Iraqi Civil War That Wasn’t – Micro to the Macro

CIVIL WAR!!!!! Phonly we had listened to Mogadishu Murtha! Right? Bullshit. “Civil War” is the new hope of the terrorist-leftist nexus, created when the Sunni Arabs in Iraq, on December 15th 2005, chose the ballot box over bloody war. As predicted, al Qaeda (who care nothing for the muslims they slaughter and claim to fight on behalf of simultaneously) has not relented in their attacks. But they have found their attacks less and less effective against coalition troops, so they focused more on killing Iraqi men women and children. But they knew that was a losing battle. And the key to success for the enemies of freedom, as stated by Abu Zarqawi in a letter he sent to al Qaeada in February of 2004 (read the whole thing) is:

The Shi'a in our opinion, these are the key to change. Targeting and striking their religious, political, and military symbols, will make them show their rage against the Sunnis and bear their inner vengeance. If we succeed in dragging them into a sectarian war, this will awaken the sleepy Sunnis…..

Also regarding why they must incite a Civil War, Zarqawi said:

if we fight them, that will be difficult because there will be a schism between us and the people of the region. How can we kill their cousins and sons and under what pretext, after the Americans start withdrawing? The Americans will continue to control from their bases, but the sons of this land will be the authority. This is the democracy, we will have no pretext.

Yet Democrats and their Media handlers have yet to acknowledge what Zarqawi recognized 2 years ago. Once united and self determined, Iraqis would turn on them and their campaign of terror in Iraq would bear no fruit.

On February 22nd 2006 terrorists destroyed the Golden Dome Mosque in Samarra in a dramatic effort to incite a war between Shiite and Sunni muslims in Iraq. This is indicative of utter desperation on the part of al Qaeda. Pause and consider what they are attempting to do. Shia and Sunni Muslims have existed throughout the mid east since right after the death of their Prophet Mohammed. It was the choice of his successor that created the split. That has resulted in minor cultural differences over time, but they are all still muslims. So when you hear the hope dripping from the fingertips or the mouth of Zarqawi and/or the global left that Iraq’s new Constitutional Democracy will devolve into a bloody Shiite Sunni Civil War, know that they are basically saying that the Muslim religion is about to implode in sectarian violence. Such violence would spread throught the mid-east where the greatest concentration of Muslims exist. A fact I am sure that Muslim leaders throughout the region are well aware. Is this something they want? Highly doubtful. And they will take ever opportunity to see that it does not transpire. So now that we have all the recent hysterical reports of “civil war” from the Democrat Media in proper context, let’s examine what happened in Iraq starting with the bombing of the Golden Dome Mosque. First from an Iraqi blogger at Iraq the Model:

February 22nd 2006 – “I believe there are foreign terror groups behind this attack and I don't think local insurgent would do such a thing, simply because this particular shrine had been in Sunni territory for a thousand years and the residents of Samarra had always benefited from the movement of religious tourism and pilgrimage. The quality of the target and the timing of the attack were chosen in a way that can possibly bring very serious consequences over the country. “

But the Democrat Media want you to believe it was ordinary Iraqi Sunni Arabs because that fits with their and Zarqawi’s “civil war” wishes.

So who did Iraqis blame? Iraqis blame “foreigners”:

February 23, 2006 - The foreign fighters must have been stunned when Shiite and Sunni leaders rushed out statements saying they knew that the takfiri (i.e., those who accuse other Muslims of being infidels, a code word in this context for the foreign extremists) were behind the attack, and they would not let this act of brutality divide Iraq. In an announcement on his website, Shiite leader Ayatollah Ali Sistani blamed “takfiris [who] meant to foment sedition among the Iraqi people, thus fulfilling their malicious goals.” He added, “we urge everyone not to be dragged into committing acts that would only please the enemies, namely, the sectarian sedition which they have long attempted to push Iraq into its furnace.” Shiite radical Muqtada al-Sadr — remember him? — blamed the attack on the takfiri, Saddam loyalists, and “the occupation.” “We should not attack Sunni mosques,” he said on al Jazeera. “I ordered [his militia the] Al-Mahdi Army to protect the Shiite and Sunni shrines and to show a high sense of responsibility, something they actually did.”

Immediately, Sunni and Shia Iraqi leaders condemned the attacks. More from Iraq the Model:

“Vehicles with loudspeakers roaming the streets calling on people to shut their stores in the name of the Hawza and join the protests after the noon prayer to condemn the attack on the holy shrine. Ayatollah Sistani reacted quickly to the escalating anger by issuing a fatwa that forbids his followers from "Taking any action against Sunni sites" obviously to discourage his followers from carrying out retaliatory attacks on Sunni mosques. [Muqtada] al Sadr cut his tour in Lebanon and is heading back to Baghdad, he called on his followers from Beirut to "have self-control and refrain from violence". Both Sunni and Shia mosques are condemning the attack through their loudspeakers. President Talabani promises to make rebuilding the shrine his personal responsibility and to donate the required money from his own. Head of the Sunni endowment sheikh Ahmed al-Samarra'I announces that he will allocate 2 billion dinars ($1.4 million) for the rebuilding of the shrine from the treasury of the Sunni endowment. The top 4 Shia Ayatollahs hold a meeting at Sistani's home to discuss the situation. The Association of Muslim scholars and the Islamic Party condemn the "criminal act". Jafari in a press conference calls for national unity and the leaders of the UIA hold a meeting.

February 26, 2006 - THE movement of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, alleged to have played a role in the anti-Sunni violence over the last few days, publicly made peace with political and religious Sunni leaders overnight. Four sheikhs from the Sadr movement made a "pact of honour" with the conservative Sunni Muslim Scholars Association, and called for an end to attacks on places of worship, the shedding of blood and condemning any act leading to sedition. The agreement was made in the particularly symbolic setting of Baghdad's premier Sunni mosque Abu Hanifa where the Shiite sheikhs prayed under the guidance of Sunni imam Abdel Salam al-Qubaissi. The meeting was broadcast on television and the religious leaders all "condemned the blowing up of the Shiite mausoleum of Samarra as much as the acts of sabotage against the houses of God as well as the assassinations and terrorisation of Muslims". The statement made reference to the key concerns of both communities with the violent aftermath to the attack on the Samarra mausoleum which saw more than 119 people die.

Iraqi Security forces moved in quickly to maintain order. From Iraq the Model on the day of the bombing:

Heavy deployment for the police and other security forces with more frequent checkpoints that are stop-searching cars more often than they usually do.

From reporter Ralp Peters in Iraq:

And the people here have been impressed that their government reacted effectively to last week's strife, that their soldiers and police brought order to the streets. The Iraqi army deployed over 100,000 soldiers to maintain public order. U.S. Forces remained available as a backup, but Iraqi soldiers controlled the streets. Iraqi forces behaved with discipline and restraint - as the local sectarian outbreaks fizzled, not one civilian had been killed by an Iraqi soldier. Time and again, Iraqi military officers were able to defuse potential confrontations and frustrate terrorist hopes of igniting a religious war. Forty-seven battalions drawn from all 10 of Iraq's army divisions took part in an operation that, above all, aimed at reassuring the public. The effort worked - from the luxury districts to the slums, the Iraqis were proud of their army. As a result of its nationwide success, the Iraqi army gained tremendously in confidence. Its morale soared. [T]he truth is that we're seeing a new, competent, patriotic military emerge.
March 4th 2006 - The commander of Iraq's ground forces, General Abdul Qadir, is an armor officer with extensive battlefield experience. Qadir stood up to Saddam, stating that his adventure in Kuwait was destined to fail. He was sent to prison for seven years. Only his history of combat valor saved him from death. Now Saddam's in prison and Qadir's determined to build a better Iraq. In his office in the Defense Ministry - an ornate building whose marble halls and crystal chandeliers predate Saddam - Qadir beamed with pride at the performance of his troops over the previous 10 days. "Not one unit had sectarian difficulties," he stressed. "Not one. And when we canceled all leaves after the mosque bombing - we expected trouble, of course - our soldiers returned promptly to their units. Now it is as you see for yourself: Iraqis are proud of their own soldiers." Asked when he thought American troops should leave Iraq, Qadir said, "We must not be in too great a hurry for you to go," stressing that patience and cooperation were crucial to ultimate success. American troop levels could be reduced in the next few years, but with over 40 years of military service - and as a member of an old Sunni-Arab military family - Qadir has no illusions about the challenges ahead. Iraqi combat units have made significant progress, but sustaining that success depends on building a reliable logistics infrastructure, on building up communications and intelligence capabilities and on developing a training system that aims at Western standards. Given the mess Saddam left behind, Qadir's mission is formidable. And the progress to date is impressive to any knowledgeable observer.
QADIR'S principal American adviser, Col. Tom McCool, said of the recent mini-crisis, "It's a good-news story. The Iraqis performed every bit as well as we expected." A firm believer in the general's vision and abilities, McCool stresses that Qadir's a "true soldier," not a political hack, personally incorruptible. Paraphrasing one of his own U.S. Army superiors, McCool said, "The Iraqi army has to build an airplane while it's already flying. And they're doing it amazingly well." If Qadir and McCool are confident, so is Brig.-Gen. Dan Bolger, our Army officer charged with "assisting the Iraqis in forming their military." On the day of the Samarra bombing, Bolger expected trouble and headed out into the streets with the Iraqi military. Instead of widespread strife in the districts of Baghdad he visited, he found "the most average day in the world." Bolger has a distinguished career behind him as an Infantryman. But he's also written a rucksack full of superb books ranging from military history to fiction, and he's one of the most respected thinkers-in-uniform of his generation. He's the right man for his assignment. Bolger stressed that the coverage of the past few weeks - and of the Iraqi army overall - had been just plain inaccurate. Building a military from scratch and changing its culture profoundly is incredibly difficult, yet Bolger's impressed that, after some undeniable birth pains (before Bolger's tenure), the Iraqi army's development is accelerating impressively. "We bail the Iraqis out less and less," he told The Post, observing that the Iraqis want to do things by themselves - although they'll need some U.S. support for the next few years. "They want us to make a long-term commitment," he said, referring not to a heavy U.S. troop presence, but to a mutually beneficial strategic partnership. Sitting behind his desk in a Spartan office in Baghdad, Bolger exploded another myth - that the new Iraqi military's been infiltrated by militia members. "It's actually hard to penetrate the army," he said. "They're not garrisoned locally, but mixed into truly national units and deployed around the country." In the recent flare-up, sectarian issues had not been a problem in a single Irai unit. Bolger mused about the terminology Iraqi officers employ. They refer to terrorists as "terrorists," but call the native insurgents "criminals" and despise them. He stresses that the Iraqis have it right: "The criminal element is an underestimated element in the violence. A lot of these people are just predators." Bolger believes that, if we have a reasonable amount of patience, the new Iraqi military will emerge as the best in the Arab world - and a firm ally in the region.

What about ordinary Iraqis? How did they react to the bombing of the Golden Dome Mosque? Again from Iraqi the Model the day of the bombing:

“Ordinary Iraqis turned out in the streets to condemn the violence and call for unity. Huge demonstrations in many of Iraq's provinces including Samarra and Mosul where thousands of people condemned the attack.“

More from Gateway Pundit on February 24, 2006 -

Many Iraqi cities witnessed large demonstrations after Friday prayers (yesterday). These demonstrations were calling for national unity, not being pulled into civil war after attacks on Sunni mosques as retaliation to the bombing of the samara Shiite shrine. In Mousul 500 people demonstrated in Bartila (north west of the city). The demonstrations were lead by Sunni & Shiite leaders to condemn all bombings and call for a unified line and not be pulled into a sectarian war. Another demonstration started from the offices of the high council for Islamic revolution (Shiite). The demonstration was lead by Sunni and Shiite religious leaders. Banners condemned attacks on mosques, shrines and churches the banners also condemned terror also no to Saddam yes to Islam. In Hillah over 3000 demonstrated after Friday’s united prayers (Shiite & Muslim together) at the Haytaween mosque. The united prayers were lead by Sheik Mohamed Alfateh (Sunni) and Sheik Jasim Alkalebi (Shiite). The two speakers called for Muslim unity and denounced all terror activity as unIslamic and asked for keeping unity. In Al-Koot hundreds demonstrated after Friday prayers protesting the bombing of the samara shrine and the attacks on the Sunni mosques. Unified Friday prayers in Al-Koot were held at the large central mosque in the city. Speakers at the prayers call for rejecting sectarianism. In Amarah over 15,000 demonstrated after Friday prayers condemning the samara bombing and attacks on Sunni mosques. Banners read, Sunnis & Shiites are like Hassan & Hussein (referring to two grand children of the profit Mohamed), banners also read that Muslim references (Shiite religious leaders) condemn terrorism in all its forms. In Karbala Sheik Abdulmehdi Alkarblaa’i (representative of Sustain) in his Friday after prayers speech at the Hussein Shrine called for peaceful and brotherly coexistence, condemned violence and called for national unity. He added; "We know the nature of this crime and the ones before it, we also know these crimes are not of Sunni doings, but they are the deeds of the enemies of Sunnis & Shiites". In Basra over 10,000 demonstrated with banners asking to form the new government as quickly as possible. Shiite Muslims flagellate themselves during a protest rally in Mosul, 360 kilometers (225 miles) northwest of Baghdad, Iraq Friday. Religious leaders summoned Iraq's Shiites and Sunnis to joint prayer services Friday amid an extraordinary daytime curfew aimed at halting a wave of sectarian violence that has killed nearly 130 people since the bombing of one of Shiite Islam's holiest shrines. We have much more evidence of a strong national unity movement in Iraq. This is exactly the opposite of what the bombers of the samara shrine (Alzarqawi’s group is a strong suspect) wanted to achieve. This attack was supposed to plunge Iraq into sectarian mayhem and senseless massive killing. This did not happen. A few over zealous individuals attacked Sunni mosques (8-11 Sunni mosques burned and small arms fire hit about 100) and killed Sunnis (120-160). There is no excuse for these retaliations; they are exactly what the enemies of democracy and freedom in Iraq want. It is playing into their hands. Let us remember that Iraq is the size of California and has over 25 million people. Every neighborhood has at least two mosques. Considering this the retaliations are small while tragic. Demonstrations in Baghdad (in spite of the curfew) called for national unity. Combined Sunni & Shiite prayers were held all over Iraq. This is a sign of a people united not divided. A people with a common cause (defeating terrorism), a people with a common goal (self rule through democracy, rule of law & freedom). The terrorists are bringing about their eventual demise by uniting Iraqis. We witnessed this effect on 9-11. Americans were united and developed the strong resolve to fight terrorist. Let us not forget that we were attacked not so long ago.

More from an Iraqi camerman working for NBC news:

the direction of the anger has changed. A year ago everyone was angry at the Americans. Everyone thought they were responsible. But that is not the message I am getting on the street now. People know these attacks are being carried out by the extremists.

The coverage from the Democrat Media was, as it always is, SICKENING (check the Time Magazine cover at that link). When they err, they do so on the side of making the situation look as bad as they possibly can. Take the death toll from the “civil war” for example:


The Washington Post claimed 1300 were killed. However, on March 3rd 2006, the top U.S. commander in Iraq declared an end to a 10-day wave of sectarian violence that killed an estimated 350 civilians, asserting that many reports of violence were "exaggerated." Ralph Peters, reporting from Forward Operating Base Loyalty, where he's been riding with the 506th Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, reacts to the “civil war” meme that the Democrat Media pushed:

The other day, I drove another 30 miles or so on the streets and alleys of Baghdad. I'm looking for the civil war that The New York Times declared. And I just can't find it. Maybe actually being on the ground in Iraq prevents me from seeing it. Perhaps the view's clearer from Manhattan. It could be that my background as an intelligence officer didn't give me the right skills. And riding around with the U.S. Army, looking at things first-hand, is certainly a technique to which The New York Times wouldn't stoop in such an hour of crisis. Let me tell you what I saw anyway. Rolling with the "instant Infantry" gunners of the 1st Platoon of Bravo Battery, 4-320 Field Artillery, I saw children and teenagers in a Shia slum jumping up and down and cheering our troops as they drove by. Cheering our troops. All day - and it was a long day - we drove through Shia and Sunni neighborhoods. Everywhere, the reception was warm. No violence. None. And no hostility toward our troops. Iraqis went out of their way to tell us we were welcome. Instead of a civil war, something very different happened because of the bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra. The fanatic attempt to stir up Sunni-vs.-Shia strife, and the subsequent spate of violent attacks, caused popular support for the U.S. presence to spike upward. Think Abu Musab al-Zarqawi intended that? In place of the civil war that elements in our media declared, I saw full streets, open shops, traffic jams, donkey carts, Muslim holiday flags - and children everywhere, waving as our Humvees passed. Even the clouds of dust we stirred up didn't deter them. And the presence of children in the streets is the best possible indicator of a low threat level. Southeast Baghdad, at least, was happy to see our troops. And we didn't just drive past them. First Lt. Clenn Frost, the platoon leader, took every opportunity to dismount and mingle with the people. Women brought their children out of their compound gates to say hello. A local sheik spontaneously invited us into his garden for colas and sesame biscuits. It wasn't the Age of Aquarius. The people had serious concerns. And security was No. 1. They wanted the Americans to crack down harder on the foreign terrorists and to disarm the local militias. Iraqis don't like and don't support the militias, Shia or Sunni, which are nothing more than armed gangs. Help's on the way, if slowly. The Iraqi Army has confounded its Western critics, performing extremely well last week. And the people trust their new army to an encouraging degree. The Iraqi police aren't all the way there yet, and the population doesn't yet have much confidence in them. But all of this takes time. And even the police are making progress. We took a team of them with us so they could train beside our troops. We visited a Public Order Battalion - a gendarmerie outfit - that reeked of sloth and carelessness. But the regular Iraqi Police outfit down the road proved surprisingly enthusiastic and professional. It's just an uneven, difficult, frustrating process.
So why were we told that Iraq was irreversibly in the throes of civil war when it wasn't remotely true? I think the answers are straightforward. First, of course, some parties in the West are anxious to believe the worst about Iraq. They've staked their reputations on Iraq's failure. But there's no way we can let irresponsible journalists off the hook - or their parent organizations. And the Iraqi stringers have cracked the code: The Americans don't pay for good news. So they exaggerate the bad. And some of them have agendas of their own. A few days ago, a wild claim that the Baghdad morgue held 1,300 bodies was treated as Gospel truth. Yet Iraqis exaggerate madly and often have partisan interests. Did any Western reporter go to that morgue and count the bodies - a rough count would have done it - before telling the world the news? I doubt it. If reporters really care, it's easy to get out on the streets of Baghdad. The 506th Infantry Regiment - and other great military units - will take journalists on their patrols virtually anywhere in the city. Our troops are great to work with. I'm just afraid that some of our journalists don't want to know the truth anymore. For me, though, memories of Baghdad will be the cannoneers of the 1st Platoon walking the dusty, reeking alleys of Baghdad. I'll recall 1st Lt. Frost conducting diplomacy with the locals and leading his men through a date-palm grove in a search for insurgent mortar sites. I'll remember that lieutenant investigating the murder of a Sunni mullah during last week's disturbances, cracking down on black-marketers, checking up on sewer construction, reassuring citizens - and generally doing the job of a lieutenant-colonel in peacetime. Oh, and I'll remember those "radical Shias" cheering our patrol as we passed by.

And then there’s the stuff the Democrat Media would rather not report:

Earlier in February the Karabla tribe in al-Anbar province, an al Qaeda hotbed, announced they would take up arms against insurgents from abroad. In the al-Anbar capital of Ramadi, once a Zarqawi stronghold, open warfare has erupted between the local insurgent groups and the foreign fighters, particularly after the assassination of respected local tribal leader Sheikh Naser Abdul Karim al-Miklif. And recently eight major western Iraqi tribal chiefs met with General George Casey and Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari to discuss ways to work together to stabilize the province. This is a welcome and long overdue recognition of the decisive role Sunni tribal leaders must play in resolving the insurgency.

Some large Sunni tribes in have declared war on al Qaeda. The resistance, they say, should be an Iraqi-only affair. "All those who offer shelter to terrorists will be treated like terrorists," they add. Tell me again why the media thinks Zarqawi is making progress?

March 9th, 2006 - Residents reported curious declarations hanging from mosque walls and market stalls recently in Ramadi, the Sunni Muslim insurgent stronghold west of Baghdad. The fliers said Iraqi militants had turned on and were killing foreign al-Qaida fighters, their one-time allies. A local tribal leader and Iraq's Defense Ministry have said followers of Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, have begun fleeing Anbar province and Ramadi, its capital, to cities and mountain ranges near the Iranian border. Al-Jadaan, the Anbar tribal leader, looked confidently to the future and — if his prediction comes true — what likely will be a hero's role in the eyes of the U.S. military. "Under my leadership and that of our brothers in other tribes, we are getting close to the shelter of this terrorist," al-Jadaan said of al-Zarqawi. "We will capture him soon."

Micro to Macro – This whole “civil war” tripe being pushed by the MSM helps fuel the moral of Abu Zarqawi and al Qaeda in Iraq. They are the ones that want a civil war. Not the Iraqi people. Not the Iraqi leadership. And this entire “mini-crisis” has once again exposed the Democrat Media’s play-book on Iraq. Inflate the bad news, suppress the good news, and embolden the enemies of freedom and democracy at the same time that America’s finest are giving their lives and shedding blood to ensure our success. To end this on a positive note. The parallels between the “civil war” that wasn’t and the overall view of our mission in Iraq are similar in this respect as well – The enemies of freedom/the terrorist leftist nexus FAILED to incite a civil war in Iraq. They will likewise FAIL at destroying the Constitutional Democracy we’ve sacrificed soo much to create. A fact Abu Zarqawi has recognized, but Democrats and their Media refuse to. Their lust for power will be satiated at any cost.

Can the NYT be indicted for accessory to murder?

Wafa Sultan is being hunted by Islamic terrorists, so naturally the New York Times draws a roadmap to her house, and basically tells the world where her husband works, and where her three kids go to school. You may recall that these are the same people who put Abu Grahib photos on their front page and kept the story there, above the fold, for three months straight, and reported on the Danish cartoons without publishing the cartoons saying to do so "could incite violence." If Mrs. Sultan or any of her family die, will the NYT editors be tried as accessories to murder? If not, then why not?

Break out the bubbly

Slobberdan Theneedledick Slobodan Milosevic has passed on.

My only gripe is that the UN dicked around for so long that he was never convicted of his crimes. But then, Milosevic's trial was the perfect example of why the UN shouldn't be trusted with any task harder than picking their noses.

Surgery results

The Raging Mrs came through just fine. In the words of her doctor, "Everything was the way I said it was, was where is was supposed to be, and everything happened the way it was supposed to happen." So that's good. Now it's a matter of keeping her from doing anything stupid while she heals.

That's harder than it sounds, when you have a wife who's used to being able to do anything short of benchpressing a car. But we'll make it happen.

Couple of things I've been mulling over while I've been here - The Dubai Ports World deal. All the congresscritters are up in arms, and now the deal has been blocked. But where were the congresscritters when a state owned company from CHINA took over the Long Beach port?

Hmmmmmmm......

(crickets chirping)

That's what I thought. The DP World Port Snort is nothing but political grandstanding during an election year, and the damage from our congresscritters being dumbassed fucksticks is going to be seen down the road. Instead of well thought out debate, we got hysterical shrieking from both sides of the isles. The congresscritters have shown once again that they aren't worth a squirt of piss in the wind.

Jay Bennish - the Colorado teacher who went on a forty-minute unhinged, loonyville, Leftard rant in a classroom. While he was supposed to be teaching.

He was suspended while the school district tried to cover their ass see if he broke any rules. It seems that everything is peachy, because he just got reinstated. I guess once the district found out that they couldn't lose any money by keeping him, they decided that having a complete and total leftist nutjob teaching in a school, passing out wildly biased partisan bullshit as "facts", and torturing his students with unhinged, unintelligent rants about how Bush is Hitler and America is the worst country in the world is just peachy keen!

What a crock of shit.

Bennish is just another example of an over-privileged loser indoctrinated by other over-privileged losers, who have never had to work a real job for one fucking day of their lives, who run around chanting "Down with the man! Stop the oppression!" when they've never come close to actually SEEING the man, and who would run from trying to stop REAL oppression just as fast as their little greasy feet could take them. Notice how the worthless little asscannons practically give people like Mao and Che and Castro a tongue-bath, and those are some of the people with the worst human rights records in the world! But to a brain-dead fucktard like a liberal, they're just hunky dory, man! It's AMERICA that's the problem, man! Yeah, man! Pass the dope, man!

Fuck it. Just another reason why school vouchers should be implemented IMMEDIATELY!

GAO. That's all for now. I'll post later when I can.

The Washington Post is cutting jobs...

...partly due to the high costs [of] covering the Iraq war.

Editor and Publisher

What's wrong with this picture?

Welcome to Enceladus (EN sell odd us). It's a 300 mile diameter moon orbiting Saturn and the brightest planetary body in the solar system. That's because it is completely covered with snow. And not just some cruddy Vermont refreeze. This is fresh, clean, highly reflective powder.

Today the media, new and old, was flooded with headlines from JPL announcing that Cassini had discovered "Potential Liquid Water" on Enceladus. They had a breathless podcast. Drudge linked it. Rush chatted it up. Glenny thought it was "very cool." Although I was exposed to a number of different types of water as a chemist (heavy-, distilled-, waste-, gaseous-, etc.), I never discovered any potential-water. But that's not the worst of it.

You see, the image above was made in 1982 by Voyager 2. That's 24 year old news. At that time, NASA knew that Enceladus was spewing snow. They knew from the huge linear fissures that it was geologically active. They knew that another moon named Dione perturbed its orbit, subjecting it to tidal movement. They knew these tides were causing elastic deformation in the ice pack. And internal heating. And they figured it was probably melting some of that ice.

So where's the news? It's right here.

In the spring of 2008, scientists will get another chance to look at Enceladus when Cassini flies within 350 kilometers (approximately 220 miles), but much work remains after Cassini's four-year prime mission is over.

Enceladus has just become an anti-discovery, welfare entitlement for an army of aeronautical engineers, planetary scientists, and < hirp > astro-biologists. This was a great mission, but it's time to move on before they start making the Shuttle Program look good.

Blog Post of the Day

Blaming the Media, by the Opinionated Bastard who compares media coverage of the Rodney King trial to coverage of recent events in Iraq.

There are moral consequences to standing at the sidelines as well as moral cost of taking action.

There are also moral consequences to cheerleading violence. I see the media cheerleading failure, cheerleading terrorism, and cheerleading civil war. It disgusts me.

It disgusts me, too. Why can't they just give me the news - tell me what's going on without trying to tell me what to think? Why do they feel the need to make shit up? Is there not enough happening in the world?

Best Editorial: Ben Stein's "Missed Tributes."

The brave guy in Hollywood will be the one who says that this is a fabulously great country where we treat gays, blacks, and everyone else as equal. The courageous writer in Hollywood will be the one who says the oil companies do their best in a very hostile world to bring us energy cheaply and efficiently and with a minimum of corruption. The producer who really has guts will be the one who says that Wall Street, despite its flaws, has done the best job of democratizing wealth ever in the history of mankind.

No doubt the men and women who came to the Oscars in gowns that cost more than an Army Sergeant makes in a year, in limousines with champagne in the back seat, think they are working class heroes to attack America — which has made it all possible for them. They are not. They would be heroes if they said that Moslem extremists are the worst threat to human decency since Hitler and Stalin. But someone might yell at them or even attack them with a knife if they said that, so they never will.

San Antonio

ain't too bad a place. The first thing I noticed is the smell. I don't know if it's mesquite or what, but it's this fresh, kinda pine scent. It's rather nice.

The Raging Mrs. is going under the knife on Friday. Normally, this would scare the shit out of both of us, but after two months of her captivity in a wheelchair, it was more of a relief than anything else. If there's anyone out there who prays, could you spare a few seconds for my wife? I have all faith in the doctor, but there is a reason why doctors practice medicine.

One other thing - go check out this letter by a man named Jim March. It is one of the best anti-guncontrol letters I've read in a while. Well stated, articulate, and backed up by tons of fact filled links. I found it while reading Random Nuclear Strikes.

That's it for now. By the way, I've finally joined the modern age, and purchaced a laptop computer with WiFi capabilities. It's not the fastest, most shiniest piece of electronic equipment you've ever seen, but it's the best computer I've ever owned, so I'm not complaining. And the wife will be thrilled to have all of my "crap" (as she calls it) off the home computer. Graphics, army crap and all that. She'll have that computer to herself, and she's singing Hallelujia.

I'll keep you all updated. I'll hopefully be meeting with a few people from this area, including a few bloggers you might know. If I meet people, I'll do my best to post pictures.

Oh, that's another thing that came under the "Let's make the wife feel better and buy her something" fund. A digital camera. Kodak Easyshare or something like that. She picked it out, and it's HER camera. I get a dirty look from her if I even glance in the camera's direction. Ah well, I have all my fancy gizmos, she deserves her own. But since we have it here, I may just be able to get a few pictures from it.

If she doesn't bite my fingers off for touching it.

"sneaky stupid crazy like a fox bushmchitler roadrunner"

Scintillating BDS stuff here.

Haw x 2

The Rachel Corrie Pancake Breakfast

Haw

IMAO: please pray for george clooney

On The Road Again

The Raging Mrs. and I are headed out today. We'll be gone for about a week. I've emailed the people who emailed me, so hopefully I'll have a chance to meet a couple of folks.

I may be able to post on the road, I may not. We'll find out. If not, I'll see ya all next week.

One more time...

For those who still don't get it:

Saddam had WMD's.

Inconveniently for critics of the war, Saddam made tapes in his version of the Oval Office. These tapes landed in the hands of American intelligence and were recently aired publicly.

The first 12 hours of the tapes — there are hundreds more waiting to be translated — are damning, to say the least. They show conclusively that Bush didn't lie when he cited Saddam's WMD plans as one of the big reasons for taking the dictator out.

Nobody disputes the tapes' authenticity. On them, Saddam talks openly of programs involving biological, chemical and, yes, nuclear weapons.

War foes have long asserted that Saddam halted his WMD programs in the wake of his defeat in the first Gulf War in 1991. Saddam's abandonment of WMD programs was confirmed by subsequent U.N. inspections.

Again, not true. In a tape dating to April 1995, Saddam and several aides discuss the fact that U.N. inspectors had found traces of Iraq's biological weapons program. On the tape, Hussein Kamel, Saddam's son-in-law, is heard gloating about fooling the inspectors.

"We did not reveal all that we have," he says. "Not the type of weapons, not the volume of the materials we imported, not the volume of the production we told them about, not the volume of use. None of this was correct."

There's more. Indeed, as late as 2000, Saddam can be heard in his office talking with Iraqi scientists about his ongoing plans to build a nuclear device. At one point, he discusses Iraq's plasma uranium program — something that was missed entirely by U.N. weapons inspectors combing Iraq for WMD.

This is particularly troubling, since it indicates an active, ongoing attempt by Saddam to build an Iraqi nuclear bomb.

The Left's big lie, universally accepted by people who hate Bush so badly that they'll do anything to remove, has been proven time and time again to be nothing but the drug fueled delusions of frothing lunatics. AND YET THEY KEEP REPEATING IT!

The Left is performing the communist tactic perfectly - keep repeating a lie until people believe it.

Perhaps most chillingly, the tapes record Iraq Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz talking about how easy it would be to set off a WMD in Washington. The comments come shortly after Saddam muses about using "proxies" in a terror attack.

But gosh, according to the Leftist shitstains, Saddam didn't have any connections whatsoever to terrorism! Could it be that American liberals are nothing but a bunch of soiled-diaper whining crapbuckets? I think so!

Make sure to pass this information far and wide, because you can bet your bottom dollar that the HasBeen Media isn't going to do it. Anything that might help President Bush is put on hold, because the HasBeen Media is nothing more than puppets and lapdogs to the Democrats (with a few exceptions, but the exceptions prove the rule). Tim's post "You're Being Lied To" was spot on, but I would add one caveat. When the media isn't flat out lying to you, it's simply withholding information that would hurt it's political agenda.

Just think.... two decades ago, they would have gotten away with their treachery.

Found via the Baron.

Disgusting

How many of you out there have worked for 24-48 hours straight?

I'm sure there's a lot of you. And you military folks? I know for damn sure you've had two-three days at a stretch where sleep was just a distant notion, a fantasy that you might see "later on".

But you stayed awake, didn't you? Yep, you damn sure did. Even if your job was simply pumping fuel into Humvee's, you stayed awake by any means. Coffee, caffine gum, smoking, dipping, jabbing a pin into your arm, you kept your eyeballs open and did your job to the best of your ability.

Somebody better tell her that people better than her are able to stay awake during much less important jobs.

The subject matter was extremely technical, and near the end of the argument Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dozed in her chair. Justices David Souter and Samuel Alito, who flank the 72-year-old, looked at her but did not give her a nudge.

I wonder if the thought of a Supreme Court that doesn't allow Leftists to re-write the Constitution to fit their demands keeps her up at night. She needs to retire, not just because of this, but because she's an embarassment to everything the Constitution is.

Ruth? Time to go.

General George Patton

I was doing some reading the other day, and I found a few quotes by General George Patton. I have one of those quotes on my business cards:

"War is an Art, and as such is not susceptible of explanation by fixed formula."

I think we need to tatoo that quote onto the foreheads of the various Leftists who screech and gibber about the military which they know nothing about. But then, I'm also in favor of branding most of the Democrats in Congress with "Worthless Commie Traitor Fuckstick" somewhere visible, like say, across their mouth. Or on the top of their pointy little tin-foil covered heads.

Anyway, the reason I bring this up is because as I was reading about Patton, a very sad thought occured to me. If Patton were in the Army today, there's a very good chance he'd be Court Martialed for offending some person or group. Patton didn't mince words very often. He was a straight forward, full speed, ifyoudon'tlikeitthentoofuckingbadyoucanlicktheshitoffofmybootsofficer, and in my not-so-humble opinion, we need more of those people in the Army.

Hell, we need more of those people in America. Sad fact is, people like that are few and far between. These days, the Democrats try to identify people like Patton, and either make them a criminal or put them on Ritalin at an early age.

Still, we could use a Patton right about now.

Yeah yeah yeah....

I know I haven't posted lately. Whaddyagonnado? Cancel your subscription? Stop paying me?

In all seriousness, I'm pretty much maxed out between working, taking care of the wife, making sure the trip to San Antonio actually happens, and trying to do housework. My free time right now consists mostly of me sitting on the couch with my eyes glazed over, a half-finished drink dangling from my limp hand. The only time I am actually alone is when I go running.

No, scratch that - I have the dog with me.

So anyways, I just wanted to let people know that I was actually alive. As in, breathing with minor brain function. A couple of points I feel like making, however -

The media brought out a months old video of a phone conference involving President Bush and members of different states and federal agencies right before Hurricane Katrina. While the media wants to hang Bush and Micheal Chertoff (did I spell that right?), the one thing that has me throwing things at my TV is this simple fact:

Nowhere, and I mean NOWHERE, does anyone raise the question of JUST WHAT THE FUCK THE STATE OF LOUISIANA WAS DOING!!! It's all "Blame Bush", all the damn time! Why the hell the Govenor of Louisiana wasn't hung by her fucking toenails over her COMPLETE BUNGLING of the situation, I'll never know! And the mayor? Don't get me started! Good 'ol Ray "Chocolate" Nagin could have had half the city evacuated with the busses that were LEFT SITTING IN THEIR MOTORPOOLS WHILE HE CRIED ABOUT HOW LITTLE THE FEDS WERE DOING!

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!

I want to see Nagin, and the Govenor, and the various representatives of that state called onto the fucking carpet to explain just why their handling of the whole situation was so damned incompetant and worthless! I want to see just ONE FUCKING MEMBER OF THE KOOL-AID GUZZLING MEDIA toss a question their way! JUST FUCKING ONCE! PLEASE GOD, WOULD THAT BE SO FUCKING HARD? I guess when you're nothing more than some fucking tool with the Democrat Party arm shoved up your ass to it's elbow, you don't bother to ask why the people in charge of the State of Louisiana couldn't manage their way out of a paper bag. I guess when you're nothing more than a mindless syncophant you don't bother asking hard questions of the people who tell you how to think.

Maybe one day the media will actually report the news instead of some biased, convaluted pile of propaganda.

Hell, maybe one day the media will stand up for the free speech that they claim to support and print the cartoons of Muhammad that are currently raising a fuss with the perpetually preturbed.

Maybe one day the Democrats will actually be decent Americans, rather than a group of anti-American "intellectual" fucksticks who want to control the country and tell people what to do with their lives.

Maybe one day the Republicans will actually be conservative again.

And maybe one day I'll wake up with a gazillion dollars in my bank account.

I don't see any of the above happening any time soon.

Because You Can't Control Your Sexual Behavior

South Dakota is banning abortion. I applaud them. Predictably, leftists bray that women will be "forced" into ripping the lives they create out of their bodies with coat hangers. But one feminist group has provided a How-To Guide for murdering your unborn baby. The goal is to provide a more clinical approach to the ghoulish act. Ya know, just like when you engage in commerce with an individual who's business it is to kill the unborn. They provide a nice cozy hot-chocolate and blankets-right-out-of-the-dryer experience for self-centered irresponsible women who live at the mercy of their sexual impulses and don't believe in using space age conception control devices like "condoms" or putting a child up for adoption. Check this, and remember, this is par for the course in an abortion:

"Most pieces of fetal material will come out with a simple tug on the forceps (again, don't be too afraid to use force and put a bit of muscle into it). However, at 13-14 weeks the fetal head may be slightly big to bring out. Pinch it with the forceps and take it out in pieces, as well."

Jeffrey Dahmer might not find that utterly ghastly. What ever happened to that guy? Must have missed his calling.

"When you feel the curettage and removal is complete, make sure you examine the fetal material you have already extracted. If you're missing anything obvious -- for instance, a head -- make sure to find and remove it."

This is soooooo much better than controlling your sexual impulses and practicing responsible sexual behavior. Sooooo much better than giving birth to a live human baby and putting it up for adoption, or *gasp* taking care of him or her yourself! Can't have that!

Look who's in the news

Maher and Rooks said that Conyers tasked staffers in his district office with taking care of his two young boys, John and Carl.

"If he asked you to do something, you knew you had to do it," said Rooks, 54, who administers a homeless shelter in Detroit.

She told The Hill that she tutored "Little John," as Conyers’s elder son is known, when he was a student at the Cranbrook School, a private school in Bloomfield Hills. The tutoring took place during normal working hours, and she was not given additional compensation for the work, nor was she reimbursed for out-of-pocket expenses.

Rooks said when the son received low grades, Conyers told her, "Well, Rooks, you can add tutoring to your list of stuff to do."

She added that a staffer would pick the son up from school, take him to the office, fix him a snack and help him with his homework.

John Conyers' son goes to a private school.

Is it okay to say "Quel suprise" in consecutive posts?

Former Conyers aides press ethics complaints

Guess who's lying

"You are being lied to."

Quel suprise.

I wonder....

If we built a 20-foot wall all the way around San Francisco and closed it off completely, do you think many people in America would give a shit?

Because every time I hear about that city, it seems more and more like a good idea.

Scored 20 In 4 Minutes

Perhaps the most incredible video you will ever see.

Moonbats Brigade....

...announces plan to storm White House.

Sun-Tzu, they're not.

Five minutes of CNN is all I can take

I don't know why the tv channel was on CNN but it was. I watched it for maybe five minutes while ironing a shirt a few minutes ago. Cafferty was on and he had some guy named Dean Baker, an "economic policy expert" from, according to Cafferty, a Washington DC "thinktank." The point of the report was how awful our healthcare system is, how we're paying too much, etc. So this Baker guy blasts the revamped Medicare program and calls for a health care "overhaul." Basically, this "expert" was on CNN to promote socialized healthcare; he kept saying how much better things are in other countries. Baker said that people in other countries, like Canada (his example), countries with socialized medicine, "live longer than we do" here in the US. He repeated this "fact" at least five times in the short segment before I'd had enough, found the remote and changed the channel. You see, this guy was lying his ass off as anyone who bothers to check can plainly see.

And I can't stand being lied to. The fact is, people in countries with socialized medicine are not living longer than those in the U.S. Period. CNN put Dean Baker on so he would say what they wanted him to say. The question I have is, can CNN not afford better propaganda?

al-Gore TV....

...is off to a rip-roaring start.

Car Bombers Foiled at Saudi Oil Site

This is Iran's target.

The world's Achilles Heel is in Saudi Arabia, and it is called Abqaiq. All Iran need do is point a nuke at it and the world economy goes into a tailspin.

More here.

Got Parodies?

Send 'em to me!



SlimyBill@hotmail.com

I roared with laughter....

...when I saw this...



...at the .:DANEgerus Weblog:.

Tremendous. Follow the links to see other illustrations. It's kinda cool that the Democrats are squirrels and the Republicans (apparently) are rich people, except when they are huge elephants about to trample homeless men. And the rich Republican smokes a cigar.

Also, check out the graduate's robe above.

Picking sides

Officials in Iraq are trying their best to not have a civil war on their hands following the bombing of the 1,200-year-old Askariya shrine.

I might get flamed for this, but at this point in history, I'm wondering if it would be so horrible for people to pick up guns and choose their sides.

The Shiites, while not exactly a happy-go-lucky bunch, seem to be the reasonable group in this whole operation. The Sunnis on the other hand seem to be the group that wants to blow up children and anything considered valuable by their enemies. And let's face it, with Iranian backing the Sunnis have managed to do more damage to Iraqis than anyone else.

So what would be wrong with the Shiites finally saying "enough"? If the Sunnis blew up the church in my hometown, you could be damn sure that there would be a whole lot of people going hunting without a permit, if you catch my drift. What's wrong with one side, who has suffered more under the Sunnis than anyone can possibly imagine, finally saying "That's it, you're done." and picking up their guns? Could anyone blame them?

More to the point, perhaps a civil war is what's needed if there's going to be peace in the Middle East. It's a shitty thing to say, but I happen to think it's true. You can't have peace when one side of the conflict refuses to stop killing people. You can't have peace when one group of people is willing to detonate bombs in holy sites. You can't have peace when one group of people attacks innocent children, police stations, targets civilians for death, destroys infrastructure, and refuses to even acknowledge the possibility of co-existance.

Given that situation, telling people not to fight back seems a bit rediculous to me. When someone is shooting at you, do you cry out "Hey, let's just be friends!" or do you pick up your gun and return fire? I don't know about you, but I'd be putting some high velocity diplomacy into whoever was shooting at me. I think that there might be more good that comes of of a civil war than the conditions in Iraq right now. And when the Sunnis are well and truly defeated, maybe the country can finally get fully on their feet.

As much as the world says they want peace, it's only OUR side that really wants it. That's not the way peace happens. You don't have peace by just refusing to fight. You have peace when the people who want to kill you are either dead, or unable to do anything to you. This is a battle that has been brewing for years. I say we let the two side settle their differences, and give support to our guys.

Call me heartless if you want, but I'd like to think that I'm also realistic.

I've been kinda quiet

About the whole Port Management Deal. I guess this was an issue that I didn't want to go off half-cocked on. But my understanding of the whole thing is this:

A company that handles loading and unloading of the ports has been sold to another company, who just happens to be owned by the UAE. Now, from what I understand it's only the cargo handling that this company oversees, correct?

So here's what I'm thinking; what's the big deal?

This company has no say on what comes into the port. This company has no say on what's allowed or not allowed on a ship. This company isn't going to bring people from overseas to work in our ports. This company still has to operate under US rules and regulations. This company does not have a single thing to do with security in the six ports it would operate in.

Given the above facts, I really can't see what all the hullabaloo is about. Now, if people want to hold off for a while to make sure that the above facts are true, be my guest. But the hysterical shouts from both sides of how Bush and Co. are selling out our national security seem to be a bit over the top.

However on the other hand, Jimmah "Peanut" Carter is in favor of the deal, which makes me want to run away from it as fast as possible. So I'm in a bit of a quandry here.......

Michelle Malkin has a huge post about the entire deal, and brings up the fact that since this company would be operating in our ports, they would have sensitive information about how we run them. This is indeed a concern, and one that needs to be addressed before we allow any company to come into our ports. However, given the unreliability of many countries that we're supposedly allies with, (and the complete reliability of our own CIA to be unreliable) if we place the condition that only countries friendly to us and able to keep secrets about our port security plans are allowed to run the ports, that narrows the countries down to Great Britain, Australia, Poland, and ourselves.

Seriously, do you want fwance, Russia, or Germany running our ports? Canada has turned a corner, but I still remember the sheer amount of anti-Americanism that came from up North before their last election. Other than the countries I've named, who's left?

Honestly, I don't understand why an American company can't be found to run American ports, but since none of them seem to be stepping up and saying "Hey, we'll do it!" then we're stuck with the people we have. Now if you want to change the rules to say that only the security forces and US Customs are allowed to know our emergency and security plans, I'd be all for it. But until someone can come up with a viable alternative to port management, let's all keep our tones down. The things I've seen said over the past week about this deal have me scratching my head.

Anyways, go read Mrs. Malkin's post, since she's got opinions from just about everywhere. But come back and tell me if you think I'm wrong in wondering what the big deal is about.

al Reuters stikes again

Check out this "news" item:

ZURICH (Reuters) - Employers are having difficulty finding the right people to fill jobs despite high unemployment in Europe and the United States...

I thought unemployment in the U.S. was at a five-year low? It's at 4.7% last I heard. Is 4.7% now considered "high unemployment"?

I may have to eat some crow

You may remember my recent post about the University of Washington, who rejected a proposal to build a memorial to Pappy Boyington, the WWII Medal of Honor winner. I had some pretty harsh words for the student body of UW.

Now, IU believe that most of what I said was right on cue, but Analog Kid brought this to my attention.

A Resolution in Support of the Right of Military Recruiters to be Present on Campus

WHEREAS the military provides meaningful career opportunities for many students; and,

WHEREAS the military is also the defender of our freedoms and way of life; and,

WHEREAS at the Seattle Central Community College campus military recruiters were attacked by protesters last year; and,

WHEREAS we want to make sure this kind of intolerance does not happen on our campus, therefore

BE IT RESOLVED BY THE ASSOCIATED STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON:

THAT we support military recruiters’ right to be on our campus, and

THAT we support ROTC’s continued right to be present on campus, and

THAT we further support and respect the fine men and women who serve our country.

As far as I'm concerned, the majority of students at the UW are a bunch of wet-diaper commie pinko asscannons, but the student senator who wrote that has balls of solid brass. One, anyone who supports our troops is good in my book. Two, doing this at the UW takes guts. Serious guts. Three, even if this resolution doesn't pass, the sheer "Take your Leftism and shove it up your ass" attitude on display needs to be applauded far and wide.

There might be hope for the UW yet. A small, almost non-existant sliver, but a sliver nonetheless.

Controversy, Crap, & Confusion!

Mwuhahahaaaa.

Captain's Quarters

Voiding the port deal

Republicans are blowing their majority in many ways, but I still like the fact that they'll go head to head when warranted. It looks like infighting and it looks like it weakens the "bloc", but it sure beats the echo chamber that is the Democrats these days.

White House done wrong? GET ON 'EM!

Get it right, then move on.

Ehrlich seeks to delay Arab deal on port

Also, it opposition to an Arab company "racial profiling"? Is Hillary profiling?

Be still my heart.....

I've found a blog of Heinlein quotes!

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

HA! I love it!

Also, a blog devoted to Robern Heinlein. Yes, I realize that by posting this I'll confirm my existance as a SciFi geek, but I don't care. At least I go for the classic stuff and don't babble on about whatever latest SciFi TV show is on.

Come to think about it, that might be because I don't watch much TV. Hmmmmmm.....

In case you're missing it

DANEgerus has been on a roll.

Russia possibly helped Saddam move WMD's?

May take? They're in Syria. But I wouldn't put anything past anyone who was on Saddam's "Oil for Food" bribery list, and the CIA ain't worth spit in the wind right now.

Cartoon Stupidfatah continues. Yep, it's still continuing. This has gone far past any relation to protecting free speech in my opinion. It's now about radical mooselimbs forcing their religion on the free countries of the West. And what confuses me is how many of those free countries are simply capitulating. Were I the editor of a newspaper, I would republish all twelve pictures on a daily basis until the riots stopped. Hell, I'd have a contest to see what my readers actually thought about the riots. C'mon people, send me your pictures! Any artists out there?

Hamas upset because Israel won't pay for it's own genocide. As I said before, when the paleswinians elected a group of camel-fucking terrorist sand fleas to represent them, they removed our obligation to treat them seriously. We can now recognize them as the terrorists they are.

Bonfire of the Inanities. With Bush-hating Leftists in full on frothing moonbat mode, their attack on Dick Cheney comes crashing down when Cheney's friend strolls out of the hospital wearing a three piece suit and gives a press conference. You think the HasBeen Media will actually report on news around the world now?

Nah. Not while it might help President Bush.

Numbskull Files

Alec Baldwin

For me, but not for Thee

OK, so you're a Leftist, and you have a problem: In the marketplace of ideas, your ideas are losing. Even worse, your political opponents are coming out with TV ads that are about to shatter many of your carefully crafted propaganda items to dust. So what do you do?

Well, if you're a Leftist, then you do what comes naturally to the Left. You prevent your opponents from speaking. Lie, smear, and attack.

The real surprise here is not that the Left wants to prevent free speech, the surprise is that anyone is surprised by their actions.

Nobody prevents free speech like a Leftist. Stalin, Chairman Mao, Castro, and Chavez are the perfect examples of the Leftist ideology allowed to run amok.

Why I call Liberals "Dain Bramaged"

aka, "Why Democrats keep losing elections".

I was clearing out the guestbook (drug spammers who are also most likely liberals, as I have yet to see any other group spend so much time doing something so worthless) and I came across the following entry:

IP Address: 69.66.23.153
Name: U r a fool to look here (sheepur.net)
Home Page: wakeup.net
Date: Fri Feb 17 21:17:36 2006
Referred By:
Comments:

get real

Can't you feel the damaged brain-waves just rolling off? I'm thinking it's some pimply faced indoctrinated idiot, most likely in college, studying "Wymen's underwater basket weaving" or some crap like that.

Hell, when I had my dickless little trolls running around pretending to be me and shitting on websites, the dumbfucks STILL couldn't spell correctly or use proper punctuation. Far be it for me to correct anyone's spelling on a daily basis, seeing as how I'm not the greatest at hitting "spellcheck" if you catch my drift, but the trolls were at a 5th grade writing level.

If that.

Nice to see they haven't improved at all.

Anyways, here's me hitting the delete button. *click* Time for a beer.

Ha ha

Click the pic for more.

On the Road Again

I'm going to be heading to San Antonio, most likely in the next week. If you're in that area and wouldn't mind having a beer with some wierd blogger, drop me a line. Just click on my name for the email.

Other than that, life is busy as hell. Can't blog much now, but I'll post when I can.

Oh yes....

...it a clash of civilizations.

Canada to Scrap Long Gun Registry

Alphecca: New Canadian PM to Scrap Long Gun Registry

How Dare Cheney Speak Only To FOX!

Read:

Cheney could have really kept the American public in the dark by going on Hardball.

BAM!

The RCP Blog: How Dare Cheney Speak Only To FOX!: "Cheney could have really kept the American public in the dark by going on Hardball."

Google plugs its holes

The intriguing thing is that Googling "Tiananmen Square" at Google.com and Google.cn have yielded differing results since Google did their deal with the People's Republic. But there used to be a hole where if one misspelled "Tiananmen" (though I reckon its spelling is unclear) dreadfully, one would get solid results.

Not any more.

Is Google the new Thought Police?

They'll censor web searches in China, they'll censor US blogs for political content, and now they censor videos with political or religious content - but they still won't help us catch pedophiles and child pornographers. And they wonder why their stock is in a nosedive?

About the time their stock price started falling, Google changed their censorship policy and tried to hide that fact.

Just for fun, try typing in “tienneman square” in regular google - you get this with 1,620,000 results - which is about 200,000 less than a couple weeks ago by the way - then go to http://www.google.cn/ and try the same thing. You get this - with about 10,000 results. Funny. I thought Tienneman square was in China. What was I thinking?

Google censors the content of their searches for the government of China, but won’t help catch pedophiles, though Yahoo and Microsoft are helping. Why? Are they trying to build up their pedophile customer base?

I came across the video linked here at Google Video and watched it with no problem a couple weeks ago. Offensive? Maybe to a Muslim, but all it is is Muslim extremists' words put to music really. Did they remove the video because it offends Muslims or because it is persuasive? I can find tons of Google videos that are offensive to Christians, like this one. So it does not appear that Google is being sensitive to religion in general, just to Islam. Since when does Google care about religion, anyway? (To be fair, it should be noted that Google Video hosts anti-Palestinian videos as well as anti-Israeli. Check out the new Michael Jackson tune in that last link. (Yes, I know the numbers are bogus.))

Anyway, I went to see that "It's In the Koran" video again and it was censored. It was no longer there. It was here, and now it is not.

This blog, hosted by Google (as is the one you are looking at now), has a content warning. Why? There are many pornographic blogs hosted by Google with no such content warning. Why does google censor political content but not pornography? There are thousands of blogs far more offensive or hateful than this one that have no such content warning.

Google Inc. no longer believes in free speech apparently. Why would they want to be thought police? That's just bad business, especially for a company at the center of worldwide information aggregation, storage and distribution. I don’t think the recent nosedive in Google’s stock price is just a coincidence.

UPDATE: These people get it:

Eagle Bridge, NY — February 16, 2006 — W Ketchup announced today that it has cancelled all advertising with Google, including both search engine ads and content network ads. The company took this step to protest Google’s agreement to help the Communist regime in China suppress liberty and free expression in that country.

Summing up the situation, Frida Ghitis in the Boston Globe wrote: “Google knows more about us than the FBI or the CIA or the NSA or any spy agency of any government. When a company that holds digital dossiers on millions of people decides profits are more important than principles, we are all at risk.”

I'm gonna go buy me some ketchup.

Great site linked here

NewsBusters.org: HBO's Gumbel: Lack of Blacks Makes Olympics 'Look Like a GOP Convention'.

For some reason that makes me laugh.

Yo, Mark....

Tell me how you REALLY feel why doncha?

Now granted, I'm in complete agreement with you, but I think you're holding back just a wee bit. You gotta let it flow, man!

Enough

The press in this country have debased themselves to the point that they are quite honestly becoming nothing more than a joke, a running gag line. The Communist News Network is STILL running photos of Abu Ghraib, years after the fact, and long after the people responsible for those photos HAVE BEEN SENT TO JAIL. But the clueless fucksticks at CNN refuse to show this picture:



Or any of the other eleven pictures currently outraging the perpetually outraged terrorists in the Middle East.

I don't have to ask who's side they're on. They let me know on a daily basis. This so called "news" network refuses to show the Danish cartoons "out of respect" for muslims, but they obviously have no problem insulting and slandering the US military on a daily basis. This so called "news" network, who allowed Saddam Hussein to dictate what they reported out of Iraq, should change it's name to the Cable Opinion Network. Any claim of objectivity coming from CNN is a fucking joke, and to be honest CON is a much better description of what they currently do. They might as well have their anchors report the news with a "Free Saddam Now!" t-shirt. Or a burkha, since they don't want to offend any muslims by showing this:



Somebody better tell Christine Aramparumpapum or whatever the fuck her name is that showing her face offends the very same muslims she's trying not to offend by not showing those Danish cartoons! Cover up, Christy! You wouldn't want any of those camel-humping sand fleas currently displaying their barbarianism to get upset at you! Now show those years old Abu Ghraib photos again, before somebody thinks that you might actually be on America's side!

No, rather than showing a cartoon, what has the press been harping about? VP Cheney's hunting accident. Bravo, media! As Tony Blankly puts is rather well:

In the absence of any pressing news these days -- other than Iran's nuclear weapons development crisis, the election of Hamas terrorists in Palestine, ongoing worldwide Muslim riots and killing in reaction to a cartoon, Al Gore's near sedition while speaking in Saudi Arabia, the turning over of our East Coast ports to be managed by a United Arab Emirates firm, the criminal leaking of vital NSA secrets to the New York Times, Mexican military incursions across our southern border, the Iraqi crisis, Congress's refusal to deal with the developing financial collapse of Social Security and Medicare, inter alia -- the White House press corp has exploded in righteous fury over the question of the vice president's little shooting party last weekend.

If you haven't seen the media in full meltdown mode, Michelle Malkin has a small transcript.

Peacock Network News correspondent David Gregory, whose self-absorption rivals the leading brand of paper towels, threw a snit fit over the 18-hour delay in public disclosure of the incident. His exchange on Monday with White House press secretary Scott McClellan was a walking advertisement for beta blockers.


McClellan: "David, hold on, the cameras aren't on right now. You can do this later."

Gregory: "Don't accuse me of trying to pose to the cameras. Don't be a jerk to me personally when I'm asking you a serious question."

McClellan: "You don't have to yell."

Gregory: "I will yell! If you want to use that podium to try to take shots at me personally, which I don't appreciate, then I will raise my voice, because that's wrong!"

McClellan: "Calm down, Dave, calm down."

Gregory: "I'll calm down when I feel like calming down!"


Funny thing is, I can't recall the mainstream media melting down over the 30-hour delay Â? presided over by Hillary Clinton, according to internal records Â? in releasing the late White House counsel Vincent Foster's suicide note to authorities and her own husband. Can you?

That's right. They can't show any cartoons, but they can show pictures of Abu Grabass and throw temper tantrums over not being notified RIGHTFUCKINGNOW about a hunting accident. Personally, I'm at the point where I could have a "hunting accident" with half the White House press corps and walk away smiling. I wish somebody would have told those self-absorbed fucknuts "Listen, you stupid shitty little genital warts - Cheney had better things to do than talk to a group of narcissistic asscannons. Shut the fuck up and we'll tell you WHEN we want to tell you. If you don't like it, get the fuck out." I'd pay my entire paycheck to see Scott McClellan say that, I really would. And if Helen Thomas had a heart attack from it and died on the spot, I'd give up my pay for a YEAR.

To me, the national press is mostly one big fucking joke. And they're proving my thesis on a daily basis. Hell, they're already putting on clown suits. I think the reason the press is going after Cheney so hard is because they know we've figured out that they're nothing but a fucking joke, and they're doing what they can to distract us from that fact.

Fuck 'em. If half the papers went out of business tomorrow, I wouldn't shed a fucking tear. Maybe if the entrenched socialist shit suckers were removed, we could have REAL press reporting the news.

But for now, we're stuck with CON. Cable Opinion Network. I'm keeping that phrase. It fits.

UPDATE: Ooooo, this is good! Analog Kid has a link to this post, which is a written equivilent of whipping out your johnson and smacking someone in the face with it.

And not in a good way.

When the reporters and editors said they would die before giving up their First Amendment rights, that was bravado. Only empty phrases. They only meant that they reserved the right to mock your religion if they were sure that, while you might be upset, and you might say you would kill them, you wouldn't really do it. They can stand up to angry words with no problem.

But when it came the time that there was an actual chance that they might really die or be hurt in defense of their First Amendment rights, that's different, that's serious. they showed that their principles were only to be upheld when it was easy and cheap.

smack smack smackitysmack smacksmacksmack

More about Pappy

Michelle Malkin

It's getting a little Narcissistic....

...over at Right-Thinking.

Lee seems like a decent sort of a fella and he's got some nice traffic over there, I am sure, but excerpting from other blogs waxing lovingly about one's self?

Reminds me of this girl I knew at college. Her nose was a little big. That's it. Everything else was perfect (or so it seemed; I only saw her clothed).

When classes would get tough for her, she'd go into her room, lock the door, and crank Everybody Wants You by Billy Squire. And she hadn't really dug into the words. She was that vain.

Islam + Sitcom =

a couple giggles

A letter the MSM doesn't want you to read

Greyhawk at Mudville Gazette received a letter from a family member of a 3rd Armored Cav Regiment, from the mayor of Tall 'Afar, a city in Iraq. For some reason I can't connect to the Mudville Gazette right now, so I'll link to the post I found the info at. Baby Troll Blog tipped me off. And I'm going to post the entire letter, because it needs to be read. I strongly encourage everyone to post the letter on their blog (and let people know where it came from, if you can get to the Mudville Gazette).

Read on, people. The letter that the MSM doesn't want you to read. By the way, all emphasis in this letter is mine.

In the Name of God the Compassionate and Merciful

To the Courageous Men and Women of the 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment, who have changed the city of Tall’ Afar from a ghost town, in which terrorists spread death and destruction, to a secure city flourishing with life.

To the lion-hearts who liberated our city from the grasp of terrorists who were beheading men, women and children in the streets for many months.

To those who spread smiles on the faces of our children, and gave us restored hope, through their personal sacrifice and brave fighting, and gave new life to the city after hopelessness darkened our days, and stole our confidence in our ability to reestablish our city.

Our city was the main base of operations for Abu Mousab Al Zarqawi. The city was completely held hostage in the hands of his henchmen. Our schools, governmental services, businesses and offices were closed. Our streets were silent, and no one dared to walk them. Our people were barricaded in their homes out of fear; death awaited them around every corner. Terrorists occupied and controlled the only hospital in the city. Their savagery reached such a level that they stuffed the corpses of children with explosives and tossed them into the streets in order to kill grieving parents attempting to retrieve the bodies of their young. This was the situation of our city until God prepared and delivered unto them the courageous soldiers of the 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment, who liberated this city, ridding it of Zarqawi’s followers after harsh fighting, killing many terrorists, and forcing the remaining butchers to flee the city like rats to the surrounding areas, where the bravery of other 3d ACR soldiers in Sinjar, Rabiah, Zumar and Avgani finally destroyed them.

I have met many soldiers of the 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment; they are not only courageous men and women, but avenging angels sent by The God Himself to fight the evil of terrorism.

The leaders of this Regiment; COL McMaster, COL Armstrong, LTC Hickey, LTC Gibson, and LTC Reilly embody courage, strength, vision and wisdom. Officers and soldiers alike bristle with the confidence and character of knights in a bygone era. The mission they have accomplished, by means of a unique military operation, stands among the finest military feats to date in Operation Iraqi Freedom, and truly deserves to be studied in military science. This military operation was clean, with little collateral damage, despite the ferocity of the enemy. With the skill and precision of surgeons they dealt with the terrorist cancers in the city without causing unnecessary damage.

God bless this brave Regiment; God bless the families who dedicated these brave men and women. From the bottom of our hearts we thank the families. They have given us something we will never forget. To the families of those who have given their holy blood for our land, we all bow to you in reverence and to the souls of your loved ones. Their sacrifice was not in vain. They are not dead, but alive, and their souls hovering around us every second of every minute. They will never be forgotten for giving their precious lives. They have sacrificed that which is most valuable. We see them in the smile of every child, and in every flower growing in this land. Let America, their families, and the world be proud of their sacrifice for humanity and life.

Finally, no matter how much I write or speak about this brave Regiment, I haven’t the words to describe the courage of its officers and soldiers. I pray to God to grant happiness and health to these legendary heroes and their brave families.

NAJIM ABDULLAH ABID AL-JIBOURI
Mayor of Tall 'Afar, Ninewa, Iraq

But remember, Ted Kennedy thinks that Iraq is a quagmire, and the Democrats in general want to immidiately withdraw from Iraq and label it a failure.

Keep that in mind in 2006.

We're getting better

All one can ask for in life is continuous improvement.

We're doing it! From torture to torture-like in just three years.



Guantanamo Detainees Full Coverage on Yahoo! News

Carter spied too

Bravissimo, DANEgerus!!!

Mums the Word

SHUSH!!!

Asking for trouble in Italy

Attaguy!

Italy's Reform Minister Roberto Calderoli has had T-shirts made emblazoned with cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad in a move that could embarrass Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's government.

Calderoli, a member of the anti-immigrant Northern League party, told Ansa news agency on Tuesday that the West had to stand up against Islamist extremists and offered to hand out T-shirts to anyone who wanted them.

"I have had T-shirts made with the cartoons that have upset Islam and I will start wearing them today," Ansa quoted Calderoli as saying.

He said the T-shirts were not meant to be a provocation but added that he saw no point trying to appease extremists.

"We have to put an end to this story that we can talk to these people. They only want to humiliate people. Full stop. And what are we becoming? The civilization of melted butter?" Calderoli said.

International News Article | Reuters.com

The Boom Marches On

Witnesseth:

U.S. retail sales surged 2.3 percent in January, nearly triple the expected increase and the largest gain since May 2004, as post-holiday spending on cars, clothing, gasoline and furniture galloped ahead, a government report showed on Tuesday.

Latest Business News and Financial Information | Reuters.com

Meanwhile, Europe is stagnant.

Cheney's hunting accident

OK, so the VP goes on a hunting trip and accidentally shoots one of his hunting partners. He doesn't let the press know for 24 hours. The press goes apeshit.

Yawn.

You want to know why the press went apeshit? Because they missed an opportunity to embarass the VP on a Sunday, when they have the most people reading their newspapers. THAT is why Scott McClellan was subjected to one gigantic temper tantrum thrown by the worthless goat-fucking peons that make up the White House press briefings.

Any organization that has Helen Thomas sitting front and center doesn't deserve one bit of respect.

Here's my question: Why should the VP give one damn thing to the press when all they've done for six years is villify him to an extent not seen since Richard Nix on? Cheney and his group was rather busy getting his buddy to the hospital (where he's making a rather nice recovery, btw). I'm sure that he had better things to do than report an accident to a group of vultures who would only use the news to make him look bad in newspapers nationwide.

You know how I know that the White House press corps are a bunch of brain-dead ass cannons? Because every time they say "I have one question" they immidiately fire off more than one. If they can't count, you know they can't be too smart. It's not that hard. You can do it on one hand. Look, watch me. "ONE!" (and I'm sticking out my thumb as I count, really I am.) See? Easy. But the reporters in the White House don't seem to be able to handle simple math. I can't say I'm surprized.

What really makes me laugh is all the people coming up with their tin-foil hat theories. "CHENEY WAS TRYING TO KILL HIM!" Right, because as every good hunter knows, birdshot at thirty feet is SOOOOOOOO lethal! And if that didn't work, Cheney was gonna give the guy a really bad purple nurfel! Not to make light of the guy's injuries, but for pete's sake, the people claiming that Cheney was trying to kill the guy are mental rejects! Riding the short bus to their special "skool"!

The bottom line in all of this is that the press once again showed just how biased and worthless they are. Personally, if I were the President and VP, I'd just stop having press conferences. Seriously, I'd end them all. "Yeah, I know you people think you're important, but get the fuck off my lawn. 'Ol Dick is mean with a shotgun, as I'm sure you all know, and that fucker is loaded with rocksalt." At this point "reporter" is synonomous with "lawyer" in terms of how little respect those professions deserve.

And I'm talking miniscule here, baby. Microscopic. When someone announces that they're a reporter, I immidiately know that they are college rejects who couldn't get a real job if their life depended on it. If they weren't working at a newspaper, they'd be flipping burgers when they were 35. Hell, maybe all the way into their forties. Those that can, do. Those that can't, teach. Those that can't teach, report.

Has anyone checked to see if Helen Thomas is actually alive, or are her body movements just the result of gasses from decomposition?

So anyways, the only thing the press did this weekend was show how important they THINK they are. The rest of us with more than half a brain understand that they're nothing more than bloviating fucktards who don't have enough IQ to tie their shoes without help.

You know what I call a White House press briefing? A target rich environment. Oh yeah, baby. C'mon you little bastards, I got your "Next Question" right here!

Can you tell that I'm running on no sleep? Damn, I thought so.

Another example of why I left Seattle

Gregory "Pappy" Boyington.

Marine. Fighter pilot. Ace. Medal of Honor recipient.

(Side note: He was born in Coeur d'Alene, ID, my hometown. Probably not interesting to anyone but myself.)

Boyington is most famous for the "Black Sheep Squadron" during WWII.

Having received no squadron assignment of his own, Boyington worked to build one himself. Adopting the unused Marine designation of VMF-214 he assembled a group of men that would be forever known as The Black Sheep Squadron.

The Black Sheep were a mixture of other unassigned pilots and a group of misfits that were close to being discharged for disciplinary actions. It was from this group Boyington received his nickname of Pappy since he was ten years or more older than any of the other Black Sheep.

Over the next three months the Black Sheep Squadron would become famous for having downed 94 Japanese aircraft while also destroying over one hundred more upon the ground. Of these 94 Japanese kills Boyington would have nineteen himself. Five of these would even be done in one day.

In short, Boyington did was Marines do. Take charge and kick ass.

Now, you might be wondering just why I brought all of this up. It's because the University of Washington in Seattle has just rejected a proposal to build a memorial for Col Boyington, who happened to be a UW grad.

If you needed any proof that the UW is nothing but another crack-smoking, kool-aid drinking shithole of Leftist ideology, here it is. And it's not just the UW. The suburb of Fremont has a STATUE OF VLADAMIR LENIN IN THE TOWN SQUARE, FOR G-D'S SAKE!

The minutes to the UW senate meeting are here, and include such wonderful memos such as:

Jill Edwards said she didn’t’ believe a member of the Marine Corps was
an example of the sort of person UW wanted to produce.

Ashley Miller commented that many monuments at UW already
commemorate rich white men.

Oh yeah. That's moonbats at their frothiest. And you can check out the announcements at the bottom of the minutes:

Magnus Gordon encouraged senators and their constituents to come to the
HUB crawl for go-cart racing and a poetry slam on February the 16th.

Hala Dillsi noted that GBLTC is having auditions for the drag show this week.

Selma Dillsi said APS is having its annual Human Rights Film Fest on February
15th-19th.

Jill Edwards noted that Honors Croquet League is holding a match this
Saturday.

Ashley Miller said this Thursday during noon passing periods groups would be
playing The Privilidge Game in front of the HUB.

It was noted that tickets for the Vagina Monologues are currently available in the
HUB ticket office.

Jon Lee said Innocence Project Northwest is having a screening at the Burke
Museum regarding the death penalty.

Karl Smith noted the ACLU is having a meeting in Kane Hall this Saturday.

Let's see here..... Vagina Monologues (always a Leftist favorite!), GLBTS drag show auditioins (Because while men ogling women at a strip club is "sexist", having a gay man dance around in a feathered thong is "diversity"!), Human Rights Film Festivals, and poetry slams! But don't honor a Medal of Honor recipient!

Liberalism is a mental disorder, folks. There's no other explination. As a side note, if you have any kids that are getting ready to attend college, perhaps learning more about the school would be benificial to you. Me, I'd rather go to WSU than UW any day of the week.

Hell, given my druthers I'd be going to the University of Idaho. But since I'm currently in Puerto Rico, that's somewhat difficult.

Hat tip to Analog Kid.

Hot Diggity!

Mr. Poretto is on a roll. In case you missed it, I linked to his essay, "The Hour of the Knife" in this post. Now he's got part two of that essay posted.

Please, go read.