Thursday, June 29, 2006

YOU COULD KNOCK ME DOWN WITH A FEATHER: Maureen Dowd praising bloggers during her stay in Barcelona... this is what she told in an interview in La Vanguardia (my translation; link in Spanish, subscription required):
Q. How did you get the White House gig?

MD. I worked for Time for ten years; then I joined the local section of the New York Times and then was sent to Washington, where I ended being the White House correspondent during the Clinton administration. And I got my own column in 1995.

Q. At last!

MD. It was too late, buddy, now we the pundits don't have the monopoly on public opinion; the big scoops are by bloggers now. There are hundreds of bloggers writing opinion daily not only on the internet; many of them have jumps from the net to the mainstream media. With so many blogs, it's difficult to be unique.

Q. I don't think they can compete with you.

MD. Well, they do. Remember that the Lewinsky scandal started in a blog [ed. Drudge doesn't like to be portrayed as a blogger, Maureen!], just as the scandal that shattered Dan Rather's reputation. Politicians are courting the best bloggers because they bring donations, colunteers and goodwill to their campaigns.

Q. Don't complain, Maureen.

MD. I'm not complaining! It's a very healthy situation: blogs lead me to try to be better every day.


Click here to send me an email

Wednesday, June 28, 2006

I DON'T KNOW if cars will look like this in the future, but this GM Hy-Wire working (drivable) protoype is really cool. The good part starts after the first in-studio segment:



(via James Hudnall)


Click here to send me an email

A FEW IDEAS for anti-war types, courtesy of Christopher Hitchens.

Click here to send me an email

Saturday, June 24, 2006

A BIT OF FRESH AIR for the weekend:



There's a backstory behind this, explained here.



Click here to send me an email

FORMER SPOOK and now blogger at In From The Cold explains the back story of the WMD discovery in Iraq (which, as you could expect, has received zero coverage in the Spanish media, not even to discredit the findings):
The story begins in April of this year, when a team of intelligence analysts, assigned to the Army's National Ground Intelligence Center (NGIC) published an exhaustive report on the continued recovery of chemical weapons in Iraq. Their report clearly noted that the weapons were clearly manufactured before the first Gulf War. However, the NGIC analysts also observed that some of the weapons remained in good condition (suggesting an Iraqi effort to preserve them), and posed a potential threat to coalition forces, if they fell into the hands of insurgents. From what I'm told, the report contained a full listing of all chemical weapons discovered in Iraq since the fall of Saddam, cut-away diagrams of the weapons, locations where they were found, and their potential lethality if employed by terrorists.

Obviously, the NGIC report ran against the conventional wisdom that "Iraq had no WMD" after the U.S.-led invasion, and (to its credit), the organization published the report, which was posted on INTELINK (the intelligence community's classified intranet) in April of this year. In that forum, the report could be easily accessed by anyone with access to the system, the proper security clearance, and a valid need-to-know. From an analytical standpoint, the team at NGIC did their job, and they deserve tremendous credit for publishing their report. That's what analysts are supposed to do--tell the truth, and let the chips fall where they may, even if their findings run contrary to popular assumptions and political agendas.

Shortly after the NGIC item was posted on INTELINK, Senator Santorum learned of its existence, and began pressing the Army for more information, and declassification of the report's key findings. At this juncture, however, political agendas and bureaucratic tail-covering became a factor. A GOP source sent me a copy of Senator Santorum's letter, requesting information on chemical weapons in Iraq, back in April. Amazing (or, perhaps not-so-amazingly), both NGIC and the Army's Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM) ignored Santorum's request. Normally, DOD agencies are supposed to respond to a request from a member of Congress within 48 hours; the Army ignored Santorum's request for more than a month. In fact, Santorum and Hoekstra didn't get their information until the Intelligence Committee chairman obtained a copy of the NGIC report and reportedly "hit the ceiling." After that, the Director of National Intelligence, Ambassador John Negroponte, agreed to declassify portions of the report, which were released yesterday.
There's much more; read it all.

Click here to send me an email

THE WEEK IS ENDING, so it's time for another Pajamas Media podcast covering the most segnificant event of the last seven days:
This week’s Blog Week in Review features Glenn Reynolds along with two guest panelists, Neo-neocon and Marc Cooper. Hosted as usual by Austin Bay and produced by Ed Driscoll, the three discuss the North Korean situation among other topics.
You can listen, download or subscribe on iTunes if you click on the link.

Click here to send me an email

EGYPTIAN BLOGGER AND ACTIVIST ALAA was finally released yesterday. Not without being roughed up and sleep deprived, but don't expect any of these voices complaining about mistreatment of prisoners in Guantanamo to utter a single syllabe of denunciation. Here's the first picture of him in freedom.

Click here to send me an email

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

DON'T MISS THIS great video that Bill Roggio sent us from Afghanistan, in which you can see what looks like a close encounter with the Taliban.

Click here to send me an email

"HOW SHOULD I KNOW? They're all yellow and with almond-shaped eyes!" Amazing good by CBS, illustrating China's lunar plans... with a Japanese flag.

At least the MSM has got layers of editors, unlike us bloggers.

Click here to send me an email

JUST AS IN TOM WOLFE'S accurate quip that the shadow of fascism always flies over the US but somehow always manages to land in Europe, the accusation of imperialism and of being a de-stabilizer of far-away countries always is hurled against the US but somehow it's always what France does.

Click here to send me an email

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH backpedals on the Gaza beach deaths:
On Monday, the Human Rights Watch, while sticking to its demand for the establishment of an independent inquiry into a blast on a Gaza beach 10 days ago that killed seven Palestinian civilians, conceded for the first time since the incident that it could not contradict the IDF's exonerating findings.


Click here to send me an email

Monday, June 19, 2006

ON THE CATALAN AUTONOMY VOTE: I don't have much time, but can't let pass without commenting briefly. As you know, yesterday the law giving more power to Catalonia -the region whose capital is Barcelona- passed its final process after it was approved in a referendum:
About 74 percent of the voters who cast ballots in Catalonia, a region of about 7 million people centered on the cosmopolitan Mediterranean city of Barcelona, approved the autonomy measure, according to a tally of almost 99 percent of the vote that was posted on the Internet by the region's government. About 21 percent voted no.
There's something that doesn't change the legitimacy of the result but it's key to put things in perspective: the fact that turnout was extremely low for such a historic event: just below 50 percent. All parties, pro and con, were expecting a much higher figure: the previous statute of autonomy (1979) passed with more nearly 70 percent. This time the turnout was similar to a referendum few people gave a damn about: the so-called European constitution.

That data gives a hint of the disconnect between the political class on the one side and ordinary citizens on the other, and shows that people are not so ready to participate in a campaign that has been quite ugly, with nasty slogans and assaults against those who dared to oppose the new statute. Rethoric was charged on both sides all along.

Austin Bay notes that critics say that the new statute is a threat to Spanish unity, and he's right on the fact that this was one of the arguments used against it, maybe a little too histerically. On the other side, this is not a merely 'technical' devolution scheme, as it would be in the US when devolution is discussed. Here there's a nationalistic factor into it which makes the issue a little more, say, charged.

To begin with, it's a statute that doesn't fully respect the linguistic rights by Spanish-speaking people (about 50% of the population): the affirmative action in favor of Catalan, which made sense right after the Franco dictatorship (during which the language was removed from the official sphere, though not forbidden, as Kaleboel reminds a propos a lousy article in the Guardian), has been dramatically expanded (if shops and business were now fined for not using Catalan with their customers and internal paperwork, just wait when the new laws are enforced; and there's not a single public school where non-Catalan speaking parents -people coming in from the rest of Spain, or foreign immigrant- can send their child to so that they're taught in Spanish). One can argue that it doesn't make that much sense after 27 years of policies favoring it. In fact, this is probably why the statue won't be effective immediately, if opponents go through what they announced: that they'd appeal to the Constitutional Court, which can only be done after the referendum.

But besides what the defenders of Spain's unity were saying, there were other arguments for opposition: first, by secessionists who think that this new statute, and the new powers it grants, are still not enough. They want the whole independence from Spain. And there were also people -like yours truly- concerned not by the fact that Spanish regions have more powers (I've always thought that the closer they are to the governed, the better), but by the fact that this new statute is extremely interventionist, much more than the current one. It was developed by a coalition of center-left and leftist parties who, in the immortal words of the Gipper, "believe every day is April 15" (well, actually here it's June 30, but you get the point); who are proponents of the nanny state and who want to regulate anything that moves.

For someone in favor of small government, this is not exactly the best that we could get.

UPDATE. If you can read French, don't miss this piece about what I said above with Spanish language and Catalan schools. It comes from Libération, that no one can accuse of being a foe of Zapatero and the left. It shows how, even before the new automic powers are enforced, Spanish is treated as a foreign language: it starts with an immigrant from Ecuador, whose own little children refuse to speak their native Spanish with her following instructions from their teacher.

UPDATE II. John Rosenthal at Transatlantic Intelligencer has translated into English most of the article in Libération.

Click here to send me an email

Saturday, June 17, 2006

IS THE WIPO trying to regulate podcasting? Dan Whitbread, of the UK Podcasters Association, sends me this Boing Boing link about a seminar to be held next week in Barcelona:
The United Nations' World Intellectual Property Organization has called a last-minute meeting on June 21 in Barcelona, out of the normal diplomatic venues to try to ram through the Broadcasting Treaty. This treaty gives broadcasters (not creators or copyright holders) the right to tie up the use of audiovisual material for 50 years after broadcasting it, even if the programs are in the public domain, Creative Commons licensed, or not copyrightable.

The Barcelona meeting brings together lots of latinamerican broadcasters -- who no doubt love the idea of a new monopoly right that they get for free merely for broadcasting a work. Bringing these casters in is a way of undermining the effective opposition to the treaty that's come from countries like Brazil and Chile.

No public interest groups are on the bill to give a counterpoint (of course not -- WIPO is the kind of place where public interest groups' handouts are thrown in the toilets' trashcans).

This meeting is especially deadly, because it looks like they're trying to sneak podcasting back into the treaty, after agreeing to take it out at the last big meeting in Geneva.

The good news is, it's open to the public. If you're a digital rights activist in Barcelona -- or just someone who cares about how big corporations are taking away your rights to use works freely -- then you need to be at this meeting.
I've emailed some people about this, but the time is too tight (probably that was the idea by organizers...)

Click here to send me an email

THAT'S GOT TO BE A JOKE, RIGHT?
The police are considering a proposal to let selected British Muslims examine the intelligence used to mount anti-terrorism raids before they take place, the Guardian has learned.

The proposal will be considered as part of a review of the raid in Forest Gate, east London, a fortnight ago when 250 officers stormed a family house searching for a chemical weapon which was not found. One man was shot and police have apologised for the "hurt" caused by the raid which has further damaged strained relations with the local community. The review began this week and is expected to be completed before the end of the month.

While such a review after a controversial incident is standard, this one is unique because British Muslims are involved from the start.

Click here to send me an email

I WONDER why this despicable form of child exploitation doesn't merit even a fraction of the condemnatio that some people direct towards "Nike's sweatshops" in Asia:
In a dirty white T-shirt hanging down to his knees, 4-year-old Harouna Balde begs for coins in bare feet among the traffic on the polluted streets of Dakar.

Holding a rusty begging tin that is the trademark of the "talibes" -- students at Senegal's Koranic schools -- Balde says he must take back money or face a beating from his religious teacher, or marabout.

"I must bring back 500 francs ($0.90) every day to my master or face punishment," says the tiny boy. He travels from his squalid daara, or religious school, in the distant suburb of Thiaroye to beg all day in the city center.

Balde is one of an estimated 100,000 children begging on the streets of Senegal, according to U.N. officials -- most of them sent out by their religious teachers.

Click here to send me an email

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON. Go read his latest.

Click here to send me an email

Friday, June 16, 2006

PERHAPS YOU'VE NOTICED my absence in the last couple of days: I've been busy, and plan to relax a little and enjoy outdoors during this weekend, so don't expect too much blogging from me until Monday. Meanwhile, here's a treat: the latest Week in Review podcast is already up at Pajamas Media. It's Michelle Malkin, Tammy Bruce, Eric Umansky, and Austin Bay moderating. Topics: Zarqawi, Karl Rove and Oriana Fallaci. Enjoy.

Click here to send me an email

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

A SPECIAL TREAT FOR NERDS: Star Trek meets Star Wars.





Click here to send me an email

IRANIAN WOMEN demonstrated in Tehran yesterday. As expected, they were repressed by the police. Female agents, of course. You can read a roundup of reports and photographs at Regime Change Iran.

Click here to send me an email

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

WHAT A BLOGOSPHERIC DAY: As you know by now, the news is that Rove won't be indicted and Bush is making a suprise visit to Baghdad. Which means that one side of the blogosphere is upset, and the other is nya-nya-ing. Haven't been able to blog about both here, since I was busy covering it over at Pajamas Media, where we've been making an up-to-the-minute coverage. So allow me to simply point you there.

Click here to send me an email

MORE ON THE Gaza beach deaths:
The IDF probe investigating the deaths of seven Palestinian civilians, caused by an explosion on a beach in Gaza on Friday evening, concluded that chances were slim that the accident was caused by IDF shelling.

According to the findings, expected to be formally released on Tuesday, shrapnel taken from two wounded Palestinians who were evacuated to Israeli hospitals showed that the explosives were not made in Israel, IDF officials said.

Moreover, the investigation noted the absence of a large enough crater at the site of the explosion, as would be expected if an IDF shell had landed there.

The third observation casting doubt on the possibility that IDF shelling was the cause of the Palestinian deaths was that the IDF had accounted for five of the six shells that it fired in the area before the explosion and the shell that was unaccounted for was fired more than 10 minutes before the blast that killed the Palestinians.

On Saturday evening Gaza Division Commander Brig.-Gen. Aviv Kochavi insisted that the sites that were shelled by the IDF were the places from where Kassam rockets were launched. He noted those places were frequently targeted by the IDF, and were known to be dangerous places.

The leading theory currently entertained, suggested that an explosive charge, buried by Palestinians on the Gaza beach to prevent Israeli infiltration, was behind the explosion.

Throughout the whole investigation, army officials complained about the lack of Palestinian cooperation. Unconfirmed reports further suggested attempts by Palestinians to remove shrapnel from the bodies of the wounded, treated in Israeli hospitals, thus impeding the investigation.

Click here to send me an email

THIS IS JUST PLAIN SCARY: William Shatner performin Elton John's Rocket Man. Yikes.



Click here to send me an email

Monday, June 12, 2006

SOMETHING CALLED smart dust helped track down Zarqawi and get him killed eventually. No, really.

Click here to send me an email

Sunday, June 11, 2006

WAS THE SHELLING in the Gaza beach another Pallywood production? Read here, watch the videos here, and judge for yourselves.

Click here to send me an email

Saturday, June 10, 2006

IT'S NOT REALLY TRUE that, as the Daily Telegraph writes today, the "drive to give 'human' rights to apes leaves Spanish divided."

Other than the few that are pushing this and that -
unlike the average joe- have access to the gullible media, most Spaniards are absolutely united over this.

In scorn.

(HT: several Barcepundit readers)

Click here to send me an email

COULDN'T AGREE MORE with Claudia Rosett and how she ends her superb piece on the death of Zarqawi:
[T]his is an excellent moment to step back and look at just how far in this war we have come. Five years ago, al-Qaeda's commanders, from their safe haven in Afghanistan, were training thousands of terrorists and planning the Sept. 11 strike on a sleeping America. In Iraq, Saddam Hussein ruled by terror, with a record of exporting brutality and war from Baghdad at any opportunity to wherever he could reach - invading his neighbors, rewarding Palestinian suicide bombers, and openly rejoicing over Sept. 11.

Today, elected governments lead Afghanistan and Iraq, which has just completed its cabinet lineup. Bin Laden is afraid to venture out of hiding; Saddam, pulled from his spider hole, is on trial in Baghdad. And now, Zarqawi is dead, and the circumstances of his death may encourage decent people not only in Iraq but elsewhere to help hunt down his collaborators.

The greatest weakness of the United States in this war has been our tendency, within our own domestic debate, to quickly dismiss our victories and dwell on each al-Qaeda bombing or beheading as a sign of impending defeat. The death of Zarqawi needs to be understood as a sign that the deeper currents are running our way.

Click here to send me an email

I'M SORRY FOR QUITE A FEW PEOPLE, but pursuing Islamic terrorists relentessly, or killing them, doesn't create more terrorists bla bla bla. It works, though not obviously since day one as in cartoons. It requires determination, and the fruits start to be noticeable over time. Like now, for example.

UPDATE. More, specifically on the beneficial effects of Zarqawi's death according to terrorism experts, in the Washington Post.

Click here to send me an email

SCREEN PROTECTION FACTOR: about 1000, or something.

Click here to send me an email

AAARGH! My eyes, my eyes!

Click here to send me an email

Friday, June 09, 2006

THAT'S GREAT:
It turns out Zarqawi survived the bombing– at least for a short while. Iraqi police arrived at the bombing site first and found Zarqawi alive. The police put him on a stretcher. When US forces showed up Zarqawi was conscious enough to recognize them as US troops. He tried to roll off the stretcher. Caldwell says that Zarqawi was in very bad shape. He died shortly thereafter.
Superb.

Click here to send me an email

PAJAMAS MEDIA'S latest "Week in Review" podcast is now available:
PJM Sydney editor Richard Fernandez joins regulars Tammy Bruce and Eric Umansky in a spirited discussion of Haditha, the Canadian terror arrests and Internet click-through fraud. Moderator Austin Bay comments on Zarqawi’s death. Ed Driscoll produces.

Click here to send me an email

EL PAÍS (Spain's Socialist Party-friendly biggest circulation daily) on September 12, 2001: "The world on tenterhooks over Bush's retaliation".

El País (still Spain's Socialist Party-friendly biggest circulation daily) on June 9, 2006: "The death of al-Qaeda's chief in Iraq gives Bush a break"


Gee, you can almost see a trend here.

Click here to send me an email

Thursday, June 08, 2006

ZARQAWI HAS BEEN KILLED: I'm on duty at Pajamas Media right now so I don't have time to cover here all developments of this wonderful news here, so let me forward you there, where you'll see all the updates.

Click here to send me an email

Wednesday, June 07, 2006

STILL MORE PROTESTS and demonstrations in Iran.

Click here to send me an email

MICHAEL BARONE:
Two weeks ago, I pointed out that we live in something close to the best of times, with record worldwide economic growth and at a low point in armed conflict in the world. Yet Americans are in a sour mood, a mood that may be explained by the lack of a sense of history. The military struggle in Iraq (nearly 2,500 military deaths) is spoken of in as dire terms as Vietnam (58,219), Korea (54,246) or World War II (405,399). We bemoan the cruel injustice of $3 a gallon for gas in a country where three-quarters of people classified as poor have air conditioning and microwave ovens. We complain about a tide of immigration that is, per U.S. resident, running at one-third the rate of 99 years ago.

George W. Bush has a better sense of history. Speaking last week at the commencement at West Point -- above the Hudson River, where revolutionary Americans threw a chain across the water to block British ships -- Bush noted that he was speaking to the first class to enter the U.S. Military Academy after the Sept. 11 attacks. And he put the challenge these cadets willingly undertook in perspective by looking back at the challenges America faced at the start of the Cold War 60 years ago.

"In the early years of that struggle," Bush noted, "freedom's victory was not obvious or assured." In 1946, Harry Truman accompanied Winston Churchill as he delivered his Iron Curtain speech; in 1947, communists threatened Greece and Turkey; in 1948, Czechoslovakia fell, France and Italy seemed headed the same way, and Berlin was blockaded by the Soviets, who exploded a nuclear weapon the next year; in 1950, North Korea attacked South Korea.

"All of this took place in just the first five years following World War II," Bush noted. "Fortunately, we had a president named Harry Truman, who recognized the threat, took bold action to confront it and laid the foundation for freedom's victory in the Cold War."

Bold action: the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan in 1947, the Berlin airlift in 1948, the NATO Treaty in 1949, the Korean War in 1950. None of these was uncontroversial, and none was perfectly executed. And this was only the beginning. It took 40 years -- many of them filled with angry controversy -- to win the Cold War.

The struggles against Soviet communism and Islamofascist terrorists are of course not identical. But there are similarities.
Read the rest.

Click here to send me an email

Tuesday, June 06, 2006

WEB IS No. 1:
Web media is the dominant at-work media and No. 2 in the home, according to a new report from the Online Publishers Association.

The Web also ranked as the No. 1 daytime media.

A research project, conducted by Ball State University's Center for Media Design, tracked the media use of 350 people every 15 seconds. The subjects represented each gender, about equally, across three age groups: 18 to 34, 35 to 49 and 50-plus. The people were monitored by another person for approximately 13 hours, or 80 percent of their waking day.

"Someone actually came into their homes and workplaces and had a handheld computer, every 15 seconds registering their media consumption and life activities," Pam Horan, president of the Online Publishers Association (OPA), told CNET News.com.

According to Horan, this is the first type of study of its kind. Previously, consumers were monitored for media usage by phone survey or diary method.

Not surprisingly, newspaper use peaked in the morning; that print media was consumed by 17 percent of the subjects between 8 a.m. and 11 a.m. When this media was combined with Web consumption, the potential reach for advertisers climbed to 44 percent. During the same morning period, the number of consumers using magazines jumped from 7 percent to 39 percent, and from 44 percent to 62 percent for television.

"The point is that there is an incremental reach that someone can gain by putting together a multimedia campaign," Horan said.

A conservative estimate from the study says 17 percent of overall media is consumed via the Internet, and Horan notes that other researchers like Forrester have placed that number even higher.

The OPA-commissioned study also used census data to determine the spending habits of its 350 monitored subjects. Web dominant consumers' retail spending averaged $26,450, while the TV-dominant group's spending averaged $21,401.

Yet, studies have shown that only about 8 percent of advertising goes to the Internet, Horan said.


Click here to send me an email

LAST SATURDAY'S anti-terror raid in London may have been based in faulty intelligence, apparently; not Sunday's operation in Canada, which is expanding to several countries.

Click here to send me an email

RELAX! Today it's 6/6/6, but it's not 666; Michael Covington explains.

Click here to send me an email

Monday, June 05, 2006

IT WAS 17 YEARS AGO yestersay since the Tiananmen massacre. Don't miss this video. Particularly my fellow Europeans, who don't say a word when the Chinese rulers come in official visits but go out on the street en masse everytime "bad Bush" sets foot on this side of the Atlantic.




Click here to send me an email

Sunday, June 04, 2006

THE LONDON TERRORIST CELL dismantled by police last Friday was planning a gas attack -likely sarin- in the subway.

Click here to send me an email

¿DID YOU KNOW that the Zapatero administration (you know, the "no blood for oil", "Bush is killing innocents" and "let's get out of this illegal war" one) just gave Spain's highest military decoration to... gasp... can hardly say it... to... to the US Army Chief of Staff? Yes, the chief of staff of an army that, on behalf of Bu$hitler and his cronies, entered in Iraq and killed innocent civilians, tortured and murdered with no restraint, all based on a long stream of lies.

Maybe things are not going so bad there, after all.

It happened quietly, of course. And media here, so keen to help their hero, hasn't written a single line so far, at least that I've seen. Only the news pages of Terra -the internet provider so it simply doesn't count- has the news.

Come think of it, maybe it's because US Army Chief of Staff is Gen. Peter Schoomaker: as you probably know, his surname is fonetically identical to the English translation of Zapatero. Former defense minister Jose Bono had some trouble when he awarded himself a medal right after taking the job, so I guess Zapatero found an indirect way to do it...

Click here to send me an email

Saturday, June 03, 2006

YES, CNN IS VERY BALANCED: This was in my email, from CNN's summary with the headlines of the day:




Click here to send me an email

HUGO CHAVEZ, Midas in reverse?

Click here to send me an email

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN responds -well, sort of- to Aaron Hanscom's article on anti-Semitism at UC Irving. The problem for Finkelstein? That Aaron answers back.

Click here to send me an email

IN YESTERDAY'S anti-terror raid in London, British police were apparently looking for a chemical vests factory. And there's one missing.

Click here to send me an email

WHAT I TOLD YOU the other day, now in video.

Click here to send me an email

A MAJOR TERRORIST PLOT has been thwarted in Canada: police have arrested 17 people all over the country in a big anti-terrorist operation. The Toronto Globe and Mail says the planned blasts would have potentially been "three times more devastating than the Oklahoma City bombing."

It's worth noting that this comes after yesterday's major anti-terror sweep in the UK, which opens the possibility there's a connection between the two; after all, Scotland Yard said the people arrested in the bomb factory were not planning to hit on British soil so we can safely assume that this means it would have been abroad.

It's even more worth noting that a top Canadian spy official had warned that "many potential terrorists already reside in the country and have trained in al-Qaida training camps" and could be planning an attack.

As the saying goes, stay tuned.

UPDATE. Pajamas Media is all over this.

Click here to send me an email

Friday, June 02, 2006

THERE'S TWO NEW PODCASTS at Pajamas Media: the first one is an interview by Richard Fernandez to Bill Roggio, the free-lance blogger now in Kabul, Afghanistan; they talk about the recent riots, which are quite different as how the MSM were portraying them.

The second one is the Week in Review, this time with Glenn Reynolds, Eric Umansky and Amy Alkon, with Austin Bay as moderator.

Click here to send me an email

9/11 CONVICTION quashed in Spain:
Spain's Supreme Court has overturned the conviction of a Syrian-born man for conspiracy in the September 11 attacks in the United States.

The high court threw out a 15-year sentence against Imad Eddin Barak Yarkas for conspiracy to commit murder in the 2001 airline attacks, but upheld his conviction as an al Qaeda leader in Spain, a court spokesman told CNN.


Click here to send me an email

THE DEADLIEST WAR in the world is taking place far from Mesopotamia: it's happening in Congo, where four million have been killed since 1998. Of course, the US is not involved, so hardly any of these correspondents willing to expose the brutality of wars, so busy now in Iraq, are paying any attention. Time magazine has; if you're a subscriber, the article is here; if you aren't, Everyday Thoughts Collected has an extract.

Click here to send me an email

TEN EASY WAYS how you can save the planet, by Iowahawk.

Click here to send me an email

Thursday, June 01, 2006

SILENTLY, Syria continues its purges of dissidents.

Click here to send me an email