August 01, 2005

Five-by-Five

Great posts from around the blogosphere.

• A report on an American hero in Iraq -- one of many that MSM refuses to tell us about.  [The Jawa Report] 
• Hamas trains little chidren to blow themselves up. "Hamas Summer Camp." [Say Anything] 
• Youssef M. Ibrahim,managing director of the Dubai-based Strategic Energy Investment Group, tells the Muslim world they're going to pay a huge price for permitting Islamic terrorism to exist. [Austin Bay] 
• "I cited yesterday a piece in Arab News by Arab writer Dr. Mohammed T. Al-Rasheed calling for striking at the breeding grounds of terrorist 'vermin.' In the days since the bombings at Sharm el-Sheik many Egyptians are starting to ask just what exactly the breeding ground is and concluding that it just may be Islam itself." [Winds of Change]
• If, as Sen. Chris Dodd says, Bolton "lacks support", then why are the Dems blocking a floor vote on his confirmation? [PoliPundit] 
  

MSM Calls the American People “Gullible”—But Perhaps It Needs to Look in the Mirror

Newsweek recently made a point of calling the American public "gullible."  An observation from Michael Barone may be of interest in this regard:

Now the unsupported charges that "Bush lied" about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq have been rekindled via criticism of Karl Rove. A key witness for the Democrats and mainstream media was former diplomat Joseph Wilson. Unfortunately for his advocates, he turned out to be a liar. A year after his famous article appeared in the New York Times in July 2003 accusing Bush of "twisting" intelligence, the Senate Intelligence Committee, in a bipartisan report, concluded that Wilson lied when he said his wife had nothing to do with his dispatch to Niger and Chairman Pat Roberts said that his report bolstered rather than refuted the case that Saddam Hussein's Iraq sought to buy uranium in Africa. So despite the continuing credulousness of much of the press, it appears inconceivable at this point that Karl Rove will be charged with violating the law prohibiting disclosure of the names of undercover agents. The case against Rove--ballyhooed by recent Time and Newsweek cover stories that paid little heed to the discrediting of Wilson--seems likely to end not with a bang but a whimper. 

MSM has been falling for every absurd argument the Left puts out there.  Nothing could look more "gullible" than Dan Rather did in falling for those ridiculously forged documents.  Maybe it's time for MSM to make sure its own house is in order before using words such as "gullible" to describe the American people.

Discovery Astronauts Do Some Caulking And Sealing To Repair Shuttle’s Tiles

NASA's been catching a lot of flack for letting those heat-resistant tiles fall off on launch -- but at least they had a method in place for repairing the damage.

Mr. Noguchi and Dr. Robinson began their spacewalk at the back of the shuttle's payload bay, spending more than two hours working with damaged samples of the tiles that cover the bottom of a shuttle and the reinforced carbon-carbon material that makes up the wings' leading edges. The repair techniques were developed on recommendation from investigators of the Columbia accident two years ago, and this was the first time they could be tested in space.

...Dr. Robinson used a large caulk gun to squirt an experimental material called NOAX into cracks in the reinforced carbon samples and worked the black, doughlike material into the breaches with an assortment of putty knives.

"It seems to be well behaved," he said. "I see just a very little bit of bubbling." Engineers were concerned about bubbles forming in the material, which might keep a patch from holding.

Muslims Want Democracy

MAX BOOT REPORTS ON RECENT OPINION POLLS IN ISLAMIC NATIONS:

Muslim opinion also challenges jihadist orthodoxy that proclaims that giving power to the people, rather than to mullahs, is "un-Islamic." The latest Pew poll found "large and growing majorities in Morocco (83%), Lebanon (83%), Jordan (80%) and Indonesia (77%) — as well as pluralities in Turkey (48%) and Pakistan (43%) — [that] say democracy can work well and is not just for the West."

That's exactly what President Bush has been saying. Though his actions and rhetoric have been denounced as "unrealistic" and "extremist" by his American and European critics, it turns out that Muslims welcome it. "Roughly half of respondents in Jordan and nearly two-thirds of Indonesians think the U.S. favors democracy in their countries," the new Pew study said. "About half of the public in Lebanon also takes that view." Imagine that: Bush's actions might actually be making Middle Easterners more pro-American!