A cunning plan...

From Medieval England of Blackadder to the test pits of Time Team I have found Tony Robinson rather interesting (even though he's a terrible Leftie), and so this little piece...

As the dim-witted and slovenly Baldrick, he never stood much of a chance with the ladies.

But in real life, Tony Robinson, who played Rowan Atkinson's downtrodden sidekick in the cult TV series, has considerably more luck.

Because, at the age of 60, the veteran actor has found love with a glamorous brunette 35 years his junior.

The couple, who met in a restaurant last year, have now set up home together and are said to be 'blissfully content'.

His 25-year-old girlfriend, Louise Hobbs, is two years younger than Robinson's daughter, Laura, and five years younger than his son, Luke.

And at a striking 5ft 8in, Miss Hobbs, a public sector worker, towers over her diminutive, 5ft 4in boyfriend.

Undeterred, the happy couple are spending their first Christmas together in the Maldives.

Though this part at the end sort of bothered me.

In 1992 he left his partner of 18 years and the mother of his two children, Mary, for 35-year-old singer-songwriter, Teri Bramah.

The stress of the couple's break-up, however, saw Robinson turn to alternative therapy - rolfing, a specialist massage technique - in a bid to ease his inner turmoil.

Tick, tick, tick, tick............

Who actually did Virginia elect to the Senate a few weeks ago ?

At a private reception held at the White House with newly elected lawmakers shortly after the election, Bush asked Webb how his son, a Marine lance corporal serving in Iraq, was doing.

Webb responded that he really wanted to see his son brought back home, said a person who heard about the exchange from Webb.

“I didn’t ask you that, I asked how he’s doing,” Bush retorted, according to the source.

So the President is nice enough to ask the newly elected Senator how his son is doing, the Senator decides to respond by taking a political poke at the President and the President pushes back. How does the Senator Elect Webb respond ?

Webb confessed that he was so angered by this that he was tempted to slug the commander-in-chief, reported the source, but of course didn’t.

It makes you wonder how the Junior time bomb......I mean Senator will react to the egos of the World's Greatest Deliberative body.

We're all "realists" now.

The Magic Carpet Ride

The "Flying Imans" arrest is shaping up more and more to be a setup.

Witnesses said three of the imams were praying loudly in the concourse and repeatedly shouted "Allah" when passengers were called for boarding US Airways Flight 300 to Phoenix.

"I was suspicious by the way they were praying very loud," the gate agent told the Minneapolis Police Department.

Passengers and flight attendants told law-enforcement officials the imams switched from their assigned seats to a pattern associated with the September 11 terrorist attacks and also found in probes of U.S. security since the attacks -- two in the front row first-class, two in the middle of the plane on the exit aisle and two in the rear of the cabin.

"That would alarm me," said a federal air marshal who asked to remain anonymous. "They now control all of the entry and exit routes to the plane."

A pilot from another airline said: "That behavior has been identified as a terrorist probe in the airline industry."

Three of the men asked for seat-belt extenders, although two flight attendants told police the men were not oversized. One flight attendant told police she "found this unsettling, as crew knew about the six [passengers] on board and where they were sitting." Rather than attach the extensions, the men placed the straps and buckles on the cabin floor, the flight attendant said.

The imams who claimed two first-class seats said their tickets were upgraded. The gate agent told police that when the imams asked to be upgraded, they were told no such seats were available. Nevertheless, the two men were seated in first class when removed.

A setup aimed at moving legislation through the new Democratic congress.

Mahdi Bray, executive director of the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation, called removing the imams an act of Islamophobia and compared it to racism against blacks.

"It's a shame that as an African-American and a Muslim I have the double whammy of having to worry about driving while black and flying while Muslim," Mr. Bray said.
The protesters also called on Congress to pass legislation to outlaw passenger profiling.

And how can we expect our new Congressional leaders to act...?


Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee, Texas Democrat, said the September 11 terrorist attacks "cannot be permitted to be used to justify racial profiling, harassment and discrimination of Muslim and Arab Americans."

"Understandably, the imams felt profiled, humiliated, and discriminated against by their treatment," she said.

From Jihad Watch chiefly

More fun from the Red Guardian

From the November 27 Guardian we have Gary Younge who makes John Murtha look like Patton, because you see it's Always The West's Fault...

...insidious is the manner in which the Democrats, who are about to take over the US Congress, have framed their arguments for withdrawal. Last Saturday the newly elected House majority leader, Steny Hoyer, suggested that the Americans would pull out because the Iraqis were too disorganised and self-obsessed. "In the days ahead, the Iraqis must make the tough decisions and accept responsibility for their future," he said. "And the Iraqis must know: our commitment, while great, is not unending."

Actually for a Democrat he kind of makes sense... so of course the Guardian columnist becomes enraged...

It is absurd [try it with an English accent it sounds better. Abzurd]to suggest that the Iraqis - who have been invaded, whose country is currently occupied, who have had their police and army disbanded and their entire civil service fired - could possibly be in a position to take responsibility for their future and are simply not doing so.
...Also, it leaves intact the bogus premise that the invasion was an attempt at liberation that has failed because some squabbling ingrates, incapable of working in their own interests, could not grasp the basic tenets of western democracy. In short, it makes the victims responsible for the crime.

Let's see "squabbling ingrates" check, "incapable of working in their own interests" check, "not grasp the basic tenets of western democracy" check. Seems like a pretty good premise to me.

But wait Mr. Younge has a solution

First, because, while withdrawal is a prerequisite for any lasting improvement in Iraq, it will not by itself solve the nation's considerable problems.

Iraq has suffered decades of colonial rule,[ I assume he means the British colonial rule from 1918 to 1932 and not the Turkish colonial rule from 1566 till 1918] 30 years of dictatorship and three years of military occupation. Most recently, it has been trashed by a foreign invader.["trashed"? are we the Huns now? and wait... are we the "three years of occupation" or the "foreign invader"? I think he's double counting.] The troops must go. But the west has to leave enough resources[$$] behind to pay for what it broke. For that to happen, the anti-war movement in the west must shift the focus of our arguments to the terms of withdrawal while explaining why this invasion failed and our responsibilities[$$] to the Iraqi people that arise as a result of that failure.

"Resources"
code for billions and billions to be coughed up by the Great Satan and handed out by the kind disinterested souls of the UN.

Rum to Molasses to Slaves to Apologies

The Chair of the UK's commission for Racial Equality calls for some people to be banned from working in the public sector. Trevor Phillips says in the Guardian.

"Surely the time has come to follow the example set by police forces and to question whether it is acceptable for BNP members to truly carry out the role of public servant."

While in the same week Tony Blair issues a groveling apology for the transatlantic slave trade. He chose now to do it because next year is the bicentennial of Great Britain's abolition of said trade. Which is a fairly strange reason for an apology if you think about it. A country stops doing something bad and turns around and plays a pivotal role in the ending that practice around the world; so later the descendants of these same people must beat their breasts in shame on the 200th anniversary of their taking the important step?

But remember they're right about global Warming

The early results from the Hurricane season are in and this is what we have...

Barring a last-second surprise from the tropics, the season will end Thursday with nine named storms, and only five of those hurricanes. This year is the first season since 1997 that only one storm nudged its way into the Gulf of Mexico.

So with all the predictions of doom we get:

Nine named Storms, only five Hurricanes and none of them category 4 or 5.

Bored At: the Sequel

Apparently I'm not alone in my opinion of Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. Christopher Hitchens isn't a fan. And Joe Queenan certainly won't be giving it a "thumbs up".

There is another interesting trend to watch. When Borat was first released, blue-state sophisticates in New York and Los Angeles were delirious, overjoyed that Baron Cohen was savaging evangelicals and cowboys and hicks, as if this were either daring or original. Their rationale was that Cohen was merely playing with our heads, forcing us to reassess our convictions. No, he isn't. Baron Cohen is just another English public school boy who hates Americans. It is fine to hate Americans; it is one of Europe's oldest traditions. But the men who flew the bombing raids over Berlin and the men who died at Omaha Beach and the women who built the Flying Fortresses and Sherman tanks that helped defeat Hitler are the very same people that Baron Cohen pisses all over in Borat. A lot of folks named Cohen would not even be here making anti-American movies if it were not for the hayseeds he despises.

Keith Ellison

Here is a fascinating little video from the victory celebration of Keith Ellison who was elected to a congressional seat from Minnesota. Ellison will be the first Muslim to serve in the United States Congress and was recently the subject of a controversial interview on the Glenn Beck Show. What is even more interesting then the crowd shouting "Allahu Akbar" is the way the local television station (a FOX station) cuts away as soon as the crowd begins the chant, and how the announcer immediately begins doing damage control for Ellison.

Yet More Trouble in Northeastern Africa

The fear of war seems to lie all over Northeastern Africa...

N'DJAMENA, Nov 24 (Reuters) - Chad is extending for six months a state of emergency in large swathes of the country, saying it needs more time to pacify ethnic conflicts that have killed hundreds and which it blames Sudan for provoking.

President Idriss Deby's government declared the emergency on Nov 13 -- initially for 12 days -- saying Chad was the victim of a campaign of deliberate military destabilisation being waged by neighbour Sudan from its violent western Darfur region.

Humanitarian workers say hundreds of Chadian villagers have been killed in recent weeks in fighting between Arab and non-Arab communities and in attacks by Arabic-speaking armed raiders on horseback, often striking across the Sudan border.

With background on the tensions between Chad and Sudan here.

Around the Horn

Ethiopia prepares for war...

ADDIS ABABA (AFP) - Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has said his country has completed preparations for war with neighboring Somalia's powerful Islamist movement, alongside faltering peace efforts.
ADVERTISEMENT

Meles told parliament Thursday that the Islamists, who have declared holy war on Ethiopian troops deployed to Somalia to protect the weak internationally backed Somali government, represented a "clear and present danger" to his country.

Less than a hour after after Meles' announcement, the Islamists gathered in a war council in Mogadishu and said they were ready to defend Somalia from invasion by a "reckless and war-thirsty" Ethiopia.

Background here and here from this site.
The very good entry in Wikipedia on the Somalia-Ethiopia situation from which the map at top of this entry is taken.

Triumph of the Gene II

It seems that Triumph of the Gene was a pretty accurate heading as we hear more from Arch-Atheist Richard Dawkins on what he thinks is wrong with our theocratic world and how he would improve it...

In a letter to the editor of Scotland’s Sunday Herald, Dawkins argues that the time has come to lay this spectre to rest. Dawkins writes that though no one wants to be seen to be in agreement with Hitler on any particular, “if you can breed cattle for milk yield, horses for running speed, and dogs for herding skill, why on Earth should it be impossible to breed humans for mathematical, musical or athletic ability?”
“I wonder whether, some 60 years after Hitler’s death, we might at least venture to ask what the moral difference is between breeding for musical ability and forcing a child to take music lessons. Or why it is acceptable to train fast runners and high jumpers but not to breed them,” Dawkins wrote Sunday.

And if breeding is OK can culling be far behind... ?

Paging Dr. Mengele

As an addendum to my recent post on the agressive Athiest/Evolutionist propagandists we have these tidbits off the wire from a couple of weeks ago...

LONDON: One of Britain's leading medical colleges is calling on the health profession to consider permitting the euthanasia of seriously disabled newborn babies.

or this one...

Scientists have applied for permission to create part-human, part-animal embryos as part of research to create new treatments for debilitating neurological diseases.

Two teams of researchers today submitted applications to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority for licences to be allowed to use therapeutic cloning to fuse human cells with rabbit, cow and goat egg.

Blast in West Bengal

A bomb rips apart a train car in the Chicken's Neck in West Bengal. With 10 killed and 70 wounded authorities "suspicion falls" on...

a rag-tag separatist group called the Kamtapur Liberation Organisation, which is waging war for a separate Kamtapur state to be carved out of parts of north Bengal, Assam and Bihar.

Which is just what the world needed, another "rag-tag seperatist group".
However, there could be more to it than that.

Intelligence officers who monitor the separatist group, however, were a both a little puzzled and concerned, considering that their information did not point to KLO having either the 'expertise' or the 'acumen' to plant such an explosive.

Massive Irony Alert

Toys for Tots, the charitable orgainization founded by the Marine Corps, rejects Jesus doll

As a government entity, Marines "don't profess one religion over another," Grein said Tuesday. "We can't take a chance on sending a talking Jesus doll to a Jewish family or a Muslim family.

Here's the mission statement of the campaign...

MISSION: The mission of the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve Toys for Tots Program is to collect new, unwrapped toys during October, November and December each year, and distribute those toys as Christmas gifts to needy children in the community in which the campaign is conducted.

So Jesus is not an approriate toy for Christmas, because we might offend all those Jews and Moslems when they recieve that Christian toy while celebrating that Christian holiday?

How the Simpsons Celebrate Veteran's Day

The Special Anti-Armed/Veteran's Day episode of the Simpsons

Why there might not always be an England...VI

It's apparently a good day for British lunacy.
From the BBC's newsite

Nearly 200 prisoners and former inmates forced to stop taking drugs by going "cold turkey" are to receive payments.

The unspecified settlement followed claims the practice amounted to assault and a breach of human rights.

Why there might not always be an England...V

They've come for the children. Well they've come for the English children at least...

The call for state intervention in the minute details of family life followed a series of Labour efforts to reduce anti-social behaviour and improve educational standards by imposing rigorous controls on the lives of the youngest children.

Mrs Hughes has established a national curriculum to set down how babies are taught to speak in childcare from the age of three months.

Her efforts have gone alongside a push by other ministers to determine exactly how parents treat their children down to how they should brush their teeth.

Tony Blair has backed the idea of 'fasbos' - efforts to identify and correct the lives of children who are likely to fail even before they are born - and new laws to compel parents to attend parenting classes are on the way.

This autumn is likely to see an extension of parenting orders that can force parents to attend parenting classes so that they can be used on the say so of local councils against parents.

For the first time, parenting orders are likely to be directed against parents whose children have committed no criminal offence.

The threat of action against parents who fail to sing nursery rhymes was unveiled by Mrs Hughes as she gave the first details of Mr Blair's 'national parenting academy', a body that will train teachers, psychologists and social workers to intervene in the lives of families and become the 'parenting workforce'.

Notice this interesting post in the articles comments section...

I was in Sussex last week. My hairdresser told me that her daughter came home saying she had learnt Nursery Rhymes at school that day.
" Ba ba Rainbow sheep, have you any wool" When she remonstrated with her daughter the little girl said that this was stated by the Teacher.

No Peace for Pattani

The junta which siezed power in Thailand almost two months ago seems to be failing with it's soft-pro-muslim approach in handling the Southern Insurgency. What does General Boonyaratglin plan to do next ?

Shades

Matt Groening's Love Letter to the Democrats

Just in time for the Veteran's Day weekend we get Ker... I mean Groening's salute to our servicemen (I mean of course servicepeople).
Maybe it was really suppose to be a joke about Bush.

Beware the Poppy Fascists !!!

And you thought Dan Rather was bad.

The German World

Fascinating spin on the congressional election from the Die Welt (The World) a German daily entitled...

Right-Wing Extremist Viciousness Punished

so you kind of get where they're coming from the beginning.
The column by one Torsten Krauel makes the point that beside the war in Iraq there were three salient events that threw the election to the Democrats and they were (in his order)...

1. The Terry Schiavo Case
2. The Kelo decision by the Supreme court
3. Anne Coulter

1. On the Schiavo case he talks about a Tom Delay news conference as "He sounded like a Stalinist dictator and many Americans, including Republicans, were frightened by DeLay's cold determination to intervene in a private family matter." Actually I would think Stalinist dictators wouldn't be that concerned with sparing a human life, but maybe that term is thrown around a lot in Germany. The more important thing is do many people in America even remember the case that well and did it actually influence anyone to vote one way or another.

2. When it comes to the Kelo decision Krauel gives us this...

A storm of indignation broke out. Many people, including Republicans, were afraid. My house, the most important capital asset in the USA, isn't safe from money-sharks? It resonated like a bomb burst – and it was the conservative Supreme Court, with justices appointed by George W. Bush, that had made that decision.

The "conservative Supreme Court"? The Kelo decision was decided with a majority consisting of Justices Stevens, Ginsburg, Souter, Breyer and Kennedy and a dissent from O'Conner, Rehnquist, Thomas and Scalia. So the Liberal Justices wrote the controversial decision and the Conservative Justices opposed it. You'll also notice the absence of the names of Roberts and Alito, the Justices who had yet to be appointed by George W. Bush.

3. As for his final event, as controversial as Anne Coulter is has anyone ever said that they were taking out their anger against here on George Bush and the Republican Congress ?

If this is the best analysis you can get from a major German paper no wonder Anti-Americanism is so rampant on the continent.

tip to the great site Watching America which covers world press reports on the United States.

Why is this man smiling...

OK. It's kind of like a smile.
Check out Sweetness of Light

Bored At.

Borat. Borat. Borat. It seems the most improtant thing in the entertainment world right now is England's/Kazakhstan's Borat alias Sacha Baron Cohen [An aside here, why does no one comment on the name Baron-Cohen ? Are the British so used to the word baron that when it crops up in a name it's no big deal ?]
What strikes me most from the scenes I've seen from the movie as well as what I've seen from Cohen's [I'm boycotting calling him Baron Cohen] Ali G Show is that he specialises in making people laugh at other people who he has put in uncomfortable situations. Of course he says he's exposing and holding up to ridicule the many and various hipocrisies that exist in our society.

HBO spokesman Quentin Schaffer..., "Through his alter-egos, he delivers an obvious satire that exposes people's ignorance and prejudice...

But when you get down to brass tacks it's all about "oh look at the poor dumb square who doesn't get it".
Those "poor dumb squares" in the movie are all American, of course. And even as we speak millions of Americans are flocking to the movie who's central premise is the ridicule of Americans who are trying to be polite to a stranger from a foreign country.
At least we know the premise wouldn't work in France.

Another Remembrance Day...

Today is the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church. Here is the link.

May the lord answer you when you are in distress; may the name of the God of Jacob protect you--Ps. 20:1

11-11

Shades

More shades of '72

This is a joke right?

George McGovern, the former senator and Democratic presidential candidate, said Thursday that he will meet with more than 60 members of Congress next week to recommend a strategy to remove U.S. troops from Iraq by June.

and...

McGovern told the audience Thursday that the Iraq and Vietnam wars were equally "foolish enterprises" and that the current threat of terrorism developed because _ not before _ the United States went into Iraq.

Head... Spinning... Must... Lie... Down.

A senate duo we can trust

Should have run them in Virginia and Montana instead. They would have done a better job.

Bush's Eagleton Moment

And how long before the President totally alienates his base through some truely pathetic attempt to "reach across the aisle"?

1 day.
Bush shows 1000% support for Rumsfield and ticks off every congressman who lost a seat Tuesdayas well as the leadership of his own party.
The Rumsfeld move thirty to sixty days ago would probably have saved the Montana and Virginia seats.
Burns and Allen (hey I just noticed that) can't complain though, they ran absolutely terrible campaigns.

Der Guardian

The lastest gut turning cartoon from the Guardian, a newspaper that apparently recieved its' cartooning sensiblity from Der Sturmer.
In fact here's a little side by side comparison.

Rats climbing aboard sinking ship

Predictable reactions from around the world to the Democratic victories in congress

In an extraordinary joint statement, more than 200 Socialist members of the European Parliament hailed the American election results as "the beginning of the end of a six-year nightmare for the world."

But...

There was also some concern that Democrats, who have a reputation for being more protective of U.S. jobs going overseas, will make it harder to achieve a global free trade accord. And in China, some feared the resurgence of the Democrats would increase tension over human rights and trade and labor issues. China's surging economy has a massive trade surplus with the United States.

And...

"The problem for Arabs now is, an American withdrawal (from Iraq) could be a security disaster for the entire region," said Mustafa Alani, an Iraqi analyst for the Gulf Research Center in Dubai. He said the Middle East could be left to cope with a disintegrating Iraq mired in civil war, with refugees fleeing a failed state that could become an incubator for terrorism.

First of all, as if the whole Middle East isn't an incubator for terrorism ?
But more importantly this reveals the mind set of the rest of the world, not toward the George Bush, but toward the United States, which is: the United States must be strong enough to power the world economy and strong enough to fix political and military problems anywhere in the world but deciding what is a problem and how it must be solved must always be done outside the United States.
Americans just don't have the deep, subtle yet humane minds of everyone else, you see.

And how long ...

And how long before the President totally alienates his base through some truely pathetic attempt to "reach across the aisle"?

24 hours and counting...

24 hours and counting and the Democrats have yet to shoot themselves in the foot. How long will this trend last ?

Why Is This Man Smiling

Ho Chi Minh is Smiling Somewhere...

Terrorists Win

America Now Spain

Remember...

Remember...

Vote Democratic and the Terrorists Win

there it is. in a nutshell.
let's all say it together...

Vote Democratic and the Terrorists Win

see that wasn't to hard.

Vote Democratic and the Terrorists win

now practise on your own.

Election Recommendations

Chuck Norris says vote Republican

The Reds say vote Democratic

On the Saddam Verdict

It seems as if a few of Europe's leaders are suffering from the "Royal We" syndrome

The European Union urged Iraq on Sunday not to carry out the death sentence passed on Iraq's former leader Saddam Hussein after his conviction for crimes against humanity.

"The EU opposes capital punishment in all cases and under all circumstances, and it should not be carried out in this case either," Finland, current holder of the rotating EU presidency, said in a statement.

So does this mean that the whole country of Finland walked into a press conference and said "Hey all Europe just told me they're opposed to the death sentence."
Is there some actual data, maybe a poll or two, to go with this supposition?

It looks like Tony Blair has the bug too...

Asked about Saddam's sentence at his monthly press conference, Blair noted that Britain opposed the death penalty, "whether it's Saddam or anyone else."

Camus on the November 2006 elections

A few prescient words...


“These are moments when everything becomes clear, when every action constitutes a commitment, when every choice has its price, when nothing is neutral anymore. It is the time of morality, that is, a time when language becomes clear and it is possible to throw it back in the realists’ face."
-Camus from the pages of Combat

The BBC and Israel: Efficacy

I've come across an interesting piece that reveals the need for careful parsing of everything said by the BBC (as these folks could already tell you).
The story is from a link at the bottom of the BBC World News page called...

Force Questioned: Deep Skepticism in Israel over efficacy of Gaza raids

So you click on the link and you get...

Efficacy of Gaza Raids Questioned

The Israeli operation in Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza has the stated aim of stopping militant rocket fire, but in Israel there is deep scepticism that military force will achieve this.

It seems clear enough.......
Except that during the next 17 sentences of the article the only questioning of the use of force you get is this lone sentence...

Some Israeli security analysts, however, believe that the problem cannot be resolved by military force.

That's it. No actual quoting of "Some Israeli security analysts" or even naming them.
In fact most of the article consists of people with these sort of ideas

"What we need is a large military operation to capture the Gaza strip and destroy the terrorist infrastructure," says Yuval Steinitz, a member of the Israeli parliament's Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee.

So the header sentence really should read...

"...in Israel there is deep scepticism that a small military force will achieve this, as opposed to a full scale invasion."

Derbyshire, God & Me

I've just been reading John Derbyshire's column/self-interview over at the National Review, the meat of which is how he lost his faith in religion/God/Christianity some years ago and now feels the need to come clean about it to NR readers. The article has generated a measure of interest across the Internet specifically as you expect among conservatives. After reading and rereading the rather lengthy post a few salient points have either leapt or crept to my attention.

1) Being raised an Anglican seems to lead to a lot of religious introspection without the necessary steeling of faith.

2) The interesting quote: "I can report that the Creationists are absolutely correct to hate and fear modern biology. Learning this stuff works against your faith."

3) The strange statements: "...the experience of raising two kids — mine are now 13 and 11 — was one I found de-spiritualizing...it made me realize how perfectly natural religion is. We have a religious module in our brains, and with little kids you can actually watch it waking up and developing, like their speech or social habits. The paradox is, that to the degree that you see religion as natural, to the same degree it becomes harder to see it (and by extension its claims) as supernatural."
This would strike one as so if you partitioned religion off as purely supernatural and failed to remember that the natural need not be alien to the Creator.

4) Finally, a person reading the piece is struck by the profound sense of emptiness and sadness that is emitted from almost the entire work. The article seems to cry out "don't let this happen to you".

Almost a meme

It looks like some people agree with me about

Vote Democratic and the Terrorists Win

remember

Vote Democratic and the Terrorists Win

Hey! there is even a poll

Vote Democratic and the Terrorists Win

Vote democratic...

Remember...

Vote Democratic and the Terrorists Win

there it is. in a nutshell.
let's all say it together...

Vote Democratic and the Terrorists Win

see that wasn't to hard.

Vote Democratic and the Terrorists win

now practise on your own.

They Want to Support the Troops...with a Noose

Seymour Hersh, hater extraordinare when it comes to the United States Military, is at it again. Hersh has been desperatley seeking a return of the attention he received when uncovering the My Lai Massacre 40 odd years ago. Like most of those on the Left he looks back on the 60's as halcyon days to be relived and recreated over and over. So he pops up every year or so with another claim against the military; claims that when examined with a less jaundiced eye then his usually are made up of some pretty thin gruel.
His latest five minute hate pulls no punches in revealing what he thinks of the American armed forces and of course what better place to insult Americans than from an university. Even better a Canadian university. For which no doubt he was highly paid.

...there has never been an army as violent and murderous as our army has been in Iraq.

Not only that, but we're also being to soft on the murderous thugs.

If Americans knew the full extent of U.S. criminal conduct, they would receive returning Iraqi veterans as they did Vietnam veterans, Hersh said.
“In Vietnam, our soldiers came back and they were reviled as baby killers, in shame and humiliation,” he said. “It isn’t happening now...

But remember...
“Sometimes I change events, dates, and places in a certain way to protect people,” Hersh told me. “I can’t fudge what I write. But I can certainly fudge what I say.”

So when his lips are moving, beware.

Triumph of the Gene

From der reporters at Der Spiegel comes this...

In the United States, atheists are becoming an ostracized minority. But now evolutionary biologists are trying to turn the tables: According to their argument, religion is the source of evil. Morals and selflessness are not God-given - they are the result of evolution.

A few points...

1) "athiests are becoming an ostracized minority." As opposed to say the 1860's or maybe 1920's when great herds of athiests darkened the plains and made the earth tremble as they roamed... oh, wait... that was the buffalo.

2) "religion is the source of evil." Doesn't it take a lot of nerve to say that shortly after the end of the 20th Century. A century of overwhelming inhumanity brought to us chiefly by ideology, nationalism and yes, scientific rascism. A century probably less religous than any other.

3) Does it seem ironic to anyone else, this appearing in a German magazine ?

4) The author's name is Blech

Most of the article deals with that enfant terrible of the scientific world, Richard Dawkins of Oxford University who gives us his take on Old Testament theology thus...

"The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully."

Lucky Mr. Dawkins isn't one of those hate filled Fundamentalists.