Close Call

The CIA have said that Syria was close to producing the fuel for two nuclear bombs within about a year.

And they were taking what action, exactly?

Thank heavens for Israel.

Flight of Fantasy

Yep, I'm still here. Just trying to avoid the endless Obama stories. Just imagine if the media had done their job and vetted this joker a year ago- before so many had invested so much in him... Anyway, here's Frank Cho's Shanna the She-Devil. Have a nice weekend!

RIP Charlton Heston

The Omega Man has passed away. He was 84 years old.

One thing which has quite annoyed me about the British media's coverage of his death is the "far right" spin they put on his political activism because of his leadership of the NRA. One BBC commenter called the "cold dead hands" speech the "NRA's chilling motto".

This BBC article does mention his support for the civil rights movement back in the '60s but they then make the mistake of saying that he was then "later linked with traditionally conservative causes". Showing their complete lack of recent history, the BBC repeats the lie (again) that conservatives and Republicans are somehow anti-civil rights, when the truth is exactly the opposite.

Three years after Brown, President Eisenhower won passage of his landmark Civil Rights Act of 1957. Republican Senator Everett Dirksen authored and introduced the 1960 Civil Rights Act, and saw it through to passage. Republicans supported the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act overwhelmingly, and by much higher percentages in both House and Senate than the Democrats. Indeed, the 1964 Civil Rights Act became law only after overcoming a Democrat filibuster.

We could certainly do with more actors like Charlton Heston in Hollywood today- not only because of his talent, screen-presence but for his unfailing support of individual rights.

You're Doing It Wrong

The US military machine in Iraq seems have seriously misunderstood the whole "blood for oil" thing.

Think you're being gouged by Big Oil? U.S. troops in Iraq are paying almost as much as Americans back home, despite burning fuel at staggering rates in a war to stabilize a country known for its oil reserves.

Military units pay an average of $3.23 a gallon for gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, some $88 a day per service member in Iraq, according to an Associated Press review and interviews with defense officials. A penny or two increase in the price of fuel can add millions of dollars to U.S. costs.

Care to explain the convoluted Rovian wickedness behind this tactic, moonbats?

The U.S. military, through its Defense Energy Support Center, buys fuel on the open market, paying from $1.99 a gallon to as much as $5.30 a gallon under contracts with private and government-owned oil companies. The center then sets a fixed rate for troops, currently $3.51 a gallon for diesel, $3.15 for gasoline, $3.04 for jet fuel and $13.61 for avgas, a high-octane fuel used mostly in unmanned aerial vehicles.

So, you mean, the US isn't actually in Iraq to steal its oil? Shocking.

Internet -Free Time

Tam mentions the joys of writing on a PC without the temptation of internet access. It's something I've been luxuriating in for the past few months. I blogged before about my Vista laptop not communicating with my XP-friendly wireless router- and one of the reasons I haven't gone out and replaced it so far is because I have been working each night for a few hours on the no-internet-laptop in the blissful quiet of a house with sleeping wife and children.

I'm a slow writer and I find it incredibly difficult to stay focused on it when there are distractions around me so sitting in bed, laptop on knee, headphones on is the perfect way to work. The only problem I've found so far is a tendency to keep going until about 3 a.m. or later.

I've probably written more in the past couple of months working like this than I have in the past year or so. As much as I love the internet and being able to have access to pretty much all the information you could want, it really is an incredible distraction. If I need to do research now, I do it during the day and not during writing time.

Irony Free Zone

Can they hear the words coming out of their mouths?

About 50 members of a hardline Indonesian Muslim group held a rowdy protest outside the Dutch embassy on Monday, calling for the death of a Dutch lawmaker behind a film accusing the Koran of inciting violence.

You're accusing us of being violent so we're going to be violent!

"I call on Muslims around the world, if you run into the maker of the film, kill him," said one of the speakers at the rally, Awit Mashuri.

"Geert Wilders is a Christian terrorist," declared a placard held up by a protester. "Kill Geert Wilders," read another....

Sorry, tell me again what they were complaining about?

Fitna Again

Over all the shameful- fearful- condemnations of Fitna, by Ban Ki-Moon, the governments of Holland, Russia, Australia, and so forth, it has become apparent that we cannot expect to have any rational, public debate about the valid points that Wilders raises- namely that Islamic terrorists and regimes use the Koran to justify their actions. It would be laughable if it weren't so serious but one can just look at the statements of terrorists and Islamic nations about the source of their barbaric actions or their repressive laws and they will quite freely admit that it is the Koran.

The problem here is not that the point is somehow shocking or controversial but that Wilders is an infidel pointing these things out. Otherwise, where were the worldwide condemnations of Osama Bin Laden when he used the Koran to justify his actions? When Bin Laden quotes the Koran - "fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in Allah"- there is silence from the world at large and the Islamic world over his use of the Koran. When Wilders merely reports that terrorists use Koranic verse in just this way he is roundly denounced by the world's leaders.

Why?

Could it have anything to do with the fact that Wilders is being denounced for inciting violence? What goes unspoken of course is the very obvious fact that all of these people mean that Geert Wilders might incite Muslims to violence rather than incite violence against them.

If Fitna proves nothing else it is that Western notions of freedom of speech are being held hostage by the threat of unbridled violence. So much so that we cannot even have a reasoned and public debate about a 15 minute film which merely reports that which terrorists and theocracies themselves freely and publicly admit.

One last thing- Fitna contains no exhortations to violence against Muslims and yet all over the world politicians and the media are slamming it in no uncertain terms. Where, then, is their outrage over this?

"Child Stabs President Bush to Death and Turns the White House into a Mosque in a Hamas TV Puppet Show."

Gazans For Obama

Wow. Arabs in Gaza actually campaigning for Obama to win the Democratic nomination, complete with "change" mantra! Original story at Weasel Zippers.