Awake yet?
Regards,
Me
Michelle Malkin: IN THEIR OWN WORDS
You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once. - Robert A. Heinlein -
Employers stepped up hiring in January, boosting payrolls by 193,000 and lowering the nation's unemployment rate to 4.7 percent, the lowest since July 2001.BREITBART.COM
Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada began receiving campaign contributions from at least four American Indian tribes only after they hired Jack Abramoff, Republicans charged this week in an effort to tie the Senate Democratic leader to the disgraced lobbyist.
On Thursday, Reid shrugged off questions about money he received from tribal clients of Abramoff, who pleaded guilty last month to three felonies after being accused of exchanging meals, travel and gifts for political favors.
"I've said that I received money from Indians in the past and will continue to do so," Reid said.
I didn't want to bump the thread again with this, but I wanted to expand on my reasons for believing an attack was imminent, and the target is Detroit:That is all.
Washington Times
Incidentally, Hamilton, Ontario is approximately 150 miles from Detroit.
Also, along the lines of bin Laden's truce offer, Al Jazeera reported yesterday that al Zawahiri made a truce offer of his own, inviting President Bush to convert to Islam. (Hindustan Times). This is relevant, because after the 9/11 attacks, many otherwise radical clerics and Imams were able to condemn OBL on the grounds that he didn't offer the kaffir an opportunity to submit to Islam before he slaughtered them, in accordance with Sharia law. Now, AQ's top two have both made the offer in a span of three weeks (OBL also offered a truce to the UK just prior to the London subway bombings). And the offers were made prior to the SOTU address, where Bush would certainly reject the offers in no uncertain terms.
Also, Zawahiri's white turban, white robe and the absence of his AK-47 were symbolic of this gesture of "peace". I don't have any read on the black background, except that it hasn't been done before. I don't buy the puffed-up presumptions that he's petrfied and taking extra steps to hide by concealing his background (we spend too much time congratulating ourselves on kicking ass, not enough time resigning ourselves to the long, titanic struggle this war is going to be). I believe the background is a trigger of some sort.
Also, multiple al Zawahiri tapes have consistently triggered attacks (outside of Iraq and Afghanistan) within 30 days of the last tape release. That pattern is based on two tapes released within a three month period. Never before have there been three AZ tapes and one OBL tape in a thirty day period.
And finally, I think they have to hit a hard target and they have to do it on Bush's watch to inflict maximum damage on the President and support for the overall war. A radiological attack on the Super Bowl would accomplish that in spades, and unlike the 9/11 attack, it would divide this country in a way we've never been divided before. They're not going to have an opportunity like this, in a place like this (a heavily Muslim, border city) again during the Bush presidency.
I hope I'm wrong. Or, at the very least, if I'm right, I hope they fail. But I'll be stunned if they don't try something huge on Sunday.
"Throughout the years, in parts of Europe, intellectuals and even politicians were enamoured with the idea of Marxism and even some thought the Soviet Union was an embodiment of what Socialism and the protection of the worker was all about. America was more realistic. America looked on us as captive nations. We were captive nations, and we are now free."After this statement, the old-European newspaper editor cut-off the President of Latvia - something we have become accustomed to here in the States. When did journalists' interrupting presidents become acceptable? I wonder if President Ahmageddondinnerjakkket of Iran ever gets interrupted and/or bullied by a newspaper man.
In all the discussion about journalist casualties in Iraq, I have heard no one comment on the fact that the media's behavior increases the risk to its reporters. The goal of the terrorists in Iraq, like that of terrorists everywhere, is not to inflict casualties, but rather to frighten people by creating the impression of lawlessness and illustrate the inability of legally constituted authorities to maintain order and provide protection. The media are a vital tool in achieving this goal. If the terrorists can get more media coverage by killing or seriously injuring one reporter than by killing a division of Iraqi soldiers, guess whom they are going to target.I think Hockert may be on to something;)
If the networks really wanted to protect their reporters, they would do the following: First, issue large press decals to put on helmets, vehicles, etc. so that reporters were readily identifiable. Second, establish a well-publicized policy that any terrorist injury or killing of a reporter would cause a one-week blackout of any coverage of terrorist acts in Iraq. All coverage from Iraq for that week would focus on progress in rebuilding the nation and "good" news. Such a policy would reduce the deaths of, and injuries to, reporters in Iraq by at least a factor of 10. After all, how many al-Jeezera reporters have been killed by the Iraqi terrorists? The Iraqi terrorists are bloodthirsty and evil, but within their warped view of the world, they are not stupid.
Sadly, the media seem willing to risk the lives of their reporters in order to focus on the bad news in Iraq.
The school board is scheduled to vote Wednesday on settling the part of the lawsuit Frazier filed against board members, his teacher and assistant principal for $32,500. But Frazier, a Boynton Beach High junior who said he was berated in class when he refused to stand during the pledge [i.e., pledge of allegiance], wants more than that.Well of course he does. I expect every kid in Florida will be pulling the same stunt now. (Via Stop the ACLU.)
"Well there were supposed to be more of us and I come from the farthest away of any of them. Since we haven't renounced violence I'm gonna use it on a few of them if they don't show up."BIG protest in St. Louis.
I was never told that I couldn't wear that shirt into the Congress. I was never asked to take it off or zip my jacket back up. If I had been asked to do any of those things...I would have, and written about the suppression of my freedom of speech later. I was immediately, and roughly (I have the bruises and muscle spasms to prove it) hauled off and arrested for "unlawful conduct."Comforting.
After I had my personal items inventoried and my fingers printed, a nice Sgt. came in and looked at my shirt and said, "2,245, huh? I just got back from there."
I told him that my son died there. That's when the enormity of my loss hit me. I have lost my son. I have lost my First Amendment rights. I have lost the country that I love. Where did America go? I started crying in pain.
.
.
.
I have some lawyers looking into filing a First Amendment lawsuit against the government for what happened tonight. I will file it. It is time to take our freedoms and our country back.
I don't want to live in a country that prohibits any person, whether he/she has paid the ultimate price for that country, from wearing, saying, writing, or telephoning any negative statements about the government. That's why I am going to take my freedoms and liberties back. That's why I am not going to let Bushco take anything else away from me...or you.
Remember all those news stories in 1993 about how the nomination of former ACLU lawyer Ruth Bader Ginsburg to replace conservative Justice Byron White on the United States Supreme Court would “tilt the balance of the court to the left?”
Of course you don’t. Because there weren’t any.
A confidential Saudi report prepared just weeks before the Palestinian elections predicted a Hamas victory in Gaza and the West Bank and puts the blame on the United States: "By failing to strengthen (President Mahmoud )Abbas's position, the U.S. has paved the way for a Hamas victory," states a document prepared by the Saudi National Security Assessment Project.
"Moreover, the U.S administration's faith in the power of elections to transform people makes it oblivious to the possibility that the democratic process is often a double-edged sword which can have unintended consequences," goes on to say the policy brief delivered last Dec. 27 by the SNSAP's director, Nawaf Obaid.
Furthermore, the brief states that the U.S. failed to press "Abbas to implement his commitments to security and disarmament, and has not succeeded in convincing donor nations to fulfill their pledges for financial assistance to the Palestinians."
Recent surveys conducted by the Saudi National Security Assessment Project indicate that there is deep distrust of senior officials in the Palestinian Authority, most of whom are Fatah members. "This situation has created an opportunity that Hamas has been able to exploit."
The brief cites United Nations statistics indicating that "almost 75 percent of Palestinians live below the poverty line."