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Morocco breaks up Qaeda recruiting gang
Today's Headlines
Headline Comments [Views]
Page 4: Opinion
12 00:00 Alaska Paul [5] 
4 00:00 mhw [3] 
9 00:00 remoteman [6] 
2 00:00 AlanC [3] 
Page 1: WoT Operations
4 00:00 JosephMendiola [4]
3 00:00 Deacon Blues [4]
5 00:00 JosephMendiola [7]
2 00:00 Intrinsicpilot [3]
0 [4]
7 00:00 JohnQC [4]
10 00:00 Fred [8]
4 00:00 DoDo [6]
8 00:00 Verlaine [3]
1 00:00 Bobby [4]
14 00:00 Zenster [2]
0 [5]
1 00:00 Old Patriot [1]
1 00:00 Old Patriot [3]
3 00:00 Swamp Blondie [5]
1 00:00 wxjames [14]
0 [9]
3 00:00 Steven [9]
0 [5]
1 00:00 gromgoru [15]
Page 2: WoT Background
3 00:00 Zenster [4]
3 00:00 Sock Puppet of Doom [5]
7 00:00 JohnQC [5]
1 00:00 gromgoru [7]
4 00:00 Redneck Jim [4]
2 00:00 sinse [6]
4 00:00 JosephMendiola [6]
4 00:00 DMFD [6]
8 00:00 Steven [2]
2 00:00 Seafarious [5]
5 00:00 Old Patriot [6]
9 00:00 JosephMendiola [9]
18 00:00 Frank G [3]
2 00:00 Ebbang Uluque6305 [9]
7 00:00 Grumenk Philalzabod0723 [11]
0 [3]
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1 00:00 Thinemp Whimble [6]
5 00:00 gromgoru [6]
13 00:00 anymouse [2]
20 00:00 Procopius2k [2]
Page 3: Non-WoT
1 00:00 Anonymoose [5]
13 00:00 JosephMendiola [7]
15 00:00 gromgoru [8]
8 00:00 tu3031 [6]
15 00:00 gromgoru [7]
6 00:00 rjschwarz [2]
0 [6]
16 00:00 Redneck Jim [2]
7 00:00 mojo [4]
9 00:00 DMFD [7]
11 00:00 RD [6]
6 00:00 Sonar [2]
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4 00:00 JFM [3]
11 00:00 Shipman [3]
1 00:00 bigjim-ky [1]
Page 5: Russia-Former Soviet Union
2 00:00 GK [3]
13 00:00 djh_usmc []
6 00:00 Zenster [4]
14 00:00 RD [12]
4 00:00 JohnQC [6]
Down Under
Secret plans to evacuate 11 million Australians 'revealed'
A TOP US radio commentator claims Australian authorities are in secret talks to evacuate 11 million citizens due to drought. If he's right, will the last Australian to leave the country please turn off the tap?

Well, it's all a bit of a joke - and the big laugh is on US talkback host Art Bell, one of the biggest names in American radio. Bell, who is on more radio stations than any other US broadcaster, repeated claims that Australian authorities are in emergency talks with the United States and other Commonwealth allies for the "proposed evacuation of 11 million" citizens, because of the crippling drought.

The weekend host for the Coast to Coast radio show claimed Australians would be forced to travel to other parts of the world on a flotilla of cruise ships carrying up to 500,000 people at a time because of the dwindling water supply.

And while there has been some talk of evacuating a handful of isolated country towns struggling to maintain their water supply, Bell repeated the claims of a supposed Russian scientist – who said Australia had sought the help of other western nations to consider moving its citizens to the vast wilderness regions of Alaska and Canada.

He paraphrased claims by supposed Russian scientist Sorcha Faal that secret talks were already under way to evacuate half the country, following Prime Minister John Howard's grim warning that the nation's food bowl region of the Murray Darling was under direct threat. "I wonder when the climate sceptics are going to finally catch on," Bell said. "Will it take something like this? Like evactuating half a nation, before we wake up and realise that it is actually happening?"
Posted by: Glinegum Glerelet8307 || 05/07/2007 06:54 || Comments || Link || [5 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Art Bell, the very personification of demented and delusional. I was hoping to read that the Aussies were organizing a general Muslim roundup concluded by a fast trip back to their hellhole of origin.
Posted by: Woozle Elmeter2970 || 05/07/2007 11:44 Comments || Top||

#2  Somebody hasn't bothered to do check background. I'd never even heard of Mr. Bell until a5089 mentioned him in connection to over-the-top conspiracy thinking. I still haven't actually heard him, as far as I'm aware. Being on more radio stations doesn't mean much if he's used as a 3 a.m. filler substitute for radio hiss, with a regular audience measured in the hundreds column and the remainder suffering from insomnia rather than interest.

Or it could be that there are considerably more functional madmen walking around the US than I knew.
Posted by: trailing wife || 05/07/2007 12:00 Comments || Top||

#3  Curtis Sliwa refers to Art Bell as a "Looney Kazoonie."
Posted by: doc || 05/07/2007 12:05 Comments || Top||

#4  If Oz does decide to abandon ship the motto should be wymyn, children and socialists first.
Posted by: BrerRabbit || 05/07/2007 12:34 Comments || Top||

#5  Shut up already Art, it's a SECRET!
For those (like TW) who are fortunate enough to not know about him, Art is the mouthpiece of the tin-foil hat crowd he lives near Area 51 where the sky is filled with chemtrails and [garbled]
Posted by: Spot || 05/07/2007 13:10 Comments || Top||

#6  A TOP US radio commentator
Wow. "Top" really has a flexible meaning here, doesn't it?
Posted by: eLarson || 05/07/2007 13:57 Comments || Top||

#7  If Oz does decide to abandon ship the motto should be wymyn, children and socialists first.

How 'bout anything that looks like a radical muslim or supporter first?
Posted by: gorb || 05/07/2007 14:26 Comments || Top||

#8  How about any Muslim who can swim a lap of Australia is allowed to stay.
Posted by: Grunter || 05/07/2007 15:10 Comments || Top||

#9  Subject to an annual proficiency test, to be co-ordinated with the New Zealand Department of Immigration.
Posted by: Grunter || 05/07/2007 15:21 Comments || Top||

#10  Of course the story is crap because they are creating a new brand of VB that has less alchohol and contrarily more water. If you were running short of water that would be the exact opposite course of action to take.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 05/07/2007 17:57 Comments || Top||

#11  Nanotechnology filters are showing great promise in water purification, especially high volume, low energy desalinization.

This may be one of the most important technologies to come down the road.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 05/07/2007 22:11 Comments || Top||

#12  I respect Art Bell. After all, he has dealt with Area 51 for years and I have only been to lowly Area 12.

[/heh]
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 05/07/2007 23:37 Comments || Top||


Europe
Shameless plug for my buddy's novel
Disclaimer: I wrote this review and Belgian author Dirk Vandereyken is a friend of hime. Honestly, though, it's a good novel & relevant to the decline of Europe.

English isn’t Dirk’s first language, but it doesn’t show. Fates Worse Than Death: Hunter is extremely well written, with almost no errors in grammar and only one type-O I could find. However, the author is a creature of modern post-Christian socialist Europe and it shows. Hunter, perhaps like his creator, is trapped in a society that is in decline. Forsaken by their parents, doomed to a hellish existence in the urban abyss, unable to find meaningful existence either as individuals or within the family structure, the young characters in this book choose to loose themselves in a demimonde of drugs, gang loyalties, meaningless eroticism, and nihilism. In many ways, FWTD: Hunter is less about a dystopian future in Manhattan than it is about the modern socialist dystopia of Europe. The character Hunter is a reflection of the cultural psychosis that the author finds himself surrounded by: the breakdown of the modern family under the weight of state-sponsored mediocrity, the horror of a culture literally aborting itself out of existence, and the bleak reality of a parasitic older generation greedily draining away what is left of the life’s blood of an already dying society. Like many modern young Europeans, Hunter is surrounded by societal untrustworthiness and uncertainty. The State is unreliable and corrupt, content to manage its own decline with as little effort as it can get away with while still restricting as many individual liberties as it can manage. Corporations, while vastly more effective, are either hostile or indifferent to the individual, demanding a nearly inhuman level of conformity from their employees. The older generations are utterly corrupt and have given themselves over entirely to sexual deviancy, drug addiction, and the sterile, false world of full-emersion video games.
Posted by: Secret Master || 05/07/2007 00:13 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Why do we need another reality novel?
Posted by: Skidmark || 05/07/2007 6:02 Comments || Top||

#2  So this is an autobiography?
Posted by: Mike N. || 05/07/2007 9:17 Comments || Top||

#3  Suddenly, I feel so depressed.

It's funny, because I was just thinking about a 3 year old relative and how different the world would be for her than it was for us. Every generation thinks the next has gone to hell in a handbasket but I think that in her world, there will be little of permanence. Families, relationships, jobs, locations - these will not be lasting as they were for us.

So it was funny to come in here and see my worst fears written in print.

On a different not, I do take issue with the new attempt by the younger generation to blame the older generation for being "parasitic". This is just another symptom of the illness of their generation. What's yours is mine. Give it to me now, I don't want to wait. It is the symptom of children used to their parents giving them their all. I don't have all I want. Give me more - give me yours.
Posted by: Angaiger Tojo1904 || 05/07/2007 11:21 Comments || Top||

#4  mmmm

full-emersion video games.

mmmm
Posted by: mhw || 05/07/2007 13:24 Comments || Top||


Home Front: WoT
Decent Guys
All those Jihadis seemed like nice guys, like Himmler did to his wife and family....

Three weeks old, from Robert Spencer, at Jihad Watch, but I just got it earlier this week from American Congress for Truth. The heart of the matter -

But they may be genuinely decent fellows. It was the Nazi genocide mastermind Heinrich Himmler who told a group of SS leaders: “Most of you know what it means to see a hundred corpses lying together, five hundred, or a thousand. To have gone through this and yet -- apart from a few exceptions, examples of human weakness -- to have remained decent fellows, this is what has made us hard…”

Were these SS mass murderers really decent fellows? To their friends and family, they probably were. After all, they weren’t interested in undifferentiated mayhem. They were adherents of a totalitarian, genocidal ideology that convinced them that the murders they were committing were for a good purpose. As far as they were concerned, their goals were rational. It was a necessity for them to remain “decent fellows,” for they were busy trying to build what they saw as a decent society. That their vision of a decent society included genocide and torture did not trouble them, for it was all for -- in their view -- a goal that remained good.
Posted by: Nancy and Harry || 05/07/2007 00:00 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  It comes down to "us" versus "them". To "us", we're nice. I'm sure some of the most spittle-flecked Bush haters are nice to their friends. But any contact with the Other, and the screaming and intolerance starts.
Posted by: gromky || 05/07/2007 1:00 Comments || Top||

#2  They have the same perspective on their work that the Orkin man has on his.

He (they) is cleaning up a noxious nuiscence and should be lauded.
Posted by: AlanC || 05/07/2007 14:45 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
The middle of nowhere
Long, long, great piece by Edward Luttwak. Hat tip Orrin Judd.
Western analysts are forever bleating about the strategic importance of the middle east. But despite its oil, this backward region is less relevant than ever, and it would be better for everyone if the rest of the world learned to ignore it

Edward Luttwak, senior adviser at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC

Why are middle east experts so unfailingly wrong? The lesson of history is that men never learn from history, but middle east experts, like the rest of us, should at least learn from their past mistakes. Instead, they just keep repeating them.

The first mistake is "five minutes to midnight" catastrophism. The late King Hussein of Jordan was the undisputed master of this genre. Wearing his gravest aspect, he would warn us that with patience finally exhausted the Arab-Israeli conflict was about to explode, that all past conflicts would be dwarfed by what was about to happen unless, unless… And then came the remedy—usually something rather tame when compared with the immense catastrophe predicted, such as resuming this or that stalled negotiation, or getting an American envoy to the scene to make the usual promises to the Palestinians and apply the usual pressures on Israel. We read versions of the standard King Hussein speech in countless newspaper columns, hear identical invocations in the grindingly repetitive radio and television appearances of the usual middle east experts, and are now faced with Hussein's son Abdullah periodically repeating his father's speech almost verbatim.

What actually happens at each of these "moments of truth"—and we may be approaching another one—is nothing much; only the same old cyclical conflict which always restarts when peace is about to break out, and always dampens down when the violence becomes intense enough. The ease of filming and reporting out of safe and comfortable Israeli hotels inflates the media coverage of every minor affray. But humanitarians should note that the dead from Jewish-Palestinian fighting since 1921 amount to fewer than 100,000—about as many as are killed in a season of conflict in Darfur.

Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Steve White || 05/07/2007 00:00 || Comments || Link || [6 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Superb article - 'really got me thinking.

I suspect that the author is largely correct.

If we could prevent hordes of Middle Eastern refugees from failed societies from inundating our shores, we could just ignore the entire middle eastern region, other than as a source of petroleum.

Thus - our only strategic aim should be to prevent the Middle Eastern "rot" from infecting productive societies.

Too bad that the scum breed like cockroaches. That is the real problem. And countries such as Sweden, Holland, and France will be the first to collapse under the weight of the useless immigrant hordes. Perhaps that will serve as the warning call to other Western nations, before the succumb.
Posted by: Lone Ranger || 05/07/2007 0:59 Comments || Top||

#2  The late King Hussein of Jordan was the undisputed master of this genre. Wearing his gravest aspect, he would warn us that with patience finally exhausted the Arab-Israeli conflict was about to explode, that all past conflicts would be dwarfed by what was about to happen unless, unless…

It will be this sort of incessant brinkmanship in combination with habitual Muslim overreaching that eventually shall spell Islam’s doom. They will cry “wolf” one too many times with typical predictions of Dire Consequences™. In response, the West will either finally take them at their word and pre-empt all further unpleasantness with one definitive barrage of nuclear missiles or—in a case of supremely benign neglect—fail to make whatever necessary intervention was needed as warring Muslim factions unleash weapons of mass destruction upon each other. Either way, the problem will no longer exist with all further Islamic aggression and cupidity at a permanent end.

Yes, it would be nice if Israelis and Palestinians could settle their differences, but it would do little or nothing to calm the other conflicts in the middle east from Algeria to Iraq, or to stop Muslim-Hindu violence in Kashmir, Muslim-Christian violence in Indonesia and the Philippines, Muslim-Buddhist violence in Thailand, Muslim-animist violence in Sudan, Muslim-Igbo violence in Nigeria, Muslim-Muscovite violence in Chechnya …

Hey! What about the Muslim-Esquimaux violence. How could he possibly overlook that?

Exactly the same mistake keeps being made by the fraternity of middle east experts. They persistently attribute real military strength to backward societies whose populations can sustain excellent insurgencies but not modern military forces.

Cultural and moral relativism at its finest.

Now the Mussolini syndrome is at work over Iran. All the symptoms are present, including tabulated lists of Iran's warships, despite the fact that most are over 30 years old; of combat aircraft, many of which (F-4s, Mirages, F-5s, F-14s) have not flown in years for lack of spare parts; and of divisions and brigades that are so only in name. There are awed descriptions of the Pasdaran revolutionary guards, inevitably described as "elite," who do indeed strut around as if they have won many a war, but who have actually fought only one—against Iraq, which they lost.

Spot fucking on! Decap strikes are what we need.

It is not hard to defeat Arab countries, but it is mostly useless. Violence can work to destroy dangerous weapons but not to induce desired changes in behaviour.

More proof of how important a decapitation strategy is. Screw any occupation.

the peoples of the middle east should finally be allowed to have their own history—the one thing that middle east experts of all stripes seem determined to deny them.

Only if that “history” does not include weapons of mass destruction or nuclear technology of any kind.

excluding Israel, per capita patent production of countries in the middle east is one fifth that of sub-Saharan Africa.

SMACKDOWN! That’s gotta hurt.

the entire middle east generated under 4 per cent of global GDP in 2006—less than Germany.

SMACK, again!

Luttwak is dead nuts accurate in nearly everything save his worrisome underestimation of Islamic hostility and aggression against the West. As David D. has noted in his list of options, containment is a failed policy and much more serious levels of intervention are required. Luttwak’s analysis is comprehensive proof of just how appropriate a decapitating strike against Iran’s mullahcracy would be. All in all, a fantastic appraisal of exactly what is so wrong and nearly incurable about the Middle East. Only the demise of Islam as a whole can possibly bring about the revolutionary changes needed for this massive cesspit of barbarity to cleanse itself and begin anew.
Posted by: Zenster || 05/07/2007 1:45 Comments || Top||

#3  I agree about 95% with the author, the only thing he has missed is the almost universal blood lust among the middle eastern tyrants for nuclear weapons. With them they dream of holding the world hostage and violently spreading their vile seed to adjacent lands. Not to mention crushing internal resistance at will while holding off the world community by making themselves "invasion proof".
Posted by: bigjim-ky || 05/07/2007 8:28 Comments || Top||

#4  Exactly. Luttwak is an excellent thinker... BUT he fails to take into account nuclear weapons - the great equalizer as far as humanity's incompetents are concerned - let alone potentially far more destructive weaponized smallpox and the like. We do not have the option of ignoring the islamic plague ideology and should take steps to declaw them for good. Take the oil, smash their capitals and glassify their "holy" sites. After we hang the first and second batch of whiners and traitors at home we can get back to life.
Posted by: Excalibur || 05/07/2007 10:28 Comments || Top||

#5  “The operational mistake that Middle East experts keep making is the failure to recognize that backward societies must be left alone…”

It’s been said that it’s wise not to attempt to teach a pig how to sing because they can’t carry a tune and always resent you for trying.
Posted by: DepotGuy || 05/07/2007 10:47 Comments || Top||

#6  This is a solution to the Arab Muslim problem if the West gets off its collective asses and does the correct things. Replace oil as the engine of commerce. How ? Look to our French friends. Get nuclear power on board as major energy source. Their supply is 80% nuclear, heading to 90% in next decade. They have solved the waste problem all the enviro fools are crying about by impleneting reprocessing and feeding this MOX fuel into breeder reactors. The solution is to use the maximum potential energy of the fuel before confining it to storage depots for final decay. Next, autos must run on electricity as primary source. The big step is reliable batteries. MIT has just made a giant leap in this area which is causing GM to again look at 2nd generation electric called Volt. Ethanol is on the way for a while to come. This is good for US. We'll have plenty of corn for demestic consumption. Only exports will fall. Good. Make the Arabs pay top price for imported food stocks. How much do they import ? 100%. Finally, reach a consensus that Islam is not a religion, but a subversive political movement. Outlaw its practice in western society. Deport any non-compliers back to their desert. Confine them in their playground and slowly starve them to nonexistence.
Posted by: Woozle Elmeter2970 || 05/07/2007 11:58 Comments || Top||

#7  Finally, reach a consensus that Islam is not a religion, but a subversive political movement. Outlaw its practice in western society. Deport any non-compliers back to their desert. Confine them in their playground and slowly starve them to nonexistence.

How pathetic that our Kool-Aid guzzling politicians will find this most important step to be the very hardest to take.
Posted by: Zenster || 05/07/2007 16:01 Comments || Top||

#8 

I read this morning's paper that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission expects to fast track construction and operating licenses for 28 standard-design reactors at 19 sites by 2009 most in the Southeast and Southwest. Brown's Ferry is about to be restarted after years. The nuclear program is being resurected if the donks don't screw it up.
Posted by: JohnQC || 05/07/2007 19:55 Comments || Top||

#9  There is a big push at NRC to grant licenses for new nuke plants. The initial ones are for new reactors on existing sites or at sites that have already been approved.

The process "should" be easier since the nutroots have to support it to stop global warming.
Posted by: remoteman || 05/07/2007 20:30 Comments || Top||



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Steve White
Seafarious
tu3031
badanov
sherry
ryuge
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trailing wife
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Two weeks of WOT
Mon 2007-05-07
  Morocco breaks up Qaeda recruiting gang
Sun 2007-05-06
  Meshaal rejects U.S. timeline, threatens terrible things
Sat 2007-05-05
  Tater Tots, Badr Brigades clash in Sadr City
Fri 2007-05-04
  Thousands Rally Against Olmert
Thu 2007-05-03
  Muharib Abdul Latif banged; Abu Omar al-Baghdadi said titzup
Wed 2007-05-02
  75 'rebels' killed in southern Afghan offensive: UK officer
Tue 2007-05-01
  Abu Ayyub al-Masri reported rubbed out
Mon 2007-04-30
  UK police charges 6 with inciting terror, fundraising
Sun 2007-04-29
  Somalia president claims victory, asks for international help
Sat 2007-04-28
  Missiles Kill Four Hard Boyz in Pakistan
Fri 2007-04-27
  US House okays deadline for Iraq troop pullout
Thu 2007-04-26
  London: Four men plead guilty to explosives plot
Wed 2007-04-25
  IDF to request green light to strike Hamas leadership
Tue 2007-04-24
  Lal Masjid calls for jihad against ''un-Islamic'' govt
Mon 2007-04-23
  51 killed as Somalia fighting rages


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