I thought I'd have to miss Karol's blogger bash, but plans have changed and I'll be there. Can't wait!

Judith and Alcibiades have lots of new posts over at Kesher Talk - with news about summers' end at the Jersey Shore.

Eric Deamer (the Young Curmudgeon) has has become the Blatherist. He changed the name but kept the great photo of himself in New Orleans..

Thanks to Zelda for asking me to guest blog at Urban Grind along with Vilmar of Ranting Right Wing Howler, Scott Sela of Slantpoint and Urban Elephants, Dave of Garfield Ridge, John of Wuzzadem and Bob, who is new to blogging.

Did you know that NYC is the home of the Great Pointed Archer?

I can't figure this out - is this site is a parody of PETA/Disney style anthropomorphism or are these people for real?

[link thanks to Zelda at The Urban Grind]

Via CNN

WHO expert urges world to prepare for anticipated outbreak

A global influenza pandemic could come at any time and claim anywhere between 5 million and 150 million lives, depending on steps the world takes now to control the bird flu in Asia, the United Nations said.

Additionally, the bird flu virus is likely to mutate into a strain that can be passed person to person, Dr. David Nabarro of the World Health Organization told reporters at a Thursday news conference at the United Nations in New York.

"We expect the next influenza pandemic to come at any time now, and it's likely to be caused by a mutant of the virus that is currently causing bird flu in Asia," Nabarro said in a report from The Associated Press...

Nabarro said he hopes to persuade governments that "the U.N. system is actually going to help keep their people alive," and to generate political support for a three-pronged strategy focusing on prevention, preparedness, and response to a potential pandemic.

This potential pandemic scares me, but the fact that the UN is handling it scares me more.

...not with leaflets, with bombs.

The nursery responded by giving in to their demands.

Hey, appeasement worked with Irish terrorists - and the Germans, and the jihadis..

..oh, wait, maybe it didn't.

Giant Squid Photographed for First Time

The team led by Tsunemi Kubodera, from the National Science Museum in Tokyo, tracked the 26-foot long Architeuthis as it attacked prey nearly 3,000 feet deep off the coast of Japan's Bonin islands.

"We believe this is the first time a grown giant squid has been captured on camera in its natural habitat," said Kyoichi Mori, a marine researcher who co-authored a piece in Wednesday's issue of the Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

The camera was operated by remote control during research at the end of October 2004, Mori told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

Mori said the giant squid, purplish red like its smaller brethren, attacked its quarry aggressively, calling into question the image of the animal as lethargic and slow moving.

"Contrary to belief that the giant squid is relatively inactive, the squid we captured on film actively used its enormous tentacles to go after prey," Mori said.

"It went after some bait that we had on the end of the camera and became stuck, and left behind a tentacle" about six yards long, Mori said...

..Jim Barry, a marine biologist at Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in California, has searched for giant squid on his own expeditions without luck.

"It's the holy grail of deep sea animals," he said. "It's one that we have never seen alive, and now someone has video of one."

Via NOLA

After five days managing near-riots, medical horrors and unspeakable living conditions inside the Superdome, Louisiana National Guard Col. Thomas Beron prepared to hand over the dead to representatives of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Following days of internationally reported killings, rapes and gang violence inside the Dome, the doctor from FEMA - Beron doesn't remember his name - came prepared for a grisly scene: He brought a refrigerated 18-wheeler and three doctors to process bodies.

"I've got a report of 200 bodies in the Dome," Beron recalls the doctor saying.

The real total was six, Beron said.

Of those, four died of natural causes, one overdosed and another jumped to his death in an apparent suicide, said Beron, who personally oversaw the turning over of bodies from a Dome freezer, where they lay atop melting bags of ice. State health department officials in charge of body recovery put the official death count at the Dome at 10, but Beron said the other four bodies were found in the street near the Dome, not inside it. Both sources said no one had been killed inside.

Will this news make the covers of Time and Newsweek with a headline saying "Hype, the Media, Hysteria & Katrina; Lessons of a National Shame!"?

I doubt it.

..but I'm just an old-fashioned liberal.

Unfortunately, since "liberal" is often defined these days as "anti-war activists to the left of Stalin who only support wars against imperialist Amerikkka", I won't be joining these "liberals" any time soon.

You are a Social Liberal (80% permissive) and an... Economic Liberal (36% permissive) You are best described as a: Democrat Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid

[Link thanks to Double Plus Ungood]

WASHINGTON (AP): The nation's crime rate was unchanged last year, holding at the lowest levels since the government began surveying crime victims in 1973, the Justice Department reported Sunday.

Since 1993, violent crime as measured by victim surveys has fallen by 57 percent and property crime by 50 percent. That has included a 9 percent drop in violent crime from 2001-2002 to 2003-2004.

The 2004 violent crime rate — assault, sexual assault and armed robbery — was 21.4 victims for every 1,000 people age 12 and older. That amounts to about one violent crime victim for every 47 U.S. residents.

Many explanations have been advanced for decline in violent crime, including the record prison population of more than 2 million people, the addition of 100,000 police officers since the mid-1990s and even a deterrent effect that terrorism might have had on street crime.

--Blacks, men (except in cases of sexual assaults) and young people were victimized most often.

--Nearly two-thirds of women knew their attackers, while men were just as likely to be attacked by strangers.

--In 2004, just under one-quarter of all violent crimes were committed by an offender armed with a gun, knife or other weapon.

--The rates of rapes and robberies have dropped by nearly two-thirds since 1993...

The illusion that the English government had protected its citizens by disarming them seemed credible because few realized the country had an astonishingly low level of armed crime even before guns were restricted. A government study for the years 1890-92, for example, found only three handgun homicides, an average of one a year, in a population of 30 million. In 1904 there were only four armed robberies in London, then the largest city in the world. A hundred years and many gun laws later, the BBC reported that England’s firearms restrictions "seem to have had little impact in the criminal underworld." Guns are virtually outlawed, and, as the old slogan predicted, only outlaws have guns. Worse, they are increasingly ready to use them.

Nearly five centuries of growing civility ended in 1954. Violent crime has been climbing ever since. Last December, London’s Evening Standard reported that armed crime, with banned handguns the weapon of choice, was "rocketing." In the two years following the 1997 handgun ban, the use of handguns in crime rose by 40 percent, and the upward trend has continued. From April to November 2001, the number of people robbed at gunpoint in London rose 53 percent.

Gun crime is just part of an increasingly lawless environment. From 1991 to 1995, crimes against the person in England’s inner cities increased 91 percent. And in the four years from 1997 to 2001, the rate of violent crime more than doubled. Your chances of being mugged in London are now six times greater than in New York. England’s rates of assault, robbery, and burglary are far higher than America’s, and 53 percent of English burglaries occur while occupants are at home, compared with 13 percent in the U.S., where burglars admit to fearing armed homeowners more than the police. In a United Nations study of crime in 18 developed nations published in July, England and Wales led the Western world’s crime league, with nearly 55 crimes per 100 people.

This sea change in English crime followed a sea change in government policies. Gun regulations have been part of a more general disarmament based on the proposition that people don’t need to protect themselves because society will protect them. It also will protect their neighbors: Police advise those who witness a crime to "walk on by" and let the professionals handle it.

This is a reversal of centuries of common law that not only permitted but expected individuals to defend themselves, their families, and their neighbors when other help was not available...

"For the want of a nail, the shoe was lost; for the want of a shoe the horse was lost; and for the want of a horse the rider was lost, being overtaken and slain by the enemy, all for the want of care about a horseshoe nail."
- Benjamin Franklin

Perry de Havilland at Samizdata says what I was thinking:

Some of Britain's problems right now in Basra are a consequence of the absurdity of Muqtada al Sadr still walking around when killing him last year would have been clearly legitimate and just a damn good idea. At the very least he should be sitting in a prison cell. This is not an election campaign, it is an insurgency and the US missed a big opportunity to 'retire' Sadr when his militia previously fought against the allied armies.

When I called for 'no pussyfooting around', I was just suggesting that when an Iraqi faction shoots at British soldiers or throws petrol bombs at them, the responce should not be to just 'contain' it or to 'negotiate' with the faction responsible (at least not until much later after it has been suitably knocked down to size), no, it should be to use all the force at their disposal to try and cut that faction to pieces. Moreover, it should result in significent reinforcements being sent to give UK forces more options.

Three days after his editorial was published in the New York Times, Steven Vincent was murdered.

Now, Iraqi reporter Fakher Haider has been murdered

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Sept. 19 - An Iraqi journalist and photographer working for The New York Times in Basra was found dead early Monday after being abducted from his home by a group of armed men wearing masks and claiming to be police officers, relatives and witnesses said.

..The reporter, Fakher Haider, had been handcuffed and taken from his home Sunday night by four masked men who said they wanted to interrogate him, his family said...

..Mr. Haider is the second journalist to be killed in Basra in the past two months. In August, Steven Vincent, an American freelance reporter who was writing a book about the city, was abducted along with his Iraqi interpreter, and he was later found dead. The interpreter remains hospitalized.

Days earlier, Mr. Vincent had written an Op-Ed article for The Times in which he criticized the British security forces in the city for failing to act against the Shiite militias' growing power within the local police force...

..On Sunday, Mr. Haider filed reports about angry demonstrations that had broken out after the arrest by British forces of two high-ranking members of the Mahdi Army, the militia loyal to the renegade Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr...

The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not "insurgents" or "terrorists" or "The Enemy." They are the REVOLUTION, the Minutemen, and their numbers will grow — and they will win. Get it, Mr. Bush? You closed down a friggin' weekly newspaper, you great giver of freedom and democracy! Then all hell broke loose. The paper only had 10,000 readers! Why are you smirking?

It was this brutal display of Mahdi Army muscle last month - combined with the increasing power wielded by its Islamic sharia law courts - that finally persuaded Paul Bremer, chief US administrator of coalition forces, to declare al-Sadr an outlaw, The Telegraph has been told. ... Coalition officials see the Qawliya attack as a watershed event which gave a disturbing foretaste of how Iraq might develop if religious extremists such as al-Sadr gain the upper hand.

Officials have also received reports of illegal arrests and torture conducted by Mahdi Army militiamen on behalf of al-Sadr's sharia courts. US intelligence sources believe al-Sadr is funded by "donations" from pilgrims - not all of them voluntary - and from hardline ayatollahs in Iran.

"Al-Sadr is a thief who steals from pilgrims and he is a murderer," said a member of a prominent Najaf family. "His people will kill anyone who speaks out against him." In one of the few stores still open there [Kufa] is a pro-Sadr tract for sale entitled A Muslim Woman's Education. It forbids women to dance, even with their husbands, and says young girls should not learn nursery rhymes as they must not sing. It is the type of Islamic zealotry which the Mahdi Army brought to Qawliya, and which al-Sadr hopes to enforce across more of Iraq if coalition forces leave the country.

Yesterday, I said:

I wonder if al Sadr spokesman Cole will make a few broad hints about these soldiers' personal lives. That method of distraction worked the last time.

Cole, like a fly-bitten old nag in a high-stakes race, comes through with his predictable performance. Today, he says:

Some kind readers have been asking me if it is possible that the British SAS operatives captured by the Iraqi police on Monday were agents provocateurs planning to blow things up and blame some Iraqi group. My answer is that while it cannot be absolutely ruled out, the theory has almost no facts behind it. It is not even clear if the British agents had a bomb in their car, and they may not after all have killed Iraqi police who came to grab them. Wittgenstein said that about that which we do not know, we must be silent. That's my policy, anyway. I'd need way more evidence than now exists to charge the British military with such a dastardly policy.

In May, 2004, this was published in Yale Global

An insurgent movement within the Thai Muslim community has led to over 200 deaths in southern Thailand this year. The presence of the expensive, brand-new Yala Islamic College, primarily funded by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait, is not unrelated to this violence, says this article in Singapore’s Straits Times. The 1,500-some students there dress in traditional Arab garb and are taught a strict version of sharia Islamic law in Arabic. Professors there come from further west, products of universities and schools in the Middle East and North Africa. With them, these teachers, including the president of the institution – a graduate of a hardline Wahhabi university in Saudi Arabia – bring a wave of radical Islamism that poses a threat to the mainly peaceful, moderate version practiced by most Thai Muslims. The Thai government, slow to recognize the security threat, now sees the college along with smaller "pondok" Islamic schools in the country as "breeding grounds for radical separatists." More Thai Muslims are studying abroad, mainly in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, and the fear that they will return to their country inundated with terror training has officials in Bangkok increasingly concerned.

When you enter the college's reception, you feel like you have suddenly been transported to the Gulf. The 1,500 students there dress in Arab-style clothes and are taught a strict interpretation of syariah law in the Arabic language.

The receptionist introduces himself, in perfect classical Arabic, as a graduate of Al-Azhar University in Cairo. The president, Dr Ismail Lutfi, is himself a graduate of a hardline Wahhabi institution, Riyadh's Imam Muhammad bin Saud Islamic University.

Dr Lutfi, who says he is against violence, has thousands of followers installed in key Islamic posts throughout the south.

The south's largely unregistered pondoks (Islamic schools) - which offer religious education, a regular curriculum and training in Arabic and the local Yawi dialect - are meanwhile now recognised by the Thai government as breeding grounds for radical separatists.

PATTANI, Thailand – The open-air market in this southern Thai city falls eerily quiet on Fridays. Most vendors stay home, terrorized by leaflets threatening to kill or cut off the ears of anyone who works on the Muslim holy day.

After 20 months of insurgent violence, the no-work threat has driven another nail into what is becoming an economic coffin in Thailand's terrorized southern provinces...

..."Trade has dropped 70 to 80 percent. Shopkeepers complain loudly. It is very quiet at night and people from outside dare not to come to the area," said Panya Ongsakul, chairman of the three provinces' chamber of commerce.

Always among the country's poorest regions, per capita monthly income in Narathiwat is 2,120 baht ($51), less than half the national average. Many Muslim villagers are angry at the government, but also want them to quell the violence so they can continue what have traditionally been peaceful lives in this rural region of 1.8 million people...

William G. Ridgeway describes how Wahhabi oil money and influence are destroying liberalism in the Middle East:

Encroaching modernity has resulted in an increase in the place and power of Desert Islam in everyday society. Contrary to widespread Western beliefs about the trajectory of the Middle East as a hesitant but inevitable climb to liberal democracy, the region is actually going the other way – fast. Academics call this "Islamicisation", the spread of radical Shi'a and Wahhabi beliefs and practices throughout the region. Because of this trend, the Middle East one sees nowadays is nothing like it was, say, fifty years ago. Around the 1950s, about the time oil was being discovered in the Gulf, many Muslim nations were relatively liberal by today's standards. Alcohol flowed freely, women went uncovered and there was lively public debate about "Ataturk's way", the separation of Islam and state, modernisation, and dialogue with the West. The Middle East seemed to be going in the right direction.

Saudi oil changed all that...

...The combined possession of oil and Mecca quickly gave Saudis, previously an insignificant mob of goat-herders and woman-beaters, delusions of grandeur. Having no education other than what the mullahs told them, they didn't understand the world beyond the campfire, and they didn't like it.

Oil meant that the Saudis now had the means to change the world to more resemble them. The mountain would come to Mohammed. Their mission, their warped religion told them, was to change the world to be like them, except that they had Mecca and would thus be the most important women-beating goat-herders in the world...

...Totalitarian systems are not sustained at the top, but at the bottom, where a system of mutual surveillance prevails. The influence of Desert Islam on the region has engendered just such a totalitarian system, whereby a woman who refuses to wear the hijab is stigmatised, and possibly threatened with violence. Even in liberal Lebanon, where women have historically been highly expressive in their dress, the present generation is increasingly adopting the hijab and shaming those who don't. Some people see this trend as a reaction to the West and modernity. It is anything but. It is merely a succumbing to the encroaching influence of Saudi-funded Desert Islam, a totalitarian system expounded by highly rational modern means.

What will happen next? Well, judging from the multitude of states where this has already happened:

• Everyone will ignore the problem for as long as possible.

• The Left, NGOs and Human Rights groups will blame the Thai government for provoking the "militants"

• The Thai government may be destabilized; there may be a bloody civil war.

• The Left, the world media and the NGOs will blame America and/or the Thai government for everything. Security forces governments will continue to blame individual terrorist groups, not their Wahhabi sponsors, for the violence.

• All governments around the world, America included, will hold hands with and support the oil-rich Wahhabis. The majority of the world's press will say "nothing to see here" and the majority of the world's population will listen.

• Slowly but surely, the majority of Thai women in the south will begin to wear the nunlike black abaya. Tourists may notice this, but they won't comment on it because statements like that are "racist" or "Islamophobic."

I guess we’re lucky that the Muti aren't sitting on the world's largest oil supply. It would be pretty hard to look the other way while they destabilized governments worldwide and practiced their beliefs. Of course, if we can do it with the Wahhabis, there's no telling how far we could go.

Via Yahoo

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Britain on Wednesday defended its decision to use force to free two British soldiers being held by Iraqi police, saying the men were first stopped by plainclothes gunmen, then moved by militiamen from a jail to a private home while British officials tried to negotiate their release with Iraqi officials...

..At first, Basra police said the men shot and killed a policeman, but on Tuesday al-Jaafari's spokesman, Haydar al-Abadi, said the men — who were wearing civilian clothes — were grabbed for behaving suspiciously and collecting information.

The British said the men had been handed over to a militia. The Basra governor confirmed the claim, saying the Britons were in the custody of the al-Mahdi Army, the militia controlled by radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

"The two British were being kept in a house controlled by militiamen when the rescue operation took place," said the governor, Mohammed al-Waili.

"Police who are members of the militia group took them to a nearby house after jail authorities learned the facility was about to be stormed," he said, demanding that the Britons be handed over to local authorities for trial. He would not say what charges they might face.

Officials in Basra, refusing to be named because they feared for their lives, said at least 60 percent of the police force there is made up of Shiite militiamen from one of three groups: the Mahdi Army; the Badr Brigade, the armed wing of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq; and Hezbollah in Iraq, a small group based in the marshlands in the south.

I wonder if al Sadr spokesman Cole will make a few broad hints about these soldiers' personal lives. That method of distraction worked the last time.

Many members of the press are so prone to panic, so tied up in the illusion that they're Woodward/Bernstein redux; sticking it to the man, etc. - they forget to report the real news that people need to hear.

This time the man stuck back. General Honore struck the first blow against in the Berlin Wall of press self-centeredness with his now famous statement, "Don't Get Stuck on Stupid"

[Transcript here (thanks to Irwin Chusid)]

Male reporter: General, a little bit more about why that's happening this time, though, and did not have that last time...

Honore: You are stuck on stupid. I'm not going to answer that question. We are going to deal with Rita. This is public information that people are depending on the government to put out. This is the way we've got to do it. So please. I apologize to you, but let's talk about the future. Rita is happening. And right now, we need to get good, clean information out to the people that they can use. And we can have a conversation on the side about the past, in a couple of months.

While I love "don't get stuck on stupid", Honore's "right now, we need to get good, clean information out to the people that they can use" is my favorite quote.

Getting good, usable facts out to the people; what a concept.

Via NASA:

The tiger stripes on Saturn's moon Enceladus might be active. Even today, they may be spewing ice from the moon's icy interior into space, creating a cloud of fine ice particles over the moon's South Pole and creating Saturn's mysterious E-ring. Recent evidence for this has come from the robot Cassini spacecraft now orbiting Saturn..Why Enceladus is active remains a mystery, as the neighboring moon Mimas, approximately the same size, appears quite dead.

Remembering Simon Wiesenthal

In Austria, which took decades to acknowledge its own role in Nazi crimes, Wiesenthal was ignored and often insulted before being honored for his work when he was in his 80s.

In 1975, then-Chancellor Bruno Kreisky, himself a Jew, suggested Wiesenthal was part of a "certain mafia" seeking to besmirch Austria. Kreisky even claimed Wiesenthal collaborated with Nazis to survive.

Ironically, it was the furor over Kurt Waldheim, who became president in 1986 despite lying about his past as an officer in Hitler's army, that gave Wiesenthal stature in Austria.

Wiesenthal's failure to condemn Waldheim as a war criminal drew international ire and conflict with American Jewish groups. But it made Austrians realize that the Nazi hunter did not condemn everybody who took part in the Nazi war effort.

Wiesenthal did repeatedly demand Waldheim's resignation, seeing him as a symbol of those who suppressed Austria's role as part of Hitler's German war and death machine. But he turned up no proof of widespread allegations that Waldheim was an accessory to war crimes.

Wiesenthal's work exposed him to danger.

His house and office have been guarded by an armed police officer since June 1982, when a bomb exploded at his front door, causing severe damage but resulting in no injuries, according to the Wiesenthal Center Web site. One German and several Austrian neo-Nazis were arrested.

He pursued his crusade of remembrance into old age with the vigor of youth, with patience and determination. But as he entered his 90s, he worried that his mission would die with him.

"I think in a way the world owes him and his memory a tremendous amount of gratitude," Hier said.

In the Yemeni Times, Jane Novak wrote:

Accommodating the lack of freedom in Yemen in exchange for cooperation in the War on Terror encourages the pattern of nepotism, a sense of impunity, rampant corruption, and increasing brutality. While U.S. support for President Saleh and his relatives may have a short term impact on the security of the American people, the impact of this uncritical alliance on 20 million Yemeni people needs be carefully considered. The longer term implications for global security must be considered as well. As a Harvard University study has shown, terrorism correlates closely with levels of political poverty, not economic poverty. If President Bush means to "seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions," he can find one in Yemen.

Free speech is both a basic human right and an essential element of democratic governance. The first U.S. Secretary of State, Thomas Jefferson, wrote: "Our liberty depends on freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost." In the 21st century, liberty is an interdependent phenomenon which must include Jamal Amer and the Yemeni press corps. "Rights must be more than the grudging concessions of dictators; they are secured by free dissent and the participation of the governed," President Bush has quite correctly stated. The brutal attacks on Yemeni journalists are unacceptable on many levels and for many reasons. President Bush would do well, as he said at his second inaugural, to "encourage reform in other governments by making clear that success in our relations will require the decent treatment of their own people."

Jane says:

I was waiting for Zionist. So far in Yemeni newspapers I have been called a Mason, a Yemeni man in disguise, a Hashimite, working for the CIA, working for the Socialists, residing in al-Arabait, and a Docile Student of a Monkey Monk.

..I’m happy to know he finds me annoying.

Via Yahoo

Shiites Gather in Defiance of Insurgents

KARBALA, Iraq - Hundreds of thousands of Shiites descended Monday on the holy city of Karbala, paying tribute to one of their most revered religious figures in what Iraqi officials called a defiant pilgrimage despite threats by militants...

..Just days before this celebration, al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, in a recorded message, declared an "all-out war" on Shiites and others deemed American collaborators. But Iraqi Vice President Adil Abdul-Mahdi said Monday such threats would only "strengthen the defiance" of Iraqis.

Abdul-Mahdi said the Shiite pilgrims heading to Karbala were the "biggest (example of) defiance in the face of threats by al-Zarqawi," according a statement released by the Iraqi presidency.

This article was linked to from the front page on Yahoo. I expect it to disappear soon.

The Emperor of Ice-Cream

Call the roller of big cigars,
The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.
Let the wenches dawdle in such dress
As they are used to wear, and let the boys
Bring flowers in last month's newspapers.
Let be be finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

Take from the dresser of deal,
Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet
On which she embroidered fantails once
And spread it so as to cover her face.
If her horny feet protrude, they come
To show how cold she is, and dumb.
Let the lamp affix its beam.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

- by Wallace Stevens

Alcibiades has a roundup of celebrity reaction to the debate. Viggo was there, cheering for Galloway. Why am I not surprised?

Pamela has added more commentary and photos to this post with nice links to other Liberal Hawks. Oh, heck, I'm on TV. Well, the top of my head is, anyway.

Michael Totten offers this from Browning Porter:

There is a large element of the antiwar Left that is willing to overlook Galloway's shortcomings as a Leftist and as a human being and to make common cause with him. Don't tell me there isn't. I heard with my own ears, and read with my own eyes, all the chattering admiration for him after his congressional testimony.

Someone needs to expose him, especially to the Left, as the fascist-fellating fraud that he is. And that exposure has to come, to some extent, from the Left. It means nothing if Limbaugh or O'Reilley have a go at him.

Hitchens is the perfect man for the job. He's intelligent, witty, and he is not intimidated by the likes of Galloway. In every debate on the Iraq war I've heard him in, it has seemed in the show-of-hands straw polls that more people have left agreeing with him than came in.

In point of fact, having quoted Mr Galloway's recent speech in Damascus ("The Syrian people are fortunate in having Bashar al-Assad as their leader") and having further pointed out that Mr Assad decided not to show his face in New York last week, as the UN investigation into the murder of Rafik Hariri rolled up more and more Syrian agents, I was given a full answer by being told that I had metamorphosed back from a butterfly into a slug, with a consequent trail of slime in my wake. I did not have the lepidopteral presence of mind to point out, at that moment, that butterflies pupate from sturdy and furry caterpillars.

I believe that there is a sick and surreptitious fascination with people of a certain thuggish unscrupulousness, from Mike Tyson to Henry Kissinger, and that many press hacks have a secret vicarious love for such people.

I wish them joy of this. They enable Mr Galloway to lecture a captive audience in Syria, fawning upon a despot and saying that with "145 military operations a day" that the people he describes as "these poor Iraqis… are writing the names of their cities and towns in the stars" and then to fly to America to commiserate with the mother of one of the dead soldiers.

This time, he's upset because Hitchens said he wasn't familiar with "the region" that the debate was about. Since the debate was about Iraq, and since Cole admits that he's never been to Iraq, I'm not sure what all the twittering is about. But maybe Cole will change his mind about this post later.

Arabist Juan Cole is all atwitter about what Stalinists like Galloway call the "massacre" in Tal Afar. Here's Cole, quoted by San Francisco Indymedia:

Iraqi troops took the lead in the ground assault in the northern Turkmen city of Tal Afar, in an attempt by the US to showcase newly trained Iraqi army units. The problem is that they are perceived as mostly Shiite, and the Tal Afar campaign is targeting Sunni Turkmen neighborhoods. So the mayor has resigned in protest of a "sectarian" operation. Al-Hayat reports that a local Turkmen leader said that 152 civilians had been killed by "indiscriminate" fire coming from US helicopter gunships. It also said that (Shiite) Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari declare that he had ordered the operation against what he called terrorists, who, he said, had expelled people from their homes. Jaafari should remember what happened to the popularity of Iyad Allawi when he called for more US strikes on Fallujah.

This is an enemy, who when they came in, they removed all the imams from the mosques, and they replaced them with Islamic extremist laymen. They removed all the teachers from the schools and replaced them with people who had a fifth-grade education and who preached hatred and intolerance. They murdered people. In each of their cells that they have within the city has a direct action cell of about 100 or so fighters. They have a kidnapping and murder cell; they have a propaganda cell, a mortar cell, a sniper cell — a very high degree of organization here. And what the enemy did is to keep the population from performing other activities. To keep the population afraid, they kidnapped and murdered large numbers of the people here, and it was across the spectrum. A Sunni Turkmen imam was kidnapped and murdered. A very fine man, a city councilman, Councilman Suliman (sp), was pulled out of his car in front of his children and his wife and gunned down with about 30 gunshot wounds to his head. The enemy conducted indiscriminate mortar attacks against populated areas and wounded scores of children and killed many others. The enemy here did just the most horrible things you can imagine, in one case murdering a child, placing a booby trap within the child's body and waiting for the parent to come recover the body of their child and exploding it to kill the parents. Beheadings and so forth.

Now I have no real doubt this is true, but keep in mind that most of the imams that al-Qaeda yanked were in all likelihood Sunni Turkmen. I haven't really touched on the fact that there's a good deal of fair weather anti-clericalism in al-Qaeda on the grounds that the clergy have sold out to the corrupt autocrats of the Middle East and that the traditional Islam practiced by many Sunnis is in fact a post-Mohammed abherration that has to be replaced in favor of Wahhabism, but this might be something that Sunni clerical groups like the Iraqi Jamaat-e-Ulema-e-Islami might seriously want to consider the next time they contemplate throwing in with Zarqawi.

The Ottoman Empire had added to the splendor of Madina and Makkah by building religious structures of great beauty and architectural value. Richard Burton, who visited the holy shrines in 1853 AD disguised as an Afghan Muslim and adopting the Muslim name Abdullah, speaks of Madina boasting 55 mosques and holy shrines. Another English adventurer who visited Madina in 1877-1878 AD describes it as a small beautiful city resembling Istanbul. He writes about its white walls, golden slender minarets and green fields.

1924 AD Wahhabi's entered Hijaz for a second time and carried out another merciless plunder and massacre. People in streets were killed. Houses were razed to the ground. Women and children too were not spared.

Awn bin Hashim (Shairf of Makkah) writes: "Before me, a valley appeared to have been paved with corpses, dried blood staining everywhere all around. There was hardly a tree which didn't have one or two dead bodies near its roots."

1925 Madina surrendered to the Wahhabi onslaught. All Islamic heritages were destroyed. The only shrine that remained intact was that of the Holy Prophet (saw).

Ibn Jabhan says: "We know that the tomb standing on the Prophet's grave is against our principles, and to have his grave in a mosque is an abominable sin."

Tombs of Hamza and other martyrs were demolished at Uhud. The Prophet's mosque was bombarded. On protest by Muslims, assurances were given by Ibn Saud that it will be restored but the promise was never fulfilled. A promise was given that Hijaz will have an Islamic multinational government. This was also abandoned.

1925 AD Jannat al-Mu'alla, the sacred cemetery at Makkah was destroyed along with the house where the Holy Prophet (saw) was born. Since then, this day is a day of mourning for all Muslims.

Is it not strange that the Wahhabi's find it offensive to have the tombs, shrines and other places of importance preserved, while the remains of their Saudi kings are being guarded at the expense of millions of dollars?

Saudi-sponsored Abu Musab Zarqawi declared war on Shiites in retaliation for the joint Iraqi and American offensive on the northern city of Tall Afar. To fight his war against Iraqis workers and children he used - suicide bombers.

So, who is our enemy?

Here's the story: A Reuters photographer spies on a private message written by a world leader during a UN conference.

The top brains at Reuters think it's a newsflash that Bush urinates. The European media and Left-leaning pundits agree.

The bimbo who was using his zoom lens to spy on private discussions between world leaders excuses his actions by saying that he was traumatized by the horrific effects of Katrina.

Apparently he so traumatized that he forgot to protect his gear, which was stolen while he was in New Orleans.

The news here is the old dog-bites man story; most of the employees of mass media outlets are idiots. They can't be trusted to tie their own shoes, so why trust their word on anything? (And please, let's not let these idiots inadvertently get hold of some real, security-related information)

Here's another newsflash. Bush isn't the only leader who occasionally feels an odd sense of urgency.

Someone called this a debate between a Trotskyite and a Stalinist. It was a Left vs. Left debate. Neither side was standing up for the Bush administration, although Galloway tried to tar Hitchens with that brush.

The subject of the debate was supposed to be about whether the March 2003 war against Iraq was "necessary and just". Despite that, it was mostly about establishing Leftist cred. Much of Galloway's time was spent accusing Hitchens of being an apostate, and much of Hitchens time was spent wondering why Galloway and his supporters refused to condemn the nihilists and jihadists who target working-class civilians.

Like many leftist gatherings it was a mostly white, middle aged (or older) crowd. Although it was held at Baruch College, there weren't many students.

Before the debate our group met at the Grand Saloon for pre-debate drinks. Fellow Harry's Place pamphleteer David Adler, a war opponent, blue-stater and culture writer who believes that Galloway and his ilk are a "disaster for the left." showed me an article by Greg Palast that fairly effectively eviscerates Galloway:

.. it is not good enough for the Left to oppose Mr. Bush's re-colonization of Iraq. We needed to have actively supported Iraqis fighting to remove their Mesopotamian Stalin. And now, we'd better come up with something a little less nutty than a recent suggestion by one otherwise thoughtful writer that we, "unconditionally support the insurgency" of berserker killers and fundamentalist madmen. If that's the Left's program for Iraq, count me out.

We can't define ourselves as the "anti-Bush," blindly supporting those he opposes, and thereby letting the nitwit Napoleon in the White House pick our enemies for us. Nor can our revulsion for Bush's horrors throw us into the arms of swamp-things like George Galloway.

Don't get me wrong. Unlike Hitchens, I cannot support the Prevaricator-in-Chief, the President who ordered Cindy Sheehan's son, Casey, to march to his death in Najaf. But I'll be damned if I'll cheer some rich white Brit-hole who brings joy to Casey's killers.

The line of ticket-holders waiting for seats in front of Baruch was huge. I was the only member of our group who had neglected to pick up tickets beforehand, so I waited in the shorter line for my tickets, resigned myself to a standing room only balcony seat, spotted Hitch mingling with the crowd and took a picture. Everyone in the ticket-getter line was grumbling about the long wait they'd have to endure. A young Brit in front of me said: " This is how it was when I was with the Left. No organization".

He was right about that. When I picked up my ticket they let me right into the auditorium and gave me a totally undeserved choice of the best first floor seats. Meanwhile, everyone who planned ahead was stuck outside sweating in the thickly humid heat. There's one appeal of the Left - when it comes to a contest between ants and grasshoppers, grasshoppers usually win.

I grabbed the choicest center row places I could find, and saved all of the surrounding seats I could. Since I got in early, I missed the chance to distribute anti-Galloway leaflets, a chore that Judith shared with Hitch outside. She, like Pamela, got a chance to meet him. I also missed the tie-up at the metal detectors and the rumors that right wing web sites had infiltrated the debate. Since anyone to the right of Michael Moore is classified by this crowd as "right wing", I guess they meant me.

We rightwing infiltrators were scattered throughout the crowd. Judith, Irwin sat on the first floor on the left side. Mara sat near the press, including the BBC. I sat with Rona, Bruce W. and Pamela, a very enthusiastic Hitch supporter. Judging from the stern looks the people in front of us threw our way, they were mild-mannered Galloway supporters. The guys behind us, greying, rumpled academic types, were definitely Galloway dittoheads. Some were downright rabid. When Hitchens requested a moment of silence for the Iraqis who were sadistically murdered by the insurgency, they were among those shouting "NO! NO!" When Hitch praised the US for making life better for the Afghan people, they shouted "Who Cares?" When Galloway said that the 9/11 hijackers emerged out of a swamp created by us, their cheers didn't turn to boos.

One of them hurled the worst epithet he could think of at Pamela - he called her a zionist. She said, "yes, I am a Zionist." Flabbergasted, he had no comeback.

Professorial and calm, Hitchens was the perfect representative of the liberal, 'fascism means war' Left.

Galloway was the perfect representative of the totalitarian thug. If Galloway had been speaking German his delivery would have mirrored Hitler's from the rally at Nuremburg. He used the same gestures, the same barking, bombastic style, shouting into the microphone, jabbing the air with muscular authority. Hitch said of Galloway, "The man's search for a tyrannical fatherland never ends!" It seems that Galloway plans to create his own.

Perhaps this observation occurred to moderator Amy Goodman. After Galloway's first bombastic segment, she suggested that he move the microphone away from his face. Of course, that didn't work, he just crouched down to yell into it.

The question is, why was Hitch debating this thug at all? Why were Leftists and New Yorkers cheering for a politician who said that he had "a very, very profound connection" with Confederate Civil War general Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, who fought to preserve slavery, which he considered ordained by God?

Robert Paxton, in his book "The Anatomy of Fascism" observes that when a political group loses power and feels humiliated or victimized, they can begin to lose faith in the democratic process. They become more willing to abandon democratic ideals.

Galloway got the most cheers from the non-rightwing infiltrator crowd when he condemned President Bush or mentioned his "victory" in Washington. They cheered when he demanded that we "rid the world" of George Bush and Anthony Blair. He also got cheers when he called the U.S. and Britain the biggest rougue states in the world today, that no tinpot dictatorship in the Middle East could cause more damage than an invading imperialist superpower. People were cheering for the idea that genocidal, oppressive tinpot dictatorships could never be as bad as our democracy.

Fascist ideals don't appeal to the poor or the oppressed, but they do appeal to the members of the wealthy and middle class who feel that they should (or must) have more power than they already do. Wealth and prosperity don't discourage fascism - as we've seen in the Middle East, wealth causes fascism to thrive.

Greg Palast believes that George Galloway is a temporary phenomenon:

He's just another self-promoting fart. Six months from now, even his smell will be gone.

Via Harry's Place: Hear the debates in MP3 form. Part 1 and Part 2

Judith, Pamela, alcibiades, Oxblog , the Drink-soaked Trotskyite Popinjays and Tiger Hawk have more.

David Adler had this to say:

..last night’s issue was Iraq, and I concur with Ben, a correspondent over at Harry's Place. The sight of these comfortable Manhattanites applauding Galloway’s unequivocal support for the Iraqi "resistance" made me despair for the left, and quite frankly, for our species. The term "people of goodwill" came into my head; alas, there weren't many of them in the room. This is now the litmus test for the decent left. Galloway and his cheering section have flunked it spectacularly.

Judith, members of the local chapter of "muscular liberals" and I are planning to attend the Galloway-Hitchens debate tonight. It's the New York leg of Galloway's buy me a new Mercedes tour. Many of Galloway's anti-capitalist defenders will be there too. It should be fun.

I'm going to be one of the official Harry's Place leafletters handing out Gene's union-bug-produced selection of irredeemably appalling George Galloway quotes. If you're in the area, come and get a copy.

Hitch has a preview of the debate here:

Galloway's preferred style is that of vulgar ad hominem insult, usually uttered while a rather gaunt crew of minders stands around him. I have a thick skin and a broad back and no bodyguards. He says that I am an ex-Trotskyist (true), a "popinjay" (true enough, since its original Webster's definition means a target for arrows and shots), and that I cannot hold a drink (here I must protest). In a recent interview he made opprobrious remarks about the state of my midriff, which I will confess has—as P.G. Wodehouse himself once phrased it—"slipped down to the mezzanine floor." In reply I do not wish to stoop. Those of us who revere the vagina are committed to defend it against the very idea that it is a mouth or has teeth. Study the photographs of Galloway from Syrian state television, however, and you will see how unwise and incautious it is for such a hideous person to resort to personal remarks. Unkind nature, which could have made a perfectly good butt out of his face, has spoiled the whole effect by taking an asshole and studding it with ill-brushed fangs.

Levity aside, from everything I've heard about Galloway, he sounds like a classic totalitarian. Given enough money encouragement from his "anti-war" brownshirts, I'm sure he could achieve his dreams. He's even got the moustache for the job.

During a discussion about Yehudit's post at Winds of Change, one of Galloway's anti-war fans said this about the choice between war and genocide:

I am not so much assessing the relative demerits of genocide v. war. I am contrasting the facts that whilst both Stalinism and Fascism created mass casualities, Stalinism at least did it primarily at home whereas Fascism exported.

Of Galloway's supporters, Hitch says:

Thus, and thanks in part to Eve and Jane, the "anti-war" movement has as its new star a man who is openly pro-war, but openly on the other side. A man who supported the previous oppressors of the region—the Soviet army in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein in Iraq—who supports its current oppressors—Bashar Assad and his Lebanese proxies—and who still has time to endorse its potential future tyrants in the shape of the jihadists in Iraq and elsewhere. Galloway began his political life as a fifth-rate apologist for the Soviet Union, but he has now diversified into being an apologist for Stalinism, for fascism, and for jihadism all at once! All this, and Jane, too. One's cup runs over.

Thanks to the Industrial Blog:

[cartoon thanks to my husband Bruce]

I should have waited a few weeks before replacing the camera I broke while hiking.

It's more expensive, but this would have been a better choice..

According to this quiz in the Christian Science Monitor, I could be a neocon.

In the words of the CS Monitor, neocons:

• Want the US to be the world's unchallenged superpower
• Share unwavering support for Israel
• Support American unilateral action
• Support preemptive strikes to remove perceived threats to US security
• Promote the development of an American empire
• Equate American power with the potential for world peace
• Seek to democratize the Arab world
• Push regime change in states deemed threats to the US or its allies

Strangely enough, according to the Christian Science Monitor's guidelines, Stalin, who was "wary of American arrogance and hypocrisy" and who opposed "American imperialism" would be a liberal. This says more about the CS Monitor and the fact that anti-war activists, the MSM and reactionary leftists now call themselves "liberal" than it does about Stalin.

Many anti-war reactionaries define neo-con as anyone who would support the use of American military power without UN approval. They oppose the war against terrorism because they fear a 'unilateral" America more than they fear terrorism. I don't agree with them, but does that make me a neo-con?

Right-wing reactionaries like Pat Buchanan oppose neo-cons and the war against terrorism because they hate anything that would help Israel - but they do support the use of American military power without UN approval. If disagree with Buchanan's anti-semitism and racist attitudes, does that make me a neo-con?

According to pundits like Michael Lind, neocons are either Jews or they're part of a shady Zionist-influenced cabal. If I support Israel's right to exist, am I a neocon?

Howard Dean hates anyone who votes for Republicans, especially anyone who voted for our neo-con president. Howard Dean hates me, but does that make me a neocon?

Reactionaries from the right and the left define themselves by what they hate. They hate me, so I guess, by default, I should be a neocon. But I'm not.

I was a neocon in the days following 9/11. I supported the war against terrorism because then it really was a war against terrorism.

When Bush said:

No group or nation should mistake America's intentions: We will not rest until terrorist groups of global reach have been found, have been stopped, and have been defeated. And this goal will not be achieved until all the world's nations stop harboring and supporting such terrorists within their borders.

Despite the Bush Administration's attempts to connect the War in Iraq to the War against terrorism, Dick Cheney's statement in 2002 sums up our goals.

in August, 2002, seven months before the war started, Cheney warned that Saddam would be able to seize control of the world’s economic lifeline if he acquired weapons of mass destruction: "Armed with an arsenal of these weapons of terror, and seated atop ten per cent of the world’s oil reserves, Saddam Hussein could then be expected to seek domination of the entire Middle East, take control of a great portion of the world’s energy supplies, directly threaten America’s friends throughout the region, and subject the United States or any other nation to nuclear blackmail."

Our subsequent efforts to cement our alliance with our Saudi friends proves that this was our governments' motive behind this war.

I supported the war in Iraq because I believed that it was part of a first step in a campaign to destroy the twin pillars of terrorism, Saudi Arabia and Iran. I wrong. It was part of a campagign to legitimize and support our enemies. This was the plan:

[After regime change in Iraq]..As in the past, the West will have to rely on the Saudi government to be the voice of moderation."

In short, our neo-con government's response to this:

was this:

You can't fight terror when you're holding hands with it, begging it to save us from the Chinese and sell us oil. Wealthy Saudis are still the primary supporters of worldwide terror and most wealthy Saudis belong to the governing Royal family. As long as we're holding hands with the primary sponsors of worldwide terror, Bush's prattling about the war on terror is plainly bullshit.

We're not at war with terror. The purpose of war is not to "spread democracy" among the enemies who want to kill us. The purpose of war is to kill them first and to keep killing until they surrender. The purpose of war is victory. Exit strategies and spreading democracy come after the victory, not before it.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor FDR said this:

No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.

I believe I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost but will make very certain that this form of treachery shall never endanger us again.

Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory and our interests are in grave danger.

With confidence in our armed forces - with the unbounded determination of our people - we will gain the inevitable triumph - so help us God.

The goal of war is victory. Inevitable triumph. Not "spreading democracy" or "creating a viable exit strategy". Victory.

I guess I'm not a neo-con although I pass as one. I'm just an average, warmongering neo-FDR Democrat.

What is an neo-FDR Democrat? Speaking for myself, an FDR democrat:

• doesn't want the US to be the world's unchallenged superpower
  ...they do want the US to have the right to defend itself when attacked without asking for anyone's permission

• supports Israel for the same reasons that FDR supported China, France and Britain during WWII - because we are all currently threatened by an imperialist fascist organization.

• Prefers to win victory over the enemies who have already attacked us, but will support preemptive strikes to remove perceived threats to US security if they are working in conjunction with our enemies.

• Sees war as a means of self defense, not as an instrument of social change. Promotes the development of wealth and democracy around the world through trade and economic incentives.

• Equates the power of democracies with the potential for world peace

• Can't vote for today's Democrats because many of the people who call themselves "liberals" are to the Left of Stalin.

Fashion that doesn't suck

Thanks to Mr. Snitch - After 9/11, Remembrance and Renewal

Cox and Forkum have more..

Joe Katzman, Yehudit and Armed Liberal remember.

At Pajamas Media, a photo montage and a quote from the only politician worth quoting

Rick Rescorla was a soldier.

Thanks to Norm Geras:

Several groups advocate making Sept. 11 a national day devoted to volunteerism, and such movements have begun to gain traction. One group, One Day's Pay, lists its mission as "working to establish Sept. 11 as a national day of voluntary service, charity and compassion." The group says thousands of Americans have committed to doing public service on Sunday, and its Web site recently was transformed into a forum directing people to various Hurricane Katrina volunteer opportunities.

Also, several dozen New Yorkers - many of them firefighters who survived Sept. 11 - gathered Friday morning at a firehouse on the Upper West Side. Part of a group called New York Says Thank You, they were about to depart for Illinois where they would spend the Sept. 11 anniversary weekend helping rebuild the small community of Utica, which was hit by a tornado in April 2004. Much of the town was leveled, and eight people were killed.

The group, which aims to help communities that sent aid to New York in the days after Sept. 11, already has vowed to spend next year's anniversary helping rebuild New Orleans and surrounding towns.

..It is poignant that the Sept. 11 anniversary coincides with the myriad acts of generosity that have surrounded the tragedy of Katrina. U.S. charities by Tuesday afternoon had raised more than twice the $239 million donated in the 10 days after the terrorist attacks.

Another reason why we should study the reconstruction after the Kobe disaster. Japan's emergency plans:

In Japan, what we're told is this: A disaster may render you unreachable. It may cut you off from communication networks and utilities. The appropriate government agencies (starting at the neighborhood level and moving upward depending on the magnitude of the damage) will respond as quickly as they can, but you may be on your own for days until they do. Prepare supplies. Learn escape routes. Then learn alternate escape routes. Know what your region's points of vulnerability are. Get to know your neighbors (especially the elderly or infirm) so you can help each other out and account for each other. Follow directions if you're told to evacuate. Stay put if you aren't. Participate in the earthquake preparation drills in your neighborhood.

[Link thanks to Dean]

Now that the press is focusing on the Katrina disaster, has al Qaeda jumped the shark?

Chinese Eatery Sold Donkey in Tiger Urine

A restaurant in northeastern China that advertised illegal tiger meat dishes was found instead to be selling donkey flesh _ marinated in tiger urine, a newspaper reported Thursday.

The Hufulou restaurant, located beside the Heidaohezi tiger reserve near the city of Hailin, had advertised stir-fried tiger meat with chilies for $98as well as liquor flavored with tiger bone for $74 a bottle, the China Daily reported.

Raw meat was priced at $864 per kilogram.

The sale of tiger parts is illegal in China and officers shut down the restaurant, only to be told by owner, Ma Shikun, that the meat was actually that of donkeys, flavored with tiger urine to give the dish a "special" tang, the newspaper said.

The report didn't say how the urine was obtained.

When we were living in Germany, my then 3 year-old son's favorite place to visit was the zoo. He especially loved the tiger cage. Ha