Liberal Reaction to Dunkin' Donuts and Rachel Ray

Yesterday, I posted a brief analysis regarding Dunkin' Donuts pulling an ad featuring Rachel Ray sporting a kaffiyeh, as displayed in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. I wanted to follow up regarding a general cavalier attitude regarding the affair to which I've read and heard in the past 24 hours.

While Ray's sporting of said kaffiyeh is more than likely "something to do about nothing," I'm more galled at 1.) user comments in the Star-Tribune and 2.) talk show reaction to the "flap."

The general consensus to me is that either those that were offended are either Islamophobic or something perpetuating the myth that the Islamic threat is greater than what it is. Furthermore, I sense that white Christian America has no right clamoring for any concessions from the poor Muslims.

Once again, we're supposedly spreading hate...while terrorist attacks occur on a daily basis around the world at the hands of Muslim jihadists, Liberals deny the ever-increasing threat. Even today on the Slate website, bloggers debate the notion that Al-Qaeda is slowly fading away.
I simply must ask, "what the hell?" Muslims are just as angry at us as they have ever been. No not angry because of our President or our liberation of Iraq, but purely because we are infidels. It is their belief, propagated in the Q'uran, that a pan-global Islamic caliphate is the ultimate order of business.

But, those of us who correctly have pinpointed the Islamic threat are admonished as Islamophobic; this is typical Liberal banter for attempting to anyone (faith, creed, skin color, lifestyle choice) under their pathetic banner of multiculturalism.

Star Tribune: Dunkin' Donuts pulls Rachael Ray ad after Muslim scarf complaints

Dunkin' Donuts has pulled an online advertisement featuring Rachel Ray due to complaints about her scarf in the promo. Evidently, the scarf closely resembles a kaffiyeh, which has now come to symbolize Muslim terrorism.

I have no idea what 1.) Ray was thinking by sporting that look; 2.) I doubt Ray is either Muslim or terrorist. With that said, was she tacitly endorsing Muslim "freedom fighters" in their quest for a Palestinian homeland? After all, former PLO terrorist leader Yassir Arafat made the scarf look popular. My take, I HIGHLY doubt it...but as Michelle Malkin stated in a column regarding the ad, "It's refreshing to see an American company show sensitivity to the concerns of Americans opposed to Islamic jihad and its apologists."

If you peruse the Star Tribune article, the user comments naturally gravitate towards our country's perceived Islamophobia. Of course, because this is a religion of peace to which we refer!!! (note: sarcasm)

According to the multicultural, enlighted Liberals, we have no reason to believe that Islam = terrorism.

Here's the complete article:

BOSTON — Dunkin' Donuts has pulled an online advertisement featuring Rachael Ray after complaints that a fringed black-and-white scarf that the celebrity chef wore in the ad offers symbolic support for Muslim extremism and terrorism.

The coffee and baked goods chain said the ad that began appearing online May 7 was pulled over the past weekend because "the possibility of misperception detracted from its original intention to promote our iced coffee."

In the spot, Ray holds an iced coffee while standing in front of trees with pink blossoms.

Critics, including conservative commentator Michelle Malkin, complained that the scarf wrapped around her looked like a kaffiyeh, the traditional Arab headdress. Critics who fueled online complaints about the ad in blogs say such scarves have come to symbolize Muslim extremism and terrorism.

The kaffiyeh, Malkin wrote in a column posted online last Friday, "has come to symbolize murderous Palestinian jihad. Popularized by Yasser Arafat and a regular adornment of Muslim terrorists appearing in beheading and hostage-taking videos, the apparel has been mainstreamed by both ignorant (and not-so-ignorant) fashion designers, celebrities, and left-wing icons."

A statement issued by Canton, Mass.-based Dunkin' Brands Inc., however, said the scarf had a paisley design, and was selected by a stylist for the advertising shoot.

"Absolutely no symbolism was intended," the company said.

Dunkin' spokeswoman Michelle King said the ad appeared on the chain's Web site, as well as other commercial sites.

Malkin, in a posting following up on last week's column, said of Dunkin's decision to pull the ad, "It's refreshing to see an American company show sensitivity to the concerns of Americans opposed to Islamic jihad and its apologists."

Ray, host of the Food Network television program "30 Minute Meals" as well as a syndicated daytime talk show, began appearing in ads for Dunkin' Donuts in March 2007. When Dunkin' announced the partnership, it said Ray would be featured in TV, print, radio and online spots in a campaign running through 2010.

Star Tribune: City residents greener than country cousins

We've been exposed to established dogma on global warming; we humans are to blame, led in the forefront by the Great Satan, the United States.

Let's establish right from the onset: there is no PROOF that global warming even exists. In researching "global warming," I came across just as much opinion that global warming either is not perpetuated by humankind or doesn't even exist.

I stumbled upon this article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune; essentially, we city folk are more "green" than our country brethren.

My initial reaction: big f*cking deal.

Typical leftist banter from a liberal mouthpiece: "we 'city folk' are more refined and cultured while you country hicks know nothing of climatology and global warming."

We're awash in mainstream propaganda from supposedly politically-neutral mediums, in this case, the shockingly liberal Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

The point I'm trying to make here is that the notion of "global warming" has permeated our daily lives to such an extent that we cannot put fuel in our vehicles our buy food without being affected; DESPITE dissenting opinions, global warming has been accepted as face value: we humans are to blame. Those who dare to speak against the established global warming demagoguery are ostracized.

The following links provide a different on the myth of global warming; first from the Canadian Free Press:

http://www.canadafreepress.com/2007/global-warming020507.htm

This second article refutes certain long-held beliefs on global warming, courtesy of the Middlebury College State Weekly:

http://media.www.middleburycampus.com/media/storage/paper446/news/2006/03/02/Opinions/Think.About.It.Global.Warming.Does.Not.Exist-1649115.shtml

Here's the complete piece:

(by the way, if you read some of the comments, you can see how the liberals react when a "conservative nut job" dares to proffer an opposing viewpoint: name calling, primarily).

WASHINGTON - While cities are hot spots for global warming, the people living in them turn out to be greener than those living in the countryside.

Each resident of the largest 100 largest metropolitans areas is responsible on average for 2.47 tons of carbon dioxide in energy consumption each year, 14 percent below the 2.87 ton U.S. average, researchers at the Brookings Institution say in a report being released Thursday.

Those 100 cities still account for 56 percent of the nation's carbon dioxide pollution. But their greater use of mass transit and population density reduce the per person average. "It was a surprise the extent to which emissions per capita are lower," Marilyn Brown, a professor of energy policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology and co-author of the report, said in an interview.

Metropolitan area emissions of carbon dioxide are highest in the eastern U.S., where people rely heavily on coal for electricity, the researchers found. They are lower in the West, where weather is more favorable and where electricity and motor fuel prices have been higher.

The study examined sources and use of residential electricity, home heating and cooling, and transportation in 2005 in the largest 100 metropolitan areas where two-thirds of the people in the U.S. live. It attributed a wide disparity among the 100 cities to population density, availability of mass transit and weather.

Lexington, Ky., had the biggest per capita carbon footprint: Each resident on average accounted for 3.81 tons of carbon dioxide in their energy usage. At the other end of the scale was Honolulu, at 1.5 tons per person.

Carbon dioxide is released from burning fossil fuels and is the leading "greenhouse gas." It drifts into the atmosphere and forms a blanket that traps the Earth's warmth. About 6.6 billion tons of carbon dioxide are released into air annually in the United States.

From 2000 to 2005, carbon dioxide from transportation, electricity use and residential heating in the largest metropolitan areas increased 7.5 percent. For the entire nation, it rose 9.1 percent. The average per capita footprint in those 100 cities rose at an annual rate of 1.1 percent a year, half the average yearly increase of 2.2 percent nationwide.

Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington's carbon footprint from transportation and residential energy use increased 3.87 percent between 2000 and 2005.

The transportation portion increased 0.2 percent during the period.

In 2005, the average resident emitted 2.440 tons of carbon from highway transportation and residential energy, 45th among the 100 largest cities.

The average resident of the Minnesota cities emitted 1.346 of carbon from highway transportation, ranked 38th, and 1.094 tons of carbon fro residential energy use, ranked 62nd.

In explaining differences among cities, the researchers cited weather, the type of fuel used for heating and cooling, the development of rail transportation, the amount of urban sprawl and the cost of energy.

Cities with the largest carbon footprints are mostly in the eastern half of the country from Indiana to western Pennsylvania — areas that rely heavily on coal for electricity production and natural gas for heating.

The smallest carbon footprint was in cities in the West and New England.

Half of the dozen cities with the stingiest carbon output were in California, where electricity prices and motor fuels are expensive. Also cited was the Seattle-Portland, Ore., region, which relies heavily on hydropower.

Cities in Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana dominated the bottom tier of high carbon emitters.

These urban areas are "kind of a poster child of what high carbon intensive growth looks like," said Brown. She noted their reliance on coal for electricity and natural gas for heating, a shortage of mass transit, and often older, energy-inefficient buildings.

Brookings Institution: http://www.brookings.edu

Muslim women: Dress code violates faith

As I mentioned in previous posts, I live in pseudo-Sharia Minnesota. This article, courtesy of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, typifies the coddling this state, and our nation by extension, we've performed on those of the Islamic faith.

When is this country going to STOP adhering to every demand from these people? It's time for those who don't like our laws, our customs, or our culture to either stop complaining and assimilate one's self, or return to his or her country of origin.

Living in this country is a PRIVILEGE, not a right.

Here's the entire piece:

A group of Muslim workers allege they were fired by a New Brighton tortilla factory for refusing to wear uniforms that they say were immodest by Islamic standards.

Six Somali women claim they were ordered by a manager to wear pants and shirts to work instead of their traditional Islamic clothing of loose-fitting skirts and scarves, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a civil liberties group that is representing the women.

The women have filed a religious discrimination complaint with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

"For these women, wearing tight-fitting pants is like being naked," said Valerie Shirley, a spokeswoman for the Minnesota chapter of CAIR. "It's simply not an option."

CAIR issued a press release calling on Mission Foods to reinstate the women in their jobs. However, the group declined to disclose the names of the women and would not make them available for interviews Tuesday.

Gruma Corp., the Irving, Texas-based parent company of Mission Foods, released a written statement Tuesday denying that any employees were terminated or disciplined at the New Brighton plant. However, the company made clear the six women have been relieved of their responsibilities for the time being, and may ultimately lose their jobs if they don't wear uniforms.

"Should these employees choose to adhere to the current Mission Foods uniform policy, they may return to their positions with the company," the company statement said. "However, these positions will need to be filled as soon as possible and cannot be held indefinitely."

A company spokeswoman said she could not provide photographs of the uniforms.

Latest dispute

Such disputes have intensified as the American Muslim community grows in numbers and becomes more politically organized, said Thomas Berg, a law professor at the University of St. Thomas. "After 9/11, both the number of conflicts arose but also the sense among Muslims that they needed to stand together -- at least to oppose unjustified actions," he said.

Last year, some Muslim cashiers at Target Corp. were shifted to other positions inside stores after they refused to scan pork products because doing so would violate their religious beliefs. And in 2005, 26 workers were either fired or suspended by an Arden Hills electronics manufacturer for violating the company's prayer rules, which set limits on the times they could break for prayers.

The federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 says employers must accommodate workers' religious beliefs, so long as the requests are "reasonable" and do not create "undue hardship" for the company. But the definition of what's reasonable and what constitutes hardship can vary dramatically from one case to the next.

A security firm, for instance, may have a prudent reason for requiring workers to wear uniforms, while a doctor's office might not. "Each of these cases turns on the facts," Berg said.

For many Muslim women, wearing loose-fitting clothing is a religious requirement. Clothing that highlights parts of a women's body or accentuates curves is often considered immodest. A headscarf, or hijab, is seen by many Muslim women as a way to express their faith and avoid unwanted sexual attention.

At the Mission Foods plant, the Muslim workers had already made some accommodations, said Shirley, the CAIR spokeswoman. They had agreed to wear coats over their scarves, but the company took them away before imposing a new dress code that involved trousers and shirts, she said.

The women's traditional clothing was loose-fitting but never posed a safety risk, Shirley said, because the six women put tortillas in packages and did not work near machinery. "Tortillas came down a conveyor belt onto a table and they packaged them with their hands," she said. "There wasn't even the potential of a safety hazard."

Chris Serres • 612-673-4308

An honorable piece from the Minneapolis Star-Tribune concerning the Bush Administration

Kudos to Katherine Kersten of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune; mired in a wretchedly foul cesspool of journalism, she accurately documents just how the United States is safer since the Bush Administration was elected to the White House.

Some items to note, and to which Kersten alludes, and FINALLY, what Liberals seem to forget: there were an obscene amount of terrorist attacks upon American interests under the Clinton Administration, and Republican administrations prior.

I find it comical when Liberals rebuke Bush for CREATING terrorism, yet they fail to realize that terrorist acts, a vast majority, actually, were committed against Americans 20 years before the man took office: for example, the Iranian hostage crisis and the Marine barracks bombing in Beirut, circa 1983.

The bottom line is this that Liberals need to understand: get your damn facts straight.

Repeat after me: “Iraq has made us less safe….”
May 28th, 2008 – 8:23 AM

“We are less safe today than before we invaded Iraq.”

This line is repeated so often that we take it as an obvious truth. Even those who call for an honorable and aggressive conclusion to the Iraq War frequently assume that the war has left us with a more dangerous world.

Every now and then, however, a commentator ignores the conventional wisdom and takes a hard look at the unvarnished facts.

John Hinderaker of Power Line has done just that, and the result is stunning in its simplicity and power. Here is the piece, with permission from Power Line:

ARE WE SAFER?

On the stump, Barack Obama usually concludes his comments on Iraq by saying, “and it hasn’t made us safer.” It is an article of faith on the left that nothing the Bush administration has done has enhanced our security, and, on the contrary, its various alleged blunders have only contributed to the number of jihadists who want to attack us.

Empirically, however, it seems beyond dispute that something has made us safer since 2001. Over the course of the Bush administration, successful attacks on the United States and its interests overseas have dwindled to virtually nothing.

Some perspective here is required. While most Americans may not have been paying attention, a considerable number of terrorist attacks on America and American interests abroad were launched from the 1980s forward, too many of which were successful. What follows is a partial history:

1988

February: Marine Corps Lt. Colonel Higgens, Chief of the U.N. Truce Force, was kidnapped and murdered by Hezbollah.

December: Pan Am flight 103 from London to New York was blown up over Scotland, killing 270 people, including 35 from Syracuse University and a number of American military personnel.

1991

November: American University in Beirut bombed.

1993

January: A Pakistani terrorist opened fire outside CIA headquarters, killing two agents and wounding three.

February: World Trade Center bombed, killing six and injuring more than 1,000.

1995

January: Operation Bojinka, Osama bin Laden’s plan to blow up 12 airliners over the Pacific Ocean, discovered.

November: Five Americans killed in attack on a U.S. Army office in Saudi Arabia.

1996

June: Truck bomb at Khobar Towers kills 19 American servicemen and injures 240.

June: Terrorist opens fire at top of Empire State Building, killing one.

1997

February: Palestinian opens fire at top of Empire State Building, killing one and wounding more than a dozen.

November: Terrorists murder four American oil company employees in Pakistan.

1998

January: U.S. Embassy in Peru bombed.

August: Simultaneous bomb attacks on U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania killed more than 300 people and injured over 5,000.

1999

October: Egypt Air flight 990 crashed off the coast of Massachusetts, killing 100 Americans among the more than 200 on board; the pilot yelled “Allahu Akbar!” as he steered the airplane into the ocean.

2000

October: A suicide boat exploded next to the U.S.S. Cole, killing 17 American sailors and injuring 39.

2001

September: Terrorists with four hijacked airplanes kill around 3,000 Americans in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

December: Richard Reid, the “shoe bomber,” tries to blow up a transatlantic flight, but is stopped by passengers.

The September 11 attack was a propaganda triumph for al Qaeda, celebrated by a dismaying number of Muslims around the world. Everyone expected that it would draw more Muslims to bin Laden’s cause and that more such attacks would follow. In fact, though, what happened was quite different: the pace of successful jihadist attacks against the United States slowed, decelerated further after the onset of the Iraq war, and has now dwindled to essentially zero. Here is the record:

2002

October: Diplomat Laurence Foley murdered in Jordan, in an operation planned, directed and financed by Zarqawi in Iraq, perhaps with the complicity of Saddam’s government.

2003

May: Suicide bombers killed 10 Americans, and killed and wounded many others, at housing compounds for westerners in Saudi Arabia. October: More bombings of United States housing compounds in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia killed 26 and injured 160.

2004

There were no successful attacks inside the United States or against American interests abroad.

2005

There were no successful attacks inside the United States or against American interests abroad.

2006

There were no successful attacks inside the United States or against American interests abroad.

2007

There were no successful attacks inside the United States or against American interests abroad.

2008

So far, there have been no successful attacks inside the United States or against American interests abroad.

I have omitted from the above accounting a few “lone wolf” Islamic terrorist incidents, like the Washington, D.C. snipers, the Egyptian who attacked the El Al counter in Los Angeles, and an incident or two when a Muslim driver steered his vehicle into a crowd. These are, in a sense, exceptions that prove the rule, since the “lone wolves” were not, as far as we know, in contact with international Islamic terrorist groups and therefore could not have been detected by surveillance of terrorist conversations or interrogations of al Qaeda leaders.

It should also be noted that the decline in attacks on the U.S. was not the result of jihadists abandoning the field. Our government stopped a number of incipient attacks and broke up several terrorist cells, while Islamic terrorists continued to carry out successful attacks around the world, in England, Spain, Russia, Pakistan, Israel, Indonesia and elsewhere.

There are a number of possible reasons why our government’s actions after September 11 may have made us safer. Overthrowing the Taliban and depriving al Qaeda of its training grounds in Afghanistan certainly impaired the effectiveness of that organization. Waterboarding three top al Qaeda leaders for a minute or so apiece may have given us the vital information we needed to head off plots in progress and to kill or apprehend three-quarters of al Qaeda’s leadership. The National Security Agency’s eavesdropping on international terrorist communications may have allowed us to identify and penetrate cells here in the U.S., as well as to identify and kill terrorists overseas. We may have penetrated al Qaeda’s communications network, perhaps through the mysterious Naeem Noor Khan, whose laptop may have been the 21st century equivalent of the Enigma machine. Al Qaeda’s announcement that Iraq is the central front in its war against the West, and its call for jihadis to find their way to Iraq to fight American troops, may have distracted the terrorists from attacks on the United States. The fact that al Qaeda loyalists gathered in Iraq, where they have been decimated by American and Iraqi troops, may have crippled their ability to launch attacks elsewhere. The conduct of al Qaeda in Iraq, which revealed that it is an organization of sociopaths, not freedom fighters, may have destroyed its credibility in the Islamic world. The Bush administration’s skillful diplomacy may have convinced other nations to take stronger actions against their own domestic terrorists. (This certainly happened in Saudi Arabia, for whatever reason.) Our intelligence agencies may have gotten their act together after decades of failure. The Department of Homeland Security, despite its moments of obvious lameness, may not be as useless as many of us had thought.

No doubt there are officials inside the Bush administration who could better allocate credit among these, and probably other, explanations of our success in preventing terrorist attacks. But based on the clear historical record, it is obvious that the Bush administration has done something since 2001 that has dramatically improved our security against such attacks. To fail to recognize this, and to rail against the Bush administration’s security policies as failures or worse, is to sow the seeds of greatly increased susceptibility to terrorist attack in the next administration.

The majesty that is the United Nations

So our country is admonished for not heeding the sage-like wisdom of the United Nations, as well as its member states. Our country is reckless, led by a God-loving Texas redneck. So I read this article courtesy of liberal mouthpiece MSNBC, whereby UN Peacekeepers are sexually abusing children in countries they are supposed to be safeguarding.

How can anyone chastize with a strong case the credibility of this bogus organization? Aside from the gross negligence characterized in this article, the political "wheelings and dealings" are mind-boggling, to say the least. We've read and heard about the General Assembly frequenting condemning Israel, while Muslim freedom fighters butcher innocent people with suicide bombs and rockets. We've watched China and Russia place obstacles in our path to dealing with the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran.

Moreover, the supposed Human Rights Council of the United Nations consists of such patrons of liberty as Libya as Pakistan.

How do we get out of this organization?

LONDON - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed "deep concern" Tuesday after a leading children's charity said it uncovered evidence of widespread sexual abuse of children at the hands of U.N. peacekeepers and international aid workers.

The report by Save the Children UK, based on field research in southern Sudan, Ivory Coast and Haiti, describes a litany of sexual crimes against children as young as 6.

It said some children were denied food aid unless they granted sexual favors; others were forced to have sex or to take part in child pornography; many more were subjected to improper touching or kissing.

"The report shows sexual abuse has been widely underreported because children are afraid to come forward," Jasmine Whitbread, chief executive of Save the Children UK, told Associated Press Television News.

"A tiny proportion of peacekeepers and aid workers are abusing the children they were sent to protect. It ranges from sex for food to coerced sex. It's despicable."

At the U.N. headquarters, spokeswoman Michele Montas said Ban "is deeply concerned" by the report.

"We welcome this report. It's fair, and I think it's essentially accurate," Montas said.

Steps to prevent, investigate abuse
She noted the report states the United Nations has already undertaken steps designed to tackle the problem, from establishing conduct and discipline units in all U.N. missions to strengthening training for all categories of U.N. personnel. She said the United Nations also needs to strengthen its investigative capacity.

The study was based on research, confidential interviews and focus groups conducted last year. The charity emphasized it did not produce comprehensive statistics about the scale of abuse but did gather enough information to indicate the problem is severe.

The report said that more than half the children interviewed knew of cases of sexual abuse and that in many instances children knew of 10 or more such incidents carried out by aid workers or peacekeepers.

The Save the Children UK researchers, who met with 129 girls and 121 boys between the ages of 10 and 17, and also with a number of adults, found an "overwhelming" majority of the people interviewed would never report a case of abuse and had never heard of a case being reported.

The threat of retaliation, and the stigma attached to sex abuse, were powerful deterrents to coming forward, the report said.

Ann Buchanan, an Oxford University expert in statistical attempts to quantify rates of child abuse, said the topic is so taboo it is virtually impossible to come up with reliable numbers. But she said the new report provides a useful starting point.

"This will never be a statistical study," she said. "We'd call it a pilot work exploring the start of an issue. All the research shows kids don't make it up."

Children afraid to report abuse
Buchanan, who directs the Oxford Center for Research into Parenting and Children, said the biggest obstacle to accurate numerical studies of child sexual abuse is the reluctance of children to come forward and tell adults they have been taken advantage of.

"Sexual abuse is a hugely difficult, sensitive area and it's not something that you can usually do surveys about because kids feel terrible shame and are afraid to say what's happened to them," she said. "Given what we know about underreporting of sex abuse, I would say this report is probably true. They've gone about it as sensitively as you can."

Save the Children spokesman Dominic Nutt said U.N. peacekeepers are involved in many abuse cases because they are present throughout the world in such large numbers. But he praised the United Nations for improving its reporting and investigative procedures regarding sex abuse.

"We're not singling out the U.N. In some ways they do a good job. It's all peacekeepers and all aid workers, including Save the Children," that are involved in sexual abuses, he said.

The report says several Save the Children workers were fired for having sex with 17-year-old girls in violation of agency guidelines.

In its report, Save the Children UK makes three key recommendations: establish a way for people to report abuse locally, create an international watchdog agency this year to deal with the problem, and set up a program to deal with the underlying causes of child abuse.

Tom Cargill, Africa program manager at the London think tank Chatham House, said there is no "magic bullet" that can solve the problem quickly.

"The governance of U.N. missions has always been a problem because soldiers from individual states are only beholden to those states," he said. "So it's difficult for the U.N. to pursue charges and difficult for the U.N. to investigate them."

© 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

To the liberals, so what stance are you taking this time?

Message to liberals:

Get your story straight; ensure you're not contradicting yourselves.

I spied this story in liberal mouthpiece MSNBC.

So you accuse the man and his administration of recklessly leading our nation into an "illegal" war; you accuse of him of failing to engage in dialogues with our "enemies." Moreover, your Messiah, one Barack Obama, has made "open negotiations" a central tenet of his campaign. So when President Bush engages in a "dialogue" with an enemy, you castigate the man.

Unbelievable.

Here's the entire piece:

WASHINGTON - Sometime in the next few weeks, a special envoy of President Bush plans to meet with Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, whose government sheltered Osama bin Laden and pursued a scorched-earth policy in southern Sudan that resulted in more than 2 million deaths.

Bashir's government has been accused by Bush of participating in a "genocide" in Darfur, the only U.S. government use of such a strong accusation. Yet Richard S. Williamson's visit to Khartoum follows a series of direct contacts by senior Bush administration officials with the Sudanese president, including Secretaries of State Colin L. Powell and Condoleezza Rice, Rice's deputies, and several special presidential envoys.

Bush has spoken to or exchanged letters with Bashir on numerous occasions, underscoring how White House policy has departed from his pointed public call to shun talks with radical tyrants and dictators. His appointees have also pursued aggressive diplomacy with North Korea and Libya and have even conducted limited business with Cuba, Syria and Iran.

In the case of Sudan, experts are deeply divided about how much the administration's engagement has improved conditions in a country beset for decades by mass violence and famine. It has at least provoked charges of hypocrisy, because Bush recently accused those advocating talks with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other radical figures of "appeasement."

"The Bush administration has spent years not only talking at very senior levels with one of the world's worst tyrants, who is responsible for genocide, but also reportedly offered the regime major concessions in exchange for minor steps and rolled out the red carpet for some of its most reprehensible officials," said Susan E. Rice, who handled Africa policy in the Clinton administration and is a top adviser to the presidential campaign of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).

White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said the administration has been willing to talk with both Sudan and Iran -- though in the case of Iran, only if it halts uranium enrichment. "We enter into discussions with countries where we have leverage to achieve results," he said. " In the case of Sudan, they want better relations with the United States and we want to stop a genocide."

Under Bush, more talk
Those who have dealt with Sudan for the Bush administration say they have helped secure a peace deal between the Sudanese government and southern rebels and have taken other steps to avert a worse humanitarian disaster. But Williamson acknowledged a certain unease over negotiating with Bashir and other top Sudanese officials to allow U.N. peacekeepers into the country and fulfill other U.S. objectives.

"When you are dealing with people who have done really bad things, there are difficult moral and political issues that keep you awake at night," he said. "But if you see a way where you may be able to save lives and ameliorate humanitarian suffering, you test the opportunity."

He added: "My job is not to litigate what they have done."

Bush's Sudan policy has relied more heavily on diplomacy than that of the Clinton administration, which tried to isolate Sudan because of its ties to Osama bin Laden, imposed stiff sanctions against the government and placed it on the official list of state sponsors of terrorism.

One of the Bush administration's first initiatives was to try to broker a peace to the two-decade-long civil war between north and south, partly at the behest of evangelicals in the United States, who complained to the president about the persecution of Christians in southern Sudan.


Mixed signs of success
Former senator John C. Danforth (R-Mo.), who was appointed as Bush's first special envoy to Sudan, said Sudanese officials badly wanted to normalize relations with the United States but were unsure whether it would be worthwhile. Danforth said he took the question to Bush, who sought to assure Bashir's government that cooperation would pay off.

"He said if they entered into a peace agreement, and if they provided full access for humanitarian workers throughout the country and if they cooperated on fighting terrorism, then the president wanted to move towards normal relations," Danforth said.

Bush was personally involved in trying to move the peace talks along, calling Bashir on a number of occasions, according to a former official, and even dangling an invitation for a seat of honor at his 2003 State of the Union address. By 2005, the diplomacy had paid off with a comprehensive peace agreement giving the south a formal role in the Khartoum government and the right to secession down the road.

By that point, however, violence had broken out in Sudan's western region of Darfur, and Bashir's government responded by arming Arab militias for a brutal crackdown that resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths, according to human rights groups and international monitors. In 2004, Powell described the events in Darfur as "genocide."

Human rights advocates have alleged that Bashir was responsible. "The Sudanese government policy of 'ethnic cleansing' was strategic and well-planned," Human Rights Watch stated in a 2005 report, adding: "Ultimate responsibility for the creation and coordination of the policy lies in Khartoum, with the highest levels of the Sudanese leadership, including President . . . Bashir."

Too many carrots, too few sticks?
Even so, Bush and his aides continued to pursue a policy of engagement with Bashir, dispatching then-Deputy Secretary of State Robert B. Zoellick to broker a peace deal between the Sudanese government and Darfur rebel groups. At the height of negotiations in 2006, Zoellick carried with him a personal letter from Bush -- not previously disclosed -- assuring Bashir that they "share a common goal of achieving a peaceful, stable Sudan."

The Sudanese government agreed to a peace deal, but the agreement fell apart after key rebel groups refused to go along. Bush imposed new sanctions last year to put more pressure on the Sudanese strongman, but so far Bashir has slowed the deployment of U.N. and African Union soldiers as peacekeepers to protect civilians in Darfur.

Roger Winter, a former senior official at the Agency for International Development, said he does not object to talking to Bashir but says the administration has dangled out carrots without enough stick. "I don't understand how this can be happening. It wasn't that long ago that the president said genocide is happening in Darfur, and we're trying to normalize [relations]," he said. "What's wrong with this picture?"

Andrew S. Natsios, who preceded Williamson as Bush's envoy, said Bashir thinks the United States has twice reneged on a promise of normalized relations and thus is understandably cautious about the current round of talks. But Natsios sees few good alternatives to engagement.

"If we think we can protect people who are being abused, we ought to be talking with him," he said.

Staff writer Glenn Kessler contributed to this report.


© 2008 The Washington Post Company

Stupid Liberal Bumper Sticker of the Day

I came across this funny Liberal bumper sticker:



They just don't quite get it, do they? Their supposed "war on the environment" is moving along wonderfully! We're only paying $4.00 per gallon of gasoline, while deluding ourselves with the notion ethanol, all the while, rising food costs have affected millions of people around the world.

Yep, bravo!

Shameful Minnesotan of the Day

In the past, I've targeted those on the Left who have committed acts or uttered nonsensical sayings that are downright shameful. As I live in the Leftist stronghold of the Twin Cities, I thought I would profile Minnesota native Jessica Lange.



In the piece below, courtesy of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Lange admonishes the Bush Administration and by extension, those of us on the Right, for waging an illegal and usurping our rights.

One of Lange's tenets was that our government has taken away the right of habeus corpus; I've heard this liberal clamor before. My first questions to them is, "have you EVER had your habeus corpus rights violated? Are your phones bugged? Are your emails read by faceless government agents?"

The answer is inevitably, NO. Despite what the liberals would have us all believe, our phone calls are not being monitored; our books, our emails, etc are NOT being seized by the government.

Ironically, the Democrats are moving a hate crime through committee currently to enact a hate crime law, which would make any statement or belief uttered against anyone representing non-Christian religions (i.e. Islamists) or alternative lifestyles, not to mention anyone that has a beef with traditional America. Furthermore, the Democrats are covertly working on legislation that would attempt to eliminate our only mouthpiece against mindless Liberalism: talk radio.

I always find it comical when I hear Liberals screaming that conservatives are stealing their rights; but have you ever noticed that if you disagree with a Liberal, generally they either attempt to shout you down or resort to name-calling?

BRONXVILLE, N.Y. - Oscar-winner and Minnesota native Jessica Lange bashed the Bush administration and denounced the war in Iraq during a commencement address at Sarah Lawrence College.

The star of "Tootsie" and "Blue Sky" was applauded by students Friday at the small liberal arts college after comparing the conflict with the Vietnam War. She said the graduates have "a heavy burden" to chart a new path for the country.

"We are living in an America that, in the last seven and a half years, has waged an unnecessary war, established prison camps, condoned torture, employed corporate armies, eliminated the right of habeas corpus, practiced extraordinary rendition, and believe me, this is only a partial list," Lange said.

Lange asked the graduates, including her 22-year-old daughter Hannah Shepard, to commit themselves to the "pursuit of peace." Lange, who was born and raised in Cloquet, also lived with her family for many years in Stillwater.

Happy Memorial Day

You've probably heard the adage, "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" In watching Memorial Day services today on the news, I immediately thought of that saying. I saw images of President Bush paying homage to our fallen heroes as well as those serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

My initial thoughts centered on how the anti-military faction of Liberalism is celebrating Memorial Day. We're so conditioned by the mainstream media to believe that our military is losing wages and butchering countless civilians in combat zones. We saw and about demonstrators excoriating our military in patently absurd rituals, burning our soldiers demonstrating, while carelessly tossing accusations of atrocities their way.

Do the liberals care or even KNOW the sacrifices our military has made and continues to make for our freedoms? All of us at times take our freedom for granted, for good men and women are performing dangerous acts, putting their lives at stake so unapologetic, unsympathetic people can demonstrate and speak out against issues they know so little about.

Several of my family members served in World War II, Vietnam, and the Persian Gulf War, along with friends and co-workers serving or having served in the Middle East; they have asked NOT for heroes' welcomes, but just a little gratitude.

Never forget, O' Servicemen and women, many of us appreciate your deeds and work.

Happy Memorial Day.

Minnesota Liberals and Illegal Immigration

Here in Minnesota, the Liberals are leading the pack in demonstrating typical "progressive" behavior. I spied the piece below from the Liberal Mouthpiece known as the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

Here, in quasi-Sharia Minnesota, the Democrats naturally control the state legislature. Spurred on by Governor Tim Pawlenty, a bill was to be crafted, cracking down on the illegal immigration in our state. Instead, the state legislature focused their attention on menial bills, avoiding an all-important.

Was it because they were lazy? Perhaps. Or was it because the Democrats intended to pull a "fast one" on the citizens of Minnesota, further advancing their ridiculous Progressive ideology, one that includes welcoming all "comers" under the multicultural umbrella.

When the 2008 Legislature adjourned last week, one order of business was noticeably absent from its list of accomplishments -- an immigration crackdown.

Tougher penalties for identity theft. A ban on so-called "sanctuary cities." New penalties for employers who hire illegal immigrants. They were among proposals declared a priority by Gov. Tim Pawlenty in January, and all went nowhere.

"We had time to debate whether dogs should be allowed to eat in cafes. We had time to debate hockey as the state sport. But we didn't have time to stop identity theft or human trafficking," said an irritated House Minority Leader Marty Seifert, R-Marshall.

"This is one of the greatest disappointments of the session."

But House and Senate leadership, which did not give the bills public hearings, said the session was short and packed with more pressing matters. Plus, the governor never really went to bat for the bills, they said.

"I found that property taxes, lack of investment in transportation and in education were the big issues affecting Minnesotans' lives," said Senate Majority Leader Larry Pogemiller, DFL-Minneapolis. "My impression is the immigration issue is one that [Pawlenty] dusts off for his national aspirations. I don't have people calling me, asking me to do something about illegal immigrants."

Pawlenty's office, however, says the issue is very real.

"If you need evidence that illegal immigration is a real problem in Minnesota, you need to go no further than the recent arrest of 15 illegal immigrants in a van in Lakeville," said Brian McClung, spokesman for the governor. "It's time that DFLers stop ignoring this problem and work with us to address it head on."

The governor's proposals, laid out during a high-profile news conference in January, included establishing a crime of "aggravated forgery" for people who create fake IDs for illegal immigrants and strengthening human trafficking laws. They also would have prevented cities such as Minneapolis and St. Paul from enacting so-called "sanctuary" ordinances that bar police officers from asking questions about immigration status during routine police work.

"I thought the ID theft [legislation] would be an easy thing to come together on after the Cottonwood bus crash," said Seifert, referring to an accident in which four children were killed after their school bus was struck by a van allegedly driven by an illegal immigrant.

"This gal [the alleged driver of the van] initially misidentified herself to police and had false documentation," he said.

But new laws involve court costs and corrections costs, said Sen. Mee Moua, chairwoman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. She said the Legislature needed more time to examine the proposals and their potential impact. In addition, immigration law is overwhelmingly a federal issue, she said, and the federal role needs to be factored in.

"The session was short; the deadlines were short," Moua said.

Amendments fail to catch on

Without committee hearings, legislators supporting an immigration crackdown resorted to attaching amendments to existing bills.

An amendment to the Senate's omnibus tax bill, for example, would have barred so-called sanctuary cities from getting Local Government Aid. An amendment to a veterinarian licensing bill would have the license expiration dates for foreign veterinarians match their visa expiration date. Both amendments failed, as did a proposal to make English the official language of Minnesota.

If Pawlenty were serious about cracking down on immigration, his supporters wouldn't have had to resort to this, said Javier Morillo, president of Service Employees International Union Local 26.

"What the governor made as his priority -- whether it be a new state park in northern Minnesota or the Central Corridor -- happened," Morillo said.

New rules for employers

The most significant change in immigration policy this year resulted not from legislative action but from an executive order by Pawlenty. It requires thousands of Minnesota contractors and subcontractors to verify the legal status of their employees through a controversial federal electronic verification system.

The move is being closely watched by employers, immigration advocates and lawyers: The use of E-Verify has faced legal challenges in other states. Similarly, the Minnesota Legislative Auditor will be monitoring E-Verify for its accuracy and its impact on businesses.

Another development was the creation of an immigration caucus, which intends to hold public meetings around the state sometime this summer, said Sen. Bill Ingebrigtsen, R-Alexandria. Likewise, the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold summer hearings on issues such as human trafficking, Moua said.

The hearings signal that the contentious issues of immigration will be back next session. Said Seifert: "We're not going away."

Introducing the Most Dangerous Man in America

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Barack (Barry) Obama.



I need not tell you how important the 2008 presidential election truly is. While traditional conservatives wring their hands in consternation over casting a vote for presumptive Republican nominee John McCain, the sheer thought of Obama as leader of the free world should send us scurrying in terror.

Here's a reminder of what we know of the man:

He's a man who often references the notion of "change" in his space. Change to Obama and his ilk does not consist of figuratively "stepping across the aisle" as U.S. Congressmen and Senators often do to pass a piece of legislation. There will be no compromise, no handshakes. No, rather change to the Left consists of change from the so-called ideologues on the Right, those of us who heartily embrace traditional values. This man throws around "change" like a sailor throws back drinks after a lengthy stay on sea. How ironic that Obama has not once demonstrated compromise in his brief tenure in the U.S. Senate; this man has the most liberal voting record in the hallowed halls of Congress.

He's a man, when presented with the opportunity to place a judge in any of Federal circuits or Supreme Court, will appoint not a judge with a strict interpretation of the Constitution, but rather someone who will ring a gavel based on his/her experiences in life. Obama's idea of a judge is one who will drive home his/her activist agenda.

He's a man who welcome our ideological enemies from Iran, North Korea, Hamas, etc. to the "bargaining table," with no preset conditions. For, if one reads my "Liberal Manifesto" can attest, a Liberal believes that a deranged despot is someone with whom he/she can be reasoned. Nevermind the absolute that someone like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has 1.) threatened to destroy Israel, our one truly in the Middle East, and 2.) is arming and funding Iranian factions killing our soldiers in Iraq. Obama truly believes that Iran is creating a nuclear program for purely peaceful, civic reasons.

How incredibly naive.

He's a man who eradicate the notion that a law-abiding, free-standing American citizen can own a firearm, for if we eliminate weapons, all violent crime will magically disappear.

The litany of progressive ideals with which this man holds is frightening. So here's to you, Barry Obama, champion of Progressive values. I'm sure you'll do us proud.

Energy Pontifications

As countless millions in our country can attest, energy and by extension global warming is hot button issue. Those on the Left summarily dismiss endless renunciations that Earthly heating and cooling are patterns that vary year to year, epoch to epoch as blasphemy, despite scientific data to the contrary. Their prism-like viewpoint on the matter revolves around "Big Oil" and "human consumption."

As the economy trudges along toward an economic catastrophe, the last thing the good citizens of this country should worry (besides rising food prices) is the rising cost of fuel prices. The mindless Left, spurred on by Barry Obama, demand that we turn down our thermostats below 72 degree while eating and driving less. Ride a bike to work, they say, heat your homes with solar or wind power, they implore. What the elitists cannot fathom is the economic toll of "going green" will take on the average American; nevermind the Green Czar himself, Al Gore, consumes on average 20 times the monthly amount of energy you or I do, while whisking away to far reaches of the planet in his private jet. But, as the Greenies say, we buy carbon credits!

The simple matter is this: we cannot afford to "go green." Furthermore, the Left is so consumed with hatred for "Big Oil," that they will never agree to opening the vast Alaskan oil reserves, or oil off our coasts. Moreover, this delusion with "ethanol" has driven prices of food to absurd levels, as farmland is used to grow corn, leaving less fields for other foodstuffs (e.g. grains).

So not only are we emptying our bank accounts to fill up our vehicles, we're figuratively taking out second mortgages to put food on the table. Can there be any doubt that the Socialists, er Democrats, suppress capitalism? Blame "Big Oil," they say, for rising fuel costs. But rather, let's blame this mess on the Left; as demand from developing countries (e.g. China and India) grows, supply remains static. This is tenet #1 of elementary economics, as demand grows, so must supply to keep costs even.

Yet the Liberals remain steadfast that "Big Oil" has colluded the markets, driving the price of oil through the roof. "Price Controls," they clamor. If we were to be so inane to enact price controls on "Big Oil," they are not bound to sell us oil. They will merely sell to the highest bidder, namely China and India (which subsidize oil in the neighborhood of $.18 a gallon).