WHEN LEVEES BREAK - or "I know what it means to miss New Orleans" PART II

A levee is a barrier built to prevent overflow. A literal levee prevents an overflow of water, a flood. Figurative levees are barriers to others things; for instance, a police force is a "levee" against the "flooding" of crime. When there is no police force - or when the police force is seen as weak or unwilling to use force - criminal elements "overflow" - all hell breaks loose. And this is as tough to contain and drain as real floodwaters.

After the liberation of Baghdad, in the absence of a police force willing to use deadly force to maintain order - all hell broke loose. Now, in central Iraq, (including Baghdad) similar criminal sociopathic elements reek havoc and prey upon the general populace, trying use genocidal terror to create the chaos and power vacuum they need to establish the jihadist tyranny they crave. (THEY WILL FAIL.)

Now, in New Orleans a criminal sociopathic element is also reeking havoc upon the populace, exploiting the chaos caused by the levee failure to loot and rape and pillage and desecrate their own city. And for what: a passing selfish moment, a false sense of personal power and an inglorious glory.

We have seen this many times before - after the Rodney King verdict in 1992 in LA; after Hurricane Hugo, to name just a few recent examples. They are criminals "acting out" and they should be squashed.

Commentators who argue that the root cause is either the poverty of the perpetrators, or their hopelessness, slander poor people everywhere.

The "root cause" is BAD PEOPLE; people who are amoral and immoral - and NOT class, NOT race, and NOT creed. NO class or or race or creed is immune from people who are bad. There are criminals in every race, every class, and every creed. LOOK AT IT THIS WAY: if 15% of America is poor, then are 15% of Americans criminals!? Of course not. Poor people are most often victims of crime. And the poor suffering people stranded in Nawlins have been victimized again by the criminal element that has been hampering the relief efforts. So, WHAT'S THE ANSWER?

Applying brute force and unabiguous moral clarity to the rogues. Tolerating NO lawlessness. Rudy Giuliani cleaned up NYC this way. For too long, Nawlins has tolerated too much mayhem and lawlessness. They're suddenly reaping what for decades they sowed.

I KNOW: I lived in Nawlins, years back - when it was safer! And even then - nearly 30 years ago - you could walk 2-3 blocks in any direction and be in danger of losing your life. Part of the reason was that desperately poor and neglected people were scattered thoughout Nawlins: it's part of the levee/slavery heritage; except for the 9th Ward and the newer projects, there WERE no "ghettos"; poor people lived adjacent to planations all over the city, plantations that grew like spokes off the levees. WHITE FLIGHT since the 1970's has exacerbated the situation, and made the CITY of New Orleans poorer and poorer. The local and state government's response to this was permissiveness and the pernicious policies of LOW EXPECTATIONS. The result: a profusion of bad behavior swamped the urban poor: high incidence of teen pregnancy, of highschool dropouts; and crime.

This was NOT benign neglect. Neglect is never benign. It was MALIGNANT NEGLECT. The poor were neglected as much as the levees.

Now, eveyone should see that it was not benign; we should see that DECADES of laissez faire policies and (for all intents and purposes permitted) corruption and ineptness (born of low expectations) have left the ENTIRE city vulnerable to its worst elements - elements which probably INTENDED FROM THE VERY FIRST HURRICANE WARNING to remioan in the otherwise evacuated city JUST IN ORDER to loot.

MORE than the levees will have to be rebuilt.

The city will have to rebuild a sense of moral outrage and an intolerance for crime and anti-social behavior. Only a chastened city, with new found moral courage born of moral outrage will have the fortitude to rebuild. The city whose charm exploited the sexy allure of the liminal and the spicy scent of danger, must re-awaken or redevelop in itself more temperate and more subtle and more sophisticated enticements.

In Nawlins - a city of rich blends, this will lead to the creation of a new and "odd blend." There will have to be more overtly Puritanical standards, and an more intensified Protestant work ethic (in business and government). And this must be achieved while protecting the "le bonnes temps roulets" attitude and the cultural gumbo/racial melange which almost always ONLY arises from a relatively open society which encourages cultural exchange and experimentation.

I believe this new hybrid can be bred. If it doesn't, then the literal and figurative bayou will reclaim Nawlins, swallow it up and leave posterity only a legend of what once was.

I'm praying that the people of New Orleans (and the surrounding parishes) rise to the occasion. Just as the levees are rebuilt and the floodwaters held back, so too can their churches and schools and civic organizations "rise up" and take control, drain the city of its foul waters, and revitalize that lovely, that sweet, that sweet and pungent tropical city. Together - with a new spirit that is as strong as the mighty Mississippi, and that is just as intolerant of crime, corruption and ineptness, and that has an ambition as strong as the region is diverse - they can cook up a future as deliciously rich and as fascinatingly complex and as tantalizingly satisfying as any gumbo or etouffe or bourbon cocktail, and as intriguing as any Jazz improvization, and as complex as the jasmin, honeysuckle and stale-beer laden music-filled air itself.

It won't be easy. In the meantime, I'm praying for all the suffering people, in Nawlins and along the Gulf Coast - that their suffering is soon ended. Godspeed.

UPDATE: Nicole Gelinas at CITY JOURNAL (hat tip POWERLINE) has a great essay which reiterates some of my themes. Here's an excerpt:

The vicious looters aren’t the face of New Orleans’ poor blacks. Their victims are: the thousands of New Orleanians who made their way to shelter before the storm, and who rescued others and brought them to shelter during and after the storm—but who now cannot get the help they desperately need. This week’s looting was predictable. When Hurricane Georges, another potentially catastrophic storm (it spared New Orleans at the last minute) was about to hit in 1998, I foolishly refused to evacuate my Uptown apartment. More than one person said I should evacuate not due to the storm, but because looters would terrorize the city afterward. Was this week’s looting preventable? Failure to put violent criminals behind bars in peacetime has led to chaos in disaster.

Like I said. And RTWT. More HERE.

CNN: ASTRODOME FULL UP! REFUGEES TURNED AWAY...

... According to Sean Callebs of CNN who was reporting from the scene as buses were turned away (c.11PM local time)! According to a polceman Callebs interviewed, a local Fire Marshall said the 'Dome was FULL UP, and local police had to enforce this decision. Shocking. FEMA - and state authorities - who said that the 'Dome could accommodate 20,000 seem incompetent.

THEORY: BSE SPREAD FROM CJD HUMANS TO CATTLE?

BBC: The first cases of BSE or "mad cow disease" could have been caused by animal feed contaminated with human remains, says a controversial theory. It proposes that some raw materials for fertiliser and feed imported from the Indian subcontinent in the 60s and 70s contained human bones and soft tissue. ... The UK imported hundreds of thousands of tonnes of whole bones, crushed bones and carcass parts in the 1960s and 1970s to make fertiliser as well as meat and bone meal feed. Nearly 50% came from Bangladesh, India and Pakistan, where gathering large bones and carcasses from the countryside and from rivers is an established local trade. ... Human remains have been described in material delivered to processing mills. And during the 1960s, human material was confirmed in consignments of bones shipped into French docks from Asia. A spokesman for the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said it went along with the findings of a 2001 report into the origin of BSE, where a favoured hypothesis was that BSE had its origins with scrapie. But the spokesman said the department was open minded about new findings. ... only a tiny amount of contaminated brain tissue is needed to transmit human CJD to nonhuman primates in the lab. On the other hand, nothing is known about the transmission of human prion diseases to cattle. It was shown in the 1980s that prion proteins could survive the entire chain of processes leading to the production of animal feed in an infectious form. The feeding of mammalian meat and bone meal to farm animals has been banned since 1996. Yet sporadic cases of BSE have occurred in the UK and in Europe, where regulations were also tightened, since the ban. These cases remain unexplained.

Fascinating.

WASHPOST: US TO PUT MORE EVEN PRESSURE ON SYRIA

The WASHPOST writes it up today. I wrote about it three days ago. Stay tuned.

LEVEE FAILURE: THE CLINTON YEARS

EU ROTA (hat tip NO PASARAN) details how from 1993-2000 the Clinton Adminstration refused to allow the Army Corps - or anyone else - to get the funding they needed to redo the levees and rebuild the marshes/bayous. The list is comprehensive and damning.

From the facts EU ROTA marshalls, one must conclude that Clinton ignored the dangers on this front as he did the dangers from jihadoterrorism. I'LL GO FURTHER: I believe that - in twenty or thirty years - most historians will look back on his presidency as 8 wasted years in which we mispent the peace dividend, did nothing on emerging crises in energy and immigration and heathcare - while we dreamed a silly dream of a "new economy" as the jihadoterrorists attacked us over and over and over again. IOW: it was an eight year disaster.

CAUTION: WILL JIHADISTS TRY TO STRIKE US NOW - HIT US WHILE WE'RE DOWN?

Gentleman never strike a man when he is down. The jihadists are NOT gentleman. That's why I think the Jihadists are probably trying very VERY hard to hit us right now, right here at home, while we're down. After all, due to Katrina and the ensuing NOLA levee failures, we have just sustained a major jolt: a key section of an entire region is demolished and reeling; oil markets are tense, and domestic oil refining and mining is very STRAINED; National Guard resources are starined as they shift to help; a million people are displaced. These pains and losses are effecting the entire nation, in negative way, economically and emotionally.

If I were a jihadist I'd say a attempting a major terrorist attack against NYC or DC or Houston or a major port RIGHT NOW would be very VERY high on my list. Because we are already reeling, the effects of a major terrorist attack (or a series of minor ones) would be compounded dramatically - in real and emotional terms. The would be more terrifying than ever. I hope the DHS and FBI are listening...

WHAT'S THE FUTURE OF OIL, OIL-SHALE, AND COAL - AND AMERICA'S POTENTIAL ENERGY INDEPENDENCE

BETSY'S PAGE has a fascinating post on an article about the VAST amounts of oil shale in the USA, deposits which contain 100 times the amount of oil as there is in Saudi Arabia. She believes that we will eventually find a way to extract the oil which is both clean and economical - especially if oil stays around $70 a barrel.

There's ANOTHER vast reserve of oil-containing reserves in the USA in the form of COAL. And the technology to convert coal into oil ALREADY exists - it's been around since the 1930's:

"REUTERS" - 8/26/05 - HELENA, Montana - Montana's governor wants to solve America's rising energy costs using a technology discovered in Germany 80 years ago that converts coal into gasoline, diesel and aviation fuel. The Fischer-Tropsch technology, discovered by German researchers in 1923 and later used by the Nazis to convert coal into wartime fuels, was not economical as long as oil cost less than $30 a barrel. But with US crude oil now hitting more than double that price, Gov. Brian Schweitzer's plan is getting more attention across the country and some analysts are taking him very seriously. Montana is "sitting on more energy than they have in the Middle East," Schweitzer told Reuters in an interview this week. "I am leading this country in this desire and demand to convert coal into gasoline, diesel and aviation fuel. We can do it in Montana for $1 per gallon," he said. "We can do it cheaper than importing oil from the sheiks, dictators, rats and crooks that we're bringing it from right now." The governor estimated the cost of producing a barrel of oil through the Fischer-Tropsch method at $32, and said that with its 120 billion tons of coal -- a little less than a third of the U.S total -- Montana could supply the entire United States with its aviation, gas and diesel fuel for 40 years without creating environmental damage. An entry level Fischer-Tropsch plant producing 22,000 barrels a day would cost about $1.5 billion, he said.

LET'S BUILD TEN! (There's more at the "Reuters" article; go there and RTWT!)

KATRINA: THE LARGEST NATURAL, HUMAN AND CULTURAL DISASTER IN AMERICA'S HISTORY

My heart goes out to all who are suffering as a result of the Hurricane and ensuing floods. The devastation along the Gulf Coast is mind-boggling, and heart-rending.

I'm especially pained by the devastation of New Orleans. Years ago, I lived there and I still have friends there. And though I have been back frequently, in some ways I have never left. The city stays with you - not unlike my other favorite town, Paris; as Hem' wrote, "Paris is a moveable feast." So is New Orleans. I pray that the city comes back - MO' BETTA DEN EVA! In some ways, it will. Buildings and levees will be rebuilt. Other losses can never be regained: the loss of life. But losing New Orleans would be as tragic to our nation's culture and cultural history as Italy losing Venice. That's a loss no one can allow to happen. We won't.

USA WILL PUSH FOR UNSC SANCTIONS AGAINST IRAN

AP / Gadsden Times:

The Bush administration is lobbying other countries to force Iran before the U.N. Security Council for punitive sanctions over its nuclear program, a top State Department official said Wednesday. ... "We fully expect that the IAEA will refer this issue to the United Nations Security Council, where it should be," [Nick] Burns [Undersecretary of State] said. "Iran must (face the) judgment of the international community, now that it has acted in defiance of the international community," Burns said.

After that... stay tuned. This is only the FIRST step. It's gonna be an interesting Autumn!

MORE PREMEDITATED LIES AND POLL DISTORTIONS FROM THE LEFT

POWERLINE:

The Washington Post is trumpeting its latest poll, showing President Bush's approval rating at an "all-time low" of 45%. Actually, though, considering that the poll was of "random adults," conducted over four evenings, three of them on the weekend, with only 29% Republicans in the survey, the result is hardly surprising. In fact, Bush's approval ratings on the key issues has barely budged compared to prior Post/ABC surveys. Here is what is interesting, in the present context: the issue on which Bush scores worst is not Iraq, the economy or Social Security. It is immigration. News accounts often implicitly assume that more or less all of those who are critical of the administration are on the administration's left. In fact, though, on the issue where the President's position is least popular, the criticism comes almost entirely from the right, some of it from people who on other issues describe themselves as moderates or even liberals.

In line with that analysis, I also think that a lot of Bush's relatively low approval ratings (BELOW 50%) are because many on the right think he's way too soft on North Korea and Iran and the "Iraqi insurgents" and Abbas, and because of his utter lack of federal spending restraint. The low numbers on Iraq, especially, are low - I believe - because a lot of HAWKS (like me) think we should be MUCH more ruthless and use MUCH more massive deadly violence against the enemy there.

THIS BEARS REPEATING: the folks at the WASHPOST are certainly smart enough to know that their sample is skewed, yet they deliberately present the results in a way which depicts them as accurate. Because they are smart enough to know that a skewed sample will yield a skewed result, and because they deliberately present that skewed result as an accurate one, THIS MUST BE SEEN AS A PREMEDIATED LIE AND PURE UNADULTERATED ANTI-WAR/ANTI-BUSH LEFT-WING PROPAGANDA - and, IMHO, an instance of MSM distortion as rank as the BOGUS "TANG" documents which cost Dan Rather his job. Heads should roll at the WASHPOST - but I'm NOT holding my breath. BTW/FWIW: when it comes to lies and distortions in its news pages, the WASHPOST is not as bad as the NYTIMES.

ONCE AGAIN: THE US MILITARY COMES TO THE RESCUE

VARIFRANK nails it:

From Drudge: The Pentagon late Tuesday ordered five Navy ships and eight maritime rescue teams to the Gulf Coast to bolster relief operations as worsening conditions overwhelmed theinitial response.

VARIFRANK: You decide which of the two has fed more people in need, Our Navy or George Soros. Our Navy or Bono. Our Navy or the UN. Our Navy or the ‘Peace Corps.’ Thank God for the United States Navy. Despite what "Mother Sheehan" has told you, Louisiana is worth saving. Mississippi is worth saving. Alabama is worth saving. This country is worth saving. Do not let despair drive you to defeat, do not let the quitters win.

He's got more - go there and read it. I'll only add this: the US Military - as VARIFRANK reminds us: a miltary savaged as mercenaries by the Left - saved more lives ravaged by the recent tsunami than any other organization in the world. On top of their national defense responsibilities. God Bless Our Troops.

MUCH MORE ON WHAT THE US MILTARY IS DOING TO AID HURRICANE VICTIMS HERE AT MUDVILLE GAZETTE - (hat tip Glenn). More from those Lefties at the NYTIMES.

THE ROAD TO TEHRAN GOES THROUGH DAMASCUS...

... AND THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS BEGAN IN IRAQ, AND WENT THROUGH BEIRUT. (MORE HERE.)

These were side-by-side headlines in today's NYTIMES:

5 Highly Placed Lebanese Detained in Ex-Premier's Death
Airstrikes by U.S. Continue Near Syria Border

These two headlines prove we are steadily turning up the heat on the Baathists in Syria.

Don't be surpised if Assad is toppled - by a peaceful popular uprising, or by a more violent one, one similar to what happened to Ceausescu [BBC: "After the euphoria of Solidarity's victory in free elections in Poland and the Velvet Revolution in Prague, this was different. The Romanian revolution was the last, and the bloodiest, in the whole region. It came to a head on Christmas Day, when the dictator and his wife were executed." ], or by a military coup - before the end of the year.

I suggest this will probably happen sooner rather than later because Syrians and Syrian Kurds must know that democracy is taking shape in Afghanistan and Iraq and Lebanon and Egypt, and they MUST want some, too. The more precarious Assad and his Baathist Party seems, the more likely his tyrannized people will come to believe that they can bring his evil regime down. By prosecuting his henchmen in Lebanon, and by bombing the border he shares with Iraq, (and by secretly encouraging the Syrian Kurds to rise up), we can hasten the day when Syrians will throw off their shackles and become democratic.

As the wise man says: FASTER, PLEASE!

UPDATE - 8/31 - MORE HERE from PRAIRIEPUNDIT, and a report he cites from the WASHPOST which shows that we ARE WINNING in the Sunni Arab Triangle and that the Sunni Arabs are now fighting the foreign jihadis and how our crackdown on the Syrian border is a part of this effort - which seems to be dealing a death-blow to the "insurgents." Here's a snippet:

The clashes between Sunni Arab tribes and insurgents, coupled with growing vows by Iraq's Sunni minority to turn out in force for national voting in the coming months, coincided with U.S. hopes for defusing the two-year-old insurgency. U.S. military leaders have repeatedly expressed optimism that public anger at insurgent violence would deprive insurgents of their base of support. A tribal leader near the Syrian border, Muhammed Mahallawi, said his Albu Mahal tribe began the latest fighting against Zarqawi's insurgents after they kidnapped and killed 31 members of his tribe to punish them for joining the Iraqi security forces. "We decided either we force them out of the city or we kill them," with the support of U.S. bombing, Mahallawi said by telephone.

Sunni Arab tribes in the western province of Anbar have clashed sporadically with Zarqawi's organization since at least May, usually in revenge for killings of tribe members accused of collaborating with U.S. forces or the Iraqi government. This month in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar, tribes took up arms to block Zarqawi's group from enforcing his ultimatum for all Shiite Muslim families to leave the city. Fighting there killed several fighters on both sides. Local officials said Tuesday that Mahallawi's tribe and the insurgents had been fighting near the border for at least three days. Rawi, the emergency room director, said at least 61 people had been killed since the fighting began. The majority of the dead Tuesday were in the Western-style clothes and athletic shoes often worn by Zarqawi's fighters, Rawi said.

We are winning! UPDATE #2 - 8/31 - Saad S. Khan, The Daily Star / Bangladesh:

After Iraq and Afgha-nistan whose turn is it, is a moot question being debated about not only in the power corridors of the Middle East but also at the kerb-side tea cafes. Can the United States be really serious when it lists Syria among the states sponsoring terrorism? Admittedly the Baath old guard of Syria is not happy at the prospect of sharing the fate of their peers in Iraq, and the present Baghdad regime's allegations that most foreign terrorists are crossing over from Syria, is anything but exaggeration. Yet it hardly is a sufficient instigation for the US forces to embroil in another country as the political, human, and financial costs of another parallel adventure are domestically indefensible. Like Saddam in his last days in power, Bashar al Assad is now literally dancing on US beckoning -- withdrawing his country's 29-year military presence in Lebanon on a single phone call -- but trans-border intrusions are totally beyond his control. His own lack of character and cowardice being comparable only to those of Saddam, his border forces lack the will and the capacity to take the militants head on. The professionalism of his troops is restricted to torturing and interrogating intellectuals and human rights activists, that of his intelligence officers to murdering people in Lebanon, and that of his border security guards to gazing at the Israeli girls across the barbed wire. The days of Syria acting as a regional bully are history. No country in the Middle East can remain immune from the winds of reform. Bashar, therefore, has joined the reform bandwagon, ending up only in reforming the methods of tyranny.

... The US decision-makers are not so naïve not to realize the fact that democracy in Iraq will remain an elusive unless it is firmly rooted in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Syria. The rest of the region will then follow in domino effect. And that it is only for Syria that use of force will be necessary to that end. ... If Bush and Blair are sincere in their belief that Saddam's removal was morally justified, then one should rest assured that a Syria expedition is a question of "when" and not "if."

I agree. And "when" is sooner then anyone thinks. Stay tuned.

"LIVING CONSTITUTION" HYPOCRISY: Roe v. Wade is written in stone!

WIKIPEDIA: "The "Living Constitution" is one name for the theory of Constitutional interpretation - particularly in relation to American Constitutional jurisprudence - which holds that the meaning of the text should grow and evolve with society, paying heed to 'the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society' a phrase taken from the Warren Court-era case Trop v. Dulles, 356 U.S. 86 (1958). The Living Constitution can be seen as standing in opposition to originalism and strict constructionism, ..."

The Left's praise for the "LIVING CONSTITUTION" approach to intrepreting the US Constitution of course ONLY applies to aspects of the Constitution that they don't like, and want to change - like the 2nd Amendment, for example. But to the Left, things like ROE v. Wade are of course written in STONE! (This in spite of the FACT that "VIABILITY" is now something entirely dfferent than it was when the decision was made!)

Another thing the Left thinks is a precedent written in stone: the "Right to Privacy."

But doesn't the Living Constitution approach mean that precedent should be broken if and when society has changed; isn't that what a "Living Constitution" actually means !? Then again, if the constitution can mean whatever a majority of the SCOTUS thinks it means then it means nothing, and cannot be a functional constitution - for to function, a constitution must be the reliably firm and consistent "bedrock" upon which the legal code is based; a constitution which is too changeable or too fluid can no more support the foundation of the legal code than a swamp near a flood plain can provide a base for the foundation of a reliably long-lasting building.

The Left's selective adherence to the "Living Constitution" is so hypocritical it laughable: It is so unprincipled that it's preposterous. Simply put: To the Leftist, adhering to precedent is ONLY of paramount importance when the precedent is a decision THEY won! And that's pure hypocrisy and old-fashioned demagoguery at it's worst.

Click HERE and HERE and HERE to read short articles on Scalia's critique of the LIVING CONSTITUTION approach.

[ASIDE: the Left's attraction to the Living Constitution approach is related to the Left's fixation on relativism. The Left thinks that values are NOT universal or absolute. The Left believes that values are relative - they're defined historically, and culturally. As moral relativists they have no problem agitating for more flexible and ever-shifting interpretations of the Constitution - as long as they advance their socialistic utopianistic policies. Leftists always subordinate means to goals - as when they advocate quotas and set-asides as if it was okay to use racism to end racism. The Right believes that passing new legislation is the proper way to change the legal codes and bring about "social change in a given society in ways which reflect the times," and that if that legislation is judged to be unconstitutional, that then the people have the option of amending the constitution. Judical activism - or "legislating from the bench" - is UNCONSTITUTIONAL, and a Living Constitution is merely an rationalization for changing the constitution in an unconstitutional way.]

METRICS SHOW WE ARE WINNING IN IRAQ

YOU WON'T READ THIS IN THE MSM:

(1) ECONOPUNDIT posts a chart which shows that oil-pipeline attacks in Iraq have steadily declined to their lowest point in the entire war. Since this is a MAJOR target of the jihadoterrorists, this PROVES that they are NOT as effective as they once were. They are LOSING.

(2) Here's a CHART which shows that casualities have averaged about 40 deaths AND 400 wounded per month in Iraq (from the BEGINNING of the war) EXCEPT for months where major POLITICAL PROGRESS is scheduled (and then the casualties spike up because the rate of attacks does); (for example: before CPA handed over authority to the IPA; before the elections, and now - while the constitution is being ratified.

(3) AND then there's this: US military WOUNDED has STEADILY DECLINED over the last FIVE (5) CONSECUTIVE MONTHS! Contrary to what anti-war Leftists like Sheehan and the MSM want you to believe, the enemy is weakening and there's BEEN NO QUANTITATIVE INCREASE IN THE ENEMY'S EFFECTIVENESS OR STRENGTH OVER THE LAST TWO YEARS - 2 YEARS IN WHICH THE IRAQIS HAVE MADE SUBSTANTIAL POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC PROGRESS. The enemy is losing territory and political clout within Iraq. They are losing. And if we stay the course, the Iraqis who want democracy will win.

Nevertheless, we can expect attacks to increase before the referendum - and casualties to remain high - even until next election roll around, too. Why? Because the enemy doesn't want the Iraqi people to establish a democracy, and the enemy is willing to commit terroristic acts of genocide to attempt to prevent it from happening..

As long as Bush is resolute, the enemy will eventually lose and the Iraqis will soon get a democracy of their own design. The Left doesn't seem to care if the Iraqis get democracy, or not. Which is despicable. (And it is despicable that the MSM doesn't report these facts. I wonder why? Could it be BIAS!? Of course it is - and the MSM is consistently biased in ways that always favors the Left and the anti-war crowd.)

EGYPTIAN, AND ARAB LEAGUE CHIEF CRITICIZES THE IRAQI CONSTITUION

BBC:

Parts of the Iraqi draft constitution submitted on Sunday are a "recipe for chaos", Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa has warned. He told the BBC the Arab League shared Sunni Muslim concerns over federalism and the fact the charter does not identify Iraq as an Arab country.

Listening to this guy's advice on constitutionalism and democracy would be like taking advice on business ethics and frugality from convicted businessmen Dennis Koslowsi and Bernie Ebbers. Besides, Moussa is probably NOT an unbiased bystander: he's probably a Sunni Arab.

250 MILLION YEARS AGO GLOBAL WARMING MAY HAVE CAUSED MASS EXTINCTIONS

BBC: "Boost to CO2 mass extinction idea" -

A computer simulation of the Earth's climate 250 million years ago suggests that global warming triggered the so-called "great dying". A dramatic rise in carbon dioxide caused temperatures to soar to 10 to 30 degrees Celsius higher than today, say US researchers. The warming had a profound impact on the oceans, cutting off oxygen to the lower depths and extinguishing most lifeforms, they write in the latest issue of Geology. The research adds to the growing body of evidence that higher temperatures, rather than a giant space rock hitting the planet, led to the greatest mass extinction in history.

Musta been all those SUV's burning all that petroleum the BusHitler Crime Family was having Halliburton extract. Er ... um, but there weren't even humans around then, let alone any fossil-burning industry. So... er, maybe, er ... um global warming is NATURAL!? Hmm. And then there's the theory that particulates in the air causes global COOLING (more HERE). GEEZ: maybe it's all more complicated than the eco-fascists say it is!? Ya think!?

I KNOW WHAT IT MEANS TO MISS NEW ORLEANS

And, I'm praying for the city I love! Take care.

WHERE AN "ETHNICALLY CLEANSED" / JUDENREIN GAZA WILL LEAD US

1 - "Land for Peace" is a cool idea - but the Israelis have given up and land and NOT gotten any peace. The deal with Egypt has led to a "cold peace/war."

2 - A "Two-State Solution" is abstractly practical, but actually it requires that the Israelis have democratic republicans (small "d" small "r") on the other side of the border and not jihadoterrorists bent on anti-Semitic genocide. Israel can never practically accept a Taliban-like or Iranian-style theocratic terrorocracy on it's borders. No nation should expect Israel to accept on her borders what they would reject on theirs.

3 - If Israel is - and can be, and can remain - 20% Arab Muslim, then why does Gaza or the West bank have to be "JUDENREIN?!" The fact that Palestinian Arabs demand that all Jews leave the territories PROVES that the Arabs are racist genocidal maniacs - and Israel will never ever have peace with the likes of them. When Arabs and Jews can live side by side in Gaza and the West Bank as they do in Israel, then there will be peace.

4 - The "ethnic cleansing" of Gaza was morally reprehensible and it will only lead to more terror.

HOWEVER: because the military assets of Israel can now be deployed more efficaciously (especially in relation to the major populations centers and larger borders, the REPRISALS for future jihadist attacks will be BRUTAL.

That's why it's ESSENTIAL and URGENT that the PNA confronts the jihadoterrorists - NOW! If the PNA doesn't crackdown on the jihadis - (and UP TO NOW, there is NO reason to expect they will; there is no reason to expect them to be HALF as tough on their jihadists as the Afghanis and the Iraqis and the Saudis and the Pakistanis are) - and if the jihadis stage a major attack against Israel, (or re-mount a lengthy intifada - "intifada #3"), then the jihadis will be counter-attacked by Israel and they will die, AND NOW, the PNA (not Israel) will have to pick up the pieces. If they can find them.

I hope that the PNA establishes the rule of law and that the peace process continues. I doubt it that they will.

IF YOU DON'T BELIEVE THE MSM IS BIASED TO THE LEFT...

Then CLICK HERE for an eye-opener. The bias is BLATANT to ther point of being PREPOSTEROUS! How do these Left-wing anti-Bush "journalists" look at themselves in the mirror!?

I THINK THIS IS AN ANTI-SEMITIC DEATH THREAT

This guy made a death threat against me:

Domain Name - (Unknown)
IP Address - 200.169.20.#
(Cia de Proc. de Dado do Municpio de Porto Alegre)
ISP - Cia de Proc. de Dado do Municpio de Porto Alegre
Location Continent: South America
Country: Brazil (Facts)
State/Region : Rio Grande do Sul
City: Porto Alegre
Lat/Long : -30.0333, -51.2 (Map)
Language - Portuguese (Brazil)pt-br
Operating System - Linux UNIX
Browser - Mozilla 1.7.3Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; pt-BR; rv:1.7.3)
Gecko/20041007 Debian/1.7.3-5
Javascript - version 1.5
Monitor Resolution - 1024 x 768
Monitor Color Depth - 16 bits
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This is what he wrote:

Comments: Good Jewish American is Jewish American dead!
# posted by Rei Ubu [King Ubu] : 4:12 PM

The FBI has this info. Thanks.

KUWAIT NEWS: BUSH SAYS, "NOW IT'S UP TO ABBAS!"

Sharon made the HUGE move of making Gaza "Judenrein" - exactly like the Arabs wanted. Now the ball is in Abbas's court. According to Bush. And as reported in thre Arab press:

In his weekly radio address, Bush praised Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for what he called "courageous" steps in the withdrawal from Gaza Strip, and said President Abbas must meet the Israeli withdrawal with action against what he called terrorists."Now that Israel has withdrawn, the way forward is clear. The Palestinians must show the world that they will fight terrorism and govern in a peaceful way."We demand an end to terrorism and violence in every form because we know that progress depends on ending terror," Bush said.Fearing that Hamas might take over control over Gaza after the Israeli withdrawal, President Bush again demanded that Palestinians authority provides governance over the strip.

I think this is profound: the whole world is watching the Palestinians, now. The president has put them on notice. And the Arabs are watching too. Will the Palestinians do what they promised to do in ther Roadmap, or will they continue to use genocidal terror to attempt to destroy Israel altogether? We shall see.

I no longer believe a "third way" is possible: a low level "intifada" waged against Irael by terrorists whom the PNA claims they can't control (without starting a civil war) -- which is what we have had up until now. NOW, we have something new: Israel is prepared to unilaterally disengage from the West Bank and to keep all of Jerusalem and will then consider the matter COMPLETELY CLOSED FOREVER. there will be no refugee settlement - ever. And if they're attacked by Gazan Arabs or West Bank Arabs - then Israel will be free to retaliate with a force heretofore UNSEEN, (because up until now the Israelis were legally responsible for the Arabs in the disputed/"occupied" territories).

ANOTHER THING: unless and until the Palestinian Arabs are willing to actually fight the jihadoterrorists - like the Paksitanis, and the Saudis, and the Afghanis, and the Iraqis HAVE BEEN - the Palestinians will have NO STATE, and deserve NO RESPECT.

PITY: if the PNA did take on the jihadoterrorists they'd have the support of the Free World. They are, instead - I am sadly predicting - SQUANDERING their last best chance. Pity.

THE VIETNAM-IRAQ ANALOGY

From a letter to the WSJ via BETSY'S PAGE (who credits THE ANCHORESS via Cartago Delenda Est):

Iraq is just like Vietnam except: We occupy Hanoi. We've captured Ho Chi Minh. The North Vietnamese have just held a free and democratic election. The North Vietnamese are working on a new constitution. Yes, Iraq is just like Vietnam.

And er um .. to further the "analogy" : it's only 1967!

There is one analogy that does translate from Vietnam to Iraq: the Left is actively aiding the enemy and undercutting our efforts to spread democracy and halt the spread of totalitarianism. I KNOW: I WAS ON THE WRONG SIDE OF HISTORY IN THE 1960's-70's: I WAS AN ANTI-VIETNAM LEFTIE, THEN! BUT REAGAN PROVED ME - AND THE ENITRE LEFT WAS WRONG.