Christiana Hendrix, RIP

Word from James at OTB, which happened to be my first stop,  this morning:

Christiana Hendrix, wife of Cold Fury blogger Mike, was killed in a motorcycle accident Friday. My condolences.

(Sigh)

I can do little but had my condolences to the list of them, for whatever they’re worth.

The Sister didn’t bother to watch the debate.   Apparently CNN didn’t bother either.   The debate had a serious lack of  questions.

If New York State Attorney General, Andrew Cuomo, were go on American Idol, what song would he sing?  Easy, “I Shot the Sheriff.”   The New York Times:

ALBANY, July 23 — Gov. Eliot Spitzer indefinitely suspended his communications director and reassigned another top official today after Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo‘s office issued a scathing report accusing the governor’s staff of using the State Police for political purposes

Cuomo in one play has diminished New York State Governor, Eliot Spitzer’s reputation and at the same time helped  his standing with the state republcans.   Not bad for an attorney general who wants to be governor.

Lindsay Beyerstein, Majikthise, blogs: 

Spitzer is an incredibly smart, vigilant, and well-connected individual. I can’t believe that the governor’s senior staffers could have undertaken such a project without his acquiescence. If Spitzer didn’t know his administration was misusing the State Police and misrepresenting media freedom of information requests to monitor his main political rival, it was because he didn’t want to know.

Lindsay you forgot arrogant and ambitious.  

• I hear you, Billy. In fact, I’ll take idea a step farther; where Gingrich gets himself into trouble, most often one is when he tries to accommodate the idiots among us.  He gets his lines all crossed up, the liberal media jumps on him, and makes it look, for all the world, like he’s gone socialist on us..  I’m not going to say the man’s perfect, nor that I think he’d be an excellent president, although I think he would make a bad one.  I bring this up to simply exemplify what anyone not in lockstep with the democrats is up against these days, trying to debate the issues of the day.
• Jules Crittenden has put up an excellent post about war and psychology that I will command to your reading.
• So now, we have dissension within the al-Qaida ranks.  A rebellion, in fact. As David says, reliever, we’re winning this thing.  Provided, of course, that we can hold the Indian democrats off long enough from forcing our surrender to them.
• Howard Kurtz raises an interesting point about the lack of commentary as regards the media’s role in the ruining of the lives of the Duke across players.
• Another slow day, traffic wise, today.  Again, not much of a surprise…  particularly, given the time of year.
• As I said yesterday, my friends, this is the heart and soul of the Democratic party. Remember in Kos’ own claims, his is a Democrat party site.  Here’s one, they just put up yesterday.  Can we question their patriotism, now, do you think?  You would think that the Democratic party would have a full rebellion on its hands given the degree to which the loudest of the democrats, including the leadership, is invested in our defeat in Iraq.  Make no mistake; democrats need the U.S. to lose.  At what point, do you suppose that we can actually get the press to point this out?  Yes, I know, given their own proclivity for leading left, this is a stupid question.  But it must be asked.  Here’s something that I didn’t ask, yesterday, but I probably should have; if, as Kos and his wandering band of drooling incoherency suggests, our military is a band of murdering psychopaths, what is keeping Kos and his minions alive?
• Oh… and for his part, Ol’ Markos is supposedly growing weary of the vitriol being expressed under his name.  I’m sure we can all find a level of pity, for this individual was done so much to bring the very vitriol he complains of. Remember, my friends, this is the guy who upon seeing four American soldiers had been ruthlessly murdered by al-Qaida operatives, said “screw them”.  Certainly, nothing of vitriol there. You’ll pardon me if I don’t take his claims seriously.
• Apparently, Cindy Sheehan has seen the light. If I’m reading her latest diatribe correctly, she now hates everybody, including Democrats.  I can understand the Democrats turning their backs on this woman.  Personally, I wouldn’t want to be in the room when her last cork finally pops.  KWIM? Meantime, I see she got her self arrested at a protest earlier today.  You know, if it wasn’t for the likes of the aforementioned Kos,, the Democrats might actually have a chance to separate themselves from moonbats like Sheehan. I mean, were we dealing with her loan, the whole thing could be dealt with on a level of mental illness, which this clearly involves.  With anti-Military stuff coming from the Kossacks, It will be not impossible to perform that separation.
• Our lovebird, Riley, has a habit of thrashing paper placed on the bottom of his cage. Before this, we’d been using newspaper. Frankly, there are times when I think that the bird is the only reason we buy the newspaper.  Yes, our local newspaper is that bad.  It’s called the Democrat and Chronicle.  At least, that’s its official name.  What it’s really cold is the “Chronic Democrat” but, he thrashes so much paper, that we would be in serious trouble if we ever stopped buying it, or so I thought.  Now that I’ve had a chance to watch him, however, I may have stumbled onto something he likes better than newspaper… He likes to shred standard 20lb. printer paper.  I’m beginning to think, that we might be able to make some money off of him by renting his services as a paper shredder.  Secure documents, and all that.  Only one trouble; How does one bond a bird?

In the Washington Post, Bob Novok, writes of Dirty Harry Reid’s efforts to turn back the calander on ear mark reform:

When Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid picked up his ball and went home after his staged all-night session last week, he saved from possible embarrassment one of the least regular members of his Democratic caucus: Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska. Reform Republican Tom Coburn had ready an amendment to the defense authorization bill removing Nelson’s earmark funding a Nebraska-based company whose officials include Nelson’s son. Such an effort became impossible when Reid pulled the bill.

in response to Novak, Gaius, Blue Crab Universe, wonders:

Novak has a lot of dirt dug up for this column. Enough that we should consider renaming Harry Reid. Dirty Harry seems appropriate. I tried to find the Omaha World Herald article Novak quotes, but was not able to find it. Too bad, it sounds like Ben Nelson has some explaining to do. Reid and Pelosi promised a squeaky-clean Congress. Well, something is squeaking all right. Rats do that.

To which we, Bitsblog, say, welcome aboard.  From, January 12, 2007:

Dirty Harry no more supports pork, err earmark reform than I support Andrew Sullivan for president.  

He’s been Dirty Harry, and Dirty Harry he will stay.

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As a follow on to the conversation over at OTB as regards Dogfighting, I said:

Are their moral absolutes? I would answer in the affirmative, however, I do not think us intelligent enough to claim a lock on their definition. I will however say, that the culture and the people who get it the closest are probably going to be the ones who prosper most greatly. At the moment, that would be America, though along with and in parallel to, our moral decline, that situation is starting to change. At least at one time, comparatively speaking, we were the closest to that absolute. These days, however, with so many it has become something of a joke to even bring up the word ‘morality’…. Much less the attempt to define or implement it.

I, for one, believe the American culture at its base to be superior of the majority of the rest of those in the rest of the world. I am convinced that as a result of our culture being better, our nation has prospered like no other in history. I am willing to hold it so , both in discussions with my children, and with visitors from other lands, and incidentally people I run into on the net.

That said, there are a number of Americans who are not so willing in those areas. Who, alas!, do not hold American culture so high. one example would be the eurocentrics that tend to inhabit both our coastlines, east and west. They also tend to inhabit our newsrooms and power places of higher learning, in greater numbers than we find in the whole of America. The results of the positioning of these people, is that American culture has not been instilled. It is to the point now, several generations on, where our own children do not recognize American culture as such , except in the most superficial way, despite their having lived here all their lives.

All this is one major reason why the teaching of history… specifically, American history, is of such vital import. How else, after all, are such values to be passed down?

One of the reasons for this cultural disconnect,, particularly as regards American blacks, for example, is that we have allowed them… nay, forced them into their own subculture, by means of the welfare state… a subculture with its own values, many of which run afoul of that of the majority.

To give you an idea of the effects of the cultural value not having been taught:

Back in July of 2003, the university of central Florida released a study that examined arrest and detention rates for blacks in the Orange county area… that would be Orlando. at the time of the study blacks only made up 18% of the Orange county population, yet they accounted for 40% of all arrests, and on the order of 55 to 60% of the jail population.

And the first charge that came up , as regards the difference, was poverty. But, no, the fact is that young white males living at the same poverty levels is young blacks do not commit crimes to the same extent according to the study. So, we take it one step further and we charge racism. Yet, that doesn’t explain for the location of the crimes involved, which has it happened were in areas of higher black population percentages.

This study, as accurate picture is it paints, is however not seminal. We’ve been hearing this kind of report for decades, and done nothing. We’ve let ourselves get tired up with charges of racism, instead. As I said on this very blog about a year back, and others over the lastv7 years, It’s not race, it’s the culture.

The difference as I’m sure you know I’m leaning here, is the culture. we’re talking about a culture that embraces violence and crime has a way of life.

Another example, I take to be Michael Vick. that he was operating outside of the cultures values, is plain to see. Is also plain to see that he had no moral problems with the activity he undertook.. At least until such time as the authorities showed up at the door.

Finally, let’s take music… not as a ‘value of the music’ argument, but rather as a fuzzy indicator… let’s speak to Rap music, certainly a part of the subculture we’re talking about here (From my own blog a few years back):

Can anyone come up with big name Jazz acts having this kind of reputation? Bigtime Rock acts? When’s the last time we heard of a knife fight at the Philharmonic? I don’t recall anything like this at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville in all the years that’s been running, do you? I’ve been unable to find records of anything of the like happening down at the theatre district in Branson, MO. I haven’t seen anything like this on the Gospel Music circuits, or the Modern Christian music circles, either. Ya know, at some point, someone’s going to figure out that there’s a rather well-established pattern, here. And no, this is not a ‘racial profiling’ thing. This is a ‘rap profile’ thing, and it’s getting as predictable as the outcome of tossing a can of gasoline on a campfire.

I certainly could offer other examples, and I suppose that were I to do so, I would receive less flock from those who would call me a racist, but I think that would get over a long, and I’ve already taken up plenty of James’ bandwidth here.
The points are making, however, are not racial, but rather, cultural. Let’s just bridge that gap by saying these are some of the larger sore thumbs we’ve been dealing with.

And yet, very shortly, if I don’t miss my guess by much, we’re going to find ourselves inundated with other people who do not share our basic values, a situation that the British and the French and the Danish and to a lesser extent, the Canadians are already finding themselves in. And does anyone really think that the battle over immigration with Mexico isn’t about cultural values?

And so, interestingly enough, along comes Boortz this morning, to put a finer edge on my comments:

Now … let’s address the race angle. I’ve been reading some of the blogs out there, and I did have a chance to listen to some sports talk radio over the weekend. What I’ve read and heard is entirely predictable. Everyone is out to get Michael Vick because he’s black. The whole investigation is racially based.

This isn’t about race. It’s about culture. Black urban culture, to be more precise. The Humane Society of the United States estimates that organized dogfighting has increased by well over 300% since 1992. In many cases the dogfighting takes place in conjunction with drug dealing. The director of the Capital Area Humane Society in Ohio told the Cincinnati Inquirer “”Dogfighting is a family event, often held in a large warehouse. Children watch and there can be concession stands at one end, gambling somewhere else, and over in this corner they’ll be selling cocaine and crack.”

I’m sure it will come as no surprise to you that dogfighting has been glorified in rap music. DMX and Snoop Dog have promoted the practice in their “music” videos.

Eileen Lou-Harrist wrote “In recent years, pit bull terriers have become a macho accessory in urban culture, where kids are attracted to the animals’ reputation as inherently mean dogs. Add the hard-edged glamour of the dogfight—the gambling, drugs and weapons; the illegality; the ‘fight ’til you die’ credo—and dogfighting flourishes in places where cultivating a tough reputation is often paramount to survival.” Now is Lou-Harrist describing any sort of a racial characteristic with those words? Hardly. She’s describing a culture; urban street culture. Gangsta culture. So for all of you out there who will try to make this whole Michael Vick affair into a racial issue, put a sock in it. We’re talking culture here, not race; a violent, immoral and cruel culture that promotes violence and disrespect for common decency and the law; a culture now vividly represented by Michael Vick.

Here’s the problem as I see it; In our efforts to be “multicultural” we have also become “amoral”, for the two are inexorably connected.

The Times (UK) is  reporting al Qaeda “rebellion from the ranks:”

Fed up with being part of a group that cuts off a person’s face with piano wire to teach others a lesson, dozens of low-level members of al-Qaeda in Iraq are daring to become informants for the US military in a hostile Baghdad neighbourhood.

Dissent with the ranks is the precursor to collapse.  The Surge is working and will work, unless the ‘Rats can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.  Don’t let Harry Pelosi lose this war for us.

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I find it disgusting that the Times is more concerned with the sanctity of Harry Potter’s conclusion than the serial disclosures of national security secrets that help jihadists avoid detection.

Doug Ross

Hat Tip: Don Surber.

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KILLITARY: How America’s Armed Forces Create Serial Killers and Mass Murderers

by liquidman

Thu Jul 19, 2007 at 08:44:39 PM PDT

Cross-posted at In Cold BlogAccording to the July 30, 2007 issue of The Nation magazine, damning photos of a U.S. Soldier using a spoon to literally scoop out the brains of a dead Iraqi and pretending to eat the gray matter were recently acquired.Of course, everyone is appropriately appalled and make all claims of disgust and finger-wagging. Research shows, however, that such unacceptable behavior happens more often than the United States military wants you to know.

When it comes to training killing machines, the military really does create “an Army of one.”

Timothy McVeigh

• liquidman’s diary :: ::

The list of serial killers and mass murderers borne from the military is astounding.Full Metal Jacket‘s proud support of UT Tower sniper Charles Whitman’s marksmanship skills notwithstanding, you just aren’t going to hear a whole lot about the training ground of killers that are bred to slaughter, maim, and torture and then dumped on our streets upon their return.Here are just a few of the more memorable individuals who received the best training in the United States military and returned to prowl our country’s streets and commit terrorist attacks of a different nature:

Charles Whitman – former Marine sniper who killed his wife, mother, and then proceeded to the University of Texas Tower and picked off sixteen people using his sniping skills.

Dean Corll – former Army man and serial killer known as the “Candy Man” who killed at least 27 young boys and buried them in a storage facility in Houston, Texas.

David Berkowitz AKA “The Son of Sam” – New York serial killer and former Army vet who shot and killed at least six people during the 1970s.

Jeffrey Dahmer – former Army vet and Milwaukee cannibal who murdered at least sixteen young boys and men. He performed experiments on some of the victims and ate others.

Timothy McVeigh (pictured above)- Former Gulf War Army vet responsible for the Oklahoma City bombing.

According to The Nation article, written by Chris Hedges and Laila Al-Arian, the brain scooping soldier found his exploits hilarious:

“Take a picture of me and this motherfucker,” a soldier who had been in Sergeant Mejía’s squad said as he put his arm around the corpse. Sergeant Mejía recalls that the shroud covering the body fell away, revealing that the young man was wearing only his pants. There was a bullet hole in his chest.

“Damn, they really fucked you up, didn’t they?” the soldier laughed.

The scene, Sergeant Mejía said, was witnessed by the dead man’s brothers and cousins.

How does a seemingly normal, everyday, All-American soldier turn into a brain scooping cell phone camera posing beast?

It’s all about the training.

In 2000, CPT Pete Kilner presented his paper, Military Leaders’ Obligation to Justify Killing in War, before the Joint Services Conference on Professional Ethics in Washington D.C. He was there to present his thesis that “the methods that the military currently uses to train and execute combat operations enable soldiers to kill the enemy effectively, but they leave the soldiers liable to post-combat psychological trauma caused by guilt.”

Kilner’s paper discussed how the military’s training changed drastically after World War II. A survey determined that only 25% of all soldiers during the war actually fired their weapons. The main reason cited was that soldiers were more afraid to kill another human being than to be killed.

Needless to say, such mentality does not benefit the military’s main objective: kill the enemy. As a result, a new methodology of training was introduced. Military leaders began to stress the banality of the targets.

One way to achieve this was with pop-up targets on marksmanship ranges. “They enable soldiers to overcome their aversion to killing by conditioning them to act spontaneously to conditions that are combat-like yet morally benign,” according to Kilner.

Other methods, known as “killology,” included shooting at cabbages filled with ketchup to resemble exploding heads and marching to chants of “Kill, kill, kill!”

Soldiers were not shooting at specific human beings. Instead, they were killing people that wanted to kill them. Training methods became less personal.

Apparently, the change in methodology was effective. By the Korean War the percentage of troops that fired their weapons rose to 55%, while by Vietnam it had sky-rocketed to 90%.

Where do we stand today in the Iraq War?

According to the San Francisco Chronicle‘s Vicki Haddock in a 2006 article entitled The Science of Creating Killers, U.S. soldiers’ killing efficiency and coping mechanisms have only “improved.”

Haddock spoke with one American soldier on what it took to kill another human being:

21-year-old West Texas Army Pvt. Steven Green described shooting a man who refused to stop at an Iraqi checkpoint: “It was like nothing. Over here, killing people is like squashing an ant. I mean, you kill somebody, and it’s like, ‘All right, let’s go get some pizza,'” he told the military newspaper Stars & Stripes. “I mean, I thought killing somebody would be this life-changing experience. And then I did it, and I was like, ‘All right, whatever.'”

Green was eventually discharged from the military due to a “personality disorder.” He was also charged with the rape of a teenage Iraqi girl and the slaughter of her entire family, including a five-year old girl.

Haddock spotlighted another soldier and his conditioning:

(T)op Marine sniper Jack Coughlin writes from Iraq: “So far in this war I had fired six shots and had six kills — exactly the right ratio. I considered the ill-trained, poorly led soldiers of Iraq to be hamburger in my scope, practically begging me to kill them, and I was more than ready to grant their wish.”

Such mentality leads to instances such as the Vietnamese Mai Lai massacre where more than 500 unarmed civilians, including women and children, were slaughtered by American soldiers, to the 2005 Haditha massacre in Iraq where 24 unarmed civilians, including women and children, were also slaughtered by U.S. troops.

But what happens when these trained killers retire, leave, or are discharged from the military? Does the military provide a delousing of the mind? Do they attempt to purge the death training from their young impressionable brains?

According to Kilner:

(W)hen soldiers kill because of military training that has effectively undermined their moral autonomy–they conduct their personal moral deliberation of their actions only after the fact. If they are unable to justify what they have done, they often suffer guilt and psychological trauma.

Many soldiers suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, others commit suicide, and still others go on murderous rampages.

According to Kilner, the United States military is doing absolutely nothing to help soldiers deal with the psychological effects of their murderous training. They merely pat them on the back, thank them for a job well done, and pull up the next impressionable young man or woman and stick them in the meat grinder.

To deal with the problem, Kilner suggests justification “because, at least some killing in war is morally justifiable, military leaders have a duty to understand that justification, to train their soldiers to kill only when it is justified, and to explain to their soldiers why it is justified.” In other words, if you give a soldier a supposedly legitimate reason to kill another human being, such as self-defense, it may be easier for the soldier to cope with the outcome of his actions.

That seems a bit simplistic, especially when soldiers are firing randomly at civilians because they believe everyone in Iraq is a “terrorist.” Unfortunately, killing, whether justifable or not, is going to warp the killer’s mind in some fashion, and probably to an unrecoverable point.

Americans should begin to see the effects of the Iraq war veterans’ killing sprees here in our own country very soon. Most serial killers and mass murderers tend to be in their mid 20s to mid 30s.

The newest crop of Charles Whitmans and Jeffrey Dahmers should be prowling our streets any day now — and for many years to come.

Here Are A Few More Not So Good Men:

All served in the military. All went on to become serial killers, mass murderers, or assassins.

John Allen Muhammad (“The Beltway Sniper”), Arthur Shawcross, Lee Harvey Oswald, Randy Kraft, Dennis Rader (“BTK”), Howard Unruh, Robert Lee Yates, Gary Heidnik, Charles Cullen, Charles Ng, Henry Louis Wallace, Julian Knight, Courtney Mathews & David Housler, Daryl Keith Holton, Wayne Adam Ford, Richard Marc Evonitz, etc.

This list is by no means comprehensive and does not include military personnel who murdered their families, loved ones, or friends upon their return from training to kill or war.

Tags: Military Murders, Serial Killers, Mass Murderers, Jeffrey Dahmer, Charles Whitman, Son of Sam, Iraq War (all tags)

Like I say, I can’t wait for the denials to start.

BBCT: LGF

As you may or may not already be aware, members of the Watcher’s Council hold a vote every week on what they consider to be the most link-worthy pieces of writing around…  per the Watcher’s instructions, I am submitting one of my own posts for consideration in the upcoming nominations process.
Here is the most recent winning council post, here is the most recent winning non-council post, here is the list of results for the latest vote, and here is the initial posting of all the nominees that were voted on.

• Good lord, is this weekend a slow one. I’ve seen more traffic in the graveyard at 2am in the dead of winter. Not unexpected, given we’re in high summer, and we’re in a big movie release cycle…  and I’ve been looking at other sites and seeing their traffic dropping more than BitsBlog has, so I guess I’m not taking it as a worrysome thing. Nice, too to see my findings confirmed by one of the bigger guns.…Still…
• Look, Bowers, tell the truth for once.  The reason that you haven’t endorsed anybody, is because you’ve got your finger in the wind ala Bill Clinton. Comes as no surprise, of course, since most of your fellows on that side of the aisle haven’t gone so far is to actually endorsed anyone, either. Just don’t expect us to believe that there’s any serious thought process involved with this nonsense. This in no way involves an ideological fight, from one democrat candidate to another. This is simply a matter of you and many like you, waiting for a clear winner to emerge. there are no principles at stake here save one; regaining power for the party. It’s time you admitted that.
• So now, we see that Kiefer Sutherland has decided that global warming is a “crime for which we are all guilty”.  Uh… guys?  So much for the idea that “24” is a conservative show.  News Busters has more on it. But while I’m on this topic… At what point, exactly, was environmental science major requirement for the job of “actor”? I suppose it takes an actor’s mentality to assume that the sun doesn’t generate as much heat has a 1500 watt Kleig light.
• I see where Don Surber makes note of congressional Democrats achieving a 14% approval rating.  DavidL makes mention of it today, as well. 14%. Wow. I wonder if that’s by weight, or by volume? So far, the Democrats have managed to achieve only two things. First being getting 86% of the people to dislike Congress, giving themselves a pay raise for all their hard work at doing nothing. Congratulations, Democrats. Surber says , for his part, says he is not gloating, he is worried. I’m not gloating, myself, but I’m not worried, either. Don’s concerned about apathy taking over, and perhaps it’s a justified fear… But I read the signs a little differently. The numbers tell me that the American people know very well what to do, and are poised to do it in ’08.
• You know, at some point, those in the government are going to figure out that the real problem with gasoline prices at this point is a lack of refining capacity.  Memo to Chuckles the Clown Schumer: Want to lower gasoline prices in this country? Arrange for refinery to be built somewhere within your fiefdom. You could, for example, eliminate the environmental red tape, arrange for tax breaks, etc.. Think of the hero you would be with the American people in doing so. Besides, it would be taking responsibility for what you and yours have created.
• I see where Hosting Matters has some hardware trouble. Among those possibly affected, is Captain’s Quarters, (Confirmed) Michelle Malkin, Power Line, Hewett,and INstapundit, and a few million others.Hosting matters most recently ran into trouble last April during a Denial of Service attack.My take is this won’t become quite the problem that was. And by the way, I never did hear if we caught the B@$+@+D$ who did the attack last April. Anyone know?
• They’re voting in Turkey, today. The results could affect the remainder of the region. Early results seem to indicate Erdogan is set to win this one. That means the secularists are losing, there. This may or may not be affected by pro-Kurdish gains in the parliament. (Update: Barry Ruben thinks so, as well.)
• So, CNN puts up a ‘debate’ and then talks about it. Their version of balance, of course has Anna Marie Cox on one side, and Glenn Reynolds on the other. A hard leftist and a centrist is political balance?

And finally, tonight, one wonders what was on the minds of the editors at Esquire, when they coughed up this cover…

No big deal, say you?

Well, look closer:

Ann Coulter, call your office.

BBCT: Innocent Bystanders

Mike Kaminski has posted a great video.  Ok it is a parody, and fiction.   However it is pointed and relevant.

Mike, I am a vet and I thank you.

Hat tip:  Allah Pundit, Hot Air.

Hat photo:  IMDB.

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Just a few shots that struck me as interesting. As always, drill the pics for the full view.

This was taken at Selkirk Shores, NY, from the base of the light house, there.  Something about the anticipation of going into the open waters of the lake, struck me about this scene. The dark clouds set the mood…

There’s a park near where the first picture is taken, and the park has a beach, right on Lake Ontario. This is taken near sunset. That’s the 9 Mile point Nuclear power facility you can see in the background, about 10 miles away, across Mexico Bay.

As Paul Simon once observed… “Everybody loves the sound of a train in the distance.”

Steyn, today:

How do you feel about the American hostages in Iran?

No, not the guys back in the Seventies, the ones being held right now.

What? You haven’t heard about them?

Odd that, isn’t it? But they’re there. For example, for two months now, Haleh Esfandiari has been detained in Evin prison in Tehran. Esfandiari is a U.S. citizen and had traveled to Iran to visit her sick mother. She is the director of the Middle East program at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, which is the kind of gig that would impress your fellow guests at a Washington dinner party. Unfortunately, the mullahs say it’s an obvious cover for a Bush spy.

Among the other Zionist-neocon agents currently held in Iranian jails are an American journalist, an American sociologist for a George Soros-funded leftie group, and an American peace activist from Irvine, Ali Shakeri, whose capture became known shortly after the United States and Iran held their first direct talks since the original hostage crisis.

Two months in an Iranian jail is no fun. Four years ago, a Montreal photo-journalist, Zahra Kazemi, was arrested by police in Tehran, taken to Evin prison, and wound up getting questioned to death. Upon her capture, the Canadian government had done as the State Department is apparently doing – kept things discreet, low-key, cards close to the chest, quiet word in the right ears. By the time Zahra Kazemi’s son, frustrated by his government’s ineffable equanimity, got the story out, it was too late for his mother.

Still, upon hearing of her death, then-Canadian Foreign Minister Bill Graham expressed his “sadness” and “regret,” which are pretty strong words. But then, as Reuters put it, this sad regrettable incident had “marred previously harmonious relations between Iran and Canada.” In his public pronouncements, Graham tended to give the impression that what he chiefly regretted and was sad about was that one of his compatriots had had the poor taste to get tortured and murdered onto the front pages of the newspapers.

With an apparently straight face, Graham passed on to reporters the official Iranian line that her death in jail was merely an “accident.” The following year, Shahram Azam, a physician who’d examined Kazemi’s body, fled Iran and said that she had broken fingers, a broken nose, a crushed toe, a skull fracture, severe abdominal bruising, and internal damage consistent with various forms of rape. Quite an accident.

The longer American prisoners are held in Evin, the more likely it is they’ll meet with a similar accident. It would be nice to think the press has ignored these hostages out of concerns that they might inflame the situation. (To date, only National Review, Bill Bennett on his radio show and various doughty Internet wallahs have made any fuss.) Or maybe the media figure that showing American prisoners on TV will only drive Bush’s ratings back up from the grave to the rude health of intensive care. Or maybe they just don’t care about U.S. hostages, not compared to real news like Senate sleepovers to block unblocking a motion to vote for voting against a cloture motion on the best way to surrender in Iraq.

Here, my friends, we have yet another example of how the press in this country will invariably spin to the left.

Back when Jimmy Carter was in office, we had and 400 some odd days of headlines out of Iran, whipping Americans into a frenzy because Iran had taken hostages. there was widespread support for Carter taking military action, which of course he screwed up.  The invasion failed.  Largely, because of the planning stages that occurred within the White House then held by the Democratic party.

Today, because it might give the Republican President Bush, some leverage in the war on terror that Jimmy Carter, in his idiocy, arranged for, the press says nothing whatever about it. Iran, for their part, of course is and has been hoping for precisely that response.  And, of course, we see the one note samba coming out of Congress not responding to the rainy and situation and all.  All they’re interested in is a political victory over the president so that they can arrange for our surrender in Iraq. I guess it should surprise nobody that this is the same party, that gave us that selfsame Jimmy Carter.

Give Steyn credit for mentioning all this.  I doubt many others within the mainstream will.

From Fox’s Political Grapevine:

A follow-up on Thursday’s item about that so-called “mystery” earmark request from John Murtha: the Pennsylvania Democrat was awarded $1 million for the Center for Instrumented Critical Infrastructure — which it turns out does not exist — but is a planned part of a non-profit technology center that has received millions in Murtha earmarks over the years.

Now The Hill reports the Energy Department is denying Murtha’s claim that it supports the request. A DOE spokeswoman says the earmark is not a program that meets its “mission critical” threshold and that it is “inconsistent” with its 2008 budget.

Nevertheless, the House overwhelmingly defeated a move to deny the earmark.

So, where is this money going?  Murtha directs a million dollars to end the that doesn’t exist, which is supposed to be part of a nonprofit org receiving millions from Murtha over the years.

Go ahead, America.  Tell me about how if this was a Republican at the center of this happening, the press wouldn’t be all over it like a wet T-shirt.