In Sunday's NYT, Maureen Dowd wonders why men don't want to marry her. She blames feminism, men, her mother...anyone and everyone but Maureen Dowd.

She quotes a lot of feminists in her article, but for some reason she neglects to mention Phyllis Chesler, pioneering author of Women and Madness. There are probably many reasons for this omission. One reason may be - Chesler is proof that all feminists are not whiny navel-gazers.

Chesler describes the other reasons here...

To describe his attitude towards my 16 yr. old daughter re: boyfriends, my husband's favorite quote comes from "Clueless" - "Anything happens to my daughter, I got a .45 and a shovel, I doubt anybody would miss you."

He'd like * Bruce Cameron's 10 rules..

[Link thanks to Sluggo]

* and he might also like Teenager Driving Contract - link to Bruce Cameron's page and the Teenager Driving Contract thanks to Chug

Here are photos by Amir Normandi, who says:

There is no justification for the oppression of human beings by other human beings, let alone under the name of god.

Human wisdom and passion has excelled to a level to create laws in protection of our environment and its inhabitants. It is unconscionable to accept the extreme gender inequality, which in many areas reaches the extent of gender apartheid, to be tolerated as traditional norms of life.

As my sisters and their daughters demanded in their courageous gathering outside the Tehran University’s main gate on March 08, 2005; women’s rights IS human rights, women’s freedom is equality for everyone.

This multi media presentation is dedicated to the women of Iran, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Jordan, Egypt, and is a tribute to Iranian/Canadian photographer Zahra ZIBA Kazemi and Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh who lost their lives in defense of human rights.

Amir Normandi,

An art exhibit that included photographs of nude Muslim women wearing only a head covering was taken down Thursday afternoon just hours after opening for public viewing at Harper College in Palatine.

Muslim students at the college protested to officials about the pieces on display in Building C. Several students say the pieces — some showing young Muslim men with machine guns — were downright offensive.

"I think they should rip this down," student Matt George said.

Another student, Hussein Ali, says a number of Muslim students at Harper now are thinking about leaving. "The Muslim students are thinking about boycotting Harper because of this," said Ali, 23, of Schaumburg.

Do we really have to ask?

..but that won't make it go away. I hated these political games when Clinton was president and I hate them now. How much money are we going to waste on this? Plenty. What we gain from it? Well, other than making ourselves look incompetent and foolish on the world stage, we'll gain absolutely nothing.

Politics as team sports blows.

Maybe it's memories of the Mr. Stay Puft scene, or maybe it's the general lunacy around the world, but for whatever reason, the smell of something sweet in the air has New Yorkers worried.

Hoboken has the same burnt coffee/fresh sewer smell it always has. No problems here.

..and Mecca malls?

Marcus at Harry's place says:

Why do Islamist terrorists want to steer aeroplanes packed with frightened passengers into office blocks and murder Jews wherever they are found?

[Guardian columnist Dylan Evans] has decided he knows:

..If this really was the end of history, it would be an awful anticlimax. Look at the way we live now, in the west. We grow up in increasingly fragmented communities, hardly speaking to the people next door, and drive to work in our self-contained cars. We work in standardised offices and stop at the supermarket on our way home to buy production-line food which we eat without relish. There is no great misery, no hunger, and no war. But nor is there great passion or joy. Despite our historically unprecedented wealth, more people than ever before suffer from depression...

...It is this complacency, this lack of idealism, that is in part responsible for the repugnance with which Muslim extremists view western society.

What can you do here but fall about and cackle helplessly? I just love 'self-contained cars'. Better would be cars which you can fall out of so as to fall into other people's. Then there's 'we eat without relish' (hey, you could pick some up at that supermarket) and 'nor is there great passion or joy'. Well, speak for yourself, why don't you?

I have a vision in America, Muslims owning property all over, Muslim businesses, factories, halal meat, supermarkets, all these buildings owned by Muslims. Can you see the vision, can you see the Newark International Airport and a John Kennedy Airport and LaGuardia having Muslim fleets of planes, Muslim pilots. Can you see our trucks rolling down the highways, Muslim names. Can you imagine walking down the streets of Teaneck, [New Jersey]: three Muslim high schools, five Muslim junior-high schools, fifteen public schools. Can you see the vision, can you see young women walking down the street of Newark, New Jersey, with long flowing hijab and long dresses. Can you see the vision of an area of no crime, controlled by the Muslims?

We bow to Mecca five times a day in increasingly fragmented communities, hardly speaking to the people next door, and drive to work in our self-contained cars. We work in standardised offices and stop at the halal butcher on our way home to buy food which we eat without relish. There is no great misery, no hunger, and no war. But nor is there great passion or joy.

[cross-posted at Dean's World]

Featuring links to works by non-moonbat artists:

Aurelio Garcia

Taking moonbat-free art to the edge..

[link thanks to No-Pasaran ]

..and he's still Totally Whacked.

Dave R. covers the the Organization of the Islamic Conference's (OIC) efforts to downplay terrorism and encourage an Islamist government in the South of Thailand - and the lack of Muslim voices protesting the OIC's efforts.

..one that works in strange and mysterious ways

Mary took the free ColorQuiz.com personality test! "Takes easily and quickly to anything which provide..." Click here to read the rest of the results.

Link thanks to Dave J.

The anti-Semitic forgery, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion has been in the news lately. The Protocols is one of the most pernicious hoaxes around. According to rotten.com, which explores all that is rotten in the universe:

The Protocols of the Meetings of the Learned Elders of Zion serves a crucial role in the personal growth of any heartfelt anti-semite. The book is a long diatribe, exposing the nefarious tactics and goals of a clandestine multinational Jewish cabal that secretly rules the world (in partnership with the Freemasons). It's a must-read for any self-respecting opponent of Zionism.

..Its function is to provide a plausible excuse for a bigot to trade in his existing Jewphobia for overt racism. Most screwballs only tackle this monster after they've already plodded their way through The Turner Diaries and a few dozen photocopied hate tracts. For this reason, it doesn't matter that The Protocols was and is a pathetic hoax. Once a nutjob decides to believe the book is genuine, nothing you can say will ever change his mind. He wants to believe.

The appearance of the Protocols at the official Iranian pavilion at this year's Frankfurt Book Fair (in violation of German law) was noticed by German Author Matthias Küntzel and reported by blogger Zombie.

The virulent anti-Semitism of the Protocols also appeared in my email box a few days ago, one of the many mailings I've recieved since singing up with an Arabic/English translation site. It read:

In the Name of Allah, the Beneficent. The Merciful

UNIVERSAL CRISIS OF PEACE & SECURITY: RESPONSIBLE WHO?

This morning [October 19, 2005] our beloved Br. Atasi recited Surah Bani Israel [also called Al-Isra] in Fajr prayers. When he reached to Verse # 4: "We decreed for the Children of Israel in the Scripture [Al-Kitab]: Ye verily will create corruption on the earth twice, and ye will become great tyrants". It immediately occurred to my mind, "why two times only?" What about the "Jewish Conspiracies for the last two hundred years? What about the demolition of Ottoman Empire or Khilfah? What about the "creation" of the State of Israel? What about "The Protocol of Elders" and their dream of controlling the world? I could not reconcile for a while that why Allah (SWT) has mentioned transgression committed by Jews on earth only for two times and why He ignored their "conspiracies" and mischief that they are constantly committing for the last two thousand years after their Second overthrown from Palestine in 78 AD at the hands of Romans? I, then, realized that Allah (SWT) gives only correct statement and whatever is in the Qur'an is nothing but truth. It is our lack of understanding and imperfect vision about the development of world events and the "obscured period" that are beyond the sight of our mortal eyes and limited knowledge...

..At the first place, the Jewish people enjoyed enormous protection in every Muslim State from Baghdad to Cordoba. They were the finance ministers and exchequers of accounts of the Caliphs of time at many places. Under Ottoman Caliphate entire finances were controlled and governed by them, resulting only in enormous debt. So they were happy but torpedoed the Caliphate and ruined its economy. This was their "reward" in return for Muslim's hospitality.

In the Western societies of Europe they were hated like anything and forced to live in Ghettoes. They worked more intelligently. Here in the predominant Christian societies, Jewish people adopted a different strategy and ultimately succeeded at all fronts. They introduced secret associations, societies and clubs like "Free Masons" and "Lion Clubs", spread their branches throughout the Muslim and the non-Muslim world in Asia, Europe and America, enticed the Christians and Muslims both to be their card-holder members , carrying a lot of prestige, favor, benefits and facilities, especially while traveling abroad. The top notch of each society was made its member. [The writer too was offered its membership in EP but I thankfully declined]. Its strength lies in its secrecy, method of enrolment, the oath of allegiance and who is its "Master"?

These associations and Clubs played instrumental in "enslaving" the Christian world and Jews gradually master-minded all the nerves centers of Europe and America...

...The entire universal crisis that we see today around the world, especially in the Muslim world, is the creation of Christian world who "hate" Islam and Muslims as per their old tradition of Crusaders. They are bent upon to subjugate it by coining different false pleas, concocted war slogans, inventing preemptive war-phobia, dirty slogans of "Clash of civilization", mockery of importing freedom and democracy to Muslim world while supporting the despotic rulers in each country, all in the name of "War on Terrorism". The leadership both of Church and political Institutions are responsible for this mess and, therefore, must be blamed totally for the insecurity of human race. Jews are somewhere only instrumental when their interest is in jeopardy.

ICNA Bookstore
166-26, 89th Avenue
Jamaica, NY 11432

In November 2001, Daniel Pipes wrote about Mr. Siddiqi and the diplomatic, peaceful wing of the Islamist movmement:

..the non-violent way would seem to have a brighter future, and it is in fact the approach adopted by most Islamists. Not only is it legal, but it allows its enthusiasts to adopt a seemingly benign view of the United States, a country they mean to rescue rather than to destroy, and it dictates a strategy of working with Americans rather than against them...

..But what is not open to question is that, whatever the majority of Muslim Americans may believe, most of the organized Muslim community agrees with the Islamist goal—the goal, to say it once again, of building an Islamic state in America. To put it another way, the major Muslim organizations in this country are in the hands of extremists.

One who is not among them is Muhammad Hisham Kabbani of the relatively small Islamic Supreme Council of America. In Kabbani's reliable estimation, such "extremists" have "taken over 80 percent of the mosques" in the United States. And not just the mosques: schools, youth groups, community centers, political organizations, professional associations, and commercial enterprises also tend to share a militant outlook, hostile to the prevailing order in the United States and advocating its replacement with an Islamic one.

Mr. Pipes thinks that he and his Jewish community are the sole proprietors of the U.S. and that the rest of country are the "goyim," with no right to exist on this earth. He forgets that every citizen of the U.S. has equal rights, whether he is a Jew, a Christian, or a Muslim...

...The establishment of the kingdom of God on earth is the only way to correct the situation. In its wake, when the U.S. delivers justice to suffering humanity, terrorism will die its own death.

Based on what he believes of the anti-Semitic forgery, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Mr. Siddiqi is free to preach a message of hate and conquest that is barely distinguishable from an older message of hate.

According to Muhammad Hisham Kabbani, Siddiqi is one of many.

* Dawah is defined as "Invite to the way of your Lord with wisdom (hikmah) and beautiful preaching and argue with them in ways that are best." (Surah An-Nahl 16:125)

...or just for fun.

They should have these kinds of courses for automobile drivers too. Drivers need to know what to do in unexpected situations and most of us never learn this in class. We should.

It looks like George Galloway may have been lying after all. Is anyone surprised?

Didn't think so.

..and the Iraqis are backing the new constitution! This small storm of happy events has inspired a party of sorts at Harry's Place and and Fausta's Bad Hair Blog. Raise a pint and cheer.

According to investment banker Matthew Simmons, worldwide oil production will peak sometime around 2010:

FP:...What makes you think some fields are in for a production collapse?

MS: The faster you extract oil from a reservoir, the faster you dissipate the reservoir pressure. Once you get below a certain level of pressure, you have to get oil out using an artificial lift or water injection, and some oil will be trapped in the reservoir.

Overproduction leads to production collapse. The Brent field in the North Sea for instance, came on line in 1976 and peaked at 500,000 bpd in the early 1980s. I think that field now produces around 50,000 bpd. Take the Yibal field in Oman. Shell was so convinced that modern technology was a production miracle that it increased the production facilities at Yibal by 30 percent. And just as that happened, the field peaked at 225,000 bpd in 1997, and it is down to around 40,000 bpd. When I talk about production collapse, I’m not talking about a drop of 5 or 10 percent.

FP: You’ve written that Saudi Arabia relies on old and overproduced oil fields that are likely to start declining in output. How has Riyadh responded to your analysis?

MS: They’ve said "trust me, we have no problems." Petroleum Minister Ali Naimi said that they could pump up to 15 million barrels per day for as many as 100 more years. The likelihood of that is as remote as me being on the moon 10 years from now. They dismiss requests for any field-by-field data as preposterous, and simply say that they’ve been a reliable supplier of oil for 70 years. My view is that it's just good supply chain management to ask a key vendor for details about their capacity. Plus, they are shopping the market so hard for drilling rigs right now. If they can produce 15 million barrels per day for another 50 to 100 years, why do they need new rigs?

Chevron/Texaco also believes that we have to change our ways.

There is the ingenuity of injecting CO2 underground, which will not only help manage greenhouse gasses but can facilitate the development of clean coal and, eventually, the development of hydrogen power.

There is the ingenuity of rethinking the refining process to dramatically improve product quality and yields. There is the ingenuity of subsea processing, moving platform technology to the seabed to improve efficiency and reduce costs. And there is the ingenuity of a single compact fluorescent light bulb that can, over its life, save the energy equivalent of one-quarter ton of coal.

It is ingenuity like this that fundamentally drives my optimism about the future of our industry. When we contemplate that future, it is important to remember that past is prologue.

[peak oil] is a cataclysmic event unless we gear up and understand what it’s all about.

[Links thanks to Dean's World]

UPDATE: Chiasm lists a lot more alternatives.

On October 12th, police officers from Scotland Yard’s Intelligence Unit visited Trinidad to question a man arrested on suspicion of having possible connections to the London bomb attacks on 7/7.

Trinidad had recently suffered a series of terrorist attacks, one of which occurred days after the 7/ 7 terror attacks in London. Because of this, they upped the amount of security in and around the Port of Spain area during the Scotland Yard visit.

On October 18th, there was another bombing. The police suspected the local militant Muslim group, otherwise known as Jaamat-al Muslimeen.

Like the monk-killers in Thailand, this militant Muslim group has been influenced by Wahhabism, the form of Desert Islam that has inspired civil wars, atrocities, genocide and apartheid around the world:

Via SaudiAramco World: ...Saudi Arabia's Prince Muhammad ibn Faysal visited to address the 24th international convention of the Islamic Missionaries Guild. The oil-rich island, smaller than Brunei or the state of Delaware, boasts the western hemisphere's highest concentration of mosques - 85 in all - a Muslim speaker of the house in veteran politician Nizam Mohammed, and even a Muslim president, Noor Mohammed Hassanali.

Last May, both men were featured speakers at Trinidad's first-ever official public celebration of 'Id al-Fitr, a joyous event marking the end of the fasting of the month of Ramadan. Nearly 4,000 Muslims turned out for the gathering, which for the first time was held at the national Jean Pierre Cultural Complex in Port-of-Spain.

"The Muslim community in Trinidad, despite being small, is very organized," said businessman Imtiaz Ali, who attended special 'Id prayers at the Jinnah Memorial Mosque, one of the country's largest.

Now reports have emerged of officials of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) arriving Trinidad in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks to identify persons who trained in terrorism in Libya and who may in some way be linked to criminal mastermind Osama bin Laden, the Saudi dissident suspected of involvement in a series of massacres.

A center of attention there is one Yasin Abu Bakr, a former Trinidadian policeman who now heads Jamaat al Muslimeen, a Black Muslim group. Abu Bakr has close ties to Libya and in fact was also visiting Qadaffi earlier this month. Abu Bakr brags about the assistance he receives from the Libyan leader...

..A Washington expert on the Caribbean-Libyan connection said that the U.S. "isn’t going to pay much attention to it." He indicates that Washington "has a tacit agreement with Qaddafi that he can do whatever he wants in Africa, the Caribbean or elsewhere, as long as he stays out of the Arab-Israeli conflict in the Middle East."

Like Thailand, the government's efforts to "fight" Islamism are beyond pathetic. From a profile on Yasin Abu Bakr, the holy man who led the coup:

His biggest moment came on July 27, 1990, when he led more than 100 Muslimeen members to stage a coup in Trinidad. He led a section which took over TTT and Radio Trinidad, while Bilaal Abdullah was in charge of others who held the then Prime Minister ANR Robinson and Government Ministers hostage at the Red House. After seven days, the insurrectionists surrendered and the hostages freed, but not after Diego Martin Central MP Leo Des Vignes was killed. About 24 persons were killed and more than $150 million looted and burned in Port-of-Spain and other areas. Bakr and 114 Muslimeen members were charged with murder, treason and other offences. But they never went to trial because they were freed by Justice Clebert Brooks on the ground that they were the beneficiaries of a Presidential Pardon. Although the Privy Council found this ruling was wrong, Bakr and his followers were never re-arrested.

Bakr filed a constitutional motion against the State for the destruction of buildings and other property at Mucurapo Road during the insurrection. He won the case and was awarded $2.1 million in damages which he received.

The Carnival of New Jersey Bloggers is up at Katespot

The People's Cube blog discovered censorship at Cafepress.com when they tried to sell t-shirts using logos and trademarks in designs that challenged profitable anti-capitalist "dissent."

Red Square of the People's Cube says:

On Oct. 9th I created a section in my Cafepress.com online store with T-shirts featuring a black and white picture of a hairy skull wearing a beret and a caption saying, "Che is dead, get over it." On the following day Cafepress removed these products from my store even though someone has already ordered and paid for a shirt. They referred to copyright infringement as an excuse.

I understand and respect the copyright law, but did I really violate it?

As Red Square says, "I encourage all our comrades to do the same everywhere. Speak openly, be persistent, be unafraid. We shall - how you say it - overcome?"

[cross-posted at Dean's World]

Sex worker Camille Cabral, representing French prostitutes, poses next to a European Union flag after a press conference organised by the International Committee on the Rights of Sex Workers in Europe (ICRSE)

..do we need any more proof that Europe is losing it?

What kind of leader would I be? I took a test, and the results were:

..chances are you have no problem charging a larger, better trained, better equipped, better armed and armored English army with a band of naked drunken Scotsmen. I'm not contesting that you have balls. It's your brain function I'm worried about.

William Wallace, Scottish soldier and national hero

You scored 70 Wisdom, 69 Tactics, 65 Guts, and 45 Ruthlessness!

The kilt might fit, but wool gives me a rash.

Which Historic General Are You?

[Link thanks to Sluggo, who was even tougher]

Neo-Neocon's latest installment of The varieties of pacifism: (Part IIB) begins with this background.

Pacifism sometimes seems illogical and naive to those who don't espouse it. But the key to the logic of pacifism--and it definitely has its own logic--is that it is a belief system. As such, it's based on certain premises which are accepted as articles of faith and that, to pacifists, can stand outside the realm of proof.

Quakers are the most famous, organized pacifist group in America. In her post, Neo-neocon focuses on the varied Quaker responses to 9/11.

One of my acquaintances is a Quaker. Her reaction to 9/11 was to become a WASP version of Jeanine Garafalo. I didn't speak to her much after 9/11 (okay, I avoided her because I didn't want to get into a shouting match) but before then, we'd had an interesting night out...

In the summer of 2001, my husband's Unitarian Church was interested in attracting more blacks to the group, to make the mostly white group more balanced. One black female member of the group suggested that we locate the church in a mostly black town. I knew the area, and there was a good Vietnamese restaurant nearby, so we gathered the few people who were willing to go to check it out - the Quaker lady was one of them.

When we were there, they noted how close the site was to the projects. A few loud teenagers walked by. They got into the car and suggested that we go to the restaurant.

On the way home we drove past a bail bonds shop. The Quaker lady asked us what a bail bonds were. She had never heard of the concept. She admitted that she had watched a few cop shows, but somehow the concept never sank in. A woman whose faith was based on the rejection of the death penalty and loving the sinner knew absolutely nothing about the criminal world.

[In the end, the group decided against moving near the projects because there wasn't enough parking. They bought land near a farm and some woods instead]

Had the pacifists' advice been followed at Versailles in 1918 and 1919, for example, and the US joined and supported the League of Nations, World War II might well have been prevented altogether...

According to this study, hate crimes and the growth of fascism are caused by a combination of social change and systematic campaigns by political organizations.

Robert Paxton, in his book "The Anatomy of Fascism" observed that when a political group loses power and feels that they will not be able to regain power through the vote, they become more willing to abandon democratic ideals. The Nazis were not motivated by poverty and despair; they were motivated by a grasping need for power and control. They didn't want to share.

Pacifists can't fight aggression or crime because they don't know what motivates criminal behavior. They don't care about facts. They rely on faith.

Like other faiths, pacifism has a few stories about miracles, those rare instances where the laws of nature were magically, suspended and their faith appeared to "work." Like the farmer who sees the face of Jesus in a potato these miracles are oft-told, rare, and usually disputed by rational people. As always, facts never sway the faithful.

Criminals, fascists and bullies around the world are violent and aggressive because they can get away with it; they don't commit crimes because they're misunderstood. Loving and protecting the criminal isn't the answer. Loving and protecting the victim is.

Pacifism and a refusal to defend your family and community leaves that community open to attack. One commenter on Neo's site said:

My pacifism stems from a deep faith and a firm trust in Jesus Christ to keep me safe. I find it interesting that more Christians seem to have more faith in the Bush war machine than the object of their worship, the Prince of Peace.

Certainly not everyone is going to be a pacifist any time soon. However, it seems that you and other neo-cons have declared war not only in Iraq but those of us who are pacifists, thus declaring war on my religion.

To the pacifist, Christ exists to confirm or confront MY beliefs. To a pacifist, war exists to challenge MY beliefs. It the ultimate toddler-level philosophy.

Pacifism allows destruction to run wild and free without restraint. It's destructive, not constructive. As a religion, pacifism is fine in small doses, but, like any entirely logic-free faith, it is immensely destructive when mixed with politics.

When we visited Thailand, back in 2002, there were some signs of sympathy for terrorists in southern Thailand. The world ignored the problem, and it's gotten worse.

A Thai General rejected the government's efforts to downplay the problem and told the truth about terrorism. The question is, how many days before he's fired?

At Dean's World, the latest news from Thailand.

Rhianna has a post up about edible British foods. Yes, they do exist.

I usually avoid British meals, because I've often been surprised by kidney/liver/general offal in meals where I didn't expect it. But their deserts (other than mincemeat) are trustworthy. One of my favorites is a fruit crumble, or crisp as we call it in the states.

Here's a reprint of a favorite crisp recipe. It was originally a summer thing, but it's also good with freshly picked fall apples:

Apple Blueberry Crisp

2 apples, peeled, cored and chopped
1 can of blueberries or 1 cup fresh blueberries
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup oats, rolled (raw
) 1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/3 cup butter

Put apples & blueberries in shell baking dish and sprinkle with lemon juice. Combine dry ingredients, add melted butter and mix until crumbly.

Do not sample the sugar/oats/cinnamon mixture. it is the most heavenly stuff in the world, and you'll eat the whole thing, leaving nothing for the crisp.

Sprinkle crumb mixture over apples.

Bake at 375 F for 30 minutes or until apples are tender.

You can use apricots, peaches, pears, just about any fruit that you fancy. To make it properly English, top it off with Bird's Custard.

If there's no Bird's available, Cool Whip or Whipped Cream are fine. If you want to be a total Yank, top it off with ice cream.

Makes six servings

Time Magazine: Interview with a terrorist:

In the meantime, he is focusing on more immediate matters. He has told his son that he is too young to become a martyr but says he recently taught the child how to make roadside bombs and how to fashion a rudimentary rocket launcher out of metal tubes. (He also gave TIME a propaganda video, in which he and two other adults teach a group of four children how to jury-rig a pair of artillery shells into a bomb.) "We have to prepare the next generation for battle," he says. "We have to realize that the fight against the Americans might last a long, long time." So long as men like him continue to send their young to die, that prediction may well come true.

We are at war with this man. How many Americans and Iraqis will he kill? By finding him and the letting him walk away from the interview, Time magazine will be responsible for all of those deaths.

Sometimes Western Civilization appears to be too dumb to live. And if you think I'm amazed by the profundity of our stupidity, imagine what our enemies think.

[Link thanks to Norm and Tim Blair]

Omar at Iraq the Model covers the historical vote on the Iraqi constitution:

Probably the worst thing today is the intense heat which was a little over 100f but that didn’t stop the crowds from walking in the sun to the voting stations, I personally had to walk nearly 4 miles in total but it’s definitely worth the effort.

The presence of Iraqi army and police units is heavier than it was in January elections and I also noticed that no multinational forces were on the streets and the only sign for their presence was the helicopters that patrolled the skies.

..more..

- Harold Pinter

Harold Free Slobodan Milosevic! Pinter has won a Nobel Prize, following in the footsteps of "peace" activists like Yasser Arafat and Henry Kissinger.

Yet another sign that "peace" is defined as tolerance of genocide and totalitarianism.

The pong of death is with him.

During a discussion on Michael Totten's site, commenter Tosk said:

[Terrorism] has for centuries been a weapon used by many groups of people who cannot fight in the usual millitary manner, or who wish to control some group through fear and terror.

"Terrorist" is not an organization. Terrorism is not a specific ideology. Terrorism is a tool.

The Thai government is dealing with a trained paramilitary force of Islamist "insurgents" who were inspired and financed by our allies in Islamist Saudi Arabia and trained by our secular allies in Libya.

Via Thailand's The Nation:

Some 3,000 "core militants" received military training in Libya before joining the Islamic insurgency in Thailand's Muslim-majority south, a top general said Wednesday.

"The militants have advanced over the last 20 years, as the core members went to receive military training in Libya for four years, just like our soldiers train," General Panlop Pinmanee told a seminar of 100 security officials.

"When they returned they became the chief operators in the south. Those militants have (the) same capacity as our commandos. There are 1,000 of them in each province and all together there are 30,000 sympathisers across three provinces," he said.

When things get out of hand and the state's power is threatened, cronyism and general bureaucratic incompetence guarantee that the person in charge of security will deal with the problem in the most incompetent way possible.

Like disaster relief, when it comes to terrorism, the state helps those who can help themselves.

The secular/Islamist supporters of terrorism have had a lot of success using these methods in Africa and South Asia. They've sent their "insurgent" armies around the world, where they currently threaten Europe, Thailand and Indonesia.

The Balinese in Indonesia are getting sick of the whole situation. They want to fight for peace - by killing terrorists.

Via CNN

BALI, Indonesia (AP) — Hundreds of protesters demanding death for the Bali bombers broke down the gates of a prison on the third anniversary of the nightclub attacks, amid rising anger following fresh terrorist strikes on the resort island this month.

"Kill! Kill!," the crowd shouted Wednesday outside the aging Kerobokan jail, which is home to several Islamic militants convicted in the Oct. 12, 2002, blasts that killed 202 people, mostly young foreign tourists.

The protesters were quickly brought under control and the gate was put back up. "Bring back our peaceful Bali," the crowd chanted as the rally wound down.

[Link to The Nation thanks to d-rod of Totally Whacked]

BERLIN (Reuters) - Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who has led Germany since 1998, said for the first time on Wednesday he would not play a role in the next government, in an emotional farewell including broadsides at the United States and Britain.

"I will not be a part of the next government — definitely not be part of it," a tearful looking Schroeder told a rapt audience of union members in his home city of Hanover.

He quickly composed himself, hitting his stride in a passionate defence of a strong German state and lashing out at "Anglo-Saxon" economic policies favoured in Britain and the United States, which he said had "no chance" in Europe.

In an apparent reference to Hurricane Katrina, Schroeder castigated Washington for liberal, hands-off policies that left it exposed in times of crisis. The Bush administration was widely criticised for its response to the devastating storm.

"I do not want to name any catastrophes where you can see what happens if organised state action is absent. I could name countries, but the position I still hold forbids it, but everyone knows I mean America," he said to loud applause.

Tchuss..

Quote from a discussion at Winds of Change:

Via Grim: I have a friend who has spent a number of years in Indonesia and learned to read the language. He tells me that the newspapers frequently print stories about text-messages they've gotten from readers in response to previous articles. Comments in the wake of the second Bali bombing are, if he is reporting correctly, close to 100% in favor of killing all terrorists everywhere.

Does that mean they like America or approve of Iraq? Not at all. But we don't have to win every fight - just the one, big fight.

My husband likes to wear this No Che t-shirt to celebrate American holidays like July 4th.

One day he wore it into our very multi-culti local coffee shop, where he really harshed their buzz. They whined.."why don't you like Che??"

He didn't have a list of the reasons on hand, but if anyone asks, via the Babalu Blog, here are the facts behind ten myths about Che:

8. HIS ADVENTURES WERE A CELEBRATION OF LIFE. Instead, they were an orgy of death. He executed many innocent people in Santa Clara, in central Cuba, where his column was based in the last stage of the armed struggle. After the triumph of the revolution, he was in charge of "La Cabaña" prison for half a year. He ordered the execution of hundreds of prisoners—former Batista men, journalists, businessmen, and others. A few witnesses, including Javier Arzuaga, who was the chaplain of "La Cabaña", and José Vilasuso, who was a member of the body in charge of the summary judicial process, recently gave me their painful testimonies.

9. HE WAS A VISIONARY. His vision of Latin America was actually quite blurred. Take, for instance, his view that the guerrillas had to take to the countryside because that is where the struggling masses lived. In fact, since the 1960s, most peasants have peacefully deserted the countryside in part because of the failure of land reform, which has hindered the development of a property-based agriculture and economies of scale with absurd regulations forbidding all sorts of private arrangements.

I wasn't going to see Domino, because I thought the concept, of a model-thin woman working as a bounty hunter was just a fantasy.

I didn't realize that it was based on real life..

IF you are born into the British high life, specifically to the actor Laurence Harvey and Pauline Stone, a Vogue model, and wend your way through life so that you end up chasing drug dealers, murderers and thieves through the streets of South Central Los Angeles as a bounty hunter, chances are good that someone will eventually hear your story and think it's a movie.

n 1993 that is what happened when Tony Scott, the director of "Top Gun" and "Crimson Tide," read a profile of Domino Harvey, who was 23 at the time, in The Daily Mail of London. "I tracked Domino down in Hollywood, where she was modeling and bounty hunting," Mr. Scott said over the phone from his Los Angeles office late last month. "Domino lived in an apartment above the garage because she wasn't allowed in her mother's house with all her guns. We'd sit up in her apartment with the Soldier of Fortune magazines and AK-47's scattered around the room, and then I'd go and have tea with Mum and the Jack Russells and the Francis Bacons on the wall."

In related news, Keira Knightly is one of the all-time favorite butt-kicking babes, in a list that should have Diana Rigg on it, but doesn't.

This site has been keeping a list of every battle in the current Islamist war against the world. Here's the count from last week.

That's just in one week. Since 9/11, Islamist paramilitary groups have carried out more than 3,065 deadly terror attacks around the world.

After the earthquake in Kashmir, Islamists responded by murdering Hindus. 12 people were killed.

A constant stream of attacks by organized paramilitary groups is usually defined as "war." Even Bush has finally admitted that we're fighting a politically motivated radical ideology with "unalterable objectives: to enslave whole nations and intimidate the world."

Okay, now we're finally admitting that it is war, Islamism is a political movement, separate from the religion of Islam. This political movement is organized and is officially worldwide.

So when does the world start fighting back?

The EU has decided that felons have the "right" to vote

Prisoners vote could swing marginals as EU interferes in British elections

[ClickPress, Thu Oct 06 2005] UKIP MEP Nigel Farage said that seats such as Dorset South, Medway, and Sittingbourne & Sheppey were vulnerable to being swung by the votes of prisoners, which could lead to accusations of gerrymandering every time there was a change in prison conditions.

Mr Farage described the ruling as a "wholly improper and unwarranted interference in British democracy" which placed temptation in the government's way and which could lead to accusations that prisoner's votes were being bought.

I'll bet George Galloway is celebrating today.

Yes, they hate themselves, but why do they have to bring millions down with them? Why are we expected to clean up their mess? Frankly, I'm getting tired of this.

[News Scotsman link thanks to the Lady of Shalott]

I thought these guys were all retired by now. Maybe not...

Recordings made by an FBI informant capture reputed mobsters chatting about whacking a Jersey City diner owner they say borrowed $53,000, lost it through gambling, and then asked for more.

"You know, I don't like it when they keep coming back," reputed Genovese crime family associate Joseph "Big Joe" Scarbrough gripes in a transcript of a Jan. 25, 2003, recording made by the FBI. The recordings were made by Peter Caporino, 69, a longtime mob figure who wore a wire for the FBI for at least two years.

Scarbrough was unhappy that the diner owner, who already owed him $53,000, was asking to borrow the same amount in a second loan.

"If we gotta kill him, I'd rather kill him for 50 instead of 150 because that's out of my pocket," Scarbrough said during a conversation taped by Caporino...

...Scarbrough was apparently reluctant to loan the diner owner the money because - citing a psychiatrist he saw on TV - he felt he would be enabling the man's gambling problem.

"The doctor on television says any person gets in trouble, no matter what it is, drinking, drugs, gambling . and another person comes up and bails him out, you know, 99.9, he's gonna come back," the transcript quotes Scarbrough as saying. "You gotta help yourself in life. People can't help you."

It seems that Great Britain and Saudi Arabia are joining to Attack Iran

Via Gateway Pundit:

Authorities in Great Britain have announced that Iran is behind the attacks against the British in Iraq.

Britain has accused Iran of responsibility for explosions which have caused the deaths of all eight UK soldiers killed in Iraq this year.

A senior British official, briefing correspondents in London, blamed Iranian Revolutionary Guards.

Strangest of all, our terror-supporting allies in Saudi Arabia joined in too.

Via al Jazeera: Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia has accused Shia Iran of meddling in the affairs of the violence-ravaged country, but Tehran has denied the charge..

Saud's comments also drew a harsh attack from Iraq's interior minister, who said Iraqis would "not accept a Bedouin on a camel teaching us about human rights and democracy."

Interior Minister Bayan Baqer Sulagh said the oil-rich Sunni-ruled kingdom had several problems of its own to take care of. "Saudis should first allow women to drive, as is the case in Iraq," he said, adding that "four million Shia live like second-class citizens in the Saudi kingdom."

He could have also pointed out the fact that the Saudi government encourages young Saudis to go to Iraq to martyr themselves for the cause.

But he didn't. Instead, he, like the Saudis, gave the West the impression that old feuds were still on, encouraging us to use the same old cheesy divide-and-conquer tactics that we've used for decades. Ever wonder why those tactics aren't working anymore?

Divide and conquer is not going to work. The Saudis sponsor al Qaeda, the Iranians work with al Qaeda, and most share the same goals as al Qaeda - a caliphate based on Shariah law. This tired old Shia vs. Sunni routine is a dog and pony show, put on for our benefit.

If America invades Iran, the Iranian government, with its weak military forces, will probably fall quickly. Then our allies the Saudis and other nations like Syria, Pakistan, etc., will send in the insurgents and we'll be bogged down in another unwinnable occupation. Since the Saudis and the Iranians have been working together, no invasion can be successful until the Saudi Wahhabi infrastructure is also dismantled.

If the Saudis and the British are so anxious to confront Iran (and only Iran) they should go ahead do it. We'll watch.

I've often said that Jersey's Pulaski Skyway is such a mess, it looks like downtown Beirut. I really should stop saying that.

Since he moved to Lebanon and began posting on his "Middle East Journal" Michael Totten shows us (and proves, with pictures) that Beirut is more comparable to Miami Beach or Greenwich Village..

The Pulaski Skyway remains in a category of its own.

Beirut hasn't recovered completely; the crumbling war torn neighborhoods and the posters of the Martyrs are still in Beirut, and they are in many ways more chilling than than they were in the old days:

The first time I came to Beirut the martyr portraits (of Rafik Hariri) made me feel better. I felt safe here seeing omnipresent photos of a decent man who did good instead of portraits of a tyrant.

It’s different now. Middle Eastern martyrs are supposed to be dead presidents, dead guerilla fighters, and dead terrorists. They aren’t supposed to be people I know. They aren’t supposed to be people like me. I cannot – not yet – walk past photos of May and Samir without shuddering.

..and I didn't know that parts of the countryside resembled the South of France. This is Lebanon..

Richard Landes, writing for Solomonia, describes one of the results of bias in the media - how The Media Gets the "Intifada" Wrong

The AP caption, repeated by the NYT, identifies the bloodied civilian as a Palestinian, the policeman brandishing a club – implicitly the author of the youth’s wounds – as an Israeli, and the location as the Temple Mount. I guess one out of three IDs isn’t bad for AP when it comes to the Middle East conflict, although the thrust of the errors literally transforms the meaning of the photo. What the AP did with this caption is to impose upon it the firm expectations of their Politically Correct Paradigm: since the Palestinians are the David and Israel the Goliath, then a bloodied civilian near an Israeli with a club must be the soldier’s victim. And since Ariel Sharon’s visit to the Temple Mount the day before had provoked Palestinian rage to which the Israelis had responded with deadly force, the injuries must have been inflicted on the Temple Mount.

What happened differs radically. The victim, Tuvya Grossman, was an American seminary student in Jerusalem whose taxi-driver went through an Arab neighborhood of Jerusalem where rioting crowds dragged him from the car, beat and stabbed him nearly to death. He managed to escape and reach the place where this Israeli soldier protected him from his pursuers. This story here actually illustrates the Jihad Paradigm, not the Politically Correct Paradigm.

Palestinians, whipped into a rage by false rumors that Sharon had desecrated the al-Aqsa mosque, broke into wild rioting, which Israelis, as much as possible, constrained with non-lethal weapons (like this baton). The Jewish civilian here is the victim, and the Israeli David, scantily armed, stands up to the Palestinian mob...

...his subsequent retraction, and a successful lawsuit against both AP and the French paper Libération, had little impact on those who wanted to believe in Israeli villainy.

As in the case of the poison accusations of 1983, Palestinian and Arab media, like the Egyptian Government and their Post Colonial Paradigm supporters, have continued to use the picture as part of their Palestinian victim narrative. To this day, Tuvya Grossman's picture adorns a poster calling on everyone in the world to boycott Coca Cola in order to stop Israelis from killing Palestinians.

No picture better illustrates the mood of the media at the outbreak of the intifada. "Already already listening" as Werner Erhardt might have put it. The storyboard was up, they just needed the material to start pinning to it. On September 29, it was Tuvya Grossman. The next day, it was Muhamed al Durah.

Knee jerk reactionary cluelessness may be part of the problem, but many are also motivated by bias, ego and a very basic desire to keep their jobs and bring in ad revenue. Like the latest news about Jen, Brad and Angelina, anti-Americanism and hatred of Israel sells papers from Paris to Syria. Contradicting readers' expectations with the truth doesn't sell soap. Neither does an admission of wrongdoing.

It doesn't sell Mecca-Cola either. Where would the boycott Coca Cola campaign be without Muhammad al-Dura?

The departure of CNN news executive Eason Jordan came swiftly after reports of his apparent claim at a forum in Switzerland that journalists in Iraq had been deliberately killed by American soldiers. Offering no evidence to support the charge, Jordan resigned under a hail of criticism.

In just months, CBS ousted senior executives held responsible for airing a disastrously flawed segment on President Bush's Air National Guard service. So, too, the New York Times and USA Today acted within months against serial falsifiers Jayson Blair and Jack Kelley, firing senior executives as well as the individual perpetrators, and instituting measures to guard against future infractions.

Far different has been the response of the influential France 2 Television network, in an infamous and unresolved case of gross misconduct by its journalists. Charles Enderlin, Israel-based correspondent for the network, and his Palestinian cameraman, Talal Abu-Rahma, are directly responsible for the calumny spread worldwide against Israel starting September 30, 2000 in the Muhammad al-Dura affair.

Enderlin's voice-over told France 2 viewers that they were seeing footage shot by Abu-Rahma at Gaza's Netzarim junction earlier that day. As images unfolded of 12-year-old Muhammad al-Dura cowering against his father, Enderlin stated the two are "the target of fire coming from the Israeli position. The child signals, but... there's a new burst of gunfire... The child is dead and the father is wounded."

France 2 then promptly gave the video – barely 55 seconds in length – free of charge to other media outlets. The image of the boy ostensibly shot dead by Israeli guns raced around the world. Coming as it did in the first days of the Palestinian uprising, the dramatic scenes playing continuously on television stoked the violence...

..Four and a half years later, France 2 has yet to issue any statement correcting its reprehensible and unethical al-Dura story, or to take action against Enderlin, Abu-Rahma or others with a hand in the matter.

This should concern everyone who appreciates the enormous damage caused by reckless and ideologically-driven journalism.

Some journalists (and bloggers) do the hard, unforgiving work of investigating facts - and they often discover that their co-workers have made mistakes. The rewards for this kind of journalism are few. These whistle-blowers are rarely rewarded by the big media. Wonder why.

Like most bullies, biased journalists do bad things because they can get away with it. Media sources, unlike other products, aren't required to warn readers about the contents of their reports. Most newspapers don't have a warning like "this product contains pompous moralizing", or "gratuitious Israel bashing inside - now with extra charges of colonialism!!"

Many of these biased journalists believe that telling the truth and reporting simple facts is just too hard. It's beyond the limits of human ability and endurance - literally impossible.

Well, okay then - if it's impossible, then the concept of "news" is dead. Long live punditry. The New York Times should be be renamed New York Liberal Editorializing. We can tune into Fox Right-Wing Punditry when we want to hear from the other side.

Call it what it is.