In Other News

Soon we will get another glimpse into the life of Anne Frank when 71 year old Berthe Meijer, who was just 7 at Bergen Belsen where Anne died just before the camp was liberated, will publish her memoirs called Life After Anne Frank. She tells of Anne being a story teller and trying to lift the spirits of other children.

In history books, "the war ends when we were liberated. No. Not for a lot of people," she says."Not for the lives of the people who survived those camps or went into hiding or had traumatic experiences because of that war. Those things, they don't go away."

Meanwhile the Royal Netherlands warship Tromp had a different experience off the coast of Africa as the world's dumbest Somali pirates thought to hijack the ship. Tromp very properly refused these ardent longings of the Somalis. Even managed to seize the two dorys and mother ship. Though there was no walking the plank as the sailors merely sank the dorys, stripped the mother ship of weapons, and gave the mother ship back to the inept pirates. What is wrong with the world? Pirates are not given a long walk off a short plank, that is what is wrong with the world.

And finally for something completely different, Lord British please pick up the red courtesy phone. Your defunct Soviet lunar rover has been found on the Moon. Towing and salvage fees are negotiable.

Holder - Best & Brightest?

Attorney General Eric Holder keeps lowering my opinion of him with every utterance from his mouth. For example yesterday's testimony before the House Judiciary Committee.

Comparing Osama bin Laden to Charles Manson. If I was Charles Manson, I would be filing suit in federal court against Holder for defamation.

On the question of will we ever capture Osama bin Laden alive. Holder told the distinguished members that Osama bin Laden would be killed by his own people if capture was imminent. Or that Osama bin Laden would be killed by US/Allied forces. Talk about a maroon, we pulled Saddam Hussein out a hold in the ground, ala rabbit in the hat, alive and got several hundred others cooling their heels at Gitmo. So I fail to understand how Holder can say bin Laden wound die if we tried to capture him. Unless the Obama administration uses a JDAM off a Predator to make bin Laden shake off his mortal coil. Then Holder would be right.

But worse of all, Holder is still clinging to the delusion we can send some Gitmo attendees to US criminal courts while others are packed off to a military tribunal. If the perp still has US citizenship, I can see the chance of tossing the perp into the criminal courts. But if Ali bint Bedliner is scarfed up on the battlefield without Geneva ID or recognized uniform, then Ali is an enemy combatant and needs to be handled by a military tribunal. There is no case-by-case as Holder implies. They are either goats or pit-bulls.

Do We Have a Southern Border?

Not according to these two news articles from San Antonio, TX.

Customs officers spotted the aircraft about 5 p.m. Tuesday about a mile into U.S. airspace over Falcon Heights, a residential development on the shores of the binational Falcon Lake reservoir. The incursion was “brief,” lasting possibly “15 to 20 minutes,” Pauza said.
...
“It's critically important for Texas, U.S. and Mexican law enforcement to appropriately coordinate our efforts,” Perry said, adding that Sheriff Gonzalez, the Texas Department of Public Safety and the U.S. Border Patrol were “working together to gather more information” about the incident.
Gonzalez on Friday called the U.S. response a brush-off, “typical ... of our government, in reality an echo of the Mexican government.”

Then we have this about corruption permeating all levels of the US government, on top of all the corruption that has happened in Mexico. I remember the offer Pablo Escobar's cartel in Colombia would give police, judges, and public officials -"Silver or lead?"

As violence continued Thursday with a highway shootout in Tamaulipas, a Senate subcommittee in Washington heard testimony that drug cartels are trying to infiltrate U.S. agencies along the border, with corruption cases among Homeland Security personnel on the rise.
In the past two years, there have been 400 public corruption cases involving federal, state and local law enforcement agents originating from the Southwest border region, Kevin Perkins, FBI assistant director for criminal investigations, told the Senate Homeland Security subcommittee on preparedness.
James Tomsheck, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection assistant commissioner, told the panel the drug cartels operating in Mexico are making a concerted effort to infiltrate CBP, and the agency is responding with more screening of job applicants with polygraph tests and background investigations. Corruption cases were opened last year on 576 CBP officers and Border Patrol agents.

This is not looking good. Not at all. And how much longer will it spiral out of control? The role of government, especially the fedearl government, is to protect the citizens from such foreign depredations.

Disciples of Destruction

I started this blog talking about the murder of Theo Van Gogh at the hands of an Islamic true believer. Even as Theo lay there bleeding to death, he asked his attacker if there was any way to work it out. Alas Theo's belief in a peaceable way was destined to failure.

Since then, these true believers and their enablers have kept up the violence against anyone who dares question their faith or its prophet. We saw the blood libel that was peddled by Imams to their followers of purported cartoons ridiculing their Prophet, cartoons that did not exist until the Imams decided that they did exist. And when actual cartoons were crafted that poked fun at the Prophet, much as would a political cartoonist draw caricatures of politicians. The uproar has been deafening and violent.

Now the case of Jihad Jane should not be a real surprise since several years ago a female Belgium convert to Islam travelled to Iraq and proceeded to blow herself up for no gain. But there are several differences with Jihad Jane. First she is outwardly a typical American soccer-mom. Second is her activity that got her arrested, she was planning and recruiting people to kill a Swedish cartoonist over certain cartoons she found offensive. And now it emerges that one of her recruits is another American woman who presently sits in an Irish jail being questioned along with an Algerian who might be her husband and LaRose's possible contact.

I am merely scratching at the surface of what might have driven LaRose and Paulin-Ramirez based on similar past cases. From what I have read of both women, they seem to have found a home in Islam and with it came a strong desire to protect that home. What particularly strikes me in the Paulin-Ramirez case is it seems Jamie has always been searching for belonging. Her parents had divorced and she has a step-father who it seems is also a convert to Islam. Four marriages had done nothing to slake her quest to belong. Nor having a child to raise or to be with family satisfied that desire.

This is not a new phenomena though. Its part of human nature to belong to a survival group or tribe. We saw Johnny Lindh Walker fly to Afghanistan to join the Islamic struggle against all that is evil in the West and he became an accessory to the murder of Mike Spann. Then there is the case of Jose Padilla. Gadahn is still hiding in a cave on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. But Jamie Paulin-Ramirez might belong to another group of those seeking to belong, that of the Manson family. Manson was a master manipulator and he attracted around him people who seemed to have everything but were still hungry for something. He seemed to give them that something and they became his fervent followers. And when he asked for them to kill, they willingly did so and created the Tate-LaBianca attrocities. All I can say is, I am glad the West stopped LaRose and Paulin-Ramirez before they could carry out their atrocity and murder the cartoonist.

Friday Music Videos

To get the weekend off to a good start, some Kate Bush.

Gaelic Song



Don’t Give Up w/Peter Gabriel



Babooshka



I think I wish Kate had played Red Sonja rather than Brigitte Nielsen. Just saying. And lets not get into the whole debate of chicks in chainmail pinches. Okay?

The Sensual World



This Woman’s Work – from the movie She’s Having A Baby



Wuthering Heights



Army Dreamers



Yes this is a protest song. Pay no attention to fingers on triggers safety violations. And I guess this is where John Kerry stole the idea of no education means you end up in the army.

Its On FaceBook

Imagine your father just sat you down to explain that him and your mom are going to divorce after 20+ years of marriage. Now picture yourself sitting at a bar with friends and talking about the impending divorce and all the hurt you are feeling. And one friend says they have known about your mom cheating with someone for six months. The answer to the next question is your friend has read it on your mom's FaceBook wall.

Words fail me in such instances while I feel much sympathy for the father and daughter who now have to deal with this traumatic information. There is just so much hurt and dishonesty here from the mom, I hope things get better.

Trapped in a Box

That is all I can say of the author of this little piece on Bigelow's Oscar win as Best Director. The writer is trapped in a neat ideological box that frames Monika's whole view of the world. Her agenda must be recognized and embraced by others for her to be happy. It seems she can not be happy when others do not march to the tin drum she hears.

As Alec Baldwin quipped she had sent ex-husband James Cameron a gift that was ticking when she was nominated to Barbra Streisand exclaiming the time has come, no one really expected her to win when her little film The Hurt Locker was going against James 'What's a budget' Cameron's SFX-opus Avatar. But Bigelow did and became the first woman to win that coveted award. Bigelow's reaction was perfect, she just wants to be recognized as a good director and not as a female director. All I can say to Kathryn Bigelow is bravo for you. You have come along way baby.

As a final thought, I have to wonder if Monika would have espoused the same identity politics when Alien came out. When Sigourney Weaver took a character in the script that was meant for a man and made Ripley into a pretty awesome character who happened to be female. Ripley would have kicked such a butterfly off Nostromo in a heart beat I think.

The KSM Road Show

Well this is interesting. The Khalid Sheik Mohammad trial keeps rolling along. First it was a military tribunal after much wrangling between President Bush, Congress, and the Supreme Court. Then President Obama and his Attorney General Eric Holder decided this guy needed a trial in an American courtroom to show the strength of the whole American system.

So the trial was set to occur in New York City, mere yards from the crime scene of KSM's alleged evilness. And when the people of the Big Apple screamed, their Mayor finally woke up and said no to the trial. So the Obama administration recalibrated and proposed to have the trial somewhere else, at the tune of $200 million in security costs. To further add to the farce this was becoming, White House press secretary Gibbs told reporters that KSM would not go free even if the jury found him innocent. Naturally none of these shenanigans have added luster to either Obama or Holder.

Now it seems reality has dawned on the Obama administration and they need to cut losses when it comes to KSM. Rumors are emerging that there is an Obama plan to move KSM's trial back to being a military tribunal. Full circle anyone? Yes it is. Rumors are also floating that Obama is seeking political cover for this sudden about face since to publicly admit Obama and Holder screwed up in this affair would damage Obama's reputation as a miracle worker.

A word of advice to any Republican thinking of cutting a deal with Obama on this, don't. It was his vision to put KSM on trial in a civilian court, let him take the fall. Perhaps getting served a turkey buzzard sandwich publicly might cause Obama to rethink many things he has visions of besides this trial. And in the long run perhaps save this Republic from greater disasters if he is trul.y reflective and learns lessons from this.