Al-Qaeducha

The Central American narco-terrorist gang, MS-13, is "planning coordinated attacks along the U.S. border with Mexico", according to a bulletin issued by the Dept. of Homeland Security last week. MS-13, or Mara Savatrucha, is a violent international criminal syndicate that deals in drugs, counterfeiting, and terrorism, such as the Dec. 23 2004 bombing of a bus in Honduras, which killed 28 holiday shoppers.

According to the DHS bulletin, MS-13 plans to target local police and federal agents along the Mexican border: "After enough members have been pre-positioned along the border, a coordinated attack using firearms was to commence against all law enforcement, to include Border Patrol".

The bulletin dovetails with reports of narco-traffickers becoming bolder in their border incursions, apparently working with the aid of some elements of the Mexican Army. Recently Texas police and U.S. Border Patrol agents were in an armed standoff with Mexican troops, who had set up mounted machine gun positions 200 yards within U.S. territory to cover the transport of thousands of pounds of marijuana.

If Mexican troops are backing MS-13's plans to assault American law enforcement personnel, then it is time to deploy the U.S. military at the border. How long will it be before MS-13 teams with al-Qaeda to smuggle Islamic terrorists into the U.S. - if it hasn't happened already? The lethargic response of the federal government to this threat is an outrage.

Prince of whales

Prince Charles is warning citizens of the UK not to become fat like we Americans:

THE Prince of Wales warned the British people last night that they were in danger of becoming as obese as many Americans because they did not walk or cycle enough.

The Prince, who has a fleet of chauffeur-driven cars and has rarely if ever been seen in public on the saddle of a bike, said: “We are perhaps not very far behind our American cousins in the ‘super-sizing epidemic’.”

Hey Chuckie baby, those who live with flabby spouses should not throw stones. You'd better tell Camilla to skip the Royal with cheese on your next trip to BK...

"Please use caution when opening the overhead bin as WMDs may have shifted during flight"

A former Iraqi General, Georges Sada, now says that in 2002 Saddam Hussein moved his chemical weapons stockpiles to Syria in anticipation of UN weapons inspections that preceded Operation Iraqi Freedom. Gen. Sada said the chemical agents were loaded onto two Iraqi Airways passenger planes that had their seats removed so they could carry the material; the two planes made 56 trips to Syria ferrying the deadly cargo.

This would seem to confirm the suspicions of the chief weapons inspector for the Iraq Survey Group, who last year said that they could not complete their investigation because ISG was "unable to rule out the possibility that WMD was evacuated to Syria before the war".

Of course this new information won't silence the barking moonbats who cry "Bush lied!", since they have been immune to facts all along - including the fact that Iraq admitted having proscribed weapons and programs before they booted UNSCOM out of the country in 1998.

The anti-war left's true colors

A columnist at the LA Times, Joel Stein, created a furor this week by saying that he doesn't support our troops because he's against the Iraq war, and it doesn't make sense to be anti-war and pro-troops at the same time.

While Mr. Stein's notions about the Iraq war and the U.S. military are utterly facile (see Major John's superb response to the Stein column), give him credit for being honest. Anti-war leftists like to feign support for the troops, but that "support" is a sham intended to deflect (often valid) accusations that they are unpatriotic. At least Stein has the guts to come out and say what most lefties truly believe: that our men and women in uniform are nothing more than "a fighting tool of American imperialism".

UPDATE: Major John points me to Hugh Hewitt's evisceration of Stein on his radio show. More proof of what a vacuous (albeit, honest) twit that Stein is.

Homeland Staatspolizei

Over the weekend the moronic (and increasingly delusional) Harry Belafonte compared the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to the dreaded Gestapo (Geheime Staatspolizei) of Nazi Germany:

Entertainer Harry Belafonte, one of the Bush administration's harshest critics, compared the Homeland Security Department to the Nazi Gestapo on Saturday and attacked the president as a liar.

"We've come to this dark time in which the new Gestapo of Homeland Security lurks here, where citizens are having their rights suspended," Belafonte said in a speech to the annual meeting of the Arts Presenters Members Conference.

The DHS equals the Gestapo? Let's compare the two, shall we, Harry?

Nazi Gestapo: Staffed Einsatzgruppen, which murdered hundreds of thousands of civilians across Europe during WWII.

Dept of Homeland Security: Staffs the TSA, which makes hundreds of thousands of people take off their shoes at the airport.

Nazi Gestapo: Fabricated border attacks by Polish troops to give Hitler an excuse for invading Poland and thus touching off a World War.

Dept of Homeland Security: Trumps up an occasional Orange Alert, giving cops an excuse for extra overtime.

Nazi Gestapo: Established and administered slave labor camps and annihilation camps, where millions of innocents died.

Dept of Homeland Security: Administers FEMA, which was a little slow in getting help to the boneheads that decided to ride out a Cat. 5 hurricane.

Nazi Gestapo: Took thousands of civilians from occupied countries to Germany for secret trial and punishment.

Dept of Homeland Security: Captures about 1 in 1,000 undocumented workers illegal aliens at the border (whenever the ACLU lets them, that is) and takes them back to Mexico so they can try to sneak over the border yet again.

Nazi Gestapo: During WWII, was the most feared organization in all of Germany and the Nazi-occupied countries.
Dept of Homeland Security: Is ranked about 15th on the list of most feared government agencies, way behind the No. 1 Internal Revenue Service and just a couple of notches above the Dept. of Education.

Yep, Harry, you can hardly tell the difference between the Gestapo and the DHS...

Avian flu - time to stock up

A couple of friends asked me today what one should have at home in case of an all-out avian flu pandemic. I've been researching this for a few months now and here's what I recommend (Disclaimer: I am not a medical professional of any kind, although I did sleep at a Holiday Inn Express last night).

1. First off, get basic emergency supplies of the kind that everyone should have in their home to be prepared for a disaster of ANY kind:

Water: one gallon of water per person per day, for drinking and sanitation
Food: at least a three-day supply of non-perishable food
Battery-powered radio and a NOAA Weather Radio with tone alert, and extra batteries for both
Flashlight and extra batteries
First Aid Kit
Dust mask or cotton t-shirt, to help filter the air
Moist towelettes for sanitation
Wrench or pliers to turn off utilities
Can opener for food
Plastic sheeting and duct tape to shelter-in-place
Items for unique family needs, such as daily prescription medications, infant formula or diapers, and important family documents
Garbage bags and plastic ties for personal sanitation

2. Invest in some personal protective gear:

Masks rated N-95 or higher
Sterile gloves
Hair Covers
Protective eyeware (goggles)
Boot or shoe covers

3. Sanitation - the best way to avoid the flu is to wash your damn hands. You should also have the following handy to sanitize shoes, clothing, and any items you may bring into your house from outside:

Hand sanitizers: carry bottles of this with you anywhere you go.
Laundry detergent, soap, and shampoo: stock up on plenty, enough to last you several days or weeks. Keep yourself and your clothes as clean as possible.
Bleach: get plenty of this too, and some cheap plastic spray bottles to put it in (solution should be 3/4 cup bleach per gallon of water), for sanitizing shoes, doorsteps, garbage cans, etc. Disposable wipes with bleach will work too, especially for things like door handles.

4. Drugs, baby. At present no vaccine exists for avian influenza A(H5N1), and the bird flu in its current form is already showing resistance to preventative drugs such as Tamiflu. The CDC recommends having the following on hand to treat symptoms:

Nonprescription pain relievers
Nonprescription stomach remedies
Cough and cold medicines
Fluids with electrolytes
Vitamins

So that's the basic stuff you should have for your household in case of a global pandemic. Obviously you might invest in other types of protection if things look to get really bad. Should we have a modern version of the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic, the potential for social and economic chaos is truly frightening.

Willlll-burrrrr....

Over at the Volokh Conspiracy, Prof. Volokh has a post about the "Mr. Ed rule" in the filing of amicus curiae (friend-of-the-court) briefs, and quotes Scott Bullock of the Institute for Justice:

We have long followed what we call the "Mr. Ed" rule on amicus briefs. . . . Mr.
Ed (the talking horse) only spoke "when he had something to say." And that
is our approach. We don't do amicus briefs unless we feel like we can bring a unique perspective, voice, or insight into the case.

I think the "Mr. Ed rule" could be applied to a lot of people's daily lives - don't talk unless you actually have something to say!

The new Hooters Calendar

The 2006 Hooters Calendar is now online, full of hot scenes taken outdoors - some lovely creatures on this calendar, I'm telling you!

(Via This is really not it)

Ray Nagin, God and MLK

Of course we all already knew that the Mayor of New Orleans, Ray Nagin, was an incompetent boob because of his poor handling of the Katrina disaster, but now we can add bigoted idiot to his resume. Speaking at a Martin Luther King Day parade yesterday, Nagin said that New Orleans would one day be "chocolate" again: "This city will be a majority African-American city. It's the way God wants it to be."

One wonders why God didn't bother to warn Nagin not to wait till the last minute to evacuate the city for Katrina, since the Mayor seems to have a direct line to Heaven. I guess God figured he didn't need to, since the National Hurricane Center had already warned him, three days before the storm hit.

The worst thing about Nagin's speech is how he dishonored the memory of MLK, by saying that "This city will be chocolate at the end of the day," and "You can't have it no other way. It wouldn't be New Orleans."

Dr. King dreamed that his "four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." But Mayor Nagin apparently believes his city should be judged by the color of the skin of its citizens.

Happy B-day, MLK

Today we honor the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and rightly so. Today people should remember that Dr. King was not merely an advocate of civil rights for black Americans but rather a champion of human rights for all people everywhere. His courage should also be remembered; he knew very well that his activities could get him killed but he pressed on, drawing from the deep well of his faith. After getting a frightening late-night death threat during the famous Montgomery bus boycott, King prayed to overcome his fears: "I could hear an inner voice saying to me, 'Martin Luther, stand up for righteousness. Stand up for justice. Stand up for truth. And lo I will be with you, even until the end of the world.'"

And King continued to stand up, right to the very end. If you've never heard his emotional "mountaintop" speech in Memphis in full, do yourself a favor and listen to it:

Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.

Dr. King was fatally shot the very next day, April 4th, 1968.

The Olympics and terrorism

Was searching for my passport at home last night and came across this old pic of myself and a group of friends in the summer of 1996, at the Olympic Torch Relay in Atlanta. A few weeks later I was less than a hundred yards away from Eric Robert Rudolph's bomb in Centennial Park when it went off, bringing terrorism to the Games for the first time since 1972.

Around that same time in '96, Osama bin Laden was composing his declaration of jihad against America, although it was little noticed at the time. Al-Qaeda has yet to strike the Olympic Games (not for lack of trying, one would imagine), but if when they do, it'll likely make Munich and Atlanta look like child's play. Not a pleasant thought as we approach Turin next month - so much nicer to hearken back to that sunny day of the Torch Relay, when terrorism was the very last thing on anyone's mind...

Turkey: Phase 4 around the corner?

Via the Avian Flu Blog, Effect Measure says that recent events in Turkey are "worrisome", possibly indicating a change (for the worse) in the bird flu virus, and suggests it may be time for the World Health Organization to move from the current level of Pandemic Phase 3 up to Phase 4 (Phase 6 is full-blown pandemic in the WHO's preparedness plan).

In a related story, I just moved from Phase 2 to Phase 4 on the Crapping In My Pants Scale™ (Phase 6 is fully-brown undershorts).

Cirque du Senate

In an op-ed column today in The Australian, Eddy Gisonda mocks the "circus" that Senate confirmation hearings for U.S. Supreme Court nominees have become, such as the hearings we have this week for Bush's latest nominee to the high court, Samuel Alito. Gisonda blames this uniquely American "fiasco" on "cashed-up interest groups". More specifically, she contends that the reason interest groups invest so much energy (and dollars) into the process is because the Supreme Court has supplanted Congress as the primary driver of public policy in this country:

That's why Americans ignore Congress and go straight to court when an issue bugs them. You name your agenda. The right to abort. The right to have gay sex. The right to burn your country's flag. The right to peddle telephone porn. Whatever you want, just turn up at the Supreme Court and see if you can't get five of the nine judges to give it to you. And don't worry if your agenda is as popular with everyday Americans as French cowardice. Once you win your case, neither you, nor the judge you manipulated, can ever be called to account.

The above-described state of affairs has of course metastasized over the last 30 years due to the increasing tendency of the SCOTUS to create laws - rather than interpret them - usurping the role of the U.S. Congress (let alone state and local governments) in shaping the democratic culture.

And while interest groups across the ideological spectrum have contributed to creating this "circus", it is mainly those on the Left who bring the debate to a hyperbolic fever pitch. This is because the Supreme Court is the last power base of the Left, which they will lose if the majority of Justices believe the Constitution is an inviolate legal document rather than a "living", amorphous set of guidelines that can (nay, must) be molded to conform to the social and cultural mores of the moment.

This is why at the first day of hearings yesterday we were treated to the spectacle of Ted "A Bridge Too Far" Kennedy, one of the leading clowns in this circus, uttering outright lies about Alito's record as an appeals judge during his opening statement. Sen. Kennedy and his ilk cannot abide the notion of our laws reflecting the will of the people, rather than reflecting the transient ideology of the Washington elite.

Howard Stern *against* nudity??

The blogosphere is abuzz with the news that an off-off Broadway show featuring a nude appearance by Howard Stern's 22 year-old daughter, Emily Stern, had to close down after her father encouraged her to quit the show, saying "Don't do it, don't do it, don't do it!"

I have no idea what Ms. Stern looks like, but the mere thought of any person getting nekkid who even remotely resembles Howard is disconcerting. Setting that aside, Howard is famous for repeatedly (and successfully) encouraging female guests on his radio show to disrobe. Of course those gals were other people's daughters...things are quite different when it's your own child, eh Howard?

Talking Turkey

The news over the last 24 hours that more than 50 people have been hospitalized in eastern Turkey with suspected avian flu was bad, the confirmation by the WHO that several deaths this week from the same area were due to H5N1 is worse. These large numbers of suspected cases may be the first indication that the virus is mutating into a form that is more easily passed between humans.

And how ironic would it be if a country named Turkey became the spot where the long-dreaded global "bird flu" pandemic began?

Give me Warp 9, Scotty

Apparently this is years away from even having the underlying science proven, but it would be amazing if it ever becomes a reality (via Instapundit):

Welcome to Mars: Journey Time Three Hours

An extraordinary "hyperspace" engine that could make interstellar space travel a reality by flying into other dimensions is being investigated by the United States government.

The hypothetical device, which has been outlined in principle but is based on a controversial theory about the fabric of the universe, could potentially allow a spacecraft to travel to Mars in three hours and journey to a star 11 light years away in just 80 days, according to a report in today's New Scientist magazine.

Three hours to Mars! About the same amount of time it takes to drive from one end of Atlanta to the other...

Free drinks for Canuck bums

Just caught this story today - -

Study toasts free drinks for homeless alcoholics

Free drinks may improve the health and lives of homeless alcoholics and reduce their run-ins with police, according to a study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

Coming soon to the Canadian welfare state: free casino chips for chronic gamblers, free matches for arsonists, and free Viagra for rapists!

The future of Iraq

Something that just doesn't get enough attention in the media's "coverage" of Iraq are the countless small things our troops do to help rebuild communities ruined by years of neglect, corruption, and war. Last week soldiers from Georgia's own 48th Brigade delivered desks they'd built by hand to three local schools in An Nasiriyah so the children there can each have their own desks, instead of sitting two or three to a desk as they do now.


The goodwill being generated by our great men and women serving there should pay dividends in the long run - especially among Iraqi children, who represent the future of that country.

France's bleeding-heart airline ticket tax

The parliament of the People's Republique du Frogistan has passed a tax on airline tickets to help fund aid for third-world nations. Why should air travelers be singled out and forced to pay such a tax (which is being called a "solidarity contribution") to the tune of 200 million euros per year? The answer from a French official is classic "from each according to his ability" Marxism:

“In both developed and developing countries, airline passengers seldom belong to the poorest segments of the population. A contribution on plane tickets would therefore be progressive, a characteristic which could be reinforced if higher rates were to be set for business and first class passengers.”

So why should airline passengers be forced to throw their money down the rathole of third-world development projects and line the pockets of corrupt kleptocrats? Well, because, hell, they can afford to. Never mind that air travelers (and companies that pay for their employees' business travel) are already burdened with outrageous taxes and fees; as the International Air Transport Association says, "Governments tax air travel as if it was a luxury".

The new tax, which can range up to $47 per ticket, will be imposed on flight departures from French airports starting in July. Actually that's probably a small price to pay for the privilege of getting the heck out of France, which is itself beginning to resemble a third-world nation with its continued ethnic "unrest".