Taliban Field a Team for the Winter Olympics

Senior Taliban Commanders in Pakistan and Afghanistan have decided to send a team of athletes to compete at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada.






US and NATO officials have refused to comment on reports that Taliban authorites in the tribal areas of western Pakistan and Helmand province in Afghanistan have sent their best athletes to do battle with the infidels on the pistes and ice rinks of Canada. However, US intelligence officials confirm that for the past several months they were tracking large quantities of energy drinks heading from Karachi to the Tora Bora stronghold.

Mullah Abu Jihad, a renowned Afghani figure skating champion prior to his career as a mujahedeen fighting off the Soviet Union, confronted the skepticism head-on by saying, “we will bring home the gold and, in shallah, make the kuffar understand the superiority of our ways.”

Mullah Abu Jihad said that the Taliban were particularly looking forward to besting the West in the biathlon, a contest combining shooting and cross-country skiing. Abu Jihad noted, “look, while it’s true we don’t have the best ski equipment in the world, we have been practicing our marksmanship for thirty years. We’re tough, just ask Ivan and those sissy Marines that are chasing after ghosts in Helmand province.”

Olympic officials confirmed that they received notification that the Taliban team would be arriving in Vancouver sometime over the weekend. Doug Poutine, the Director of Olympic Outreach, urged caution. He said, “we turned down the Taliban request to have buzkashi, Afghanistan’s ancient national sport that has horseback riders pitch a headless goat across their opponent’s goal, declared a winter Olympic sport and thought they would boycott the games after that. But the Saudis say they are coming and we want to keep the Olympic spirit alive and kicking. So, if they come, we will give them a wholesome Canadian, salaam al leukum and make them feel at right at home.”

Ethiopian Airline Crash Off Beirut - was the French Ambassador's Wife a Spy

Evidence has reached counter-terror sources that the Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737-800 which crashed after takeoff from Beirut on January 25, killing all 92 aboard, was blown up in mid-air.

This was an al-Qaeda operation timed for one month to the day after its failed attempt to destroy an American Northwest airliner bound for Detroit.
It is becoming clear that either a bomb was planted on the Ethiopian flight with a timer or a passenger acted as suicide bomber.

Western security agencies in the Middle East involved in combating al Qaeda believe that its planners picked on the Ethiopian flight for more than one reason apart from the date: They had been tipped off that a group of French undercover agents, including Maria Sanchez Pietton, wife of the French ambassador to Beirut, and top Hizballah operatives, including secretary general Hassan Nasrallah, would be aboard.
Mme Pietton lost her life in the crash, while the Hizballah travelers were saved by switching to another flight at the last minute.

The first bodies recovered from the Mediterranean off the Lebanese town of Naama showed all the hallmarks of explosion victims: They were found strapped to their seats with their heads, hands and feet blown off and scattered, typical effects of an explosive blast.

Eye-witnesses at the time heard a loud explosion and saw the plane enveloped in a ball of fire as it gained altitude after takeoff from Beirut international airport.
Both France and Hizballah have denied they were targets.

Lebanese officials, led by prime minister Saad Hariri, have spent two weeks trying to hide the fact that the Ethiopian airline disaster was caused by terror. But Lebanese health minister Jawad Khalifeh gave the game away by a slip of the tongue Tuesday, Feb. 9: “The plane exploded during flight and the cabin, as well as the bodies of those on board, were dispersed into the sea, in different locations,” he said, trying to explain why some of the corpses were found dismembered.

He then tried to correct himself by saying he "didn't mean a military explosion."

More confirmation of a terrorist hand behind the attack is found in the deep involvement of US intelligence, including the FBI, in the investigation of the disaster from the first moment. The US survey ship Ocean Alert was dispatched to the area of the crash and dropped a miniature submarine into the depths to retrieve fragments of the airliner from the seabed.

A US intelligence and naval headquarters was set up at Beirut harbor to coordinate the salvage of the plane from the sea. Treating the crash as terror-related, Washington ordered the plane to be reconstructed from recovered fragments to establish the site of the explosion and its cause.

US officials are also shy of discussing the case in public and admitting the crash was caused by an act of terror. It took place on January 25, shortly after President Barack Obama said “Al-Qaeda has been weakened." In an address to the American people to calm their anxieties after the Nigerian would-be bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had failed to detonate explosives carried in his underwear.
Al Qaeda's success in blowing a civilian airliner out of the sky over the Middle East proved the opposite. It therefore became the subject of a comprehensive cover-up, joined by France. Before the black box, recovered Tuesday, had even been examined, French sources announced that human error by the pilot was the cause of the Ethiopian airliner crash.

Six years ago, on January 8, 2004, an Egyptian charter blew up after takeoff at Sharm al-Sheikh for Cairo, killing all 148 French citizens aboard on their way back to Paris from a Red Sea vacation.

Neither Cairo nor Paris ever admitted that the disaster was caused by terrorists.

Letter from a Victim in a Beirut Hijacking

Dear Friends,

I urge you to pay attention to this message from the US embassy that was forwarded to me last month, because it's an important one.
Earlier tonight, I was robbed at gunpoint. There were two men in a black Mercedes with red service plates. I finished work a little late and took a service from BarBar in Hamra at around 9 pm to my home in Achrafieh. In hindsight, I should have suspected something when the driver, who was parked across from the gas station next to BarBar where the buses stop, immediately agreed to service wahad instead of trying to hassle me for servicein, or even a taxi. He took a short detour from the bridge explaining that he had to drop off the other "passenger." He then sped up until we were on the airport road, and as soon as we arrived at the first tunnel at Salim Salam, the "passenger" pulled out a gun and pointed it at me.
He wanted my wallet, but I told him all I had was the 2,000 LL in my pocket. He insisted, and so did I. Finally he asked to look in my bag, and I pulled out a small notebook for him and told  him it was all I had. Strangely enough, he seemed convinced, and even stranger, didn't ask for my watch, my phone, my jacket or my bag. At the end of the tunnel (the whole gun pointing process must have taken only a minute or so), he slowed down and I got out having finally escaped with only paying service wahad, despite the gun. The whole thing probably took less than 15 minutes from BarBar to Salim Salam. I thought I had managed to get their license number, but the police told me later that it should have only had 6 digits, not 7. Unless, of course, it was a normal plate that had been painted red.
After repeating the plate number (or what I thought it to be) twice in rapid succession and then saving it in my phone, I tried to call 112, but there wasn't any reception. Then I managed to find a corner store to call from, and 112 hung up on me. Finally, I got through to someone, and they said there was nothing they could do, and that I should just go to the police station. I flagged down some kids and got them to take me to the army checkpoint under the bridge that crosses downtown. They soldiers told me that they couldn't do anything either, so I went to the Gemmayzeh police station, where they proceeded to tell me that it wasn't their jurisdiction, that I should go the Mousseitbeh station, which is the closest to where I was actually robbed. I asked if they could give me a ride, to which the daraki replied with no conscious irony: "just take a service."
Finally, I made it there, and after several hours, I'm doubtful that the police will be able to do much. They did tell me, though, that two Iraqis were robbed at the same place (from BarBar to Salim Salam) by what sounds like the same two guys in the same car last Thursday. Those two gentlemen, it seems,were forced to part with $3,000 and a laptop, so finally, I feel somewhat lucky to have gotten out of the whole mess for a measly two thou.
I write you this, because I hope that everyone will be cautious when taking a cab. Something didn't feel right with these guys from the get-go, and I should have never gotten in with them, but besides the small signs of not haggling and vaguely resembling the plot in the US warden message, I can't say what sets these guys apart from other service drivers. In my experience over the last several years, in the evening, drivers usually tool around with a friend for company and often take a bit of a roundabout way to get where I need to go.
So if I had to offer you advice, I don't know what it would be, except stay away from a late 80s to early 90s model black mercedes with a red plate bearing a number that's similar to 3678683 driven by a guy around 45-50 years old with a big bald spot, salt and pepper hair and a mustache, accompanied by a taller younger guy with black curly hair, bad skin and a dark complexion. That is probably simultaneously too specific and too vague to be very helpful, but it's all I've got to offer.
For my part, from now on, I think I'll take my chances getting pulled over for driving my motorcycle after 6.
Best,
a victim

Silvio Berlusconi & Milano Daze

On 13 December, Silvio Berlusconi was viciously attacked in Milan by 42 year old Massimo Tartaglia. Berlusconi, a populist politician who is famous for his tawdry remarks, his numerous sexual liaisons and his uncanny ability to outwit the judiciary, suffered a broken nose and two broken teeth.

In April 1945, Benito Mussolini was shot dead and trucked to Piazza Quindici Martiri in Milan. There, his body, and that of his mistress, were thrown onto the piazza and then hanged upside down on meat hooks. Onlookers stoned and spat on the two corpses for several days.

So much for l'ospitalita' Milanese. Perhaps the honourable Silvio Berlusconi would be better received in Napoli.

A Reasoned Israeli Opinion on Palestinian Rights

Rattling the Cage: Our exclusive right to self-defense
Oct. 7, 2009
Larry Derfner , THE JERUSALEM POST 

Virtually all of Israel is now speaking in one voice against the Goldstone report, against any attempt to blame us over the war in Gaza. We've honed our message to a sharp point and, inspired by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's performance at the UN, we're delivering it with just the right tone of outrage: 

How dare anyone deny us the right to self-defense! How dare anyone deny us the right to fight back against terrorism! 

Very nice. Puts everyone else on the defensive. The right to self-defense is up there with motherhood and apple pie - who's going to come out against it, especially for us, for Israel, for the Jews, for the people of the Holocaust? 
The right to self-defense - perfect. 
But I'd like to ask: Do the Palestinians also have the right to self-defense? 
We probably wouldn't admit it out loud, but in our heads we would say - again, in one voice - "No!" 
This is the Israeli notion of a fair deal: We're entitled to do whatever the hell we want to the Palestinians because, by definition, whatever we do to them is self-defense. They, however, are not entitled to lift a finger against us because, by definition, whatever they do to us is terrorism. 
That's the way it's always been, that's the way it was in Operation Cast Lead. 
And there are no limits on our right to self-defense. There is no such thing as "disproportionate." We can blockade Gaza, we can answer Kassams with F-16s and Apaches, we can take 100 eyes for an eye. 
We can deliberately destroy thousands of Gazan homes, the Gazan parliament, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Interior, courthouses, the only Gazan flour plant, the main poultry farm, a sewage treatment plant, water wells and God knows what else. 
Deliberately. 
After all, we're acting in self-defense. By definition. 
And what right do the Palestinians have to defend themselves against this? 
None. 
Why? Because we're better than them. Because we're a democracy and they're a bunch of Islamo-fascists. Because ours is a culture of life and theirs is a culture of death. Because they're out to destroy us and all we are saying is give peace a chance. 
One look at the ruins of Gaza ought to make that plain enough. 
Here is our idea of the "laws of war": When Israeli bulldozers rolled across the border into Gazan villages and flattened house after house so Hamas wouldn't have them for cover after the IDF pulled out, that was self-defense. But if a Palestinian boy who'd lived in one of those houses threw a stone at one of the bulldozers, that was terrorism. 
The Goldstones of the world call this hypocrisy, a double standard. How dare they! Around here, we call it moral clarity. 

A Look at Thomas Jefferson's Genius

Thomas Jefferson was one of the founding fathers of the United States and he was exceptional in every way.  He was an inventor, philosopher, diplomat, architect, principal author of the Declaration of Independence, Minister to France and the founder of the University of Virginia.  The latter achievement was what Jefferson was most proud of.

Jefferson designed his home, Monticello, near Charlottesville, Virginia and the primary buildings at the University of Virginia, based on the works of Italy's Andrea Palladio.  Palladio's works are located in the eastern Veneto region of Italy and Vicenza is home to some of Palldio's most famous designs, including la Rotonda.

By the theatre in Vicenza's centro storico, which was designed by Palladio, stands a villa and high above the front door on the ceiling is a gargoyle looking down.  Palladio designed the gargoyle so that the mouth gapes open and the owner of the villa can look down, through the mouth, to see who is knocking on the door.  

Here are some photos of Monticello and the University of Virginia.  La Rotonda is at the top.  Nota bene, this has nothing at all to do with Beirut, but Jefferson and Palladio's genius transcends all.

Up is Down, Bush is Bad, Obama is ....

War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength.