ORACULATIONS

The big question is becoming: "Can we survive the attacks by ourselves on ourselves." It is clear that the Left hates America, our values, our Constitution, and our very roots.

A blog I've never heard of, Melanie Phillip's Diary, sums up the effects of the deliberate media lies about the Lebanon War.....

.....the mainstream media must now be regarded as active accessories to the war being waged against the free world and therefore as a fifth column ( a point I have been making for weeks) in that world – an enemy within. Fourth, the impact of the lies and distortions transmitted by the mainstream media in inflaming the already pathological hatred of the west within the Arab and Muslim world is incalculable. Fifth, the mainstream media’s vilification, demonisation and delegitimisation of Israel, based on outright fabrications and malevolent distortions, is imperilling the very existence of the country that is the front line of defence of the free world.

There is also this one:

The scale of this corruption now threatens to have a lethal impact on the course of human history. Hatred now drives not just the jihadists but their western dupes, too. Truth and freedom are indivisible. The deconstruction of the former inevitably presages the destruction of the latter. This is the way a civilisation dies.

The entire piece is here and is a must read. I think the original link is from Hot Air????

DuToit has a great (to me) take on NAFTA, "outsourcing " and the overall contempt that the Ph.D class has for blue collar workers

The reason this (outsourcing) is getting more attention is that while manufacturing jobs were being displaced, they were blue-collar jobs. Without using class-warfare rhetoric, nobody cared if textile workers in Alabama lost their jobs to a sweatshop in Bangladesh, because their impact on the country, even as a group, wasn’t that great.

But he goes deeper, much deeper, than that, discussing the inequitable exchange between high paid skilled labor export vs the cheap labor import...Good Read

Malkin really has the rag on about the seemingly random deaths of sixteen or so people at the hands of a car driven by a Muslim. I think the most likely situation is that this young guy went to Afghanistan where he was immersed in Muslim extremism for a couple of weeks and left with a shroud of guilt for "not doing something" to express Muslim rage. This stuff simmered inside him; he is a very quiet guy, the kind that cannot "blow off steam" with friends and acquaintances, and he simply exploded. To rant and rave that this is terrorism is to trivialize the real terrorism.

My Jon Benet suicide theory is back on the front burner....but what do you want to bet that the stupid DA in Boulder will continue to ignore it?

Tammy Bruce has a good story about a (shock/awe) an actual Marine HERO a story being buried by the MSM

Endless TV "news" I'm sick of:
Coverage of a fucking nothing rainstorm called Ernesto...
New Orleans in any and every form. They re-elected Mayor Nagin and they deserve all the bad shit that is happening to them
T.O. and his goddam hamstring.

Tons of bloggers are linking to this piece in the Boston Globe. It details the threats and actions of the established Left against anyone who disagrees with them. If you haven't read it yet, please do.

Note: This is three essays published in one spot for archival purposes. Published because everyone seems to be asking "How do these home grown terrorsts form cells?"

PART ONE: A friend emailed me a rather confidential document that used huge words I had never heard of because they were military jargon. I have attempted a translation that all of us can understand. By the time all parts are on line, you will understand more clearly why we have failed to kill terrorism so far, and what we have to do to eliminate their food. Very Late Add: the original document is now posted by the Army War College. Badly written and filled with complex language. (Note: no longer published)

Here's how terrorism is working today. This is why the FBI and CIA failed to grasp the situation at first, the much maligned Tenant did understand it but by the time he did Congress refused to listen to him. I guarantee everyone that we will all come to realize that he was right, that our government as then structured, and is still structured, cannot stop terrorism cells because we have not understood exactly what they are, and that we are dealing with a headless blob. The terrorist "network" is composed of virus like cells and, like a virus, they just "appear" or emerge (called "emergence") with no seeming reason. They self organize, replicate themselves, get stronger each and every time they come in contact with another individual, split into more and more strains that cannot be slain the way the last cell was slain, and have no center. Bin Laden is no more than a figurehead, Zarkawi can be killed and it will make no difference. There is a way to deal with them but first we have to understand the actual nature of this beast. We have a virus.

Looking at Muslim terrorism through a relatively new lens called the Complexity Theory, a method of investigation and structure discovered in science for the study and elimination of viruses, passed through to business, and now being used by the U.S. Military, it is possible to see how this new terrorism "self-organizes" without organizing, gets stronger, stays strong , and changes (adapts) when attacked. Eliminating one or two cells has all the effect of popping a zit on the face of a teenager. Pop one and two more appear the next morning.

The five fundamental elements of self-organizing networks are adaptation, correlation (connected by complimentary relationship), coupling, aggregation (collecting new members from a similar cell) and self reproduction. As each agent is added the group gets stronger and will further evolve. Each agent within the group will change too because of the nature of this self organized blob and other self organized blobs.

In science we see that all viral strains are "self organized". They just "emerge" seemingly from nothing. Their elements of self-organization enable a complex network of viral cells (or terrorist cells) to spontaneously seek opportunities to spread and adapt in the face of adversity to form more virulent strains. Adaptation is spontaneous. Terror cells behave like viruses so that innovation emerges from the people within the cell rather than a single directing intelligence.

Hierarchical organizations (our government, military, business, and us) can never be as resilient as complex networks, because the power of complex networks resides not within its leadership or a few capabilities, but within its ability to spontaneously adapt to changes in the surrounding environment. We can see this on display right now in Iraq. We have seen it in the attacks on the USS Cole and the Twin Towers. We now defend our ships so no ships are attacked. We now defend our tall buildings so no tall buildings have been attacked, yet.

Late add on 8/29/06: The fucking New York times assures one and all that NSA wiretapping is dead as a tool, the cells probably shifted communication methods within a day.

The first step in the formation of a Terror Cell is called emergence. How did an ordinary friendship between Muhammad Atta and two other foreign students in Hamburg in the mid to later 90's result in the terrorist cells that pulled off 9/11? Although neither they nor the mosque they attended were known for extremist views, these students were nonetheless drawn together by their increasing disenchantment with the West in general and the US in particular. They met with other U.S. hating Muslim men in an ever-widening circle of acquaintances, which eventually led them to a German-Syrian named Muhammad Heydar Zammer (another virus floating around) who was active in Islamic extremist groups since 1980; this addition made them stronger. About this same time, the terrorists Ramzi Yousef and the Abu Saif group were planning to place timed explosives on passenger airliners bound for the US and use airliners as weapons to fly into the World Trade Center and the CIA headquarters. Yousef discussed his ideas with his uncle Khalid Shaihk Muhammad who was associated with al Qaeda. The ideas and concepts for a massive attack on the US using airliners were now emerging among various terrorist groups, and Muhammad Atif, a key associate of Osama bin Laden, studied the idea and discussed it with bin Laden. Note that the so-called mastermind did not think it up. Thinking the concept had merit, they communicated the idea (gleaned from others) and provided various resource contacts to several other associates around the globe including Khalid Shaihk Mohammad. About the same time in 1997, through a wide web of acquaintances, Mohammed met with Atta and Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called 20th hijacker. Coupled with Muhammad and armed with this new idea and some financial and technical contacts, Atta and his associates emerged from a small group of disenchanted university students into a terrorist cell. In total, the plot expanded to include three cells of 19 hijackers with members originating from seven different countries. All but two of the hijackers had no previous associations with religious extremism or terrorist organizations. Tenet lamented that 17 of the 19 plotters were "absolutely clean" and all of us have trashed him without the understanding of "how it works." The 9/11 terrorist cell was not created or directed by a central node or hierarchical apparatus. Instead, the entities within the network were coupled together by loose informal associations forming "mutually dependant" interrelationships with an ever-widening group of like-minded Muslims. Simply stated, the 9/11 cells emerged from the bottom-up.

This is how these cells come into being. They simply emerge from a cesspool of mosques, colleges, and chance meetings. They meet with others and sometimes their similar hates unite them into a common purpose. They will find help from other cells and others will join. Each step of the way each cell becomes stronger as a result of contact or addition of others. Stress, failures, being attacked all cause changes within a cell (adaptability like a virus adapts to drugs) which also add strength They are not directed by a leadership. Their interrelationships create novel behavior, meaning group "A" will not behave like any other group and other groups will also be novel. The addition of each person also supplies additional energy (a dynamic) so that their purpose becomes more obsessive and focused. In other words 9/11 terrorists cells "emerged" from what seems like nothing into the terror cells of 9/11 from a bunch of guys from different places who thought alike and had the same goals. This is key. There was no central organization. It was "self organized" and was resilient. George Tenant realized this early on but nobody in Congress wants to listen to him because they are wedded to an outdated principal, that of the hierarchal structure like a pyramid, a nation state, an American business. Our government is now about to add to an ineffectual heirarchy by appointing a single intel Czar. Congress is posturing and fighting the last five wars as usual. So are you and I without knowing it.

Part Two: In part one I established that current terror groups are both independent and interdependent depending on when it suits them; that they seemingly emerge from "nothing"; that they gather strength from contact with other cells and individuals, and they adapt. This does not mean that every terrorist cell is doing the same thing. It simply means that when a cell needs some help it will find it somewhere among the other cells. This is why we call it a "terror network", and at times it certainly can be one.

The State Department reported that al Qaeda has coupled with at least twenty-eight other Islamic terrorist organizations centered in more than a dozen different countries forming a global aggregation of Islamic anti-American terrorism. Al Qaeda has long been established with terrorist groups worldwide including the Philippine based Abu Sayyaf, the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, and the Indonesian Laskar Jihad. We in the USA see only the pyramid structure of al Qaeda as a possibility. Within these cells of the network the interrelationships between these groups constantly change. There is not now and never has been a leader.

While Tenant was routinely blasted by press, the 9-11 Commission, and politicians in general for his views, they are views shared by almost all intelligence services around the world. As one French intelligence analyst lamented, "if you have a good knowledge of the network today, it is not operational tomorrow". Another terrorist expert described the network as "a constantly changing virus that is impossible to totally grasp or destroy." A previous associate of bin Laden observed that al Qaeda was not as well organized or orchestrated as some would believe, but rather bin Laden directly controlled only a very small group around him, and outside of that were "tens of thousands who are sympathetic and arranged themselves in small groups in a very loose network." He further observed that these small groups and other terrorist organizations "didn't belong to him [bin Laden] like in a pyramidal type of structure." In other words even the bin Laden inner circle has told us how they work but our politicians and press don't want to believe it. Our government continues to "fight" the war using the hierarchal structure that has proven ineffective for the task.

Knocking out a single cell means nothing. Knocking out ten means nothing. If a drug kills a thousand virus cells in your body today we know there will be ten thousand more tomorrow morning that will be resistant to the drug that killed the thousand. Do you seriously think that the FBI will be able to pull another sting operation against a mosque as they did in Albany, New York? No chance. They have already adapted. That drug won't work a second time.

The elements of self-organization are also apparent in al Qaeda's financial apparatus. The Council on Foreign Relations report on terrorist financing concluded that al Qaeda is built upon layers of redundant, diverse and constantly changing financial sources that are incredibly difficult to identify and defeat. Money to support bin Laden's terrorist strategy comes from legitimate corporations, individual donations, charitable organizations, profit making terrorist front corporations and criminal enterprises to name but a few sources. Many individuals and corporations donate funds to Muslim charities unaware that funds are illicitly siphoned to support terrorist activities. Terrorist cells and agents are encouraged to seek financial independence and cultivate autonomous forms of income. Al Qaeda's sources of income spans the spectrum from tightly coupled al Qaeda front corporations to loosely coupled individual donors.

The elements of self-organization are probably most easily seen in the 9/11 plot. When the need preference of the Hamburg students intersected those of Bin Laden and other terrorist groups the process of aggregation (getting people from other cells) began. The need for resources and training coupled the hijackers to Khalid Shaihk Mohammad, which facilitated the aggregation process by enabling relationships with al Qaeda. The coupling with al Qaeda facilitated further meta- aggregation with various functional capabilities including financial, technical and training capabilities. These interdependencies exhibited a variety of tight, moderate and loose coupling. The agents within the Hamburg cell exhibited a high degree of tight coupling, as evidenced by the detailed planning and close coordination required to execute the highjackings. Emphasizing the close synchronization of the 9/11 attacks, George Tenet concluded this terrorist attack was unique in the high degree of professional and detailed coordination. The 9/11 attackers were only moderately coupled with bin Laden and al Qaeda. Although al Qaeda provided technical and logistical support, neither bin Laden nor his close associates directly controlled the operation from Afghanistan. Many within bin Laden's closest circle of associates were never made aware of the plot. The hijacker's innovation and adaptation in overcoming many challenges suggest they operated with a large degree of independence and were only moderately coupled with bin Laden. The hijacker's interaction with financial and training support demonstrated loose coupling. The sources of this support could and did change as required without consequence to the hijackers. The loose coupling ensured multi-way chains to complete their tasks. Although highly dependent on this support, the hijackers were not dependent on a single source. The cell was not directed by supporting agents or al Qaeda's leaders but rather enabled by them. Following the attacks of September 11, al Qaeda's capability was significantly degraded by attacks from the United States and its allies. However, Complexity Theory informs us that complex networks are resilient and will survive attacks on its constituent parts. And it not only survived but became stronger, changed appearances as well as tactics.

There is a seemingly endless supply of angry Muslims willing to become a part of a cell and go on the attack. All are motivated by the usual: U.S. get out of Saudi Arabia (now done), U.S. get out of Iraq, hatred of the Jews, hatred of the West and Western values, etc., etc. etc. The list of Muslim resentment at their "plight" can fill a book. The political structures of their countries add fuel to this fire since all are dictatorships of one kind or another.

Terrorist cells become weakest when they concentrate or mass as they have done in Iraq where U.S. forces slaughter hundreds each week. Once concentrated they run out of their food, meaning they can no longer reproduce themselves. They just get fatter as more and more young and untrained Muslims run to join them. The situation when viewed from the eyes of young Muslims is one of hopelessness for their futures as they watch the weekly slaughter continue. When operating in cells they still can drive a car loaded with explosives into a crowds, plant a roadside bomb, or send a kid with a backpack full of dynamite into a hotel.

Part Three: So far we have analogized terror cells with viral cells to explain the "emergence", gathering together individuals and people from other cells to make them stronger, the "networking" that helps hide them and make them fit, and how they can split into several cells for attack. All without leadership from outside the cell. We have seen that plans developed by one cell become the improved plans of other cells until one or three of them actually "does it."

So how can we win? People are not viruses. We think, we react, we are sorry or angry at losses. The "food" that continually fuels the "emergence" of cells are the millions of angry Muslim males ready to die. The Arab "Honor/Shame dialectic" and the two thousand year old tradition of the power/challenge dialectic (SAME LINKS) makes it nearly impossible to eliminate the ancient ways of gaining power. The term "dialectic" assumes that somewhere along the line of conflict a "synthesis" will happen (peace for a few minutes) and then the dialectic (struggle) will start all over again. The talk of "solution" which always revolves around removing the "causes" like Israeli-Palestinian peace, poverty, alternative choices for young men, democracy and blah blah blah, are ideas that just don't work over there.

We must not confuse terrorist cells with armed insurrections where "terrorists" mass into large groups. That is where we can kill them as we killed more than 300 in Sadr City and Najaf over the past few days. We can handle them by killing them in central locations. They gather so they can die with honor like Muslim men rather than live in the shame of (fill in the blanks). As this is written Saddr is currently employing a dialectic by attacking and then whining for peace and then attacking again replaying the millenniums old power-challenge dialectic. The solution to his imposed dialectic is to kill him. That is synthesis. Then you kill the next one. Finally they will get the picture. The Israelis have employed the tactic of killing every Hamas leader as he shows his head. The overall strategy is to cause inter power block warfare among Palestinians who in turn may tire of their own terrorism turned upon them. It appears to work, but keep in mind these are not cells but armies of insurgents massed together.

But what about the cells? Is it possible to weaken them by taking out the influential people in mosques, caves, and big city slums the world over? That is our strategy right now, but it is the nature of these things that leaders reproduce. Are we faced with active terror cells forever? Will they ever run out of martyrs? We can make it so dangerous that "living the life" becomes almost certain death advertised widely so that only the most obsessive and violent want to join. Short of change in the very guts of the Muslim religion I think that they will continue to plan and grow. Iran is more than willing to export all forms of terror as is Syria and many other regimes in the area. The elimination of these regimes can help, but only if replaced by representative governments. That work.

At least the analysis of cells and networks using the Complexity Theory brings it into a better focus and understanding for us. Knowing how they suddenly "emerge" from a group of friends joined in a feeling of hate, propagate, and launch attacks can help us all. Eventually they may have no more tools to use. I doubt that they can ever again use an airplane to attack. Until we find a way to find hidden explosives inside trucks and cars this tool will be used. I understand that the Israelis have a device that can spot roadside bombs so that this tactic may become obsolete. Once the implements of mass terror are removed the cells may become an anachronism. I think it is all we can hope for. Late Add: The arrests of big time terrorist "leaders" together will all their long term plans will have the effect of eliminating those long developing plans. Since they will have to be more secretive and have to act quicker on any plans they may have we have to assume that a major blow has been struck.

Bad News from Britain: Daniel Pipes is reporting, as Diana West did two days ago, the Muslims are now demanding Shiria Law for their private business. British public opinion backs the Muslim demands by a margin of 72% to 1%. Londonistan is upon us and Blair ain't gunna be around much longer. Remember, the stated goal of Muslims is the establishment of Shiria Law everywhere.

OMFG, crude at 69.30 and falling....BUT I think this is just a bunch of specs being caught long and all of them shorted.

Power line links to a delicious piece of Left hypocrisy, notable because this time it's a "prestigous" bunch of liberal lawyers sticking it to anyone who dares disagree..... I know, this stuff is getting old, but we must add to the list.

I posted last week about the MEXICAN city of Maywood, Mexifornia running up the Mexican flag at the post office, today Malkin has pics and video. You can go here for all the parts but to be honest there is not much anywhere other than those assholes ran up the Mexican flag at the post office. A scraggly looking blonde is bitching about being harassed but what the hell do you expect if you stick your nose into these things. My attitude is that if you ain't ready to fight don't show up. Old California refrain:

MEX: Here's to the Mexican eagle
a bird so royal and gay
He eats the fruits of our noble land
And shits on the USA

US: Here's to the American eagle
From a land that's noble and rich.
He needs no turds from your royal bird
You Mexican son of a bitch.....

GOP Wins??? Or more precisely Dems lose....As more and more conversation is heard telling the horror story a Democratic takeover of the House would almost certainly be . Committee chairs will be composed of the worst racists, totally high tax Lefties (Ways and Means is responsible for ALL tax policy), and just plain quasi criminals. I gave you Maxine Waters but today Just One Minute begins to lay it out there.

The threats of a Democrat takeover is major. CA has just passed a series of proposed laws that ciminalizes anyone who dares criticze. The stated purpose of the Left is to outlaw traditional perspectives on marriage and family in the state school system. Anal intercourse is praised regardless of the molestation implications ...

These four bills would require that in every classroom from kindergarten through high school that perverse sexual activity be praised and highlighted in a positive light. They would require textbooks many of which would then also be produced for other states beyond the borders of California make positive references to the ideas of men putting on women's under things. They would restrict school districts from being able to bar females from displaying dildos on the outerwear of their prom dress. And in functional sexuality courses from K-12 they would require positive explanation of the merits and instruction of anal intercourse.

It's all over at Town Hall in a scary article by Kevin McCullough. Read the whole thing and maybe you will join the rest of us and vote this November instead of staying home. These are the real Democrats folks, those wonderful people who are always ready to fuck us in the ass want to make it a manditory act. Feel good yet?

LA Times gets religion??? Well not exactly. The entire paper is still a Hizbollah proaganda org but the piece by Ruttin examining the fake fotos is dam good. Y0u cannot access it through the LAT because you have to be registered, but you can back door it through Google HERE. The best excerpt pointing out the obvious:

Moreover, the obscenely anti-Israeli tenor of most of the European and world press means there's an eager market for pictures of dead Lebanese babies.

Ruttin's piece was published more than two weeks ago and because I stopped reading the LAT years ago I failed to read it. If you want total immersion into almost all of the wide spread of the phony pix, LGF has it.

U.S. Open Tennis Tournament starts today

Cox and Forkum sum it up

Richard Armitage, an aparatchick in the State Department, was the source of the Plame leak to Novak. He kept his mouth shut while an innocent man (Scooter Libby) has been maliciously persecuted by a Justice Department who knew within five days of the appointment of Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald that Armitage, and not Scooter Libby, was the "leaker." The always ethical Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald knew five days after he was placed in the position, but that didn't stop him from wrongfully accusing innocent people anyway. Captain's Quarters has most of the details and the outrage, HERE. Or you can go to the always articulately pissed off, Ace of Spades. If we had anything resembling an honest media....well, never mind.

More on Maywood, CA: I commented and linked to the Heather MacDonald article spelling out what is going on in this 90% MEXICAN town in SoCal (police have basically stopped enforcing the law because the Mexicans have taken over). They had a demonstration (Patriotic American sign at left) and the Mexicans showed where their loyalties are:

And after the local post office took down the American flag at closing time, pro-immigration demonstrators promptly ran the Mexican flag up the flagpole.

If illegals looked like this would anyone object????

In addition to the post below that quotes John Howard and a few other Rooville people, Diana West has a piece in the Washington Times that surely is a must read. She sees a continuing unopposed creeping implimentation of Sharia Law around the world:

How? Through largely unregulated immigration of peoples from "Shariah states" — those regions whose governing traditions derive, wholly or in some important part, from the edicts of Islam. If such an influx continues, Islamic law will be accommodated, adopted and even legislated, at least in some jurisdictions, according to majority will. We know this to be true because such a "Shariah shift" is already transforming what sociologists call post-Christian Europe into an increasingly Islamic sphere.

Read it all.....

What's the big deal about this heavy water? Water with lead in it? Water with Viagra? Well, nothing quite so simple. Heavy water is not really water at all if you want to get really technichal. It's actually a substance called deuterium oxide, D2O or 2H2O, not the H2O of regular water. The usual way of building a bomb requires graphite in order to slow the speed of the neutrons necessary to create a chain reaction (Fermi's discovery that made the atomic bomb possible).

BUT

And I mean BUT....heavy water allows the use of UNENRICHED uranium to achieve a chain reaction so that sophisticated fuel enrichment facilities like P2 centrifuges are not necessary. This is the Third World way of joining the club.

So why does Iran need heavy water if they already have the ability to enrich uranium with their ballyhood P2 centrifuges? I don't know, but these obvious displays of both centrifugal opulence and the acquiring of heavy water sounds like all of the ingredients necessary to conduct a bluff to me.

Will the sky actually fall? Is economic armegeddon at hand? It may well be if the Fed is really going to focus on something they are calling "the sacrifice ratio ą". Any time the government says the word "sacrifice" you know it means we sacrifice while they lay around the Ph.D pool smoking cheap Mexican shit instead of the good stuff from Thailand. Their yachts, MCBs, fourth vacation homes, living trusts, and third mistresses all safe from "sacrifice."

Here's what the latest Fed genius, Bernakie, has come up with and it ain't good for us. In plain fucking English, which the Fed never speaks, "The Sacrifice Ratio" actually translates into how much blue collar unemployment has to go up in order to bring inflation down. This is compounded by the always Left CBO insisting that taxes must be raised in order to raise government income, in spite of a ton of data to the contrary.

ą. If inflation is becoming a problem central banks will try and cool economic growth in a bid to reduce inflationary pressures. However this reduction in output costs the economy in the short term and the sacrifice ratio tries to measure that cost.

From a speech delivered by Prime Minister Howard in Australia and echoed by his treasury secretary, Peter Costello. Would that our fucking liberals, conservatives, and libertarians had come up with this, but then that would show some thinking and we don't want any of that.

Item: Muslims who want to live under Islamic Sharia law were told on Wednesday to get out of Australia, as the government targeted radicals in a bid to head off potential terror attacks. A day after a group of mainstream Muslim leaders pledged loyalty to Australia and her Queen at a special meeting with Prime Minister John Howard, he and his Ministers made it clear that extremists would face a crackdown.

Treasurer Peter Costello, seen as heir apparent to Howard, hinted that some radical clerics could be asked to leave the country if they did not accept that Australia was a secular state, and its laws were made by parliament.

"If those are not your values, if you want a country which has Sharia law or a theocratic state, then Australia is not for you", he said on national television. "I'd be saying to clerics who are teaching that there are two laws governing people in Australia: one the Australian law and another the Islamic law, that is false. If you can't agree with parliamentary law, independent courts, democracy, and would prefer Sharia law and have the opportunity to go to another country, which practices it, perhaps, then, that's a better option", Costello said.

Asked whether he meant radical clerics would be forced to leave, he said those with dual citizenship could possibly be asked to move to the other country. Education Minister Brendan Nelson later told reporters that Muslims who did not want to accept local values should "clear off. Basically people who don't want to be Australians, and who don't want to live by Australian values and understand them, well then, they can basically clear off", he said.

Separately, Howard angered some Australian Muslims on Wednesday by saying he supported spy agencies monitoring the nation's mosques Quote: "IMMIGRANTS, NOT AUSTRALIANS, MUST ADAPT. Take It Or Leave It. I am tired of this nation worrying about whether we are offending some individual or their culture. Since the terrorist attacks on Bali, we have experienced a surge in patriotism by the majority of Australians. However, the dust from the attacks had barely settled when the 'politically correct' crowd began complaining about the possibility that our patriotism was offending others. I am not against immigration, nor do I hold a grudge against anyone who is seeking a better life by coming to Australia. However, there are a few things that those who have recently come to our country, and apparently some born here, need to understand. This idea of Australia being a multicultural community has served only to dilute our sovereignty and our national identity. As Australians, we have our own culture, our own society, our own language and our own lifestyle. This culture has been developed over two centuries of struggles, trials and victories by millions of men and women who have sought freedom. We speak mainly ENGLISH, not Spanish, Lebanese, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, or any other language. Therefore, if you wish to become part of our society, Learn the language! Most Australians believe in God. This is not some Christian, right wing, political push, but a fact, because Christian men and women, on Christian principles, founded this nation, and this is clearly documented. It is certainly appropriate to display it on the walls of our schools. If God offends you, then I suggest you consider another part of the world as your new home, because God is part of our culture. We will accept your beliefs, and will not question why. All we ask is that you accept ours, and live in harmony and peaceful enjoyment with us. If the Southern Cross offends you, or you don't like A Fair Go, then you should seriously consider a move to another part of this planet. We are happy with our culture and have no desire to change, and we really don't care how you did things where you came from. By all means, keep your culture, but do not force it on others.

"This is OUR COUNTRY, OUR LAND, and OUR LIFESTYLE, and we will allow you every opportunity to enjoy all this. But once you are done complaining, whining, and griping about Our Flag, Our Pledge, Our Christian beliefs, or Our Way of Life, I highly encourage you take advantage of one other great Australian freedom, 'THE RIGHT TO LEAVE" If you aren't happy here then LEAVE. We didn't force you to come here. You asked to be here. So accept the country YOU accepted."

Maybe if we circulate this amongst ourselves, American citizens will find the backbone to start speaking and voting the same truths!!

The post about State Farm not paying claims in Florida is absolutely true. I used to be in the insurance biz (only six months and I hated it) but even back then the State Farm commercials projected the image most people had of the company, until they filed a claim. Within the business everyone knows how bad that company really is but their lawyers will pounce like a Scientologist on anyone who suggests otherwise. A really great piece was once actually published by that Left Wing rag, LA Weekly (lawsuit proof at the time) that totally laid out the truth about that company.

Last year I posted a long description of extracting plutonium from commercial reactors (power plants around the world) and at the time it was assumed that a country would need 50,000 P-2 centrifuges to get a real program going. There was no evidence at the time that Iran had anywhere near that many P-2s in their atomic program.

That was then this is now. Since then, intel agencies around the world have confirmed that there are as many as 500 "workshops," mostly in Europe but in other places as well, that can make, HAVE MADE AND ARE MAKING RIGHT NOW, the parts for the P-2 centrifuges. It is more than possible that Iran has the huge number of centrifuges needed to produce quantities the 90% plutonium needed for the bomb. Additionally, it is now proven that in spite of statements from nuclear power advocates that the supposedly "contaminated" plutonium generated by commercial power plants cannot be converted to bomb quality plutonium, it actually can easily be enriched to bomb quality stuff.

The semi-simplified study shows that:

* The difference in reactivity between the so-called "fissile" uneven numbered isotopes and the "non-fissile" even numbered ones is not extremely big for fast neutrons, contrary to the reactivity for thermal neutrons in a LWR. In a bomb, every plutonium isotope is fissile.
* The difference in spontaneous fission rate is comparatively small, since compression speeds need to be sufficiently high for the mass to go supercritical within fractions of seconds anyway. Although the explosive yield of a LWR plutonium bomb may be less predictable, it will certainly work. This has been experimentally tested by the US in 1962 and even earlier by the British (with Magnox-produced Pu from commercially burnt up fuel).

It should not be hard now to see how easy one may become misinformed by phrases like "Reactor grade plutonium contains too little fissile Pu-239 to make a bomb" or the more sophisticated "Reactor grade plutonium contains too much non-fissile Pu-240, which is not suitable because of its high spontaneous fission rate". Sometimes it is argued that reactor grade plutonium is less attractive to work with, due to Pu-238 and 241 decay radiation. True as it may be, this is an inconvenience rather than a serious obstacle. If one can manage radiation in a reprocessing plant, a bomb manufacturing plant should not be too hard either.

How many P2s does Iran have? Quite possibly the 50,000 or so needed to have a real program going because of the hundreds of workshops manufacturing various parts that can easily be assembled inside Iran. The reluctance of EU thugs to accept this is probably because most of the "workshops" are in Europe and they are making money. Only now Iran may actually be very close to having enough fissionable material to make one. I think it is safe to assume that the assholes actually are within a year of actually having a couple of plutonium bombs.

The Cruise/Redstone thingy: All the vastly overpaid and undertalented are the ones rallying to the Cruise battle flag, sure in the knowledge that their huge salaries, their deals that are paid millions up front, and their insane participation deals are over if Cruise does not get another cushy guarantee package from some other dim wit. Hollywood is once again ruled by New York (just like in the 30s when bankers controlled studios) and New York will not stand for the fake bookkeeping, "swag deals" that cost millions, and the looting of everything not nailed down after each movie. It's over. Now maybe the money spent on a movie will actually go on the screen and not into the pockets of the connected elites.

Not Churchill below.....But I'd vote for her over Churchill any day.


The blogs are pontificating, oraculating, and slobbering that what we need is another great leader like Churchill. Oh? Let's take a serious look at this guy. Churchill completely missed the Japanese threat in the Pacific for one reason: he was a total racist. He honestly believed that the Japanese were an inferior race, that their vision was so poor that they couldn't shoot straight (they all wore thick glasses), that they had no capablilty whatsoever to arm themselves, and had only beaten other yellow races (China, Mongolia, and Korea). It was his racism that allowed the collapse of Singapore by a force half the size of the Brits, a force that moved their forces by bicycle, not trucks. He was so sure of Brit racial superiority that he allowed two Brit battleships (Prince of Wales and Repulse) to be sunk by planes that he knew didn't exist and couldn't have flown there if they did exist. Japanese Zero fighters destroyed the "superior" Brit Hurricanes and so there was no Brit airpower. The campaign was summed up thusly:

"The whole operation seems incredible: 550 miles in 55 days – forced back by a small Japanese army of only two divisions, riding stolen bicycles and without artillery support."

Thanx Winnie. This guy is the most over praised Eurocentric superior eliteist ever, and we don't need another one like him, or remotely like him. BTW, his views of India were similar.

Hitchens is always cool even when he is totally Left. To those of you who have read and liked, or sort of liked, Gunter Grass ("The Tin Drum") Hitch had a piece in Slate a few days ago that lays out a lot of things including the New German urge to declare themselves victims, not of Nazism, but of American and Soviet soldaten.....

More faked fotos aired by every MSM in the world. Surprisingly, CNN was skeptical....Link to Malkin

The Last Honest Man

By Robert Kagan
Sunday, August 6, 2006;

I missed this one, published before Lieberman lost.

Twenty-nine Democratic senators voted in the fall of 2002 to authorize the invasion of Iraq. There isn't enough room on this page to list the Democratic foreign policy experts and former officials, including those from the top ranks of the Clinton administration, who supported the war publicly and privately -- some of whom even signed letters calling for the removal of Saddam Hussein. Nor is there any need to list the many liberal, and conservative, columnists on this and other editorial pages around the country who supported the war, or the many prominent journalists who provided the reporting that helped convince so many that the war was necessary.

The question of the day is, what makes Joe Lieberman different? What makes him now anathema to a Democratic Party and to liberal columnists who once supported both him and the war?

Read the whole thing. Outstanding analysis of the state of the Democratic Lefties right now..... WaPo August 6

And Noonan hit a similar theme here....

Prohibitively High Rocket-Fuel Prices Bring Mideast Crisis To Standstill

BEIRUT, LEBANON—As the cost of rocket fuel soared to $630 per gallon Monday, Middle Easterners who depend on the non-renewable propellant to power 10-kilogram rockets have been forced to severely restrict their daily bombing routines, bringing this latest round of fighting to an unexpected halt.

"The way things are going, I won’t have any money left over for other necessities, such as anti-aircraft missiles, land mines, and machine guns," said Hezbollah guerrilla Mahmoud Hamoui, who is just one of hundreds of Islamic militants compelled to scale back their killing until rocket-fuel prices return to their pre-2006 levels....

The entire piece is here at the Onion; it's pretty good but I missed it.

For those of you trying to download and play the Czech vid called I Muslim and find that it only plays in a jerky manner, here is the solution. First you have to download and install the Google Video Player. Once installed you go to the Google site and begin to play it, BUT you immediately stop it and allow the system to buffer the shit out of itself. Then when you click the lower left "play" button you will get the entire video without any further stops. It's the five minute ending that sums it up and is scary.

Jihad Watch is reporting that a terrorist group claims to have the FOX reporters and will ransom them.....

General John Abizaid or Mary Poppins in drag? Good, but long, interview with Hewitt HERE

This is what GM is pegging their future on. I don't know, the models don't look that hot to me

Can't blame anybody but New Line Cinema and the genius production trio of Craig Berenson, Don Granger, and Gary Levinsohn for making the movie with the greatest teen appealing title in years (Snakes on a Plane), one absolutely guaranteed to pull every teen age boy in the world into the theatres, and then making an obscenity laden "R" movie which bars their main audience from the theatres. Would any overpaid star make that kind of decision????

The city of Maywood in Los Angeles County declared itself a sanctuary zone for illegal aliens this year. Then it got rid of its drunk-driving checkpoints, because they were nabbing too many illegal aliens. Next, this 96 percent Latino city, almost half of whose adult population lacks a ninth-grade education, disbanded its police traffic division entirely, so that illegals wouldn’t need to worry about having their cars towed for being unlicensed. All the disgusting details and more here by my favorite (and only) reporter, Heather MacDonald.

Liberals can't even fuck.....HERE at WSJ

I don't care if it's the greatest NFL game of all time, if Bryant Gumbel is the announcer I won't watch......or if I do I swear to boycott the sponsers. Gory details here at Debbie's Place And she has a partial list of murderers playing college ball and NFL ball this year that might make you puke just a little....

For what it's worth, FOX Newsman Steve Centanni and cameraman Olaf Wiig are still prisoners (we hope) and nobody is saying jack shit. Oh, I know, let's write Senator Clinton. I'll bet she knows somebody named Omar, or binStayin, or something like that.

Let's talk about the "Pamperatti," that pampered horde of trust fund babies who control much of American business, especially the "news" business. We blab and blab about MSM bias, that they lie, and that they shill for causes while pretending objectivity. What nobody has discussed is the huge role Monopoly Capitalism is playing in this singularity of news and opinion in every market. The current absence of capitalism in the news business is robbing the landscape of what it always needs: competition. Only New York has more than one big daily paper; Los Angeles metro with a population of ten million has one, ditto Chicago, Atlanta, and so on.

Why the absence of competition? The main reason is the cost of entry vs the revenue possibilities. Any new paper presents an initial cost of half a billion dollars plus at least five years of losing money. The guys with that kind of money didn't get it by being stupid. Only inherited wealth can be that stupid. So the people controlling the press represent only one kind of billionaire, the ones who are already rich through great great grandfather's acquisitions and passed on inheritance. Known as Trust Fund babies, they have never never held a job, worked their way to the top of anything, and had daddy and mumsy pay for their educations. Once turned loose on their prepared landscape these "pamperatti" will only hire people who think exactly like them. These Pampered Ones are never threatened because each has hundreds of millions of dollars locked away for them that safely pay huge amounts of interest each and every year. They don't have to make money in their "jobs" or in their inherited businesses. They can afford to be "progressive" even if their inherited customers are not.

A large part of our country has been taken over by the "pamperatti." The car business is a disgusting example of people who have gone to the same universities refusing to fire their pampered inefficient pals. Hollywood has long been the capital of nepotism and is only now having their apron strings cut by capitalist mommies who think the unthinkable: make money or get out of the business.

The current state of journalistic groupthink is exactly what the shielded monied class wants. High taxes are good for the established rich because they are shielded from all but a minimum tax. High taxes and big government spending suits the pamperatti just fine. Anything to keep out the capitalists, competition, and accountability.

Membership in the wealth without working class is closed, thank you very much, and it doesn't look like things will change any time soon. They will continue to report glossies about their own, pretend shock at celebrity sex and homo-sex, and profess shock over the victimhood of those pillaged by the companies whose stock they own (this shock is expressed immediately after their brokers short the stock).

I have purposely left out the role that standardized education, subsidized by huge "Foundations," which are simply tax avoidanvce schemes for the mega rich, play in this mosaic. I do so because Libertas has a dynamite review of THX 1138 up today and they discuss this condition at length HERE.

...big business doesn’t care what your values are - it only cares about the dollar. Big businesses are just as likely to be run by liberals these days - a Steve Jobs here, a George Soros there. If Viacom’s Tom Freston (Kerry supporter) wants your children watching MTV, your children will watch MTV. Your child will be glutted with advertising and glamorous images - and he/she won’t be able to escape. And it won’t matter that your values as a parent are different from MTV’s. It won’t matter that you don’t want your daughter growing up to be a pop tart/porn star/Paris Hilton. Viacom-MTV doesn’t care, and is only looking at demographic numbers - of which your daughter is one. She’ll be processed/sexed-up like all the rest - she’ll become a dehumanized sex-body - because if she doesn’t she’ll be regarded as strange and neurotic and you’ll put up with it because … what choice do you have?

Well those without a contaminated value system created by wealth without work won't see that because they already are that.

The penultimate Bitch Bash piece is over at Ace of Spades.....Funny and true.

I stopped reading Andrew Sullivan at least a year ago, but holy shit his traffic literally dropped off of a cliff. What happened?

Emailer tells me he's now blogging for Time HERE

Hizbollah distributing counterfeit $100 bills? Lots of people suspect that they are because they've already been busted for same, start your reading with LGF.

Victor Davis Hanson lays it out there about press bias at NRO

It would be as if Reuters, AP, or the New York Times embedded its reporters within the Waffen SS, beaming daily reports back home about the great morale and noble suffering of the Wehrmacht as it advanced into the snowy Ardennes.

U.S. News and World Report is carrying a piece that offers a small life preserver to Republicans caught in the flood. Also opines that the NSA decision will hurt Democrats big time. It will if they are stupid enough to tout what looks to liberal and conservative alike as a poorly reasoned decision that will be reversed on appeal. In another piece it suggested that Iran will eventually prove the loser in the Hizbollah war:

Inevitably, the trouble they have stirred up in the region over the past month is bound to boomerang right back at them.

Indeed, by transferring advanced rockets and weaponry to Hezbollah, Tehran, and Damascus they have just unwittingly proven one of the Bush administration's central contentions regarding the need for pre-emptive action against rogue states in the global war on terror.

The two countries have demonstrated that they are ready and willing to share missile systems with a terrorist organization, thus strengthening the case that they must be prevented from obtaining weapons of mass destruction at all costs.

Let's all hope this is correct. At the bottom of the piece showing the effects of multi-culturalism on Brit society

It is clear, therefore, that the multiculturalism beloved of our political and civic bureaucracies has not only failed to deliver peace but is the partial cause of the present alienation of so many Muslim young people from the society in which they were born, where they have been educated and where they have lived most of their lives.

WIESBADEN, GERMANY - Two suitcases containing bombs and found on trains in Germany were likely to have formed part of a terrorist plot, German investigators said Friday. Bombs were set to go off at the same time.

NORTHERN CHINA-----Worst drought in fifty years has wiped out millions of acres of crops, at least a million hogs and cattle have died, meaning that commodity prices for all of us will go up, big.

FRENCH GOVERNMENT---Under the banner of Air France, will buy out the failing AlItalia Airline airline if Italian energy group Enel forgets about French group Suez.

I've been home for most of this week and found that (ugh, vomit) CNN has the news while FOX parades their endless Hannitys and Gretas who do no news at all. BTW, Euro papers are climbing all over the French proposal to send only 400 engineers to the Middle East.

The Tet offensive in Vietnam was a Viet Cong failure....to everyone but the anti-military and anti American press. It was they that spun the story in both word and pictures so it seemed that the Viet Cong had won. The whole world believed the liars in the press and the public pressured our government to seize defeat from the jaws of victory.

Similarly, the world press has done all it can to lie about the result and motives of the Israel Lebanon war so that the Terrorist Street believes that they kicked Israel's ass. More and more it becomes obvious that the Hizbollah "victory" over Israel is going to cause us the most trouble ever. Terrorists are demanding, and getting, huge leverage in both Palestine (we will long for the day of that good guy Arafat) and Syria. In a long piece in the Jeruselum Post a woman named Caroline Glick spells everything out pretty well....

So while all eyes are glued on Lebanon, the Palestinians may well start the next war. And we know exactly how that war will look. They will use missiles, mortars and rockets that they will smuggle in from Egypt to kill Israelis in their homes in the South. They will infiltrate Israeli cities by digging tunnels under the security fence around Gaza, and from Egypt and from towns and cities in Judea and Samaria and murder us in ever growing numbers. They will receive money, weapons and combat instruction from Hizbullah and Iranian operatives in Gaza and abroad and they will attack us while protesting their everlasting dedication to jihad and their anger over Israel's "aggression."

It is obvious that the real war is between us and Iran and Syria and Bush has failed miserably to identify same. I think either Israel is toast or we will have to intervene with overwealming force in order to save them. Save them for how long, is the problem. Read her article, she nails it pretty well.

Crude drops below $70; unleaded gasoline drops to $3.17 in a very few places locally. Keep in mind that a drop in crude has to show some signs of permanency before gas prices drop.

It should be clear by now that Bush is a liar of the first order. His promise to place National Guard troops on the border with Mexico is a complete sham. What has happened is that National Guard troops were sent down there WITHOUT GUNS and once there they were surrounded by Border Patrol agents that were removed from their jobs policing the border in order to control the Guard. The border is now more wide open then ever. There is something worse: those of you who still get your "news" from FOX probably don't know of the case wherein two Border Patrol agents face twenty years in prison for shooting at a border crossing drug dealer when the dealer fled (a detailed synopsis of the situation is HERE). Lou Dobbs, alone so far as I know, is reporting it in detail on television. Other than he, only KFI radio is reporting it every day on the John and Ken show. Only one reporter is reporting it in print; her name is Sara Carter and you can read her stuff here. Because of Dobbs there was a hearing on Capitol Hill but the agents were barred from testifying.

The obscenity of the Taylor decision (PDF) to ban the NSA "spying" is covered best at Patterico. I say best, because I find most of the legal "blogs" so esoteric and filled with legalese that they are not comprehensible. How and why these liberals have strayed from honest thought is still a mystery to me.

If you're a Republican as I am, you will want to read this piece by David Broder in the WaPo---I know, a Lefty in a Lefty paper, but this is devastating stuff. The GOP is in tatters and not just because of the war. This congress has done absolutely nothing on issues concerning real people: immigration, energy, health care, and the war. Almost every Republican Congress Rep who is running for a statewide office is running double digit percent behind. I can see why; no leadership and no philosophy plus the corruption.

Whoopsie, it's also in RCP...

If you have ten minutes to waste, click here for an adult magic act televised in Canada. It's just an ordinary magic trick known by every kid with a magic set, but it gets more and more "adult" as it goes on. Actually very funny toward the end.

The Sniper, once again on a rare post, has a video montage of Sniper Training that is outstanding. Give it a look....

Oh oh....my Jon-Benet Ramsey committed suicide thesis goes down the tubes... A typical expose' blaming the Ramsey family for the murder is here. One of thousands....

Have you noticed... the number of older (and not very sexy) women acting as spokespersons for products on TV? It's the Baby Boomers turned Geriatric Generation. The boom started in 1946 (nine months after the troops came home from war) and they have been a tsunami under the body politic for forty five years, dictating tastes (surfing, excercise etc.), politics, and culture. Well they ain't gunna go gently into that sweet night. Not them. They will continue their quest for "me" til their demands for welfare break the country. The "greatest generation" was followed by the "selfish" generation, one that immersed itself into every personal gratification available, whether sensory or financial. Now we will see books about how women can reach multiple orgasms til they reach 80; wrinkled up old hags will be "appealing;" men in wheel chairs will be described as "active seniors;" middle age will start at seventy something, and the bunch that started out with the slogan "never trust anyone over thirty" will demand respect in their dotage. We already have a ton of websites featuring older women as porn objects (do your own Google image search and believe me NSFW), aging movie stars (Farrah Fawcett above) showing up looking like shit.

See the Hymowitz long piece, Desperate Grandmas for all the stupid details of a monster marketing effort, starting with keeping your pussy young (60 year old at left).

Bombing or shelling civilians is always counterproductive......Ever since air power has been a big factor (starting with the London Blitz) each and every bombing has produced a population that rallies around the flag. Their backs stiffen and they will fight to the last man standing, if necessary. Our bombing of Nazi Germany destroyed some industry but produced a population willing to go underground and work building war materials just to show their determination and loyalty. We brutally firebombed Japan (more casualties in Tokyo raid than Heroshima) and the population was ready to die for the Emporer. The A Bomb would have failed were it not for the Emporer himself dictating a surrender. We bombed the shit out of civilians in VietNam and it did nothing. The Israel "action" against Hezbollah has resulted in an entire population rallying to Hezbollah, making it stronger and not weaker. The aura of Israel invincibility has been shattered and proof has been offered once again of the real result of attacks on the civilian population. The long term damage to Israel may be fatal.

The Educated Terrorist and other nonsense.....Once again there are news reports about the "connections" between terrorists and universities, terrorists and advanced degrees, or terrorists and the educated elites. The tone of the reports seem to ask "why?" The people amazed by this simply haven't read anything written by Muslims between 1950 and 1995. Should anyone decide to so much as scan some of the works you would see the depth of thought about "what is wrong" with the Muslim religion and the state of Muslim countries in the world. The religion requires study of the Koran on a daily basis and those studies result in conversations about religion every day. To those of you unfamiliar with the depth of thought in some of this literature, you could do worse than start with a guy named Ma’alim fi al-tariq, the best known and scariest of the Muslim writers.

Milestones is among the other titles. This best seller by Sayyid Qutb, the intellectual father of Islamic fundamentalism, is said to have been published in close to 2,000 editions.

“After the complete breakdown of democracy, Western civilization has nothing else to give humanity....The dominance of Western man has reached its end. The time has come for Islam to take the lead,”

The common theme in Qutb’s writings is his prognosis that the Western, secularized world, which is deeply inferior to Islam, must be replaced by an Islamic world order. The common theme in Qutb’s writings is his prognosis that the Western, secularized world, which is deeply inferior to Islam, must be replaced by an Islamic world order. He is just one of many, most of whom have written from jail, just like Hitler, and all of whom advocate a world wide imposition of Islam. This literature is in every library in every university and he is the font of all current Muslim thought at every Muslim madrassa or school and only smart guys go to university.

OK, here is Fergie's really filthy video that isn't filthy except in your mind. NSFW.....

For those of you who think there isn't a Terrorist Fifth Column in this country, go HERE (original link from Malkin)

I assume you all read LGF, but in case you don't be sure to go HERE today for a major review of faked news releases from the usual places..... And Rodger has a great piece too.....

If you don't read TCS every day, (and who does?) go there today for some good stuff on traitors, fifth column members and other goodies.

Three pro-terror demonstrations held this past Saturday -- at the White House in Washington, D.C., in San Francisco and Los Angeles -- provide insight into the global networks that support jihadi Islamic fascists. On the same day, pro-Hezbollah, anti-U.S. and anti-Israel demonstrations took place in the streets of Mombasa, Kenya; Madrid, Spain; Damascus, Syria; Islamist-controlled Mogadishu, Somalia; Dhaka, Bangladesh; Karachi, Pakistan; and Jakarta, Indonesia, to name just a few.

Another reason for the decline in movie quality? I submit to you that the people reviewing movies for all major media are all women or homosexual men, with very few exceptions. It is their perverted views of the world that have become the standard for movie criticism. The preponderance of women in this capacity not only trivializes major themes, they bury any movie not containing the proper number of "good" female roles in the slag heap. The most recent example was the TCM evaluation of a showing of The Godfather by a female (read: feminist or possibly lesbian) "guest" reviewer who promptly proceeded to shrug off any evaluation of the movie as "great" because it didn't adhere to dramatic standards (whatever the hell they are). One reason for the success of this movie was the undeniable heterosexuality of all the characters. There was not a limp wrist in the bunch. No DiCaprios, Pitts, or Clooneys in the entire conglomeration of mobsters. The same can be said for almost any pre 1960 movie. This same "woman" thought Treasure of the Sierra Madre was just mediocre. What all this means is that real men are threatening to these effete snobs so any movies containing them are tossed aside. The mincing psuedo threatening Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean is about as masculine as they want to get.

Once again, Bush shows he's a putz.....Can you spell unprepared? Again? Look at the airports and the airlines: over a million people and counting are prevented from taking flights because nobody in Homeland Security was prepared for liquid explosives, exactly the type that were involved in a similar plot back in 1994 (liquid explosives and multiple airlines); this was a rerun. Every Bush appointment is a lousy party apparatchik unprepared for the obvious. I suppose this year they won't be ready for a hurricane if it strikes out of season. I'd puke but I'm all puked out after the last "mistake"

All the Media are assholes......they can't figure out what somebody would do with a thousand cell phones. Jesus, they use them for a few days and then toss them, meaning calls cannot be traced or monitored. All drug dealers have been using them like that for at least five years.

DuToit pegs Lieberman perfectly.... Good riddance to the last of the liberal elite.....

Dixie Chicks??? Let me begin by telling you that I'm a hard core country music fan, but I only like the Bakersfield-Austin type, not the country boys with glitter and tight pants from Nashville. I have two of the the Chicks older albums and listen to them many times per month. There was a Dixie Chick concert the other night and I think the reasons for the declining attendance have nothing to do with Natalie Maines' statements on the war and Bush, nor her airheaded interviews.

ONE: Every new song sounds exactly like the one before. Manes has one kind of naselized voice and it doesn't wear well over a two hour period. When they do their older material there is plenty of variety, but the near monotone continues. Link here.

TWO: There are more dykes in the audience than at the Dinah Shore Golf Tourney. Wall to wall, holding hands, kissing one another, and groping one another. This would not be a concert I'd take my small children to and I think their appeal to this crowd is responsible for their declining concert attendance.

THREE: These chicks are not the original band, that's why the sound is different. Neither Manes nor the other two were in the band when it broke out. The original band consisted of Robin Lynn Macy on guitar and vocals, Laura Lynch on bass and vocals, Martie Erwin on fiddle, viola, and vocals, and co-founder Emily Erwin on banjo and vocals. None of the original Dixie Chicks are now with the current band, which is composed of Emily Robison: guitar, banjo, dobro, vocals; Natalie Maines: guitar, bass guitar, lead vocals; Martie Maguire: fiddle, mandolin, vocals. I guess you might call the current version: The Ersatz Chicks.

Late Add: I'm getting at least eight emails challenging my statement that this group is completely different from the original. Rather than debate, go HERE to the All-Inclusive Dixie Chicks page..... However there is a very knowledgable comment on the comments page that states the two original Chicks remain with changed names due to marriage. I still say that their sound ain't the same.

If the Democrats were in power there would be 2500 dead by noon tomorrow. The warrentless NSA info trolling was a major part of busting these guys, the Patriot Act that all libs wanted to kill was instrumental, and various surveillances based on suspicion only. Makes us all think before we elect these people (see Maxine Waters below). The Democrats will dismantle almost all anti-terror legislation. The fallout from this failed attack is a God send for the Republicans who may now retain both houses of Congress.

Details on the Honest Maxine Walters, (D CA) who is being touted for a leadership position if the Democrats take Congress in '06. Below is meticulously footnoted HERE at the Citizens For Ethics report. As you will see she has involved her entire family in her web of deceit and has enriched herself and her family in direct violation of the law.

REP. MAXINE WATERS
Maxine Waters (D-CA) is an eighth-term member of the U.S. House of Representatives, representing the 35th district of California. A powerful and renowned politician in her state, Rep. Waters is recognized for her unique ability to unite voters in South Los Angeles around causes she deems important. Her ethics issues stem from the exercise of this power to financially benefit her daughter, husband and son. Rep. Waters’ family has earned a total of more than $1 million in the last eight years through business dealings with companies and issue organizations that Rep. Waters has assisted.

Karen Waters: Rep. Waters’ daughter, Karen Waters, has benefitted primarily through charging for spots on her mothers’ “slate mailers” issued by L.A. Vote. L.A. Vote is a non-profit, political
organization that sends sample ballots to South Los Angeles residents featuring the photo of Rep. Waters and the names of candidates she supports. Charges for a spot on the ballot have
ranged widely from $171,000 for an affluent, California businessman running for elected office, to tens of thousands of dollars for candidates such as former Gov. Gray Davis, to $250 for a
school board candidate. Of the $1.7 million collected by L.A. Vote over the last 8 years, mainly from candidates who have paid to have their names appear on slate mailers, approximately
$450,000 has gone to Karen Waters and her consulting firm, Progressive Connections, and $115,000 to Rep. Waters’ son, Edward. Karen Waters also has collected $20,000 from a small, non-profit organization called African American Committee 2000 & Beyond that she established with her mother. Many
corporations and organizations seeking to win Rep. Waters’ favor have donated to African American Committee 2000 & Beyond. The non-profit has used this money to pay for parties hosted by Rep. Waters at the Democratic national conventions. Sponsors of these convention parties include Fannie Mae, a company that has been investigated for alleged accounting misconduct.

Sidney Williams
Rep. Waters’ husband, Sidney Williams, has also benefitted financially from his wife’s political clout, working as a part-time consultant for a bond underwriting firm, Siebert, Brandford, & Shank. Despite having no apparent background in the bond business prior to his work as a consultant for the company, Mr. Williams has collected close to $500,000 by making valuable introductions for Siebert to politicians who have received his wife’s support. Government bond deals are awarded based on negotiations, allowing Mr. Williams to capitalize on his wife’s connections to close many lucrative business deals for Siebert, from which he has
personally profited. For example, when school board members in Inglewood, a city in Rep. Waters’ congressional district to which she guaranteed a $10 million loan from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, needed a bond underwriting firm to handle a $40 million school bond sale, they chose Siebert. Mr. Williams earned $54,000 in commission from the deal.

Edward Waters
Rep. Waters’ son, Edward Waters, together with her husband Sidney Williams, benefitted from Rep. Waters’ political connections when they won a 20-year lease to run the county-owned Chester Washington Golf Course in South Los Angeles. The key decision-maker for the deal was County Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, in whose district the golf course was located. Rep. Waters handed the County Supervisor a victory just several months earlier when she endorsed Ms. Burke in a close election. Financial records indicate that Mr. Williams and Mr. Waters earned between $140,000 and $400,000 through the golf venture. In addition, both of Rep. Waters’ children have collected money working as paid
consultants for politicians and interests endorsed by their mother.
Rule 23 of the House Ethics Manual requires all members of the House to conduct themselves “at all times in a manner that reflects creditably on the House.” This ethics standard is considered to be “the most comprehensive provision of the code.” When this
section was first adopted, the Select Committee on Standards of Official Conduct of the 90th Congress noted that it was included within the Code to deal with “flagrant” violations of the law
that reflect on “Congress as a whole,” and that might otherwise go unpunished. This rule has been relied on by the Ethics Committee in numerous prior cases in which the Committee found unethical conduct including: the failure to report campaign contributions, making false statements to the Committee, criminal convictions for bribery, or accepting illegal gratuities, and accepting gifts from persons with interest in legislation in violation of the then gift rule.
Another “fundamental rule[] of ethics” for Members of the House is that they are prohibited from taking any official actions for the prospect of personal gain for themselves or anyone else. In that memorandum, the Committee directed House members to adhere to 5 CFR §2635.702(a),27 issued by the U.S. Office of Government Ethics for the Executive Branch, which provides: An employee shall not use or permit the use of his Government position or title
or any authority associated with his public office in a manner that is intended to coerce or induce another person . . . to provide any benefit , financial or otherwise, to himself or to friends, relatives, or persons with whom the employee is affiliated in a nongovernmental capacity.

Rep. Waters has assisted her family in making commercial deals from which they have reaped personal financial gain. By allowing the use of her name and authority associated with her position as a member of the House in this manner, Rep. Waters has run afoul of 5 CFR §2635.702(a). In addition, this conduct does not reflect creditably on the House of Representatives. Therefore, the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct should investigate
Rep. Waters’ connections with L.A. Vote, the African American Committee 2000, the firm of Siebert, Brandford and Shank, and the Chester Washington Golf Course.

# posted by Howard : 8/11/2006 06:49:00 AM  1 comments links to this post