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200 of Michael Moore's Minutemen begin pushing up whatever passes for daisies in Iraq: BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Iraqi officials claimed Monday that at least 200 militants were killed in a fierce battle between U.S.-backed Iraqi troops and a religious cult allegedly plotting to kill pilgrims at a major Shiite Muslim religious festival, while bombings and mortar attacks targeting Shiites elsewhere killed at least 15 people. The Iraqi government spokesman, Ali al-Dabbagh, said the raid on Sunday was targeting a group called the Jund al-Samaa, or Soldiers of Heaven, and the group's leader was among those killed, along with foreign fighters. Worldeater Bush:
A boy of 12 is believed to have become the world's youngest sex change patient after convincing doctors that he wanted to live the rest of his life as a female. The boy - originally called Tim, but now known as Kim - has started to receive hormone treatment, in preparation for the operation that will eventually complete the sex change. Tim was diagnosed as a transsexual two years ago, when doctors and psychiatrists concluded that his claims to be "in the wrong body" were so deeply felt that he required treatment. The therapy involves artificially arresting male puberty, with a series of potent hormone injections before the administration of female hormones to initiate the development of features such as breasts.
Lubricant Dealer Greases the skids for Harry:
The Republican "Culture of Corruption" envelopes The Bookish Little Snot Merchant, Senate Majority Leader Harry "Hank" Reid:
BULLHEAD CITY, Ariz. -- It's hard to buy undeveloped land in booming northern Arizona for $166 an acre. But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid effectively did just that when a longtime friend decided to sell property owned by the employee pension fund that he controlled.
In 2002, the Nevada Democrat paid $10,000 to a pension fund controlled by Clair Haycock, a Las Vegas lubricant dealer and his friend for 50 years. The payment gave the senator full control of a 160-acre parcel in Bullhead City that Reid and the pension fund had jointly owned. Reid's price for the equivalent of 60 acres of undeveloped desert was less than one-tenth of the assessed value at the time.If Reid were to sell the property for any of the various estimates of its value, his gain on the $10,000 investment could range from $50,000 to $290,000. Six months after the deal closed, Reid introduced legislation to address the plight of lubricant dealers who had their supplies disrupted by the decisions of big oil companies. It was an issue the Haycock family brought to Reid's attention in 1994, according to a source familiar with the events. Reid's legislation was unsuccessful.
I thought what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, especially when lubricants are involved and the dealer's name is "Haycock". Reid will of course skate because he was defending "Big Lubricants" against the evils of "Big 'Ol".
Liebermann continues to frost the Left:
Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee in 2000 who won re-election as an independent last year, says he is open to supporting any party's White House nominee in 2008. "I'm going to do what most independents and a lot of Democrats and Republicans in America do, which is to take a look at all the candidates and then in the end, regardless of party, decide who I think will be best for the future of our country," Lieberman said Sunday. "So I'm open to supporting a Democrat, Republican or even an Independent, if there's a strong one. Stay tuned," said the three-term lawmaker who caucuses with Senate Democrats. Lieberman is an ally of GOP Sen. John McCain of Arizona, a 2008 hopeful, and supports President Bush's new Iraq strategy. Lieberman won re-election as an independent last fall when Democrats backed an anti-war candidate who won the party primary.
Jimmy Carter Jumpstarted Modern Islamic Terrorism?
Recently Jimmy Carter was on television, denouncing President Bush’s policies in Iraq. I find this highly ironic, because Jimmy Carter and his liberal advisers helped the Ayatollah Khomeini to come to power in Iran a quarter of a century ago. Thus they gave radical Islam control of its first major state. How this happened is worth recalling, because from Carter’s failure there’s a valuable lesson to be learned in Iraq. Islamic radicals have been around since the 1920s, but for decades they were outsiders even in the Muslim countries. One of their leading theoreticians, Sayyid Qutb, argued that radical Muslims could not just promulgate theories and have meetings; they must seek to realize the Islamic state “in a concrete form.” What was needed, he wrote, was “to initiate the movement of Islamic revival in some Muslim country.” Once the radicals controlled a state, he suggested, they could then use it as a beachhead for launching the takeover of other Muslim countries.
In 1979, Qutb’s goal was achieved when the Ayatollah Khomeini seized power in Iran. The importance of the Khomeini revolution is that it demonstrated the viability of the Islamic theocracy in the modern age. And to this day post-Khomeini Iran provides a viable model of what the Islamic radicals hope to achieve throughout the Muslim world. Khomeini also popularized the idea of America as a “great Satan.” Before Khomeini, no Muslim head of state had said this about America. Khomeini was also the first Muslim leader in the modern era to advocate violence as a religious duty and to give special place to martyrdom. Since Khomeini, Islamic radicalism has continued to attract aspiring martyrs ready to confront the Great Satan. In this sense, the seeds of 9/11 were sown a quarter of a century ago when Khomeini came to power.
Khomeini’s ascent to power was aided by the policies of Jimmy Carter and his allies on the political left. Carter was elected president in 1976 by stressing his support for human rights. From the time he took office, the left contrasted Carter’s rights doctrine with the Shah’s practices. The left denounced the Shah as a vicious and corrupt dictator, highlighting and in some cases magnifying his misdeeds. Left-leaning officials such as Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, UN envoy Andrew Young, and State Department human rights officer Patricia Derian pressed Carter to sever America’s longstanding alliance with the Shah. Eventually Carter came to agree with his liberal advisers that he could not in good conscience support the Shah. When the Shah moved to arrest mullahs who called for his overthrow, leftists in America and Europe denounced these actions. Former diplomat George Ball called on the U.S. government to curtail the Shah’s exercise of power. Acceding to this pressure, Carter called for the release of political prisoners and warned the Shah not to use force against the demonstrators in the streets. When the Shah petitioned the Carter administration to purchase tear gas and riot control gear, the human rights office in the State Department held up the request. Some, like State Department official Henry Precht, urged the U.S. to prepare the way for the shah to make a “graceful exit” from power. William Miller, chief of staff on the Democrat-controlled Senate Intelligence Committee, said America had nothing to fear from Khomeini since he would be a progressive force for human rights. U.S. Ambassador William Sullivan even compared Khomeini to Mahatma Gandhi, and Andrew Young termed the ayatollah a “twentieth century saint.”
As the resistance gained momentum and the Shah’s position weakened, he looked to the United States government to help him. Carter aide Gary Sick reports that the Shah discovered many enemies, and few friends, in the Carter administration. Increasingly paranoid, the Shah pleaded with the United States to help him stay in power. Carter refused. Deprived of his last hope, with the Persian rug pulled out from under him, the Shah decided to abdicate. The Carter administration encouraged him to do so, and the cultural left celebrated his departure. The result, of course, was Khomeini.
The Carter administration’s role in assisting with the downfall of the Shah is one of America’s great foreign policy disasters of the twentieth century. In trying to get rid of the bad guy, Carter got the worse guy. His failure, as former Democratic senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said, was the result of being “unable to distinguish between America’s friends and enemies.” Carter does not deserve sole discredit for these actions. This intellectual framework that shaped Carter’s misguided strategy was supplied by the political left.
Asking people to think that far back is a tall order. Global Warming causes ice to fall from the sky resulting in a car being totaled.
TAMPA - You probably see ice just about everyday—but not in a big block that has fallen from the sky and totaled a parked car.But it happened on Hilldrop Courtin Town 'n Country around 9:30 Sunday morning.Neighbors woke up to something they never thought they’d see.“Came out to find a large piece of ice sitting on the car, and ice all over the place,” said neighbor John Young.
I almost went through an entire "Review" without mentioning global warming...enveloping... in Town 'n Country around 9:30 Sunday morning. Communist Jane, tan, rested and ready hits the campaign trail:
strikes a Nixonesque pose...
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