The Bottle vs. Tap Water Wars.

"Not only does bottled water contribute to excessive waste, but it costs us a thousand times more than water from our faucet at home, and it is, in fact, no safer or cleaner," says Victoria Kaplan, senior organizer with Food and Water Watch, a nonprofit that recently launched a Take Back the Tap campaign to get consumers to ditch bottled water.

This brings back memories of the famous Perrier water scandal of 1990. Read more about the tap-vs.-bottled water debate at the National Geographic.

tap+water environment bottled water green

German jihadists.

More reactions from the German press as to how to handle home-grown terrorists at Der Spiegel.


global war on terror Islam German jihadists jihad terrorism home-grown terrorist

"The root cause of Islamic fundamentalism is Islam."

What Islam needs is not Reformation, but rather, Englightenment. This is according to Ibn Warraq.

Excerpt:

The root cause of Islamic fundamentalism is Islam. What on earth has American foreign policy got to do with the stoning to death of a woman for adultery in Nigeria? It has every thing to do with Islam, and Islamic Law. The theory and practice of Jihad - Bin Laden’s foreign policy - was not concocted in the Pentagon, it is directly derived from the Koran and Hadith, Islamic Tradition. But Western Liberals find it hard to admit or accept or believe this. The trouble with Western Liberals is that they are nice; they are pathologically nice, terminally nice. They think everyone thinks like them, they think all people including the Islamic fundamentalists desire the same things, have the same goals in life. For liberals, the terrorists are but frustrated angels forever thwarted by the Great Anarch, the Great Satan, the USA.

Western Liberals are used to searching for external explanations for behaviour that they cannot comprehend; but I can assure them that Hitler’s behaviour cannot be put down to the Treaty of Versailles or the economic situation in the twenties or thirties. Evil is its own excuse. No, the Islamic fundamentalists wish to replace Western style liberal democracies with an Islamic theocracy, a fascist system of thought that aims to control every single act of every single individual, to quote Joseph Conrad: “Visionaries work everlasting evil on earth. Their Utopias inspire in the mass of mediocre minds a disgust of reality and a contempt for the secular logic of human development.”

It is extraordinary the number of people who have written about 11 September without once mentioning Islam. We must take seriously what the Islamists say to understand their motivations, to understand September 11, 2001. The four greatest influences on the modern rise of Militant Islam have been the Egyptians Hasan al Banna, the founder of Muslim Brethren, and Sayyid Qutb, the Indo-Pakistani, Maududi, and the Iranian Ayatollah Khomeini. They all repeat the same message, derived from classical writers like Ibn Taymiyyah, and ultimately from the Koran and Hadith, namely, it is the divinely ordained duty of all Muslims to fight non-Muslims in the literal, military sense until man-made law has been replaced by God’s Law, the Sharia, and Islam has conquered the entire world.

Read it all here.

global war on terror Islam Islamic Fundamentalism jihad terrorism

Support the surge? Show it.

If you support General Petraeus and the surge, click below and add your name to the cause:

global war on terror Iraq surge General Petraeus terrorism

"Newly-elected conservative European leaders did not win their elections because they are pro-American, they won despite it..."

PJM correspondent Michael van der Galien reports that: "Although the American-European relationship is likely to improve in the coming years, it would be a mistake to assume that the shift to the right is caused by the anti-Americanism of the left or by the pro-Americanism of the right. Sarkozy, Wilders and Merkel did not garner support because they were close to the US: they won as many seats as they did because of domestic issues."

(Thanks to Instapundit.)

anti-Americanism Europe

Jew hatred and jihad.

There is nothing new under the sun, but how could we so quickly have forgotten, or not paid attention to, the Nazi origins of 9/11?

Excerpt:

The idea of using suicide pilots to obliterate the skyscrapers of Manhattan originated in 1940s Berlin. "In the latter stages of the war, I never saw Hitler so beside himself as when, as if in a delirium, he was picturing to himself and to us the downfall of New York in towers of flame," wrote Albert Speer in his diary. "He described the skyscrapers turning into huge burning torches and falling hither and thither, and the reflection of the disintegrating city in the dark sky."

Not only Hitler's fantasy but also his plan of action foreshadowed September 11: He envisioned having kamikaze pilots fly light aircraft packed with explosives and with no landing gear into Manhattan skyscrapers. The drawings for the Daimler-Benz Amerikabomber from the spring of 1944 show giant four-engine planes with raised undercarriages for transporting small bombers. The bombers would be released shortly before the planes reached the East Coast, after which the mother plane would return to Europe.

Hitler's rapture at the thought of Manhattan in flames indicates his underlying motive: not merely to fight a military adversary, but to kill all Jews everywhere. Possessed of the notion that the whole of the Second World War was a struggle against an imaginary Jewish enemy, he deemed "the USA a Jewish state" and New York the center of world Jewry. "Wall Street," as a popular book published in Munich in 1919 put it, "is, so to speak, the Military Headquarters of Judas. From there his threads radiate out across

the entire world." From 1941 on, Hitler pushed to get the bombers into production, in order to "be able to teach the Jews a lesson in the form of terror attacks on American metropolises." Towards the end of the war this idea became an obsession.

Read the whole thing in the Weekly Standard.

global war on terror Islam Hitler jihad terrorism Nazi 9/11

Make-up advice for Osama:

Here are some fashion tips for Osama, courtesy of the Manolo:

Such obvious and heavy-handed attention to personal appearance seems fussy and mannered. It is clear that you have been spending too much time with the Taliban, putting on eye makeup and taking glamour photos.

...Certainly this is not the image the cave-dwelling man of action and jihad wishes to project.

...What you need now, Osama, is the complete makeover, something that will render you more acceptable to the majority of society.

If you send the Manolo your current address, the Manolo can have some friends deliver to you the special 1000-pound, laser-guided makeover package.

Trust the Manolo, you’ll never look better.

global war on terror Osama bin Laden taliban jihad terrorism

In the Shadow of the Moon.

Remember when we all looked up to the sky, knowing "man" was lifting off to the moon?

In the Shadow of the Moon is a new movie that captures a pioneering adventure, when the "we" was the whole human race. I can't wait to see it when it comes to Poland. Check out the trailer here.


in the shadow of the moon Michael Collins Neil Armstrong Buzz Aldrin

The German jihadists.

BBC News has a summary of the soul-searching going on in Germany over the fact that two of the jihadists were Germans.

But The Monkey Tennis Centre says it best as to why jihad is appealing to European youths, like these German jihadists:

In the past Europe's disaffected youth joined the Baader-Meinhof gang or the Red Brigades, and as the epitome of radical chic got to murder, kidnap and bomb their way across Europe wearing dark glasses, and with a Gauloise hanging out of the corner of their mouth. Now they join the Islamists - whose intellectual leaders, such as Sayeed Qtub, are inspired in part by the same Marxist ideology - to indulge their nihilist urges.

Via Gateway Pundit).

global war on terror Islam German jihadists jihad terrorism Qutb Qtub

The zeal of the convert to Islam.

From Slate:

According to a German government study cited in Der Spiegel, between mid-2004 and mid-2005, 4,000 Germans converted to Islam—about 13 times the rate just three years earlier.

Radical Islamism seems to have become the magnet for some of the world's angriest people who feel the universe is out of joint and must be changed. For these converts, it is an ideology of revolt that is more attractive because of its crystalline hatred of the status quo than its theology.

global war on terror Islam German jihadists jihad terrorism

Luciano, Rest in Peace....

Luciano Pavarotti
Ave Maria
Liza Minelli
Lou Reed
James Brown
Queen
Bono
Bryan Adams
Andrea Boccelli
Vesti La Giubba
Sting
Jiovanotti
Ramazzotti
Zucchero

With friends like former Senator Abourezk...

Former American Senator James Abourezk tells interviewer of Hizballah’s Al-Manar TV that Arabs involved in the 9/11 attacks “cooperated with the Zionists”.

Watch the video here to listen to some of his outrageous statements. (Thanks to Little Green Footballs and MEMRI).

global war on terror Abourezk
anti-Americanism
antiSemitism Israel 9/11

Europe doesn't like US.

According to Der Spiegel:

A new survey of European attitudes toward America released this week holds that: We share your fear of terrorists. We don't like Bush. And we don't necessarily plan on being nice once he's gone. At the same time, another world poll adds: And, please, leave Iraq.

global war on terror Iraq anti-Americanism German Marshall Fund Europe poll

Hatred against Americans.

According to CNN:

"The main motivation of the group in Germany is hatred against American citizens, and therefore they had as main targets the American military installations," said Jorg Ziercke, president of Germany's Federal Criminal Investigation Office.

"This could also of course have affected German citizens in restaurants and other places."

global war on terror anti-Americanism Islam
Germany

Disaster Response.

The US National Terror Alert has a Family Disaster Plan with excellent tips. "Families can—and do—cope with disaster by preparing in advance and working together as a team. Follow the steps listed in this brochure to create your family’s disaster plan. Knowing what to do is your best protection and your responsibility."

global war on terror Disaster Response terrorism

To be prepared is half the victory (Miguel de Cervantes).

An important message from Austin Bay via The Washington Times:

Stopping any single terrorist strike is another matter. Only gumshoe detective work, steady, tedious monitoring of terrorist suspects and the political will to either arrest or kill terrorists before they strike will stop a particular attack —maybe.

What else makes a difference? I recently received two letters from soldiers I served with in Iraq. One veteran regretted what he called America's failure to educate its citizens regarding "the task at hand." He meant the War on Terror, which he actually saw as more of a long-term struggle. However, he was also addressing another strategic weakness: our failure to educate citizens about the nature of violent, premeditated threat. Extreme civil libertarians bemoan the "police state." However, an "aware state" isn't a police state. What constitutes an aware state? One where individual citizens know their own liberty and safety requires community action.

The other soldier told me we must "expect surprise." He said, "Banks expect to be robbed, but have measures in place to minimize the damage when their defenses fail."

Has your community run a disaster response exercise, with a terrorist assault as one of the scenarios? Exercises encourage awareness and increase confidence — both help psychologically prepare a community.

Preparation for terrible surprise isn't lunatic — it is enlightened.

global war on terror Iraq terrorism Disaster Response

World War IV.

William Buckley on Norman Podhoretz's book on World War IV:

Those critics who insist that it is only a small war-party faction of the Islamists that we have to fear might have been asked a generation ago if it was not merely a small number of Germans and Russians we were properly exercised about. Sixty million people were dead after that misreckoning.

global war on terror
Iraq
World War IV
Islam
Islamofascists
Iran

EU's capital.

From Deutsche Welle TV, via The Brussels Journal.

global war on terror
Islam
EU
Brussels
European Union

Barbarism: vicious stoning in Iran.

WARNING: The video of a stoning in Iran is sickeningly violent.

I received this crude video which shows an attack in the town of Khatoon-Abad, Iran, filmed by an amateur, an Iranian-American political activist, Ms. Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi.



global war on terror Iran · stoning barbarism

Iraqi Army gives Fallujah to the Iraqi Police.

Fightin' 6th Marines reports:

On an obviously momentous day that perfectly enshrines the hard work of the Fightin' 6th as well as the work of our Iraqi compatriots, the Iraqi Army has ceded their counterinsurgency operations in Fallujah to the Iraqi Police. A city that only 3 years ago was the scene of arguably the most ferocious house-to-house fighting operation of the war is now in the hands of the 'Sons of Fallujah.'

And Katie Couric agrees there is success in Fallujah.



[Iraq] [Fallujah] [Marines]

The Little Rock Nine:

Melba Pattillo Beals, Elizabeth Eckford, Ernest Green, Gloria Ray Karlmark, Carlotta Walls LaNier, Terrence Roberts, Jefferson Thomas, Minnijean Brown Trickey and Thelma Mothershed Wair.

Today, they are nine professionals in their mid-60s, the first blacks to attend all-white Central High School in 1957. "Their enrollment sparked resistance and a constitutional crisis that would advance civil rights in America."

[Little Rock] [integration] [civil rights] [constitution] [constitutional crisis] [America]

Germany and Iran.

From Der Spiegel: "German technology has made it into an Iranian nuclear power plant despite an export ban. Prosecutors are investigating the case and the German Foreign Ministry is concerned about the damage to Germany's credibility."

Yet, Der Spiegel reports that the US is using "rough-handed methods" trying to get Germany to impose harsher sanctions on Iran. Why would the US use such methods? Again, from Der Spiegel: "... the US government is no longer content with United Nations economic sanctions on Tehran -- Washington wants more. And so, US President George W. Bush and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson have directed [US Under Secretary of the Treasury Stuart] Levey to form a worldwide economic coalition of the willing to increase the pressure on Iran. Despite their best efforts, American officials are irked that German companies are still doing business worth billions with Tehran. In particular, Washington has little understanding for the export guarantees Berlin still offers firms, effectively helping the mullah regime to buy new ships and power plant technologies."

And why would the Germans not seemingly care about propping up the Iranian government? Also from Der Spiegel: "In an interview with an online magazine [Udo Steinbach, director of the German Institute of Middle East Studies in Hamburg] said Europe should not feel threatened by Iran. "Europe," he said, "would certainly be the last target Iran would think of if it did in fact pursue aggressive intentions. Iran as a nuclear power," he continued, would only be a threat to "its neighbors, such as a secular Turkey and, of course, Israel."

[Germany] [Der Spiegel] [Iran] [nuclear power] [export control] [Israel]

Horrible air show at Radom, Poland, where two pilots died.

Rest in peace.


Radom
[Poland]

The Katyn massacre.

Andrzej Wajda is coming out with a new film about the Katyn Massacre:

Some 22 thousand Polish officers were taken prisoner by the Red Army when the Soviet Union invaded eastern Poland in September 1939, 17 days after the Nazi attack on Poland. On orders from Stalin, the Poles were shot in the Katyn forest. The crime was revealed by the Nazis in 1943 but the Soviet Union blamed Hitler's Germany for the massacre. Andrzej Wajda's film is not a historical account of the tragedy but draws psychological portraits of a group of mothers, wives and daughters of Polish officers.

Mr. Wajda was the recipient of the US Embassy's First Czesław Miłosz Award.

[Wajda] [Poland] [Russia] [nazi] [USSR]
[Katyn massacre]

September 1: Who remembers?

It's the 68th anniversary of the German invasion of Poland.

[Poland] [World War II] [Germany] [Nazi]