At Malcontent.

Which was, by the way, the name of the blogger at the center of the mystery in this week's Psych. Although it was supposed to be an Ain't It Cool News style website.

Posted by: Ace at 07:36 PM | Comments (85)
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And so it goes.

Meanwhile, there is reason to hope they may be released soon.

Apparently there's a question about whether human life ought to be preserved if the human life in question has different politics from you.

I can't say I ever thought of the people killed in the WTC, "Well, sure, it's a shame so many of them died. Then again, many of them probably had a more liberal politics than I'd prefer, so can I really say they didn't deserve to be murdered?"

And yet, more and more, some unhinged liberals admit precisely this thought without shame. Even with a bit of pride, actually.

They're proud they finally have the courage to admit their true beliefs, mere humanity be damned.

There are some people in this country who are simply not fully human. They may look human, but they're not.

Sometimes I get into a real sort of Frailty kind of mood, if you get my meaning.*

* Not really. I don't have the Magic Workgloves or +3 Lead Pipe of HolySlumbers.

Posted by: Ace at 02:26 PM | Comments (56)
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All I know right now.

Please avoid the DU-style "YEAH, BABY" stuff.

Confirmed: Five people inside. They were videotaping IDF activity in Gaza. One cameraman hurt.

Posted by: Ace at 12:28 PM | Comments (79)
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This is just from a Jawa emailer who insists on remaining anonymous. Jawa describes him as "a research analyst whose work crosses the path with the IAEA."

Usual caveats apply, but this would seem to require some investigation:

In my line of work I have come into contact with people in the IAEA who naturally are afraid to express their views in public. In conversations with them a short while ago, there was cautious optimism after the German newspaper 'Die Welt' published details about the dismissal of Chris Charlier, one of the senior IAEA inspectors in charge of the Iranian nuclear issue, simply because his conclusions were unsympathetic towards Iran. These people hoped that the details revealed in the media would force the IAEA to set its house in order, despite the person at its head, and thereby expose the relationship between Iran and El-Baradei, who has on too many occasions been Iran's savior. But nothing has come of this affair. On the contrary, El-Baradei did his utmost to prevent sullying Iran's name and to conceal the affair as quickly as possible. The resentment of my colleges in the IAEA and their astonishment only grew when it came out that in recognition of El-Baradei's conduct Iran sent him 'gifts' - including extremely expensive traditional carpets of the highest quality (one Persian carpet could be valued as high as 50,000 euros.)

The UN may be incompetent and feckless, but, on the other hand, it's also corrupt.

Not Sure... if the IAEA is actually under the UN. Probably not, now that I think about it.

Eh. You know what I mean.

Posted by: Ace at 05:33 AM | Comments (47)
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The jewels-for-visas story is in the MSM. But apparently only bloggers can Google-search, because it's only Junkyard Blog who found the Al Qaeda connection.

A little more: the lawsuit alleging a tie between the bribing jewelry company, STS, and Al Qaeda was dismissed with prejudice. So maybe it's not fair to claim an Al Qaeda tie.

So forget it.

Columbo Update: There's just one more thing.

The guy charged with taking bribes from STS, Michael O'Keefe, seems to have been involved in clearing them of any linkage with Osama bin Ladin in 2002.

I'm sure that doesn't have anything to do with anything, though.

Maybe It Is Just Nothing: quiggs writes--

I did some digging on that lawsuit: (1) It was filed by some notorious bottom-feeders (asbestos, silicon etc.) after newspaper accounts, so odds are it was just a shake-down; and (2) it was dismissed after only 2 months, which isn't enough time to do any serious discovery, so either (a) the dismissal was on purely technical grounds, or (b) the claim was pure BS from the get-go.

Posted by: Ace at 05:18 AM | Comments (11)
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Confederate Yankee has it.

So does Dan Riehl.

He says Greg Mitchell must resign.

I don't know. I think this is so common the media can't afford to make an issue of it.

Ed Driscoll has found the location of the original article, here.

Basically, Mitchell has rewritten the piece to seem more apologetic than he was previously, and is now stressing he was 19 years old and a "summer intern." This information is now emphasized in the opening paragraph.

No notice that the article had undergone a bit of "clarification," naturally.

Posted by: Ace at 05:13 AM | Comments (13)
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The kidnappers are in contact with the Hamas government. Shock.

Two Fox News journalists kidnapped by militants in Gaza have not been harmed, a Palestinian official said on Saturday, as a deadline expired for the United States to free Muslim prisoners in exchange for their release.

Interior Ministry spokesman Khaled Abu Hilal said information from "third parties" confirmed that Fox News correspondent Steve Centanni, a 60-year-old American, and New Zealand-born cameraman Olaf Wiig, 36, were in good health.

The previously unknown Holy Jihad Brigades claimed responsibility on Wednesday for the kidnapping and warned the United States to free Muslim prisoners or the captives would face unspecified consequences. The three-day deadline passed at midday (0900 GMT).

"Good efforts to free the two journalists are continuing," Hilal told Reuters.

"Things are still going in a positive manner and information confirms the two journalists are in good health and are unharmed."

Posted by: Ace at 05:04 AM | Comments (7)
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Larwyn told me about this, and it sounds pretty damn good.

NewsBusters recounts how Hitchens said "Fuck You" to Maher's idiot audience, and further told them they were idiots, but there's a lot more to enjoy (according to Larwyn).

It sounds good enough that anyone with HBO should watch. Everyone else will have to wait for the video bloggers.

Posted by: Ace at 04:55 AM | Comments (44)
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I don't even know what the hell to say to this.

Extensively excerpted so I don't get accused of selectively editing its vileness -- and to preserve a record of it after the inevitable bowlderization.

If Huffington wants to sue, fine, bring it on. Let's publicize the shit you're running on that lunatic site of yours.

I Hope And Pray We Don't Get Hit Again-BUT.....

I hope and pray we don't get hit again, like we did on September 11. Even one life lost to the violence of terrorism is too much.

If I somehow knew an attack was coming, I wouldn't pause for a second to report it in order to prevent it from occuring.

But on the other hand, I remind myself that without the ultimate sacrifice paid by 400,000 U.S. soldiers in World War II, tyranny could well have an iron grip on the world, and even on this nation.
If the Nazis had prevailed, tens, if not hundreds of millions more would have been killed.

That realization has led my brain to launch a political calculus 180 degrees removed from my pacifist-inclined leanings. An entirely hypothetical yet realpolitik calculus that is ugly, and cold-hearted but must be posited:

What if another terror attack just before this fall's elections could save many thousand-times the lives lost?

I start from the premise that there is already a substantial portion of the electorate that tends to vote GOP because they feel that Bush has "kept us safe," and that the Republicans do a better job combating terrorism.

If an attack occurred just before the elections, I have to think that at least a few of the voters who persist in this "Bush has kept us safe" thinking would realize the fallacy they have been under.

If 5% of the "he's kept us safe" revise their thinking enough to vote Democrat, well, then, the Dems could recapture the House and the Senate and be in a position to:

Block the next Supreme Court appointment, one which would surely result in the overturning of Roe and the death of hundreds if not thousands of women from abortion-prohibiting states at the hands of back-alley abortionists;

Be in a position to elevate the party's chances for a regime change in 2008. A regime change that would:

[typical laundry list of liberal fantasias omitted]

I am not proud of myself for even considering the notion that another terror attack that costs even one American life could ever be considered anything else but evil and hurtful. And I know that when I weigh the possibility that such an attack- that might, say, kill 100- would prevent hundreds of thousands of Americans from dying who otherwise would- I am exhibiting a calculating cold heart diametrically opposed to everything I stand for as a human being. A human being, who, just so you know, is opposed to most wars and to capital punishment.

But in light of the very real potential of the next two American elections to solidify our growing American persona as a warlike, polluter-friendly nation with repressive domestic tendencies and inadequate health care for so many tens of millions, let me ask you this. Even if only from the standpoint of a purely intellectual exercise in alternative future history:

If you knew us getting hit again would launch a chain of transformative, cascading events that would enable a better nation where millions who would have died will live longer, would such a calculus have any moral validity?

Any at all?

Thanks to Michael G and Stace, who actually tipped me before, but I saw Michael's email first.

UPDATE: Now screencapped. If a goddamned word of this gets changed, up they go.

Posted by: Ace at 02:02 PM | Comments (418)
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Big funny.

The defense, of course, is that one of the two cartoonists here is Jewish.

Hey, so was Hitler. Kinda.

Thanks to Allah, who's got this great big post on, well, all sorts of things. How about this Styen quote, for starters:

he dangerous argument is the lazy line pedalled by too many politicians that in an Australia or a Canada of evolving immigration patterns, an immigrant from Moldova or China or Brazil or Saudi Arabia can’t be expected to relate to the Queen, to the existing constitutional system. Now try this line the next time you’re in Saudi Arabia: if you immigrate to Saudi Arabia and say ‘hey man, I just can’t relate to the House of Saud, and what’s with this Wahhabism, can’t we get a couple of sports bars with wet t-shirt nights every Thursday’? The Saudis would have a grand old laugh about it and then behead you. So when we accept that argument, in essence we’re explicitly promoting the principle of reverse assimilation; that immigration imposes not the obligation that the immigrant assimilate to his new land, but that his new land assimilate to him. And thereby lies great peril, not for the Queen, she’ll get by, but for a whole bunch of the rest of us… n the superb summation of the American writer James C. Bennett, ‘democracy, immigration multiculturalism … pick any two’.

He also has a great column by a British Muslim MP who says if you want Sharia Law, move thy ass to Saudi Arabia, and stop fucking things up for the rest of us.

It's a great column, but it misses the whole point.

It's not that Muslims want Sharia law for themselves. They can have that, as the Muslim MP says, by moving to a Sharia law country. Or by practicing a socially-enforced Sharia law among themselves. Not really legal, but other people have lived by their own illegal laws throughout history.

The trouble is that these sort of Muslims want Sharia law for everybody, not themselves, and retreating from Battelefield Britain is not an option.

There is a war to be won, and that war is not over the small-potatoes question of whether Muslims can live under Sharia. The war is over whether Muslims can impose Sharia on an unwilling, dhimmified hostage population.

Posted by: Ace at 11:16 AM | Comments (30)
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