In another show of international credibility, they’ve stormed and seized the Gaza-Egypt border. (h/t memeorandum)

Fed up with those Molson-chuggers? Had enough hockey? Ready to fight if you hear “eh?” one more time?

Then let’s implement War Plan Red, created in the 1930s, declassified in the 1970s and dredged up again in today’s WaPo: Seize Halifax, pour over the New Hampshire border, capture the hydroelectric plants at Niagra. Piece of cake.

But lest we think dominion of the great North would be easy, we’d best keep Canada’s own Defense Scheme #1, created by the near-mythical Canadian Buster Brown (i.e., no one’s heard of him down here) in 1921. And let’s not forget the multiple failed American raids on the Great White: during the War of Independence, the War of 1812 and local skirmishes in 1839 and 1866.

If the epoch battle ever comes to pass, Alan Alda has already provided our battle cry in the film Canadian Bacon: “Surrender pronto or we’ll level Toronto.”

This five-clicker article, “Raiding the Icebox,” by Peter Carlson has a strong measure of anti-Iraq war sarcasm in it, but it’s a fun and informative read; highly recommended.

h/t memeorandum

Anti-Bush = anti-Americanism = poor news judgment = dead Americans.

That’s the formula that’s playing out regularly in the troika of major anti-Bush newspapers — the New York Times, Los Angeles Times and Washington Post. The NYT broke the NSA story, LAT the story-planting story, and today WaPo turns up a CIA expose.

WaPo’s got pretty thin gruel here — just the “umbrella” name of a number of covert operations, GST. There are no real revelations in the story, just that a lot of efforts are being coordinated under GST:

GST includes programs allowing the CIA to capture al Qaeda suspects with help from foreign intelligence services, to maintain secret prisons abroad, to use interrogation techniques that some lawyers say violate international treaties, and to maintain a fleet of aircraft to move detainees around the globe. Other compartments within GST give the CIA enhanced ability to mine international financial records and eavesdrop on suspects anywhere in the world.

To hold such a non-story together, WaPo reporter Dana Priest spills beans. One example:

The presidential finding also permitted the CIA to create paramilitary teams to hunt and kill designated individuals anywhere in the world, according to a dozen current and former intelligence officials and congressional and executive branch sources.

Al Qaeda is well aware of these teams, but raising the specter of CIA assassinations domestically will likely result in efforts to curtail these necessary wartime activities. That is clearly WaPo’s intent:

Time and again, the administration asked government lawyers to draw up new rules and reinterpret old ones to approve activities once banned or discouraged under the congressional reforms beginning in the 1970s, according to these officials and seven lawyers who once worked on these matters.

This is not presented as an heroic effort by lawyers to secure the tools needed to fight al Qaeda; it’s painted as lawyers enabling Bush’s obsessions.

MSM’s hard work to curtail America’s terror-fighting capabilities may have a very negative effect on those very efforts. Their incessant feeding of outrage to already ambitious lefty legislators may result in less aggressive terror-fighting by the CIA, which could lead directly to another attack on the homeland.

And if that happens, don’t expect the boundaries to stay as confined. The CIA and other agencies will be granted more authority to fight the war, and WaPo’s efforts will have been for naught — but will have led to more American deaths.

Fortunately, as the article points out, we have President Bush:

“In the past, presidents set up buffers to distance themselves from covert action,” said A. John Radsan, assistant general counsel at the CIA from 2002 to 2004. “But this president, who is breaking down the boundaries between covert action and conventional war, seems to relish the secret findings and the dirty details of operations.”

Keep up the good work, Mr. President. Keep your eye on the ball, not the howling banshees in the stands.

Oh, to be an innocent and adventurous teen again.

Now that it’s OK for gays to marry, why not a man and two women? A man and a goat? A woman and a boy? A woman and a dolphin.

Don’t go harumph over that last one. Here’s Ynetnews:

An unusual wedding ceremony was held in the southern resort town of Eilat [Israel] on Wednesday, as Sharon Tendler, a 41-years-old Jewish millionaire from London married her beloved Cindy, a 35-years-old dolphin, Israel’s leading newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported Thursday.

The groom, a resident of the Eilat dolphin reef, met Tendler 15 years ago, when she first visited the resort. The British rock concert producer took a liking to the dolphin and has made a habit of traveling to Eilat two or three times a year and spending time with her underwater sweetheart.

“The peace and tranquility underwater, and his love, would calm me down,” the excited bride said after the wedding.

Tendler insists she’s not a sick-o. Duly noted.

This week, a dolphin, what’s next week? “Do you take this cockroach to be your lawful, married husband?”

h/t memeorandum

Here’s a little something that got a lot of blog play when it was announced on Dec. 22, reported here by Brit Hume on Fox:

The Congressional Black Caucus Foundation has blasted the Bush administration for slow response to Hurricane Katrina, but it has yet to distribute any of $400,000 it raised for Katrina victims in the aftermath of the storm, the CBC member Jesse Jackson, Jr., called the government’s lack of response, quote, “shockingly awful,” and Carolyn Kilpatrick said she was, quote, “ashamed of America.”

But a Congressional Black Caucus Foundation spokesman tells Cybercast News Service that funds won’t be distributed until January or February at the earliest, after a committee decides how to spend the money.

How hard is it to write a check or two to any of the proven and worthy charities in New Orleans and Mississippi that have proven they do good work? This is the same bunch that said Bush was another Bull Connor because it took Washington a few days to step in after New Orleans and Louisiana lost control of the situation.

It’s obvious that the people represented by these jokers deserve and need a higher caliber of representative.

And if you, like me, weren’t aware of this story, it’s not because you’re not reading your newspaper. A Nexus search revealed only one story (the Fox report above) on the subject. MSM continues to defend its allies, saving ink for its enemies.

I posted recently on the Teflon nature of Islam — how Islamic men can rape or gang-rape non-Muslim women, how Islamic fathers and brothers can kill their daughters or sisters in “mercy killings” — and their religion just stands by. And they avoid global outrage. There is no women’s group hollering for the rapes to stop, no human rights organization mounting a global challenge to honor killings.

And certainly, no uprising of Imams and Mullahs saying, “Knock it off! That’s not Islamic!”

Imagine if Christians all over the world, from all sorts of cultures with only Christianity in common, were killing homosexuals or molesting children, and priests and pastors just stood by, or worse, encouraged it. What an outrage we’d have then! Certainly, people wouldn’t simply dismiss these outrages as “Oh, it’s just the culture.”

But that’s exactly what I heard from an Islamic commenter, A. Meysar:

This is not Islamic, it is cultural and you would know only if you would bother to have a look at their history. Too bad you are only concerned with defaming Islam. haha. What a waste of time for Islam cannot and will not be suppressed. It simply is God’s will and mark His words that it shall not vanish.

Sue Bob couldn’t stand it. She countered:

What culture is Meysar talking about? Arabic? Persian? Indonesian? Philipino? African?These honor killings are happening in all these countries. In the Muslim communities.

Not to mention the Lebanese-Australians who are gang-raping Australian women.

Meysar and Muslim leaders all over the world are trying to simply dismiss the attrocities of their religion, whether it’s terrorist jihad, rape or mercy killings. It is not just culture — it is a religion that condones and even deifies abominations.

Again and again, when voices are raised about something that’s wrong with Islam, Islam’s reaction is not to address its ills, but to attack the accuser as someone who is defaming their religion. If I remember my psych 101 lessons right, defensiveness of that sort is a sure-fire sign of guilt.

So once again, why won’t Islam heal itself?

Big brother can listen in on me if he thinks it will help stop terrorist attacks. There’s nothing criminal and little that’s embarassing in my world.

In time of war, when very real threats to our nation and its individuals exist, it is entirely appropriate for government to raise its guard and investigate all possible threats. But chance are, your cable provider, your cell phone company, your credit card company and your internet search engine of choice are all working diligently to stop investigations that would protect you.

These companies and others fund the Center for Democracy and Technology, whixch is jeopardizing our nation’s ability to protect itself. Says AP:

The National Security Agency’s Internet site has been placing files on visitors’ computers that can track their Web surfing activity despite strict federal rules banning most of them.

These files, known as “cookies,” disappeared after a privacy activist complained and The Associated Press made inquiries this week, and agency officials acknowledged Wednesday they had made a mistake.

The accuser is Ari Schwartz of the Center for Democracy and Technology. The center is an advocate for on-line pornography, fighting efforts to protect children from content they should be protected from. This is a bit hard to discern, but the group’s web site says it “stud[ies] technologies and other methods for protecting children from objectionable material on the Internet consistent with constitutional values.” In other words, don’t restrict the pornographers and preditors.

CDT is anti-Patriot Act (of course) and has a grassroots campaign in progress to try to stop its reauthorization, and has been highly critical of NSA searches without FISA warrants, saying a civil liberties crisis is confronting the nation.

What crisis? Thirty investigations since 2001? All under strict requirements that ensures that everyday citizens aren’t bothered?

Groups like CDT are putting the narrow legal needs of their clients ahead of the preservation of our freedom. Contributions from individuals represent only .12% of its income — it is not representing us, or anyone like us.

American Express, Time Warner, Visa, AT&T, Verizon, Google, Yahoo — all are contributing to CDT and to the ability of terrorists to kill us. Is that what you want from your credit card or cell phone company?

Kate Burton is a 25-year-old Scot with a British international law degree and a heart for the Palestinians. She has spent the last four months working at the al-Mezan Palestinian human rights organization in Gaza and was planning to spend another six months or so at the job.

That is until she, her mom and her dad were kidnapped by Palestinians Wednesday in Gaza, after visiting Bethlehem.

This incident, like so many others, shows that Palestine has a long, long way to go before it gains any ligitimacy as a nation. Its longest journey will be the moral one, as it is a nation built on the principle that terrorism is honorable, that Israel is wholely responsible for their plight, and that victimhood is a virtue.

Pity the Burtons gave them a chance. Let’s hope and pray it’s reciprocated … against all odds.

(source)

A Rassmussen survey reveals that almost three times more Americans support President Bush’s use of NSA surveillance on domestic terror suspects than don’t — 64% say it’s OK, 23% say it’s not.

Americablog, a premier lefty ranter, tries to spin this as bad numbers for Bush:

That number should have been in the 90 percentile and up, Americans who support the NSA eavesdropping on conversations with suspected terrorists. Yet it was only in the low 60s. Something’s up.

That’s naeve. Nothing hits 90% in these divisive days, not even motherhood and apple pie.

But I agree — something is up. And here’s what it is: The report also showed that just 51% of Dems believe the NSA should be allowed to monitor communications between terrorists overseas and people living in the United States. That’s not even a real majority given potential sampling errors.

By comparison, Reps weigh in with an 81% “yes” on this question.

The question did not factor in whether or not a FISA warrant was obtained — half the Dems just flat out believe NSA shouldn’t be listening in on domestic terror suspects, period.

What’s the deal with half the Dems putting the privacy of people who are communicating directly with al Qaeda over national security?

Because they didn’t wail over the Clintons having FBI files on their enemies — a much worse breach of privacy — I can only assume that they don’t accept that we’re at war. They’ve forgotted 9/11, the Cole, the African embassies, the barracks in Saudi Arabia and Lebanon, the attempts to bomb numerous targets in the US, the Iranian nuclear program, and so much more.

They think Bush just made the whole thing up. That would be OK if there were a couple hundred people who felt that way — but half the Democrats? That bodes badly for the Democrats. I hope. If not, it bodes very, very badly for America.