Note to reporters: If you get held captive, better it be done by “Islamofascists” instead of Africans

Two-time Pulitzer-Prize-winning Chicago Tribune reporter Paul Salopek made a giant mistake recently. Instead of going to Iraq and being kidnapped by evil “islamofascists” and garnering world-wide headlines, he went to Africa, where the Western world could just care less.

Salopek was arrested in the Darfur region of Sudan — where more than 200,000 people have been killed and 3 million rendered homeless since 2003 — for “Spying, writing false news and the illegal dissemination of news” among other things.

That a Pulitizer-Prize winning reporter from the Chicago Tribune gets taken in to custody in a foreign country should be huge news, but it really isn’t. Basically, Salopek was taken hostage by the wrong people. Here is what the media is talking about as far as Americans being kidnapped: Jill Carroll (kidnapped in Iraq, released several months ago), and the recently released Fox News workers Olaf Wiig and Steve Centanni.

On Google News:

Stories on Paul Salopek: 582

Stories on Jill Carroll: 1,700

Stories on Olaf Wiig: 3,940

Stories on Steve Centanni: 4,180

And, just for the hell of it:

Stories on John Mark Karr: 21,300

Salopek’s life and freedom are in danger in one of the most dangerous and deadly places in the world. He was there working on an assignment for National Geographic. And now, he sits in jail, mostly ignored as the U.S. government and media work overtime to keep visions of “Islamofascists” dancing in the public’s head.

An editorial run by USAToday and other outlets on the Salopek situation is titled: “U.S. reporter’s arrest shows Sudan has something to hide.”

This couldn’t be further from the truth. They aren’t hiding anything. The Western world just continues to lack any interest in seeing.

-WKW

Terrorist target No. 1 - Nebraska - scores $21 million of tax-payer cash from Homeland Security

Terror-stricken Nebraska residents rejoice! The Department of Homeland Security has seen your plight and distributed more that $21 million in Federal funds to help Nebraskans fight the scourge of terrorism.

“In awarding this funding, we’ve remained focused addressing the challenge of integrating communication among our rural, urban and suburban areas,” said Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman. “Without this stream of federal funding that became available following 9/11, these efforts to work toward a statewide communications system would have taken decades, not years, to complete because of the enormous cost.”

Nebraska’s prior communications system involved a complicated scheme of shoulder tapping and hollering. Now, the robust state with a population closing in on 1.8 million can get the sophisticated communications system that it so richly deserves.

Reportedly, experts have noticed an increase in terrorist chatter that continues to not involve Nebraska in any way, shape or form. This is very likely a show of cunning by terrorist groups like Al Qaeda, and that U.S. states like Nebraska and Iowa need extra federal funding to help avoid a certain future attack that will rain a nightmarish hell upon them, says an anonymous expert.

Nebraska, whose five electoral votes went to George W. Bush in the 2004 U.S. Presidential election, has long been considered a terrorist target by the group “People Who Take Care of Those that Take Care of Bush” The PWTCTTTCB sites the “Islamofascists blind, seething hatred of corn” as one of a plethora of reasons why terrorists would love nothing better than kill every last Nebraskan.

-WKW

Donald Rumsfeld: 66 percent of Americans are morally, intellectually confused

In keeping with their party stance of “Americans, what a bunch of dunderheads,” Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld was the latest to accuse critics of President George W. Bush of being a bunch of confused idiots, who obviously hate America.

From CNN:

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Tuesday accused critics of the Bush administration’s Iraq and counterterrorism policies of lacking the courage to fight terror.

In unusually explicit terms, Rumsfeld portrayed the administration’s critics as suffering from “moral and intellectual confusion” about what threatens the nation’s security.

Addressing several thousand veterans at the American Legion’s national convention, Rumsfeld recited what he called the lessons of history, including the failed efforts to appease the Adolf Hitler regime in the 1930s.

“I recount this history because once again we face the same kind of challenges in efforts to confront the rising threat of a new type of fascism” he said.

This comes on the heels of a recent Zogby poll that gave Bush a 34 percent approval rating. Republican insiders say this plays right into their hands in their new platform of “Opinion polls are the work of dirty islamofascists that want to murder your babies.”

-WKW

A Nerve.com Bad Erotica Contest champion comes clean

I hadn’t thought about this for a while but in 2003, on a lark, I entered the Nerve.com “Bad Erotica Contest.” I wrote an entry in about 30 minutes of divinely bad erotic inspiration and sent it in. I didn’t even give it a title or include my name, just the name that came on my e-mail “Bill.”

I forgot about it for a while until I got an e-mail from Nerve telling me I was one of the finalists and to check the Web site to see where I placed. I called my wife over, we checked the site, and lo and behold, I was the winner. I got $500 from it, which took about six months to receive, but they sent it to me. It was a fun experience.

The opening line seemed to really capture everyone’s imagination:

“She woke with the taste of his turgid penis on her lips …”

Some sites that mentioned it:

Cruel.com

Swoon

Boing Boing

Suburban Blight

i-Boy.com

And some others. I even just noticed that writer Steve Almond, one of the judges, gave a reading of it, along with the other winners. Trippy.

“That was so fun (to judge the contest). It was terrible, but so good. Good terrible. “I awoke with the taste of his turgid penis still in my mouth.” So bad it’s brilliant.” — Steve Almond

I don’t know where to find the whole story, except at Nerve.com, but you need a subscription. Trust me, it was truly hideous. But, you know, I meant it to be that way.

I just wanted to come clean, as it were.

Edit: Check that, I just found the whole story, saved by one of Gene Merrill’s “Constant State of Flux” friends, Adam. You can find it here, if you can stomach these sort of things.

Untitled
by “Bill”

She woke with the taste of his turgid penis on her lips. Even though he was gone, his juices and manhood lingered in her mind and on her cloying lips like Vaseline. The events of the previous night came racing back to her, clogging her mind with visions of ecstasy.

She had never known a man like Julio before. When he came and boldly sat next to her, the musky scent of his manliness turned her from tigress to gentle kitten. She belonged to him before his supple buttocks pressed aggressively against the tattered faux-leather covering of the barstool.

After sitting nursing his drink for what seemed like a hundred eternities to her already soaked vaginal cavity, he leaned toward her to speak. Her massive, sentimental breasts heaved in sexual anticipation. His breath, a combination of lust and malt liquor, intoxicated her nearly as much as his words.

“My name is Julio, Julio Gottstein,” he said, his smoldering eyes aflame in the victory he would soon celebrate. “And soon, I shall have you.”

Her heart pattered and swayed with passion as his rough hand took hers, and led her from the bar to her sparse, yet highly sexual studio apartment upstairs. Her eyes, clouded in lust, could see nothing but his strong, opulent frame — though he was easily four inches shorter than her, he seemed monumental in all aspects of his being.

Once inside, he wasted no time in taking what was rightfully his, pulling her close for a long, moist and humid kiss. Their tongues intertwined like snakes slithering in a dance of forbidden love. His well-trained hands ripped open her T-shirt and smoothly undid her bra with only minor help from her. Her pendulous breasts swayed in anticipation as his toothless mouth gummed her large, perpetually hard nipples to a near exploding peak. She leaned her head back in submission, allowing this perfect man to claim what was his.

She could not remember how or when this skillful man removed her girdle, panties and Levis, but soon she was naked before him. His powerful hands and majestic seven fingers pushed on her shoulders. She did not resist. Could not resist. She went to her knees and was face-to-face with his glistening, moist cockhead. His instrument of devastation was so hard and rigid, it made her flush with the need to consume it. It was as if his cock glowed with ethereal goodness.

The first taste of his glans was like honey to a ravenous bear to her, filling her with its sweet, slick nectar. She gave him all she could. She was his bitch, his whore, his conquest. She took his entire love muscle in her mouth, something she had never done before. That was her gift to him. With his dong of desire nearly touching the back of her throat, she suckled him to a hardness that would make a sixteen-year-old athletic boy weep tears of envy.

His climax came quickly and furiously, his sex sauce sliding down her throat like slimy alien invaders, guiding down her highly sexual esophagus to her creamy stomach. His authoritative hands pushed her away, and pushed his sanguine monster of mating back in to his torn khakis.

His mission complete and desire sated, he stepped back, and in the cocksure way that was his alone, threw a crumpled, sex-stained $10 bill at her quivering, kneeling frame. He left her room and her life, the victor who had claimed his spoils. And he left her with memories of lust she could never quench.

-WKW

Iraqi Minister of Information triumphantly returns as Prime Minister

Remember the infamous Iraqi Minister of Information, who would defiantly state that Saddam’s army was overwhelming and destroying U.S. forces by the droves, even as you could plainly see U.S. soldiers handing out candy to kids behind him?

Well, he’s reemerged as Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

From CNN:

“In Iraq, we’ll never be in civil war,” al-Maliki told CNN’s “Late Edition” on Sunday.

Despite Health Ministry figures that put the number of Iraqi civilians killed in July at about 3,400 — more than double the 1,600 killed in January — the prime minister said violence was decreasing in his country.

Al-Maliki did not dispute figures published in “The Economist” magazine that put unemployment at as high as 40 percent, with double-digit inflation and as much as 20 percent of the population in poverty.

“But this is a new Iraq, and inherited from the previous regime who left unemployment and destruction,” said al-Maliki, who won power in December’s elections.

Asked when coalition troops might leave, the Iraqi leader was equivocal.

“It could be a year or less, or a few months,” he said. “This has to do with the — with our success of the democratic — or the political process in Iraq, and to have the security agencies to protect this process.”

-WKW

Things Abraham Lincoln did say

From a studious reader and commentator of Glenn Greenwald’s blog, some words our 16th President really did write:

“Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose, and you allow him to make war at pleasure. Study to see if you can fix any limit to his power in this respect, after having given him so much as you propose. If to-day he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him,-’I see no probability of the British invading us’; but he will say to you, ‘Be silent: I see it, if you don’t.’”

and,

“The provision of the Constitution giving the war making power to Congress was dictated, as I understand it, by the following reasons: kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This our convention understood to be the most oppressive of all kingly oppressions, and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us. But your view destroys the whole matter, and places our President where kings have always stood.”

Abraham Lincoln,
in a letter to William Herndon, in regard to the Mexican-American War
February 15, 1848.

-WKW

What Americans are saying: The politicians

While it’s one thing for a disgruntled Wal-Mart employee to furiously type in ludicrous statesments under a psyeudonym like “SuperAmerican1971,” it’s another when politicians, or wanna-be politicians let the verbal madness fly.

What the politicians are saying

“If you are not electing Christians, tried and true, under public scrutiny and pressure, if you’re not electing Christians, then in essence you are going to legislate sin … Whenever we legislate sin and we say abortion is permissible and we say gay unions are permissible, then average citizens who are not Christians, because they don’t know better, we are leading them astray and it’s wrong.”

- Rep. Katherine Harris, R-Fla. and Fla. electorate, 2000

_________

“I’m responsible for the federal government,”

- President George W. Bush

_________

“This fellow here over here with the yellow shirt, Macaca, or whatever his name is.

- Sen. George Allen, R-Va and besmircher of his father’s name.

_________

“You guys in New York can’t get a hole in the ground fixed, and it’s five years later. So let’s be fair.”

- Mayor Ray Nagin, D-New Orleans
_________

“I know from experience that blacks are not the greatest swimmers, or may not even know how to swim.”

- Tramm Hudson, Republican candidate for the Fla. House seat to be left by Harris.

And finally …

“Nothing!”

- President George W. Bush, in answer to the question “What did Iraq have to do with 9/11?”

-WKW

“Anti-war congressmen should be hung” and other things Abraham Lincoln didn’t say

It seems that authoritarian side of the Republican party is trying to slowly soften up the nation to the concept that the U.S. Constitution is, in fact, a pain in the ass that, like the Bible, can and should be cherry-picked as needed.

There’s this recent brilliance by Clifford May heads the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a Washington-based organization that can war-monger with the best of them.

“You do have to do certain things, I think, in order to win the war,” May said. “Our Constitution and the rights we have, those are not a suicide pact.”

Now, enter the fray comes Abraham Lincoln, as if he wasn’t busy enough being dead for 140 years.

In Pennsylvania recently, Dana Irey, the Republican candidate running against incumbent Democratic Rep. John Murtha - a vocal critic of the Iraq war — came up with this gem at a rally:

Our 16th President (Lincoln), and I quote: ‘Congressmen who willfully take action during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs, and should be arrested, exiled or hanged.’

Of course, Lincoln never said that.

According to FactCheck.org, the “quote,” and I quote, came from “conservative author J. Michael Waller,” who admitted that the words were his, not Lincoln’s, and in the spirit of “never take any blame,” blamed the misunderstanding on copy editors at Insight magazine, where it was published in an article he penned.

So, should the idea of using invented quotes by Abraham Lincoln be the GOP’s plan, here are a few other things Lincoln never said, that now can be used by them, due to the fact that they were written, and Lincoln’s name is near them.

Other things Lincoln didn’t say

“If your laws don’t allow torture, ship a potential enemy of the state somewhere that does.”

_________

“Wow, my wife, nuts, eh? What are you going to do?”
_________

“The best thing a friend can do for a friend is help him make money. And Presidents have lots of friends.”

_________

“Making up facts to back up a pre-emptive war against a sovereign nation is super-fantastic.”
_________

“Beyonce? Seriously, I’d tap that.”

_________

“The Louisiana Purchase was such a waste of time and money. Screw the French. I say if that area gets hit with a natural disaster, we let the bastards drown.”
_________

“Only by taking a big crap on the Constitution will we be able to live as free Americans.”

-WKW

What Americans are saying: TownHall.com

I decided I needed a recurring blog post, so this seemed like a good idea. It’s a look at what average Americans are saying over at some good, old-fashioned conservative sites.

Today’s sample group: TownHall.com

The Column: Will the West defend itself?

In this column, Walter Williams decries Americans being too weak-willed to go as far as they need to destroy their enemies:

Think about it. Currently, the U.S. has an arsenal of 18 Ohio class submarines. Just one submarine is loaded with 24 Trident nuclear missiles. Each Trident missile has eight nuclear warheads capable of being independently targeted. That means the U.S. alone has the capacity to wipe out Iran, Syria or any other state that supports terrorist groups or engages in terrorism — without risking the life of a single soldier.

Terrorist supporters know we have this capacity, but because of worldwide public opinion, which often appears to be on their side, coupled with our weak will, we’ll never use it. Today’s Americans are vastly different from those of my generation who fought the life-and-death struggle of World War II. Any attempt to annihilate our Middle East enemies would create all sorts of handwringing about the innocent lives lost, so-called collateral damage.

Americans respond

And here are some of the comments to that article:

“We have to seriously consider our pre-emptive options. To do so we have to get the hand-wringers to shut the f**k up.”

_______________________________________

“I thought I outlined reasons for eliminating whole bunch of them. Maybe the sarcasm didn’t work. If all the people who find comfort in the koran were gone the greater world world would miss nothing of value…nothing … Whithout the islamos we could return to an open society which is out birthright.”

_______________________________________

“Abraham Lincoln knew how to win a war. He didn’t give a rats behind what anyone said, all he knew is that he needed to win. During the Civil War, Lincoln siezed control of several newspapers, suspended hbeas corpus, issued arrest warrants for Supreme Court Justices that disagreed with him, even exiled a United States Senator.

It is WAY past high time for some of our media outlets to be shut down. We can start with the hanging of “Pinch” Sulzberger and Bill Keller for High Treason by publishing classified information on the front page of the New York Times.”

_______________________________________

“The enemy is in sight. It doesn’t even attempt to hide. Kill or be killed. These people wish to rule over us. Our forefathers refused to be ruled a king from a distance and fought for a republic instead. I refuse to be ruled by a Caliphate, Imam, or some other self proclaimed Islamic cleric. Get this fight started. Before you know it we’ll be staring at a nuclear Iran AND North Korea. Then what? Nuclear deterrance doesn’t work if the enemy knows you won’t actually use the nuclear weapons. Lets create a surprise of our own. The rest of the world will whine and cry in public while they give a big sigh of relief in private.”

_______________________________________

“get rid of the seditionists, the subversives and the hate-America Americans. We have to go into war totally. War is life or death, it is to eradicate the enemy, not to make friends with him. It does not matter what the frogs think. We go to total war, level the countryside devoid of housing, shoot ununiformed ‘insurgents’ on the spot, destroy all cover from which they could return fire and occupy the oil fields. Hey! China! You want some oil? Here, we can turn the spigot as easy as the Iranians. And, how about fifty dollars a barrel? You think they won’t approve of our ‘War on Terrorism’ at $50 a barrel???”

And finally …

“You people disgust me.”

-WKW

Tony Snow’s ‘Tar Baby’ comment: Like it or not, it comes off as racist

Above: The Great Sam Langford: The Boston Tar Baby was one of the best, and died a tortured soul.

Recently, both White House Press Secretary Tony Snow and Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney chose to show off their stylish vocabularies by using the term “Tar Baby” as a way to describe situations that appeared innocuous, but were in the end traps.

I’m very anti-PC, which may or may not go without saying. But I’m just some doofus on the Internet and I take responsibility for my own words. And I’m not running for office any time soon.

In this case, however, Snow and Romney using the term Tar Baby, is just another sign of the Bush administration’s, and today’s politician’s arrogance.

One of the great fighters of all time was named Sam Langford. He is consistently listed by historians as one of the greatest ever, though he never owned any title. That’s because he was black, in a time when being a ridiculously good black fighter was a terrible flaw.

As a young man who was in love with boxing, I was - and remain - fascinated with Langford. The poor man died blind and penniless, was a victim of Jack Johnson’s - the first black heavyweight champion - shenanigans, and was a brilliant talent who was basically destroyed because of his race.

Anyway, what’s funny is that if you research him now, they list him as “The Boston Terror.” Which is nice and all, but anyone who knows boxing knows his nickname was the “Boston Tar Baby.”

Now, I’m going to guess that wasn’t his nickname because he was a from Boston and looked innocuous but was a trap. If it did, great, he was kind of small, after all. But to most, myself included, the nickname implied race.

My point is: The man who speaks for the President — the beleagured President from a party with a reputation of not caring about black voters - to be unaware that the term “Tar Baby” would offend, is unexcusable and just a lie. Bush was ushered in on a platform of ignorance: why suddenly would they figure that people would be enlightened to the real meaning of that term?

He can point to all the dictionaries he wants, but the simple fact is this: With a president who is in a never-ending PR battle, Snow’s comment hurt him, and hurt the party. Like it or not, it did.

Tony Snow is a macaca, plain and simple.

-WKW

Behavior of Concern: An update

Behavior of Concern not all that concerning:

From Reuters:

“Dutch authorities will release all 12 passengers arrested on a U.S. Northwest Airlines plane bound for India later on Thursday, prosecutors said.

‘From the statement of suspects and witnesses, no evidence could be brought forward that these men were about to commit an act of violence,’ a prosecution statement said, adding police had searched for explosives on the plane, but found none.”

As an apology, the men will now have “not TERRORISTS” stamped to their foreheads for the rest of their lives. They were also admonished to cease and desist all behaviors that would require concern.

Netherlands officials also noted that their terror alert status has been dropped from “Incoherently babbling” to “Just really baked” as a result of the findings.

-WKW

Karl Rove on NSA decision: 9/11!!! 9/11!!! Dear God, 9/11!!!!

From the Associated Press:

“Presidential adviser Karl Rove criticized a federal judge’s order for an immediate end to the government’s warrantless surveillance program, saying Wednesday such a program might have prevented the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Rove said the government should be free to listen if al Qaeda is calling someone within the U.S.

‘Imagine if we could have done that before 9/11. It might have been a different outcome,’ he said.”

Rove reportedly then talked about how Mexican people smell like beans and beat the living crap out of an elderly lady that had been complaining of chest pains.

Rove went on to say: “If leading Democrats had their way, their policies would make our nation weaker and the enemies of our nation would be stronger”

And then ate a live baby in three bites, using the Constitution to tidy up afterward, insiders say.

-WKW

From the New York Times: Why can’t George W. Bush just decide what the law is?

From today’s New York Times, in regards to the recent opinion given in the the ACLU v. National Security Agency case:

It is a serious argument, and judges need to take it seriously. If they do not, we ought to wonder why a court gets to decide what the law is and not the president. After all, the president has a sworn duty to uphold the Constitution; he has his advisers, and they’ve concluded that the program is legal. Why should the judicial view prevail over the president’s?

This was written by Ann Althouse .

Edit: Ok, I can admit I got overly hyped on that point. She was trying to make a point, and did so flailingly. However, my assessment was wrong. No apologies necessary, of course. Dear God, man, she’s a lawyer, and publicity-seeking one at that. Plus, her argument was inane and weak, as pointed out here.

So, by all means, I admit my error. I’m old-school that way and can admit to my foibles. But that doesn’t mean I need to have any type of respect for a law professor enamored with herself.

-WKW

Dear CNN: Please act like professional journalists

Dear CNN:

When you started the “Breaking News” e-mail campaign, it was in response to 9/11, when there was plenty of breaking news that people wanted to know immediately. By sending e-mails such as this as “Breaking News”:

- A source involved in returning John Mark Karr to the United States
says the man accused of killing JonBenet Ramsey made unsolicited
statements to law enforcement officers while being taken to L.A. County Jail.

You do every human who as ever worked at any level of journalism a disservice. Anonymous heresay, on a week-old story, about a 10-year-old murder case is not breaking news. In fact, it’s nothing but another step in CNN’s transformation into the National Enquirer.

You have informed no one of anything. And you have been doing that at an obscene pace.

-WKW

Only Chelsea, injuries may stop FC Barcelona from another double

In humiliating German champions Bayern Munich for the Hans Gamper trophy at the Nou Camp, Barcelona showed two things to be blatantly obvious.

First, the defending La Liga and Champions League titlists are in much stronger form than any soccer team has a right to be at this juncture of the campaign. And second, only a slew of devastating injuries and/or perhaps Chelsea will stand in the squad’s way of repeating its impressive double of 2005.

More juggernaut than team, Barcelona takes the term “loaded” to its highest level. Led by the other-worldly talent of Ronaldinho Gaucho — adequately humbled by a poor showing at the 2006 World Cup — the Spanish side has an offense of the highest quality.

In Ronaldinho, Deco, Samuel Eto’o and Leo Messi, Barca is able to field four of the most inventive offensive forces in football. Add to that a healthy Xavi, Carles Puyol and three brilliant off-season heists - Eidur Gudjohnsen, Gianluca Zambrotta and Lilian Thuram to go along with experienced role players and fans at Nou Camp should expect to be showered with fireworks throughout the campaign.

Real Madrid and Valencia would go into any other season as heavy favorites, but with each team battling new coach and chemistry issues, it appears unlikely they could make a solid run at Barca, where harmony has been as much an advantage as talent. Nonetheless, Madrid’s signings of Fabio Cannavaro, Emerson, Ruud van Nistelrooy and Mahamadou Diarra should help the team stave off some of the on- and off-field embarrassments the Galacticos have suffered the past several seasons.

In the end, however, only mighty Chelsea could keep Joan Laporta’s side from sweeping the Spanish and Champions’ titles, as its talent-laden squad that includes Michael Ballack, Frank Lampard, John Terry, Michael Essien, Didier Drogba and Andriy Shevchenko will hopefully force a third consecutive, delicious Champions League showdown with the team from Barcelona.

It is conceivable that ennui could be a foe, as well, but as the season fights through its birth pangs, it seems increasingly likely that Barcelona may well have a team, and a season for the ages.

-WKW

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