So sleep deprivation, ladies underwear and waterboarding put the U.S. on the same level as terrorists?
Yeah, right... head on over to The Smoking Gun to see what an Al Qaeda torture manual contains. (Warning: graphic images.)
Wow... just as I was thinking about writing a "boycott Citgo" post, 7-11 Stores, which has sold Citgo gasoline for 20 years, has decided to dump them and sell their own branded gasoline.
What's the connection between 7-11, Citgo, and Hugo Chavez? Only that Citgo is wholly owned by Petrleos de Venezuela, S.A., the national oil company of... Venezuela.
Props to 7-11 for doing the right thing.
Now if we can only completely disconnect from Middle Eastern oil and concentrate on U.S. oil drilling and oil shale production, we'd be stylin'.
Source: Northeast Intelligence Network
I'm only guessing here, but I'm pretty sure that in any of the Middle Eastern languages there must not be a word that means the same as the word "IRONY" in English.
On the heels of the Pope's comments concerning the violent aspects of Islam's founding (forced conversion or death), Muslims across the Middle East have expressed outrage that he would falsely accuse "The religion of peace" of such things by:
- Burning the Pope in effigy.
- Burning 7 Christian churches to the ground.
- Murdering a Catholic nun.
- Threatening that this will lead to war.
If I didn't know better, I'd think this came from one of the sarcastic articles at TheOnion.com or a Saturday Night Live skit, but sadly (or is that frighteningly?) it's for real.
Apparently things are a lot worse at Abu Ghraib prison now that the U.S. military is no longer in charge and the Iraqis have taken over.
An independent witness who went into Abu Ghraib this week told The Sunday Telegraph that screams were coming from the cell blocks housing the terrorist suspects. Prisoners released from the jail this week spoke of routine torture of terrorism suspects and on Wednesday, 27 prisoners were hanged in the first mass execution since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime.
Conditions in the rest of the jail were grim, with an overwhelming stench of excrement, prisoners crammed into cells for all but 20 minutes a day, food rations cut to just rice and water and no air conditioning.
Call me wacky, but I found this particular bit amusing:
Some of the small number of prisoners who remained in the jail after the Americans left said they had pleaded to go with their departing captors, rather than be left in the hands of Iraqi guards.
"The Americans were better than the Iraqis. They treated us better," said Khalid Alaani, who was held on suspicion of involvement in Sunni terrorism.
Suddenly having dogs barking at you and being forced to hug fellow prisoners naked probably doesn't seem so bad.
As I felt when the whole Abu Ghraib story broke, people in general really don't understand what REAL torture and mistreatment of prisoners is all about.
I wonder how much outrage there will be over this... or if it will even warrant a mention on CNN?
I watched with amusement this morning Wolf Blitzer interviewing some high ranking Iraqi government official, and sorry, but his title escapes me. He was pretty high up the food chain, in any case. The funny thing about it was that Blitzer kept trying to put a negative spin on al-Zarqawi's death but the official just wouldn't fall for it, and as a matter of fact seemed a bit confused by Blitzer's line of questioning.
Blitzer concentrated on the question of whether women and children were killed during the bombing. The official said that one or more women were killed, but they were associates of al-Zarqawi, and that one child had been killed and that was unfortunate. He tried to stress the fact that the Iraqi government acquired a ton of intelligence via this operation through journals and computer files, but Blitzer virtually shrugged that news off to go on and talk about the threat of increased attacks. The official basically said in a diplomatic way "Listen, we've got these guys on the run, we killed their leader in Iraq and we have a ton of leads, got that?"
You'd think that the killing of al-Zarqawi would be reported as a GOOD thing, but no... immediately news programs are latching on to the theory that this will only increase Al-Qaeda's resolve and that someone even worse will step in to fill that vacuum and that even more attacks will be the consequence and blah, blah, blah. God forbid that we get ANY credit for accomplishing the HUGE task of killing the number two man in Al-Queda, eh? Oh, yeah, the other bit I heard was "Well, we still don't have Osama."
I've decided I have to laugh at coverage like this, otherwise I'll just burst a blood vessel getting angry about it.
I can think of no one in the Federal government who is tougher on, or more concerned with the security of the United States than President Bush. This is why although my knee-jerk reaction to the news that a UAE-based company was in line to take over management of a number of U.S. ports was astonishment and concern, I didn't go all-out ballistic at the idea.
Although President Bush's press office, Cabinet, or whoever is in charge of such things has an ABYSMAL record at communicating policy to the public, I know that the man is not the clueless fool the Left has made him out to be. It just didn't make any sense that a president who is SO tough when it comes to national security would approve a deal that would put the U.S. at risk. Quite the opposite, one would think that there must be something GOOD that would come out of something like this in regards to security.
Although he is brutally frank and as far as you can get from "politically correct", I tend to agree with radio talk show host Michael Savage on a lot of points. It was from him that I first heard about the deal and I imagined him frothing at the mouth while he raged against the insanity of it on his program. From there the news started spreading to other media outlets and soon after the first politicians to jump on the "outrage" bandwagon were a couple of Democrats (predictably) including Senator Hillary Clinton.
Things are either getting really ugly, or desperate for terrorists in Iraq when mosques start getting blown up.
Especially on the internet, athiests can get pretty venemous when getting into discussions about religion or about things where Christians take a stand. But say what you want about Christians... That we're intolerant, trying to push morality on those who don't want it, denying a woman's "right to choose", small-minded for not liking NBC's The Book of Daniel, and so on, but you know what?
You don't see us burning down buildings, making bomb threats or threatening to otherwise murder people.
Sure we organize and start letter-writing and email campaigns to advertisers of shows that we think are vile, but compare that to what's going on in Europe and the Middle East over these Danish cartoons.
You Christian-bashers in the U.S. have no idea how easy you've got it.
Sure, some of us get out of hand in these online debates (some actually embarrass me with their misinterpretation of the Bible and Christian principles)... personally I sometimes get to the point where I cross the line because I find it difficult to sit there while some psuedo-intellectual essentially calls people who believe in God ignorant idiots. You know, the kind of thing that they would NEVER have the nerve to say to someone's face, so yeah, sometimes I go off.
But how often do you read or hear one of us wishing people who disagree with us were DEAD? Only yesterday on a very popular blog I visit from time to time, while reading comments concerning the Danish cartoon controversy and fallout, I read several comments wishing death upon Westerners.
So all you athiests and anti-Christians out there might want to think about focusing your energies on another religion instead, eh? Maybe the one that wants you dead instead of the one that doesn't want condoms distributed in high schools...
Wow, a ABC anchor/reporter is wounded in a terrorist bombing and it's MAJOR news. However to find the news that 6 Catholic/Christian churches were bombed yesterday you'd have to dig REALLY deep.
If it wasn't so terrible it would be funny. Let U.S. forces chip a piece of paint off a mosque and the news is all OVER it, but if Christian churches and churchgoers are bombed into oblivion it's not even worth mentioning.
But of course there's no bias in the media, right?
Now that Hamas has been legitimized by the recent Palestinian elections despite their radical views and history, I suppose they think that gives them a pass in international politics.
Although they are not willing to change their policies in regard to the extermination of Israel, they are now complaining and asking countries who have supported the Palestinian people financially to NOT discontinue sending money to the country. I don't know about other countries, but personally I don't understand why the U.S. has been contributing over $200 million a year to Palestine when as far as I know oil-rich Islamic countries do not step in to elevate the Palestinians standard of living. I mean I understand why the Saudi Arabias and such aren't doing so: In order to keep a fire lit under the conflict... I just don't know why the U.S. has continued to send funds to a country that wants to wipe an ally from the face of the earth AND hates us as well.
It's obvious that we can't buy them, so why bother trying?
Try using a kettlebell for high intensity fitness. It burn fat and build muscle like nothing else out there.