Monday, 19 January 2009
 

Bill Faith; My Buddy
Contributed by The Gray Dog

The following was forwarded to me from Russ Vaughn.  It is difficult to separate, Bill and Russ, as to  who did what first to give birth to Old War Dogs.

By Russ Vaughn

Bill Faith was my buddy, a term that has particular meaning for those who have worn a uniform in service to this country. And though I never met him, nor even heard his voice a single time, that’s how I will remember Bill, as my buddy, someone who served alongside me through victory and defeat, through thick and thin, but who always could be counted on to stand up and be counted when it counted most.

I must first apologize to Bill’s family and all of you out there for being tardy in posting my thoughts on Bill’s passing. Two months ago my wife and I were abruptly thrust into the role of primary caregivers for her almost ninety-year-old parents, a responsibility which has kept both of us away from our computers and me from my blogging efforts. It was only through an email from The Gray Dog, Mike Connelly, that I learned belatedly of Bill’s death.

I don’t even remember precisely when Bill and I became acquainted, just that it was sometime after John Kerry became the Democrat frontrunner in 2004 and this old Vietnam vet, like millions of my brothers, swore to do everything in my power to prevent that traitor from ever becoming commander in chief. Scott Swett, at Wintersoldier blog, first began posting my anti-Kerry rants, which were then picked up by the Freepers and spread to other like-minded sites. Shortly thereafter I received an email from Bill, telling me he would like to post my pieces at his Small Town Veteran blog. As soon as I visited the site, I knew I had found an ally, one who quickly became a long-distance friend and a valued editor of my sometimes rough expositions.

When Kerry was defeated in November 2004, Bill and I, like all our Vietnam veteran brothers who had fought to keep Kerry out of the presidency, were exhilarated and felt that at last we had been exonerated. In sharing that victory, we became buddies, and the bond became even stronger in the summer of 2006 when Bill became webmaster of our new blog, Old War Dogs, which may have been my brainstorm but was Bill’s baby from the outset. He built the pen and the doghouse from scratch and fed and watered that pup every day. And like most proud papas, he could get quickly cantankerous if he felt like someone was mistreating his dog, including me.

Bill kept OWD up and running all through this last election fiasco even though, like me, he was never more than lukewarm to the idea of John McCain as our candidate. But, good soldier that he was, Bill fought the good fight right up until the bitter end. And as bitter as it was for the rest of us, his email telling me that he was going to back away from daily blogging at OWD, made me aware that my buddy was battle weary and in need of some respite. I regret not then realizing just how badly needed it was.

Michelle Malkin’s farewell post to Bill includes my poem, The Sheepdogs, and I thank her for that because there was never a more dedicated Sheepdog than Bill Faith. He loved his flock, both the immediate, his family, especially his new grandbaby, and that much larger flock, his countrymen.

Bill, I’m gonna miss you, Buddy.

Russ Vaughn

Contributed by The Gray Dog on January 19, 2009 at 05:19 PM in Best of Old War Dogs, Bill Faith, Bill's Bites, Coming home, Current Affairs, Russ Vaughn | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Tuesday, 31 October 2006
 

October Surprise.
Contributed by The Gray Dog

Down to the wire, the October Surprise was unleashed upon the Democrats yesterday.  Surprisingly it wasn’t launched by the Republicans, but instead the liberal’s very own “useful idiot” John Kerry. 

"You know, education - if you make the most of it - you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq,"

With that comment the Old War Dogs are pleased to make known their own 11th hour October surprise:

The Old War Dogs Forum is now open for membership at www.oldwardogs.org

This site was to be announced next week, but in light of Kerry’s comment and the importance of next week’s elections we hope you will visit what promises to be an exciting place for discourse on the issues of the day.

Participation does require registration, so don’t be shy.

Contributed by The Gray Dog on October 31, 2006 at 07:57 PM in 9/11, Afghanistan, Bill Faith, Bill's Bites, Bobbie Craig, Caring about our troops, CIA/NSA Treason, Current Affairs, Dem Dumbness, DisUnited Nations, G W Bush, Gene Harrison, George Mellinger, Iran, Iraq, Islamism Delenda Est, Jean Fraud Kerry, Jim Bartimus, Lloyd A. King, Mad Jack Murtha, Open Posts, Patriotism, Politics, Religion, Russ Vaughn, Shane Briscoe, Steve Gardner, The American Warrior, The Gray Dog, US Air Force, US Army, US Coast Guard, US Marine Corps, US Navy, Video, Viet Nam, War? What war?, William "1stCav" Page, Zero Ponsdorf | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Wednesday, 11 October 2006
 

Bill's Bites -- 2006.10.11
Contributed by Bill Faith

The webmaster's blog-within-a-blog.
Continuously updated, newest items at the top.

• 20:22

Bush: U.S. 'Reserves All Options'
To Defend Against North Korean Aggression

WASHINGTON —  President Bush said Wednesday that North Korea's continued threats to peace will result in serious repercussions for Pyongyang, and that the United States "reserves all options" to defend against aggression.

In a press conference in the White House Rose Garden, the president said even if North Korea didn't conduct a successful nuclear test, "this claim represents a threat to international peace and security."

Bush said the United States will cooperate with its regional allies on ballistic missile defense and is working with the United Nations to find the right consequences for North Korea's nuclear weapons test.

The Culture of Corruption in Las Vegas
John Hinderaker

The Associated Press has an exclusive report on a series of real estate transactions by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, in which he parlayed a $400,000 investment into a $1.1 million return in just six years.

The focus of the AP's report is on the fact that Reid mis-reported the transactions in his Senate financial disclosure forms. He made the original investment personally, but transferred his land to a limited liability corportation in 2001, without reporting that transfer. It was actually the LLC that sold the land in 2004, but Reid reported the transaction as if it had been a personal sale of the land he bought in 1998.

Substantively, what happened is that Reid did this real estate deal with a friend named Jay Brown, a Las Vegas lawyer whom the AP describes as follows: ...

Harry Reid And The Culture Of Corruption
Ed Morrissey

Once again, we discover why the Democrats quietly dropped their "culture of corruption" theme for the upcoming midterms. The AP catches Harry Reid without a disclosure on real-estate deals that netted him $700,000 in profit:

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid collected a $1.1 million windfall on a Las Vegas land sale even though he hadn't personally owned the property for three years, property deeds show.

In the process, Reid did not disclose to Congress an earlier sale in which he transferred his land to a company created by a friend and took a financial stake in that company, according to records and interviews.

• 17:28

AP Exclusive: Reid Got $1M in Land Sale

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid collected a $1.1 million windfall on a Las Vegas land sale even though he hadn't personally owned the property for three years, property deeds show.

In the process, Reid did not disclose to Congress an earlier sale in which he transferred his land to a company created by a friend and took a financial stake in that company, according to records and interviews.

The Nevada Democrat's deal was engineered by Jay Brown, a longtime friend and former casino lawyer whose name surfaced in a major political bribery trial this summer and in other prior organized crime investigations. He's never been charged with wrongdoing _ except for a 1981 federal securities complaint that was settled out of court.

Land deeds obtained by The Associated Press during a review of Reid's business dealings show: ...

Surprise! AP exposes Reid’s shady land deal
Allahpundit

This had better not be the big October you-know-what that Rove’s been promising. For one thing, it’s way too complicated — except for this part, which is clear enough:

Clark County intended for the property Reid owned to be used solely for new housing, records show. Just days before Reid sold the parcels to [Jay] Brown’s company, Brown sought permission in May 2001 to rezone the properties so a shopping center could be built.

Career zoning officials objected, saying the request was “inconsistent” with Clark County’s master development plan. The town board in Spring Valley, where Reid’s property was located, also voted 4-1 to reject the rezoning.

Brown persisted. The Clark County zoning board followed by the Clark County Commission voted to overrule the recommendation and approve commercial zoning. Such votes were common at the time.

Before the approval in September 2001, Brown’s consultant told commissioners that Reid was involved. “Mr. Brown’s partner is Harry Reid, so I think we have people in this community who you can trust to go forward and put a quality project before you,” the consultant testified. ...

• 13:21

Lancet: 600,000 killed by violence in Iraq since U.S. invaded;
Update: Troops there until 2010?
Allahpundit

Calling this study inaccurate is like accusing the left of playing dirty tricks with Foley: you’re probably right, but it’s largely besides the point. Granted, Lancet is known for scaremongering; granted, their previous body count was also released shortly before an election; granted, the actual number is an extreme outlier among other counts; granted, it appears the study doesn’t account for the number killed during the entirety of Saddam’s reign; granted, it fails to distinguish between Iraqi civilians, terrorists, army, and police; granted, it has a margin of error of about 180,000 people.

Whatever the actual number is (and it’s probably closer to Iraq Body Count’s figure than to Lancet’s), it’s much more than most of us expected and, at the moment, without a lot to show for it. The Commissar’s been working his way towards Sullivanland in his war/torture posts of late, but it’s hard to argue with the implications of this photo. A thousand words indeed. ...

• 10:06

A  Most Ghoulish Debate
Rick Moran

It is an unseemly thing to be debating how many Iraqis have died as a result of the invasion and occupation by US troops. I’m absolutely sure that most opponents of the war feel that way. They would, I’m sure, wish that we would all just sit back and accept the politically motivated study released today that purports to show 600,000 more Iraqis have died since 2003 than would have if we hadn’t invaded:

A team of American and Iraqi public health researchers has estimated that 600,000 civilians have died in violence across Iraq since the 2003 American invasion, the highest estimate ever for the toll of the war here. ...

First of all, the Times makes a common mistake by lumping civilians, insurgents, and Iraqi Police and Army units all together and simply referring to them as “civilians.” In fact, the study makes absolutely no effort to differentiate between civilians and insurgents, Police and army. All the researchers asked were the number of dead over the last 3 years.

But why is the study politically motivated?

This is the same crew whose 2004 study showing 100,000 Iraqi dead was thoroughly debunked by a wide variety of experts from both sides of the debate.

Fred Kaplan of Slate on the 2004 study: ...

• 09:50

Ted Turner-itis: allergic to patriotism
Michille Malkin

My column on North Korea's favorite media mogul and Fox Derangement Syndrome. A snippet:

CNN founder Ted Turner opened his mouth this week at the National Press Club, and promptly demonstrated why America needs Fox News Channel now more than ever.

Three years after the invasion of Iraq, Turner is still pouting about public displays of patriotism on American airwaves: "I mean, I just really wonder during the, during the last war, you know, what business did it have in the news sets to have the American flag flying in the background. Uh, I mean, it was like the news media covered the Iraq war, at least at the beginning of it, almost as like it was a football game with us versus them." ...

• 03:02

North Korean official: Strict sanctions mean war
Allahpundit

Maybe they’re bluffing, maybe they’re not. Good luck!

Seriously, if the UN imposes Chapter VII, why wouldn’t Kim move on Seoul? What’s left for him to lose? Even the doves in South Korea admit that the sunshine policy’s failed. If the Security Council tightens the screws, what’s to gain by waiting around? Japan doesn’t have nukes yet; our military is overextended and morale is low. ...

Bill's Bites --- 2006.10.10              Soft Bites -- 2006.10.10

Contributed by Bill Faith on October 11, 2006 at 12:03 AM in Bill Faith, Bill's Bites | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Soft Bites (Bill's Bites, Page 2) -- 2006.10.11
Contributed by Bill Faith

Stuff that didn't quite make Bill's Bites. Continuously updated, newest items at the top.

• 10:48

• 00:19

Bill's Bites --- 2006.10.10              Soft Bites -- 2006.10.10

Contributed by Bill Faith on October 11, 2006 at 12:02 AM in Bill Faith, Bill's Bites | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Tuesday, 10 October 2006
 

Bill's Bites -- 2006.10.10
Contributed by Bill Faith

The webmaster's blog-within-a-blog.
Continuously updated, newest items at the top.

Destitute Dog -- Please read this and help if you can.

• 21:51

Video: Vets for Freedom co-founder Wade Zirkle on “freeSpeech”
Allhpundit

Anyone with a resume like this is worth hearing out. Thirty thousand more troops, he says, and we should be able to finish the job.

Listen to the man. He knows what he's talking about.

• 19:02

Explosions, Fire Rip U.S.
Ammo Base in Baghdad

Fire at U.S. ammunition depot in southern Baghdad caused a series of massive explosions; no word on cause, injuries

• Video: Explosions, Fire at Ammo Supply Point

Breaking:
Fire at Baghdad ammo depot sets off chain reaction of explosions

It’s on Fox and CNN right now. One flash after another for the past five or ten minutes, some of them enormous. Omar’s liveblogging it at Iraq the Model.

A metaphor for the whole war, really.

Update: No injuries reported yet but it’s hard to believe that’ll hold. Explosions are still going off.

Update: It’s happening at FOB Falcon: ...

Video:
Arizona 9/11 memorial designers wanted to commemorate hijackers
Allahpundit

Why wouldn’t they? There are no enemies in their cosmology (except Bush). Violence itself is the enemy.

Which means the hijackers are victims too.

Oh, and we also sort of deserved it because of our “total support of Israel.” And the Afghan civilians who were accidentally killed in a bombing run ten months later belong on the memorial because they’re all “part of the tragedy of war, terrorism, hatred, [and] mistrust of everyone else.”

We’re going to lose. You know that, right?

[video link]

*** 19:22

The Arizona 9/11 memorial disgrace, contd.
Michelle Malkin

Just when you think the story couldn't get any worse and had died down, Fox News Channel's Special Report with Brit Hume uncovers this appalling news about the Arizona 9/11 moonbat memorial. Ace:

Some of the commissioners actually wanted to add 19 more characters to represent the deaths of the 19 terrorist murderers who killed the victims.

The commissioner interviewed, Paul Eppinger, defends it wholeheartedly, claiming that the inscription about "Middle East Violence Causes Attacks" reflects the "fact" that "our foreign policy for years has focused on total support of Israel."

Don't believe it? ...

• 16:27

al Qaeda aims for the White House
Michelle Malkin

Via Reuters:

A man believed to be a top al Qaeda militant who escaped from a U.S. jail near Kabul was shown in a new videotape broadcast on Tuesday exhorting followers in Afghanistan to fight on until they attack the White House.

"Allah will not be pleased until we reach the rooftop of the White House," Abu Yahya al-Libi was shown telling fighters in the tape aired by the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya television. ...

Fauxtography updates
Michelle Malkin

Two interesting items for you:

[image]

Tyler Hicks, photographer of the fake Lebanese Pieta, explains himself in a short piece at PDN and posted at the Lightstalkers website (hat tip - Solomonia):

My caption, as filed to The New York Times, was verbatim as follows: ...  The problem came later when this photograph appeared among a slide show of my photographs on The New York Times website. The web published the following caption: ... As you can see, the caption was totally misleading. I received an apology from the person responsible at the website, ...

• 16:03

Video: The Zucker ad;
Flashback: Zucker ad goofed on Kerry in 2004 (H/T)

Might as well link. Everyone else will.

Says Drudge:

The DRUDGE REPORT has obtained an exclusive copy of a “scary” campaign advertisement created by Hollywood producer and director David Zucker that was intended to be used by GOP organizations in the closing weeks of the 2006 campaign.

However, the advertisement was deemed “too hot” by GOP strategists all across Washington, DC who have refused to use it!…

One GOP strategist said “jaws dropped” when the ad was first viewed. “Nobody could believe Zucker thought any political organization could use this ad. It makes a point, but it’s way over the top.”

But according to Jewish Journal in a report dated October 6: ...

Video: Outrageously outrageous airport security ad

The Freepers are in heaven.

Look out, there’s a guy in a headdress! ...

[video link]

Harper’s: Dem operative gave us Foley e-mails back in May

Gateway Pundit’s excited and thinks he and Red State might have identified who that operative is. The guy they’ve fingered left Rodney Alexander’s office in 2004, though. The e-mails that were provided to Harper’s — the creepy but not sexual “send me a picture of you” messages — weren’t written until 2005.

Anyway, as Ken Silverstein says: ...

Harvard prof says diversity not an unqualified good

Not just any Harvard prof. Robert Putnam, who argued famously in “Bowling Alone” that Americans’ participation in civic groups and other community social structures had declined dramatically over the past 50 years. Is he preparing to tie that phenomenon somehow to ethnic diversity? Maybe so:

A bleak picture of the corrosive effects of ethnic diversity has been revealed in research by Harvard University’s Robert Putnam, one of the world’s most influential political scientists…

The core message of the research was that, “in the presence of diversity, we hunker down”, he said. “We act like turtles. The effect of diversity is worse than had been imagined. And it’s not just that we don’t trust people who are not like us. In diverse communities, we don’t trust people who do look like us.”…

• 12:18

Joel Stein: I don’t support the troops but I do sort of support torture

You remember Joel Stein. Sure you do.

As much as righties loathe him, I think most of us grudgingly respect him for his honesty. He proceeds logically about these things: if you don’t support the war, you can’t really support the troops. And if you do support the war, why wouldn’t you support the occasional waterboarding?

And why would you want to bring democracy to a bunch of Arabs? ...

AmSpec hearsay:
Foley story was supposed to break later this month

Another day, another anonymous left-wing source who knows someone who might have overheard something at a party somewhere in DC quoted in the Prowler:

According to one political consultant with ties to the DNC and other party organizations, “I’m hearing the Foley story wasn’t supposed to drop until about ten days out of the election. It was supposed the coup de grace, not the first shot.”

So why the rush? ...

• 11:29

John Kerry: Just dumb
Michelle Malkin

Lots of people are e-mailing me John Kerry's remarks on the Bill Maher show last Friday and suggesting he has a Bush assassination fantasy.

I don't think so. He was lamely trying to riff off a metaphor. Not bloodthirsty. Just really, really dumb.

Judge for yourselves. Warning: It is extremely painful to behold. ...

*** 12:18

Video: Kerry jokes about killing Bush
Allahpundit

He’s not homicidal, says the boss, just stupid. True enough, although I think it’s more than that. He likes the tough talk.

Makes him feel like a man.

From last night’s Hannity & Colmes. Say, Alan makes a good point, doesn’t he? ...

Salman Rushdie: "Veils suck"

Author Salman Rushdie doesn't mince words in his defense of former British Foreign Minister Jack Straw, who has been embroiled in Muslim Veil Rage:

Prime Minister Tony Blair and author Salman Rushdie praised a British official on Tuesday for raising the difficult issue of whether Muslim women visiting his office should remove their veils.

The comment by Jack Straw, a former foreign secretary who now is leader of the House of Commons, has plunged Britain into a debate over Islamic integration.

"It's important these issues are raised and discussed, and I think it's perfectly sensible if you raise it in a measured and considered way, which he did," Blair said of Straw during an interview with British Broadcasting Corp. television outside his office. "I think we can have these discussions without people becoming hysterical either way about it."

Rushdie, whose book "The Satanic Verses," once led to death threats against him by Islamic clerics, told BBC radio that Straw "was expressing an important opinion, which is that veils suck, which they do. I think the veil is a way of taking power away from women." ....

• 11:05

A Fristful of fence after all
Scott Johnson

Republican National Committee e-campaign director Patrick Ruffini wrote us and others yesterday to assure us that President Bush would sign the Secure Fence Act:

There has been some speculation in the blogosphere today that President Bush would not sign the Secure Fence Act, after signing a bill for funding border fencing last week. This is not the case. President Bush will sign the Secure Fence Act.  ...

• 10:51

Mexico Wants UN To Block Fence
Ed Morrissey

Mexico wants to take the border fence authorized by Congress last month to the UN, in order to get it stopped. Foreign Minister Luis Ernesto Derbez says that Mexican lawyers will research their cause to determine whether the UN can intervene:

Mexico's foreign secretary said Monday the country may take a dispute over U.S. plans to build a fence on the Mexican border to the United Nations.

Luis Ernesto Derbez told reporters in Paris, his first stop on a European tour, that a legal investigation was under way to determine whether Mexico has a case.

Bridge To Nowhere Senator Defeats Reform Again

Ted Stevens, who championed the infamous Bridge to Nowhere and threatened to quit the Senate if denied his pork, has quietly undermined another attempt at pork reform. Robert Novak reports that Stevens stripped a key requirement in the Defense appropriation that would have required a review of all earmarks:

Sen. Ted Stevens, considered the Republican king of pork, just before the pre-election congressional recess killed a requirement for the Defense Department to evaluate unauthorized earmarks imposed by members of Congress on the Pentagon. ...

Paper Trails At The Voting Booth
Ed Morrissey

E. J. Dionne tackles the controversy over electronic voting machines that has arisen since their rushed implementation following the 2000 presidential election. Dionne argues that a little paranoia isn't always a bad thing:

Sometimes, paranoids are right. And sometimes even when paranoids are wrong, it's worth considering what they're worried about.

I speak here of all who are worried sick that those new, fancy high-tech voting systems can be hacked, fiddled with and otherwise made to record votes that aren't cast or fail to record votes that are. ...

For most of us, the perfectly obvious thing was to question why a balloting process that had been in use for decades had to be tossed aside simply because one party didn't like the outcome of the race. In California, we had used the butterfly ballot for decades; we had one in every election in which I voted. The punch-card ballots made it very easy to ensure that my vote was recorded correctly, and booth instructions warned voters to check that all chads got properly cleared from the ballot before filing it.

All of a sudden, because of one close election, American voters suddenly discovered that the venerable punch-card ballot was the gravest threat to democracy since Huey Long and J. Edgar Hoover. ...

Saddam's Trial Resumes

The trial of Saddam Hussein continued today, and the testimony painted a grim picture of life and death under his regime's grip:

Prison guards under Saddam Hussein used to bury detainees alive and watch women as they bathed, occasionally shooting over their heads, a former female prisoner testified Monday in the genocide trial of the ex-president.

Speaking in Kurdish through an Arabic interpreter, the 31-year-old witness recalled what she saw as a 13-year-old girl who was detained during Saddam's offensive against the Kurds in the late 1980s. ...

*** 11:29

The Saddam Hussein show trial
Michelle Malkin

Crikey, can they hurry up and get this over with? Now, he's shouting Koran verses and inciting violence from the courtroom when he isn't snacking on Cheetos in his cell. It's a circus and a nightmare:

The chief judge at Saddam Hussein's genocide trial has expelled the former Iraqi leader from court after he shouted out a verse from the Koran.

It is the fourth time in recent weeks the former dictator has been ejected from his Baghdad trial for alleged war crimes and genocide against the Kurds. ...

• 10:22

PressPlay: Political Ad Don'ts

• 2006.10.10.00.21

Is Bush going to veto the border fence?
Update: Bill not formally presented yet;
Update: Mexico to take up fence with UN?

[Major updates since I linked yesterday. Keep scrolling.]

Video: Michelle on the Columbia Minutemen debacle
Allahpundit

The Factor’s on the road this week so the boss was treated to a free trip to Chicago and a live studio audience tonight. She was initially told she’d be talking about John Mark Karr of all things, but thankfully O’R settled on a better idea.

Her point about no one ever throwing pies at Michael Moore is well taken, but I can’t help thinking there’s an easy fat joke in there somewhere that she missed. Too bad.

[video link]

As for the lovely KP, I’m reliably informed that she and the boss had dinner together tonight — a fact which should by itself be enough to have her banned from the party. ...

Garry Trudeau slams Mohammed cartoons;
Update: Two Danish teens in hiding
Allahpundit

Doonesburied:

Q. What did you make of the Danish cartoon mess? I understand that you said you would never play with the image of Allah. But did you feel you should have done so out of a sense of professional solidarity, or to make a statement about freedom of speech?

A. What exactly would that statement be? That we can say whatever we want in the West? Everyone already knows that. So then the question becomes, should we say whatever we want? That, to me, is the crux. Do you hurt people just because you can? Because you feel they shouldn’t be deeply hurt, does that mean they aren’t? Should the New York Times run vicious caricatures of blacks and Jews just to show the First Amendment in action? At some point, common sense and sensitivity have to be brought to bear.

Yeah, the thing is, not everyone does know that. Or else ...

Video: “Death of a President”
Allahpudit

It debuted tonight on Channel 4 in the UK. Think British lefties were excited? Front page of today’s London Paper:

[image]

Our pal kasper kasper has already ‘Tubed the moment of truth for posterity. With the possible exception of Colbert bombing at the correspondents dinner, it represents the absolutely zenith of nutroots porn. Keith Olbermann, eat your heart out:

[video link]

Bill's Bites --- 2006.10.09              Soft Bites -- 2006.10.09

Contributed by Bill Faith on October 10, 2006 at 12:03 AM in Bill Faith, Bill's Bites | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Soft Bites (Bill's Bites, Page 2) -- 2006.10.10
Contributed by Bill Faith

Stuff that didn't quite make Bill's Bites. Continuously updated, newest items at the top.

• 01:28

• 00:54

Bill's Bites --- 2006.10.09              Soft Bites -- 2006.10.09

Contributed by Bill Faith on October 10, 2006 at 12:02 AM in Bill Faith, Bill's Bites | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Monday, 09 October 2006
 

Bill's Bites -- 2006.10.09
Contributed by Bill Faith

The webmaster's blog-within-a-blog.
Continuously updated, newest items at the top.

Destitute Dog -- Please read this and help if you can.

• 17:23

Paint it black blue: Dems lead by 23 on generic ballot;
Update: RNC launches “firewall strategy”
Allahpundit

I don’t care. Not my problem anymore. Not. my. problem.

Unless and until Bush signs the fence bill.

Yeah, I know, “the generic ballot doesn’t mean anything.” Quote: ...

Video: Ted Turner unclear which side he is on in War on Terror, media has “no business” showing flag
Ian Schwartz

Speaking at the National Press Club this afternoon, CNN founder Ted Turner said he was “disturbed” by the President’s “either you’re with us or you’re against us” attitude:

[video link]

TED TURNER: There are a lot of things about this war that disturb me and one of them is the attitude, that you know, that was well expressed by our President. He said it very clearly, he said either you’re with us or you’re against us. And I had a problem with that because I really hadn’t made my mind up yet. ...

• 16:10

The fake fence fiasco
Michelle Malkin

Well, I hate to say I told you so. But I told you so.

On Sept. 14, I wrote:

[...]

Now, Mickey Kaus at Slate.com is raising alarm bells over whether President Bush actually signed the Secure Fence Act during a grand ceremony in Arizona and whether a pocket veto will occur:

Is Bush going to sign the 700-mile border fence bill (the Secure Fence Act), passed with great fanfare by Congress a little over a week ago? According to an AP story from Friday:

President Bush has not yet signed the Secure Fence Act

That signing ceremony he held last Wednesday in Arizona, it turns out, was only for a Homeland Security appropriations bill that included "$1.2 billion for border fencing." It wasn't the Secure Fence Act.

We're approaching pocket veto territory here, aren't we? Under the Constitution Bush has 10 days to sign the bill into law--a deadline that would seem to be rapidly approaching.

More Kaus:

Yes, I find it hard to believe that Bush would double-cross the pro-fence Republican base like that, a month before an election. I hope somebody sends me an e-mail soon to say I'm wrong. But you can't read the above passages without thinking the White House was at least trying to create the option of a pocket veto, hidden under the diversion of an appropriations-bill signing.

Rob Port at Say Anything has been monitoring the White House and explains further:

Google plus YouTube equals...
Michelle Malkin

...more trouble for conservative users, if Google News's and Google execs' campaign donations records are any indication. Here's the official word on the buyout:

Google Inc. (GOOG) snapped up YouTube Inc. for $1.65 billion Monday in deal that catapults the Internet search leader to a leading role in the online video revolution. The all-stock acquisition unites one of the Internet's marquee companies with one of its rapidly rising stars.

*** 17:14

Google aquires YouTube for 1.65 billion dollars
Bryan Preston

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Google Inc. (GOOG) snapped up YouTube Inc. for $1.65 billion Monday in deal that catapults the Internet search leader to a leading role in the online video revolution. The all-stock acquisition unites one of the Internet’s marquee companies with one of its rapidly rising stars.

• 15:27

[-- An Item that was originally posted here has been moved to It's da bomb --]

• 13:58

Is Bush going to veto the border fence?
Allahpundit

Kaus explains it all to you.

Not that it matters. As previously reported, they’ve loaded up the appropriations bill with so many loopholes that they won’t have to build it even if he does sign.

In which case, why doesn’t he sign? Why would he do something as insanely antagonistic to his own base as torpedoing what’s already only a cosmetic gesture towards border security? It can’t be for Hispanic votes; the number of Republican voters he’d alienate by vetoing the bill would surely outnumber the Latino voters he’d pick up. ...

• 13:27

YouTube's slippery slope
Michelle Malkin

Tom Zeller Jr. at the New York Times saw fit to write about the jihad vs. anti-jihad battle at YouTube today. Not only does he appear to agree that banning "First, They Came" was a bad idea, but he also, unlike his colleague Virginia Heffernan (who inspired my new tagline), manages to cover the story with minimal snark andwithout any ethnic references at all. Wonders never cease!

"A Slippery Slope of Censorship at YouTube"

Last week, as YouTube continued its recent campaign to spit-shine its image and, perhaps, to look a little less ragtag to potential buyers (including Google, which was said to be eyeing the upstart in the $1.6 billion range), the company took a scrub bucket to some questionable political graffiti on its servers, including a video entry from the doyenne of right-wing blogs, Michelle Malkin (michellemalkin.com). ...

[-- Several Items that were originally posted here have been moved to It's da bomb --]

• 12:14

Columbia U.: Campus gone wild
Michelle Malkin

Today's Vent.

The Examiner makes the same point I made:

The thugs should be expelled from Columbia and barred from admission at any other self-respecting university. But frankly, we doubt that Columbia officials will do much of anything beyond delivering figurative slaps on the wrists of the offending students and their accomplices. Too many American academic officials have become cowed by fear of appearing to violate the politically correct orthodoxy that rules most campuses.

And too many of them agree with the thugs they helped create. ...

[-- Several Items that were originally posted here have been moved to It's da bomb --]

• 01:46 (Forgotten earlier due to ISP problems)

DNC Recruiting Veterans
Contributed by Bobbie (OWB)

You really cannot blame the DNC for doing everything they can to garner the votes of veterans. After all, when you add up all those who have served in some capacity with the military and their family members, friends and associates, it is a significant voting block. Plus, there remains in this country a sizable group of voters who simply have more respect for the armed forces and those who have served than any other group in the country.

Unfortunately, the movers and shakers within the DNC have so removed themselves from average Americans that they seem to have no means for making the simplest decisions concerning appealing to veterans. ...

• 2006.10.09.00:31

Late Start

Had a round of ISP problems, late doing my "midnight rollover" stuff. Sorry about that.

Bill's Bites --- 2006.10.08              Soft Bites -- 2006.10.08

Contributed by Bill Faith on October 9, 2006 at 12:27 AM in Bill Faith, Bill's Bites | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Soft Bites (Bill's Bites, Page 2) -- 2006.10.09
Contributed by Bill Faith

Stuff that didn't quite make Bill's Bites. Continuously updated, newest items at the top.

• 13:04

• 2006.10.09.01.:15

Bill's Bites --- 2006.10.08              Soft Bites -- 2006.10.08

Contributed by Bill Faith on October 9, 2006 at 12:24 AM in Bill Faith, Bill's Bites | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Sunday, 08 October 2006
 

Bill's Bites -- 2006.10.08
Contributed by Bill Faith

The webmaster's blog-within-a-blog.
Continuously updated, newest items at the top.

Destitute Dog -- Please read this and help if you can.

• 22:16

North Korea Says Nuclear Test Successful

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- North Korea said Monday it has performed its first-ever nuclear weapons test. The country's official Korean Central News Agency said the test was performed successfully and there was no radioactive leakage from the site. ...

Report: North Korea Tests Nuclear Weapon

SEOUL, South Korea —  North Korea performed its first-ever nuclear weapons test Monday, Yonhap news agency reported, citing government officials.

South Korean officials couldn't immediately confirm the report.

Unconfirmed report: N.Korea nuke test
Michelle Malkin

Drudge siren. Fox reporting. Allah monitoring: U.S. intel can't confirm.

Bryan Preston's thoughts from Friday: ...

Report: North Korea tests nuke
Allahpundit

Just breaking on Fox, according to South Korean government officials. Standby.

Update ....

• 18:39

DNC Still Can't Find An American Soldier To Support
Ed Morrissey

The Democratic Party website has been changed since the discovery that they used a picture of a Canadian soldier on the page that proclaimed their support for "our troops". Apparently, though, they still can't find a picture of an American soldier to support:

[image]

Does anyone at the DNC know what an American soldier looks like? ...

• 17:28

Possibly the best C&F ever

... which would really take some doing.

The Ahmadinejad Code

The winners have yet to be announced, but the 200-plus finalists in Iran's "Holocaust International Cartoon Contest" were recently exhibited in Tehran and posted online.

And though not among the finalists, the above image was part of a cartoon accepted into the contest, one of over a thousand entries accepted. The cartoonist's name, Hugh Bradley, can be seen on the contest's list of participants under USA.

Obviously a cartoon featuring Adolf Hitler could be appropriate for such a contest, but there's more to the image than meets the eye. It also contains a hidden message critical of the Iranian regime.

We know this because "Hugh Bradley" is really Cox & Forkum.

I had higher hopes for this covert cartoon, but our efforts have become a "one that got away" story. In this unusually long post, I will reveal the hidden message, show the full cartoon as entered in the contest, recap the contest's history, and explain my intentions, all of which is in the "Continue Reading" link below.

SPOILER WARNING: Readers who want to try to discover what is hidden in the image should do so before clicking the link. The answer is revealed in "The Hidden Message" section of this post. ...

• 16:15

Oh that Patriotic DNC

God damn it to hell, people. Is this how to show respect for our nation's flag? Let's give these idiots a country to run, shall we?

DNC changes vets' page
Michelle Malkin

An update to my blog post yesterday about the DNC's tribute to American troops that featured a Canadian soldier. The foreign soldier has been replaced (hat tip - Mark):

[image]

At least it's the right flag.

(Good thing the webmaster made sure this one didn't slip through:) ...

• 00:55

DNC supports vets ...but from which country?
Michelle Malkin

A military guy e-mails a weekend website blooper:

Thought you might be interested in posting this. The DNC website has a page called Veterans and Military Families where they purpo[r]t to care about the welfare of US troops. Unfortunately they couldn't even find a picture of a US soldier to post on the page. The picture in the Get Involved frame is not a US Army uniform. The soldiers in the background are not in a US uniform either.

[image]

My military correspondent says the uniform in the DNC photo Canadian. Is he right? ...

Fauxtography: DNC-caught-redhanded edition .. Update: DNC innocent!
Allahpundit

They support the troops. Canadian troops.

Update: I like the Freepers’ headline.

Update: Florida Cracker exonerates the DNC, sort of: ...

I Love Canadian Troops, Too!
Ed Morrissey

Readers of CQ know that I follow Canadian politics and have become something of a Canada-phile ever since the Gomery Inquiry. Canadians, I have found, are friendly, gracious people, and their country has a well-deserved reputation for hospitality. I have a great deal of respect and admiration for the Canadian military, which has a long tradition of honorable service, and they are currently adding to and enhancing that reputation in Afghanistan in the fight against radical Islamist terrorists.

Too many Americans seem disinterested in our northern neighbor and close ally. I'm always delighted when Americans take an interest in Canadians -- even when those Americans are Democrats. Michelle Malkin reports that the Democratic Party made a big show of "supporting the troops", and to be fair, they didn't specify their nationality:

[image] ...

Democratic Party Fauxtoshops Veteran
Charles Johnson

I guess The Democratic Party couldn’t find a photograph of a US veteran that had the right attitude for their web site’s page slamming the Bush administration for not supporting the troops enough.

So they found a picture of a Canadian soldier, digitally removed the badge from his beret, and used that instead. Michelle Malkin has details: DNC supports vets...but from which country?

Someone (mardukhai) tipped me off about this too, and I was preparing a post before I knew Michelle had already broken it. Because I hate for all this work to go to waste, here’s the screenshot of their page, linked above: ..

• 2006.10.08.00:25

Fear Factor
Contributed by The Gray Dog

It has become cliché to say that armies always fight the last war.  That is to say they are unprepared to take on a new enemy with new strategies and objectives.  Just over two years ago, like many veterans and other concerned conservatives, I locked on like a laser to focus my efforts and do anything that would lead to the defeat of John Kerry.  And while the Swift Boat Vets led the charge, the small voice of The Gray Dog was just one of thousands of small BLOGs that ran their ads, displayed their commercials and waged a smarter more sensitive war against the Democratic nominee. The 2004 War against Kerry was a classic frontal assault against a well known and defined enemy.  While many weapons were used, in the end it was brute force that carried the day

Today, one month away from the 2006 mid-term elections, we face a new threat that is no less dangerous than the one we defeated two years ago.  ...

Bill's Bites --- 2006.10.07              Soft Bites -- 2006.10.07

Contributed by Bill Faith on October 8, 2006 at 12:03 AM in Bill Faith, Bill's Bites | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Soft Bites (Bill's Bites, Page 2) -- 2006.10.08
Contributed by Bill Faith

Stuff that didn't quite make Bill's Bites. Continuously updated, newest items at the top.

Gonna try a little experiment here and see how it works out. Sometimes as I surf the web I run across something that's more "human interest" than "hard news," more "entertainment" than "news" at all, and I have to stop and consider "Is that worth pushing everything on Bill's Bites" down the page to make room for, and maybe having to move something more important "below the fold?" "Sure it's a cute cartoon but George is still on dial-up. Will he appreciate it enough to justify the download time?" "So, really, what do baseball and football have to do with the price of bullets in Beirut?" Solution(?): A separate post for "Page 2 or 3" stuff that I don't want to clutter the front page with but don't want to ignore completely. Enter "Soft Bites." Is this my answer? Bark at me.

• 22:06

Mullahs get punked
Michelle Malkin

Hah.

Somewhat related: ...

• 20:27

Video: Japanese Fembot
Allahpundit

How does one of the world’s most technologically advanced societies address the need for companionship in an age of historically low birth rates?

Logically. Very logically.

The Telegraph reports on a small but noteworthy trend among single women in the UK who’ve decided to cut us out of the equation. The New York Times magazine ran a similar story a few months ago. For women with the means, men are increasingly becoming expendable.

You have us at a disadvantage, ladies. But only for the moment. ...

Sunday football: TO, Cowboys, etc
Ian Schwartz

[image]

I’m not a big fan of either team, but it’s always nice to see the Cowboys lose, especially when you know someone who is a huge fan. I’m not trying to go Jerry Seinfeld on you, but what’s the deal with Terrell Owens? All week long the press hyped the TO-McNabb showdown as must-see TV. What a shame that TO was practically shutout.

Foley told lover: I don’t shtup pages

He’s principled about these things. Sure, he’ll tell a 17-year-old he’d like to slip his boxers off. But actually slip his boxers off?

No way. What do you think he is, some kind of perv?

A former House page says he had sex with then-Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.) after receiving explicit e-mails in which the congressman described assessing the sexual orientation and physical attributes of underage pages but waiting until later to make direct advances…

• 2006.10.08.01:05

“Dear God”: Kids’ letters to the almighty
Allahpundit

Via MetaFilter. I’m 98% sure at least some of them were written by atheists to goof on believers. Either way, though, pretty funny.

This one’s my favorite. ...

Bill's Bites --- 2006.10.07              Soft Bites -- 2006.10.07

Contributed by Bill Faith on October 8, 2006 at 12:02 AM in Bill Faith, Bill's Bites | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Saturday, 07 October 2006
 

Bill's Bites -- 2006.10.07
Contributed by Bill Faith

The webmaster's blog-within-a-blog.
Continuously updated, newest items at the top.

Destitute Dog -- Please read this and help if you can.

• 21:31

Video: Minuteman says Columbia filth yelled N-word at him
Allahpundit

I’m skeptical. The only news report I can find to corroborate it is Jerome Corsi’s in WND, and Corsi just co-wrote a book with Jim Gilchrist.

Stewart also claims he was told that the Arabic on the protesters’ banner was a statement of Holocaust denial. In fact, according to the New York Sun, it said, “Nobody is illegal.”

On the other hand, would you put it past them? ...

• 14:59

Preaching Intolerance Leads to Capitalism!

Guess what?  All that bending over backwards to be diverse and inclusive is now biting us in the posterior.  In Minnesota, cab drivers are refusing to carry customers who have alcohol because it violates Muslim beliefs.  Not such a big deal, you think?  Considering 3/4s of the Cab drivers are Muslim, and now as much as 3 times daily people are refused service, its a serious issue.  Its also an incredible opportunity for those entrepreneurial types.  ...

• 14:22

WaPo: Hastert’s chief of staff was warned earlier about Foley

Hastert’s been claiming that the first his staff knew about Foley’s “predilections” was last November, when Rodney Alexander notified him about the “send me a picture of you” e-mail that one of his pages received from Foley. Kirk Fordham, who resigned a few days ago as Tom Reynolds’s chief of staff, insists that’s not true, that in fact Hastert’s powerful chief of staff, Scott Palmer, was told about Foley as early as 2003.

Now an anonymous congressional staff member has corroborated Fordham’s story, telling WaPo that Palmer actually confronted Foley about his little problem at some unspecified time before November 2005. And ultimately took no action to stop him.

WaPo: ...

Photoshop: The People’s Cube on Malkin vs. YouTube
Allhpundit

They shall be valuable allies when our photoshop revenge on Denton and Wonkette is finally taken.

Click the image to see it full size, and several more.

xxxx

xxxx

xxxx

• 05:02

GOP prods Democrats over Foley scandal

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Faced with fending off the backlash from the Mark Foley scandal, House Republicans took the offensive Friday, asking Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats to testify about whether they engaged in partisan trickery by releasing Foley's messages weeks before the midterm elections.

Top GOP leaders -- including House Speaker Dennis Hastert, of Illinois, and Majority Leader John Boehner, of Ohio -- have accused the Democrats of knowing about Foley's correspondences with teen pages, and waiting to release them until it was politically advantageous.

• 01:07

Are you ready for Cartoon Jihad 2?

Right now, somewhere in Gaza, someone’s placing an order for 50,000 Danish flags and three cases of matchbooks:

Danish state TV on Friday aired amateur video footage showing young members of the anti-immigrant Danish Peoples’ party engaged in a competition to draw humiliating cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad…

The images, filmed by artist Martin Rosengaard Knudsen who posed as a member of the party for several months to document attitudes among young members, show a number of young people drinking, singing and drawing cartoons ridiculing the Prophet Mohammad. ...

Time magazine: Castro has terminal cancer?

Look what just showed up on Google News:

When you follow the link, you get a 404. What happened? Did Time publish, then pull the story back because of some last-minute development?

Or did they publish accidentally, having meant to save a scoop this big for Sunday?

Alas for them: Allah sees all.

We’ll just have to wait.

Oh — there is just one more thing. My RSS reader picked this story up, too. And the precis there contained a detail you won’t find in the Google News teaser: ...

• 2006.10.07.00:28

Vale Jingcha
Contributed by Martin Andrew

On 14 September my dear friend Professor Frederic Wakeman Jr passed away from cancer.  Although we had not corresponded for a couple of years he will be deeply missed. ...

Be Careful What You Wish For 
Contributed by Shane Briscoe

The latest polls are suggesting that the Democrats' strategy of rewriting history to define President Bush and the United States as the villains in the War on Terror is working.  ...

Bill's Bites --- 2006.10.06              Soft Bites -- 2006.10.06

Contributed by Bill Faith on October 7, 2006 at 12:04 AM in Bill Faith, Bill's Bites | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Soft Bites (Bill's Bites, Page 2) -- 2006.10.07
Contributed by Bill Faith

Stuff that didn't quite make Bill's Bites. Continuously updated, newest items at the top.

Gonna try a little experiment here and see how it works out. Sometimes as I surf the web I run across something that's more "human interest" than "hard news," more "entertainment" than "news" at all, and I have to stop and consider "Is that worth pushing everything on Bill's Bites" down the page to make room for, and maybe having to move something more important "below the fold?" "Sure it's a cute cartoon but George is still on dial-up. Will he appreciate it enough to justify the download time?" "So, really, what do baseball and football have to do with the price of bullets in Beirut?" Solution(?): A separate post for "Page 2 or 3" stuff that I don't want to clutter the front page with but don't want to ignore completely. Enter "Soft Bites." Is this my answer? Bark at me.

• 21:34

Video: Yankees eliminated
Allahpundit

The sweetest moment in sports. Sweeter than Christmas.

A-Rod? 1 for 14 for the series, 0 RBIs. Demoted to eighth in the batting order for today’s game.

Coming soon: Steinbrenner’s tantrum. ...

• 2006.10.07.00:48

Bill's Bites --- 2006.10.06              Soft Bites -- 2006.10.06

Contributed by Bill Faith on October 7, 2006 at 12:01 AM in Bill Faith, Bill's Bites | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Friday, 06 October 2006
 

Bill's Bites -- 2006.10.06
Contributed by Bill Faith

The webmaster's blog-within-a-blog. Continuously updated, newest items at the top.

Bill's Bites --- 2006.10.07              Soft Bites -- 2006.10.07

Destitute Dog -- Please read this and help if you can.

• 20:44

"Filipina firecracker...Fox News firecracker;"
Plus: A Kos diarist offers support(!)
Michelle Malkin

I love how the always oh-so-sensitive New York Times has no problem throwing my ethnicity into an attack, when my ethnicity has nothing at all to do with the subject (the jihad vs. anti-jihad war at YouTube). Of course, if you visited NYTimes writer Virginia Heffernan's insipid blog to look at the petty swipes, you wouldn't know about it. She or her editors edited the gratuitious ethnic references out after readers complained and failed to note that they had done so. But thanks to Bob Cox, you can check out the evolution of the hilarious edits for yourselves:

First: ...

• 19:26

Veil Rage continues to simmer
Michelle Malkin

Via Sugiero and LGF, the latest on Muslim rage over British Foreign Secretary's candid remarks about Islam, attire, and community relations:

[video link]

Time critic blames FOX News for Olbermann’s whacky behavior
Ian Schwartz

Hat tip to Rich Noyes at Newsbusters, who writes:

In an article posted Friday on Time.com, the magazine’s critic James Poniewozik suggests the Fox News Channel, which he sees as tilted to the right, is also responsible for the multi-minute rants that MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann has lately been emitting. Time also dismisses the idea that the rest of the mainstream media (presumably including itself) is tilted to the left, with Poniewozik parenthetically noting that “the MSM really slant toward the institutional, establishmentarian center, which is a bias as dangerous as any other.” ...

James Poniewozik, the Time critic, writes this about FOX News: ...

Soon-to-be Speaker Pelosi marks fifth anniversary of Afghan war
Allahpundit

A little morale booster for the troops overseas and all of us chickenhawks, left and right, hoping for victory here at home. ...

• 18:58

Lawyer of outed page speaks
Michelle Malkin

Did the outers make another mistake?

The [congressional page's] attorney disputed as “a piece of fiction” a report on a widely viewed Internet site, The Drudge Report, that [the page's] exchanges with Foley were a prank by the page. ...

Video: CNN reports Foley victim calling Drudge prank claim ‘fiction’
Ian Schwartz

[video link]

On the 4pm hour of CNN’s The Situation Room, correspondent Brian Todd was questioned about “internet suggestions” that recent Foley IM conversations were a prank or hoax by anchor Wolf Blitzer. The lawyer of one of Foley’s victims called it a “piece of fiction”. ABC News also commented and said the report is not true.

Full transcript below. ...

• 15:03

Evangelicals abandon GOP, teens abandon evangelicals
Allahpundit

Which I guess for us means not only are we going to lose now, we’re going to lose big time in the future!

The bad news:

[...]

The good news? ...

Video: Father of the devil calls Hugo Chavez “an ass”

If the devil smells like sulphur, what does a Venezuelan ass smell like?

Note Aitch-Dubya’s veiled threat at the end of the clip. Heh.

Update:

Foley follies: Friday all-purpose thread
Allahpundit

On behalf of myself and the Hot Air readership, I open this thread by calling upon Speaker Hastert to resign immediately and spare us from having to devote yet another day of coverage to this clammy, tedious crap. ...

• 14:21

And now: Veil Rage!

Veil call "sparks Muslim fury"

What doesn't "spark Muslim fury?"

A senior British Cabinet minister has sparked fury by saying that Muslim women who wore full veils made community relations more difficult.

Jack Straw wrote in a newspaper that a veil was "a visible statement of separation and difference" and that he was more comfortable dealing with female visitors to his local political office with their faces uncovered.

But Muslim leaders in Straw's Blackburn constituency in northwest England said many Muslim women would find his comments "offensive and disturbing."

Questions for ABC News
Michelle Malkin

Blogger Bob Owens has some questions for ABC News that he can't seem to get answered:

* When did [Brian] Ross become aware of the existence of the instant messages between Congressman Foley and House pages?

* Were these instant messages given to Ross and the Staff of The Blotter directly by the pages, or were they filtered through an intermediary?

On the second question, I linked to the WSJ the other day, which reported that Ross says ...

Raise your voice against jihad lawyer Lynne Stewart
Michelle Malkin

Radical left lawyer Lynne Stewart, convicted of helping terrorists by smuggling messages of violence from imprisoned Sheik Omar Abdul Rahman, faces sentencing for her crime just 10 days from now.

On Oct. 16, her terror-coddling sympathizers plan to show up in full force in court in lower Manhattan. A socialist rag reports:

An overflow crowd will rally in Foley Square at Centre and Worth Streets.

On the eve of sentencing, a rally and tribute to Stewart has been organized to honor her long legal efforts and activist political life. The event will begin at 4 p.m. at Riverside Church—between 120 and 122 Streets and Riverside Drive on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

Stewart has described the 9/11 terrorist attacks as an "armed struggle." This is a reminder of exactly what she did to aid and abet jihad via Middle East Quarterly: ...

• 14:07

North Korea: War Is Coming To American Soil

A rambling, disjointed editorial by a man known as Kim Jong-Il's "unofficial spokesman" tells Asia Times readers that North Korea does not intend to build its nuclear weapons to use as bargaining chips. Kim will build them to turn American cities into "towering infernos": ...

Nuclear Terrorism Or Better Enforcement?

A disturbing report in the Times of London raises the question about whether terrorists have increased their efforts to find nuclear material, or whether the West has improved its ability to stop them. Confirmed incidents of nuclear trafficking have increased sharply since 2002, with most of the material falling into the "dirty-bomb" category: ...

Missing The Low-Hanging Fruit

In all of the heat surrounding the NSA warrantless surveillance program and SWIFT banking intelligence, we seem to have lost track of the uncontroversial communication taps allowed by law. The Washington Post reminds us in an editorial that we have no bar to reviewing prisoner communications, and yet the imprisoned terrorists already in our custody have little problem sending mail to their jihadist friends unmolested: ...

• 13:46

Audio: Clinton says he loves George Bush;
Update: Tells WaPo Dems expect media to take their side
Allahpundit

Now he can guest-blog at Powerline!

[image/link]

I’m kidding, of course. It was the other George Bush to which he was referring.

But the audio was too sweet not to clip.

Speaking of Billy Jeff, Richard Clarke will be on Bill Maher’s unwatchable HBO show later this evening. Michael Scheuer has drawn up a list of five questions Maher should, but won’t, put to him about why he and Clinton let Osama get away in 1999.

Update: Quite an admission. Eric Alterman’s going to wet himself: ...

Border fence dead on arrival

File this with Frist’s comments about the Taliban in the “What’s the difference?” folder.

They’re laughing at you:

The loopholes leave the Bush administration with authority to decide where, when and how long a fence will be built, except for small stretches east of San Diego and in western Arizona. Homeland Security officials have proposed a fence half as long, lawmakers said…

Asked whether Homeland Security would build 700 miles of fence, department spokesman Russ Knocke would not say…

The office of Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.) yesterday released a letter from House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) promising to ensure that Chertoff has discretion over whether to build a fence or choose other options…

North Korea nuke test

The North Korean military is rallying to Kim Jong-Il. Diplomacy is stirring to stop its nuclear test, which may come off this weekend. But China refuses to stop North Korea from testing a nuclear weapon (h/t Austin Bay):

WHILE the rest of the world looks to Beijing to stop North Korea from exploding a nuclear bomb, a leading Chinese analyst says it is too late - China cannot act without doing worse harm to its own interests.

“Basically, our country’s work of persuasion with the (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) in the 12 years that the DPRK developed its nuclear program had been a failure,” writes highly regarded Shen Dingli, of Shanghai’s Fudan University.

That work of “persuasion” never quite got around to Beijing cutting off North Korea’s fuel and food supplies. It never quite got around to any sort of threat and never quite got around to any real cooperation with the US, Japan and South Korea. It never quite got around to being serious. ...

Scientists confirm: Nazis made people into soap

It had always been alleged, but they couldn’t prove it at the time due to the limits of forensic testing.

They can prove it now.

• 13:21

Fighting jihad at YouTube
Michelle Malkin

If you've had an anti-jihad video pulled from YouTube, feel free to sport the badge on your site (thanks to AllahPundit).

I like the Jawa Report's take on a new YouTube logo, too (credit Ragnar). Welcome to AllahTube:

[image]

That one's very appropriate given today's piece in the NYTimes on the proliferation of jihadi propaganda on YouTube--at the same time anti-jihad videos are being yanked and conservative videos flagged as "inappropriate." While YouTube has removed a few of the terrorist videos from its site, many more remain:

In recent weeks, YouTube has removed dozens of the videos from its archives and suspended the accounts of some users who have posted them, a reaction, it said, to complaints from other users.

More than four dozen videos of combat in Iraq viewed by The New York Times have been removed in recent days, many after The Times began inquiries. ...

• 05:24

Disorganized Dog

Figure on this old dog gettin' a late start today. Don't have sense enough sometimes not to chase things I can't catch, sometimes slow to give up. Got a new Dog comin' up the path with a bunch of medals none of the other Dogs have, and a new book out to boot. Need to get him added to the "Who Are We?" post and integrate his ribbons into that bar at the top of the page.  Had a silly notion I could do it by morning. No way. Not even close. Don't think he has his first post written yet anyway so maybe it'll work out OK. 

• 03:46

• 00:49

Harvard faculty committee
recommends adding religion to core curriculum
Allahpundit

A religious lefty(!) friend(!) told me the other day she thinks Bush was right about the Third Awakening.

I’d say this is as good a sign as any.

Although this might be better. Chart grabbed from the Pew poll summary: ...

Good news: Radioactive smuggling doubles since 2002

Enjoy this little Foley interlude while it lasts, kids:

Smugglers have been caught trying to traffick dangerous radioactive material more than 300 times since 2002, statistics from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) show. Most of the incidents are understood to have occurred in Europe.

The disclosures come as al-Qaeda is known to be intensfiying its efforts to obtain a radoactive device. Last year, Western security services, including MI5 and MI6, thwarted 16 attempts to smuggle plutonium or uranium. On two occasions small quantities of highly enriched uranium were reported missing. All were feared to have been destined for terror groups. ...

Report:
Czech jihadis plotted to kidnap, incinerate “dozens of Jews”

The old-fashioned European means aren’t available anymore, so they planned the next best thing: herd the hostages into a synagogue, then blow it up.

Call it the Oradour strategy.

Note well this detail:

The Czech Republic’s leading newspaper quoted unidentified sources close to intelligence agencies as saying the captives would have been held in a Prague synagogue while the captors made broad demands that they knew could not be fulfilled. ..

Another Florida sleazoid
Michelle Malkin

Mike Deeson of Tampa Bay 10 News reports:

Some Florida Democrats called Kevin King a rising star amongst the ranks of Democrats, but others, like the head of the Pinellas Democratic Party, Ed Helm, had doubts.

King was arrested in 2001. A judge ordered the St. Petersburg Police Department to seal all records regarding the arrest. King admits that the arrest stems from when he was a substitute teacher. He was arrested for computer solicitation to commit a lewd and lascivious act and two counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. ...

The cross at Ground Zero
Michelle Malkin

Remember the cross-shaped beams pulled from the wreckage at the World Trade Center on 9/11?

[images]

The symbol of faith and hope that inspired rescue workers and 9/11 families is being moved from the site.

The 20-foot-tall artifact was discovered in the smoking ruins two weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and became a symbol for recovery workers, family and later construction crews at the site.

It will be moved to the exterior wall of nearby St. Peter’s Church during construction at the trade center site. The World Trade Center Memorial Foundation has said it plans to include the cross as part of its memorial or inside the Sept. 11 museum. ...

• 2006.10.06.00:04

Calling All Angels -
Help Our Wounded Stay in Touch with their Families
Contributed by Bill Faith

From Blackfive:

The call is out. 

We need 25 laptops (we have 25 wounded troops requesting them that are Wait-Listed RIGHT NOW) with voice recognition software for our wounded troops to stay in touch with their family and friends.  ...

DAWg Tales 
Contributed by Bobbie (OWB)

Back about 15 years ago or so, some of us were engaged in a little something called Desert Storm. During that time, I was assigned to a C-130 Airlift Wing which combined with a bunch of other C-130 units to form what was lovingly called the 1st DAWg, since we were the first Desert Airlift Wing set up and operating in theater. The powers that be eventually came up with an official designation, but who cares. We were and remained 1st DAWg for the duration. ...

Anti-war Protesters 
Contributed by Bobbie (OWB)

Anyone else notice that the anti-war protesters of today look and sound a lot like the ones from the 60's? With a few more grey hairs and wrinkles, of course.

I had the dubious pleasure of being among a group of students being recruited for "service" with the SDS back in the 60's. They seemed to think that I fit their target audience of teenagers of upper middle to upper income, well-educated families. They were wrong, of course, which may explain why their tactics didn't take. Being curious and as hard-headed then as now, I took advantage of the opportunity to take a good look inside their organization anyway. It was disturbing, to say the least. ...

Please Join Me In Welcoming Our Newest Dog 
Contributed by Bill Faith

Welcome Bobbie "OWB" Craig!

Bobbie's been leaving comments signed "OWB" for a while and come to find out she's someone a couple of the Dogs have known and trusted since the '04 Kerry Wars. Since I don't know a lot about her yet myself I'll let her bio and the two posts just below this one handle the introductions for me. I mean what do I need to know? With two dogs I didn't even know knew each other (if they do) vouching for her, added to the proof I've seen of her writing ability, who am I to ask questions? Just as long as she doesn't start wanting to paint or rearrange the furniture or something we'll be fine. (No, that wasn't a "sexist" remark. Master Sergeants just make me a little nervous.) ...

Marine nominated for Medal of Honor
Contributed by Bill Faith

His Corps Value Was Bravery (H/T)
Chris Adlesperger's family, shocked to learn of his heroics in Iraq, later saw how it all made sense. In death, he's been nominated for the Medal of Honor.

On Nov. 10, 2004, in 30 minutes of close combat, Marine Pfc. Christopher Adlesperger, a soft-spoken, religious young man who loved poetry and art, attacked an enemy stronghold in Fallouja, Iraq, and killed at least 11 insurgents. ...

Homo Republicanus? 
Contributed by Russ Vaughn

Is nothing more disgusting,
Than these congressional scenes,
Of a Republican gone lusting,
After pages in their teens?
It’s what the Dems would have us think,
That nothing’s gone before us,
To make esteem so quickly sink,
And to our bones abhor us. ...

Pedophile Lies 
Contributed by Shane Briscoe

Florida Republican Congressman Mark Foley, the pedophile homosexual who resigned after sexually explicit text messages between him and a Congressional page, deserved to go.  And deserves to be prosecuted.  But that is just the tip of the iceberg.

Evidence is mounting that Democrat operatives had knowledge of the situation for quite some time and sat on it so it would break as an October surprises right before the elections.  There are ample connections between the players at a Soros-funded hit squad CREW and Democrat Members of Congress, plus indications of altered e-mails, that suggest Foley's exposure was orchestrated by Democrats hoping to tip the election and embarrass Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert into resigning. ...

Bill's Bites --- 2006.10.05              Soft Bites -- 2006.10.05

Contributed by Bill Faith on October 6, 2006 at 12:04 AM in Bill Faith, Bill's Bites | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Soft Bites (Bill's Bites, Page 2) -- 2006.10.06
Contributed by Bill Faith

Stuff that didn't quite make Bill's Bites. Continuously updated, newest items at the top.

Bill's Bites --- 2006.10.07              Soft Bites -- 2006.10.07

Gonna try a little experiment here and see how it works out. Sometimes as I surf the web I run across something that's more "human interest" than "hard news," more "entertainment" than "news" at all, and I have to stop and consider "Is that worth pushing everything on Bill's Bites" down the page to make room for, and maybe having to move something more important "below the fold?" "Sure it's a cute cartoon but George is still on dial-up. Will he appreciate it enough to justify the download time?" "So, really, what do baseball and football have to do with the price of bullets in Beirut?" Solution(?): A separate post for "Page 2 or 3" stuff that I don't want to clutter the front page with but don't want to ignore completely. Enter "Soft Bites." Is this my answer? Bark at me.

• 14:49

Video: Outrageously outrageous Chevrolet commercial!
Allahpundit

The Freepers are trying to kick up some dust about this and now it’s migrated to the Corner, so we might as well post it.

The Katrina stuff isn’t that odd; it’s followed by scenes of housebuilding to show, I guess, the indomitable American spirit. The Nixon farewell is a bit strange, but hey: liberals buy cars, too, guys. For some of us, a slice of cheesecake or beefcake leaning enticingly against the hood might be enough to pique our interest in the product. For others, archival footage of a Republican leaving the White House in disgrace might do the trick.

Sex sells. ...

Video: The most insane political ad ever

For some reason, TV stations won’t run it. Why?

Because it refers to old men masturbating?

Or because it refers to teenage girls watching porn with probes hooked up you-know-where?

Let the word go forth: nothing has ever topped this, and nothing ever will.

Click the Vietnamese prostitute to watch. ...

UK news dominated by assimilation troubles

Veilgate’s been raging there for the past few days but this morning it finally got knocked off the front page. Here’s what replaced it: ...

[image]

Thanks to our pal Brian of London for scanning that. The top story before Veilgate was the curious case of Alexander Omar Basha, the Muslim policeman exempted from having to guard the Israeli embassy. Initially, it was thought that he’d asked for the exemption on “moral grounds” — which, to their credit, even the Muslim Council of Britain denounced as an abdication of his duty. ...

• 04:02

Video flashback: Rosie O’Donnell as a retarded woman
Allahpundit

The earlier Rosie video was well received so I thought I’d toss a little more chum in the water. It’s a quickie montage from the 2005 retard masterpiece, “Riding the Bus with My Sister.”

She’s more covincing in this role than in “Nip/Tuck.” I wonder why. ...

• 2006.10.06.00:04

Bill's Bites --- 2006.10.05              Soft Bites -- 2006.10.05

Contributed by Bill Faith on October 6, 2006 at 12:03 AM in Bill Faith, Bill's Bites | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Thursday, 05 October 2006
 

Bill's Bites -- 2006.10.05
Contributed by Bill Faith

The webmaster's blog-within-a-blog. Continuously updated, newest items at the top.

Bill's Bites -- 2006.10.06            Soft Bites -- 2006.10.06

Please click here to learn more about The Phoenix Project, then click here to see a selection of Old War Dogs merchandise. All sales proceeds go to support The Phoenix Project.

Destitute Dog -- Please read this and help if you can.

• 18:36

Attention Deficit Disorder

From CNN: U.S. warns North Korea against nuclear test.

North Korea's announcement came in the form of a Foreign Ministry statement published by the Korean Central News Agency, or KCNA -- the communist country's official news agency.

"The field of scientific research of the DPRK will in the future conduct a nuclear test under the condition where safety is firmly guaranteed," the statement said.

The ministry added, "The U.S. extreme threat of a nuclear war and sanctions and pressure compel the DPRK to conduct a nuclear test ... as a corresponding measure for defense."

But the big headlines are: House opens page sex scandal inquiry.  ...

• 17:57

National BDS Day reports
Michelle Malkin

I was going to head down to D.C. for the National Bush Derangement Syndrome festivities, but I've been tied up this afternoon with business and family. And the more I can avoid the Beltway cesspool, the better.

The nutballs clogged midtown Manhattan. Seattle is just warming up at its protest in--appropriately enough--Red Square. ...

Three new pages step forward
Michelle Malkin

One was interviewed by the FBI this week, reports ABC News, which said the agents had a six-page list of questions about Foley and the Internet exhchanges:

"I was seventeen years old and just returned to [my home state] when Foley began to e-mail me, asking if I had ever seen my page roommates naked and how big their penises were," said the page in the 2002 class.

The former page also said Foley told him that if he happened to be in Washington, D.C., he could stay at Foley's home if he "would engage in oral sex" with Foley. ...

• 14:42

Amish girl told killer, “Shoot me first”
Allahpundit

If I can devote umpteen posts to John Mark Karr, I can devote one to this. Not quite the same as Fabrizio Quattrochi, but the same courage.

JPod’s got an interesting post at the Corner about the Amish telling their kids to forgive the animal who did it: ...

French cops say
Muslim housing projects are waging “civil war” against them

This is old news to regulars of the righty blogosphere, of course. Dalrymple writes about this all the time, including this piece last year after the riots and his seminal treatment of the subject in City Journal back in 2002.

Even the Guardian’s been on this for awhile. Do you know what the word “tournante” means? If not, it’s high time you learned.

Anyway. The latest report quotes one police trade union spokesman as calling it … an intifada.

Police representatives told the newspaper Le Figaro that the “taboo” of attacking officers on patrol has been broken.

Instead, officers – especially those patrolling in pairs or small groups – faced attacks as soon as they tried to arrest locals…

Video: Sky News exposes China’s mobile execution buses

They’ve got a lower body count than their German counterparts, but the Chinese Einsatzgruppen are more efficient: rather than ship their victims off to the death chamber, they bring the death chamber to them.

Click the image to herald the new superpower. ...

• 10:27

“Stone age”-gate:
Pakistani officials say Musharraf lied about Armitage comment

It didn’t sound like something Armitage would say. And, according to several Pakistani officials who were there, it wasn’t.

Pretty bold of them to undermine Musharraf this way. But with bombs going off near his house and rockets being found near places he’s due to speak, the price of undermining him may be at an all-time low. And dropping. ...

• 10:02

College student slams Gawker Media
Michelle Malkin

Ashley Herzog is the Ohio University student whose photos were filched by some unknown hate-monger--still unidentified, still out there--who created a fake Flickr site with Photoshopped images of me. Those images were falsely publicized last week by UNC School of Law professor Eric Muller as authentic, and then picked up and broadcast widely by the Gawker Media smear machine. Last week, Ashley wrote both the Wonkette and Gawker editors informing them of how her photos were manipulated and requesting that they tell their readers what actually happened. Her requests, like mine, have been ignored. Today at Townhall.com, Ashley talks back to the smear machine. She asked me to publish the column here in full as well:

*** 14:28: After-the-fact hat tip: Michelle Malkin

• 03:02

See also several more editorial cartoons in Soft Bites (Bill's Bites, Page 2) -- 2006.10.05

• 02:26

Bush Signs Homeland Security Bill

President Bush on Wednesday signed a homeland security bill that includes an overhaul of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and $1.2 billion for fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border to stem illegal immigration.

Standing before a mountainous backdrop in Arizona, a state that has been the center of much debate over secure borders, Bush signed into law a $35 billion homeland security spending bill that could bring hundreds of miles of fencing to the busiest illegal entry point on the U.S.-Mexican border.

• 01:52

Mob rule at Columbia University
Michelle Malkin

Minutemen Project co-founder Jim Gilchrist spoke at Columbia University tonight. He tried to speak, that is. During his remarks, a mob of students stormed the stage and sabotaged the event. Every Columbia U. alum should be assailing the administration. Gilchrist is owed an apology. This is a disgrace.

The staff of the Blue and White, a Columbia Univ. undergrad magazine liveblogged it at "The Bwog" and took photos. Here's one:

[image]

A bit of their report:

STUDENTS WITH A BIG YELLOW SIGN JUST CAME ONTO THE STAGE. The sign says, "There are no illegals." Students rise en masse from the audience and rush the stage. The Minuteman and the students engaged in a tug of war with the banner. More people rush the stage, prompting a fist-fight. ...

There was at least two minutes of chaos between students, other students and the Minutemen. Bwog took cover. ...

Video: Columbia amnesty fascists rush stage at Minuteman speech
Allahpundit

Another black eye — literally — for the filthiest Ivy. The culture of intimidation is in full flower at last.

You’ll have to read Michelle for the details. FYI, the sign they’re holding up says, “There are no illegals.” We’ll see what the NYPD has to say about that when the reports on this are filed.

Eh, they’re just cranky. ...

Foleymania! Thursday all-purpose thread
Allahpundit

Rather than scatter posts all over the place, I’ll open this thread so that Bryan, Ian, and I can add to it as developments warrant. Check back frequently. There’s no telling who’s head will have rolled or which kid’s pants we’ll have learned Foley was trying to take off by this time tomorrow.

I’ll get the ball rolling with yet another installment in the Prowler’s popular series of fake-sounding, too-good-to-be-true quotes from “Democratic aides”: ...

What’s Gay Got To Do With It?
Bruce Kesler

There’s a basic dishonesty in much of the discussions of the nature of the revealing of the Foley transgressions and about the extent of prior follow-ups.

The basic transgression against common morality is not a homosexual matter per se. Yet, the discussions are obsessed with the gay aspects. Much the same occurs with respect to heterosexual predation by those in power.

That the Foley transgressions were investigated with less than retrospective fuller knowledge would require is laid at PC avoidance of gay-bashing. Meanwhile, Democrats who arise in ire at Republicans accused of not being more diligent about homosexual predation comes from many who arise in ire at discrimination against gays. That politicized ire is, ironically, feeding gay-bashing. ...

• 2006.10.05.00.13

An Authorized Excerpt from Triumph Forsaken
Contributed by Bill Faith

I'm pleased to have been authorized to post a lengthy excerpt from an excellent book I've only begun to enjoy my copy of. If you're a Viet Nam vet, or care about one, you need a copy of Triumph Forsaken, which I posted about earlier here. If you aren't and don't, but care about the direction our country's headed today and about learning from past mistakes, you still need a copy.  ....

What's Good for the Goose
Contributed by Shane Briscoe

The apparently leftist publisher of The Miami Herald has resigned after receiving heat from readers over his decision to fire some reporters of its sister Spanish-language publication for accepting money from the government to provide commentary for anti-Castro broadcasts.  Good riddance.

Why is it that leftist journalists (and editors and publishers) can act as the propaganda wing for the Democrat cut-and-runners by reporting only the anti-U.S. side of the story and refusing to cover pro-American, pro-Bush Administration stories, but the minute a conservative, anti-Communist reporter makes his views known it is a scandal or unethical or not up to journalistic "standards". ...

Holy Moley, Foley and Pelosi!
Contributed by The Gray Dog

Housekeeping first!  While Mark Foley begins the ascent of his twelve step program, many hope that gallows await him at the peak.  I can’t find any good reason to disagree with them.  Mark Foley is a pervert and a disgrace, for which he should be prosecuted to the maximum extent of the law, including those which he helped to draft and pass through the U.S. Congress.

A certain level of righteous outrage and indignation from the public was to be expected.  A manic level of righteous outrage from Democrats, thirty days before the mid-term elections was guaranteed.  But the feeding frenzy the Republicans seem intent to visit upon their own house is auguring a collapse from power disproportionate to the crime committed by a sole member of the House.  Not content with the swift removal of Foley, many over-zealous Republicans can find no road to salvation that does not include tossing the baby out with the bath water.  ...

The conservative outing mob
Michelle Malkin

For the past two days, a conservative blogger has ginned up publicity for his work outing a 21-year-old young man--a former congressional page and current deputy campaign manager for a heartland Republican congressman--who received sexually explicit instant messages from disgraced Florida GOP Rep. Mark Foley when he was 17 and 18 years old. I have received several e-mails from the blogger and readers flogging the post.

I refused to link to the blogger then and even though the Drudge Report has plastered screaming headlines about the blogger's scoop, I refuse to link to it now. There was absolutely no good reason to expose the former congressional page's name and identity. Seizing on ABC News' redaction failure and reporting errors (more on that in a moment) to play gotcha in a feeble attempt to avenge Foley is not a sufficient reason to obliterate the young man's privacy. The young man was the prey, not the predator.

Nobody is acting well here. ...

That Drudge headline is inaccurate
Bryan Preston

Sorry, folks. The teen in question was 17 during some of the chats and 18 during others. Go read this ABC News reprint of a couple of the IMs. The kid says in black and white a little over halfway down the page that he hasn’t reached his 18th birthday yet and wouldn’t “till feb 23.” That would make him 17. Both ages happen to be above DC’s age of consent law, so legally it would seem to me that Foley won’t be charged unless new information emerges.

Yeah, there’s a pretty strong chance of new information emerging. But not necessarily new information that places him in legal jeopardy.

Moral jeopardy is another matter. He’s in that to stay. ...

News agencies snap photos of Hastert
through the windows of his home

Hey, if he wanted privacy he’d draw the blinds, wouldn’t he?

Privacy is for Democrats, chump. Bill Clinton especially. ...

Gitmo Absurd

Mark Steyn visited Gitmo and reported on his tour in the Chicago Sun-Times: At Gitmo, detainees get La-Z-Boys, pastries. (HB List)

If you're hoping to hear about the old wooden chair under a bare lightbulb swinging on its cord, here's the reality: The detaineeare interrogated on either a La-Z-Boy recliner or a luxuriously upholstered sofa -- blue plush with gold piping.  ...

Bill's Bites --- 2006.10.04              Soft Bites -- 2006.10.04

Contributed by Bill Faith on October 5, 2006 at 12:13 AM in Bill Faith, Bill's Bites | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Soft Bites (Bill's Bites, Page 2) -- 2006.10.05
Contributed by Bill Faith

Stuff that didn't quite make Bill's Bites. Continuously updated, newest items at the top.

Bill's Bites -- 2006.10.06            Soft Bites -- 2006.10.06

Gonna try a little experiment here and see how it works out. Sometimes as I surf the web I run across something that's more "human interest" than "hard news," more "entertainment" than "news" at all, and I have to stop and consider "Is that worth pushing everything on Bill's Bites" down the page to make room for, and maybe having to move something more important "below the fold?" "Sure it's a cute cartoon but George is still on dial-up. Will he appreciate it enough to justify the download time?" "So, really, what do baseball and football have to do with the price of bullets in Beirut?" Solution(?): A separate post for "Page 2 or 3" stuff that I don't want to clutter the front page with but don't want to ignore completely. Enter "Soft Bites." Is this my answer? Bark at me.

• 17:31

Wonkette: Truthers = “hellraisers”
Allahpundit

Ace thinks it was written by critical thinkin’ guest editor Ken “We’ll Photoshop Your Ass” Layne.

It sure sounds like something a critical thinker would write.

But there’s no byline, so it may well be that regular editor Alex “Filipinas Are Filthy Whores” Pareene is responsible.

Whatever. Whoever wrote it, he’s a Denton employee. ...

Video: Rosie O’Donnell’s sex scene on “Nip/Tuck”
Allahpundit

Karol sent this to me. And now I wish I was dead.

Content warning. Proceed at your own risk. ...

• 03:13

• 2006.10.05.00.12

Bill's Bites --- 2006.10.04              Soft Bites -- 2006.10.04

Contributed by Bill Faith on October 5, 2006 at 12:11 AM in Bill Faith, Bill's Bites | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Wednesday, 04 October 2006
 

Bill's Bites -- 2006.10.04
Contributed by Bill Faith

The webmaster's blog-within-a-blog. Continuously updated, newest items at the top.

Bill's Bites -- 2006.10.05            Soft Bites -- 2006.10.05

Please click here to learn more about The Phoenix Project, then click here to see a selection of Old War Dogs merchandise. All sales proceeds go to support The Phoenix Project.

Destitute Dog -- Please read this and help if you can.

• 20:34

British Muslim cop excused from having to police Israeli embassy

Muslim PC wins right not to protect Israeli Embassy

A Muslim police officer has been excused from guarding London's Israeli Embassy after he objected to the duty on 'moral grounds'.

PC Alexander Omar Basha - a member of the Metropolitan Police's Diplomatic Protection Group - refused to be posted there because he objected to Israeli bombings in Lebanon and the resulting civilian casualties of fellow Muslims.

In a move which has caused widespread astonishment at Scotland Yard, senior officers in the DPG agreed that that PC Basha should be given an alternative posting. ...

• 18:35

Sixth Circuit lifts injunction on
NSA wiretapping program pending appeal
Allahpundit

So what? Who cares if the progam can proceed for a few more months until the circuit hears the case and rules on the merits?

Hugh Hewitt [broken link in original] explains the significance. Or you can just read the opinion for yourself if you prefer. It’s three paragraphs long.

Soft Bites --  -- 2006.10.04

... Gonna try a little experiment here and see how it works out. Sometimes as I surf the web I run across something that's more "human interest" than "hard news," more "entertainment" than "news" at all, and I have to stop and consider "Is that worth pushing everything on Bill's Bites" down the page to make room for, and maybe having to move something more important "below the fold?" "Sure it's a cute cartoon but George is still on dial-up. Will he appreciate it enough to justify the download time?" "So, really, what do baseball and football have to do with the price of bullets in Beirut?" Solution(?): A separate post for "Page 2 or 3" stuff that I don't want to clutter the front page with but don't want to ignore completely. Enter "Soft Bites." Is this my answer? Bark at me. ...

• 17:16

Supremes deny cert
on Cali public school’s Islam immersion course
Allhpundit

I was all set to correct Charles on this but he’s already corrected himself. When the Court denies cert, i.e., refuses to hear an appeal, it doesn’t mean they agree with the lower court’s decision. It simply means they don’t want to deal with the issue right now.

They might very well take it up in the future, though — and you might be surprised how they rule. If you’re counting on Scalia and Thomas to torpedo a public school’s Islamic play-acting class, you’re not thinking very strategically. Cases like this present Christians with a golden opportunity to introduce elements of religious teaching back into the state curriculum by using the left’s double standard towards Islam against it. Now that this case is on the books in the Ninth Circuit as precedent, expect Christian immersion classes to follow. ...

• 16:47

Video: Young Dems vandalize Talent signs for McCaskill

More fodder via Gateway Pundit: ...

DU: Thanks, YouTube, for removing Malkin’s video!
Update: YouTube targets Rusty’s videos, too

There was a poll at dKos a few months ago that asked who people despised more, Bush or Bin Laden.

Osama won. 58-41.

When you read them day in and day out, and you compare the frequency and intensity of their scrutiny of Republicans versus radical Muslims, it’s very clear very quickly who their real enemy is. But when you put the choice to them starkly, like the dKos poll did, they know how to answer. Or rather, they know how they’re supposed to answer.

But maybe that’s changing. ...

Steele demands apology from Dems for stalking

Over the weekend Maryland Lt. Gov and Senate hopeful Michael Steele attended a homecoming for the Army National Guard. While he was speaking to two mothers who sons died in Iraq, Steele noticed someone was filming his conversation. He was being filmed by a Democratic operative, sadly, something that is not new to him. Steele is calling on Congressman Ben Cardin, Sen. Schumer, MD Dem Chairman Terry Lierman, and DNC Chairman Howard Dean to apologize for what occured this weekend. If you would like to voice your opinion, the contact information for those named above will be after the letter: ...

Audio: Michelle vs. Esam Omeish on the Laura Ingraham Show

Omeish is the head of the Muslim American Society. The topic: just how much of a problem does America have with jihadis recruiting in prisons?

Things really get hopping when Ingraham asks him whether he’d prefer to live under shari’a. ...

• 16:32

Mark your calendars for Nation'l Bush Derangement Syndrome Day
Michelle Malkin

October 5 - Day of Mass Resistance

On October 5, people everywhere will walk out of school, take off work, and come to the downtowns & townsquares and set out from there, going through the streets and calling on many more to join us - making a powerful statement: "NO! THIS REGIME DOES NOT REPRESENT US! AND WE WILL DRIVE IT OUT!"

Isn't that what elections are for?

Last year's parade was a dud. But it's always a good excuse to trot out a giant peaceful poster of Bush decapitated.

Among the celebrity participants: ...

American jihad wannabe indicted

File under Enemy Within:

A federal grand jury indicted a man on charges of offering to help al-Qaida blow up fuel facilities in at least three states.

Michael Curtis Reynolds was charged in U.S. District Court in Scranton Tuesday with two counts of providing material support for a terrorist organization and two counts of seeking to take part in the destruction of property used in interstate or foreign commerce.

He was already awaiting trial in the case on two counts of unlawful possession of a firearm or an explosive device.

• 16:14

Aussie Muslim threatens Aussie Muslim who threatened Aussies

Last month he threatened riots over John Howard’s comments that Muslims should do more to assimilate. Now he’s being compared to Salman Rushdie for criticizing Muslims who “blindly” follow their faith.

Steyn has a great passage in his new book about the rings of supporters, apologists, opportunists, and cowards who surround every terrorist incident. It seems what we have here is a little inter-ring friction. Or, if you prefer, one of those underwater food-chain gags you see sometimes in cartoons: a little fish about to be swallowed by a bigger fish, which itself is about to be swallowed by a bigger one.

Here’s what earned him the Rushdie analogy. ...

• 15:28

Human smegma Fred Phelps to protest Amish girls’ funerals;
Update: Phelps agrees not to protest in exchange for radio time?

Euphoric Reality has a copy of the flier they’ve put out. Apparently Ed Rendell criticized Phelps and thus Jehovah laid low the Amish heathen through his messenger, the homicidal milkman.

He’s starting to realize that he’s alienating people, I think. Here’s his attempt to win back 49% of the population. ...

• 15:22

If I do a disappearing act after bit ...

... figure the front got here. It's not showing on the radar yet but in this area when the temperature drops as suddenly as it's supposed to after bit there's almost always lightening and wind to go with it. Our power grids antiquated enough that lightening means power surges capable of destroying TVs, PCs, etc, so sensible people shut things down and unplug them when the storm gets close enough to see or hear. This blogs important to me, but not important enough to risk getting a PC fried for.

• 14:54

A resignation: Kirk Fordham steps down
By Michelle Malkin

Via ABC News:

ABC News Has Learned FORMER FOLEY CHIEF OF STAFF KIRK FORDHAM RESIGNS AMID QUESTIONS OVER WHETHER HE SUPPRESSED INFORMATION ABOUT FOLEY EMAILS

Kirk Fordham, the chief of staff to Rep. Tom Reynolds, R-NY, has submitted his resignation to his boss. Questions have been raised about Fordham's role in how the House GOP leadership handled initial reports of the scandal involving former Rep Tom Foley, R-Fl, and inappropriate internet messages to underage pages.

About Fordham from the 2005 announcement of his hiring:

Former Foley chief of staff resigns;
Update: “I will not allow the Democrats to make me a political issue”
Ian Schwartz

(via ABC News)

The chief of staff for Republican Congressman Tom Reynolds, Kirk Fordham, resigned after questions were raised about his role in the handling of the congressional page scandal, according to Republican sources on Capitol Hill.

Those sources said Fordham, a former chief of staff for Congressman Mark Foley, had urged Republican leaders last spring not to raise questionable Foley e-mails with the full Congressional Page Board, made up of two Republicans and a Democrat. ...

Aussies dance as convicted child-rapist’s home burns to the ground; Update: List circulating of closeted GOP staffers??

Torched by a “mysterious” fire after the perp was sentenced to three and a half years in prison. For raping a young girl.

The police suspect arson. But they’re not working too hard to solve it:

A fire investigator said the heat was too intense to identify an ignition point.

“That’s a shame,” said the father, who cannot be identified for legal reasons.

Heh.

More: ...

• 12:59

Still Lazy Dog

I guess in some circles it's still called "Indian Summer"  but the PC Police will probably be right here if I call it that. It warmed back up the last few days, just enough to be unpleasant but not quite enough to be worth sealing the house back up and turning the air back on. Weather.com says today's supposed to be the end of it and I hope they're right. In the mean time it has me a bit tuckered out from not sleeping well.

Got some errands I have to run sometime, might as well do it before it gets any hotter. Also have some behind the scenes stuff to do to get OWB fully integrated into the pack.

Later.

• 12:46

Foley Lawyer Cites Second-Hand Smoke, Trans Fats

(2006-10-04) -- The attorney for disgraced former Rep. Mark Foley today offered more biographical background about his client who allegedly used his elected position to prey on high school boys sexually. ...

• 12:06

Banned on YouTube
Michelle Malkin

Back in February, you may remember, I cobbled together a little mini-movie called "First, They Came" inspired by the Mohammed Cartoon riots. It's a simple slideshow highlighting the victims of Islamic violence over the years. We posted it at YouTube a while ago. No problems. Until last week, when I received this e-mail: ...

... I asked YouTube to inform me of the exact nature of the "inappropriateness" of the video. But no response. The banning of my innocuous video is not an isolated incident. Anti-jihad YouTube users have reported having their videos yanked and accounts suspended, including Crusader18. Another YT user, Intelsum, writes: ...

...

Strangely, my conservative YouTube group (now nearly 1,000 members strong) has also now been "flagged" for containing "content that is inappropriate for some users."

Yeah, inappropriate for members of the Religion of Perpetual Outrage.

• 02:50

• 02:36

It's the predation, stupid

By Michelle Malkin

Washington is embroiled in another sex scandal. A sure-bet win for the Republicans in Florida is now imperiled. The Dems look to be one seat closer to regaining control of the House. But the latest one involving disgraced GOP Congressman Mark Foley's predatory emails and lecherous instant-message exchanges is more than just a political nightmare.

It's a parental nightmare. ...

• 12:43

The evil people at Gitmo...

...are the infidel-hating detainees, not our military personnel. So says an Army nurse interviewed at length by Patterico. He's got a fascinating series on his talks with the nurse, "Stashiu," who spoke on a regular basis with detainees with psychological and/or behavioral problems. A snippet:

I believe that the majority of the guys there are true terrorists, and they follow the Manchester Document to the letter.

If you’re unfamiliar with the Manchester Document, it is an official Al Qaeda training manual that was discovered by British police in Manchester, England while searching the computer of a known Al Qaeda terrorist. ...

Tomorrow: more on the Gitmo hunger strike, the suicide attempts, the suicides at Guantánamo, and the mental health of the detainees. ...

Mozart Rage and backlash ...and now, Tree Rage!

The opera house director who yanked a controversial version of Mozart's "Idomeneo" now says she never really cancelled it. And the Berlin security guy who advised her against running the show now says they should go ahead and perform it. See here and here. And more:

[...]

Not always so.

***

Meanwhile, members of The Religion of Perpetual Outrage are taking out their centuries-old anger on a poor banyan tree:

A Reminder Of Depravity

Continuing rumors of ancient atrocities led German authorities to excavate a site that some thought contained the bodies of Nazi victims from World War II. This gossip proved all too accurate; they discovered a mass grave that the Nazis used to bury its youngest and most helpless victims:

Authorities in western Germany have found a mass grave containing 35 bodies, many of them of young children, and are checking whether they may have been victims of Hitler's program of forced "euthanasia" that killed tens of thousands of people with physical and mental disabilities. ...

• 12:24

Illegal alien’s son
delivers letter to White House begging for amnesty
Allahpundit

He’s seven years old, his mother’s not with him, he’s surrounded by media strangers, and it is, after all, a school day.

The perfect time for a little child exploitation.

This was Coulter’s point about the Jersey Girls, of course. “Liberal infallibility,” using a victim’s personal grief as a substitute for debate on the merits. Mother Sheehan is the gold standard, but now that they’re working kids into the act, the sky’s the limit!

• 2006.10.04.00:04

Making the rounds by email. Not sure where it was first posted. Russ Vaughn sent it to me a little bit ago:

Beast of Burden

From Real Clear Politics: The Democratic Party Adds Nothing to the National Debate by Robert Tracinski.

Like many on the right, I have been deeply unsatisfied with the Republican Congress. The Republicans, I thought, ought to lose enough seats in the November congressional elections that they feel they've been punished for runaway federal spending.

But as the election gets nearer and I think more about what is at stake, I have come to realize that the best outcome is for the Democrats to lose. The Democrats' failure to regain control of either house of Congress would be a good start. But an unambiguous and humiliating defeat--even a loss of Democratic seats in the House and Senate--would be much better.

The best thing we can do in this election is to crush the left--because the Democratic Party adds nothing of value to the American political debate. ...

Bill's Bites -- 2006.10.03

Contributed by Bill Faith on October 4, 2006 at 12:04 AM in Bill Faith, Bill's Bites | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Soft Bites (Bill's Bites, Page 2) -- 2006.10.04
Contributed by Bill Faith

Stuff that didn't quite make Bill's Bites. Continuously updated, newest items at the top.

Bill's Bites -- 2006.10.05            Soft Bites -- 2006.10.05

I'm backdating this post for today only. Beginning tomorrow "Soft Bites" will carry an early AM timestamp, just prior to "Bill's Bites."

Gonna try a little experiment here and see how it works out. Sometimes as I surf the web I run across something that's more "human interest" than "hard news," more "entertainment" than "news" at all, and I have to stop and consider "Is that worth pushing everything on Bill's Bites" down the page to make room for, and maybe having to move something more important "below the fold?" "Sure it's a cute cartoon but George is still on dial-up. Will he appreciate it enough to justify the download time?" "So, really, what do baseball and football have to do with the price of bullets in Beirut?" Solution(?): A separate post for "Page 2 or 3" stuff that I don't want to clutter the front page with but don't want to ignore completely. Enter "Soft Bites." Is this my answer? Bark at me.

• 20:49

Outrage mounts over Scalia tequila comment; ...

CNN was all over it yesterday. Scandal:

Justice Antonin Scalia opened the Supreme Court’s new term Tuesday by questioning whether a man deported to Mexico after a drug conviction would be “abstaining from tequila” for fear of violating his U.S. parole terms… ...

Did CNN’s reporter think to provide the alcohol-themed context for what Scalia said?

No, he did not.

With no one capable of explaining why Scalia’s comment should be thought offensive, Law.com reporter Tony Mauro knew what he had to do. It was time to call in a Latino: ...

Archterrorist warns believers: Don’t yank it during Ramadan
Allahpundit

Suicide bombs for Palestinian children? Okay. Hanging teenagers in the public square for engaging in Mark Foley-esque activities? Okay.

Rubbing one out during the month of fasting? Problem.

Although it sort of depends, as you’ll see if you read the article.

Not our normal fare around here, I know, but the rest of the blogosphere is busy writing posts about Foleygate with one hand and I wanted to keep our site comparatively clean.

• 18:01

Pregnant British teens pioneer new advance in prenatal care

There’s so much social pathology to unpack here, I don’t know where to start.

So let’s just go with the Simpsons quote:

Waiter: Cigarette, Mrs. McClure?
Troy: You bet! From now on she’s smoking for two! ...

Video: The worst baserunning in baseball history

Queens is on fiah!

4-4 in the 7th, though. I’m nervous.

Original photo for Michelle bikini photoshop located

Look familiar?

Let’s see if we get a retraction out of Wonkette now.

Thanks to Sean Gleeson for finding this.

Update: How did Sean do it? ...

Contributed by Bill Faith on October 4, 2006 at 12:03 AM in Bill Faith, Bill's Bites | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Tuesday, 03 October 2006
 

Bill's Bites -- 2006.10.03
Contributed by Bill Faith

The web master's blog-within-a-blog. Continuously updated, newest items at the top.

Please click here to learn more about The Phoenix Project, then click here to see a selection of Old War Dogs merchandise. All sales proceeds go to support The Phoenix Project.

Destitute Dog -- Please read this and help if you can.

• 2006.10.04.00:13

Bill's Bites -- 2006.10.04

• 21:10

Instant messaging 101
Michelle Malkin

Earlier today, I heard some radio talk show hosts and callers who were casting doubt on the Foley instant messages and wondering out loud: "Who saves their instant messages?" And: "Can you even save them? I've never heard of that." I've also seen it on a few blogs and now people are e-mailing me:

ABC better come up with the Instant Messages and verify that they are not fabricated before they continue this public hanging.

I do not know of anyone that would save their Instant Messages.

Please don't spread this meme. You can save them on Google Chat. You can save them on AOL. You save them on Yahoo!

And guess what? They are formatted exactly like the Foley IMs published by ABC News. Here's a Google chat I saved with my Hot Air pal Ian a few minutes ago: ...

Saving instant messages 101
Ian Schwartz

Michelle is giving a quick lesson on instant messaging to those who don’t understand it or question if the conversations between Foley and pages actually took place. In an example conversation with her, I commented some people barely understand e-mailing, much less instant messaging. To those who question if you can record and log conversations on instant messengers, to put it simply, yes you can.  ...

Video: Former page says Foley was known as “FFF”

Watch the clip if you want to know what that stands for. This guy says Foley tried to initiate a little l’amour Internet with him too.

Sounds like he was scouting these kids while they were pages, then contacting them after they left. ...

• 19:16

When He Tells Us He Got Abducted By Aliens, Call Me
Ed Morrissey

After having salacious messages to teenage boys exposed by ABC News last week, disgraced former Congressman Mark Foley disappeared, later turning up at a mental-health facility claiming that he suffers from alcoholism. When that apparently didn't turn down the heat, his lawyer dragged out another pop-culture form of victimhood in a supposedly "blockbuster" press conference:

Former Rep. Mark Foley's attorney said Tuesday that his client was molested between the ages 13 and 15 by a clergyman.

[...]

Ah, yes. Alcoholism has become rather passe' these days, what with Bob Ney ostentantiously checking himself into a treatment center after his guilty verdict for corruption. He needed another weepie-show affliction, and so Foley had his attorney float the molestation defense today. And note that it wasn't just molestation, but molestation by clergy. Very trendy indeed.

Maybe it's even true, but who cares? ...

Child Predation Bill Would Protect Most Vulnerable Parties

(2006-10-03) -- Just five weeks before national elections, in the wake of allegations that disgraced former Rep. Mark Foley, R-FL, preyed on teenage boys, the House of Representatives this week will take up debate on a bipartisan measure to protect "the true victims" of Congressional sexual predation. ...

• ??:?? Guess I'm still runnin' on about 3 cylinders today.

Irey within ten points of Murtha?
Allahpundit

The way things are going, by the time November rolls around, showcase races like this one and Liebs/Lamont will be all we’ll have to look forward to. Top of the page right now at Polling Report:

[image]

Knocking off Okinawa Jack would do an awful lot to soften the blow. I might be able to get away with hard liquor on Election Night instead of narcotics.

Breaking: Foley lawyer to announce “bombshell” at press conference? -- Update: Molested as a kid by a priest

So says Raw Story. The conference is due to start soon. We’ll have video.

Update: ABC’s hearing “bombshell,” too.

Update: Some of Foley’s colleagues are wondering why a guy whom they rarely saw drink would be checking into alcohol rehab? ...

• 16:45

Audio: Why are our elections less trustworthy than Mexico’s?
Allahpundit

Reminds me of this old Onion bit. Glenn and Helen talk to John Fund of the Wall Street Journal about tinkertoy electronic voting machines, whether photo IDs are inherently racist, and the “corrosive” effects of creeping skepticism about the integrity of U.S. election results.

Ted Koppel: Let ‘em have the bomb
Allahpundit

They think Iraq is Vietnam. I guess it follows that they’d think Iran is the Soviet Union.

If Iran is bound and determined to have nuclear weapons, let it.

The elimination of American opposition on this issue would open the way to genuine normalization between our two nations. It might even convince the Iranians that their country can flourish without nuclear weapons.

[...]

Deterrence, in other words.

If a dirty bomb went off in Milwaukee and Bush answered with a nuke on Tehran, the left would start shrieking instantly about genocide, disproportionality, and the lack of evidence of culpability. ...

• ??:?? Guess I'm still runnin' on about 3 cylinders today.

Irey within ten points of Murtha?
Allahpundit

The way things are going, by the time November rolls around, showcase races like this one and Liebs/Lamont will be all we’ll have to look forward to. Top of the page right now at Polling Report:

[image]

Knocking off Okinawa Jack would do an awful lot to soften the blow. I might be able to get away with hard liquor on Election Night instead of narcotics.

Breaking: Foley lawyer to announce “bombshell” at press conference? -- Update: Molested as a kid by a priest

So says Raw Story. The conference is due to start soon. We’ll have video.

Update: ABC’s hearing “bombshell,” too.

Update: Some of Foley’s colleagues are wondering why a guy whom they rarely saw drink would be checking into alcohol rehab? ...

• 16:45

Audio: Why are our elections less trustworthy than Mexico’s?
Allahpundit

Reminds me of this old Onion bit. Glenn and Helen talk to John Fund of the Wall Street Journal about tinkertoy electronic voting machines, whether photo IDs are inherently racist, and the “corrosive” effects of creeping skepticism about the integrity of U.S. election results.

Ted Koppel: Let ‘em have the bomb
Allahpundit

They think Iraq is Vietnam. I guess it follows that they’d think Iran is the Soviet Union.

If Iran is bound and determined to have nuclear weapons, let it.

The elimination of American opposition on this issue would open the way to genuine normalization between our two nations. It might even convince the Iranians that their country can flourish without nuclear weapons.

[...]

Deterrence, in other words.

If a dirty bomb went off in Milwaukee and Bush answered with a nuke on Tehran, the left would start shrieking instantly about genocide, disproportionality, and the lack of evidence of culpability. ...

Woodward Defends Holding Scoops for Book (H/T)

Interviewed by Matt Lauer on the Today show today, Bob Woodward revealed that he had deliberately timed his new book, "State of Denial," to come out before the November elections.

Lauer had challenged Woodward on the timing, since the charges in the book about the administration allegedly misleading the public on progress in the Iraq war are so significant. How could he hold that for a book? Why didn't he get them published in his newspaper, The Washington Post, or shout them from a "mountaintop" instead of waiting to "make a splash" with them in a book?

Woodward replied that he had not waited "to make a splash, but to assemble the whole story," and then go to the White House and Pentagon and CIA and ask, "What did you do?" He added: "Simon & Schuster and my bosses at the Washington Post said the only real obligation here is to tell it before the election.

Video: Inhofe gets snotty with Miles O’Brien over global warming

O’Brien’s taking a beating today for allegedly having cited “The Day After Tomorrow” as evidence of global warming. He didn’t, though, as you’ll see: he referred to a “Day After Tomorrow scenario” which could be a “potential outgrowth” of global warming. ...

• 16:15

Foley's IM trail
Michelle Malkin

***update: Hastert on Rush***

ABC News has new, stomach-turning details. It keeps getting worse and worse. Force yourselves to read the IMs:

[...]

I have kept my emphasis on Foley's behavior and put politics aside because I believe every parent needs to see what went on in the Beltway and immunize their children against predatory authority figures--male and female, Republican and Democrat alike. I have been arguing that it was a mistake to rush to put the p.r. emphasis on attacking the Dems and the lib activists right now over a full accounting of Foley's predation. I hope the GOP will listen now. ...

Audio: Hastert and Limbaugh on Foleygate
Allahpundit

Hewitt’s urging Hastert to fight back and Ponnuru says the House Republican leadership is listening. We’re probably going to lose anyway — GOP control of the House is currently trading at 43 and dropping — so why not? The left has been screaming about October surprises for four years now, yet they’re the only ones who ever seem to pull any: the eleventh-hour DWI relevation against Bush in 2000, the “missing explosives” story in 2004, and now the Woodward book and this thing. Filthy Foley’s been purged; if Hastert’s as innocent as he claims, why not go down swinging?

The full interview was 13+ minutes but I’ve boiled it down to a solid three. ...

Foley had internet sex while awaiting House vote
Ian Schwartz

Brian Ross conveniently gets ahold of yet another chat between Foley and a former page. What. A. Surprise. For some reason I get the idea we will be seeing a “brand new” chat transcript every day until November 7. ...

Did the Dems know about Foley?
Ian Schwartz

Was this a liberal hit job?

Yes, you read that right: the Democrats. It’s of course clear that Foley, a Republican representative from Florida, resigned for good cause. We don’t defend him or his inexcusable behavior — good riddance.

But it didn’t take long at all after Foley’s resignation for the Democrats to call for an investigation of the entire Republican leadership in the House, charging that GOP stalwarts knew early on that Foley, as they like to say in the rehab business, had a “problem.” ...

• 15:54

Breaking: Commercial airliner hijacked;
Update: Hijackers surrender;
Update: Hijackers sought political asylum

[... See previous excerpts at 12:46...]

Update: Just across on Fox — the hijackers are in custody. Looks like no one was hurt.

Update: Turkish security officials were quoted earlier as saying this was related to the Pope’s visit. Turns out it was related to the Pope — but not in the way they’d want you to think.

Earlier reports on Tuesday that the hijackers were protesting Pope Benedict XVI’s planned visit to Turkey were apparently incorrect; authorities now say that the hijackers have requested political asylum.

Turkish officials said one of the hijackers, identified as Hasan Ekinci, wrote a letter to the pope in August asking for help in avoiding service in the Turkish army.

“I am a Christian and don’t want to serve a Muslim army,” he wrote, adding that he had been attending church since 1998.

• 13:20

Lazy Dog -- Update

It just took me half an hour to add what should have been a 5 minute Bites update. TypePad made the original mistake but it's one that happens often enough I should have spotted it right away. I have a quick errand to run outside the house then I'm going to crash for a while and hope I wake up in better shape.

• 12:46

PopeRage-inspired hijacking?

Looks likes it.

Yahoo! News:

State-run radio says a commercial airliner has been hijacked in Greek airspace, and a Turkish Airlines spokesman says the aircraft has landed at an airport in Brindisi, Italy.

Private Turkish television NTV, quoting unidentified security officials, says the plane hijacked to protest the pope's visit to Turkey. ...

Breaking: Commercial airliner hijacked;
Report: Due to Pope’s visit to Turkey

In Greek airspace, according to Greek radio via Fox News. Standby.

Update: CNN says it originated in Albania and was headed for Istanbul.

Update: Looking for details, as well as for the first DU thread questioning the timing.

Update: Drudge says the plane has landed in Brindisi, Italy. Which I guess makes it an “old-fashioned” hijacking.

Update: Hijacking may have something to do with a visit from the Pope.

Update: Here’s the first news report. ...

Jet hijack to protest pope's visit

BRINDISI, Italy (CNN) -- A Turkish plane carrying 113 people was hijacked Tuesday by by two unarmed Turks protesting Pope Benedict XVI's upcoming visit to Turkey, and landed safely in Italy, according to a Turkish national airline official.

Authorities told CNN the two have indicated they were ready to surrender to authorities, but one of their demands was that a message be delivered to the pope.

The airline spokesman said the men commandeered the plane to protest the pope's visit to Turkey, and because they were angered over the pope's recent comments quoting a 14th century scholar about Islam. ...

• 12:25

Todays Vent: The Foley Scandal

• 12:07

Lazy Dog

Or maybe I'm just getting old. Even accounting for staying up a while last night adding TorqueJaw-only things to the store (Thank you, Mike, some more) there's no way I should have needed to sleep as long as I did today. Aside from the "every day" stuff I should have posted by now I have pictures from Zero's trip to sort through and post some of and a nice Triumph Forsaken excerpt I want you to see. I'll try to do better from now on, but no promises.

Johnstown rallies - at a glance
Contributed by Zero Ponsdorf

Still in Johnstown, gonna get this started, finish packing, and head back to West Virginia shortly.

Woke up this morning with a clear sort of snap-shot image of the two rallies. Now if I can only get it from the brain to the fingertips.

Set aside the specific political issues for a few minutes, if you will. ...

A Dog's road trip 'n stuff
Contributed by Zero Ponsdorf

[note: Posting this unfinished. I'll be adding more in the extended section as the day progresses.]

I don't get out much. It's just a fact that most of my life takes place within about 6 miles of home. I'm simply not a very sociable fellow in real life. I have little patience with idiots and knotheads so I avoid them.

I planned as best I could and gathered the few few wisps of tolerance and sanity I have left and hit the road.

Trip itself was uneventful save that it was cold and rainy. Johnstown is a maze of one-way streets and some of those were blocked off for the Pro-Murtha rally, but did make my way to the Downtown Holiday Inn with little trouble. ...

• 01:01

Jaded Journalism
Media bent on politically correct warfighting fail on the battlefront of truth.
Ralph Peters (Hat tip: Del Vecchio)

Last summer, the media featured two stories about our forces in Iraq. The first was the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the world’s most rabid terrorist, who was cornered and killed by special-operations troops working with the Air Force and the Army. For years, journalists had taunted military briefers about their inability to find and finish off Zarqawi. As long as he was on the loose, the terror master was portrayed as a dark, defiant giant.

After we got him, the moment of triumph was brief. Within 48 hours, pundits-for-hire assured Americans that Zarqawi really didn’t matter that much and that killing him changed nothing. In a week the story was dead. Our victories have no appeal to the group-think journalists who translate war to the American people.

The second story involved the fatal rape of an Iraqi woman and her family’s murder by U.S. soldiers. It was the first such incident in more than three years of war and occupation, and the media loved it. While Zarqawi’s death received only a few days of diminishing coverage, the rape-murder incident was – and as of this writing, still is – many weeks in the headlines. America’s mainstream media celebrated the rape-murder.

It “proved” that their anti-military bias had been right all along.

The facts are irrelevant to the press. ...

• 00:34

Resign, Mr. Speaker
Today's Washington Times Editorial

The facts of the disgrace of Mark Foley, who was a Republican member of the House from a Florida district until he resigned last week, constitute a disgrace for every Republican member of Congress. Red flags emerged in late 2005, perhaps even earlier, in suggestive and wholly inappropriate e-mail messages to underage congressional pages. His aberrant, predatory -- and possibly criminal -- behavior was an open secret among the pages who were his prey. The evidence was strong enough long enough ago that the speaker should have relieved Mr. Foley of his committee responsibilities contingent on a full investigation to learn what had taken place, whether any laws had been violated and what action, up to and including prosecution, were warranted by the facts. This never happened.

Rep. John Shimkus of Illinois, the Republican chairman of the House Page Board, said he learned about the Foley e-mail messages "in late 2005." Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, the leader of the Republican majority, said he was informed of the e-mail messages earlier this year. On Friday, Mr. Hastert dissembled, ...

• 00:19

Video: “You ain’t woman enough to run this land”

Audio alert: Michelle interviews John Ashcroft on Tues., 11 a.m. ET
Allhpundit

You can register to listen right here. I suspect she’s already got her questions ready, but feel free to offer suggestions in the comments. ...

• 2006.10.03.00:05

Bill's Bites -- 2006.10.02

Contributed by Bill Faith on October 3, 2006 at 12:05 AM in Bill Faith, Bill's Bites | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Monday, 02 October 2006
 

Bill's Bites -- 2006.10.02
Contributed by Bill Faith

The webmaster's blog-within-a-blog. Continuously updated, newest items at the top.

Please click here to learn more about The Phoenix Project, then click here to see a selection of Old War Dogs merchandise. All sales proceeds go to support The Phoenix Project.

Destitute Dog -- Please read this and help if you can.

• 2006.10.03.00:09

Bill's Bites -- 2006.10.03

• 22:01

Murtha’s role in Abscam
Bryan Preston

Just caught a blurb on Hannity & Colmes intro–they’re going to run tape of John Murtha’s role in Abscam. It’s a tape that hasn’t been released before. It sounds like it will be highly entertaining.

Yeah, yeah, question the timing.

Update (AP): AmSpec posted the full hour-long video online a few days ago. I almost linked it, but is anyone going to watch an hour of Jack Murtha playing bribe footsie with the feds? ...

New UN Secretary-General chosen, sort of

Ban Ki-Moon of South Korea. The Security Council’s signed off on him; all that’s left is for the General Assembly to kiss the bride. The formal SC vote is next Monday. Not sure about the GA.

Hard to say how having Ban in charge will affect the UN’s wrangling with Kim Jong-Il. I’d like to think it’ll help: rationally, having a fellow Korean to deal with should make Kim more open to negotiation.

But rational’s got nothing to do with it, does it? ...

Video: Michelle discusses Foleygate on O’Reilly;
Update: WashTimes calls for Hastert’s head
Allahpundit

The stars align as Michelle, Bill, and KP agree that Mark Foley is a predator for whom no one should be making excuses. I didn’t think anyone had been, and in all candor I find it somewhat offensive that wanting the same standards to apply to both sides should be considered tantamount to apologizing for what he did. No one’s letting Foley off the hook. The fact is, if someone knew what he was up to and didn’t act to stop it immediately, they’re complicit in child abuse. Period. Republican, Democrat, politician, civilian, what have you. Makes no difference.

But people can disagree about these things, I guess. ...

• 21:26

Frist Didn't Surrender To The Taliban
Ed Morrissey

An earlier AP report on Bill Frist and comments he made on the status of Afghanistan had some Republicans reaching for their hemlock, but as it turns out, Frist claims that the report misquotes his remarks. Here's what the AP reported:

[...]

Frist, however, calls foul at his VOLPAC blog after I contacted his office this afternoon to get a confirmation of his remarks:

[...]

So what happened? I think that someone confused "Taliban" with "Taliban supporters" at some point, and whether that was Frist or the reporter will probably remain a point of contention between the two. At any rate, Bill Frist is not calling for the return of the Taliban and an end to democracy in Afghanistan. ...

See also Allahpundits updates to his post here, which I linked earlier.

• 18:03

... the means to resist.
Contributed by Bill Faith

Havin' a hell of a day emotionally. Part of me wants to just give up. The Lord (whose name sure as Hell ain't "Allah") knows how tired I am; I try not to let on to anyone else. ... A big part of me wants to just hide under the porch, maybe forever. But there's another part of me that won't let it. A little something I memorized about 36 years ago: ..

• 16:53

Frist says U.S. can’t win,
should bring Taliban into Afghan government

The Commissar has decided to vote Democratic this fall.

Why not? What’s the difference?

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said Monday that the Afghan guerrilla war can never be won militarily and called for efforts to bring the Taliban and their supporters into the Afghan government.

The Tennessee Republican said he had learned from briefings that Taliban fighters were too numerous and had too much popular support to be defeated by military means…

Source of Foley e-mails identified?
Allahpundit

Maybe. Maybe. Keep scrolling until you reach Update II.

Gateway Pundit has good stuff on this too, particularly the 2004 article from the Washington Blade that he dug up. It’s a small world after all.

Update: The boss thinks this whole line of inquiry is foolish:

The Foley mess: deal with it
Michelle Malkin

I've been absorbing as much commentary on the 'net and radio about the Foley mess as I can stand today.

What I am hearing from some conservatives inclined to pooh-pooh Foley's behavior and carry on about Barney Frank instead does not sit well with me. You can't possibly read Foley's communications with minors that have been disclosed so far--including his attempts to rendezvous with one--and dismiss them as merely "naughty e-mails." Yet, that's how White House press secretary Tony Snow described some of them this morning. Though he admitted to being too "glib" and "clarified" those remarks with tougher words this afternoon, the damage has been done. Fair or not, it makes the White House look flippant about sexual predation. Parents of all political persuasions are not going to be receptive to that. ...

Video: Tony Snow clarifies Foley comments

He told Soledad O’Brien this morning that the scandal had to do with, and I quote, “simply naughty e-mails.” Lefty bloggers instantly seized upon it as evidence that Snow has no big problem with child predators, I guess. Which brings us to this clip from today’s briefing.

Amazing how quickly memes travel from Think Progress to the White House press corps, isn’t it? ...

Video: Hastert wants to know who had the Foley IMs;
Update: Capito says she wasn’t told of e-mails

He says the House leadership didn’t know about the sexually explicit instant messages ABC published Friday.

But someone out there did. Someone gave them to ABC. He’s asked the DOJ to find out who that was — and how long they knew about it and said nothing. ,,,

• 16:34

Godspeed, Canadian Army Private Josh Klukie

Here's a tough but true story that you need to read about the Canadian troops slugging it out with the Taliban in Afghanistan:

The sad smile of a dying soldier

After watching Pte. Josh Klukie die, the members of 4 Platoon, Bravo Company, vow to finish their ugly little war ...

KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN — On the evening they said goodbye to Private Josh Klukie, there was clarity in the eyes of the men who fought beside him.

They watched his casket hoisted into a cargo plane in the warm afternoon light, snapped to attention and marched off the tarmac to prepare for another mission. ...

Care at Christmas

Now is the time to start getting ready to send our troops some Holiday cheer.   The Operation: Love From Home is being sponsored by Soldiers' Angel Kat at Yikes:

OPERATION: LOVE FROM HOME

During this holiday season, let's show our troops we love and support them!!!! From September 30 to November 30, I will be collecting holiday cards for troops stationed in high-combat areas in Iraq and Afghanistan. Being away from home and living in harsh conditions during the holiday season is especially difficult ~ they need to know we have not forgotten them!!! Mail from home helps to keep our troops' morale strong, making a very real difference in their lives.

Send your signed, unsealed holiday cards to:

Mrs. Kathy Orr
OPERATION: LOVE FROM HOME
P.O. Box 1660
Loganville, Georgia, 30052

The cards can be handmade or store-bought ...

• 16:17

US and North Korea morally equivalent?
Uncle Jimbo

From today’s Washington Post comes this heartbreaking story of the horrible treatment by the North Koreans of 36 US airmen which ought to remind us of the enemies we fight, instead Northwestern law prof Joseph Margulies uses it to try and create a false moral equivalence between the North Koreans and us.

“During the Korean War, thousands of American POWs were forced to endure grotesque and sadistic physical torture. But the downed airmen were treated differently. The senior officer among them was Col. Frank Schwable, the highest-ranking Marine captured in the conflict. “I want to emphasize,” Schwable said later, “that I did not undergo physical torture. Perhaps I would have been more fortunate if I had, because people nowadays seem to understand that better. Mine was the more subtle kind of torment.”

He goes on to detail the treatment of these prisoners ...

First Female Thunderbird
Blackfive

Tony in Boulder sends the link to this story via CNN of Major Nicole Malachowski who landed her dream job on the USAF Thunderbirds:

Thunderbirds fulfill her lifelong need for speed ...

Zawhiri Speaks...
Blackfive

...and who does he sound like?

From CENTCOM:

Ayman Al-Zawahiri Reacts to Bush, Pope; Urges Muslims to Support Mujahidin ...

• 14:44

Support Dunkin Donuts and Applebees

Open-borders extremists are starting a boycott of the donut franchises and the restaurant chain. Why? Because they won't hire aliens whose bogus Social Security numbers don't check out:

A local group fighting for immigrant rights is calling for a boycott of two nationally known companies. Dunkin Donuts and Applebee's are accused of discriminating against immigrant workers whose names don't match their social security numbers.

The families of the Pendleton 8

Euphoric Reality is raising money to support the families of the Pendleton 8. Kit Jarrell writes:

Behind the news articles and interviews and drama are the families. The financial burden of these hearings and upcoming courts-martial have drained them completely. None of them were financially well off; they refinanced homes, took second, third, and even fourth jobs, and pulled other children from college to pay for the defense. Three of these men have very small children who need things like formula and diapers. But the question is inevitable: If every penny goes to defending their sons from being wrongfully convicted and having their lives ruined, what is left over for groceries? How do their everyday bills get paid? And why are they even in the position of having to choose between a defense and a package of diapers?

That’s where we come in. ...

The saviors of Air America
Michelle Malkin

My friend and frequent investigative partner Brian Maloney at The Radio Equalizer has an exclusive report on how shady couple Sheldon and Anita Drobny are riding to Air America's rescue:

Poised to announce their takeover imminently, the Drobnys are said to be acquiring the long- suffering operation for mere pennies on the dollar, the Radio Equalizer has learned.

Other buyout efforts by parties close to the network were said to have failed because of difficulties in putting together the necessary funds. Accepting this bid was seen as a last- ditch way to avoid a complete collapse, which appeared to be just days away.

The takeover looks to be as messy as all of Air America's past financial dealings: ...

• 14:28

American cops sued for not speaking Spanish
Bryan Preston

Why we need an official language (English):

An attorney for a Hispanic man who was allegedly knocked to the ground and kicked by a police officer is seeking over $1 million dollars for his client, arguing that the city’s failure to teach law enforcement officers “fundamental Spanish” is the reason excessive force was used. ...

Angry Muslim confronts British soldier … in his hospital bed

Basra? Baghdad?

Try Birmingham:

Seriously wounded soldiers have complained that they are worried about their safety after being left on wards that are open to the public at Selly Oak Hospital, Birmingham.

On one occasion a member of the Parachute Regiment, still dressed in his combat uniform after being evacuated from Afghanistan, was accosted by a Muslim over the British involvement in the country.

“You have been killing my Muslim brothers in Afghanistan,” the man said during a tirade. ..

• 14:11

Video: Wafa Sultan on the Mohammed cartoons;
Update: Interview with Bassam Tibi
Allahpundit

We still get e-mails from people linking to the MEMRI video of her now world famous appearance on Al Jazeera last year saying, “YOU HAVE GOT TO SEE THIS.”

We’ve seen it.

But we hadn’t seen this yet, and odds are neither have you. Nine minutes of Sultan, in English, on Islam and the cartoon jihad. Is it really “the crack in the wall”?

Click the image to watch.

Ashton Kutcher: Clinton hit on Demi Moore at party
Allahpundit

Might as well clear out all the crap items from the weekend.

Apparently he said this Thursday on the Tonight Show, which I always, always tape — except for that particular night, when I had something more important to record.

Rasmussen calls Senate a dead heat,
TradeSports favors Dems to take House

It was 45-44 for Corker in Tennessee as of a month ago. Today it’s 48-43 Ford.

Which means the Senate is now 49-49, with New Jersey and Missouri toss-ups.

On TradeSports, GOP retention of the House was trading at 58 on Friday. Last price as of this moment?

46.2.

It’s been awhile since I got drunk in the middle day. The last time was … yesterday, I think.

It’s hard to keep track, what with all the blackouts.

• 13:47

An Old War Dog Review The Blog of War
Blackfive

George Mellinger reviews The Blog of War at Old War Dogs.

[...]

Go check out the entire piece.  I disagree with the conclusion.

• 10:06

Customers give the nod to Marine’s Bobble Mohammad
By Jules Crittenden

Move over, Jesus. Make room on the dashboard for Mohammad . . . Bobblehead Mohammad.

A former Marine is hawking the nodding Mohammad doll at his Web site, www.dashboardmohammed.com  at $22.99 a pop . . . expect two to four weeks’ delay in shipping due to high demand, 10 percent of all sales to go to Tim Ames’ beer fund.

“We’ve sold 200 in the last six hours,” said Ames, 28, of Hawaii. He acknowledges he is risking a fatwa, although he hasn’t received a death threat yet. ...

• 10:01

Were Foley’s e-mails altered?
Allahpundit

Check this out. There seems to be no question that he’s guilty — if he wasn’t, one assumes, he’d be fighting this tooth and nail instead of checking himself into rehab — but I’m at a loss to explain the discrepancies in the messages. I can think of two possibilities: ...

• 09:45

Predators in the House
Michelle Malkin

Disgraced GOP Rep. Mark Foley's instant messages with an underage page are absolutely appalling. He was a 54-year-old man abusing his position of power with a 16-year-old boy. Based on all the reporting so far, and there may yet be more to come, Rep. Foley was exactly the kind of sexual predator--"sicko," in his own words--he crusaded against in Congress. Alcoholism seems the least of his problems.

The Democrats are in full feeding frenzy, of course. Now, many blogs on the right are questioning the provenance of the story and doing good investigative work on the mysterious blog that started it all. See Clarice Feldman, Tom Maguire, Rick Moran, Blog P-I, and Allah's round-up.

But amidst all the "who-knew-what-when" posturing and "hypocrisy" jockeying and media coverage dissecting, I hope we don't lose sight of the core scandal here. There are simply too many adults in Washington who cannot be trusted to ensure the safety of young people under their wing.

Not in the White House (go re-read the Starr Report, if you have the stomach).

Not in their districts ...

Guantanamo Bay: The Inside Story
John Hinderaker

An Army Major who worked with detainees at Guantanamo Bay as a nurse has given Patterico an exclusive series of interviews on his experiences at that facility. In the opening segment, Patterico describes how he came to know this person, and how he verified his bona fides. Posts to come will include the following topics:

Part Two: Stashiu arrives at GTMO, and tells us what the terrorists are like.

Part Three: Hunger strikes, suicides and suicide attempts, and mental illness.

Part Four: Treatment of the detainees

Part Five: Stashiu reacts to Big Media pieces about GTMO.

It should be interesting, especially because the series will be exclusive to Patterico. ...

• 09:29

PressPlay Debuts

• 08:04

On the Waterfront--Still (H/T)
Why did Congress kill a measure to keep felons out of U.S. ports?
John Fund

Congress is patting itself on the back for passing the Port Security Act last Saturday. But the day before, a House-Senate conference committee stripped out a provision that would have barred serious felons from working in sensitive dock security jobs. Port security isn't just about checking the contents of cargo containers, it also means checking the background of the 400,000 workers on our docks.

U.S. harbors are filled with workers convicted of serious crimes. Just last year the Justice Department filed a RICO suit charging that the 65,000-member East Coast-based International Longshoremen's Association is a "vehicle for organized crime." ...

• 07:56

Bush Fires Rumsfeld, Nominates Bob Woodward

(2006-10-02) -- White House sources today said that President George Bush, under increasing pressure to 'win the peace' in Iraq, will fire embattled Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and nominate Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward as his replacement. ...

• 07:15

Defeat can't be an option
By Carol Platt Liebau

News on the national security front last week provided reason for some cautious optimism. Although a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) notes that the Iraq war may have increased the terrorist threat in the short term, the document likewise points out that a victory in the war would deal a blow to terrorist recruitment in the long run. What’s more, an intercepted Al Qaeda communication revealed that the terrorists themselves believe that they are losing ground in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

Taken together, the documents prove definitively that great deal is riding on the outcome of the war in Iraq – and that a defeat for Al Qaeda isn’t only desirable, it’s achievable. But just as there’s more than one way to skin a cat, as the saying goes, there’s also more than one way to lose a war. ...

• 07:06

Speechless In Seattle
What has happened in Seattle prefigures what a national Democratic administration might try to do to stifle conservative talk radio.
By George F. Will

Oct. 9, 2006 issue - SEATTLE—As the comprehensive and sustained attack on Americans' freedom of political speech intensifies, this city has become a battleground. Campaign-finance "reformers," who advocate ever-increasing government regulation of the quantity, timing and content of political speech, always argue that they want to regulate "only" money, which, they say, leaves speech unaffected. But here they argue that political speech is money, and hence must be regulated. By demanding that the speech of two talk-radio hosts be monetized and strictly limited, reformers reveal the next stage in their stealthy repeal of the First Amendment. ...

• 06:56

New Iran Policy Toughens Sanctions

Condoleezza Rice will have a new tool in her pocket in the showdown with Iran over its nuclear ambitions. The Senate quietly passed a new Iran policy on Saturday, one which President Bush is expected to sign, that allows for sanctions on any business that supports Iran's nuclear or advanced weapons programs. When she travels to Cairo tomorrow, Rice intends on unveiling the implications of the new policy in an attempt to further isolate Teheran: ...

Behold The Power Of Pork

The power of appropriators to shape legislation in all other areas of policy gets amplified through the use of pork-barrel politics, and John Murtha in particular has mastered this technique. The New York Times profiles Murtha and gets him on the record, bragging about his effectiveness in using pork to gain power:

Members have watched with envy as Mr. Murtha has used earmarks to remake Johnstown, Pa., an impoverished former steel town that now includes a Murtha highway, a Murtha airport and Murtha health centers. He has steered billions of dollars to his district over the years, including more than $80 million in the defense spending bill passed Friday, according to a preliminary tally. ...

• 05:58

Iran Sending Jihadists Into Afghanistan?

Knock-kneed with fear, the young prisoner perched on the edge of his chair in the windowless Afghan intelligence office. Eyes bloodshot and hands trembling, he blurted out his story.

Abdullah had reached the end of a pitifully short career as a Taliban fighter. He had been arrested hours earlier, just 10 days after signing up to the insurgency. But the 25-year-old with a soft face and a neat beard had something unusual that aroused the intelligence agents' curiosity.

"I come from Iran," he said in a quavering voice, ...

• 00:46

In A Word -- Yes!
Ed Morrissey

The London Times asks if Kofi Annan has blood on his hands as he prepares to end his term as United Nations Secretary-General. Apparently the Times does not consider this a rhetorical question, as it provides a rather lengthy answer:

Srebrenica is rarely mentioned nowadays in Annan’s offices on the 38th floor of the UN secretariat building in New York. He steps down in December after a decade as secretary-general. His retirement will be marked by plaudits. But behind the honorifics and the accolades lies a darker story: of incompetence, mismanagement and worse. ...

It's hard to improve on this essay by the Times. Read the whole thing, and shake your head in wonder that anyone considers this organization the least bit credible.

• 2006.10.02.00:04

Boot Murtha Rally Wrap-Up
By pennconservative

UPDATE: Scroll down for photos of the event.

I attended the Boot Murtha rally against Congressman John P. Murtha in Johstown, PA today, and wanted to give a wrap-up for those of you that could not make it. If I had to guess, I would say that there were around 1,000 people there, although pictures may not reflect this because it was held at the War Memorial, which is a pretty large venue (it’s where President Bush came when he visited Johnstown during the 2004 campaign, if that tells you anything).

First, let me say that I did not hear one person question Murtha’s prior military service. In fact, Dave Beamer actually thanked the Congressman for his service, although he did follow that up by stating that prior service does not automatically forgive his statements and actions that he’s making today. The calls from the left that people are trying to ’swift boat’ Murtha are patently false. Murtha is being held accountable for the statements that he’s making as a public servant regarding the war in Iraq and our soldiers that are fighting. Many find these statements particularly egregious given the fact that Murtha is a former Marine and should know better. However, noone has questioned Murtha’s prior service, so the comparisons to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth are false and a red herring designed to take the focus off of where it should be: what Murtha is saying and doing now.

As for the rally itself, most notable was the line-up of speakers. ...

Bill's Bites -- 2006.10.01

Contributed by Bill Faith on October 2, 2006 at 12:03 AM in Bill Faith, Bill's Bites | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Sunday, 01 October 2006
 

Bill's Bites -- 2006.10.01
Contributed by Bill Faith

The webmaster's blog-within-a-blog. Continuously updated, newest items at the top.

Please click here to learn more about The Phoenix Project, then click here to see a selection of Old War Dogs merchandise. All sales proceeds go to support The Phoenix Project.

Destitute Dog -- Please read this and help if you can.

Hello, Sweet Thing!

Miss Vivianne Allison Aho

Viv, if anyone ever tries to tell you your mama isn't really an Angel you send them to see me, OK? (H/T: Greyhawk)

• 2006.10.02.00:10

Bill's Bites -- 2006.10.02

• 19:38

Stone Cold

From CNN: Oliver Stone: 'I'm ashamed for my country'.

Filmmaker Oliver Stone blasted President George W. Bush Thursday, saying he has "set America back 10 years."

Stone added that he is "ashamed for my country" over the war in Iraq and the U.S. policies in response to the attacks of September 11. ...

• 19:16

What's The Difference Between The Mafia And Congress? Scale
Ed Morrrissey

Ever wonder how caucuses in the House choose their leadership? In the Senate, it comes from seniority. In the House, they determine it like a multi-level marketing plan. As the New York Times reports, money talks ... loudly:

To move up the ladder in Congress, you must do more than win votes. You are, quite literally, expected to pay your dues.

If you are a rank-and-file member of the House, the amount is up to $100,000. If your ambitions are to preside over a powerful committee, the duty is $300,000. For a top party leader, the tally can climb beyond $600,000.

Make those checks payable to the Republican or Democratic Congressional campaign committees. ...

If this is Sunday, it must be ...
Paul Mirengoff

... another Washington Post front-page hit piece against the Bush administration. Two weeks ago, it was Rajiv Chandrasekaran's false and misleading attack on the Iraqi reconstruction effort. Last week, it was Karen De Young's one-sided report on the National Intelligence Estimate, as fed to her by anti-administration leakers.

This week, it's Bob Woodward claiming that that "secret reports countered Bush optimism" on Iraq. Woodward's piece is a joke from the opening paragraphs. There he juxtaposes President Bush's claim that "years from now people will look back on the formation of a unity government in Iraq as a decisive moment in the story of liberty" and the beginning of a retreat by the foces of terror, with an internal report predicting that 2007 would be a bloody year in Iraq. But there's no contradiction here. ...

• 18:47

Musharraf threatens “ungrateful” West

It might be time for another “tough love” phone call from Richard Armitage.

In an interview with BBC radio, Musharraf was asked for his response to the view that Pakistan was not a good ally in the fight against global extremism because of the links between terrorism and his country.

“You will be brought down to your knees if Pakistan doesn’t co-operate with you. That is all that I would like to say. Pakistan is the main ally. If we were not with you, you would not manage anything. Let that be clear,” he said. ...

He also told the Times of London he knows Osama’s in the Kunar province of Afghanistan. “It’s not a hunch,” he insists. ISI told him.

The same ISI that was accused yesterday by India of having masterminded the Mumbai train bombings. ...

Mark Foley Flashback: If I Were One Of Those Sickos (H/T)

[video link]

May all the laws this man helped create to protect children and punish those that prey upon them be applied to him. Of course he will get a slap on the wrist however, being that he is from the Congress elite where the same laws the rest of us are held accountable to do not apply.  ...

• 18:32

"Our Rally"
Contributed by Bill Faith

The latest mail from Zero:

three pix of the competition, use any you choose. [Two used, tossed an almost-dup -- BF]

Camera is broke, whenever I used the flash the pix was dark, as shown in the 4th , when I didn't use the flash the pix was blurred.

[...]

I have about 100 or so pictures, when I get home I'll go through it more detail, and see if any are worth salvaging.

Also a longer post in more detail about the whole weekend.

Oh yeah, I do believe we had more people than Murtha did yesterday.

zero

I didn't think the "too dark" picture zero sent looked bad like it was but I let my photo editing program do an "autobalance" on it and thought it looked better after I did. If it's too bright now it's my fault, not Zero's.  ...

• 17:01

Look Forward For Security

Richard Clarke takes to the pages of the New York Times to deliver a lesson that everyone should have learned after 2004. The controversial former counterterrorism chief reminds Americans that we cannot secure the nation through blame games, and that the time has long since passed for us to exercise hindsight and start looking forward:

For most Americans the history is clear and well told in the 9/11 commission report: Almost 3,000 people were killed. In the years before that terrible day, the Clinton administration prevented some attacks and tried to destroy Al Qaeda and its leadership, but was unable to do so, in part because the institutional bureaucracy did not believe the magnitude of the threat.

Turkey Warns Iraqi Kurds On Terrorism

Newsweek's Lally Weymouth conducts an intriguing interview with Abdullah Gul, Turkey's foreign minister, in which he warns Iraq and the US to curb Kurdish terrorists -- or Turkey will do it themselves. Gul has plenty to say on Iraq's internal security troubles, and issues a warning to America about withdrawing from Iraq:

Q. So, would Turkey invade northern Iraq to bring the PKK under control?

A. We will do whatever is necessary to fight this organization. I want to give the message that if our friends don't help us, we will do the job ourselves. ...

A Graphical Depiction Of The Challenge In Afghanistan

With Pervez Musharraf appearing to retreat in the war on terror and Hamid Karzai demanding results, the situation in Afghanistan and the Waziristan region appears to be inexplicably troublesome of late. Musharraf and Karzai have more trouble than just borders in this situation, though, and what we are now seeing may be a nationalist movement that has escaped Western attention until now. The Toronto Sun's Eric Margolis explains the problem, and Swaraaj Chauhan at The Moderate Voice produces an interesting map to underscore his point.

[...]

Take a look at Swaraaj's map: ...

• 16:36

Fire Photon Torpedoes
Greyhawk

...or something else.

The NY Times reports that the "$436.6 billion military spending bill passed Friday".

"Spending bill" is a media description, not the actual name of the bill, but it is descriptive. Americans will be shocked, shocked I tell you, to discover that "Lawmakers... found room in the bill to pay for thousands of requests never sought by the Defense Department."

[...]

Read/search the bill online here.

Given the recently passed earmark transparency bill (actual name: "Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act") we may see some interesting media or blog coverage of these items.

Or not:

[...]

So there.

But whatever follows, I hope no one goes after this project:

Among the earmarks identified by Taxpayers for Common Sense were $1.7 million for photon research in upstate New York, care of Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Charles E. Schumer...

Because we need the photon torpedoes first, damn it.

• 16:21

Bobblehead Rage!
Michelle Malkin

From fresco rage to book rage to film rage to beauty pageant rage to Koran-dropping rage to cartoon rage to Pope rage, it's always something with the Religion of Perpetual Outrage (hat tip-Andrew Bostom via NY Daily News). Introducing...Bobblehead Rage:

A ceramic bobblehead doll of the Prophet Muhammed - created to resemble the infamous caricature published by a Danish newspaper - is being hawked online for $22.99 a pop by an ex-Marine.

The unapologetic creator, Timothy Ames, 28, said the bobblehead is similar to "dashboard Jesus" figurines that can be stuck with adhesive to flat surfaces. "I thought, 'If they flipped out over some cartoons what will they do with a dashboard Muhammed?'" Ames said from his home in Hawaii.

But Islamic experts are not amused, saying the bobbleheads could anger Muslims, whose religion strictly prohibits depictions of the prophet. ...

Semper Fi, Marine. You rock!

• 15:55

Liberal Democrats:The Politics of Unintended Consequences?
Contributed by The Gray Dog

In an epiphany as monumental as the discovery of the “Rosetta Stone,” I have stumbled upon the common link within liberal logic (alliterative oxymoron intended) that supports their notion, that fighting terrorism is actually propagating more terrorists.  Now, of course, I am not accusing the Democrats of actually fighting terrorism, an enterprise for which they are ill-equipped.  It just occurred to me that the Libs are practicing psycho-babble methodologies, such as transference, to superimpose the results of their past and current policies upon the Republicans.  Convoluted as it may be ..

Zero at the Flight 93 Memorial
Contributed by Bill Faith

Old War Dog Zero Ponsdorf, who's in Pennsylvania for the Boot Murtha rally, emails:

the group picture is various freepers and vets.
the actual crash site is between the flag on the fence and the trees.

more later if the camera cooperates?

zero

• 08:52

Murtha used gov’t Veterans Affairs Office
to promote, bus vets into his political rally

According to an article in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Rep. John Murtha’s campaign contacted and used a government Veterans Affairs Office to promote his campaign's political rally – held Sat., Sept. 30 in Johnstown, PA.

Rally promotional materials for Congressman Murtha’s campaign event list John Panichella as head of the Westmoreland County Veterans Affairs Office and give his courthouse office telephone number for contact purposes. Panichella used his office in the courthouse to arrange bussing veterans to the campaign event.

• 08:35

name dropping?
Contributed by Zero Ponsdorf

[BF note: Zero is in PA for the Boot Murtha rally]

Met some interesting folks this evening, Check out BootMurta.com for many. And heard stories that I really can't share. But Google Ted Sampley for one.

A few pix will follow, but camera may be broke.

There was one poignant moment. ...

Musli on Pakistan's Tribal Area
Contributed by John Werntz

This post concerns an extraordinary young American who blogs under the pseudonym Muslihoon.  His friends and followers, of whom there are many [May his tribe increase!] call him Musli for short.

To introduce him to my reader[s] I can do no better than to quote from his "About," omitting a short whimsical passage at the end-- ...

A personal aside
Michelle Malkin

[Just read it.]

*** 16:06

Michelle responds to fauxtography attacks
Ian Schwartz

Michelle, after being attacked vehemently over the past two days, is responding to her unhinged detractors who ironically call her a self-promoter. ...

• 2006.10.01.00:15

Bill's Bites -- 2006.09.30

Contributed by Bill Faith on October 1, 2006 at 12:04 AM in Bill Faith, Bill's Bites | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Saturday, 30 September 2006
 

Bill's Bites -- 2006.09.30
Contributed by Bill Faith

The webmaster's blog-within-a-blog. Continuously updated, newest items at the top.

Please click here to learn more about The Phoenix Project, then click here to see a selection of Old War Dogs merchandise. All sales proceeds go to support The Phoenix Project.

Destitute Dog -- Please read this and help if you can.

• 2006.10.01:00:15

Bill's Bites -- 2006.10.01

• 23:06

The Case Against Kofi Annan
John Hinderaker

From tomorrow's London Sunday Times Magazine, the case against Kofi Annan:

Srebrenica is rarely mentioned nowadays in Annan’s offices on the 38th floor of the UN secretariat building in New York. He steps down in December after a decade as secretary-general. His retirement will be marked by plaudits. But behind the honorifics and the accolades lies a darker story: of incompetence, mismanagement and worse. Annan was the head of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) between March 1993 and December 1996. The Srebrenica massacre of up to 8,000 men and boys and the slaughter of 800,000 people in Rwanda happened on his watch. In Bosnia and Rwanda, UN officials directed peacekeepers to stand back from the killing, their concern apparently to guard the UN’s status as a neutral observer. This was a shock to those who believed the UN was there to help them.

Annan’s term has also been marked by scandal: ...

Hastert Knew While Foley Flew
Ed Morrissey

Well, well, well. It appears the Republicans actually can make the Foley controversy worse. As if it wasn't bad enough that John Boehner knew about Foley's track record of sexual harassment of his underage pages, now it turns out that Speaker Denny Hastert lied about what he knew and when he knew it. Roll Call reports that Thomas Reynolds (R-NY), the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, told Hastert about Foley's predatory actions in late winter or early spring of this year:

[...]

Republicans have to act swiftly to remove the stench of Foleygate from the party. They need to demand the resignation of Hastert as Speaker, as well as Boehner as Majority Leader if he lied to protect Hastert. Allowing Foley off the hook was a mistake in judgment, but this is a betrayal of those who trusted Hastert to lead the House with dignity, honesty, and integrity. ...

*** 2006.10.01.00:24

Did Hastert know last year that Foley was a pervert?
Allahpundit

I hate having to defend Hastert, partly because he’s a jackass and partly because it’s bad form to defend anyone in any way associated with a child molestation scandal, no matter how much the facts are in their favor. But I think he’s getting a raw deal here, at least based on what we know thus far.

Let’s back up. Two strands of Foley e-mail messages have emerged in the past two days. ...

• 22:49

Hello, Sweet Thing!

Miss Vivianne Allison Aho

Viv, if anyone ever tries to tell you your mama isn't really an Angel you send them to see me, OK? (H/T: Greyhawk)

• 19:14

Something's up in Louisiana

Reader D. H. sends an interesting news item from WWLTW-TV in New Orleans:

The FBI temporarily shut down and raided a handful of local convenience stores Thursday, leading Arab store owners to decry the search-and-seizure operations as racial profiling.

• 19:06

Breaking:
Times of London obtains Mohammed Atta martyrdom video

I’ve always hoped we wouldn’t have to suffer an Atta video. I can stand videos of any of the other 18 — they’re all basically fungible — but to be taunted from the grave by the hijacker everyone recognizes is intolerable. I’m not sure we should even post it when it comes out.

We will, though, of course. ...

Report: Mohammed Atta martydom video
Michelle Malkin

The London Times reports it has possession of an unseen Mohammed Atta video (hat tip - reader Bill):

A previously unseen video made by Mohammed Atta, ringleader of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, has been obtained by a Britain's The Sunday Times, the newspaper reported Saturday.

In editions available late Saturday, the paper said it had been handed the so-called martyrdom video, but did not reveal the source of the tape.

• 14:19

Has Pakistan Changed Sides?
Ed Morrissey

Yesterday I noted the increase in cross-border attacks in Afghanistan in the three weeks since Pervez Musharraf signed a peace deal with the tribal chiefs in Waziristan and released thousands of captured Islamists. Today, the government of India now says that the train bombings in Mumbai this past July had the support of Pakistan's ISI:

Mumbai police Commissioner A.N. Roy said an intensive investigation that included using truth serum on suspects revealed that Pakistan's top spy agency had ''masterminded'' the bombings.

Roy said Pakistan's Directorate of Inter Services Intelligence, or ISI, began planning the attacks in March and later provided training to those who carried out the bombings in Bahawalpur, Pakistan. ...

Video: “No Excuses For Terror”
Allahpundit

I haven’t watched yet, but various e-mailers who have are raving about it and asking us to link. It’s a documentary produced by British journalist David Aaronovitch that aired earlier this week on Britain’s Channel Five. Like our friend KP, Aaronovitch has become alarmed by the willingness of some of his colleagues on the left to apologize for Islamist savagery. They would have you believe, he says, that there are excuses for terrorism.

Which brings us to part one. Parts two, three, and four follow. ...

• 01:03

Senate approves House bill to build 700-mile border fence

Here’s the roll. Only one Republican crossed the aisle. Guess who. ...

• 00:42

Get Off Our Side!
John Hinderaker

That must be the Democrats' reaction to the new videotape by al Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahiri. Much as Osama bin Laden's video, released just before the 2004 election, embarrassed Democrats' by its close tracking with their talking points as articulated in Fahrenheit 9/11, down to My Pet Goat, Zawahiri's latest shows a keen awareness of the Democrats' election themes. I haven't been able to find a full transcript, but this site has a little more information than most:

To U.S. President George W. Bush, Zawahiri brands him a "deceitful charlatan" and liar, and questions: “why don't you tell them how many million citizens of America and it's allies you intend to kill in search of the imaginary victory and in breathless pursuit of the mirage towards which you are driving your people’s sons in order to increase your profits?”

No blood for oil! ...

How Unpopular Is the Iraq War?
John Hinderaker

Leaders of the Democratic Party apparently think that attacking the Iraq war is the ticket to electoral success; over recent weeks, they have coordinated a series of attacks on the war, including the selective leak of misleading portions of the National Intelligence Estimate and Bob Woodward's just-released rehash of anti-war arguments. But how unpopular, in fact, is the war?

Michael Barone takes a look at recent poll numbers from belwether Ohio, and concludes: not as unpopular as the Democrats seem to think. ...

... As only Barone can, he shifts effortlessly from an analysis of this week's poll numbers to a delightful contemplation of the ways in which Bill Clinton and George W. Bush resemble Charles II and William III, respectively.  ...

Of course things are worse, our side isn't in charge
Paul Mirengoff

Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, both of whom served as staff members on President Clinton's National Security Council while al Qaeda emerged and our government did essentially nothing to stop it, have a piece in the Washington Post called, "Of Course Iraq Made It Worse." The title reflects the ipse dixit nature of column -- the authors' certitude that the threat of terrorism has become worse due to our action in Iraq substitutes for evidence of that proposition.

Benjamin and Simon brush off the absence of "metrics" supporting the proposition that there are more live terrorists prepared to attack U.S. civilians than there would have been had we backed down in our confrontation with Saddam and allowed him to remain in power. Such evidence is impossible to produce, they say. Fair enough. But evidence about the number of times we and our friends have been attacked at home is readily available. And the fact is that terrorists have not successfully attacked our homeland since 9/11, and that successful attacks against any western homeland have been few and far between. ...

• 2006.09.30.00:04

Virginia, on my mind
Bruce Kesler, in The Augusta Free Press

Even though I'm across the country, in San Diego, the Senate race in Virginia has been on my mind. I'm disappointed that the news of the race has been about which candidate allegedly spoke which slurs decades ago, rather than discussion of the literally life and death issues at stake in whether and how to successfully complete stabilizing a less threatening key MidEast player, Iraq.

Both candidates seem to have lost sight of this issue. Perhaps it's the dynamic of their supporters and opponents having at each other. But, either candidate can and should disown such distracters, and neither has. So, it seems more likely that both candidates don't see much to gain from engaging much on Iraq, as most minds are settled, and vote-affecting events there are really entirely out of their hands.

So, since the candidates have, in effect, chosen to engage on the field of slurs, either directly or through their surrogates, that is what we're left with to judge them by. Although one or the other may be more correct or less egregious in their campaign's behavior, the point here is not to judge which but rather to say that neither has risen to the challenge of stature one would hope for from a candidate. ...

Bill's Bites -- 2006.09.29

Contributed by Bill Faith on September 30, 2006 at 12:03 AM in Bill Faith, Bill's Bites | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Friday, 29 September 2006
 

Bill's Bites -- 2006.09.29
Contributed by Bill Faith

The webmaster's blog-within-a-blog. Continuously updated, newest items at the top.

Please click here to learn more about The Phoenix Project, then click here to see a selection of Old War Dogs merchandise. All sales proceeds go to support The Phoenix Project.

Destitute Dog -- Please read this and help if you can.

• 2006.09.30.00:54

Bill's Bites -- 2006.09.30

• 21:00

Oliver Stone's true colors
Michelle Malkin

Now do you see why I was skeptical of that public relations campaign to entice conservatives into endorsing World Trade Center?

Filmmaker Oliver Stone blasted President George W. Bush Thursday, saying he has "set America back 10 years."

Stone added that he is "ashamed for my country" over the war in Iraq and the U.S. policies in response to the attacks of September 11.

"We have destroyed the world in the name of security," Stone told journalists at the San Sebastian International Film Festival prior to a screening of his latest movie, "World Trade Center." ...

Video: Zawahiri calls Bush “lying failure,” whines about “torture”

Call it a “special comment.”

Short clip this time. The section on the Pope and Darfur wasn’t subtitled, so I cut it. Was it a last-minute addition, perhaps? Or did Chubs simply get bored with his translation duties?

I like his little toy cannon. Thanks to Rusty the Jawa Master for the vid. ...

• 20:49

Video: Brigitte Gabriel unloads on moderate Muslims

Most Muslims are moderate, she’s careful to emphasize. The radicals can’t number more than, oh, 180 to 300 million.

I guess Dean Esmay knows what he’s writing about next week.

This is Mary K’s first foray into video editing, so rather than swipe the clip from YouTube, I’m going to make you watch it on her site. She has thoughts on the Michelle-Esmay blogwar, too, so it’s worth your time. Click the image. ...

Devastating: Woodward’s new book on Bush and Iraq

There’s no other way to describe it. Read the synopses at the Times and, especially, the Daily News. Michael Yon told me a few months ago we’re very close to losing the war. It’s not hard to see why.

John Cole asks a good question. I’m not sure what my answer would be, frankly.

The News actually has a second article about the book devoted to the “urgent meeting” Tenet and Cofer Black had with Condi Rice in July 2001 about their fears of an impending attack and a request for $500 million to go in and get Bin Laden ASAP. Some of the rhetoric is absurd, particularly coming from “Slam Dunk” George–

Allen N-word accuser a longtime patron of … Daily Kos;
Update: Dead heat

Remember how there were initially three accusers who spoke to Salon? One was Dr. Ken Shelton, the other two were anonymous. One of them came forward today. And guess what.

Days before being contacted by Salon, Sabornie said he had sent an unsolicited e-mail to Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, a prominent liberal blogger at DailyKos.com, describing his memories of Allen’s racist behavior. Sabornie said he also has posted on the DailyKos site as a reader in 2004, criticizing the performance of President Bush.

Bob Owens of Confederate Yankee also notes this passage from WaPo’s latest on N-wordgate: ...

Video: Borat’s press conference outside the White House

It only runs three minutes, but for some reason it’s been broken into two parts. The audio’s a little dicey, too.

Still, it’s worth it.

Even Reuters is enjoying this story:

• 20:28

Riddle: Why don't Congressmen use bookmarks?

A: They'd rather just bend over the pages.

Breaking: Mark Foley (R-FL) to quit House over child-sex rumors; Update: IMs revealed

I almost posted on this yesterday but didn’t want to float something when it was still unsubstantiated. The original report quoted a 16-year-old Congressional page as being “freaked out” when Foley chatted him up over e-mail and requested a photo. Sounded reasonably innocuous to me.

It’s sounding a little less innocuous now:

A spokesman for Foley, the chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, said the congressman submitted his resignation in a letter late this afternoon to Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert.

Hours earlier, ABC News had read excerpts of instant messages provided by former pages who said the congressman, under the AOL Instant Messenger screen name Maf54, made repeated references to sexual organs and acts.

That’s another pickup for the Dems in the House. Can’t say I’m sorry about this one.

Update: Among Foley’s signature legislative accomplishments: ...

Foley's Folly
Ed Morrissey

Sometimes people say that politics make them feel unclean, but this story will amplify that exponentially. Rep. Mark Foley, a Republican from Florida with an almost-assured re-election bid, has resigned from Congress after harrassing a teen-age intern. His abrupt departure leaves his organization bereft of its chair -- the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children:

Saying he was "deeply sorry," Congressman Mark Foley (R-FL) resigned from Congress today, hours after ABC News questioned him about sexually explicit internet messages with current and former congressional pages under the age of 18.

A spokesman for Foley, the chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, said the congressman submitted his resignation in a letter late this afternoon to Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert. ...

*** 2006.09.30.01:06

The Foley mess
Michelle Malkin

Very damning evidence. If it is all true, and it seems very likely that it is, Rep. Foley has shamed himself, his office, his district, and his party.

I got back recently from Seattle, where good friends told me about their son's wonderful experience as a Congressional page earlier this year. Rep. Foley's apparent abuse of office and lecherous communications with a 16-year-old boy-- during what should have been one of the best times in his life as a page in Washington--is every parent's worst nightmare. ...

• 19:34

National Security Experiment (H/T)

7/3/2006 - An Australian TV performs a simple and hilarious experiment on bridge security. How long can an average looking white tourist take pictures of security cameras before being bothered? What about an arab tourist? ...

Jihadis threaten French prof: “This pig must have his head cut off”

They’re posting that online, alongside maps to his house.

Posting maps to an enemy’s house. That sounds familiar.

He says he’s “alone and abandoned,” but the article claims he’s under police guard 24-7. I think he means “alone and abandoned” by the state education ministry, which seems to have decided it’s his fault: ...

Oprah names Kos one of her sexiest men in the world

Of course, Oprah thinks Stedman is hot. So, you know.

This would make sense, sort of, if it was one of those beautiful-on-the-inside lists that feminists like to do for fat women. But except for the two Google geeks, the rest of the guys on there are actually pretty good looking.

And I mean that in the least gay way possible.

Video: RealVerse - “Under the Weather”

Bethany’s got a throat cold this week, so naturally the thing to do was to film outdoors in an off-the-shoulder sweater. A warning to the realVerse guys: if harm befalls her, my wrath will be terrible.

On the plus side, she’s milking that Kathleen Turner huskiness for all it’s worth.

Liberals document PEST sufferers’ reaction to Bush winning in ‘04

Yet another Bush hating documentary that no one but those who hate him will want to watch (or promote):

It’s the morning after, our Liberal awakens from a fitful sleep, depressed. He can’t believe Bush won the election. He feels empty and angry. He is grieving as if he has experienced a profound loss.

###

This story may be familiar to you. It was experienced, in one form or another, by millions of people around the world. Maybe, even yourself. It has become the driving force and simple theme for our documentary, RED STATE.

Gee, the symptoms experienced seem awful familiar: ...

• 18:53

In defense of waterboarding
Paul Mirengoff

Vasco Kohlmayer explains why waterboarding should be the interrogation method of choice in certain circumstances, namely when more conventional methods aren't working and the terrorist is believed, reasonably, to have vital information. Apparently, waterboarding has succeeded in breaking down resistance to providing truthful information every time it's been used (usually in less than a minute), even when the subject knows in advance that death is not a possibility. Moreover, the discomfort of waterboarding lasts for only a very short period of time and carries virtually no risk of long-term harm. ...

Why let the facts stand in the way of a good slander?
Paul Mirengoff

Dafydd ab Hugh catches the demagogic Senator Leahy in what appears to be a gross misstatement of recent history. According to Daffyd, this is what Leahy said on the floor of the Senate:

Even though they [the Bush administration] had him [Osama bin Laden] cornered at Tora Bora, they yanked the special forces out of there to send them to Iraq.

But the Battle of Tora Bora took place in December of 2001, when there was not even a resolution on the table to invade Iraq. As far as I know, we sent no special forces to Iraq until February 2003. ...

No Frist fence flakeout, Frist full of feck
Scott Johnson

In "Frist fence flakeout?" this past Monday I raised the question that Mickey Kaus posed after watching Senator Frist on one of the Sunday television gabfests. The post prompted a response from Stephen Smith, Senator Frist's online communications coordinator, assuring us "that Senator Frist isn't 'flaking out' and that he is committed to a cloture vote on the Secure Fence Act this week."

Yesterday Senator Frist fulfilled his commitment, securing a cloture vote that passed 71-28. Senator Frist comments on the vote at his VOLPAC site. Mickey Kaus eats no crow over his misdiagnosis of "flakeout" from Senator Frist's body language on the Sunday show. However, apparently without reliance on body language, he now finds Senator Frist to be "brimming with feck."  ...

Drive-By Reporting at the New York Times
John Hinderaker

Rush Limbaugh refers to the mainstream media as the "drive-by media," a term that is all too often apt. This Editors' Note in today's New York Times reveals a case in point:

A front-page article on Sept. 14 reported that the inspector general of the Interior Department had accused top officials at the agency of tolerating widespread ethical failures. The article said that the inspector general in a 2004 report had described J. Steven Griles, a deputy secretary accused of more than two dozen ethical lapses, as a “train wreck waiting to happen.” That quotation was taken out of context. The quotation said in full: “Framed within the context of a train wreck waiting to happen, the Department of the Interior was presented with its most complex set of ethical issues with Mr. J. Steven Griles appointment at a time that, following years of neglect, demise and compartmentalization, the ethics program was wholly incapable of addressing them.”

The article also said that Mr. Griles resigned after the accusations against him surfaced. In fairness, the article should have made clear that his resignation came nine months after a government ethics office and his boss concluded that he had committed no ethical breach.

[...]

Note that Griles was appointed as Deputy Secretary in 2001, so the "years of neglect, demise and compartmentalization" occurred during the Clinton administration. ...

• 17:28

The Blog of War 
Contributed by George Mellinger

During the Second World War three American reporters achieved fame for their reporting from the front with the troops, and the books they wrote about the experiences. Richard Tregaskis wrote Guadalcanal diary. Bill Maulden, best known for his cartoons of the dogfaces Willie and Joe wrote Up Front, and Ernie Pyle, the most revered of all, wrote Brave Men. After surviving the war Tregaskis and Maulden returned home to the daily grind of civilian journalism. After surviving the campaigns form North Africa to Europe. Ernie Pyle was killed during the last days of the Pacific war. All three men were famed for focusing their attention on the lot of the common soldier, leaving the great matters of campaigns and strategy to others. However, even they could not capture the immediacy and intensity of the individual soldier’s life. ...

Honor Roll: S3930 [Mil Tribunals, etc.]
Contributed by John Werntz

After all the rancorous hoo-ha the Congress and the media have subjected us to, both the House and the Senate passed the compromise bill on establishing military tribunals and on permissible methods of interrogation of detainees.  In both houses of Congress, the bill passed with thumping majorities--just over 60% in the House and by just short of two-thirds [65-34] in the Senate. In what follows, this post concentrates on the Senate vote, around 7 PM on 9-28-2006. ...

Murtha - the Big Fish that Got Away
Contributed by George Mellinger

Everyone is focusing attention on Jack Murtha's current anti-war raging. And a few vets are going back even further to question the reality of his claimed military record and supposed heroism in Viet Nam. But what about all those years in between? Hasn't he been a good congressman in the interim? Decide for yourselves. But first remember Abscam. ...

Just how low won't they go?
Contributed by Bill Faith

• 17:10

Personal to "chancuff": Blogs are free if you don't insist on being too fancy. Maybe you should get one. You've annoyed my Dogs for the last time. Don't let the door hitcha in the ass, son.

To our other reader's: Reasoned debate is welcome here. Feel free to leave relevant comments when you're so inclined.  There is no such thing as a comment that's relevant to 6 different posts.

OBTW, son: MURTHA SUCKS and trolling the comments on conservative blogs won't change that fact.

• 17:04

Problem solved

Cookie emails:

Subject:Fwd: NBC News Special Report . . .
Date:Fri, 29 Sep 2006 6:05 PM

The Pentagon announced today the formation of a new 500 man elite fighting unit called the United States Redneck Special Forces. These Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Okalahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Louisiana boys will be dropped into Iraq and have been given only the following facts about terrorists:

     1. The season opened today.

     2. There is no limit.

     3. They taste like chicken.

     4. They don't like beer, Pickup trucks, Fishing, Country music, or Jesus.

     5. They are DIRECTLY RESPONSIBLE for the death of Dale Earnhardt.

     6. Their favorite movie is "BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN"

We expect the problem in Iraq to be over by Friday.

• 12:37

[ -- Two items that were originally posted here have been moved to Just how low won't they go? -- ]

*** 13:01

*** 13:42

[ -- An item that was originally posted here has been moved to Just how low won't they go? -- ]

• 12:19

• 2006.09.29.01:58

Mea Murtha

I somehow managed to accidentally delete everything in this post from this point down.  I think I can more or less retrace my steps and reproduce my thought process well enough to produce a good approximation of what was here. Here goes (I'll post bits and pieces as I go):

Critics of Islam under fire...again
Michelle Malkin

[images]

The Danish cartoonists aren't the only ones living in fear for offending the global jihadi mob. Now, French philosophy professor and secondary school teacher Robert Redeker is under police protection for penning a piece blasting Islamic violence in Le Figaro.

AFP/Expatica report:

A French philosophy teacher was under police protection Thursday after receiving death threats over an article he wrote in a national newspaper that accused Islam of "exalting violence", school and police officials said.

Robert Redeker has not attended classes at his secondary school near Toulouse in southern France since September 19, when his opinion column appeared in the right-wing daily Le Figaro.

"He received written death threats in the form of emails. On the face of it they were pretty serious," said the lycée's headmaster Pierre Donnadieu.

Video: Dean says Dems are “going to take back Texas”
Ian Schwartz

Earlier in the week DNC Chairman Howard Dean was in Austin to rally Democrats. In his speech Dean predicted “we are [Democrats] going to take back Texas” and the White House. Just kidding about the last part.

[video link]

I’m surprised he didn’t go for it and do one of these.

This Deaniac caught my eye and my video editor’s frame-by-frame option: ...

Jesse Macbeth redux: Truther moron unmasked as military fake

The Screw Loose Change boys e-mailed me when this story started pulsing, but I just wasn’t feeling it. No photoshopped DD-214, no scandal. That’s the rule around here.

That’s the Hot Air way.

Well, last night it all came together. Here’s the saga, in sequence:

Sunday — Basic factual errors in idiot’s story raise suspicions.
Monday — More factual errors spotted; is idiot also a liar?
Tuesday — Idiot’s DD-214 scrutinized.
Wednesday — Photoshop smoking gun!

It won’t take long to read them all, but if you only have time for one, read the last one. What is it about using photoshop to expose fraud that’s so insanely gratifying?

Valiant Olbermann edged out in ratings battle by “Deal or No Deal” rerun

It’s not whether you win or lose. It’s whether you win or lose to game show reruns.

Congrats to the Olberdouche, whose crappy, insulting, unwatchable show has singlehandedly made players of Headline News and CNBC in the cable-news ratings game. The bright spot is, there’s no one left to lose to. He’s exhausted the universe of possibilities, unless Nielsen wants to start measuring him against non-news networks like Home & Garden TV. Which, perhaps, would not be to Olby’s advantage. Would you rather watch a Keith Olbermann special comment or a fat woman explain the best way to tend a cabbage patch? The question answers itself.

Join The Jihad, Take The Dirt Nap

The leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, released an audiotape that tries to recruit more radical Muslims to the Iraqi jihad. In doing so, Zarqawi's replacement shows why the US considers Iraq a central ground for the war on terror and how effective our effort there has been against the terrorists. Unbidden and apparently thinking it an attraction, Masri told his followers that the US-led Coalition has killed over 4,000 terrorists in Iraq: ...

Senate Approves Detainee Bill By Wide Margin

The Senate got bipartisan support for the passage of the White House's comprehensive terrorist prosecution bill this evening, putting an emphatic stamp on a victory for the Bush administration. In the end, the bill garnered 65 votes and Bill Frist fought off attempts to bury the bill in amendments:

The Senate on Thursday endorsed President Bush's plans to prosecute and interrogate terror suspects, all but sealing congressional approval for legislation that Republicans intend to use on the campaign trail to assert their toughness on terrorism.

The 65-34 vote means the bill could reach the president's desk by week's end. The House passed nearly identical legislation on Wednesday and was expected to approve the Senate bill on Friday, sending it on to the White House.

Thirty five Senators who don't give a beggar's damn about you or this country:

Bill's Bites -- 2006.09.28

Contributed by Bill Faith on September 29, 2006 at 12:10 AM in Bill Faith, Bill's Bites | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Thursday, 28 September 2006
 

Bill's Bites -- 2006.09.28
Contributed by Bill Faith

• The webmaster's blog-within-a-blog. Continuously updated, newest items at the top.

Please click here to learn more about The Phoenix Project, then click here to see a selection of Old War Dogs merchandise. All sales proceeds go to support The Phoenix Project.

Destitute Dog -- Please read this and help if you can.

• 2006.09.29.01:18

Bill's Bites -- 2006.09.29

• 19:14

Thirty five Senators who don't give a beggar's damn about you or this country:

• 18:24

Senate OKs Detainee Interrogation Bill

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Senate on Thursday endorsed President Bush's plans to prosecute and interrogate terror suspects, all but sealing congressional approval for legislation that Republicans intend to use on the campaign trail to assert their toughness on terrorism.

The 65-34 vote means the bill could reach the president's desk by week's end. The House passed nearly identical legislation on Wednesday and was expected to approve the Senate bill on Friday, sending it on to the White House. ...

• 17:02

World to end shortly: Senate vote on detainee bill forthcoming
Allahpundit (H/T: MM)

I got caught behind the curve on this story, for which I truly and sincerely apologize. It’s obviously a big one, and the nutroots has gone berserk over it even by normal berserker nutroots standards. Blazing blue WaPo columnist Dan Froomkin calls it “a defining moment for this nation.” The even bluer Dahlia Lithwick at Slate says it’s a “watershed”:

Now we are affirmatively asking to be left in the dark. Instead of torture we were unaware of, we are sanctioning torture we’ll never hear about. Instead of detainees we didn’t care about, we are authorizing detentions we’ll never know about. Instead of being misled by the president, we will be blind and powerless by our own choice. And that is a shame on us all.

Slate’s actually put together a clickable “taxonomy of torture” that graphically illustrates all the things the CIA will be able to do to Ayman al-Zawahiri once they have him in custody.

Meanwhile, Greg Tinti’s got video of Pat Leahy on the Senate floor comparing the bill to practices used by the Taliban, Saddam, or characters “in the fiction of Kafka.”

For sheer shrillness, though, one newspaper tops them all. Guess: ...

• 15:40

Ahmadinejad wanted to meet Michael Moore
Allahpundit

According to the man who served as his translator for the UN speech, Hooman Majd.

Recognize that name, by the way? You should.

And so the circle is complete.

Majd says he got the job in part because his “credentials” showed him to be “an apparently trustworthy Iranian.” No kidding.

When I say it’s worth reading this one in full, I mean it. The account of 500 filthy, bottom-feeding fundamentalists meeting in the most cosmopolitan city in the world is stomach-turning. But here’s the can’t-miss. Imagine the propaganda value we could have wrung from this: ...

• 15:08

HMH: Response to "December 7, 1941 And September 11, 2001"
Contributed by Bill Faith

The latest Henry Mark Holzer Memorandum. Click here to add your name to his mailing list.

September 28, 2006

The following email was sent to me by a gentleman named Monty Warner, a 1978 West Point and Army War College graduate who retired as a Colonel after 25 years of service. As you can see, he wrote in response to my recent article [Click here -- BF] comparing America's response to December 7, 1941, to what we have not done after September 11, 2001....

• 14:33

Environmentalists for open borders
Michelle Malkin

No, I'm not making it up:

U.S.-Mexico border fence may harm animal migration

A plan to fence off a third of the U.S. border to stop illegal immigration from Mexico may harm migration routes used by animals including rare birds and jaguars, environmentalists and U.S. authorities warn.

The House of Representatives passed a bill this month authorizing the construction of about 700 miles (1,120km) of double fencing along the 2,000-mile (3,200-km) border, which was crossed by more than one million illegal immigrants last year. ...

Liebs up 10 in Quinnipiac poll
Allahpundit

Don’t get too excited. They had him up 12 six weeks ago and no other pollster’s seen that margin in Connecticut. ARG had it 47-45 for Joementum nine days ago; I doubt he’s picked up eight points since then, especially with no good news from Iraq to bolster him. Still, I want to believe.

The likely margin is five points. Jim Geraghty explains why.

That’s the good news. More good news: Murtha is looking less likely to be the choice for House majority leader, in part — oh, sweet irony — because his social policies are too conservative for the supreme soviet.

The bad news? ...

Nancy Pelosi, theocrat?
Bryan Preston

What will Andrew Sullivan do now? The Democrat leader in the House is quoting the Bible to set national policy. The context is the debate on how to treat captured terrorists–do we aggressively interrogate them or not? Pelosi is in the “not” crowd, and the Bible is her guide:

“This is a time when the Golden Rule really should be in affect. Do not do unto others, what you would not have them do unto your troops, your CIA agents, your people in the field.

Well, Pelosi is actually misquoting the Bible, but nevertheless doesn’t this make her a “Christianist?” Or at least a “theocrat?” ...

• 13:33

• 12:59

The Webb legacy
Paul Mirengoff

In 1994, Fred Thompson was locked in a Senate campaign against an increasingly desperate opponent, Jim Cooper. During a debate, in response to what Thompson thought was an unfair attack, the once-and-future actor said in his most authoritative voice, "Jim, it's one thing to lose an election; it's another thing to lose your honor." Cooper seemed to shrink, and I could tell then-and-there that Thompson would be the one going to Washington.

I'll leave it to others to debate whether, or to what extent, James Webb has lost his honor as a result of the smear campaign against his opponent Senator Allen. But I do think it would have been honorable for Webb to have distanced himself from his "netroots coordinator" when that blogger attacked Allen for alleged "deep-seated issues" regarding his Jewish heritage. More generally, it would have been honorable for Webb to have denounced making that Jewish heritage an issue in the campaign. ...

Webb is also the ex-SECNAV who promised some honorable people a couple of years back that he'd go public with the truth about John Kerry's Other-Than-Honorable discharge, which was upgraded to Honorable during the Carter administration, then backed out when he was promised a key position in a Kerry administration. Sleazeball then, sleazeball now. Nothing new.

• 12:43

How not to argue about Islam
Michelle Malkin

This post by Dean Esmay, "calling out Michelle Malkin," is what is known in the business as traffic bait.

So go ahead and click it and give Esmay more of the traffic he wants. I highly recommend you read his post as the classic blogospheric example of how not to argue about Islam.

Or anything else, for that matter.

Notice the absence of a single link or a specific quotation of anything I've ever written (at least as of this posting). Very Ralph Peters-esque. He "calls me out" by citing...something written by blogger Gary Metz. He relies on overwrought non sequiturs (Muslims are buried at Arlington National Cemetery!) and beats his chest: ...

• 12:23

Esmay: Do Facts Matter?
Bryan Preston

I wouldn’t even respond to this, except that a) it’s the second time in a week Dean Esmay has tried to mug Michelle Malkin and/or Hot Air, and b) it got linked over at InstaPundit so it’s probably gotten a little more visibility than Dean’s blog usually enjoys.

So Dean, since you’re in such a fightin’ mood, fight to find a few things. For instance, find one post on this blog or Michelle’s in which either she or I or anyone outside the comments suggests that the US should “declare war on the entire Muslim world.” Ok? Go back to JunkYardBlog if you want, too, since that’s where I used to write and from which you once accused me of making up a story out of thin air–remember that, Dean? I was proven right that time, and I don’t recall ever getting an apology from you.

Report: French UNIFIL troops in Lebanon confront … IDF;
Update: Second incident?

And to think the crazy wingnuts said UN peacekeepers would do more to protect Hezbollah from Israel than vice versa.

U.N. peacekeeping forces in south Lebanon intervened for the first time Thursday with Israeli forces who arrested journalists in violation of Resolution 1701…

Members of UNIFIL’s French battalion almost clashed with Israeli troops who arrested a French journalist and a Lebanese photographer at an improvised checkpoint in the border area of Marwaheen in the western sector of south Lebanon. ...

Iraqi AQ leader releases new tape, calls for release
of “blind sheikh”; Update: Also calls for WMD attacks in Iraq

Two things. First, AQ in Iraq is obviously coordinating its propaganda releases with the home office. The last tape from al-Muhajer was put out on September 6; As-Sahab released video to Al-Jazeera of Osama meeting with some of the 9/11 planners the next day. Fast forward to yesterday, when As-Sahab announced that a new Zawahiri tape was coming; and now today we’ve got new audio from al-Muhajer. Can’t be a coincidence. Are they working off a preset schedule, I wonder (e.g., a new tape every three weeks), or are there actually lines of communication open between Iraq and Pakistan?

Second, the Counterterrorism Blog has heard the tape and describes it thusly: ...

• 12:09

Bowing to Terrorists Only Leads to More Terror
Contributed by Shane Briscoe

In yet another capitulation to Islamofascist terrorists, a Berlin opera house has pulled the plug on its production of Idomeneo because it features a scene with the severed heads of Jesus, Buddha, Poseidon and... you guessed it, Mohamed.  The opera house censored itself to avoid the security risk that depicting Mohamed would entail.

It is a replay of the cowardly reaction to Muslim violence over the Mohamed cartoons by much of the Western Press establishment, coming on the heels of the Pope's apology for supposedly defaming Islam by linking it to violence. 

But, remember, Islam is a religion of peace.  If you don't believe it, they will teach you a lesson by calling for your assassination. ...

Vote early and vote often?
Contributed by Zero Ponsdorf

I suppose the title is a bit tongue in cheek,  unless you live here in West Virginia.

It is time for a another 'Stating the Obvious' exercise. Due the subject matter and timing I expect to be revisiting this particular item several times.

There's page after page of fascinating material out there, topics ranging from falling gas prices to a 'General's Revolt' at the DOD, but has much fun as all that stuff is... it's time to focus. ...

The Perfect Evil
Contributed by Bill Faith

The Perfect Evil
Part One of Three
Michael Yon

“The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.” Verbal Kint, in The Usual Suspects paraphrasing Baudelaire.

In Afghanistan, heroin has become the Devil’s cocktail. “Smack” is already one of the most addictive and destructive drugs on Earth, and now numerous academic studies show addiction levels on the rise particularly among younger children. In a place where 90% of the world’s heroin supply originates, the Taliban, al-Qaeda and others harvest profits from opium poppy cultivation to buy weapons and equipment used to attack soldiers and civilians engaged in a mostly stalled reconstruction mission. ...

• 10:03

"Eradicate the limb of the infidel"

The SITE Institute has details of the new al Qaeda audiotape:

The speech, 20:31 in length, is titled: “Come to a Word that is Just Between Us and You,” which is taken from the Qur’an, Surah al-Imran, verse 64. On the occasion of the month of Ramadan, al-Muhajir calls upon every “free Mujahid” to come to Iraq and engage in jihad, which the emir hopes to increase in ferocity. He states: “It pleases me at the end of my speech to announce the beginning of a great militaristic campaign by the name of the clear conquest, by it we will eradicate the limb of the infidel and the apostate”.

In the middle of the speech, Abu Hamza al-Muhajir reminds of the “Blind Sheikh,” Omar Abdul Rahman, and encourages the Mujahideen to capture some of the “Roman dogs” so as to secure his release from the “darkness of his prison, gratitude, loyalty and love.” He then calls upon the sheikhs of the Sunni tribes in Iraq to not slacken in their support for the Mujahideen and thanks them for their public stance, finance and men.

AP brief on Fox News.com:

How do liberals sleep?

Very badly, according to this "study" about liberal vs. conservative dreams:

A dream researcher from John F. Kennedy University in California has discovered fundamental differences between the dream worlds of people on the ideological left and the ideological right.

Among his findings, Kelly Bulkeley discovered that liberals are more restless sleepers and have a higher number of bizarre, surreal dreams -- including fantasy settings and a wide variety of sexual encounters. Conservatives' dreams were, on average, far more mundane and focused on realistic people, situations and settings...

• 08:45

• 08:33

Air America's ongoing charity scandal

Brian Maloney has the lowdown on flailing lib radio network Air America's legal and financial troubles at The Radio Equalizer. The New York State Attorney General's office has now transferred the Gloria Wise Boys and Girls Club case involving Air America to its criminal prosecutions bureau. You won't believe who finally covered the story. Yup, the "paper of record" that has ignored the story for more than a year:

A Bronx charity will pay the city back $625,000 that had been intended for children and the elderly but was improperly lent to Air America Radio, a network known for its liberal programming and hosts like Al Franken.

The settlement, announced yesterday by the city’s Department of Investigation, is the latest but probably not the final chapter in an investigation that began last year.

The state attorney general’s office is continuing to look into the misuse of the funds, and the case has been transferred from its charities bureau to the criminal prosecutions bureau, two people close to the investigation said yesterday. ...

• 02:53

State commission to review AZ 9/11 Memorial inscriptions

Can you feel it?

A state commission that authorized placement of the Arizona 9-11 Memorial in Wesley Bolin Plaza will review controversial laser-cut inscriptions “and see if some of them could be removed,” the panel’s chairman said Wednesday.

Former state Sen. Tom Smith, chairman of the Legislative Governmental Mall Commission, also said the commission hadn’t made it a practice to review the wording of any memorials. “We sure as heck will do it in the future,” he told The Associated Press in an interview…

“The Capital Mall Commission is responsible for the placement of the memorials that go into Wesley Bolin Plaza. Therefore I think we have not only the responsibility but we have the authority to make any changes if something’s happened that’s inappropriate.”…
Smith said Wednesday it never occurred to him during the February meeting to check on details of the inscriptions’ wording.

*** 08:13

Arizona 9/11 memorial to be reviewed
Michelle Malkin

AllahPundit (with signature Photoshop) sends the word via KVOA:

[...]

The entire debacle could have been avoided if someone had bothered to check the wording on the 9/11 memorial inscriptions before it was built. For. Crying. Out. Loud.

***

The Arizona GOP has produced an ad taking Dem. Gov. Janet Napolitano to task for the memorial. It's here.

Laura W. points to what an appropriate 9/11 memorial looks like at Ace of Spades.  ...

• 00:35

• 2006.09.28.12:10

Bill's Bites -- 2006.09.27

Contributed by Bill Faith on September 28, 2006 at 12:09 AM in Bill Faith, Bill's Bites | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Wednesday, 27 September 2006
 

Bill's Bites -- 2006.09.27
Contributed by Bill Faith

The webmaster's blog-within-a-blog. Continuously updated, newest items at the top.

Please click here to learn more about The Phoenix Project, then click here to see a selection of Old War Dogs merchandise. All sales proceeds go to support The Phoenix Project.

 

"The Blog Of War," Blackfive's new best from the MilBlogs book, is now available for free download to enlisted military personnel.

Destitute Dog -- Please read this and help if you can.

• 2006.09.28.12:17

Bill's Bites -- 2006.09.28

• 22:25

The Late, Great, '98
Greyhawk

According to the just released National Intelligence Estimate (pdf), US actions in Iraq inspire terrorism. For a second - and earlier - opinion on the topic, here's Osama bin Laden:

[...]

Those comments are from February, 1998 - but they aren't the first (see bin Laden's 1996 Fatwa, for example) or last words from that source on that subject. In fact, in May, 1998 bin Laden answered questions posed to him by some of his followers and ABC news reporter John Miller.

[...]

Bin Laden's 1998 comments can be read in the broader context of that year's events here. ...

• 21:48

German opera to be reinstated?

Peace in our time?

Amid all the issues that divide Germany and its Muslims - from women’s rights to the teaching of Islam in schools - there was one point on which all 30 participants in a landmark Islamic conference held here Wednesday could agree, according to its organizer.

They would like to see the Deutsche Oper of Berlin reinstate the Mozart opera it canceled this week after receiving an anonymous threat that the production, which features a scene with the severed head of the Prophet Muhammad, could put the opera house at risk. ...

Poll: U.S. support for UN drops 13% in two years

31-45, favorable/unfavorable. 50-50 among women, two to one unfavorable among men.

Hugo Chavez’s ratings among Americans? Unfavorable by a margin of … 58-10. 23-64 favorable/unfavorable for his speech last week. ...

The color purple: Senate races trending Democratic

Top of the screen on Drudge right now is tomorrow’s NY Times lead story on the Senate, which is looking less red and more blue by the moment. ...

• 18:35

Chutzpah award of the day
Michelle Malkin

The Windbag from Massachusetts wins hands down today. John Hinderaker at Power Line nails him:

The Democrats evidently aren't happy with the release of the "key judgments" of the National Intelligence Estimate on global terrorism, because now they've demanded that the White House release the entire report.

That will get them what they're looking for, i.e., headlines like this one: "White House refuses to release full NIE." The Democrats knew, obviously, that the administration can't release the entire document without both endangering agents and compromising the ability of intelligence analysts to write candid assessments without worrying that their work product will wind up in the newspaper. But for now, at least, they can change the subject.

Ted Kennedy weighed in with the most surreal attack: ...

Ramadan riots in Europe

What you're not reading about in the dhimmi MSM.

I did a search on Yahoo! News for photos and--surprise--nothing comes up.

More blog coverage: ...

• 18:19

Video: “This terrorism isn’t our fault”

The Brit papers are in raptures this morning over Blair’s speech to the annual Labour Party conference yesterday. It was his last as prime minister, which perhaps emboldened him to challenge certain liberal pieties. Not that he’s shied away from that before, but the beginning of this clip cuts to the heart of things in a way politicians, particularly on the left, seldom do. ...

Magazine, citing abortion policy,
won’t let Catholic League reprint KP’s column

Remember, they’re a big tent and they deeply respect religion.

This is the same magazine, mind you, from which Brendan Nyhan resigned a few weeks ago after his editor complained that his blog posts were insufficiently anti-conservative.

Video:
Michelle slams Dems for leak double standards on “The Big Story”

How come an NIE circulated in April wasn’t published until this week? Why do Democrats seem to think some leaks are okay and others not? Should Bush start locking leakers up? And is Jane Harman really “a nice lady”? ...

The next outrage: Muslims offended by new Harvey Keitel film

Remember when the only thing you had to worry about in a Harvey Keitel movie was whether he’d take out his schwanz?

An Italian film has sparked a debate in the Muslim community for its representation of Islam. ‘Il mercante di pietre’ (The Stone Merchant) by Italian filmmaker Renzo Martinelli “brings back to mind Nazi propaganda against the Jews,” accuses Dacia Valent, the spokesperson of the Islamic Anti-Defamation League, an Italian group. Her view is shared by the association of Young Muslims of Italy whose forum is full of messages comparing the movie to Nazi anti-Jewish propaganda…

The movie is controversial as all the Muslims it portrays are terrorists.

Hey, how’s that peace deal
between Pakistan and the jihadis working out?

Really super. Every bit as well as could be expected.

Musharraf had the stones to present it this way at his press conference with the president last week:

This deal is with the tribal elders of north Waziristan agency. And the deal has three bottom lines, which we fixed for ourselves. And this is very important, which I explained to the President.

• 17:54

Had a nice little T-storm as the cool front came through, it took me forever to get back online after I shut down while there was lightning in the area.

• 15:57

Triumph Forsaken
Contributed by Bill Faith

... An accomplished young historian offers a revisionist view of one of the United States’ most reviled conflicts

More than thirty years after the United States pulled its last military forces out of Vietnam it is safe to say that the majority of historians, political figures, and citizens view the United States’ decades long involvement in the Vietnam War as misguided. Given the benefit of hindsight, many have interpreted the war as a vain Cold War-era conflict fruitlessly fought during a time of great anti-Communist paranoia and leading to the needless deaths of tens of thousands of Americans and countless Vietnamese. The prevailing attitude about these assumptions has not changed much in recent years, even as the Vietnam War continues to drift further into the past. If nothing else, the orthodox view has strengthened with the passage of time. ...

Pre-rally SITREP
Contributed by Zero Ponsdorf

Needed to write this down for myself and figured to lay it out in case someone sees something I've missed.

Hotel reservations with confirmation number -done.

Cameras - video and still. Spare batteries, cables, manuals, tripod, spare recording media. A bag to carry all (except the folding tripod) in. ...

Pipes-"Intimidating the West"
Contributed by John Werntz

JWR reproduces today a useful summary and analysis by Daniel Pipes of six instances of riots in Muslim countries instigated around free expression in the Western World.  They range in date from the 1989 issuance by Khomeini of a fatwah against Salman Rushie and the 1997 riots precipitated by CAIR's complaint regarding a representation of Mohammed the Lawgiver on the facade of the SCOTUS building, on up to Newsweek's 2005 "Koran-flushing" canard, and culminating in the cartoon riots in February and the Benedict XVI riots in September of the current year.  With the single exception of the 1997 events, all resulted in numerous killings. ...

• 14:43

Bilal Hussein's congresswoman

The Associated (with terrorists) Press thinks it's news that a Democrat congresswoman is recycling the suppressed-news organization's talking points about Bilal Hussein, the AP photographer who was discovered by American troops in a Ramadi apartment with an alleged al Qaeda leader and a weapons cache, and who tested positive for explosives:

A Democratic congresswoman cited the case of an Iraqi Associated Press photographer imprisoned by the U.S. military during debate Wednesday on a new prisoner treatment bill that she considers too harsh. ...

7-11 pulls plug on Citgo
Michelle Malkin

Thanks to all the readers e-mailing the story. I'm glad to hear it, but it's not quite clear to me that Chavez's unhingedness at the U.N. had anything to do with it. Looks to me from the news stories that this had been in the works for a while:

7-Eleven spokesman Margaret Chabris said that, "Regardless of politics, we sympathize with many Americans' concern over derogatory comments about our country and its leadership recently made by Venezuela's president Hugo Chavez." ...

Video:
Vandy profs’ 9/11 panel behaves exactly the way you’d expect it to

It’s all there — doubts about the official story, sadness that America has squandered its moral advantage, anger that America never had any moral advantage to squander, etc. But most of the fireworks comes from James Lawson, visiting professor of divinity and former aide to Martin Luther King. A sampler: ...

• 12:59

Estimating our national intelligence
By Jules Crittenden

The events of the last few days have created some misunderstandings regarding U.S. intelligence in the War on Terrorism, its appropriate uses and interpretation, and the role of politicians and the press in that process.

It started over the weekend when the New York Times, based on fragmentary information leaked to them by unnamed sources, reported that U.S. intelligence agencies have agreed that the Iraq war is fueling global jihad. The Associated Press amplified that the next day in a story that devoted its first 10 inches or so to Democrats bashing the Bush administration and calling for a pullout in Iraq, while burying the suggestions of Republicans and administration officials that there might be other things in the report worth noting.

Coverage of the issue has not improved much since, despite the release of the National Intelligence Estimate’s "key judgments."The document is worth close scrutiny. But before we get to that, here are a couple of you might want to bear in mind:

     1.In time of war, the nation’s classified intelligence analysis of the enemy’s capabilities is none of our, the public’s, business. It is not the New York Times’ business. It is the business of those who are prosecuting this war. They use it to determine strategy and tactics for defeating that enemy.

     2. ...

• 12:48

Video: U.S. troops abandon private contractors under fire in Iraq?
Allahpundit

Can it be? America’s bravest reduced to a Kosian “screw them”?

The article’s here; they’re running the vid tonight on World News and Nightline. Click the image to watch. ...

Slate introduces the George Allen Insult Generator;
Update: Is Sidarth a student of Sabato’s?

Moronic, yet hilarious. The “bad breath” one had me in stitches.

Righties continue the pushback today against Larry Sabato and his N-word allegations, the lowlight being John Miller’s feeble tu quoque at NRO and the highlight being See-Dubya outing himself as a redneck so cartoonish he’d be rejected as too broad for a role on the Dukes of Hazzard: ...

Video: Morris says Clintons are ready to fight dirty with press

We’ve got one more day of Clinton-bashing before the shelf life on that Wallace interview expires, I think. So here’s video of Dick Morris on Hannity & Colmes last night reading an awful lot into a short quote. I hope he’s right — aside from a new Olberdouche “special comment,” I can’t think of anything more darkly enjoyable than Billary and the media flinging shinola at each other. ...

• 12:17

OperaRage: Idomeneo and Islam
Michelle Malkin

The first thing to remember when reading about the cancellation of Mozart's Idomeneo in Germany and the opera house Deutsche Oper's kowtowing to Islamic bullies is that jihadists hate Western art and music.

They hate love songs.

They hate Muslim female pop stars.

They hate church frescos. And poems. And illustrations of poems. And, uh, you know how they feel about cartoons.

So it doesn't take much to get them worked up.

The now-cancelled production of Mozart's opera, directed by provocateur Hans Neuenfels, includes a scene in which King Idomeneo is shown staggering on stage next to the severed heads of Buddha, Jesus, Poseidon and the Prophet Mohammad, which sit on chairs. It was an equal-opportunity insult of religions. But it doesn't matter. When Mohammed is insulted, you know the consequences.

The dhimmi opera house director reports that Berlin's top police official had phoned her in mid-August and warned her of dire consequences if the opera house proceeded with its plan to show "Idomeneo." Needless to say, the dire consequences did not involve Buddhists and Christians and admirers of Poseidon threatening to behead the opera singers. ...

Photos: Mohammed gets the Danny Pearl treatment
Allahpundit

The boss has a new post up this morning about the Mozart opera that’s been cancelled due to fears of jihad in Germany. Here are two shots taken during a 2003 production and published today in the Times and Spiegel, respectively. Click for full size: ...

Fat Lady Sings For Berlin Opera That Depicts Mohammed

How does the West lose the war against radical Islamists? One small surrender at a time. The lastest retreat comes from Germany's Deutsche Oper Berlin, which cancelled a performance of a Mozart opera due to its depiction of the decapitated heads of Buddha, Jesus, and Mohammed. Guess which one caused the furor ...

• 11:47

*** 11:54

Who is Paul Pillar?
Michelle Malkin

In its original report leaking details of the National Intelligence Estimate on the Iraq war, the New York Times relied on anonymous, unnamed leakers to spin its contents and embarrass the White House.

Today, the Times includes comments from some named sources. Pay attention to this one:

What was most remarkable about the intelligence estimate, several experts said, was the unremarkable nature of its conclusions.

“At one level it is unsurprising stuff,’’ said Paul Pillar, who was the national intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia on the intelligence council until last year. “But there is definitely much there that you haven’t heard the president say,’’ he added, “including the role that Iraq has played’’ in inspiring disaffected Muslims to join an anti-American jihadist movement.

Tim Sumner at Stop the NYTimes has some pointed questions about Pillar: ...

• 11:21

Wasted Dog

Got a major Cold, up till about 5:00 this morning arguing with The GIMP; I think I won but the battle left me exhausted. If I'm up to it later I'll show you some fruits of my labor.

• 00:54

Report: 7-11 dumps Citgo (Update: Dropped before)

WFLA of Orlando, FL is reporting:

BHL has obtained a copy of a letter from Janey Carpenter, Manager of Consumer Affairs that states 7-11 Stores are ending their 20-year supply agreement with CITGO Petroleum Corp. According to Carpenter, the contract ends next week and 7-11 is now making the switch to its own branded gasoline. ...

Video:
Jon Stewart asks Musharraf who would win, Bush or Bin Laden?

In a hypothetical election in Pakistan, that is. More specifically, a hypothetical mayoral election; there are no presidential elections in that country, an unpleasant fact that Stewart was surely aware of but went out of his way to avoid.

I wonder how many people in his audience are aware of it. And how many of them know that Musharraf’s answer to Stewart’s question is a lie. ...

• 00:43

The Clinton Legacy

• 2006.09.27.00:12

Bill's Bites -- 2006.09.26

Contributed by Bill Faith on September 27, 2006 at 12:12 AM in Bill Faith, Bill's Bites | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Tuesday, 26 September 2006
 

Bill's Bites -- 2006.09.26
Contributed by Bill Faith

The webmaster's blog-within-a-blog. Continuously updated, newest items at the top.

Please click here to learn more about The Phoenix Project, then click here to see a selection of Old War Dogs merchandise. All sales proceeds go to support The Phoenix Project.

"The Blog Of War," Blackfive's new best from the MilBlogs book, is now available for free download to enlisted military personnel.

Destitute Dog -- Please read this and help if you can.

• 2006.09.27.00:23

Bill's Bites -- 2006.09.26

• 21:53

The MSM’s Official Irresponsibility Act
Bruce Kesler

The hysterical editorial in the San Diego Union-Tribune this morning is typical of the half-truths and deceptive practices within the MSM that has brought it so low in respect for its reliability and, consequently, its profitability and viability.

Titled “A Soviet secrets act,” as purposely inflammatory a headline as the editorialist can imagine, the editorial rails against the Senate Bill 3774 that (the editorial only mentions Senator Bond) Senators Chris Bond, Lott, Chambliss, Stevens, Cochran, Burns, Hatch, Santorum, Cornyn, Domenici, Bennett and Alexander introduced last summer, with the endorsement of the 4,500-member current and former Association for Intelligence Officers.

For fairness, more than the editorial considers appropriate, the entire editorial is below. Then we’ll add what the editorial doesn’t consider relevant for the public to know. That epitomizes the abuse of position and public trust and ears that the MSM has fallen to, in effect, demands for official irresponsibility both on the part of government officials to whom we entrust our very lives and on the part of leaders in media who expect it’s their right to ignore that trust. ...

• 21:40

Video: Hill defends Bill, says “my husband did a great job”

[video link]

At a press conference early today Senator Hillary Clinton defended Slick Willy’s actions to prevent 9/11:

“I think my husband did a great job in demonstrating that Democrats are not going to take these attacks,” she said. “All you have to do is read the 9/11 Commission [Report] to know what he and his administration did to protect Americans and prevent terrorist attacks against our country.” ...

TV commentator defends Pope,
rips Islamic violence, slams liberal apologists

Guess.

The pope’s comment was ironically borne out by the reaction to it; Rosie O’Donnell’s false analogy was also borne out by the (non-)reaction to it. It seems perhaps the wrong person has apologized…

It’s a curious world where [some] liberals decline to focus condemnation on a violent reaction perpetrated in the name of a religious ideology (Islam) that jails women for being raped or declares it legal for women to be murdered in the streets by angry male relatives. Even stranger to side against a religious ideology (Catholicism) that has vigorously opposed the Iraq war, torture, the mistreatment of detainees, and the death penalty…

[T]he idea that Islamic culture would be pristine but for the interference of ugly America is an analysis that ignores how repressive Islamic governments can be even with their own people. ...

Islamist parasite places online personals ad

He’s looking for love, and by “love” I of course mean three more wives:

Although already married with three children and reportedly living off £700 a month in state benefits, the 31-year-old is seeking more wives, with the intention of fathering more than nine children.

On the site MuslimIntro.com, Brooks — using his Muslim name Abu Izzadeen — describes himself as the “life of thee party” and admits to watching “a lot” of Al-Jazeera TV, the satellite network which has broadcast video messages from Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda.

He says he is looking for a “second, third or fourth wife” and does not care about their ages as long as they are older than 16 and younger than 40…

Video Flashback:
Clinton points finger at Jennings, enraged at moral questioning

Last week’s edition of FOX News Sunday was not the first time Bill Clinton jabbed his finger, blamed a network for his problems, and not take any personal responsibility. And it will certainly not be the last. The former President sparred with the late Peter Jennings during a 2004 interview at the Clinton library.

[video link]

Jennings, who passed away last year, received rage after noting Clinton was ranked 41 (out of 41) for moral authority by a C-SPAN organized panel occupied by 58 historians. He responded “they were wrong about that” because “they were wrong about that”. Clinton then went on to wagging his finger at Jennings saying “you don’t have any example where I ever lied to the American people about my job”, to only conclude that he doesn’t “really care what they [the American people” think”. Jennings stopped him right in his tracks and confidently voiced “oh yes you do”, Clinton responds “you don’t want to go there, Peter”. ...

• 17:02

DNI posts NIE on website (H/T)

Get it while it’s hot.

I recommend saving the doc. Their server could get dicey once Drudge links.

Update: People are already having trouble with the DNI site so I went ahead and put it on our server. Download here.

Update: Strong horse/weak horse. ...

• 16:51

Video: Karzai responds to reporter’s question about terrorism;
Update: Reporter was left-wing shill Jennifer Loven (H/T))

We’ve gotten four or five requests for this since it aired this morning. It’s not so much what he says as how he says it: the long pauses, the look of utter incredulity that an educated person — from New York City, no less — might not still appreciate the stakes five years later.

You’ll find the clip at the end of this sequence, which also features Bush’s angry comments about the NIE leak. Rarely has he been so blunt in his criticism of the press. ...

• 16:27

Bloggers gather at White House for pork bill signing;
Update: Video added; Update: Ace spotted; Update: Mary K spotted
Allahpundit

I was taping three different cable news networks at 9:45 this morning in hopes that they might look in briefly on this moronic event, and that within that shot they’d inexplicably pan from Bush to the crowd so we might catch a glimpse of Instapundit, Mary K, and/or Ace.

They’re all in attendance today. Others of us are not. Thus are enemies made. ...

Fox News Derangement Syndrome

Taking the cue from the Democrats' Finger-Jabber-In-Chief. Barbara Boxer gets all Clinton on Fox News with the always gracious Jane Skinner.

And then there was that execrable MSNBC pig daring to call Chris Wallace a "monkey."

Fox's 10th anniversary is just around the corner, ...

Pushback: NRO questions Sabato’s racism charges against Allen
Allahpundit

I said yesterday it sounded like Sabato had heard Allen use the N-word himself. This quote suggests otherwise:

“My sources are former classmates who came to me with stories that matched up,” Sabato said late Monday night. “I never solicited them. They came to me during the past few months.”

How does that square with what Sabato told Chris Matthews last night on Hardball, wonders Greg Pollowitz.

• 16:17

The Secret of Ramona
Contributed by George Mellinger

One of the benefits of the collapse of the Soviet Union has been a tremendous opening of information, as thousands of Russians devote themselves to "filling in the white pages" of their past. Much of this concerns the remoter period of Lenin and Stalin. Sometimes the revelations extend into the very recent past. There have also been a small host of independent military analysts and reporters who take their inspiration from the independent commentators and organizations in the U.S.A. Some of these men, such as Pavel Felgengauer have gained a certain following in the West, while others such as the appropriately named Andrei Soldatov remain relatively unknown.

My non-OWD life is devoted to the history of Soviet military aviation, particularly its pilots. But sometimes I find other materials which just seem too interesting, or too important to let them slide past me.  ...

Just nuke the damned thing
Contributed by Bill Faith

AZ 9/11 memorial: back to the drawing board? 
Michelle Malkin 

Iowahawk spoofs the first draft of the AZ 9/11 memorial:

[image]

Ha.

We take a serious look at the controversy in today's Vent.

Arizona's GOP candidate for governor, Len Munsil, is going on the offensive: ...

• 15:37

Swift Program Auditor Found No Abuses

The independent auditing company hired by the government to review the intel program that gathered data from the Swift banking concern found no abuses. The New York Times buried the lede at the seventh paragraph -- the end of the seventh paragraph -- in a story that focuses on European complaints about the legality of the program even while they decline to end it: ..

Brits Take Out Osama Protege

Omar al-Farouq had quite an adventurous career as an al-Qaeda terrorist. He had joined AQ in the heady days of the early 1990s, training in Aghanistan and eventually rising in the organization until Osama bin Laden handpicked him to run the AQ network in Southeast Asia. Captured by the Americans in 2002, he escaped last year and fulfilled American expectations by running to Iraq. The adventure came to an end yesterday in Basra: ...

Taliban Assassinates Womens-Rights Campaigner

Taliban assassins shot and killed one of Afghanistan's leading reformers for womens' rights , Safia Ama Jan. It isn't as if Jan was sunbathing at the time, either -- they shot her through her burka on her way to her job as Kandahar's Womens' Affairs director: ...

The Secret Suspenders

Iran has agreed in principle to suspend its uranium-enrichment program while negotiating with the West over the future of their nuclear program, but there's a new catch. According to the Washington Times, Iran has insisted that the suspension be kept secret: ...

Rice Strikes Back

Condoleezza Rice stepped out of character for just a moment yesterday and responded forcefully to allegations Bill Clinton made during his Fox News Sunday interview with Chris Wallace. The New York Post reports that the Secretary of State allowed herself a rare moment of anger when defending herself against Clinton's attacks on the Bush administration:

Rice hammered Clinton, who leveled his charges in a contentious weekend interview with Chris Wallace of Fox News Channel, for his claims that the Bush administration "did not try" to kill Osama bin Laden in the eight months they controlled the White House before the Sept. 11 attacks.

"The notion somehow for eight months the Bush administration sat there and didn't do that is just flatly false - and I think the 9/11 commission understood that," Rice said during a wide-ranging meeting with Post editors and reporters. ...

Deer In The Headlights

The stories accusing George Allen of using the N-word continue to look stranger and stranger. Yesterday's revelation that Larry Sabato, Virginia's most well-known political scientist, joined another former Allen classmate, Christopher Taylor, in publicly accusing Allen of using the racial epithet. However, these sourcings have also begun to look rather peculiar. Now Sabato appears to be backing away from his first-person claim, telling Chris Matthews that he was relaying information from other sources and declining to identify them: ...

• 15:14

Scheuer, Townsend call BS
on Clinton’s alleged Afghan invasion plan

The “invasion” plan, according to Scheuer, was vintage Billy Jeff: airstrikes, a few cruise missiles maybe, then cross your fingers. More:

Scheuer, who wrote the book “Imperial Hubris,” said he met every 10 days with top members of Clinton’s anti-terror team and plans for an invasion were never presented or discussed…

Fran Townsend, a former top intelligence adviser in Clinton’s Justice Department and now Bush’s anti-terror czar, rolled her eyes when asked about Clinton’s invasion plan.

“There were lots of things that seemed new” in Clinton’s recollections on Fox, Townsend said…

Video:
Hirsi Ali tells Rushdie, “Forgive me for wanting to burn your book”

The best three minutes you’ll spend today. Thanks to Sugiero, my source for one-stop shopping on all things Hirsi Ali.

Click the image to watch the solution. Click here to see the problem.

[video link]

More (Bryan): ...

Video: Boxer gets snotty with Skinner on Fox News

Looks like it’s open season on FNC for Democratic pols now that Billy Jeff’s given his blessing. Amazing — even when they’re being confrontational they come off as riding his coattails.

Here’s right-wing attack dog Jane Skinner doing “a nice little conservative hit job” on poor Senator Botox by noting that the president disagrees with her. I’m outraged!

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Update: Here’s a screencap of that raised brow Skinner gives her at the end of the clip. Hilarious.

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• 14:15

White House to declassify NIE after leak?
Update: Bush says key judgments will be declassified

Maybe, and with good reason if so. Go read Spook 86, who’s had select quotes from the NIE provided to him by his contacts in the intel community. Odd that “Threats to the U.S. are intrinsically linked to U.S. success or failure in Iraq” didn’t make it into the New York Times’s article. Or into Howard Dean’s statement, which expresses an admirable ardor in wanting to fight Fox News reporters but not so much jihadis in the Sunni triangle. ...

Call the leakers' bluff;
update: Bush to release NIE

***originally posted 752am...bumping this back to the top...11am Eastern - White House says it is considering declassifying the NIE...1210pm new update: Bush will release parts of the report...video...***

President Bush on Tuesday said it is naive and a mistake to think that the war with Iraq has worsened terrorism, disputing a national intelligence assessment by his own administration. He said he was declassifying part of the report.

"Some people have guessed what's in the report and concluded that going into Iraq was a mistake. I strongly disagree," Bush said.

He asserted that portions of the classified report that had been leaked were done so for political purposes, referring to the Nov. 7 midterm elections. ...

Time To Release The NIE

The National Intelligence Estimate leak to the New York Times has given the Democrats yet another election-time club with which to beat Republicans, the Washington Post reports. The selective quotes have made their way into campaign speeches criticizing the Iraq War, and they hope to use them to maximum effect in their fading hopes of capturing either chamber of Congress:

A classified National Intelligence Estimate, completed in April but disclosed in news reports over the weekend, offers the U.S. intelligence community's first formal evaluation of global trends in terrorism since the April 2003 invasion of Iraq. U.S. officials said the report concludes that the Iraq war has fueled the growth of Islamic extremism and terror groups, but White House officials responded that the reports reflected a selective and distorted interpretation of the study.

Pelosi: Behind closed doors

Hmm:

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi asked her colleagues Tuesday to close the House's doors for a highly unusual secret session to discuss a classified intelligence analysis on global terrorism.

Such a session hasn't happened in the House since July 1983, when the chamber went into a closed session to discuss the United States' support for paramilitary operations in Nicaragua. ...

*** 14:37

Islam Fanatics Didn’t Hate Us Before Iraq?
Curt [at Flopping Aces]

I find it curious that the recent leaks to the Post and the Times about the National Intelligence Estimate recently issued seem to say that because of the Iraqi war we have more terrorists then we did before:

[...]

So let me see…..fanatics inside Islam didn’t hate us as much prior to the Iraqi invasion? Ok then, please explain 9/11 itself. Why were we attacked with such viciousness and violence if there really wasnt that much radicalism? How about the Afghanistan invasion, they were a little bit miffed about that also. The Danish cartoons? Our support for Israel? Our support for the Saudi royal family? ...

• 12:57

MURTHA in Trouble?
Contributed by 1stCav

Murtha is now in a hellava fight for his seat in PA district 12. Some of our pack of Old War Dogs are helping to make a difference. Keep up the good work this weekend Dogs!. Wish I could be there. Two active duty Marine nephews are telling me that their respective units totally despise Murtha. That fits with the overwhelming majority of veterans and other active duty troops informally polled. Article is HERE. Diana Irey is pulling very close to defeating the once thought well entrenched and funded Murtha.

• 01:01

Remembering Sister Leonella
Michelle Malkin

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To borrow a phrase from Rush Limbaugh, the "drive-by media" gave a few hours' attention to the victims of jihadists' Pope Rage last weekend and then quickly moved on to the next headline.

I think the murder of Sister Leonella deserves a few more seconds of your time. The latest on her case:

Three people have been arrested in connection with the murder of Italian Consolata missionary Sister Leonella Sgorbati Sept. 17.

The announcement was made by Sheikh Yusuf Mohamed Siad, security representative of the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), which since June 4 controls Mogadishu and a large part of Somalia.

The remains of Sister Sgorbati, 65, were interred on Sept. 21 at Nazareth Hospital cemetery in Kiambu, Kenya, where she once worked as a nurse.

"We have three men in custody; one is a suspect in the killing and two are being held as witnesses", stated Siad Sept. 21, according to the missionary news agency MISNA.

Security forces of the courts are on the tracks "of a second gunman suspected of involvement in the killing," the UIC official said.

Eyewitness accounts indicate that two gunmen opened fire on Sister Sgorbati and her guard Mohammed Mahmud as they crossed the road between the pediatrics hospital and the SOS Village for children in Mogadishu. ...

Line-Item Veto Presser To Pressure The Senate

Now that we have won major battles on the federal spending database and the new House rules on identifying earmarkers, we still have one more effort to shepherd to victory. The group Citizens Against Government Waste will hold a press conference this week in order to put pressure on the Senate to pass the line-item veto bill passed by the House last June. The Senate version, S.2381, has been stalled since May, and with the legislative session winding down, time may start running out for the new line-item veto. ...

• 00:54

A hit piece takes more hits
Paul Mirengoff

Rajiv Chandrasekaran's hit piece on the Bush administration's Iraq reaconsturction program -- "Ties To GOP Trumped Know-How Among Staff Sent to Rebuild Iraq" -- was unpersuasive on its face. Before long, moreover, we learned that Chandrasekaran failed to get simple facts (those pertaining to Simone Ledeen) at the core of his story straight because he didn't bother to check them with Ms. Ledeen.

Now Pat Cleary gives us "the rest of the story" on another of Chandrasekaran's targets -- Jim Haveman, who oversaw the reconstruction of Iraq's health care system. Haveman was never going to be much of a poster person for Chandrasekaran's thesis that the administration ignored qualifications and focused on political loyalty. He had been the director of International Aid, a faith-based relief organization that provided health care overseas, and also Michigan's community health director. And his only tie to the GOP, so far as Chandrasekaran claimed, was his connection with the well-regarded Republican Governor of Michigan (John Engler) for whom he served.

But Cleary takes the discussion of Haveman credentials one step further. He writes: ...

Paper tiger?
Paul Mirengoff

For quite some time, I've been arguing that there are only two alternatives when it comes to Iran -- sit back and watch the Mullahs develop a nuclear weapons capacity within a fairly short period of time or set back Iran's nuclear program through military strikes and continue to strike thereafter, as necessary. Both options carry huge potential disadvantages, and it has never been entirely clear to me which one is less ruinous and thus preferable.

Fareed Zakaria has no such doubts. In fact, he doesn't think we have anything to fear from a nuclear Iran. Why not? Well, China developed nuclear weapons and it hasn't used them nor, according to Zakaria, has it even been able to leverage these weapons into regional domination. Moreover, Zakaria assures us, "Iran's fortunes will wane" as "Arab regimes. . .get more assertive in responding to the rise of Irananian power."

I find these arguments unpersuasive. ...

What Else Was In the NIE Report?
John Hinderaker

In my addendum to this post by Paul, I repeated a point I've made several times before: one of the sinister aspects of leaks of classified information is that they are by nature selective. The leaker has access to lots of material, but he doesn't leak it all: he only leaks what he thinks will best serve his political agenda. The recent leaks of alleged conclusions from the National Intelligence Estimate that was completed last spring is a perfect case in point. Paul and I talked about an article in the Washington Post by a reporter who obviously had not read the report. All she could do was pass on the Democrat leaker's spin. Which, in all likelihood, she was happy to do.

But what does the report really say? In From the Cold, a web site operated by a former intelligence officer with 20 years' experience, has obtained access to portions, at least, of the intelligence agencies' report. If you are interested in this story, you should read it all. Here are a few excerpts: ...

• 00:35

Video: Michelle talks Clinton on O’Reilly
Allahpundit

This was the first time I’ve had to poke around inside the video clip for more than a few seconds to find a good screencap of the boss. The subject was, after all, Billy Jeff, so her expression for most of the segment was like this:

[image]

Which happened to be exactly the same expression most American conservatives had while watching that interview yesterday.

She pulled it together, though, and knifed him with a smile. ...

Video:
Olbermann calls Chris Wallace a “monkey posing as a newscaster”

And a “bully.” Which, let us admit, is simply divine in its irony.

Watching this douche clumsily trying to channel his paranoid rage into lofty rhetoric has been one of the true joys of blogging these past few weeks. There’s nothing so pathetic, or entertaining, as someone stupid trying to sound smart; the fact that it’s happening on national TV every night makes it almost too good to be true. ...

Video: Larry Sabato tells
Chris Matthews that George Allen used the N-word

He refuses to say how he knows but it sure sounds like he’s heard him use it himself. FYI, he was a classmate of Allen’s at UVA before going on to Princeton, then to Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, then on to fame as a political scientist and commentator. ...

• 2006.09.26:00:08

Bill's Bite's 2006.09.25

Contributed by Bill Faith on September 26, 2006 at 12:08 AM in Bill Faith, Bill's Bites | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Monday, 25 September 2006
 

Bill's Bites -- 2006.09.25
Contributed by Bill Faith

The webmaster's blog-within-a-blog. Continuously updated, newest items at the top.

Please click here to learn more about The Phoenix Project, then click here to see a selection of Old War Dogs merchandise. All sales proceeds go to support The Phoenix Project.

Destitute Dog -- Please read this and help if you can.

• 2006.09.26.00:10

Bill's Bites -- 2006.09.26

• 19:56

• 17:18

'A Rather Hyperactive Imagination'

The campaign for Senate in Virginia has descended into one of the most mud-filled dirty contests in recent history. Not since the nomination of Clarence Thomas has a political campaign stooped as low as have the supporters of Jim Webb against incumbent George Allen. Ken Shelton, one of Allen's long-time critics and once a college-football teammate of Allen, suddenly recalled -- after several years of opposing Allen politically -- that Allen regularly used a particularly vile racial epithet during his years at the University of Virginia:

[...]

Allegations this explosive would require responsible publications to get more than one source on the record. Michael Scherer and Salon failed to find even one other source to go public, nor did they reveal that Shelton's political activities put him in opposition to Allen. Instead, they used Shelton and two supposedly frightened and anonymous UV alums to publish these scurrilous charges. ...

Video: Napolitano fact-checks the hell out of Clinton’s legal argument

From yesterday’s interview:

If you can criticize me for one thing, you can criticize me for this, after the Cole I had battle plans drawn to go into Afghanistan, overthrow the Taliban, and launch a full scale attack search for Bin Laden. But we needed baseing rights in Uzbekistan which we got after 9/11. The CIA and the FBI refused to certify that Bin Laden was responsible while I was there. They refused to certify. So that meant I would have had to send a few hundred special forces in helicopters