected terrorist leader Osama bin Laden. "We're the ones who will change you," Krekar told Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet in his first interview since an uproar broke out over cartoons deemed offensive to Muslims. "Just look at the development within Europe, where the number of Muslims is expanding like mosquitoes,"

And apt description.

Krekar said. "Every western woman in the EU is producing an average of 1.4 children. Every Muslim woman in the same countries are producing 3.5 children. "By 2050, 30 percent of the population in Europe will be Muslim."

Which is why Europe needs to start deporting all radical Muslims.

He claimed that "our way of thinking... will prove more powerful than yours."

I don't think so.

He loosely defined "western thinking" as formed by the values held by leaders of western or non-islamic nations. Its "materialism, egoism and wildness" has altered Christianity, he claimed.

Secular Humanism has certainly cut back on people practicing Christianity, but I would not say it was altered.

Krekar, who's been supported by the Norwegian government since arriving as a refugee from northern Iraq in the early 1990s, now faces deportation after violating the terms of his refugee status and being deemed a threat to national security.

Hope they don't back down, and go ahead and deport him.

Bin Laden 'a good man'
Krekar told Dagbladet that he favours Islamic rule where political and religious leaders are one and the same.

Then he should move to such a country.

One such leader he respects, he said, is Osama bin Laden.

I wonder if Norway will be stupid enough to let this guy stay in its country.

"Osama bin Laden is a good person," Krekar said. He claimed Osama bin Laden is considered a terrorist simply because he lacks his own state.

No. He is considered a terrorist because of what he did. And the Taliban lost their state because they were too stupid not to turn him over.

"Those who say Osama bin Laden is a terrorist are themselves killing our women and children," Krekar said.

Islamofascists kill a lot more Muslim women and children than American forces ever did.

Attempts to "spread democracy," he claimed, are merely a ruse to wage war against Islam, adding that "the West destroyed the Taliban regime in Afghanistan" because "it feared the Islamic state."

No, it was because the Taliban regime was stupid, and would not turn over Osama, who had attacked us on 9/11

Rakan Ben Williams

MEMRI reports Rakan Ben Williams warns that, unlike after the 9/11, Madrid, and London attacks, which are still being investigated, "[after] the coming attack there will be no one to analyze and investigate, because the mind and the heart will be unable to comprehend it

I've got news for you. If there is another attack, regardless of how big it will be, we will be able to comprehend it, and we will retaliate.

… This will not be a single operation", the report added, "but two; one bigger than the other, but we will begin with the big one and postpone the bigger one,

That does not make a lot of sense, but then nothing you nutcases say makes any sense.

in order to see [how] diligent the American people is [in preserving] its life. If it chooses life, [it must] carry out the demands of the Muslims,

Which is not going to happen.

and if it chooses death, then we are its best perpetrators

And the best recipients

Sunday, March 12, 2006

Media shockingly ignorant of Muslims among us

Mark Steyn wrote in SunTimes "The man charged with nine counts of attempted murder for driving a Jeep through a crowd at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill last Friday told the police that he deliberately rented a four-wheel-drive vehicle so he could 'run over things and keep going.' " The driver in question was Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar.

Whoa, don't jump to conclusions. The Times certainly didn't. As the report continued: "According to statements taken by the police, Mr. Taheri-azar, 22, an Iranian-born graduate of the university, felt that the United States government had been 'killing his people across the sea' and that his actions reflected 'an eye for an eye.'"

"His people"? And who exactly would that be? Taheri-azar is admirably upfront about his actions. As he told police, he wanted to "avenge the deaths or murders of Muslims around the world."

And yet the M-word appears nowhere in the Times report.

The MSM is reluctant to report on Muslims unless they can twist it to blaim George Bush

Whether intentionally or not, they seem to be channeling the great Sufi theologian and jurist al-Ghazali, who died a millennium ago but whose first rule on the conduct of dhimmis -- non-Muslims in Muslim society -- seem to have been taken on board by the Western media: The dhimmi is obliged not to mention Allah or His Apostle. . . . Are they teaching that at Columbia Journalism School yet?

Are they even teaching Journalism at the Columbia Journalism School?

McCain Tests New Road to Nomination

WaPo reported No one stole the show at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference here this weekend, but Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) demonstrated why every other prospective 2008 presidential candidate must figure out how to get around him.

More than any of his potential rivals, McCain found a way to balance embracing a weakened President Bush

McCain was brilliant by telling all of his supporters to vote for GWB instead of him. Bill Frist was guaranteed to be the top vote getter, since it was in his state, and McCain was definitely not going to be one of the top vote getters, but this way he had an excuse for his 5th place level, and he should have guaranteed that Bush will campaign for him anytime he asks during the 2008 election race (I suspect Bush will not endorse anyone in the Primary)

-- at a time when many Republicans are running away from the president -- while appealing to those in and out of his party who believe Bush and other Washington Republicans have lost their way. No other candidate could claim to offer continuity and change almost simultaneously. The Arizona senator was full-throated in his support for Bush on Iraq, Iran and even the now-defunct Dubai seaports deal.

All of which I agree on.

In doing so, he continued to establish his bona fides as the Republican most likely to defend and extend the president's controversial foreign policy record. At the same time, McCain delivered a stern condemnation of fiscal profligacy and corruption in Washington that was rooted in his reputation as an advocate of change and an antagonist of pork-barrel spending.

I agree with him on that as well

Saturday, March 11, 2006

Reading up on Islam

Marvin Olasky wrote in Townhall Since 9-11, I've received numerous letters like this recent one: "What can be done to help educate people on the dangers that radical Islam poses to Western civilization? I don't think this ideological conflict will go away."

No, it won't. It is likely to be for the first half of the 21st century what the Cold War was for the last half of the 20th -- a long, subtle struggle with occasional days of fire.

There were no planes flown into buildings, or suicide bombers, or any of the other such stuff going on during the cold war, so I don't know what you mean about "occasional days of fire".

How to educate folks? Use of all media will be needed, but here's a list of books I've read and found useful. There are many more that I haven't read.

First, to understand radical Islam, some sense of basic Islam is essential, and that starts with the Quran. Muslims insist that unless you've read it in Arabic, you haven't read it.

That is foolishness. I dont need to know Greek and Latin, much less Ancient Hebrew and Arameic to read the Bible.

Maybe so, but in theology as well as in horseshoes, leaners are better than nothing, so I'd recommend either reading a translation on the Internet

Such as this site that has three different translations (Yusufali, Pickthal, and Shakir)

or buying the new Quran translation by M.A.S. Abdel Haleem that came out last year in paperback from Oxford University Press. Some scholars now ask tough questions about the Quran's historicity. As I type with one hand, I'm holding in the other John Wainsbrough's "Quranic Studies" (2004) and Ibn Warraq's "The Origins of the Koran" (1998). Warraq left Islam after coming to believe the Muhammad story was a sham, and his books include "Why I Am Not a Muslim" (1995), "The Quest for the Historical Muhammad" (2000) and "Leaving Islam: Apostates Speak Out" (2003).

I don't know whether Muhammad is a sham or not, but certainly the twisted version of Islam the Islamofascists are pushing is totally unrelated to true Islam.

Second in importance within Islam after the Quran are the Hadith, massive works delineating how Muhammad supposedly dressed, ate, ingested and excreted food

That is really more than I want to know.

and drink, and so forth.

Clerics demand cartoon apology

The Daily Telegraph Only an official apology by the Danish government to all Muslims for offence caused by the prophet Mohammad cartoons would prompt the lifting of the boycott of Danish goods, Muslim preachers said.

Why should the government apologize; they did not print the cartoons. And if they do apologize, are the clerics going to apologize for burning down embassies, and are they going to raise the funds to rebuild those embassies.

An official apology “is absolutely necessary ... because your government has not dealt with them (Muslims) respectfully,”

If you want respect, you need to show respect.

Islamic scholar Tareq al-Suweidan told a conference hosted by the Government in an attempt to ease tension over the drawings.

President Bush on the Straw Ballot

MSNBC reported It's early on at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference down here, but already we've learned some big news. Sources tell me that Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., plans to shock his supporters tonight by asking them to NOT vote for him in the presidential straw poll that will be conducted by The Hotline on Saturday. Instead, McCain will urge his followers to write in President Bush's name. McCain will tell his supporters that this is not about 2008, but rather about 2006 and supporting the president.

I have mixed emotions as to whether or not McCain can be trusted, but this is an absolutely brilliant thing for him to do. I doubt that Bush will get involved in 2008 before a candidate is selected, and he probably would have campaigned for McCain if he was the candidate just to thank him for his support in 2004, but this should guarantee that.

According to McCain's supporters, he'll say: "I think we have bigger things to worry about. So if any friends here are thinking about voting for me, please don't. Just write in President Bush's name."

Muslim Says Violence Destroys Islam

NYT reported Three weeks ago, Dr. Wafa Sultan was a largely unknown Syrian-American psychiatrist living outside Los Angeles, nursing a deep anger and despair about her fellow Muslims. Today, thanks to an unusually blunt and provocative interview on Al Jazeera television on Feb. 21, she is an international sensation, hailed as a fresh voice of reason by some,

The intelligent, moderate Muslims

and by others as a heretic and infidel who deserves to die.

The stupid Islamofascists

In the interview, which has been viewed on the Internet more than a million times and has reached the e-mail of hundreds of thousands around the world, Dr. Sultan bitterly criticized the Muslim clerics, holy warriors and political leaders who she believes have distorted the teachings of Muhammad and the Koran for 14 centuries.

She is absolutely right.

She said the world's Muslims, whom she compares unfavorably with the Jews, have descended into a vortex of self-pity and violence.

I would be interested to know exactly what she thinks of the Jews. We are all "People of the Book" (or ahl al Kitâb) Surat Al 'Imran, 64 (Qur'an 3:64) says "O People of the Book! Let us rally to a common formula to be binding on both us and you: That we worship none but God; that we associate no partners with Him; that we erect not, from among ourselves, Lords and patrons other than God." Surat al-Baqara, 136 (Qur'an 2:136) says Say ye: "We believe in Allah, and the revelation given to us, and to Abraham, Isma'il, Isaac, Jacob, and the Tribes, and that given to Moses and Jesus, and that given to (all) prophets from their Lord: We make no difference between one and another of them.

Dr. Sultan said the world was not witnessing a clash of religions or cultures, but a battle between modernity and barbarism, a battle that the forces of violent, reactionary Islam are destined to lose.

But unfortunately a lot of good people may lose their lives first.

In response, clerics throughout the Muslim world have condemned her, and her telephone answering machine has filled with dark threats. But Islamic reformers have praised her for saying out loud, in Arabic and on the most widely seen television network in the Arab world, what few Muslims dare to say even in private.

Thursday, March 09, 2006

Church fires started as 'joke'

CNN reported Three Birmingham college students were arrested and charged Wednesday in connection with a string of Alabama church fires that is described in court papers as a joke that 'got out of hand,' authorities said.

A joke? What is funny about a burning church? Maybe you should draw us a cartoon so we will understand.

"We don't think that there is any type of conspiracy against organized religion or against the Baptists or against religious beliefs in particular," Riley said. "I think that, today, Alabama and all of the faith-based community in this state can rest a little easier."

That might be believable if they had burned down one or two churches, plus a number of secular buildings, but nine or 10 churches, and it wasn't related to religion?

Negative Perception Of Islam Increasing

WaPo reports As the war in Iraq grinds into its fourth year,

What does that have to do with it?

a growing proportion of Americans are expressing unfavorable views of Islam,

What favorable views of Islam have we been presented with?

and a majority now say that Muslims are disproportionately prone to violence,

I wonder if the riots, killings, and burning of embassies (and KFC Chicken stores) because of a few cartoons being printed in Europe had anything to do with that.

according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

The poll found that nearly half of Americans -- 46 percent -- have a negative view of Islam,

And the other half have not been paying attention.

seven percentage points higher than in the tense months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, when Muslims were often targeted for violence.

But when there were many of us counseling caution, because we knew that all Muslims were not like the ones that flew the planes. And had the moderate ones stood up to the extremists a few more times in the past four or five years, more would be on their side.

Pot calling kettle black

NYT reported China today criticized the human rights record of the United States, arguing that racial discrimination remained pervasive

There may be some racism, but it is localized and not sanctioned by law, as it once was.

and that the American military abused prisoners held at detention centers abroad.

America treats terrorists prisoners better than China treats its own citizens.

In a sharply worded response to the annual State Department report on human rights conditions globally, which was released in Washington on Wednesday, China's State Council, or Cabinet, said the American government should concentrate on improving its own rights record.

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

The teachers unions are mad at me

John Stossel wrote in Townhall "Teachers unions are mad at me. The New York State United Teachers demands I apologize for my 'gutter level' journalism, 'an irresponsible assault on public school students and teachers.' This is because I hosted an ABC News TV special titled 'Stupid in America,' which pointed out:

-- American fourth graders do well on international tests, but by high school, Americans have fallen behind kids in most other countries.

That is because No Child Left Behind, from Bush's first administration, focused on the lower grade levels. He planned to carry it to high school this term, but could not get the support he needed.

The constant refrain that 'public schools need more money' is nonsense.

The more they have, the more they can waste.

Many countries that spend significantly less on education do better than we do. School spending in America (adjusted for inflation) has more than tripled over the past 30 years, but national test scores are flat. The average per-pupil cost today is an astonishing $10,000 per student -- $200,000 per classroom! Think about how many teachers you could hire, and how much better you could do with that amount of money."

Give every child a $10,000 voucher, and let him spend it on the school that could teach him the best with it.

It doesn't have to be that way. We know what works: choice. That's what's brought Americans better computers, phones, movies, music, supermarkets -- most everything we have. Schoolchildren deserve the joyous benefits of market competition too.

Unions say, "education of the children is too important to be left to the vagaries of the market." The opposite is true. Education is too important to be left to the calcified union/government monopoly.

That is absolutely true.

Congress Votes to Renew Patriot Act, With Changes

WaPo reported Congress voted yesterday to renew a four-year-old anti-terrorism law that makes it easier for federal agents to secretly obtain Americans' records and communications, even as some lawmakers warned that voters are growing increasingly concerned about protecting civil liberties during the fight against terrorism. The reauthorization would make permanent all but two of the Patriot Act's provisions. The Senate, in which four Republicans joined most Democrats in pushing for greater safeguards, insisted on four-year sunsets of the FBI's authority to conduct "roving wiretaps" of targets with multiple phones or e-mail devices,

That is foolish. Roving wiretaps, where a court order to tap one phone extends to all other phones the person may have, including throw-away cellular phones, makes good sense, and it should be made permanent.

and of the government's powers to seize business records with the FISA court's approval.

Tuesday, March 07, 2006

MSN adCenter: Customers With Firefox Might Not Get Tracked

Search Engine Watch reported It annoyed me a few weeks ago when I signed up for the MSN adCenter pilot that Firefox wasn't supported. That was still the case with the open adCenter sign-up today and annoyed one of my readers Paul Holstein, as well. Firefox users also get treated to a warning that Firefox is "unable to verify the identity of adcenter.msn.com as a trusted site"

Who really "trusts" anything Microsoft does?

if they try to enter adCenter. Paul came across a similar but more serious warning that could alienate Firefox users, one that may appear if advertisers make use of adCenter's conversion tracking script on their own pages.

Here's what Paul emailed me:

Did you know that MSN ad center is not Firefox compliant? This should come as no surprise but the kicker is that the conversion tracking is not compliant either. Therefore, any merchant using the conversion tracking script will run into problems with their Firefox customers.

When they purchase something, they will be told that the merchant is pretending to be r.microsoft.com. Needless to say, this will be a problem for at least 10% of a merchant's customers.

We called MSN and spoke to them. Their official solution is that we should switch all our customer service reps to IE6 and alert our customers that they should only use IE6 to purchase from us.
Why on earth should someone revert back to an outdated browser that does not have many of the features that have caused so many customers to abandon it and go to Firefox instead. I believe the proper solution is the vendor should dump MSN adCenter.
Hmm, that doesn't sound like a practical solution to me.

It is not, but it is typical Microsoft. Back when they were threatened by people switching to Netscape they made the FrontPage publishing software screw up websites if they were viewed from Netscape, but work fine with IE, hoping web site owners would encourage people to only use IE when visiting their site. In my opinion the solution was to dump Front Page, and find a web publishing program that worked regardless of what browser the viewer wanted to use.

Critics attack Academy for Brokeback snub

Times Online reports Leading US critics have questioned whether Hollywood is yet ready to give its biggest prize to a gay love story after the race drama Crash grabbed the Best Picture Oscar at the 78th Academy Awards last night.

Maybe the Academy voters voted for what they thought was the best movie, rather than making a political statement that some wish had been made.

Brokeback Mountain, the story of unfulfilled love between two gay cowboys that was nominated in eight categories, had been the runaway favourite for the award after cleaning up in the Golden Globes and Baftas.

I believe one of those is the result of votes by International Press. Maybe that is why it is the UK site Times Online is so shocked that the American Academy voters picked a different movie as being the best.

But although it won three Oscars, including the Best Director award for the Taiwanese Ang Lee, the year's most talked-about film ended up losing on the final prize of the night.

"Perhaps the truth really is, Americans don’t want cowboys to be gay," said Larry McMurtry, the veteran Western writer who shared the award for best adapted screenplay.

Maybe it goes even further than that. Maybe we dont want to see homosexuality shoved in our faces at the movies or anywhere else.

Bush Proposes Law to Give the President Line-Item Veto Power

WaPo reported Seeking to reassert his party's scuffed reputation for fiscal conservatism, President Bush yesterday proposed a law giving him authority to veto individual items in legislation as a way to curb fast-growing federal spending.

I support giving the president the same power most governors have, especially considering how earmarks have been abused, but I would prefer the Constitutional Ammendment approach.

Bush, who has never exercised his veto power in more than five years as president, said the line-item veto would give him authority to clamp down on special-interest items, known on Capitol Hill as earmarks, increasingly slipped into legislation to benefit the home districts of lawmakers. Congress passed legislation authorizing the line-item veto in 1996, but the Supreme Court struck it down as an unconstitutional abridgement of the separation of powers shortly after it was enacted by President Bill Clinton. By requiring that the cuts made by the president be approved by Congress, the White House believes it will avoid any constitutional problems with the new legislation.

If a bunch of legislators have slipped in earmarks for their states or region, what makes you think they are going to vote to sustain a veto. That is why I prefer the Constitutional Ammendment approach.

Monday, March 06, 2006

Moonbats Lose

Michelle Malkin blogged Good news just in via Breitbart/Reuters:
A unanimous U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Monday that universities that get federal funds must allow military recruiters on campus, even if their law schools oppose the Pentagon's policy prohibiting openly gays and lesbians from serving. The high court upheld as constitutional a federal law dating back to 1994 that allows the government to withhold money from universities that deny military recruiters the same access to campuses given to other employers.
Via How Appealing: "Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. delivered the opinion of the Court. You can access the syllabus here; the Chief Justice's opinion here; and the oral argument transcript here."

Reader Paula D. writes:
The Chief Justice shows some brilliant and biting wit, shredding the argument of the law schools in this excerpt from the opinion: "…Nothing about recruiting suggests that law schools agree with any speech by recruiters, and nothing in the Solomon Amendment restricts what the law schools may say about the military’s policies. We have held that high school students can appreciate the difference between speech a school sponsors and speech the school permits because legally required to do so, pursuant to an equal access policy… …Surely students have not lost that ability by the time they get to law school."

ZING!!

I bet it really chaps the left wing law schools that the decision was unanimous.

Track a package via Google Maps

TechBlog Isnoop has come up with a very slick combination of Google Maps, package tracking and RSS. Input a tracking number from UPS, FedEx, USPS, or Airborne/DHL here and it will generate both a Google map showing the package's location and an RSS feed so you can continue watching. The input page is incredibly simple: A few lines of instruction and a blank field. Then again, what more do you need?

This looks like a very useful service.

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