Upstanding Islamic Jihad commander Ayman al-Fayed was, in a cruel twist of fate, killed in an explosion today.

Islamic Jihad and witnesses blamed the explosion on an Israeli missile strike, but the Israeli military denied involvement.

Those doggone Israelis, blowing up/maybe not blowing up/facilitating the blowing up of another psycho killer (qu’est que c’est?) whose life’s goal is to murder Israeli civilians.

In other news, the top United Nations humanitarian affairs official, John Holmes, visited Gaza Friday and says he was shocked by the misery he says has been caused by Israel’s closure of the border. He is calling for the crossings to be opened so the people of Gaza can get food, power and other essential supplies.

useful idiot

- noun

1. John Holmes

see also, “The overwhelming majority of United Nations humanitarian affairs officials.”

Who’s to blame for the Palestinian territories being a flaming wreck? Hamas? Fatah? Islamic Jihad? Oh, that’s right… Israel.

When a terrorist a-splodes, nothing but respect and equal time from the BBC:

“Syria, which condemns this cowardly terrorist act, expresses condolences to the martyr family and to the Lebanese people,” Interior Minister Bassam Abdul-Majeed said in a statement.

Imagine that - Syria condemning a cowardly terrorist attack.

Iran also condemned the killing, praising Mughniyeh as a martyr and describing the attack as “yet another brazen example of organised state terrorism by the Zionist regime”.

Wait, Iran is against brazen examples of organized state terrorism?

Hezbollah was founded in 1982 by a group of Shia Muslim clerics after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. It has emerged in recent years as a major political and military force in Lebanon, after military successes against Israel.

The BBC does two things in this story that would be pretty startling if they weren’t standard procedure. They quote American, Israeli, Syrian, and Iranian officials in a tonally neutral fashion. And then, after quoting the whiny officials of flagrantly terror-supporting nations, they describe what Hezbollah does as “military successes.” I guess in some circles, hating Israel just never goes out of style.

I saw a story last week about the Archbishop of Canterbury, head honcho of the Anglican Church, making some scary comments regarding Islamic sharia law. Then I saw the guy’s picture:

Rowan Williams, © Agence France Press. Yikes.

What do you know, he looks like a raving lunatic. But what did he actually say? For one thing:

There needs to be access to recognised authority acting for a religious group: there is already, of course, an Islamic Shari’a Council, much in demand for rulings on marital questions in the UK; and if we were to see more latitude given in law to rights and scruples rooted in religious identity, we should need a much enhanced and quite sophisticated version of such a body, with increased resource and a high degree of community recognition, so that ‘vexatious’ claims could be summarily dealt with.

Church, meet State.

[...] where the dominant legal culture is non-Islamic, but there is a level of serious recognition of the corporate reality and rights of the umma, there can be no assumption that outside the umma the goal of any other jurisdiction is its destruction. Once again, there has to be a recognition that difference of conviction is not automatically a lethal threat.

Difference of conviction isn’t a lethal threat? We’ll see what it’s done to British culture another twenty or thirty years hence. Rowan Williams is not blindly advocating creation of a parallel court system for Muslim citizens, but he’s certainly not singing the praises of English heritage, either. It’s kind of amazing that a leader of the nation’s Church finds it necessary to carry water for a rapidly growing immigrant group that, rather than make any effort to assimilate to the traditions of their country of choice, lobbies for ever increasing concessions.

Coffing’s post yesterday reminded me that I chopped an old 11×17″ flyer graphic into a 1280×1024 wallpaper and forgot to publish it. You can download the thing by clicking this thumbnail, if you’re really that much of a dork:

Consider it a preview of cartoons to (maybe) come! You can even buy the full-size poster, if you trust CafePress…

If you’re sick of all the analysis and possibilities and might-have-beens about the Presidential primaries, I’d recommend reading one last thing as the next few months tear past. If you’ve not read a single thing and don’t much care to, you should read this Kurtz post anyway:

Even if Republicans can’t get an outright majority in the next congress, just staying about even with where they are now would make a huge difference. But a Democratic blowout in congress along with a Democratic president would mean the end of conservatism for the foreseeable future (maybe longer). We can prevent that, just by not staying home.

I have a sort of pattern when it comes to National Review’s The Corner. I’ll read the site heavily for awhile, get bored with it, then for some time visit only to read Mark Steyn’s posts. I’ve been frequenting the site lately, and am reaching another boredom phase as the contributors go back and forth over and over about whether Mitt Romney still has any chance, whether he ever had a chance, the degree to which McCain would be a disaster, etc. But Kurtz states well the obvious fact: if conservatives bicker all summer and pout at home in November, the result will be a Democratic President and Congress who have no trouble concluding that if we focus on entitlement tinkering, Bush’s pretend terrorists will leave us be.

There’s a good chance we’ll get a head in the sand socialist government either way, but we’re a long way from that point.

You may not recognize me from any previous post(s), and there is a very simple reason for that…this is my first post. I am not new to the site, I have been involved - at somewhat varying levels - since its birth. I will most likely not be making many posts here, but I hope that all of you can put up with my ramblings from time to time. I do plan, however, to stay active in the background. That is all for now, I just thought I would introduce myself to everyone. Enjoy your stay at thathero.com!

Did anyone else watch the premiere of this goofy show last night?

I liked it. I hope it’s not made possible by scab writers, cause then I’d feel guilty for wishing it wasn’t over after half an hour. The whole affair made a pretty clear effort to be quirky, and the commercials gave the impression that the result would be irritating. Turns out Jeffrey Tambor is funny even when he’s not being George Bluth; Joanna Garcia is amazing; and, when I was about to say “I’ve never heard of the lead guy or anything he’s been in”… he played a stoner in Orange County. Heh, didn’t recognize him. Even the requisite idiot friend was funny.

“Welcome to The Captain” is well cast and likeable, and appears to be another show we could add to the list of enjoyable new 2007-2008 series destined for early cancellation (current members: Pushing Daisies, Reaper, Chuck). Work with your writers, stupid entertainment execs! Come on!