You know what's sad? When you find out your son is a terrorist. First comes denial. After that, more denial. Then, you blame the US. After that, you look for meaning in your sons admission to being a terrorist by seeking out his Islamofascist friends. Then, you enter into some more denial. After that, you blame the US again. Finally, you get it right. Your son was just a misunderstood idealist fighting for his vision of the ideal world.

Unfortunately for you, your son's vision of the ideal world is one where women are not allowed to go to school, Jews and Christians are second-class citizens, blasphemers are stoned or beheaded, and American civillians are the intentional targets of murder.

I heard about this on NPR today. NPR Online:

Among the four suspects is 29-year-old David Hicks, an Australian who was captured by the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan in 2001. A convert to Islam, Hicks had gone to Pakistan to study the religion and ended up in Afghanistan, where he joined the Taliban. At the tribunal, Hicks pleaded not guilty to charges of attempted murder, conspiring to commit war crimes and aiding the enemy. His trial is set to start in January.

Terry Hicks, David's father, traveled to Cuba for the tribunal and had an emotional reunion with his son, whom he had not seen in five years. When Hicks was first transferred from Afghanistan to Guantanamo, his father decided to retrace David's steps through Pakistan and Afghanistan to try to find out what had happened along the way. A camera crew accompanied him and produced The President Versus David Hicks, a documentary that examines Hicks' tangled journey.

Terry Hicks speaks with NPR's Jennifer Ludden about the trip and what it taught him about his son. "He always tried to help out where he could," says Hicks, "in his own way, that was probably what he was doing."

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I just like the headline. 'Dyke'.

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Chechen ERA:

Russian investigators announced today explosives were found on both planes that crashed with the loss of 90 lives, as attention focussed on the roles of two dead female passengers believed to be of Chechen origin.

The Russian press was quick to paint the pair as the latest in a line of female suicide bombers from the strife-torn Caucasus republic to strike, citing their suspected ethnic origins and the fact no relatives have come forward to claim their remains.

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A guy get's fired because he lied about an affair he had ten years ago so he must be lying about John Kerry too, right? But I thought lying about extra-marital affairs was the one kind of lie that was ok?Oliver Willis:

But people are trusting this guy and his pals more than the US Navy? For shame.

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...right? Wapo:

An Iraqi militant group has kidnapped two Frenchmen and given the French government 48 hours to end a ban on Muslim headscarves, Arabic television station Al Jazeera said on Saturday.

Of course, there would be less hostages if we had not invaded Iraq. But, that's just like saying "if people would stop going into the Bear's den, then the Bear would stop killing people in the Bear's den." Yup, true. But the bear is a bear, no matter where he is. We are in a war. We can let the enemy choose the battlefield, or we can choose it ourselves.

(Hat tip: AIR)

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My friend Henry Hill wore something like this once.

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Jeff Quinton has it. And to the trolls who think that serving in the military makes you immune from criticism, please watch the video then tell me John Kerry is a hero. Also here is what one POW confronted while in the Hanoi Hilton:

The interrogator went through all of these statements from John Kerry. And he starts pounding on the table, "Well see here is this Naval officer, he [John Kerry] admits that you are a criminal and that you deserve punishment."

I would like to talk, representing all those veterans, and say that several months ago in Detroit, we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged and many very highly decorated veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia, not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command.

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So many people have added me to their blogroll as of late, that I haven't been able to keep up. If you've added me to your blogroll, and you don't see your site listed in mine, please drop me an e-mail at mypetjawa-at-yahoo-dot-com.

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Bizarre if untrue. Holy fu**ing sh*t if true!!! Story below. more...

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It looks like the original source for this story was posted at an Islamic bulletin board. We'll see if it pans out. This group or another, though, Islamists are behind it. Newsday:

A claim of responsibility for the downing of two Russian planes appeared on a Web site known for militant Muslim comment Friday.....

"We in the Islambouli Brigades announce that our holy warriors managed to hijack two Russian planes and were crowned with success though they faced problems at the beginning," the statement said without elaborating on the problems.

Friday's statement said five mujahedeen (Islamic fighters) were on board each plane and their wills will be published soon.

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Hooray! We let this guy go. Nice freaking work. Update: A more recent report has the number at 25.

Xposed:

Iraqi police discovered on Friday at least 10 bodies in a building housing a maverick religious court run by rebel Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's followers here Friday.

Police said they were victims of the court's summary brand of justice, but al-Sadr's followers said they had died in the three weeks of fighting in Najaf between al-Sadr's militiamen and U.S.-Iraqi forces.

An Associated Press reporter saw about 10 charred and bloated bodies covered in blankets, including one of an elderly woman. It was not immediately clear how they died, but they appeared to have been killed by shrapnel, with large gaping wounds.

The stench of the corpses led police, who were deployed Friday in Najaf's Old City, to the bodies, said Brig. Gen. Amer al-Daami, Najaf's deputy police chief.

We found bodies, burnt and rotten," he said.

Al-Daami said some of the bodies were those of police officers, and others belonged to civilians. Before the fighting began Aug. 5, authorities accused the militants of taking police hostage in the city and of killing and mutilating some of them.

Al-Sadr's office in Najaf had set up the court, which ordered arrests and meted out punishments outside of religious and legal authorities. Local Iraqi officials have in the past demanded it be shut down and all its prisoners freed.

Police said the bodies belonged to the victims of the court. But a court official, who identified himself only as Hashim, said the corpses belonged to militants killed in the recent fighting in the city.

The two-story courthouse is made up of 15 rooms filled with desks, computers and books. The bodies were located in an open air area within the courthouse compound.

Half the skull of one of the dead men was missing and another man appeared to have suffered massive wounds to his stomach. None of the bodies was dismembered, save one, which had been beheaded, though it was unclear how.

During the fighting, the militants had set up their own informal health clinics and morgues. The U.S. military has said it killed hundreds of militants in the fighting, though the militants say their casualty figure was far lower.

The courts have arrested and interrogated hundreds of people on charges including selling alcohol and peddling music deemed immoral. Punishments included flagellation.

Al-Sadr's followers have been accused of using the court to settle scores with opponents or to threaten people.

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Click for bigger pics.

Mrs. Norm Coleman (R-MN)

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I'm in class. Deal with it. In the meantime here's some linkage that should keep you occupied. Call it homework....

News Junkies: Russia, News fit for Jews, Bush will win, The skinny on the Skinnies
Science: 2001 A Space Odyssey revisited
Bloggage: Military Crackdown on Bloggers, Blog Buddies (not gay), (good) Advice to new bloggers, and old
Theology: Sabbath Declared, Could it be...Satan?, J-O-Os
Poetry: JFK Sonnets
Food: Man does not live by...
Social Studies: The Sociology of Retards
Just funny: One man race, Gay pride

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One more for the count. May God bless you and bring swift justice to those that murdered you. more...

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For the latest news on hostages in Iraq please go to the MAIN PAGE HERE.

UPDATE: Italian hostage Salvatore Santoro Murdered by Terrorists in Iraq. News, information, and images here.
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Bastards. Fu**ing bastards. Can't they let one freaking day go by without murdering another hostage??? To make it worse, Enzo Baldoni was there with the Red Cross trying to help Iraq heal. I let my class out early for what? This story via M.H. King:

The hostage takers who grabbed Italian journalist Enzo Baldoni on the road between Baghdad and Najaf in Iraq have killed him, the Italian government confirmed Thursday.

"We can confirm it was him, unfortunately," a spokesman for Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said.

Arabic language television channel Al Jazeera said Baldoni's kidnappers killed him because Italy refused to heed their earlier deadline to withdraw troops from Iraq.

"The group calling itself the Islamic Army in Iraq said they executed the Italian journalist Enzo Baldoni because Italy did not respond to their demand to withdraw troops from Iraq within 48 hours," the Arabic language channel Al Jazeera said.

Al Jazeera showed a video of Baldoni, 56, speaking to the camera in front of the group's banner, but no audio could be heard. The television said it would not air footage showing Baldoni's dead body out of respect for his family.

Berlusconi responded quickly with a statement reiterating his determination to keep Italian forces in the U.S.-led coalition and condemning Baldoni's killing.

"There are no words for an act lacking any humanity and which at a stroke cancels out centuries of civilization and takes us back to the dark ages of barbarity," he said.

Italian newspapers said Baldoni and his driver-interpreter were caught in an ambush between Baghdad and Najaf, scene of a Shi'ite rebellion. His driver was found dead Saturday.

Tuesday, the Islamic Army in Iraq gave Italy 48 hours to withdraw its 2,700 troops from Iraq or Baldoni would be killed.

Italy, which has the third-largest foreign military contingent in the country, refused to bow to the kidnappers' demands.

As well as a reporter for the Milan-based weekly "Diario," Baldoni was volunteering for the Red Cross while in Iraq, his daughter, Gabriella Baldoni, told Italian television on Wednesday.

"He was trying to save human lives in Najaf by helping a Red Cross convoy in a spirit of solidarity which has always underscored his thinking and his actions," she told RAI television.
Four other Italians have been taken hostage in Iraq since militants began employing the technique in April to pressure U.S. allies and businesses to leave the country.

One of them, civilian security guard Fabrizio Quattrocchi, was shot dead. The three others were released unharmed.

The Islamic Army in Iraq claimed responsibility for the death of an Iranian diplomat in Iraq earlier this month and showed the man in a videotape. It also was reported to have killed two Pakistani hostages in July.

Others Blogging: M.H. King, Jane, Diggers Realm, Jeff Quinton

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Advice taken, now pass the ammunition. more...

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A new documentary is coming out. Needless to say, buy your tickets early. Some of the clips show what are clearly political judgments by Vietnam Veterans--that the anti-war movement had prolonged the war needlessly, that John Kerry was only in Vietnam four months and thereby could not claim war hero status, or that John Kerry's voting record is anti-military. However, the most striking clip was from a POW who claimed his interrogator used John Kerry's testimony as justification for not giving the prisoners the rights accorded to POWs under the Geneva Conventions.

UPDATE: Via Glenn Reynolds I learn that Kerry's 1971 Testimony Before Senate Foreign Relations Committee will be on C-Span. If it is already 8:05 PM EST when you read this, you can click here to view the video over the internet. His own words will condemn him.

Here is a transcript of a clip found at the Stolen Honor website.

James Warner, POW

After we had talked for quite sometime the interrogator showed me a transcript of testimony that my mother had given at something called the winter soldier hearings...which I had no idea what these were. I read her testimony, and it wasn't damning, but then I saw some of the other stuff that had gone on at this winter soldier hearing and I wondered how did somebody get my mother persuaded to come, uh, appear at something like this.

And then shortly thereafter he [his interrogator showed] showed my some statements from John Kerry. He said that John Kerry had helped to organize the winter soldier hearings because he was so motivated because he had been an American officer served in the US Navy...and...then he started reading some of the statements that John Kerry made.

I'm sorry I can't quote them, but essentially he accused all of us in Vietnam of being criminals. That everything we had done was criminal. Therefore, of course, the North Vietnamese had told us from the time they got their hands on us that we were criminals, we're not covered by the Geneva Conventions, so it was ok for them to do whatever they wanted to us.

And they told us that they were going to put us on trial, and some of us would be executed....

The interrogator went through all of these statements from John Kerry. And he starts pounding on the table, "Well see here is this Naval officer, he [John Kerry] admits that you are a criminal and that you deserve punishment."

Well, look they told us this was a camp for punishment. We're in solitary confinement. The last time I had been tortured was, started on the 5th of May and lasted until the 2nd of September, in '69. And after it ended they kept me in this box until November the 10th. I was in the box from June the 1st to November the 10th.

When a guy starts pounding a table and you can spot this in them when they start...the voice starts to rise, their face gets red, that's usually a sign that something bad is about to happen. So it made me very uneasy as this interrogator is pounding on the table, looking at me, saying, "These words [John Kerry's] prove that you deserve punishment." I didn't know what was gonna come next and I was, for the rest of the time we were in that camp, I was very ill at ease.....

Here's a Naval Officer who comes home and leaves active duty and reports seeing events that he clearly did not see. And reports participating in actions that he clearly did not participate in. And he says them in criticism, not just of the government of the United States, but of the men he left behind when he came home. And of us who were being held prisoner in North Vietnam, he was criticizing us. He was saying we had done these things, and he was saying things that he knew to be false. And knew would harm us, that means he abandoned his comrades. He burned up his broth-...his band of brotherÂ’s membership card when he did that.

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Yemeni Poet Says He Is al-Qaida Member. I am told the confession was written in iambic pentameter.

Update: a poem by Dr. Chaos, with revisions by Keith:

There once was a man from Yemen
Whose breath always smelled of semen
a sign on the door
said, "Come back after 4:00...
IÂ’m out giving head to bin Laden."

Although our man love
Is condemned by the Koran
Osama mounts me.

The al Qaeda poet was sodden
He rhymed to inspire the downtrodden
But a sign on his door
Said come come here no more
ItÂ’s my duty to die for bin Laden

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Headline: Attack Ads May Be Hurting Kerry, LA Times Poll Shows

Problem: Has anyone actually seen one of these ads on TV? The people in this poll who claimed to have seen the ad are either lying or are recalling news clips of the ad---usually with the most damning parts being left out. Unless of course the sample was skewed towards the internet savvy--the only place I've ever seen the ad. Unlike Ace, I just don't think these ads have been viewed widely enough to have impacted the polls. People know of the ad, but have not seen it.

Freaking brilliant analysis.

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Oxymoron: Popular Jewish Actor in Hollywood is Republican.
(via Llama Butchers)

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