It only encourages them to continue. And continuing in this vein can get people killed.

I recognize that they want to make money and sell newspapers. I'm just not sure that causing crime is a good way to do that.

We are doing well for where we are. Nice news for someone who got us into the situation.

Next, of course, comes the problem we are still working on: how to get the mired millions out of thinking that progress is going forward to the seventh century.

Here is a revised link to the movie "fitna" which was taken down off several servers after mentally challenged individuals calling themselves "Muslims" threatened people on LiveLeak, where it was first posted.

And here is the analysis of why that is the case. AJ Strata does his usual careful, thoghtful job of noting what the reporters' assumptions about communications were, and how they violated national security in what they wrote.

They, of course, don't know what they're doing. And they make the amateur's mistake: identifying the permanent bureaus of the government with independent Congressional mandates as part of the current administration (see first sentence of linked silliness), and this excerpt:

Amid the din, it's easy to forget the hits that the newspaper took in the first place: criticism from the political left over the decision to hold the story for more than a year and from the right over the decision to publish it at all. But the episode was critical in reflecting the media's shifting attitudes toward matters of national security—from believing the government to believing it less.

Hits. Realize the metaphor, and the self-importance.

When would that be true? Is it the Monty Python skit about the world's funniest joke?

No -- it is radical Islam that faces the firing line of humor. Make fun of Mohammed, laugh at him, and suddenly you have nothing left.

The rule of thumb in a fistfight is when you land a blow which makes your opponent yell, hit him there again. And the louder he yells the more you hit him in that particular area. Osama Bin Laden has just said "ouch".

Doubtless there will be those who will argue that Bin Laden's warnings are a reason to suppress publication of the Cartoons, either to demonstrate our moral superiority or to manifest our sensitivity; every precept of political correctness argues to cease and desist. That would be a big mistake.

What makes the Mohammed Cartoon attack on radical Islam so potent that Bin Laden himself must oppose it, is two things. First, anyone can make fun of radical Islam. Second, the Cartoons are aimed at the weakest point of the Jihad: it's sources of authority. It is paradoxically true of all organized nihilisms that they rely upon their unquestioned authority to negate. For example, whereas Bolshevism could regard humans as expendable, dogma was sacrosanct. The real message of organized nihilism is that "everything is permitted" except to make fun of nihilism itself. Every act is lawful in radical Islam: to bomb markets, kill children, lie, cheat and steal. Everything: except to publish the Mohammed Cartoons.

So here's the challenge: youtube, Simpsons, Islamic Rage Boy, Numa-Numa Mohammeds, Mohammed dart boards, and, the most successful so far, a Danish cartoon drawing.

As it turns out, yes.

That doesn't argue well for the current crop of newspaper editors' discretion. But then, as I have pointed out before, they have no "news sense" anyway, so no discretion about what they discover to protect the boys from the community over there fighting is part and parcel of the same thing.

What's more discouraging is that, to most of them I've talked to, the boys aren't part of "their" community: there's a sub rosa identification with the cosmopolitan elite, rather than their inconveniently present neighbors. Maybe I just attract the wrong kind of editors/reporters.

Tyler Cowen, of Marginal Revolution, has some questions:

First, I fear that the measurement of satellite TV access of different Iraqi districts is a proxy for some other measure of district quality and that the TV programs have no causal role in driving killings. Is news access across Iraq really so different? Can't one district simply send an email to another district: "now is time to kill some more of them?" Second, I worry that the authors decided not to include Baghdad in the results.

The first objection is that news does not cause insurgency, it's merely correlated with it. The second part of that first objection explains why Baghdad wasn't included in the results: the gossip chain in large cities largely removes the ability to differentiate between newsfeeds that might have US input and ones that that don't.

I completely agree with his concluding comment: Still, if you want a jolt to your system, right now this paper is the place to go.

Evidently, Saudi Arabia is horrified at US success in Iraq. Doesn't the US understand that there are Shi'ites in Iraq? Awful, terrible Shi'ites? And that if they are left ungoverned by a reasonable, thoughtful, Sunni, they will burst out into terrible violence? Or song? (not sure about the last bit -- ed.)

They are determined to restart the sectarian civil war. Their side didn't win, and both sides are tired of it, and nice Saudi boys who went in country to kill Shi'ites have been opposed by their natural allies, other reasonable, thoughtful Sunni who don't like being blown up as collateral damage.

Will the Saudis continue to be protected by their valiant army their loyal mercenaries their large stockpile of oil (which is expendable because they have no industrial economy to speak of)? Stay tuned for the next installment of "Innocent People Minding Their Own Business Whom Terrible People Forced To Go On Murderous Rampages" from your local news outlet.

What am I supposed to think about this base? I know, it's horrible that there are prisoners. Of course, sometimes there are horrible people, too. What is it really like?

Best reference so far: this interview with someone who worked there. The legal status is murky, because the US has not acceded to certain aspects of the Geneva Conventions, (and, in the present dispute with Al-Quaeda, it is doubtful that the other side will accede to ANY of the Geneva Convention, removing the incentive for the US to accede).

In response to a challenge by that rare bird, the thoughtful anti-war left, Jeff has restated the reasons for being and staying in Iraq until the job is done. Of course, for those of us who remember the original argument, this is not new, but I suppose it bears restating for those who weren't reading widely in foreign affairs at the time we went in.

The most interesting criticism has emerged from Congress: evidently the military, currently in operations in Iraq, has failed to corral members of the new Iraq parliament and beat them into submission. Personally, I wouldn't think this was an allowable criticism, but there are those who have confused the Defense Department with the State Department, and they are in OUR government:

Anti-war Senate Democrats bluntly told Iraq commander General David Petraeus Tuesday his troop surge strategy was an abject failure in its prime objective -- forging an Iraqi political settlement.

This is the same group that "accidentally" gave Bush too much power and can't seem to come up with a budget on time, and they are worried about IRAQ's government not being up to snuff?

This is it in a nutshell.

Democratic Congressman James Clyburn of South Carolina admitted that he is worried that the Surge may work in Iraq and ruin Democratic Party plans to impose a timetable for a surrender. Clyburn is the Majority Whip — No. 3 man in the House — and he said that if Gen. Petraeus has a positive report in September that would be “a real big problem for us” (Democrats).

The lack of respect for reality that such a position shows means I can't vote for them. Even when the Republicans become corrupt, they at least take real dollars, not fantasy points in the political mill.

Well, you can either get it from the horse's mouth, conveniently compiled for you, or you can understand a simple narrative:

Galloway and the radical Islamists have a simple story with one victim, the ummah; one villain, the Shylock Jew; and one stooge; the Anglosophere which continues to do the Jew's bidding; and one duty which is Jihad.


Either way, you understand your position in the world differently when you look beyond national borders. Let's see if we can get our politicians to understand that.

That's the impression I get from websites like this.

The combined King-George content proves beyond all doubt that the Bush 43
White House is immoral, corrupt, incompetent, uncaring and dishonest -- as
shown by the following exaggerations, deceptions and outright lies:

Dub-ya's bogus bio
So-called Iraqi WMDs
"Immediate" threats
Yellow-cake uranium
Aluminum tubes
Mobile biological weapons labs
Ties to Al Qaeda
A 9/11 connection
The Valerie Plame/CIA leak case
Secret overseas prisons
Torture
Warrantless wiretaps of United States citizens
Phony Al Qaeda plots
False claims that the America is safer now from terrorism than before 9/11
Concealing the real cost of Gulf War 2
Understating Iraqi civilian casualties
Embellishing U.S. successes in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Misrepresenting the only wartime tax cut in American history
Economically betraying senior citizens, the middle class and working poor
Downplaying global warming
Claiming wounded GIs got the best treatment possible at Walter Reed
Preventing the coffins of returning GIs from beng seen by the public

As I read, I'm interested (despite being one of those "neocons" who worked to get the country in to Iraq). I look for more information in different windows about the military products presented, and create some emails to Congress about them. I want success, and part of it has to be correct equipment. The harder part, of course, is ignoring the silliness, but it can be done. I encourage you to read for yourself, if you have the time.

But finally, I think I'm in agreement with this characterization. Just as I don't think Abraham Lincoln was a bloodthirsty tyrant calling for the destruction of soldiers for his personal pleasure, I don't think Bush is the focus of evil in the world. I'd rather spend time on those whose goal is to kill and subjugate people like Hugh Scott.

Shockingly, someone in San Diego sabotaged artwork presented by a Congressional Candidate!

Even more shock!

It's hard to keep a straight face in the middle of this.....

For those still interested in defending the US, a military perspective

I know. Cindy Sheehan says all this is useless. But then, from how she's acting, she didn't like her son much, either.

Want a comprehensive review of where we are in the fight against Al-Queda? Check this out and then this one. For journalists (yes, I know you're there), why can't YOUR PAPER produce something half as informative?

UPDATE: Corrected address in first link (thanks for the note CCORD!).