Did anyone notice when the media began referring to the KGB as the Russian Security Police? A week or so ago, David Brooks, a columnist for the New York Times, wrote the following syndicated column:

Cult of death needs to be recognized, not explained away.

We’ve been forced to witness the massacre of innocents. In New York, Madrid, Moscow, Tel Aviv, Baghdad and Bali, we have seen thousands of people destroyed while going about the daily activities of life.

We’ve been forced to endure the massacre of children. Whether it’s teenagers outside an Israeli disco or students in Beslan, Russia, we’ve seen kids singled out as special targets.

We should be now have become used to the death cult that is thriving at the fringes of the Muslim world. This is the cult of people who are proud to declare, “You love life, but we love death.” This is the cult that sent waves of defenseless children to be mowed down on the battlefields of the Iran-Iraq war, which trains kindergartners to become bombs, which fetishizes death, which sends people off joyfully to commit mass murder.

This cult attaches itself to a political cause but parasitically strangles it. The death cult has strangled the dream of a Palestinian state. The suicide bombers have not brought peace to Palestine; they’ve brought reprisals. The car bombers are not pushing the U.S. out of Iraq; they’re forcing us to stay longer. The death cult is now strangling the Chechen cause, and will bring not independence but blood.

But that’s the idea. Because the death cult is not really about the cause it purports to serve. It’s about the sheer pleasure of killing and dying.

It’s about massacring people while in a state of spiritual loftiness. It’s about experiencing the total freedom of barbarism – freedom even from human nature, which says, Love children, and love life. It’s about the joy of sadism and suicide.

We should be used to this pathological mass movement by now. We should be able to talk about such things. Yet when you look at the Western reaction to the Beslan massacres, you see people quick to divert their attention away from the core horror of this act, as if to say: We don’t want to acknowledge those parts of human nature that were on display in Beslan. Something here, if thought about too deeply, undermines the categories we use to live our lives, undermines our faith in the essential goodness of human beings.

Three years after Sept. 11 too many people have become experts at averting their eyes. If you look at the editorials and public pronouncements made in response to Beslan, you see that they glide over the perpetrators of this act and search for more conventional, more easily comprehensible, targets for their rage.

The Boston Globe editorial, which was typical of the American journalistic response, made two quick references to the barbarity of the terrorists, but then quickly veered off with long passages condemning Putin and various Russian policy errors.

The Dutch Foreign Minister, Bernard Bot, speaking on behalf of the European Union, declared: “All countries in the world need to work together to prevent tragedies like this. But we would also like to know from the Russian authorities how this tragedy could have happened.”

It wasn’t a tragedy. It was a carefully planned mass murder operation. And it wasn’t Russian authorities who stuffed basketball nets with explosives and shot children in the back as they tried to run away.

Whatever horrors the Russians have perpetrated upon the Chechens, whatever their ineptitude in responding to the attack, the essential nature of this act was in the act itself. It was the fact that a team of human beings could go into a school, live with hundreds of children for a few days, look them in the eyes and hear their cries, and then blow them up.

Dissertations will be written about the euphemisms the media used to describe these murderers. They were called “separatists” and “hostage-takers.” Three years after Sept. 11, many are still apparently unable to talk about this evil. They still try to rationalize terror. What drives the terrorists to do this? What are they trying to achieve?

They’re still victims of the delusion that Paul Berman diagnosed after Sept. 11: “It was the belief that, in the modern world, even the enemies of reason cannot by the enemies of reason. Even the unreasonable must be, in some fashion, reasonable.”

This death cult has no reason and is beyond negotiation. This is what makes it so frightening. This is what causes so many to engage in a sort of mental diversion. They don’t want to confront this horror. So they rush off in search of more comprehensible things to hate.

If Brooks were more familiar with Scripture, he would know there is NO “essential goodness of human beings,” but that the human heart “is desperately wicked” & in us “dwells no good thing.” In these acts, we are seeing man’s old sin nature on display. What is new in this is the determination to destroy the industrialized world, which they see as a refutation of the Quran, or die trying. They think they will go to Heaven if they die trying.

This is not a “cult of death”, this is true Islam. Whitewash it however you wish; they are merely following what is written in the Quran. “Kill the unbelievers wherever you see them”

They are supreme fatalists, thinking that God controls every little thing on Earth, that He initiates the fall of each leaf, etc. As a result, one would think that three years of losses (at least 30,000 “jihadists” have died) would convince them that their concept of God is wrong and that, just perhaps, God does not favor their “jihad.” If God really favored their “jihad,” each day since Sept. 11 would have seen greater death & destruction in the Western world than that which occurred on Sept. 11.

NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only.

This has been a lefty leftist issue for the feminists as long as I can remember, and I’m sick of it. BTW, I not only hate her politics, but she’s a dog. Nevermind the glamorama glitz pics; with a little airbrushing, makeup, lighting, and a good photographer, you can turn the wicked witch of the west into Princess Di.

Click here

Anyway, let’s get on with the subject at hand, I digress. Abortion isn’t the only issue that the Billary Squad squawks about. In the “March for Women’s Lives” in Washington, Hillary spoke, “This administration is filled with people who…claim the pay gap between women and men is phony…” The term “pay gap” refers to the statistical observation that American women make 77 cents to every dollar earned by American men. For decades, militant feminists have maintained that the pay gap can only be explained by systematic workplace discrimination that puts less value on work done by women. But it’s actually a rhetorical contrivance deployed in the service of an anti-free market agenda.

In Appleton, Wisconsin, an assistant business editor chimed in with a column that included the following remarks: “Before seeing those numbers, I really thought women and men who do the same job would receive the same pay. For example, at most businesses, receptionists–who are typically women–are paid less than delivery personnel or those who work in the warehouse, who are typically men. I’m sorry, but that’s just not right. Is a receptionist’s work any less of value than someone who works in a warehouse?”

There is an obvious contradiction between the first sentence and the example she used in the next sentence. So Brian Farmer called her on the phone, and their conversation went something like this.

“Why should anyone be upset about the pay gap?” Brian asked.

She replied, “Because men and women should be treated as equals.”

“But the types of jobs done by women aren’t always the same as those done by men,” Brian countered.

“That doesn’t mean that discriminating doesn’t exist,” she rebutted.

Pointing out her flawed reasoning, when she used an example of two different jobs to support her arguments that men and women should get the same pay for the same job, Brian then asked, “If the receptionist wants the same pay for the same job, Brian then asked, “If the receptionist wants to make more money, why doesn’t she just apply for a job in the warehouse?”

“Look,” she said, “why don’t you just write a letter for the op-ed page?”

We couldn’t help but recall a line from an old ’80’s tune: “Put ‘em under pressure and you watch them fall apart.”

In any case, who do YOU think should decide how much a receptionist is worth compared to a warehouse worker–the government or the free market? And why should we believe that there would be no discrimination if we were to leave it up to the government to decide?

Any study of the pay gap and the reasons for its existence comes up with the following:

• Women leave the labor force for longer periods of time, primarily to bear and raise children. This slows career development, and the promotions and pay increases that go with enhanced work experience.
• Men are generally physically stronger than women, so they domincate employment in fields where the work is physically demanding (e.g., heavy industry, mining, construction) and where there is a greater chance of physical injury. These types of jobs command higher wages to compensate for the greater risk of bodily harm.
• Women work fewer hours per year, because more women work part-time, and more men work at jobs that are not only full-time, but offer overtime pay.
• Women choose certain lower paying occupations for a variety of reasons not related to pay, such as status and workplace environment. For example, most women prefer to be secretaries, rather than auto mechanics, even though auto machanics generally make more money.

What critics want us to believe is that the pay gap is a symptom of a despicable social problem. Namely, gender discrimination in the workplace. But I haven’t heard the answer to this very simple question: If such discrimination really exists, and a business could hire a woman to do a job for significantly less money than it would pay a man, why would any intelligent employer hire a man? It should be obvious that the free market competition would quickly eliminate any pay premium based on gender.

Why, then, do some people still want us to believe that the pay gap is due to job market discrimination against women? The answer is that some groups in society would benefit from policies that could be implemented, based on the assumption that such discrimination actually existed.

Comparable worth, pay equity, has been the most popular policy proposal put forward by feminists. It is based on the idea that wages and salaries should be calculated by the government on a scale of socioeconomic values that transcends the traditional economic forces of supply and demand. Each job is considered to have an intrinsic value to an employer, which proponents claim can be objectively determined. Some states actually attempted to implement comparable worth policies during the ’80’s, but the courts rejected them as a remedy for the alleged discrimination. Recent events show, though, those who want to expand the role of government in the workplace are not going to let this matter rest.

NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only.

“To an amazing degree,” New York Post embedded reporter Jonathan Foreman documented in a piece for the May 12 edition of the Weekly Standard, “the Baghdad based press corps avoids writing about or filming the friendly dealings between U.S. forces here and the local population most likely because to do so would require them to report the extravagant expressions of gratitude that accompany every such encounter.”

Foreman detailed how reporters for U.S. media outlets have exaggerated or distorted the level of looting and destruction in Baghdad — and he named names. Foreman recalled: “The Associated Press’s Hamza Hendawi, for instance, massively exaggerated and misrepresented the nature of the looting in Baghdad in the first days after the U.S. armored forces took key points in the city.”

Complaining about “the myth constantly repeated by antiwar columnists that the military let the city be destroyed in particular the hospitals and the national museum while guarding the Ministry of Oil,” a tale Foreman dismissed as fantasy, he cited how “a typical piece of reporting on the ‘destruction’ in Baghdad came from the Washington Post’s Rajiv Chandrasekaran on April 22…”

Los Angeles Times reporter David Zucchino accompanied Foreman to one neighborhood, Foreman related, where a wealthy doctor said he’s long had two bodyguards to protect him. But Zucchino reported that the doctor only hired the bodyguards after U.S. forces arrived in Baghdad, “as if the doctor had been driven to this expense by unrest following the arrival of the Americans.”

Foreman, who is embedded with the Scout Platoon of the 4th Battalion, 64th Armored Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division in Baghdad, penned the piece in the May 12 Weekly Standard titled, “Bad Reporting in Baghdad: You have no idea how well things are going.” An excerpt:

It’s endlessly fascinating to watch the interactions between U.S. patrols and the residents of Baghdad. It’s not just the love bombing the troops continue to receive from all classes of Baghdadi though the intensity of the population’s pro American enthusiasm is astonishing, even to an early believer in the liberation of Iraq, and continues unabated despite delays in restoring power and water to the city….

It’s things like the way the women old and young flirt outrageously with GIs, lifting their veils to smile, waving from high windows, and shyly calling hello from half opened doors. Or the way the little girls seem to speak much better English than the little boys who are always elbowing them out of the way….

But you won’t see much of this on TV or read about it in the papers. To an amazing degree, the Baghdad based press corps avoids writing about or filming the friendly dealings between U.S. forces here and the local population most likely because to do so would require them to report the extravagant expressions of gratitude that accompany every such encounter. Instead you read story after story about the supposed fury of Baghdadis at the Americans for allowing the breakdown of law and order in their city.

Well, I’ve met hundreds of Iraqis as I accompanied army patrols all over the city during the past two weeks and I’ve never encountered any such fury (even in areas that were formerly controlled by the Marines, who as the premier warrior force were never expected to carry out peacekeeping or policing functions)….

Given that a large proportion of the city’s poorest residents have taken part in looting the Baathist elite’s ministries, homes, and institutions, that should tell you something about the sources preferred by the denizens of the Palestine Hotel (the preferred home of the press corps). Indeed it’s striking that while many of the troops I’ve accompanied find themselves feeling some sympathy for the inhabitants of “Typhoid Alley” and other destitute neighborhoods and their attempts to obtain fans, furniture, TVs, etc., the press corps often seems solidly on the side of those who grew fat under the Saddam regime. (That said, imagine the press hysteria that would have greeted a decision by U.S. troops to use deadly force against the looters and defend the property of the city’s elite.) Even in the wealthiest neighborhoods places like the Mansoor district, where you still see intact pictures of Saddam Hussein people seem to be a lot more pro American than you could ever imagine from reading the wires.

Perhaps this is just another case of reporters with an anti American or antiwar agenda. Perhaps living in Saddam’s totalitarian Baghdad has left some of the press here with a case of Stockholm syndrome. It may also be a byproduct of depending on interpreters and fixers who were connected to or worked with the approval of the Saddam regime. And you cannot underestimate the herd instinct that can take over when you have a lot of media folk in a confined area for any length of time. But whatever the cause, the result has been very selective reporting.

The Associated Press’s Hamza Hendawi, for instance, massively exaggerated and misrepresented the nature of the looting in Baghdad in the first days after the U.S. armored forces took key points in the city. Like so many Baghdad based reporters, she described an “unchecked frenzy” that did not exist at that time (the looting was targeted and nonviolent, in the sense that the looters attacked neither persons nor inhabited dwellings). Read her pieces and you’ll meet a veritable parade of Iraqis who are angry with the United States.

Then there were those exaggerated reports of April 18 claiming (as Reuters’ Hassan Hafidh put it) that “Tens of thousands of protesters demanded on Friday that the United States get out of Iraq….In the biggest protest since U.S. forces toppled Saddam Hussein’s iron fisted, 24 year long rule nine days ago, Muslims poured out of mosques and into the streets of Baghdad, calling for an Islamic state to be established.” Demonstrators did come out of one mosque, but reporters seem to have confused them with the large numbers of Shia Muslims gathering for the pilgrimage to Karbala a pilgrimage long forbidden by the Saddam regime.

There are frequent small demonstrations in the blocks outside the Palestine and Sheraton hotels partly because that is where the press corps is congregated, but also because it’s an area that many Baath party officials fled to after the war began. Anyone who assumes that the atmosphere of that downtown area is in any way representative of the city would be gravely mistaken. However, many reporters have chosen to do just that rather than venture further out to places where they would have seen that far more typical and frequent “demonstrations” involve hundreds or even thousands of Iraqis gathering to cheer U.S. troops. Admittedly, some of those crowds include people begging for money, desperate for aid, or just curious about these strange looking foreigners….

More irritating is the myth constantly repeated by antiwar columnists that the military let the city be destroyed in particular the hospitals and the national museum while guarding the Ministry of Oil. The museum looting is turning out to have been grotesquely exaggerated. And there is no evidence for the ministry of oil story. Depending on the article, the Marines had either a tank or a machine gun nest outside the ministry. Look for a photo of that tank or that machine gun nest and you’ll look in vain. And even if the Marines had briefly guarded the oil ministry it would have been by accident: The Marines defended only the streets around their own headquarters and so called Areas of Operation. Again, though, given the pro regime sources favored by so many of the press corps huddled in the Palestine Hotel, it’s not surprising that this rumor became gospel.

A typical piece of reporting on the “destruction” in Baghdad came from the Washington Post’s Rajiv Chandrasekaran on April 22, which repeated all the usual gossip about the ministry of oil and then quoted Saad Jawad, a professor of political science at Baghdad University: “The Iraqis had very high hopes for the Americans,” Jawad told him. “But all this euphoria about change, all this relief, went away when they saw the amount of destruction to the infrastructure of the country and the carelessness of the Americans to the Iraqis’ day to day lives.” Yes, euphoria is bound dissipate, but there’s no sign it has yet. More important, what infrastructure destruction?

The reporter lets the charge stand undisputed but must be aware that roads, bridges, power stations, and rails lines were all left unbombed and intact by U.S. forces. The exception was power substations that fed key government buildings and broadcasting facilities (unless you count army bases and secret police headquarters as “infrastructure”).

But my favorite mad media moment was when an AP journalist turned up in a car heading to the Ministry of Information, the top floor of which was on fire. “Why aren’t you putting out the fire?” she angrily demanded of Sgt. William Moore. He looked at her with astonishment and asked, “How the hell am I supposed to do that?” Turning away, he muttered, “Piss on it?”…

Even embedded journalists (or perhaps their editors) can unconsciously misconstrue the facts on the ground. For instance, David Zucchino of the Los Angeles Times, who like me is embedded with the 4th Battalion of the 64th Armored Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division, recently accompanied my Scout platoon on a patrol. We went to an upmarket residential area, in which houses that formerly belonged to top Baath officials had been taken over by looters and in which a house owned by Qusay Hussein had been destroyed by a JDAM bomb. I was talking to Dr. Ali Faraj al Salih, a cardiologist trained at Edinburgh, when Zucchino, a fine, experienced foreign correspondent, walked over and began listening in. I asked Dr. Ali if he’d had any trouble with looters. “No” he replied, “I have guns, with license from the government. And I have two bodyguards.” “Have you always had the bodyguards?” I asked him. “Oh yes,” he said.

But Zucchino’s April 22 article in the L.A. Times headlined “In Postwar ‘Dodge City,’ Soldiers Now Deputies” reports “Dr. Ali Faraj, a cardiologist, stood before his well appointed home and mentioned that he has hired two armed guards,” as if the doctor had been driven to this expense by unrest following the arrival of the Americans.

Things may yet go horribly wrong here in American occupied Baghdad. But it is bizarre and sad that so few journalists are able or willing to recognize this honeymoon period for what it is.

NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only.