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Arab League seeks end to Leb crisis
Today's Headlines
Headline Comments [Views]
Page 4: Opinion
3 00:00 SpecOp35 [7] 
1 00:00 rjschwarz [8] 
1 00:00 Procopius2k [4] 
8 00:00 no mo uro [3] 
6 00:00 JosephMendiola [12] 
4 00:00 JosephMendiola [9] 
6 00:00 Seafarious [4] 
1 00:00 gromgoru [3] 
0 [3] 
Page 1: WoT Operations
7 00:00 Anonymoose [3]
4 00:00 USN, Ret. [4]
18 00:00 Jackal [3]
3 00:00 SpecOp35 [3]
8 00:00 anymouse [4]
7 00:00 mac [3]
2 00:00 Mark Lerner [2]
2 00:00 gromgoru [7]
9 00:00 Larry Everett [5]
0 [3]
1 00:00 trailing wife [5]
1 00:00 gorb [4]
5 00:00 Zenster [4]
3 00:00 JosephMendiola [4]
6 00:00 SpecOp35 [7]
10 00:00 wxjames [4]
1 00:00 Glenmore [7]
4 00:00 Pappy [5]
1 00:00 trailing wife [3]
Page 2: WoT Background
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7 00:00 JosephMendiola [10]
1 00:00 john [9]
3 00:00 ed [7]
8 00:00 mac [2]
6 00:00 JosephMendiola [11]
17 00:00 .com [9]
6 00:00 JosephMendiola [3]
8 00:00 JosephMendiola [1]
1 00:00 Ebbolump Glomotle9608 [3]
9 00:00 Thoth [7]
13 00:00 Unains Ulise1126 [7]
31 00:00 CrazyFool [4]
3 00:00 tu3031 [12]
1 00:00 Icerigger [5]
3 00:00 Mark Z [3]
1 00:00 gromgoru [3]
17 00:00 DMFD [4]
2 00:00 Ebbolump Glomotle9608 [8]
0 [8]
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Page 3: Non-WoT
1 00:00 .com [5]
6 00:00 Rob06 [5]
2 00:00 trailing wife [5]
2 00:00 Eric Jablow [4]
3 00:00 ex-lib [4]
0 [3]
3 00:00 Jimmy Conway [4]
6 00:00 JosephMendiola [3]
9 00:00 trailing wife [5]
17 00:00 CrazyFool [9]
17 00:00 anonymous2u [4]
11 00:00 Mike N. [17]
0 [4]
1 00:00 Sneaze Shaiting3550 [3]
10 00:00 DMFD [4]
0 [3]
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2 00:00 Zarquon Pebbles in Blairistan [4]
1 00:00 trailing wife [1]
3 00:00 rpg7 [4]
3 00:00 tu3031 [3]
3 00:00 tu3031 [8]
8 00:00 bombay [3]
34 00:00 Swamp Blondie [4]
5 00:00 RD [6]
Page 5: Russia-Former Soviet Union
1 00:00 Swamp Blondie [5]
2 00:00 Sherry [5]
5 00:00 DMFD [8]
7 00:00 CrazyFool [10]
6 00:00 Thoth [12]
3 00:00 Stephen Murmer [4]
2 00:00 SpecOp35 [6]
6 00:00 anonymous5089 [1]
3 00:00 JosephMendiola [8]
9 00:00 Rob Crawford [12]
29 00:00 Bright Pebbles in Blairistan [9]
6 00:00 .com [6]
0 [2]
5 00:00 tu3031 [4]
1 00:00 Zenster [3]
8 00:00 CrazyFool [4]
4 00:00 JosephMendiola [10]
7 00:00 Shipman [3]
1 00:00 gorb [2]
4 00:00 ex-lib [1]
4 00:00 BrerRabbit [4]
11 00:00 JosephMendiola [8]
-Short Attention Span Theater-
WTF??? Geminid Meteor shower peaks tonight while the Shuttle is in orbit!
WTF???? they freak out over lose foam but send it up when the meteor shower is at its peak!!!!!!!!!!

Anyone have a clue as to why????
Posted by: Unigum Thavinter6090 || 12/13/2006 11:14 || Comments || Link || [8 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I think they can project when/where the metiors will hit and when/where the ISS will be at that time with pretty decent accuracy. Earth orbit is a large, large, open space after all.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 12/13/2006 23:02 Comments || Top||


Africa Subsaharan
Mandela Has no Clothes
Posted by: anonymous5089 || 12/13/2006 13:03 || Comments || Link || [7 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Mandela never had any clothes.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 12/13/2006 14:15 Comments || Top||

#2  I've got something very nice for you in Michelin, Mr. Mandela. Your wife picked it out...
Posted by: tu3031 || 12/13/2006 14:40 Comments || Top||

#3  Yuk,yuk. I have a book of matches. Now all we need is a little petrol.
Posted by: SpecOp35 || 12/13/2006 17:50 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Dying dictators and double standards
By Brent Bozell III
That great American ambassador and lovely lady Jeane Kirkpatrick has left us, but her passing also causes us to remember her strategic sense and moral clarity. She came to national prominence in Reaganite circles in 1979 with her marvelous Commentary magazine essay on "Dictatorship and Double Standards." It argued that traditional authoritarian autocracies were both more susceptible to liberalization and more amenable to American interests than totalitarian dictatorships of the left, which came into power with disturbing frequency in the late 1970s, with America as their stated enemy.

She easily explained how the Carter administration and the liberal press romantically saw in the revolutionary left a shared commitment to modernity over tradition, science over religion, an educated bureaucracy over private hierarchies, and futuristic and universal goals over appeals to an archaic and ordered past.

Continued on Page 49
Posted by: .com || 12/13/2006 01:48 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Bang on the money.
Posted by: phil_b || 12/13/2006 2:15 Comments || Top||

#2  ALso add LEV NAVROZOV's article on WORLDTRIBUNE > the trouble wid DICTATORS is that they are sooooo paranoid/protective of their power + untrustworthy of people that they require surrounding nations to be ruled by fellow dictators, ideally those which can be controlled.
THUS A HIGHLY CENTRALIZED DICTATORSHIP + ARMY-POLICE STATE MUST ALWAYS SEEK EXPANSION, BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 12/13/2006 2:23 Comments || Top||

#3  This should come as no surprise to anyone.

By the time American public school kids are in 12th grade (if they should make it that far) they've heard of Hitler and his atrocities (rightly so) about 1000 times, and in nearly all cases, of Mao's and Stalin's not at all. Ask them who invaded Poland in 1939, and they'll all say "Hitler", but none will reply with the correct answer "Hitler and Stalin".

You can even take it further than this. Schools overwhelmingly teach about the war in Europe, and much less time is alloted to the war against Japan these days. A lot of kids think that WWII was only about the European theater.

The explanation for these things is simple. The education industry is overwhelmingly populated by individuals who are left of center in their politics. The leadership and managers of that industry are nearly a monolithic group of leftists. None of these people will EVER teach that anyone whose politics are or were left of center did anything wrong, ever, for fear that kids might ever question the "absolute moral authority" of the left's philosophy/agenda. The idea is that kids must leave school believing that the left is perfect both in intent and deeds, and that literally all the evil in the world is generated from the right of the political spectrum.

The Japanese thing stems from this as well. To a leftist, white fascists are ever so much more evil than nonwhite, because to believe otherwise undermines the white guilt thing. The nuke thing is a factor, but not as much as white liberal guilt. As we have seen since 9/11, one of the tactics the left uses to frighten young people away from the center/right is to conflate fascists with Republicans. But if you're claiming that Republicans are white guys who are the party of racism, it undermines your premise greatly to also simultaneously acknowledge that one of the most evil fascist regimes on the planet was nonwhite. Cognitive dissonance takes over. Guess what gets taught?


Don't believe me? Ask ten 18 year olds who Hitler was, then ask 'em who Stalin was.
Posted by: no mo uro || 12/13/2006 6:40 Comments || Top||

#4  And Francisco Franco is still dead.

Yes, our dictators were better than their dictators. However, given how much the Donks and left oppose the establishment of real democracies as in Vietnam or Iraq, there doesn't appear to too much of choice. Does that qualify me as a realist? Do these pants make my butt look big?
Posted by: Procopius2k || 12/13/2006 9:42 Comments || Top||

#5  the trouble wid DICTATORS is that they are sooooo paranoid/protective of their power + untrustworthy of people that they require surrounding nations to be ruled by fellow dictators, ideally those which can be controlled.

An interesting point, JosephM. I hadn't thought of it that way, possibly because I'm a product of the American public school system. ;-) Although we did learn about Stalin-era evils, possibly because we had a lot of parents who were professors at the nearby university, and presumably some of them were in the history department, just as Daddy was very keen to review my chemistry text, and help me master the material (for which I blame the fact that I nearly failed the bloody course!).
Posted by: trailing wife || 12/13/2006 11:50 Comments || Top||

#6  It's also why you very rarely hear "National Socialist", as Hitler was a coerced collectivist who's victim group wasn't the rich, but jews etc.

Only the Victim group is different between Communism and Nazism.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles in Blairistan || 12/13/2006 12:12 Comments || Top||

#7  Stalin went after the Jews, too, but they weren't his primary target group, and he wasn't aiming for extermination.
Posted by: trailing wife || 12/13/2006 12:22 Comments || Top||

#8  "I'm a product of the American public school system. ;-) Although we did learn about Stalin-era evils"

Trailing Wife excepted from my comment, then.
Posted by: no mo uro || 12/13/2006 19:55 Comments || Top||


Hewitt: The Kerry Juggernaut!
Posted by: .com || 12/13/2006 01:45 || Comments || Link || [12 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Okay, I'll bite, first t'was HILLARY vs. OBAMA, now its HILLARY + OBAMA for 2008.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 12/13/2006 2:25 Comments || Top||

#2  Kennedy knows a sinking Oldsmobile when he sees one.

Ouch!
Posted by: Mike || 12/13/2006 7:18 Comments || Top||

#3  "I was under more of the impression before that he was going to run and was waiting in time [to declare his candidacy], but now he's deferred that decision," Kennedy said. "I have no plans of supporting anyone else at this juncture. I'm also not going to just wait indefinitely until he's made a judgment or a decision."

Translation: "John, you're going to get your ass handed to you in a hat."
Posted by: mcsegeek1 || 12/13/2006 8:46 Comments || Top||

#4  You know I how know Kerry's doomed?
They're finally taking the Kerry/Edwards bumper stickers off their cars up here. Or covering them up with Deval Patrick ones...
Posted by: tu3031 || 12/13/2006 14:13 Comments || Top||

#5  The botched "joke(?)". The gift that keeps on giving.
Posted by: GK || 12/13/2006 22:03 Comments || Top||

#6  RIGHTWINGNEWS Domestic > JEB BUSH hasn't ruled out run for WH in 2008. Looks like everyone wants to see whether Dubya or Moud in 2007 is gonna do a DR. STRANGELOVE [Cowboy riding the falling H-Bomb], versus FAIL SAFE [USA nukes NYC in order to save it = USA-WEST from MAD], maybe even a ROCKETS RED GLARE [Limited? MAD]!? We already know from Mother Cindy + KATRINA-GATE RED DAWN = UNITED NATIONS FORCES IN USA is a given > CHARLIE SHEEN AND HIS WOLVERINES.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 12/13/2006 23:48 Comments || Top||


Senator McCain hates the first amendment
But we knew that already...
Posted by: Seafarious || 12/13/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || [4 views] Top|| File under:

#1 
Posted by: .com || 12/13/2006 0:52 Comments || Top||

#2  Senator McCain hates the first amendment

We burned the Constitution in order to save it.

Hey, John. Why not show real balls. Introduce legislation putting the MSM on the same footing as every other interstate business and hold them accountable for the quality of their material. Don't stop them from printing or reporting but fine them for sloppy or shoddy work or for that matter selling pure fiction as fact. Or make them open to torte suits from consumers for their product. Make them print or announce those little statements of disclosure we get on every piece of commercial product to protect their asses. See it doesn't really hurt their first amendment rights because they can still publish, it just makes life more accountable.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 12/13/2006 9:37 Comments || Top||

#3  He hates it because he is mocked.
Posted by: DarthVader || 12/13/2006 10:40 Comments || Top||

#4  McCain vs. Any Dem in 2008 - not only will I have to hold my nose, I'll have to wear a f*cking gas mask.
Posted by: Broadhead6 || 12/13/2006 12:39 Comments || Top||

#5  I;m beginning to think he had been kicked in the head way too many times during his stay at the Hanoi Hilton.

Used to like the guy. Now I only respect him for his past service.
Posted by: kelly || 12/13/2006 15:30 Comments || Top||

#6  Instapundit has some thoughts.

So does Daily Pundit.

It doesn't take much of an imagination to substitue kiddie porn with unflattering pix of mullahs, does it?
Posted by: Seafarious || 12/13/2006 17:02 Comments || Top||


Home Front: WoT
"Terrorists don’t care about poor people, except as . . useful targets for their atrocities."
by Andrea Harris

Mr. Muhammad Yunus, the economist who recently won a Nobel Prize for his Grameen Bank (a scheme that helps poor people — real poor people, not people who spend all their paychecks on lotto tickets) with loans, is a good man who has done great things. However, like most charitable people who have spent large amounts of time helping the poor (really poor people, not people who can’t balance their checkbooks and so never have enough money to pay rent — hey, is that a mirror I see before me?) he sees everything through the lens of poverty. It’s the worst kind of naiveté, because whenever they comment on some other pressing world problem, stuff like this comes out:

. . .

“We must address the root causes of terrorism to end it for all time,” Yunus told hundreds of guests at City Hall in Oslo, Norway. “I believe putting resources into improving the lives of poor people is a better strategy than spending it on guns.“

You know, it is possible that poor people need the protection guns can afford too. But besides that, here’s the silliness: the idea that poverty causes terrorism. Let’s see… NO IT DOESN’T. Let me remind you all: Osama Bin Laden is (or was, depending on whether he really is a smear in a cave in Afghanistan or not) as rich as can be. His father is as rich as Croesus, and whenever another member of the gigantic Bin Laden family is mentioned it’s always with some sort of phrase like “hotel magnate” appended. I think it safe to say that no member of the Bin Laden family is a dirt farmer in Yemen.

But that’s one rich terrormaster. What about the others, his underlings? Well…. Muhammad Atta, the 9/11 “mastermind” (to use the Bondian phrase so beloved of media people) was an upper-middle-class doctor’s son who had enough money to come over here (and we don’t make it cheap for people to immigrate legally), settle in various areas of Florida, and enter flight school, all of which takes a considerable amount of money. They used boxcutters on the planes not because they were too poverty-stricken to afford submachine guns, but because boxcutters are (or were) easier to sneak on board a plane than submachine guns. And all of the other of the Nineteen were similarly upper-middle-class in origin — and the “upper middle class” designation I am using is the American one, by which I mean their families had a lot more prestige and money than mine ever did.

It can’t be said too many times: terrorists don’t care about poor people, except as abstract fodder for their ideals and useful targets for their atrocities. Kids are even better — dead kids make everyone cry and get scared, the sort of effect terrorists are looking for. Terrorists don’t want to make the world a “better place” for poor people. What terrorists want is power.

TERRORISTS WANT POWER. TERRPORISTS WANT POWER. TERRORISTS WANT POWER. And until people realize this, we are always going to have terrorists.
Posted by: Mike || 12/13/2006 07:35 || Comments || Link || [4 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Donks want power. Donks want power. Donks want power.


Gee, that fits so well too. No wonder their message also flows together so well.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 12/13/2006 9:45 Comments || Top||


The naive idealism of the ISG "realists"
By David Limbaugh
Upon further study, what strikes me most about the Iraq Study Group report (ISGR) is its profound naivete. The group could better identify its operative philosophy as "unrealism," rather than realism.

The modern form of foreign policy "realism" emerged, according to "The Oxford Companion to Politics of the World," in reaction to "idealism," an "approach which held that countries were united in an underlying harmony of interest -- a view shattered by the outbreak of World War II." But there's more:

Continued on Page 49
Posted by: .com || 12/13/2006 01:41 || Comments || Link || [9 views] Top|| File under:

#1  One columnist tries to make sense of Middle East dynamics:

http://newsbyus.com/more.php?id=6337_0_1_0_M
Posted by: Sneaze Shaiting3550 || 12/13/2006 2:26 Comments || Top||

#2  No idealism at all. Baker and his law firm bit down on the Saudi tit years ago, and I believe others are likewise owned. They are singing their masters song, no more, no less. A less naive or idealistic bunch would be hard to imagine.
Posted by: Grunter || 12/13/2006 3:02 Comments || Top||

#3  The Saud king snaps his finger and demands the US President come to Arabia so he can be given the facts of life. So as to be a bit obtuse, they sent Cheney. All arranged thru Pappy Bush, who's been on the Saudi payroll bigtime for years.
Posted by: SpecOp35 || 12/13/2006 11:46 Comments || Top||

#4  DEFENCE-UPDATE.com > POST-IRAN, ARE ARAB UNCLEAR EFFORTS UNDERWAY; + THEAUSTRALIAN.com > ALAN GOLD: MOUD HAS MORE THAN ISRAEL IN HIS SIGHTS, In sum, NUKES = GLOBAL SHIA ASCENDANCY.

See also ASIA TIMES for various Iran + China articles - e.g. ATTACKING IRAN commentaries/OP-Eds: How To lose an ARMY + LEG, i.e. Radical Islamists need to start attacking US Rear echelon SUPPLY/LOGISTICS chains. Let US POLITIX do the rest [Help your friendly local neighborhood Motherly Commie Airborne, INVADERS = UNO UNIFUS PEACEKEEPERS, by cutting off 140,000 +/- US troops in ME].
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 12/13/2006 23:04 Comments || Top||


International-UN-NGOs
NRO Symposium: Annan's Legacy
h/t PowerLine: Today a symposium, tomorrow a footnote. Lol.
Posted by: .com || 12/13/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Personally, Annan is nothing. It's the ideology underlying the UN which is the real culprit.
Posted by: gromgoru || 12/13/2006 0:56 Comments || Top||


Iowahawk: Kofi Talk
h/t LGF. Iowahawk doing his thing - and there's no one quite like him, lol.
Posted by: .com || 12/13/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:



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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.

Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.

Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has dominated Mexico for six years.
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Meet the Mods
In no particular order...
Steve White
Seafarious
tu3031
badanov
sherry
ryuge
GolfBravoUSMC
Bright Pebbles
trailing wife
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Fred
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Two weeks of WOT
Wed 2006-12-13
  Arab League seeks end to Leb crisis
Tue 2006-12-12
  Hamas gunnies kill three little sons of Abbas aide in Gaza
Mon 2006-12-11
  Talabani lashes out at 'dangerous' Baker report
Sun 2006-12-10
  Lahoud refuses to endorse Hariri tribunal accord
Sat 2006-12-09
  Chicago jihad boy nabbed in grenade plot
Fri 2006-12-08
  Olmert vows to do nothing ''show restraint'' in face of Kassams
Thu 2006-12-07
  Soddy forces, gunnies shoot it out
Wed 2006-12-06
  Sudan rejects U.N. compromise deal on Darfur
Tue 2006-12-05
  Talibs "repel" Brit assault
Mon 2006-12-04
  Bolton to resign
Sun 2006-12-03
  First blood drawn in Beirut
Sat 2006-12-02
  Hezbers begin campaign to force Siniora out
Fri 2006-12-01
  Hundreds killed, wounded in south Sudan clashes
Thu 2006-11-30
  'Israel losing patience over truce violations'
Wed 2006-11-29
  Kashmir bad boyz offer conditional hudna


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