It's so great when people you despise get together to mutually discredit each other.

n France, Jean-Marie Le Pen's far right National Front appears to have opted for a can't-lick-'em-join-'em strategy, a rapprochement with France's large immigrant Muslim community -- with undertones of anti-Semitism. Le Pen's reasoning appears to be the recognition that Islamicization is in France to stay with 25 percent of France's under 20 population Muslim (40 percent in some cities), 2nd and 3rd generation North Africans. FN's tough stance on immigration is tempered by support for Arab and Islamist causes in the Middle East (Hamas and Hezbollah are two favorites). There are an estimated 6 to 8 million Muslims among France's 62 million and Islam is now France's second religion. Mosques are well attended on Fridays; churches aren't on Sundays. France's prison inmates are over 50 percent Muslim

Le Pen's strategic advisers argue the FN must drop its founding mythology and forget about the once popular image of a modern Joan of Arc resisting the invasion of Muslim hordes. Americans and Jews are the new targets. But the party's Christian right-wingers do not agree and are defecting in large numbers. The Islamist threat is their main concern and they are finding a new political home in MPF, Mouvement Pour la France, which is anti-European Union and anti-Muslim, and given only 7 percent of registered voters in a recent poll. Le Pen's followers have dropped back from 11 percent to 9 percent.

Worth reading in full. The beginning describes how jihadist Muslims have essentially declared their ghettoes part of the Caliphate -- threatening to beat or kill all "intruders" into "their" territory.

And they're not just threatening. Fourteen policemen per day are wounded in violent clashes with the jihadi gangs.

Interior Minister/future James Bond villain Dominique De Villepain called for the immediate withdrawal of France from France.

Posted by: Ace at 02:34 PM | Comments (26)
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Yup.

More and more I wish Bush had insisted on getting a true declaration of war, rather than an authorization for the use of military forces, after 9/11.

Many Democrats and some Republicans (like Chuck Hegel) were against that. Bush could have rammed it through anyhow, had he insisted -- who would have had the guts to vote against it?

In the interests of national unity, however, he accepted something less than a full, genuine, right-there-in-the-title declaration of pure straight war on Al Qaeda.

That compromise seems to look worse and worse every day. It bought him no goodwill, gave the liberals cover, and allows people to this date to pretend that we are not at war.

Posted by: Ace at 02:16 PM | Comments (35)
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In Saudi Arabia, to keep out Iraqis.

In China, to keep out North Koreans.

I don't seem to have noticed any editorial cartoons comparing these to Auschwitz fences, or the Berlin Wall.

Countries permitted to build fences/walls to secure their borders:

A) Every country in the world, except for B) and C), below

Countries not permitted to build fences/walls to secure their borders:

B) America

C) Israel

Isn't it funny how America and Israel just don't seem to have the rights the rest of the world has, according to the America-hatin', Israel-hatin' world.

Thanks to yls.

Posted by: Ace at 02:09 PM | Comments (62)
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A little classroom fun from JunkYardBlog.

Diplomacy is a terrific method of winning your goals. It has only one flaw: your interlocutor's ability to say the word "No."

Posted by: Ace at 02:01 PM | Comments (8)
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You're not allowed to use campaign donations for personal use, like paying Christmas bonuses to your hotel-home "support staff." (Which I take to mean maids and cooks, not campaign workers, otherwise it wouldn't be illegal.)

Wish this were enough to change the momentum, but it's not.

The Republicans really have to begin playing dirty if they want to win. Counting on the MSM to do their dirty work for them is like counting on Ben Affleck convincingly play anything other than a manniquin at a Greenwhich Village leather fetish shop.

Thanks to RobG.

Posted by: Ace at 01:31 PM | Comments (14)
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Hatin' feeling sick, hatin' the news, hatin' the blog edition. more...

Posted by: Ace at 01:22 PM | Comments (12)
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Celebrity stupid:

The actress plays a relationship counsellor who finds herself stranded in a remote Alaskan town, where men outnumber women 10 to one. And Heche thinks her testosterone-fuelled playing card contests gave her the edge when she was auditioning for the role. She says, "Guys talk differently than women and I'm able to communicate with them. "I play poker when I'm not working, so I'm often at a table full of men. I think that helped me with this show."

That must be it. I can't think of a single other thing that might have helped Anne Heche understand how men think. Must be the poker (why I hardly even knew her).

In related news, Justin Timberlake's producer thanks poker for helping him to understand how to make really gay records.

Thanks to yls.

Posted by: Ace at 01:18 PM | Comments (28)
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It looks like the British won't be too much help if we blockade North Korea. Find the joke in this paragraph:

Defence experts predicted that the most the Royal Navy could contribute was a single frigate, a Royal Fleet auxiliary support vessel and a Trafalgar class hunter killer submarine...As a result of government cutbacks any British ships deployed to the South China Sea to enforce the UN resolution would depend on the American or French navies to provide "beyond visual range" air defence with their aircraft carriers.

I guess they're too busy spending money on that wicked super awesome socialized healthcare thing I keep hearing so much about.

The Thatcher years increasingly seem to have been a pleasant but brief interlude in England's downward slide. Still, there may be hope: Maybe the first British Shah will push for more defense spending.

Posted by: AndrewR at 12:35 PM | Comments (28)
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The US has confirmed, it says, that North Korea did in fact detonate a nuke.

In a speech, John Kerry claimed that "as Bush turned his back on North Korea, North Korea turned back to developing a nuclear weapon." He calls the NK nuke "the Bush Bomb."

(Paraphrased. Inexplicably, I can't seem to find an article about this.)

The always idiotic Bill Maher made similar claims this past week (only to be knocked back by a conservative panelist).

Kerry and Maher both press for the US "talking" to North Korea. Talking to what end? Madeleine Albright "talked" to them in 1993, and they continued working on the bomb.

Maher calls moral clarity "childish." But here's the real childishness: Insisting that a country run by a madman can be "talked" out of doing what he is determined to do, especially when he has previously been "talked" to and ignored the promises he "talked" to Albright.

There is a reason for the six-party talks. There is a reason to avoid the bilateral talks Maher, Kerry, and the other liberal dunderheads insist upon.

The United States is not in a position to pressure North Korea, except by actual acts of war (blockades, seizures of ships on the sea, etc.), which is what we're trying to avoid through diplomacy. But we are thousands of miles away from North Korea, and not a trading partner of that country, and no longer a supporter of that country. We cannot pressure the North Koreas, save through acts of war, and can only, acting alone, offer bribes to the regime.

Whether or not giving into North Korean nuclear extortion is a defensible policy is debatable -- or rather, it would be debatable were it not show to have previously failed. If there was some reason to believe that bribery could solve the problem, then we could have the debate over whether or not the United States should submit to extortion.

However, as we already bribed the North Koreans and they violated the terms of their agreement from the moment of its signing, there is hardly any reason to debate the other point. Whether or not giving in to nuclear extortion is wise is a moot question-- because it's already been shown to be futile in any event.

The six-party talks involve all the countries critical to containing -- and propping up -- the North Koreanb gulag state. Thus, these talks are not all just about carrots (which the North Koreans gladly take, but without living up to their promises); they also threaten sticks, sanctions, trade embargoes, the end of economic cooperation with North Korea, the cutting off of vital Chinese oil deliveries, etc. No, the current sanctions are not very toothy. However, the six-party structure of talks at least holds out the possiblity of pressure, not merely US payoffs.

The left likes to criticize the right as engaging in "babytalk" in deeming terrorists and rogue states "evildoers." Chris Matthews used precisely that term -- "babytalk." They like to pride themselves on their nuance and realism and intelligence.

But what are the offering except the most absurd, and most dangerous, babytalk of all? Is it not "babytalk" to continue insisting, despite all evidence, that a nation can be simply sweet-talked through diplomacy to act against its own perceived national interests?

How does that work? How charming does a diplomat have to be to convince a country to act against its own perceived interests? If we can do so with North Korea, why don't we similarly convince all creditor nations to sinply wipe away the money the US owes to them (due to their ownership of T-bills) and hence wipe away the deficit?

Why not? All it takes, we're told again and again, is "talking" to other countries, and using "diplomacy."

What Bill Maher and Chirs Matthews and John Kerry really mean, of course, is that they intend to blame Bush for North Korea's nukes, but that they themselves would, if they ran things, also allow North Korea to have nukes, and would not even impose the watered-down sanctions we currently have.

After all, that is "undiplomatic." You can't "talk" to someone, really, when you're taking action against them.

If it is impossible to persuade North Korea to desist from its nuke program, and impossible to persuade the regional powers from acting aggressively to induce North Korea to so desist, without going to war over the issue -- then fine. It is futile to engage in diplomacy of any kind, and we are left with two unpalatable options, which people may rank differently in terms of palatability -- either go to war, or allow North Korea to continue developing nukes and ballistic missiles 9and, of course, exporting their technology).

But what is the most childish of babytalk is to insist that there's some miractle solution of just being pals with Kim Jong-Il and subjecting him to such charm and wit and decides to act contrary to his own believed self-interest.

You want a reason to vote Republican?

The Democrats think they're so smart and charming they can merely woo terrorists and rogue nations into compliance with America's wishes.

That sort of naivete -- and arrogance and hubris, if you will -- is deadly in the age of coming nuclear terrorism.

Posted by: Ace at 12:18 PM | Comments (175)
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Are we serious?

Some of us are. But as a country-- no.

We seem to have a lot of judges who view treason* as an acceptable form of political expression.

* Yes, she wasn't technically charged with treason. She's guilty of it nonetheless.

Posted by: Ace at 10:55 AM | Comments (55)
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