But for those of us who believe that clarity is the prerequisite to moral progress, the landslide victory of the terrorist organization Hamas in Palestine has a silver lining.

It is true that in 1933, some Germans who voted for the Nazis did so out of anger at the Versailles Treaty and because of the economic chaos that engulfed their country. Indeed, it is widely agreed among historians that Hitler played down anti-Semitism in the Nazis' electoral campaigning. But every German voter was aware of the ferocity of the Nazis' Jew-hatred. And, whatever the case in 1933 Germany, in 2006 Palestine, Hamas has never played down its anti-Semitism or its support for continuing terrorism.

So the Palestinian vote reveals the falsity of the worldwide Left's view of the Palestinians as committed to peace. It likewise reveals the falsity of the Left's belief that Palestinian terror is supported by a small minority of the Palestinian population.

On just about every issue, the Left lives in a childlike fantasy realm. Their views are expressions of what they wish for, not what actually is. Here is a small sample:

• Support for terror represents a tiny sliver of the Muslim world.
• All cultures are essentially morally equivalent.
• The United Nations is a wonderful institution and the best hope of mankind.
• Men and women are basically the same.
• It makes no difference whether children are raised by a loving man and woman or by two loving parents of the same sex.
• Violent criminals in our society are pushed into crime by socioeconomic circumstances, not because of their own flawed characters and values.
• War is not the answer.

The list of leftist positions based on a rejection of reality is as long as a list of leftist positions.

That's why it is often said that "a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged." But that, too, is wishful thinking. After some initial cognitive dissonance, the Hamas victory will have little or no impact on most leftists. The day after the Hamas landslide, the Los Angeles Times editorialized, "Most Palestinians, like most Israelis, want peace." Sure they do. Just not with Israel.

Dennis Prager at his best.

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0106/prager013106.php3 " title="http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0106/prager013106.php3 " target="_blank"http://www.jewishworldreview....;

The EU, which is leading western diplomatic efforts on Iran's nuclear programme, is now likely to offer Iran one "last chance" by delaying a substantive Security Council discussion of the file to March. It had originally hoped to secure a decisive referral as early as next week.

The extra time would meet objections from Russia and China that the EU and the US have been too hasty in seeking a speedy referral to New York.

A final decision on whether to drag out the process further will be taken after a meeting in London on Monday night of the foreign ministers of France, Germany, the UK, Russia, China and the US. The EU still wants further assurances that Moscow and Beijing will support them in March if there is a delay.

 How very unexpected.

 ;http://msnbc.msn.com/id/11061...

I'm ashamed of my country today.

I'm embarrassed that America allows itself to be pushed around by a corrupt tinpot oligarchy in Mexico.

I'm mortified that a country that spends more on defense than any other in the history of the world permits armed incursions into its sovereign territory by bands of thugs supporting drug-running and human smuggling operations.

I'm angry that we make the security of foreign borders a higher priority for the U.S. military than we make control of our own.

I'm speechless that this is happening more than four years after foreign aliens entered the country illegally and killed 3,000 Americans.

That's how I'm feeling today after reading the reports of outgunned, outmanned Texas law enforcement officers and Border Patrol agents being involved in an armed standoff with Mexican military personnel and drug smugglers inside our country, north of the Rio Grande.

The Mexican military vehicles, with mounted machine guns, were, according to the American law enforcement officers, towing thousands of pounds of marijuana into our country.

If this were an isolated incident, I guess we could all afford to brush it off as some sort of anomaly. But it is not. Earlier this month, the Department of Homeland Security, whose main job seems to be downplaying border security issues, reported there have been hundreds of documented incursions into our territory by Mexican soldiers.

"Our government has to do something," said Chief Deputy Mike Doyal of the Hudspeth County Sheriff's Department. "It's not the immigrants coming over for jobs we're worried about. It's the smugglers, Mexican military and the national threat to our borders that we're worried about."

Just consider some of the recent headlines from the border:

• Border Patrol warned: Brace for violence
• Feds to border agents: Assassins targeting you
• Armed standoff on Rio Grande
• Border sheriff warns: We're overwhelmed
• Mexican drug commandos expand ops in 6 U.S. states
• It's war between cops in Mexico
• The threat from Mexico
• 'It's a war' along Mexican border
• Mexican commandos seek control of border
• Mexican commandos new threat on border

Wars have certainly started with less provocation than this.

Despite what President Bush says or may believe, Mexico is not our friend. It is a country that oppresses its own people. Blessed with great natural resources and climate, Mexico is an economic basket case. Wealth is amassed by politicians and criminals – and often they are one and the same.

I don't blame ordinary Mexicans for trying to flee the dreadful conditions with which their leaders have enslaved them. But I do blame U.S. leaders for following policies that will, eventually, make America indistinguishable from Mexico. I also blame U.S. leaders for their appeasement of the organized crime syndicate that seems to run Mexico. I also blame U.S. leaders for inviting terrorists to take advantage of the out-of-control border.

These are not problems that will be solved through negotiations. These are not problems that will be solved through economic agreements. These are not problems that will be solved through diplomacy. These are not problems that will be solved through weakness.

Bush has failed in many ways as president. But in no area has he been a more profound failure than in his handling of the border and illegal immigration issues. He has disgraced this nation. And what we saw happen a few days ago in Texas, his home state, is just the latest example of his abdication of responsibility.

It's time to get tough with Mexico – and I don't mean with just words.

We need to put our neighbor on notice that the next incursion into our territory by any military or paramilitary force will be considered nothing less than an act of war. Military vehicles will be blown up on sight. Soldiers or those masquerading as soldiers will be shot on sight.

Of course, such a sensible policy requires that we have more troops and better equipped soldiers than the invading enemy. We need to do it now. It's time to militarize the border while we build an impregnable barrier from the Pacific to the Gulf of Mexico.

 Well said.

http://wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=48510  " title="http://wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=48510  " target="_blank"http://wnd.com/news/article.a...;

There have been a lot of conflicting statements and a fake photo designed to suggest that that the Damadola strike was clumsy and ineffective in getting the target and that anger in Pakistan and innocent victims were the principal result of the effort. But the fog is clearing. It appears that this was a well- conceived joint US-Pakistani intelligence operation which was very effective.

A Pakistani official who is unnamed in the story gives us some detail:

Ayman al-Zawahri, the apparent target of the U.S. attack Jan. 13, met his deputy, Abu Farraj al-Libbi, in Damadola last year, the security official said.

Al-Libbi, a Libyan, had confessed to Pakistani interrogators after his capture in May 2005 he met al-Zawahri at Damadola, near the Afghan border, earlier in the year. Al-Libbi was captured after a shootout in another remote hamlet in northwestern Pakistan.

Another high-ranking intelligence official confirmed al-Libbi’s account of the meeting, which took place a few months before his arrest. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

“His statement was later verified and we were able to confirm that al-Zawahri visited Damadola,” the first official said.

The home was among three destroyed in the pre-dawn airstrike Jan. 13, which killed 13 villagers.

U.S. and Pakistani intelligence — with the aid of local tribesmen and Afghans — began monitoring the home after al-Libbi’s confession, the officials said.

...This was a well-surveilled site. And the intelligence apparently sound. I think Zawahiri died in that operation . Either we know this and are keeping it quiet for operational reasons or his was one of the four or five bodies reportedly removed from the site by unknown persons to preclude a solid identification without which it would be imprudent to announce he was killed.

Excellent analysis. Go read the rest, if I can get the $#@$@$#ing link to work...

americanthinker.com/comments.php?comments_id=4259

Iran Focus

Tehran, Iran, Jan. 21 – Hard-line Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told senior leaders of a radical Palestinian group in Damascus on Friday that the Middle East conflict has become “the locus of the final war” between Muslims and the West, Iran’s official news agency, IRNA, reported.

Ahmadinejad, who was speaking on the second day of his two-day trip to Syria, told the leaders of Hamas, “Today, victory in Palestine has become a matter of life and death for the Islamic world and for Global Arrogance (the West)”.

The Iranian president urged the Palestinians to reject moves such as Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza.

“Some point to the withdrawal of the occupiers from parts of Palestine, but this event has already been greatly detrimental to Muslims”, Ahmadinejad said.

“If the occupiers stay on even one inch of Palestinian soil, the goal of Palestine will not be realised”, Ahmadinejad told Hamas leaders, who included Khalid Mash’al, the head of the group’s political bureau.

“We must not let our guard down now for even one moment against the enemies’ plots. Belittling the goal of Palestine is a great plot that the enemies are after”, he said.

Ahmadinejad has called the Holocaust a “myth” and said that Israel must be “wiped off the map”.

Pay attention people.  THIS is what our enemies are saying. 

http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=5409 " title="http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=5409 " target="_blank"http://www.iranfocus.com/modu...;

In an unexpected twist in the Election Day tire slashing trial, four former Kerry-Edwards campaign staffers, including the sons of U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Milwaukee) and former Acting Mayor Marvin Pratt, have agreed to plead no contest to misdemeanors.

The plea agreements came in the middle of jury deliberations after an eight-day trial on felony property damage charges that carried potential 3 1/2 year prison terms upon conviction.

Michael Pratt, 33, Sowande Omokunde, 26, Lewis G. Caldwell, 29, and Lavelle Mohammad, 36, have all pleaded no contest to misdemeanor counts of criminal damage to property. Omokunde is Moore's son.

Prosecutors will recommend probation sentences as part of the deal, and that the four together pay $5,317 in restitution for the damaged tires.

The surprise resolution was offered by prosecutors at 2 p.m., nearly 7 hours into deliberations and an hour after a jury note complained of an impasse.

Defendant Justin Howell, 21, was the only one of the five charged not included in the deal. The no contest pleas have not been formally made yet, but when they are, jurors will be left to deliberate the felony charge against Howell.

A note this morning from the jury to the judge about the verdict forms had hinted it was considering at least some convictions in the case, but the jury did not return a verdict before breaking for lunch.

Then around 1 p.m., the jury sent a second note suggesting they could not reach a verdict. “We have people that are adamant about their decision and are not budging. We don’t know what to do,” the note read in part.

Defense attorneys immediately requested a mistrial, which Circuit Judge Michael Brennan denied. He doubted that the jury was intractably hung, since testimony lasted close to seven court days and deliberations had only been going about six hours.

“That’s (an) insufficient amount of time to declare a mistrial,” Brennan said, and ordered the jury to continue deliberating.

Less than an hour later, news of the plea deals emerged.

Big Suprise. Not.

http://www.jsonline.com/news/...

by Richard Burr 01/20/2006

12:00:00 AM

Detroit WHEN TREASURY SECRETARY John Snow announced guidelines for a new tax cut for the rich here last week, liberals did not denounce him. That's because the proposed tax breaks were for gasoline-electric hybrid vehicles, the favorite ride of environmentalists this side of bicycles. But the dirty secret about hybrids is that, even as the government continues to fuel their growth with tax subsidies, they don't deliver the gas savings they promise.

Most cars and trucks don't achieve the gas mileage they advertise, according to Consumer Reports. But hybrids do a far worse job than conventional vehicles in meeting their Environmental Protection Agency fuel economy ratings, especially in city driving. Hybrids, which typically claim to get 32 to 60 miles per gallon, ended up delivering an average of 19 miles per gallon less than their EPA ratings under real-world driving conditions (which reflect more stop-and-go traffic and Americans' penchant for heavy accelerating) according to a Consumer Reports investigation in October 2005.

For example, a 2004 Toyota Prius got 35 miles per gallon in city driving, off 42 percent from its EPA rating of 60 mpg. The 2003 Honda Civic averaged 26 mpg, off 46 percent from its advertised 48 mpg. And the Ford Escape small sport utility vehicle managed 22 mpg, falling 33 percent short of its 33 mpg rating. "City traffic is supposed to be the hybrids' strong suit, but their shortfall amounted to a 40 percent deficit on average," Consumer Reports said.

See? Told ya. Hype.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articl es/000/000/006/598bgjbv.asp" title="http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articl es/000/000/006/598bgjbv.asp" target="_blank"http://www.weeklystandard.com...