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.

Paristan riots: Dick Morris opines

Dick Morris is an amoral, political weasel. That stated, he is a brilliant political operative whose candidate generally win. His expertise beyond these shore was proven when he managed Vincente Fox's stunning victory in Mexico. His takes on the Paristan riots is noteworthy, if shortsighted. From today New York Post:

November 9, 2005 -- THE increasingly violent riots that are gripping France are only likely to get worse. The anger of immigrant Muslims reflects their lack of opportunities and their dead-end prospects.

For a North African or Middle East immigrant in France, there are few avenues that offer a prospect of upward mobility — in stark contrast to the plethora of choices available to immigrants in the United States. Instead of gearing itself to job creation and upward mobility — as the American system does — the French economy, society, labor regulations, tax laws and social structure are all designed to provide a high-quality life to the traditional, white population without allowing the growth and expansion so necessary for the swelling ranks of immigrants....

As fellow Post columnist John O'Sullivan observed, immigrants to the United States invest heavily in our national "narrative," popularly called the American dream. Ask any Islamic taxi driver in New York and he will tell you his children are going to college and will regale you with his high hopes for the future. This sense of optimism and improvement kindles a national pride which tends to offset the pull of the separatist Islamic culture and nullifies much of its anti-Western connotation.

But the French Muslim has no such offsets. Far from a melting pot, the stagnation of the French economy — and the rigidity of its society — leaves them a congealed mass at the bottom of the economic ladder, concentrated in poor suburbs, shunted out of sight and out of the way. With 10 percent of the population thus confined to the lowest rung of society, the threat of violence is quite real.

When America had her own racial riots in the '60s, they came at a time of unprecedented upward economic and social mobility. Segregation was collapsing. Minority educational and income levels were poised to rise rapidly in the ensuing 30 years. While the riots raged, relief was around the corner.

But France's entire social and economic fabric was never designed to accommodate outsiders. Without fundamental and wrenching changes, it will not be able to deal with the increasingly heavy ballast at the bottom of its economic boat, a weight that could increasingly threaten the navigability of the ship of state.

Very conventional, very MSM. And maybe that's the object lesson. The MSM looks to the next newscycle and doesn't think strategically. Sort of like American business.

Paris riots: Paristan meets New Orleans

In a scene reminiscent of post-Katrina New Orleans, another disaster in Paris last evening as French Muslim rioters torched and looted cars and superstores in the outskirts of Paris last night despite beefed up security.

From the AP:

France declared a state of emergency Tuesday to quell the country's worst unrest since the student uprisings of 1968 that toppled a government, and the prime minister said the nation faced a "moment of truth" over its failure to integrate Arab and African immigrants and their children.

Rioters ignored the extraordinary security measures, which began Wednesday, as they looted and burned two superstores, set fire to a newspaper office and paralyzed France's second largest city's subway system with a gasoline bomb.

The measures, valid for 12 days, clear the way for curfews after nearly two weeks of rioting in neglected and impoverished neighborhoods with largely Muslim communities....

Images of teenagers from immigrant families pelting riot police with stones and gasoline bombs _ reminiscent of Palestinian youths attacking Israeli patrols _ are resonating throughout the Arab world.

The Egyptian daily Al-Massaie referred to the riots as "the intefadeh of the poor." Arabic satellite networks have given lead coverage to the mayhem, with regular live reports. Newspapers throughout the region have closely followed the story, calling it a "nightmare" and a "war of the suburbs."

Now watch as anti-western lynch mobs arrive in France by hook or crook to help their "brothers" in the struggle. At some point, the US government is going to have to smuggle France's nukes out of the country to prohibit these miscreants from getting their hands on them.

Housing market softens = good for stocks

The people I know in the business are starting to cry the blues because the real estate gravy train seems to have left the station. Whereas before, any fool with a real estate license could make money in real estate, the market has peaked. I sold at the peak (or near it) earlier this year in Northeastern Westchester County, New York (that's the horsey part), knowing that this was coming.

Small investors, burned by the stock market in Great Dot Com Bust, put their money into amateur real estate ventures -- like a house or two on spec with an insanely low, interest-only variable rate mortgages. Those folks who purchased houses for speculation are now locked in at ever increasing rates. Amateur speculators -- people that bought tech stocks like JDS Uniphase at $170 without knowing what the company did -- are in trouble and will have to unload their spec houses, probably at a loss.

With The Fed tightening ever so slowly but surely, the housing market is starting soften. This from Bloomberg:

Nov. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Toll Brothers Inc., the largest U.S. builder of luxury homes, reduced next year's sales forecast, saying the housing market is weakening after a five-year boom. Its shares fell 14 percent, the most in seven years.

The sales forecast was cut by a range of 3.8 percent to 6.9 percent because of ``some softening of demand'' and delays in opening new communities, the Horsham, Pennsylvania-based company said today in a statement. The shares of rivals including Pulte Homes Inc. and D.R. Horton Inc. fell about 9 percent.

Interest rates are rising, making mortgages more costly and curbing home sales, which have hit highs each year since 2001. The housing market has accounted for 50 percent of U.S. economic growth and more than half of private payroll jobs created in that period, Merrill Lynch & Co. estimated earlier this year.

Big institutional money has been in commodities for a while -- witness the spectacular rise in crude prices without underlying demand pressures. But even that is starting ease. That money will need to find a home soon -- probably the stock market or into REITs.

Look for more this. Results are two fold:

1) Housing markets stabilize in pricing as more inventory comes on the market (real estate agents rejoice, somebody's got to sell those spec houses -- albiet for less coin than the original purchase price);
2) Excess cash goes back into the market, fueling a modest rise in the stock market (look for 11K by the end of the year with more to follow).

dpny

Paris' Muslim riots: A random thought

Two questions to anyone who wants to respond:

1) What if President George Bush (R) took 12 days before he took concrete action in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina?
2) What if these riots happened in August when the French Government is on holiday? When there was heat wave a few years ago, 10,000 people died before anyting happened.

Feel free to comment.

dpny

Paris' Muslim Riots: As if this is going to help

From the International Herald-Tribune:

After a series of mostly ineffectual pledges by French leaders to restore order and crack down on rioters, the government invoked a 50-year-old law, dating from its war in Algeria, that gives local officials the authority to enforce curfews, as well as other expanded law-enforcement powers.

I like that: "a series of mostly ineffectual pledges..." Pledges do nothing. Actions matter. And the French are famous for speaking and doing nothing.

Thanks

This was our biggest day ever with more than 210 hits. To all our new and recurrent visitors, I say thanks. If you'd like to link your blog, I'll reciprocate. Drop me a line.

dpny

Paris riots: Iranian nukes

I don't want to make too much of this, but there may be a connection. The Iranians want nukes. The EU, lead by France, Germany and the UK, don't want them to have any. A pair of miscreants get accidentally electrocuted climbing fence and falling into an electrical sub-station. Immediately thereafter, organized gangs start to terrorize Paris, buring cars and businesses. There is limited action in Berlin, but Germany cleaned out it's al Qaida cells years before. There is a bit in the UK, but after the subway bombing there, Scotland Yard did it's thing and deported a bunch of bad guys.

But France still burns.

Is there a message in this:

Tehran: Iran Tuesday rejected a demand by the European Union (EU) to halt all nuclear fuel cycle activities in the Islamic republic, state news television IRIB reported.

Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hamid-Reza Assefi told IRIB that the EU demand was "surprising" and called on the EU to revise its "unconstructive approach".

In a draft declaration issued in Brussels Monday, the EU urged Iran to reinstate "a full suspension of all fuel cycle activities, thus allowing negotiations with the European side to resume".

"Iran will not make any compromise on its legal and legitimate right (of having its own nuclear cycle)," Assefi said.

The demand came as Iranian Foreign Minister Manuchehr Mottaki Tuesday briefed foreign diplomats in Tehran on Iran's nuclear programmes in what many see as a further conciliatory gesture to a hostile international community.

Will we see more, if Iran doesn't get it's way? If we do, is it causal or correlational?

Paris riots: "effectiveness of our ... model?"

Frecnh Prime Minister appears to be completely out of sync with reality when he said this:

"We must be lucid: The Republic is at a moment of truth," Villepin said at an impassioned parliamentary debate Tuesday where lawmakers also spoke frankly about France's failings.

"The effectiveness of our integration model is in question," the prime minister said. He called the riots "a warning" and "an appeal."

The riots are an appeal? To what? To change the model of assimilation? No, these people want power the old fashioned way, by taking it through force. Even if the French government can calm things down -- a big if -- look for this to fester for years, with some prominent Islamic country calling for "discussions" with these poor unassimilated souls with them as the "mediator".

Like Don Corleone said in the Godfather: Whoever asks for the meeting, he's the traitor.

Russia becoming Christian country

I don't know that this is true, but there is one blog saying it and showing links that back up the claim.

The recent Muslim torching of French property is widely seen as the beginning of the end of Europe. But a closer inspection of the evidence forces quite a different conclusion.

To understand the problem in France, we must first consider a piece of evidence that is nowhere to be found in the front pages of any MSM outlet. According to reports coming out of the Inter-religious Council in Russia, over two million Russian Muslims have converted to Christianity in the last fifteen years, while only 2500 Russians have become Muslims. The driving force behind this wave of conversion to Christianity? Sectarian violence.

As I am fond of saying, intersting, if true

Paris riots: Muslims better assimilated in the US than France

Why is this no big surprise? From the AFP:

CHICAGO, Nov 8 (AFP) - While Arab Americans and Muslims suffered a spike in hate crimes after the September 11 attacks, they do not face the same level of disenfranchisement as their French counterparts, experts say.

"They're discriminated against but they have jobs -- this is the major difference from Europe," Yvonne Haddad, a professor of Islamic history at Georgetown University in Washington told AFP.

Arab and Muslim immigrants in the US generally identify themselves as Americans and integrate with relative ease into a society that prides itself on social mobility and has more tolerance for cultural and religious differences, Haddad said.

"To identify as French you have to renounce your faith and have to renounce you previous identity as though your previous self didn't exist. In the US you don't have to," she said.

Arabs are a tiny minority in the United States, making up less than one percent of the population, according to the census bureau. They also constitute only about a quarter to a third of the country's Muslims, estimated at six million to seven million people or about two percent of the population.

Arab Americans and Muslims are better educated and have a higher income than the national average, said Edina Lekovic, communications director for the Muslim Public Affairs Council.

"There's no clear connection between the European and the American Muslim experience," she said, explaining that Muslims in the United States are less isolated and homogeneous than their European counterpart.

Oil continues its fall

From Bloomberg:

Crude oil for December delivery fell 32 cents, or 0.5 percent, to $59.15 a barrel at 11:18 a.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Futures have dropped 17 percent since reaching a record $70.85 on Aug. 30. Prices are up 20 percent from a year ago.

Paris riots: North Korea -- no comment

When I was a kid, I used to love listening to Radio Bulgaria in English. The language was always chocked full with phrases like "American running dogs" and "British stooges". It was a near perfect caricature of the socialist mindset and I loved it. Perhaps that's why I find so much amusement in the hysterical ravings of the far left in America and the mainstream of places like France. They still talk the talk even though it's completely unmoored from reality.

So get this bit from North Korea:

Pyongyang, November 7 (KCNA) -- Japan is massively stockpiling plutonium under the pretext of "laying in stock nuclear fuel". Rodong Sinmun Monday observes in a signed commentary in this regard: These moves of Japan are aimed not at storing fuel for nuclear power plants but at stockpiling the nuclear substance for the manufacture of nuclear weapons. Japan's stockpiling of "nuclear substance" is designed to realize its militarists' deep rooted ambition to have access to nukes.

Okay, I know, it's not about the Paris riots. But it is an amusing glimpse into the oh-so-paranoid reality of North Korea. And perhaps, there is even a kernal of truth to this. There is nothing in this world more frightening to North Korea than a nuclear Japan. Oh sure, they're afraid of us, but Japan as conquered North Korea a bunch of times. And if Japan wanted to become a nuclear superpower, it wouldn't take long. They could crank out nuclear weapons like Toyotas (can you imagine the Camry long range strategic missile?).

It would probably give the Chinese something to think about as well. Once upon a time, Taiwan was part of Japan. It may well again.

Paris riots: Iranian comment -- "due respect"

In the time it took me to write an opening lead and start cutting and pasting, the Iranian News Service posted an opinion piece. In it, they charged that the French were trying to "assimilate [muslim immigrants] into western society without due respect to their culture and religion" [ital. mine].

"Due respect". This from a society that executes Christians, Buddhists and Hindus? Excuse me, isn't it implied that when one "assimilates" one takes on the the larger culture of the new land and casts off at least the old culture if not necessarily the old religion?

That seals it. Iran is pulling the strings in order to get the Chirac Government to cave in some important way, maybe even something like limited automony like in the tribal areas of Pakistan, or affirmative action in fields that would allow hiring "French" muslims to control the firing codes of their strategic missile forces.

Rationale: to have a forward base next to the enemy's capital. France already has nuclear weapons and the launch vehicles that can strike all of western and eastern Europe. Maybe even The States and Canada.

Paris riots: Russia is criticizing French "powerlessness"

From Brother Drudge:

Russian media criticize French 'powerlessness' against riots
Tue Nov 08 2005 09:30:46 ET

Russian newspapers criticized French authorities Tuesday for being "powerless" in the face of urban riots as a leading nationalist lawmaker called for increased police checks on immigrants in Russia.

"During 10 days of rioting, the authorities showed their powerlessness in confronting the situation," the Kommersant daily said, warning of "a grave political crisis" and a possible "immigrant revolution" across France.

French President Jacques Chirac displayed "quite indecisive behaviour faced with the biggest upheaval in contemporary French history," the Gazeta daily said, attacking the "lack of agreement within the government."

Also Tuesday, nationalist parliament deputy Dmitry Rogozin urged Russia's interior ministry to increase checks on immigrants and identify "potential instigators" of riots.

"The interior ministry should take preventive measures against those who could organise unrest, up to and including detention and deportation," Rogozin said in an interview with the Nezavisimaya Gazeta daily.

Rogozin said law enforcement forces should increase checks on diasporas from the Caucasus and Central Asia "with the aim of preventing violent action by illegal immigrants in Moscow and other cities."

Paris riots: al Jazeera reports

One really need to read this in it entirety to understand how various Arab and jihadi factions are starting to jockey for position viz a viz the Paris riots.

The violence sweeping Paris' impoverished suburbs has triggered criticism from the Arab media over a failure to integrate immigrants It has also raised fears that the riots' consequences could spread across the Arab-Muslim world.

Pictures of burning cars and ransacked shops were splashed across the front pages of Arab newspapers while television networks have mobilised to cover what one daily called the "civil war" and another the "uprising".

While condemning the spread of violence by French youths - mostly among the country's immigrant Muslim and Arab communities - the Arab media has mainly blamed riots on longstanding social malaise, unemployment and alienation.

Again, It's the French Government's fault for not doing enough to appease, ahem, assimilate these foriegn nationals who fled their countries because of the corruption and poverty back home.

I just love the prevailing meme: it's the government's fault that the immigrants can't assimilate, not the immigrant's fault. We can't blame the victim, even if he is guilty.

Paris riots: Baghdad on the Seine

I always find the guys at Israel's Debka amusing -- like when they reported we had captured Osama. Nevertheless, it's worth a gander:

The violent riots spreading across France took several worrying directions Sunday night, Nov. 6, and Monday. The mostly Muslim gangs of youths began surging out of the immigrant suburbs to invade town centers; they fired their first gunshots at policemen; the number of torched cars peaked to 1,400; and disturbing new slogans were hurled, depicting Paris as ”Baghdad-on-the Seine” and their campaign as the start of Europe’s Ramadan Intifada.

A single slogan made a mockery of president Jacques Chirac’s efforts of the last three years to distance France from President George W. Bush’s Iraq war. Furthermore, the French government’s helplessness in quelling the trouble is encouraging other European communities to follow suit - in Denmark, Belgium, Spain and Sweden, for starters.

Paris riots: I'd like to thank all our new and recurring visitors today

Davespeak is experiencing much higher than usual traffic and I'd like to thank all of you for visiting. Please feel free to add this blog to your own or to drop me a line.

dpny

Paris riots: a bleg

It's been probably more than two decades since I read The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, but I seem to remember something about "evil from The East" as the bad guys were known. Now, as I understand it, Mr. Tolkien was referring to Soviet Communism (or at least it has been interpreted in manner by some). What I'm trying to get a handle on is whether or not this same metaphor can be extended to Islamic Fascism. Any theories? Any thoughts?

dpny

Paris Riots: Mark Steyn in The Telegraph of London

He's always a genius. Read the whole thing here. Power grafs:

Early skirmish in the Eurabian civil war
By Mark Steyn
(Filed: 08/11/2005)

According to its Office du Tourisme, the big event in Evreux this past weekend was supposed to be the annual fête de la pomme, du cidre et du fromage at the Place de la Mairie. Instead, in this charmingly smouldering cathedral town in Normandy, a shopping mall, a post office, two schools, upwards of 50 vehicles and, oh yes, the police station were destroyed by - what's the word? - "youths".

Over at the Place de la Mairie, M le Maire himself, Jean-Louis Debré, seemed affronted by the very idea that un soupçon de carnage should be allowed to distract from the cheese-tasting. "A hundred people have smashed everything and strewn desolation," he told reporters. "Well, they don't form part of our universe."

Maybe not, but unfortunately you form part of theirs.

Mr Debré, a close pal of President Chirac's, was a little off on the numbers. There were an estimated 200 "youths" rampaging through Evreux. With baseball bats. They injured, among others, a dozen firemen. "To those responsible for the violence, I want to say: Be serious!" Mr Debré told France Info radio. "If you want to live in a fairer, more fraternal society, this is not how to go about it."

Oh, dear. Who's not "being serious" here? In Normandy, it's not just the cheese that's soft and runny. Granted that France's over-regulated sclerotic economy profoundly obstructs the social mobility of immigrants, even Mr Debris - whoops, sorry - even Mr Debré cannot be so out of touch as to think "seriously" that the rioters are rioting for "a fairer, more fraternal society". But maybe he does. The political class and the media seem to serve as mutual reinforcers of their obsolete illusions. Or as the Washington Post's headline put it: "Rage of French youth is a fight for recognition".

Actually, they're very easy to "recognise": just look out the window, they're the ones torching your Renault 5. I'd wager the "French" "youth" find that headline as hilarious as the Jets in West Side Story half a century ago, when they taunted Officer Krupke with "society's" attempts to "understand" them: we're depraved on account of we're deprived. Perhaps some enterprising Paris impresario will mount a production of West Eid Story with choreographed gangs of North African Muslims sashaying through the Place de la Republique, incinerating as they go.

In fact, "rage" seems the least of it: it's the "glee" and "contempt" you're struck by. And "rage" in the sense of spontaneous anger is a very slapdash characterisation of what, after two weeks, is looking like a rather shrewd and disciplined campaign. This business of car burning, for example. In Iraq, the "insurgents" quickly got the hang of setting some second-hand Nissan alight at just the right moment so that its plume of smoke could be conveniently filmed from the press hotel balcony in time for NBC's Today show and Good Morning, America. For a while, every time you switched on the television in America, there'd be some doom'n'gloom anchor yakking away in front of a live scene of a blazing Honda Civic - as reassuring in its familiarity as that local station somewhere or other in North America (Thunder Bay, I think) that used to show a roaring fireplace as its test card all night. What the Aussie pundit Tim Blair calls the nightly Paris car-B-Q looks great on television, but without being sufficiently murderous to provoke the state into forcefully putting down the insurgency.

Indeed, it's an almost perfect tactic if your aim is to have the entire French establishment dithering in grievance-addressing mode until you've extracted as much political advantage as you can. Look at it this way: after two weeks, whose prestige has been more enhanced? The rioters? Or Mayor Debré, President Chirac and Prime Minister de Villepin? On every front these past two weeks, the French state has been tested and communicated only weakness.

As to the "French" "youth", a reader in Antibes cautions me against characterising the disaffected as "Islamist". "Look at the pictures of the youths," he advises. "They look like LA gangsters, not beturbaned prophet-monkeys."

Paris riots: From the International Herald-Tribune:

...And yet, as officials and community leaders watched the violence in France on television, there seemed to be at least a cautious and tentative conviction that the chance was small that riots on the scale of those in the Paris suburbs would break out in other countries.

"We also have youth violence problems in Germany, but we haven't experienced cases of the dimensions of the blind violence that's taking place in France at the moment," Norbert Seitz, director of the German Forum for Crime Prevention, a private information center, said in an interview.

"From my point of view, we don't have to fear this in Germany," he said, citing the efforts of state and local governments and the police to create youth services and activities and to build relations with immigrant groups.

This smacks me as naive, especially since there have been copycat demi-riots in Berlin. And remember, the "Hamburg student" was Mohammed Atta.

Paris riots: an American editorial roundup

From the always smart Ralph Peters:

November 8, 2005 -- FRANCE has cancer and insists it's just a rash. After two weeks of expanding immigrant violence, the government's inept response has turned a local riot into a nationwide insurrection.

French abuse of Arab and African minorities — mostly Muslims — made it only a matter of time before the country's prison-like ghettos exploded. If your skin is brown or black in la belle France, you haven't got a chance at a decent life. Now the wretched of the earth have exploded in rage.

Given the abysmal conditions in France's Muslim concentration-camps-without-walls, the government had only one chance of suppressing the uproar: An immediate, uncompromising crackdown on the Paris suburb where the trouble began. That would have bought the state a little time.

Instead, the Gallic cock behaved like a headless chicken, stunned by the ingratitude of 5 million brown and black residents who failed to appreciate discrimination, jobless rates of up to 50 percent, public humiliation, crime, bigotry and, of course, the glorious French culture that excluded them through an informal apartheid system.

... When Americans who adore la vie en France go to Paris (the intelligentsia's Orlando), they don't visit the drug-and-crime-plagued slums. If tourists encounter a Moroccan or a Senegalese "Frenchman," he's cleaning up the sidewalks after the dogs of the bourgeoisie.

Willfully blind to reality, liberals continue to praise the racist culture of France by citing the Parisian welcome for Josephine Baker or the Harlem jazz musicians in the 1920s. But the French regarded those few as exotic pets. The test is how they treat the millions of immigrant families whose members don't play trumpets in bars or sell their flesh in strip clubs.

Didn't I just say that?

Paris riots: and American editorial roundup

From the Chicago Tribune:

The French government has reacted with spectacular ineptness, losing control of the streets. French President Jacques Chirac remained above the fray and out of touch until he finally spoke Sunday and told the country: "The law must have the last word."

The breakdown in law and order may have appeared days in the making. It wasn't. More like years.

Resentment has long seethed among some on the outskirts of French cities, especially among young men, the offspring of immigrants, desperate for jobs and respect in a society that has offered too little of either. France has grappled with issues of poverty and housing, made real efforts to improve the lives of its poorest people. But it has failed to successfully integrate immigrants from African and Arab countries, leading to disillusionment.

This appear to be the evolving standard MSM meme: the French Government is responsible for the riots; that the rioters couldn't help themselves becuase they were so oppressed and unassimilated.

Nah. This is just intellectual laziness on the part of editorial writers. What may have started out as unrehearsed anger is now something bigger. And the longer the French Government and the MSM lie to themselves, the uglier this is going to get.