JihadWatch is saying that the explosion might possibly be related to terror charges against Mullah Krekar, founder of the Kurdish Islamist group Ansar al-Islam.
Here in Austin it’s suppose to hit 103º for the rest of the week. Insert your own “hot news” related pun here.
Some links:
Paul Burka’s list of best and worst state legislators is now out. Golly, what do you know? Every entry in the worst of list is a Republican? As the Church Lady is wont to say, “How Con-VEN-ient!”
The Texas Tribune insiders offer up their own best and worsts lists. Sen. Wendy “I’m going to force a special session, ensuring that we get our asses kicked by Republicans even harder than we would have otherwise” Davis (D-Ft. Worth) shows up on both lists…
This Hendrik Hertzberg New Yorker piece on Rick Perry sounds exactly like you would expect a piece on Rick Perry by a former speechwriter for Jimmy Carter to sound. I would say he buys his smug by the pallet-load from Sam’s, but since the nearest Sam’s Club to Manhattan is in Secaucus, NJ, and we know no self-respecting liberal would think of crossing the Hudson for so crass a purpose as saving money, no doubt it’s hand-crafted artisan smug bought from a tiny, independent smug boutique down in the Village. Oh, and he’s wrong about Cameron Todd Willingham as well, since the real facts show that he was indeed guilty of burning his own two small children to death.
I stopped doing This Week in Jihad because it was eating up too much of my time. But this week there were enough big Jihad-related stories to justify putting one up:
Michael Totten has an interesting interview with Claire Berlinski on the situation in Turkey. If Turkey put up a status update, it would read “Mood: Delusional.” Also, is it just me, or does Berlinski look an awful lot like Dr. Lisa Cuddy on House?
You know that “unarmed peace flotilla”? Yeah, not so much.
Female Kuwaiti “activist” calls for the return of sexual slavery to keep rich Muslim men from committing adultery. Sisters are doing it to themselves. And somewhere, Dominique Strauss-Kahn is kicking himself.
Strafor analyzes the latest al Qaeda video and sees a message of defeat. “The very call to leaderless resistance is an admission of defeat and an indication that the jihadists might not be receiving the divine blessing they claim.” The also show how al Qaeda ignorance of American gun control laws (no, you can’t buy automatic weapons at a gun show, since you need to fill out a form, undergo a background check that can take up to 90 days, and have a local law enforcement “chief” authorize your form (among other requirements), and that assumes you live in a state they haven’t been outlawed in) has lead to the arrests of several Jihadests looking to purchase them.
Stratfor on the ambush of a heavily armed convoy of drug cartel gunmen by another cartel. “In an environment where drug cartels can mass dozens of gunmen and arm them with powerful weapons like machine guns, .50-caliber sniper rifles, grenades and RPGs, there is no such thing as a force that is too big to be ambushed.” It also suggests that Mexican drug gunmen make incompetent soldiers.
Speaking of the drug war, something that produces a mass grave of 226 people has to be classified as a serious war…or a serious atrocity.
We are all agreed that someone had an interest in sending a picture of Rep. Weiner’s erection to a coed. Even Rep. Weiner agrees on this much—he’s basically told us yeah, that’s my junk. And he’s proud of that. Would I sound very boring if I were to suggest that the person with the means, opportunity, and motive to send Rep. Weiner’s dicpic to the coed was none other than Rep. Weiner himself?
“The arrest of a mediocre international civil servant in the first-class cabin of his jet isn’t just a sex story: It’s a glimpse of the widening gulf between the government class and their subjects in a post-prosperity West. Neither Geithner nor Strauss-Kahn have ever created a dime of wealth in their lives…the Great Men of the Permanent Governing Class cannot be bound by the rules they impose on the rest of you schmucks.”
This is disturbing. Remember the McMartin Preschool case, where numerous people were charged bizarre, contradictory and flat-out-impossible charges of ritual sexual abuse of children? Unfortunately, Texas has its own equivalent in the “Mineola Swingers Club” case. Unfortunately, unlike the McMartin Preschool case, people have actually been convicted.
Former Walter Mondale Vice Presidential pick Geraldine Ferraro has died at age 75. If Mondale had not made this liberal New York congresswoman his running mate, her obituary would barely be a blip nationally. If the Ferraro pick was meant to attract lavish media praise and attention it succeeded; if it was meant to help him win electoral votes, it failed, as I doubt she was instrumental in winning Minnesota.
But the main reason I bring up Ferraro’s death is to exhume an obvious instance of biased political reporting. In 1992, when Ferraro was running in a four-way Democratic primary race against left-wing favorite Elizabeth Holtzman, Al Sharpton and Robert Abrams for the Senate seat held by Republican Al D’Amato, The Village Voice published a piece called “Gerry and the Mob,” documenting the extensive ties between Ferraro’s husband John Zaccaro and organized crime, just a few weeks before the primary. In the course of doing so, The Village Voice revealed that they had all the information back when Mondale picked Ferraro as the Vice President, but had spiked the story because of the “historic” nature of her candidacy. Ferraro ended up losing a race she had been leading to Abrams, which made her so bitter she refused to campaign for Abrams, who ended up losing to D’Amato by 80,000 votes.
So when it comes to the liberal media reporting news, reality is whatever benefits liberals. Keep this in mind every time you read a MSM piece on Obama, and wonder just what they know and refuse to reveal until Obama is safely out of office.
Big-spending Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez recalled from office by an almost 9-1 ratio. Alvarez was a RINO that acted like a full-bore Democrat, hiking property taxes and giving big pay raises to unionized public employees. (hat tip: Dwight.)
In New York, unions protect state employees who sexually abuse the mentally handicapped, even when they know they’re guilty. “That’s our job.”
Alabama latest state to have law introduced banning Sharia.
Death penalty suggested for Ft. Hood shooter Nidal Hasan. Given that the shooting happened all the way back in 2009, isn’t this a little slow even for the usual wheels of American justice? Maybe if we’re lucky, the actual trial will occur in the home stretch of the 2012 election…
Just got back from a family trip, so here’s a small LinkSwarm while I get back into the swing of things.
“For a decade, from the election of Bush 43 forward, the Left has lied and cheated as it tried to return to power. The left wants us to be civil — after being so uncivil for a decade. Bite me.”
Over on NRO, Robert VerBruggen offers some sage advice for journalists on how write about guns without making yourself look like an idiot. Especially important is his second point: “If you’re going to write that a certain kind of gun is particularly dangerous, consult someone who knows something about guns first. Brady Campaign spokesmen don’t count.” The need for this point was painfully apparent with so many commentators describing Jared Lee Loughner’s Glock 19 as some sort of exotic killing machine, when in fact it is a very common type of semiautomatic pistol used by millions of law-abiding Americans.
Or to put it in terms that a New York Journalist might understand: Imagine if I wrote that “Every condo in Manhattan gives their owner a two-car parking space,” or “All Hispanic New Yorkers are of Mexican ancestry.” You’d howl about how ignorant I am of New York. Well, that’s exactly the you seem to the rest of the country when you write about guns.
However, I fear VerBruggen’s advice will fall on deaf ears. Many journalists in deep blue cities like New York or San Francisco seem to regard guns as inherently evil objects, and view learning about them with suspicion. They seem to wear their ignorance as a badge of honor, much like Manhattanites who brag that they’ve never visited a flyover state, or even left the island.
Ignorance can be cured, but not willful ignorance. Many journalist would rather be wrong than Right.
