"Helo Thunder" in Iraq... AC/DC's Thunderstruck

This one's for Jane Fonda....

Jane Fonda...what's not to love

Read this posting from The Desired last year, and this one to read the interview with Liz Smith (and some great commentary)...makes me feel something in my belly. It's sickening...

NY Post Interview with Liz Smith (from May '05 I think) :

LIZ: And here we continue our talk with the incredible Jane Fonda.

LIZ: Jane, many people are interested in your having become a Christian after being an agnostic most of your life. What kind of church do you go to in Atlanta?

Jane: I am searching for one, but have not found one yet. And, Liz, I am a feminist Christian.

Liz: So maybe you see Christianity in a broader sense than the fundamentalists?

Jane: I don't want to offend anyone. But I believe people have different ways of approaching The Word. For me, it's metaphor, written by people a long time after Christ died. And interpreted by specific groups. I read the gospels that aren't included in the Bible. These make me feel good about calling myself a Christian. What we are seeing today are policymakers who say they're Christians.

Budgets are a religious matter. War is. Poverty is. Health care is. Jesus said, "Look after the least of us." But there is a separation between professed faith and the practice, and I'm not seeing too many policies coming out of Washington that are, in my opinion, informed by the teachings of Jesus."

Liz: It seems Jesus surrounded himself with women and depended on them.

Jane: Real women . . . and prostitutes. Samaritans and outcasts.

Liz: Yes, publicans and sinners. Or was that Republicans and sinners?

Jane: (Laughter) I was at the White House correspondents' dinner the other night, and Laura Bush was really funny. Her approval rating is way up, as it should be.

Liz: Did you see the president's press conference before that; I thought he was floundering.

Jane: No, I thought he was very impressive. I don't know him, but I have always thought if I were alone in a room with him, I would really like him.

Liz: Well, many people do like him, and he has an informal appealing quality, they say. Jane, let's get back on you. What do you think of today's theory that the Vietnam war turned today's Vietnam into a flourishing Asian market economy Western style. Is that any excuse for the war that you protested?

Jane: I read that the other day. No, it's not an excuse. The tragedy is, the so-called enemy is running the country and we lost 3 million Vietnamese lives and 58,000 American lives. It never had to happen because they were offering this same kind of peace before the war started. But some Americans felt we had to fight to keep the "domino theory" from happening. No, I still protest the war. But if you could meet some of the veterans I meet in touring with this book . . . They are so great. They are amazing men.

Liz: The incident of your sitting on the gun, which you have apologized for — are you aware that even though it outraged a lot of people, it did not really affect your film career!

Jane: Not my career. It affected my heart. But I notice when I do radio shows, the interviewers tell the listeners that we're not screening calls. And I swear to you, all of the calls seem to be positive.

Liz: Jane, are you financially secure? Do you have to work and do movies to survive?

Jane: I'm OK, but I work to endow my organizations in Georgia. The Campaign for Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention, a statewide idea to help children against sexual abuse, poor parenting, school failure. Half my salary from "Monster-in-Law" went to that.

Liz: Will you do more movies?

Jane: Yes. I don't want to do a lot, but I will do some — both for money and because it is fun.

Liz: Would you ever act on the stage again?

Jane: I don't think so. I don't want to be away from my children.

Liz: With Jay Leno he said to you that you walked like a movie star, and you answered, "I wonder why." It was a great line. But do you think of yourself as a film star?

Jane: I think starring in films is one of the things I do. (Laughter) But it's not who I am. I am, among other things, a grandmother, an activist;

Liz: Will you stay in Atlanta?

Jane: It's manageable; it's a real place. People are very friendly. I have a life there with my work and my children. I'm very happy there. I spend other time in New Mexico at my ranch, and I like to fly fish. And I ride; I have eight horses. I like visiting New York. I like visiting L.A., but I wouldn't go back to live in Hollywood for anything.

Liz : So now you're a Southern girl?

Jane: Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yep.
-end of interview-

That was painful to read. Jump forward to today...

Jane Fonda was in Australia today (February 28, 2006) promoting her new book and criticizing the war on terror in Iraq...and Bush in general.

Fonda said too many lives were being lost after an invasion of Iraq that was based on lies.

"I think it is a crime, a tragedy, disgusting and despicable," Fonda said in Sydney. (travelling abroad and spouting a holier-than-thou anti-american animosity is wonderful though.)

"It is almost beyond comprehension how we could have been brought into this war based on lies and continue to lose so many lives, both American and Iraqi."

"It makes my skin crawl ... my heart break." "We haven't learnt our lessons,"

"I have been spending time with Iraq veterans who have come back ... their voices are the most important because the Bush administration can't say they are unpatriotic."

"We have to support the ones who have been there who say this is wrong. What they are saying is, pull the troops out now."

Fonda's political activism, film career and personal life are covered in her autobiography, titled My Life So Far, which she is in Australia to promote.

"When I turned 62 and was once again single and had really gone through some profound personal transformation, I came to a place where I could see the themes of my life,"

"I knew that if I could write it honestly, that it would resonate with other people and provide a roadmap for dealing with things like self image, relationships, parenting and things like that."

"People identify with what I have to say which makes me very happy,"

"There is no way to be helpful to other people unless you are honest about yourself."

Fonda said she enjoyed the process of writing her autobiography so much that she was looking at writing a fictional novel.

"I feel something brewing in my belly, it might be a novel,"

"I like writing and I think I am good at it."

"I am going to be doing another film but it hasn't been announced so I can't say, but probably I will start in June,"

Michelle Malkin has had some great posts about Jane...click here to check them out.

The "All Roads Lead to Oil" roundup...

Cox & Forkum are awesome. Click here for the post to go with the above cartoon.

I have to admit that the "addicted to oil" quote from the last SOTU address didn't sit right with me. I may be addicted to some things, but oil isn't it. Sure, I need it to get to work in my car...and to the grocery store, etc...but I'm not addicted.

Give me a reasonable option and I'm all over it. We do have an issue with being beholden to countries that we don't want to be beholden to because of it. The U.S. must break its dependence on foreign suppliers in unstable parts of the world. What should we do about it...

ANWR.org has a great video. Click here to check it out.

Take a look at their top ten reasons to support drilling.

They also have an article worth reading...Seven Billion Dollars from ANWR in President's Budget

"ANWR legislation was blocked on Dec 21 last year by obstructionists in the Senate striking ANWR language from the 2006 Defense Appropriations Bill. Senator Dominici, the Chair of the Senate Resources Committee, is keen to re-engage ANWR language in Congress this Spring.

ANWR revenues are hugely important to the US federal budget as they are one of the very few items that brings money into the government without coming from taxes of ordinary citizens. This estimate increase of $7 billion makes ANWR oil even more vital to the nation. This is an immediate cash injection into America that does not rely on building infrastructure or delays in construction of an oil field, estimated at roughly 6 years."

Recent articles about drilling in VA and FL



Opinion Journal Addicted to Polls President Bush's startling left turn on energy policy.

"President Bush has seen the energy future, and he has two words of advice: wood chips. Somewhere in his cardigan sweater next to a fireplace, Jimmy Carter is smiling.

...At least Mr. Bush bothered to mention nuclear energy, which is the only realistic substitute to fossil fuels short of a technological breakthrough...

The truth is that many green groups, and the political liberals who follow them, don't object to imported oil because it comes from the Middle East. They are opposed to fossil fuels, and nuclear energy for that matter, on principle. They want to live in a world that runs on wood chips, and it's hardly useful to have a conservative President telling the country he agrees with them."

TCS Daily Addicted to What?

"America is no more addicted to oil than it is addicted to bread, to milk, to paper, to water, to computers or, in the immortal words of the late Robert Palmer, to love.

We use oil -- and other unmentioned but implied addictions like coal and natural gas -- to generate energy that powers our cars, heats our homes, lights our cities, runs our factories. By the standard of what they do for us, fossil fuels are pretty cheap. They provide enormous industrial leverage. But, at least in the short term, they are getting more expensive -- in part because demand is rising (mainly in other nations, like China and India, that want to have standards of living like ours) and in part because supply isn't keeping up."

President Bush's Advanced Energy Initiative and Energy Policy

The President’s Energy Vision

President Bush believes the power of technology and the innovative spirit of America will reduce our reliance on foreign sources of energy, which will help ensure a growing and prosperous America in the 21st Century. We have both the technology and the know-how to meet the principal energy challenges we face: promoting energy conservation, repairing and modernizing our energy infrastructure, and increasing our energy supplies in ways that protect and improve the environment. Meeting each of these challenges is critical to expanding our economy, satisfying the energy needs of a growing population, and raising our standard of living.

A sound energy policy is also vital to national security and protecting the environment. We currently spend more than half a billion dollars a day on imported oil. We are increasingly concerned about the vulnerability of the electricity grid and pipeline systems to both unintentional and intentional disruptions. We are also focused on the environmental consequences of energy production, including emissions of air pollutants and greenhouse gases, primarily from the burning of coal, oil, and natural gas.


Since 2001, the Administration has spent nearly $10 billion to develop cleaner, cheaper, and more reliable alternative energy sources. As a result, America is on the verge of breakthroughs in advanced energy technologies that could transform the way we produce and use energy. To build on this progress, the President’s Advanced Energy Initiative provides for a 22% increase in funding for clean-energy technology research at the Department of Energy in two vital areas:

1. Changing the way we fuel our vehicles. We can improve our energy security through greater use of technologies that reduce oil use by improving efficiency, expansion of alternative fuels from homegrown biomass, and development of fuel cells that use hydrogen from domestic feedstocks.

2. Changing the way we power our homes and businesses. We can address high costs of natural gas and electricity by generating more electricity from clean coal, advanced nuclear power, and renewable resources such as solar and wind.

Just as our current challenges did not arise overnight, neither will the solutions to these challenges. We must make a sustained commitment to addressing the fundamental causes of high and volatile energy prices, while protecting our national security and the environment. Through the Advanced Energy Initiative, we can take new, bold steps towards the goal of a reliable, affordable, and clean energy future for all Americans.

NewsMax -Can Mexican Oil Save the U.S.?

"He (Clay Sell) might as well have said: 'We're addicted to our standard of living and our way of life,' " Rattie said.

Where can we look for relief? Maybe Mexico?

In the same article, The Chronicle explains that political leaders in that country may finally be willing to allow increased drilling in oil-rich Mexico.

"In Mexico, where industries from steel to ceramics to fertilizer have been hard-hit by high natural gas prices, there may finally be the political will to open the country to outsiders who want to explore for more oil and natural gas, according to Fernando Canales Clariond, Mexico's energy secretary," reports The Chronicle.

Intellectual Conservative Did you say "Addicted to Oil" Mr. President?

If America’s oil usage is an addiction, from where we import our oil is irrelevant. All that matters is that we must end the addiction. The problem is that windmills won’t keep our lights burning, corn ethanol our planes flying, switch grass our factories humming. Oil can do so and will, for decades to come. Oil is not an unhealthy or immoral addiction, it is a legitimate source of energy created for human use. Eliminating its use would throw America back into the dark ages with social conditions that not even the most rabidly liberal opponent of the SUV would tolerate for a moment.

Lee Hamilton Oil dependency's dangers

America's rising dependence on foreign sources of oil and gas is one of our greatest policy failures. This has been principally a failure of political will.

Just what are the costs of our addiction? To begin with, our economy is dangerously vulnerable because of the necessity of oil and gas to heat our homes, power some industries and, most important, keep vehicles moving. Because of this dependency, we suffer economic shocks when access to oil and gas is threatened: the OPEC embargo, the Iranian revolution, Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, the war in Iraq, Hurricane Katrina and militia attacks in southern Nigeria are just a handful of incidents that have driven up oil and gas prices, slowing growth and making life harder for millions of Americans.
This dependency is a huge constraint on foreign policy. Because most of the world's known energy reserves are in the Persian Gulf, every recent president has called this region vital to American interests, and we place an inordinate amount of attention and spend vast amounts of resources trying to keep the region stable. Above all, we are tied to a rigid tradeoff with the Saudi royal family: We guarantee their security; they guarantee affordable prices for oil.

We are open to the charge of hypocrisy. Western money that floods the Persian Gulf has helped to further Islamist causes, notably the spread of radical Islamic schools and, in some cases terrorism. Oil money provided a seed for nuclear programs in Iraq and Iran. Meanwhile, our ability to deal with threatening yet energy-rich states like Iran is curtailed because of their ability to drive up the price of oil, and leaders in Venezuela or even Russia have some leverage over the United States. Finally, our pursuit of other goals -- for instance, Israeli-Palestinian peace -- is constrained because of the need to maintain access to oil.

Knight Ridder News - Kevin G. Hall - Oil independence is possible, but does America want it bad enough?

In November 1973, President Richard Nixon announced "Project Independence" to end U.S. reliance on foreign oil by 1980. He asked William Hogan to help lead the crusade. Hogan spent the ensuing energy crisis years as deputy director of the forerunner to today's Department of Energy. But Americans are now more dependent than ever.

Hogan believes energy independence is illusory. Oil remains the world's most cost-efficient fuel and is likely to remain so indefinitely. The real goal, he believes, should be reducing Americans' vulnerability to price and supply shocks.
The problem is "there's still all this oil in the Middle East" said Hogan, now a Harvard University professor. Because the Middle East is home to most of the world's proven oil reserves, it's expected to remain the low-cost oil producer for decades. And oil is likely to be the fuel of choice as long as it remains cheaper than alternatives, Hogan said.

If America went cold turkey, it would mean switching to higher-priced or heavily subsidized alternative fuels, which Americans and the government have resisted since Ronald Reagan won the presidential election in 1980.

And there's still the question of how quickly the nation could replace the 136 million gasoline-powered cars that cruised America's highways in 2004, the latest year Federal Highway Administration data are available.

During his State of the Union address, Bush called for reducing three-fourths of the oil that the United States purchases from the Middle East by 2025. A day later, his energy secretary clarified the goal - it's actually to reduce oil imports from anywhere by the equivalent of 75 percent of projected Middle East imports.
The Energy Department projects that Middle East oil imports will total 6 million barrels per day in 2025, so Bush's goal means displacing 4.5 million barrels a day by then.

That's more like a bartender taking away the glass but leaving the bottle. The United States would still be consuming nearly 23 million barrels per day of oil, and about 13 million barrels a day would come from abroad.
Bottom line: Under Bush's approach, America would remain addicted to foreign oil and still vulnerable to price shocks in a global market.

Philadelphia Inquirer Funding New Fuels Fill 'er up - with investment

The country needs to take risks on new technology, the way it has on wind. Federal tax credits and state portfolios assuring market share contributed to a record year for turbine installations in 2005. Wind eventually could generate as much as 20 percent of the nation's electricity, up from 1 percent now.

America has the know-how to wean itself from oil. It just has to make the commitment and investment.

Bush quotes:

"The issue, of course, is whether or not good intentions are met with actual dollars spent"

“Some of the nations we rely on for oil have unstable governments, or fundamental differences with the United States...These countries know we need their oil and that reduces influence. It creates a national security issue when we’re held hostage for energy by foreign nations that may not like us"...

“We ought to start building nuclear power plants again. I think it makes sense to do so. Technology is such that we can do so and say to the American people, these are safe — and they’re important,”

Michael Savage: No party lines...Psychological nudity

Michael Savage hosts the 3rd most-listened-to radio program in the country. I love listening to him when I get a chance...usually in the car like tonight when I'm out running errands like going to the store and/or on a mission from my wonderful wife.

Apparently Harry Reid spoke today about having listened to Savage for the first time and being surprised to hear him berating the President about the port contracts going to the UAE. Needless to say, Reid loved it. Savage is just excited about the idea that the Dems are listening to him.

He made a good point about lobbyists in Washington. Albright and Gore are apparently now working as lobbyist...what can either of them offer the targets of their lobbying efforts? If lobbying isn't bribery, what is it?

On the ports...he's accusing conservative news outlets of dropping the port story because of his (Savages) involvement. Not sure what that was/is, other than his outspokenness against the President on this issue (found it)...although, after some thought over the weekend he's convinced it was all handled before this week by "middle managers" in the various departments involved. These middle managers must have kept this from the top-level of the administration. He figures that Bush and Cheney are too smart and aware to not have known this would have received the attention it has.

TCS Daily chimes in here:

There are many people who don't like Michael Savage's raucous ranting and raving -- people like me who prefer logic and reason; but, unfortunately, there are times when the only rational thing to do is to rave and rant. This is one of them. If the Bush administration is so far out of touch with reality as to defend the "Portgate" deal to an incredulous and dumbfounded American public, then maybe it is time when all of us need to take a lesson from Michael Savage, and learn to rant and rave ourselves. When dealing with the deaf, it is sometimes necessary to scream.

He also pointed out that the arguement where we should let this go through because we will need to continue using their airstrips is a little weak. Dubai benefits by having our planes sitting out there. If they don't like it, we can leave and watch them get swallowed up. They need us, yet we're taking a position of weakness...very John Kerry.

Think about how we'd feel if the government had just approved the sale of CBS, NBC or ABC to Al Jazeera?

Ultimately, this is all about oil. Next post coming soon...

Listen to Michael Savage 9-midnight EST by clicking here. (free, just create a un/pw and login)

Click here for a teaser of Mr. Savage on the radio.

Click here for his official site. (beware of graphic video links)

Click here for a tribute site.

Curling makes it to the big time!

The American Princess just made my day with a great find...

I've always been a little curious about curling...after all, it's really just a very cool drinking game. I am now officially a curling fan.

NBC: Is it cold in here, or is it just me?

**UPDATE**

VtheK at Caption This! has the top ten captions...

"Saddam Had WMD"

**UPDATE - 3/1/06**

From Brent Bozell - TV Yawns at Saddam Tapes

Objectivity shows up in the funniest places on TV news. Take, for example, the latest taped message from Osama bin Laden, where the architect of 9/11 spits in America’s face by comparing the "criminality" of the American military to that of Saddam Hussein. The TV networks repeated this robotically, without comment. Far be it from them to pass judgment.

On the morning shows, they merely passed along Osama’s message of moral equivalence, reading it with no attempt to rebut it, rethink it, or reject it. On the evening news, Osama’s Uncle-Sam-same-as-Saddam message wasn’t treated as a stinging lie about our forces. It was, instead, forced through the same well-worn storyline: It’s more proof that the plotters of the Iraq war were wrong to connect Saddam to al-Qaeda..

Continuation from a previous post...

Where's the media? Interesting that even the suggestion that the whole "Bush lied!" campaign could have been incorrect is stifled. The media sure doesn't seem reluctant to jump into stories critical of Bush based on suggestion or possibilities.

Investors Business Daily ran with a oh-so-hopeful story a few days ago. It would be just make my year to see the backtracking from the left and the MSM if momentum builds behind it. I'm not holding my breath though.

Click here for the complete article.

Now that Leno and Letterman have had their way with Vice President Cheney's hunting accident and the port controversy, maybe we can get back to something really important — like Saddam's WMD program.

Yes, the linchpin of opposition to the Iraq War — never really strong to begin with — has taken some real hits in recent weeks. And "Bush lied" — the anti-war mantra about the president, Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction — looks the most battered.

Inconveniently for critics of the war, Saddam made tapes in his version of the Oval Office. These tapes landed in the hands of American intelligence and were recently aired publicly.

The first 12 hours of the tapes — there are hundreds more waiting to be translated — are damning, to say the least. They show conclusively that Bush didn't lie when he cited Saddam's WMD plans as one of the big reasons for taking the dictator out.

Nobody disputes the tapes' authenticity. On them, Saddam talks openly of programs involving biological, chemical and, yes, nuclear weapons...

..."We did not reveal all that we have," he says. "Not the type of weapons, not the volume of the materials we imported, not the volume of the production we told them about, not the volume of use. None of this was correct."

There's more. Indeed, as late as 2000, Saddam can be heard in his office talking with Iraqi scientists about his ongoing plans to build a nuclear device. At one point, he discusses Iraq's plasma uranium program — something that was missed entirely by U.N. weapons inspectors combing Iraq for WMD.

This is particularly troubling, since it indicates an active, ongoing attempt by Saddam to build an Iraqi nuclear bomb. "What was most disturbing," said John Tierney, the ex- FBI agent who translated the tapes, "was the fact that the individuals briefing Saddam were totally unknown to the U.N. Special Commission (or UNSCOM, the group set up to look into Iraq's WMD programs)."

In short, let us repeat: President Bush was right. We had to invade to disarm Saddam — otherwise, he would have completely reconstituted his chemical, nuclear and bio-weapons programs when inspectors left.

Saddam probably knew better than to use them himself against the U.S. But it's likely he wouldn't have hesitated giving one or more to terror groups with which he had routine contact.

...These are extraordinary developments. They deserve a full airing in the media, since they essentially validate part of Bush's casus belli for invading Iraq and deposing the murderous Saddam.

But once again, the mainstream media have dropped the ball. They seem more interested in Dick Cheney's marksmanship and American port management than in setting the record straight about one of the most important developments of our time.

Books to consider...A Time for Freedom: What Happened When in America, by Lynne Cheney

Do your children know the importance of dates such as 1607, 1787 and 1920? (Ahem: do you?) Now they can learn "what happened when in America" from this ingenious, illustrated timeline by Lynne Cheney

No one can fully appreciate the great good fortune we have to be Americans without knowing the events that brought us to where we are today. Unfortunately, fewer and fewer children are leaving school knowing the basic chronology of American history. One study, for instance, found that two thirds of seventeen-year-olds could not identify the half century in which the Civil War occurred. Now, bestselling children's author and historian Lynne Cheney (wife of Vice President Dick Cheney), provides a remedy: in A Time for Freedom: What Happened When in America, Mrs. Cheney takes young readers through a fascinating, illustrated timeline of key events in our history - along with historic quotations by great Americans and little-known facts about our country.

As Mrs. Cheney explains in her preface, dates alone are not enough for understanding history -- but without a proper sense of chronology, understanding is impossible. "Some dates ought to be locked in memory. I think of 1492, 1607, 1620, 1776, and 1787, for starters. But it is equally important to be familiar enough with the order of events so that one has a sense of the progression of our national story." Comprehending why the Civil War occurred in the 1860s, for instance, requires knowing that our nation expanded dramatically in the 1840s, raising the question of whether new states would be free or slave.

From our nation's beginnings through the present day, A Time for Freedom places all the great events of our country's history into context and charts the progress of freedom in America. Lavishly illustrated with historical images and artwork, it will teach your child not only when, but why the key events in our history occurred -- and also teach them to appreciate what a truly unique blessing it is to be an American.

(Book description from Human Events Book Service)

-Home-

Control the Southern Border!

Requiring legal immigration and controlling our borders is the right thing to do. Outsource to the UAE if you have to!!!

Does anyone understand why the Bush administration and Congress continue to seem like they're dragging their feet on this? I agree with Human Events that this should be the #1 priority for 2006.

Set up legal immigration offices all over the place..., but first things first: close the border to illegal immigrants, smugglers and terrorists!



Top 10 Immigration Hawks in Congress:

10. Sen. Tom Coburn (R.-Okla.)
9. Rep. Elton Gallegly (R.-Calif.)
8. Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R.-Ariz.)
7. Rep. Steve King (R.-Iowa)
6. Rep. Lamar Smith (R.-Tex.)
5. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D.-Calif.)
4. Rep. Duncan Hunter (R.-Calif.)
3. Rep. John Hostettler (R.-Ind.)
2. Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R.-Wis.)
1. Rep. Tom Tancredo (R.-Colo.)

Friedman: "In some ways they're losing..."

Newsbusters: Posted by Mark Finkelstein on February 24, 2006
Click here to read.

NY Times columnist Thomas Friedman is for many the voice of the center-left foreign policy establishment in the U.S.

Friedman notes that...

"Shiites have resisted all [previous] provocations but this attack on the Golden Dome Mosque is the straw that broke the camel's back and has brought Iraq to the edge. One of two things is going to happen: Iraqis are going to stare into this abyss and pull back or I'm afraid they're going to fall into this abyss and we're going to know real soon if anything is salvageable."

Friedman's response to Gibson's query as to who would want to bomb the mosque was fascinating, as it suggested that not only has Iraq become the climactic battleground of the war against terrorism and Al-Qaeda, but that the current wave of violence may reflect Al-Qaeda's perception that it is losing the battle.

"People have often asked why has there been no terrorism in the United States since 9/11 and my answer to them is my answer to you. I believe Al Qaeda . . . their main focus right now is to defeat us in the very heart of their world. Their focus right now is on defeating us in Iraq. After all, they want to control the Middle East. They're not interested in controlling Las Vegas.

"They know if they defeat America in the heart of their world, the resonance that will have is enormous. In contrast, if we defeat them in the heart of their world in collaboration with other arabs and Muslims by putting together some kind of decent democracy there, it will be a terrible defeat. So what you're seeing is in many way acts of unspeakable violence. I mean, going into one of the most prominent Shiite shrines, the reason they're doing it is -- that in some ways they're losing. The closer we get to producing a decent outcome there, the crazier our opponents are going to get because they know if they lose it's strategic."

Will those in the center-left of our political spectrum heed Friedman's nuanced, somewhat sanguine message, or will we hear nothing but more of the "Iraq is a disaster" drumbeat from the Democratic political establishment?

The continuing Air America bailout...after all, it's an election year!

Soros and Lewis can't let their propaganda mouthpiece go under during an election year...c'mon! Good grief.

Brian Maloney has it all here.

Previous post here.

Comedy break...

Monty Python - There's something very timely about this clip...like Python just spoofed the recent cartoon madness. Would Muslims find this funny?

From the Life of Brian:



British accents are just funnier.

Don Rumsfeld: "War in the Information Age"

Donald Rumsfeld
writes in todays
L.A. Times...

(hyperlinks are mine)
Click here to read.

"OUR NATION IS engaged in what promises to be a long struggle in the global war on terror. In this war, some of the most critical battles may not be in the mountains of Afghanistan or the streets of Iraq but in newsrooms in New York, London, Cairo and elsewhere.

Our enemies have skillfully adapted to fighting wars in today's media age, but for the most part we — our government, the media or our society in general — have not...

...I believe with every bone in my body that free people, exposed to sufficient information, will, over time, find their way to the right decisions.

We are fighting a battle in which the survival of our free way of life is at stake. It is a test of wills, and it will be won or lost with our public and the publics of free nations around the world. We need to do all we can to correct the lies being told, shatter the appeal of the enemy and attract supporters to our noble and necessary efforts to defeat violent extremism around the globe."

Donald Rumsfeld is right, and deserving of respect and admiration:

Donald H. Rumsfeld was sworn in as the 21st Secretary of Defense on January 20, 2001. Before assuming his present post, the former Navy pilot had also served as the 13th Secretary of Defense, White House Chief of Staff, U.S. Ambassador to NATO, U.S. Congressman and chief executive officer of two Fortune 500 companies.

Secretary Rumsfeld had directed the actions of the Defense Department in response to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Thus far, the Global War on Terror has resulted in the liberation of 25 million Afghanis and 27 million Iraqis, with free elections in both of those nations. Two-thirds of known Al Qaeda leaders have been captured or killed.

The war is being waged against a backdrop of major change within the Department of Defense. The department has developed a new defense strategy and replaced the old model for sizing forces with a newer approach more relevant to the 21st century. Secretary Rumsfeld proposed and the President approved a significant reorganization of the worldwide defense command structure, known as the Unified Command Plan, which resulted in the establishment of the U.S. Northern Command and the U.S. Strategic Command, the latter charged with the responsibilities formerly held by the Strategic and Space Commands which were disestablished. U.S. special operations forces have been expanded and the conduct of special operations has been more closely integrated into contingency planning. He has also initiated a global restructuring of U.S. forces to better reflect the realities of the post-Cold War period, including significant shifts of forces from Europe and the Korean peninsula. The Department of Defense has developed a new model for civil service, known as the National Security Personnel System. Additionally, Secretary Rumsfeld will oversee what could be the largest round of base readjustments in U.S. history, ensuring that scarce resources are available for needed combat capabilities.

Mr. Rumsfeld attended Princeton University on academic and NROTC scholarships (A.B., 1954) and served in the U.S. Navy (1954-57) as an aviator and flight instructor. In 1957, he transferred to the Ready Reserve and continued his Naval service in flying and administrative assignments as a drilling reservist until 1975. He transferred to the Standby Reserve when he became Secretary of Defense in 1975 and to the Retired Reserve with the rank of Captain in 1989.

In 1957, he came to Washington, DC to serve as Administrative Assistant to a Congressman. After a stint with an investment banking firm, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Illinois in 1962, at the age of 30, and was re-elected in 1964, 1966, and 1968.

Mr. Rumsfeld resigned from Congress in 1969 during his fourth term to join the President's Cabinet. From 1969 to 1970, he served as Director of the Office of Economic Opportunity and Assistant to the President. From 1971 to 1972, he was Counsellor to the President and Director of the Economic Stabilization Program. In 1973, he left Washington, DC, to serve as U.S. Ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Brussels, Belgium (1973-1974).

In August 1974, he was called back to Washington, DC, to serve as Chairman of the transition to the Presidency of Gerald R. Ford. He later became Chief of Staff of the White House and a member of the President's Cabinet (1974-1975). He served as the 13th U.S. Secretary of Defense, the youngest in the country's history (1975-1977).

From 1977 to 1985 he served as Chief Executive Officer, President, and then Chairman of G.D. Searle & Co., a worldwide pharmaceutical company. The successful turnaround there earned him awards as the Outstanding Chief Executive Officer in the Pharmaceutical Industry from the Wall Street Transcript (1980) and Financial World (1981). From 1985 to 1990 he was in private business.

Mr. Rumsfeld served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of General Instrument Corporation from 1990 to 1993, a leader in broadband transmission, distribution, and access control technologies. Until being sworn in as the 21st Secretary of Defense, Mr. Rumsfeld served as Chairman of the Board of Gilead Sciences, Inc., a pharmaceutical company.

Before returning for his second tour as Secretary of Defense, Mr. Rumsfeld chaired the bipartisan U.S. Ballistic Missile Threat Commission, in 1998, and the U.S. Commission to Assess National Security Space Management and Organization, in 2000.

While in the private sector, Mr. Rumsfeld's civic activities included service as a member of the National Academy of Public Administration and a member of the boards of trustees of the Gerald R. Ford Foundation, the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and the National Park Foundation, and as Chairman of the Eisenhower Exchange Fellowships, Inc.

In 1977, Mr. Rumsfeld was awarded the nation's highest civilian award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Other honors include:

Eagle Scout Award (1947)

All Navy Wrestling Champion (1956)

George C. Marshall Medal by the U.S. Army Association (1984)

Woodrow Wilson Medal by Princeton University (1985)

Dwight D. Eisenhower Medal (1993)

Lone Sailor Award by the U.S. Navy Memorial Foundation (2002)

Statesmanship Award by the U.S. Assoc of Former Members of Congress (2003)

James H. Doolittle Award by the Hudson Institute (2003)

Ronald Reagan Freedom Award by the Reagan Library (2003)

Gerald R. Ford Medal presented by President Ford and the Ford Foundation (2004)

Mr. Rumsfeld has been awarded 11 honorary degrees.

The Left is wrong with their caricatures of him.

Right Wing News has their favorite Rumsfeld quotes here.

"Don't divide the world into "them" and "us." Avoid infatuation with or resentment of the press, the Congress, rivals, or opponents. Accept them as facts. They have their jobs and you have yours."

Knowing Evil...the Rape of Nanking and the dangerous religion of Political Correctness...

Rabbi Aryeh Spero - American Lefties Rooting for Terrorists

"...Only “intellectuals,” as they did with Hitler and Stalin before, could be deaf to the crystal clear pronouncements by the mullahs and ayatollahs calling for religious jihad as homage to Mohammed. Islamic imperialism has nothing to do with America’s foreign policy.

Those who consider themselves smarter, and gifted with greater understanding and cultural nuance, always assume that negotiation solves every global problem. After all, that is what they do. They don’t lead armies, they sit on the Council of Foreign Relations, in the halls of The Hague and on the faculty at NYU and Georgetown. Thus their vested interest blinds them to the reality of the enemy. Indeed, he is not the enemy, simply an opposing point of view in need of reckoning. Even the brains of people with high IQs can become dumb and dishonest when in service to their ego and honor..."

The History Place covers Genocide in the 20th Century...

This is an unbelievable story that I had never heard before. In fact, I don't recall ever learning about it in school. There was certainly time spent on the Nazi's and the holocaust, but the Japanese invasion of China, and specifically Nanking (now Nanjing) wasn't covered to my recollection.

The word horrifying doesn't begin to describe these events. It's pure evil, and it still exists today. We can't let political correctness blind us to the fact that human beings are capable of committing the most unthinkable horrors.

Despite the killing of 300,000 people (50% of the population of Nanking) the story also highlights the power and force of goodness, with only 20 Westerners creating a "Safety Zone" that saved the remaining 300,000 from the savagery.

In December of 1937, the Japanese Imperial Army marched into China's capital city of Nanking and proceeded to murder 300,000 out of 600,000 civilians and soldiers in the city. The six weeks of carnage would become known as the Rape of Nanking and represented the single worst atrocity during the World War II era in either the European or Pacific theaters of war.

The actual military invasion of Nanking was preceded by a tough battle at Shanghai that began in the summer of 1937. Chinese forces there put up surprisingly stiff resistance against the Japanese Army which had expected an easy victory in China. The Japanese had even bragged they would conquer all of China in just three months. The stubborn resistance by the Chinese troops upset that timetable, with the battle dragging on through the summer into late fall. This infuriated the Japanese and whetted their appetite for the revenge that was to follow at Nanking.


After finally defeating the Chinese at Shanghai in November, 50,000 Japanese soldiers then marched on toward Nanking. Unlike the troops at Shanghai, Chinese soldiers at Nanking were poorly led and loosely organized. Although they greatly outnumbered the Japanese and had plenty of ammunition, they withered under the ferocity of the Japanese attack, then engaged in a chaotic retreat. After just four days of fighting, Japanese troops smashed into the city on December 13, 1937, with orders issued to "kill all captives."

Their first concern was to eliminate any threat from the 90,000 Chinese soldiers who surrendered. To the Japanese, surrender was an unthinkable act of cowardice and the ultimate violation of the rigid code of military honor drilled into them from childhood onward. Thus they looked upon Chinese POWs with utter contempt, viewing them as less than human, unworthy of life.

The elimination of the Chinese POWs began after they were transported by trucks to remote locations on the outskirts of Nanking. As soon as they were assembled, the savagery began, with young Japanese soldiers encouraged by their superiors to inflict maximum pain and suffering upon individual POWs as a way of toughening themselves up for future battles, and also to eradicate any civilized notions of mercy. Filmed footage and still photographs taken by the Japanese themselves document the brutality. Smiling soldiers can be seen conducting bayonet practice on live prisoners, decapitating them and displaying severed heads as souvenirs, and proudly standing among mutilated corpses. Some of the Chinese POWs were simply mowed down by machine-gun fire while others were tied-up, soaked with gasoline and burned alive.

After the destruction of the POWs, the soldiers turned their attention to the women of Nanking and an outright animalistic hunt ensued. Old women over the age of 70 as well as little girls under the age of 8 were dragged off to be sexually abused. More than 20,000 females (with some estimates as high as 80,000) were gang-raped by Japanese soldiers, then stabbed to death with bayonets or shot so they could never bear witness.

Pregnant women were not spared. In several instances, they were raped, then had their bellies slit open and the fetuses torn out. Sometimes, after storming into a house and encountering a whole family, the Japanese forced Chinese men to rape their own daughters, sons to rape their mothers, and brothers their sisters, while the rest of the family was made to watch.

Throughout the city of Nanking, random acts of murder occurred as soldiers frequently fired their rifles into panicked crowds of civilians, killing indiscriminately. Other soldiers killed shopkeepers, looted their stores, then set the buildings on fire after locking people of all ages inside. They took pleasure in the extraordinary suffering that ensued as the people desperately tried to escape the flames by climbing onto rooftops or leaping down onto the street.

The incredible carnage - citywide burnings, stabbings, drownings, strangulations, rapes, thefts, and massive property destruction - continued unabated for about six weeks, from mid-December 1937 through the beginning of February 1938. Young or old, male or female, anyone could be shot on a whim by any Japanese soldier for any reason. Corpses could be seen everywhere throughout the city. The streets of Nanking were said to literally have run red with blood.

Those who were not killed on the spot were taken to the outskirts of the city and forced to dig their own graves, large rectangular pits that would be filled with decapitated corpses resulting from killing contests the Japanese held among themselves. Other times, the Japanese forced the Chinese to bury each other alive in the dirt.

After this period of unprecedented violence, the Japanese eased off somewhat and settled in for the duration of the war. To pacify the population during the long occupation, highly addictive narcotics, including opium and heroin, were distributed by Japanese soldiers to the people of Nanking, regardless of age. An estimated 50,000 persons became addicted to heroin while many others lost themselves in the city's opium dens.

In addition, the notorious Comfort Women system was introduced which forced young Chinese women to become slave-prostitutes, existing solely for the sexual pleasure of Japanese soldiers.

News reports of the happenings in Nanking appeared in the official Japanese press and also in the West, as page-one reports in newspapers such as the New York Times. Japanese news reports reflected the militaristic mood of the country in which any victory by the Imperial Army resulting in further expansion of the Japanese empire was celebrated. Eyewitness reports by Japanese military correspondents concerning the sufferings of the people of Nanking also appeared. They reflected a mentality in which the brutal dominance of subjugated or so-called inferior peoples was considered just. Incredibly, one paper, the Japan Advertiser, actually published a running count of the heads severed by two officers involved in a decapitation contest, as if it was some kind of a sporting match.

In the United States, reports published in the New York Times, Reader's Digest and Time Magazine, were greeted with skepticism from the American public. The stories smuggled out of Nanking seemed almost too fantastic to be believed.

Overall, most Americans had only a passing knowledge or little interest in Asia. Political leaders in both America and Britain remained overwhelmingly focused on the situation in Europe where Adolf Hitler was rapidly re-arming Germany while at the same time expanding the borders of the Nazi Reich through devious political maneuvers.

Back in Nanking, however, all was not lost. An extraordinary group of about 20 Americans and Europeans remaining in the city, composed of missionaries, doctors and businessmen, took it upon themselves to establish an International Safety Zone. Using Red Cross flags, they brazenly declared a 2.5 square-mile area in the middle of the city off limits to the Japanese. On numerous occasions, they also risked their lives by personally intervening to prevent the execution of Chinese men or the rape of women and young girls.

These Westerners became the unsung heroes of Nanking, working day and night to the point of exhaustion to aid the Chinese. They also wrote down their impressions of the daily scenes they witnessed, with one describing Nanking as "hell on earth." Another wrote of the Japanese soldiers: "I did not imagine that such cruel people existed in the modern world." About 300,000 Chinese civilians took refuge inside their Safety Zone. Almost all of the people who did not make it into the Zone during the Rape of Nanking ultimately perished.

It's hard to read this story, but pervasive moral relativism and the evil "religion" of political correctness must not soften our resolve to fight the evil that would have us all dead tomorrow. There is Right & Wrong...Good & Evil. Islamic terrorists are not freedom fighters who just have a different perspective (Chris Matthews). They are evil, they want to kill all "infidels", and they must be identified for what they are, confronted and destroyed before they succeed with even a small fraction of their stated goals.

A review of atrocities in the last century...

Bosnia-Herzegovina: 1992-1995 - 200,000 Deaths

Rwanda: 1994 - 800,000 Deaths

Pol Pot in Cambodia: 1975-1979 - 2,000,000 Deaths

Nazi Holocaust: 1938-1945 - 6,000,000 Deaths

Rape of Nanking: 1937-1938 - 300,000 Deaths

Stalin's Forced Famine: 1932-1933 - 7,000,000 Deaths

Armenians in Turkey: 1915-1918 - 1,500,000 Deaths

Then look at the rantings of the current Iranian President...of course he wants to say that the holocaust never happened. He hopes that will make it easier for him to repeat history and wipe Israel off the map. What about the former Taliban, Bin Laden and the rest of Al-Qaida & friends? With more strength and power, would they commit similar atrocities? If you're paying attention, it's hard not to answer yes.

They must be stopped, not pandered to.

"Bush was right"? MSM isn't biting yet though...Tierney speaking with God may be getting in the way

The discovery of the Saddam tapes indicating that everyone, including Bush, was right about Iraq having WMD is getting minimal press...

Two likely reasons why:

1) The media is thoroughly biased against anything that could help George Bush, and...

2) William Tierney and the "Intelligence Summit" where this information became public aren't exactly presenting themselves as entirely reliable...even if they're right. Click here for more info from Byron York at NRO.

"Tierney's methods of ascertaining this location were rather unconventional. "I would ask God and just get a sense if something was valid or not, and then know if I needed to pursue it," he said. His assessments through prayer were then confirmed to him by a friend's clairvoyant dream, where he was able to find the location on a map. "Everything she said lined up. This place meets the criteria," Tierney said of a power generator plant near the Tigris River that he believes is actually a cover for a secret uranium facility."

From NewsMax:

"Tape recordings released over the weekend show that Saddam Hussein had an active nuclear weapons program at least as recently as 2000 - but the press has decided the bombshell development isn't newsworthy."

From CBN News:

"In one of the tapes, Iraq’s Deputy Prime Minister, Tariq Aziz, said that a biological weapons attack would be the easiest to arrange, and that "anyone could do it. They wouldn't finger us." In another tape, recorded in 2000, an aide tells Hussein that a factory had been built to produce plasma. Plasma is used in making nuclear weapons.

The tapes were recorded during the mid-1990s and later, showing, Tierney says, that despite the damage inflicted on his regime by Operation Desert Storm and U.N. sanctions, Hussein continued to pursue an illicit WMD program, with a little help from his friends.

“Saddam and Tariq Aziz are on tape talking about France and Russia helping them. C'mon, it's time to stop being the world's sucker,” Tierney remarked."

From Pravda:

"If you think the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq came to nothing and that the pretext for the war was unjustified, then you would be mistaken. Saddam possessed a huge arsenal which he managed to smuggle out of Iraq with the help of Russian special forces. Indeed this story came to light several years ago. The source of this story is John Shaw, the former high-ranking Pentagon official. In October 2004 he announced to the world that Russian special forces had hidden the Iraqi dictator’s weapons in Syria and Lebanon. It is true that not even those in the organization itself believed him. Did the head of the Pentagon Donald Rumsfeld dream of finding WMDs in Iraq?"

From Investors.com: 'Bush Was Right' (Posted 2/21/2006)

WMD:

The quote above is that of a former UNSCOM member after translating and reviewing 12 hours of taped conversations between Saddam Hussein and his aides. So what's on the covers of Time and Newsweek?

The tapes were officially presented Sunday by former FBI translator Bill Tierney to a private conference of former weapons inspectors and intelligence experts in Arlington, Va. Tierney is an Arabic speaker who worked in the mid-1990s for the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM), the agency responsible for overseeing Iraq's disarmament.

On one of the tapes, made in 2000, two years after Saddam kicked out U.N. weapons inspectors, two Iraqi scientists can be heard briefing Hussein on their progress in enriching uranium using plasma separation. If successful, their work would have given Saddam the fissile material he needed to make a nuclear bomb.

...Some highlights from the tapes were played last Wednesday night on ABC's "Nightline." The chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Pete Hoekstra, has listened to some of the tapes and said they were "authentic."

In one exchange taped in April or May 1995, Saddam's son-in-law, Hussein Kamil al-Majid, briefed Saddam and his aides on his success at concealing Iraq's WMD from inspectors. "We did not reveal all that we have," he said. "They didn't know the extent of our work on missiles."

Skeptics will no doubt claim that this is merely a case of a sycophant massaging Saddam's ego, telling him of programs that didn't exist and progress that was never made. But many of these were programs and weapons the U.N. documented after Desert Storm and of which the U.N. itself demanded a full accounting in Resolution 1441.

So what happened to them? Both Israeli and U.S. intelligence observed large truck convoys leaving Iraq and entering Syria in the weeks and months before Operation Iraqi Freedom.

John Shaw, former deputy undersecretary of defense for international technology security, told the conference that former Russian intelligence boss Yevgeny Primakov went to Iraq in December 2002 to supervise WMD transfers into Syria.

According to Georges Sada, Saddam's No. 2 Air Force officer, two Iraqi Airways Boeing jets were converted to cargo planes and moved the WMD to Syria in a total of 56 flights six weeks before the war. The flights were disguised as part of a relief effort after a Syrian dam collapsed in 2002.

So what is on the media's mind? Not Saddam's secrets, but those of Vice President Dick Cheney — as evidenced by his failure to notify the Washington press corps immediately after his hunting accident. That subject graced the covers of both Time and Newsweek and preoccupied the weekend talk shows.

A better cover story would be Saddam's tapes, and a better headline was uttered by Tierney on "Fox & Friends" Monday morning: "President Bush was right."

A Political Correctness Rant Roundup...

Cox & Forkum are on the money as usual...



Philip Atkinson talks about a Theory of Civilization.
Click here to read.

The Inevitable Result Of Political Correctness

"By using the excuse of not upsetting anyone, the politically correct are demanding that people behave like the fool who would please everyone; that everyone must become such a fool! All must accept the notions of the Politically Correct as truth, or else! This is the same mentality that inspired the Inquisition and forced Galileo to recant; the same mentality that inspired the Nazis and obtained the Holocaust. Once expression gets placed in a straitjacket of official truth, then the madness that occurs in all totalitarian states is obtained. Life, in private and public, becomes a meaningless charade where delusion thrives and terror rules."

His definition of political correctness is here.


Political Correctness:The Scourge of Our Times
Agustin Blazquez with the collaboration of Jaums Sutton
Monday, April 8, 2002
Click here to read.

..."With profound dismay, I have seen how the scourge of Political Correctness has taken hold in the U.S. It is very well entrenched in our educational system, at scientific, religious and community levels, the media, the workplace and even our government.

It is changing the American society from within, and the citizens of this nation are increasingly censoring themselves and losing their freedom of speech out of fear of Political Correctness repression.

It is the nature of Western Civilization to be civilized – respectful of others and concerned with correcting injustices. We don't need Political Correctness to make us think we are not civilized on our own and must have our thoughts and words restricted."

Purging the Political Correctness Within
Tuesday, October 15, 2002
By Wendy McElroy
Click here to read.

..."Political correctness is not just an ideology; it is an attitude. And although the ideology may be dying out, it can live on in the attitudes many of us have absorbed from our culture -- a culture that has been ravaged and dominated by political correctness for decades. We need to exorcise its spirit.

As an ideology, political correctness says that some ideas, attitudes and peaceful behavior are unacceptable and should be legally discouraged. Acceptable ones should be encouraged by law. Thus discrimination against "minorities," such as women (who are actually a majority), is prohibited in both the public and private sector. Discrimination in favor of minorities is mandated through the de facto quotas imposed by policies like affirmative action.

But political correctness is also an attitude. The politically correct arrogantly expropriate "the truth" and deny the possibility of honest disagreement. To them it is a given: anyone who dissents does so because of ill motives -- e.g. economic greed, patriarchal power-lust, racism. To the PC, society is a battleground on which classes of people representing good and evil conflict: black versus white, female versus male, Western culture versus the "emerging nations." The coin of the realm is collective victimhood, not individual responsibility.

I demand a civil society that respects the individual and acknowledges the existence of honest disagreement between human beings of good will. But getting there means rooting out not only the ideology of political correctness but also the attitudes many of us have adopted almost by osmosis from our culture..."

Uncle Jimbo chimes in from Black Five...
Click here to read.

Every time Islamic violence erupts another ten places, we are told that these extremists represent a small fraction of Muslims and It really is a religion of peace. The problem is I don't hear any moderate Muslims. The best the press can find is apologists or appeasers. I don't hear any major Muslim leaders using their religious bully pulpit to call for calm, or tolerance or even human decency. If there are any moderate Muslims, they are scared of the jihadis just like the rest of the West. They all fear inflaming the irrational, religion-fueled, hate machine that carries the Islamist flag into battle.

I don't fear the person who has told me they wish to kill me; once that taboo is breached things become quite simple. I kill him first, no quibbling, no moral quandary. Matter of fact, I have an obligation to kill the man who has sworn to kill me. I have children and am obliged to provide for them, and ignoring or appeasing someone dedicated to killing me, and by extension them is abdicating that resonsibility. In this case our government is my surrogate and I absolutely expect them to be actively engaged in anything likely to speed these savages along to their 72 goats.

Tammy Bruce has a great catalog of PC posts...click here to read.

Click here for PC Watch from the UK.

Click here...Did Bill Clinton say what I think he said?

Islam...a peaceful religion? Who's kidding who! Here's most of it. It's worth reading all here.

Here in the West, we have been dumbfounded by our religious and political leaders’ propaganda and bloodthirsty rhetoric. The following are some examples of this horrific situation that we have heard in our travels:

We went to Mass the other day, and the priest in his homily said that it was our “obligation” as Catholics to kill the infidel.

We went to our friend’s house yesterday, and he said his protest-ant pastor called for the U.S. to set the nation of Iraq and all the Holy Land ablaze in honor of God.

The Vatican is releasing a new dogma to be promulgated in which the pope states that all those who kill innocent people in the Name of God will go directly to Paradise upon their death and be serviced by beautiful virgins.

Our Jewish friend was telling us that his rabbi is raising funds to pay families in Israel who have their children strap themselves with explosives and kill anyone who believes in anything other than Judaism.

We were at the airport the other day and were watching some hare krishna devotees who were soliciting funds to buy weapons to free their holy land.

At a UFO convention, believers in extraterrestrials were told that aliens were getting ready to wipe out all evil on Earth by establishing the right of a Palestinian state for Palestinians only with Jerusalem as its capital.

In a news conference, the president of the United States, along with allies from Great Britain, Spain, Portugal, Australia, and other nations, said that it is important for Americans to kill anyone who espouses a belief in islam. The president stated that we were not to trust anyone with a beard or who wears a veil.

The National Organization for Women has issued an emergency statement yesterday that NO cost — be it economic or in human lives — was too great to bear to free the women of the Middle East from male-dominated, chauvinistic societies.

In a coordinated news conference to correspond with NOW’s emergency statement, Amnesty International also issued a statement that the world could no longer tolerate any islamic regime that tortures or kills people because they believe in another religion. AI specifically singled out Saudi Arabia as one of the worst offenders in this regard and suggested that the Bush administration should consider overthrowing the government of this hostile nation.

A spokes“person” for the American Civil Liberties Union said that in order to secure the complete and total civil liberties of every American citizen in America, it was using all the power and authority at its command to ensure the president of the U.S. utilized Weapons of Mass Destruction to destroy any threat from any foreign government or terrorist organization that could conceivably keep Americans from enjoying their freedom and rights.

Finally, the United Nations issued a “fatah” stating that it had had enough of Holy Land violence and was declaring martial law in the region. The UN said that until the threat of fanatical islam is wiped from the face of the Earth, the world government body knew peace in our time could not be attained. It, therefore, has decreed that its No. 1 priority is to ensure islamic terrorist theology not be preached, taught, or used to enflame the masses of gullible human beings who do not believe their lives have any value as their political leaders amass fortunes and rob what little the people have as they send even their young children off to a suicidal, maniacal and homicidal end.

In other news, clerics and other islamic religious leaders throughout the world issued direct orders to all moslems that no one was to engage in violence for any reason, and that all arms were to be given up to cognizant authorities in their area. In a final note after this religious-enforced decree, islamic leaders blessed all the people of the world, no matter what their beliefs, and asked that the world live in peace in honor of God.

A Politically Incorrect (and amusing) Montage: