Let's Have A Look At You Now Sweetheart

Italy bans Islamic burqas

ITALY has banned Islamic burqas under tough terrorism laws that provide two-year jail terms and E2000 ($3200) fines for anyone caught covering their face in a public place.

The counter-terrorism package, passed by Italy's parliament yesterday, doubles the existing penalty for wearing a burqa or chador -- traditional robes worn by Muslim women to cover their faces -- or full-faced helmets or balaclavas in public.

Police can extract DNA samples without a suspect's consent, detain them for 24 hours without a lawyer present, and deport foreigners suspected of terrorism under the new legislation. Soldiers involved in counter-terrorism have been given the same stop-and-search powers. - The Australian

Deportation Update

France ejects 12 Islamic 'preachers of hate'

The gulf between British and French treatment of preachers of hatred and violence was thrown sharply into focus yesterday when France announced the summary expulsion of a dozen Islamists between now and the end of August.

A tough new anti-terrorism package was unveiled by Nicolas Sarkozy, the interior minister and a popular centre-Right politician. - The Telegraph

Recommended Listening For The Week

Exclusively For My Friends [BOX SET]
Oscar Peterson

Audio CD (October 27, 1992)
Original Release Date 1963

Excellent 4 Disc Set - KS

PC Craziness

Cox & Forkum

The Creepiness Of Fake Diversity

Some people learn things the hard way, and not all of them live in Washington. Our English cousins are getting a brutal lesson in reality:
Multiculturalism will kill you if you don't watch out.
Many of the Muslims in Britain were put out this week when the cops in the West Midlands raided a block of apartments in Birmingham just before dawn and arrested several suspects in the latest London terror bombings.
The raids showed "insensitivity" toward Islam, and the authorities, ever eager to improve "community relations" with what Kipling might have called "the lesser breeds without the law," invited the "moderate" chairman of the Central Birmingham Mosque to participate in a press conference to discuss the raids.
The session had hardly begun before one Dr. Mohammed Naseem began a denunciation of the West, of Britain, of the police and other assorted infidels who had libeled Islam by suggesting that Muslims were in any way responsible for the bombing campaign in London, in which more than 50 men, women and children have died.
Prime Minister Tony Blair, he said, is "a liar," and the security forces are evil. The suspects were merely innocent commuters, and he isn't interested in hearing about DNA evidence because DNA science "could not be trusted." Well, of course it can't, since DNA science was developed after the eighth century, when the prophet set out everything that would ever be known about anything. - Wes Pruden / Washington Times

A Change In Focus Is Required

Reformation or Civil War?
The jihadists cannot be reasoned with, only defeated.
Victor Davis Hanson

Remember how shortly after September 11 Mohammed Atta’s lawyer father sounded worried in his cozy apartment? He stammered that his son did not help engineer the deaths of 3,000 Americans. According to him, the videos of the falling towers were doctored. Or maybe the wily Jews did it. Why, in fact, he had only talked to dear Mohammed Junior that very day, September 11. Surely someone other than his son was the killer taped boarding his death plane.

Apparently Mohammed el-Amir was worried of American retaliation — as if a cruise missile might shatter the very window of his upper-middle class Giza apartment on the premise that the father’s hatred had been passed on to the son.

He sings a rather different tune now. Mohammed el-Amir recently boasts that he would like to see more attacks like the July 7 bombings of the London subway.

Indeed, he promised to use any future fees from his interviews to fund more of such terrorist killings of the type that his now admittedly deceased son mastered. Apparently in the years since 9/11, el-Amir has lost his worry about an angry America taking out its wrath on the former Muslim Brotherhood member who sired such a monster like Atta.

Yet one wonders at what he is saying now, after the worst terrorist attack in Egyptian history at the resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. - More

The French Seem To Be Getting The Idea

France stands firm on deportation of cleric

Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy of France defended on Monday the deportation of an Algerian cleric as part of France's new zero-tolerance policy toward radical Muslim preachers following the London terror attacks.

Abdelhamid Aissaoui, 41, who was convicted for his role in an attempted terrorist attack 10 years ago and has preached occasionally in a mosque in Lyon, in central France, was returned to his home country on a French plane on Saturday.

He became the first of a dozen radical imams currently under observation by the French intelligence services to be expelled from France since Sarkozy pledged 10 days ago to clamp down on extremist preachers. - International Herald Tribune

When Will Canada Do The Same?

Fundamentalist won't condemn bombs
Heads Toronto mosque attended by Khadr family

Dr. Hindy, who has a doctorate in engineering from the University of Western Ontario, presides over the Salaheddin Islamic Centre, a fundamentalist mosque and school, some of whose former congregants are suspected of having links to al-Qaeda.

Dr. Hindy is at turns solicitous and somewhat evasive when answering questions, and he is no stranger to controversy. Last week, he publicly criticized CSIS and earned the enmity of many of his fellow imams across the country by refusing to join them in a collective statement denouncing the terrorist attacks in London. He was also shut out of a meeting with Prime Minister Paul Martin, who met on Thursday with the imams who signed the declaration.

"Why should we sign a declaration against terrorism when it is obvious that we don't support it?" he asked. "The statement is implying that we bear some guilt for what happened in London, which is simply not true."

Earlier this week, Dr. Hindy told an interviewer for the CBC that the London attacks might have been part of a plot by the United States.

"I'm really wondering how come this terrorist attack happened just exactly before the Congress debated renewing the Patriot Act," he said.

The comment, which was condemned by many of his fellow imams, won praise with others in the Muslim community.

"He's consistent," says Tariq Fatah, a spokesman for the Canadian Muslim Congress. "He has integrity and he sticks to what he's saying." - National Post

Hindy and the Khadr family should be the first on the list to have their citizenship revoked and to be deported. - KS

Troops Unimpressed By New Series

These soldiers say 'Over There' is 'bogus'

A truck tire hits a flagged wire, a roadside bomb explodes, a handsome private with shredded leg screams in agony. In the bloody chaos of the moment, his soldier buddies panic. One pukes.

Stop the cameras! Sir!

"People don't act like that when an i.e.d. (improvised explosive device) goes off. They make us look like idiots. We're not idiots!" said a first lieutenant previewing "Over There," the new TV series from Steven Bochco ("NYPD Blue," "Hill Street Blues") that debuts tomorrow night on FX cable network. It's set in Iraq, hyped as "true to life" by producers and hailed by critics as "unflinching" and "gut-wrenching."

"Bogus" was the preferred adjective among the eight soldiers -- most of them Iraq vets -- viewing the series pilot last week at Camp Murray, headquarters of the Washington State National Guard in Tacoma.

"Thank God that's over," said a master sergeant as the credits rolled. - More

Via Neale News

Ontario Flirts With Sharia Disaster

Two stories from CP on this one. It is time to end this multicultural garbage for good and move back to the melting pot. People coming to this country should be required to learn our history and our language immediately. They should be required to uphold our laws under pain of deportation. That way if they don't like the country they are in they are always free to find another. - KS

Sharia law debate badly skewed; Boyd says plan would restrict, not unleash
Marion Boyd has been both ridiculed and applauded as the supposed architect of Ontario opening its family law system to Muslim Sharia dispute resolution. But the exasperated former Ontario attorney general says both extremes are wildly misrepresenting what she recommended the province do as it considers reforms to its civil arbitration act. Rather than opening a door, Boyd's provincially commissioned report last December recommended placing limits and oversight mechanisms on an arbitration system currently open to abuse. - CP

Terror in Europe, Sharia in Canada spark same row: whither multiculturalism?

It seems a long way from the London terrorist bombings to a public policy debate in Canada over family arbitration reforms. But each has sparked a heated debate on both sides of the Atlantic over the merits of multiculturalism as state policy and the role of what some call "political Islam" in secular societies. - CP

Recommended Listening For The Week

The Tubes first album released in 1975 and still their best imho. I was lucky enough to see them right here in Regina back in the 80's when they were between shows with Bowie. The played the Ex. Certainly was of a better calibre than the acts they have booked this year.

Tough Day At The Office

Soldiers from B Company, 3rd Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment, sort through weapons that were found in insurgents’ vehicles after a firefight in Rawah, Iraq, on Tuesday. - Army Times

Way to go guys. Kick some ass. - KS

News Flash For All Criminal Geniuses

A quick note to all you prospective wife killers out there: You will be the prime suspect, every time. It didn't work for Scott Peterson, that other loser in Utah, or now for this stupid kent in Edmonton. So save us all the trouble and just fricken leave her. Leave the house, leave the kids, and get the fuck out already. Just go. You are obviously to stupid to be of any use to your family anyway, so just go. - KS

Edmonton police say cause of pregnant mother's death undetermined

Liana White and her unborn child were killed in a violent struggle and left to decompose in a ditch in a crime that has shattered the lives of her three-year-old daughter and other family members.

Her husband Michael White, 28, has been charged with second-degree murder in her death and with committing an indignity to a dead body. The 29-year-old hospital clerk's body was too decomposed to immediately determine how she died, Edmonton Police Det. Michael Campeau told reporters Tuesday. Her identity was determined by dental records.

Campeau said the families of both Michael and Liana are devastated.

"It's a tragic day. It's not a victory for the police service. It's just a tragic day for two families. We're not here to celebrate anything. Unfortunately it's a tragedy for both sets of families. Liana's mom is not doing well at all," he said.

Campeau said he felt especially sorry for the couple's daughter Ashley, who was believed to be in the custody of Liana's mother.

"I do. She's lost both her mom and dad."

Campeau wouldn't comment on whether White was stabbed or strangled, but did say "There are signs on the body she was involved in a struggle."

Further tests need to be done to determine cause of death, he said.

When asked about a motive, the veteran detective would only say "We are still working on that. There are still many leads to follow up on."

The police announcement came only hours after an exhausted-looking Michael White made his first court appearance, where he reserved plea on the charges against him. - More @ CP

Interesting New Surveillance Technique

Police snipers track al-Qaeda suspects

UNDERCOVER police sniper squads are tracking as many as a dozen Al-Qaeda suspects because security services fear they could be planning more suicide attacks, writes David Leppard.

The covert armed units are under orders to shoot to kill if surveillance suggests that a terror suspect is carrying a bomb and he refuses to surrender if challenged. - More Times Online

Via Jihad Watch

Peace Keeping May Finally Be Dead

Our soldiers ready for 'big fight'

Remember when Jean Chretien said, two months after 9/11, that while Canada was sending 1,000 soldiers to Afghanistan, "of course, we don't want to have a big fight there. We want to bring peace and happiness as much as possible"?

That was then. This is now. And now, hundreds of our soldiers are heading into Afghanistan's deadly Kandahar region to hunt down al-Qaida terrorists and Taliban fighters.

By February, 1,500 of our troops will be engaged there.

Their job, as Canada's top soldier, Gen. Rick Hillier, bluntly told the media last week, will be to target the "murderers and scumbags" who "are trying to ... blow up men and women in Afghanistan and ... provide a base for ... al-Qaida."

Hillier, named Chief of Defence Staff in February, broke every taboo imposed by the former Chretien regime in talking about this latest Canadian mission. He made it clear it is not about peacekeeping, but close-in combat against a dangerous enemy who employs tactics similar to those used by al-Qaida terrorists in Iraq against both military and civilian targets.

"We're not the public service of Canada ..." he said. "We are the Canadian Forces and our job is to be able to kill people." - Totonto Sun Editorial

Hmm... I like this guy already - KS

Stewart Big Winner, Gordon Big Loser

Stewart's Hot Streak Continues at Loudon

Tony Stewart climbed the fence in front of the grandstand in what has become his trademark victory celebration.

And a crowd of 100,000 at New Hampshire International Speedway roared its approval Sunday as he grabbed the checkered flag and pumped his fist in the air -- just as he did two weeks earlier after a victory at Daytona. He called himself fat then, and this time heaped on more self-deprecating humor.

"Trust me, I'll be glad to be panting like a dog when I get up there," he said. "It's something they like and I'll keep doing it for them." - More Nascar.com

Bad Brakes Dash Top-Five For Gordon at Loudon

After a half-hour spent behind closed doors debriefing, decompressing, disbelieving, Jeff Gordon emerged from the No. 24 transporter Sunday evening with a look on his face that suggested part amusement, part bewilderment.

The apple was right there, dangling before him. But just as he reached out to grab it, it was snatched from his grasp in the form of brake failure. - More Nascar.com

Smoking Fight Heats Up

Bar owners in two Prairie provinces want smoking bans deemed unconstitutional

Courts in Manitoba and Saskatchewan will be asked this week to decide whether provincial smoking laws are a violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Bar owners in the two provinces have launched separate battles to overturn the recently enacted laws, which they say have driven away their customers.

"I know guys who have lost half their business," said Gary Desrosiers, a bar owner in Brunkild, Man., who has been the most vocal critic of the smoking ban.

"There are probably 200 to 300 jobs that have been lost because of this law."

Desrosiers and other Manitoba proprietors have helped raise $30,000 for Robert Jenkinson, a Treherne bar owner who will stand trial Monday on charges of allowing smoking in his establishment.

Jenkinson's lawyer, Art Stacey, will argue the provincial smoking ban violates the charter because it does not apply to native reserves.

"Section 15, which is the equality right under the charter, . . . says that essentially all people are entitled to be treated equally under the law without discrimination," said Stacey.

The province has said it does not have jurisdiction to enforce the law on reserves, some of which have recently opened smoker-friendly gambling halls to attract more customers.

Stacey disagrees, pointing out that the province already enforces many laws on reserves, including speed limits under the Highway Traffic Act. - More at CP

I was in a small town bar just last week where people were openly smoking and using drink cans for ashtrays. I guess the ashtrays were camouflage in case the anti smoking police came in. I can only guess that this is the case in many small town hotels in an effort to stay open. I am not a smoker and don't like to sit in a smoked filled bar, but it isn't the government's job to decide that for us. Bars and restaraunts should decide for themselves if they will allow smoking or not. Customers will come or stay away on their own. Let the market decide, not the politicians. - KS

Another Interesting Conspiracy Theory

Who Shorted British Pound?
Currency fell 6% in 10 days before London terror attacks

In the 1988 Hollywood hit "Die Hard," starring Bruce Willis, a group of "terrorists" take over a Japanese banking institution in Los Angeles, hold hostages and make demands for release of "political prisoners."

But it turns out the terrorists aren't really terrorists. They are bank robbers trying to make off with the fortune in the bank's vaults.

Could it be Osama bin Laden has seen "Die Hard"?

That is a question Scotland Yard and other law enforcement agencies are actually asking themselves following the July 7 London transit system attacks that killed 54 and injured scores more as they continue to scour the planet for evidence and additional conspirators.

Why? Because it appears some profited by short selling the British pound in the 10 days leading up to the attacks.

The pound fell about 6 percent (approximately 1.82 to 1.72) against the dollar for no apparent reason – until, of course, the terror attacks sent the British markets reeling still further. - More at WorldNetDaily

Recommended Listening For The Week

Professor Longhair - Crawfish Fiesta

















Great New Orleans Jazz Piano

Way To Take A Shot

Soldier Survives Attack; Captures, Medically Treats Sniper

During a routine patrol in Baghdad June 2, Army Pfc. Stephen Tschiderer, a medic, was shot in the chest by an enemy sniper, hiding in a van just 75 yards away. The incident was filmed by the insurgents. - Army Times

See Video

Via Michelle Malkin

What Next For Mikey?

DEI, Waltrip Parting Ways at Conclusion of Season







Unsuccessful in a six-week quest to agree to terms for a contract extension, Michael Waltrip and Dale Earnhardt, Inc. have mutually agreed to part ways following the 2005 Nextel Cup Series season.

"It's as mutual as any decision has ever been, because of my respect for DEI and the relationships I have there with Richie and Teresa.

"Dale and Teresa and I go way back, so we wanted to be sure that so we didn't take a step back as an organization or as a team for me, that maybe I should try to find something else to do."

Waltrip explained Friday that DEI held the option to renew the deal, with a deadline of May 1. After that, Waltrip was free to seek another job. - Nascar.com

Haven't We Discussed This Before?

Tancredo Clarifies 'Ultimate Response'
Should U.S. bomb Islamic holy sites after nuke terror attack on America?

Clarifying remarks from a radio interview that drew praise from some supporters, Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., said he was not suggesting that the U.S. should nuke the Islamic holy site Mecca as a response to a nuclear homeland attack by al-Qaida.

The congressman's press secretary told WorldNetDaily the comments were an off-the-cuff response to a hypothetical situation.

"Yeah. What if you said, we recognize that this is the ultimate threat to the United States, therefore this is the ultimate response."

World Net Daily

Not Surprising

Dell Rejects Spyware Charge

Dell has rejected allegations that its PCs come pre-loaded with an intrusive application that spies on users' surfing habits. The equipment manufacturer said there was nothing untoward about My Way Search Assistant despite complaints from customers that the toolbar impairs computer performance, changes browser settings and is difficult to remove.

The inclusion of My Way on Dell's Dimension desktop and Inspiron notebooks has prompted complaints to Dell's support pages, numerous gripes in online bulletin boards and even an accusation that the package is spyware. The latter accusation greatly overstates other assessments of the nuisance level posed by the application.

Anti-spyware firm Sunbelt Software defines My Way components as a "potential privacy risk" that pose a moderate threat to users. - The Register

Back From Arcola

Just back from my home town of Arcola, Saskatchewan, where I spent the weekend. Arcola like many towns in the province is celebrating its centennial year. There was a school reunion held in Arcola this weekend with great food and lots of long lost acquaintances. The heat and humidity were extreme but we all worked around that as best we could. It was great to see everyone.

Lock It Down

Man Charged With Stealing Wi-Fi Signal

Police have arrested a man for using someone else's wireless Internet network in one of the first criminal cases involving this fairly common practice.

Benjamin Smith III, 41, faces a pretrial hearing this month following his April arrest on charges of unauthorized access to a computer network, a third-degree felony.

Police say Smith admitted using the Wi-Fi signal from the home of Richard Dinon, who had noticed Smith sitting in an SUV outside Dinon's house using a laptop computer. - More...

Africa Needs Capitalism, Not Good Intentions

What rocks is capitalism... yeah, yeah, yeah
By Mark Steyn - The Telegraph

'To sneer at such events," cautioned The Sunday Telegraph apropos Live8, "demeans the generosity which they embody".

Oh, dear. If you can't sneer at rock stars in the Telegraph, where can you? None the less, if not exactly a full-blown sneer, I did feel a faint early Sir Cliff-like curl of the lip coming on during the opening moments of Saturday's festivities, when Sir Paul McCartney stepped onstage.

Not because Sir Paul was any better or worse than Sir Elton or Sir Bob or any other member of the aristorockracy, but because it reminded me of why I'm sceptical about the "generosity" which these events "embody". - More...

Africa Needs Capitalism, Not Good Intentions
Rush Limbaugh

RUSH: Have you heard some of the quotes coming out of LIVE 8? Bob Geldof -- Boomtown Rats, Bob Geldof – said, "Something must be done; anything must be done, whether it works or not." Something must be done whether it works or not? Sir Bono of U2 said that 3,000 Africans, mostly children, are dying every day from mosquito bites. I ran the numbers. You know, 3,000, that's 1.365 million a year. That's just children, mostly children from mosquito bites. If you add AIDS and genocide to it, there ought not be anybody left in Africa. So we shouldn't have to send any aid at all. But he said with all these mosquito bites we gotta do something, and something can be done. No, it can't, not since Rachel Carson got DDT banned. You get DDT back over there, you might be able to stop some of the malaria, some of the mosquito bites. But you look at these people with their good intentions and all that, and you realize... Two of the most amazing stories in the New York Times about this, and I don't know what happened to the editing process; I don't know how these two stories made it past the editor. One's a story -- both are columns, one from yesterday, one from today. Do you know since 1963 -- just the US, Mr. Snerdley, since 1963 -- gave $568 billion, just to Africa. Just to Africa 568 billion! - More...

Free Country You Say?

Stripped Of Rights
Tom Brodbeck - Winnipeg Sun

Thomas Hanaway, 80, never asked the government to take over his life.

But that's exactly what they've done to the Second World War veteran, cleaning out his bank account, seizing his pension cheques and assuming complete control over his life -- without even asking him or his family.

Hanaway was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease last year but lives with his wife Grace Hanaway, 79, and their son Thomas Hanaway Jr., 47, who care for him in their two-storey North End home.

Hanaway, a bit of a surly old guy with a good sense of humour, can walk and carry on a conversation. He eats on his own. He receives daily visits from home care workers, who bath and care for him.

He appears clean and well taken care of and he likes to watch TV in his living room.

For an 80-year-old man, he seems relatively lucid.

Despite that, the province's chief provincial psychiatrist has deemed him unfit and has appointed the Office of the Public Trustee to take over all of his affairs.

His family can no longer make medical decisions on his behalf. And if he wants to spend his money, he has to get permission from the Public Trustee, which has stripped him of some of his most basic rights.

More...

Via - Canadian Taxpayers Federation Blog

Stewart Wins 2nd Straight

There was no stopping Tony Stewart Saturday night -- and early Sunday morning -- at Daytona. From the start of the rain-delayed Pepsi 400, he dominated the race, leading 151 of 160 laps to win his second race in as many weeks. - Nascar.com

Girl Found, Brother May Not Be Alive

Missing Idaho girl found at Denny's restaurant in Coeur d'Alene; man arrested - CP

An 8-year-old girl who disappeared with her brother six weeks ago from a home where their family members were bludgeoned to death was found Saturday at a Denny's restaurant in the same town.

The girl's 9-year-old brother, Dylan, had not been found, Kootenai County Sheriff's Capt. Ben Wolfinger said. He said Joseph Edward Duncan, a registered sex offender from Fargo, N.D., had been arrested and charged with kidnapping.

She wouldn't immediately say if anyone was with the child or if an arrest had been made. Deputies could not be immediately reached for further detail.

Dylan and Shasta Groene had been missing since at least May 16, when sheriff's deputies responded to their rural home after a neighbour reported that dogs were barking and the door of one vehicle was open but no one was in sight.

The deputies found the bound bodies of Brenda Groene, 40, Slade Groene, 13, and Mark McKenzie, 37. The victims were bound and then bludgeoned to death.

FBI agents and local officers interviewed hundreds of people, searched through nearly 800 tonnes of animal carcasses and other trash and devoted thousands of hours to the search.

More than 2,000 tips flowed in, with people offering theories that ranged from alien abduction to a motorcycle gang war, since the children's biological father, Steven Groene, owns a Harley-Davidson.

Brenda Groene and Mark McKenzie had marijuana and methamphetamine in their bodies at the time of their deaths, according to autopsies.

Fox News Coverage

Duncan listed on the Fargo Police Website

Pervert Skipped Bail - Grand Forks Herald

Pervert's Blog

Shame

Microsoft helps China to censor bloggers - The Gaurdian

Civil liberties groups have condemned an arrangement between Microsoft and Chinese authorities to censor the internet.

The American company is helping censors remove "freedom" and "democracy" from the net in China with a software package that prevents bloggers from using these and other politically sensitive words on their websites.

The restrictions, which also include an automated denial of "human rights", are built into MSN Spaces, a blog service launched in China last month by Shanghai MSN Network Communications Technology, a venture in which Microsoft holds a 50% stake. - More...

This Sounds Promising

Solar energy stored efficiently
Pilot solar power-plant delivers promising results - Innovations Report

For the first time solar energy has been successfully used in a pilot-plant to create storable energy from a metal ore. In a project funded by the EU, the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) with the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETHZ) together with other research institutes and industrial partners, have reached an important milestone.

A 300-kilowatt pilot installation to create zinc using solar temperatures of over 1200 degrees Celsius successfully came into operation in Israel. The solar-reactor technology is Swiss developed, by the PSI and ETH Zurich, and forms the heart of the plant.

Reducing zinc oxide to zinc is a useful way of chemically storing the sun’s energy in a transportable form, for later use. Zinc can be used in zinc-air-batteries or be used to produce hydrogen by reacting it with water vapor. In both cases the zinc recombines with oxygen and zinc oxide is produced, which can be reused in the solar reactor to produce zinc once more.

"After extensive trials with reactor-prototypes at the PSI solar-oven we have, with our project partners from Sweden, France and Israel, begun to successfully operate a 300-kilowatt pilot-plant at the Weizmann Institute of Science (WIS) in Rehovot near Tel Aviv", explains Christian Wieckert from PSI, Scientific Coordinator of the project.

The aim is sixty-percent efficiency. - More...

Via Daily Grail

No Connection?

Rolling Rockefeller
The vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee once saw "a substantial connection between Saddam and al Qaeda." Not any more. - Stephen F. Hayes - Weekly Standard

As the attacks of September 11 demonstrated, the immense destructiveness of modern technology means we can no longer afford to wait around for a smoking gun. September 11 demonstrated that the fact that an attack on our homeland has not yet occurred cannot give us any false sense of security that one will not occur in the future. We no longer have that luxury.

September 11 changed America. It made us realize we must deal differently with the very real threat of terrorism, whether it comes from shadowy groups operating in the mountains of Afghanistan or in 70 other countries around the world, including our own.

There has been some debate over how "imminent" a threat Iraq poses. I do believe that Iraq poses an imminent threat, but I also believe that after September 11, that question is increasingly outdated. - Rockefeller - More...

Body of Evidence
A CNN anchor gets Iraq and al Qaeda wrong. But will the network issue a correction? - Stephen F. Hayes - Weekly Standard

"THERE IS NO EVIDENCE that Saddam Hussein was connected in any way to al Qaeda."

So declared CNN Anchor Carol Costello in an interview yesterday with Representative Robin Hayes (no relation) from North Carolina.

Hayes politely challenged her claim. "Ma'am, I'm sorry, but you're mistaken. There's evidence everywhere. We get access to it. Unfortunately, others don't."

CNN played the exchange throughout the day. At one point, anchor Daryn Kagan even seemed to correct Rep. Hayes after replaying the clip. "And according to the record, the 9/11 Commission in its final report found no connection between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein."

The CNN claims are wrong. Not a matter of nuance. Not a matter of interpretation. Just plain incorrect. They are so mistaken, in fact, that viewers should demand an on-air correction. - More...

A Little More Progress

Judge bans company's deceptive anti-spyware claims - The Register

The Federal Trade Commission in the US has won an preliminary injunction against Trustsoft, freezing the company's assets and preventing it from making deceptive claims about its anti-spyware product. A district court judge in Texas issued the order, which the FTC is seeking to have made permanent.

The FTC alleges that Trustsoft used deceptive means to advertise its SpyKiller product, by claiming to have scanned consumers' computers, when in fact no such scan had taken place. - More...