WorldTribune-Editor

Great American secular humanists — John Quincy Adams

2008-04-27T17:11:00.003-05:00

Sixth in a series:

The world, the flesh, and all the devils in hell are arrayed against any man who now in this North American Union shall dare to join the standard of Almighty God to put down the African slave-trade. [See:] . . .

Three points of doctrine, the belief of which, forms the foundation of all morality. The first is the existence of a God; the second is the immortality of the human soul; and the third is a future state of rewards and punishments. Suppose it possible for a man to disbelieve either of these articles of faith and that man will have no conscience, he will have no other law than that of the tiger or the shark; the law of man may bind him in chains or may put him to death, but they never can make him wise, virtuous, or happy. [See:]

- John Quincy Adams, sixth U.S. president and son of John Adams, the second U.S. president.

Earlier: James Madison, Harry S. Truman, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Patrick Henry

Great American secular humanists — Patrick Henry

2008-04-02T08:01:00.006-05:00

Fifth in a series:

"Bad men cannot make good citizens. It is when a people forget God that tyrants forge their chains. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience, is incompatible with freedom."

"No free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue; and by a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles.”"

- Patrick Henry, known for his speech before the American Revlution with the rallying cry: "Give me liberty or give me death"

Earlier: James Madison, Harry S. Truman, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams

Great American secular humanists — John Adams

2008-03-26T21:52:00.004-05:00

Fourth in a series:

"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other."

- John Adams, First vice president and the second president of the United States.

Earlier: James Madison, Harry S. Truman, Thomas Jefferson

Great American secular humanists — Thomas Jefferson

2008-03-19T09:52:00.004-05:00

Third in a series:

"Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just.

- Thomas Jefferson, Drafted the Declaration of Independence, third president of the United States.

Earlier: James Madison, Harry S. Truman

Great American secular humanists — James Madison

2008-03-12T07:22:00.002-05:00

Second in a series:

It is the duty of every man to render to the Creator such homage and such only as he believes to be acceptable to him. This duty is precedent, both in the order of time and in degree of obligation, to the claims of Civil Society. Before any man can be considered as a member of Civil Society, he must be considered as a subject of the Governour [sic] of the Universe.

- James Madison, Founding Father, sometimes called "Father of the Constitution" and the fourth president of the United States.

Earlier: Harry S. Truman

The N.Y. Philharmonic does Pyongyang

2008-02-26T08:42:00.006-05:00

The Financial Times provides a reporter's notebook/photo display that does about as much journalistically as is possible under the highly-controlled circumstances.

For the L.A. Times' take, click here.

And the International Herald Tribune, here.

Great American secular humanists — Harry S. Truman

2008-02-25T00:44:00.004-05:00

First in a series:

"The fundamental basis of this nation's law was given to Moses on the Mount. The fundamental basis of our Bill of Rights comes from the teaching we get from Exodus and St. Matthew, from Isaiah and St. Paul. I don't think we emphasize that enough these days. If we don't have the proper fundamental moral background, we will finally end up with a totalitarian government which does not believe in the right for anybody except the state."
— Harry S. Truman, thirty-third president of the United States and a Democrat.

Just a feeling but are the poles getting ready to switch?

2008-02-18T23:30:00.009-05:00

Normally perusing the news yields a smattering of gloom and doom, outrage, a belly laugh or two, but through it all a ray of sunshine that yeah everything is going to work out after all.

Today, February 18, was not one of those days. By this point in the election year, the race should start taking shape. But there's still not a single candidate that inspires hope for America's future despite the relentless 24/7 news cycle that has been barraging us without letup for the past year and a half.

Now see, we can deal with this by just tuning out the political news. The world is networking at such a frantic pace that governments are being phased out anyway. [Check the coming Asia Investor column in East-Asia-Intel.com about the rapacious growth of almost out of control Sovereign Wealth Funds.]

What is hard to take is the sheer banality of the news cycle: Roger Clemens and his wife, Lindsay Lohan imitating Marilyn Monroe, China the leading anti-satellite threat expresssing "concern" that the U.S. is about to show it can also down satellites. And finally Hillary and Obama's ever-more complicated mind control games, currently about who is ripping off who's socialist platitudes.

Normally, a conservative could turn on Rush Limbaugh and get infected by his natural optimism while exposing the cluelessness of the MSM. Not today. Rush was heard agreeing with a listener that this campaign is hard to take. [The old Rush would have rebuked the listener for failing to see the upside.] Even Mark Levin, owner of the very best rant on conservative talk radio was recovering from the flu and felt the same way about Campaign '08 as millions of Americans who are capable of thinking for themselves. The best word that comes to mind is unease.

Before, there were Americans in white hats ready to ride to the rescue. Where are they now? Maybe on those UFOs spotted in Stephensville, Tx?

George W. Bush, having been crucified on virtually every bandwidth of the political spectrum is off to Africa where he is getting some appreciation.

White hats? Certainly not the Democrats, the Republicans, the Chinese, the Saudis, the Iranians, the Hamas, the Russians, Hugo Chavez, professional athletes, Hollywood stars, the Fed chairman, the Archbishop of Canterbury, . . . But we digress.

What's wrong? We're about to be turned inside out. Things are just not going to continuing operating in the same way.

Think about it: Is there any government now on earth capable of leading the world out of hopelessness?

We are entering the post-government world. You've heard of citizen journalism? Well how about citizen government? We'll keep governments around for some things as long as they recognize that they are grossly obese, unpleasant to observe, overpaid, overfed and dysfunctional. Want to be in government? Then you've got to wear a big sign around your neck: "How may I serve you?"

Think about it: Do you have a heart? Do you have a mind? Are you concerned about your spouse, your parents, your children, your extended family, your neighbors, the people in Darfur, the tragic citizens of that parallel North Korean universe? Are you capable of acting on those concerns?

Now ask yourself if you want some hamhanded bureaucracy in Washington or at the UN taking care of your children while you and your spouse step out on the town. See where we are going with this? Well just what would you trust the government for then? Precious little.

Let's talk about death for a moment. Let's say you have come face to face with the fact that you're about to check out. Do you want a government official to help you fill out some forms for the hereafter? Do a single one of them have the inside track with the Almighty? Not even your priest, rabbi or mullah have that account. It comes down to the individual. Citizen transcendence. You could ask the Maharishi. But he has just checked out.

So let's stop swooning for Obama, revering Ron Paul and holding our nose for McCain. [Hey how about that Fred Thompson? He is so not into being President that he might be just the one to help everyone weather the switch in magentic fields that is just so imminent, you can even feel your hair standing up.]

So North to Antarctia! And put on that white hat.

'Graphic novel' gets the jump on 'Jumper', a film about teleporting

2008-02-12T23:05:00.004-05:00

Is Osama bin Laden dead or might he be a jumper?

Using a 'graphic novel' as a prequel to a movie about people able to teleport themselves any distance is probably a strategy made in marketing heaven, for the year 2008 at least.

And this invites a statement about our culture, but we're not going there. We are living at a time when it doesn't really matter whether Osama is dead or alive. He is still digitally available for the war against the Christian West whether his lanky frame is up to the challenge or not.

On the campaign trail, crisis zones like China and North Korea are not worth a mention. It's all about marketing with the emphasis on the visuals and above all style: the authenticity of Hillary's tears, Obama's winning smile and oratory, Huckabee's ability to jab back at the prevailing anti-Christian mindset, McCain's non-stop pandering to the press.

We would just like to point out that unlike in the fun-loving West, there are people vying for power in places like Iran, China and North Korea who are committed at all costs to a strategy and plan for advancing their national interests. It is people like these, John Bolton, the American volunteers in Iraq and Afghanistan who will decide the future.

So let's truncate this right here. God forbid that we get wordy!

Consummate conservatives: Robot visits get patients home faster

2008-01-28T23:51:00.000-05:00

Finally, a practical application of "compassionate conservatism": Anyone who has visited a loved one in the hospital in recent years knows that these days medical care-givers are more concerned about not getting sued than about their poor patients. Inanimate objects are less likely to get hauled into court and operate at lower overhead thereby improving the bottom line. Simply brilliant:

A study conducted at Sinai Hospital of Baltimore found that robotic telerounding may significantly reduce the length of stay of patients undergoing laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery if used to supplement standard postoperative visits, or “rounds,” made by surgeons.

“One of the crucial keys of delivering the high-quality care patients have come to expect at Sinai is communication. The technology used in the robotic telerounding offers both physicians and patients increased access to each other beyond traditional in-room visits,” said Alex Gandsas, M.D., lead investigator and head of the Division of Bariatric and Minimally Invasive Surgery at Sinai Hospital.

The 5-foot, 5-inch robot, displaying the doctor’s face on a 15-inch screen, is guided by a joystick from a computerized Control Station in patient rooms, emulating an on-site experience. With on-board, two-way cameras, microphones, and wireless technology, physicians are able to review charts, current lab work and X-ray results without physically being in the hospital.

The candidates: A whiter shade of pale

2008-01-21T20:17:00.000-05:00

Color us bored. Editors have short attention spans anyway.

This campaign has been going on for a solid year and we still cannot get interested.

What we know about Hillary scares us. What we do not know about Obama scares us just as much.

And then there are the Republicans. Or are they just Democrats trying to hitch a ride on Reagan's legacy?

We liked Fred Thompson, but he fell asleep on the way to Iowa and the decaf his staff gave him did not do the trick. Obviously, it would have taken a lively campaign to engage old Fred. Or maybe he was in Washington long enough to know that it is the unelected bureaucrats who run this town and nobody inside or outside the beltway, young or old, is going to distract them from their crusade to render our republic into a Euro-weenie socialist state.

The world situation is just as disturbing as the U.S. economy, but the candidates are focused on focus groups, makeup artists, lights, camera and the endless debates. The big story, as Lev Navrozov points out weekly, is China.

[W]ar was understood in Europe as a duel between noblemen — knights leading their soldiers. Nothing was more absurd for Sun Tzu, who viewed a war as a surprise killing by an assassin of his victim before the latter could understand what was going on. [By the way, yes, that is Sun Tzu's picture above in case anyone was wondering.]

Duncan Hunter gets it. Fred Thompson probably does as well.

But let's see. They are not in the running are they? If we're wrong, let us know. We were not paying attention.

Meanwhile, as the current edition of East-Asia-Intel.com points out, the People's Liberation Army is conducting focus groups with themselves concerning our defeat: "PLA daily draws on Sun Tzu for winning war strategy using computer networks".

But tomorrow is a new day. We have faith in the American people. There is a problem in our nation's capital and it is not just with our elected officials. It has something to do with the bureaucratic/media culture that stays no matter how the election turns out.

One old Air Force general who helped elect Reagan told us the story of how Robert McNamara helped transform Washington's bureaucracy during the heady days of JFK: "He didn't say what he thought for two years. He just listened. And once he knew where everyone stood, he started moving people around."

The Republicans have never understood the importance of people in changing policy.

The liberal Democrats wanted to own this town and now they do. We love you Fred, but any strategy short of Sun Tzu's playbook may not be equal to the challenge of taking back this town for the salt-of-the-earth Americans who pay the bills.

Something afoot in N. Korea?

2007-11-21T10:20:00.000-05:00

Four headlines in the Nov. 14 edition of East-Asia-Intel.com highlight a trend that has been apparent since the U.S. deal with North Korea in February :

Kim Jong-Il badges disappearing from North Korean chests

Wary of Beijing's intentions, Kim Jong-Il looking at Vietnam's economic model

Thaw? N. Korea thanks U.S. for help against pirates, bills itself as partner 'against terrorism'

Report: U.S. made secret deal with North Korea

North Korea has long been the most intractable of communist states but it was pushed to the brink after U.S. sanctions over its illicit international counterfeiting and drug-running cut off Kim Jong-Il's cash flow. That seemed to focus the decision-making process in Pyongyang like nothing else.

Plenty could still go wrong in what is essentially a U.S.-N.Korea deal which is contrary to the longstanding U.S. negotiating stance. Washington has steadfastly refused to cut Seoul out of talks so as not to undermine its sovereignty and legitimacy which N. Korea has refused to honor. But the leftist government in the South has of late been operating essentially as an appendage of the North and has been so out of synch with U.S. policy that former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld felt no qualms about implementing plans for a redeployment of U.S. forces right out of the Korean peninsula.

Former U.S. ambassador to the UN John Bolton has been outspoken in his opposition to the new Bush policy on N. Korea. And the evidence of N. Korean proliferation continues to surface. Geostrategy-Direct.com, in its coming edition, will report new evidence of Pyongyang's aid to Burma's secret nuclear program.

But all available indicators point to what could be a major story: the emergence of the North Korean 'Hermit Kingdom' from isolation into a dues-paying member of the international financial community (The upcoming edition of East-Asia-Intel.com reports on the visit by a N. Korean delegation to Wall Street!). Perhaps Kim Jong-Il wants to establish a legacy as the Deng Xiaoping of N. Korea (introducing his starving, Stalinist country to the joys of Red capitalism) rather than as the cognac-swilling Hollywood movie addict who was never able to measure up to his charismatic old man, Kim Il-Sung who though dead still reigns as god in his captive nation's state religion.

'Journalists' may now leave their hotel rooms: The surge worked

2007-11-02T09:24:00.000-05:00

Sharon Behn of The Washington Times, for one, has not shied away from the Iraq street before, during, and after the "surge" by U.S. forces. Now a report by an institute with impressive backers provides cause for news organizations to e-mail their "correspondents" in Baghdad with word that mini-bar tabs are no longer a legitimate expense and that shots of distant puffs of smoke from their balconies is no longer news.

Excerpts follow:

A Relatively Peaceful Ramadan

Over the last few years, the holy month of Ramadan was marred by violence. This year, however, the situation was different for both Iraqis and Coalition forces – a fact that some are attributing to the current U.S. strategy in Iraq:

· According to Joost Hiltermann of the International Crisis Group: “It's the overall situation, not just Ramadan… Ramadan has been relatively quiet… But last year, the situation was horrendous.” ( Los Angeles Times, October 17, 2007)

· Lieutenant General Qanbar stated that during Ramadan there was a 77% decrease in casualties caused by terrorist activity in Baghdad. In fact, this is the lowest level of terrorist activity the Iraqi capital has seen during Ramadan since 2004. ( Multi-National Force-Iraq, October 24, 2007)

· A recent Associated Press article, citing U.S. military sources, reported that “Attacks, including those by small-arms fire, explosive devices, have decreased from about 30 a day in January to fewer than one a day now… Last year, during the holy month of Ramadan, there were 442 incidents in the area; this year, there were four.” ( Associated Press, October 28, 2007)

· As an indication of the improvement in security, Lieutenant General Odierno noted that “Iraqis celebrated Eid al Fitr (the feast ending Ramadan) last week in their parks, restaurants and streets… During last year’s Eid, this was not the case. The security improvements made this possible. Attack levels continue their downward trend that began in June and are now at their lowest level since January 2006.” ( U.S. Department of Defense, October 24, 2007)

· This improvement in security, it seems, extends to U.S. troops as well. According to the Los Angeles Times’ calculations of data collected by the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, U.S. military deaths totaled 49 during Ramadan this year. By comparison, there were 98 deaths in 2006, 93 in 2005, 104 in 2004, and 88 in 2003. ( Los Angeles Times, October 17, 2007)

Reduction of Violence in al-Anbar Province

Prior to the surge, the Sunni province of al-Anbar was considered lost to Islamic extremists. However, as a result of the new COIN strategy and the unification of Sunni tribal chiefs in the “Anbar Awakening,” al Qaeda in Iraq is severely weakened and on the run. Accordingly, the level of violence in these provinces has decreased dramatically:

· While the al-Anbar region was once a stronghold for al Qaeda, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker recently noted that, "People do feel the weight's off…Al-Qaeda simply is gone." ( Associated Press, October 28, 2007)

· Maj. Gen. Richard Sherlock disclosed, “[I]n Al Anbar province, last week we had no casualties, killed or wounded in action. And that's the first time in recent memory that I can be able to say that.” He continued, “Overall casualties in Iraq have continued to decrease, even though coalition forces have conducted a variety of operations throughout the country.” ( Multi-National Force-Iraq, October 26, 2007)
. . .

Reasons for Hope in Baghdad

When the successes in al-Anbar province first became apparent, critics of the war began pointing to the levels of violence in Baghdad as a clear indication that General Petraeus’ new strategy and the overall mission in Iraq had failed. However, it now seems that the tide is turning in Baghdad as well:

· In a recent briefing, Multi-National Force-Iraq representatives provided a number of statistics that show the extent to which violence has declined in Baghdad. Since the final surge in June of 2007 ( Multi-National Force-Iraq, October 24, 2007):

o There has been a 59% reduction in terrorist operations against innocent Iraqi people.

o Terrorist operations against Iraqi security forces have decreased by 62%.

o The number of sectarian-driven assassination attempts has reduced by 72%.

o The total amount of car bombs has declined by 65% while IED attacks over the past four months have similarly decreased by 60%.

o In turn, there has been an 81% decrease in civilian fatalities caused by car bombs, including IEDs.

Osama, Marx and other losers

2007-09-18T10:21:00.000-05:00

Sol Sanders wrote in his current column what many have observed in private conversations: Osama Bin Laden in his last videocast comes across like a resident malcontent at the far-left Institute for Policy Studies.

What's with that? Is he a man of Allah or just another ratty Dupont Circle atheist?

William R. Hawkins at the American Economic Alert also addressed the theme:

In his new video, Osama went beyond this fundamentalist objection to democracy, taking inspiration not from the Koran, but from very secular, left-wing ideologues. The aging radical Noam Chomsky, whose hatred for American wealth and power is well documented, was mentioned by name.

The Berlin Wall may be down, the Cold War over, the USSR on the scrap heap of history, but the ideological proponents of these failed and murderous ventures have never been called to account by our "objective" and (sometimes) highly critical media elites. Furthermore th0se same hate-America-first loony tunes are still revered at campuses and in newsrooms across the fruited plain.

Well time for some baby boomers to wake up before checking into the nursing home and then out for good. Those "revolutionary heroes" they still promote are in fact losers, relics of the 20th century which they tried so hard to ruin. Hating America, like drug abuse and promiscuity are so yesteryear - all unhealthy, destructive habits from a bygone era.

Some of our colleagues in the press swapped hippie lifestyles for bourgeois comforts, bongs for BMWs. So it's finally time for them also to discard the revolution that fizzled and just move on. . . .

Moral of the Larry Craig story: The gay lobby always wins

2007-09-05T20:03:00.000-05:00

To read the press, Washington, D.C. is awash in gay sex. There are the invisible (shameless) gay Democrats and the furtive (about-to-be-outed and therefore not-so-gay) gay Republicans (you know, the hypocrites).

But the gay old Washington Post which like many leading Democrats has neither standards nor morals and therefore has nothing to be ashamed of, slipped and let us in on the real story behind the Larry Craig story.

As is often true with articles in the N.Y. Times and WaPo, readers must skip to the end of the story to find nuggets of revealing truth.

Thus we learn near the bottom of the jump page of "The Most Feared Man on the Hill? For Gay Blogger, Craig's Resignation Is Just the Latest on His List" in the Sept. 4 Washington Post Style section, that the gay blogger who allegedly outed Larry Craig and other Republicans may have secrets of his own. For example,

"Has he ever had sex in a public bathroom?" [The Post wanted to know]

"How is that relevant? Look, I'm not a politician making laws and rules and regulations for 275 million people."

Translation: The agenda of the gay lobby, even in post-9/11 America, is the most urgent national imperative and cannot be sidetracked by any other consideration.

Such an agenda, certainly, could never be called into question even by a Washington Post reporter at the tale end of a puff piece on the heroic hitman who outs alleged sinners of the Republican persuasion (subsequently damned to nowhere land outside the beltway) but who himself is not to be condemned for being judgmental and sanctimonious (like church-going Republican hypocrites) because not only is he a gay victim [of a judgmental, Republican, probably Christian, hell Evangelical society], but more to the point, an advocate of the gay lobby's agenda and therefore morally unimpeachable.

Anxiety index: New way of thinking about the 2008 election

2007-09-02T10:38:00.000-05:00

Americans have historically mistrusted royalty, preferring as their top leader instead a sort of messiah with term limits. The pageantry and hoopla surrounding the inauguration invest the Oval Office with arguably more power and glory than any other nation's monarch or dictator.

What is wearing thin is the media class's obsession with the horse race beginning 2 years in advance of the election. The non-stop polling of favorable/unfavorable views of the various semi-charismatic hopefuls obscures the central issue:

Just how scary are these people?

The primary role of the nation's CEO is to protect his/her folks. The thought of a President George McGovern or Walter Mondale is unsettling for those who followed international security news during the Cold War. Less abstract, and positively chilling, is imagining Jimmy Carter being re-elected in 1980 over Ronald Reagan.

Accordingly, the new WorldTribune "My Worldview" polling feature's most recent question asks its readers to assess the candidates as potential national security threats. The findings so far point to a wide gap between Democratic and Republican candidates. As of Sept. 2, the most frightening non-president is John Edwards with Obama and Clinton not that far behind.

Iraq signs border security deal with Iran — WHAT?!

2007-08-20T20:08:00.000-05:00

Sometimes the news just makes your head hurt. Such happened when we edited the above story for publication this morning.

But of course that was only because we were again falling into the trap of trying to apply logic to an unreasonable situation.

Iran and Iraq have signed an accord to cooperate on border security. [Iran has been continuously sending operatives into Iraq to coordinate the fight against the U.S.-led coalition forces.]

Last Friday, WorldTribune.com reported that:

The U.S. military has reported the capture of a senior officer of Iran's elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps stationed in Baghdad.

The article went on to say: "Officials said IRGC has become a major U.S. target, particularly in the Baghdad area."

We asked our correspondent the following: "This is getting confusing. Iraq cuts a border deal with the IRGC while the U.S. is taking aim at IRGC "terrorists who bring weapons and explosives, especially explosively formed penetrators, and other aid into Iraq" from Iran.

The response? "If it's confusing to you, imagine what this is doing to Petraeus who is trying to stop the IRGC from infiltrating from Iraq."

There you have it. We report, you figure it out.

U.S. Comptroller sees 'striking similarities' with the fall of Rome

2007-08-13T23:00:00.000-05:00

God takes care of drunks and the United States of America.

Or so it has often seemed.

There have been any number of occasions when the Republic seemed to be cruising for a bruising: The nation's capital on fire in the War of 1812, the great Civil War still being played out today, the feared prospect of a nuclear holocaust that accompanied the Armageddon-like showdown with an atheistic mindset that lost World War III but like in Iraq fights on with asymmetric means.

In the darkest hours, warnings have boomed fromt he nation's pulpits. But the comptroller of the United States?

In an interview with Financial Times, David Walker outlined “chilling long-term simulations” between conditions in the U.S. and those that led to the decline and fall of Rome.

These include “dramatic” tax rises, slashed government services and the large-scale dumping by foreign governments of holdings of US debt.

Drawing parallels with the end of the Roman empire, Mr Walker warned there were “striking similarities” between America’s current situation and the factors that brought down Rome, including “declining moral values and political civility at home, an over-confident and over-extended military in foreign lands and fiscal irresponsibility by the central government”.

Remember, this is not an evangelist speaking.

“With the looming retirement of baby boomers, spiralling healthcare costs, plummeting savings rates and increasing reliance on foreign lenders, we face unprecedented fiscal risks,” said Mr Walker, a former senior executive at PwC auditing firm.

Current US policy on education, energy, the environment, immigration and Iraq also was on an “unsustainable path”.

“Our very prosperity is placing greater demands on our physical infrastructure. Billions of dollars will be needed to modernise everything from highways and airports to water and sewage systems. The recent bridge collapse in Minneapolis was a sobering wake-up call.”

And he's not even touching on the Islamization of Europe, Southeast Asia and well the United States or the "peaceful" rise of China and its People's Liberation Army.

Sick and tired (don't forget bored) of politics as usual

2007-07-23T16:30:00.000-05:00

Let's see. Who besides us are underwhelmed with the 2008 campaign so far?

Newt Gingrich: The GOP presidential field is a "pathetic" bunch of "pygmies".

The Red Chinese, excuse us the People's Republic of China, who cut to the chase and sent in a senior official to sit down with the candidates and lay out some ground rules [talking points?] on U.S. China policy during the campaign and after the lucky winner is elected.

WorldTribune.com columnist Lev Navrozov: 'To candidate Bloomberg, in the hope that you are not like the other 18 zeroes'

The younger generation (who also tend not to read newspapers and not know who is the nation's VP and Sec. of State.) [What do they know that we don't?]

The public is even less enthralled by it congressional representatives.

So who benefits? Obama? We're not sure. But the thought of 16 more months of this campaign is putting us to sleep. Night.

The Iran situation: Critical but not urgent

2007-07-17T08:52:00.000-05:00

When does a national doomsday cult like Iran begin to lose traction? Can there be such a thing as too much overkill?

The Rev. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his boss, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei have given the expression "pushing the envelope" a whole new meaning. Israel? Wipe it off the face of the earth? Nukes? In spades and up yours, Great Satan.

For the first time, Iran has claimed ownership over a Gulf Arab state, alarming the governments of Bahrain and its neighboring states.
A senior Iranian official asserted that Bahrain was part of Iran. The official termed Bahrain a "province" of Iran and said the Shi'ite community in the Gulf Arab state wants to be governed by Teheran.

Anybody noticing Iran yet? No. In fact the above story failed to register on the Iran crisis radar screen for the major Western media, always alert for titillating airheaded celebrity updates. On July 16, the WMD 'r Us crowd tried again:

Iran is prepared to fire thousands of missiles into Israel in wake of any U.S. attack on the Islamic republic.
The Qatari daily Al Watan said Iran's military has established 600 targets in Israel for ballistic missile strikes. The newspaper, quoting diplomatic sources in Damascus, said Iran has allocated sufficient numbers of missiles to destroy all of the targets in the Jewish state.

Yawn . . .

Virginia is for social engineers

2007-07-02T18:31:00.000-05:00

The astounding news that Virginia motorists will get hit with $1,000 tickets for getting caught in the state's plentiful speed traps [OK, you get three years to pay but . . .] has received muted coverage from the local Democratic press.

This is the state where GOP Gov. Jim Gilmore ran on the platform of getting rid of the hated property tax which still hits car owners up each autumn for several hundred bucks per vehicle. Gilmore pushed through a major reduction but it is still there. Now lawmakers in Richmond have decided the new fine structure is the way to pay the Commonwealth's transportation bills.

Here's betting a traffic law attorney drafted the plan that Gov. Kaine Timothy Kaine is at pains to explain to outraged callers to local talk shows.

What about the illegal aliens often seen in traffic court over in Fairfax, Va. What if they can't afford the fines and lose their licenses? And their jobs? Why just add them to the welfare rolls. Either way Virginia legislators are succeeding in their goal of raising more money from the sweat equity of their subjects who voted them into office and may well be checking to see how they voted on the new measure.

Overheard in a Springfield, Va. bank this morning by a man who apologized for holding up the line. "I'm sorry. I'm closing my account and going home [to Missouri]. I can't afford to live in Virginia any longer."

Well, don't drive to fast heading for the state line, he was told. Yes, he said, he had heard the news. His parting shot:

"Virginia is for lawyers."

The non-story of the disappearing WMD

2007-06-11T16:28:00.000-05:00

A story in last week's Insight, "U.S. agent says Iraqis led him to Saddam's WMD", failed to register in the Britney/Scooter media landscape.

After mutilating several rain forests to publish endless, boring stories about Valerie Plame, Cheney, Libby, etc. no one wants there to have ever been WMD in Iraq. after all. The same story explained why:

"[N]either political party wishes to touch the issue for different reasons. The Democrats do not want the public to know that President Bush’s stated reason for invading Iraq might be justified. The Republicans do not want Americans to know that the administration's military command failed to stop what may have been the biggest WMD transfer of all time.

The issue is, as The Spectator put it, “an axis of embarrassment.”

Dave Gaubatz, however, who served for 12 years as an agent in the U.S. Air Force’s Office of Special Investigations has his story and he's sticking with it.

Gaubatz says he was "hand-picked" to locate weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Between March and July 2003, he said, he found them. Hold it right there. We're going for some coffee to try and wake up. This WMD stuff is putting us to sleep.

The Iraq WMD story has gone the way of the JFK assassination and the Vince Foster death. But unlike those two stories, if Gaubatz is to be believed, the truth of the WMD story is accessible.

But so many powerful people are invested in looking the other way that history may conclude that the American people said like Rhett to Scarlett in 'Gone with the Wind': "My dear, I don't give a damn."

Better Fred than dead

2007-06-06T15:41:00.000-05:00

The satire site IMAO.us thinks all Republican candidates are weasels except for the still-undeclared Fred Thompson who is in their estimation Mr. Walk Tall Testosterone. Well, maybe they are right but until he gets run through MSM wood chipper we won't really know what he's made of.

Bangladesh Government Places UN Special Rapporteur for Trafficking Under Equivalent of House Arrest

2007-06-06T11:56:00.001-05:00

Trafficking Representative Not Allowed to Fulfill Responsibilities, Travel

Washington, D.C. – Sigma Huda – United Nations Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons , especially in women and children – has been told by the Government of Bangladesh that she is not permitted to travel abroad on the grounds of being a "security risk for Bangladesh as she may give statements detrimental to this Government.”

“The detention of Ms. Huda within Bangladesh is a denial by the Government of Bangladesh of her inalienable right to freedom of movement and a direct attack on both the Principles and the institution of the United Nations Organization,” commented Institute on Religion and Public Policy President Joseph K. Grieboski. “Denying Ms. Huda the right to travel undermines her capacity to fulfill her duties as Special Rapporteur and violates her immunity under the United Nations Convention
on Privileges and Immunities, Article 22, Section 6.”

Following the 60th session of the UN Commission on Human Rights, ending April 23, 2004, Ms. Huda was appointed as Special Rapporteur on Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children. In the discharge of her mandate, the Special Rapporteur: a) Takes action on violations committed against trafficked persons and on situations in which there has been a failure to protect their human rights; b) Undertakes country visits in order to study the situation in situ and formulate recommendations to prevent and or combat trafficking and protect the human rights of its victims in specific countries and/or regions; c) Submits annual reports on the activities of the mandate.

Despite having a High Court order permitting her to attend the United Nations in New York at the Permanent Forum for Indigenous People and the Human Rights Council Session, her official mission visit to Belarus and her attendance at a conference in Lund, Sweden, she was denied exit from Bangladesh by airport authorities under questionable pretenses. On her fourth attempt to depart the country, she was informed of an order by the Chief Justice restraining her for an unlimited period from leaving the country as she is a "security risk." She appeared before the Chief Justice requesting permission to go
abroad to complete her work but was ultimately denied.”

“Sigma Huda represents the pinnacle of global public service, advocating on behalf of the voiceless and the exploited,” continued Mr. Grieboski. “Her illegal and unjust treatment at the hands of the Bangladesh Caretaker Government is a crime against her fundamental rights, a crime against her constitutional rights, and a crime against all those who fight for the victimized and exploited women and children around the world.”

The Institute on Religion and Public Policy calls on United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, President George W. Bush, and all European leaders – especially those gathering in Heiligendamm, Germany, for the G8 meeting – to press the caretaker government of Bangladesh to permit Ms. Huda to carry out her duties as responsibilities as United Nations Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially in women and children.

Socialism still doesn't work after all these years . . .

2007-05-07T17:34:00.000-05:00

Two of Europe's most powerful new leaders trace their roots to Eastern Europe where until the end of the Cold War people lived the Socialist Dream and were taught to despise the U.S. But Germany's Angela Merkel and France's new leader, Nicholas Sarkozy are relatively conservative and pro-U.S. Hmmm.

We'll leave it to the pundits to explain this phenomenon. As this is bad news for the left, we may have to resort to the Wall Street Journal and The Washington Times to find some meaningful analysis and commentary.

But let's raise a toast to Europe's silent majority which has demonstrated that human free will and the critically important quality of discernment still survive on the individual level at least, among the masses living in Eurotopia!

A U.S. friend (singular) from across the big ocean

2007-04-27T17:58:00.000-05:00

How many friends does the U.S. have?

Let's put it another way, who out there is pro-U.S.? Well, we're counting but we're not using any fingers yet. Ok. There's Australia. England? Yes, but Tony Blair is paying for the sin of backing the U.S. in the war on terror by actually committing large numbers of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

How about the loyal opposition in this country, the Democrats? The silence is deafening. Of course they are patriots. But during the great-8-debate last night only one candidate hinted at fundamental disagreement with U.S.-hating terrorists. And they were unanimous on the ultimately-evil George W. Bush. But surely there is one sane Democrat. Wait! Sen. Joe Lieberman.

How about the other subsets of this great nation? Is there anyone in Hollywood who can see the writing on the wall in terms of the threat to western Christian civilization which most Americans enjoy and would like to believe will never disappear? Name a prominent U.S. academic courageous enough to challenge the mob mentality which has hijacked conventional wisdom on everything from global warming to the Satanicness of George W. Bush. [Silence].

Why is America so evil? The consensus statement [the unspoken actual reason being that it is a Christian nation, a free nation, a wealthy nation and the most powerful nation the world has ever known] from all the disaffected would likely be that the U.S. has gone off the rails because it doesn't mind its own business.

Meddling in Western Europe and East Asia during World War II was not so bad. But as the baby boomers began to burst on the scene and communism mounted the world stage, things changed. Doing the right thing began to mean doing nothing. Was coming to South Korea's aid when the North invaded in 1950 the right thing to do? The beginnings of the anti-authoritarian, anti-military, anti-capitalist, anti-God, pro-Soviet national mood was already in evidence. [Ever watch MASH?]. Then the still-anti-communist U.S. invoked the domino theory and jumped into Vietnam. Half of the boomer generation went to war, the other half got high and started the blame-America-first movement.

Then, in an intergenerational war still raging, the U.S. finally did something right, according to the Socialist World Order, and withdrew from Vietnam in 1975. And then it continued to mind its own business. Dominos proceeded to fall in Cambodia and Laos, millions died in the "killing fields", the Shah was overthrown in Iran which has put the entire Persian Gulf theater in play ever since. But Democrats were in power and the media was becoming the liberal media establishment. This was a good thing according to those arbiters of good and evil that are duly accredited by the Democrats, the liberal media and the socialist education establishment.

The Reagan years and Bush-41's term in office saw the evil America again rearing its ugly head dealing a death blow to Soviet communism, stopping bananna totalitarians in Central America and blocking Saddam in Kuwait.

Then a welcome respite with the still uncanonized St. Billy Clinton who did nothing after the first World Trade Center bombing [he did not even show up on the scene there because virtuous anti-Americans were involved]. He also sold out, literally, to the Chinese and made the North Koreans happy by building them a reactor and ignoring their proliferation. What a guy!

Then the new millenium and our embarassing 43rd president. The world reached out and touched us on September 11. But it was a virtuous deed because anti-Americans were involved. Bush rose to the occasion, infuriating the Democrat establishment, and then did the unspeakable. He committed America, as his predecessors had in World War II and the wars that followed, on a course of defending other peoples and nations in distress. He pushed his willing nation to help out people living in that hellhole Iraq, sending a signal of hope to other poor oppressed peoples in the region's other hellholes. [In so doing, he disrupted the holy New World Order, a politically fatal act of arrogance.] Who cared, after all, about those pitiful Iraqi nobodies. Virtuous, if crazed and brainwashed, anti-American lunatics were outraged and willingly sent out their children as suicide bombers [demonstrating that they cared and were passionate about their virtuous anti-U.S. cause]. Holy flip flop! What were we thinking, supporting that Bush guy?

This brings us to Japan. A friend. What is wrong with that country? Well looking around the neighborhood: China, North Korea, South Korea, the Japanese don't see many friendly faces. Then they look at the country that occupied, OCCUPIED their nation after World War II and imposed democracy, labor unions, freedom of the press, and a pacifist constitution on them. And what they see is a friend.

The U.S. meddled in Japan's affairs and then it made Japan one of the wealthiest nations in the world [Together, the U.S. and Japan account for 40 percent of the world's GDP, according to the Asian Investor column in the April 25 edition of East-Asia-Intel.com].

Japan's new prime minister Shinzo Abe has to work hard to be as great a buddy of George W. Bush as was his predecessor, the Elvis-loving Koizumi. So he is dedicating a couple of days to bonding with a man the rest of the world loves to hate. That's what heads of state of nations that are friends do.

NAACP Promotes Use of Term "Ho"

2007-04-16T19:35:00.000-05:00

Whether MSNBC and CBS should have canned Don Imus for his stupid comment will be the subject of water cooler discussions for weeks to come. Few people likely will defend Imus’s characterization of the Rutgers University women’s basketball team as “nappy-headed hoes.” His comments were wrong on so many levels. "Ho,” urban slang for “whore,” is one of the most offensive, demeaning, and degrading terms one could call a woman.

Imus, his remarks, and the resulting fall-out have been front-page news for more than a week. Yet, it is absurd that Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, who have many times practiced the bigotry of racism and anti-Semitism, are looked upon by some in the national media as the moral authorities on Imus’ predicament.

Many others in the black community have expressed outrage over Imus’ remarks. But should they? As a matter of fact, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People declared the term “ho” acceptable to describe women. At least the organization did so in an indirect manner.

On its website the NAACP described its reasons for presenting its annual Image Awards. “Ideas and images create the belief systems that control our individual and societal actions. When it comes to forming ideas, reinforcing stereotypes, establishing norms and shaping our thinking nothing affects us more than the images and concepts delivered into our lives on a daily basis by television and film.”

With that as its guiding principles, the NAACP gave a 2002 Image Award to rapper Ja Rule for his rap song “Livin’ It Up.” Included among the disgusting lyrics in “Livin’ It Up” was this ode of disrespect to women:

“Half the hoes hate me, half them love me
The ones that hate me only hate me cause they ain't f****d me
And they say I'm lucky; you think I got time
to f*** all these hoes and do all these shows?”

Livin’ It Up appeared on the “Pain is Love” CD with these other stirring songs: Dial M for Murder, Down Ass Bitch, and I’m Real (Murda Mix). Another track on the CD is So Much Pain, which includes these unforgettable lyrics:

“They'll never take me alive,
I'm gettin high with my fo'-five
Cocked on these niggaz time to die
Even as a lil' nigga, you could picture me hot gun in the rain
I shed the tear, cause this nigga here inherits the pain
And now I'm labeled as a thug nigga - you know the game
Smokin weed, f****n’ hoes, slangin thangs,
that's the life I live
Even if I tried to go back I'd get lost (come back)
And everything I seem to love I done lost
F*** the world if they can't understand me.”

So one must ask the question. How can high-profile blacks register outrage at Imus’s use of the term “hoes” when the most prominent black organization in America actually rewards others who use it? The use of the word “hoes” by both Imus and Ja Rule is repulsive. That the NAACP honored Ja Rule for using the term "hoes" among other, colorful terms, speaks volumes.

A strong argument can be made that Ja Rule’s use of “hoes” to describe women with whom he has, shall we say “romantic encounters”? is more demeaning, degrading and disgusting because young black women are more likely to listen to Ja Rule than Imus.

Realistically, not many people will miss Imus because his show was lousy to begin with although he was popular with high-income earning, highly-educated urbanites (i.e. "liberal elite"). The MSNBC simulcast of his show was television at its worst and was no doubt a contributing reason for MSNBC’s distant third place finish among the cable news channels.

Yet, it is troubling that words that led to the firing of Imus are the same words that result in adulation from the NAACP.

Perhaps, just perhaps, there is a race component to all of this.

Oops. Katie won't be talking about Obama's Muslim background for a while

2007-04-16T08:34:00.000-05:00

It's a controversial story, but Katie on April 11 was apparently in the mood to be controversial. And then someone at CBS changed their (her?) mind. The transcript of what she said below reveals another chapter in CBS panic and shame in the shocking week of Imus.

For Katie -- perky Katie -- had used the M word in a brief segment about Obama. Oh the horror.

Suddenly (in the late afternoon of Friday, April 13, the link to Katie's video clip went instead to the Imus coverage. Who knows what it goes to now.

Her original blog post as linked by the DrudgeReport got heavily "redacted" by someone at CBS (with Katie's permission?) and the little monitor that would allow one to view the original clip had disappeared. Even the YouTube clip has been taken private.

Fortunately, we can provide a transcript of the clip which got relegated to the CBS dustbin of history before it was even three days old. Transcript:

Hi everyone.

Is America ready to elect a president who grew up praying in a mosque?

Barack Obama has arguably the most diverse religious background of any candidate, ever. He was raised in Indonesia by a Christian mother and Muslim stepfather and attended a Catholic school, but while growing up, also studied Islam.

That background sparked rumors that he had studied in a radical madrassa or Koranic school - rumors his campaign denied, declaring that Obama is now a practicing Christian. Last month, the Los Angeles Times interviewed people who grew up with Obama. "We prayed in the mosque," one of them said, "but not seriously," noting that Obama also prayed with his Catholic schoolmates.

It's too soon to know what America will decide about Barack Obama or his background, but it's not too soon to wonder if America will see that as an assset or a liability.

That's a page from my notebook. I'm Katie Couric, CBS News.

News flash: Yesterday was Easter Sunday and that is a Christian holiday

2007-04-09T07:04:00.000-05:00

For all golf fans, the Masters at the famed Augusta National course is an annual virtual Mecca via TV to those rolling green hills and hallowed grounds. The gods and ghosts of golf are all there on Masters weekend which this year climaxed on Easter Sunday, a fact that was pointed out by the winner, Zach Johnson, and as far as we heard, no one else.

Not all those gods and ghosts are Christians to be sure and modern Christianity has arguably transcended Christianity enroute to what? A monotheistic community of faith without borders? Whatever. But there is something universal about the honor and purity of the game played by the greatest at Augusta that goes to the core of what is magic about America [founded some may be horrified to learn as a Christian nation].

The zen masters of mind-over-body precision in harmony with nature, and at the time of the year when the azaleas are in bloom, throw into bold relief pretenders to golf greatness like slick Willie Clinton, also remembered for posting himself weekly in the Little Rock Baptist church choir in clear view of the TV cameras broadcasting services statewide between his non-sequential terms as the governor of Arkansas.

Before yesterday, nobody had heard of Zach Johnson. On Saturday, a CBS commentator observed: "He's got that look. He wants it." And after all the bogies from Amen Corner on through 17 by the reigning gods of golf including Tiger Woods — the phenomenon well on the way to eclipsing Jack Nicklaus as the greatest golfer ever to walk earthly fairways — the young Iowan had prevailed.

Then, as he emotionally kissed his baby boy just off the 18th green, this Zach Johnson guy wished a supporter "Happy Easter" on nationwide TV. It happened so quickly that CBS couldn't bleep it out. He wouldn't stop. Again and again he testified to his faith, family and investors as CBS producers and the more progressive dignitaries at Augusta recoiled internally, wondering how this could be happening in polite society.

Speaking of which, did anyone hear any trace of Easter on the Mainstream Media yesterday? Was there even a hint that a man called Jesus testified to the love of a living God, sacrificed his life for the sins of humanity, dissed death in the process, and set in motion a lifestyle revolution that has transformed civilization?

Yesterday morning, this writer recalled the churches of a bygone era — still there but fallen silent — and scanned through all FM stations in the Washington, DC area searching in vain for the soaring Easter music that once heralded spring and rebirth.

It took an unknown golfer from Iowa to remind followers of the state religion, marching in tight formation to the beat of the sacrosanct secular culture, what yesterday was all about. This young man may have entered the green jacket hall of fame but he has yet to be indoctrinated in the ways of the rich and famous. Here's hoping that, as the 2007 Masters champion said yesterday, "this Zach Johnson will not change."

Remembering Our Troops

2007-04-05T08:10:00.000-05:00

From: Us
To: Congressional Democrats

Subj: Remember Me?

Please watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ervaMPt4Ha0

Thank you.

Apologies for Slavery

2007-03-29T18:39:00.002-05:00

The Virginia state assembly offered one. So did the mayor of the Macon, Georgia although the Georgia legislature is unsure whether it should. The Maryland legislature voted in favor of a similar resolution. The city council in Maryland’s state capital of Annapolis is considering its own measure.

The legislative action in question is the offer of a formal apology for slavery. Although the practice of one person owning another was abolished a century and a half ago, there is lingering resentment over slavery. Or so say proponents of an apology. That is why, they argue, that state and local governments must proffer profound regrets over the inhumane practice. Speaking in favor of a resolution, Georgia State Senate President Pro Tem Eric John said, “[Slavery] was wrong, and we ought to move on."

Funny thing, though, the apologists appear to want to do anything but move on. Annapolis Alderman Sam Shropshire, who introduced that city council’s proposed resolution, said the measure was "part of a healing process, a process that still needs to take place even today in 2007."

The sad aspect of this is that the folks who favor giving an apology over 19th century slavery policies generally are the same people who turn a deaf ear to the current illegal alien problem afflicting this country. One of the many unfortunate aspects of illegal alien activity is the human trafficking that takes place. U.S. authorities estimate as many as 18,500 foreigners are brought illegally into this country every year as part of the modern-day slave trade. Worldwide, 70 percent of human trafficking victims are female. Fifty percent are children. Nearly all are forced to perform involuntary servitude or are forced into the commercial sex trade.

Perhaps the apologists should instead focus on 21st century slavery. No apology needed. Instead, they should dedicate themselves to supporting commonsense policies that strengthen our borders. Tightening our borders would go along way to eliminating the modern-day slave trade.

However, should the current crop of advocates be successful in their quest for government acknowledgement of responsibility for the slave trade of generations gone by, it is unlikely the issue will end there. No doubt calls for slavery reparations will follow. Actually, they have already begun.

In a 2003 New York Times editorial, New York University Professor Dalton Conley, a leading advocate for slavery reparations, laid out his argument. The fact that there are no living former slaves mattered little to Conley. Moreover, the NYU professor proposed that recipients of slavery reparations should not be limited to only the descendants of slaves. Conley’ wrote “if you are black -- regardless of when your ancestors arrived -- you live with slavery's stigma.”

Conley further opined, “it is not important whether a white family arrived in 1700 or in 1965.” He argued that white immigrants who came to the U.S. long after slavery ended should not be excused from paying off black Americans, whether those blacks were descendants of slaves or were black immigrants who had recently arrived in country. In Conley’s view, all white people bear responsibility for the plight of all blacks whether or not those blacks were the descendants of slaves.

Conley argued that thirteen percent of white household wealth should be transferred to blacks. Conley calculated that “a two-adult black family would receive an average reparation of about $35,000.”

At the time of Conley’s proposal, O.J. Simpson dream team lawyer Johnnie Cochran generously offered his services to the black community. Cochran offered to sue for upwards of trillions in dollars as part of Conley’s elaborate socially engineered income transfer plan.

The Georgia Senate’s John is right. It is time to move on. None of the estimated 35 million people living in this country at the conclusion of the Civil War are alive today. Attempts to hold any living person or current government morally or financially responsible for 19th century slavery is absurd. Perhaps the most productive act of contrition would be to end today’s human slave trade. That can best be accomplished not by offering apologies but by clamping down on rampant illegal port of entry and border crossing activity.

Hypocrisy Over the Manufactured Scandal

2007-03-29T18:39:00.001-05:00

Congressional Democrats are in an uproar over the Bush Administration having asked for the resignation of eight of the 93 U.S. Attorneys President Bush had appointed to their posts. Article II Section 2 of the Constitution gives the president the power to make appointments to a variety of offices. As with all other appointments, the U.S. Attorneys serve at the pleasure of the president. Democrats, with the aid of the national press, have manufactured a scandal where one does not exist.

Reportedly, some presidential administrations request appointed officials to submit resignations immediately after the president is reelected in order to give him the opportunity to start a second term with a clean slate. This option was apparently discussed regarding the disposition of all 93 U.S. Attorneys.

Each administration has its own record of the president “firing” appointed officials because of a failure to carry out Administration policies. President Bill Clinton summarily dismissed all U.S. Attorneys when he took office, presumably because he did not have the confidence they would support his agenda.

The history of the executive branch is littered with “fired” cabinet officers and White House officials. “But there may have been politics involved in the decision to fire the U.S. Attorneys,” the Democrats have cried. The fact that politics might have played a role in the “firing” of the U.S. Attorneys or any other appointed officials, for that matter, should not surprise anyone. By their very nature, political appointments are, well, political. Decisions on who to appoint (“hire”) and who should step down (“fire”) are subjective. These decisions are subject to the politics of the day. This is perhaps the single-most obvious fact in the single-most political town, Washington, D.C.

Nonetheless, these facts have not stemmed the tide of Democrat officials and the national media from hyping the “firings” as a national scandal. On Tuesday, March 20th, Bush responded to Democrat threats to subpoena White House advisors. In a televised appearance, Bush displayed some of the resolve and a bit of the cowboy swagger that had been absent from his persona for the last several months. He announced he was not going to allow Congressional Democrats to engage in partisan witchhunts and political fishing expeditions regarding who offered what advice over the disposition of U.S. Attorneys. Bush has made a separation of the branches of government claim. In fact, there is recent precedent regarding claims of the separation between the legislative and executive branches of government

First, it is relevant to note that Congress has long been sensitive to anyone examining the inner workings and private consultations of Congress. It is because of this reason that Congress exempted itself from having to comply with the Freedom of Information Act. Congressmen believed such deliberations are privileged and, consequently, out of bounds for public (and executive branch) scrutiny.

More recently, the legislative branch cried “Constitutional crisis!” over a criminal probe. Last year, Congressional leaders displayed bipartisan outrage over the FBI raid of the Capitol Hill office of Louisiana Congressman William Jefferson. A search warrant was executed after the FBI found $90,000 in cash stored in a freezer in Jefferson’s home. A cooperating witness told the FBI the money was part of a $100,000 bribe the witness was videotaped handing over to Jefferson. Then-House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi called the FBI search “unconstitutional” and a violation of the separation of the branches of government.

The major difference in the Jefferson case was that executive branch officials (i.e. the FBI) did not search Jefferson’s office in order to gain access to material pertaining to legislative deliberations. The FBI was conducting a criminal investigation into apparent criminal acts committed by Jefferson. In contrast, Bush acted within his Constitutional authority when he “fired” officials he had himself appointed and any discussions his aides may have had were consultative in nature.

The House of Nancy was in a dither over the criminal investigation of one of its members and it tried to invoke imagined Constitutional protections. Yet, Pelosiville saw no Constitutional impediment to gathering the details of private executive branch deliberations in an otherwise benign personnel matter. The reality is Congressional Democrats are motivated to carry out a partisan sideshow intended to embarrass the Bush Administration over possible internal communications.

Bush noted in his televised remarks that making public the private conversations of his aides would not only betray their trust, but would also likely cause future White House officials to be reticent in being completely frank and honest if they knew their words could later be used to embarrass them.

There is one other issue at play in this brouhaha. Senators Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT) insist that discussions with White House officials would have to be under oath. There is little doubt Schumer, Leahy and the rest of the Democrat Caucus would love to find some miniscule fact or insignificant record that differed materially from what an official thought he or she remembered, while under oath. This, they would use to level charges of perjury. Replays of the “Scooter” Libby trial are likely dancing in their heads.

The March 21st edition of Washington, D.C.’s The Hill newspaper best exemplifies the blatant hypocrisy of the Democrats and the national media over this fake scandal. On the front page below the fold was an article titled “Dems reject Bush offer on Karl Rove.” Democrats angry that Bush allegedly fired U.S. Attorneys for not conforming to an Administration agenda have cried “scandal!” Adjacent to this article was a second titled “It’s tough to get 218 votes, so Speaker gets tough, too.” The second article addressed Pelosi’s threat to “fire” Democrats from plum committee assignments if they did not conform to the Democrat Caucus agenda of supporting Pelosi’s Iraq supplemental appropriation bill.

The roar of the hypocrisy is deafening. Yet no one appears to be listening.

Language Battles

2007-03-29T18:34:00.000-05:00

As a conservative, columnist Ann Coulter should be more niggardly in her use of loaded terms or she may suffer another macaca moment.

Coulter-haters are still wailing over the sharp-tongued pundit’s use of the dreaded F-word: faggot. Unlike Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, it appears Coulter really did botch a joke. While speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, DC earlier this month, Coulter remarked that she “was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate, John Edwards, but it turns out you have to go into rehab if you use the word ‘faggot.’”

Coulter’s F-word moment has revealed a battle over the English language pitting protected groups who assert special rights over how some words are to be used, and everyone else. The language battle that has been brewing has a dash of political correctness thrown in for good measure.

It is safe to say that most conservative talking heads would avoid using loaded terms, particularly if certain privileged groups believe they have proprietary rights to them. The homosexual community has claimed ownership of “queer,” “fag” and “gay,” in spite of the fact they have non-sexual definitions that have long had widespread use. Anyone deemed unacceptable by the homosexual lobby will likely be branded a bigot and labeled intolerant for using those words even in the context of their original meanings.

Listen to rap music or watch black comedians on pay television and expect to be overwhelmed by the N-word. Black entertainers casually toss around the N-word as easily as liberals throw out accolades at a Hollywood screening of Al Gore’s global warming campaign film. Yet, a white person who utters the N-word will be subjected to relentless condemnation. (Is Michael Richards still in hiding?) Unless the white person is a former Ku Klux Klan recruiter and present-day senior U.S. Senator from West Virginia.

The language battle goes beyond using specific words. It also includes the meanings (implied and inferred) of entire statements. Liberals will always get a free pass. Conservatives will not.

In December 2002, then-Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi heaped praise on South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond at his 100th birthday celebration. Lott said, “I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either.”

Lott’s comments were so vague that they could have meant anything. Nonetheless, that simple statement of kindness unleashed a torrent of criticism. Critics inferred Lott’s remarks as meaning Lott was in favor of segregation today.

In one week’s time hundreds of stories and news articles appeared on television and in print breathlessly calling Lott a racist and urging him to step down as Senate Majority Leader. Time magazine even devoted a front cover to Lott titled “Whitewashing the Past.” Caving in to the pressure, Lott resigned his position as Senate Majority Leader.

In April 2004, Connecticut Senator Christopher Dodd praised Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia after his 17,000th Senate vote. Dodd stated that Byrd was a great leader and “He would have been right during the great conflict of Civil War in this nation."

Dodd was very specific. He praised Byrd, the former Ku Klux Klansman and former Klan recruiter; who filibustered for 17 hours against the Civil Rights Act of 1964; who voted against both black nominees (one liberal and one conservative) to the U.S. Supreme Court; who opposed blacks in the military; who campaigned to restore the Ku Klux Klan to power in West Virginia and throughout the country; and who still publicly used the N-word as a man who would have made a great national leader when the nation had gone to war over slavery.

Considering Byrd’s deeply racist leanings, there was no mistaking what Dodd had clearly implied. Yet, the press studiously avoided the incident. In one week’s time, only eight stories were found addressing the topic in daily newspapers, weekly news magazines, on television network newscasts and on cable television news programs. There was no Time Magazine cover. There were no cries of “racist” or “bigot” directed at Dodd. There were no calls for Dodd to step down.

Adding fuel to the criticism of Coulter’s comments was her critics’ refusal to acknowledge the apparent reality that she botched a joke. Coulter’s joke misfired for a couple of reasons. First, her reference to popular culture might have been a little too obscure. Television actor Isaiah Washington who stars in the popular ABC television program Grey’s Anatomy announced he was going to enter rehab in late January for allegedly using “faggot” to describe another cast member.

Second, only that very small group of adults that has raised middle school-aged children; has lived in a neighborhood with children; has watched children at play; has visited a school or school event; or has ever set foot in a shopping mall knows that “faggot” is one of many childish barbs. It may only be a matter of time before the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation lobbies to put an end to other silly schoolyard taunts including “That’s so gay!” and “Don’t be so queer!”

No one has suggested that Edwards is a homosexual, however, many have suggested he is a wimp; hence, Coulter’s churlish taunt. The patrician John Edwards is often viewed as something of a pretty-boy and a wuss. He is frequently referred to as the “Breck girl.” I have always thought Edwards resembled a back-up dancer to the musical troupe Up With People, nattily attired in his polyester body suit and his shiny, white Reebok dance shoes. I long ago concluded that if Edwards was to help a neighbor move he is the guy who would fake lifting his corner of the sofa. In other words, he is a schoolyard wimp.

That aside, Coulter should have known better. She should have realized that she would never get a free pass on using a loaded term such as “faggot.” If there were any way her comments could be misconstrued, they would be. Coulter is a conservative. Free passes are only for liberals.

Language battles have also occurred when innocent comments have resulted in manufactured scandals. In January 1999, David Howard a white aide to then-Washington, DC Mayor Anthony Williams resigned under pressure for using the word “niggardly” in front of other city employees.

Howard used the word when he was discussing how he would administer a particular city fund. Niggardly means to be stingy, miserly or tight-fisted. Niggardly is not a slur, but that did not prevent an avalanche of criticism directed at Howard nor Williams’s announcement of an investigation into Howard’s comments. Howard was rehired by Williams a month later presumably when someone in the mayor’s office cracked open a dictionary.

One can’t help but admire Ann Coulter because she is a risk-taker in her word choices. No doubt she knows she is under a microscope. Yet, she will not wilt under pressure nor retreat in the face of criticism. By the same token, she must appreciate that every word she says and writes will be scrutinized for hidden meanings, real or imagined, in order to attack her.

On a larger note, it should be discomforting to society that the Angry Left’s constituencies have laid ownership claims to countless words, terms, and phrases and has placed their use off-limits to anyone who is not a member of their special clubs. Oh, how queer.

Trouble in Mullah-lah land

2007-03-27T06:48:00.000-05:00

Iran's March 23 abductions of the British sailors is news.

But it's not the real news.

Likewise the odd story of Ahmadinejad's scuttled trip to the UN in New York over the weekend to fight the looming international sanctions signals a much bigger story beneath the surface. Where is our intrepid Washington press corps?

Iran blamed the canceled trip on U.S. delays in issuing visas. State Department deputy spokesman Tom Casey flatly denied that charge:

"We provided visas to President Ahmadinejad's delegation, including his security and aircrew, in time for him to come to New York and speak at the Security Council on Saturday."

Part of the truth is too painful for the pro-Jihadi, pro-Socialist international press corps to countenance much less publish. Same goes for the intrepid Washington press corps.

Yes, the story behind the story is that "Western intelligence" agencies have either managed to unravel Iran's intelligence network that has bedeviled Coalition forces in Iraq or that they they are benefitting from a string of defections of key Iran intelligence operatives. Either way, there are serious problems in Mullah-lah land. And that is not good news for the blame-America-first global mobocracy.

You can read part of the story in the coming edition of Geostrategy-Direct.com.

It is clear, however, as WorldTribune.com reported on March 26, that Iran's regime has been shaken to the core:

On Sunday, the London-based A-Sharq Al Awsat quoted a military source close to the Quds Brigade who said that Iran's Higher Defense Council convened in emergency session to discuss a report by Chief of Staff Gen. Hassan Fayrouz Abadi.

The Iranian report, relayed by Quds Brigade commander Brig. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, asserted that the defections have led to the unraveling of the Quds Brigade and IRGC network in Iraq. The report was said to have detailed the defections of the commander of the Quds force in Iraq, his assistant and three aides.

The new hostage crisis recall memories of the 1979 hostage crisis which accompanied the birth of this rotten-to-the-core regime which has rocked and destabilized the Middle East and threatened the international order and energy supply. [By the way, wasn't Ahmadinejad one of the students holding the hostages despite official denials?]

While that hostage crisis toppled the Jimmy Carter regime, it evaporated with the rise to power of Ronald Reagan. Will the latest hostage crisis succeed against the powerful [and reportedly evil] Bush-Blain entente? Not likely. But terrorism, kidnapping, murder, rape, extortion, and the manipulation of the anti-U.S. inernational and Washington media are the only plays in these Mullahs' playbook.

How well we remember the fear on the faces of people we met in Teheran in 1979, and the anxiety and desapir expressed by both devout Shi'ites and members of what were then thriving communities of regious minorities. Their fears were well-founded and large segments of a desperate and despairing population are resorting to drugs and prostitution.

Regime-change or regime implosion? Either way, the Iranian people have suffered long enough. Let a new spring begin.

Food Nazis today, North Koreans tomorrow

2007-03-18T12:16:00.000-05:00

Most of us work hard for a living and so like a little down time when we come home. But creeping totalitarianism is encroaching on all fronts including the home front. The rigors of socially responsible behavior and saving the planet offer no respite even during unguarded moments around the family dining table

I mean some of this stuff is funny, such as a U.S. CDC official bemoaning the fact that fewer than a third of Americans are eating three servings of veggies daily according to "national goals". But the idea of not being able to diss Global Warming orthodoxy in the privacy of one's home is moving our republic closer to Stasi-land.

Will bread-winners approaching middle age lose their jobs because their kids inform the authorities that their neanderthal Dads not only oppose clean water and air but are openly (at home) skeptical about Global Warming? Denial would be futile. The principle could measure stress levels in your voice when he calls to check you out.

But at least we are not living in China where meditating or praying at home can ruin your life or in North Korea where if you are politically correct enough to land an overseas assignment, you have to leave your children behind as hostages of the state in case you might be tempted to think non-socialist thoughts or act on the freedoms you are breathing in the air outside the "People's Paradise."

So for you control freaks out there, get a life: Move to North Korea, where absolutely no nonsense is permitted. [Except, that is, for privleged Party members who can afford the video players to watch hit South Korean films and TV series in the privacy of their homes.] You can eat the bark off the trees if the World Food Program is not parachuting in your required diet of veggies.

Global snoring: Even good communists now have to work for a living

2007-03-11T15:25:00.000-05:00

Times are tough for those Red Capitalists in the Middle Kingdom. Party officials who once lived well while the peasants paid obeisance, now have to play catchup with the entrepreneurs driving a runaway economy. It's hard work but they continue to thrive by doing what they have always done so well: Being corrupt.

The rules are fairly basic in these euphoric days of China's 'peaceful rise' [note: referring to the China 'threat' is discouraged for upwardly mobile Americans, Europeans and Asians of all stripes. So when tempted to say 'threat', catch yourself and say instead 'rise'.]. But we digress: Those rules or the rule is: Make lots of money but forget about all those First Amendment-type freedoms so valued in the U.S. (and actually everywhere come to think of it).

The world's bankers and traders are huge supporters of China's 'peaceful rise' but there are nagging problem, the main one being Taiwan (which still doesn't know its place). The military which is key to current dictator Hu Jintao's power, aims more and more missiles at Taiwan. But Taiwan businessmen now have at least $150 billion in Mainland investments and a half million managers and technicians residing in China.

Take a trip to Taipei and meet up with businessmen and you will find that many have second homes (and sometimes second wives) on the Mainland. So the globalization of business and culture is rendering ideology increasingly irrelevant. But making money the old fashioned way, by being corrupt, is hard work. So these National Communist hot air conclaves are an excellent way to catch up on the snooze.

No news doesn't mean nothing is happening

2007-03-05T17:32:00.000-05:00

What's happening?

Well today, we can read about the clot in the Vice President's leg, Anne Coulter, Walter Reed hospital, Hillary and Obama, Obama and Hillary, not to mention Britney and Anne Nichole.

Is that all there is? Does no one think that China's Xinhua news/espionage operation seeking U.S. capital might be news?

In 2005, folks got upset about a China oil company's bid for Unocal. Last year, we had a conniption fit about a Dubai firm's bid to manage six major U.S. ports, a story which WorldTribune.com helped flush out into the open.

China's Far East shuffle continues to mesmerize the West. Their officials smile, bow and exhibit Far East mystique and deference in polite company. So no, they're not playing the part of a coming mega-power with the appropriate Soviet-style boorish thuggishness.

But the ironies here boggle the mind. The Chinese state media, whose "journalists" double as spies, use Xinhua to make damn sure that nothing resembling freedom of the press breaks out in the People's Republic. Never mind what their far-flung "correspondents" do for the Middle Kingdom and to the trusting host countries in the guise of the working press.

But just to be more inclusive, and to seem so capitalistic as to feign traces of anti-communism, Xinhua is going for an IPO, to fund its propaganda/espionage operation [aligned with the rapidly-growing military against the longterm American target] with U.S. capital.

That takes the cake. But news? Apparently not.

From Today's Scranton Times-Tribune: Scott Twp. native’s group nominated for Nobel Prize

2007-02-27T16:50:00.000-05:00

BY CHRIS BIRK
STAFF WRITER

Joseph K. Grieboski believes freedom of religion is the foundation of all others.

The Scott Township native has spent the last six years working to ensure religious freedom around the world as founder and president of the Institute for Religion and Public Policy in Washington, D.C.

“Religion is the only one of the fundamental rights that’s internal. If there’s a violation of that, there can be a violation of any of these other rights,” he said. “Without freedom of religion, there are no other freedoms.”

Over the past five years, his nonprofit organization has carved out a unique path for collaboration among dozens of countries interested in issues pertaining to human rights and religious freedom. His work has culminated in a nomination for the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.

The institute’s Interparliamentary Conference on Human Rights and Religious Freedom brings together parliament members from more than 50 countries to find common ground on issues from AIDS and human trafficking to religious freedom and national security. The annual forums give members an avenue for joint action on rights issues by enacting parallel legislation in their countries, instead of relying on the traditional and sometimes heavily politicized processes of crafting formal treaties.

The Nobel nomination came earlier this month from a parliament member from the West African nation of Burkina Faso.

“The Interparliamentary Conference on Human Rights and Religious Freedom is constantly in the process of resolving issues of rising tension — religious and others — and moving the world in such a collaborative, parliamentary means to peace,” Ousseni Tamboura wrote in his nominating letter to the prize committee.

The prize committee is expected to whittle down a list of contenders in the next month. It is awarded in October.

Humbled by the nomination, Mr. Grieboski said it also serves as motivation for a group of people who want to make sure the recognition is earned.

“We’ve been nominated. Let’s be worth it, let’s actually do enough that we deserve to get it,” said Mr. Grieboski, a 1992 graduate of Scranton Preparatory School.

The institute has another Scranton tie — chief administrator Matthew Mullock also graduated from Prep before moving to Washington to attend American University. He graduated in May 2004 and joined the institute in December 2005, four years after interning for the organization. Mr. Grieboski’s mother, Pat, lives in Peckville.

Contact the writer: cbirk@timesshamrock.com

©The Times-Tribune 2007

If U.S. voters were Kim Jong-Il

2007-02-25T18:56:00.000-05:00

If one could start from scratch and be born as someone else, most of us wouldn't pick North Korea's Kim Il-Sung, to be dear old dad. But there must be some perks in being Kim Jong-Il, the "Dear Leader" and the heir of "Eternal Sun", Kim Il-Sung.

Yonhap News in South Korea reported that one day recently, when he was probably really upset with the Japanese over something or other, Kim Jong-Il saw a stalled Japanese-made car blocking the road. That was the final straw. He issued a decree that all Japanese-made cars throughout North Korea should confiscated. Now that, Madame Speaker, is power with a capital P.

OK, North Korea is weird and serious news sources should not waste too much ink on the "hermit kingdom". But the US of A can be pretty off-putting itself. Just consider the fact that in January the 2008 presidential election was already in high gear. Now these guys are professional pols and know what they are doing, but there must be other Americans out there who want to hear nothing, ZERO, about the 2008 presidential campaign until say the dead of August, 2008.

I mean, if we were Kim Jong-Il, we could just lock all those suckers up and let them have at it, like scorpions in a tobacco tin. . . and then the rest of us could have some peace of mind.

Frank Luntz touched on this theme in, of all places, The Washington Post ['Stuck in the Mud / How Can the GOP Get Moving Again? Drop the Dirty Politics and Get Real']today in a commentary [advising Republicans to abandon politics as usual and appeal to the "fed-up" segment of the population who went for Ross Perot in two straight elections [thereby (and Luntz was not saying this) putting Slick Willie in the White House for 8 years, thereby jump-starting Osama Bin Laden's messianic mission].

It is no wonder that 52 percent of voters in my election night survey said they were "mad as hell" about politics and politicians. Can you blame them? It doesn't matter whether you are a Republican or a Democrat, the outlook is grim: a war with no end in sight, rising costs of health care, borders that are poorly patrolled, schools that are failing, manufacturing that is disappearing, and a culture that is coarsening.

Well, we're not Kim Jong-Il, but we at WorldTribune.com can pledge to you that we are not obsessing about the 2008 campaign and will ignore it as much as possible.

Hey, here's and idea for North Korea's cash flow problem. Forget the counterfeit, drug and missile trafficking and all the other other illicit revenues streams. How's about a reality show: "Totalitarian, mind-controlling dictator for a day." The winner gets to do anything he wants to people he can't stand as long as he can get them into North Korea where they will have no human rights. Listen Jong-Il, there's real money in this idea. Just think about it.

Kosovo Future Status: The Puerto Rico Option

2007-02-14T11:57:00.000-05:00

On February 2, 2007, United Nations Special Envoy on Kosovo, Mr. Marrti Ahtisaari, presented his plan regarding the future status of Kosovo. The proposal, endorsed soundly by British and American authorities, as well as by the EU, does not use the word “independence” to describe a future Kosovo entity. However, in the absence of any reference to continuing Serbian sovereignty, there is little doubt that the Ahtisaari proposal provides for definitive detachment of Kosovo from Serbia and independence in all but name, as the proposal offers Kosovo its own national symbols (including flag and anthem), the right to join international organizations such as United Nations and International Monetary Fund, and other items usually reserved for sovereign independent states.

The quasi-independent Kosovo entity described by Mr. Ahtisaari would be supervised for an interim period by an international envoy mandated by the UN and European Union with power to intervene in the government. It would also retain NATO and EU forces in military and policing roles to protect the non-Albanian communities – the Serbs in particular – which would have a guaranteed role in government, police and civil service. Also laid out are protections for Serbian Orthodox Church sites and the Serbian language.

The challenge of balancing legitimate Serbian sovereignty and the desire of Kosovo Albanians for self-government is not insurmountable. A third option exists for the province of Kosovo other than the only two which the international community seems to believe are available: protection of Serbian sovereignty over the province (which in principle means daily control and management from Belgrade) or a fully independent Kosovo Albanian state.

The elusive third option is one similar to the status of Puerto Rico within the United States: full internal autonomy within the sovereign territory of the United States. Puerto Rico is a self-governing commonwealth in association with the United States. The chief of state is the President of the United States of America; the head of government is an elected Governor. There are two legislative chambers, the House of Representatives and the Senate.

Puerto Rico has authority over its internal affairs. The United States controls interstate trade; foreign relations and commerce; customs administration; control of air, land and sea; immigration and emigration; nationality and citizenship; currency; maritime laws; military service, military bases, army, navy and air force; declaration of war; constitutionality of laws, jurisdictions and legal procedures; treaties; postal system; and other areas generally controlled by the federal government in the United States. Puerto Rican institutions control internal affairs unless U.S. law is involved, as in matters of public health and pollution.

Under such an arrangement, Kosovo’s Albanians could and must have active representation in the National Assembly in Belgrade in order to advance their rights and interests. A Kosovo militia, like the National Guard in Puerto Rico and purged of elements responsible for violence against non-Albanians, must train and serve side-by-side in the Serbian national army and air force in order to build a functional military structure as well as moving toward a greater state unity rather than pressure toward separation.

While the situations of Puerto Rico and Kosovo are not perfectly aligned, the international community can learn from the Puerto Rican experience and draft a model that includes significant internal autonomy for Kosovar institutions while still upholding Serbian sovereignty. Most importantly, it is a model that can help protect the human rights and freedoms of all inhabitants of Kosovo, regardless of ethnicity.

Regime change is a state of mind

2007-02-09T18:48:00.000-05:00

The nominee to head U.S. intelligence, retired Vice Adm. Michael McConnell, has said something so sensible that it has been overlooked by the big media.

And here, we must digress. This is the week, after all, when an astronaut went around the bend and the entire media world, in turn, went on a bender. All that was finally too much for Anna Nichole Smith who simply went.

Now back to our top spook-to-be [at last report he is still on track to become the Director of National Intelligence] who actually declared to the U.S. Senate that the United States must declare ideological war on militant Islamists.

This is revolutionary stuff in a town run by unelected bureaucrats who make a living leaking to the press about elected or appointed (read temporary) Washingtonians. Thus however much George Bush tries to win the worldwide war on Terror while proclaiming from his heart that Islam is a religion of peace, the media/bureaucracy have undermined him at every turn for not marching to the beat of their drum, ie, "don't even think about changing the map unless we say so."

“Not many years ago, the intelligence community focused almost exclusively on foreign threats outside our borders,” McConnell said. “What is new is the need to focus on these threats inside our borders.”

A new study by the Rand Corp. agrees:

"The war against Al Qaida must be no less than the Cold War. This means a total war against Al Qaida, particularly ways to undermine the Islamic movement. The United States must spend much of its resources discrediting Islamic groups, severing their links and help secular Arab and other regimes ready to cooperate."

Meanwhile an effective ideological campaign is being waged against the tyrannical regime that has suppressed and repressed North Korea. Who is waging this war? Not the leftwing government of formerly anti-communist South Korea. Rather, its performing arts community whose films and TV series are in demand throughout Asia and even in many increasingly Asian suburbs of these United States. See: 'Nuclear North Korea buffeted by a cultural 'South wave'. I can personally attest that this stuff is irresistable to Asians of my acquaintance and quality filmmaking is threatening to take North Korea by storm.

So an ideological war, compellingly done and with dramatic effect, should take care of much of the world's more difficult state sponsors of terrorism.

But then there is the continuing problem of that Citgo guy in Venezuela: 'Chavez announces May takeover of all Venezuela oil fields'. This thug listens to no bloviations except his own.

Maybe as soon as he tires of himself, as most Venezuelans and Latin Americans already have, then he will retire, run afoul of Pat Robertson, or in a simpler and more elegant solution, simply vanish from our collective consciousness.

Just think: No more annoying Hugo Chavez. Blip. He's gone. Now wasn't that easy?

The condition of the world's condition

2007-01-20T02:49:00.000-05:00

Please don't confuse the world situation with the 2008 presidential sweepstakes.

We admit that Hillary's opposition research on Sen. Obama's childhood education in a Madrassah (Islamic school) in Indonesia (Wahhabi or not, that is the question) is a wild story. The ironies raised are so overwhelming in volume, we will just have to transcend that story right here and now.

But speaking of Islam and world peace, we note that Morocco is regulating the building of mosques in that country. We wonder if the same goes for Madrassahs?

Back stateside, meanwhile, Sol Sanders correctly points out that the U.S. allows everyone but itself to wage propaganada (read: objective news) wars (most of which target the U.S.). Were the U.S. to engage in propaganda, that would be managing the objective news and therefore far more sinister than propaganda.

Since the U.S. is bowing out of the war of ideas, which arguable matters more than all other forms of warfare in the 21st century, it is understandable that U.S. forces are losing interest in being the "tripwire" on the Korean DMZ. The theory there is that when an invading North Korean army plows through American soldiers stationed on the DMZ, Uncle Sam will be so infuriated that there is no telling what he might do. This is a form of deterrence that involves placing American soldiers on an altar, much as Abraham did with his long-awaited-son Isaac and playing a game of chicken with God or Kim Jong-Il, neither of which could be confused with the other except in the latter's own mind.

Which brings us back to the topic at hand: we just dropped in to see what condition's the world's condition is in. In response, we offer for your attention a 90-second graphic history of world religion and war.

And, if you have taken that in, we'll release you back to the mind control machinations of Obama, Hillary and their workaholic spin doctors.

Getting religion on Father Abraham's turf

2007-01-12T16:30:00.000-05:00

Here we were thinking that Christianity was mucking up the peace in that great caldron of resentments, the Middle East.

Now it develops that while the "Crusaders" (Americans) are fighting to stabilize Iraq, the natives are getting increasingly restless as it dawns on them that the Americans may be headed for the showers.

Will President Bush succeed in expanding the military and addressing the Iran problem? In his weakened political position and as the media focuses on Grandmother Pelosi, W is increasingly looking like a loser.

The Arabs can read the writing on the wall: "The Iranians are coming." The message is being heard loud and clear all around the increasingly Persian Gulf. And it's even being heard on Yasser Arafat's old stomping ground.

What to do? Well if you are U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, you go on Google and try to figure out the difference between Sunni and Shi'ite. If you are living in that part of the world, you break out the Koran and start reading it over again to make sure you "get it" the same way as the Hamas do. And, the Hamas are increasingly reading the Koran the same way the Mullahs do.

Meanwhile, Democrat America, stuck, as the inimitable Mark Levin says, on September 10, 2001, just seems inclined to drop the Good Samaritan act.

What's it all about, Jong-Il?

2007-01-05T18:34:00.000-05:00

It's Friday, the New Year has begun, Nancy Pelosi is Speaker of the House, and you're still not inspired. What to do?

Here in the USA, you go out to dinner with friends or family, take in a movie or fire up the computer for a little surfing or blogging.

In North Korea, you can rule out all those options. You're stuck in some cold barracks with nothing to do but stare at the framed photos on the wall of the Great Leader (Kim Il-Sung) and the Dear Leader (Kim Jong-Il).

Okay. That's good. There is meaning in life. But there's still something missing. That little spark, the joie de vivre that would make you wag your tail if you were a dog. And this is where the Dear One has Nancy and Harry beat. He can't raise the minimum wage but he can provide happiness!

Gerald Ford's fatal flaw

2007-01-02T18:59:00.000-05:00

Conventional celebrities, whether in Washington, D.C. or Hollywoods, are expected to stand for causes greater than themselves.

To be agenda-driven is to matter and in our secular society to be virtuous.

In this, Gerald Ford, our 38th president, was a failure. As Peggy Noonan put it:

One of the greatest things about Gerald Ford as a former president was that he didn't say much. He had no need for the spotlight. He was modest in the old-fashioned way of stepping aside and not getting in the way of the new guy.

In one of his final interviews , with WorldTribune.com, Ford — the first Eagle Scout to occupy the Oval office — even allowed that one of his favorite Biblical passages was: Proverbs 3: 5, 6:

´Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding .... in all thy ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct thy paths...¨

"Lean not unto thine own understanding"? "Acknowledge Him and He shall direct thy paths"? Clearly this man was not only the "accidental President" but had no business living in Washington in the first place.

Peggy Noonan sums it up: "Ford seemed happy when things turned out well for America. That was apparently his primary interest."

What a graceful note on which to begin the New Year. And may there be more U.S. presidents of whom the same could be said.

Peace through appeasement? Uh, sure, why not?

2006-12-12T18:12:00.000-05:00

The American people have spoken (with a little push from Foleygate): The war is not working, so it's time to try talking with the enemy, turning to career insiders for advice, and head for the hills.

What a relief. The oppressive atmosphere of the Bush-Rumsfeld war mentality is already receding and peace is at hand. Just look at the evidence from some headlines on in our favorite newspaper:

Mideast nuke race: Gulf states to challenge Iran — After declining to decisively defeat North Vietnam, North Korea, and Iran, the U.S. [the globe's lone superpower] is not about to confront Iran. Why that could cause tension and war. So instead, we'll just have a nuclear arms race in on of the most tense, explosive and oil-rich regions of the world.

Israeli military intel warns of 2-front war in 2007 — Land for peace works! Israel pulls out of Gaza and voila, a 34-day war with Hizbullah. Make nice, advised the State Dept. Let's have a ceasefire. Now Syria and Hamas want in on the action (of the non-peace kind).

Territorial concessions by Israel a major focus of Baker report — What does James Baker and crew propose to fix the Sunni-Shi'ite bloodbath in Iraq? Why more concessions of real estate by Israel, naturally. That ought to do it.

Go right ahead — Tread on us — Who's afraid of the big bad U.S.? No one, it seems. Now that ought to make for a peaceful world.

The axis of evil is on a roll, but that's the good news

2006-12-04T19:07:00.000-05:00

Bolton resigns, Rumsfeld is out, it's Hugo Chavez in a landslide, Fidel's death watch elevates him to near papal status, axis of evil twins Iran and N. Korea are getting away with being nuclear powers, the ghost of the USSR is haunting the Kremlin, and . . . well let's stop there.

Meanwhile George W. Bush is despised by the entire world, excluding only his immediate family and their dogs. Bush-haters include the Republicans, the Democrats, socialists of the world united, all major free press outlets and all state-controlled press of all rogues states large and small.

But columnist Lev Navrozov says the global conventional wisdom, especially 'conformist' American public opinion, is missing the point. The real world, he argues, is not like an American movie with

good guys who are harmless and, indeed, useful because they are good guys, and villains who are dangerous, destructive, and murderous because they are villains.

Because ignored in all this drama is the Peoples Republic of China. He continues:

Good guys are Chinese dictators who are never even called dictators in the U.S. mainstream media. The villains are the rulers of little countries like Hussein's Iraq, Iran, or North Korea, or else they are suicidal terrorists, all called Al Qaida and ascribed to the leadership of Bin Laden.

No, Navrozov insists, "The fatal danger to the West comes not from the psychiatric disease of some individuals like their genetic inclination to suicide, sublimated into the death out of love for a pretty girl, or for Islam, or for whatever, but from the biggest dictatorship in recorded history whose dictators fear — yes, fear — events like the Tiananmen movement in China in 1989. . ."

So there you have it. As bad as the foreign policy picture looks, the looming reality is even worse because of: 'China's geostrategic advantage as world's largest dictatorship ever'.

Read this [and East-Asia-Intel.com] and weep. Or, if you would rather, tune back into the Hollywood-style U.S. news and world report and merely groan.

When the going get's tough, call up James Baker

2006-11-28T20:43:00.000-05:00

Japan's Emperor Hirohito, in the ultimate understatement, told the Japanese people by radio the following after the U.S. atomic bombs leveled Hiroshima and Nagasaki:

"The war is going not necessarily in Japan's favor."

President George W. Bush has been putting out a similar message in dribs and drabs throughout much of his second term.

When it became clear that the CIA was undermining his presidency through the ridiculour Valerie Plame scandal, Bush began a retreat from his successful cowboy ways in his first term and ceded U.S. foreign policy to the entrenched, unelected bureaucrats at Foggy Bottom.

He maintained the democracy-for-all-in-the-Middle East rhetoric gamely for a few months after his reelection and then dropped it as everyone from Al-Jazeera to the State Dept. telegraphed the obvious: Only terrorist thugs are entitled to rule in the Middle East, and democracies (including Israel) are a threat to peace (or at least to the prospects of certain beautiful people winning a Nobel Peace Prize!).

So do we blame the liberal Arabists at the State Dept. and the CIA or the Yankee genes that must have overriden W.'s Texas upbringing? It doesn't really matter. The writing is on the wall.

George W. has gone from the feared U.S. leader who had Dear Leader Kim Jong-Il cowering much of the time in underground bunkers to a global pariah with negatives right up there with some of the world's worst villains. And all those Mideast tyrants who were cramming on borrowed U.S. eighth-grade civic texts are now busy currying favor with the Red Chinese.

The Republicans lost the midterm elections and the next day the President fired Donald Rumsfeld.

The litany continues: North Korea has tested long-range ballistic missiles and an underground nuclear device; China has proved that its subs can approach U.S. aircraft carriers within 5 miles undetected; Iran is proceeding unhindered toward its goal of becoming a nuclear power while consolidating its position as the orchestrator of Shi'ite majorities in Iraq and several Gulf states. Meanwhile militants have not only hijacked Islam but are on the march in Europe, Asia and at the Minneapolis airport.

And now it has come to this: The George W. Bush loyalists have been reduced to listening to the likes of James Baker and Henry Kissinger.

Aaargh! The book of Job comes to mind. But before W. slinks back to the ranch as (according to a bumper sticker I saw tonight} "The worst president ever", there is always the surprise North Korea card. Remember? You read it here first.

Who benefits when the U.S. loses wars?

2006-11-20T19:42:00.001-05:00

Maybe the message voters were sending Washington was: Win the damn war.

Has anyone considered that possibility?

I just went out for an expresso to wake up and heard one of the best Mark Levin monologues ever. His point was that the only real solution in Iraq is for the U.S. to possess the will to win. Just such a national consensus existed during WWII, he pointed out, and if the U.S. had it now, we wouldn't be in this fix.

It is worth noting who benefits when the U.S. goes to war. Donald Rusmfeld reminded a South Korean reporter of the miraculous ramifications for South Koreans. But the Korean War ended in a truce and North and South are still technically at war.

Now who is paying the price for the fact that the U.S. did not actually win the Korean War? Well, that would be the North Korean people. Over a million are believed to have died from starvation during the past decade and those who survived are living in hell.

What about Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos? "All we are saying is give peace a chance." Henry Kissinger negotiated and collected his Nobel Peace Prize. The Democratic media won, the U.S. lost, and more than a million Indochinese proceeded to forfeit their lives.

President Bush and Rummy have made the argument that we are wearing down the terrorists and that the worthwhile projects being conducted by the U.S. in Iraq are not being reported. That is true. It is also true that the drumbeat of media reporting is that the U.S. is losing, losing, losing. A roadside bomb here, a car bomb there, sectarian violence all over. [It's like reading a N.Y. tabloid in the '70s. You were afraid to walk the streets. Go to New York, go to Israel. Then and now, it's not that awful.]

But it is also the case that winning wars is no longer politically correct in the United States and hasn't been since Gen. Douglas MacArthur was sent packing by President Harry Truman. To win a war is to arrogantly impose American power and overwhelming force on a militarily and culturally disadvantaged enemy. How unfair.

This gets back to voters who tend to be sports fans. Winning is what it is all about in the U.S. of A. The GOP got a "thumpin'" because the terrorists are winning the War on Terror right here in Washington, D.C. Losing is for losers. You could ask the Washington Redskins.

Who benefits when the U.S. loses wars?

2006-11-20T19:42:00.000-05:00

Maybe the message voters were sending Washington was: Win the damn war.

Has anyone considered that possibility?

I just went out for an expresso to wake up and heard one of the best Mark Levin monologues ever. His point was that the only real solution in Iraq is for the U.S. to possess the will to win. Just such a national consensus existed during WWII, he pointed out, and if the U.S. had it now, we wouldn't be in this fix.

It is worth noting who benefits when the U.S. goes to war. Donald Rusmfeld reminded a South Korean reporter of the miraculous ramifications for South Koreans. But the Korean War ended in a truce and North and South are still technically at war.

Now who is paying the price for the fact that the U.S. did not actually win the Korean War? Well, that would be the North Korean people. Over a million are believed to have died from starvation during the past decade and those who survived are living in hell.

What about Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos? "All we are saying is give peace a chance." Henry Kissinger negotiated, collected his Nobel Peace Prize. The Democratic media won, the U.S. lost, and more than a million Indochinese lost their lives.

President Bush and Rummy have made the argument that we are wearing down the terrorists and that the worthwhile projects being conducted by the U.S. in Iraq are not being reported. That is true. It is also true that the drumbeat of media reporting is that the U.S. is losing, losing, losing. An roadside bomb here, a car bomb there, sectarian violence all over. [It's like reading a N.Y. tabloid in the '70s. You were afraid to walk the streets. Go to New York, go to Israel. Surprise: It's not that awful.]

But it is also the case that winning wars is no longer politically correct in the United States and hasn't been since Gen. Dougas MacArthur was sent packing by President Harry Truman. To win a war is arrogant and the imposition of arrogant American power and overwhelming force on a militarily and culturally disadvantaged enemy. How unfair.

This gets back to voters who tend to be sports fans. Winning is what it is all about in the U.S. of A. The GOP got a thumpin because the terrorists are winning the War on Terror right here in Washington, D.C. Losing is for losers. You could ask the Washington Redskins.

Nov. 7 winners: The big media, Iran, Al Qaida, Euro-weenies, and oh yes, the Democrats

2006-11-12T21:48:00.000-05:00

By the time Nov. 7 rolled around most normal Americans had had it with politics, political ads, pundits talking politics and non-stop media coverage about polls, gay Republicans and gay evangelicals.

But election day turned out to be a watershed. The world saw the vote as a referendum on the "Bush war" in Iraq. The media browbeat all who would listen into agreeing that the Republicans were headed for defeat due to the American public's loss of faith in their Commander in Chief and his policies.

[There is another side to the story in Iraq but it known only by Americans on the ground in Iraq, and certain readers of independent news sites like WorldTribune.com and the blogs.]

When all the votes were counted, the big media in league with Al Jazeera had finally won a big one.

Yes, Americans are usually more resistant to propaganda from its "free press". Look at the Reagan landslide in 1980 in which another alarming cowboy won despite an all-out, nearly unanimous media blitz (and before talk radio, The Washington Times and the indispensable DrudgeReport).

But this was a midterm election involving . . . members of congress . . ., perhaps the most despised species of modern Americana after journalists and lawyers.

And Bush (certifiably dumb according to certified celebrities and who actually admitted to a nationwide audience that he believed in God and the transforming power of Jesus Christ) was still Bush, and the war, his war don't forget, was such a bummer that the body politic got worn down and in a moment of weakness succumbed.

Chalk one up for the MSM. They may be losing circulation, market share and influence, but they're still powerful.

Certainly there is a lot of GOP mistakes to blame and brilliant Democratic dirty tricks to credit. But let's pay tribute to the sultans of spin who work for the big media and who are basking in the afterglow of Nov. 7 (but who will be nowhere to be found in the afterglow of the world's first terrorist nuclear attack).

We awakened on Nov. 8 to a world which seems to be siding with Iran, Al Qaida, the silent Islamic majority, North Korea, China, the silent Euro-weenie majority and assorted Fidel wannabes -- most of them already voting members of the increasingly anti-American nuclear club.

Are the leading lights of the Democratic Party leadership bothered by this situation? Not really. Because all problems in the world, including this if it turns out to really be a problem, were caused by George Bush, Republicans (of all sexual orientations), white protestants, and Americans who don't subscribe to Hollywood's anti-family values and the U.S. State Department's secular humanist world view.

No, the problem -- and it is indeed a huge problem -- is left to the losers of the Nov. 7 election to deal with.

How is President Bush coping in the post-Nov. 7 world? That the New York Times is providing answers to this question is not reassuring:

White House hopes Gates can heal government rift

on Nov. 12.

For Bush, is Bolton worth keeping at UN?

on Nov. 10.

And earlier on Nov. 9, in the Times-owned International Herald Tribune,

A step back to a father's counsel.

Before Nov. 7, Bush's America was never going to back down to terrorism in Iraq, was preparing options to contain Iran, and was playing hardball with North Korea.

Now that the unelected liberal-left bureaucrats at the State Department and CIA have leaked their way back into control of U.S. foreign policy, who will win the "war of ideas" that Donald Rumsfeld told The Washington Times the U.S. was losing?

Who's fighting the propaganda war on America's behalf?

Who else but the unelected literary guerrillas running our free press, of course.

We have no state media like Iran and North Korea. We have no Al Jazeera.

Certainly there is another side to all these stories and that is going to be good news for the good media: Internet new sites such as DrudgeReport.com, WorldTribune.com, the blog bombers, The Washington Times, Fox News, and such other national treasures as Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin.

There is even hope in the Arab world if the Bush administration could stop leaking to the Bush-hating New York Times long enough to read about it in the Weekly Standard: "Hip, hip Al Hurra!"

Sadly, it is only the New Media that can inflict transparency on the covert machinations of the master propagandists and obfuscators now operating on a global scale.

It's come to this: Media consumers and major advertisers must act as the conscience of the still great U.S. of A., voting with their time and money for the news censored by the Old Media and against the barbaric mob mentality that crouches at the gate and already resides within the trusting midst of post-Christian America's collective consciousness.

Why hasn't 'intifada' in France been on the news?

2006-11-01T17:15:00.000-05:00

Because Bush, America, and/or Christianity are not to blame.

A modest proposal: N. Korea as the 51st state

2006-10-25T15:05:00.000-05:00

John O'Sullivan at the Hudson Institute has an idea.

[I]f Beijing were to make a few telephone calls to its favorite generals in Pyongyang, suggesting they would benefit from his [Kim Jong-Il] overthrow and the gradual liberalization of his regime, it could advance its own interests and seek some reward from Washington, Tokyo and the U.N. for being an international good neighbor.

What O'Sullivan, the former editor of National Review and UPI, is actually proposing is that we encourage the overthrow of the Kim Jong-Il regime in North Korea from within and with Chinese backing. "Beijing, along with everyone else, would actually be better off with a buffer regime in Pyongyang that was friendly to China without being either a nuclear threat or an affront to human decency," he writes.

The geopolitics of North Korea is critical. Sharing borders with China, Russia and South Korea with U.S. forces serving as a "trigger" on the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), North Korea is at the nexus of all the globe's most powerful spheres of influence.

As East-Asia-Intel.com is about to report in its new edition, China has regime implosion on its mind. "[China erects massive fence on N. Korean border after test"].

But do we really want as O'Sullivan writes, "a buffer regime in Pyongyang that was friendly to China" and not so friendly to the U.S.? How about approaching this from another direction.

Not only is North Korea not really that far from Alaska, but the "Dear Leader", for all his regime's virulently anti-U.S. propaganda, seems to be culturally almost an American. He loves American films and high-priced liquor. Check out his hair and the dysfunctional lifestyle. This guy is ready for Hollywood, as the South Park creators of "Team America" seemed to sense.

Maybe the reason Kim Jong-Il wants direct talks with the U.S. is so he can pitch W on being the first governor of the great state of Koreana!

Now the Koreans are a proud people and deserve a nation that will be left alone by historically hostile neighbors. But it is that very geostrategic environment that argues for making a unified Korea a stake-holder in the world's sole remaining superpower. Korea must survive in a very rough neighborhood. Despite the downside of paying taxes, being suppressed by Washington bureaucrats and enduring mind control by the Mainstream Media, statehood's certainly better than being a vassal state of the China hegemon. Koreans could finally stick it to China while holding that future superpower in check.

For the 'Guardian Deity of the Planet,' life in N. Korea ain't so bad

2006-10-17T18:24:00.001-05:00

The Sun of the 21st Century, the Eternal Sun, the Guardian Deity of the Planet, the Sun of Socialism, and the Ever-Victorious General.

These are just a few of many titles and phrases used to refer to North Korea's enigmatic leader, Kim Jong-Il, East-Asia-Intel.com reported in 2003.

Some of these down to earth nations at the UN want to sanction Kim's people's paradise which, according to the Financial Times, could put a serious crimp into the lifestyle of the 'Sun of Socialism.'

No more shark-fin soup, Big Macs flown in from Beijing, caviar from Uzbekistan, and $650,000 worth of Hennessy cognac. What's a dictator and the 'Eternal Sun' supposed to do?

The world is focused on that pressing problem and how Bush is the real problem and "cool heads" must prevail (according to China's dictator Hu Jintao).

The plight of the North Korean people is not worthy of discussion in polite society, so one must flip to the Op-Ed page of the Wall Street Journal to feel their pain.

Now be honest. In a world where like Madonna and Angelina, caring is what it's all about, does anyone really care?

Breaking news: The inmates are in charge

2006-10-11T17:51:00.000-05:00

If you're thinking the world is going crazy, you had better stop what you're doing and catch up on the news. We have already arrived.

Kim Jong-Il may not be crazy, but as Sol Sanders' outstanding column points out, we wish that he was.

"A regime which has used every device from currency counterfeiting to peddling narcotics to kidnapping espionage “internees” is a prime candidate for selling nuclear, chemical and biological weaponry to non-state terrorists," Sanders writes in 'Pyongyang instability is the ultimate threat'.

Iran, another part of the "Axis of Evil", is funding the Shi'ite militia in Iraq, which are just as murderous as the Sunni militia and foreign Al Qaida terrorists. And Iran is also helping the warring Fatah and Hamas forces to just get along on the West Bank and in Gaza.

So why isn't Bush doing something about this axis of evil? Well because he is not supposed to. We all know that evil must not be called evil, nor should it be defeated. This according to the political/cultural elites in the U.S. who are even more anti-Bush than the terrorists. They, of course, are not certifiably nuts because they are the ones who do the certifying.

Well, that's the way things look from here. We report, you decide. Tomorrow is a brand new day.

Power means never having to say you're sorry

2006-10-03T11:45:00.000-05:00

Washington, D.C. is all about power. There once was a time when there was a dynamic tension here between principle and pragmatism. That time is gone. But the message this campaign season is again that Principle with a capital P is at stake if only . . .

Meanwhile the scorpions in the tobacco tin are having at it on the subject of the morality of political sex. Now that Rep. Foley has resigned, the Republicans should have done more. The Republicans have done enough. Speaker Dennis Hastert should resign.

Yawn. The rules of church and state here are clearly drawn and rigorously enforced. The Republicans are the clerical class that are held to a higher standard. The guys in black hats are allegedly hot. Their foibles, championed by the Washington Post Style section, are attributed to fashionable dysfunction and therefore condoned.

But let's transcend the D.C. fishbowl for a moment. Who is the most outrageous powerbroker of them all? Who is it that makes the high priests of this secular humanist snakepit look like choir boys?

Objectively speaking, it has to be Kim Jong-Il. This pot-bellied loser who presides over the bankrupt "Hermit Kingdom" treats the world's sole superpower like one of his miserable subjects. The "Dear Leader" of the first communist dynasty whose starving citizens have eaten the bark off the remaining trees in the Peoples' Paradise of North Korea while Kim's regime builds ICBMs and nuclear weapons has pushed the envelope yet again.

Missile tests? Human rights problems? Floods of defectors? Proliferation of WMD to Iran and other rogue states? State-sponsored drug trafficking and counterfeiting? Not only is Kim not sorry. He's announced plans to test nuclear weapons. Taking notes you power-mad Yankee weenies?

If the Syrian state news agency says your mother loves you, check it out

2006-09-14T16:46:00.000-05:00

You can't always believe what you read in the newspapers even though newspaper people are supposed to be the least gullible of the human species with first-rate BS-meters.

In the old days, the City Editor would growl at impressionable cub reporters: "If your mother says she loves you, check it out."

So what are we to make of the story that dominated the news cycles on Sept. 12? "Syria stops terror attack on U.S. embassy" or headlines to that effect blared from front pages across the fruited plain.

But wait a minute. The primary source of the story was the Syrian state news agency [SANA], which may have been the only source readily available but not necessarily reliable to say the least. Folks we are speaking here of a propaganda coup of global proportions. Could not these huge media organizations pick up the cell phone and "check it out?" Guess not.

"Syria's account of embassy attack called suspicious", WorldTribune.com reported the following day. We report, you decide [but ask your Mom just to be sure].

What if they threw a war and only the robots came?

2006-09-08T14:04:00.000-05:00

War ain't what it used to be.

Long gone are the years when tens of thousands fell mortally wounded after long lines of troops charged one another with swords, then muskets, then rifles.

These days, all warmongers except death-loving fanatics are wimping out. We're even talking the Israelis, who until the recent 33-day war with Hizbullah in Lebanon were legendary for human intelligence on their blood enemies and giving no quarter in mortal combat.

Post-Sharon Israel, like the Chinese and North Koreans [see the archives of East-Asia-Intel.com, is recruiting IT types to both dredge up nuggets of strategic information and also wreak havoc online.

And as Geostrategy-Direct.com reports in its current edition, "Israel's largest defense contractor is marketing network-centric land warfare systems that rely on fewer fighters and "more automation and robotics". Such systems were even tested in the recent war in Lebanon.

Militant Islam still has the blood motive. Mark Steyn notes that "to the Islamist mind, a society with nothing to die for is already dead." Case in point: "Hizbullah trains thousands for children's suicide corps." [Geostrategy-Direct.com, September 13 edition].

Appeasement and socialism still don't work despite what those tenured zealots on campuses and in federal bureaucracies say. So until the advent of real peace, we say onward Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), Unmanned Surface Vessels (USVs), and Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs). [Geostrategy-Direct.com, September 13 edition].

And may the best engineers [us!] win in the end.

Playing chess with the barbarians

2006-08-16T02:56:00.000-05:00

Neither diplomatic nor military solutions have ever worked for long in the Middle East.

Oceans of blood and ink, and enough hot air from diplomats to damage our ecosystem have not altered the balance of hatred in the "Holy Land."

Israel's offensive against the growing Hizbullah threat has arguably rendered the Iranian front organization into an even more powerful force to be reckoned with while failing to solve a problem few of us have to live with: the threat of scattered missile showers ruining our day forever.

Israel's unquestioned military superiority, like that of the U.S., has been effectively neutralized by experts in assymetric warfare. The result: A new consensus on the spiking priority to be assigned missile defense.

While Arabist secular humanists at the U.S. Dept. of State, like the anti-Judeo-Christian pagans at the UN, demand that Israel follow Jesus' advice and "turn the other cheek", it is clear that no cosmic sponge can absorb the murderous hatred and resentment that fuels this eternal conflict.

Don Rumsfeld has repeatedly admitted that the U.S. is losing the war of ideas in the Iraqi neighborhood. The one idea that predominates in Israel's neighborhood is: "Destroy Israel."

New ideas anyone? Here's one for starters: Declare war on socialism in the Levant.

Both Israel and the Palestinians have been living too long on aid and other handouts from a concerned world. Prosperous and autonomous Israeli and Palestinian states could neutralize one another in much the same way that 'Red Capitalist' China and Taiwan could end up doing in the Far East.

Google Earth to Earth: "Hellooooo . . ."

2006-08-07T17:54:00.000-05:00

The news of the day is Hizbullah, Reuters photographs (Hizbullah propaganda) and more Hizbullah.

But what about "the rest of the story"? Here's an ironic twist:

Having sold out to China, Goggle is being used by the private sector to spy on China.

As the East-Asia-Intel.com headline reads [in its its Aug. 2 edition], 'Google Earth imagery reveals entrance to China submarine tunnel'. Excerpts from the report appears in today's WorldTribune.com:

Satellite imagery from publicly available Google Earth has been used to reveal an underwater submarine tunnel entrance located several miles south of the major Chinese naval facility at Yulin, on Hainan Island.

Kudos to private imagery interpreter Tim Brown of Talent-Keyhole.com .

But what's the significance?

China has constructed an underground and underwater submarine facility on Hainan Island as part of a major buildup of naval forces in the South China Sea. The Yulin facility is strategically located close to the shipping lane from the Strait of Malacca.

The story quotes a 2005 Pentagon report as concluding the facility is "less about territorial claims than "protecting or denying the transit of tankers through the South China Sea.”

If the cameraman slept in, was it news?

2006-07-31T09:52:00.000-05:00

Week after week, Soviet emigre columnist Lev Navrozov warns a sleeping West of the rising China threat. This week he deals with the reality that no one is paying attention.

The "China threat" is an abstraction as was the German threat in 1938. The mainstream media always prefers the concrete to the abstract.

Furthermore, Lev continues, "Western thinking of today is dominated by mainstream television, which does not think, but shows." This is another way of saying there is not a whole lot of thinking going on.

Naturally, small wars in small countries — like the current war of Israel and Lebanon (Syria, Iran?) — engulf Western mainstream television — such wars present an infinite wealth of telegenic scenes of carnage (or mass murder), as compared with the "China threat," which presents none.

The template for western media coverage of Mideast wars is so predictable as to become boring, if weeping mothers and screaming children can ever be boring.

But what is new about the current Mideast war is that missiles have stopped being an abstraction (merely sinister pieces on the geostrategic chessboard). They have been raining down on Israel by the hundreds, terrorizing Israeli (yes Israeli) civilians.

As columnist John Metzler points out today in "The Summer of Missiles",

Someday in the not too distant future we may face more accurate Iranian ballistic missiles targeting Israel, an operational North Korean Taepodong II rocket which shadows the West Coast USA, and equally another East Asian situation where communist China’s missiles threaten democratic Taiwan.

At some point, someone may have to tell the camerapersons to wake up and smell the coffee.

Who's side is the CIA on?

2006-07-26T10:23:00.000-05:00

Could the CIA of Hollywood and spy fiction lore actually be involved in a conspiracy to undermine the policies of a sitting U.S. president in time of war?

Salt-of-the-earth American patriots would hate to think so. However the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, is directly across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. which has become a cut-throat place, politically speaking, in recent decades and is currently in the midst of a crime wave .

An article in last week's Insight carried the rather shocking headline " Congressman's letter: Anti-Bush faction now controls the CIA."

Holy moly! Read on:

The CIA has been taken over by a dissident faction that seeks to undermine President Bush.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Peter Hoekstra has identified the anti-Bush faction in a letter to the president. Mr. Hoekstra said the faction appears to be led by Mr. Bush's recent appointments to the agency. [See free copy of complete article].

The news was not a complete shock for WorldTribune.com readers. Cliff Kincaid of Accuracy in Media gave his take on the Valerie Plame brouhaha back in October: "Wilsongate: Did CIA run a covert op against an elected president?"

Americans interested in taking back their country need to do more than vote. They need to apply for and accept jobs in the heavily liberal-Democratic bowell of the bureaucracy in Washington, D.C. as well as across the river in Langley, Virginia

Extracting the mullahcracy: Iran exile group wants neither U.S. funds nor military action

2006-07-18T10:12:00.000-05:00

An advertisement in the Wednesday, July 19 Washington Times will be the coming out party for an Iranian foundation with designs on fixing what's broke in Iran.

The prescription? Secular democracy. Underline that word secular. Significantly, the ad also says what it DOES NOT EXPECT FROM THE U.S.:

"No need for covert action"

"No need for U.S. funding or direct U.S. military action:

What is needed, it says, "from the international community is its enthusiastic, open and direct support of the Iranian people to establish democracy."

The headline: "War in the Middle East will continue to escalate . . ." The ad places Iran's clerics at the core of the terror conglomerate that has taken the headlines from Al Qaida in recent days. And it also blames them for the misery of the Iranian people who generally are among the most pro-U.S. in the Middle East.

The ad is sponsored by the Azadegan Foundation which is preparing a blueprint for returning power to the Iranian people. Claiming that "Iran's Opposition Is Now United", the ad lists common objectives:

An end to clerical rule, and the introduction of representative government for all of Iran;

The preservation and strengthening of Iran's sovereignty and historical borders;

Peaceful and cooperative Iranian participation within the global trading and social systems.

The ad charges that war is the key to the mullahs' ability to maintain their power (a la the 1982 Iran-Iraq War), but offers "options." There is, the ad continues, "a viable, experienced team of leaders capable of re-shaping Iran."

The Azadegan Foundation is headed by Assad Homayoun who serves on WorldTribune.com's Editorial Advisory Board and has been frequently cited by WorldTribune articles on Iran.

Of particular note is a special report written by Dr. Homayoun entitled "Time for a change in Iran: Here's how it should happen" which was published on April 29, 2003.

Stay tuned . . .

Ending the cycle of violence . . .

2006-07-14T10:02:00.000-05:00

. . . is easy when the one talking about it is not on the receiving end of it.

Wesley Pruden understands that those with the 'passion' for violence tend to look for trouble and usually find it.

Kamal Nawash, a responsible Muslim voice here in the nation's capital, does a nice job of indexing the 'who did what to whom' in the Levant over the past few decades. His premise? 'There no, repeat no, military solution to Israel-Palestinian conflict'

Sol Sanders offers a disturbing look at an emerging axis of terror, linking Pakistan extremists with a new hotbed of Islamic violence among the huge Muslim population of India.

What a caring celebrity to do? Fast, says Mark Steyn , after a fashion, that is.

Apocalypse, Aug. 22

2006-07-10T11:15:00.000-05:00

Our best sources in Iran tell us that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is no more a nutcase than North Korea's Kim Jong-Il. He is, however, a narrow-minded religious fanatic and, as the new edition of Geostrategy-Direct reports, "Apocalyptic signals from Iran worry U.S. intelligence".

Iran's young set, who does not identify with the young set in Teheran of 1979 when the Shah left town for good, have no use for the mullahs. Most are ardently pro-U.S. (try finding any press on that). But too many are addicted to drugs and thereby rendered less dangerous by their evil masters.

The stakes are high, Iran is positioned on the strategic Straits of Hormuz, and threatens to control access to much of the world's oil supply. And its president may actually want the West to attack his country in order to precipitate Armageddon. While the wonks and wonkettes enjoy their summer, the clock is ticking . . .

Pentagon official was spy for China? Yawn

2006-06-30T17:07:00.000-05:00

One of the biggest stories recently, excluding Angelina Jolie appearing on one of those TV shows saying something or other, was by Bill Gertz on June 23 in the Washington Times:

Ex-DIA analyst admits passing secrets to China

A former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst has pleaded guilty to illegally holding classified documents and admitted in a plea agreement to passing "top secret" information to Chinese intelligence officials.

Ronald N. Montaperto, the former analyst who held a security clearance as a China specialist at a U.S. Pacific Command research center until 2004, pleaded guilty to one count of unlawful retention of national defense information, according to court papers and law officials familiar with the case, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

"Montaperto admitted to verbally providing [Chinese military] attaches a considerable amount of information that was useful to them, including classified information," according to a statement of facts submitted in the case.

Montaperto told investigators he could not recall specific information he gave Chinese attaches Col. Yang Qiming, Col. Yu Zhenghe and other Chinese officers during his 22-year career in government. But the statement said it included both "secret" and "top secret" data. It also said he had close unauthorized relationships with the two officers.

The guilty plea was part of an agreement reached Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Alexandria. The conviction can carry fines of up to $250,000 and a prison term of up to 10 years. Sentencing is set for Sept. 8.

Summing up the situation,

A senior U.S. intelligence official bluntly stated, "He was a spy for China."

Is this not news? We have heard virtually no pickup. What is wrong with this picture?

Geostrategy-Direct.com looks into the story in its current edition: "DIA analyst's espionage plea deal a major setback for pro-China hands".

Hello MSM? Hello?

The Palestinian Accord Document

2006-06-27T09:57:00.000-05:00

In an effort to resolve the recent clashes between Hamas and Fatah, a conference for reconciliation took place at the end of May in the Palestinian territory.

Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) set the tone when he said the fighting among Palestinians must end and the way to do that is a call for a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders. Abbas further announced that if Hamas does not adopt this “National Accord Document” he would submit it to a popular referendum.

Included in his proposal is a call for a “just solution” to the refugee problem, an “end to occupation” and the formulation of a contiguous state.

Whether this is a serious proposal or a ploy to unite Palestinians remains to be seen. It is certainly not a new proposal. The “right of return” is regarded as a primary principle in this document which Abbas contends was drawn in the “Hadarim” Israeli prison by Palestinian captives from several movements.

This newly formed Palestinian state would have Jerusalem as its capital. Moreover, the document calls on Arab governments to implement the decisions of the Palestinian people and states that the territory is presently under siege from Israeli and American forces. It calls on The Hague International Court of Justice to issue a writ condemning “the fence” as a “racist barrier.”

It is argued that this unity government should promote the PLO and incorporate Hamas and Islamic Jihad into the organization. And the Palestinian security force should gain sufficient strength to “confront Israeli aggression and occupation.”

Despite the implicit extremism in the proposal, it was not extreme enough for Hamas. Muhammad Nazal, one of the prominent figures of Hamas in Syria, said, “even though the document was drafted by prominent and respected prisoners, it cannot be used to blackmail Hamas. Another spokesman said, “It would be a mistake to limit ourselves to one form of resistance. We must combine negotiations and resistance. The article which states that it is important to concentrate the resistance efforts in the territories occupied in 1967 does not stand in contradiction to our right to carry our resistance in the territories occupied in 1948 as well.”

Here are the Israeli options as seen from the Palestinian territories: Accept peaceful dismemberment or accept total annihilation by force.

The Abbas proposal for a return to the ’67 borders and the right of return for refugees is an obvious non-starter for any serious Israeli leader since the pre-war borders are indefensible and the right of return is a prescription for demographic suicide. If these are principles as opposed to negotiating points, further conversation must be muted.

Hamas’ sentiments are unvarnished. No matter what tactics are employed or agreements negotiated, this political body will resist as long as the state of Israel exists. That is the gist of ’67 not standing as a contradiction of ’48. As far as this terrorist organization is concerned, Israel did not have the right to creation on land that is seen as explicitly Arab.

What then is there to negotiate? As long as Hamas is the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, recognition cannot occur and resistance cannot abate. Hence Israel must secure the borders it believes are defensible, complete a fence that offers some protection against suicide bombers and wait until a genuine negotiating partner emerges.

The National Accord Document may have meaning as an instrument for reconciling political differences within the Palestinian Authority, but as the basis for a settlement with Israel, it’s risible.

Herbert London is president of Hudson Institute and professor emeritus of New York University. He is the author of Decade of Denial (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2001). London maintains a website, www.herblondon.org.

The good life in North Korea

2006-06-23T17:35:00.000-05:00

Maybe things aren't as bad as they seem in North Korea. Is Papa Doc Jong-Il crazy? Like a fox, says John Metzler.

Meanwhile Kim's son and heir apparent is sporting pro-free enterprise attire and a pro-free enterprise looking girl friend while following Eric Clapton on tour in Germany.

In addition, as East-Asia-Intel.com reports this week, a new class of capitalist roaders has sprouted in the ideologically-pure hell-hole: "North Korea's nouveau riche: Border smugglers, drug dealers and party officials"

Tehran's Stalling Tactics: An Analogy

2006-06-21T06:33:00.001-05:00

Since at least January 1994, when a Clinton administration State Department official said so in an article in USA Today, the U.S. has known--not suspected, mind you--that Iran's nuclear program has had all the earmarks of a weapons program.

But like so many national security problems--Al Qaida, North Korea and Saddam Hussein being three more prominent examples--the Clinton administration kicked the problem of Iran down the road for the next president to deal with, even know they knew darn well what the Ayatollahs were up to.

So we find ourselves today playing a shell game with the radical Islamist regime in Tehran, a regime that refers to America as the Great Satan and whose president recently declared that he envisioned a world without America and believed it could happen in his lifetime.

The name of the shell game is called "Hide the Nukes."

While we are sending diplomats shuttling back and forth between Washington and European capitals, Moscow, Beijing and a host of Middle East countries, the Iranians continue to work feverishly on their nuclear weapons program.

Lately we have offered the Iranians some carrots. Let me rephrase that. Lately we have been throwing bushels of carrots at the Ayatollahs to try to entice them to stop uranium enrichment.

The problem with this is that it has no chance of working because the Iranians are building bombs, not just power plants. Personally, my main worry is that the Ayatollahs will take one of these outrageous offers and then build their bombs sureptitiously anyway, just like the North Koreans did in the 1994-98 time frame.

So far though, the Iranians appear to just be playing a stalling game.

Forget about negotiations on this issue. Iran is determined to have nuclear weapons. The negotiations are just a charade to the Iranians to buy them some time to continue work on their weapons program. Negotiations are going to go nowhere.

Think of it like baseball. When a pitcher suddenly starts to get roughed up in the 6th inning after 5 strong innings and the manager or pitching coach doesn't have anybody warmed up in the bullpen, what does he do? He takes a L-O-N-G, S-L-O-W walk to the mound to speak to the pitcher. The pitcher and the manager/coach talk things over until the umpire tells them to break things up. Meanwhile, the reliever is furiously warming in the bullpen. Then the manager/coach walks ever so S-L-O-W-L-Y back to the dugout. A little while later, especially if things haven't gotten better for his starter, the manager/coach takes another L-O-N-G, S-L-O-W walk to the mound. This time he calls the infield into the mound for a meeting. Then, when the umpire has seen enough, he makes the manager/coach send the starter to the clubhouse and bring the now warm and loose reliever from the bullpen out on to the mound.

The Iranians are playing the same game. They never say no and they never say yes to any of the proposals from the West. They make some promising statements and then make some scary statements. They keep the West guessing and off-balance. That's right, GUESSING. Guessing about just when the Ayatollahs will go Atomic.

Sooner or later, it is looking a lot more like we are going to be entering into negotiations of some sort with the Iranians. When that happens, think of baseball.

Trading With The Enemy

2006-06-17T10:41:00.000-05:00

Here's a story sure to warm the cockles of your heart--if you're an apologist for the Jihadists.

It seems that many misguided Western businessmen can't help themselves. They can't let little things like terrorism, nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, dismal human rights records and Holocaust denial get in the way of making a buck.

John Teeling, Chairman of a UK company named "Persian Gold" seems absolutely giddy at the cooperation he's been getting from all those good folks with the Iranian government as he and his boys flail around Iran digging holes prospecting for gold.

Too bad for John that in the midst of the biggest bull market in gold in a quarter century, evidently his outfit has been losing hat, ass and overcoat.

Things could get a lot worse for Persian Gold. There is something called "Global Security Risk," as defined by the SEC. It seems that if a company is doing business in and with a state sponsor of terror (of which Iran is the tops), that constitutes a risk factor of material interest to investors.

All those Western companies, like Persian Gold--and Total SA, Siemens, Daimler-Chrysler among others--could soon be left holding the bag because, sooner or later, Iran is either going to test a big bomb or someone is going to take action against them to prevent them from building one.

So forget about the obvious ethical aspects of trading with the enemy if you want. Doing business with the Jihadists just doesn't make a lick of sense.

Christopher Holton

On a roll . . .

2006-06-15T09:55:00.000-05:00

More bad news [for Bush-haters and Al Qaida cells everywhere] on the DrudgeReport.com. The U.S. is mopping up in Iraq, while bracing for a resurgence by the insurgents.

Meanwhile, that looming superpower wannabe, yes the PRC, continues to spread its hegemonistic tentacles beyond the reach and attention span of our award-winning media:

China floats sovereignty claim over 40 islands, 1.5 million sq. km of sea and all oil in between

Top IT moguls bow to Beijing

Symantec: Cyber attacks from China up 153 percent last year

Out of sight, out of mind.

The Transatlantic Alliance and Nuclear Stability

2006-06-14T10:26:00.000-05:00

Conventional wisdom suggests that Ahmadinejad and his pursuit of nuclear weapons has united both sides of the Atlantic in a manner very different from the war in Iraq.

Europeans fear Washington is still forgoing opportunities to resolve the Iran crisis, but on most diplomatic matters they stand together. E.U. foreign policy czar Javier Solana and NATO Chief Jaap de Hoop Scheffer proclaim relations to be “perfect.” Senator John McCain said ties between the USA and the E.U. have “never been better.”

Are the good old days of the transatlantic alliance back again?

The bipartisan American view that the only thing worse than military action is a nuclear armed Iran is the point at which U.S. divergence with Europe emerges. See full text.
Herbert London is president of Hudson Institute and professor emeritus of New York University. He is the author of Decade of Denial (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2001). London maintains a website, www.herblondon.org.

Spinning for Zarqawi

2006-06-09T15:08:00.000-05:00

When Rush Limbaugh is right he's still right despite the fact that he is Rush Limbaugh which, in the the liberal media cultural bubble we are all expected to willingly inhabit, is akin to Adolf Hitler [but NOT Josef Stalin or Mao Zedong].

But we digress: Rush said today that the American left can see the death of Al-Zarqawi only as a political event. The strategic, national security and military implications do not compute. See the evidence.

Our colleagues in the establishment press do see the need to explain the "Z-man" to an uncomprehending and uncaring world, and of course that's what they are here for.

Well there is a reality on the ground over there, and the passing of Zarqawi has left a void to be filled. But there remains some doubt as to whether the one to fill that void is still alive.

For another real Zarqawi followup story? See: Also dead: Zarqawi's 'terrorist laboratory in Iraq'.

No news is . . . no news

2006-06-07T20:32:00.000-05:00

One good thing about Internet newspapers is that when nothing happens you don't have to report it. You can simply not update the site.

Pity our poor colleagues over at the New York Times. [Well actually, no, let's not pity them.] As this is written, the presses up there in New York and New Jersey are being inked up and entire forests are being massacred, MASSACRED , in order to produce the train loads of paper necessary to put out the Thursday editions of the gay thing (formerly the gray lady) whether it has any real news in it or not.

We just looked at the front page which featured a color photo of Joan Jett linking to a fawning article about her concert. The caption on the front page photo could never have appeared in the N.Y. Times of yesteryear: "Joan Jett, a primal 80's rocker now hailed as a feminist hero, has aged with grace." Back in the day that would have been called "editorializing" and stricken from the newspaper of record.

Those who read the article [don't bother], can understand why the newspaper was not even pretending to be objective. There were women in the audience who were loudly lusting after Joan Jett. Thus the alleged "feminist hero" has not only "aged with grace" but achieved the closest thing to divinity that the editors of the N.Y. Times can imagine.

"All the news fit to print"? Are people still reading that paper?

Well, former New York Mayor Ed Koch is still reading the N.Y. Times, but with his eyes wide open and his critical faculties engaged.

No sympathy for the devil

2006-06-05T23:59:00.000-05:00

The DrudgeReport is, as this is written, tuned into the cosmic convergence of numerology and the age-old war between the forces of good and evil. Britney, Madonna, Angelina, Jen, perverse school teachers retreat to the shadows please. Please.

Apocalypse tomorrow? 666 arrives...

30-YEAR MORTGAGE AT 6.66%

There are also ads, two of them, for Ann Coulter's new book: "Godless: The church of liberalism".

So on a day like June 6, 2006, it is good to reflect on exactly who it is that have dedicated themselves to tormenting, blocking, destroying the salt-of-the-earth good guys. You know who you are communist China, liberal secular humanists, haters of a sometimes bumbling and unmistakably Protestant, and [horrors] praying U.S. president. You know who you are, you hijackers of Islam, converting the misled faithful to sympathizers of the devil. Shame on you all! If you truly repent, then you may get into rehab if indeed there is life after death. [Don't count on getting out after only 30 days like Patrick Kennedy, however.]

WorldTribune.com's contribution today was to point out that the newly Orthodox and allegedly post-Soviet Russia under Putin is establishing a naval base outside its territory in, of all places, Syria . This makes Putin the protecter of Assad and the regime in Iran. Not good, Vladimir.

Protected hate speech and the Hate Media

2006-06-01T18:32:00.000-05:00

New York State Comptroller Alan Hevesi is sort of in trouble for a Queens College Commencement address in which he spoke about fellow Democrat Sen. Charles Schumer putting "a bullet between the president's eyes."

We say "sort of in trouble" because Hevesi is a Democrat and a smooth one at that. Also he was speaking to the choir with the kind of casual hatred of George W. Bush that has been championed by Hollywood, the Hate Media, and the political elites in Washington.

So he is not really in trouble. He simply mis-spoke. In his words, his remark was "beyond dumb". When you slip up and speak publicly the way you would among fellow liberal Democrats at a private gathering, well it's just a miscommunication or a misunderstanding. No biggie.

Hate crimes against Bush and the U.S. military are simply not possible. Who decided this? Well it is a consensus reached by a minority in the freest nation on earth.

In other (real) news;

Bank of China shares jump 15 percent in Hong Kong debut. Watch out for the Red Capitalists and the exponential growth of their thirst for oil.

A missile fired by the Islamic Jihad hit close to home. The home, that is, of the Israeli Defense Minister.

The U.S. delayed a June 2 feasibility test for a strike on Iran after deciding to give peace a chance.

That's not news, that's just Katie Couric

2006-05-31T14:23:00.000-05:00

DrudgeReport does a good job of holding up a mirror for the media stars to admire themselves in while others watch with unblinking eyes.

Katie is leaving one branch of the Media Entertainment Complex for another. It matters because Matt Lauer had to bring out a box of tissues at the on-air farewell party, which means that hearts and minds are in play.

Meanwhile there were a few other blips on the radar screen not worthy of the MSM's (that's Mainstream Media for those of you new to the blogosphere) attention:

South Korea's conservative Grand National Party has routed the Uri Party of leftist President Roh Moo-Hyun in regional elections. This could mean the once-stalwart U.S. ally will pull back from its pro-North Korean foreign policy shift by the 2008 national elections.

When things weren't going well for their stock holdings, several Palestinian investors decided they should make money the old fashioned way: By hiring gunmen to shoot things up . . . in this instance at the Palestinian Stock Exchange.

Champ blogger Michelle Malkin nails Dem Rep. John Murtha and ends with a sharp jab in the ribs for the Hate Media: "And I will remind you that while the murder of civilians is and remains an anomaly in American military history, it is the jihadists' way of life."

And finally, news that Hizbullah is aiming strategic rockets at strategic Israeli targets for the first time. The only way the Hate Media could be less concerned would be if the weapons were aimed at a conservative Christian youth camp in a red state somewhere.

What is a blog?

2006-05-31T14:02:00.000-05:00

Since starting this blog, many of our friends at WorldTribune.com have revealed they are print media throwbacks and without a clue.

What is a blog, anyway? they inquire.

We still don't know what blogs are, but we think they should be short and to the point. Which brings to mind a friend who is an aide to a mogul known for his volatility. "What's it like to work for Mr. X?" he was asked.

"Endless hours of boredom punctuated by seconds of sheer terror."

Quiet resolve from Al Anbar Province, Iraq

2006-05-29T11:12:00.000-05:00

This from World Tech Tribune editor, Christopher Holton:

It is sometimes said that Americans have lost sight of the true meaning of Memorial Day.

Not everyone has. [ZOOM on accompanying photo.]

Not some of our most elite warriors who even now battle against enemies who would end our way of life if not for the quiet resolve of the short-haired guys and gals you sometimes see walking through airports or marching in a parade.

Below please find a touching reminder from a young officer of Marines who it is my honor and privilege to call “friend.”

What his meesage demonstrates, besides the humanity of those who lead our warriors in combat, is that our fighting men and women know damn well what is at stake in the War for the Free World, even if many back home safe in the U.S. have no clue.

Please take a few moments to read a moving message from a brave young Marine officer--less than 4 years in the Corps--who is on his third combat tour, one in Afghanistan, two in Iraq.

And for those of you in Louisiana, he is from right there in Pontchatoula.

Best,
Christopher

P.S. For those of you interested in sending his Recon unit a “care package” drop me and email. I will forward a list of needed items and his address.

-------------------------------------
Christopher Holton
theholtons@bellsouth.net

Stop the presses!

2006-05-27T22:17:00.000-05:00

Angelina had a baby and because she has positioned herself as a "caring" person, we don't care.

Civil war is in danger of breaking out among the Palestinians and the Egyptians care.

Was Bush lying when he called suicide terrorism a perversion of Islam? Bernard Lewis actually agreed with the president, on the record no less.

World peace? Iran has a suggestion: Inviting Russia, China, India, etc. to join a global, anti-U.S. entente.

Visualize this: A photo tour of Iraq and NEW, for cartoon lovers, RoommateCode.com .

The Pedagogy of Transnationalism

2006-05-25T09:53:00.000-05:00

Leave it to professional educators to come up with the next groundbreaking pedagogy that challenges U.S. uniqueness. Thomas Bender, an NYU historian, in his new book A Nation Among Nations: America’s Place In World History embodies this position.

In his words, national histories “are taught in schools and brought into public discourses to forge and sustain national identities, presenting the self contained nation as the natural carrier of history. That way of writing and teaching history has exhausted itself. In its place, I want to elaborate a new framing for U.S. history, one that rejects the terroritorial space of the nation as a sufficient context and argues for the transnational nature of national histories.”

SEE FULL COLUMN

Herbert London is president of Hudson Institute and professor emeritus of New York University. He is the author of "Decade of Denial" (Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2001) and maintains a Web site, www.herblondon.org.

'Chairman Mao is like Jesus to us'

2006-05-22T02:16:00.000-05:00

Disrespecting Jesus is still okay. One could get rich doing so, in fact.

But some followers of the late Prophet Mohammed and the late Chairman Mao don't agree with "loving your enemy" or "turning the other cheek".

Thanks to Scott McCollum of RoommateCode.com:

I would have thought portraying Chairman's Mao's sensitive side would be considered a tribute to diversity and other "progressive" family values.

A mob of angry Chinese students protested at Massey University yesterday after Chairman Mao was lampooned on the cover of the student newspaper.

Students likened the cover of Chaff, which this week satirises women's magazine Cosmopolitan, to the anti-Muslim cartoons circulated around the world in February.

Tempers flared outside Massey's library as about 50 Chinese Massey and UCOL students and a Chinese lecturer confronted Chaff staff.

Students said the issue is racist and the last straw, as many have also suffered verbal abuse on the streets of Palmerston North.

Tianxiang Mao said it was common for Asian students to be lambasted with racial slurs when driving.

"People yell `F-ing Asians' when we are in the car driving down the road. I don't say anything. What can I do?"

UCOL student Xing Tang said Chaff staff are ignorant of Chinese culture.

"Chairman Mao is like Jesus to us," he said on the verge of tears.

Someone should explain to these New Zealand students that comparing Chairman Mao to Jesus Christ offends "progressive", red and pink sensibilities even more than depicting him in drag.

This is a test. If this were an actual emergency,

2006-05-21T02:05:00.000-05:00

. . . there would be no time for blogging. Instead, the adrenaline would be pumping and we would have never felt more alive.

So if world peace happens, bloggers 'r us.

. . .Which would be good and boring. So FORGET THIS.

Okay wait. Maybe world peace would be exhilarating. Nirvana?