This deserves the widest possible audience:

From NRO:

The British are feeling the pinch in relation to recent bombings and have raised their security level from "Miffed" to "Peeved." Soon though, security levels may be raised yet again to "Irritated" or even "A Bit Cross." Londoners have not been "A Bit Cross" since the blitz in 1940 when tea supplies all but ran out. Terrorists have been re-categorised from "Tiresome" to a "Bloody Nuisance." The last time the British issued a "Bloody Nuisance" warning level was during the great fire of 1666.

Also, the French government announced yesterday that it has raised its terror alert level from "Run" to "Hide". The only two higher levels in France are "Surrender" and "Collaborate." The rise was precipitated by a recent fire that destroyed France's white flag factory, effectively paralysing the country's military capability.

It's not only the English and French that are on a heightened level of alert. Italy has increased the alert level from "shout loudly and excitedly" to "elaborate military posturing". Two more levels remain, "ineffective combat operations" and "change sides".

The Germans also increased their alert state from "disdainful arrogance" to "dress in uniform and sing marching songs". They also have two higher levels: "invade a neighbour" and "lose".

Belgians, on the other hand, are all on holiday as usual and the only threat they worry about is NATO pulling out of Brussels.

Crude Oil futures fall again:

From Reuters:

LONDON (Reuters) - OPEC's own oil price fell below $50 a barrel for the first time since the start of June on Thursday, touching a level that may trigger calls from some producers for the cartel to cut output.

The value of OPEC's basket of crudes fell to $49.73 a barrel on Wednesday, the group said on Thursday, down from $50.01 the previous day.

A mild northern hemisphere autumn has wiped a fifth off the cost of oil since late August when hurricane damage to the U.S. industry sent prices to record highs.

Look for this to continue to depress crude future at the Merc.

Iraq torture:

St. Andrew the Sactimonious scolds his lessors about virtue:

"The alleged mistreatment of detainees and the inhumane conditions at an Iraqi Ministry of Interior detention facility is very serious, and totally unacceptable," - from the U.S. commanders who have uncovered torture by the Iraqi army. We led by example, didn't we?

We lead by example? Why on earth are you holding the Iraqi army to the same standards as the US Army? It's their country that's being overrun with villains from Iran and Syria. Moreover, how is Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld responsiblity for this? Is he the commander of the Iraqi Army? How does that chain of command work?

What bothers me the most about "advocacy journalist" like Andrew and his ilk is that they come off of secular high priests. They're always scolding public officials and demanding that they adhere to a higher moral standard than is practicable in the real world. But like the priestly caste in the Middle Ages, they are not really responsible for anything. They don't have to deal with "the insurgency". Or garbage collection. Or school reconstruction. Or anything else. It is almost as if they believe their job description is "moral conscience" of humanity.

The reality of warfare is simple: shoot the bad guys before they shoot you. And if you "capture" a non-uniformed "insurgent", then the Geneva Convention allows you to summarily execute them. That's what we did with non-uniformed German nationals acting as sabateurs in The Second German War. That what the Iraqis can see fit to do now, Andrew's priestly mewing not withstanding.

Crude Oil Futures fall again

From Bloomberg:

Crude oil for December fell 28 cents, or 0.5 percent, to $56.70 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange at 12:31 p.m. London time, the lowest price since July 21. Brent crude for January fell 19 cents, or 0.3 percent, to $54.99 on London's ICE Futures exchange.

I may revise my target prices down if they continue to fall at this rate. When I do, you'll be the second to know.

Jordan explodes: the resignations

How come this didn't happen after 9/11:

Eleven top Jordanian officials, including the kingdom's national security adviser, resigned Tuesday in the wake of last week's triple hotel bombings, state-run TV announced. Also, a fourth American died from wounds suffered in the attacks, a U.S. Embassy official said.

Jordan also introduced strict security measures aimed at foreigners and said it was drafting the country's first anti-terror specific legislation to prevent more such attacks.

King Abdullah II appointed Marouf al-Bakhit, Amman's ambassador to Israel, to replace outgoing security chief Saad Kheir, a former head of Jordan's intelligence department.

No details were given for the resignation of Kheir and 10 others, including prominent religious advisers to Abdullah, but a limited shake-up had been expected.

The moves came as more details emerged about the 35-year-old Iraqi woman who failed in her bid to blow herself up in an Amman hotel, with friends saying she had three brothers killed by U.S. forces.

George Tenet should have been shit canned right then, along with about half the CIA management.

Oil prices: supply,demand and price gouging

For those new to this space, I'm a capitalist. I run a small consultancy / boutique software shop that caters to retailers. This is what I essentially do: I buy and sell money.

That's it. Nothing fancy. Arcane, perhaps. But not complicated.

Merchants want instant payment for what they sell. Instead of having a credit plan that they would have to administer, they hire me. I buy their accounts receivable at a discount. I then sell it to VISA or Mastercard. I keep what's left over. If my rates are too high, the merchant goes bye-bye.

And somebody else does the same, only for less money.

And that's the way supply and demand works.

Which brings me to the recent spate of "pricing gouging" by the big oil companies. Sure they posted record profits, but that is to be expected given abnomral circumstances. For my money, the most eloquent bard of supply and demand is Dr. Thomas Sowell. Dig this beautifully concise riff on socialist Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and her ilk:

When hurricanes knocked out both oil drilling sites and refineries around the Gulf of Mexico, there was suddenly less supply of oil. That meant higher prices and higher profits.

What do higher prices do? Force people to restrain their own purchases more so than usual. What do higher profits do? Cause more money to be invested in producing whatever is earning higher profits, and this in turn expands output. Isn't a larger supply of oil and a reduced consumption of it what we want?

Whenever there have been sharp rises in gasoline prices, whether nationwide or locally in California, Senator Barbara Boxer has loudly demanded an investigation of the oil companies. These repeated investigations over the years have repeatedly failed to turn up anything other than supply and demand.

The real irony is that it has been precisely liberals like Barbara Boxer who have been the chief obstacles to increasing the supply of oil because they are dead set against drilling for oil in more places and against building more refineries.

When you refuse to let supply rise to meet rising demand, why should you be surprised -- much less outraged -- when prices rise?

Yet there was Senator Boxer on nationwide TV, decrying the high salaries of oil company executives, who are making perhaps half of what a number of baseball players make or a tenth of what movie stars make. The insinuation is that their salaries and oil company profits are what drive up gasoline prices. But there were no hard facts to back up either insinuation.

Given the enormous sums of money involved in the production of oil, even if all the oil company CEOs worked for nothing, there is no hard evidence that this would be enough to reduce the price of gasoline by even one cent per gallon. As for oil company profits -- representing "greed," as the Barbara Boxers call it -- these profits per gallon of gas are much less than federal taxes per gallon of gas. But the government is never called "greedy" by liberals.

Dig that last line: but the government is never called "greedy" by liberals. Classic.

John Edwards in a Gooberhead

A thorough Fisking by Tod Lindberg of the Washington Times:

"I was wrong," wrote John Edwards in The Washington Post Sunday, repudiating his vote to authorize military action against the Saddam Hussein regime in September 2002. Well, yes, he was wrong. Then, a prudent political calculation for a Democrat with national political aspirations was to support the Bush administration's effort to get Saddam to disarm or take his regime down by force. Now, the prudent calculation to maintain your viability within the late-2005 Democratic Party is to run as far away from your unfortunate 2002 vote as possible -- by presenting yourself as yet another victim of the supposed deception foisted on the American people.

"Almost three years ago we went into Iraq to remove what we were told -- and what many of us believed and argued [!] -- was a threat to America. But in fact we now know that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction when our forces invaded Iraq in 2003... The argument for going to war with Iraq was based on intelligence that we now know was inaccurate."

OK, Mr. Edwards, let's pursue your argument: How do we know this? We know this for one reason and one reason only, the only way it was knowable: because we invaded Iraq. We took down the Saddam government, arrested and detained as many senior Iraqi officials and weapons scientists as we could find, questioned them thoroughly, scoured the country for biological and chemical weapons supplies, and found evidence of programs variously abandoned or discontinued or on hold.

While I enjoy Edwards the Goober getting hammered in public by somebody who clearly knows how to do it, I'm still not ready to concede the "no WMD" argument. I mean really, what do you call two tonnes of enriched uranium in the hands of genocidal megalomaniac like Saddam Hussein? I call it a weapon of mass destruction on the hoof. All one needs to do is build a bomb around it. If you already have the uranium, the rest is relatively easy. One could probably buy uranium-less bomb casing off-the-shelf from our good ole buddy A.Q. Khan, your home town nuclear bomb dealer over Pakistan.

G-d, I can't wait to see Saddam toe-tagged. That will end a lot of our troubles there.

Crude Oil Futures under $58.00

From Bloomberg:

Crude oil for December delivery fell 9 cents to $57.60 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange at 2:31 p.m. London time, after falling as low as $57.18. Last week it dropped to $56.93, the lowest since July 21. Brent crude for December earlier today tumbled as much as 73 cents, or 1.3 percent, to $54 on the ICE Futures exchange, the lowest price since June 15.

Zarqawi backs GOP call to unveil war-ending plan

Scott Ott at Scrappleface has all the details.

Jordan explodes: nice bookends

These grafs, lifted from Dennis Prager and Khaled Duzdar serve as near perfect bookends to the aftermath of the Amman, Jordan bombings. First, Mr. Duzdar, speaking from a position of authority as the Palestinian co-director of the strategic affairs unit at the Israel-Palestine Center for Research and Information in Jerusalem, begins to rally Muslims against these killers:

Last week's suicide attacks against innocent civilians in Amman shocked us all. It is unclear what message the suicide bombers were conveying and there is no logical cause justifying such insane acts. What could the aim of such attacks be, and what were the mad executioners aiming to achieve? For some time, they have claimed they are defenders and combatants of Islam and the Muslim world. However, Islam has no use for such people and their acts and ideologies - if we believe they have any ideology at all. They promote nothing more than killing and aim only to bring about a state of lawlessness and instability in the Middle East.

The targets are no longer just the West, its ideologies and other foreign cultures; no longer only imperialism and American global domination. The targets are now Muslims themselves, Arabs and Palestinians - not to mention Iraqis. These actions represent killing for the sake of killing and destruction for the sake of destruction.

When actions target innocent civilians - regular people celebrating the wedding of their children and friends - what are the aims and targets of such suicide actions? It is now more obvious than ever that whoever was responsible for the attacks against civilians in other parts of the Arab world, let's say a few months ago the hotels at Sharm al-Sheikh, was also responsible for the attacks in Amman. All these attacks serve only one purpose: to undermine security and stability in the region.

Muslims, the countries and Arab states now face a crucial challenge. There should be no excuse for neglecting and denying the dangerous reach of the carriers of a new and mad disease of violence. For that, serious actions should be undertaken to exterminate this spreading disease from our Muslim societies and from Islam itself. Muslims and Arabs should not only have better condemned the terrorist acts carried out everywhere around the world, but also should move to isolate the destructive, invented beliefs promoted by a group of insane people and carried out in the name of defending Islam.

Now is the time for us Muslims and Arabs to take over this responsibility. All Muslim and Arabs should unify in one mission, which is to fight the mad ideologies defended by those who have separated themselves from what Islam has really brought to the world and what Islam really wants to promote. Their acts only cause severe damage to Islam and Muslims. The false messages they are presenting in the name of Islam have resulted in a global misunderstanding about real Islamic belief. The evil belief of these mad people has sentenced Islam and Muslims to be tainted as evildoers, terrorists, savages and people with no mercy.

As a Palestinian, I also accuse such bombers of damaging our cause and destroying our struggle for freedom. They can't be allowed to take our cause as an excuse for their evil and insane beliefs. No matter where they are acting - in Baghdad or New York, in Istanbul or Paris, in Madrid or Amman, in Cairo or London, in Beirut or Jerusalem - their acts only do us harm; especially at a time when we Palestinians are searching for international support to bring to life to a Palestinian state.

Our condolences are not just for the four senior Palestinians killed in the last suicide attack in Amman; not just for the people we knew or for the families of the innocents whose only crime was attending the weddings of loved ones. Our condolences are for Islam and for what Islam should really represent. Our condolences are for ourselves, who have fallen into the mud of madness.

Second, Mr. Prager posits that it is only after Islamic fascists attack Arab Muslim civilians that the Arab world is outraged. These same killers are always given a pass when they attack Jews, Americans or practically anybody else. And while the recognition is welcome, it is also way overdue and point to what is at best a double standard, but at worst overt bigotry on the part of Muslim and Arab countries and culture.

Jordanians are shocked that Islamic terrorists would blow up families, including families celebrating a wedding. They are so shocked that for the first time in history, Muslims have taken to publicly demonstrating against Islamic terror.

And why are they shocked? Because the terrorists blew up Jordanians. As long as Islamic terrorists blew up men, women and children who are Jewish, Christian, Hindu, American, Australian and black Sudanese, the Arab and larger Muslim worlds were not particularly disturbed. In fact, Palestinians, who comprise the majority of Jordan's population, celebrated when Jews were blown up at Passover seders and at weddings. And they took to the streets and cheered in the Palestinian fashion, handing out candy, when Americans were incinerated in office buildings.

For some reason, Palestinians, most other Arabs and many Muslims around the world thought that the credulity-straining evil of targeting the most innocent for death, paralysis, blindness and brain damage would be confined to non-Arabs and non-Muslims. In fact, the idea that this Palestinian-made cancer would target Arab Muslims is so inconceivable to most Arabs that many now believe the terror attack in Amman was orchestrated by Jews (the Israeli Mossad)....

Now there is widespread condemnation of Zarqawi's terror in Jordan. There is even a fear that the name of Islam will suffer. Unfortunately, however, it is only because Zarqawi was foolish enough to massacre Jordanian civilians, and not confine his massacres to Iraqis and non-Arabs. What has aroused Arab voices against Zarqawi has nothing to do with the immorality of blowing up people celebrating at a wedding -- it has to do with the immorality of blowing up Muslims celebrating at a wedding.

Mark Steyn is a genius: Part 2

From today's Telegraph:

Three years ago -December 2002 - I was asked to take part in a symposium on Europe and began with the observation: "I find it easier to be optimistic about the futures of Iraq and Pakistan than, say, Holland or Denmark."

At the time, this was taken as confirmation of my descent into insanity. I can't see why. Compare, for example, the Iraqi and the European constitutions: which would you say reflected a shrewder grasp of the realities on the ground?

Or take last week's attacks in Jordan by a quartet of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's finest suicide bombers. The day after the carnage, Jordanians took to the streets in their thousands to shout "Death to Zarqawi!" and "Burn in hell, Zarqawi!" King Abdullah denounced terrorism as "sick" and called for a "global fight" against it. "These people are insane," he said of the husband-and-wife couple dispatched to blow up a wedding reception.

For purposes of comparison, consider the Madrid bombing from March last year. The day after that, Spaniards also took to the streets, for their feebly tasteful vigil. Instead of righteous anger, they were "united in sorrow" - i.e. enervated in passivity. Instead of wishing death on the perpetrators, the preferred slogan was "Basta!" - "Enough!" - which was directed less at the killers than at Aznar and Bush. Instead of a leader who calls for a "global fight", they elected a government pledged to withdraw from any meaningful role in the global fight.

My point in that symposium was a simple one: whatever their problems, most Islamic countries have the advantage of beginning any evolution into free states from the starting point of relative societal cohesion. By contrast, most European nations face the trickier task of trying to hold on to their freedom at a time of increasing societal incoherence.

Bush Lied: the meme dies

From Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit:

I think the "Bush lied us into war" meme is in trouble, and the GOP pushback seems to be a general effort, not a one-off. And I also think that the reason that so many antiwar people want to move from discussion of whether specific behavior is unpatriotic, to the strawman question of whether any criticism of the war is unpatriotic (note Schieffer's question -- "Do you believe it is unpatriotic to criticize the Iraq policy?" -- and how it differs from what Bush actually said) is because they know they're on weak ground on the specifics.

The evidence he sites if Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) riffing on Bob Scheiffer on CBS's Face the Nation:

SCHIEFFER: President Bush accused his critics of rewriting history last week.

Sen. McCAIN: Yeah.

SCHIEFFER: And in--he said in doing so, the criticisms they were making of his war policy was endangering our troops in Iraq. Do you believe it is unpatriotic to criticize the Iraq policy?

Sen. McCAIN: No, I think it's a very legitimate aspect of American life to criticize and to disagree and to debate. But I want to say I think it's a lie to say that the president lied to the American people. I sat on the Robb-Silverman Commission. I saw many, many analysts that came before that committee. I asked every one of them--I said, `Did--were you ever pressured politically or any other way to change your analysis of the situation as you saw?' Every one of them said no.

What interesting here is that we are starting to fight back and we are start to win the day. And while Mr. McCain's response to the question may be construed as political posturing (he is running for president after all), I think he sick of the nearly mechanical drumbeat of "Bush Lied". The White House, which can be so brilliant at times, has been completely AWOL in this fight. Look for others to take up the slack as they see it in their interest to do so. A wounded White House does no good to a Republican running for President.

Bush Lied: the meme dies

The Wall Street Journal published a lo-o-o-ong piece by Norman Podhoretz essentially dismantling the Bush Lied argument. The lead:

Among the many distortions, misrepresentations and outright falsifications that have emerged from the debate over Iraq, one in particular stands out above all others. This is the charge that George W. Bush misled us into an immoral or unnecessary war in Iraq by telling a series of lies that have now been definitively exposed.

What makes this charge so special is the amazing success it has enjoyed in getting itself established as a self-evident truth even though it has been refuted and discredited over and over again by evidence and argument alike. In this it resembles nothing so much as those animated cartoon characters who, after being flattened, blown up or pushed over a cliff, always spring back to life with their bodies perfectly intact. Perhaps, like those cartoon characters, this allegation simply cannot be killed off, no matter what.

Prediction. The meme dies except amongst those on the wacky Left who live in a thermos bottle of their own making.

Jordan explodes: Suspect caught -- waterboarding to follow

B. Austin Higgins over at A Certain Slant of Light hammers Andrew Sullivan and his ilk over the treatment of "detainees"

Now then, and lest the delicate sensibilities of Andrew Sullivan be ruffled, we must pray that this woman is not "waterboarded" or subjected to any other interrogation techniques that might elicit from her important information on al-Qaida and its plans for additional suicide bombings. Better that civilian non-combatants at wedding receptions be blown to smithereens than that the CIA or U.S. military resort to any form of interrogation technique other than booking her into a posh lakeside resort suite, giving her three squares a day via the room service menu, and asking her kindly that she tell all, while assuring her that if she does she'll get an 8 1/2 x 11 inch autographed glossy of Martha Stewart.

Personally, if they are unlawful enemy combatants -- as terrorists certainly are -- then treat them the way FDR did the eight Nazi spies caught during the Second German War: hang 'em.

Iraq and WMDs: John Edwards lies like a lawyer

It comes as no surprise to regular Davespeakers that I really don't like former Sen. John Edwards (D-xNC). He's plaintive's attorney and exactly the wrong sort of person to send either to the Senate or to The White House. But get this from today's Washington Post:

Almost three years ago we went into Iraq to remove what we were told -- and what many of us believed and argued -- was a threat to America. But in fact we now know that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction when our forces invaded Iraq in 2003. The intelligence was deeply flawed and, in some cases, manipulated to fit a political agenda.

Iraq did not have Weapons of Mass Destruction? As has been show in this space, he most certainly did -- 2 tonnes of enriched uranium counts as a WMD.

He's either a willfully ignorant goober or a lying trial lawyer. Take your pick.

And thank G-d he's not the president.

Iraq and WMDs: what prominent Democrats said

Here's a handy list. Some Winners:

"There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years."
— Floor statement of Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Oct. 10, 2002.

"I consider the prospect of a nuclear-armed Saddam Hussein who can threaten not only his neighbors, but the stability of the region and the world, a very serious threat to the United States."
— Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York at a Jan. 22, 2003, press conference.

"Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power."
— From an address by Al Gore to the Commonwealth Club of California, Sept. 23, 2002.

Jordan explodes: the lady sings

Apparently, the story of the husband and wife homicide bomber team was true. And she has spoken to Jordanian television. From the AP:

An Iraqi woman confessed on state television Sunday to trying to detonate explosives strapped around her waist while she was in one of three Amman hotels bombed by al-Qaida in Iraq.

"My husband wore an (explosives-packed) belt and put one on me. He taught me how to use it," said Sajida Mubarak Atrous al-Rishawi, 35, who appeared on television wearing a white head scarf, black gown and the disabled bomb belt tied around her waist.

Jordanian security forces on Sunday arrested the woman, whose husband is suspected of blowing up the Radisson SAS hotel, after being tipped off by an al-Qaida claim that a husband-and-wife team participated in Wednesday's attacks at three hotels that killed 57 other people.

Looking nervous and wringing her hands, al-Rishawi described the attack on the Radisson. The Grand Hyatt and Days Inn hotels also were bombed.

"My husband detonated (his bomb) and I tried to explode my belt but it wouldn't," she said. "People fled running and I left running with them."

Her husband, Ali Hussein Ali al-Shamari, 35, was identified Sunday as one of three Iraqi men who carried out the bombings.

Jordan explodes: the fourth bomber in custody

There were various reports yesterday that the homicide bombings in Jordan featured a husband and wife team. Al Jazeera reports:

[Marwan] Moasher [of the Jordanian Government] identified the woman as Sajida Mubarak al-Rishai and said she was the sister of a key aide to al-Qaida's Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a fugitive Jordanian who is Iraq's most wanted man.

He said she failed to blow up her explosives charge in the hotel ballroom where a wedding reception was in full swing.

"Her husband asked her to leave the wedding party. Once she did he detonated himself successfully," Moasher added.

He showed pictures of the explosives belt worn by the woman, which he said show "the metal balls that were also attached to the belt so that they can inflict the largest number of casualties".

He said she was the sister of al-Zarqawi's "amir" in the western Iraqi province of al-Anbar who was killed in Falluja.

Even Debka is reporting essentially the same thing:

A woman who failed to blow herself up in Wednesday's triple suicide bombing in Amman is now in custody, Jordan's King Abdullah said on Sunday.

"I just heard from our intelligence services that there is a fourth bomber, a woman, who failed to blow herself up and she's in custody," he told a group of media editors attending a forum in Amman.

Deputy Prime Minister Marwan al-Muasher said the woman, who failed to blow herself up, was the wife of one of the attackers and the sister of a lieutenant of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq. Muasher named the three dead men as 23-year-olds Safar Mohammed Ali and Rawad Jasim Mohammed Abid and Ali Hussein al-Shimeri, who was born in 1970 and so probably aged 25. Shimeri's wife is the same age, he said, naming her as Sajida al-Rishawi, the sister of Samir Mubarak Atrous al-Rishawi. Rishawi, he said, was one of Zarqawi's lieutenants and was killed at Falluja, in western Iraq.

Al Qaida and the Queen

Okay, now that they're sounding like Lyndon LaRouche, will the American Left start taking al Qaida seriously. From the Times of London:

AL-QAEDA has threatened the Queen by naming her as “one of the severest enemies of Islam” in a video message to justify the July bombings in London.

The warning has been passed by MI5 to the Queen’s protection team after it obtained the unexpurgated version of a video issued by Al-Qaeda after the 7/7 attacks. Parts of it were broadcast on Al-Jazeera, the Arabic satellite channel.

In the video, Ayman al- Zawahiri, second-in-command to Osama Bin Laden, targets the Queen as ultimately responsible for Britain’s “crusader laws” and denounces her as an enemy of Muslims.

Why Iran's nuclear program must be stopped

This from the NY Times should scare you to death:

In mid-July, senior American intelligence officials called the leaders of the international atomic inspection agency to the top of a skyscraper overlooking the Danube in Vienna and unveiled the contents of what they said was a stolen Iranian laptop computer.

The Americans flashed on a screen and spread over a conference table selections from more than a thousand pages of Iranian computer simulations and accounts of experiments, saying they showed a long effort to design a nuclear warhead, according to a half-dozen European and American participants in the meeting.

The documents, the Americans acknowledged from the start, do not prove that Iran has an atomic bomb. They presented them as the strongest evidence yet that, despite Iran's insistence that its nuclear program is peaceful, the country is trying to develop a compact warhead to fit atop its Shahab missile, which can reach Israel and other countries in the Middle East.

The briefing for officials of the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency, including its director Mohamed ElBaradei, was a secret part of an American campaign to increase international pressure on Iran. But while the intelligence has sold well among countries like Britain, France and Germany, which reviewed the documents as long as a year ago, it has been a tougher sell with countries outside the inner circle.

The computer contained studies for crucial features of a nuclear warhead, said European and American officials who had examined the material, including a telltale sphere of detonators to trigger an atomic explosion. The documents specified a blast roughly 2,000 feet above a target - considered a prime altitude for a nuclear detonation.

The Europeans has frittered away months trying to talk Iran into giving up it's nukes. It's fools errand -- like negotiating with Hitler (Europeans never learn). This is why we need to clean up Iraq ASAP so we can deal with the next evil. If it's a function manpower, then fine, close the bases in Germany and put all our eggs in one basket to finish the job.

Faster please.

Paris Riots: Back to Normal?

You really have to wonder about the French definition of "normal:. From the AP:

The number of cars torched overnight in France climbed slightly over the previous night to 502 in a 16th night of unrest that took its heaviest toll on the French provinces, police said Saturday.

Security was boosted in the capital with some 3,000 police officers fanning out around strategic points to counter feared weekend attacks targeting Paris. Gatherings were banned from Saturday morning until Sunday morning.

"We returned to an almost normal situation in Ile de France," said national police chief Michel Gaudin, referring to the Paris region. Arson attacks were counted in 163 towns around France, he said. The count of those detained overnight stood at 206, bringing to 2,440 the number of suspects picked up in just over two weeks of unrest.

Brian Jones, The Stones, and murder

I always wondered what really happened to Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones. His official cause of death was drowning while under the influence of lots'o'drugs but this new film from Stephen Woolley, Stoned, posits another option: murder. Power grafs from The Telegraph of London:

A new film about Brian Jones suggests that the Rolling Stone's mysterious death in 1969 may in fact have been murder - and explores a dark collision of cultures that lay beneath the surface of the carefree '60s. Its director talks to Robert Sandall

It remains one of the great whodunnits - or whodunwhats - of the 1960s. On the night of July 3 1969, Rolling Stone Brian Jones was found face-down in the swimming pool of his home, Cotchford Farm in Sussex. An inquest recorded death by misadventure, "drowning while under the influence of drink and drugs".

It looks interesting, although I don't think it will open here in Raleigh.

Peter Drucker, RIP

Peter F. Drucker, 95, who was often called the world's most influential business guru and whose thinking transformed corporate management in the latter half of the 20th century, died Nov. 11 at his home in Claremont, Calif. No cause of death was reported, but he was under hospice care. His work influenced Winston Churchill, Bill Gates, Jack Welch and the Japanese business establishment. His more than three dozen books, written over 66 years and translated into 30 languages, also delivered his philosophy to newly promoted managers just out of the office cubicle.

Sorry to hear it.

Iraq: constructive criticism from John McCain

Interesting bit from John McCain (R-AZ). Read the whole thing here. One change he would make is:

Adopt a military counterinsurgency strategy. For most of the occupation, our military strategy was built around trying to secure the entirety of Iraq at the same time. With our current force structure and the power vacuum that persists in many areas, that is not possible today. In their attempt to secure all of Iraq, coalition forces engage in search and destroy operations to root out insurgent strongholds, with the aim of killing as many insurgents as possible. But our forces cannot hold the ground indefinitely, and when they move on to fight other battles, the insurgent ranks replenish and the strongholds fill again. Our troops must then reenter the same area and refight the same battle.

The example of Tal Afar is instructive. Coalition forces first fought in Tal Afar in September 2003, when the 101st Airborne Division took the city, then withdrew. Over the next year insurgents streamed back into the area, and in September 2004 Stryker brigades and Iraqi security forces went into Tal Afar again, chasing out insurgents again. They then left again, moving on to fight insurgents in other locations. Then in September 2005, the Third Armored Calvary Regiment swept into Tal Afar, killing insurgents while others retreated into the countryside. Most of our troops have already redeployed, and they may well be back again. The battles of Tal Afar, like those in other areas of Iraq, have become seasonal offensives, where success is measured most often by the number of insurgents captured and killed. But that’s not success, and “sweeping and leaving” is not working.

Instead, we need to clear and stay. We can do this with a modified version of traditional counterinsurgency strategy. Dr. Andrew Krepinevich, AEI’s Tom Donnelly and Gary Schmitt and others have written about this idea. Whether called the “ink blot,” “oil spot,” or “safe haven” strategy, it draws upon successful counterinsurgency efforts in the past. Rather than focusing on killing and capturing insurgents, we should emphasize protecting the local population, creating secure areas where insurgents find it difficult to operate. Our forces would begin by clearing areas, with heavy force if necessary, to establish a zone as free of insurgents as possible. The security forces can then cordon off the zone, establish constant patrols, by American and Iraqi military and police, to protect the population from insurgents and common crime, and arrest remaining insurgents as they are found.

I must say, I agree. If the Dems criticized the President in this sort of thoughtful manner, I would respect them. But, of course, their base would turn against them.

Technorati tags:John McCain, Iraq

Will someone please tell Pat Robertson that his 15 minutes are up

Of all the most sactimonious condesending dickheads in the world, televanglist Pat Robertson is one of the worst.

Lemme set the stage: in a small town in Pennsylvania, eight members of the school board decided that they want all the schools in their district to teach "intelligent design" alongside evolution. They were up for re-election and all eight lost. (my thoughts on ID are grist for another column -- perhaps Dr. S will opine). Here's the story from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson warned residents of a rural Pennsylvania town Thursday that disaster may strike there because they "voted God out of your city" by ousting school board members who favored teaching intelligent design.

All eight Dover, Pa., school board members up for re-election were defeated Tuesday after trying to introduce "intelligent design" - the belief that the universe is so complex that it must have been created by a higher power - as an alternative to the theory of evolution.

"I'd like to say to the good citizens of Dover: If there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God. You just rejected him from your city," Robertson said on the Christian Broadcasting Network's "700 Club."

Somehow, Mr. Robertson has come to believe that teaching science is rejecting God. And I thought that only Islamic fascists were living in the dark ages.

Technorati links: [Pat Robertson][15 minutes]

Goes without saying



Technorati tags:French surrender, riots

If you are going to shoot at the Marines, its going to be the last day of your life

From Starts and Stripes.

I just had 5 F-18s fly over my house

Odd. I haven't seen that sort of firepower over my head since Septemebr 12 in midtown Manhattan.

Dave echo syndrome

From V.D. Hanson, all around genius:

While traveling the last three weeks from Turkey to Portugal, I was reminded again how different Europe has become from what some Americans idealize as a nirvana of benevolent socialism, universal and free medical care, and sophisticated high culture.

Gasoline ranges from $4 to more than $5 a gallon. Gridlock and smog in the major cities are about as bad as, or worse than, in the United States. Municipal parking is often impossible. Prices for almost everything from food to clothing are about 20 percent higher than what most Americans pay. Average homes and apartments are smaller but often scarcer and more expensive than in the United States. I don't recall occasional trains in America that still have toilets emptying right onto the tracks.

He's right, the Europe most people remember from their semester abroad bears little resemblance to the reality of modern day Europe. You won't find me travelling there any time in near future.

Happy Veterans Day

To all those who served, thanks. Without you, my ability to do this -- spout off about whatever -- would not exist. Freedom is not free. It must be earned.

The 2005 elections: A voice of sanity

From the NY Post's John Podhoretz:

In fact, if next year's election follows the pattern of this year's election, incumbents and the incumbent party would win, efforts to force change through the ballot-initiative process would lose — and Republicans would remain the dominant players in the House and Senate. They couldn't ask for anything more.

ANWR drilling not dead yet

From Rep. Mike Conaway's (R-TX) blog:

Conaway comments on removal of ANWR provision from the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005

The leadership pulled the ANWR provision out of the Deficit Reduction Act as part of a strategy to get the bill passed to go to conference. The provisions are still in the Senate version. There is good hope that we will get ANWR included in the conference report. The House conferees will be pushing to put the provision back into the final package. If we don’t get it included, the oil is not going anywhere and we will continue to work to remove regulations on drilling in ANWR and the Outer Continental Shelf. I have no doubt that we will at some point in the future drill in ANWR.

Wow! I just saw a commercial for Kurdistan

On televsion. They were saying things like "thank you" and waving little American flag and purple finger tips.

How is the left going to spin this?

Paristan riots

From Denis Boyles in the NRO:

I've written about [the heatwave in Franch during the summer of 2003] often because 15,000 deaths by governmental negligence is what you call serious, social-crisis-wise. It's overlooked or ignored now, as it was then, because it's an cautionary tale embarrassing to the Left: It clearly illustrates what happens to you and your loved ones if you become accustomed to relying on the government — and especially the French one — to meet your personal responsibilities. The French learned then what Tocqueville knew long ago, that by the time you learn to depend on your government to save you, you're already a goner. [--apply that lesson to the hurricane victims]. The crisis of 2003 was not only a social crisis, for the Left, it was an ideological and spiritual one.

During that awful summer, as bodies choked morgues and doctors begged for help, Chirac said and did nothing for weeks — nothing at all, except to have his functionaries announce there was no crisis and punish those who said there was. After the crisis peaked, Chirac went on TV from his vacation home but only to tell the country not to worry. A year after the event, the health minister resigned and the government announced that in future heatwaves, everybody should go to the movies because they're air-conditioned. Otherwise, that most serious of social crises caused absolutely no visible change in French political life. A country that can shrug off manslaughter on a massive scale can easily overlook a few weeks of juvenile mischief. If they're smart, next year they'll just declare it a holiday. Or perhaps the French government will produce a typically Gallic remedy and ban the rioters' traditional headcoverings so we won't be able to tell the Muslims from the Marxists.

So far, the death toll from the rioting has mercifully light, unless you count heart attacks suffered by auto-insurance adjusters. Unlike the heatwave, which took place when most journalists and politicians were away on their summer holidays, the riots are being covered extensively. They are the kind of very special "social crisis" beloved by the Left. In fact, they're the only kind they really recognize. Packs of reporters visit the grim, gray suburbs where they see the big fires, the Muslim kids with their rocks and rifles, read the stats showing joblessness and segregation and pronounce the riots a major catastrophe.

Mostly right.

Paris riots: violence against women

This needs no comment. From CNN:

Apart from poverty, feminists say the dominance of traditional cultures among families of Arab and black African origin, combined with the growing role of Islam in the suburbs, have contributed to the harsh treatment girls get there.

Pressure is mounting for Muslim women to wear veils. Forced marriages that snatch them from college and career -- where they do much better than their male schoolmates -- are on the rise.

Al Qaida and the brain of Barbra Streisand

There is nearly no limit to the kind of pugnacious ignorance that accompanies those of the left who are blind Bush-haters. No smoking gun is smoking enough for these people. The big meme that they and their fellow travelers in the MSM parrot is that coalition forces never found any Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) in Iraq.

That's a lie, or at least an untruth. In fact, we did find WMDs in Iraq -- lots of them. We did indeed discover nearly two tons of enriched uranium (enough to make 30 Hiroshima-sized bombs). We did indeed discover thousands of empty artillery shells stored next underground bunker filled with two different agricultural pesticides that, when combined, make a variant of sarin gas -- a nerve agent. We did indeed discover prohibited long range missiles that were capable of delivering both.

Oh no, that doesn't matter because to the left, we "never found any WMDs." It is now time for those of us who supported the war for all the right reasons, to call these fools on the carpet and publicly embarrass them as much as is practicable.

Which brings me to Barbra Streisand, certainly one of the highest profile knuckleheads on the planet -- or "useful idiot" to borrow an entry from Joseph Stalin's lexicon. Below, she opines that it's time to impeach President George Bush because "we were misled."

If there was ever a time in history to impeach a President of the United States, it would be now. In my opinion, it is two years too late. We should have done this before the election to spare the country the misjudgment, the incompetence and the malfeasance of this administration. Let us remember that UN weapons inspectors asked for more time to search Iraq for WMDs. Two months into their search, the Director General of the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, stated that he found no evidence that Iraq had revived its nuclear weapons program since its elimination in the 1990s. And Saddam Hussein had begun to comply with the administration's demands. Why would you invade a country if there was still a chance for peace? Shouldn't war be an absolute last resort? We went to war because we were misled [boldface mine]. And we should be angry because of the 2,000 American soldiers and the 200 armed coalition forces that have died. We should be livid because of the 15,000 American soldiers that have been horribly maimed and wounded. We should be disgusted because of the 30,000 innocent Iraqi civilians that have been killed and the 20,000 that are wounded after administration officials claimed that the US was going to liberate the Iraqi people.

When does it stop? It stops with the indictment and impeachment of this corrupt, power-hungry, greedy group of incompetent leaders. How many more have to die before this happens?

We were "misled"? I don't think so. We found the WMDs in various states of disrepair. But they were still there and could have been reconstituted and / or sold to Al Qaida miscreants. She goes on:

There was no connection between Iraq and 9/11, despite Dick Cheney's many assertions. There were no WMD's and the CIA had intelligence which corroborated that evidence. There was no nuclear threat contrary to Condoleezza Rice's "smoking gun becoming a mushroom cloud" scare tactic.

What about the two tons of uranium, Barbra? What about the terrorist training camps like Salman Pak in Iraq, where terrorists were instructed in how to hijack airplanes? What about Mohammed Atta meeting with a senior Iraq Intelligence officers in Prague? And what Abu al-Zarqawi? He was operating in Iraq and being financed by Saddam Hussein long before we invaded.

Useful idiot indeed.

dpny

Crude oil futures fall again

Despite the House of Representatives nixing oil production in ANWR, crude oil futures continued to fall. Why the House caved is beyond me. From Bloomberg:

Nov. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Crude oil fell to a 15-week low after U.S. stockpiles grew to their largest since early July, with imports restored to their average levels before Hurricane Katrina.

U.S. supplies of crude were 11 percent above their five-year seasonal average last week after increasing more than expected, a government report showed yesterday. The International Energy Agency said today the oil market ``appears to have weathered the worst of the storm'' and lowered its forecast for fourth-quarter demand by 400,000 barrels a day to 85.1 million a day.

``There's a lot of crude floating in the market after OPEC increased production to compensate for the hurricanes,'' said Simon Wardell, an oil analyst at Global Insight in London. ``Demand seems to have taken a bit of a knock after the hurricanes.''

Crude oil for December delivery fell as much as 57 cents, or 1 percent, to $58.36 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the lowest price since July 25 [bold mine]. It was down 46 cents at 1:35 p.m. London time. Oil has dropped 17 percent from a record $70.85 on Aug. 30, the day after Katrina struck the U.S.

Al Qaida in Jordan: The Harry Ried (D-NV) angle

I like this. From B Austin Higgins at A Certain Slant of Light:

I ask: where is the Senate's biggest mouth when suicide-bombers strike yet another civilian venue, killing and maiming non-combatants? Tell me the last time that Reid threw a tissy fit on the floor of the U.S. Senate over the latest in a long concatenation of terrorist attacks on Americans, American assets, and American soil? Isn't it high time that the Senate Minority Leader get his knickers in a twist and his blood up over the senseless slaughter of innocent people by Islamofacists, rather than devoting himself to undermining President Bush? Is that a proper course of action in a time of war? Isn't this more dereliction of duty than statesmanship?

Where is Mr. Reid indeed?

Al Qaida in China: the next battlefield

It's hard to imagine that Communist China, a state so controlled and controlling -- would allow something like Jordanian-style suicide bomb attack to occur. However, if this is true, the Jihadist made create a new enemy of boundless resources and an exceptionally long memory. This from the Voice of America, which carries the same source credibility issues as Debka. That stated, it is interesting:

U.S. diplomats say that Chinese police have warned luxury hotels in China of possible terrorist attacks sometime next week. The warning Wednesday comes as preparations for President Bush's visit to Beijing later this month are under way.

The U.S. Embassy says the Chinese police warning was specific: Islamic extremists are planning to attack five and four-star hotels in China "sometime over the course of next week". [bold mine] The embassy advised Americans staying at luxury hotels to remain vigilant and to exercise caution.

The warning comes as Chinese and U.S. officials are preparing for President Bush's November 19 arrival in Beijing. A host of U.S. officials including U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and former President George Bush, the father of the current president, also are visiting Beijing next week.

There are few known Islamic militant groups operating in China. However, China's northwestern frontier region is home to minority Muslim groups such as the Uighurs. China considers one Uighur group, the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, to be engaged in terrorist activities.

Moreover, several Uighurs fought with the Taleban in Afghanistan and are now in U.S. custody at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. "China could be vulnerable to terror activities," said Li Nan, a Chinese security expert at the Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies in Singapore. "For instance, Chinese policies in the western part of China like in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region were pretty heavy-handed."

Iranian meltdown: President under siege

Again, from The Independent:

Iran's President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is facing a crisis of public confidence after his nominee for oil minister was forced to withdraw in the face of accusations of corruption.

The storm over the appointment, the most important and lucrative in Iran's cabinet, is the latest in a series of controversies to engulf the President. His political inexperience, unorthodox beliefs and trust in untested religious conservatives is causing widespread concern in Iran.

This is good news if its true. Their stock market is already lost a titanic amount of value since this guy got elected.

Al Qaida in Jordan: learning the lesson of Egypt

Like I wrote yesterday, any country -- Islamic or not -- that associates with the West is now a target for these 7th century extremist radicals. From the Independent:

After the bomb attacks on hotels in the luxury Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, it was only a matter of time as to when the softest of targets would be blown up in Jordan.

Guests entering the main Egyptian hotels have to negotiate concrete blocks at the entrance, taxi drivers are questioned, and car boots checked. Armed guards accompanied by sniffer dogs are on hand. But the lesson does not seem to have been learned in Jordan, a major draw for tourists from around the world who visit the ancient city of Petra and the Dead Sea and follow in the footsteps of Lawrence of Arabia at Wadi Ram.

Regular travellers to Amman say there are virtually no security precautions, although soldiers sometimes stand around in hotel lobbies, where businessmen and tourists gather.

Although security at the airport has been stepped up, until yesterday there were no luggage checks by hotel management, and no signs of stepped-up surveillance.

Jordan has long been the crossroads of the Middle East. It shares its borders with Israel, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Syria. But, as a major US ally, the same as Egypt, Jordan must have expected to be a prime target of the radical Islamic groups operating in the Middle East. Two American ships were fired on in August in Jordan's Red Sea port of Aqaba.

Many hotels were built in an economic boom fuelled by the signing of a peace treaty with Israel. The influx of Iraqis since the fall of Saddam Hussein has brought a new wave of prosperity. The arrival of as many as half a million Iraqis caused a real estate bubble but that could burst if ever they return home en masse.

Al Qaida in Jordan: Zarqawi moves / expands into Jordan

From Debka:

The suicide attacks on three US-owned five-star hotels popular with Westerners in Amman Wednesday night, Nov. 9, points to four disturbing manifestations:

1. The constant US offensives on al Qaeda sanctuaries in Iraq have not been able to restrict the movements of its activists in Iraq and across its borders.

2. The fact that Zarqawi is able to redirect elements of his Iraqi strength to other points in the Middle East means he is not short of manpower.

3. The ablest Western intelligence agencies are employed in the Middle East to combat al Qaeda, as well as the Jordanian and Israeli services. Yet none have achieved any penetrations capable of forecasting al Qaeda’s next moves.

4. There is no evidence to bear out President George W. Bush’s assertion that al Qaeda’s operational capabilities have been damaged. Since its July 7 transport offensive in London, the group has been on the offensive around the world, in Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

5. Israel’s evacuation of the Gaza Strip has opened the door to al Qaeda and brought the international jihadists right up to its borders.

Interesting if true.

Al Qaida in Jordan: The usual suspects

Why is this not a surprise:

Al-Qaida claimed responsibility in an Internet posting Thursday for three suicide attacks on Western hotels that killed at least 57 people, as police clamped down on security and began running DNA tests to try to identify the bombers.

The nearly simultaneous attacks late Wednesday also wounded more than 115 people, police said. Several arrests were made overnight, although it was unclear if those arrested were suspects or witnesses.

The claim of responsibility, signed in the name of the spokesman for the group Al-Qaida in Iraq, said that "after studying and watching the targets, places were chosen to carry out an attack on some hotels that the tyrant of Jordan has made the backyard garden for the enemy of the religion _ Jews and crusaders."

Paris riots: The Davespeak Echo syndrome

From the Ottawa Citizen via Real Clear Politics:

The joke is completed because, except for the odd media-savvy poseur, the rioters aren’t asking for improved welfare arrangements. They are asking e.g. for Nicolas Sarkozy’s head. They want French policemen dead. They are demanding that the French state recognize that parts of France are “Islamic territory”. They want French laws replaced with Sharia. And their chant, in each of the many hundred locations where the rioting continues every night, is “Allahou Akhbar! Allahou Akhbar!” It is impossible to imagine a more complete disconnect between them and the French society that is now looking for ways to appease them.

And they will not be appeased -- any more than the Palestinians will be appeased, by anything short of the disappearance of Israel. I do not even think de Villepin’s extravagant offer to hurl money will make things worse. It will have no effect whatever. The rioting will stop and start, for the rioters’ own tac

Al Qaida in Jordan: more details

From CNN:

Jordanian police Maj. Bashir al-Da'aja said officials believe all the Amman hotel blasts were carried out by suicide bombers.

"The attacks carry the trademark of al Qaeda," a police source said on condition of anonymity in line with police regulations. "However it is not certain. We are investigating."

The explosions struck the Grand Hyatt, Radisson SAS and Days Inn hotels. A police officer at the Radisson site said it was caused "apparently by a bomb."

The hotels, in the commercial Jebel Amman district, are frequented by American and European businessmen and diplomats. The Radisson, in particular, is popular with Israeli tourists, and was a target of several foiled al Qaeda plots in the past.

Black smoke rose into the night and wounded stumbled out of the hotels. The stone entrance of the Grand Hyatt was completely shattered. An AP reporter saw seven bodies carried out and many more wounded on stretchers.

"It was a miracle that we made it out with a scratch," said a British guest at the Grand Hyatt.

The blast ripped through the Radisson during a wedding party with at least 300 guests. At least five people were killed and 20 wounded in that explosion.

Suicide bomber at a wedding. Nice touch.

Al Qaida in Jordan: it was an inside job

The blast was inside the hotel:

Reuters reported five people were killed at the Hyatt alone with at least 40 injured, some seriously.

A police source told the news service the Radisson blast was caused by a bomb placed in a false ceiling. [bold mine]

The Radisson bombing reportedly ripped through a banquet hall where 250 people were attending a wedding reception. The hotel is known to be a popular destination for Israelis, Reuters reported.

What does this mean? They thought about it for along time. It was planned to kill as many people as possible. And it was aimed at westerners.

How comfortable to you feel?

.

Al Qaida in Jordan: the Zarqawi Connection

From Debka:

These hotels are frequented by tourists and foreign contractors going in and out of Iraq. DEBKAfile: Jordan is known to be under threat of terror attack by Abu Musab al Zarqawi, himself a Jordanian Palestinian. Police report the Radisson bomb was planted in a false ceiling. A column of smoke is rising over the Jebal district. Amman goes on high terror alert and special security measures imposed for the royal palaces, government and security facilities.

Paristan riots: the deportations begin

From the Beeb:

Interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy has ordered the expulsion of all foreigners convicted of taking part in the riots that have swept France for 13 nights.

He told parliament 120 foreigners had been found guilty of involvement and would be deported without delay.

This is the sign that good sense is starting to take hold.

Paristan riots: Meanwhile back in Paris

M Le Pen is mounting a comeback.

French far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen claimed Wednesday his National Front party has been "submerged" with prospective members and supportive e-mail since rioting erupted in heavily immigrant communities near Paris.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Le Pen described the recent violence as "just the start" of conflicts caused by "massive immigration from countries of the Third World that is threatening not just France but the whole continent."

Le Pen said people with immigrant backgrounds who commit crimes should be stripped of their French nationality and sent "back to their country of origin."

Al Qaida in Jordan: Jordan explodes

From Al Jareeza:

At least 18 people have died in near simultaneous explosions at international hotels in the Jordanian capital.

Dozen more are reported to have been injured in the blasts, which occurred at the Radisson SAS and Grand Hyatt Hotels.

According to the Associated Press the first explosion occurred at 2050 local time (1850 GMT) in or near the lobby of the Grand Hyatt.

The second blast followed shortly afterwards, hitting a wedding hall at the Radisson SAS hotel.

Both hotels are located in the commercial Jebel Amman district on the Jordanian capital and are frequented by western business travelers and diplomats.

Paris riots: Not down under thank you

From the London Independent:

Hundreds of armed police were involved in yesterday's pre-dawn raids in Sydney and Melbourne, the largest anti-terrorism operation mounted in Australia. One of the 17 suspects was in a critical condition in hospital after being shot in the neck during a gunfight with police. The others appeared in court yesterday, charged with conspiring to carry out a terrorist act and belonging to a proscribed organisation. Police say they seized chemicals similar to those used in the London Underground bombings in July.

The raids and arrests appeared to vindicate the Prime Minister, John Howard, who last week rushed an amendment to existing counter- terrorism laws through parliament, claiming it was necessary to foil a specific threat.

Critics accused him of trying to divert attention from unpopular domestic policies, including proposed legislation eroding trade union rights.

You goota love that last graf. To the left, the war on terror is political diversion from the"real issues" like trade union rights. It's almost as if the left doesn't realize that they are in the same boat as everybody else, and that terrorism doesn't just afflict the right side of the aisle, but everyone. Its like thet want the right to drill a hole in their side of the boat, regardless of how it effects anybody else.

Paris Riots: The offical spin from Al Jazeera

Rioters have shrugged off emergency laws, looting and burning two super-stores, setting fire to a newspaper office and paralysing France's second-largest city's subway system with a firebomb.

President Jacques Chirac announced extraordinary security measures, which began on Wednesday and are valid for a 12-day state of emergency, clearing the way for curfews after nearly two weeks of rioting in neglected and impoverished neighbourhoods with largely Muslim communities.

Officials were forced to shut down the southern city of Lyon's subway system after a bomb exploded in a station, a regional government spokesman said, adding no one was hurt.

Zarqawi moves into Baghdad

But will he move to Paris? From Debka:

According to intelligence data reaching the American command, the Jordanian terrorist chief, Abu Musab al Zarqawi, commander of al Qaeda Iraq, has left the Sunni-dominated Anbar province bordering on Syria after two years. In mid-October he is described as driving into Baghdad in mid-October in a convoy of six Iraqi military vehicles stolen from US-Iraqi bases in the north. All the travelers, including the boss, were clad in new uniforms of high Iraqi army officers. They breezed past the roadblocks guarding the town’s entrances without arousing suspicion. Indeed some of the Iraqi security officers manning them saluted the fake officers.

Paris riots: Operation French Freedom

Priceless:

This particular country is a special case. It does have WMDs, though we do not know exactly the state they are in or who they are aimed at. You might have had better intelligence on that, although, to be quite candid, given the attachment some of your advisers feel for the country in question, you ought to read reports very carefully and balance them against others.

There are other reasons why this particular country needs your attention and why, quite possibly, no other will afterwards. In the first place, it is a country that is implacably hostile to the United States and to the Anglosphere. That, in itself, is not a reason for having to intervene. But it has created a union (which is not as strong as it used to be, since its social model is going up in flames even as we speak), whose prime purpose is to oppose the United States.

The country in question and its corrupt political leadership have an extensive track record of supporting tyrannical regimes and terrorists as well as terror masters. Remember who gave all possible help and support to Chairman Yasser Arafat, to the detriment of the peace process in the Middle East? Remember who had close and mutually beneficial relations with Saddam Hussein? I could go on.

It is not only political and financial support that anti-American dictators and various terror masters can hope for. The country in question has provided ideological training to an even greater extent than the Soviet Union had done in the past. Several of the world’s worst, most bloodthirsty dictators and mass murderers were radicalized not in their own countries but in the one I am describing.

From every point of view, Mr President, it is highly expedient that the United States looks carefully at the possibilities of dealing with this particular problem. Do not look to the United Nations. Any resolution you might contemplate would be blocked by China, the country’s greatest friend.

It is up to you to make a decision. However, let me assure you that should the United States decide to launch Operation French Freedom, Britain will be there with you, just as it was in 1944.

Paris riots: the aftermath and the future

I love Richard Brookhiser. In the NY Observer:

...Like a rotten mackerel by moonlight, the French leadership shines and stinks. Dominique de Villepin, with his pompadour and his potted biography of Napoleon; Jacques Chirac, protected only by the presidency from the slammer — these jewels in the crown of Gallic civilization thought they could earn the affection of their Muslim helots by truckling to Saddam Hussein: you’ll love us, even though you chop wood and haul water, because we take oil for food bribes.

But now, after more than a week of arson and uproar, it turns out that France’s Arabs don’t like France any more than we do. Now maybe Froggy knows what we feel like: we liberated them, and were rewarded by 60 years of ingratitude. They kissed Saddamite ass, and are being rewarded by son et lumiere.

It deserves to be read in its entirety.

Gay marriage: no word from Andrew

Andrew Sullivan, who is generally praised in this space, has yet to post anything about the overwhelming vote in Texas banning same-sex marriage. When he posts his torch songs about "being oppressed" and wanting to be "free to love" whomever he chooses or what a bunch of evil rednecks people in Texas are, I'll post it here.

I don't mean to make light of his travails. Personally, I think some sort of corporate deal can be worked out where two people form a corporation and the survivor gets all the assets (another argument for the end of the death tax). But he becomes such a caricature of himself when he carries on like this.

Sad, really.

Paristan riots: Tony Blankley riffs

This deserves to read in it's entirety. Here's a fat excerpt:

When, seven months ago, I finished writing my book, "The West's Last Chance: Will We Win the Clash of Civilizations?" (Regnery Publishing, Washington, D.C., Sept.11, 2005), London had not been attacked by Islamist terrorists, the Tate Museum in London had not removed an art exhibit because it offended radical Muslim sensitivities, and France had not yet experienced the explosion of violence from elements of its Muslim population in its "no-go zone" communities.

The fact that I predicted all those events in my book was not the result of clairvoyance. It was merely the result of a normally intelligent person looking at the facts, and their rather obvious implications, without the blinding effect of a politically correct mentality.

After studying what the radical Islamists were saying and doing in Europe, I opened my book with a scenario of a London Islamist terrorist attack and an Islamist demand for removing offensive European artwork from museums. Then I wrote: "Muslim parts of Paris, Rotterdam and other European cities are already labeled no-go zones for ethnic Europeans, including armed policemen. As the Muslim populations -- and their level of cultural and religious assertiveness -- expand, European geography will be 'reclaimed' for Islam. Europe will become pockmarked with increasing numbers of little Fallujahs that will be effectively impenetrable by anything much short of a U.S. Marine division."

"Thus, as the fundamentalism expands into European (and perhaps to a lesser extent American) Muslim communities, not only will Islamic cultural aggression against a seemingly passive and apologetic indigenous population increase, but the zone of safety and support for the actual terrorists will expand as well." ("The West's Last Chance," pp 55-56).

Now, two weeks into the appalling explosion of violence in Europe (and the equally appalling French governmental passivity in the face of such violence), most of the world's media treats this huge event as the third or fourth story on the evening news. From the BBC and CNN to the major newspapers of the world, the story is underreported and mis-reported. On Monday, the Washington Post was still not reporting the story on the front page.

Paris riots: almost amusing

From USA Today:

In a rare show of unity, the Islamic community is working in tandem with the French authorities, which requested that local Muslim imams help restore peace. The imams appealed for calm but to no avail. This week, the Union of French Islamic Organizations stepped up efforts by issuing a fatwa, or religious decree, condemning the riots.

The fact is that most youth do not identify with Islam or religious leaders in this situation because their discontent is not about religion. It's about justice.

Like I said earlier in the week, the reason that the rioter didn't respond to the local imams is that they are not being controlled by the local imams, Rather, they area being controlled by force outside the country -- al Qaida and Iran. "Discontent" about "justice" doesn't build bomb factories.

The boomers, the MSM and 1968

From David Ignatius in The Washington Post. This is the perfect conventional wisdom and exactly to which I was speaking a few day ago.
One day in the late 1970s, the writer James Baldwin was explaining to an Arab friend that he wanted to go back to America after many years as an expatriate in France. "America has found a formula to deal with the demon of race," Baldwin told Syrian businessman Raja Sidawi, who had a house near him in St. Paul de Vence. In France and the rest of Europe, people pretended that the race problem didn't exist, Baldwin said, but "someday it will explode."

..."The Fire Next Time" was the title Baldwin gave to his prophetic 1963 book about race. Sure enough, the fire came. Americans of my generation remember the riots in Watts and Newark, and the explosion of rage in Washington after Martin Luther King Jr.'s death. It was a trial by fire, and it changed America. [bold mine] Racist politicians such as George Wallace tried to sow more hatred, but a consensus emerged that America needed to provide real opportunities for the enraged young blacks who were throwing the molotov cocktails. The country began a period of court-ordered affirmative action that was acutely painful for blacks and whites but changed how America looks and feels.

They see everything through the lens of 1968 and it distorts everything they see. It is almost as if the beginning and end of time belongs to their generation and their generation alone.

I once heard a boomer saying that her generation's greatist accomplishment was ending the Vietnam War. I was appalled. They didn't end the Vietnam War, they simply force the government to withdraw from it and allowed the North Vietnamese to conquer South Vietman. Then, genicide began. As Richard Brookhiser is fond of saying, "lose a war, gain a restaurant".

Gay marriage, not in America

Texas became the 19th state to constitutional ban gay marriage. In an overwelming vote, more than 75% percent approved the amendment prohibiting same sex marriage.

Memo to Andrew: you can not overturn thousands of years of societial norm by judicial fiat as your side as sought to do. There will be a backlash. And it will be ugly. I'm sorry Andrew, but the people are speaking and they don't like what you propose. I suppose now we'll all be exposed to a series of long, over-wrought torch songs about freedom means freedom for everybody.

This tiny bit from SkyNews:

French courts are now having to deal with a huge backlog of people arrested in the past fortnight. So far, 106 of the 1,500 detained have been given jail sentences.

This is a good start and in some ways batter than in The States: these hooligans are already on their way to the slammer. Here, they would have been released on bail and able to hit the streets again.

Crude oil futures fall -- again

From Bloomberg:

Crude oil fell close to a three-month low in New York before a government report that may show U.S. supplies grew for a fifth straight week as mild weather reduced consumption.

Crude oil for December delivery fell as much as 30 cents, or 0.5 percent, to $59.41 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, where it was down 20 cents at 10:35 a.m. London time. Prices have dropped 16 percent from a record $70.85 on Aug. 30, a day after Hurricane Katrina struck the U.S. Oil touched $58.60 two days ago, the lowest intraday price since July 27. [bold mine]

Brent crude for December settlement fell 24 cents, or 0.4 percent, to $57.57 a barrel in London on the ICE Futures exchange, formerly the International Petroleum Exchange.

Stockpiles Growing

More increases in crude stockpiles would mark the second year in a row U.S. supplies grew instead of falling as they usually do when demand peaks during the Northern Hemisphere's winter. U.S. imports are recovering after the hurricane season as the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and other producing countries pump near capacity.

Prediction, gas below $2 in the The States with crude hovering in the high $40s or low $50 by Q1 '06.

Paristan riots: From the reliably left-wing Guardian of London

This is interesting insofar as it quotes the actual yobbos doing damage. What I found interesting is that one of these young fellows is caught smoking on a commuter train. He then acknowledges that it was the wrong thing to do, but is incensed that he gets busted by the cops -- as if he wants some sort of special treatment from the dhimmi. Dig this:

There are many reasons for the violence. "Because we hate, because we're mad, because we've had it up to here," said Rachid, parka hood up against the cold. "Look around you. This place is shit, it's a dump. We have nothing here. There's nothing for us."

Sylla, 18, has a more specific target for his rage. "Les keufs, man, the cops. They're Sarkozy's and Sarkozy must go, he has to shut his mouth, say sorry or just fuck off. He shows no respect. He calls us animals, he says he'll clean the cités with a power hose. He's made it worse, man. Every car that goes up, that's one more message for him."

The interior minister's forces, of which there are some 9,500 on duty around the country, are loathed. "They harass you, they hassle you, they insult you the whole time, ID checks now, scooter checks next. They call you nigger names," said Karim, 17. "I got caught the other week smoking on the train. OK, you shouldn't smoke on the train. But we get to Aulnay station, there are six cops waiting for us, three cars. They did the whole body search, they had me with my hands on the roof of the car. One said: 'Go back home, Arab. Screw your race'."

Sylla summed it up. "We burn because it's the only way to make ourselves heard, because it's solidarity with the rest of the non-citizens in this country, with this whole underclass. Because it feels good to do something with your rage," he said.

"Solidarity with the "non-citizens"? A quick solution to all this: once arrested, if they are not citizens, toss 'em out.