This is getting to be more and more amusing. Hitchens went in swinging, Cole responded with a complete below the belt foul and set himself up for the mother of all uppercuts.
But he's 10th rate, and he's a sordid apologist for Islamist terrorism, and for Islamist terrorist regimes. And I've been on his case for a while. But he recently wrote in a blog conversation group he takes part in, that Ahmadinejead had never said that about wiping Israel off the face of the Earth, and neither had his role model, Ayatollah Khomeini. They'd never said it. It was a sort of slander. So I thought well, this isn't going to take me very long. And I have a lot of Iranian friends who, alas for them, can't live in their own country anymore, because of the hideous tyranny there, and who hate people who make excuses for their regime, as they should. And with their help, I was able to show very easily what I had long known, that Khomeini's statement that Israel must be completely destroyed has been a canonical statement in Iran for a long time. Ahmadinejead was only repeating it. He probably was a bit surprised at how much attention it got, given how commonplace the thought is to him. But that it is nothing but a lie to say that this is not a statement from the Iranian theocrats, and it also suggests very strongly, which is the fun bit, that Professor Juan Cole does not know what he is talking about, in any language.
That's probably the mildest part of the smackdown.
I'd say Cole (to paraphrase and earlier smackdown) didn't bring a pair of cuticle scissors to a gun fight, he brought a feather. Which he still managed to do harm to himself with. I absolutely cannot wait to see the foaming at the mouth response this one will bring.
Anyone at Yale having second thoughts on what a catch Cole is?
Blue Crab Boulevard brought you the riveting story of Lewis, the attack cat from Fairfield, Connecticut previously. Well Lewis is back in the news. It seems neighbors have filed charges since Lewis has attacked at least a half a dozen people, including the famed ambush of the Avon lady. Lewis' owner was willing to put the cat on probation and send him for accelerated rehabilitation. But one of Lewis' victims said she would only agree to probation if Lewis was put to death. Which kind of defeats the purpose, now doesn't it?
Anyway, they're selling "Save Lewis" T-shirts to raise money for a defense fund. No word on whether the Avon lady bought one.
Funniest bit in the story: "The neighbors said Lewis' long claws, along with catlike stealth, have allowed the cat to attack at least a half dozen people and ambush the Avon lady as she was getting out of her car." Just out of curiosity, what other kind of stealth would Lewis have?
If she invites you to a cookout, just back away slowly.
Shatavia Kearney of Jacksonville, Florida called the managers of her apartment building to ask them to remove a snake from the porch. They weren't really interested in helping and told her to take care of it herself. So she doused the snake with a flammable liquid and struck a match.
The resulting fireball caused $1,000 worth of damage to the vinyl siding. The snake apparently made its escape.
Snake. It's what's for dinner.
Clint Taylor over at Nail Yale got a very interesting letter. From the President of Yale himself. Polite yet non-committal, it still seems a very hopeful sign.
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Taylor:
I have your letter and enclosures about Rahmatullah Hashemi, incorporating your own points, your messages from the blog you maintain, and your reminder that this situation "deserves [my] serious consideration". Please be assured that it has my serious attention, that all of your points have been and are being considered, and that I have read and thought about what you enclose.
Sincerely yours,
Richard C. Levin
Crossing fingers would be good.
A Federal jury decided that Zacarias Moussaoui deserves a life sentence for his role in the 9/11 attacks. It's hard to say if this is a more fitting sentence than death. But since it is a Federal sentence, there is no parole.
UPDATE: OK, the story I originally linked did NOT contain this little gem (or it didn't when I first posted this - online stories do get updated and changed):
"America, you lost. I won!" Moussaoui yelled as he was escorted from the U.S. District courtroom in Alexandria after the verdict was read. He clapped his hands as he left.
NOW we know the brave Jihadi gamed the system to get himself spared death.
(All I can figure is that I must have caught the flash when it first came out - it said it was a minute or so old when I posted. I know I did not see those words in the original).
Inspired by one of the comments I got earlier today. Here's the mystical Blue Crab Crystal Ball. Fear Preston……
Captain Ed reports that CentCom mentioned the 101st Fighting Keyboardists! Too funny. When do we get air support? Or a tank! That would be fun.
We've had the CentCom button on the sidebar for a while now. They are a great source of information. Captain Ed mentions corresponding with SPC Flowers, who I have also corresponded with. Definitely a first class professional.
Read the poll, read the results. First party to back strong immigration controls wins in November. That's a hint, folks.
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On immigration generally, Americans want less, not more, immigration. Only 26 percent said immigrants were assimilating fine and that immigration should continue at current levels, compared to 67 percent who said immigration should be reduced so we can assimilate those already here.
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While the Senate is considering various bills that would increase legal immigration from 1 million to 2 million a year, 2 percent of Americans believe current immigration is too low. This was true for virtually every grouping in the survey by ethnicity, income, age, religion, region, party, or ideology.
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When offered by itself, there is strong support for the House bill: 69 percent said it was a good or very good idea when told it tries to make illegals go home by fortifying the border, forcing employer verification, and encouraging greater cooperation with local law enforcement while not increasing legal immigration; 27 percent said it was a bad or very bad idea.
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Support for the House approach was widespread, with 81 percent of Republicans, 72 percent of independents, 57 percent of Democrats, and 53 percent of Hispanics saying it was good or very good idea.
Buy a clue.
A pretty hefty majority already knew it.
A 10-country opinion poll for Reuters, the BBC and the Media Centre found British and U.S. consumers out on a limb when it comes to public levels of trust in the media.
Overall trust in the media in Britain has bounced back over the past four years, from a low of 29 percent trusting in 2002 to 47 percent today. But this is still below the 10-country average of 63 percent.
Americans emerged as the most critical of the news media's balance, with 69 percent disagreeing that the media reports all sides of a story.
A similar proportion, 68 percent, thought the media covered too many "bad news" stories.
Polling company GlobeScan questioned 10,230 adults in the 10 countries — the UK, U.S., Brazil, Egypt, Germany, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Russia and South Korea — and interviewed 1,000 UK residents.
We here at Blue Crab Boulevard haven't exactly been quiet about our general disdain for a lot of what passes for news these days and point it out whenever we can. But the media types reach the exact wrong conclusion:
The low levels of trust may, he said, be related to perceptions in the U.S. that the media is too close to the government on issues relating to the Iraq war.
"It may have something to do with the pulling away from traditional media that we're seeing — this move towards the Internet where people can get other perspectives on major stories that they're not getting from the mainstream media."
Clueless.
Disingenuous: adjective: lacking in candor; also : giving a false appearance of simple frankness (Miriam-Webster On-Line Dictionary)
Rush Limbaugh: "There was no arrest. There were no handcuffs. There was no perp walk. There is no charge," said Limbaugh, trumpeting the message his public relations pros have telegraphed since Friday, that he was not arrested.
Sorry, that's a bit too much spin. It was an arrest, let's not try to redefine "is". It's unbecoming.
No, this post is not about Daily Kos. There's a railway in Kenya that has the nickname. It runs from Mombasa into Uganda, and it sounds like quite a picturesque ride.
The silverware in the restaurant carriage has definitely seen better days.
And where once besuited British colonial administrators occupied the elegant, leather-furnished cabins, now backpackers in cut-offs lounge in style.
Yet more than a century after its inception, one of Africa's most famous train rides — the "Lunatic Express" - still retains many of the characteristics of its early days.
Waiters in starched white jackets serve four-course evening meals on pristine tablecloths to first-class passengers as the train chugs painfully slowly through the darkness between the Kenyan coast and highlands.
A quaint four-chime gong is rung outside sleeping compartments when it's time for breakfast, leaving passengers to marvel at giraffes and impalas as they tuck into bacon and eggs and watch the sun rise over the plains.
It's a really fun read having nothing to do with politics, go take a look.
He enjoyed being beaten too much to even try!
Abraham Alexander, an accounts payable executive at the Manhattan Cardiovascular Research Foundation, admitted to stealing $237,162 and spending most of it on services provided by a Columbus, Ohio-based dominatrix called Lady Sage.
Manhattan prosecutors said Alexander, a Singapore-born citizen of India, had forged or altered checks payable to himself, to two credit card companies and to an online-based dominatrix company called Through the Looking Glass.
A quarter of a million dollars worth of dominatrix services? That's dedication. Mind you, it appears to be a lucrative career choice for the dominatrix:
Lady Sage's Web site features dozens of photographs of the stern, unsmiling dominatrix carrying a whip. She is seen in some pictures wearing a feathered boa over leather or with a metal-studded thong bikini in high-heeled boots.
She lists her services at $250 for the first hour and $200 for each additional hour. An eight-hour session costs $1,500 and 12 hours runs clients $2,000. Lady Sage also commands $1,000 a day in travel expenses if she has to beat a customer on his own turf.
Alexander wasn't too bright, though. He probably could have gotten a live-in dominatrix by just offering her a home.
The mind boggles.
What would you do if you weighed 550 kilograms (more than 1,200 pounds)? Why fly to Italy for an operation, of course.
A Mexican man who at 550 kg is possibly the heaviest person in the world hopes to travel to Italy for a life-saving operation to shed weight.
Manuel Uribe, bedridden for the past five years, cannot stand on his own and will need a special flight to take him from Monterrey, Mexico to Modena, where a surgical team has offered to perform an intestinal bypass free of charge.
Not to make light of this, but one big question comes to mind here:
Who the heck is feeding this guy?
That was not a joking question. People do not gain weight from thin air, it requires food. And quite a lot of it to get that heavy. The story says the man cannot understand how he got this big. (One presumes this is not a case of fluid gain since that would be mentioned if that were the case).
Just guessing here; by eating a lot?
A number of people at a number of left-leaning sites have been complaining that the media was covering up Colbert's performance. That the media was silencing them, in effect. Which is hysterical given the enormous coverage the Colbert performance got. Is still getting in fact.
They seem to miss the point: Colbert wasn't funny. Listen to the video, he got very few laughs and a lot of silence. It wasn't because people were uncomfortable, it's because the man fell flat on his face. The one thing a stand-up comic dreads is an audience that does not laugh (I knew a couple of people who did stand-up, that was their one terror). Colbert had a very bad night for a comic. My guess is that he knows it, too.
Joe Arpaio, Sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona has activated members of the local posse to help enforce immigration law. His is the only county in Arizona that is trying to enforce the state's anti-smuggling law.
"There are so many illegals trying to make it into the county that it's overwhelming my deputies, so I have called on members of my 3000 member volunteer posse to assist," says Sheriff Arpaio. "It's not only illegals we find and arrest out there, we've also made some recent huge drug seizures involving illegal aliens including nearly 100 pounds of methamphetamine and approximately three pounds of heroin."
Posse man Andrew Ramsammy, who was part of Tuesday's arrest team, says that he believes he represents many of his peers when he says that the posse is anxious to be a part of the Sheriff's solution to the immigration problem.
"As a group of law abiding people, we are fed up with the number of people who come into this county illegally. We're tired of the drugs that some of them bring to sell to our young people and we're ready and willing to assist the Sheriff's deputies in the fight against illegal immigration," says Ramsammy.
One of the smugglers arrested so far may have left one illegal immigrant in the desert to die.
Blogosphere, Media | Gaius Wednesday, 3 May , 2006 | 
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