April 12, 2005

April 15th: Taxes Due, My Dad's Birthday, and BUY A GUN DAY!!

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Well look who the cat dragged in! Long time friend Aaron must have finally got himself a job! For awhile there he was acting like one of them liberals--you know, on the welfare--but now that Arnold is in office I guess they kicked his lazy butt out of the welfare line.

Anyway, April 15th means a lot of things to a lot of people. But to bloggers it holds a special meaning. IT'S BUY A GUN DAY!

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Three Terrorists Indicted, U.S. Financial Buildings Targetted

The three suspects are Dhiren Barot (aka, Esa al-Hindi ), Nadeem Tarmohamed, and Quaisar Shaffi.

UPDATE: Evan Kohlmann has more on Esa al-Hindi:

Eisa al-Hindi (a.k.a. Dhiran Barot) is the same extremist leader who wrote the infamous jihad text, The Army of Madinah in Kashmir. According to that book, Barot was born in the U.K. as a Hindu, but later converted to Islam and fought alongside Muslim militants in Kashmir. After graduating on and working as a combat trainer at a mujahideen terror camp in Afghanistan, al-Hindi moved to southern Thailand in 1998 and married a local woman there. In his book, Barot argues that the use by the mujahideen of "'stealthy' modern day war stratagems, which are commonly used by the western world to bring others to their knees... could be long overdue." Barot highlights several desirable "war strategems" in particular, including "Economical warfare", "Drug warfare", "Germ warfare", and "Chemical warfare."
Evan has a translation of parts of that book available for download here. Pretty scary stuff.

Guardian:

Three men have been indicted on charges they plotted to attack financial institutions in New York, New Jersey and Washington.

A four-count indictment unsealed Tuesday accuses Dhiran Barot, Nadeem Tarmohammed and Qaisar Shaffi of scouting the New York Stock Exchange and Citicorp Building in New York, the Prudential Building in Newark, N.J., and the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in the District of Columbia.

more...

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Jeff Gannon Attacked in Iraq

Earlier I posted about a base in Western Iraq being attacked by al Qaeda. Thankfully, the attack was a rousing defeat.

But how did I let the obvious slip by? Thanks to Steve the Llama Butcher for pointing out the obvious:

Yesterday's raid was on Camp Gannon...
It's all beginning to make sense now......

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Star Wars Actress Bai Ling Bares all for Playboy

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No, not Princess Leah (Carrie Fisher, D'oh!). No, not Queen Amidala (Natalie Portman, double-do'h!!) It's Bai Ling, who plays Senator Bana Breemu in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.

According to nerd central theforce.net, Playboy magazine will show Bai Ling baring all in the June 2005 issue.

Interesting.

And what is Bail Ling's Senator Bana Breemu costume going to consist of in Episode III? According to Bai Ling, "IÂ’m all naked with tattoos on my body. You have to find out why when you see the movie.

Interesting.

Anything else we should know about you Bai Ling?

"There’s a provocative, seductive girl inside me. She’s the one who should be banned. She’s crazy, free, open and sexy. She makes me have a good time and wear sexy outfits. Except in the house: I’m always naked when I’m inside.”

Very Interesting.

What about Hot-Lesbo-Star-Wars-Chick-Pundit? Any thoughts?

“Sex with another woman is something I wanted to experience, so I did. I was in the Jacuzzi once with this woman and felt a connection. It wasn’t about her gender; she was an attractive woman and I was stimulated. I appreciate the way a woman makes love.”

Suddenly, I lost interest.

Obligatory Bai Ling photos follow of the (PG-13 sort, but maybe NSFW). Hat tip to Wine-aholic and with apologies to Kevin Nealon. more...

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Question for Readers on Comment Banning

More and more of my comment threads are degenerating into name calling.

Don't make me come down out of the ivory tower and put my foot up your asses!

Anyway, I rarely ban any one from making comments. But should I?

On the one hand, I like to be challenged. When you start banning people you weed out a potential pool of those who will be the most critical, and therefore those that are most willing to point out a flaw in your arguements.

On the other hand, sometimes these disagreements piss people off. Then name calling begins. And then it gets pretty nasty. I'm afraid many of our long-time readers have stopped commenting because they see this degeneration in dialogue.

So, what do you think? Should I just start banning people? Should we lay out some ground rules and then only ban those who break them? Any suggestions?

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Local Residents Help Free Prisoners in Iraq

The Dread Pundit Bluto has the details. What can I say? Awesome. Even better news is that more and more reports seem to indicate Iraqis are helping fight the insurgency.

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Bonfire of the Vanities

Go check it out. I especially love Glenn Reynold's submission.

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There's True and there's Onion True

Six of one, or half a dozen of the other.

UPDATE: It looks like the original story isn't true. But, hey, it should be......

GOP & The City has the man on the street interviews. Trust me, those are true......

PS-I linked the story earlier, only no one seems to have noticed....

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Nightmares

Toy company finds yet another way to give me nightmares.

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Censorship In a State of War

The Confederate Yankee and I have been going back and forth over whether or not Kevin Sites is a 'traitor' or not. Mostly for his benefit I repost my earlier discussion on censorship in a time of war. This post was originally written after the Abu Ghraib pictures were released and after Nick Berg had been beheaded.

Some of you might be shocked to learn that Rusty Shackleford, Libertarian, actually advocates censorship. I do. But only in the context of war and only in the context of speech directly related to the war effort.

Read the rest. It's a little academic, but if you don't mind a lot of references to Locke and Hobbes, I hope you find it readable if not completely outrageous. more...

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Jay Tea at Wizbang Makes an Ass Out of Himself

Worst. Tirade. Ever. Dumbass.

Seriously. I'm at a loss for words over how idiotic this is. Dean pretty much sums up my feelings here.

I don't usually comment on religious doctrine, but some of the stuff being said over at Wizbang lately is getting borderline insane.

I wonder if saying Mass for the dead is also deeply offensive to Jay Tea?

When the families of Holocaust survivors lodge a protest over the 'baptism for the dead' practice of Mormons, they are feeding the fires of anti-semitism. Protesting what is essentially a harmless practice, and one done out of good will, is the kind of thing that anti-semites love to point out.

It's one thing to bring up the Holocaust when defending Israel's right to exist, it's another thing altogether to bring it up when complaining about a doctrine that you oppose.

The fact that the Holocaust is mentioned at all reminds me of Tony Robert's character 'Rob' in Annie Hall.

I think Aaron's response here is the proper one from Jews. Eh, don't like it but no big deal.

Most Christian denominations believe that non-Christians will go to hell. So what? And that is deeply offensive because....??? I think most Christian denominations are wrong. Most of my neighbors are Southern Baptists and in no uncertain terms do they condemn me to hell. Many of them are deeply concerned about my soul--and they tell me.

I'm flattered. I'm glad I have neighbors with such concern. Much more worrisome is a society which produces religious faith that not only condemns non-believers to hell, but which is willing to help them on their way.

The only thing offensive in this story is the fact that the Mormon Church is caving to these ninnies. Grow some nads people! So freaking what if these people take offense where none is given. Deal with it.

Just remember that South Park claims only Mormons go to heaven. Who are we to argue with that?

UPDATE: Holocaust.

Jews have a perfectly legitimate reason for being sensitive, as Aaron points out in the comments.

But by invoking the Holocaust into this debate (as the delegation did when they took special umbrage at Holocaust victims being baptized by proxy) we cheapen the enormity and uniquely evil nature of that event.

UPDATE II: Amen to Bogus Gold:

"Die and then we'll convert you" has got to be the very least intrusive conversion practice in the history of religion. You don't have to participate. Your relatives don't have to be bothered. No one takes out an article in a newspaper announcing your post-mortem conversion, and thereby sullying your proudly Mormon-free reputation.

If the Mormon faith is true, they're doing these deceased folks the best good they could possibly do. If their faith is false, they're doing no harm and bothering no one but themselves. Unless you're just looking to be offended anyway.

Another UPDATE: Yeah, I like Jay Tea. But even the best of us say idiotic things every once and awhile.......

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Al Qaeda Attacks Marine Base in Iraq

This is the second large scale attack by terrorists in the past two weeks.

Over a week ago al Qaeda attacked Abu Ghraib prison and claimed success. However, as the video released by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's group shows, the attack was an utter failure (imgages and link to video here).

Expect a video to be released in the next several days. Unless, of course, the cameraman was killed. We will post footage from the video as soon as it becomes available.

In other news, as reported here yesterday, an American contractor has been taken hostage in Iraq. Also, Playboy interviews Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Seattle Times:

Insurgents claiming to be linked to al-Qaida tried to overrun a U.S. Marine base on the Syrian border yesterday using gunmen, suicide car bombs and a firetruck loaded with explosives, U.S. and Iraqi officials said.

U.S. officials described the assault as the second time in less than two weeks that foreign insurgents have employed new tactics of massing an organized military-style offensive rather than staging smaller-scale bombings and attacks.

Yesterday's raid was on Camp Gannon, a U.S. base at Husaybah, a few yards from the Syrian border near the Euphrates River. U.S. Cobra attack helicopters fired on the insurgents to repel simultaneous attacks by suicide bombers and armed fighters, officials said. A second car bomb exploded 15 minutes after the first assault, "at the same entrance, while the soldiers were busy rescuing the wounded," Iraqi army Capt. Saad Abdul Fattah said.

more...

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Cat Hunting May be Legalized in Wisconsin

Cat-blogging bloggers beware: Wisconsin may legalize cat hunting.

My opinion? Here kitty-kitty-kitty.....

Two questions:

1) What does cat taste like?

2) What's the going rate for a cat pelt? more...

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Rusty loves me, this I know, because his blog tells me so!

The Jawa link philosophy:

"For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened." --Matt 7:8

-Liberal T-Shirt asks Tom Delay to committ suicide. Offensive and funny.

-John Kerry outs CIA agent. Dumbass. More.

-Carnival of the Revolutions is up. Awesome!

-Germans love David Hasselhoff, hate George Bush, and could go either way for Vladimir Putin.

-The great blogger billboard scam. Funny.

-John Kerry, asshat.

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April 11, 2005

Another South Park Republican Gets a Blog

My good friend Dr. Leopold Stotch has now moved the island of mu.nu. Welcome aboard Butters Chaos!

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Kevin Sites, Traitor, Gets Journalism Ethics Award

Kevin Sites has his ethics. He put his 'journalistic ethics' above patriotic duty by releasing a video of an American soldier killing an Iraqi who was playing dead.

The proper thing to do would have been to turn the video over to the military authorities for investigation. Had the military never done an investigation, then perhaps Sites should have let this one out of the bag.

This video served as a great propaganda tool for our enemies. Terrorists don't need a Joseph Goebbels as long as they have traitors like Kevin Sites.

From the ever partisan Editor and Publisher:

Kevin Sites, a freelance photojournalist for NBC, will be awarded the 2005 Payne Award for Ethics in Journalism on May 12 for his decision-making process after he witnessed and taped a U.S. Marine killing an unarmed Iraqi man in a mosque.

Sites decided to share the tape with the military, then he worked with NBC to create a "well-nuanced story that aired 48 hours after the incident," according to the Payne announcement. Since he was working as a pool photojournalist at the time, Sites shared the tape with the other news organizations in the pool.

Hat tip: Avenu B. Alum.

Update: I just noticed something. When Editor and Publisher quoted one of my posts in an article on the Pulitzer fiasco, they didn't drop a link. They simply name my blog and that's it. But for Sites blog they drop a link. Why is that? more...

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American Kidnapped in Iraq

An another American has been kidnapped in Iraq. Developing....

UPDATE 4/13: The name of the man is Jeffrey Ake. A video has been aired by al Jazeera. More information about the video here.

The State Department has an official policy of not releasing the names of civilians captured in Iraq. As was the case of Roy Hallums and Mohammed Monaf, we will publish the name of this victim as soon as that information is available.

We pray for the safe return of all the hostages still held in Iraq.

Reuters:

An American contractor has been kidnapped near Baghdad, a U.S. embassyspokesman says, the latest foreigner abducted in the lawless Iraqi capital.

The contractor, who was working on a reconstruction project, was kidnapped in the greater Baghdad area,embassy spokesman Bob Callaghan said on Monday.

"No group has claimed responsibility. We have contacted the Iraqi authorities to try and find him," he said.

Hat tip: Speed of Thought

Others: In the Bullpen, Jeff Quinton, Robert Spencer, ....

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Abu Musab al Zarqawi Interviewed by Playboy

The May 2005 issue of Playboy Magazine will feature a candid interview with the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq's Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The issue is not on stands yet, but Playboy has a preview of the article here. (Safe for Work)

(Linked at OTB)

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Southeast Asia: The Next Big Front in the GWOT

Go check out Michelle Malkin. She's right, you know. Expect the next wave of terrorist to be Filipinos, Pakistanis, or Thais.

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Zarqawi Barely Slips Away, Again

Unfortunately, close only counts in horse-shoes and hand grenades. The recent beheading snuff film released by Zarqawi's al Qaeda in Iraq does suggest that the man may be at the end of the line. Washington Times Insider (subscription):

Abu Musab Zarqawi, the most-wanted terrorist in Iraq, is on the run in an undeveloped western border region where he was nearly caught in recent weeks, a U.S. Marine commander says.

"He's going from brush pile to brush pile just like a wet rat," said Lt. Gen. John F. Sattler, whose 1st Marine Expeditionary Force is back home at Camp Pendleton, Calif., after months of intense combat in Anbar province. "I believe he possibly slid back into the Anbar area, possibly the hinterlands."...

He can't use cell phones," Gen. Sattler said of the Jordanian-born terrorist, whose capture promises a $25 million reward. "He can't use any type of Internet. He doesn't know who he can trust."...

Gen. Sattler disclosed in the interview that his Marines and special operations troops came within a whisker of capturing the terror master "within the last six weeks" in western Iraq.

While guarded on details, Gen. Sattler said that only poor visibility in bad weather allowed Zarqawi to escape.

"The elements worked to his advantage," the three-star general said.

Hat tip: Charles Johnson

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