Bookworm on Mar 10 2009 at 7:51 am | Filed under: Uncategorized
Work — it’s a good thing (even if it keeps me from blogging). This is your open thread until I can get my hands back on my blog.
Related posts:
Email This Post To A Friend
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Earl on Double paying in Britain for health care
Oldflyer on No matter how you read the Second Amendment, it comes up favoring guns in citizens’ hands
Charles Martel on Fisking three dishonest Democrat senators on the subject of ObamaCare’s birth control mandate
Indigo Red on No matter how you read the Second Amendment, it comes up favoring guns in citizens’ hands
Bookworm on Fisking three dishonest Democrat senators on the subject of ObamaCare’s birth control mandateBookworm on William Shatner on gun controlBookworm on Using the First Amendment to nullify God — Air Force editionBookworm on No matter how you read the Second Amendment, it comes up favoring guns in citizens’ hands
jj on Double paying in Britain for health care
Beyond the pale and in their own words. So many ‘quotes of the day’ in this one AP piece that I cannot make a selection.
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – Five men charged in the Sept. 11 attacks mock U.S. authorities and proclaim themselves “terrorists to the bone” in a war crimes court filing released Tuesday.
The five Guantanamo prisoners use the six-page document to try to justify the killing of nearly 3,000 people, portraying the attack as a response to U.S. actions in Israel, Iraq and elsewhere that is supported by their Muslim faith.
“We fight you over defending Muslims, their land, their holy sites, and their religion as a whole,” they write in the document, which was submitted to the Guantanamo war crimes court and released by the Pentagon, in English, over the objections of attorneys for two of the men.
The five had previously said they wanted to plead guilty to the charges against them, and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed Sept. 11 mastermind, had expressed pride in the attacks. But this is their most detailed response yet.
All five were charged with murder and other crimes at the Guantanamo war crimes court, which was suspended by President Barack Obama in January while his administration considers new strategies for prosecuting terrorists.
The charges, which carry a potential death sentence, “are badges of honor, which we carry with pride,” they write.
The charge of conspiracy is “laughable,” they write, because the planning was intended to be secret.
“Your intelligence apparatus, with all its abilities … failed to discover our military attack plans before the blessed 11 September operation … Why then should you blame us, holding us accountable and putting us on trial?”
They criticize the U.S. for fighting “from behind roadblocks, trenches and warplanes” rather than face-to-face and describe Islam as “a religion of fear” for Jews, Christians and pagans.
“We are terrorists to the bone. So, many thanks to God,” they write.
Obama has ordered the closure of Guantanamo, so if and when the trials resume, they will be held somewhere else and most likely under a different legal system than the widely criticized military commissions created by Congress and President George W. Bush.
Three of the men are acting as their own lawyers but two of the men, Ramzi Binalshibh and Mustafa al-Hawsawi, still have Pentagon-appointed military attorneys pending a court ruling on whether they are mentally competent to represent themselves.
Their lawyers, Army Maj. Jon Jackson and Navy Cmdr. Suzanne Lachelier, said they had not met with their clients to discuss the document and cannot say what may have motivated the men to sign it — or even vouch for its authenticity.
“Based on our review of the unsigned, English and typed document there is no evidence that either Mr. Binalshibh or Mr. al-Hawsawi knew about, read, or signed this document,” they said in a statement e-mailed to The Associated Press.
Pentagon spokesman Jeffrey Gordon called the filing “merely another attempt by these detainees to garner publicity.”
And I would be remiss not to share this one from the Rosett Report:
Be sure to read down to the response from a reader at the bottom.
March 9th, 2009 3:26 am
What Do You Do With Last Week’s “Reset” Button?
We’re less than two months into the Obama administration, and already there’s more than enough grist for one of those scavenger-hunt feature stories, or maybe an entire coffee-table book, on “Where are they now?” You know the genre — the lists of icons, props, characters, all past their 15 minute shelf-life in the headlines and consigned to the oblivion of last week’s news cycle, or even the ancient history of last year… “We are the change we seek” (haven’t heard that lately); the fake stage columns at the Denver convention; Tom Daschle, Rev. Wright, Tony Rezko, Bill Ayers (well, actually, in his own special way, Ayers keeps turning up…and so does Wright).
The latest candidates for this Obama scrapbook are two inanimate objects – recent tokens of diplomacy-made-new (both of them swiftly disappeared from public view). They are President Obama’s offering to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown of a boxed DVD set of 25 “classic American movies,” and Hillary’s gift of a mistranslated “Reset” button for Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
We’ve all read about the awkward encounters in which these items were with handed over. But where are they now? What did Gordon Brown do with the Obama presidential-gift DVD set? (The U.K.’s Daily Mail has the full list of the movies ). Is he tucked up with the Chancellor of the Exchequer at 10 Downing Street for a marathon and timely viewing of Vertigo, Sunset Boulevard and Star Wars: Episode IV?” Did he quietly donate the DVDs to Oxfam? Offer them to the collection at the Tower of London? Or is he maybe using them — as I once used a copy of Das Kapital — to prop open a malfunctioning window? If anyone knows, it ought to be the Daily Mail, which reports only that “his reaction to the box set is unknown.”
As for Hillary’s gift to Lavrov of a toy Reset button, with its gaffe of a label and its unfortunate resemblance to a detonator – once the FSB gets done checking this item for implanted eavesdropping devices, what will Lavrov do with it? Cherish it on his desk as a sample of American diplomatic juvenilia? Install it among the treasures of the Kremlin? Give it to the Spetznaz to play with?
Who knows? But I have an vision of that Reset button resonating somewhere down the line, like “Rosebud” in that vast warehouse of debris and disillusion at the end of Citizen Kane. It’s a chilling vision. If you don’t remember that final scene in the movie, ask Gordon Brown. It’s in his boxed set.
cfbleachers:
Claudia, you have been clearly confused by the administration’s Chauncey Gardiner gifts to prominent people. Chauncey likes to watch.
Here is a hint. Go to your family room coffee table or bedroom nightstand and grab the universal remote. Begin looking closely at the buttons. Imagine that you create gifts from each button. Voila! You have our entire plan for domestic policy and foreign relations.
1)”DVR list” This pesky historical tie to Mother England has run its course. The new motherland is someplace else. Not sure if “Being There” was on the list. But “Go Back There” was clearly the message.
2)”Reset”. This message is self-explanatory. If you are having trouble with the message, Bill Ayers, Frank Marshall Davis, Michael Klonsky can explain it to us. Or the KGB. Or, as with most newfangled things, any four year old.
3)”Mute” This button has been handed to Rush Limbaugh. And Sean Hannity. And in a Fairness Doctrine coming soon in your neighborhood, you may receive your very own. There was a time when I thought Joe Biden might get one, but apparently not.
4)”Return” Malley, Power, Brzezinski, Rashid Khalidi, and the aforementioned Klonsky at one time during the campaign made to disappear. Not sure whether Wright received his yet or not.
5)”Edit/Learn” Given to the entrenched media, academia and Hollywood. Apply to facts, photos, truth. Liberally.
6)”Split” Given to “cowards” and “the rich”…you can’t have a good class or racial warfare without putting names on the uniforms of the opposition.
7)”Unwind” Given to Wall Street and the Dow. Income redistribution apparently means we lose our 401k’s (and our granddaddy’s 401ks, according to Dear Friend Pfleger), our nest eggs, our retirement funds, our life savings…and the Chinese get the interest on whatever’s left!
8)”Select” This went to anyone with a tax problem. And, apparently…nobody in the 11 positions beneath the Treasury Secretary.
9)”Exit” This one was sent to Iraq, not sure if “Enter” is intended for Afghanistan or Pakistan. (Guantanamo was sent “Freeze” by mistake, I believe)
10)”Power” This one…oh, yeah…this one…stays right where it is. Never to be given or shared with anyone or anything…ever. Except maybe if Pelosi sleeps over.
Does anyone else find it disgusting that Obama is using Bush as an excuse for his socialist policies?
If that’s original, cfbleachers is a _very_ creative person!
>>http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,507885,00.html>>
Muslims again….push push push. Accept sharia.
Equal means that everyone is treated the same – not that because you’re of a certain religion you get exceptions.
Something nonpolitical for a change: an art contest for images generated by GE’s In Cell Analyzer, which is a product for biomedical researchers.
Is anyone else alarmed that there already are discussions for a SECOND stimulus package?
Even if someone honestly, truly believed that the first one would actually stimulate the economy (ahem!), doesn’t it seem prudent to wait for a couple of months and see what happens?
This is madness.
Deana:
I can just hear Pelosi saying, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again….” That’s been the Leftist mantra, based on its failed policy, since Marx.
Bookworm –
I wonder if anyone will read the second trillion dollar stimulus bill before they pass it . . .
David –
Those are the coolest photos! So beautiful.
I don’t know how anyone can study medicine/human anatomy/physiology and not see the hand of God.
Thanks for the link!
Deana
Thought I’d pass on some info pertinent to a recent thread on the outlook of military enlistments under the Obama (cough) administration. This is from a DoD news release today (http://www.defenselink.mil//releases/release.aspx?releaseid=12545)
———————————–
Recruiting. All services met or exceeded recruiting goals for February.
· Army – 6,324 accessions with a goal of 6,000; 105 percent
· Navy – 3,060 accessions with a goal of 3,060; 100 percent
· Marine Corps – 1,752 accessions with a goal of 1,292; 136 percent
· Air Force – 2,486 accessions with a goal of 2,486; 100 percent
Retention. All four active components continued their success in fiscal 2009, meeting or exceeding February retention goals.
———————————–
What I don’t know is how many of these (if any) are “delayed” enlistments: volunteers who have agreed to enlist, but who couldn’t begin until a later date (often due to there not being room at boot camp yet).
The second stimulus?
Fanaticism consists in redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim.
George Santayana, Life of Reason (1905) vol. 1, Introduction