Return
to Main Page

Daniel W Kauffman Jr's Profile
Daniel W Kauffman Jr's Facebook profile
Create Your Badge

uat

LINKS


Return
to Main Page
Opposing Views Heinlein Centennial web site This site is Gunny Approved
Heard the
Word of Blog?

Political tags - such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth - are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire.

Open Trackback Alliance

Check out our Frappr!


Patterico's Pledge

If the FEC makes rules that limit my First Amendment right to express my opinion on core political issues,

I will not obey those rules.

ARCHIVE
« May 2007 »
S M T W T F S
1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10 11 12
13 14 15 16 17 18 19
20 21 22 23 24 25 26
27 28 29 30 31

View blog reactions

Who Links Here

Free counter and web stats

eXTReMe Tracker

Weblog Commenting and Trackback by HaloScan.com

Listed on BlogShares


>
Friday, 18 May 2007
Palestinians Shoot 15 Human Shields
From IRIS Blog to my email inbox to you.

200 Gaza residents decided their "human shield"tactics worked so well against the Israelis, they would try it to stop the shooting between rival terrorists in Gaza:

"Just as we used to protect you from the occupation by acting as human shields, we have come to protect you from yourselves," one protester shouted at gunmen, referring to instances when Palestinian civilians positioned themselves between militants and Israeli forces.




The gunmen used it as an opportunity to refine their technical skills, injuring approximately 15 of them.



See also: Gaza City: "A City of Corpses and Ghosts"



"Even during the Israeli occupation the situation wasn't this terrible," says Um Mohammed, praying for an end to the lethal Palestinian infighting raging outside her Gaza City home. Fear reigns throughout the city, deserted but for prowling groups of armed men, loyal to rivals Hamas or Fatah, living on a daily diet of ambushes, kidnappings and assassinations. Dozens of snipers on the rooftops of the tallest buildings open fire seemingly on anything that moves. "We can't go near the window, let alone on the balcony. We have all become targets," says Um Mohammed. "This is a city of corpses and ghosts."




See also: AP Reporter in Gaza: "This Is the Worst It's Been"



On Wednesday, I saw several people shot in front of my building, I heard the screams of terrified women and children in a burning building, and I argued with gunmen who tried to take over my home. I have seen a lot in my years as a journalist in Gaza, but this is the worst it's been.


Smoke rises from a residential building after it was attacked by Hamas militants in Gaza City, Wednesday, May 16, 2007. Hamas gunmen shot dead six bodyguards from the rival Fatah movement on Wednesday and mistakenly ambushed a jeep carrying their own fighters, killing five of them, in the bloodiest day of Palestinian infighting since violence erupted in the Gaza Strip four days ago. (AP Photo/Adel Hana)

Photo Credit: AP Photo
Technorati Tag:***

Tracked to
OTA Weekend at The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns


|


Posted by ky/kentuckydan at 11:23 PM CDT
| Post Comment | Permalink | Share This Post
Updated: Friday, 18 May 2007 11:58 PM CDT
Thursday, 17 May 2007
Behind The Curtain
Topic: Islamic Jihad






The Terrorism Warning Process: A Look behind the Curtain

By Fred Burton


U.S. and German officials fear terrorists are in
the advanced planning stages of an attack against U.S. military personnel or
tourists in Germany, ABC News reported May 11. The report followed the
issuance of a Warden Message by the U.S. Embassy in Berlin on April 20
announcing that U.S. diplomatic and consular facilities in Germany were
increasing their security posture in response to a heightened threat
situation. The message, which remains in effect, also encouraged Americans in
Germany to increase their vigilance and take appropriate steps to bolster
their own personal security. Continuing chatter from a number of sources
indicates the threat is real.

The warning comes as no surprise. Like
much of Europe, Germany has a large Muslim population, and within that
population is a small but dedicated radical element. It was in Germany where
a diverse group of Muslim students from various countries was radicalized and
later organized into the "Hamburg Cell." Members of the cell, including
Mohamed Atta and Ramzi Binalshibh, would go on to attend al Qaeda training
camps in Afghanistan, where they were selected to form the nucleus for al
Qaeda's 9/11 operation. Even after the Hamburg Cell was dismantled, the
jihadist network in Germany has remained active

in publishing Internet propaganda and recruiting and sending young Muslim men
to fight in places like Iraq.

Additionally, jihadists left two timed
incendiary devices on trains

in the German towns of Dortmund and Koblenz on July 31, 2006. The group
allegedly responsible for the attack comprised mainly Lebanese Muslims living
in Germany, who reportedly had been incensed over the Prophet Mohammed cartooncontroversy

German prosecutors have alleged that the men charged in
connection with the attack were also radicalized after arriving in Germany.
In many ways, then, Germany is facing the same tactical
realities

as the United Kingdom and other countries in that it faces a
threat from homegrown militants as well as from professional al Qaeda
operatives.

The warning in Germany, however, does provide an
opportunity to draw back the curtain on the U.S. terrorism warning process --
to examine what drives it, why it sometimes works and why it sometimes does
not.

Reasons for Warnings

The U.S. government issues
public warnings for a number of reasons. One of these, of course, is genuine
concern for the welfare of U.S. citizens. A second reason (although perhaps
not the second in priority for some officials) is simple bureaucratic
butt-covering. The last thing a government official wants to do is to end up
before a congressional committee or a governmental accountability review
board and answer pointed questions about why he or she had threat information
that was not shared with the American public.

Indeed, following the
bombing of Pan American flight 103, an investigation conducted by the
President's Commission on Aviation Security and Terrorism discovered that the
U.S. Embassy in Helsinki, Finland, received a threat Dec. 5, 1988, stating
that "sometime within the next two weeks" a bomb would be placed on a Pan
American flight flying from Frankfurt to the United States. The committee
found that this threat information had been selectively distributed by the
Federal Aviation Administration and the U.S. Department of State, giving rise
to the charge of a double standard in the authorities' choice to warn
traveling government employees but not the general public.

Upon
receiving the commission's report, the U.S. Congress passed The Aviation
Security Improvement Act of 1990, which said civil aviation threats could not
be passed along only to selected travelers unless the threat applied only to
those travelers. The Bush administration expanded on that legal precedent to
include the dissemination of all threat information, establishing what
is now commonly referred to in the counterterrorism community as the "no
double-standard policy." This policy requires that threats be disseminated to
the public in addition to government employees.

The "no
double-standard" policy was intended to be applied to timely, credible,
corroborated and specific threats. Over time, however, it has been applied to
almost any and every threat. Bureaucratic butt-covering inevitably leads to
this type of overreaction because nobody wants to be caught not sharing
information after the fact, or being accused of making a bad analytical
assessment of the threat. Therefore, nearly everything is reported,
regardless of its veracity. Obviously, this type of overreaction leads to the
release of many more alerts -- many of which are not well-founded. This leads
to alert
fatigue
.


Warnings also can be issued in an effort to pre-empt an
attack. In cases in which authorities have intelligence that a plot is in the
works, but the information is insufficient to identify the plotters or make
arrests, announcing that a plot has been uncovered and security has been
increased is seen as a way to discourage a planned attack. In practical
applications, however, this does not always work.

Although it might
seem logical that militants would abort an operation in the works once a
warning is issued, history has shown otherwise. In the Dec. 6, 2005, attack
against the U.S. Consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, for example, the
perpetrators not only continued their operation despite the issuance of a
warning, but also despite a government operation that resulted in the disruption

of a second cell that was supposed to participate in the attack. Several
other attacks also were preceded by warnings or security alerts, including
the failed July
21, 2005
,
BR>London subway attack, which occurred while the city remained
under a heightened alert following the bombings

two weeks earlier.

Sources of Warnings

The intelligence
that leads to a warning can come from a variety of places. Sometimes the
warning is spawned by good, hard intelligence from a technical or human
source. Other times it can be a tidbit picked up after the arrest of a
suspect, such as the warnings in 2004 of the plot to attack financial targets
in the United States that followed the arrest of Mohammad
Naeem Noor Khan

in Pakistan.

Threat intelligence also often
results from interrogating captured militant operatives, as was seen in the
raft of warnings that followed the September 2002 arrest and interrogation of
al Qaeda operational planner Khalid
Sheikh Mohammed
.
Threat information can even come from a previously
unknown source who walks into an agency and volunteers
information
.


The intelligence services of other countries also
will share information they have obtained with their U.S. counterparts --
though without direct access to the source, the U.S. agencies might find it
difficult to determine whether the information is credible and to obtain
additional information. Additionally, there are times when foreign liaison
services pass "threat" information as part of a political agenda, perhaps to
get a local insurgent group listed on the U.S. terrorism list -- or merely to
jerk the Americans around.

Of course, all intelligence can be
problematic. For one thing, there is the problem of fabricators,

human sources who concoct stories to sell to intelligence agencies for
financial gain. Quite often these fabricators base their stories on a thread
of truth that makes them appear genuine. During the early 1990s the U.S.
Embassy in Beirut was closed on several occasions due to the bogus and
exceedingly dire threat reports of a clever fabricator who milked the FBI for
tens of thousands of dollars.

Secondly, there is the problem of
disinformation, or information purposefully leaked by an organization to
mislead or confuse analysts. In retrospect, the great number of warnings of
pending attacks against U.S. and Israeli interests overseas before the 9/11
attacks -- during what the 9/11 Commission Report calls "The Summer of
Threat" -- might have been part of an al Qaeda disinformation plot to
distract U.S. attention from the group's real plans. Disinformation also can
be provided by terrorist suspects during their interrogations in an effort to
create red herrings and protect real operations that are under way. Such
disinformation attempts by militants also can be useful for pinging the system

in order to judge U.S. responses to threats. This also can
serve to help induce alert fatigue.

Another problem in intelligence
is misinterpretation. That is, receiving intelligence and indicators and then
drawing the wrong conclusions from them, or even misinterpreting an innocuous
item to be a critical item of intelligence. In a 2003 case, for instance, the
U.S. national threat level was raised from yellow to orange during the
holidays after a CIA analyst mistakenly claimed to have discovered a cache of
secret al Qaeda messages imbedded in the moving text at the bottom of the Al
Jazeera news channel. Though some have scoffed at the CIA over the case, the
potential blowback for not taking possible indicators seriously has caused
the intelligence community to err strongly on the side of caution in issuing
such alerts.

The Warning Track Record

Because of the
problems inherent in intelligence work, and the amount of bureaucratic
butt-covering going on because of the political environment, the historical
track record of warning messages has been mixed. Though the vast majority of
warnings have proven to be false alarms, at times and in some specific places
the warnings have been quite accurate. For example, on Feb. 15, 2006, the
U.S. Embassy in Manama, Bahrain, issued a Warden Message concerning the
threat of al Qaeda attacks in the region. The Australians issued a similar
warning six days later. On Feb. 24, al Qaeda's Saudi node attacked the Abqaiq

oil processing facility near Bahrain. In fact, there was a clearly
discernable pattern

in Saudi Arabia in 2004 in which a warning would be issued and then followed
shortly by an attack or raid that resulted in the arrest of militant
suspects.

Another example is the
Bali
suicide attacks
in October 2005. The U.S. Embassy in Jakarta had been
warning about attacks against foreigners at soft targets in Indonesia since
spring 2005, and on Sept. 30, the day before the attacks, issued a Warden
Message warning against possible attacks in "? places where Americans and
other Westerners live, congregate, shop or visit, including hotels, clubs,
restaurants, shopping centers ?" The Oct. 1 attacks targeted restaurants.


The Israelis also have had good intelligence on jihadist threats in
the Sinai. In fact they issued a warning to Israeli citizens to avoid the
area prior to the October 2004 attack against the
Hilton
hotel
in Taba.

This kind of intelligence penetration of al Qaeda
has occurred far more frequently at the local or regional level. It has been
far harder to penetrate the central core. Moreover, after certain
intelligence methods have been disclosed to the public -- such as monitoring
the satellite phone conversations of al Qaeda leaders -- those intelligence
sources that had provided insight into the activities of the core group have
dried up.

This intelligence penetration on the tactical level is
frequently short-lived because the type of access that provides the timely
and accurate intelligence needed to predict threats often is then used to
dismantle the organization. Jemaah Islamiyah in Indonesia, al Qaeda in the
Arabian Peninsula and the jihadists linked to al Qaeda in the Sinai --
regional nodes that were subjects of accurate threat reporting over the past
few years -- were all hammered hard by local security forces. Afterward,
though, the quality of the threat information dropped noticeably, with an
increasing spike in the number of false alarms.

For example, after
highly accurate threat reporting in Saudi Arabia in 2004 (and a string of
successful actions against al Qaeda by the Saudi government), a
rash
of warnings in Saudi Arabia in 2005 about pending attacks against U.S.
government and commercial targets proved to be unfounded. The U.S. Embassy in
Riyadh was even closed for two days in August 2005 because of a threat that
did not materialize. A similar pattern was seen in Indonesia and the Sinai.


As long as there are attackers -- and bureaucrats concerned about
being grilled by Congress -- there will be terrorism threat warnings. The
difficulty will be deciphering which are bogus and which are based on timely,
accurate and specific intelligence.

Contact Us

Analysis Comments - analysis@stratfor.com

Customer Service, Access, Account Issues - service@stratfor.com



Was this forwarded to you? Sign up to start receiving your own copy – it’s always thought-provoking, insightful and free.  


Go to https://www.stratfor.com/subscriptions/free-weekly-intelligence-reports.php to register



The Q2/2007 Quarterly Forecast has been released.


Covering the entire world, the Q2/2007 Forecast gives you the chance to take stock of global developments in the second quarter and put everything into perspective so that you are not surprised by trends and issues emerging during the coming months.


Get your copy of this affordable analysis now and find out what Stratfor analysts predict for the coming months. Click here to read the report today.




Distribution and Reprints


This report may be distributed or republished with attribution to Strategic Forecasting, Inc. at www.stratfor.com. For media requests, partnership opportunities, or commercial distribution or republication, please contact pr@stratfor.com.







Technorati Tag:*********





|


Posted by ky/kentuckydan at 9:47 AM CDT
| Post Comment | Permalink | Share This Post
Updated: Friday, 18 May 2007 11:48 PM CDT
Monday, 14 May 2007
Turks rally against pro-Islamic leaders
Hat Tip Jihad Watch


By SUZAN FRASER, Associated Press Writer Sun May 13, 12:33 PM ET

IZMIR, Turkey - Choking the highways and crammed onto ferries, hundreds of thousands of Turks streamed into this port city on Sunday in an enormous show of opposition to the pro-Islamic ruling party, increasing pressure on the government ahead of early elections.



Some 1.5 million protesters carried anti-government banners, red-and-white Turkish flags and pictures of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who founded the secular republic in 1923.


Turkish flags hung from balconies and windows, as well as buses and fishing boats and yachts bobbing in Izmir's bay
continued


To Slide Show





Now Compare that with THIS

Streets of Seething ??

ISTANBUL, Turkey - Thousands of angry Turks burned an Israeli flag Friday and chanted “Murderer Israel, Get out of Palestine!” to protest Israel’s offensive into the Gaza Strip.

Hundreds of women, wearing black chadors or covering their heads with Islamic-style head scarves, carried Palestinian flags and banners which read: “Israel is burning Palestine.”


Police said about 5,000 people participated in the protest outside Istanbul’s Bayazid Mosque.



I wonder if CNN or others will be talking about the Seething Secular Street in Turkey tonight?


Technorati Tag:*********





|


Posted by ky/kentuckydan at 9:02 AM CDT
| Post Comment | Permalink | Share This Post
Updated: Monday, 14 May 2007 9:17 AM CDT
Thursday, 10 May 2007
You Are Not Alone
Topic: Iraq War
Perhaps you have been sitting at home nights listening to the Talking Heads and the Democratic Leadership, telling you What Americans Want, and it is not what YOU want.

If this has been making you feel that you are alone and out of sinc with the rest of the Country, I have some good news for you.

It may not be true at all and the fact is that you are not alone.

I ran into some interesting details in Dr Sanity.

I have not heard anything like this on the News and I doubt that you have either.


THE POLL RESULTS THAT DON'T MAKE THE HEADLINES

Cliff May at The Corner has some recent poll results that are extremely interesting:

According to a recent USA Today/Gallup poll,61% of Americans oppose “denying the funding needed to send any additional U.S. troops to Iraq,” and opposition is up from 58% in February. (3/23-25, 2007).

A Bloomberg poll reveals 61% of Americans believe withholding funding for the war is a bad idea, while only 28% believe it is a good idea (3/3-11, 2007).

A recent Public Opinion Strategies (POS) poll found that 56% of registered voters favor fully funding the war in Iraq, with more voters strongly favoring funding (40%) than totally opposing it (38%); (3/25-27, 2007).

POS found also that a majority of voters (54%) oppose the Democrats imposing a reduction in troops below the level military commanders requested (3/25-27, 2007).

A separate POS poll finds 57% of voters support staying in Iraq until the job is finished and “the Iraqi government can maintain control and provide security for its people.” And 59% of voters say pulling out of Iraq immediately would do more to harm America’s reputation in the world than staying until order is restored (35%); (2/5-7, 2007).

A Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll show 69% of American voters trust military commanders more than members of Congress (18%) to decide when United States troops should leave Iraq. This includes 52% of Democrats, 69% of Independents and 88% of Republicans (3/27-28, 2007).

According to a recent Pew Research survey, only 17% of Americans want an immediate withdrawal of troops (4/18-22, 2007). That same poll found a plurality of adults (45%) believe a terrorist attack against the United States is more likely if we withdraw our troops from Iraq while the “country remains unstable”

Should a date for withdrawal be set, 70% of American believe it is likely that “insurgents will increase their attacks in Iraq” starting on that day. This is supported by 85% of Republicans, 71% of Independents and 60% of Democrats. (FOX News/Opinion Dynamics, 4/17-18, 2007).

An LA Times/Bloomberg polls reveals that 50% of Americans say setting a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq “hurts” the troops, while only 27% believe it “helps” the troops (4/5-9, 2007


Feel better now? I know I do. Isn't it nice to know that MOST of America thinks like we do?

Remember when they tried to convince you how Scared you were?



Technorati Tag:*********



Tracked to
OTA Wednesday at The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns

|


Posted by ky/kentuckydan at 6:31 AM CDT
| Post Comment | Permalink | Share This Post
Updated: Monday, 14 May 2007 9:04 AM CDT
Sunday, 6 May 2007
Fight Back

May 6, 2007 8:22 AM
114,424
citizens have already signed this petition!


Mexcan flag over U.S. dishonored flag

Fight Back!!!


Sign


the


Virtual


Counter- March


Petition









May 1, 2007, Chicago, Illinois







On May 1, Huge crowds of Illegal Aliens dishonored this country by demanding Something they did not Earn—Citizenship.



Fight back by being one of a million signers on this ‘Virtual Counter-March’ Petition, sent to President George W. Bush.


Dear President Bush On May 1, Illegal Aliens dishonored our country by demanding something they did not earn—U.S. citizenship.
Please use your influence to block all moves in Congress to reward lawbreakers with citizenship, welfare, and other benefits true Americans have fought and died for.
Amnesty is not a solution—it's a SURRENDER!





Press to Go to Signup Page




PRIVACY POLICY: Your information will NOT be shared, rented or sold to any entity or group.




 












Petitions are being handled by NumbersUSA, a non-profit,
non-partisan

organization based in Arlington, Virginia
NumbersUSA


Technorati Tag:***



Tracked to
OTA Weekend at The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns

|



Posted by ky/kentuckydan at 8:10 AM CDT
| Post Comment | Permalink | Share This Post
Updated: Sunday, 6 May 2007 8:40 AM CDT
Saturday, 5 May 2007
Saving The World

Bjorn Lomborg: An economist's view on saving the world


About this Talk
Given $50 billion to spend, which would you solve first, AIDS or global warming? Danish economist Bjorn Lomborg put this question to economists and students around the world, and the answers they came up with may surprise you. Ranking our toughest problems not on any moral scale but simply by how effectively they can be solved, Lomborg and his colleagues demand we take a fresh look at doing good.

About Bjorn Lomborg
Danish economist Bjorn Lomborg heads the Copenhagen Consensus, which has prioritized the world's... More >





Technorati Tag:*********



Tracked to
OTA Weekend at The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns

|



Posted by ky/kentuckydan at 9:11 AM CDT
| Post Comment | Permalink | Share This Post
Updated: Saturday, 5 May 2007 9:18 AM CDT
Thursday, 3 May 2007
We Win, They Lose
Topic: Iraq War
Join the Battle along with We Win They Lose.com
Pass it on:
To every Middlesex village and farm,---
A cry of defiance, and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo for evermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,


In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear



Hat Tip: Big Lizards in We Win, They Lose Inc.
When it came to defeating the Soviets, Ronald Reagan made it simple: "We win, they lose." Now more than ever, the defeatists in Congress must hear that same message. America will never surrender




Technorati Tag:************

Tracked to
OTA Weekend at The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns

|



Posted by ky/kentuckydan at 1:03 AM CDT
| Post Comment | Permalink | Share This Post
Updated: Friday, 4 May 2007 7:46 AM CDT
Sunday, 29 April 2007
An Appeal For Redress

An Appeal For Redress is an authorized means for active duty military to submit a grievance to Congress. It can be signed by Active Duty, Reserve, or National Guard military personnel.


It is authorized by DoD Directive 1325.6 and DoD Directive 7050.6 (pdf).









Sign this Appeal.

This site is an Appeal For Redress in support of our mission in Iraq.

An Appeal For Redress is an authorized means for active duty military to submit a grievance to Congress. It can be signed by Active Duty, Reserve, or National Guard military personnel.


It is authorized by DoD Directive 1325.6 and DoD Directive 7050.6 (pdf).

The wording of the Appeal is:

As an American currently serving my nation in uniform, I respectfully urge my political leaders in Congress to fully support our mission in Iraq and halt any calls for retreat. I also respectfully urge my political leaders to actively oppose media efforts which embolden my enemy while demoralizing American support at home. The War in Iraq is a necessary and just effort to bring freedom to the Middle East and protect America from further attack.

If you are active duty, reservist or national guard, please Sign this Appeal.


This Appeal will be delivered to members of Congress.
We are currently working with members of Congress to make a presentation.

Most service members fully support the war in Iraq and feel calls to retreat by Congress and emphasis by some in the media on negative aspects while ignoring positive ones acts to motivate our enemy while demoralizing our support at home, directly increasing the threat we face and resulting in greater American casualties.

Clarification: 'Actively oppose media attacks' is asking for verbal support of our mission, not legislation of any kind.

As of the time of this post 6:12 AM April 29, 2007

2633 Military members have signed,

They say join us!

Their Statement of Purpose is

Appeal for Courage is a non-partisan, grass-roots effort to communicate to Congress the troops' desire to remain in Iraq until our mission is complete. We feel calls to retreat embolden our enemy and hurt our support within the American public and Iraqi people. We accept no funding from any source, and do not speak for any group or organization other than those military members who have signed the Appeal.

They are Supported by

Vets For Freedom

Vets for Freedom is a nonpartisan organization established by combat veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Our mission is to support policymakers from both sides of the aisle who have stood behind our great generation of American warriors on the battlefield, and who have put long-term national security before short-term partisan political gain.

Families United for Our troops and Their Mission

Families United for Our Troops and Their Mission is a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization. We are a grassroots coalition of Gold Star families, veterans, families with loved ones in harm's way, and Americans who share a deep appreciation for our men and women in uniform and support them in their efforts to make America safer by winning the War On Terror.

Military Families Voice of Victory

Military Families Voice for Victory is comprised of families of our Military. We are non-partisan, non-political but we voice opinions of support or failure in regards to any individual politician, political party or media service

Tell others about Appeal For Courage
Anyone can help by downloading a flyer and posting wherever allowed. Military members who can post at FOBs, flight-lines or on ship would be particularly helpful. Other areas of possible help include:

Submit a new flyer, which will be posted around Iraq and on this site for download by others.
Help spread the word by writing letters & emails to blogs and news organizations.

committee@appealforcourage.org

Appeal For Courage
PO Box 25154
Scott AFB, IL 62225-0154
Write your Congress member regarding AFC.
Tell your friends!

Update:The Mudville Gazette has words about this over at MilBlogs in Quadruple Re: Generalship
Including the fact that the media is reporting another website with an opposite Appeal For Redress Petition that has less signatures than Appeal For Courage.

Why am I not surprised?




Technorati Tag:*********>***

Tracked to
OTA Weekend at The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns
who knows what I broke? at Walls of the City
The Conservative Cat
What in the World is AGLOCO? at Dumb Ox Daily News
Oh. Of Course. at Right Wing Nation
#1st Weekend Open at Robinik Open Blog
Open Trackback Weekend #51 at 123beta
Friday Funnies, featuring Sheryl Crow and Alec Baldwin at Leaning Straight Up

Recall Harry Reid? at Stuck On Stupid
Long Weekend (Open) Must-Read List at Right Wing Nation
Friday Open Post at he Yankee Sailor (M-F)
YOUR ZEN MOMENT FOR THE DAY at stikNstein... has no mercy
Is WWIII Upon Us? at Rightwing Guy

|



Posted by ky/kentuckydan at 10:18 AM CDT
| Post Comment | Permalink | Share This Post
Updated: Sunday, 29 April 2007 2:49 PM CDT
Saturday, 28 April 2007
One More Light Of Freedom Flickers And Goes Out

Sandmonkey is calling it quits.



I am going to miss this kid, I hope he does not end up in some "backroom"

Done

Today is going to be the day that I've been dreading for quite sometime now. Today is the day I walk away from this blog. Done. Finished.

There are many reasons, each would take a post to list, and I just do not have the energy to list them. As anyone who has been reading this blog for the past month, I think it is apparent that things are not the same with me. There are reasons for that:

One of the chief reasons is the fact that there has been too much heat around me lately. I no longer believe that my anonymity is kept, especially with State Secuirty agents lurking around my street and asking questions about me since that day. I ignore that, the same way I ignored all the clicking noises that my phones started to exhibit all of a sudden, or the law suit filed by Judge Mourad on my friends, and instead grew bolder and more reckless at a time where everybody else started being more cautious. It took me a while to take note of the fear that has been gripping our little blogsphere and comprehend what it really means. The prospects for improvment, to put it slightly, look pretty grim. I was the model of caution, and believing in my invincipility by managing not to get arrested for the past 2 and a half years, I've grown reckless. Stupid Monkey. Stupid!

And speaking of the state of the egyptian blogsphere, it has been pretty depressing in its own right. One has to wonder at some point the futulity of being a keyboard warrior in a country where nothing seems to matter to its people anymore. At the same time, there has been those amongst us who have loved the fame and the attention, and are now becoming the egyptian blogsphere's equivelant of Paris Hilton: They are famous for being famous, peddling the same stories and not really presenting anything of value to the debate. And then there is the fact that we are entering the "Iconogrphy" phase : We are becoming Icons. Too much Media attention, too many american organizations claiming to champion our causes while they are cashing out in donation from people gullible enough to believe them, too much hype generated by us and others, so many of us tooting our own horns and even crying wolf at times has made Icons of us. We now have young bloggers who come up to many of us "Old Guard" and tell us how they are such great fans of ours, and how we are their role models and heroes and how they are starting to blog because of our "courageous example". And there are those of us who are buying into it, taking in undertsudies to placate our big heads, hooking up with groupies to feed our egos, acting as if we are the warriors for change we are made up to be and forgetting why we started blogging to begin with. It seems that we are entering a state of transformation, and we should either 1) evolve, take the next step whatever it is, 2) stay the way we are and risk becoming carricatures of ourselves or 3) quit. Not knowing what the next step is, and needing time and space to figure it out, I chose the only other option that made sense: I quit!

So here comes my apology to those of you who read me: I am sorry. I really can't continue to do this. You guys have been the best readers anyone could hope for, altough there are some of you who made me come close to shutting down the comments section many many times. I love you all for everything you have done for me, for all of the egyptian blogsphere. When I asked for your help, you gave us more than a helping hand. You cared. You gave a damn about a bunch of egyptians who had a dream to be free and stood by us in our houres of need. For that you are my heroes, and I can not possibly thank you enough.

May the day comes when I rant once again….

Love you all,

The Sandmonkey


Drop by his website and pay your respects to a 21st Century Hero.

Technorati Tag:*********

Tracked to
OTA Weekend at The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns
Done at Rantings of a Sandmonkey

|



Posted by ky/kentuckydan at 12:54 PM CDT
| Post Comment | Permalink | Share This Post
Updated: Saturday, 28 April 2007 1:25 PM CDT
Sunday, 22 April 2007
Adding Insult To Injury

I will be the first to admit that at times I am a little slow on the uptake, but last night I had an Epiphany which filled me with instantaneous outrage.

Let me digress to explain how I arrived at this mental crux.

This Spring the Iowa Legislature raised the Tax on Cigarettes by $1/pack and $10/carton.

Now this was no surprise the Democrats took control of the State Legislature during the last election so Tax raises of some kind were a given.

It was a little odd that the Left which raises the most complaints about Regressive Taxes was silent on this one. The fact is that cigarette smoking is skewed towards the lower income brackets so this Tax is much more regressive than others they have complained about, but again that was not much of a surprise either.

It was not until I stood last night before a cash register ringing up my sale, that I realized the full extent of their perfidy.

The $10 increase in Cigarette Tax was not enough for them I was paying Sales Tax on that $10!

They Tax us on our Income

They Tax us on our Property

They Tax us on our Purchases

And Now?

I realize.

They Tax us on our Increased Taxes!!!

That's ----

That's just TACKY!

Technorati Tag:***

Tracked to
OTA Thursday And Weekend at The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns

|


Posted by ky/kentuckydan at 9:37 AM CDT
| Post Comment | Permalink | Share This Post
Updated: Sunday, 22 April 2007 9:41 AM CDT

Newer | Latest | Older