Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Gaming Digg


The enormously popular Digg site is encountering some growing pains. The fast-growing technology news site allows users to submit links to stories and to vote on stories submitted by themselves or others. Those articles with enough "diggs" (votes) are promoted to the "front page."

This democratic approach to article submission and promotion quickly catapulted Digg to the forefront of technology news sites -- surpassing Slashdot in mere months -- and even attracting mainstream attention from the likes of CNN and the New York Times. Suffice it to say that Digg has been on one heck of a roll lately.

But with that growth has come an attendant concern that the site is tilted. In a recent front page article entitled, "Digg the Rigged?," one writer speculated that a small cadre of users has "gamed" the system. This group -- the top 30 users as ranked by Digg -- frequently vote as a bloc (and even vote in the same order). And with this power, a clique of highly ranked users has gained a remarkable level of control over the site.

Founder Kevin Rose -- one of the gang of 30 -- has circulated word that the algorithm used to promoted stories to the front page may be altered. One method would be to discount the votes of users who frequently vote in synchronized fashion. That is, if the gang of 30 continued to vote on the same stories, their votes would end up counting less and less. Stories that attract divergent voters would presumably score higher when weighed for promotion.

Blogger Bokardo points out that this may be the wrong approach. He notes that there are several features of Digg that contribute to the "piling on" phenomenon:

* Ranking users: introduce rankings and you introduce competition
* Friends feature: allowing users to immediately grok whether their community has voted on a story can accentuate the problem
* Exposing who votes: ditto for allowing users to see who has voted in which stories (there's something to be said for anonymity in voting)
* Ease of voting: voting is effortless - forcing a user to expend more effort to vote on a story might contribute greatly to the quality of each vote
* The bookmark effect: people frequently use votes to "bookmark" stories to read later (I guess I'm not the only one who does this); this effectively is an invalid vote, especially if one determines later that the story isn't worth digging

The net effect, according to Bokardo, is that there is "no independence in voting" on Digg. Without anonymity and forcing a circumspect influence by "friends", he argues that the voting system is inherently skewed toward gaming. In this case, transparency might truly hurt the system.

By the way, I haven't dugg Bokardo's story yet. But I might later.

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

An illustrated history of terror attacks prior to 9/11


The invaluable Powerline provides an eye-opening database that lists the major terror attacks that occurred during the Clinton administration.


On January 25, 1993, Mir Aimal Kansi, a Pakistani, fired an AK-47 directly into traffic waiting to enter CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, which killed two CIA employees.


On February 26, 1993, Islamic terrorists attempt to bring down the World Trade Center towers by detonating truck bombs in the underground parking garage. The attack fails to topple the twin towers but kills six and injures over 1,000.


On March 12, 1993, a series of coordinated car bombings in Mumbai, India kill 257 and leave 1,400 wounded.


On July 18, 1994, the Jewish Community Center of Buenos Aires, Argentina is bombed, leaving 86 dead and 300 wounded. Hezbollah is blamed for the attack, presumably act as a proxy of Iran.


On July 19, 1994, Alas Chiricanas Flight 00901 was bombed over Panama. The flight killed 21 persons aboard (12 of Jewish descent) and an organization called Ansar Allah, or "Followers of God" claimed knowledge of the attack. Many sources believe that Hezbollah was the true culprit.


On July 26, 1994, the Israeli Embassy in London is bombed, which injures 20. The attack is blamed on Hezbollah.


On December 11, 1994, a bomb exploded aboard Philippines Air Flight 434, killing one. It turns out that Ramzi Yousef assembled a bomb in the lavatory, set the timer for four hours and secreted it under Seat 26K before deplaning at Cebu.


On December 24, 1994, in what could have been a preview of 9/11, Air France Flight 8969 is hijacked by Islamic terrorists who plan to crash the plane in Paris. The hijacking ended with few casualties as French law-enforcement takes control of the situation.


On January 6, 1995, a large-scale Islamist plot to bomb 11 U.S. airliners over the Pacific is dismantled when a laptop computer is fortuitously discovered in a Manila apartment by authorities after a fire. Ramzi Yousef and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed are named by Philippine security personnel as the instigators.


On June 14, 1995, a six day hostage crisis begins as Chechen Islamist rebels storm the Budyonnovsk police station, hospital, city hall, and other buildings. They take between 1,500 and 1,800 hostages including many women and children. 105 civilians and 25 Russian troops perish.


In the months of July through October of 1995, a series of bombings in France by Islamic terrorists kill eight and wound more than 100.


During the months of February and March, 1996, a succession of suicide bombings in Israel kill 60 and wound 284.


On June 25, 1996, the Khobar Towers are bombed by Hezbollah with Iranian backing. Nineteen U.S. servicemen perish and 372 are wounded.


On February 24, 1997, an armed man shoots at tourists on the Empire State Building observation deck. The gunman's note claims that the attack is punishment against the "enemies of Palestine."


On November 17, 1997, Islamist gunmen attack tourists in Luxor, Egypt and kill 62.


On Febuary 14, 1998, Islamic extremists set off bombs at an election rally in the Coimbatore, India, killing 60.


On August 7, 1998, Al Qaeda bombs the U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Tanzania, killing 225 and wounding 4,000.


During September, 1998, Chechen rebels bomb a series of Russian apartment buildings, killing around 300.


In December, 1998, Jordanian security officials detect and prevent an attack on American and Israeli tourists, arresting 28 suspects that were reportedly part of the 2000 millenium attack plots.


On December 14, 1998, Ahmed Ressam is captured on the border between the U.S. and Canada. He later confessed to planning to bomb LAX airport as part of the 2000 millenium plots.


On December 24, 1998, Indian Airlines Flight 814 to Delhi, India is hijacked by Islamic terrorists and one passenger is murdered before negotiations end the crisis.


On August 8, 2000, a bomb explodes near Pushkin Square in Moscow, killing 11 and wounding nearly 100.


On August 17, 2000, bombs explode in a Riga, Latvia shopping center, wounding 35.


On October 12, 2000, Al Qaeda bombs the USS Cole, killing 17 U.S. sailors and wounding 40 near Aden, Yemen.

Powerline notes:

Between 1993 and 2000, everyone who was paying any attention knew that the threat from Islamic terrorism was grave and getting worse. The catastrophic losses that occurred on Septimeber 11, 2001, could just as easily have happened in 1993, when the first plot to destroy the World Trade Center was carried off successfully, but the terrorists had miscalculated the effect of their explosives, or in 1995, when the plot to destroy eleven American airplanes in flight was thwarted by counter-intelligence work in the Philippines. What did the Clinton administration do in response to this grave threat? Essentially nothing. Worse, Clinton tried to sweep the problem under the rug, lest it disrupt the surface calm and prosperity for which he was eager to claim credit.

And, astounding as it may sound, Bill Clinton used polls to determine his response to terrorist attacks. Byron York, writing in the National Review (2001 - hat tip: Betsy Newmark) relates this story:

June 25, 1996, a powerful truck bomb exploded outside the Khobar Towers barracks in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, tearing the front from the building, blasting a crater 35 feet deep, and killing 19 American soldiers. Hundreds more were injured. When news reached Washington, Presi dent Bill Clinton vowed to bring the killers to justice... As Clinton spoke, his top political strategist, Dick Morris, was hard at work conducting polls to gauge the public’s reaction to the bombing...

"SAUDI BOMBING - recovered from Friday and looking great
Approve Clinton handling 73-20
Big gain from 63-20 on Friday
Security was adequate 52-40
It’s not Clinton’s fault 76-18"

None of these attacks -- or the thousands of others launched by Islamic extremists prior to 2003 -- can be blamed on a U.S. presence in Iraq.

The Democrats' talking points these day are that "Al Qaeda" is the enemy -- as if a laminated Al Qaeda card is necessary to be viewed as a terrorist. The fallacy of that assertion is illustrated by this list. Islamic extremism takes many forms and has many names. To view Bin Laden and Al Qaeda as the only authors who can harm American interests is a vapid and provably wrong position.

Put simply, since 9/11, Iraq, Libya, and Afghanistan have been removed as launching points for large-scale terrorist attacks. Instead, terrorists are on their heels, suffering greatly as a coalition whittles away their ranks and destroys their will to fight. Ultimately, economic gentrification of the Middle East, using democratic governmental structures, is the only long-term solution that anyone has suggested.

Ignoring the problem will return us to the days of reaction -- not action. It is a losing strategy. And it is a strategy that will get a lot of innocent people killed.


Vote Republican.

Related:
Betsy Newmark: Bill Clinton's real record on fighting terrorism
Hugh Hewitt: The Path to 9/11, Part II
Michelle Malkin: The President's Address
Real Ugly American: The Path To 9/11 and the Left
RWH: Quick thoughts on Part II of the Path to 9/11

Photo credits: Photo of Riga Latvia, courtesy of Patricia Tourist Office Riga Latvia

Monday, September 11, 2006

Remember


On Tuesday, September 11, 2001, I was at work sitting in front of a pair of powerful computers. A co-worker walked up to me and said, "Did you hear that a plane hit the World Trade Center?" No, I hadn't.

I surfed to the CNN website. Apparently, millions more around the world were attempting to fetch CNN's home page. The load on the server was tremendous; only a select few users were able to retrieve the site's front-page. After a number of repeated attempts, to no avail, I surfed to Yahoo and MSN. I was able to get a synopsis of the situation: a plane had smashed into one of the twin towers and a fire was raging.

Not long after, I was able to retrieve the CNN home page: a second plane had hit the other tower. My stomach dropped. I knew we were at war. A photo showed that both buildings were burning.

After a while, someone in the technology department had hooked up a live CNN satellite feed to a streaming, multicast video server. We were able to watch CNN on our machines. The entire floor of the building was silent. We were in a high-rise. How many other planes were out there?

Rumors were flying. Someone mentioned that the Pentagon had been hit. Another told an assembled group that a plane had gone down on the mall near the White House. How many other planes were out there?

We watched live -- in utter horror -- as one tower collapsed, a cacaphony of twisted steel and burning jet fuel, snuffing out thousands of lives in an eye-blink. Could the video feed be correct? How could a tower have... just disappeared? Almost as an answer, the next tower collapsed, giving out under the strain of melting structural supports.

I knew that we had just watched thousands die on American soil: the worst single enemy attack in our history. I mentioned to a co-worker -- former Air Force -- that it was most likely Bin Laden's handiwork. UBL was a household name even then.

For anyone working in a high rise, there was an unstated fear. Silly as it may sound, folks kept looking out the windows, half-expecting to see the silhouette of a jet. But there was nothing out there. Nothing.

A war had begun in earnest.

Sunday, September 10, 2006

Ideas for more Dramatizations of the Clinton Era


Given all of the interest and attention paid to the docudrama The Path to 9/11, other networks are certain to follow in ABC's footsteps. Helpful chap that I am, here are some suggestions for additional mini-series that center on the Clinton legacy:


The Path to Chinese ICBMs -- a dramatization of the fascinating story of Johnny Chung, the DNC, and the Clinton Administration -- details of how Chinese organizations "funneled" cash to the Democratic National Committee. According to CNN, "...after [the Chinese] passed illegal money to the D.N.C., Clinton approved the transfer of commercial satellite-launch technology to China--technology that might have helped China improve the accuracy of its long-range ballistic missiles that threaten the U.S..." Review: Pulse-pounding drama at its best!


The Path to the Lincoln Bedroom -- a dramatization of the many Clinton-era celebrities and donors who visited the White House and slept in the Lincoln Bedroom. According to CNN, among the nearly 800 guests who used the bedroom were "Barbra Streisand, catalogue retailer Lillian Vernon, playwright Neil Simon, film director and producer Steven Spielberg, former Chrysler chairman Lee Iaccoca, the Rev. Billy Graham, Apple Computer co-founder Steven Jobs, nutrition guru Dean Ornish, and, not least, actress Jane Fonda and her husband, [and] CNN honcho Ted Turner." Review: Celebs, romance, and controversy - a heady brew!


The Path to Monica's Heart -- a dramatization of the scandal known as "Monicagate." A former White House intern, Lewinsky engaged in a brief relationship with the President while she was a paid staff-member at the Pentagon. On August 17, 1998, Clinton admitted he had misled listeners and said that he had participated in an "inappropriate" relationship with Lewinsky. Some critics noted that Clinton had subjected himself to a situation where he could have been blackmailed. Review: a timeless romance, suitable for the entire family!


Vote Republican.

Related:
Betsy Newmark: It's about time that people remember Sandy Berger
Ed Driscoll: Combating Terrorism With Public Relations
Hugh Hewitt: "The Path to 9/11"
Michelle Malkin: Path to 9/11: Cut short?
Outside the Beltway: "Path to 9/11" Video Clips

Quote o' the Day


Our quote of the day award goes to BlameBush, who wins two snow tires and a bottle of A-1 Steak Sauce (opened, but barely used). The topic? Bill Clinton and his dogged pursuit of terrorists:

Madeline Albright and others who worked with The Man from Hope insist that given the opportunity, a court-issued warrant, permission from the International Community, a green-light from the ACLU, and a thumbs-up from the public opinion polls, there's nothing that would have stopped him from going after Osama Bin Laden.

Saturday, September 09, 2006

The free speech crowd



In the months leading up to the 2004 Presidential Election, a major motion picture was released. Fahrenheit 9/11, a movie written and directed by Michael Moore, pilloried the Bush administration for its "unjust" actions in pursuing the war on terror.


While portrayed as a documentary, critics pointed out that Moore's movie contained more than 50 major inaccuracies. Democrat Ed Koch called the film, "propaganda" and Slate's Jack Shafer said, "no court would be inclined to find in Moore's favor if a critic accused him of lying once or twice or 12 times in Fahrenheit 9/11."


Despite all of the criticism, Moore was feted at Cannes and other major film festivals.


Moore was also honored with a Presidential Box seat at the Democratic National Convention along with ex-President Jimmy Carter.


By election day 2004, Moore's film had grossed around $120 million.


On August 21, 2006, ABC released the synopsis of its mini-series, "The Path to 9/11." The docu-drama is a "dramatization is based on The 9/11 Commission Report and other published sources and personal interviews."


The film portrays the events leading up to 9/11 in a dramatized fashion. Scenes include "...a plan to capture bin Laden and bring him to the U.S. to face justice [that] is never approved for action... [later] the simultaneous bombings of two U.S. embassies... push the Administration to respond with an ineffective missile strike that some think merely elevates bin Laden's stature in the Muslim world."


In 2004, the Washington Times reported that the Clinton administration had four opportunities to kill or capture Bin Laden and failed to act each time.


According to the Times, Sandy Berger -- Clinton's national security adviser -- worried, "if the plans failed and al Qaeda launched a counterattack, 'we're blamed.'"


Berger later admitted to stealing and destroying Top Secret documents related to "the Administration['s] knowledge - and inaction - regarding al Qaeda presence in the U.S. in 1999 and 2000... stolen were crucial notes in the margins of these drafts which reveal the thinking and agendas of the Clinton Administration relating to the mounting terrorist threat."


Unembarrassed about these actions, Berger and other former administration officials have complained bitterly about ABC's film. Berger himself called one scene, "a total fabrication."


Democratic members of Congress have also requested the ABC alter or remove the film from distribution. The EIB Network reports that Democrats sent a, "...letter threatening ABC's license for their owned and operated television stations..."


Democrats Harry Reid, Dick Durbin, Charles Schumer, and others wrote a letter to ABC's leadership that asked ABC to censor the broadcast: "We therefore urge you to cancel this broadcast to cease Disney's plans to use it as a teaching tool in schools across America through Scholastic..."


America Blog describes the tactics used by Senate Democrats: "...The Senate Democratic leadership just threatened Disney's broadcast license. Note the use of the word "trustee" at the beginning of the letter and "trust" at the end. This is nothing less than an implicit threat that if Disney tries to meddle in the US elections on behalf of the Republicans, they will pay a very serious price when the Democrats get back in power, or even before..."


Let's think about the irony of this situation for a moment.

That Congressional Democrats and others would attempt to censor ABC for its dramatization -- after embracing a film like Fahrenheit 9/11 -- is the height of hypocrisy.


As EIB notes, this activity represents a "pure Stalinist tactic". And I always thought Democrats represented the "free speech crowd."

Vote Republican.


Related:
Gateway Pundit: Clintons and a Damning 1998 Video of OBL
Hotair: Meltdown: Dean, Berger, Albright... demand "Path" be edited cancelled
Hotair: U.S. drone had Osama onscreen — in 2000
Hugh Hewitt: Dave, from Minnesota
Macsmind: Presidential Daily Brief to Clinton warned of Hijackings
Wizbang: A few thoughts on the Path to 9/11

Friday, September 08, 2006

Trojan uses Microsoft EFS to hide itself


McAfee's Avert Labs has word of a new trojan-hiding technique that uses Microsoft's Encrypting File System (EFS). EFS, present in all versions of Windows since 2000, allows a user to protect a folder using strong encryption based upon the user's login-name and password.

Avert reports that the newly spotted trojan uses EFS to avoid detection while executing with administrative rights. It employs obfuscated DLL and PE files to drop a couple of components into EFS-protected folders: a dialer and a downloader/dropper. When it executes, the trojan begins by creating a randomly named administrator account. It then creates a randomly named Windows service that executes under the just-created admin's credentials.

Once the service runs, the downloader can check for updated versions of itself and bring them down as needed. According to Avert, some variants of the trojan use our old IE friend -- Browser Helper Objects (BHOs) -- and the classic NTFS file-hiding technique called Alternate Data Streams.

All in all, this sounds like a doozy of a trojan that leverages nearly every vulnerable aspect of Windows to propagate its bad self.

Avert Labs: Protecting against EFS based attacks

Dems pressure ABC to censor 9/11 docudrama


Ex-president Bill Clinton and other Democrats have raised a stink with ABC over its docudrama The Path to 9/11. The DNC has gone so far as to call it a, "despicable and irresponsible fraud."

Letters have been written, calls made, angry blog posts -er- posted, all in an effort to censor ABC's historical retrospective on 9/11. Nowhere does the DNC call the scenes fabricated: that's because they are anything but fabricated. Many of the scenes are culled from copious records that ended up in the 9/11 Commission Report or from eyewitness accounts.

Newsbusters reports that four prospective committee chairmen in the House -- prominent Democrats all -- sent a letter to ABC demanding a review of the miniseries. There are no overt threats in the letter, but the subtext is clear: should the Democrats take control of the House in November, ABC better watch out for retribution from Conyers, Dingell, Harman, and Slaughter. The key graphs of the letter complain about:

...a scene in which Sandy Berger, the National Security Adviser to President Bill Clinton, declines to give Central Intelligence Agency operatives the authority to capture or kill Osama Bin Laden, and in which those operatives are outside a house where Bin Laden is located...

The tragic irony? Sandy Berger, a vociferous critic of the film, was convicted of stealing and destroying classified background material related to Bin Laden, Al Qaeda, and 9/11 that could have been used to corroborate or confirm the historical facts. Shockingly, there's no mention of that little burst of criminal activity in the letter.

The would-be Democratic chairmen also whine about:

...a scene in which the Central Intelligence Agency declines to share information about the 9/11 hijackers with the FBI and ascribes that failure to the so-called "wall," limiting information sharing by the Department of Justice in certain circumstances, and established by the Department of Justice in an internal memorandum...

Would that be the same wall that was erected by Democrat Jamie Gorelick? The same wall roundly blamed as blocking information sharing between agencies? And the same Gorelick who also served on the 9/11 Commission, a blatant conflict-of-interest? Why... yes, yes, and yes.

Newsweek reports:

...Clinton’s major beef is over a scene where his security adviser Richard Clarke... stops the CIA from assassinating bin Laden out of concern that the president wants to avoid any political damage should the mission go awry. The movie then cuts to real footage of Clinton testifying that “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.” The obvious implication is that Clinton ducked pulling the trigger because he was too preoccupied with his political future, especially since it was undermined by his own personal drama. (And if that implication isn’t obvious enough, the camera immediately cuts from Clinton to a suggestive shot of the looming phallic Washington monument).

Was Clinton too distracted to act? Maybe. Is it plausible to suggest that? Certainly to some people, including the filmmakers. And frankly, that should be enough...

The fact that Berger and Gorelick are used to bolster the Democrats' arguments should tell us all we need to know about this little tiff.

The Democratic tactics of seething, whining, and hissing should be utterly ignored by ABC.

Thought for the day


Some people try to find things in this game that don't exist, but football is only two things: blocking and tackling. -- Vince Lombardi

Thursday, September 07, 2006

"A Despicable, Irresponsible Fraud"


That's the headline of an email I received from the Democratic National Committee, a predictably frenzied reaction to the ABC docudrama entitled, "The Path to 9/11."

Because the film accurately depicts the long runup to the 9/11 attacks during the Clinton years, the Democratic PR machine has spun up faster than the flywheel on a Christopher Lloyd anti-gravity machine.

The Demos' PR consultants picked on a couple of scenes they claimed were "biased [and] irresponsible." By the way, note their failure to claim the scenes were falsely depicted:

...In [one] scene, a CIA field agent places a phone call to get the go ahead to kill Osama Bin Laden, then in his sights, only to have a senior Clinton administration official refuse and hang up the phone. Sandy Berger, President Clinton's National Security Advisor, called the same scene "a total fabrication. It did not happen."

Would that be the same Sandy Berger convicted of the theft and destruction of classified documents related to 9/11? Why, yes, I think that would be:

...One of the stories widely reported this week was the discovery that Sandy Berger had blocked four different efforts to capture or kill Osama bin Laden, in one case because the US did not have him under indictment. Could it be that Berger attempted to replace the memo with his handwritten objections to these operations with a new version without the notes? Or, even more possible given the authorship of the draft memos he stole, could Berger have tried to replace the stolen documents with forgeries rewritten in order to coincide with the testimony that Richard Clarke later gave the 9/11 Commission in public hearings? John Lehman blasted Clarke for the changes in his testimony between the closed sessions and the open sessions of the commission hearings in an interview this week. Could this be related? ...

Having Berger comment on the film's veracity -- after his conviction for theft and destruction of classified documents related to 9/11 -- isn't just a bad idea, it's downright comical.

The Dems also lambast the docudrama for its expert consultants:

...ABC asked only the Republican co-chair of the 9/11 Commission, Tom Kean, Sr., to advise the makers of "The Path to 9/11". The producers optioned two books, one written by a Bush administration political appointee, as the basis of the screenplay -- yet bill the miniseries as "based on the 9/11 Commission Report."

The Democrats really nailed it this time - the aftermath of 9/11 was a "despicable, irresponsible fraud." But the fraud didn't arrive in the form of this docudrama; instead, one could argue it was the 9/11 Commission, which had a giant constipant by the name of Jamie Gorelick on its rolls.

If you look up "conflict of interest" in Wikipedia, odds are you'll see a mug shot of Gorelick. That's because, long before she served as a commissioner for the 9/11 report, she actually helped bungle the Clinton administration's horribly ineffective counter-terrorism efforts:

...there are serious questions about the independence of one Commissioner in particular, Jamie Gorelick... a recently declassified 1995 memo written by... [her] ...instituted a new set of procedures to raise "walls" within the FBI beyond those established by the Foreign Intelligence Service Act of 1978 (FISA)...

...there is no question that Jamie Gorelick has a conflict of interest in serving as a member of the 9/11 Commission - even Gorelick's defenders on the 9/11 Commission are not arguing that... she is the only member of the 9/11 Commission who served in either the Clinton or Bush administration. She was directly involved in matters that are currently under investigation by the 9/11 Commission including the "walls" that prevented the FBI from sharing information internally and with other parts of the government... ...knowing what we know now about the memo she wrote in 1995... would she have been asked to testify if she had not been in the 9/11 Commission. The answer is clearly "yes"...

Gorelick had no business adjudicating the aftermath of 9/11 since her actions were arguably a primary accelerant.

The Frontpage review of the movie put it succinctly:

...[Director] Nowrasteh and the producers of this miniseries have gone out on a limb to honestly and fairly depict how Clinton-era inaction, political correctness, and bureaucratic inefficiency allowed the 9/11 conspiracy to metastasize. Let me say here though that "The Path to 9/11" is not a partisan miniseries or a “conservative” miniseries. It simply presents the facts in an honest and straightforward manner (the producers have backed up every detail of the miniseries with copious amounts of research and documentation), and the facts are that for seven years, from 1993 to 2000, the Clinton administration bungled the handling of the world-wide terrorist threat. The miniseries is equally honest in depicting the Bush administration. It shows a few points where administration officials, following in the tradition of the Clinton years, do not follow certain clues about the terrorist plot as zealously as they should have...

I've got an idea for the Democratic National Committee: if the story is so untrue, sue for libel.

I won't hold my breath. Unless, that is, I'm being chauffered around Martha's Vineyard by Ted Kennedy.

p.s., No hyperlink provided, but you can cut-and-paste the Democratic link if you wish -- http://www.democrats.org/pathto911 -- I won't give them the benefit of the referral.

Thought for the Day


The Democrats have opposed developing the missile defense system that could protect us against the missiles that North Korea developed under the terms of the agreement that Bill Clinton negotiated with it in 1994.

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

My 2006 Congressional Campaign Commercial


Any GOP candidate may freely use this commercial. Cue tape. Cue talent. 3-2-1... action.


The Democratic leadership -- represented by Harry Reid -- says that the war in Iraq is just a distraction in the war on terror. That the situation in North Korea has worsened. And that our relationship with Iran is more dangerous than ever.

What Reid fails to mention is how we got into this mess in the first place.


In 1978, terrorism hit a new plateau when Democrat Jimmy Carter failed to support Iran's Shah and -- later -- "went out of [his] way to support" the Ayatollah Khomeini.


Little did Carter know that the new regime would invade sovereign American territory -- the US Embassy -- and hold Americans hostage for 444 days. Carter's actions would also ignite a worldwide bonfire of terrorism.


Under Democrat Bill Clinton, the U.S. blithely ignored a series of terrorist attacks including a truck-bombing of the World Trade Center,...


...a massive bombing of American servicemen and others in Saudi Arabia,...


...deadly truck-bombings of two U.S. embassies,...


...an attack on a U.S. warship, the USS Cole,...


...allowed the A.Q. Kahn nuclear parts network to thrive under their noses, which directly benefited Iran, Libya, and...


...North Korea,...


...and culminated with a second attack on the World Trade Center and another on the Pentagon.


On four occasions, Clinton also failed to kill or capture Osama Bin Laden, citing a variety of concerns.


A clear path runs from the day of the raid on the U.S. embassy in Tehran and the seizure of American hostages to 9/11. A path defined by Democratic presidents.


Now, the Democratic party tells us it will make us safer. But Democrats voted against the Patriot Act, against surveillance programs, and against missile defense.


It's taken a long time to begin climbing out of the hole dug by Democratic leaders. In this, the nuclear age of terrorism, can America really afford more Democratic "leadership"?

Vote Republican.


Related reading:
New York Post: Carter's History: How He Established Islamic Rule in Iran, Part II
Washington Times: Berger rejected four plans to kill or capture bin Laden