Do you remember back when right-wingers used to joke, “If a liberal Democrat is elected president, and commander-in-chief, we’ll be reading terrorists their Miranda rights”? Do you remember that? It was funny, wasn’t it?

Yes, I remember that. I’d have to say I found it more frightening than funny. I also remember people telling us not to worry, that Obama was serious about keeping our nation and our soldiers safe…

Hamas is ready to accept a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders but “it will not recognise Israel,” the Islamist movement’s exiled chief Khaled Meshaal told a news conference Monday.

“We accept a Palestinian state within the June 4 1967 borders with Jerusalem as its capital — a sovereign state without settlements — as well as the right of Palestinian refugees to return, but without recognition of Israel,” he said.

Isn’t that nice? So they’re willing to negotiate with Israel as long as Israel agrees to cease to exist. Yep, all this violence, it’s Israel’s fault.

Meshaal was making his first public comment following two meetings in Damascus with former US president Jimmy Carter, who said earlier Monday Hamas told him it would accept the right of Israel “to live as a neighbour” if a peace deal was approved by a Palestinian referendum.

Jimmy Carter is an embarassment to the United States and a useful idiot to terrorists.

Myth No. 1: Four novice pilots with no experience could never have successfully guided those planes into three out of four targets.

Fact: The hijackers were not experienced pilots, nor had they ever piloted commercial airliners, but they also didn’t have to do any of the three most difficult flying maneuvers—flying in inclement weather, taking off, or landing. Only four of the hijackers were trained to fly—one for each flight. Three of the four had trained and earned private pilot’s licenses. The fourth, Hani Hanjour (American Airlines Flight 77) had both a private and commercial license, and experience with small commercial aircraft.

All were trained in auto-pilot and navigational systems, and would have only had to plug in GPS coordinates and point the planes in the right direction to hit their targets. The day was clear, the targets were clearer. Experts conclude their skills would have been more than sufficient to finish their missions.

Myth No. 2: The “official story” concludes that fires set off by the jet fuel and initial explosions of the aircraft entering the World Trade Center towers caused the steel structure to weaken and eventually fail. But “no large, steel-frame, fire-protected building had ever collapsed before due solely to fire,” is how the book “Debunking 9/11 Myths” restates the idea. Theorists conclude it must have been controlled demolition that led to collapse.

Fact: Each plane was carrying thousands of pounds of jet fuel, which burns at 2,190 degrees Fahrenheit, a great deal lower than the temperature required to melt steel (2,750).

Experts and investigations conclude that steel didn’t have to melt to cause collapse. Instead, the planes entering the buildings at 750 feet per second caused significant damage. They were banked at an angle that took out multiple floors upon impact and likely stripped the fireproofing from the core load-bearing structures on those floors. Jet fuel then ignited everything inside the buildings.

Steel weakens at as low as 400 degrees. At 980, it’s at only 10 percent strength, according to industry experts. As the core steel columns weakened, load-bearing was transferred to the building’s shell. As the fires continued to burn, multiple floors weakened, sagged, and pulled on the outside structure causing total collapse.

The jet fuel followed the path of least resistance, incidentally, which means some of it flowed down the elevator shafts from the top of the building, causing explosions and fireballs on lower floors, which conspiracy theorists sometimes cite as evidence of bombs.

Myth No. 3: World Trade Center 7 could not possibly have collapsed due only to collateral damage sustained from the Towers’ collapse. That was controlled demolition, too.

Fact: An early FEMA report puzzled over the collapse of WTC 7 because it appeared to have sustained little structural damage and been brought down by fire alone. Truthers latch onto the early FEMA report as proof, but further investigation has found that one face of the building had damage to 10 lower stories. That damage was obscured by smoke in most photographic evidence.

There are also a number of idiosyncrasies in the building’s design that contributed. It was built over a power substation, which meant the relatively few columns on the lower floors were designed to carry extremely large loads. Taking out just one would have caused serious problems. WTC 7 was designed to stay operational during power outages, so several fuel tanks for generators inside the building are thought to have supplied the fires with fuel for up to seven hours.

Myth No. 4: Flight 93 was shot down. The relatively little wreckage at the scene, large pieces of wreckage miles away from the crash site, and evidence of a mysterious white jet in the vicinity all confirm that the government disposed of Flight 93 with extreme prejudice.

Fact: Flight 93 flew into the ground, at a steep angle, at about 580 mph, disintegrating most of the wreckage. What did remain, notably a large piece of engine fan, the Truthers claim ended up miles away from the site, indicating the plane was breaking up before impact. In fact, the fan in question landed 300 yards from the site, and other small bits of paper and scrap metal floated a mile and a half and landed in Indian Lake. Truthers claim Indian Lake is 6 miles away from the crash site, betraying investigation skills hampered by Google Maps. The lake is 1.5 miles away as the crow flies; 6 miles driving.

There was a small corporate jet in the vicinity at the time, descending toward Johnstown, Penn. when the FAA ordered it to check out the area at Shanksville. The plane descended to 1,500 feet, found a smoking hole in the ground, marked the position with the plane’s navigational equipment, and headed to the airport.

Myth No. 5: The Pentagon was hit with a cruise missile. The hole left in the side of the building was nowhere near big enough to have been caused by an airliner.

Fact: The hole in the side of the Pentagon was approximately 90 feet wide, according to The Pentagon Building Performance Report, but it was not the exact width of the 124-foot plane.

Both wings were damaged before the plane entered the building. According to eyewitness reports from commuters on I-395 and observers in the Pentagon parking lot at the time, the right wing hit a large generator and the plane clipped three light posts on its low, barreling descent.

The Pentagon, because it’s the Pentagon, is built of extremely dense reinforced concrete columns. When the plane hit them going 530 mph, it essentially disintegrated. As one observer said, the plane seemed to “melt into the building.”

Parts of the plane that did remain intact past impact flew far into the building. The heavy landing gear created a 16-foot hole in Ring C of the Pentagon, a full 6 walls beyond the entry point, and the flight data recorder was found 300 feet inside the building. Truthers contend that the 16-foot hole had to have been made by a missile.

Somehow “thousands have been killed” is never qualified as those mostly butchered and blown up by insurgents–since the loose use of the passive voice lends a general sense that somehow Americans are directly involved in, or responsible for, the killing.

I don’t see how the death toll has anything to do with whether the US was right in going to Iraq or not. What is the number of casualties that would have been acceptable? Sure, the death toll is depressingly high. But most of the casualties are caused by terrorists blowing up fellow Muslims. How can the US be blamed for that? If a police officer arrests a woman’s abusive husband and the neighbor kills her, is the police officer to blame? It doesn’t make any sense to blame the US for the actions of terrorists. Then again, liberals don’t want to blame anyone for their own actions. It is always someone else’s fault. No murderer deserves to be executed, because it always turns out the poor guy was made fun of when he was in school or his daddy left him. It’s all the same. Personal accountability is a thing of the past.

“Allah, take hold of the Jews and their allies, Allah, take hold of the Americans and their allies. … Allah, count them and kill them to the last one and don’t leave even one,” said Bahar last week in a speech broadcast on official PA television, which is controlled by PA President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party.

Palestinian leader: ‘Kill every American and Jew’

I recently had a dream that British marines fought back, like their forefathers of old, against criminals and pirates. When taken captive, they proved defiant in their silence. When released, they talked to the tabloids with restraint and dignity, and accepted no recompense…

…NATO countries would then warn Iran that their next unprovoked attack on a vessel of a member nation would incite the entire alliance against them in a response that truly would be of a “disproportionate” nature…

…And then I woke up, remembering that the West of old lives only in dreams. Yes, the new religion of the post-Westerner is neither the Enlightenment nor Christianity, but the gospel of the Path of Least Resistance  one that must lead inevitably to gratification rather than sacrifice.

Once one understands this new creed, then all the surreal present at last makes sense: life in the contemporary West is so good, so free, so undemanding, that we will pay, say, and suffer almost anything to enjoy its uninterrupted continuance — and accordingly avoid almost any principled act that might endanger it.

The Postwest

Arguably, they already knew number two, since so far supplying weapons to kill American soldiers in Iraq has gone unpunished. I would not want to be among the next hostages taken. The next hostages are likely to be treated far worse, and I imagine they will probably be executed. Iran has no reason now to stop trying to become a nuclear power, either.

It looks to me like there will be hell to pay.

“Obviously, you should post your contribution … as an American … You should correspond with visitors to this forum, [bringing to their attention] the frustrating situation of their troops in Iraq … You should invent stories about American soldiers you have [allegedly] personally known (as classmates … or members in a club who played baseball and tennis with you) who were drafted to Iraq and then committed suicide while in service by hanging or shooting themselves.”

Terrorists use Web against ‘idiot’ Americans

I wonder if the jihadists didn’t plant Rosie O’Donnell. She’s a loon.

Rosie: Captured Brits a hoax to provoke war

The headlines they use to describe Israel in the mainstream media are ridiculous. How can anyone negotiate with another party that refuses to even acknowledge their right to exist? How can any sane person encourage someone to engage in such utterly pointless talks?