It's a bit elliptical and unclear, but then, so were the Nixon tapes. But as with those tapes, there are strong hints of dirty doings:

"The factories are present," an Iraqi aide tells Saddam on one of the tapes, made by the dictator in the mid-1990s while U.N. weapons inspectors were searching for Baghdad's remaining stocks of weapons of mass destruction.

"The factories remain, in the mind they remain. Our spirit is with us, based solely on the time period," the aide says, according to the documents. "And [inspectors] take note of the time period, they can't account for our will."

The quote is from roughly 12 hours of taped conversations that unexpectedly landed in the lap of Bill Tierney, a former Army warrant officer and Arabic speaker who was translating for the FBI tapes unearthed in Iraq after the invasion.

Mr. Tierney made a copy, which he provided to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. The committee in turn gave a copy to intelligence analysts who authenticated the voice as that of Saddam.

Mr. Tierney said that the quote from the Saddam aide, and scores of others, show Saddam was rebuilding his once-ample weapons stocks.

"The tapes show that Saddam rebuilt his program and successfully prevented the U.N. from finding out about it," he said.

I'm not sure you can get that from the quotes, and Mr. Tierney has shown himself to be a faith-based intelligence analyst, but we'll see.

And the t-word gets mentioned again.

There also exists a quote from the dictator himself, who ordered the tapings to keep a record of his inner-sanctum discussions, that Mr. Tierney thinks shows Saddam planned to use a proxy to attack the United States.

"Terrorism is coming ... with the Americans," Saddam said. "With the Americans, two years ago, not a long while ago, with the English I believe, there was a campaign ... with one of them, that in the future there would be terrorism with weapons of mass destruction."

It could just be a hope of Saddam's, of course.

The tapes are interesting and suggestive, but it's probably wisest not to get too far out on a limb with them.

Thanks to Ogre Gunner.

Posted by: Ace at 08:29 AM | Comments (23)
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She's always wanted to avoid it, but the government may have given her a slender excuse for doing so:

The sentencing trial of Zacarias Moussaoui teetered on the brink of a mistrial this morning, as the judge in the case angrily said she might spare him the death penalty following the disclosure that a government lawyer had improperly coached some witnesses.

"In all my years on the bench, I've never seen a more egregious violation of the rule about witnesses," Judge Leonie M. Brinkema said.

After a brief discussion, the judge recessed the hearing, saying she would consider a request from Mr. Moussaoui's court-appointed lawyers that she end the sentencing trial, now in its second week, and order that he be imprisoned for life instead of executed, as the government has urged.

No papers were filed about the incident, but during the discussion it appeared that a lawyer for a federal aviation agency, identified in court only as Ms. Martin, improperly gave information to aviation officials who are scheduled to testify at the trial.

Judge Brinkema had earlier ordered that people scheduled to testify not be given access to transcripts by prior witnesses, a common order in such cases.

A federal official speaking after the morning hearing identified the lawyer as Carla J. Martin of the Transportation Security Administration. The official said that Ms. Martin had given a transcript of testimony on March 6 by an F.B.I. agent, Michael Anticev, and transcripts of opening arguments, to two Federal Aviation Administration officials, Lynne A. Osmus and Claudio Manno.

One official defies a court's order, so the proper response is to spare a vicious mass-murder-plotting terrorist the death penalty? How much could the witness' testimony have actually changed? What real difference does any of this make as far as Moussaoui's guilt?

Posted by: Ace at 08:21 AM | Comments (31)
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Wait-- so you can sue for infringement over an idea? The authors of "Holy Blood and The Holy Grail" also seem to be suing over the idea he "organized" the book along the same lines as theirs. So it's not just a lawsuit over a naked idea. But that just seems to be silly, a way to plead around the general principle you can't copyright an idea, but only its expression.

Almost three years to the day that ''The Da Vinci Code'' was first published, American author Dan Brown found himself on a witness stand in courtroom 61 of London's High Court on Monday, denying accusations he copied from others to produce his huge best-seller.

Authors Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh are suing ''Da Vinci Code'' publisher Random House for copyright infringement, claiming Brown ''appropriated the architecture'' of their 1982 nonfiction book ''The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail.''

Both books explore theories -- dismissed by theologians but embraced by millions of readers -- that Jesus married Mary Magdalene, the couple had a child and the bloodline survives.

If the writers succeed in securing an injunction to bar the use of their material, they could hold up the scheduled May 19 release of ''The Da Vinci Code'' film starring Tom Hanks and Ian McKellen.

...

Responding to questions from the plaintiffs' attorney, Brown said much of the research for the book was done by his wife, Blythe.

''She was deeply passionate about the sacred feminine,'' Brown said.

The sacred feminine. No idea what this bubblehead could be talking about. Pooters?

...

Random House lawyers argue that the ideas in dispute are so general they are not protected by copyright. They also say many of the ideas in ''The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail'' do not feature in Brown's novel, which follows fictional professor Robert Langdon as he investigates the murder of an elderly member of an ancient society that guards dark secrets about the story of Jesus and the quest for the Holy Grail.

Under cross-examination, Brown acknowledged some uncertainty about the dates of events leading up to the March 18, 2003, publication of ''The Da Vinci Code.''

In his statement, however, he said he was certain he and his wife had not consulted ''The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail'' for research until after the ideas and storyline of ''The Da Vinci Code'' were ''very well developed.''

''All of my early research came from other sources,'' he said.

I'm guessing that's a lie, as "The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail" is the most famous book about this silly idea. How could it have been he never checked out the most famous book about his theory until well after he had "well developed" his storyline and silly conspiracy theory?

You can't do a google search on this sort of thing without coming up with six thousand references to Holy Bood, Holy Grail.

I'm pretty sure I first read of this goofiness in Umbert Eco's mega-conspiracy-novel parody "Foucault's Pendulum." Pretty sure Eco got this stuff from Holy Blood, Holy Grail though.

Posted by: Ace at 08:16 AM | Comments (21)
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Very cool stuff. I imagine a lot of you have seen these in emails, but if you haven't, they're finally hosted at a linkable site.

Thanks to Craig and DDG, I think. I know other people sent it.

Posted by: Ace at 05:58 PM | Comments (27)
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As if there's any other kind.

Media Shockingly Ignorant Of Muslims Among Us

This week's Voldemort Award goes to the New York Times for their account of a curious case of road rage in North Carolina:

"The man charged with nine counts of attempted murder for driving a Jeep through a crowd at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill last Friday told the police that he deliberately rented a four-wheel-drive vehicle so he could 'run over things and keep going.' "

The driver in question was Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar.

Whoa, don't jump to conclusions. The Times certainly didn't. As the report continued:

"According to statements taken by the police, Mr. Taheri-azar, 22, an Iranian-born graduate of the university, felt that the United States government had been 'killing his people across the sea' and that his actions reflected 'an eye for an eye.'"

"His people"? And who exactly would that be? Taheri-azar is admirably upfront about his actions. As he told police, he wanted to "avenge the deaths or murders of Muslims around the world."

And yet the M-word appears nowhere in the Times report. Whether intentionally or not, they seem to be channeling the great Sufi theologian and jurist al-Ghazali, who died a millennium ago but whose first rule on the conduct of dhimmis -- non-Muslims in Muslim society -- seem to have been taken on board by the Western media:

The dhimmi is obliged not to mention Allah or His Apostle. . . .

Are they teaching that at Columbia Journalism School yet?

It gets better, by which I mean, it gets worse.

Meanwhile, of course, Britain is in full dhimmi mode, as the Sunday Telegraph and the Spectator both drop Steyn's column.

I guess the man just isn't funny, perceptive, or provocative enough.

Riiiiiight. That must be the reason.

Posted by: Ace at 03:45 PM | Comments (35)
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Robert recalls the true-spy book Spycatcher (banned in Britain, I believe, for violating the Official Secrets Act or whatever it's called). A pretty good book, though monotonous at times, and one of the places I get my extremely-limited knowledge about how espionage works.

Anyway, he writes:

It is not just the CIA, all embassies, all countries, have a fair number of spies. As you point out, most host countries have teams of "watchers" who regularly follow these known "spies".

In "Spycatcher", author Wright notes the British MI-5 process with teams of watchers dispatched from observation posts overlooking foreign Embassy entry points. Each observation post had a book of known Embassy employees (worldwide) with pictures and bios. Often, when someone leaves an Embassy, someone from the host country follows.

The Soviets termed embassy spies "legal" and the real spies "illegal". No "legal" spy would ever meet with an even low-level agent. Real spies are run and contacted by other real "illegal" agents, dead drops, or radio.

Valerie Plame, as Embassy staff, would have been very well known to the ruskies and others. No self-respecting spy would be caught dead talking to her. Not only was she not a real spy, she was not in a position to even know one.

This law was passed because of actions by real spies like Philip Agee, Kim Philby and others who turned in our guys, resulting frequently, in their death.

Nothing in the Valerie Plame thing remotely resembles the actions of real spies, or the consequences thereof. All real spies are laughing.

Embassy "spies" are the spies everyone knows about. It's an open secret. There are few in an embassy not ID'd almost immediately as spies, and put on everyone's watch list.

It is just absurd to say that having spent most of her career as an open CIA agent, known to virtually everyone who cares about such things, Valerie Plame later in life became a deep-cover covert operative.

While driving every day to CIA headquarters.

Posted by: Ace at 01:54 PM | Comments (29)
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It's not the lack of penalty that rankles. I don't think he should have been fired, or have had his salary cut. I think he should have had a stern talking-to about what the geography curriculum embraces and what it doesn't, and the inappropriateness of indoctrnating kids with left-wing cant with no contratry positions offered by the teacher.

But apparently he didn't even get that, because he says he's going to keep doing the same thing:

Speaking after a meeting with administrators Friday, Bennish said that he was “excited to be back in the classroom” and that he would continue to use his job as a way to “encourage democratic values in our society” and to “promote social justice, just as I have always attempted to do.”

“I continue trying to improve myself as a teacher,” he said, adding he would still seek to make his students “think critically.”

All codewords for continuing to spout off Marxist rants.

Again, he's not teaching kids to "think critically." That would mean thinking critically about both conventional wisdom and capitalism and American values and such, as well as Jay Bennish's preferred Marxist transnational progressive value system. He only encourages "thinking critically" about the former.

So he has not been told to stop it.

Bizzyblog has some great updates/related bits, including a parallel case in Miami, and a schoolgirl who has to sue a school to wear red, white, and blue bead-necklaces to show support for her family members in uniform.

Certain viewpoints, it seems, are simply unnacceptable in the schoolhouse.

But not Jay Bennish's.

Posted by: Ace at 01:36 PM | Comments (72)
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Makes sense:

Two men kissing in a park and a topless female bather are featured in a film that will be shown to would-be immigrants to The Netherlands.

The reactions of applicants will be examined to see whether they are able to accept the country's liberal attitudes.

From Wednesday, the DVD -- which also shows the often crime-ridden ghettos where poorer immigrants might end up living -- will form part of an entrance test, in Dutch, covering the language and culture of Holland.

Those sitting the test will be expected to know which country Crown Princess Maxima comes from (Argentina) and whether hitting women and female circumcision are permitted.

Well-- are they? The article doesn't say.

Muslim leaders in Holland say the film is offensive.

That's the point. It is kind of offensive to those with a strict religious code against homsexuality. The question is-- how offensive? "This is revolting" level offensive, or shooting AK-47's in the air level offensive?

"It really is a provocation aimed to limit immigration. It has nothing to do with the rights of homosexuals. Even Dutch people don't want to see that," said Abdou Menebhi, the Moroccan-born director of Emcemo, an organisation that helps immigrants to settle.

...

The new test -- the first of its kind in the world -- marks another step in the transformation of Holland from one of Europe's most liberal countries to the one cracking down hardest on immigration.

No country wants to be a net-importer of murderous insanity. Sorry. Produce less of that particular good and countries like Holland will allow more free trade.

Posted by: Ace at 01:04 PM | Comments (22)
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Why, this Jeff Giles must fancy himself a terrorist against the Wachowski Brothers.

The Time magazine piece I linked last week questioned whether the film would keep V an ambiguous hero, or anti-hero, or hero-villain, or whatever.

Apparently not:

"Vendetta" is based on an '80s-era graphic novel rife with outrage over Margaret Thatcher's England. But, as adapted by the Wachowski brothers and directed by their protégé James McTeigue, the movie plays like a clumsy assault on post-9/11 paranoia. It references "America's war," uses imagery direct from Abu Ghraib and contains dialogue likely to offend anyone who's not, say, a suicide bomber. Buildings are symbols, V tells a haunted young woman named Evey (Natalie Portman), after saving her from some vile, rampaging cops: "Blowing up a building can change the world." The filmmakers have insisted that V is not intended to be a hero. Which is bollocks. The movie grants him absolute moral superiority from beginning to end. Sure, Evey tells him he's a monster—and then tries to make out with his mask. In a movie, when the pretty girl falls in love with you and stays in love with you, you're a hero.

Sounds about right. "Nuance" is for little people.

Oh, and it's as talky as the Matrix sequels, too. So if you loved the endless elipitical pretentious philosophical banter there, you'll love V.

BTW: The Wachowskis, near as I can tell, made one good movie -- The Matrix. (Actually, I disliked it, but I seem to be in the minority.)

Let me review for you the other films these "geniuses" have made:

Bound. I think. S&M and Gina Gershon and it's still boring.

Assassins. Sylvester Stallone and Antonio Banderas are the world's greatest assassins. Antonio Banderas wants to kill Stallone because Stallone is the Number One assassin (I forget if this was determined by the AP or coach's poll.) As Banderas says, fifty fucking times in the movie, as he tries to knock off Stallone, "Now I will be Number One!"

Smart, innovative premise. I think that motivation has been used in only seventy-three bazillion crude chop-socky flicks.

The Matrix Sequels. Good Lord, whatever. Yeah, they're really deep.

Posted by: Ace at 12:34 PM | Comments (35)
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Terrific:

Five women sang and danced as they held up signs saying "thank God for dead soldiers" at the funeral of an army sergeant who was killed by an Iraqi bomb.

For them, it was the perfect way to spread God's word: America was being punished for tolerating homosexuality.

...

[Fred Phelps' Westboro cult] have since picketed the funerals of Frank Sinatra and Bill Clinton's mother, celebrated the terrorist attacks of September 11 as an act of God's wrath, and have even targeted Santa Claus and the Ku Klux Klan.

I'd be curious why they targeted the KKK. Insufficiently homophobic, I imagine. Trouble is, the KKK puts Jews on top of the hate-list (followed by niggras, of course), leaving faggots in a distant third.

But it was the callousness and cruelty of harassing the grieving families of soldiers at dozens of funerals across the country that has sparked a grassroots movement of bikers determined to drown out the jeers and taunts.

In Flushing, Michigan they turned their leather-clad backs to the five women and held flags and tarps up so that mourners walking past wouldn't see the signs saying "God hates fags," "fag vets" and "America is doomed."

Many found it hard to hide their anger when Margie Phelps, the daughter of Westboro's founder, called out "All this for little old us? Oh, you shouldn't have. I feel so special," before she started singing "the Pope, the Pope, the Pope is on fire. He don't get no water let the heretics burn" in front of a Catholic church.

...

While Westboro's congregation remains stable at around 100 people - most of whom are the extended family of founder Fred Phelps - the ranks of the Patriot Guard Riders has swelled to more than 16,000 in just a few months.

...

Four states have enacted legislation barring protests at funerals and a dozen more are in the process of introducing bans. But it is unlikely that the bans will stand up to legal challenge.

The group is careful to protest in public spaces and is well aware of its constitutional rights - 11 of Phelps' 13 children are lawyers.

"This nation is poised to trash the first amendment just to stop my preaching," Fred Phelps said in a telephone interview. "I'm kind of honored."

Phelps said he and his congregants are targeting the funerals because God's way of punishing an "evil nation" of "fags and fag enablers" is to "pick off its children."

"I don't have any sympathy for these parents. They're all going to hell," Phelps said. "The family's in pain because they haven't obeyed the Lord God."

What the hell have the parents done to disobey God's supposed law? Even if one assumes the soldiers are "guilty" of "fag-enabling," what the hell are the parents supposed to do to keep them from joining the military? They are adults. The only way to prevent them from joining the military is to have them deemed mentally incompetent by a judge and confined to an asylum.

I agree with this, and I've said so before:

...

Phelps' virulence and frequently graphic condemnations of anal sex could mask a deeper issue than a radically literal interpretation of the Bible, Potok speculated.

"This man probably thinks more about gay sex than any other person in the United States of America and one can only guess at what that means," he said. "Many of the most homophobic people are deeply afraid that they might be gay."

You just can't be that obsessed over something extrinsic to you.

I've got an idea-- why doesn't Phelps' crew go protest in Iraq?

"It is impossible to describe our daily lives and surroundings without touching on homosexuality. In Iraq, and throughout the Arab world, a puritanical lifestyle reigns supreme, based in part on the clear segregation of men and women. The severe restrictions on having anything to do with contact between the sexes has produced a special way of life ... The atmosphere was one of unceasing desire and curiosity; it is no wonder that Arabic poetry is suffused with sadness, fantasy and yearning ... This way of life also increased the incidence of homosexual behaviour in the Baghdad I knew: Boys and adults molested children and some deviants even sought sexual release with animals. Quite a few women became lesbians, perhaps because their confinement in their homes and their limited access to men led to boredom and the search for emotional release," - Mordechai Ben-Porat (a Baghdad-born Jew who became a member of the Israeli Knesset) in his book, "To Baghdad and Back."

That last bit quoted at Andrew Sullivan.

Lot of homos in Muslim extremist circles. Why doesn't Fred Phelps go preach to them? I think it would be win-win for all concerned.

I never advocate political violence, but I don't think it would constitute "political violence" for a few nice-sized bricks to be thrown at these insufferable, ineffable thugs. There are limits to how people are permitted to behave before inciting some somewhat-justified violence. I can't walk up to a black man and call him a "dirty n----r" without expecting to have a punch flying at my mouth.

And, of course, I'd deserve it.

And I similarly thinking taunting the families of soldiers killed just days before also constitutes fighting words.

The law doesn't permit you to take a swing at someone just because they insult you. But juries and judges know that the law is sometimes an ass.

These little gay-panic cultists are going to be looking for their teeth three blocks north of Queer Street pretty soon, and there isn't a jury in the world who will convict the "perpetrators" of the violence.

We'll see what Phelps' 11 lawyer-cocksucker children can do about that.

Yeah... file a civil lawsuit. You'll be awarded $1 plus $3 in punitive damages.

I like those patriotic bikers trying to screen out these bastards from the funerals.

I just have one question for them:

Sometimes, in your heart of hearts, don't you miss the excitement and notoriety of Altamont?

Good times, good times. Back when bikers really had some genuine outlaw credibility.

Not saying you guys are slipping, but really, dealing a little meth isn't really that "rebel" anymore. I see a bunch of shirtless jagoffs doing that on Cops every week, right before they try to hide under the overturned dingy in their cluttered backyard.

(Apparently the meth-dealer's union 1) forbids shirts and 2) requires an overturned boat in your backyard with a big hole in the bottom. Sort of an aquatic Camaro on cinderblocks.)

So the meth isn't really cutting it. To be really rebellious requires a little head-busting action.

Just sayin'. Just one guy's opinion. Do as you will.

Old But Still Fun Flashback: Buzz Aldrin knows how to deal with gutless punks who taunt with insane theories.

Posted by: Ace at 12:13 PM | Comments (44)
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