musing minds

Ace’s actual appearance will be posted in a bit. And also Charles Johnson’s appearance.

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The 8:25 am version of the Osgood File this morning with Dave Ross was somewhat surprising.

You can listen to it and read the transcript here.

He discusses the innocents who are being hurt and that they have some responsibility for what is happening.

Listen and read.

Related: Don Surber’s post “First they came for the Jews“

Referencing my article below, here’s another crime that won’t be classified as terrorism (and probably shouldn’t be) and it also won’t be classified as a “hate” crime (as was the crime committed by Naveed Afzal Haq in Seattle).

I agree with Betsy wholeheartedly about the classification of “hate” crimes. How does it make an assault or a murder more of an assault or a murder?

Person A kills Person B.

Scenario 1: Person A is a wife who just can’t stand her husband anymore. She’s really mad because he will not put the seat back down and he never picks up his dirty under shorts. She “hates” him.

Scenario 2: Person “A” is a member of one religious or ethnic group. Person “B” is member of another religious or ethnic group. Person A “hates” all persons of Person B’s religious or ethnic group.

Person B is just as dead. Murder one is murder one.

As Betsy says, “Why should motive (apart from self-defense) make a murder more or less heinous?”

Terrorism isn’t terrorism when a Naveed Afzal Haq is charged with a hate crime for killing and wounding Jews at a Jewish center in Seattle. This after he announced, “I’m a Muslim American; I’m angry at Israel,”

Terrorism isn’t terrorism when the Deputy Secretary of the UN, Mark Malloch Brown, says

that he does not think that Hezbollah, the Syrian- and Iranian-backed group currently fighting Israeli Defense Forces, is a terrorist organization.

“It’s not helpful to couch this war in the language of international terrorism. Hezbollah employs terrorist tactics; it is an organization, however, whose roots historically are completely separate and different from Al Qaeda,” [emphasis mine] he said, according to a transcript of an interview.

And I think therein lies the problem. The press and the left seem to think that it’s terrorism only if Al Qaeda is involved. If Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Ladin aren’t involved, if Osama Bin Ladin isn’t pulling the strings or sending out the orders, then it isn’t terrorism. The press and the left had a very hard time even considering that Zarqawi was Al Qaeda in Iraq (because Al Qaeda has nothing to do with Iraq dontcha know).

Somehow, the word terrorism for the left and the press is narrowly defined and limited to Al Qaeda. That needs to be changed. Terrorism knows no particular ideology or ethnic background. Currently the main force of terrorism is Islamofascists, but there are others. MS-13 comes to mind as one (see Michelle Malkin’s coverage of this group).

Thanks to Hang Right Politics for pointing me to the Malloch Brown story.

had some funny moments after President Bush came in.

Video .wmv

White House transcript here.

Someone sent this to Allahpundit, who then posted it at Hot Air. Go see it once. Never forget.

This is a giant gnome we saw at the Big Foot store on the Redwood Highway (101). We also saw one of these in someone’s yard along the Russian River in the Sonoma Valley, but I didn’t get a picture of that one.

We got back from the trip on Tuesday, completely exhausted. Our flight had been cancelled and we had to get another one, on which the passengers were packed like sardines. We did get to see Ice Age 2: The Meltdown on the flight.

My left ear failed to clear after the descent into San Francisco when we arrived on the 12th and my left tonsil has been killing me ever since. Yesterday was the first time I was able to look down my throat with a flashlight and lo and behold my left tonsil is covered with large white spots! I went to the doctor who did a throat swab. The swab was negative for strep, but they will send it to the lab to be cultured anyway just to make sure. If it is strep, they’ll call me and let me know to pick up some antibiotics. Otherwise it’s just pharyngitis which is doctor speak for “sore throat”. He gave me some vicodin for night time to help with the pain so I can sleep. Fun, fun, fun.

Otherwise we did have a lot of fun on the trip. I am posting a few photos below and they are in thumbnail version so downloading the page won’t be a bother for those on dial up. Just click a photo caption to see a larger version.

Radio Equalizer readers here for the “anti-Bush weirdness” that Brian refers to: please see the post below this one or click here.

Really Big Redwood on the Avenue of the Giants:

Carson Mansion in Eureka, the most photographed building in California:

Drive Thru Tree, I’ve left a person in for perspective. We had a rental convertible PT Cruiser and felt like we only just squeezed through. We would not have been able to get through with our Yukon XL. No way, no how:

The ocean off of Humboldt Bay:

A little weirdness in Willits (talk about stuck in the sixties):

I am in San Francisco after all…

I took this as we were walking around looking for dinner on Wednesday evening.

Today we’re going to drive up the coast to Redwood Country. We’ll be back in San Francisco on Sunday evening just in time for our Alcatraz tour!

Brit Hume just announced that Robert Novak announced that he got Valerie Plame’s name from Joe Wilson’s Who’s Who entry.

Novak has been informed by Fitzgerald’s office that his part of the investigation is complete and now Novak can talk. He has been silent on this at Fitzgerald’s request.

Hume will interview Novak tomorrow on Special Report.