When I was visiting my son in North Carolina, I got a chance to fly IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) in a small plane for the first time. We flew to Ashville on a day when the birds were crouched on the telephone wires, waiting out the storm.

If birds were meant to fly, they'd have GPS.

A pilot sometimes uses IFR when flying in Instrument Meteorological Conditions (ie. bad weather)

In bad weather, you can't use the ground or other visual cues for navigation, So you use instruments, like radio beacons and GPS. It's important to check the plane out thoroughly (although pilots always do that anyway)

Flying into the clouds

We were in a cumulous cloud here. Flying through clouds is a different experience in a small plane, because puffy clouds generate turbulence. You feel that more in a small plane than in a big one.

..and of course you need rely on the instruments in there because otherwise you can't tell which way is up.

Breaking through the clouds.

The view above the clouds is gorgeous. It's like flying over fields of fresh snow.

Fields of clouds

Grey skies again - The area around Ashville airport was ridged with mountains. You have to rely on the instruments and air traffic control to keep you on the right path. The controller was very busy that day. It was a Friday, and Ashville is a popular town to visit.

The pilot

He asked me if I was interested in learning to fly IFR. I am interested, because it give a pilot a lot more freedom of movement. A pilot who can only fly in nice weather can be grounded for a while, especially in the Northeast.

But first I have to get back into practice. I've forgotten a lot of what I know about flying in perfectly clear weather.

He did make it look very easy, but he flies that way nearly every day.

Islamic reform is hot these days. The Brookings Institution is having a Conference on Islamic Reform (featuring helpful advice from the Muslim Brotherhood). New groups are popping up like flowers in a field - we have Liberal Islam, Progressive Islam, Muslims Against Sharia. We also have the dangerously ersatz reformers who are affiliated with terrorist groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood, CAIR and Tariq Ramadan.

In the Guardian's Comment is Free, Ali Eteraz says:

Since 9/11, "Islamic reform" has become an all-purpose phrase: equally a western impulse to protect itself from Muslim violence and a humanist notion aimed at assisting voiceless Muslims. It has also been espoused by Wolfowitz and Blair in service of their neo-colonial ambitions.

What are Islamic reform's goals? That depends on who you ask. But all supporters of Islamic Reform agree that, if there is going to be peace in the world, it's imperative that Islam must be reformed. So, in some unmentioned way, all supporters of Islamic reform do agree that there is a connection between the religion of Islam and terrorism.

However, if we believe that the religion of Islam is NOT the the cause of terrorism, then we would have to believe that the reform of Islam can't be the solution.

I don't believe that we're at war with the religion of Islam. We are at war with a political supremacist group, a group that some people call Islamism, some call Salafism and some people call 'terrorism'. That group consists of terror-supporting states like Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the U.A. E. and the Sudan; it also consists of smaller paramilitary groups that are funded by these states, like Hezbollah, Hamas, al Qaeda, Fatah al-Islam and Jamaat ul-Fuqra, which are based worldwide, including in America. This political supremacist group is supported by financial organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood. Their "non-violent" propaganda wings, including the Muslim Brotherhood, CAIR and Hizb-ut-Tahrir, are also based worldwide.

People join this political supremacist organization for the same reason people joined the Nazi party, the KKK, the mafia or the commies. 'White power', Aryan supremacy, being a made man or 'helping the oppressed' may have been part of the recruitment propaganda, but for the most part, people join these groups because they believe membership will give them legitimacy, money and power. Some also join because they think it might be fun to kill people.

Reforming the religion of Islam would have the same effect on the Islamist political movement as reforming Italian culture would have on the Mafia. Zilch.

So, if there's no connection between the religion and the current political supremacist movement that is sponsoring terrorism, why would non-terrorist Muslims be working so hard to bring the private, religious issue of reform into the public sphere?

Well, to quote Willie Sutton, that's where the money is.

Since 9/11, the Neocons and the Left, the Islamophobes and the Islamophiles have been promoting the idea of 'reforming Islam' as a way of preventing war. When such a strong demand for product exists, a large supply is usually created.

While the average Muslim is smart enough to know that Islamic reform will have no effect on terrorist recruitment or actions, they're also smart enough to realize that there's money and career opportunities in 'reform' of Islam. And thus a completely non-productive industry is born.

Via Ashar Qalawsat:

Dammam, Asharq Al-Awsat- Members of Khobar's Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice were the victims of an attack by two Saudi females, Asharq Al-Awsat can reveal.

According to the head of the commission in Khobar, two girls pepper sprayed members of the commission after they had tried to offer them advice.

Head of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice in the Eastern province Dr. Mohamed bin Marshood al-Marshood, told Asharq Al Awsat that two of the Commission's employees were verbally insulted and attacked by two inappropriately-dressed females, in the old market in Prince Bandar street, an area usually crowded with shoppers during the month of Ramadan.

According to Dr. Al-Marshood, the two commission members approached the girls in order to "politely" advise and guide them regarding their inappropriate clothing.

Consequently, the two girls started verbally abusing the commission members, which then lead to one of the girls pepper-spraying them in the face as the other girl filmed the incident on her mobile phone, while continuing to hurl insults at them.

At Atlas Shrugs: Survivors of the first Hitler

At Kesher Talk - Van posts Scenes from a Demonstration

In How to Talk to a Bad Man Dean's World asks if it was right for Bollinger to invite Ahmadinejad to speak.

*Title thanks to Michelle Malkin.

Ahmadinejad was in NYC today. Cops were watching every corner near the UN and Columbia, soldiers were patrolling the PATH stations and traffic was redirected all over the city. So, how much does it cost to invite a de facto enemy of the state to NYC? Apparently, quite a lot.

I visited the protests against Ahmadinejad at Ground Zero and the UN. Judith at Kesher Talk kindly posted my photos and descriptions (always the hardest part of the post). Thanks to Charles at LGF for linking to it! (the flickr photos are here)

At Ground Zero, Port Authority police earned their keep by harassing a 9/11 family member who was protesting Ahmadinejad's visit. Pamela at Atlas Shrugged has the video here (and a great shot of a motorcycle ride through NYC)

Port Authority police forcing anti-Ahmadinejad protester Desiree to move

At the Daily Kos, poster Clay Claiborne says that Ahmadinejad's "We don’t have homosexuals in Iran" speech "sounds entirely to reasonable." I don't know what they're smoking over at Kos, but it's stronger than hookah.

While the Kos crowd praised the littlest fascist, the New York capitalists at Nino's Positano (2nd Ave between 47th and 48th) announced that he was not welcome in their restaurant. Too bad for Ahmadinejad, it looked like a popular place.

When I got home, my husband was watching CBS news, which was all about Ahmadinejad's visit. Not all of the coverage was favorable to the little genocidaire.

Although many people criticized Columbia U.'s President Lee Bollinger for inviting Ahmadinejad, Bollinger did truly make use of the priciples of the first amedment. Give the most vile opinions enough rope to hang themselves:

But before he even spoke, the Iranian leader, whose appearance had sparked outrage notably among US politicians and the Jewish community, sat through 10 minutes of broadsides from university president Lee Bollinger.

"Mr President, you exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator," Bollinger told Ahmadinejad, accusing him of brutal crackdowns on the country's academics and homosexuals.

"Why are you so afraid of Iranian citizens expressing their opinions for change?" he asked, challenging the leader of the Islamic republic to explain his comments downplaying the Holocaust.

"Frankly, in all candor Mr President, I doubt you will have the intellectual courage to answer these questions," he added.

"When you come to a place like this, this makes you quite simply ridiculous. You are either brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated," he said.

When he did get to his feet, wearing a white open-necked shirt and gray suit, Ahmadinejad accused Bollinger of a "wave of insults and allegations" while largely avoiding any direct answers to any of Bollinger's challenges.

I would be willing to totally praise Bollinger's support of the first amendment if Columbia University really did give all controversial speakers the same opportunities they gave Ahmadinejad. But Columbia didn't give the same opportunity to the Minutemen who spoke there, or to Walid Shoebat, whose speech was (due to Columbia's efforts) unpublicised and unattended.

Although I admire Bolliger's efforts to challenge Ahmadinejad, efforts that far surpass those of any member of the newsmedia, who seem to have forgotten how to do research or ask questions, I have to wonder why a Saudi-funded institution like Columbia assembled this media circus in the first place. They weren't trying to hide or surpress Ahmadinejad's voice, as they did Shoebat's. They even challenged him, something that Bush has, for the most part, failed to properly do.

We know that sometimes the Saudis and Iranians work together, and sometimes they don't. I don't know what they're doing in this case, but I have to wonder, what is Ahmadinejad's "Boo!! I'm a whacko genocidal dictator who wants to nuke you!" dog and pony show meant to accomplish?

In any case, the furor over Ahmadinejad's visit has overshadowed one of the biggest stories of the day - Qatar and Dubai have gained control of the London Stock Exchange:

QATAR has upped its share in London's Stock Exchange to nearly 24 per cent, giving the gulf state and neighbour Dubai a controlling stake of nearly 52 per cent.

As if this weren’t troubling enough, Persian Gulf states are also staging a takeover of the Nordic Exchange: Bidding war expected as Qatar buys into OMX:

Dubai and its neighbour Qatar are both seeking to become the Middle East’s centre of global trading. Both emirates have an independent market regulator.

Shares in OMX closed up by almost 7.69 percent at 269 kronor following speculation that Qatar’s interest in OMX could lead to a bidding war. “Who knows how far the bidding could go, just like Dubai, they’ve (Qatar) got more money than God,” Thomas Johansson, an analyst at Kaupthing Bank, told financial newswire Thomson Financial News.

Remember the fuss the media made about the Japanese takeover of the Western economy? Interesting contrast.

Visiting my son in North Carolina. Be back soon..

Karol at Alarming News (and Karol Sheinin Consulting) is one of City Hall's 40 under 40 list of rising political stars.

During an interview with Jon Stewart, Army LTC John Nagl, author of the recently published "Counterinsurgency Field Manual" said something that seemed a little odd.

Jon asked if there was a previous field manual published, and Nagl said:

We last had a counterguerrilla manual in 1987 but as an army we really avoided counterinsurgency in the wake of Vietnam because we didn't want to fight that kind of war again..

We do have the most powerful, pragmatic and intelligent military in the world, but what kind of attitude is that? Would you rely on an investment banker who refused to learn about bonds because they didn't want to do that kind of investment?

Would you take your car to a mechanic who didn't want to learn about brake work?

Anyway, Nagl was a clever and deadpan kind of guy, the rest of the interview was good and, according to this recent report by Michael Totten, our military is learning how fight a counterinsurgency.

RAMADI, IRAQ – In early 2007 Ramadi, the capital of Iraq’s Anbar Province, was one of the most violent war-torn cities on Earth. By late spring it was the safest major city in Iraq outside Kurdistan.

Abu Musab Al Zarqawi’s Al Qaeda in Iraq had seized control with the tacit blessing of many local civilians and leaders because they promised to fight the Americans. But Al Qaeda’s rule of Ramadi was vicious and cruel. They turned out not to be liberators at all, but the Taliban of Mesopotamia.

Al Qaeda met resistance, after a time, from the Iraqis and responded with a horrific murder and intimidation campaign against even children. The Sunni Arabs of Ramadi then rejected Al Qaeda so utterly they forged an alliance with the previously detested United States Army and Marine Corps and purged the terrorists from their lands.

I don't think our presence inspired al Qaeda to be any crueler than usual. The violence sounds pretty standard for these hate-based supremacist groups. They're doing similar things in Thailand. It's not surprising that the villagers turned against al Qaeda - it's odd that it took so long for someone to hit back.

But the fact that we were there to help them rebuild is what will make the difference. People who had previously relied on tribal alliances for security can see the benefits that come from working with a large nation-state. If we do this right, that realization may be the thing that keeps Iraq from descending into a Talibanesque feudal mess - another 'perfect Islamic state'(as Osama once called Afghanistan)

...it's so big!

* link thanks to the Queen and Tim.

The hard-hitting investigative reporters of the Star Ledger filed this report from Newark: Shoe Mystery hangs over city:

George Williams has no doubt that the gray suede tennis shoes dangling from the telephone wire high above his house on 18th Avenue in Newark signify that drugs are sold there.

Not long ago they were.

"Those people don't live here anymore. Left in January," said Williams, who points to the bullet hole in his 1976 Pontiac Grand Prix and another below his neighbor's mailbox to prove how rugged the area is just off Avon Avenue.

Knotted shoes or sneakers hanging from utility wires are common in Newark. What it signifies depends on whom you ask. Some say it's a sign drugs are being sold in the area. Others say it marks a gang's territory. Or maybe it's just the result of some kids having fun.

Whatever it means, Newark Councilman-at-large Carlos Gonzalez believes it isn't good. His recent unanimously approved resolution calls on Verizon and PSE&G to help the city take the hanging footwear down.

"To most people it means we are ready to deal," said Gonzalez, referring to drug sales. "Regardless, we want to keep our community as clean as possible. It's a quality of life issue."

It's also not an issue that's unique to Newark. Ed Kohler, a Minneapolis-based Internet marketing consultant, coined the term "shoefiti" in 2005 to describe shoes or sneakers hanging by their laces from telephone or power lines. The term is linked to graffiti because like the outdoor tags, they are considered either an artistic form of expression or markings of gangs and criminal activity. His Web site tracks shoefiti news.

"It's kind of a worldwide phenomena. You see it in New York, New Jersey and Los Angeles, but Australia and Poland also have a lot of shoefiti," said Kohler...

Are roving teams of assassins sending each other signals via secret code or could Columbian drug lords be to blame? Enquiring minds want to know.

Everyone's inner Batman should fly

[link thanks to Instapundit]

Syrian Journal: Part 1
- by davem of Harry's Place

Harry's Place reader and commenter davem lived and studied Arabic and took lots of photos in Syria from July 2006 to August 2007. He has graciously agreed to write a series of posts for Harry's Place about his experiences and observations there. Here is the first:

Syria under Bashar Al-Assad is slightly more subtle; it’s best described as The Republic of Paranoia.

The paranoia is everywhere. You feel it, you can practically taste it. Everyone feels as if they’re being watched. At all times and at all places.

See those pictures of Bashar everywhere? On the streets, on people’s cars, in the restaurants, outside the Barada sports club, above the Tishreen Stadium swimming pool, etc. They’re saying, “We’re watching you mate”.

Syria’s a strange place. Nothing is as it seems. Nothing. On the surface everything’s fine, people are friendly and very hospitable, everything looks pretty much Western: clothes, food, music.

But as soon as you go under the surface, especially when you punch a hole through the language barrier, you enter a Bizarro-Land where the rules have changed but nobody will tell you. Where reality and logic cease to exist and it seems as if everyone turns into Muhammad As-Sahaf (Saddam’s information minister), denying what’s in front of them.

Even the most mundane things take on a bizarre surreal quality.

For example - you want to go to Beirut for the weekend, as you’ve done many times before. It’s pretty straightforward.

Yet today the central bus and taxi station is locked. So you ask a policeman stationed outside where you can get a shared taxi to Beirut and he points over his shoulder at the bus station behind him.

You tell him it’s closed and to look for himself and he starts shouting at you incoherently, all the time refusing to look behind him and see the padlocked gates.

So you go to soldier nearby. He tells you it’s shut because it’s a Friday. You tell him you went to Beirut last Friday, no problems. He shrugs his shoulders, so you whisper to him to tell you the truth: is it cos he’s scared of something? You press him. “You’re scared, aren’t you? You’re scared? What’s going on?”

He looks round to see that no one is watching us and then says he doesn’t want to be arrested and tells you to stop the conversation....

In Lebanon, everyone said that Syria was a crazy place. They were right.

..Lebanon was nothing like this

Jodie Foster was on the Daily Show yesterday night discussing her new movie, The Brave One. They were having a pretty decent discussion about the pros and cons of vigilantism, but the interview headed south when the issue of gun control came up.

Both Jon and Jodi agreed that guns were instruments of special power. Jon said. "the power of that instrument..you get one of those in your pocket and it's like " you know what, I'm not waiting in line"

I was trying unsuccessfully to picture Jon Stewart using a gun to break line, wondering why he thought a gun would change his entire personality when Jodie said "I don't think that kind of power should be in the hands of feeling humans...maybe robots or something, not humans"

After the John Hinckley, Jr. horror, I wouldn't blame her for hating guns. But giving them to robots?

As my husband said, "I thought she was the smart one"

I was talking to a Russian ex-cop once about gun control. He said he was amazed by the way American gun control activists give guns a mystical power; that they anthropomorphize them, giving guns a Rasputin-like power of suggestion. These personified guns are like the teacups in Beauty and the Beast, with a life and advice of their own. You get one of those in your pocket, who knows what they'll tell you to do.

For me, learning to shoot a gun was like learning to drive a car. I was made aware that any wrong move could cause serious damage to everyone near me, so I was extra careful about every move I made. The object is powerful, but the awareness of that power is balanced by the need for extra responsibility.

I think most people over the age of 16 (who aren't Jodie Foster) would feel the same way. I have no doubt that if Jon Stewart had a gun in his pocket, he would wait on line like everyone else. He might even let some people cut ahead.

"It's a thing, an object, nothing more." the Russian said. During the cold war most Russians learned how to use guns, so it's not surprising that they have such an unromantic view of them.

Urban America's view of guns probably came from Hollywood, and people like Jodie Foster who thinks that feeling humans should never come into contact with these mythical objects of power. Guns shouldn't kill people, robots should. Or something.

Armed with shoeboxes, attitude and probably whatever weapons they can smuggle in, youth-oriented neo-Hezbollahs are setting up camp in Europe and around the world. *

"Undercover in Little Morocco" is the name of a book written by Flemish journalist Hind Fraihi. As far as I can tell, it's not available in English, at least not through Amazon.

* Links thanks to The Brussels Journal and Solomonia

Also from the Brussels Journal - Police let violent Islamists take over a city, but they beat up and arrest peaceful demonstrators??

I just returned home from the anti-Islamization demonstration in Brussels. The Belgian police beat up the peaceful demonstrators in what even the Belgian public television call "an extremely violent fashion." Here are some video images. The grey-haired man whom we see being attacked by the police first is Luk Van Nieuwenhuysen, the Vice-President of the Flemish Parliament. Shortly afterwards we see the police maltreating Frank Vanhecke, a member of the European Parliament and the party leader of the Vlaams Belang. We see how he is handcuffed and pushed into a police bus. Afterwards we also see the police "taking care" of Filip Dewinter, the VB group leader in the Flemish Parliament. We see how his arm gets caught between the closing doors of the bus. An Italian MEP and a French MEP were also arrested. The demonstrators were kept in cells for seven hours and released this evening.

I finally got a chance to see Oliver Stone's "World Trade Center". I'm not a big fan of Stone, but the movie was pretty good. I'd guess that it's good because the personalities and the story told by Will Jimeno and John McLoughlin were so strong. Reading the interview with the two cops who were trapped in the rubble of the WTC is like reading part of the script.

One person that I would have liked to have heard more about in the movie was Dave Karnes. Karnes, a US Marine, was working as an accountant at Deloitte and Touche in Connecticut. When he saw the broadcasts of the attacks on TV, after hours of prayer, he decided to drive down to the WTC site to help.

He "got a regulation hair cut, put on his Marine Corps camouflage utility uniform and obtained equipment that included rappelling gear. He drove from Connecticut to the World Trade Center to assist with the disaster. At the site he ran into another Marine, Jason Thomas, and walked with him into the rubble. At the time he only knew his fellow Marine as "Sgt. Thomas," and his full identity was not revealed until years later. The two men found Will Jimeno and John McLoughlin.

Dave Karnes of the
United States Marine Corps

Of the movie, the Wiki entry says:

Karnes did not cooperate in the making of Stone's "World Trade Center" movie, and his portrayal in the movie has been criticized. Slate magazine observed that "the film seems to overplay his zeal without conveying his motivations and reasoning," and that he is unfairly portrayed as "a robotic soldier of Christ—a little wacky and simplistic.

Karnes, an ex-Marine and devout Christian who was working as an accountant in Connecticut on 9/11, felt called to Ground Zero by God. He shaved his head, donned his old uniform and drove to New York (in a Porsche 911—a portentous omen the movie omits for fear of stretching our credulity too far). Karnes then talked his way through the security lines and, miraculously, located the men buried in the wreckage. His eyes blazing with zealous righteousness, Karnes will be seen by some as a moral paragon, by others as a "nut job," as one of the rescue workers refers to him. What no one can deny is that his heroism helped save these men's lives. Stone makes no judgment.

'Rebecca Liss of Slate calls him 'crazy brave':

They find it harder to make room for outsiders like Karnes (or Chuck Sereika). And, it must be said, at some macho level it's vaguely embarrassing that the professional rescuers weren't the ones who found the two survivors. While the pros were pulled back out of legitimate caution, the job fell to an outsider, who drove down from Connecticut and just walked onto the burning pile.

Columnist Stewart Alsop once famously identified two rare types of soldiers, the "crazy brave" and the "phony tough." The professionals at Ground Zero—I interviewed dozens in my work as a producer for CBS—were in no way phony toughs. But Karnes does seem a bit "crazy brave." You'd have to be slightly abnormal—abnormally selfless, abnormally patriotic—to do what he did. And some of the same qualities that led Karnes to make himself a hero when it counted may make him less perfect as the image of a hero today.

Reading all these odd interpretations, I have to wonder if this is one issue that motivates the mass media's reports about the troops in Iraq. Given their general belief that the sky is always on the brink of falling, I wonder if they don't get the average soldier. Or (especially) the Marines. The media has been trained to hype fear, uncertainty and death. They don't understand people who aren't overwhelmed by it.

The blogosphere's Ernie Pyle posts his latest report

Some in the United States are unconvinced that Al Qaeda was really at the center of the conflict in Anbar. So I asked Colonel John Charlton how the Army knows Al Qaeda is really who they have been dealing with. He was supremely annoyed by the question.

“We know it’s Al Qaeda,” he said. There is no controversy whatsoever about this in Iraq. My question seemed to him as if it had come from another planet. “They self-identify as Al Qaeda. We didn’t give them that name. That’s what they call themselves. We have their propaganda CDs which have Al Qaeda written all over them.”

It’s not a dumb question, though, if a substantial number of Americans aren’t sure what’s going on in a bottomlessly complicated country eight or more times zones away. And not everyone who underestimated Al Qaeda’s presence is a fool.

I briefly met Army Reserve Lieutenant Colonel Eric Holmes from Dallas, Texas, while he was on his way home after volunteering to serve in Ramadi for six months. “I didn’t realize until I got here that the problem in Anbar Province was 100 percent Al Qaeda,” he said. “The old Baath Party insurgency here is completely finished. That war was won and Americans, including me, had no idea it even happened.”

Al Qaeda was initially welcomed by many Iraqis in Ramadi because they said they were there to fight the Americans. The spirit of resistance against foreign occupiers was strong. But the Iraqis got a lot more in the bargain than simply resistance.

The "only civilian on Earth who has had the pleasure of kicking al Qaeda in the gut" would come to New York, a city where we'd all like to buy him a pint.

The Post says:

Smeaton, 31, is the baggage handler who has become a national treasure in Britain for charging at a terrorist trying to blow up Glasgow's air terminal June 30 with an explosive-laden Jeep. He arrived in New York this weekend.

"I was wearing steel-toed work boots and it was a running kick to the right side of his stomach and I think he felt it. I sure hope so," Smeaton was saying. ..

... Smeaton was talking after a meeting with Police Commissioner Ray Kelly at the memorial wall in Battery Park where 713 fallen officers are remembered, including 23 who died at Ground Zero.

On Saturday, he flew into New York to be honored by the Scottish American Foundation.

Kelly spent almost an hour recounting the details and sacrifices of the fallen whose names are on the wall.

"Look, I did a wee, small thing, and when you look at the wall, you get very sad. And what happened on 9/11 here, well, nobody can describe that bravery," Smeaton said...

... Smeaton on that grim day came to the aid of a cop who ran to one of the terrorists whom he thought was victim of a traffic accident.

"Then this guy starts yelling out 'Allah!' and starts beating the policeman. I say to myself, 'C'mon, let's go.' If the law falls, everybody falls," he said.

After kicking the terrorist in the gut he turned to the driver side of the Jeep and saw the second terrorist burning on the ground, consumed with flames.

"At first I thought 'How can I help him?' Then I thought again that these people wanted to kill as many men women and children as they could," Smeaton said.

"I just said to myself, to hell with him. Maybe it was a bit stronger than that. And I went to help a mate who had a broken leg and was laying near the Jeep while all these little pop-pop explosions were going off."

Smeaton lights a cigarette and smiles: "I'm just here to pay my respects, then go back to Glasgow to be a baggage handler, which I love, and among the best guys you could ever work with."

The ceremony at Ground Zero on Tuesday will remember the thousands who lost their lives when two planes crashed into the Twin Towers and one into the Pentagon in 2001.

Important figures from US politics will attend, including New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg and Rudolph Giuliani, who was mayor at the time of the attacks.

I have to agree with James Robbins at NRO. The latest video was definintely not Osama's best.

Prattling about global warming and the Kyoto treaty, padding his talk with recycled Marxism, praising Noam Chomsky, the bigger-than-even-before nose, the dyed beard - he is Osama as written by the Kos Kids, or Osama as written by the Onion. Heck, given enough time I could have done that video with the Windows film editor and Photoshop.

So does this video prove that he's alive? Does it matter? Bin Laden the person hasn't been relevant for years - OBL is a brand name, a trademark, an idol for dark side minions and the press to rally around.

And with this latest video, the OBL brand has jumped the shark. The Muslim world's reaction to it is basically, "WTF?" The media isn't giving OBL the top of the fold today. He's not even on the New York Times' front page.

OBL™ isn't giving the press what it wants. This time, they get no fresh blood, threats and fear to feed on. They just get a half hour of bad quotes and a funny dye job. What are they supposed to do with that?

After 9/11, some in the press were comparing OBL to Jesus. In 2001, Time magazine wanted to make him Man of the Year. Now he's being bumped off CNN's front page by a missing child story and the news that Americans are getting fat.

Instead of splashing his image on every surface and quoting him relentlessly, as they used to do, the press is obviously embarrassed by him.

We've been wondering how to deal with the symbiotic link between the press and terrorism. Whoever made this video has (probably unintentionally) shown us the way. Destroy the press' faith in (and love of) the brand.

Without help from the press, OBL™ will go where all the failed brands go - to the remainder bins of Africa, to be sold to the poor. Back where it started.

Please join me in signing the petition to ask France2 to release the rushes taken by their cameraman and used to edit and broadcast the tale of Muhammad al Durah.

Richard Landes of Second Draft and the Augean stables has more:

English

Francais

More depressing news from Britain via Harry's Place and the Times:

Almost half of Britain’s mosques are under the control of a hardline Islamic sect whose leading preacher loathes Western values and has called on Muslims to “shed blood” for Allah, an investigation by The Times has found.

Riyadh ul Haq, who supports armed jihad and preaches contempt for Jews, Christians and Hindus, is in line to become the spiritual leader of the Deobandi sect in Britain. The ultra-conservative movement, which gave birth to the Taleban in Afghanistan, now runs more than 600 of Britain’s 1,350 mosques, according to a police report seen by The Times.

...

The Times has gained access to numerous talks and sermons delivered in recent years by Mr ul Haq and other graduates of Britain’s most influential Deobandi seminary near Bury, Greater Manchester.

Intended for a Muslim-only audience, they reveal a deep-rooted hatred of Western society, admiration for the Taleban and a passionate zeal for martyrdom “in the way of Allah".

The seminary outlaws art, television, music and chess, demands "entire concealment” for women and views football as "a cancer that has infected our youth".

Mahmood Chandia, a Bury graduate who is now a university lecturer, claims in one sermon that music is a way in which Jews spread "the Satanic web" to corrupt young Muslims.

...

One sermon warns believers to protect their faith by distancing themselves from the “evil influence” of their non-Muslim British neighbours.

When we were in London a few years ago, my husband and I were trying to figure out if the guys in the white caps were extremists or laid-back Sufis. Since we saw someone who looked an awful lot like Shiek Abu chowing down in a chic Indian restaurant with a couple of local infidels, we assumed that the white hats were the good guys. Wrong.

However, we do know that they like their food..

Some quotes from tubby Taliban Sheik Abu:

On Jews "They’re all the same. The Jews don’t have to be in Israel to be like this. It doesn’t matter whether they’re in New York, Houston, St Louis, London, Birmingham, Bradford, Manchester. They’re all the same. They’ve monopolised everything: the Holocaust, God, money, interest, usury, the world economy, the media, political institutions . . . they monopolised tyranny and oppression as well. And injustice"

On New York "Jew York . . . sorry, New York . . . a slip of the tongue."

On the Taleban "The only group of people upon the earth who are establishing the Sharia and the law of Allah" [In 2000]

"What crime has the Government of Afghanistan committed? All they have done is they have refused to hand over a person (Osama bin Laden) whose guilt is yet to be proven. Because of that crime, the entire nation is being punished. And as a result, because they strive to represent Islam, the whole of Islam is being demonised. And as a result, Muslims all over the globe are being discriminated against" [In late 2001]

On jihad "The moment we say something, we are branded fanatics, terrorists, extremists. And no one dare utter the J-word. The J-word has become taboo. The J-word can never be mentioned and if someone mentions it even Muslims look at one another. So much is happening and yet we are expected to remain silent"

On Islam’s ultimate triumph "Allah has promised. It is he who has sent his Messenger [Muhammad] with the religion of truth so that it may prevail over all other religions, even though the disbelievers may dislike it, even though the mushrikin [the idolaters] may dislike it. Allah has promised that victory will be for the believers. But we will be tested in the meantime"

British Labour MP Denis MacShane reports on rising anti-Semitism in Britain and around the world:

Hatred of Jews has reached new heights in Europe and many points south and east of the old continent. Last year I chaired a blue-ribbon committee of British parliamentarians, including former ministers and a party leader, that examined the problem of anti-Semitism in Britain. None of us are Jewish or active in the unending debates on the Israeli-Palestinian question.

Our report showed a pattern of fear among a small number of British citizens — there are around 300,000 Jews in Britain, of whom about a third are observant — that is not acceptable in a modern democracy. Synagogues attacked. Jewish schoolboys jostled on public transportation. Rabbis punched and knifed. British Jews feeling compelled to raise millions to provide private security for their weddings and community events. On campuses, militant anti-Jewish students fueled by Islamist or far-left hate seeking to prevent Jewish students from expressing their opinions.

More worrisome was what we described as anti-Jewish discourse, a mood and tone whenever Jews are discussed, whether in the media, at universities, among the liberal media elite or at dinner parties of modish London. To express any support for Israel or any feeling for the right of a Jewish state to exist produces denunciation, even contempt.

Our report sent a shock wave through the British government. Tony Blair called us in and told his staff to fan out throughout government departments and produce answers to the problems we outlined. To Britain's credit, the Blair administration produced a formal government response setting out tough new guidelines for the police to investigate anti-Semitic attacks and for universities to stop anti-Jewish ideology from taking root on campuses. Britain's Foreign Office has been told to protest to Arab states that allow anti-Jewish broadcasts.

We made clear that criticism of actions of Israeli politicians was not off-limits. On the contrary, we noted that some of the strongest criticisms of Israeli policy come from Israeli campuses, journalists and political activists, and from the Jewish intellectual elite of many countries. American universities have provided a base for Noam Chomsky and the late Edward Said, among others, to launch campaigns of criticism against Israel, and the bulk of the West's university intelligentsia remains hostile to the Jewish state...

...Europe is reawakening its old demons, but today there is a difference. The old anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism have morphed into something more dangerous. Anti-Semitism today is officially sanctioned state ideology and is being turned into a mobilizing and organizing force to recruit thousands in a new crusade — the word is chosen deliberately — to eradicate Jewishness from the region whence it came and to weaken and undermine all the humanist values of rule of law, tolerance and respect for core rights such as free expression that Jews have fought for over time.

The president of Iran is the most odious example of this new state-sanctioned anti-Semitism. But from the Egyptian Writers Union to the notorious anti-Jewish articles in the charters of Hamas and Hezbollah, hatred of Jews is an integral element of a new ideology rising to prominence in many regions of the world...

...We are at the beginning of a long intellectual and ideological struggle. It is not about Jews or Israel. It is about everything democrats have long fought for: the truth without fear, no matter one's religion or political beliefs. The new anti-Semitism threatens all of humanity. The Jew-haters must not pass.

* link thanks to Harry's Place

Swedish journalist Celia Farber writes:

My father called me over to his computer screen this weekend and booted a link. "I am going to show you something literally unbelievable," he said.

The text and photo materialized-- crowds of chanting Muslims, protesting something, and a headline about a newspaper editor who stood his ground, despite dire threats, protests, even arson. It took a moment before I realized what newspaper, in what city, in what country.

My father clapped his hands over his head and we both hooted with glee as though we were looking at stupendous baby pictures of a close family member. "Look! Orebro!"

My hometown local newspaper Nerikes Allehanda in Orebro Sweden has made international news in a very unlikely new twist to a story we thought had faded: It began in early August when Swedish artist Lars Vilks had his work rejected from art exhibits across Sweden for its inclusion of three drawings depicting the prophet Mohammed in an unflattering light.

Let the fires begin...

...I was in Orebro just the other week, walking, with my dear friend Peter Olsen, along the glittering "black river," past the old famous "Slott," (castle) and past the offices of Nerikes Allehanda, which explained its editorial position like this:

"A liberal society must manage to do two things: On the one hand protect and uphold Muslims' right to freedom of religion and the right to build mosques. Second, it is also permitted to ridicule Islam's highest symbols--like that of all religions symbols. There is no contradiction between these two goals. In fact, they necessitate one another."

Norway, in 1979, banned the Monty Python film "Life of Brian," citing heresy laws.

Similar protests were raised in the US.

John Cleese quipped: "God can undoubtedly take care of himself."

Victor Davis Hanson says: For now, we should avoid a smoking Tehran *

But there are subtle indications that U.S. policy is slowly working, and that a strike now on Iran would be a grave mistake, in every strategic and political sense — not to mention the humanitarian one of harming a populace that may well soon prove to be the most pro-Western in the region...

...a French leader seems to allow that if the Europeans would just cease all financial relations with Teheran, freeze their assets, and stop sending them everything from sniper rifles to machine tools, then the crippled regime would start to stagger even more. And because France has been the most obstructionist in the past to U.S. efforts in the Middle East, its mere rhetoric is nearly beyond belief...

..There are other symptoms of progress. The Sadr brigades have purportedly announced a cessation of military operations — no doubt, because they are losing the sectarian kill-fest. But it may also be because Shiite animosity against them is growing. Perhaps too they are learning that Iran's interest in Iraq is not always theirs, but simply fomenting violence of any kind that persuades the U.S. military to leave, including arming their enemies, both Sunni and Shiite.

...by labeling the Revolutionary Guards Corps a terrorist organization, the United States is finally institutionalizing what the world already knows: Iran is a criminal state whose government and terrorists are one and the same.

...For all the dangers, the spectacle of Ahmadinejad has been a great gift to the Western world — loudly embodying, in its raw, pure form, the evil which Iranian theocracy inevitably produces.

So we should continue with the present path — and not bomb or have surrogates bomb Iran. That option is still down the road. For as long as it is possible, the best-case scenario is not a smoking Iran, but a humiliated theocracy that slowly implodes before the world, displaying in their disgrace what the mullahs did to themselves — and perhaps a small reminder of those helpful shoves from us.

Pete Seeger reconsiders (by Ron Radosh in the NY Sun):

In my interview, I pointed out that Mr. Seeger had been a lifelong follower of the Communist Party, changing his songs and his positions to be in accord with the ever-changing party line. He attacked the blacklist of the 1950s, which kept him off the air, but never seems to have said anything about Stalin's death list. As Martin Edlund has written in The New York Sun, Mr. Seeger has always been inseparable from his social mission. Much of it deserves praise - he was at the forefront of the struggle for civil rights - but much of it must be condemned and not hidden from sight.

In particular, I said that Mr. Seeger had supported Stalin's tyranny for so many years yet had never written a song about the Gulag...

...I felt some trepidation when I got Mr. Seeger's letter. Surely he was angry, or at the least peeved, by my article. I had been a banjo student of his in the 1950s and regarded Mr. Seeger as my childhood hero and mentor. But for decades since then, I have been publicly identified as an opponent of much of what he has believed - that the Rosenbergs were innocent, for example, or that Fidel Castro was a friend of the poor.

I almost fell off the chair when I read Mr. Seeger's words: "I think you're right - I should have asked to see the gulags when I was in [the] USSR." For years, Mr. Seeger continued, he had been trying to get people to realize that any social change had to be nonviolent, in the fashion sought by Martin Luther King Jr. Mr. Seeger had hoped, he explained, that both Khrushchev and later Gorbachev would "open things up." He acknowledged that he underestimated, and perhaps still does, "how the majority of the human race has faith in violence."

More importantly, Mr. Seeger attached the words and music for a song he had written, "thinking what Woody [Guthrie] might have written had he been around" to see the death of his old Communist dream. Called "The Big Joe Blues," it's a yodeling Jimmie Rodgers-type song, he said. It not only makes the point that Joe Stalin was far more dangerous and a threat than Joe McCarthy - a man Mr. Seeger and the old left view as the quintessential American demagogue - but emphasizes the horrors that Stalin brought.

How many novelists, journalists, artists and playwrights share common commie dreams of the 'nonviolent' dismantling of democracy and capitalism? How many hope that a Khrushchev, a Stalin or a bin Laden will do their dirty work for them? How many will continue to nonviolently cheer on every brutal revolution that comes along?

How many of them will ever admit that they were wrong?

In the months following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, Americans believed that British 'cultural sensitivity' and their proven ability to deal with insurgencies would make Basra the calmest place in Iraq.

British troops, constantly exposed to dangerous peacekeeping in Northern Ireland, practice open, confident behavior as a way of winning trust and acquiring intelligence for undercover operations.

The Brits had plenty of advice to give us:

Brigadier Nigel Aylwin- Foster, former deputy commander of the coalition programme to train the Iraqi military, accuses the Americans of cultural insensitivity amounting to institutional racism in dealing with the Iraqis...

...The most senior British officer to hint at the differences between the US and Britain in Iraq was General Sir Mike Jackson, the head of the Army, who told MPs in 2004: “We must be able to fight with the Americans but we don’t have to fight as the Americans.” He said it was “a fact of life” that Britain’s military doctrine was different from that of the US...

...He said: “Our Army has realised for 20 years that we do have shortcomings in this very difficult area of fighting insurgencies and we have developed training programmes to develop the army in this field. I personally dispute his critique of American forces being so offensively minded.”

But when Iran captured the 15 British sailors and demanded that the British leave Iraq, 'cultural sensitivity' didn't look so cool.

Now the British are leaving Basra to the militias, exiting under cover of darkness.

According to the Times Online:

The Iranians will see the withdrawal as a huge victory. They will regard the British pull-out as a retreat and rightly feel it is a vindication of their policy of encouraging Shia militias against American and British forces.

Basra is very near the Iranian border. I visited the city for the first time during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s and it was close enough to be within artillery range of the Iranian gunners.

There will be little to stop the Iranians extending their influence over the city and across the province. The British will be effectively under siege at the Basra Air Station, which is already under regular mortar and rocket attack.

Good show chaps.

Thanks to LGF and Investors Business Daily:

For the first time, evidence in a major federal terror case puts CAIR's current executive director — Nihad Awad — at a Philadelphia meeting of alleged Hamas leaders that was secretly recorded by the FBI.

After the Associated Press last week reported the bombshell, CAIR denied claims of ties to Hamas. "That's one of those urban legends about CAIR," said Parvez Ahmed, CAIR's chairman. "It's fed by the right-wing, pro-Israeli blogosphere."

In fact, the evidence was revealed by an FBI agent who testified at the terror-financing trial under way in Dallas...

...But before 9/11, when Muslim groups received less scrutiny in America, he made his support for Hamas publicly known. At a March 22, 1994, symposium on the Middle East at Florida's Barry University, Awad said: "After I researched the situation inside and outside Palestine, I am in support of the Hamas movement."

Three months later, he and Ahmad founded CAIR. They promote the group as a grass-roots champion of Muslim civil rights, a "Muslim NAACP." But many of the things CAIR's leaders claim and what we later learn from the factual record don't square.

For instance, they've claimed that they get no foreign support and that their funding comes from local dues. In fact, the bulk of their support comes from two Arab countries tied to 9/11 — Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

They've claimed that the size of the Muslim population in America is 7 million. In fact, it's closer to 2 million.

They've claimed that they're mainstream American patriots, when in fact they've told Muslim audiences that they want the Quran to replace the Constitution as the "highest authority in America."

They've also claimed that they don't support terrorism, even as three senior employees have been jailed in terror-related cases.

This photograph was released in response to CAIR's claim that their organization has "acted numerous times … to condemn terrorism".

..wait a minute - CAIR is Saudi and UAE-funded. Yet, their executive director is speaking at a podium decorated with the Hezbollah flag. Gee, could this be hint# 235,894 telling us that Sunni and Shi'ite terror supporters are working together??

..and could this be hint# 9,534,987 telling us that the Saudis and the UAE are not on our side?