Through the Looking Glass
Topic: Out of Flyover Land
`I ca'n't believe that!' said Alice

`Ca'n't you?' the Queen said in a pitying tone. `Try again: draw a long breath, and shut your eyes.

Alice laughed. `There's no use trying,' she said`one ca'n't believe impossible things.'"

`I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. `When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast"



I suppose for some people it is much easier, much safer to believe impossible things. One recent example has been the media blitz concerning Air America and on the surface, man did it sure look good.

Message Received
A Year After the Launch of the Air America Radio Network, Progressive Talk is Making Progress

by Mark Jurkowitz

Providence talk station WHJJ-AM (920), also owned by Clear Channel, went to a more liberal lineup with several Air America shows in October. ''We found that Air America is a real opportunity for us," said program director Bill George. ''I think the time is right. I think the talk world is much larger than the narrow right-wing views we hear from Rush and Hannity."

But then reality, which may be ignored but never can be stopped rears it's ugly head as Buster Block over at Inmuscatine points out.

"Yep. The great success story. You bet there's a market for Liberal talk radio. Let's see - dead last, or next to dead last in every market in which it airs. The only question left to ask about (Dead)Air America is - when are they going to pull the plug?"

What is the truth instead of the impossible things we are supposed to be practicing believing?

"In one of talk radio's biggest-ever screw-ups, a once well-performing conservative talk station has been destroyed by switching to "progressive" Air America programming.

Most astounding: it took only a year to kill Providence's WHJJ-AM.

Since it's one of the few to dump a viable conservative lineup for Franken & Co., it provides an important case study for liberal talk's failure.

We're talking about Rhode Island here, not Wyoming (although there is a town by that name in the Ocean State).

It's the land of Congressmen named Kennedy, corrupt Democrat power brokers and squishy Republicans like Sen. Lincoln Chafee. Shouldn't it be a great place for liberal talk?

Not according to Arbitron, which released spring ratings results for the city-state, late Thursday.

WHJJ-AM has seen its audience sliced in half since the change, going from a respectable 3.5 share last summer, to a miniscule 1.8. Most amazing: a distant Boston signal from WBZ-AM actually beat hometown WHJJ. That has to be a first."

Radio Equalizer | It's All About Providence


Never fear. the folks at Common Dreams above (I could NOT have made a better name up for this essay!) are ready to give us a solution for Air America's doldrums!

Yes the figure who wil be able to exlain nuance to the Ignorant Red State Voters is none other than.

Can we please have a drum roll?

JERRY SPRINGER!

"Air America is about to get another marquee name. Starting tomorrow, the network will carry the radio show hosted by the trash-TV icon and former Cincinnati mayor, Jerry Springer.

''When you hear him on the radio, it's very intimate," said Jon Sinton, Air America's president of programming. ''We think he's right on the issues. He's heavily enough anti-Bush to be credible for our audience."

Maybe they have decided they need someone who can speak in a language that the unwashed masses can understand?

Yes it is SO much better to believe 6 impossible things before breakfast than to face the truth.

They may SAY "Clear Channel's Hobbs sounded bullish on his company's plans to convert more stations to the liberal talk roster. ''Intellectually I don't think you can argue against the niche. There's a theoretical hole big enough to drive a truck through," he said. ''So far our batting average is pretty high. I see no reason to slow down or stop at all."

But I have always maintained, question your ASSUMPTIONS. One wonders, does their target audience LISTEN to Radio? It is one thing to drag market share away from other venues, but if your target audience is watching TV, reading a book, and does not have a radio on what are you going to accomplish, besides dragging what few viewers NPR have away, that is?

But I guess for their target audience, it is easy to get them to believe the 6 impossible things before breakfast,

Red State Voters are a little harder to control, that was pointed out after the last election by
Jane Smiley in her essay The unteachable ignorance of the red states.
among our many failings she finds, " red state types, above all, do not want to be told what to do?they prefer to be ignorant. As a result, they are virtually unteachable."


We are unteachable it seems, believing 6 impossible things before breakfast, requires dedication and TALENT in self-delusion.

A perfect example of this theme is the rancor and ire heaped upon those who can be termed Neo-cons.
What does that term mean? No I do not mean "Bad, REALLY BAD" which would be the answer from Impossible believers, what does it REALLY mean?

The prefix Neo means new, so that would imply before one was a Neo-con (neoconservative) one would have been something else?

What would that be? Besides Liberal that is?
There is the reason for all the rancor spite and ire, Neo-Cons are deserters from the Leftist Agenda they are in so many words Apostate Progressives.

One would cause a person to walk away from the philosophy and political Ideals of a Life time.
Perhaps it was looking at the world one day and saying to oneself, "I cannot believe this stuff any more."??

One of the Greatest examples is the road taken by Christopher Hitchens, one time shining light of the left and lifetime Trotskyite.

Here is the story of his Epiphany.
"Don't Cross Over if You Have Any Intention of Going Back": Politics and Literature in the Mind of Christopher Hitchens


"I can tell you exactly when the breaking point came, actually. I was invited by Michael Moore to be his interviewer at the Telluride Film Festival for his awful, baggy, dishonest, boring movie, Bowling for Columbine. In that film, clips about the Kosovo war from Serbian television are used as objective. Moore implies that the bombing of Kosovo might have inspired the murderers in Columbine. You don't know where to start with someone as mentally lazy as this. This was on the anniversary of September 11 terrorist attacks, and he said, "Well, if it's true that bin Laden did this thing in New York . . ." It was early in the morning; just a second, I thought. "Say that again? If they did this?" He said, "Well, if they did this." And he opposed the toppling of the Taliban in Afghanistan?a reactionary, conservative position couched in radical anti-imperialist language. My Marxist training tells me things don't remain the same. Reactionary-left positions won't hold for long; they will metamorphose into reactionary-right ones. He says he considers the Iraqi resistance?the beheaders and kidnappers and rapists, the people who throw petrol and explosives into the mosques of rival Muslims, among other things?the equivalents of the Minutemen of the American Revolution. This is the statement of a flat-out brown shirt. It has to be described as such. And all the people who thought that was a great movie to rock the vote, they should be fucking ashamed. There is no room for compromising on a thing like this. He's a lying, fascist, thug."


You see? Christopher Hitchens cannot believe the impossible thing Moore claims "the beheaders and kidnappers and rapists, the people who throw petrol and explosives into the mosques of rival Muslims, among other things?the equivalents of the Minutemen of the American Revolution."

He has taken a good look at the world and concluded..


"Everybody knows what the grievances of the jihadists arethey're very easy to identify. They grieve for the loss of the caliphate. They're not anti-imperialists?they're pro-imperialists. There's an empire they lost and want back. They're offended?deeply, grievously offended?by the sight of an undraped woman or the existence of a Shiite Muslim, or a Christian, or a Jew. These things they consider to be offensive. They believe God gives them the right to erase these things. Let's not understate the fact that they do have deep-seated grievances. But to hear this ventriloquized on the left as some sort of perverse populism was too much for me."


I used to think the Dove/Hawk paradigm needed to be changed to Ostriche/Hawk to denote those who keep their heads in the sand, I think now it should be Dodo/Hawk. because Dodos are jus too stupid to believe anything or anyone would want or be able to hurt THEM that they continued to believe that impossible thing even while someone was coming up and hitting their neighbors over the head and even until they came up to them.

Death to the Crusader Infidels!
Topic: Islamic Jihad

In SWEDEN?

Lots of folks mocked Bush when he made his
so called "either with us or against us" speech.

Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make.Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. (Applause.) From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime.


But what those fools do not understand is
People like this really MEAN it.

Man linked to London bombings threatens Sweden

This is not the first time Sweden receives terror threats. The man is perfectly right when he says that the London bombers "are not terrorists, as they are doing what Islam requires”: Jihad against the infidels:

Man linked to London bombings threatens Sweden


The 39-year old Swede suspected of involvement in the London bombings has said that Sweden would be “punished” if he was handed over to a foreign power. The man, who is originally from Lebanon, has lived in Sweden since he was 18. In an interview with Dagens Nyheter last October,----

He admitted, however, that he had lived with Abu Hamza, a controversial Muslim preacher at the Finsbury Park mosque in London, who is currently awaiting trial in Britain on terrorism and race-hate charges. The Swedish man says that he lived with one-eyed, hook-handed Hamza “for medical reasons, as a nurse.” While denying involvement in the London bombings,

the man said that the suicide bombers who attacked three underground trains and a bus were “martyrs,” adding that he hoped also to become a martyr one day. “They are not terrorists, as they are doing what Islam requires,”

Sweden, he said, is not threatened by al-Qaeda, although he told Expressen that this could change if the Swedish government handed him over to the British or American authorities. “If Sweden hands me over to another country then it will only have itself to blame. Sweden will then be punished with the greatest punishment.”

Now let's wait for the same talking heads who made so much fun of President Bush explain to us how uncultured and intolerant this fellow is.

Better not hold your breath.

It's All
Because of IRAQ
Topic: Islamic Jihad
At least 45 killed in Egypt resort bombing spree


And of course this is
ALL because of Iraq.
If Egypt had not

invaded another Sovereign
Nation and Over threw---

Wait a minute EGYPT has not invaded anyone, Has it?

But aren't these atrocities supposed to be the Arab Streets Outrage at the overthrow of Saddam Husein?

All this is really confusing particularly since almost all the bombing attacks by the FOREIGN rephrased NON IRAQI Jihadists have been killing IRAQIS.

Yes the message of the Jihadists seems to be

"We will fight the Crusader-Infidels to the LAST DROP of IRAQI BLOOD!"

So if Egypt is not the one who invaded Iraq then why?


Saturday, 23 July , 2005, 06:43

Cairo: At least 45 people were killed and around 150 more wounded in a string of bomb attacks overnight in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, medical sources told AFP.


"There were several attacks at around 1:00 am (2200 GMT Friday) in the centre of Sharm el-Sheikh," a police official told AFP.

"For the moment, we don't know whether they were car bombs or bombs planted under parked cars," he said. "We are not ruling out the possibility of suicide bombings."

The blasts rocked the popular Sinai resort at the peak of the summer tourist season and several foreigners were believed to be among the victims.

According to police sources and witnesses, one of the deadliest bombs went off in a car park between the Ghazala and Movenpick hotels in Sharm el-Sheikh's Naama Bay area.

"The side of the Ghazala hotel facing the sea was badly damaged by one of the blasts and part of it even collapsed," Sharm el-Sheikh resident Hossam Osman told AFP on the phone.

"There are lots of bodies covered with blood-stained white sheets around the hotel. Lots of people rushed to the scene to see what was happening but up to 600 policemen are cordoning off the area," added Osman, who owns a photo laboratory.

The attacks came on the 53rd anniversary of the 1952 revolution and scores of Egyptians were also on an extended holiday weekend in Sharm el-Sheikh and other resorts.

According to police sources, there were up to seven almost simultaneous blasts, mainly in Sharm el-Sheikh's old market area.

One went off near the Marriott hotel and another near the Marina Sharm, witnesses said.

According to an AFP reporter in the Sinai, police forces immediately tightened security along the peninsula's coastline road, with sniffer dogs checking vehicles at every checkpoint.

The bombings were the bloodiest such incident since 34 people, including several Israeli tourists were killed in triple bombings against Taba and two other Sinai resorts last October.

Sharm el-Sheikh is Egypt's largest resort and sits at the southern tip of the Sinai peninsula.

The October 7 bombings had targeted the Hilton hotel -- which lies next to the border with Israel at the north of Gulf of Aqaba -- as well as two other resort camps in Nuweiba, further down the coastline.

The October bombings were the first major attack in Egypt since 58 tourists were killed in an attack on the southern town of Luxor in 1997 and sparked a massive crackdown by government troops in the Sinai.

The trial of three men suspected of involvement in the October bombings opened on July 2 at the high state security court in Ismailiya, northeast of Cairo, and was due to resume on Sunday.

One of the men is still at large and being tried in absentia.

Because its less trouble and EASIER to bomb Egypt than to go all the way to the US, Italy, Denmark, the rest of the Coalition of the Willing
(all 30 plus Nations) or UK again?