Recently i posted about Ulf Hjertström, the Swede who was held hostage by terrorists in Iraq and vowed to hunt them down. Here's an update:

Hjertström 'doesn’t want to go into detail' about the bounty hunters, but assures Expressen that they are 'the best money can buy.'

'They’re not twiddling their thumbs,' declares Hjertström, revealing that he has 'received confirmation that two of [the kidnappers] have already been taken care of.' When asked to elaborate on the fate of the purportedly captured men, the Swede says he 'hasn’t inquired' but has his 'suspicions.'

The original story is in Swedish. i can't read it but i know someone who might be able to.

Link thanks to Billy McCormac of the Stockholm Spectator Blog.

[cross-posted at A Western Heart]

Posted by: annika at 08:13 AM | Comments (13) | Add Comment
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The BTK Killer's nickname stood for "bind torture kill. i wonder if he chose to call himself that because he liked to play loud rap music and turn the a/c up on his victims.

i'm not being flip here, just trying to make a semantic point.

Posted by: annika at 07:12 AM | Comments (28) | Add Comment
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Via Rodger, this cool story from The Australian:

Ex-hostage hires bounty hunters

A hostage held alongside Australian Douglas Wood in Iraq has hired bounty hunters to track down his former captors, promising to eliminate them one by one.

Swede Ulf Hjertstrom, who was held for several weeks with Mr Wood in Baghdad, was released by his kidnappers on May 30.

Mr Hjertstrom has since claimed he shared information with US and Iraqi troops about Mr Wood which led to the release of the 63-year-old Australian engineers two weeks ago, after 47 days in captivity.

Now, he wants to find those responsible.

'I have now put some people to work to find these bastards,' he told the Ten Network today.

'I invested about $50,000 so far and we will get them one by one.'

More: i found this apalling story about the Australian hostage Douglas Wood at Andi's World. It shouldn't shock me, yet somehow it does.

It seems that lunacy isn't exclusive to American journalists. After Douglas Woods, the Australian contractor kidnapped in Iraq, was freed from captivity, he actually expressed his true feelings for his captors by calling them a**holes. These remarks have drawn the ire of one Andrew Jaspan, editor of a left-wing newspaper in Australia.

Jaspan tells us that Woods went way too far with his remarks:

Said Jaspan: "I was, I have to say, shocked by Douglas Wood's use of the a---hole word, if I can put it like that, which I just thought was coarse and very ill-thought through and I think demeans the man and is one of the reasons why people are slightly sceptical of his motives and everything else.

Woods greatest sin was to say "God Bless America" and praise American and Iraqi forces. Apparently, Jaspan thinks Woods should have been more grateful to his captors and a little less grateful to the forces who freed him. After all, his captors didn't torment him too badly.

Wow. What is wrong with the far left? And how can anyone on God's earth take them seriously? It makes me want to bang my head against a wall sometimes.

Australian lefties, while Woods was still in chains, used him as a prop in their crusade against the forces of "U.S. Imperialism." Now that he's free, and free to speak the truth, the lefties have no use for him. And in fact, now they've come to despise Mr. Woods.

But we know what Wood's real offence is, don't we?

Yes, he did not do as did SBS journalist and Left hero John Martinkus after his own brief captivity and declare his kidnappers were "not savages", and say Iraq was 'on the road to s---'.

INSTEAD, he roared 'God bless America' and praised the US-trained Iraqi soldiers -- Iraq's real freedom fighters -- who saved him, saying he was 'proof positive that the current policies of the American and Australian governments is the right one'.

It seems that to a Leftist, this makes Wood the boorish inferior of the killers who beat him and held him captive. It is why journalist Tracee Hutchinson, in an Age column, calls him a 'blustering buffoon', moaning: 'It was enough that his words God bless America had been played over and over on his release.'

Let me ask younger readers still deciding on their brand of politics. Wouldn't you blush to join this Left?

[Cross-posted at A Western Heart.]

Posted by: annika at 11:33 AM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
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A diabolical genius. i'm glad he's on our side.

Ralph Bristol of SCHeadlines.com theorizes that the controversy surrounding Rove's recent anti-liberal comments was the result of a well played trick. If so, i love it. If not, the furor over what Rove said is still laughable.

Whether it was an intentional trap or not, and we all know that Rove is evil and maniacal, the Democrats fell into it, one after another.

Even before the dust had settled on Sen. Dick DurbinÂ’s potentially treasonous assertion that our military guards at the Guantanamo Bay terrorist prison camp were acting like Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot, followed by his tearful apology to himself for attracting the wrath of friend and foe alike, Rove offered Democrats the opportunity to stand out as uniquely hypocritical.

In the world of politics, where hypocrisy is an art form, to be uniquely hypocritical is indeed a remarkable accomplishment.

Back to the Ralph Bristol piece. Here are the differences between the Rove and Durbin comments:

Liberals might argue that while Schumer, Clinton and others are in fact hypocritical for attacking Rove and defending Durbin, conservatives are similarly hypocritical for attacking Durbin, but not Rove. That argument would have merit only if the two menÂ’s statements were similarly outrageous.

Here are the differences.

First, What Durbin stated was demonstrably fallacious. Anyone with even a modicum of historical knowledge and perspective would not seriously equate the alleged mistreatment of Gitmo prisoners, cited by Durbin, (uncomfortable heat and cold; loud rap music) with the inhumane murder of millions of innocent civilians at the hands of Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot.

What Rove said is largely factual. Liberals, specifically the group Moveon.org, did in fact counsel “moderation and restraint” after 9/11. While many Democrats voted for the war on terror, it is true that some liberals reacted exactly as Rove described. He could have been more accurate if he had said “some liberals,” but that’s a miniscule rhetorical error compared to Durbin’s slander of the guards at Gitmo.

Second, Rove served up his remarks at a setting that is accepted as a 'red meat banquet,' a gathering of the New York Conservative Party. DurbinÂ’s comments came on the floor of what is supposed to be 'the worldÂ’s most deliberative body.'

Finally, and most important, DurbinÂ’s allegations can and will be repeatedly broadcast by AmericaÂ’s enemy as a tool to reinforce the fury in the Jihad soldiers and inspire others to join the battle. His comments will be a useful and enduring propaganda tool in the hands of the enemy.

By contrast, the worst you can say about Rove's comments are that they were

an inaccurate rendering of some DemocratsÂ’ support for the war, which could harm their electoral chances in the future.

Posted by: annika at 10:26 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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My respect for Susan Estrich just went up about a tenth of a point. Of course, when she's starting out in negative figures that doesn't mean a whole lot, but still. Read her Liberal's Defense of Fox News.

Link hat tip to Kate of Small Dead Animals.

Posted by: annika at 09:23 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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You should read the translation of an article by Saudi writer Nadine Al-Baydar, which i found at the Watching America blog. Here's some excerpts:

I gazed at the walls of [my brother's] room and asked him: 'You want to boycott America like your teacher told you to?' He bobbed his head up and down in agreement. So I said: 'Then take down all these posters of famous wrestlers and rock stars, stop wearing your American-style clothes, quit watching their movies, toss out your personal computer, change your Western-inspired haircut, and replace your way of living that is so taken by the American culture with something elseÂ…[']

He immediately interrupted me: 'Come on, sis, I was only joking!'

It is not just my brother who is only joking, but it is all Arab peoples who have a bland sense of humor when they declare their hatred for America and their decision to be free of Western culture. That is because there isnÂ’t an Arab or Muslim person who can survive without the products of American culture. And how could they, when Arab nations are to this day nations of consumers and not producers, nations who do nothing to encourage their citizens to be creative, and nations who never created the right environment for innovation. These are nations that are more inclined to procrastination and dependence; nations who are fighting a war against terror while their curricula recommend just the opposite.

. . .

If we did some research to find out the number of places for entertainment in the Arab world, we would find that it is many orders of magnitude larger than the number of factories or places of learning. The Arab citizen is a hardcore entertainment junky whose brain leans toward intellectual and scientific stagnation. If you were to look for the majority of Arabs in any tourist country, you would only find them sitting in cafes, watching each other and boasting to one another. Some might be found quenching their thirst at the local pub, before returning to the homeland to put on an impersonation of a pious hermit, and start preaching from their holier-than-thou pulpits.

. . .

Did the Arabs lift a finger to help the people of Kosovo when they were suffering from Serbian persecution? They gathered a few donations, but it was America who saved Kosovo. The Arabs did nothing to aid the women of Afghanistan when they were forbidden an education, and when the Afghani people were robbed of the chance for a normal life. America had to come in and rid the region of the backward Taliban regime.

The fear that the Arabs had for the prestige of their governments was more important to them than the injustices that the Iraqis were living under. Not one Arab government condemned the Halabja massacre and the Iraqi loss of life. It was America, and only America, who toppled SaddamÂ’s regime, while the Arabs stood by denouncing the American intervention in Iraq.

. . .

Saying that America is targeting the Arabs is a weak and untrue statement: We saw how the U.S. Secretary of State stressed that democracy in Russia had many problems, when she was visiting there a few months ago. It is also well known that the United States had supported the Georgian opposition against the dictatorship there. During the annual session of the Organization of American States this year, Condoleezza Rice emphasized the fragility of democracy in Venezuela and other countries in Latin America.

Many Arabs and Muslims view America as evil. They curse America and hurl insults at it. Some even bomb it and terrorize it. But America doesnÂ’t have the time to curse back; it is too busy finishing the job it came to do in the Middle East.

Posted by: annika at 11:09 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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i've always believed that much of the far left is anti-semitic as well as anti-Christian. It's just that the anti-semitism had to be kept under wraps because so many Democratic voters are Jewish. In Europe their anti-semitism is open and blatant. Some Democrats in the U.S. would have it that way here too.

At a recent "Bush impeachment festival" held by House Democrats, someone let the cat out of the bag.

The session took an awkward turn when witness Ray McGovern, a former intelligence analyst, declared that the United States went to war in Iraq for oil, Israel and military bases craved by administration 'neocons' so 'the United States and Israel could dominate that part of the world.' He said that Israel should not be considered an ally and that Bush was doing the bidding of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

'Israel is not allowed to be brought up in polite conversation,' McGovern said. 'The last time I did this, the previous director of Central Intelligence called me anti-Semitic.'

Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.), who prompted the question by wondering whether the true war motive was Iraq's threat to Israel, thanked McGovern for his 'candid answer.'

At Democratic headquarters, where an overflow crowd watched the hearing on television, activists handed out documents repeating two accusations -- that an Israeli company had warning of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and that there was an 'insider trading scam' on 9/11 -- that previously has been used to suggest Israel was behind the attacks.

Democrats, to judge by recent events, appear to be losing their collective minds in some form of shriek therapy. Being out of power may do that to a party used to having its way for many decades in Congress. But there is one other possible explanation for the apparent insanity. With so much money concentrated in the hands of some hard left advocates (think George Soros, Hollywood, trial lawyers, internet millionaires and some union bosses), the Democrats may feel the need to feed the beast - to protect and cater to their hardcore base, so as to keep the money flowing into the political coffers for future campaigns. So the strategy is for Democrats to be completely over the top in their attacks - trashing Bush, America, our military, Republicans, and Israel, all of whom are targets of the activists, to keep the moveon.org and Dailykos crowds happy.

But if the Democrats keep letting their anti-semitic elements have the floor, we should probably expect to hear more thinly veiled anti-Christian fear-mongering by Dean and his ilk, to compensate for the damage.
_______________

* In other words, when Howard Dean uses the statistically inaccurate label "the party of white Christians," he's really using coded language designed to keep secular Jews and people who fear religion in the Democratic camp. Divide and conquer, the age-old Democrat strategy.

Posted by: annika at 09:49 PM | Comments (13) | Add Comment
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1 "traditional Jewish support for the Democratic party is that it is based on a vestigial (although historically justified) fear that Republicans are the party of White Christians, ergo the party of bigots." Bullshit, the historical connection of liberal jews to the Demoncrats has its roots in the socialist politics many jews carried with them from the old world, and shared with the D's in the new. Ten whacks for you, and sit in the back of the class.

Posted by: Casca at June 20, 2005 10:13 PM (qBTBH)

2 I don't think the Democratic Party's far left element has any idea about the power of the new media. They have been saying these things for years, it is just that no one reported it. The best disinfectant is sunshine. Just keep talking morons.

Posted by: Yolo Cowboy at June 20, 2005 10:13 PM (tOZv2)

3 on further reflection, i have deleted the parenthetical.

Posted by: annika at June 20, 2005 10:17 PM (erSH9)

4 All is forgiven. I too drink and write.

Posted by: Casca at June 20, 2005 10:26 PM (qBTBH)

5 Casca is right. The Jews in Europe adopted socialism because it promised equality of income. The Jews thought that to achieve equality of income you had to forget differences in religion. Wrong. The socialist regimes of Germany and Russia both engaged in mass murder of the Jewish people. However, the Jews in America still retained their socialism and left-wing politics in face of those exterminations. Go figure. Bush hatred has moved many Jews (especially in the academic world) to be anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian. It is all part of the madness that is the Democrat Party today.

Posted by: Jake at June 21, 2005 03:27 AM (r/5D/)

6 If the Democrats are so anti-Semitic, why are so many leading Democratic senators Jewish? Do the anti-Semites include Feinstein, Boxer, Feingold, Wyden, and Schumer?

Posted by: Hugo at June 21, 2005 05:56 PM (vXMv1)

7 "However, the Jews in America still retained their socialism and left-wing politics in face of those exterminations. Go figure." Glad to see you put that in the past tense, though. It's changing, finally. Go to Palm Beach County, the most Jewish county in Florida and the second-most Democratic (after Broward) and you'll see the GOP in explosive growth mode. The retirees will always vote mindlessly for the Dems, but other Jewish voters, especially younger ones, don't have that kind of tribal loyalty. I mean, seriously, the irony of Dean calling the Republicans the "white Christian party" wasn't just in getting that from the former governor of lily-white Vermont: Ken Mehlman said something like "all the people who attended my bar mitzvah will be very surprised to hear that." Now, as a Jewish Republican from Massachusetts, I suspect we could still hold a convention in a broom closet, but everything's relative.

Posted by: Dave J at June 22, 2005 01:03 PM (ZKuUj)

8 You don't have to be anti-Semitic to disagree with the way that Israel is treating the Palestinians. There is a lot more going on over there than Fox news decides to tell us

Posted by: joe at June 22, 2005 04:43 PM (wSLCU)

9 Oh my God, you're an idiot. I can't take it. I'm going to sue Slate for linking to you.

Posted by: Jon at June 22, 2005 11:29 PM (Dbae2)

10 It always amazes me that people think it's OK to just randomly toss out insults like that. No argument, no "you're wrong because X, Y and Z," just "you're an idiot," as if it's self-evident and beneath them to justify it. Thanks, Jon, for demonstrating your OBVIOUS intellectual and moral superiority.

Posted by: Dave J at June 23, 2005 08:30 AM (ZKuUj)

11 Divide and conquer is a Republican strategy that has worked well these past 20 years. How did Bush win the last election otherwise? The whole gay issue was a divisive issue designed to divide and conquer.

Posted by: Tony Martin at June 24, 2005 01:45 AM (2sHE4)

12 Tony: so Bush foisted "the gay issue" on the country, then? Funny, I thought it was the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts that did that.

Posted by: Dave J at June 24, 2005 08:28 PM (CYpG7)

13 Dave, don't forget the "My way or the highway" Mayor of San Francisco. His arrogance was LARGE.

Posted by: Mark at June 24, 2005 10:33 PM (GE903)

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If John McCain is nominated in 2008, i will not vote for him.

Who's with me?

HCOTW: Desert Cat!

Posted by: annika at 10:05 AM | Comments (23) | Add Comment
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1 It all depends on the alternative. But I will say that I can not vote for the man. He will not make it out of the primaries unless we have major crossover voters.

Posted by: Michael C at June 20, 2005 10:55 AM (yAKj9)

2 It depends on the alternative. If it is McCain vs. HRC where would you go???

Posted by: Prarieblogger at June 20, 2005 11:15 AM (95uDn)

3 i would write in someone.

Posted by: annie at June 20, 2005 11:41 AM (zAOEU)

4 why because he not NAzi?!

Posted by: Um Yeah at June 20, 2005 01:13 PM (MhJuU)

5 My first response was to say "hell yes I'm with you. Fuck that guy and his 'independent'thinking." But, the more I think of it, I'd rather have McCain than a Dem. McCain has some high profile fuck ups but he is still a pretty reliable conservative vote. He also is one of the more articulate spokesmen we have for providing justification for Iraq and the war on terroism. What places him beyond redemption, Annie? (I realize there a long list of items that could drive you fucking crazy.) I'm curious about what particulary pisses you off. Filibuster? McCain-Feingold? etc etc etc Anyway, he'll never win a Rep primary. So, this is just an academic exercise.

Posted by: Blu at June 20, 2005 01:15 PM (j8oa6)

6 I'm down. If that happens we'll talk. I'm sure I can turn you onto some delightful little third party w/o a chance in hell of winning but whose candidate makes you think , "yeah; true dat". But in any case when it comes to not voting for a RINO I got yo' back.

Posted by: Publicola at June 20, 2005 01:20 PM (bXrfV)

7 i knew i could count on you, Publicola. Blu, it's McCain Feingold (one of the shittiest pieces of law to come down the pike in a long time.) and his being a member of the "seven." On every issue that i've heard him speak about, McCain bends over backwards to be accomodating and collegial to the Senate Democrats. But does anyone really think that if he were president, the liberals would not try to demonize him the way they do every other Republican in existence?

Posted by: annie at June 20, 2005 01:26 PM (zAOEU)

8 yeah, He is a very very ambitious man, who loves to be in the limelight and dosent mind sticking it to his party. Also dosent care too much for the first amendment. Now some would call that being a politician, I call it, a no vote.

Posted by: Kyle at June 20, 2005 02:29 PM (7Re84)

9 McCain is a goldplated prick with no allegiance to anything or anyone but his own ambition. I plan to crossover to AZ to register to vote sometime this year.

Posted by: Casca at June 20, 2005 03:41 PM (qBTBH)

10 Most definitely. He's a Republican in the populist nutball tradition of Huey Long (D); that is, he has little in common with the Republican party's tradition of limited government, social conservatism, etc. He's affirmatively dangerous. Moreoever, he uses his war experience as a cudgel to silence his critics, which makes him an asshole under most common definitions. Plus, he rudely fanned flames of racial and religious unrest in criticizing Bush for visiting Bob Jones U in 2000, which was a below-the-belt criticism that basically implied Bush was a racist--which he most definitely is not, whatever his other faults may be. McCain would be like Bush's big government worldwide crusading side without the social conservative and limited government instincts of the traditional right. It would be about one thing: McCain's power and legacy.

Posted by: Roach at June 20, 2005 04:10 PM (MRlvg)

11 I will never support a Senator for President. They cannot win. Harding and Kennedy are the only two senators who have won the White House in the history of America. A Senator has a better chance of being struck by lightning than he has of being elected President. I am supporting a Governor to be named.

Posted by: Jake at June 20, 2005 04:53 PM (r/5D/)

12 I would probably write in myself. (Struggling at my new mu.nu site. *Sigh*)

Posted by: Mark at June 20, 2005 05:18 PM (Vg0tt)

13 Well I've voted for him and would be more than happy to see him run. I think the same qualities that make him seem like a bad senator, of late, would make him an effective president. None of us are going to get the dream candidate, so a McCain-Watts ticket is great comprimise.

Posted by: McCain-Watts in 08! at June 20, 2005 05:33 PM (x8hF4)

14 "Anyway, he'll never win a Rep primary. So, this is just an academic exercise." If only it were academic. My fear is that he's just the sort of egomaniac who, once it's clear to him as it is to the rest of us that he's not getting the GOP nod, might want to replay Perot '92 and thereby hand thw White House to the Dems (i.e., presumably HRC).

Posted by: Dave J at June 20, 2005 07:09 PM (ZKuUj)

15 Not to worry, in that case, someone will cut the punk.

Posted by: Casca at June 20, 2005 07:40 PM (qBTBH)

16 John McCain is a more reliable statist than he is a conservative. I, on the other hand, am only a Republican because I am a conservative/libertarian. Thus there is no conceivable reason why I would throw my vote away on a man who does not represent my political views. If he is nominated, I will vote for whomever the Constitutional or Libertarian parties put up. Would I sooner see the Hildebeest than the McCainiac elected? No, but unfortunately discerning the lesser of evils is pretty tough in this case. At least the Hildebeest would be stymied by a Republican House and Senate, whereas the McCainiac would mount the bully pulpit, the press would have a collective orgasm, and the Congress would probably roll over to do whatever he wanted.

Posted by: Desert Cat at June 20, 2005 08:23 PM (xdX36)

17 I'm with you, Annie. There's so much I admire about the guy, but much that I despise abbout him as a politician, particularly his certainty that he's smarter than the Founding Fathers. I couldn't vote for him. By the way, he'll be 72 in '08. Uncle Ronnie was only 69 in '80, so McCain may be a bit long in the tooth for the presidency, by recent standards. And he's had melanoma twice.

Posted by: Matt at June 20, 2005 08:29 PM (xIqZL)

18 Desert Cat has articulated the best reason i've seen for throwing away my vote, in the event of a Hillery McCain general election. Bravo. i'm dusting off the Huge Comment of the Week for you my friend.

Posted by: annika at June 20, 2005 09:00 PM (erSH9)

19 cool

Posted by: Desert Cat at June 20, 2005 11:30 PM (xdX36)

20 Casca's "cut the punk" comment gets my nomination.

Posted by: Mark MuNu at June 21, 2005 01:30 AM (TBkLy)

21 Damn. I said "i got yo back". I said "I'm down". Even said "true dat". Brother can't get no love round here But there's another reason, which appeals to me more. See even if McCain is the lesser of two evils, that still makes him evil. Sure, it's relatively better to vote for the false prophet than the antichrist (so to speak) but neither will endear you in Heaven. & when the lesser of two evils wins that seldom causes him/her to repent. If anything it fuels their ambitions which tend to gravitate toward the evil rather than the good. Hell look at Arnie. Lesser of two evils compared to a democrat, but yet no democrat governor anyplace in the u.s. has banned a type of bolt action rifle. when ya vote for thelesser of two evils ya get what ya pick - evil. & McCain (with his bill to de facto ban gunshows across the u.s. as well as his limits on free speech) is close enough to evil that him being the lesser of the choices would not endear me to the process, let alone casting a vote for him. (& the same applies for anyone in his position - I'm just picking on McCain cause I can). Shame we seldom have a choice between good & really good (like Kozinski v Ron Paul). Oh, & it's not throwing away your vote unles syou feel the goal is to pick the winner. It's never a wasted vote if you wouldn't regret the candidate you voted for winning.

Posted by: Publicola at June 21, 2005 02:42 PM (bXrfV)

22 If McCain is the nominee against Hillary, I'm voting for myself. Physics Geek for President! McCain is a strutting, self-important peacock whose sole purpose in life appears to be garnering positive review from the NY Times. It's too bad, really, since he served this country well during wartime and suffered in ways that I cannot imagine during his captivity. But that pain doesn't excuse his having become a gigantic asshole.

Posted by: physics geek at June 22, 2005 10:11 AM (Xvrs7)

23 I would choose McCain over any other Republican. I remember how he was targetted by the far right in the 2000 primaries after he surprised Bush with his upsets. Money flowed like floodwaters into the NRA, anti-abortion groups, and other arch right organizations, who proceeded to set up quick reaction call center campaigns intent on smearing McCain. The distortions and slander was so shameful that I began to question my 20 years as a stalwart Republican. Bush's cavalier 'We are in the delegate business' attitude finally convinced me to lead the Republican party on principle. I had spent so much time acting as an apologist for my former party; I now enjoy my independent stance, as neither side can shake free their extremists, so I will focus on supporting those who will do the best for American, vs. the special interests of either party.

Posted by: Will Stewart at June 29, 2005 11:29 AM (GzvlQ)

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i should turn this running theme into a rubric.

Here's the first few paragraphs of an SFGate article, this morning. SFGate, for those who don't know, is the San Francisco Chronicle and San Franscisco Examiner's joint website.

Mess-Hall Bombing Kills 26 Iraqi Soldiers

By PATRICK QUINN, Associated Press Writer

Wednesday, June 15, 2005

(06-15) 09:02 PDT BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- A suicide bomber walked into an Iraqi mess hall and blew himself up Wednesday, killing 25 Iraqi soldiers. The attack came as Iraqi and U.S. forces rescued an Australian hostage in Baghdad.

The troops, acting on a tip, freed Douglas Wood, a 64-year-old engineer who is a longtime resident of Alamo, Calif., during a raid in a dangerous Sunni neighborhood.

In a separate attack Wednesday, eight Iraqi policemen were killed when a suicide bomber slammed into two police cars in the capital. Thirteen bystanders also were wounded as two police cars burst into flames at the intersection in a predominantly Shiite neighborhood, police said.

Wood said he was "extremely happy and relieved to be free again," according to a message read by Australia's counterterrorism chief Nick Warner.

The raid took place as part of Operation Lightning — a broader counterinsurgency operation that began in Baghdad on May 29, Warner said. He added there "was specific intelligence and tips that provided a hint at what might be found at that location."

Wood was freed by the Iraqi army's 2nd battalion, 1st Armored Brigade, with assistance by U.S. forces in Ghazaliya — one of the most dangerous Sunni Arab neighborhood of Baghdad, Warner said. He added that "no ransom was paid" despite a request for a "very large" amount of money.

Wood was found under a blanket, and the insurgents told troops he was their sick father, said Gen. Naseer al-Abadi, Iraq's deputy chief of staff. The operation also resulted in the arrest of three insurgents and release of an Iraqi hostage.

"This is a great day for Iraq. We are proud of the way our soldiers conducted themselves," al-Abadi said.

Wood was abducted in late April by a militant group calling itself the Shura Council of the Mujahedeen of Iraq.

The Australian government refused to bend to the kidnappers' demands that its 1,400 troops be withdrawn from Iraq. It sent diplomats, police and military personnel to Baghdad to seek his release.

"I am delighted to inform the House that the Australian hostage in Iraq, Mr. Douglas Wood, is safe," Prime Minister John Howard told Parliament in Canberra, Australia.

Howard told reporters an Iraqi military unit, in cooperation with U.S. forces, rescued Wood.

More ranting: And don't tell me that the media is not against us, when the first time i heard word one about the following news story was by reading Mark Steyn's column, via Michelle Malkin.

Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe's kleptocrat strongman, destroyed a mosque the other day. It was in Hatcliffe Extension, a shantytown on the edge of Harare, razed by the "police." Mr. Mugabe is an equal-opportunity razer: He also bulldozed a Catholic-run Aids center.

The government destroyed the town to drive the locals into the countryside to live on land stolen from white farmers. Quite how that's meant to benefit any of those involved or the broader needs of Zimbabwe is beyond me, but then I'm no expert in Afro-Marxist economic theory.

The point is the world's Muslims seem entirely cool with Infidel Bob razing a mosque. Unlike the fallout over Newsweek's fraudulent story about the Koran being flushed down a toilet, no excitable young men went bananas in Pakistan; no Western progressives berated Mr. Mugabe for his "cultural insensitivity." And sadly most of the big-shot Muslim spokespersons were still too busy flaying the Bush administration to whip their subjects into a frenzy over Hatcliffe Extension's pile of Islamic rubble.

Or, since the media is on the side of the enemy, does Mugabe get a pass because it wasn't the United States that destroyed a mosque?

Posted by: annika at 09:44 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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1 interesting piece of info that facinates only me. in 1994, the abc program nightline ran 4 episodes on what happened in rwanda. in 2004, the abc program nightline ran 23 episodes on abu gharib.

Posted by: louielouie at June 15, 2005 01:56 PM (xKfMm)

2 I can't seriously believe that you are so naive to really equate Mugabi and the United States. Perhaps a little analogy: A convicted criminal is found to have told a lie. A respected member of the community is found to have told a lie. Which is surprising? Which might provoke a story in the newspaper? IT ISN'T NEWS when dictators are oppressive! Louie: ABC also will run a week straight of programming on a missing white woman as thousands are killed in Darfur. To be generous we'll say that local news sells. To be realistic maybe we'll say that viewers don't give a damn what happens in Africa.

Posted by: Preston at June 17, 2005 08:38 AM (wkfsI)

3 Nice rationalization there Preston. You do it so well. You even imply that America is racist "viewers don't give a damn what happens in Africa"). Where do you such original material?

Posted by: Mark at June 17, 2005 04:15 PM (Vg0tt)

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Radio Blogger has a transcript and video link to Don Rumsfeld's press conference today. His summation of the progress the Iraqi people have made since the liberation is so inspiring and important, that i'm going to cut and paste it here.

On the political portion of it, that's obviously not the business of this department, but I can comment on it.

The general feeling is as follows: That the election was held January 30th. It took a number of weeks to put a government together. Not a number of years, but a group of people, with no experience in democracy at all, took a number of weeks... a few months, to put together a government.

A lot of tugging and hauling, a lot of negotiating about what it would mean in the assembly, a lot of negotiating about what it might mean with respect to the constitution drafting, a lot of negotiating about what it might mean as to who's in what ministry, and for what reasons, and in the presidential council, I believe they call it. And they came to a conclusion.

When the conclusion was made and announced, one could look at worst case and say it wouldn't be unreasonable to think that the Shi'ia would say, "Okay, Sunnis, you didn't play in the election. You gave it to us for twenty, thirty years, and we didn't like it, and now it's our turn, and we're going to give it to you."

Quite the contrary. The Shi'ia, at the top leadership down, have been saying, "Look. We want to have one country. Let's reach out to the Sunnis. Let's include them. Let's find a way, even though they made a mistake and didn't participate in the election. Let's see that they're involved in this. Let's get them involved in the drafting of the constitution." Exactly the right instinct.

The Sunnis, instead of saying, "Okay, we didn't get in the election. Maybe it was a mistake, maybe it wasn't. But now, we're not well represented, and we're not going to play, and go separately, and try to break the country into three pieces." The Sunnis didn't do that. I mean, everyone you talk to said, "we made a mistake. The Sunnis made a mistake." They should have gotten involved in the election. They didn't get involved in the election. They now know they should have gotten involved in the election, and thank the good Lord the Shi'ia are reaching out to them, and the Kurds are reaching out to them, and trying to include them.

Now, what does it mean next? Well, they're going to have a lot of to'ing and fro'ing on the constitution. Fortunately, they made a lot of those decisions in the transitional administrative law, the so-called TAL. And it's there as a guidepost. It's not a mandate. It's not a speed limit or direction, but it is generally agreed to. And so it'll serve, I would think, as at least a touchstone for the very complicated task of trying to find a piece of paper that people, who have had historic hostilities to each other, that have been held together, not through love or respect, but through vicious dictatorship repressing them. That's how they've held together as a country.

And now they're going to look for a piece of paper that will do that for them instead. Instead of a vicious dictatorship. Instead of repression. Instead of a police state. Instead of mass graves, filled with people... bodies, tens of thousands of bodies. There's going to be a piece of paper that those people are going to have to put their faith in. That is an enormous thing.

And they're going to be debating that, and tugging on it, and to'ing and fro'ing, and they're going to, in my view, come up with one... just a minute... just a minute... And then they're going to take that to the Iraqi people and have them vote on it. And another 26 million people will have a chance, or population, or whoever's eligible to vote, men and women alike. Some large number is going to have a chance to go vote on that. And then, it'll be there, and then they'll vote on whatever that constitution says, for a president, or a prime minister, whatever, representatives, they'll have a chance to vote on that in December.

This is amazing. This is historic. This is a gigantic step forward. This ought not to be dismissed or trivialized. This is a big deal.

Will it happen? I think it'll happen. Can I guarantee anything in life? No. I can't. No one can. It's their country.

Also, there was a moment when a reporter, probably impatient that the Secretary of Defense had strayed from the truly important news of the day (i.e. that someone at Guantanamo might have looked the wrong way at a copy of the Koran.) tried to interrupt the Secretary, who completely rebuffed the reporter saying "just a minute... just a minute..." It was cool. Go listen to it.

Posted by: annika at 07:24 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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Direct quote at the end of the six o'clock newscast:

"Coming up at eleven, more complaints from the muslim community about how the FBI is treating muslim residents of Lodi."

What about the fact that certain members of that very community were PLANNING TO BLOW UP SUPERMARKETS AND HOSPITALS?!?!?!?!

Might that possibly be news too? Worthy of coverage? Huh? Anybody?

Posted by: annika at 07:01 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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You'd think Governor Schwarzenegger was calling for the end of the world, by the way the Democrats, the unions and their fucking media accomplices are carrying on. Here's what the Governor's special election is about:

1. A spending cap.

2. Teacher tenure in five years instead of two.

3. Ending gerrymandered districts.

But, Oh My God, the special election is going to cost EIGHTY ZILLION DOLLARS!

Yes, we already know how the liberals feel about democracy. They oppose it. Fabian Nuñez says the election is too expensive. Well, i never thought that one could put a price on the voice of the people in a democracy, for pete's sake. This is supposed to be a democracy isn't it?

Oh that's right, the liberals oppose the special election because it threatens to restore democracy.

You wouldn't believe the character assassination of Governor Schwarzenegger that has been going on in this state for about a year now. Fully funded by the teacher's and nurse's unions, and out-of-state special interests. The lies i hear every day in those below-the-belt political attack ads are enough to make me physically sick. And the worst thing about it is that they are working. Our indefatigable governor is doing an excellent job, and those dinosaurs in favor of the status quo know that the only way to stop reform is to turn people against the reformer.

It's dirty politics at its worst.

Here's another union attack ad on tv right now. You can't trust Governor Schwarzenegger, he broke his promises, he wants to take money away from schools.

Hey, what about the fact that this state has been run by the Democrats for decades, we keep throwing money at education, and our schools still suck? The unions and the bought-and-paid-for Democratic legislature have been all-powerful, but what has it gotten any of us? Their way is not working. We need to go in a different direction. The opposite direction. That's what this special election is all about.

Posted by: annika at 10:34 PM | Comments (13) | Add Comment
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The media is on the side of the enemy.

Check out this LGF story.

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Lodi is just south of Sacramento. The Jawa Report and California Mafia has the latest on the terrorist cell broken up at a Lodi mosque.

Update: Here's a little information about Lodi, to put the strangeness of a sleeper cell in that town within some context.

Lodi was incorporated in 1906. Its current population is about 59,000. From 1992 to 1994, population remained steady at 53,000, but it began to grow slowly after 1995. The city sits on 12.2 square miles in San Joaquin County, and U.S. Highway 99 runs through the town, connecting it with Stockton, six miles to the south, and Sacramento, 35 miles to the north.

San Joaquin County voted for Bush in 2004, by 54% to 46%, although i would guess that the margin was much wider in Lodi than in the more urban and union friendly Stockton.

Crime in Lodi was higher than the U.S. average in 2002. Still, there were only 4 murders, 6 rapes, 75 robberies, 203 assaults, 436 burglaries and 486 auto thefts that year. By contrast, my hometown of Oakland had 108 murders, 249 rapes, 2,452 robberies, 2,852 assaults, 4,252 burglaries and 6,259 auto thefts in 2002.

Lodi's unemployment rate in 2000 was 6.5%, somewhat higher than California's average, which was 4.9% that year. The biggest employer in Lodi by far is the school district, followed by Blue Shield, the one hospital in town, General Mills Foods and a cannery. The local Wal-Mart and Target employ about 200 each.

Median household income in 2000 was $35,391. The median housing price today is $148,500.

Lodi's racial breakdown includes 63.5% White Non-Hispanic, 27.1% Hispanic, 1.3% Indian (from India), and 0.6% African-American. i would guess that Pakistanis would fall under the category of Other Asian, which comes in at 1.2%. Of the 18.8% foreign born citizens of Lodi, 12.7% are from Latin America and 3.9% are from Asia.

And of course, according to Lodi historian John Fogerty, those persons intending to pass through Lodi end up staying an average of seven months or more. And they'll be walking out, if they go.

Update: The late local news on at least two of the tv stations here in Sacramento was very irritating. They seem much more concerned about the possibility of anti-muslim "hate-crimes" than they are about the possibility that some terrorists might have been PLANNING TO BLOW UP HOSPITALS AND SUPERMARKETS!

The media are on the side of the enemy. (That means you KCRA and News 10.)

Update 2: Some excellent commentary is at Varifrank.

Posted by: annika at 08:11 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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A Western Heart links to an article in Popular Science that debunks a number of ridiculous 911 myths, some of which i hadn't even heard of. Like the one where someone claims one of the New York planes didn't have windows, which proves it was a military tanker and therefore Bush did it. There's some wacko people in this world, but we already knew that.

Another crazy theory is that the planes should have been intercepted almost immediately and since they weren't, therefore Bush did it.

CLAIM: 'It has been standard operating procedures for decades to immediately intercept off-course planes that do not respond to communications from air traffic controllers,' says the Web site oilempire.us. 'When the Air Force "scrambles" a fighter plane to intercept, they usually reach the plane in question in minutes.'

FACT: In the decade before 9/11, NORAD intercepted only one civilian plane over North America: golfer Payne Stewart's Learjet, in October 1999. With passengers and crew unconscious from cabin decompression, the plane lost radio contact but remained in transponder contact until it crashed. Even so, it took an F-16 1 hour and 22 minutes to reach the stricken jet. Rules in effect back then, and on 9/11, prohibited supersonic flight on intercepts. Prior to 9/11, all other NORAD interceptions were limited to offshore Air Defense Identification Zones (ADIZ). 'Until 9/11 there was no domestic ADIZ,' FAA spokesman Bill Schumann tells PM. After 9/11, NORAD and the FAA increased cooperation, setting up hotlines between ATCs and NORAD command centers, according to officials from both agencies. NORAD has also increased its fighter coverage and has installed radar to monitor airspace over the continent.

Posted by: annika at 11:20 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Howard Dean, on Thursday:

Speaking to the Campaign for America's Future, Mr. Dean called for easier rules for voting, saying it is difficult for working parents to make it to the polls on time and wait to vote.

'Well, Republicans, I guess, can do that, because a lot of them have never made an honest living in their lives,' Mr. Dean said.

Two words: pot. kettle.

Posted by: annika at 04:26 PM | Comments (17) | Add Comment
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Would you please supply the missing word:

The American economy today is ________.

i've turned comments off so that one response won't influence the next. Please take a moment and click here to send me your answer.

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