Bitter and Clingy Bleg [Bumped]

Bumped to the top.

The M&P Compact isn't the only handgun I've got out on loan. Here's a stock picture of the very nice J-frame 637 CT (Crimson Trace Laser) I've been carrying. That little capsule-shaped bump at the top of the grip is the laser aiming module.

I've had some very nice items loaned to me in recent weeks for a long-term story I'm developing, including this one.

Nice, isn't it?

The only downside of this project is that while I've found the shooting industry to be very gracious and giving, there are still some out-of-pocket expenses involved, and finances are a bit tight right now as we adjust to the new baby, as you might expect.

If you can chip in a couple of bucks, I'd greatly appreciate it, and if you can't that's cool, too.

The Men in His Life

Father Michael Pfleger, lynching advocate and 22-year friend and mentor to Barack Obama, found his testimonial whitewashed from the official Presidential campaign website by Monday, even before his latest rant against Hillary Clinton and white entitlement before Obama's long-time and current congregation at Trinity United Church of Christ.

Predictably, as he always does when one of his associates is revealed as a radical, Obama feigned shock proclaimed his disappointment. Pfleger apologized.

Both men would like for you to think that this kind of outburst was unexpected and rare, but it seems that public radicalism has characterized Pfleger's entire career, and perhaps drew the men together to when Obama met Pfleger for the first time more than 20 years ago.

Michael Pfleger is just one of the men who have helped mold the man who is now the presumptive Democratic nominee. Hiding behind a cool facade and rigidly-enforced message discipline is a candidate who has had his philosophies and ideals forged around men who have roots in fomenting race-hatred and hard-left political ideologies.

Barack Obama, Sr. abandoned his son when he was a toddler and only met with him once more before dying in 1982. Obama Sr. first married to a woman named Kezia in a tribal ceremony and never divorced her. Senior left a pregnant Kezia in Kenya with and infant soon to enrolled at the University of Hawaii on an academic scholarship. It was there he took his second wife, Ann Dunham, who did not know he was already married. Barack Hussein Obama, Junior was born six months later. Senior left his second wife and son when he was admitted to Harvard, and divorced Dunham in 1963. Senior returned to Kenya with another American woman he met at Harvard and joined the Kenyan Ministry of Transportation as an economist, writing a paper Problems Facing Our Socialism that advocated 100% taxation. This aligned him with Kenyan communists, and alienated him from the sitting government, and effectively torpedoed his career.

Frank Marshall Davis was a member of the Communist Party USA, mentored Obama during his high school years, and was alleged to be his role model as a black man when few others were around to make an impression, as Obama was only one of three black students at his school as he was being raised in the home of his white grandparents. Obama wrote admiringly of Davis in Dreams from my Father. A poet, Davis' poems "Smash-on, victory-eating Red Army" and "Christ is a Dixie Ni__er" which dismissed Jesus as " another New White Hope" probably wouldn't endear Davis to too many of Obama's supporters of any race.

Reverend Jeremiah Wright came into Obama's life after the future senator graduated Columbia and became a community organizer, railing against the Reagan Presidency, "where Reagan and his minions were carrying on their dirty deeds."

Wright led Trinity United Church of Christ, a church dedicated to Black Liberation Theology, a toxic mix of Marxism and Black Nationalism based upon the work of James Cone, who claimed in Black Power and Black Theology (via Say Anything):

Black theology refuses to accept a God who is not identified totally with the goals of the black community. If God is not for us and against white people, then he is a murderer, and we had better kill him. The task of black theology is to kill Gods who do not belong to the black community. . . . Black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy. What we need is the divine love as expressed in Black Power, which is the power of black people to destroy their oppressors here and now by any means at their disposal. Unless God is participating in this holy activity, we must reject his love.

Wright's sermon "The Audacity of Hope" which stated that we live in a society "where white folks greed runs a world in need" inspired Obama's second book, using that same title.

Wright's racism, paranoia, and conspiracy theorizing, including his most recent outbursts that finally forced Obama to repudiate his pastor after doggedly following his teaching as a member of Wright's congregation for 20 years, are well-documented and mercifully do not need to be repeated. What is not as well know is that while Obama has distanced himself from Wright, he has not renounced membership in the radical church Wright grew and lorded over until his recent retirement.

Lest you begin to think Barack Obama sought guidance merely from men consumed by a love of radical political ideologies driven by race hatred comes Bill Ayers, who proves that Obama's fascination with radical and sometimes violent political ideologies is color blind.

Ayers is well known as an unreformed domestic terrorist, who was part of the Weather Underground, a radical leftist group that bombed American government buildings, targeted a soldiers' dance for a mass-murder (before Ayer's then-girlfriend Diana Oughton blew herself and other Weathermen up while making pipe bombs for the attack), and which later killed police during an infamous armored car robbery along with members of the Black Liberation Army.

Obama kicked off his political career at Ayer's home, and served with Ayers as a member of the ultra-liberal Woods Fund. Ayers has also served with Obama on numerous panels and they knew each other in social circles. Before he became a debilitating factor in Obama's presidential campaign, Ayers was said to be regarded as a friend of Obama, according to his campaign staff.

By comparison, Father Michael Pfleger, while a frothing radical in any other company, actually looks sedate compared to other men who have helped shape and mold Barack Obama.

There are other men in the freshman Senator's life who have no doubt had a far more benign influence on who he has become, but one is forced to wonder what kind of radicalism floats through Obama's mind, based upon the company he's kept.

Calcified

John McCain may be the older of the two, but Barack Obama is the candidate hopelessly lost in the past.

McCaffrey Rips Times for "Dishonorable" Innuendo

The lefty blogosphere and some of the more unhinged Democrats in Congress have worked themselves into a lather over claims made in a New York Times article, Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon's Hidden Hand, which claimed that the Department of Defense was using retired military officers hired by news agencies as military analysts to spread propaganda.

The most "ethical Congress ever^TM," never missing a chance to launch a politically-charged investigation if it could somehow be blamed on the military or Republicans, sent letters to some of the military analysts, essentially asking them if they were shills for the Administration.

General Barry R. McCaffrey (ret.) responded in no uncertain terms.

Here's a taste:

If you want to read the rest, Michael Yon has the exclusive.

Yon: The Buck Stops

The story of the misleading DC Metro memo issued by the Department of Defense continues as Michael Yon digs into the authenticity of the memo's origins and skewers a critic in the process.

Marine Removed From Duty For Proselytizing in Fallujah

From Multi-National Force – West PAO, via email:

CAMP FALLUJAH, Iraq – A Coalition force service member was removed from his duties today amid concerns from Fallujah's citizens regarding reports of inappropriate conduct.

Multi-National Force - West initiated an investigation into reports that a coin with a Bible verse written in Arabic was distributed to Iraqi citizens as they passed through a Fallujah entry control point. If the allegation is substantiated, appropriate action will be taken.

"Regulations prohibit members of the coalition force from proselytizing any religion, faith or practices," said Col. Bill Buckner, MNC-I spokesman, "and our troops are trained on those guidelines before they deploy."

"This has our full attention," said Col. James L. Welsh, chief of staff, Multi-National Force - West. "We deeply value our relationship with the local citizens and share their concerns over this serious incident."

This was reported earlier today by McClatchy, but quite frankly, when a news organization runs items under the tagline "truth to power," by an author also published by al Jazeera, I like to get confirmation first. I've got a request in for more details on this, and will update again if they have additional information.

Pelosi: Surge Failed, Iran Rules Iraq

The special kind of delusion it takes to believe that Iraq was irretrievably lost in 2006 is still alive and well and in positions of leadership in the Democratic Party.

Speaking with the San Francisco Chronicle, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi insisted that the surge failed, and insists that if there is any progress, it is because Iran allowed it.

Well, the purpose of the surge was to provide a secure space, a time for the political change to occur to accomplish the reconciliation. That didn't happen. Whatever the military success, and progress that may have been made, the surge didn't accomplish its goal. And some of the success of the surge is that the goodwill of the Iranians-they decided in Basra when the fighting would end, they negotiated that cessation of hostilities-the Iranians.

Cue the flaming skull.

Pelosi's needful delusions means that dictator-loving, Jew-hating 9/11 conspiracy-theorist Cindy Sheehan is not the most insane candidate vying for California's Eight District House seat.

Another Obama Preacher Problem

I emailed Allahpundit yesterday, wondering why Barack Obama's favorite lynching advocate priest and spiritual mentor of 22 years quietly saw his endorsement drop away from the faith testimonials page at barackobama.com.

As you may remember, Father Michael Pfleger has a history as a radical leftist, and the long-time friend of Obama, Jeremiah Wright, and Louis Farrakhan once called for a local gun shop owner to be dragged into the street by an angry mob and "snuffed out."

That outburst didn't get him removed from Barack's list of supporters, but Allahpundit thinks that he may have found the rant that did.

Does Barack Obama know any sane people?

And while we're on the subject: Why is Barack Obama still a member of this church? Why does he expose his children to such hatred by calling this congregation home?

Moon: Operative Word in Iraq is "Hope." Obama: Let's Change That.

Despite their best intentions and willing accomplices in some press outlets, Democrats have apparently been unable to convince the international community that time stopped in Iraq in 2006.

"Notable progress" has been made in Iraq despite persistent problems, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Thursday at an international summit to promote peace in the violence-wracked country.

"If we were asked to use just one word to describe the situation in Iraq today, I would choose the word 'hope,'" Ban said at the Stockholm, Sweden, conference. "Iraq is stepping back from the abyss that we feared most."

Barack Obama, of course, refuses to see any signs of progress in Iraq as a matter of policy and self-interest. His campaign is wedded to the leftmost fringe of the Democratic Party, who insist that failure is the only acceptable opinion in Iraq. The freshman senator from Illinois still publicly advocates headlong retreat from Iraq within 16 months of taking office if elected, and will not be swayed by stark warnings from international experts and regional governments that such a retreat would reverse all the gains paid for by coalition casualties, and perhaps trigger events as severe as a regional war that would impact energy markets and economies globally.

Right now, the greatest threat to Iraq's future isn't Iran, militants, or sectarian divides, but an inexperienced defeatist from Chicago.

NC Dem Offers Forced Servitude to "Honor" Slain Students

What could possibly go wrong?

Students in North Carolina's private and public colleges would be required to mentor public school-age children to receive a bachelor's degree after 2012, under a bill filed this week.

Sen. Tony Rand, D-Cumberland, named the proposed community service program in memory of two college students who were shot to death earlier this year – Eve Carson, the student body president at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Abhijit Mahato, a Duke University graduate student.

The bill would require any student seeking a bachelor's degree to spend 20 hours per semester mentoring and tutoring a public school-age child. The bill doesn't specify for how many semesters the mentoring would be required.

It makes perfect sense, doesn't it?

Two college students were murdered by street thugs who were drop-outs, so Rand's obvious reaction is to force more college students to spend time with failing students that come from similar environments as the killers.

If Rand wanted to actually do some good, perhaps he could get on board with organizations pushing for allowing CCH holders to carry on college campuses, instead of providing a victim delivery service.

Stay Classy, Google

They can't be bothered to post a simple tribute to fallen servicemen who fought for the freedoms they enjoy, but find the time to post about a rather pointless accomplishment by a mountaineering New Zealander and his Sherpa guide.

If they find out that Hillary didn't dodge conscription and was a RNZAF navigator during World War II, will they end his tribute as well?

Just the Facts, Sam

Would someone please provide ABC News' Sam Donaldson with some facts?

It is perhaps progress in this commentary piece for a journalist to admit that Obama needs schooling— I do find it amusing that he refers to McCain as "the professor" and Obama as "his callow student"—but he grossly overestimates the size of al Sadr's faltering organization by an enormous amount, while downplaying Madhi Army defeats at the hands of the Iraqi security forces in recent weeks.

Iraq will almost certainly be one of the central issues in November -- if McCain is lucky it will remain relatively calm with casualties relatively low. But there is a wildcard named Moqtada al-Sadr, the 34-year-old Shiite leader of a 2 million man army.

When the surge began, al-Sadr instructed his army to lie low. Why fight an increased American force? But we all saw what happened a few weeks ago when al-Sadr loosed his men in Bashra and Bagdad -- violence flared, casualties spiked -- before calling another truce.

I'd like for Mr. Donaldson to explain where he got a figure of 2 million for the collection of neighborhood militias, street gangs, and "special groups" that make up the JAM (Jaish al Mahdi). Most estimates of the group have not put numbers larger than roughly 60,000 strong at any point in the conflict, and present numbers are said to be in rapid decline even now because of their growing unpopularity among Iraqi Shia.

I'd also like Donaldson to justify his dishonest portrayal of events in Basra and Baghdad. In both cities the Madhi Army suffered horrific losses at the hands of Iraqi security forces before suing for peace out of a sense of self preservation, and in both cities, Iraqi soldiers and police continued to relentlessly push into neighborhoods formerly dominated by Madhi Army thugs event after these "treaties" were agreed upon. In Basra, Iraqi government forces now rule virtually uncontested as they continue to carry out targeted strikes against wanted members of the Madhi Army. GoI security forces entered Sadr City with an unexpectedly large number of soldiers equipped with heavy armor, surprising the militiamen, who have yet to formulate a response.

Donaldson is obviously as much an Obama cheerleader as he is a journalist, but his 37-years in the business don't give him the right to make up his own reality.

Stick the facts, Sam. One Dan Rather at a time is enough.

Most Ethical Congress Ever Rides Again

With stories like this popping up with disturbing frequency, no wonder Congress has such dismal approval ratings.

Always Back a Winner

If the Iraq War is "lost" as journalists, politicians, and other Democrats continue to shrilly insist, then why is the Iraqi military choosing American weapons?

It isn't because American M16s are better than AK-47s for the needs of the Iraqi military (they aren't), but because Iraqis are impressed by American soldiers and want to emulate them.

Do you think they would be so eager to adapt our gear if we were losing?

Me neither.

The Problem of Having Your Work Misrepresented in the Village Voice...

...is that so few people read it that you're unlikely to see enough web traffic from them to know they've even brought up your name.

That they got the facts wrong is almost irrelevant, but amusing.

Barack's Imaginary Uncle, Bad Memory, or Bad Reporting?

So Barack Obama's uncle helped Patton's 3rd Army liberate the concentration camp at Auschwitz, which is a neat trick, considering that the 3rd Army never made it into southern Poland. It was instead Russians that liberated the camp, and if that wasn't embarrassing enough for the rookie Senator, his mother was an only child.

Still going on the assumption that his material grandparents knew how many children they have, it would seem apparent that his Kenyan father's side must have provided the uncle that helped liberate the camp, or Obama was lying on Memorial Day about his family's military service. Could he really be that dumb?

Something has to be off here... there is no way he would simply create an uncle. If his mother was an only child, then the uncle wold have to be on his father's side, but I somewhat doubt that Kenyan Luo tribesmen left Africa, and served in either the 3rd U.S. Army under Patton or the Russian Army.

As we missing something here, or is Obama blatantly lying about his family's military sacrifices in a Memorial Day speech?

Update: Only CBS News' Maria Gavrilovic and WaPo's Karl Vick seems to have the "uncle at Auschwitz" claim, which does not appear in Obama's prepared remarks and can't be heard . Either Obama ad-libbed a line afterward and can't be in the video and the media was only working from prepared remarks (which happens more often than you'd suspect) , or Gavrilovic both implausibly made up that same claim.

Update: The Obama camp has responded, and indicates that it was not Obama's uncle (he didn't have one) but his great uncle that served in the 89th Infantry Division, and the camp he was part of liberating was not Auschwitz in southern Poland, but Ohrdruf, part of the Buchenwald camp system, in central Germany, which was liberated four months later.

The Washington Post isn't impressed, and for good reason. It wasn't a "lie". He just didn't get any of the truth right.

Dumber Than Bush, Dumber Than Quayle

I pretty much ignored political news this weekend, only to find out that the top story on Memeorandum.com this morning was of a gaffe Barack Obama made regarding Memorial Day.

On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes—and I see many of them in the audience here today—our sense of patriotism is particularly strong.

As you may imagine, "I see dead people" is a crack being used in blog posts with a great degree of derision and amusement as the freshman Senator's opponents have a field day with his chronically gaffe-prone campaign.

Obama's latest unintelligent statement behind us, Jimmie at the Sundries Shack accurately snipes:

After this campaign, I swear, I don't want to hear one more person crack wise about Dan Quayle ever again. Quayle had a couple very unfortunate gaffes and was forever painted as immature and plain old dumb.

Barack Obama, on the other hand, has enough gaffes to his credit to start a fleet of charter boats and not a single soul in the MSM has even breathed the "D" word about His Deific Changiness. His goofs are coming at a rate of a couple a week now, far more than Dan Quayle ever did and certainly more than George Bush, who has become the Golden Standard of Chimpitude to the left for his verbal advenures[sic].

He makes excellent points.

Quayle was hammered by Democrats as a vice presidential candidate in 1988 for being too inexperienced, serving just two terms in the House and one full-term in the Senate before being selected as George H.W. Bush's running mate two years into his second Senate term(versus Obama, who announced his run for President 1/3 the way through his very first Senate term).

Based upon his weak debate performance against Lloyd Bentsen and a series of frankly stupid comments he made as a candidate and vice president, Quayle was hammered an an intellectual lightweight worldwide.

When Bush '41 was diagnosed with an irregular heartbeat in 1991, the world seemed terrified:

Newspapers in France, Germany, Italy and Britain this week also puzzled over a political system that allows a man of relatively little national experience to stand next in line to the leadership of the world's most powerful nation.

In Italy, La Repubblica in Rome referred to what it called America's "cardio-constitutional crisis," and Il Giornale of Milan heard echoes of European history in Mr. Bush's situation.

In a front page editorial on Tuesday, Il Giornale said, "The invincible President becomes politically vulnerable because of his heir, just as, in the centuries of the dynasties, the absence or the frailty of a successor could undermine the most powerful of kings."

In Germany, a dispatch from Washington that appeared Tuesday in the General Anzeiger of Bonn described the American President as "the most powerful single person in the world" and noted how "carelessly" the American political system chooses its Vice President.

"Dan Quayle may grow with the position as did Harry Truman," the report said. "But the world would rather put its destiny into the hands of a man who has already proven himself."

One of the bluntest reactions came from The Financial Times of London, the bible of the city's business and banking community. In an editorial on Tuesday, the paper wrote: "Mr. Quayle was a cynical political choice in 1988 and, thankless as the Vice President's job often is, he has done little since to convince that he is qualified to serve as chief executive in his own right."

In Paris, Le Monde on Monday called Mr. Quayle "a man who inspires, rightly or wrongly, more jeers than confidence" and wondered whether Mr. Bush would now change his mind about keeping him on the Republican ticket in 1992.

And yet, for all the fear he inspired, Quayle was smart enough that he knew not to start his political career at the home of domestic terrorists who are still proud for attacking their nation, and who still harbor a fondness for cult-leading murderer Charles Manson.

Obama? He did.

Quayle didn't attend a church for two decades built upon a "religion" that is a mix of Marxism, racial identity politics, and Christianity. Obama did, and as a matter of fact, he's still a proud member of that congregation.

Quayle didn't follow a radical, racist pastor espousing conspiracy theories and hate. He didn't include among his other decades-long mentors a radical priest who espouses support for the murder of people he doesn't like. Obama? He did, only recently dropping Pfleger's endorsement from barackobama.com where it resided between endorsements from Rev. Delman Coates and "Eileen P.".

Quayle—along with most third-graders—even somehow seems to know how many states there are in the United States, something Obama hasn't yet grasped.

Barack Obama is far more prone to foolish associations and questionable statements Dan Quayle ever was, and yet has compiled more collective idiocies in just one campaign that Quayle has managed in his entire political career.

Our current President, George W. Bush, is lambasted by the political left for a Quayle-like tendency for verbal gaffes known as Bushisms and is widely regarded by them as an idiot, (even as he has somehow outsmarted them into winning the White House twice), and yet the worst of Bush's 7+ years in office is only on par with what Obama offers up as standard fare.

The same press that excoriated Bush and Quayle for lesser offenses is giving Obama a free pass for a continuing series of verbal stumbles, stumbles that would have them tied up in knots denouncing the intelligence of Republicans. Is it because Obama is an African-American that they refuse to question his intelligence, or is it because he's a Democrat?

If the former, the media is racist; if the latter, they are biased to the point of being incompetent. Perhaps they are both. Andrew Sullivan was a Quayle apologist who is now firmly behind Obama and seemingly blind to his faults. Other members of the media are just as bad, or worse.

Don't get me wrong. Barack Obama isn't an idiot.

Barack Obama is pretty, he reads a teleprompter beautifully, and when given the time to compose a speech, he writes beautiful words as well, empty though they so often are. He just doesn't do well when forced to think on his feet, or under pressure.

By that standard, he is "dumber" than Bush, and "dumber" than Quayle, issuing forth a staccato beat of misstatements and empty platitudes when under the slightest pressure. That should not be a surprise. He's a remarkably shallow candidate with a considerable record of ducking responsibility and hard decisions in his meager legislative record, and is utterly lacking of any meaningful executive experience.

It would nice for the press to acknowledge these truths. It would be nice of the to recognize that Obama isn't the Messiah.

He isn't even a decent Brian.

Update Good Grief. Two huge gaffes in one speech?

Has anyone copyrighted the term "Obamanation" yet?

Arlington

Thrill Kill Hill

Oh no, she didn't:

Hillary Clinton today brought up the assassination of Sen. Robert Kennedy while defending her decision to stay in the race against Barack Obama.

"My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don't understand it," she said, dismissing calls to drop out.

I never thought I'd see the day that a candidate would suggest that part of the reason she's remaining in the race is the possibility of her rival being murdered.

If someone informs her that the Obama assassination myth is merely media projection against "bitter" and "clingy" Americans, will she finally go away?

Hairballs and Hellfires

In what I think is a fairly well-balanced article about the significant increase in the use of U.S. Hellfire missiles during the recent campaign against Shiite militiamen in Baghdad's Sadr City came this utterly bizarre claim:

One of Zahara's uncles, Dhia Rahi Shaie al-Koreishi, 34, a taxi driver, and her grandmother, Um Fadhil al-Koreishi, were killed by the blast.

"The heart of this family has been ripped out," said Alaa Rahi Shaie, 29, another uncle, who was stoic in describing the death of his brother. "This is his blood," he said, indicating red splotches in front of his home. "And the remains of his head are over there."

He pointed at a large mound of dirt. A group of young boys dug out the remains and then showed visitors a black bag filled with clumps of hair and scalp.

Family members and neighbors said they didn't see anyone in the area fire rockets. Two black funeral banners hung outside the battered home to honor the dead.

I'm sure some of my readers are more familiar with Muslim burial rites than I (just about anyone would be), but I've always been under the impression that Muslims were very careful to respect the dead and bury them as intact as possible shortly after their demise. Banners honoring the dead are nice. Not treating their remains like kabob scraps is nicer.

Does the claim here of the remains of Dhia Rahi Shaie al-Koreishi's head being unceremoniously dumped in a sack and buried by the family in a dirt pile where children perform ad-hoc exhumations strike anyone else as being odd, even for what we've heard of Iraq?

As for the apparent premise of the article that AGM-114M Hellfire II missiles take an inordinate number of civilian lives... well, I'm not sure what to tell you.

Hellfires are preferred for being one of the most accurate missiles currently deployed, and it has the added benefit of having a smallish explosive warhead, making it somewhat less dangerous than some other weapons systems that we could deploy.

The Post does not make any attempt to distinguish how many of the 251 Iraqis killed by Hellfire missiles were Shiite militiamen, Iranian-trained " Special Groups" operatives, and how many were real non-combatant civilians.

While the Post article was less than clear on this point, it seemed possible that Uncle brains-in-a-bag could have been one of the two men loading rockets into a vehicle who were watched for hours before being killed, and grandma might have simply had the misfortune of having her son followed home by a missile. Or they could have been innocent bystanders... we simply don't know.

We do know that the video accompanying the article shows several strikes on obviously armed fighters (including a large group caught red-handed firing rockets), with no obvious civilians nearby. Still, in urban combat civilians will always run the risk of being casualties, and we are making attempts to minimize that possibility now through tactical decisions made, and in the future via new weapons systems. The 5.3 lbs Spike missile, at just over two-feet long will hopefully provide just as much precision with less collateral fragmentation than the Hellfire in future urban conflicts.

Even then, the best advice for civilian in urban conflict areas is simple: don't stand to close militiamen and terrorists.

Getting it Right

As human beings, journalists make mistakes. We (I pretend at being one from time to time and actually get paid for it, so I have to include myself) sometimes make a lot of mistakes, or a string of mistakes.

People understand that. They get that we make mistakes—and get this—actually find us more credible when we admit just how badly we screwed up a story, as long as we explained how it happened, and make an honest effort to improve. when we bury our heads in the sand, and refuse to admit obvious mistakes or failures in our reporting, assumptions, editing, or conclusions, we hurt only ourselves.

Right, Dan?

I've been advocating that approach for quite a while now and hope I practice what I preach. At least one person believes I'm doing okay, though I know there is plenty of room for improvement.

Another person I know who constantly works to improve his work is Michael Yon. I don't think he needs much introduction to my readership, and his work as a combat journalist has always stood on its own. Yon is also big on focusing on integrity as a writer, and it is something he has harped on on his site, in interviews, on the phone, and he tells me in his book as well, which I will eventually read once somebody starts sleeping through the night.

Yon published a military memo on his site Wednesday which quickly got the attention of the online community. The sourcing was solid. It was authentic, no doubt about it.

Many bloggers, the military community, and their supporters were quickly outraged over the content of the memo, which alleged that military uniformed personnel we being targeted for verbal abuse by anti-war fanatics. Just as quickly, online anti-war activists claimed that this was false, even noting (though they phrased it differently) that they were too craven and cowardly to berate men and women that could easily beat them into pulp.

I was immediately interested by the report and posted on it, and thought it might be something interesting to follow up on in more detail.

As I did so, Yon pointed out via email that some in his comments were calling it a hoax, and asked me to pursue the story. You can ready about what I found in a post this morning at Pajamas Media.

Now, that may not sound like a big deal, but when was the last time that a journalist at one newspaper encouraged a journalist at another to follow up on his work and check for inconsistencies? How often does it even occur within the same news organization? It very well may happen. In fact, I hope it does... but we don't often see the results of such a check-up, and far to many times we see stories that are utterly false that go uncorrected—*cough*—Brian Ross—*cough*—and the same mistakes or falsehoods reiterated another day.

Yon is interested in getting it right. Perhaps if our journalistic class was more interested in getting it right instead of just getting it out while feigning perfection, the public's respect for them wouldn't be collapsing.

Welcome to the Show!

Yochi J. Dreazen posts an article titled U.S. Delays Report on Iran Arms in the Wall Street Journal, May 21:

The U.S. military, in a shift, has postponed the release of a report detailing allegations of Iranian support for Iraqi insurgents, according to people familiar with the matter.

The military had initially planned to publicize the report several weeks ago but instead turned the dossier over to the Iraqi government, these people said. The Iraqis are using the information to pressure Tehran to curb the flow of Iranian weaponry and explosives into Iraq, these people said.

Me, writing here at Confederate Yankee on May 8 in a post titled Why You Won't See the Iranian Weapons We've Captured in Iraq:

...hopes of a diplomatic solution between Iran and Iraq have forestalled the U.S. military press conference displaying captured weaponry first expected in Baghdad over a week ago.

The press conference was delayed in hopes that an Iraqi delegation to Tehran bearing evidence of Iranian weapons captured by U.S. and Iraqi forces in recent fighting could resolve the issue as a matter between the two neighboring states.

Unsurprisingly, Iran has disputed the evidence, and as a result, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has ordered a special committee to compile evidence captured by both American and Iraqi forces. Once the evidence is compiled, it is hoped that this would help inform the committee in putting forth a coherent Iraqi policy on Iranian involvement in smuggling weapons into Iraq. That policy will be presented to the Iranian government in hopes of stopping Iranian smuggling of weapons and preclude a conflict between the two nations, according to U.S. military sources. Iran and Iraq fought a war from 1980-88 that claimed approximately one million lives when Saddam Hussein ruled Iraq, and the political goals of neither Shia-dominated government would be well-served by a return to conflict.

Perhaps by June, the media will also come to my conclusion on what this means to Iranq/Iran relations, as well.

It is getting harder and harder for the media to keep up with the turn of events in Iraq. Many had been wedded to the "quagmire" theory of assumed stasis leading to assured defeat and withdrawal, a theory still coveted by most senior Democrats and the online activist left. They bitterly cling to this theory because of the amount of political capital they have invested in it, even though that theory is being directly countered by evidence mounting at a blistering pace.

Iraq is not free from terror or outside influence and will not be for years to come, but the facts are that the insurgent groups, terrorist organizations, and rogue militias in Iraq are collapsing before the onslaught of increasingly fierce and competent Iraqi security forces, civilian-provided intelligence, and gutsy civilian leadership, backed by U.S. forces. We'll leave it for the historians to decide at which point the corner was turned and victory was assured, but some things are certain.

Anyone still attempting to claim that coalition and Iraqi forces are fighting in a lost cause or a endless quagmire as of mid-May, 2008, is doing so in direct opposition to the facts on the ground.

Your only response should be wondering what they are trying to sell you, and why.

He Says, She Says: The Propaganda War Continues In Iraq

Associated Press reporter Bushra Juhi:

Two Iraqi officials said the shooting occurred about 5:30 a.m. in the Obeidi neighborhood after three roadside bombs targeted joint U.S.-Iraqi troops. But the U.S. military said its forces were not involved in any events in the area.

It was not clear who opened fire after the explosions. Eleven bystanders were killed and one person wounded, one of the police officials said. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to release the information.

AP Television News footage showed the body of a man in a track suit covered by a blue blanket and another body in a blood-spattered wooden coffin nearby.

AFP offers a near identical account also claiming 11 bystanders (innocence implied) were killed, in accounts obviously coming from the same Iraqi police sources. Insurgents and their sympathizers have routinely masqueraded as police officers throughout the war, and news outlets have dutifully published their accounts, many of which we later determined to be entirely false.

SGT Brooke N. Murphy, MNF-I PAO, responded immediately to these claims via email:

We can definitely state there was no IED attack on a U.S.-Iraqi convoy in Obeidi at dawn this a.m. That's not talking about any particular area, we do not discuss ongoing operations. I can state we specifically target those committing a violent act or about to commit a violent act.

We would warn residents against moving toward any engagement, especially
when armed. We absolutely do not target law-abiding Iraqi citizens.

So there were not 11 (innocent) bystanders killed. Who died? Anyone? As a matter of fact, yes.

Murphy then sent a breaking MNF-I release that states that 11 Iranian-backed "Special Groups" forces were killed in New Baghdad:

Multi-National Division - Baghdad Soldiers have killed 11 Special Group (SG) criminals in an ongoing operation in the New Baghdad security district in eastern Baghdad, May 21.

MND-B Soldiers observed as a special groups militant, armed with an AK-47 assault rifle, exited a sports utility vehicle. The individual scanned the area and motioned a suspicious truck forward. Then Soldiers then watched as the militants emplaced an improvised-explosive device.

They engaged the suspect with small-arms fire and killed him.

Nearby, MND-B Soldiers encountered four SG militants, who were armed with AK-47 and RPK rifles, travelling in a SUV. They engaged the vehicle and killed the four militants.

MND-B Soldiers engaged and killed another SG militant carrying a rocket-propelled grenade. At another location in New Baghdad, MND-B Soldiers noticed a SG militant armed with a modified AK-47, who was conducting reconnaissance from a vehicle in a suspicious manner. The Soldiers engaged the armed SG militant and killed him.

Nearby, MND-B Soldiers spotted a militant in an alley. The SG militant moved away from the alley, holding an AK-47 in a firing position. An MND-B Soldier engaged and killed him. Another SG militant, who was driving a tan SUV in New Baghdad, made several passes by MND-B Soldiers.

He stopped the vehicle and attempted to hand an AK-47 to his SG militant cohorts. An MND-B Soldier shot and killed him.

Who do you trust to have the story right, the anonymous media robo-calling police sources, or a named Army soldier issuing formal releases?

But They Support the Troops

Michael Yon emailed early this morning to warn me American soldiers are being given a travel warning by the federal government.

The sad part? It isn't overseas, but related to what are now only verbal assaults on the Washington, D.C. metro.

Recently, there have been local incidents in which military personnel have been verbally assaulted while commuting on the Metro. Uniformed members have been approached by individuals expressing themselves as anti-government, shouting anti-war sentiments, and using racial slurs against minorities.

It sounds like we've got a few disciples of the William Ayers/Bernadine Dohrn wing of the Democrat Party still active. Fringe leftists haven't murdered uniformed government officials since 2002 in anti-war, anti-government violence, but it is an election year, and tensions are already running high.

This isn't the kind of "hope" and "change" I think most of us expected.

5/27 Update: This one is for those authors and moderators of blog entries at the Village Voice, as they don't seem willing to correct misinformation they spread even after being contacted by both Michael Yon and myself. Despite their assertions to the contrary, I went to great lengths to correct this story, spurred on by Yon.

I not only wrote the Pajamas Media article debunking the substance of this claim; I also wrote a separate article for this very blog, though I didn't update this particular post, because at that point, this post was old news pushed well down the digital page. Perhaps I should have done so.

That doesn't excuse Edroso's laziness and unwillingness to actually read the blogs he claims to for the Voice, or for their unwillingness to publish my response to them as of 5:47 PM today.

Third Cop Found Guilty in Botched Atlanta Raid; War Contagion Probably to Blame

Arthur Tesler has been found guilty of making false statements in a case resulting from the shooting death of a 92-year-old woman during a botched Atlanta drug raid. Gregg Junnier and Jason Smith were two other officers involved in the raid who have already pled guilty to federal conspiracy charges.

Smith was profiled in a botched New York Times article claiming that veterans were responsible for a disproportionate number of violent crimes.

Expect the Times to now explain how Smith's war-related violence became contagious and affected Junnier and Tesler.

Ted Kennedy Diagnosed With Brain Tumor

The specific diagnosis has yet to be determined, but it is believed to be a malignant glioma, which could mean he has anywhere from 1-5 years to live depending on how aggressive the tumor is.

Our prayers go out to the Kennedy family.

Obama Aide: We'll meet with Any "Appropriate" Genocidally-Minded, Holocaust-Denying Iranian Leader Without Preconditions... Not Just Ahmadinejad.

Oh, I feel much better now.

File this as another reason Bush would want to strike Iran—and hard—before the end of his term.

Bush to Attack Iran Before Leaving Office

So says the Jerusalem Post, citing Army Radio, citing an anonymous Israeli government official, citing someone he says is "a senior member of the president's entourage."

Why, it's just like hearing it from Bush directly!

Responsible journalists don't run stories this poorly sourced as a rule, but exceptions are almost always made when the stories are sensational enough, and the story is something that journalists, editors, and many readers want to believe. That is why variations of this story of an impending attack on Iran have been recurring for the past couple of years, and no doubt will continue until President Bush leaves 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, at which point the same rumors will be passed down to (hopefully) President McCain.

The story repeats because elements of it ring true enough for those convinced that a military strike against against the world's foremost sponsor of terrorism and arms used to kill American soldiers since 1983 is an act of a fascist dictatorship, and also for those that have the good sense to recognize that reducing the capabilities of a rogue nuclear and asymmetrical warfare threat promising genocide as a matter of state policy is a common sense act of survival for the greater good of man.

It is quite possible that certain events before January of 2009 could trigger preemptive strikes upon Iran by the present Administration, Israel, or perhaps even both nations acting in concert. I rather doubt such rumor-mongering helps anyone, however, beyond creating full employment in Palestinian phone banks calling on behalf of the pacifist candidate Obama.

We Take Our Leash Laws Seriously

Holly Springs, NC Animal Control & BBQ. Sent in via email.

Shhh! You Aren't Supposed to Talk About It

Michelle Obama is going to be making three campaign stops in Kentucky today, but even if she says something incredibly inflammatory or depressed, her husband requests, nay, demands that only the positive be aired.

Will it work? Who knows, but one thing is certain: if he doesn't want us to talk about her, he can tell her to leave the campaign trail and go back to the Hundred Acre Wood.

Chicago. I meant Chicago.

Michael Moore: Thief

Something else to his list of descriptors.

A Fine Whine

Barack Obama has made clear today that he is running an affirmative action Presidential campaign, demanding preferential treatment from both the Republican Party and the news media as the freshman Senator runs for the White House.

The preferential treatment comes in the form of a unique entitlement: he wants his wife Michelle Obama to be able to campaign for him for president, but wants her held blameless for any controversial or newsworthy comment she makes.

Democrat Barack Obama has a message for Tennessee's Republican Party: "Lay off my wife."

Obama, his party's presidential front-runner, and his wife, Michelle, were asked in an interview aired Monday on ABC's "Good Morning America" about an online video last week by the state's GOP taking her to task for a comment some considered unpatriotic.

"The GOP, should I be the nominee, can say whatever they want to say about me, my track record," Obama said. "If they think that they're going to try to make Michelle an issue in this campaign, they should be careful because that I find unacceptable, the notion that you start attacking my wife or my family."

I'm sure—absolutely positive—that Hillary Clinton would have liked to have had the same standard applied to husband, former President Bill Clinton. His outbursts during his months on the campaign trial have done as much to hurt as help her, but she understands that when you put you spouse on the stage, you make that spouse fair game for criticism when they say or do something newsworthy.

Barack Obama wants soft and special rules, just for his campaign. I'm sorry, Barack, but it doesn't work that way. You won't get special treatment as President when you deal with the rest of the world, and you don't get special treatment campaigning for the job.

Man up, or drop out.

Huckabee Misfires Again

Mike Huckabee, the same grating "aw shucks" candidate that nearly shot members of the press on the campaign trail, shot his remaining credibility to shreds today in front of annoyed members of the National Rifle Association.

During his speech at the annual convention the following transpired, as noted by CNN:

During a speech before the National Rifle Association convention Friday afternoon in Louisville, Kentucky, former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee — who has endorsed presumptive GOP nominee John McCain — joked that an unexpected offstage noise was Democrat Barack Obama looking to avoid a gunman.

"That was Barack Obama, he just tripped off a chair, he's getting ready to speak," said the former Arkansas governor, to audience laughter. "Somebody aimed a gun at him and he dove for the floor."

Oh my word.

The dead silence from an upset crowd of responsible gun owners—many of which were legally armed—was obvious in the video. Huckabee beclowned himself, and everyone in the audience knew it.

Predictably, fringe bloggers on the left tried to make the most of Huckabee's moronic tastelessness. "smintheus" at Daily Kos lied and said "this audience laughed," a falsehood proven by the icy silence that quickly resulted in the video linked above.

Pam Spaulding helpfully notes what liberals think about gun owners, claiming, "We've already seen the yahoo vote unapologetic about the fact that they'd never vote for a black man — and plenty of them have an NRA card."

Liberals such as Spaulding would equate gun ownership with Klan membership; I hope that the millions of law-abiding Democrat gun-owning "yahoos" remember that in November.

Only one good thing came out of Huckabee's comments today... his quick exit from the national stage.

Update: Some liberals in the comments are questioning whether or not there was laughter at Huckabee's comment that "someone aimed a gun at him and he hit the floor."

The video link is above, but here's a blow by block chronology, according the the clock on the 2:19 CNN clip.

There were hundreds of people in that room. No more than a handful made any noise immediately after Huckabee made the follow-up gun comment, and they were silent within two seconds.

Timeframe, using the CNN counter:
00:00-00:50 HUCKABEE is giving an apparently good speech generating good applause from the audience
00:51 -- A loud noise is heard offstage.
00:52 -- HUCKABEE (turns and points): "That was Barack Obama. He just tripped off a chair..." Moderate chuckles from the crowd began to build.
00:58-1:00 -- HUCKABEE continued: "Somebody aimed a gun at him, and he dove for the floor." The crowd immediately starts to go quiet.
1:02 -- Crowd is DEAD SILENT. Huckabee looks out at crowd, seems to understand he really made a huge gaffe.
1:02-2:19. -- HUCKABEE rushes through the rest of the speech shown, rushing past obvious applause lines where pauses are designed.

The audience is DEAD SILENT on the CNN audio after ingesting Huckabee's comments, though I'm almost certain there was unheard murmuring not picked up by their microphones.

Obama: Hezbollah and Hamas Have "Legitimate Claims"

The U.S. needs a foreign policy that "looks at the root causes of problems and dangers." Obama compared Hezbollah to Hamas. Both need to be compelled to understand that "they're going down a blind alley with violence that weakens their legitimate claims." He knows these movements aren't going away anytime soon ("Those missiles aren't going to dissolve"), but "if they decide to shift, we're going to recognize that. That's an evolution that should be recognized."

And just what are these "legitimate claims" that Obama mentions in talking with David Brooks of the New York Times?

Is it that the existence of Israel is a catastrophe?

Democratic presidential frontrunner Sen. Barack Obama served as a paid director on the board of a nonprofit organization that granted funding to a controversial Arab group that mourns the establishment of Israel as a "catastrophe." (Obama has also reportedly spoken at fundraisers for Palestinians living in what the United Nations terms refugee camps.)

The co-founder of the Arab group, Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi, is a harsh critic of Israel who reportedly worked on behalf of the Palestine Liberation Organization when it was labeled a terror group by the State Department.

Khalidi held a fundraiser in 2000 for Obama's failed bid for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.

In 2001, the Woods Fund, a Chicago-based nonprofit that describes itself as a group helping the disadvantaged, provided a $40,000 grant to the Arab American Action Network, or AAAN, at which Khalidi's wife, Mona, serves as president. The Fund provided a second grant to AAAN for $35,000 in 2002.

Ah, the Woods Fund. Where Barak served with his domestic terrorist friend, Bill Ayers of the Weather Underground, who along with his domestic terrorist (and Charles Manson fan) wife, Bernardine Dohrn, helped kick off Obama's political career at their house.

Hamas' charter calls for the destruction of the State of Israel and its replacement with a Palestinian Islamic state, and says (in part):

"Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it."

"The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up."

"There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors."

Somehow, I don't think that is a change most Americans or Israelis can believe in.

But what about Hezbollah?

...Hezbollah's ideology is inspired by Khomeini, the original leader of the Islamic Revolution in Iran. According to "The Hezbollah Program", a document that specifies Hezbollah's ideology, Hezbollah's main goals are to fight against "western imperialism", achieve the destruction of Israel, and establish Islamic rule in Jerusalem. It also supports the transformation of Lebanon into an Islamic state in the same spirit as Iran, which Hezbollah takes as the model of an Islamic state. In addition, the party glorifies suicide bombers as martyrs. It promotes violent resistance as a means to an end and teaches that "each of us is a fighting soldier". This ideology—which includes anti-Semitic, anti-western and anti-democratic dogma—is indoctrinated in Hezbollah's schools and kindergartens, which are free for all of Hezbollah's Shi'a supporters.

I'd really like to know what is legitimate about the claims two terrorist organizations dedicated to the obliteration of Israel in the eyes of Barack Obama.

Please, Barack... do tell.

Totten On Yon

I don't think they could possibly find someone more qualified to review Michael Yon's Moment of Truth in Iraq than Michael Totten, another independent journalist who has spent and extensive amount of time in the Middle East, including Iraq.

Read Totten's review The Real Iraq, and if you haven't yet read Yon's book, or would like to donate copies to your local library so that other people can, click the image above to order from Amazon.com.

I'd note that both Yon and Totten are independent journalists, and traveling to and through combat zones to bring you stories the media won't tell is both expensive and dangerous, so please consider contributing at their sites, Michael Totten, and Michael Yon.

Up Close and Personal with an EFP

You've heard of EFPs (Explosively-formed penetrators or projectiles), a kind of IED, being used against American armored vehicles.

Very few people outside of the military have seen the results of an EFP strike in detail. Thanks to confidential sources inside Iraq, I have relatively rare photos of an EFP strike in my post at Pajamas Media, How Iran Is Killing U.S. Troops in Iraq.

Bit Dog Barks

In Israel, President Bush mentioned in a speech that:

"Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along," the President said to the country's legislative body, "We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is –- the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."

Though not mentioned by President Bush, Barack Obama howled in protest:

"It is sad that President Bush would use a speech to the Knesset on the 6Oth anniversary of Israel's independence to launch a false political attack. It is time to turn the page on eight years of policies that have strengthened Iran and failed to secure America or our ally Israel. Instead of tough talk and no action, we need to do what Kennedy, Nixon and Reagan did and use all elements of American power -- including tough, principled, and direct diplomacy - to pressure countries like Iran and Syria. George Bush knows that I have never supported engagement with terrorists, and the President's extraordinary politicization of foreign policy and the politics of fear do nothing to secure the American people or our stalwart ally Israel."

The White House went on to state that they were not talking about Obama, but as the saying goes, "it's the bit dog that barks loudest." Barack Obama recognized his own weakness in Bush's speech, even though Bush never mentioned him.

Perhaps we'd all find Barack's stance against meeting with terrorists a lot more sincere if he wasn't friends with several, kicking off his political career at their house.

Update: Heh. Obama, sweetie, calm down.

John McCain: Commander in Chief of the Israeli Military?

In a story on the L.A. Times blog Top of the Ticket about John McCain's new position that he thinks American combat troops will be out of Iraq by 2013, the Times includes this photo.

Pardon me for asking, but at what point did American Presidents command Israeli solders?

Obama: "Hold On One Second, Sweetie"

Here's the video:

I don't object to the word "Sweetie"... when addressing a female child, or as a term of endearment with a relative or close friend. Using it condescendingly here as Obama did here in addressing a grown, professional woman is demeaning, and the reporter he called "Sweetie" is obviously steamed at the dismissive slight.

At The Politico Ben Smith has more on the story, and the comment thread there is certainly illuminating. Obama supporters on the site attack Smith, Hillary Clinton, and even the reporter for reporting the slight, instead of admitting that Obama went out of bounds.

The video says something about Obama's character, but the Politico comments are even more shocking in how it reveals the character of his acolytes.

The Bloodless Bullets of Baghdad

I suspect that this is less a case of "fauxtography" than a curious physiological response, but Associated Press cameraman Karim Kadim captured this photo of a Sadr City woman having a bullet removed from her forearm.

Here is an enlarged and cropped version of the photo as tweaked in PhotoShop to focus on the wound. I got as close as I could without distorting the image significantly.

As you can see, the bullet is being pulled nose first, suggesting that it penetrated though the outside of the woman's arm and passed through the interosseous membrane between the ulna and radius to stop at some point on the inside part of her forearm.

All combat rifle cartridges commonly used should have fully penetrated this woman's arm completely with a significant (and ghastly) exit wound if not impeded by either hitting a barrier of some sort, or coming from an extreme distance away. I'd love to see a higher resolution version of this photo to see if we could determine what kind of rifle cartridge this was.

Whatever the bullet is, I'm pretty sure it isn't one of these.

5/20 Update: After speaking with Associated Press resources in New York, trauma surgeons, and other resources in Iraq, this photo is confirmed as the extraction of a bullet that hit the woman in the photo after being fired from a considerable distance, and after the bullet had expended much of its energy. Additional still footage is said to exist showing the entry wound, and there is also said to be videotape of the extraction.

This was not a staged photo, just a strange physiological response to an uncommon wound.

Hussayn's Story

Despite feigned ignorance of the facts, the media knows that Muqtada's militias are being crushed, that al-Masri's terrorists are being picked off, and Iraqi's of all sects, Sunni Shia and Kurd, have newfound trust in a newly-muscular Iraqi government and military.

Iraq's want peace, are are willing to destroy the belligerents among themselves if it leads to a prosperous future. Here is one Iraqi's story.

More, please.

Gripes of Wrath

Liberal bloggers and journalists put their inability to focus on substantive issues on display yesterday along with a blind hatred for President Bush, thanks to a catalytic interview yesterday by Mike Allen of The Politico and Yahoo News.

The interview was entitled "Bush warns of Iraq disaster," and in it, President Bush warned of the regional consequences of the kind of a premature, headlong retreat from Iraq. Such a retreat is favored by Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama, who has pledged to withdraw American forces in 16 months.

Such a withdrawal window is not logistically feasible without abandoning costly American military equipment and supplies, and the cost of destabilizing Iraq's security is feared as a threat by every country in the region, and cannot be overemphasized.

Iraqis fear a return to sectarian conflict that may rapidly escalate into the genocide of hundred of thousands and the displacement of millions if their nation collapses due to a too-quick, timetable-based American withdrawal such as the one Obama has repeatedly promised.

Turkey fears an attempt by Iraqi Kurds to form their own country in the wake of a U.S. retreat, and would invade northern Iraq (they are already making multi-day raids, along with air and artillery strikes). Jordan, saturated with refugees only just returning to Iraq in past months due to the success of the surge, would face a new flood of Iraq refugees that would threaten the nation's economy and national security. Syria would face similar mass immigration problems, compounded by possible Turkish incursions to root out Kurdish rebels in northeastern Syria.

Saudi Arabia and Iran, already sharing sharp words over Hezbollah's actions in Lebanon, will engage in a proxy war in Iraq that many expect may erupt into an open regional war.

Such a conflict would shut down Persian Gulf shipping and drive the price of oil astronomically high (how would you like $10/gallon gasoline, or higher?), impacting financial markets worldwide, negatively impacting billions of people, with those in developing nations hardest hit.

In short, the headlong retreat promised by Barack Obama will plunge the Middle East into conflict and wreck economies worldwide, including our own. It would be, in every sense, the disaster President Bush mention in his interview.

How did liberal members of the media and bloggers react to the interview? They ignored a direct policy conflict of global importance between a sitting U.S. President and his would-be successor, in order to write grade school-level snark.

I expect very little from the media. I see they delivered.

Death of a Strawman

Hagee, we hardly knew ye:

The Rev. John Hagee -- who in some eyes threatened to become to John McCain what the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. became to Barack Obama -- has apologized for remarks that offended many Catholics.

Catholic League President Bill Donohue said in a statement today that he accepted the apology and any dispute is over.

Liberals had hoped to use Hagee as a counterbalance to Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama's minister whom the frehsman Senator was finally forced to disavow several weeks ago. Some had tried to draw parallels between the relationship between McCain and Hagee as being on par with Obama and Wright, but the charge was always far-fetched; McCain had merely political ties with Hagee, while Obama was a loyal member of Wright's congregation of 20 years, and regarded the pastor as a personal friend and mentor.

Obama has now disowned the conspiracy-theory spouting Wright, but he and his family remain at Trinity United Church of Christ, a church that is based upon Black Liberation Theology, a mostly political formulation of racial identity politics, Marxism, and Christianity. This is the same church that gave Louis Farrakhan a lifetime achievement award under Wright's leadership.

You'll note that murder-minded Reverend Michael Pfleger, a radicalized Catholic priest Obama has known even longer than Wright and a longtime supporter of Farrakhan, also makes an appearance in the video.

You can see Pfleger in a "guest rant" at Trinity United below praising Wright and Farrakhan below, much to the delight of the congregation.

GREAT: Claiming Obama's Coked Up Again

It isn't exactly a secret that Barack Obama has admitted a drug problem in his past. In "Dreams From My Father" he wrote of using both marijuana and cocaine (Though he says he passed on heroin when it was offered. Good for him).

Admitted drug use has ended many political campaigns before, but Obama's auto-biographical admission has largely been ignored by a pliant media that are "in the tank" for the first-term Illinois Senator.

Still, fellow North Carolina blogger John Hawkins went over the top in suggesting that Obama's much-mocked "57 states" gaffe was the result of the candidate wilting under the stress of the campaign, and returning to hard drugs as a result.

Honestly, my first thought was that he was so coked up that he lost track of how many states we have. Is that implausible? Not at all. This is a guy who admits that he has used cocaine and was headed towards being a junkie at one point. Could he be back at it during a stressful campaign? Sure, he could. When was the last time the guy took a drug test? Has he ever taken one?

I strongly doubt that a person seeking the Presidency and almost assured of the nomination would run the risk procuring or using drugs on the campaign trail. The risk of getting caught and ending their politician career as a result is simply too high.

In addition, the kind of person who runs for the Presidency has to be hard; if weak enough to be reduced to drug dependency while campaigning, four years in the pressures of the modern White House would literally kill them. I don't think any of the candidates in either party are that weak, even Ron Paul.

With all due respect to Mr. Hawkins, he shouldn't be accusing Obama of returning to drug use when there is no evidence to suggest he has done so.

Pound on his blatant inexperience, his Hyde Park elitism, his dangerous foreign policy, his economy-sapping domestic policies, and the massive tax increases they'll require, and expose the hornet's nest of America-hating rabble that are his friends and mentors. All of these areas are fair game.

Attacking Obama based upon an insinuation of drug use without any evidence is pushing beyond acceptable boundaries.

Obama Garners Coveted Nagin Endorsement

Democratic President candidate Barack Obama has won the endorsement of New Orleans Mayor and superdelegate Ray Nagin.

Now that the Mayor is in the first-term Senator's corner, it is recommended that any remaining Manson-obsessed domestic terrorists, angry communist mentors, assassination-inciting clergy, or other inconvenient long-time Obama supporters that he has yet to denounce purchase a snorkel.

When thrown under one of these buses, you don't want to drown.

Update: Next under the bus? Gazans for Obama.

Articles of Faith

Some folks are remarking on the creepy Obama worship occurring among otherwise presumably lucid adults, but I wouldn't worry about his deification a great deal. After all, the bar has been set rather low.

Killing The Zombie

On the morning of Saturday, May, 3, Philadelphia Police Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski was brutally shot down at close range by one of three bank robbers. Liczbinski was hit at least five times with bullets fired by a cross-dressing thug armed with a Chinese-made SKS. It was a horrific crime that left Liczbinski's wife a widow, and his three children to grow up without a father.

On Thursday, May 8, Governor Rendell sent out a press release calling for a reinstatement of the federal assault weapons ban, a 1994 law than banned the cosmetic features of various firearms, and several specific firearms by name. The features banned in the ill-fated law were insignificant to the function of these firearms, and lightly modified versions of these same guns (with the offending features removed) were already on the market by the time the law went into effect with no impact to the accuracy, rate of fire, or lethality of these weapons.

A MYTHICAL BAN
Pre-1994 TEC-9 made illegal by 1994 "Assault Weapons" ban(Left).

1994 and later AB-10 (AB mockingly meaning "after ban") AB-10 already in gun stores before the 1994 "Assault Weapons" ban became active(Right).

Functionally, both firearms are identical, with only banned "scary looking" features removed.

The Governor's press release is replete with falsehoods, inaccuracies, and embellishments, betraying a sloppiness of thought on the part of the Governor as he spoke, and on the part of his staff in compiling a press release based upon wishes, but not reality.

For starters, and perhaps ironically, the rifle used in this killing is not an assault rifle. The ownership, selling, or buying of SKS rifles such as the one used in this shooting was not outlawed under the failed 1994 federal law.

All the same, Rendell claimed:

"The firearm used to murder Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski was designed for one thing only - the death of a fellow human being," Governor Rendell said of the Chinese-made SKI assault rifle fired at the officer as he responded to a bank robbery Saturday morning. "There was no chance that his body armor could have protected him from the power of this weapon."

To be fair, the statement is partially correct. The SKS was designed to shoot at human beings when created back in 1945. The popular intermediate-powered carbine is best known, however, for its reliability and economy. It is popular in the civilian market, used as a knock-about utility rifle for plinking, wild animal control, and brush-country hunting.

Rendell is also partially correct on another point: it is unlikely that the unfortunate officer's body armor had any chance of stopping the carbine's 7.62-caliber bullets, but that result would have been the same for nearly any centerfire rifle bullet. "Bulletproof" vests worn by most police officers are not bulletproof, but are instead designed to stop moderate-velocity pistol bullets. The relative power of the cartridge used in the SKS is similar to that of the .30/30 lever-action rifle on the lower end of the rifle cartridge power scale.

Rendell could perhaps be forgiven some hyperbole due to the emotional nature of the day as he stood with members of the fallen officer's police force and the city's mayor, but only if the emotion of the day was a valid excuse.

Emotion isn't nearly a valid excuse, however for the blatant lies in Rendell's press release. The sheer scope of Governor Rendel's fabrication was magnificent to behold, completely misrepresenting not only the essential nature of a law that governed this nation for a decade, but miscasting it's subtleties as well.

In 1994, Congress banned the manufacture, transfer or possession of semiautomatic firearms and large capacity ammunition magazines, as well as the import of automatic assault weapons not already banned under law.

In that one masterstroke of a sentence, the Governor's press rewrote the entire ten-year history of failed law to make it something it never was.

Contrary to what the press release stated, however, the so-called "assault weapons" ban in the 1994 Crime Bill:

• Did not ban the manufacture of semiautomatic firearms. In fact, companies that manufacture semi-automatic firearms, such as Bushmaster and Olympic Arms thrived throughout the length of the ban, and Kahr Arms was founded as a direct result of a market created by the ban;
• Did not ban the transfer of semiautomatic firearms. Sales of semiautomatic firearms actually increased during the 1994-2004 ban.
• Did not ban the possession of semi-automatic firearms. This includes weapons defined as "assault weapons" under the ban, as long as they had been manufactured prior to the law going into effect, and tens of thousands of semi-automatic firearms made and sold during the ban;
• Did not ban the possession or sale of high capacity magazines. The manufacture of "high capacity" magazines (arbitrarily set at 10 rounds by Congress) was stopped during the ban, but magazines of up to 100-rounds manufactured prior to the ban were available for sale and ownership during the entire lifetime of the ban, and were commonly featured in sporting goods catalogs. An entirely new class of subcompact semi-automatic pistols designed for concealed carry such as the Kahr K9 and Glock 26 were developed as a direct result of the 10-round limit, with manufacturer's competing to see who could make the most compact handguns under the ten-round limit.

Rendell's press release is an example gun-grabbing revisionist history, lamenting the "loss" of a law that never existed as he described it, ignoring the ineffectually of the law during it's existence in slowing or stopping the manufacture or distribution of semi-automatic firearms, and glossing over the fact that it was responsible for the "revolution" in the handgun industry to design ever smaller and more concealable firearms.

Sadly, Governor Rendell is not alone is this alternate reality, where a long-dead and failed law is remembered as being bigger, better, and more robust now than it was during it's lifetime. The 1994 "assault weapons" ban was a "zombie" law that only became stronger after its passing. Lies about the ban's reach and effectiveness are pervasive in the media, perhaps encouraged by their own biases and ignorances, and certainly encouraged by many politicians in the Democratic Party and in dishonest gun control organizations such as the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, which I've exposed for apparently falsifying evidence before.

From ignorant local reporters to national reporters that continue to deceive readers about the ban after being corrected time and time again, to op-ed columnists that base their work more on felling than facts, to misguided and occasionally dishonest local, state, and national politicians, the power of the "zombie" ban on "assault weapons" continues as ignorance, bias, and inaccuracies breed mythology.

Let's kill this monster now.

The "Assault Weapons" ban provisions within the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 did not ban a even a single assault weapon, firearms that are capable of selective modes or fully automatic fire.

It only banned firearms that looked like military assault weapons, i.e., similar cosmetic features such as flash suppressors, threaded barrels, or bayonet lugs. These cosmetic features were removed, and the exact same firearms—minus the offending cosmetics—were back in stores and for sale before the ban went into effect, and were sold without impediment throughout the life of the ban.

So-called "high-capacity" magazines were never banned for anything other than new manufacture, and hundreds of thousands, if not millions, were available for sale in catalogs, on web sites, and in retail stores. Likewise, ownership was not banned.

It is time for those cling to the myth of the effectiveness of the so-called "assault weapons" ban to concede that this failed law never accomplished its goal. It posed no impediment to criminals when it was passed, served as only an annoyance to law-abiding citizens during the life of the ban, and actually served to increase sales in semi-automatic firearms prior to, during, and after the ban died.

The "assault weapons" ban was an unmitigated failure, and trying to bring it back from the dead won't change that fact.

Obama's Lying Roots

According to an op-ed in the New York Time called "President Apostate," Barack Hussein Obama was indeed born a Muslim:

As the son of the Muslim father, Senator Obama was born a Muslim under Muslim law as it is universally understood. It makes no difference that, as Senator Obama has written, his father said he renounced his religion. Likewise, under Muslim law based on the Koran his mother's Christian background is irrelevant.

Of course, as most Americans understand it, Senator Obama is not a Muslim. He chose to become a Christian, and indeed has written convincingly to explain how he arrived at his choice and how important his Christian faith is to him.

His conversion, however, was a crime in Muslim eyes; it is "irtidad" or "ridda," usually translated from the Arabic as "apostasy," but with connotations of rebellion and treason. Indeed, it is the worst of all crimes that a Muslim can commit, worse than murder (which the victim's family may choose to forgive).

I don't personally feel that being born to any particular religion is of any significance; Obama could have been born a Buddist or a Pastafarian for all I care. None of us chose the religion we are born into. If we want to discuss Obama's religion, then by all means ask why he chose a Marxism-tainted bastardization of Christianity when he was an adult, and why he still continues to cling to that discredited faith that is dedicated more to exploiting racial politics than worshiping God.

That choice is a far more relevant question of his suitability to represent all Americans than any mention of his simply being born to Islam.

That simply shouldn't have mattered... until, as Charles Johnson notes, the Obama campaign was caught lying about his never having been a Muslim on his own Web site:

To be clear, Senator Obama has never been a Muslim, was not raised a Muslim, and is a committed Christian who attends the United Church of Christ in Chicago. Furthermore, the Indonesian school Obama attended in Jakarta is a public school that is not and never has been a Madrassa.

That Barack Obama was born a Muslim according to Muslim tradition is a fact. That he chose to dissemble about that to America is an entirely different matter. It shows an Obama campaign that has very little faith of the ability of the American people to think for themselves.

Barack Obama may have been born a Muslim, but he chose to become a liar. To most of us, that counts far more against him.

Corners Turned

Moqtada al-Sadr, the figurehead leader of the Mahdi Army that fled to Tehran long ago, has lost Basra. It must have been heartbreaking for the New York Times to make the admission that the Iraqi Army and Police had pounded Iranian-back Shia militias and criminal gangs into submission, but give them credit; they did report it.

Iraqi and American forces continue to pound gangs and Iranian-trained and equipped "Special Groups" in the massive Baghdad slum called Sadr City. Fighting continues despite al-Sadr's impotent call for a truce, and an "anaconda strategy" of squeezing out combatants while choking off of their resupply lines continued, as a wall slicing off the southern end of the slum reached 80% completion.

In Mosul, an Iraqi-led, American-backed assault on Mosul, al Qaeda's last urban stronghold in Iraq, has begun, targeting the last significant bastions of al Qaeda and aligned insurgents in Iraq after the success of the "surge" in the Baghdad region and the Sunni civilian uprising against al Qaeda in Al Anbar over the past year.

The war in Iraq is not over, but no serious person can argue that Iraqi government forces and the coalition military forces backing them are not now dictating the terms and tempo of the conflict in Iraq. They and are imposing their will with considerable success upon areas deemed as unapproachable and lost as recently as weeks and months ago, and have won the support of the overwhelming majority of an Iraqi people tired of war and extremist ideologies.

And yet...

We still have an entire political party predicating their future success on a U.S. and Iraqi government defeat in Iraq. They abhor American soldiers with a spittle-flecked passion, find them to be thugs and criminals of the highest order, and deep down in their heart of hearts, think that American solders would torture innocent civilians and kill merely for sport, if only the watchful eyes of the media were no there to keep them in check.

They view a certain rising American politician as their only salvation in a regional conflict that vexes their very souls. They see his promises of "hope" and "change" and unconditional dialog with Nasrallah or Ahmadinejad and other regional leaders as a gateway to the kind of world they want to live in. They fear John McCain will prove to be a second George Bush.

But enough about the Iranian mullacracy.

I'm just glad we don't have Americans that act this way.

Lifelike Pictures

Subject: Barack Hussein Obama
Painted: 2008
Artist: John McCain

(h/t: Instapundit)

Obama's Double Standard

Presidential candidate with terrorist friends fires adviser friendly with terrorists:

One of Barack Obama's Middle East policy advisers disclosed today that he had held meetings with the militant Palestinian group Hamas - prompting the likely Democratic nominee to sever all links with him.

Robert Malley told The Times he had regularly been in contact with Hamas, which controls Gaza but is listed by the US State Department as a terrorist organisation. Such talks, he stressed, were related to his work for a conflict resolution think tank and had no connection with his position on Mr Obama's Middle East advisory council.

"I've never hidden the fact that in my job with the International Crisis Group I meet all kinds of people," he added.

So Barack Obama fires a campaign adviser for having contacts with Hamas for the nutty "peace" group to which he belongs.

Obama, on the other hand, kicks off his political career by attending a fundraiser in the home of a pair of well-known and infamous domestic terrorists that led a group that had targeted and in some cases killed American citizens, including off-duty soldiers and police officers. When this association is highlighted, he labels it a "distraction."

Clearly, Barack Obama has a problem with others associating with terrorists, but that moral clarity certainly slips when it is to his material benefit.

That's not change you can believe in. That's moral cowardice and craven opportunism.

h /t Ace of Spades, who notes that Hamas had endorsed Obama.

So When Will Chris Matthews Get Fired?

A Fox News staffer was fired this morning. Why? She told John McCain that she voted for him in a primary because her father was a Vietnam veteran.

I kid you not:

A 24-year-old Fox News Channel production assistant was fired this morning for something she said during the red carpet arrivals at the Time 100 Gala last night.

Insiders tell us the assistant, identified as Jennifer Locke, was on assignment with a camera crew to cover the entertainment angle of the event. When Sen. John McCain walked by, the assistant said, "I voted for you in the primary, you're going to win."

McCain was overheard saying to her, "You're not supposed to reveal that." Locke apparently continued to explain that she is the daughter of Vietnam veteran.

McCain is correct. Such disclosures are journalistically unacceptable, and Fox was right to release the staffer on those grounds.

So when is MSNBC going to step up to those same standards and dismiss Chris Matthews for his on-air announcement that Barack Obama caused a"thrill" up his leg? Is telling a candidate that you voted for him unacceptable, but blurting out a homo-erotic reaction to a candidate's speech not a level of disclosure that is forbidden, even if that disclosure is merely hyperbole making the journalist's personal attraction to the candidate equally strong? Should it matter that this is the second time Matthews has related his "man-crush" on the air?

Yes, I know better... MSNBC doesn't have journalistic standards. It would be nice, however, if they'd fake it every one in a while.

As If There Was Ever Any Doubt...

...that anti-war protesters targeting a Marine recruiting station in Berkley California are losers.

Members of the women's group began bringing placards and pink banners to the center Friday, where they are expected to rally later in the morning, armed with spells and pointy hats for a "Witches, clowns and sirens day."

"Women are coming to cast spells and do rituals and to impart wisdom to figure out how we're going to end war," Zanne Sam Joi of Bay Area Code Pink told FOXNews.com.

The group's Mother's Day week of themed protests, which included days to galvanize grannies and bring-your-daughter-to-protest, appears to have done little to boost its flagging numbers.

All those drugs taken in '68 really had an effect, didn't they?

Why You Won't See the Iranian Weapons We've Captured in Iraq

Starting over a year ago with the discovery of a new kind of roadside bomb—EFPs or explosively-formed projectiles—American commanders in Iraq began believing that Iran was supplying weapons to militants in Iraq. That belief grew as more munitions were captured, including 34 unfired rockets captured on July 12, 2007 that were said to be of Iranian origin.

In recent weeks American forces have claimed to have captured even more Iranian weapons, including those that were new, apparently manufactured in 2008. In addition, Iraqi government forces are said to have captured a significant number of weapons of suspected Iranian manufacture during military options in and around Basra over the past month. On top of the weaponry captured, recently-released information claims that Shiite militiamen were trained by Hezbollah in Iranian terrorist camps near Tehran, and that some of those militants have been captured, and have resided in U.S. military custody for several months providing valuable intelligence.

But if solid physical evidence of Iranian military interference has been captured, then why hasn't that evidence been presented to independent experts for verification? Why hasn't that material been presented to a skeptical world media, still unwilling to believe governmental claims at face value after Saddam Hussein's WMDs turned out to be ghosts?

The answer is both simple and pragmatic: hopes of a diplomatic solution between Iran and Iraq have forestalled the U.S. military press conference displaying captured weaponry first expected in Baghdad over a week ago.

The press conference was delayed in hopes that an Iraqi delegation to Tehran bearing evidence of Iranian weapons captured by U.S. and Iraqi forces in recent fighting could resolve the issue as a matter between the two neighboring states.

Unsurprisingly, Iran has disputed the evidence, and as a result, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has ordered a special committee to compile evidence captured by both American and Iraqi forces. Once the evidence is compiled, it is hoped that this would help inform the committee in putting forth a coherent Iraqi policy on Iranian involvement in smuggling weapons into Iraq. That policy will be presented to the Iranian government in hopes of stopping Iranian smuggling of weapons and preclude a conflict between the two nations, according to U.S. military sources. Iran and Iraq fought a war from 1980-88 that claimed approximately one million lives when Saddam Hussein ruled Iraq, and the political goals of neither Shia-dominated government would be well-served by a return to conflict.

Iraqi foreign minister Hoshiyar Zebari is urging Iran and the United States to rejoin stalled security talks after U.S. officials described negotiating with Iran "meaningless" without Iran stopping military interference in Iraq, and Tehran accusing the U.S. of "massacring" Iraqis as operations in Baghdad's Sadr City against Shia militias continue. The resumation of talks is presently deemed unlikely, but if the Iraqi committee completes its mission and determines that Iran has in fact been supplying training and weaponry to Shia militias presently fighting against the Iraqi military forces, the Iraqis will have a diplomatic weapon to use against Tehran that may force the Iranian government to stop its suspected supply of weaponry into Iraq, and it's training of Shia militiamen by Hezbollah terrorists and Iran's military.

The diplomatic pressure the Iraqi commission could bring to bear with it's findings could deepen divides in Iran's government between moderates and hardliners. Moderate former President Mohammad Khatami has recently made statements that some are interpreting as an admission that the current hardline regime as supplying weaponry and training to militants in Iraq and elsewhere.

Iran's weapons may be taking the lives of American and Iraqi troops in Iraq right now, but with the Iraqi government's creation of a committee to build an official Iraqi policy position on Iran's interference, Iran's weapons may turn out to be a greater diplomatic weapon for Iraq.

What's Good for the Goose...

John McCain's military record has been released after a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request was filed by the Associated Press.

It is unknown if Democratic Presidential hopeful Barack Obama will be pressured to release a similar document, listing of all of his current and former associates who have targeted the U.S. military.

What Philly Should Know

I just sent the following to David Gambacorta in response to an article he wrote that was published today in the Philadelphia Daily News about an increased call for a futile "assault weapon" ban in the wake of a police officer being killed by a burka-wearing thug armed with an SKS carbine during a bank robbery on May 3. One of the three criminals involved was killed the day of the robbery. Another was captured Sunday, and the third was captured today.

I just read In wake of Liczbinski slaying, a push for assault-weapon ban and thought I might be able to help correct some erroneous information contained within that story that I'm sure was accidental.

Mayor Nutter states:

"I don't understand how anyone can stand up and make any kind of argument or defense as to why someone should have an AK-47 or an SKS or whatever," Nutter said yesterday, while he paid tribute to fallen officers at the Living Flame Memorial in Franklin Square Park.

"These weapons . . . are for one purpose only, to maim and destroy human beings," he said. "We should have statewide legislation. The federal government has a role to play here as well."

Mayor Nutter, while obviously impassioned, is factually wrong in several respects.

The "argument or defense" for these kinds of firearms are to be read in the context of the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, which was written to insure that "we, the people" have a enumerated right to military-grade small arms suitable for militia service, to defend ourselves not only from foreign aggressors, but from rogue governments bent on enslaving the population. A simple reading of the Founding Fathers confirms this view.

The Second Amendment is not about hunting, but armed community defense by citizens. Firearms that have practical military use are more protected according to the founders principles than hunting or target guns would be. You would hope that the mayor of the city where our founding documents were created would have a better understanding about their origins and meaning.

In addition to Nutter's obvious historical ignorance, the SKS has far more uses than one, and "to maim and destroy human beings" is the function in which it is least used in this nation.

The cartridge fired by the SKS, the 7.62x39, is very similar to the .30/30 cartridge commonly chambered in lever-action rifles. Because of this fact, and because the SKS and its ammunition are far less expensive than many .30/30 rifles and the bullets they fire, they are commonly used in hunting medium-sized game such as deer at short to medium ranges. Because the ammunition for the SKS is readily purchased at reduced cost, it is also a favored centerfire "plinker" rifle useful from building familiarity with rifles, and those made in China are typically found with shortened stocks, which is often advantageous for women and smaller-framed men. It is an excellent all-purpose utility rifle.

Phil Goldsmith, who has an obvious bias as a member of an anti-gun group, is deceptive when he claims that "a weapon this destructive has no legitimate place or purpose in Pennsylvania."

As I just noted, the SKS and the cartridge it fires is similar to .30/30 rifles and is therefore certainly no more "destructive" than this and other rifle rounds of moderate power.

The SKS is far less powerful and has a shorter range than most common hunting rifle cartridges, including, but not limited to the following standard cartridges: the .270 Winchester, 7x57 Mauser, the .308 Winchester, .30-06, and all other long-action and magnum-action cartridges. Goldsmith, I will reiterate again, is being blatantly and purposefully deceptive when claiming that the relatively anemic 7.62x39 cartridge is especially dangerous when compared to other common rifle cartridges.

These are the corrected facts.

Now I'll editorialize a bit, and note that gun laws only disarm those citizens prone to following laws. As criminals by definition do not obey the law, such laws only serve to create more victims and more violence.

If you doubt this at all, you need to look no further than Washington DC and Chicago. Both cities have excessively strict gun control laws, and both have an extreme level of violent gun crime. Contrast that with other metropolitan areas where the laws are more intelligent and citizens have the right to earn concealed weapons permits, and you'll see cities with far less gun crime.

It seems paradoxical, but it really isn't.

Criminals know they can terrorize the law-abiding in cities where gun control is out of control, and that the only legally armed force (the police) are not likely to arrive until well after they've committed their crimes and escaped. Others illegally armed like themselves are unlikely to intervene on behalf of the victims and expose themselves to legal jeopardy.

Contrast that against a city such as Charlotte or Raleigh (the two cities in North Carolina with the highest population and highest number of concealed carry permits issued) and you will see far less violent crime. Criminals are unsure of who is armed, but most are smart enough to know concealed carry holders can only draw their weapons if life is at risk. As a result, we may have higher strong-arm robberies and property crime, but less gun crime. It is a pragmatic decision criminals have made to keep from dying at the hands of their potential victims.

If you truly want there to be less violence in Philadelphia, allow your citizens the freedom to defend themselves against petty tyrants both criminal and political. Once upon a time your city didn't have to be told that. Perhaps it is your turn to remind them what they once were, and could be again if the "City of Brotherly Love" only loved its citizens enough to trust them to do the right thing.

I suspect my letter will fall upon deaf ears.

Far some, particularly in liberal urban areas, attempting to legislate teh behavior of an inanimate object while at the same time ascribing to it human characteristics (typically those associated with evil or ill intent) is "logical," even as they avoid to making attempts to correct or eliminate the criminal culture responsible for the crime. Instigating firearms bans doesn't work, but it is easy and gives politicians the appearance of caring and of "doing something," even when that appearance is merely a mirage of effectiveness.

Expect Philadelphia to push an "assault weapons" ban. If passed, don't expect it to save a single life.

Huh?

CNN has an article posted this AM about the on-going misery in Myanmar resulting from the recent cyclone that devastated the Irrawaddy delta and has left as many as 100,000 dead. The country's paranoid military dictatorship is hampering aid efforts, and as a result, is no doubt adding to the number of dead and injured.

In writing about the U.S. forces in the area poised to help if the dictatorship will only allow international aid, CNN makes the following curious claim (in bold):

The U.S has also been pushing for access, pledging $3.25 million and offering to send U.S. Navy ships to the region to help relief efforts.

The U.S. military had already flown six helicopters on to a Thai airbase, as Washington awaits permission to go into the south Asian country, two senior military officials told CNN's Barbara Starr.

In addition, several C-130 cargo aircraft aboard the USS Essex, which was conducting an exercise in the region, were available for relief missions.

That is one neat trick.

Essex is a Wasp-class amphibious assault ship. It is perhaps the most capable ship class in the world when it comes to providing help in the event of coastal disasters such as hurricane and cyclones due to its onboard 600-bed hospital, large helicopter contingent with search and rescue and transport capability, and well deck that houses LCACS and LCUs capable of landing heavy supplies and vehicles directly onto the beach. Essex is capable of a lot of things... but launching and landing a C-130 is not remotely among their capabilities.

Either Essex is merely being used to haul C-130s to the region that will have to be offloaded in port before being used, or CNN drastically has their story wrong. I suspect the former over the latter but you never know.

After all... "this is CNN."

11 Months?

A woman can turn a fertilized egg into a human being in nine months. Apparently it takes longer than that to amass enough evidence to bust a weapons dealer.

A Phoenix gun store raided by federal and state officials Tuesday provided hundreds of assault rifles and other guns to violent drug cartels in Mexico, where such weapons are used in deadly confrontations between rival cartels and against law enforcement officers, officials said.

The gun store's owner, George Iknadosian, 46, was arrested following the raid, as were two Mexican brothers who authorities say recruited "straw buyers" to go into X Caliber Guns and purchase weapons that would then be trafficked to the drug cartels.

A "straw purchase" simply involved having someone who can legally purchase a gun do so knowingly for someone who can't legally purchase a gun. In this case, Iknadosian is accused of selling more that 650 AK-pattern rifles to drug cartels through buyers arranged by two legal Mexican immigrants.

Why, though, did the investigation take eleven months? Conducting a sting on a suspect dealer should take an hour at the most once the targeted dealer is known. It should be readily apparent to any honest dealer that a "strawman" purchase is underway within a few minutes, and if this account is correct, the undercover buyers even indicated the weapons would be shipped to Mexico. There is no apparent ambiguity here.

Please don't get me wrong—as someone who used to work behind the gun counter myself, I want criminal dealers put away. My concern is that during the course of the 11 months it took to develop a relatively-localized felony into a major international arms-trafficking bust, that other criminals—not officers posing as criminals— may have been able to continue to purchase firearms.

I certainly hope that this is not the case, and that the ATF wasn't once again putting lives at risk while seeking publicity and funding increases with a high profile bust.

Blogwars

Blogwars: The New Political Battleground is out if you guys are interested in reading about the roll blogs play in politics. I don't have a copy yet, but do know that I'm mentioned in it favorably, as I can tell by his recent Washington Post interview.

If the author, David Perlmutter, sounds vaguely familiar to CY readers, it is because we've linked to his work before, and he had some nice words to say about some of my work covering media claims in the Hezbollah/Israeli War of 2006.

He'll also be on The Daily Show Thursday to talk about political blogging and his book. I might just have to DVR that.

Calling It: Obama Wins N.C.

I just got off the phone with Mike Ash, Director of the Durham County Board of Elections in Durham, NC. He doesn't have any numbers as far as percentages of eligible voters making it to the polls at this point, but said several polling locations have already hit record numbers. That is as of 11:30 AM. It appears that the record turnout in early voting on Sunday is expected to continue through today.

This matters because Durham is something of a bellwether of African-American voter turn-out in North Carolina. A high African-American turnout—and it appears that is indeed occurring—makes a Clinton win impossible.

At this point, the only thing worth discussing is Obama's margin of victory here in the Tarheel State. If he wins by double-digits, he can claim to have staunched the bleeding over Crackerquiddick and the damage done to him by his pastor of 20 years, Reverend Jeremiah Wright.

If Obama only wins by 5-8 points however, it will be viewed as the sign of a faltering, damaged campaign.

Update: Turnout in Wake County has been varied, according to Wake County Board of Elections Director Cherie Poucher. There were significant lines at some precincts as polls opened this morning, while at other polling places, traffic has merely been steady. Turnout is higher than it would be for a normal primary, but it is too early to know if we're looking at record numbers. We should know more by approximately 3:00 PM.

If hinted-at trends continue, Barack Obama's victory here in North Carolina could be significant.

Hillary Blown Out?

I think Drudge's projections of a 15-point Hillary Clinton defeat here in North Carolina are a bit off the mark, but I think that it is still probably more accurate than those who are projecting a close race. There is no severe weather projected to dampen turnout, and enthusiasm for Obama is high in major population centers of the state. African-American voters coming out for Obama in droves based primarily on the color of his skin (content of his character? Yeah, Wright), and his "rock star" persona crafted early in the campaign is dominating university cultures across the state and the Volvo-driving, NPR-listening metropolitan 'burbs.

Don't expect those voting for him to be able to articulate his platform, but then, this isn't a quiz: Barack Obama will defeat Hillary Clinton here in North Carolina today handily, perhaps by 9 points, more or less.

Once More Unto the Breach: More Biased AP Reporting in Iraq

It seems to matter little whether the location is Gaza or Baghdad. If there is a way to spin a story, Associated Press reporters will find it.

Today, American forces called in an AC-130 for support when they came under fire in the Kazimiyah district of Baghdad.

The Associated Press editorializes:

The AC-130, a lethal tool used by the military since the Vietnam War, can slowly circle over a target for long periods.

Human rights groups have criticized their use in urban settings where militants may be among crowded populations of noncombatants. The four-engine gunships were also used to support the U.S. attack that took the western city of Fallujah from insurgents in November 2004.

What the Associated Press does not mention is that the modern AC-130U is the most complex aircraft weapons system on the planet, and the reason for its complexity is that the aircraft's sensors, navigation, and fire control systems are calibrated to conduct exceedingly accurate surgical strikes. It is likely because of their precision strike capabilities that the AC-130U was chosen for this mission over other available means of attack.

The Associated Press reporter attempts to recall the image of the 40-year-old Vietnam-era AC-130A and it's ability to saturate large area targets, portraying it as an indiscriminate and careless weapons system to use in an urban area... and so it is good we haven't fielded that particular model in decades.

It's a dishonest conflation of aircraft using technologies developed decades apart, but sadly emblematic of the kind of reporting we've come to expect where creating imagery is as important as reporting facts.

Barack's Willie Horton

Shankar Vedantam asks this morning in the Washington Post if Jeremiah Wright is Barack Obama's Willie Horton. If confiding ourselves strictly to the idea that only race matters, then yes, Wright is Obama's Horton, but I'm not convinced that the average American is hung up on race in 2008 nearly as much as they may have been a generation ago in the 1988 campaign.

September 11, 2001 gave Americans a new boogeyman in the back of their psychological closets to replace (or at least grab a share of) the paranoia associated with African-American felons, and that boogeyman is the terrorist.

Micahael Dukakis was destroyed when Republicans chose to focus on the fact that Willie Horton committed armed robbery and rape while on furlough. As disgusting a bigot at Jeremiah Wright is, he's no killer. No, if Barack Obama has a "Willie Horton," it is going to come in pairs, in the persons of Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn. Why?

Michael Dukakis may have supported a program that let Willie Horton out of prison, but Dukakis never went to dinner at Horton's house, served on foundations with him, appeared at conferences with him, had money raised by him, and oh yeah, had dinner at his house.

Ayers and Dohrn, a couple of well-known terrorists, have done that for Obama. Obama's own associates describe his relationship with an unrepetant pair of terrorists as "friendly."

I think that is a far more valid concern than Horton was to Dukakis, and one that may have more "legs" as well.

Was Hillary Betrayed?

Over the weekend, The Clinton campaign came under fire for a mailing that attacked Barack Obama's horrific record on guns. The ad was inaccurate—it didn't go nearly far enough in describing the number and kind of firearms Obama would like to see banned—but as Hillary's record is every bit as suspect regarding the ubiquitous and yet poorly misunderstood semi-automatic action, I can understand why should wouldn't want to undercut her own less-than-credible position.

Almost immediately after that story aired, however, Clinton came under fire for the choice of gun used in the add, a rare Mauser 66 with double-set triggers. Rifles with double-set triggers are rare in the United States, but are a feature more common in Europe. The problem was further compounded by the fact that the image was flipped to show the gun as a left-handed model, and the Mauser 66 was never released as a left-handed gun. The picture therefore portrays a gun that has never been made.

This is all very amusing for everyone but the Clinton camp, but you have to wonder if the gaffe wasn't a gaffe at all.

With literally millions of stock photos to choose from "in the wild," including hundreds of thousands of hunting rifle photos, including expensively-produced high-resolution photos that typically would be provided by manufacturers for public relations campaigns, the Clinton campaign "accidentally" ends up with a high resolution image of decades-old rare European firearm for an American political mailer, and compounds that gaffe by flipping the image so that it portrays a gun that was never built?

I'd like to know very much how that picture was selected for the mailer, who selected it, and why they chose that particular photo to mirror image.

It could very well be that the mailer is merely the perfect storm of coincidences.

Or...

Hmmm...

Last month as Michael Yon's Moment of Truth in Iraq came out, I provided links so that you guys could go to Amazon.com and buy a copy.

Buy you did.

One person bought seven copies; another bought six, another bought three, and of course most people bought a single copy for themselves. On behalf of Mike I'd like to thank you for buying what I personally feel is an important book, one that tells the truth of what is going on in Iraq far outside the range of most news organizations and pundits.

And while it's a crappy segue, Amazon is pushing their "Wireless Reading Device" (we used to call that "paper", didn't we?) to me via email, a device called Kindle that they've developed. It looks petty interesting, but I don't know much about it.

Anybody got any experience with this?

Who is going to be the brave soul to test-drive this thing and let me know if it lives up to its promise?

Bomb Detonates in Front of NC School, Moron Bombers Injured

May Day. A great day to relax, enjoy spring weather, and attempt to throw pipe bombs at schools.

Acting on an anonymous tip, Sampson County deputies found a Chevrolet minivan outside Sampson Regional Medical Center with a side window blown out and blast marks on the outside of a door, authorities said.

Inside the hospital emergency room, Martin Bryant Boyette and Julio Frentez Morales were receiving treatment for injuries from a bomb blast, authorities said. An investigation determined that the pair had made several bombs at Boyette's house, where both lived, and Morales tried to throw one out the window of the minivan on U.S. Highway 701 as they drove past Hobbton Schools, authorities said.

The bomb went off in Morales' hand, seriously injuring him, and a piece of shrapnel hit Boyette in the back of the head, authorities said.

"It's scary to think that these individuals were going to throw an explosive device out of a vehicle in front of a school," Sampson County Sheriff Jimmy Thornton said in a statement. "What were they thinking? What possible thrill could be worth potentially injuring an innocent person, especially a child?"

Follow the link, and you'll be shocked, shocked to discover that other explosives—and drugs—were found in a search of their home. Luckily this special class of moron is mercifully rare everywhere, and getting rarer day-by-day.

Silly Question I Know...

...but why was Hillary Clinton campaigning in Mexico?

Another Gaza Media Moment

Three days ago, I contacted Associated Press Director of Media Relations Paul Colford, asking him about photos taken by AP photographer Khalil Hamra, in Beit Lahiya, a town in the northern Gaza Strip, on Monday, April 28, 2008.

The caption for one Hamra photo read as follows, without a hint of uncertainty:

A Palestinian woman reacts as she stands next to a house hit by an Israeli shell that killed a mother and her four children, in Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza Strip, Monday, April 28, 2008. An Israeli tank shell slammed into a tiny Gaza Strip home on Monday, killing a Palestinian woman and four of her children as they prepared to sit down for breakfast, officials and relatives said.

I asked Mr. Colford to "please acquire the other photos Mr. Hamra shot outside that home and send them to me... I should be able to tell which account is true by the simple differences between blast signatures of HEAT rounds used by Israel tanks impacting buildings, and the kind of blast that would be consistent with the Israeli account of a gunman carrying explosives that detonated." Responding via email, Mr Colford suggested I should acquire the images somewhere else. It was a polite brush-off.

But the story told with such apparent certainty by Associated Press photographer Hamra and apparently deemed insignificant by Colford was never as certain as the media tried to make it sound.

An Israeli military inquiry into the incident has concluded that the family was indeed killed by a Palestinian militant's explosives detonating. Tank shells were not fired into the home, a fact neither side now alledges. According to the IDF, a single airborne missile was fired from a drone at a cluster of four armed militants. How small was the missile? According to these video stills from an al Jazeera story, showing the missile's impact point, quite small.

The "crater" according to al Jazeera.
A bemused civilian inspects the same missile "crater" as the reporter moves away.

Al Jazeera repeats Palestianian claims a that second missile was fired by the Israelis, but the visual evidence of the missile strike is not very convincing.

An alleged second missile "crater" outside the family home, estimated to be four inches deep.

As Noah Pollak pointed out in his Commentary story Factless in Gaza, "There is a deeper problem here:the manner in which news is gathered from Gaza, which has been inhospitable territory for western journalists for quite some time (remember what happened to Alan Johnston?). News organizations like the AP and Reuters rely, for their on-the-ground Gaza coverage, on Palestinian reporters and stringers whose objectivity and professionalism, to put it charitably, are in doubt."

Adnan Hajj was by far the most obvious example of dishonest journalism by the Palestianian media as he manipulated images he sold to Reuters, but the facts are that very essence of news reporting in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon are conducted primarily by reporters with a deep and personal interest in the stories they are reporting, often under the direction of terrorist groups that are not above "suggesting" stories and guiding media coverage with the barrel of a gun.

Internationally respected news organizations such as Reuters, AFP the Associated Press, and the BBC have proven themselves time and again to be very susceptible to being manipulated by agenda-driven journalists and photographers. Moreover, they seem not to care very much about passing along staged photos and biased information as long as it allows them to publish something. They the news organizations will likely never admit it, hating Israel is big media business, and stories alleging that Israeli military forces are killing innocent Palestinians sell very well in the global media market.

As a result, initial reporting of this incident squarely places the blame for the blast on the Israeli military, without seriously looking for any other possible cause. It is both a business decision (these kinds of stories sell) and a practical one (unbiased reporting is not allowed by militant media handlers that guide and spy upon reporters and photographers).

That armed militants were moving among civilian homes for cover is never mentioned, and their argument that "it couldn't have been our explosives, because I have some pictures of some explosives that didn't blow up right over here" is readily digested with a degree of acceptance because there is no viable alternative.

Truly, truth is not an option.