MISSING

*UPDATE*: Steve Centanni and Olaf Wiig have been released, but only after converting to Islam.

American Fox News correspondent Steve Centanni and New Zealand-based cameraman Olaf Wiig were kidnapped at gunpoint in Gaza over a week ago. This has been practically ignored by the mainstream media for reasons unknown. Information regarding the incident is totally lacking. No specific terrorist group is taking the credit and the fact that the men have been missing this long without any mention of demands for their release is scary.

You can see pictures of the men on Michelle Malkin's site. A New Zealand news outlet has the latest which isn't much.

R.I.P. Joe Rosenthal

The man behind the lens passed away Sunday in California at 94 years old. The Pulitzer Prize winner will surely be remembered for taking one of the most beautiful photos in U.S. history. Read more about Joe here.

The Struggle of Cuban Journalists

Many times, we take our right to speak freely for granted. The independent journalists of Cuba, who are imprisoned for speaking the truth, would never dream of it.

That is the life of the Independent Journalist in Cuba: Clandestine meetings, clandestine writing, clandestine transmissions with clandestine words of a clandestine truth.

Although he lives with fear, he’s made it his sidekick. If he should suffer the same fate as his peers, as his mentors, then so be it. He works for something more valuable than money, something more valuable than a byline, and something more valuable than himself. He works for the truth. His onus is to tell the story of the real truth instead of the “official” one, even though telling the truth, in Cuba, can kill him.

Right now there remain at least two dozen independent journalists incarcerated in Cuba simply because they dared speak the truth. Some have been locked away since 2003, still in the infancy of their 15 or 20 year sentences. Truth has made them suffer beatings, torture and malnutrition. Truth has mocked, ridiculed, and subjected them to abject horrors and indignity.

All because they bear witness to the world around them and dare describe it nakedly and without their government’s official veil.

Read the whole article by Val Prieto here.

Some ignorant morons in San Francisco celebrate Fidel Castro's birthday here. If they think Castro's Cuba is so great, I would be happy to send them on a one way trip to the island. I wonder if we could trade....one "jackass" American for one "grateful to live in a free society" Cuban.

A Hollywood Statement I Agree With? Crazy!

*click image to enlarge or go here.

This ad was recently published in the LA Times, Variety, and The Hollywood Reporter. Not that I look to celebrities for political guidance, but it's nice to see some members of La La Land use their voices to protest evil.

Thanks A Bunch, ACLU!!

It looks like the ACLU finally found a sucker in U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor. Today she ruled that the NSA's warrantless surveillance program is unconstitutional. I guess we can count on successful terror plots in the not-so-distant future.

Is Our Educational System That Pathetic?

A recent poll contained the following questions (among others). See how well you do compared to the 1,213 people across the U.S. who participated:

1. Name two of the seven dwarfs.
2. Name two current U.S. Supreme Court justices.
3. Who is the name of the boy wizard in J.K. Rowling's famous books?
4. Who is the prime minister of the U.K.?
5. Name the 3 Stooges.
6. Name the 3 branches of the U.S. government.

I hope you were in the in-the-know minority. If not, I suggest you crack open a text book or scan a newspaper every once in a while.

WhiteTrash Cake...You Know You Want One!

Hey, at least the filling won't be a surprise. Mmmm...lard. I don't know about you, but I suddenly have a craving for a twinkie.

via Uglydress.com

A Little Sick Humor is Always Fun

click image to enlarge

Wallace and Nut Job

Some great questions that should have been asked in Mike Wallace's interview of Iranian President Mahmoud "I'm a psycho" Ahmadinejad. Read the whole article by Dennis Prager here:

In countries with a free press and where history is understood as consisting of verifiable facts, anyone who denies the Holocaust, the systematic murder of approximately 6 million Jews by the Nazis, is regarded as either an anti-Semite or a kook or both. You have repeatedly denied the Holocaust. Why should the world not regard you as either a kook or an anti-Semite? And do you understand why most free societies wish to prevent you from acquiring nuclear weapons?

Given that you have announced that you wish Israel to be erased from the map, why would those countries that do not share your desire to extinguish a country not try to prevent you from acquiring nuclear weapons?

In Iran, under your direction, religious police walk around the country monitoring how much skin a woman reveals. Most of the world considers this primitive and another reason to regard you and your regime as fanatical. On what grounds do you support whipping women who reveal their arms in public? And do you understand why such policies help explain why most free societies wish to prevent you from acquiring nuclear weapons?

Why do you believe that millions of Iranians chant "death to America" and "death to Israel" but no Americans or Israelis chant "death to Iran"? Are people more bored in an Islamic republic than in a free society? Does your brand of Islam promote preoccupation with death rather than life? Or is there simply a lot more hatred in your country than in free societies? And do you understand why all this hatred helps explain why societies in which people do not chant death wishes would like to prevent your society from acquiring nuclear weapons?

What say you Mr. Ahmadinejad?

We need to deal with this guy quick before he gets his hands on nuclear weapons. Oh, that's right, the uranium enrichment program that he refuses to abandon is for "energy". How silly of me.

A Proud American

Lt Col Randolph C. White Jr. says it best in his speech to a graduating class of Infantrymen at Ft. Benning, Georgia.

via Hot Air

Pet Peeves

Here are a couple of sayings that people are constantly using and which make no sense if you really think about it. I'm sure I could come up with more, but these are the first that came to mind. Yes, the following is a vent.

"I could care less."

If you are making the above statement, it means you DO care. If you are trying to convey your lack of caring, you should say, "I couldn't care less". You are using this phrase when there is absolutely no measurable amount of caring left in your body for a particular subject, so make it count!

"You can't have your cake and eat it, too."

Yes, you can!! That is how the normal sequence of eating unravels--you have it on your plate and then you eat it. However, you cannot eat your cake and have it, too (unless you're magical or you get the stomach flu). A little background via Wikipedia:

The phrase's earliest recording is from 1546 as "wolde you bothe eate your cake, and haue your cake?", alluding to the impossibility of eating your cake and still having it afterwards; the modern version (where the clauses are reversed) is a corruption which was first signaled in 1812.

Comedian George Carlin once critiqued this idiom by saying, "When people say, 'Oh you just want to have your cake and eat it too.' What good is a cake you can't eat? What should I eat, someone else's cake instead?". Of course, in the original correct form (eat your cake and have it too), Carlin's critique does not apply.

Let's Not Forget Who We're Dealing With

via Cox and Forkum