Lunatic Baldwin to Pen Advice Book

I can't imagine what genius thought it would be a good idea to have the ranting megalomaniac Alec Baldwin write an advice book for fathers who go through divorce.

The book is being billed as "a unique personal transformation book in which Baldwin documents the rite of passage he underwent in order to survive the ordeal of divorce and protect the welfare of his child."

The child, Ireland, is the one the burly bully threatened to "straighten out" after she failed to answer his phone call on the night of April 11.

"It's like Britney Spears writing a book on hairstyling tips," said Los Angeles-based psychotherapist Robert Butterworth.

Paki Music Shops Attacked

Via Jihad Watch. I wonder if the creature formerly known as Cat Stevens will be playing Peshawar?

Steyn: Let's be Realistic About Reality

Mark Steyn once again gets to the heart of the matter, this time, they media hysteria over guns in the wake of the Virginia Tech massacre.

I think we have a problem in our culture not with "realistic weapons" but with being realistic about reality. After all, we already "fear guns," at least in the hands of NRA members. Otherwise, why would we ban them from so many areas of life? Virginia Tech, remember, was a "gun-free zone," formally and proudly designated as such by the college administration. Yet the killer kept his guns and ammo on the campus. It was a "gun-free zone" except for those belonging to the guy who wanted to kill everybody. Had the Second Amendment not been in effect repealed by VT, someone might have been able to do as two students did five years ago at the Appalachian Law School: When a would-be mass murderer showed up, they rushed for their vehicles, grabbed their guns and pinned him down until the cops arrived.

But you can't do that at Virginia Tech. Instead, the administration has created a "Gun-Free School Zone." Or, to be more accurate, they've created a sign that says "Gun-Free School Zone." And, like a loopy medieval sultan, they thought that simply declaring it to be so would make it so. The "gun-free zone" turned out to be a fraud -- not just because there were at least two guns on the campus last Monday, but in the more important sense that the college was promoting to its students a profoundly deluded view of the world.

Read it all.

Meanwhile, The New York Times gets in-depth on Seung-Hui Cho. Nobody ever heard him talk, they thought there was a problem, but nobody did a damn thing about it. Cultural differences, blah blah blah.

Thanks for stepping up and taking care of your children.

Spain's Feminized Terror War

Soeren Kern has the depressing details at American Thinker.

But what do the terrorists think? They seem to understand Zapatero better than Zapatero understands himself. Indeed, in March 2007, Al-Qaeda launched new threats against Spain, this time over its military deployment in Afghanistan. In a video, a hooded man said the presence of Spanish troops in Afghanistan "exposes Spain again to threats" unless they withdraw their troops from the country. "The Spanish people have been tricked by a socialist government which withdrew troops from Iraq and sent 600 to Afghanistan," the man proclaimed. So much for Zapatero's truce with Islam.

Read the whole thing.

Gore Assembling Campaign Team

Shhh, it's a secret.

Well, Lerch says he might want back in, The Pantsuit is floundering, Obama is a lightweight and The Breck Girl is a laughingstock, so it might just work.

Heaven help us.

More from Jules Crittenden and Captain's Quarters.

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin has more white flag waving, this time from The Silky Pony.

Phoenix Engineer Takes Codes to Iran

This doesn't appear to have been material that would prove useful to the Iranians, unless of course they're using an insider for sabotage or a possible terror attack.

A former engineer at the nation's largest nuclear power plant has been charged with taking computer access codes and software to Iran and using it to download details of plant control rooms and reactors, authorities said.

The FBI said there's no indication the plant employee training software had any terrorist connections.

Mohammad Alavi, who worked at the triple-reactor Palo Verde power plant west of Phoenix, was arrested April 9 at Los Angeles International Airport when he arrived on a flight from Iran, authorities said.

Alavi, 49, is a U.S. citizen and denies any wrongdoing, said his attorney, Milagros Cisneros of the Federal Defender's Office in Phoenix.

He is charged with a single count of violating a trade embargo that prohibits Americans from exporting goods and services to Iran. If convicted, he would face up to 21 months in prison.

More at Captain's Quarters.

UPDATE: Also at LGF.

Jihadis Attack American School in Gaza

Why do we bother having any presence in this hellhole?

GAZA - Palestinian militants blew up parts of the American International School in Gaza on Saturday, causing damage but no injuries, Palestinian security sources and witnesses said.

The security sources and school officials said the militants detonated three explosive devices in two of the buildings of the school in the northern Gaza Strip. The blast occurred before the start of the school day and no one was injured in the attack.

“A large number of masked gunmen attacked the school at dawn. They poured petrol all around and blew up several explosive devices and destroyed some of the premises,” said Rebhi Salem, the school’s director.

The gunmen identified themselves as an Al Qaeda organization operating in Gaza, Salem said. There have been a rash of attacks in Gaza in recent months attributed to Islamist groups that claim to be followers of Al Qaeda.

The school is a private institution that is part of an association of “American Schools” in the Middle East. The curriculum stresses English as well as Arabic studies. None of the teachers are American.

Also at Jihad Watch.

Inside Saddam's WMD Bunkers

It will be interesting to see what kind of traction this story gets. If this is indeed correct, then as everyone knew, Saddam Hussein was developing WMD; the problem is, we may have let them slip away into the hands of the Syrians and Iranians (via Protein Wisdom).

It’s a fair bet that you have never heard of a guy called Dave Gaubatz. It’s also a fair bet that you think the hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq has found absolutely nothing, nada, zilch; and that therefore there never were any WMD programmes in Saddam’s Iraq to justify the war ostensibly waged to protect the world from Saddam’s use of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons.

Dave Gaubatz, however, says that you could not be more wrong. Saddam’s WMD did exist. He should know, because he found the sites where he is certain they were stored. And the reason you don’t know about this is that the American administration failed to act on his information, ‘lost’ his classified reports and is now doing everything it can to prevent disclosure of the terrible fact that, through its own incompetence, it allowed Saddam’s WMD to end up in the hands of the very terrorist states against whom it is so controversially at war.

You may be tempted to dismiss this as yet another dodgy claim from a warmongering lackey of the world Zionist neocon conspiracy giving credence to yet another crank pushing US propaganda. If so, perhaps you might pause before throwing this article at the cat. Mr Gaubatz is not some marginal figure. He’s pretty well as near to the horse’s mouth as you can get.

Read the whole thing.

Pantsuit and the Racist

If you had any doubt the Democrats are beholden to the racist Al Sharpton, this should put those doubts to rest. Looks like love to me.

Appearing with the Rev. Al Sharpton, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton made an impassioned plea yesterday to become the first woman president as she urged women to wage a campaign against media outlets that denigrate them.

"I am proud to be a woman running for president. And I hope that by my winning, other young girls and women can think about how they keep going, what barriers they break through," Clinton said to rousing applause during a women's luncheon at the Sheraton New York Hotel sponsored by Sharpton's National Action Network.

Clinton praised Rutgers University basketball coach Vivian Stringer and players for challenging radio shock jock Don Imus, who was fired after calling them "nappy-headed ho's."

It's so refreshing to get away from the minor stories like the Virginia Tech massacre and get back to the real issues, like Don Imus. Just one problem with Mrs. Clinton jumping on the Imus story after two weeks. The players have had enough.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton finally dropped by Rutgers to meet with the school's women's basketball coach -- but the players themselves skipped the half-hour meeting, citing their studies and Imus fatigue.

Good for them. It appears they've had enough exploitation.

More from Six Meat Buffet.

Imagine If Students Were Armed

Seejanemom, one of my blog favorites, unearthed this item written by Larry Hincker, the associate vice president for university relations at Virginia Tech.

Read it and weep for the lives that could have been spared this week.

After the fear, and dare I say, panic from the events of Aug. 21, it is absolutely mind-boggling to see the opinions of Bradford Wiles ("Unarmed and vulnerable," Aug. 31).

I once worked for an out-of-touch manager who gave rather absurd directions. My colleagues and I would do as directed and dubbed it "malicious compliance," knowing the task to be inane and the manager's foibles would soon be apparent.

The editors of this page must have printed this commentary if for no other reason than malicious compliance. Surely, they scratched their heads saying, "I can't believe he really wants to say that."

Wiles tells us that he didn't feel safe with the hundreds of highly trained officers armed with high powered rifles encircling the building and protecting him. He even implies that he needed his sidearm to protect himself against the officers.

On that fateful Monday, campus was understandably on edge. Elvis-type sightings of the escaped prisoner around campus were rampant. People were legitimately concerned about where he might be. And although the police were relatively confident they had the suspect cornered (they were ultimately proved right), the anxiety level elsewhere on campus was very high.

Panic calls from within the Squires Student Center quickly morphed from facts into rumors, including a frantic call alleging a hostage situation. The police had no choice but to move a massive force from the manhunt site to that side of campus to deal with the hostage rumor.

The writer would have us believe that a university campus, with tens of thousands of young people, is safer with everyone packing heat. Imagine the continual fear of students in that scenario. We've seen that fear here, and we don't want to see it again.

Who among us thinks the writer of the commentary would not have been directly in harm's way if he showed himself to those tactical squads while displaying a deadly weapon? Would he even be here today to tell us the story? Contrary to his position, the writer's commentary actually gives credence to the university policy preventing weapons in classrooms.

Guns don't belong in classrooms. They never will. Virginia Tech has a very sound policy preventing same.

Astonishing arrogance from another pious, yet painfully uninformed "academic". Yes, I can imagine if responsible students were armed.One or more of them may have been able to stop the monster Seung-Hui Cho before it turned into a massacre.

American al-Qaeda Pleads Guilty

Recall the usual babble from a couple months back when this piece of garbage was arrested. Well, he pled guilty, is facing 10 years, and with any luck will never be heard from again.

Former Houston resident Daniel Joseph Maldonado pleaded guilty Thursday to participating in an al-Qaida training camp in East Africa, federal prosecutors said.

Maldonado, 28, was the first American charged in connection with an attempt to establish an extremist Islamic state in Somalia. He also used the name Daniel Aljughaifi, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.

Maldonado, who was charged with receiving training from a foreign terrorist organization, agreed to plead guilty to the government's criminal complaint in exchange for an agreement that prosecutors would not file any other charges, Assistant U.S. Attorney Abe Martinez said.

Details of the agreement were not available because it is sealed. By accepting the deal, Maldonado avoids possible indictment by a grand jury considering the case.

Federal officials would not say whether Maldonado has provided information that will lead to other terrorism arrests. He is scheduled to be sentenced on June 29, when he could be sent to prison for as long as 10 years and fined $250,000.

"For an American to travel overseas to train as a violent jihadist alongside al-Qaida elements who are focused upon threatening the security of our nation, is decidedly disturbing and definitely illegal," U.S. Attorney Don DeGabrielle said in a prepared statement. "Maldonado's conviction should serve as a strong warning to any American who considers joining forces with terrorist groups here or abroad."

Maldonado, a Muslim convert and blogger under the names Daniel Aljughaifi and Abu Mohammed, came to Houston from Boston for a short time in 2005 to work for the Houston-based IslamicNetwork.com, a Web site frequented by terrorism suspects.

A few months later, he and his wife, Tamekia, moved to Egypt with their two children. His wife, who bore the couple's third child in Egypt, died overseas of malaria after the family moved to Somalia.

Also at Flying Imams.

Previously: American Trained With Al Qaeda in Somalia

Pali Speaker Calls for Exterminating Americans

Allahpundit has the video, which really shouldn't surprise anyone paying attention. That would, of course, exclude the lamestream media and the left, who aren't comfortable with the ugly reality. Do not expect to see this video broadcast by any network.

Condi Rice should also take note. We cannot work with people who want to exterminate us.

Breck Girl Hits WaPo Fashion Page

The Silky Pony, a/k/a The Breck Girl, comes off looking more like a diva than a candidate for President.

This clown babbles on about Two Americas wherever he goes. Apparently there are Two Americas. One for blowdried blowhards who gets $400 haircuts, spa treatments and live in 28,000 square foot estates while the rest of us schlubs manage with $11 haircuts and modest homes.

Amid the nearly $3.3 million in travel costs, equipment rental fees and salaries listed on presidential candidate John Edwards's most recent campaign finance filing, a few expenses stand out. They are the ones incurred at Designworks Salon in Dubuque, Iowa, Torrenueva Hair Designs in Beverly Hills, Calif., and the Pink Sapphire salon and spa in Manchester, N.H.

The campaign paid $800 for two haircuts from the Torrenueva salon. Designworks provided $248 worth of camera-ready makeup. And Pink Sapphire was called on two occasions for Edwards's makeup needs at $150 and $75 a visit. Together they account for $1,273 worth of professional grooming, from trims to foundation.

According to the campaign, the haircuts should have been on Edwards's personal account and so he will make good on the $800. The makeup applications will remain on the campaign's tab.

While vanity is as common to the human condition as failing to learn from past missteps, one would think that a candidate who was lambasted in 2003 by a Bush loyalist as a "Breck girl" would exercise greater caution on matters related to his appearance. The anonymous critic, quoted in the New York Times, used the admiring attention paid to Edwards's thick mop of chocolate brown hair as a symbol of a candidate some painted as slick, shallow and lightweight.

That "Bush loyalist" I believe was Rush Limbaugh, though he may not have been the first to coin the phrase. Whatever the case, once you're being ridiculed on the WaPo fashion page, you're not going to be taken seriously.

But there is a line between grooming and primping. Brushing your teeth is grooming. Giving yourself a big Chiclet smile with veneers is primping. Having an adept barber come around to the hotel to give a busy candidate a trim is grooming. Getting the owner of an expensive Beverly Hills salon to come over, knowing full well that the cost is going to be 10 times what the average Joe is likely to pay for a haircut . . . that's a Breck girl move.

Watch this clip from 2004 when Edwards personally created a hole in the ozone layer while being sandblasted with hairspray.

It won't be long until he cries on the campaign trail after accidentally getting dirt under his fingernails during a photo op.

What a buffoon.

Giving Harry Hell

The odious and loathsome Harry Reid has declared defeat and is ready to surrender. It's astonishing that even if he believes what he's saying that he would give such a propaganda victory to our enemies.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid yesterday declared the United States had lost the war in Iraq, a conclusion he said he communicated to President Bush at a meeting Wednesday.

"This war is lost and the surge is not accomplishing anything as indicated by the extreme violence in Iraq yesterday," Mr. Reid, Nevada Democrat, said at a Capitol Hill press conference with anti-war state legislators.

Mr. Reid said that both Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates agree with his position, though neither has ever declared defeat.

"You have to make your own decisions as to what the president knows," said Mr. Reid, who left the press conference without fielding follow-up questions.

The New York Post calls it Harry Reid's White Flag in a withering editorial, while his cohort in cowardice, the Damascus Diva, gets worked over in the Washington Times.

Elsewhere, Austin Bay works Reid over and Michelle Malkin is being deluged with letters of outrage from the troops.

Alec Baldwin Berates, Threatens Daughter

What a guy. He really is a sick man.

Via Ace of Spades.

Text.

After Ireland failed to answer her father's scheduled morning phone call from New York on April 11, Alec went berserk on her voice mail, saying "Once again, I have made an ass of myself trying to get to a phone," adding, "you have insulted me for the last time."

Switching his train of thought, Baldwin then exercised his incredible parenting skills and took a shot at his ex-wife, declaring, "I don't give a damn that you're 12-years-old or 11-years-old, or a child, or that your mother is a thoughtless pain in the ass who doesn't care about what you do." The irate Baldwin went on to say, "You've made me feel like s**t" and threatened to "straighten your ass out."

"This crap you pull on me with this goddamn phone situation that you would never dream of doing to your mother," screamed Baldwin, "and you do it to me constantly over and over again."

Before hanging up, Baldwin warned the child, "You better be ready Friday the 20th to meet with me."

Also at Hot Air. AP account here.

Terror Bride Tells All

An inside look at an American woman named Saraah Olson, who married a man later involved in the 1993 World Trade Center attack and her attempts to get the FBI to listen to her pleas for help, which went unanswered (via LGF).

So I Married a Terrorist . . .

Olson’s bizarre journey through the U.S. war on terror began in 1991, when she first met Hisham Diab while a teaching assistant at Cal State Dominguez Hills in Carson. For the next several years, Olson says, she lived in fear of Diab as she gradually realized he was infiltrating Orange County’s Muslim community in an effort to establish a terrorist network. She says she watched helplessly as her husband helped Sheik Rahman evade arrest after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and endured a beating when she accidentally foiled Diab’s plot to provide Osama bin Laden with a phony U.S. passport.

She’s sharing her story now because, she says, the FBI ignored her when she tried to warn them about Diab before 9/11—and that they refused to protect her from retaliation by Al-Qaeda once she went public with her story. Olson is also upset because the FBI still doesn’t believe everything she’s told them.

“The last time I talked to them was in December 2004,” she says. “I cut off all contact with them because they misled me and lied to me and tried to make me think I’m crazy—that Hisham had nothing to do with bin Laden.”

It's a long piece, but take the time to read it.

An Actor Making Sense

When it comes to entertainers, I prefer they entertain and keep their viewpoints to themselves, though it is a welcome interlude with sanity when you hear a Hollywood actor saying good things about the troops, our country and the war we're in.

Michelle Malkin links to a Radar interview with actor Jon Voight, who has some refreshing opinions. He really gets what's happening, unlike some of the drooling idiots on The View.

You recently visited with wounded troops at Walter Reed. What were your impressions?
I was deeply impressed by them. Most I spoke to were young people, around 20 years old. And they were really very eloquent, very positive, very respectful. You have to be proud of the children we're turning out from looking at this group of people.
For me, I would much rather hear from these guys than the people who are presenting the news on television on a daily basis.

You will not be hearing any of this on network television.

Do you think it's possible to win the Iraq War?
Here's what I think: this is a real war, extended beyond the borders of Iraq.

As in the more general war on terror?
The war on terror is real. People would have you believe it's not real. This is not Vietnam. This particular situation is not the same wherein we can walk away and just leave destruction behind us. No, we can't. Anyone who has paid attention to what [Iranian President] Ahmadinejad is saying, what all the mullahs are saying in this country and in England, and in all of the Arab world, this is serious--they're calling for the destruction of America and all democracy and that's what's going on. We could lose this war.

Was the Iraq war part of the war on terror before we got there?
I'm interested in talking about this, but it's been so politicized, it's very disturbing, very dangerous. My view of it is this: they say our president lied to us. Well, he didn't lie to us, everybody else had the information he had, and they voted for that tactic. And the idea of weapons of mass destruction, whether they were in fact removed to other places, to Lebanon, to Syria, that's still in play, we don't know the full answer of where all that stuff went, because they had it, they have the pieces. Now, whether someone else has them or whether we're playing a careful game not to reveal that we know where things are, that's another big aspect of it. The Administration's in a tough spot, because if they say they know where these pieces are, and they can't get at them, they're alerting other energies to know where they are.

Read the rest.


UPDATE: I doubt Voight would have any use for a contemptible schmuck like Harry Reid. What a disgrace.

Killing in the Name of Islam OK in Iran

Do these sound like people we should have a dialogue with?

The Iranian Supreme Court has overturned the murder convictions of six members of a prestigious state militia who killed five people they considered “morally corrupt.”

The reversal, in an infamous five-year-old case from Kerman, in central Iran, has produced anger and controversy, with lawyers calling it corrupt and newspapers giving it prominence.

“The psychological consequences of this case in the city have been great, and a lot of people have lost their confidence in the judicial system,” Nemat Ahmadi, a lawyer associated with the case, said in a telephone interview.

Three lower court rulings found all the men guilty of murder. Their cases had been appealed to the Supreme Court, which overturned the guilty verdicts. The latest decision, made public this week, reaffirms that reversal.

“The objection by the relatives of the victims is dismissed, and the ruling of this court is confirmed,” the court said in a one-page verdict.

These savages behead thieves and chop of hands, but killing in the name of their "religion" is fine.

According to the Supreme Court’s earlier decision, the killers, who are members of the Basiji Force, volunteer vigilantes favored by the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, considered their victims morally corrupt and, according to Islamic teachings and Iran’s Islamic penal code, their blood could therefore be shed.

The last victims, for example, were a young couple engaged to be married who the killers claimed were walking together in public.

Members of the Basiji Force are known for attacking reformist politicians and pro-democracy meetings. President Ahmadinejad was a member of the force, but the Supreme Court judges who issued the ruling are not considered to be specifically affiliated with it.

By all necessary means, these madmen must be prevented from acquiring nuclear weapons.

More at Captain's Quarters, Sweetness & Light, Riehl Worl View, Atlas Shrugs.

UPDATE: The utterly useless IAEA has confirmed the Iranians have 1300 centrifuges in operation. Lovely.

100 Days of Nothing

Can you name an single significant accomplishment or piece of legislation passed by the Democrats since the Damascus Diva became the Speaker of the House?

Neither can I.

Gary J. Andres takes a look at the first 100 days.

It's unfair to compare FDR and his allies in Congress to the current majority due to a host of institutional differences. Still, this is a good point to take stock and assess what Democrats have done to date and where they might move next.

Unfortunately their early track record is not pretty. Moving the country forward seems more like a foggy campaign promise than a clear operating principle. Democrats are more interested in easy political theater than forging hard bipartisan consensus. A better moniker for the past three months: 100 days on stage. But acting without accomplishments is getting bad reviews.

Democrats worship political numerology. They campaigned last fall on a "Six for 06" agenda. These half-dozen bills were then jammed through the House in "The First Hundred Hours." Yet their numbers don't add up to accomplishments. The Los Angeles Times also notes the Democrats' reliance on sloganeering with integers. "But when it comes to how many of their top priorities have become law," they wrote earlier this month, "a different number stands out: zero. None of the six bills that the House Democrats passed in their initial legislative juggernaut has made it to the president's desk." And a new poll by the same newspaper reveals nearly six in 10 respondents could not name anything important the new Congress has done.

Read the whole thing.

Can Media Matters Tell the Truth?

This sniveling twerp at the Democrat website Media Matters has some serious credibility problems. But when you're funded by thugs like George Soros, the truth doesn't matter.

Character assassination is the primary focus of that operation, the truth be damned.

John Hinderaker demolishes the moron.