ABC News talks to Omar bin Ladin in Dubai.

Apparently, Osama’s sons were not interested in volunteering to be suicide bombers.

Osama bin Laden’s son has a chilling warning for those who are hunting his father with drones, secret agents and missile strikes.

From Omar bin Laden’s up-close look at the next generation of mujahideen and al Qaeda training camps he says the worst may lie ahead, that if his father is killed America may face a broader and more violent enemy, with nothing to keep them in check.

“From what I knew of my father and the people around him I believe he is the most kind among them, because some are much, much worse,” Omar bin Laden, who was raised in the midst of his father’s fighters, told ABC News in an exclusive interview. “Their mentality wants to make more violence, to create more problems.” …

And despite the $25 million bounty on his father’s head and the ever-searching drones, Omar is confident that his father won’t be caught and that no Afghan will turn him in.

“It’s been 30 years now since he started fighting there. Who could catch him? No one…. This is the country that whoever gets in is stuck, be it the armies or the mujahideen,” he said. Omar says even he does not know where his father is. …

Osama bin Laden raised his family of five wives (plus one marriage that was annulled) and more than a dozen children in a way meant to make them tough and ready for the rigors of war. He shunned air conditioning and refrigerators in the desert heat, banned toys and the kind of laughter that showed too many teeth, refused to wince when his men used Omar’s puppies as the victims in chemical weapons tests. He would cane his children for the slightest misbehavior, at times hitting them so hard the stick would break.

Osama Bin Laden Urged His Sons to Be Suicide Bombers

“He didn’t treat us differently than any of his followers. He just expected us to act like everyone else, because he was the leader,” said Omar. He and his brothers were given weapons training. In a breaking point between them, Osama encouraged them to sign up for suicide missions, volunteering to blow themselves up.

“We were shocked. Why would our father say something like this to us? After he went away we just talked about it and said this was never going to happen, this was not our way.” Omar found the rare and substantial nerve it took to talk back.

“I objected, and said why did you do this? What is the point? He didn’t respond. We were not more important than his big goal…and nothing would stop him from this.”

Read the whole thing.

Yale graduate student accuses Palin of making a mistake. Left blogs cry Gotcha! And Professor Jacobson demonstrates that there was no mistake. Yale Graduate student apologizes.

They will keep trying.

Bryan Walsh, in Time Magazine, delivers a classic example of the MSM defense of junk science.

There is some evidence that climate change could in fact make such massive snowstorms more common, even as the world continues to warm.

Ah, yes. Some evidence! An alternative of “some authorities contend…” that if we have warm weather, it must be because of Anthropogenic Global Warming. And if we have cold weather, it must be because of AGW. If we have mild weather, voila, AGW. If we have extreme weather, it’s AGW, too.

The fatal role of human naughtiness in producing things, driving, heating their homes, and converting physical substances into energy is evidenced, according to liberals generally, simply by “climate change,” which all inclusive concept is really an artful comedown from Global Warming.

Climate change is delightfully non-specific and basically 100% reliable. Change being, in fact, precisely what climate always does.

The earth’s climate operates in cycles. Cycles are patterns of change. World climate, in fact, is undeniably at any given moment in time changing, either growing warmer or growing colder.

Clever warmists have the situation perfectly under control. It no longer matters if the models they propose to use as a basis to tax, regulate, and control the world’s economy can actually ever predict anything. They simply need to point to a record snowfall here or an exceptional storm there, a hot day in New York or cool weather in Miami. Change of any kind proves there is a problem. And, let’s face it, the weather is always changing.

Their models and theories enjoy absolute immunity from testing or verification. Whatever happens proves they are right. Heads they win, tails we lose.

Murder Hollow Bassets at 2009 Pack Trials

On January 12th, Philadelphia Community Court Judge Joseph J. O’Neill negotiated an agreement between attorneys for Wendy Willard, Master of the Murder Hollow Bassets, and the PSPCA intended to end the litigation resulting from the latter organization’s July 27, 2009 raid on the Murder Hollow kennels in which eleven hounds were confiscated.

Last month’s settlement terms included the return of a retired house dog named Osh Kosh to Willard and an arrangement that Willard would participate in determining the permanent placement of the ten other hounds. In return for which, Willard agreed to make some repairs to the kennels and submit to unannounced inspections over the course of the next five months.

Strangely, it turns out that PSPCA was not in a position at the time to honor this agreement and also seems to have entered into the agreement in bad faith.

The National Animal Interest Alliance (an animal owners’ advocacy organization) reports that ten of the Murder Hollow bassets were subsequently revealed to have been long since transferred to a regional basset rescue organization which placed the valuable pedigreed hunting hounds in exchange for a $225 fee as pets.

Five days before the trial resulting in the settlement it turns out the PSPCA could not fulfill, obviously at PSPCA’s instigation, Ms. Willard was accused by the City of Philadelphia’s Department of Licenses and Inspections of operating a commercial kennel, issued a cease and desist order, and threatened with $300 per diem fines.

The Murder Hollow Bassets are, of course, a private organized hunting pack, and not a commercial kennel at all, as the L&I department soon discovered. This particular instance of harrassment seems ironic in the light of the fact that Tri-State Basset Hound Rescue, the organization which “rescued” Murder Hollow’s hounds to the tune of $225 apiece, and processes something on the order of 200 basset hounds per annum is itself not licensed as a kennel.

PSPCA was not only unable to comply with the portion of court settlement applying to the placement of ten hounds. PSPCA also proceeded to renege on its agreement to return the 8 year old house dog Osh Kosh, demanding as a condition for the hound’s return a payment of putative costs of $3000, mostly made up of boarding fees!

In the immediate aftermath of the settlement, PSPCA also continued its propaganda campaign against Murder Hollow, releasing through its own media outlet a single photograph showing an unhappy basset with an eye problem allegedly infested with ticks.

I saw that photograph at the time, but having no personal access to Murder Hollow’s side of the story decided to avoid commenting.

My own opinion is that it is extremely easy for a photograph of this kind to be misleading. Any basset hound being dragged off on a lead by strangers is going to look mightily unhappy. Bassets have a talent for looking lugubrious when displeased. Dirty doggie photos also don’t mean much. You can get a photo of my Tazy with a face covered in dirt very easily if you happen to take it anytime after he’s been digging.

Basset hounds do acquire scratches running through the woods, and pack dogs living together pick up minor injuries sometimes in kennels. A photograph of a single dog with something wrong with its eye obviously does not prove that dog was neglected.

The lyme disease claim is clearly suggestive of deliberate fraud. Lyme disease bearing ticks are extremely common in the woods and fields hunted by organized hound packs in the Eastern United States. It would be surprising to find a beagle, or basset, or pack-following human who wouldn’t test positive for lyme disease exposure. Karen caught it last year, and I deny being guilty of cruelty to wives. Pack hounds, of course, are treated for lyme disease when they are symptomatic. Unsymptomatic lyme exposure means absolutely nothing and is exactly the kind of opportunistic phony baloney charge that a corrupt animal welfare organization would fling around to justify its own abuses.

Ticks. The particular basset in the photo seems to have several ticks on its face, and I suspect there is a story there which I don’t know. Perhaps that basset is the aged house dog which just came back dirty and tick-infested from a nice long run on the 340-acre Nature Center in which the Willard home and the Murder Hollow kennels are located.

I don’t live near Philadelphia or hunt with Murder Hollow, but I know that several of the packs I do follow rely on Ivermectin, an anti-parasite medication, which one knowlegable hound breeder assured me causes ticks simply to drop dead shortly after they ingest a little of their victim’s blood. If Murder Hollow routinely uses Ivermectin, a hound coming home with some ticks on him would be meaningless. They’d all be dead the next day.

The PSPCA’s photo is less than probative, and it looks like Murder Hollow and the PSPCA are going back to court. I expect the judge will not be pleased to learn that PSPCA entered into agreements it could not and would not fulfill.

Earlier Murder Hollow posts.

How to unload a backhoe from a dump truck without a crane. Karen will be impressed.

French 1:15 video

Hat tip to Robert Breedlove.

It’s entertaining to read MM exercising her wit on real life as opposed to politics and economics for a change.

[I]n DC, only the main streets have been plowed. And by “plowed”, I mean that one meager lane has been cleared, so that even major arteries like New York Avenue frequently narrow to one lane. The side streets have been turned into defacto one-way streets–except that no one knows which way. The result is a lot like driving on a country road in Ireland, where you are apt to come upon someone going the other way, and then spend precious moments staring at each other until one party reluctantly backs up to a wider spot.

The difference is that Irish drivers are somewhat familiar with the conditions. DC today is the province of taxi drivers and SUV owners who seem simultaneously confused and overconfident. As I eased down the street in our little Japanese sedan, I quickly surmised that none of the drivers in the bite-sized tanks surrounding me had ever seen snow before. Three blocks later I revised that opinion: I don’t think any of them had ever seen cars before. Certainly not the ones they were operating. …

By the time I finally got to the grocery store, I discovered the scene many of you have already viewed on cable television. There was virtually no meat. There were no eggs–I thought I was missing them, until I realized that the egg section comprised the rows and rows of empty shelves stretching beneath one lonely carton of egg beaters. The frozen pizzas were pretty well decimated. Oddly, all of the shredded cheese and sliced cheese was gone, but there was plenty of the stuff in blocks. And I scored the last three containers of Yoplait Light. Oh, and the last four twelve-packs of regular diet coke. Sorry, Safeway shoppers–but I’m told that Diet Dr. Pepper tastes more like regular Dr. Pepper. More than what, I couldn’t say.

I also noticed what Brian Caplan has remarked upon: the store brand frozen foods were pretty much still stocked at normal levels. This, even though Safeway’s store brands tend to be private label versions of top premium brands–and more than occasionally, are better than anything else on offer. I helped myself freely to their quite tasty rising crust pizza, but anyone who wanted a slab of Red Baron’s tomato-flavored cardboard was out of luck.

Naturally, both the fresh and frozen vegetable sections were still stocked to overflowing. I spent quite a bit of time last night making backup lists of vegetables I might buy, since I naturally expected that the produce would be picked over pretty well by now. Silly Megan. Apparently, when DC gets snowed in, it wants to do so with diet soda, Ritz crackers, six pounds of shredded cheddar, and a lifetime supply of stew meat. Me, I’m making slow cooker spaghetti sauce tomorrow.

When I got to the store, the lines looked reasonable. But by well before 9 am, they were stretching towards the back of the store. God knows what was left for the people who put off their shopping until noon.

I understand that it doesn’t necessarily make sense for DC to maintain plentiful snow moving equipment, when these types of heavy snowfalls only occur about once every seven years. But it seems to me we could try to maintain some psychological readiness. If this is how we react to a snow storm, what are we going to do when the Russkis invade?

Titled: Enough Already!

New York Post says independents are deserting the president an his party.

The near-total loss of independents could prove catastrophic for Democrats if the trend holds through Election Day this year.

Democrats lost independents in off-year elections in New Jersey and Virginia, and most recently in Massachusetts last month, when the party lost Ted Kennedy’s old Senate seat.

“The independents have become a problem,” said Lee Miringoff, who conducted the poll. “They were his ticket to Washington, and now they’re a problem.”

Independents don’t just disapprove of the job Obama is doing, they’re tiring of him personally. His favorability rating among them is down to 39 percent, with a 59 percent unfavorable rating.

Last December, Obama’s favorability rating among independents was just under 50 percent. …

Independents aren’t buying into Obama’s brand of “change,” either: 45 percent say he is changing the country for the worse, while 26 percent believe it’s for the better.

In December, the numbers were equal at 36 percent.

Fifty-three percent of independents, who make up about a third of the electorate, now believe Obama has fallen below expectations. In December, the figure was 43 percent.

“The independents have jumped ship,” concluded Miringoff.

Obama won independents in 2008, making him the first Democrat to do so in a presidential election since 1972, when exit polling began.

Part of Obama’s problem: Independents, along with plenty of other voters, are hopping mad. According to the latest Rasmussen poll, a stunning 78 percent of voters not affiliated with either party report being angry at the government’s policies.

Overall, 75 percent of likely voters said they were at least somewhat angry at the feds, up 4 points from November.

Forty-five percent reported being very angry, up 9 points from September. Just 19 percent said they weren’t angry at all or weren’t very angry.

——————————————-

And the Weekly Standard has a new article (not readable at the moment due to a web-site glitch) about Hilary Clinton democrats bailing as well. Perhaps the Standard didn’t want it released just yet.

Tazy atop snowbank

Karen took a few pictures of the dogs playing in the snow yesterday. Uhlan, the 7 month old Tazy, very nearly nailed a small snowbound doe, just before Karen came outside. In photos 9 & 10, he is running again through the track in the deep snow made shortly earlier by his pursuit of the deer. He couldn’t follow it once it got to the driveway and made it into the road. We have an electric fence that keeps our dogs inside the property.

Where exactly we are going to put more snow is not clear.

The Jerusalem Post is having too much fun with this story which could have come directly from this 4:04 video excerpt from Monty Python’s Life of Bryan (1979).

Hat tip to Norman Zamchek.

This parody perfectly captures the preferred format of a television news report.

2:04 video

Hat tip to Karen L. Myers.

In City Journal, Myron Magnet has a nice profile of founding father John Jay.

Few could fathom why 55-year-old John Jay turned down President Adams’s nomination to rejoin the Supreme Court when his two terms as New York’s governor ended. What would lead him, in the hale prime of life, to retire instead to the plain yellow house he’d just built on a hilltop at the remote northern edge of Westchester County, two days’ ride from Manhattan, where visitors were few and the mail and newspapers came but once a week? After 27 years at the forge of the new nation’s founding, why would so lavishly talented a man give up his vital role on the world stage for the quiet life of a gentleman farmer?

But just that option—the chance for every man to sit quietly under his vine and his fig tree, with none to make him afraid—is what he had labored more than a quarter-century to bring about, and he felt he had achieved it.

Read the whole thing.

I’m well acquainted with Jay’s house in Katonah, New York. We commuted past it every day during one period. Karen one day put her 911T into a grassy bank after failing to negotiate a sharp curve that must once have bordered Mr. Jay’s property.

The interior of the house still demonstrated the characteristic ingenuity of mind of its former owner. Jay had designed and arranged the construction of campaign furniture-style book cases, whose individual shelves could be separated and moved independently, or stacked in more than one arrangement. The shelves were handsome and they must have been very practical for a man of learning obliged to make so many long journeys on business of state.