Kline Apologizes To Marine

Representative John Kline (R-Minn.), who made remarks about the Marines at Haditha that I thought at the time was out of line, has made a very public apology to the marines. Kline's remarks were a one time thing and did not rise (or sink) to the same level as the execrable John Murtha who has made repeated indefensible comments on the matter. That Kilne regrets the comments is apparent by the way he responded to the threat of a lawsuit.

A Republican congressman apologized yesterday to the Marines under investigation in the killings of two dozen civilians in Haditha, Iraq, last November, saying that statements he made about the case were taken out of context and that he did not mean to imply the Marines were guilty of wrongdoing.

Rep. John Kline (R-Minn.) issued the apology as part of an agreement with lawyers for Marine Staff Sgt. Frank D. Wuterich, who alleged that Kline had damaged Wuterich's reputation.

Wuterich, through his lawyers, has denied any wrongdoing in the Haditha case. None of the Marines involved has been charged.

Wuterich took the unusual step earlier this month of filing a federal lawsuit against Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), alleging that statements Murtha made about the Haditha deaths were libelous. Murtha said after the lawsuit was filed that he did not mean to prejudge Wuterich, but the representative has not responded to a settlement offer that seeks a similar public apology, according to Wuterich's attorneys, Mark S. Zaid and Neal A. Puckett. The lawyers set last Friday as a deadline for Murtha's response.

Wuterich had threatened to sue Kline as well. But Zaid said yesterday that Kline responded to a settlement request within an hour of its arrival Aug. 4. Kline wrote that news outlets used incomplete statements that gave the false impression that he had concluded the Marines broke the law. (Emphasis added).

Murtha, on the other hand, has not responded and has been caught in a flat lie already. The Marine Corps was happy to expose the lie, too. The people of Pennsylvania deserve better than a self-aggrandizing liar like John Murtha who would try for political advantage by smearing US marines.

If Murtha disgusts you as much as he disgusts me, feel free to head over to Rightroots and help support Diana Irey to unseat Murtha. Redeploy his butt to Okinawa. The world will be a better place.

Definitely Not Doctor Recommended

I rather suspect doctors everywhere will not be suggesting this particular method of inducing labor. Crashing your car is right out.

PAHOKEE, Fla. - A pregnant woman in labor, driving herself to the hospital, crashed her car and gave birth while trapped in the mangled, partially submerged vehicle, authorities said.

Kenyetta Biggs spent more than an hour in the car Sunday morning before she — and her newborn daughter — were rescued and taken to a hospital, authorities said. Her father said she had not told the family she was pregnant.

Biggs, 21, suffered a broken leg but she and the baby she named Myracle were reported to be doing well.

Palm Beach County sheriff's Deputy Stephen Maxwell had been starting his shift Sunday when he noticed a person's head poking out through some tall grass along a canal bank.

The deputy stopped and found Biggs trying to get out of her partially submerged car. She told him her baby was inside.

"As I looked around her I saw the newborn baby laying in the passenger seat with the placenta and umbilical cord still attached," Maxwell said.

Maxwell and another deputy pried open the door to free Biggs. Police said she had been driving to a hospital and a strong contraction caused her to lose control of the car shortly after 5 a.m.

Myracle seems an apt name, doesn't it?

Israelis ≠ Civilians

Israelis do not equal civilians according to CNN, it would appear. You see, if you are dressed in civilian clothes in Lebanon and are firing rockets at Israel and happen to get killed, CNN is pleased to count you as a civilian. If you happen to be, say, a shopkeeper in Haifa with no ties to the military you are an Israeli.

It is a particularly insidious form of propaganda. CNN specializes in it.

The report began with an account of Haifa by a CNN female correspondent. During the report, there is a single, brief image of Israeli civilians, sitting at a café in Haifa. The picture remains on the screen for a number of seconds, before the journalist is seen being interviewed by the CNN anchor.

"Well some Arab Israelis were very upset when rockets struck their homes and three people died, and all of them were Arab Israelis, and they were complaining that they have hadn't been built bunkers like Israeli Jews in this city," said the journalist, answering a question about relations between Jews and Arabs in Haifa. She later said the answer depended on "who you asked."

The report did not mention any Israeli casualties, and no interviews with Israeli civilians were conducted.

Other than a momentary statistic appearing on the screen, there is no mention of the large number of Israelis who have become displaced from their homes in the north, and the journey home which awaits them to homes possible destroyed by Hizbullah rockets – although on the Lebanese side of the border, the report takes a long look at the return of Lebanese refugees to their homes in southern Lebanon.

There were no interviews from Israeli hospitals, and no mention made of the million Israelis who had been living in bomb shelters for almost a month. Also glaringly absent were images of destroyed homes and buildings across northern Israel.

So you see, there are no civilians in Northern Israel according to CNN. Only Israelis. And they are just hanging out at a coffeehouse, not hiding in bunkers when the sirens wail or streaming South to escape the carnage of ball bearing laced Katyusha rockets fired from civilian areas in Lebanon at Israelis. Nothing to see here. Over in Lebanon, though:

The second half of the report, by CNN's Ben Wiederman, was dramatically different.

The report was saturated with images of Lebanese children playing in ruins, blood stains, destroyed buildings, and personal accounts of Lebanese families attempting to head back to south Lebanon.

It was introduced by CNN's anchor, who said: "Nasrallah also acknowledged the deaths and the destruction of the Lebanese homes, but he said Hizbullah would be ready to help rebuild."

"It was a morning like so many other recent mornings in Tyre. And then there was silence. The ceasefire went into effect at 8 AM local time. And with the prospect of calm, it didn't take long for many of Lebanon's refugees, estimated at more than a million, to pack their belongings, and head south towards home," Wiederman said.

"Beirut's Sinara park has become a temporary refuge. But Monday morning some decided it was to go back. To what, they weren't sure," he added.

Beginning one of a number of interviews with Lebanese civilians, the report continued: "'We're returning to our village but we're not sure if we'll be able to get there,' said this man from a village outside Tyre."

Suggesting that Israel would target Lebanese civilians heading back to Lebanon, Wiederman said: "Last week Israel warned that it would target any car south of the Litani river. The warning remains in effect. But few seem to heed it. Rather they chose to savor the thought that Hizbullah has emerged from this war in their opinion victorious."

You see, Israelis target civilians according to CNN. Those Israelis at the coffeehouse? Just looking for civilians to target. Ask CNN. The people wearing civilian clothes and hiding behind civilians, launching rockets at Israelis, are just civilians if the counter-battery fire catches them. 

CNN, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Hezbollah ministry of disinformation.

(Now if you are a very astute reader you noticed that the Ynet writer also referred to 'Israelis'. The difference is that the Ynet reporter is identifying countrymen (and usually, but not always used 'civilian' as well). The CNN report is not applying equal status between the civilians. Lebanese=civilian, Israeli=Israeli in their report. As I said, it is insidious).

Hottest Laptop On The Market!

The hottest laptop computer on the market is about to get a downgrade. Sadly, this will end hours of internet excitement and viral video. But, in the interest of public safety, Dell computers is recalling 4.1 million laptop computer batteries. They have a teensy little flaw in them that can cause them to burst into flames (Earlier report on exploding laptops here and the picture link still works!).

A Dell spokesman said the batteries were made by Sony Corp and placed in notebooks that were shipped between April 1, 2004, and July 18 of this year.

"In rare cases, a short-circuit could cause the battery to overheat, causing a risk of smoke and/or fire," said the spokesman, Ira Williams. "It happens in rare cases, but we opted to take this broad action immediately."

The battery packs were included in some models of Dell's Latitude, Inspiron, XTS and precision mobile workstation notebooks. Dell planned to launch a Web site overnight that would describe the affected models. Williams said the Web site would tell how consumers to get free replacement batteries from Dell.

There have been numerous recent news reports about Dell laptops bursting into flames, and pictures of some of the charred machines have circulated on the Internet.

Dell, the world's largest maker of personal computers, confirmed that two weeks ago, one of its laptops caught fire in Illinois, and the owner dunked it in water to douse the flames. Other reports have surfaced from as far away as Japan and Singapore.

Monday's move was at least the third recall of Dell notebook batteries in the past five years.

As I originally wrote, I don't think I'd want one of those on my lap. Ever. Really.

No word yet on the Flaming Zip Drive, though.

Hezbollah Attacks Its OWN Civilians

Israeli military officials report that Hezbollah has fired at least ten Katyusha rockets into Southern Lebanon itself. Since none crossed the border into Israel, the IDF did not respond. Hezbollah is rocketing its own civilian population that is streaming back into Southern Lebanon in hopes of starting hostilities back up.

Highlighting the fragility of the peace, Hezbollah guerrillas fired at least 10 Katyusha rockets that landed in southern Lebanon early Tuesday, the Israeli army said, adding that nobody was injured. The army said that none of the rockets, which were fired over a two-hour period, had crossed the border and so it had not responded.

Lines of cars — some loaded with mattresses and luggage — snaked slowly around huge holes in the roads and ruined bridges. Many Lebanese expressed shock at finding houses and villages flattened in more than a month of Israeli air and artillery strikes.

Hezbollah fighters hugged each other and celebratory gunfire and fireworks erupted in Beirut as the Islamic militant group's leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah claimed a "strategic, historic victory."

But Israeli Prime Ehud Olmert also claimed success, saying the offensive eliminated the "state within a state" run by Hezbollah group and restored Lebanon's sovereignty in the south.

In northern Israel, residents emerged from bomb shelters, hopeful that the barrage of nearly 4,000 Hezbollah rockets that had rained down on towns and villages since July 12 had ended — for now. Stores shuttered for weeks reopened and some people returned to the beaches in Haifa, which suffered most from guerrilla attacks.

These are heroes to the Arab world? Murderous thugs who would openly kill their own people in hopes of provoking a response? It is not enough that they hid like cowards behind their own, now they fire their ball bearing filled murder weapons at their own people.

These are heroes?

Think You’re Having A Bad Day?

Consider the day a man in Missouri had on Sunday. He's spending a quiet day at home just reading the paper. Minding his own business and not doing any harm to anyone. Then he feels a rumbling. He thinks it may be a tornado, which really is enough to pretty much ruin your day. But it turns out not to be that particular weather related phenomenon.

Instead the ground opens up and swallows part of his house, including the garage and his car.

The homeowner was reading the paper when the ground started shifting around 8:30 a.m. Initially, the man thought a tornado was responsible for the loud rumble, said city spokesman Bryan Newberry.

No one was hurt, but at least six other homes in a half-block area were evacuated while geologists evaluated the widening hole. It measured between 55 and 65 feet in diameter and about 75 feet deep.

Newberry said the geologists, including one from Missouri State University, were considering several possibilities, including that an underground cavern gave way.

By early evening, only two homes remained off limits — the partially collapsed residence and another home to the north of it. Newberry said the neighborhood was built in the late 1960s.

And he didn't even get to finish the crossword. What we want to know is when the authorities are going to stop covering up this kind of activity. This is no sinkhole, this is not some collapsed underground cavern. We here at Blue Crab Boulevard have convinced ourselves, with no proof whatsoever, just like 9/11 conspiracy buffs,  that this is just another part of the animal uprising.

The gophers are getting feisty.

Perspective On Lebanon - From a Lebanese Writer

Via Little Green Footballs, an analysis of what went wrong for Lebanon and why by Lebanese writer Michael Béhé. He titles his article, "The most hypocritical people on earth".

In fact, our country had become an extension of Iran, and our so-called political power also served as a political and military cover for the Islamists of Teheran. We suddenly discovered that Teheran had stocked more than 12,000 missiles, of all types and calibers, on our territory and that they had patiently, systematically, organized a suppletive force, with the help of the Syrians, that took over, day after day, all the rooms in the House of Lebanon. Just imagine it : we stock ground-to-ground missiles, Zilzals, on our territory and that the firing of such devices without our knowledge, has the power to spark a regional strategic conflict and, potentially, bring about the annihilation of Lebanon.

We knew that Iran, by means of Hezbollah, was building a veritable Maginot line in the south but it was the pictures of Maroun el-Ras and Bint J’bail that revealed to us the magnitude of these constructions. This amplitude made us understand several things at once : that we were no longer masters of our destiny. That we do not possess the most basic means necessary to reverse the course of this state of things and that those who turned our country into an outpost of their islamic doctrine’s combat against Israel did not have the slightest intention of willingly giving up their hold over us.

The national salvation discussions that concerned the application of Resolution 1559 and which included most of the Lebanese political movements were simply for show. Iran and Syria had not invested billions of dollars on militarizing Lebanon in order to wage their war, simply to give in to the desire of the Lebanese and the international community for them to pack up their hardware and set it up back home.

And then, the indecision, the cowardice, the division and the irresponsible behavior of our leaders are such that they had no effort to make to show their talent. No need to engage a wrestling match with the other political components of the Land of Cedars. The latter showed themselves – and continue to show themselves – to be inconsistent.

Of course, our army, reshaped over the years by the Syrian occupier so it could no longer fulfill its role as protector of the nation, did not have the capacity to tackle the militamen of the Hezb [hezb-Allah : the party of Allah. Translator’s note]. Our army whom it is more dangerous to call upon – because of the explosive equilibrium that constitutes each of its brigades – than to shut up behind locked doors in its barracks. A force that is still largely loyal to its former foreign masters, to the point of being uncontrollable ; to the point of having collaborated with the Iranians to put OUR coastal radar stations at the disposal of their missiles, that almost sunk an Israeli boat off the shores of Beirut. As for the non-Hezbollah elements in the government, they knew nothing of the existence of land-to-sea missiles on our territory… That caused the totally justified destruction of all OUR radar stations by the Hebrews’ army. And even then we are getting off lightly in these goings-on.

It is easy now to whine and gripe, and to play the hypocritical role of victims. We know full well how to get others to pity us and to claim that we are never responsible for the horrors that regularly occur on our soil. Of course, that is nothing but rubbish! The Security Council’s Resolution 1559 – that demanded that OUR government deploy OUR army on OUR sovereign territory, along OUR international border with Israel and that it disarm all the militia on OUR land – was voted on 2 September 2004.

Read it. It is damning. Hezbollah and their Iranian masters are bringing the Middle East - and the world - to the edge of a precipice.

Castro Photos Faked?

Reuters, which knows a LOT about faking photos reports that some Cuban exiles believe that the photos released today of Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez may have been faked.

The sickroom photos showing the Cuban leader sitting up, holding a telephone, and chatting with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez two weeks after surgery for intestinal bleeding were apparently released to reassure Cubans that Castro was recuperating.

But some in Miami who fled his communist government thought they had been cobbled together from older images to falsely suggest Castro was still hearty and in charge.

"I don't think that Fidel Castro picture is authentic," said Paul Salgueiro, a doctor who left Cuba in 1961. "I wish it would be the other way around and he's not in the picture anymore."

Chatting outside a popular Cuban restaurant, many people asked why the 80-year-old Castro had not spoken on the radio or television if he was recovering as well as the photos suggested.

"If he's talking on the phone, why hasn't he said anything (publicly)?" said Jose Fabregas, who thought the photos were fakes.

Fabregas said he thought Castro was terminally ill but still alive. His companion, Juan Delgado, nodded in agreement.

"He's alive. I never doubted it," said Delgado, who's own father survived surgery for intestinal bleeding at age 82.

Well, we can't say for sure since the photos are extremely low resolution. However, our operative from Magic 8-Ball Photography and Dry Cleaning, LLC, did manage to obtain actual, genuine Reuters Quality™ photographs of what the two leaders did while they were hanging out together.

Calderon Says Recount Shows He Won

The conservative candidate for the Mexican presidency, Felipe Calderon, says that a recount of about 9% of the ballots cast in the election shows that no serious or widespread fraud occurred. He says he expects the election court to declare him the winner. The leftist loser will not let it go, though and has promised to escalate his followers antics.

Calderon, who broke several days of silence in a bitter fight over the July 2 election result, said no serious irregularities had been found in the 9 percent of ballot boxes included in the recount, which ended on Sunday.

"Not one significant anomaly was found," Calderon said. "On the contrary, it ratifies … that we won the elections."

Mexico's top electoral court is studying the results to see if there was any evidence of the massive fraud alleged by the losing left-wing candidate, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

It has to formally declare the winner by September 6 but Calderon said he hoped to get the nod in the next two weeks.

Lopez Obrador says the recount showed that tens of thousands of votes were miscounted or are simply missing from polling stations.

He wants all 41 million votes counted again and warned on Sunday he would extend a campaign of civil resistance if the court ruled in Calderon's favor to stop him taking office.

"The confrontation, the post-electoral crisis, is going to get worse," said Gerardo Fernandez, spokesman for Lopez Obrador's Party of the Democratic Revolution, or PRD. "We have made clear we will not be pushed around."

A couple of things to keep in mind here. Although the percentage of the victory was close (about 0.58%) that is still 244,000 votes. The other thing is that if there had been widespread fraud, a 9% sample would have shown that in the results.

Don't expect logic or facts to deter AMLO, though. He'll destroy Mexico in order to be president.

Smoke And Mirrors

The New York Times explains how easy it is to alter digital images, admits it is difficult to spot, informs us that editors are under a great deal of time pressure, then says most altered images that get into print are accidental.

The recent discovery that a Lebanese freelance photographer, Adnan Hajj, had manipulated pictures he took for Reuters has raised questions about the standards of photojournalism at a time of widespread digital photography.

The incident also increased pressure on news photo editors, who select and edit thousands of photographs under deadline each day, to detect digital alterations.

“The Soviets had to have a whole department to doctor pictures,” said David Friend, an editor at Vanity Fair and a former director of photography for Life magazine. “Now all it takes is a swipe of a mouse, and the kid down the street can add smoke and mirrors to everything.”

Detecting the smoke and mirrors is a challenge. While editors for print publications commonly rely on editing systems that track each change made to an article, photo editors have fewer tools at their disposal and often rely simply on experience and instinct. As a result, the most skilled manipulations can be difficult to catch.

The article goes on to tell how Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs discovered the faked images after a reader tipped him off. There are several examples of fakery that have been exposed in recent years. Then comes the defense:

Despite some critics’ wishes to read intent into every manipulation that slips past editors, these mistakes often occur by accident. Santiago Lyon, director of photography for The Associated Press, said that while A.P. photographers “all have a very clear idea of what is acceptable or not acceptable,” recent events had increased the organization’s scrutiny of its pictures. Now, A.P. photographers who use the cloning tool to remove dust from their pictures must tell their editors exactly where they used it when submitting the images.

The A.P. also faced criticism recently over digitally manipulated images when a photographer using the cloning tool to clean a picture of an oil pipeline technician accidentally gave the man an extra pair of hands. The photographer and the editor who missed the mistake were reprimanded, according to Mr. Lyon, who noted that even such obviously unintended effects were damaging to the reputation of news organizations.

“This was an accidental piece of cloning with no deliberate intent to deceive,” Mr. Lyon said. “But while it’s an accident, we can’t put our credibility on the line as a result of carelessness.”

I won't go so far to say that all the manipulation is intentional. I'm sure some is not. I won't dismiss the possibility of intentional alterations quite as easily as the Times does, though. There is also a subtle bias at work. Some of the photos are undoubtedly accepted and not given the scrutiny they really need because the manipulated photo may meet the editor's expectations of what he or she thinks should be in a picture. Sometimes it's failing to ask a question that should be obvious. For example, there have been a number of photographs lately that show a bombed out building with concrete dust absolutely everywhere. And there is a child's toy in the picture. The toy however, is brand, spanking new and completely clean. It appears to have never crossed the editor's mind to question that physical impossibility.

1,000 Cell Phone Arrest Update

Well, it seems the three men arrested with about 1,000 cell phones also had what appear to be surveillance photographs and videos of the Mackinac Bridge as well as the phones. The US Coast Guard is stepping up patrols on the bridge as a result.

CARO - The U.S. Coast Guard has increased patrols near the Mackinac Bridge after prosecutors said they believe three Palestinian-American men from Texas now jailed on terrorism-related charges were targeting the 5-mile-long span.

The Coast Guard said Sunday that it has increased patrols across the Straits of Mackinac in response to the possible threat.

The men were arrested Friday outside a Wal-Mart Stores Inc. outlet in Caro in the state's Thumb region after employees became suspicious about their purchase of 80 cell phones. Authorities say the men had about 1,000 cell phones in their van.

….

The Detroit Free Press, citing a law enforcement official familiar with the case who it didn't name, reported today that the phones plus photographs and videos of the bridge led authorities to believe the men were targeting the structure.

There seems to be an awful lot of odd things going on in a lot of areas right now. Earlier posts here and here.

“Common Human Decency Didn’t Break”

Michael Totten reports from Northern Israel. The title of my post is from a comment Totten made about a total lack of looting in the abandoned towns and villages in Northern Israel.

Two Fox News Journalists Kidnapped In Gaza?

Reports from a witness indicates two newsmen from Fox News have been kidnapped in Gaza.

The witness, a Palestinian who worked with the two journalists, said one of them, a producer, was an American, and the other, whose nationality he did not know, was a cameraman.

The Fox News bureau in Jerusalem said it was checking the report.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the abduction.

The witness said two vehicles blocked the journalist's transmission truck in the center of Gaza City and a masked man put a gun to the bodyguard's head, forcing him to the ground.

The kidnappers then sped away with the two journalists.

Similar incidents in the past in Gaza have ended with the release, usually within hours, of kidnapped foreign journalists or aid workers.

Will update if any other details emerge.

UPDATE: More information in this AP story.

A Fox employee in Gaza, who declined to give his name because he was not authorized to release information about the incident, said the two kidnapped people were reporter Steve Centanni, a U.S. citizen, and a cameraman from New Zealand.

Spin And How To Apply It

Two news stories, reporting the same remarks by Major General William Caldwell show how spin is applied. The first is from the Associated Press: "U.S.: Iraqi Shiites get help from Iran".  

"We know that some Shiite elements have been in Iran receiving training," U.S. military spokesman Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell told reporters. "But the degree to which it is known and endorsed by the government of Iran is uncertain."

The Iranian government did not immediately respond to the comments.

"We do know that weapons have been provided and IED technology been made available to these extremist elements," Caldwell said, referring to improvised explosive devices, or homemade bombs, that are in widespread use in Iraq's insurgency and sectarian conflict.

Caldwell's assertion came on the heels of allegations by U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, who told The New York Times that Iran was encouraging Shiite militias to step up attacks on U.S. forces in retaliation for the Israeli assault on Hezbollah in Lebanon. The Shiite Hezbollah is backed by Iran.

Iran's prodding has led to a surge in mortar and rocket attacks on the fortified Green Zone that houses the main components of the Iraqi government and the U.S. Embassy.

The second story is from Reuters: "No evidence Iran active in Iraq: US general".

"There is nothing that we definitively have found to say that there are any Iranians operating within the country of Iraq," Major General William Caldwell, the top U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, told a news conference.

U.S. officials have previously said the war between Israel and Iran-backed Hizbollah might encourage Tehran to make mischief in Iraq to pressure the United States, which has some 130,000 troops in the country.

"Iran has got Hizbollah in Lebanon. Iran has got some forces here. There is the possibility they might encourage those forces to create increased instability here," U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad told reporters last week.

Caldwell said recently-manufactured Iranian weapons and munitions had been found in Iraq.

"We do believe that some Shi'ite elements have been in Iran receiving training. But the degree to which this is known and endorsed by the government of Iran is uncertain," he said.

Kind of a different take, isn't it? Reuters claim is factual but not true. There is no evidence of Iranian personnel inside Iraq, that is factual. But the presence of recently manufactured Iranian weapons and IED components say that some assistance is coming from that country. Both stories mention people being trained in Iran. Both stories stress that there is no firm evidence that the Iranian government is directly involved. But there is certainly evidence that Iran is involved. Reuters Grade™ news, as accurate as Reuters Grade™ photography. Great motto for them, isn't it?

“The Precise, Technical Sense Of The Word”

Janet Daley, writing in the Telegraph, explains why the word 'Fascistic" is exactly right in the context of explaining the actions of Islamists. Not Muslims, Islamists.

The anti-war-on-terror lobby has had a bad week. Not that it hasn't kept its end up. Oh no. Faced with a threat so devastating that it seemed more like a world-domination plot from a Superman comic than a hard-headed act of war, there was nothing for it but to fall back on semantics.

George W. Bush was pilloried for referring to "Islamic fascists" by, among others, the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu. Using that kind of language "on the ranch in Texas" did not help, he said, to make society "a good, neighbourly place".

I don't know what the ranch in Texas has to do with anything, but Dr Sentamu seems not to understand the difference between describing Islamic fundamentalists as fascistic, and saying that all Muslims are fascists.

Similar confusion seemed to prevail in much of the broadcast media. I heard one television interviewer ask a Muslim spokesperson if he thought that Mr Bush's "name-calling" had any point.

Name-calling? This makes it sound as if he had said: "Al-Qa'eda are a bunch of big fat poops."

The word "fascism" means an extreme totalitarian system that suppresses human rights and democratic freedoms.

Islamic fundamentalism is fascistic in the precise, technical sense of the word.

The war-on-reality brigade took aim at Tony Blair's "arc of extremism" phrase, too: it was simplistic and misleading to claim that all Muslim terrorists, from the Chechens to Iraqi Sunnis and Kashmiris, were somehow linked in one wicked confederacy.

And yet many of those same sceptical sophisticates who wished to distinguish so carefully between the various Islamic discontents would also claim that the answer to all our problems was to solve the Palestinian problem (and thus withdraw our support for Israel), which is certainly of little relevance to the anger of Kashmiri separatists with whom most British Muslim suspects identify.

The hairsplitting and blatant misrepresentation of what Bush and Blair have said, is a common propaganda tool. The language is quite precise and is not a sweeping generalization. The reaction to it as if the words were a sweeping statement is misdirection. They did not mean all Muslims and the people screaming about it know they did not. But they repeat the big lie and the press prints it.

Read the whole article. If you look at the comments as well, you'll see how deep the rot has gone.