North Korea said today it has performed its first-ever nuclear weapons test.

Can two world wars be fought at the same time like they film movie sequels... or do they both count as the same world war?

N Korea's nuclear test 'happiness' - World - smh.com.au

I was locked up and mistreated for being in the wrong place at the wrong time during America’s war in Afghanistan. Like hundreds of Guantánamo detainees, I was never a terrorist or a soldier. I was never even on a battlefield. Pakistani bounty hunters sold me and 17 other Uighurs to the United States military like animals for $5,000 a head. The Americans made a terrible mistake.

It was only the country’s centuries-old commitment to allowing habeas corpus challenges that put that mistake right — or began to. In May, on the eve of a court hearing in my case, the military relented, and I was sent to Albania along with four other Uighurs. But 12 of my Uighur brothers remain in Guantánamo today. Will they be stranded there forever?

Like my fellow Uighurs, I am a great admirer of the American legal and political systems. I have the utmost respect for the United States Congress. So I respectfully ask American lawmakers to protect habeas corpus and let justice prevail. Continuing to permit habeas rights to the detainees in Guantánamo will not set the guilty free. It will prove to the world that American democracy is safe and well.

I am from East Turkestan on the northwest edge of China. Communist China cynically calls my homeland “Xinjiang,” which means “new dominion” or “new frontier.” My people want only to be treated with respect and dignity. But China uses the American war on terrorism as a pretext to punish those who peacefully dissent from its oppressive policies. They brand as “terrorism” all political opposition from the Uighurs.

The View From Guantánamo

The report of the 9/11 Commmission is now available as a comic book. Check it out.

"Never before have I seen a non-fiction book as beautifully and compellingly written and illustrated as The 9/11 Report, A Graphic Adaptation. I cannot recommend it too highly. It will surely set the standard for all future works of contemporary history, graphic or otherwise, and should be required reading in every home, school and library."
--Stan Lee

I ran across this at the bookstore yesterday. It seems well done.

Washington Post ran a story on it back in July:

The book condenses the nearly 600-page federal report released by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States to fewer than 150 pages, and the creators say they hope their book will help attract young readers and others who might be overwhelmed by the original document. With sans-serif captions, artist renderings, charts and sound-describing words such as "Whooom!" and "R-rrumble," the adaptation recounts the attacks with parallel timelines of the four hijacked planes.

The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation

A friend of mine had mentioned to me the other day that Hooters has an airline. It caused me to wonder about how such an airline might affect the likely hood of a terrorist attack and what sort of reaction this might have. Last night me and this same friend watched the 1986 version of "Stagecoach" and it immediately became clear how breast bombs could destroy the west.

American politicians often pride themselves with self-righteous fervor about how we fellow Americans need to protect our precious liberties from those who "hate freedom." "Stagecoach" fits into this paradigm. A stagecoach who's driver and passengers refuse to allow their fears ofGeronimo and his Apache brethren deter their pursuit of happiness by plowing right through hostile territory illustrate just how far America's romantic idea of itself separates from reality. There were no cavity searches on this stage coach... In fact, most of the passengers were armed. Hell, they didn't even search the banker who they knew had a stolen bag of cash because property and privacy rights used to mean something and had a value higher than life. This movie shows an America that faces fears rather than cowering away from them. Bin Laden and his 40 Al Queda do something much worse than simply kill people, they ruin the liberties which have been paid for a thousand times over in blood because Americans believe in the fake safety politicians sell them on. Wake up America! There is no safe place. We build places like six flags to simulate the thrill of it all, but the real excitement of life exists in realizing that we live on a living hostile rock spinning around the sun to inevitable destruction. Eventually everyone will be spun the hell off. The meaning of life is the slow process in which the universe ultimately rejects humanity and the conflict humanity has to hang onto the railing and not get blown off. The time has come to stop being afraid and to yell "GERONIMO!" and jump right on that plane.

Ironically, the day after me and my friend were discussing the Hooters senario, this fiasco in Britain happens. We were joking that a potential terrorist could fill a breast implant with an explosive jelly or maybe even a solution of silicone gel and thermite to ignite the fuel tanks. It put the mental picture in my head of a jihadist jumping out of his seat at the opportune moment yelling something like "ALAH AKBAR!!!!" and grabbing the nipple piercing... [ Read More (0.2k in body) ]

The link to the cafe press store has been censored by flickr. It is apparently against the rules to promote anything on flickr. Makes me sort of sorry I recommended flickr to others. If anyone is interested, a more detailed post about this image can be found here. Enjoy.

Update Also, it would appear that flickr has somehow also blocked this image from being found from searches using tags. That's an interesting type of censorship. I suppose flickr supports Muslim extremists.

Flickr doesn't like my cartoon.

The Latest on the Muhammad Cartoon Saga

A senior federal law enforcement official tells ABC News the government is tracking the phone numbers we call in an effort to root out confidential sources.

"It's time for you to get some new cell phones, quick," the source told us in an in-person conversation.

!!!

...within the large pointless program there exists a small, sharply focused program that delivers something the White House really wants.

They aren't looking for Terrorists. They're trying to quash whistle blowers!

A Los Angeles screenwriter is claiming that the Department of Homeland Security has informed him that he may not use the agency's name "or any of the
Department's official visual identities" in the script for his film, Lady
Magdalene, despite the fact that the film presents a positive image of the
DHS. The writer, J. Neil Schulman, said Tuesday that he had received a notice
from Bobbie Faye Ferguson, director of the NHS's office of multimedia,
informing him that his "project does not fit within the DHS mission and that it
is not something we can participate in."

So much for political free speech.

DEPT. OF HOMELAND SECURITY SHOOTS DOWN MOVIE SCRIPT

NEW YORK - For three years federal agents trailed Mohammed Yousry, a chubby 50-year-old translator and U.S. citizen who worked for radical lawyer Lynne Stewart. Prosecutors wiretapped his phone, and FBI agents shadowed and interviewed him. They read his books and notepads and every file on his computer.This was their conclusion:"Yousry is not a practicing Muslim. He is not a fundamentalist," prosecutor Anthony Barkow acknowledged in his closing arguments to a jury in federal district court in Manhattan earlier this year. "Mohammed Yousry is not someone who supports or believes in the use of violence.

;Still, the prosecutor persuaded the jury to convict Yousry of supporting terrorism. Yousry now awaits sentencing in March, when he could face 20 years in prison for translating a letter from imprisoned Muslim cleric Omar Abdel Rahman to Rahman's lawyer in Egypt.

Terror conviction raises legal concerns - washingtonpost.com Highlights - MSNBC.com

The Pentagon has drafted a revised doctrine for the use of nuclear weapons that envisions commanders requesting presidential approval to use them to preempt an attack by a nation or a terrorist group using weapons of mass destruction. The draft also includes the option of using nuclear arms to destroy known enemy stockpiles of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons.

Um... Who do you "nuke" when a couple people might try to bomb you? Do we roll dice? Sending nukes after terrorists is sort of like blowing up an apartment building to kill a mouse.
The Pre-emptive bit is troublesome... I wonder who's job it'll be to figure out thay=t "They" are after us.

Pentagon Revises Nuclear Strike Plan

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Three small devices have exploded at three separate Underground subway stations in London, two weeks after the July 7 terror attacks, police said.

More Terrar.

CNN.com - Small�blasts hit London transport - Jul 21, 2005