MAYBE JOHN EDWARDS WILL DEFEND BLOOMBERG?

BLOOMBERG IS BEING SUED BY A GUN DEALER REPRESENTED BY BOB BARR. (HAT TIP INSTAPUNDIT.)

It would make a good match-up - for Bloomberg, the Nanny, er um I mean mayor of NYC. The churlish Barr would be no match for Pretty Boy Edwards - the son of a "poor millworker" - who would probably channel the spirit of poor innocent victim of gun violence*.

An UNARMED victim, of course. Heh.

[*NOTE: "In one of Edwards' silver-tongued arguments to the jury on behalf of a girl born with cerebral palsy, he claimed he was channeling the unborn baby girl, Jennifer Campbell, who was speaking to the jurors through him..."]

More HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE.

WHOSE DEBT IS WORSE, THE USA'S OR CUBA'S?

CUBA:

There is no question that Cuba is one of the most heavily indebted countries in the world and that its capacity to pay even a fraction of what it owes is severely impaired. Fernández puts this amount at 10.552 billion U.S. dollars and notes that a further 15 billion rubles are owed to Russia, as that country assumed the debt burden of the former Soviet Union. ...

At 10.5 billion U.S. dollars, it amounts to 2 times the Cuban gross domestic product (GDP) of 5 billion U.S. dollars for a 2 to 1 ratio of debt to GDP. This is surely one of the highest ratios anywhere.

MORE FACTS HERE - via BABALU.

Bottom-line: If socialism was really better, then why has it ruined EVERYPLACE it has ever been tried? Cuba was once the 2nd WEALTHIEST nation in the Carribean; now only Haiti is poorer. And Cuba has horrendous debt burden it cannot expect to payoff - like the socialist nations of the EU.

As if the debt and poverty wasn't enough, they also suffer from a lack of personal liberty - like free speech, freedom to worship, and freedom from fear. Socialism is a bigtme, all-round losing proposition.

Yet the the chic ignorati and the phony degenerati of the Left - in Hollywood and on many campuses - still admire Fidel and Che, and teh EU's social-welfsare safety-net. WHY? It's a post-modernist thing: Anybody and anything which opposes the West, Judeo-Christian ethics, and the USA is admired. Even jihadists and Stainist tyrants.

The "profligate" USA has a very different debt picture:

U.S. ranks 35th in the world in terms of public indebtedness, which means we have a lower Debt-to-GDP ratio than Italy, France, Germany, Singapore, Israel, Belgium, India, Japan, and a panoply of other countries.

And as percentage of the economy, it is no higher now than in 1965. I seem to think that the economy has done pretty well since then -especially because of the TAX CUTS - both Reagan's and Bush's. IOW: Our debt burden is not too great a burden.

Cuba and the EU are headed for a demographic/economic disaster. The USA is not. More proof that Leftist policies suck. Viva Reagan! Viva Thatcher! Viva Bush!

HIZB'ALLAH USING PALLYWOOD TECHNIQUES

JOEL MOWBRAY VIA POWERLINE:

Palestinians have for years masterfully manipulated the media coverage, most powerfully through choreographed imagery. With this photo, Hezbollah has ripped a page from the Palestinian playbook.

Could one imagine a more staged performance? Why are the caskets lined up like that, side-by-side? Why are numbers spray-painted on the wall? And why are the women in the very narrow gap between the caskets and the wall, as opposed to being in the far more natural position of standing facing both the caskets and the wall directly behind them?

Though anyone with even a passing familiarity with the Palestinian propaganda machine would have a gut sense that the photo was staged, anyone with a basic knowledge of Arabic would know so. Why? Look at the numbers. Those are not Arabic numerals.

Check out the photos and his point-by-point critique.

BOTTOMLINE: The MSM that runs this crap are dupes or traitors. OR BOTH.

IRAN & SADR BRIGADES : IRAQ :: IRAN & HIZB'ALLAH : LEBANON

WASH TIMES (VIA INFIDEL BLOGGER ALLIANCE):

A senior member of Muqtada al-Sadr's Iraqi Shi'ite militia, the Mahdi Army, says the group is forming a squadron of up to 1,500 elite fighters to go to Lebanon. The plan reflects the potential of the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah to strengthen radical elements in Iraq and neighboring countries and to draw other regional players into the Lebanon conflict.

"We are choosing the men right now," said Abu Mujtaba, who works in the loosely organized following of radical Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. "We are preparing the right men for the job." Mr. Mujtaba, who was interviewed in Baghdad, said some of the men have had special training but did not specify what kind. Sheik al-Sadr's black-clad armed militia numbers in the thousands, operates throughout central and southern Iraq and is thought to be responsible for numerous killings of Sunnis.

It is not surprising that these two groups should actively collaborate: Iran armed and instigated and exploited these two Shia GANGS, in BOTH Iraq and Lebanon.They are BOTH hugely destabilizing.

This is NOT mere Persian hegemony; it's part of global jihad.

Nasarallah's gang and Sadr's gang should BOTH be erased from the face of the Earth. Then we can deal with Iran.

NYTIMES: IDF AND HIZB'ALLAH ARE BOTH MAD DOGS

NEWSBUSTERS:

The New York Times op-ed page has a feature today called 'A First Step Back From the Brink.' As the Times describes it:

"With chaos threatening to engulf Lebanon, the need to resolve the conflict in the Middle East has rarely seemed so urgent. The Op-Ed editors went to seven experts with experience in the region, asking each of them what should be the first step toward defusing the crisis."

The Times did accord Richard Perle the opportunity to make the case that 'Israel must see the current fighting through to a conclusion that is unambiguously a defeat for Hezbollah and Hamas.' But most if not all of the other contributors call for an immediate cessation of hostilities, including Judith Kipper of the Council on Foreign Relations who wants to negotiate with Hezbollah and Hamas and describes them as 'political parties and social welfare organizations', albeit with 'military wings.' ...

But what is most significant is the way the Times itself has framed the issue with its editorial cartoon [depicting both sides as "mad dogs" - reliapundit].

For the Old Gray Lady, there is no difference between the rejectionists and Islamo-fascists of Hamas and Hezbollah, and the people of Israel who seek to survive in a hostile Arab sea. They are all simply mad dogs, literally armed to the teeth.

This is moral relativism at its most abject.

They Lefties think they're anti-war, but they'd might as well be on the other side. Or as one Newsbuster commenter (allanf) said: Moral Equivalence is a kind way of saying one cannot distinguish right from wrong. [Someone should show Bill keller THIS RCP cartoon; it's a more TRUTHFUL depiction of each side in the conflict.]

WHAT BUSH REALLY TELLS FOREIGN LEADERS

The MSM picked up another off-the-cuff/off-the-record remark by Bush. Heh.

WHY KOFI REALLY WANTS UN "PEACEKEEPERS" IN LEBANON

HILARIOUS SATIRE HAS RING OF TRUTH.

RELIAPUNDIT REPRISE: LEBANON AND HIZB'ALLAH

I wrote this on 2/22/05 - MORE THAN A YEAR AGO:

NEOJIHADIST THUGGERY DESTROYED LEBANON. First Arafat's thugs - and now the thugs of Hizb'allah (supported by Syria and Iran). When we ERADICATE THEM, then Lebanon will once again be a jewel of tolerance and prosperity.

That process is ocurring now.

JAMES EARL CARTER: WE KNOW WHO HE REALLY IS BY THE FRIENDS HE KEEPS

CHECK THIS OUT! Via Gateway.

It's always worth remembering that most of the major problems the Free World faces all began on Jimmy's horrifyingly awful single term in office: the Shah fell - giving rise to Khomeini and islamofascism; Afghanistan fell to the USSR; Saddam came to power in a coup. All while Jimmy's cronies profiteered with BCCI - a bank with nefarious ties to the hubs of islamofascism.

The ONLY thing worse than Jimmy's presidency, is what he's done since.

POWERLINE: "it's pretty clear that U.N. peacekeepers aren't the solution."

Some cemmentators have argued that THE UN "PEACE-KEEPERS" SHOULD BE INVOLVED IN STOPPING THE HIZB'ALLAH-ISRAELI WAR.

Well - as POWERLINE reminds us, THEY ARE ALREADY THERE! UNIFIL is the UN "peace-keeping" force that's ALREADY IN LEBANON'S SOUTHERN/HIZB'ALLAH CONTROLLED REGION. They've been there FOR YEARS, and NOT TOO LONG AGO they actually aided and abetted Hizb'Allah in a prior kidnapping of IDF soldiers. POWERLINE links to DAVE KOPPEL'S thorough explanation of the relationship between UNIFIL and Hizb'Allah.

BOORTZING THE ENEMY: or why and how clarity and resolve matter

When it comes to knowing who our enemy is and what the enemy stands for, NEIL BOORTZ is very clear and very resolved - and he spells it out to an American Muslim who called into his radio show. Seven (7) minutes which'll leave you thinking: "GEE, I WISH I'D SAID THAT!"

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN US AND THEM - or a cartoon is worth a thousand words

FROM RCP via DR SANITY: CHECK IT OUT HERE.

MSM SCUM UNITED: ISAACSON HOSTS RAINES AT ASPEN INSTITUTE

Walter Isaacson was the CHIEF of CNN when Eason Jordan was following orders from Saddam and NOT reporting the truth in order to maintain CNN's Baghdad office. He left and became the Chief of the ASPEN INSTITUTE - which is, BTW, a liberal outfit which is the LARGEST sponsor of Congressional "junkets."

Isaacson's association with Aspen makes it especially APT that the Aspen Institute hosted another Left-wing scumbag prevaricator and propagandist - the former Editor in Chief of the "NY Slimes" Howell Raines.

Birds of a Feather. Isaacson and Eason Jordan and Raines and Jayson Blair. Discredited MSM has beens. Deservedly so.

EXPOSING RADICAL MUSLIM HYPOCRISY: IMAGES OF MEN VERSUS NO IMAGES OF GOD

Muslims have a strict rule about depictions of God: they are NOT allowed. Images of God are like craven, profane idols, and are not allowed.

Muslims are allowed to have images of men - even so-called radical Muslims; they routinely publish, post and parade around with HUGE photos of Khomeini and Nasrallah and Bin Laden, for example.

Yet these very same "radical Muslims" don't permit ANY images of Mohummed. (They staged riots and made fatwas against those Danish cartoons, cartoonists and cartoon publishers, REMEMBER!?)

This is very strange to me. Why allow pictures of Khomeini or Nasrallah or King Fahd or Bin Laden - or other men they venerate, but not of Mohummed!?

Doesn't this BAN mean that they venerate Mohummed excessively!? Doesn't this BAN of any depiction of Mohummed elevate him over all mankind and put him in the SAME CATEGORY AS GOD - as a being who must not be depicted?! And isn't this a form of SACRELIGIOUS EXALTATION which is exactly what they claim they were trying to avoid by banishing any image of Mohummed!?

YES IT IS.

And it further exposes the utter INSANITY of the radical Muslim value system; it is a hypocritical, illogical and false creed.

SECOND AMENDMENT SAVES LIVES - AGAIN

NYTIMES/AP - TENNESSEE:

A knife-wielding grocery store employee attacked eight co-workers Friday, seriously injuring five before a witness pulled a gun and stopped him, police said.

... The attacker, chasing one victim into the store's parking lot, was subdued by Chris Cope, manager of a financial services office in the same small shopping center, Higgins said.

Cope said he grabbed a 9mm semiautomatic pistol from his pickup truck when he saw the attacker chasing the victim ''like something in a serial killer movie.''

''When he turned around and saw my pistol, he threw the knife away, put his hands up and got on the ground,'' Cope told The Associated Press. ''He saw my gun and that was pretty much it.''

Police arrived within minutes and took the attacker into custody.

PEOPLE DON'T SAVE LIVES; GUNS DO.

ANTI-ZIONISTS ARE ANTI-SEMITES

THE AMERICAN THINKER:

Two Connecticut professors got curious about the constant denials that extremely harsh critics of Israel were anti-Semitic. Edward H. Kaplan, the William N. and Marie A. Beach Professor of Management Sciences, and Charles A. Small, Director of Urban Studies, Southern Connecticut State University, decided to examine the issue in formal way. Their paper, “Anti-Israel Sentiment Predicts Anti-Semitism in Europe,” appears in the August issue of the Journal of Conflict Resolution.

... The correlation was almost perfect. In a survey of 5,000 Europeans in ten countries, people who believed that the Israeli soldiers “intentionally target Palestinian civilians,” and that “Palestinian suicide bombers who target Israeli civilians” are justified, also believed that “Jews don’t care what happens to anyone but their own kind,” “Jews have a lot of irritating faults,” and “Jews are more willing than others to use shady practices to get what they want.

RTWT. NOW.

VOLUNTARY EXTINCTION: HOW THE LIBERTINE LEFT, OPEN-BORDERS, AND ABORTION ARE DESTROYING OUR CIVILIZATION FROM WITHIN

Most of the illegal immigrants who come here, come here to work. Most get hired to do jobs by the day, for cash. There are millions of jobs available like this, apparently. Apparently there's a labor shortage.

Well, if all the babies who were aborted (since Roe v. Wade became law) had been born, then we wouldn't have this labor shortage. And it is THIS SHORTAGE which attracts the more exploitable illegal immigrants. These jobs would have been filled by people who would have been born here: AMERICANS. But they were never born; they were "aborted." And the needed labor IMPORTED.

THESE TWO ISSUES ARE NOT UN-RELATED: The libertine Left - which supports abortion on-demand and open borders - supports anything which denigrates traditional families and traditional family vaues. Like homosexual marriage.

Abortion, illegal immigration, and immigration without assimilation do both.

In particular, illegal immigrants who don't intend to stay and or to assimilate diminish the social integrity of our communities and of our nation.

This is, after all, what the socialists admitted was their huge failure in France; the failure which led to their recent banlieue riots: the French failed to assimilate and integrate the "north African" immigrants into their cities and their nation. This is true of most of Europe vis a vis their Muslim populations, and it is now true of the USA vis a vis our illegal immigrants.

Interstingly, the EU has an even lower birth rate than the USA. And I assert that this is why THEY needed to import labor. And why they now have a festering Muslim population which is islamicizing their culture, and de-Westernizing their civilization.

SO, abortion rights - born from Left-wing libertinage, (like AIDS was: both resulting from feeling that unlimited sex can be had without any repercussions) - turns out to be major cause of the downfall of European culture to Muslims, and perhaps of American culture to Mexicans.

After all, only cultures which pass along their values to the next generation can survive over time. Abortion reduces the size of the next generation, and this diminsihes a cultures ability to be transmitted over time.

In the USA, this has been happening for over two generations. And it's having a major effect. Some say it's why the Democrat Party is shrinking: FEWER DEMS ARE BEING BORN; MORE DEMS ARE BEING ABORTED.

Getting back to the abortion/immigration nexus: Our own babies we ABORTED, and then the vacuum this created was filled by labor IMPORTED.

The ultimate cause of all this is selfishness and laziness: Many people want the sex without the labor (as in going into labor). And then - when they need someone to do a job - they expect they can get a cheap import.

The selfishness and laziness and lack of personal responsibility (which underlies the pro-choice position) is a form of rot from within. And the fact that these very same pro-abortion people then don't care if the imported laborers assimilate or not, well this causes another form of rot, SOCIAL ROT: it disintegrates or culture and denigrates our civilization.

Which is what the Left wants.

To prevent this we need to end illegal immigration and demand assimilation of all legal immigrants.

And we need to make abortion extremely rare. We need to replace it with adoption and embryo extraction.

If we don't, then our civilization will, for all intents and purposes, become extinct.

CEASE-FIRES DON'T YIELD PEACE; VICTORY DOES

SOWELL - (VIA REAL CLEAR POLITICS):

People are calling for a cease-fire in the interests of peace. But there have been more cease-fires in the Middle East than anywhere else. If cease-fires actually promoted peace, the Middle East would be the most peaceful region on the face of the earth instead of the most violent.

Was World War II ended by cease-fires or by annihilating much of Germany and Japan? Make no mistake about it, innocent civilians died in the process. Indeed, American prisoners of war died when we bombed Germany.

There is a reason why General Sherman said "war is hell" more than a century ago. But he helped end the Civil War with his devastating march through Georgia -- not by cease fires or bowing to "world opinion" and there were no corrupt busybodies like the United Nations to demand replacing military force with diplomacy.

... "Peace" movements don't bring peace but war.

RTWT.

NEWS ABOUT TWO OF CHOMSKY'S HEROS

ONE DIES OF OLD AGE: "Khmer Rouge 'butcher' dies at 80."

ANOTHER WON'T: "Hassan Nasrallah also told Arabic TV network al-Jazeera Israeli attacks had not dented Hezbollah's capabilities."

MORE ON CHOMSKY HERE, ON NOAM AND NASRALLAH HERE, AND HERE.

ON NOAM AND KAMPUCHEA HERE.

ON CHOMSKY HERE.

CHOMSKY EPITOMIZES THE LEFT'S LOVE AFFAIR WITH GENOCIDAL TYRANTS:

AS LONG AS THEY GIVE HEALTHCARE - AS STALIN AND SADDAM DID, ANYTHING ELSE GOES.

AND THE LEFT DOESN'T CARE IF THE TYRANT IS A MARXIST OR A BAATHIST. WHICH IS WHY I SAY:

TO MAKE GLOBAL JIHAD HISTORY, WE HAVE TO MAKE THE LEFT HISTORY.

THE AXIS OF EVIL - BETWEEN JIHADISTS AND LEFTISTS - GROWS MORE SOLID EACH DAY: CUBA AND IRAN; VENEZUELA AND IRAN; NORTH KOREA AND IRAN. THESE ARE THREE OF THE MOST LEFTIST/"PROGRESSIVE" REGIMES IN THE WORLD - AND THEY ARE ALL ALIGNED WITH IRAN.

THE RADICAL CHIC "PROGRESSIVES" IN THE USA AND THE EU ARE NO DIFFERENT: BELAFONTE, MOORE, SHEEHAN, SARANDON, STREISAND, TED TURNER, MARKOS AL ZUNIGA, ET AL - JUST LIKE CHOMSKY - ALL SUPPPORT THESE TYRANNICAL REGIMES. WHY? THEY GIVE "FREE" HEALTHCARE, AND HATE THE USA.

AXIS OF EVIL ACTIVELY COLLABORATING

WASHPOST:

US says Iranians witnessed N.Korea missile test

Reuters
Thursday, July 20, 2006; 11:19 AM

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - One or more Iranians witnessed North Korea's recent missile tests, deepening U.S. concerns about growing ties between two countries with troubling nuclear capabilities, a top U.S. official said on Thursday.

Asked at a U.S. Senate hearing about reports that Iranians witnessed the July 4 tests, Assistant Secretary of State Chris Hill, the chief U.S. negotiator with Pyongyang, replied: "Yes, that is my understanding" and it is "absolutely correct" that the relationship is worrisome.

I said this to friends at the time (7/4 - and meant to blog it - because NO ONE else had thought of it, but I got wrapped up in the holiday, and neglected to). I felt so at the time because I believed that it explained why the NOKO's felt they just HAD to do the test when they did: there is a close relationship between these two regimes of the axis of evil, and the NOKO's need cash and need to sell weapons to get some. Iran has cash and needs weapons. [Thanks to Gandalin for sending me the news.]

PROOF ISRAEL IS WINNING: LEFTIES ARE GETTING WOBBLY

Tonight I feel that Israel might be MUCH closer to a vctory over Hizb'Allah than anybody thinks. WHY? The naysayers are back! As Jack Shafer wrote in 2003:

The Leading Indicator of Victory

When Johnny Apple says we're thwarted, we must be on the verge of winning.

By Jack Shafer - Updated Thursday, March 27, 2003, at 2:09 PM ET

The best news to greet coalition forces all week comes in the form of an R.W. "Johnny" Apple Jr. piece in today's New York Times ("Iraqis Learn the Lessons of How U.S. Fights Wars"). Apple plots Saddam Hussein's learning curve and salutes the shrewdness of the Iraqi's battlefield tactics, a bit of emerging conventional wisdom shared by the Washington Post's Vernon Loeb today ("Tactics Show Iraqis Learned Lessons of War").

But while Loeb charts the specific lessons absorbed by the Iraqi military, Apple dribbles out generalities to communicate Saddam's tactical genius and the prospects for an American debacle...

They said the Taliban would defeat us - that we couldn't fight in the Afghan winter or the Afghan mountains! Johnny Apple - the NYTIMES most esteemed foreign correspondant also felt we would lose against the Taliban, and campared Afghanistan to Vietnam.

They said we couldn't defeat Saddam. Then - after we kicked his butt - they said the Iraqis would fail to construct their own constitution and fail to elect a government.

Now the Left is questioning whether the IDF can defeat Hizb'Allah; HAARETZ:

Hezbollah is still showing no signs of breaking

By Amos Harel

It was a bad news day. In the morning, Israeli forces in Lebanon clashed with Hezbollah near Avivim. Two soldiers were killed. In the afternoon, Hezbollah began to shell the entire northern region heavily. Scores of Katyusha rockets were fired and two children from Nazareth were killed. For eight days, the Israel Defense Forces has been pounding Lebanon and dropping thousands of tons of bombs on it, yet Hezbollah remains the same intransigent rival as before. It is showing no signs of breaking - [umph added].

This is a sure sign Israel is winning - and may be just days, or just 50 tons of bombs - FROM VICTORY. Why am I so sure? Two resons: One, the Left is always wrong; and Two, Israel can keep fighting until Hizb'Allah runs out of weaponry. The reverse is IMPOSSIBLE. And the pace of IDF attacks - and the tonnage - will increase EVERYDAY until the enemy is defeated. Stay tuned.

UPDATE: More proof Israel PROPERLY is kicking ass: ALL of the continental European papers have condemned Israel.

A MESSAGE FOR BLACK-MAILING, KIDNAPPING, HOSTAGE-TAKING, GENOCIDAL MANIACS FROM A JOURNALIST WHO HAS LIVED IN LEBANON

MICHAEL TOTTEN:

The people of both Lebanon and Israel have my deepest sympathies. The Israelis do not deserve to be bombed by Hezbollah, and the Lebanese do not deserve to be bombed because of Hezbollah.

Hezbollah, though, deserves every last bomb that lands on their heads. There is a special circle in Hell dedicated to terrorists who hijack countries and use civilian populations as human shields. Hassan Nasrallah is using some of my personal friends as human shields, and for that I hope he dies twice.

I think Totten is right