Nice to Know
Franklin Foer astounds in the New Republic with Air War: How Saddam Manipulates the U.S. Media:

If the bombs begin falling on Baghdad, a broad swath of the TV-viewing world will quickly become intimate with Jane Arraf, CNN's Iraq correspondent for the past four years. Arraf files her reports from the third-floor landing of a blocky white building a few hundred meters from the Tigris River, with the ancient city's minaret-filled panorama behind her. CNN shares the building with the BBC, Associated Press, Reuters, and the handful of other news organizations that have a permanent presence in Baghdad. But there's an uncomfortable fact about this building to which these tenants don't often call attention: It's the Iraqi Ministry of Information.

A real eye-opener. The Iraqi thugs are all over everything the Western press does there.

Hey, can I get another report on Saddam's 100% victory in the presidential referendum?

Sounds Like Treason To Me
(Via Daily Pundit). Even I didn't think Jimmy Carter was this low, but I should have known better.

Peter Schweizer, a Hoover Institution research fellow, has just written a new book, "Reagan's War: The Epic Story of His Forty-Year Struggle and Final Triumph Over Communism."

This book may well force historians to revise the history of the Cold War.

Schweizer, after scouring once-classified KGB, East German Stasi and Soviet Communist Party files, discovered incontrovertible evidence that the Soviets not only played footsie with high-ranking Democrats, they also worked behind the scenes to influence American elections.
...
Schweizer reveals Russian documents that show that in the waning days of the 1980 campaign, the Carter White House dispatched businessman Armand Hammer to the Soviet Embassy.

Hammer was a longtime Soviet-phile, and he explained to the Soviet ambassador that Carter was "clearly alarmed" at the prospect of losing to Reagan.

Hammer pleaded with the Russians for help. He asked if the Kremlin could expand Jewish emigration to bolster Carter's standing in the polls.

"Carter won't forget that service if he is elected," Hammer told Dobrynin.

More chilling Democrat party revelations by following the link. And buying the book, of course.

Then there are the Clintons. I wonder when the Chinese will declassify those files? Or just threaten to send Charlie Trie back to the USA to testify?

Talk Radio
For a variety of reasons, I am not a fan of talk radio. However, several times this week I found myself in the car when a local station was airing the Laura Ingraham show.

I've admired Laura since her 80's Dartmouth Review expose' of a leftist music professor's political rants in class. Sounds like small beer, right? Well, in the way of all modern American campuses, it turned into a big deal. She went on to throroughly irritate the port siders as editor of the Dartmouth Review, Reagan speech writer, and in various broadcast journalism roles.

If you like hammer and tongs idiotarian smiting, give it a try - it will usually make you smile. Here's a long Real Audio program clip inspired by a Bobby Byrd rant over a break in the pork flow from the delayed Homeland Security bill. Which reminds me, did you know that the King of Pork has a radio telescope named after him?

We're Still Waiting
Well, now that N. Korea's "little secret" has been out for a few days, where are the public comments from the architects of the disasterously failed Clinton administration policy?

Jimmy Carter - nope. Must be too busy being a Nobel laureate.
Bubba Clinton - nope. Must be too busy ... er, personally probing something.
Madeleine Albright - well she did have her yap open on NBC News, but it was to whine about Iraq:

"I don't think there has to be such a rush," says Albright. "I think the American people and the rest of the world is really owed a better explanation as to why this has to happen this minute."

She apparently has no conception of the urgency in preventing a major league wingnut from getting nuclear weapons like she allowed her pals in North Korea to do. And the NBC newsdroids didn't ask the pompous loon if she had any synapses firing that might connect North Korea with Iraq - you know like delusional dictators, weapons of mass destruction, danger, Clinton stupidity.

So far, the only Clinton apparatchik to speak up has been Albright buttgirl, Wendy Sherman, who stated that the Clinton crowd knew nothing^TM. The only problem is that Congress had been on Bubba's case as early as 1998 that there was apparent evidence that the NKors were cheating.

So the bottom line is that we're still waiting. When are Bubba, Jimmah, and Halfbright going to explain their actions on North Korea? C'mon people, you can open your mouths to whine, now open them to explain to the American people.

Some Words of Advice
The NY Post disgusts with Terrorist taunts Bali Kin: Convert!

The radical cleric suspected of masterminding the horrific Bali blast has a cruel and unthinkable message for relatives who lost loved ones - convert to Islam.

Abu Bakar Bashir, the leader of the Jemaah Islamiyah group, says he is also praying for the safety of terror master Osama bin Laden.
...
Bashir had an even more ominous message for Australia, where most of the nightclub victims came from.

"The second message is for Australia because you suffered the most: Please advise your government not to follow the U.S. policy because it will bring tragedy for your country," he said.

Well, do tell! Advice from a talking woodchuck. Abu, since we're "sharing", here's some advice for you. Don't bother running, you'll only die tired.

What a Hoot!
Dick Armey had some good lines yesterday:

"America sits and wonders why is it that al Qaeda, this rag tag bunch of terrorists scattered all over the globe, can reorganize themselves ... and the United States government cannot reorganize itself.

Well, I guess the difference is al Qaeda doesn't have a Senate. Al Qaeda doesn't have a Senator Daschle that has other focuses. Al Qaeda's got a clear focus."

I'm So Surprised!
Niles Lathem and Marsha Kranes in the NY Post reveal Osama's Riflemen:

An al Qaeda suspect in custody in Belgium told American investigators he saw members of the terror organization training snipers in preparation for attacks on U.S. soil, a source told The Post last night.

One of the planned attacks targeted U.S. senators on a golf course.

Suspect Nizar Treblisi - questioned by U.S. agents - said a three-man sniper team trained for attacks while shooting from distances of 150 to 750 feet, the source said.
...
It's no surprise that al Qaeda has taught its operatives sniper techniques.

Al Qaeda terror manuals found in Afghanistan have sections on assassination - and ABC News last night aired film of al Qaeda trainees practicing shooting from the backs of pickup trucks.

Paging Chief Moose, please pick up the courtesy clue phone!

And the Feds shouldn't get away free either - they left Moose in charge of this hoedown.

Roll Call!
(Via InstaPundit) Andrew Sullivan has a nice roll call of the N. Korea mooncalves. As Glenn Reynolds observes, they are "people who should be eating crow over North Korea's admission that it has a nuclear weapons program. "Should be" being the operative phrase, apparently.

(Via ColdFury) The Invisible Hand does the honors as well:

Gosh, it seems that North Korea actually lied to Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Madeline Albright and Wendy Sherman when it agreed to stop its nuclear weapons program in exchange for billions of dollars in food aid.

We'll all hang out around the radio with bated breath waiting for them to apologize.

Thank the Three Stooges
Yup, it was Jimmah, Bubba, and Maddie Halfbright that sold us down the Yalu river in 1994. Let's trace this tawdry tale.

First there was Jimmah providing peace in our time in July 1994:

The Korean crisis is over--or so says former President Jimmy Carter, who took the settling of it into his own hands and returned from Pyongyang claiming to have turned away the wrath of North Korean dictator Kim Il-Sung with a kind word. It is not totally impossible that Kim was willing to back away from his program to develop nuclear weapons in exchange for economic aid and other concessions. That, however, would have been contrary to everything we knew about Kim and his flaky regime. More likely, the good-hearted Mr. Carter got snookered, and the United States along with him, while North Korea gained time and cover to finish the job.

Mooncalf Jimmah always gets snookered. It's what he does. It's all he does.

Via Jonah Goldberg - an October 1994 NY Times editorial:

Diplomacy with North Korea has scored a resounding triumph. Monday's draft agreement freezing and then dismantling North Korea's nuclear program should bring to an end two years of international anxiety and put to rest widespread fears that an unpredictable nation might provoke nuclear disaster.

The U.S. negotiator Robert Gallucci and his North Korean interlocutors have drawn up a detailed road map of reciprocal steps that both sides accepted despite deep mutual suspicion. In so doing they have defied impatient hawks and other skeptics who accused the Clinton Administration of gullibility and urged swifter, stronger action. The North has agreed first to freeze its nuclear program in return for U.S. diplomatic recognition and oil from Japan and other countries to meet its energy needs.
...
From the start, the hawks' alternative to diplomacy was full of danger. Their solution -- economic sanctions and bombing runs -- might have disarmed North Korea, but only at the risk of war. President Clinton, former President Carter and Mr. Gallucci deserve warm praise for charting a less costly and more successful course.

Then Maddie had a nice yuk with the head wingnut to seal the deal. What a pair!

Now fade to 2002. When President Bush had the audacity to include N. Korea in the Axis of Evil, Halfbright filled her Depends:

On February 1, when interviewed by the American Broadcasting Corporation, Madeleine Albright, former US Secretary of State, described Bush's "Axis of Evil" remark as "a gross mistake". She said that the principle Bush currently uses in handling foreign affairs has caused the international community to think that the United States is doing things "in an utterly disorderly way" and has "lost reason". She said: "putting the three countries together is a gross mistake." She is particularly opposed to listing the DPRK (North Korea) in the so-called Axis of Evil, saying that Bush's way of doing things will possibly cause the United States to lose popular support among the international community. Albright particularly noted that she had contacted and reached agreement with the DPRK. Whereas Bush has "single-handedly destroyed" the initial relationship she had established with Korea during the Clinton age.

Oh and what's their story now that the N. Koreans have revealed that they kept their nuclear weapons program going despite the "deal"? You guessed it - No Sign of N. Korea Nuclear Program Under Clinton:

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton's administration did not see evidence that North Korea was pursuing a uranium enrichment program for nuclear weapons that Pyongyang now admits it is operating, a senior Clinton aide said on Thursday.

Since they couldn't find their collective butt with a catcher's mitt, that's no surprise.

I'm not a big fan of Sen. John McCain, but he called this one (via Rod Dreher):

On October 19, 1994, on the occasion of the Clinton Administration announcing its agreement with North Korea, Sen. John McCain said: "On at least eight previous occasions, North Korea has lied to the Clinton Administration. With this agreement, Administration officials have willingly acquiesced in Pyongyang's almost certain further deception. Yet again, the Administration has mistaken resolving the North Korean nuclear crisis with merely postponing its apogee. ...I suspect that the Administration's willlingness to delay the resolution of this crisis is premised on their presumption that the bankrupt North Korean economy will force the regime's collapse before they violate the agreement. Unfortunately, their economy may be salvaged during the interim period by the hallf a billion tons of oil they will receive annually, the opening of trade relations with the U.S., and greater trade with its Asian neighbors, which the agreement [provides for]. Thus, the Administration has accomplished the remarkable feat of allowing the North Koreans to have their carrot cake and eat it too."

The real question is whether the three stooges are traitors or merely fools.

And Jimmah, shove your Peace Prize where the sun don't shine. If there's room there alongside your head.

Inspector Clouseau Alert!
FOXNews reports today's comfort filled news conference of Chief Moose and friends, Police Deem Some Sniper Witness Accounts 'Not Credible':

Investigators pulling out all the stops in the hunt for the Beltway Sniper still have no suspect composite, no weapon type, and on Thursday had to retract a witness account of a cream-colored van.

There had been earlier reports that the latest shooting — outside a northern Virginia Home Depot on Monday — had yielded more clues than the previous sniper attacks, but Thursday investigators reported that a description of a "cream-colored van with a broken tail light" given by a witness is "not credible."

Two witnesses reported seeing the sniper identified him as having olive-colored skin and as being either Middle Eastern or Hispanic, but Montgomery County Police Chief Charles Moose, who is heading the investigation, said reports describing the shooter were getting so much attention they were confusing the investigation.

"We get this noise, this confusion out there that gives people tunnel vision and makes them focus in on things that are not appropriate," Moose said.

Fairfax County Police Chief Tom Manger said that the media should not be telling the public that one specific weapon is being used in the shootings. "A suspect description was not put out by the police and should not be seen as reliable information," Manger said at a news briefing.

Investigators also cautioned that the type of rounds fired at the victims can be fired by at least 30 different types of firearms, and the weapon used in the killings could be disguised with accessories that change its appearance.

Investigators believe the killer switched weapons because he was firing at shorter range in Monday's shooting. In previous attacks, police say he used either a Colt AR-15 or a Kruger Mini-14. But one witness to the Monday attack told investigators he was sure the sniper used a Soviet-style AK-74 semiautomatic assault rifle.

Despite the setbacks, police said they're confident the case will be solved.

Emphasis added. I wonder if a Kruger Mini-14 is like a Ruger Mini-14? You mean all those press conferences with "evil looking" assault rifles were just so much bull? What happened to all the confirmatory "ballistic evidence"?

When is Chief Moose going to admit the possibility that this might be a terrorist hit squad?

Airhead Alert!
Martin Sieff, "UPI Senior News Analyst", takes a truly fanciful leap with Bush tough talk backfired on NKorea. Marty thinks that it's President Bush's fault that N. Korea has been cheating since 1994 on its promise not to develop nuclear weapons.

Hey Marty, next time pick up the clue phone when it rings.

No Kidding!
Steve Dunleavy in the NY Post comes to the logical conclusion, WAKE UP! THIS TERRORIST IS NO NATIVE:

It is time to suspect the unthinkable and the suspicion is this: This city has been paralyzed by terrorists.

Terrorists working for a foreign organization that wants to destroy our country.

There are credible experts who believe that a war has been visited on our breakfast table.

It's a war that's as haunting as the massive slaughter of Sept. 11 was traumatic.

"This [the Washington-area killings] is a terrorist cell, no doubt about it," said Larry Johnson, a veteran CIA agent and State Department counter-terrorism expert.

"Maybe it's not al Qaeda, but it is in sympathy with them."

Even worse, I found something to agree with in the latest screed from MoDo:

Chief Moose says he's looking for "closure." I wish he'd simply look for sniper.

Since Chief Moose won't release a description of the perps, I thought I would do my part - here's a composite of the shooter created from press accounts.

He's lately been spotted in Bali and Yemen when he isn't partying with friends in Baghdad or Ramallah.

Some Virtual Ink for Kim du Toit!
Michael L. Betsch at Cybercast News Service reports National Ammo Day Targets 'Gun Grabbers':

A coordinated effort has been launched to place billions of bullets in the hands of American gun owners to protest the politicians and "gun grabbers," who according to the organizer of National Ammo Day, want to disarm law abiding citizens by over-taxing their ammunition.

"There have been million-men marches and a million moron mommies," said Ammo Day organizer Kim du Toit. "It's time for a billion rounds to show the gun-grabbers and the nanny-legislators just how many Second Amendment supporters are out there."

Kim's weblog is in the sidebar and there is also an Ammo Day site.

Porkbarrel Luau Alert!
John Fund reveals that there is Trouble in Paradise:

This year, political reporters have been trooping to Hawaii to see if the entrenched 40-year-old Democratic Party machine--dubbed "Hawaii Four-O"--will finally lose a race for governor and open up the Aloha State's politics.
...
The marginalization of critics is one reason the Democratic machine has survived for four decades. Ed Medeiros, owner of the Aloha Flea Market, saw his site on the grounds of a state-owned sports stadium taken over by the government after he openly campaigned for Ms. Lingle. Lowell Kalapa, head of the state's Tax Foundation, was removed from a state tax-review commission he had co-founded after criticizing the state's fiscal policy. Sam Slom, one of only three Republicans in the state Senate, was put through a full-fledged ethics investigation for using a press release sent out on his personal stationery tweaking the governor about his purchase of a $1 million house lot in Mr. Slom's district.

Media critics have also felt the machine's sting. Malia Zimmerman, a reporter for Pacific Business News, was fired in 2000 after the governor filed a complaint with the state's Media Council over one of her stories. The story, which was accurate, was about a leaked report of the governor's own Small Business Task Force that found a pattern of retribution and intimidation of business owners by state agencies. This February she started up a news Web site called HawaiiReporter.com (motto: "Freedom to Report the Real News") that has already become the state's alternative source for hard-hitting political news and a frequent source for talk-radio hosts.

HawaiiReporter has had a lot to chew on lately. Rep. Patsy Mink, a veteran of the 1960s Democratic takeover of the state, died on Sept. 28, after the state's deadline to name a replacement for her on the November ballot. Allegations swept through political circles that party officials had concealed the grave nature of Ms. Mink's illness until key election deadlines had passed.

Gov. Cayetano promptly moved to ignore state law and asked the courts to authorize a snap special election on Nov. 5 for the unexpired portion of Mink's term. When told there were technical as well as legal problems preventing this, Mr. Cayetano's response was brusque: "I'm really tired of hearing this kind of talk. If the court says we can hold this election on Nov. 5, then the elections office better be ready to print up some ballots and if they have to count manually then they should do it. Just do it. Don't tell me it can't be done." The courts ignored this imperious request as well as a later one that Mink's name be replaced on the ballot by a Democrat handpicked by the party. Gwendolyn Mink, the late congresswoman's daughter, denounced all the maneuvering as "a move, again, to change the rules in the middle of the game."

I already mentioned the disgraceful Patsy Mink death story, but for the latest update see On Being Mink from HawaiiReporter.com. This really is a cast of thugs.

I also have a bridge for sale
The Telegraph (UK) reveals IRA suspects 'were studying peace':

Three Irish republicans charged with training Colombian rebels have issued a statement insisting they were in the country to observe the peace process.
...
James Monaghan, Niall Connolly and Martin McCauley are accused of training Farc insurgents in explosives and other techniques for about a month.

The three were arrested at Bogota's airport 14 months ago after visiting a rebel stronghold in southern Colombia. If convicted they face between 15 and 20 years in prison.

"We visited Colombia to get to know the people, the natural beauty and the peace process between (former) President Andres Pastrana and the FARC guerrillas," the statement said.

Shure bhoys, we believe ya!

Pond Scum
The NY Post disgusts with US Traitor Proud She's Cuban Spy:

A U.S. intelligence analyst yesterday defended spying for Cuban President Fidel Castro, as she was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

"Our government's policy toward Cuba is cruel and unfair, profoundly unneighborly, and I felt morally obligated to help the island defend itself from our efforts to impose our values and our political system on it," Ana Belen Montes told a federal judge.

"I obeyed my conscience rather than the law . . . I can only say that I did what I thought right to counter a grave injustice."

Montes, 46, spied for Cuba for 16 years while she was an analyst for the Defense Intelligence Agency in Washington.

Maybe she'll get shot while trying to escape.

"OK Ana, you get 30 steps before we start shooting. That's right neighborly, don't you think?"

Speaking of Islamofascist Thugs
A little noticed article from Joseph Farah in WorldNetDaily from Sept. 4, 2002: New al-Qaida training tape shows another side of terror

An al-Qaida training videotape, captured in Afghanistan, shows Osama bin Laden's terrorists are not only planning attacks with weapons of mass destruction but are preparing to kill Americans with drive-by shootings and home break-ins, through ambushes of law-enforcement officers and targeted assassinations on golf courses, WorldNetDaily has learned.
...
In one scenario on the video, terrorists pretend to be stranded on a six-lane highway, their vehicle disabled. When a police officer stops to assist, the driver blows his horn. Another occupant of the vehicle opens fire on the police officer with a rifle. In other scenarios, shooters were concealed in the trunk of the car. When the terrorists were picked up by accomplices in a getaway car, the original vehicle was blown up, apparently to destroy evidence.
...
In another scenario, an innocuous-looking terrorist knocks on the door of a residence, standing in view of the resident and answering questions through a closed door. When the resident opens the door, the terrorist immediately draws his weapon and fires, emptying his weapon into the victim.
...
When asked if these techniques are intended for use in the U.S., one military intelligence operative said without hesitation, "Yes."

Sound familiar?

Tim Blair Says It All
From the Australian:

Australians who worry about offending murderous lunatics and urge silence on issues like terrorism are acting as though we've already been defeated, as though terrorists are rational people, who pay close attention to reasonable arguments and make considered judgments.

They don't.

Nobody who thinks it a valid political gesture to crash jets into skyscrapers or blow up nightclubs will be swayed by a cautious debate in the Senate or an arm's-length policy towards the US. Germany is against the war. One German died in Bali and 12 are missing.

Terrorists don't want liberty. They want death. They want to see the young girl walking around Sydney airport all Tuesday with a photograph in her hand, asking survivors returning from Bali if any of them had seen her big brother. She loved him. Did anyone know what had happened to him? Can you help me find him? Please?

It's impossible, but try to imagine what kind of monster would cause that, and would rejoice in it. Those are the sorts of people we're dealing with.

But it leads to great clarity for everyone but the terminally ignorant. Either we kill these thugs or they'll kill us.

Are They Bloody Nuts Alert!
More on the EU from the Telegraph (UK) who amazes with Labour's blueprint for EU constitution:

The Government sketched out its plans for a European constitution yesterday, agreeing to put justice and home affairs under Brussels control for the first time and to avoid any action in defence, foreign policy and economics that goes against the collective interest.

The document, a Constitutional Treaty of the European Union, is the clearest indication yet of Labour's negotiating position in the Convention on the Future of Europe, a 105-strong body of "founding fathers" drawing up a blueprint for Europe's new system of government.

The text was drafted by an outside team under Alan Dashwood, a Cambridge professor of European law, but it amounts to a Government proposal as it was financed, vetted, and distributed by the Foreign Office.

Until this year, the Government was opposed to a constitution but has decided that it would consume too much political capital to block it.

Looks like the Labour hacks are a little shy too.

Welcome to the EU Alert!
The Telegraph (UK) provides a grimace with Church bells are silenced in fear of EU law:

Complaints by new residents have silenced the church bells in a small country town after the vicar feared the chimes could be breaking European law.

The bells at St Mary's Church in Totnes, Devon - England's second oldest borough - have sounded every quarter of an hour since a civic subscription scheme paid for the clock to mark Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee in 1887.

But a small group of residents - believed to be newcomers - have protested that the chimes stop them sleeping at night.

"Amongst the old Totnesians, there is a certain amount of fury that I have silenced the clock," said the Rev Nicholas Martin.

"But I have been advised by a lawyer friend that the European Court of Human Rights has said people should be guaranteed the right to sleep free of noise, light or smell pollution.

"I felt therefore I had no alternative but to silence the clock, as technically we could be in breach of the law. I don't know if anyone would have taken us to court, but European law is becoming more important."

I suppose the Rev is a little shy about asking them what part of "ingest excrement" they don't understand.

And "smell pollution"? Looks like the end of baked beans!

Release the descriptions now!
(Via InstaPundit) Paul Sperry reports Police suppress terrorism angle - ATF official: Releasing descriptions of Mideast suspects would cause 'panic':

Several witnesses to the Beltway sniper shootings over the past two weeks have described suspects resembling Middle-Eastern men, but authorities have played down the Islamic terrorism angle to avoid mass "panic" in the area, an ATF official told WorldNetDaily.

... the task force won't likely release a composite sketch of suspects - alternately described by witnesses, law-enforcement lookouts and police-scanner chatter as "Hispanic," "Middle-Eastern," "olive-skinned" and "dark-skinned" - until all other suspects are ruled out.

Well, Grandma Moses didn't do it, she's dead.

I really don't care what the suspects look like or what ethnic group they might belong to - release the damn descriptions now so that the public can help bag them.

Dog Bites Man!
The AP astounds with Saddam Wins Presidential Referendum:

Saddam Hussein won another seven-year term as Iraq's president in a referendum in which he was the sole candidate, taking 100 percent of the vote, the Iraqi leader's right-hand man announced Wednesday.

All 11,445,638 of the eligible voters cast ballots, said Izzat Ibrahim, vice chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council that is Iraq's key decision-making body.

"This is a unique manifestation of democracy which is superior to all other forms of democracies even in these countries which are besieging Iraq and trying to suffocate it," Ibrahim said at a news conference in Baghdad, apparently referring to the United States.

The amazing thing is that anyone takes anything these thugs say seriously.

Mr. Peanut
R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. has his way with the Canoist Without a Paddle:

If anyone has doubted the growth of Anti-Americanism in Europe, their doubts surely were silenced when the Nobel Prize Committee gave its "Peace Prize" to Jimmy Carter. For over twenty years every American who loves this country and takes pride in its achievements has avoided mentioning Jimmy as president, perhaps as carpenter, perhaps as peanut farmer, but not as president, and surely not as diplomat or peacemaker. Practically every country he leaves after his peace posturing he leaves a corrupt despotism or perhaps at best a corrupt oligarchy.

He was the worst president of the Twentieth Century.

... he has always been a fraud and an opportunist. His prey has always been the liberal sap. In running for the presidency in 1976 he gave these as his credentials: "I am a Southerner and an American. I am a farmer, an engineer, a father and a husband, a Christian, a politician and a former governor, a planner, a businessman, a nuclear physicist, a naval officer, a canoist, and among other things, a lover of Bob Dylan's songs and Dylan Thomas' poetry. "

He forgot butthead.

Couldn't happen to a more deserving bunch
Ben Shapiro analyzes why the leftists have their panties in a knot over talk radio and the Internet in Left behind: the democratization of the media:

On the 'Net, liberal failure has been just as complete. While Matt Drudge's Web site receives nearly 5 million hits per day, liberal news sites are virtually non-existent. Salon.com is going the way of the dinosaurs, and Slate.com is a mere facade. The only liberal Web sites that get any hits are established television channels like BBC, CNN and ABC News. There are no major leftist commentary sites to compete with conservative monsters like Freerepublic.com and lucianne.com, where normal news followers can post their opinions on the story du jour. The left has been left behind on the Web.

It's the inability to compete that has the liberals so angry. They don't understand why people won't listen to elite intelligentsia dither about politics but gladly tune in to hosts like Sean Hannity, a former construction worker with no college degree. They rant and rave over the newest phenomenon -- weblogs, or bloggers, where ordinary folks comment on the news in real time, allowing true Rousseau-ian democracy to flourish. Why, they ask, do more people visit libertarian/conservative bloggers Andrew Sullivan and Glenn Reynolds than the soon-to-be-extinct American Prospect blogger, TAPPED?

Here's the answer: The left cannot survive criticism. It is easy for liberals to air their views when the audience cannot challenge them. Network news is a perfect example -- when Peter Jennings sympathizes with Palestinian suicide bombers, viewers can kick their televisions and scream at Jennings, but Jennings cannot hear them. If Jennings had a talk show, though, he'd have to deal with the views of his audience. Print media is similar. Maureen Dowd can write nasty things about President Bush but would be hard pressed to respond to a reader's challenge.

Ah, Peter Jennings! The quintessential empty suit.

What do you get when you cross an Ecoweenie and a Euroweenie?
The BBC provides us with a vision in The high price of low-cost airlines:

Booking a low-cost flight is seldom as cheap as the headline figure, with taxes, handling fees and surcharges. But there's one fee you won't find on your ticket - the cost to the planet.

Cheap air fares have broadened our travel horizons and spawned a trend for weekend breaks in exotic locations, but for the environment it is proving a nightmare.

Zzzzzzzzz......

Pond Scum
(Via Gareth Parker). Guy Rundle deposits a steaming load of "it's all our fault" in the Sydney Morning Herald:

Militant Islamic fundamentalism is a potent ideology for people battered and humiliated by the extension of Western power and money into every area of global social life. Because it gives meaning to lives thrown into disarray by these forces, people are willing to die for it.

The further extension of unjust and unilateral power will simply increase the numbers of willing martyrs exponentially. We have never had a greater need for cool and calm reflection on our place in the world. Instead we are being asked to subscribe to patriotic dumbness. Only in Australia?

Guy, as is customary with the apologists, provides no factual basis for his whine which basically amounts to "West bad, killers good". He's as compulsively illogical as the Islamofascists and has only a slightly different religion.

Guy, we're fresh out of sackcloth and the only ashes are of our friends. Take your sorry ass back to whatever hole you crawled out of.

A Fisk, a barrel, and a smoking gun
Glenn Reynolds coins a new term, barrelfisking, for Eugene Volokh's analysis of the latest McGrory swill.

Yep
From Peter Kerr at Mebourne Truth/Monaro:

It's time to stop fucking around. Time to untie the hands of our authorities. Time to stop pretending there are no terrorist cells in this country.

It's time to stop turning a blind eye to those in our community who condone these acts of terror. Time to 'out' the fanatics. Time we stopped allowing them to hide behind their ethnicity.

It's time for our media and politicians to stop presenting dangerous cranks as 'community leaders' and 'voices of moderate Islam'. Time to put the 'Sheik' on a plane back to Egypt.

It's time the Australian Labor Party decided whether a supposed 'Muslim vote' is more important than the security and will of 19 million odd other Australians. Time the Liberal Party of Australia made the same decision regarding the sensibilities of a few 'small l' liberals in the leafier suburbs.

No more double standards. No more pandering to the most backward voices in our society. It's time it was made very clear to every one what is and isn't acceptable in this country.

Our Pal Hugo
The President of Venezuela yesterday appeared in public in his trademark red beret with a parrot also wearing a red beret. Must be another use for superglue.

Don't worry Hugo. He's not dead. He's just pining for the fjords!

And why does Hugo appear to be wearing the national flag as a cape?

We've Got a Winner!
Tim Blair has already got the answer to the question posed in the post immediately below. And the winner is Robert Fisk!

I'm so surprised! I bet Bobby creamed his jeans at the first report of the bombing.

Terrorist Murderers Alert
Tim Blair is covering the Islamofascist murders in normally peaceful, Hindu Bali. He asks the dreaded question:

We're probably less than 12 hours away from the first opinion piece arguing that the attacks were the logical consequence of supporting the US in the war against terror, and that we'd be better off staying quiet and not upsetting anybody, especially Islamic murderers. I wonder which dumb fuck will write it?

And I wonder which US surrender monkey will be the first to pick up the refrain?

Prof. Bunyip observes:

At least 160 people dead, the majority Australians, most of them young, all of them innocent. When the Mannes and the Kingstons start asking why they hate us (the first of those columns is probably being written this very minute), here's the one and only answer:

The hate stops with the heartbeat. It's past time these animals were put down.

They've been using this routine on the civilized world for over 30 years and no one has had the cojones to object until now.

There's nothing more peaceful than a dead terrorist.