Read the Pretext on the Wall
I am borrowing the photo you see from Michael J. Totten, who took it in Beirut yesterday in the aftermath of the release of the Mehlis Report.

Considering the suckfest that's been pro-war America the past few weeks, it sure would be nice if President Bush would insist on a very strong response by both ourselves and the international community to the Syrian problem. And as soon as possible. We not only need a distraction from the bad news for conservatives here, but an affirmative change for the Lebanese people.

Use it or lose it, I say. Don't let the UN fritter away the anger against the bullies in Syria. We need to punish Assad now and pressure him into stopping the incursions into Iraq. He'll do it if we threaten him hard enough. Impose hard sanctions now. I'll bet even some of the Euro-wankers would sign off on that.

Editorial Oversight
This is an interesting story:

THE United Nations withheld some of the most damaging allegations against Syria in its report on the murder of Rafik Hariri, the former Lebanese Prime Minister, it emerged yesterday.

The names of the brother of Bashar al-Assad, President of Syria, and other members of his inner circle, were dropped from the report that was sent to the Security Council.

The confidential changes were revealed by an extraordinary computer gaffe because an electronic version distributed by UN officials on Thursday night allowed recipients to track editing changes.

The mistaken release of the unedited report added further support to the published conclusion that Syria was behind Mr Hariri’s assassination in a bomb blast on Valentine’s Day in Beirut. The murder of Mr Hariri touched off an international outcry and hastened Syria’s departure from Lebanon in April after a 29-year pervasive military presence.

But if you thought that a UN led by the extremely corrupt Kofi Annan was finally going to be useful in the fight against Arab and Islamofascism, try again:

Mr Annan had pledged repeatedly through his chief spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, that he would not change a word of the report by Detlev Mehlis, a German prosecutor. But computer tracking showed that the final edit began at about 11.38am on Thursday — a minute after Herr Mehlis began a meeting with Mr Annan to present his report. The names of Maher al-Assad, General Shawkat and the others were apparently removed at 11.55am, after the meeting ended.

I don't know if Annan is involved in those changes or not, but the UN's a dirty organization that has to be forced to matter. Looks like they've failed again.

Unless, of course, this can be made into the excuse we need to bomb Damascus.

Torture to Me Ears (An Open Letter to Bush the Younger)
Mood:  irritated
Dear Mr. President:---

Please stop talking. Now.

Sincerely,

A Respectful Citizen Who Is Violently Opposed to the Very Idea That Harriet Miers Might Become a Justice on the Supreme Court for the "Reasons" You Have Given

"The Astros Win the Pennant! The Astros Win the Pennant!"
Mood:  celebratory
See, Mary-Bess? I told you they were going to win.

Succinctitude
Mood:  on fire
I read this essay by Jacob Weisberg earlier today and decided he has made the finest distillation yet of what the Plame Unpleasantness is all about:

You need a pretty low opinion of people in the White House to imagine they would knowingly foster the possible assassination of CIA assets in other countries for the sake of retaliation against someone who wrote an op-ed they didn't like in the New York Times.

That's what it's all about right there. The first and last person who says this fucking thing was about revenge against Joe Wilson is Joe Wilson himself. Interestingly enough, he is the one who has committed the crime which he attributes to his and his wife's enemies. If that isn't clear to you yet, don't worry. I'll help you out.

Mmmmm. Kahk.
Although it's something like adulteration, looks like The Simpsons have gone Arabic:

After 17 seasons of entertaining U.S. audiences, "The Simpsons" can now be seen on Arab television. While U.S. foreign policy is not always a hit overseas, there is a huge audience for American popular culture.

So the Arab satellite network MBC is bringing the cartoon saga of Springfield to the heart of the Arab world. "The Simpsons" has been exported overseas and is now called "Al Shamshoon."

The new take on the cartoon classic debuted this month, just in time for the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, as first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

With Omar instead of Homer, and Badr substituting for Bart, MBC hopes to win coveted young viewers. After all, 60 percent of the Arab world is 20 years old or younger.

See, this is all part of our imperialistic plan to corrupt Mo with democracy, whisky, and sexy.

My favorite bit is this, though:

Homer Simpson's ubiquitous Duff beer will now be soda in the Arab version of the show.

Hot dogs will become Egyptian beef sausages, and donuts will become popular Arab cookies called "kahk." Moe's Bar has been completely written out of "Al Shamshoon."

Tee hee.

(Post title swiped from Warren Bell.)

No (More) Comment
As Lisa Simpson once observed as her brother rightly got his ass beat down, "It's funny how two wrongs sometimes make a right."

So it is with the news that Irish journalist Rory Carroll has been kidnapped by "armed men in Iraq."

Rory Carroll, you ask? Why, he's the anti-American sack of wet stools who accuses American soldiers of crimes against humanity in the pages of the Guardian Unlimited. Take some of his work for a spin. Go on. He won't mind:

Since the 2003 invasion US forces have killed at least 18 media workers in incidents for which no one has been charged or punished. "Whitewashes. There have been no satisfactory investigations that we know of," said Rodney Pinder, director of the International News Safety Institute (INSI), a Brussels-based advocacy group.

Angry and frustrated, several radio and television networks, agencies and newspapers, including the Guardian, met last week to chart a joint response to the crisis. The gathering agreed to form a foreign correspondents' association and to jointly lobby the US military and state department.

This guy, if he's ever found alive, could get a job stunt-doubling for Eason Jordan.

In addition to shooting them, US forces have a habit of detaining journalists without charge. Weeks can pass before a bureau is able to confirm that an employee has been arrested, possibly injured, and held incommunicado in Abu Ghraib or another prison. A driver for the Guardian, accredited with the US authorities, was held without explanation for five days.

At stake is not only the existence of independent media, says Alastair Macdonald, Reuters' Baghdad bureau chief, but the credibility of US claims to be fostering democracy. "The American ambassador recently called us the fourth estate, a pillar of the democracy, but we're not being allowed to do our job here."

Oh, y'all could do your jobs if the mundane details of a recovering Iraqi society mattered to you. But, instead, you become an instrument of al-Qaeda and the other jihadi psychopaths in Iraq. You report on death and destruction to the near-exclusion of stories of triumph and positive change. Don't ever forget that, you Euro-wankers. I don't care how much I sound like Spiro Agnew: you are the problem.

Predictions
Mood:  cool
For what it's worth, I predict there will be no indictments this week for any member of the White House under the Espionage Act of 1917 or the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982. Those are completely out of the question.

As for lesser charges of obstruction or perjury, I am not so sure.

The Common Thread
I think I have just discovered the common thread running through many of my bannings from the chat rooms at Eschaton: whenever I raise the issue of Joe Wilson's malfeasance, Duncan Black shuts me down. If I recall correctly, my charge against Wilson is the proximate cause in at least three such bannings.

Very interesting.

It almost makes me think that Black has some stake in these matters.

What can I say, though? RESTORE HONESTY, baby! RESTOREHONESTY.COM!

Yeah, I Said I Hope DeLay Walks
Although I credit National Review Online as my first real online political crush (especially "The Corner"), I find it easier and easier to blow off these days. That's mostly because they can't keep their popery in check. And because they're too self-absorbed.

Anyway, to get to my point, you should really check out the last few days of their "Media Blog" wherein Stephen Spruiell really rips Ronnie Earle a new one. I mean, okay: Tom DeLay is a creepy man and a bully, too. But Earle? This clown has gone plum haywire.

And he's going to be in a movie about this shit? One that he's basically making possible? Jesus! I hope DeLay walks ---just as a slap at Earle for such an inexcusable indiscretion.

Mass Murderer Blames America for His Country's Collapse, Receives Applause
Mood:  don't ask
Robert Mugabe, the "president" of Zimbabwe and a psychotic murderer, has accused the United States and Great Britain of harming his country ---presumably by keeping alive with food donations those who survive his campaigns of murder:

President Mugabe drew applause at a United Nations conference on hunger yesterday when he said Britain and the United States were to blame for his country's economic collapse.

In a diversion from his scripted speech at the World Food Day event organised by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, Mr Mugabe called Tony Blair and George W Bush "the unholy alliance of the millennium".

He then compared the two world leaders to Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini and accused them of interfering in the domestic affairs of countries such as his own.

Mr Mugabe made his attack after a speech in which he patted himself on the back for the "long overdue" land reforms started five years ago in which land was forcibly taken from white farmers.

The reforms sent the economy, which once provided food for the region, into a tail-spin, leaving it dependent on international aid for survival.

The US alone has donated almost $300 million (?166 million) in food aid to Zimbabwe since 2002.

I don't know what kinds of chattering toilet bowl brushes were in attendance at this conference, but we can be sure that they are degenerate heathens who deserve to be burnt at the stake. Rome used to be a great city for that kind of thing, you know.

What say we put in a call to il cavaliere?

Even Ratfucking Begins with Foreplay
Now Playing: "Can't Get There from Here" by R.E.M.
Courtesy of Duncan Black, have a look at this post over at Editor & Publisher. It is a letter from former CBS News national security correspondent Bill Lynch on the subject of New York Times reporter Judith Miller's apparent possession of a security clearance from the Department of Defense, which she would have needed as an embedded reporter with the United States military. Says Lynch (hyperlink added):

There is one enormous journalism scandal hidden in Judith Miller's Oct. 16th first person article about the (perhaps lesser) CIA leak scandal. And that is Ms. Miller's revelation that she was granted a DoD security clearance while embedded with the WMD search team in Iraq in 2003.

This is as close as one can get to government licensing of journalists and the New York Times (if it knew) should never have allowed her to become so compromised. It is all the more puzzling that a reporter who as a matter of principle would sacrifice 85 days of her freedom to protect a source would so willingly agree to be officially muzzled and thereby deny potentially valuable information to the readers whose right to be informed she claims to value so highly.

Hmmm. The plot thickens. But it gets better (emphasis added):

I am a former White House and national security correspondent and have had plenty of access to classified information. When I divulged it, it was always with a common sense appraisal of the balance between any potential harm done and the public's right to know. If I had doubts, I would run it by officers whose judgement I trusted. In my experience, defense and intelligence officials routinely share secrets with reporters in the full expectation they will be reported. But if any official had ever offered me a security clearance, my instincts would have sent me running. I am gravely disappointed Ms. Miller did not do likewise.

So, here's an example of a news media reporter who had "plenty" of access to classified information that he divulged. Does this mean that we will now be treated to the farce of liberals and Leftists complaining that we've been learning too much from our Government? Why wasn't it treason when Lynch was divulging classified information without a security clearance?

Oh, I'm not going to say it's because he was with CBS News! Ha, ha, ha...

Scramble, comrades! Gotta get that story straight!

Get Some of Captain B
Here's a few thoughts on yesterday's constitutional referendum in Iraq from a Marine who's there:

Now as the country has made a milestone achievement they have democracy in motion. As Americans we want things done yesterday and have little patience for things not produced now. Patience is what is needed here and the coward left wing bed wetters won’t understand that. Iraq is where the US was 200 yrs ago. Will their constitution change? Yes of course as ours still changes to this day. Will there be continued fighting? Yes, there are plenty of scumbags here that need to be delt with as they recognize that their days are numbered now since they couldnt alter the elections. The fact that there wasn’t a major mass casualty of voters, SBVIED in polling centers or assassinations conducted that the foaming mouth reporters could get in the middle of just reinforces how far the Iraqi forces have come and how they are getting stronger than the scumbags. Reporter’s countrywide saturated the area days prior to the elections to hopefully catch the US forces failing. Well to damn bad it didn’t happen so pound sand!

Heh, heh. "Left wing bed wetters."

Keep up the good work, Captain. Many, many of your countrymen are proud of you.

The others just hate themselves.

(Hat tip to Professor Reynolds.)

Miraculous

Consensual Sects
Via the Voice of America, this is good news ---unless you're a Democrat (emphases mine):

Election officials in Iraq say as many as 65 percent of eligible voters may have turned out to vote in Saturday's referendum on the country's draft constitution. VOA Correspondent Alisha Ryu visited polling sites throughout Baghdad and reports, despite insurgent threats to disrupt the referendum, the day turned out to be one of the most peaceful in months.

They officials say at least eight of Iraq's 18 provinces had a turnout of more than 66 percent and seven posted a moderate turnout of more than 33 percent.

The officials say the expected overall turnout rate would surpass the 58 percent recorded during January's elections, when an overwhelming number of Shi'ite Muslims and Kurds defied insurgent violence and went to the polls to elect a new interim government.

Iraq's Sunni Arab community largely boycotted January elections and, as a result, had little representation in the current interim government, and limited input in the committee that drafted the constitution.

Preliminary figures show that, this time, a large number of Sunni Arabs joined Shi'ites and Kurds in participating in the referendum. But unlike most Shi'ites and Kurds, the majority of Sunnis say they voted "no" for a constitution they say has the potential to start a civil war.

But guess what. When you use your opponent's terms and methods, you concede their legitimacy.

That's what the Sunnis did today.

Congratulations, friends. You are going deeper and deeper into the glorious mess called democratic rule. But don't worry: if it weren't messy, they'd call it totalitarianism.

Well, some of us would.

Git Carter
I can't remember exactly how the newsreader put it, but as I was listening to NPR this evening, it was reported that British playwright Harold Pinter had won the Nobel for literature ---and the woman says that his prize might be seen as part of the Swedish Academy's growing antipathy towards President Bush and America. This would be because Pinter is very explicit in judging America to be the most reviled society in the history of the world.

Might's ass, you know?

If these socialist rectal thermometers could dig up Che Guevara and hang a medal around his neck, they'd do it with moist eyes and starched pants. They just gave the anti-American Mohammed el-Baradei their little peace prize for no apparent reason, just as they gave the worst President of my lifetime his own medal a few years ago ---as an explicit rebuke to his own country. And the wretched bastard took it, too.

Fuck a bunch of cracker-assed commies. Sweden stopped mattering centuries ago. The Nobel is a concoction of Leftist conceit and self-delusion. Fuck 'em all.

"A Favorable Straw"
Tom Maguire says that this is potentially good news for those hoping that no indictments are handed up to the White House in the Plame Matter:

[...] four senior House Democrats wrote to [special prosecutor] Mr. Fitzgerald in a letter dated Oct. 12, urging him to issue a final report to Congress when he concludes his inquiry. Such a report, they said, should address "all indictments, convictions and any decisions not to prosecute."

The letter was signed by the top Democrats on their respective committees: John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, Judiciary Committee; Jane Harman of California, Intelligence Committee; and Tom Lantos of California, International Relations Committee. The letter was also signed by Rush D. Holt of New Jersey, the senior Democrat on the intelligence panel's policy subcommittee.

A report, the letter said, would assure the public that "the investigation of this serious matter has been undertaken with utmost diligence and has been free of partisan, political influence."

The representatives said Mr. Fitzgerald had the authority to issue such a report under the terms of his appointment as special counsel at the Justice Department.

Are these top Democrats thinking that Fitzgerald's investigation is about to wrap up without any frogmarched architects to show for it? Maybe. But we know that the statutes under which a prosecution might come are either extremely narrow or potentially chilling (see this post from Monday on the latter point). If Fitzgerald declines to prosecute those whom everyone expects will be prosecuted, the conspiracy freaks will absolutely hyperventilate.

There is only one bottom line here: Democrats want to see Karl Rove indicted. That would mean more to them than a dozen Tom DeLays ---whom they regard as merely sleazy--- while Rove's destruction would be metaphysical and spiritually redemptive to these wankers.

Let us hope they are disappointed. I simply cannot bear to see Joe Wilson elevated to the status of cult hero he so desperately craves.

The Worst Metaphor I've Read All Day
Mood:  loud
Over at Eschaton, where I've been contracted by K*** R*** to play a cross between Groucho Marx and an Everlast punching bag, the regulars are always imploring each other to "ignore the trolls." It's a laughably illogical thing to do because it's a wish born dying. Nevertheless, these people cannot help themselves.

Tonight, though, came the following gem which I simply must record here for posterity and the sake of bad writing. Thanks to commenter Quentin Compson, here's an all-time classic:

Please do not feed the retards. Please, I love to watch them die in pools of impotent ignoring.

Psycholinguists, start your engines!

Blithering
Mood:  don't ask
This is what the President of the United States said today in response to a reporter when she asked why the White House has found it necessary to reassure conservatives that Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers is an evangelical Christian (emphasis mine, although you can bet it's pretty much his):

People ask me why I picked Harriet Miers. They want to know Harriet Miers' background; they want to know as much as they possibly can before they form opinions. And part of Harriet Miers' life is her religion. Part of it has to do with the fact that she was a pioneer woman and a trailblazer in the law in Texas. I remind people that Harriet Miers is one of the -- has been rated consistently one of the top 50 women lawyers in the United States. She's eminently qualified for the job. And she has got a judicial philosophy that I appreciate; otherwise I wouldn't have named her to the bench, which is -- or nominated her to the bench -- which is that she will not legislate from the bench, but strictly interpret the Constitution.

First ---and last--- of all, this is rank stupidity. When I was thinking about who might make a good Supreme Court nominee, it didn't occur to me that it should be one who meets James Dobson's standards of evangelical purity. If Dick Durbin, who is a traitor, is also a cocksucker for intimating to John Roberts that there might be some question raised about Roberts' Catholicism during his confirmation hearings for the Chief Justiceship, then what does that make your people for suggesting that everybody needs to get behind good old Harriet because she's an evangelical?

That is to say, fuck this crony bullshit. Fuck it with its halo on and fuck it for being ill-considered, unprepared, and supremely disappointing. I don't know who this fucking egomaniacal clown of a minister is, but I wouldn't waste my third bar-piss of the night on the knot in "Doctor" Dobson's tie. Be "assured" of that, you name-dropping, influence-peddling cross-monger. You aren't the arbiter of jack shit outside of your own little Jonestown, so sod off. Hit the bricks. Go sink your putt.

And, Mr. President, I'm going to hold my tongue for you, but you best get your head and your ass wired together and tend to what I voted for you to do: win this war against the towelheads. If you have to pull a Nixon and wander off into the woods of Camp David while we carpet bomb every motherfucking village in al-Anbar, then do it. If you have to go next door and firebomb Damascus, then do it. I didn't vote for you because I like your common touch; I voted for you because I expect you to deliver devastation to the enemies of Civilization. Do it and quit trying to convince people that this choice of yours for the SCOTUS wasn't the enormous fucking disaster we all know it is.

Great Timing
I saw KEYE-TV's Keith Elkins interviewing Jason Earle a while ago and just had to wince. Earle, who is the son of Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle, has chosen today to formally announce that he will run for Representative in the Texas State Legislature.

Unfortunately for Jason, an hour or so before this interview, his dad got subpoenaed by the lawyers for Tom DeLay.

I don't know what Jason's qualifications are for elective office, but we do know that he has very large balls to be running for the House in Republican-dominated District 47.

Have fun, kid, because that's all you're going to get out of this little trip you're on.