MUSLIM HATE-CRIME PERPS SENTENCED: "THE SAVAGE AND BARBARIC NATURE OF THIS NOTORIOUS CRIME"

On November 8th, in the High Court of Justiciary, Edinburgh, Scotland, Lord Uist sentenced Imran Shahid, Mohammad Faisal Mushtaq, and Zeeshan Shahid to life imprisonment for an awful hate crime they had committed in 2004.

"This murder consisted of the premeditated, cold-blooded execution of your victim by stabbing him 13 times and setting him alight with petrol while he was still in life. It truly was an abomination. The savage and barbaric nature of this notorious crime has rightly shocked and appalled the public.Your victim must have been in a state of extreme terror while held by you during a four hour car journey across Central Scotland and back, and the agony which he must have suffered during the period between being stabbed and set alight and his death is just beyond imagining. None of you has shown any remorse for what you have done."

No remorse. Just look at their pictures. The face of evil, in three incarnations. 15-year-old Kriss Donald was selected as their victim simply because he was a white Scot. Life imprisonment is not an appropriate response to this crime. (Hat tip: Mesopotamia West.)

Reliapundit adds: These convictions and the statement of this judge are GREAT. But, there are millions, if not tens of millions - or even hundreds of millions - of other fanatical Muslim men who would do exactly what these three have done to ANYONE one of us , OR ALL OF US. And arrests, convictions and strong judicial statements can not adequately address the danger they present us.

LA City Council Votes To Eliminate Palm Trees For Environmental Reasons

Can you imagine Coca Cola, or McDonald's, deciding to just relinquish their corporate logos? You know, no more Golden Arches, no more curli-cue cursive writing laced into the red and white. Well, the city of Los Angeles has volunteered to do so. The City Council has voted to eliminate the famed fanned palm for which it has become known. When people think of Los Angeles, they think of the palm trees lining the streets, right? Well, no more. And, you're not going to believe the wacky reason for this decision:

For more than a hundred years, the graceful, bushy-topped fan palm has been an iconic symbol of L.A.'s balmy, postcard lifestyle. But city leaders now want to put an end to the tree's reign on the grounds it is bad for the environment. City Council members voted this week to halt the placement of fan palms on parkways, median strips and other city-owned property where nearly 75,000 of them now grow. Instead, the city will plant only sycamores, oaks and other leafy native species that will contribute shade, collect rainwater and release oxygen across the Los Angeles Basin.

The fan palm may be an emblematic part of Los Angeles, but its skimpy canopy is cheating city dwellers of the benefit of real trees since palms "are technically a type of grass and not trees," as a unanimously approved council resolution put it. San Pedro-area Councilwoman Janice Hahn's motion, passed Tuesday, limits future use of palms along city streets unless they are needed to be consistent with existing plantings or are specifically requested by a council office or community group.

If new palms are planted, "fan palms should be discouraged" ... The vote comes as many fan palms planted by developers in the late 19th and early 20th century are entering the last phase of their life span. It also comes as the city is embarking on Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's ambitious goal to plant 1 million new trees.

Corporations spend billions of dollars to ensure that their logos are recognized on a national and international basis, but the LA City Council has decided that theirs is expendable. There was no public outcry calling for this decision. Clearly, this is just a wacko politician angling for the environmentalist vote. This is among the stupidest decisions in history. Let's see, Pharoah ignores Moses' warnings, France sells the Louisiana territories to America, the Red Sox trade Ruth to the Yankees, Paul McCartney marries Heather Mills, and now this. But, you know what? I am absolutely friggin' ecstatic over this.

The reasoning behind this legislation makes it a damning display of the transcendent stupidity of environmentalist demands in every aspect of life. From "second-hand smoke" to spotted owls, to butterfly wing hurricanes, to global ice age then global warming then global ice age then global warming again, environmentalist philosophy is childish fears and dreams writ large in the adult world. Environmentalists are always positing ecological disasters emanating from the slightest faux pas of mankind, as if when George Bush farts it could cause Hurricane Katrina.

I will enjoy watching the idiots at the LA City Council, as they slowly impale themselves on the spear of this decision. It will take time, but gradually tourism will be affected, revenue will decline and, eventually, business will demand that the palms be reinstated. And then,UCLA students will have another reason to march in the streets against the fascist conservatives who want to wreak havoc on the mother nature by lining the streets of LA with palm trees once again. Yes, I can see it; the New American Revolution will be fought over such issues. "We want alms, not palms. Reinstate the ban on palms that fan."

MORE PROOF "MAN-MADE GLOBAL WARMING" IS BUNK

READ THIS. Excerpt:

Last year after 28 storms formed in the Atlantic and two of them wreaked devastation on the Gulf states, experts crowed that the increased activity proved the global warming theories that have been floated over the last two decades. ... Experts and partisans insisted that we had turned a dangerous corner, and that we would see a continuing increase in violent weather from the Atlantic, a price for having ignored their warnings about greenhouse-gas emissions.

I guess the sky ain't falling. Bwahahahahaha! GEE: I wonder what bogeyman the Left will next stand up in order to argue for higher taxes and more taxes and more regulations on free markets!?

PLAYSTATION INSANITY

Watch the video. All this over a game? Are those caught up in this frenzy even aware that a battle for the very survival of Western civilization is going on?

DID PELOSI WIN OR LOSE?

My brother in Astuteness, Punditarian, says Pelosi won when her choice for Majority Leader, John Murtha, lost. It seems to me that there is a sense in which she did win. It would have been bad for Pelosi and the Democratic Party to have had Murtha in such a position of power.

There's a saying that goes, "That which does not kill me only makes me stronger." That's some beautiful shit to ponder when you're trying to push through a marathon. It's kind of a philosopher's version of "Just do it." But, it isn't really true. Ask the runner with a severely herniated disc if it only serves to make him stronger. One has to wonder if Pelosi might have suffered a political herniation trying to carry Murtha across the finish line. The Los Angeles Times certainly thinks so:

That embarrassing experience should induce Pelosi (D-San Francisco) — who appeared chastened before reporters Thursday — to reconsider another ill-advised promotion: Her apparent intention to bestow the chairmanship of the House Intelligence Committee not on the panel's ranking Democrat, Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice), but on Rep. Alcee L. Hastings (D-Fla.).

Hastings, like Murtha, seems an unlikely choice for a leadership role in what Pelosi has been advertising as "the most honest, the most open and the most ethical Congress in history." Hastings was impeached as a federal judge and removed from office in the late 1980s (although he was acquitted of bribery in a criminal trial in 1983).

Captain's Quarters comments:

After the vote yesterday, almost every Democrat went out of their way to say that the election of Hoyer did not indicate any damage to Pelosi's standing in the caucus. However, that simply won't fly. Even the NYT understood the significance of the revolt against Pelosi's purge; it shows that the back benchers will not fear Pelosi or her ham-handed threats to strip them of committee assignments. For a caucus with a slender majority, this disunified start portends a season of difficult whips, especially since she's hardly invincible to revolt.

The New York Times concurs:

Nancy Pelosi has managed to severely scar her leadership even before taking up the gavel as the new speaker of the House. First, she played politics with the leadership of the House Intelligence Committee to settle an old score and a new debt. And then she put herself in a lose-lose position by trying to force a badly tarnished ally, Representative John Murtha, on the incoming Democratic Congress as majority leader. The party caucus put a decisive end to that gambit yesterday ...

For my part, I say Pelosi is not permanently wounded. Her ability to unify the party will be defined, as it is for all leaders, by her response to opposition, from outside forces, on the major challenges of her time. There will always be internecine fighting over who deserves appointments, laurels, and credit. So, it is not at all surprising that the Democrats would have been working at cross-purposes on such a vote. This Democratic Congress will not define itself by such squabbles. Their history will be written according to their response to the War on Terror, and the social and economic issues of this epoch.

Having watched Republican unity wax and wane from the period right after Bush was elected, through September 11th, and then after the 2004 elections, we know that periods of harmony are like isolating a neutrino in a particle accelerator. You see its effects for a very brief period of time, before it disappears and shows up again somewhere else in a different time.

PHILANTHROPY EXPERT: CONSERVATIVES ARE MORE GENEROUS!

This isn't going to go over well at NPR:

SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Syracuse University professor Arthur C. Brooks is about to become the darling of the religious right in America -- and it's making him nervous. The child of academics, raised in a liberal household and educated in the liberal arts, Brooks has written a book that concludes religious conservatives donate far more money than secular liberals to all sorts of charitable activities, irrespective of income.

In the book, he cites extensive data analysis to demonstrate that values advocated by conservatives -- from church attendance and two-parent families to the Protestant work ethic and a distaste for government-funded social services -- make conservatives more generous than liberals. The book, titled "Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism" (Basic Books, $26), is due for release Nov. 24.

When it comes to helping the needy, Brooks writes: "For too long, liberals have been claiming they are the most virtuous members of American society. Although they usually give less to charity, they have nevertheless lambasted conservatives for their callousness in the face of social injustice."

Another popular misconception quashed. *******UPDATE - 10/18/06: Instapundit posted on this 18 hours after us. Not the first time you read it here first. SPREAD THE WORD!

FRED BARNES AGREES THAT PELOSI WON

On Brit Hume's Special Report, Fred Barnes had this to say about the Democrats' vote to elect Steny Hoyer as minority leader now, and majority leader for the next Congress:

FRED BARNES: On the Murtha thing, this was a win for Nancy Pelosi. . . . Just think if Murtha had won, and was actually the majority leader. Then, she would be in trouble. You know, Brit, as I said a couple nights ago, I thought the media was going to give Murtha a pass. Boy, was I wrong on that. The media has not done that at all, has brought up all the old, and some new, ethical charges against him, even more than the ones Charles mentioned. And, if Murtha were there as majority leader, this would be a continuing story day after day after day. And the whole leadership of the Democrats in the House would be bleeding.

You heard it here first. (Hat tip: The Corner.)

WHY "LIBEL TOURISM" IS A SERIOUS MATTER

Britain may be slowly sinking towards dhimmitude, but that doesn't mean we should allow certain of their unholy practices to determine the future of countries abroad.

Case in point: the heroic reporter Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld (photo to the left), author of Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed and How to Stop It, who was discriminated against by a British court that ruled in favor of the shady Saudi millionaire Khalid bin Mahfouz to try and suppress her ability to investigate his ties to terror. She's now suing in US court to prevent her work from being suppressed by what's come to be known as "libel tourism" in the UK. The problem lies within Britain's libel laws, which are much worse than those in France. Here's an item from The Boston Globe (via Protein Wisdom and Michelle Malkin), that gives some important info on just what Britain welcomes:

AN IMPORTANT question will be argued tomorrow before the federal Court of Appeals in Manhattan: should American journalists who write about controversial issues be subjected to legal intimidation from abroad? More precisely, will American courts halt the growing practice of "libel tourism" whereby wealthy foreigners sue American writers and publishers in England, despite little chance of enforcing the judgment in this country?

Rachel Ehrenfeld, an adviser to the Defense Department and director of the New York-based American Center for Democracy, pioneered investigation into the financial roots of terrorism, first in her 1990 book "Narcoterrorism" and, most recently, in "Funding Evil -- How Terrorism is Financed and How to Stop It." She argued, controversially, that dollars from drug traffickers, corrupt state leaders, and wealthy Arab financiers, especially Saudis, fund terrorism.

One target of Ehrenfeld's work is Saudi billionaire Khalid bin Mahfouz, former owner of the National Commercial Bank of Saudi Arabia and former chief operating officer of the scandal-ridden Bank of Credit and Commerce International. In 1992, he paid $225 million after his indictment in New York for his role in the collapse of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International.

In "Funding Evil," Ehrenfeld reported that bin Mahfouz deposited "tens of millions of dollars in London and New York directly into terrorist accounts" and transferred some $74 million to the International Islamic Relief Organization and the Muwafaq Foundation run by Yasin al-Qadi, a US-designated terrorist. [...]

Bin Mahfouz and fellow libel tourists have made the English libel bar rich, leading the London Times to declare the United Kingdom the "libel capital of the Western world." English lawyers now refer to the "Arab effect" to describe the surge of English libel actions by wealthy, non resident Arabs accused of funding terrorism. This trend has produced a succession of rulings, settlements, and damage awards against English and American media defendants costing millions of pounds.

Bin Mahfouz has sued or threatened suit in England 33 times against those who linked him to terrorism. He runs a website boasting of his victories. The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post all have settled with him. The English court enjoined publication of "Funding Evil" in Britain and awarded bin Mahfouz 60,000 pounds ($109,470), even though the merits of his allegations were never tried.

Rather than confront bin Mahfouz on England's libel-friendly turf, Ehrenfeld sued him in a New York federal court seeking a declaration that his English judgment is unenforceable in the United States as repugnant to the First Amendment.

The English judgment has impaired her ability to find publishers for her other work. Remarkably, the district court dismissed her case, ruling in effect that Ehrenfeld must await legal action in the United States by bin Mahfouz to enforce the English judgment before raising her First Amendment defense. However, his lawyers have declared he does not intend to enforce his judgment in this country.

Writers are now subject to intimidation by libel tourists. Little wonder that the American Society of Newspaper Editors, the Association of American Publishers, and 14 other media groups have filed a "friend of the court" brief to support Ehrenfeld's quest to raise her First Amendment defense now. Until she is able to do so, she will have problems finding American publishers willing to risk publishing her research and writing.

I think I can tell what the problem is here. Britain may be threatening to prosecute or fine American publishers working in the UK who publish the works of people whom they don't agree with. But whatever exactly the problem is, here's what I have to say: even if a UK ruling cannot be enforced within the US, that doesn't mean that Americans should tolerate Britain's attempts to extend both theirs and Saudi Arabia's shari'a overseas. There's a reason why the Pilgrims left Britain and journeyed to the north American shores. Back in May, FPM reported that the Southern District Court in Manhattan dismissed the case:

RELIAPUNDIT ADDS: CONTINUE READING MORE ON THIS IMPORTANT SUBJECT HERE.

RTWT.

HIS RAMADAN CHARITY WAS MURDER ON THEM

As reported in The Australian, the man who masterminded the decapitation of three innocent Christian schoolgirls in Poso, on the island Sulawesi, in the Indonesian archipelago, says he wanted to do something appropriate for the holy month of Ramadan.

Javanese trader Hasanuddin appeared in Jakarta Central Court yesterday charged with planning and directing the murders in October last year. He faces a death sentence if found guilty under anti-terrorism legislation.

Hasanuddin allegedly returned from a visit to members of Philippines Islamist group the Moro Islamic Liberation Front with tales of how that organisation regularly staged bombings to coincide with Lebaran, the festival that ends the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. He later spoke with a preacher in Poso, Central Sulawesi, about whether such a plan could work in Indonesia, but expressed doubt about whether it was appropriate. However, after further discussion with friends, he decided that beheading Christians could qualify as an act of Muslim charity.

Conscripting several accomplices at a local pesantren, or Islamic school, he directed one of them, Lilik Purnomo, to seek out "the head of a Christian", prosecutors alleged. "It would be a great Lebaran trophy if we got a Christian. Go search for the best place for us to find one," Hasanuddin allegedly ordered his companion.

Poso is a town that has been wracked by many years of intercommunal violence. Just this past September 22, three Catholic men (Fabianus Tibo, Dominggus da Silva, and Marianus Riwu) who had defended their community and who had been convicted of participating in retaliatory attacks on Muslims in the year 2000 were executed by firing squad. No Muslims were ever prosecuted for any of the violence that went on in the 1998-2000 period. A Protestant Pastor (the Reverend Irianto Kongkoli) who had spoken out on behalf of the three executed Catholics was himself murdered by Islamist extremists on October 17.

Reliapundit adds: When under lethal attack it is often benefical to one's chances at survival to fight back. Yet, so many in of our civilization have failed to fight back at all. Many choose not to fight back because they are in deep denial fueled by fear and a desire to believe that "humanity" has moved beyond the eras of religious wars. This cannot be true as long as our enemy believes THEY are fighting a 1400 year old religious war against us. A war which will end ONLY with their defeat. Or ours. For our descendents' sake, I hope we win. Soon.

RICE CONTINUES HER SLIDE INTO THE STATE DEPARTMENT'S AMORAL MORASS

ASIAN TRIB:

The United States has "an excellent relationship" with Indonesian President Yudhoyono and his government, the Secretary said. "We are very pleased with our relationship on the war on terror." Although the Bush administration has made "difficult decisions" in the war on terror that have not been popular in some Muslim-majority countries, the United States has "enormous respect" for the Islamic faith, Rice said. "We share Muslim values because they’re part of our own," the secretary said. Americans care about their families, and they are people of faith, Rice said. Indonesia, she said, is another example of "a multi-ethnic, multi-religious state, where people live in peace and harmony and in a democracy."

Sheesh. She's not being diplomatic; she's pandering to a regime which is at least as duplicitous as Pakistan's, and which has been a dubious partner in the GWOT. On the heels of pandering to Arabs. (More here.)

WHERE'S REAGAN WHEN WE NEED HIM!? Reagan was right when told Gorby to tear down the wall. We need a POTUS and a Secretary of State with the same courage.

(BTW: Indonesia was just fined by the Int'l tennis federation for withdrawing from a sceduled tennis match versus Israel. The USA has tolerated this kind of duplicity and moral ambiguity from so-called allies like Indonesia for way too long. Maybe President Giuliani will be braver?)

SEGOLENE ROYAL WINS NOMINATION FROM FRENCH SOCIALIST PARTY

BBC:

Segolene Royal will be the French Socialists presidential candidate at elections next year, after a clear victory over two rivals in a vote. The 53-year-old hopes to become France's first woman leader. She beat former Finance Minister Dominique Strauss-Kahn and ex-Prime Minister Laurent Fabius without needing a second round of voting.

She did this despite doing terribly in all SIX debates. YUP: most observers say she finished third - that is LAST - in ALL SIX! She sucked BIGTIME! So... why'd she win the nod!? IMHO, she won because the French Left is like the Left everywhere else: since the collapse of the USSR, and the ascendancy of formerly socialist countries which have adopted free markets - all the Left has left is identity politics and the exaltation of victimhood. More here. (BTW: she is the un-married mother of four; she has a "domestic partner" - who's another leader in the Party)

If elected whe will become the least experienced chief executive of any major nation in Europe.

ALSO: I think she won because her two main rivals - Dominique Straus-Kahn and Laurnet Fabius - are JEWISH, and the French Left - like the Left everywhere else - is the 2nd home of anti-Semitism; (the first home is Islam. Proof of this is the fact that Jospin lost his bid to become president because - just before the campaign began, and while travelling in Israel - he called Hizballah a terrorist group. This led to an outcry from comrades and the splintering of the Left and his third place finish.)

If elected, Segolene will become the least experienced chief exec of any European nation. But perhaps the cutest. I think - and hope and pray - that Sarkozy defeats her. Not just for the sake France, but for the sake of the entire West. France must turnback the creeping islamization of her nation. Time is running out... More HERE. AND NOW HERE, TOO.

A WESTERN, SMALL-TOWN RURAL PEACE OFFICER

From, THE LAW DOG:

To me, law enforcement is tracking an Alzheimer’s patient for four hours through the boonies after he wandered away from home; answering a 911 call because a rattlesnake is about to eat a nest full of baby birds; and scaring off ghosts because the lady of the house lost her husband ten years ago, her children live out of state, and you are the only outside contact she gets.

Read The Whole Thing.

THIS FRENCHMAN SHOULD BE LAUDED AS A HERO

And so should Nicholas Sarkozy for helping him win an acquittal. Rene Dahan, a businessman who acted in self-defense and was arrested for it, got some help from Sarkozy when the latter intervened to get him released from jail and the charges dropped. From these two articles from Le Figaro (via Gallia Watch and the Jawa Report):

On October 27, at 9:00 A.M. René Dahan, a businessman from Nogent-sur-Marne, was attacked by three hooded criminals as he was getting ready to leave his home. Threatened with a magnum 357, he was struck on the head before managing to wrest the weapon from one of the intruders, who was attempting to strangle him, while his companions were tying up Mrs. Dahan. After firing one bullet that hit the ceiling, Dahan fired three more times, hitting the burglar who stumbled and fell out the window. He died shortly thereafter.

René Dahan was arrested for voluntary homicide and placed in the detention center at Fleury-Mérogis. Dahan's lawyer, Marie-Alix Canu-Bernard said he was "stunned. He's just an average citizen who suddenly finds himself behind bars." Dahan's brother Jean exclaimed: "Are you guilty for defending yourself? When you are the victim the only right you have is to die."

Now it appears that Nicolas Sarkozy has intervened to have Dahan released from prison. Chantal Dahan, the victim's wife, made the following statement: "It's the end of a nightmare that began with that terrible attack. My husband reacted heroically, legitimately defending himself. In this situation, we understand why there is an inquiry, but I am shocked that the judge ordered René's incarceration."

Pascal Clement, the Minister of Justice (known as the Keeper of the Seals), indicated that the "deeds attributed to René Dahan do not seem to conform to the notion of self-defense."

Be careful of Clement. He's clearly a very bad moonbat whose only idea of how to deal with violent criminals is to let them murder you. See also at No-Pasaran.

DON'T LET PELOSI FOOL YOU, SHE JUST WON BIGTIME

If the G.O.P thinks that Nancy Pelosi just took a drubbing from the moderate wing of the Democrat Party, they had better think again, and fast.

Nancy Pelosi may play the ultra-liberal lefty for her fans in Frisco, but she was schooled in the nitty gritty and down & dirty of politics played for keeps by her father, Tommy D'Alesandro, U.S. Representative, Mayor of Baltimore, and highly accomplished big city boss. Her brother, "Tommy the Younger," was also a Baltimore Mayor.

She came out in public and wrote a letter endorsing Representative John Murtha, but she will continue to be working with Representative Steny Hoyer, who was elected minority whip today.

In one stroke she paid off an old debt to her partner-in-pork and threw a bone to the leftist nutroots in the Democrat Party, without being saddled with the nearly senile Murtha in the incoming Congress. Murtha's ethical shortcomings will fade from the news, and the Pelosi-Hoyer team will continue to operate as it has over the past few years.

Since the Democrats in the caucus knew all along that she didn't really want Murtha, they know this is no defeat, and it won't impair her leadership at all. It's the whip who enforces party discipline, anyway.

Reliapundit adds - FWIW:

You have to know about mayor Tom "Big Tommy" D'Alesandro, who ran the city with all the care and attention that Vito Corleoni gave his olive oil business. I mean...I won't say that Big Tommy was mobbed up or anything, but he when I say he ran the city, I mean he "ran the city." So much so that when his son, Tommy III, was arrested for rape, Big Tommy not only got the investigation shut down, but later helped the kid get elected to replace him as mayor.

She's a pol' like her ol' man was a po'l... More HERE.

BIRDS OF A FEATHER - PART 25: ASSAD AND KIM JONG IL

KCNA: Kim Jong Il Greets Syrian President

Pyongyang, November 15 (KCNA) -- General Secretary Kim Jong Il sent a message of greetings to Bashar Al-Assad, President of Syria and regional secretary of the Arab Socialist Baath Party, Wednesday on the occasion of the 36th anniversary of the corrective movement in Syria. The message said:

The corrective movement marked a historic event as it brought about a turning point in the efforts to achieve independent development and prosperity in Syria. Availing myself of this opportunity, I extend firm solidarity to the friendly Syrian government and people in their just struggle for protecting the sovereignty of the country and the dignity of the nation and achieving regional peace and stability, while resolutely standing against the ceaseless pressure and challenges of the hostile forces, and sincerely wish your people new progress and prosperity.

Two Leftist tyrants exchanging a hug. How sweet. Did Hugo and Jimmy and Nancy send greetings, too? They might as well. (I bet Pelosi thinks her appproaching ascension to Speaker will be a corrective movement, too. And - in the Assadian/Baathist sense - she wouldn't be wrong, either! Heh.)

KUCINICH vs ABIZAID, ZINNI, & BATISTE: ROUND ONE

In a Senate hearing earlier today, as reported in the New York Times, General John Abizaid, who runs CENTCOM said Wednesday that to begin a significant troop withdrawal from Iraq over the next six months would lead to an increase in sectarian killings and hamper efforts to persuade the Iraqi government to make the difficult decisions needed to secure the country.

He indicated that he even favored increasing the number of American soldiers in Iraq, so as to provide more trainers for the re-building Iraqi Armed Forces. He was joined in his opinion by the two generals who run the biggest intelligence operations we have:

In their testimony Wednesday, Gen. Michael V. Hayden, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and Lt. Gen. Michael D. Maples, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said they agreed with General Abizaid that American forces were one of the few elements keeping a lid on violence in Iraq and that withdrawing troops would only increase sectarian violence.

And similar comments from two of the Democrats' favorite members of the Retired-Generals'-Iraq-War-Critic-and-CNN-Pundit-Club were also reported by the Times:

Anthony C. Zinni, the former head of the United States Central Command and one of the retired generals who called for the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, argued that any substantial reduction of American forces over the next several months would be more likely to accelerate the slide to civil war than stop it. [And,] John Batiste, a retired Army major general who also joined in the call for Mr. Rumsfeld’s resignation, described the Congressional proposals for troop withdrawals as “terribly naïve.”

But that hasn't scared off the Democrat doves of Congress. Dennis Kucinich (Dumb, Ohio) called today for cutting off funding for the war in Iraq immediately:

"We have to determine that the time has come to cut off funds. There’s enough money in the pipeline to achieve the orderly withdrawal that Senator McGovern is talking about. But cut off funds, we must. That's the ultimate power of the Congress, the power of the purse. That's how we'll end this war, and that’s the only way we’re going to end this war."

Well, it worked before. That's exactly how the Democrats in Congress tied up South Vietnam in a bow and delivered it to their hero Ho Chi Minh 31 years ago. The result: mass murders, re-education camps, a Vietnamese invasion of China, three million refugees who fled the country in sampans, and 31 more years of poverty and tyranny in South Vietnam itself.

I hope that the American people will see through the Democrats plans this time, and prevent them from delivering another free nation to a brutal tyranny. (By the way: do you think it's interesting that the Times is front-paging big stories about Generals who oppose the Democrats' plans only after the election?) MORE HERE; complete round up HERE.

*******UPDATE: Reliapundit adds: Check out this comparison of Democrat dove Dennis Kucinich and General John Abizaid!

DEMOGRAPHY, IMMIGRATION, AND THIRD WORLD POVERTY

Our motto is "prosperity is the by-product of liberty." And that's why, to end Third World poverty, we need to get them to adopt democracy, transparency, the rule of law, industrialization and more free trade. Expanding immigration and international aid/welfare will not help them - nor will more socialism, (that's merely the road to serfdom).

HERE'S PROOF IMPROPERLY REGULATED IMMIGRATON TO THE USA HURTS US AND DOES NOTHING FOR THE IMPOVERISHED THIRD WORLD. (Video!)

SOMATIC (NOT EMBRYONIC) STEM CELLS CURE MUSCULAR DYSTROPHY IN DOGS

Despite all the hype about embryonic stem cell research from the Democrats and the main-cloaca-media, it is somatic stem cell research that is providing hope for medical breakthroughs.

In Italy, a team of scientists at the San Raffaele Scientific Institute of Milan report the successful treatment of a genetic form of muscular dystrophy in Golden Retrievers with somatic stem cells derived from normal circulating cells.

Working with the University of Pavia and the Veterinarian School of Macon Alfort in Paris, Prof Cossu's team transplanted cells called mesoangioblasts — stem cells gathered from small blood vessels in muscle — that are programmed to develop into muscle cells.

The cells came from healthy dogs and were multiplied in the laboratory to sufficient quantities. These were injected into the blood stream of dogs with the disease and their immune systems were suppressed to stop the stem cells from being rejected.

These were not embryonic stem cells, and the adult dog donors were not permanently injured in any way.

Dr Peter Wigmore, of Nottingham University, said: "The importance of this result is not only in providing a potential cure for a currently incurable condition but also in the use of relatively easy to isolate adult stem cells.

"The use of these cells avoids the controversial use of embryonic or foetal stem cells. In addition, the relatively easy delivery of these cells via the blood stream makes this a viable method to treat humans."

As in this case, most of the successful research involving stem cells to date has involved somatic stem cells, not embryonic stem cells.

WE CAN END JIHADISM BY ENDING ISLAMO-MISOGYNY

Jihadists aren't born; they're trained. In mosques and madrassas and first and foremost in the home. The home is the primary place a child is soclialized and learns the expected and acceptable norms of behavior.

Many Arab and Muslim homes are ones in which there is rampant misogyny - evidenced by SANCTIONED honor-killings, wife-beatings, forced marriage (often consanguinous), and polygamy. (Today's installment of the continuing horrors of being a woman under Islam HERE - via Prairie Pundit. Another horrific case of honor killing HERE.)

If a boy learns in his home that it is okay for his father to beat his mother (and his half-brother's mothers, too), and kill his sisters - his own flesh and blood, members of his own race and believers in his own creed, then OF COURSE he is going to think it's just fine'n dandy to commit terror against infidels.

The civilized world should unite and demand that all nations enact and enforce laws which end these barbaric practices. Nations which don't should be shunned, and banned from the UN and prevented from getting any benefical loans or trade arrangements. We should no more accept nations which permit these dehumanizing practices, then accept nations which permit SLAVERY!

Fostering democracy, transparency, and free markets is one way to end to the alienation, the ignorance and poverty under which islamism thrives, but democratization will fail as long as these nations are permitted to continue to raise dysfunctional men in dysfunctional homes ruled by these barbaric practices. MORE HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE.

THE DEM/LEFT SHOWS SOME FIGHT - internecine that is...

As a conservative, I'm glad when the Left eats its own - as they're now doing in the House, (because Pelosi wants to install her pork-buddy and dove-appeasing fellow-traveller Murtha as Majority Leader).

Wouldn't it be nice if the Dem/Left showed HALF as much fight against the jihadists? (I would never expect them to be able to hate the jihadists 1/10th the amount they hate Bush; that would be asking for too too too too TOO to much!)

(Of course, we shouldn't be shocked by the internecine struggle on the American Left - the Left've specialized in this forever, nearly everywhere: Stalin versus Trotsky; Hitler versus Stalin; the Spanish Civlil War; even within the ACLU over the decades. AND YEAH, HITLER WAS A LEFTIST: Nazi is an abbreviation of National SOCIALIST Workers Party. Hitler was a socialist - though not a MARXIST SOCIALIST.)

GAZAN ROCKET ATTACKS ON SDEROT CLAIM FIRST VICTIM SINCE "DISENGAGEMENT"

The result of not taking enough serious action against the jihadoterrorists in Gaza:

A 17-year-old Sderot resident sustained serious injuries and three others were lightly wounded in a Qassam attack on the western Negev town Wednesday evening, the local municipality said. The rocket landed in the city center, causing damage to buildings in the area; residents were asked to remain indoors. Six rockets were fired from the northern Gaza Strip at the Western Negev Wednesday morning, and two of them landed in the town of Sderot.

One of the rockets hit a busy street in town, killing a 57 year old woman and seriously wounding a 24 year old man, one of the Defense Minister Amir Peretz's bodyguards who was on duty at the time. Peretz resides near the street where the rocket landed. Six other suffered from shock. Magen David Adom ambulance crews evacuated the casualties to the Barzilai hospital in Ashkelon. The bodyguard lost both his legs from shrapnel and is currently still in surgery. Achlama Peretz, Defense Minister Amir Peretz's wife, phoned his family to offer any help she could provide.

Thanks to his incompetence, Peretz has cost even one of his own employees the use of his legs. There was a poll today in the free Hebrew language daily Yisraeli that told that 62% of the Israeli public feel that the Gen. chief of staff, Dan Halutz, who also shares some responsibility, should resign, and sizable percentages also felt the same about Ehud Olmert and Peretz.

THE JEWISH FACE OF "AL JAZEERA ENGLISH"

Al Jazeera broadcasts right here in the United States, 24/7, with Dave Marash as the Washington-based anchor. From the November 15, 2006 Washington Post's "Al Jazeera's U.S. Face":

...In February, [Dave] Marash, a lifelong broadcast newsman, became the Washington-based anchor of Al Jazeera English (AJE), the English-language spinoff of the Arabic TV news network. When AJE begins its first globe-spanning broadcast today, Marash will be its most prominent American face. Embedded in "why," however, are two other questions: How can an American work for an operation affiliated with al-Jazeera, which achieved notoriety -- and to some, infamy -- by airing video communiques from Osama bin Laden, images of dead American soldiers and routine denunciations of the United States? Moreover, how could Marash, who is Jewish, work for an organization that has provided a platform for Holocaust denial and hate speech against Israel, Zionism and Judaism?

But Marash -- affable, burly and possessed of gloriously resonant voice -- seems almost delighted to be on the defensive. His short, glib answer: He was out of a job. AJE came calling shortly after Marash was let go by ABC News almost a year ago. Marash, 64, had spent a decade and a half as a globe-trotting reporter for "Nightline" and as a sometime substitute host for Ted Koppel (before that, Marash was an anchor at Washington's Channel 4)....

Marash says...that al-Jazeera is little understood, and frequently misunderstood, in the West.... Al-Jazeera, he says, "has consistently offered a window of opportunity for Israel and Israeli citizens to speak to the Arab world. There is no contradiction between Judaism and al-Jazeera. As a Jew, I have always wished for and worked toward peace and civility in the Palestinian territories and Israel."...

Cliff Kincaid of Accuracy in Media has a different take and points out the following:

Al-Jazeera journalist Tayseer Allouni last year was convicted in Spain of collaborating with al-Qaeda; and al-Jazeera cameraman Sami al-Hajj was arrested by U.S. forces in Afghanistan in 2001 and has been held at Guantanamo Bay. (Al-Jazeera says the two men are innocent.)

"We haven't seen any evidence that tells us that [AJE] will be significantly different than al-Jazeera in Arabic," Kincaid says. "It's sponsored by the same people, paid for by the same people and has the same editorial philosophy."

Kincaid all but says Marash is a dupe: "The emir has plenty of Arab oil dollars to buy anyone he wants. They need Western media faces to give them credibility."

PELOSI AND THE IRANIAN NUCLEAR THREAT

According to news reports, Iran is pushing ahead with its uranium enrichment program, and "unexplained" traces of plutonium and weapons-grade uranium have been found in an Iranian nuclear waste dump. Meanwhile, according to the Guardian (not exactly a right-wing neo-con house organ),

British intelligence officials believe that al-Qaida is determined to attack the UK with a nuclear weapon, it emerged yesterday. The announcement, from an officially organised Foreign Office counter-terrorism briefing for the media, was the latest in a series of bleak assessments by senior officials and ministers about the terrorist threat facing Britain.

And in case you still believe there's no connection between the fanatical Shi'ite Iranian Mullahcracy and the fanatical Sunni Al Qaeda crazies, Con Coughlin reports in the Telegraph that

According to recent reports received by Western intelligence agencies, the Iranians are training senior al-Qa'eda operatives in Teheran to take over the organisation when bin Laden is no longer leader.

And the Iranians will be able to supply Al Qaeda with the fissionable material needed for either a dirty bomb or a thermonuclear warhead. The Iranians are already supplying weapons to terrorists in Iraq. Meanwhile, here in the Homeland, the Democrats are embroiled in a leadership struggle, with Nancy Pelosi fighting to install her partner in pork, Jack Murtha, as House majority leader. And the public is beginning to realize, as shown in the latest AP-IPSOS poll, that the Democrats have no plan when it comes to the war in Iraq.

Fifty-seven percent of all adults in the AP-Ipsos poll said Democrats do not have a plan for Iraq; 29 percent said they do. The poll of 1,002 adults has a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

The Democrats do have a plan, however, to dismantle the Patriot Act, to reward terrorists with the Constitutional rights of American citizens, and to shut down surveillance of Al Qaeda networks. On top of that, their nutroots base is now actuially actively promoting Iran as a socialist paradise, and - sadly - we are sure to hear more plans for their appeasement from the Democrat leadership.

THE GYPSIES OF GAZA

Did you know that there are Gypsies living in the Gaza strip? Neither did I! But as this AFP article I found shows, there really are some Gypsies who live in this area, and unfortunately, they're being persecuted:

GAZA CITY (AFP) - Seated on her doorstep in a neighborhood in Gaza City, Narem puffs discontentedly on her cigarette, then sighs: "We used to be dancers and singers. Now we are nothing."

In Europe, they are called Gypsies or Roma. In Gaza, they are called the Nawar, a people with an ancestral tradition of song and dance who have been scattered for centuries throughout the Middle East. But here, the rise of Islamist doctrine that accompanied the start of the second Palestinian uprising six years ago has sounded the death knoll for the Nawar way of life, pushed them into begging, and rendered them second-class citizens in a society regulated more and more by rigid rules.

"Our life was among the best. We wore the most beautiful dresses, we ate the best dishes. We sang Um Kalsum, Abdel Halim Hafez during marriages and celebrations. We were free," says Narem, 35, quickly throwing a scarf to cover her dark, flowing hair whenever a car passes.

"We didn´t learn in schools, but in the home. With us, you begin to sing and dance while still a child," she says. "My mother danced, my grandmother before her, and my great-grandmother also." For decades, the Nawar wandered from city to town in the Gaza Strip and the wider Middle East, showing off their singing and dancing. Fatima, 49, was a singer. "We went from city to city, to Rafah, Khan Yunis, Jabaliya. We would set up tents and would play the oud and the drums. Some of us wandered as far as Egypt, Syria and Jordan," Fatima sighs. "Life was as sweet as honey," she whispers, raising her eyes toward the sky.

This being from the AFP, it's not surprising that a bias can be found in here:

The establishment of the Palestinian Authority in 1994, following the Oslo peace accords between the Israelis and Palestinians, made it even sweeter. Buoyed by the belief that they would soon get their own state, the Palestinians were in the mood for celebrating. "With the arrival of the Palestinian Authority, clubs were constructed on the sea shore. There was the Sunset, the Baida," says Sheikh Abu Mohammed, the patriarch of Gaza´s Nawar quarter.

Is this some sort of a PLO spokesperson who's quoted here? And are they trying to lump the Gypsies in with the Muslims? That sugary talk about nightclubs is certainly exaggerated or totally false, since after the PLO first took over, poverty soon took over, much more than beforehand. I wouldn't be surprised if the AFP did take it out of context.

But the eruption of the second Palestinian uprising in September 2000 led by the Islamist Hamas movement -- changed all that. "The extremists burned and closed all the clubs. They said it was ´haram,´ ´forbidden´ that girls dance and sing," Abu Mohammed says, dressed in his worn, faded long robe. [...] After the start of the second intifada, cinemas in Gaza were shut or burnt down, sale of alcohol banned, bathing suits on the beaches replaced by long-sleeved shirts and pants, and Nawar performances no longer welcomed. [...] Today the Nawar in Gaza live under the eye of a society that despises them at a time when violence and death have replaced celebrations.

It certainly is sad that they're living under the kind of oppression they are, and which may have gone on for much more time than the article implies.

ANGLICAN BISHOP CALLS FOR EUTHANASIA OF NEWBORNS

According to the Daily Mail, at least some Britons are reacting with outrage to reports that a prominent Anglican Bishop has called for euthanasia of sick newborn babies. The headline is admittedly inflammatory:

Outrage as Church backs calls for severely disabled babies to be killed at birth

and also incorrect, since according to the article, the Bishop of Southwark, the Right Reverend Tom Butler, didn't call for babies to be killed, but merely that sick babies be left to die on their own without attempts at medical treatment:

The Church of England has broken with tradition dogma by calling for doctors to be allowed to let sick newborn babies die.

The Right Reverend Bishop wrote an official Church of England paper "for a public inquiry into the ethical issues surrounding the care of long premature or desperately ill newborn babies." Evidently the Right Reverend Bishop has become a better socialist than a Pastor, since he is now more concerned with the "common good" than with the fate of an individual human being:

And the Bishop of Southwark, Tom Butler, who is the vice chair of the Church of England's Mission and Public Affairs Council, has also argued that the high financial cost of keeping desperately ill babies alive should be a factor in life or death decisions.

What is interesting, and encouraging, in the article, is the fact that spokesmen for disabled Britons are taking up their rhetorical cudgels and opposing Britain's slide into a moral abyss:

A spokeswoman for the UK Disabled People's Council, which represents tens of thousands of members in 140 different organisations, said: "How can the Church of England say that Christian compassion includes killing of disabled babies either through the withdrawing or withholding of treatment or by active euthanasia? It is not for doctors or indeed anyone else to determine whether a baby’s life is worthwhile simply on the grounds of impairment or health condition."

We saw a similar phenomenon during Mrs. Schiavo's agony: courageous disabled Americans saw her demise at the hands of her estranged husband, his lawyers, and the Courts as a thinkly veiled threat against their lives. According to the Church of England:

"The principle of justice inevitably means that the potential cost of treatment itself, the longer term costs of health care and education and opportunity cost to the NHS in terms of saving other lives have to be considered."

That seems a very radical departure from the lesson that the Bible imparted by informing us that the human race had its essential origin in the creation of a single human life.

When the Church of England joins forces with philosophers who advocate infanticide, even if at the present time it advocates only passive rather than active euthanasia, it has slid very far down the slippery slope towards "the horrible Stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomlesse."

COURAGE: SNEH ONCE AGAIN SPEAKS THE TRUTH EVEN WHEN IT'S NOT POLITCALLY CORRECT

VIA CLARITY & RESOLVE:

Deputy Defense Minister Sneh (Labor) evoked a storm of protest from Arab MKs by saying, "If we kill civilians, we accept blame, but when you kill civilians, you take credit; it's a cultural thing."

HE'S RIGHT: The GWOT is being fought by 2 perennial foes: One is mired in the culture of extortion, murder, terror, beheadings and pathological misogyny, and the other is the civilized Judeo-Christian West. Only one culture, one set of values will survive. Which one do you want your descendents living in and living by!?

RTWT. (BTW: Last week Sneh - who besides being the DDM is a retired Brigadier General and an MD - reiterated that Israel was prepared to attack Iran - IF that's what it comes down to. HE'S ON A ROLL! RIGHT ON! KEEP FIGHTIN' BABY!)

How Nuclear Weapons Have Contributed Greatly To The Evil In Our Modern World

My title seems trite and silly to us, a generation of people who grew up hearing such platitudes as, "You can't hug children with nuclear arms." In light of the enormous destructive potential of even one nuclear warhead, my title seems to be trading in the obvious. Of course nuclear weapons have brought great evil into the world. After all, one nuclear bomb ruined Hiroshima's whole day - for decades. But, I am not merely saying nukes have brought evil into the world. I'm saying nuclear weapons allow evil to flourish, to grow larger, to have more impact.

Today, I heard military expert Max Boot, on the Dennis Prager radio show, make the very dubious claim that the atomic bomb has not had much impact on modern warfare. The evidence is very much to the contrary.

Nuclear weapons, because they allow for the strategy of Mutually Assured Destruction, have in the past ensured that the major powers, and those that generate the favored ideologies will never go up against each other directly. In the days of World War II, when Germany threatened England or Russia, when the ideologies of the various sides came to a head, those powers and ideologies went to war with each other.

This is an advantage to the world, because the stronger ideology, the one which provides the individual with the strongest raison d'etre, invariably wins. To put it simply, Communism and Democracy beat Nazism because Nazism was at most, a regional ideology, catering only to a very specific kind of fascism; white supremacism. Democracy and Communism, on the other hand, provided meaning on a universal level, which of course, left them the two standing powers in the aftermath of WWII.

However, because of nuclear weapons, the Soviet Union and the United States were unable to square off and fight each other for dominance. The result was that both powers fought each other using proxies. The Soviet Union used Ho Chi Minh and the North Vietnamese people to fight the United States. The United States used people like Osama Bin Laden to fight against the Soviet troops in Afghanistan.

The result was the Cold War; a war which lasted almost four decades. Sure, we managed to avoid direct armed conflict with the Soviet Union, and thus, the inevitable use of nuclear weapons. And yes, that is a good thing. Meanwhile though, great evil was allowed to flourish during those four decades, and it manifested in multiple genocides, wars, and the occupation and subjugation of Eastern Europe. Hundreds of millions of people had their lives squandered in the resulting psychological Holocaust which naturally flows from Communist dictatorship.

And, all this was because of the simple fact that the two powers found themselves incapable of squaring off against each other directly.

One of the major complaints about the execution of the Viet Nam war was that "we fought with one arm tied behind our back. This is another consequence of the military superiority which we have developed. To put it simply, we believe that it would be unfair to hit the enemy with anything near the full-force of our military capabilities. Once again, the result of this is that we allow great evil to flourish and grow. The Cambodian genocide most certainly was the result of our refusal to fight the Vietnam War with the full-force of our military.

Today, we are making the same mistake in the "War on Terror". In fact, I would contend that the very name "The War on Terror" stems from a refusal to confront our enemy, because of the potential resulting consequences. If we were to actually name the enemy in this war, then we would have to truly confront the apocalyptic ideology of the enemy, and we would recognize that we had to destroy them, no matter what. To truly recognize this enemy, Islamofascism, is to understand that there is no victory but by the complete obliteration or humiliation of every last person who subscribes to its ideology. There is no potential for compromise. There are no talking points for negotiation. There is no hope for growing a partnership.

This war will only be won when we have become so desperate that we will do anything.

MUST SEE GOP-TV: REAGAN, PENCE AND SHADEGG

WATCH IT. Or read this.

HAMAS DOESN'T LIE!!!!

And they say they will not recognize Israel! So how can anyone negotiate for peace with a party that does not recognize your right to be at the table? Sadly the only option is more violence and bloodshed.

CONFESSIONS IN YEMENI AL QAEDA CASE

If you have read previous posts at TAB you are familiar with the 7 individuals of various nationalities arrested for smuggling arms into Somalia. Well today all 7 have confessed.

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK ACCUSES BBC OF ANTI-CHRISTIAN BIAS

According to this story in today's Daily Telegraph:

The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, has accused the BBC of bias against Christianity and says the broadcaster fears a terrorist backlash if it is critical of Islam.

The archbishop, the second most senior figure in the Church of England's hierarchy, said Christians took "more knocks" than other faiths at the hands of the BBC.

"They can do to us what they dare not do to the Muslims," he said. "We are fair game because they can get away with it. We don't go down there and say, 'We are going to bomb your place.' That is not in our nature."

Read the whole thing. Reliapundit adds: He is saying - implicitly - that responding to insults with violence IS the nature of Islam. And I agree. I think his comments fall short in one aspect: It's not merely fearlessness which motivates the BBC and their comrades on the Left; their attacks on Christianity are fuled by a central and fervently held core belief of post modern Leftism: the belief that Judeo-Christianity and the West are evil. This is one reason they are natural allies of the enemy and a Fifth Column. (Another is their mutually held belief in the superiority of statism and elitism over individualism and the free market.)

PROOF THAT SHIAS AND SUNNIS CAN WORK TOGETHER

According to intelligence reports described in an interesting article in today's Daily Telegraph, "the Iranians are training senior al-Qa'eda operatives in Teheran to take over the organisation when bin Laden is no longer leader."

Western intelligence officials now believe that Iran is trying to cultivate a new generation of al-Qa'eda leaders who will be prepared to work closely with Teheran when they eventually take control.

Recent intelligence reports from Iran suggest the Iranians are particularly keen to promote Saif-al-Adel, a notorious al-Qa'eda operative who is wanted in the United States for his alleged role in training several of the September 11 hijackers.

Al-Adel, 46, a former colonel in Egypt's special forces who joined al-Qa'eda after fighting with the Mujahideen against Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s, was named in the FBI's list of 22 most wanted terrorists that was issued after the September 11 attacks.

United by their common plans to subjugate and dominate the West, Shia and Sunni terrorists have repeatedly found common ground. Here's only the latest example.

THE NYTIMES: STILL LYING ABOUT VIETNAM - and everything else...

JJ MILLER/NRO:

In the NYT story about the House's failure to extend permanent normal trade relations to Vietnam (under special rules, a two-thirds vote was required), reporter Steven Weisman writes:

It is not clear whether the preliminary defeat was spurred by anti-trade sentiment or lingering sentiment against Vietnam, which many conservatives still regard as an enemy three decades after the end of a war in which tens of thousands of Americans died.

I know a lot of conservatives who are critical of Vietnam's human-rights abuses and its command-and-control economy, but I don't know any who "still regard it as an enemy." And if you look at the actual roll call of the vote, most of the House conservatives who aren't also protectionists—Hensarling, Pence, Shadegg, Ryan, etc.—voted in favor of the bill. What's more, whereas two-thirds of Republicans supported the measure, a majority of Democrats opposed it.

So what we have here is a pretty sweeping statement about how conservatives view the world, but one that isn't backed up at all in the article and which appears to be factually wrong when you look at the vote.

The NYTimes reporter and editor are either too lazy to check the actual rollcall; or couldn't be bothered to check the facts since their Leftist agenda - which predetermines their predictably anti-conservative spin on things - is metaphysically superior to reality. Or they know the truth, but deliberately LIE. I think it's all three: The NYTimes: a bunch of lazy, Leftist, lying scum.

SENATOR MEL MARTINEZ TABBED AS NEW RNC CHAIR

Another GOP fumble. News just breaking that Florida Senator Mel Martinez is going to be the next RNC Chairman. Bad choice in my book. I think he's been a mediocre Senator at best. It wouldn't be so bad if he were quitting the Senate and Governor Crist appointed Jeb Bush to his seat, but he's going to do both jobs apparently. The last RNC Chairman to hold down an elected office at the same time was former Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore and his tenure was pretty lame. I don't know about the rest of the gang at TAB, but I'm not liking this pick too much.

ASTUTE READER ALERT

We posted LOTS of interesting stuff yesterday. Please scroll down...

US JEWISH GROUPS FAIL TO ADEQUATELY SUPPORT ISRAELI JEWS

In a recent report by WorldNetDaily, we find out that mainstream Jewish organizations in the US have refused aid to Jews expelled from their homes in Gaza:

JERUSALEM – Mainstream American Jewish groups largely have refused to aid the thousands of Jews evacuated last summer from the Gaza Strip, the majority of whom, fifteen months later, are unemployed, and none of whom received permanent housing promised by the Israeli government, WND has learned.

The former Gaza residents have appealed for help multiple times to major Jewish organizations in the U.S. but say they were mostly rejected.

Meanwhile, the U.S. groups, most of which supported Israel's withdrawal from Gaza, raised over $300 million for northern Israeli communities battered by Hezbollah rocket fire in July and August, including large sums of money for Arab villages. Also, the American organizations recently initiated a major task force to raise money for underprivileged Israeli Arabs.

But wait! What's the point in taking money from so-called support groups that refuse aid to people who've been discriminated against in favor of terrorists?

"With few exceptions, we have received almost no help from the mainstream Jewish American groups, which grant billions of dollars per year," said Dror Vanunu, a former Gaza resident and the international coordinator for Friends of Gush Katif, a major nonprofit organization representing the Gaza Jewish refugees.

Vanunu said the U.S. Jewish groups "supported the Gaza withdrawal, telling Americans it would help bring peace. They see us in a political light, but it shouldn't be this way. There are now thousands of Jews who are without permanent homes and whose children are having major problems.

"We are a humanitarian case, not political. Where is the Jewish brotherhood? The people who say they will not allow Jews to be in need? We are expecting them to become deeply involved in the restoration of our lives and hope they respond," Vanunu said.

Refugees 'in desperate need'

In August, Israel evacuated its nearly 10,000 Jewish citizens from Gaza. Successive Israeli governments over the years had urged thousands of Israelis to move to Gaza and build communities there. Israel promised the expelled residents compensation packages and new permanent housing, employment, farm land and institutions of education.

A status report by Friends of Gush Katif found not a single Gush Katif family was provided permanent housing.

Ninety-eight percent of former Gush Katif residents are living in temporary structures, mostly in the Israeli Negev desert in small, government-built, prefabricated "trailer villas." Residents there live largely in crowded conditions – in many cases lacking enough bedroom space to accommodate their families.

If so-called Jewish organizations are going to support "peace processes" built on lies, then I think that's why anyone with sense would be strongly advised to stay away from them. As I can tell, some of these are left-wing movements, which could explain a thing or two.

Anyone who understands the seriousness of the subject can go to Vanunnu's website and look for info on how to help. (In semi-related news, see also this topic from Esser Agaroth about the concern of bus lines stopping in Judea/Samaria.)

NYTIMES: NEW EVIDENCE DISPROVES CO2 CAUSES GLOBAL WARMING

This is dispositive. This proves that CO2 has no effect on global warming. Via PJM

CAIR: THE OTHER WINNER IN THE NOVEMBER 7 ELECTIONS?

From "CAIR's Congress," in today's edition of FrontPageMagazine:

With the Democratic victory in the midterm elections, one big winner was the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR). The American Islamic pressure group now has a chance to advance its agenda in numerous ways, with energetic water-carrying by, among others, the Speaker of the House, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and the first Muslim member of Congress....

The article goes on to discuss John Conyers and House Resolution 288. According to the article in FPM,

Such a bill, of course, would do a great deal to stifle honest discussion of the elements of Islam that give rise today to violence and fanaticism. William Gawthrop, former program manager for the Joint Terrorism Task Force of the Defense Department’s Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA), has noted: “There is evidence to support the contention that sources of terrorism in Islam may reside within the strategic themes of Islam,” including “the example of Muhammad, the Quran, the hadiths, Islamic law, the pillars of faith and jihad.” However, “as late as early 2006, the senior service colleges of the Department of Defense had not incorporated into their curriculum a systematic study of Muhammad as a military or political leader. As a consequence, we still do not have an in-depth understanding of the war-fighting doctrine laid down by Muhammad, how it might be applied today by an increasing number of Islamic groups, or how it might be countered.” Conyers’ resolution would effectively end any hope that the Department of Defense or any other agency would begin such study, as vitally needed as it is.

Nothing would please CAIR more, of course, as that agency routinely tars as “bigotry” any attempt to discuss such matters.

Read the entire article HERE.

MORE COWARDICE AND APPEASEMENT IN N.E. ASIA

What do they say? "You know who your friends are when the going gets tough" Well, it seems REAL allies of the USA are few and growing fewer - even in South Korea.

Reliapundit adds: Cooperation and unity among allies is nice; their absence certainly disproves we an empire. Perhaps this disunity proves the Condi is not a very good Sec of State?

HAVE WE ENTERED A PHASE OF APPEASEMENT? I HOPE NOT, BUT IT SURE SEEMS WE HAVE

What we are experiencing now in the GWOT is an ebbing of the West's resolve to pursue victory. Perhaps the tidal shift began when Israel ended it offensive in Lebanon without recovering it's kidnapped soldiers or dismantling the terror infrastructure in the Bekaa Valley. We have recently witnessed Bush's foreign policy rejected at the polls. Al Qaeda is redeploying their forces from Afghanistan to Iraq and who knows where else. In the latest symptom of this shift, Tony Blair now calls for rapprochement with Syria and Iran. (The short term gain from achieving a dubious split between the Shiitie Iranians and the Sunni al Qaeda does not trump the fact that the Iranians and the Facists in Damascus are themselves dangerous enemies of the West)

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President Bush and Rumsfeld meant well by trying to use limited military force in concert with political efforts to transform the Middle East - but such a transformation will take 2 generations - if at all. In retrospect the USA has been much too soft on its enemies. The enemy understands only 2 things: power and the willingness to use it - anything short of that is perceived as weakness.

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No one in Iraq would benefit from the retreat of the Coalition forces, except the enemy - an enemy which gleefully murders scores of innocents everyday. We need to increase troop strength - not decrease it! We need to divide the country into smaller compartments, better secure the borders with Syria and Iran, disengage from the population centers and let Iraqi security forces take over the front lines.

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Anyone who believes that our retreat from any battlefield would encourage the enemies of freedom to sue for peace is a FOOL! The islamic fundamentalists who threaten us must be destroyed. Every day wasted is a day where the danger grows in magnitude.

WILL STENY HOYER OUT THE UTTERLY CORRUPT PELOSI-MURTHA CONNECTION?

HAVE WE HEARD THE FIRST SHOT OVER THE BOW? HAS THE PELOSI-GATE SCANDAL BEGUN!? NRO:

Democratic Rep. Steny Hoyer released this statement tonight responding to Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi's announcement that she would support Rep. John Murtha for House Majority Leader:

Nancy told me some time ago that she would personally support Jack. I respect her decision as the two are very close.

JUST HOW CLOSE ARE PELOSI AND MURTHA??? THIS CLOSE:

Murtha steered business to HIS BROTHER'S LOBBYING FIRM - KSA - and helped Pelosi get a big project for her district which DIRECTLY BENEFITTED A RELATIVE OF HERS.

KJ Lopez of NRO's THE CORNER linked to a JUNE 13, 2005 LA TIMES article about just such an impending investigation: LATIMES (this link is to an anti-Bush blog which excerpted the article; the actual article has"mysteriously" disappeared from the LATIMEs own website) -

LATIMES: "When Congress passed the $417-billion Pentagon spending bill last ear, Rep. John P. Murtha, the top Democrat on the House defense appropriations subcommittee, boasted about the money he secured to create jobs in his Pennsylvania district.

But the bill Murtha helped write also benefited at least 10 companies represented by a lobbying firm where his brother, Robert "Kit" Murtha, is a senior partner, according to disclosure records, interviews and an analysis of the bill by The Times."

ROLL CALL put it this way:

Republican lawmakers say that ties between Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) and his brother's lobbying firm, KSA Consulting, may warrant investigation by the House ethics committee...

According to a June 13 article in The Los Angeles Times, the fiscal 2005 defense appropriations bill included more than $20 million in funding for at least 10 companies for whom KSA lobbied. Carmen Scialabba, a longtime Murtha aide, works at KSA as well. KSA directly lobbied Murtha's office on behalf of seven companies, and a Murtha aide told a defense contractor that it should retain KSA to represent it, according to the LA Times.

In early 2004, Murtha reportedly leaned on U.S. Navy officials to sign a contract to transfer the Hunters Point Shipyard to the city of San Francisco, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. A company called Lennar Inc. had right to the land, and Laurence Pelosi, nephew to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was an executive with the firm at that time.

Murtha also inserted earmarks in defense bills that steered millions of dollars in federal research funds toward companies owned by children of fellow Pennsylvania Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D).

Murtha also flexed his muscles with the DOD to get his boss, Pelosi a big DOD deal for her district:

The agreement came a few weeks after the Navy sent Newsom a letter saying that it was having doubts about going ahead with an agreement that was announced with great fanfare in Washington in January 2002 by Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, then-Mayor Willie Brown and Navy Secretary Gordon England.

When he was in Washington last Wednesday, Newsom met in the Capitol offices of Pelosi, the House minority leader, with Pelosi, Navy Assistant Secretary Hansford T. Johnson, representatives of California Democratic Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, and Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., a big gun brought in by Pelosi to convince the Navy the time for delays had passed.

Murtha, the powerful ranking Democrat on the House military appropriations subcommittee, made it clear to the Navy that he wanted a binding agreement signed by Wednesday. Another meeting was held in Pelosi's offices Wednesday, minus Newsom, and the Navy signed the accord.

PELOSI-GATE BEGINS... or it would if the MSM was unbiased and fair...

11/13 UPDATE: Welcome PJM and CAPTAIN'S QUARTERS readers. And thanks to them both for doing their bit to make sure that the corrupt Pelosi and Murtha are held accountable.