Genocide averted? etc.

An attempted genocide foiled?

Russian sources are claming that an Iranian ship captured by Somali pirates was a huge dirty bomb headed for Israel on Yom Kippur:

At this writing, the MV Iran Deyanat is at anchor, watched closely by American, French and Russian naval units.

[Russian sources claim she] was an enormous floating dirty bomb, intended to detonate after exiting the Suez Canal at the eastern end of the Mediterranean and in proximity to the coastal cities of Israel. The entire cargo of radioactive sand, obtained by Iran from China (the latter buys desperately needed oil from the former) and sealed in containers which, when the charges on the ship are set off after the crew took to the boats, will be blasted high into the air where prevailing winds will push the highly dangerous and radioactive cloud ashore.

From the same post, this hilariously ironic news:

Vice President for Media Affairs Mehdi Kalhor said on Saturday that Iran has set two preconditions for holding talks with the United States of America.

In an exclusive interview with IRNA, he said as long as U.S. forces have not left the Middle East region and continues its support for the Zionist regime, talks between Iran and U.S. is off the agenda.

It turns out that Obama's promised capitulation is a one-way street.

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There’s really very little difference between the Daily Kos web community and the KKK; it’s just a difference in which groups are the targets of their hate. A common fantasy of the loony left is to criminalize dissent, to establish a leftist totalitarian police state. Here’s a sample of this line of “thought”:

I support Obama, but I disagree on some major issues. One is that we need to use major authoritarian measures against wingnuts and theocrats to save this country. That in particular includes deprogramming institutions and a Gitmo like camp to deal with the worst wingnuts. These people should be removed from general society and need to be shut up.

I have believed this for years, but the behavior of the wingnuts at the McCain and Palin rallies further underscores the need to take harsh action against these people. Lincoln and FDR had to bend the Constitution at times, and I hope Obama has the guts to do so too to deal with these third rate creatures.

Hey, they hate religion too, maybe they can take up cross burning!

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Re: the Mark Steyn passage I quoted on Monday, John Hinderaker adds:

American liberals have yearned to match Europe's supposed sophistication as long as America has existed. Maybe someone should give them the news: adopting Euro-style leftism in 2008 would be a bit like having a go at European fascism in 1945.

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Hilarious passage from a Washington Post story on the Wizards:

After players filed on to buses to take them back to the hotel following Sunday’s practice, an English-speaking Berliner who happened to be walking by tried to figure out what she was seeing.

“Who are the Wizards?” she asked.

When told that the team is from the United States and plays basketball in the NBA, the woman smiled.

“Oh, like the Lakers,” she said.

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This scouting tool sounds very cool:

The [Phoenix] scouts have a cutting edge computer program, where they can literally call up video clips of any player in the draft based on certain categories, like “transition defense” or “three-point shots” or “post-up possessions”, and the computer will run a series of clips of the good and the bad of that player in those circumstances.

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President Bush is really hurting McCain right now, but not in a way you’ll often see acknowledged.

It is because Bush has essentially won the Iraq front of the WOT, making it a non-issue in the campaign. Were it an issue, Obama’s repeated promises to surrender would be held against him, but at this point not even a hard leftist could find a way to lose this thing, so a huge liability is removed from his ledger.

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Genius satire from Sense of Events:

With the price of petroleum having fallen from almost $150 per barrel last summer to about $81, the campaigns of both Barack Obama and John McCain rushed to outline their respective plans to rescue beleaguered oil companies from nose-diving profits and earnings.

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A McCain-Obama difference I had not heard about: while neither supports a return to a military draft, they do differ on the specifics.

[T]he two presidential candidates disagree on a key foundation of any future draft: Mr. Obama supports a requirement for both men and women to register with the Selective Service, while Mr. McCain doesn't think women should have to register.

Also, Mr. Obama would consider officially opening combat positions to women. Mr. McCain would not.

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I’m shocked, shocked to learn that YouTube is using the DMCA as justification to take down anti-Obama content but not doing the same to anti-McCain content.

Although the co-sponsor of McCain-Feingold is on shaky ground making free political speech arguments.