The Scriptorium

As if we thought they were going to give up and go home.

Top Usama bin Laden lieutenant Ayman Al-Zawahiri vowed in a videotape excerpt shown Monday to continue fighting the United States until its policies change.

Al-Zawahiri, bin Laden’s right-hand man, referred to the recent U.S. presidential election on the tape, shown on Al-Jazeera television. It wasn’t clear whether the video was recorded before or after the Nov. 2 vote, when President Bush was re-elected, defeating Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.

Fox News

Lest we become to comfortable and complacent, the Jerusalem Post reminds us that terrorism is still a huge threat. The next attack will probably make 911 look mild. This should encourage all of us to fight against the liberal mind-set that says being nice and not offending other nations will keep us safe.

An al-Qaida attack on the US with non-conventional weapons is virtually “inevitable,” and the organization is likely “tying up the knots” for such an attack, Yosef Bodansky, former director of the US Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday.

“All of the warnings we have today indicate that a major strike – something more horrible than anything we’ve seen before – is all but inevitable,” he said.

Bodansky, here for the second annual Jerusalem Summit, an international gathering of conservative thinkers, added that “the primary option” for the next al-Qaida attack on US soil would be one that would use weapons of mass destruction.

“I do not have a crystal ball, but this is what all the available evidence tells us, we will have a bang,” Bodansky said.

He said that al-Qaida has not carried out a second major attack on the US until now for internal psychological and ideological reasons, but after the reelection of President George W. Bush, it has gotten “the green light” to do so from leading Islamic religious luminaries, as well as from “the elites of the Arab world.”

Jerusalem Post Article

It’s time for the world to wake up and realize that the U.N. is a waste of money, and powerless to solve any global issue. While nations ignore problems and leave them to be debated in the U.N., more people die, women are raped by U.N. workers in refugee camps, and more money is stolen by the greedy dictators that make up the United Nations. Uniting the nations of the world to solve problems means you are asking dictatorships, Arab governments, and terrorist states to participate in fighting the problems they themselves create. It’s moronic to include Libya on the Human Rights commission while removing the U.S., and expect the U.N. to be anything but irrelevant.

The United Nations is failing to protect millions of people displaced by conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region and violence in other hotspots around the world, a U.N. report said Friday.

The world body’s approach to the problem of people who have fled their homes but not crossed any international borders “is still largely ad hoc and driven more by the personalities and convictions of individuals on the ground than by an institutional, systemwide agenda,” the report said.

The U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think tank, compiled the 102-page study.

Dennis McNamara, head of OCHA’s refugee division, said there is no single U.N. agency that deals with providing assistance for the 25 million internally displaced people around the world.

More than 1.8 million people are estimated to have been driven from their homes in the 21-month-old Darfur conflict.

This article brings up another question. Where are all the protestors and angry masses we heard from when Abu Graib was reported? The rape and abuse of women in Sudan by U.N. workers makes Abu Graib look like a walk in the park. Where’s the outrage? Where are the liberals demanding that those responsible be prosecuted and punished?

Associated Press Article

Here’s an update on the incident in Chile when W had to muscle his way through Chilean security guards to rescue his SS agent. It looks like there may have been an assassination plot in Chile as others feared. We should all be praying for our President’s safety.

Dr. Jack Wheeler, creator of a unique intelligence website dubbed “the oasis for rational conservatives,” features a column describing what could have turned into a deadly scenario in Chile for President Bush.

On his website, To the Point, Wheeler tells a little-known story about a conflict between Bush’s security detail and Chile’s security over the latter’s refusal to have a metal-detector at a state dinner for the president. There is speculation, Wheeler points out, that Bush-loathing Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a chum of Fidel Castro, is somehow connected to the incident.

Wheeler explains that Chilean officials attempted to block Secret Service agent Nick Trotta from protecting the president.

Writes Wheeler: “The attempt was a clear double-cross, because all security arrangements are made and agreed upon for the POTUS (President of the United States) between the Secret Service and host country security well in advance and etched in stone. The Chilean police knew and agreed that Trotta would be with the president, yet they blocked him in a complete surprise.

“Far worse than this was Chilean President Lagos’ refusal to have guests at a State Dinner go through a metal detector. No one attends a function with the POTUS, either here in the U.S. or anywhere in the world, without going through a metal detector, and this was agreed to way beforehand in Santiago. At the last moment, Lagos refuses – then cancels the dinner when the Secret Service won’t budge.”

Available only to subscribers of To the Point, Wheeler’s piece, entitled “Chavez in Chile,” goes on to explain the connection to Chavez.

“Ricardo Lagos is a left-wing anti-American socialist whose hero is Salvador Allende, who almost turned Chile over to the Soviets, and a great friend of Hugo Chavez,” Wheeler writes. “Was there a plan to slip a firearm into this dinner in Santiago and assassinate GW? No one in Washington is sure – but there is a very frightened and angry buzz of worry that there might have been.”

WorldNetDaily

The ACLU is once again telling parents what they must teach their children. Kentucky’s Boyd County school district is being forced to show a video promoting tolerance of homosexuality, or they will face a lawsuit from the Anti Christian Lawyers Union (ACLU). In this case the ACLU is going a step further and telling the school district that parents do not have a right to opt their children out of the program. They’re reasoning is that parents do not have a right to dictate what they are taught in school, and if they don’t like that they can homeschool.

Last time I checked the American public was paying for public education with our tax dollars. We do indeed have a right to say what is taught in those schools, and the ACLU has no right to tell parents what they must teach their children to believe, especially in matters of morality.

When did our public schools stop being responsible for teaching math, reading, science, and English, and become responsible for raising our children.

The American people need to start writing their Senators and demand that legislation be passed to stop the ACLU from collecting tax dollars for their law suits directed at our schools and anything else remotely religious in this country. As long as the ACLU is being reimbursed for lawyers expenses, and their anti-Christian lawyers are making a killing from suing us, they will continue to force their agenda on the rest of the country.

If administrators of Kentucky’s Boyd County school district can’t find a way to force all students to attend sexual orientation and gender identity “tolerance training,” the American Civil Liberties Union is threatening to take them to court – again.

Ten months ago, the district settled a lawsuit with the ACLU over the right of a student group, the Gay-Straight Alliance, to meet on campus. The year-long litigation strained relations in the conservative northeast portion of the state. In addition to allowing the group to meet on campus after school, district officials agreed that all students, staff and teachers would be required to receive “tolerance training.”

The agreement stipulated all would attend “mandatory anti-harassment workshops,” including the viewing of an hour-long “training” video covering sexual orientation and gender identity issues for middle and high school students.

But ten months on, one-third of Boyd County students have failed to see the video, and that has the ACLU threatening court action.

WorldNetDaily Article

Jesse Jackson is at it again. He’s claiming blacks were disenfranchised in Ohio and he plans to rally for an investigation into the election. It’s interesting that he isn’t calling for investigations in the blue states where there were also complaints of disenfranchisement. The most common complaint coming from lawyers in Ohio seems to be long lines in black neighborhoods. How does a long line qualify as disenfranchisement? I seem to remember the news covering polling places in Florida where people stood in lines for hours because they wanted to vote early. If those people can stand in lines to exercise their rights to vote, why can’t people in black neighborhoods? No one prevented those people from voting, and not making them comfortable enough while they waited to vote does not qualify as an injustice.

All Jackson stands to do by screaming voter fraud whenever his candidate doesn’t win, is damage our voting system and weaken our country. The only evidence he has to go on is hearsay from people who claim they were disenfranchised, and who are upset that their candidate didn’t win. The fact that he only cares about these complaints in Ohio, proves he doesn’t care whether an election is fair and he doesn’t care about this country. He only cares about winning and making money off of black people by convincing them they are victims. Even if blacks are not treated like second class citizens, Jackson will put them there, and then use them to line his own pockets.

ONN. Ohio News Now

On Arafat’s death certificate, France has listed his place of birth as Jerusalem when in fact Arafat was born in Egypt. I can only assume they were trying to help bolster the Palestinian’s claim to Jerusalem, or were providing the tie to Jerusalem as a way of legitimizing Arafat’s wish to be burried there. It’s always nice to have France trying to create more problems for the U.S. and Israel on the world stage.

Israel’s ambassador to France has criticized the French government for issuing a death certificate for deceased Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat stating his place of birth as Jerusalem.

“I cannot understand how the French government agreed to issue a death certificate based on false information,” ambassador Nissim Zvili told a press conference in Montpellier, AFP reported.

Municipal officials at Clamart, the suburb of Paris where Arafat died on November 11, said they issued the document on the basis of a family record book itself issued by the French foreign ministry in 1996.

Jerusalem Post

Remember how many times the Abu Ghraib abuse footage was played on network and cable news? The media thought Christmas had come early. Not only did they get to trash our military men and women, but they handed an opportunity to accuse the administration of yet another tragic blunder. As an added bonus they were able to add fuel to the fire in the Middle East, and further anger the Arab world.

Now they have a new scandal. This time the U.N. is in the spotlight for a sex abuse scandal involving at least 150 charges in the Congo. So, we can expect day after day of video footage, and a media wide condemnation of the U.N. right? Wrong. Just as the Oil for Food program has been downplayed, ignored, and glossed over, the U.N. will be spared the medias wrath once again. Two months from now we’ll be wondering what ever came of the Congo sex scandal.

The United Nations is investigating about 150 allegations of sexual abuse by U.N. civilian staff and soldiers in the Congo, some of them recorded on videotape, a senior U.N. official said on Monday.

The accusations include pedophilia, rape and prostitution, said Jane Holl Lute, an assistant secretary-general in the peacekeeping department.

Lute, an American, said there was photographic and video evidence for some of the allegations and most of the charges came to light since the spring.

“We are shining a light on this problem in order to determine its scope, and we will not stop there,” Lute told a news conference.

She did not say if 150 different people were involved but indicated some suspects committed more than one offense.

Reuters

I had no idea there were dangerous weapons in Iraq???? Curious. It seems the Marines mission in Fallujah revealed enough weapons to take over the entire country. Thank you to our Marines for coming the Iraqi’s rescue once again. I shudder to think what may have happened when elections are held in January, if these stockpiles had not been discovered and destroyed.

Arab militants and insurgents who ruled the volatile city of Falluja before a U.S.-led offensive this month had enough weapons to take over all of Iraq, Marine officers said on Wednesday.

“We found enough weapons in Falluja for the insurgency to take over the whole country,” Lieutenant Colonel Dan Wilson told a news conference at a U.S. base near the western city.

The U.S.-led invasion, which crushed foreign Muslim militants and Saddam Hussein loyalists, was designed to break the back of an insurgency based mostly in Falluja and stabilize the city ahead of elections set for January.

Associate Press

We won one battle! And even gained ourselves a new name, “Jihad Jesus Republicans”.

As part of its massive omnibus spending bill, Congress has acted to designate a disputed area in San Diego, Calif., as a national veterans memorial, a move that helps those hoping to save a 43-foot tall cross that has stood for 50 years.

The Thomas More Law Center, a law firm that has been involved in the fight to save the cross, announced yesterday that Reps. Duncan Hunter and Randy “Duke” Cunningham, both Republicans representing districts near San Diego, inserted the memorial designation in the spending bill, which passed both houses of Congress on Saturday and is expected to signed by President Bush.

Phillip Paulson is the atheist who has mounted a 15-year legal battle – with help from the American Civil Liberties Union – to remove the cross. The structure has stood on Mount Soledad for 50 years.

He told the San Diego Union-Tribune: “Jihad Jesus Republicans need to understand that the separation of church and state has kept this country from getting into religious wars. … If God was powerful, there would not be a need for the government to go in and force a religious agenda on nonbelieving citizens.”

Continue Article Here

California schools have reached a new level of stupidity. In their rush to ban Christianity and remove any evidence of its presence in history, a school district has now banned the Declaration of Independence and any writings from our founding fathers that include a reference to God or religion.

How can they not see how completely idiotic it is to prevent students from reading a document like the Declaration of Independence. Next they’ll be having book burnings to burn any books in the school library that mention God.

Dumbing down our children and graduating kids who are completely ignorant of their own history should be criminal. It’s pathetic that a kid in this country could graduate high school without knowing what the Declaration of Independence is.

My hope is that this kind of nonsense will finally wake Christians up in this country and create a backlash the schools never could have imagined. If the secularists can lobby and fight to make sure pornography remains available to kids in libraries, I think Christians can leave their pews for a bit and let them know we’re not going to allow our history books to be cleansed of our Christian history.

In a season typified by lawsuits against manger scenes, crosses and even the words “Merry Christmas,” a California case is taking the “separation of church and state” one step further – dealing with whether it’s unconstitutional to read the Declaration of Independence in public school.

Attorneys for the Alliance Defense Fund filed suit Monday against the Cupertino Union School District for prohibiting a teacher from providing supplemental handouts to students about American history because the historical documents contain some references to God and religion.

“Throwing aside all common sense, the district has chosen to censor men such as George Washington and documents like the Declaration of Independence,” said ADF Senior Counsel Gary McCaleb. “The district’s actions conflict with American beliefs and are completely unconstitutional.”

Continue Article Here

Science is giving parents more prenatal information than ever on the genetic makeup of their children. All of which could “provide great reassurance or precipitate a decision,” said Kathy Hudson, director of the Genetics and Public Policy Center at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

More than 1,000 genetic tests are available or in development that could be used to diagnose fatal diseases or even traits such as intelligence or strength.

As science progresses, ethical concerns are growing over the decisions parents make with the information they get. Some are wondering whether society should have a role in the decisions, too.

At a Senate hearing last week, several witnesses predicted a dark future in which children essentially could be designed, with children who don’t measure up simply not allowed to be born and private corporations profiting from the desires of well-to-do parents.

One Senator is considering writing legislation to preven children from being aborted simply because they may have disabilities. In response, a Senate Democrat said the legislation was just an attempt to take away women’s right to choose. That same Senator has probably supported legislation to prevent discrimination against the disabled, and now supports making sure the disabled are never born. What if that Senators parents had been able to learn from genetics tests that their he would have an obesity problem, and deciding they didn’t want to have a fat child, had aborted him.

Pro-choice Democrats need to put themselves in the position of the baby who is being destroyed. I’m sure many of them have health problems or other flaws that may have led their parents to prevent their birth.

Kansas City Star

Andy Rooney, the “60 Minutes” correspondent who turned “curmudgeon” into a job title, spoke at the Fletcher School of International Law and Diplomacy last night. Rooney offered his opinion of Christians in the U.S. He attributed voters’ reliance on religion in the recent election to ignorance. “I am an atheist,” Rooney said. “I don’t understand religion at all. I’m sure I’ll offend a lot of people by saying this, but I think it’s all nonsense.”

He went on to say Christian fundamentalism is a result of “a lack of education. They haven’t been exposed to what the world has to offer.”

There you have it. We’re all just stupid. What Rooney doesn’t understand is that Christians do know what the world has to offer. That’s why we choose Christ. An eternity in Hell just isn’t all that appealing to us.

I hope they keep up this post-election tactic though. When you call people stupid, they tend not to vote for you. And, why is it that everyone in this country thinks they have a constitutional right to not be offended, but offending Christians has become a sport?

The Tufts Daily

Our countries re-education camps (some call them schools) are working furiously to erase any religious instruction our children may receive at home, and replace it with their reletavist, humanist religion. If any of you out there have the ability to homeschool your children, keep them out of the public schools. Our homeschooled children may be the only hope this country has for a future society that still has any morals at all.

An increasing number of area school systems talk about homosexuality in their sex-education classes, a topic that Montgomery County wants to include as part of its curriculum next fall.

So far, teachers in at least six area school districts discuss “sexual variations” in their sex-education classes. Those districts are Fairfax and Arlington counties in Virginia, and Baltimore city, Prince George’s and Howard counties in Maryland. Schools in the District also talk about “sexual variations.”

[snip]

The Montgomery County Board of Education will test a newly revised curriculum for eighth- and 10th-graders in six schools next spring, after a recommendation by the Citizens Advisory Committee on Family Life and Human Development. The board will vote next summer on whether to implement the curriculum countywide next fall.
The revised curriculum also teaches that “sexual orientation is not a choice” and states as “fact” that “sex play with friends of the same gender is not uncommon during early adolescence.”

[snip]

“Some school systems actually bring condoms into classrooms, and teachers do demonstrations,” Mr. Henke said. “We weren’t real comfortable with that, so that was why we produced the video.”

The Washington Times

Americans do not believe that humans evolved, and the vast majority says that even if they evolved, God guided the process. Just 13 percent say that God was not involved. But most would not substitute the teaching of creationism for the teaching of evolution in public schools.

Support for evolution is more heavily concentrated among those with more education and among those who attend religious services rarely or not at all.

There are also differences between voters who supported Kerry and those who supported Bush: 47 percent of John Kerry’s voters think God created humans as they are now, compared with 67 percent of Bush voters.

CBS News

The frequency of these kind of attacks on religious freedom lately is truly disturbing. Teachers are again rewriting history in order to shelter children from any religious content. In an efort to eliminate Christianity in this country, our teachers and schools are willing to dumb down our children and ensure that they don’t learn the true history of our country, holidays, government institutions, and cultural heritage.

So strict are their rules against mentioning God or religion, George Washington’s Thanks Giving Day proclamation can not be read in class because Washington gave thanks to God. It’s a sad day in this country when our students can’t read the writings of our founding fathers because the religion of those founders has been banned from the public square. Unless parents are devoted to teaching their children the truth, many children will never know what freedoms they SHOULD have had in this country. They will only know that religion is bad and should not be talked about.

Read the Fox News Article Here

A small passenger plane that crashed along Beltway 8 this morning, killing all three crewmembers on board, was on its way to pick up former President Bush and fly him to Ecuador.

The plane was about to land at Hobby Airport when it crashed between Wayside and Cullen, raining down debris on drivers and closing the tollway in both directions. – Houston Chronicle

You’re not going to believe this. The Democrats at Democratic Underground are accusing W of trying to kill his Dad. These people have no shame. If these left wing nuts ever gain power it will be a truly dark day for our country. A poster at Blogs of War was able to save some of the comments before the DUmmies realized that people were watching and pulled the thread. Here’s a sampling of how deranged the conspiracy theorists on the left have gotten:

It all strikes me a very suspicious too….
A little too weird to be a coincidence.
I would bet that if anyone planned it, it was Daddy’s little boy himself. Pop gave a very nice speech at Clinton’s library opening, Bet it infuriated *, and this would have been a nice way to get even. If I ever saw a classic case of Oedipal envy, this is it.

What are the odds…

that it was getting too hard to believe that only Dems went down in plane crashes so this is to shut that rumor up?

Another innocent crew sacrifices their lives for the new fascist cause?

(OK, time for our nay saying self avowed DU pilots(?) to provide us with oceans of brain numbing plausible denial.)

Either they’ll tie it to the Iranians or they’ll tie it to some activist group on the left.Or use it as an excuse to impose martial law.

Thank God their man didn’t win this election.

The The Corner on National Review Online has a great post from Fallujah. Of course our media isn’t reporting this.

I am also a professor at a military-related institution, and my little brother is an enlisted Marine (a sniper with 1-3) in Fallujah. This weekend he called for the first time since the battle began. He informed us that a large number of the residents of Fallujah, before fleeing the battle, left blankets and bedding for the Marines and Soldiers along with notes thanking the Americans for liberating their city from the terrorists, as well as invitations to the Marines and Soldiers to sleep in their houses. I’ve yet to see a report in the media of this. Imagine that.

Additionally, he said their spirits are high, but they would certainly appreciate any “care packages” that folks in the States would care to send their way (preferably consisting of non-perishable food items, candy, deodorant, eye-drops, q-tips, toothpaste, toothbrushes, lip balm, hand/feet warmers, black/dark undershirts, underwear & socks, and non-aerosol bug spray)

It would be great if you could pass this message along to anyone interested in helping out.”

Follow the link above for info on sending packages to our marines.

Our Universities are going to drag this country farther into the sewers.

It’s a capital of “thuggery” – a “ghastly state of racism and apartheid” – and it “must be dismantled.”
A voice from America’s crackpot fringe? Actually, Dabashi is a tenured professor and department chairman at Columbia University. And his views have resonated and been echoed in other areas of the university.

Columbia is at risk of becoming a poison Ivy, some critics claim, and tensions are high.

In classrooms, teach-ins, interviews and published works, dozens of academics are said to be promoting an I-hate-Israel agenda, embracing the ugliest of Arab propaganda, and teaching that Zionism is the root of all evil in the Mideast.

In three weeks of interviews, numerous students told the Daily News they face harassment, threats and ridicule merely for defending the right of Israel to survive.

New York Daily News

Others covering this story: LGF

While the MSM is going after a marine who shot a wounded terrorist, they seem not to be bothered at all by war crimes committed by the other side. If one of our troops waved a white flag and then shot the Iraqis who trusted his surrender, the media would play a tape of this war crime several times a day for weeks. Leave it to the left to be on the wrong side of every war.

Insurgents ambushed a U.S. patrol, killing a soldier, gunned down four government employees and clashed with American troops in neighborhoods across Baghdad on Saturday. Nine Iraqis died in fighting west of the capital – another sign the insurgency remains potent despite the fall of its stronghold, Fallujah.
In Fallujah, where U.S. Marines and soldiers are still battling pockets of resistance, insurgents waved a white flag of surrender before opening fire on U.S. troops and causing casualties, Marine spokesman 1st Lt. Lyle Gilbert said Saturday without elaborating.

Associated Press Article

Now that the Palestinians have a new terrorist leader, the MSM will surely ignore his terror ties and portray this man as a statesman, just as they did Arrafat.

The new leader of the ruling Fatah movement is an al-Qaida sympathizer with close ties to such terrorist sponsors as Iran and Syria.

Farouq Qaddumi is largely unknown to the 3 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. He hasn’t stepped foot in these areas for nearly 40 years. But Qaddumi represents powerful Middle East countries, including Iran and Syria, which regard him as a means to expand their foothold in the Palestinian Authority.

For the last 30 years Qaddumi has headed the Palestinian Liberation Organization Foreign Affairs Department. He has made it clear that he sees terrorism as a strategic option for Palestinians. Born in the West Bank of Jenin and a founding member of Fatah in 1957, Qaddumi, like his late boss, Yasser Arafat, has made a career of currying favor with Mideast despots.

“Resistance is the path to reach political settlement because we do not claim we are capable of defeating the Israeli army,” Qaddumi told Hezbollah television last week.

WorldNetDaily Article

First it’s the Boy Scouts, and now it’s Christians at Air Force Academies. The U.S. Air Force is now warning Christian Cadets that they need to tone down their faith and keep it private.

A survey taken by the academy revealed that non-Christians felt offended and coerced by Christians who are open about their faith. When I hear this, I immediately think the people who are offended by Christians are very intolerant people and need to get over their dislike of Christians. The Air Force sees it differently. They’re answer to this survey is to send the Christians to tolerance training. It seems the Christians need to learn how to be more tolerant of people who are offended by their faith and their presence at the school.

The chaplain at the academy even went so far as to tell the students they could no longer have Bible studies in the dorms! When a school starts telling students they can no longer read their Bibles because it will offend someone, it’s a scary time in America.

An invite to “The Passion of the Christ” was an example given by one of the offended non-Christians. When the Passion began showing in theaters near the academy a group of Christians invited this person to go see a movie. She said being invited made her feel coerced.

Let’s look at this another way. If someone invited me to go see Fahrenheit 911, I wouldn’t want to go and I would tell them so, but I wouldn’t feel I was being coerced because they invited me. Now, if they twisted my arm behind my back and forced me to go, then I could say they coerced me.

Discrimination of this sort only gets worse unless people speak up and shine a light on it. Christians need to wake up! If we remain silent as they take away our freedoms and rights, it will only get worse.

Homosexuals make up 1% of the population, and their cause is being discussed across the country. Legislation is being passed to protect their civil rights. Christians are a majority in this country, and our civil rights and freedoms are never discussed. In fact they’re being systematically attacked and taken away. The difference is, we don’t fight for our rights and promote our cause. That has to change.

Read the Worldnet Daily article here

Sometimes it’s handy to have a president with guts.

President Bush stepped into the middle of a confrontation and pulled his lead Secret Service agent away from Chilean security officials who barred his bodyguards from entering an elegant dinner for 21 world leaders Saturday night.

Several Chilean and American agents got into a pushing and shoving match outside the cultural center where the dinner was held. The incident happened after Bush and his wife, Laura, had just posed for pictures on a red carpet with the host of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, Chilean President Ricardo Lagos and his wife, Luisa Duran.

As Bush stepped inside, Chilean agents closed ranks at the door, blocking the president’s agents from following. Stopping for more pictures, Bush noticed the fracas and turned back. He reached through the dispute and pulled his agent from the scrum and into the building.

The president, looking irritated, straightened his shirt cuffs as he went into the dinner. The incident was shown on APEC television.

“Chilean security tried to stop the president’s Secret Service from accompanying him,” said White House deputy press secretary Claire Buchan. “He told them they were with him and the issue was resolved.”

This article does an excellent job of explaining the dangers Iran poses to Israel and the U.S. It also explains why Europe is helping Iran get the bomb.

The agreement that France, Germany and Britain reached with Iran this week signals that the diplomatic option of dealing with Iran’s nuclear weapons program no longer exists. To understand why this is the case, we must look into the agreement and understand what is motivating the various parties to accede to its conditions.

The agreement stipulates that the European-3 will provide Iran with light water reactor fuel, enhanced trade relations and more nuclear reactors. In exchange, the Iranians agree that for the duration of the negotiations toward implementing the agreement – including a European push for Iranian ascension to the World Trade Organization – it will not develop centrifuges and will not enrich uranium. At the same time, the Europeans accepted Iran’s claim that it has the legal right to complete the entire nuclear fuel cycle – meaning, it has the legal right to enrich uranium. Strangely, in a separate Iranian agreement with the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency, the Iranians announced that they would cease enriching uranium effective Monday, November 22, rather than immediately. This apparently annoyed the Europeans, but it wasn’t a deal breaker.

The Weekly Standard this week explained that light water reactor fuel of the type that the Europeans have agreed to give Iran can be used to produce bomb material within nine weeks. Since the IAEA inspectors only visit Iran every three months, it would be a simple matter to divert enough light water fuel to produce a bomb between inspections. And so, the agreement itself holds the promise of direct European assistance to Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

While the Europeans were congratulating themselves for their feckless diplomacy, the Iranians were taking to the airwaves and arguing that they gave up nothing in the deal and received everything. Hamid Reza Asefi, a spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, said the suspension of nuclear activities would last only until Iran and the Europeans reached a long-term agreement. For his part, Iranian chief nuclear negotiator Hassan Rowhani said that enriching uranium is “Iran’s right, and Iran will never give up its right to enrich uranium.”

Iran’s interest in making the deal is clear. The IAEA governing board is set to meet next week to discuss Iran’s nuclear program. By agreeing to the deal with the Europeans, Iran has effectively foreclosed the option, favored by the US, of transferring Iran’s nuclear program to the UN Security Council for discussions that could lead to sanctions on Iran.

Continue Article here

This article should be a warning to anyone out there who thinks McCain would be a good Republican candidate for 2008. The Kyoto treaty is designed to ruin the U.S. economy, and is not based on science.

Recent U.S. Senate hearings into alleged global warming, chaired by Arizona Republican John McCain, were among the “most biased” that a noted climatologist has ever seen – “much less balanced than anything I saw in the Clinton administration,” he said.

Patrick J. Michaels is the author of a new book “Meltdown: The Predictable Distortion of Global Warming by Scientists, Politicians, and the Media.” He is an environmental sciences professor at the University of Virginia who believes that claims of human-caused “global warming” are scientifically unfounded.

Michaels spoke with CNSNews.com Thursday following a panel discussion sponsored by the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington, D.C., where Michaels also serves as a senior fellow in environmental studies.

“John McCain, a Republican, has probably held the most biased hearing of all,” Michaels said. McCain is a big proponent of limiting greenhouse gas emissions, which he believes are causing “global warming.” The Arizona senator also “is trying to define himself as an environmental Republican, which he is going to use to differentiate himself from his rivals for the (presidential) nomination in 2008,” according to Michaels.

Read the rest of the article here

The Dutch have figured out what liberals in America still don’t get. Allowing mosques and Muslims into your country leads to terrorism.

One of the most popular politicians in the Netherlands said Friday the country’s democracy is under threat and called for a five-year halt to non-Western immigration in the wake of the killing of a Dutch filmmaker by a suspected Muslim radical.

“We are a Dutch democratic society. We have our own norms and values,” right-wing lawmaker Geert Wilders told The Associated Press in an interview. “If you chose radical Islam you can leave, and if you don’t leave voluntarily then we will send you away. This is the only message possible.”

In his first interview with the foreign media since the slaying of filmmaker Theo van Gogh on Nov. 2, Wilders said his own life has been repeatedly threatened. He said he has begun living under state protection and has even had to stay away from his own home.

AP Article

The extended post-election public despair of disappointed Democrats has been nearly as remarkable as the Republican victory, its supposed proximate cause. Therapists, anxious to keep their couches warm, have rushed in to make up a self-serving syndrome for their clients to overcome, “Post Election Selection Trauma.”

A nice bit of marketing, that. Most important is the acronym PEST. Turn the electoral mandate of George W. Bush into a public affliction, with overtones of vermin as the root cause. Throw in a hot button word like “selection” to get to the right four letters, dredging up memories of the 2000 Florida recount and Supreme Court ruling, even at the cost of a silly redundancy like “election selection.”

The left in America loves to medicalize problems. Radical physicians define guns as a “public health problem,” after all. Making the voice of the majority into a malign source of illness adds victimization to the mix, another marketing appeal virtually irresistible to self-absorbed potential clients walking around with too much money in their pockets. The solution to losing the election is not to reflect upon the inadequacies of your political doctrine or campaign machinery, but to wallow in self-pity and spend money on a sympathetic ear and a voice ready to tell you that “doggone it, people like you.”

In fact, there is a serious psychological problem among many in the left wing camp, but the “election selection” is not the cause, but merely an occasion for its visibility.

Over the past forty years, since the civil rights struggles of the 1960s, many of those on the left have a built a set of assumptions about themselves, their role and value in society, and their personal worthiness as human beings, based heavily on the assumed virtue of their political alignment.

“I am a good person, despite my flaws, because my political intentions are virtuous,” is the approximate narrative. “I may leave a five percent tip for a single mom waitress, but because I support free day care for her kids, free medical care for her, and want to tax her mean employer, who ought to be paying her better, I am a good person.”

The liberal thus finds redemption for his sins via ideology. He can behave badly toward those less powerful and wealthy than he, and yet still be an exemplar of virtue, merely by believing in and voting for the liberal candidate.

Continue Article Here

Crushkerry.com has some good analysis on the lefts sudden change in tactics. Remember during and after the 2000 election when the liberals mantra was that Bush was an idiot and Cheney and his advisors were really running the show? It seems they’ve abandoned that approach and are now giving Bush the credit for being the brains of the operation. They now claim that his advisors are just “yes men” who tell Bush what he wants to hear and support the decisions he’s already made.

However, us red-staters are still morons and uneducated dolts. Somehow Bush, a red-stater himself, has now suddenly recovered his ability to lead, think, and make decisions. Perhaps there is hope for us fundamentalist right-wingers after all. Maybe if they keep insulting us, we’ll straighten up and vote for them in four years. NOT!

Good news from Iraq.

The top Marine officer in Iraq declared yesterday that victory in the battle of Fallujah has “broken the back” of the Iraqi insurgency, while another commander in the war on terror said Osama bin Laden is all but cut off from his terrorist operatives.
The twin statements declare success on the two main war fronts — Iraq and Afghanistan — where the U.S. military is fighting a deadly insurgency and trying to create lasting democracies.
Lt. Gen. John Sattler, who commands the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force in Iraq, told Pentagon reporters that 11 days after invading Fallujah, the one-time insurgent stronghold is secure, but not yet safe. His ground troops were carrying out a “search-and-clear phase,” he said.

The Washington Times

The end of the road may come soon for Kofi.

UN employees are expected to issue an unprecedented vote of no confidence in Secretary-General Kofi Annan, union sources say, after he pardoned the body’s top oversight official over a series of allegations.

The UN staff union, in what officials said was the first vote of its kind in the more than 50-year history of the United Nations (news – web sites), was set to approve a resolution withdrawing support for the embattled Annan and senior UN management.

Annan has been in the line of fire over a high-profile series of scandals including controversy about a UN aid programme that investigators say allowed deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein (news – web sites) to embezzle billions of dollars.

Staffers said the trigger for the no-confidence measure was an announcement this week that Annan had pardoned the UN’s top oversight official, who was facing allegations of favouritism and sexual harassment.

Associated Press Article

Every liberal’s favorite newspaper, the New York Times, has joined in the racist attack on Condi Rice. Jeff Danziger, cartoonist for the New York Times, used Butterfly McQueen’s line from “Gone With the Wind” – “I don’t know nuthin’ ’bout birthin’ babies” – to have Rice deny knowledge of the aluminum tubes at the center of the debate over the administration’s rationale for believing Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

WorldNetDaily Article

The AP reports that rebel officials and the Sudanese government committed themselves Friday to ending the 21-year civil war in southern Sudan before January, signing an agreement at a special meeting of the U.N. Security Council in Africa. Sudanese Vice President Ali Osman Taha and southern rebel leader John Garang, the main negotiators for the two sides, made a similar pledge last year that never came to fruition. But this is the first time the warring sides have put a deadline in writing before the U.N. panel.

Wow! What a stroke of genius for the Security Council to demand it in writing. The article goes on to explain that Secretary-General Kofi Annan had urged the council to issue “the strongest warning” to all forces fighting in Sudan, saying that ending the war in the south would also help halt a humanitarian catastrophe in Sudan’s western Darfur region. Ya think? If they don’t listen to that, Kofi can always issue an even stronger warning.

This paragraph from the AP article explains it all:

“Sudan’s southern civil war has pitted the Islamic government against rebels seeking greater autonomy and a greater share of the country’s wealth for the largely Christian and animist south. The conflict has left more than 2 million people dead, largely through war-induced hunger and disease.”

If the people being slaughtered were any other religion, especially Muslim, the U.N.and Nato would be way beyond debating the definition of genocide by now, and would be putting an end to the murder, rape, and torture.

John Eibner of Christian Solidarity United said in a WND Article, “The barbaric enslavement of women and children has been tolerated for far too long by the U.N. and individual member states including the United States. Inaction or empty gestures will only lead to further erosion of the U.N.’s credibility as a guarantor of the most basic human rights.”

In my opinion, the U.N. lost credibility as anything more than a debating society long ago.

The ACLU’s hostility toward Christianity is getting ridiculous. With all the problems this country has, the religion police at the ACLU spend their time monitoring abstinence promoting websites for any sign of Christian content. Their latest lawsuit comes after the thought police found a reference to God on the messageboard of a Louisiana State website. One of the posters who visited the forums posted her testimony and mentioned the word God. The site of that word on a tax payer funded website is just more than the ACLU can take, so their taking it to court. Aren’t these the same people who claim to fight for freedom of speech? Is it just me, or is it starting to feel like we’re in Saudi Arabia. Perhaps we should rename the ACLU the Ministry of Religious Affairs. We can have public floggings of those caught posting about God in messageboards.

The American Civil Liberties Union has threatened to sue the state of Louisiana because a state website promoting abstinence mentions God.

In a six-page letter, the ACLU claims the state abstinence program has violated a 2002 court settlement by invoking the name of God and quoting biblical passages on the program’s taxpayer-funded website, reported the New Orleans Times-Picayune.

The legal group says it will take the Governor’s Program on Abstinence back to federal court in 30 days if religious references are not removed from the site. Even so, the site, AbstinenceEdu.com, continues to mention God, with one personal testimony from a girl who said she thanked God after she chose not to have sex.

“We’ve been monitoring the website for a while,” Joe Cook, the executive director of the Louisiana ACLU, told the New Orleans paper. “We thoroughly researched it, and we made the determination that the GPA had not only failed to correct the errors of its ways, as pointed out two years ago in the settlement, but in fact had gone out of its way to use taxpayer money to layer religious content upon religious content.”

A spokesperson for Gov. Kathleen Blanco’s office, Roderick Hawkins, said the website was being reviewed.

“Our concern is that the site comply with the agreement and the settlement of 2002,” Hawkins told the paper. “That’s what we’re doing right now – making sure the site complies.”

On the site’s message board, one teenager poster mentioned God in her testimony:

“Virginity is something very special which we have been given by God and we can only have it once. When you give it to someone It’ll be gone and you can never get it back no matter how rich you are. I’m so thankful to God for being with me and giving me the wise choice – to abstain. I’m 15 and so proud to be a virgin and I won’t be sorry for that. I think one day my future husband’ll be very happy for the decision which I made and he’ll respect, trust me and feel secure with me.”

AbstinenceEdu.com and the governor’s program is financed with federal money.

WorldNetDaily Article

It looks like Porter Goss is going to do what’s needed doing for a long time. The CIA has had it’s hands tied behind its back for years, and we’ve become far too dependent on satellite technology in our intelligence gathering. Without human intelligence, and operatives who can infiltrate terrorist cells, we will never be able to defeat terrorism and defend against another attack. It’s good to see that Goss is not going to take the politically correct approach to cleaning up the agency.

CIA Director Porter Goss told his new chief of spy operations this week to launch a much more aggressive espionage campaign that would use undercover officers to penetrate terrorist groups and hostile governments such as North Korea and Iran, according to a senior U.S. official with direct knowledge of Goss’ plans.

The risky new strategy would be a sharp departure from the CIA’s traditional style of human intelligence, in which field officers under flimsy cover as diplomats in U.S. embassies try to recruit foreign spies and gather tips from allied intelligence services. Those methods don’t work with terror groups or in countries where the United States has no embassies, such as prewar Iraq or present-day North Korea and Iran.

USA Today Article

The Iranians are shaking in their turbans now! For the second straight year the U.N. has issued a resolution condemning human rights abuses in Iran. Apparently last years resolution didn’t work. Go figure. If this years resolution doesn’t do the trick, they’re going to get really angry and start an oil for food program in Iran. That’ll learn ‘em.

For the second straight year, the UN General Assembly’s human rights committee has passed a resolution raising concern over rights abuses committed by Iran.

The assembly’s human rights committee approved a resolution calling on Iran to carry out reforms to curb abuses ranging from suppression of media to torture and discrimination against women and minorities.

The measure was approved yesterday by a vote of 69 to 55, with 51 abstentions. It is expected to be approved by the assembly next month.

RADIO FREE EUROPE/ RADIO LIBERTY

Several cases of people voting twice have been found in Ohio, in addition to a couple thousand votes being counted twice. The fact that the article doesn’t mention who the voter fraud benefited tells me they were democrats. If Republicans had been caught double voting, the AP wouldn’t hesitate to scream it from the mountain tops. The county where votes were counted twice was also a heavily Democrat county. The Rats may not benefit from the fraud and miscounts now, but they can still ignore who committed the crime and claim the election was stolen.

Election officials in one Ohio county found that about 2,600 ballots were double-counted, and two other counties have discovered possible cases of people voting twice in the presidential election.

Prosecutors were trying to determine Wednesday whether charges should be filed against a couple in Madison County accused of voting twice. In addition, Summit County election workers investigated possible double votes found under 18 names.

In the other case, Sandusky County election officials discovered that about 2,600 ballots from nine precincts were counted twice, likely because of worker error, elections director Barb Tuckerman said.

Associated Press

As expected, new leadership and the death of Arafat is not going to put an end to the terrorism in Israel. Palestinian terrorists are collectively laughing at Abbas’ plea for an end to terrorist attacks. Islamic Jihad and Hammas do not blow themselves up because they want a peace agreement with Israel. There goal is, and always has been, to eliminate Israel from the map. As long as they know the U.N. and Europe believe Palestinian’s spontaneous combustion in markets and at bus stops is really the fault of the Jews, they will continue their campaign of death.

Islamic militant groups behind many suicide bombings dismissed on Tuesday a call from interim Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas to halt attacks in the run-up to a Jan. 9 election to replace Yasser Arafat

Abbas, who is trying to work out a deal with rival Palestinian groups on a cease-fire and possible power-sharing, resisted a call by the groups for a share of power despite their planned boycott of the Jan. 9 election.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad do not accept the presence of a Jewish state in the Middle East. They refuse to take part in governments formed as a result of agreements with Israel and say they will not participate in the election.

However, the two movements, responsible for hundreds of deadly attacks against Israelis in four years of violence, are demanding a leadership role outside the electoral process. They want a “unified leadership” that would exert influence on the Palestinian government.

Associated Press Article

The U.N. has gathered another group of “experts” to find the cause of anti-Semitism. The fact that they don’t know what the cause is may explain why they had no problem allowing oil for food money to go to Palestinian suicide bombers.

After interviewing terrorists, and a few liberal, Israel hating Jews, the “experts” concluded that anti-Semitism is caused by Jews who put too much emphasis on the Holocaust, and are too defensive about their right to a state.

Here are some excerpts from their conclusions:

In practice, it is often difficult for an anti-Zionist type of expression not to be seen as simultaneously anti-Semitic. Nevertheless, several participants maintain that it is necessary to conserve the distinction between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism, whilst defending the right to be anti-Zionist without being branded an anti-Semite and also bearing in mind that most Jews were anti-Zionists before 1935. . . .
The genuine Zionism of many Jews helps to explain the fact that many people wrongly feel that most Jews lend their unconditional support to Israeli policies. That is why we have seen attacks on synagogues, arson attacks on schools, desecration of cemeteries, for reasons that have nothing to do either with religion, or education, or the peaceful rest of the deceased, but that have a great deal to do with a political and a territorial conflict. . . .

In the past, anti-Semitism as a phenomenon was absent from the Arab-Muslim world. Here, the Arab-Israeli conflict plays an essential role, but another important element is the perception of the State of Israel as the “Trojan horse” of the West in the Middle East. Anti-Semitism would therefore be a particular manifestation of the hatred felt for the West, partly for financial reasons. . . .

Recommendations:

. . . The leaders of Jewish communities should also act to distinguish defense of the State of Israel from the fight against anti-Semitism. . . .

Conceptualizing the memory of the Holocaust with that of other genocides and serious events in contemporary history in order to make sure that at the end of the day everyone can feel the Holocaust as their own tragedy, both Jews and non-Jews.

So, as long as you are only an anti-Zionist, and are terrorizing Jews because you don’t think they have a right to self determination, it’s okay.

The claim that anti-Semitism was not present in the Arab-Muslim world prior to the palestinian-Israeli conflict is absurd. Have they forgotten the Jerusalem mufti and his friend Hitler? Perhaps they should read the Koran and Haddith. There is no shortage of anti-Semitism there. Oh, I get it….Muhammad never would have been anti-Semitic if the Jews hadn’t demanded the right to exist. Get us out of the U.N.

OpinionJournal Article

Liberals are once again revealing their true racist views. Several newspapers are printing racist cartoons of Dr. Rice, while liberal radio shows are calling her Aunt Jemima, and the Brits are racing to keep up with the hate speech in America. I’m waiting for Jesse Jacksooohn to come forward and condemn these racist comments. When are the riots going to start? *sound of crickets*

The left once again proves that they only care about getting minority votes. As long as blacks obey them and vote Democrat, they’re safe from liberal attacks. For those who don’t obey, it’s open season for the racists. If a Republican had created these cartoons, or said the things being repeated on liberal talk shows, the media would be in war mode. The MSM (aside from Fox) is strangely silent. Does this mean they agree with the racism? Interesting.

Gary Oliphant Cartoon:

View Doonesbury cartoon here

That’s the party of tolerance folks.

This article is a perfect example of why the world needs to realize that the U.N. is a worthless debating society that must be eliminated. For too long Europe and the rest of the world have ignored mass murder and genocide by pretending that the U.N. is working on the problem. Just as happened in Rwanda, the genocide in Darfur has worsened since the U.N. got involved. Those who would slaughter thousands upon thousands in a genocidal war know what the rest of the world ignores. The U.N. never enforces resolutions and warnings. The most that worthless government body can do is try to debate the offending party into submission.

Perhaps Europe should stop whining about the Iraq war and learn something from the U.S. The only way to stop mass murder when Muslims are involved is to kill the terrorists and give the innocents a chance. Allowing mass murder to continue unpunished is great for the U.N. population control programs, and it gets rid of a whole lot of Christians, but, as the government in Darfur is now learning, it soon gets out of hand. Darfur can no longer control their terrorist army, and it’s threatening the very people who enlisted their murderous help. Countries who continue to open their country to mass Muslim immigration should learn something from this.

Key points

• 35,000 die since UN first warned Sudanese government over its genocidal policy
• Situation in Darfur ‘spiralling out of control’
• Critics say UN has failed to grasp urgency of situation in Darfur

Key quote
“Unless the Security Council backs up its earlier ultimatums with strong action, ethnic cleansing in Darfur will be consolidated. And hundreds of UN personnel will be on the ground helplessly watching as it happens.” – Peter Takirambudde of Human Rights Watch’s Africa division

Story in full
The price of the United Nations’ procrastination over the genocide in Sudan is revealed today in stark human terms: 35,000 further deaths since the UN Security Council first warned Khartoum to clean up its act.

As the 15-strong Security Council meets in special session in Nairobi today to debate Sudan, the crisis in Darfur is worse than on 30 July when the first resolution was approved by 13 votes to nil. Every five minutes, another person dies.

UN staff say the Khartoum government’s armed forces have continued to attack their own people. Refugees have been beaten while UN workers stand by helplessly. Women and children have been gunned down in Darfur’s marketplaces. The world’s worst current humanitarian crisis is getting worse.

The death toll has been notoriously difficult to tally, thanks, in large part, to the obstructiveness of the Sudanese government. A figure of 70,000 deaths has been mooted, but aid workers say that simply accounts for deaths as a result of military action. Yesterday, the British aid agency Save the Children took the plunge: its spokesman, Paul Hetherington, estimated that between 200,000 and 300,000 people had died since the start of the Darfur conflict.

According to the UN’s World Food Programme, about 10,000 people are dying every month.

Scotsman.com News