The Rant

posted by Bob Clasen If you think stoning adulterers is a good idea, then you'll love Sharia law and the current government of Iran. Under Shari’a law, a prisoner is buried up to her breast, her hands restrained. Rules also specify the size of the stones which can be thrown so that death is painful and not imminent. Read this disturbing blog if you care.

Let's see, GDP growth is strong, productivity is way up, unemployment is low, family incomes are rising, inflation is down, the stock market is up, and the federal deficit is down. Yet polls show that we are about to put more Democrats into both the House and the Senate. That should fix all of these economic problems, real quick. Read the whole thing

What is so ironic is that if Foley had been a Democrat, the story would have attracted little interest among the major media or among Democrats. This lack of attention would have been reasonable. If the Republicans had tried to make an issue of Foley the Democrat, they would have been accused of being homophobes and ridiculed for bringing it up. Foley's naughty instant messaging done 3 years ago would be a "Non-Issue." It still is, except that the Democrats have nothing else they want to talk about, so it has been put on center stage, to try to distract the unruly mob. Foleygate is so trivial, in the context of all the crucial issues facing the public. It just goes to prove that while man may be capable of reason, he rarely chooses to use it. Nor does he seem to have much interest in debating issues rationally. Perhaps this is why politics and religion are forbidden topics in polite conversation. They require the application of some rational thought, and that is c

by Bob Clasen We finally found out the single issue that Democrats feel is the most important of the 2006 elections: some naughty instant messaging by Congressman Mark Foley, now resigned, written three years ago. Foley, a closet homosexual, wrote inappropriate instant messages to Congressional pages under the age of 18. Out of all of the possible issues: the Iraq War, the international War on Terrorism, tax policy, global warming, the national and world economy, the mainstream media seem to have judged that these dirty instant messages by one resigned Congressman are the only thing that deserves any discussion. It will be interesting to see if this issue is enough to swing the election. Dick Morris thinks it is. If so, the public gets the politicians it deserves.

By Fouad Ajami ________________________________ Posted Sunday, October 1, 2006 Political terrorism is as old as human history-the very word assassins derives from the Arabic hashshashin (hashish takers), after a terrorist cult that was established in Iran in the 11th century. The followers of this cult are the forerunners of today's terrorists. As their story is told by the great historian Bernard Lewis in The Assassins (first published in 1967), these cultists operated from castles in remote mountain areas under a shadowy leader known as "the Old Man of the Mountain." Their victims were rulers of Islamic dynasties and some lords of the Crusader principalities in the land of Islam. The victims, we are told, were chosen with care, and the assassins were "suicidals" who never returned alive from their missions. Today's terrorists, the heirs of those merciless men, operate in a world without limits. In one of the most revealing statements on the old terror, chr