Boston PD will report zombie invasion

See Consumerist.

Who knew Twitter was so useful?

Counterfeiting funds terrorism

Law enforcement officials on Capitol Hill Wednesday told a House panel that the booming international trade in phony consumer goods is funding terrorism. Link

So, Bogalusa PD, this was not your best idea:

"We decided to just take the items off the street,” Culpepper said, adding both business are legitimate with the proper licenses. “It’s what they were doing that was the problem.” Link

Gee, Capt. Culpepper, I trust this isn't the way you approach drug dealing? Just take the drugs away, let the perps go? How 'bout armed robbery? Victim gets his money back, bad guy stays on the street?

I. Didn't. Think. So.

Counterfeiting funds terrorism. The Fox News article linked above is from 2003. This ain't nothin' new.

Friday's Daily News has a front-page article about a couple guys arrested while selling counterfeit items. Their names sound, oh, Middle-Eastern to me.

I wonder if their profits were staying in the USA - or if they were going overseas to buy explosives for IEDs to kill our soldiers and Iraqi citizens.

I'm sure it's difficult being a cop in a small town, where you've got to arrest your cousin or your in-laws. But you swore an oath of office; do your job, and leave the judging to the court and jury. Arrest the bad guys, including the store owners, because unless they unwittingly purchased fake goods from their regular supplier (doesn't sound like it), they're just as guilty as the ones driving the truck.

In the latest case, you might want to alert the FBI, in case the scoundrels have terrorist connections.

Daniel's Big Trip

Daniel, a wounded vet in med school, is driving around the country with his wacky Boxer Rocky and blogging it.

Cool stuff! Read it, and donate. Least we can do for one of America's heroes.

RIP, Justin Mixon

From wwltv.com [requires login]:

A soldier from Bogalusa died in Iraq Sunday from wounds suffered when his vehicle came into contact with an improvised explosive device, the Department of Defense announced Monday.

Spc. Justin R. Mixon, 22, was assigned to the 1st Squadron, 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment.

Godspeed.

UPDATE:

More here.
Family?

Iraq is a quagmire - for al Qaida

From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, seen at Gulf Coast Pundit:

Jihadis, money and weapons were poured into Iraq. All for naught. Al-Qaida has been driven from every neighborhood in Baghdad, Maj. Gen. Joseph Fil, the U.S. commander there, said Nov. 7. This follows the expulsion of al-Qaida from two previous “capitals” of its Islamic Republic of Iraq, Ramadi and Baquba.[...]
Al-Qaida’s support in the Muslim world has plummeted, partly because of the terror group’s lack of success in Iraq, more because al-Qaida’s attacks have mostly killed Muslim civilians.[...]“The situation has changed so unmistakably and so swiftly that we should be reading proud headlines daily,” said Ralph Peters, a retired Army lieutenant colonel. “Where are they?”

Read the whole thing. Then ask yourself if journalists deserve any respect for the lying, twisting, and obfuscation they've done about the war.

Recall the themes of nearly all the news about Iraq and our troops, according to most reporters: Our soldiers are savages, Iraqis hate us, the world hates us, 9/11 was our own fault, Iraq is another Vietnam, we'll never win, blah blah blah. Barely a word about the defeat of al Qaida in Bakuba, Ramadi and Baghdad, or the deaths of terrorists over there. Thousands of words about the few atrocities committed by a tiny number of our troops, and deaths of civilians and our soldiers.

I spit on you, Mainstream Media.

Support our troops

Buy their books: House to House

Terrorism news

20 arrested in Italy

Children recruited, groomed for terrorist attacks

Progress in the war

From Countercolumn: Zero casualties in Al Anbar last week - for the first time since 2003.

Guess these guys were wrong: Anbar province "politically lost", 9/11/2006. Heh.

Anbar background

Al Qaeda arrests around the world [from Long War Journal]:

Six in Spain
Seven in France

Best. News. Ever. - "The darkness has become pitch black" - Osama runnin' scared, lol.

Troops unite to save soldier knifed in head

Seen at Grunt Doc:

His survival relied on the Army’s top vascular neurosurgeon guiding Iraq-based U.S. military physicians via laptop, the Air Force’s third nonstop medical evacuation from Central Command to America, and the best physicians Bethesda National Naval Medical Center in Maryland could offer.

Read the whole thing at Army Times. Wow.

Yon on Beauchamp

Required reading:

Some months ago, a soldier in Baghdad wrote a piece on the way war can degrade the morals and affect the judgment of combat soldiers. His story was published at face-value in The New Republic magazine. In it the soldier wrote terrible things about his unit, making the article sensational.

I was in Iraq when it first hit the stands and someone asked me about the plausibility of the events described in the article. I skimmed the story but it did not even pass a simple sniff-test. With a shooting war going on, there is no time for trivial pursuits, so my only comment was something like, “It sounds like a bunch of garbage.” Turned out it was.

The soldier’s name was Beauchamp. He’d tried to hide his identity, but poor Beauchamp had no idea that the blog world would get on his trail and tree him like a coon. Beauchamp crawled up to the top of that tree, looked down into the snarling spotlight, and suddenly knew he was caught.

Also Michelle Malkin: The New Republic Comes Out From Under Its Desk.

Today's must-read

Having volunteered for Iraq, Mark Daily was killed in January by an I.E.D. Dismayed to learn that his pro-war articles helped persuade Daily to enlist, the author measures his words against a family's grief and a young man's sacrifice. Link.

via Gulf Coast Pundit

Media bias

An outstanding article about media bias in reporting on the war.

Obviously, we can't expect Big Media to police itself. They're too busy publishing forged documents as true, ditto using faked photos, and hiring liars.

All to advance their America-hating, jihadi-loving agenda. Older readers will recall the similarity with coverage of Vietnam.

UPDATE: The Daily News also a bit truth-challenged.

Michael Yon

An extraordinary journalist.

If you aren't familiar with his site, g'wan over there now.

Nice preview with pics here [PDF].

The traitorous little jihadi had a blog.

Daniel Joseph Maldonado - also known by some Arabic-sounding name... You know, the fool who's a US citizen and took off to Somalia to train as a "holy warrior" and kill people for al Qaeda.

He's now in US custody.

And he was a blogger.

Don't forget to read the comments. Bad language, sexual references, but a lot of 'em are a scream.

"Fighting Words"

Seen at Blackfive (which y'all should be reading daily), Trace Adkins' song set to pics by Subsunk:



More about these Congressional Medal of Honor recipients:

SFC Paul Ray Smith, US Army. Bio.

CPL Jason L. Dunham

Afghans for Afghans

I was at Michelle Malkin's site reading this post...

and followed the link to Crochet Guild of America's charity page...

and thence to Afghans for Afghans:

afghans for Afghans is a humanitarian and educational people-to-people project that sends hand-knit and crocheted blankets and sweaters, vests, hats, mittens, and socks to the beleaguered people of Afghanistan.

This grassroots effort is inspired by Red Cross volunteers who made afghans, socks, slippers, and other items for soldiers and refugees during World Wars I and II and other times of crisis and need.

Knit one, purl two for a great cause.

Graffiti or something more sinister?

At The Aviation Nation:

The first time flight attendant Charlotte Smith* found the mysterious writing inside the bathroom cabinet of a 757 aircraft while flying for a major airline, she got spooked. It was February 23, 2005. A flight attendant for twelve years, Charlotte was working the coach class cabin of flight 853 traveling from New Jersey to California. Everything was normal, until her discovery.

In the first of a series of interviews, Charlotte explained:

“By a fluke, I opened up a compartment in the mid-galley lav [lavatory] and there it was, on the back of the cabinet behind where you refill the paper towels:

CHENAULT LIVES

ZATU

The three words Charlotte found were handwritten in black marker and in capital letters. Puzzled by the presence of odd handwriting on an area of an airplane that is off limits to passengers, Charlotte began to look further. She then opened up each of the compartments in that lavatory, carefully examining each panel wall. That’s when she discovered another set of words, also written in black marker, but inside a different cabinet.

Read the whole thing.

ADDENDUM: I finally moseyed over to the graffiti page. 64AB... I'm not connected with law enforcement, but the thing that comes to my mind with the letters "AB" is the Aryan Brotherhood.

And as the article points out, "Chenault" could stand for Marcus Chenault, the nutjob who murdered MLK Jr's mother in 1974.

Perhaps this graffiti isn't related to Islamic terrorism, but a more homegrown group of extremists?

"Retreat isn't an option"

Liz Cheney gets it:

We are at war. America faces an existential threat. This is not, as Speaker Nancy Pelosi has claimed, a "situation to be solved." It would be nice if we could wake up tomorrow and say, as Sen. Barack Obama suggested at a Jan. 11 hearing, "Enough is enough." Wishing doesn't make it so.

Go ye and read it all, for it is good.

Don't do business with Discount Mats.

Via Gulf Coast Pundit:

Wisconsin Mat Company Gives US Troops the Finger

The link leads to Gateway Pundit, and this:

Sgt. Hess, who is from the 1st Cavalry Division stationed in Iraq, emailed a company called discount-mats.com, an online retailer in West Allis, Wisconsin to inquire about ordering some mats but wanted to verify that they would ship to a APO.

From: SGT Jason Hess
Sent: Tue Jan 16 3:25

Do you ship to APO address? I’m in the 1st Cavalry Division stationed in Iraq and we are trying to order some mats but we are looking for who ships to APO first.

Well, you wouldn’t believe the disgusting reply he received back from the company:

From: contact@discount-mats.com
Sent: Tuesday, January 16, 2007 9:44 PM
Subject: Re: Feedback: from discount-mats.com

SGT Hess,
We do not ship to APO addresses, and even if we did, we would NEVER ship to Iraq. If you were sensible, you and your troops would pull out of Iraq.

Bargain Suppliers
Discount-Mats.com

As Gateway Pundit notes, it's been verified as true by Snopes.

Send an email, phone, write 'em a snail mail. They deserve it [big evil grin].

414-736-8394 contact@discount-mats.com

Bargain Suppliers
3259 S.106th Street
West Allis, WI 53227

"Yalla Ya Nasrallah"

Hilarious video with a catchy tune and footage of Israel's military. Subtitled in English.

If you know the artist, please post it in the comments.