ConservaPundit

MUSLIM REACTION PROVES POPE’S POINT

Catholic League president Bill Donohue addressed today the Muslim reaction to Pope Benedict XVI’s speech at Regensburg University:

“One of the points that the pope made in his speech at Regensburg University was the necessity of linking faith to reason. He warned that uncoupling the twin values had horrendous consequences, leading people of faith to resort to violence. Ironically, the violent reaction, and the calls for more violence, on the part of some Muslims underscores the pope’s point. The response of violence to non-violence is barbaric.

“In Somalia, Muslims were urged by a cleric to ‘hunt down’ the pope and kill him. ‘Whoever offends our Prophet Muhammad should be killed on the spot by the nearest Muslim,’ said Sheik Abubakar Hassan Malin. No doubt that this ‘man of God’ must be happy now that a nun was shot outside a children’s hospital in the nation’s capital. The Mujahideen Shura Council referred to the pope as ‘the worshipper of the cross,’ and pledged to ‘break the cross and spill the wine’ in the ‘house of the dog from Rome.’ The group, which posted its call to violence on the Internet, also said that God will enable Muslims ‘to slit their throats, and make their money and descendants the bounty of the mujahideen.’ Seven churches were firebombed in the West Bank and Gaza by gun-wielding Palestinians, using lighter fluid to burn the churches. And today, in the Pakistani-controlled section of Kashmir, Muslims took to the streets chanting ‘Death to the Pope,’ burning him in effigy.

“No wonder the pope has spoken against Turkey (where an official compared him to Hitler) joining the European Union. Not until Islam matures and Muslims come to reject the wanton destruction of innocent human life is there any chance of a real dialogue. The scene of Muslims calling for Jews and Christians to be murdered with impunity is all too common, as this latest demonstration of hate proves.”

Zarqawi is dead

Serious news: 2 Saudi men arrested in Tampa after boarding a SCHOOL BUS

From Fox News-- http://www.foxnews.com/story/...,2933,196376,00.html

2 Saudi Men Arrested After Boarding School Bus in Florida Sunday, May 21, 2006

TAMPA, Florida — Two Saudi men were held without bond Sunday after they were arrested for boarding a school bus full of children, authorities said.

Mana Saleh Almanajam, 23, and Shaker Mohsen Alsidran, 20, were charged with misdemeanor trespassing and were being held at Orient Road Jail after a judge said Saturday she wanted more background information on them.

The two men arrived in the country six months ago on student visas and are enrolled at the English Language Institute at the University of South Florida.

Investigators said they boarded the school bus Friday, sat down and began speaking in Arabic. Their behavior concerned the driver, a substitute, who alerted the school district.

The men were asked why they boarded the bus, and sheriff's spokesman J.D. Callaway said they gave different answers: They wanted to enroll in an easier English language program than the one at USF, they wanted to see a high school, and they thought it would be fun.

A friend tried to bail Almanajam and Alsidran out of jail, but Circuit Judge Monica Sierra decided to detain the pair. She scheduled a Tuesday hearing and asked that an Arabic interpreter be present.

Ahmed Bedier, director of the Central Florida Council on American-Islamic Relations, said it sounded like a cultural mix-up.

"The only reason (this happened) is because of who they are, and that's wrong," he said.

Mexico calls US immigration laws xenophobic, yet bars non-natives from public, private work

Mexico Works to Bar Non-Natives From Jobs By MARK STEVENSON, Associated Press Writer

If Arnold Schwarzenegger had migrated to Mexico instead of the United States, he couldn't be a governor. If Argentina native Sergio Villanueva, firefighter hero of the Sept. 11 attacks, had moved to Tecate instead of New York, he wouldn't have been allowed on the force.

Even as Mexico presses the United States to grant unrestricted citizenship to millions of undocumented Mexican migrants, its officials at times calling U.S. policies "xenophobic," Mexico places daunting limitations on anyone born outside its territory.

In the United States, only two posts — the presidency and vice presidency — are reserved for the native born.

In Mexico, non-natives are banned from those and thousands of other jobs, even if they are legal, naturalized citizens.

Foreign-born Mexicans can't hold seats in either house of the congress. They're also banned from state legislatures, the Supreme Court and all governorships. Many states ban foreign-born Mexicans from spots on town councils. And Mexico's Constitution reserves almost all federal posts, and any position in the military and merchant marine, for "native-born Mexicans."

Recently the Mexican government has gone even further. Since at least 2003, it has encouraged cities to ban non-natives from such local jobs as firefighters, police and judges.

Mexico's Interior Department — which recommended the bans as part of "model" city statutes it distributed to local officials — could cite no basis for extending the bans to local posts.

After being contacted by The Associated Press about the issue, officials changed the wording in two statutes to delete the "native-born" requirements, although they said the modifications had nothing to do with AP's inquiries.

"These statutes have been under review for some time, and they have, or are about to be, changed," said an Interior Department official, who was not authorized to be quoted by name.

But because the "model" statues are fill-in-the-blanks guides for framing local legislation, many cities across Mexico have already enacted such bans. They have done so even though foreigners constitute a tiny percentage of the population and pose little threat to Mexico's job market.

The foreign-born make up just 0.5 percent of Mexico's 105 million people, compared with about 13 percent in the United States, which has a total population of 299 million. Mexico grants citizenship to about 3,000 people a year, compared to the U.S. average of almost a half million.

"There is a need for a little more openness, both at the policy level and in business affairs," said David Kim, president of the Mexico-Korea Association, which represents the estimated 20,000 South Koreans in Mexico, many of them naturalized citizens.

"The immigration laws are very difficult ... and they put obstacles in the way that make it more difficult to compete," Kim said, although most foreigners don't come to Mexico seeking government posts.

J. Michael Waller, of the Center for Security Policy in Washington, was more blunt. "If American policy-makers are looking for legal models on which to base new laws restricting immigration and expelling foreign lawbreakers, they have a handy guide: the Mexican constitution," he said in a recent article on immigration.

Some Mexicans agree their country needs to change.

"This country needs to be more open," said Francisco Hidalgo, a 50-year-old video producer. "In part to modernize itself, and in part because of the contribution these (foreign-born) people could make."

Others express a more common view, a distrust of foreigners that academics say is rooted in Mexico's history of foreign invasions and the loss of territory in the 1847-48 Mexican-American War.

Speaking of the hundreds of thousands of Central Americans who enter Mexico each year, chauffeur Arnulfo Hernandez, 57, said: "The ones who want to reach the United States, we should send them up there. But the ones who want to stay here, it's usually for bad reasons, because they want to steal or do drugs."

Some say progress is being made. Mexico's president no longer is required to be at least a second-generation native-born. That law was changed in 1999 to clear the way for candidates who have one foreign-born parent, like President Vicente Fox, whose mother is from Spain.

But the pace of change is slow. The state of Baja California still requires candidates for the state legislature to prove both their parents were native born.

This is rich-- Mexico to file lawsuits if "migrants" detained by National Guard

Some Mexicans have also planned to establish a migrant "protection force" to help the migrants...

How long until a Mexican soldier shoots at a National Guardsman, gets killed, and then is martyred? Why is Mexico trying to blame its horrific government and economy, which forces migration to the US, on us? Why does it not own up to the fact that it, and not the US, encourages hispanics to die in the desert? How galling.....

We certainly do live in some f-ed up times.

Dispelling the NSA Surveillance Myths

GEN. Michael Hayden is going to get an early Memorial Day BBQ-ing on Thursday. The CIA director-nominee will appear before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and the senators are sure to go ballistic over the National Security Agency's telephone-calling-record database.

Yet, despite the nonsense that the politically motivated mainstream media and the left have been spouting on the NSA program, this critical counterterrorism effort isn't intrusive, illegal - or unnecessary.

Let's start by dispelling some of the more prominent myths perpetuated about the program:

It's intrusive: Wrong. The billions of telephone-calling records voluntarily provided to the NSA by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth are anonymous. This means they're just phone numbers - the caller's names/addresses aren't identified in the calling record.

Moreover, these records include nothing on any of the substance of the phone calls - just the number, the date and duration. This doesn't mean that your phone calls are being monitored by the NSA - or anyone else. That requires a court order.

It's illegal: Wrong. It's perfectly legal for the government to receive this information. These are considered mere business records. In fact, the Supreme Court has explicitly ruled that the Fourth Amendment (i.e., the right against unreasonable search and seizure) doesn't include phone-calling records.

In Smith v. Maryland (1979), the court found that the Fourth Amendment doesn't protect calling records because when you voluntarily use the phone, you voluntarily share that info with every telephone company that handles the call along the way to its destination.

It's unnecessary: Wrong. The program is focused on terrorists, especially the al Qaeda threat. While we've made progress in neutralizing al Qaeda, the terrorist group remains dangerous and deadly - and has promised to strike here at home again.

In fact, the decentralization of al Qaeda has made it a more unpredictable (i.e., challenging) target for homeland security. And the bombings in London last July remind us of the increased threat arising from homegrown terrorists.

The most glaring absence in all the uproar is a good example of how this information might be used to prevent a terrorist act right here in the United States.

Suppose the FBI identifies - today - a terrorist suspect (e.g., Terrorist A) located right here in the United States from information received from a foreign intelligence service after a raid on an al Qaeda safe house abroad.

Beyond taking immediate steps to prevent a terrorist attack, one of the first questions that law enforcement is going to want to answer is whether Terrorist A is working alone, or as part of a cell or larger group operating here.

There are a couple of ways of determining this. One method is by looking at how - and with whom - Terrorist A communicates. This is often referred to as "communications-network analysis."

But, while you might be able to identify with whom Terrorist A is communicating by monitoring his phone calls once you've determined his terrorist ties, you still don't know with whom else he communicated with in the past.

That's why the NSA wanted the calling-record database. With it, law-enforcement agents can determine the phone numbers of Terrorist A's previous contacts. Equally importantly, they can find out with whom else Terrorist A's contacts have talked with.

Through analysis of Terrorist A's (and associates') calling patterns using NSA's database and supercomputers, officials can develop a schematic of the terrorist organization's structure, members - even chain of command.

In other words, they can connect the dots.

No telling what a difference such a counterterrorism program might have had in preventing 9/11, if such network analysis had been done on the communications patterns of the al Qaeda hijackers.

Sad to say, we live in a time when we should no longer be shocked at the lengths the mainstream media, or other irresponsible leakers of classified information, will go to advance their anti-Bush political agenda - even if it means harming our national security.

We need to remind ourselves that it isn't by chance that we haven't had a terrorist attack here in the United States in almost five years. It's because we've established a significant counterterrorism program both at home and abroad, including this NSA effort.

The White House took on the CIA, and the CIA won

The Datamining Scare-- Another Nonthreat to Your Civil Liberties

The Bush Administration's Big Brother operation is at it again--or so media reports and Democrats this week would have us believe. We suspect, however, that this political tempest will founder on the good sense of the American people much like the earlier one did.

Last December, the New York Times reported that after 9/11 the National Security Agency began listening to overseas phone calls of suspected terrorists, including calls placed from or received inside the U.S. This was supposed be a scandal because the tapping was done without a warrant from something called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. But as the debate wore on, it became clear that the 1978 FISA statute didn't block a President's power to allow such national-security wiretaps, and that most Americans expected their government to eavesdrop on terror suspects.

Now comes a sensationalist USA Today front-pager suggesting an even larger scandal. The government is "amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans--most of whom aren't suspected of any crime." Worse, reporter Leslie Cauley writes, while President Bush had suggested after the wiretapping story that "domestic call records" (her words) were still private, we now know that's "not the case."

Democrats are outraged, or at least they pretend to be. And major papers have joined the chorus, with the Washington Post calling the newly reported program a "massive intrusion on personal privacy." We're prepared to be outraged, too, if somebody would first bother to explain in detail what the problem is.

Let's start by debunking Ms. Cauley's piece of journalistic sleight of hand. President Bush never suggested that domestic call "records" were private. He has said actual warrantless surveillance was restricted to conversations that involved an overseas party: "The government does not listen [our emphasis] to domestic phone calls without court approval." Datamining and wiretapping are not the same thing. So much for the "Bush lied" angle to this story.

Yes, Mr. Bush could have volunteered the larger "datamining" details at the time. But no President is obliged to divulge every secret program, especially one central to war-fighting. Had Mr. Bush done so, we doubt Democrats and the press corps would have sat back and said OK, thanks, let's move on--not when they see his poll numbers and sense a chance to take back Congress this autumn.

And once it's clear that telephone records are all we're talking about here, the rest of this alleged scandal melts away. Nobody has suggested one single call has been listened to as part of the program reported this week by USA Today. Rather, the datamining appears to keep track, after the fact, of most calls placed to and from a great many phone numbers in the U.S. In other words, the scary government database contains the same information you see on your monthly phone bill--slightly less, in fact, since names aren't attached to numbers and never will be unless government computers detect activity suspicious enough to warrant some being singled out of billions of others.

And what might the government do with these records? Well, it might use them to break up a suspected terror plot--presumably after requesting a surveillance warrant for any future domestic calls it actually wants to listen to (nobody has suggested otherwise). As important, the database will enable us to respond much more effectively to the next terrorist attack. Once the ringleader or leaders are identified, this information will make it much easier to track down any remaining comrades and prevent them from committing future crimes.

In short, the database is utterly non-invasive in itself and merely provides information for law enforcement to use, with warrants whenever necessary. By using this technology to find terrorists in haystacks before they can strike, the government can afford not to resort to the much more heavy-handed inspection and inconvenience practiced by necessity in, say, Israel. Liberals who object to datamining should wait until they see the "massive intrusion on personal privacy" that Americans will demand if the U.S. homeland gets hit again.

Alas, even some Republicans are buying into the notion that datamining is cause for alarm. Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter has threatened to subpoena the major U.S. phone companies to explain why they've been cooperating with the government. California Democrat Dianne Feinstein predicts "a major constitutional confrontation" over Fourth Amendment guarantees against "unreasonable search and seizure." And Michigan's John Conyers--who would take over House Judiciary if Democrats win in November--wants a bill to ensure that phone records are collected within the confines of FISA.

But since the database doesn't involve any wiretapping, FISA doesn't apply. The FISA statute specifically says its regulations do not cover any "process used by a provider or customer of a wire or electronic communication service for billing, or recording as an incident to billing." As to Ms. Feinstein's invocation of the Fourth Amendment, the Supreme Court has already held (Smith v. Maryland, 1979) that the government can legally collect phone numbers since callers who expect to be billed by their phone company have no "reasonable expectation of privacy" concerning such matters.

So the law appears to be on the Bush Administration's side here. And so does public opinion. An ABC News/Washington Post poll yesterday found that 63% of those surveyed approve of the database program. That's similar to the public's reaction to the warrantless wiretapping controversy, and helps explain why the President's critics on surveillance issues rarely have the courage of their professed civil libertarian convictions.

Instead, they will quibble endlessly over procedural formalities while conceding the broad policy goals. The chutzpah prize on this score goes to Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold, whose position on wiretapping is that we should definitely be listening to al Qaeda but that Mr. Bush has committed an impeachable offense by doing it the wrong way. Republicans would love to see a Democratic Presidential nominee take that proposition into the 2008 election.

Most Americans seem to be cooler customers, or perhaps they can sort substance from mere political opportunism. After all, even most of the Democratic critics of datamining don't say they'd stop it. They just want to see it "investigated" and supervised--by them and their fellows in Congress, so they can pound away at the President without having to take responsibility for keeping America safe.

Perhaps Americans outside Washington understand that it's probably not an accident that the homeland hasn't been attacked again since 9/11, and that maybe--just maybe--the aggressive surveillance policies of the Bush Administration are one reason.

Liberals love to find root causes, except in the case of illegal immigration

Why is their no universal health care in the US? We had to look at the root causes, and-- bam-- once again it was "social injustice".

Yet when it comes to illegal immigration, liberals would rather stage gigantic rallies for "reform", giving illegals American flags to wave and Spanish versions of the national anthem, than discover the "root cause" of illegal immigration. THey do this so they can push to allow all illegals into this country. And they do that for one major reason: hispanics are a minority and overwhelmingly support these liberal fanatics politically.

But here there is a major root cause, and it is a sinister one. What we have occuring south of the border is a crime against humanity. We have the Mexican government outsourcing their problems (poor Mexicans) to the US. The Mexican government encourages their poorest to risk their lives to come here and send money back to their families, and they do it because they have failed to take care of their own people. Encouraging illegals to come here takes the pressure off the Mexican government to do anything about their own wickedness. They are the root cause not only of our nation's immigration problems but, much more importantly, of their own people's tremendous suffering.

But don't expect the libs to discover this truth. Expect them to push for giving illegals rights that others played by the rules to get. Expect them to cater to the unions these immigrants belong to. Do not expect them to improve their lives by finding the root cause, for suffering is what liberals exploit-- it is how they gain and keep power.

In my view, the US needs to do three things. One, our government needs to find something to do with the illegals here-- give those that are good citizens amnesty, give the others that do not want to be part of this country the boot. Two, they need to actually enforce US immigration law. Three, and most importantly, they need to push for reform in the Mexican government. Agitate, slap on sanctions, put tariffs on Mexican goods. Whatever it takes. Mexico is dying because of illegal immigration, not just the US.

Bush and WMD trailers: he did not lie

What DrForBush doesn't bother to do is actually read the article, because deep in the article is the fact that of the three teams that inspected the trailers on May 27, TWO of the three believed them to be bio-weapon labs.

Because of this majority view, the DIA and the CIA published a report on May 28, 2003 which you can read here-- http://www.cia.gov/cia/report... . In the report, which, we remind you was made after two of three teams on the ground confirmed the existence of bio-weapons labs, said:

"Coalition forces have uncovered the strongest evidence to date that Iraq was hiding a biological warfare program. … US forces in late April also discovered a mobile laboratory truck in Baghdad. The truck is a toxicology laboratory from the 1980s that could be used to support BW or legitimate research. The design, equipment, and layout of the trailer found in late April is strikingly similar to descriptions provided by a source who was a chemical engineer that managed one of the mobile plants."

"...[W]e nevertheless are confident that this trailer is a mobile BW production plant because of the source’s description, equipment, and design."

This report therefore is what led the president to say, accurately at the time:

"We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories. You remember when Colin Powell stood up in front of the world, and he said, Iraq has got laboratories, mobile labs to build biological weapons. They're illegal. They're against the United Nations resolutions, and we've so far discovered two."

So the DECEPTION HERE IS BY THE WASHINGTON POST, NOT THE PRESIDENT, AND THE CRIME EXISTS IN IDIOTS LIKE DRFORBUSH AND EVERYONE ON THE LEFT THAT PARROTS THIS TRIPE USING IT TO BASH SOMEONE.

Criticism is what makes this country great-- but criticism based on known lies for power is something intolerable.

Sidenote: DrForBush is also wrong on Joe Wilson. Should he have bothered to read the 9/11 report, or the investigation into the Wilson affair by the Foreign Intel Committee it is clear that Wilson, not Bush lied, for it was Wilson who told the CIA and the Senate that Iraq did try, indeed, to by uranium in Africa.

Blogs are fun. Unfortunately, they give idiots a lot of space to be themselves.

Dang, I like that tune

I usually don't listen to Top40 stuff-- my music collection is full of REM, Green Day, basically any modern rock band from the 1990s (as that is my last cultural reference point, lol). But I heard "Hips Don't Lie" while browsing through iTunes radio stations and had to download it.

Maybe this is one of those songs that you like and play over and over again and then, years later, can't understand why you ever liked it. But for now I'm enjoying (for the fourth or fifth time) the wonderful groove of- SHAKIRA!

Bomb Iran, that is the plan....

Oh, and they also have recently said that they're going to unleash terror attacks if we "confront" them.

Our attempt to take this through the UN is being opposed by those wonderful "allies" Russia and China. Seems interesting doesn't it? This time we have all of Europe with us, but the communist leftovers are opposing. The more things change they more they stay the same.

So what do we do? we don't have any troops. Our military IS stretched. Sanctions won't work because Russia and China won't accept that. There is only one real option:

Bomb the hell out of them.

We can slap the NATO label on it and bomb the crap out of Iran like we did in the Balkans. We know where most of the nuke sites are, and we can also hope for some action on the ground from anti-Tehran revolutionaries. But something must be done. Yesterday.

Michael Savage should apologize to all Catholics

March 30, 2006

MICHAEL SAVAGE(S) CATHOLICISM

Here is what radio talk-show host Michael Savage had to say on March 28 about the Catholic Church’s response to the immigration issue:

"It is a pig story! It’s animal farm all over again. And also make no bones about it, it’s the greedy Catholic Church that was behind it because the people of America walked away from the molesters’ dens and they need to bring in people from the Third World who are still gullible enough to sit there and listen to the molesters…the Roman Catholic Church was behind this, the Roman Catholic Church started this a year ago. The Roman Catholic Church flooded the streets because they cannot get parishioners anymore amongst educated white people who have caught onto the racket and instead they need to import dummies to sit in the church pews. That’s the story and it is not difficult for you to understand—I’m telling you the truth. It’s all about greed. It’s greed at the top of the Catholic Church.

"Make no mistake about why this is happening. This has nothing to do with compassion for Mexican workers. This has nothing to do with fairness for Mexican workers—it has to do with the greed…. That’s all there is to it. And that includes the Catholic Church pigs. And if you don’t like it, don’t listen to the show—I really don’t care anymore. I’m not going to be duped by this sanctimonious garbage that all churches are good and that the institution itself is good. Bah humbug. The institution is rotten from the top to the bottom."

Catholic League president Bill Donohue responded as follows:

“I was scheduled to be on with Mike Savage the day he savaged the Catholic Church and made bigoted comments about Latinos. But in the pre-interview—which occurred just a half hour before Savage went ballistic—I let a producer know that I did not share the host’s position; after he checked with Savage, I was told they would not have me on the show. That was fine, but what is not fine is Savage’s diatribe about the ‘greedy pigs’ in the Catholic Church and how ‘the institution is rotten from the top to the bottom.’ He owes all Catholics an apology.”

***Blogger's note***

Michael Savage is, like all radio hosts, a narcissistic, self-important blowhard. He's even worse, actually, because he somehow obtained a Ph.D. He is very proud that he has written a lot of books. I tried to read his "Savage Nation", but I failed due to its third-grade level of prose. I guess if you like listening to him ramble on and on about himself, because it all goes back to himself and his accomplishments, then you'll like reading his work and probably everything else this nutjob put to paper. Otherwise, don't bother.

Am I missing something?

Indeed, if illegals are so damn hard-working, why did they take a couple of days off to protest? And if they're so damn patriotic, as we've often been told by the Left, why were they all waving Mexican flags? I mean, they left Mexico ostensibly because it is a real shithole. It would at least be considerate to wave an American flag. Patriotic US citizens are the ones paying their way through life.

The US is subsidizing the Mexican economy. Quite a few illegals come here and establish themselves quickly by signing up for our generous benefits and then sending the cash to families in Mexico. These illegals do not try and become Americans, because they simply just want to make money. They also decide to have children, making sure they'll stay in the US.

Long ago immigrants came here to work their ass off and become Americans. They didn't have some perverse pride in their homelands because their homelands failed them. They wanted to start anew. But the illegals come here and instead of being grateful for the country that gives them so much, ride around waving the flag of Mexico, home of one of the most corrupt and indifferent governments on the planet.

And, finally, don't ask Congress to really do anything about this. Republicans depend on illegals because they work for nothing and save their corporate handlers money, while Democrats depend on illegals because they pander to them and promise them every damn benefit under the sun. Literally, these Dems are right at the border with voter registration kiosks. It's pathetic.

Want to come to America and work? Do it the right way. Otherwise, you should be arrested and deported. You don't belong here.

Article-- "Who's Behind The Immigration Rallies?"-- http://frontpagemag.com/Artic...

Russia gave Iraq details about war

Report: Russia Gave Iraq Details About War By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer2 hours, 20 minutes ago-- http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20...;_ylt=AgqHUao_BID6O7M2l5R BEv.WwvIE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3MXN1bH E0BHNlYwN0bWE-

Iraqi documents captured by U.S. forces in 2003 say Russian intelligence had sources inside the American military that enabled it to feed information about U.S. troop movements and battle plans to Saddam Hussein.

The unclassified report does not assess the value or accuracy of the information Saddam got or offer details on Russia's information pipeline. It cites captured Iraqi documents that say the Russians had "sources inside the American Central Command" and that intelligence was passed to Saddam through the Russian ambassador in Baghdad.

Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman for Russia's U.N. mission in New York, said the allegations were false.

"To my mind, from my understanding it's absolutely nonsense and it's ridiculous," she said, adding that the U.S. government had not shown Russia the evidence cited in the report. "Somebody wants to say something, and did — and there is no evidence to prove it."

An official in the office of Foreign Intelligence Service spokesman Boris Labusov in Moscow quoted him saying Saturday, "We don't consider it necessary to comment on such fabrications."

The Iraqi documents leave unclear who may have been the sources at Central Command's war-fighting headquarters, which is at Camp As Saliyah just outside Doha, the capital of Qatar. No Russians were authorized to be at the closely guarded base.

A classified version of the report, titled "Iraqi Perspectives Project," is not being made public. It was assembled by U.S. Joint Forces Command, which reviewed a vast array of captured Iraqi documents and interviewed Iraqi political and military leaders, not including Saddam.

The report does not address the possibility that the U.S. military deliberately fed false information to the Russians, expecting them to pass it to Saddam. It does say that "such external sources of information were only one of the fog-generators obscuring the minds of Iraq's senior leadership."

Among the information the Iraqis said they received from the Russians, some of which proved inaccurate, was:

• That the movement of U.S. troops into southern Iraq from Kuwait was a diversion. In fact it was the main avenue of attack, supported by special forces entering from Jordan and paratroopers flying into northern Iraq.

• That the ground assault on Baghdad would not begin until the Army's 4th Infantry Division was in place, around April 15. In fact, the 4th Infantry, whose originally planned invasion route from Turkey was blocked by the Turkish government, was not yet on Iraqi territory when the Baghdad ground assault began April 7. Thus, by design or chance, the information from the Russians actually reinforced a U.S. military deception effort.

• That the main focus of U.S. ground forces moving toward Baghdad from the southwest was the area around the city of Karbala. (This was true. After crossing a bridge over the Euphrates River outside of Karbala, the 3rd Infantry Division had a clear path to the Iraqi capital and Saddam's chances of stopping the assault had ended.)

That U.S. troops moving through southern Iraq would not attempt to occupy cities but instead bypass them. (This was true and was a central feature of an invasion plan that stressed speed and tactical surprise.)

The lead author of the Pentagon report, Kevin Woods, told reporters at a Pentagon briefing that he was surprised to learn the Russians had passed intelligence to Saddam, and he said he had no reason to doubt the authenticity of the Iraqi documents.

"But I don't have any other knowledge of that topic," Woods added, referring to the Russian link.

A Pentagon spokesman, Lt. Col. Barry Venable, referred inquiries seeking comment to Central Command. At Central Command headquarters in Tampa, Fla., officials did not immediately respond to a request.

It is standard procedure for Russia and other countries not part of a U.S. coalition to try to gain inside information on U.S. military plans. It's certainly not surprising in the case of Iraq, a country which had long-standing economic and military ties to Moscow. But until now the Pentagon had not indicated that the Russians might have succeeded.

Pavel Felgenhauer, a respected independent Moscow-based military analyst, said Friday that a Russian military intelligence unit, known by its abbreviation GRU, was actively working in Iraq at the time of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

The information about a Russian intelligence link to Baghdad was a small part of a much broader report by Joint Forces Command that attempts to explain the forces and motivations behind Iraqi military decision-making in the months leading to the invasion and in the first several weeks after Baghdad fell in April.

The report paints a picture of an Iraqi regime that was largely blind to the threat it faced, hampered by Saddam's inept military leadership, preoccupied by the prospect of a Shiite uprising and deceived by its own propaganda.

"The largest contributing factor to the complete defeat of Iraq's military forces was the continued interference by Saddam," the report said.

In addition to citing the Iraqi documents on the matter of Russian intelligence, the report also directly asserted that an intelligence link existed.

"Significantly, the regime was also receiving intelligence from the Russians that fed suspicions that the attack out of Kuwait was merely a diversion," the report's authors wrote. They cited as an example a document that was sent to Saddam on March 24, 2003, and captured by the U.S. military after Baghdad fell.

Apple says new French law smacks of state-sponsored piracy

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple Computer Inc. said on Tuesday a proposed French law that would force Apple to make sure that songs bought on its iTunes music store can work on any portable player would result in "state-sponsored piracy."

"The French implementation of the EU Copyright Directive will result in state-sponsored piracy," said Apple spokeswoman Natalie Kerris. "If this happens, legal music sales will plummet just when legitimate alternatives to piracy are winning over customers."

The National Assembly, France's lower house of parliament, passed the law on Tuesday, which French officials said is aimed at preventing any one company from building a grip on the digital online music retail market.

The new legislation would require that online music retailers provide the digital rights management software that protects copyright material to allow the conversion of music in one format to another.

But Apple said the law, which it opposes, would likely actually increase its sales of iPod music players. "iPod sales will likely increase as users freely upload their iPods with 'interoperable' music which cannot be adequately protected," Kerris said. "Free movies for iPods should not be far behind."

Is this what our troops fought for?

Big deal, right?

Well, yeah, it is, because this man is going to trial and could possibly be executed for it. You see, though the Afghan constitution calls for freedom of religion, it establishes that Islam is the state religion and for a Muslim to convert to a heathen religion, under the Islamic law of Sharia, that is a crime punishable by death.

So there seems to be a freedom of religion, unless you convert from Islam to anything else.

Rahman is unrepentant about his conversion, even in the face of death, and that is commendable. But we have to wonder-- is this what we fought for after 9/11?

The enemy then, as it is now, is Islamic extremism. The kind of fanaticism that led to OBL and 9/11. But we liberated Afghanistan, right? We tried to get them to understand the consequences of extremism. Yet here we are watching as a state gets extreme over the fact that one man chooses to believe in his or her own way. It is kind of depressing to say the least.

Am I implicitly saying, then, that truth is relative? Not at all. What I'm saying is that if Islam is truth, then it should have no problem letting this man explore Christianity, for he will come back to the truth. All men seek the truth.

If this man dies, however, I have to wonder what the US will be seeking in the war on terror.

Exploring with Surrogate

Quote:

"1. Black folks were not really people. (The negotiated figure was 3/5 of a person)

2. God sanctioned the practice because it's talked about extensively in the Bible, therefore ending it would be contrary to scripture.

3. The economy of the South depended on it. To end it would be catastrophic.

Then the "fake" argument: Washington should not interfere with an individual State's right to treat people (and creatures that were only 3/5 of a person) any way they damn well please.

It was this fake argument that lead to war, in which 350,000 people and creatures that were only 3/5 of a person died. Why fake? -Because it's always used to justify untenable things."

I guess it should be mentioned that these "conservatives" who were actually the forefathers of today's Democratic party, did not see slaves as 3/5 of a human being. They didn't see them as human beings at all. The 3/5 measure was part of what's called the "3/5 Compromise" in which anti-slavery forces in the north were able to get those "conservatives" in the south (ahem, forefathers of today's Democrats) to count slaves as at least 3/5 of a human being or else the south would not ratify the constitution (the north wanted slaves counted as human beings, "conservatives" in the south did not).

Some of our most God-fearing Christians were actually abolitionists and it might help to remind Surrogate that the Republican party, where the conservative movement began, was formed to oppose slavery. Yup, it's true. Abraham Lincoln, the man who ended slavery, was a Republican. And blacks voted Republican until the rise of FDR.

States' rights is actually part of the US Constitution. There are such things as states' rights, and so it is not a conservative or liberal issue. Slaveowners (the forefathers of today's Democratic party) argued that it had to do with states' rights but in short they were merely using the constitution to defend an evil practice. Welcome to politics, folks. And that is what started the Civil War.

To suggest that states' rights are evil, and that conservatives endorsed slavery is at best ignorant and at worst shameless.

(and did you ever notice that libs love to say whatever they want, but somehow don't seem to understand that "living your life as you see fit" is part of that same spirit? It's called the Bill of Rights...)

Lastly, Surrogate says

"Most conservatives I've met seem to believe fiercely that it is the right of individuals to live their lives as they see fit without the intrusion of a large central government. This, of course, while pursuing laws that prohibit others to live their lives as THEY see fit."

First of all, it is the right of every American to live their life as they see fit-- this is part of the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence. The reason why we have a checks and balance system, and the reason why we have power to the states ingrained in the constitution is to prevent a large central government. This isn't a conservative or liberal argument-- it's a fact.

Secondly, I know of no law that a conservative has wanted passed that would prevent "others to live their lives as they see fit." Gay marriage? CIvil Unions. Abortion? Still legal. I mean, I guess unless you want to commit murder outside the womb, you're in a bit of a mess, but otherwise, most conservatives just want what most Americans want-- personal freedom and smaller government.

Unless I'm missing out on why Republicans have ruled congress for the last 12 years.

So, dear readers, beware: don't go 'exploring' with Surrogate. I'm not a betting man like he is, but if I had to wager, I'd say that he doesn't know what he's talking about half the time.

Trying my hand at podcasting...

Anyway, I have a new test podcast up, basically going over the Isaac Hayes blog.

here is the link-- http://www.telcaster.com/Conf...

Will Catholics get a disclaimer for "DaVinci Code"?

From the Catholic League-- http://catholicleague.com/06p...%201/060313_not_averse.htm

March 13, 2006

SONY, RON HOWARD, NOT AVERSE TO DISCLAIMERS

Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, spoke out today about his request for a disclaimer in the upcoming film, “The Da Vinci Code”:

“Last Monday, the Catholic League ran an ‘Open Letter to Ron Howard’ on the op-ed page of the New York Times requesting a disclaimer in the beginning of the movie noting its fictional nature. That request has since been denounced as an ‘arrogant’ demand, suggesting it is an infringement on the artistic rights of Sony, the company that is releasing the film, and Ron Howard, the director. But a little research reveals that neither Sony nor Howard are averse to disclaimers in their movies.

“When Sony released ‘The Merchant of Venice,’ the movie opened with a disclaimer noting that ‘Intolerance of the Jews was a fact of 16th Century life even in Venice, the most powerful and liberal city state in Europe.’ And in ‘A Beautiful Mind,’ a Ron Howard film, the movie ended with a disclaimer noting that it differs from the book (of the same name) that inspired the film: Howard, and screen writer Akiva Goldman, admitted that they ‘fictionalized a number of the incidents.’

“So much for the argument that the Catholic League is out of line by asking for a disclaimer in ‘The Da Vinci Code.’ The Dan Brown book upon which the film is based is a pack of anti-Catholic lies, and it is the author’s duplicity that is driving our campaign: he has tried to pitch his book as if it were an authentic historical account. Thus, to the extent that the movie fails to note that it is a fable, some viewers will be misled. And, as we warned in the ad, Howard’s reputation will be damaged. There’s a lot at stake and there’s an easy way out. The ball is in their court.”

More on "The DaVinci Code"-- http://www.catholic.com/libra...

Finally-- White House will release postwar Iraq and Afghanistan documents

Article-- http://www.weeklystandard.com...

Russ Feingold wants to censure the president for things he never did

But what, exactly, does Feingold want to censure the president for? Well, for his "domestic spying" program, of course, something that Feingold says tears up the Bill of Rights.

Now, if Bush was spying on Americans that would be true. It would be an impeachable offense. But once again Feingold and the willing mainstream media MISCHARACTERIZE WHAT BUSH ACTUALLY DID.

What Bush actually did was monitor phone calls from Al Qaeda to people in the US and to Al Qaeda from people in the US. These were known Al Qaeda phone contacts discovered while prosecuting the war on terror. Bush did not authorize spying on the man down the street when he calls a phone sex line, or the hippie up the street when he calls to make another contribution to MoveOn. NO, all Bush did was something sensible and logical: he authorized the NSA to monitor these calls because they did, in fact, represent national security threats.

In fact, President Bush has the explicit right to do what he did. The ONLY thing president Bush did that he could be censured for in this case is that he did not seek a warrant. The administration has argued that seeking a warrant would have taken much more time than what they had. Given the fact that this occured in the hysteria right after 9/11 I am inclined to believe that the administration thought they had no time to lose. Still, such an act is censurable and would be the only appropriate use of such a motion.

But we Americans have had five straight years of mischaracterizations of this president. From election 2000 t0 9/11 to WMD to Bush's Guard service, to PortGate and the wiretapping 'scandal', to Valerie Plame and yellowcake, every scandal has been manufactured by liberals and the media who have from the beginning contested Bush as a president.

This is a fact whether you are a Republican, Democrat, Independent, whatever. And it is dangerous, for while serious stuff is going on in this world, we have no way of knowing the truth because the media is untruthful about so many things. We make it harder for those entrusted to defend this country to do so, as they start doing things not for the right reasons but for political ones (so they don't get browbeaten by the MSM).

So Feingold can try and censure the president, but he and the media have it entirely wrong. Feingold aims to censure the president on lies. What a surprise.

Isaac Hayes the hypocrite.....

Hayes' own character, Chef, was a sexually promiscuous, single black man who cheapened the act of sex into a recreational sport, divorced of its rightful place within a loving, respectful marriage. Not very moral in itself, I might say.

One of the show's creators, Matt Stone, says that Hayes is quitting because the show made fun of The Church of Scientology**, of which Hayes is a member. That may be true, but if Hayes was a moral man in the first place he should not have ever been a part of the show.

*The religion most made fun of on the show is Catholicism. It attacks Jesus and Mary, mischaracterizes the priest abuse scandal, and so on.

**Not a real church. While SP's treatment of Scientology was a bit extreme, at its core it was accurate. Scientology is a money making scheme that should not be included with religions like Christianity and Judaism.

"'V' for 'Vendetta'" is pure liberal fantasy-world politics

President wants Saddam documents released, but intelligence chief stalls to avoid embarassing the allies

Whenever they are released, there are going to be a lot of people, including most of the war critics who called Bush a liar, with egg on their faces.