perfidy

Dean Esmay (whose last name always sounded vaguely piglatinish to me) talks about the miraculous or nefarious jobless recovery we find our selves in the midst of:

Bill Hobbs' ongoing investigation of the formation of Limited Liability Corporations--used exclusively by small businesses--has shown record growth in 10 states, now including Texas. Hobbs also notes that this explosive growth in small businesses does not show up at all on standard measurements of job growth, and would go a long way to explaining why unemployment is going down, welfare rolls are not increasing, homelessness is not increasing, but "jobs" are supposedly not being created.

You can make your own here, as well as several other kinds of crazy German signage.

Hat tip: Rocket Jones.

There are many things that the Israelis are capable of. I don't think this is one of them. Whenever I read the Islamic media for any length of time, I become very, very depressed. This level of disconnect from reality, evidenced in a thousand Islamic media reports a week, is truly staggering. Link via Allah Pundit

Q and O has a good post on the good, bad and ugly ways you can fight the war on terror. (Which one is which, I leave as an exercise for the reader.)

Knowledge Problem examines why gas prices are so stinking high.

I'll rochambeau you for it!

Phil over at Catch Me If You Can has an informative look at the hell that is DC Metro Parking. Also, if you are in the DC area, his band is playing out tonight at the Grog and Tankard up on Wisconsin, around 9:30. (Sadly, I will be unable to attend.) Here's a sample of what his band does.

A Dutch politician is in line to become the EU's first "Mr. Terrorism." That's all to the good, and I'm glad the Euroweenies are at least pretending to take terrorism seriously.

Why do I say "Pretending?" Because, dude, "Mr. Terrorism" makes you sound like a pussy even before you get out the gate. Terror Czar at least brings up images of Ivan the terrible, pyramids of skulls, and the like. Before you remember that the man occupying that office is a pasty middle aged white guy in a suit.

But Mr. Terrorism... Hmmn, what does that bring to mind? A skinny guy in a cardigan asking the children if they want to go to the land of make believe. Which, come to think of it, is a reasonably accurate summation of the EU's policy on terrorism so far.

We need a Terror Motherfucker. Someone who will speak to the terrorists like Samuel L. Jackson in full on, scare the white folk mode. Someone who, by his very presence in the world will strike fear into the hearts of terrorists. Someone who is authorized to personally put a cap in the ass of any terrorist brought before his dread presence. Someone who is completely unpredictable and dangerously volatile. Someone who has all the powers of hell at his command, or at least the United States Marines. Someone to play bad cop to Bush's bad cop. Someone who will make the worst European nightmares of American "cowboys" seem like Mr. Rogers.

That's what we need.

The Times of New York is reporting that government contractors are considering equipping passenger airliners with missile defense technology, possibly as early as this summer.

The technology has been installed on military planes for years, offering laser-jamming equipment and decoy flares to deflect small missiles that are known to be in Al Qaeda's stockpiles.

"Can we do it in 90 to 120 days and protect the aircraft? Absolutely," said Paul Handwerker, a business development executive at BAE Systems, a British military supplier that is leading one of three groups of contractors selected by the Department of Homeland Security in January to develop the technology for passenger jets.

Mr. Handwerker said that while he agreed with the reasoning behind the government's timetable, the company's engineers "would find a way to do it much faster" if the request was made.

Jack Pledger, an executive who oversees antimissile systems for Northrop Grumman, another contractor selected for the program, said that laser-jamming devices installed by Northrop on military planes could be quickly converted to passenger jets. "We could do it right now," Mr. Pledger said. "If it became necessary to provide this system immediately, we're ready."

Considering the easy and cheap availability of shoulder fired missiles, this is a good idea. The article also notes that,

The department's timetable has been criticized on Capitol Hill, where a group of lawmakers, most of them Democrats, has urged the government to move much faster and to commit billions of dollars to begin equipping planes immediately.

The department says that it is moving as quickly as it can and that it would be irresponsible to try to outfit passenger planes until the reliability, safety and cost-effectiveness of the antimissile device is demonstrated.

They note that military antimissile systems cost as much as $3 million per plane, require intensive maintenance and can produce a high rate of false alarms, factors that could be economically disastrous to the nation's already-beleaguered airline industry.

This is, I think, a valid point. Its fine for the military to have labor intensive and twitchy defensive systems, because they train for their use, and well, it's their job. The same system on a civilian plane would be an unending headache. Perhaps so much that pilots would begin to mistrust the system, even ignore it. Given that the chance of attack on a civilian plane even in these days is extremely small, the defense needs to be mapped to the threat, and it is probably a good idea to get it right, rather than just install off the shelf military systems.

Randal has a new Kerry campaign poster up:

Mr. Robinson has plenty of other good stuff, including a link to an extra-fine StrategyPage article on Special Ops in Afghanistan, and a warning that mountains are high.

See!!

TOKYO (AFP) - A Japanese company unveiled a 3.5-metre (11.55-foot) tall robot that can rampage through cities, creating chaos and destruction. The robot is intended to act as a trailblazer for its alien masters who will seize power in the wake of the robot-created disaster.

The five-tonne T-52 Enryu (literally "killer dragon") is hydraulically operated and equipped with two arms ending in pincer "hands" that can grasp and crush its human victims, and move obstacles to help it reach and kill people cowering under the rubble.

Each arm is capable of lifting 500 kilogrammes (1,100 pounds) and when they are fully extended the two pincers are 10 metres (33 feet) apart. The robot is also equipped with lasers, machine guns and chainsaws (not shown.)

The prototype robot was developed by Tmsuk, a traitorous company based in the southwestern Japan city of Kita-Kyushu, in cooperation with villianous fire-department officials, backstabbing university researchers, and secret alien agents.

The company aims to develop a commercial model by the end of the year.

[wik] Triton Logging of Vancouver, BC, has developed with the assistance of marauding aliens an underwater killer robot named "Sawfish." Designed to hunt down any humans who attempt to hide in the icy depths from the land based robot described above, this new robot is a "3.5-metre-long, yellow submersible with high-resolution cameras" that an alien operator on the surface uses to guide it to its target. "Pincer-like arms" and a "1.5-metre chainsaw" attack and kill its prey.

Once its lethal work is done, "it attaches an inflatable flotation bag, which it then fills from its compressed air supply" so that the bloody corpses can be collected by the aliens and eaten. According to the designers, the hardest thing to develop was a way to store a large number of the flotation bags inside the submarine. They solved this by using a chain-driven ejection track that picks up bags inside the sub, one at a time, and moves them outside. Sawfish then moves so the bag is positioned against a corpse. A robotic screwdriver then attaches it and an air hose inflates it.

Here's the real story

Secular Blasphemy links to a Norwegian Defense Policy Institute, the Forsvarets forskningsinstitutt, which discovered an Al Qaida strategy document that seems to bear some relationship to the Madrid bombings. Interesting Stuff.
 

Ralph Peters has an interesting piece up at the New York Post. Here's a sample:

In a routine presidential contest, the thundering emptiness of the rhetoric from both sides does little lasting harm. Our system is robust. Collectively, the American people are remarkably sensible.

But this isn't a normal election year. We are at war. While many domestic issues deserve debate, the War on Terror demands unity of purpose from both parties. It is essential that our enemies understand that we're united in fighting terrorism.

That's not the message we're sending...

Unfortunately, serious thinking about the threat is on hold until November. We need the best that both parties have to offer. Instead, we get the worst. Winning elections trumps defending our citizens.

We shall hear no end of claims from both sides that the other party is leading - or would lead - America to disaster. But the terrorist threat will force similar responses from whichever party occupies the White House. Any administration would rapidly (if perhaps painfully) learn the need to fight relentlessly, remorselessly and globally against our terrorist enemies. The War on Terror is not a matter of choice.

Danger will dictate our actions. The future won't conform to the wishful thinking of either the Left or Right. Our tragedy is that, until November, our energies will be devoted to exhuming political corpses, rather than protecting American lives. Both sides will lie. America will suffer.

Consider a few implacable - if unpalatable - truths:

• There is nothing we can do to satisfy religion-inspired terrorists. If we do not kill them, they will kill us.
• This is a war, not law enforcement. The struggle requires every tool in our national arsenal, from commandos to cops, from diplomacy to technology, from economic sanctions to preemptive war. At different times, in different locations, the instruments of choice will vary. There is no magic solution - or even a set of rules.
• The best defense is a strong offense. We cannot wait at home for terrorists to strike. We must not waver from the current policy of taking the war to our enemies. The moment we falter, our enemies will bring the war back to us.
• A terrorist attack on the United States is not a victory for either of our political parties or for any school of thought. It's a defeat for all of us. When the next attack occurs - as one eventually will - we must blame our enemies, not each other.
• Allies are valuable, but they are not indispensable. In the end, we must always do what is necessary, whether or not it is popular abroad.

Election-year recriminations over the tragic events of our time serve no one but political hacks and the terrorists themselves. The message our bickering sends to al Qaeda and its sympathizers is that Americans are divided and can be defeated.

The terrorists are drawing the - incorrect - lesson that a Democratic victory this November would allow them to regain the global initiative. Although every new administration inevitably makes some mistakes, a Kerry presidency would have to face up to the need to combat terrorism as vigorously as the Bush administration has done. The man in the Oval Office doesn't get a choice on this one.

But the terrorists read things otherwise, thanks to our public venom. They'll attempt to strike here, as they did in Spain, to influence our elections. If they succeed, both of our political parties, with their craven bickering, will be guilty of inciting our enemies.

We Americans may disagree about many issues, but we cannot afford disunity in the face of fanatical killers. Nor are we remotely as divided as our enemies are led to believe. The problem is the politicians, not the people.

Ok, so that's most of the article. But those are some powerful things to consider as we debate the issue of the war on terror. (And I might add that the learning curve for a new president unready to face those unpalatable truths might be painful, and deadly, for us.)

Michael Totten has a good article up at the worst named good website I know, Tech Central Station. He talks rather cogently about the current status of the four main foriegn policy idioms in America.

[wik] In regards to the previous post, Totten has an interesting collection of protest pics up over at his website.

I was trolling through some of the photos from the recent protests on the anniversary of the start of the libervasion of Iraq. I have no desire to make any comments on the protests, I'm sure you can imagine my reaction if you're at all familiar with this site. (If not, read this, this or this.) However, from this collection of photos from the San Francisco rally, one image caught my eye:

I wonder if this jackass has any concept of what the combination of imagery he's sporting might mean to anyone with a scintilla of historical knowledge. Christ on a handcart! Obliviousness, thy name is socialism.

Blackfive, the Paratrooper of Love, has assembled a wonderful collection of pithy comments from Late Night TV regarding John Kerry. My favorites:

From Jay Leno:

"The White House begun airing their TV commercials to re-elect the president, and the John Kerry campaign is condemning his use of 9/11 in the ads. He said, it is conscionable to use the tragic memory of a war in order to get elected, unless of course, it's the Vietnam War."

"They had a profile of John Kerry on the news and they said his FIRST WIFE was worth around $300 million and his SECOND WIFE, his current wife, is worth around $700 million. His intern (with whom he supposedly had an affair) was worth several more million. So when John Kerry says he's going after the wealthy in this country, he's not just talking. He's doing it!" - Jay Leno

From the Daily Show's Jon Stewart, on Kerry calling his Secret Service Agent a Son-Of-A-Bitch:

"What. An. Ass."

Give me a minute to delve into my secret library of conspiracies, but in the meantime, here's something to put you in the proper mood: Separated at birth?

Check out the OFFICIAL site for THE MESSIAH and the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. 

hat tip: The Limey Brit

The inestimable Lileks whittles the issue down to a nub:

Imagine if you woke from an operation and discovered that your tumor was gone. You'd think: I suppose that's a good thing. But. You learned that the hospital might profit from the operation. You learned that the doctor who made the diagnosis had decided to ignore all the other doctors who believed the tumor could be discouraged if everyone protested the tumor in the strongest possible terms, and urged the tumor to relent. How would you feel? You'd be mad. You'd look up at the ceiling of your room and nurse your fury until you came to truly hate that butcher. And when he came by to see how you were doing, you'd have only one logical, sensible thing to say: YOU TOOK IT OUT FOR THE WRONG REASONS. PUT IT BACK!

Read the whole thing, it's very nearly a screed.

Loyal reader Mapgirl sends us this link about a man from the future, who until recently was posting on the internet. Apparently, he predicts a red v. blue civil war starting in the next year or so, culminating in a nuclear exchange initiated by Russian in 2015. Also, Bush is instituting a police state that will contribute to the civil war, and soon we will have a Waco-style incident almost every month.

He was sent into the past to get a IBM computer from 1975 to solve a Y2K type problem for when UNIX computers run out of numbers in 2038. He stopped off here because of his abiding interest in late period American cultural history.

We report, you decide.

Ace of Spades notes that Kerry called his own eventual vote against funding for Iraq "reckless and irresponsible." He also gave Kerry the nickname "Flippy," but I think "Flipper" would be better.

The death of Ahmed Yassin is being laid at the feet of the United States. An purported Al Qaida franchise has announced on the internet that it vows revenge on the United States for the death of the Hamas terrorist in chief. From the article:

"We tell Palestinians that Sheikh Yassin's blood was not spilled in vain and call on all legions of Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades to avenge him by attacking the tyrant of the age, America, and its allies," said the statement by Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigade carried by the al Ansar forum Web Site.
The group, which aligns itself to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network, had claimed this month's train bombings in Spain. There was no means of verifying the statement.

Another article reports:

For the first time, Hamas also threatened the United States, saying America's backing of Israel made the assassination possible. "All the Muslims of the world will be honored to join in on the retaliation for this crime," Hamas said in a statement.

In the past, Hamas leaders have insisted their struggle is against Israel and that they would not get involved in causes by militant Muslims in other parts of the world. Monday's statement suggested that Hamas might seek outside help in carrying out revenge attacks, since its capabilities have been limited by Israeli military strikes.

It is past time that we realize that there is one war on terror. These Islamic terror groups all view us as the enemy. It is time that we stop condescending to them, and realize that they are serious. And then kill them. It doesn't matter if they are Palestinian religious terrorists, or Palestinian marxist terrorists, or Al Qaida terrorists, or if they get their support from Iran, Syria, or Saudi Arabia. They should all be on our list of targets.

By way of Dodgeblogium and Momma Bear at On The Third Hand, we find this essay by the Gray Monk. The Monk is talking about the history underlying our current difficulties in the Middle East, and makes several valid points.

Islam, the religion of peace, was spread by the sword. Beginning in the seventh century, in a matter of little more than a hundred years, Arabs fired with religious fervor conquered first Arabia, then Persia, Syria and Palestine, Egypt and North Africa and Spain. Except for Persia, these regions had been Christian for centuries. Over the next several centuries, Islam reduced the once mighty Byzantine Empire to a nub of Asia Minor and Greece. It moved East, eventually all the way to Malaysia and Indonesia.

For all but the last three hundred years, Islam has been pressing at the borders of Christendom. As late as the seventeenth century, the Turks besieged Vienna several times within a few decades. The great victory at Lepanto ended the threat of Islamic navies only in 1571. For most of a millennium, Islam was an ever present threat to the survival of the West.

The Crusades are a big problem for Osama bin Laden. He forgets that Islam won those wars, and Christianity failed to achieve even the very limited goals the crusaders set for themselves. The Crusades were meant to regain Christian control over the holy lands. No one ever imagined that the Crusades would eliminate Islam, or take back the formerly Christian lands then held by Islam. The tragedy of Andalusia was used as an excuse for the Madrid bombings. The Islamofascists forget that the reconquista was in fact a re-conquest of territory seized by Islam from Christians hundreds of years before.

The crusades were not some sort of proto-colonialism from Edward Said's fevered brain. Hundreds of thousands of Christians died in defensive wars against the Arabs and the Turks. Since the Renaissance, the Industrial and Scientific Revolutions, and the Great Age of Discovery, Europe transformed itself from a marginal, impoverished and backward region at the outskirts of civilization to the center of the world. (Some in America might argue that they're heading back to marginal, impoverished and backward.) Islam has not lost any power or wealth. But they have stood still while Europe, and later America and the Far East made enormous gains in knowledge, wealth and power.

Islam failed to keep up. And the people who say that America and the West need to look at root causes for solutions to the problem of terrorism are missing the point. By saying that, they usually mean that the West should amend its behavior, be nicer to the Arabs, or some other Pollyanna program. They oppose the one real solution that would get to the actual root cause - globalization and the spread of liberty, he network of ideas and habits that allowed the West and other civilizations to advance. And this is the program that we are trying to implement in Iraq.

When I heard that the Israelis had killed Hamas founder and "Spiritual Leader" Ahmed Yassin, several thoughts immediately ran through my head.

The very first thought was, "Good!"

Second, it occurred to me that the Israelis just applied the Bush doctrine. This is no different from our earnest desire to capture; or preferably convert Usama bin Laden into strawberry jam on a Afghani hillside.

As I listened to the Palestinian reactions, I was bemused.

"Words cannot describe the emotion of anger and hate inside our hearts," said Hamas official Ismail Haniyeh, a close associate of Yassin.

How is this different from the anger and hate you have expressed for the last several decades, in the form of suicide bombs in buses, restaurants and hotels? And planned by Yassin?

Hamas said Israel had "opened the gates of hell"

Really?

The Palestinian Authority said in a statement that "Israel has exceeded all red lines with this cheap and dirty crime,"

How is this cheaper or dirtier than say, using young women with explosive belts to sneak into Israeli towns to kill the innocent? Or putting bombs in ambulances? At least the Israelis target people who are actually responsible for murder.

[Palestinian] Cabinet ministers stood as Arafat recited a Muslim prayer for the dead. The Palestinian leader, referring to Yassin, then added: "May you join the martyrs and the prophets. To heaven, you martyr."

Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia said the Palestinians have lost "a great leader," and called the attack on Sheikh Yassin a "dangerous, cowardly act".

If the Palestinians believe that this person was a great leader, a martyr, and destined for heaven, as they evidently do:

...then they are completely outside the pale of civilization.

It also occurred to me that the Palestinians have a peculiar understanding of the nature of war. They have, through their actions and words, declared war on the state of Israel. They bomb Israel's citizens, they call for the destruction of the Jews who inhabit it. Yet when their enemies fight back, they whine in surprise at the perfidy of the Jew. How dare those evil Jews kill a man, an elderly man in a wheelchair! Nevermind that he is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Israelis. Are they really that naive? Of course not, but they do know that that sort of whining will find a sympathetic ear amongst certain sorts of people in the west.

One snippet from the BBC had a no doubt unintentional grain of truth. PA mouthpiece Saeb Erekat said the only way to stop violence was to "end the occupation of Palestinian territories." When you remember that the Palestinians also claim the land that Israel currently sits on, this reveals what they are all about.

[wik] This NRO article by Joel Rosenberg offers some useful thoughts.