Category Archives: Media

Media, War On Terror

Egyptian Students Indicted On Terrorism Charges

Remember those two Egyptian ‘students’ from the University of South Florida in the news back on August 4th? They were stopped for speeding in South Carolina and were not heading in the direction they said they were going. They were headed in the direction of two sensitive areas of national security, a Navy base where nuclear warheads are loaded onto submarines and another military base where some former Guantanamo prisoners are being held.

Well, surprise surprise, they were indicted on terrorism-related charges relating to explosives and explosive training.

So much for the FBI warnings that University of Sami’s (Al-Arian) Friends a/k/a University of South Florida students Ahmed Abda Sherf Mohamed and Yousef Samir Megahed–the Smiling Mugshot “Just Fireworks” Muslim terrorists–were not terrorists.

A Federal Grand Jury says they are, and indicted them:

ahmedmohamedyousefmegahed.jpg
Mohamed and Megahed: Smiling Terrorists Indicted

Two Egyptian students at the University of South Florida who were arrested in South Carolina have been indicted on federal charges for carrying explosives across states lines. One of the men also is charged with teaching the other how to use the material for violent reasons.

H/T Debbie Schlussel for the update.

They claimed the explosives found in their car were fireworks. They were not fireworks in the trunk. Their names are Ahmed Abdellatif Sherif Mohamed, 24, and Youssef Samir Megahed, 21. If you are into profiling, one might guess that these two are Muslim, not that there’s anything wrong with that. And you would be right. According to Megahed’s mother, Muslims are not into terrorism. She is obviously among the 69% of Muslims in America that reject terrorism. Unfortunately for her, and us, her son is among the 31% of Muslims that don’t.

Mariam Megahed read a prepared statement, “We have a high regard for honor, so breaking the law or bringing harm to anyone is not something that we as Muslims support.”

Note: Pensacola, FL, Pensacola News Journal link.

Update: 09/04/07, State of South Carolina drops charges on the two, deferring to a federal prosecution on their federal indictment.

Media, Pensacola, Politics, Uncategorized, War On Terror

Welcome Home Soldier: Manny Alvarez

Pensacola welcomes home Army Major Manuel Alvarez from the Iraq/Iran border area. And Troy Manny Alvarez, 44, a Pensacola attorney, returned a few weeks ago after a year in Iraq and is back at work at the firm of Conroy, Simberg, Ganon, Krevans & Abel. He practices insurance defense and workers' compensation. Moon at the Pensacola News Journal interviewed Manny on making the transition from being in Iraq to being back at his law office. But along the way, Manny tells us what is bothering him now that he is back.

“You turn on the news and hear people say we’re losing the war, and that’s not true,” he said. “The people who are saying those things are scholars, politicians and talking heads who never spent a day doing

the job I did. It just disappoints me. I saw Iraqis killed, there are American soldiers killed. So when I hear the news media, it’s a slap to their faces.”

Alvarez said that the insurgency is weakening in Iraq. “The media don’t show that we’re eliminating a lot of insurgents,” he said. “We’re killing them wholesale. But all the media shows is our guys being killed.”

An immigrant himself, Alvarez knows first-hand what fighting for freedom is all about. What is disappointing is that there are too many Americans who don’t know that our freedom needs defending. Defending from Islamofascists and not George Bush.

Showing the measure of the man, a hero in my book, and a great American, Alvarez says this about how he does it . . .

Alvarez said there were close calls in Iraq “all the time,” and some of the Iraqi soldiers he worked and lived with lost their lives in battle, just as Alvarez was prepared to do. The premise I work with is that sacrifice is giving up something good for something better,” he said. “That’s what someone told me a long time ago, and I tried to remember that when times got difficult. You try to remember what moves you forward.

Pensacola News Journal link

2008 Election, Media, MRIOTD, Politics

Sen. Barack Obama Making Picks

Keeping to his apparent knack1 to be first to speak on a subject like working with ‘the other side of the aisle,’ Obama names some republicans he says he can work with. It also, with the media’s help, allows him to be the one driving the campaign. Making the rest respond to him.

Among the Republicans he would seek help from are Sens.Richard Lugar of Indiana, John Warner of Virginia and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, Obama said.

His choices of republicans would not be mine, and take Arlen Specter (R-PA), please! But can you even begin to imagine what an Obama Cabinet would look like? Now there’s a scary thought.

Also at the same stump stop in affluent Key Biscayne, Florida, and qualifying for the most ridiculous item of the day, Obama said this . . .

Part of Washington’s problem is that President Bush has created a partisan atmosphere, he said.

Secretaries of Defense, Interior, State, Energy, Education. If he holds true to form, he should be naming these picks sometime next week. As much as I’d like to see him do that, it isn’t going to happen. If it does, he will be the one on defense, and it will be the beginning of the ending of his presidential aspirations for ’08 at the very least.

1 Attack our ally, nukes are off the table.

Media, Politics

Fossil Fuels Out-Green Biofuels

You gotta love this. If they would ever see it, it would just drive the environmental wackos (you know who you are) nuts. Did you know that it is greener to burn our fossil fuels than to produce and burn biofuels? I think this would be a hard sell to Robert Kennedy Jr. but if it’s the environment that we’re trying to impact less, then we need to get serious about actually getting more of our own oil and gas so we can be less dependent on foreign suppliers. All in one fell swoop we could increase our national security, lower the price of gasoline at the pump, and help the environment. It’s a win win win.

Increasing production of biofuels to combat climate change will release between two and nine times more carbon gases over the next 30 years than fossil fuels, according to the first comprehensive analysis of emissions from biofuels.

Biofuels look good in climate change terms from a Western perspective, said Dr Spracklen, but globally they actually lead to higher carbon emissions.

The reason is that producing biofuel is not a “green process”. It requires tractors and fertilizers and land, all of which means burning fossil fuels to make “green” fuel. In the case of bioethanol produced from corn – an alternative to oil – “it’s essentially a zero-sums game.”

NewsBusters: New Study Recommends Against Burning Biofuels to Solve Global Warming

Will be interesting to see what play, if any, this gets in your mainstream media. And I wouldn’t hold my breath for Kennedy to get on board either. Not with BIG OIL.

h/t Amy Ridenour’s National Center Blog

Media, Politics, Russia, Uncategorized

Desperate Socialists

And socialism marches on, speaking about the dictator in Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez. Affectionately called here the hemisphere’s idiot. Now he is clearing way to be president for life, ending term limits for himself by changing the constitution he made in 1999. The changes . . .

would strip the Central Bank of all autonomy, allowing the government to spend the country’s foreign reserves. The government would be given power to expropriate private property by decree, and to promote co-operatives and state enterprise.

State governors and mayors will still be subject to term limits—otherwise they might become caudillos, Mr Chávez said recently, without irony. They will be sidelined by new communal councils, dependent on the presidency. Another proposal is to reduce the maximum working day to six hours. “Now we are headed straight towards socialism,” Mr Chávez said. But first the plans must be approved by referendum.

Chavez has come a long way since the corrupted election that put him in office. Jimmy Carter will tell you how corrupt it was, even though he didn’t have the courage to tell the Venezuelan people and the U.N. the truth about it at the time he was ‘overseeing’ it. He took it upon himself to deceive the entire country. But that’s another story. So, one would expect this referendum to pass with a 99 % majority.

Here’s Chavez record on freedom. In his own words. . .

“We have broken the chains of the old, exploitative capitalist system,” said Mr Chavez. “The state now has the obligation to build the model of a socialist economy.”

He has nationalized the oil and energy industries, same with the communications industry including the press and on-air broadcast, put price controls in place on everything from food to fuel. No such thing as private property any more. The result is predictable, no food on the shelves, high (for them) fuel prices. A suppressed media that supports only the Chavez administration keeps the people ignorant and riled up.

Of course there’s no domestic media that considers this newsworthy. It’s the Desperate Socialists club of Chavez, Castro and Putin.

Media, Politics, War On Terror

War Coverage Down

Coverage by U.S. media of the Iraq war, war on terror, or whatever you want to call it, is down 7% to 15%, down from 22%. Could it be that good news isn’t news to the MSM? Its just another conflict with the their mission, which is to discredit the administration and the war. Reporting of any good news would not advance their position. Its just that simple.

Taken together, the war’s three major story lines — the U.S. policy debate, events in Iraq and their impact on the U.S. homefront — slipped roughly a third, to 15 percent of an index of total news coverage, down from 22 percent in the first three months of the year.

This doesn’t jibe with assertions by progressives that the Right controls the media. The truth seems otherwise.

Fairness Doctrine, Media, Russia

Putin And Freedom Just Disagree

Intent on reliving the Cold War, Russian President Vladimir Putin is ramping up military spending in response to an anti-missile defense system proposed by the United States for the Czech republic and Poland. A system that Putin chose to not be a part of. And now Putin has kicked out the BBC from Russian FM radio. The pattern here is that to Putin, the concept of freedom is evil and dangerous. Something to be squelched at all cost.

Earlier this summer Mr Putin upped the ante by threatening to target US strategic nuclear sites in Europe. Tensions with Britain over the murder of former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko have prompted tit-for-tat expulsions of diplomats, while on Friday the BBC’s World Service was thrown off Russian FM radio.

As far as freedom of speech goes, Vladimir Putin (Russia) and Hugo Chavez (Venezuela / Citgo) are fully on board with the Fairness Doctrine and execute (no pun intended) it perfectly. And the domestic media doesn’t so much as shrug its shoulders over it. Doesn’t fit the template. The left wants the fairness doctrine as the tool that will effectively gag the right when it comes to radio. Secretly, they’re jealous at the way Putin can do it. They both have similar views on freedom of speech. Which is, if we agree with it then its OK. If we don’t then its hate speech, or in Putin’s case, treasonous speech. There is no debate, just shut them down. That’s the purpose of the so-called Fairness Doctrine.

In true liberal fashion, the Fairness Doctrine goes like this. Because we can’t beat them in the marketplace or the arena of ideas, we’ll get the government to take our side and force them to put us on their airtime. That’s not my idea of freedom of speech.

Media, Russia, Uncategorized

Mind Control, Russian Style

You really need a sense of humor to read Vladimir Putin’s paper, Pravda. Pravda is the equivalent of the daily KOS when it comes to the rhetoric and theories. Like this one, “Russians have psychotronic weapon to zombie people” in the science section.

But that’s only half the story. You have to know why Russians need psychotronic weapons.

In the USA researchers work on psychotronic effect and employ oriental psychophysical systems, hypnosis, neurolinguistic programming, computer psychotechnologies and bio-resonance stimulation in their studies. They seek every opportunity of manipulating human behavior. Israeli researchers conduct similar studies to help people reveal their new potential through self-regulation, changing their consciousness and improving the psychical body potential for athletes. What is more, they also make secret technologies for programming human behavior that are based on mathematical simulation of the Kabbala symbolism.

Aside from sounding ridiculous, on page three the expert admits it.

Boris Ratnikov says that he has never had a chance to hold such a weapon and has no idea how it may look at all. But he supposes that modern technical resources allow making this weapon these days as all theoretic materials necessary for the production have been completely developed.

And this is the kind of media that President Putin wants his people to see.

Pravda link

Immigration, Media, Politics, Russia, United Nations, War On Terror

UN Does Human Trafficking Too! And Putin Is Not Pleased.

Two (Russian) United Nations employees were busted for visa fraud. They were essentially writing letters of special permission for certain people to enter the country to ostensibly attend a special meeting or some diplomatic business at the UN. Neither happened, the people just came over.

Noteworthy in this news article is the fact that the MSM here in the US is mute on it. A google search right now shows a Reuters, VOA, and foreign media outlets. No NYT or LAT, no WaPo, no CBS, NBS, or ABS. Definitely does not fit the template.

The Reuters article is the most complete. Two are from Russia. And you ought to see how Pravda reports this. This is the Putin media talking with a Michael Moore twist. That’s President Vladimir Putin, the guy who put democracy in Russia into reverse.

update: The link to the Pravda story is gone. The story isn’t on the server, if the error msg is to be believed. Lesson here is, when it comes to Putin’s press, better capture it because the link won’t be there when you return.

What you missed is the whole tone of the article is different. As though it is a different story altogether. In Putin’s version, it is just trumped up charges on Russian citizens in order to further the anti-UN fervor in the US as an excuse to get out of the UN. And it goes on from there, tinfoil hat and all.

Putin characterizes the US negatively in such a way that he’s not speaking of an ally of Russia. He seems to use this topic as a means to launch on to other attacks. Like James Carville with hair. There is no anti-US reporting in the other Russian media accounts of this story. Well, not yet anyway. The other Russian media’s versions of this story are nothing of the sort of the Pravda version. They are all using a shorter version of the Reuters story.

From here it looks like Russian President Vladimir Putin is trying to create some anti-US sentiment in his country. Why would this be? It is what he would need to justify (to the Russian people) his recent arms escalation and unwillingness to participate in a cooperative missile defense arrangement in that part of the world. That is presuming he gives a wit about the Russian people. Seems to me Putin has his sights on eliminating most, if not all, of the freedoms the Russian people are supposed to be able to enjoy. A ‘free’ media in Russia is on the endangered species list.

UPDATE: 8/8/07, the link is back but Putin and references to Putin are gone. His picture is gone. All of that was on the original story. For starters, here is the headline and sub-head.

USA arrests Russian UN officials to slander the organization

American authorities have been looking for a reason to get rid of the UN and obtain the absolute freedom

Media, Politics, War On Terror, Whiners

Congresswoman Bolts From Hearing, Of Progress

Qualifying for the most ridiculous item of the day try this. Rep. Nancy Boyda (D-KS) ran out of an Armed Services Committee hearing when retired Gen. Jack Keane described positive developments in Iraq. The purpose of the hearing was to inform Congress on the situation in Iraq. She then accused the General for further dividing the country by his assessment of progress with the war in Iraq. What’s wrong with this picture?

It’s what happens when your party is invested in defeat. I hope the good people of Kansas will make a different choice when Boyda’s term expires.

RealClearPolitics: Michael Barone