The University of Texas branch of the Young Conservatives of Texas has announced it will stage a nativity scene this upcoming weekend, only their nativity scene will be politically correct and called the “ACLU Nativity Scene.”

“We’ve got Gary and Joseph instead of Mary and Joseph in order to symbolize ACLU support for homosexual marriage, and of course there isn’t a Jesus in the manger,” said Chairman Tony McDonald. “The three Wise Men are Lenin, Marx, and Stalin because the founders of the ACLU were strident supporters of Soviet style Communism. The whole scene is a tongue-in-cheek way of showing the many ways that the ACLU and the far left are out of touch with the values of mainstream America.”

The scene will also display a terrorist shepherd and an angel in the form of Nancy Pelosi.

Sounds interesting really, and if I was in Austin I’d stop by.  Perhaps a road trip is in order?

Via Moonbattery

A top Iranian cleric, Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Fazel Lankarani, has issued a fatwa for the death of two journalists for “offending Islam.”

“It is the duty of every good Muslim to help the execution of this fatwa,” wrote on his website the cleric, who is based in the holy Shiite city of Qom.

Rafegh Taghi, an editorialist for the newspaper Senet, published in Baku in the republic of Azerbaijan, is considered guilty of having offended Islam and its Prophet Mohammed in an article called ‘Us and Europe’ which Lankarani slammed as “clearly offensive to Islam” because it talks about “the superiority of Europe compared to the Middle East .. it considers Islam inferior to Christianity .. offends the Prophet Mohammed.”

Samir Sedaghatoglu, the paper’s publisher, has instead been charged with “not forbidding the apostate to offend Islam.”

So Sedaghatoglu’s ‘offense’ was to allow the publication of Taghi’s article, thus Sedaghatoglu personally did nothing to offend Islam and yet he still got a fatwa for his head on a plate.

Meanwhile Ali Bardakoglu, who heads Ankara’s Directorate General for Religious Affairs which controls Turkish imams and writes their sermons, said all Muslims were offended by suggestions Islam is violent.  It is the suggestion that Islam is violent that, according to Bardakoglu, sparks violence in the name of Islam.  What did Sedaghtoglu do exactly to merit his death warrant?

Yep, it’s crystal clear now.

Consider me underwhelmed.

It was a solemn pledge, repeated by Democratic leaders and candidates over and over: If elected to the majority in Congress, Democrats would implement all of the recommendations of the bipartisan commission that examined the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

But with control of Congress now secured, Democratic leaders have decided for now against implementing the one measure that would affect them most directly: a wholesale reorganization of Congress to improve oversight and funding of the nation’s intelligence agencies. Instead, Democratic leaders may create a panel to look at the issue and produce recommendations, according to congressional aides and lawmakers. (source)

The suggestions made by the 9/11 Commission were just that, suggestions.  It’s never meant those suggestions were the best course of action, just those that the Commission wanted to see addressed.

It is that reason that I thought the Democratic campaign slogan to follow all 9/11 Commission recommendations was good in spirit, but potentially harmful to this nation.  The threat has changed dramatically since the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, not mentioning the changing Islamist strategy, therefore to believe the 9/11 Commission could have known all changes that needed to be made would have been a fallacy.  In essense, any voter who voted Democratic this past mid-term on this one issue alone understands the threat of radical Islam no better than Jimmy Carter.

From The Jawa Report:

The Iraqi Ministry of the Interior announced that it has captured the Baghdad sniper known as Ali Nazar al Jubori. The name sounds eerily familiar. al Jubori….could this be the original Juba sniper? That is the claim being made.

Let me remind my readers that the “Juba the Baghdad sniper” does not exist–at least, not in the heroic sense that the jihadi crowd has painted him as. He’s a myth. A piece of fictional propaganda produced by terrorists. A heroic superman for the al Qaeda supporters of the world.

This Juba guy was credited with, at one time around six months ago, over 400 kills of U.S. military personnel.  Of course those who gave Juba the kills are those that support him, and the facts on the ground always ran counter to Juba’s claims.

Dr. Shackleford is completely right.  The man was always a myth, which means his capture is worth more than if he had been real.

In an email exchange with reader Ahsileri, I commented upon the Pope viting Ahsileri’s home nation of Turkey and the trumped up protests that were publicized over the weekend here in the states. For a bit of a background, this was the pertinent part of my email to him.

It’s been interesting watching the news coverage of the Pope’s visit to Turkey here in the States. Our media was certain something would happen, be it an assassination attempt, mass riots (not protests) or something else entirely horrible. Nothing of that kind has happened, that I have read naturally, which is what I expected. Sure, there are protests and I think they are misguided protests when AQ in Iraq states the Pope is on a “crusader campaign” showing all Turks what they really should be protesting, but that’s it. It continues to baffle me why some people would hold religoiusly based protests against a man who resides over a church they don’t worship, but when a group that at least pretends to be followers of their faith call for violence, there are no protests.

Ahsileri responded (edited for spacing only):

I’m glad to see the Pope in country…and hope that his visit goes by peacefully. It has thus far!

He is currently just a few hundred yards from where I am at the office, we are “landlocked” ie in the zone where all traffic is blocked.

I thought this would’ve been an excellent opportunity for the gov’t to push forward on the meeting of religions/cultures issue…but these folks (and most of the public as well!!) have such a warped idea of his speech this summer and what he was referring to…that they could not see past the “trees” …

In any case the PM’s meeting at the airport was well done…tho’ the decision to be there should not have taken such delibaration on the part of his party …or himself for that matter.

Had he wanted to impress the world (as he says he is doing!!??) and impress upon the world Turkey’s importance, he personally should have been the one to host Pope benedict around in his pilgrimage (as the Vatican calls his visit!).

The NATO meeting in Riga could have waited (as it did) for the PM to fly in and out for this special visit…probably the event for a generation or so!

I was unhappy about the way the media (local and foreign) portrayed the protests in Istanbul this past Sunday…yes the protests were par for the democratic course…but I think they meritted much less coverage (which is what was wanted by the meetings organisers) and much less colorful coverage…colorful in the sense of flags and beards and the typical islamist model…

This is in fact NOT Turkey…it is how some of these radicals would wish Turkey to be. The “anatolian” figure is nowhere near this picture, nor is the Istanbul-ite…yes the country is mostly moslem and yes people will have different views on religion…

However, what was seen on the coverage and protesting is definitely not Turkey… crowds of max 25K people that were “coerced/paid” to be there by a political party (Erbakan’s former Saadet or welfare party…islamist and of which the present gov’t is an off-shoot…Erbakan was sentenced to prison a few months ago on an immense “green” fund conglomerate scam…him and his “ilk” milked thousands of Turks in Europe for millions of Deutsch Marks and Euro’s over the past 15 years in a defunct stock and dividends scheme…that’s the “national view” (milli gorus) and the muslim brotherhood…!)

Regular readers know I was born and baptized Catholic, but they also know I don’t take whatever the Pope says nor the teachings of the Catholic Church as law. When I saw the Pope’s comments, and I still have not seen a full transcript of his speech to find out what else he said that was not reported, I knew there would be Islamist groups who took the more publicized words as evidence of a grand attack upon Islam. Sure enough, they did, and they even threw the United States and Jews with the Pope as if the U.S. or Jewish people have anything to do with the Pope.

It’s desparation on the Islamists’ part really; nothing more, nothing less. And that’s what makes the coverage of the Pope’s visit to Turkey so humorous to me. We are told all Turks are protesting the Pope’s visit, but it is just a small fraction of Turks who actually did the protesting. If all Turks and all Muslims were really peeved by the Pope’s comments, why would one Turkish Muslim work while the Pope was just a few blocks away from his office?

The second ever suicide bombing in Somalia took place this morning.  The bomber was a woman whom the Somali government claims is connected to Al Qaida.

A veiled woman and two other suicide bombers exploded cars outside the base of Somalia’s weak government Thursday, killing themselves and three accomplices hours after Ethiopia took another step toward war with its Islamic rivals in the country.

Thursday’s suicide bombing was only the second in the country’s history. But the tactic has been widely used by Islamic extremists in Iraq and Afghanistan, both battlegrounds for al Qaeda fighters.

Officials of Somalia’s Ethiopian-backed government blamed the attacks on foreign al Qaeda fighters. Somalia’s president, who narrowly escaped the first suicide car bombing in September, has claimed Islamic extremists have drawn up a hit list of top officials in his weak administration.

The Islamic Courts Union, backed by Iran, Al Qaida and Hezbollah among others, has threatened suicide bombing to the UN recognized government of Somalia after the ICU took over the majority of the nation and the nation’s most important ports.  This is troubling for several reasons, but one of those is that it is suspected Iran has sent Hezbollah operatives to Somalia to train ICU militants in exchange for uranium.

The ICU claims to have divine power and a divine mandate to govern, using only tactics fully in compliance with Islam.  Like a broken record, suicide is not permitted by Islam, yet these Islamist groups continue to take bits and pieces from the Koran to use for their own terrorist tactics.

Unimpressed with earlier calls for massive protests in Lebanon to force the Democratically elected government of Lebanon to step down, Hezbollah is calling for another protest this Friday.  Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said the Lebanese government “has proven it is incompetent and has failed to fulfill its promises and achieve anything significant.”

Opposition groups said in a statement that they “call on all the Lebanese of all sects and parties … to gather peacefully and stage an open-ended sit-in to protest the absence of real political participation and to demand a national unity government, whose priority is to decide a new election law.”

They called on supporters to carry only the Lebanese flag and to avoid displaying party banners or posters.

Of course they don’t want Hezbollah flags or Nasrallah posters.  It makes for an entirely different message sent to the world. And now even that this is a known quantity, does anyone want to make a wager with me that the press will still under-report the involvement of Hezbollah when these protests occur?

Lebanon Prime Minister Fuad Saniora warns that Lebanon’s democracy is in danger from Hezbollah, clearly a group who accepts democracy when it works in their favor but rejects it when it wants complete power.

“We will not allow the overthrow of the democratic system, its foundations and its institutions … We are staying in our place,” Saniora said in a nationally televised address . . .

“Lebanon’s independence is threatened and its democratic system is in danger,” he said, adding: “Do not be afraid and do not despair. We have a rightful cause. Threats will not deter us. Maneuvers and ultimatums will not terrorize us.”

Why the Lebanese population allows Hezbollah to put a seige upon their government continues to baffle me.  The entire Hezbollah-Israel war was started by Hezbollah and dragged the entire nation of Lebanon into the conflict.  Hezbollah is proving they have little regard for the will of the people within Lebanon, just like every other Islamist group.

ABC News cites an exclusive noting U.S. military personnel in Iraq are now saying they have direct evidence Iran is arming “Shia militias.”  They aren’t arming Shit militias, they are arming and training the Mahdi Army who is a Shia militia.  The distinction is important because it is the Mahdi Army’s leader, Muqtada al Sadr, who controls a powerful voting block within the Iraqi government and has traveled to Iran countless times.

According to a senior defense official, coalition forces have recently seized Iranian-made weapons and munitions that bear manufacturing dates in 2006.

This suggests, say the sources, that the material is going directly from Iranian factories to Shia militias, rather than taking a roundabout path through the black market. “There is no way this could be done without (Iranian) government approval,” says a senior official.

Iranian-made munitions found in Iraq include advanced IEDs designed to pierce armor and anti-tank weapons. U.S. intelligence believes the weapons have been supplied to Iraq’s growing Shia militias from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, which is also believed to be training Iraqi militia fighters in Iran.

But we’ve really known this for some time, though there was no “smoking gun” as this find is being called.  Iran has been at war with the United States since November 4, 1979.  It’s about time we recognize it.

Iraq Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and U.S. President George Bush met earlier today in Amman, Jordan, and Malaki said all militias in Iraq must be ended.  That does include the Mahdi Army, but in the past Malaki has balked at offensives aimed at clensing the slums of Sadr City of Mahdi Army.  The Mahdi Army, now with evidence of Iranian influence and weaponry, consists of both anti-Coalition forces and death squads intent on murdering Sunnis in Iraq. Whether or not Malaki will say the same thing once he’s in Baghdad and actually carry it out may be another thing.

Malaki also said the Iraqi military will fully take over in June of 2007.  The Iraqi military already controls most of the passive regions and the violence we continue to see comes out of the same regions it always has.

I missed this story over the Thanksgiving break, but I did hear something about the alleged burning of six Iraqis at a mosque during that time. I remember thinking about what utter evil must be inside someone to burn another living being alive and wondering why Iraqis don’t rise up en masse to rid their nation of these types of killers. Now it doesn’t really matter as the story appears to have been a fabrication trumped up and sold (figuratively) to the Associated Press for mass distribution.

The story evolves around the story-telling of one Jamil Hussein. Who is Jamil Hussein you ask? He’s not, according to the Multinational Forces Iraq, a Baghdad police officer as the AP claims or a member of the MOI. Hussein claimed to be an eye witness to such a horrific event, an event the MNF-I cannot confirm every happend. In fact, the MNf-I asked people within the area and no one else said this event happened. Maybe Stephen Glass knows who Jamil Hussein is?

While this is troubling, so too is the Associated Press’ reaction to a Pentagon request at a complete retraction of the story (via Gateway Pundit).

The Associated Press denounces unfounded attacks on its story about six Sunni worshipers burned to death outside their mosque on Friday, November 24. The attempt to question the existence of the known police officer who spoke to the AP is frankly ludicrous and hints at a certain level of desperation to dispute or suppress the facts of the incident in question.

But Jamil Hussein is not a police officer. He’s not a member of the MOI. Who, frankly, is he?

The attacks upon the AP story are because people doubt the reported event ever took place, confirmed by no witnesses coming forth to back up the AP’s assertion. If an event like this took place, would not even one Iraqi newspaper of the hundreds that sprung up following the fall of Saddam report upon the event? You would think so, but apparently that hasn’t happened either.

The AP feels there is a “desperation to dispute or suppress the facts of the incident,” but they reiterate a falsehood in their complaint. It is the AP that sounds desperate and doesn’t seem to have all their eggs in one basket. If the event had occured but Jamil Hussein was a member of whichever terrorist group carried out the attack, thus tricking the AP reporter which would be understandable, why wouldn’t the AP respond Jamil Hussein was most likely a terrorist plant but they had confirmed the story elsewhere?

It is odd that the easiest part of the story to prove false is the one the AP is sticking behind most. It sounds like some company needs a better PR team, but I’m not applying as I wouldn’t want to explain why my employer passes of the enemies message as truth. Of course they also wouldn’t hire me because I consider Islamism the wrong side of the conflict.

This is one reason why I don’t like this part of Texas that I live in (Dallas).  We’re supposed to get an ice storm sometime over the night, and every news station is acting like the ice will carry small nuclear bombs.  Reporters are throughout the area reporting on the weather conditions and one school district has already announced a delayed start time for tommorow.

Right now only rain has fallen, and it has been in the 70s the past few days so good luck sticking to the ground if there is any ice coming.  These television reporters are claiming it’s in the 30s now, but I just walked outside in shorts and sandals and it doesn’t feel that cold to me.

But it’s hysteria in Dallas when there’s even the slightest chance there will be ice on the roads.  People freak out like they’ll be trapped inside their homes for weeks at a time.  This would be the absolute worst time to go grocery shopping, as there won’t be anything on the shelves.

So now, our non-Dallas readers know what it’s like to live in Dallas during the winter.  The storm is already being dubbed the “Artic Blast,” and I hear they are already working on a movie for it.