A simple google search could have prevented this “poor” muslim-separatist group from choosing (or maintaining) a name/acronym that, no doubt, subjects it to daily ridicule.

(This one is for you, Lat)

Update: My good buddy Ben emails the following in response: “HAHahahaha, no, I see your machete there - seriously, what’s your name again?”

Because there are some things that are much more important than politics.

Please pray for the people of Burma.

It looks like the Senate has finally gotten around to realizing that, unlike Las Vegas, what happens in Darfur does not stay in Darfur:
(more…)

Obviously, these sorts of statements should be taken with a grain of salt … but still, when someone warns of mass violence, it is probably best to pay attention: (more…)

Just yesterday I wrote about just how chaotic and fractured the rebel movements are in Darfur and problems they are creating in trying to hammer out any sort of peace accord.

Well, today Reuters reports that five rebel groups have agreed to unite: (more…)

Here’s a new promotional poster.

Sounds like Cuba is already moving on.

A “court” in Libya on Tuesday convicted five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor of deliberately infecting 400 children.  They are sentenced to death.  

From the news account, it appears to be anything but a fair trial.  Libya, nice job of discouraging medical workers from attempting to help the poor in your country. 

Former KGB guy Alexander Litvinenko’s recent demise from polonium-210 poisoning reminds us just how nasty spycraft can get. Stories linking Putin to this and other nefarious acts seem to have the ring of truth. Gee, if Putin didn’t give you the creeps before……

….which reminds me of this idiotic utterance from W regarding Putin:

I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straight forward and trustworthy………..I was able to get a sense of his soul.

Note to W–next time Vladimir visits the Crawford ranch, don’t let him mix the drinks.

Among many things, I am thankful that folks like Chief Master Sgt. John Gebhardt are serving our country in the military.

He represents everything that is noble and true about the men and women who bravely serve/protect our country in Iraq and around the globe.

May God continue to bless and protect our brave men and women in uniform.

What a freakin’ joke.

Here’s the money quote:

Germany was chosen for the court filing because German law provides “universal jurisdiction” allowing for the prosecution of war crimes and related offenses that take place anywhere in the world.

Oh I see, Germany has declared that it has “universal jurisdiction” over all “war crimes” in the world, and that makes it so? What gives Germany the right to assert anything about anything outside its borders?

Gotta love those dormant Nazi tendencies coming to the surface yet again.

Microsoft, Google, Yahoo and Cisco Systems have all crawled into bed with the Chi-Coms in an effort to make a buck in that market. These companies have collaborated and machinated with the Chinese government to censor and place controls on the internet. In essence, these “American” companies are assisting in the oppression of the Chinese people. I don’t know about you, but this has always bugged me. Now it appears that Microsoft execs are reevaluating their role in this Orwellian venture as blogger persecution is said to be increasing. Perhaps I’d have a different view if the real customer here were the Chinese people and not the commie government.

FoxNews has this AP story about Muslim gangs, the increasing violence they are producing in France, and the growing re-assessment of post-modern multiculturalism occuring there and elsewhere. The particular incidents are awful, but the resulting “awakening” might be the best thing to happen to France and many other European nations in a long time.  Modern man (who does not think that mere “ideas” are worth dying for — little is) just cannot understand why or how people would fight for such notions, especially religious notions (we are now Enlightened folks — wars were for the medeival Church barbarians who just wanted to plunder and control, right?).  He had better wake up. 

A portion from the article:

The recent ambush was emblematic of what some officers say has become a near-perpetual and increasingly violent conflict between police and gangs in tough, largely immigrant French neighborhoods that were the scene of a three-week paroxysm of rioting last year.

One small police union claims officers are facing a “permanent intifada.” Police injuries have risen in the year since the wave of violence.

….

More broadly, worsening violence in France testifies to Europe’s growing struggle to integrate its ethnic minorities. Some mainstream European politicians — adopting positions previously confined largely to far-right fringes — are suggesting that the minorities themselves are not doing enough to adapt to European mores.

In Britain, former Foreign Minister Jack Straw, now leader of the House of Commons, this month touched off a wide debate about the rights and obligations of Muslims by saying that he asks devout Muslim women to remove their veils when visiting his office. Prime Minister Tony Blair said Islam needs to modernize.

In France, a high school teacher received death threats, forcing him into hiding, after he wrote a newspaper editorial in September saying Muslim fundamentalists are trying to muzzle Europe’s democratic liberties.

Ethnic integration and violence against police are both becoming issues in the campaign for the French presidency. Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, the leading contender on the right, said this month that those who do not love France do not have to stay, echoing a longtime slogan of the extreme-right National Front: “France, love it or leave it.”

Michel Thooris, head of the small Action Police union, claims that the new violence is taking on an Islamic fundamentalist tinge.

“Many youths, many arsonists, many vandals behind the violence do it to cries of ‘Allah Akbar’ (God is Great) when our police cars are stoned,” he said in an interview.

This concept has resonated with me for a long time. The former ambassador to Croatia, Peter Galbraith, views partitioning as an inevitable event (in a very interesting July interview on NPR… here). Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison is now publicly tossing the idea around while W has succumbed to the Iraq-Vietnam comparison (if only in a small way). Of course, W is committed to staying the course which will certainly spill into another presidential term. Abrupt withdrawal would likely be a disaster, leaving Iraq to incubate and export every flavor of Islamofascism. So that’s not a good idea. Phillip Carter over at Slate has a plan other than partitioning that, to me, still sounds like a long-haul slog. So what do you think? Chop it up?

Finally….. I agree with Chavez on something.

Maybe we have to put the United Nations somewhere else; maybe a city of the south. We’ve proposed Venezuela.

Excellent idea…….. jerk.

The Washington Times has the scoop. 

“I am opposed to a military strike on Iran because I don’t think it accomplishes very much in the long run,” said Mr. Gingrich, who supported the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and has been a strong defender of Israel.

WaPo headline:  Iran Opens Heavy-Water Nuclear Reactor.

If you’re not reading The Belmont Club, the online home of blogger wretchard, then you’re not as informed as you should be about Islam’s war against the West. While you’re there, don’t skip the comments, as they are frequently as interesting as the posts themselves. Today’s post by wretchard, in which he traces the connections among and between many of the events of the past 36 hours, illustrating one of his conclusions with a reference to, of all things, The Great Gatsby, drew this comment from “allen”:

I don’t know about you, but I’d feel more secure if Muslims were barred from flights instead of toiletries.

Obviously, if we just must permit travel by Muslims, other than by foot to concentration camps, how about installing special screening for admitted Muslims and stereotyping the scofflaws. Stereotyping!? You bet. Stereotyping has impeccable evolutionary credentials.

The pictures I’m seeing are more of the same nonsense. Perfectly harmless European, American, and Western travelers are discarding their person property, docilely, so the governments of the West don’t have to admit the obvious: Muslims are not to be trusted unattended in airports any more than an uncaged Rottweiler.

Security should be looking for young men of obvious Muslim descent. And if we really want to be diverse, add young Muslim women to the mix as well.

Some will immediately scream, “That’s not fair!!!”

They are so right – so what?

And did I say “concentration camps”? Yes, I did. What I did NOT say was death camps.

Since Muslim families and the Islamic “community” cannot police themselves, society must take up the burden. These people have to be constantly watched and supervised. I’d prefer that happen somewhere other than in the airport, freeway, mall, and arena.

For those unwilling to accept Western accommodations, I suggest a mega-garage sale and a return to place of origin.

What do you think?

Robert A. Pape, the author of Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism, has an op-ed up in the NYT about suicide bombers and the current conflict between Hezbollah and Israel.  Pape’s point, however, go much further than Israel.  Here is a taste:

In writing my book on suicide attackers, I had researchers scour Lebanese sources to collect martyr videos, pictures and testimonials and the biographies of the Hezbollah bombers. Of the 41, we identified the names, birth places and other personal data for 38. Shockingly, only eight were Islamic fundamentalists. Twenty-seven were from leftist political groups like the Lebanese Communist Party and the Arab Socialist Union. Three were Christians, including a female high-school teacher with a college degree. All were born in Lebanon.

What these suicide attackers - and their heirs today - shared was not a religious or political ideology but simply a commitment to resisting a foreign occupation. Nearly two decades of Israeli military presence did not root out Hezbollah. The only thing that has proven to end suicide attacks, in Lebanon and elsewhere, is withdrawal by the occupying force.

Thus the new Israeli land offensive may take ground and destroy weapons, but it has little chance of destroying the Hezbollah movement. In fact, in the wake of the bombings of civilians, the incursion will probably aid Hezbollah’s recruiting.

Rush mentioned ths story on his show today, and I thought that I’d pass it along.

Care to take a guess at how this type of law could possibly be passed in Paris (of all places)?

Like Rush, I think there’s only one explanation.

Sounds like Fidel might not be with us much longer. 

Of course, some people still think Fidel is the cat’s meow.  I met a British socialist on my vacation who tried to argue that Fidel had done more for his people and country than any other leader this century. 

I once heard Jackie Mason, Borscht Belt comic extraordinaire, tell a joke which went something like this:

“You ever notice something about Jews and Italians? You see an Italian guy walking down the street in New York and you say, “Ooooo, there goes a tough Italian guy. Don’t wanna mess with him!” But you put him in the Italian Army, and he can’t beat nobody. But you see a Jewish guy walking down the street, and you say, pfft, look at the wimpy Jewish guy. But put him in the Israeli Army, and he can beat anybody in the world.”

[You can find a variant of this story in the fourth paragraph at this web page.]

This story from Ynet reminded of that joke, and of why I support Israel so strongly in its war against the nations and terrorist organizations which are seeking to destroy it. Here are some of the money quotes:

[Israel's] Interior Minister Ronnie Bar-On toured northern Israel on Friday and met with heads of the regional councils in the area. “[Sheik Hassan] Nasrallah [leader of the terrorist organization Hezbollah] has sentenced himself by his own acts. I doubt that he would be able to find a life insurance agent these days,” he told Ynet.

and

Bar-On stressed that Israel would see to it that the rocket attacks on Israel are stopped. “If the Lebanese government fails to take control over the border and put a stop to Hizbullah’s shooting, we will do it. If it fails in restoring calm in Southern Lebanon, we’ll bring the Wild West to the area,” he warned.

Lest you think Bar-On’s reservation was “off the reservation”, as they used to say in our own Wild West, here is Amir Peretz, Israel’s Defense Minister, quoted in the same article:

“We expected Hizbullah to break the rules, and we plan to break it in return,” Peretz said.

Men like this deserve the unconditional support of the United States.

Ashley Judd, beautiful actress, not-so-nice faux humanitarian, and Kentucky basketball fan.
So Ms. Judd is a bit of a spoiled airhead - anyone surprised?  (Did I mention that she’s a big Kentucky basketball fan?)  The story is worth keeping in mind not because it dings Ms. Judd, but because it helps remind us that when celebrities head around the world and do big photo-ops in places like sub-Saharan Africa, south Asia, etc. we should treat very skeptically the claim that these are “heroes” who are out to “change the world” (and save it, too).  Mostly, they’re out to make themselves a good name - and even “serious” news magazines are willing to play along because a cover with Bono, Brad Pitt, or whoever sells a lot better than one discussing the latest trade negotiations.  (That goes double or triple or quadruple for the celebrity flacks at People and the like).

Here’s a small test.  When a celebrity claims to be *very* interested in helping some laudable cause (and helping AIDS victims in South Africa certainly qualifies), someone ought to ask a question: what is it that they are doing besides traveling and getting their pictures taken in homes and orphanages?  Have they decided to donate a portion of their next movie’s paycheck to the cause?  Did they pay their own way for the trip (relieving cash-strapped humanitarian orgs)?  What sacrifice have they made?

Now, it might still be the case, as Rick Brookhiser points out , that “morally mercenary” trips like Ms. Judd’s can in the end still do good - vice can be turned to virtue.  But we shouldn’t laud them as heroes.

Are we past the point of no return?

This is big news, to say the least.

And may God continue to bless the brave men and women who stand in harm’s way every day, fighting the good fight for freedom and justice.  We thank and honor you all.

in this article.  UN Deputy Secretary General Malloch Brown believes that the good works of the U.N. are largely lost because “much of the public discourse that reaches the U.S. heartland has been largely abandoned to its loudest detractors such as Rush Limbaugh and Fox News.”

 Update:  Kofie’s spokesperson said he stood behind Brown’s statement, and agreed with the thrust of his statement.

A New York Sun editorial points out that the recent arrest of 17 Canadian terror suspects flies in the face of the theory that Islamic fundamentalists target America primarily for our support of Israel and our involvement in Iraq.  The editorial points out that:

“Canada sent no troops to liberate Iraq. Our neighbor to the North so opposed the Iraq War that at least one American deserter fled there for safe harbor, as draftdodgers did during the Vietnam War.  And while Canada is mildly pro-Israel, and more so under its new conservative government, its arms sales to the Jewish state are peanuts compared to America’s, and at the United Nations on key votes it’s likely to abstain rather than join the America, Micronesia, and Palau in voting with Israel.” 

ME:  So why did these radicals want to target a liberal country like Canada?  The fact is that Islamic extremists hate us (the West) for our freedom, prosperity, and religious diversity.  They will always hate us and there is nothing we can do about it other than to hunt down those that commit acts of terrorism against us and to punish severely those nations that support such terrorists.  Hat tip to James Taranto at Best of the Web.

Over at The American Conservative, Michael Vlahos has an essay up with the above title.  The essay discusses 9-11 and the transfer of power to the President.  It is well worth a read.

Mexico, a country with a strict immigration policy, is threatening America with a lawsuit if the National Guard engages in active detainment of illegal immigrants.

  “If there is a real wave of rights abuses, if we see the National Guard starting to directly participate in detaining people … we would immediately start filing lawsuits through our consulates,” Foreign Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez told a Mexico City radio station. He did not offer further details.

Okay, someone pinch me so I can wakeup from this dream.  Mexico, a country that believes in shooting first and then asking questions when a person appears illegal, is threatening to sue the US if we use the military for its rightful purpose - securing our borders.  However, the most worrisome is

Some Mexican newspapers criticized President Vicente Fox for not taking a stronger stand against the measure, even though Fox called Bush to express his concerns.

A political cartoon in the Mexico City newspaper Reforma depicted Bush as a gorilla carrying a club with a flattened Fox stuck to it.

Fox’s spokesman, Ruben Aguilar, said Tuesday that Mexico accepted Bush’s statement that the sending in the National Guard didn’t mean militarizing the area. He also said Mexico remained “optimistic” that the U.S. Senate would approve an immigration reform “in the interests of both countries.”

While I support legal immigration, I am concerned a national security issue is being compromised on a variety of levels.  Why are we trying to pacify another nation regarding immigrants coming from an oppressive country?  A country these people are fleeing from at all costs:

Juan Canche, 36, traveled more than 1,200 miles to the border from the southern town of Izamal and said nothing would stop him from trying to cross.

“Even with a lot of guards and soldiers in place, we have to jump that puddle,” said Canche, referring to the drought-stricken Rio Grande dividing Ciudad Juarez and El Paso, Texas. “My family is hungry and there is no work in my land. I have to risk it.”

Provided our borders are secure, I support an increase in legal immigration and a temporary guest worker program.    However, Mexico and other countries that force their citizens to flee their borders and often encourage illegal immigration must be held accountable for resulting crisis.  As a result, Mexico should have not have any input or influence in the American immigration policy.

Here, here, and here.