9 people convicted of adultery are going to be stoned to death in the Islamic Republic of Iran. It's just amazing that in the 21st century, 9 people, guilty of nothing more than innappropriate behavior, are going to be executed in a brutal 7th century punishment, thanks, of course to Muslim Sharia law, the law that keeps on killing. How is it that a country that was once one of the most progressive societies in the entire Middle East has reverted back to the stone age in their matters of civil prosecution?

I have to thank Jimmy Carter, the former president who undermined the Shah, and encouraged the rise of an Islamic theocracy. While president, Carter demanded the Shah step down and hand over power to the Ayatollah Khomeini, and undermined the Shah's position by telling the Shah's military advisers to acquiese to the Ayatollah. Of the Ayatollah himself, Carter said he was a "religious man," and believed he would better represent the values of the Iranian people.

He was right about the Ayatollah being religious, but didn't quite comprehend that the religion of the Ayatollah was a stone-age abberation called Islam. And in addition to this he fails to understand the consequences of his actions while president. The rise of the mullahs in Iran was the first "shot" in the jihad against the "great Satan," the United States of America. The connection between the events of 1979 in Iran and the 9-11 attacks is a string of events that were borne by that first failure of the United States under Jimmy Carter, which spurred Islamic fascists to ever increasing resolve in their effort to defeat and destroy us.

Jimmy Carter, how can you sleep at night?

Let's hope the left eventually wakes up...

The equalization game continues, as H. supporters continue to dredge up "questionable" McCain associations. Alan Colmes, and The Nation columnist Katha Pollitt are pointing their fingers at two religious figures that have endorsed John McCain, televangelist John Hagee and preacher Ron Parsley. Both are outspoken, and sometimes outrageous in their sermons, but neither can be compared to Reverend Wright, nor can the association between them be compared to the association between H. and Wright.

Let's take a look at John Hagee. He has "famously attributed Hurricane Katrina to God's wrath at homosexuals," and this, H. supporters believe, somehow cancels out Wrights outrageous rant about "America's chickens have come home to roost." Well, these two are hardly equivalent. John Hagee was speaking out against behavior and so was Reverend Wright. I endorse neither statement, although Wright's actually probably has more truth to it than Hagee's. But Hagee was extorting people to follow the word of God and trying to help them be better people in God's eyes. In the bible, homosexuality is a sin, after all. We don't have to believe it, but I find no offense in him saying it. Wright on the other hand, was stirring up pure hostility and offering nothing of a constructive nature whatsoever. Hagee's statements were not vitriolic in the sense that Wright's were. In the racially tense South Side of Chicago, Wright was stirring up civil disobedience, calling the American government a "liar," and destroying in one swoop any presumption of civil authority. How many crimes may have been committed because of Wright and his divisive sermons? And then he ends by cursing the U.S.A. right from the pulpit, using language that most people would never use before small children. No, Hagee's and Wright's statements are hardly equivalent.

Another set of statements that Wright defenders and H. supporters use to equalize Hagee, Parsley and Wright, are the beliefs by both Hagee and Parsley that Islam is evil and their claims that "the Koran commands Muslims to kill Jews and Christians." Parsley goes further to state that America was founded to "destroy Islam," which is a bit of a crackpot statement, but a logical extension of his beliefs about Islam in general, which is evidenced by the Koran itself. This is somehow supposed to equal out Wright's excoriation of Jews and Israel. Once again, these statements and/or beliefs are hardly equal. Wright's beef against the Jews has no factual basis whatsoever. He merely spews the same one-sided lies that we hear from people like Louis Farrakhan, whom he has honored in his church. Hagee and Parsley, on the other hand, are correct in their claim that "the Koran commands Muslims to kill Jews and Christians." From TheReligionOfPeace.com:

The Koran contains 109 verses that call Muslims to war with nonbelievers. Some are quite graphic, with commands to chop off heads and fingers, and kill the infidels wherever they may be hiding. Muslims who do not join the fight are called 'hypocrites' and warned that Allah will send them to Hell if they do not join the slaughter.

For the actual passages that explicitly state such things, visit TheReligionOfPeace.com.

So, once again, Hagee and Parsley are actually stating some things that are known to be true, or at least backed up by evidence. In addition, Parsley calls Allah a "demon spirit," which Alan Colmes seems to think is just as hateful as anything Reverend Wright has said. Why would Parsley think that, when his prophet Mohammed was a man who condoned war and bloodshed, was married to 11 women at one time (one as young as 9 years old), raped women captured in battle, added new, sometimes contradictory verses to his holy book any time he wanted to change the rules, and founded a religion which is directly or indirectly responsible for humans dying every single day, to this very day? I could see some basis for that statement. Wright, on the other hand, is spewing pure propaganda which is not borne out by evidence. Of course, many people may believe that Jews and Palestinians for example are equally culpable for the disorder in the Middle East, but I don't. And I do not find it to be "hate speech" to say so. That is an opinion found only on the left. All people, on the other hand, should condemn anti-Semitism. This is no double standard. Saying that Jews are evil is a bigoted statement with no evidence to back it up. Saying that Muslims are commanded by the Koran to kill infidels is not bigoted; that's what the book actually says.

These are the most glaring examples of equalization defenses put out by Wright defenders and H. supporters, and upon closer examination, they fall flat. Add to this Wright's obviously racial eugenics rants and the fact that McCain's relationship with his two "questionable preachers" is not nearly as close nor as long-lasting as H.'s relationship with Reverend Wright, and you can see why the Reverend Wright issue has far more relevance than either Hagee or Parsley and John McCain. Can you say apples and oranges?

Daily Kos, the prememinent liberal blog, has many posters who like to smear and defame and act tough. If the subject is Bush, Hillary, or the Iraq war, they step up and do their best to pretend they are all the good guys who are fighting for a better world for all, then proceed to write posts condemning these things they see as unfair, unjust, or down-right evil. But when it comes to the unsafe target of Islamic fundamentalism, they have little to say. You would think a website that pretends to be some sort of safeguard for free speech and universal human rights would set its target on the biggest, heaviest gorilla of them all, but that's not the case.

For example, I did a search for the title of the Dutch film "Fitna." Fitna is the anti-Islam film by Geert Wilders and is at the forefront of any discussion of free speech that is to be had today. The result: 0 posts. I searched for a reference to "Mohammed cartoons," another hot button free speech issue. It returned 1 result, and that was actually a post attacking Bush on water-boarding.

Of course, Kos posters can write about whatever they want, but I find it funny and a bit hypocritical that they are so constantly outraged about Republicans and/or "Neo-cons" and the percieved stripping away of their Constitutional rights, yet ignore what many believe is an even bigger threat to all of our freedoms. They have said the cruelest, most vile things about their fellow Americans, but when it comes to a group of people who are the biggest violators of human rights on the planet, they ignore the discussion completely. I guess it's easy to talk tough when your target won't actually do the things you accuse it of, like depriving you of your rights or silencing you. When the target is Fundamentalist Islam, and is actually guilty of many of the accusations made against it, and might actually kill you for voicing your freedom of opinion, (see Theo Van Gogh, for example) you just shut up about it and look for easier, less challenging targets.

Pathetic.

You may have noticed the link on my home page that displays the number of terror attacks committed by Muslims since 9-11. This is a banner link to a particularly informative website called thereligionofpeace.com. If you haven't visited this website, I encourage you to do so. It may open your eyes to some information about Islam in general and Mohammed in particular that you may not have been aware of.

You have probably heard me state on this blog that "Islam is on the move," referring to the fact that Islam is the world's fastest growing religion, but also inferring that it is spreading by way of the sword. If you don't believe that Islam is a violent religion whose more fanatical followers are bent on subjugating all people and all lands for Islam, the aforementioned website may help to change your mind. Many who disagree with that perception of Islam are simply unaware of the history of the religion, much of which is not really open to any other interpretation than the fact that Islam desires to dominate.

For example, are you aware of this little nugget of information from the aforementioned website?

Islamic terrorists staged nearly ten thousand deadly attacks in just the six years following September 11th, 2001. If one goes back to 1971, when Muslim armies in Bangladesh began the mass slaughter of Hindus, through the years of Jihad in the Sudan, Kashmir and Algeria, and the present-day Sunni-Shia violence in Iraq, the number of innocents killed in the name of Islam probably exceeds five million over this same period.

But wasn't Mohammed a man of peace, you might ask? Does this sound like a peaceful man?

Although the Qurayza surrendered peacefully to the Muslims, Muhammad determined to have every man of the tribe executed, along with every boy that had reached the initial stages of puberty (between the ages of 12 and 14). He ordered a ditch dug outside of the town and had the victims brought in several groups. Each person would be forced to kneel, and their head would be cut off and then dumped along with the body into the trench.

Between 700 and 900 men and boys were slaughtered by the Muslims after their surrender.

But of course, you may say, many religions have violent histories. What about the Christians and the Crusades? The Muslims are usually portrayed as victims in this little piece of history, but consider this:

The first Crusade began in 1095... 460 years after the first Christian city was overrun by Muslim armies, 457 years after Jerusalem was conquered by Muslim armies, 453 years after Egypt was taken by Muslim armies, 443 after Muslims first plundered Italy, 427 years after Muslim armies first laid siege to the Christian capital of Constantinople, 380 years after Spain was conquered by Muslim armies, 363 years after France was first attacked by Muslim armies, 249 years after Rome itself was sacked by a Muslim army, and only after centuries of church burnings, killings, enslavement and forced conversions of Christians.

By the time the Crusades finally began, Muslim armies had conquered two-thirds of the Christian world.

How does that relate to today, you may ask? Most Muslims you may know seem like peace loving, ordinary people. But even in the U.S., Islamists are beginning to preach a more fundamental version of the religion. The more a Muslim takes the religion literally, the more dangerous a Muslim he becomes. A Muslim presence in your community is the thin end of the wedge. Islam still uses the same methods to gradually infiltrate and soon dominate other cultures:

Typically, the enemy's trust would be gained by non-intrusive measures in which the Muslims would insert themselves into the foreign community while professing their respect for local traditions and political structures. As they began to gain power, however, they would divide loyalties and exercise violence to acquire local hegemony.

Sound familiar? This is happening in Europe today, as evident in widely reported incidents in London, Paris, Berlin, etc. And it is beginning to happen in the U.S., and will continue unless we stop being so politically correct and are actually willing to confront the problem.

These excerpts from thereligionofpeace.com merely scratch the surface. If you want to know more about how Islam is slowly trying to destroy our way of life, I implore you to visit this website and learn more about the so-called Religion of Peace.

The recent Saturday Night Live sketch poking fun at the media's handling of Barack Hussein Obama at debates ("Are you comfortable? Do you need another pillow?") while hammering Hillary Clinton with tough questions reminds me of how the media in general, as well as most liberal Americans, scrutinize the religions of Islam and Christianity. Christianity is repeatedly savaged as being cruel and tyrannical, in both its history and current incarnations, while Islam is generally given a pass and referred to as "a religion of peace."

There is no shortage of references in popular culture to the violence of the Crusades, for example, which are always referred to as Christians suddenly deciding to go on some rampaging torture spree for the cause of spreading their religious doctrine. Muslims are always depicted as the hapless victims of these rampages, neverminding the fact that there is much evidence that the Crusades were, in part, a response to the bloody encroachment of Islam into Christian lands. There is much evidence that Islam was, and still is, spread by the sword, but today we don't talk about that - we have revised this history to fit into the current depiction of Islam as a religion of peace. Yet, it is not uncommon these days, in any blue state, to hear how Christians are tyrants, fascists, or some similar insult with no further explanation.

Christianity is pilloried constantly in our culture, and liberals see no problem with this. On the other hand, if someone makes a disparaging comment about Muslims or Islam, they are viewed as "intolerant," or even worse, as "racists" (never mind the fact that Islam is not a "race"). I don't see a problem with scrutiny of the shameful areas of Christianity's history, but we need to treat Islam with equal scrutiny. That includes recognizing that even today, many Muslims are creating a bloody history of subjugation and torture.

Islam is on the move, and it is spreading by the sword. Of course you will hear apologists state that not all Muslims are fanatical or are terrorists, and that may be true. But it doesn't take all of them, it only takes some of them. Not all Germans were Nazis, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't have recognized the advancing power of Germany in the late 1930s. We need to stop tip-toeing around Islam and start recognizing that some Muslims are a major threat to our way of life. Mohammed was a warrior, and he spread Islam with his sword. We need to stop asking if he is comfortable and start scrutinizing Islam in an unflinching and critical way.

For more information on Islam as it relates to terrorism, visit thereligionofpeace.com.

In light of recent events in The Netherlands and the resurfacing of the Mohmammed cartoon controversy, bloggers are standing in Solidarity of Freedom of Speech by reprinting one or more of the infamous Mohammed cartoons. Blogs such as MichelleMalkin.com and Captain's Quarters are leading the charge. Five Danish newspapers have printed the cartoons as well.

Here's my contribution, the cartoon by Kurt Westergaard that is at the center of the current controversy.

We will not surrender. We will not submit.

Newspapers in Denmark Wednesday reprinted the controversial cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed that sparked worldwide protests two years ago.

The move came one day after Danish authorities arrested three people who allegedly were plotting a "terror-related assassination" of Kurt Westergaard, one of the cartoonist behind the drawings.

Berlingske Tidende, one of the newspapers involved in the republication, said: "We are doing this to document what is at stake in this case, and to unambiguously back and support the freedom of speech that we as a newspaper always will defend," in comments reported by The Associated Press.

By now, you have probably heard of or have seen the video of Evan Sayet at the Heritage Foundation. It is an incredible speech, and in it Mr. Sayet gives a well crafted observation of why so many modern liberals think the way they do. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend giving it a view. it is about 45 minutes long, but well worth the time. You can view it here.

I have watched the video a few times and mostly agree with his position. And so do many others, as is evident by doing a Google search on the video, and by the comments it has registered.

So, I got to thinking, what do liberals think of this speech? I figured that there must be some liberal backlash by the "thinking, progressive, liberal bloggers." I would think that some liberal blogger somewhere must have issued a rebuttal that would be worth reading. So, I did a search on The Daily Kos looking for such a rebuttal, as Daily Kos is the foremost blog for liberals, and if there was such a rebuttal, I would assume that I could find it there.

What did my search reveal? One post (or diary, as they like to call it). Just one. And was it a well crafted rebuttal? Hardly. The diarist admits to only watching the first eight and a half minutes, then refutes none of the points in the speech. Just as Mr. Sayet is starting to backup his thesis statement, the diarist tunes out and turns him off. He doesn't even take the time to allow Mr. Sayet to explain the positions he has stated. Instead, the diarist draws a false conclusion, then uses the liberal technique of denigrating Evan Sayet by calling him a jackass. And then the diarist tries to build himself up by talking about how his TV choices are intelligent and how he likes a "clear statement and a clean argument."

It is my opinion that the Evan Sayet video is a clear statement and a clean argument, and if this person had taken the time to listen to it long enough for Mr. Sayet to present his points in their entirety and draw his conclusion, the blogger might have posted a better diary. Instead, this one lone post on the Daily Kos that even acknowledges Mr. Sayet's speech shows its writer as someone who doesn't live up to that which he espouses.

In the end, the diarist winds up proving Mr. Sayet right on a number of the points. And that one diary is all "the preeminent liberal blog" the Daily Kos, in its thousands of postings and diaries, had to say about it.

Snapped Shot is having a little fun with the images of the infamous "Islamic Rage Boy." This is a fellow who seems to appear at protests all over the place, leading Michelle Malkin to label him "the professional jihad poster child." Here's my contribution:

To view all the parodies, click here.

President Bush gave his speech tonight, and I thought he did rather well in addressing the present situation in Iraq, and proposing a change in course that has at its heart one important goal: we must win in Iraq. But the Democrats in Congress wasted no time in expressing their goal: they want to lose.

They have already said that we have lost in Iraq. Granted, this is not half-time, this is not even the third quarter; this is the fourth quarter, and defeat may be a possibility, but the game is not over. Please forgive the football analogy, but it is a good analogy in that a game is not over until it is over. But of course, this is not a game, this is real life, with real lives on the line. And unlike a football game, it is not just the players whose lives are on the line, it is all of us. We all stand to lose if our troops are forced to lose in Iraq. It is the fourth quarter, but not yet the two-minute warning, and a lot can be done to turn this conflict around, and ultimately achieve an honorable victory. But rather than stand and fight, the Democrats in Congress have given up. After calling for more troops, they reject that notion now, because they want to treat this a political football, and the game they want to win is the White House in 2008.

Let's take a look at some of their specific reactions to the President's speech.

Dick Durbin, the House Majority Whip, called for the "orderly" withdrawal of troops from Iraq to send the Iraqis the message that the United States will not perpetually back them militarily." (CNN.com) His rebuttal statement included the following:

"It's time to begin the orderly redeployment of our troops so that they can begin coming home soon. When the Iraqis understand that America is not giving an open-ended commitment of support, when they understand that our troops indeed are coming home, then they will understand the day has come to face their own responsibility to protect and defend their nation."

And what if they don't? Dick Durbin doesn't seem to care. Like Ted Kennedy, he is prepared to just walk away from Iraq and let the Iraqi people fall into whatever abyss the terrorist elements can create for them. With disdain and impatience, he is willing to to suggest that they can help themselves without our aid, or all just be subjugated and slaughtered like the people in Cambodia in the late seventies. When he calls for the "orderly" withdrawal of our troops, it is to send a "message." What will that message be? It won't be that they have to help themselves; it will be a message more like this: we came into your country and liberated you from your dictator, but now we just don't have the will to see it through. We are the paper tiger Osama bin laden has called us, and after coaxing you to rise up and vote in your first ever Democratic election, we are going to take our ball and go home, because some of us think we are losing.

Durbin also was quoted as saying:

"If there's any surge that's needed in Iraq it's a surge in diplomacy..."

He wants to negotiate, but who is he going to negotiate with? Diplomacy? With whom? Negotiating with terrorists has never worked before, why does he think it's going to work now? Like Neville Chamberlain, he wishes to work a deal with extremist killers so that he can return home and proclaim that peace can be achieved without war. And like so many of his Democratic colleagues, he never addresses the consequences of such capitulation in the face of real threats.

Another Democratic Illinois Senator, Barack Obama, echoed the sentiment, as CNN.com reports:

"Illinois Democratic Sen. Barack Obama, often mentioned as a possible 2008 presidential candidate, told CNN's "Larry King Live" that he "didn't see any political strategy in the president's remarks to get Sunni and Shia to arrive at the political accommodation" necessary for peace. Obama said he would rather see troops redeployed to "Afghanistan and other areas where we can fight the battle against terrorism and al Qaeda."

Both Durbin and Obama have a fundamental misunderstanding of the consequences of their proposals, and neither addresses the reality of the situation. Both propose a solution that admits defeat in Iraq before the outcome has truly been decided. They are armchair quarterbacks, men who cannot objectively assess our position in this war, making statements that are targeted to do nothing to win the conflict so that they can say that it's not their fault, and look good to their friends and supporters. Let's lose the game and blame it all on the quarterback, and maybe one of the guys we like and support can take over for him in the next one.

To underscore their armchair quarterbacking, these and other Democrats are undertaking a vote on a resolution opposing the President's plan. They are actively undermining our effort to stand and make a final try at winning this war. One of their chief arguments is "This is not what the American people voted for." And that statement, more than any other, sums up why they are the wrong people to make an accurate assessment of how to win this conflict. They truly believe that strategic thinking and planning are not the way to achieve victory, they believe that whatever the majority of the American people seem to want is the basis for making the decisions in such an important conflict. They reveal that they truly are driven by polls rather than logic. If the polls suggest Americans want this, that's what they would do. If they want that, then let's do that. Nowhere do they ever address that victory and success are not driven by the desires of the majority; victory and success are created by men with a single-minded purpose to succeed, and men who are willing to take risks and bear the cost. President Bush has shown that he wants to succeed and is willing to bear the cost of whatever legacy history has for him. Democrats just want to be friends with everyone and win the next election--but not the war in Iraq.

In today's Chicago Tribune, Alfred N. Godinez writes that "President Bush's Iraq war... is a failure at best and a disaster at worst! (Voice of the people, Tuesday December 12, 2006). He then extolls the liberal and Democrat viewpoints, saying that "your (our) beliefs are now substantiated."

Let us not forget that part of this perceived failure can be blamed on this group of liberals and Democrats that he himself is a part of. From the beginning of the conflict, the effort by our country to succeed in Iraq was consistently undermined by these people. Our country has had to fight two wars, one in Iraq, and one at home, and the war at home is the one that is deciding this conflict.

The coalition soldiers in Iraq have not lost a single battle and have not been unsuccessful in any mission they have undertaken. The terrorists in Iraq have persisted because every act of terrorism they commit is magnified through the prism of the liberal media, and actions by the United States to combat them were undermined or overlooked. The enemy knows this, and have been using the liberals as pawns, knowing that every time a car-bombing or beheading takes place, some of our own citizens will exxagerate the significance of the act. One car bombing by the terrorists is worth 100 successful strikes by our side, thanks to the Bush-hating, "blame America first" leftists.

From calling the conflict a quagmire within weeks (if not days) of the beginning of the war to undermining our country's ability to fight it, these people hold as much responsibility for failure as does anyone else. And if, in the end, we do not succeed in Iraq, I will know who to blame.

I just returned from voting. Voting in my precinct was quick and easy, with no lines or any visible problems. One thing caught my attention, though. On the ballot that I voted on, there was one question to vote on that I don't believe should have been on the ballot:

"Shall the United States Government immediately begin an orderly and rapid withdrawal of all its military personnel from Iraq, beginning with the National Guard and Reserves?"

This "Countywide Referendum" seems to me to be nothing more than a political ploy by the Democrats of my area, trying to gather ammunition for the demand to eventually withdraw our troops before victory is achieved. I would have preferred not to see that question on the ballot for several reasons, the main one being that it is not a vote that really means anything. My county does not make such decisions; our federal government is in charge of those decisions. In addition, no foreign policy decisions of this nature should be decided by majority rule straight from the voter. The average citizen has no business making military decisions or foreign policy decisions. We elect people to do that, so that decisions are (hopefully) made on the basis of what is right for our country, with access to strategies and intelligence the average voter may have little knowledge of. Of course, we owe it to our elected officials to let them know what results we would like to see, but they may have to make decisions that go against that because they believe it to be in the best interest of our country.

In any case, on that particular referendum, I voted no.

At several times last weekend, Fox News aired about 30 minutes of a film entitled "Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against The West." If you haven't seen the film or Fox's airing of excerpts, you can view 12 minutes of the film here online. In fact, even if you saw Fox's airing, I recommend taking a look, as it has some excerpts that weren't shown on Fox. In any case, this should be on your mind as you go to vote tomorrow.

What struck me the hardest were the insidious hate filled speeches put forth by Muslim extremists, and the brainwashing of children to recruit new ranks for their jihad. The speeches and propaganda reminded me of both the Nazis in World War II and the "Two Minute Hate," scene from George Orwell's classic novel 1984. The scenes of children being subjected to hate-filled ideology at incredibly young ages should put to rest the thought that we are creating more terrorists by fighting back.

For those who believe the U.S. is exaggerating the threat of War On Terror, or that if we change our behavior we will not be attacked, this should be a wake-up call. The Fox News broadcast showed an excerpt that shows terror attacks all over the world, and clearly illustrates that this isn't just an American problem. The growth of radical Islam is a threat to virtually every nation on earth.

So, watch this film excerpt if you haven't already, and when you go to vote tomorrow, think of how this relates to what might happen if the Democrats take control of Congress.

The upcoming elections are being presented as a referendum on Iraq. Democrats look to take over Congress, and perhaps the Senate as well. If that proves to be the case, Democrats will try to make good on removing our troops from Iraq. A scarier scenario I could not imagine.

What is at stake here is not just local politics. To withdraw from Iraq will endanger all of us. The Iraq war has been compared to the Vietnam war many times, and withdrawing from Iraq without winning will finally make the comparison a valid one. If we are to withdraw without a victory, we will be repeating the mistake made after the end of the Vietnam war. Remember, despite 30 years of misinformation from liberals, that we did not "lose" the Vietnam war when the Paris Peace Accords were signed in 1973. We pledged our support to South Vietnam to enforce this treaty. It was not until the Democrats in Congress withdrew this support that we finally lost this war in 1975. In the next 4 years, millions of people in Southeast Asia were subjugated or killed.

We are now on the verge of repeating this mistake. If the Democrats succeed in getting our troops withdrawn, the terrorists will have won. And this time, the enemy will not be content to confine their killing and subjugation to their own corner of the world. They will be emboldened, and they will come after us.

"He said, I quote, 'Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.'"

Pope Benedict XVI's use of a quote by 14th-century Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus in a recent speech may have been insensitive, but the response to it appears to confirm the accuracy of the statement. I find the burning of effigies, calls for death and beheading, and church bombings far more offensive than the Pope's statement.

Why is it that Muslims can disparage Christianity (and other religions) as a tenet of their faith, but no one is allowed to speak against islam? If Christians reacted similarly to every insult the Muslims profess, no Christian would ever be getting any work done -- they'd all be too busy dancing in the streets, waving weapons and calling for death every moment of every day.

These Muslims who are protesting can certainly dish it out, but they certainly can't take it.

I recently read a survey, where the main question posed was "Should the U.S. negotiate with Iran?" I was surprised to read the first three answers, all which said we should negotiate. The first of the answers made the statement, "don't send a warmonger (like Bush)," and "send someone who will listen." The second answer claimed we are being "fooled by our own government," and the third answer stated we should take Iran off of the Axis of Evil list.

Who are these people who have such a poor understanding of the Iranian problem, and who would rather blame our government first? These people should "listen" to the very words of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad when he states very clearly that his goal is Muslim domination of the entire world. These people should listen when he says he wants to wipe the state of Israel "off the map." These people should listen when he says that a world without America "is attainable, and surely can be achieved."

These people should review their history books, including information about the fall of Constantinople in 1453 and the Munich Pact between the Western powers and Hitler in 1938. They need to stop the naive belief that our government is not to be trusted while Iran's government can and should be. And they need to listen to what Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says today. As Newt Gingrich has said, "when someone tells you he wants to kill you, believe him."

I am new to the world of blogging; nonetheless, I hope to bring a unique perspective to the burgeoning blogosphere.

For now, in honor of the fifth anniversary of the 9-11 attacks, I would just like to make one statement. This is a statement that has appeared on Michelle Malkin's blog today, and I believe it provides a good introduction to my point of view.

The above phrase in Arabic is "lan astaslem." It means "I will not surrender/I will not submit." You can guess who it's directed at.