Think of this next time someone says that George Bush has “destroyed civil liberties” in this country:

“While the outcome of the recent arrests in connection with SMS messaging is not clear yet, what is certain is that SMS jokes have already put some people into serious trouble,” wrote the website Rooz Online.

The clampdown is in line with the authorities’ uncompromising stance on the internet and bloggers. Wary of modern communications as a means of spreading political dissent, Iran is second only to China in the number of websites it filters – using technology made in America.

Large numbers of the nation’s estimated 70,000 to 100,000 bloggers have faced harassment or imprisonment. The regime has acknowledged monitoring text message traffic. It first admitted it had access to text traffic last December when a military plane carrying more than 100 journalists crashed shortly after take-off at Tehran airport.

Here’s an interesting story from SEEBS news:

Although Americans believe they are better informed about Islam than they were five years ago, a new CBS News poll finds fewer than one in five say their impression of the religion is favorable.

OK, class, what’s wrong with the first word of this story?

Anyone, anyone, Bueller?

Yes, it’s the word “although.” Clearly, any sane person would have started off that sentence with the word “Because.”

But “because” the MSM wants to persist in feeding us the CAIR line that “Islam is a religion of peace,” they have to use a nonsensical word to preface the rest of the thought. For the devil’s advocates in the room, please explain to me and my other readers how a better understanding of Islam would compel one to have a more, rather than less, favorable impression of it.

[Update on Thursday morning]

This kind of reminds me of a similar confusion about cause and effect, when the New York Times will start a story, “Despite the recent drop in the crime rate, the prison population is at an all-time high.”

Here’s an interesting story from SEEBS news:

Although Americans believe they are better informed about Islam than they were five years ago, a new CBS News poll finds fewer than one in five say their impression of the religion is favorable.

OK, class, what’s wrong with the first word of this story?

Anyone, anyone, Bueller?

Yes, it’s the word “although.” Clearly, any sane person would have started off that sentence with the word “Because.”

But “because” the MSM wants to persist in feeding us the CAIR line that “Islam is a religion of peace,” they have to use a nonsensical word to preface the rest of the thought. For the devil’s advocates in the room, please explain to me and my other readers how a better understanding of Islam would compel one to have a more, rather than less, favorable impression of it.

[Update on Thursday morning]

This kind of reminds me of a similar confusion about cause and effect, when the New York Times will start a story, “Despite the recent drop in the crime rate, the prison population is at an all-time high.”

Here’s an interesting story from SEEBS news:

Although Americans believe they are better informed about Islam than they were five years ago, a new CBS News poll finds fewer than one in five say their impression of the religion is favorable.

OK, class, what’s wrong with the first word of this story?

Anyone, anyone, Bueller?

Yes, it’s the word “although.” Clearly, any sane person would have started off that sentence with the word “Because.”

But “because” the MSM wants to persist in feeding us the CAIR line that “Islam is a religion of peace,” they have to use a nonsensical word to preface the rest of the thought. For the devil’s advocates in the room, please explain to me and my other readers how a better understanding of Islam would compel one to have a more, rather than less, favorable impression of it.

[Update on Thursday morning]

This kind of reminds me of a similar confusion about cause and effect, when the New York Times will start a story, “Despite the recent drop in the crime rate, the prison population is at an all-time high.”

Melanie Phillips writes about Saddam’s secrets:

Earlier this year, Sada was interrogated about his claims by the American House Intelligence committee, to whom he gave the names of the Iraqi pilots. Subsequently, he says, the Committee went to Iraq and spoke to the pilots. The result, he says, is that a major American investigative and diplomatic effort is now under way to finally locate the missing WMD.

But in Britain, I say, people now firmly believe that there were no WMD and that we were taken to war on a lie. Sada looks utterly flabbergasted.

Melanie Phillips writes about Saddam’s secrets:

Earlier this year, Sada was interrogated about his claims by the American House Intelligence committee, to whom he gave the names of the Iraqi pilots. Subsequently, he says, the Committee went to Iraq and spoke to the pilots. The result, he says, is that a major American investigative and diplomatic effort is now under way to finally locate the missing WMD.

But in Britain, I say, people now firmly believe that there were no WMD and that we were taken to war on a lie. Sada looks utterly flabbergasted.

Melanie Phillips writes about Saddam’s secrets:

Earlier this year, Sada was interrogated about his claims by the American House Intelligence committee, to whom he gave the names of the Iraqi pilots. Subsequently, he says, the Committee went to Iraq and spoke to the pilots. The result, he says, is that a major American investigative and diplomatic effort is now under way to finally locate the missing WMD.

But in Britain, I say, people now firmly believe that there were no WMD and that we were taken to war on a lie. Sada looks utterly flabbergasted.

With continuing great reporting, Michael Yon provides a travelogue of Thailand and the unreported war there, and Dubai. Oh, and he says that Iraq is in a civil war.

And here’s a very long, but worthwhile essay on Iran by Mark Steyn.

Early exits indicated that Silvio Berlusconi was going to lose the elections in Italy, but now it’s looking like he’s pulled it out. If true, once again, so much for the hopes of the left that Iraq-war coalition leaders would pay for their decision to remove the dictator.

It’s hard to believe, but it’s been three years. Joe Katzman has a roundup of all the good things that resulted, something that the press would rather ignore. And Judith Weiss has more on the subject.