Abu Wabu

Until it disappeared suddenly one day, The Diplomad was hands down my favorite blog. Now it's back, albeit with some personnel changes ("the Chief Diplomad... moved on to sulk somewhere and emit blasts every so often on other blogs"), so we'll see if its original charm prevails.

In the meantime, the archives are full of great adult material.

They certainly are, but in new and wonderful ways: according to The London Times, they're so disgusted with the tactics practised by their hardcore leaders (the ones to whom the idiot left would confer Constitutional protections) that they are turning them in to US forces:

Fed up with being part of a group that cuts off a person’s face with piano wire to teach others a lesson, dozens of low-level members of al-Qaeda in Iraq are daring to become informants for the US military in a hostile Baghdad neighbourhood.

The ground-breaking move in Doura is part of a wider trend that has started in other al-Qaeda hotspots across the country and in which Sunni insurgent groups and tribal sheikhs have stood together with the coalition against the extremist movement.

“They are turning. We are talking to people who we believe have worked for al-Qaeda in Iraq and want to reconcile and have peace,” said Colonel Ricky Gibbs, commander of the 4th Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, which oversees the area.
The sewage-filled streets of Doura, a Sunni Arab enclave in south Baghdad, provide an ugly setting for what US commanders say is al-Qaeda’s last stronghold in the city.
The secretive group, however, appears to be losing its grip as a “surge” of US troops in the neighbourhood – part of the latest effort by President Bush to end the chaos in Iraq – has resulted in scores of fighters being killed, captured or forced to flee.

The monsters leading AQI have increased their barbarity in answer to the increased pressure wrought by the surge, prompting even mid-level leaders to reject their horrendous tactics. As U.S. and Iraqi forces maintain that pressure, more of the lower ranks will see a way to re-enter Iraqi society and reject the terrorists' ways.

In other words, tenaciously fighting Islamofascism in Iraq with a well-conceived counterinsurgency is defeating the Islamofascist enemy.

Who knew?

Okay, now I get it: leftist antiwar idiots Support The Troops- just not the same troops we all thought they were talking about, those being the ones fighting in Iraq against Isamofascism.

No, see, the troops the idiots support are the imaginary ones in this crap at TNR. Because imaginary as they are, these are the troops the idiots believe will bring about our surrender in Iraq.

Which is why the Weekly Standard is giving this leftard idiot fantasy the relentless shit-hammering it so richly deserves.

We Knew It All Along Dept.:
The last wheel fell off the sputtering Plame-Wilson bandwagon yesterday when a federal judge threw out a lawsuit brought by the treacherous pair against Vice President Dick Cheney and other Bush Administration officials.

The judge ruled as this blog has maintained all along: that White House efforts to rebut the pack of lies Wilson levelled against the Bush Administration were well within the duties of the Executive branch, and not an illegal attempt to destroy the lying pair's reputations, such as they were and are now. Those efforts may have been unsavory to leftist idiots, but they were well within the law.

Ouch.

How they could have expected any other result is beyond me; if Valerie Plame suffered damage from the revelation of her employment at the CIA (she has never even come close to proving she was ever "outed" as a covert op, regardless of what Puffy Fat Larry says) it was via her husband, who drew attention to Plame when he couldn't resist lying in the NYT about his finding that Saddam actually had been seeking uranium in Niger. Quoting the report of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence,

[Wilson's] intelligence report indicated that former Nigerien Prime Minister Ibrahim Mayaki was unaware of any contracts that had been signed between Niger and any rogue states for the sale of yellowcake while he was Prime Minister (1997-1999) or Foreign Minister (1996-1997). Mayaki said that if there had been any such contract during his tenure, he would have been aware of it.

Mayaki said, however, that in June 1999,(REDACTED) businessman, approached him and insisted that Mayaki meet with an Iraqi delegation to discuss "expanding commercial relations" between Niger and Iraq. The intelligence report said that Mayaki interpreted "expanding commercial relations" to mean that the delegation wanted to discuss uranium yellowcake sales. The intelligence report also said that "although the meeting took place, Mayaki let the matter drop due to the UN sanctions on Iraq."

As for Plame, no-one in the White House leaked anything about her to anyone; it was Richard Armitage who confirmed Plame's CIA employment to Robert Novak, who simply looked her up in Who's Who, a fact known far and wide for months and all along by prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. Who else knew all along? Joe Wilson, who knowingly falsely accused Karl Rove of having "outed" his super-secret double-knot wife.

So what else did Wilson lie about?

Here's more from the SSIC report:

The former ambassador also told Committee staff that he was the source of a Washington Post article ("CIA Did Not Share Doubt on Iraq Data; Bush Used Report of Uranium Bid," June 12, 2003) which said, "among the Envoy's conclusions was that the documents may have been forged because `the dates were wrong and the names were wrong." Committee staff asked how the former ambassador could have come to the conclusion that the "dates were wrong and the names were wrong" when he had never seen the CIA reports and had no knowledge of what names and dates were in the reports. The former ambassador said that he may have "misspoken" to the reporter when he said he concluded the documents were "forged." He also said he may have become confused about his own recollection after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported in March 2003 that the names and dates on the documents were not correct and may have thought he had seen the names himself. The former ambassador reiterated that he had been able to collect the names of the government officials which should have been on the documents.

Wilson and Plame have both repeatedly lied about the fact that she lobbied her CPD superiors to send him to Niger. Again from the SSIC report:

Some CPD officials could not recall how the office decided to contact the former ambassador, however, interviews and documents provided to the Committee indicate that his wife, a CPD employee, suggested his name for the trip. The CPD reports officer told Committee staff that the former ambassador's wife "offered up his name" and a memorandum to the Deputy Chief of the CPD on February 12, 2002, from the former ambassador's wife says, "my husband has good relations with both the PM [prime minister] and the former Minister of Mines (not to mention lots of French contacts), both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity." This was just one day before CPD sent a cable DELETED requesting concurrence with CPD's idea to send the former ambassador to Niger and requesting any additional information from the foreign government service on their uranium reports. The former ambassador's wife told Committee staff that when CPD decided it would like to send the former ambassador to Niger, she approached her husband on behalf of the CIA and told him "there's this crazy report" on a purported deal for Niger to sell uranium to Iraq.

The former ambassador was selected for the 1999 trip after his wife mentioned to her supervisors that her husband was planning a business trip to Niger in the near future and might be willing to use his contacts in the region ...

On February 19, 2002, CPD hosted a meeting with the former ambassador, intelligence analysts from both the CIA and INR, and several individuals from the DO's Africa and CPD divisions. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the merits of the former ambassador traveling to Niger. An INR analyst's notes indicate that the meeting was "apparently convened by [the former ambassador's] wife who had the idea to dispatch [him] to use his contacts to sort out the Iraq-Niger uranium issue." The former ambassador's wife told Committee staff that she only attended the meeting to introduce her husband and left after about three minutes.

Happily, the lying pair's lawyers announced that they will appeal the decision, so we can Keep Hope Alive that Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame will under oath face real questions from opposing counsel rather than fluffballs lobbed by Henry Waxman or Chris Matthews.

Today, however, in light of the court's inevitable finding, it's worth reviewing what are in my opinion the two overarching facts of the case:
1. Joe Wilson is a treacherous liar;
2. Valerie Plame is also a treacherous liar.

Sayeth the July 2007 NIE:

We assess that greatly increased worldwide counterterrorism efforts over the past five years have constrained the ability of al-Qa’ida to attack the US Homeland again and have led terrorist groups to perceive the Homeland as a harder target to strike than on 9/11. These measures have helped disrupt known plots against the United States since 9/11.

That's the part of this report you did not and will not see in the papers or hear on the news.

Paul Mirengoff:

The NIE judges that al Qaeda is exploiting the situation in Iraq for recruiting purposes, but it expresses no view on the extent to which al Qaeda could exploit our defeat in Iraq for the same purpose.

Moreover, it's counter-intuitive to suppose that a U.S. defeat would be a recruiting setback for al Qaeda. Such a defeat would give al Qaeda recruiters the best of all possible pitches -- (1) the U.S. is a would-be crusader nation and (2) the U.S. is weak. We know from al Qaeda's successful approach to recruiting in the 1990s, which exploited our withdrawal from Somalia, how potent the second claim can be.

In short, as John explained, the [Washington] Post's suggestion that the NIE report somehow discredits either the administration's efforts in Iraq or its broader anti-terror campaign is fantasy masquerading as analysis.

Via Power Line: CAIR, no doubt counting on political correctness for a propaganda victory, invited David Keene and Parvez Ahmed to the National Press Club in Washington for a panel discussion on CAIR's favorite subject, "Islamophobia." According to CAIR, the panel was to "address the increasing anti-Muslim rhetoric within the conservative movement in the United States, focusing on the negative impact of such views on religious tolerance in America and on relations with the Muslim world."

Well, it didn't quite work out the way they'd hoped. The problem? Mr. Keene decided to voice every decent person's thoughts on the real problems with Islamofascism and its apologists, especially their religious intolerance and manipulative use of perpetual outrage to bully rather than engage their detractors.

Crucial to Keene's arguments is the American concept of the free individual whose personal honor is everything in a free society (very simple: think eBay). Here are Keene's remarks in full:

I want to begin by thanking you for the opportunity to appear here today and I am going to take Mohamed Nimer’s assurance that my comments, critical as they might be, will be welcome here.

My decision to accept your invitation to appear on today’s panel stirred up more than a little controversy among my friends. Some were shocked that I would even consider appearing on a panel sponsored by a group like CAIR; a group which some of them hold suspect because of its origins and others because of its views and the activities legal and illegal of some of those who have been associated with it.

I chose to appear, however, both because of the opportunity to say a few things that I think need to be said and because of the importance of the topic we have been asked to address. Our topic this morning is: "Attacking Islam: Implications for Social Cohesion and U.S. Relations with the Muslim World" and I can think of few more important topics in today’s world.

In the days since 9/11, President Bush has made it clear that as far as he’s concerned Islam is not our enemy; our enemy, rather, consists of those individuals, groups and nations that have perverted one of the world’s great religions to justify their hatred of the West. Terror, directed at civilians...men, women and children...in Kabul, Baghdad, Rome, London, Washington and New York is their weapon of choice and their goal is to first drive those they hate out of the nations of the Middle East and then create a world in their own image.

The President has described the followers of bin Laden and his ilk as “Islamic Fascists” and while we can parse words all we want, it is a simple fact that they craft
quasi-religious appeals to Muslims the world over in a sometimes successful attempt to convince them to accept their view of the world.

CAIR insists, quite properly I believe, that bin Laden and his buddies are anything but good Muslims and urges us not to condemn every follower of Islam for the sins of a few. I agree completely. Most Muslims, like most Christians, Jews and Hindus are intent upon living their lives, raising their families and worshipping their god. No one should be regarded as an enemy simply because of his or her religion, but neither should those who use religion to hide something much uglier be given a pass.

In the past fanatics have twisted the teachings of the Old and New Testaments for similar purposes and the cults and movements based upon such tortured interpretations of legitimate religious teachings and writings have always had some appeal to the frustrated, the ignorant and the maladjusted. Such movements have been defeated or held in check by legitimate main-line representatives of the exploited religions who have rightly and vociferously taken exception to those who would high jack it for their own purposes.

They have done so because allowing fanatics to cloak themselves in the respectability of religion is dangerous as it allows them to recruit followers who believe their religion sanctions extremism and fanaticism and who make enemies not just for themselves but for the religion they claim to represent.

This, I’m afraid to say, is happening today. Osama bin Laden and the terrorists who attack the west in the name of Islam may represent no one but themselves, but those who represent Islam have an obligation to themselves and to the faith they profess to condemn them lest they suffer for their crimes.

When I came to Washington back in 1970, I arrived at a time of great controversy involving a group called the “Italian-American Anti-Defamation League” which billed itself as the major Italian-American civil rights organization. The League was at the time particularly upset whenever anyone mentioned the existence of the “Mafia” which they took as implying that Italian-Americans were all Mafiosos or criminals. If someone used the word in public, they were willing to stage demonstrations on the ground that its usage was racist and that, anyhow, the Mafia didn’t exist.

Interestingly, the press seemed to take all this seriously for a while even though everyone knew that A.) there was a mafia and B.) acknowledging its existence or admitting that it had its origins in Sicily and recruited mainly Italian-Americans in this country didn’t mean that one was implying that all Italians or Italian-Americans were criminals.

Eventually, though, people began to ignore the League because what its leaders were insisting on as true just didn’t match up very well with reality. The League became a joke to many, but others wondered why it was out trying to define the mafia out of existence and began to suspect that it was in fact little more than a front for the criminals whose very existence it denied.

At the same time, many respected Italian-Americans began speaking up to say one could be proud of his or her heritage without having to deny that there are bad elements in any large group of people and that it was the obligation of those proud of their heritage to not only honor it, but to denounce those who would besmirch it.

Eventually the League's leaders realized the foolishness of the position they had taken, abandoned it and went on to do much good.

The controversy didn’t last all that long, but it was both interesting and instructive. CAIR likes to characterize itself as the leading Muslim civil rights organization in this country and your leaders are quick to criticize anyone who in your eyes is “anti-Muslim.”

And there are such people out there. There are those who believe deeply that the Muslim world is intractably committed to war with the west and that under his or her skin every Muslim is definitionally an enemy of the west. The belief is, of course, completely absurd, but it exists and should be countered, but not simply by attacking anyone and every one critical either of Islam itself or organizations and individuals who justify their actions on its basis.

But let’s face it, CAIR does just that. We are meeting today at the National Press Club which is in a way a living memorial to the freedom of the press that is so important a part of the American tradition. The platform on which we speak is open to all because we believe in the right even of those with whom we disagree to speak their minds; it is a right that extends to all in this country and involves the need for mutual respect for those with opposing views.

But some reporters have been barred by CAIR from covering this panel because by criticizing CAIR or its policies they have been condemned as anti-Muslim when they are, in fact, simply reporters doing their job.

In the past, CAIR has attacked as anti-Muslim such disparate groups and organizations as The New Republic, US News & World Report, the Washington Times, the Dallas Morning News, the Tampa Tribune and even Al Gore and our Weekly Reader. The breadth of CAIR’s attacks would seem to indicate that there is a widespread, deep bi-partisan conspiracy against Muslims in this country or CAIR is guilty of over-reaching.

I would suggest that the latter is the case.

In a free society, individuals must expect to be treated as individuals rather than as members of favored or disfavored groups. No free society has ever achieved this completely, but those desiring to benefit from living in such a society have to realize that in asking fairness for oneself, one has to grant fairness to others.

Thus, the Muslim seeking respect for his or her views must respect the views of others. It is not enough to condemn those non-Muslims who mischaracterize Islam or unfairly attack Muslims as a group; it requires one to disassociate oneself from those who speak as Muslims to condemn other religions or unfairly attack other groups.

The Muslim who attacks Jews and Christians as “pigs” or “crusaders” is as responsible for the breakdown in civility in the modern world as the non-Muslim who implies that all Muslims harbor a desire to kill a Christian or Jew.

If CAIR wants respect as representing the best of Islam to the west, it must shun the role of enabler by siding with the enemies of terror and intolerance wherever they are found.

The Washington Post reported that CAIR in one of its annual reports on “hate crimes” directed against Muslims listed the US apprehension and imprisonment of Sheik Omar Abdul Rahman as evidence of US bias against Muslims.

The question we have to ask is whether Rahman was acting in furtherance of legitimate Islamic beliefs in plotting to blow up the World Trade Center in 1993, or was he not. If he was, we all have a problem; if he wasn’t, why would arresting him be an anti-Muslim act?

In a free society it is not essential that everyone agree with one another and, in fact, if they did we would live in a boring world. It is essential that they respect each other’s right to disagree on basic as well as tangential issues.

I don’t really care if by the tenets of one’s religious beliefs, someone believes I will go to Hell. I insist only that he refrain from expediting my arrival there.

CAIR's response will tell us whether or not, in Keene's words, "we all have a problem."

Finally, George Galloway is held to account. It's piddling, but I'll take it.

Don Surber observes George Galloway's comeuppance at the hand of Her Majesty's Government, reminding us of Air America Radio, who also stole from orphans for The Greater Good, and the perfidy of the left in general. Galloway's Parliamentary peers are nailing him to the wall with this suspension; the afterburn to the idiot left comes via The Evil Dick Cheney:

Galloway finally pays for the kickbacks he received under Saddam Hussein’s Oil-for-Food scam, in which Iraq bought off the UN (Kofi Annan’s son was among the many frontmen).
...

The irony is the left praised this thief who raked in a small fortune by fronting for a brutal regime through an oil scam. Yet the left cries “Haliburton! Haliburton! Haliburton!” at Dick Cheney, even though the vice president severed ties with Haliburton long ago. Indeed, the profits the Cheneys made from their Haliburton stock goes to charity. Since taking office, Cheney and his wife have given $7.8 million to charity.

The much-praised lefty Galloway? He took bribes from a fund meant to buy food for Iraqi children.

There’s your hero, lefties.

Leftist idiots should also read Surber's post reminding us of the first Clinton Administration and why Al Gore should be behind bars:

President Bush 43 has had to clean up on Aisle 42 for most of his presidency. On subject after subject — battling terrorism, stopping Hussein, the economy, appointments to the Supreme Court, choice in vice presidents, cleaning up his own party’s corruption — Bush is head and shoulders above Bill Clinton.

In today’s Washington Post, Bill Kristol opined on “Why Bush Will Be A Winner.”

Clinton is a loser. He had 8 years uninterrupted by war or other disaster to set the nation’s course. Instead, he ran around in circles. His lone “accomplishments” were an inability to stop a Republican Congress from balancing the budget and reforming an inane welfare system.

Via Brietbart:

The government's case against a Marine accused of fatally shooting Iraqi civilians in the town of Haditha lacks sufficient evidence to go to a court-martial and should be dropped, a hearing officer determined.

Well, well, well.

"The government version is unsupported by independent evidence," Ware wrote in the 18-page report. "To believe the government version of facts is to disregard clear and convincing evidence to the contrary." ..."

Whether this was a brave act of combat against the enemy or tragedy of misperception born out of conducting combat with an enemy that hides among innocents, Lance Corporal Sharratt's actions were in accord with the rules of engagement and use of force," Ware wrote.

Dean Esmay:

Shame on those leftist bastards including Jack Murtha who called our brave soldiers cold-blooded killers before the evidence was in.
Not that I would question their patriotism, of course...

Let's scroll down to just the second comment in the above linked TP post, where an idiot bellows,

Come on trolls, come here to tell us how Haditha never happened, that the whole thing is a leftist conspiracy to smear the troops, and Murtha is nothing but a hack.

Tell, me, idiots, doesn't it just suck, day after day, to be lying, whining, antiwar, soldier-slandering, terror-apologizing BDS-infected leftist assholes? 'Cause you can't say I didn't warn you.

Captain's Quarters made journalistic history today when Captain Ed Morrissey interviewed Afghanistan's Ambassador Said T. Jawad.

The most groundbreaking aspect of the interview, I believe, is how the questions came to the Ambassador in the first place. Readers of this blog asked the questions in the comments section, and I selected the most germane and posed them to the Ambassador. His staff reviewed that thread and spoke about how impressed they were with the variety and depth of the questions. Afterwards, Ambassador Jawad said the one question I failed to ask that he wanted to answer was one about dirt-biking in Afghanistan's mountains, which he thought would be a marvelous idea, so I know they paid close attention to your input.

This reversal by the U.S. Court of Appeals was so preordained by the law that I didn't take seriously the original judgement last year:

CINCINNATI, July 6 (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court ruled on Friday a lawsuit challenging the domestic spying program created by President George W. Bush after the Sept. 11 attacks must be dismissed, in a decision based on narrow technical grounds. The appeals court panel ruled by a 2-1 vote that the groups and individuals who brought the lawsuit, led by the American Civil Liberties Union, did not have the legal right to bring the challenge in the first place.

Count on Reuters to editorialize. I love their spin describing the basic requirement for plaintiffs to have standing in an action as "narrow technical grounds". In Reuters' world, Bill Clinton enjoyed Monica Lewinsky's favours on the "narrow technical grounds" that an intern's oral ministrations to a married sitting President did not constitute a sexual encounter, at least not until the hearings started.

But never mind that the plaintiffs had no standing with the court; one of the judges also found that the charges themselves had no legal merit: Judge Batchelder finds no statutory violation of Title III or FISA.

Which has been my point all along.

From NRO's Phi Beta Cons:

Bat Ye’-Or Speaks [Candace de Russy]
Last week, numerous distinguished professors, authors and diplomats attended a symposium in Canada titled "On The Front Line of Immigration, Terrorism and Ethno-Politics." Various Muslim organizations were on the case, demanding that the event be monitored by the Police Hate Crime Unit.

According to Michael Coren in the National Post, these groups were especially incensed by the presence of the renowned writer Bat Ye'or:

If the other speakers provoke certain people, this diminutive, gentle and brilliant 74-year-old lady seems to positively terrify them. They urge immigration authorities "immediately to bar Bat Ye'or from entering Canada."

Here is some of what this “daughter of the Nile” had to say:

It is, I suppose, deeply ironic that I was told that I was not allowed to live in Egypt when I was a girl and now as a grown woman I'm told, in part by people from Egypt, that I shouldn't come to Canada either…

As late as the early 20th century, in some Muslim countries Jews had to remove their shoes when they left their own quarter, were not allowed to ride a horse, were treated as second-class citizens. This idea of equality is nonsense…

What occurred back then is history, but history has to be understood and accepted. What we have now is revision, denial. Muslim immigrants are taking this false idea of the past to Europe and North America, along with a culture that does not share the Western notion of tolerance, equality, criticism of religion and freedom…

There are courageous Muslims who do resist but it is difficult and dangerous. There is an underground of Sharia law across Europe, with terrible treatment of women. This is combined with the threat of violence aimed at anybody who speaks out against what is going on. Censorship through fear. We even see this to a mild degree in Canada, an example being the attempt to stop me entering the country.

Thanks to the Fraser Institute for sponsoring the conference and, I suppose, credit goes to the Canadian government for not caving in to Muslim calls for censorship.

Michael Yon updates his investigation of a genuine Al Qaeda mass-murder spree in Iraq by questioning not only the MSM's refusal to report the story, but also its ongoing and inexplicable willingness to publish outright fabrications:

But for those publications who actually had people embedded in Baqubah when the story first broke and still failed to cover it, their malaise is inexplicable. I do not know why all failed to report the murders and booby-trapped village: apparently no reporters bothered to go out there, even though it’s only about 3.5 miles from this base. Any one of the reporters currently in Baqubah could still go to these coordinates and follow his or her nose and find the gravesites.

On this question of media selectivity, the blogosphere has become incensed that big media mostly ignored the murders, especially given that there are reporters currently in Baqubah. Newsbusters and countless others are on it. More disturbing to many bloggers is that major mainstream players were busted (again) by Pajamas Media just days ago for reporting outright fabrications of a “massacre” that never
occurred. (Emphasis mine)

Instapundit presents an answer (besides the obvious one- that reporting real enemy atrocities would help Bush) from "A journalist whose name you'd recognize":

Yon's story doesn't get attention because it is humiliating.

It is humiliating because it is obvious that we media – and our allies in the state department, the legal trade, the NGOs, the Democratic Party, the UN, etc., - can’t do squat about such determined use of force.

Our words, images, arguments and skills can’t stop the killing. Only the rough soldiers and their guns can solve the problem, and we won’t admit that fact because the admission would weaken our influence and our claim to social status.

So we pretend Yon’s massacre – and the North Korean killing fields, the Arab treatment of women, the Arab hatred of Israel, etc. - doesn’t exist, and instead focus our emotions and attention on the somewhat-bad domestic things that we can ‘fix’ with our DC-based allies. Things such as Abu Ghraib, wiretapping, etc. When we ‘fix’ them, then we get status, applause, power, new jobs, ego, etc.

Please don’t be surprised. We media are an interest group not much different from the automakers, the unions, and the farmers.

In "Bless The Beasts And Children", Michael Yon traces Al Qaeda's rampage through an Iraqi village near Baqubah. These are the animals to whom the idiot left would gleefully, with much self-congratulation for their progressive thinking, grant U.S. Constitutional rights and try in American courts.

Warning: the photos are horrendous, portraying as they do the savagery of the Islamofascist mind and, by extension, the sheer intellectual barrenness of the idiot left.

Victor Davis Hansen is reminded of Thucydides' accounts of similar savagery:

Michael Yon's description ("Bless the Beasts and Children") of al Qaeda's savagery in the hamlet of Diyala, Iraq - men, women, children, and animals butchered - eerily recalls Thucydides' description in the 7th book of his history of the sudden Thracian attack on the tiny town of Mycalessus:

The Thracians bursting into Mycalessus sacked the houses and temples, and butchered the inhabitants, sparing neither youth nor age, but killing all they fell in with, one after the other, children and women, and even beasts of burden, and whatever other living creatures they saw...

He finishes with a politically-incorrect thought on barbarism and cowardice:

...the Thracian race, like the bloodiest of the barbarians, being even more so when it has nothing to fear. Everywhere confusion reigned and death in all its shapes; and in particular they attacked a boys' school, the largest that there was in the place, into which the children had just gone, and massacred them all. In short, the disaster falling upon the whole town was unsurpassed in magnitude, and unapproached by any in suddenness and in horror.

Fox News reports: President George W. Bush will commute Scooter Libby's ridiculous jail sentence, enraging idiots around the world and setting off the next round of conspiracy-mongering and BDS.

Meanwhile, notorious liar Joe Wilson and his double-knot spy soccer-mom wife Valerie Plame are still treasonous cranks.

Something about "root causes" and "global warming". Don't rush me; I'm workin' on it.

UPDATE: Andrew McCarthy at NRO: Who says terrorism isn't brain surgery?

Via Gateway Pundit:

British Infidels shoot up the Koran after radical Islamic operations in London and Glasgow this past week:

The more the Islamofascists work their violence upon Civilization, the more we'll see of this sort of thing.