International | MY Vast Right Wing Conspiracy

Archive for the 'International' Category

(Chronologically Listed)

Today’s Anti-Islamofascist Action: Save Media Freedom in Yemen

URGENT help needed, via Jane at Armies of Liberation, who is the go-to for news about the Yemeni dictatorship. A prominent pro-democracy journalist in Yemen is facing a jail sentence–again:

Renowned journalist Abdulkarim al-Khaiwani is one of Yemen’s most prominent democracy advocates - for which he has paid a steep price. His paper has been closed, his website blocked, and his children threatened. He is now due to be sentenced on May 21 for “insulting the president” and “demoralizing the military.”

During his arrest in June of 2007, Al-Khaiwani was beaten and his six-year-old daughter slapped unconscious. While released on bail in August, Al-Khaiwani was kidnapped and tortured by thugs who threatened his life if he continued to write about Yemen’s president.

As al-Khaiwani’s sentencing approaches, there is growing fear a guilty verdict will open the door for a brutal crackdown on Yemen’s already-endangered journalistic community. Join with al-Khawiani’s supporters in Yemen and throughout the world as we urge the Yemeni government not to imprison journalists for their work.

Al-Khaiwani stands on principle for free speech. When he was arrested in 2004 (for “insulting the president”), prison guards broke his jaw - yet he still refused to agree to stop writing. In June of 2007, he was re-arrested on similar charges and dragged outside in his underwear. After being released on bail, he abducted by gunmen who broke his fingers threatened to kill him if he “wrote another word against the president or national unity.”

Civil rights advocates inside Yemen and abroad believe the charges against al-Khaiwani are unsubstantiated and simply punishment for his critical reporting. In fact, one of the main pieces of evidence used against him by prosecutors is an unpublished article criticizing Yemen’s president.

All I ask is for you to send a letter–it’s already filled out, you just have to send it. You won’t get spammed or anything; you can opt-in for updates from them about freedom of the press in Yemen if you want. (Or you can just read Jane’s blog, like I do, and get other news as well, like the latest on the USS Cole bombers.) You can keep your name off the public list, too.

Jane tells me this is due to get some major media coverage in the region, so every bit of support is needed. Just one minute of your time, please. Click and send the letter.

The Columbian Free Trade Agreement vs. the Democrats’ Anti-American Partisan Politics

Colombia Tariff Ticker

Instapundit

Stupid Democrats

US-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement

exports to

partisan politics

Colombia is the United States’ largest market in South America. This agreement will level the playing field for California’s industries and help them to compete better with other countries that export goods to Colombia. Because of high tariffs, California only exported $321 million in merchandise to Colombia last year, less than 1 percent of the $134 billion worth of exports our state shipped worldwide.

If the agreement takes effect, California stands to gain billions in new business opportunities by removing costly tariffs that put our goods at a disadvantage and keep many Colombian consumers from buying our products.

Unfortunately, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi recently refused to allow a vote in Congress on the Colombian trade agreement. Instead of representing California’s best economic interest, Pelosi is playing partisan politics.

This should be a no-brainer, but look at how Pelosi’s defenders present their position here (in the comments). It’s Bush Derangement Syndrome, and nothing more.

Remember New Orleans? Remember how they’re still trying to recover post-Katrina?

At this week’s Three Amigos summit in New Orleans, where Mexico, the U.S. and Canada met to discuss and defend free trade, President Bush was right to also bring forth New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin.

The mayor of the hurricane-hit city made an impassioned plea to Congress to pass the Colombia free trade agreement for New Orleans’ sake. He knows how badly his city needs every break it can get, three years after the biggest disaster to ever hit a U.S. metropolitan area.

“New Orleans is becoming an even greater international city in the wake of Hurricane Katrina,” Nagin wrote to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi last November, “and we are making every effort to capitalize on trade liberalization that will flow from these FTAs (free trade agreements). Our port system is ideally situated to take advantage of the Latin American FTAs.”

That’s right–even Ray Nagin understands it.

Democrats have made New Orleans the cornerstone of their diatribe against President Bush. They’ve derided the city’s slow pace of recovery from the nation’s most devastating natural disaster, as well as wasteful aid spending.

But disregarding the pleas of Mayor Nagin, whose city will uniquely benefit from free trade with Colombia, makes them look like carpetbaggers. Nagin’s call ought to be a warning to Pelosi that Democrats’ sincerity about recovery in the Big Easy is on the line.

Frankly, they discredited their claim to sincerity about everything long ago.

The Case for Columbia (PDF, but sort of viewable below)

The U.S.-Colombia TPA has plenty to offer U.S. exporters, service providers and investors. Specifically, the U.S.-Colombia TPA:

* Levels the playing field for U.S. companies who will enjoy tariff free access into Colombia once the Agreement takes full effect.
* Provides new market access for U.S. consumer and industrial products such as textiles and agricultural products.
* Provides unprecedented access to government procurement.
* Liberalizes the services sectors.
* Opens the Colombian market to remanufactured goods.
* Protects U.S. investments in the region.
* Strengthens protections for U.S. patents, trademarks, and trade secrets.
* Improves customs facilitation.
* Provides benefits to small and medium sized exporters.
* Addresses government transparency and corruption, worker rights, protection of the environment, trade capacity building and dispute settlement.
* Requires important reforms of the domestic legal and business environment that are key to encouraging business development and investment.

This isn’t an “exciting” issue for most people, but it’s important, and it’s just another reason why the Democrats are WRONG. It’s just another reason why Barack Obama is horribly wrong about everything–this fits right in with his Marxist/statist ideology, and that ideology has an immediate, tangible, negative impact on America.

Contact Grandma Pelosi (and your Congressman) and tell her Americans deserve better.

Thank you President Carter

Jimmy Carter loves thugs and dictators. If you regularly violate human rights and torture, murder, maim, imprison or otherwise destroy ordinary people then by all means, President Carter is your friend. He decides that since Hamas is so good at this, he would go chat with them to see how he can help them feel good about themselves.

Now, I really haven’t seen much of this in the news about Carter’s trip to see Hamas and it really isn’t surprising that the news media is ignoring it. Here’s why: Earlier this week, Carter defended his trip to see Hamas. He said he failed to convince them to stop shelling Hamas for a month. Note, not stop shelling period, no, just for a month. So it’s ok to kill Jews, as long as you wait a month? Is that it Mr. Carter?

So when Carter got there, they negotiate and agree to peace for 10 years as long as Israel agrees to the pre-war borders. Carter comes out and announces a big win. However, during the very next meeting, Hamas launches the biggest attack in about 5 years. Killing 3 soldiers and hurting a child. They did this is during the meeting, while Carter is sitting there with the top terrorist. He was totally oblivious to what is happening. Hamas then comes out and contradicts everything Carter said after the first meeting.

That’s not the worst of Carter’s woes. Hamas, as you know, is a puppet of Iran. What do you think led the Iranian news (and news stations all through the Middle East) that night. Carter, shaking hands with Mr. Hamas-boss super-imposed with the details of the new attack. Carter was used. He was pulled off the roll, used to wipe and then flushed. Carter, by virtue of being an ex pres, has credibility. When he is seen with a group like Hamas, he gives them legitimacy. He gives them the pictures they need to coerce people. “The U.S. is on OUR side, you better obey or you’ll disappear with their blessings”. Carter either didn’t realize this or he didn’t care. The State Dept has a study that shows that terrorist groups like to launch their biggest attacks while “negotiating” for peace. It was standard operating procedure here and Carter swallowed it hook, line and sinker. Carter was reduced to a stammering “I did my best, yada yada yada…” and looks like a complete fool.

So, why do I say thank you to him? Why has the news media pretty much ignored this? Simple. Barack Obama says he wants to negotiate with Hamas. He says he’ll meet with them without pre-conditions. Thank you Jimmy Carter. You just showed us what the real world does to a hippie fantasy. We can now point at your abject failure to show what a failure Obama WILL be. His biggest foreign policy plank, meet with people that we used to refuse to meet with, is now toast. Every time he suggests it, we can hang Carter around his neck and sink him. This hippie “sing cumbaya and talk” junk does not work with thugs. We knew that. Now, more people will know it too. We just need to keep reminding them. So thank you President Carter. You showed what a fool you are, and by extension, what a fool Obama is.

Pope Benedict XVI at the UN; conspiracy theorists’ heads explode!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

NAZI POPE ARRIVES IN USA FOR PAGAN BLACK MASS ON HITLER’S BIRTHDAY

This entry was posted on 4/16/2008 8:03 PM and is filed under Conspiracy News.

Of course, it’s not Hitler’s birthday, but facts have never interfered with the madness of conspiracy theorists. Nevermind the “Nazi” Pope fantasy or the “pagan black mass.” LOL. Gaze at the lunacy.

No use commenting on any of that insanity; it’s just fun to watch. :)

Back in reality: the UN does suck, but I guess I can have hope that he may have a positive influence on that despicable, hateful body of corruption. Maybe he’ll inspire someone there to at least think. If you ask me, though, they aren’t fit to even speak his name, much less have the honor of hosting him.

~~I’ll update this post later with highlights.~~

UPDATE — Some key readings:

The Pope to U.N.: “The human person is the high-point of God’s creative design for the world and for history” (Transcript of his address)

Four key phrases help unlock meaning of pope’s speech at U.N. (Catholic News Agency)

C-SPAN has video; I may upload video to Google Video or something later.

The Papal itinerary for his visit in the US.

Be sure to keep up with The Anchoress and The Deacon’s Bench for some excellent analysis.

Jimmy Carter honors Yasser Arafat

He doesn’t even pretend that he doesn’t support terrorists any more, I guess. So progressive of him to lay a wreath at Arafat’s grave.

Read more from Nice Deb.

jimmy Carter and hamas

It’s no wonder Carter is reportedly planning (along with Manbearpig) to endorse Barack Obama if Hillary doesn’t “step down”–they both have a special place in their hearts for the scum who want to “push Israel into the sea.”

Barack Obama refuses to criticize Jimmy Carter’s meeting with Hamas. Is it because Carter may soon endorse him or because Obama once helped fund an organization opposed to Israel’s existence?

Think Dhimmi Carter is a great guy? You’ll looove Barack Obama. Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama: Friends of “palestine!”

Meanwhile, Gay Patriot has sounded the call to contact your Senators asking them to censure Jimmy Carter.

Including his term in office, but mostly after, Carter has a history of actions intended to undermine and destroy the United States of America. His meeting this week with Hamas should be the last straw for those who believe in this nation.

I’m all over it. I’d say unless your Senator is named Barack Obama, you should too (Obama would be a waste of a phone call or email).

stein hoist Conservative Belle

Jimmy Carter to meet with Hamas (!)

Ex-Presidents For Genocide!

NEW YORK CITY — Former President Jimmy Carter is reportedly preparing an unprecedented meeting with the leader of Hamas, an organization that the U.S. government considers one of the leading terrorist threats in the world.

The Arabic-language newspaper Al-Hayat reported Tuesday that Carter was planning a trip to Syria for mid-April, during which he would meet with Khaled Meshal, the exiled head of the Palestinian terror group Hamas, on April 18.

If there were ever any doubt as to where Carter stands on terrorism vs. Israel–and for that matter, the West in general, including us–this ought to settle it. Hamas? I shouldn’t be surprised, but HAMAS? A former President of the United States is going to legitmize this?

“Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.”

“The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up. ”

“There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors.”

“After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. When they will have digested the region they overtook, they will aspire to further expansion, and so on. Their plan is embodied in the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”, and their present conduct is the best proof of what we are saying.”

THAT is Hamas. What next, Hizb’allah? I’m sure he’d have no problem meeting and chumming around with the mullahs in Iran; after all, at least they are a recognized government by the civilized world (unfortunately).

How about Osama Bin Laden next? Oh wait…then he might be asked to tell where Bin Laden is, and that might be too much to ask of Jimmy Carter.

No wonder Carter hearts Obama.

stein hoist Story and pic via LindaSoG, who’s got a companion “guess who” with it.

UPDATE: James Taranto nails it:

This is par for the course for Carter, who has spent decades trying to undermine American foreign policy and won a Nobel Peace Prize for it. It reminds us of one reason we’re uneasy about the idea of electing Barack Obama, who has made much of his desire to meet with hostile foreign rulers and has given us no reason to think he will take a hard line with them, à la Reagan with Gorbachev.

America elected Jimmy Carter 32 years ago and is still paying the price. Suppose history repeats: Obama wins and has a failed one-term presidency. Will he be jetting around the world meeting with terrorists and despots and denouncing America in 2040? Maybe not, but the thought gives us a shudder.

Danish Cartoons Round 2? Kurt Westergaard on “Fitna”

Heh.

Support Geert Wilders - sign a petition.

To: The Dutch Government

WHEREAS Geert Wilders has exercised his fundamental human right of freedom of expression and spoken out, with facts and evidence, of the threat posed by radical Islam;

WHEREAS certain elements within Islamic communities have threatened a boycott of Dutch goods if Geert Wilders is not punished by the Dutch government for exercising his freedom of expression; and

WHEREAS certain elements in Dutch industry and the Dutch government are suggesting that Geert Wilders be prosecuted civilly or criminally, in order to prevent such a boycott;

IT IS RESOLVED that, in the event that the Dutch government attempts, in any way, to punish or prosecute Geert Wilders, civilly or criminally, for exercising his freedom of expression, the undersigned will initiate a boycott of any and all Dutch goods.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

You read that right–prosecuted.

Meanwhile, Fitna IS back up at LiveLeak. Three cheers to LiveLeak for reversing their decision to kill it!

stein hoist Ace

Blogburst: Network Solutions Dhimmis Take Down Geert Wilders’ Anti-Jihad Website

COWARDS!

AMSTERDAM, March 23 (Reuters) - A U.S.-based web service, which Islam critic and Dutch right-wing lawmaker Geert Wilders planned to use to show his film critical of the Koran, said on Saturday that it had inactivated the site due to complaints.

“This site has been suspended while Network Solutions is investigating whether the site’s content is in violation of the Network Solutions Acceptable Use Policy,” the company said on the site www.fitnathemovie.com

Wilders, who has given few details about his 15-minute film, has said he plans to release ‘Fitna’ on the Internet before the end of the month after Dutch broadcasters declined to show it. Fitna is a Koranic term sometimes translated as “strife”.

Mac’s Mind has organized a blogburst–here’s what you need to do:

Here are the contact numbers and emails. Contact them, flood the call reps and demand they reinstate the site immediately or you will no longer use their services.

Phone: 1-800-333-7680, outside the US 1.570.708.8788.

Bloggers who want this important movie on the truth of Islam to go forward make sure you continue the blogburst.

I’m in…are you? You don’t need a blog to pick up the phone and/or send an email.

Question: You think Network Coward Solutions would take down a site hosting a film critical of Christianity? (Obvious answer: Almost certainly not.)

Muslims Against Sharia:

Muslims Against Sharia neither endorse nor condemn “Fitna”; we have not seen the film. However, we find it disturbing that Network Solution suspended “Fitna” website while hosting a multitude of radical Islamic websites, some of which belong to (or are closely affiliated with) terrorist groups.

Exactly.

More about the film Fitna; also at Wikipedia (usual Wikipedia caveats apply).

Another one bites the dust! Imad Mughniyeh is finally DEAD

This one’s been a long time coming. Damn, this is good news! Imad Mughniyeh is one hell of a big ugly fish, and I’m only sorry that he didn’t die a more slow, painful death. Let him suffer the worst pits of hell for each of his victims.

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Imad Mughniyeh, the suspected mastermind of dramatic attacks on the U.S. Embassy and U.S. Marine barracks that killed hundreds of Americans in Lebanon in the 1980s, has died in a car bomb in Syria, Iranian state media and a Syrian rights group said Wednesday.

The Islamic militant group Hezbollah and its Iranian backers blamed Israel for the killing. Israel denied involvement.

Hezbollah did not say how or where Mughniyeh was killed. But Iranian state television and the National Organization for Human Rights in Syria said he died in a car bombing in the Syrian capital Damascus on Tuesday night.

Hezbollah’s announcement of the death came a few hours after a late night explosion in Damascus destroyed a vehicle. Witnesses in the Syrian capital said at the time that a passerby was killed as security forces sealed off the area and removed the body. But authorities there would not give details.

“Blamed Israel.” Typical. I pray it was Israel getting justice for their victims of his pure evil.
Don’t remember this particular specimen of Islamotard terrorist? I know you’ll recognize this sociopath’s work.

[I]n September 1999, Argentinian authorities issued an arrest warrant for Imad Fayez Mughniyeh (alias ‘Hajji’), a top Hizbullah security official in the 1980s and alleged leader of a sub-group called Islamic Jihad, in connection with the 1992 embassy bombing. He was later indicted for the AMIA atrocity as well.

Mughniyeh, a Lebanese Shi‘a Muslim, was indicted by the US in 1985 for the hijacking of a TWA airliner in which a US Navy diver was killed. He is also suspected of being behind a whole host of other attacks in the 1980s, including the kidnapping and murder of CIA station chief William Buckley in Beirut in 1984, as well as suicide bombings of the US embassy and a US marine barracks in which some 300 people perished. Mughniyeh and some of his associates were named in the FBI’s ‘Most Wanted’ list after the events of 11 September. His present whereabouts are unknown, although he is said to have undergone extensive plastic surgery to disguise his appearance.

Additionally, Bill Roggio wrote at the Counterterrorism Blog during the 2006 war in Lebanon about Mughniyeh:

At the outbreak of war between Israel and Hezbollah, I reported Imad Fayez Mugniyah, Hezbollah’s military commander, was likely behind the operation to snatch the Israeli soldiers, and documented Hezbollah and Mugniyah’s links to Iran and historical involvement in international terrorism. Dr. Magnus Ranstorp explained Hezbollah’s command structure and decision making processes, Mugniyah’s likely involvement with the capture of the Israeli soldiers and Hezbollah’s links to Iran and Hamas.

On Saturday, the Jerusalem Post reported on Mugniyah’s involvement in the current conflict and his past history with Fatah and in Hezbollah. Mugniyah is fingered as the likely operative “behind the abduction of the two IDF soldiers on July 12″ as well as “in charge of Hizbullah’s rocket unit in south Lebanon.”

And that’s not all. Fausta mentions his activities in Argentina:

Mughniyeh is also believed to have been behind the 1992 bombing of Israel’s embassy in Argentina in which 29 people were killed, and the blast at a Buenos Aires Jewish center two years later that killed 95.

Recently Argentina has been investigating the 1994 explosion, which is the largest terrorist attack ever staged in Latin America against a Jewish group.

This piece of shit was one of the mere handful of worst of the worst. Twenty-five years we’ve been waiting for this scumbag to get put down. Twenty-five years. I remember those days of terrorism in Beirut like it was just yesterday–after the Iranian hostage crisis in 1979, that period probably had the greatest impact of all on my overall view of the world geopolitics–even more than the Cold War. Imad Mughniyeh is essentially Osama bin Laden without the recruiting tool of the internets; his activity was likely an inspiration to Bin Laden himself, not to mention countless other terrorists. His death comes 25 years too late for the lives lost, but finally, he’s dead.

More about Imad Fayez Mugniyeh from:
* Counterterrorism expert Dan Darling (from 2006)
* Counterterrorism Blog
* DEBKA; also note that they tie Mughniyeh to Moqtada al-Sadr’s war on Americans in Iraq, as do terrorism analysts Jonathan Schanzer and Dan Darling.

Imad Fayez Mughniyeh

Religion of Peace, Part 666

Ashura.

Pardon me for not seeing how this logically relates to the “Allah” they adore. What it does relate to is the violent, brutal origins of Islam, and the tolerance–and even respect–for brutality among its followers. The Sunni don’t this Ashura ritual, but they, as we all know, have their own violent rituals as well–suicide bombings, beheadings, stonings, murder of “infidels,” crude amputations, and the routine beatings of women and children for “disobedience” or bringing “shame,” if the victims are spared being murdered. There’s a warning for “graphic content” on that video, but that’s nothing compared to unedited reality.

From the accompanying article:

But clearly something about Ashura, in its various forms over the centuries, fulfills a deep, human need. I repeatedly asked Fouad Hussein, the subject of this video, what that was - just what made him beat himself. His answer – “for love” – was baffling at first until I witnessed the ritual.

I began to see Ashura as a test of love and devotion: for the Prophet’s grandson, but also for each other and for the community. Over the course of the morning these young men, who lead remarkably complex lives – often poor, with little job security, and caught between the radical voices in the Islamic world and allure of Western consumerism they see on television or the cinema – manage to resolve their tensions in an act of catharsis.

Give me a break. Love and devotion? For that? NO. It’s love and devotion for aggression, violence, and proving their own “toughness.” There are a million ways to prove “love and devotion” that don’t involve pride, aggression, and violence, but then those ways wouldn’t be 7th Century Islamic. And as far as “fulfilling a deep human need,” yes, humans do have violent primal urges. But you know what? Civilized humans don’t act on every urge, much less try to excuse everything by saying it’s God’s will.

Nice of the writer to be so tolerant and open-minded, but I think his mind’s so open that his brains fell out. Fool.

By the way, this is another illustration of this fraudulent practice–from Wikipedia’s shamelessly pro-Islamic article, no less:

A companion of the prophet, Ibn Abas reports that the prophet went to Medina and found the Jews fasting on the tenth of Muharram. Muhammad inquired of them, “What is the significance of this day on which you fast?” They replied, “This is a righteous day. On this day God saved the Israelites from their enemy. Therefore Moses fasted on this day.” Muhammad said, “I am more worthy of Moses than you.”

From then, Muhammad fasted on the tenth of Muharram.

Just like all the other things lifted from Judaism, Christianity, and paganism to invent a “religion” grounded in violence and insanity.

“You have used weapons of mass destruction before. We are determined to deny you the capacity to use them again.”

Who said this?

Together, we must confront the new hazards of chemical and biological weapons and the outlaw states, terrorists, and organized criminals seeking to acquire them. Saddam Hussein has spent the better part of this decade and much of his nation’s wealth not on providing for the Iraqi people but on developing nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons and the missiles to deliver them. The United Nations weapons inspectors have done a truly remarkable job finding and destroying more of Iraq’s arsenal than was destroyed during the entire Gulf war. Now Saddam Hussein wants to stop them from completing their mission.

I know I speak for everyone in this chamber, Republicans and Democrats, when I say to Saddam Hussein, “You cannot defy the will of the world,” and when I say to him, “You have used weapons of mass destruction before. We are determined to deny you the capacity to use them again.”

The answer is here. (See the comments as well.)

Via the Anchoress, who has more.

How Bizarre!

Back in November, I posted a bit of satire about a website, Who Would the World Elect, which invited people from all over the world to express their opinion on who should be the next president of the United States. It was a good idea, and while the results would be completely unimportant, they might have been interesting, except the paultards discovered it and spammed it all to hell.

Now, The Urban Grind Blog tells us about uber-liberal euro-weenies who have taken the concept to heart and demand the right to vote in US elections:

American presidential elections are not “home affairs.” American decisions have repercussions all over the globe. The American mortgage crisis affects banks in Europe. The insatiable American demand for oil makes the Arabian sheiks rich. The American refusal to care for the environment causes the North Pole ice to melt and coastal areas in Asia to flood. A weakened dollar and an immense budget deficit affect the global economy.

Hence, the world should be given the right to vote. Because the current situation is a blatant case of taxation without representation, against which the Americans rebelled in 1776. But of course the world will not be allowed to vote. The best we can hope for is that the Americans choose a leader who is deeply aware of the U.S.’s responsibility, as a superpower, for the rest of mankind.

I might comment about this, if I could stop laughing long enough to do so.

Maybe later.

Time Magazine’s Person of the Year: Vladimir Putin

As if last year’s “Person of the Year” didn’t put the final nail in the coffin of the relevance of their annual publicity stunt, Time Magazine calls Vladimir Putin 2007’s Person of the Year.

You know, it’s one thing to name someone Person of the Year for his or her worldwide impact on the news, as they would say to excuse naming Algore or Ahmadinejad had they done so, but this is unfreakingbelievable.

he has performed an extraordinary feat of leadership in imposing stability on a nation that has rarely known it and brought Russia back to the table of world power. For that reason, Vladimir Putin is TIME’s 2007 Person of the Year.

“Leadership,” he calls it. I guess they could say the same for…I dunno, Joseph Stalin, as well. I mean he did have a “stable” government–and during World War II, no less! Extraordinary leadership, no?

I suppose I could be accused of parsing words, but seriously. “Extraordinary feat of leadership?” That’s how they refer to what they also charitably call “choosing order before freedom?”

Really?

I’m sure Russia’s friendliness with the rest of the world’s dictators/America’s antagonists didn’t hurt one bit, either–after all, Putin’s dances with the devil certainly have “brought Russia back to the table of world power.” Anything and everything (and everyone) is fair game in Putin’s insatiable thirst for power.

This just makes me laugh:

His final year as Russia’s President has been his most successful yet. At home, he secured his political future. Abroad, he expanded his outsize—if not always benign—influence on global affairs.

“Successful.” “Secured his political future.” “Expanded influence.” Lovely.

Kossack idiot

I was perusing a thread at Kos (no link to that shite hole), about how Rahm Emmnuel is a racist corporate tool, when I came across this gem:

I don’t see a downside to universal education in both English and Spanish, and access to key government information in multiple languages seems like a no-brainer to me. I have no problem requiring Latino immigrants to learn English. Yes, Latino immigrant kids should learn English. Fine. Native-born kids, particularly in states like Texas and California, should have a passing knowledge of Spanish or if they are ambitious, they can elect to learn Chinese or some other language. I strongly favor a second language requirement for graduation from high school.

The US is a hybrid culture, and the sooner we start behaving like Europeans who don’t have this fierce nationalist take on languages, the better. If the sun comes up one day and California is 90% bilingual, well, can someone explain to me why this is a bad thing?

Europeans don’t have a ‘fierce nationalist take on languages’?

Which must be why the French banned the word ‘email’ for sounding too American.

Honestly, the infants that write this tripe at Kos have no idea how silly they sound.

The Religion of Peace™ has a content warning!

Another Day Goes By:

A music video with pictures from the worldwide islamofascist uprising. It is not meant to insult Islam, but to show the horror of people using a religion as excuse for their sick death cult. If you are a muslim and feel insulted, please answer this question: What have you done today to stop terror? (BTW: The music was recorded by a guy from Australia, who wants to remain anonymous. He is afraid of the Religion of Peace.)

Content warning: Graphic violence. Not like you didn’t already know.