Sunday, January 23, 2005

Iran's Political and Military Leadership Call for Martyrdom



Click here for AmazonThe amplified rhetoric of the Mullahs regarding suicide attacks (read: martyrdom operations) continues unabated. MEMRI -- Middle Eastern Media Research Institute -- provides us with the following translations. Note that Khamenei and Shabani have so far suppressed any instincts to martyr themselves, instead exhorting Iranian cannon fodder young people to sacrifice themselves while their senior leaders enjoy all the perquisites of royalty.

In a recent statement to the 8th Congress on Martyred Students, Iran's Leader Ali Khamenei praised the culture of shahada (committing martyrdom operations), and called upon students to follow the path of martyrs.

Speaking at a memorial service at the University of Qom, a senior Iranian Revolutionary Guards general, Shabani, called for the training and education of students as martyrs. In his address, which dealt with means of resisting the enemy, Shabani also said that Iran is the third largest power in the region in ballistic missile production.


Khamenei urged students to continue to promote the culture of Jihad and martyrdom among themselves as "a source of national strength and a characteristic of pure worship… When we encounter the name of a student who committed martyrdom we are confident that the acceptance of martyrdom and of the Jihad that led to this martyrdom stemmed from [the martyr's] self-awareness and clear desire, and this intensifies the value of the act..."

"General Shabani said: 'Iran is the third [largest] power in the region in the field of ballistic missile production, following China and Russia.' [He also] praised the exalted status of the Islamic revolution's martyrs, saying: 'As the Imam [Ayatollah Khomeini] said, 'The martyrs are the quintessence of our strength.' Therefore, we must educate and train forces ready to commit martyrdom attacks in order to counter the enemy.

"'In the event of a war with the U.S. we must fight them asymmetrically. As of now, we have manufactured weapons systems and we have attained nuclear capabilities...'


MEMRI: Iran's Political and Military Leadership Call for Martyrdom (Shahada)

Exit Strategy



Click here for AmazonFrom RBShirley at SwiftVets: "The Barbara Boxer Rebellion questioned the exit strategy from Iraq and Afganistan, here is one pundit's tongue-in-cheek description of a potential exit from both."

Friday, January 21, 2005

The Associated (Palestinian) Press



Click here for AmazonIf you're looking for cold, hard proof that the MSM is -- and has been -- aiding and abetting the enemy, look no further than this reportage from the Jerusalem Post:

AFP and AP employ reporters who also receive paychecks from the Palestinian Authority:

Agence France-Presse (AFP) and Associated Press (AP) ― have employed journalists with inappropriately close ties to the Palestinian Authority. Majida al-Batsh was a Palestinian affairs correspondent for AFP for many years, while simultaneously being on the payroll of the Palestinian Authority as a reporter for the PA's official organ, Al-Ayyam.

If this is not evidence enough of impropriety at AFP, last year Batsh announced she would actually run for the presidency of the Palestinian Authority...


Click here for AmazonThis is the sort of outrageous conflict-of-interest that results in the worldwide distribution of photos like that depicting the tragedy leading this paragraph. What the MSM doesn't bother to tell you is that the death of Mohammed al-Dura was, in all likelihood, a direct result of sniper fire by Palestinians.

Click here for AmazonThe same is the case with the Tuvia Grossman incident. The accompanying photo, broadcast and distributed in print throughout the world, depicts an Israeli soldier brutalizing an innocent Palestinian. At least that's what the MSM, including the New York Times, said. The facts behind the picture? The man beaten within an inch of his life is Tuvia Grossman, a Jewish American, who was pulled out of his vehicle by a Palestinian mob and viciously assaulted.

So the next time you see an article by the Associated Press, factor in the Palestinian Authority compensation factor, and read accordingly.

You know...



Click here for Amazoni've just got to note that the first major news magazine to make a serious attempt at balanced coverage is going to make a flat-out financial killing. An example of the kind of coverage I'm thinking of is here, straight out of Time Magazine online: Donkeys in Denial.

Fisking Thomas Friedman



Click here for AmazonBring the video-camera and gather the whole family together as New Sisyphus fisks the New York Times' Thomas Friedman in brutal fashion, using everything but brass knuckles and two-by-fours.

Tommy, you need to put any ice on that?

And, to reiterate an earlier post, the New Sisyphus blog, written by a member of the State Department, is not to be missed.

Shameless Semantics



Click here for AmazonThe eloquent David Limbaugh points out the stunning hypocrisy of the left on yet another front: social security. We all remember the day -- actually only a few years ago -- that Bill Clinton and Al Gore pointed to its problematic financial footing. Gore, as recently as 2000, lectured George W. Bush on the dangers represented by its fading strength.

Therefore, if we were dealing in intellectual honesty and not partisan chicanery, Bush would receive credit from both sides for his willingness to tackle the "third rail" problem. For, as Limbaugh points out, he could easily have avoided the problem for another four years without any risk whatsoever.

Now the left is denying that social security is even in trouble. The troubling facts, however, remain: in less than 15 years, demographic shifts will ensure that there are less workers than needed to support the number of retirees.

Beginning in 2018, absent major reform, the federal government will have to tap general revenues to subsidize its Social Security benefit payments, eventually in staggering amounts approaching $10 trillion. A compounding factor is that the Social Trustees report estimates that we will lose $600 billion for every year we ignore the problem. Yet this isn't a serious enough issue to demand our immediate attention?

How many times have we heard Democrats -- latter-day deficit hawks that they are -- rail against President Bush's deficit spending? How many times have they feigned apoplexy over the spiraling national debt?

Well, folks, they must not mean what they say, because this looming Social Security problem is purely and simply about an inevitable explosion of the national debt. It's only avoidable if we reduce benefits, reduce other federal spending and/or raise taxes -- which at some point will be counterproductive on the revenue side.

Whether you call it a problem or a crisis, it is getting worse, and it's nothing short of immoral to put off working on solutions. The only conceivable reasons Democrats are in denial about it is that they either don't want to allow reform under a Republican president or don't want to fix it at all because they might lose one of the main weapons in their fear-mongering arsenal.


David Limbaugh: Shameless semantics

Thursday, January 20, 2005

This is the Enemy



Click here for AmazonInteresting to look back at this collection of World War II posters. And here are a couple of WWII originals, customized for the times we live in today:


Top Ten Most Wanted Design Bugs



Click here for AmazonAskTog has an excellent summary of the most egregious software design bugs. From his list, my two "favorites" (meaning the ones I also hate the most) are:

  • Mysteriously grayed menus and buttons - how many times have you finally found the right dialog box (layered underneath four levels of tabbed property sheets and "Advanced..." button settings), only to discover that the critical selection is grayed? There's generally no information to tell you why it has been disabled... so you have to go spelunking around the help system and the Internet, compromising your already fragile schedule and generally causing unacceptably high levels of stress.


  • Focus stealing - it happens all the time... you surf to a bank site or similar important URL and start typing in your user-name and password. Midway through the password, inevitably, focus switches to a Google search box and you find yourself splatting your password -- in the clear -- into the edit window. One day, far far in the future, advanced research design scientists will figure out how to defer the focus switch... waiting until you've finished your stream of input before hot-swapping the window underneath you. I know, I know, no human could possibly come up with such an algorithm. Windows has already been around 15 years, so it must be impossible.


  • One Tog didn't mention, but that I find really bothersome is restricted to Windows:

  • Multiple clipboards - the "advanced" versions of Windows support this generally useless and cumbersome feature. Copy something to the clipboard a couple of times, and Windows helpfully interrupts your train of thought by presenting you with the "multiple clipboard" display. Hmmm. Helpful... not. Just get out of the way and let me cut and paste, dammit!


  • One of Tog's top design bugs that I don't agree with is the "Ooooh, shiny!" bug:

    "Bug Name: My app is more special than the others"

    Bug: Programmers part from the OS interface standard...


    In effect, this bug consists of developers inventing their own UI gadgets and controls. I completely disagree with this. Why? Simply look at WinAmp, arguably the ultimate custom application user-interface for Windows. Its main claim to fame was the skinnable, highly custom UI that, oh by the way, looked a hell of a lot cooler than a normal Windows application. And Justin Frankel only pulled down about $200 million for the effort...

    Ten Most Wanted Design Bugs

    Suppressing Comment Spam



    Click here for AmazonGoogle has added support for suppressing comment spam. Comment spam consists of URL's and keywords tossed into blog comments for the sole purpose of gaming search engine rankings. Increasingly, comment spammers are using bots to splat out these sorts of "comments".

    Google's spider now supports a "nofollow" attribute value to separate blog postings from comments. It tells the spider to ignore hyperlinks appearing within comments, trackbacks and referrer lists. Interestingly, the "nofollow" attribute value was already part of the HTML DTD, but this represents a new use.

    Google, in a recent blog post, said its spider has already begun recognizing the tag. Consider the old tag:

    Visit my <a href="http://www.example.com/">fake Rolex</a> site

    That comment would be transformed to

    Visit my <a href="http://www.example.com/" rel="nofollow">fake Rolex</a> site

    Search Engines, Bloggers Team to Fight Spam

    Hey, France!



    Click here for AmazonProtest Warrior is offering a great selection of T-shirts (hat tip: MarkA). This one is my hands-down favorite. Check 'em all out.

    Tuesday, January 18, 2005

    The Stunning Victory of the Welfare Reformers



    Click here for AmazonThe New Sisyphus blog is an outstanding new journal authored by an anonymous member of the State Department. His initial post recaps the pitched battle that preceded the enactment of the 1996 Welfare Reform Act and its underpublicized results.

    At that time, legislators on the left acted as "Welfare Advocates", who for decades espoused an unyielding viewpoint that the war on poverty has failed solely because of underfunding, even though benefits, eligibility, programs and spending increased dramatically over the years.

    Conversely, legislators on the right could be termed "Welfare Reformers", who believed that the central tenets of welfare expansion were fundamentally flawed: that they created a "culture of dependence" that increased poverty and illegitimacy.

    ...It was this key point—the creation of a dependence culture... that formed the centerpiece of the debate. Rather than lift people’s lives by lifting their income, the fact of welfare worked against the values so central to middle class success in the United States. This fact of dependence created a social class with interests and values set against the mainstream, thus dooming generation after generation to poverty.

    The 1996 Act and its Aftermath

    In the end, the Welfare Reformers won the debate, not least because their views were very much more in line with the mainstream of American opinion...

    ...[the Act meant] the days of sitting around waiting for one’s welfare check from the government were over... While members of Congress like Charlie Rangel were loudly telling anyone who would listen (and the MSM being the MSM that meant everyone) that the Republicans had just doomed thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of children to lives of poverty, the hard work of implementing the 1996 Act’s mandates slowing got off the ground.

    The result of welfare reform has been nothing less than astounding, if not awe inspiring.

    ...Heather Mac Donald’s 2002 City Journal piece, Don’t Mess With Welfare Reform’s Success, best summarized the Act’s historic accomplishments:

    “Congress’s [1996 Act] wager paid off handsomely. Asked to look for work in exchange for their welfare checks, hundreds of thousands of women found jobs. From 1996 to 1999, employment among the nation’s never-married mothers rose 40 percent. In 1992, only 38 percent of young single mothers worked; by March 2000, 60 percent of that group were employed. Another large portion of the caseload, faced with new participation requirements, simply decided that welfare was not worth the hassle. The result: a 52 percent drop in the caseload since August 1996, when TANF passed, to June 2001. Nearly 2.3 million families have left the rolls.

    Sealing the reformers’ triumph, poverty has plummeted in tandem with welfare use. As Ron Haskins of the Brookings Institute reports, by 1999 child poverty among female-headed households had fallen to its lowest rate ever. Most notably, black children are now better off economically than at any time on record. So much for the myth that welfare is essential to keeping people from want.”

    The fact that the Act spurred the largest reduction in black child poverty ever on record in the US and that literally millions of poor families have entered the middle class is one of Conservatism’s greatest victories since the rise of Ronald Reagan, which probably goes a long way to explaining why it mysteriously has disappeared from the pages of the MSM. In the end, though, one thing is clear: it was the fact of dependence by itself which bred pathologies and irresponsible behavior. When the fact of dependency ended, most welfare recipients were faced with the sort of real-life difficult questions that are every day issues for the bulk of the middle class. And when faced with those decisions, most people adapted their circumstances in such a way as to succeed within the new milieu...


    What are the ramifications of welfare reform for U.S./E.U. relations? Read the whole thing: Welfare Reform, Dependence Theory and U.S.-E.U Relations

    Terrorism as an Excuse



    Click here for AmazonJohn Lott calls our attention to yet another disinformation campaign on the part of the laughingstock discredited "news" weekly 60 Minutes. Lott reports that the day before the Memogate report, the crack CBS staff was busy demonizing 50-caliber rifles.

    Let's ignore the fact that these rifles are large, expensive collector's items and they have been used for exactly one deadly crime ever (and even that incident is under debate). Let's also ignore the fact that the same hysterical tactics have repeatedly failed (e.g., the Brady Bill, the Assault Weapons Ban, the ban on "plastic" pistols).

    History shows us that the demonization of weapons for cosmetic reasons has proven to be an utter failure at crime control - by every measure.

    Sooner or later, perhaps the MSM will get this one simple fact right.

    Who could oppose laws preventing terrorists from getting guns? Obviously no one. But it would be nice if laws accomplished something more than simply making it more difficult for Americans to own guns...

    Last year it was the semi-automatic assault-weapons ban before it expired. Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D., N.Y.) claimed the ban was "the most effective measures against terrorism that we have." Of course, nothing happened when the law expired last year. There was nothing unique about the guns that are banned under the law. Though the phrase "assault weapon" conjures up images of the rapid-fire machine guns used by the military, in fact the weapons covered by the ban function the same as any semiautomatic hunting rifle; they fire the exact same bullets with the exact same rapidity and produce the exact same damage as hunting rifles.

    Back in the mid-1980s it was the hysteria over "plastic guns" when the Austrian company Glock began exporting pistols to the United States. Labeled as "terrorist specials" by the press, fear spread that their plastic frame and grip would make them invisible to metal detectors. Glocks are now common and there are good reasons they are one of the favorite pistols of American police officers. The "plastic gun" ban did not ban anything since it is not possible to actually build a working plastic gun.

    Now it is the 50-caliber rifles' turn, especially with California outlawing the sale of these guns since the beginning of the year. For years gun-control groups have tried to ban 50-caliber rifles because of fears that criminals could use them. Such bans have not been passed these guns were simply not suited for crime. Fifty-caliber rifles are big, heavy guns, weighing at least 30 pounds and using a 29-inch barrel. They are also relatively expensive. Models that hold one bullet at a time run nearly $3,000. Semi-automatic versions cost around $7,000. Wealthy target shooters and big-game hunters, not criminals, purchase them. The bottom line is that only one person in the U.S. has been killed with such a gun, and even that one alleged case is debated.

    The link to terrorism supposedly provides a new possible reason to ban 50-caliber rifles. But the decision to demonize these particular guns and not say .475-caliber hunting rifles is completely arbitrary. The difference in width of these bullets is a trivial .025 inches. What's next? Banning .45-caliber pistols? Indeed the whole strategy is to gradually reduce the type of guns that people can own...

    Fighting terrorism is a noble cause, but the laws we pass must have some real link to solving the problem. Absent that, many will think that 60 Minutes and gun-control groups are simply using terrorism as an excuse to promote rules that he previously pushed. Making it difficult for law-abiding Americans to own guns should not be the only accomplishment of new laws.


    Another CBS Disinformation Campaign

    Monday, January 17, 2005

    The news from Iraq you won't see in the MSM



    Click here for AmazonIt is stunning to contrast reports on Iraq coming from folks on the ground there as opposed to the non-stop negativity emanating from the mainstream media (MSM). There hasn't been this big of a disconnect since Flava Flav hooked up with Brigitte Nielsen (don't call ICM just yet, my sister informs me there already is such a show on television).

    Lt. Col. Tim Ryan goes so far as to label the MSM's one-side coverage, "Aiding and abetting the enemy" and explains the situation much more fully -- and more competently -- than literally any of the mainstream correspondents. Here's an excerpt, but read it all:

    ...The number of attacks in the greater Al Anbar Province is down by at least 70-80% from late October -- before Operation Al Fajar began. The enemy in this area is completely defeated, but not completely gone. Final eradication of the pockets of insurgents will take some time, as it always does, but the fact remains that the central geographic stronghold of the insurgents is now under friendly control. That sounds a lot like success to me. Given all of this, why don't the papers lead with "Coalition Crushes Remaining Pockets of Insurgents" or "Enemy Forces Resort to Suicide Bombings of Civilians"? This would paint a far more accurate picture of the enemy's predicament over here. Instead, headlines focus almost exclusively on our hardships...


    Further, Arthur Chrenkoff has done yeoman's work documenting what the biggies should -- but never seem to do -- regarding the unrelenting push towards democracy.

    ...On the streets of Baghdad, democracy makes more converts:

    "Just months ago, Fattahlah Ghazi al-Esmaili was penning articles in support of Iraq's Shi'ite uprising as editor for Ishriqat, a newspaper for rebel cleric Sheik Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi's Army militia.

    "Now the 38-year-old has abandoned his Arab head scarf for a neat beige suit and is out pumping the flesh in his run for parliament at the head of a 180-candidate list representing the impoverished Shi'ites of Sadr City.

    " 'Before, we were men of the Mahdi's Army. Now we are men of politics,' says the journalist, who goes by the pen name Fattah al-Sheikh. 'Yesterday, we were out on the streets. Today, we are here campaigning, and hopefully tomorrow, we'll be in the presidential palace'."


    It has been a stunning transformation: "Brig. Gen. Jeffery Hammond of the 1st Cavalry Division, says Sadr City is the safest place in or around Baghdad. About 18,000 people have reconstruction jobs, he says, earning about $6 a day. 'Sadr City is what the future of Iraq can look like,' he says. Those who were once taking up arms are now talking democracy. 'Before, the men were buying black cloth for their (martyrs') banners. Now for the election, we are buying white cloths' for posters, says candidate Fatah al-Sheikh." Even the Iraqi Islamic Party is now cracking: "Iraq's principal Sunni Muslim political party conceded... that its effort to delay Iraq's parliamentary election had failed and that it was preparing a strategy to influence the elected government following the vote on Jan. 30." ...


    Good new from Iraq, part 19 and Aiding and abetting the enemy: the Media in Iraq.

    Journalists Recall Tsunami Disaster



    Click here for AmazonThe silence from Banda Aceh and a big swath along the western coast of Sumatra gave me the chills. I was alone in The Associated Press office in Jakarta trying to find out details about the earthquake that had shaken Aceh province, calling number after number with no luck. All the lines were dead.

    An editor on AP's regional desk in Bangkok, Thailand, reported they felt their building sway. What kind of a quake has an epicenter off Sumatra and is felt in Bangkok, 700 miles away? What kind of quake could silence so many people?

    AP photographer Achmad Ibrahim, Associated Press Television News cameraman Andi Djatmiko and I rushed to the airport and flew to Medan, in the province adjoining Aceh. We got there at 9 a.m. only to spend over an hour haggling with drivers. Nobody wanted to go the 250 miles to Banda Aceh, because they feared aftershocks and reports were starting to come in that huge waves had smashed ashore.

    Finally, we convinced one. We drove for 12 hours to arrive bleary-eyed in Banda Aceh, stunned at nature's carnage.

    The provincial capital was a wasteland of rubble and mud. Watermarks up to 25 feet high stained the sides of buildings, marking the tsunami's path as it rampaged through the city. Hundreds of bodies lay in the streets

    Scenes of chaos are imprinted in my mind: Motorized rickshaw drivers hauling bodies wrapped in straw mats, people on foot struggling to carry bloated corpses, unclaimed bodies partially covered by plastic or cardboard.

    "A parent should never have to bury their own children. I spent all night burying 11 of mine," said the first village man I spoke to, his hands bloody from digging. "I don't have any energy left. But I have to search for two more -- my daughters."

    People tugged on my arm, wanting to tell me their stories.

    I called AP's Jakarta bureau by satellite phone with one of the first eyewitness accounts from Aceh.

    There I remained for 14 days. One of my most touching experiences was interviewing the local APTN cameraman's 10-year-old son, who survived the tsunami up in a coconut tree.

    I froze a few times as Ardiansyah recounted seeing his mother and little sister swept away to their deaths. I was terrified the interview would cause him psychological damage. But his father, Ferry Effendi, knew his son well. He let me know when to pause and when to go on...


    Editor & Publisher: Journalists Recall Tsunami Disaster

    Sunday, January 16, 2005

    Delicious Monster



    Click here for AmazonDelicious Monster is the Mac software company behind the hit Delicious Library, a program for cataloging collections of books, movies and games. The software is selling like hot cakes and has garnered rave reviews and awards, yet the company's headquarters is a Seattle coffee house.

    Co-founded by graphic designer Mike Matas and programmer Wil Shipley, the company's first title, Delicious Library, was launched in November 2004. It generated $250,000 worth of sales in its first month, and the company has a crowded, popular booth here at Macworld.

    Mike Matas co-founded Delicious Monster, the company behind popular Delicious Library software that is used to catalog media files. The application has garnered rave reviews and awards, yet the company works out of a Seattle coffee shop.Wil Shipman, co-founder of Delicious Monster, is hard at work in the company's offices at Seattle's popular Zoka coffee shop. The Zoka coffee shop in Seattle's university district is the central office for employees of Delicious Monster. They pay the coffee shop 'rent' by buying cup after cup of coffee. The tab runs to several hundred dollars a month...

    ...Delicious Library catalogs collections of books, movies and games. A video camera can be used to read the product's bar code, and the software downloads its details from the web.

    ...Delicious Library won an "innovators award" from O'Reilly & Associates. One of the software's niftiest features is its ability to use a video camera to read a product's bar code, which is used to fetch product details from the net.

    Matas said the first week's sales of Delicious Library generated enough revenue to pay salary for the previous seven months.

    ...But from the start, the software was planned to be social, allowing friends, neighbors and colleagues to see what's in each others' media libraries, and turn collections into personal lending libraries.

    ...Version two, due later this year, will allow users to browse each other's libraries. It will be location-aware, letting users know who has what in their neighborhood or city.

    It will also work on local networks (using Apple Computer's Rendezvous), so people can browse their colleagues' or fellow students' collections, just as Apple's iTunes exposes other users' playlists.

    The current version already has a checkout manager for keeping track of loans.

    As well as running personal lending libraries, the software can set up social connections: What better barometer of someone's personality than their taste in books and film?

    "If you look at my movie collection, you can learn a ton about me," said Matas. "It's like a personal profile on Friendster listing interests and hobbies, but it’s much more natural. It's not done consciously. It's a natural profile of yourself."

    The software also includes a recommendation engine built on Amazon.com's recommendation system.

    Matas said the company talked to Amazon about a partnership, but the retailer didn’t like the lending feature. Why would people buy when they could borrow?

    Matas said he convinced Amazon that people buy movies expressly to lend them out. They watch a movie two or three times, but want to own it so they can lend it to family or friends...


    Monster Fueled by Caffeine

    Time: Threat of Limo Bombs during Inauguration



    Click here for AmazonAs Washington gears up for the first Inaugural of the post-9/11 era, one potential security threat has emerged as a particular focus of concern: vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices, or VBIEDS, possibly disguised as limousines. The fears were prompted in part, say U.S. intelligence sources, by a 39-page document seized from al-Qaeda last year, titled "Rough Presentation for Gas Limo Project." It lays out a scenario for using limousines to deliver bombs equipped with cylinders of a flammable gas. Though the Inauguration is not specifically mentioned, parts of the document began circulating among senior U.S. intelligence authorities on Jan. 5. In response, barriers have been set up to block any vehicle bent on destruction.

    The document is believed to have been written by Issa al-Hindi, an al-Qaeda operative captured in Britain last year. It recommends concealing bombs in limos because the vehicles "blend in" and "can transport larger payloads than sedans ... and do not require special driving skills." The limos can "access underground parking structures that do not accommodate trucks" and "have tinted windows that can hide an improvised explosive device from outside." The document calls for the deployment of three limos, each carrying 12 or more compressed-gas cylinders to create a "full fuel-air explosion by venting flammable gas into a confined space and then igniting it." It suggests painting the cylinders yellow to falsely "signify toxic gases to spread terror and chaos when emergency and haz-mat teams arrive." ...


    Fears of automotive mayhem as the Presidential inauguration nears

    Prager on Self-Hatred



    Click here for AmazonDid you ever notice that there are no Germans going around the world saying, or making movies about, how awful Germany is or has been? Given that Germany unleashed two world wars and invented industrialized genocide, why has there been no German Michael Moore?

    Are there any Japanese making films about the absence of Japanese soul-searching or expressions of sorrow over their country's enslavement, torture and murder of Asians in World War II? Has anyone ever encountered any Japanese self-hate?

    ...The answer, of course, is no. In fact, among all the world's peoples, only two produce large numbers of individuals who have greater sympathy for those who hate their country or national/ethnic group than for those who love it...

    Many on the American Left loathe America (they love the Constitution and their vision of what America could be) and have contempt for the average American. That is why most of the Left has such admiration for Michael Moore, who has said, among so much more, the following:

    * Americans "are possibly the dumbest people on the planet . . . in thrall to conniving, thieving, smug p----s" (London Daily Mirror).
    * "Should such an ignorant people lead the world?" (open letter to the German People in Die Zeit).

    Elsewhere, he speaks of America as bringing immeasurable misery and sadness to the world and as essentially deserving attacks on it...


    Prager on Self-Hatred

    Saturday, January 15, 2005

    Saudi Terror Conference



    Click here for AmazonFrontpage magazine calls attention to a Saudi Terror Conference. Disturbingly, the participants are not the opponents of the monarchy... they include the monarchy (hat tip: JihadWatch).

    Are the Saudis our allies? Read on...

    “This perverse ideology [Wahhabi Islam] has spread all over Saudi Arabia, in the schools, the mosques … [and] satellite channels… There’s a videotape now circulating in Saudi Arabia of a boy age 10 or less [in a Saudi orphanage]. He is asked, 'who is your role model?' And he answers, 'Osama Bin Laden.'” This damaging statement was not spoken by an opponent of the Saudi regime, but by Saudi Prince Khaled Al-Faysal on Al-Arabiyya TV on July 14th.

    As part of MEMRI’s TV Monitoring Project (www.memritv.org), Saudi government-controlled television channels are continually monitored. These channels include shows with leading Saudi religious figures, professors, members of the royal family, government leaders, and intellectuals. Constant themes include calls for the annihilation of Christian and Jews, rampant anti-Americanism and antisemitism, and support for jihad.

    ...it is important to review the content of the Saudi media, particularly TV, as it relates to terrorism and hatred toward non-Muslims.

    A recent example of hatred for Christians and Westerners is Saudi TV’s coverage of the tsunami disaster... Saudi cleric Muhammad Al-Munajjid, Imam of the ‘Umar ibn ‘Abd al-‘Aziz Mosque in Khobar, claimed first to Al-Majd on January 1 that Allah’s took revenge on the "criminals'" celebration - the Christmas holidays - and elaborated on January 6th that “perversions” during the Christmas holidays were to blame.

    Sermons from Saudi mosques frequently contain calls to fight non-Muslims. In a sermon from Medina broadcast on Saudi TV channel 2, Sheikh Saleh Bdeir said on June 25: “The enemies of Islam, the Jews, Christians, atheists, and those from among the infidel Westernized who are enslaved by them within the Muslim community, never cease attacking the Islamic nation.”...

    In the early summer, Saudi Sheikh Dr. Ahmad bin Abd Al-Latif, a professor at Um Al-Qura University, was asked on Saudi TV if it is permitted under Islamic law to pray for the annihilation of Christians and Jews. He answered, "… Cursing the oppressing Jews and the oppressing and plundering Christians and the prayer that Allah will annihilate them is permitted.”

    Saudi cleric ‘Aed Al-Qarni spoke on Saudi Iqra TV channel on December 12 about why Jews and Christians will burn in Hell: “The Jews take pride in something they lie about; the Jews and the Christians… They say: 'Oh people, we, the Jews and Christians, are the sons of Allah…' They are lying, [may] Allah's wrath [be] upon them… If you are truthful, will Allah burn you in hell for your sins?… You will be punished for your lies.”

    Calling for the throats of Christians and Jews to be slit and their skulls shattered, Al-Qarni told Iqra TV on December 26: "We Muslims should be rebuked. One billion two hundred million … are incapable of taking action … of harming the Jews… I pray to Allah that He will make the enemies fall … and that He will destroy the Jews and their helpers from among the Christians… We curse them … and pray that Allah will annihilate them, tear them apart, and grant us victory over them… Throats must be slit and skulls must be shattered. This is the path to victory, to shahada...” Citing a hadith. In a lecture on January 9th that aired on Iqra TV, Al-Qarni explained that Jews, “the brothers of apes and pigs,” and Christians should not be slaughtered only if they convert to Islam.


    Saudi Terror Conference

    Hugh Hewitt on the Home-town Refs



    Click here for AmazonHugh Hewitt pounds Howard Kurtz flatter than a penny on a railroad track after the 5PM express. Kurtz, of course, had busily refuted the Fineman proposition that the mainstream media is truly another political party. Hewitt's salvos are among the loudest and most powerful blows to land on Kurtz, but by no means the only ones.

    [Kurtz said:] ...the stereotype-they're liberal, and therefore they work overtime to stick it to Republicans--doesn't hold up. Some journalists clearly liked Clinton during the '92 campaign, but anyone who thinks the Clinton administration got good coverage from the press--remember that Whitewater, Travelgate, illegal fundraising, Paula Jones, Kathleen Willey, Monica Lewinsky and the marc rich pardon were all press-driven stories--is seriously misguided. relations between the Clinton team and the Fourth Estate were incredibly tense in '98 and '99. and kerry was often depicted by the press as a cold and bumbling candidate, at least until the debates...


    To combat this, Kurtz cites a string of Clinton scandals, which is not responsive. It isn't that major media refuses to cover news --though the studied indifference to big stories like Kerry's repeated and vehement claims to have been on an illegal mission to Cambodia on Christmas Eve in 1969 or his fabled "magic hat," or the claim of having met with every member of the U.N. Security Council etc etc went almost completely uncovered by the Kerry cheering section in MSM-- it is that they act like the home town referee in the big game with the cross state rival. The refs will call most of the flagrant fouls committed by the home team, but they'll miss the close calls, or they will see the out-of-towners holding whenever they really need to.

    Dems get the home-field advantage --all the time, in every game, and even on some flagrant calls. Notice that Howard's list doesn't include Juanita Broaddrick? I love to remind people that editors at the Los Angeles Times deleted a reference to Broaddrick from a January 2001 George Will column about Bill Clinton. Such is the power of the home-town ref. And does Kurtz really want to argue that the MSM has followed up on the Rich pardon? Sure, the MSM covered the Clinton travails, and Keith Olberman compared Ken Starr's looks to those of Himmler's...

    ...To hell with metaphors, MSM is a party, using Webster's third definition: "a group of persons who support one side of a dispute, question etc."

    ...[Admitting] deep and significant bias in the news gathering and production operations of MSM would require a remedy. It would require a remedy because it contradicts the central claim of MSM to be objective. Nobody wants "objective" news that is really "partisan." The remedy would be the hiring of counter-partisans, which would really rebalance the very unbalanced MSM. But there are only so many jobs. Start hiring center-right journalists, and center-left journalists are going to go looking for work.

    ...Power is not often surrendered. But is often involuntarily ceded, and that is what happening as we sit here, with the blogosphere draining media credibility day by day. To stop the hemorrhaging, MSM is going to have to repopulate their ranks with voices and bylines credible to the center-right...


    Hugh Hewitt: Ideological Affirmative Action

    Friday, January 14, 2005

    CBS: And the Hits Just Keep on Comin'



    Click here for AmazonIf CBS thought its unfinished report would close the door on Rathergate, they were sadly mistaken.

    As was pointed out today by a surprisingly eloquent Pat Buchanan on the Imus show, the forgery of military documents (even without the intent to overthrow a sitting President) is a Felony Offense.

    Before it's all said and done, odds are someone will be serving time over this and related activities. The Captain sums up the recent fallout and reports that the fired CBS employees may file a wrongful termination lawsuit. That's good news, according to Cappie Ed, because... well, just read it. In short, when you shine a flashlight into a dirty pantry, the cockroaches are gonna go scurrying:

    ...Al Neuharth, founder of USA Today, calls out CBS for its inaction:

    Rather absented himself from the newscast Monday evening, the day the independent investigators' report and Moonves' response were made public. Then on Tuesday he was back in his usual role, after issuing a statement to CBS News colleagues that concluded: "I have seen us overcome adversity before. I am convinced we can do it again."

    No apology. No acknowledgement that the buck stopped with him.

    Rather has had many high points in a distinguished career since he succeeded Walter Cronkite on March 9, 1981. But this low point likely will haunt him forever, unless ...

    Unless he quits the anchor's chair now, gives up any thought of continuing on 60 Minutes and helps his former co-workers who took the fall for his fumbling the ball find new jobs.


    Interestingly and somewhat ironically, the paid advertisement for Neuharth's screed promotes NBC's Nightly News with new anchorman Brian Williams. Williams strikes a skeptical look for the camera, a hilarious counterpoint to Neuharth's scolding. He gazes out from the page as if thinking, "That's all you got?" ...

    ...Neuharth isn't the only one taking CBS to the woodshed today. Charles Krauthammer at the Washington Post also considers their response completely unaccpetable and says so in much stronger terms than Neuharth:

    First comes the crime: Dan Rather's late hit on President Bush's Air National Guard service, featuring what were almost immediately revealed to be forged documents.

    Then comes the coverup: 12 days of CBS stonewalling, with Dan Rather using his evening news platform to (a) call his critics "partisan political operatives," (b) claim falsely that the documents were authenticated by experts, and (c) claim that he had "solid sources," which turned out to be a rabid anti-Bush partisan with a history of, shall we say, prolific storytelling.

    Now comes the twist: The independent investigation -- clueless, uncomprehending and in its own innocent way disgraceful -- pretends that this fiasco was in no way politically motivated.


    If Les Moonves hoped to bury this scandal by using a supposedly independent panel, he finds himself very much in error...

    ...The four fired employees reportedly will fire wrongful-termination lawsuits against Viacom and CBS, a development we should all support. Not that the four didn't deserve to get fired, or even that their terminations were unfair in light of the escapes of Heyward and Rather; they all clearly deserved termination for incompetence at the least, and Mapes for a breathtaking record of lies and misleading statements connected to the story which should destroy her credibility for all time. No, the depositions and testimony of the lawsuit will finally force CBS and its executives -- including Dan Rather -- to come completely clean about the collapse of the once-dominant broadcast news outlet, and the mainstream media in general.


    CQ: CBS: the Fallout Continues