Why don't moderate muslims speak out against violence?

You've heard that complaint. You may have made it yourself. Well, here's the answer: they DO. But when they speak out, US newspapers don't carry it. US news shows don't mention it. No one cares. If, on the contrary, an imam goes of his rocker in Australia, it's everywhere. At least the incendiary part of his speech, not the fact that he apologized shortly thereafter and was still suspended (don't you just wish they'ld do the same to Ann Coulter or Jerry Falwell or Rush Limbaugh). A friend of his (of the organization "Muslim Doctors Against Violence") wrote an open letter to him asking him to step down. Reported in US papers? Forget it.

The moderate response to the Pope's remarks in Regensburg are worth highlighting, but western media hardly mention it. http://www.islamicamagazine.com/media/pdf/open/b/openletter-8238DA.pdf

History in the making

MARCH 30, 2003: Donald Rumsfeld:

"We know where [the weapons of mass destruction] are. They’re in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat."

MAY 29, 2003: Bush:

"We found the weapons of mass destruction."

JULY 2, 2003: Bush:

"There are some who feel like — that the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is, bring them on."

MAY 30, 2005: Dick Cheney:

"I think [the Iraqis are] in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency."

FEBRUARY 2, 2006: Rumsfeld:

“Is Iraq going to be a long war? No, I don’t believe it is.”

APRIL 12, 2006: Washington Post:

"On May 29, 2003, 50 days after the fall of Baghdad, President Bush proclaimed a fresh victory for his administration in Iraq: Two small trailers captured by U.S. and Kurdish troops had turned out to be long-sought mobile “biological laboratories.” He declared, “We have found the weapons of mass destruction.” The claim, repeated by top administration officials for months afterward, was hailed at the time as a vindication of the decision to go to war. But even as Bush spoke, U.S. intelligence officials possessed powerful evidence that it was not true."

JUNE 20, 2006: Iraqi National Security Adviser:

"We envisage the U.S. troop presence by year’s end to be under 100,000, with most of the remaining troops to return home by the end of 2007"

AUGUST 16, 2006: The US has fought longer in Iraq than it did in WWII against Germany.

Poetry blogging

A mind worm, I would call it. I don't know why it eats me so, but since I first read it, I can't get it out of my head.

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Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

-- Robert Frost

Freud or fraud?

Associated Press made the same mistake. Laugh or cry? Five minutes of silence, please.