Brutally Honest

'I still cannot believe this is happening'

This is purely evil.  There's no other description:

Spitting hatred, thousands of hardline Islamists called for British teacher Gillian Gibbons to be shot yesterday.

They streamed out of mosques in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, shouting: "Kill her, kill her, kill her by firing squad."

One man brandished a giant sword, others carried axes, clubs, ceremonial swords and knives.

These are people we're supposed to negotiate with... we're supposed to understand... we're supposed to embrace as peace-loving people.

Pictures of the 54-year-old, who was sentenced to 15 days in jail for insulting Islam by letting her class call a teddy bear Mohammed, were set alight or trampled into the dirt.

The protests came as devastated Mrs Gibbons was allowed to phone her family in Liverpool for the first time since her ordeal began on Sunday.

Her son John, 25, said: "One of the things my mum said was 'I don't want any resentment towards Muslim people'. She's holding up quite well."

Oh no... no resentment... nothing but understanding, nothing but tolerance, nothing but love for the peace loving Muslims.

Earlier, during a visit from her lawyer, Mrs Gibbons described how her dream of working with children in Sudan had turned into a nightmare.

"I still cannot believe this," she said, "Never in my life would I have ever thought I would be accused of deliberately insulting someone or something. I am simply not like that.

No, of course you're not like that.  But it matters not.  You've insulted their prophet by giving a teddy bear the same name, and for that, your throat should be sliced.  You're also terribly naive, terribly naive, to think that these radical Islamo-nazis are anything but animals.

The divorced mother of two, who began working in Khartoum in August, added: "I just feel so sad. I came to Sudan looking forward to things going smoothly and safely. Now it's all over for me and I will be sent home. It has been a nightmare.

"It was my dream to come here so why should I have come and then insulted Islam?

"If I was that type of person I would have never come in the first place or I could have done that sort of thing in London or Liverpool."

If the West doesn't wake up, and soon, naming your teddy bear Muhammad in London or Liverpool or Paris or Detroit will garner the same reaction.

The teacher was said to have been in tears as she pleaded her innocence during an eight-hour trial behind closed doors on Thursday and to have been stunned by the jail sentence.

There had been hopes after her conviction that she would be freed early. But officials in Khartoum suggested last night that the outpouring of emotions on the streets had made this less likely.

Protesters, who had heard hardline sermons at Friday prayers, waved banners proclaiming "Punishment, punishment, punishment", and chanted: "Shame, shame on the UK" and "No tolerance - execution."

Others yelled: "No one lives who insults the prophet."

No one lives who insults the prophet.  Not even little old naive Brits exhibiting the sort of naivety that could lead to her own death if Sudanese officials allow it.  And they just might.

Hundreds of police looked on but did nothing to disrupt the protest, a clear indication, observers said, that it had been condoned by the fundamentalist government.

A government that ought to be destroyed in my less than humble opinion.  Yes, destroyed.  When a government condones the punishment for naming teddy bears Muhammad, that government loses the right of respect offered her by the rest of the world.  Way past time.

Western journalists and observers were told to leave after demonstrators headed towards them, moving their hands across their throats in a gesture of execution.

Estimates of the size of the crowd varied, with one report suggesting several thousand had joined the protest. Many had arrived in the city in crowded cars and trucks.

Police were also on guard outside the private Unity school where Mrs Gibbons worked.

The case began with a classroom project on animals in September. Mrs Gibbons asked one of her seven-year-old pupils to bring in a teddy bear, then called on the class to name it. They chose Mohammed, the name of one of the most popular boys.

But an office assistant complained to the Ministry of Education that Mrs Gibbons had insulted the prophet by putting his name to an animal or toy.

Hardline clerics, who hold considerable influence with the government, have sought to whip up public anger, calling her action part of a Western plot to damage Islam.

If this is indeed Islam, it ought to be damaged.  With extreme prejudice.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, said Mrs Gibbons's conviction was "an absurdly disproportionate response to what is at worst a cultural faux pas".

At the Sudanese Embassy in London, spokesman Dr Khalid Al Mubarak said they had been bombarded with angry emails and phone calls.

But he added: "If a lesson can be learned, it's that anybody going abroad should learn about the culture and orientation before taking any job."

There are indeed lessons to be learned from this. 

But we're too... civilized... for our own damned good.

 

 

Ya think Mr. Murtha?

John Murtha wakes from a coma:

U.S. Rep. John Murtha today said he saw signs of military progress during a brief trip to Iraq last week, but he warned that Iraqis need to play a larger role in providing their own security and the Bush administration still must develop an exit strategy.

"I think the 'surge' is working," the Democrat said in a videoconference from his Johnstown office, describing the president's decision to commit more than 20,000 additional combat troops this year. But the Iraqis "have got to take care of themselves."

Violence has dropped significantly in recent months, but Mr. Murtha said he was most encouraged by changes in the once-volatile Anbar province, where locals have started working closely with U.S. forces to isolate insurgents linked to Al Qaeda.

He said Iraqis need to duplicate that success at the national level, but the central government in Baghdad is "dysfunctional."

Well Congressman, I suggest that you take your words of advice towards the Iraqi central government and you apply them to your colleagues in Congress.

And thanks for finally coming to the conclusion that the surge is working.  How about talking to Madam Speaker Pelosi and Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid and letting them know.  In fact, why don't all you Democrats hold a news conference and together announce that the surge is working. 

Wouldn't that be the best way to support our troops?

More Touche from Scott Ott

If you don't read ScrappleFace regularly, you're to be pitied.  Here's yet another reason why you should:

CNN to Team with Google for Next GOP Debate by Scott Ott

(2007-11-29) — After the success of last night’s CNN/YouTube debate, the Cable News Network today announced that for the next Republican presidential debate it would also team with YouTube’s parent company, Google, to do background research on the questioners.

“We were excited to learn about Google this morning,” said the CNN source. “We want to introduce this amazing service to the rest of America. Our viewers will be stunned to learn that you can just enter a name in a little box and press a button to get all of this information.”

Among the videos submitted by ordinary Americans for last night’s intramural GOP scrimmage were questions from supporters of Democrat presidential candidates Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards and from a union activist for the United Steel Workers, which has endorsed Mr. Edwards.

CNN’s Anderson Cooper, who moderated the debate, apologized because the network was not aware that many of the other questioners had “no legitimate connection with the Democrat National Committee or its affiliates.”

“Now that we know about Google,” said Mr. Cooper, “we can do a better job of screening to make sure that Democrats are represented more adequately.”

Is that good or what?

Chest pain nuts

It's Tuesday night, we're rolling down the road in the truck, regretting having to leave Harley behind especially since he's been alone since o'dark thirty.  But we're hungry, it's been a long day, and Mrs. BH is off tomorrow so we decide to hit Cheddars and take advantage of their $2.50 margaritas.  A little early week stress reliever, share one of them huge salads, a side of onion rings and each other's company.  Next best thing to heaven.

Less than 5 minutes into our trek toward Margaritaville, I feel an odd pinching in the middle of my chest.  I shift my weight around, thinking for a moment that the seat belt has cinched up.  Hmm... shifting doesn't help and the pinching gets a tad worse.  I say something to Mrs. BH like, "damn, feeling some odd chest pain".  About that time, I'm noticing that my left hand has fallen asleep... rather gradually but definitely feeling that needling tingling.  Now, I'm a tad worried.

With some initial hesitation (hey, we were hungry), we decide to skip Cheddars and drive toward the nearest emergency room.  The pain seems to subside some but the left hand numbness lingers.  I'm well enough to continue driving and within maybe 10 minutes, we arrive at Port Warwick.

Another 10 minutes, maybe 15, and I'm know hooked up to an EKG machine, some oxygen, a blood pressure cuff and an IV used to draw blood.  These people aren't messing around.

The pain by now has pretty much subsided, the numbness in the hand wearing off, and I'm thinking that I may've overreacted (though Mrs. BH isn't having any of that crap).  That thinking gets a little stronger as they tell me a short time later that the blood tests are negative and my EKG normal.  Only thing that's less than normal (or more than normal) is my blood pressure and that's definitely elevated (something like 155 over 108). 

But who's to blame that... I've just had a front row seat watching an emergency team work on a potential heart attack victim... and oh crap, it's me.

Two days later, I'm feeling fine (though admittedly now I'm thinking the big one's coming any minute... what a wuss).  I see a family doctor in the coming days and we'll try to figure out what's going on.  In the meantime, loved ones are telling me it's time to eat healthier, lose a little weight and take better care of myself.  All true.

Hopefully soon, we'll have some idea as to what this is all about.  While we wait, I listen to my little brother's take and think, yep... he's probably right.

"Hell Rick, you're just getting old".

Butt-munch.

Seatle Mayor Scaring the children...

... during Christmas no less:

This guy has never been a favorite of mine, but honestly, even for him, this is pathetic.

I got this from the Kirby Wilbur show:

 

Lydia Smith, a listener, was at the Seattle City tree-lighting ceremony and was surprised at what Mayor Nickels had to say, asking the kids to help Santa out because the North Pole was "melting," before handing out energy-efficient light-bulbs to the children. Wow! Talk about using kids as political pawns! Read Nickels "letter to Santa" by clicking here.     

Audio link:  http://www.kvi.com/onair/kirby/11851731.html?video=pop&t=a   It is near the end at 8:37.

Bad enough liberals would bankrupt our economy on foolish ideas with no hope of success because they do not address the real problems, but let's scare the kids into guilting their parents into compliance.

How low will they go? 

Pretty. Damned. Low.

Via Michelle.

 

Hillary Clinton locks up the BS vote

Honest:

Barbra Streisand, who hedged her bets months ago with donations to Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards, has settled on one presidential candidate.

It's Hillary.

"Madame President of the United States ... it's an extraordinary thought. We truly are in a momentous time, where a woman's potential has no limitations," Streisand said in a statement released Tuesday by the Clinton campaign. "Hillary Clinton has already proven to a generation of women that there are no limits for success."

The Oscar-winning actress and singer is a FOB—Friend of Bill Clinton—and the endorsement is hardly surprising. In Hollywood, as in politics, timing is everything, and Streisand's endorsement comes one day after another entertainment superstar, Oprah Winfrey, announced she would campaign for Clinton rival Barack Obama.

"Hillary is a powerful voice for change as we find our country at an important crossroads. Under her leadership, our country will regain its respect within the global community. She will prioritize issues of global climate change, universal health care and rebuilding a strong economy. After eight long years, the public will once again have faith in their government," said Streisand, a longtime supporter of Democratic candidates.

A whole lotta BS in that endorsement.

Touche

This is simply brilliant.

After Riots, French Ask: Why Do Youths Hate Us? by Scott Ott for ScrappleFace

(2007-11-27) — After a night of rage and fire, during which rioting youths left 77 police officers injured in a predominantly-Muslim housing project in suburban Paris, the people of France awakened this morning to the obvious question: Why do youths hate us?

Overnight news reports from the neighborhood of Villiers-le-Bel described no common bond among the rioters, other than their age. In 2005, bands of youths rioted for three weeks, each night setting the Paris skyline aglow with flaming automobiles.

“We need to find out what it is about us that makes youths riot, burn cars, torch libraries and fire shotguns at police,” said an unnamed youth scholar at the University of Paris. “Is it a reaction to the historical oppression of youths by their elders? Is it the fact that our police have occupied youth lands, establishing stations and patrols and thus humiliating them?”

“Once we understand what we’ve done to set them off,” she added, “we can change our behavior and then, if they are willing, negotiate peace.”

That friends is satire that makes the point.

Trent Lott resigns

Thank God.

Say this ain't so? - Part Deux

Son of Yowza:

The scare over global warming, and our politicians' response to it, is becoming ever more bizarre. On the one hand we have the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change coming up with yet another of its notoriously politicised reports, hyping up the scare by claiming that world surface temperatures have been higher in 11 of the past 12 years (1995-2006) than ever previously recorded.

This carefully ignores the latest US satellite figures showing temperatures having fallen since 1998, declining in 2007 to a 1983 level - not to mention the newly revised figures for US surface temperatures showing that the 1930s had four of the 10 warmest years of the past century, with the hottest year of all being not 1998, as was previously claimed, but 1934.

Ya gotta love science.  Especially when it's so... scientific:

New Scientist reports a worrying new variant as the cosmologists claim that astronomers may have provided evidence that the universe may ultimately decay by observing dark energy, a mysterious anti gravity force which is thought to be speeding up the expansion of the cosmos.

The damaging allegations are made by Profs Lawrence Krauss of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, and James Dent of Vanderbilt University, Nashville, who suggest that by making this observation in 1998 we may have determined that the cosmos is in a state when it was more likely to end. "Incredible as it seems, our detection of the dark energy may provide evidence that the universe will ultimately decay," says Prof Krauss.

The team came to this depressing conclusion by calculating how the energy state of our universe - a kind of summation of all its particles and all their energies - has evolved since the big bang of creation 13.7 billion years ago.

Some mathematical theories suggest that, in the very beginning, there was a void that possessed energy but was devoid of substance. Then the void changed, converting energy into the hot matter of the big bang. But the team suggests that the void did not convert as much energy to matter as it could, retaining some, in the form of what we now call dark energy, which now accelerates the expansion of the cosmos.

Like the decay of a radioactive atom, such shifts in energy state happen at random and it is possible that this could trigger a new big bang. The good news is that theory suggests that the universe should remain in its current state.

But the bad is that quantum theory says that whenever we observe or measure something, we can select out a specific quantum state from what otherwise would have been a multitude of states, each of which could have been selected out with varying probabilities.

In this case however, it turns out that quantum mechanics implies that if an unstable system has survived for far longer than the average such system should, then the probability that it will continue to survive decreases more slowly than it otherwise would.

Thus, as a result of making cosmological observations of dark energy, we may have confirmed that we are in a state where the probability of its survival may fall exponentially.

"The intriguing question is this," Prof Krauss told the Telegraph. "If we attempt to apply quantum mechanics to the universe as a whole, and if our present state is unstable, then what sets the clock that governs decay?

"Once we determine our current state by observations, have we effectively determined that the clock is not running at late times? If so, as incredible as it may seem, our detection of dark energy may imply both an unstable universe and a short life expectancy."

All that to say that not only is global warming man-made but we're also causing he universe to decay all the more rapidly... just by looking at it.

Which makes me wonder...  perhaps all we have to do to combat liberalism is... to stare at liberals. 

Alot.

Heh.

Say this ain't so?

Yowza:

Fort Huachuca, the nation's largest intelligence-training center, changed security measures in May after being warned that Islamist terrorists, with the aid of Mexican drug cartels, were planning an attack on the facility.

Fort officials changed security measures after sources warned that possibly 60 Afghan and Iraqi terrorists were to be smuggled into the U.S. through underground tunnels with high-powered weapons to attack the Arizona Army base, according to multiple confidential law enforcement documents obtained by The Washington Times.

"A portion of the operatives were in the United States, with the remainder not yet in the United States," according to one of the documents, an FBI advisory that was distributed to the Defense Intelligence Agency, the CIA, Customs and Border Protection and the Justice Department, among several other law enforcement agencies throughout the nation. "The Afghanis and Iraqis shaved their beards so as not to appear to be Middle Easterners."

According to the FBI advisory, each Middle Easterner paid Mexican drug lords $20,000 "or the equivalent in weapons" for the cartel's assistance in smuggling them and their weapons through tunnels along the border into the U.S. The weapons would be sent through tunnels that supposedly ended in Arizona and New Mexico, but the Islamist terrorists would be smuggled through Laredo, Texas, and reclaim the weapons later.

A number of the Afghans and Iraqis are already in a safe house in Texas, the FBI advisory said.

Let's hope this is simply wrong.