There's just no appeasing some folks:

The Palestinian mastermind of the Munich Olympics attack in which 11 Israeli athletes died said on Tuesday he had no regrets and that Steven Spielberg's new film about the incident would not deliver reconciliation.

...

"We did not target Israeli civilians," [Black September mastermind Mohammed Daoud] said.

"Some of them (the athletes) had taken part in wars and killed many Palestinians. Whether a pianist or an athlete, any Israeli is a soldier."

Spielberg's producer, Kathleen Kennedy, told a preview audience at Princeton University that a Palestinian consultant was used for "Munich". She did not say who it was.

Eh, brush it off, Steven. If at first you don't appease, try, try again.

Thanks to Smith.

Posted by: Ace at 01:12 PM | Comments (6)
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Allah again.

Respondants to the poll also report missing sunlight, human companionship not involving a keyboard and the alias "Stacey Staxxx," and the ever-diminishing possibility of ever touching a real life boobie (except by "accidently" brushing one with their elbow while boarding a train).

Posted by: Ace at 12:49 PM | Comments (23)
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In related news, Gene Shalitt is worried that Brokeback Mountain won't exactly be broke-backing any box office records.

Anyhoo:

"I think when you suggest that civil liberties are just as much at risk today as the country is from terrorism, you've gone too far if you leave that impression. I don't believe that's true," said Michael O'Hanlon, a national-security analyst at the Brookings Institution who advises Democrats on defense issues.

"I get nervous when I see the Democrats playing this [civil liberties] issue out too far. They had better be careful about the politics of it," said Mr. O'Hanlon, who says the Patriot Act is "good legislation."

These Democrats say attacks on anti-terrorist intelligence programs will deepen mistrust of their ability to protect the nation's security, a weakness that led in part to the defeat of Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee, last year.

"The Republicans still hold the advantage on every national-security issue we tested," said Mark Penn, a Democratic pollster and former adviser to President Clinton, who co-authored a Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) memo on the party's national-security weaknesses.

Nervousness among Democrats intensified earlier this month after Democrats led a filibuster against the Patriot Act that threatened to block the measure, followed by a victory cry from Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, who declared at a party rally, "We killed the Patriot Act."

...

Recent polls say 56 percent of Americans approve of the job Mr. Bush is doing to protect the country from another terrorist attack.

Democrats' need to update their kneejerk opposition to law enforcement and national security initiatives. Their policy wardrobe is about as dated as Larry's from Three's Company.

Button up the shirts, guys. The gold charms and chest-hair ain't wowing them down at the Regel Beagle anymore.

Posted by: Ace at 12:45 PM | Comments (5)
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Facing stiff competition, the BBC nevertheless takes the prize.

Of course there's the ban on the use of the word "terrorism," even to describe the 7/7 Tube Bombings. (Now the word is merely "discouraged," rather than banned.)

But the best quote comes from a former BBC Mideast correspondent, who worries that the BBC hasn't been biased enough against the American-led liberation of Iraq:

[BBC] are adopting what they see as an even handed attitude. To me this is a cowardly attitude, it is an attitude which confuses occupier with occupied....

When the BBC bans the use of the word "terror," they typically say that that is a disputed, charged word and not fit for a straight-reportage story. And yet you have guys like this simultaneously agitating for the BBC to be even more supportive of terrorism.

It seems that only some political slants in stories are objectionable.

Again: Allah.

Posted by: Ace at 11:58 AM | Comments (13)
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Not a perfect solution, but I'm sure he's happy for the thumbs:

The man had lost both thumbs in a military accident. Surgeons amputated a toe, moved it to one of his hands, and turned the other hand's index finger into a thumb. Toe-thumb conversions have been done before, but usually on one hand at a time. (For Human Nature's previous update on the world's first face transplant, click here; for a recent report on hand reattachment, click here.)

Also, a new implant can delay girls' maturation, speaking pubescently.

Thanks again to Allah.

Posted by: Ace at 11:18 AM | Comments (8)
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He refers to himself as "Saddam Hussein" a lot. Don't let that throw you. These are his quotes, unless otherwise specified.

[To the judge:] Give me a chance... give me a chance... Give me a chance, don't cut me off. I'm not defending myself, I'm defending you. He gets to bring his files in, while Saddam Hussein must write on his hand what he wants to remember to say to the judges.

"Your honor, I want you to be like lances and swords confronting the enemies."

...

"I am not here to defend Saddam Hussein. As I've said before, Saddam Hussein is too great to be defended by Saddam Hussein himself."

...

"No, please. I am not a student in your school. Don't make me speak in a way that none of us want. He interrupted me and went on talking. You didn't silence him. He asked a question, and my answer is: 'Yes, I was beaten all over my body, and I bear the marks to this day. Yes, we were beaten. We were beaten by the Americans. We were tortured, each and every one of us. When that man gets up, he has to lean on the wall so he doesn't fall. He received rifle blows to the neck, until they crippled him. That one was crippled. Barzan was crippled. Abu Nadia – they even took the bones out of his legs.'"

Expect Andrew Sullivan to begin shrieking hysterically about our new practice of "taking the bones out of detainees' legs."

Watches and clothes are not important to Saddam Hussein, except to the extent they're very important indeed:

"Saddam Hussein – in the American democracy that has been put to shame here, in great Iraq – was not allowed to wear his watch. This is not my watch. The watch I had they stole. One of my daughters, whom they exiled, gave her father a watch as a present. That is the watch they prevented Saddam Hussein from wearing. I'm only saying this so you can make the comparison. They tore the robes I was wearing all the way down. This way, they believe, they are hurting Saddam Hussein, diminishing his personality. But Saddam Hussein's personality is not measured by his clothes. This is a mark of shame on them, but it only makes Saddam Hussein greater, not smaller...."

Saddam Hussein proves he's pretty cool:

Barzan Tikriti [His brother, I believe]: "Your honor, those lowlifes are laughing and cursing."

Saddam Hussein: "In any case... Barzan, let those monkeys laugh. A lion doesn't care if a monkey in a tree is laughing at him. Take it easy. Look at me, I don't care about this nonsense.

And you all thought Baghdad Bob was a little bombastic. He learned from a master.

I'll give Saddam Hussein one thing-- this cat does definitely not placate.

Posted by: Ace at 11:12 AM | Comments (13)
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Are the friends? Absolutely. Do they talk? No.

“Her and my relationship is a time in the past. And it’s a time that I’ll always look back with in fondness, but her and I have moved on, and she has a separate life and I have a separate life. And it’s better that we keep it that way.”

Okay, I admit it, he does sound a little wounded there.

On the one hand, it's hard to find "quality" in LA. On the other hand, he's got this thing going that works for him, and it's very exciting, to say the least.

Posted by: Ace at 11:01 AM | Comments (7)
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The contractor is a citizen of France. He is a water engineer, engaged in the imperialist Zionist plot to deliver fresh water to Iraq's cities.

I'm sure glad we didn't invade Iraq like France did, or else those "militant groups" might be similarly angry with us!

Posted by: Ace at 10:51 AM | Comments (3)
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Psychosexual dysfunction as a cultural norm:

Nazir Ahmed appears calm and unrepentant as he recounts how he slit the throats of his three young daughters and their 25-year old stepsister to salvage his family's "honor" — a crime that shocked Pakistan.

The 40-year old laborer, speaking to The Associated Press in police detention as he was being shifted to prison, confessed to just one regret — that he didn't murder the stepsister's alleged lover too.

Hundreds of girls and women are murdered by male relatives each year in this conservative Islamic nation, and rights groups said Wednesday such "honor killings" will only stop when authorities get serious about punishing perpetrators.

The independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said that in more than half of such cases that make it to court, most end with cash settlements paid by relatives to the victims' families, although under a law passed last year, the minimum penalty is 10 years, the maximum death by hanging.

...

It is the latest of more than 260 such honor killings documented by the rights commission, mostly from media reports, during the first 11 months of 2005.

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Speaking to AP in the back of police pickup truck late Tuesday as he was shifted to a prison in the city of Multan, Ahmed showed no contrition. Appearing disheveled but composed, he said he killed Muqadas because she had committed adultery, and his daughters because he didn't want them to do the same when they grew up.

He said he bought a butcher's knife and a machete after midday prayers on Friday and hid them in the house where he carried out the killings.

"I thought the younger girls would do what their eldest sister had done, so they should be eliminated," he said, his hands cuffed, his face unshaven. "We are poor people and we have nothing else to protect but our honor."

And some say chivalry is dead.

Despite Ahmed's contention that Muqadas had committed adultery — a claim made by her husband — the rights commission reported that according to local people, Muqadas had fled her husband because he had abused her and forced her to work in a brick-making factory.

...

Ahmed, who did not resist arrest, was unrepentant.

"I told the police that I am an honorable father and I slaughtered my dishonored daughter and the three other girls," he said. "I wish that I get a chance to eliminate the boy she ran away with and set his home on fire."

Read the whole thing. It's chilling. And, maybe, given that it's said to have "shocked" Pakistan, perhaps a wakeup call for that culture. Maybe the abused women will be the first to sound the alarms.

Thanks to Allah.

Posted by: Ace at 10:27 AM | Comments (9)
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That's Richard Wolffe getting all screechy about Bush's searches of mosques for radiological material. ("Radioactive" seems to be the better and more common word, but the press pack seems to think "radiological" is smarty-pants-ier, so I'll defer to their, um, expertise.)

Rob from Say Anything reminds us we don't have to imagine Clinton doing something like this. He did do stuff like this, and Republicans were, as the kids say*, totally chill with it.

* Well, the kids used to say it at least. I'm pretty sure I remember an old episode of Sabrina the Teenaged Witch where someone said it.

Posted by: Ace at 10:15 AM | Comments (61)
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