A commenter at Canada's "Small Dead Animals" blog (h/t Relapsed Catholic) describes AlGore's method of doing penance for his global warming sins:
He buys 'indulgences'. He purchases carbon credits from those places which use little energy. What does this actually mean?
It means that in the world run by the Kyoto Religion, only the rich can have sufficient energy. The rich can use as much energy as they need for their mansions, their limousines, their private jets, their entertainments and so on - without any sacrifices whatsoever. All it takes is money to flip to the poor-in-energy-use.
The Kyoto Religion of the socialist leftists is heavily class-based. There are the rich, who use all the energy they want - and pay 'sin-money' to the poor, who cannot afford to pay for energy. The poor, of course, have to sacrifice; they can't afford the high cost of green energy, they can't afford the expensive 'energy-saving' new technological equipment; they can't afford the extra taxes on energy systems; and they certainly can't afford to pay sin-money.
But- that's what the Kyoto Religious cultists have set up; a class-based society. The rich and the poor. The rich get all the energy they need, and assuage their guilt with sin-money. The poor are deprived of energy - and watch while the Kyoto cultists insist that their taxes be spent, not on our own country's needs, but are sent to 'other countries' - as sin-money.
Posted by: Mike ||
02/27/2007 05:41 ||
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#1
It's a tax, and on the rich. No wonder the Dems approve.
Posted by: Bobby ||
02/27/2007 6:05 Comments ||
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#2
Will the left ever run out of ways/excuses for creating a highly regulatory oligarchy where the "right people" are in charge, make ALL the rules, and have the best lifestyles not on the basis of entrepreneurship, or by plebiscite, but on the basis of sycophancy to raw, naked government power?
Actually, the guy who wrote the article got it wrong, in part. The goal of leftists is not to rip the poor, it's to stymie those who would make money in a capitalist, entrepreneurial fashion. The oligarchs on the left need the poor to have a bloody shirt to wave and a bloody stick to use.
I'm left wondering what the excuse will be after after "climate change has run its course - any ideas out in the 'burg?
We could even start a pool.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
02/27/2007 6:13 Comments ||
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#3
This morning on WTOP Radio, a study was quoted saying Gore's Tennessee mansion had a $30,000 utility bill last year.
Bet that didn't include the SUV's or the private jets.
But it probably did include water, sewer, and trash pickup, so the energy cost couldn't be more than $2,000 a month. Why, I've had smaller house payments!
Posted by: Bobby ||
02/27/2007 6:19 Comments ||
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#4
Bobby here are the particulars.
"Gores mansion, located in the posh Belle Meade area of Nashville, consumes more electricity every month than the average American household uses in an entire year, according to the Nashville Electric Service (NES)."
. . . purchasing offsets only means that Gore doesn't want to make the same kind of sacrifices that he's asking other families to make. He's using a modern form of indulgences in order to avoid doing the penance that global-warming activism demands of others. It means that the very rich can continue to suck up energy and raise the price and the demand for electricity and natural gas, while families struggle with their energy costs and face increasing government regulation and taxation. It's a regressive plan that Gore's supporters would decry if the same kind of scheme were applied to a national sales tax, for instance.
And basically, it doesn't address the issue of hypocrisy. If Gore and his family continue to increase their consumption of commercial energy with all of the resources they have at hand, then they have no business lecturing the rest of us on conservation and down-scaling our own use.
Posted by: Mike ||
02/27/2007 8:00 Comments ||
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#6
Does anyone know how much the carbon credits cost?
I suspect he got a rock bottom low price on them because no one except morally vain poseurs would want them, thus the demand is probably low as is the market clearing price.
#9
lol, tu! Interesting point you make there actually. Wasn't there something (PETA or the UN or someone) last week about how we meat-eaters cause global warming from all the cows/hogs/chickens we raise for food and the methane they release? So, if'n I got this right, to be "truly green", we'd eat only beans (of course, that alone causes greenhouse gases), use hamsters to power turbine engines to run our homes, salt all of our food (instead of refrigerators), walk (or bike) every where we want to go, and have solar power panels on our roofs.
Of course, it's much easier to pay your $30k utility bills and just assauge your guilt with some hare-brained idea like "carbon offset credits."
Posted by: BA ||
02/27/2007 9:14 Comments ||
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#10
Apparently its only $4/metric ton per
http://www.chicagoclimatex.com/
assuming 1 metric ton of carbon per 1 megawatt hour (which is probably almost certainly a high estimate based on calculations by:
then the Gore mansion's 200+ megaKW hours could be offset by less than about $800 in credits (which by the way go to environmental organizations buying rainforest land, etc.)
#12
This from the environmental rads, a who thunk? moment. George Bush's ranch at Crawford -
The 4,000-square-foot house is a model of environmental rectitude.
Geothermal heat pumps located in a central closet circulate water through pipes buried 300 feet deep in the ground where the temperature is a constant 67 degrees; the water heats the house in the winter and cools it in the summer. Systems such as the one in this "eco-friendly" dwelling use about 25% of the electricity that traditional heating and cooling systems utilize.
A 25,000-gallon underground cistern collects rainwater gathered from roof runs; wastewater from sinks, toilets and showers goes into underground purifying tanks and is also funneled into the cistern. The water from the cistern is used to irrigate the landscaping surrounding the four-bedroom home. Plants and flowers native to the high prairie area blend the structure into the surrounding ecosystem.
No, this is not the home of some eccentrically wealthy eco-freak trying to shame his fellow citizens into following the pristineness of his self-righteous example. And no, it is not the wilderness retreat of the Sierra Club or the Natural Resources Defense Council, a haven where tree-huggers plot political strategy.
This is President George W. Bush's "Texas White House" outside the small town of Crawford.
Note the line - How does the President reconcile an eco-friendly abode for his own family with his persistent stand against anything that smacks of an environmentally friendly agenda for the nation as a whole?
Maybe Josie because people not in your mindless fake religion to Gaia are not inheritantly evil. There's nothing wrong with living your personal life in a manner that is generous and respectful of the land, its another to impose it based upon fear mongering, half truths, hate, and a facade for the grasping of power after your Communist approach failed miserably in the late 20th Century.
#16
One of AlGore's defenders (yep, he has at least one):
Those on right are busy today comparing Al Gore's energy consumption to the average American. Well, Al Gore is not the average American. He comes from power and money and he has achieved power and money in his own right.
Al Gore lives a life different from most folks. I'm not one to defend elitism, not as a matter of practice, but some elitism is inevitable. There must be a leadership class. There always has been and there always will be. Even societies organized around the principle of the equality and preeminence of the proletariat have had an elite class. It is the natural order of things. The key for a society is to create a responsible, responsive and fluid elite.
Is that a defense or an indictment?
Posted by: Mike ||
02/27/2007 14:36 Comments ||
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#18
And after "I-Truth" came out, Gore household consumption increased....Suppose mommy and the kids turned up the heat and ran around with all the lights on with Al out of town?
#19
#17 anon-2u - Glenn Reynolds says it's because of the Chinese market plunging - apparently it's affecting markets world-wide.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
02/27/2007 16:38 Comments ||
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#20
"Even societies organized around the principle of the equality and preeminence of the proletariat have had an elite class. It is the natural order of things."
Does this sound like members of the politburo living in dachas while everyone else waits in line 4 hours for two rolls of toilet paper to anyone else in the 'burg?
Posted by: no mo uro ||
02/27/2007 17:52 Comments ||
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I know Rantburgers prefer articles, but Babalu Blog has some interesting rumors about discontent within Cuba's military:
A new sign castro's army is restless
Babalu writers were among the first to notice signs of trouble brewing in castro's military.
To recap, castro's army is rife with discontent - Cuban enlisted men recently shot two of their officers near a Santiago prison. It was triggered when a group of enlisted men had made friends with a prisoner who offered to take them to freedom's shores if the soldiers would let him out. The enlisted men went for it, but their officers tried to stop them. In the end, the enlisted men fired at the castroites trying to stop them. It was, quite simply, military mutiny, the kind that proved such fertile ground for Lenin's violent takeover of Russia in 1917. Read it here.
That's one incident that we know of.
Then things got wilder when a Cuban exile group called Commandos F4 recently broadcast their takeover of a whole regiment's worth of weapons from a Cuban army unit. From the comments section in Babalu blog, readers heard this report over the radio, and said that the Commandos F4 said the Cuban army was fed up and more than willing to join forces with potentially a brewing rebellion. See the whole thing here.
Obviously, there are severe signs of trouble in the Cuban army and these are just two of the instances we know about.
Proving the point, though,is today's perfect counterindicator - word from raul castro, fidel's little brother, that all is hunky dory in the Cuban army. Now why would raul say that?
Yes it's a counterindicator, castroites hate the fact that word is getting out about Cuba's growing revolts in the army. Word out about matters like this might encourage even more troops to revolt or look for Commandos F4.
These are very dangerous times for the castroites. If you can stand to open Prensa Latina, the state-controlled castroite propaganda organ, the link with raul praising the Cuba army is interestingly timed, and posted as the top story, here.
Presidential candidates have the opportunity to set the national agenda by bringing forward new proposals and innovative policies.
Some do this: Bill Clinton in 1992, George W. Bush in 2000. Others dont. Like most or all of the 2008 candidates.
Click through their websites, and what you find is pretty thin gruel. Especially so from the two leading in the polls. Hillary Rodham Clintons homepage links to her recent Senate speech on Iran, but not her 2002 speech backing the Iraq war resolution. She calls for putting some of the oil industrys windfall profits into a fund that would help develop practical new sources of renewable energy, but with no details. You might find out more by clicking on her Let the Conversation Begin webcasts.
Rudy Giuliani tells you even less. His exploratory-committee website has an account of his work as mayor of New York. But I could find nothing on what he would do as president. John McCains website makes some interesting points. As president, he would use the veto pen on pork and earmarks.
The section on human dignity and the sanctity of life mentions his opposition to abortion for many years and to funding embryonic-stem-cell research: a reminder to cultural conservatives that hes been on their side, though he has seldom talked about it. For Iraq, he wants a more robust counterinsurgency strategy which seems to be underway now.
Barack Obama s issue positions seem to be taken more or less intact from his senatorial Website. He cites his work with various Republican senators on important issues. He wants government to assume domestic autoworkers healthcare costs if they invest half in fuel-efficient technology, and he promises more resources to teachers: something for the United Auto Workers and the teachers unions.
John Edwards provides more detail. He wants withdrawal from Iraq within 12-18 months, plus direct talks with Iran and Syria, and a regional peace conference. Would Israel be invited? Variety reported (and Edwards denied) that he told a Hollywood crowd an attack by Israel on Iran was the greatest threat to world peace. He calls for universal health insurance through requiring employer coverage, expanding Medicaid, reform(ing) insurance and restricting drug ads. Eliminating poverty, his trademark theme in 2004, gets one paragraph.
Mitt Romney has an Issue Watch tab, with single-paragraph discussions of eight issues and multiple recent Romney quotes. He calls for address(ing) entitlement programs and universal health insurance through market reforms.
Single-digit candidates websites vary.
Mike Huckabee has a four-word slogan and a YouTube link. Duncan Hunter discusses border security, trade, and the war on terrorism. Joe Biden has a few paragraphs on ten issues (with Afghanistan and Darfur treated as one issue). Chris Dodd identifies six issues but has single paragraphs on only four so far. Jim Gilmore reports on his record as governor of Virginia. John Cox, a Chicago-area accountant who ran for the Senate in 2004, wants lower spending, calls global warming overblown and stresses his opposition to abortion.
Some offer more. Bill Richardson invites you to sign a petition for diplomacy with Iran and has one-paragraph takes on seven issues. Dennis Kucinichs front page is mostly about Iraq but has links to long comments on 10 issues, from healthcare to the Patriot Act. Mike Gravel highlights his opposition to the Iraq war and his proposals for national initiative elections. Sam Brownback mentions issues hes taken the lead on (human rights, Darfur) and calls for a $5,000 tax credit for rural first-time homebuyers. Tom Tancredo starts with immigration, his signature issue, but provides some detail on ten others (hes for a flat tax or national sales tax).
Yes, its early yet. The candidates havent had time to get issue shops up and running. Clinton and Bush got started much later in the 1992 and 2000 cycles. But so far, candidates have told us very little about where they think the world is headed and what we should do about it. And theyve shown us little to indicate that theyve thought seriously about governance and long-term problems like Social Security and Medicare.
Lets hope they do better as they make their way through Iowas 99 counties and New Hampshires 234 cities and towns.
#2
REALCLEARPOLITICS/RIGHTNATION > 2008:THE RACE BACK TO BILL article. HILLARY > Bill was a "A BAD MAN/MEN", but "HE WAS A VERY GOOD PRESIDENT", ergo ONLY BILL = NOT RICHARD NIXON SO ONLY REPUBLICAN NIXON MUST BE HATED BY AMERICA = AMERIKA???
Congress' recent anti-Iraq War votes left little doubt that Democrats are willing to elevate party politics way above national security. But who knew they would likewise elevate Big Labor's special interests over America's security?
This shamefulness recently manifested in House and Senate bills ostensibly implementing recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. Democrats took it upon themselves to also throw in recommendations from the American Federation of Government Employees (the largest federal employee union) and the AFL-CIO. As a big payback to these powerful union bosses, the Democratic bill include language that overturns rules disallowing the Transportation Security Administration's 43,000 airport screeners from unionizing.
Congress created the TSA post-9/11 to fix airports' deficient security. But it prohibited collective bargaining precisely because it was known that it would compromise screeners' nimbleness and ability to respond to varying security demands. And that move came shortly after congressional Democrats' successful efforts to strip from the Port Security Act a measure the International Longshoremen's Association considered bothersome. Passed while Congress was still Republican-held, the law originally featured an amendment by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) imposing a seven-year-freeze on hiring dock workers convicted of murder, bribery, identity fraud, illegal-firearms possession and other crimes. Democrats, led in part by Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), successfully stripped the provision during House-Senate conference committee. Coming not long after Democrats used the aborted Dubai ports deal to slam the White House for mismanaging port security, the party's decision to kowtow to the Longshoremen is ironic - to put it mildly.
Really, Democrats ought to know better. The last time the public caught union interests trumping national security, the folks back home responded by voting Democratic Senate leader Tom Daschle - who'd led a fight to have burdensome federal work rules applied to new Homeland Security hires - out of office. Indeed, voters nationwide noticed - and Democrats lost control of the Senate. Does the party want to reprise that debacle?
This article starring:
American Federation of Government Employees
International Longshoremen's Association
Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.)
Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.)
Posted by: Fred ||
02/27/2007 00:00 ||
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That must be a Post editorial? didn't see any authors name. I liked the piece it always gives me heatburn when I hear that America's largest union is the Gubmint union.
Friends of mine work for the National Park Service, and Mike always brags to me that they [wife and friends] belong to the largest union in the United States. And I answer, "wow Mike, just like the Soviet Union". [accent on union]
#2
It could be due to my not being American but I fail to see how unionizing/barring unionizing these employees has anything to do with national security per se. Both positions strike me to be equally ideologically driven. Furthermore, there is a strong case to be made that if you want airport screeners to be paid five bucks an hour or whathaveyou with no benefits you are going to get exactly what you pay for.
#3
Ex, with a unionized labor force, it's harder to axe bad/inneffective employees. Also run the risk of having to meet union demands that are contrary to the effectiveness of the security personnel.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
02/27/2007 10:48 Comments ||
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#4
The world has changed and the Dhemmicrats have not.
Posted by: Al and Tipper Gore ||
02/27/2007 11:57 Comments ||
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#5
The theory is when you have private security firms acting as the gatekeepers of the airports, the other security firms want the biz and will send people in to show the gaps of the current firm.
When you have unionized employees who can't get fired, security will be more lax.
#6
Excalibur, I b'lieve they're being paid as if they were union, even though they aren't. That was a big reason we went from minimum wage private contractors to government employees. Mike N. and anonymous2u are giving the arguments made at the time for making the expensive change from the then-extant system of allowing essentially temp. agencies to handle the personnel side. Especially as there were lots of reports in the first months of shocking numbers of illegal aliens and criminals who'd been let in on the agency payrolls.
#7
If you need an education on how unions screw the crap outta progress, study railroads.
The rails fell into a fifty year plunge due to unions. Railroad stocks became toilet paper, railroad jobs, deadenders, rail technology ? Non-existent. They are recovering now, and I guarantee the word 'union', is rarely uttered.
While we're at it, unions have helped end the American steel industry, the American shipping industry, and American manufacturing, in general.
Unions are also the reason taxes are so high and rising. But, what's not to like ? Long live sitting on your ass pretending to work.
If you only read the news as reported by the Main Stream Media, you would never know that we had just recently experienced another Jihad style attack by a Muslim on American soil.
On Monday, Feb. 12th, one time Bosnian refugee Sulejmen Talovic (age 18) walked into the Trolley Valley shopping mall in Salt Lake City and in a six minute rampage killed five people and severely wounded several more. The dead were identified as Jeffrey Walker, 52, Vanessa Quinn, 29, Kirsten Hinkley, 15, Teresa Ellis, 29, and Brad Frantz, 24.
My initial (blogged) reaction was:
Any guesses as to whether he's a Muslim or not? I may be going out on a limb here, but I sense another follower of Allah and the Religion of Peace.... And might I add that this is a great example of how having a large section of the population allowed to conceal carry is a good idea.
Sure enough it turns out Sulejmen Talovic was indeed a Muslim and that little nugget of information has fueled a firestorm of speculation among bloggers and unleashed accusations of "cover-up" directed towards the Main Stream Media and law enforcement investigators. The media showed an interesting and obvious reluctance to initially disclose, let alone discuss, eighteen year old Talovic's religious persuasion.
A nearby wedding videographer was able to videotape the initial police response and capture audio of some of the shootings as well as the shouts of the shooter before police gunned him down. The chilling tape can be viewed here.
On the video, the Islamic battle cry of "Allah-hu Akbar" (God is great) is heard two times at 1:38-1:40 as the officer identifies himself. There appears to be a third one at 1:47.
So it appears that a Bosnian Muslim shooting his way through a mall killing Americans and shouting Allah-hu Akbar in the post 9-11 era is apparently not newsworthy. Am I missing something here?
According to the Associated Press, FBI agent Patrick Kiernan has reassured us that the bureau has no reason to believe Talovic "was motivated by religious extremism" or intended "an act of terrorism."
Thank goodness. I know I feel better.
Instead, investigators insist "Mr. Talovic's motive remains a mystery."
We can only assume that the politically correct, multiculturalist dogma has struck again. The shouts of Allah-hu Akbar do kind of give it away, but the mainstream media has pretty much balked at saying the "M" word. When it comes to this attack, the news is something to be spun, not necessarily reported. They also went out of their way to assure us (incorrectly) that the latest Islamic martyr did not attend any mosques in the area. This was quickly refuted:
Although he quit school at 16, Sulejman Talovic often attended Friday prayers at the Al-Noor mosque on 700 East in Salt Lake City" - Salih Omerovic (a relative). The mosque is two blocks from the mall where the shooting took place.
Charles Johnson over at LittleGreenFootballs.com put it this way after coming under fire by Utah's Deseret News for daring to mention the fact that the killer happened to be a Muslim.
"And we're supposed to believe, apparently, that there is absolutely no connection between Islam and terrorism, and anybody who suspects one is either a racist or an ultraconservative."
Bloggers have adopted the term 'Sudden Jihad Syndrome' (coined by Daniel Pipes) to describe this type of incident where otherwise normal appearing Muslims abruptly become violent. Leaderless resistance and lone wolf martyrdom operations are both preached and praised by the global jihadists.
There have been several such incidents in the last few years.
FrontpageMag.com published a column entitled Salt Lake Jihad?:
In October 2006, a pro-jihad internet site published a "Guide for Individual Jihad," explaining to jihadists "how to fight alone." It recommended, among other things, assassination with guns and running people over. Is it possible that Sulejmen Talovic and some of these others were waging this jihad of one?
An editorial entitled Sudden Jihad Syndrome at Investors Business Daily lists eight other recent examples of young Muslim men launching individual attacks in the United States.
The shooters family is extremely shocked by their sonZs act of terror and suspect the possible encouragement and involvement of others.
From KLS.com:
The father of Trolley Square shooter Sulejmen Talovic apologizes over and over for the ordeal. Suljo Talovic says no one who knew his son saw this coming and he believes someone pushed him to do it.
Suljo Talovic doesn't know where his son got the guns or how he learned how to use them.
Suljo Talovic, Father of Shooter: "Somebody got (the guns) and maybe (they were) training him and tell(ing) him (to), go shoot somebody.'"
Question: So you think that somebody influenced him maybe to do this?
Suljo Talovic: "Yeah. I think somebody."
Talovic says the tragedy is taking a toll on his family.
Repeatedly, in a lengthy interview with KSL Newsradio, Talovic expressed the sentiment that someone trained and pushed his son to kill. He apologizes for the ordeal, saying it makes him feel horrible, like killing himself.
The fact the father suspects someone recruited and trained his son is significant. We need answers as to who supplied the guns and the ammunition and who instructed him in their use. We can only hope that law enforcement has cast aside the chains of political correctness and is vigorously investigating and interrogating all those who interacted, and attended mosque, with young Talovic.
Once again it has been left to the blogosphere and Internet outlets to lead the investigation and uncover the motives of this latest terrorist attack on the Homeland.
David Huntwork is a conservative activist and freelance columnist in Norther Colorado where he lives with his wife and three young daughters. You may view his bio, blog and past columns at DavidHuntwork.tripod.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions at DaveHuntwork@juno.com.
#1
...On the video, the Islamic battle cry of "Allah-hu Akbar" (God is great) is heard two times at 1:38-1:40 as the officer identifies himself. There appears to be a third one at 1:47.
What the hell the main stream mush brain liberal media thinking? Do they think these people don't want to kill them too? I don't get this silliness on the part of the media. They must want to be under someone's boot. Christ almighty, give these people a brain.
At the University of Missouri-Rolla, a student is in custody after making terrorist threats: Student Arrested After Threat At UM-Rolla Campus. (Hat tip: LGF readers.)
CNN has already decided why he did it: Police: Depressed student said he had bomb, anthrax.
And no ones talking about whether hes a Buddhist, a Mennonite, or something else.
...
The CNN report includes this:
The mans identity and nationality were not released, though school spokesman Lance Feyh said he was an international student.
From what I can gather, muslims say Allahu Akhbar whenever they think theyre about to die, regardless of the reasons. Think Sean O'Patrick, goes to rob a bank, the cops unexpectedly show up and start shooting at him. He says "Jesus, Mary and Joseph!" dont prove he was robbing the bank in the name of the above. This discussion came in the case of a muslim pilot on a plane that crashed, and the cockpit recorder got him saying "allahu Akhbar" and some dudes said, see, this was a suicidal act of terror. It may have been that, but the Allahu Akhbar aint proof. The expression is just far more pervasive in their culture then we realize, and isnt limited to acts of Jihad, AFAICT.
#5
Further, the Feds may be trying to keep the lid on it for good reasons. There's lots of whats going on that we don't know about and frankly don't need to know about.
If the MSM went into hysteria over a shopping center jihadi shooter the way they did over Anna Nicole, ever muzzie wacko would want to buy a ticket to Mexico City to prove he can shoot more infidels in their den of iniquity than the last guy. I'd rather they try to kill the Vice President at Bagram AFB.
#6
Never mind that he had them kneel down on the ground in a store which was selling the forbidden (by Islamics) Valentine's Day cards. Never mind that his mosque's leader was convicted of the tradition of Quranic wife beating. Never mind that not one single story like this covered by the FBI has ever seen the light of day.
Nimble, joke or head in the sand? Sorry I need coffee.
By the way liberalhawk I saw the video of that pilot's family when they were asked if he really had mental problems. Their eyes started twitching like kids caught with their hands in the cookie jar as they said, "no he was mentally sick". Bullshit.
Few if any Christians yell God is Great before they commit mass murder hawk.
Then their was the kid who converted down at some farm campus. He attended a mosque with known terrorist ties. When he couldn't get into the football stadium to blow up the crowd he bombed himself outside the stadium. The FBI found additional explosives in his apartment but still ruled it a suicide.
Right. In the mean time the clueless FBI is raiding a legit gun dealer's home in Minnesota. Bout as useless as tits on a tree.
#8
Think Sean O'Patrick, goes to rob a bank, the cops unexpectedly show up and start shooting at him. He says "Jesus, Mary and Joseph!" dont prove he was robbing the bank in the name of the above.
Why do I get the impression that if a Christian, who attended a fundamentalist church, went into a shopping mall and shouted, "Praise God" everytime he shot someone, that the media would be the first to make the connection and educate us all about the worldwide dangers of Christian fundamentalism.
#9
What's the upside of getting the public hysterical? Who knows, maybe some public-spirited citizens might start doing a few things to make the Muzzies in this country know the party is over and it's time to go back to their countries of ethnic origin--while they still can.
Posted by: mac ||
02/27/2007 17:41 Comments ||
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#10
The MSM would have a feeding frenzy if a fundamentalist Christian shot up a mall. It would be reported as a "Right-wing Christian" going amok in the mall. There would be a call for gun control.
The only reason I can think of that the lid is being kept on is what has already been mentioned, i.e. that maybe there is an investigation ongoing. The second reason is that people have just about had it and the Feds realize that--they don't won't muzzies getting shot up indiscriminately.
#11
Third reason, lots of Clinton era middle management left in the FBI.
Fourth reason, the Saudis are getting value for the millions of dollars they have lavished on various Federal officials.
Fifth reason, the FBI brass is kowtowing to CAIR.
#12
I do not want to be a racist, or thought of as one, but if someone comes towards me or mine with a gun shouting "Allah-hu Akbar", I will take it as a death threat and react violently.
#13
#12 - That ain't racism, honey - that's survival.
Racism would be if you would "take it as a death threat and react violently" only if the murdering scum attacker were of a different race from you.
(Which presumes that you wouldn't react if the attacker were the same race as you - which strikes me as one of the more STUPID implied positions of the Lefties. But then they're the real racists, so why would I be surprised?)
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
02/27/2007 19:19 Comments ||
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#14
Then their was the kid who converted down at some farm campus. He attended a mosque with known terrorist ties. When he couldn't get into the football stadium to blow up the crowd he bombed himself outside the stadium.
I figure that guy either never intended to get into the stadium or had the buses as a fallback. In college I went to a basketball game with my girlfriend -- at a college where basketball is the ONLY major sport. After the game there was a crush of people trying to get on the buses back to campus; my girlfriend was only 5' tall, and had I not blocked the crowd and held her up, she almost certainly would have gotten hurt.
A suicide bomber in the middle of a crowd like that would be horrific. Between the blast and the following stampede, easily dozens would die.
No way. I made my living by listening closely to recorded sounds and music for many years, and Id bet big money that the allahu akbar chant is not on that tape. Theres a very characteristic sing-song quality to the chant, that you can hear even in last-minute suicide bomber tapes, and I do not hear that at all in the SLC video.
Not there. Nope.
I haven't spent the time to listen closely to the video, but I trust Charles.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
02/27/2007 19:47 Comments ||
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#15
Then their was the kid who converted down at some farm campus. He attended a mosque with known terrorist ties. When he couldn't get into the football stadium to blow up the crowd he bombed himself outside the stadium.
University of Oklahoma at Norman, Rob. That's Oklahoma City, not exactly out in the sticks. My brother professes there, and gave us links to the school paper and local news sources at the time. The bomber was stopped at the stadium gates by security, so he went to the bus stop to wait for the exitting crowds. As I recall, he and his little friends (roommates? I don't recall exactly) had whipped up a batch of that terriblyly unstable bathtub explosive, and it went critical before he was quite ready. Quite a mess greeted the kids when they came out, apparently.
#16
TW, that was a quote from Icerigger. I couldn't remember the exact university, and I'm not in the position to call ANY university "the sticks", so...
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
02/27/2007 21:20 Comments ||
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#17
My apologies, Rob. Clearly I'm more tired than I realized.
#1
This problem is one that only Congress can solve: how to handle appeals by foreigners who are detained indefinitely as enemy combatants by U.S. forces abroad but who claim to be innocent civilians
The same Congress which votes to pass laws is the same Congress which can vote to remove Justice "Etat, c'est moi" Kennedy who simply ignores the very words of the Constitution and the very words of the Geneva Convention to impose his own rule interpretation. You got to ask yourself, do you want to spend time constantly rewriting laws because of one person, or fire the person and get on with what is already clearly on the books? The process to vote is the same in either case. However, its just once to remove the 'creative' editor.
The question of whether the Democrats will be able to edit and amend the 2002 Iraq war resolution is one of those constitutional conundrums that comes along once every quarter millennium or so. The majority leader in the Senate, Harry Reid, has already expressed enthusiasm for the idea, as has Senator Clinton. On Sunday, the Senate's commander in chief, Carl Levin, slithered onto "Meet the Press" to announce that he's working with Senator Biden on a new mission statement for GIs in Iraq.
Our troops, Mr. Levin said, will be "in a supporting role rather than a combat role in Iraq." Mr. Levin assured his viewers that Congress can impose a "cap on the number of troops," but when pressed, he would not take the bait and actually give a number. "We can cap the number of troops, change the mission without cutting off funding for the troops. ... We are not going to repeat the mistake of Vietnam where we took out on the troops our differences of policy with the administration."
And there you have the Democrats a year and eight months before the election. If this kind of posturing were not so dangerous it would be humorous. Here are the Democrats, finally registering the displeasure of the far-left base with the Iraq war, by proposing essentially that President Bush return to the old Iraq strategy that they insisted throughout 2006 he change. Scaling back the mission of American soldiers in Iraq to the point where they train Iraq's national army is now the one war strategy that everyone can agree has failed.
The Democrats seem to have forgotten or worse, to be repressing the fact that those Iraqi units that we trained in Jordan proved both incapable and unwilling to protect the Sunni minority from the rampages of Shiite militias. This was because many of these same units we trained were themselves more loyal to the sectarian goals of the militias than they were to a unified Iraq. Mr. Bush is way ahead of the senators; the new strategy will embed our soldiers inside the Iraqi units.
The idea is that this will contribute to a more effective military effort, while giving our own GIs a more intimate comprehension of the situation. If this works, then block by block, Baghdadis will start to get some peace. This is what General Petraeus, the man Mr. Levin's own committee sent unanimously to Iraq, has been saying. So it takes quite a bit of chutzpah for Mr. Levin, who had not a bad word for the general when the general appeared before his panel, to be now spending his energies on a new resolution to second-guess him.
As Americans puzzle over the spectacle of the Democrats' behavior, they will find solace in the writings of the Founders and the commentators on them. Joseph Story, for one, wrote of how, at Philadelphia, the first draft of the Constitution delegated to Congress the power merely "to make war," but it was later changed to "declare war." It was proposed to add, at one point, the power "to make peace," but that was rejected unanimously, Story pointed out because that would come only with the process of treaty making. The Founders, it seemed, just never could imagine a perfidy like the one we are witnessing today in which our national legislature would seek to quit a fight without having won.
This article starring:
Carl Levin
General Petraeus
Harry Reid
Senator Biden
Senator Clinton
Posted by: Fred ||
02/27/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
Just for the record, ever check up on how the US settled its Declaration of War against Germany in 1917? Remember the US Senate refused to ratify the Versailles Treaty.
#2
...It's occurring to me that the Democrats really have painted themselves into a corner. The cutting-off-funds option terrifies them because it will take weeks at most for Iraq to implode into a failed state far worse than Afghanistan ever was, and there'll be more than a year for the Republicans to remind the voters whodunit. Everything else - the cap, the time limit, and any other harebrained ideas they've got - can pretty much be ignored by the White House. If Congress invokes the War Powers Act (and that's far from a certainty), the WPA stands an excellent chance of being cut to ribbons in SCOTUS. Clearly one side did its homework while the other seems to believe that the Wayback Machine has sent us all back to 1972.
Seems to me the situation was best described by another Democrat, one from Texas, a long time ago:
"... "I can't run, I can't hide and I can't make it go away."
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
02/27/2007 9:02 Comments ||
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Clearly, there is something about Ayaan Hirsi Ali that annoys, rankles, irritates. I am speaking as one who does not know Hirsi Ali -- the outspoken Dutch-Somali critic of Islam -- but as one who, while living in Europe, cannot seem to avoid meeting her detractors. Most recently I met a Dutch diplomat who positively glowered when her name was mentioned. As a member of the Dutch parliament, Hirsi Ali had, he complained, switched parties, talked out of turn and refused to toe whatever was the proper political line. Above all, it irritated him that she did not share his Dutch faith in political consensus.
For those who haven't encountered her name yet, suffice it to say that Hirsi Ali is a European of African descent with an almost American rags-to-riches life story. As a young woman, she escaped from her Somali family while en route to an arranged marriage in Canada, made her way to Holland, learned Dutch, attended college and eventually won a seat in the Dutch parliament. Along the way, she also made an intellectual journey -- beautifully described in her new book, "Infidel"-- from tribal Somalia, through fundamentalism, and into Western liberalism. After Sept. 11, 2001, horrified by some of the things Osama bin Laden was saying, she reached for the Koran to confirm a hunch: "I hated to do it," she wrote, "because I knew that I would find bin Laden's quotations in there."
Partly as a result she lost her faith, concluding that the Koran spreads a culture that is "brutal, bigoted, fixated on controlling women, and harsh in war," and that should not be tolerated by European liberals. The conclusion led her into a series of controversies -- and to the murder of a Dutch filmmaker with whom she had co-produced a film about the mistreatment of Muslim women. The murderer was the son of Moroccan immigrants, born in Holland; he pinned a letter threatening Hirsi Ali onto his victim's chest. Ultimately, she left Holland for Washington, where she remains, ensconced at the American Enterprise Institute.
Yet even from that distance she continues to provoke Europeans, sometimes without saying anything at all. After a somewhat patronizing review of her first book -- in which British writer Timothy Garton Ash called her a "brave, outspoken, slightly simplistic Enlightenment fundamentalist" -- the French philosopher Pascal Bruckner came galloping to the defense of Hirsi Ali and the Enlightenment. Garton Ash counterattacked, and others joined what turned quickly into a wide-ranging debate (read the whole thing at http://www.signandsight.com) about reason, faith, multiculturalism and the integration of millions of Muslim immigrants into European culture.
Curiously, what seems to rankle Europeans most is the enthusiasm with which Hirsi Ali has adopted their own secularism and the fervor with which she has embraced their own Western values. Though this continent's intellectuals routinely disparage the pope as an irrelevant dinosaur, Hirsi Ali's rejection of religion in favor of reason, intellect and emancipation seems to make everyone nervous. Typical is the British feminist who complained that not only does Hirsi Ali paint "the whole of the Islamic world with one black brush," she also "paints the whole of the Western world with rosy tints," which is, of course, far more objectionable.
Others have compared her unfavorably to the Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan, who argues that Islam can be made compatible with modern European democracy. He, it is said, offers a way forward for millions of pious European Muslims. By contrast, Hirsi Ali's rejection of religion in favor of Western secularism is said to be a form of integration that works for no one but herself.
I suppose this latter charge might be true. On the other hand, it might not be: Maybe "Infidel" will inspire a generation of Muslim teenagers to study, work hard, join the mainstream -- and then say what they think and spoil the political consensus. Either way, I'm not sure that the impulse to dismiss Hirsi Ali for her lack of utilitarian value reflects well on those who do it. Nor does the underlying assumption: that religious faith must be respected and defended on behalf of the dark-skinned immigrants who live among us, even though we natives no longer seem to require it.
But perhaps it is just a question of time. In America, the phenomenon of the flag-waving first-generation immigrant is familiar. In Europe, such a thing is unknown. Maybe once Europeans get used to the idea -- a Muslim immigrant who embraces Western culture with the excitement of the convert! -- they'll like Hirsi Ali better. And if they're lucky, others will follow in her footsteps.
#1
Multcultirism is in fact no mre than plain old racism: freedom for the whites, female genital mutilation, misery, slavery and islam for the colored.
In a videotaped message released last week, Al-Qaedas number two man, Ayman al-Zawahiri, ridiculed President George W. Bush, who he claimed was addicted to drinking, lying and gambling, an obvious reference to Bushs long-admitted moral failings dated a long-time ago. But since Zawahiri is interested in dragging up the distant past to mock his nemesis, lets take time to revisit a couple of episodes from his own past that shed a less-than-flattering light on the principles of Osama bin Ladens right-hand man and the public face of Al-Qaeda in recent years.
In Lawrence Wrights recent book, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (Knopf, 2006), and in his lengthy September 2002 New Yorker profile of Zawahiri, The Man Behind Bin Laden, Wright recounts two incidents from Zawahiris biography that the Egyptian terror leader has been reluctant to advertise: his own qualifications as Jihads Judas.
Zawahiri fingered one of his closest friends sought by authorities and actively participated in setting up a trap to capture his fellow jihadi.
Zawahiri fingered one of his closest friends sought by authorities and actively participated in setting up a trap to capture his fellow jihadi; and in the other instance, Zawahiri was directly involved in the car bomb assassination of Al-Qaeda founder Abdullah Azzam over a disagreement in the future direction of the Afghanistan mujahedeen and to advance his personal position. This has been common knowledge in intel water cooler circles since a few hours after Azzam was murdered. I believe this is the first time I've ever seen an open source reference to it.
On October 8, 1981, President Sadat was reviewing a military parade in Cairo, when a military vehicle carrying a group of assassins associates of Zawahiri veered towards the viewing stands where Sadat was seated. The assassins began throwing hand grenades into the stands and firing volleys of automatic rifle fire into the President, killing him immediately. Zawahiri claimed that he wasnt aware of the plot until a few hours before it occurred, but immediately following the assassination, he was helping his closest friend and fellow member of Zawahiris jihad cell, Essam al-Qamari, coordinate a follow-up attack at Sadats funeral in an attempt to decapitate the government and install their own Islamic government. However, one of the conspirators was arrested before the plot could fully develop.
Zawahiri was brought in for questioning by Interior Ministry officials and his communications monitored. According to multiple sources, it was at this point that Zawahiri divulged the whereabouts of his friend, Qamari.
In the aftermath of the Sadat assassination, Zawahiri inexplicably was not immediately taken into custody, nor did he flee or go underground; Qamari, however, was the most wanted man in Egypt. Eventually, Zawahiri was brought in for questioning by Interior Ministry officials and his communications monitored. According to multiple sources, it was at this point that Zawahiri divulged the whereabouts of his friend, Qamari. This is confirmed by a former friend of Zawahiris and one of his cellmates, Montasser al-Zayyat, in his tell-all book on Zawahiri, The Road to Al-Qaeda: The Story of Bin Ladens Right-Hand Man.
After he was arrested on October 15, 1981, Zawahiri informed the authorities of Qamari's whereabouts. He had taken a refuge in a small mosque where he used to pray and meet Zawahiri and other members of the group. It was this painful memory which was at the root of Zawahiri's suffering, and which prompted him to leave Egypt for Saudi Arabia. He stayed there until he left for Afghanistan in 1987.
Zawahiri was present at the time of Qamaris arrest to finger his associate. Zawahiri later testified against Qamari and thirteen other associates during their trials.
According to Wrights account of Zawahiris betrayal of Qamari (found on pp. 52-53 in The Looming Tower), Zawahiri was present at the time of Qamaris arrest to finger his associate. Zawahiri later testified against Qamari and thirteen other associates during their trials. But as one analyst explains, in an attempt to cover-up the shame of his betrayal of Qamari, Zawahiri has engaged in a creative re-interpretation of the events surrounding Qamaris capture (after Qamari was conveniently dead) in a series of articles he had published in December 2001 in Al-Sharq Al-Awsat in response to Zayyats book:
one reason for Al-Zawahiri's desire for a quick exit from Egypt had to do with the information he had given to the police which led to the arrest of his close friend, Issam Al-Qamari. The police investigation minutes, quoted by Al-Zayyat, suggest that Al-Zawahiri arranged to meet his friend at a location surrounded by security personnel so that Al-Qamari could be arrested without bloodshed. By contrast, in his memoirs
Al-Zawahari draws a fantastic picture of great heroism shown by Al-Qamari and a small group of his comrades who were hiding in a workshop. When the police tried to break into the hiding place Al-Qamari, according to Al-Zawahiri, lobbed hand grenades and opened fire from automatic weapons causing a lot of fatalities and confusion among the police. Al-Qamari was chased by the police in the narrow lanes of the poor Cairo neighborhood lobbing hand grenades at his pursuers. The battle went on for hours until Al-Qamari's ammunition was exhausted. Al-Zawahiri's story sounds like a sheer fantasy.
Al-Zawahari draws a fantastic picture of great heroism shown by Al-Qamari and a small group of his comrades who were hiding in a workshop. When the police tried to break into the hiding place Al-Qamari, according to Al-Zawahiri, lobbed hand grenades and opened fire from automatic weapons causing a lot of fatalities and confusion among the police. Al-Qamari was chased by the police in the narrow lanes of the poor Cairo neighborhood lobbing hand grenades at his pursuers. The battle went on for hours until Al-Qamari's ammunition was exhausted. Al-Zawahiri's story sounds like a sheer fantasy. (Dr. Nimrod Raphaeli, Radical Islamist Profiles (3): Ayman Muhammad Rabi Al-Zawahiri: The Making of an Arch Terrorist, MEMRI Inquiry and Analysis Series - No. 127 [March 11, 2003])
While Zawahiris betrayal of Essam al-Qamari might be excused on the grounds that his cooperation in capturing Qamari was obtained through the threat of torture, the assassination of one of the top mujahedeen leaders in Afghanistan, Abdullah Azzam, a mentor to both Bin Laden and Zawahiri and the founder of Al-Qaeda, over disagreements in the direction of jihad after the defeat of the Soviets, clearly shows that Zawahiri is hardly the man of principle and courage portrayed in his videos, but a power-hungry opportunist that will turn to murdering fellow jihadis to improve his position in the global jihad. That's a pretty common description of the leading lights of jihad, especially including Hekmatyar and virtually all the Pak mullahs who played supporting roles.
Azzams assassination occurred as a power struggle broke out among two Egyptian groups in Afghanistan: Zawahiris Egyptian Islamic Jihad and the Saudi-funded Al-Jamaa Al-Islamiyya. Raphaeli describes the heart of the conflict between the two organizations:
Al-Murabitoon (a magazine published by Al-Jamaa) accused Al-Zawahiri of depositing in his Swiss bank account money he had collected to support the Mujahedeen. He was also accused of selling arms provided by bin Laden and using the proceeds to buy gold nuggets. In the face of these accusations, some relief agencies decided to cut off their aid to Al-Zawahiri, and the need for funds forced him to seek assistance from Iran. This move further alienated the Gulf countries, particularly, Saudi Arabia which henceforth channeled all its aid to Al-Jamaa. By the time the Soviet Union started pulling out of Afghanistan in 1992 the conflict between the two groups reached the stage of mutual accusation of Takfir, or apostasy, and individual acts of assassination. Al-Zawahiri emerged the winner from this conflict, largely because of bin Laden's support and because of the murder of Abdallah Azzam, the spiritual leader of bin Laden.
Western intelligence authorities believes that the assassination of Azzam was carried out by Zawahiris close Egyptian associate, Mohammad Atef, under Zawahiris orders.
Most analysts agree that Zawahiri was the chief beneficiary of Azzams assassination, and it solidified his position alongside Bin Laden among the jihadis that remained in Afghanistan. Western intelligence authorities believes that the assassination of Azzam was carried out by Zawahiris close Egyptian associate, Mohammad Atef, under Zawahiris orders. But as Wright explains in his New Yorker article, the murder of Azzam and his sons was driven by nothing more than ideological and strategic differences between the Azzam and Bin Laden/Zawahiri factions within Al-Qaeda:
Bin Laden's final break with Abdullah Azzam came in a dispute over the scope of jihad. Bin Laden envisioned an all-Arab legion, which eventually could be used to wage jihad in Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Sheikh Abdullah strongly opposed making war against fellow-Muslims. Zawahiri undermined Azzam's position by spreading rumors that he was a spy. "Zawahiri said he believed that Abdullah Azzam was working for the Americans," Osama Rushdi told me. "Sheikh Abdullah was killed that same night." On November 24, 1989, Azzam and two of his sons were blown up by a car bomb as they were driving to a mosque in Peshawar. Although no one has claimed credit for the killings, many have been blamed, including Zawahiri himself, and even bin Laden. At Azzam's funeral, Zawahiri delivered a eulogy.
Azzams plan to take the jihad from Afghanistan to Israel would die with him. Instead, Zawahiris plan of launching attacks against the Muslim regimes in the Middle East prevailed, and the presence of American troops in Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War a few years later would provide the justification for Al-Qaeda leadership to focus on taking out the only remaining Cold War superpower, the US. But it would take the murder of one of the brightest stars of jihad, Azzam, to put their plan into action a murderous program repeated by Bin Laden and Zawahiri just days before 9/11 with the preemptive assassination of Ahmed Shah Massoud, hero of the anti-Soviet resistance and leader of the Afghan Northern Alliance.
Of course, it is easy for Zawahiri to mock President Bush and cite his past faults as he is hiding in a cave on the other side of the planet. But as we know, that takes no more courage than writing an op-ed for the New York Times or Washington Post. But as indicated by the two separate incidents of betrayal of his own, Ayman Al-Zawahiri has no moral high ground to lecture President Bush for his past personal failures or the American people for our foreign policy. Perhaps Zawahiri should learn that people looking establish sharia throughout the world, especially Jihads Judas himself, should not be so quick to throw stones.
#2
Hey, thats me - thanx for mentioning my name! Article > iff Zawi is indeed a Russian agent, it doesn't bode well in LT for the Russians becuz now the CHECHNYANS and other dedicated Russian Muslims-Islamists will now be induced to look more closely in suspicion at their own leaders.
Last Friday - the first Friday of Lent, actually - I posted this story about the so-called Tomb of Jesus being found, and then forgot about it.
So, I was surprised today to find the post getting eleventy billion hits. Soon the emails began to follow, both good and bad. There were the usual extremes from left and right, from the you stupid Christians are finally going to find out youve been played for suckers all these years, to the Oh my GAWD, the world is ending, these [secularist] people are going to crucify us all.
Admittedly, there are only a few of those. Some emails are wisely mocking the whole affair and most are more along these lines: Anchoress, why arent you going after this with both barrels? Why are you just laughing instead of hitting back?
Whats to hit back? Why hit back? This is just the world, doing what the world does. But His Kingdom is not of this world! Stop fretting that some may lose faith, over this. If they do, then they were in the shallow soil to start with, and theyll either find a better place to root or they wont. Pray for them and then let the Holy Spirit do that Spirit Thang we love so much.
Some of you are writing that you fear this is the beginning of an era of suppression for the Church. As one of Busters g/fs would say, Well, duh, you just figured that out?
So what? There will always be a remnant, and the Church is never stronger and more alive than when the world is trying to beat it down.
For goodness sake, why are you surprised at any of this? Why are you worried? Remember that half of what you see is an illusion and the rest of what you see is a passing fashion, and youll fret a good deal less, no matter what the issue. . . .
And yes, I am amused. Im not cavalier, but I see this stuff as both predictable and tiresome and so Im choosing to be amused at the assaults upon Christianity which occur like clockwork (or labor pains) every Christmas and every Lenten/Easter season. And I think it behooves Christians to take all of this with as much humor as possible - laugh at it in every way you can - because laughter is a lance into the empty bubble of pride by which so much evil wafts by.
Whenever we look up at the world and its princes, we see a telling lack of humor, an utter inability to self-deprecate at its core, which exposes a vulnerable soft underbelly which may be pierced.
So, pray. Fast. Laugh. The world was never supposed to love you, after all. You signed on to be despised.
Posted by: Mike ||
02/27/2007 10:17 ||
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I found a final word by Prof. Amos Kloner and Ronny Reich on the subject. Turns out the whole thing is clearly a fraud. The geological study of the patina shot this scam down almost 4 years ago.
But as you say, the Christians will be hated. In this case in Hollyweird with less facts and bigger lies that Al Gore's movie.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
