Monday, November 22, 2004

An excellent cause





Dan Gillmor, of the San Jose Mercury News, say of Spirit of America, "a Web-based humanitarian project that almost anyone can endorse, regardless of one's stance on the... war."

Panic button



Click here for AmazonIf your boss just rounded the bend and is headed into your cube, office, or workspace, click here now.

Sunday, November 21, 2004

A recommendation for financial web sites



Click here for AmazonThe financial sites I visit on a regular basis are all missing a simple gadget that would dramatically (IMO) improve security. When I visit a financial site (e.g., a brokerage, bank, insurance company, etc.), I want to see the following message on the screen when I log in:

Hello, Doug. You last logged in on November 15, 2004 at 12:30PM ET from IP address 24.1.2.3.


With all of the phishing, keyboard logging and related scams underway on the 78% of machines polluted with some form of malware (warning: 78% is an unofficial guess), I think a no-nonsense confirmation of your last logon is well worthwhile.

It's in everyone's best interests to implement this relatively simple facility. And it's only the bad actors who would want to omit it.

Spreadsheets on the web



More info on Excel Web functionality: here.


Europe's Civil War



Click here for Amazon...There are 1 million Muslims (6 percent of the population) now living in Europe's most crowded small country [the Netherlands]. Some 30,000 new Muslims arrive every year. They tend to live among themselves, with their own schools, mosques and restaurants. Most are horrified by what they view as sacrilegious in their own religion. Their imams speak no Dutch and know nothing of the Netherlands' history and culture.

Western Europe as a whole gets about half a million new Muslims a year. Most make their way from sub-Saharan and North Africa, illegal immigrants smuggled by boat to Spain and Italy where they are free to travel with impunity to the rest of Europe. Thus, Europe's Muslim population has doubled to 20 million in the last 10 years...

...What Dutch filmmaker and columnist Theo Van Gogh saw as the shabby treatment of females throughout the Muslim community led him to produce documentaries that portrayed Muslim men as tormentors of women, especially their wives. One recent scathingly critical Van Gogh film carried the message that Islam promotes violence against women.

ON Nov. 2, Van Gogh, a grandnephew of the painter, was shot as he cycled to work. He managed to get up and stagger across the street to his building where he collapsed. The assailant followed him and slit his throat before pinning to his chest with a knife a five-page manifesto that called on Muslims to rise against the "infidel enemies" in the West.

Dutch security authorities launched a nationwide manhunt for the murderer of the popular Van Gogh. A hand grenade injured four policemen as they went after two suspects in a working-class district of The Hague. Air space over the capital was closed for a day as Dutch Special Forces lay siege to a building and the two surrendered after a 14-hour standoff. Ten others were [also] arrested...

...Last summer, a last will and testament was found when an 18-year-old man of Moroccan-born parents was arrested for plotting terrorist attacks in the Netherlands. The list of targets included the Dutch parliament, Schiphol and the nuclear reactor at Borssele. Floor plans of several public buildings were also found. The former student wrote in his will he wants his newborn son to live "in the spirit of jihad."

...Islamist extremists even penetrated the Dutch intelligence service with a double agent. One officer was arrested last September. The government hastily drafted a Patriot Act-like law that enables it to strip citizens of their citizenship and deport them if they engage in extremist acts.

COULD the Netherlands be a curtain- raiser for a wider clash of civilizations in the old continent?

Hundreds of thousands of young Muslims in Europe are potential jihadis, according to European intelligence chiefs speaking not for publication...


Europe's Civil War

Saturday, November 20, 2004

War Crimes?



Click here for Amazon...As the Marines burst into one of the rooms inside the mosque, they found four terrorists -- one dead and three wounded. In the video that has now been seen around the world, one of the battle-weary Marines points his weapon at one of the enemy combatants lying against the wall and shouts, "He's (expletive) faking he's dead. He's faking he's (expletive) dead." An instant later, the Marine raises his rifle and fires into the insurgent's head. Immediately thereafter, another Marine can be heard saying, "Well, he's dead now."

For American broadcasts, the actual shot is "blacked out." But when the tape airs on Al Jazeera, Al Arabiya, Lebanon TV and other Arab media outlets, nothing is left to the imagination. Unfortunately, neither version is accurate -- though both are very troubling. Like so much of what's on television today, only the goriest, most sensational portion of the tape has aired. As a consequence, "the rest of the story"... has been lost in the clamor created by 15 seconds of videotape.

Only a few have seen the footage shot the day before -- providing irrefutable evidence that the mosque was a well-defended arms depot. And fewer still have viewed the very next sequence after "the shooting," which shows two Marines pointing their weapons at another combatant lying motionless. Suddenly, one of the Marines jumps back as the terrorist stretches out his hand, motioning that he is alive. Neither Marine opens fire.

According to the Marines, a Navy medical corpsman was then summoned to treat the two wounded prisoners. In his original written report, Sites, the correspondent who videotaped the shooting, doesn't mention the medical treatment provided to the injured enemy combatants, but he does note that four of the combatants were some of those who had been left behind from the firefight on Friday. If the NBC reporter knew that from being there the day before, why didn't he tell this new group of Marines before they rushed into the room?

None of that is included in the tape, which is now being used to raise Islamic ire at the "American invader." Why? And why did it take more than a day to learn that the Marine seen shooting on the videotape had been wounded in the face the day before if the correspondent knew that when he filed the videotape? Why didn't the original story include the fact that a Marine in the same unit had been killed 24 hours earlier while searching the booby-trapped dead body of a terrorist? ...


War Crimes?

H-hour has arrived



Click here for Amazon...Iran has been gaming the system. It has pushed to the limits all feasible interpretation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, of which it is a signatory, to enable it to reach the cusp of nuclear weapons development without breaking its ties or diminishing its leverage over the Europeans as well as the Russians and Chinese. In so doing, it has isolated the US and Israel – which have both gone on record that Iran must not be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons – from the rest of the international community, which is ready to enable Iran to achieve nuclear weapons capabilities.

In the meantime, as Iran has negotiated the deal with the Europeans, it has moved quickly to develop its nuclear weapons delivery systems. Its recent Shihab-3 ballistic missiles tests seem to have demonstrated that Iran can now launch missiles to as far away as Europe. In addition, last week's launching of an Iranian drone, as well as this week's Katyusha rocket attacks on northern Israel, have shown that Iran has developed a panoply of delivery options for using its nuclear (as well as chemical and biological) arsenals to physically destroy Israel.

...So where does this leave [Israel] who, in the event that Iran goes nuclear, will face the threat of annihilation? Crunch time has arrived. It is time for Israel's leaders to go to Washington and ask the Americans point blank if they plan to defend Europe as Europe defends Iran's ability to attain the wherewithal to destroy the Jewish state. It must be made very clear to the White House that the hour of diplomacy faded away with the European Trio's latest ridiculous agreement with the mullahs. There is no UN option. Europe has cast its lot with the enemy of civilization itself...


H-hour has arrived

Friday, November 19, 2004

Live from Fallujah



Click here for AmazonWith the liberation of Fallujah and the fall of the jihadist regime in the town, it is apparent that American media intend to keep their story on message: the message being that the U.S. military operation there has failed and that Fallujans, and Iraqis in general, still hate the intervention forces.

At the same time, other reports tell a more significant and eloquent story: the jihadists had set up a Taliban-style dictatorship, in which women who did not cover their entire bodies, people listening to music, and members of spiritual Sufi orders -- that is, ordinary Fallujans -- were subject to torture and execution.

The Fallujans have learned the same lesson the Shias learned before them, and the Afghans before them: U.S. boots on Muslim soil may be onerous, but American military action is preferable to the unspeakably vicious criminality of Islamist extremists financed, recruited, and otherwise encouraged by Wahhabism...

...The London Times on Monday, November 15, described Fallujah as "terrorized" by the jihadists, who posted notices ordering death sentences on walls and poles throughout the streets. "Mutilated bodies dumped on Fallujah's bombed out streets today painted a harrowing picture of eight months of rebel rule," it began. The characteristically arbitrary, if not insane tone of Wahhabi/Taliban "governance" was clearly in evidence: An order dated November 1 "gives vendors three days to remove nine market stalls from outside the city's library or face execution. The pretext given is that the rebels wanted to convert the building into a headquarters for the 'Mujahidin Advisory Council' through which they ran the city."

Orders to conform to Wahhabi "virtue" were backed up by graphic examples: "An Arab woman, in a violet nightdress, lay in a post-mortem embrace with a male corpse in the middle of the street. Both bodies had died from bullets to the head… Many of the residents who emerged from the ruins welcomed the U.S. marines, despite the massive destruction their firepower had inflicted on their city. A man in his sixties, half-naked and his underwear stained with blood from shrapnel wounds, cursed the insurgents as he greeted the advancing marines on Saturday night.

'I wish the Americans had come here the very first day and not waited eight months,' he said, trembling. Nearby, a mosque courtyard had been used as a weapons store by the militants. Another elderly man, who did not want his name used for fear the rebels would one day return and restore their draconian rule, said he was detained by the militants last Tuesday and held for four days before being freed… 'It was horrible,' he told an Agence France-Presse reporter. 'We suffered from the bombings. Innocent people died or were wounded by the bombings. But we were happy you did what you did because Fallujah had been suffocated by the Mujahidin. Anyone considered suspicious would be slaughtered. We would see unknown corpses around the city all the time.'"

..."Even residents who regard themselves as observant Muslims lived in fear because they did not share the puritan brand of Sunni Islam that the insurgents enforced. One devotee of a Sufi sect, followers of a mystical form of worship deemed heretical by the hardliners, told how he and other members of his order had lived in terror inside their homes for fear of retribution...


Long Live Free Fallujah!

Fun with Photoshop



I am not sorry
I am not sorry


I am not sorry
I am not sorry


I am not sorry
I am not sorry


Thursday, November 18, 2004

1970: GM Warns Toyota on Market Trends



Click here for AmazonHugh Hewitt nails it, as usual. In dissecting the mainstream media's latest viewpoints on new media (talk radio, the blogosphere, and Fox News), Hugh ripostes thusly.

Fahri quotes Joe Scarborough blasting Sean Hannity for reading RNC "talking points" for the past four years and wondering how Hannity is going to fill three hours a day from here on out. Did it not occur to Fahri that Joe S. works for MSNBC and is a direct competitor of Hannity's television show, and thus might be less than a disinterested observer of how Hannity does his show or of its prospects moving forward? Yesterday Sean had on Janeane Garofalo for a rollicking couple of segments that made for great radio. Like me Hannity interviews newsmakers from both sides of the aisle. As long as there is a newscast on the networks there will be vibrant and growing talk shows.

Talk radio, like the blogosphere, has experienced explosive growth because vast numbers of Americans do not trust MSM --including the Washington Post-- to report the truth. This past election cycle, with Rathergate and the myth of the missing munitions have confirmed for that audience and many others that the Post etc are just extensions of the DNC. Until MSM reforms itself, the growth curve for talk radio --and the honest journalists who work within as opposed to the agenda journalists at 60 Minutes-- will do fine for the reason that Chronkite did fine for all those years. People want news from sources they trust.

They trust me, Paul, and they trust Sean and Laura and Rush and Dennis and Michael and Bill. They don't trust you.

It's the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, CBS, and all other biased media that should be worried, not talk radio. New media is gaining audience share; MSM is losing it. Fahri's article is like GM warning Toyota in 1970 to watch out for market trends.


Hugh Hewitt: GM Warns Toyota

Wednesday, November 17, 2004

The Fallujah Shooting from a Marine's Perspective



Click here for AmazonMatthew Heidt at Froggy Ruminations weighs in on the Fallujah shooting. Hat tip: LGF.

It’s a safety issue pure and simple. After assaulting through a target, put a security round in everybody’s head. Sorry al-Reuters, there’s no paddy wagon rolling around Fallujah picking up “prisoners” and offering them a hot cup a joe, falafel, and a blanket. There’s no time to dick around in the target, you clear the space, dump the chumps, and moveon.org. Are Corpsman expected to treat wounded terrorists? Negative. Hey libs, worried about the defense budget? Well, it would be waste, fraud, and abuse for a Corpsman to spend one man minute or a battle dressing on a terrorist, its much cheaper to just spend the $.02 on a 5.56mm FMJ.

By the way, terrorists who chop off civilian’s heads are not prisoners, they are carcasses.

UPDATE: Let me be very clear about this issue. I have looked around the web, and many people get this concept, but there are some stragglers. Here is your situation Marine. You just took fire from unlawful combatants shooting from a religious building attempting to use the sanctuary status of their position as protection. But you’re in Fallujah now, and the Marine Corps has decided that they’re not playing that game this time. That was Najaf. So you set the mosque on fire and you hose down the terrorists with small arms, launch some AT-4s (Rockets), some 40MM grenades into the building and things quiet down. So you run over there, and find some tangos wounded and pretending to be dead. You are aware that suicide martyrdom is like really popular with these kind of idiots, and like taking some Marines with them would be really cool. So you can either risk your life and your fireteam’s lives by having them cover you while you bend down and search a guy that you think is pretending to be dead for some reason. Also, you don’t know who or what is in the next room, and you’re already speaking english to each other and its loud because your hearing is poor from shooting people for several days. So you know that there are many other rooms to enter, and that if anyone is still alive in those rooms, they know that Americans are in the mosque. Meanwhile (3 seconds later), you still have this terrorist that was just shooting at you from a mosque playing possum. What do you do?

You double tap his head, and you go to the next room, that’s what.

What about the Geneva Conventions and all that Law of Land Warfare stuff? What about it. Without even addressing the issues at hand you first thought should be, “I’d rather be judged by 12 than carried by 6.” Bear in mind that this is a perpetual mindset that is reinforced by experiences gained on a minute by minute basis. Secondly, you are fighting an unlawful combatant in a Sanctuary which is a double No No on his part. Third, tactically you are in no position to take “prisoners” because there are more rooms to search and clear, and the behavior of said terrorist indicates that he is up to no good. No good in Fallujah is a very large place and the low end of no good and the high end of no good are fundamentally the same... Marines get hurt or die. So there is no compelling reason for you to do anything but double tap this idiot and get on with the mission.

If you are a veteran then everything I have just written is self evident, if you are not a veteran than at least try to put yourself in the situation. Remember, in Fallujah there is no yesterday, there is no tomorrow, there is only now. Right NOW. Have you ever lived in NOW for a week? It is not easy, and if you have never lived in NOW for longer than it takes to finish the big roller coaster at Six Flags, then shut your hole about putting Marines in jail for war crimes. Be advised, I am not talking to my readers, but if this post gets linked up, I want regular folks to get this message loud and clear. Froggy OUT.


Froggy Ruminations

Update on the Fallujah Shooting



From Powerline, an email sent by a Marine in the 11th MEU:

This is one story of many that people normally don't hear, and one that everyone does.

This is one most don't hear:
A young Marine and his cover man cautiously enter a room just recently filled with insurgents armed with Ak-47's and RPG's. There are three dead, another wailing in pain. The insurgent can be heard saying, "Mister, mister! Diktoor, diktoor(doctor)!" He is badly wounded, lying in a pool of his own blood. The Marine and his cover man slowly walk toward the injured man, scanning to make sure no enemies come from behind. In a split second, the pressure in the room greatly exceeds that of the outside, and the concussion seems to be felt before the blast is heard. Marines outside rush to the room, and look in horror as the dust gradually settles. The result is a room filled with the barely recognizable remains of the deceased, caused by an insurgent setting off several pounds of explosives.

The Marines' remains are gathered by teary eyed comrades, brothers in arms, and shipped home in a box. The families can only mourn over a casket and a picture of their loved one, a life cut short by someone who hid behind a white flag.

But no one hears these stories, except those who have lived to carry remains of a friend, and the families who loved the dead. No one hears this, so no one cares.

This is the story everyone hears:

A young Marine and his fire team cautiously enter a room just recently filled with insurgents armed with AK-47's and RPG's. There are three dead, another wailing in pain. The insugent can be heard saying, "Mister, mister! Diktoor, diktoor(doctor)!" He is badly wounded. Suddenly, he pulls from under his bloody clothes a grenade, without the pin. The explosion rocks the room, killing one Marine, wounding the others. The young Marine catches shrapnel in the face.

The next day, same Marine, same type of situation, a different story. The young Marine and his cover man enter a room with two wounded insurgents. One lies on the floor in puddle of blood, another against the wall. A reporter and his camera survey the wreckage inside, and in the background can be heard the voice of a Marine, "He's moving, he's moving!"

The pop of a rifle is heard, and the insurgent against the wall is now dead. Minutes, hours later, the scene is aired on national television, and the Marine is being held for commiting a war crime. Unlawful killing.

And now, another Marine has the possibility of being burned at the stake for protecting the life of his brethren. His family now wrings their hands in grief, tears streaming down their face. Brother, should I have been in your boots, i too would have done the same.

For those of you who don't know, we Marines, Band of Brothers, Jarheads, Leathernecks, etc., do not fight because we think it is right, or think
it is wrong. We are here for the man to our left, and the man to our right. We choose to give our lives so that the man or woman next to us can go home and see their husbands, wives, children, friends and families.

For those of you who sit on your couches in front of your television, and choose to condemn this man's actions, I have but one thing to say to you. Get out of your recliner, lace up my boots, pick up a rifle, leave your family behind and join me. See what I've seen, walk where I have walked. To those of you who support us, my sincerest gratitude. You keep us alive.

I am a Marine currently doing his second tour in Iraq. These are my opinions and mine alone. They do not represent those of the Marine Corps or of the US military, or any other.


The Ashcroft Legacy



Click here for AmazonJonah Goldberg: 'By conventional standards, [John] Ashcroft was among the best attorney generals in American history. Violent crime dropped 27 percent on his watch, reaching a 30-year low. Federal gun crime prosecutions rose 75 percent, and gun crimes dropped -- something that should please liberals. By unconventional standards his service was heroic. There hasn't been a single terrorist attack since 9/11, despite all predictions by experts and efforts by terrorists to the contrary. Ashcroft was willing to take gross abuse to do what was necessary.'


What a country!



Click here for AmazonEver heard of Yuta Tabuse? Didn't think so. For an unspecified prize (which very well could be an all-expenses-paid breakfast at Waffle House), is Yuta Tabuse...

a) The new head of Homeland's Security's Computer Division?
b) The next-generation snow tire from Cooper Tire?
c) Master Scientist Nikola Tesla's protege?
d) The first person born in Japan to make an NBA roster?

The answer is D.

Tuesday, November 16, 2004

Mujahidin terrorised Fallujah, residents say



Click here for AmazonHat Tip: LGF.

Mutilated bodies dumped on Fallujah's bombed out streets today painted a harrowing picture of eight months of rebel rule.

As US and Iraqi troops mopped up the last vestiges of resistance in the city after a week of bombardment and fighting, residents who stayed on through last week's offensive were emerging and telling harrowing tales of the brutality they endured.

Flyposters still litter the walls bearing all manner of decrees from insurgent commanders, to be heeded on pain of death. Amid the rubble of the main shopping street, one decree bearing the insurgents' insignia - two Kalashnikovs propped together - and dated November 1 gives vendors three days to remove nine market stalls from outside the city's library or face execution.

The pretext given is that the rebels wanted to convert the building into a headquarters for the "Mujahidin Advisory Council" through which they ran the city.

Another poster in the ruins of the souk bears testament to the strict brand of Sunni Islam imposed by the council, fronted by hardline cleric Abdullah Junabi. The decree warns all women that they must cover up from head to toe outdoors, or face execution by the armed militants who controlled the streets.

Two female bodies found yesterday suggest such threats were far from idle. An Arab woman, in a violet nightdress, lay in a post-mortem embrace with a male corpse in the middle of the street. Both bodies had died from bullets to the head.

Just six metres away on the same street lay the decomposing corpse of a blonde-haired white woman, too disfigured for swift identification but presumed to be the body of one of the many foreign hostages kidnapped by the rebels...


Mujahidin terrorised Fallujah, residents say

Monday, November 15, 2004

Iran: the elephant in the room



Click here for AmazonFor a long time, people like myself and a great, great, many others have been talking at length about the fact that the Islamic "Republic" of Iran poses a dangerous threat to the United States, both inside Iraq and worldwide. I noted nearly a year ago and continue to stand by my belief that if the United States suffers a major terrorist attack, nuclear or otherwise, Iran is almost certain to be singled out for US retaliation by virtue of the regime's decisions. Wretchard noted the grim reality of the situation and unfortunately little has occurred to change that analysis over the last year.

Yet one of the things that people continue to ask me is, if all of this is true, where is the evidence from government officials?


Read it!

Saturday, November 13, 2004

Bin Laden receives religious authority to use Nukes



Click here for AmazonThe former head of the CIA's Osama Bin Laden unit indicates that: (a) Al Qaeda has secured religious sanction to use nuclear weapons against Americans; and (b) the threat posed by bin Laden is underestimated:

Osama bin Laden now has religious approval to use a nuclear device against Americans, says the former head of the CIA unit charged with tracking down the Saudi terrorist. The former agent, Michael Scheuer, speaks to Steve Kroft in his first television interview without disguise to be broadcast on 60 MINUTES Sunday, Nov. 14 (7:00-8:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network.

Scheuer was until recently known as the "anonymous" author of two books critical of the West's response to bin Laden and al Qaeda, the most recent of which is titled Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror. No one in the West knows more about the Qaeda leader than Scheuer, who has tracked him since the mid-1980s. The CIA allowed him to write the books provided he remain anonymous, but now is allowing him to reveal himself for the first time on Sunday's broadcast; he formally leaves the Agency today (12).

Even if bin Laden had a nuclear weapon, he probably wouldn't have used it for a lack of proper religious authority - authority he has now. "[Bin Laden] secured from a Saudi sheik...a rather long treatise on the possibility of using nuclear weapons against the Americans," says Scheuer. "[The treatise] found that he was perfectly within his rights to use them. Muslims argue that the United States is responsible for millions of dead Muslims around the world, so reciprocity would mean you could kill millions of Americans," Scheuer tells Kroft.

Scheuer says bin Laden was criticized by some Muslims for the 9/11 attack because he killed so many people without enough warning and before offering to help convert them to Islam. But now bin Laden has addressed the American people and given fair warning. "They're intention is to end the war as soon as they can and to ratchet up the pain for the Americans until we get out of their region....If they acquire the weapon, they will use it, whether it's chemical, biological or some sort of nuclear weapon," says Scheuer.

As the head of the CIA unit charged with tracking bin Laden from 1996 to 1999, Scheuer says he never had enough people to do the job right. He blames former CIA Director George Tenet. "One of the questions that should have been asked of Mr. Tenet was why were there always enough people for the public relations office, for the academic outreach office, for the diversity and multi-cultural office? All those things are admirable and necessary but none of them are protecting the American people from a foreign threat," says Scheuer.

And the threat posed by bin Laden is also underestimated, says Scheuer. "I think our leaders over the last decade have done the American people a disservice...continuing to characterize Osama bin Laden as a thug, as a gangster," he says. "Until we respect him, sir, we are going to die in numbers that are probably unnecessary, yes. He's a very, very talented man and a very worthy opponent," he tells Kroft.

Until today (12), Scheuer was a senior official in the CIA's counter terrorism unit and a special advisor to the head of the agency's bin Laden unit.


RELIGIOUS APPROVAL TO USE A NUCLEAR BOMB AGAINST AMERICANS

Thursday, November 11, 2004

Dude, Where's my Votes?



Click here for AmazonMan, I was so happy with our win, but then I found out that places like Democratic Underground are arguing that Bush stole the election once again. What? But what about all those votes? Well, Wikipedia even has a page up about how the election was stolen with charts and everything. Is something up? Well, I contacted my local wing of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy who patched me into the national arm of the VRWC. Then I got to talk to two people I shall refer to as Hacker1 and Hacker2. Here is the conversation:

Frank: So, did we steal the election this time?

Hacker1: Yeah, totally. We like rigged all the machines so there was no way we could lose.

Frank: Why didn't you tell me we had it in the bag? I was like totally worried about this election!

Hacker2: Sorry, dude, but we were like told not to spread it around too much.

Hacker1: Yeah, we needed everyone to act like it was close and worrisome so no one would know we like totally hacked it. That Karl Rove is smart, dude; he knows how to run things.

Hacker2: Yeah, Rove is totally evil and totally cool.

Frank: So did you hack voting everywhere?

Hacker1: Yeah, otherwise it would look weird if we only improved in the battleground states.

Hacker2: Rove was completely in charge of all that. He even came in last minute and said, "Give them New Hampshire," and we were like, "Whatever."

Frank: So was it hard hacking the vote?

Hacker1: Sorta, but Diebold gave us easy to follow instructions.

Hacker2: We totally owned all the votes.

Hacker1: Totally.

Hacker2: It was funny to see the Democrats try and cheat the old-fashioned way. They can bring in all the dead people they want to vote, but we'll just change their votes to Republican in the end.

Hacker1: (laughs) I bet you didn't know this, but Michael Moore voted for Bush.

Hacker2: (laughs) He doesn't know it either.

Frank: But aren't people going to find out about this eventually?

Hacker1: Not if we're careful, dude.

Hacker2: First off, we're not going to hand out many landslides. It's going to be a bunch of real close ones so we can say to the Democrats, "Oh, that was so close. You really should try again."

Hacker1: (laughs) We're going to drive them nuts...


Dude, where's my votes?

Michael Moore does not speak for them



Click here for AmazonWhen Eva sent me a note she wrote in protest after Michael Moore posted a picture of President Bush — composed of the images of our fallen including her son from Iraq — I promised to publish her words. Heroes deserve as much. And people like Moore should be challenged.

''I will not allow the Michael Moores of this world to take my son's death and turn it and twist it to suit their own greedy and malicious purposes,'' she told me.

Eva is right. For Moore to represent himself as speaking for America's war dead in Iraq is like him claiming to be a spokesman for Weight Watchers. And consider the outrage and insult of a stranger using your son's image for their punitive politics. This is not the first time Moore has stooped so low. He used footage of the funeral of U.S. Air Force Maj. Gregory Stone for Fahrenheit 9/11. Maj. Stone's family told The Washington Times:

''We are furious that Greg was in that casket and cannot defend himself,'' Kandi Gallagher, Maj. Stone's aunt, said. ''And my sister, Greg's mother … called him (Moore) a 'maggot that eats off the dead.'''

Gold Star families are capable of speaking for themselves (for Bush or against). I know four such families personally. And Eva Savage's response to Moore is most appropriate for Veterans Day: ''I am the mother of a United States Marine. Jeremiah was killed in action in Ramadi, Iraq on May 12, 2004.

''People like Moore would have you believe that we hold President Bush responsible for my son's death. Michael Moore has not spoken to me — ever. So he cannot profess to know how I feel. He is a coward who thrives on the lives of others by twisting the truth and rewriting it to suit his own agenda...

"...I will continue to speak out against closed-minded cowards like Michael Moore. I used to be afraid to say what I thought for the way someone would think of me. Not any more. You do not walk in my shoes, Mr. Moore. You do not know what I feel or think. Until you have stood where I stand, do not put words in my mouth.

''I have a voice, and it is about damn time I stop being silent. My son died giving me the right to speak, and speak loud. I will not allow his name or even his picture be disgraced...'


Michael Moore does not speak for them

Reality-Based Election Analysis



Click here for AmazonDemocrat Arnold Kling provides some perspective on where his party headed... as opposed to where it could have headed.

Below is a table of choices in various categories. One choice alienates more voters than others, particularly voters near the center.

CategoryAlienates More VotersAlienates Fewer Voters
Policy GroupMoveOn.orgNew America Foundation
CelebrityMichael MooreJesse Ventura
Economic SpokesmanPaul KrugmanMartin Baily
VP CandidateJohn EdwardsJoseph Lieberman
Advocacy for Church-State SeparationPeople for the American WayAmerican Civil Liberties Union
Media and CopyrightMotion Picture Association of AmericaPublic Knowledge


This year, the Democratic Party cozied up to all of the individuals and groups on the left of the list. They lost my vote, despite the fact that I voted for Gore, Clinton, and even Dukakis. My guess is that none of the choices that the Democrats made in the chart helped them in 2004.


Reality-Based Election Analysis

Wednesday, November 10, 2004

DJ Drummond Slaps Gersh Kuntzman... Twice for Good Measure



Click here for AmazonDJ Drummond pummels Newweek's Gersh Kuntzman, who then attempts to spin his original column as satire... and is finally and thoroughly destroyed. Read all three articles, linked at the bottom.

...To your “fourth reaction", how quaint a notion - that the ideal means for addressing one atrocity, is to accept another immoral alternative. By your logic, then, I suppose we should excuse Hitler, since, after all, he was not only a vegetarian, but a lover of animals and kind to children? Then again, we’ve seen that logic at work, in the excuses the Left makes for Saddam Hussein (mass graves notwithstanding, nor even acknowledged by the Left), while falsely comparing the President to all manner of evil. The Left uses lies and deceit and malice and hatred in their tactics and message, yet claim for all of that to represent the side of tolerance and hope. There may come a day, when the penny will fall, and you guys will finally realize that you not only got caught in your lies, you simply aren’t very good at lying anymore.

To your “fifth reaction", I must say your position is hypocrisy itself. The war is ‘immoral’, hmm? Then explain your silence at those mass graves, at the capture of a half-dozen major terrorist leaders in Iraq, at warehouses full of suicide vests and prisons designed and built specifically to torture children. You’re OK with all that? Leftists wanted America to enter Liberia to help the people suffering there, but not Iraq. You demanded we go to Bosnia to help people being decimated by a madman, but not in Iraq? You are unprincipled thugs, if you really believe that. Instead, I will accept the notion that you are a step or two better - you are willing for America to help nations, but only so long as it advances Liberal causes, and does not annoy the French. The soldiers who actually went to Iraq overwhelmingly support the President. I guess that doesn’t count to the Left. After all, you don’t want their votes counted, so it’s no shock you want to ignore the men themselves. All that Honor, that History, that Discipline, it must give Michael Moore the heebie-jeebies just thinking about Marines helping Iraqi children go to free schools, making it possible for Iraqi and Afghan women to vote for the first time ever, that (sacre bleu!) Democratic Republics might exist in the Arab world!

Tough. It’s happening, and one of these days maybe you’ll grow up, figure out why 'Semper Fi' is so proudly held by so many, and you might even show some respect to men in uniform, instead of a few selected martinets willing to betray their buddies for an office and a spotlight.

Welcome to America, trolls. That motion sickness you feel is not from injustice, but from the nation moving ahead and leaving you behind. If you want to catch up, you need to grow up, first.


Kuntzman's original article, DJ Drummond's thrashing of him and then, ultimately, flooring him for good measure

Ending the Reactionaries' Reign of Terror



Click here for AmazonAmsterdam helps explain the stakes in Fallujah -- the Amsterdam of Nov. 2, 2004, where an Islamist radical murdered Dutch libertarian filmmaker Theo van Gogh.

Fallujah is Iraq's murder capital -- or more precisely, the outlaw town used as a staging area for murder committed by Iraq's secular and religious reactionaries.

...The secular reactionaries want to return Iraq to a Sunni-dominated dictatorship -- the corrupt, murderous hellhole Iraq was in March 2003. The religious reactionaries have a grander target, with their "golden age" a bit deeper in time. They want to run the entire world along the lines of an 11th or 12th century Muslim caliphate.

While Iraq's secular and religious reactionaries have irreconcilable political differences, at the moment both groups think they can use the other as a means to an end. They intend to spill enough Iraqi and American blood to convince Iraqis and Americans that they cannot be defeated. The United States will then withdraw, and the new Iraqi government will fall. That's when the reactionaries will fight it out over which past (March 2003 or a theo-fascist 12th century) will control the Middle East's future.

The secular and religious reactionaries also share a common "political tool," murder. This isn't news. Dictators and religious zealots have always used murder as a tool to enforce oppression and conformity.

In order to maintain his regime, Saddam murdered at least 300,000 Iraqis...

...Van Gogh's murder in oh-so-Euroliberal, oh-so-politically correct, oh-so-ostensibly multicultural Amsterdam stems from the same reactionary roots.

Van Gogh received numerous death threats from Islamist radicals after he produced a movie criticizing what he called Islam's abysmal treatment of women. His killer, a second-generation Arab immigrant named Mohammed Bouyeri, shot Van Gogh, stabbed him, then slit the filmmaker's throat. Bouveri left a five-page letter on the body that said, "There will be no mercy for the wicked, only the sword will be raised against them" and that Holland, the United States and Europe will be destroyed.

Like the people of Afghanistan who demonstrated a month ago in the Afghan presidential election that democracy is an attractive alternative to states run by political and religious fascists, the people of Iraq look forward to freedom. Ending the reactionaries' reign of terror in Fallujah and other outlaw towns in the Sunni Triangle won't eliminate terrorist murder in Iraq, but it will put a severe crimp in the killers' ability to intimidate en masse...

...Is the international press describing Bouveri as a Dutch insurgent or an Islamic insurgent? No, and he certainly isn't, except perhaps in the demented, self-loathing minds of arch-leftists like Michael Moore. The thugs in Fallujah, whether inspired by Saddam or bin Laden, aren't insurgents, either. They are reactionaries whose only route to power is murder. Iraq's interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi now says the rule of law is coming to Fallujah. It would be nice to see a few of van Gogh's film-land friends (who claim to value political and artistic freedom) send Allawi a letter of thanks.


Austin Bay: Ending the Reactionaries' Reign of Terror

Hell in a very small place



Click to zoomThere could hardly be a better commentator on the events unfolding in Fallujah than The Belmont Club. Read the whole thing.

The Bakersfield Californian reports that US forces have reached the major east-west highway that runs through Fallujah.

U.S. Marines said American forces had taken control Wednesday of 70 percent of Fallujah in the third day of a major offensive to retake the insurgent stronghold. Major Francis Piccoli, of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, said enemy fighters were bottled up in a strip of the city flanking the major east-west highway that splits Fallujah. Army and Marine units had pushed south to the highway overnight, Piccoli said.

... As the American forces crossed the highway that split Fallujah, armored Army units stayed behind to guard the thoroughfare.


To realize the significance of this, refer to this map from Global Security, which shows the start lines of the participating American units: USMC 3/1, USMC 3/5, Army 2/7 Cavalry, USMC 1/8, USMC 1/3 and Army 2/2 Infantry. These units were attacking north to south, down towards the highway. The east-west highway referred to in the paragraph above is the bright green line running horizontally across the map. US Army armor is now on that highway, after advancing south and probably swinging west. US forces are probably waiting across the highway...


The Belmont Club

Tuesday, November 09, 2004

The mainstream media: another outage



Click here for AmazonI've said for quite some time (or at least, for a few days) that had the MSM honestly and objectively investigated John Kerry's background with the vigor with which they attacked the president, the election would have been a complete blowout. 60% to 39% or some such ratio. Why?

Consider the fact that John Kerry released neither his service records nor his medical records. Shocked? No one from the MSM questioned these rather appalling "details". Or contemplate the MSM's refusal to air the complaints of the Swiftvets. Had an even casual accounting of John Kerry's service records been investigated (e.g., Christmas in Cambodia, the admitted self-inflicted Purple Heart, etc.), the Swiftvets would have ended the Kerry campaign in August.

And Patterico nails something else I hadn't thought of:

During the campaign, Hugh Hewitt argued that John Kerry was running a terrible campaign, which should cause Americans concern about the type of president he would be.

I was initially skeptical of this argument. After all, most people agree that Karl Rove, not George Bush, was the mastermind behind the Bush campaign. If Karl Rove can run a better campaign than Kerry, does that necessarily mean that Bush would be a better president than Kerry?

But it turns out that Hugh's observation was dead right, as a recent appearance by Newsweek's Evan Thomas on the Today Show confirms. (Transcript available on NEXIS.) Thomas revealed a Kerry campaign in chaos -- headed by a John Kerry so paralyzed with indecision that campaign staffers took his cell phone away from him so he would stop calling people for advice:

Mr. THOMAS: The Kerry campaign was even worse run than you think. Kerry was a bad manager. He could never make up his mind. He would dither and he'd second-guess every decision. They had to take away his cell phone twice, because every time they made a decision he'd get on his cell phone and start calling a hundred of his closest friends.


Now, we heard a little something about Kerry's penchant for calling friends for advice when he was picking his vice-presidential nominee. But even Thomas agrees that the full extent of the chaos in the Kerry campaign was not revealed to the American people during the campaign:

LAUER: What would be the biggest surprise? You had great access. The average American, what would they be most surprised about that goes on inside campaigns at this level of politics?

Mr. THOMAS: I think the kind of level of chaos and that they don't--it's not that--well, the Bush campaign was pretty organized, but I think the disorganization of the Kerry campaign is going to be shocking.


If a presidential candidate is running a shockingly disorganized campaign, paralyzed by the candidate's indecision, the American people have a right to know.

So why weren't we told the full truth until now -- when it's too late?? ...


Patterico: MSM and Kerry's Indecisiveness