Category: Uncategorized

From a random email:

Dr. Vendyl Jones, the inspiration for the “Indiana Jones” series, told Israel National Radio that he is sure he will uncover the hidden Ark of the Covenant before the Fast of Tisha B’Av this summer….

Dr. Jones dismisses the current Israeli governments plan to uproot the Jews of Gaza and northern Samaria from their homes, saying “there will not be any disengagement, nor will there be any Palestinian State.” According to Jones, the Sharon government will soon be history and the Sanhedrin (the Jewish High Court of 71 judges) will take its place and lead the Jewish people. “The Sanhedrin was established October the 13th of last year. Now all we have to do is have an election to elect counselors. The Sanhedrin is like a Senate and the elected counselors are like a House of Representatives.”

I like specific predictions of this sort, whether they are market predictions or something rather more esoteric. If it’s correct, we’ll know soon enough. If it’s not, you can safely disregard the source in the future. And yes, I’m talking about you, Abby Joseph Cohen.

While the Sharon government falling would not exactly come as a surprise – it’s a tossup whether his original supporters or George Bush’s are more disenchanted with their former hero – I think its replacement with a ruling Sanhedrin would rock the entire theologically aware world to its core.

The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee is working on a bill that would renew the Patriot Act and expand government powers in the name of fighting terrorism, letting the FBI subpoena records without permission from a judge or grand jury….

Roberts’ planned bill also would make it easier for prosecutors to use special court-approved warrants for secret wiretaps and searches of suspected terrorists and spies in criminal cases, the committee aides said. Eight expiring sections of the law that deal with foreign intelligence investigations would become permanent, they said.

So, too, would a provision that authorizes wiretapping of suspected terrorists who operate without clear ties to a particular terrorist network.

Amerika, mein Amerika, nur die Gedanken sie sind frei…. In other words, they want the ability to spy on people who have no ties to terrorism. This is not exactly surprising, as it follows the usual pattern of expansion of government power.

1. Find a legitimate-sounding cause to violate the rights of a specific group of people on a temporary basis with oversight.
2. Get rid of the temporary basis.
3. Get rid of the oversight.
4. Expand the definition of the suspicious group.

They did this with the income tax, which once affected only the top one percent and now affects everyone. They did this with the Alternative Minimum Tax, which once affected only the top ten percent and now affects one-third of taxpayers. They did this with RICO, which was intended for use against the mafia and is now used against any group of unfavored protesters.

Patriot 1 and Patriot 2 will eventually be expanded to apply to all Americans, because every American is a potential terrorist in the eyes of the government.

From England Expects:

“Europa ist nicht einfact eine Konstruktion der Politik. Europa ist geistiger Lebensraum?”

Europe is not actually a political construction. Europe is spiritual Lebensraum.

That’s courtesy of Hans Gerg Poetterung, a theoretically conservative member of the European Parliament. The EU is the Fourth Reich; remember, the Austrian Anschluss was peaceful too. If it wasn’t a good idea for Germany to rule over an undemocratic Europe in 1940, why is it a good thing in 2005?

After all the complaining I did about a certain Nebula novel winner from a few years ago, I need to compliment the Academy for getting it right this year. Lois McMaster Bujold’s THE CURSE OF CHALION is a solid book, entertaining from start to finish and with the added bonus of being one of the few fantasy novels to ever feature a convincing structure of an alternate religion.

Congratulations, Lois!

Craigp sees similarities:

Libertarians on the war:
“Its a disaster”

The left on the war:
“Its a disaster”

The republicans on the war:
“Its a good thing”

Libertarian worldview: The repubs keep moving left to the point where they are no different then the democratic party so what good are they.

At least in the example of the war in Iraq, its the libertarian party that sounds exactly like the left.

The difference is that the libertarian Right is opposed to the war because it and many things inspired by it are violations of libertarian principles. The Left opposes it because George Bush is for it.

You may recall that both the libertarian Right and the Republicans were against the Balkan war as well, while the Left was for it. As is all too often the case, of the three parties involved, only the libertarian Right is consistent in applying the same principles to different situations.

You know they’re hopeless when they can’t even outwit a swimsuit model:

KATHY IRELAND: “Is it all right for the government to allow the murder of an innocent human being? The evidence I see tells me the unborn is a human being. From the moment of conception, a new life comes into being with a complete genetic
blueprint. The sex is determined. The blood type is determined.”

COLMES: “Well, we have a system of laws and a Supreme Court decision that does not define life the way you do. So legally, that’s not how it would be defined. If you want to define it that way for your personal — that’s how you want to do it, that’s fine, but that’s not the standing law of this country.”

Of course, it does help to have scientific fact and logic on your side. But still….

Jack Cashill explains the sentiments of many, including me:

In March of this year, Dresch had received highly convincing information from imprisoned mobster Gregory Scarpa Jr. that a cache of explosives remained hidden in the old house of his jailmate, Terry Nichols of Oklahoma City notoriety.

For four frustrating weeks, Dresch could not get the FBI or the media interested in the story. Even after the FBI finally heeded Dresch’s warning and extracted the explosives on March 31 – conveniently, hours after the death of Terry Schiavo – Isikoff turned a deaf ear to the story. “Isikov [sic] essentially contended that I had to prove to him that the FBI’s recovery of the cache in Herington, KS, was a result of the Scarpa intelligence,” Dresch wrote to me on April 5.

“To add insult to injury,” Dresch continued, “Isikoff demanded that I identify my intel-org-security colleague and his NSC and DHS conduits. In short, I’ve rarely dealt with such a pompous, ludicrous a–hole (if you will excuse my Mongolian).”

This week, Dresch learned just how flexible Isikoff’s standards were. Isikoff and Newsweek had inflamed the Middle East with a reckless bit of anti-American agitprop that had but one unnamed, uncertain source.

Like many of you commenting yesterday, I have little sympathy for the Muslims slain in their ridiculous riots. I also find it both hypocritical and ludicrous that Muslim moderates find it easier to criticize reports of ripping up a book, however holy, than hundreds of murderous attacks around the world on the part of their co-religionists.

It would be one thing if Isikoff’s “mistake” had taken place in a vaccuum. But it didn’t. We know, from observance and Cashill’s evidence both direct and second-hand, that even copious proof isn’t enough to get Isikoff and Newsweek to cover a story they prefer to see buried. But, on the other hand, mere hearsay from an anonymous source is more than enough for them to run with something that might damage the current administration.

I am no fan of the president and despite its successes, I still believe this continuing ur-war will prove to be a disaster for the American people in the long term. RealID is only one of the many evils that I expected the Bush administration to force upon the citizenry from the time my very first column for WND. Even so, this does not excuse the lowlife Isikoff and his masters at the magazine from having to face the music for their tawdry attack blowing up in their faces.

They’ve been careless and slipped-up enough to hand us a hammer. We’d be remiss if we failed to hit them with it.

This weekend’s Blogstar will be Amigo’s Place. Send it into me on Friday, 1k words or less….

From Drudge:

NEWSWEEK’s top executives and editors are standing firm behind reporter Michael Isikoff after the magazine retracted his story that U.S. investigators found evidence interrogators at Guantanamo Bay desecrated the Quran.

“Mike was told he would not be sacrificed, we are standing behind him 100%,” a top magazine source told the DRUDGE REPORT. “We do not, I repeat, do not let this White House, any White House, make our staff decisions for us.”

The top NEWSWEEK executive claims an emotional Isikoff offered to resign from the magazine over the weekend, in a gesture to cool off the international situation. Isikoff’s Guantanamo article was blamed for inciting riots in the Muslim world, where at least 17 people were killed in the ensuing violence.

Of course, Newsweek executives will likely feel considerably different if the pressure starts coming from rioting Muslims. I have a feeling that they might sprain their ankles in a hurried rush to leap from their high horses.

Isikoff shouldn’t resign because of pressure from the White House. He should resign because his shoddy, albeit typically journalistic decision to print unsubstantiated rumors in an attempted political jab led directly to bloodshed around the world.

I find it interesting how journalists are quick to boast about how their careful fact-checking and editorial supervision sets them above the blogosphere, but every time they report a provable fiction as fact, all we hear is that mistakes are inevitable. And that comes only after several days – or sometimes weeks – of denying any possibility of error or falsehood.

I had a rather encouraging conversation with my publisher yesterday. It seems they finally got around to reading THE WRATH OF ANGELS, which I turned in about a year ago, and liked it enough that they increased the print run four-fold over the previous book. It’s a little more conventional fantasy than the two books that preceded it in the series and less likely to be confused with dark fantasy (lite horror) than THE WORLD IN SHADOW.

The short description is that the Shadowstalkers, a sort of Divine dirty-tricks squad, are planning to put a hit on an insane fallen angel prince who rules a post-Christian land, lest Europe descend into a second Holocaust. The challenge is that their powerful target rules a realm protected by legions of demonic guardians and is rumored to be all but indestructible.

The Almighty’s ironic sense of humor is revealed as He selects a self-absorbed teenage girl, whose three most deadly weapons are lipstick, eyeliner and a curling iron, to be His chosen instrument of retribution.