at Least One Country Thinks Iraq is Worth Fighting For
April 28, 2007
US forces on Friday detained four members of a gang suspected of smuggling armour-piercing bombs from Iran to Iraq and sending back militants for “terrorist training”, the military said.
A statement from US command in Iraq said the suspects were picked up in an early morning raid on the east Baghdad suburb of Sadr City, a known stronghold of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia.
“The individuals targeted during the raid are suspected members of a secret cell terrorist network known for facilitating the transport of weapons and explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, from Iran to Iraq,” it said.
Britian Bomb Mastermind Caught
April 28, 2007
But I thought you said?
Bad guys are getting caught all over Iraq, and it isn’t just people having to do with Civil Strife.
The al-Qaeda leader who is thought to have devised the plan for the July 7 suicide bombings in London and an array of terrorist plots against Britain has been captured by the Americans.
Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, a former major in Saddam Hussein’s army, was apprehended as he tried to enter Iraq from Iran and was transferred this week to the “high-value detainee programme†at Guantanamo Bay.
Abd al-Hadi was taken into CIA custody last year, it emerged from US intelligence sources yesterday, in a move which suggests that he was interrogated for months in a “ghost prison†before being transferred to the internment camp in Cuba.
Abd al-Hadi, 45, was regarded as one of al-Qaeda’s most experienced, most intelligent and most ruthless commanders. Senior counter-terrorism sources told The Times that he was the man who, in 2003, identified Britain as the key battleground for exporting al-Qaeda’s holy war to Europe.
But, doesn’t everyone say that Al Queda had nothing to do with Sadaam Husein?
Do as I say Not as I Do Democrats
April 27, 2007
On the twilight to an uneventful 1st Dem Showdown in South Carolina. Global Warming has been on the divinging rod of certainly all the candidates. I mean Al Gore says so.
However, all the candidates arrived to their debate in style, in their own chartered or private flying machine. I think those things burn lots of fuel and create much emissions last I checked.
A flock of small jets took flight from Washington Thursday, each carrying a Democratic presidential candidate to South Carolina for the first debate of the political season.
No one jet pooled, no one took commercial flights to save money, fuel or emissions.
All but Biden, who flew on a private jet, chartered their flights — a campaign expense of between $7,500 and $9,000.
jets.
So predictable, so hypocritical. Yet their sheople gish win Hillary talks about Health care for women. They swoon win Obama pontificates about reforms. Yes, they will get their votes. Because, the Left inevitably are never held accountable by their own.
Huffington Cooking Numbers
April 26, 2007
Arianna Huffington is an amazing woman.
She at one time was the loyal wife of her politician husband. Whose public life was as a Rigth Wing loyalist. She the Right wing wife of the olyalist. She was a great spokewoman for the cause.
Until, she underwent a transformation after her divorce of what we all found out was her gay husband. And then she went Left Wing on us.
Now, hey we all make mistakes, but such a fundamental shift in personal philosophy is not very likely in a person. I have always thought that wierd.
Today in the Huffington Report she rants about General David Petraeus went to Capitol Hill. How all the Right laments him. Except that they don’t seem to be following his script for success.
The trouble is, most of those touting his authorship have clearly never read his magnum opus. Or perhaps they have, didn’t like the plotline, and decided to ignore or alter the contents to fit their political agenda. (This, of course, is standard operating procedure for the Bushies..)
But let’s just focus on the 120,000 soldiers that, according to the manual written by Petraeus — “the expert on counterinsurgency,” remember? — are needed to secure Baghdad. Simply put: we’re not even close to that number. And never will be. Even after all of the planned 21,500 additional troops are sent to the embattled capitol, there will still only be 85,000 security forces there — and that includes significant numbers of Iraqi security forces, whose readiness and loyalty have repeatedly proven to be unreliable at best.
Okay, let,s see. According to the Army site the surge will more than likely take us up by 50,000 troops from the U.S. And according to the BBC site there are about 132,000 troops in the country, which make up 90% of the total number of foreign soldiers there.
It seems this surpasses the Generals expectations eh Arriana?
The Economy Sizzles
April 25, 2007
For most Presidents, breaking economic records would be enough for ones legacy. But while the Dow broke its highest ever going above 13,000 for the first time. But Congress is looking at bleeding the trops out of Iraq. A fitting term sense this is what the Democratic led Congress would do, put more kids in body bags. In the name of Politics.
U.S. stocks extended their biggest monthly rally in more than three years and the Dow Jones Industrial Average surpassed 13,000 for the first time, spurred by profits that topped analysts’ forecasts at Boeing Co. and Amazon.com Inc. More than two-thirds of 230 Standard & Poor’s 500 Index members have reported profits that topped analysts’ forecasts. The Dow industrials added 135.95, or 1.1 percent, to 13,089.89, its highest close ever.
The S&P 500 increased 15.01, or 1 percent, to 1495.42, its highest since September 2000. Its 5.2 percent advance in April is the most for a month since October 2003. The Nasdaq Composite Index gained 23.35, or 0.9 percent, to 2547.89.
All but one of the 30 Dow industrial members rose today. The benchmark reached the 13,000 milestone 128 trading days after breaching 12,000, about 15 times faster than the prior 1,000- point advance.
Cali Watchdogs
April 24, 2007
A service based in Berkeley, Calif., has launched a nonprofit Web site, MAPlight.org, that pulls together information about California lawmakers and money contributions they have received.
The information breaks down state bills by interest group and combines bill texts and legislative voting records, supporting and opposing interests for each bill, and campaign contribution data from the Institute on Money in State Politics and the Center for Responsive Politics. The site builds on OpenSecrets.org and makes the information easy to search and compare.
Subtle Assaults on the Consitution
April 17, 2007
Well in one week we have had the Imus story which has become the rallying cry of the Left to shut down the Right Wing talk radio.
Never mind the Don Imus was a liberal and against guns and the war. And I believe he voted for John Kerry .
This is the move towards the Fairness Doctrine which takes business out of radio ratings.
Bill O’Reilly took it on the chin as the NY Times Frank Rich quoted from Far LEft website disinformation that showed O’Relly as culpable as Imus. Never mind that the info RIch used was false. But that is what LEft Wing journalism has become. Find enough crappy sources to prove your point and make the point.
Now, after the largest gun massacre in the US ever, the call for gun control is yelled form the rooftops of the leftist blogs like the Huffington report. Wow, could the libs ask for any better present in a weeks time? First Imus now this. Soon the parrots at NBC, ABC, and of course CBS will soon use their investigative reporting to show how this could have been diferrent if we had gun control. My God next thing is we will hear about someone being denied an abortion and an ‘08 Victory is assured by the Left.
Will they mention that this killerwas a resident Alien? That he was able to but the gun I think is more of a terrorist story than a gu control story.
And this is where the Left is wrong. They won Congress by behaving Right Wing. The Right lost because they acted Left. The majority of gains that they made in Congress are politicians that were wooed by the right. Meaning they can go either way.
The behavior of the first 100 hours and now days has done nothing. Except remind the far Left that this is not a Leftist Congress. Even thoght they wear the uniform.
If the Left continues to remind America of their Ideals, an 08 Victory is more likely to be a Republican. Don’t believe me? Look at how careful Obama was on the Imus subject. Hillary chimed in just because she is desperate to get the black vote.
Both Obama and Hillary will remain relatively quiet on yesterdays events.They are OK so long as the only polorization is the War. Remind the country of their real ideals and we could be looking at a PResident Rudy.
The Emperor Has No Clothes
April 16, 2007
The Pope just wrote a book and criticizes Capitalisms treatment of the poor. Now having not read it, I cannot comment much. But the statement of itself is bothersome as no other society has given the poor more chances than America. Can someone translate in German what we have on our front door. “Give me your poor and huddled masses”.
But really I am not criticising his take on the system we make our money by.
I am more concerned that he chose to write about quite frankly a bunch of same ole bull shit, when his churches credability is in his question. Do we sweep La Mahoney’s coverup, or the one he left behind in his previous Diocese? Do we forget that from I heard that when the Pope was just a Cardinal he was the liason between the previous Papacy and the Mahoney?
We are living in a time where Leadership and Moral Authority is greatly missing in America. We have aways been the Authority. And the Church particularily the Catholic church has led the way in leading with Moral Certainty while accepting our human frailties.
In todays, world where a Presidents indescresions can be caught on tape and broadcast across the world, the need for certainty is at an all time crisis level. Unfortunately, the Pope has just lost some street cred over here across the Pond.
Without Roots: The West, Relativism, Christianity, Islam
On the book:Complementary lectures delivered in May 2004 and the lecturers’ letters of response to one another make up a small, potent book on the topic that Bruce Bawer’s startling While Europe Slept (2006) gives electrifying currency: the decline and all-too-possible fall of European culture to the radical Islam that Mary Habeck in Knowing the Enemy (2006) calls “jihadism.” Pera, a philosopher of science who has become president of the Italian senate, dissects political correctness and the condition of which it is a symptom, cultural relativism. Ratzinger, who a year later became Pope Benedict XVI, summarizes Europe’s Christian heritage with breathtaking concision and historical mastery. Both men see Europe today in a crisis of identity that has made it largely unable and unwilling to defend its culture against intransigent Islam, and both call for revivifying Christian identity. In his letter, Pera advocates nondenominational Christianity as the basis of a revitalized Europe; in his, Ratzinger propounds the conditions for a pan-European Christian civil religion such as Pera outlines. An engrossing, enlightening, extremely timely discussion. Ray Olson
…Europe is dying. We know that birthrates in most European countries are near to 1. That means for every two people, one is produced since birth rates measure births from women. If one only measures the birth-rates of indigenous Europeans, not recent immigrants, they will find that in fact the number is closer to .25, that is for every four European Christian women only 1 will have a child……
April 16, 2007
Furthering my suspicions that Imus was part of the 1 1/2 year witch hunt from the Left, Nora Ephron blogs at Huffington,
“I see dead people.” So Nora Ephron told me earlier this week. And no, she wasn’t having a supernatural experience. She was talking about people like Don Imus, Alberto Gonzales, Paul Wolfowitz, Karl Rove, Isiah Thomas, and John McCain…”
Further proving that in the forum of ideas the Dems are truely the walking dead.
Where the End Justifies the Means
April 15, 2007
Post Imus Discourse
First my take on the Imus hype. His show sucked. He was over rated in his importance in the social arena of useful thoughts. And, in the sewer of thoughts that our media gives us, it is hypocritical to fire him. Based on a somewhat tipsey discussion with my favorite liberal, I think I know why he was fired.
Imus made a joke in satire, and the Hawks came down on him because (as I heard a black lawyer pontificate), they are a protected class. But, it is more than that.
In a night of terrific Mexican food and Margaritas, the conversation amongst friends got looser.
The Imus subject came up. Our friend compared Imus to Rush Limbaugh.
Now, I was so blown away by the comparision, all I could do is just say there is no comparision. In hind site,I wished I could have explored this comparision of two radio jocks. Expecially when their only real similarity is that they are both on the radio. But somehow Imus, was pigeoned as Conservative, when in fact I have heard him say many things that would make him liberal leaning.
Nevertheless, to quote him in any serious political discourse would be like quoting Dennis Miller. Yah, it may ring true but remember who the source is. Dennis Miller is fun to listen to for his takes on the political environment, but let’s face it, at best you walk away with great one liners.
The Chicago Tribune recently asked how have we gone down this road where the word Ho is mainstream?
Benjamin Butler was fed up. He had heard far too many reports of saucy Southern women insulting his brave, gallant Union troops on the streets of New Orleans. The final indignity: From a second-story window, an especially feisty and enterprising gal had deposited the contents of a full chamber pot upon the startled head of fleet commander David Farragut.
On May 15, 1862, Butler — who commanded the Northern forces occupying the city — retaliated. He knew how to hit women where it hurt. He issued a proclamation that any woman caught insulting his men “shall be regarded and held liable to be treated as a woman of the town plying her avocation……Translation: A whore. The hint that a woman might trade sexual favors for financial recompense was outrageous, so much so that Butler’s edict was denounced on the floor of the British Parliament. Lord Palmerston called the epithet “infamous” and added, “Sir, an Englishman must blush to think that such an act has been committed by one belonging to the Anglo-Saxon race.”
They ask when did this word go mainstream? It is a terrific discussion of the implications.
I think it is part of a larger, social issue. Read more