Para Regiment

There's trouble brewing for the Taliban in Afghanistan as Special Forces and the Paras are getting ready to go in.

BRITAIN is to deploy its biggest contingent of paratroopers and special forces since the second world war in a bid to crush the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Ministers are to send 3,000 paratroopers, including the entire Parachute Regiment, to southern Afghanistan in the spring, as well as trebling the number of special forces in the country.

This is a big mobilisation to counter another predicted Spring offensive from the bad guys.

It will be the first time in the regiment’s history that all four para battalions, including its reservists, have fought together on the same battlefield. The number of UK special forces personnel will rise to more than 800 and will include the bulk of the Special Forces Support Group, which is largely comprised of paratroopers.

Hence the pull-out from Iraq- Brown, for all his faults, is sending some of Britain's best, in force, to fight in Helmand province. Concentrating these combined forces there is sure to have an effect.

The plan will see the current force of 7,000 British troops return from Afghanistan and a total of 8,000 sent out, bringing together the army’s most battle-hardened elite. Officers admit that, with 81 killed and more than 250 wounded, the Taliban have provided some of the fiercest resistance seen since the Korean war.

Fighting which the British media is, by and large, ignoring. The only mention the troops get on the news is when one of them is killed. It's shameful.

UK special forces will also concentrate for the first time solely on southern Helmand and will be expected not only to target the Taliban but also the drug barons funding them. The RAF will increase the number of aircraft in the country, adding Tornado and Typhoon ground attack planes to its existing Harrier squadrons.

In short, the Taliban's Spring offensive is doomed.

Medical Aparthied

You've got to be joking. If these students aren't failed immediately and kicked out then there's something seriously amiss in the medical world.

Some Muslim medical students are refusing to attend lectures or answer exam questions on alcohol-related or sexually transmitted diseases because they claim it offends their religious beliefs.

Some trainee doctors say learning to treat the diseases conflicts with their faith, which states that Muslims should not drink alcohol and rejects sexual promiscuity.

And it's not just studying the subjects either-

A small number of Muslim medical students have even refused to treat patients of the opposite sex. One male student was prepared to fail his final exams rather than carry out a basic examination of a female patient.

The religious objections by students have been confirmed by the British Medical Association (BMA) and General Medical Council (GMC), which both stressed that they did not approve of such actions.

Not approve? Shouldn't they be sending a clear and unambiguous message that such attitudes won't be tolerated by the British medical profession? Would there be any such neutral language if a racist refused to treat black patients? Do you really suppose then that the BMA would mince words and say they "don't approve" of that?

The GMC said it had received requests for guidance over whether students could “omit parts of the medical curriculum and yet still be allowed to graduate”. Professor Peter Rubin, chairman of the GMC’s education committee, said: “Examples have included a refusal to see patients who are affected by diseases caused by alcohol or sexual activity, or a refusal to examine patients of a particular gender.”

He added that “prejudicing treatment on the grounds of patients’ gender or their responsibility for their condition would run counter to the most basic principles of ethical medical practice”.

So can we take it that the GMC is flat out refusing to even consider such requests and is informing those making them that they either get with the program or get out?

What's next is this becomes acceptable? Refusing to treat infidel patients?

The Congo Problem

Hot Air linked to this as the worst thing you'll ever read. The horrifying thing- the shocking brutality and violence reported here is likely only the tip of the iceberg.

Eastern Congo is going through another one of its convulsions of violence, and this time it seems that women are being systematically attacked on a scale never before seen here. According to the United Nations, 27,000 sexual assaults were reported in 2006 in South Kivu Province alone, and that may be just a fraction of the total number across the country.

It appears that such violence against women has become a matter of normalcy in Congo. And the violence that occurs in these attacks is shocking.

Denis Mukwege, a Congolese gynecologist, cannot bear to listen to the stories his patients tell him anymore. Every day, 10 new women and girls who have been raped show up at his hospital. Many have been so sadistically attacked from the inside out, butchered by bayonets and assaulted with chunks of wood, that their reproductive and digestive systems are beyond repair.

Dr. Mukwege said his oldest patient was 75, his youngest 3.

These horrific crimes are being perpetrated by Congolese themselves and also by interlopers.

According to victims, one of the newest groups to emerge is called the Rastas, a mysterious gang of dreadlocked fugitives who live deep in the forest, wear shiny tracksuits and Los Angeles Lakers jerseys and are notorious for burning babies, kidnapping women and literally chopping up anybody who gets in their way.

In fact the epidemic of rape seems to have started when the Hutus, responsible for the 800,000 Tutsis massacred in Rwanda fled into Congo. Human monsters , truly evil people, who are still acting with impunity- despite the fact that the UN's largest peacekeeping force- 17,000- is in the country.

Recently, they initiated what they call “night flashes,” in which three truckloads of peacekeepers drive into the bush and keep their headlights on all night as a signal to both civilians and armed groups that the peacekeepers are there. Sometimes, when morning comes, 3,000 villagers are curled up on the ground around them.

Instead of hunting down and killing the scum responsible for mass murder and mass rape. And don't forget that the UN themselves have been guilty of abusing women there too.

The personal stories of the victims are terrible to read-

Honorata Barinjibanwa, an 18-year-old woman with high cheekbones and downcast eyes, said she was kidnapped from a village that the Rastas raided in April and kept as a sex slave until August. Most of that time she was tied to a tree, and she still has rope marks ringing her delicate neck. The men would untie her for a few hours each day to gang-rape her, she said.

“I still have pain and feel chills,” said Kasindi Wabulasa, a patient who was raped in February by five men. The men held an AK-47 rifle to her husband’s chest and made him watch, telling him that if he closed his eyes, they would shoot him. When they were finished, Ms. Wabulasa said, they shot him anyway.

Willermine Mulihano said she was raped twice — first by Hutu militiamen two years ago and then by Nkunda soldiers in July. Two soldiers held her legs apart, while three others took turns violating her.

“When I think about what happened,” she said, “I feel anxious and brokenhearted.”

She is also lonely. Her husband divorced her after the first rape, saying she was diseased.

The Sudan isn't the only part of Africa badly in need of real military force being applied to protect innocent people. I give the MSM a lot of criticism but the New York Times deserves credit for this piece.

Progressive Thought

I guess you could say that this falls under "coarsening the debate". Are the libs/leftists/progressives always whining about how hateful conservatives are?

At Media Matters tool ThinkProgress.org, the progressives are praying for George Bush and Dick Cheney.

They’re praying for them to die.

How enlightened of them.

Jackson's Hobbit

Looks like Peter Jackson might yet get to bring The Hobbit to the big screen.

For once, there's reason to be cautiously optimistic. At this writing, no agreements have been announced and details of the negotiations are sketchy (neither New Line nor Jackson's camp would comment to EW on any aspect of this story), but sources close to the talks tell us that they're detecting a lot less frost in the air, and that a deal may be reached that could help usher J.R.R. Tolkien's maiden Middle-earth masterpiece to screens before the end of the decade.

Let's face it, Jackson is probably the only person that can be guaranteed to do this story justice- and New Line would be shooting themselves in the foot to deny him the opportunity to make them a fortune in the process. Everybody wins.

Unseen Cartoon Rage

Mohammed cartoon rage inspired by...complete ignorance of the cartoons these people were condemning.

The film suggests the crisis began full-force when the man many consider to be Islam’s most powerful figure, Sheik Yussuf Al-Qaradawi, declared 3 February 2006 as ‘Anger Day’ on his TV programme. A wave of violent protests across the globe unleashing followed in the wake of that transmission.

In the documentary, Kjaer shows the Mohammed drawings to Al-Qaradawi, who views them for the first time.

Kjaer also shows the cartoons to Ali Bakhsi, the Iranian who spearheaded demonstrations in Tehran that led to the burning of the Danish embassy there.

So all that fuss (and people dead as a result) over something they hadn't even seen.

Gore For War

Behold the neo-con, warmongering Al Gore of the past.

Here’s a 1992 Al Gore speech rescued from the memory hole, in which he blasts George H. W. Bush for ignoring Saddam Hussein’s connections to terrorism and his quest for weapons of mass destruction.

Makes you wonder how the current war in Iraq would be perceived by the world if it had been conducted under the auspices of a Democrat president, doesn't it?

The Missing Gun

Arrested on hearsay?

A Woodrow Wilson student is accused of bringing a gun to school, even though police did not find a weapon.

Cpl. Sam McClure of the Beckley Police Department says the 17-year-old boy was arrested Wednesday and charged with bringing a dangerous weapon into an education facility.

So he's been charged with bringing a dangerous weapon (as opposed to a non-dangerous weapon) into school- even though they have no actual evidence of the weapon being present.

School officials told police Wednesday morning that a student reportedly had a handgun in his possession. The campus was placed under lockdown and searched by K-9 units but no weapon was found.

The arrest was based on witness reports that led police to believe the boy had brought a gun to school at some point.

And apparently belief is now enough for an arrest. Gee, I always thought that some proof was required.

No Flag For Obama

This guy turns my stomach.

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said he doesn't wear the American flag lapel pin because it has become a substitute for "true patriotism" since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

A candidate for President of the United States who refuses to wear an Amercian flag on his lapel? Come again?

"The truth is that right after 9-11 I had a pin," Obama said. "Shortly after 9-11, particularly because as we're talking about the Iraq war, that became a substitute for I think true patriotism, which is speaking out on issues that are of importance to our national security.

Let me see if I'm getting this straight- he won't wear an American flag because of the war in Iraq? No mention of the war to topple the fascist Taliban and their Al Qaeda cohorts in Afghanistan I see. And he thinks that "true patriotism" is speaking out about security issues- not, perhaps, loving his country? Maybe someone on his staff could hand his a dictionary and, while they're at it, a flag lapel pin.

"I decided I won't wear that pin on my chest," he said in the interview. "Instead, I'm going to try to tell the American people what I believe will make this country great, and hopefully that will be a testament to my patriotism."

I think I can translate this one into plain language- he won't wear the pin because he doesn't think America is great; nope, Obama wants to make America great.

And people want to vote for this jerk, why?

Lovecraft Movie

This news just blew me away- Guillermo Del Toro's next movie, after Hellboy 2 that is, will be H.P. Lovecraft's At The Mountains of Madness! And as exciting as that is, Del Toro's next film after that will be Tarzan.

If you're not the kind of person worried about spoilers, then Latino Review even has a sneak peak at the Lovecraft script.

Classic Comedy Moment

It's like something out of a bad comedy show.

A state legislator surprised a high school class when the computer he was using projected a photo of a nude woman during a lecture on how a bill becomes a law.

I guess nowadays the naughty slide in a projector is a bit low tech.

State Rep. Matthew Barrett was giving a civics lesson Tuesday when he inserted a data memory stick into the school computer and the projected image of a topless woman appeared instead of the graphics presentation he had downloaded.

Obviously, he has no idea at all where that image- and the others like it- came from.

The legislator said he finished his lecture using printouts and then met with the school's principal and technology staff, who examined the stick. He said the school's technology director determined the stick had a directory of nude images in addition to Barrett's presentation on civics lessons.

"I have no idea where these came from," the Democrat said.

Sure, sure, I mean he didn't check to see if anything was on the stick before he plugged it into a government computer, right?

Barrett said the data memory stick was a gift he received about three weeks ago from a legislative liaison from the state Library of Ohio.

Second hand data sticks, what a wonderful gift idea...

Feathered Raptor

I had intended to blog on this yesterday when the news came out but I decided instead to lie down and moan softly in pain. Anyway, here's some more dinosaur news, which I'm sure you've read already, concerning the ferocious velociraptor. Turns out someone has discovered quill knobs on the forearms bones of a specimen and now the press is doing its usual "dinosaur revisionism" dance. A few feathers and apparently velociraptors weren't predatory carnivores but big fluffy turkeys; as if feathers make them less dangerous. Have these people even heard of terror birds? Only The Times seems to avoid knocking down another dinosaur icon-

The discovery means that as well as being more decorative than the creatures that appeared in the film they could have been an even more terrifying predator because the feathers would probably have been improved their manoeuvrability.

The researchers said that one of the most likely functions of the feathers was to display to other velociraptors, perhaps in courtship rituals or as a show of strength against aggressors. Other functions could have included use as a shield to protect eggs, a temperature control to prevent the dinosaurs from getting too hot or cold, or to help them to manoeuvre while running.

And some reports also mention the fact that the raptors portrayed in Jurassic Park (apparently the main reference for the press and many scientists alike these days) were smaller than real life- "oh, they're so tiny and they have feathers". It seems that few in the media are at all scared of a six foot long, three foot tall predator which hunts in packs, has inch long teeth and a sickle shaped foot claw 3.5 inches long. That would appear to indicate a serious lack of imagination to me. Although heavier, for example, a Doberman Pinscher is only a little over two feet tall. Would a pack of wild and hungry Dobermans scare a member of the press? Given the alarmist cover of dog attack stories I can only assume the answer is a resounding "yes". Is it really that hard then to picture in their minds the dangers that a velociraptor could pose, feathered or not?

Oh yeah, and these same reports fail to mention thee larger raptor species that was discovered around the same time as the Jurassic Park movie and billed as Utahraptor- like Spielberg's raptors these were about 6 feet high and 22 feet long, weighing in at a huge 1500lbs. I wonder if these dinosaurs magically become less dangerous when covered in feathers too?

The Beast

Want to find some real life mutants? Look no further than the Beast Hall of Fame.

The Beast is a monster kettlebell, a behemoth that tips the scales at 48kg or 106lbs. To be a Beast Hall of Famer requires successfully completing three exercises.

First up is the press- starting off with the kettlebell held at shoulder level you have to press it straight up above you head. Next up is the pistol- with the Beast held in both hands in front of your body you do a one legged squat, getting right down low to the ground, and then stand up again. Finally, there's a pull up with the Beast hanging from your waist.

Thus far, only six men are members of this elite group. If you think you have the mutated genes required to join you can now buy your very own Beast kettlebell.

The Searchers

Police search a house and fail to find a body-

The body of a woman missing for three weeks has been found in her home, despite the property being searched by two officers when she vanished.

Yes, the highly professional "only ones" missed her dead body during the first search, but what if she had been only dying then? Could they have perhaps saved her life?

The premises were initially searched on 29 August by two officers," a Hampshire Constabulary spokesman said.

"The house contained a very large quantity of items, which were stacked in layers and piles which made searching very difficult and at the conclusion of the search Mrs O'Sullivan was not located in the property."

So the house sounds like a complete mess, packed full of stuff all over the place- is that a reason for the first officers on the scene to not do a thorough job? The story claims that specialist search teams took a half hour to find her body- they don't mention (and the reporter doesn't think it worthwhile to enquire) just how long the first two officers searched the residence for. Doesn't that seem relevant to the story? And what was the condition of the woman when she was found- was her body covered by items that had somehow fallen on top of her? Again, the journalist doesn't seem to think this important- only that the police say that the house was messy and full and that she was "hidden from view". But view from what? The doorway of a room as an officer looked inside but didn't enter or was she completely covered so that someone entering the room and looking around couldn't see her without looking underneath something? It's a pretty vague description if you ask me.

Perhaps the police who did the first search did have a good look around and this is just one of those odd things that happens- but from this reporting it's hard to tell.

The Vickers

I've been doing a bit of research and during my reading I came across this fascinating piece of information-

"The Vickers gun accompanied the BEF to France in 1914, and in the years that followed proved itself to be the most reliable weapon on the battlefield, some of its feats of endurance entering military mythology. Perhaps the most incredible was the action by the 100th Company of the Machine Gun Corps at High Wood on August 24, 1916. This company had ten Vickers guns, and it was ordered to give sustained covering fire for 12 hours onto a selected area 2,000 yards away in order to prevent German troops forming up there for a counter-attack while a British attack was in progress. Two whole companies of infantrymen were allocated as carriers of ammunition, rations and water for the machine-gunners. Two men worked a belt-filling machine non-stop for 12 hours keeping up a supply of 250-round belts. One hundred new barrels were used up, and every drop of water in the neighbourhood, including the men’s drinking water and contents of the latrine buckets, went up in steam to keep the guns cool. And in that 12-hour period the ten guns fired a million rounds between them. One team fired 120,000 from one gun to win a five-franc prize offered to the highest-scoring gun. And at the end of that 12 hours every gun was working perfectly and not one gun had broken down during the whole period. It was this absolute foolproof reliability which endeared the Vickers to every British soldier who ever fired one. It never broke down; it just kept on firing and came back for more. And that was why the Mark 1 Vickers gun was to remain the standard medium machine-gun from 1912 to 1968."

Wonderful. Care to replicate this feat with a modern MG?

Grabbing For Votes

Politicians- have they no shame at all? Rudy Guiliani goes looking for votes from people who he evidently holds in no regard.

Giuliani will go before the rank and file of the National Rifle Association on Friday, seeking support for his Republican presidential campaign from a group he once likened to "extremists" for its efforts to repeal the ban on assault weapons.

Yep, he thinks they're extremists but times have changed and now he really needs those extreme votes. And even as the NRA lets him ask for those votes, "a panel of federal judges in his home town will be hearing arguments on the lawsuit that Giuliani filed seven years ago aimed at punishing the nation's gun manufacturers for violent crimes involving firearms."

And Guiliani's people refuse to say if he ha s actually has had a real change of heart by not telling those potential voters whether or not he still supports the lawsuit. Any guesses? Well, they do refer to that old chestnut of "enforcing the laws" on the books (i.e. denying law-abiding citizens their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms and the ability to effectively defend themselves from criminal predators) and there's even a very telling statement on his website-

Rudy understands that what works in New York doesn't necessarily work in Mississippi or Montana."

From this we can take that Guiliani believes that denying people their Second Amendment rights is fine in the big city- a right denied under threat of force and imprisonment or even death from law enforcement remember- but not in the wider nation; at least, not when large numbers of people who actually want their Constitution to mean something have a say in the matter.

Funny how he squares his time in New York with this-

"whatever my personal views, the Constitution of the United States decides this . . . you have a personal right to carry arms, to have arms. That personal right is as strong as the right to free speech."

If that truly is the case then why didn't he do something during his time as mayor of New York to actually allow citizens to exercise that right? And given these "personal views" of his how can we expect him to do anything but sign into law any anti-gun legislation that comes his way if he's elected? When he's President is he going to oppose another "assault weapons" ban? Or will he still continue to brand those who believe that the Second Amendment means what it says as extremists?

Flight of Fantasy

Alexandre Tso is a new artist to me- a Google search shows he has a deviantART page- but I like his style on this image of Wonder Woman.

Surplus Firearms

Hoping someone can help me out here- I'm finding it impossible to track down a copy of this year's Guns and Ammo Surplus Firearms magazine. My local retailer doesn't have it and can't tell if it will come in stock, nothing is showing up with an online search or at eBay. Does anyone know of a source online where I can buy a copy?

Last year's book is superb- articles on Mosin sniper rifles, handguns of the British Empire, a cache of Nepalese Martini-Henrys, the Garand sniper and more. All great material- and I've been looking forward to reading this new issue.

So, if you do know where I can find a copy, please do let me know.

UPDATE - Details on how to buy online here.

Clueless in Hollywood

Hot Air mentions Sally Field at the Emmys- "If only mothers ruled the world there would be peace".

A commenter there already highlighted the idiocy of that statement-

A 22-year-old Palestinian mother of two small children, pretending to be disabled, killed four Israelis at a Gaza border crossing yesterday after duping soldiers into allowing her a personal security check rather than going through a metal detector.

And this-

This is the final message in the life of Fatma al-Najar, widow, great-grandmother, matriarch of her large family and, a few hours after this brief video was shot, the oldest Palestinian to become a suicide bomber. "I am the living martyr Fatma al-Najar," she says, and praises the armed wing of her beloved Hamas movement, its political rulers and its violent struggle.

Has Sally Field ever actually had an encounter with reality or any knowledge of recent history? Has she heard of Hamas elected representative Miriam Farhat?

The New York Times recently identified her as “the mother of three Hamas supporters killed by Israelis.” The Times added that “she bade one son goodbye in a homemade videotape before he stormed an Israeli settlement, killing five people, then being shot dead. She said later, in a much-publicized quotation, that she wished she had 100 sons to sacrifice that way. Known as the ‘mother of martyrs,’ she was seen in a campaign video toting a gun.”

Sure, with women like her there sure sounds like there will be peace, doesn't' there? Perhaps Field would be better off remembering the words of Golda Meir-

"We will have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us."

That certainly applies to an awful lot of women, not just the men. How about this?

I hear a mother saying ‘Thank God, my son is dead.’ Her son had became a shaheed, a martyr, which for her was a greater source of pride than if he had became an engineer, a doctor or a winner of the Nobel Prize.

Motherhood doesn't seem to have made these women any less violent that the other female terrorists who seem to have become more common in recent years. But I guess Sally Field hasn't heard of any of these other women either-

The woman regarded as the first female Palestinian guerrilla fighter is Fatima Barnawi, who in October 1967 planted a bomb in a Jerusalem cinema that left dozens of Israelis injured. She was 28 and a member of Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement.

Perhaps the most iconic Palestinian woman was the hijacker Leila Khaled. In 1969, she took part in the hijacking of a TWA plane, flying it to Damascus before blowing it up. She had cosmetic surgery to disguise her looks and the next year made a failed attempt to hijack another plane as part of a wave of hijacks planned by the leftwing Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

Nearly a decade later, Dalal Mughrabi landed with a group of other Palestinian fighters on an Israeli beach, killed an American photographer and seized a bus filled with passengers. After a gunbattle with Israeli soldiers, she blew up the bus, killing 36 people on board. Mughrabi and her fighters were also killed.

You ever hear of this Sally?

A woman in Brussels reads news of Muriel Degauque, 38, a Catholic from the southern Belgian city of Charleroi who converted to Islam, traveled to Iraq and blew herself up in November 2005.

And it's not just limited to the Middle East- doesn't Field remember the horror of Beslan, the innocent children that were deliberately murdered by terrorists, some of whom were women?

The myth of innate female compassion has been put to rest in Beslan, and in the earlier Moscow subway bombing, when a female suicide bomber detonated herself, killing 10 people, and in the two simultaneous plane crashes in central Russia a week earlier, in which 90 people were killed and which authorities say were caused by two other female suicide bombers.

I guess the news that this myth has been debunked still hasn't gotten through to some people.

At the siege of a Moscow theatre by Chechen terrorists in October 2002, 18 "Black Widows" - veiled, wearing black from head to toe, with explosives strapped around their waists - played a major role. The hostages who survived described the women as noticeably crueller and more determined than the male terrorists.

Is that clear enough? If not here's one last story which I find particularly chilling-

The Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) said Wednesday that it thwarted a double suicide attack set for Tel Aviv and Netanya last month, orchestrated by Islamic Jihad and meant to be carried out by two Palestinian women, one of them pregnant.

Yes, you read that right- a pregnant woman was attempting to carry out a suicide attack. So much for the myth of the peace-loving mother.

One of the women, Fatma Zak, 39, a mother of eight in her ninth month of pregnancy, has been director of Islamic Jihad's women labor department in Gaza City for the past four years

Not only was she willing to kill her unborn child and leave her children motherless she also took along her niece-

The second suspect is Zak's 30-year-old niece, Ruda Habib, a mother of four. Both were arrested by the Shin Bet at the Erez Crossing on May 20, moments before entering Israel.

The women said they had planned to blow themselves up in Netanya and Tel Aviv, respectively, in a restaurant or a wedding hall. They said they were instructed to cross into Israel and then contact Islamic Jihad members from Ramallah, who were supposed to guide them to their targets and supply them with explosive belts.

Perhaps Sally Field will educate herself about the nature of terrorism committed by women and mothers before she speaks in public again.

EU Web-Block

The EU wants to get tough on terrorism.

Internet searches for bomb-making instructions should be blocked across the European Union, the bloc's top security official said on Monday.

Of course that seems reasonable at first glance. So what are they proposing- creating a team of cyber-detectives to track down these websites and shut them down by any means necessary? Why, no, of course not!

Internet providers should also prevent access to any site giving instructions on how to make a bomb, EU Justice and Security Commissioner Franco Frattini said in an interview.

"I do intend to carry out a clear exploring exercise with the private sector ... on how it is possible to use technology to prevent people from using or searching dangerous words like bomb, kill, genocide or terrorism," Frattini told Reuters.

In short, the government doesn't know how to do what they're proposing but they want to try and foist it onto the ISPs, burdening them instead with the problem and no doubt also the cost of implementing their scheme. Note too that he suggests banning words like terrorism and genocide- dangerous words- but not words like "jihad". And there's no mention at all of the jihadist propaganda and recruitment videos that seem rife on the internet.

Asked whether a plan to block searches for bomb instructions or for the word 'terrorism' on Web search engines could infringe on the rights to expression and information, Frattini said in the phone interview:

"Frankly speaking, instructing people to make a bomb has nothing to do with the freedom of expression, or the freedom of informing people.

"The right balance, in my view, is to give priority to the protection of absolute rights and, first of all, right to life."

Frattini said there would be no bar on opinion, analysis or historical information but operational instructions useful to terrorists should be blocked.

So the government can circumvent access to certain information that they deem to be dangerous- right now it's bomb-making info but it seems to me that this could be the beginning of a slippery slope. What might they consider to be "dangerous words" in years to come?

And I see too that he's proposing that search engines will block dangerous words but only those leading to websites where certain information might be located- which would mean that they'd need some way to track and find those websites, no? So perhaps it would make sense just to shut those sites down instead of letting them distribute jihadist instructions and just ban people in the EU from accessing them- or maybe the EU doesn't mind if someone looks up the info in, say, Algeria and then takes a quick trip north to France or Italy and puts that information to use. And banning words won't really work for jihadist forums, to name but one example, where people can go and presumably access the same bomb-making information without having to go to any search engine in the first place. Do the EU have a plan for that or is this merely some knee-jerk reaction from people who don't really understand the breadth of the problem and how the internet works.

After German police arrested three men suspected of a major bomb plot last week, politicians called for greater powers to monitor computers. Germany's top appeals court has ruled the clandestine monitoring of computers by police is illegal.

"The level of the threat (in the EU) remains very high," Frattini said. "That's why I am making appeals and appeals for stronger and closer cooperation."

Ah, I see where this is going now and why he's not proposing a team to attack the jihadist websites themselves- another attempt by the government to make ISPs track and keep the records of their customers. On-line CCTV so to speak, so that Big Brother can find out what the peasants are up to.

Defying Justice

What on Earth was the judge in this case thinking- is he wildly incompetent or completely deranged? Because I'm having trouble conceiving a valid reason for coming to the conclusion he did.

A Sheboygan County judge on Wednesday overruled a jury’s guilty verdict, acquitting a previously convicted sex offender accused of trying to lure a 9-year-old Sheboygan girl into a park shelter, officials said this morning.

According to local law the luring must be to a "secluded place" and it's on this that the judge made his ruling, right at the end of the trial and after the guilty verdict has been issued. Odd, no?

According to a criminal complaint, Pask approached the 9-year-old while she was with friends at Worker's Park on June 8, saying, “Look at those sexy little salty girls.” He repeatedly offered the girl candy while gesturing she should follow him toward the area of the shelter and the shelter’s bathroom, but she refused.

A bathroom sounds like a secluded place to me.

The jury, which earlier travelled to the park, found Pask guilty after about 30 minutes of deliberations. But Van Akkeren then overturned the verdict, saying the jury could not have determined the shelter was a secluded place as required by statute.

In other words, a jury of his peers is incapable of deciding what the word "secluded" means even when confronted with the place with their own eyes- and a convicted sex offender might be allowed to go free because of it.

DeCecco [prosecution lawyer] vehemently disagreed, adding that such a ruling is typically made far earlier in the trial process or left to the jury, which was instructed that to find Pask guilty they had to determine that the shelter was a secluded place.

In short, the jury was fully aware of what the law meant and what was required of them- but the judge evidently knows better than mere citizens.

“In our opinion, any area can be ‘secluded,’ including a park shelter, trees and large bushes — any area where a child may be sexually assaulted out of the view of other persons,” DeCecco said. “The jury, having visited the site of the incident, obviously concluded we had met that burden beyond a reasonable doubt.”

And yet once again, common sense and justice are being supplanted by the decision of a lone judge.

Killing Britney and Madonna

You know it's always baffled me that artists- be it in music, film, literature or art- have always refused to speak out against Islamist terrorism and the culture (if you can call it that) it tries to spread. Why do they seem, by and large, to view the major threat to their way of life to come from George Bush, Republicans in general or Christianity? Nope, they seem to have almost nothing negative to say about a culture that demands conversion, subjugation or death, that oppresses women, calls for the death of homosexuals, suppresses free speech and is against representational art to name but a few. I wonder if this will change any views?

Muslim terrorist leaders threatened to forcibly convert Britney Spears and Madonna to Islam and warned if they resist, their heads would be cut off for "spreading Satanic culture," according to a new book released today.

Somehow I doubt that the message will get through. Will anyone in Hollywood even begin to reconsider what seems to be their widespread support for the so-called Palestinian struggle?

"If I meet these whores I will have the honor – I repeat, I will have the honor – to be the first one to cut the heads off Madonna and Britney Spears if they will keep spreading their satanic culture against Islam," said Muhammad Abdel-Al, spokesman and senior leader of the Popular Resistance Committees terror organization.

But wait, there's more-

The Committees' Abdel-Al accused Madonna and Spears of "spreading this culture by the Americans as part of the war against Islam."

"If these two prostitutes [Madonna and Spears] keep doing what they are doing, we of course will punish them. First we will call them to join Islam. But if they keep what they are doing ... we can stone them or even we can kill them if they keep ... tempting men in order to put them far from Islam. ... A prostitute woman must be stoned or must be eighty times hit with a belt."

Abdel-El said even before Islam takes over America he would personally kill Madonna and Spears if he ran into them. He boasted he would "be the first one to cut the heads of Madonna and Britney Spears."

So, how long before we hear calls from those bastions of liberal, tolerant, peace-loving Hollywood to condemn this? I'm not holding my breath.

Never Forget

Six years ago today 2,974 people were murdered by Islamist terrorists and the world was changed forever.

The Sequel

It seems that George Lucas still hasn't hired these guys to make another Star Wars movie. What's up with that? Ryan and Dorkman are back- enjoy...

Flight of Fantasy

Adam Hughes continues his incredible streak of Catwoman covers with this dramatic image from issue 73.

Blogging Tips

Tamara has some advice on blogging, most of which makes a great deal of sense. As regular readers will know I've been having a bit of a problem with the post something every day bit- a wife, two young girls, two kittens, a bad back and strong meds don't make the best combination for regular blogging. Now that school's started again though I'll hopefully be able to slump in front of this infernal machine a little more often.

BTW, Tam also linked to a piece on the Battle of Omdurman the other day. Three VCs were won by the 21st Lancers in one action. Definitely worth a read.

Well, I'm off now but before I go here's some artwork by Mike Mignola- a Gotham by Gaslight-era Batman.

Islamic BBC

Not the first time this has happened and surely not the last.

Sweden's embassy in Pakistan has expressed regret over the publication of a cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad in a Swedish newspaper.

The prophet? I didn't know that the BBC was a Muslim organisation. And it's no accident.

Pakistan had complained about the cartoon, which depicted the head of the Prophet on the body of a dog.

Other cartoons depicting the Prophet sparked worldwide protests last year.
Muslims regard any visual representation of the Prophet as blasphemous.

The new drawing depicting the Prophet's head on the body of a dog was published in the Swedish newspaper Nerikes Allehanda on Sunday.

Five times in one article. I guess this means that the BBC is a Muslim news organisation now- or do they also refer to Jesus as the son of God?

Attempted Infanticide

The start of another school year, so what do Islamic Jihad do?

The Sderot Parents Association decided they would not take their children to schools and day care centers beginning Tuesday, until the government changed its policy regarding ongoing Kassam rocket attacks on the western Negev town, The Jerusalem Post learned Monday.

It followed a salvo of seven Kassam rockets that landed in and around the beleaguered town Monday morning. After one of the rockets thudded into the courtyard of a day care center, soldiers scrambled to evacuate everyone inside. Twelve people, including some of the babies, suffered shock and a building was damaged.

Despite the fact that none of the 15 babies at the center were wounded, frantic parents across the city - already furious over the government’s failure to protect them and their children from the near-daily rocket fire - pulled their children out of schools on the second day of the academic year.

In total, seven Kassam rockets landed in and around the western Negev town as Sderot children started their second day of the new school year. The Islamic Jihad said they had fired nine Kuds-3 rockets, saying on their internet site that the attack was “a present for the start of the new school year.”

A deliberate attempt to murder children- one which almost succeeded in killing babies- and the world's press yawns. Isn't this newsworthy? Doesn't the public at large deserve to be told that a group calling itself Islamic Jihad (I guess they misunderstand their religion, eh?) are gloating over their attempt to murder babies? And only days after the anniversary of Beslan? The press rooms that choose not to shine a spotlight on despicable acts like this should be ashamed of themselves.

Harry Potter

Posting has been pretty light lately - been taking the kids out now and then as the end of their holidays approach, spent some time too sore to sit in front of the computer and been dedicating a bit of free time to reading the Harry Potter books. It was only in the run up to the release of the movie of Order of the Phoenix that I decided to watch the first four films- and instantly became a huge fan of the series. Then I had to read the books, all the way up to the last one- Deathly Hallows- and I just love them. It's a wonderful world to immerse yourself in and the books are a complete pleasure to read. I'd recommend them to everyone, whatever your age. I've got to say that I'm strongly tempted to start reading them all over again. I enjoyed them that much- and I'm going to miss following the adventures of Harry, Ron and Hermione. At least there are still two more films to come.

Gun Ban Results

The British gun ban continues to function as expected.

Senior police officers have been warning for several months that a growing number of teenagers in big cities are becoming involved in gun crime.

But aren't they illegal? Don't those poor misguided children know they're breaking the law?

The age of victims and suspects has fallen over the past three years as the availability of firearms in some cities has risen. Liverpool and Manchester are the cities where illegal guns are most readily available, with criminals claiming that some weapons are being smuggled from Ireland. Sawn-off shotguns are now being sold for as little as £50, and handguns for £150.

So much for the ban, eh? Are you listening across the Pond?

Despite a ban on handguns introduced in 1997 after 16 children and their teacher were shot dead in the Dunblane massacre the previous year, their use in crimes has almost doubled to reach 4,671 in 2005-06. Official figures show that although Britain has some of the toughest anti-gun laws in the world, firearm use in crime has risen steadily. This year eight young people have been killed in gun attacks: six in London and one each in Manchester and Liverpool.

“Illegal firearms have become increasingly accessible to younger offenders who appear more likely to use these firearms recklessly,” a report on gun crime commissioned by the Home Office cautioned last year.

So the law-abiding have been completely disarmed and the courts favour the "rights" of the criminal class over those who obey the law- is it any wonder crime is on the rise? Note too that island Britain can't keep illegal firearms out of the country- only forbid those who obey the law in the first place from purchasing them. And while the so-called justice system forbids the law-abiding from owning firearms it also prohibits them from even defending themselves with any serious kind of force at all. Use a kitchen knife or a poker on a home invader for example and chances are you'll be the one facing jail time, not the criminal.

So, what's the government to do? Unlike other countries we already have a complete ban on handguns- they can't resort to their usual tactic of extending a ban. Well, it doesn't look like we'll be seeing a decrease in gun crime any time soon. Here are the ideas they're considering-

-a new law to compel the public to give information about gun crime

-Mandatory minimum jail sentences for carrying knives and requiring people to give information if they are aware that people have illegal weapons are among the ideas under discussion. Mrs Smith has asked the Serious Organised Crime Agency to look at ways to curb the importation of illegal weapons. - Ah, it makes so much more sense now- gun crime is up so let's try to ban knives! And let's not forget compelling people to inform on others.

-the Prime Minister said: “Make no mistake about this — the people responsible will be tracked down, they will be arrested and they will be punished.” - so what exactly, Gordon, are you going to do differently to see these results? He's kind of vague on that one.

Mr Brown added that families would be offered greater support. “The vast majority of young people are decent and law-abiding. They too want to feel safe and secure on our streets. Where there’s a need for early intervention, we will work very intensively with those families so that young people are deterred from going into gangs and guns and knife crime,” he said.

Mrs Smith has outlined a range of measures, including the increased use of Acceptable Behaviour Contracts and a crackdown on the sale of alcohol to under-age children. The Government has issued guidance to police and local authorities on how to use the contracts — written pledges to improve behaviour — effectively.

So, the way to combat crime is to stop under-age kids from drinking (isn't that already against the law?) and to hand out worthless "acceptable behaviour contracts". Gordon's so tough on crime, isn't he? I can tell that those young hoodlums so are not only armed but recklessly intent on using those guns to solve petty disputes will be quaking in their hoodies at the thought of having to sign a pledge to behave themselves.

Nowhere do I see mentioned putting violent criminals behind bars for a very long time where they won't be a threat to innocent people. I guess they forgot to put that in the press release. Right?

FS2000

I've got to say that I like bullpup rifles, even though my experience of them is limited to the L85- which holds, I believe, the distinction of being the world's only non-ambidextrous bullpup design. I'm a southpaw and while I had no problems handling the weapon right-handed it was a huge pain to have to shoot with my dominant eye closed. Hopefully the re-designed HK L85A3 with its polymer body, ambi design (like the AUG which just needs some parts flipped around) and 6.5 Grendel chambering will be fielded soon...oh, if only that were true.

Anyway, I'm rather taken with the FN Fs2000, and it's a tad easier to imagine it being the next British weapon than my fabled -A3 variant. Though compact, and fully ambidextrous (the spent brass is ejected to the front of the weapon), it boasts a 17.5" barrel (there's also a 15.6" version) and overall length of only 29". The M4 by comparison has only a 14.5" barrel and overall length of 33" with the stock extended. The L85, by the way, boasts a 20" barrel and overall length of a mere 30". And it's a real tack-driver to boot. Well, all that leads to this- an example of the FS2000 from Collector's Firearms. Very nice indeed.

Drawing the Wrong Conclusions

I don't often have to disagree with Christopher Hitchens but his latest piece attacking Bush's comparison of an Iraq withdrawal to the US pull-out from Vietnam is nothing short of preposterous. To begin with, here's what Bush actually said-

"Three decades later, there is a legitimate debate about how we got into the Vietnam War and how we left," Bush told members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, at their convention in Kansas City, Missouri.

"Whatever your position in that debate, one unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America's withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens, whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like 'boat people,' 're-education camps' and 'killing fields,' " the president said.

It seems to me to be a clear enough point- the US pulled out of Vietnam and in the vacuum left behind, millions of people suffered. Hitchens begs to differ-

I cannot see how any self-respecting Republican can look at this record [factors leading up to and during the war] without wincing and moaning with shame or how any former friend of the Vietnamese can equate them with either a fascist dictatorship or a nihilistic Islamist death-squad campaign. And now Bush has joined forces with anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan in making the two struggles morally equivalent.

I must have missed the part where Bush compared the Vietnamese to the jihadists. Oh, wait, he didn't actually do that at all.

It is true that the collapse of the doomed American adventure in Indochina was followed by massive repression and reprisal, especially in Cambodia, and by the exile of huge numbers of talented Vietnamese. But even this grim total was small compared to the huge losses exacted by the war itself. In Iraq, the genocide, repression, aggression and cultural obliteration preceded the coalition's intervention and had been condemned by a small but impressive library of UN resolutions. Thus, the argument from 'bloodbath', either past or future, has to be completely detached from any consideration of the Vietnamese example.

Which to me seems to be completely misrepresenting Bush's point- when the Americans left Vietnam some 2 million people died in the Cambodian killing fields, several hundred thousand South Vietnamese were imprisoned in re-education camps without trial and over 100,000 died and others were tortured (and the camps, by the way, were a clear violation of international law and the peace agreement that led to the US pull-out- those UN resolutions that Hitchen's hails will mean nothing whatsoever and do nothing whatsoever to stop any mass slaughter in Iraq), and over a million boat people were forced to flee the persecution. The US pull-out led to these things happening and Bush's simple point is that another US pull-out will lead to another genocide, another round of retaliation against those who supported or work for the democratically elected Iraqi government, and will no doubt also result in another mass exodus as Iraqis flee from the slaughter. I don't think anyone can reasonably take Bush's statement as any comparison between what the Vietminh or the Baathists did during World War 2. And to declare that the genocide and repression took place before the war started is to vastly misunderstand the character and history of the jihadists who think nothing of committing mass murder against civilians- in fact, if there were a criticism of the Vietnam aftermath comparison it's that, as terrible as the communists were, they pale in comparison to the bloodthirsty jihadists and the violent and repressive sharia regime they strive to implement- there will be no re-education with them, only murder.

More Dino Speeds

Here we go- another study of dinosaur running speeds. When will these guys realise that the only way to definitively prove how fast a T. Rex could run is to develop a time machine and then send me back in time to the Cretaceous? I mean, really, computer models?

Scientists using computer models calculated the top speeds for five meat-eating dinosaurs in a study they say can also illustrate how animals cope with climate change and extinction.
Okay, so how do they measure up?

The velociraptor, whose speed and ferocity was highlighted in the film "Jurassic Park", reached 24 miles per hour while the T-rex could muster speeds of up to 18 miles per hour, the study published in the Royal Society's Biological Sciences showed.

"Our research, which used the minimum leg-muscle mass T-rex required for movement, suggests that while not incredibly fast, this carnivore was certainly capable of running and would have little difficulty in chasing down footballer David Beckham, for instance," said Phil Manning, a paleontologist at the University of Manchester, who worked on the study.

Not incredibly fast? Okay, it's no Ferrari but please- we're talking about a six ton predator that was some forty feet long and had teeth like steak knives. 18mph is plenty fast for that. I really can't wait for the time that palaeontology stops being compared to Jurassic Park.

The smallest dinosaur -- the Compsognathus -- could run nearly 40 miles per hour, about 5 miles per hour faster than the computer's estimate for the fastest living animal on two legs, the ostrich.

A top human sprinter can reach a speed of about 25 miles per hour.

For a handful of seconds- how long could T. Rex maintain its speed for?

I'm actually pretty shocked by the suggested speed of the Compy- that thing was about three feet long with a good deal of that being tail- and it's thigh is only about four inches long. I'm stunned that they estimate its running speed so high. An ostrich, by way of comparison, is some six feet tall with considerably stronger and sturdier legs- interesting to note that their computer model put it at 35mph but in reality it's top speed can be higher than 40mph. And according to this Times article on the study they also estimated the emus speed to be 29.8mph, slightly lower than the actual figure of 31mph. I wonder how long the Compsognathus could run that fast for? I'm guessing not long- little lizards can move pretty fast today so it's not too much of a stretch to imagine the tiny Compy zooming around. Seems I'm not the only one that's got a raised eyebrow about that result (and there's a little more detail on the way the study was conducted at that link)-

Not everyone is convinced by the approach, however. "Their method seems to work poorly for a small, chicken-sized dinosaur," says John Hutchinson of the Royal Veterinary College in London, UK, who led the 2002 study of T. rex. The estimate for Compsognathus is "ridiculous," he says.

Dilophosaurus and Allosaurus were also tested in the study but their results don't seem to be of sufficient interest to report, not by CNN or The Times or even New Scientist that is- thankfully though Fox News comes to the rescue. Dilophosaurus was estimated to move at a speedy 23.5mph and the Allosaurus at 21mph.

Police Action

British police sprang into action recently to prevent that well known race called Muslims from being offended.

Stuck for inspiration about what to wear at their village carnival, one group made a last-minute decision to dress up in mock Muslim burkas.

Calling themselves the “Page Three Beauties from the Ramalama Ding-Dong Times”, the 17 men and women carried placards with made-up names such as “Miss Hairyarmpitsbad”, “Miss Slackistan”, “Miss Notbadinbedabad” and “Miss Reallyamanistan”

Despite being picked as one of the best entries for the carnival the police were not amused at all and, believing that the race of Islam (what colour are they again?), was being ridiculed they demanded that the group stop trying to be amusing.

But before any awards were handed out, police told the group to leave after complaints about racism.

No doubt when Halloween comes around and people start wearing nun or priest costumes the police will send them home to get changed in order to avoid offending the Catholic race. Right?

No Smoking

Did you know that English literature is dead? No really, you see it's all because smoking makes you a great writer.

There were, we must concede, books before there was tobacco in Britain

But is it mere chance that the lifetime of Sir Walter Raleigh (1552?-1618), who introduced tobacco-smoking to England, was also the time when the great story of English literature really began? Milton - a smoker -and Ben Jonson - a smoker - ensured that the Elizabethan glory-age was not to be a flash in the pan.

I have been racking my brains to find a single non-smoker among the great English poets or novelists of the 17th, 18th, 19th or 20th centuries. Possibly, Keats had to lay off the pipe tobacco a bit after he developed tuberculosis.

Otherwise, from Swift and Pope to Cowper and Wordsworth, from Byron to Charles Lamb, they were all smokers.

Yep, tobacco causes literature. Possibly then the smoking ban explains this article...

Lenient Justice

The widow of murdered headmaster Philip Lawrence said there was "something rotten" at core of the Human Rights Act which allowed her husband's killer, Learco Chindamo, to remain in Britain.

There certainly is something rotten here but the place to look isn't in the Human Rights legislation, it's in the British justice system itself.

Frances Lawrence, whose husband was stabbed to death as he protected a pupil outside his school in Maida Vale, said she felt there was no longer a link between the law and morality.

It is ridiculous that a convicted murderer is being allowed to remain in the country but there's another and perhaps more important issue here-

Chindamo...was jailed for life in 1996 and is expected to be released next year.

The Human Rights legislation wouldn't be an issue here if the jail time wasn't such a preposterous joke- this criminal stabbed a man to death and yet his so-called life sentence is barely over a decade. For a murder? That's just ridiculous. Perhaps if life actually meant for the remainder of his life there would be a bigger deterrence to criminals thinking of committing a crime and those convicted of crimes wouldn't be allowed out onto the streets again to commit more crimes. How many times have you read of crimes taking place and for the culprit to have a string of convictions to their name already?

"It is another example of how the law seems to have by-passed humanity. There seems to be a schism between lawyers and men and women in the community."

I don't think there can be any argument against that.

Training Terrorists

Hasn't worked at all so far so, in typical government fashion, they're going to do it all over again.

American-run programs that train Fatah militias were instrumental in the “success” of the Palestinian intifada that began in 2000, a senior Fatah militant told The New York Sun.

“I do not think that the operations of the Palestinian resistance would have been so successful and would have killed more than one thousand Israelis since 2000 and defeated the Israelis in Gaza without these [American] trainings,” a senior officer of President Abbas’s Force 17 Presidential Guard unit, Abu Yousuf, said.

Let that sink in for a moment- they're openly admitting that US provided training has helped terrorists to slaughter innocent people. Was was it that Bush said about being "with us or against us"? And, despite the fact that Abbas has called on Hamas to come join him, the State Department is going to carry on training terrorists so that they can continue to attack Israeli civilians more effectively.

America has longstanding training programs at a base in the West Bank city of Jericho for members of Force 17, which serves as de facto police units in the West Bank, and for another major Fatah security force, the Preventative Security Services.

This weekend diplomatic security officials announced that the State Department will begin training Force 17 again this year in an effort to bolster Mr. Abbas against Hamas, which took over the Gaza Strip in June when the terror group easily defeated American-backed Fatah forces in the territory.

Take note- "to bolster Abbas against Hamas". Right? Now remember this from only a few days ago-

Just days after promising US lawmakers that his Fatah movement would not reconcile with Hamas, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas is inviting the Islamist movement to kiss and make up.

Abbas called on Hamas to “return to national unity” following his meeting with Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso Wednesday. "The split that happened as a result of Hamas's coup is temporary and will be removed," Abbas said. Hamas welcomed Abbas’s statements and invited him to negotiations in Gaza.

Now, I'm no foreign policy expert in Washington but it seems to me that if Abbas wants to get friendly with Hamas again then there isn't actually any need at all for the US to train his troops to fight Hamas- especially when they are announcing to the world that this US training is aiding them to kill civilians from a US-ally state. But maybe that's just me.

Flight of Fantasy

A little bit of art nouveau from Adam Hughes as Jabba advertises a sail barge cruise over the Dune Sea.

Armed Again

Another completely shocking and impossible to predict development-

Fatah’s armed wing, the Aksa Martyrs Brigades, announced Tuesday it would no longer honor understandings reached with Israel, and called on its members to carry weapons to defend themselves against the IDF.

“We call on all our members who handed over their weapons to the Palestinian security forces to report to their commanders so that they can be issued new weapons,” said a leaflet distributed in Ramallah. ...

You mean genocidal terrorists don't keep their word? If only someone had known before all that cash, the guns and ammunition, and the prisoners were handed over to them.

Expected News

Incredible, this had come completely out of nowhere! I mean, who could possibly have foreseen that Mahmoud Abbas would renege on an agreement with the US government who has been all it can to to provide him (and to encourage Israel to join in) with arms, funding, training and men to wage his war against Israel? What a shocker.

Just days after promising US lawmakers that his Fatah movement would not reconcile with Hamas, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas is inviting the Islamist movement to kiss and make up.

Abbas called on Hamas to “return to national unity” following his meeting with Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso Wednesday. "The split that happened as a result of Hamas's coup is temporary and will be removed," Abbas said. Hamas welcomed Abbas’s statements and invited him to negotiations in Gaza.

I'm stunned, obviously, that we can't take the word of the man at the head of Fatah. Does this now mean that all those guns, ammunition and cash that the Bush administration was so eager to give to Fatah to bolster them against Hamas will now...end up in the hands of Hamas themselves?

D'Oh!

I hate when this happens- you're doing a few bank transactions and, completely by accident, you give millions of dollars to your sworn enemies. Hey, it could happen to anybody, right?

The government of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas inadvertently paid one month’s salary to 3,500 members of the Hamas militia he outlawed, Finance Ministry officials said Wednesday.

Or a year's salary according to another source. Gee, Mahmoud must be new to this internet banking lark.

The salaries were paid out of funds transferred by Israel, who specifically stipulated that the money mustn’t reach Hamas. The ministry ordered banks on Wednesday to cancel the deposits - totaling $2.3 million - made the day before, officials said in telephone interviews from the West Bank town of Ramallah. However, by the time the deposits were canceled, some of the militiamen had withdrawn the money, said Ahab Ghussen, a spokesman for the Hamas-run Interior Ministry in Gaza.

$2.3 million. One would almost be tempted to point out that such sloppy accounting procedures might explain the dire financial hardship the PA has been labouring under for years. A few million here, a few million there and before you know it the people are starving and out of work and you've got a bulging Swiss bank account and a few hundred rockets.

Accidents will happen, eh?

National Seppuku

It's astonishing- simply astonishing- that this "person" should be given this job after expressing these opinions.

The United Kingdom should lose its independent voice at the United Nations and hand over its seat on the Security Council to the EU, according to the new Foreign Office Minister, Lord Malloch-Brown.

Shouldn't this be grounds for not ever being able to hold a position in the government?

Gordon Brown- continuing Tony Blair's job of off-shoring the UK's sovereignty to the EU.

Fantasy World

It's one thing to hear moonbats wail that the US freeing Iraqis from the oppression of an evil, murderous tyrant and bringing them democracy for the first time in a generation mysteriously causes Islamist terrorists to want to blow up markets filled with Iraqi women and children, but now we have the Pakistani government claiming that the US presence in Afghanistan is to blame for the "endurance" of the Taliban. Strangely they offer no explanation for the existence of the Taliban in pre-9/11 days when there was no American presence in Afghanistan.

If only the bad old US would go home all the evils of the world would just disappear overnight- the Taliban would stop blowing up schools, killing children and murdering aid workers and the terrorists in Iraq would put away their head-chopping knives, pack up their IEDs and allow the Iraqi people to live in peace and harmony in a new golden-era...well, either that or the psychopaths will indulge in slaughter on a massive scale unhindered by the protection the US military offers to innocent people.

No Surprise

Is anyone at all surprised by this?

Pan-Arab satellite television network Al-Arabiya reported Thursday that the agreement between Fatah militants and Israel promising amnesty to militants who turn in their weapons has fallen through.

According to the report, Israel informed the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, affiliated with Fatah that the amnesty offer is no longer on the table as half of the Fatah militants who signed documents promising to refrain from terrorism failed hand over their weapons.

Maybe Olmert- he appears to be living in some sort of fantasy world.

Deafening Silence

Imagine for a moment if you will, the coverage this story would get by the world's media if it were Israeli troops committing this crime rather than Egyptian ones.

Egyptian soldiers killed four Sudanese refugees near the Egypt-Israel border overnight Wednesday in full view of IDF troops, a shaken-sounding IDF soldier said in an interview with Channel 10, Thursday evening.

The Egyptian troops shot and killed two, wounding a third. When the last tried to climb into Israel, the Egyptians pulled him out of the arms of Israeli soldiers trying to help him and dragged him away.

The Egyptians then carried the man several meters away from the border fence, and proceeded to beat him and another wounded refugee to death with stones and clubs.

“What happened there yesterday was a lynch. These are not men, they’re animals. They killed him without even using firearms,” the soldier said. “We just heard screams of pain and the sounds of beatings. Then the screams stopped.”

And remember that Egypt receives millions of dollars from the US government.

British Muslims

And what's the government going to do about this I wonder?

As many as one in 11 British Muslims agree with and proactively support terrorism, a Government adviser has warned police.

Haras Rafiq also told officers at Scotland Yard that up to 20 per cent of the Muslim population ' sympathise' with militants, while stopping short of being prepared to 'blow themselves up'.

His remarks underline the scale of the task facing Gordon Brown to win the hearts and minds of Muslims, only a week after he promised an extra £70million to councils and community groups to fight extremism.

Right, so how exactly is that extra £70 million that I'm sure, oh, the National Health Service could do with, going to be spent to "fight extremism"?

Critics argue that working parties and an attempt to persuade Muslim leaders and groups such as the Muslim Council of Britain to speak out against extremism have not had the desired impact.

So an extra £70million is going to be spent convincing Muslim leaders to speak out against extremism? Wouldn't you expect moderate Muslim leaders to do that for free?

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said yesterday that the Government is changing its approach to dealing with extremism.

She added: "It seems to me that what we should be doing is emphasising the values that we share which are under attack from terrorism-rather than trying to create a battle or war between those who oppose the terror and those who want to carry it out."

Yeah, it wouldn't be helpful to oppose people who support terrorism, would it? And what shared values is she talking about exactly- the oppression of women, hatred of homosexuality, a belief that non-Muslims are second class citizens, a megalomaniacal desire to take over the world?

Obesity

This really is ground breaking news.

The obese are being treated as if they have a medical problem when often they simply eat too much and exercise too little, a leading doctor has said.

Okay, it's stating the obvious but there's an important point that he's making too-

Doctors are being expected to dish out pills and carry out surgical interventions that have "limited benefits", according to Dr Meldrum, a GP practising in Yorkshire.

He added: "We are tending to say, 'This patient has a hyper-appetite problem' rather than maybe they are eating too much.

I guess the problem is that having the discipline to eat less and exercise more is a lot harder than going to the doctor and asking them for help.

Justifying Terrorism

The Blotter has a story about a possible terror attack thwarted by a bounty hunter. What really interested me about it though were the comments- the suspect in question had a grudge against the Army and it seemed likely that any attack would have been aimed against them. This is pretty much standard for the opinions expressed there-

I would not describe a person who attacks military targets as a "terrorist". Military targets, by their nature, are legitimate targets in armed conflict.

This man may have been planning to attack civilian targets. If so, then he could be fairly referred to as a terrorist.

Here's another-

As has been so well pointed out a terrorist targets civilians. This man was going to target military installations. And my guess would be base headquarters or command posts which would have mostly military personnel or civilians in military functions.

You aren't a terrorist if you attack military targets? Can you believe that? So how would they define the IRA bomb attack on the Parachute Regiment's Aldershot barracks- legitimate military target I suppose. But wait, they killed an Army priest and five cleaning women. Does that cloud the issue any? Are they only 50% terrorist in this case- or do they consider anyone working with the military also a legitimate target? The IRA certainly did and would target builders who worked on police or Army barracks. What about when the IRA plants a bomb in Belfast to try and kill civilians? Or when they murder off-duty police men at their homes? Are they terrorists only then?

How about terrorist attacks on US troops in Iraq or Afghanistan or anywhere else in the world- carried out by "fighters" who wear no uniform, blend into the civilian population and fight for no country and obey none of the rules of war. Under their definition they aren't terrorists- but these are the same people who the very next day could plant a bomb in a marketplace that murders civilians out shopping. Are they non-terrorists on the day they plant an IED aimed at soldiers (an indiscriminate weapon which can- and has- killed civilians in the process) and terrorists when they murder women and children? Is it really that much in flux? Are the civilians accidentally killed in an attack on an American patrol merely collateral damage?

I was really stunned to see not only one person state such an opinion but to also see others agree with it- and I'm guessing these were American citizens stating that American soldiers were a legitimate target for attack. An attack on American soil while in their base. So I'm assuming that to these people the Fort Dix plot wasn't terrorism at all but a legitimate act. I guess that explains a lot about how they see the war on terror.