Don Singleton

Monday, October 02, 2006

It's just about sex

TPMmuckraker reported In a letter to House Ethics Committee Chair Doc Hastings (R-WA) today, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi wrote "to insist that the Ethics Committee act as directed and immediately form the investigative Subcommittee and begin work on the preliminary report in 10 days.

Nancy you are a bit late. Foley is no longer in the House. When a Democratic President forces an intern to have oral sex in the ~~Oval~~ Oral Office Dems say it is just about sex, why make a big deal about it. When it is a Republican, and when it is just dirty emails, we show them the door. It is true that the pages are just 15 or 16, but if it was a female, Dems would help her get an abortion without even telling her parents.

Muslim accosts injured Para in hospital

Telegraph reported A paratrooper wounded in Afghanistan was threatened by a Muslim visitor to the British hospital where he is recovering. Seriously wounded soldiers have complained that they are worried about their safety after being left on wards that are open to the public at Selly Oak Hospital, Birmingham.

They should be protected.

On one occasion a member of the Parachute Regiment, still dressed in his combat uniform after being evacuated from Afghanistan, was accosted by a Muslim over the British involvement in the country. "You have been killing my Muslim brothers in Afghanistan," the man said during a tirade. Because the soldier was badly injured and could not defend himself, he was very worried for his safety, sources told The Daily Telegraph.

He should be worried. They only attack the weak, who can't fight back. They are cowards.

A relative of the Para said the man had twice walked on to the ward where two other soldiers and four civilians were being treated without once being challenged by staff.

Winning: The Joke's on Osama

Strategy Page reported Al Qaeda in particular, and Islamic terrorist groups in general, are desperate for a major success. Islamic terrorists remember the 19 90s fondly as a time when they were kicking ass big time, or at least more effectively than they have since September 11, 2001.

That is the problem with kicking a sleeping giant. You can have fun, and think yourself very brave, but you need to be careful not to wake the giant up.

How soon we forget. In 1993, al Qaeda bombed the World Trade Center in New York City, and had agents assisting warlords in their fight to drive American troops out of Somali. In 1994, an elaborate plan to blow up eleven U.S. airliners over the Pacific was about to get underway, when Filipino police got wind of it. The planner of that operation, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, got another chance and was largely responsible for putting together the September 11, 2001 attacks. In 1995 and 1996, bombs were set off outside U.S. military facilities, killing two dozen Americans and wounding many more. In 1997, al Qaeda scored a major victory that did not involve an explosion, it established a number of training camps in Afghanistan, and began training thousands of terrorist recruits each year. In 1998, there were simultaneous bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 224. In 1999, there was another spectacular failure, as U.S. border agents unmasked a plot to set of several bombs during New Years eve celebrations. In 2000, an al Qaeda suicide boat damaged, and almost sank, an American destroyer in a Yemen harbor. That attack killed 17 sailors, and was later found to be the second attempt against a U.S. warship that year.

But all of that was done under Clinton, whose idea of war was bombing Bosnia from the air, or shooting cruise missles into tents in Afganistan, or aspirin plants, and who did not have the slightest idea how to use his military. Besides he was busy with Monica.

Then, on September 11, 2001, al Qaeda had its greatest success. But that also prompted the United States to go to war with al Qaeda (and Islamic terrorism in general), rather than continue to treat it as a police matter. As a result, Afghanistan was gone as a base within a few months. Since then, there were no more attacks in the United States, and only two in Europe.

They went for the easier targets, where they could kill a lot of people, and feel very powerful, but where they did not fear the local military.

In 2003, the U.S. invaded Iraq, causing many Islamic terrorists to hustle back to the Middle East, to "defend the homeland." There they died in the thousands. But worse than that, the terrorist tactics they continued to use was now killing thousands of Moslem men, women and children. The negative publicity caused Islamic terrorism to sink in the opinion polls. This was very bad news. The terrorists depend on public approval, in the Islamic world, for new recruits, protection (from local police) and financial support. The dead Iraqis were killing al Qaeda.

By 2006, Iraqis were turning on al Qaeda, informing on al Qaeda leaders, and any operatives that did not hide carefully from the people they believed they were fighting for. Westerners, unless they observe Arab media closely, and have contacts inside the Arab world, will not have noted this sharp drop in al Qaedas fortunes. It's in the Western media's interest (financial and political) to pump up al Qaedas current standing. But the reality is that al Qaeda is desperate for a big score. The terrorist chatter this year, on several occasions, has indicated that another major attack was imminent. The intelligence agencies did not release any data on what, if any, major attacks were thwarted. But that's normal, because sometimes attacks are called off, not because the intel agencies have intervened, but because the terrorists decided that things were not quite right. In situations like that, the CIA, FBI or whatever, doesn't want to let the bad guys know how close they are.

The chatter is on again. This time there is talk of an al Qaeda video featuring the long unseen Osama bin Laden. The recent reports of his death began as rumors in Arab countries about bin Laden passing away in some inglorious and painful fashion (Typhoid was mentioned.) Actually, many of the "death reports" were actually jokes. Al Qaeda's fortunes have sunk so low in the Moslem world that he is being mocked, via jokes about his demise. While the Western media may not be picking up on this, al Qaeda certainly is, and is eager to do something about it. The chatter also indicates that the new video release may be followed by the long rumored, and oft delayed, "major attack." Either al Qaeda delivers this time, or the organization continues to fade from the Moslem memory.

Sunday, October 01, 2006

Saudis build 550-mile fence to shut out Iraq

Telegraph reported Security in Iraq has collapsed so dramatically that Saudi Arabia has ordered the construction of a 550-mile high-tech fence to seal off its troubled northern neighbour.

The huge project to build the barrier, which will be equipped with ultraviolet night-vision cameras, buried sensor cables and thousands of miles of barbed wire, will snake across the vast and remote desert frontier between the countries.

This is good news. It will help keep insurgents FROM Saudia Arabia from joining the fight. Maybe if we tell them trouble could comd from Syria, they would build a fence between Syria and Iraq as well.

The fence will be built despite the hundreds of millions of pounds that the Saudi kingdom has spent in the past two years to beef up patrols on its border with Iraq, with officials saying the crisis in Iraq is now so dangerous it must be physically shut out.

Saturday, September 30, 2006

Pig's head dumped outside mosque at start of Ramadan

Yahoo! News reported Police have revealed they were investigating the dumping of a pig's head outside a mosque on the first full day of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

Someone is trying to stir up trouble

The head was found outside the Jamia Mosque in Newport, southeast Wales, on Saturday. The Koran strictly forbids Muslims to eat pork.

No problem. The Muslims are fasting during Ramadan anyway.

"We treat all incidents of hate crime seriously and are pursuing a number of lines of inquiry to identify the offender," said Gwent Police Superintendent Simon Prince on Friday.

If you find the offender don't tell the Muslims, or his head may be found outside of a church.

Teacher in Hiding After Attack on Islam Stirs Threats

NYT A French high school philosophy teacher and author who carried out a scathing attack against the Prophet Muhammad and Islam in a newspaper commentary says he has gone into hiding under police protection after receiving a series of death threats, including one disseminated on an online radical Islamist forum.

This is ridiculous. We have to put up with NBC editing God out of Veggie Tales and Madonna pretending to be crucified just for the publicity, and no one gives a thought to whether Christians will be offended, and yet Muslims feel no one can say anything wrong against their faith.

The teacher, Robert Redeker, 52, wrote in the center-right daily Le Figaro 10 days ago that Muhammad was “a merciless warlord, a looter, a mass-murderer of Jews and a polygamist,” and called the Koran “a book of incredible violence.”

You left out pedophile.

The Redeker case is the latest manifestation in Europe of a mounting ideological battle that pits those who believe Islam and the Prophet Muhammad can be criticized in the name of free speech against those in the Muslim community who believe no criticism can be tolerated.

97 Reasons Democrats Are Weak On Defense

Investor's Business Daily reports 97 Reasons Democrats Are Weak On Defense And Can't Be Trusted To Govern In Wartime

I did not realize there were 97 reasons, but I certainly agree with IBD.

Rep. Foley Quits In Page Scandal

WaPo reported Six-term Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.) resigned yesterday amid reports that he had sent sexually explicit Internet messages to at least one underage male former page.

Finally Republicans and Democrats have something they can agree on, what Foley did was very bad. I am surprised the Dems are as upset as they are, because it did involve sex, and there is not that much difference between Pages and Interns, but they hate Republicans enough to agree with them that what Foley did was very wrong.

I've got the keys

I am so flattered that Don gave me the keys to his fabulous blog. I am nowhere even close to his writing style or the political pundit he is, so I might just stir things up a bit. Honestly, I am here to keep up his blog if he isn't up to par some days. This responsibility is overwhelming, but he is a friend and I will do what friends do! Hooah!!!

Friday, September 29, 2006

Sheikh: All must convert to Islam

Ynetnews reported Sheikh Abu Saqer, leader of Gaza's Jihadia Salafiya Islamic outreach movement, which seeks to make secular Muslims more religious, called the pope a "puppet" for "that Crusader George Bush."

If he is a puttpe, someone cut his strings.

The Gaza imam said the only Christian-Muslim dialogue that is acceptable is one in which "all religions agree to convert to Islam."

That is not dialog, it is capitulation

"The call for so-called dialogue by this little racist pope is a Trojan horse with the main goal of reaching a new system in which the ideals (of Christianity) are a new ideology that will rule relations between nations and people.

He must feel that the arguments in favor of Islam are so weak that if compared to other faiths, Islam would loose.

The dialogue he wants is dangerous," said Abu Saqer, speaking to WND from the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis.

Video interview with Lieberman

Pajamas Media has a video blog entry where Senator Joseph Lieberman sat down with PajamasMedia CEO Roger L. Simon in Washington, DC to talk about the political atmosphere of America, Lieberman’s quest for re-election, and what it is likely to be the front-running political hybrid in the 2006 race.

God edited out of Veggie Tales

Michelle Malkin devotes today's Hot Air video to the fact that NBC insisted that God be edited out of Veggie Tales. I hope that some Christian groups will make note of the companies sponsoring these cartoon broadcasts, and will contact them and indicate they are considering a boycott of their products unless Veggie Tales reverts back to its normal religious message.

Many Rights in U.S. Legal System Absent in New Bill

R. Jeffrey Smith wrote in WaPo The military trials bill approved by Congress lends legislative support for the first time to broad rules for the detention, interrogation, prosecution and trials of terrorism suspects far different from those in the familiar American criminal justice system.

Wonderful. When are the Democrats going to learn that this is a war, not a court of law. We are fighting people who are willing to blow themselves up to kill a few people, or fly airplanes into buildings to kill many more, and who will chop people heads off just to get on television.

The rules of engagement when a swat team surround a suspect in the United States are not the same as the rules of engagement when the military surround a terrorist in Iraq or Afganistan, and the terrorists is not entitled to be read the Miranda warning.

God help this country if the brain damaged Democrats ever get back in control.

Thursday, September 28, 2006

The Greatest Figures In American History

Right Wing News asked more than 225 right of center bloggers for a list of their picks for the Greatest 25 Figures in American History. 41 blogs responded, including mine, and here are the results. My picks are in bold.

Ronald Reagan (39)
Abraham Lincoln (37)
George Washington (35)
Ben Franklin (32)
Martin Luther King Jr. (30)
Thomas Jefferson (29)
James Madison (22)
Thomas Edison (21)
John Adams (17)
Henry Ford (16)
Alexander Hamilton (15)
Franklin D. Roosevelt (14)
Teddy Roosevelt (14)
Ulysses S. Grant (14)
Albert Einstein (13)
George Patton (13)
Dwight D. Eisenhower (12)
Bill Gates (10)
Harry Truman (10)
Mark Twain (10)
Wright Brothers (10)
George W. Bush (9)
Frederick Douglass (8)
Thomas Paine (8)
Alexander Graham Bell (7)

Honorable Mentions: John F. Kennedy (4), Lewis And Clark (4), William Tecumseh Sherman (5), Jonas Salk (5), John Marshall (5), Milton Friedman (5), George Washington Carver (5), Susan B. Anthony (5), Audie Murphy (6), Douglas MacArthur (6). Patrick Henry (6), Andrew Carnegie (6)

People I included, that did not make the list, are Condi Rice, Alexander Graham Bell, Henry Ford, Bob Hope, Laura Bush, Sam Walton, and Mel Gibson (for the Passion of the Christ, certainly not for his latest escapades).

In Tribal Pakistan, an Uneasy Quiet

WaPoI reported Three weeks after Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, announced a peace pact with Taliban radicals in a tribal area bordering Afghanistan, recent visitors say there is now pin-drop silence in a territory that once shook with artillery and bomb blasts.

And what is wrong with that?

Religious patrols are enforcing law and order, they say, in place of Pakistan army troops who have withdrawn to their barracks. But as the toll from violence rises across the border in Afghanistan, with suicide bombings killing 22 people in three cities this week, there are reports that militant Pakistani tribal leaders, while complying with their pledge to reduce the presence of foreign Islamic fighters, intend to defy the peace pact by sending local fighters and suicide bombers into Afghanistan.

That is ok. Just keep the door closed, and we will deal with them in Afganistan. Just don't let them sneak back over the border to find sanctuary.

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Now history is off limits lest we offend Islamicists

James Lileks wrote in Austin American Statesmen Clip and save, for this may come in handy: If you mock Islam with a drawing or a novel, you get riots and dead people. News of mishandled holy books yields riots and dead people. Insufficiently reverent short films by a Dutchman yields a dead person, specifically the Dutchman. Now we add this detail: Quoting medieval religious colloquies is a reasonable justification for burning churches, shooting a nun and holding up signs demanding that the pope convert to Islam or saw off his own head. (There have been reports of carpal tunnel syndrome among radical Islam's enforcers, and they have requested we all help out.) This is a new twist: Now history itself cannot be discussed. Since it's difficult to predict what else will enflame the devout, Islam has to be treated with unusual deference, like a 3-year-old child with anger management problems.

A 3 year old child with an automatic weapon.

But it's not what we say that truly offends. It's what we are. The West's lack of interest in joining the Ummah is an affront in itself,

I suspect Hitler was equally insulted that we did not all want to be subservient to the Third Reich.

and we broadcast our sins in High Infidelity. If you believed that the West's apostasy was an affront to God, you'd spend your leisure hours torching straw popes, too.... The Christianists, as some clever equivocators call them, are an impediment to Utopia as great as the terrorists. No less a philosopher than Rosie O'Donnell said so on "The View" recently, proclaiming Christian fundamentalists and Islamicists equal threats to America. They're both judgmental — boo, hiss! — and that makes them equal. O'Donnell had a point, one supposes. Using the legislative process to pass faith-based initiatives, driving jets into skyscrapers: madness, everywhere.

Yes, let us compare. The faith based initiative would have allowed churches to be on an equal footing with secular organizations to get contracts to help the poor. Compare that to flying airplanes into buildings and killing thousands. Yes, in the warped mind of a liberal I guess both are equally bad.

At the risk of making a generalization: The secular right seems more tolerant of Christianity, and skeptical toward large swaths of Islam. The secular left often seems annoyed and contemptuous towards American religion — unless the pastor on the dais insists Jesus would have been a board member of Planned Parenthood — and oddly protective of Islam. Not because they believe in it; heavens, no. Some progressives are simply besotted by any civilization not their own.

ROF, LMAO

Others have no vocabulary to oppose its more radical manifestations, because, well, we cannot judge other cultures. (Unless they're in the American South.) Others are less concerned by Islamicists because they have greater dislike for the people who oppose radical Islam, who are probably bigots. (Boo, hiss!) When those theo-neos get tough on radical Islam, it's just a convenient mask for their dislike of the Scary Non-Christian Dusky Hordes. Besides, what about the Crusades and the Inquisition? Huh? OK, then.

Thus the most enlightened and well-intentioned beneficiaries of the human civilization excuse or wish away the words of their most implacable opponents. It'll take something drastic to change their minds. A dirty bomb? Maybe. A demonstration in Pakistan in favor of Wal-Mart? That would certainly reorder some opinions.

In the meantime, we will learn to say less and less about more and more. As the grim cliche has it: If you say Islam isn't always a religion of peace, the Islamicists will kill you. This doesn't make them hypocrites, of course. The grave is a very peaceful place.

You've got a point there.

Opera Canceled Over a Depiction of Muhammad

NYT A leading German opera house has canceled performances of a Mozart opera because of security fears stirred by a scene that depicts the severed head of the Prophet Muhammad, prompting a storm of protest here about what many see as the surrender of artistic freedom.

What the NYT waits until the seventh paragraph to admit is that the Opera involves the severed heads of Muhammad, Jesus, Buddha and Poseidon. The opera was written by Mozart in 1780, and it was on TV in 1983, and no one was worried about threats by Christians or Buddhists (or anyone still worshiping Poseidon), but nutcase Muslims were not so sensitive of criticism of their Prophet that they did not threaten violence then. A true Muslim would know that such a secular presentation did not really wound his faith, just as a true Christian knows that Christ is still Christ, irrespective of what some secular artist depicts. This does not mean I am happy about this Opera, any more than I have been happy with some of the other insulting artwork that has been created over the past years. I just know that Chist is above all of it. After all, He died on the cross, in a very painful method, that I might have Eternal Life. Secularists may try to demean Him, but they will not be joining me in meeting Christ in Heaven. And the nutcases that have hijacked the Muslim faith will not be there either, although I am sure many true Muslims will be.

The Deutsche Oper Berlin said Tuesday that it had pulled “Idomeneo” from its fall schedule after the police warned of an “incalculable risk” to the performers and the audience.

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Stricter Voting Laws

NYT reported Eva Charlene Steele, a recent transplant from Missouri, has no driver’s license or other form of state identification. So after voting all her adult life, Mrs. Steele will not be voting in November because of an Arizona law that requires proof of citizenship to register.

Does she not have a birth certificate? Or can she not get one?

“I have mixed emotions,” said Mrs. Steele, 57, who uses a wheelchair and lives in a small room in an assisted-living center. “I could see where you would want to keep people who don’t belong in the country from voting, but there has to be an easier way.”

Does Arizona not give you a way to get a photo id showing you have proved you are a resident, without it giving the right to drive a car?

Russell K. Pearce, a leading proponent of the new requirement, offers no apologies. “You have to show ID for almost everything — to rent a Blockbuster movie!”

Or cash a check, or any of a number of other reasons. All should have photo ids. I wish social security cards had photo ids.

said Mr. Pearce, a Republican in the State House of Representatives. “Nobody has the right to cancel my vote by voting illegally. This is about political corruption.”

Mrs. Steele and Mr. Pearce are two players in a spreading partisan brawl over new and proposed voting requirements around the country. Republicans say the laws are needed to combat fraud, especially among illegal immigrants. Democrats say there is minimal fraud, if any,

What they mean is that most voter fraud is on the Democrat side, so they are not hurt by it.

and accuse Republicans of suppressing the votes of those least likely to have the required documentation — minorities, the poor and the elderly — who tend to vote for Democrats.

Help them get the necessary IDs, and then they can cash checks, etc, in addition to voting.

John Bolton Confirmation Battle Really, Really Dead

Washington Note reported The last pre-election loophole through which John Bolton's confirmation might have snuck through the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was at 2:15 this afternoon at a previously called "business meeting" of the Committee. That meeting has been cancelled -- and with it even the dimmest chance of John Bolton being confirmed as US Ambassador to the United Nations. Some have said that another effort could be mounted during a lame duck session of Congress, but there are several Republicans who will not feel bound by the White House in that circumstance; Dems as well -- who will vote against cloture on the floor of the Senate were it to get out of Committee then.

That depends on what Bolton does between now and then. The politicians might not fear immediate recall by the voters, but if the voters make it clear they like what he is doing, the politicians would be running a risk to oppose him

So, it's over. Wow. John Bolton might agree to serve as the uncompensated Ambassador to the UN in a second recess appointment, or might agree to serve as a recess appointed political deputy at the UN and made "acting Ambassador and Chief of Mission" at a pay cut.

I wonder if a conservative think tank could hire him as a consultant and still let him serve as Ambassador.

Either way, Ambassador Bolton will fill his term as the only unconfirmed Ambassador at the United Nations in American history.

And yet the best one we have ever had.

Transition to Civilian Life

Greta Perry (Hooah Wife) relates what their family is going through as they transition to civilian life.

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