Information War

Sadly, the war is happening right inside our own nation. Our Department of Defense is having to counter the worst of the mainstream media's lies, distortions or misinformation. To say nothing of their publication of outright enemy propaganda. How sad is that?

Over the course of the last five weeks, the DOD has been forced to respond to a variety of fabrications and exaggerations excreted by MSM outlets. And I'm sure you can guess the worst offender. No, it's not the Huntington Herald-Dispatch. It's the New York Times: the Pravda to the DNC's Politburo; and a veritable cornucopia of terrorist talking-points.

Over the last several weeks, the DOD has been forced into a running scribe-battle with the Times, including (but not limited to) the following articles:

    • 11-21-06 – The Best Led, Trained, and Equipped Army
    • 11-09-06 – The Real Record on Transformation
    • 10-27-06 – The New York Times on "Real Terrorists"
    • 10-24-06 – New York Times Involved in Mythmaking

What are the "defenders" of freedom of the press going to do when the war comes to them?

And it will. If the people they have been promoting over their own country's welfare ever win, the cheerleaders will be the first against the wall.

Disturbing

There has, of course, been a lot of buzz about the murder of a former member of the Russian FSB, Alexander Litvinenko by polonium 210 poisoning. I called the Daily Mail article about it irresponsible for calling polonium "the deadliest poison known to man".

Which does not, in any way, negate the irresponsibility of an American company for actually selling polonium 210 to anyone with a credit card. Now, I do not know what a lethal dose of this stuff is, but this is a pretty small "source" (0.1 μCi). And it is a sealed source as well, the polonium could not just be poured out, it should be bound in a matrix (as far as I know at any rate). But it still seems that these sorts of things should be very heavily regulated. Why would the average Joe need anything like this?

Weird Logic

I understand that the blind have a very tough job managing in the world of the sighted. But this is one of those instances where the courts have inserted themselves to address a really minor problem which will cost a great deal to rectify. It may be a feel good kind of ruling, but it does nothing whatsoever to address any substantive issue. A Federal judge has ruled that paper money discriminates against the blind. Some people are focusing on the real issue rather than a sideshow, however.

U.S. District Judge James Robertson said keeping all U.S. currency the same size and texture violates the Rehabilitation Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in government programs.

"Of the more than 180 countries that issue paper currency, only the United States prints bills that are identical in size and color in all their denominations," Robertson wrote in his ruling. "More than 100 of the other issuers vary their bills in size according to denomination, and every other issuer includes at least some features that help the visually impaired."

Day Al-Mohamed, director of advocacy and government affairs at the American Council of the Blind, said that most of the world's currency is distinguished by color, size, perforations or tactile symbols. The Euro, for instance, can be determined by the length of the bill — the higher the denomination the longer the bill.

"Saudi Arabia has money that varies in size based on denomination," she said. "If so many other countries can do it, why not the greatest country in the world?"

"It's exciting from our perspective. It's an area that doesn't get a lot of attention. I give ACB a lot of credit for hanging in there," said Andrew Imperato, president and CEO of the American Association of People with Disabilities. "Hopefully it's just going to make blind people able to live more independently."

But John Paré, director of public relations for the National Federation of the Blind, the nation's largest organization representing blind people, said identifying the money is hardly the most difficult obstacle for the blind to overcome.

"The focus for improving the lives of blind Americans needs to be put on earning money not figuring out how to identify money," he said. "Over 70 percent of blind Americans are under-employed or unemployed and this is what needs to be addressed.

"It really is distracting to have this lawsuit," he said, since assistance should concentrate on people "who don't have the money in the first place."

Now, that last statement says a lot more about the real issue here. But the decision by Robertson addresses a side issue (at best). So what is the real value of it? And why are so many of these sideshow issues being decided by Clinton appointees? Where exactly does this reasoning stop? A thought experiment: the ruling hinges on the "Rehabilitation Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in government programs". I cannot fly a fighter jet for any number of reasons, but I happen to be (truthfully) blind in one eye.

Is the government now to be forced to make me a fighter pilot? Is this not the same weird logic? (I am actually sympathetic to the issue, but this is exactly the wrong way to deal with the issue. This is, I think, bad law and a bad use of the courts.)

UPDATE: Others: OTB, YACRWB, STACLU,

The Principal Supporting Business Now Is Rage

You might come here Sunday on a whim.
Say your life broke down. The last good kiss
you had was years ago. You walk these streets
laid out by the insane, past hotels
that didn't last, bars that did, the tortured try
of local drivers to accelerate their lives.
Only churches are kept up. The jail
turned 70 this year. The only prisoner
is always in, not knowing what he's done.

(Richard Hugo, Degrees Of Gray In Philipsburg)

Some light reading for this evening. Here's a biography of Richard Hugo.

An Interesting Question

Having long since mentioned the "mutually beneficial spiral of death" that binds the mainstream media so tightly to the terrorists, this is really not so very surprising. But Snapped Shot makes a very, very interesting point. Would the media send reporters to cover a press conference where the Ku Klux Klan was showing of their new murder weapons to kill people?

Reuters is beginning to weigh in on this event. Their version of events sounds somewhat different than the AP's version, with the group, rather than the rocket being given the euphemistic title, and completely ignoring the new and improved Jew-killing weaponry. Could this be Abed trying to spin events? Did Reuters misunderstand what is going on there? Or is the Associated Press wrong?

Somebody has some 'splaining to do.

For those of you who might be new to Snapped Shot, this is not the first time that the press has coddled up to terrorist "press conferences." Just close your eyes for a second and see if you can picture the media showing up to a press conference organized by the Klu Klux Klan, and reporting on the Klan as glowingly as they do these murderous scum. After seeing photos like these, that picture really isn't all that hard for me to picture any longer. How about you?

The blind one-sidedness of the press continues to amaze me.

So, the question for Reuters and the Associated Press comes down to this: when you send reporters to get a story like this, where do you draw the line? One presumes neither agency would consider covering a KKK media event where they bragged about the newest rockets they intended to launch into black neighborhoods, right?

So killing Jews is OK with these agencies? Providing press coverage and photos of groups with no other agenda than killing civilians who all happen to be Jews, is just peachy? (Oh, sorry, they do also kill the occasional Arab Israeli, but they just consider them additional martyrs.) But where is that line drawn? I guess we have an answer from the wire services.

Through Israel's existence, it would appear.

Say Goodnight, Fidel

The kickoff of Fidel Castro's delayed 80th birthday was accomplished without his presence. There seems to be a general consensus that rather than a birthday party, the event is actually a wake.

Cuban Culture Minister Abel Prieto said at the art exhibit that he still does not know what Castro's plans are. "I do not know if he will show up. He is aware of the event and has been asking how it is going," Prieto told reporters.

After the release on October 28 of a video that showed a gaunt, shuffling Castro, many Cubans believe he is too old and too ill to resume governing.

"More than a birthday celebration, what we will see on December 2 will be a farewell," Ramon, a 55-year-old retired soldier, said in the eastern Cuban city of Santiago.

So maybe the Western hemisphere will finally lose one old monster. Castro's understudy is waiting in the wings, however. (T)Hugo Chavez won't make it to the party/wake because of the election in Venezuela this weekend.

Another Plot Foiled

The Animal Uprising™ tried a frightening new tactic in Two Rivers, Wisconsin that fortunately failed. Imagine the damage that could happen to your home if a flaming Kamikaze squirrel was running around in it. As in really on fire.

TWO RIVERS, Wis. - One squirrel got a fiery surprise when it apparently got curious about a chimney. The squirrel fell down a chimney at a Two Rivers home and landed in a fire in a fireplace Monday night, said Two Rivers Assistant Fire Chief Gary Shavlik.

The squirrel escaped the fire and ran around the house, Shavlik said.

Firefighters later caught it and called Wildlife of Wisconsin, an agency that helps wild animals. The squirrel suffered from bloody paws.

The fools rescued the ambulatory tiki torch? Are you all mad? He'll just do it again, this time with an accelerant!

Pelosi Publicly Rejects Hastings!

Wow, not even close to the earlier reports that Hastings would bow out. Pelosi threw him out of the race outright.

WASHINGTON - In a decision that could roil Democratic unity in the new House, Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi passed over Rep. Alcee Hastings Tuesday for the chairmanship of the Intelligence Committee.

Hastings, currently the No. 2 Democrat on the panel, had been aggressively making a case for the top position, supported by members of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Critics pointed out that he had been impeached when he was a federal judge and said naming him to such a sensitive post would be a mistake just as the Democrats take over House control pledging reforms.

"I am obviously disappointed with this decision," Hastings, D-Fla., said in a statement thanking his supporters. "I will be seeking better and bigger opportunities in a Democratic Congress."

Hastings had to strike a martyrdom pose at the end, though:

In a sign of the bitterness that has surrounded the debate, Hastings closed his statement by saying: "Sorry, haters, God is not finished with me yet."

No, but Pelosi is finished with you. (By the way, Alcee, I don't really think anybody hated you. Held you in contempt for your behavior, yes; hate, no).

Hastings Bowing Out?

I said a while back that the best thing Alcee Hastings could do for his party and Nancy Pelosi would be to bow out of the bidding for chair of the intelligence committee. Well, better late than never, maybe. Fox News is reporting that Hastings may well be doing just that. As usual in cases like this, there are claims and counterclaims flying about on anonymous wings.

Though no formal decisions have been announced and Pelosi aides say the situation remains fluid, they suggest that the meeting at Pelosi's Capitol Hill office was requested by Hastings so he could bow out of the race before Pelosi denies him the job.

"He knows he's not going to get it," said one senior House Democratic aide. "The question is why he didn't bow out long ago."

But a source close to Hastings says "it is simply not true" that the congressman wants to end his chances for the chairmanship.

In comments over the weekend, Hastings left the impression he was resigned to not receiving the chairmanship from Pelosi, due in large measure to his impeachment from the federal bench in 1989 for conspiring to accept a bribe from two convicted racketeers, and then, according to the Senate impeachment trial, lying to cover it up.

Pelosi aides have been scrutinizing the House and Senate proceedings in the Hastings impeachment, FOX News has learned, and apparently don't like what they have seen.

"It's ugly," said one Pelosi aide. "It's just really, really bad."

Hastings has public support from many quarters, including from Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts, who will lead the Financial Services Committee next session.

"Alcee Hastings has served in the Congress for a long time, since the events that were the cause of the impeachment. I think he's entitled to be judged" on his performance since then, Frank told "FOX News Sunday."

In a letter to the House Democratic Caucus last week, Hastings wrote that he requested to meet with Pelosi to argue that his being impeached should be irrelevant to his becoming the next intelligence panel chairman.

We'll know soon enough. Frankly, it would be a really bad move for Pelosi and the Democrats to let Hastings on to that committee. It will give the opposition a ten-foot club to beat them with. Politically, the right thing to do here is bow out and try to look graceful about it. He should have done so without the public fight to get the job, however. But, like I said, better late than never.

Tired Of Your Country?

Had enough of taxes? Tired of the bureaucracy? Want a chance to make your own rules? Want to declare yourself emperor? Form your very own micronation! You might even make it into a guidebook some day!

In various spots around the world — from Nevada to Australia to the North Sea — a curious collection of "archdukes" and "queens" and "prime ministers" have declared sovereignty for their own ranches and oil platforms and apartment units, forming what have come to be known as "micronations." 

Sometimes tongue-in-cheek, sometimes earnest to the point of being a bit scary, these privately motivated mini-states issue passports and postage stamps, fly self-designed flags, and blast self-written national anthems. 

John Ryan has documented the most flamboyant of these micronations in a book called Micronations: The Lonely Planet Guide to Home-Made Nations. Curious to know more about the micronation phenomenon, I posed him a few questions by email:

What exactly defines a micronation, as opposed to what we typically think of as a "nation?"

John Ryan: People define micronation in different ways. For some, it simply means small nations (either in area or population), such as Lichtenstein, the Vatican or Tuvalu. I'm interested in a more playful definition: nations that have been proclaimed as existing in the world, but not recognized as a real nation. Yet.

In 1933 a bunch of (real) nations signed the Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States. This convention proposes that a nation can exist if it adheres to certain requirements, including possession of a stable land area, a permanent population and the ability to form a government. If no other nation has any problem with this, then you've got yourself a country.

The reality, of course, is more random and complicated than that. To be really considered a nation, you need other nations (that have themselves been recognized) to recognize you. The United Nations is a club with no stipulated entry requirements!

The micronations covered in the book are homemade countries invented by small groups of people. And they're mostly pretty funny too.

It's a pretty funny article. They discuss three micronations, Sealand, Hutt River Province and Molossia. Sealand experienced a devastating fire in June, however. Molossia has a space program, by the way. We here at Blue Crab Boulevard are, of course, offended that the author of the new book never contacted us about our new home.

Protection Racket

Pay us or we continue to bust your home up. That's essentially the message the thuggish Iranian mullahs just gave to Iraq. Surrender your sovereignty to Iran, kick the Americans out or Iran will continue to arm and train the people busting up the country.

Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei told visiting Iraqi President Jalal Talabani that US-led forces had to leave Iraq if security was to be restored in the violence-riven country.

"The first step to solve the security issue in Iraq is the exit of the occupiers from this country and leaving the security issues to the people-based Iraqi government," Khamenei was quoted as saying by state television.

"Americans will absolutely not succeed in Iraq and the continuation of Iraq's occupation is not a mouthful that Americans can swallow," Khamenei said Tuesday during a meeting with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani.

"The main reason for the current situation in Iraq is the US policies that are being carried out by some intermediaries," the Iranian leader said.

He put the blame for Iraq's insecurity on "some US agents in the region who are mediators of these policies".

"Reinforcing terrorist groups and inflaming the wave of insecurity and killings in Iraq will be very dangerous for the US agents and the region," Khamenei said.

He also pledged that the Islamic republic would come to Iraq's assistance if requested.

"If the Iraqi government asks, Iran will not refrain from any action to establish stability and security in this country."

Translation: Clear the Americans out of the way so we can move in and take over. And there are "realists" who want to talk to these people.

The Company You Keep

The Opinion Journal has a blistering story on an American with a very familiar name who is cheerfully doing business with another familiar name. One can't say one is surprised by all this.

Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chávez is an ally of the Iranian mullahs, a supporter of North Korea, a close friend of Fidel Castro and a good customer for Vladimir Putin's weapon factories. Now he's also a business partner of Joseph P. Kennedy II.

The former Democratic Congressman describes the deal he's cooked up with Mr. Chávez as charity for low-income consumers of heating oil. But it's worth asking what the price of this largesse is to Venezuelans and to U.S. security interests.

The arrangement is this: Mr. Chávez's Citgo–a Houston-based oil company owned by the Venezuelan government–is supplying home heating oil to Mr. Kennedy's Citizens Energy Corporation at a 40% discount. Citizens, a nonprofit outfit, says it passes the savings onto the poor, aiming to help 400,000 homes in 16 states that would otherwise have trouble heating their homes. In the process, Mr. Kennedy happens to get a high-profile publicity plug. If you think you qualify, says the television ad that drew our attention to this partnership, just dial 1-877-Joe-4-Oil.

The Opinion Journal rightfully points out that (T)Hugo Chavez is polarizing his country and oppressing his people. But Kennedy prefers doing business with a thug like that just to improve his name recognition. Not only that, but he vehemently defends Chavez.

But Mr. Kennedy keeps on trucking. Last week in a telephone interview with the Washington Post, he defended his Chávez subsidy deal as "morally righteous," arguing that the Citgo contribution to his nonprofit is only "one-half of one percent" of Citgo oil and product sales in the U.S.

We dialed Joe-4-Oil ourselves to ask directly whether it is also "righteous" to assist an anti-American tyrant at the expense of the Venezuelan people. In between berating our reporter for daring to ask such a thing, Mr. Kennedy said that Mr. Chávez has done "so much more" for the poor than any previous government. As for democracy, he said there was "ample room for improvement in the ways that people get elected in Venezuela as well as in Florida." Mr. Chávez chose his partner well.

That Kennedy has veered far over into the fringe left is apparent by the company he chooses to keep. It might be a good idea for him to remember that you are known by the company you keep as well.

UPDATE: Others: Fausta, Venezuela News And Views,

Presented With No Further Comment Whatsoever

Women talk three times as much as men, says study

Pigeons Have Fans

Years ago, my friend Kenny's father kept pigeons. Their garage had been turned into a pigeon coop, which is actually a misnomer, pigeon poop is the actual correct term. Because the feathered rats remodeled the place biologically upon moving in. But Kenny's dad was a pigeon fancier for whatever reason. I never did understand the attraction. But there are actually gatherings of people who love the winged poop factories. There was one in New Mexico just the other day.

CARLSBAD, N.M. - Handlers from across New Mexico and west Texas presented 350 breeds of pigeons during the Pecos Valley Pigeon Club's fall show, a rare opportunity for pigeon enthusiasts from around the region to gather.

"Pigeon shows are not very popular in the United States," club secretary Mickey Jackson said at Saturday's show. "They are very popular in Europe."

Pigeon shows are conducted much like a dog show.

Each type of bird is classified among various breeds — such as fancy, performing and utility breeds. Each bird is judged against others and the winners of each breed type are judged against each other to compete for best in show.

The Carlsbad Dove Hunters Association is reportedly planning on hanging around outside the next show. They're hoping for strays.

Another Boaring Day

Just your average dull day in the Southern German village of Veitshoechheim became somewhat less dull when a herd of wild boars went rampaging through the town. Why, they even took the time to get in a little shopping in a local boutique.

The weekend mayhem began during morning shopping hours in the town of Veitshoechheim, a police spokesman said Tuesday. Three boars were shot by police, a number of others were killed in traffic accidents and several bit pedestrians.

"One wild boar entered a boutique, scaring the daylights out of a saleswoman," local police said in a statement.

"She tried to hide behind the cash register. When the animal ran out of her shop it smashed the store's inventory, causing 1,000 euros ($1,314) damage." The animals caused further damage to cars amounting to several thousand euros, police added.

The article suggests that the boars were fleeing hunters in the area. We here at Blue Crab Boulevard know full well this is not the case. These are actions by the Animal Uprising™. What the Germans need to do is to import a large number of Texans. As we noted earlier, they have fought the Animal Uprising to a standstill in Texas by killing and eating wild boars.