AMERICAN HERITAGE has opened its archives on the web. Great news for history aficionados (via Iberian Notes).

IF YOU'RE A Firefox user and a blogger, you have to give this add-on a try: Performancing. You can post from the window or tab you're on; format the post, upload pictures, add Technorati tags, categories, send trackbacks. All in a snap, and supports all major blogging services and software. Particularly handy if you have more than one blog, since you can add up several accounts and switch from one to another by just one click.

THIS IS FUNNY: how to prank a telemarketer.

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AL GORE, call your office.

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THIS IS AMAZING: a teenager, who had both eyes surgically removed as a child, uses echolocation to walk on the streets, identify objects, et cetera. It's pretty much what dolphins do: he clicks his tongue and it's the echo of the sound what helps him.





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ANOTHER MONTH, another massive demonstration against Zapatero's government strategy of negotiating with the terrorist group ETA (more here).

It seems to me that some negotiation needs to be done, including perhaps the pardon of terrorists who unequivocally express their decision to abandon the fight. This is how one faction of ETA was finished in the 80s, and former member went back to civil life.

But not when ETA, in spite of a self-declared cease-fire, is rearming itself.

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NOW THAT'S icky.

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AT LAST the case of Zahra Kamalfar, trapped in Moscow's airport for weeks with her kids and fearing deportation to Iran, has hit the MSM. Until now, only Pajamas Media and blogs had been following her ordeal.

Yesterday, CNN had a 5-minute segment about her:




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IF YOU'RE WONDERING how could it be that Tom Cruise looked taller than Katie Holmes in their wedding pics, here's the answer...

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THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY rates the 100 most influential Americans of all times. Over here in Europe the thinking classes will see this list as crap: no Michael Moore? No Chomsky?

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VICTOR DAVIS HANSON continues in fine form; don't miss his latest entry at his blog at Pajamas Media.

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HAPPY THANKSGIVING, EVERYONE!

Freedom From Want, Norman Rockwell (1943)

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EUROPEAN INSTITUTIONS show that they can be useful sometimes: the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg has issued an order barring the deportation of Iranian dissident Zahra Kamalfar and her to children, at least for two weeks.

(Previous post on this here)

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JOHAN NORBERG also nails it writing on the stupidity -found everywhere in the liberal and European media- on the alleged link between Milton Friedman and the dictatorship of Pinochet:

But Friedman condemned dictatorship and contrary to many other economists he pointed out the necessary link between economic and political freedom. He said that one of the reasons to advocate economic liberal reforms in Chile was so that it would create a foundation for rebuilding democracy (and he also happened to be right). He also promoted economic liberal reforms in China, and that doesn´t make him a Maoist.

To explain this in a way that even those who disagree with economic liberalism should understand: If a scholar holds a few lectures in Myanmar or Libya, and explains that an impartial judiciary or a free media is good and will build a foundation for democracy, that doesn´t make this scholar a supporter of the dictatorship in Myanmar or Libya. Ok?

And if an apolitical scientist tells the Chinese leaders that they must deal with its environmental problems not even this makes him a supporter of China´s dictatorship. Or is he? In that case there are a lot of supporters of tyranny out there.

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THE NATIONAL POST nails it on the Palestinian human shields:

If Israel really were as sadistic as its critics claim, it wouldn't have called off yesterday's bombing run. Just the opposite: It would have jumped at the chance to kill so many Palestinians at one go. Just imagine if the shoe were on the other foot, and hundreds of Israeli "human shields" positioned themselves in an unguarded cafe in the West Bank. Palestinian suicide bombers would be stepping over each other in an effort to attack the target. "Human shields" work only when your enemy fights like a human.

Exactly.

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ROBERT ALTMAN has died.

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A LITTLE HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE is always helpful:

In the full sweep of U.S history, from the commencement of the Revolution on Lexington Green in April 1775, until the sunny morning of September 11, 2001, our average daily sacrifice has been between 14 and 15 military fatalities (1,217,000 fatalities/83,461 days = 14.6/day). Since 9/11, the average daily sacrifice has been 1.7 per day (3200/1900=1.68).

From the Revolutionary War until the American entry into World War I, the average daily rate was about 11 per day (578,000/52,231=11.07). From World War I through the break up of the Soviet Union, the rate was over 16 per day (636,000/38,811=16.39). Or in our long running confrontation with Soviet communism following World War II until the collapse of the Soviet empire, the rate was over between 6 and 7 per day (112,400/16,892=6.65).

As things stand, the conflict with Islamic radicalism involves the lowest average daily military fatality rate of any long run national security era. It may worsen, it may improve. If Congress had been asked on September 12, 2001, to endorse a national defense posture against Islamic radicalism that traded up to 2 military fatalities per day over the subsequent five years in return for no additional homeland attacks, the deposing of terror friendly regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq, the ending of Libya's nuclear program, what would they have done? Would Congress accept that bargain today?

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NOW THIS IS a peace initiative that I wouldn't mind joining in!

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TOMORROW MONDAY I'll be out and therefore I won't write here, but I'll be checking my email throughout the day.

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IRANIAN DISSIDENT Zahra Kamalfar has been living with her children under unspeakable conditions in the transit area of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport for 73 days. A one-time demonstrator against the extremist theocracy, she escaped from an Iranian prison when on a two-day furlough to visit her children. She ended up being buffeted from country to country. Now in imminent danger (possibly Monday, if the Russians cooperate) of being taken back to the Islamic Republic for the Mullahs' version of justice, Ms. Kamalfar speaks out in this dramatic video smuggled out of the airport to Pajamas Media.



Read Iran expert Michael Ledeen’s account of Kamalfar’s background here. More on Kamalfar and her children at the blog of Iranian human rights activist Ardeshir Dolat. Sign a petition for Kamalfar’s freedom with the UNHCR (United Nations Refugee Agency) and Russian immigration authorities here.

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AIR POLLUTION, an antidote to global warming? It could be, according to a groups of scientists, among them Nobel winner Paul Crutzen: "a layer of pollution deliberately spewed into the atmosphere could act as a 'shade' from the sun's rays and help cool the planet."

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IRAN HAS BEEN TRYING to obtain uranium by arming the Islamists in Somalia.

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OUCH:

As convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff reported to federal prison today, a source close to the investigation surrounding his activities told ABC News that Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) was one of the members of Congress Abramoff had allegedly implicated in his cooperation with federal prosecutors.

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I LIKE RUMMY, but you got to admit this is funny:




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THE IAEA says it has found plutonium in an Iranian waste facility, and that can't vouch whether Iran's nuclear program is peaceful.

Fasten your sealbelts, people.

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THIS IS what one of the two countries to talk to for Iraq's pacification is doing, according to today's Daily Telegraph. Some pacifiers:

Iran is trying to form an unholy alliance with al-Qa'eda by grooming a new generation of leaders to take over from Osama bin Laden, The Daily Telegraph can reveal.

Western intelligence officials say the Iranians are determined to take advantage of bin Laden's declining health to promote senior officials who are known to be friendly to Teheran.

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THIS IS A NIGHTMARE come true: one of the most atrocious inventions in the computer world, Clippit, in flesh and blood. Don't miss what he says to the guy giving out propaganda in the street:




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SPEAKING OF the midterms, Will Bunch says that Bush and Rove blew them on purpose.

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SOME COMMENTS from Mohammed, of Iraq The Model, on the midterm election in the US.

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I DELETED the entry originally in this post because it was an item meant for Barcepundit's Spanish edition; it was a quote that wouldn't really make sense here.

My apologies.

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248 WAYS TO ANNOY PEOPLE. I must test them.

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THIS IS WAR...

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EVEN THE UN denies that Israel used uranium-based munitions in Lebanon, as the shameful Robert Fisk had alleged in a newspaper article:

UN experts have found no evidence to support a press report that Israel used depleted uranium (DU) munitions during the July-August conflict in Lebanon, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) says.

"The samples taken by the UNEP scientists show no evidence of penetrators or metal made of DU or other radioactive material," UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner said in a statement.

"In addition, no DU shrapnel, or other radioactive residue was found. The analysis of all smear samples taken shows no DU, nor enriched uranium nor higher than natural uranium content in the samples."

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YOU HAVE TO START WORRYING if you're a newspaper and even Reuters (Reuters!) feels it has to put some caveats over what you print. Here's the start of Reuters' Press Digest reporting what's today in the NYT's frontpage:

The New York Times reported the following stories on its front page on Thursday. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

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WHY EVEN DEATH PENALTY OPPONENTS can be in favor of Saddam's sentence:

If there is one class of person who deserves, and indeed needs to have, the death penalty, it is the mass murdering tyrant like Saddam. If given life sentences, these autocrats almost always have many adherents who devote their lives to springing the dictator so he can return to power and kill again. These die-hard adherents (we've seen plenty already in Iraq) will do this either directly via insurrection or prison break or indirectly via hostage-taking that could go on and on and result in many deaths.

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SADDAM HUSSEIN has just been sentenced to death. Hope he rots in hell.

UPDATE. Omar and Mohammed, of Iraq The Model, write their first impressions at Pajamas Media.

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THERE WE GO AGAIN:

A German parliamentarian of Turkish origin has called for Muslim women to throw off their headscarves and embrace Western values. After receiving death threats for the remarks, she is under police protection. Politicians are defending her right to free speech.

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THE BEST Halloween costume I've seen in a long time, by far.

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