‘Azzam the American’ charged with treason
A 28-year-old Californian who joined al-Qaida and appeared in propaganda videos for the terrorist organization was indicted Wednesday on federal charges of treason and aiding terrorists, a U.S. Justice Department official said.
Phew! The Chief was starting to doubt whether or not anyone in D.C. even remembered that there is such a thing as “treason”.
Reid got $1 million for land he hadn’t owned for 3 years
Harry Reid is doing the impossible! He’s proving himself to be an even bigger weasel than his predecessor Daschle as Donk Senate leader. The Chief would never have believed it, but there you go, truth is stranger than fiction.
Mexico May Take Fence Dispute to U.N.
Two aspects of this irritate the Chief.
First, as remarked above, a soveriegn nation can enforce its borders as it sees fit. Apparently Mexico no longer thinks the US has the right to do this.
The second aspect is that this is yet another example of the total uselessness of the UN (dis)Organization – if this is the sort of thing that it does – which it is!
F’em both, and the horses they ride in on!
Hmmmm. Must have missed this one in the NY Slimes.
Several declassified al-Qaida documents — one discovered after the June 2006 air strike that killed al-Qaida’s Iraqi emir, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi — strongly suggest al-Qaida’s leaders fear they are losing the War on Terror.
This makes some good reading.
Multiculturalism hasn’t worked: let’s rediscover Britishness
Here’s an encouraging note that the Brits haven’t fully lost their spirit in spite of the batterings of political correctness.
The tyranny of political correctness has for years suppressed the qualms that many Britons have had about what was happening to their country. Radical imams were allowed to preach hatred while being funded with state benefits, but few dared to question such madness, let alone act against it. The doctrine of multiculturalism dictated that all beliefs should be allowed to flourish, and to challenge that view was as politically incorrect as pinning up a Pirelli calendar in Islington Town Hall or suggesting that two married parents usually provide the best start in life for a child.
What a concept!
Gradually, however, people are gaining the courage to defy the diktats of political correctness and to question the assumptions of what should be acceptable in Britain today. In Bournemouth last week, David Cameron admitted to feeling uncomfortable about the segregation that now exists in many cities, where people remain isolated in ethnic communities. Jack Straw has publicly raised the veil on an issue that, privately, many will have admitted to finding disturbing. And even the Church of England, it seems, may be rediscovering sufficient backbone to assert the importance of its role as the predominant faith in the country.
Further into the piece, it becomes clear that although there has been a partial application of the Cluebat upside Britannia’s helmet, PC hasn’t rolled over and died yet – although one always has hope!
Mass Venezuela opposition rally
Tens of thousands of people have marched through the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, in support of the main opposition candidate, Manuel Rosales. Mr Rosales will face President Hugo Chavez in December’s presidential poll. The march, which filled the main avenues of the city centre, was the biggest opposition rally Venezuela has seen since early 2004.
“The problem of the opposition is that before we had a lot of candidates and people couldn’t make up their minds whom to support,” one woman said. “Right now we have just one candidate and I believe that we have a better shot if we have just one candidate against Chavez.”
We, and Venezuela should be so blessed!
Comments on the DM & E Expansion
SD Politics is doing it’s usual yeoman work of keeping the light shining on…well…SD politics. (What a concept!)
A highlight that especially caught the Chief’s attention concerns the Janklow/Daschle alliance against the Dakota, Minnesota, and Eastern (DM & E) upgrade and expansion.
The Chief feels quite strongly that the DM&E expansion has truly monumental possibilities to enhance the economic atmosphere and infrastructure of the state (and others) if it’s allowed to go through.
A continuing refrain in the state are comments decrying the decline of small towns and rural counties, and the lack of economic development that might give Dakota kids a chance to find good jobs after they graduate…and thereby be able to stay in the state. Also, it is frequently noted that the prevailing wage scale for SD seems to be low.
HELLLLOOOO! Anybody out there know anything about economics? Building up transportation infrastructure is one of the best ways to stimulate further economic development. Lack of same inevitably results in an economic bottleneck that limits the possibilities for such growth.
An earlier SD example comes to the Chief’s mind. In the early 80’s, right after the Chief moved up to SD from St. Louis (with Mrs. Chief returning to her old homestead territory) there was a big kerfluffle about plans to build a high-capacity power line to carry electrical power from Manitoba down to Kansas for further distribution.
Checking out geography indicates that this would run across the state if it were built. The full force of the enviros, anti-corporate moonbats, and NIMBYs (Not In My Backyard) mobilized and threw up such a firestorm of legal entanglement that the project was abandoned, lest someone might look out their car window and see a powerline instead of empty prairie. The result now is that the state has a huge shortage of electrical power transmission capacity which is the limiting bottleneck to deveopment of the potential we have for wind turbine generation of power.
The short-sighted, reactionary, and frankly mercenary opposition of Janklow and Daschle to the DM&E expansion (which both supported when they were holding SD elective offices), if successful, will be a crippling blow to development of a healthier economic foundation as SD to move into the 21st century. We can either turn into an agricultural and tourism based “American 3rd world” economy, or just perhaps be something more than this.
Ahmadinejad: ‘The Iranian People… [Can] Quickly Become an Invincible Global Power
Based on the partial Islamodictionary of terms in one of the Chief’s recent posting, it may be enlightening to apply some logic and analysis to remarks of Iranian President Ahm-mad-on-a-jihad Ahmadinejad to try to determine what some of his words for us really say:
“Today, words like morality, spirituality, human nobility, courage, greatness, and affection are meaningless to the great powers.
translation: ONLY ISLAM is the repository of true morality, spirituality, human nobility, courage, greatness and affection, so therefore these cannot be part of the infidel powers.
“They should accept the fact that they have failed in the proper management of the world. They should accept that they are unable to manage the world in a just and progressive manner.
Peace” in Islam equals submission to the will of Allah through his divine and eternal law, sharia, and the extension of the Dar al-Islam – or ‘House of Islam’ – to cover the entire world.
Today, the Iranian people is recognized as a model for all the peoples of the world. From the Far East to the West, and including the southernmost regions of the globe, the peoples’ attention, eyes, and hearts are drawn towards the Iranian people – so that the Iranian people will be able to overcome the difficulties, and present the peoples of the world with a perfect model of splendid, humane, and divine life….Every day, youth, politicians, religious scholars, and scientists make requests in various manners, in order to benefit from help, guidance, and support of the Iranian people. The Eastern and Western groups have failed in managing the world, and the world is left with only one light, one banner, and one people, which has preserved the hope in the hearts of all the peoples. This is the great and courageous people of Iran.”
Sort of reminds one of the praises for der Deutscher herrenvolk during the heyday of the 3rd Reich Marching and Singing Club.
Finally, to cut to the real kernal of things here:
They know that the Iranian people – because of its past culture, its past civilization, its intelligent youth, its human and material potential – has the capacity to quickly become an invincible global power. This will happen as soon as it achieves advanced technologies.”
“advanced technologies” = nuclear weapons.
’nuff said.
The 910 Group has come together because we have a similar vision — that of ensuring that Liberty prevails worldwide. We realize it is vital to work actively for it, and to actively oppose those forces against it. Our job is to support, encourage, and inspire each other so that we may coordinate our good intentions into practical action.
This is a newly coalescing group of folks that have some real concerns with the state of the world, as indicated above. It’s time to kick ass and take names, and in word and deed tell the enemies of Liberty of whatever flavor that we’re mad as hell not willing to take their crap any longer.
The Chief sees this group as being a cyber version of something similar to the old American colonial “Committees of Correspondence” that spread the news and coordinated the formation of the Continental Congresses, and the eventual effort that became known as the American Revolution.
If our predecessors could accomplish that with horseback relays of hand-written letters, what is possible with modern telecommunications? Time will tell.
If this is something that sounds interesting to you, click on the 910 Group graphic above and join the fun.
Islamofascist War has ChiCom Support
Does anyone else think that a lot of the reason that the Jihadistanis are feelin’ their oats these days maybe goes back to Beijing, and the weaponry and tech that they get from them and the North Koreans?
The Hamass and Hisbulls both get support and weapons, like rockets, from the Iranians.
The Iranians, in addition to developing their own rocketry from ChiCom and NorK designs, are also freely acquiring various sorts of military hardware from those sources. And then again, there’s the whole issue of the Iranian nuke program(s).
With the recent NorK nuke test, would anyone be willing to bet against the design information being in Tehran by now? I wouldn’t!
The NorKs get approx. 60% of their trade imports from the ChiComs. If the ChiComs pulled the chain on them, the NorKs wouldn’t be able to sneeze without clearing it in Beijing first.
If Beijing decided to stop supplying Jihadistan, much of their effectiveness would be gutted in short order.
So, not to minimize the immediate and very real threats from Islamofascism, a real part of that problem has the same label as most of the WalMart inventory: Made in China.
Islamic Dictionary for Infidels
Jihad is, simply put, anything undertaken to advance the spread of Islam, peaceful or not. Which means that Jihad is always present, even if there should be a temporary absence of violence because Muslims are too weak to use force. On the other hand, “aggression” is anything undertaken by non-Muslims to obstruct the advance of Islam, non-violent or not.
This is really choice stuff! A very thoughtful and somewhat lengthy bog, Wolfgang Bruno effectively makes the point that in “dialog” with Islam, it is vital to know what is meant by terms that have a very different meaning from what might be expected.
In fact, the divergences are so great as to merit the description of being a form of Orwellian Newspeak (slavery is freedon, etc.).
Some key problematic terms:
Peace: “Peace” in Islam equals submission to the will of Allah through his divine and eternal law, sharia, and the extension of the Dar al-Islam – or ‘House of Islam’ – to cover the entire world. The absence of sharia is the absence of peace. Since it is the will of Allah that Islam will rule the entire planet, entering non-Muslim lands to subjugate the population and wipe out their corrupt, infidel culture is not seen by Muslims as “waging war,” but as spreading peace.
Freedom: Hurriyya, freedom, means freeing all people from being slaves of the laws of men and making them live in perfect slavery, in submission to the will of Allah and his laws.
Religious freedom: Subjugation of non-Muslims to religious apartheid and second class citizenship in their own country under Islamic rule. This option is only available to Christians and Jews, not Hindus, Buddhists or others, who have only the choice between embracing Islam or death. Muslims should practice sharia. Since these laws require the subjugation of non-Muslims, “freedom of religion” for Muslims essentially means the freedom to make others unfree.
Jihad: Peaceful, inner struggle that has killed up to 80 million people in the Indian subcontinent alone, and enslaved or killed tens of millions, perhaps hundreds of millions of people on three continents for 1350 years. It can also be violent, but only for defensive purposes, such as the Muslims who defended their way from the Arabian Peninsula to the borders of China, wiping out the indigenous cultures along the way.
Aggression: When non-Muslims do anything to preserve their culture and resist the Islamization of their country. Even when this “aggression” is non-violent, such as publishing a cartoon critical of Islam, this intolerable insult to Islamic supremacy on earth can be answered with violence by Muslims. Since a refusal to submit to sharia is a rebellion against Allah, the very existence of non-Muslim communities can be viewed as an act of aggression.
In meeting with the enemy, it behooves one to know what it is that he is talking about. It reminds the Chief of a semi-serious aphorism he once ran across: “I know you believe that you understand what you think I said, but what I’m not sure that you understand is that what I said is not what I meant.”
This is just too choice…had to rip it off with due deference to the source at PillageIdiot.
The Jawa Report notes the news of the night with the following correct header:
North Koreans Test Nuke: Another Triumph of Diplomacy
The Chief particularly likes the highlighting of the outcomes of the maneuvering of the Foggy Bottom Boys at State, and their overseas ilk.
MAGNITUDE 4.2
UTC DATE-TIME (y/m/d h:m:s) 2006/10/09 01:35:28
LAT (deg) 41.311
LONG (deg) 129.114
DEPTH (km) 0.0
Region NORTH KOREA
Evangelicals Blame Foley, Not Republican Party
From the NY Slimes Times:
As word of Representative Mark Foley’s sexually explicit e-mail messages to former pages spread last week, Republican strategists worried – and Democrats hoped – that the sordid nature of the scandal would discourage conservative Christians from going to the polls.
But in dozens of interviews here in southeastern Virginia, a conservative Christian stronghold that is a battleground in races for the House and Senate, many said the episode only reinforced their reasons to vote for their two Republican incumbents in neck-and-neck re-election fights, Representative Thelma Drake and Senator George Allen.
The Chief certainly hopes that Nancy Pelosi et al have been counting their votes before the election – like counting chickens before they hatch.
Text of North Korea’s Nuke Announcement
For what it’s worth:
(note: The formal name for North Korea is the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea or DPRK and KPA refers to the Korean People’s Army.)
“The field of scientific research in the DPRK successfully conducted an underground nuclear test under secure conditions on October 9, at a stirring time when all the people of the country are making a great leap forward in the building of a great, prosperous, powerful socialist nation.
Reality check: they are still starving…but they DID apparently build the bomb.
“It has been confirmed that there was no such danger as radioactive emission in the course of the nuclear test as it was carried out under scientific consideration and careful calculation.
Interesting and original syntax here.
“The nuclear test was conducted with indigenous wisdom and technology 100 percent.
100% no shit GI!
It marks a historic event as it greatly encouraged and pleased the KPA and people that have wished to have powerful self- reliant defense capability.
The Army liked it, and so did those of the people “that have wished to have powerful self- reliant defense capability” like the rest of the NorK Communist Party.
As far as the rest of the rest of the people, they just want something to eat.
“It will contribute to defending the peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and in the area around it.”
This MIGHT even come to pass: when Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan all build their own nuclear device, the NorKs might even get nervous about using theirs!
Breaking news on Fox as of 2300 CT: U.S. Official Confirms North Korean Nuclear Test to FOX News
That’s all there is at this point.
If this all proves out, it can’t be good news.
Islam has tamed a lawless Somalia, but is it raising an African Taliban?
Thirteen years after the infamous “Black Hawk Down” incident, in which 18 American troops died at the hands of a Mogadishu mob, Somalia is once again the stuff of American nightmares – as a potential new home for fundamentalist Islam in Africa.
Just what we need. NOT!
Drive for multi-faith Britain deepens rifts, says Church
The Church of England has launched an astonishing attack on the Government’s drive to turn Britain into a multi-faith society.
In a wide-ranging condemnation of policy, it says that the attempt to make minority “faith” communities more integrated has backfired, leaving society “more separated than ever before”. The criticisms are made in a confidential Church document, leaked to The Sunday Telegraph, that challenges the “widespread description” of Britain as a multi-faith society and even calls for the term “multi-faith” to be reconsidered.
So much for political correctness. Maybe there’s some hope for Merrie Olde England yet!
Written by Guy Wilkinson, the interfaith adviser to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, the paper says that the Church of England has been sidelined. Instead, “preferential” treatment has been afforded to the Muslim community despite the fact that it makes up only three per cent of the population. Britain remains overwhelmingly a Christian country at heart and moves to label it as a multi-faith society suggest a hidden agenda, it says.
Good for them!
America ponders cutting Iraq in three
The Baker commission has grown increasingly interested in the idea of splitting the Shi’ite, Sunni and Kurdish regions of Iraq as the only alternative to what Baker calls “cutting and running” or “staying the course”.
This may just be an idea whose time has come.
Showtime for Spaceship Builders
This fall will see the 2nd show of the private-spaceflight designers, vendors, astronauts, operators, developments, and presumably enthusiasts.
Those caught in the whirlwind of the personal spaceflight business-the builders, shakers, dreamers and schemers-will be found this month at the Wirefly X Prize Cup, set for October 20-21 in Las Cruces, New Mexico.
Given the sweep of hardware and plans to be detailed, it’s clear that future ticket-holding space voyagers can pick from any number of vehicles to start chalking up frequent flyer mileage.
This sounds REALLY neat, and if time and money were no problem, the Chief would surely like to be there. But then again…the bit about “if pigs had wings, they’d fly”.
Oh well…it’s still neat just to know that this stuff is out there.
This excellent posting relates the current Jihadistan war games to a continuum on the broader front of the Culture War. Take a look at this, it leads farther yet…but that will be in a later posting.
…if we want to win this war, we need to take back the culture. In order for that to happen, the organs of mass communication will have to change. The new media – of which this blog is a microscopic piece – will eventually supplant the old ones. Eventually Katie Kouric and Paul Krugman will become quaint historical artifacts, a set of wax statues at Madame Tussaud’s.
There’s no doubt that the Emperor has no clothes, and in due course everyone will become aware of it and start to snicker at his pale and flabby flesh.
But, thanks to the Jihad, we may not have enough time to wait for this process to unfold. We may have to put on our pajamas and go to work to help it along.
We really are at a cultural version of the Gates of Vienna. The enemy has driven the traditional culture back inside its fortifications, and is busy digging tunnels to undermine the walls. Many of our people have been captured or converted, and the remnant is just barely holding out, drinking rainwater from the rooftop cisterns and eating dogs just to stay alive.
Only this time there will be no King of Poland to ride down the hill in a glorious charge. This time there will be no Jan III Sobieski to save our sorry fundament. We’re going to have to do this one ourselves.
This is a vivid and evocative image. Do you get it? Still thinking about it a bit? Read on as Beach Girl sounds an eloquent tocsin in the Culture War:
A Western Woman’s Call for Help
Have you ever been driven to just say something and get it over with? Well, today I call upon Western Men – ideologically Western Men – to care for your women, your culture, your homes, and the future of your children. I know you do but the times call for action. I include Japan and other Pacific nations who have embraced freedom. This is a call of ideology.
Well, the enemy appears to be two-fold. I would submit that the enemy is one and that is socialism/totalitarianism. They come to us in two forms: through the arrogance of our liberal elite and through the arrogant elitism of the islamic clerics. In truth, there is no reasoning with either of them. As you know well, when you try to engage them in conversation, their first, middle, and last line of defense is to call you names: racist, bigot, islamophobe.
We need a Crusade for Reformation in the West, against Sharia Law and for pulling ourselves up out of the mire of degredation, the insanity of moral equivalency, the over-running of our borders.
Read the rest too.
Phew! Call it like it is! Hey guys! Come on, let’s get with the program!
Dinosaurs suffered climate change too
If driving large SUV’s etc. is the cause of global warming (according to Algor, Art Bell, and the Sierra Club), one has to wonder what brand was favored by our dinosaurian predecessors.
Dinosaurs had to cope with dramatic swings in the climate around 120 million years ago, with ocean surface temperatures changing by as much as 6 °C. The finding suggests that natural climate variations are much more complex than previously thought.
DUH! Maybe more complex than was previously UNthought! Those of us who actually THINK about it, already had a big clue that this was the case. It’s just new to the enviro-moonbats who have severe problems with rationality.
Simon Brassell from Indiana University, Bloomington, and colleagues examined telltale carbon compounds in fossilised bacteria. The proportion of these compounds varies with water temperature, and bacteria from different rock layers revealed that the ocean surface temperature went from around 30 °C to 36 °C in the space of 10,000 years (Geology, vol 34, p 833). “The changes appear step-like, as if the climate is switching from one mode to another,” Brassell says.
U.S. Cites United Front on Iran
The United States is confident that Russia and China will join it in pushing for U.N. sanctions against Iran if it does not agree to suspend enriching uranium this week, a senior U.S. official said yesterday. R. Nicholas Burns, undersecretary of state for political affairs, also said the U.N. Security Council will insist on a clear answer to its demand that Iran suspend its enrichment activity. A “maybe” will be considered a “no,” he said.
It’s nice that the Foggy Bottom Boys at the State Department are feeling optimistic. The Chief has to wonder what the basis of their optimism is, other than a case of diplomatic vapors. Certainly past history of dealings with KGB-head Putin and the ChiComs offer nothing to get excited about. Like they’ve been willing to help read the law to the North Koreans and THEIR nuke program, haven’t they? No? Oh. Never mind.
Maybe they just got a shipment of hashish from the middle east, so they’re all feeling good about the prospects over there. At least THAT would make some sense as an explanation.
Nothing to say about Foley, except that he has clearly demonstrated his character – and it’s not good. The Chief might say “F’em”, except that he would probably like the concept. Otherwise, the President has it about right:
Bush backs investigation of Foley
President Bush today said that he supports House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert’s call for an investigation into former Rep. Mark Foley and that he was “dismayed and shocked” at the disgraced ex-congressman’s behavior….The president said he was “disgusted by the revelations” concerning Mr. Foley…
This whole deal is so repulsive – what else is there to say, without dwelling on the loathsome details of the perv Congresscritter’s behavior. Frankly, I’ve already heard too much.
’nuff said.
Saudis build 550-mile fence to shut out Iraq
Looks good to the Chief!
In spite of the problem that the Mexican government and the moonbats have with this, we need to do this also – and with more than the 700 miles approved this week by the Congresscritters.