RWN returns on Monday. Until then, enjoy the links below, consider this to be an open thread, and have a great week-end!

Help Rightroots Reach $50,000 For Our Candidates!

The 2,996 Project

Daily Pundit

Chinese Storms Leave 15 Million Homeless

David Frum's Diary

Hoystory

Mark Levin Fan

Polipundit

The Real Ugly American

Rhymes With Right

Rightroots Endorsed Candidate Mike McGavick Talks About The Biggest Mistakes He Has Made In His Life

A Speech On Western Values Given By Mark Steyn In Australia

Villainous Company

Over at the HuffPo, Russell Shaw says what a lot of hard core liberals have been thinking for a long time: that another terrorist attack on America would be OK with him if he thought the Democrats would benefit politically.

After giving all the obligatory disclaimers, including,

"I hope and pray we don't get hit again, like we did on September 11. Even one life lost to the violence of terrorism is too much."

Shaw goes on to say,

"What if another terror attack just before this fall's elections could save many thousand-times the lives lost?

I start from the premise that there is already a substantial portion of the electorate that tends to vote GOP because they feel that Bush has "kept us safe," and that the Republicans do a better job combating terrorism.

If an attack occurred just before the elections, I have to think that at least a few of the voters who persist in this "Bush has kept us safe" thinking would realize the fallacy they have been under.

If 5% of the "he's kept us safe" revise their thinking enough to vote Democrat, well, then, the Dems could recapture the House and the Senate..."

Here's a question: How many Democrats were thinking exactly the same way that Shaw was before they voted against the Patriot Act?

How many Democrats were thinking exactly the same way that Shaw was before they demanded that we close Gitmo and soften up our interrogation techniques?

How many liberals in the mainstream media that think exactly like Shaw are letting it color the way they report on the war on terrorism and Iraq?

How many Democrats in Washington that think exactly like Shaw view the whole war on terrorism through this lens?

My guess is quite a few, even if they're not as willing as Shaw to publicly say what they think.

This is just disgraceful:

"Members of Utah's Jewish community are alarmed by a proposed demonstration that will call for "Death to Israel."

A man - whose name wasn't available Thursday - has applied for a free-speech permit from Salt Lake City to demonstrate on sidewalks near City Hall on Wednesday. The city is reviewing the application.

...(T)he police department has given its OK to the protest. Spokesman Joe Cyr said the group sponsoring the rally - listed as Center to Prevent Corporate Media Lying -has held demonstrations before. On average, about nine people show, he said. The permit application anticipates between nine and about 130 demonstrators.

"It's not like they're threatening to kill people," Cyr said. "They're just [expressing] their opinion."

Shawn McDonough, the city's special-events-coordinator, couldn't confirm the group had demonstrated before. She expects to decide today whether to grant the permit.

...Mayor Rocky Anderson, who will speak at an anti-Bush rally on Wednesday, said he doesn't know if the city will grant the Death to Israel permit.

''Do I agree with that sort of hateful expression? I don't. It's so reminiscent of the 'Death to America' slogans that we hear around so much of the militant Muslim world,'' Anderson said."

These anti-semitic pieces of human garbage, like their brethren in the KKK and Nazi Party, do have a First Amendment right to assemble and speak. But, we also have a right, thanks to the First Amendment, to say that they are anti-semitic pieces of human garbage. Still, just the idea of having a, "Death To Israel," rally in a great country like the United States....ugh. It's just outrageously offensive.

Like most people, I normally pay little heed to Bill Clinton 1.0 AKA Gary Hart. But, Hart wrote a piece on the Huffington Post that was so vacuous that it deserved a response.

Hart discussed the, "demise of the ancient Roman Republic and its transition to the Roman Empire," and specifically the Roman Emperor, Augustus, in order to compare him to Bush. He then talked about how Augustus took control of the military, the legal system, and used religion to sway the masses.

Here's how, in Hart's warped view, Julius Bushustus is taking the United States down the path towards dictatorship:

"In 21st century America the current government (the presidency and Congress of one party) has taken control not only of defense and military policy, but also military operations. No other administration, including that of Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War or Franklin Roosevelt in World War II, has ever done that. The unprecedented imposition of neoconservative ideology on military operations has led directly and inevitably to the debacle in Iraq.

In the last five years we have seen an effort by the current government to control the American judicial system by the appointment of ideologically selected judges. The unprecedented attempt to make the administration of justice the instrument of ideology is incompatible with the Constitution of the Republic whose flag we salute.

And, of course, the Republican party has been imaginative and innovative in its exploitation of religious sentiments. The unprecedented submission of social policy, and foreign policy in the Middle East, to religious fundamentalists violates the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and has weakened America in the world."

Let's take these in order:

#1) I'm not sure what he's driving at on the military because the Democrats did control the Presidency and Congress during the 20th century. Moreover, how does this relate to Augustus? Is he trying to speculate that Bush is going to send the Marines into Massachusetts if they don't get rid of Ted Kennedy?

#2) The President ALWAYS tries to appoint judges who share the judicial philosophy that he does. What's new about that? Moreover, it's the Democrats, not Republicans, who support a "living Constitution," which means nothing more than ignoring the Constitution and ruling based on political ideology. Hart is correct about that being, "incompatible with the Constitution of the Republic whose flag we salute," but he has his parties mixed up.

#3) I'm not sure how our, "social policy, and foreign policy in the Middle East" has been based on religious fundamentalism. Perhaps it's a variation on the old, "war for oil," theme. Instead, it's a, "war for religion." Oh, the things these lefties come up with just because they can't intellectually comprehend that other people take terrorism seriously, even if they don't feel the same way.

By the way, this drivel you've been reading from Hart comes from a man who was considered the front runner for the Democratic nomination for the Presidency in 1988 until he got caught having an extramarital affair on the good ship "Monkey Business." So perhaps the fact that he's now become so irrelevant that he's stuck writing for the deathly dull Huffington Post beside the likes of Cenk Uygur, Cindy Sheehan, Deepak Chopra is an appropriate punishment.

-- If the mainstream media were objective, instead of biased to the left, wouldn't this be front page news?

A security operation was helping to curb an increase in violence in Baghdad in recent months after a surge of bombings and shootings, America's two top generals in the Middle East said.

...Army Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said the operation that began in early August was working.

"I think everybody has seen an improvement in the situation in Baghdad over the last weeks because of the operations of the Iraqi security forces supported by the American Army," he said. "And we're confident that we can sustain that."

Also Thursday, Gen. John Abizaid, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, said after meeting with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani that he did not believe the country had fallen into civil war, although there is a danger that it could.

"I think Iraq's far from it. I think that there's been great progress in the security front here recently in Baghdad," he said.

Abizaid said he and Casey were "very optimistic that the situation will stabilize."

-- The West spends an inordinate amount of time worrying about how we're perceived, "why they hate us," building good will, etc. Given these results from PC Britain, maybe Muslims across the world should start doing the same thing:

"Most people in the UK feel threatened by Islam, a poll has revealed, after the Government launched a bid to tackle inter-faith tensions.

The YouGov survey for the Daily Telegraph found 53% were concerned about the impact of the religion - not just fundamentalist elements - up 21% from 2001."

-- This is a creepy and horrible story, as much as anything because it makes you wonder how many other missing children may be in the same boat out there, stuck in some sociopath's basement.

"A girl held captive as a sex slave in a dungeon for eight years told police of her dramatic escape from the man she was forced to call 'Master'.

Natascha Kampusch, who was ten when she was kidnapped on her way to school, was imprisoned in a tiny pit dug into the floor of her captor's garage.

She was held for so long that she developed Stockholm Syndrome, the psychological condition in which captives begin to identify with their abductors.

But after years of obeying the Master, Natascha escaped after being let out of her cell unsupervised."

If this guy could pull it off for 8 years, then isn't it entirely possible other people are doing the same thing? Scary....

-- I don't believe I've ever been to The LawDog Files before, so I can't vouch for the veracity of this story, but it's so good that I'm going to toss it out there anyway (make sure to head over and read the whole thing):

"Finding no one home after repeatedly hammering on the door and screaming, Mr. Critter departed the premises, only to return shortly.

As he began to resume his obnoxious activities, the neighbor of the schoolteacher, a middle-aged gentleman whose wife occasionally babysits the infant daughter of the schoolteacher, walked next door to inform Mr. Critter that the schoolteacher was out of town on vacation and to kindly desist from raising Cain on her front porch.

Mr. Critter promptly whipped a large silver-coloured revolver from his waistband, struck the man across the face with the barrel, knocking the neighbor back and down to one knee. Mr. Critter then proceeded to advance on the neighbor, pointing the gun at him him and loudly screaming: "You want a piece of me, mother****er?! Huh?! You want a piece of me?! I'll **** you up, you ho-*ss mother****er! You want a piece of me?!"

Down on one knee and unable to retreat, the CHL-equipped neighbor skinned his Glock 23 and neatly whomped two .40-calibre slugs through Mr. Critter's brisket. (The detective taking the statement said, "I guess that'd be a 'Yes...'")

Mr. Critter had the good manners to drop the unloaded Daisy BB pistol with which he had armed himself and expired.

The officers handed the neighbor a receipt for his Glock and told him to come down to the station and pick it up when the Grand Jury was done.

I love Texas."

--

"Russia on Friday rejected any talk for now of sanctions against Iran and France warned against conflict with Tehran, raising doubt whether it will face swift penalties for not halting nuclear work by an August 31 deadline."

Of course Russia "rejected any talk for now of sanctions against Iran." They're the ones helping them build a nuclear bomb in the first place! Why can't the Bush Administration come out and publicly say that it's a waste of time to try to deal with this problem since one of the members of the Security Council is half of the problem?

It's so aggravating -- but it's also probably part of a wider strategy. My guess is that the Bushies are not ready to bomb yet and are just killing time at the UN. The advantage of doing that is that when the time comes in 2007 or even 2008, and we bomb Iran's nuclear facilities, we can say, truthfully, that we gave peace every chance and tried to deal with the situation through the UN. So, we may know that we're going to have to bomb them today, but when it actually happens, we'll be able to say it was a last resort.

From World Magazine:

"Police and prosecutors in Hialeah, Fla., are investigating an abortion clinic incident that has all the markings of murder. On the morning of July 20, an 18-year-old girl walked into the A Gyn Diagnostics Center to abort her baby at 23 weeks. She had received medication to dilate her cervix the night before. By that afternoon, however, the clinic abortionist, Frantz Bazile, had not shown up for work.

The girl delivered her baby, alive, moving, and trying to breathe. Clinic worker Belkis Gonzalez then allegedly cut the umbilical cord, stuffed the wriggling, gasping baby into a biohazard bag, and sealed the bag shut.

That is the story the baby's mother and at least one other witness told investigators, according to Hialeah Deputy Police Chief Mark Overton. The day the baby was born, police received a tip and searched the clinic, but found no body. Nine days later, acting on another tip, police searched A Gyn again. This time they found the infant, still in the biohazard bag, unrefrigerated and badly decomposed.

"This was a live birth. It wasn't an abortion or a botched abortion," Overton said. "We have a hospital within five minutes of that location and [Gonzalez] could have got that baby some help."

There will be charges, Overton said."

This just goes to show you the hypocrisy behind not treating abortion like that what it is, murder.

We may gasp at the cruelty of taking a "wriggling" baby, stuffing it into a biohazard bag, and watching it slowly suffocate to death. But, if the abortionist had shown up on time, cut that same "wriggling" baby to pieces with surgical tools, crushed the child's tiny skull like an eggplant, and then vacuumed the grisly remains out and stuffed the remains into a biohazard bag, the baby would be every bit as dead.

This is why abortion should be illegal: because there is no meaningful difference between suffocating a baby outside the womb in a plastic bag or dismembering the exact same child inside the womb.

Hat tip to annavenger for the story.

The owner says he didn't realize that some people would be so offended by his calling his restaurant "Hitler's Cross" and so he'll give it a new name.

Puneet Sablok said he would remove Hitler's name and the Nazi swastika from billboards and the eatery's menu after it had angered so many people. He had previously said the name and symbols were only meant to attract attention.

"Yes, I have decided to change the name. I never wanted to hurt people's feelings," said Sablok, who made the decision after meeting with members from Bombay's small Jewish community.

"Once they told me how upset they were with the name, I decided to change it. I never wanted to create this controversy or hurt people with this name," said Sablok. "I don't want to do business by hurting people."

What's next? Stalin's Sandwich Shop? Darfur Dainties? Milosevic's Mellow Dining? Bin Laden's Beanery? What do you name a restaurant after you have named it after Hitler?

This content was used with the permission of Betsy Newmark.

Foreign

General: Iran Training Shiite Insurgents (Free Wapo Reg Req)

Israeli Poll: 63 Percent Of Israelis Feel That Prime Minister Ehud Olmert Failed In Managing The War In Lebanon And Should Resign. Only 29 Percent Believe The Prime Minister Is Fit To Continue Leading The Country

U.S. Generals Say Baghdad Violence Slows

Denmark: Four Charged With Plotting Terror Attack In Europe

Islamic Courts Consolidates Power in Somalia

Uzbekistan Criminalizes Religious Talk

Domestic

New Yorker Arrested For Broadcasting Hizbollah TV

Women May Buy The Morning-After Pill Without A Prescription - But Only With Proof They're 18 Or Older, Federal Health Officials Ruled Thursday

Christian Coalition Losing Chapters

Elections

Bloomberg Rules Out Independent Run At The White House

Funny Rick Santorum Ad Targeting Bob Casey

John McCain's PAC Caught In A Lie

Columns

Marc Champion And Karby Leggett: Troop Pledge Vexes Europe

An Interview With William Donahue

Larry Elder: Do We Really Want Democrats In Charge?

Amir Taheri: Hezbollah Didn't Win. Arab Writers Are Beginning To Lift The Veil On What Really Happened In Lebanon

Debra Saunders: The Border Patrol Inquisition

Left-Overs

Pluto No Longer A Planet, Say Astronomers

NYC Officials Want New Race Based 'Survivor' Pulled

Nealenews Hangs It Up

Video: All Your Fakes Are Belong to US (Bloggers)

Humor: George Bush Hates Small Planets

Website Of The Day: The Discerning Texan

-- John McCain has hired a new staffer for his future failed run at the presidency: Nicco Mele, a former webmaster for the Howard Dean campaign. What's the matter? Couldn't he even find a prominent Republican web guru, like Patrick Ruffini, that would work with him?

-- Speaking of 2008, some people have asked me which candidate I'm going to support. I haven't made a decision on that yet, but I can definitely tell you a few candidates I won't be supporting:

* John McCain: He's a poster boy for most of what's wrong with the Republican Party.

* Chuck Hagel: I don't even want him as a Senator. In fact, I'd love nothing better than to pull a Lieberman on him in 2008 and replace him with a Republican Senator that's a better match for an extremely red state like Nebraska.

* Rudy Giuliani: I like Rudy a lot, but he's not a conservative and his domestic agenda could genuinely end up being slanted to the left of center. I could live with Rudy as veep candidate, but there's no way I could ever support him in a primary.

-- Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist had some kind words for Rightroots again over at VOLPAC:

"If we are to succeed to nominating and electing conservative Republican candidates, if we are to keep Congress from falling into the hands of a Speaker Pelosi and a Majority Leader Reid, we must organize and communicate effectively across the Internet. Surely the extremists that helped nominate Ned Lamont aren’t the only ones who can do so.

That’s why I’ve endorsed Rightroots, an initiative led by prominent bloggers to raise much needed funds for deserving conservative candidates.

And that’s why I’ve been leading a series of conference calls between bloggers and Republican Senate candidates like Bob Corker and Mike McGavick. These calls include national blogs like Power Line, RedState, and Right Wing News …"

Much thanks, Bill!

-- From the New York Times:

"Biologists have developed a technique for establishing colonies of human embryonic stem cells from an early human embryo without destroying it. This method, if confirmed in other laboratories, would seem to remove the principal objection to the research."

I'd agree that these techniques remove the moral objections people may have to stem cells. But, my principal objection to them is that, contrary to what you may have heard, adult stem cells show far more potential than embyronic stem cells. That's why if there's any Federal money to be had, it should all go to adult stem cells. But regrettably, for politics sake, we'll undoubtedly end up pouring money that could be better spent elsewhere into embryonic stem cells.

-- From the Wall Street Journal:

"Europe was expected to take the lead in manning a 15,000-strong force called for in the French-U.S.-brokered resolution to police the Aug. 11 truce between the Hezbollah militia and Israel. But France has since hesitated to commit a significant number of troops for the force amid concerns that they will end up fighting Hezbollah; so far Paris has offered only 400 soldiers, and Europe is having trouble raising as many ground troops as the U.N. says it needs to create a balanced force of troops from European and Muslim countries.

...The hesitation -- however justified by events on the ground -- is forcing Europeans to grapple with some uncomfortable realities: They don't have enough deployable combat troops; they are disliked as much as the U.S. by Mideast radicals; and their determination to stop the destruction and insert peacekeepers could come at a higher price than they are willing to pay.

...The outlook for successfully keeping the peace and neutralizing Hezbollah is poor, and the risks high, no matter whose troops are on the ground or how well they are armed, military analysts say. Any breakdown of the cease-fire would result in European forces either returning to their barracks or shooting at Israelis or Muslims -- both unpalatable outcomes given the Continent's large Muslim populations and the legacy of the Holocaust that annihilated European Jewry."

Europe is like an ex-champion boxer, who's way over the hill and knows that even though people think he can still fight, he just doesn't have what it takes to get the job done in the ring anymore.

-- Three months before the elections, many of the same ignoramuses who made fools out of themselves by proclaiming that a draft was right around the corner in 2004, are back at it again. Here's TalkLeft with the standard spin:

"Is There a Draft in Your Kid's Future?

Now that President Bush has said we're no-way, no-how leaving Iraq, and the Marines are calling up reservists (the Individual Ready Reserve), ABC's Brian Ross reports an Iraq War Veteran's group says a military draft is coming."

Now, here's TalkLeft back on Sept 19, 2005:

"Despite Rumsfeld's statements Bush wouldn't start a draft either, recent actions of the Pentagon cast doubt on that claim. For example, the miltitary's use of the "stop-loss" program has been alleged by many to be a back-door draft. Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) thinks a reinstatement of the draft is warranted.

Ralph Nader warns a draft is coming....unless he's President, of course. Bills have been introduced in Congress to reinstate the draft...although they have little chance of success."

Let me be exceptionally blunt here: if you think there's a draft right around the corner, at best you're ignorant and at worst you're dishonest. In the case of the folks over at Talkleft, I'm leaning towards the latter.

Over at the Daily Kos, Daily Kos diarist gshenaut, thinks we should have a nice, long, conversation with the terrorists, perhaps in a nice cafe, with soft music, tea, and burka clad waitresses:

"Let's take an extreme example: should the US enter into official negotiations with representatives of al-Qaeda?

I believe that most Americans would reject this, and in fact would become angry that it is even suggested as a possibility. However, I also believe that they would be wrong, that there is no rational reason why the US shouldn't welcome the opportunity to negotiate with al-Qaeda.

First, this is a fairly low-cost endeavor. A few diplomats, some research people, a secure location, and not much physical risk to the participants. No argument can be made that I'm aware of that negotiating with al-Qaeda would increase the risk of a terrorist attack in the US. If you're reading this and you disagree, please enlighten me below.
Second, even if all it does is reduce the number of attacks on American assets around the world, since its cost is low, the activity will have been justified.
Third, the potential for there being some kind of treaty between al-Qaeda and the US--for example, a promise of "hands off" in Iraq in exchange for a removal or reduction of US forces in Saudi Arabia--could save many lives and increase stability in many areas. Therefore, the potential benefits of negotiations are huge.

I'm sure that many will say that "to negotiate with terrorists like al-Qaeda legitimizes them". And yes, that's true, but is it a bad thing? Is it the only thing that will happen in negotiations? I think not.

First, one of the horrible impediments to peace between Muslims and everyone else is unhumanization--demonization--of each side by the other. To most Americans, al-Qaeda members are barely human, motivated by an abstract hatred for freedom and liberty, dedicated only to death. But there is no doubt that this is exaggerated and wrong. al-Qaeda members are human beings, motivated by the same forces that motivate us all. If negotiations would legitimize and humanize our opponents, it would also reduce this impediment.

...Furthermore, I think that it would be wonderful if Democrats could have a "let's talk" plank on their platform, but I understand that this could be risky given the considerations I mentioned at the top of this diary."

Some people, reactionary right wingers no doubt, probably think that's a bad idea. But, it's not. After all, didn't we ultimately end World War 2 by having a nice chat with Hitler and Tojo? Wait, forget that point. Look at it like this: We want them to stop murdering us and they want us to die. So, there has to be some middle ground, right?

PS: You laugh at these idiots now. If a Democrat becomes President in 2008, people who think like gshenaut and Kos will be shaping our foreign policy.

The Democratic Underground Poll Of The Day: Impeach And Imprison Bush!

The Democrats have been trying to downplay the fact that one of the first things they'll do, if they regain control of Congress, is try to impeach George Bush. But, what you have to understand is that impeaching Bush is right up there with supporting abortion, cutting and running in Iraq, and raising taxes on the liberal agenda. If the Democrats run Congress, there is a 100% chance that they'll try to impeach Bush because their base will absolutely insist on it.

If you want to get an idea of how strong the pro-impeachment sentiment is on the left, just take a look at this poll from the Democratic Underground: "Poll question: Do You Support Impeachment Of George W. Bush?"

In the initial post, there's not even a reason listed for impeachment because, quite frankly, they hate George Bush so much that any excuse to impeach him will do.

Would it really be good for the country, in the middle of a war, to have the Democrats trying to impeach the Commander-In-Chief for purely political reasons? If Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and the other liberals in the Democratic leadership gain control in November, we're certainly going to find out the hard way.

Vlogging really seems to be getting more popular on the right side of the blogosphere, so I thought it would be a good time to do a short post about it.

Although she's not a conservative, you have to give credit to Amanda Congdon from Rocketboom for proving that vlogging can draw a big audience:

Of course, the most popular conservative vlogger is Michelle Malkin over at Hot Air:

When Michelle's out, her fill ins include Mary Katharine Ham:

And Bethany:

Then there's Ann Althouse:

New vlogger, RightWingSparkle:

And of course, perhaps the right side of the blogosphere's 2nd most popular vlogger, Pam from Atlas Shrugs, who is hopefully starting a trend with her newest vlog from the beach:

Now, you probably think this whole post is nothing but an excuse for me to post pictures of a bunch of attractive women on my blog and you're right...pretty much. It is interesting though, that in a male dominated medium, blogging, with a mostly male audience.... that vlogging, a visual medium, is currently dominated by attractive women.

That makes you wonder: is political vlogging (as opposed to showing funny videos on youtube) the start of a new trend or is it always going to be a small niche, limited by the number of attractive women that are willing to host a show? My gut instinct is that it will continue to expand over time, with male hosts eventually becoming popular, too, but time will tell...

Update #1: Check out Mary Katharine Ham's bleeped outtake from Vent earlier this week.

Supposedly, after being stung by the macacca incident, George Allen is looking to hire a, "conservative blog maven who can blunt future attacks and help rally conservatives in the state and elsewhere behind Allen's campaign."

Hey, wait a second: I'm a, "conservative blog maven," so maybe I can help. Here's the advice I would give to George Allen...

#1) Stop apologizing so much. You're just keeping the story out in the media longer and since it's August, they have nothing better to do than keep you in the teeth over it every day.

#2) Engage the blogosphere a little more to build up some good will. Having a teleconference or two would be a good way to start.

#3) Do some interviews with friendly bloggers like, yours truly, Hugh Hewitt, Michelle Malkin, and Redstate.

#4) If there's one sure way to get in the good graces of the blogosphere, it's fighting pork. So, call up Tom Coburn and tell him you want to get publicly involved with the Porkbusters effort.

#5) This is going to sound crass, but buy a month long, fund raising ad across the conservative blogosphere. It's not that much money for a campaign raking in millions in donations, you'll make a lot (or maybe even all of it) back in donations, and the bloggers (along with their audiences) will appreciate it. Does it work? Bill Frist must think so or Volpac certainly wouldn't have been making regular ad buys for months (PS: Did Bill Frist just get a positive mention out of it? I think he did!)

Getting on the good side of the conservative blogosphere really isn't all that hard, especially for a guy like George Allen. If he just follows these five steps, over the course of the next few months, you'd see a much friendlier attitude towards George Allen amongst the rightroots on the net.

Well, what else would a nice Saudi boy believe about a plot to bomb German trains? I mean the Catholics had their Crusades in the Middle Ages and the Protestants need their own now. Other Muslims in Germany have other ideas.

This just in: The Lebanese men suspected of having deposited bombs on German trains last month were hired hands -- in the employ of the German government itself.

That, at least, is what one 27-year-old from Saudi Arabia believes. "It's all a Protestant crusade," the man explains. "All of northern Germany is Protestant, isn't it? And so is President Bush." Then the man launches into a melange of confusing arguments and historical facts. The bubonic plague, Martin Luther and former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl all make a cameo. It's all connected somehow, the man is sure of it.

The young Saudi Arabian's views may make little sense from a Western point of view, but you can meet him and talk to him at a street corner in the middle of Hamburg, right by the central station...

The Saudi Arabian's crusade theory is being hotly debated on Steindamm, one of the main streets in the neighborhood. "It's not about religion, it's about money," says an Algerian wearing a Lacoste shirt. A man from Tunisia immediately agrees and asks, "Why else have German soldiers been sent to Congo?"

In their struggle for money and oil, Western states will use whatever means they can, according to the theory. That the USA knew about the September 11, 2001 attacks before they happened but chose not to prevent them is a widespread view. "We think the United States needed those attacks so they could start the Iraq war," explains Mahran Abdulwahab, a Lebanese graphic designer with a Hamburg accent...

This content was used with the permission of Daimnation!

Foreign

U.S. Homeland Security Forbidden By Law From Tactics Brits Used To Foil Attack

Iraqi Authorities Say The Number Of Violent Attacks Has Gone Down By 30 Percent. The U.S., Using Different Calculations, Says Such Attacks Have Decreased By 22 Percent

The Number Of U.S. Troops In Iraq Has Climbed Back To 138,000

U.S. Spy Agencies Criticized On Iran (Free WAPO Reg Req)

Gaza Group Claims Kidnapping Of Fox Journalists

Northwest Jet Turns Back; Passengers Arrested

Domestic

Leak Investigation Ordered. How Media Learned About Probe Of Pro-Israel Lobbyists Sought (Free WAPO Reg Req)

New Stem Cell Method Avoids Destroying Embryos (Free New York Times Reg Req)

U.S. Announces End Of 'Catch And Release' For Non-Mexicans (Don't Believe It)

Elections

Poll From The Ford Campaign: Ford Up 44% Vs. 42% For Corker

Patriot-News/WGAL Keystone Poll: Casey 44% To Santorum 39%

John McCain Hires A Dean For America Staffer

Sen. George Allen Gives Direct Apology

Alaska Gov. Murkowski Concedes Defeat in GOP Gubernatorial Primary To Sarah Palin

Columns

Max Boot: Israel Should Hit Syria First (Free LA Times Reg Req)

The Evans-Novak Political Report

Ann Coulter: What Part of the War on Terrorism Do They Support?

Victor Davis Hanson: Relearning Lessons In The War On Terror

Michael Noer: Don't Marry Career Women

Left-Overs

Infamous Internet Psycho Deb Frisch Is Up On Charges

Pam From Atlas Shrugs Video Blogs In A Bikini From The Beach

Video: Right Wing Sparkle's First Video Blog

Humor: Al Qaeda Poll Shows No Iraq-Terror Link

Website Of The Day: Smart Christian

Day after day, since we went into Iraq, the mainstream media has inundated the public with the same sort of slanted, biased coverage of the war that you'd have expected to get from Pravda at the height of the Cold War. They've been excessively negative and hysterical. They've demonized the troops, been soft on the enemy, and deliberately revealed classified programs that have probably led to the deaths of American soldiers. Indeed, just about the only way the performance of the MSM could be worse would be if they followed the lead of liberal stalwarts like Cindy Sheehan and Michael Moore, who have openly spoken of the terrorists fighting our troops in Iraq as "freedom fighters" and "Minutemen." That's why, when the American public has been left to drift in this sea of gloom, it's worth taking a few moments to put things into their proper perspective.

To begin with, we've heard plenty about the difficulties caused by going into Iraq, but what about the positives? We've removed an anti-American dictator who supported terrorism, had ties to Al-Qaeda, had over 500 WMDs, was planning to build more WMDs, and per Vladimir Putin, may have even been preparing to launch terrorist attacks inside the United States.

Furthermore, thousands of terrorists -- including the now deceased Abu Musab al-Zarqawi -- who might have otherwise been plotting to murder Americans here in the U.S., went to Iraq to fight our troops instead. That may be tough on our soldiers, but it's better to have terrorists fighting Marines in Iraq than fighting unsuspecting stewardesses, elementary school teachers, and bus drivers here in America.

Then there are the other changes that likely would not have occurred had Iraq not been a catalyst. If not for the invasion and the aftermath, Libya would likely still have weapons of mass destruction, Syria would still be occupying Lebanon, and it's highly unlikely that we would have seen Arab nations actually condemning Hezbollah for starting a war with Israel.

We also cannot forget that sanctions on Iraq were crumbling before the war. So, had we not attacked, it's entirely possible that Iraq would today be racing against Iran to acquire nuclear weapons while terrorist mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi spent his days plotting the next 9/11 from Baghdad with Saddam's tacit approval.

That's certainly not a compelling vision of the future. But, has it been worth the loss of so many American lives to transform Iraq? Although any loss of American life is not something to be taken lightly, judging by historical standards, the number of soldiers killed in action during this conflict has been extremely low.

Roughly 2,600 American soldiers have died in more than 3 years of fighting in Iraq. But, as Mickey Kaus recently noted, "6,821 Americans...died to conquer the eight square miles of Iwo Jima."

But, perhaps you think those sorts of numbers are no longer applicable in modern combat. Then, look to Israel's recent fighting in Lebanon. Israel, a nation of about 6.3 million people, lost 118 soldiers in just over a month of combat. Since the United States is roughly 47 times bigger than Israel, that means proportionally, Israel's losses would be the equivalent of the United States losing 5,546 men in a single month of fighting.

If you want to really bring home how light our losses in Iraq have been, then you only need consider the fact that we're losing considerably less people fighting in Iraq than we lost during peace time in the eighties. For example, in 1981, a year when we lost no soldiers to "hostile action," there were 2,380 military deaths. In 1983, the year we liberated Grenada, there were 2,486 soldiers that died.

It's always tragic when one of our soldiers loses his life and it's especially painful for us to see these young kids falling in action in a foreign land. But, the reason we consider it heroic for soldiers to fight for their country is because they're willing to take that risk. They're doing a dirty, dangerous job that needs to get done and fortunately, compared to the number of lives lost in past endeavors, the number of soldiers KIA in Iraq has been comparatively small.

Furthermore, our troops are not going to be on the front lines in Iraq indefinitely. In order to win in Iraq, we need to help build up the Iraqi government to the point where they can handle their own internal security with minimal American help. Once the Iraqis get to that point, the terrorists will be in deep trouble.

That's why the goal of the terrorists has been to get the United States to cut and run before the Iraqi government is strong enough to stand on its own. The thinking has been that if the U.S. were to pull out too soon, it would destabilize the country and give the terrorists an opportunity to raise an army to take over.

But, if the Iraqi government is stable and has a strong military that's capable of keeping order even without U.S. troops on the streets, the terrorists' plan won't work. But, how long will we have to wait until Iraq gets to that point? Well, in mid-June of this year, Iraq's National Security Adviser, Mouwafak al-Rubaie, laid out a tentative, yet realistic schedule:

"Thus far four of the 18 provinces are ready for the transfer of power -- two in the north (Irbil and Sulaymaniyah) and two in the south (Maysan and Muthanna). Nine more provinces are nearly ready.

With the governors of each province meeting these strict objectives, Iraq's ambition is to have full control of the country by the end of 2008. In practice this will mean a significant foreign troop reduction. We envisage the U.S. troop presence by year's end to be under 100,000, with most of the remaining troops to return home by the end of 2007."

That's probably a good, rough estimate of the timeline we're working on. However, as George Bush understands, we need to give our generals on the ground in Iraq the freedom they need to adjust that schedule, as necessary, in order to guarantee that the sacrifices our troops have made haven't been in vain. That's why George Bush has refused to let grandstanding politicians in Washington set a timetable for a pull-out that would inevitably be based on political concerns. George Bush has been saying for quite a while now that, "As Iraqis stand up, we will stand down." Well, we're on the back side of the mountain now and it would be exceedingly foolish to declare the whole mission in Iraq a failure just as the Iraqis are rising to their feet.

Moreover, the people who are advocating a cut and run strategy in Iraq are clearly putting politics above the interests of this country, because a failure in Iraq would have enormous and far reaching negative consequences for the United States. If we pull out before Iraq is ready to handle its own internal security, we could quickly see the country collapse into civil war.

If that were to happen, you could see Turkey invade the Kurdish section of Iraq and an Iranian oil grab wouldn't be a surprise either. Worse yet, you could perhaps see the terrorists raise an army, eventually conquer Iraq, and turn the country into another terrorist state, like Afghanistan before the Taliban was overthrown.

Additionally, seeing America give up in Iraq would embolden our enemies to act aggressively and show our allies that they can no longer count on us. North Korea would take our failure in Iraq as a sign that we wouldn't be willing to stop their nuclear ambitions. Iran would receive the same signal and might conclude that it would be an optimum time to start a war with Israel. Even China might take our weakness in Iraq as a signal that we wouldn't have the will to stop them from swallowing Taiwan. Because of this, giving up on Iraq would be an invitation for more wars to begin all across the globe.

Also, you can be sure that our loss in Iraq would be a huge victory for Al-Qaeda that would boost recruiting, make Muslim nations across the world less willing to act against them, and would convince everyone that America is really a paper tiger that doesn't have the willpower to stand up against terrorists.

When you consider all of these issues in tandem, you'll see that what's going on in Iraq goes way beyond the latest car bombing or exploding IED. The truth is that we are winning in Iraq, with losses that are historically small, and we're getting closer by the day to bringing our troops home without having to consider any sort of politically driven cut and run strategy that could turn out to be disastrous for our country. That's something worth keeping in the back of your mind each day as you take in the daily news from Iraq.

David McSweeney is taking on Democratic incumbent Melissa Bean in the Illinois 8th District. This is a district that Bush won 56% to 44% in 2004 and it's a great pick-up opportunity for the GOP.

Earlier today, I got together with David McSweeney to do a short interview. What you are about to read is an edited transcript of that conversation:

John Hawkins: If a voter from your district were to come up to you and say, "David, give me 3 differences between you and the incumbent, Melissa Bean, that would convince me to vote for you, what would you say to him?"

David McSweeney: The first one is tax cuts. The key to creating jobs for the United States is to keep taxes low. I want to make President Bush's tax relief package permanent and she refuses to take a stand on that which means that effectively, she supports the largest tax increase in the history of the United States...

The second important issue is lawsuit reform. We need to keep our doctors and our specialists here in Illinois. I support federal lawsuit reform. Melissa Bean opposes it.

On energy policy, I support wind and solar power and doubling the tax credit for hybrid cars. We also need to address the supply. I support safe drilling in (ANWR). I support safe offshore drilling. Melissa Bean opposes that and that'll be a big difference in this race. I want to bring gas prices down and she has no position on that.

John Hawkins: Now, tell us a little bit about your opponent, Melissa Bean. A lot of people from around the country will be seeing this interview and they're not that familiar with her. What are we seeing from her in Congress?

David McSweeney: ...She's been with the liberal Democrats 83% of the time. Her first vote is for Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House. She voted against lawsuit reform. She voted against legislation that would help bring gas prices down. She has voted for the final passage of a couple of Republican bills, like, for example immigration reform and class action reform. But, what she'll do is vote against them effectively...(by also) voting for the Democratic alternatives. It's the old John Kerry, "I voted for it, before I voted against it."

The people of this district are looking for a consistent leader who's going to stand up for the principles of lower taxes, less spending, and a strong national defense. That's what my campaign is all about.

John Hawkins: Now in the blogosphere, I'm seen two things come up over and over and over again when conservatives talk about why they're not happy with the performance of Republicans in Congress: deficit spending and illegal immigration. Tell us a little bit about where you stand on those issues.

David McSweeney: I think Republicans in Washington have lost their way on the issue of spending. We need to cut spending in Washington, D.C. We have 9 trillion dollars worth of public debt. But, if you look at it the way a business does, we have 65 trillion dollars worth of unfunded liabilities in this country.

The first place we should start is with Congress itself. Congress spends 4 billion dollars a year on its operations -- on the mailings, the automated phone calls, all the self-promotional materials. We should cut that by 25%.

We need to reduce the operational administrative budgets of each Federal Department and agency by 10%, excluding national defense and Homeland Security.

So, we need to cut spending. We need to be brave about eliminating these anonymous earmarks once and for all. That's a big part of my campaign.

On the issue of immigration, ...I'm a big supporter of legal immigration, but I believe we need to secure the borders and I support legislation to do that.

John Hawkins: So, would you say you're more of a fan of the House plan or the Senate plan?

David McSweeney: I'm a fan of the House plan. I would have voted for that. Sensenbrenner, the chairman, has asked for modifications that would reduce the penalties from a felony to a misdemeanor. I think that's very reasonable and I definitely support the House approach over the Senate approach.

John Hawkins: Now there's an independent in the race. Tell us a little bit about that and how you think it will impact the race.

David McSweeney: Melissa Bean, when she ran in 2004, took the unions' money, she took their workers, and she took their support, promising that she would oppose CAFTA. (But), she voted for it. That's what creates cynicism in politics. I'm a supporter of CAFTA, but I tell everybody that up front.

Because Melissa Bean betrayed her base and sold out...to the big business interests in return for her vote, it created a great deal of problems within her base because people want to be told the truth.

Bill Scheurer is running as an independent. His platform is repeal the Bush tax cuts, immediate withdrawal from Iraq, and support for the union agenda. ...I respect him. I would disagree with him on almost every major issue, but unlike Melissa Bean, he'll take a firm stand and it's going to be a very interesting dynamic in the race.

John Hawkins: Now you're in a district that Bush won in 2004, 56% to 44%. Your race is considered to be one of the best Republican pick-up opportunities in America. How do you think you're doing right now?

David McSweeney: ...Very well. I had a big victory in the primary. We have a unified party. We're working on drawing issue distinctions with Melissa Bean. We have a couple of candidate forums coming up in the next week and I plan to draw those...distinctions on taxes, spending, (and) national defense.

I've been to over 3,000 households, knocking on doors since the primary. I knocked on 5,000 doors during the primaries. I think that's going to be the key to victory. Getting our voters out (and) drawing the...distinctions. Things are going very well on the fund raising side. I was the top Republican challenger with fund raising in the second quarter. I out-raised Melissa Bean. I feel very good about where things are at.

John Hawkins: That's it. Thank you very much, David!

If you would like to help David McSweeney beat Melissa Bean, you can contribute to his campaign through Rightroots.

Well, the good news is that Steve Centanni and his cameraman Olaf Wiig are alive. The bad news is that they were apparently kidnapped by the Palestinian terrorists who were stuck in all the "special" classes at terrorism school. First, it takes more than a week before the "Holy Jihad Brigades" made any contact to the media (Did they spend the whole time trying to figure out how to setup the video camera? Find someone literate enough to write a statement? Get their hands unstuck from a vending machine?). Now, they demand all Muslim prisoners in the U.S. be released in the next 72 hours. Why don't they just demand a complete surrender of all American forces while they're shooting for the moon?

Anyway, keep up your prayers for Centanni and Wiig; hopefully the nutters are as unserious in violence as they are in their ransom.

This content was used with the permission of IMAO.

Former chief spokesman for the U.S. Justice Department, Mark Corallo, is complaining about the ramifications reporters are facing for misbehavior:

"All that is at risk in the Justice Department these days. In the past few months, the department allowed the U.S. attorney in Los Angeles to subpoena two San Francisco Chronicle reporters who broke the baseball steroids scandal to get them to reveal the source of the leak of Barry Bonds' and Jason Giambi's grand jury testimony. The journalists, whose courageous reporting forced baseball to deal with the steroid problem after ignoring it for a decade, now face jail if they refuse to give up their sources. (In the interest of full disclosure, I filed an affidavit in support of the reporters.)

And in the Eastern District of Virginia, the Justice Department is using antiquated espionage statutes to prosecute two lobbyists for the pro-Israel organization AIPAC for receiving classified information. This is significant because it provides a chilling prospect for the many members of the media who receive classified information (most often unknowingly) on a daily basis.

Will federal prosecutors use this case as the precedent to go after reporters for getting leaks? It's not wild speculation. In public statements, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has hinted that this may be an avenue of attack in future cases.

From these and other recent examples, it's clear there has been a shift in policy - a dramatic shift for the worse.

...The current Justice leadership either doesn't have the backbone to say "no" when prosecutors want to subpoena reporters or it agrees with their judgments. In either event, the results are dangerous."

There was a time when I was extremely sympathetic to this sort of argument. For example, way back in 2001*, when Vanessa Leggett spent 168 days in jail for contempt because she wouldn't give up her research materials, I aimed a lot of scalding criticism at the DOJ over the case. Moreover, I generally don't support prosecuting journalists for publishing classified information. However, I no longer have any sympathy for journalists who go to jail to "protect their sources."

Know why?

Because with rights, come responsibilities and unfortunately, we can no longer count on journalists to behave responsibly. In the middle of a war with Islamo-Fascists who want to murder as many Americans as possible, some of the biggest papers in the country no longer seem to have any qualms about putting American lives at risk with their stories. They tell the terrorists (and the rest of the world) about secret programs designed to safeguard American lives. They put the methods our intelligence agencies use to track down terrorists on their front pages. Even when the government asks them not to publish because it may aid the terrorists in killing Americans, these papers don't care.

Of course, the government has always had the ability to be much tougher on journalists if they so desired, but, as part of, let's say an unspoken "gentleman's agreement," they've treated journos with kid gloves. But when the press becomes so callous that they're giving the terrorists the info they need to kill Americans and evade capture just so they can slap a splashy headline on their front page, it gets harder to rationalize giving the press a break.

The reality is that reporters and, for that matter, bloggers, don't have the right to, "withhold their sources," in court. You do have a right to avoid self-incrimination, but there's nothing about protecting your sources in the Constitution. While this is too bad for the reporters in the Bonds case, who are really getting caught up in the crossfire that has erupted between the press and the government, the press as a whole has brought this on themselves with their behavior.

Over at the Wall Street Journal, Arthur Brooks is pointing out the left's "baby problem":

Simply put, liberals have a big baby problem: They're not having enough of them, they haven't for a long time, and their pool of potential new voters is suffering as a result. According to the 2004 General Social Survey, if you picked 100 unrelated politically liberal adults at random, you would find that they had, between them, 147 children. If you picked 100 conservatives, you would find 208 kids. That's a "fertility gap" of 41%. Given that about 80% of people with an identifiable party preference grow up to vote the same way as their parents, this gap translates into lots more little Republicans than little Democrats to vote in future elections. Over the past 30 years this gap has not been below 20%--explaining, to a large extent, the current ineffectiveness of liberal youth voter campaigns today.

Alarmingly for the Democrats, the gap is widening at a bit more than half a percentage point per year, meaning that today's problem is nothing compared to what the future will most likely hold. Consider future presidential elections in a swing state (like Ohio), and assume that the current patterns in fertility continue. A state that was split 50-50 between left and right in 2004 will tilt right by 2012, 54% to 46%. By 2020, it will be certifiably right-wing, 59% to 41%. A state that is currently 55-45 in favor of liberals (like California) will be 54-46 in favor of conservatives by 2020--and all for no other reason than babies.

The fertility gap doesn't budge when we correct for factors like age, income, education, sex, race--or even religion. Indeed, if a conservative and a liberal are identical in all these ways, the liberal will still be 19 percentage points more likely to be childless than the conservative.

Gee, you mean the most pro-abortion people walking the planet today, liberal Democrats, aren't having enough babies? Big surprise there.

If the libs are scratching their heads and wondering why they aren't pumping out little Michael Moores and Janeane Garofalos left and right, maybe they should ask Planned Parenthood about it.

I guess that's what happens when you have a group of people who treat ripping a baby apart in the womb as a "choice" that has all the moral implications of trying to decide which brand of cereal you're going to buy at the grocery store.

Jonah Goldberg over at the The Corner points out that Washington State is being overrun with murderous raccoons.

"Raccoons have killed about 10 cats in a three-block area near the Garfield Nature Trail at Harrison Avenue West and Foote Street Southwest.

Problem wildlife coordinator Sean Carrell of the state Department of Fish and Wildlife called the situation "bizarre, weird."

"I've never heard a report of 10 cats being killed. It's something we're going to have to monitor," he said. He added that they may have to bring in trappers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The problem got so bad that residents Kari Hall and Tamara Keeton even started a Raccoon Watch after having an emotional neighborhood meeting attended by about 40 people.

"It was a place for people to mourn and cry," Hall said.

At the meeting, they encouraged people to stop feeding the raccoons. They also decided to keep their pets and pet food inside. And they decided to carry pepper spray to drive off raccoons that attack again.

Keeton and Pam Corwin have decided to have "cat coops" built so their pets can go outside and have some room to roam, with protection.

It's not just cats being attacked. Five raccoons actually ganged up on and carried off a little dog, who survived."

If they were only killing lower lifeforms, like cats, you might be inclined not to take the whole thing all that seriously. But, the moment those shifty eyed vermin started targeting dogs, they went too far and that should have meant that the time for "mourning," "pepper spray," and "cat coops" was over. Yes, the very moment that they carried off the first dog was the moment that they signed on for a one way ticket to raccoon hell!

Ok...Ok, I'm kidding -- a little. Even cats deserve to be defended from raccoons. But geeze, don't these weenies in Washington have any Southern relatives? You don't need trappers. You need some good old boys from down South, who consider hunting raccoons to be a pleasant way to spend a Saturday night. That would put an end to their raccoon problem in short order -- and, one way or another -- they really do need to kill these animals.

"Iraqi security forces now number 275,000 trained and equipped. The commanders in the field and the Iraqis say when this reaches 325,000, that would equal 10 divisions, and that's what we need to take care of our own security." -- Senator James Inofe

Foreign

Iran 'Fires On Romanian Oil Rig'

Iran Says It's Ready for 'Serious' Talks (Just Another Delaying Tactic)

Assad: No UN Troops On Lebanon-Syria Border

Israel Shelves Plan To Pull Out Of Settlements In West Bank (Free Wapo Reg Req)

Train Bombing Plot Surprises Germany

Sen. James Inhofe: Inhofe Optimistic On Iraq. It's Well On The Way Toward Handling Its Own Security, He Says

Domestic

John McCain Faulted The Bush Administration For Misleading Americans Into Believing The Conflict Would Be "Some Kind Of Day At The Beach." (What A Creep)

Firms Who Hire Illegal Immigrants Sued

Handwriting Expert Points Finger At Karr

A Stuart Middle School Teacher Has Been Removed From The Classroom After He Burned Two American Flags In Class During A Lesson On Freedom Of Speech (Fire Him)

U.S. District Judge Who Presided Over Government Wiretapping Case May Have Had Conflict Of Interest

Elections

American Research Group Poll: Lieberman 44%, Lamont 42%, Schlesinger 3%

Connecticut Groups Push to Remove Lieberman From Ballot (Free WAPO Reg Req)

Rasmussen: Missouri Senate: Talent (R) 46%, McCaskill (D) 44%

Sen. George Allen's Campaign Is Seeking A Conservative Blog Maven Who Can Blunt Future Attacks And Help Rally Conservatives In The State And Elsewhere Behind Allen's Campaign (Free WAPO Reg Req)

Iowa 2008 Straw Poll: Rudy Giuliani 30%, John McCain 17.3%, Bill Frist 6.5%, Mitt Romney 4.5%, George Allen 3.5%, George Pataki 3.3%, Mike Huckabee 2.5%, Sam Brownback 2.5%

Columns

Arthur Brooks: The Fertility Gap. Liberal Politics Will Prove Fruitless As Long As Liberals Refuse To Multiply

Thomas Sowell: Point Of No Return

Hugh Hewitt Interviews General John Abizaid

Larry Kudlow: Greatest Story Never Told

Rush Limbaugh: Marvin Kalb -- Conservative Media Too "Pro-Freedom"

Left-Overs

Paramount Cuts Ties With Tom Cruise

Giant Yellow Jacket Nests Perplex Experts

Video: Mary Katharine Ham Talks Porkbusters At Hot Air

Website Of The Day: The Redstate Blog Project

John Hawkins | 03:02 AM | Comments (0)

If you've been hanging around the blogosphere for a while, you've probably heard more than a few horror stories about bloggers losing their jobs, having their addresses posted online, or being harassed.

A lot of those stories are true and it's why bloggers should take some very basic precautions to safeguard their privacy while they're online. Of course, there's no way to completely guarantee your privacy online, but that doesn't mean you can't minimize the risks.

Here are a few things I've picked up over the years, sometimes the hard way:

1) Don't tell your blog readers where you work and don't tell people at work about your blog. As a general rule, telling your boss that you blog makes him worry that you're blogging on company time or that you might say something embarrassing to the company. Is that something you really want? Moreover, do you really want your boss checking your blog or your computer to see what you're up to?

Along those same lines, if you tell people who read your blog where you work, you're opening up a can of worms. You never know when some clown whom you offend may write your company and claim that you're slandering people, making the company look bad, or doing who knows what. Whether it's true or untrue, your boss is going to be unhappy with the unnecessary hassle, even if there's nothing to it. That's why keeping a wall of separation between where you work and where you blog is a good idea.

2) Think hard before you tell your readers where you live. It may seem harmless to tell people that you live in a particular city or town, but having that info may allow them to run it through a Reverse Address directory and pull up a phone number. To tell you the truth, you're better off if you don't give people a state you live in for reasons I'm not going to get into.

3) Unlisted Phone Number: Having an unlisted phone is a must if you don't want people to simply look your name and address up online.

4) A P.O. Box: If, for some reason, you need to allow your readers to send you things via snail mail, buy a P.O. Box through the Post Office. They're not terribly expensive and although they will allow people to pin down the general area you live in, they keep you from having to reveal your real address.

5) Email Precautions: First off, don't ever send out email from a work address because obviously, if you're sending out an email from johnsmith@IBM.com, you just told them exactly where you work.

It's also a good idea to send email from an online source, like Hotmail, Yahoo, or Gmail rather than an address provided by your ISP. If you have a small ISP, you may be inadvertently giving people an easy way to figure out the general area you live in.

6) Comments & IP Addresses: If you post in a comments section or forum of another website under your real name, the administrator should be able to see your IP address. If they run that address through a WHOIS search, they may be able to, depending on the situation, get a general idea of where you live or the company where you work (if you're posting from work). Does that mean you should never post in a comment section? No, but I'd be very careful about posting in the comment sections of hostile blogs where they might be inclined to post your IP or try to harass you.

7) Hide Your Address On Your Domain: If you have your own domain for your blog, use a registrar like Dynadot or Go Daddy that allows you to hide your address, email, and phone number. Otherwise, a simple WHOIS will tell anyone and everyone all your contact information.

8) Don't Forget The Wayback Machine: Do you have an old website with personal information on it? Then make sure to get it removed from the Wayback Machine, which caches websites, even ones that are no longer up and running. Removal details are located here.

The UN ceasefire is now on the brink of total disentegration. Hezbollah has been refusing to disarm or go north and they're continuing to attempt to rearm. Moreover, it's now starting to look as if the international troops that are supposed to be supplementing the Lebanese army in the South may not be forthcoming at all:

"The shaky, United Nations-brokered cease-fire in Lebanon suffered another blow on Sunday when the European countries that had been called upon to provide the backbone of a peacekeeping force delayed a decision on committing troops until the mission is more clearly defined.

Their reservations postponed any action on the force at least until Wednesday, when the European Union will take up the issue.

...In addition, a senior French official said, “Italy, Spain and Finland have raised the same questions as France has.” Following the usual diplomatic practice, the official asked not to be identified. A spokesman for the Spanish Foreign Ministry said Spain was willing to send troops, “but the rules have to be clarified and agreed on.”

...In a further complication, Israel’s prime minister, Ehud Olmert, told his cabinet on Sunday that he did not want countries that did not have diplomatic relations with Israel to participate in the force, according to an official in the prime minister’s office. Malaysia, Indonesia and Bangladesh are among the countries that have offered frontline troops but have no diplomatic ties with Israel.

...The United Nations has said it is looking for at least 3,500 troops to arrive by Sept. 2. So far France has promised 200 soldiers. Fifty military engineers landed in Lebanon this weekend and the rest are to arrive later this week. But France’s initial contribution has fallen far short of the 2,500 to 4,000 soldiers that it had been expected to offer. France had also been expected to assume leadership of the entire international force, which was intended to number about 15,000 troops and would join 15,000 Lebanese Army troops in patrolling southern Lebanon."

See, this is the problem with the whole "peacekeeping mentality" that so many European nations have fallen into. They don't have very good militaries in the first place and even if they did, they're not willing to fight for anything. Their idea of "peacekeeping" is a bunch of guys in blue helmets walking around with unloaded rifles and trying to stay out of trouble. The whole idea that "peacekeepers" should actually use force if necessary to keep the peace is alien to them. That's why, in a situation like this one, where Israel is demanding the peacekeepers actually live up to their names, Europe is so decadent and weak that they're incapable of dealing with it.

That's ironic, if you think about it. Europe and the UN want to be taken seriously and they want international law to mean something. Yet, even though the UN supports this mission completely, even though it's a high profile effort, and even though only roughly 1/9 the number of troops are required here as the US currently has in Iraq, the Europeans don't appear to be up to the challenge. Even if they do somehow manage to get 15k troops together, nobody actually believes that they're going to really disarm Hezbollah and secure Southern Lebanon.

In fact, at this point, we're just twiddling our thumbs and waiting to see what's going to happen when it becomes so glaringly obvious that this whole ceasefire is a sham -- that the Kofi Annans of the world can't continue to deny it. Of course, if people with that sort of mentality were able to comprehend the obvious, they would have given up on the UN a long time ago, so perhaps we'll be in for a long wait.

Yesterday, as I watched my buddy Mary Katharine Ham's debut on Hot Air, I heard her mention a name, Jackie Passey, without giving a real explanation of who she is.

Well, after doing a little research, I found out that Ms. Jacqueline Mackie Paisley Passey, a Libertarian, is responsible for one of the most fascinating blog posts of 2006. It's fascinating because....well, you'll see. As you read some quotations from this post, you'll also need to see a pic of Jackie Passey, for reasons that will become obvious. Here's one of the better ones from her blog:

"Over the past month (since I left Terrence) I’ve received several offers of dates and relationships from various men who read this blog. I’m not looking for a new boyfriend right now but it seems I should clarify what it is I look for in a man when I am, which will hopefully stem the flow of offers from guys who really don’t have it.

I am a very high-quality woman. I know that sounds arrogant, but let’s consider the facts:

* I’m slim (whereas 62% of American women age 20 to 74 are overweight)
* I’m attractive (my new picture has been rated more attractive than 86% of the women on Hot or Not -- and the women who upload their pictures are a self-selected sample that is probably already biased towards being more attractive than the general female population)
* I’m relatively young (whereas 82% of American adult women are over 30 years old)
* I’m intelligent (IQ tested at 145 when I was a child, which is 3 standard deviations above the mean -- higher than 99.85% of the population. Even if I’ve gotten dumber as I’ve aged I’m probably still at least a 130, which is higher than 97.5% of the population.)
* I’m educated (whereas 77% of American women do not have bachelor’s degrees)
* I have my financial shit together (no debt, perfect credit history, 6+ months living expenses saved, adequate insurance, self employed)
* I have a strong libido and love having sex (my lover *never* has to beg, unless it’s for me to let him get some sleep!)
* Most of my interests tend to be more popular with men than women: science fiction, libertarianism, blogging, politics, economics, guns, gambling, etc.

...The above list explains why I typically receive 50-100 (sometimes more) responses whenever I post personal ads. This is in addition to getting hit on almost every time I go out alone (and all that those men know about me is that they like the way I look, they don’t even know about all the other qualities I have that make me more appealing than most other women).

...I realize that some of you will find this post depressing because you’ll realize that you don’t qualify as a high quality man and thus won’t be able to get a high quality woman. You have a few options:

1. Lower your standards and stop pursuing women who are out of your league. There are lots of fat single mothers out there who can’t find dates either.

2. Look in the developing world. If you’re literate with a home computer and an internet connection you are very wealthy compared to the rest of the world. Citizenship or legal permanent residency in a rich country makes you more attractive to women in poorer countries. Your value on the dating market is thus much higher there.

3. Self-improvement! I used to be a fat unattractive college dropout who couldn’t get her life together. Now I’m thin, attractive, and successfully self-employed after graduating. You can make yourself over into a higher-quality man capable of winning a higher-quality woman too.

...Update: Some people seem to think that this post is a bit harsh and/or arrogant. I'm sorry if I've offended you, but I'm also really sick of getting e-mailed several times a week by delusionally hopeful men who read my blog and think because I am *their* dream girl that I'll therefore want them too. Too often they act crushed when I reject them, which I feel bad about, but if they had stopped to consider whether they had as much to offer me as I have to offer them then they might have had more realistic expectations.

Since becoming single again the amount of time I've had to spend on hopeful fanboy/stalker management has been steadily increasing. It's uncomfortable, a little creepy, somewhat overwhelming, and I want it to stop. I'm hoping this post will serve as a reality check for the guys involved..."

After reading this, I cycled between, "How toweringly arrogant! No woman is hot enough to talk down to people like that," and "Wow, she's another Dagny Taggart! She knows who she is, exactly what she wants, and she's not afraid to coolly break it down for people."

Of course, from what I've seen around the blogosphere, most people's reactions seemed to cycle between, "How toweringly arrogant!" and then back to, "How toweringly arrogant!"

Now, maybe it's just from spending so much time around engineers, but I'm not sure she's as arrogant as she comes across. Some people, particularly very intelligent people, treat life like it's a big math problem, where A+B=C in their mind and they see no need to sugar coat it for people who don't see the equation the same way. That's different than being arrogant, although people with that mentality aren't necessarily always pleasant to be around.

Either way, I find her blog to be intriguing, and not just because of this post. For example, there's this:

"The blog party was fun... unfortunately, socializing with my germ-riddled commenters gave me some sort of virus..."

And this:

"It took wasting years of my life and tens of thousands of dollars trying to help my “less fortunate” friends and boyfriends before I finally gave up and realized that their situations were the result of consistently making bad choices and not just misfortune. I got sick of being mooched off of and being sucked into their non-stop parade of problems, and bit by bit I’ve cut them out of my life. Having finally learned my lesson, I will never date someone in a lower socioeconomic class again."

I think I qualify as a member of that, "lower socioeconomic class." So, should I be offended at that? Maybe, but I'm not. I'm trying to decide if she's charmingly icy or alternately, ya know, just self-important. Either way, at least she doesn't come across as boring which is something, at least...

Over at Eschaton, Atrios quotes Eric Alterman, who has a bizarre theory about what will happen if Lieberman wins:

"Here’s my prediction: If Lieberman wins the election, he will not switch to the Republicans, as some fear. But he will do the functional equivalent, which is accept Bush’s appointment to replace Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense, resign his seat and allow the Republican governor of Connecticut to appoint a Republican in his stead. That is the implicit deal between the Lieberman camp and Rove, Cheney, Bush etc and the reason, that alone, in the entire country, this is the only race where this most partisan of political operations, refuses to support the Republican in the race. Bush, Rove and Cheney do not make political decisions on the basis of what they think is good for the country. They care only about their party and themselves. If Lieberman supporters are genuinely supporting him as a Democrat, is it not enough for him to pledge to vote with the party in the Senate. He must pledge that, under no circumstances, will he accept an appointment from Bush or resign his seat under any circumstances, so long as a Republican occupies the state House."

You have wonder if Alterman is actually dumb enough to believe this or whether he's just trying to come up with a scare scenario to try to drive more Democratic voters in Connecticut to Lamont.

After all, it's not exactly tough to figure out why Republicans would support Lieberman even if Joe isn't going to sign on as Secretary of Defense or caucus with the GOP.

I mean, as we speak, millions of dollars are pouring into Connecticut, on both sides of the race, that could have very well gone to other Democratic candidates. Turning the Connecticut Senate race into a Democratic money pit could help the GOP pull out another couple of close races in the Senate this November.

Plus, just imagine what a black eye it will be for the netroots crowd and the anti-war movement if Lieberman wins as an independent. If Ned Lamont is supposed to be the primo candidate of the "people powered movement," an "anti-war candidate" who will prove that America has shifted on Iraq, then turning his moment in the sun, after winning the primary, into a Pyrrhic victory is certainly to the advantage of the GOP and Americans who are serious about our national security.

Maybe things would be different if the Republican candidate, Alan Schlesinger, wasn't in single digits and dropping, but at the moment, the only real choice the voters in Connecticut have is between Joe Lieberman and Ned Lamont. Since that's the case, Lieberman is easily the better choice for conservative voters, even though he's not a conservative.

Have you ever seen one of those Sci-Fi Channel original movies? Imagine one of the better scripts, with a bigger budget, a little nudity, and Samuel L. Jackson in the lead, and that gives a pretty good idea of the quality level of Snakes on a Plane.

In the film's defense, it does have a lot of action, a few minor surprises, and it delivers exactly what it promises: snakes on a plane. On the other hand, when the entire movie centers around snakes killing people on a plane, you can't really expect a lot of character development or an epic plot.

Long story short? When I went to the movies on Saturday, I was trying to decide between Snakes on a Plane and Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. In retrospect, I wish had gone to see, Talladega Nights.

Let's call this one, "thumbs almost in middle, tilting just slightly downward." In other words, it's not worth watching in the theater, but it might be worth renting when it comes out on video.

Super sleuth Jerome Corsi has uncovered the latest details in George Bush's nefarious plot to combine America with Canada and Mexico:

"The NAFTA marketplace unrestrained in the pursuit of cheap labor has driven an increasing volume of manufacturing off-shore to Communist China, where slave prison camps offer a cost of labor that is hard to beat.

Chinese made goods ranging from electronics to toys and clothes are daily sold in mass marketing retailers such as Wal-Mart, Home Depot, K-Mart, Target, Lowes, and dozens of other U.S. corporations. Cheap goods from Communist China increasingly line the shelves of the NAFTA marketplace under marquee product trade names that bear no relationship to the Chinese slave labor that manufactured, produced, or otherwise assembled the goods.

Key to this thriving under-market is a flagrant disregard for human rights, on the part of the Communist Chinese, who still permit the exploitation of slave labor. U.S. capitalists and consumers as well turn a blind eye to the human suffering and abuse involved in producing the under-market cheap goods flooding the American retail market from China."

You mean things made in China are being sold in America? My God! That proves George Bush is secretly throwing out the Constitution and replacing it with a committee consisting of 4 Canadians, 4 Mexicans, 3 members of the Illuminati, and Kofi Annan! And Bush would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for that meddling ultra-genius, Jerome Corsi!

PS: See, Killing the North American Union Conspiracy, by yours truly, to get the real scoop on all this nonsense.

Unfortunately, because I was under the weather yesterday, my schedule was thrown out of whack and the selection of quotes I planned to put together on, "Democrats and Race," isn't ready yet.

However, while I was doing some research for the article, I ran across a column by Bob Parks, at Intellectual Conservative, called "Mel-icious Intent." The column, which was from August 7, 2006, featured 24 quotes by Democrats and liberals on race, some of which were very obscure, and all of which were included in an article on RWN called, "Quotes From Democrats On Race & Anti-Semitism."

You know, if you're going to crib the guts of your entire column from research somebody else has done, the least you can do is hand out a little credit. You know, maybe something like, "The quotations my entire column was built around were lifted wholesale from a list created by John Hawkins at Right Wing News."

On something like that, a little mention goes a long way...

Thanks to all the guest bloggers who filled in yesterday on RWN.

Mary Katharine Ham
Sister Toldjah
Betsy Newmark
Danny Carlton

The help was much appreciated and I hope everyone will head over and check out their blogs.

Foreign

Moscow Market Blast Kills At Least 10

George Bush: “we’re Not Leaving (Iraq) So Long As I’m President”

Bush Warns It Would Be 'Disaster' To Leave Iraq Before The New Iraqi Government Can Control The Country (Free WAPO Reg Req)

Europeans Delay Decision On Role Inside Lebanon (Free New York Times Reg Req)

Senior Officer: Nasrallah 'Must Die (Free Jerusalem Post Reg Req)

Iran Defiant On Calls For Nuclear U-Turn

BBC Admits Engaging in Staged Photos

Domestic

August 22nd -- A Date For Terror?

President Bush Approves Over the Counter Early Abortion Pill, Pro-Life Base Decries Move

Forty-Two Percent of Californians Don't Speak English at Home

Hard Landing For Ramsey Murder Suspect

Suspected Killer Nabbed Near Va. Tech

Study: Greenland's Glaciers Have Been Shrinking For 100 Years

Elections

GOP Fundraising Outpaces Democrats

2006 Senate RealClearPolitics Poll Averages

USA TODAY/Gallup poll: 47% Of Registered Voters Said They Are Leaning Toward Voting For A Democrat For Congress This Year, 45% Said They Are Leaning Toward A Republican

Alaska Governor Battles a Shifting Tide (Free WAPO Reg Req)

Columns

Juan Williams: Banish The Bling

James Taranto: Decalaring Victory And Getting Out In Connecticut

Joel Mowbray: Thuggery & Trickery: How Islamic Terrorists Manipulate the Media

Chuck Colson: Islamic Fascists

Left-Overs

Did Osama Lust For Whitney?

India: "Hitler" Eatery Angers Indian Jews

Doug Ross' Top 20 Websites

The Zombie Preparedness Kit

10 Things You Shouldn't Buy New

Video: The Top Ten Video Game Weapons

Website Of The Day: Defense Tech

Err ... doesn't sound quite right, does it? Well, according to the Jerusalem Post UN Sec. Gen. Kofi Annan is expected to recommend today that the UNIFIL forces that will (someday?) be deployed to Lebanon be given the go ahead to 'open fire' on Hezbollah if the need arises:

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan is expected to recommend Monday that the rules of engagement of the enhanced UNIFIL force to be deployed in Lebanon include opening fire on Hizbullah where necessary, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

While UN Security Council Resolution 1701 mandated an enhanced UNIFIL force to help the Lebanese Army deploy south and along the border with Syria, it did not spell out the operational procedures of this force. [Doesn't exactly inspire confidence in the UN, does it? Not that most of us had any to begin with. --ST]

Israel has been pushing for the need for an effective force, arguing that one of the criteria would be the ability to open fire on Hizbullah if the force saw, for instance, Hizbullah launching rockets toward Israel. This matter came up at a meeting Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni held last week in New York with Annan.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, in a telephone conversation in the afternoon with Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi on Sunday, said that Israel would like to see Italy lead the force, a change from the widespread expectation that France would be heading it up.

As my co-guest blogger Betsy Newmark pointed out earlier today, included in those who expected France to 'lead' a UN force into Lebanon was one Sec. of State Condi Rice who - quite honestly - should have known better than to believe France would be willing to lead anything that didn't involve slamming the US and Israel in the process.

Side note: Is it just me or does the color powder blue as worn by any soldier (whether French or otherwise) not look especially intimidating? Hmm. Maybe that's the point ... but I'm digressing.

In any event, expect any UN 'force' to have about as much bite to their barks as the 'ceasefire agreement' the toothless piranha in the UN approved (without specifying operational procedures for UNIFIL) in the first place.

More: Captain Ed is skeptical of this as well (make sure to read all the way to the end).

If you enjoyed this blog post, you can read more of my work by visiting Sister Toldjah.com. Thanks to John for inviting me here to guest-blog. Get well soon, John :) .

Hey RWN readers! It's so nice to hang out with you for the day while John's getting better.

You'll have to forgive me. I'm gonna do a leetle bit of self-promotion to start with, but I thought y'all might be interested. I made my video-blogging debut over at Hot Air today, so head over and watch it if you get the chance.

From this experience I learned that a video-blog is a great excuse to go shopping for cute clothes to wear whilst video-blogging. I learned that all those lights are really frickin' hot, and I learned that there are a lot of stories to snark about and very little time, so you have to economize.

It was my first time, so I'm just feelin' it out, but I hope you enjoy.

On a kinda-sorta related note, I wrote a column inspired by the video-blogging:

So, You Think Social Conservatives Can't Dance?

All right, enough about me. I'll be back with more later. Thanks for having me.

Update: All right, Ace says I didn't give him enough love. Which, truth be told, I didn't, but I couldn't work it into the dang script. So, if y'all were wondering about the Jackie Passey reference, check here and here. (some language and stuff behind each link, just fyi). Hey, Ace.

From the Associated Press...

American students often get the impression from history classes that the British got here first, settling Jamestown, Va., in 1607. They hear about how white Northerners freed the black slaves, how Asians came in the mid-1800s to build Western railroads. The lessons have left out a lot.

Forty-two years before Jamestown, Spaniards and American Indians lived in St. Augustine, Fla. At least several thousand Latinos and nearly 200,000 black soldiers fought in the Civil War. And Asian-Americans had been living in California and Louisiana since the 1700s.

Now, more of these and other lesser-known facts about American minorities are getting more attention. The main reason is the nation's growing diversity.

That sounds nice, except Jamestown isn't lauded all that much since they all died. The Plymouth Rock colony is the one I remember being focused on, since they had the advantage of showing to the rest of Europe that they could survive.

But do Liberals really want the contributions of Blacks to the Civil War noted? Because there's this annoying fact they'll have a hard time hiding—Blacks fought for the South, too.

From Issue & Views (a Black owned and operated news site) ...

Cutting through what he calls the "mythology" that passes for history, [Professor Edward C. Smith is Director of American Studies at American University in Washington, DC] shares some little known facts about the pre-Civil War period....

"The important thing to keep in mind is that slavery was dying out on its own. It would have died had there been no war at all. It would have taken a little longer, but the war simply speeded up a process that had already begun to take effect. Since there were over 500,000 free blacks throughout the South, this meant that every slave always saw free blacks around him, and knew that freedom was possible."

Showing historical artifacts owned by his grandfather, Louis Nelson, who fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War, Nelson Winbush sets some records straight. A member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, Winbush tells about black and white soldiers who fought together in the War, not to preserve slavery, but to keep out invaders who were bent on destruction. On the home front, black and white family members protected one another from the brutality of invading Yankee soldiers. "When the Yanks came down South, the first thing they did was rape the black women. Then they raped the black missy girls. Then they went and got drunk and raped the white women. The black man's wives and daughters were raped before the white women were raped. So, if you talk about bonding [between black and white southerners], there's your cause for bonding."

Says Winbush, "There are those who argue that blacks did not fight for the Confederacy. If this was the case, then why was my grandfather's application for pension received, accepted and approved? He was Number 32 for the Colored Man's Pension, State of Tennessee."

I expect this rush to include more minorities in history will lead to either A. a lot of fictional history being taught or B. a quiet return to the status quo....because the last thing Liberals actually want is for American school children to be taught real history.

Read more of Danny's stuff at JackLewis.net

Well, once again, as before the Iraq war began, the French have pulled the football out as we played Charlie Brown again in the UN negotiations over the Lebanon resolution. When will people learn? The Wall Street Journal outlines how empty Resolution 1701 is and how the French have made it so.

On Thursday, Jacques Chirac confirmed a Le Monde report that his government was prepared to offer only some 200 combat engineers (in addition to the 200 French troops already in Lebanon) to what is supposed to be the resolution's centerpiece: A 15,000-man U.N. force that will help the Lebanese army patrol their southern border and ensure that Hezbollah will no longer use the area as a staging ground for future attacks against Israel.

Given that the French contingent was supposed to be at the vanguard of this enhanced force, it's unclear whether other nations will be willing to chip in with troops of their own. All of this after the French used the promise of a robust, French-led international force to get the U.S. and Israel to agree to a cease-fire and withdrawal. Even less reassuring is the insistence by French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie that her troops will remain in the lead only until February, after which, apparently, it's salaam and adieu.

The French, of course, were the ones who insisted on watering down the resolution in the first place to remove any teeth in the orders given to the UN troops about using force. So, now there is not evern a fig leaf that Hezbollah will be disarmed or that there will be any efforts to stop arms shipments coming in to Lebanon through Syria.

I hope that Condi Rice has learned this painful lesson about the futility of trusting the French, Kofi Annan, and the UN to solve tough problems of violence in that part of the world. You can't have a ceasefire if one side will continue to rearm and ignore the resolution.

Israel can and will defend itself. The person who should really be furious here is Secretary of State Rice. She midwifed this cease-fire in the name of Lebanese democracy and as a way to use diplomacy, and the U.N., to tame Hezbollah and frustrate its patrons. She also believed French promises, so it'd be good to know if she now feels she was lied to. If this U.N. exercise turns out to be as feckless as it increasingly appears, U.S. credibility will also be a loser.

I wouldn't even use the conditional voice here - this UN exercise is already feckless. And it is disastrous.

Cross-posted at Betsy's Page

Thank you very much to John Hawkins for inviting me to guest blog today. I hope John feels better soon and feels up to spreading the message of the right wing.

Theodore Dalyrmple has a devastating article in the City Journal about the terrible criminal justice system in Britain and how the government is systematically failing in its prime responsibility - to protect its civilians.

For the last 40 years, government policy in Britain, de facto if not always de jure, has been to render the British population virtually defenseless against criminals and criminality. Almost alone of British government policies, this one has been supremely effective: no Briton nowadays goes many hours without wondering how to avoid being victimized by a criminal intent on theft, burglary, or violence.

An unholy alliance between politicians and bureaucrats who want to keep prison costs to a minimum, and liberal intellectuals who pretend to see in crime a natural and understandable response to social injustice, which it would be a further injustice to punish, has engendered a prolonged and so far unfinished experiment in leniency that has debased the quality of life of millions of people, especially the poor. Every day in our newspapers we read of the absurd and dangerous leniency of the criminal-justice system.

....Only five days later, the papers reported that 1,023 prisoners of foreign origin had been released from British prisons between 1999 and 2006 without having been deported. Among them were 5 killers, 7 kidnappers, 9 rapists and 39 other sex offenders, 4 arsonists, 41 burglars, 52 thieves, 93 robbers, and 204 drug offenders. Of the 1,023 prisoners, only 106 had since been traced. The Home Office, responsible for both prisons and immigration, still doesn’t know how many of the killers, arsonists, rapists, and kidnappers are at large; but it admits that most of them will never be found, at least until they are caught after committing another offense. Although these revelations forced the Home Secretary to resign, in fact the foreign criminals had been treated only as British criminals are treated. At least we can truly say that we do not discriminate in our leniency.

Scandal has followed scandal. A short time later, we learned that prisoners had been absconding from one open prison, Leyhill, at a rate of two a week for three years—323 in total since 1999, among them 22 murderers. This outrage came to light only when a senior policeman in the area of Leyhill told a member of Parliament that there had been a crime wave in the vicinity of the prison. The member of Parliament demanded the figures in the House of Commons; otherwise they would have remained secret.

They don't investigate many crimes and then they don't try to prosecute them because the paperwork is too heavy and the courts just let them out. Those who do go to prison serve short sentences that they can get reduced by half. Apparently, all the bureaucrats are conspiring to hide the truth in obfuscating and dishonest statistics.

When you couple these depressing facts, which Dalrymple has gotten from a new British book, A Land Fit for Criminals, together with what Melanie Philips has written in Londonistan, a truly frightening picture of crime in Britain emerges. It's amazing that the Conservative Party isn't making more of this issue since it must really strike home to everyone who has ever been a crime victim.

What is also clear is that Americans must be vigilant to stop any tendency in our cities to travel down this same path that Britain has traveled down. Britain has conducted the experiment. We can see the results. Let's learn from their tragic mistakes.

Cross-posted at Betsy's Page.

Folks, unfortunately I've been a bit under the weather so I'm not going to be able to post today.

But, the show must go on! So, I've assembled an excellent crew of guest bloggers to fill in. Make sure to give a warm welcome to:

Mary Katharine Ham
Sister Toldjah
Betsy Newmark
Danny Carlton

Thanks to all the guest bloggers for filling in on such short notice. As for me? I'll be back tomorrow.