Of course, you don’t have to travel all the way to Kurdistan to find superstitious savages, you just need to locate a few democrats.

Rasmussen Reports:

Democrats in America are evenly divided on the question of whether George W. Bush knew about the 9/11 terrorist attacks in advance. Thirty-five percent (35%) of Democrats believe he did know, 39% say he did not know, and 26% are not sure.

I read this kind of paranoid lunacy on my class list from time to time. “Republicans wanted a war, so the Military-Industrial Complex would get rich, and to benefit the oil companies.” I’ve frequently suggested that if my classmates really believe this stuff, they should go out and buy stock in the relevant companies, and become fabulously wealthy.

Take Halliburton. Dick Cheney is obviously looking out for them (any leftist believes). Why, in November of 1997 (during Clinton’s presidency) Halliburton’s stock was at $31.62, and after 7 years of Dick Cheney conspiring for their benefit, in yesterday’s trading session that same Halliburton stock closed at $32.28.

It becomes increasingly obvious that the United States failed to occupy Iraq with either adequate forces or firmness. Local incidents of barbarism occur which ought to have been deterred by awareness on the part of the natives of sure and certain consequences from responsible authorities.

You don’t just give these kinds of primitive people a ballot and parliamentary representation, and expect them to join the 21th century. You have to forcibly suppress their barbarous customs, and impose by duress civilized standards. You have to “civilize them with a Krag” first, before you let them vote and run their own government.

Amnesty International is appalled by the killing of Du’a Khalil Aswad, aged about 17, who was stoned to death on or around 7 April 2007 for a so-called honour crime. A member of Iraq’s Yezidi religious minority from the village of Bahzan in northern Iraq, she was killed by a group of eight or nine men and in the presence of a large crowd in the town of Bashika, near the city of Mosul. Some of her relatives are said to have participated in the killing.

Du’a Khalil Aswad’s murder is said to have been committed by relatives and other Yezidi men because she had engaged in a relationship with a Sunni Muslim boy and had been absent from her home for one night. Some reports suggested that she had converted to Islam, but others deny this. Initially, she was reportedly given shelter in the house of a Yezidi tribal leader in Bashika, but her killers stormed the house, took her outside and stoned her to death. Her death by stoning, which lasted for some 30 minutes, was recorded on video film which was then widely distributed and is available on the internet. The film reportedly shows that members of local security forces were present but failed to intervene to prevent the stoning or arrest those responsible.

In an apparent act of retaliation, some 23 Yezidi workers were attacked and killed on 22 April, apparently by members of a Sunni armed group. The Yezidis, reportedly all men, were travelling on a bus between Mosul and Bashika when the vehicle was stopped by gunmen, who made the Yezidis disembark and then summarily killed them.

At least it appears that Justice ultimately was done, however informally.

Daily Mail

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CAUTION: UNPLEASANT IMAGES

2:54 video

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Follow-up posting

YouTube, which is owned by Google, relies on user screening of inappropriate content. The left, of course, has the larger numerical presence on the Internet, and leftists generally have few inhibitions about abusing any powers of censorship available to them.

Inevitably there have been some incidents of leftist viewers (supported by Google managers) applying political correctness tests, tagging, and then banning, videos they don’t like for “innappropriate content.” In the best known incident of the kind, Michelle Malkin had a video banned by YouTube last September.

Charles Gerow, a former Reagan White House aide and current adman, has responded to anticipated YouTube censorship of conservative point-of-view 2008 campaign videos in advance by founding QubeTV, a rightwing alternative video venue.

ABC News story

Google is protesting that there is no need for such a thing. YouTube provides perfect equality of access for every point of view. But it is quite clear that Gerow is being astute in forseeing an inevitable increase in incidents like the Malkin video ban as the campaign season heats up. The existence of a well-known alternative venue is likely to have the salutary effect of persuading YouTube management, when temptation inevitably strikes, that abusing their powers in favor of their own political biases is a futile exercise.

6:40 promotional video

My wife loves these “how it’s made” videos.

Things you would never know if it weren’t for the movies…

Large, loft apartments In New York City are plentiful and affordable, even if the tenants are unemployed.

It doesn’t matter if you are greatly outnumbered in a fight involving martial arts. Your enemies will wait patiently to attack you one by one… dancing around in a threatening manner until you have dispatched their predecessors.

You’re very likely to survive any battle in a war unless you make the mistake of showing someone a picture of your sweetheart back home.

A man will show no pain while taking the most horrific beating, but will wince when a woman tried to clean his wounds.

Complete article

The New York Times announced that its third “Public Editor” will be Clark Hoyt, the former Washington Bureau chief at Knight Ridder. The latter organization compiled a conspicuous record of early opposition to the US invasion of Iraq and general hostility to the policies of the Bush Administration.

Bill Keller, the executive editor of The Times, said that record contributed to his selection of Mr. Hoyt.

Hoyt will be succeeding the flaccid liberal Daniel Okrent and the invertebrate Byron Calame in what most readers have long since recognized as the sham position it is.

The New York Times Public Editorship was created as a defensive response to wide-spread criticism of the Times’ flagrantly biased and selective news coverage. The paper’s management has carefully hand picked for the position a series of left-liberal journalists sharing 100% of the Time’s management’s world view and ideology “to represent” public opinion critical of Times’ journalistic policies and coverage.

The first public editor, Upper West Side Liberal democrat Daniel Okrent, apparently actually proved too combative for Mr. Keller’s taste, and Okrent’s infrequent bland and tepid dissent was replaced more recently by Byron Calame’s oleaginous sycophancy.

One has every confidence that Clark Hoyt will compile a record fully worthy of his predecessors.

Reuters (April 28):

Yet another unique New York institution is set to disappear when the last riding stable in Manhattan closes its doors during the weekend.

Claremont Riding Academy, said to be the oldest continuously operated stable in the United States, will shut its stable doors at 5 p.m. on Sunday.

The stable has been a fixture on the upper west side of Manhattan since it opened as a livery stable in 1892, six years before the automobile began to negotiate city streets. It has operated as a riding academy since the 1920s, giving lessons and renting horses for rides in Central Park.

Claremont owner Paul Novograd said he was not at liberty to say whether the building, which is located two blocks west of Central Park on West 89th Street, had been sold.

But New York City Parks and Recreation Commissioner Adrian Benepe said it was widely known that the building was being sold to developers and he understood that it is going to be made into condominiums. The building is a landmark, so it won’t be torn down, he added.

Several dozen people turned out on Saturday to protest against the stable’s closing, but the demonstration was not expected to affect the outcome.

On Friday, trainer Karen Feldgus, who has worked at Claremont for more than 18 years, was giving her last lesson at the stable to a group of 10 people who were riding to music.

Feldgus began to cry as the music began playing. ‘These (horses) are all my best friends. I’ve ridden all of them,’ she said.

Novograd said the horses would go to good homes. Most will be moved to the Potomac Horse Center in Maryland, owned by Novograd. Some are being sold to their riders, and some are being donated to the equestrian program at Yale University.

Claremont has a small indoor riding facility and stalls for the 38 horses. Instruction included jumping, dressage and stable management. Horses also could be rented for a ride on the bridle path in Central Park.

Novograd estimated that about 60 percent of the stable’s riding business involved children.

Among reasons for closing the stable, Novograd said, were costs incurred restoring the building and problems with the Central Park bridle path.

Benepe said there are no issues with the condition of the path or people using it for other purposes. If anything, he said, the bridle path has been improved over recent years by the Central Park Conservancy, a not-for-profit organization that manages Central Park under a contract with the city.

Novograd said bridle paths were being used for running, dog walking and pushing baby strollers, making it difficult for riders.

The closing of Claremont does not mean the end of horseback riding in parks in New York City, Benepe said, pointing out that there are riding facilities in the city’s other boroughs.

And he said the city is exploring the possibility of one or more of its stable operators setting up an operation under which horses could be brought to Central Park by trailer.

‘We’re obviously not interested in seeing horseback riding leave the park after 150 years,’ Benepe said.

Losing Claremont is a blow not only to those who ride there, but to those who believe such changes erode New York’s character.

New York Times:

Yesterday, Paul Novograd, 63, ended the family tradition, closing the stables for good. Were this some other place, some place out West maybe, the shuttering of one old riding school might have gone unnoticed. But what made Claremont unique was not so much what it was but where it was: in the heart of Manhattan, on the Upper West Side, a few steps from a Papa John’s pizzeria at the corner of Amsterdam Avenue and West 89th Street, and less than two blocks from Central Park.

The academy was the oldest continuously operated stable in New York City and, according to Mr. Novograd, the oldest in the United States, offering riding lessons and the renting and boarding of horses. It was a patch of un-Manhattan in Manhattan, definitive proof that the city indeed had it all — skyscrapers, a nearly naked cowboy in Times Square and horses you could rent for $55 an hour.

Mr. Novograd’s decision to close the academy shocked many of his customers and even many of his 30 employees. All day yesterday, the last official day of business at Claremont, people stood around as if at a wake.

Upstairs, Chelsea Roberts, 47, who started riding the horses at Claremont in the early 1970s, said goodbye to one of her favorites, Bach. She brought along her 10-year-old son, Maxwell Roberts-Pereira, who learned how to ride at the academy. Downstairs, in the main office just outside the riding ring, someone taped a letter to Claremont to the glass panes of the door: “You are more than brick, mortar, wood, dirt and hay. Your soul is made of all those souls that have come through your doors.”

And down a muddy, cleated ramp on the sidewalk outside, Christina Valauri snapped a picture and shook her head.

“I’ve ridden here, my daughter’s ridden here,” said Ms. Valauri, a research director at a brokerage firm. “This is a real loss. I actually feel like I am at a funeral.”

The riding school was formed in 1927, in a tan-brick building erected in 1892 as a public livery stable. It had escaped death before, when the city condemned and took over the property from Irwin Novograd in the 1960s as part of an urban renewal program. The city never followed through on its plans for public housing at the Claremont site, and in the late 1990s Mr. Novograd’s son bought it back.

But insurance costs, payments on a loan for a $2 million restoration and taxes had become too costly, Paul Novograd said, while business decreased over the years by hundreds of riders on an average weekend.

“It’s a wonderful institution,” he said. “It’s a shame it has to go. But I can’t go into bankruptcy. I’ve taken out a second mortgage on my house to put money into this place.”

He said that the popularity of nearby Central Park worked against him and the horses. Riders could take the horses for a stroll on the scenic bridle path in the park, but as the path became more congested with joggers and other pedestrians, the path’s upkeep decreased, as did the number of customers willing to navigate the crowds, he said. “The bridle path has become like an obstacle course, with dogs nipping at horses’ heels, people pushing baby strollers,” Mr. Novograd said.

He declined to answer questions about what would happen to the building, which would be worth millions on the market. “I can’t say anything about the future,” Mr. Novograd said, though he added that the building could not be torn down because it is a registered national and city landmark.

slideshow

The ancient Persians believed that the young should be trained Equitare, Arcum Tendere, Veritatem Dicere “To Ride, To Shoot, and to Speak the Truth.”

New York passed the Sullivan Law banning guns in 1911.

I don’t think anyone can remember when Truth was last honored in New York City.

The last riding stable in Manhattan closed April 29, 2007.

Andrew Sullivan got his knickers in a twist over the idea of a cartoon child-version of 24’s Jack Bauer torturing Arab children at cub scout camp.

Poor Andrew! He’s going to be in for some torture from the Right blogosohere himself. Andrew failed to notice that the story about the upcoming cartoon show was featured on a Hollywood satire site.

Quick, somebody send Andrew links to Scrappleface and The Onion.

Ann Coulter: set your Tivo. Money quote:

“We spent a lot time doing research on this game,” says Surnow. “Using a sponge, team members must take the water from a filled bucket and squeeze the water from the soaked sponge into an empty bucket. First team to fill the empty bucket wins.” Surnow said he chose the Sponge Bucket Game because it provides opportunities for little Jack to interrogate the little Arabs.

“There’s a great scene before the game starts where little Jack takes an Arab kid named Abdul and sticks his head in the water-filled bucket,” says Surnow. “Jack keeps his head under the water until he drowns. The kid did not give Jack the answers he needed, and for the greater good of the Cub Scouts of America, Jack had to send a strong and clear message.”

That’s a strong “enhanced” message. Just like Mr Tenet says.

Reuters is reporting:

U.S. and Iraqi forces have killed the head of the self-styled Islamic State in Iraq, an al Qaeda-led militant group that has claimed many major attacks in the country, Iraq’s deputy interior minister said on Thursday.

Hussein Kamal said Abu Omar al-Baghdadi had been killed in a battle north of Baghdad. He declined to say when but said authorities had recovered Baghdadi’s body.

“Abu Omar al-Baghdadi was killed north of Baghdad by Iraqi and American forces. He died as a result of wounds sustained in clashes. The Interior Ministry has his body to carry out further checks,” Kamal told Reuters by telephone.

Baghdadi was erroneously reported to have been captured in early March.

Yesterday’s Times featured a better-than-average consumer report detailing a a New York Times panels’ gin-tasting conclusions aiming at the ideal Martini.

The gins sampled included a commendably exotic selection.

Our favorite martini gin, Plymouth English Gin, could not have been more stylish and graceful. Plymouth has the classic juniper-based gin profile, yet it is uncommonly subtle and smooth. Still, it is assertive, its complexity emerging slowly but distinctly, the proverbial fist in a velvet glove.

By contrast, our No. 2 and No. 3 gins emphasized power. The Junipero, made in small quantities by the distilling branch of the Anchor brewery in San Francisco, came on strong with the traditional gin flavors of juniper and citrus, hitting all the right notes, though a little self-consciously.

The No. 3 gin, Cadenhead’s Old Raj from Scotland, at 110 proof, or 55 percent alcohol, was by far the most powerful gin we tasted: Tanqueray and Tanqueray No. 10 at 94.6 proof were the next highest. But while Old Raj packed a punch, its muscularity came across as bright and in control.

Two standbys of the American cocktail cabinet fared well as martinis. Seagram’s Extra Dry came in at No. 4. We found it surprisingly complex in the glass, with fruit, herbal and gingery spice notes, yet it didn’t stray far from the gin ideal, while Gordon’s London Dry adhered to the straight and narrow, with a slight emphasis of spicy cardamom and nutmeg aromas.

Tanqueray London Dry made a classic though quiet martini. Its livelier cousin, Tanqueray No. 10, with its emphasis on citrus flavors, may work well neat or with tonic, but was discordant in a martini.

In fact, in the context of a dry martini, few of the newer, hipper gins worked. Aviation is a popular gin out of Portland, Ore., but its predominant flavors of wintergreen, vanilla and anise had no place in a martini. Nor did the menthol and peppermint in G’Vine, a new French gin, the pronounced melon fruitiness in Hamptons, made in Minnesota, or the cinnamon emphasis in No. 209 out of San Francisco.

“What was really striking was how un-dry some of these were — like bathing in canned fruit or a postnasal saccharine drip,” Pete said.

We didn’t reject all of the less conventional gins. With its floral aromas, Hendrick’s from Scotland seemed to work from a different palette of botanicals, and it made for a lively, colorful martini. Bombay Sapphire was sort of jazzy — a martini that intrigued without really hanging together. Both Quintessential and Martin Miller’s hit odd notes, though they made pretty good martinis.

We each had a favorite that didn’t make the top 10. I liked Citadelle, a new-wave French gin. I felt its unconventional citrus flavors merged well with evergreen aromas, but the others disagreed.

Likewise, Audrey was pleased with that old standby Beefeater, while I found the flavors indistinct. Florence, who adores Tanqueray, liked the Tanqueray No. 10 as well, while Pete was more inclined to the G’Vine than the rest of us.

Complete article

I thought giving top marks to Plymouth (Travis McGee’s old favorite) was a very defensible choice.

Cadenhead’s Old Raj is interesting. It was clearly created to exploit the over-rich sucker market of those who will reliably buy any over-priced product, because they have to have “the best.” There is no legitimate basis for a bottle of gin retailing at $50+. (I’ve seen it priced closer to $80.) Its color is precisely that of snake venom, and rightly so, because Old Raj really does “biteth like the serpent and stingeth like the adder.” The stuff is so high proof, that it limits you to one drink (instead of your usual two). Two generous drinks mixed with Old Raj and you’re a goner.

My own opinion is that the panel over-praised Junipero and Hendrick’s, I think neither is well-balanced, and unreasonably slighted the classic Beefeater’s.

They should have included the humble Gilbey’s (the absurdly cheap bar gin), just to demonstrate how good a bottom-of-the-market in price terms gin actually can be.

And I would have added the little-known, moderately priced (around $27) Desert Juniper gin, produced by Bend Distillery of Bend, Oregon. Generously flavored with huge doses of the native Juniper berries which grow abundantly in the desert of Eastern Oregon, this particular gin has been a recent favorite of mine.

Janesville, Wisconsin Gazette-Xtra

A Janesville real estate agent can’t believe she didn’t realize that a form on the bed at a house she showed Monday night was a woman who apparently had been dead for two weeks.

“I’ve smelled death. I know what death smells like,” she said. “I can’t believe my sinuses were that bad.”

Linda Chabucos-Galow, a realtor with Shorewest, was showing the east side house at 1160 N. Claremont Drive to Justin and Colleen McKeen.

Chabucos-Galow stood in the dining room while the couple walked through the house. She heard Colleen scream as the couple stood at the doorway of the front bedroom.

“I thought, ‘What’s wrong?’ Maybe it was a dead mouse or something,” Chabucos-Galow said.

But when Chabucos-Galow peered into the bedroom, she saw what looked like a dummy on the bed.

“It looked like a Halloween prop,” Chabucos-Galow said.

It wasn’t.

AP:

President Bush vetoed legislation to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq Tuesday night in a historic showdown with Congress …

Bush signed the veto with a pen given to him by Robert Derga, the father of Marine Corps Reserve Cpl. Dustin Derga, who was killed in Iraq on May 8, 2005. The elder Derga spoke with Bush two weeks ago at a meeting the president had with military families at the White House.

Derga asked Bush to promise to use the pen in his veto. On Tuesday, Derga contacted the White House to remind Bush to use the pen, and so he did. The 24-year-old Dustin Derga served with Lima Company, 3rd Battalion 25th Marines from Columbus, Ohio. The five-year Marine reservist and fire team leader was killed by an armor-piercing round in Anbar Province.

Hat tip to Jules Crittenden.