Jihadpundit

DEATH KNELL FOR VICTORIAN "HATE" LEGISLATION

2005-04-03T21:15:00.000+10:00

And you know, it's about damned time: Calls Mount for Australian State to Rescind Religious Hatred Law

(CNSNews.com) - A campaign to dump a religious hatred law in Australia is winning growing support from churches -- including some whose opinion on the law has shifted since two Christians were found guilty of vilifying Muslims.

Mainstream church leaders are adding their voices to other Christians asking the State of Victoria's Labor government to rescind the legislation, saying it poses a danger to freedom of speech.

Victoria's Racial and Religious Tolerance Act made headlines around the world after Muslims took two pastors before a tribunal, complaining about a post-9/11 seminar designed to explain Islam to a Christian audience.

The case made waves in Britain, where the government has been trying to enact a similar proposal (see related story).

Since the judgment went against them last December, pastors Danny Nalliah and Daniel Scot have been awaiting the tribunal judge's decision as to what penalties they will face.

A hearing on the matter has been scheduled for early May, and the two are also planning to appeal the verdict.

The case against the pair was the first to be brought under the law, which was promulgated by the Victorian government despite concerns raised by Christian groups that it could stifle evangelism or end the right to question the validity of other faiths.

The law passed and took effect in January 2002. Just two months later, Nalliah's Catch the Fire Ministries hosted the seminar. Muslims attending the meeting filed a complaint which after a drawn-out process culminated in December's judgment.

Nalliah and Scot argued that the intention was to help Christians reach out in a loving way to Muslims, and to understand the religion through references to its own scriptures and other writings.

But the tribunal judge, Michael Higgins, ruled against the two, saying the seminar "was presented in a way which is essentially hostile, demeaning and derogatory of all Muslim people, their god, Allah, the prophet Mohammed and in general religious beliefs and practices."

While not necessarily defending what was said at the Catch the Fire seminar, church leaders in Victoria are now asking the state government to intervene, and hope to meet with state Premier Steve Bracks within days.

For the Presbyterian Church the outcome of the Catch the Fire case raised two important issues.

"First, are judges now required to make theological judgments under the Act and just how well qualified are they to do so?" moderator Allan Harman said in a statement.

"Secondly, and more specifically, are we to assume that Christians quoting and commenting on Islamic texts in ways the Muslims object to, will be penalized? This ability to critique another person's position is integral to a free and democratic society."

Both the Presbyterian and Anglican (Episcopalian) churches argue that the legislation has mixed up questions of religious and racial hatred.

"It was a great mistake for the government to lump religious vilification in with racial
vilification," Harman said. "Apart from a very few small groupings such as Jews and Sikhs, race and religion in the modern world are not the same thing. Race for any person is a given, not so religion."

He said both Islam and Christianity were missionary religions, and Muslims and Christians alike should have the liberty to make disciples in Australia.

Anglican Archbishop of Melbourne Peter Watson said in an article in the diocesan newspaper that his denomination had not examined the free speech issue closely enough when the law was being drafted.

While race was an identifying factor, "religion is a matter for discussion, debate and choice."

"Not everything that is offensive or upsetting to us should be outlawed," Watson said.

Amen.

GO SEE

2005-04-03T21:05:00.000+10:00

Shelly's got it going on. Go see.

HAPPY TRAILS, FRIEND

2005-04-03T10:59:00.000+10:00

May your path to God be a swift and untroubled one.

HE'S GOT HIGH HOPES

2005-04-01T21:50:00.000+10:00

It's important to have a dream, no matter how ludicrous and unrealistic. Koran scholar: US will cease to exist in 2007

A thorough analysis of the Koran reveals that the US will cease to exist in the year 2007, according to research published by Palestinian scholar Ziad Silwadi.

The study, which has caught the attention of millions of Muslims worldwide, is based on in-depth interpretations of various verses in the Koran. It predicts that the US will be hit by a tsunami larger than that which recently struck southeast Asia.

"The tsunami waves are a minor rehearsal in comparison with what awaits the US in 2007," the researcher concluded in his study. "The Holy Koran warns against the Omnipotent Allah's force. A great sin will cause a huge flood in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans."

Silwadi, who is from the village of Silwad near Ramallah – the home of Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal – is not a world-renowned scholar. He said he decided to publish the findings of his research "out of a sense of responsibility because what is about to happen is extremely shocking and frightening."

His fear, he said, is that the world economy, which relies heavily on the US dollar, would be deeply affected by the collapse of the US.

"It would be fair to say that the world would be better off with a US that is not a superpower and that does not take advantage of weak nations than a world where this country does not exist at all," he added."The world will certainly lose a lot if and when this disaster occurs because of the great services that American society has rendered to the economy, industry and science."

Silwadi said his study of the Koran showed that the US would perish mainly because of its great sins against mankind, including the Native Americans and blacks.

"As soon as the Europeans started arriving in the new world discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1492, they declared a war on the so-called Red Indians, the legitimate owners of the land," he wrote. "Then they began enslaving and humiliating Africans after kidnapping them from their countries and bringing them to America. Millions of blacks were brought to the US and treated with unprecedented harshness. Those who became ill during the journey were thrown overboard to feed the fish."

Wait a minute... was this really a Muslim scholar? Or has Ward Churchill merely reinvented himself... again?

CUTTING TO THE CHASE

2005-04-01T20:59:00.000+10:00

From the venerable Mr Steyn:

If an al-Qa’eda guy got shot up resisting capture in Afghanistan and required a feeding tube and the guards at Guantanamo yanked it out, you’d never hear the end of it from the American Civil Liberties Union and Amnesty International and all the rest.

Read all of that article, it's one of his better efforts.

RIP, Terri

2005-04-01T08:00:00.000+10:00

March 31 (Bloomberg) -- Terri Schiavo, the brain-damaged woman who became the focus of a national debate as her parents and husband fought over keeping her alive, died this morning, 13 days after doctors removed the feeding tube that sustained her.

Schiavo, 41, died in her hospice in Pinellas Park, Florida.

Terri's moved on the a better place, one can only hope. A markedly different destination than the one her 'husband' will be interred in for the rest of eternity.

I might write Michael's obit now. Won't be long before he'll be needing it.

SO, WHO'S READY FOR STATEHOOD?

2005-03-24T22:20:00.000+11:00

Militants of the Palestinian ruling Fatah party salute during a pre-election rally for the students council at the Al-Quds university in the West Bank town of Hebron Monday March 21, 2005. Tensions are increasing between Fatah and the Hamas Islamic group, which scored a decisive victory in student elections at Hebron University last week, and Hamas is expected to fare well in the Palestinian parliamentary elections set for July. (AP Photo/Nasser Shiyoukhi)

GUEST POST - MIKE JERICHO

2005-03-23T14:38:00.000+11:00

Although it must be noted that far from being universal, the rejection of homosexuality by conservatives is now considered be one of the less savoury aspects of Paleo-Conservatism and religious fundamentalism.

I came up with this and decided to post it mainly as I knew it would drive Mr Lefty insane. Feel free to add more similarities in comments.

My thanks to Khalil for allowing me to post this article.

Update: This post can now also be seen on A Western Heart.

BRAVE IRAQI 'RESISTANCE'

2005-03-22T16:42:00.000+11:00

That's what those on the far left call the terrorists busily killing people in a vain attempt to reverse a situation already long beyond their ability to alter.

Personally, I like to call them murderers. For what other term accurately describes this behaviour? Leftists and liberals in general ought to read this story, to see who they are, by default, aiding: Rebels kill Iraqi women as ‘betrayers’ of Islam

THE terrible screams will haunt Najat al-Alloussi every time she remembers her last telephone conversation with her kidnapped daughter. “Mama, mama,” cried Hadeel, 24. “They have just executed my husband in front of my eyes. Please help me. They just shot him in the head. Please help me, mama.”

A male voice then told Alloussi, a prominent Iraqi gynaecologist: “We have killed him and now we shall kill your daughter as well.”

She begged for the young woman’s life, promising to hand over gold, cash and a valuable building if her captors would set her free. But the line went dead.

Two bags containing the bodies of her daughter and son-in-law, graduates in medicine who had taken internships at al-Qaem hospital close to Iraq’s border with Syria, were dumped near their Baghdad home 48 hours later. Alloussi’s daughter had been shot in the heart.

The couple were apparently suspected of having tipped off US forces that insurgents were being treated in their hospital.

Whatever the reason she was targeted, Hadeel was one of a growing number of Iraqi women to have fallen prey to insurgents killing those in prominent positions. Some die because their work brings them into contact with American or Iraqi officials, others because their advocacy of more rights for women offends certain religious fundamentalists.

A few seem to have been singled out for failing to conform to an extreme Islamic code of dress and for abandoning traditional lives at home.

Zeena al-Qushtaini, a divorced mother who owned one of Baghdad’s best known pharmacies and had contracts with coalition forces, dressed in western clothes and mingled with women activists.

“Lady Zeena”, as she was known, was wearing a diamond necklace and ring when she was shot twice in the head after being abducted. Her body was found dressed in a full-length black abaya that she would never have chosen to wear, the headscarf covered in blood.

Tawheed wal-Jihad, the group run by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Al-Qaeda’s leader in Iraq, released a film of her murder and that of her business partner, Ziad Baho, who was beheaded.

Islamic militants have killed 20 women in the northern city of Mosul and a dozen more in Baghdad. The victims shared a common desire to live freely and a vision of a better role for women in Iraqi society.

Aquila al-Hashimia, a member of the interim Iraqi Governing Council, was killed and her colleague Raja Khuzai received death threats after supporting women’s rights. Nisreen Mustafa al-Burawari, the former minister of public works who was the only woman in the cabinet, survived an attack in which two bodyguards were killed.

Last November Amal al-Ma’amalachi, a women’s rights activist and government adviser, died from at least 10 bullet wounds on her way to work.

Poor security has also deterred many ordinary women from travelling to school, university or work. A report by Amnesty International warns of a backlash from “conservative social and political forces” that threatens to stifle women’s attempts to gain new freedoms.

I have written to a very popular Australian leftist blogger, to draw his attention to this story.

SHARING THE LOVE AROUND

2005-03-22T15:47:00.000+11:00

It's a Muslim tradition, don't you know? They're just not a selfish bunch. If one gets to take something, they want all their pals to have some too. Norway: The Rapes Continue

7 Kurdish Muslim immigrants are suspects in a gang rape case against a 16 year old Norwegian girl in Oslo in December. One of the men charged with the gang rape is suspected of being involved in another gang rape of a girl in Oslo ten days later.

Now, everybody is innocent until proven otherwise, and none of these men have yet been convicted of anything. But it does sound a lot like a recent such case in Sweden, where a group of Kurdish males had raped a Swedish teenage girl for hours and taken photos of the event. There are reports of more such incidents coming in with disturbing frequency. Kurdish Muslims in Norway have even openly threatened Norwegian girls with rape before.

I am by now almost convinced that the theory presented in my first post about Muslim rapes in Sweden and Norway is true. The staggering numbers revealed in 2001 in Oslo have been suppressed for political reasons, as they would destroy too many multicultural pipe dreams and be inconvenient for the elites. So in the end, the safety of young Scandinavian women is sacrificed in order to keep the glossy image of a multicultural society intact. I find this absolutely appalling. I don't know who made the decision to quiet down these statistics. It has to be somebody high up in the police hierarchy, or probably in the Ministry of Justice. Regardless, it is in the end the responsibility of the Norwegian Minister of Justice, Odd Einar Dørum, who should announce his immediate resignation.

It is a national, if not international, scandal that the authorities in a nation that prides itself on being a champion of women’s rights can put fear of offending Muslim immigrants higher than the security of its own young women. Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik should also consider resigning. At a time when racist attacks from Muslim immigrant youngsters make it increasingly unsafe for Norwegian women in their own capital city, their Prime Minister is mainly concerned with who puts together book shelves at IKEA. Such a politician either does not understand what’s going on in his own country or no longer cares about protecting his own people. In both cases, he is unfit for public office, let alone that of Prime Minister.

TOLERANCE INC

2005-03-22T15:36:00.000+11:00

These are the people who are going to be given their own nation?

JERUSALEM - A 17-year-old Palestinian girl, who became pregnant after her father raped her, was strangled to death by her brother in a so-called honour killing in the northern West Bank, a Palestinian newspaper reported yesterday.

Al Ayyam daily said the teenager was strangled by her 27-year-old brother on Wednesday in Bala’a town near the northern city of Tulkarem. Arrested by Palestinian security forces, the brother admitted he had killed her to “erase the shame” after her pregnancy began showing.

He also admitted knowing that his sister had become pregnant because their father raped her. Police are now hunting the 52-year-old father, who witnessed the murder, and has since disappeared.

A Palestinian women’s group said the girl had reported the rape to the police after learning she was pregnant.

“The police did not arrest or even question the father,” the group charged in an open letter published in another paper. Signed by the Palestinian Working Women’s Society for Development, the letter called on the Palestinian parliament to adopt laws to protect women from all forms of violence.

Send them to Jordan. Just send them to Jordan, for goodness' sake.

THE PIECES ARE MOVING...

2005-03-22T15:35:00.000+11:00

Do the battle clouds loom once more? Iranian lunatic-in-chief Ali Khamenei says "Bring it on": Iranian Leader Says He's Ready to Battle to Death

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Monday he was ready to don combat fatigues and give his life in battle if his country were attacked, accusing Washington of seeking any excuse to start a war.

The United States and Israel have both rattled sabers over Iran's disputed nuclear program, refusing to rule out air strikes to hinder what they see as Tehran's pursuit of atomic weapons.

Khamenei stressed he would remain in the public eye if war came, unlike U.S. officials whom he accused of fleeing for cover after the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001.

"If this nation is tested by a bitter experience, I will wear battle fatigues and will be ready to sacrifice myself at the head of the nation," he told pilgrims in the northeastern holy city of Mashhad.

"After September 11, there was no news of U.S. President (George W. Bush) and his deputies for two or three days. They went into hiding. I am not like that," he added in the speech broadcast on state television.

Someone needs to explain to the old fellow that global hegemons don't need an 'excuse' to start a war. They just start one, finish it, and everyone who doesn't agree with them can suck eggs.

Khamenei is a geriatric retard having ridiculous, hysterical, threatening fits, but Reuters doesn't display him as such. If Bush went around talking about dressing in combat gear and kicking people's asses, he'd be treated as a lunatic.

Reuters though, wants us to take old 'stinky diapers' Khamenei seriously:

Although now mainly familiar in his clerical garb, Khamenei was regularly seen in fatigues on his trips to the front in the 1980-1988 war against Iraq, during which he was president.

Wow. Surrounded by a battalion of bodyguards, in a limo, a few miles from the actual fighting. I think I'm going to swoon.

CHILD RAPISTS

2005-03-21T08:17:00.000+11:00

Muslim Childwatch: Diggers in Timor 'sex' clash

AUSTRALIAN soldiers drew arms to protect themselves from Jordanian peacekeepers after a Digger blew the whistle on other Jordanian soldiers' sexual abuse of East Timorese boys.

Corporal Andrew Wratten had to be evacuated and Australian commandos sent to protect Diggers in Oecussi, an East Timorese province in Indonesian West Timor, after he told the UN of the pedophilia that occurred in May 2001.

The Australians drew their Steyr assault rifles after being confronted by Jordanians armed with M-16s, in an escalation of verbal threats triggered by the later betrayal of Corporal Wratten by a Jordanian officer in the Dili headquarters of the UN Transitional Administration in East Timor.

Corporal Wratten, who was working at a fuel dump in the enclave, was told by a group of children that Jordanian soldiers had offered food and money in exchange for oral sex and intercourse.

The allegations involved East Timorese minors, all boys, the youngest of them just 12 years old.

"Wratten informed PKF (peacekeeping force) that he had been receiving complaints from local children about Jorbatt (Jordan Battalion) abuse," said a senior UN official who was based in Oecussi at the time.

"A Jordanian officer in HQ informed Jorbatt that he had ratted on them. Wratten and his guys manning the helo (helicopter) refuelling pad in Oecussi town started getting threatened.

"There was one occasion where Aussie Steyrs were pointed at Jorbatt and Jor-batt M-16s pointed at Aussies."

A secret report into the abuse, obtained by The Australian, led to the expulsion of two Jordanian peacekeepers after an investigation ordered by then UNTAET chief, the late Sergio Vieira de Mello, in July 2001.

East Timorese human rights workers have confirmed the story. However, retired Australian major-general Roger Powell, the deputy UN force commander at the time, did not return The Australian's calls.

"As far as I understand, De Mello was very sensitive at the time to the harm such reports would have on the reputation of UNTAET, PKF – and by default himself," said one Western security analyst, based in East Timor in 2001.

Jordan's key role in Middle East peace negotiations added extra sensitivity.

In July 2001, a UN police specialist child interview team flew to Oecussi and spoke to 10 witnesses, including seven minors and three adults.

"The unacceptable sexual conduct alleged was that a minor had sperm around his mouth," the resulting report says.

The board of inquiry found in its report that Jordanian troops regularly offered food and money in exchange for sexual favours from women and boys, including the procuring of prostitutes from across the border in West Timor.

It found it was highly probable that widespread sexual misconduct had occurred after the Jordanians took over from the highly regarded Australian paratroop battalion in early 2000.

Hey, they were just following instructions from their religious leaders. Don't believe me? Here's the Ayatollah Khomeini on the subject of sexual relations:

-A man can marry a girl younger than nine years of age, even if the girl is still a baby being breastfed. A man, however is prohibited from having intercourse with a girl younger than nine, other sexual act such as forplay, rubbing, kissing and sodomy is allowed.

-A man can have sex with animals such as sheep, cows, camels and so on. However he should kill the animal after he has his orgasm. He should not sell the meat to the people in his own village, however selling the meat to the next door village should be fine.

-If one commits the act of sodomy with a cow, a ewe, or a camel, their urine and their excrement become impure, and even their milk may no longer be consumed. The animal must then be killed and as quickly as possible and burned.

One thing is certain; if the Jordanians so much as point a rifle at a Commando from 4RAR, it will be the last thing they do. Those guys are fucking deadly.

JIHADPUNDIT HAVE MUCH FUN

2005-03-20T01:57:00.000+11:00

Went to the Butterfly Boucher concert tonight. What? Didn't know she was touring? Well, you're an idiot. Moreover, you weren't to know. She's acting as cover artist for Sarah McLachlan, who is technically the bigshot of the tour.

Go to this url. Now!

Do you hear that sweet song playing? If not, buy some speakers, you cheap stooge.

That's Butterfly, and she's outstanding. She gets two ecstatic Jihadi thumbs up. Here's a couple of pictures I took:

Fourth row, centre. It was sweet.

More pictures taken during the concert will be posted tomorrow.

OKAY, SO MAYBE SPORADIC POSTING

2005-03-19T15:44:00.000+11:00

This blogging stuff is addictive, habib.

Just stopping in to make a point about Hollywood. They're stupid. How do I know this? Because they're so out of ideas that they've remade the Amityville Horror.

Don't get me wrong, the original was good. But why make another?

And why do they have an awards ceremony for an industry where the "art" is really just a matter of copying the same stuff, over and over?

JIHADPUNDIT ISSUES FATWA

2005-03-19T11:17:00.000+11:00

Normally, I oppose calling for a person's death. But Michael Schiavo seriously needs some killing, and I call upon all my habibs in Florida, USA, to make the dream a reality.

Read here for the reason why.

BECAUSE WEEKENDS AREN'T FOR BLOGGING

2005-03-18T21:49:00.000+11:00

See you Monday, habibs.

THE NEW REACTIONARIES

2005-03-18T08:39:00.000+11:00

I've long been of the opinion that the liberal left can no longer claim the title 'progressive' as a term descriptive of their movement. They are far too concerned with the status quo (they're the majority now, after all) and its preservation. They're ridiculously cynical, paranoid, and often anti-Semitic / anti-American.

If you look at today's conservatives, however, you see something very different. Idealistic, eager to make a difference in the larger world, and geniunely looking for the goal we should all aspire to; a race-blind society, one where your race or creed or even sexual orientation simply doesn't matter. No playing favourites, no disadvantaging others.

Naturally, the left hates such ideas, they run directly contrary to the cherished liberal notion that to make up for a few centuries of tanned people being racially oppressed, it's whitey's turn to eat some shit. Well, we tanned people don't need that, it isn't going to help us worth a damn, and thank God, more and more of today's youth is agreeing with me: An illiberal left

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. -- It isn't often that a group of college professors is soundly and thoroughly embarrassed by a collection of mere students in an intellectual arena. But that's exactly what happened at the end of February, when the University of Alabama's Student Senate passed a sharp resolution directly opposing a heavy-handed, short-sighted and illiberal "hate speech" resolution that their Faculty Senate had already passed. The Faculty Senate's original resolution called for the creation of a series of new regulations which threatened to drastically curtail First Amendment rights at their public university. With their remarkably independent and sophisticated response, UA's students have schooled their teachers with a much-needed lesson in the fundamentals of a free and open society.

The Faculty Senate's original "hate speech" resolution came down after an incident that smacks of tired familiarity to any casual observer of campus political correctness. UA hired a comedian who came and made some offensive remarks to a gay student. Like clockwork, with factory-produced fervor and indignation, the college administration put out a statement condemning this "shameful incident" of "bigotry and malicious aggression" which was a "personal attack" on a student. Everyone sat around rubbing their temples, bemoaning oppression and intolerance for a few days, until some towering, renaissance-minded enthusiasts were struck with the brilliant and novel idea to finally put an end to hate speech, once and for all. It just can't help but make your heart warm.

Unconscious or uncaring of their striking similarity to all the other would-be censors across time and space, UA's gallant Faculty Senators donned their white armor and rode to the rescue under the cliched but still impressive banners of "diversity," "respect," and "civility." Holding up their resolution like a lonely beacon of light in the ignorant darkness of America -- make that the American South -- they wrote: "It is never appropriate to demean or reduce an individual based on group affiliation or personal characteristics... The University of Alabama has a duty reflected both in law and in standards of civility to control behavior which demeans or reduces an individual based on group affiliation or personal characteristics, or which promotes hate or discrimination, in all formal programs and activities."

Now, it's not clear whether they stopped to ponder the fact that Christians and conservatives happen to be individuals with group affiliations and personal characteristics that have historically made for some pretty good satire. Nor has it been reported whether or not whatever was left of the faculty's liberal souls shriveled up and died immediately upon seeing themselves approve the words "control behavior" and "standards of civility" in the same sentence, advocating censorship of words and ideas.

But imagine the professors' shock and inner turmoil when they received an open letter from a civil liberties watchdog group, with Stanford and Harvard law credentials, accusing them of trampling on the First Amendment. The letter, from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, stated: "The United States Supreme Court has consistently held that empowering public officials to ban speech based on its content will naturally result in the silencing of dissenting viewpoints." The letter also demonstrated that the spirit of the "vague and dangerously overbroad restriction" proposed by the Faculty Senate clearly served to undermine the values of free inquiry and open discussion that are at the heart of any healthy university.

Read it all, or know my wrath. (Hat-tip: Tim Blair)

PERSIAN BABEWATCH

2005-03-18T08:30:00.000+11:00

Many thanks to the keen-eyed Jihadi Joel, who writes: "Can't wait until Iranian democracy arrives..."

Me too, habib.

MUSLIM TOLERANCE WATCH

2005-03-18T07:55:00.000+11:00

Tolerance, I suppose, only is supposed to work from Christians to other faiths. Because when Christians get the bum's rush, nobody seems to care about their rights: Indonesia ousts Christian groups

Christian groups and some other private relief agencies are being asked to halt their work in the tsunami-ravaged Indonesian province of Aceh and leave the area by March 26, Indonesia's defense minister said yesterday.

The decision likely will target Western and smaller church groups as the government moves to tighten control over reconstruction work in Aceh, the home of a decades-old separatist insurgency.

"We want each of the relief agencies to be transparent in their programs: Some of them are not clear about their mandates," said Juwono Sudarsono during an interview in a Washington hotel.

"Aceh is mostly Muslim, and some church groups from Australia and the United States are too eager to be there and do their part," he said.

Mr. Sudarsono said his government had set March 26 some weeks ago as a target date for moving from the disaster-relief phase of post-tsunami operations to the reconstruction phase.

With that goal in sight, he said, the overwhelming presence of U.S. and Western relief agencies could make members of the local Islamic community uncomfortable, adding that they would be replaced by Pakistani and Saudi Arabian workers.

Damn meddling do-gooders, working their asses off to help people. They just have no respect whatsoever.

FRENCH NUCLEAR SECURITY VULNERABLE

2005-03-17T21:54:00.000+11:00

Or so New Scientist is positing: French nuclear material may be easy target

WHILE some still fret about nuclear materials from the former Soviet Union falling into the wrong hands, the easiest place to get hold of plutonium might be France, suggests a study by a former US security expert. Routine consignments of plutonium oxide from the north of France to the nuclear reactors in the south are so poorly protected that they could be attacked and captured within minutes, he says.

Ronald Timm, who worked as an analyst reviewing the safety and security of nuclear sites for the US Department of Energy in the 1990s, says the French consignments are at "extreme risk" of terrorist attack. Fewer than a dozen guards escort the loads, and they could be killed by just three armed terrorists, he argues. The plutonium casks could be opened in seconds with tools or explosives. "The protection afforded these everyday shipments is virtually non-existent," he claims. The study was commissioned by the anti-nuclear group Greenpeace.

“The protection afforded these plutonium shipments is virtually non-existent”.

His allegations, however, are branded as "absolutely wrong" by Henry-Jacques Neau, head of transport with French nuclear company Cogema. The timing, routes and security measures for plutonium movements are all kept secret, he says: "They are able to withstand deliberate attack, and are extremely safe."

It wouldn't be that hard, surely. All the Jihadis would need was advanced notice of the route taken in transporting the warheads.

They have plenty of fighters in Europe they could call upon for the interception, and with their network of sympathizers (as well as the proximity of friendly North African nations) they'd have a better than average chance of a successful escape.

A HAPPY ST PADDY'S DAY

2005-03-17T18:25:00.000+11:00

To all you drunken Micks.

Just be sure not to throw up on habib's car on the way home. Last year I had to listen to him bitch about it for hours.

SEXY BLOGS

2005-03-17T18:18:00.000+11:00

Now that I'm getting past my blog virgin stage, I can start making a few blog recommendations of my own. These blogs have probably been around far longer than I, enjoy a greater readership than I, and are authored by better looking people than I, but I don't want any of you thinking that you can just walk out the door whenever you please, ditching me like a cheap whore. I'm a possessive wog, and there'll be none of that. Now go make my dinner.

First up is my habib Bilious. In his own words, he's a 34 year old, 6'2", blond, blue eyed, retrosexual, Leo, Metal Dog lawyer. He's not Lebanese, but you know, you just can't have it all.

Then there's Ninme. What can I say. Hot. Chick. I think.

Then there's the Wog. Is Wog, is good.

Arthur is the only Polish guy I know. He's so suave I'm inclined to extend wogness to include Poles.

This guy's incomprehensible. But his blog looks fully sick, and he linked to me, so go tell me what he's saying.

Darp's a psycho living on the edge. He's pissed off so many unpleasant people that you'll often see those police taskforce warning signs declaring that they're presently targeting him. Go see him while he's still got a pulse.

This site has the right idea.

This Jellis guy blogs from bed. He's some kind of love God, who lives with a couple of bikini model twins. I'm lying about all of that, but you should still visit him anyway.

New find of the day is Bourbon Bird. She's got a good attitude, and her readers love her in a way that is verging on the obsessional. I'm determined to find out why, and if I should happen to become an obsessional bourbonbird reader in the process, so be it.

WOMEN, FEAR US

2005-03-17T16:32:00.000+11:00

For your days of keeping that female mystique to yourself are numbered: X chromosome shows why women are different

LONDON (Reuters) - Scientists have cracked the genetic code of the female X chromosome which is linked to more than 300 human diseases and may help to explain why women are so different from men.

It contains 1,100 genes, or about five percent of the human genome, along with information that may help to improve the diagnosis of illnesses ranging from haemophilia, blindness and autism to obesity and leukaemia.

The discovery, by an international consortium of scientists, shows that females are far more variable than previously thought and, when it comes to genes, more complex than men.

"The X chromosome is definitely the most extraordinary in the human genome in terms of its inheritance pattern, its unique biology ... and in terms of its association with human disease," said Dr Mark Ross, of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Britain which led the consortium.

WHY THE DIFFERENCE?

Chromosomes, which are found in the nucleus of every cell, contain genes that determine the characteristics of an individual. Women have two X chromosomes while men have an X and a Y, which gives them their male features.

The research, which is reported in the science journal Nature, shows the Y is an eroded version of the X chromosome with only a few genes. The X chromosome is also bigger than the Y and because females have two copies, one X chromosome is largely switched off or inactivated.

But not all of the genes on the silenced chromosome are inactivated, which could explain some of the differences between men and women, according to Laura Carrel, of Penn State College of Medicine in Pennsylvania who also reported her findings in the journal.

The X inactivation also varies widely among women.

"The effects of these genes from the inactive X chromosome could explain some of the differences between men and women that aren't attributable to sex hormones," she said in a statement.

Relax, habibs. Khalil isn't turning into a science nerd.

This is different. This information may be wonderfully misused in the picking-up of chicks.

The evil male scientific research continues at a horny and frantic pace.

CORRECTION

2005-03-17T10:15:00.000+11:00

The Wog has set me straight on the issue of the Italian troop withdrawal from Iraq.

I've thought about it, and the truth is, I don't know enough about the PM's decision, so I shouldn't have slagged off the Italians like I did. Very unhip.

My apologies to all Italians. You guys are tough, you invented Ferraris, Lamborghinis, the Roman Empire, the Mafia and a whole other bunch of non-wussie stuff.

Oh, and your chicks are hot too.

Update: Are they really leaving? Berlusconi seems unsure.

THIS IS FOR YOU, LEFTOIDS

2005-03-17T09:28:00.000+11:00

And get a load of the "unbiased" AFP caption:

US President George W. Bush risked inflaming global opinion by putting forward his deeply controversial deputy defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, to become World Bank chief. (AFP/File/Paul Richards)

Can you see so much froth being applied to just about any other appointment in the world?

MOONBATS INCENSED

2005-03-17T09:07:00.000+11:00

They're rattling the cages over at Moonbat storage facility prime (Democratic Underground) over the appointment of Paul Wolfowitz to head the World Bank.

You simply can't fake liberal lunacy of this calibre. It has to come undiluted, from the source: Democratic Underground does Wolfowitz

Skarbrowe: now I see reptiles everywhere. Even if the people David Icke says aren't reptillian or aliens from Mars, or some kind of mixture between those two and humans, they are just as scary and just as damaging.

I wonder. Are we truly doomed? Can this be stopped? Voting doesn't seem to make a difference.

Yep. It's just as bad as those 50's Sci-Fi movies.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers

AuntiBush: The Tri-Lateral is now in place. This is long past bearable, intolerable, and justice - it's sick! Really, really sick!

Imagine. Any and everything we enjoyed as should be as Americans, has been gutted and derailed in a matter of months. Un-fricked believeable.

tom_paine: It sounds as if BushPtuinism[sic] is about to reign supreme. The Age of totalitarianism has begun.

Will Freedom survive. I have to think so, but only time wil ltell if it can survive somewhere or if we are on the fast track to pre-Enlightenment.

Fucking world. They learned NOTHING from Hitler and are back to appeasing Nazis.

Let us know if that works out any better THIS time.

liberalmuse: It's worse than nauseating.

How in fuck's name did this happen??? Again, a HUGE, W*T*F??? I take a break from the Bushshit * for a couple of weeks and come back to see all hell has broken loose.

*You'll have to excuse my language, these bastards bring out the absolute worst in me.

So much tolerance being beamed out from the sanitarium. But, of course, they're not anti-America. They're just anti-Bush. Right?

anarchy1999: I almost lost my coffee onto keyboard with that one. DAMN!

Is there anyone out there that can stop this damned cabal of thieves and flat out sick criminals? Maybe China taking it down is a good thing?

Islamism, actually. Remember, your number one allies are the Jihadists now, lefties. Do try to keep it together.

Update: And they're definitely not advocating that Mr Wolfowitz be killed:

mod mom: How low must our society fall before the American Sheeple wake up?

Definitely a new low. Let's hope the position requires travel to unstable countries with less security and angry mobs.

"American sheeple". You'll see that scornful term used a good deal over at DU. It's revealing of the intolerant contempt that most liberals bear for the general public.

HOLLYWOOD ACTIVISM ALERT

2005-03-17T08:41:00.000+11:00

"Sir" Ridley Scott is making another historical epic, this time set in the era of the later crusades.

I've not heard much about it, but from the unhealthy fawning focus/unbalanced comparison placed upon the relation to modern events, I can't help but think that this is going to be yet another tiring ahistorical lefty political rant about western crusaderism.

They've also cast feminine British actor Orlando Bloom as a lead character, leading me to believe that Scott has no idea whatsoever what real men were like before the advent of makeup: Saladin and Sir Ridley, Hollywood does holy war

LONDON: "It is better to live in peace together than to perpetuate war. It sounds simple but we don't seem to be able to manage it today," Ridley Scott, who was knighted for his services to the British film industry in 2003, explains during an interview after a partial screening of his latest film in the VUE multiplex cinema in London's Leicester Square.

"That's what "Kingdom Of Heaven" is about, the journey of a boy becoming a man without ever losing his integrity."

On the screen behind Scott, a vast column of Christian soldiers is on the march, the Knights Templar, about to do battle with the great Muslim army of Saladin in the Holy Land of the late 12th century.

It is a magnificent sight but inevitably one which is likely to draw much comment in the days and weeks running up to the movie's release in May - and much comment after - not least because of the parallels with events in the Middle East today.

Then Frankish King of Jerusalem, Baldwin IV, did battle with Saracen leader Saladin, who led Muslim armies from Damascus. Today the Syrian capital is once again finding itself under fire from the West as well as from people in the region itself - not least from many Christian descendants of the Crusaders themselves in Lebanon and the born-again Christian, U.S. President George W. Bush.

"History always resonates with where we are today," says Scott, "but none of this film was predetermined [to coincide with contemporary events]."

Still, movies do not exist in isolation and any film whose backdrop is the Crusades - a brutal period of time in the Middle East region where European Christians fought the "heathen infidel occupying the land of Christ's birth" - is bound to be problematic.

Scott, though, is confident. "We were very careful to think it through,"he says, while the film's producers say they hope the film's central message of peace before war, love before hate, will resonate today.

It would be unfair to bill "Kingdom of Heaven" as a battle between Islam and Christianity or East and West. It is more an attempt to depict a fictional heroic tale at a time when, prior to the battle of Hattin in 1187 won by Saladin before he took Jerusalem, (and shown in the movie), the Muslims and Christians coexisted in peace under the rule of two remarkable leaders, both of whom held an abiding respect for each other.

"Look, this film is about living by an unshakeable code of ethics and honor. And it also demonstrates that true goodness is about listening to your head and heart and deciding to do the right thing every day," Scott argues.

He sounds more than a little defensive already, doesn't he? "Look", this film... blah blah. He probably wasn't even being questioned closely. Hollywood people are pathetic. They're all veneer and no depth.

Oh, and I find this paragraph particularly disturbing:

"My screenwriter Bill Monahan spent a lot of time consulting with Muslim historians and scholars of the time, not least because accuracy is so important in a historical film.

Oh great, so now we'll get to see how Muslims invented fire, the wheel, discovered America and cured cancer. There's nothing quite like Muslim history when it comes to sheer inventiveness.

Want more evidence that this movie will be crap? Read on.

The film's story follows the trials and tribulations of Balian of Ibelin (played by in-vogue heartthrob Orlando Bloom), a common man of extraordinary conscience who rises to knighthood and embarks on a life-changing journey to find peace and a better world. That better world is the Holy Land.

"It follows Balian's spiritual search and he achieves greatness through courage, fairness and selfless action," Scott says.

Which sounds not unlike his last epic "Gladiator," in which Russell Crowe played a Roman general who loses everything, only to regain his honor and save Rome for the people.

"Save Rome for the wealthy aristocrats who dominated the senate", is I'm sure what Ridley Scott had meant to portray, as I'm further sure that he would no be so pig-ignorant about Roman history to think that the Roman people actually ruled themselves.

But it does seem that they are being kind to Saladin in this movie, which is nice. Saladin does seem to have been a geniunely decent guy, but my concern is that by only portraying him, and not previous or subsequent Muslim leaders, the audience will think that all of the Muslim rulers of the time were these nice guys who just wanted to take back the land that was theirs.

Well, it wasn't theirs, the land occupied by the Crusaders had been Christian lands for 700 years before anybody even heard about Mohammed, and most of the Muslim rulers of the time were abyssmally violent and cruel warlords who fought among themselves. Also, Scott will no doubt "overlook" that Christians - even those living under Saladin's rule - were treated as Dhimmi (second-class citizens) by their Muslim overlords. That's the real history.

MUSLIM WOMAN TAKES A STAND

2005-03-17T08:33:00.000+11:00

This is refreshing news about a geniunely brave human being. If you have time, I recommend you hit the link and read all of this: Muslim Woman's Courage Sets Example

Last week, Pakistan's Federal Shariat Court—the nation’s highest Islamic court—vacated an appeals court decision that had outraged the world.

In essence, the appeals court had acquitted five of the six men convicted in the 2002 “honor rape” of Mukhtar Mai. Her ongoing story may well foreshadow the future of Muslim women who suffer under tribal law and other oppressive traditions. Hers is a savage tale of brutalization and courage, with confusing twists and a resolution that is uncertain. But it is a story of hope, which provides reason for optimism.

In it, the West provides an invaluable voice of conscience and compassion. But the story’s ultimate message may be that Muslim women must stand up for themselves and say ‘no.’

In the summer of 2002, a panchayat court (or village council) sentenced Mukhtar to be gang-raped by four men. The sentence was not to punish Mukhtar for wrongdoing. Rather, her 14-year-old brother was accused of associating in public with a girl from a rival and more powerful tribe; her rape was meant to punish the family for his transgression.

Gang-raped, beaten, and thrown naked into the street, Mukhtar was forced to walk home through her village. The public nature of the punishment ensured she was an outcast and unmarriageable. Mukhtar was expected to kill herself, but a suicide attempt failed. Her family revived her, and the support of her loved ones deterred her from making future attempts.

Her story grabbed the media's attention. Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times visited her home and observed, “a girl in the next village was gang-raped a week after Ms. Mukhtaran, and she took the traditional route: she swallowed a bottle of pesticide and dropped dead.”

By contrast, Kristof wrote, Mukhtar survived and propounded “the shocking idea that the shame lies in raping, rather than in being raped.”

I truly wish that I had more such stories to report on.

CUE ENVIRONMENTALIST HYSTERIA

2005-03-17T08:12:00.000+11:00

I can't wait to see how Bob Brown reacts to this. Greenies all over the country - and indeed the world - will freak out. Heads will explode in rage, gas pumps will be viciously molested, puppets created in the image of BushHowardchimphitler will be burned and big impotent signs erected.

It'll be a blast: Senate Votes to Allow Drilling in Arctic Reserve

WASHINGTON, March 16 - The Senate endorsed oil-drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge today, giving President Bush and others who favor exploration of the Alaska wilderness a major victory.

The 51-to-49 vote was in favor of a budget resolution that assumes revenues of some $5 billion from drilling fees over the next decade, with the federal government and the state of Alaska to split the money.

While this afternoon's vote is not the final word on the issue, it nevertheless made drilling in the wilds of Alaska - an idea favored by the oil industry for decades and fiercely opposed by environmental groups - far more likely than before.

For drilling to take place, the Senate will later have to pass a measure explicitly authorizing the opening of the wildlife refuge to drilling, something that until now has been prohibited. Then the House of Representatives would have to explicitly authorize drilling as well.

Since the House has endorsed Arctic drilling several times over the years, this afternoon's vote in the Senate was seen by vote-watchers on both sides as perhaps pivotal. In the Senate, opponents of drilling have used the chamber's parliamentary devices - notably, the threat of a filibuster, a stalling tactic that requires 60 of the Senate's 100 votes to overcome - to frustrate supporters.

Yet another vote has to take place before this is authorized, then we'll have to wait at least ten years before the lovely juicy oil there is exploitable, but it'll be worth it.

Less reliance upon Middle East oil can only be a good thing for us.

NO MEDIA BIAS

2005-03-17T07:56:00.000+11:00

Just ask David Corn from The Nation. He's a staunch advocate of editorial objectivity.

Yes, I'm being sarcastic. The guy's a raving Bushchimphitlerhalliburtonhater: Wolfowitz To Rule the World (Bank)

First George W. Bush picks UN-basher John Bolton to be ambassador to the United Nations. Then he nominates Karen Hughes, a champion spinner who has little foreign policy experience, to be under secretary of state in charge of enhancing the United States' image abroad. Next, Bush taps Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz to run the World Bank.

The Wolfowitz nomination is a win for the Pentagon but a loss for the world. Wolfowitz's achievements as a warmonger may say little about his views on international development, but his record on Iraq is one of miscalculation and exaggeration. And the poor of the world deserve a World Bank president with better judgment.

A leading neocon, Wolfowitz was a chief cheerleader for the war in Iraq--even before 9/11. In the first months of the Bush administration, Wolfowitz advocated toppling Saddam Hussein by sending in US troops to seize Iraq's oil fields and establish a foothold. Then, according to Wolfowitz, the rest of the country would rise up against Hussein. As Bob Woodward reported, then-Secreatry(sic) of State Colin Powell called this idea "lunacy."

On and on and on it goes. Wolfowitz is the next Hitler, he's Satan in a pinstripe, etc, etc, etc.

I'm sure that he doesn't spit any of this venom because he's just an unreconstructed anti-Semite. It's far more likely that his brain is just broken.

I've always admired Wolfowitz. The man came from humble beginnings and has risen through merit to the very peak of power in the United States. He has - from the very beginning - championed the notion that democracy could and would flourish in the Middle East. He wanted to get rid of Saddam before it became fashionable, and he has made great efforts to cut away at DoD spending excesses.

I welcome wholeheartedly his appointment to the World Bank.

RADICALS?

2005-03-17T01:11:00.000+11:00

I thought 'radicals' (especially those described in inverted commas) were just fuzzy-haired college students who wore Che t-shirts.

But it seems that terrorists recruited for fighting in Chechnya, as well as for blowing up half the structures in Paris, warrant the tepid term: Islamic 'radicals' arrested in Lyon

PARIS, March 15 (AFP) - French intelligence agents on Tuesday detained two suspected Islamic radicals in connection with an investigation into groups that were allegedly planning attacks in France, sources close to the probe said.

The two men - one Algerian, the other French - were placed in preventive detention in the central-eastern city of Lyon, the sources said. Their identities were not immediately revealed.

France set up an inquiry in November 2002 to investigate groups suspected of recruiting fighters to take part in the war in Chechnya between separatist rebels and the Russian army.

In the course of that investigation, police uncovered an underground group apparently composed of

Islamic radicals in a Paris suburb. Authorities believe members of that group were planning attacks on French soil in 2002.

A suspected militant told investigators that the Eiffel Tower, Israeli interests in the French capital, police stations and a major clothing retailer in the downtown Les Halles shopping complex were all possible targets.

'Radicals'.

You know, I'm so amused that I just can't find the right combination of hateful words to describe such idiotic moral equivalence.

BANGLADESH: STUDENT ANTI-JIHADIST ACTION

2005-03-17T01:05:00.000+11:00

Student activists actually protesting against anti-democratic forces? I know, it sounds too good to be true, but it is anyway: Student bodies demand ban on Jamaat-e-Bangladesh politics

[World News]: By Nazrul Islam Dhaka, Mar.15 : An alliance of six opposition-backed student organisations on Tuesday demanded the imposition of a ban on the kind of politics practiced by the right-wing Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh, which is a part of the Khaleda Zia-led ruling coalition.

"The armed men of the organisation [Jamaat] have been creating anarchy in the country exploiting the common pious people in the country in name of Islam," Liakot Sikder, the president of Bangladesh Chhatra League, the student front of the main opposition Awami League, told a rally on the Dhaka University campus.

He accused the Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh of sheltering religious zealots, who wanted to turn Bangladesh into an Islamic state. The newly formed student alliance, comprising student wings of some left and social democratic parties, also blamed the Jamaat for the frequent incidents of violence taking place on college campuses.

Earlier, activists of the student alliance took out a procession and marched through the Dhaka University campus chanting slogans against radical forces. (ANI)

Heartening to see, so seldom reported.

OHH... SO IT'S THE RELIGION OF PEACE!

2005-03-17T00:56:00.000+11:00

I suppose these six devout Muslims who were caught and convicted for plotting to blow up the US Embassy in Paris were just confused semantically. I'm sure that if their Imam had just spoken a little more clearly, a little careful articulation, these guys would have instead been out on the streets, spreading the love around: 6 Convicted in Paris in U.S. Embassy Plot

PARIS — A French court Tuesday convicted six Islamic militants of conspiring to bomb the U.S. Embassy here, culminating a lengthy and labyrinthine case involving a European terror network linked to key Al Qaeda leaders.

The three-judge panel sentenced the French Algerian ringleader of the Paris-based cell, Djamel Beghal, to the maximum penalty of 10 years in prison for terrorist conspiracy. His lieutenant, computer expert Kamel Daoudi, received a nine-year sentence. Two suspects were sentenced to six-year terms and the others received three- and one-year terms.

The verdict was a victory for Judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere, the dean of France's anti-terrorism magistrates, who opened the investigation of the embassy plot Sept. 10, 2001, amid increasing concern here about the threat of Islamic terrorists.

Al Qaeda's attacks the next day on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon sent European investigators into high gear. Police in France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Spain quickly rounded up suspects in the embassy plot, aborting longtime surveillance operations in hope of preventing other attacks.

The investigation traced the alarming rise of a homegrown European network. The members were mostly in their 20s and 30s and ranged from working-class North African immigrants to middle-class converts from an Alpine village.

So much for Islamic terrorism being a phenomena restricted to the socially disadvantaged.

NO MORE COMPULSORY ACTIVISM

2005-03-17T00:27:00.000+11:00

No liberal media alert: Just have a look at the way Education Minister Brendan Nelson's effort to ban compulsory student union fees is being received by the allegedly unbiased press.

Compulsory student union fees being banned was always going to cause this kind of hysteria among the left. Why? Because it is strategically brilliant. It lops the financing of university student socialist indoctrination/activism off at the knees.

Students who want to go to uni will be able to. If they want support services, they will be able to pay for them. But they won't be forced to subsidize student marxist activism, in the form of leaflets, signs, protest march logistics and so on. No more, no more, amen. Freedom of choice.

That leftists have the unmitigated gall to protest this (and in such facetious ways) just goes to show how devastating this ban is to the future of leftist Australia. Their little political indoctrination camps will become... places of learning. My God!

This is a democracy. Students who don't want to pay for spurious shit they won't need should never be forced to. And they should never, ever be forced to hand over their cash to far-left idiots who use the money on their pet political causes. That's called freedom.

If you don't like it, move to Cuba.

Update: Some of the noise that the left is hurling up to cloud what is really a very simple issue is just pathetic. I eat in the Sydney uni cafeteria all the time. You'd get better service in a concentration camp.

Update II: Amen for the Herald Sun.

PHILADELPHIA: MURDER CENTRAL

2005-03-17T00:04:00.000+11:00

The American city of Philadelphia is enduring a murder spate of hideous proportions. In eight days twenty-one people have been killed, and the local Mayor is becoming hysterically liberal: Mayor Declares City Violence A Crisis

PHILADELPHIA (KYW) Police and prosecutors concerned with a spate of killings in the city begged the public Monday for more help identifying murderers.

District Attorney Lynne M. Abraham vowed that her office will protect witnesses, even if it means sending a moving van to their home to take them to safety the day they come forward.

“We cannot only move you out of the city, we can move you out of the state; we can move you across the country,” Abraham said.

Within the past eight days there have been 21 homicides in Philadelphia, including three in the late-night and early morning hours after the prosecutor made her appeal Monday.

Now, CBS 3’s Walt Hunter reports that Mayor Street said under certain circumstances he would consider help from the Pennsylvania State Police and even the National Guard.

Lots of criminals are killing people (probably other criminals) and the Mayor's response? Hard-core policing? Curfews? Tougher penalties for illegal weapons?

Nah. More restrictions on legal gun ownership:

Street has declared the violence throughout the city a crisis and as a result has ordered the full review of police department policies and has suggested a full moratorium on the issuing of gun permits.

In addition, Street has requested a meeting with Governor Ed Rendell to talk about possible new gun legislation.

A 44-year-old man was found shot in his home early Tuesday morning. A 22-year-old man was shot several times in the street late Monday in a killing police believe was drug related. A 21-year-old man was shot during an argument.

There's some genius at work. Criminals who got their weapons on the black market have killed other criminals, and the Mayor's response is to disarm the law-abiding public. You got what you voted for, Philly.

Thank God socialism is dying. The world can only support so much stupid.

FOR ACHILLEA

2005-03-16T13:51:00.000+11:00

UNBELIEVABLE!

2005-03-16T10:12:00.000+11:00

With victory in Iraq looking closer on the horizon, Italy's jellybacked PM has handed Zarqawi a propaganda coup: Italy to pull troops out of Iraq

BOWING to popular pressure, the Italian Government said last night that it would start pulling its more than 3,000 troops out of Iraq in September.
The surprise announcement by Silvio Berlusconi, the Prime Minister, came less than two weeks after US troops shot dead Nicola Calipari, Italy’s top intelligence officer in Iraq, as he escorted a freed Italian hostage to safety.

Italy has 3,200 troops and Carabinieri paramilitary police in al-Nasiriyah, a former insurgent stronghold in the British-controlled southern sector of Iraq. The Italian withdrawal is bound to increase pressure on the British Government to fill the gap.

Britain has had to move 650 troops from the Basra area to take over territory previously controlled by departing Dutch troops. Ukraine and the Netherlands pulled out their troops this week as the coalition began to show signs of unravelling.

Signor Berlusconi said that he had discussed the withdrawal with Tony Blair. “It is public opinion in our countries which expects this decision,” he said.

The Italians, who have a brigade deployed in and around the Shia city of al-Nasiriyah, had been regarded as one of the most committed coalition partners.

Signor Berlusconi has been one of the strongest supporters of President Bush’s Iraq policy, and Italy has the fourth largest military contingent in Iraq.

However, anti-war sentiment was galvanised this month by the death of Signor Calipari, a secret service agent, at the hands of US troops in a friendly fire incident while he was taking an Italian woman hostage to safety.

It was reinforced yesterday by the death of an Italian paratrooper in Iraq who was shot in the head by accident during target practice. He was named as Salvatore Marracino, from Apulia, aged 28.

“We will begin to reduce our contingent in Iraq before the end of the year, in agreement with our allies,” Signor Berlusconi announced on television. “The first reduction will start in September”.

Continuing the fine martial tradition begun by Italian soldiers in WWII. A few soldiers are killed, so rapidly give up.

At least this time they're not switching sides. What an embarrassment to wogs worldwide.

SPANISH MUSLIMS DISPLAY PRIDE

2005-03-16T09:03:00.000+11:00

We keep hearing how much Spain has done to make Muslims feel at home, and at one with Spanish society. Christianity has been sidelined and federal funding for Islamic causes boosted. Long-time Spanish ally - the United States - has been fobbed off, in an effort to make Spain seem neutral.

So let's see what the average Muhammed in the street thinks about all this lavish attention:

Lavapies does not feel like a ghetto. In its narrow streets, Spanish and north African shops are still mixed up together. So are the people. But I have the sense of a community which could go either way: the strengthening of peaceful coexistence or a downward spiral to low-level urban civil war.

Perhaps the most impressive thing the Spanish people have done in the year since the "11-M" attacks is the thing they haven't done. They have not struck back, scapegoating Moroccans or Muslims of any nationality. A recent report by Human Rights Watch pays this cautious tribute: "To our knowledge, there have not been any clearly documented cases of racist violence that can be attributed directly to the March 11 bombings." It goes on to quote the president of the association of Moroccan workers and immigrants in Spain: "The reaction has overall been exemplary, that of a society that knows how to distinguish between a few terrorists and a community."

[...]

Muhammad Said, a 19-year old Moroccan in hand-painted sneakers, complains about increased police harassment since the bombings. Why, only three days ago the police roughed up a friend of his and confiscated his mobile phone, just because it showed a photo of Osama bin Laden! So was Bin Laden a hero to this friend of his? Yes, of course. But Said himself is training to be a plumber, and says he's been kindly treated by his teachers. A man on the cusp, then, between integration and alienation.

I ask another Muhammad ("just call me Muhammad"), a voluble 16-year-old, about last year's bombings just down the road, at the Atocha station. Well, he says, he doesn't like to see people dying "even if they are Christians and Jews". But in this case, because of what Aznar did in the Iraq war.

Nice going, Spain.

Hope Sharia works out well for you.

BLEATING FOR LEBANON

2005-03-16T08:40:00.000+11:00

If you haven't already done so, take a look at Lilek's latest bleat:

The demonstrations in Lebanon are fascinating and heartening for all sorts of reasons, not the least of which is the hubbaliciousness of some of the protestors. But that picture is interesting for a third reason: The words on the placard are from “Braveheart.” That’s what William Wallace shouted to rouse the troops. I’m not quite sure what it means – it’s one of those sentiments that falls apart when you interrogate it too closely, but on the other hand it makes sense, somehow. Except that you would be dead, but free. But Free! But dead. On the other hand, if you quibble about such things, you live in a society where Quibbling is the main intellectual activity, because the real struggles of life took place before you came along, and you’ve inherited peace and stability and freedom, and define “tyranny” as the actions of a town council that votes to ban body-piercing parlors within 1000 feet of an elementary school. Fargin’ fascists, man.

Another picture has a picture of the old brute Assad and the chinless peeper-doc son. “Papa Don’t Preach / I’m in Trouble Deep,” it says. Again, amazing: this is a lyric from a vaguely pro-life Madonna song from the 80s. More evidence of the boundless up-side of cultural hegemony. I expect to see a sign that says “You have to fight / and then smite / the Ba’athist Parrrrrty.” (Hyuk! I crack myself up.) I wrote a few weeks ago about the French involvement here – since they regard Lebanon as part of their sphere of influence, shouldn’t we be wary? Shouldn’t we keep them from getting any credit, or muscle them to the wings? Eh. I don’t care.. Let ‘em in, let Chanticleer believe he summoned the dawn, if the end result is a free Lebanon. Of course if the Administration does pull out a chair for France here, it will be regarded as a “sign” that the United States has “bent to prevailing realities in the region” and “abandoned the unilateral policy” that characterized the Iraq policy. Fine; whatever. The United States invents forks, the French determine which order they should be arrayed on the table, and they get the credit for the exquisite meal. That’s how the short run will look for a while. The long run will look different. Not too different – note how we seem to believe that France in WW2 was composed entirely of partisans who spent every night in Monmartre cafes muttering plans to blow up German barracks. But - dang my simplisme – I tend to think that if Lebanon is freed, history might note a glancing relationship between the Cedar Revolution and the deposition of the occupying government’s fascist twin next door.

Habib, that guy is almost as good a writer as I am a lovemaker.

LEBANESE PROTEST BABEWATCH

2005-03-16T08:19:00.000+11:00

Because there is always a good side to tumultuous political upheaval:

A Lebanese woman flashes the 'V' sign and waves her country's flag as she chants anti-Syrian slogans in Beirut. Syria took a further step toward ending its military presence in Lebanon as it began to dismantle its intelligence apparatus here in a move that drew a guarded welcome from the United States.

A woman shouts during a rally held by Lebanese living in France, in Paris, Tuesday March 15, 2005. Hundreds of Lebanese gathered in a show of support for the opposition movement and for Syria's withdrawal from Lebanon. Lebanon flags are seen behind, and French flags at right.

And here's the down side: Iranian/Syrian stoogewatch:

Lebanese students shout anti-U.S. slogans during a protest in front of the U.S. Embassy near Beirut, March 15, 2005. Around 3,000 pro-Syrian students chanting 'Death to America' marched on the embassy, burning American and Israeli flags and denouncing what they say is U.S. interference in Lebanon.

Lebanese 'students'?

Wow, now there's some seriously selective description. Try "Iranian/Syrian-backed treacherous anti-democratic assholes, who, when not kissing a militant Imam's ass, are buggering their children, and beating their mothers."

IDIOTARIAN WATCH

2005-03-16T08:13:00.000+11:00

An anti war protester displays her feelings on a sign in New York City. Anti-war groups say they are gearing up for a series of national demonstrations, including acts of civil disobedience, to mark the second anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq, spokespeople said.

A surge toward Democracy all across the Middle East, two murderous, tyrannical regimes overthrown, global terrorist groups in disarray...

But it's still all about the oil.

Really, should leftists be allowed to breed??!!

THE EUROPEAN JIHAD

2005-03-16T08:04:00.000+11:00

Europe (Eurabia) is fast becoming the premier recruiting ground for Jihadists. Forget Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan. Pretty soon the Mujahedin coming from France, Germany and Britain will vastly outnumber them: Jihad Express

March 21 issue - The most fanciful park in Paris, and one of the least known, set among the city's poorest immigrant neighborhoods, is the Buttes Chaumont. A craggy mountain rises out of a taciturn lake, and a narrow path leads across what's called the "Bridge of Suicides." Muslim boys trained there last year for holy war in Iraq. Several were in their teens, born and raised in France, and many knew nothing more about guns and bombs than what they'd seen in movies. Some spoke no Arabic. But they heard the call to jihad that was raised by radical Islamist preachers, and they answered it. One died in Fallujah. Three are known to be imprisoned in Iraq, at least one of them in Abu Ghraib. Three others are jailed in France. One blew himself up in an attack on the road to Baghdad airport.

The boys had little impact on the Iraq war. But they represent a growing threat to Europe—and, some studies suggest, to the United States. Over the last three years, starting even before the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, the Jordanian terrorist Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi and groups close to him developed a sort of underground railroad to smuggle zealous fighters from Europe through Turkey and Syria into Iraq—and home again, if they survived. Now those recruits have been joined by a stream of young Islamists from Western Europe who are making their own way to the battlefield. Some are looking for Paradise as "martyrs," some just for street cred back home and some for serious combat experience in urban warfare. "Those who don't die and come back will be the future chiefs of Al Qaeda or Zarqawi [groups] in Europe," says French terrorism authority Roland Jacquard.

"We're watching very closely," says Gijs de Vries, the European Union's counterterrorism coordinator. "It only takes one or two dedicated individuals to create serious damage." All over Europe, in fact, investigators now face the threat of terrorists who are virtually self-taught, organized in groups with little or no central command and united by their obsession with the jihad against Americans in Iraq. "It has become a battle cry for Islamists around the world," says Michael Taarnby, author of a report on terrorist recruiting for the Danish Justice Ministry. Their most devastating blow to date was not inside Iraq but in Madrid last year, when a gruesome bombing spree killed 191 people in retaliation for Spain's presence in Iraq.

At a conference marking the anniversary of the Madrid atrocity last week, Robert Leiken of Washington's Nixon Center presented a provocative study of 373 radical Muslim terrorists arrested or killed in Europe and the United States from 1993 through 2004. His conclusion: some 87 percent are from immigrant backgrounds, but 41 percent are Western nationals, either naturalized, second generation or converts to Islam. "More French nationals were arrested than nationals of Pakistan and Yemen combined," says Leiken. While homegrown Muslim terrorists have so far been rare in the United States, in Europe they virtually recruit themselves, and Leiken points out that those who have European passports have almost open access to American territory through an ongoing visa-waiver program.

When are governments going to stop deluding themselves and realize that this is a world-wide Jihad, tacitly supported by Muslims everywhere?

MUSLIM "HISTORY" ALERT

2005-03-16T07:55:00.000+11:00

Muslims, if asked, will often have a different idea about world history to most people. Muslims discovered America, were first on the moon, invented the pizza, and so on.

Most people know that it's harmless insanity.

But this harmless insanity is grossly applied when it is being told to young Australians exploring the cliffs of Gallipoli: Guides twist Gallipoli into a 'holy jihad'

THE Anzac legend is being corrupted by unlicensed Turkish tour guides who claim the Gallipoli campaign was a "holy jihad" decided by the hand of Allah.

In lectures delivered on the battlefields, the guides tell their audiences that "Muslim saints" repelled Allied artillery attacks and enemy soldiers were swallowed by a "green mist".

The lectures have sparked outrage across Turkey and have prompted a court challenge to the guides' right to speak about the Gallipoli campaign.

Turkish academics, historians and official guides have launched a campaign to ban the talks, which are being delivered at hallowed sites such as Lone Pine and Chunuk Bair.

The RSL has reacted angrily and vowed to raise the matter with the Turkish Government.

It should be an Australian company providing guides.

CANADIAN DOUBLE STANDARD

2005-03-16T07:38:00.000+11:00

Naturally, Canadian "hate crime" laws work in favour of Jihadists, and not Jews: Saying Israelis are 'legitimate targets' not a hate crime

Police have decided not to charge a controversial Muslim leader under Canada's hate-crime laws for suggesting on a television talk show last fall that all adult Israelis are "legitimate targets" for Palestinian terrorists.

Investigators with Halton Region police said that while the comments by Dr. Mohamed Elmasry "were described by many as [a] hate crime," they did not meet the legal definition.

"Although the comments would be considered distasteful to many, in this context they do not constitute a criminal offence," police said in a news release. "The comments were made during a free-flowing discussion between subject-matter experts who were encouraged to express their opinions openly on a topic of significant public interest."

Dr. Elmasry, a University of Waterloo professor and president of the Canadian Islamic Congress, drew widespread public condemnation last October for telling a television panel discussion that all Israelis over the age of 18 could be targets for attacks by Palestinians because they are all members of the country's army.

So... saying Islam is a brutal, violent, caveman religion is inciting hatred, but encouraging people to kill civilian Jews isn't.

Canada is fucked.

IRAQIS RISING UP

2005-03-15T19:52:00.000+11:00

Iraqis are exercising some healthy disapproval of the Jordanian decision to honour as a martyr the homicide bomber who slaughtered more than a hundred innocent Iraqis.

After storming the Jordanian embassy, the irate crowd tore down the Jordan national flag and tore it to pieces: Iraqis Hold Anti-Jordanian Protests Over Bombing

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Thousands of Iraqi Shi'ites protested Monday after hearing reports that relatives of a Jordanian suicide bomber suspected of killing 125 people in the town of Hilla celebrated him as a martyr.

After breaking into the Jordanian embassy in Baghdad and tearing down the flag, protesters called on all foreign Arabs to leave the country and denounced Jordan's King Abdullah.

Anti-Jordanian sentiment has been spreading since Iraqis read newspaper reports that Jordan's Raid al-Banna blew himself up beside people lining up for jobs in the Shi'ite town of Hilla last month in the single bloodiest attack in postwar Iraq.

Al Qaeda's wing in Iraq, led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, claimed responsibility for the blast.

The Iraqi government said in a statement it strongly condemns "the expressions of joy" exhibited by the family of Banna, who it described as a terrorist.

"Prime Minister Iyad Allawi spoke to the prime minister of Jordan personally today and asked him for a clear answer regarding the family's activities as the reports are affecting relations between the Iraqi and Jordanian people," it said.

Most of the demonstrators were members of the Shi'ite Muslim majority newly empowered by Jan. 30 elections that stripped minority Sunnis of privileges enjoyed under Saddam Hussein.

The Jordanians, realizing the abhorrent mistake they had made, immediately apologised and set about rounding up known associates of the bomber.

Nah! I'm kidding. They arrested the reporter who initially spilled the beans on them: Journalist arrested over Jordanian suicide bomber in Iraq story

AMMAN (AFP) - Jordanian authorities have arrested a journalist who wrote that a Jordanian national carried out the suicide bombing in Iraq (news - web sites) last month that cost 118 lives, the official Petra news agency said.

"Hadi Abdellatif al-Nsour of the Jordanian daily Al-Ghad was arrested because of his erroneous and fabricated article on the Jordanian Raed al-Banna who died in Iraq and in which he alleged that (Banna) carried out the attack in Hilla," interior ministry spokesman Faisal al-Qadi was quoted as saying.

The February 28 suicide car bombing took place in the predominantly Shiite town of Hilla, south of Baghdad.

Qadi said that the journalist would face charges in court at a later date.

Prime Minister Faisal al-Fayez said that his country "stands by the brotherly Iraqi people in their fight against terrorism which targets innocent Iraqis.

"We denounce terrorist acts carried out by individuals who have nothing to do with Islam or being Arab."

Ghad's story said that Banna carried out the attack and that his family had held a funeral service to honour him as a "martyr" after carrying out the attack.

Banna's family denied he was involved in the attack but his father said he received a call a few days after the bombing from an unidentified man telling him that his son had died a "martyr" in Iraq.

The allegation caused outrage in Iraq, where protestors on Monday tore down and burnt the flag flying over the Jordanian embassy in Baghdad.

Protestors called for Jordanian diplomats to be expelled, for the alleged suicide bomber's family to be prosecuted and for Amman to compensate victims' families.

A similar demonstration was held in the Iraqi Shiite holy city of Najaf.

The group of Al-Qaeda's frontman in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian, claimed responsibility for the Hilla attack, according to a statement posted on an Islamist website.

I'm not sure which I'm more annoyed by; the fact that the Jordanian government thinks that the average Iraqi is retardedly stupid, or the fact that Agence France Presse wrote this story about a brother reporter, and managed to completely avoid a single sentence that was even slightly critical of his treatment.

If the US had arrested a reporter simply for having written something politically inconvienent, said nothing of the charges laid against him, and only revealed that he would be tried "at a later date", exactly how hysterical would their reaction be?

RUSSIAN/MULLAH NUCLEAR COLLABORATION

2005-03-15T19:31:00.000+11:00

I really have no idea what Putin thinks he is going to get out of this. The emnity of the west just isn't worth cheaper Iranian oil: Russian trains nearly 1,000 technicians for Bushehr

MOSCOW [MENL] -- Russia has accelerated an effort to train more than 1,000 Iranian technicians to operate the Bushehr nuclear reactor in Iran in 2006.

Officials said Russian institutes have been training Iranians to operate
Bushehr in time for the launch the facility, expected in late 2006. They
said the training was part of the $1 billion Bushehr project, which has so
far been three years behind schedule.

The training program has been sponsored by the Russian Federal Atomic Energy Agency. The Novovoronezh center of the Russian Rosenergoatom Atomic Energy Concern has trained 650 Iranian technians to operate Bushehr. The technicians received classroom instruction before moving on to help operate a Russian nuclear facility.

In Washington, senior U.S. officials said the Bush administration has decided to join the European Union in offering Iran incentives to end its uranium enrichment and other programs relating to the production of nuclear weapons. The officials said Britain, France and Germany have agreed in exchange to bring the issue of Iran's nuclear program to the United Nations Security Council should Teheran fail to abandon its nuclear weapons effort.

They'll have to, because Iran won't give up on this. They've made their intentions abundantly clear.

PALESTINE: A LONG WAY TO GO

2005-03-15T19:21:00.000+11:00

As can be seen by the results of this poll conducted in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, half the battle for the Palestinians is going to remain with their minds and hearts.

While support for terrorism is dropping, still far too many of them openly admire the murderers in Hamas and Fatah: Palestinian Public Opinion Poll- PSR POLL No. 15

These are the results of the latest poll conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip between March 10-12, 2005. Total size of the sample is 1319 adults interviewed face to face in 120 randomly selected locations. Margin of error is 3% and rejection rate 2%.

* Support for the Tel Aviv night club suicide attack, which took place about three weeks ago, reaches 29% compared to 77% for the Bir Shiba suicide attack in September 2004 and 75% for the Maxim Restaurant suicide attack in Haifa in October 2003. Opposition to the Tel Aviv attack reaches 67%. But support for the steps taken by the PA to punish the perpetrators, such as
arrests, does not exceed 40% while 57% oppose them.

* Support for Fateh reaches 36% (compared to 40% last December) and for
Hamas 25% (compared to 18% last December). Support for Hamas in the Gaza
Strip reaches 32% and in the West Bank 21%. Support for Fateh in the Gaza
Strip reaches 35% and in the West Bank 36%.

* Palestinian public expects close results for Fateh and Hamas in the
upcoming May local elections and a victory for Fateh in the legislative
elections scheduled for July 2005. But in the Gaza Strip, the public expects
a major victory for Hamas in the local elections and a victory for Fateh in
the legislative elections.

* The public believes that Hamas' victory in the previous local elections
has been due firstly to the integrity and incorruptibility of its candidates
and secondly to the unity and discipline within the movement. Fateh's loss
is attributed firstly to the spread of corruption in the PA and Fateh and
secondly to divisions and lack of discipline in the movement.

* 75% are satisfied with Abu Mazin's performance with regard to steps taken
to revive the peace process, such as the ceasefire and release of prisoners.
70% are satisfied with his dismissal of senior security officers, and 62%
believe that Abu Mazin is serious about fighting corruption in the PA.

Are they ready for nationhood? I still say no.

MAY GOD FORBID IT

2005-03-15T18:58:00.000+11:00

The lunatics over at the Christian Science Monitor are happy about the Syrian pullout of Lebanon, but now they want to bring in a band of undisciplined, raping, pillaging, exploiting, child pederasts in their place.

That's right, the UN: After Syria, a UN role in Lebanon?

BEIRUT – The withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon has spurred some members of the United Nations Security Council to assess the possibility of dispatching a stabilization force to fill any security vacuum that might arise.

After all, the Lebanese government for years has justified Syria's troop presence by saying it was helping ensure peace and that a hasty departure could destabilize the country that has a history of civil war between its many competing sectarian and political influences.

Past peacekeeping efforts in Lebanon have ranged from the disastrous Multi-National Force (MNF) mission in 1983 - that was driven out of Beirut by a barrage of suicide bombers - to the impotent UN peacekeeping effort in south Lebanon.

Although no concrete steps have been taken by the UN, for Timur Goksel, a university lecturer in Beirut and former senior adviser to the UN Interim Force In South Lebanon (UNIFIL), sending peacekeepers to Lebanon to replace Syrian troops would be a "monumental blunder."

Lebanon has had decades of what the UN calls "stabilization". It could probably do without any more.

MORE SINN FEIN/IRA BLUSTER

2005-03-15T15:19:00.000+11:00

Now the sisters of IRA murder victim Robert McCartney are being threatened by a senior Sinn Fein representative.

Hold your breath. There's a good chance that the Republican movement in Northern Ireland will have fallen to pieces by the time you need to suck in air: McGuinness warns McCartney sisters

Sinn Féin's Martin McGuinness last night warned the family of IRA murder victim Robert McCartney not to be used as political pawns as they prepared to meet George Bush at the White House.

The party's chief negotiator said the campaign to bring the killers to justice could be left open to political manipulation.

Seeming rattled by the crisis engulfing Sinn Féin, he told BBC Radio Ulster: "The McCartneys need to be very careful. To step over that line, which is a very important line, into the world of party political politics, can do a huge disservice to their campaign.

Sinn Fein members, most of whom are former IRA, are warning these women not to become political. The Provos have had things too easy for too long. I hope they're totally marginalized, then destroyed.

ANTHRAX ATTACKS IN THE US?

2005-03-15T14:54:00.000+11:00

Information is sketchy, but it seems that there may have been at least two attempts to mail Anthrax to a delivery security facility at the Pentagon. Reuters is claiming that tests proved negative for Anthrax, but who the hell believes them anymore: Anthrax Tests at Pentagon Prove Negative

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two Defense Department mail handling facilities were shut down on Monday after sensitive detection devices indicated the presence of anthrax but mail at the facilities had already been irradiated to kill any bacteria, Pentagon officials said.

Initial tests at a delivery security facility on the grounds of the Pentagon and at a satellite facility in an office complex several miles away returned preliminary positive results, the Pentagon said. But further tests were negative.

"During routine mail operations, the Pentagon had a positive detection for the presence of anthrax bacteria at the Remote Delivery Facility," the Pentagon said in a statement. "Subsequent tests have proven negative."

"These testing machines are very sensitive and we have had false alarms before. But we take these matters very seriously and are investigating," Defense Department spokesman Glenn Flood told Reuters.

More tests to confirm the results were being conducted at the U.S. Army Research Institute for Infectious Diseases at Ft. Detrick in Frederick, Maryland, said Pentagon spokeswoman Lt. Commander Jane Campbell. The results were expected in two to three days.

So, actually, a better title would have been: "preliminary tests prove negative."

Why is al-Reuters always so anxious to downplay the threat of terrorism?

GOOD BOY

2005-03-15T10:44:00.000+11:00

The Spanish Government just received a lovely pat on the head from their future masters: Thanks for telling apart Islam, terrorists

THE Spanish Islamic Commission has thanked the country for the "exemplary" way in which it has made a distinction between Islam and terrorism after the March 11, 2004 attacks in Madrid.

"We feel deep and strong solidarity with the victims and their loved ones who have shown an exemplary attitude by never pointing a finger at the country's Muslim population but, on the contrary, could tell the difference between terrorists and the Muslim people," commission secretary-general Riay Tatary told private Spanish radio Cadena Ser.

Referring to the train bombings that killed 191 people in the Spanish capital a year ago, he said: "It causes profound pain to all Muslims."

Mr Tatari, one of two secretaries-general of the commission created by the government in 1991, said the country's Muslims wanted "to express their strongest thanks to all the Spanish people."

In the face of international terrorism, he said, "they knew how to make a clear distinction and see that the terror attacks against the Spanish people were born from the hate of a small minority which has nothing to do with the Muslim population".

It causes profound pain to all Muslims? There's a topic for some serious debate.

Do I think all Muslims are terrorists? No. Are most terrorists Muslims? Yes. Do a disconcertingly high number of Muslims either actively or passively assist or support the actions of Islamic fundamentalists? Yes.

And that is their problem. The puzzling absence of condemnation for violence that is carried out in the name of their faith.

HERE WE GO...

2005-03-15T10:02:00.000+11:00

China is talking tough over Taiwan: China Law Authorizes Force Against Taiwan

BEIJING (AP) - China's parliament enacted a law Monday authorizing force to stop rival Taiwan from pursuing formal independence, sparking outrage on the self-governing island and warnings that the measure would fuel regional tensions.

The ceremonial National People's Congress passed the law despite U.S. appeals for restraint. It came a day after President Hu Jintao called on China's military to be ready for war and followed a 12.6 percent increase in the country's defense budget for 2005.

Also in China, an American member of the non-liberal-biased media fawningly denigrates his nation in order to make nice with the local communist despots. Philip Bennett, Managing Editor of Washington Post ought to be flogged for this flagrant act of editorial treason: "I don't think US should be the leader of the world"

Yong Tang: The Bush administration always claims that it is spreading freedom and democracy to all over the world. But there is widespread suspicion over the motives of What the Bush administration is doing. Some experts say democracy is just a beautiful pretext for America to seek its own interests. So personally I think there is a kind of hypocrisy here.

Bennett: The Bush administration believes that there isn't a contradiction between defending its self-interest and promoting friendly and democratic regimes. Because they believe that promoting those kinds of governments would make the world more friendly to the US and therefore it is in the interest of America to do that.

But if you look at the different parts of the world, it would be very difficult for the Bush administration to argue that they do not apply same standards to different parts of the world. Clearly US is a great ally of Pakistan and Saudi Arbia, which are not democracies. US has a very complex relations with China, which is not a democracy either by American standard. The issues that were once on the top of that relationship, like human rights, were no longer on the top any more. If you still remember last time when US President talked about human rights in China as a major issue between the two countries, that has been a long time ago. So I think it is true there are different standards applied to different places. In that case You could call that hypocrisy or whatever labels you thought fit most appropriately. But it is clear that the US government's ideas of political development around the world is not applied equally in all places. I am just observing that as I look out how political development in different countries operates around the world.

The usual shallow idoitarian analysis. The US isn't invading every undemocratic country in the world, so it shouldn't cause regime change in any. How do people with brain this small and unsophisticated ever untangle themselves from the bedsheets in the morning?

But here's the money quote:

Yong Tang: In such sense, do you think America should be the leader of the world?

Bennett: No, I don't think US should be the leader of the world. My job is helping my readers trying to understand what is happening now. What is happening now is very difficult to understand. The world is very complex. There are various complex forces occurring in it. I don't think you can imagine a world where one country or one group of people could lead everybody else. I can't imagine that could happen. I also think it is unhealthy to have one country as the leader of the world. People in other countries don't want to be led by foreign countries. They may want to have good relations with it or they may want to share with what is good in that country.

That is also a sort of colonial question. The world has gone through colonialism and imperialism. We have seen the danger and shortcomings of those systems. If we are heading into another period of imperialism where the US thinks itself as the leader of the area and its interest should prevail over all other interests of its neighbors and others, then I think the world will be in an unhappy period.

Note the naive way that this grand Managing Editor talks about America being 'leader of the world' as though there was some kind of absolute monarchical arrangement in place, where the rest of us bow and scrape for attention. "Imperial America" paranoia at its worst.

He can't "imagine" a world where there is one paramount power, yet he goes straight on to denigrate America for supposedly doing just that. He's a child. There is no hint of the understandings of subtlty in his words.

Well, limitations to his imagination notwithstanding, America is the global hegemon. This has been recognized in every institution of learning (no matter how Marxist in orientation) since the USSR fell to pieces. But the fact is, America has not, does not, and will not act as a traditional empire or superpower. Yes, they will guard their interests (as all nations do) but it has shown a singular desire to aid those nations who, quite often, can provide America absolutely no material reciprocity for their efforts. When has the USA failed to at least attempt to work through the United Nations, regardless of the world body's atrocious record of corruption? When America's allies needed them, when have they failed to heed the call?

America has been there to foster democracy and self-governnance around the world as the champion of liberty, not just because it is in its own interest, but because it is in all our interests.

This doesn't sound like some kind of power-mad tyrant state to me.

LEBANESE ANTI-SYRIAN PROTESTS CONTINUE

2005-03-15T09:37:00.000+11:00

The crowds are getting louder and larger, and they don't even need to bus in 'extras': Hundreds of Thousands in Lebanon Protest Syria

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Hundreds of thousands of people rallied in central Beirut on Monday in the largest anti-Syrian protest in Lebanon since the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri exactly a month ago.

Flag-waving crowds from across Lebanon gathered in Martyrs' Square in central Beirut, just meters away from Hariri's grave, to demand an international inquiry into his killing, the sacking of Syrian-backed security chiefs and a total Syrian pullout.

Unlike previous anti-Syrian opposition protests since a bomb blast killed Hariri on Feb. 14, many Sunni Muslims joined Druze and Christians in taking to the streets. Hariri was a Sunni.

The opposition rally came a day after huge crowds turned out in the south for a anti-U.S. demonstration organized by Lebanon's Shi'ite Muslim Hizbollah group, an ally of Syria.

Organizers of the Beirut protest say it will draw hundreds of thousands to the central Beirut square that has seen daily protests demanding a full Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon.

And just because you've been brilliant, here's a short collection of Lebanese female activists, for your academic edification:

This gathering of beautiful women expressing the desire for greater freedom is brought to you by the Bush Administration and Howard Government.

WHAT LIBERAL MEDIA BIAS?

2005-03-15T09:30:00.000+11:00

It's getting more and more difficult to deny: Study Shows U.S. Election Coverage Harder on Bush

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. media coverage of last year's election was three times more likely to be negative toward President Bush than Democratic challenger John Kerry, according to a study released Monday.

The annual report by a press watchdog that is affiliated with Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism said that 36 percent of stories about Bush were negative compared to 12 percent about Kerry, a Massachusetts senator.

Only 20 percent were positive toward Bush compared to 30 percent of stories about Kerry that were positive, according to the report by the Project for Excellence in Journalism.

The study looked at 16 newspapers of varying size across the country, four nightly newscasts, three network morning news shows, nine cable programs and nine Web sites through the course of 2004.

Examining the public perception that coverage of the war in Iraq (news - web sites) was decidedly negative, it found evidence did not support that conclusion. The majority of stories had no decided tone, 25 percent were negative and 20 percent were positive, it said.

I'm inclined to believe that considering this report came from the Columbia School of Journalism (otherwise known as The People's Marxist Collectivist School of Truth), the real outcome of the study would be even more slanted against the Bush Administration.

COX & FORKUM

2005-03-15T09:22:00.000+11:00

See more of their great work here.

IRA OUT IN THE COLD

2005-03-14T23:36:00.000+11:00

It's going to be a long Belfast winter for the IRA this year (figuratively speaking). As mentioned earlier, the gruesome murder of Irishman Robert McCartney and the galvanizing anti-IRA movement begun by his five sisters has placed the terrorist organization into serious damage control.

As Mark Steyn points out so well, it is looking more and more to be a case of too little, much too late: These Irish eyes are smiling at White House snub of IRA

Happy St. Patrick's Day to my fellow hyphenated Irishmen. And the good news about this St. Paddy's Day is that for the first time in a decade the official observances will not be disfigured by the presence at the White House of Gerry Adams.

Adams is usually billed as the "President of Sinn Fein," which in turn is usually billed as the "political wing" of the IRA. This artful form of words is supposed to suggest some kind of distinction between "President" Adams and the murkier fellows who do all the bombing and killing and knee-capping. In fact, as the Irish government recently revealed, "President" Adams is a member of the Provisional IRA's ruling "army council" -- i.e., the fellows who order all the bombing and killing and knee-capping.

So instead of one more chorus of "The Wearing of the Green," it's the wearing out of the welcome for Adams at the White House. In his place, President Bush will welcome the fiancee and five sisters of Robert McCartney. McCartney was a Belfast Catholic and a Sinn Fein supporter, but he made the mistake of getting into an argument with a Provisional IRA big shot in a pub in January. The other "Provos" present grabbed McCartney, beat him with iron sewer rods, slit him open from his neck to his navel, severed his jugular and jumped on his head, causing what was left of it to lose an eye. There were 70 witnesses in the bar but none of them saw a thing.

Depravity-wise, what exactly is the difference between McCartney's murder and the lynching of the four U.S. contractors in Fallujah? None -- except that the organization responsible for the former has enjoyed a decade of White House photo-ops.

Bridgeen Hagans, the late McCartney's fiancee, and his sisters are in America as part of their campaign to persuade some of the dozens of witnesses to his killing to come forward. They're reluctant to do so because, as in any third-rate gangster state, testifying against the local warlords can be severely injurious to one's own health. Recognizing that they had a public relations disaster on their hands, the IRA then offered to make amends to McCartney's grieving loved ones. You're right, they said, it was all a mistake, but don't worry, we're really sorry about it -- and, just to show how sorry we are, we'll murder his murderers for you. As an afterthought, they acknowledged that, as a lot of folks were upset by the brutality of the McCartney whack job, when they got around to murdering his murderers, they'd eschew the sewer rods, abdomen-slitting, etc., and just do it nice and clean with a bullet straight to the head. Very decent of them.

There's a lesson there in the reformability of terrorists. The IRA's first instinct is to kill. If you complain about the killing, they offer to kill the killers. If you complain about the manner of the killing, they offer to kill more tastefully -- "compassionate terrorism,'' as it were. But it's like Monty Python's spam sketch: There's no menu item that doesn't involve killing. You can get it in any color as long as it's blood-red.

The pickings will be slim for Republican fundraisers in the US, this year.

BRITISH DHIMMITUDE

2005-03-14T23:22:00.000+11:00

I've long thought that the British are the weak link in the coalition against terror. My friends in London send me daily reports of how the place is being rapidly converted into an Islamic/Socialist hybrid state.

Hunters can't hunt and people can't call a shitty religion a shitty religion without going before a judge.

It just isn't right, and Salman Rushdie agrees with me: In bad faith

The exception to European secularism can be found in Britain, or at least in the government of the devoutly Christian and increasingly authoritarian Tony Blair, which is presently trying to steamroller parliament into passing a law against "incitement to religious hatred", in a cynical vote-getting attempt to placate British Muslim spokesmen, in whose eyes just about any critique of Islam is offensive.

Journalists, lawyers and a long list of public figures have warned that this law will dramatically hinder free speech and fail to meet its objective - that religious disturbances will increase rather than diminish. Blair's government seems to view the whole subject of civil liberties with disdain - what do freedoms matter, hard-won and long-cherished though they may be, when set against the requirements of a government facing re-election?

And yet the Blairite policy of appeasement must be defeated. Perhaps the House of Lords will do what the Commons failed to do, and send this bad law to the scrapheap.

I think that Salman fires a little wide of the mark, claiming that Christianity is at the core of this mass public censorship. It is instead purest Socialism, and as we know, the two are not often easy bedfellows.

MR IRAQ

2005-03-14T16:18:00.000+11:00

People should call Arthur Chrenkoff "Mr Iraq".

For a skip, the guy knows the Middle East. In case you haven't already, check out his latest installment of Good News From Iraq, and the brilliant story about the sexy superheros emerging from Egypt.

WHY BLOG?

2005-03-14T15:28:00.000+11:00

To be honest, I had no intention of doing so, were it not for two fortunate events, occuring one on top of the other.

The first was corresponding with an Australian blogger who was very helpful and encouraging in motivating me to move beyond simple commenting and email-writing as a means of expressing my views.

The other event was a train ride I took, from Liverpool to Town Hall (these stations will be familiar only to Sydneysiders, I fear). It was mid-afternoon on a sweltering day, I was seated in the lower section of an ice-cold Tangara, and was killing time by idly eavesdropping on a few conversations which swirled around me.

My ears pricked up when I heard the words: "fucking wogs" used in a particularly unflattering manner (for non-Australians, "wog" is a semi-derogatory term used mainly by Anglo-Celtic people to refer to people with superior suntans). This was closely followed by the loud use of the ever-popular "camel-f*ckers". Put together, I figured that the conversation warranted locating.

It didn't take long. A few seconds later I was scowling at a couple of young skips (for non-Australians, "skip" is a semi-derogatory term used by non-Anglo-Celtic people to refer to those Australians who don't drive cars like this or these, but this skip might well be the exception to the rule). They looked to be involved in an intensely academic debate regarding the war on terror. All the Arabs should be fucking killed, just nuke the lot of them, etc, etc, etc. The usual stuff.

Living in Australia, I'm not surprised that young skips feel this way when they are constantly hearing about wogs killing one another over politics and religion. They don't know much about history, so they don't understand why things got to where they are. It's not their fault their history teachers were too busy kissing Aboriginal ass to tell them about the wider world. So it's also natural that they don't know their own history; the dark ages that their ancestors happily plunged Europe into, and the wars of religion that followed. A hundred years is a long time to them, so it's understandable that they look down on the wogs as a brutal and violent people.

I decided to let these naive young fellows know what's going on. I stood up, walked over to them, and sat down beside them (not an easy thing to do in Sydney trains, as the three-seaters were made for anorexic midget Chinese people). I looked at them quietly for a moment, and they looked back at me, turning red and hoping that I wasn't going to ask for their sneakers.

Instead, I said to them, straight out, that they shouldn't slag off wogs. For starters, it's dangerous. Wogs are sensitive about being wogs, and it might hurt our feelings. Further, they needed to understand that wogs are Australians, just like them. That I am an Australian, just like them.

Their eyes were still glossed over, so I tried something different. I came up with a senario to walk them through. I said, imagine that this train was hijacked by some Muslims intent on taking everyone hostage. I asked them what they would do in such an eventuality.

I guess they were feeling timid, because they said that if the terrorists had guns, they'd just do as they were told.

"Fuck that!" I said. "This is the post-9.11 age, habib!" (for non-wogs, "habib" means "friend").

"Terrorists these days don't want to swap you for money or political favours. They want to kill your ass in a spectacluar fashion, so their God will love them more, and give them more virgins when they die."

They looked like they were getting the idea, so I decided to drive my point home. "What I'm talking about is that, if that happened, we'd have to fight. You guys would have to kill them to stay alive. I want you to know that if that had happened today, I would have fought beside you. We're all Australians, you know? We live in a free country, and it has to stay that way, no matter what. Race doesn't mean shit when your ass is on the line." I bid them farewell, and walked back to my seat.

As the train pulled into Town Hall, the guys walked past me. As they did, they both nodded to me, and smiled. I returned the gesture, knowing that whatever happened, they probably wouldn't forget what I'd said. And you know what? It made me feel good. Really good.

So here I am. Whether I'll do any more good through this blog than what I did on that day remains to be seen.

LINK ADDITION

2005-03-14T10:05:00.000+11:00

The very wonderful Whacking Day has been added to my blogroll, and anyone previously unfamiliar with Tex should skedaddle over there pronto.

MORE SIGNS OF IMPENDING VICTORY

2005-03-14T09:31:00.000+11:00

The Jihadists are running out of willing bomb-carriers, it would seem.

Most of this Time article is devoted to attack plans (inside the USA) which bin Laden and Al-Zarqawi were supposed to have talked over together, but it also includes Al-Zarqawi admitting that a lack of willing recruits is making offensive mission planning difficult: Zarqawi Planning U.S. Hit?

Two weeks after intelligence officials confirmed that Osama bin Laden had sent a message to Jordanian-born terrorist Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi, urging him to plan attacks on U.S. soil, details are emerging from one of al-Zarqawi's lieutenants about what the man behind many of the terrorist attacks in Iraq could have in mind. Intelligence officials tell TIME that interrogation of a member of al-Zarqawi's organization, who was taken into U.S. custody last year and has been described as a top aide, indicates that al-Zarqawi has given ample consideration to assaults on the American homeland. According to a restricted bulletin that circulated among U.S. security agencies last week, the interrogated aide said al-Zarqawi has talked about hitting "soft targets" in the U.S., which could include "movie theaters, restaurants and schools."

[...]

Al-Zarqawi's aide also revealed that his boss, after pondering the absence of attacks in the U.S. in recent years, concluded that a lack of "willing martyrs" was to blame. Al-Zarqawi believes, according to his lieutenant, that "if an individual is willing to die, there was nothing that could be done to stop him," even in the U.S. There is no evidence, say intelligence agencies, that al-Zarqawi's agents have infiltrated the U.S. But authorities remain vigilant.

This will come as bad news only to those American manufacturers of body bags, whose merchandise has until now been so productively filled with the bodies of 'martyrs'.

UPDATE: The notion that the Jihadists are running out of puff seems to be being echoed by Senior Bush administration and Pakistani Intelligence officials: Al-Qaida Ability Diminishing, Agents Say

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Senior Bush administration officials have warned in recent weeks that al-Qaida is regrouping for another massive attack, its agents bent on acquiring nuclear, chemical or biological weapons in a nightmare scenario that could dwarf the horror of Sept. 11.

But in Pakistan and Afghanistan — where Osama bin Laden and his chief deputy are believed to be hiding — intelligence agents, politicians and a top U.S. general paint a different picture.

They say a relentless military crackdown, the arrests last summer of several men allegedly involved in plans to launch attacks on U.S. financial institutions, and the killing in September of a top Pakistani al-Qaida suspect wanted in a number of attacks — including the 2002 killing of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl and two failed assassination attempts against President Gen. Pervez Musharraf — have effectively decapitated al-Qaida.

Because of the secretive and underground nature of cells that operate throughout the world, it cannot be known for certain what effect the damage done to al-Qaida in its home territory has had on operations elsewhere.

I think it still too soon to say that a major turning point has been reached, but these are encouraging signs.

READY FOR NATIONHOOD?

2005-03-14T09:22:00.000+11:00

Palestinians once again have shown why it is that they may not yet be ready for self-governance, and that Israelis really can't be blamed for their plight.

This time it's Fatah messing with Hamas, but really, it's all the same: Hamas, Fatah Backers Fight Over Elections.

HEBRON, West Bank - Hundreds of youths supporting the militant Hamas group clashed with backers of Mahmoud Abbas' ruling Fatah (news - web sites) party on Sunday, injuring at least nine people, during a Hamas campaign rally for student council elections.

The brawl erupted when several hundred Fatah supporters at Hebron University in the West Bank started shouting their own party's slogans in the midst of a large Hamas rally. Harsh words erupted into a fight, sending photographers and cameramen at the scene running for cover.

Student supporters of the militant Islamic Jihad intervened, acting as a buffer and eventually ending the fight.

Still, the day wasn't a complete loss.

Hospital officials said at least nine people were injured, including an Agence France Press photographer who received five stitches in the head.

By "Agence France Press photographer" they really mean "terrorist sympathiser, who was at the rally acting in a vital Hamas PR role."

CEDAR REVOLUTION - IN PICTURES

2005-03-14T09:04:00.000+11:00

It's a little difficult to find pictures of what's going on in Lebanon, unless they show the Pro-Syrian Hizb'allah "rent-a-crowd" protests. So here's a little variety for you:

Anti-Syrian demonstrators hold candles and banner read in english and arabic 'the truth' during a vigil in Beirut Martyrs square, Lebanon, Sunday March 13, 2005. In a Beirut counter protest, thousands of anti-Syrian demonstrators held candles high, with the flames spelling out the word 'truth.' about the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri.

Exciting times. It must again be said: none of this would have happened, were it not for the bold efforts of American, Australia and our allies.

THANK YOU

2005-03-14T08:11:00.000+11:00

A very big thank you must be extended to Tim Blair, The Currency Lad and Bilious Young Fogey; three of the best bloggers in Australia, as well as respected American blogger, Andrea Harris, all of whom have added me to their links lists.

The honour is very much appreciated.

CRUEL TO BE KIND

2005-03-14T01:12:00.000+11:00

Mark Steyn has just taken the Spanish people savagely to task in his latest column, all of which should be read: The Spanish dishonoured their dead.

"When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, naturally they will like the strong horse." So said Osama bin Laden in his final video appearance two-and-a-half years ago. But even the late Osama might have been surprised to see the Spanish people, invited to choose between a strong horse and a weak horse, opt to make their general election an exercise in mass self-gelding.

To be sure, there are all kinds of John Kerry-esque footnoted nuances to Sunday's stark numbers. One sympathises with those electors reported to be angry at the government's pathetic insistence, in the face of the emerging evidence, that Thursday's attack was the work of Eta, when it was obviously the jihad boys. One's sympathy, however, disappears with their decision to vote for a party committed to disengaging from the war against the jihadi. As Margaret Thatcher would have said: "This is no time to go wobbly, Manuel." But they did. And no one will remember the footnotes, the qualifications, the background - just the final score: terrorists toppled a European government.

What was it all those party leaders used to drone robotically after IRA atrocities? We must never let the bullet and the bomb win out over the ballot and the bollocks. Something like that. In Spain, the bombers hijacked the ballot, and very decisively. The Socialist Workers' Party wouldn't have won, except for the terrorism.

I have some Spanish friends, and each of them are quite ashamed of the way their countryfolk caved in to the Jihadists. No matter how I try, I cannot bring myself to find a silver lining to ease their embarrassment.

In this war, there must be no weakening at any point. The entire line must hold, if we are to win against the kinds of people for whom life means nothing, and death holds only the promise of transport to a macabre misogynist paradise.

THE BEST THING

2005-03-13T23:25:00.000+11:00

No, I'm not lying.

This could very well be the very best thing to ever occur on the internet.

If you don't see it, you'll live out the rest of your days mired in a haze of longing and despair, rummaging through garbage cans for nothing in particular, seeking vainly for that part of your life that ought to have been, but now never can be, because you didn't listen to me in the first place, and hit this link.

UNITED RAPISTS TO INVESTIGATE THE USA

2005-03-13T22:15:00.000+11:00

That title is less hysterical than it seems. Yes, hilariously, the same world body who has brought child sexual abuse to nearly every country unfortunate enough to be targeted for salvation is going to be looking into the human rights practices of the USA: US May End Up Scrutinized at UN Human-Rights Meet.

GENEVA (Reuters) - The United States, usually a finger-pointer on human rights, could end up in the dock itself over reports of torture and abuse in its war on terror when the United Nations (news - web sites) begins a worldwide scrutiny this week.

Activists, such as the New York-based Human Rights Watch, are urging members of the Commission on Human Rights to condemn Washington for mistreatment of prisoners detained abroad.

If any such move emerges during the commission's annual session, which starts on Monday, the United States will be in a similar position to Cuba, Iran (news - web sites) and Sudan, countries which Washington and others are likely to seek to pillory.

"If the commission is going to be taken seriously, it needs to be looking at the United States as well as Cuba, China and other serious human rights situations," said Loubna Freih, Geneva representative of Human Rights Watch.

So far, only Washington's political enemy Cuba has said it will attempt to bring the abuse issue before the commission.

The United States has been strongly criticized over revelations of abuse of prisoners in Iraq (news - web sites) and Afghanistan (news - web sites) and allegations of mistreatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

After reading all this pompous indignation, my curiousity was aroused. The Commission on Human Rights must be composed of representatives from only the most civilized and humane nations in the world, I thought.

I was wrong. Here are a few of the nations who have representatives working on the Commission:

China
Congo
Cuba
Egypt
Ethiopia
France
Germany
Indonesia
Pakistan
Qatar
Russian Federation
Saudi Arabia
Sudan
Zimbabwe

I just had to highlight the last two, as their inclusion nearly caused my brain to implode.

Can you imagine the level of hypocrisy we are dealing with here? The UN, which just got done committing the greatest oil scam in the history of the world (in league with a murderous, dictatorial regime) and who has been repeatedly caught out spreading just a little too much love around the world, is going to sit in judgement of the United States; the nation which has done more to spread freedom and democracy around the world than any other.

How many Americans died to bring self-governance to Afghanistan and Iraq? How many billions of their taxpayer's dollars were spent? Yet now they will be "investigated" by representatives from Germany; the nation which brought the world the Jewish Holocaust, as well as their new-found best buddy, France, a nation which would be a part of the Greater German Reich were it not for yet more dead, selfless Americans.

Don't get me started on China or Cuba. Their inclusion is laughable.

This entire thing is a classic misdirection stratagem. If they make sufficient noise with this garbage, the MSM will play along, and everyone will forget about those unfortunate and reoccurant instances of UN officials acting as mandated international sexual predators.

MORE GOOD NEWS FROM IRAQ

2005-03-13T15:44:00.000+11:00

It seems that an Islamic State isn't on the cards for Iraq: Officials Say Iraq Won't Be Islamic State.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Ukraine withdrew 150 servicemen from Iraq on Saturday, beginning a gradual pullout, as Shiite and Kurdish politicians refined plans to form a coalition government that officials said includes an agreement not to turn the country into an Islamic state.

[...]

In political developments, the country's main Shiite and Kurdish coalitions were putting the finishing touches on an agreement they hope to sign on Monday forming a coalition government. Any U.S. exit strategy hinges on having a new government organize Iraq's army and police to take over responsibility for security.

A senior member of the Shiite-dominated United Iraqi Alliance, Ahmad Chalabi, traveled late Friday to Sulaimaniyah, 160 miles northeast of Baghdad, for talks with Jalal Talabani, a Kurdish leader who is slated to become Iraq's next president.

The Kurds have agreed that conservative Islamic Dawa party leader Ibrahim al-Jaafari will be Iraq's prime minister.

"There is discussion and there is an agreement on the basic principles. But there is not final agreement on all the details. This visit was on invitation by Talabani to Chalabi. The atmosphere was positive," said alliance member Ali al-Faisal.

Kurds and alliance officials said both sides agreed that Iraq would not become an Islamic state, a desire also expressed by the country's most powerful Shiite cleric - Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

Massoud Barzani, leader of the Kurdish Democratic Party, said the Kurds would oppose any attempt to turn Iraq into an Islamic state.

"I think the Shiites well understand that implementing an Islamic government ... will bring a lot of problems," Barzani told Dubai's Al-Arabiya television. "We have an alliance with the Shiites. We were both oppressed, and we both struggled against the old regime, but if they insist on having a religious government we will oppose to them."

An alliance member, Ali al-Dabagh, said there were no plans to turn Iraq into a religious state or a secular one.

"We neither want to establish a religious nor a secular state in Iraq, we want a state that respects the identity of the Iraqi people and the identities of others" al-Dabagh said.

So much for the doom and gloom predictions made by so many profoundly stupid leftists. Somebody check - is Kim Beazley still talking about how Iraq is on the verge of exploding into Civil War?

WOW!

2005-03-13T14:51:00.000+11:00

This video at LGF is a must see for everyone who is even slightly interested in the view that the vast majority of Muslims take of Israel, of Jews, and the democratic nations of the west. This guy isn't an extremist amongst Muslims. He is, if anything, representative of the wider Muslim perception. He's a little more articulate than most, but the hate and bigotry comes through very, very clearly. Click on the picture to link to the video.

In the center quad at UC Irvine, Amir Abdel Malik Ali stands before a crowd of 150, his hands clutching a podium bearing the message, “Desperation of the Zionist Lobby.”

“Zionism is a mixture, a fusion of the concept of white supremacy and the chosen people,” the Oakland-based Muslim religious leader and teacher told the audience at the Feb. 2 Muslim Student Union (MSU)-organized event.

Malik Ali unleashed an attack about the Zionist control of the American media, Zionist complicity in the war in Iraq and Zionists’ ability to deflect justified criticism.

“You will have to hear more about the Holocaust when you accuse them of their Nazi behavior,” he told the group of mostly Muslim students.

At a time when Israeli and Palestinian leaders are taking baby steps toward a peaceful two-state solution, Malik Ali made it clear that he had a different vision.

“One state. Majority rule,” he said to rousing applause. “Check that out. Us. The Muslims.”

Once a sleepy suburban university, UCI has joined the ranks of Columbia University and UC Berkeley as a hotbed of anti-Zionism. The situation has become so tense that the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights — in reaction to a complaint filed by the conservative Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) — is investigating allegations of anti-Jewish harassment at UCI and administration indifference.

In recent years, UCI Muslim student groups have invited speakers like Malik Ali to attack Israel and its supporters in language that has the unmistakable ring of anti-Semitism.

Pro-Israel students say they have been sworn at and intimidated by Muslim students. They say that a few pro-Palestinian activists have followed Jewish students around campus, pushed placards in their faces equating Zionism with Nazism and, in one instance, threatened violence.

Yet more Muslims who have somehow overlooked that theirs is the religion of peace and tolerance and fluffy bunny rabbits. You know, it's almost enough to force you to the conclusion that this religion of peace has a somewhat different view of what constitutes peaceful behaviour.

Where are the calls to live peacefully alongside Jews? Where are the empassioned pleas for a universalist equality with Jews and Arabs living as one people? You know, if I didn't know better, I'd think that they just want to turn around and behave as atrociously towards the Jews as they imagine the Bushitlerhalliburtonjews act towards them.

You have to watch the video, though. The part where this asshole tries to apologise for Hamas bus-bombings is hilarious.

You see, those buses occasionally carry off-duty Israeli soldiers and army reservists, and it's them that the homicide bombers are targeting. Not the two or three dozen other innocent, completely blameless civilians that just happen to be on the same bus.

THE END OF THE IRA

2005-03-13T14:42:00.000+11:00

Things have never quite looked so dire for Republican paramilitaries and terrorists in Northern Ireland. The weight of community and international opinion is turning against them and their brutal methods.

Now even their political masters are envisioning a time when they will no longer exist: Sinn Fein's Adams Says IRA May Cease to Exist.

CINCINNATI (Reuters) - Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams, in his first stop during a week-long visit to the United States, stressed his belief on Saturday that the Irish Republican Army will one day cease to exist.

Adams reiterated what he told a Sinn Fein party conference a week ago that, "We in Sinn Fein want to see the IRA ceasing to be. I have said that I do think we'll see the day when there is no IRA."

The head of the IRA's political ally began his visit under fire on both sides of the Atlantic over his party's ties to the guerrilla group, which has been accused of robbing a bank and shielding the killers of a Roman Catholic man in Northern Ireland.

Adams then goes on to pretend ignorance of US special envoy Mitchell Reiss' call for Sinn Fein to break all ties with its paramilitary wing, the IRA.

He can't do so forever. The cries will only get louder, and the US fundraising will dry up. The precondition of any lasting peace in Northern Ireland must be the disassociation of all political groups from private terrorist armies.

EVERY MAN A PRINCE

2005-03-13T14:34:00.000+11:00

It seems more and more that the Middle East's best chance of dodging the Iranian nuclear bullet lays with Israel. Now the Sunday Times has revealed that high-level planning for a combined strategic strike is already well under way: Israel plans strike on Iranian nuclear plant.

ISRAEL has drawn up secret plans for a combined air and ground attack on targets in Iran if diplomacy fails to halt the Iranian nuclear programme.

The inner cabinet of Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister, gave “initial authorisation” for an attack at a private meeting last month on his ranch in the Negev desert.

Israeli forces have used a mock-up of Iran’s Natanz uranium enrichment plant in the desert to practise destroying it. Their tactics include raids by Israel’s elite Shaldag (Kingfisher) commando unit and airstrikes by F-15 jets from 69 Squadron, using bunker-busting bombs to penetrate underground facilities.

The plans have been discussed with American officials who are said to have indicated provisionally that they would not stand in Israel’s way if all international efforts to halt Iranian nuclear projects failed.

Tehran claims that its programme is designed for peaceful purposes but Israeli and American intelligence officials — who have met to share information in recent weeks — are convinced that it is intended to produce nuclear weapons.

I wholeheartedly welcome this news, and wish the brave Israeli forces success in their mission. Iran must not be allowed to join the nuclear club while religious fanatics control the state.

FLATTERING PHOTO

2005-03-13T02:12:00.000+11:00

Yahoo News shows us once again the importance of image politics. If you want to smear the guy you hate, find the worst possible pictures and show them as the most prominent (this doozy was on the Yahoo News Homepage).

President Bush discusses his Social Security reform proposals to an audience at the Centenary College of Louisiana in Shreveport, La., Friday, March 11, 2005.

Bush is on a two-day trip through the South selling his proposal for a system of private accounts which would enable younger workers to divert a portion of their payroll taxes from Social Security deductions and into stock market investments to bankroll their retirement.

THAT, AS THEY SAY...

2005-03-13T02:02:00.000+11:00

Is that. Iran has comprehensively turned down the numerous offers and appeals made by the United States and the EU. They are determined to continue their nuclear program: Iran Vows to Continue Nuclear Program.

TEHRAN, Iran - Neither threats nor incentives will alter Iran (news - web sites)'s pursuit of its nuclear program, the Iranian foreign ministry said Saturday, defying new moves by the European Union (news - web sites) and the United States to ensure Tehran never develops a nuclear bomb.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi rejected overtures from the West, saying Iran would not be influenced by external pressure. Iran maintains its nuclear program is solely for the peaceful pursuit of nuclear energy.

"Iran is determined to use peaceful nuclear technology and no pressure, incentive or threat can force Iran to give up its rights," state-run radio quoted Asefi as saying.

It has a right to develop offensive nuclear weapons, even though it was a signatory to the non-proliferation treaty?

Why ever could the world feel threatened by an unstable, repressive, religiously-driven dictatorship acquiring the means to obtain nuclear weapons? Perhaps we're just being too sensitive.

THE PEACEFUL RELIGION

2005-03-12T23:29:00.000+11:00

It's a shame these eight Islamic teachers misconstrued the ultimately peaceful teachings of Islam we've all heard so much about. How they reached the conclusion that Islam is really all about killing infidels and other non-believers is beyond me. Perhaps I should actually get around to reading the Qu'ran: Eight Thai Muslims charged with rebellion.

BANGKOK, March 10 (Reuters) - Eight Thai Muslims were formally charged with rebellion on Thursday, including one accused of being a military leader of one of the main groups behind separatist violence in which nearly 600 people have died.

Prosecutors told the Bangkok Criminal Court that Waeyusoh Wae Dueramae was a leader of the armed forces of the Barasi Revolusi Nasional (BRN) and was behind a raid on an army camp in January last year that set off the latest violence in the far south.

He and the seven others, Islamic teachers in the largely Muslim region bordering Malaysia, pleaded not guilty to charges, including rebellion and terrorist acts, which could bring them the death sentence. Prosecutors said the teachers recruited students for the BRN campaign, which began with the army camp raid in the far south in which four soldiers were killed and nearly 400 assault rifles stolen.

The eight men had been involved in several firearms raids on army and police posts in the past two years, prosecutors said. The first hearing in what is likely to be a lengthy trial was set for April 11. Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who has sent thousands of soldiers to fight the separatists while promising development aid for the relatively poor region, has long said Islamic schools in the area were breeding grounds for separatists.

Not just Muslims; teachers of Islam. When did you last hear about eight Roman Catholic priests doing anything other than buggering altar boys? Or eight Rabbis getting together to stage a bank robbery?

Never, that's when.

Islamism, peace. Never the twain shall meet.

SELECTIVE RACISM

2005-03-12T23:08:00.000+11:00

I feel sorry for Europeans and those descended from Europeans. Thanks to a bunch of last century Germans with a fetish for black uniforms and killing Jews, white people will be eternally viewed as the primary (and perhaps even sole) generators of 'racism' in the world today.

Think about it. How often do you see an Asian, an African, or a Middle-Easterner like me accused of racism? Fucking never. But we are racist. Fucking all people are racist at one time or another. It's just natural human prejudice. Something to be recognized and worked against.

But leftists don't understand deeper issues like that. They want a clean, crisp explanation for everything, and so it becomes expedient to just find the WASP-iest poor motherfucker in the room, and call them a Nazi whenever there's trouble.

Guilt assigned, problem solved.

But like with most issues involving the real world (that area of existence which transpires regardless of leftist misperception) the situation only becomes less clear, and inevitably worse. People seek to take advantage of an unfair, unbalanced situation, and the lines are blurred even further.

Joel Mowbray at Frontpage highlights a great example of how the "hate speech/racism" paradigm is becoming a tool of censorship, both for leftists and their ideological (Islamic) allies: Muzzled by Muslims.

In academia today, “academic freedom” protects those who compare the 9/11 victims to Nazi higher ups, but it does not cover a professor with the temerity to challenge the beliefs of Muslim students in a single encounter which constituted, in the words of his boss, an “assault on their dignity.”

Thomas Klocek, a part-time adjunct professor at DePaul University, knows this first-hand; he was unlucky enough to fall on the wrong side of the political correctness fence.

On September 15, 2004, Klocek was strolling through the student activities fair at DePaul’s downtown campus when he noticed a flyer showing Israeli tanks destroying Palestinian homes. “It was very one-sided,” he explained, “and I wanted them to think about the bigger reality.”

He put on his professor hat and tried to do what teachers do: he tried to get them to think. And that’s what has lead to his downfall.

Approaching the Students for Justice in Palestine booth, Klocek engaged the students. And then he enraged them. Depending on who’s telling the story, Klocek either earlier or later in the conversation said something to the effect of that while not all Muslims are terrorists, all the terrorists currently operating in the world today are Muslims.

That’s not an entirely true statement—look at the Irish Republican Army for just one example—but then again, he was quoting a fairly prominent Muslim, the head of the al-Arabiya satellite television network. And while you can quibble with the full accuracy of the claim, you can’t deny its essence.

Same goes for what the Muslim students consider his other truly offensive remark, that there is no Palestinian ethnicity and that the term really only became prominent in media coverage in the last 20 to 25 years. There has been in various forms a region—though not a country, and certainly not an ethnically homogenous state—known as “Palestine” going back to the Ottoman period, but “Palestinian” is more of a regional identification than an ethnic one. And while older than two decades, its usage only became common in the 20th century.

Eight days later, some of the students involved met with the dean and cried racism. They asked for his head. They got it.

The idea of applying racial "hate" legislation to Islam is completely ludicrous. Would it work if the complainant was Christian or Hindu? How about an upset Hari Krishna?

Religion isn't race, and nobody should be accused of racism for simply raising inconvienent truths about any particular theology. Isn't that the essence of the free & critical thinking that our universities are supposed to encourage?

NON-WORTHLESS PROTESTORS

2005-03-12T22:58:00.000+11:00

That's right, activists who would not be best put to use by being fed (slowly) into a mulching machine. It's nice to see that at least a few such people understand who the real enemy of freedom and personal liberty really is: Anti-Tehran protesters removed from plane.

About 90 police officers removed 56 Iranian activists from an airplane at the Brussels airport after a 15-hour standoff in protest of Western accommodation of Tehran's cleric-led Islamic regime.

The activists, who refused to disembark a Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt yesterday, were in cell phone contact with an Iranian scholar and activist in London who runs a TV station out of his home, Frood Fouladvand.

The protesters, according to Fouladvand, were chanting: "We are the messengers of peace. We are against global terrorism. We will remove the malignant terrorist regime of the Mullahs."

The Boeing 737 arrived at Brussels' Zaventem airport at 3 p.m. local time yesterday with 103 passengers and crew. Police spokeswoman Els Cleemput said the protesters were bussed early this morning to a detention center at the airport to check their identities. Most would not likely be charged.

U.S. Iranian activist Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi, who spoke by telephone with Fouladvand, told WorldNetDaily the protesters wanted an internationally monitored referendum that would enable the Iranian people to choose their next form of government.

It's a nice thought, but it'll only happen after the US armoured columns have crossed the Zagros Mountains.

SERIOUS SMACKDOWN

2005-03-12T22:54:00.000+11:00

Professor Bunyip (The Blogfather) just fucked Ramsey and Carlton up old-style. If you don't mind the site of blood and broken leftist bodies, check it out:

Just as Ramsey might easily have checked the James Watt furphy before making himself and his paper even more ridiculous than their best efforts have already managed, so Carlton could have taken the time to verify his charge before impugning the memory of a brave, intelligent and thoroughly decent king.

But that's not the Carlton style. We try to avoid salty language at the Billanbong, as there is so much of it coarsening everyday life as it is. But in Carlton's case, accurate description leaves no choice: Mike Carlton, radio host, columnist -- and absolute shit.

Read it all.

SMUG SATISFACTION

2005-03-12T14:11:00.000+11:00

Conservatives have a right to indulge in a little, at least. Events in the Middle East seem to be bearing out the commonly-held thesis that the people of the region, as people, rather like the idea of self-determination, and like most human beings, will only want more of it. Jeff Jacoby covers the chorus of right-wing jubilance: The Arab Spring.

The Axis of Weasel is crying uncle, and much of the chorus is singing from the same songsheet.

Listen to Claus Christian Malzahn in the German news magazine Der Spiegel: "Could George W. be right?" And Guy Sorman in France's Le Figaro: "And if Bush was right?" And NPR's Daniel Schorr in The Christian Science Monitor: "The Iraq effect? Bush may have had it right." And London's Independent, in a banner Page 1 headline on Monday: "Was Bush right after all?"

Even Jon Stewart, host of Comedy Central's "Daily Show" and an indefatigable Bush critic, has learned the new lyrics. "Here's the great fear that I have," he said recently. "What if Bush . . . has been right about this all along? I feel like my world view will not sustain itself and I may . . . implode."

For those of us in the War Party, by contrast, these are heady days. If you've agreed with President Bush all along that the way to fight the cancer of Islamist terrorism is with the chemotherapy of freedom and democracy, the temptation to issue I-told-you-sos can be hard to resist.

"Who's the simpleton now?" crows Max Boot in the Los Angeles Times. "Those who dreamed of spreading democracy to the Arabs or those who denied that it could ever happen?" On the radio the other day, Rush Limbaugh twisted the knife: "The news is not that Bush may have been right," he chortled. "It's that you liberals were wrong." The gifted Mark Steyn, in a column subtitled, "One man, one gloat," writes: "I got a lot of things wrong these last three years, but, looking at events in the Middle East this last week, . . . I got the big stuff right."

We're not at the finish line yet, but things do seem to be prgressing nicely. If the leftists don't get on board, they will give the term 'political irrelevance' new meaning.

DO YOU HATE MUSLIMS?

2005-03-12T14:00:00.000+11:00

No.

I'm not in love with Islam either; I think it needs major, major, major internal reform, but I don't hate people because they choose to follow the religion.

Nor do I encourage others to hate Islam/Muslims. I encourage Muslims to speak out against Islamic militancy, clearly and unconditionally condemning those who would kill in the name of their faith. It is this way that the terrorists will lose the support they need to continue functioning, and community tensions can abate.

I oppose Jihadist violence and Islamist activism (militant Islam as an ideology) and will make no apologies for that.

IRANIAN NUCLEAR PROGRAM NEARLY COMPLETE

2005-03-12T13:47:00.000+11:00

No doubt the moonbats will dismiss this disquieting news, but I think it's fairly widely acknowledged that no-one knows the state of affairs in the Middle East like the Israelis: Iran Nuclear 'Nightmare' Very Close, Israel.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Israel said on Friday that Iran (news - web sites) was very close to being able to make a nuclear bomb and urged the United States and Europe to pressure Tehran to abandon a suspected nuclear arms program.

Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom told Reuters an Iranian nuclear bomb would be a "nightmare" for Israel and other countries.

"In our view, they are very close, they are too close, to having the knowledge to develop this kind of bomb and that's why we should be in a hurry," Shalom said in an interview on a visit to Mexico.

Pakistan acknowledged this week for the first time a disgraced Pakistani scientist at the center of a nuclear black market gave Iran centrifuges which can be used to make atomic weapons.

Shalom would not put a date on when Israel thought its bitter foe Iran could have nuclear arms, which he said could eventually take nuclear weapons to the heart of Europe because Tehran is developing new long-range missiles.

"The idea that this tyranny of Iran will hold a nuclear bomb is a nightmare not only for us but for the whole world," Shalom said.

I'm all for whatever surgical strikes are required to neutralize the program's progress, but the fact is, any gains made will only be temporary. They'll just rebuild.

Iran's regime must be comprehensively toppled, and soon. They have the potential to destabilize the region like no-one else.

CALI CARTEL BOSS BUSTED

2005-03-12T13:40:00.000+11:00

Things just aren't what they used to be for the drug lords of Colombia. Oh well, that will teach them for giving arms and money to leftist rebels: Colombia Extradites Cali Drug Cartel Brother to US.

BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) - Colombia extradited former Cali cocaine boss Miguel Rodriguez Orejuela to the United States on Friday to join his brother behind bars in Florida.

Rodriguez Orejuela, who once controlled most of the world's cocaine trade in partnership with his brother Gilberto, was handed over to U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents at Colombia's Palanquero air force base and put on a plane for Florida.

The short, stocky 61-year-old once known as "El Senor" -- or "the gentleman" -- wore handcuffs and was flanked by Colombian police in full combat gear.

He will face charges in a Southern District of Florida court of running smuggling and money-laundering businesses from Colombian prison cells since his conviction on drug charges in the 1990s.

U.S. officials said he would face his first court hearing in Miami on Monday. He arrived at a Florida airport in a government jet on Friday afternoon and was driven to jail in downtown Miami in a heavily protected convoy of black SUVs.

"For years, the Cali cartel leaders thought they could operate beyond the reach of U.S. law enforcement. Today's extradition once again demonstrates the end of that era," said Michael Garcia, assistant secretary for U.S. immigration and customs enforcement at the Department of Homeland Security.

Gilberto was sent to Florida in December, becoming the most powerful drug lord ever extradited to the United States by Colombia. The extradition would have been unthinkable in the early 1990s, when cocaine chiefs used a campaign of violence to force the Colombian state to briefly stop sending criminals to the United States.

The brothers' rise in the cocaine industry shadowed the decline of the Medellin cartel run by rival drug lord Pablo Escobar, gunned down on a rooftop by police in 1993. They ran businesses that laundered drug proceeds, including a well-known national pharmacy chain, a radio station and soccer club America de Cali, and bribed politicians.

Evidence the Cali Cartel contributed $5 million to the 1994 election campaign of former Colombian President Ernesto Samper severely strained Colombia's relations with the United States in the 1990s.

Current President Alvaro Uribe, a staunch Washington ally, has increased extraditions during his 2 1/2 years in power, calculating that destroying the drug trade will weaken Marxist rebels and far-right paramilitaries who rely on its funds.

AMERICANS BLAMELESS

2005-03-12T13:21:00.000+11:00

I'd love to know how it is that the Americans can be held responsible for the reckless manner in which the Italian hostage was being extracted from Iraq, when even the most senior Italian General in Iraq didn't have a clue what was going on: Sgrena operation 'kept from US'.

US forces might not have known that slain Italian secret agent Nicola Calipari was in Iraq to secure a hostage's freedom, Italian papers say.
Calipari was killed by US troops' fire while escorting journalist Giuliana Sgrena by car to Baghdad airport.

But the press quotes an Italian general who liaised between US forces and Italian intelligence as saying he did not know Calipari was on a rescue bid.

His report is now in the hands of Rome prosecutors investigating the killing.

According to newspaper La Repubblica, Gen Mario Marioli helped the two Italian secret service agents obtain a special badge from the coalition forces on their arrival in Baghdad.

But Gen Marioli, who is the coalition forces' second-in-command, reportedly was unaware that the officers were on a mission to free Ms Sgrena, and so the information he passed on to US officials was incomplete.

Perhaps the Italian Secret Service just assumed that the CIA had a division of psychics who would be able to inform everyone ahead of time that these cautionless jerks would be speeding down one of the most dangerous routes in Baghdad.

In light of this admission, I think that anyone who continues to hold the Americans responsible for this tragic accident is just flat-out anti-American.

LEBANON: THE CURRENT MESS

2005-03-12T12:38:00.000+11:00

I've had a couple of emails from friends asking me what I thought was the most likely outcome of the current developments in Lebanon.

To be honest, it's very hard to predict. I personally never would have put any confidence in the idea that Assad would withdraw any troops, let alone a major phased withdrawal. You'll note I do not use the word "complete" in regard to the strategic evacuation of Syrian troops. It won't happen, it can't happen - from the Syrian point of view, at least - because it would almost certainly signal a period of severe instability in Syria, and possibly the downfall of the Assad regime (we'd all be terribly broken up over that, I'm sure).

But say that at least a significant enough proportion of the Syrian army did leave. What would happen? Hizb'allah would freak out, that's what. Don't believe these smug opinions who confidently talk about the weakness of Hizb'allah. It wasn't that long ago that they fought the Israelis to an impasse, and the Israelis are no fucking walk in the park.

I believe that if Civil War did break out, Hizb'allah would be in a position to severely weaken (if not entirely destroy) the Lebanese Army. I say this with no relish whatsoever. One would hope that in such a dire situation, the Lebanese faction would request aid from the USA. This, unfortunately, is far from a certain thing. If the US goes in and fucks up Hizb'allah, they severely risk pissing off Shite Muslims all across the Middle East. Personally, I don't care, but there would be some major fallout the likes of which cannot be predicted with any certainty.

NAZIS AND JIHADISTS TOGETHER

2005-03-12T12:12:00.000+11:00

A Jew-hating match made in heaven. That's right, flag (and swastika) waving skinhead freaks are attempting to forge links of alliance with Islamic fundamentalists: White Supremacist Group Offers Friendship & Support To Terror Groups.

In a letter posted on its Web site the head of the white supremacist group Aryan Nations offers his thanks to radical Islamic terrorists and extends the group's hand of friendship.

Aryan Nations National Director August Kreis writes (www.aryan-nations.org), "We as an organization will also endeavor to aid all those who subvert, disrupt and are (sic) malignant in nature to our enemies. Therefore I offer my most sincere best-wishes to those who wage holy Jihad against the infrastructure of the decadent, weak and Judaic-influenced societal infrastructure of the West. I send a message of thanks and well-wishes to the methods and works of groups on the Islamic front against the jew such as Al-Qaeda and Sheik Usama Bin Ladin, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah and to all Jihadis worldwide who fight for the glory of the Khilafah and the downfall of the anti-life and anti-freedom System prevalent on this earth today.

Kreis continues by saying (sic), "I ask our Islamic fellow fighters against jewry to remember the co-operation between Mufti Haj Mohammad Amin al-Husseini and Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler during the last century and to remember that all that is of the past it is our duty to surpass!"

Next Kreis tells his ominous vision for the future (http://aryan-nations.org/wulfranhall/kreis_interview.htm). "I see ... violent acts taking place against high places that represent the(sic) jewish domination of our lives here in (sic) Amerika. I see lone wolves targeting jews and others who knowingly condone and perpetrate crimes against White Freedom Fighters such as lawmakers that legislate laws which rail against the Laws of our Father and also those that enforce unmoral corrupt policies against white patriots, organizations and individuals."

How funny, the guy loves Nazism, but also idolizes Heinrich Himmler. Yes, it actually is something of a compromised position to adopt, considering that anyone who has read about Himmler in any depth can tell you that the Chief of the SS was scheming to oust Hitler and reach a seperate peace agreement with the West almost from the very beginning of the war.

But these guys are stupid. What the fuck do they know about anything.

Remember this the next time you see one of the little traitorous scumbags railing about what's "unAmerican" or "unAustralian".

WHITE ARABISM

2005-03-12T03:37:00.000+11:00

European Union Jean Monnet Law Professor at St. Joseph's University in Beirut, Chibli Mallat, has written a fascinating article, in which he posits that the middle east may be on the verge of a new political awakening, with "White Arabism" overcoming the older, more established (yet less progressive) "Black Arabism": A new 'White Arabism' would help generate liberal societies.

In the past two years, the "Iraqi earthquake" (to quote Lebanese columnist Jihad al-Zein) occasioned by the collapse of the most dictatorial system in the Arab world is slowly confirming a new era in the region, where the forces of democracy are emerging as the dominant ideological model in each and every Arab country. With fits and starts the system is shaking, within Iraq itself, then in Palestine, now in Lebanon and Egypt.

The stakes following former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri's assassination go far beyond Lebanon and Syria, where they are bound to change the political scene. As underlined in Lebanon by such diverse writers as Samir Kassir, a strong voice against the Syrian leadership, and Talal Salman, the editor of the Beirut daily As-Safir, and echoed in a much-quoted column by Thomas Friedman in The New York Times, it is the whole Arab political system that is shaking to the core. The absence of a single Arab president or king at the funeral of Hariri, a man whom every Arab leader knew personally, is telling. While it may be superficially explained by the estrangement of Hariri from his nemesis, President Emile Lahoud, Arab leaders were mostly apprehensive about the question of their legitimacy: Would they risk going down with the Lebanese government and president if they showed up, like French President Jacques Chirac, on the side of an angry family?

For the past 20 years, so-called Arab civil society has been slowly denting the status quo. Initially, questions were defensive and focused on human rights, while participants in human rights gatherings were incapable of mustering the courage needed to name those leaders responsible for all kinds of violations, even the more egregious ones like Saddam Hussein. In part this was understandable, and the level of repression meted out against dissidents was uniquely high: Scores of dissenters were brutally assassinated, thrown in jail and tortured, while the usual "higher national interest" argument was put forward whereby Arab liberals saw their reform efforts condemned as giving sustenance to Israel. This trend was reinforced by the brutality of Israeli repression of Palestinian dissent and the inexorable shrinking of Palestinian land.

As time passed, however, the connection between brutality at home and the inability to stand up to anti-Israel rhetoric became increasingly apparent: From the condemnation of the Arab record in general, typified by the United Nations Development Program reports since 2002, particulars of repression were linked to people at the helm of power in every single Arab country. Local Arab democrats are still hesitant to accuse the emirs and kings in the Gulf, but the taboos have fallen in the Levant and North Africa: Tunisia's Zein al-Abidin bin Ali, Egypt's Hosni Mubarak, Lebanon's Emile Lahoud and Syria's Bashar Assad are being openly challenged, and the perceived weakness of the hard-liners in Israel, leading to the withdrawal from settlements in Gaza and the West Bank, will accelerate the trend of decoupling Arab domestic reform from the fig leaf of a united front against Israel.

The Arab nationalism that has prevailed since the Nasser revolution is increasingly being dubbed "black Arabism" by those of us who do not want to abandon a yearning for closer integration between societies separated by arguably artificial colonial borders. Black Arabism, in this perception, is characteristically fascist, and is epitomized by the former Baath system in Iraq and the present one in Syria. Against it we propose "White Arabism," which harks back to such figures as Saad Zaghlul in Egypt, Kamel Chadirchi in Iraq and Kamal Jumblatt in Lebanon. At the core of the message is the need for democratic, non-violent change at the top in the Middle East, with Arabism read as a liberal call that unifies people irrespective of their religion or sect: in Egypt Copts and Muslims; in Lebanon the various communities that form the country; in Iraq Shiites, Sunnis and non-Muslim sects.

The example of Iraq, where Arabism is not capable of giving Kurds their due of equal citizenship, is particularly telling of the more advanced thought needed to accommodate all citizens - hence the surge of the concept of federalism as a further trait of White Arabism. Only federalism can allow forms of Arab identity to be preserved while Kurds are treated as equal both on the individual level and as a collective community.

Perhaps the greatest challenge of White Arabism will be to review the Palestine-Israeli conflict in the light of new parameters, guided mostly by visions of federalism and where human rights are no longer regarded passively, but are, instead, seen as an offshoot of democracy. While the establishment of a Palestinian state appears inevitable in the short to medium term, White Arabism may have far more to offer both Jews and Arabs in Palestine and Israel.

"White Arabism" may not be the best name for the budding ideology if he thinks this is going to spread beyond the boundaries of the traditionally Arabic cultures of the region, but it is an interesting idea.

EMBRYO CLONING

2005-03-12T03:20:00.000+11:00

Charles Krauthammer has written a great article on the touchy subject of human embryo cloning research. It's a complex and politically sensitive issue, and Krauthammer demonstrates how Democrats (and a few Republicans) don't really seem to grasp the subject matter: Thou Shalt Not Create.

"I will work with Congress to ensure that human embryos are not created for experimentation or grown for body parts, and that human life is never bought and sold as a commodity." (Applause)

-- State of the Union address, Feb. 2, 2005

That declaration drew more than applause. It received a standing ovation from both sides of the aisle -- demonstrating that even amid the confusion and dishonesty in this country's bioethics debates, some truths remain self-evident. And one of those truths is that human embryos are to be created for the purpose of producing babies, not for commerce and not to be dismembered for study or spare parts.

Yet what was remarkable about this moment -- at the time, and for over a month now, almost entirely overlooked by the media -- was that the Democrats who rose to join the applause were endorsing a principle that is at war with a key part of their own biotech agenda: research cloning.

[...]

The principle I suggested (and elaborated in "Crossing Lines: A Secular Argument Against Research Cloning," the New Republic, April 29, 2002) was this: No creating human embryos for experimentation. That means no to all cloning. And that means yes to using existing embryos such as the thousands of frozen and/or discarded embryos left over from work by in vitro fertilization clinics -- embryos that were created for the purpose of becoming children but which, for one reason or other, were not used.

I support that research. The president does not. In his Aug. 9, 2001, address to the nation, he opposed embryonic research using newly discarded embryos from fertility clinics. I initially thought that the 2005 State of the Union declaration was signaling a retreat from that position. My firm understanding from subsequent inquiries is that it was not. The administration continues to oppose such research.

But note that Bush only prevented federal funding for it. Bush did not ban it. It continues legally in the private sector. His State of the Union proposal would do nothing to change that balance. (Because it deals only with creation, it leaves aside the question of discarded embryos.)

I tend to agree with Krauthammer's position. The frozen/discarded IVF embryos will never be born regardless, so they might as well serve a useful purpose for humankind.

COURTROOM GUNBATTLE

2005-03-12T02:58:00.000+11:00

And I thought things could get rough around Cabramatta: Gunman Kills Two, Wounds Two Deputies.

ATLANTA -- A Fulton County judge and a court reporter were fatally wounded and two deputies were shot Friday at the Fulton courthouse before the suspect fled from the scene and carjacked a newspaper reporter.

Superior Court Judge Rowland Barnes and the female court reporter were pronounced dead after they were transported to Grady Memorial Hospital for treatment.

Police were conducting a massive search for the suspect, who fled in a vehicle described as a green Honda Accord. Authorities identified him as Brian Nichols, 34.

One of the sheriff's deputies was said to be in critical condition at Grady, but the condition of the second deputy was not immediately available.

A reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution was also injured during the incident.

Authorities said the reporter, identified as Don O'Briant, was pistol-whipped and assaulted while the suspect was trying to get away.

The AJC reporter was taken to the hospital but his condition was not immediately available. The suspect apparently fled in the reporter's car, described as a green Honda Accord with a tag of 658 4YN.

The assailant was described as a tall black male with a bald head. Authorities said the suspect grabbed a gun from the deputy inside the courthouse before opening fire. The incident occurred shortly after 9 a.m. at the courthouse, located in downtown Atlanta.

And when he's caught he'll be given another trial, where he'll cry about how slavery affected his great-great-grandfather, and his lawyer will bring in some lefty geneticist to talk about how trauma is passed down through our DNA. Then he'll get some pathetic jail sentence, or the 'death penalty' (which is really just 20-25 years sitting around on death row, waiting for the needle to be outlawed).

He should be found, and then swiftly eliminated. Nothing dramatic; just a bullet in the back of the head at close range. People like this no longer enjoy the rights and protections of civilised society.

MORE KIWI STUPIDISM

2005-03-12T02:41:00.000+11:00

I'm not a huge fan of Prince Charles. The guy's ugly, he's too chummy with the Saudis, he whines on about the environment, and he's marrying perhaps the ugliest woman(?) in the UK.

But at least he has the consideration to generally stay out of our faces. Now and then though, he has to come visit. When he does, we should be polite to him. Not obsequious... just deferential. How we behave reflects upon us and our nation.

This is something New Zealanders just don't understand: Charles grins as others bare it.

Prince Charles rebuffed bare-breasted protesters, ignored abusive anti-monarchists and battled a cold blast on a whirlwind visit to Wellington yesterday.

Two women were arrested after a topless display before the prince in Civic Square as they protested against colonisation and for the right to breast cancer screening.

The incident came on the Prince of Wales' second day in the capital, where he visited the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior, Civic Square and the City Gallery, and Te Omanga Hospice in Lower Hutt.

Protesters Hanah Plante, 22, and Holly Emma Goldman were arrested after exposing their breasts. Plante had "Get your colonisation shame off my breasts" written across her chest and later said she was protesting against colonialism, which meant women could no longer go bare-breasted.

You'd think it would have occurred to the 'ladies' that Charles isn't a colonist. He isn't even descended from colonists. His family stayed where they were. They're the colonists.

STEYN ON THE OSCARS

2005-03-12T00:53:00.000+11:00

Mark Steyn ponders the relevance of the Hollywood Oscars: A land of laws.

I wonder which Jude Law took more offence at on Oscar night: Chris Rock’s affable riff in his opening monologue — 'Whassup with this Jude Law guy? It’s like he’s in everything, man. He’s the hero, he’s the villain, he’s British, he’s American,’ etc., which has a grain of truth in it; or touchy Sean Penn’s portentous riposte to the throwaway gag later in the evening — some three hours later, but evidently it still rankled — that, au contraire, Jude Law was a great artist and we should honour him as such. All it needed to seal the moment was Yo-Yo Ma to come out and do some mournful cello arrangement of ‘I Fought Jude Law (And Jude Law Won)’ over a montage of Chris Rock’s non-Bush gags bombing.

I haven’t had the opportunity to perform a forensic examination of the Sean Penn puppet in Team America: World Police, but it would be a marvel of marionation if he were thinner-skinned than the real Penn. One day Hollywood limousine liberalism will collapse under the weight of its own humourlessness, but till then Sean reserves his right to reply to any cheap cracks that are disrespectful of his fellow ‘artists’, and even if the viewers flee in their millions, what do those losers know? The Penn is mightier than the bored.

Ratings for the Academy Awards were down this year, though not as all-time-record-low six-foot-under down as the gloomy Iraq war Oscars of 2003. Still, there were no big movies in contention — Clint Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby, the supposed break-out hit, never quite broke out; Ray, as in Ray Charles, is a glossy formulaic biotuner; and the rest of the stuff — from sentimental movies about Che Guevara to sentimental movies about backstreet abortionists — reflected mostly the industry’s laughably cobwebbed radicalism. The boffo smash of 2004 was The Passion Of The Christ, but that got frosted out in the nominations.

No idea why. Thinly-veiled anti-Semitism normally goes down so well with the left.

Or perhaps there are just enough directors and producers around with Jewish surnames to make that particular aspect of leftist philosophy commercially inappropriate.

I BELIEVE IN HAPPY ENDINGS

2005-03-12T00:39:00.000+11:00

Express yourself morbidly here.

I'M STUNNED!

2005-03-11T22:48:00.005+11:00

Surely Hizb’allah wouldn't attempt to fraudulently pass off a massive crowd of imported Syrians as loyal Lebanese supporters, would they?

Hell yeah: Hezbollah rally numbers manipulated.

JERUSALEM – The giant Hezbollah rally that drew nearly half a million purported supporters of Syria's occupation of Lebanon included non-Lebanese citizens, Syrian workers, students and municipal employees coerced into joining the protest, former Lebanese Prime Minister Michel Aoun told WorldNetDaily in an exclusive interview this morning.

"Yesterday's huge protest calling for Syria to stay made it look to the world like a large segment of the Lebanese population actually wants to live under Syrian occupation," said Aoun, speaking to WND from Paris. "But the protest wasn't what it appeared to be. It was an elaborately staged affair."

Hundreds of thousands packed into a central Beirut meeting square yesterday, chanting support for Syrian troops to maintain positions in Lebanon and denouncing America in what has been called a massive show of strength by Syrian and Iranian-backed Hezbollah.

[...]

But Aoun told WND Hezbollah and Syrian officials used deceptive and coercive techniques to orchestrate the protest.

"This was not a Lebanese showing, and many of those who actually were Lebanese were not there because they support Syria. We know that at least three Palestinian camps were present. And there are 700,000 Syrian workers inside Lebanon, many of whom are not even supposed to be there. They were urged by Syria to attend so it looks like many Lebanese are protesting. Plus Syria bused in their own citizens from Syria through the border into Lebanon to join the rally."

The former prime minister also accused Hezbollah and pro-Syrian Lebanese intelligence forces of coercing students and municipal workers to attend.

"They shut down the schools and all the government and public buildings and pressured students and workers to get to the rally," he said.

Similar charges were made to WND this morning by a spokesperson for Lebanon's Progressive Socialist Party.

I don't know what's more shocking. The idea that Hizb’allah would fake out an entire protest rally with paid ringers, or that the socialist Lebs are finally doing something aside from sitting on their asses complaining.

No, no... Definitely the socialists doing something. That is fucking astounding.

MUSLIMS LEADING THE WAY

2005-03-11T18:19:00.000+11:00

Leading the way back into a new dark age of domestic violence and superstitious mumbo-jumbo: Preacher reported to police.

A group of immigrant women reported a controversial Muslim preacher to the police, for spreading threatening and discriminating views on Muslim women

A group of forty women with immigrant backgrounds reported a Muslim preacher and his religious community to the police on Tuesday, for advocating threatening and discriminating treatment of Muslim women.

The preacher, imam Raed Hleihel, infuriated the nation during a Friday prayer session in February, when he insisted that Muslim girls should cover themselves from head to toe, and that women who use perfume and go to the hairdressers would go to hell.

The women used the opportunity on the International Women's Day on Tuesday to report the imam and the religious community where he preached to the police.

The women said Hleihel encouraged Muslim men to look down on women, consider them their property, keep them under constant control, and treat them like slaves.

But, as is to be expected, he didn't really say that. No, those stupid slaves who haven't yet realized that they are just their husband's property misunderstood him.

The spokesman for the congregation involved, the Copenhagen's Islamic Religious Community, Kasem Said Ahmad, said the 40 women had misunderstood Hleihels comments.

It's such an easy thing to become confused over. Can I beat my wife if she fails to take the car keys without asking? Or only if she intends to then go outside wearing perfume with bare ankles? Islam is such a complicated business for the unenlightened.

Oh, and unsurprisingly, you'll note that this took place in - you guessed it - the Islamic Republic of Scandinavia.

TOKEN GESTURES

2005-03-11T18:07:00.000+11:00

Most of those which have floated in from the Muslim world have been singularly unimpressive. No Muslim wants to condemn terrorism, let alone the terrorists who perpetrate it.

Now CNN and the other MSM sheep are all aflutter over a single religious ruling (fatwa) by the Spanish Muslim body, which tamely condemns Osama bin Laden: Spanish clerics issue Osama fatwa.

MADRID, Spain (AP) -- Muslim clerics in Spain issued what they called the world's first fatwa, or Islamic edict, against Osama bin Laden on Thursday, the first anniversary of the Madrid train bombings, calling him an apostate and urging others of their faith to denounce the al Qaeda leader.

The ruling was issued by the Islamic Commission of Spain, the main body representing the country's 1 million-member Muslim community. The commission represents 200 or so mostly Sunni mosques, or about 70 percent of all mosques in Spain.

The March 11, 2004, train bombings killed 191 people and were claimed in videotapes by militants who said they had acted on al Qaeda's behalf in revenge for Spain's troop deployment in Iraq.

What does this mean? Nothing. Fatwas are issued all the time, and the 'faithful' either pay attention to it or ignore it as they please.

This is, at best, a publicity stunt, carried out as a means of boosting the flagging international profile of Spain's idiotic socialist Zapatero government.

MORE SCANDINAVIAN DHIMMITUDE

2005-03-11T17:50:00.000+11:00

You wouldn't expect it from Ikea. Or would you? Gender bias in IKEA instructions

OSLO, Norway (Reuters) - Swedish home furnishings giant IKEA is guilty of sex discrimination by showing only men putting together furniture in its instruction manuals, Norway's prime minister says.

Hold up... I thought he said this was a Dhimmitude issue, not a sexual equality issue?

And so it is.

IKEA, which has more than 200 stores in 32 nations, fears it might offend Muslims by depicting women assembling everything from cupboards to beds. Its manuals show only men or cartoon figures whose sex is unclear.

Fear not, because the Norwegian Prime Minister is talking tough (well, as tough as postmodernist Vikings get, I suppose).

"This isn't good enough," Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik was quoted Thursday as telling the daily Verdens Gang. "It's important to promote attitudes for sexual equality, not least in Muslim nations."

"They should change this," he said. "There's no justification for it."

Watch how fast Ikea changes precisely nothing.

KOFI'S KONFUSED

2005-03-11T17:16:00.000+11:00

The man's a flip-flopper. One minute he's urging the world to legitimize Hizb’allah, the next he wants the world to ban all terrorist groups: Annan Calls for Treaty Outlawing Terrorism

MADRID, Spain (AP) — U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan called Thursday for a world treaty on terrorism that would outlaw attacks targeting civilians and establish a framework for a collective response to the global threat.

Although the United Nations and its agencies already have 12 treaties covering terrorism, a universal definition has been elusive.

World leaders and officials have had deep disagreements over whether resisters to alleged oppression — for example, Palestinian suicide bombers attacking Israeli targets — are terrorists or freedom fighters; and whether states that use what they think is legitimate force might be branded terrorists.

But Annan was categorical in his address Thursday to terrorism experts and world leaders from 50 countries, including Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Spain’s Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

“The right to resist occupation ... cannot include the right to deliberately kill or maim civilians,” Annan told the conference on democracy, terrorism and security. The United Nations, he said, must proclaim “loud and clear that terrorism can never be accepted or justified in any cause whatsoever.”

Well, I guess that's it for international terrorism. They'll just have to pack up their IED's and butcher knives, and go home.

I mean, it's a treaty he's talking about. Impressive stuff.

BITCH-LIKE DEMOCRATS

2005-03-11T16:51:00.000+11:00

Sorry for the profanity, but whenever I hear about another instance of a leftist going insane on a suitably helpless victim, it makes my ass twitch: Bumper sticker evokes road rage

TAMPA - Politics has always been divisive, splitting families and turning friend against friend.

This week, though, a Tampa woman learned that simple Bush-Cheney bumper sticker can bring trouble, if not danger, from a total stranger.

Police say Michelle Fernandez, 35, was chased for miles Tuesday by an irate 31-year-old Tampa man who cursed at her as he held up an anti-Bush sign and tried to run her off the road.

His sign, about the size of a business letter, read:

Never Forget Bush's Illegal Oil War Murdered Thousands in Iraq.

[...]

Winkler, listed in jail records as a contractor, could not be reached Wednesday. Durkin said Winkler told police officers he got upset with Fernandez because she "gave him the finger."

Fernandez told the Times Wednesday that "whatever gestures I made, I made them because I was trying to figure out why he was honking at me and pointing to his sign."

"At first I didn't know why he was screaming at me," she said. "Then it clicked."

In her frantic nine-minute call Tuesday to a 911 dispatcher, Fernandez said it was the Bush Cheney '04 bumper sticker on her green Ford Expedition that set the other driver off.

"I was just almost run off the road by a man," she told the dispatcher at 5:14 p.m. She was taking her son, 10, and daughter, 3, to a ballfield.

"He just ran me off because I have a Bush bumper sticker in my car. He had some type of - he drove up next to me with - he had a sign on it like hanging from his - from the passenger window, that said something about the war in Iraq. . . . I'm shaking like a leaf."

Durkin said Winkler started following Fernandez at the intersection of Columbus Drive and Armenia Avenue shortly after 5 p.m.

"He told our officers that he just got mad at her, so he went after her," Durkin said.
As Fernandez drove south on Armenia, the other driver pulled alongside her in his black 1996 Nissan, beeping his horn and "flailing his arms," according to a police report.

He held the antiwar sign up to his passenger-side window, she said, following her along busy streets in south and west Tampa and veering into her path, forcing her to swerve to avoid a collision. She pleaded with the dispatcher for help and tried to get away by running through stop signs and changing directions.

"Oh, now he's following me! I'm gonna get back on Kennedy now. I don't know what to do!" she told the dispatcher, her voice rising.

At one point the man pulled his car in front of Fernandez's, got out and started running toward her, Fernandez told police.

"He just pulled over next to me, he's stopping the car, it's ridiculous, this man!" she said. "He's running after my car. Oh my goodness, he's a fanatic, he's in the middle of the street!"

She drove along Arrawana Avenue and Habana Street, then back onto Kennedy Boulevard, but she couldn't shake him, Durkin said.

"He's trying to hurt us. Look at this, what a moron," she said. "Look at him! . . . Idiot!"

The dispatcher told Fernandez to drive to the Tampa police office near Raymond James Stadium, but she drove instead to the ballfield where she had been headed with her children before the chase. She met with a police officer and carefully described the Nissan and its tag number, Durkin said.

What a stooge.

CUT OUT FOR NATIONHOOD?

2005-03-11T15:42:00.000+11:00

Not likely:

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - Gunmen from the ruling Palestinian Fatah (news - web sites) faction broke up a meeting of the party about reform on Thursday in a fresh blow to President Mahmoud Abbas's bid to end internal chaos and talk peace with Israel.

Some 30 militants from the al-Aqsa Matryrs Brigades group within Fatah, firing assault rifles in the air, stormed the meeting and drove out hundreds of Fatah members, threatening to kill them, smashed windows and chairs before themselves leaving.

There were no casualties in the incident in the West Bank city of Ramallah witnessed by a Reuters reporter. The gunmen complained they had not been invited to the meeting and were being marginalized by the Fatah leadership.

"We will not allow anyone to ignore us because we have paid with blood in this conflict (with Israel)," one gunman shouted.

Civil war's an inevitability.

COX AND FORKUM

2005-03-11T13:01:00.000+11:00