Our own interest in this story is less Machiavelli than Old Testament -- a warning to those Republicans who entered politics to change Washington but got rich and comfortable with its power instead.
I say, Close Belgium!
I guess they figured with a name like "Abdul", there's nothing to worry about.
Abdul Causes Security Breach at Airport
LAS VEGAS - Paula Abdul was allowed to board a plane at the Las
Vegas airport without passing through a security checkpoint, prompting
all passengers and luggage to be screened when they landed in California,
officials said Friday.
A worker led the "American Idol" judge and a companion around
the mandatory screening process before they boarded a Southwest Airlines
flight headed to Burbank, Calif., Thursday afternoon, said Elaine Sanchez,
a spokeswoman for McCarran International Airport.
Or did they think it was only casino security...
I'm sorry, was that your finger? I thought it was the hors d'oeuvres.
The latest non-craze in London. Eating in the dark for £37 a plate.
Is Larry King insane? Jon Stewart thinks he might be.
Larry King suggested to Jon Stewart that the current low ebb of the Democrats and Republicans was good for Mr. Stewart's business.
King: So, in a sense you're happy over this.
Stewart: No.
King: This gives you fodder.
Mr. Stewart replied that if government "began to solve problems in a rational way rather than just a way that involved political dividends, we would be the happiest people in the world to turn our attention to idiots like, you know, media people, no offense."
King: So, you don't want it to be bad?
Stewart: Did you really just ask me if I want it to be bad?
King: Yes because you--
Stewart: What are you--I have kids. What do you think? I want things to corrode to the point where we're all living in huts?
King: You don't want Medicare to fail?
Stewart: Are you insane? [emphasis added]
from the Wall Street Journal's DANIEL HENNINGER (subscription required)
Stalin was one of the world's most horrific, brutal, mass-murdering thunder-pricks. You know it, I know it, Khrushchev even said it out loud, but do Harvard Stalinists know it?
Hey, c'mon, be fair. It hasn't ever really been tried. Not really. Except in Russia, China, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Santa Monica, North Korea, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, UC Santa Cruz, UC Santa Barbara....
Gonna kill me a mammoth gonna get me a blonde
Who's watching the anti-smoking zealots? Propogating guilt and fomenting anger are good things.
"It is a sign of the times that there has been no storm of protest over the increasingly manipulative and moralistic character of anti-smoking propaganda."
From our The Glories Of Communism files:
But...but it hasn't really ever been tried...
Why not give up our Constitution altogether?
The real threat to our 1st Amendment rights is coming from Global Islam where freedom of speech is just a figure of speech.
"...the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC)... is lobbying for the United Nations to include language against blasphemy in the tenets of a new human rights body." (scroll down to the bottom of that page for the quote)
IS there such a thing as "moderate" Islam? An Islam which has a "...solution [which is] is the dissemination of true Islam and the appearance of a Muslim role-model who embraces Qur'anic values such as human rights, democracy, freedom, good morals, science and aesthetics, and who offers happiness and bliss to humanity..."
Or is what we're seeing in the world today the real Islam, a religion of murder, rape, pillage, torture, and televised beheadings by terrorist thugs?
Just when you thought that nothing more could go wrong: the Uncanny Ability of the Bush Administration to Shoot Itsel...erm...Someone else in the Foot...and Hand...and Side...and Face...and...
In case we are still laboring under the delusion that these "demonstrations" are in any way spontaneous, I was reminded today that these cartoons were actually published in an Egyptian newspaper last OCTOBER! This occured during Ramadan, yet nothing happened. No riots, no embassy burnings, nothing. Why is that?
Images of the Prophet are not rare
Here's a Polish magazine with superannuated pop-star Madonna's face superimposed on a picture of the Virgin Mary. I think Christians should bomb Polish embassies everywhere. (thanks to Michelle Malkin)
Speaking of superannuated pop-stars, Michael Jackson seems to be on the downslope of the Neverland Highway to Hell...(thanks to lgf)
Once more, these are the terrible cartoons that pissed off the mad insane ignorant babies of Islamist culture. But it's not just Islam, Christopher Hitchens says, it's religion in general that's to blame. That's certainly the case with Richard Dawkins. Problem is, does Richard Dawkins want you to believe there is no God or...does he want you to believe that Richard Dawkins is God?
On the other hand, who needs Chris, God, or Dawkins when you can have the Mustafa Shag Doll! For the horny Muslim girl, I reckon. Of which there must be legion.
Meanwhile, the editor who originally published the Muhammad cartoons was given an indefinite leave of absence after telling CNN that he planned to print satiric cartoons on Judaism and Christianity to show the paper is not anti-Islam. Seems Jyllands-Posten's editor-in-chief Carsten Juste figured there was enough debate going on so he sent culture editor Flemming Rose to Disneyland. Or somewhere. This poor bastard, Rose, should be lauded for his courage instead of sent to the hinterlands. On the other hand, it may just save his life. Muslims are turning out to be everything the West has thought they were. Immature, rigid, lockstep, humorless...wait a minute, sounds like I'm talking about the American left...
But...are you going to hire back Jacques Lefranc?
France Soir's Feb. 1 issue with the drawings sold 40 percent more than the usual daily circulation,
and executives are tantalized that the newspaper's souped-up profile could
translate into long-term gains.
"Over time, it could change the brand image of France Soir ... it
shows we're capable of running scoops - and leading a battle for freedom
of the press," circulation director Philippe Soing told the AP.
But, hey, if you think firing the editor whose courage gave France Soir
those circulation numbers was cowardly, what about these acts of cowardice?
What's it like to be worse off than we are? I mean really worse off...
Does Joan know about this?
"...Maureen Dowd is the Joan Rivers of American journalism: a catty gossipmonger whose stock in trade is not arresting ideas but glib putdowns."
Meanwhile, Back In The US, Back In The US, Back In The USSR, Boys...You
Don't Know How Lucky You Are, Boys...
The President Chimpy McSmirky HitlerHeilliburton Warmonger-In-Chief Rovepuppet Bush Award for the most wildly paranoid Democratic site on the Web goes to Bob Fertik's Democrats.com for this one:
Is Karl Rove Planning A Terror Attack On The Super Bowl?
...security preparations for this Super Bowl are getting a lot less media coverage than the last 3 did.
Which leads me to ask: is Karl Rove planning a terrorist attack during the Super Bowl, in order to set the stage for building towards war with Iran over the coming year?
Before someone tries to say - now that no attack occured - it was meant as a joke, typical hyperbole made possible by Chimpy's penchant for doing horrible things to the world's masses which, just five years ago, no one would have thought possible for an American president, we know (through various wiretapping privileges given us - in utmost super-duper-secrecy - by Uberdarklord von RibbenRove himself - plus all you really have to do is read the very next paragraph citing mega-moonbat Jim Moore's insider knowledge of the Dark Lord, and you're pretty much home free), that this was clearly meant in all seriousness. A quick reading of Fertig's usual anti-HalliBush scare scenarios will show this guy is a certifiable moonbat of the highest water. He's not joking around. This guy means it when he wonders stuff. But Lord Rove will soon settle his hash. I've special knowledge of the Uberpuppetmeister Rove's plans especially with regard to the moonbattery, and Mr. Fertik should make sure he locks his car doors whenever he's in a public parking lot, just, shall we say, to be on the safe side.
P.S. We would send the award c/o Salman Rushdie except that he is someone who actually does have something to fear, as opposed to Fertik's infantile - but admittedly entertaining - babblings about Super Bowl attacks.
Thanks to James Taranto
More moderate responses from the Religion of Peace...
The leader of al Muhajiroon, an Islamist group banned in Britain, called for executing those who insult the Prophet.
"In Islam, God said, and the messenger Mohammad said, whoever
insults a prophet, he must be punished and executed," Omar Bakri Mohammad told BBC radio by telephone from
Beirut.
The Religion of Peace just keeps on reminding the rest of the world why the True Believers cannot be trusted. Ever. About anything.
IAEA Reports Iran to U.N. Security Council (But it is for peaceful purposes, we swear it, we would never lie...to the Infidel)
Ladies and Gentlemen, may I present our brothers and sisters, the Muslims! Let's hear it for the religion of peace...c'mon people give it up for Islam!
An imam in Gaza City told 9,000 worshippers that those behind the drawings should have their heads cut off. Protesters in Ramallah chanted: "Bin Laden, our beloved, Denmark must be blown up."
Hell, yeah, I think they should destroy their home country because of those dastardly cartoons. That's a good exchange. A cartoon for an entire country. But wait. That's not the part I wanted to talk about. This is
America backs Muslims over cartoons as thousands voice anger worldwide
America sided with tens of thousands of Muslims who protested worldwide yesterday about cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed published in European newspapers.
In its first comment on the furore, the State Department said: "These
cartoons are indeed offensive to the belief of Muslims." ...spokesman,
Kurtis Cooper, said: "We all fully respect freedom of the press and
expression but it must be coupled with press responsibility. Inciting religious
or ethnic hatred in this manner is not acceptable."
This, to me, is a shameful declaration made for nothing more than cynical political purposes. It's aim is to get a leg up on Europe in this game of "who will the alligator eat last?" I find this stance by the State Department unacceptable. Its underhandedness and hypocrisy is blatant. Kowtowing to a mad religion full of mad followers is hardly diplomatic, but it does give the people in the Bush Administration a superior feel-good moment just like the French and Belgians constantly have at our expense. I think they want to see Europe attacked for once while America stands on the sidelines so the Europeans can see what it's like. Now I'm all for trashing the European jagoffs, but in this case the Administration should have stood up and been counted as a protector of those precious freedoms enshrined in the Bill of Rights. This kind of double-dealing diplomacy won't work in the long run anyway. There is no point ever in appeasing these fanatics. They'll be burning American flags tomorrow as they always have.
I also see the point of making the Europeans eat some shit over their high and mighty morally superior tone whenever discussing us and our clumsy - and huge - international footprint. I love that, and I am not exactly brokenhearted to see the French flag burned in the street; God knows our flag has been burned enough times in those same streets. But in the long run, that is not a good position to take. While my anger at the French and other holier-than-thou European governments - for constantly wagging their finger at - and hectoring - the U.S. and calling us everything from racist to fascist - is still boiling, it has descended to a lower boil, and I know that the thugs of Wahhabi Islam will continue to attack us and kill us all the while subtly undermining the European - and Australian - governments which have taken them in. Maybe this experience of the reality of Islam's very real danger to Europe will prove bracing, and the EU will begin to tone down the rhetoric they use against us while they coddle the viper in their bosom. But still, this sleazy remark from the government is just too much to swallow. And where is the MSM, the American press? Where is their solidarity with the press in Europe, many of whom deliberately did an in-your-face to Ali in order to show support for Denmark? I guess we won't see that brave and courageous NY Times publishing these cartoons any time soon. Double shame on us for seeing a fight and refusing to go in on the side of right.
Mullahs vs. 'Toons!
For those who may not have seen the horrible, hateful cartoons which so upset the world's Muslims, you may find them here. Notice how none of them even comes close to some of the truly detestable caricatures of Jesus Christ which have been created over the decades. These pictures of Muhammad are really pretty tame (except the one with a bomb for a turban, which does speak rather forcefully about what the artist thinks of Islam as a religion of terror), but even if they weren't, in Western society they are protected by law. The real assault here is not on Islam but on freedom of the press, freedom of speech, in fact, the freedom to mock and insult whomever we please in a free and open democratic society. These freedoms were hard-won for the Western world in wars which lasted centuries, a world which was itself at one time ruled by just such a militant force, the Catholic Church. This is at the crux of this whole foofooraw. Will the West be cowed by Islam? Will a religion dictate to all of secular Western society what it may or may not say or show in its newspapers, magazines, books, films, paintings, sculptures, etc.? This argument mirrors what it must have been like 600 years ago in Europe when the Church Militant held similar totalitarian power over people.
This is a point in our history where we either stand for Enlightenment values and principles such as democracy and due process over militant religious fascism, or we cave in to the medieval thought police of a fanatical, ultra-rightwing system of oppression and pay the price for that. This is - and has always been - a religious war we are in, though a lot of people refuse to believe that. This is a war that once again pits religion against secularism, a secularism which is tolerant of religion versus a religion which is intolerant of secularism. I wonder if this situation is making that any clearer.
Let's not forget what these guys really want - besides taking away all the freedoms you and I hold dear: they want...Spain! More than that, they want it back! They conveniently forget that they stole it, by force, from its Christian inhabitants in the first place.
A Little History Lite
al-Andalus, as they like to call Andalucia, was never
theirs. One of their constant themes in Palestine is that occupation does
not convey title. The "original" inhabitants are the rightful
inhabitants. In Spain there were the Iberians - or perhaps the Basques
(they're still working that one out) - descended from the earliest neolithic
people, but they were eventually conquered by Rome and later subsumed under
several waves of Germanic tribes culminating in conquest by the Visigoths.
One thing is for sure: they were not Arabic, and there is no record of
there having ever been any Middle Eastern people in the kingdoms of Iberia
until the Islamic conquistadores slashed and bludgeoned their way
across North Africa and took it in 711-12 AD (Romans, who were earlier
conquerors of Iberia, are not talking of re-taking it, at least not that
I've heard. Why do the Islamics think that they can have it?). The
whole idea that any margin of what is called Spain belongs to any Arab
faction whatever is preposterous, but that applies to much of what passes
for history in the Arab world. In Islam-speak, if they conquer something
it's theirs, but if someone else conquers them, it's still theirs. An irony
here is that the Caliph of the Umayyad Dynasty in Damascus ordered that
the peninsula be evacuated by the Muslims soon after they had settled there,
but the settlers refused the evacuation order and stayed put. Imagine that!
Settlers not giving back the land to the original owners. I thought it
was only the despised Jews who did that. Wow. Live and learn.
But they're being cool about the whole al-Andalus thing. They're waiting till the kids grow up.
More of Mugabe's racist war against whites in Zimbabwe (he has also, of course, waged a war of utter destruction against his country's black population as well). And if anyone is hoping that the MDC (Movement for Democratic Change) may yet topple the aged dictator, forget it. The once-proud MDC is in shambles as factions have turned one against the other in a flurry of internecine attacks, virtually destroying itself.
'Mohammed Bechari, the president of the National Federation of the Muslims of France, said his group would start legal proceedings against France-Soir because the pictures were "hurting the feelings of 1.2 billion Muslims".'
I wonder if a Sweet Baby Maamoul mightn't cheer them up. A least they're halal.
Skew a poll! Vote in the German media! (Oops. The voting is over. About even to publish and not to publish with 1.3% don't know. I had no idea the Germans were so sensitive to the religions of Semitic peoples! Wow. Live and learn, Part II)
P.S. Veröffentlichen means "publish." They are talking about whether or not the cartoons of Muhammad which were published in the Jyllands Posten in Denmark should have been published at all. Hint: Die Welt has published them, too, for reference, and you can see them for yourselves if you click on the "bilderspecial" right beneath the poll box.
Chuck Norris has counted to infinity...twice. It seems
I know little of Chuck Norris.
much thanks to Sarah MacGregor
This takes the phrase, What's Up, Doc? to a whole new level...
And here I thought Paris Hilton was a river in Iowa. It's all too, too embarrassed-making.
His latest disguise is his best. Let's hear it for Myk-al el-Jaksin. Long may he remain invisible!
All the email lists I'm on either send me Internet hoaxes or chain letters. Seems like this guy's email list is a lot more interesting.
I knew divorce was good for something.
If you're a fingy when you start and a bolo by the time you leave, particularly if it's been manky the whole time and the scradge is, as usual, a slack gash at best, where the hell are you? Welcome to The Ice!
You'd need a pooper scooper the size of Tom Cruise's ego to clean up this Pleistocene crap.
Tom Cruise's manic, gibbering, simian, quasi-psychotic breakdown was evidently responsible for one of the Top Ten Phrases of 2005 - from the World Word Monitor 9. Jumping the Couch: Apparently losing complete emotional control; made popular by the escapades of Tom Cruise on the Oprah television show.
Note To Tom Cruise: From Sea Org Operating Thetan VIII Superior Hubbardian
Being: Tom, you are a jumping, hopping, howling, chittering butt-monkey for Scientology.
That's your real job. Now, cowboy up, or get another girlfriend.
And make sure it's someone young
this time, willya?
props to Scott McKenzie for the link to The World Word Monitor.
The rest is all my fault.
Economic Freedom: Who got it, who ain't.
Does anyone wonder that Venezuela is considered a repressed nation by the Wall Street Journal now that Hugo Chavez is Chief Apparatchik? The country is 152nd of 157 ranked nations in the WSJ's Index of Economic Freedom. Tied with Lybia! (subscription required)
The Top Eleven:
FREE
1 Hong Kong
2 Singapore
3 Ireland
4 Luxembourg
5 Iceland
United Kingdom
7 Estonia
8 Denmark
9 Australia
New Zealand
United States
The BottomTwelve:
REPRESSED
146 Nigeria
147 Haiti
148 Turkmenistan
149 Laos
150 Cuba
151 Belarus
152 Libya
Venezuela
154 Zimbabwe
155 Burma
156 Iran
157 North Korea
You're safe. Why go back into a burning building?
This morning, I read Joel Stein's self-effacing (students take note: always make your humor columns self-effacing, that way no one really takes you to task about anything you say because you're always vaguely apologetic about saying anything so, you know, you're not threatening) column in the LA Times in which he tells us, humorously of course, how he has been trying to apologize to NY Times termagant Maureen Dowd for months now. Evidently, young Joel had the temerity to piss off the queen of self-regard by making a pretty soft joke about her in a previous column he wrote about meeting Robert Goulet. It's way too long for me to go into, and not all that interesting, to boot. Anyway, this guy, Stein, gets it into his head that he needs to apologize to Dowd about the crack (OK. OK. I can see that some explanation of what had taken place needs to be made. Upon meeting Goulet, the singer proceeded to read a column of Dowd's out loud to Stein in which Goulet had written the word "wow" next to virtually every line in the column. Stein wrote, in his own column, that Goulet gave Dowd "more wows than Michael Douglas ever did." That's it. That's the "crack" for which this poor schlemiel is trying to apologize).
Why? Why does a young, good-looking, successful guy like Joel Stein feel this compulsion to apologize to a sour, nasty, once-upon-a-time funny (yes, I am giving Dowd credit that she deserves. Once, long ago, when asked by the Editor In Chief of my local paper, the Santa Rosa Press-Democrat, which columnists I enjoyed the most in their Op-Ed section, I said - much though I may now regret it - Maureen Dowd. It was that or the Texas moonbat, Molly Ivens. You be the judge), and, OK, funny and kinda then babe-ish columnist/writer? After all, Stein is perfectly secure in his position at the Times, right? So he's not worried about that. She can't dislodge him by running to the Managing Editor and pouting while showing a little leg. So what is moving this forward? Why the inexplicable need to be approved of by the juiceless, the eternal Ms., Dowd?
She's old enough to be his mother, so it can't be he's infatuated…oops. This is not good. Not unusual in our benighted society, but not good nonetheless. (I'm going to leave off this line of reasoning, Joel, to spare your mother the awful embarrassment. Being an old Jewboy myself, I know how deep the hooks go) So, let's go this other way...
A young man who should be out chasing real, actual girls is, instead, snuffling like a pig after a white truffe, an ice-queen long past her best-if-consumed-before date, who takes his every effort at this phony "reconciliation" (what's to reconcile? She never knew him, why should she suddenly give a shite about him now?) and uses it to continue to play the part of the snotty, arrogant princess who can still choose from all the young princes in the land. By refusing this poor sod's incessant gift-sending, she gets to satisfy her need to have one more sorry-ass sucker whining and groveling at her feet (notice, Joel, how it's pretty lonely down there? Yeah. That's right, Joel. You and a couple of septuagenarian droolers are all that's left of whatever trailing wake of beggared, not to say emasculated, males this woman used to have behind her when she was playing the maid with the tossing curls. The Earth has taken those couple of whirls, now, Joel. Man up, for God's sake).
If you really want this woman to acknowledge you so badly that you will carry on a mad crush in a national forum like this, wait a year. This fish will be gasping on the dock by then. You can come along and flip her into your basket with the tip of your Cole-Haans. Otherwise, she is using you as a plaything, something she used to do with regularity to any man she looked at, I'm sure. Now saps like you are few and far-between. You're a godsend. Stop the carnage, Joel, before she eats you, too.
Does this sound like sour grapes coming from one of MoDo's past cast-offs? Shouldn't. I'm not. Don't know the woman. What I really was jump-started by this morning was Stein's whimpering servile attitude and his humor which barely conceals his sappy, kiss-ass strategy which, if looked at objectively, is something a man twice his age would do to try and "win" the approval of a distant miss. Joel, if you must keep this up, send her an iPod with a personal mix and a short, funny movie - starring you - on it. No way in hell she turns that down.
Brit Immigration Shemozzle - The Brazilian Connection
"The girl would only have to smile, bend over the desk and she'd get a longer stay."
Well, yeah-eahhh.
Dangerous Ideas
Environmental crises are a fundamental part of the history of the earth: there have been dramatic temperature excursions, severe glaciations, vast asteroid and comet impacts. Yet the earth is still here, unscathed. And yet many people in the various green movements feel compelled to add on the notion that the planet is in crisis, or doomed; that all life on earth is threatened. The most important thing about environmental change is that it hurts people; the basis of our response should be human solidarity. The planet will take care of itself. Oliver Morton, Chief news and features editor at Nature
waltz this!
Seems that some Politically Correct drongos on the Bondi Beach (Australia) City Council think it would be "insensitive" and maybe even "inflamatory" to fly the Australian flag at the beach. Um, huh? Insensitive to whom, exactly? The preemptive (not to say, cowardly) action by the council was based on the presumption that the local Muslim population wouldn't like it. They're Australian, you dickwads! As it turns out, the Muslim Council was also pissed off at the decision saying that it was absurd to think that Australian Muslims would be ashamed of their own country's flag simply because they are Muslim. A great example of the cluelessness (and racialism) of the PC crowd. Officialdom taking actions that no one likes based on their unfailingly ass-backwards instincts.
Update: Oops. Upon further review...
Thanks to Tim Blair
Aaaaahhhh, ooohhhh, CANADA!
I am stunned at the latest photo of a once-upon-a-time-attractive bit of stuff named Maureen Dowd. Apparently, it's the witching hour for her - maybe witching year would be more accurate. And, apparently, of late she has created a cottage industry which mostly involves an increasingly hysterical (and I mean hysterical in the Greekest of ways) version of herself incessantly clattering on about how men just can't handle a really smart chick, meaning...Mo, herself. This piece of long-imagined (yearned for, chased after?) and almost continuously-emoted trope is at once self-aggrandizing while managing to ill-conceal her inadequacies as a woman. For it isn't fear of her monumental intellect but of her monumental self-regard coupled with her vast insecurity and picky picky picky henpecking potential that keeps men away. The ritornello of the girl-too-smart-to-marry has been used by luckless spinsters forever, and by this luckless old maid - once an amusing columnist gone particularly sour of late - for at least half a decade. It is a rather disingenuous (could this creature ever be ingenuous?) cri de coeur from this now beginning-to-look-like spritely old lady (still sharp as a tack, knock wood) who seems to be bawling for some guy to take up the challenge and just for-God's-sake-already marry the bitch. I'd do it but I'm smart, too; I want a wife, not a fishwife. Besides that, I'm just too darned young.
At least they could have left him one of these
Um, does this mean even more non-wiretapping of Rutgers students who read Mao?
December 28, 2005--Sixty-four percent (64%) of Americans believe the National Security Agency (NSA) should be allowed to intercept telephone conversations between terrorism suspects in other countries and people living in the United States. A Rasmussen Reports survey found that just 23% disagree.
And here I thought it was Susan Sarandon they weren't listening to. Boy is my face red.
You sure his name's not Omar?
"These days, whenever something goofy turns up on the news, chances are it involves a fellow called Mohammed. A plane flies into the World Trade Centre? Mohammed Atta. A gunman shoots up the El Al counter at Los Angeles airport? Hesham Mohamed Hedayet. A sniper starts killing petrol station customers around Washington, DC? John Allen Muhammed. A guy fatally stabs a Dutch movie director? Mohammed Bouyeri. A terrorist slaughters dozens in Bali? Noordin Mohamed. A gang-rapist in Sydney? Mohammed Skaf." Mark Steyn
12/18/05 - I loved him so I offed him The WTF Factor Illuminated
"I looked into Jacob's eyes and sensed that he wanted to die," said Andrew Wragg...
"My son wanted me to do it, because he had a terminal illness," said Wragg, and members of the jury wept as he spoke.
"Jacob never judged his own life, he was a happy, loving child," said Mrs Wragg.
WTF...???!!!
This case in England is about a man who smothered his severely disabled son partly - and most persuasive to the court - because of the reasons stated above - love and compassion. How, I ask myself, can a man kill his severely disabled 10-year-old son when his wife (estranged) says that the boy never judged his life and that he was a happy, loving child? How does a man smother his happy, loving son to death with a pillow? (I followed this case without enough diligence to say for certain, but I do not remember Mr. Wragg saying that his son directly or indirectly communicated this sentiment to his father. Mr Wragg sensed it.) I am more than a little creeped out by this. Emotions (second-hand emotions, posits Ms. Wakefield) like this are - perhaps unconscious - arguments against euthanasia.
Incidentally...for the record, and for the short memories in the U.S. Congress and other memory-deficient groups (and you know who you are):
"In addition, al-Qaida reached an understanding with the Government of Iraq that al-Qaida would not work against that government and that on particular projects, specifically including weapons development, al-Qaida would work cooperatively with the Government of Iraq." Clinton Justice Dept. indictment of bin Laden, 1998
"We have solid reporting of senior level contacts between Iraq and al-Qaida going back a decade." George Tenet, CIA Chief, 2002, to U.S. Senate
There's more, but you get the idea. Just keepin' it raaaaal...
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
'In the day we sleep, go see our girlfriends, and play video games. And in the evening we have a good time: we go and fight the police.'”
'In the case of the Paris rioters,
there are other explanations for their behavior that are more accurate
than liberal clichés about “frustration.” As Dr Jack Wheeler
puts it, “The problem is not that these Moslem kids are unemployed,
but that they are unemployable. They are illiterate, unskilled except in
crime, don't speak French well, refuse to assimilate into French culture
and think being Moslem is more important than being French. Worse, they
are paid by the French welfare state not to work, living well off the dole
(and crime). The problem was epitomized by these words of a young Moslem
rioter to a French reporter: 'In the day we sleep, go see our girlfriends,
and play video games. And in the evening we have a good time: we go and
fight the police.'”'
What Energy Policy?
...A more serious lapse is the absence of a radical energy policy that forces greater production and conservation. Our present dependence is analogous to America needing German coal in 1936 or counting on the Ploesti oilfields of Romania of 1933 to run our Model As.
True, the administration has good grounds to be wary: earlier expensive efforts to subsidize alternative fuels proved boondoggles when OPEC turned on the spigots and recessions cut demand. And it is not clear that the Left would tolerate new drilling off our coasts and in Alaska, or more nuclear power as a trade-off for stepped-up mandatory conservation.
But three points are missed here, aside from the entrance of oil-hungry India and China into the world market and the steady depletion of known reserves, that have made things far different from 30 years ago.
First, enemies like Iran and triangulators such as Saudi Arabia are increasingly immune from American political pressure, not just because we are dependent on imported petroleum, but also because an energy-sensitive world will blame the United States for any action that endangers a now-fragile global market.
Second, in the past 24 months hundreds of billions of dollars in windfall profits have been propping up the Iranian theocracy and have bailed out Saudi Arabia, which by 2000 was facing a real need for structural and political reforms.
Third, some of that new petro-money will find its way to al Qaeda
and Hezbollah to hire ever more mercenaries to attack us in Iraq or at
home. We are fighting a culture in radical Islam that cannot make or earn
anything. It is entirely parasitic, counting only on stealthy petro-handouts
from terrified regimes, which themselves create no capital of their own
other than by maintaining oil production that others crafted and, for a
price, mostly still operate and maintain...
Victor Davis Hanson on our over-reliance on ME oil
Words Of The Week To Live By :
"George Bush needs to stop talking, admit the mistakes of his
all around failed administration, pull our troops out of occupied New Orleans and Iraq,
and excuse his self (sic) from power."
Cindy "Saint" Sheehan, one of the most unbalanced
people in America with access to a computer.
Now hold on a minute, wasn't it the left that was screaming for troops
to go into New Orleans just last week? Making the specious and plain
wrong accusation that "all our troops" were in Iraq? Now they've
"occupied it"? This occasions the use of the following query:
What the f...? Someone, please, take this woman to a place where
she can't be a danger to herself or others. Like the trunk of your car.
No no no! Ban it ban it!
Ban on marrying mother-in-law to end
By Sarah Womack, Social Affairs Correspondent
(Filed: 14/09/2005)
A ban in England and Wales on marriages between parents-in-law and their children-in-law is in breach of human rights, the European Court said yesterday.
The judgment will force an overhaul of legislation governing family law which will see men being able to marry their mothers-in-law for the first time - as long as they do not have a blood link.
The decision by the court in Strasbourg related to a case brought by a couple from Warrington who were refused the right to marry because the man, aged nearly 60, is the father-in-law of the woman, more than 20 years his junior.
Oh, well, let's not be hasty; there are exceptions, of course...
"In Katrina's wake, Louisiana politicians and other critics
have complained about paltry funding for the Army Corps in general and
Louisiana projects in particular. But over the five years of President
Bush's administration, Louisiana has received far more money for Corps
civil works projects than any other state, about $1.9 billion; California
was a distant second with less than $1.4 billion, even though its population
is more than seven times as large..."
"...overall, the Bush administration's funding requests for the key
New Orleans flood-control projects for the past five years were slightly
higher than the Clinton administration's for its past five years."
The Washington Post
...Nobody has any power in this world other than George Bush. Nobody has any responsibility. George Bush is now the navel of the world for his enemies. If a butterfly flaps its wings in Central Park, it’s George Bush’s fault. And the butterfly is racist. And it was blown there by Global Warming.
Mac Johnson takes on the Blamers.
NEWSFLASH!
Islamic stance on women can be oppressive, says Cherie
By Andrew Sparrow in New Delhi
(Filed: 09/09/2005)
Cherie Blair yesterday criticised the way men in parts of the Islamic world have used their religion to justify the oppression of women.
The Prime Minister's wife made a series of candid comments about her own political ambitions, her husband's policies and her childhood dreams of falling in love with an Indian raja during an informal lunch with female journalists.
Moving the cause of Islamic women one millimeter sideways. Thanks, Cherie.
The world responds by criticizing the U.S. Never mind how many times we have responded to disasters in other countries around the world, time and time again. Never mind how the United States has offered money and manpower to whomever needs it regardless of whether or not we are friendly with these nations. I am waiting for a list of all the foreign powers who are sending aid. I am sure that the Saudis, the Omanis, the Germans, the French, the Italians, the British, the Syrians, the Lybians and Spanish are all sending help to the U.S. I just haven't heard about it. That must be it. I just haven't heard. (since this entry, I have heard some countries are offering aid)
The horrors of hurricane Katrina, which has left untold miseries in its wake, particularly in New Orleans where there is doubt that the city will ever really recover from this at all, are blamed, as we knew they would be, on Chimpy McSmirk in the White House. The NY Times and other newpapers have essentially said that it is a combination of the Administration's lack of "belief" in global warming (I believe the reality is that they disagree on what global warming is actually doing, not whether it's a real phenomenon) and too little too late. Bush didn't move fast enough with relief. But here is what the news sources were complaing about last year:
Last year, when hurricane Charley struck Florida, the complaint was that Bush was too responsive. "Even before the storm hit, the president declared four counties disaster areas to speed federal money to victims," CBS News reported a year ago. "But that quick response fueled suspicion that he is using disaster politics to help his campaign in one of the most critical battleground states." [emphasis added]
Besides taking many of Bush's comments about the situation out of context
and suppressing much of his speech in their editorializing,
the Times reflects how much the Left simply hates Bush, I mean Chimpy McSmirk
HitlerBush. Pardon me.
(thanks to James Taranto)
Here is how the Palestinian militants view Israel's pullout from the Gaza Strip
Q: Israelis fear that Gaza could become “Hamasland” after
the withdrawal.
A: Let Israel die.
—Hamas spokesman, in an interview with the Saudi daily Asharq Al-Awsat, on August 18th.
snaked from Victor Davis Hanson's excellent website (It looks as though Professor Hanson was right. It is now, in fact, Hamasland for real)
Here's an interesting take, a war games scenario, if you will, by an Iraqi blogger on his website, The Mesopotamian, on what would happen if the U.S. cut and ran from Iraq, right now, today. You don't have to read it all, you get the idea pretty quickly.
An answer, from Iraq, to Cindy Sheehan's certainly understandable and much-publicized grief. *
The source is an Iraqi blogger who has been blogging since the beginning of the conflict. Actually, they are two brothers, Omar and Mohammed, but Omar does most of the blogging.
I am printing it here in its entirety. I believe it is an important reminder of what life was like under Saddam, and why this is, ultimately, a humanitarian mission. If Bush had made a case for that, like Clinton did for Kosovo, he might have gotten a better response. But the media didn't have the pictures of dead babies, of gassed Kurds, of mass graves, of people being machine-gunned and then having their bodies thrown into fresh roadbeds and literally paved into highways, etc., to drum up support for this war as they did in Serbia. So he chose a different path. In the end, regardless of the reasons for our liberation of Iraq, this war must answer the needs of the Iraqi people to live in true freedom. If it fails to do that, then it really was a disaster. But if we are to believe Cindy Sheehan's hysterical hyperbole over the people who actually live in Iraq, who suffered under the monster and lost loved ones every day to his secret police, his prisons, his torturers, and his mass murdering thugs, then we are believing someone whose pain has caused her to spin out of control over someone whose pain has caused him to become a voice for freedom and real peace. Many Iraqi's support America's efforts to save their country from the evils not only of the Ba'athists, but of the extreme right-wing Islamists who would take the country apart, kill tens of thousands - hundreds of thousands, as did Saddam - of its inhabitants, and then turn it one big Islamist gulag. That is where Iraq is headed if we just pick up and leave.
Whichever way you feel, you owe it to yourself and to the people in Iraq who believe what Omar and his brother believe, to read this. ekw
*Since this writing Saint Sheehan has been unmasked as a moonbat and possibly a certifiable madwoman. Her grief is now a cover for ultra-leftists like MoveOn.org to make hay of her son's death. I have gone from sympathy with this woman to outright disgust with her. I am not going to continue to give this woman coverage, but I want to leave the message to her from Omar as it bears directly on what her son was there fighting for in the first place, and to say to Saint Sheehan, Get a grip. You son was killed by far-right-wing religious extremists. That is where you should direct your anger.
IRAQ THE MODEL
Friday, August 12, 2005
A message to Cindy Sheehan
I realize how tragic your loss is and I know how much pain there is crushing
your heart and I know the darkness that suddenly came to wrap your life
and wipe away your dreams and I do feel the heat of your tears that won't
dry until you find the answers to your question; why you lost your loved
one?
I have heard your story and I understand that you have the full right to ask people to stand by your side and support your cause. At the beginning I told myself, this is yet another woman who lost a piece of her heart and the questions of war, peace and why are killing her everyday. To be frank to you the first thing I thought of was like "why should I listen or care to answer when there are thousands of other women in America, Iraq and Afghanistan who lost a son or a husband or a brother…”
But today I was looking at your picture and I saw in your eyes a persistence, a great pain and a torturing question; why?
I know how you feel Cindy, I lived among the same pains for 35 years but worse than that was the fear from losing our loved ones at any moment. Even while I'm writing these words to you there are feelings of fear, stress, and sadness that interrupt our lives all the time but in spite of all that I'm sticking hard to hope which if I didn't have I would have died years ago.
Ma'am, we asked for your nation's help and
we asked you to stand with us in our war and your nation's act was (and
still is) an act of ultimate courage and unmatched sense of humanity.
Our request is justified, death was our daily bread and a million Iraqi
mothers were expecting death to knock on their doors at any second to claim
someone from their families.
Your face doesn't look strange to me at all; I see it everyday on endless
numbers of Iraqi women who were struck by losses like yours.
Our fellow country men and women were buried alive, cut to pieces and thrown in acid pools and some were fed to the wild dogs while those who were lucky enough ran away to live like strangers and the Iraqi mother was left to grieve one son buried in an unfound grave and another one living far away who she might not get to see again.
We did nothing to deserve all that suffering, well except for a dream we had; a dream of living like normal people do.
We cried out of joy the day your son and
his comrades freed us from the hands of the devil and we went to the streets
not believing that the nightmare is over.
We practiced our freedom first by kicking and burning the statues and portraits
of the hateful idol who stole 35 years from the life of a nation.
For the first time air smelled that beautiful, that was the smell of freedom.
The mothers went to break the bars of cells looking for the ones they lost 5, 12 or 20 years ago and other women went to dig the land with their bare hand searching for a few bones they can hold in their arms after they couldn't hold them when they belonged to a living person.
I recall seeing a woman on TV two years ago, she was digging through the dirt with her hands. There was no definite grave in there as the whole place was one large grave but she seemed willing to dig the whole place looking for her two brothers who disappeared from earth 24 years ago when they were dragged from their colleges to a chamber of hell.
Her tears mixed with the dirt of the grave and there were journalists asking her about what her brothers did wrong and she was screaming "I don't know, I don't know. They were only college students. They didn't murder anyone, they didn't steal, and they didn't hurt anyone in their lives. All I want to know is the place of their grave".
Why was this woman chosen to lose her dear ones? Why you? Why did a million women have to go through the same pain?
We did not choose war for the sake of war
itself and we didn't sacrifice a million lives for fun! We could've accepted
our jailor and kept living in our chains for the rest of our lives but
it's freedom ma'am.
Freedom is not an American thing and it's not an Iraqi thing, it's what
unites us as human beings. We refuse all kinds of restrictions and that's
why we fought and still fighting everyday in spite of the swords in the
hands of the cavemen who want us dead or slaves for their evil masters.
You are free to go and leave us alone but
what am I going to tell your million sisters in Iraq? Should I ask them
to leave Iraq too? Should I leave too? And what about the eight millions
who walked through bombs to practice their freedom and vote? Should they
leave this land too?
Is it a cursed land that no one should live in? Why is it that we were
chosen to live in all this pain, why me, why my people, why you?
But I am not leaving this land because the
bad guys are not going to leave us or you to live in peace. They are the
same ones who flew the planes to kill your people in New York.
I ask you in the name of God or whatever you believe in; do not waste your
son's blood.
We here have decided to avenge humanity, you and all the women who lost
their loved ones.
Take a look at our enemy Cindy, look closely at the hooded man holding
the sword and if you think he's right then I will back off and support
your call.
We live in pain and grief everyday, every hour, every minute; all the horrors of the powers of darkness have been directed at us and I don't know exactly when am I going to feel safe again, maybe in a year, maybe two or even ten; I frankly don't know but I don't want to lose hope and faith.
We are in need for every hand that can offer some help. Please pray for us, I know that God listens to mothers' prayers and I call all the women on earth to pray with you for peace in this world.
Your son sacrificed his life for a very noble cause…No, he sacrificed himself for the most precious value in this existence; that is freedom.
His blood didn't go in vain; your son and
our brethren are drawing a great example of selflessness.
God bless his free soul and God bless the souls of his comrades who are
fighting evil.
God bless the souls of Iraqis who suffered and died for the sake of freedom.
God bless all the freedom lovers on earth.
Stop It, Please! I'm Starting To Feel Sickety-Poo!
Free love is fine - but watch out for the "wibbles"
By Celia Hall
(Filed: 04/04/2005)
'Polyamory' is the latest fashion for multiple
partners, reports Celia Hall
They believe in free love and multiple
relationships, but not casual sex - and enjoy feeling "frubbly".
As a group they practise "polyamory" - the latest social phenomenon
to cross the Atlantic to Britain, psychologists heard yesterday.
Polyamorists have relationships that are wide open. Despite having numerous
partners at any one time, they are emotionally committed and do not cheat
on them...
...A "wibble" is a jealous feeling but "not a massive sexual threat", Dr Barker said. "We are interested in another language," she told the conference.
So they decided to take a chapter from that dear, silly old polyamor, Winnie-The-Pooh, who's, well, having it off with Tigger, Kanga, Christopher Robin and the odd heffalump. Oh, dear...there's that damned wibbly feeling again. Bother!
Only in...Australia...
March 12, 2005
A MAN who confessed to killing two women walked free from court yesterday when a judge ruled the evidence too damning.
Father-of-two Lyle Simpson admitted being a killer, DNA evidence proved he was at the scene of one murder...Yet after three days of legal argument in the NSW Supreme Court, Judge Anthony Whealy ruled some evidence was just too damning and ran the risk of "unfair prejudice'' to the accused.
No comment.
You MUST be a redneck...
Charles Gonsoulin, 41, will have [all his] fingers and [some of his] toes amputated because of severe frostbite suffered during a 100-hour trek from Pembina, North Dakota, across the border to Emerson, Manitoba, where he was found wandering on a golf course on Feb. 23, suffering from hypothermia...
...Gonsoulin could not enter Canada legally because he was convicted of robbing a Pizza Hut in Arkansas in 1984, the newspaper said.
...He still has not met his girlfriend face-to-face but they have spoken on the phone and Gonsoulin said they are still in love.
"It was all worth it for me. It's the difference between sitting around dreaming about things and going out and getting them."
And then going out and losing most of them
again...
On the other hand, maybe you're just from Connecticut...
Landlord Uses 40 Cans of Roach Fumigant
STAMFORD, Conn. - Several tenants had to stay in a temporary shelter and a hotel because of a landlord's attempt to fumigate a ten-family home. The landlord apparently touched off 40 cans of cockroach fumigate at the same time Thursday morning.
And then attempted to escape to Canada on foot...
QUOTE OF THE YEAR (SO FAR)
"It's strange for me to say it, but this process of change has started because of the American invasion of Iraq," explains Jumblatt. "I was cynical about Iraq. But when I saw the Iraqi people voting three weeks ago, 8 million of them, it was the start of a new Arab world." Jumblatt says this spark of democratic revolt is spreading. "The Syrian people, the Egyptian people, all say that something is changing. The Berlin Wall has fallen. We can see it."
OK, I never put pictures like this on my webpage, but...
I can't help myself.
This is the way I always saw myself. With Sidney. Problem is, I look like her grandfather.
And no, this is NOT Maureen Dowd.
This website is the home page of screenwriter and author Edmond Keenan Wynn aka Ned Wynn. Below are links to some of my movies, articles and stories*.
Why I like chocolate but wasn’t that crazy about Chocolat
"Doing
It"
according to Marta Kauffman (producer
of "Friends")
The Wall Street
Journal Taste
(section of the Weekend WSJ)
The
Wall Street Journal Taste
The Wall Street
Journal Taste
Let Them Eat Cachet (a
guide to political chic)
The culture critic Humor
Looking for an article you don't see here? Look in the Archives
Short
StoriesFlack (short-listed by Esquire Magazine for the ten best short stories)
