The Fitna video that Live Leak was intimidated into banning

Michelle Malkin posts more on the story of this video plus details of the Live Leak cave-in.

The Casa D'Ice has a message for Jeremiah Wright

From the Casa D'Ice restaurant near Pittsburgh.

Quote of the day - Reverend Jeremiah Wright

"The Italians for the most part looked down their garlic noses at the Galileans."

Reverend Jeremiah Wright

[Referring to Roman soldiers' opinion of Jesus and his followers.

Quote of the day - Ann Coulter [Jeremiah Wright, Barack Hussein Obama]

Rev. Wright accuses white people of inventing AIDS to kill black men, but Obama's grandmother -- who raised him, cooked his food, tucked him in at night, and paid for his clothes and books and private school -- has expressed the same feelings about passing black men on the street that Jesse Jackson has.

Unlike his "old uncle" -- who is not his uncle -- Obama had no excuses for his grandmother. Obama's grandmother never felt the lash of discrimination! Crazy grandma doesn't get the same pass as the crazy uncle; she's white. Denounce the racist!

Ann Coulter

Shroud of Turin; Matt Lauer's teleprompter thinks Jesus died in "one A.D."

I already knew that in order to host the Today Show, one had to pass some sort of atheist litmus test. It became obvious long ago that individuals could not rise to the top of the MSM/DNC food chain without some degree of hostility to (or at least ignorance of) Christianity.

But I did not know that ignorance of history is a requirement also. Nor did I suspect that basic math (addition, subtraction, counting, etc.) is "frowned upon" as well. I have often suspected that network teleprompter writers believed that history began only with Vietnam, but I never knew how literally true this suspicion was.

On Good Friday, March 21, Matt Lauer's teleprompter featured a segment on the Shroud of Turin, the alleged burial shroud of Jesus.

Shroud of Turin

















There is a question as to how old the Shroud is, with some scholars believing the Shroud to be a Medieval hoax (about 600 - 700 years old), while others believe it was used for Jesus' burial (shortly after Jesus' death on the cross). Without taking sides in the dispute, I note only the questions that Matt Lauer asked one of the experts. While I don't remember the exact question, the question was prefaced with the assumption that the Shroud may have originated in "1 A.D." Lauer repeated "1 A.D." a second time moments later.

Even a moment's reflection would reveal that Jesus could not have died in "1 A.D." Jesus lived about 30 years. His death is generally recognized to have occurred between 29 A.D. and 33 A.D. Even if one did not know when Jesus died, his death could hardly have occurred in "1 A.D." He would have been only 1 year old at that time. If Lauer's teleprompter assumed that Jesus was born in "1 B.C." or "zero" (there was no year "zero"), then how would we number the years in which Jesus was alive?

In fact, the year "1 A.D." marks the year of Jesus' birth, not his death. "A.D." does not mean "after death" as we supposed when we were five years old. It means Anno Domini - in the year of our lord. The phrase is Latin [not the language spoken by people in "Latin America," but the language of ancient Rome and its subject territories].

I am not trying to make a case here, as these facts are well established and commonly recognized. I am simply trying to point out that these questions should have occurred to Lauer as he was reading "1 A.D." on his teleprompter. But I am beginning to suspect that we have only begun to plumb the depths of MSM/DNC ignorance.

Quotes of the day - Mark Steyn - Obama racial speech

It makes no difference to white folks when a black pastor inflicts kook genocide theories on his congregation: The victims are those in his audience who make the mistake of believing him. The Reverend Wright has a hugely popular church with over 8,000 members, and Senator Obama assures us that his pastor does good work by “reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDs.” But maybe he wouldn’t have to quite so much “reaching out” to do and maybe there wouldn’t be quite so many black Americans “suffering from HIV/AIDs” if the likes of Wright weren’t peddling lunatic conspiracy theories to his own community.

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Nonetheless, last week, Barack Obama told America: “I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community.”

What is the plain meaning of that sentence? That the paranoid racist ravings of Jeremiah Wright are now part of the established cultural discourse in African-American life and thus must command our respect?

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Let us take the senator at his word when he says he chanced not to be present on AIDs Conspiracy Sunday, or God Damn America Sunday, or U.S. of KKKA Sunday, or the Post-9/11 America-Had-It-Coming Memorial Service. A conventional pol would have said he was shocked, shocked to discover Afrocentric black liberation theology going on at his church. But Obama did something far more audacious: Instead of distancing himself from his pastor, he attempted to close the gap between Wright and the rest of the country, arguing, in effect, that the guy is not just his crazy uncle but America’s, too.

Mark Steyn - 3-22-08

Quote of the day - Jonah Goldberg

For all the wonderful rhetoric and tantalizing promise of Obama and his speech, there’s not much that is actually new here. This was largely a restatement of Jeremiah Wright’s indictment of America, delivered in University of Chicago parlance instead of South Side Chicago diatribe.

The old baggage has been replaced with shinier suitcases, but the contents are the same as ever. Black America’s problems can be solved by spending more money on the same old Great Society programs. Any talk about black America’s problems that takes the eyes off that prize is a “distraction.” And, yet again, white Americans can prove their commitment to racial justice by going along with more big government. My hope for something better proved too audacious in the end.

Jonah Goldberg

B. Hussein Obama, faith experience and Reverend Jeremiah

I don't need to hear B. Hussein Obama's speech today. I have a pretty good idea what he is going to say. Obama's lawyers have been working overtime and he has been practicing his sincerity.

Obama will spend the first portion of the speech speaking in bland generalities establishing the following facts:

(1) Racism is wrong.
(2) Unity is good.
(3) The politics of the past must stop.
(4) diviseness has no place in America anymore.
(5) Obama has courageously lived his life by these ideals.
(6) Obama is proud to live in a country where one so brave as himself can overcome racism, disunity, the past, capitalism, and other bad stuff to lead the country in bold pronouncements against war.
(7) Obama is a deeply faithful Christian (just like his Kenyan grandmother) who practices the Christian virtues of high taxes, socialized medicine and big government bureaucracy - just like Jesus.

Obama will talk of his "faith experience" in the same way that Al Gore spoke of his "faith tradition."

After inspiring all of us thusly, Obama will spend the last portion of this speech minimizing the importance of the Reverend Jeremiah. Obama will marginalize the words Jeremiah has spoken, while making himself the hero for refusing to abandon his friend while making clear that Obama himself is above those words.

By the time Obama is done we will wonder what all the fuss was about.

The networks will interview people who will express relief that the controversy is finally over. Instant polls will show that viewers are unconcerned with the private beliefs of the friends of audaciously hopeful candidates.

The network commentaters will remind us that the voters are more concerned with issues such as Bush' creation of hurricanes and global warming. They will tell us how silly it is that people actually say Obama's middle name (the "H" word).

They will tell us how uplifting, hopeful, audacious and courageous the speech was.

Long after tomorrow, historians will point to March 18, 2008 as a turning point. This will be known as the day that Obama confronted the forces of racism that have ruled the U.S. since the time of Christ.

And we will be there to witness history - but only if we are audaciousness enough to hope.
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Michelle Malkin has more.

Atlas posts additional information, including Obama's guide on How to Talk to White People.

Quote of the day - Mark Steyn [Jeremiah Wright, B. Hussein Obama]

Those of us who made the mistake of buying the senator’s last book, The Audacity of Hope, and assumed the title was an ingeniously parodic distillation of the great sonorous banality of an entire genre of blandly uplifting political writing discovered circa page 127 that in fact the phrase comes from one of the Reverend Wright’s sermons. Jeremiah Wright has been Barack Obama’s pastor for 20 years — in other words, pretty much the senator’s entire adult life. Did Obama consider God Damn America as a title for his book but it didn’t focus-group so well?

Mark Steyn - 3-15-08

Westboro Baptist Church and George Bush

Did you know that George Bush used to attend the Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas? That he was friends with the Reverend Fred Phelps for 20 years? That Fred Phelps performed the wedding ceremony for George and Laura? That Bush used to refer to Phelps as his spiritual advisor and mentor? That Phelps baptized the Bush daughters? That Phelps served in a leadership role on Bush' first campaign for President?

[For those who cannot remember who Fred Phelps is, Phelps and his church protest at the funerals of American soldiers (and others), chanting "God hates fags," "God hates the U.S.A." and "Thank God for 9-11."]




















If any leftists are reading this, they are salivating at this point. Many of them will need another hit from their drug of choice just to calm down. They are finally going to get the impeachment that they have dreamed of since 2001. This is the scandal that will knock Elliot Spitzer off of the front pages forever. This one will outshine O.J. no matter how many crimes he commits in the next 15 years. The left can finally stop flogging the Valerie Plame caper because this time they have got something real. No amount of Bush' denials or pleas of ignorance are going to work, because there can be no excuse for affiliation with Phelps. There can be no reason for such affiliation unless Bush shared many of Phelps' views.

So I hate to spoil the left's party by telling them that I made the whole thing up. George Bush has nothing to do with the Westboro Baptist Church or Fred Phelps. The whole story is false. I was confused when I wrote the first part of this post. I was thinking of B. Hussein Obama and his association with pastor Jeremiah Wright who:

says "God d--- America" instead of Phelps' "God Hates the U.S.A."

Instead of attacking the amish victims of a school shooting (as did Phelps' organization), attacks the missing and presumed dead Natalee Holloway.

Instead of merely thanking God for Aids (as does Phelps), preaches that the U.S. "started the AIDS virus."

And, of course, B. Hussein Obama says: "I don't think that my church is actually particularly controversial." Pastor Wright conducted the Obamas' wedding ceremony and baptized Obamas' children. Wright held (until this week) an official leadership role in Obama's Presidential campaign.

But NOW we are supposed to give Obama credit because he says he disagrees with Wright's views. Some self-serving statement distancing Obama from Wright in the heat of the campaign is supposed to trump years of loyalty and affiliation with someone who rivals Fred Phelps in lunacy.

This is not supposed to be a campaign issue solely because the MSM/DNC does not WANT it to become an issue - not because it is truly irrelevant. Had ANY of this been true of George W. Bush, we would never have heard the end of it. But because this story affects Obama and the MSM/DNC exists to serve its own political ends, we are told to "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain."

And by the way, the only national politician with a real affiliation with Fred Phelps is Al Gore. I bet you never heard that one either.

Al Qaeda and Obama

Holger notes that March 12, 2008 may be remembered as "the day that Al Qaeda in Iraq may well have gotten Barack Obama elected to President of the U.S.A."

Regardless of his middle name or his ability to stop us from saying "Hussein," the fact remains that Obama is Al Qaeda's candidate.

Read it all.

Storm of the Century - 15th anniversary

Today is the 15th anniversary of the "storm of the century" - the blizzard that crippled the eastern United States on March 13 and 14, 1993. The effects were felt from Florida and Georgia through New England (and everywhere in between).

Click here for more detail and commentary, including a link to a National Geographic film on the storm.

I have asked this question many times and have not received an answer - when did global warming begin exactly? Only after 1993?

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Storm coverage - Alabama - March 13, 1993

Quote of the day - Joe Sobran [change]

At bottom, “change” usually signifies an increase in the power of the centralized state over the decentralized private sphere of life, with a consequent decrease of freedom. But politicians prefer to keep their rhetoric lofty and their meaning vague, so the word sounds like a harmless and benign aspiration. And the state keeps growing.

Joe Sobran - September 9, 1999

Quote of the day - Rush Limbaugh [Eliot Spitzer, Mike Nifong]

Eliot Spitzer is who Mike Nifong wanted to be.

Rush Limbaugh - 3-12-08

Thomas Sowell - William Buckley and the New Media

I and others have written a great deal about William Buckley since his death more than a week ago. Much more needs to be written, as this important figure played a pivotal role in modern conservative thought. Thomas Sowell contributes to this discussion as he notes how differently certain incidents might have ended up had the media's role been different. With regard to Vietnam's Tet Offensive:

There was a time when Walter Cronkite's version of what was happening in Vietnam was enough to force a change in policy more disastrous than the Communist offensive which Cronkite depicted as a big loss to American military forces, when in fact the American military inflicted a crushing defeat on the Communist guerrillas.

Imagine how differently that war might have turned out -- how many millions of people in Southeast Asia might not have been slaughtered by Communist governments there -- if there had been a sizable contingent of conservative journalists to tell a very different story from that told by Walter Cronkite and the liberal media.

Modern conservatives are only now learning and discussing how wrong Cronkite was.
Sowell notes that the reverse holds true with regard to modern events that the MSM/DNC was unable to control:

By the same token, think how successful Cronkite's successor, Dan Rather, might have been with his fake documents about President Bush's National Guard service, broadcast on the eve of the 2004 elections, if the fraud had not been exposed immediately by conservatives on the Internet, on talk radio, and in newspapers.

We owe a debt not only to Buckley, but to the modern pioneers of the alternative media, such as Rush Limbaugh and Matt Drudge. As I wrote almost 2 weeks ago:

Buckley was a throwback to the era when the MSM/DNC enjoyed a virtual monopoly on information. I first discovered Buckley in the early 1980's. At that time, I was treated to an almost non-stop barrage of twisted news presentations, distorted facts, repeats of Democrat talking points, etc. from the nightly news and the pages of newspapers. Once a week, William Buckley (and a very few others) would have one chance to rebut the entire MSM/DNC in the confined space of an opinion column on the editorial page of some newspapers. Even though it was hardly a fair fight, Buckley's (and others') few inches of weekly space was more than a match for the daily rants of the NYT, AP, WaPo, John Chancellor, Walter Cronkite, etc. Buckley kept the conservative light glowing until the New Media could begin fanning the flames at the end of the 1980's.

Conservatives born after 1975 cannot fully appreciate what it was like to live in the era before the New Media existed. Buckley was one voice that helped make that era bearable.

The MSM/DNC still lies and is more leftwing now than ever before, but at least must endure real competition.

Quote of the day - Mark Steyn [Democrat primaries]

The Democratic primary season seems to have dwindled down into a psycho remake of Driving Miss Daisy. The fading matriarch Mizz Hill’ry (Jessica Tandy) doesn’t want to give up the keys to the Democratic-party vehicle but the dignified black chauffeur Hokey (Morgan Freeman) insists it’ll be a much smoother ride with him in the driver’s seat, full of gear change you can believe in, etc. Yet, just as he thinks the old biddy’s resigned to a nomination as Best Supporting Actress, the backseat driver plunges her hat pin into his spine, wrests the wheel away and lurches across the median.

Mark Steyn - 3-8-08

Winter of 2008; Blizzard inundates Ohio and Kentucky

Global warming seems to exclude parts of the midwest and south, as blizzards have buried parts of Ohio and Kentucky in snow.

This follows winter weather in Texas this week.




Anna, Texas - H/T Myway

Random thoughts on Hillary as a "monster"; Samantha Power;

A top Obama advisor has stated that Hillary Clinton is a "monster."

Samantha Power










(1) Billy Dale would probably agree.

(2) Where was Samantha Power when Hillary and her husband were selling nuclear secrets to the Chinese Communists? Why didn't Power and all of the Obama supporters who now feign outrage over photos of Obama in a muslim outfit say anything when the reputations of Bill's female victims were being ruined and cats were disappearing? I suppose it is OK with Power if one is a monster so long as the monster attacks someone else.

As I noted last year:

The Democratic establishment has known exactly what Hillary was all about for years. But they kept silent. In fact, they defended her and her husband and curried favor with her. They willingly made themselves into the drones that appear in this video. Only when she appears vulnerable do they turn against her.

(3) I noted during the Today Show coverage this morning that Power appeared with four other Obama "foreign policy advisors" at some panel discussion recently. Why does Obama need five foreign policy advisors? How many advisors does one need to advocate surrender? Surrender is easy. Just withdraw the troops from wherever Al Qaeda might be found. Rather than hire advisors, read the collected works of Neville Chamberlain and Jimmy Carter. I hereby volunteer to provide the same services to Obama that his current team of foreign policy advisors now provides - at less than half the price. As soon as Obama fires his current advisors and mails to me a check, I will tell him that surrender is the only option and we will both have what we want.

Michael Bloomberg; Times Square explosion

So Michael Bloomberg is treating the Times Square explosion as a serious matter.

Maybe he should not have downplayed such possibilities last year when he told those who were interested in the JFK plot to "get a life."

Quote of the day - Ann Coulter

Bill Clinton is the guy who could never get as much as 50 percent of the country to vote for him. And that was in two presidential elections that the Republicans basically sat out (as they are doing this year).

Ann Coulter - March 5, 2008

Venezuela promoting revolution across Latin America

We already knew that Castro and Chavez had teamed up to send secret police throughout Latin America disguised as doctors.

We already knew that Venezuela is acommunist dictatorship.

Now we see proof that Venezuela is inciting war, revolution and destabilization within Columbia. This proof comes in the form of a laptop seized by the Columbians during recent raids on terrorist camps:

Files in the computer seized in Saturday's raid into Ecuador that claimed the lives of Reyes and 23 of his comrades offer an intimate portrait of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's desire to undermine Colombia's U.S.-allied government.

Except for a few wire service reports that dutifully downplay this news, the MSM/DNC has been dutifully silent.

The U.S. will have to confront this issue in coming years. If we don't confront it now, we may be faced with multiple Castro's throughout South and Central America someday. An election year is the best time to force politicians to acknowledge this problem and spell out what they are going to do. Now is the time to demand strength from our "leaders."

Quote of the day - George Lopez

It is the time of the Latino, your time to step up, your time to take this country over.

George Lopez

H/T Michelle Malkin

Quote of the day - William Buckley [China, Nixon]

We have lost - irretrievably - any remaining sense of moral mission in the world . . . When Mr. Nixon, as he regularly did, made reference to the oustanding differences between our two 'systems,' he made it sound as if there are, after all, those who prefer gingham to calico.

William Buckley, writing of President Nixon's joint communique with the Communist Chinese, March 17, 1972 - National Review - as quoted by John Judis in William F. Buckley, Jr., Patron Saint of the Conservatives, p. 337.

Support William Russell; John Murtha is unopposed

I previously wrote about William Russell's campaign against John Murtha this year in Pennsylvania's 12th congressional district. It appears as if John Murtha has found a technical defect in Russell's filing papers and is using fake Republicans to file a challenge to keep Russell off of the ballot. Atlas writes more. Russell can get back on the ballot if he receives 1000 or more write-in votes on April 22.

The larger issue is that of the existence of the "Republicans" who would agree to be Murtha's front men for the purpose of denying the voters a choice this fall. History is full of examples of individuals who pretend to be what they actually oppose so that they can destroy their enemy from within.

Will Durant was an atheist who had broken with the Catholic Church, yet remained in the seminary. His intention (and that of his friend and fellow seminarian) was to become a priest and undermine the Church from within throughout a long career. Durant did not follow through on his plan (quitting to become an educator and historian), but his friend did.

Durant told his story in his autobiography, Transitions.



This is no casual example. Consider the commitment of one who spends his life as a Priest. He gives up marriage. He gives up privacy. He gives up all of the trappings of life outside of the church, including any possibility of wealth accumulation. It is understandable that one might do this if he actually believes in God. But to do it while believing that God does not exist requires a different kind of commitment. To be so committed to atheism that one could endure a fundamentally dishonest life is almost unimaginable to ordinary humans. Yet it has been done.

As another example, those who are not wilfully blind are aware of the actions of many Soviet agents who pretended to be "American" for the sole purpose of undermining America during the cold war.



There are many other examples. But now we have the example of individuals who would join a political party solely for the purpose of undermining its operations, keeping its candidates off of the ballot and denying the voters a choice. All while maintaining the appearance of kinship with the party of Reagan, Goldwater and Newt Gingrich.

I know nothing of the individuals that challenged Russell's nomination filing at the behest of John Murtha. But I can try to imagine how they attempt to integrate this political errand into their personal lives. With friends who might wonder how a Republican could do such a thing to the Republican voters, they have no choice but to feign indignance of their own and protest that they felt a need to right a terrible wrong. In order to justify their own betrayal, they resort to false accusation, slander and repeating of smears. Or they must pretend to be so angry about some recent issue, that they are compelled to take drastic action. These excuses and feigned emotions wear thin after a time. Eventually they learn to seek only the company of kindred spirits - leftists who will understand the need to live a lie for the greater goal of promoting big government and surrender to terrorists.

My point is that we should not assume that one is a "Republican" just because he can fill out a registration form. (No more than we should assume that one is an "American" just because he receives amnesty from the government.) To be a real Republican requires commitment to certain principles. If someone demonstrates outright hostility to those principles at every turn, it is a safe bet that they will betray the party in some important way in the future.

Winter carnival cancelled in New Hampshire

Much like recent "global warming" conferences, a winter carnival in New Hampshire has been cancelled due to too much winter weather.

Quote of the day - Thomas Sowell [Global warming]

It has almost become something of a joke when some "global warming" conference has to be cancelled because of a snowstorm or bitterly cold weather.

Thomas Sowell