The Party of Sabotage
David Horowitz in Front Page Magazine:

From September to March, the Democratic Party played the classic role of appeasers, seeking every excuse possible not to call Saddam Hussein's bluff or call him to account for his defiance of international agreements. This was no different from the role Neville Chamberlain carved out in the 1930s as Hitler defied one international arms control agreement after another on his march to war. Their appeasement threatened to undermine the international security order, and would have done so if George Bush had buckled to their pressures.
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Unfortunately, the Democratic Party has followed suit in its own timid way, shedding the mantle of appeasement to become the party of sabotage. Not a day has gone by since American forces liberated Iraq that Democrats have not attempted to undermine the leadership that brought about the victory. The greatest triumph of American policy since the end of the Cold War has become the unending target of Democratic snipers -- among them all its presidential nominees and its chief congressional spokesmen .
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It is a national tragedy that in this hour of national crisis the Democratic Party does not have a single statesman who might follow the example of Tony Blair and stand up to the saboteurs and speak out for a bi-partisan front against those who have sworn to destroy us. That Democrats are not rallying around the President in its efforts to carry on the work of peace is an unforgiveable betrayal.

This is the final destructive legacy of the narcissistic and feckless leadership of Carter, Clinton and Gore. It is they who set the bad example in the first place. And it is they who have never really shed the McGovern delusion that in the final analysis America is the root cause of all the root causes that inspire our enemies to attack us.

There ought to be a proper scientific name for the delusion that everything is always your countrymen's fault. Besides asshat.

Caught with their pants down
Tom Baldwin in the UK Times - Statement shows BBC may have 'sexed up' its coverage:

The BBC yesterday ended an epic 52-day pretence about its source for claims that Downing Street deliberately deceived the British people by “sexing up” a dossier on Iraq to strengthen the case for war.

But it is now the BBC that appears to have deliberately deceived viewers, listeners, its Board of Governors and Parliament about the origins of this extraordinary battle with the Government.

The apparent suicide of David Kelly has changed the rules of engagement. By confirming that the Ministry of Defence adviser was the source, the BBC yesterday laid itself open to charges that it had “sexed up” the allegations.

Andrew Gilligan, the BBC defence correspondent who met Dr Kelly at the Charing Cross Hotel, first broadcast the allegations on Radio 4’s Today programme on May 29. He described his source as “one of the senior officials in charge of drawing up the dossier” about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. But Dr Kelly was not one of the senior officials in charge of last September’s dossier. After helping to draft a background section on UN weapons inspections in May or June last year, he had nothing more to do with it.

So when's a reporter going to ask the BBC honchos if they have "blood on their hands"?

Today's hoot!
(Via FR) If you are unfamiliar with Slashdot.org, it is a vastly popular discussion forum for geeks. While the techno content sometimes gets a tad obscure, they often have items of general interest. Anyhow, on Friday they had a post on a Russian guy who built his own "Gauss Gun". Amongst the usual chatter, a gun rights debate soon developed, in the course of which poster pi_rules delivered the following riposte:

I wish all you gun-toting fucktards would just go create your own nation

We did. Who the hell let you in here?

Indeed.

And speaking of Canada
Paul Stanway observes in the Edmonton Sun that Kazemi's death felt in Tehran, not Ottawa:

Of all the questions raised by the death of photojournalist Zahra Kazemi in Iran, not least is the practical one of how far Ottawa ought to go in demanding a thorough investigation and punishment of any wrongdoing? What does Canada owe a 10-year resident with dual nationality?

Not much apparently.

Legally, Canada's obligations to Kazemi are no different than for a second-, third- or fourth-generation Canadian. Ottawa is obliged to do everything it can to establish the facts surrounding her death and to demand that any wrongdoing is punished. Morally, too, it seems to me that Kazemi and her son deserve no less. There is no suggestion that her Canadian citizenship was a "flag of convenience." She had lived in Montreal for a decade and had been a citizen since the mid-'90s.

But the possibility of divided loyalty, not surprisingly, makes people uneasy. I also have two passports, Canadian and British, and when I became a Canadian (a very long time ago) several friends and relatives wondered why I didn't renounce my British citizenship - although there is no easy way to do that.
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As a foreign correspondent in the Middle East a dozen years ago, I learned to rely on my British passport more than the Canadian. It offered better theoretical and practical protection.

I quickly found that Britain had a reputation for making a fuss in defence of its citizens. Canadian diplomats were friendly and helpful, but not inclined to make waves.

How nice.

Just another puppeteer fighting for justice!
David Crary at the AP amuses with Discontent Americans Consider Canada:

For all they share economically and culturally, Canada and the United States are increasingly at odds on basic social policies — to the point that at least a few discontented Americans are planning to move north and try their neighbors' way of life.

Ok, I'll bite - tell me more!

"For me, it's a no-brainer," said Mollie Ingebrand, a puppeteer from Minneapolis who plans to go to Vancouver with her lawyer husband and 2-year-old son.

"It's the most amazing opportunity I can imagine. To live in a society where there are different priorities in caring for your fellow citizens."

Good thing for Mollie it's a "no-brainer".

Conversely, Mollie Ingebrand says some of her friends — people who share her left-of-center views — argue that she should stay at home to battle for changes here.

"I've been there and done that," Molly [sic] said. "I don't want to stay and fight anymore. I can have that bittersweet love for my country from somewhere else."

I just hope she can get some mimes to go with her! Not to mention the horde of illegal aliens.

Check out the full article for the details of the other would-be emigrants. The NYC "executive" worried about his boyfriend here on a student visa is cool too.

Uh Oh!
Kevin Poulsen reports on the Kinko's Keystroke Caper:

If you used a computer at a Kinko's in New York City last year, or the year before, there's a good chance that JuJu Jiang was watching.

The 25-year-old Queens resident pleaded guilty in federal court in New York last week to two counts of computer fraud and one charge of unauthorized possession of access codes for a scheme in which he planted a copy of the commercial keyboard sniffing program Invisible KeyLogger Stealth on computers at thirteen Kinko's stores sprinkled around Manhattan.

For nearly two years ending last December, Jiang's makeshift surveillance net raked in over 450 online banking passwords and user names from hapless Kinko's customers, according to the plea. He would use victims' financial information to open new accounts under their names, and then siphon money from their legitimate accounts into the new, fraudulent ones.

According to court records, the caper began unraveling last October, when Jiang had the bad luck to use a stolen GoToMyPC account to remotely control a victim's home computer while the victim was sitting in front of it. The victim, unnamed in court filings, watched as the PC's cursor began moving of its own accord, riffling through files, opening a browser window, and then establishing an account with online money transfer site Neteller.com under the victim's name. The victim had logged into the machine through GoToMyPC from a Kinko's on Seventh Avenue a few days earlier.

That would make you a tad suspicious.

The Real Iraq
Amir Taheri writes from Baghdad:

'THE Iraqi Intifada!" This is the cover story offered by Al- Watan Al-Arabi, a pro-Saddam Hussein weekly published in Paris. It finds an echo in the latest issue of America's Time magazine, which paints a bleak prospect for the newly liberated country. The daily Al Quds, another pro-Saddam paper, quotes from The Washington Post in support of its claim that "a popular war of resistance" is growing in Iraq. Some newspapers in the United States, Britain and "old Europe" go further by claiming that Iraq has become a "quagmire" or "another Vietnam." The Parisian daily Le Monde prefers the term "engrenage," which is both more chic and French.

This chorus wants us to believe that most Iraqis regret the ancien regime, and are ready to kill and die to expel their liberators.

Sorry, guys, this is not the case.

But the Saddamites and the Western press peanut gallery can dream, can't they?

Neither the wishful thinking of part of the Arab media, long in the pay of Saddam, nor the visceral dislike of part of the Western media for George W. Bush and Tony Blair changes the facts on the ground in Iraq.

ONE fact is that a visitor to Iraq these days never finds anyone who wants Saddam back.

There are many complaints, mostly in Baghdad, about lack of security and power cuts. There is anxiety about the future at a time that middle-class unemployment is estimated at 40 percent. Iraqis also wonder why it is that the coalition does not communicate with them more effectively. That does not mean that there is popular support for violent action against the coalition.

Another fact is that the violence we have witnessed, especially against American troops, in the past six weeks is limited to less than 1 percent of the Iraqi territory, in the so-called "Sunni Triangle," which includes parts of Baghdad.

And it's time to go through the Sunni Triangle with a fine tooth comb.

Elsewhere, the coalition presence is either accepted as a fact of life or welcomed. On the 4th of July some shops and private homes in various parts of Iraq, including the Kurdish areas and cities in the Shiite heartland, put up the star-spangled flag as a show of gratitude to the United States.

"We see our liberation as the start of a friendship with the U.S. and the U.K. that should last a thousand years," says Khalid Kishtaini, one of Iraq's leading novelists. "The U.S. and the U.K. showed that a friend in need is a friend indeed. Nothing can change that."

In the early days of the liberation, some mosque preachers tested the waters by speaking against "occupation." They soon realized that their congregations had a different idea. Today, the main theme in sermons at the mosques is about a partnership between the Iraqi people and the coalition to rebuild the war-shattered country and put it on the path of democracy.

Even the radical Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr now says that "some good" could come out of the coalition's presence in Iraq. "The coalition must help us stabilize the situation," he says. "The healing period that we need would not be possible if we are suddenly left alone."

More by following the link.

And speaking of asshats
Freeper Chesterbelloc created the following for our pal, Fortney.



In case you missed out on the story, here's a hint:

According to the stenographer's transcript, the room then broke out in laughter, at which point Stark raged, "You little fruitcake, you little fruitcake. I said you are a fruitcake."

Inappropriate behaviour alert!
The Curmudgeon alerts us to a startling new use of technology. But is it really possible to "sanitize" a cell phone? And good thing the thief wasn't a guy!

Fish-faced pundit alert!
Eric Alterman continues to amaze with this snippy comment about violent anti-Semitism in France:

And if it’s a really big concern of yours, by the way, the best way to ameliorate it would be for Israel to withdraw from the West Bank.

Roger Simon has collected some well reasoned criticisms, but I tend to think of it, not as a problem, but as an opportunity!

All who are interested can now feel free to kick Eric's ass. If he complains about the imprint of a steel-toed work boot on his derriere, just tell him:

If it’s a really big concern of yours, the best way to ameliorate it would be for Michael Moore to stop passing off fictional films as documentaries.

He'll understand.