Taloned, Willing, and Able

Once again, Tony Auth hits it on the head.

2006-02-13T15:58:00.000-05:00

Thanks, Tony.

The Muslim Cartoon Response Debacle, continued.

2006-02-07T13:06:00.000-05:00

In the spirit of freedom of expression, here are some excellent political cartoons:

Tom Toles:

Jeff Stahler:

Ben Sargent:

Tony Auth:

Today, we are all danes.

2006-02-03T12:26:00.000-05:00

After the courageous stand by the Jyllands-Posten, and the heinous, but predictable, responses by rabble contingent of world-wide Muslims, it is our duty as freedom-loving individuals to show our support and solidarity with our Danish bretheren.

Join with the Support Denmark initiative:

On the 30th of September 2005 the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published
12 cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed. Mohammedans raised a
storm of protest and two artists went into hiding after receiving death threats. Islamic organisations demanded an apology from the Danish government and the incident turned into a world-wide diplomatic issue. The OIC (the Organisation of the Islamic Conference), the Council of Europe and the UN all criticised the government of Denmark for not taking measures against the newspaper Jyllands-Posten. The Danish prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen defended the freedom of the press and free speech and stated that any measures, if appropriate, could not be taken by the government but only by a court of law.
Meanwhile in Islamic countries Danish flags are burned and Danish products are taken off the shelves. Several countries have withdrawn their ambassadors from Denmark and armed men attacked the office of the EU in the Gaza strip.

If we do not stand firm for freedom now, who will stand for us when we are the targets?

Enough is enough; we have kow-towed to these Muslim extremists for too long; we have bent over backwards in the purpose of "religious sensitivity" to the point where our spines are near snapping; we must stand up for our freedoms and our heritage and resist this inevitable slide towards cultural suicide!

G-d Bless the Jyllands-Posten, and its brave writers and editors.

Gaza Pullout

2005-08-17T12:01:00.000-04:00

It is a disgrace, an utter disgrace, that the erstwhile champion of the settler movement is foorcibly relocating thousands of citizens from their lawful homes, to give the land to illegal Palestinian scum squatters.

Sharon, enjoy the remiander of your time ion this world, for in the next, you're gonna have a lot of 'splainin to do.

Spyware charge levelled at Lexmark - silicon.com

2004-11-13T20:37:00.000-05:00

Don't buy printers from Lexmark!

Spyware charge levelled at Lexmark - silicon.com:
November 12 2004
by Dan Ilett
Printer company accused of installing software that tracks usage

Allegations have been swirling around an online newsgroup this week that printer manufacturer Lexmark has been installing spyware on its customers' computers.

Click Here for Survey
Reports on the comp.periphs.printers Usenet newsgroup claim that Lexmark has been planting spyware on its customers' PCs in the form of undocumented software that monitors the use of its printers and silently reports back to a Lexmark-owned company website.

One user said that after initially denying the allegations, Lexmark acknowledged installing tracking software that reported printer and cartridge use back to the company for survey purposes. He claimed that Lexmark said no personal data was taken by the program, and that it was impossible to identify anyone by it.

However, users installing the software are prompted to fill in a registration form including their name and the serial number of the product.

The newsgroup posting claims that the program, found on the X5250 installation software, embeds itself in the registry and monitors the use of the printer through DLL files in the c:\program_files\lexmark500 folder.

The program sends the information, which includes print and scanning data, to the URL www.lxkcc1.com. According to the internet Whois database, this domain name belongs to Lexmark International in Kentucky.

Lexmark's UK office has not responded to repeated requests for comment.

Dan Ilett writes for ZDNet UK."

Arafat the monster

2004-11-11T20:18:00.000-05:00

G-d Bless Jeff Jacoby!

Boston.com / News / Boston Globe / Opinion / Op-ed / Arafat the monster
JEFF JACOBY
Arafat the monster

By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Columnist | November 11, 2004

YASSER ARAFAT died at age 75, lying in bed surrounded by familiar faces. He left this world peacefully, unlike the thousands of victims he sent to early graves.

In a better world, the PLO chief would have met his end on a gallows, hanged for mass murder much as the Nazi chiefs were hanged at Nuremberg. In a better world, the French president would not have paid a visit to the bedside of such a monster. In a better world, George Bush would not have said, on hearing the first reports that Arafat had died, "God bless his soul."

God bless his soul? What a grotesque idea! Bless the soul of the man who brought modern terrorism to the world? Who sent his agents to slaughter athletes at the Olympics, blow airliners out of the sky, bomb schools and pizzerias, machine-gun passengers in airline terminals? Who lied, cheated, and stole without compunction? Who inculcated the vilest culture of Jew-hatred since the Third Reich? Human beings might stoop to bless a creature so evil -- as indeed Arafat was blessed, with money, deference, even a Nobel Prize -- but God, I am quite sure, will damn him for eternity.

Arafat always inspired flights of nonsense from Western journalists, and his last two weeks were no exception.

Derek Brown wrote in The Guardian that Arafat's "undisputed courage as a guerrilla leader" was exceeded only "by his extraordinary courage" as a peace negotiator. But it is an odd kind of courage that expresses itself in shooting unarmed victims -- or in signing peace accords and then flagrantly violating their terms.

Another commentator, columnist Gwynne Dyer, asked, "So what did Arafat do right?" The answer: He drew worldwide attention to the Palestinian cause, "for the most part by successful acts of terror." In other words, butchering innocent human beings was "right," since it served an ulterior political motive. No doubt that thought brings daily comfort to all those who were forced to bury a child, parent, or spouse because of Arafat's "successful" terrorism.

Some journalists couldn't wait for Arafat's actual death to begin weeping for him. Take the BBC's Barbara Plett, who burst into tears on the day he was airlifted out of the West Bank. "When the helicopter carrying the frail old man rose above his ruined compound," Plett reported from Ramallah, "I started to cry." Normal people don't weep for brutal murderers, but Plett made it clear that her empathy for Arafat -- whom she praised as "a symbol of Palestinian unity, steadfastness, and resistance" -- was heartfelt:

"I remember well when the Israelis re-conquered the West Bank more than two years ago, how they drove their tanks and bulldozers into Mr. Arafat's headquarters, trapping him in a few rooms, and throwing a military curtain around Ramallah. I remember how Palestinians admired his refusal to flee under fire. They told me: `Our leader is sharing our pain, we are all under the same siege.' And so was I." Such is the state of journalism at the BBC, whose reporters do not seem to have any trouble reporting, dry-eyed, on the plight of Arafat's victims. (That is, when they mention them -- which Plett's teary bon voyage to Arafat did not.)

And what about those victims? Why were they scarcely remembered in this Arafat death watch?

How is it possible to reflect on Arafat's most enduring legacy -- the rise of modern terrorism -- without recalling the legions of men, women, and children whose lives he and his followers destroyed? If Osama bin Laden were on his deathbed, would we neglect to mention all those he murdered on 9/11?

It would take an encyclopedia to catalog all of the evil Arafat committed. But that is no excuse for not trying to recall at least some of it.

Perhaps his signal contribution to the practice of political terror was the introduction of warfare against children. On one black date in May 1974, three PLO terrorists slipped from Lebanon into the northern Israeli town of Ma'alot. They murdered two parents and a child whom they found at home, then seized a local school, taking more than 100 boys and girls hostage and threatening to kill them unless a number of imprisoned terrorists were released. When Israeli troops attempted a rescue, the terrorists exploded hand grenades and opened fire on the students. By the time the horror ended, 25 people were dead; 21 of them were children.

Thirty years later, no one speaks of Ma'alot anymore. The dead children have been forgotten. Everyone knows Arafat's name, but who ever recalls the names of his victims?

So let us recall them: Ilana Turgeman. Rachel Aputa. Yocheved Mazoz. Sarah Ben-Shim'on. Yona Sabag. Yafa Cohen. Shoshana Cohen. Michal Sitrok. Malka Amrosy. Aviva Saada. Yocheved Diyi. Yaakov Levi. Yaakov Kabla. Rina Cohen. Ilana Ne'eman. Sarah Madar. Tamar Dahan. Sarah Soper. Lili Morad. David Madar. Yehudit Madar. The 21 dead children of Ma'alot -- 21 of the thousands of who died at Arafat's command.

ScrappleFace: Specter Backs Partial-Burial Abortion for Arafat

2004-11-07T16:51:00.000-05:00

ScrappleFace: Specter Backs Partial-Burial Abortion for Arafat: "Specter Backs Partial-Burial Abortion for Arafat

(2004-11-07) -- U.S. Senator Arlen Specter, R/D-PA, today said that to resolve the condition of Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat, who is 'hovering between life and death,' he favors a procedure which critics call 'partial-burial abortion'

'Of course, it's Mrs. Arafat's right to choose,' said the future chairman of the senate judiciary committee, 'But to end her inconvenience, I would recommend what physicians call an INX, which stands for interment and expiration.'

If Mrs. Arafat chooses this option, her husband's body will be lowered feet-first into the grave. When only the head remains above ground, a surgeon will use a pair of scissors at the base of his skull to remove his brain.

'The beautiful thing about his procedure,' said Mr. Specter, 'is that since Chairman Arafat wasn't really alive, it won't make him a Muslim martyr. Plus, it pro-actively fulfills the requirement of Islam for burial within 24 hours of death.'"

As long as there is no anasthesia for the removal of this monster's brain, I'm all for it!

ScrappleFace: Arafat Burial Plans Done in Time for Final Death

2004-11-06T18:37:00.000-05:00

ScrappleFace: Arafat Burial Plans Done in Time for Final Death: "Arafat Burial Plans Done in Time for Final Death

(2004-11-05) -- After Yassir Arafat's final death, Palestinian officials said today that tradition will determine the location of his final resting place.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has not yet agreed to the funeral plan or location, but Palestinian authorities said they expect no roadblocks since many of their other heroes have had similar ceremonies.

'Chairman Arafat will be placed in a Tel Aviv city bus and driven to a crowded market,' said an unnamed spokesman for the Hamas social services agency. 'There we will conduct the traditional scattering of his fragments. According to protocol, no friends or family will attend this ceremony.'

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan expressed his sympathy to the Palestinian people.

'I have grieved each time Chairman Arafat has died,' said Mr. Annan, 'and I know the last death will be even harder to take than the previous ones. But I'm comforted that he will go to his rest according to the custom of his people.'
by Scott Ott

Why does the method of "burial" ring frighteningly true?

The man with the blood of thousands on his hands should suffer endlessly and be interred in a pig farm!

Yahoo! News - Arafat Critically Ill, Some Powers Handed to PM

2004-11-04T20:20:00.000-05:00

Yahoo! News - Arafat Critically Ill, Some Powers Handed to PM

May he suffer miserably, die a terrible death, and wallow in the agonies of Hell forever!

The picture of a bloodthirsty maniac with the blood of thousands on his hands!

'nuff said

2004-11-01T01:24:00.000-05:00

The Truth Laid Bear: NYT's October Surprise Collapses

2004-10-26T18:44:00.000-04:00

Excellent Article

The Truth Laid Bear: NYT's October Surprise Collapses

Yesterday, the New York Times did a fine service for the Kerry campaign by publishing a carefully timed hit piece describing how tons of explosives have gone missing from a site in Iraq.
This morning, the story is imploding, with NBC News leading the charge to point out that the explosives were already gone when U.S. troops arrived just a day after the fall of Baghdad. (Bizarrely, CNN has this as their lead story online, and it is nowhere to be found on MSNBC's front page. Update: Here's the MSNBC story.).
But the Times didn't just do a shoddy job of reporting and failed to identify the possibility that the explosives were gone before our troops arrived. It's worse than that: they did find that out, they just buried it deep in the story and, apparently, never bothered to follow up on it.
Here's Page 1 of the online version of the NYT story yesterday, where they wonder why nothing was done by U.S. forces to protect the site:

The International Atomic Energy Agency publicly warned about the danger of these explosives before the war, and after the invasion it specifically told United States officials about the need to keep the explosives secured, European diplomats said in interviews last week. Administration officials say they cannot explain why the explosives were not safeguarded, beyond the fact that the occupation force was overwhelmed by the amount of munitions they found throughout the country.
And then, buried on Page 3 of the story, we find the answer:
A senior Bush administration official said that during the initial race to Baghdad, American forces "went through the bunkers, but saw no materials bearing the I.A.E.A. seal."
This matches perfectly with the NBC story:
NBC News reported that on April 10, 2003, its crew was embedded with the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division when troops arrived at the Al Qaqaa storage facility south of Baghdad.
While the troops found large stockpiles of conventional explosives, they did not find HMX or RDX, the types of powerful explosives that reportedly went missing, according to NBC.
This morning, the NYT appears bent on continuing the error, running a story titled Iraq Explosives Become Issue in Campaign (gee, wonder how that happened). In that story, the Times is forced to acknowledge that they did, in fact, know about their error in advance:
On Monday evening, Nicolle Devenish, the spokeswoman for the Bush campaign, noted a section of the Times report indicating that American troops, on the way to Baghdad in April 2003, stopped at the Al Qaqaa complex and saw no evidence of high explosives. Noting that the cache may have been looted before the American invasion, she said Mr. Kerry had exaggerated the administration's responsibility.

"John Kerry presumes to know something that he could not know: when the material disappeared," Ms. Devenish said. "Since he does not know whether it was gone before the war began, he can't prove it was there to be secured."
But still they won't give up, and run with the bogus story in this morning's editorial, which sniffs:
James Glanz, William J. Broad and David E. Sanger reported in The Times yesterday that some 380 tons of the kinds of powerful explosives used to destroy airplanes, demolish buildings, make missile warheads and trigger nuclear weapons have disappeared from one of the many places in Iraq that the United States failed to secure. The United Nations inspectors disdained by the Bush administration had managed to monitor the explosives for years. But they vanished soon after the United States took over the job. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was so bent on proving his theory of lightning warfare that he ignored the generals who said an understaffed and underarmed invasion force could rush to Baghdad, but couldn't hold the rest of the country, much less guard things like the ammunition dump. (Emphasis mine)
The reporters' names who worked the original story are right there, but the other name that bears mentioning is Jill Abramson, the Times' Managing Editor. Ensuring that a story like this is properly vetted falls squarely in the ME's realm of responsibility, so I think it's fair to ask Ms. Abramson what happened here, and why she's allowing her news pages to become an adjunct to the Kerry camapaign's attempts to smear Bush's record on Iraq.
More from:
Jim Geraghty at Kerryspot
Captain Ed
Hugh Hewitt
Roger Simon
Belmont Club
PowerLine
JustOneMinute
Michelle Malkin
Proving that the media cycle has become compressed beyond all recognition, Polipundit has already run a poll to name this new media scandal
Latest Update: Cliff May at The Corner drops a true bombshell which, if true, could escalate this story to utterly catastrophic proportions for the U.N.-loving left in general, and the Kerry campaign in particular:
BOMB-GATE [Cliff May]
Sent to me by a source in the government: “The Iraqi explosives story is a fraud. These weapons were not there when US troops went to this site in 2003. The IAEA and its head, the anti-American Mohammed El Baradei, leaked a false letter on this issue to the media to embarrass the Bush administration. The US is trying to deny El Baradei a second term and we have been on his case for missing the Libyan nuclear weapons program and for weakness on the Iranian nuclear weapons program.”

Update Again: See also this question: If the explosives were looted, why haven't they been used?

Welcome back, my friends

2004-10-26T18:16:00.000-04:00

I've decided to move from Bloglines to Blogger.com to host TW&A. There is more creative control here, including the ability to edit the HTML. I am not sure if I will copy every post, or just leave the Bloglines version static and continue here.

In any event, all aboard!