Thanks to the National Geographic Channel
Mood:  special
If you didn't catch the National Geographic Channel's 4-hour documentary Inside 9/11, you really missed some exceptional TV. I'm sure it will be on again, so look for it.

Oh, and here's the website for this excellent documentary. Check it out.

What Hath Uncle Sam Wrought
Mood:  a-ok
Michael Barone writes of the Muslims in the Middle East:

They may also have noticed that Egypt will have its first contested election for president this year. "There were no arguments over the United States, Israel, Palestine, Iraq, or any of the other 'hot spots' that used to dominate every meal and spill over into tea, coffee, and dessert," writes Mona Eltahawy in the Washington Post of her trip to Egypt this summer. "This time, all conversations were about a small but active opposition movement in Egypt that since December has focused on ending the dictatorship of President Hosni Mubarak. I have never heard so many relatives and friends take such an interest in Egyptian politics or--more important--feel that they had a stake in them." Minds are indeed changing.

This is not to say that everybody in these countries has good things to say about the United States. But we are not engaged in a popularity contest. We're trying to construct a safer world. We are in the long run better off if Muslims around the world turn away from terrorism and move toward democracy, even if we don't like some of the internal policies they choose and even if they don't have much affection for the United States. Two generations ago Americans, at the cost of hundreds of thousands of deaths, changed minds in Germany and Japan. The Pew Global Project Attitude's metrics give us reason to believe that today's Americans, at far lower cost, are once again changing minds in the Muslim world.

Casey Sheehan and Louis Qualls died in defense of their fellow soldiers and Marines ---but they also gave their lives in furtherance of my right to sit here in the comfort of my own home on this muggy Monday morning in Texas and say that Those Men are the fathers to a new world of democratic possibility. History will mark their sacrifices one liberated mind and body at a time. It is my small ---but absolute--- duty to remember that here.

The Nauseatingly Cute Robin Meade

Suffrage
Now Playing: "Jet" by Paul McCartney & Wings
I only caught a few minutes of Meet the Press today, but I thought that Reuel Marc Gerecht had an interesting, albeit controversial, point: don't worry too much about whether women in Iraq have absolute political and social equality right away. In our own country, women didn't have the full franchise until 1920 ---and no one can reasonably say that we weren't a functioning democracy before then.

Anyway, I very much doubt that women won't have the vote from the very start of a constitutional Iraq. That doesn't seem to be an especially big issue. But it's interesting that what we expect an Iraqi constitution to look like is so fully modern. We see suffrage as a given, when it is not.

But let us have lots more commentary from the Left ---that is, if they are able to see past the war for a moment to visualize the inevitable peace--- on their concerns regarding Islamic law.

I mean, if you have a problem with sharia, by all means, share it with the class...

Seeing Urchins
To celebrate my birthday today, I went out of town with my family to have lunch with my aunt who lives a few minutes north of the President's ranch outside of Crawford.

On our way back, we went looking for Camp Casey ---and found it.

There's not much to it, frankly: many dozens of whitebread hippies who had come in nice vehicles and parked them down the road from the tents and propaganda booths where they hung out. Lots of cops standing around in the hot Texas sun on account of these flakes and their safety. All the usual detritus generated by city folk loitering in the middle of otherwise bucolic farmland.

There was also plenty of counter-protesting around, too, not the least of which came from most of the property-owners in the area with signs hanging from their fences showing support for our Commander in Chief and our troops. Lots of bikers, too, with their MIA/POW flags out and their menacing machinery.

In fact, from just our cursory view, it looked like there were as many counter-protesters there as hippies. And, it must be said, there were some mighty cute ones of each kind, too.

And, of course, CNN has its news truck parked right there at the edge of the action.

I think people were there mostly for its value as a road-trip destination. Maybe have a bite at a local restaurant and pick up a mug or baseball cap.

The world will definitely keep on turning.

But there were a lot of crosses along the road leading to the camp. My brother said he saw a crescent among them, but I didn't catch that. Just saw lots of crosses and wished there didn't have to be any more. But I know better.

It's the Old Haters-for-Peace Ploy Again, Eh?
Now Playing: "Fur Elise" by Ludwig van Beethoven
Thanks to RedState.org, here's a link to a little bit of Cindy Sheehan's nuttiness, as displayed at a rally last April for Islamofascist sympathizer/attorney Lynne Stewart (for Christ's sake!):

I was raised in a country by a public school system that taught us that America was good, that America was just. America has been killing people, like my sister over here says, since we first stepped on this continent, we have been responsible for death and destruction. I passed on that bullshit to my son and my son enlisted. I’m going all over the country telling moms: “This country is not worth dying for. If we’re attacked, we would all go out. We’d all take whatever we had. I’d take my rolling pin and I’d beat the attackers over the head with it. But we were not attacked by Iraq. {applause} We might not even have been attacked by Osama bin Laden if {applause}. 9/11 was their Pearl Harbor to get their neo-con agenda through and, if I would have known that before my son was killed, I would have taken him to Canada. I would never have let him go and try and defend this morally repugnant system we have. The people are good, the system is morally repugnant. {applause}

Note: Neo-con is Leftist code for "troublemaking Jew."

Harry Truman Was Right
Over at the Captain's Quarters, guest poster Dafydd has an excellent post rebutting the latest rationalizations being floated by the Clintonites on the issue of Able Danger:

The Able Danger argument du jour is whether the group actually had Mohammed Atta's name, or whether they had "merely" identified his al-Qaeda cell in Brooklyn... as if that makes all the difference.

Oh, well, if they didn't have his actual name, then busting up the cell and arresting everyone wouldn't have made any difference, right?

That cell contained not only Atta but several other eventual 9/11 hijackers. If the FBI had gotten the information, they would -- one hopes -- have surveilled the cell and eventually broken it up. Atta would have either been captured with the rest or forced to flee with a manhunt on his heels; he likely would have used one of his many aliases to flee the country. He may have been caught, or he may have ended up in Iraq.

Ending up in Iraq, eh? Why not?

Remember Ramzi Yousef? He was the guy who constructed the bomb used in the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center.

Guess which country he fled to after that job. (Hint: it's said by some to have never threatened us.)

[CORRECTION: I mistakenly referred to Yousef, when I had in mind Abdul Rahman Yasin. Yasin was the animal who mixed the chemicals for the 1993 WTC bombing.]

"...arrived like mourners to a mass to rot in boredom's glow..."
Now Playing: "My Little Town" by Paul Simon (with Art Garfunkel)
Here's a really nice picture from yesterday's Austin American-Statesman of the anti-war protesters down on Town Lake Wednesday night.

I'm sure there's a joke in there somewhere about bats, but let it pass: it's a great picture.

Presumed Immunity
I don't like Cindy Sheehan. I think she's exploiting the death of her son, Casey Sheehan, who was a real hero. She, on the other hand, is a sympathizer to Islamist murderers.

I am not obligated to show respect or patience for mentally-ill idiots. But I am obligated to point out that Sheehan is being used ---with her full consent--- by asshole Leftists who love having a prop that they think is immune to criticism because of the loss she's suffered. Their special place in Hell is called the last judgement of History.

If this Jew-hating old moonbat thinks that George W. Bush is a terrorist, then why would she want to see him? Wouldn't she be afraid that he would take her captive and saw her head off?

In fact, Sheehan is quite comfortable with the notion of terrorists, so long as she doesn't actually have to come face to face with any of them. But she can be in no doubt that she is aiding and abetting them with her every utterance.

If Sheehan is so fucking wonderful, then let Turd Kennedy and Lurch and the rest of them come down to Crawford and stand beside her. Maybe she can explain to them that the Jews own everything and that appeasing Islamofascism is the surest way to peace.

"Militants"
Mood:  don't ask
Now Playing: "Young at Heart" by Frank Sinatra
I was watching the Gaza withdrawal earlier this morning on the cable news networks and the exquisite Lisa Daniels of MSNBC referred to the protesters and settlers ---at least twice that I heard--- as "militants."

Doesn't she know that militants is the term that propagandists like al-Reuters and al-Jazeera use for Islamofascist murderers?

Surely Ms. Daniels wasn't observing any militancy of that kind ---or of any kind, for that matter--- at Kfar Darom today. What she was seeing was the tumultuous and tearful passing of Israel's dream of a promised land.

Let the Car Swarm People have Gaza. Watch what they do with it. When they turn it into a seedbed of terrorist insanity, the IDF will come again ---as they did almost 40 years ago--- and rip those bastards apart, as they deserve.

Momentarily Preincarnated
I was watching some footage from Gaza a few minutes ago and there's all these Car Swarm People out in their boats off the coast of Greater Israel ---celebrating their victory over the perfidious Jews.

I don't know why, but for three or four seconds, the sight of Arabs sailing around with flags flying and with all their caterwauling really sent a mental shiver up my Historical spine.

Hadn't I seen Them before? In those very same waters, but a thousand years ago?

Foolishness, but yes.

Who says there's no final solutions? Mankind may come to forget what once was a necessity, but only because, for a moment, it was all that was left to us: absolute, amoral, and annihilatory acts in indemnification of the ultimate morality of self-preservation.

I hope I'm strong enough to face the light.

Why I'm Probably Not Going to Apologize for Making a Big Deal out of Certain Things
Now Playing: "Pride (in the Name of Love)" by U2
I'm too lazy right now to find a transcript for you, but when Wolf Blitzer was talking to Bill Cohen yesterday about Able Danger, Cohen didn't seem to know anything, except that intelligence-sharing between domestic law enforcement and the military and foreign intelligence apparati of our country used to be a lot more difficult, if not prohibited outright, when he was Bill Clinton's Secretary of Defense.

Which means that, even if Curt Weldon did step on his own dick, operations like Able Danger were never in any position to be effective, anyway. That's because, when you run your foreign and military policy by Janet Fucking Reno, you aren't really serious about the al-Qaedist threat to begin with.

Not only do I not fear anything even resembling a violation of the Posse Comitatus Act, I would expect my Government to use any means necessary to monitor and arrest foreigners and Muslims who are here to subvert our society. I would consider that acting in my defense and I would approve it unconditionally.

Is that offensive to your libertarian sensibilities? Good. If you aren't some homicidally-minded Submitter, you won't have anything to worry about except how capable you are of rising to the challenge of knowing and defending yourself against your own Government. That happens sometimes ---and you ought to be prepared to withstand it.

Submission in Remission
Now Playing: "Crazy Love" by Poco
On CNN this morning, Wolf Blitzer's concerned that Islam may become the basis of the Iraqi constitution. Really? I find it interesting that liberals could be so explicit in stating this concern. Aren't they supposed to be in favor of any tradition that isn't Judeo-Christian ---just by default?

Nevertheless, if the liberal/anti-war crowd's defense of Islam were food, you'd go starving trying to find anyone of that persuasion to explain why Islam shouldn't be changed or destroyed beyond recognition. They can't do it because they know that Islamic law and culture is inimical to their own status as whatever they themselves might be: gay, Christian, outspoken, a drinker, American, female, etc.

The only thing these people do know is that we are wrong to want to change the primary ideology of the Middle East, which is submission to the totalitarian.

Anyway, let the Iraqis do what they will with their constitution. I would think that the very nature of real democracy in a modern society would be strong enough to transform sharia: often, publicly, and to great effect.

Necrophiliac Obsessions (Exhibit B)
Now Playing: "Bron-Y-Aur Stomp" by Led Zeppelin
Charles Johnson brings us a post from some mad hatter at The Daily Kos who ---well--- there's no explaining it. Read and retch:

We are making errors with references to Cindy Sheehan.

What are we trying to accomplish with promoting her?

Emphasizing her sacrifice.

Emphasizing her stating truth to power.

Emphasizing her plain speaking, clear statements.

Relate her vigil over her dead son to universal archtypes of all vigils over dead children killed by dictatorial rulers throughout all history.

My suggestions below:

1. We should call her “Mother Sheehan”. We should never call her Cindy; I don’t know her. “Mother Sheehan” is her title, and expresses her ceremonial status as a bereaved mother, calling forth over the dead body of her son. She is not a person now, she is a mother, which is not an expression of her individuality, but rather the expression of her eternal character: the mother, the bringer of life who has been wronged by state power.

And so forth and so on.

It isn't just that it's an insane statement that disturbs the reasonable, but that it's so typical in its college-boy earnestness. If I take it for parody at any point, the next sentence dissuades me: these are thoughts that arise from a habit of mind that could not be imitated by art; they are ---in their self-loathing and loathesomeness--- inherent to the character of the Leftist.

Broken-minded, broken-hearted haters who imagine themselves the very essence of human enlightenment.

What insanity!

Necrophiliac Obsessions (Exhibit A)
Mood:  irritated
I don't want to hear anymore about Natalee Holloway, okay? No more of it! It's beyond necrophilia at this point ---and I'm sick of nonsense.

How about if these Big Media morons do a story or two about alcoholism among young women? I hear it's a very big deal these days. Maybe they could do a few PSAs about the dangers of going on summer vacation cockhunts for total strangers.

Mrs. Twitty, your daughter is dead. I wish, for your sake and hers, that it were not so, but it is.

Please go home now. There, you might profitably remind the other young women in your town that Life is not a game and that stupid decisions can bear horrific consequences.

Put Paid
Mood:  smelly
Despite the inexcusably bad prose in the following Washington Post report, you can be rest assured that chickenshit has its costs:

A central player has voted with his feet in the drama over NARAL Pro-Choice America's decision to withdraw a television ad about Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. that outraged conservatives had branded as false. Some Democrats said their side should be tougher, and one of them is David E. Seldin, who as NARAL's communications director had defended the ad's linking of Roberts to violent abortion opponents as "100 percent accurate." A day after Thursday night's announcement that the ad was being yanked, Seldin sent an e-mail to friends saying that he was leaving his job immediately.

That's the lead paragraph in a news story.

No. Really.

I have yet to hear a single talking head from either side of the Roberts nomination not call this ad a bunch of dishonest chickenshit.

Once again, essential human rights are being defended by the ugliest people possible. It's funny how often that happens.

Brilliant Post
Now Playing: "Eye in the Sky" by the Alan Parsons Project
Michelle Malkin calls our attention to this very powerful essay at Varifrank.com about how very selfish this Cindy Sheehan dame is.

There would be no point in excerpting any of it for you here; it's organically whole.

As Butch and Sundance might have asked, "Who is this guy?"

Getting Angry
Mood:  don't ask
Now Playing: "Tangerine" by Led Zeppelin
Via The Power Line, I came across this article by Josh Gerstein in today's New York Sun:

At some point in mid-2000, while the [Able Danger] was running data-mining experiments, the computer produced Mohammed Atta's name along with a suggestion he was linked to other suspected Al Qaeda operatives. "Those connections led back to a Brooklyn cell, and that Brooklyn cell contained four of the terrorists," Mr. [Curt] Weldon [Republican Congressman of Pennsylvania] said yesterday.

While the "Able Danger" project was little discussed until recently, a broader Pentagon data-mining effort, known originally by the Orwellian name, "Total Information Awareness," was shuttered in 2003 after an outcry from privacy advocates. Some who were critics of that program say the recent developments suggest that the data-intensive technologies now deserve a second look.

Now would be a good time to compare and contrast two different intelligence items: the Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB) of 6 August 2001 and the information gathered by Able Danger on Mohammad Atta and the pack of vermin who followed him to their deaths.

Go ahead and read that PDB. Don't worry: it's barely more than a page...I can wait...

Done? Good. (After this is over, you can go back to doing your impression of Richard ben-Veniste's suppository.)

In the meantime, show me where in that now-infamous memo is there any inkling of what was to come on 11 September 2001. Any mention of any names or other relevant details? Oh, I know it talks about New York City and hijacking airplanes, but, unless you're intellectually dishonest (or just a Dhimmicrat), there's really no way you can say that that PDB was any sort of warning at all. Except, maybe, if you weren't already aware that al-Qaeda had a "thing" about murdering Americans.

Now consider that our Government knew that Atta belonged to a cell of terrorists in New York City more than a year before the atrocities of 11 September 2001. Knew him and his fellow murderers by name and location.

And the reason why this intelligence was not allowed to be transmitted to domestic law enforcement was because of a "wall" erected by the Clinton Department of Justice and, in particular, by Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick, between military intelligence and the FBI.

There isn't really any question of which side in this War against the Terrorists is the more culpable for what happened on that black day: it's liberals and Leftists who make excuses for Clinton's impotent response to Osama and who would never have tolerated for a moment any encroachment on civil liberties by the current White House ---the very kind that might have disrupted the machinations of these Islamofascist murderers we now fight in Iraq.

Nevertheless, I think Congressman Weldon makes an excellent point which I myself often lament in the broader view of this Administration's failures in communication:

Mr. Weldon said the Total Information Awareness program was hamstrung by several factors, including the association of its director, Admiral John Poindexter, with the Iran-Contra scandal. "We put the wrong person in and put the wrong spin on it," the congressman said. "Somehow, it became a massive, 'Big Brother' spying effort on the American people. That perception killed what was a necessary effort."

True dat. President Bush is an admirably determined man, but he has often sucked at selling the American People on the necessities and rationales in this War. But, tin ear or not, it is his duty to make the case.

It is the imperative of History that the events leading to the atrocities of 11 September 2001 be more fully understood.

I believe we are about to get our education.

Danger Behind
At NRO's The Corner ---which is still a great place to visit, but becoming increasingly obnoxious--- John Podhoretz says of the Kean Commission:

It behaved disgracefully and in a nakedly partisan fashion, with former officials of the Clinton administration attempting to use the platform to damage the president's reelection chances. Then, after months of ludicrous conduct, out of nowhere came the brilliantly conceived and written report that set a new standard of eloquence and coherence for government documents, became a major bestseller and redeemed the commission's reputation.

Well, that didn't last long.

In a story filed at 7:10 PM, the Associated Press is now confirming all the particulars of what will now forever be called the Able Danger disaster. The 9/11 Commission staff did hear about intelligence-gathering efforts that hit pay dirt on the whereabouts of Mohammed Atta -- in 1999 -- and deliberately chose to omit word of those efforts.

And why? Because to do so might upset the timeline the Commission had established on Atta.

And why is that significant? Because the Mohammed Atta timeline established by the Commission pointedly insisted Atta did not meet with an Iraqi intelligence agent in Prague.

And why is that significant? Because debunking the Atta-Iraq connection was of vital importance to Democrats, who had become focused almost obsessively on the preposterous notion that there was no relation whatever between Al Qaeda and Iraq -- that Al Qaeda and Iraq might even have been enemies.

If Richard ben Veniste's an asshole, then Jamie Gorelick lives next door.

I want some answers, Mr. Kean. I want to know why your staffers and you, yourselves, didn't think Able Danger's identification of those animals back in 1999 [CORRECTION: it was probably mid-2000] wasn't something worth reporting to the American People.

(And will someone tell Duncan Black I've got his PDB right here? Thanks.)

Crime Is Interesting
Now Playing: "No Expectations" by the Rolling Stones
Speaking of irrelevant crap that Big Media obsesses over at the expense of actually important news, did you see the cable news outlets today ---running footage of the hotel room where the Hyattes were staying when the cops arrested them? With long, lingering shots of such exotica as trash and food containers strewn across what we now know to be a dresser and that little table where you can write home with some stationery from the front desk?

And, then, the "Ex" speaks out.

Click.