Fresh Tasty Ideas

No one likes a preachy beauty queen. But that won’t stop Hammasa Kohistani, the first Muslim Miss England, from sharing her views on terrorism:

Even moderate Muslims are turning to terrorism to prove themselves. They think they might as well support it because they are stereotyped anyway. It will take a long time for communities to start mixing in more.

And who is ultimately to blame?

But at the same time, she said, “there is this hostility” which comes “mainly from the Government”.

So, in summary, Miss England is claiming that institutionalized discrimination a la the British government is driving moderate Muslims into terrorism. It’s nice to remember that Hammasa didn’t win a competition based on intelligence.

To make terrorists out as victims in today’s society is to invert reality. Islamic terrorist attacks against Western interests happened long before Bush and Blair, before Abu Ghraib and the war in Iraq, before Afghanistan, and before Desert Storm/Shield. The truth is that Muslim terrorists will use any pretext to “justify” terrorism, because useful idiots like George Galloway or Michael Moore or Cindy Sheehan, or in this case Ms. Hammasa Kohistani will go around bleating like sheep, trying to convince everyone that we are to blame for terrorism.

And that’s the great lie: that terrorism is a product of the West’s hedgemonic influence in the Middle East and not of Islam itself. One must wonder why Mohammed’s closest followers conquered many nations soon after his death; Islam has always spread by the sword because that’s what Mohammed instructed true believers to do. In fact, Mohammed told his followers that “Paradise lies under the shade of the sword.”

So long as the West remains focused on fixing itself, it will be incapable of addressing the true root causes of Islamic terrorism.

Hammasa Kohistani, terrorism, Islam, England, moderate

Liberals say they want to win the war on terror, but let’s look at the facts:

• Most Democrats want to close Guantanamo Bay, where captured terrorists are held
• Almost all Democrats oppose profiline airline passengers, despite the fact that nearly all acts of terrorism (in our present day) are committed by self-professed Muslims
• Most Democrats oppose Bush’s wiretapping programs, both domestic and international, aimed at intercepting and analyzing communication between terrorists
• Many Democrats oppose the war in Afghanistan, even though it was harboring the Taliban before September 11, 2001
• Democrats oppose getting tough on illegal aliens crossing into the United States from Mexico, which could easily allow terrorists to infiltrate the United States (on this one, Bush has been suspect as well)
• The conspiracy that the US government staged the events of September 11, 2001 runs almost exclusively in far-left “progressive” circles
• Most Democrats are opposed to the Patriot Act, which helps authorities track and detain suspected terrorists in a way that wouldn’t otherwise be possible

So my question is: just how do Democrats plan to fight terrorism? They only seem to oppose measures intended to combat terrorism. Where are the ideas from their side of the aisle? It’s all criticism, there is no plan.

Islam, terrorism, politics, liberals, conservatives, Democrats, Republicans, Bush, wiretap

In a bid to clean up downtown areas of Seattle, the Washington State Liquor Control Board will probably ban the sale of 28 brands of beer and wine. This is the proposed solution for public drunkeness and litter.

What about the people who don’t get drunk in public and don’t litter? They’ll just have to be “inconvenienced”:

Board member Roger Hoen said he lives in a blue-collar neighborhood and sees people pick up some of the beers on the list after a hard day’s work. He acknowledged that some “innocent” people might be inconvenienced by the ban, but said sacrifices sometimes have to be made for “the larger good.”

Shouldn’t liberals be opposed to a new law which specifically discriminates against poor folk? And even more than that, I think the these loony lawmakers need to address the root causes causing public drunkeness. It isn’t cheap booze, that’s just an easy excuse.

alcohol, Seattle, ban, liberals, Red Dog

The mainstream media’s (mis)handling of the Israeli-Lebanese conflict earlier this month destroyed what little trust in them I still had. Fake photo after fake photo combined with elaborately choreographed displays of “victims” became too much for me. The stories keep coming in, more fake ambulance photos, more fake bombing photos from Qana, more from Green Helmet Guy, and it never stops.

How could the media be so arrogant to think that this wouldn’t all be caught? No organization or group of organizations could possibly be so consistently and frequently negligent as to attribute all this fraudulent reporting to pure stupidity. I really wonder how much more crap would have been shoveled onto the public had blogs not intervened to stop the media’s lies. Originally, the free press was the watchdog, keeping eye over the government, and protecting the people from tyranny. Now, blogs are serving to fact-check and keep in line the media. Have we come full-circle?

Even more disgusting is the lack (other than from conservative bloggers) of critical examination of this massive and widespread media failure. There’s plenty of evidence here pointing to systematic and engrained anti-Israeli bias from within the media, why is there no investigation into these events? What have the media done to regain the public’s trust after being caught multiple times (and it keeps going) presenting false information? Why should we have reason to believe future reports, particularly when it comes to Israel and the Middle East? And why was the media disseminating pro-Hezbollah propaganda, why was the misinformation so one-sided? Why would the media allow itself to be duped so obviously? Where was the obvious common sense which bloggers had to use (instead of editors at the media)?

Stodgy old-school media elites like to rip bloggers for their unreliability. Only real journalists with the proper channels can bring real news to the world, we are told. But clearly, there are huge problems with the system. Not only that, but the system refuses to allow itself to be fixed. When will people learn that we don’t even need the old system anymore?

CNN, media, Reuters, AP

The new season of Survivor will pit whites against blacks against asians against latinos. It’ll just be just like boxing, but you can root for the black or white team instead of the black or white guy.

Survivor, CBS, reality, race

Check out this page to see how to minimize iTunes next to your systray.

XP, iTunes

We in America cherish free speech as a fundamental right of a free society. But everything has its limits, and the founding fathers such as Thomas Payne or Benjamin Franklin never intended that free speech become an open invitation to incite murder and malice against US citizens or military members.

Enter Blogspot, Google’s free blogging service. Members of LGF have found at least three blogs which are openly promoting, praising and supporting jihadi activity. One of those blogs, entitled Press Release, has entries such as the following:

Your brothers in the Military wing of Mujahedeen Shura Council on Thursday 22/8/2006, detonated a bomb aimed at a Beshmerkah vehicle in al-Baath district on the left side of Mowsel, causing the complete destruction of the vehicle and the passengers fell between killed and injured, all praise and gratitude be to Allah.

Your brothers in the Military wing of Mujahedeen Shura Council on Sunday 20/8/2006, sniper shot one crusader soldier in al-Kafa’at on the left side of Mowsel where he immediately died on the ground, all praise and gratitude be to Allah.

Clearly, this blog serves as a source of information and propaganda for Islamic terrorists. Google provides a way to flag a blog if it contains offensive material, but this blog should be pulled immediately and without warning. Google should bear responsibility for the dissemination of jihadi material when the terrorists are using their free services. Blogging is a powerful tool, and like any tool, it can be abused.

Stifling a dissenting opinion is not only un-American, but wrong. However, pulling the plug on speech which glorifies the murder of American troops and which aids our enemy by informing him is a responsibility of all Americans.

terrorism, Google, Islam, Mujahedeen, Blogger

Judge Anna Diggs Taylor today ruled that Bush’s warrantless eavesdropping program, which monitors the international communications of suspected terrorists is unconstitutional. The plaintiff was the ACLU, a frequent foe of Republican and conservative causes. The Bush administration immediately appealed the decision.

While I agree that a balance must be achieved between liberty and security, what the judge ruled against was international wiretaps. This is not the domestic wiretap issue, it’s completely separate.

I’ve heard a lot of interviews from people who track terrorists, and they all comment on how dynamic the nature of the game is. When you intercept a potential communique, there may not be time to obtain a warrant before the opportunity is lost. We just saw in Britain how crucial surveillance is, both domestic and international. We won’t win the war on terrorism without some leverage for the government to track suspected terrorists.

Is the surveillance of international communication too big of an infringement? Are we willing to pay the price of a greater terrorist threat? How should the government conduct its surveillance instead of using warantless wiretaps? These questions need an answer.

terrorism, Bush, wiretap

Don’t expect the New York Times to cover this, but it looks like Murtha may have made his infamous “in cold blood” damnation of US Marines before being briefed by the military:

I heard back from General Hagee’s office yesterday regarding my inquiry about when Gen. Hagee briefed John Murtha about Haditha. The bottom line: Gen. Hagee’s office has directly contradicted an assertion by the L.A. Times that Gen. Hagee briefed John Murtha on Haditha before Murtha accused Marines of killing civilians in cold blood. Gen. Hagee’s office confirmed to me that the General’s first briefing to Murtha took place a week after Murtha had already made his public accusations.

But don’t question Murtha’s patriotism folks; once you’ve served in the military you’re immune to criticism, right?

Haditha, Murtha, Iraq, Marines, New York Times

Here’s a good rundown of just how Israel lost the lastest conflict in Lebanon:

1. Hezbollah was still alive and kicking when the ceasefire came
2. Hezbollah successfully manipulated the media through fake pictures and fradulent death tolls. See “Green Helmet guy” for more explanation.
3. Hezbollah will win the Lebanese people’s hearts back by rebuilding Beruit and southern Lebanon (much to the chagrin of impoverished Iranians, who will be funding the renovation).

Israel is solidly to blame for item #1, they should have hit Hezbollah hard when they had the chance. Now that the UN ceasefire is in effect, Hezbollah can regroup, rearm, and talk of victory. Item #2 saddens me, because it demonstrates the complicity the American and global media had in Hezbollah’s victory. The media outlets were duped like ignorant pawns, falling all over themselves to run deliberately staged pictures. The falsification was so obvious at one point that basic Photoshop artifacts were visible in AP wire photos; only the collective screaming of the conservative blogosphere caused some retractions. But the damage had been done, Hezbollah had won the war of the media. Item #3 speaks to more international impotency. Iran and Syria fund and therefore control Hezbollah, and now those regimes will win even more hearts and minds by providing the only thing that counts for bombed-out Lebanese civilians: food, water and shelter. Looks like we’ll have a fresh new generation of Lebanese Hezbollah fighters who were galvanized for Allah in 2006, when after a Zionist blitzkrieg, Hezbollah provided for them. Just great.

And this ceasefire? It’s a joke; France will only send troops after Hezbollah disarms, which appears as likely as a diet for Michael Moore. So Hezbollah will again be allowed to go on existing thanks wholly to an unenforcable resolution dreamt up by ivory tower UN plutocrats. It’s not hard to predict that the fighting will resume maybe in a month, maybe in a year.

Ceasefires don’t create peace, wars do. After all, the Middle East has seen more ceasefires and more violence than any region over the last couple decades. And what do we have to show for it? A few of us are wise enough to realize this is just another “peace in our time” Chaimberlain-style appeasement pact which at best delays the inevitable.

Update: France is starting to show her true colors. They’re not going to send the troops they were so quick to volunteer a few weeks ago:

France is considering providing only a symbolic force for the United Nations contingent in Lebanon, and not the thousands of troops UN officials had hoped, Le Monde newspaper said on Thursday.

Pussies.

terrorism, UN, France, ceasefire, Hezbollah, Israel, Lebanon, Iran