I was reading a bit on werewolves at The Crime Library—I like werewolves nearly as much as I like all sorts of zombies—when I stumbled on the following and immediately struggled to keep my last sip of Tarry Souchong¹ inside:

[During the Middle Ages] Witch-hunters were especially active in France, a country fighting for its former political glory.

Anybody sharing my convictions in this country when it comes to various issues (such as Capitalism and small government, war against Islamic fascism and the fall of Europe, pro-Americanism and uncompromised support to Israel, etc, etc) can attest that "Witch-hunters are still especially active in France, a country fighting for its, er... Former previous political glory it once enjoyed at some undetermined earlier time.

Just before it lost it. You know, at some point.

Is it just me or the air just got a little fresher, as the world just got a little better?

Top Al Qaeda Leader Abu Ubaida al-Masri Confirmed Dead in Pakistan

Al Qaeda operative and bomb expert Abu Ubaida al-Masri, one of the terror group's top 10 leaders, is dead, a U.S. official confirmed to FOX News Wednesday.

The unidentified official said it is believed that al-Masri died of natural causes, possibly hepatitis, in Pakistan, and are staying away from a report that he was killed in a January CIA predator strike.

Well, as far as I'm concerned, the death of any of those Islamic animals is absolutely natural, no matter the actual cause—but that's just semantics I suppose.

I'll have a beer to celebrate; I just happen to have a few of these in the fridge, and they look particularly appropriate.

It's all the time, I know. You're tired of it, as much as I am, I know. You'll probably shrug and move to something more important—and rightly so.

But just for the record, I'll keep track here of yet another brick in the wall of shame that is the British Broadcasting Corporation.

When the rule of the Left is absolute—such as it was in the somewhat deceased Soviet Union—all they need to do to rewrite History is to publish their "alternative" version of the facts with the official stamp of the Komintern on it, erase a few commissars out of a few pictures, and send the dissenters to the nearest Gulag or Laogai.

When the Left is unfortunately deprived of what they firmly believe is their legitimate position—sitting atop the tyranny pyramid—and until that glorious dawn comes, they let outlets such as the BBC do the job, albeit in more vicious and sly ways. The Gulag is not really an option (what with pesky concepts such as Habeas Corpus, the Rule of Law and all that Right-Wing malarkey that keeps going in the way of progressive Socialist Social Engineering), but doctoring photos (on "Doctoring photos" see Reuters) and forging documents (on "Documents forging" see CBS) is just about a-okay.

That and the constant somewhat subtle rewriting and twisting of any historical fact that clashes with the means, ends and dogma of the Left that, even if they're not as spectacular as the aforementioned doctored documents, still make the bulk of their propaganda, perhaps in a more disruptive and dangerous way—if anything, due to its permanence, and the amount of fruitless efforts it would require to point and debunk them with the same regularity.

Take today's BBC daily email for instance:

* Baghdad under anniversary curfew *
Baghdad imposes a one-day vehicle curfew on the fifth anniversary of its capture by American forces.
Full story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/-/1/hi/world/middle_east/7336736.stm

Then scroll all the way down that very email:

ON THIS DAY
* 2003: Saddam statue topples with regime * Iraqis turn on symbols of their former leader, pulling down a statue and tearing it to pieces as US tanks roll into the centre of Baghdad.
Full story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/-/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/april/9/newsid_3502000/3502633.stm

I don't even bother following the links, as I have more important things to do today, but there you have it. In the Left's world and the BBC's words, seditious and antisocial elements of the Iraqi population took advantage of the chaos that followed the U.S. invasion and their capture of the capital city, to rebel against their benefactor Saddam. And don't you dare mentioning the word Liberation, or we shall have a cell waiting for you on the very morning of the Glorious New Dawn.

Lenin reportedly said "A lie told often enough becomes truth".

There's a legacy that lives here.

I'll risk a guess.

Maybe this policy explains why Starbucks, the U.S. coffee company that recently opened a few beachheads on the French front, is looked upon by the pompous elitist asses of the French iPhone-babbling, MacBook-clicking, Latte-sipping, Velib-ridding intelligentsia with a degree of fondness only consistent with the mindless hatred they direct towards another massive American actor of the global food industry, McDonalds—even though it was at first presented as a direct threat to the age old myriads of grubby Parisian grease pits called cafés, in which thousands of Japanese and American tourists consistently confuse brazen French drunkards on welfare and cheap white wine for post-modern philosophers deconstructing something or another or whatever:

Laissez-faire. It's a policy that made Starbucks vastly successful. But don't try to put that phrase on a customized Starbucks Card. (…) when my friend Roger Ream, president of the Fund for American Studies, received a Starbucks gift card for Christmas, he found there was a limit to how personalized a card could be. His card required him to customize it on the company's Web site. So he went to the site and requested that the phrase "Laissez Faire" be printed on his card. A few days later he was informed that the company couldn't issue such a card because the wording violated company policy.
(…)
Is the phrase "laissez-faire" threatening? Only to officious bureaucracy, I would think. So, it must be that the phrase is considered to be "inappropriate" by corporate Starbucks.
(…)
Maybe Starbucks considers the phrase inappropriate because it's "overtly political commentary"? Certainly my friend regards it as a firm statement of political philosophy.

And so, at my suggestion, my friend went back to the Web site and asked that his card be issued with the phrase "People Not Profits." Bingo! Starbucks had no problem with that phrase, and the card arrived in a few days.

I wondered just what the company's standards were. If "laissez-faire" is unacceptably political, how could the socialist slogan "people not profits" be acceptable?

That's a good question indeed. Another good question¹ is: how do you take your coffee? Black, cream, or Socialist?—after all, it seems Starbuck is doing what every sensible, Laissez-faire Capitalism venture does:

Catering for its known customer base.

Do I have a secret admirer among the editors at Reuters? I mean even after delivering them quality smack-bottom sessions such as this one and this one?¹

A bad case of tough love maybe?

Consider this bit of news published by Elmundo Internacional, and emailed by an "anonymous tipster" from Spain (Everybody please say "Thank you anonymous Spaniard tipster", thank you):

Photo ©Reuters. Really. I wasn't me wot done it, it was Reuters wot done it. No kidding, no photoshopping, no frogmanizing.

"En la instantánea, tomada durante la reciente visita del presidente Hugo Chávez a Brasil, aparece el mandatario venezolano con dos círculos negros en la cabeza, que le asemejan a Mickey Mouse.

"La transnacional de noticias emite una fotografía cuya composición es un intento de burlarse de la imagen del presidente Chávez", apuntó el canal Radio Mundial. (...) Las afirmaciones del sitio de Internet progubermantal aporrea.org van un poco más lejos. "¿Terrorismo mediático?", se pregunta la página web (...)

"La intencionalidad de Reuters es obvia. La agencia ha sido acusada en el pasado por conocidos investigadores (...) de asistir diariamente a reuniones en el Pentágono, desde donde se diseña la agenda informativa mundial", agrega. (...)

En resumen, según los medios 'chavistas' la foto es un plan del Imperio estadounidense, la CIA y los accionistas 'oligarcas' de Reuters -familia Thomson y Rupert Murdoch, propietario de News Corp- para debilitar la imagen de Chávez.

 

The shreds of my long gone Spanish skills² make me understand that some Chavez-friendly media see this photographic prank as a deliberate attempt to ridicule El Presidente (some even go as far as calling it media terrorism), as part of a plot involving the U.S. empire (Imperialists?), the malevolent CIA and their Murdoch owned Reuters poodle. Poor Reuters, even their natural friends distrust them by now.

I would actually argue that this does more to hurt Mickey Mouse and Walt Disney (media terrorism orchestrated by the Cuban secret policia and a vindicative Bugs Bunny?), but that's just me.

So. Anyway. I once shared a room with a very high-ranking CIA official³, but he was a man⁴ so this definitely can't be some sort of publicly expressed private allusion as an expression of gratitude for a past agreeable moment between consenting adults longing for more, hey, what are you up to you've got my number please call me type thing.

If you get my meaning, wink-wink, nod-nod, say no more.

In any case, if that is not a tribute to my own humble yet resolved anti-Socialist propaganda labor of love⁵, then I don't know what is.

Update

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