Keeping track of terrorists

Via Rantburg.

We are doing better than I thought.

Terrorist scorecard

Living in the past

Good article from Michael Barone that points out how blacks are marginalizing themselves.

Take black Americans, the most heavily Democratic constituency -- 88 percent to 11 percent for John Kerry in the 2004 NEP exit poll. Blacks have been voting for Democratic presidential candidates by similar margins since 1964, when Republican Barry Goldwater opposed the Civil Rights Act.

That was a big issue, then. And never mind that a higher proportion of Republicans than Democrats voted for the bill in Congress -- Goldwater did oppose it. But the Civil Rights Act has long since become uncontroversial, racial discrimination disapproved and integration of schools, workplaces and public accommodations widely accepted. Yet 40 years later, the image of the Republican Party as unsympathetic to equal rights for blacks seems to persist. Black voters seem still focused on a moment in history 40 years ago.

The new status quo

In support of Donald Rumsfeld

I think Rumsfeld is doing a great job. I'm glad that Bush is keeping him on.

What they all have in common is a consuming hatred of logic (of course one often hates that with which one has no familiarity). And, what Donald Rumsfeld has in vast supply is logic: cold, undeniable, cruel, inexorable. Logic is that way. And people who express it may seem that way to the illogical.

Rumsfeld's Logic

Cracked Icons

Another great article from Victor Davis Hanson.

So both here and abroad, the Western public believes that there is a double standard in the moral judgment of our left-leaning media, universities, and politicians — that we are not to supposed to ask how Christians are treated in Muslim societies, only how free Islamists in Western mosques are to damn their hosts; or that we are to think beheading, suicide murdering, and car bombing moral equivalents to the sexual humiliation and roguery of Abu Ghraib — apparently because the former involves post-colonial victims and the latter privileged, exploitive Americans. Most sane people, however, privately disagree, and distinguish between a civilian’s head rolling on the ground and a snap shot of an American guard pointing at the genitalia of her terrorist ward.

Why the Left has lost credibility

Snicker

I totally agree about reaching for the remote whenever I hear the words Scott Peterson on the TV. The media really overdid the coverage. At this point I'm totally sick of it.

This year, Shrum racked up his eighth loss in an unblemished 0-8 record of losing Democratic presidential campaigns. He's the embodiment of the Democratic Party ideal: Screw up, keep getting hired or promoted. One more loss and his last name officially becomes a verb, as in "we were ahead by 6 points but we ended up 'shrumming.'"

Liberals are the Lose-Lose People

Candidate for the Darwin Award

A 20-year-old Orofino man is dead after apparently daring a friend to shoot him through a protective vest.

Officials say Alexander Swandic died of a gunshot wound to the heart.

And his friend, 30-year-old David Hueth of Kamiah, is charged with involuntary manslaughter.

Police claim Swandic asked Hueth to shoot him. They apparently tested the vest by propping it against a dirt bank and firing at it twice, and the bullets didn't break through.

Man dies after encouraging friend to shoot him to test vest

Why did they leave off Stalingrad?

Via Rantburg.

Which is the best war movie ever released? That will stir always up heated debate. But before the arguing begins, one must ask what makes a good war movie?

The first thing is getting the basic things right. These basics involve respect for the soldiers portrayed, and for the right tone (war isn’t to be celebrated, but it shouldn’t be flinched from either). Second, does it tell the basic story right?

Top 10 Lists: The Best War Movies

Breaking News - Europeans don't like Americans

So what else is new? They should do a poll to see how Americans feel about Europeans.

International resentment of the United States has spilled over to include bad feelings for the American people, too — at least in three European countries that opposed U.S. policies in Ira

Europeans negative on Bush re-election

They can't vote in our elections

If they dislike Bush then so what? I guess they are going to have to suck it up.

Just over six in 10 said they were "worried" and "disappointed" by Bush's re-election last month, said the poll conducted by Ipsos-Reid Nov. 19-22., a little more than a week before his first official visit to Canada

Poll: Majority of Canadians dislike Bush

Ho hum

If the citizens of Europe choose to bury their heads in the sand, then obviously they don't really care about their civilization so why should we?

Claude Moniquet of the European Strategic Intelligence and Security Center in Brussels, who monitors Islamist terrorism, told UPI the Europeans are not adequately prepared to handle the influx.

The former jihadis -- now armed with hardened combat experience -- may become members of active or sleeper cells on which al-Qaida could call for future terrorist operations in Europe.

Returning jihadis new risk for Europe

The Ents of Europe

The Netherlands was a litmus test for Europe. Unlike Spain or Greece, which had historical grievances against Islam, the Dutch were the avatars of the new liberal Europe, without historical baggage. They were eager to unshackle Europe from the Church, from its class and gender constraints, and from any whiff of its racist or colonialist past. True, for a variety of reasons, Amsterdam may be a case study of how wrong Rousseau was about natural man, but for a Muslim immigrant the country was about as hospitable a foreign host as one can imagine. Thus, it was far safer for radical Islamic fascists to damn the West openly from a mosque in Rotterdam than for a moderate Christian to quietly worship in a church in Saudi Arabia, Iran, or Algeria. And yet we learn not just that the Netherlands has fostered a radical sect of Muslims who will kill and bomb, but, far more importantly, that they will do so after years of residency among, and indeed in utter contempt of, their Western hosts.

Victor Davis Hanson on Europe on National Review Online

The Battle for Fallujah

Via Polipundit.

Over the next nine months, Fallujah, traditionally a rebellious city, metastasized into a Taliban-style fundamentalist tyranny, exporting suicide bombers bent on mass murder. Most of the beheadings featured on the Al Jazeera news network were committed in the city, carried out under klieg lights with written instructions how and when the CDs should be delivered to make the evening news. The city's warlords, Janabi and Hadid, paid obeisance to the arch terrorist Zarqawi and competed for his favor by assassinations and bombings. They bragged their "martyr battalions" would cut to pieces any American force entering the city.

Fallujah, the Morning After - The torture house and the merry-go-round. By Bing West

Eurabia?

I don't really care if Europe gets Islamized but this article is an interesting read because it points out just how it can happen. We need to pay attention to this in order to ensure that it doesn't happen here.

Does this crisis amount to a “clash of civilizations”? Many people reject that notion as too sweeping or downright misleading. Yet whether or not it applies to, say, the situation in Iraq, or to the war on terror, the phrase has much to recommend it as a description of what is going on inside Europe today. As Yves Charles Zarka, a French philosopher and analyst, has written: “there is taking place in France a central phase of the more general and mutually conflicting encounter between the West and Islam, which only someone completely blind or of radical bad faith, or possibly of disconcerting naiveté, could fail to recognize.” In the opinion of Bassam Tibi, an academic of Syrian origins who lives in Germany, Europeans are facing a stark alternative: “Either Islam gets Europeanized, or Europe gets Islamized.” Going still farther, the eminent historian Bernard Lewis has speculated that the clash may well be over by the end of this century, at which time, if present demographic trends continue, Europe itself will be Muslim.

The Islamization of Europe?

Nice guy or tough guy?

The president has cleared the decks for his second term with surprising speed and even a dash of ruthlessness. You might think ruthlessness and elegance can't co-exist, but you would be wrong. Elegance has a ruthless clarity about it, just as Bush has a ruthless clarity about him.

Ruthless or elegant?

The land of the easily offended and home of the hypersensitive

Liberal American Indian spokesmen and other liberals regularly tell us how offensive Indian names of sports teams are. The latest polls show that most Indians have no problem with such names, but liberals are still offended on their behalf. To make the point of how offensive the name "Indians" is for the Cleveland baseball team, one liberal caller once asked me, "How would you feel if a team were named 'Jews'?" I told him that it would be a great day in Jewish history -- for 3,000 years, Jews have been looking for fans.

The land of the easily offended

Clueless Moonbats in Canada

"My country suffered under that madman. There was no freedom. He tortured and killed our people. Even Prime Minister Martin said the other day that the United Nations should change its policy, that democratic countries should have the right to invade countries with dictators who do genocide and torture their people.

"These people here have never suffered. They make me sick. You are a reporter. You should ignore them or you are a fool too. If Canada was a terrible dictatorship like Iraq was under Saddam, would these people tell Bush no, no, don't invade, we don't want you to give us freedom?"

Signs of irritation in midst of crowd