Gaza 'Peace' Flotilla Updated Analysis

At Stormbringer:

'The Desire for Freedom Is Written In Every Human Heart'

"History moves toward freedom because the desire for freedom is written in every human heart."

-- George W. Bush, January 18, 2005

Spencer 'Insha'Allah' Ackerman Slurs Victory Mosque Opponents as 'Bigots'

What else is new?

Well, actually, whereas once Spencer "Insha'Allah" Ackerman called for President Bush to be executed at The Hague, now he's reduced to appealing to the 43rd president to argue religious pluralism should prevail in the Cordoba Mosque controversy:

The small-minded passions of Westerners who think that they’ve found a threatening global conspiracy emerging from an ancient Abrahamic faith now have damaging strategic implications. All of which is to say that old-fashioned American religious pluralism is a weapon against al-Qaeda. Or, as the 43rd president of the United States put it, America’s vital interests and our deepest beliefs are now one.

Spencer Ackerman, JournoList alumnus, is one of the most despicable left-wing frauds on the web. He's also one of the most pathetic.

By Their Fruits You Shall Know Them...

VodkaPundit has no comment, but nothing's holding me back. Democratic-leftists and secular collectivists are bad people. But to be fair, those self-identified Democrats who don't know any better need to get hip quickly and abandon ship:

That's a Right Klik production, if I'm not mistaken.

The title at top draws on Matthew 7:15-29, the concluding section of which is "concerned with those things that are not of the kingdom, and Jesus is warning us of those who will present themselves as a part of the kingdom and are deceivers."

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Via Washington Rebel:

Plus, "How to Win the Clash of Civilizations."

GrEaT sAtAn"S gIrLfRiEnD — Hot Neocon Intelligentsia!

My good friend GSGF continues to fire up the neocon Interwebs! And she's stylin' as well with some Sex Pistols pro-Israel mojo. As she might say, that's fully crunk!

Black Ops: Secret Military Technology in the Age of Terrorism

At Popular Science:

Every year, tens of billions of Pentagon dollars go missing. The money vanishes not because of fraud, waste or abuse, but because U.S. military planners have appropriated it to secretly develop advanced weapons and fund clandestine operations. Next year, this so-called black budget will be even larger than it was in the Cold War days of1987, when the leading black-budget watchdog, the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA), began gathering reliable estimates. The current total is staggering: $58 billion—enough to pay for two complete Manhattan Projects.

Where does the money go? Tracking the black budget has always been a challenge. Constantly shifting project names that seem to be randomly generated by computers—Tractor Cage, Tractor Card, Tractor Dirt, Tractor Hike and Tractor Hip are all real examples—make linking dollar amounts to technologies impossible for outsiders. But there are clues.

According to Todd Harrison, an analyst at the CSBA, the allocations for classified operations in the 2011 federal budget include $19.4 billion for research and development across all four branches of the military (funding for the CIA, including its drone strikes in Afghanistan and Pakistan, is contained within the Defense Department black budget), another $16.9 billion for procurement, and $14.6 billion for “operations and maintenance.” This latter category, Harrison notes, has been expanding quickly. This may suggest that many classified technologies are now moving from the laboratory to the battlefield.

In fact, the rise in classified defense spending accompanies a fundamental change in American military strategy. After the attacks of September 11, the Pentagon began a shift away from its late Cold War–era “two-war strategy,” premised on maintaining the ability to conduct two major military operations simultaneously, and began to focus instead on irregular warfare against individuals and groups. That strategic shift most likely coincides with an investment shift, away from technology that enables large-scale, possibly nuclear, war against superpower states and toward technology that helps military planners hunt and kill individuals. Each branch of the military uses different language to describe this process. Pentagon officials have spoken openly about their desire to use advanced technology to “reduce sensor-to-shooter time” in situations involving “time-sensitive targets.” The head of U.S. Special Operations Command talks about “high-tech manhunting,” while Air Force officials describe plans to compress the “kill chain.”

Even inside the Pentagon, few people know the precise details of the black budget. But by combining what is known about Pentagon goals and what is known about the most recent advances in military technology, we can begin to sketch its general contours.

Great piece. Be sure to read the whole thing.

Johnny Rotten Neocon!

Jeez, I scooped the entire blogosphere by a month on this one (recall, "Anarchy in Tel Aviv? John Lydon Will Tour Israel!").

Well, there's a new twist that's caught attention. Check out John Lydon's statements defending his Israeli tour, "Johnny Rotten, Neocon Punk Rocker":

Johnny Rotten, who is widely considered to embody the zenith of punk music and a former singer of the British band the Sex Pistols, issued the following statement to the Independent newspaper about his planned concert in Tel Aviv:

I really resent the presumption that I'm going there to play to right-wing Nazi jews [sic]. If Elvis-f-ing-Costello wants to pull out of a gig in Israel because he's suddenly got this compassion for Palestinians, then good on him. But I have absolutely one rule, right? Until I see an Arab country, a Muslim country, with a democracy, I won't understand how anyone can have a problem with how they're treated ....

Leftists in the UK are in a state of panic, largely because Lydon rejects their crude and grossly oversimplified views on the Middle East. Lydon, who lives in Venice, California, has breathed real democratic life and fire into a dull and misguided cultural war against Israel.

More at GSGF:

Lady Gaga Battles Britney Spears for Twitter Supremacy

Reminds me of great power politics, LOL!

And boy, it's hard out there in the celebrity hood!

At People Magazine:

With some help from her "little monsters," Lady Gaga has dethroned Britney Spears on Twitter.

The Bad Romance singer surpassed the reigning Twitter queen momentarily on Friday, but that same afternoon, Spears received more followers and secured her spot at the top – temporarily. By Saturday morning, Lady Gaga had regained her position, besting Spears by approximately 6,000 followers.

Gaga's still catching up to President Obama (he's a celebrity too), but she'll pass him as well, especially after the Dems get whomped in November.

AMAZINGLY RELATED: "Do States Ally Against the Leading Global Power?"

The Ground Zero Mosque Is Not a Bridge for Peace

From No Sheeples Here!

Hot Bikini Blogging!

This is a lot nicer than those awful Islamists (be sure to enlarge that), and Theo's got more.

Plus, Blazing Cat Fur is getting, well, even more blazing, "Because it's Friday.. and it's Opera Gloves! Huh?"

It's Rule 5 weekend, and I've got a treat for tomorrow in store, but in the meantime, dont' miss Bob Belvedere, The Classical Liberal, The Daley Gator, and Washington Rebel.

BONUS BLOG: Hall of Record.

Right. Right. They're Moderate Muslims. Got It...

Folks apparently have the goods on Imam Rauf (as if we didn't already). See, "Unmosqued: Steve Emerson Unearths Tapes of 'Moderate Bridge-Building' Imam Rauf" (via Memeorandum). The dude's down with Wahhabism (Islam's al Qaeda brand), Israel extermination, and 9/11, but hey, no need to quibble over the details:

Obama and the MFM staked the entirety of their credibility and judgment on the assertion that this was a moderate man interested only in peace, and of course in no way a supporter of terrorism, and anyone who suspected otherwise was an ignorant bigot with a heart full of hatred.

So let's see. Let's see.

Let's see whose judgment was sound and whose judgment was really full of ignorance and hatred -- hatred for the concerns of their fellow Americans.

CONTENT WARNING (Bare Naked Islam):

RELATED: At Political Byline, "The Classless Left: Exhibit S for Stupid" (on John Cole, whose blog Balloon Juice is the new sponsoring home for failed intimidation blogger E.D. Kain.)

Meg Whitman — 'Grand Jury'

I love the guys at Power Line, but this passage at their entry this morning really caught my attention:

I talked yesterday with a Minnesotan who recently attended a fundraiser for Meg Whitman, Brown's opponent in the race to be California's governor. He was blown away by Whitman's command of the issues and her commitment to get California's economy and educational system back on the track through free-market policies. A strong America needs a strong California.

Well, I haven't attended a fundraiser for Meg Whitman, but she sure talks the talk:

And I love her new radio ad buy (listen here):

Announcer: Meg Whitman takes a stand on stopping wasteful spending.

Meg Whitman: Everybody talks about waste, fraud and abuse in state government, but I have a plan to actually do something about it.

The Legislative Analyst's Office found that the Department of Education had 150 staffers working on programs it no longer administers.

Caltrans spent more than $3.4 million on one rest stop on I-80.

Welfare recipients were caught using cash benefit ATM cards in gambling casinos.

There are billions of dollars of fraud in Medi-Cal, In-Home Supportive Services and welfare alone. Enough is enough.

As governor, I will empanel a statewide Grand Jury of civic-minded Californians to go after waste, fraud and abuse.

This grand jury will have the power to indict and investigate at every level of the government.

The message will be very clear: If you're caught robbing the taxpayers, you'll go to jail.

That's my stand. What's yours?

Let me know at www.MegWhitman.com.

Announcer: Paid for by Meg Whitman for Governor 2010.

But I'm still not sold. I don't want to waste my vote, and I can see myself holding my nose and pulling the lever for Whitman, but I don't know if I'll be able to forgive myself in the morning:

Cee-Lo Green Jams 'F— You' Funky Smash Hit — Smooth-Style Jive Is Metaphor On That Hopey-Changey Thing

Hey, man, the change in my pocket wasn't enough for the Obamunists!

Meanwhile, "Obama's Approval Ratings Hit New Lows." You think?

And from the comments at Business Insider:

Obama is singing this song everyday thinking about the jobless Americans.

Hat Tip: AoSHQ.

Antiwar Traitor Jodie Evans Says U.S. Sailor 'Deserved to Die in Iraq' — Plus, Code Pink Hosting $500-Per-Person Fundraiser for Jerry Brown

In other big news today, "Code Pink Tells Gold Star Mom: Your Son Deserved to Die."

In 2008 they [Code Pink] barricaded the recruiting office in Berkeley with the blessing of the Berkeley City Council. We at Move America Forward had all we could stomach when we heard them tell the Marines they were unwelcome, unwanted intruders, not in Iraq or Afghanistan but on American soil in Berkeley, California. Americans from across the nation joined us in Berkeley to counter-protest these anti-war hippies. Numerous times they told me they support the troops but not the war, yet over and over when I asked if they had sent care packages, phone cards, written letters, or helped the families left behind in anyway, they conveniently couldn’t remember anything they had done. Yet they had a successful fundraiser to send $600,000.00 to our enemies in Iraq? Yet Jodie Evans and her Code Pink degenerates taunted me and made light of my son’s sacrifice telling me, “Your son deserved to die in Iraq if he was stupid enough to go over there.” It took every ounce of reserve in my body to not level these idiots to the ground. These same people who call terrorists “freedom fighters” says that my son, who gave up his life for their freedoms, deserved death.

Recall that I met Jodie Evans last year, when she declaimed media reports that Code Pink was "rethinking" its opposition to the U.S. mission in Afghanistan. In fact, Evans' group had just returned from Afghanistan where they met with members of the Taliban, so chalk that up to inept messaging on her part, and that of her traitorous cohorts.

A few others are posting on this today. See Weasel Zippers, "Code Pink Taunted Gold Star Mom: “Your Son Deserved to Die in Iraq”…"

And at Power Line, "An Appalling Story":

This episode tells us something about Jerry Brown. He is sometimes viewed as a harmless eccentric, a left-over hippie, a crazy uncle who means well. But he is much worse than that. He is a dyed-in-the-wool leftist, as shown by his willingness to align himself with the vicious anti-Americanism of the Code Pink loonies.

And also previously at Sweetness & Light, "Code Pink's 'Sugar Mommy' – Jodie Evans."

'American Power' Now Available at 'NewsReal Blog'

I'm pleased to announce that I'll be cross-posting some of my work at David Horowitz's NewsReal Blog. I want to give a special thanks to Managing Editor David Swindle, who asked me to come on board at NewsReal.

My work is available at a number of locations around the sphere, and I'd like to extend a thank you to the folks at Pajamas Media, Right Wing News, and Theo Spark's for the opportunity to publish at those outlets as well.

Never give up the fight friends. And get into the arena if you're still sitting on the sidelines. There's a war of ideas to be won.

It Begins: 'WikiLeaks Founder Charged in Sweden With Rape' -- UPDATED!! Sweden Withdraws Arrest Warrant!

It's rape charges now. Later he'll be up for violating the Espionage Act and for providing material support to terrorism.

At New York Times (via Astute Bloggers and Memeorandum):

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Sweden has issued rape and molestation charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, whose whistle-blowing website last month published secret U.S. military files on Afghanistan.

Assange, whose whereabouts were unclear, told WikiLeaks' Twitter page the charges were "without basis and their issue at this moment is deeply disturbing."

Assange was in Sweden last week to discuss his work and defend his intent to publish further documents on the war in Afghanistan.

He has close contacts in the Nordic country, which has some of the world's strictest laws on the protection of sources and where WikiLeaks also keeps many of its servers.

"We can confirm that he's wanted. He was charged last night -- the allegation is suspected rape," said Karin Rosander, Director of Communications at the National Prosecutor's Office.

"One is rape and one is molestation," she said. She did not elaborate.

WikiLeaks wrote on Twitter that it had not been contacted by police.

"We were warned to expect 'dirty tricks'. Now we have the first one," WikiLeaks, whose page has more than 100,000 followers, tweeted. It also provided a link to the right-leaning tabloid Expressen, which first published the allegations.

WikiLeaks was not available when contacted by Reuters and Stockholm police declined to comment.

There's a statement at the WikiLeaks blog. The Expressen article is here. And the conspiracy theories are already percolating: "Did US Government Fabricate Charges Against Julian Assange? WikiLeaks founder ‘Wanted In Sweden For Rape’ (UPDATE 9)."

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UPDATE: "Sweden withdraws arrest warrant for WikiLeaks founder" (via Memeorandum). Sure. And of course this is just the beginning. Assange has some enemies out there (and he's still charged on lesser counts). The dude should watch his back.

Once More From New York Times (Sigh): 'U.S. Anti-Islam Protest Seen as Lift for Extremists'

Yep, from the same paper that repeatedly aids and abets global jihad, now we're told that Ground Zero Mosque opponents are "lifting extremists." This is truly perverted:

Some counterterrorism experts say the anti-Muslim sentiment that has saturated the airwaves and blogs in the debate over plans for an Islamic center near ground zero in Lower Manhattan is playing into the hands of extremists by bolstering their claims that the United States is hostile to Islam.

Opposition to the center by prominent politicians and other public figures in the United States has been covered extensively by the news media in Muslim countries. At a time of concern about radicalization of young Muslims in the West, it risks adding new fuel to Al Qaeda’s claim that Islam is under attack by the West and must be defended with violence, some specialists on Islamic militancy say.

“I know people in this debate don’t intend it, but there are consequences for these kinds of remarks,” said Brian Fishman, who studies terrorism for the New America Foundation here.

He said that Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born cleric hiding in Yemen who has been linked to several terrorist plots, has been arguing for months in Web speeches and in a new Qaeda magazine that American Muslims face a dark future of ever-worsening discrimination and vilification.

“When the rhetoric is so inflammatory that it serves the interests of a jihadi recruiter like Awlaki, politicians need to be called on it,” Mr. Fishman said.

Evan F. Kohlmann, who tracks militant Web sites at the security consulting firm Flashpoint Global Partners, said supporters of Al Qaeda have seized on the controversy “with glee.” On radical Web forums, he said, the dispute over the Islamic center, which would include space for worship, is lumped together with fringe developments like a Florida pastor’s call for making Sept. 11 “Burn a Koran Day.”

Yes. Of course.

And who else does NYT cite as authoritative on "lifting extremists"? Well, an extremist, who else?

Dalia Mogahed of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies said the outcry over the proposed center “plays into Awlaki’s arguments and Osama bin Laden’s arguments” by suggesting that Islam has no place in the United States.

She said that extreme anti-Muslim views in the United States ironically mirror a central tenet of extreme Islamists: “That the world is divided into two camps, and they’re irreconcilable, and Muslims have to choose which side they’re on.”

Not mentioned by NYT is that Mogahed has been denounced as a pro-sharia (yet well-spoken) Islamist fanatic working the inside angle to appease the Muslim Brotherhood. I mean, seriously, if these are America's "moderate Muslims," who needs global jihad? We'll just burn the house down from within, preparing the way for the next victory mosque on hallowed ground.

Thoughts on 'A Film Unfinished'

I make it a point to see most World War II films at the theaters. And I have a special interest in the Holocaust. As longtime readers may recall, my dissertation focused on the problem of "under-balancing" against the Nazi threat in Europe during the interwar period. And while not a subject of my research, the fate of the Jews has always animated my thinking on this topic, and of course in international politics more generally. It's pretty much the case that each new film dealing with WWII and the Holocaust is deeply moving (life-affirming and life-changing), and sometimes it seems each one improves on those before it in some ways. Commercial successes "Saving Private Ryan" and "Schindler's List" showcased Steven Spielberg's masterwork on the war and Shoah. "The Pianist" was powerful in different ways, based on the life of Warsaw Ghetto survivor Władysław Szpilman --- although I get a creepy feeling seeing films directed by Roman Polanski, so while great, there's just something still not quite perfect about it. "Downfall" --- the German production on the last days of Hitler's Bunker --- was also different (being a German film, for one thing) and probably is one of the greatest war movies of recent years. There might be a few others more forgettable, and hence I'm forgetting them in this list. (And I'm deliberately omitting more commercial movies like Tom Cruise's recent "Valkyrie," which I thought excellent but in a different category from those highlighted here; and the more artsy "Life is Beautiful," both wonderful and comparable to those discussed above, is sometimes too fantastic and doesn't rank as one of the greatest for me).

Considering all of that, I'm sure Director Yael Hersonski's "A Film Unfinished" is the best Holocaust movie I've ever seen.

I've read all the news stories on the film highlighed at the homepage. Not to rehash, the key to the movie is the set of four reels of German propaganda footage that have never been put together for a single production. While widely seen in the Jewish film community, only snippets have been used in documentaries over time. Ms. Hersonski, a 34 year-old Israeli filmmaker, had worried that "there would be no Holocaust survivors left to bear witness to the atrocities they once experienced," so she saw in this recently discovered material the opportunity to make an existential commentary on the Jews and memory, the science of documentary filmmaking, and the aims of Nazi propaganda.

There is some mystery as to what exactly the Nazi propagandists were planning with the footage. A great deal of staging --- especially scenes of well-to-do Jews contrasted and combined with the poor and ragged --- was used most likely to make the case for a decadent, uncaring class of Jews indifferent to the death and dying of those with less. These families didn't in fact seem "rich" to me. They appeared the way I would expect Jewish people to live in 20th-century industrialized Poland. Perhaps there were some luxuries of furniture and style and cuisine, but these appeared not so socially exorbitant in isolation from the horrors of was happening without. In fact, perhaps it will take more viewings, but for me it's the 100 percent genuine documentation of man's inhumanity to man that is central to the experience of "A Film Unfinished." One word summed up the first half of the movie: starvation. The raw, searing clips of emaciated people, walking corpses many of them, is authentic by definition in this picture, and the viewer feels as though she's let in on a secret, since much of this kind of documentary record was destroyed. There is little physical violence perpertrated against the Jews by the Nazis seen here. It's the systematic killing by starvation that shocks the soul. Inhabitants of the ghetto received a ration of 186 calories a day. It was not known at first that the ghetto's population was to be deported to Treblinka. But we see dead bodies strewn along the sidewalks, and the most emotion generated by the film comes from the interviews with five Warsaw Ghetto survivors who agreed to watch the Nazi footage. This is astonishing filmmaking. And there's more to it, but I'll hold off on commenting on the final reel, which concludes the film.

Perhaps another Holocaust movie will come along and I'll say once again, "this is the best one I've ever seen." I don't know. I simply know that for me --- and for what I've experienced in my life, from childhood to my career --- it's been this question of Jewish 20th-century existentialism that has compelled a moral understanding of life and politics. Perhaps there are even bigger problems to humanity than the Holocaust. I think Yael Hersonski wants those who see this movie to remember and then apply their experience to improving the goodness of the world. But because there are so many things that are unique to this history, and because Americans are implicated in it in so many ways, I doubt that I'll lose my fascination with the topic any time soon.

RELATED: I posted the film's trailer previously here.

Desperate Democrats Invoke George W. Bush in New Campaign Ad -- UPDATED!! Dems Yank Ad! -- WAIT!! DNC Posts New Version!

Combine Bush-hatred and exteme political desperation and it looks like the Democrats have arrived on a party platform for November.

They're right, though: The choice is clear. We can vote for a president and party who are presiding over massive and rising unemployment nationally and in the high double-digits in Democratic states. The horrible job numbers are raising fears of a "double-dip" recession. More and more people have come around to the fact that the Democrats' vaunted "stimulus" didn't do jack. But when all else fails, blame the Congress! (Yeah, that'll work). Meanwhile, it can't be a good sign that the president's making the pitch to elderly voters hoping they'll remain in the Democratic column. This ain't Franklin Roosevelt's party no more, who can blame him?!! And don't even get me going about foreign policy! Sheesh, if Obama's losing key sectors of the U.S. electorate, at least his got Hamas, Hezbollah, and the rest of global jihad in his corner. And he can claim a phenomenal record on facilitating Iran's acquisition of nuclear capabilities. That's nothing to blink at!! And darn, what is wrong with all of these respondents on Gallup's Ground Zero polling? "More Disapprove Than Approve of Obama Mosque Remarks." These people are dolts — dolts I tell you! The president even said it himself: "We are no longer just a Christian nation." I can't imagine a better rallying cry! What is wrong with you people? And you miss George W. Bush? Impossible!!

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Update: William Jacobson has the news, "DNC Pulls Bush Ad." (Via Memeorandum.) ... UPDATE II: Check William's post. It look like the DNC took the ad down to make revisions, but the Bush evocation remains. Hot Air Pundit has the full story.