Rosie in a Mouth Trap

 

It isn't very often you actually catch a liberal caught in a trap of their own making... and when it's an overweight lesbian (As I'm sure we can't say 'fat' nowadays), but what a sight it is. Rosie's mouth dug her a hole that even she couldn't scream her way out of. So thank goodness, she crawled away like the cockroach she is. It took a bit of looking to find the transcript of what happened, but here it is. Have a look at an angry liberal.....

 

 

 

 

 

JOY BEHAR: I was watching Al Gore on, on "Larry King" last night and, you know, he has a new book out, Al Gore, where he basically really says that Bush was the worst president that we've ever had in the history of the country. And I noticed that Jimmy Carter, a former president, is saying the same thing. So now if the former president Jimmy Carter is saying it and a former vice president of the United States is saying it and I have a list here of the things that Bush has done. I don't really understand why he's still there. Does anyone have any idea why we can't get rid of this guy who stole the election in 2000, killed the surplus with tax cuts –

 

ELISABETH HASSELBECK: According to Gore he stole it.

 

BEHAR: Wait a minute. It's very long. Wanting to privatize social security. Let me get through the list.

 

HASSELBECK: It's very long, so we might be here for a while.

 

BEHAR: We might be here for a while. I let you talk yesterday. Now I'm talking. And I love her, but let me do this. He withdrew us from the Kyoto Treaty, John Ashcroft. Sat in the classroom after learning about 9/11 --

 

HASSELBECK: So he was supposed to freak out the kids when he was reading to them, I suppose.

 

BEHAR: And read "My Pet Goat" for seven minutes after we were attacked on 9/11.

 

HASSELBECK: Right, he should have definitely panicked the children.

 

BEHAR: He lied to us to get us into the war. He awarded a no-bid contract to Halliburton, Abu Ghraib. He promoted his friend Michael Brown to take care of Katrina. Heck of a job, Brownie. Remember that? He doesn't listen to the Iraq Study Group. He choked on a pretzel. [laughter] He waited a week to visit New Orleans and then only to watch some jazz. He stood by Alberto Gonzales, who needs to be thrown out, we all know that, and he stood by Rumsfeld, who some people think is a war criminal. He can't pronounce the word "nuclear." [laughter] These are just some of the reasons -- [Applause] -- That this guy needs to be thrown out of office.

 

SHERRI SHEPHERD: Yes, but he didn't sleep with an intern.

 

[laughter]

 

BEHAR: Yes, but maybe he should.

 

HASSELBECK: No, he did not.

 

BEHAR: I'm just saying something is wrong in this country when we are continuing to support this administration. I am furious today over all of this and Al Gore makes me mad because he doesn't run. Now, he says in the interview yesterday with Larry King that he's not running because he thinks global warming is more important. Well, the president of the United States has more power than anybody in the world and he needs to run for office if he wants to fix global warming and get us out of this mess that we're in.

 

SHEPHERD: You think Al Gore could get us out, Al Gore?

 

BEHAR: Who else could? Who else could?

 

HASSELBECK: I knew I liked you, Sherri.

 

SHEPHERD: No I'm just saying, Al Gore, you know what he's talking about with the Green Peace and everything, but you really think Al Gore is the one to get us out of this mess?

 

BEHAR: Why not?

 

HASSELBECK: What's his plan to keep us safe other than, in terms of the evironment?

 

BEHAR: He has a plan, read the book. He has a lot of plans in that book.

 

HASSELBECK: I'm sure he does.

 

BEHAR: He doesn't just criticize the president. He also criticizes the media. He says when we had that O.J. Simpson trial, he thought that was an aberration and we would not be so stupid as to be watching nonsense like that constantly, that CNN was constantly doing. But it's not an aberration.

 

HASSELBECK: Isn't he using the media to promote his books and films?

 

BEHAR: And we watch "Dancing with the Stars" instead of dealing with what's going on--

 

HASSELBECK: No, not instead of, not instead of. You can watch "Dancing with the Stars" and also watch a lot of things that pertain to world politics, news safety, etcetera, absolutely.

 

BEHAR: How many people watched him speak on CNN? I'd like to know.

 

HASSELBECK: It's called Tivo.

 

BEHAR: I'm just wondering.

 

SHEPHERD: I'm sorry. I wanted to see Laila and Apollo, but I did.

 

HASSELBECK: I don't think you're a bad person.

 

BEHAR: I'm not saying you're a bad person. I'm just saying nobody is interested.

 

HASSELBECK: People are interested. They just can do it on their own time. We're in a situation now where technology allows us to do it.

 

BEHAR: We need to be furious. This country needs to be furious with what's going on.

 

[Applause]

 

HASSELBECK: It's called the election. You have- here is your opportunity, okay. You have, we're a democratic society, you have the election in 2008 to change things.

 

BEHAR: Do you know how much damage this guy can do in a year and a half? He can invade Iran for all I know.

 

HASSELBECK: With Congress now as is?

 

BEHAR: Congress cannot pass anything because he, he vetoes it and they can't override it because his cronies in the Republican party stick by this president for political reasons.

 

[applause]

 

HASSELBECK: They stick by him for not demanding a pullout date for the troops, which is essentially saying to your enemies, I don't know any team out there. I don't have any strategy that says-

 

BEHAR: He doesn't have a plan.

 

HASSELBECK: -Here is the date that we are going to leave.

 

ROSIE O'DONNELL: To our enemies?

 

HASSELBECK: To our enemies, this is when we are going to pull out.

 

O'DONNELL: The enemies in Iraq?

 

HASSELBECK: Al Qaeda.

 

O'DONNELL: Wait, the enemies in Iraq?

 

HASSELBECK: Al Qaeda.

 

BEHAR: He didn't even go after Osama Bin Laden when he was supposed to.

 

O'DONNELL: Elisabeth did, wait Joy. You just said our enemies in Iraq. Did Iraq attack us?

 

HASSELBECK: No. I'm saying Al Qaeda which is in Iraq.

 

O'DONNELL: Okay did Iraq talk us, Elisabeth?

 

HASSELBECK: Iraq did not attack us Rosie.

 

O'DONNELL: Correct.

 

HASSELBECK: We've been there before. I'm saying our enemies, Al Qaeda, are you hearing that?

 

O'DONNELL: I hear it. But where do you want to go?

 

BEHAR: This is a political discussion. Don't interview each other. Just say what you mean.

 

HASSELBECK: If you're playing a game, okay, if you're playing a game and I'm going to say okay I'm going to throw to my wide receiver, wide right, okay. Do you do that- what does it do for your enemy? It gives them time to plan.

 

O'DONNELL: If the enemy are innocent civilians, I don't want to play that kind of football.

 

[applause]

 

HASSELBECK: The enemy are not innocent civilians.

 

O'DONNELL: Iraq did not attack us!

 

BEHAR: Don't yell at each other. Please let's have a conversation.

 

O'DONNELL: You know why I don't want to do this, Joy? Let me tell you why I don't want to do this. Because it here's how it gets spun in the media: Rosie, big, fat, lesbian loud Rosie attacks innocent, pure, Christian Elisabeth.

 

BEHAR: Wait a minute. You don't have to, let me do it!

 

HASSELBECK: I haven't heard that line. Listen, I think it's unfair.

 

O'DONNELL: You should watch some of the shows you don't watch.

 

HASSELBECK: You accused me of watching all of those shows yesterday.

 

BEHAR: I'm okay arguing with Elisabeth.

 

O'DONNELL: You're just as sensitive when I'm hurt as I am when you were. Every time you were hurt, did I reach out to you?

 

BEHAR: Why is this personal? There's a war going on out there. It's not personal.

 

SHEPHERD: You know, this is why I like watching "Dancing with the Stars." This is exactly why.

 

[Applause]

 

HASSELBECK: I just don't understand why it's my fault if people spin words that you put out there or phrases that suggest things. And I gave you a opportunity, two days ago, to clarify the statement that got you in trouble on all those issues.

 

O'DONNELL: That, that got me in trouble. As a friend, you gave me the opportunity. That was very sweet of you. What I was asking is you, who actually knows me, do you believe I think our troops are terrorists, Elisabeth?

 

HASSELBECK: I don't think that you --

 

O'DONNELL: Yes or no?

 

HASSELBECK: I don't believe that you–

 

O'DONNELL: Do you believe that, yes or no?

 

HASSELBECK: Excuse me. Let me speak.

 

O'DONNELL: You're going to double speak. It's just a yes or no.

 

HASSELBECK: I am not a double speaker and I don't put suggestions out there that lead people to think things and then not answer my own question.

 

O'DONNELL: I have a question to you and you didn't answer it.

 

HASSELBECK: I don't believe that you believe troops are terrorists. I have said that before. But when you say something like 650,000 Iraqis are dead, we invaded them.

 

O'DONNELL: It's true.

 

HASSELBECK: Let me finish, "who are the terrorist?"

 

O'DONNELL: You don't like the facts.

 

HASSELBECK: I'm all about facts. You know that. You tell me not to use facts because you want me to go only on emotion. Guess what? I like facts.

 

O'DONNELL: You cherry pick the facts you like.

 

BEHAR: Did I or did I not give this panel a list of facts?

 

[Applause]

 

SHEPHERD: And you know what? Oh my gosh! We're going to be right back with Alicia Silverstone!

 

[applause]

 

O'DONNELL: No, no, no we're not. Because we have a lot more time.

 

BEHAR: If you want to change the subject, that's something.

 

HASSELBECK: People were criticizing you for saying that because it suggested-

 

BEHAR: Oh, my God!

 

HASSELBECK: I said take your opportunity now. You have a show right now to tell the world --

 

O'DONNELL: I did take my opportunity to tell the world. I wanted to know what people like you, but you are my friend, since September, do you believe that I think our troops are terrorists? And you would not even look me in the face, Elisabeth, and say no, Rosie.

 

HASSELBECK: What are you talking about?

 

O'DONNELL: "I can understand how people are would have thought that, why don't you take this opportunity" like I'm six.

 

HASSELBECK: Because you are an adult and I'm certainly not going to be the person for you to explain your thoughts to. They're your thoughts. Defend your own insinuations.

 

[applause]

 

O'DONNELL: I defend my thoughts.

 

HASSELBECK: Defend your own thoughts.

 

O'DONNELL: Right, but every time I defend them, Elisabeth, it's poor little Elisabeth that I'm picking on.

 

HASSELBECK: You know what? Poor little Elisabeth is not poor little Elisabeth.

 

O'DONNELL: That's right. That's why I'm not going to fight with you anymore because it's absurd. So for three weeks you can say all the Republican crap you want.

 

HASSELBECK: It's much easier to fight someone like Donald Trump, isn't it? Because he's obnoxious.

 

O'DONNELL: I've never fought him. He fought me. I told a fact about him --

 

BEHAR: How did I get out of this conversation? I was in the middle of this conversation.

 

HASSELBECK: I gave you an opportunity to clarify.

 

O'DONNELL: You didn't give me anything. You don't have to give me. I asked you a question.

 

HASSELBECK: I asked you a question.

 

O'DONNELL: And you wouldn't even answer it.

 

HASSELBECK: You wouldn't even answer your own question.

 

O'DONNELL: Oh Elisabeth, I don't want- you know what? You really don't understand what I'm saying?

 

HASSELBECK: I understand what you're saying.

 

BEHAR: Let's go. Come on that's it!

 

[Applause]

 

HASSELBECK: I think it's sad. I think it's sad because I don't understand how there can be such hurt feelings when all I did way say, "look, why don't you tell everybody what you said?" I did that as a friend

 

O'DONNELL: All you did is not defend me. I asked you if you believe that I thought--

 

HASSELBECK: You didn't answer your own question. I don't believe that you're defending-

 

O'DONNELL: Elisabeth, every day since September I have told you I support the troops.

 

HASSELBECK: I have done the same for you.

 

O'DONNELL: I asked you if you believed what the Republican pundits were saying.

 

HASSELBECK: Did I say yes?

 

O'DONNELL: You said nothing and that's cowardly.

 

HASSELBECK: No, no, no. Do not, do not call me a coward. Because number one, I sit here every single day and open my heart and tell people exactly what I believe. Do not call me a coward, Rosie. I do not hide. I was not cowardly. It was honest.

 

O'DONNELL: It was.

 

HASSELBECK: What is cowardly?

 

BEHAR: Is there no commercial on this show?

 

[Applause]

 

HASSELBECK: Asking, asking, I'll tell you what's cowardly. Asking a rhetorical question that you never answer yourself.

 

BEHAR: Who is directing this show? Let's go to commercial. Let's go to commercial.

 

HASSELBECK: I need a drink of water. Let's go to commercial.

 

BEHAR: Man oh man.

 

SHEPHERD: How is the baby? Is the baby-

 

HASSELBECK: The baby's fine.

 

 

Revolution

Immigration reform is in the news again, primarily because the new Congress
(that was supposed to have solved all of our problems by now) can't manage
to do anything else and has pretty much made a complete and utter ballsup of
their victory and all that was supposed to do, to rescue the constitution
and the country and end the war just by quitting. And let's be clear on
that. They aren't talking winning. They're talking losing... already lost in
fact, and uh.... we're just gonna quit. And that's supposed to be a good
thing. Don't get me wrong. I hate the fact that we're there. I hate the fact
that our soldiers are being slaughtered over there and their parliament can
take a vacation! Hello! Our blood is buying you time to fix your country.
You don't have time for a vacation! So yeah, I hate that we're losing a
generation of brave people. It really breaks my heart. But we made the damn
mess. We have to fix it. Quitting may get you reelected (and that's all
you're trying to do, isn't it?), but just as with all liberal policies,
somebody else pays for it later. You can't take the easy way out and expect
it to really work. You don't have a plan for the war or the country. You
have a plan to get some power and keep it. That's it. Nothing more. And so
yes, how about immigration reform. Well that's a case where you can appeal
to your voters/slaves, take the easy way, PC way out... and actually take
the best course. And that's because this country has, for so long, ignored
the flood of illegal immigrants, primarily from Mexico, and now we've got a
problem that won't be solved by doing what we should do. Twelve million
illegal immigrants (each one insisting that they aren't criminals. Please
explain that to me. How do you break a law but not be a criminal?) are now a
part of our economy. We need them. And even if they weren't a large part of
our economy, the sheer logistics of forcibly removing twelve million illegal
(non-criminal!?) immigrants makes the idea impractical. Probably impossible.
We'd need all the troops back from both wars to go through every state in
the union to go house to house checking for paperwork that is probably
forged anyway, and marching the illegals back where they came from. It is
impossible. So the best we can do is offer them a good enough deal so that
they'll present themselves for documentation. Then they go on a program that
puts them on a path to legality. Citizenship? Hell no. My wife is from New
Zealand, and she is jumping through hoops just to get a work permit. No way
in hell some criminal gets any easy way to citizenship. Amnesty? Hell no.
You broke the law. Admit it. Why is it you can't say the word ILLEGAL?

Really, what we need to do is look at why millions of mexicans are streaming
across the border... with the aid of the Mexican government. As a country,
Mexico is ridiculously rich, but the government is so corrupt that the
people do not benefit from that until they're trying to leave. It's an
absolute crime, and they've demonstrated through successive administrations
that it doesn't matter who is in charge. Nothing will change. How in hell
they can complain about US immigration policy is beyond me. That's like
Hitler complaining about how easy it was invade France. The fact is that
what needs to happen is a complete militarization of the southern border,
and then a change in Mexico. Not another election that changes nothing, but
in fact a bloody bloody revolution that really changes the country. The
Mexican government does nothing whatsoever to discourage its people from
running away... and they won't, because they're getting rich from that mass
evacuation. Shame on you, Mexican government. And Viva La Raza!

Visitors....

I have to say that I am fascinated to see where readers come from. I see that I have a viewer from Beirut, Lebanon. Please tell me how you found my site, and even if you disagree, what you think of what you see. Communication is really what makes things work in the world...


Kapact

What? He can't be a bigot!!!

Here's something for anyone who thinks that any liberal is a saint, or that a black person... (oh! Excuse me! An "African American"!) Can't, by definition, be a bigot.... It all comes from CNN... I didn't write it. But you should read it. 

 

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Civil rights activist Al Sharpton, who led the charge to have radio host Don Imus fired for making racially insensitive remarks, is now under fire for a comment about Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's Mormon faith.

During a debate on religion and politics at the New York Public Library with atheist author Christopher Hitchens, Sharpton said, "As for the one Mormon running for office, those that really believe in God will defeat him anyway, so don't worry about that. That's a temporary situation."

On the campaign trail in Iowa Wednesday, Romney fired back, calling Sharpton's comment "terribly misguided." (Watch Romney call Sharpton's words 'bigoted' )

"It shows that bigotry still exists in some corners," Romney said. "I thought it was a most unfortunate comment to make."

Asked if he thought Sharpton is a bigot, the former Massachusetts governor said, "I don't know Rev. Sharpton. I doubt he is personally such a thing. But the comment was a comment which could be described as a bigoted comment.

"Perhaps he didn't mean it that way, but the way it came out was inappropriate and wrong."

Sharpton said his remarks were being taken out of context and that he was responding to an attack by Hitchens, who, he said, had charged that the Mormon Church supported segregation until the 1960s.

"In no way did I attack Mormons or the Mormon Church when I responded that other believers, not atheists, would vote against Mr. Romney for purely political reasons," Sharpton said in a written statement.

He also accused Romney's campaign of engaging in "a blatant effort to fabricate a controversy to help their lagging campaign."

Sharpton told The Associated Press that "[Mormons] don't believe in God the way I do, but, by definition, they believe in God."

Sharpton was licensed as a minister in the Church of God in Christ, a predominantly black Pentecostal denomination, at the age of 9, according to a biography on the Web site of his National Action Network. He became a Baptist in the 1980s.

His debate Monday with Hitchens -- who is on a tour promoting a new book that rejects God -- revolved around religion and politics. Minutes before Sharpton's controversial comment was made, the discussion turned toward the idea of a Mormon running for president, then moved to a conversation about the role of faith in politics.

Romney is a member of the Utah-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, known informally as the Mormon Church. If elected, he would be the first Mormon to serve in the White House.

His religion has come up as an issue in the 2008 campaign because many conservative and evangelical Protestants, who make up an important constituency in the GOP base, do not consider Mormons to be Christians, because of their unique beliefs.

The LDS Church was founded in the 1830s by Joseph Smith -- revered by members as a prophet of God -- who taught that a new book of scripture, the Book of Mormon, had been revealed to him by an angel. Adherents eventually relocated to Utah in 1847, after Smith was killed by a mob in Illinois.

Some church leaders practiced plural marriage in the 19th century, but the church officially ended the practice in 1890 and has since excommunicated polygamists from its ranks.

The church has about 5 million adherents in the United States.

A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll last year found that 34 percent of Americans considered the LDS Church to be Christian, 35 percent did not and 31 percent were unsure. In a Gallup/USA Today poll in February, 72 percent of Americans said they would be comfortable voting for a Mormon for president, but 24 percent said they would not.

"I think it's sad, honestly," Republican strategist Ralph Reed said of the Sharpton controversy on CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360." "I don't think there's any place in politics for religious intolerance in any of its ugly forms.

"And I think if Gov. Romney took it that way, then whatever Al Sharpton meant, then I think the best thing to do and the most healing thing to do, so that we can have an uplifting dialogue about faith in the political and civic process, is for Rev. Sharpton to apologize."

Democratic strategist James Carville told Cooper he believes Sharpton when he says he didn't mean to disparage the Mormon faith.

"The main point here is that Mormons have served this country honorably and with integrity for a long, long time, and ... it would be a very big mistake not to vote for someone based on their faith -- Mormon faith or any other faith," Carville said.

Romney said Wednesday that he hears little concern about his religion from voters on the campaign trail.

"Overwhelmingly, the people I talk to believe that we elect a person to lead the nation not based on what church they go to, but based on their values and their vision," he said. "I received very little comment of the nature coming from Rev. Sharpton."

Hello New Zealand?

I've had very little contact from friends in New Zealand, which bothers me.
My relationship with that country has been at times a bit edgy, but I really
love that country and it's people. For those of you silent multitudes out
there who don't know, I'm an American married to a Kiwi lady. I was down
there for almost three years, Sadly for me, it was when America invaded
Iraq. And at the time, a girl I worked with asked me if I hated all Iraqis.
I said I didn't know them, so how could I hate them? I said it was a
decision by my government, really for the purpose of taking out a murderous
dictator and freeing the Iraqi people. She seemed to understand that. But
then there were idiots who threw food at me and swore at me... because of my
accent. My accent. Others backed me up in public and demanded to know how I
voted. There was even a Pastor who accepted an invitation into my home
before launching into a tirade against America and Americans. This was a
religious man. Do you see what I'm saying? I invited the man into my
home.... gave him a cup of coffee and a biscuit just so he could insult me
and my country. I even tried to agree with him, just to settle him down. All
it did was spur him on. And this enlightened, laid back bastion of liberal
love and tolerance treated me like a criminal based upon nothing but my
accent. And even so, I met lots of really nice people, and I'd love to go
back there. But I don't hear from my friends there. C'mon New Zealand! Don't
you have a comment? See, I worry that my rants have alienated my friends in
New Zealand. And I really believe that Islam is going to hit New Zealand,
and in a big way. Its already there, in Palmerston North. You could say that
a Mosque is harmless, but Islam has more than a Mosque in the south pacific.
The Bali bombings weren't accidents, and there were Kiwi's killed there. So
you know, they're close and getting closer. It's come out recently that some
bombings had been averted in Australia. So how can New Zealand just sit
there and ignore the threat that Islam openly presents? Really, what will it
take? Is it going to take a car bomb in Auckland to wake you up? Al Zawahiri
has been in your country. Some of the 9/11 hijackers trained in Palmerston
North. They've already killed some of you. So what will it take? An Air New
Zealand flight taking out the skytower? Al Qaeda bought an election in Spain
with a few explosives in a train station. Is that in the plan for New
Zealand? I'll tell you something that bothers me about what I see there, and
what I see here. At the same time we are really bending over backwards to
appease (and that is the word you should remember.... Google 'Neville
Chamberlain' and 'appeasement'. Toss in 'Adolf Hitler' while you're at it)
Islam, we are pre-judging (Google 'prejudice' too) Christians who are doing
nothing worse than alerting people to a grave threat. David W, you should
know that the Dannevirke News totally discounted your feedback to my column,
based on nothing but the fact that you're a Christian. I guess if you were a
Muslim they'd care about what you have to say. I guess if you preached an
intolerant religion that tells its followers to kill anyone with different
beliefs, you'd be worth acknowledgement. Take heart, Dave. New Zealand
hasn't been overrun. Yet. But the more silence the rest of the world gets
from New Zealand, the less time you have before a bomb goes off on one of
the islands. I will make a prediction, though. When the first bomb goes off,
Islam will not be blamed, even if they claim responsibility. Blame will be
pointed at the average Joe Blog, for not being more sensitive to the needs
of this 'peaceful religion'.

So. New Zealand... what do you have to say to that?

Why We Can't Believe Hillary...

 

 

            [The Houston Chronicle, 1995]

 

            Taking a weekend break from official duties on her Asian tour, the
            first lady escaped already-remote Katmandu and traveled two hours by
            prop plane, land rover and rowboat to the Tiger Tops Jungle Lodge.

 

            Later, she got to meet Sir Edmund Hillary, the first person to reach
            Mount Everest's summit in 1953.

 

            Sir Edmund Hillary, a frequent visitor and benefactor of Nepal since
            his historic trek, had a brief Hillary-to-Hillary handshake at the
            Katmandu airport before Clinton departed Sunday for Bangladesh.

 

            The first lady said her mother had read about the famous climber and
            knew his name had two L's.

 

            "So when I was born, she called me Hillary and she always told me,
            'It's because of Sir Edmund Hillary,'" Hillary Clinton reported.1

 

 

 

            [The New York Times, 1995]

 

            For her part, Mrs. Clinton confessed that her mother, Dorothy
            Rodham, had read an article about the intrepid Edmund Hillary, a
            one-time beekeeper who had taken to mountain climbing, when she was
            pregnant with her daughter in 1947 and liked the name.

 

            "It had two l's, which is how she thought she was supposed to spell
            Hillary," Mrs. Clinton told reporters after the brief meeting on the
            tarmac, minutes before her Air Force jet flew past the peak of
            Everest itself. "So when I was born, she called me Hillary, and she
            always told me it's because of Sir Edmund Hillary."2

 

      Origins:   During a stop in Nepal while on a south Asian goodwill tour in
      April 
      1995, First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton engaged in a brief (and reportedly
      coincidental) meeting with Sir Edmund Hillary (who, along with Tenzing
      Norgay, became the first person to reach the summit of the world's highest
      mountain, Mt. Everest, in 1953) and told reporters she had been named
      after the famed mountain climber. The notion that Ms. Clinton's given name
      was inspired by the man who conquered Everest was almost certainly a bit
      of fiction invented for political expediency (as many critics have noted,
      Edmund Hillary didn't become world-famous until six years after Hillary
      Rodham was born), but there are some subtleties to this claim which should
      be considered:
        Hillary Clinton said her mother, Dorothy Rodham, "had read an article
        about the intrepid Edmund Hillary, a one-time beekeeper who had taken to
        mountain climbing, when she was pregnant in 1947 and liked the name."
        Although it is true that Edmund Hillary did not perform the feat that
        made him a household name throughout the English-speaking world until
        1953 (by which time Hillary Rodham was already six years old), it is 
        not true, as many skeptics have asserted, that Edmund Hillary was
        nothing more than an obscure Auckland beekeeper until then. Even before
        World War II he was already a serious mountain climber who boasted to a
        friend that "some day I'm going to climb Everest," and by 1947 he was
        honing the necessary skills on the peaks of the Southern Alps. It's
        certainly possible young Edmund was profiled in some periodical as far
        back in 1947.

 

        However, how likely was Dorothy Rodham, a Chicago housewife, to have
        seen an article about a New Zealand mountain climber? We performed a
        comprehensive search of several major American newspapers (including the
        Chicago Tribune) and found that none of them made any mention of Edmund
        Hillary whatsoever prior to June 1953, so it's fair to say that the
        American media paid him little note prior to his successful assault on
        Mt. Everest that year.
        Whether or not Dorothy Rodham might have come across mention of Edmund
        Hillary in 1947, the story about her daughter's name doesn't quite jibe
        with the circumstances. Depending upon how one interprets Hillary
        Clinton's claim, either seeing Edmund Hillary's name in print inspired
        her mother to name her 'Hillary' (even though she came across it being
        used a surname rather than a first name), or it inspired her to use the
        less-common spelling of 'Hillary' rather than 'Hilary' when naming her
        daughter. However, 'Hilary' (spelled with one 'l') was a common woman's
        name which Dorothy Rodham would undoubtedly already have seen and heard
        hundreds of times before reading about Edmund Hillary, and the two-l
        spelling, while less common, was one she was far more likely to have
        encountered reading about persons (both male and female) much more
        prominent than Edmund Hillary in 1947, such as film actress Hillary
        Brooke and Cornell football and basketball star Hillary Chollet.
        The tidbit of information that Hillary Clinton was named for Edmund
        Hillary does not appear in any news stories about the First Lady written
        prior to her 1995 south Asian tour, and every appearance of it in news
        articles since then refers to that single 1995 account. If Hillary
        Clinton thought an anecdote about the origins of her name was
        entertaining enough to repeat to the press when she met Sir Edmund
        Hillary in 1995, how come she never mentioned it at any other time,
        before or since?

 

        Moreover, none of the many Hillary Clinton biographies we checked so
        much as mentioned the story, not even Living History, her 2003
        autobiography. A staggering amount of information has been published
        about Hillary Rodham Clinton in her lifetime (going all the way back to
        her days as a Wellesley College graduate in 1969, when she was featured
        in Life magazine); that she disclosed a basic fact such as how she got
        her name only once in all that time is rather incredible. (The only
        other mention of Hillary Clinton's connection to Edmund Hillary was made
        by her husband, former president Bill Clinton, in his 2004
        autobiography.)
      We opined back in 2003 that Hillary Clinton's claim about being Edmund
      Hillary's namesake might not have been completely false since she didn't
      say she was actually named for the mountain climber, but rather that her
      mother told her she was named for him — a minor but important distinction
      given how often parents make up harmless little fibs to amuse their
      children or misremember past events. Indeed, in October 2006 this was the
      excuse a spokesperson for her campaign provided in officially discounting
      the story:
      For more than a decade, one piece of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's
      informal biography has been that she was named for Sir Edmund Hillary, the
      conqueror of Mount Everest. The story was even recounted in Bill Clinton's
      autobiography.

 

      But yesterday, Mrs. Clinton's campaign said she was not named for Sir
      Edmund after all.

 

      "It was a sweet family story her mother shared to inspire greatness in her
      daughter, to great results I might add," said Jennifer Hanley, a
      spokeswoman for the campaign. 3
      We still find this explanation rather incredible. In order to accept it,
      one has to believe that only after Hillary Clinton was nearly 60 years
      old, and only after she had been pilloried in the press for more than ten
      years for claiming she had been named after someone who was virtually
      unknown in the U.S. at the time of her birth, and only after her husband
      had unknowingly presented the fictitious story as true in his own
      autobiography, did her mother finally confess that the "sweet family
      story" she told her daughter wasn't the truth. (Hillary Clinton doesn't
      have the excuse that other people were spreading a falsehood about her, as
      she herself was the one who initiated the claim back in 1995.)

 

 

     

Reagan Wannabes

I saw on the news today that the Republican presidential hopefulls are
holding a.debate at the Reagan library. This is wonderful symbolism... and
worthy of their liberal apponents. They are all claiming the Reagan legacy,
but none of them really seem to understand what it was about Reagan so
great. The Republican party that Reagan took to greatness is not the
Republican party of today. Reagan had courage and vision. He loved this
country, and he loved democracy. He was brave and bold and unapologetic. He
knew that the only way to succeed is to shout your beliefs from the
rooftops, and to have no time for your opponent's attempts to cut you down.
He also understood that even though we may disagree, we are all Americans.
We are all a family, and we all deserve respect from each other. Reagan may
have done battle with his liberal opponents, but he left the fight at the
office. He understood and appreciated the dignity that went with the office
of the president. He looked and acted like a president. He was worthy of the
presidents before him. And I'll tell you something else. He understood how
the world worked. He understood the concept of attacking our enemies
ruthlessly... but effectively. He understood Sun Tzu. Ultimate excellence
lies not in winning every battle, but in defeating the enemy without ever
fighting.

Islam at College

I took this straight from the American Congress for Truth. I didn't write it. But you should read it...

 

Is college using a double standard on 'entanglement' with religion?

By Katherine Kersten

Cultural clashes involving Islam have recently made headlines in Minnesota. At the airport, some Muslim taxi drivers refuse to transport passengers carrying alcohol; at Target stores, some Muslim cashiers won't scan pork products. Now there's a new point of friction: Minneapolis Community and Technical College.

Its officials say the college, a public institution, has a strict policy of not promoting religion or favoring one religion over another. "The Constitution prevents us from doing this in any form," says Dianna Cusick, director of legal affairs.

But that seems to depend on your religion.

Where Christianity is concerned, the college goes to great lengths to avoid any hint of what the courts call "entanglement" or support of the church. Yet the college is planning to install facilities for Muslims to use in preparing for daily prayers, an apparent first at a public institution in Minnesota.

Separation of church and state is clearest at the college during the Christmas season. A memo from Cusick and President Phil Davis, dated Nov. 28, 2006, exhorted supervisors to banish any public display of holiday cheer: "As we head into the holiday season ... "all public offices and areas should refrain from displays that may represent to our students, employees or the public that the college is promoting any particular religion." Departments considering sending out holiday cards, the memo added, should avoid cards "that appear to promote any particular religious holiday."

Last year, college authorities caught one rule-breaker red-handed. A coffee cart that sells drinks and snacks played holiday music "tied to Christmas," and "complaints and concerns" were raised, according to a faculty e-mail. College authorities quickly quashed the practice.

They appear to take a very different attitude toward Islam. Welcome and accommodation are the order of the day for the college's more than 500 Muslim students. The college has worked with local Muslim leaders to ensure that these students' prayer needs and concerns are adequately addressed, Davis told me.

Muslim prayer is an increasingly controversial issue. Many Muslim students use restroom sinks to wash their feet before prayer. Other students have complained, and one Muslim student fell and injured herself while lifting her foot out of a sink.

Some local Muslim leaders have advised the college staff that washing is not a required practice for students under the circumstances, according to Davis. Nevertheless, he says, he wants to facilitate it for interested students. "It's like when someone comes to your home, you want to be hospitable," Davis told me. "We have new members in our community coming here; we want to be hospitable."

So the college is making plans to use taxpayer funds to install facilities for ritual foot-washing. Staff members are researching options, and a school official will visit a community college in Illinois to view such facilities while attending a conference nearby. College facilities staff members are expected to present a proposal this spring.

In Davis' view, the foot-washing plan does not constitute promotion or support of religion. "The foot-washing facilities are not about religion, they are about customer service and public safety," he says. He sees no significant difference between using public funds to construct prayer-related facilities for Muslim students and the cafeteria's provision of a fish option for Christian students during Lent.

College officials claim that the restrictions on Christmas displays apply to employees who are state agents, and so are subject to more restrictions, while students are free to express their religious beliefs.

But where the Muslim prayer facilities are concerned, college authorities themselves are consulting with religious leaders, researching other schools, and using taxpayer money to make improvements to facilitate one group's prayer.

Issues surrounding the intersection of church and state and religious accommodation are complex. But the college's treatment of Christianity and Islam seems to reflect a double standard.

It's hard to imagine the college researching and paying for special modifications to the college to facilitate Christian rituals. And the "safety" justification? Imagine if a particularly strict group of Christian students found it necessary to sometimes baptize others in the restroom sinks. Would the school build them a baptism basin because a student hit his head on a sink?

WMD's in Iraq

Cyanide Salt Block Found in Iraq

Tuesday, February 03, 2004

WASHINGTON A 7-pound block of cyanide salt (search) was discovered by U.S.
troops in Baghdad at the end of January, officials confirmed to Fox News.

The potentially lethal compound was located in what was believed to be the
safe house of Abu Musab Zarqawi (search), a poisons specialist described by
some U.S. intelligence officials as having been a key link between deposed
Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and the Al Qaeda (search) terror network.

Cyanides salts are extremely toxic. According to the U.S. Department of
Energy's Ames Laboratory, exposure to even a small amount through contact or
inhalation can cause immediate death.

Zarqawi, believed to have been operating in Iraq before March's invasion,
was still being sought by coalition forces. It was not clear if anyone had
been apprehended in connection with last month's find.

Early last year, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell (search) detailed
Zarqawi's significance in an appearance before the U.N. Security Council.

"Iraq today harbors a deadly terrorist network headed by Abu Musab Zarqawi,
an associate and collaborator of Usama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda
lieutenants," Powell said.

Zarqawi was described as a poisons expert with strong ties to the former
Iraqi regime and the terrorist groups Al Qaeda and Ansar al-Islam. A
Palestinian born in Jordan who fought in Afghanistan more than a decade ago,
Zarqawi returned to Afghanistan in 2000 to oversee terrorist training camps,
Powell told the Security Council.

"One of his specialties at the camp was poisons," Powell said. "When our
coalition ousted the Taliban, the Zarqawi network helped establish another
poison and explosives training center."

Zarqawi is believed to have begun establishing terror cells in and around
Baghdad prior to the start of the war last March, and is thought by U.S.
officials to still be in the country.

U.S. officials, who said they were getting new intelligence in the hunt for
Zarqawi, also believe he had been attempting to produce large quantities of
the toxin ricin in northern Iraq. www.foxnews.com

Positive test for terror toxins in Iraq

MSNBC.com finds signs of ricin, botulinum at Islamic militants' camp
Tests like those used by U.N. weapons inspectors gave positive results for
the toxins ricin and botulinum in a training camp linked to al-Qaida.

EXCLUSIVE
By Preston Mendenhall
MSNBC

SARGAT, Iraq, April 4 MSNBC.com tests reveal evidence of the deadly toxins
ricin and botulinum at a laboratory in a remote mountain region of northern
Iraq allegedly used as a terrorist training camp by Islamic militants with
ties to the al-Qaida terrorist network. The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency
is conducting its own tests at the same area, but has not yet released the
results, according to officials in northern Iraq.

MSNBC.COM'S TESTS were conducted over a two-day period at Sargat, an alleged
terrorist training camp a mile from the Iraq-Iran border. The camp, set back
in an isolated valley and surrounded by snowcapped peaks, was home to the
radical Islamic militant group Ansar al-Islam, which counts among its some
700 followers scores of al-Qaida fighters.
In a Feb. 5 speech to the U.N. Security Council, U.S. Secretary of State
Colin Powell showed a satellite photo of the Sargat camp and described Ansar
al-Islam as "teaching its operatives how to produce ricin and other
poisons." U.S. officials have repeated the allegations in recent weeks.
In an operation timed to coincide with the war on Iraq, U.S. special
operations forces have targeted Ansar al-Islam's militants in northern Iraq.
Hundreds of Islamists, including al-Qaida fighters who took refuge in
northern Iraq after the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan, have been
killed.
Although U.S. officials for months have leveled charges that the Ansar
al-Islam and al-Qaida militants were producing poisons in northern Iraq, it
wasn't until this week that specialist American teams were able to gain
access to the Sargat camp to test for traces of biological and chemical
weapons.
Experts believe the Islamic group was producing the substances in the camp
as both toxins can be created from everyday products and simple procedures.

TERRORISTS TEMPTED BY TOXINS
MSNBC.com's samples of ricin and botulinum, two deadly biological agents,
were taken from the soles of a boot and a shoe recovered from the Sargat
camp. The facility has been flattened by several Tomahawk cruise missiles,
fired as part of the U.S. campaign against Ansar al-Islam.

The thick rubber boot twice tested positive for ricin, a toxin derived from
castor beans. Ingesting a pinch of ricin, which causes shock and respiratory
failure, can kill a human being within 72 hours. There is no cure.
A black running shoe, shredded by the U.S. bombing, tested positive for
botulinum. U.S. officials say terrorists have a particular interest in
botulinum and ricin toxins, which may be delivered through release in food
and water.
Botulism, the illness resulting from botulinum ingestion, is a
muscle-paralyzing disease that can cause a person to stop breathing and die,
according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.
Since Sept. 11, 2001, law enforcement officials have seen an increase in
attempts to produce deadly toxins like ricin and botulinum.
In Britain, anti-terrorism authorities in January charged four men with
producing deadly agents after they found traces of ricin in a north London
apartment. More than a dozen arrests have been made in the investigation.

On Thursday, the FBI issued a warning to Americans that deadly agents like
ricin and botulinum could be used to contaminate the nation's water or food
supply.
And in France, police are on alert after recently finding traces of ricin in
flasks in a train station locker in Paris.
The territory of northern Iraq where the traces of ricin were detected is
not under the control of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
Baghdad admitted to U.N. weapons inspectors in the 1990s that it had
successfully weaponized ricin, botulinum and anthrax. There is no immediate
evidence that suggests Saddam's regime provided the easily produced toxins
to Ansar al-Islam or al-Qaida.
A test for anthrax at the Sargat camp gave a negative result.

Random Rants

One of the things I like about NOT writing for the Dannevirke News is that I
don't have to try to explain to Kiwi's why they should care about what's
happening, say, anywhere else in the world. You know, I catch a fair amount
of flak from people from other countries about what they call "Planet
America". While I admit that many Americans don't know much about the rest
of the world, that does not justify someone coming here from another country
and being rude. Last time I heard, it wasn't nice to go in someone's house
and be rude. But it seems that if you're an American, you can do no right,
and if you're from anywhere else, you can do no wrong. Sorry, international
folks, but I've met enough of you coming here on a vacation to form an
opinion. Most are great, just basic folks, but others are unforgivably rude.
Even while overseas I was sometimes treated horribly. By supposedly
enlightened, supposedly open-minded island folks.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi really pulled a Jane Fonda going to Syria last
week. What she did was directly contradict the official stand of the US
government. The idea, I think, is to try to make the Executive Branch
irrelevant, and to garner votes for next time. What she did was legitimize a
murderous regime... even as political prisoners were being tortured. Did she
address that? No. Even Amnesty International condemns the Syrian regime. But
Pelosi doesn't have a problem with it. Liberals are so bent on revenge for
losing power for so long that the only thing they care about getting that
power back, They can't form a coherent strategy for the war in Iraq. They
continue to insist that Iraq is in chaos and just getting worse (ignoring
the improvements happening every day), and yet, think that the smartest
thing we can do is pull out. Set a timeline. A date to tell the enemy when
they can take over. Some qualify it by saying we'll just 'redeploy'. Pull
back, and come back in just if we have to. Tell me, which is smarter?
Staying around to put out a fire, or pulling out and waiting for it to
overwhelm the country before we come back in. They like to compare Iraq to
Vietnam, assuming that the American public is stupid and short-sighted
enough to just think that means a quagmire that we can't win. But the fact
is that we were winning in Vietnam until the liberal press joined the chorus
of pot-smoking hippies and California lefties to condemn the war, and spread
propoganda that said we were losing, that we couldn't win, and that our
troops over there were nothing but baby killers. The liberals took over the
war, and subverted the will of the country to fight. We pulled out, allowing
a murderous regime to take over. So yes, in that sense, Iraq is, so far, a
great deal like Vietnam. And they'd like it to be more. Now, I'd like to
think that they honestly believe the manure they're shovelling. Because then
they don't stand a chance of getting elected, and at least we don't have the
antichrist number 3 in line for the White House. Better to have an idiot
than the antichrist. But only just.

Hey, all you people out there, I'd like to know what you think about illegal
immigration. Because I just saw something on the news that blew my mind. The
IRS knows that it deals with illegals. What does it say? It says it is not
its job to identify or deal with illegals. All they do is collect money. I
think the idiot they spoke to (and let me just apologize quickly to all the
normal hard working idiots out there. Don't be offended because I grouped
you in with an IRS scuzz) said something about there being no bleeding over
of information between the IRS and Homeland Security. Let me just repeat
this, in case all the IRS agents didn't get it. HOMELAND SECURITY. We are
failing to connect the dots. CONNECT THE DOTS. Sound familiar?? How stupid
and short sighted can a government employee be? That's a great question.
This idiot (again, apologies to all of you hard working honest idiots out
there) doesn't care that he could be dealing with Osama Bin Laden. He just
wants his cut. So the thought here is that greed... the almighty dollar is
still more important than anything else. Even HOMELAND SECURITY. And just in
case you think we don't have to worry about people taking advantage of the
open borders we have to north and south, think on this. Hitler tried to get
Mexico to help him invade the US. And Google "Jafar the Pilot". I'm not a
racist. Hell no. I know that we've let the problem go on for so long that
we're stuck with an estimated twelve million illegals. But can we not at
least use just a pinch of common sense here? Maybe compare notes? I don't
care where an illegal comes from. I don't want them here. I don't want them
to get amnesty. I don't even want their tax money. I want them out! But
since they've hijacked our economy, we have to at least keep track of them.
Know who they are, and keep an eye on their border crossings. Don't like it,
illegal? Get out. Want to stay? Follow the rules.

More next time.

Democrats Demand Inquiry Into How They're Doing So Far

Democrats Demand Inquiry Into How They're Doing So Far

Iraq, Afghanistan, Mister X, Michael Moore, President Nut Job and the Mahdi

I've been out for a while... massive computer problems.

Cheers

________________________________________________________

This is for Mister X, as well as anyone interested in uncensored opinions.
Disclaimer first. Some of this comes from various sources on the internet.
Saving you all the trouble of clicking on links. And I got the idea of
calling President Ahmadinejad President Tom from CNN's Glenn Beck. Seemed
like a good idea.

You know, the internet is nothing but a global bucket that people dump their
info into. I just put up a spam blocker on it to stop the spam bots from
putting links to porno/spyware/viruses in the comments. And I didn't know it
restricts your comment to 300 words. I wouldn't say so much that it
restricts freedom of speech... just encourages brevity. You can say more.
Just break it up in blocks of 300 words. And if you want to have a bit of
fun, throw in the word 'bomb' every once in a while. Wake up the internet
spies.

As for Iran, the fact is, if it didn't have oil, nobody would care about it.
They are killers and thugs fighting and killing and terrorizing because they
can't sell their program honestly. Think the US government is working to
ensure a constant flow of oil from the gulf? You bet. Like it or not, (and I
personally hate it), our economy and our security is dependent on oil, and
it's my government's job to see that we get it. And no, we aren't looking
for an excuse to go to war with Iran. At least not until we're finished with
Iraq. :) Just kidding. The idea, as far as I know, was to install
democracies on either side of Iran, and to let them know that bad behavior
will result in punishment. Also, Iraq did, during the first Gulf War,
demonstrate that it had a chemical weapons program. Refrigerators labeled
"Anthrax" pretty much proved that. And the long line of trucks that ran like
hell from Iraq to Syria in the hours leading up to the invasion makes me
think that there may still have been some. Weapons of mass destructions
don't have to be nukes. And even if Saddam didn't have any WMD, doesn't mean
he wasn't working on them. He was. Everyone knows that. He'd already used
them on the Kurds... his own people. So he was a murderous thug who used
WMD. Better off dead. And now there's chaos over there. Sure. But the man
who really knows what's happening over there says that A) there are also
signs of progress over there... two elections and a constitution aren't bad,
considering there were decades of tyranny under Saddam Hussein, and B), what
they are trying to do over there is comparable to trying to fix an airplane
while it's in the air. And the leftist media here takes joy in reporting
everything that goes wrong. What is essentially an attempt to rewrite a
region (a good idea or not, justified or not) is not something that is going
to happen in a few years. People today don't understand that real change can
take decades. They want instant results and instant gratification. And if
the hard work that they all needed to get done takes longer than a few
weeks, suddenly people don't support it. Losers. And as for Afghanistan,
tell me this. If the government of, Singapore had openly supported a
terrorist group that flew a jetliner packed with people and jet fuel into
Parliament, would New Zealand be justified in invading Singapore? Of course.
Just because a country has a pipeline going through it doesn't mean we
aren't justified in whacking it if it sponsors terrorists who attack our
country. And despite all of the two-bit conspiracy theorists on the
internet, what everyone saw happen really is what happened. The people
responsible for it admitted to it. The government didn't know about it in
advance. That's just nuts. There are as many conspiracy theories out there
as there are IP addys. Show me one piece of hard solid evidence that will
stand up in court. You've quoted some interesting websites, featuring people
who don't, to my mind, have any credibility. It's easy to muckrake and throw
bombs (hello internet spies!)... when you don't allow your accusees (is that
a word?) to answer you. No, my worthy Mister X. I didn't see any effort in
any of those sites to allow anyone to defend themselves. If I'm wrong,
that's okay. Show me, and I'll retract. In the case of the Taliban and Al
Qaeda, they admitted it. They bragged about it. If you are saying that we
went to Afghanistan because of oil and not because of 9/11, it really makes
me think that you will think the worst of US motivation, no matter what
happens. I appreciate your opinions, as well as your communication. Keep it
up. The Dannevirke News may not want to print things that don't fit into the
politically correct goose-stepping Neo-fascism that is today's liberalism,
or that maybe encourage people in a small corner of the world to pull their
collective heads out of the sand (did you think I was going to say something
else? :)..), or maybe they're happy to ban talk that sheds light on one
intolerant, murderous religion while ridiculing and stifling the words of
another (Mister David W can back me up on that) peaceful religion. I don't
know. Small towns can be strange places, and to be blunt, there is that 'big
fish in a small pond' syndrome that can affect people in a bad way. I'm not
saying bigger is better. Just talking about small minds. They are bad. But
Mister X, you have actually taken the time and effort to engage me in
conversation. I respect that, and appreciate it.

So how about the poppy fields in Afghanistan? Resurgent Taliban are counting
on those same poppy fields to fund their spring offensive. I'd say their
convictions have taken a turn. It just gets harder and harder to support
them. And I don't know if Condi has an oil tanker named for her. I don't
obsess over oil, and I don't assume that anyone connected with it is evil.
Hey, you know, one the liberal movement's biggest champs, Michael Moore,
lied about owning Haliburton stock. Yeah. Sorry to break that to you. And
Mister X, if you don't know about M. Moore, you should get to know him. He
hates Bush, big oil (except for himself), and conservatives.

Do you really want to know what Iran has to gain from starting WW3? Nothing.
But Iran the country and the people aren't the ones trying to start it.
President Ahmadenijad... I'll just call him President Tom, to save time,
doesn't care about his country, or its people, or its culture. You have to
understand that his aims are not political. They're religious. He wants to
bring about a certain kind of apocalypse. One of the responsibilities of a
nuclear power is to play, well, responsibly. How can you do that? First,
appreciate the fact that nukes are horrible things that can wipe out entire
cultures. That may seem hypocritical, but in fact it isn't. We didn't drop
atomic bombs on Japan because we were renegade cowboys looking to create a
new world order by wiping out a nation - we dropped them because we wanted
to END the war; we dropped them because studies showed that fewer Americans
and Japanese would be killed if we did.

President Tom believe that killing hundreds of millions of people will help
create the chaos he needs to bring back the Mahdi - or his version of the
Messiah, and the fact that he's also starting a nuclear program is NOT a
coincidence.

Princeton's Bernard Lewis (the Cleveland E. Dodge professor emeritus of Near
Eastern Studies at Princeton University, specializes in Muslim history and
interaction between Muslims and the West) has written an opinion piece in
the Wall Street Journal advising that the rest of the world would be wise to
bear in mind that for those who believe the end of the world is imminent and
good, there is no deterrent even to nuclear warfare.

As WorldNetDaily has reported, Iranian President Tom has urged his people to
prepare for the coming of an Islamic "messiah," raising concerns a
nuclear-armed Islamic Republic could trigger the kind of global
conflagration he envisions will set the stage for the end of the world.

He's also said, in a WND report, that Islam and its followers must prepare
to rule the world, because it is a "universal ideology that leads the world
to justice."

"In this context, mutual assured destruction, the deterrent that worked so
well during the Cold War, would have no meaning," Lewis wrote. "At the end
of time, there will be general destruction anyway. What will matter will be
the final destination of the dead - hell for the infidels, and heaven for
the believers.

"For people with this mindset, MAD is not a constraint, it is an
inducement," he said.

His apocalypse just might coincide with an Islamic tradition when many
Muslims commemorate the night flight of the prophet Muhammad on the winged
horse Buraq, first to 'the farthest mosque,' usually identified with
Jerusalem, and then to heaven and back.

In Islam, as in other religious, certain beliefs describe the "cosmic
struggle" at the end of time. For Shiite Muslims, Lewis wrote, this will be
"the long awaited return of the Hidden Imam, ending in the final victory of
the forces of good over evil."

The significance, he said, is that there's a "radical" difference between
Iran and other governments with nuclear weapons.

"This difference is expressed in what can only be described as the
apocalyptic worldview of Iran's present rulers," he wrote. Iran's leaders
now "clearly believe that this time is now, and that the terminal struggle
has already begun and is indeed well advanced."

As for intent, a passage from the Ayatollah Khomeini, quoted in an
11th-grade Iranian schoolbook, reveals priorities: "I am decisively
announcing to the whole world that if the world-devourers (i.e., the infidel
powers) wish to stand against our religion, we will stand against their
whole world and will not cease until the annihilation of all them. Either we
all become free, or we will go to the greater freedom which is martyrdom."

Lewis wrote, "This might well be deemed an appropriate date for the
apocalyptic ending of Israel and if necessary the world."

History has proven that truly evil people all have one thing in common -
they don't hide their intentions; they don't try to be coy about their
plans. Hitler wasn't, and neither is President Tom; we just have to take
them at the word.

Also, "Atomic Iran" author Jerome Corsi notes (referring to the
Israel/Lebanon war) that it's less significant whether Hezbollah survives,
"but it's really the first chapter in the play for Iran and the Shiite Islam
nation to come to ascendancy in the Muslim world."

First is the battle against Israel and the United States, he said, then
against Sunni Islam. Where that group is more dominant, he said, is in Saudi
Arabia and Egypt, where group members are "not unhappy to see Iran
contained."

In the updated edition of "Atomic Iran: How the Terrorist Regime Bought the
Bomb and American Politicians," now available in paperback from WND Books,
Corsi discusses many of the disturbing developments related to Iran.

Meanwhile, Tanzanian customs officials have uncovered an Iranian smuggling
operation transporting large quantities of bomb-making uranium from the same
mines in the Congo that provided the nuclear material for the atomic bomb
dropped on Hiroshima 61 years ago, according to a recent report in the
London Sunday Times.

A United Nations report, outlining the interception last October, said there
is "no doubt" the smuggled uranium-238 came from mines in the Democratic
Republic of the Congo's mineral-rich Katanga province.

The smuggled uranium discovered by Tanzanian customs agents was hidden in
shipment of coltan, a rare mineral used to make chips in mobile telephones.
According to the manifest, the coltan was to be smelted in the former Soviet
republic of Kazakhstan after being shipped to Bandar Abbas, Iran's largest
port.

Uranium-238, when used in a nuclear reactor, can be used to create plutonium
for nuclear weapons.

And Like a Good Neighbor...

This may come as a surprise to you, but I've been thinking lately that what the world truly needs is for its leaders, meaning the leaders of our countries (for the most part) is to move out of armed camps and actually be prepared to sit down and talk to each other. With the exception of some radical states that worry me greatly, most countries want the same. Peace and prosperity. Some countries may go about that in different ways, and a fault of the democratic system is that sometimes less-than-qualified, or less-than-honest people find their way into power. But democracies tend to have cheques and balances built in, guaranteeing that no lone person can do irrepairable damage. So again, we are all basically the same, and yet, we tend not to be identified by our similarities, but rather by our differences. Is it because the healthy idea of competition has made the world stage a horse race, where we feel compelled to come out on top regardless of the effect on the world wide culture? Or is it because we fail to realize that just as we are economically and ecologically interdependent, we are also culturally interdependent? Can we truly say that our neighbors behavior does not affect us, or vice-versa? I think we all recognize that cultural, behavioral interdependence. Otherwise New Zealand wouldn't care much what America does, and nobody would care that what was the KGB would seem to be back in control of Russia, and Smiert Spionem (death to spies) is back in fashion over there. No, we do care. We have to care. Because, (and I'm adapting the old saying for the sake of political correctness and gender neutrality), we all are our neighbor's keeper. And yet, if our neighbor says or does something we find disagreeable, do we ring them up and sort it out over tea and scones? No. Suddenly we're an armed camp, and we shout our neighbor down until they give up or we've satisfied our righteous indignation, and we can just quietly grumble about 'what they're doing over there, and someday, I'll...'. Folks, if you really care, don't shout in protest. people generally cover their ears to get away from the noise. Talk. Discuss. Be a good neighbor.

Censorship!

I was having what I considered to be an abstract discussion of censorship
and infringement of freedom of speech rights with a rather liberal sparring
partner I'll call Mister X when I was suddenly slapped in the face by
censorship myself. The Dannevirke News, a small supplement to the Hawkes Bay
Today, has decided that I need to stop talking about the war. I need to
concentrate on local things. Well, is a street in Palmerston North local
enough? Because radical and threatening Islam is there. Do we need a suicide
bomber to tear apart a few shops on High Street before this becomes local?
And what war exactly was I talking about? I didn't mention Iraq. Not
recently anyway. And while I know that New Zealand media (which answers to
their government) has no love of America, and has predictably marched in
lockstep with the United Nations for years (mostly under the gone,
unlamented criminal Kofi Annan), this issue of censorship isn't about the
war in Iraq. It's about the liberal PC threat that I mentioned in my last
rant. You don't want to hear the word Nazi?? It's all well and good to bury
your head in the sand. You can pretend that bad things don't exist. You can
forget that sixty years ago you were on the verge of becoming a small part
of the Japanese Empire, (who would have been eventually conquered by the
Nazis anyway). You can even forget that terrorists are killing people in the
south pacific and that Ahmadenijad has promised to KILL YOU. But remember
this. When you ignore evil, it comes back. When you turn your back on evil,
it tends to bite you in the ass. Now... censor that.

Iran Declares War

The following come from AP wire reports, available on the internet to anyone who cares to look:

 

8:44 p.m. PT Oct 20, 2006

TEHRAN, Iran - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Friday threatened any country that supports Israel, and said the United States and its allies had "imposed a group of terrorists" on the region with their support of Israel.

 

The Iranian leader also called the U.N. Security Council "illegitimate," ahead of the planned circulation of a draft resolution on Iran next week.

 

Diplomats have said they would seek limited sanctions on Tehran for its refusal to suspend uranium enrichment  a key process that can produce either fuel for a nuclear reactor or the material for a warhead.

 

Ahmadinejad's comments came a day after Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's strongest words to date about Iranian threats. Olmert warned that Iran would have "a price to pay" if it does not back down from its nuclear ambitions  hinting broadly that Israel might be forced to take action.

 

'This is an ultimatum'

Speaking to tens of thousands of supporters at a pro-Palestinian rally in the capital, Tehran, the Iranian leader addressed Israel's allies: "It is in your own interest to distance yourself from these criminals... This is an ultimatum. Don't complain tomorrow."

 

Dozens of rallies were held across Iran for "Al-Quds Day," the Arabic name for Jerusalem. Many became anti-American protests as well, criticizing U.S. support for Israel.

 

"We have advised the Europeans that the Americans are far away, but you are the neighbors of the nations in this region. We inform you that the nations are like an ocean that is welling up, and if a storm begins, the dimensions will not stay limited to Palestine, and you may get hurt," he said.

 

In 1981, the late Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini declared the last Friday of the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan as "Al-Quds Day," a day of protest to show the importance of Jerusalem to Muslims. Jerusalem is the third holiest site in Islam after the Saudi Arabian cities of Mecca and Medina.

 

A banner in Tehran carried a quote from the late Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini: "Quds is part of Islam's body."

 

Protests also were planned in Egypt and Lebanon.

 

Ahmadinejad, who has a history of similarly fiery rhetoric, said Israel no longer had any reason to exist and would soon disappear.

 

"This regime, thanks to God, has lost the reason for its existence," he said.

 

"Efforts to stabilize this fake (Israeli) regime, by the grace of God, have completely failed... You should believe that this regime is disappearing," he said.

 

Since Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took office in 2005, he has caused outrage in the West with his provocative statements about Israel. Here is a sampling of his more memorable words.

 

Oct. 2006

"The Zionist regime is counterfeit and illegitimate and cannot survive."

 

May 2006

Israel is "a regime based on evil that cannot continue and one day will vanish."

 

April 2006

"The Zionist regime is an injustice and by its very nature a permanent threat. Whether you like it or not, the Zionist regime is heading toward annihilation. The Zionist regime is a rotten, dried tree that will be eliminated by one storm."

 

April 2006

"We say that this fake regime (Israel) cannot not logically continue to live. Open the doors (of Europe) and let the Jews go back to their own countries."

 

Dec. 2005

"They have invented a myth that Jews were massacred... If you have burned the Jews, why don't you give a piece of Europe, the United States, Canada or Alaska to Israel... Why should the innocent nation of Palestine pay for this crime?"

 

Oct. 2005

"Israel must be wiped off the map... The establishment of a Zionist regime was a move by the world oppressor against the Islamic world."

 

Anyone who insists that the Iranian regime is not a declared threat to the rest of the world is living in a cave, or has their head very firmly buried in the sand. Or do they simply believe that Iran has spent more than thirty years pursuing nuclear technology, including weaponry, but won't use it on neighbor that it has vowed to destroy? They used chemical weapons on Iraq during the Iran/Iraq war, and they'll stop at nothing in the war they've declared on Israel and the west. And if you don't they've declared war on the west, I'll repeat this quote:

 

"We have advised the Europeans that the Americans are far away, but you are the neighbors of the nations in this region. We inform you that the nations are like an ocean that is welling up, and if a storm begins, the dimensions will not stay limited to Palestine, and you may get hurt,"

 

One note to Bob, "Mister X". I've read through your links in great detail, and while I admire the effort you've expended in researching your subject, I think that the very fact you found this information demonstrates that the lack of freedom of speech that you attribute to the current Bush administration is either non existent or ineffective. Hitler was much better at it. The best comparison that the western world has to Nazi-type suppression of free speech is the liberal PC crowd that tells us not only what we can or can't say, but what we can or can't think.