The DEM whines (we weren’t notified first about Cheney’s hunting accident — waaaa!); the DEM cowers (we can’t publish the cartoons; read: we realize these assholes are nuts).

And the media buries information in the back pages and de-emphasizes the truth. To wit, buried in the New York Times under the “international” area and, certainly, not on the front internet page:

TURIN, Italy, Feb. 18 — A day after at least 11 people were killed in Libya (Libyan security officials said 11 people were killed or wounded during the riot in the eastern city when police firing bullets and tear gas tried to contain more than 1,000 demonstrators hurling rocks and bottles. The casualties included police officers.) amid continuing violence over the Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, an Italian government minister resigned Saturday for wearing a T-shirt printed with the cartoons.

Further:

In Nigeria, Muslims protesting the cartoons attacked Christians and burned churches on Saturday, killing at least 15 people in the deadliest confrontation yet in the whirlwind of Muslim anger over the drawings, The Associated Press reported. Mobs of Muslim protesters swarmed through Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State in northeastern Nigeria, with machetes, sticks and iron rods, The A.P. said. One group threw a tire around a man, poured gas on him and set him ablaze.

Who was this man? Was his religion possibly significant? Read on:

Thousands of rioters burned 15 churches in a three-hour rampage before troops and police reinforcements restored order, said a Nigerian police spokesman, Haz Iwendi. Security forces arrested dozens of people, he said.

What kind of churches? Read on:

Chima Ezeoke, a Christian Maiduguri resident, said protesters attacked and looted shops owned by minority Christians, most of them with origins in the country’s south. Witnesses said three children and a priest were among those killed.

Nigeria, with a population of more than 130 million, is roughly divided between a predominantly Muslim north and a mainly Christian south.

Thousands of people have died in that West African country since 2000 in religious violence fueled by the adoption of the strict Islamic legal code by a dozen states in the north, seen by most Christians as a move to impose religious hegemony on non-Muslims.

Ah, Islam. The religion of peace and understanding.

Ah, the DEM, working in concert with Islam, the religion of peace and understanding. If you dig far enough. . .

It’s 6 pm.

You’ve invited one person from history to attend your dinner.

You have two hours to speak with this person and understand their point of view.

_______________________

It could be anyone — who would this be? And tell me why.

_______________________

I wanted to converse with General George Smith Patton.

_______________________

Yours?

This is BZ’s cabin and his CommuteMobile. I’ve had two meagre snowfalls prior to today, of about an inch each. Living at 4,000′ in the Sierra Nevadas, that’s not saying much.

This is the first significant snowfall of the year and it closed Interstate 80 and backed up traffic at Applegate for over an hour. Knowing the back roads, I was able to bypass the commoners looking to ski and clog my commute.

THIS is finally what winter should be! And, on top of that, our water content and snowpack is 120% of normal. Good news for the valley below!

(Thanks Don!)

A concerned Liberal wrote a lot of letters to the White House complaining about the treatment of terrorists being held in Guantanamo Bay. She received the following reply:

The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, D.C. 20016

Dear Concerned Citizen,

Thank you for your recent letter roundly criticizing our treatment of the Taliban and Al Quaeda detainees currently being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Our administration takes these matters seriously and your opinion was heard loud and clear here in Washington. You’ll be pleased to learn that, thanks to the concerns of citizens like yourself, we are creating a new division of the Terrorist Retraining Program, to be called the “Liberals Accept Responsibility for Killers” program, or LARK for short.

In accordance with the guidelines of this new program, we have decided to place one terrorist under your personal care. Your personal detainee has been selected and scheduled for transportation under heavily armed guard to your residence next Monday.

Ali Mohammed Ahmed bin Mahmud (you can just call him Ahmed) is to be cared for pursuant to the standards you personally demanded in your letters of complaint. It will likely be necessary for you to hire some assistant caretakers. We will conduct weekly inspections to ensure that your standards of care for Ahmed are commensurate with those you so strongly recommended in your letter.

Although Ahmed is a sociopath and extremely violent, we hope that your sensitivity to what you described as his “attitudinal problem” will help him overcome these character flaws. Perhaps you are correct in describing these problems as mere cultural differences. We understand that you plan to offer counseling and home schooling.

Your adopted terrorist is extremely proficient in hand-to-hand combat and can extinguish human life with such simple items as a pencil or nail clippers. We advise that you do not ask him to demonstrate these skills at your next yoga group. He is also expert at making a wide variety of explosive devices from common household products, so you may wish to keep those items locked up, unless (in your opinion) it his might offend him.

Ahmed will not wish to interact with you or your daughters (except sexually), since he views females as a subhuman form of property. This is a particularly sensitive subject for him and he has been known to show violent tendencies around women who fail to comply with the new dress code that he will recommend as more appropriate attire. I’m sure you will come to enjoy the anonymity offered by the burka — over time.

Just remember that it is all part of “respecting his culture and his religious beliefs” — wasn’t that how you put it? Thanks again for your letter. We truly appreciate it when folks like you keep us informed of the proper way to do our job.

You take good care of Ahmed — and remember — we’ll be watching.

Good luck!

Cordially,

Donald Rumsfeld