Paul Ponders Grill Work

So what would you do if someone dropped the equivalent of $200,000 dollars in your lap? I am sure each of us has their own thoughts, but for the world's next great tenor, Paul Potts, the answer is to pay down bills and get your teeth fixed:

Singing mobile phone salesman Paul Potts woke up £100,000 richer today after winning television show Britain's Got Talent, and revealed that he will spend part of his prize money clearing debts and improving his teeth.

Paul Potts, 36, won over the nation with a performance of Nessun Dorma in the final of the hit ITV1 talent show, watched by 12.1 million viewers.

The former Tesco shelf-stacker from Port Talbot, South Wales, will now perform in front of the Queen at the Royal Variety Performance.

Potts said that his win had not yet sunk in but that he was planning to pay off his £30,000 debts - although he was not 100-per cent sure about giving up his day job.

Potts spent £12,000 on singing lessons before deciding his dream was not meant to be. He began stacking shelves in Tesco but had to quit work because of a spell of ill health.

Doctors treated him for appendicitis and removed a benign tumour, while Potts also broke his collarbone.

He landed a job at Carphone Warehouse after battling back to health and married a woman he met on the internet.

Today Potts said: "There are a few people who are going to want me to pay off some debts.

"Two years off sick knocks you for six when all you have to live on is your credit card. I had to work hard just to keep my head above water.

"I still can't believe I'm in this position. I don't know how long it's going to take to sink in. At the moment it's all a bit of a haze."

Potts, who has also landed a record deal with Simon Cowell, the TV show judge, said of fixing his teeth: "I'm not sure about veneers but I do want to get the crown repaired. It would be nice to be able to smile naturally. I feel very self conscious about it at the moment. But whatever I do I'm not going to change who I am."

"I'm a team leader at Carphone Warehouse but I don't think anybody is expecting me back. I'll just see what happens," he added.

Potts said of his wife, Julie Ann: "I would like to treat her to a nice holiday, maybe a safari. That would be a nice luxury item."

Read the entire story here. If for any reason you missed any of Paul's incredibly moving performances in the Britain's Got Talent show, please see here, here, and here. Paul's voice is so good, his personal story so sympathetic, and his demeanor so likeable, he may well be that very rarest of stars who appeals beyond his genre. He might well bring Opera to the unwashed masses . . . on both sides of the pond.

(H/T Dinah Lord)

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Does This Washington Post Article Constitute News?

It is hard to imagine how today's Washington Post article, "Iraq Sinking Fast," could be viewed as anything other then agenda journalism at its worst. It is particularly odious, coming as it does, on the first day of major offensives against al Qaeda. As our soldiers fight and die, the Post prints this tripe saying all is lost and it is time to give up. What a craven and despicable lot they are indeed.

The article is the Post's take on a report released by the "Fund for Peace," an organization that the Post tells us is a "research organization and advocacy group." The group says that Iraq is lost and we should leave it in three pieces. Does that sound familiar? Do Reid and Pelosi come to mind.

The ethically challenged Post does not tell us anything about the Fund for Peace that would allow its readers to judge the bias and validity of the Fund's message, but if you click on the Fund's website, you will learn that this is an organization that views all "violence as the last refuge of the incompetent." One almost expects to hear "Kumbiyah" playing in the background. A thorough check of the site reveals not a mention of any of the following: Wahhabi Islam, Khomeinism, Iran, radical Islam, al Qaeda, bin Laden, Zawahiri, nuclear terrorism, Anbar Awakening, counterinsurgeny, surge, 9-11, 7-7, etc. The fact that not just one, but all of these topics are ignored by the "Fund for Peace" might suggest to Post readers that what they are reading is not quite balanced and "reality based."

Of course you will find none of this in the Washington Post report. The Post is fine with merely reporting this groups anti Iraq war message without digging at all into its validitiy or bias. It is only the message that is important.

"The report tells us that Iraq is sinking fast," said Fund for Peace President Pauline Baker. "We believe it's reached the point of no return. We have recommended -- based on studies done every six months since the U.S. invasion -- that the administration face up to the reality that the only choices for Iraq are how and how violently it will break up."

In a parallel series of reports, the Fund for Peace, a research and advocacy group, suggests a policy of managed partition for Iraq.

Ah, such a wonderful thought. Let's just split up Iraq and then we can all get along. Letting alone for the moment that this plan wholly ignores the surge, this is dangerously, if not suicidally, sophmoric.

As a threshold matter, allowing the Kurds to form their own country or anything resembling such an entity in the north is an invitation to a military response from Turkey and quite possibly Iran, neither of whom are willing to tolerate anything resembling a Kurdish state to emerge from Iraq. Both see such as a major threat, given their own large Kurdish populations. Turkey has been quite open about what their response will be.

Two, the Sunnis, including Sunni insurgents, are in open revolt against al Qaeda in Iraq and, in the Sunni stronghold of Anbar, it would appear that the Sunnis are joining with the government. The plan to subdivide Iraq completely ignores those realities. But there is more. It would abandon the Sunni areas to be reoccupied by the better funded, better armed and incredibly brutal al Qaeda. And al Qaeads
is fighting to establish an Islamic state or caliphate in Iraq, not simply a portion of Iraq.

Lastly, if not most importantly, it leaves Shia Iraq to fall wholly under the influence of Iran. Iran is doing all it can at the moment to influence the Iraqi government, and indeed, in Sadr's Mahdi Army, it has something that is beginning to resemble a Hezbollah like proxy force. The greatest brake on Iranian influence at the moment is that even now, Shia's only hold a plurality in Iraq's government and thus must look to Kurds and Sunni legislators to govern. Neither the Sunnis nor the Kurds appear willing to tolerate Iranian influence. Yet to follow the partition plan would be to abandon the majority of Iraq directly to Iran.

Thanks for reporting this as news, Washington Post. We salute you for your integrity and patriotism. And we wish that your stock prices go the way of the New York Times.

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Fred on Harry & Fred Crosses The Pond

To the four or five people who regularly read this blog, you know how many times I have called for our political leaders to begin directly taking on the outrageous statements of Give 'Em Surrender Harry Reid and his far left band of power hungy surrendocrats occupying the darkest recesses of Congress. Why is it not surprising that the one man to step to the plate and start challenging Reid by name is Fred Thompson:

Well, you've heard by now that Senate leader Harry Reid insulted one of this country's brightest military minds, Marine Corps General Peter Pace -- calling him "incompetent." Let me take a few moments to put this in context.

First, Harry Reid voted for the war, like a majority of our legislators. America decided as a nation to free Iraq and the region from Saddam Hussein's tyranny. I have friends, both Democrat and Republican, who questioned the decision at the time, but the Republic made a commitment based on constitutional and democratic procedures. So they are now a hundred percent committed to moving forward in a way that’s best for our country. None of them, by the way, believe surrendering to the forces of terror in Iraq is what's best for our country.

Harry Reid, though, has taken a different route. He made his statement about General Pace on a conference call with fringe elements of the blogosphere who think we're the bad guys. This is a place where even those who think the 9/11 attacks were an inside job find a home.

And why shouldn't they think that? Reid has led the attack on the administration, with Nancy Pelosi, charging it lied and tricked America into supporting the war. Ignoring multiple hearings and investigations into pre-war intelligence findings that have debunked this paranoid myth, they accuse an entire administration of conspiracy to trick us into a war.

I suppose that's easier for some than admitting that they've flip flopped -- but the fact that Reid says this sinister Republican plot is going to help him elect more Democrats ought to be raising a few flags. Saying General Pace is incompetent doesn't even rank near the top of his bizarre statements.

How could anyone possibly believe, as Reid charges, that our commanding general in Iraq, David Petraeus, is out of touch with what's going on. Surely someone in Reid's position would know that Petraeus is briefed daily on all aspects of Iraq -- from civil to military. Surely he has to know that Petraeus is a true warrior scholar who literally wrote the Army's book on counterinsurgency warfare.

But Reid's comments are not meant for logical analysis. He proclaimed the war lost some time ago, and the surge as a failure even before the additional troops were on the ground. The problem is that every one of Reid's comments I've noted here has also been reported gleefully by Al Jazeera and other anti-American media. Whether he means to or not, he’s encouraging our enemies to believe that they are winning the critical war of will.

Read the entire article here. On other matters, in a bit of very Reaganesque political theatre (British spelling used deliberately), Fred has flown across the pond to, among other things, seek the blessings of Britain's Iron Lady, the former staunch Reagan ally, Margaret Thatcher. While there, Fred will be delivering a speech on foreign policy:

Thompson will deliver the foreign policy speech, "Strengthening the Transatlantic Alliance," on Tuesday at the Policy Exchange, a conservative think tank based in London.

It will stress the importance of American alliances abroad, his advisers said.

"The speech is mostly about the unique and special relationship between the U.S. and the U.K," an adviser said on condition of anonymity, because the prospective campaign has not publicly announced details of the address. "It is about how we have a responsibility to stand together and lead the Western democracies, protect our civilization and stand together for freedom."

Read the entire article here. This is a genuis bit of political theatre and substance on Fred's part. Making the visual tie in with Reagan's closest ally is powerful theatre. As to the substance, as the few people who regularly follow this blog know, I could not agree more with the position Fred will espouse in his speech. The US is the child of Britain in terms of its laws, politics and economy. Thus, the US and the UK are the most natural of allies. And as the history of the last century has taught us, as we together go, so goes Western Civilization.

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US Military Maximizing The Opportunity To Meet Allah

The combined arms combat power of the U.S. military, wielded by the most well trained soldiers on this earth, is a wonderful and terrifying thing indeed. And with it, the dynamic in Iraq has just changed 180 degrees. General Petraeus has wasted no time now that all promised troops for the surge are on the ground in Iraq. The mission has now changed from emphasizing the creation of static outposts in Baghdad to large scale offensive operations aimed primarilly at al Qaeda. And as previously predicted, the first big offensive is going into Diyala Province, now the home base of al Qaeda in Iraq. This today from the AP:

About 10,000 U.S. soldiers launched an offensive against al-Qaida in Iraq northeast of Baghdad early Tuesday, killing at least 22 insurgents, the U.S. military said.

The raids, dubbed "Operation Arrowhead Ripper," took place in Baqouba, the capital of Diyala province, and involved air assaults under the cover of darkness, the military said in a statement. The operation was still in its opening stages, it said.

On Monday, military officials said U.S. and Iraqi forces had launched attacks on Baghdad's northern and southern flanks to clear out Sunni insurgents, al-Qaida fighters and Shiite militiamen who had fled the capital and Anbar during a four-month-old security operation.

A top U.S. military official said American forces were taking advantage of the arrival of the final brigade of 30,000 additional U.S. troops to open concerted attacks.

"We are going into the areas that have been sanctuaries of al-Qaida and other extremists to take them on and weed them out, to help get the areas clear and to really take on al-Qaida," the senior official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about the operation. "Those are areas in the belts around Baghdad, some parts in Anbar province and specifically Diyala province."

Al-Qaida has proven to be an extremely agile foe for U.S. and Iraqi forces, as shown by its ability to transfer major operations to Baqouba from Anbar province, the sprawling desert region in western Iraq. There is no guarantee that driving the organization out of current sanctuaries would prevent it from migrating to other regions to continue the fight.

The death toll in sectarian violence Monday skyrocketed after a brief period of relative peace. At least 111 people were killed or found dead nationwide, with 33 bodies of torture victims showing up in Baghdad alone.

Well to the south, Iraqi officials reported as many as 36 people were killed in fierce overnight fighting that began as British and Iraqi forces conducted house-to-house searches in Amarah, a stronghold of the Shiite Mahdi Army militia.

The U.S. military issued a statement that said at least 20 people were killed in clashes with coalition forces. A spokeswoman for Britain's Ministry of Defense said British soldiers played a supporting role to Iraqi security forces during the raid and fighting in Amarah. She spoke on condition of anonymity, which is ministry policy.

The operations on Baghdad's flanks were opened by the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division, which has taken over dangerous al-Qaida-infested regions to the south. The division began its drive into the Salman Pak and Arab Jabour districts on the city's southeastern fringe over the weekend.

At the time, ground forces commander Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno said U.S. troops were heading into those areas in force for the first time in three years.

The military said in a statement Monday that fighter jets dropped "four precision-guided bombs" in support of 1,200 U.S. soldiers from the 3rd Infantry as they started moving on al-Qaida targets.

Military officials said Multi-National Division-North forces likewise were increasing pressure on al-Qaida sanctuaries northeast of the capital in the verdant orange and palm groves of Diyala, now one of the most fiercely contested regions in Iraq.

The province is a tangle of Shiite and Sunni villages that has played into the hands of al-Qaida and allied militants who have melted into the tense region and sought to inflame existing sectarian troubles.

Al-Qaida has conducted public executions in the Baqouba main square and otherwise sought to enforce an extreme Taliban-style Islamic code. The terror organization's actions in the province have caused some Sunni militants, al-Qaida's natural allies, to turn their guns on the group with American assistance and blessing. Some militant Shiites are likewise joining government forces in a bid to oust the foreign fighters and Muslim extremists.

Multi-National Division-Baghdad, which has run the security operation in the capital since it began on Feb. 14, has increased pressure on districts to the northwest of the city to cut supply and reinforcement lines from Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, to the Baqouba region.

"We're focusing up in the northwest to apply force in an area that's been important to al-Qaida and its associates as they move between Ramadi and Baqouba. That work, together with the developing efforts to provide local security through the (Sunni) tribes in Abu Ghraib and Amariyah, is putting pressure on al-Qaida," said Lt. Col. Scott Bleichwehl, division spokesman.

Some Sunni tribes, which had fought with or offered sanctuary to al- Qaida in Anbar province, have risen up against the group and are now receiving arms and training from U.S. forces. American military officials are trying to spread that success to al-Qaida areas now under attack.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, told visiting Defense Secretary Robert Gates last week that the United States should stop arming Sunnis who may have been part of the insurgency, according to officials in his office. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information. Al-Maliki repeated that position in a television interview in Baghdad on Monday. . . .

Read the entire story here. Just as a side note, while one cannot blame the AP author for speculating that driving al Qaeda out of Diyala will mean they just turn up somewhere else, it also shows that they lack a bit in the hold on reality department. Al Qaeda will never be able to take root and create the kind of destruction it has to this point without having support or acuquiesence of the local populace. The reason that al Qaeda has headed in large numbers to Diyala is because that support is no longer avaialbe to them in much of Baghdad and Anbar, but it was present in parts of Diyala. This is not whack-a-mole. It is much more akin to methodically cornering an animal, taking away their freedom of movement piece by piece. The available dens for al Qaeda are drying up save for the last - the one where you meet Allah and inquire whether all that stuff about 72 nubile virgins is real or not.

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More On Bias At The BBC

As noted in yesterday's post on bias of the Beeb, the BBC's internal report on its bias is in fact posted today. The report, "From Seesaw to Wagon Wheel: Safeguarding Impartiality in the 21st Century," is posted in pdf sections at the BBC Trust Website here. I've downloaded it but have only had time to skim it. There is a good piece from today's Telegraph - from people who have read the report - likening it to an alcoholic's first realization that he may in fact have a wee bit of a drinking problem:

When it comes to accusations of Left-liberal bias, the BBC is a bit like an alcoholic. People have been sniggering about his drinking for years; he pretends not to notice. There have been complaints; he brushes them aside. Throwing up at that wedding reception? Someone spiked the punch.

Propositioning the boss's wife? That was a joke. But, deep down, the drunk knows he has a problem. More to the point, he knows that everyone else knows. So, nervously, he's prepared to admit that he might be a little too fond of the sauce.

Yesterday, the BBC Trust published From Seesaw to Wagon Wheel, an 81-page report with the subtitle "Safeguarding Impartiality in the 21st century".

That's a bit like the late Boris Yeltsin talking about safeguarding his sobriety. It is, however, the first time that the corporation has attempted to address the question, so we should read the report carefully.

The first reaction is to sigh with relief. The report acknowledges that "mainstream opinion" was wrong to attack monetarism, to belittle Euro-sceptics as small-minded and blinkered, and to assume that multi-culturalism would solve the problems of immigration.

Justin Webb, the BBC's Washington correspondent, is quoted as saying that "in the tone of what we say about America, we have a tendency to scorn and deride." (Would "we" in this instance mean Matt Frei, I wonder?) Roger Mosey, former head of BBC television news, says he has "some sympathies with what Janet Daley says generally about a liberal/pinko agenda".

Stephen Whittle, a former controller of the BBC's editorial policy, says that its journalists work within a straitjacket of unchallenged liberal assumptions.

You're telling me. A few years ago, I wrote a column called "Beebwatch" for this newspaper. That involved listening to hours of BBC output every day. It was a maddening experience. I simply could not believe the ease with which representatives of Lefty pressure groups commandeered segments of Woman's Hour and Today, their soprano nagging accompanied by pizzicato clucks from the friendly interviewer.

I was outraged and, like many outraged people, became a raging bore on the subject. After the column finished, I worried whether I might have exaggerated the problem.
But then I met Robin Aitken, a BBC reporter for 25 years, who reckons that during his time on Today, The Money Programme and Breakfast News he couldn't have formed a cricket team from Tory sympathisers at the BBC.

His book Can We Trust the BBC? argues that the Left-liberal culture at White City is basically intact. Aitken, admittedly, is a Conservative, so perhaps he would say that. But Rod Liddle, former editor of Today, definitely isn't, and in The Spectator last month he listed the groups that the BBC thinks it's OK to be horrible about: evangelical Christians, the Countryside Alliance, multi-national corporations, supporters of Israel.

Ah yes, Israel. One of the few BBC journalists criticised in yesterday's report was Barbara Plett, who burst into tears when Yasser Arafat was airlifted out of his compound and then boasted about it in an article. She was caught red-handed, in other words; the incident became famous and so the report produces her as a burnt offering.

In contrast, we are told only that "a BBC News presenter" was unwise to write an article in the Daily Mirror entitled "Why the World Needs Hillary". That means you, Gavin Esler, though I had to use Google to find out.

Which brings us to the real reason this document has appeared. Google, YouTube, Al-Jazeera, Fox News: all these outlets provide competition for the BBC. The report acknowledges as much, referring in typical Beeb style to the "alternative vision" of Al-Jazeera, but to Fox's "avowedly opinionated" stance. Suddenly, the BBC finds that its reputation for impartiality has become its unique selling point, the only thing standing between it and privatisation.

Time to panic. For years, the corporation has ignored the little voice in its head that says impartiality went out of the window with Margaret Thatcher; it could afford to, because its critics had no redress and few media outlets.

But now anyone can mock the BBC on a blog or YouTube, or watch an excellent internet channel, 18 Doughty Street, founded by centre-Right entrepreneurs: the BBC report calls it "a harbinger of partisan television", but the truth is that, because it operates outside an ideological straitjacket, it is less partisan than, say, Radio 4.

This report is a step in the right direction. But, as anyone who has ever dealt with an alcoholic will confirm, it is best not to get your hopes up. Nothing will happen without a desire to change; and I don't think Auntie is ready to come off the sauce.

Read the entire story here. Actually this is not the first attempt to address the problem. There is the Balen Report on anti-Israeli, pro-Arab bias that the BBC was allowed to unconscionably spend 200,000 pounds in taxpayer funds in a successful effort to suppress the contents in the face of the British equivalent of a Freedom of Information Act challenge. That rather outrageous act is still in the courts as we speak, but there seems no mention of it in this BBC Report made public. That alone suggests that the Telegraph may be right, that the Beeb may know it has a drinking problem, but is not yet ready to admit how destructive it is, and not yet ready to fix it.

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Brits & Iraqis Target Sadr & His Iranian Smuggling Operation

Good news coming out of the British sector in Iraq today. This from the Telegraph:

Up to 36 people were killed in southern Iraq today as British forces conducted house to house searches aimed at weeding out Shia militants smuggling weapons from Iran.

Fierce fighting broke out in the towns of Amarah and Majar al-Kabir, 200 miles south-east of Baghdad, as Iraqi special forces backed by the British moved in on the smugglers.

. . . Iraqi police said the Mehdi Army of radical Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr was involved in the clashes, which took place in the Maysan province bordering Iran and lasted for about two hours before dawn. A Mehdi Army official said 17 of its members had been killed and 45 wounded.

America and Britain have frequently accused Shia Iran of fomenting violence in Iraq by supplying weapons and support to hardline Shia groups in the country.

Only last month coalition forces claimed to have intercepted plastic explosives said to have been supplied by agents of Iran's Revolutionary Guards.

Today’s raids took place in the neighbourhoods of al-Mulameen, Um Ghurba and al-Qatta'a, in eastern Amarah, as well as in the Mijar area, about 20 miles west of the city.

British military spokesman Major David Gell said: "We have not yet got the full details, but certainly it was an Iraqi Special Operations Forces operation which had been authorised by the government of Iraq last night and multinational forces were supporting."

Elsewhere today, two people were killed in clashes which erupted between Iraqi police and Mehdi Army fighters in the southern town of Nasiriyah. Local tribesman sided with Iraqi police to try to oust the militiamen from their town, Iraqi officials claimed.

Read the entire story here. The last sentence of this article is particularly intriguing for its nascent parallels to the Anbar Awakening Council. It is not clear from this article whether Sadr can be directly tied to the activities of the people who were targeted. And his Iranian connections need to be made well known.

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Tactics of Agenda Journalism

One aspect of agenda journalism is the tactic of framing an issue. This is, in essence, putting facts into some sort of coherent story driven towards a desired, but not necessarilly intellectually honest, point. The website EU Referendum does an exceptional job of deconstructing the art of framing in agenda journalism. See here.

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Is The Hamas Coup A Plus Or Minus?

This is musing and speculation on some of the ramifications of the Hamas coup in Gaza. I solicit your thoughts.

1. Hamas is no longer the legitimate government of the Palestinian people, Abbas having dissolved the government and appointed a new Prime Minister under emergency conditions. But, Hamas now, for the first time, has full responsibility for all aspects of governing the Palestinians in Gaza. Western aid will immediately flow to the West Bank and the new Abbas government but Gaza will see little if any of that. I cannot see Hamas, wholly surrounded by an unfriendly Egyptian government and a mortal enemy in Israel, being able to do much for the residents of Gaza - beyond imposing security and Sharia law.

2. Hamas is in a position of extreme weakness. Gaza’s water and electricity is controlled by Israel. Even with all the economic support in the world from Iran, no water and no electricity in a small plot of land with over 1,500,000 people is a disaster but a flick of some switches away. The next rocket coming across the border could send Gaza’s living conditions into the tank. Israel need not invade Gaza to hold life and death control over the society and to make any offensives by Hamas untenable.

3. While a majority of people in Gaza voted for Hamas, does that mean that they look forward to the mini-caliphate that they now find themselves under? Hamas ran on two prongs – one, providing services to Palestinians compliments of foreign funding, and two, not being as corrupt as Fatah. They did not run a campaign about imposing Sharia law of which I am aware. And how will they treat the concept of democracy in Gaza now that they have power? Palestinians in Gaza subject to decades of secular rule have just had it come to an end. It will be interesting to see how the populace takes to this in the long term, particularly if the West Bank Palestinians begin to thrive in a freer secular environment.

On a related note, there are about a thousand alleged Fatah supporters camped at the border crossing with Israel who are seeking to go to the West Bank. "Israel’s deputy defense minister, Ephraim Sneh, told Israel Radio that those whose lives were deemed in danger would be taken out through Israel. But he added, about the others, "No one knows for sure who these people are. We can assume they are people who don’t want to be in Gaza. Pretty soon there will be 1.5 million people who don’t want to be in Gaza."

4. Hamas by itself will not get the aid dollars they need to stay afloat. This will seriously strain the already troubled economy Hamas’s major patron, Iran. And how long will Iran support Hamas if Hamas does not take an active role in attacking Israel?

5. Abbas, though no friend of Israel, has, to his credit, long been a vocal opponent of the second intifada but lacked the strength necessary to challenge Hamas and the more radical elements. Now, with control over Palestinians in the West Bank and a much stronger security posture compliments of the IDF, Abbas may actually have a chance to develop a true Palestinian alternative with a viable economy. The flip side is that Iran, Hamas, Syria and possibly others will be intent on doing all they can to prevent this from happening. Expect the next round of suicide bombings in Ramallah.

6. If there is a real and lasting split between the Hamas contingent and Palestinians interested in developing an economy and a life, this would be a great disaster for many of the surrounding countries who have long used their influence and money to grossly manipulate the Palestinians for half a century. Indeed, "Abbas is already under pressure from some Arab governments, in particular the Saudis, who mediated the national-unity government at Mecca, to take Hamas at its word and try to recreate a shared government. In a speech on Friday to an emergency meeting of the Arab League, Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal of Saudi Arabia said, "The Palestinians have come close to putting by themselves the last nail in the coffin of the Palestinian cause." To the extent that the "Palestinian cause" is the one defined by the Muslim Brotherhood and the salafists of Saudi Arabia – to support suicide bombers, to keep the Palestinians in poverty, to claim Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians as the cause of all misery in the Middle East, etc., then one can only hope that Faisal is accurate.

Feel free to chip in with your thoughts. All in all, in the world of unintended consequences, the Hamas coup has the potential of being a very positive event for Israel and West Bank Palestinians and a real problem for Hamas and Iran.

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Paul Potts Winning Performance

As noted in the post below, opera singer and former cell phone salesman Paul Potts has won the Britains Got Talent Show. Here is his winning performance.




And here is the final vote tally (its more then a bit like watching the Blair Witch Project) and his declaration as winner.



Look for his first CD out in the next few weeks.

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General Petraeus On Iraq - & A Response to Harry Reid

Credit Fox News with interviewing General Petraeus and giving him a chance to defend himself and all else about the surge against "Give 'Em Surrender" Harry Reid's claims that the surge is already a failure, that the war is lost, that Petraeus cannot be trusted to tell the truth, and that Petraeus is incompetent and out of touch with reality:

The following is a partial transcript of the June 17, 2007, edition of "FOX News Sunday With Chris Wallace":

"FOX NEWS SUNDAY" HOST CHRIS WALLACE: Joining us now, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus.

General, let's start with the latest news. It was announced yesterday that U.S. forces found those two military I.D. cards of the missing American soldiers. Do you have any new leads on where they are?

PETRAEUS: Chris, we are evaluating the materials that we found in the house with those cards. I would not characterize any of those, however, as particularly hot leads.

We continue the effort in that particular area and in some other areas in Iraq, and we will not give that up.

WALLACE: This week you finally got your full complement of forces in Iraq. How is the surge working so far? And to some degree, do you feel as if the operation is only now beginning?

PETRAEUS: We actually do. In fact, a lot of what we have done to this point has been so-called shaping operations for what we have just recently launched in the last 48 hours and some additional operations that we'll launch over the next 48 or so hours.

That's not to say that we have not used those forces as they have come in, but we just recently got the fifth and final Army surge brigade, the Marine Expeditionary Unit, and our combat aviation brigade, which add considerable combat power.

And they are enabling us now to launch operations into sanctuaries, areas in which we have had very little coalition force presence other than raids in recent years.

These are areas where Al Qaeda has established car bomb factories and other bases from which they have issued forth and then moved into Baghdad to attack targets, often indiscriminately.

WALLACE: But how is the surge working so far? General Odierno, your number two, said this weekend that he believes that you have control over only 40 percent of Baghdad. Is that accurate?

And how do you feel it's going in terms of clearing out and securing Baghdad and Anbar province?

PETRAEUS: Well, I think, Chris, as I mentioned to the press yesterday, we're ahead of where we thought, I thought, we would be at this point in time, and then we are behind where we might have been in some other areas.

Anbar province is an area that, as you'll recall, was assessed to be lost less than a year or so ago by the military intelligence folks that were in Anbar province.

There's been a stunning reversal out there as tribes have said that whoever opposes Al Qaeda is with us, "We want to fight Al Qaeda. Will you help us, coalition forces?" And we have, indeed, done that.

And then they have been tied into the ministries of interior and defense so there's a linkage to the Iraqi government.

In Baghdad, there are certainly some neighborhoods — as General Odierno said it yesterday, there's about 30 percent of the neighborhoods about which we have real concern. These are the areas of the fault lines between Sunni and Shia.

We are focusing on them quite intently, and the additional forces will enable us to conduct additional operations in those areas.

Outside of Baghdad, the Baghdad belts, as they're called, south and north of the city, are areas into which we are now going in much greater force, again, areas in which Al Qaeda has had some sanctuary in the past.

And then in Diyala province, an area to which some of the Al Qaeda fighters have moved as they have been pushed out of Anbar and out of some of the Baghdad neighborhoods, is an area that requires considerable additional attention over the coming weeks, and it will get that as well.

WALLACE: General, the Pentagon issued its quarterly report this week, and it indicated that there has been no measurable progress so far. Let's take a look.

The Pentagon said the total number of weekly attacks on Iraqi civilians, Iraqi forces and U.S. forces actually went up from the last month before the surge to the first three months of the surge.

And the Pentagon report concluded the aggregate level of violence in Iraq remained relatively unchanged during this reporting period.

General, why shouldn't we back home view that as disappointing?

PETRAEUS: Well, the aggregate level is about the same. We actually have borne the brunt of much more of that, as have Iraqi security forces, and civilians a good bit less.

In fact, one of the metrics that we track, which is sectarian murders and executions in Baghdad, went down — by months, it was down to about a third — by the end of April, it was down to about a third of where it was back in January.

It did come back up as we announced in the month of May a little less than half. That is trending back down again.

The fact is that as we go on the offensive, the enemy is going to respond. That is what has happened. Car bombs have been coming steadily down. And as I mentioned, sectarian executions in Baghdad in particular have come down.

So again, certainly it is a mix, and that is what I've tried to convey with my assessment, that we're ahead in some areas and we need to do some serious work in others.

WALLACE: Senate Majority Leader Reid this week questioned your credibility after you gave an interview in which you said you saw, quote, "astonishing signs of normalcy in Baghdad such as soccer games and open markets." And here's how Senator Reid responded. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. HARRY REID, D-NEV.: We're now back up to 1,000 attacks a day in Iraq. And for someone, whether it's General Petraeus or anyone else, to say things are great in Baghdad isn't in touch with what's going on in Baghdad, even though he's there and I'm not.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: General, the argument seems to be that we're getting spin out of Baghdad and not the straight talk as to what the situation is there. Your response.

PETRAEUS: Chris, I've tried hard to be forthright all along in this endeavor. My testimony before the Senate in January, again in April, when I did a VTC in the middle of that as well, with every congressional delegation and with the press, I have tried not to pull punches.

I base my assessments, what I offer, on personal observation, walking around Baghdad, driving around it, flying around it. The fact is that there are signs of normalcy throughout a good bit of Baghdad. There are tens of thousands of kids that will be out there tonight playing soccer.

In fact, we flew around the city on the way over here today, since they'd lifted the curfew, just to see how things were going. There's traffic all over the streets. The markets are reopened and so forth.

That is not to say — and in fact, in that interview I followed and also warned, for example, that the mosque bombing could spark new violence. I have tried hard to present both the good and the bad.

But I will not shrink from announcing that there is some good out there, if you will, that there is some normalcy, nor will I shrink from acknowledging that there is plenty of bad out there, as I did with the fact that we have to really focus on 30 percent of those Baghdad neighborhoods.

And there's certainly not much normalcy in some of those neighborhoods which are under the threat of both Al Qaeda and then extremist militias.

WALLACE: So how do you feel when you hear a senator here in Washington say that you're out of touch with what's going on in Baghdad?

PETRAEUS: Chris, as I said, I am just going to present what I see. I am going to provide a forthright assessment. That's the same thing that we'll do in September.

And frankly, we've got more than enough work out here to keep us occupied and to keep us focused and busy.

WALLACE: Let's talk about who's responsible for the situation in Iraq. In recent weeks, the president has been emphasizing the role of Al Qaeda. Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: The primary reason for the high level of violence is this. Al Qaeda has ratcheted up its campaign of high profile attacks.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: But again, the Pentagon quarterly report tells a very different story, and let's put that up. It says, "Much of the violence is attributable to sectarian friction."

And as you pointed out, there was a substantial jump in sectarian violence in May. Isn't the Sunni-Shiite conflict much more responsible for the violence in Iraq these days than Al Qaeda, sir?

PETRAEUS: I'm not so sure about that, Chris. In fact, Al Qaeda is the Sunni violence. Al Qaeda is the face of what is happening on the extremist Sunni side.

They are carrying out the bulk of the sensational attacks, the suicide car bomb attacks, suicide vest attacks and so forth.

This is, I think, all of the individuals in the intelligence community — General McCrystal, the head of our Joint Special Operations Command — all of us feel that the central front of Al Qaeda's terror war is focused on Iraq.

So I think it is appropriate to emphasize the role that Al Qaeda Iraq is playing and the role that they play in provoking and giving excuses to the extremist militias of the other side, of the Shia side, as a justification for what they are doing, ostensibly, to protect the Shia people, but then in their own turn carrying out violence of their own.

There is no question but that there is sectarian violence between, again, Al Qaeda, certainly between some other Sunni insurgent groups and these extremist militias.

And that is, in fact, what we are trying to try to break the cycle of, the cycle of violence that can really damage a neighborhood, the cycle of violence that, in fact, tore the fabric of society in Iraq and particularly in Baghdad, and especially in the mixed neighborhoods, during the latter part of 2006 and into the early part of this year, with really enormous damage as a result.

WALLACE: General, you talked briefly before about the fact that you're trying to split off some of the Sunni insurgents from Al Qaeda, especially out in Anbar province, and in fact, you've even gone to the lengths of arming some of the Sunni insurgents to fight Al Qaeda.

How do you know — or do you worry that they are going to end up using those weapons to either attack U.S. forces or to fight their civil war against the Shiites?

And how do you respond — we understand that aides to Prime Minister Maliki objected strongly about arming Sunni insurgents to Defense Secretary Gates yesterday, so how do you respond to that concern?

PETRAEUS: Well, those are legitimate concerns, and we have the same concerns. We have a good discussion going with the government of Iraq.

As I mentioned, the process really is to identify these individuals, try to vet them as best we can. By the way, we do biometric data on all of them. We link that to serial numbers of weapons and so forth.

And then what you want to do is you want to get them linked into legitimate government of Iraq institutions, starting out perhaps as what are called police support units; then, as they prove themselves, getting a ticket to the police academy so they can become full-fledged police, or volunteering for the Iraqi army.

The fact is that over time in any of these conflicts, individuals at some point have had to end up sitting across the table from those who at best tacitly were aware of what was going on against their adversary, and that we perhaps aided and abetted it.

Interestingly, we have a British three-star general — my deputy is the head of our particular effort here, the engagement and reconciliation cell that we have established in part because they've had some pretty tough experience in this regard themselves, having sat down at tables in northern Ireland and other places with individuals who, say, 10 years earlier were swinging pipes against their lads.

That's been instructive for us. We think that it has been carried out with sufficient safeguards in Anbar province. It has certainly completely changed the dynamics of Anbar province.

And now, by the way, you see a bottom-up political activity that is also ongoing, where city councils, neighborhood councils and so forth are getting elected and are gradually tying into the provincial council which, of course, ties into the government of Iraq.

We're even seeing that in some of the neighborhoods in Baghdad where neighborhood councils had ceased to exist because of the security threat, and they are now coming back to life as well.

Again, those are legitimate concerns. They are legitimate discussions with Prime Minister Maliki. He supported strongly what was going on in Anbar province.

It gets much tougher when you get into the mixed neighborhoods near Baghdad in the Baghdad belts, and we're all working together to try to ensure that there are safeguards so that we're not arming individuals who eventually take up arms against the government.

WALLACE: General, we have to take a quick break here.

But when we come back, the September deadline for a progress report on the surge. What can we expect? And can we rely on the Iraqi government to hold up its end of the bargain? Back with General Petraeus in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WALLACE: And we're back now with more of our exclusive interview with General David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq.

General, let's turn to the political situation in Baghdad. Back when you were being confirmed by the U.S. Senate, you said the point of the surge was not to win a military victory, but to give the Iraqi politicians time to reach out in national reconciliation. Let's take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETRAEUS: The objective will be to achieve sufficient security to provide the space and time for the Iraqi government to come to grips with the tough decisions its members must make to enable Iraq to move forward.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Now, that was five months ago, and since then the Iraqi politicians have failed repeatedly to meet benchmarks for political reform.

Hasn't that part of your surge strategy, trying to give the Iraqi politicians some breathing space — hasn't that failed, sir?

PETRAEUS: Well, there certainly have not been real substantial achievements in that regard so far.

However, the oil framework law and also now the oil revenue law are pieces of legislation in which the Iraqi leaders are very much coming to grips right now.

In fact, we helped bring down from the Iraqi Kurdish region last night the top negotiator, and we're at the stage where supposedly there are two sentences that must be resolved.

So I think it's time to see now if these important laws can go forward, in addition to some of the other smaller achievements that they've had in terms of the higher electoral council, the budget and so forth.

WALLACE: We understand that Secretary of Defense Gates basically gave the Iraqis a September deadline. He said we really have to see some measurable political reform by September. True?

PETRAEUS: Actually, not quite so blunt. In fact, Secretary Gates had a very good session with Prime Minister Maliki.

In fact, he started off by complimenting the prime minister and the other leaders with whom he met on their response to the Samarra mosque bombing. They were united in that effort. They were decisive.

And we think their response in ordering rapid steps to be taken has, in fact, helped hold down the level of violence to well below what took place in the wake of the February '06 bombing.

And in fact, I should know that yesterday there was an agreement with UNESCO and the government of Iraq to rebuild that Samarra mosque.

WALLACE: I mean, I understand that, sir, but you know, we here back in the states look and we see the oil law has not been passed, the constitution has not been amended, they have not held provincial elections, they have not brought Sunnis back into the government.

I mean, really, the glass is not half full.

PETRAEUS: Chris, I don't think anybody's satisfied with where they are, and the Iraqi officials are foremost among them. They're grappling with really basic issues here. We're talking about issues that will set the course for this country for years and decades to come.

Our own experience as a country, in fact, shows how difficult it is to resolve some of these very difficult issues.

They recognize fully that our ability to help them in the future depends on the progress that they show over the course of the next few months. They're keenly aware of that.

And I think they are going to do everything they can to try to inject hope into places like Washington and elsewhere to show that the Baghdad clock can indeed move a bit faster so that you can put a bit of time back on the Washington clock.

WALLACE: Well, let's start talking about the Washington clock. Less than a month ago, President Bush was talking up the importance of this progress report that you're going to be delivering to him and to Congress in September.

Let's put it up on the screen. Mr. Bush said, "I see it as an important moment because David Petraeus says that's when he'll have a pretty good assessment as to what the effects of the surge has been."

But now, sir, a number of top administration officials are downplaying the September report. Are you backing away from how much you're going to be able to say in September?

PETRAEUS: I am not. In fact, Ambassador Ryan Crocker, my diplomatic wing man here, and I will go back in September and we'll provide a snapshot of where we are at that time, and it will be a forthright assessment of what we've achieved and what we haven't achieved.

I'll talk, obviously, about the security aspects of the situation and he will address the political and economic ones.

We also owe it, we think, to the decision-makers at one end of Pennsylvania Avenue and those who provide advice and consent and resources for the policies at the other end some sense of the implications of the various courses of action that might be under discussion at that point in time.

There are some very serious centrifugal forces here in Iraq, and I think we all need to have very clear eyes about what can happen, what the implications of various options are and, again, just to assess those correctly.

WALLACE: Well, let's explore that. General Odierno, your number two, said this weekend that the Washington politicians need to give the surge more time.

Do you think by September you're going to have a reasonable and a realistic sense of how the surge has gone, whether, in fact, it is working or not working?

PETRAEUS: I think we will have a sense of that, Chris. I've said that all along. I started saying that back in January. I think we'll have had by then our forces in the mix for a good several months.

We'll have some sense of how we have done in these various sanctuaries that Al Qaida has had in the past that we are now entering for the first time in which we will endeavor to stay.

We'll have a sense of how we've done in some of these tough neighborhoods in Baghdad and how we are doing, also, all of this in partnership with our Iraqi security force counterparts in Diyala province and in some of the other areas of the country.

WALLACE: So you think by then that the policymakers in Washington — the president, his administration, members of Congress — can make a reasoned decision as to whether or not to continue with this strategy?

PETRAEUS: Well, what I've said, Chris, is that at that point in time, the ambassador and I think we can provide a reasonable snapshot of the situation at that time and how things have gone in the surge, both in the security and then in the political and economic arenas.

And it is, obviously, up to the policymakers and to the legislators to determine the course ahead.

WALLACE: Do you feel a sense of pressure? Do you feel that September deadline pressing in on you? And does it affect the decisions you make?

PETRAEUS: Chris, we've got a fairly heavy rucksack we're carrying out here, but thank goodness for all the tremendous troopers out here who, in truth, are really carrying the heavy burden of this.

We've got a lot of great help in taking this forward and we also have some wonderful partners on the Iraqi side.

But we do see that time staring us squarely in our eyes, and we're focused on it, and we're going to try to do all that we can with what we have between now and then.

WALLACE: There are reports that you and General Odierno would like the surge to continue until at least early 2008, that if it's going to work, it needs to continue into early next year. Is that true?

PETRAEUS: We've got a number of different options that we have looked at, Chris, and it really is premature at this point in time to try to prejudge that.

Again, I would suspect that late in the summer, early September, that we will provide some recommendations on the way ahead up our chain of command as well.

WALLACE: But you surely don't think the job would be done by the surge by September, do you, sir?

PETRAEUS: I do not, no. I think that we have a lot of heavy lifting to do. The damage done by the sectarian violence in the fall and winter of 2006 and early 2007, as I mentioned, was substantial. And this is a tough effort.

WALLACE: So then it would be fair to assume that the enhanced troop levels would continue for some months after that and into 2008.

PETRAEUS: Chris, again, premature right now. A number of options out there. And not about to announce what we might do here today, I'm afraid.

WALLACE: Well, you can't blame me for trying, sir. There are also some...

(LAUGHTER)

WALLACE: There are also some reports that you believe that we're going to need at least 130,000 troops in Iraq through the end of 2008. Is that true?

PETRAEUS: Chris, there's some wonderful mind-readers out there. I'd love to know who they are. But they seem to know what's in my mind better than I do.

Again, our first focus is on doing all that we can as we've truly now launched the surge and we have some reasonable expectations for what we can achieve.

Beyond that, we will obviously provide that assessment in September along with, I would suspect, at that time some recommendations on the way ahead. But you're looking out well beyond that, and we're not prepared to address that yet.

WALLACE: Well, let me look out even further than that, General. Some administration officials have talked about needing to make — and basically squaring with the American public, saying, "Look, this is going to be a long-term commitment," and even comparing it to the situation in South Korea, where we have had thousands of troops for decades.

Do you see this to stabilize and achieve what we want in Iraq as that kind of a long-term commitment?

PETRAEUS: Well, I think the real question, Chris, is at what level. I think just about everybody out there recognizes that a situation like this, with the many, many challenges that Iraq is contending with, is not one that's going to be resolved in a year or even two years.

In fact, typically, I think historically, counterinsurgency operations have gone at least nine or 10 years.

The question is, of course, at what level, how much will we have to continue to contribute during that time, how much more can the Iraqi security forces and the Iraqi government pick up as this goes along. And I think that's the real question. And I'm not sure what the right analogy is, whether it's Korea or what have you.

I think all that the folks in Washington were trying to indicate by that was that there is some possibility of some form of long-term security arrangement over time.

And I think in general that that's probably a fairly realistic assessment, assuming that the Iraqi government, in fact, does want that to continue. And of course, it is very much up to them, and their sovereignty is paramount in all of this.

WALLACE: General, we have less than a minute left. Let's get to the bottom line here. Do you feel that we can still win in Iraq, that we can leave behind a stable, democratic government?

PETRAEUS: Chris, if I didn't believe that, I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't be leading the finest of young American men and women who are putting their lives on the line every day.

In the last two weeks, I've gone to memorial ceremonies, one of which was for four soldiers lost in one unit, another for six soldiers lost in one unit. And I can tell you that as you sit there at that, you obviously reflect on that particular question.

And again, I think that there is good prospect for progress in the months ahead that hopefully can be matched by progress in the political and economic arenas here in Iraq and, again, can give us hope for the way ahead.

WALLACE: General, I can't think of a better way to end this conversation. We want to thank you so much for giving us a progress report today. And please stay safe, sir.

PETRAEUS: Thanks, Chris. Good to be with you.

Read the entire story here.

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The BBC Biased? Could It Be?

I grew up loving the BBC from across the pond. It always had the best programming as far as I was concerned. Thus it came as an utter shock to me when, later in life, it became apparent just how insidiously and dangerously biased the BBC's news division was - and had been for generations. It has become particulalry toxic to the functioning of a Western democracy since 9-11. I am reminded of the period prior to WWII when the BBC carried water for the world's most infamous appeaser, Neville Chamberlin, while refusing to give any coverage to Winston Churchill. Churchill would later label the BBC a "communist organization."

To be fair, the BBC does still on occaision come up with some amazing work. Undercover Mosque, by BBC 4, was as first rate and important a piece of investigative journalism as one will ever find. And the bulk of the BBC's work, when not on topics that lend themselves to left wing, avant garde causes or anti-americanism, is even handed and quite good. In what remains, which is a sizable portion of their reporting, there is a clear, if not at times over the top, anti-war, anti-american, anti-conservative bias and an embrace of suicidal multiculturalism - particularly a pro-Muslim bent - that pervades their work. Indeed, it sometimes pervades its work to a high degree of comedy. The BBC certainly seems to have a preference for political parties in its own country. And how many news rooms do you know contain a picture of Bush in Hitlerian garb? The Beeb's bias is both active and passive - it is evident in what the BBC chooses to report, and also in what the BBC chooses to simply omit from its coverage. And over the past few years, it has spent hundreds of thousands of taxpayer pounds to in a court battle to keep the "Balen Report" secret - an internal report on pro-arab, anti-semetic bias at the Beeb. The website Biased BBC does an excellent job of documenting BBC outrages, both active and passive on a daily basis.

The BBC has for years claimed the outrageous fiction that they are unbiased. Thus, it was good to hear today at least some small note of reality - that the BBC is at least acknowledging a portion of this bias in a report released but not yet up on the BBC website. The Times has the story:

There are some things you do not need an official report to tell you - that John Prescott thinks he is a babe magnet, that President Mugabe is not entirely in favour of white farmers and that Al-Qaeda takes a pretty dim view of the West. The report commissioned by the BBC into itself concluded with something equally blindingly obvious. It said that the organisation is institutionally biased and especially gullible to the blandishments of politically driven celebrities, such as Bono and Bob Geldof. Almost anyone in Britain could have told the BBC that for free, but maybe it’s better to have it in an official report.

All media organisations are biased and that applies especially to newspapers. But our bias is openly declared. If readers want different views they have no compulsion to pay and can go elsewhere. The BBC is in a different category; everyone has to pay for it and it is in the tricky position of being founded to be free from bias. It is meant to be a beacon of objective truth in a wildly polarised world. A tall order. In theory even rabid rightwingers and demented leftists can listen or watch (and increasingly read online) the BBC without discerning any tilt. But what emerges from the report is a picture of an organisation with a liberal, anti-American bias and an almost teenage fascination with fashionable causes. The report singles out the BBC’s overwhelming and uncritical backing for the campaign over Live Aid and now the Live Earth concerts on global warming.

That the BBC should investigate itself is perhaps admirable, but only if it acts on the conclusions. The likelihood is that it will lament its shortcomings, pledge to do something and carry on much as before. Changing its cosy culture will take more than a report; some who have worked there say it would require a small neutron bomb. The BBC is a self-perpetuating liberal arts club. Recruitment is the key. It needs to employ more nonconformist journalists whose paper of choice is not The Guardian.

Read the story here. And then there is this from the Telegraph:

The BBC has failed to promote proper debate on major political issues because of the inherent liberal culture of its staff, a report commissioned by the corporation has concluded.

The report claims that coverage of single-issue political causes, such as climate change and poverty, can be biased - and is particularly critical of Live 8 coverage, which it says amounted to endorsement.

It warns that celebrities must not be pandered to and allowed to hijack the BBC schedule.

After a year-long investigation the report, published today, maintains that the corporation’s coverage of day-to-day politics is fair and impartial.

That last statement is simply ridiculous and why I am incredibly cynical about this report doing anything but provide the BBC a whitewash. The BBC's day to day reporting is often its most objectionable. Just click on a few of the links I have included above to see for yourself. To continue:

. . . The report concludes BBC staff must be more willing to challenge their own beliefs.

It reads: “There is a tendency to 'group think’ with too many staff inhabiting a shared space and comfort zone.”

A staff impartiality seminar held last year is also documented in the report, at which executives admitted they would broadcast images of the Bible being thrown away but not the Koran, in case Muslims were offended.

During the seminar a senior BBC reporter criticised the corporation for being anti-American.

The report was jointly commissioned by BBC managers and the board of governors and will be published by the BBC Trust, which has since replaced the governors.
It has been approved by a committee headed by BBC trustee and former ITN editor-in-chief Richard Tait. Other members include BBC deputy director-general Mark Byford, head of BBC News Helen Boaden and creative director Alan Yentob.

Writing in The Observer yesterday, Mr Tait said that “the BBC cannot allow its output to be taken over by campaigning groups” and added: “At the BBC impartiality is and must remain non-negotiable because it is vital to safeguard the BBC’s independence.”

The report offers 12 new principles for the corporation to adopt to safeguard its impartiality.

These include: “Impartiality is no excuse for insipid programming. It allows room for fair-minded, evidence-based judgements by senior journalists and documentary-makers, and for controversial, passionate and polemical arguments by contributors and writers.”

A BBC spokeswoman said: “This report is about looking forward and how we are going to face the challenges of impartiality in the modern world.”

I apologize for being cynical, but the bias at the BBC news division is far too much for me to stomach, particularly since not only are its toxins infecting the UK, but it is also being pumped into the US. This internal BBC report seems more of a whitewash then anything else.

The BBC is, by law required to be objective in its reporting. The people of Britain are required by law to fund the BBC through a licensing fee on all television owners. Only half of the equation is being upheld at the moment.

There is no reason whatsoever for the BBC's news division to remain on the public tit, particularly when it is so clearly failing in its legal mandate. But even beyond that, there is no reason that the BBC news division should not compete in the marketplace as do nearly all other news divisions in the world outside of dictatorships and communist countries. The New York Times is watching its stock values plummet because of its one sided reporting. There is no reason the BBC should not enjoy the same opportunity.

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Paul Potts Has Got Talent - And A Big Win In The Britain's Got Talent Show

Paul Potts, the cell phone salesman Pavarotti from Wales, has won the Britain's Got Talent contest. I can think of no one on either side of the pond more deserving of a big break based on an incredible talent. I'll post the videos when they come out. In the meantime, you can see his first two powerful and moving performances here and here, and here are the comments from ITV on the finale and what Paul has won:

Grand Final - The Winner

It was as if the tension would never end - but finally, eventually, painfully... Dec announced Paul Potts as the Britain's Got Talent winner.

It was a moment where futures were made and dreams were dashed. But even though every one of the performers here has an outstanding talent, only one could scoop the big prize tonight.

Two million votes were cast by the British public. For the big winner, welshman Paul Potts, tonight starts a week of newspaper interviews, magazine features and TV appearances. Life won't be quite the same ever again.

As Ant and Dec congratulated the singer - or was that held him up - he told them - "I can't believe I've won it - I'm like jelly. Performing for the Quen means absolutely everything. Thank you for believing in me".

The man Simon Cowell described as "a shy and humble guy with a great talent" will now "be in the recording studio next week making his first album".

As well as the £100,000 prize cheque, the Britain's Got Talent winner recieves an invitation to perform at the Royal Variety Performance, by invitation of her Majesty the Queen.

The Royal Variety Perfromance will be shown on ITV1 on December 3rd 2007. We'll see Paul, our very deserving winner, taking their much deserved place in the spotlight then.

And here is his Paul's short biography from ITV that I had neglected to post earlier.

Paul first sang opera at the age of 28 for a karaoke competition– he dressed up as Pavarotti.

He went on to perform in Barrymore’s ‘My Kind Of Music’ (1999). The money he won from the show (£8000) along with his savings was spent on attending various training courses in Italy.

From his Italian opera class he was selected to sing in master class’ for Pavarotti and Katia Ricciarelli – who he says were very impressed. Paul reckons he’s spent £20,000 in total to get to where he is today.

Paul has performed in 4 semi professional operas in the UK and some concerts. His proudest performance was with the philimonic orchestra in a concert in front of 15, 000 people

After having appendicitis doctors discovered a benign tumour that was removed. 2 weeks after the operation he was back on stage.

A motorbike accident in 2003 which he broke his collar bone kept him away from performing and he got left out of the opera circles. Since his illness he has struggled with money and has never reached his potential in Opera and this is why he has chosen to enter Britain’s got talent.

Married for 4 years to his wife Julie (26) whom he met on a internet chat room. They have been together for 6 years in total

Paul has worked at the Carephone warehouse for 2 years, for 1 year as manager – before that he worked the night shift at Tesco’s shelf stacking / internet personal shopping.

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The Carnival Of The Insanities Is Up

Do visit Dr. Sanity's office for some much needed therapy.

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A Witches Brew in the Middle East

Harvard University Professor Niall Ferguson today keenly puts his arms around the vast witches brew of bloody conflict and competing interests in the Middle East, forecasting that we are likely on the precipice of another world conflict, if not Armagedon:

Divide and rule was an old maxim of Britain's Empire. In the Middle East today, there's certainly no shortage of division. But who is ruling as a result? Any lingering hopes of a two-state solution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians evaporated last week as the Islamist extremists of Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip. President Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of the more secular Fatah party, now finds himself president of the West Bank only. The next Middle Eastern peace plan will have to be a three-state solution: Israel, Hamastan and Fatahland.

Did I say three? I meant four. Because no peace could last long if it didn't somehow end the threat to Israel posed by Hezbollahstan - the strip of Lebanon controlled by the Iranian-backed terrorists whom Israel failed to obliterate last summer.

Meanwhile, even as hooded Hamas gunmen and Fatah forces traded bullets in Gaza, and even as another anti-Syrian politician was blown to pieces by a car-bomb in Lebanon, Sunni militants in Iraq destroyed the twin minarets of the al-Askari shrine in Samarra, finishing a job they began last year, when they demolished the shrine's golden dome. Nothing could be better calculated to intensify the sectarian conflict that has been tearing the country apart for 16 months, pushing it another step closer to bloody partition.

And don't forget Kurdistan, the semi-autonomous republic in northern Iraq which is set to be the third state in Iraq's three-state (dis)solution. Or maybe not. In recent weeks the Turkish army has been massing troops on the Turkish-Iraqi border, threatening to launch raids against bases allegedly being operated by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Terrorism by the PKK has been a thorn in Ankara's side for more than 20 years. But this is also a renewed attempt by the secularists in the Turkish army to put pressure on the moderate Islamist government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Only the other day, the generals threatened to stage a coup if one of Erdogan's colleagues was elected president.

As I said, there's no shortage of division in the Middle East. But who gets to rule is less clear.

For some time I have been warning that the next great global conflict will begin in the Middle East, just as the two world wars had their origins in eastern Europe. The lethal combination of ethnic disintegration, economic volatility and an empire in decline (in this case, the United States) makes an upward spiral of violence hard to avoid. Add to that the demographic pressures due to high Muslim birth-rates, the money generated by vast deposits of oil and natural gas, and the risk that the most revolutionary power in the region will soon possess nuclear weapons, and you have a recipe for Armageddon.

What can the rest of the world do to defuse the Middle Eastern timebomb? According to that compulsive contrarian Edward Luttwak, a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, the answer is: ignore it. In a recent article, Luttwak dismisses the entire region as "the middle of nowhere", arguing that overblown prophesies of doom are, after oil, the Middle East's biggest export.

Luttwak's argument is twofold. First, we exaggerate the importance of violence in the Middle East. As he puts it, "the dead from Jewish-Palestinian fighting since 1921 amount to fewer than 100,000". Iran is no more of a threat to the west than Saddam Hussein's Iraq was. "Most Middle Eastern populations," he writes, "can sustain excellent insurgencies but not modern military forces". And Iranian-sponsored terrorism is an overrated counter-threat to the possibility of American air strikes. Iran is in any case so ethnically divided that it will probably break up sooner or later.

At the same time, Luttwak insists, we exaggerate the economic importance of the Middle East. It is an under-achieving region where "almost nothing is created in science or the arts". It boasts the second-lowest adult literacy rate in the world (after sub-Saharan Africa). Excluding Israel, its per capita production of patents is even worse than Africa's. Practically the only thing the Middle East exports is oil, but global dependence on that is declining.

Hence, since neither a hard line nor a soft line will cure the Middle East's inhabitants of their propensity for low-level violence, and since the region is economically stagnant and increasingly irrelevant, the only rational policy must be one of benign neglect. "Backward societies", concludes Luttwak, "must be left alone, as the French now wisely leave Corsica to its own devices, as the Italians quietly learned to do in Sicily."

Of all the commentaries I have read in the past six months, this stands out as the silliest.

. . . Today, the Middle East is in many ways just as explosive as eastern Europe a century ago; perhaps even more so. Does Luttwak seriously believe that the disintegration of Iraq (or for that matter Iran, which he envisages) can be compared with the trivial disorders of Corsica and Sicily? Violence in Iraq is currently claiming the lives of around 3,000 people a month. Since 1998, according to the Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism, Middle Eastern terrorism has killed 24,289 people and wounded nearly double that number - more than half of all the worldwide casualties due to terrorism. Is this Luttwak's idea of an acceptable level of violence? And would he like to estimate how many people may die in the next 10 years, as Iraq falls apart and the Israel-Iran showdown reaches its climax?

What's more, it is ludicrous to claim that the Middle East is economically irrelevant. True, the west is less dependent on oil from the region than in the Seventies, but has no one pointed out to Luttwak the recent and future trajectory of global oil supply and demand? The oil fields of the rest of the world are likely to be exhausted much sooner than the oil fields of the Middle East, which today account for 62 per cent of proved reserves, compared with 54 per cent in 1980. Meanwhile, Asia's economic boom is causing an unprecedented increase in demand. If Middle Eastern oil is so unimportant, why were crude futures up to $67 a barrel last week?

Far from benign neglect, what is desperately needed in the Middle East today is a more effective policy of diplomatic intervention - to establish some kind of rule amid the division. My worry is that, with two US aircraft carrier strike groups off the Iranian coast, and an admiral newly appointed as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, precisely the wrong kind of intervention may be about to happen.

Read the entire story here. While I find Mr. Ferguson's analysis, as usual, spot on, I find his conclusion unrealistic. Diplomacy has not and will not work in the Middle East. I think, in fact, the Armagedon of which Mr. Ferguson warns is inevitable unless we succeed in breaking the cycle and bring stability to Iraq. The only thing that will achieve that end is the use of force. It is the one single tool of diplomacy that has ever proven effective in the Middle East.

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The Half Monti

OUCH . . . . OUCH, OUCH, OUCH

According to Liverpool court records, young Ms. Amanda Monti, 24, at the conclusion of a house party, decided she wanted to play 'hide the salami' with party guest, Mr. Geoffrey Jones, 37. And she was not about to take "no" for an answer.

Mr. Jones, for whatever reason, did not wish to share his salami. Instead, he rebuffed the advances of Ms. Monti.

Ms. Monti, in a fit of angst, then placed both hands upon Mr. Jones naughty bits through his pants and proceeded to yank . . . hard. At the end of the first yank, she had caused Mr. Jones extreme agony, but had only succeeded in pulling off his pants and underpants.

Not satisfied, Ms. Monti then proceeded to firmly grasp Mr. Jones's left testicle in her clawed mits and gave a tremendous heave. She met with more success this time, managing to pull said testicle completely free of said Mr. Jones's body.

Evidently hungry from her herculean efforts, Ms. Monti saw in her hands not merely the recently detached testicle of the now in shock Mr. Jones, but a tempting hors d'oeuvre. Unable to resist, Ms. Monti tossed it into her mouth for a bit of epicurean delight. Court records show that she eventually spit out the masticated remains. Though not in the records, reports are that she then muttered something to the effect of "needs salt."

The attack has left Mr. Jones permanently shy one half of his jewels. Thus, from the country that gave us the Full Monty, we now have the much more terrifying Half Monti.

The Liverpool Crown Court, before passing judgment, described this partial emasculation of Mr. Jones as a "very serious injury." We think that a classic of British understatement. The Court then sentenced Ms. Monti to a mere 2 1/2 years in prison.

I think that I can speak for every male reading this - each of whom is unconsciously squeezing his legs together for protection and wincing in sympathetic pain - that the Court's sentence of Ms. Monti is more then grossly inadequate.

I am unsure precisely what lessons should be take away from this, though at least one seems clear. Given that the Courts will not provide adequate justice, when a drunken woman demands sex, out of sheer self defense, you should not turn her away. By God, men, don the beer goggles if you must, but in any event, protect yourselves.

Read the entire story here.

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The Italian Government's Unique Model For Addressing Crime

I admit that I do not know much about the Italian government of Romano Prodi, but I think it a fair bet that they are a left wing, permissive lot operating more then a little outside the boundaries of reality. My sole evidence for that is the rather unique approach to crime taken by the Prodi government. Faced with prison overcrowding, the government response was to throw open the doors of jails, releasing some 15,000 prisoners in a massive amnesty program of criminals with three years or less remaining on their sentences. No doubt to the amazement of the left, Italy has since found itself in the grips of a massive crime wave. One can only imagine Prodi's ministers sitting in their offices, racking their brains trying to determine what possibly could be the cause:

Armed robberies of Italian banks and building societies have soared after a controversial prisoner amnesty in the country's crowded jails.

Last year's indulto, or pardon, for prisoners with less than three years left to serve caused uproar.

More than 15,000 inmates were released. Within hours, dozens had been arrested and sent back to jail after reoffending. New crime figures have again fuelled the controversy.

The number of bank robberies has risen nationwide, official statistics say, including a staggering 102 per cent increase in Piedmont, in the north.

There have also been marked increases in Veneto (85.1 per cent) and the Marche region (86.9 per cent), where, after a three-day series of bank raids that netted more than £70,000, police arrested six people and found that all had been released under the amnesty.

In Turin, three men arrested for holding up a bank inside a hospital disguised as doctors were also found to be pardoned ex-prisoners.

One ex-convict, released after serving seven years for armed robbery, was arrested as he fled the scene of a raid in Milan and told police: "I needed the money to visit my girlfriend in Cuba."

In another case in Milan a man who was released early from a 10-year sentence for robbing 25 banks was back inside within a week after holding up several cashiers. He was arrested after one of them recognised him from an earlier hold-up.

There were 194 bank robberies nationwide in the month before the amnesty was introduced last July. After the law was passed by Romano Prodi's centre-Left coalition that figure rose steadily, peaking at 332 in October - at an average of more than 10 a day.

When the amnesty was introduced, Italy's prison population was 62,000; its jails have a capacity of 45,000. Ministry of Interior officials told The Sunday Telegraph that so far 26,000 prisoners had been released and that more than 3,000 - or 11.5 per cent - had been sent back to jail. The amnesty has come in for scathing criticism from the opposition, with the Alleanza Nazionale leader Gianfranco Fini saying: "The law is an insult to law-abiding Italian citizens." . . .

Read the entire story here.

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Dirty Bomb Threat High & Rising

This somber report appears in today's Telegraph (UK):

The threat of terrorists attacking Britain with a radioactive "dirty bomb" has grown rapidly in recent months, a leading defence expert has warned.

Prof Sandra Bell spoke out following the sentencing last week of seven al-Qaeda "foot soldiers" who had plotted dirty bomb attacks in Britain and the United States.

The men were jailed for a total of 136 years at Woolwich Crown Court. Their leader, Dhiren Barot, is serving life for conspiracy to murder.

Prof Bell, the director of homeland security at the Royal United Services Institute, said: "The threat from dirty bombs is now higher than it was two years ago, and has increased significantly over the last six months.

"I used to think you had more chance of winning the lottery than of being attacked with radiation weapons, but times are changing." She said that turmoil in parts of Africa and the former Soviet Union had created a black market in radioactive materials which could be used to lace a conventional bomb.

"Rather than maximise civilian casualties, the terrorists are now trying to cause as much disruption to public services as possible," she said. "Widespread radiation emitted by dirty bombs would be ideal for this."

. . . Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, the former head of MI5, warned three years ago that it was "only a matter of time" until terrorists launched a dirty bomb attack on the West.

Read the entire article here. Do you think there is anything to be concerned with if we further embolden the terrorists by leaving them to claim victory in Iraq? Sheer suicide.

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News From The Surge - As It Begins In Earnest

Now with all five combat brigades on the ground, General Petraues tells us that the surge will begin in earnest, moving into al Qaeda positions in Diyala and in the belts surrounding Baghdad - the areas that were either long term al Qaeda strongholds or areas that al Qaeda has retreated to escape the offensives in Baghdad and and Anbar.

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said Saturday that a troop surge in Iraq is only starting to have its full impact and that it is too soon to tell whether conditions will be ripe by September for decisions on US force levels.

The US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, said that the latest troop reinforcements to arrive in theatre had enabled the military to begin major operations against Al-Qaeda rear-bases outside the capital.

"While I indicated yesterday that I think we'll see some trends and be able to point in some directions by September, the full impact of the surge is really just beginning to be felt," Gates said.

. . . Petraeus and US ambassador Ryan Crocker are supposed to report to a sceptical Congress in September on whether the surge is working or whether an alternative strategy is needed.

Gates was to meet Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki later to press for more rapid progress by his Shiite-led government in reaching out to the disenchanted Sunni former elite.

He is the third senior US official to deliver the same message over the past week, following Deputy Defence Secretary John Negroponte, the former US ambassador, and Admiral William Fallon, commander of US forces in the Middle East.

"We are pressing hard on those (reconcilation benchmarks)," said the US ambassador, who joined Gates and Petraeus at a news conference.

"The Iraqi government has been pushing itself. The progress has been frustratingly slow.

"We will see where we are by September. We will report at that time honestly as to what has been achieved and what hasn't," said Crocker.

Gates, who visited troops at a joint security post in Baghdad, said there had been successes in reducing violence in Anbar province west of the capital, although security had deteriorated in Diyala province to its north.

"In terms of the security situation, as I say we've got two months, three months to go. There are some positive trends, there are some negative trends," he said.

Petraeus said it was possible to make progress over the next few months.

"And then we'll see how long we'll sustain the surge, and how long we can sustain the surge, because those considerations enter into it as well."

. . . US troops levels in Iraq swelled to 155,000 over the past week as the last of five additional combat brigades deployed, US commanders said.

Petraeus said "fairly large coordinated offensive operations" had been launched against Al-Qaeda in areas outside Baghdad in the previous 24 hours.

"We have been doing what we might be calling shaping operations in a lot of these areas, doing intelligence gathering, putting in some special operators, going in but then coming out," he said.

"And now for the first time are we going to some key areas in the belt from which Al-Qaeda has sallied forth with car bombs and additional fighters and so forth."

Read the entire story here.

The military is reporting on the results of several raids tied to the new offensive.

Iraqi and coalition forces captured one terrorist leader and killed 16 suspected terrorists today. Ten more insurgents died in fighting yesterday.

Coalition forces in Baghdad captured five suspected terrorists, including an alleged al Qaeda in Iraq emir whose organization includes a deadly car-bomb cell in the city, during two raids today. At one targeted location, coalition forces destroyed two vehicles used to transport explosives and personnel for the terrorist network.

An operation in Mosul killed one terrorist. Outside the targeted building, a man identified as Izz al-Din, also known as Abu Ahmad, drew a weapon on the approaching ground forces. Coalition forces engaged and killed him. One suspected terrorist was detained on scene for his involvement with Abu Ahmad.

Abu Ahmad was the head of five terrorist cells in Mosul and was responsible for directing attacks against Iraqi and coalition forces, U.S. officials said.

Yesterday, Multinational Division Baghdad troops killed 10 insurgents who had launched a series of roadside-bomb and small-arms-fire ambushes in the West Rashid district of southern Baghdad.

. . . Meanwhile, a number of raids have taken place involving the discovery and seizure of enemy munitions. In one raid yesterday, nine individuals were detained on suspicion of running a bomb-making cell in the east Doura neighborhood of Baghdad’s Rashid district.

. . . In other news, troops seized several caches on June 13. Baghdad troops teamed up with a platoon of Iraqi national police to conduct a raid in the eastern Sadr City district.

The troops discovered three complete 60 mm mortar systems, complete 82 mm and 120 mm mortar systems, four 120 mm mortar rounds, 32 60 mm mortar rounds, three 107 mm rockets, a rifle scope, two AK-47 rifles, two sets of body armor, and a variety of weapon manuals.

An air and ground assault took place on two houses in Salman Pak on June 13. The raids yielded two 107 mm rockets, homemade explosives, two AK-47 assault rifles, a bolt-action rifle, several propane tanks, copper wire, ammunition, magazines, and several assault vests.

In another raid, Iraqi troops and Baghdad soldiers raided a weapons cache in the Yarmouk neighborhood. The cache contained 113 landmines, 63 grenades, three rockets, three mortars, two gas masks, five washing machine timers, more than 2,000 rounds of AK-47 ammunition, and seven boxes of various electronics and other assorted explosives.

It is the largest weapons cache discovery by U.S. or Iraqi forces to date in the Yarmouk area, U.S. officials said.

Read the entire story here.

The increased operational tempo and chasing the rats down their holes is inevitably going to lead to more U.S. casualties.

The fight for security in Baghdad is likely to “get harder over the coming months as we engage an increasingly desperate enemy,” the deputy secretary of state said in Baghdad today.

John D. Negroponte, who served as U.S. ambassador to Iraq from 2004 until assuming his current post in February, spoke with reporters after two days of meetings in Iraq with senior U.S. and Iraqi leaders.

All recognize that as the Baghdad security plan reaches full stride with the last of the surge troops arriving this month, difficult days are likely to remain ahead, he said.

Read the entire story here. For most of us, this is the unfortunate cost of succeeding in any military conflict. For Harry Reid, it is twisted into a sign of American failure.

On a far more important note then Senator Reid, here is a fascinating briefing on Mental Health in the military:

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