Having a Pat Robertson moment (or, more likely, a Pat Robertson life), one of the many irredeemable lunatics that passes for religious leaders in the Middle East claims that bird flu discovered in Israel is a sign of Allah’s wrath. He also “…asked for congregants to ‘pray for Allah to dry out the sexual organs of the Jews with a disease so they won’t be able to reproduce anymore.'” Can’t you just feel the love emanating from the Religion of Peace?

As the article dryly notes, though:

Muhammed made his comments in spite of predictions the virus found in Israel may surface through migrating fowl in the nearby Palestinian territories.

The article also mentions cases appearing in Egypt. What did they do to piss off Allah? Turkey I can understand, what with their satanic secular state and all, but Egypt? What with all of the disasters going on all over the place, it’s apparently pretty hard to stay on his good side, even if you’re a Muslim. Maybe even especially if you’re a Muslim, judging by (for instance) the tsunami last year. If what the moderate Muslims say about their religion is true, I’d be more a little convinced if Allah would start smiting all these false prophets.

Thousands of women are being charged in Pakistan for being raped. Boy, can’t wait for that good old Sharia law to come to my neighborhood.

Thousands of women are being charged in Pakistan for being raped. Boy, can’t wait for that good old Sharia law to come to my neighborhood.

Thousands of women are being charged in Pakistan for being raped. Boy, can’t wait for that good old Sharia law to come to my neighborhood.

As some noted in comments, I was too busy this weekend to say anything thoughtful or knowledgable [so what else is new?–ed Hey–I didn’t hire you to snark at me!] about the third anniversary of the action to remove Saddam, but Mohammed at Iraq the Model wasn’t.

Well, not power, but insanity and murderousness.

I wrote previously of a courageous woman. Here is the video, in Arabic, with English subtitles.

And while I’m no big fan of Al Jazeera, props to them for showing it to the Arab world. I wonder why they did? Are they realizing that the jig is up?

And I think that if the Administration were smart, they’d provide SS protection to her.

Barbara Stock writes about a very courageous Arab woman:

Within Islam, there is no greater sin than to question the teachings of Islam or Mohammed, and to do so is considered heresy and blasphemy and is punishable by death. Dr. Sultan is now a marked woman and no one is more aware of this than she. She now receives daily death threats but takes them all in stride. She is a woman at peace with her decision to speak out.

As she put forth one accusation after another, the two Islamic scholars had no answers. Their only response was that they didn

A clarification on today’s festivities in Samarra:

I’ve received several emails this morning from people wondering why we’ve launched a “massive bombing campaign” in Iraq. And they’re saying, “won’t that kill a lot of innocent civilians?” But they are confused by the term, “air assault.”

An “air assault” is actually a helicopter-borne infantry assault. In this case, large numbers of helicopters are ferrying airborne-infantry soldiers to enemy targets.

The army of analysts has started to work on the captured Iraqi documents.

This document is a letter written by a member of Saddam Intelligence apparatus (Al Mukabarat) on 9/15/2001 (shortly after 9/11/2001) where he addressed it to someone higher up and he wrote about a conversation between an Iraqi intelligence source and a Taliban Afghani Consul. In the conversation the Afghani Consul spoke of a relationship between Iraq and Osama Bin Laden prior to 9/11/2001, and that the United States was aware of such a relationship and that there is a potential of US strikes against Iraq and Afghanistan if the destructive operations in the US (most probably he is referring to 9/11 attacks) were proven to be connected to Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban.

I don’t understand why the administration hasn’t been working harder to get these documents analyzed and public. Also, this treasure trove just makes the actions of the government in firing Arab language experts for being gay look all the more stupid. We need all the translators that we can get right now. And what’s even dumber is that, with everything else they have to worry about, the White House continues this nonsense.

President Bush’s updated language says security clearances cannot be denied “solely on the basis of the sexual orientation of the individual.”

If sexual behavior is “strictly private, consensual and discreet,” that could lessen security concerns, according to the regulations that came as part of an update to clearance guidelines distributed in December.

This makes no sense. There are no intrinsic security concerns associated with someone’s sexual orientation. Security concerns arise only in the context of the potential for blackmail. If someone is openly gay, there is no security concern. Sexual behavior that is “private and discreet” is in fact the behavior of someone in the closet, which would be a security concern. I don’t often agree with the likes of Barney Frank and Henry Waxman, but I’d sure like to see a better explanation than this.

So says Max Boot. He makes a good case, though I doubt that Mr. Clooney will be thrilled.