Cheney's "X" No Accident - Daily Pundit

And as Dymphna says, isn't it interesting how these things never happen to left-of-center media darlings.

So, you've already heard about the big X that appeared over Vice President Dick Cheney's face during a CNN broadcast. Now, we all have our own ideas about media bias, so a lot of us were reluctant to jump to conclusions. (Yours truly has refrained from posting on this until now.) And even some cautious right-of-center bloggers were willing to accept the theory that the X was just an innocuous technical glitch of some sort. But Bill Quick of Daily Pundit has the exclusive scoop:

CNN Employee On Tape: Cheney "X" Is "Freedom of Speech" - "Tell Bush And Cheney To Stop Lying"
EXCLUSIVE - MUST CREDIT BILL QUICK OF DAILY PUNDIT
*** LATEST UPDATE - CNN CONFIRMS AUTHENTICITY OF CALL, FIRES REPRESENTATIVE ***
*** SEE UPDATE BELOW - PRESKA THOMAS DEFENDS AUTHENTICITY OF TAPE ***

What call? Well, go to the link and get the full details - including audio of a viewer's phone call to CNN, and a (now ex-)employee's unhinged response. Seems that somebody at CNN decided it was a case of "freedom of speech." (Hmmm... does that sound like a "technical glitch" to you?)

Hats off to some very dedicated investigative bloggers.

Jordan's Former Ambassador to Israel is New Prime Minister

Reuters via Yahoo:

By Suleiman al-Khalidi
AMMAN (Reuters) - Jordan's King Abdullah appointed national security chief as prime minister on Thursday, two weeks after triple suicide bombings killed 60 people, a senior official said.

The official said the monarch asked acting national security head, Marouf Bakheet, who had also been serving as the king's office chief of staff, to form a new government following the resignation of Adnan Badran, 69, a U.S.-educated academic appointed last April, and his government.

The choice of Bakheet, 58, a former ambassador to Israel with a long career in military intelligence, underscores the king's desire to give security forces a bigger role in decision making, a senior official told Reuters. ...

Read the rest at the link.

Pajamas Media: A Guide for the Perplexed

This post will highlight some of the best blogs from the newly-formed Pajamas Open Source Pajamas Media. The alternative media organization's website offers readers a preview of what's in store. Personally I'm enthralled with the look of the new logo: the "zen-meets-grafitti" look is very happening. Very LA, even.

The Pajamas sidebar is the key to its success. At least, I'm hoping so, because if we're counting on the main screen, we're all in trouble. The sidebar features (in order of importance), the Pajamas Open Source Pajamas Media Blogroll, Pajamas Open Source Pajamas Media Blogs, Pajamas Open Source Pajamas Media Editorial Advisory Board, and the real big shots.

The most important people, of course, are the humble folks on the plain old blogroll. These include names like Cool Blue, Iraqi Bloggers Central, Dr. Sanity, Meryl Yourish, Winds of Change, and other tragically underappreciated blogs. Rand Simberg of Transterrestrial Musings wasn't in New York for the launch party, but his voice could be heard shouting "Liftoff! We have liftoff!"

(Inexplicably overlooked was The Iraq War Was Wrong Blog.)

Now the inconspicuous, unstarred names on the Pajamas Open Source Pajamas Media Blogroll are more important than you might realize. Because you see, we are actually undercover agents who are compelled to keep a low profile for security reasons. But I digress.

Branding is very important to Pajamas Open Source Pajamas Media, which is why not just any blog can call itself one of the Pajamas Open Source Pajamas Media Blogs. These are the big leaguers like Atlas Shrugs, Confederate Yankee, Dean's World, Gay Patriot, Kesher Talk, LaShawn Barber, Michael Totten, Michelle Malkin, the lady with the apple, and Sisu (prounounced "Sissy Willis").

Blogging from an undisclosed location, Omar and Mohammed of Iraq the Model are affiliated with Pajamas Open Source Pajamas Media in ways that are as mysterious as their last name (shhhh! don't tell if you already know) and the mind of the elusive Third Brother Ali, who reportedly will return one day to establish the ... er, well, it's a long story.

Moving still further up the food chain, we come to the ranks of the Pajamas Open Source Pajamas Media Editorial Advisory Board. It's not just an editorial board, and it's not just an advisory board. It's a board to advise the editors on how to give their editorial advice. The Editorial Advisory Board includes the woman for whom "fabulous" doesn't even come close, Cliff May of FDD, Claudia Rosett, and the man who owns the copyright on the phrase "Faster, please."

Last but by no means least, we have the staff of Pajamas Open Source Pajamas Media. Australian editor Wretchard of The Belmont Club occasionally writes under the pseudonym "Richard Fernandez".

Glenn Reynolds aka Instapundit is known as the "Paul Revere of the Internet". During one of our lengthy and profound conversations at the New York event, I asked Glenn how he had come by that nickname. "Well," he confided, "I think people have always seen me as a kind of a 'Paul Revere' figure. At least, I often hear folks saying something about 'the horse I rode in on ...'"

And finally, there are co-founders Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs, Roger L. Simon whose blog is mysteriously called Roger L. Simon, and most important of all, honorary president Ann Althouse, who has written more about Pajamas Open Source Pajamas Media than anyone else.

Let's blogroll!

An Exit Strategy on Iraq

Janet in Venice Beach is the author of the following letter to Congresswoman Jane Harmon; it is posted at Thomas R. McIntyre's site, Truth on Iraq:

All this recent uproar in congress about ' needing to define an exitstrategy' rubs me entirely the wrong way. it sounds and looks andsmells to me like pure posturing for the camera and microphones. it's disingenuous and it pisses me off.if any of these idiots were actually bothering to follow events in iraq,the real events,they would'nt be carrying on so ignorantly. turn offthe mainstream media and get your news from the people living it, overthere.if i can do it, you can do it.i have to conclude that i am better informed about iraq than they are.which is pretty damning, considering.we HAVE an exit strategy. we're already enacting it. . our guys on theground in country know what they're doing. the jerks on the news, backhere, don't know crap.don't you become one of them.

the iraqis know what needs to happen. thesoldiers know what needs to happen.the so called 'insurgents' [read, jihad criminals] are watchingeverything you do, the way vultures and wolves watch for the weakeningones in the herd.knock it off with this hue and cry for a pullout date. they'll set theirfilthy watches by that, and wait. how stupid could you possibly be? if that's how you think, then the next time you go on vacation, be sureto put up big signs all around your house, saying 'leaving as of the nth of ___' and tell everyone on the block you can't see what's wrong with that. OK?

you just had a tragic demonstration in New ORleans, of what happens whenthe Government comes along, telling everyone it's time to leave, period,get out right now, you can't take time and do it right.you have people in need, abandoned to die, in fear, helpless, left ontheir own in the face of criminals with guns and ammo, anarchy, chaos,starvation, death, and an immensity of injustice. you have animals leftto die slow, agonizing, waiting ends. you have lifetime businessesdestroyed, sacked, looted, unprotected. you have lifetime possessions,homes, works, forced to be left behind, unfinished, at the mercy offate.but it wasn't fate. it was due to the dictates of some idiot who wasn'tliving there, who opened their ignorant mouth to those who were.

obviously, you must not have learned anything, tho it was shown to youin excuciating detail, day after day.oh, and this time, there won't be any swarm of rescuers in helicopterscoming day after day to find the lost and take them to safety.no, why should we care what happens to them? they aren't 'like us',right? they're all just strange, swarthy 'little brown people', faraway, over there, 'sand niggers', who don't speak like us, who don'tmatter, no, what matters is 'our way of life, here at home, for ourkind'.how profoundly offensive. ...

Read the rest here.

Today Is Thanksgiving

... according to Apple Computer. My 17" PowerBook has been acting funny, and I called Apple's customer support line. I'm getting the following message:

Welcome to the AppleCare service and support line. For additional support options, please consider visiting our website. For technical support, press 1.... [two beeps] Please wait.

Thanks for calling Apple. In observance of the Thanksgiving holiday, the contact center will be closed Thanksgiving Day....

Well, happy Thanksgiving to you, too, guys. Nice that you got to close up shop early. Guess I'll have to call you back another time ... if that's not too inconvenient for you.

Sundries: Why are people conservative?

Commenter Victoria keeps a blog called Sundries, which I enthusiastically and unreservedly recommend to you. Here's the homepage link again, just in case you forgot to bookmark it on your browser the first time.

Here's a terrific post on conservatism:

One of the most important lessons from evolution, a theory held in much respect by certain people (including myself), is that nature will tend towards survival over death, and go about ways of preserving themselves. When change comes it is most often gradual, unless a cataclysmic event intervenes.

Upheaval, revolt, anarchy, all these states of change are considerably more risky than the certainty of stasis.

And yet, this response does a severe injustice to Conservatism, because it infers that all progress is by default, Liberal in nature.

The old, "Conservatism is stuck, whilst Liberalism marches forward" theory.

This is the idea that allows political progressives to debase any proposal that doesn't emanate from the well-spring of their philosophy.

It becomes a challenge, even an affront that positive change is happening without they leading the charge.

In short, for such people, progress is inconceivable without progressives.

And this is wrong. ...

Read it all at the link.

LPJ praises CNN feature ... and interviews ITM brothers!

Sami at Lebanese Political Journal has some kind words for CNN today, in particular the network's week-long feature Eye on the Middle East. LPJ writes:

CNN is running a week long series entitled "Eye on the Middle East." Hala Gorani is reporting from Amman, and Jim Clancy is reporting from Beirut. They are holding live events in both capitals, and they are doing a fantastic job.

Jim Clancy hosted a showcalled CNN Connects focusing on issues effecting Arab youth [the program aired in Beirut at 8pm Tuesday night]. He brought together a group politically active people in their late 20s - early 30s from Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt.

Some major trends became apparent:
1) For people actually working for democracy, like the Iraqi pollster and the Lebanese activist Asma Andreos, America was not the major issue. They focused on issues that affect our daily lives. However, the others blabbered on and on about the evils of America, which really didn't advance their arguments about how they would build what they wanted in their countries.

Even when asked specific questions about how to make their countries better, these individuals chose to speak about America. They all had advice for what America should do, but had none they could vocalize for how to achieve their own goals.

2) Arabs don't know anything about each other. ...

Go to the link to read the rest. Also, don't miss the e-mail interview with Omar and Mohammed of Iraq the Model, covering Lebanese/Iraqi relations.

Has what happened in Lebanon had any effect on the situation in Iraq? Do people ever talk about Lebanese affairs, politics, political figures? Do Iraqis, regardless of sect, think much of Hezbollah? Are Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and Ayatollah Fadlallah even known by Shia in Iraq? Do you know what Iraqi Shia think of al Manar TV?

I personally think the situation in Iraq and Lebanon pretty much began to relate to each other since the assassination of Hariri. Many Iraqis think that the freedom of speech in Iraq had encouraged the Lebanese to start the Cedar revolution.

And, also many Iraqis are optimistic to see more pressure applied on Asad and his gang and they hope the international investigation will lead to ending the rule of Ba'ath in Syria or at least get the Syrians to leave Iraq alone ...

Read it all at the link. And be sure to check out that CNN feature.

1st LAR Finds Weapons Cache - October 9

Marine Corps News:

BARWANA, Iraq (Oct. 9, 2005) -- Marines with 1st Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion uncovered a cache of weapons after receiving a tip on the site’s approximate location.

Marines, sailors and soldiers from Regimental Combat Team-2 and from the 2nd Brigade Combat Team received the tip while conducting Operation River Gate in the town of Barwana and surrounding areas. Their mission for the operation was to eliminate insurgents, disrupt lines of communication and prevent interference with the Constitutional Referendum.

At the suspected cache site, Marines from Weapons Company and combat engineers from 1st Combat Engineer Battalion attached to 1st LAR discovered man-made dirt mounds, heavy equipment tracks and an area which appeared to have something buried underneath it.

“The area was larger than we had anticipated and it was quickly getting dark out,” said 1st Lt. James P. Donovan, a 29-year-old combat engineer. “We decided to come back at first light with mine sweeping and metal detecting devices.”

Weapons Company Marines posted security to prevent anyone from tampering with the site that night and returned in the morning ready to begin searching.

Pfc. Michael D. O’Neill, 21, and Donovan were conducting sweeps of the area when O’Neill’s metal detector began to sound.

“I had been picking up signals before and they turned out to be trash, but the length of this detection made me think,” O’Neill, a combat engineer and Amissville, Va., native commented. "I outlined the area, which was about 10 feet long, and the Marines began to dig.”

After a few minutes of digging, they discovered the outside of a structure and soon after, they uncovered the roof and a door.

“We pried the door open and I looked inside,” Donovan, East Point, Ga., native said. “The first thing I saw was 120 mm mortars ...

Read the rest at the link.
Hat tip: 1 of the Few - 1st Light Armored Infantry Bn. veterans' site

Talabani to Visit Iran

From Marze Por Gohar:

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani is due to arrive in Iran today on a three-day visit.

Talabani is scheduled to have talks in Tehran with Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, among other top officials.

Topics of discussion are expected to include border security and Iran's participation in the reconstruction of Iraq.

Talabani's visit comes after Iraq's national security chief, Muwaffaq Rubaie, visited Tehran last week.

Visit MPG homepage.

Mohammed on Cairo Conference

Mohammed at Iraq the Model weighs in on the Arab League conference in Cairo:

Some try to overlook regional and international balances and forget that Iraq is part of these balances and they even try to ignore the resolutions of the UN and Security Council forgetting that they also are part of this system which they’re going to rely on for one thing or another sooner or later.

What we actually need is to encourage the reasonable middle trend that weighs things by interests and logic, not emotions and mood and does not use a use that boring poetic language when discussing a technical task.

Anyway, I think this conference is going to change very little from the situation on the ground; those who endorse and practice violence do not really seek legitimacy from this or that conference.
But there are still a few good things that came out of this meeting as this is the first time since the fall of the past regime when the Arab League denounces Saddam’s regime opening the door for discrediting more dictatorships in the future.

Second there was a condemnation for media networks that were asked to lower their tone a bit and to stop saying things that might create hatred or encourage sectarian or ethnic differences and this call addressed both, Arabic and Iraqi media that is serving certain partisan interests. ...

Read the whole article at the link.

In other news, The Religious Policeman finds a mosque that won't sweep the vermin under the rug:

So I was therefore pleased to read this small piece of news from a small town in the North of England, and incidentally home to one of the 7/7 London bombers.

Jihad videos left in mosques in tube bomber's town

The headline, of course, is bad news. Some vermin had scuttled into a mosque and left its droppings, with Jihadi propaganda tapes and DVD's placed alongside the genuine religious material.

The tape is understood to show scenes of violence against Muslims, including footage of funeral processions and burials from Iraq overlaid by verses from the Qur'an. Along with others, it was left with genuine religious material at the mosque's reception area in sleeves allegedly disguised to suggest that the contents were celebratory sermons and texts

However, the good news is that worshippers at the mosque, instead of "keeping it to themselves" or "keeping it within the community", showed that they rejected its message, didn't want their young people polluted by it, felt themselves to be responsible members of the wider community, and handed the material into the police.

RTWT.

Arash Sigarchi

Rachel Hoff at Middle East Forum:

On January 17, 2005, Iranian security forces arrested 28-year-old Iranian journalist and weblogger Arash Sigarchi for espionage and insulting leaders of the Islamic Republic. Sigarchi, editor of the daily Gilan Emrooz (Gilan[1] Today), had antagonized regime officials with outspoken dissent on two blogs, Panjareh-yi Eltehab (Window of Anguish) to which he was a regular contributor, as well as his own blog, http://www.sigarchi.com/blog.

Sigarchi was aware of the dangers of his actions. His posts chronicled the arrests of fellow bloggers. He spoke out against the abuse of two fellow bloggers, Shahram Rafihzadeh and Rozbeh Mir Ebrahimi. In 2004, Iranian authorities arrested and beat more than twenty other blogging dissidents. Sigarchi had himself been harassed by the police who detained him for several days in August 2004 after he posted online an article with photos of a dissident rally in Tehran.[2]

Nevertheless, Iranian dissidents are increasingly penning blogs to voice criticism of the Islamic Republic and to push for freedom and democracy. With an estimated 100,000 active Iranian blogs, Persian is now tied with French as the second most common blogging language after English.[3]

Sigarchi's most recent arrest coincided with an Iranian government crackdown on blogging. ...

Go to the link to read the rest of the article. See also: Arash Sigarchi blog (Persian). Hat tip: Ann, via e-mail.

Related: Iran Focus via Free Iran: Tehran top cop to crack down on dissent.

Wed. 9 Nov 2005

http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=4360

Iran Focus

Tehran, Iran, Nov. 09 – Iranian police are planning to boost a national security plan that will effectively increase a crackdown already in effect, the chief of police in Greater Tehran announced on Wednesday.

Brigadier General Morteza Talai told the Fars news agency, run by the office of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, that the plan which was scheduled to have ended on Friday would continue to be in effect and would be enhanced.

A “Plan to Combat Trouble-makers” was launched in Tehran in September and soon spread to cities and towns across the nation. Under the scheme, thousands have been arrested within a period of several months for various charges such as “racketeering” and “loansharking”. ...

Stay in touch with Iranian activism at Free Iran News and Regime Change Iran.

Taste of Freedom

Sgt Hook: Taste of Freedom

Mom,

Be my voice. I want this message heard. It is mine and my platoon’s to the country. A man I know lost his legs the other night. He is in another company in our batallion. I can no longer be silent after watching the sacrifices made by Iraqis and Americans everyday.Send it to a congressman if you have to. Send it to FOX news if you have to. Let this message be heard please…

My fellow Americans, I have a task for those with the courage and fortitude to take it. I have a message that needs not fall on deaf ears. A vision the blind need to see. I am not a political man nor one with great wisdom. I am just a soldier who finds himself helping rebuild a country that he helped liberate a couple years ago.
I have watched on television how the American public questions why their mothers, fathers, brothers, and sisters are fighting and dying in a country 9000 miles away from their own soil. Take the word of a soldier, for that is all I am, that our cause is a noble one. The reason we are here is one worth fighting for. A cause that has been the most costly and sought after cause in our small span of existence on our little planet. Bought in blood and paid for by those brave enough to give the ultimate sacrifice to obtain it. A right that is given to every man, woman, and child I believe by God. I am talking of freedom.

Freedom. One word but yet countless words could never capture it’s true meaning or power. “For those who have fought for it, freedom has a taste the protected will never know.” I read that once and it couldn’t be more true. It’s not the average American’s fault that he or she is “blind and deaf” to the taste of freedom. Most American’s are born into their God given right so it is all they ever know. I was once one of them. I would even dare to say that it isn’t surprising that they take for granted what they have had all their life. My experiences in the military however opened my eyes to the truth.

Ironically you will find the biggest outcries of opposition to our cause from those who have had no military experience and haven’t had to fight for freedom. I challenge all of those who are daring enough to question such a noble cause to come here for just a month and see it first hand. I have a feeling that many voices would be silenced.

I watched Cindy Sheehan sit on the President’s lawn and say that America isn’t worth dying for. Later she corrected herself and said Iraq isn’t worth dying for. She badmouthed all that her son had fought and died for. I bet he is rolling over in his grave.

Ladies and gentleman I ask you this. What if you lived in a country that wasn’t free? What if someone told you when you could have heat, electricity, and water? What if you had no sewage systems so human waste flowed into the streets? What if someone would kill you for bad-mouthing your government? What if you weren’t allowed to watch TV, connect to the internet, or have cell phones unless under extreme censorship? What if you couldn’t put shoes on your child’s feet?

You need not to have a great understanding of the world but rather common sense to realize that it is our duty as HUMAN BEINGS to free the oppressed. If you lived that way would you not want someone to help you????

The Iraqis pour into the streets to wave at us and when we liberated the cities during the war they gathered in the thousands to cheer, hug and kiss us. It was what the soldier’s in WW2 experienced, yet no one questioned their cause!! Saddam was no better than Hitler! He tortured and killed thousands of innocent people. We are heroes over here, yet American’s badmouth our President for having us here.

Every police station here has a dozen or more memorials for officers that were murdered trying to ensure that their people live free. These are husbands, fathers, and sons killed every day. What if it were your country? What would your choice be? Everything we fight for is worth the blood that may be shed. The media never reports the true HEROISM I witness everyday in the Iraqi’s. Yes there are bad one’s here, but I assure you they are a minuscule percent. Yet they are a number big enough to cause worry in this country’s future.

I have watched brave souls give their all and lose thier lives and limbs for this cause. I will no longer stand silent and let the “deaf and blind” be the only voice shouting. Stonewall Jackson once said, “All that I have, all that I am is at the service of the country.” For these brave souls who gave the ultimate sacrifice, including your son Cindy Sheehan, I will shout till I can no longer. These men and women are heroes. Their spirit lives on in their military and they will never be forgotten. They did not die in vain but rather for a cause that is larger than all of us.

My fellow countrymen and women, we are not overseas for our country alone but also another. We are here to spread democracy and freedom to those who KNOW the true taste of it because they fight for it everyday. You can see the desire in their eyes and I am honored to fight alongside them as an Infantryman in the 101st Airborne.

Freedom is not free, but yet it is everyone’s right to have. Ironic isn’t it? That is why we are here. Though you will always have the skeptics, I know that most of our military will agree with this message. Please, at the request of this soldier spread this message to all you know. We are in Operation Iraqi Freedom and that is our goal. It is a cause that I and thousands of others stand ready to pay the ultimate sacrifice for because, Cindy Sheehan, freedom is worth dying for, no matter what country it is! And after the world is free only then can we hope to have peace.

SGT XXX and 1st Platoon
101st Airborne Division (Air Assault)

Please also visit the homepage of my old unit:
1st Light Armored Infantry Battalion, USMC