Month: August 2006

C-SPAN assumes the role as ‘minder’ for CBS News.

CBS, which aired the edited version last night, has now granted C-SPAN permission to air the entire 90-or-so-minute segment this evening. Interestingly enough, C-SPAN will first air the edited “60 Minutes” version at 8 p.m., immediately followed by the entire interview.

“We agreed with CBS News that airing this interview … fits with C-SPAN’s style of airing events as they happened and without commercials,” said Terry Murphy, C-SPAN’s vice president of programming. “This is also a unique opportunity for viewers to see for themselves the editorial process at a major network news organization, and find out which portions of an extended interview actually make it on air.”

This is definitely a step in the right direction for CBS, given the justified criticism they’ve received over the past few years about biased reporting. Let’s hops C-SPAN gets permission to do this for all the major TV news networks.

As for the interview itself, I watched it last night. My first thought? Mike Wallace isn’t the Mike Wallace of yester-year. His softball questions and the playful bickering back and forth with the Iranian president were made-for-TV. I’d love to know how Wallace was picked to be the interviewer for this one, when so many others could have done a better job. Was he hand picked by Mahmoud in the hopes that there would be little bite left in the 88 year-old 60 Minutes emeritus reporter? We’ll never know.

No, it wasn’t Sheppard Smith and his Barbie Doll sidekick, but ‘foreign’ journalists hired by Fox News TV. One is confirmed as being American.

Palestinian gunmen kidnapped two foreign journalists working for the Fox News television channel in Gaza on Monday, a witness said.

The witness, a Palestinian who worked with the two journalists, said one of them, a producer, was an American, and the other, whose nationality he did not know, was a cameraman.

The Fox News bureau in Jerusalem said it was checking the report.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the abduction.

The witness said two vehicles blocked the journalist’s transmission truck in the center of Gaza City and a masked man put a gun to the bodyguard’s head, forcing him to the ground.

The kidnappers then sped away with the two journalists.

Similar incidents in the past in Gaza have ended with the release, usually within hours, of kidnapped foreign journalists or aid workers.

Many of the abductions were carried out by Palestinians pressing a grievance against the Palestinian government or its security forces.

It doesn’t matter who you are or where you are in the Middle East these days. Danger lurks around every corner, and no amount of negotiating will prevent future kidnappings, murders, roadside bombings, or suicide bombers from gaining their illegitimate martyrdom.

UPDATE: Reports say the American reporter is Steve Centanni.

While both sides bomb each other silly, the U.N. negotiated cease fire which is supposed to go into effect at 8 AM local time Monday looks like it will be anything but, as Lebanon refuses to disarm Hezbollah.

MORE: PM

Not kidding. The president of Iran has a blog. It’s right here [Update – LGF reports the possibility that Mahmoud’s blog is a security risk for IE users.]. It’s got an RSS feed and everything. It’s also multilingual, so even us western dogs can read the thoughts of this modern day Hitler.

No blogads yet (note to Henry). I don’t see a Site Meter icon either, so he won’t be joining the Ecosystem soon. His bad.

This appears to be his first post:

2006/8/11

autobiography

In the Name of God, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate

Oh Almighty God, please, we beg you to send us our Guardian- who You have promised us- soon and appoint us as His close companions.

During the era that nobility was a prestige and living in a city was perfection, I was born in a poor family in a remote village of Garmsar-approximately 90 kilometer east of Tehran. I was born fifteen years after Iran was invaded by foreign forces- in August of 1940- and the time that another puppet, named mohammad Reza – the son of Reza Mirpange- was set as a monarch in Iran. Since the extinct shah -Mohammad Reza- was supposed to take and enter Iran into western civilization slavishly, so many schemes were implemented that Iran becomes another market for the western ceremonial goods without any progress in the scientific field. Our Islamic culture would not allow such an infestation, and this was an impediment in front of shah and his foreign masters’ way. Thus, they decided to make this noble and tenacious culture weak gradually that Iran be attached strongly to the west as far as its economy, politics, and culture was concern. After the implementation of this policy and the unreal and outward of upswing, the villagers began to rush to the cities. Upon the enforcement of the land reform, the status of the villages became worst than the past and villagers for earning some breadcrumbs, they were deceived by the dazzling look and the misleading features of the cities and became suburban and lived in ghettos.

My family was also suffered in the village as others. After my birth -the fourth one in the family- my family was under more pressures …

And it goes on and on and on…blah blah blah.

You thinking what I’m thinking?

Yep. Mein Kampf.

(h/t Allah)

Mary Winkler was set to be released on bond today, but at the last minute, it was discovered that her bonding company’s license had been suspended since 1999. So for now, she’s back behind bars.

Defense attorney Steve Farese Jr. said Friday afternoon that Judge Weber McCraw had approved the details of a $750,000 bond arranged by the family through Williams Bail Bond of Alamo. He said administrators were processing the paperwork to release her by Friday evening.

But shortly after 5 p.m., McCraw was informed by a judge in another county that Williams Bail Bond had been suspended over a 1999 incident, Farese said.

“The judge is just doing his job,” Farese said. “It would have been an error if she had been released.”

Williams Bail Bond employees would try to resolve any disputes and work toward a deal for Winkler’s release early next week, Farese said.

Winkler is charged with killing her husband Matthew with a single blast from a 12-gauge shotgun as he lay in bed at their church parsonage following a night of arguing over strained family finances and other matters. She has been in jail since March 23, the day after his death, awaiting trial.

Previously: Winkler’s Caught Up in Email Scam | Shot Dead Over Family Finances | Winkler: Opening Up | Winkler Attorneys Waive Fees | The Innocent Victims | Winkler Family Fund | Possible Winkler Defense? | Mary Winkler: “Overwhelmed and Confused” | Winkler Vs. the State of Tennessee | She Did It |

Will he? Won’t he? Will he? Won’t he?

That’s how the whole day went today. At one point, it seemed as though Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was ratcheting up his war machine to include a ground invasion of 40,000 troops. Next thing you know, he’s signed on to a cease fire agreement. Or has he?

What the ?

I’ve thought from the beginning that a cease fire means nothing more than a loss for Israel. While they adhere to the terms of the agreement, the Hezbollah terrorists will catch their breath, restock their weapons, repair what’s been broken, and then start all over again. I mean come on…THEY’RE TERRORISTS! They’re not a State.

And forget about those pansies in the Lebanese government. They haven’t pulled their heads out from under their bed covers for weeks.

Even the Brits are misguided.

“You never get a deal like this with everybody getting everything that they want,” British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said. “The question is, has everybody got enough for this to stick and for it to be enforceable? Nobody wants to go back to where we were before this last episode started.”

She obviously forgot she was negotiating with terrorists. A cease fire won’t “stick”. It’s merely a lull. A ‘time-out’ for Hezbollah. I predict they’ll start up again in no time.

And as for Olmert – his agreeing to the terms moves him one step closer to the exit door.

This certainly isn’t a surprise.

British officials Friday identified 19 of the suspects accused of planning to blow up U.S.-bound aircraft in the biggest terrorist plot to be uncovered since 9/11. In Pakistan, officials reported signs of an Al Qaeda connection and said they had detained a “key person” in the case.

That’s Al Qaeda, the Islamofacists. The terrorists. The people who want to kill you and me.

Somehow I feel like I have to remind people of that. Listening to talk radio today and watching television reports last night, it’s clear that a few people (OK, entire political parties and the MSM) have forgotten who Al Qaeda is.

Don’t forget.

Other Related News (courtesy of Drudge): Paper: Day of Terror Was Planned for August 16 | Officials Traced Plot Network Starting in July 2005 | Chertoff: No Evidence of U.S.-Based Threat Found | USA picked up suspects’ chatter and shared | PAPER: Biggest anti-terrorist surveillance operation ever mounted in the UK | ‘al Qaeda member held’ | Pregnant woman in pajamas arrested by terror police | Converts among those held | PAPER: Suspect ‘met Galloway’ | Police fear threat to Muslims | 40 Arrested in Italy |

Now that we know more about the planned terror attack against the US and UK, does anyone wonder if Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s August 22nd date to respond to an incentive package offered to him by the UN Security Council was set intentionally to occur after the fact?

…or is that a little too tin-foil hat-ish?

Discuss.

Doc Searls writes of his experience at Logan Airport in Boston today.

ABC News is reporting that at least two of the terror plot suspects had prepared martyrdom video tapes. The terrorists planned a dry run within two days.