To Bill Keller, Hugs XOXOXOXOXOXO! Osama

You can bid on this heartfelt thank you card from OBL to BKNYT here.

Hypocrisy, Thy Name Is Left

Back before the will to power outweighed the survival instinct and common sense, the New York Times felt differently about the war on terror:

Finances of Terror

September 24, 2001

Organizing the hijacking of the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon took significant sums of money. The cost of these plots suggests that putting Osama bin Laden and other international terrorists out of business will require more than diplomatic coalitions and military action. Washington and its allies must also disable the financial networks used by terrorists.

The Bush administration is preparing new laws to help track terrorists through their money-laundering activity and is readying an executive order freezing the assets of known terrorists. Much more is needed, including stricter regulations, the recruitment of specialized investigators and greater cooperation with foreign banking authorities. There must also must be closer coordination among America’s law enforcement, national security and financial regulatory agencies.

No Planes on 9/11, or Just Holograms???????????? Democrats Want to Know!

The "No-Planes" vs. "Planes Were Holograms" theories, examined, uh, soberly.

Courtesy of the great Allahpundit, who asks:

Update: I realize you’re not going to click all the links in Manjoo’s piece so I’ve got to rescue this one myself. It’s a sober, critical analysis of the theory that no planes hit the World Trade Center on 9/11, and that the tens of thousands of images to the contrary were actually doctored with graphic overlays. Or was it holograms?

Which party do you suppose the author of that theory belongs to?

I will answer his snarky question: to the *Double-Plus* Reality-Based Party, that's who!

Buy Dan Rather's Lake House - Cheap!

I'll say this for Dan. He might be a blindly partisan Leftist who tried to alter the outcome of a presidential election with obviously phony documents, then subsequently got fired in a slow-motion, kind-of face-saving, yet still completely emasculating and humiliating sort of way, but he sure does have good taste in realtors.

Oh, Delilah!

Japanese Nazi Pr0n

HONG KONG — Popular Hong Kong men’s magazine Akasi pulled out all the stops for its October issue this year, capitulating to a bizarre new fascination many Hong Kong residents have developed for Nazi Germany.
In what some local fashion magazines have dubbed the new “Nazi chic,” swastikas and German uniforms have been popping up all over Hong Kong lately, prompting Akasi to publish a multi-page spread of a sexy model seig-heiling her way to sexual freedom and romping in the grass with a plastic version of wartime general Heinz Guderian, Hitler’s army chief of staff.

File under: What the hell is wrong with these people?

Relativity

Calling Nelson Muntz...

Ha-ha.....

Earth Hottest It's Been in 2000 Years!!!

It's Global Warming!!!

We're All Going to Die!!!

It's All Bush and His SUV-Driving Fascist Buddies' Fault!!!

Many Beachfront Properties May Have Less Beach Within Centuries!!

Another Ice Age May Be Averted!!!

Growing Seasons May Be Longer In Some Areas, Yielding Even More Deadly Food!!!

WASHINGTON - The Earth is running a slight fever from greenhouse gases, after enjoying relatively stable temperatures for 2,000 years. The National Academy of Sciences, after reconstructing global average surface temperatures for the past two millennia, said Thursday the data are "additional supporting evidence ... that human activities are responsible for much of the recent warming.

Other new research showed that global warming produced about half of the extra hurricane-fueled warmth in the North Atlantic in 2005, and natural cycles were a minor factor, according to Kevin Trenberth and Dennis Shea of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, a research lab sponsored by the National Science Foundation and universities."

Anyone else notice how hilariously self-refuting this study is?

"It hasn't been this hot since Jesus and the Romans screwed it up last time with their carbon-positive water/wine conversions and their stupid phallocentric SUCs (Sport Utility Chariots)!!! No justice, No peace!!!"

Plenty of scientists think whatever warming trend we may or not be experiencing is due to cyclically variable solar output.

And gee, that would account for things getting hotter before Bush was elected, or even born. Hmm. Must not think bad thoughts. Bush Lied! People Died! Amerikkka is Ruining the World!!!! Ah, that feels better.

Al-Qaeda Targeted Reuters' Shiny New Building

File Under: Ingratitude.

Foiled al-Qaida London hijack plot shown

Jun. 22, 2006 (UPI delivered by Newstex) -- Newly disclosed documents allege al-Qaida had plans to turn cameras into stun guns and crash a hijacked plane into East London's Canary Wharf development.

And...

Reuters leaves Fleet Street for new Canary Wharf HQ

News and information group Reuters has begun its relocation to a new global headquarters at Canary Wharf in London, from its historic offices at 85 Fleet Street (pictured).

Rumsfeld Confirms Found WMDs, Today

So much for the DoD "backing off" this story.

Rumsfeld on WMDs, Today [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, there has been a lot made on Capitol Hill about these chemical weapons that were found and may be quite old. But do you a real concern of these weapons from Saddam's pastperhaps having an impact on U.S. troops who are on the ground in Iraq right now?

RUMSFELD : Certainly. What has been announced is accurate, that there have been hundreds of canisters or weapons of various types found that either currently have sarin in them or had sarin in them,and sarin is dangerous. And it's dangerous to our forces, and it's a concern.

So obviously, to the extent we can locate these and destroy them, it is important that we do so. And they are dangerous. Anyone — I'm sure General Casey or anyone else in that country would be concerned if they got in the wrong hands.

They are weapons of mass destruction. They are harmful to human beings. And they have been found. And that had not been by Saddam Hussein, as he inaccurately alleged that he had reported all of his weapons. And they are still being found and discovered.

Posted at 5:08 PM

"BUSH LIED! PEOPLE D- WHAT? 500 WMDs?"

Over 500 Sarin and Mustard gas munitions have been recovered since we went into Iraq.

The problem with the Left's antiwar positions: no matter how righteously they make their arguments, buying them is hard when each of their foundational premises turns out to be so provably wrong, time after time.

My opinion? The same as it's been since several months after we went into Iraq in 2003: For diplomatic reasons, the Bush administration did not want to embarrass the three members of the UN security council -- France, Russia, and China -- who made and sold WMD precursors to Iraq, despite overwhelming evidence that they had done so (and in Russia's case, helped Saddam remove them to Syria/Lebanon in a sterile and safe manner that the Iraqis were incapable of carrying out without killing themselves). Bush sucked it up and took it on the chin, trading instant gratification and vindication for international polity -- at least publically, though I'm sure that given what actually, uh, happened, backroom talks went, ahem, in our favor.

So much of "history" is not known for 50 years or more after the events themselves happen, for just this reason....

EXCLUSIVE! WMD Hints from Heloise Time Magazine

Is there nothing these traitors useful idiots narcissistic glory hounds self-loathing misanthropes misguided idealists Comintern interns Bush Derangement Syndrome sufferers "journalists" won't publish?

If you aspiring terrorists have not read it yet, here is Time Magazine's helpful instructions on building a fool-proof WMD dispersal device!

These are some of the more startling revelations by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ron Suskind, whose new book The One Percent Doctrine is excerpted in the forthcoming issue of TIME. It will appear on Time.com early Sunday morning.

U.S. intelligence got its first inkling of the plot from the contents of a laptop computer belonging to a Bahraini jihadist captured in Saudi Arabia early in 2003. It contained plans for a gas-dispersal system dubbed "the mubtakkar" (Arabic for inventive). Fearing that al-Qaeda's engineers had achieved the holy grail of terror R&D — a device to effectively distribute hydrogen-cyanide gas, which is deadly when inhaled — the CIA immediately set about building a prototype based on the captured design, which comprised two separate chambers for sodium cyanide and a stable source of hydrogen, such as hydrochloric acid. A seal between the two could be broken by a remote trigger, producing the gas for dispersal. The prototype confirmed their worst fears: "In the world of terrorist weaponry," writes Suskind, "this was the equivalent of splitting the atom. Obtain a few widely available chemicals, and you could construct it with a trip to Home Depot – and then kill everyone in the store."

Can't wait to see the author of this book, and the Time Magazine journalists fighting over who gets to take the bigger bow when some aspiring jihadist takes their ball and runs with it.

These people LIVE in New York City. When you get to the point of publicising how exactly some enterprising jihadist could easily kill you and your own family and friends and coworkers in the international press, maybe it's time to reevaluate things. Or kill yourself and cut out the middle man. Why give them the satisfaction, after all?

NAFTA Superhighway Set for Next Year

Bush Administration Quietly Plans NAFTA Super Highway
by Jerome R. Corsi
Posted Jun 12, 2006

Quietly but systematically, the Bush Administration is advancing the plan to build a huge NAFTA Super Highway, four football-fields-wide, through the heart of the U.S. along Interstate 35, from the Mexican border at Laredo, Tex., to the Canadian border north of Duluth, Minn.

Once complete, the new road will allow containers from the Far East to enter the United States through the Mexican port of Lazaro Cardenas, bypassing the Longshoreman’s Union in the process. The Mexican trucks, without the involvement of the Teamsters Union, will drive on what will be the nation’s most modern highway straight into the heart of America. The Mexican trucks will cross border in FAST lanes, checked only electronically by the new “SENTRI” system. The first customs stop will be a Mexican customs office in Kansas City, their new Smart Port complex, a facility being built for Mexico at a cost of $3 million to the U.S. taxpayers in Kansas City.

As incredible as this plan may seem to some readers, the first Trans-Texas Corridor segment of the NAFTA Super Highway is ready to begin construction next year.

Winston Churchill III on Islam in Europe

Churchill's grandson on Confronting the Challenge of Islamic Fundamentalism

But today a new challenge confronts us: Extremist Islam has declared war on the rest of the world, as we see from their ruthless attacks - overwhelmingly targeted at innocent civilians - with the outrage of 9/11, the bombings in Madrid, in Bali, in London and most recently, in Jordan.

Meanwhile the Fundamentalists are doing all in their power to mobilise against us the large Muslim communities living in our midst. There today are an estimated seven million Muslims in North America; nearly half a million in Australia, while in the European Union, the Muslim community is estimated at 20 million, including nearly 2 million in Britain.

The scale of the problem confronting Europe today is epitomized by France, which has a Muslim community of some 6 million, or 10% of its population. But, taking the population aged 20 and below, that figure rockets to 30%, such is the birth rate among the immigrant communities.

In other words, within one further generation, France will have become an Islamic country - a truly awesome prospect.

It is clear that the writing is on the wall for Judeo-Christian Europe, as we have known it over the past 2000 years. Why are the alarm-bells not ringing? Can it be that we would sooner commit national suicide than risk being labeled 'politically incorrect'?

Can anyone imagine a comparable situation in reverse being tolerated in Saudi Arabia? The answer is so self-evident, it needs no response.

As if that were not enough, the United States is pressuring the EU to grant Turkey admission to the European Union - something that, at a stroke, would cause the Muslim population of Europe to soar.

I have a high regard for the Turks, who have long been loyal members of NATO, but that would be an act of consummate folly. It is high time someone summoned up the courage to tell Washington to mind its own business.

It is deeply worrying the extent to which - unlike all other categories of immigrants - the Islamic communities are reluctant to bond with their fellow countrymen and women, while harbouring a separate, indeed alien agenda of their own.

While the US imports its bombers from Saudi Arabia, and Spain from North Africa, it is a deeply disturbing feature of the 7/7 attacks on London that our bombers were home-grown - a fact that should cause us to ponder, swift and hard, just where we have gone wrong. America and Britain are now experiencing what Israel has lived with for years: the curse of the suicide bomber.

Read the whole thing.

When Worlds Collide

Great animation from Japan of a giant asteroid hitting the Earth and all of us dying.

Daddy's Lil' Helper

Why is a six-year old girl shooting a fully-automatic weapon so funny?

I don't know. But it is.

Pictures from the Communist utopia of North Korea

Is It Possible for an Entire Culture to Have Low Self-Esteem?

In a word: Yes.

Iran bans The Economist over map
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
TEHERAN, Iran

Iran has banned The Economist magazine for describing the Persian Gulf as merely "the Gulf" in a map published in the latest edition, state television reported late Wednesday.

It is the second time in two years that Iran has prohibited a publication of international repute for failing to use the term "Persian Gulf" in its maps. In November 2004, it banned the National Geographic atlas when a new edition appeared with the term "Arabian Gulf" in parenthe

How humiliating!
(Note: I don't see Costa Rica getting their panties in a bunch over The Gulf of "Mexico"....)

Bush Returns to Washington; 'Lions of Al-Qaeda' Pout, Shake Paws at Sky

President Bush returned from his surprise visit to Baghdad today, safe and sound, and no doubt leaving more than a few AQers scratching their beturbaned heads. From yesterday:

Al Qaeda Website Posts Bush Alert
June 13, 2006 11:51 AM
Sonia Gallego Reports:
A jihadist website, the same one which confirmed the death of Zarqawi, has posted an urgent alert that President Bush is in Iraq.

"The cursed Bush is in Iraq," the website says in Arabic. "By God's will, he will fall into the trap of the mujaheddin," the site says. 

Several postings in response to the initial one on the website include:

"May a tank shell cut him in two halves.  May the sky rain rockets to rid the whole world from the crimes of this pig."

"God ... make his end today by the hands of the lions of al Qaeda."

"God ... show us his killing today and make us celebrate his death the same way they celebrated the killing of Zarqawi."

File Under: Unanswered Prayers.

"Oh! Oh! I Got It! Here's How We Spin This!"

It's been a tough week for the Left, what with Zarqawi dead, Rove free, and Bush in Baghdad meeting with the new government.

Have no fear: CBS "blogger" Brian Montopoli at The Public Eye has figured out the angle, in his smirkily entitled post, "Baghdad Bush."

We're curious how the press is going to play the secrecy angle. When the president made his surprise trip to Iraq for Thanksgiving, the White House could explain the secrecy of the trip by focusing on how Bush's visit was a morale-boosting surprise for the troops. This time, however, even Bartlett acknowledges that "a very determined enemy" and a dangerous security situation necessitated keeping the Iraqi government and much of the cabinet and press in the dark. One wonders whether the story of this trip will be Bush's "personal effort to ensure the success of the new government," as the White House hopes, or if instead journalists will focus on the fact that the president even now has to take relatively dramatic measures to ensure his safety in Baghdad.

Pathetic, yet funny for the same reason. Yeah Brian, there's your angle. The Iraq War is such a DISASTER that even Bush cannot walk down the street signing autographs and posing for pictures without fear of his life!

And I love the use of The Royal We. So typically effete of the journalist type. Keep it up, CBS. You're doin' a heckuva job.

Photographs and Movies of the Sun

Anyone who refuses to at least consider variable solar output as the most likely principal cause of global warming should take a look at some of these.

Quicktime movies here.

"The Peaceful Nature of Our Nuclear Weapons..."

Now that Iran has finally admitted it, would someone please tell Hans Brix to write them a strongly worded letter?

Via the great Allahpundit, who sees all and knows all...

Oh Yes, There Will Be Blood

According to Drudge, it's Carlin vs. Coulter, this Wednesday night on Leno. Now that's Must-See TV.

Controversialist Ann Coulter will square off with controversialist George Carlin during NBC's "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno on Wednesday.

Carlin will discuss his role in "Cars," from Walt Disney Pictures and Pixar Animation Studios. The movie is currently the #1 at the box office. Coulter will talk about her latest controversial book "Godless: The Church of Liberalism," currently the #1 book at AMAZON.

The press has done nothing to erase the impression that Coulter was talking about all 9/11 widows, and not four specific 9/11 widows, in making her point about the Left putting forth "people you can't talk back to" -- grieving widows and mothers -- to make their arguments for them. A decent point now lost, as has been much respect for her among the Right.

She gives a good game, but my money is on Carlin all the way. Leno will be egging him on too. Hardly the forum to try to make a fairly subtle meta-point about Leftist media tactics. I mean, you've watched Jaywalking, right?

Bloodbath ahead.

Hitchens: Danish Buycott Worked

In a postscript added today to this excellent piece by Christopher Hitchens on Zarkawi's death/Saddam's links to terror, and so forth, Hitchens reports that the "Buy Danish" campaign, made in response to Muslim boycotts caused by The Cartoons of Doom, had its intended effect:

Postscript: A note of cheer to all those Slate readers who either attended the Solidarity With Denmark rally, or sent encouragement, or rallied round to buy Danish goods. I have today received a note from one of the Copenhagen editors who published the original cartoons, informing me that in the last quarter, Danish exports to the United States have increased by 17 percent and that, overall, the Danish economy has more than compensated for the results of the unjustified Muslim boycott. Let us keep this example in mind.

I'll raise a glass to that (as I sit here wearing one of my two new pairs of unbelievably comfortable Ecco shoes).

Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before...

A man walks into a lion's den and says, "God will save me if He exists."

No, that's not the set-up for a joke. It happened in Kiev last week.

KIEV (Reuters) - A man shouting that God would keep him safe was mauled to death by a lioness in Kiev zoo after he crept into the animal’s enclosure, a zoo official said on Monday.

“The man shouted ‘God will save me, if he exists’, lowered himself by a rope into the enclosure, took his shoes off and went up to the lions,” the official said.

“A lioness went straight for him, knocked him down and severed his carotid artery.”

Maybe the question isn't one of existence, but rather, one of sides.

[UPDATE; last link possibly NSFW due to song lyrics and splendidly cro-magnon political orientation...]

Liquid Metal

If you're looking for a hypnotic diversion from work...

Sachiko Kodama makes movies of the effects of magnets on ferrofluid.

They're nano-tacular™.

Zarqawi - Their Man in Baghdad

Another great piece by Stephen Hayes of the Weekly Standard on the pre-war connections between Al Qaeda and Saddam -- the same Stephen Hayes once called, "a notorious liar," by recent Yale-job-rejectee Juan Cole in a characteristically Stalinesqe bit of Leftist ad hom.

"THE LAST QUESTION to General Bill Caldwell at his briefing last Thursday on the death of Abu Musab al Zarqawi came from New York Times reporter Richard Oppel, who wanted to know about Abu al-Masri, an Egyptian whom many expect to replace Zarqawi as the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq.

Said Caldwell: "Yeah, al Masri, Egyptian Arab. He's not an Iraqi. Born and raised in Egypt. He was trained in Afghanistan, went through his training there. We know he has been involved with IEDs and making here in Iraq. Probably came here around 2002 into Iraq, probably actually helped establish maybe the first al Qaeda cell that existed in the Baghdad area."

Huh? Doesn't Caldwell understand that there were no al Qaeda terrorists in Iraq before the U.S. invasion of March 2003? Everyone knows that terrorists flocked to Iraq only after the war began.

Reading the coverage of Zarqawi's death in the mainstream press one can understand why that myth persists. Many journalists either don't know or choose not to report the fact that Zarqawi was in Baghdad with two dozen al Qaeda associates nearly a year before the war."

and...

"...More recently, a "Jordanian security official" spoke to the Washington Post. "There is proof that he was in Iraq during that time," the official said. "We sent many memos to Iraq during this time, asking them to identify his position, where he was, how he got weapons, how he smuggled them across the border."

The Post account continues:

Hussein's government never responded, according to the official, who added that documents recovered after its overthrow in 2003 show that Iraqi agents did detain some Zarqawi operatives but released them after questioning. Furthermore, the Iraqis warned the Zarqawi operatives that the Jordanians knew where they were, he said. After he recovered from his injuries, Zarqawi continued to cross borders in the region frequently, using disguises and fake passports to stay one step ahead of the Jordanians.

Why would the Iraqis detain Zarqawi associates only to release them with a warning that the Jordanians were on their trail? According to former and current U.S. military officials, the foreign jihadists were swept up in a broader crackdown on Iraqi religious extremists. But that was not the end of the story. The foreigners were soon released following a directive issued by the office of Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. (Most leaks to the media about the detentions apparently omitted that interesting fact.)

The death of the savage fanatic Zarqawi reminds us why we are fighting. A look back at his career after Afghanistan reminds us why we are fighting in Iraq."

Eek! A mouse!

File under: funny.

Yes, That's Brad Pitt, Signing My Car

My car was used in Thelma and Louise. He played the hitchhiker.

Geena signed it too. It's for sale. Anyone wanting to buy it AIM me at wordwarp.

Caveat Emptor: Brad signed it, oh, it's been about five years, and Geena, about three. The ink has faded some with time. I've owned it ten years now, but it's time for it to find a new home. Best car ever. Those who think people in L.A. are unfriendly have never driven around town in a '66 T-Bird with the top down. I will miss it.

The Coolest Solar Eclipse Photograph You'll Ever See

Click to Enlarge. Via digg.com

Waiting for Zarqawi

Zarqawi grants his first posthumous interview to Protein Wisdom.

Read this hilarious, postmodern, deeply-pleasing excerpt:

protein wisdom: “For instance, a question I bet a lot of my readers would be interested in hearing your answer to is, why did you target Iraqi civilians if what you were trying to do was win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi population?”

al-Zarqawi:

protein wisdom: “I mean, was it to try to foment a civil war?—which, if that happens, will likely happen thanks to years of brutal Sunni-Ba’athist oppression of the majority Shia and not because al Qaeda fooled anyone into thinking their attacks were anything other than pure barbarism. Or was there something else involved? Some other grand strategy?”

al-Zarqawi:

protein wisdom: “-- Like, I dunno, maybe the real target of your attacks was the Western media, which has shown itself to be easily manipulated toward anti-war sentiment by ‘insurgent’ brutality. Something along those lines.”

al-Zarqawi:

protein wisdom: “Yes? No? Maybe...?”

al-Zarqawi:

protein wisdom: “Hello...?”

al-Zarqawi:

protein wisdom: “Or perhaps you’re one of those cats who just likes to blow shit up...?”

al-Zarqawi:

Zarqawi: Paradise is Overrated

The Great Iowahawk channels the Z-Man with another instant classic.

The whole thing is hysterical, but I loved this:

Now, back in the madrassa when we studied the afterlife, I always wondered what would be the last thing to go through my head. I'm pretty sure now it was one of Mahmoud's anklebones. And if you're wondering if it was painless? Imagine a full-frontal 800 degree root canal while listening to a Neil Young record. But hey, I figure no big whoop, just the admission price to heaven's eternal ho sammich.

Would someone please sign this guy?