Blue Crab Boulevard

The Daily Mail reports that al Qaeda is behind the latest plot in Britain to kidnap a Muslim soldier and behead him on video.

A foiled plot to kidnap, torture and behead a British Muslim soldier was orchestrated by Al Qaeda, police sources have said.

Officers suspect the mastermind behind the appalling attempt to bring the horrors of Baghdad to the streets of Britain is a senior Al Qaeda terrorist with close links to Osama Bin Laden. 

The alleged plan was to abduct a Muslim soldier, mirroring the murders of British hostages Ken Bigley and Margaret Hassan.

The victim would have been made to plead for his life to Tony Blair, denounce the war and ultimately be executed - all on film.

In a move which would have caused unprecedented terror and revulsion, images of his death would have been posted on the Internet, security sources said.

This is what the 7th century, falsely religious barbarians plan for the West. This is what will follow us home from Iraq if the posturing politicians force a premature withdrawal. I have an idea: how about we send our left to negotiate with these people for us? They say we must withdraw from Iraq, so let them step up and fix everything for us all. They know better, they insist, how to solve this. So let them. Right now, individually, go fix this. Go negotiate with al Qaeda, go make peace. How about we send the posturing politicians who won't support the troops? How about we send the Western media. They all have better ideas. Let them prove it.

Go ahead. Or go, a head, as the case may be. Let's see your better way, your solution. Go on. The left is overly fond of the "Chickenhawk" meme. Here's their chance to prove their "Chickendove" credentials. Go negotiate with al Qaeda.

We'll promise a decent burial. Or two, depending on if we recover the parts at the same time.

Exciting news! The US Weather Service has turned on the nation's 36th fastest supercomputer to forecast your weather! We bet you're as excited as we are to hear that. We happened to get an advance photo of the new system, which operates at 200 megaflings per second.

Blackfive (Uncle Jimbo writing) brought this one to my attention. It seems William Arkin of the Washington Post's Early Warning blog took a shot at the troops who spoke out in the NBC video report I posted yesterday. Uncle Jimbo does a very, very thorough job of dismantling Arkin. I have agreed with some things Arkin wrote in the past, but here he is grossly out of line. And he is taking a lot - a real lot - of heat in his comment section for it. I will not go off on Arkin, others have already done so. But I will point you instead to the post my son sent me a few days ago and let you read the difference between Arkin's desire to stifle the troops valid opinions and my son's protest against a hateful website, done in a calm and logical manner. And then his dismissal of those who do not support the troops, with a promise that he and his fellow soldiers would, nonetheless, continue to defend the rights of those people to express their opinions.

Who's the better person? You figure it out.

UPDATE, Inserted just for people misdirected here from Lawyers, Guns and Money. Greetings. I suppose that the quick link to this post was misdirected, since I really don't pile on to Arkin, even though I think he's wrong. But the post that directed you here says this:

Obviously, photos are incomplete representations; they are incapable of providing "context" (or the rationalizations that Jonah Golberg would prefer); they require other forms of discourse to make them meaningful. But Americans' "right to know" was, contra Goldberg, quite well-informed by Adams' photographs and the film footage captured by Vo Su, the NBC cameraman who was working with Adams that day. Americans had a right to see what was being done in their name.

Which is all well and good, but it also completely ignores the "context" of the times the picture was taken in. And maybe, just maybe, a few of you visiting will click the link to this site and ask what else your imparted wisdom has missed informing you about. Because context is everything and the US policies in the height of the Cold War did not exist in a vacuum. Other people with other agendas were also making decisions. That is what tortured Eddie Adams, the context was missing. And LG&M did not provide you with a link to WHY it tortured him:

On Nguyen Ngoc Loan and his famous photograph, Adams wrote in Time :

The general killed the Viet Cong; I killed the general with my camera. Still photographs are the most powerful weapon in the world. People believe them; but photographs do lie, even without manipulation. They are only half-truths. What the photograph didn't say was, 'What would you do if you were the general at that time and place on that hot day, and you caught the so-called bad guy after he blew away one, two or three American people?'

Adams later apologized in person to General Nguyen and his family for the irreparable damage it did to Loan's honor while he was alive. When General Nguyen died, Adams praised him as a hero of a just cause.

In other words, you are being manipulated. Try clicking the links LG&M did not provide you. Ypu'll be surprised at how interesting it is to think for yourself instead of relying on imparted wisdom.

End Update.

UPDATE: We appear to have a brewing blogsplosion going off on this one. Michelle Malkin, Ed Morrisey, Powerline, Allahpundit, Hugh Hewitt, LGF, Andrew Olmsted, Sister Toldjah, Spyral Notebook, Tiny, Op For, QandO, Redstate, Brutally Honest, Cadillac Tight, Instapundit, Jammie Wearing Fool, Ace, Wizbang, Jawa Report, Ed Driscoll, Simply Kimberly, Bits Blog, Keith Milby, What the Heck, Dan Riehl, Stubborn Facts, Dinocrat, Les Infants Terrible, Irons in the Fire, Flopping Aces, Leaning Straight Up, Jules Crittenden, Sundries Shack, Fuzzilicious Thinking, Discerning Texan, Noble Duty, Soldiergrrl, Buck Creek Station,

And also bake some great bread. A Trappist monastery in Upstate New York, the Abbey of the Genesee, will begin selling the bread and other baked goods they produce over the internet. Monk's Bread is already sold in many supermarkets in the Upstate region and I can vouch for it being very, very good. Especially the raisin bread, trust me.

Thousands of loaves of bread are baked at the Abbey of the Genesee in the hamlet of Piffard, south of Rochester, each week. The monastery, which has been producing bread for a half-century, sells the bread in supermarkets in Buffalo, Syracuse, Binghamton and Erie, Pennsylvania.

Monks' Bread fans from outside the region already can place orders using a toll-free phone line. Brother Paul Richards said that within the next two or three weeks, an online ordering system should be fully functional on the Monks' Bread Web site.

Like I said, its darned good bread. And they also sell a chocolate chip whiskey cake. Which I have never had, but I expect to rectify that soon. Here is the website for the Abbey of the Genesee. They are not fully functional yet, but they do have limited ordering capability, so you don't have to wait.

Earlier today, a number of suspicious devices were spotted in various locations around Boston. Bomb squads were dispatched, transportation was disrupted and generally speaking, all hell busted loose. The devices, which turned out to be some sort of lights had circuit boards; some had wires dangling.

All were part of a Cartoon Network promotional stunt, according to Turner Network Television, the parent company of the Cartoon Network.

BOSTON - Nine blinking electronic devices planted at bridges and other spots in Boston threw a scare into the city Wednesday in what turned out to be a marketing campaign for a late-night cable cartoon. At least one of the devices depicts a character giving the finger.

Highways, bridges and a section of the Charles River were shut down and bomb squads were sent in before authorities declared the devices were harmless.

"It's a hoax — and it's not funny," said Gov. Deval Patrick.

Turner Broadcasting, parent company of Cartoon Network, said the devices were part of a promotion for the TV show "Aqua Teen Hunger Force."

"The packages in question are magnetic lights that pose no danger," Turner said in a statement. It said the devices have been in place for two to three weeks in 10 cities: Boston, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, Seattle, Portland, Ore., Austin, Texas, San Francisco and Philadelphia.

"We regret that they were mistakenly thought to pose any danger," the company said.

Police said only that they were investigating where the device came from. The Department of Homeland Security said there are no credible reports of other devices being found elsewhere in the country.

Gee, let's all shout "fire" in a crowded theater next, just for giggles. This is possibly one of the stupidest decisions a not terribly bright media has come up with in recent memory. Somebody had better lose a job over this. Probably several people. It will be interesting to see if these devices are actually found in other cities. Maybe then Turner can dispose of them properly. Bon apetite. (Hopefully Boston also sends an appropriately large bill for the costs incurred.)

UPDATE: Pictures of the device and of some of the chaos.

UPDATE: From comments and from this report it would indicate that somenone is in very serious trouble. Someone called in bogus threats about the devices. Someone will be going directly to jail without passing go. This is incredibly stupid. Turner just took a serious hit here and they had better step up and address this fast.

UPDATE: Whoa. Boston police have made an arrest according to this article that just popped on Yahoo.

Senator Joseph Biden launched his candidacy for president and promptly ran into an iceberg of his very own making.

Mr. Biden is equally skeptical—albeit in a slightly more backhanded way—about Mr. Obama. “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,” he said. “I mean, that’s a storybook, man.”

But—and the “but” was clearly inevitable—he doubts whether American voters are going to elect “a one-term, a guy who has served for four years in the Senate,” and added: “I don’t recall hearing a word from Barack about a plan or a tactic.”

The Animal Uprising™ has begun the next stage of its offensive. It is now targeting the political leadership of the United States. A feathered fiend broke into the apartment of Nancy Pelosi and tried its best to kidnap the Speaker. Unfortunately for the animals, the bird they sent was too small to carry Pelosi and the plot failed.

No, this was a scene written for Tippi Hedren, though truth be told, it was only one bird … and oh, OK, it wasn't pecking the Speaker to bits and pieces. But it was scary!

The bird, Pelosi told her colleagues and aides the next day, was flying around, knocking things over as she and an employee of her condo building chased the feathered fiend for an hour.

Finally, according to someone who heard Pelosi's story, they "trapped the bird with a brown bag." Menacing as it was, Pelosi, ever the San Francisco tree-hugger, made an executive decision that the bird should be liberated. So the building staffer, our source reports, "took it outside and released it."

Next time they plan on sending a condor. Don't forget to board up the fireplace!

What the world will look like if the Animal Uprising™ is victorious. A slideshow look into Hell itself. Be afraid. 

Close on the heels of the exciting exploding laptop computer and the must have geek-cessory, the flaming zip drive, comes a new technological wonder! A real consumer must-have: the combustible massage chair!

TOKYO, Jan 31 (Reuters Life!) - Japan's Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd. said on Wednesday it would recall thousands of massage chairs for free tests and repairs, saying the chairs could catch fire.

The maker of Panasonic-brand goods said fires destroyed two massage chairs in December and January when power cords inside the chairs' motors emitted sparks.

Such fires would only occur in rare cases, said the maker of the chairs, Matsushita Electric Works, which is 51 percent-owned by Matsushita Electric.

The two incidents occurred in demo chairs after repeated use by customers, Matsushita Electric Works spokesman Yukio Kinashi said.

I wonder if there's video. If you have one of these babies, you might want to unplug it until it gets fixed.