Lebanese bloggers Rampurple and Jeha, who both show up at times in my comments section, busted Hezbollah and Michel Aoun for peddling a blatantly doctored photograph on Hezbollah's An Manar TV channel.

Here is a screen shot of Aoun holding up the photo on TV.

Below is the photo. It supposedly shows a (Christian) Lebanese Forces "militia man" in the lower-left corner pointing a weapon at Lebanese soldiers. Notice the cross on his sleeve. The man and the cross were photoshopped in.

Here is the real picture.

And here is the picture that was used as bad photoshop fodder. It was taken during last summer's war and was itself criticized as propaganda for its inaccurate caption. Notice the cross on the sleeve isn't there. That's because this man is Hezbollah, not a member of the Christian Lebanese Forces.

Hats off to Lebanese bloggers for exposing this one. Busting propagandists for fauxtography isn't just for Americans any more.

UPDATE and CORRECTION: Lebanese blogger Nancy says Aoun and Hezbollah were busted on television by Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea. So this isn't just a blogosphere thing. And N10452 posted this at Rampurple's site, not Rampurple herself. Credit where it's due.

UPDATE: Beirut's Daily Star picked up the story.

UPDATE: Apologies to EU Referendum. I should have said "Westerners," not "Americans."

Via:  Winds of change.net

There is a greater threat in this country from Radical Christians than there is from Radical Islam!

Rosie O'Donnel

Riiiiight... 

THE MOVIE "An Inconvenient Truth," with which the indoctrinating centers in
the Tri-Valley are propagandizing our children, comes across like this: We only
have 10 years to return to a medieval lifestyle, to figure out how to get the
sun to radiate more than 1.4 kW per square meter without melting the icecaps or
to invent other "alternative" (what a ridiculous name) non-nuclear energy
sources.

The Al Gore (or should I say Goebbels?) propaganda machine seeks to limit
each person to 1 ton of carbon per year. The proposal is to create a system of
carbon allowances that will be the rationing cards of the future.

Kyoto targets, however, will not be met. Two facts about the futility of
controlling emissions:

dioxide as the entire nation of Japan does from useful fuel consumption.

tons per year from human activity.

conveniently leaves out of the companion book to his video because they are
inconvenient to his argument.

not linear; therefore the graph on pages 66-67 is seriously misleading.

climate change a few thousand years ago.

the rotation of the Earth, or both.

Gore fails to mention that introducing coal-fired electrical power generation

in Africa and South America would reduce the 30 percent of global carbon dioxide

emissions from burning wood to cook substantially and save more than 1.6 million
lives per year.

human-attributed catastrophic global warming when scientific agreement only
exists on a narrower range of issues such as the increase in temperature between
1919 and 1940.

desires can be obtained purely by choosing the starting point and the right
ending point and turning the extrapolation crank.

The climate charlatans play up this process to the hilt. Global warmers
select whichever data tend to support their preconceived notions. They never go
back to 1855 or try to explain decreases instead of increases in temperature.
And they keep their data and algorithms close to their chest lest someone check
them and expose the fallacy of their arguments.

Stephen McIntyre, a minerals consultant, recently demonstrated that the
global warmers' favorite graph is wrong. Their reconstruction of global
temperatures over the past 1,000 years shows slight oscillations until a sharp
upward swing (the "blade" of the hockey stick) in recent years. McIntyre showed
that the method used by climatologist Michael Mann and colleagues generates
hockey sticks even from random data. Global warming guru Mann then published a
partial correction but he refuses to release his computer algorithm for further
checking. Diehards such as Mann et al. continue to defend the climate icon.
Others, however, are beginning to downplay the hockey stick graph.

Consider what you get from 1 ton of carbon: You could heat your house with a
small electric stove (1 kilowatt) for six hours a day for 10 months of a year.
Nothing would be left for cooking, lighting, hot water, refrigeration, vacuuming
or washing. No travel would be possible except on foot or on bicycle. A 1-ton
footprint would actually return you to a lifestyle that existed before our
lifetime.

Answering your propagandized children (for the time being they are not yet
recruited to report you to the thought police, but watch out anyway): Giving in
to the global warming lobby when so much evidence indicates that it is a
gigantic paper tiger is irresponsible, unscientific, immature and selfish.

Our children and grandchildren will ask us whether we believed the great hoax
of global warming and I, for one, don't want to be telling them that I kept a
chart of my carbon footprint. I love to take my SUV to Tahoe, ski at night on
well-lit slopes, fly airplanes and do all the power-intensive activities within
my reach.

I recommend you keep doing the same or whatever else you enjoy. Have no fear.
The Earth is a big place and your enjoyment of life will not hurt it in the
least.

Bevc received a doctorate in electrical engineering from UC Berkeley. He was
a postdoctoral fellow of the National Academy of Sciences and Air Force Office
of Scientific Research at Oxford University in England, conducted scientific
research for the Department of Defense and the aerospace industry, and held
senior staff positions at the California Public Utilities Commission. He is a
resident of Danville.

ContraCosta Times 

Fox News Spokesperson: Anderson Cooper is ‘The Paris Hilton of Television News’

The battle of the cable news networks rages on, and gets funnier and funnier by the minute. In this latest installment, a Fox News spokesperson has deliciously disparaged one of CNN’s biggest stars.

As reported by the New York Times (emphasis mine throughout):

A Fox News spokeswoman, Irena Briganti, said CNN was mainly looking for publicity in attacking its higher-rated rival. Of Mr. Cooper’s comment, she said, “Yet another cry for attention by the Paris Hilton of television news, Anderson Cooper.”

What was this recent fracas about? You’ll never guess:

A disputed report on the Web site of a conservative magazine about Senator Barack Obama’s childhood schooling kicked off a pointed exchange this week between the rival cable news networks CNN and Fox News, when CNN seemed to make an overt effort both to debunk the report and to question the quality of Fox News’s journalism.

The original report, posted on the online version of Insight, a magazine owned by The Washington Times, said that as a child in Indonesia, Mr. Obama had attended a madrassa, a school that teaches a radical version of the Muslim faith. Mr. Obama, who spent a few years in Jakarta as a boy, is a Christian.

Adding to the political volatility of the report was the attribution of the news to “researchers connected to” Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Figures. Of course, the Clinton News Network never likes any bad press about the former first couple from Arkansas, and felt the need to defend Hillary’s honor:

In comments after Mr. Vause’s report, the CNN anchors Wolf Blitzer and Anderson Cooper seemed to chide others for not practicing legitimate journalism on the story. “CNN did what any serious news organization is supposed to do in this kind of a situation,” Mr. Blitzer said. “We actually conducted an exclusive firsthand investigation inside Indonesia to check out the school.”

Mr. Cooper said: “That’s the difference between talking about news and reporting it. You send a reporter, check the facts, and you decide at home.”

This almost reads like a script from “Saturday Night Live,” doesn’t it? Of course, also comical is how the Times completely ignored Keith Olbermann’s involvement in the dispute as reported by NewsBusters here and here.

Have the Times’ editors finally realized how irrelevant this gross caricature of a newsman is? Stay tuned.

Heh!  Too true... 

Newsbusters

Words fail me... 

Fox News 

TORONTO (CP) - Halifax-born Denny Doherty was remembered Friday as the "angelic voice" that carried the '60s folk-pop group the Mamas and the Papas through such memorable hits as "California Dreamin' &quo t; and "Monday, Monday."

Doherty died early Friday at his home in suburban Mississauga after suffering an aneurysm in his abdomen, said his sister Frances Arnold. He was 66.

"Everybody used to think that John Phillips, who wrote the songs, was also the main voice of the group, but it wasn't - it was the angelic voice of Denny Doherty," said Larry Leblanc, Canadian editor of Billboard Magazine.

"He was often overlooked but it was really his voice that carried the group; also Cass (Elliot) was a formidable singer."

The group's hits also included "Dream a Little Dream of Me" and "Dedicated to the One I Love." Doherty co-wrote the songs "I Saw Her Again Last Night" and "Got a Feelin'. "

Despite being together for just three tumultuous years marked by drug use and destructive love triangles, the Mamas and the Papas had 10 hit singles over five albums. The band broke up in 1968 amid internal squabbling.

Doherty, along with Elliot and John and Michelle Phillips, sold an estimated 20 million records.

In 1974, the 30-year-old Elliot suffered a fatal heart attack. John Phillips, the group's chief songwriter, died in 2001 at age 65.

Michelle Phillips said she last spoke with Doherty on Thursday and believed he was on the way to recovery from recent surgery.

"He was extremely funny and jovial as always and he was just my same old Denny," Phillips said, adding they spoke by phone several times a week.

"I'm still in shock that he didn't survive this."

Kim Cooke of the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences compared Doherty to other top performers of the time.

"He was one of a group of Canadians of that era that would have included Leonard Cohen, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell and others who were heading to the U.S. to make music and in some cases, fame and fortune," Cooke said.

"He's an artist that, in terms of career accomplishments, perhaps didn't rank with some of those artists but still had a fine career and really was a key component in some absolutely vital and compelling music."

The Telegraph-Journal 

By John Perazzo
FrontPageMagazine.com | January 17, 2007

As Western civilization faces the threat of a radical Islamic foe that seeks to annihilate it, the collective self-assurance of the Western psyche continues to wither under the relentless, low-grade assault of the political Left. This assault presents itself in the form of constant criticism aimed at

Go read the rest

Front Page Magazine 

By Ted Sampley
U.S. Veteran Dispatch
January 2007

Democrat Keith Ellison is now officially the first Muslim United States congressman. True to his pledge, he placed his hand on the Quran, the Muslim book of jihad and pledged his allegiance to the United States during his ceremonial swearing-in.

Capitol Hill staff said Ellison's swearing-in photo opportunity drew more media than they had ever seen in the history of the U.S. House. Ellison represents the 5th Congressional District of Minnesota.

The Quran Ellison used was no ordinary book. It once belonged to Thomas Jefferson, third president of the United States and one of America's founding fathers. Ellison borrowed it from the Rare Book Section of the Library of Congress. It was one of the 6,500 Jefferson books archived in the library.

Ellison, who was born in Detroit and converted to Islam while in college, said he chose to use Jefferson's Quran because it showed that "a visionary like Jefferson" believed that wisdom could be gleaned from many sources.

There is no doubt Ellison was right about Jefferson believing wisdom could be "gleaned" from the Muslim Quran. At the time Jefferson owned the book, he needed to know everything possible about Muslims because he was about to advocate war against the Islamic "Barbary" states of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Tripoli.

Ellison's use of Jefferson's Quran as a prop illuminates a subject once well-known in the history of the United States, but, which today, is mostly forgotten - the Muslim pirate slavers who over many centuries enslaved millions of Africans and tens of thousands of Christian Europeans and Americans in the Islamic "Barbary" states.

Over the course of 10 centuries, Muslim pirates cruised the African and Mediterranean coastline, pillaging villages and seizing slaves.

The taking of slaves in pre-dawn raids on unsuspecting coastal villages had a high casualty rate. It was typical of Muslim raiders to kill off as many of the "non-Muslim" older men and women as possible so the preferred "booty" of only young women and children could be collected.

Young non-Muslim women were targeted because of their value as concubines in Islamic markets. Islamic law provides for the sexual interests of Muslim men by allowing them to take as many as four wives at one time and to have as many concubines as their fortunes allow.

Boys, as young as 9 or 10 years old, were often mutilated to create eunuchs who would bring higher prices in the slave markets of the Middle East. Muslim slave traders created "eunuch stations" along major African slave routes so the necessary surgery could be performed. It was estimated that only a small number of the boys subjected to the mutilation survived after the surgery.

When American colonists rebelled against British rule in 1776, American merchant ships lost Royal Navy protection. With no American Navy for protection, American ships were attacked and their Christian crews enslaved by Muslim pirates operating under the control of the "Dey of Algiers"--an Islamist warlord ruling Algeria.

Because American commerce in the Mediterranean was being destroyed by the pirates, the Continental Congress agreed in 1784 to negotiate treaties with the four Barbary States. Congress appointed a special commission consisting of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin, to oversee the negotiations.

Lacking the ability to protect its merchant ships in the Mediterranean, the new America government tried to appease the Muslim slavers by agreeing to pay tribute and ransoms in order to retrieve seized American ships and buy the freedom of enslaved sailors.

Adams argued in favor of paying tribute as the cheapest way to get American commerce in the Mediterranean moving again. Jefferson was opposed. He believed there would be no end to the demands for tribute and wanted matters settled "through the medium of war." He proposed a league of trading nations to force an end to Muslim piracy.

In 1786, Jefferson, then the American ambassador to France, and Adams, then the American ambassador to Britain, met in London with Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja, the "Dey of Algiers" ambassador to Britain.

The Americans wanted to negotiate a peace treaty based on Congress' vote to appease.

During the meeting Jefferson and Adams asked the Dey's ambassador why Muslims held so much hostility towards America, a nation with which they had no previous contacts.

In a later meeting with the American Congress, the two future presidents reported that Ambassador Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja had answered that Islam "was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Quran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every Musselman (Muslim) who should be slain in Battle was sure to go to Paradise."

For the following 15 years, the American government paid the Muslims millions of dollars for the safe passage of American ships or the return of American hostages. The payments in ransom and tribute amounted to 20 percent of United States government annual revenues in 1800.

Not long after Jefferson's inauguration as president in 1801, he dispatched a group of frigates to defend American interests in the Mediterranean, and informed Congress.

Declaring that America was going to spend "millions for defense but not one cent for tribute," Jefferson pressed the issue by deploying American Marines and many of America's best warships to the Muslim Barbary Coast.

The USS Constitution, USS Constellation, USS Philadelphia, USS Chesapeake, USS Argus, USS Syren and USS Intrepid all saw action.

In 1805, American Marines marched across the dessert from Egypt into Tripolitania, forcing the surrender of Tripoli and the freeing of all American slaves.

During the Jefferson administration, the Muslim Barbary States, crumbling as a result of intense American naval bombardment and on shore raids by Marines, finally officially agreed to abandon slavery and piracy.

Jefferson's victory over the Muslims lives on today in the Marine Hymn, with the line, "From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli, we will fight our country's battles on the land as on the sea."

It wasn't until 1815 that the problem was fully settled by the total defeat of all the Muslim slave trading pirates.

Jefferson had been right. The "medium of war" was the only way to put and end to the Muslim problem. Mr. Ellison was right about Jefferson. He was a "visionary" wise enough to read and learn about the enemy from their own Muslim book of jihad.

The U.S. Veteran Dispatch 

By The Rogue Jew

It’s the Sunni Head Choppers vs Shiite Head Cutters. The epic battle of Bad Muslim vs Bad Muslim has made it’s way to the good ole U S of A!

While Nancy Pelosi’s Democratic Party Chief of Intelligence is STILL trying to figue out the difference between Sunni and Shiite Muslims are in the wide world of Islamic Fundemtalism/Terrorism, the sectarian violence that has haunted the Bush administrations plans for peace in Iraq, have finally found their way to our own backyard in my home state of Michigan in Jihad central itself, Dearborn or as we have come to know in the Blogosphere, Dearbonistan.

As they repaired the broken windows of at least a dozen businesses and mosques along Warren Avenue in Detroit, many Iraqi Shi’ite Muslims wondered Monday if the vandalism was retaliation by local supporters of Saddam Hussein who resented that they celebrated the hanging of the Iraqi dictator.

Sometime late Saturday night or early Sunday morning, someone vandalized at least nine businesses and three mosques, all but one Shi’ite, according to Ali Zwen, manager of the Kufa Cultural Forum, a mosque at Warren and Archdale that sustained $4,000 in damage.

Reports have it that no arrests have yet been made. The cops might be hampered by political correctness in their investigations for it would require them to use that dreaded technique known as “Racial Profiling” which when used correctly can aid police in their investigations but due to pressure from Liberal Democrat Politicians has all been tossed out the window as a tool to law enforcement. If by chance an arrest is made, I’m quite sure the ACLU will seek to have the arresting officer dismissed on the grounds of Racial Profiling.

Detroit police have not made an arrest for the vandalism that occurred between Greenfield and a few blocks west of the Southfield Freeway. Most of the area’s businesses with Arabic script on their signs were undamaged.

Many of the spared businesses are owned by Iraqi-American Christians, Lebanese Americans and others with Middle Eastern roots. The evidence is largely circumstantial that Shi’ites were targeted, but some of the victims say it is too coincidental.

Ahmed said, “Most of the stores that were vandalized … they’re happy for the execution of Saddam, so they’re thinking it’s somebody who was pro-Saddam,” she said. “They picked which stores that are known for being anti-Saddam.”

But, then again, perhaps I rush to judgment to quickly. Now that I think about, we could be leaving out some possible suspected groups that could have been responsible for such damage.

Not everyone is convinced that other Muslims are responsible for the vandalism.

“I don’t believe it’s the Arab community that has done this,” said Osama Siblani, publisher of the Arab-American News.

Osama could be right! Some non-Islamic type people such as Liberals who are famously fond of Saddam Hussein that could have been upset with his timely demise.

Anti-War/Attention Whore Cindy Sheehan, who deserted her family to live the limelight life of a Rock Star War protester was know to have had a fondness for the Butcher of Baghdad and would have preferred to see our own president hung in place of Hussein. She of course had motive to dislike the Shiites who were celebrating.

We cannot leave out French President Jacques Chirac. As is traditional for French leaders, he decided to stay away from war with the murderous leader instead choosing to continually appease the Deceased Dictator because the possibility of war with Iraq would mean an end of the profitable relationship Chirac had with Saddam in the corrupt scandal ridden United Nations Oil for Food program which helped Saddam fund his illegal war machine while the French Surrender Monkey Chirac laughed all the way to the bank.

“We’re going to call on the federal authorities to investigate this because this is pure hate to attack a house of worship,” Walid said. “Our community has been under siege since 9/11.”

Whether the vandals are Muslims or non-Muslims, it should not make a difference in how they are dealt with, he said.

I’m waiting for the left to start screaming that it’s all Bush’s fault, and for the Terrorist supported Labor Union for Islamic Terrorists, CAIR (Council on American/Islamic Relations) to blame the Jews. Ya know it’s coming. In fact, seeing this IS a so called hate crime against Muslims, CAIR will sure to be launching an investigation anytime now. A CAIR rep was heard to be saying:
“I blame America”, said an unnamed CAIR spokesman. There is so much Islamophobia in America, we are beginning to believe it ourselves”.

With Islamic Brother against Brother happening right here on our own soil, what’s to come next? IED’s, Car Bombs, Suicide Bombs, or CNN taped Sniper Attacks in Detroit? I guess the only answer now is for the United States to get out of Detroit!

Once again, I think I need to be reminded. Islam is what again? Oh yeah, that’s right! It’s the “Religion of Peace”. With all of the bombings, beheadings, murder and mayhem happening in the Islamic world, I forgot!

I have no objection to these two groups bombing each other into extinction, I do however object to them doing it on our soil, and I do wish they would take their sectarian differences back to Iran and Iraq and do it there.

I am grateful that my state of Michigan has Concealed Carry laws that enable ordinary law abiding citizens to carry concealed weapons so that any of us innocent bystanders if necessary can do what the cops won’t.

Thanks to this latest incident, I am quite sure they will use it to their advantage to claim perpetual victim hood, thus bumping out Jesse “Whose Your Daddy” Jackson and Al Sharpton out of their long held always the victim status for African-Americans. Such removal could have dire consequences on the thickness of both Jackson’s and Sharpton’s wallets.

Mens' News Daily 

Experts still concerned U.S. children could become prey to repeat offenders

By Chelsea Schilling
© 2007 Wor ldNetDaily.com

More than 9,000 sex offenders have been arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials through a series of stings called Operation Predator in three years of operation, a But some experts are wondering if the efforts are enough to protect innocent American children from being preyed on by returning criminal alien sex offenders.

Foreign nationals account for roughly 85 percent of child sex offenders arrested by the operation, which was launched by Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge in July 2003, officials say. And as WND previously has reported, authorities also have linked illegal aliens to a wave of gang-rapes across the U.S.

The program was designed to safeguard children from foreign national pedophiles, human traffickers and international sex tourists, and in the first year alone, ICE arrested more than 3,200 child predators in the U.S. who committed forms of child exploitation.

But Deborah Schurman-Kauflin, a researcher of violent crimes and criminal profiler who consults with FBI, state and local police, told WND, "Illegal immigrants who commit sex crimes first cross the U.S. border illegally, then gradually commit worse crimes and are continually released back into society or deported. Those who were deported simply returned illegally again. There is a clear pattern of criminal escalation. From misdemeanors such as assault or DUI, to drug offenses, illegal immigrants who commit sex crimes break U.S. laws repeatedly."

Read the rest. 

World Net Daily 

Illegal immigrants planning to cross the desert and enter the US on foot are to be given hand-held satellite devices by the Mexican authorities to ensure they arrive safely.

	A young Mexican man jumps over a fence on his way to the US

Those who get lost or fall sick during the dangerous four-day crossing will be able to activate the device, to alert frontier police on both sides of the border.

The satellite tracking service will require would-be illegals to register their intentions before setting off — a paradoxical move, given that secrecy is necessary for success — but Mexican authorities are predicting that about 200,000 devices will be handed out when the project is launched formally in the coming year.

"Our intention is to save lives," said Jaime Obregon, the co-ordinator for the state commission for migrants in Puebla, the Mexican state which is behind the project. "There are lots of people looking to cross and we are working with the US authorities to make sure they do not die on the way."

Between 20 and 30 migrants succumb to hellish temperatures and insect bites while attempting to cross into Arizona every year. Heat exhaustion sometimes causes short-term memory loss, with trekkers wandering aimlessly into the desert.

The route into Arizona, known as the Sasave Pass, is both the most common and the most dangerous way into the US. According to Mexican state migrant authorities, up to 75,000 attempt the crossing every month, of whom between 50,000 and 60,000 are caught by US border patrols and sent back.

The chance of success depends greatly on the knowledge of the guide, known as a "coyote" or "desert fox". They charge between $2,000 and $10,000 per person (£1,025-£5,10 0).

Coyotes are merciless if a member of their pack lags behind. "If you cannot keep up they will abandon you." said Mr Obregon. "Alone, you have about 36 hours to live. It is in this period the satellite device makes a difference."

A spokesman for US Customs and Border Protection said: "We do not have any information about the Mexican government providing satellite trackers to people, but we strongly discourage encouragement to people who are attempting to cross illegally into the US."

The Telegraph