By Debbie Schlussel
Readers, I’m conducting a test of your instincts. If you had the same reaction as I did when reading this, you pass with flying colors. If you didn’t share my reaction, well, reasonable minds can disagree.
This morning, I read “People Who Live in Glass Houses,” a ridiculous sob story about trendy people who have it “hard” because they bought homes with wall-to-wall windows. It’s too hot. It’s too cold. It fades their furniture, books, and wood floors. Ya think? So sad, too bad.
I love modern and contemporary design . . . a lot. The IKEA and Frank Lloyd Wright stuff–that’s my kinda interior and exterior design. But it’s not for the stupid, which means ya gotta use some common sense and not decide to literally live in a fishbowl. It’s hard for me to feel sorry for gazillionaires who lack basic intelligence.

23-Year-Old Grad Student Sara Antani in Her Lap of Luxury
But that’s not what struck me. Read this excerpt, and tell me what struck you:

Seeking views, Sara Antani bought a 17th-floor condo last August in a new Manhattan high-rise with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Hudson River.
The sun faded Sara Antani’s sofas and made it tough to read her laptop until she installed shades in her Manhattan high-rise.
She got her vistas. But she got other things she didn’t bargain for. The strong and relentless western light forced her to don sunglasses while reading. It made watching television and using her laptop computer almost impossible. The air conditioning could barely keep the temperature tolerable as sun baked the $1.5 million apartment on summer afternoons. And the sun bleached her pair of brightly colored European sectional sofas, which cost $20,000.
In June, Ms. Antani gave in, spending $12,000 on motorized shades that she keeps lowered during the day. “I love being able to see everything,” says Ms. Antani, a 23-year-old graduate student. But “the sun’s just in your eyes; you can’t focus. Everything is so bright.”

What bothered you about this?
Here’s what bothered me:

Read the rest of this entry »

By Debbie Schlussel
On this site, I’ve repeatedly criticized the “free” elections in Iraq, which handed the country over to Iran and Shi’ite extremism.
The arrest of Ali Al-Lami is blatant evidence of that. Not only is Al-Lami a top Iraqi official, he was on the Iraqi Elections Commission, which raises questions about election fraud in favor of pan-Iranian Shi’ite parties.
Bush made a big mistake not handing the country over to a benevolent, pro-U.S. Shah-like Sunni dictator.
Alhamdillullah [Praise allah], the Sh’ite crescent is complete:

A senior official in Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s government was in custody Thursday, suspected of ties to Iranian-backed Shi’ite militias and plotting a June bombing that killed 10 people, including four Americans, Iraqi authorities said.
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The arrest of Ali al-Lami — which happened Wednesday in Baghdad as he left a plane arriving from Lebanon — reinforced suspicions about Iran’s influence within the Shi’ite-led Iraqi government and could open wider investigations into Shi’ite networks, including possible links to Lebanon’s Hizballah.
Al-Lami heads a commission responsible for keeping loyalists to former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, a Sunni, out of government posts. He has been a target of criticism from Sunni leaders who claim the government wants to limit the overall Sunni voice in political and security issues.
He was arrested by U.S. and Iraqi troops at the airport as he returned with his family from medical treatment in Beirut, said a member of his commission, Qaiser Watout.
U.S. military officials would not confirm the arrest of al-Lami, who has been involved in government affairs since shortly after Hussein’s fall in 2003.
But the U.S. command said a suspected senior leader of Iran-backed Special Groups militias was detained at the airport on allegations of planning the June 24 bombing of a municipal building in Sadr City, a Shi’ite district in the capital. Two U.S. soldiers and two State Department employees died in the blast, along with six Iraqis.
“The man has been known to travel in and out of Iraq to neighboring nations including Iran and Lebanon, where it is believed he meets and helps run the Iranian-backed Special Groups in Iraq,” a U.S. military statement said.
In Washington, a senior U.S. military intelligence official said Thursday that the statement referred to al-Lami and that he was believed to have information that would lead investigators to people connected to other countries, an apparent reference to Iran and Lebanon. . . .
Iraqi Shi’ite parties that dominate the government maintain close ties to Iran [DS: Duh!], where many key figures spent years in exile during Hussein’s rule. . . .
“The Americans know very well that such people were brought up and trained” in the Iranian intelligence system, [Sunni legislator Mohammed] al-Daini said. . . . “The detention of al-Lami is part of a chain of events that will lead to the uncovering of others.”

Exit Question: How many others like Al-Lami are there in the Iraqi government.
Answer: it’s swarming with ’em.
“Winning in Iraq”? Or Establishing Iran II in Iraq?
***
On that note, I repeatedly find it incredible that over-rated airhead Mr. Campbell Brown a/k/a Den Senor–who helped architect the failed de-Baathification of Iraq and was a key leader in the capitulation to Shi’ism–has a half-page op-ed in today’s Wall Street Journal criticizing Joe Biden on Iraq. He’s as wrong as clueless Biden, actually worse.

By Debbie Schlussel
**** Read My Review of “Traitor” Here. ****
“Frozen River” is not your average left-wing arthouse movie about the underclass and working class in America.
It is that, but it’s more. With no name actors, the movie focuses on a topic I’ve written about and which doesn’t get enough attention–border Indian tribes and their involvement in smuggling illegal aliens across the border. As I’ve noted, Indian tribes on the border of New York and Canada–as in this movie–also helped Hezbollah in their cigarette smuggling scams.
I also liked that this movie showed the terrible consequences that might happen (but, sadly, don’t happen enough) to those who engage in alien smuggling into America. In this movie, the consequences are tragic and the message is good: Don’t do it. It’s not worth it.

The movie is also quite illustrative of two other issues, which never see the light of day, Native American racism against Whites and the inability of Border Patrol and police to have any significant police power on tribal lands. That’s often the problem in enforcing our borders.
Still, I had my problems with this movie. And that’s other than the fact that it’s extremely depressing and mostly dark.
While we can’t deny that there are many working-class people in America, struggling to survive, this movie makes it look as if they must break the law and engage in activities like jeopardizing our borders, in order to survive.
I also didn’t like the conventional narrative of the loser husband/father who leaves the family in jeopardy and despair.
Melissa Leo plays Ray Eddy, a working-class woman employed part-time at a dollar store. The mother of two, her husband is a gambling addict, who left her and her sons, taking their rent money to gamble in Atlantic City. As a result, she can’t afford to pay for the family’s double-wide trailer, which they need to live in (they’re stuck in a smaller unit).
Looking for her husband and his car at a tribal bingo hall, Ray finds the car, but not her husband. The thief, it turns out, is another single mother–an American Indian woman who smuggles illegal aliens into the country over tribal lands and frozen lakes. Soon, they become unwilling business partners in crime.
One scene I found interesting was when they smuggle in Pakistani aliens. Ray doesn’t want to do it because she fears that they could be Islamic terrorists. But she gets through that fear in a second and takes them anyway . . . for the money. That’s the ethics of illegal alien smugglers. They don’t care about America’s borders. They just want the money. In the same scene, Ray dumps a bag the Pakistanis are carrying, saying it could be a bomb. Um, she doesn’t think they can get the components to build a bomb and create one from scratch, once they’re on American soil?
In this movie, those things are shown to mock rightful American suspicions of Muslim illegal aliens from places like Pakistan. But despite trying, the movie can’t get away from the fact that these are valid concerns.
That’s why I liked this movie–not for the messages it was trying to send, but for most of the messages it did send:
To wit, that smuggling aliens into America is a bad idea and bad businesss. And the people we think are so worthy or our respect and pity–American Indians and down-on-their-luck Americans–are often involved in this very unrespectable sleazy operation.
THREE REAGANS

By Debbie Schlussel
I really don’t care about our nation’s top leader’s workouts. In fact, those are usually a source of annoyance to me. I’m tired of seeing Bush on a bike, hated seeing Clinton jogging, and was annoyed by Jimmy Carter’s aggressive management of the White House tennis court schedule, while he let America fall apart.
Most annoying to me we’re all the ceaseless, braggadocious stories about Condi Clueless and her hard workout. Look at me, I workout. So what? She’s a terrible Secretary of State. That’s the fitness I care about.
Still, with this election, in which the press constantly contrasts John McCain’s old age with Barack Obama’s two-hour workout routing, I find Sarah Palin’s workout to be awe-inducing. It shows tremendous discipline.
Compared to Sarah Palin, Barack is, well, a couch potato, though I think naming her kid, “Track”, is a little absurd (what’s next–“Treadmill”?):

Gov. Palin, a mother of five kids, says exercise is still very much a “family thing.” She and her husband, Todd, also an athlete, named their first son Track because he was born in that sport’s season. . . .
“Conventional running is my sanity,” Gov. Palin says. Having recently given birth to her fifth child, the governor is trying to get back to her old workout routine. She was running 7 to 10 miles almost every day but switched to aerobics classes at her gym when she became pregnant. She has worked her way back up to running three miles every other day.
In the summer, when it’s always light, she’ll sometimes run as late as midnight. In the dead of winter, when it’s dark, she sneaks in an afternoon run, or else grudgingly runs on the treadmill at home or at the gym in the evening. Gov. Palin keeps dumbbells at home, but she says most of her upper body strength comes from snowmobiling with her family. “It’s the best upper body workout you could ever have,” she says. “You’re maneuvering through hundreds of pounds of powder.” (Todd is a four-time champion of the Tesoro Iron Dog, the world’s longest snowmobile race.)
“My family and I eat a healthy diet heavy in wild Alaskan seafood, moose, caribou and fresh fruit,” she says. “I guess my biggest pitfall is breakfast. I know it’s the most important meal of the day but I still haven’t bought into it. I hate to admit it, but a skinny white-chocolate mocha is my staple in the morning. . . . I’m running in 20-below temperatures.

Uh-oh, she eats caribou. Horror of horrors. The left is having a heart attack: Not only does she want to drill for oil in ANWR, which might bother the Caribou, she actually eats them. Call in the PETA protestors.
Read the rest. It’s an interesting window into this woman about whom we don’t know a lot.

By Debbie Schlussel
**** SCROLL DOWN FOR UPDATES ****
Though I’m no big fan of John McCain, his choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate is a stroke of genius. Brilliant.
I’m not into affirmative action picks, but Palin is smart, articulate, and competent in her own right, regardless of whether she has a uterus. And in this case, McCain picking a woman–a bright conservative who happens to be female–was necessary.
It was necessary because Barack Obama made a big mistake in picking Joe Biden. He angered female Hillary supporters. Now, they will have a tough time voting for the Obama-Biden ticket, which dissed them, and the McCain affirmative action ticket, which gave them something to think about.

The choice of Palin makes me more enthused to cast my vote for John McCain in November, because I like Palin. She’s pro-drilling for oil in ANWR and offshore, she’s pro-life, and she’s an attractive and intelligent married mother of several kids. She articulates the conservative viewpoint well and is a skilled hunter and Second Amendment advocate. Excellent.
I’m sure this will anger the NOW and feminist folks who dominate the Democratic Party. They don’t think that having a uterus and estrogen makes you a woman. In fact, looking at many of them, I think those are disqualifications. They only care whether you support abortion, gay marriage for lesbians, and other womYn (v. womAn) things. In contrast, Palin is feminine, without being feminist.
And McCain’s timing was genius and masterful, too. The “bounce”–if there was any–and buzz about Barack Obama’s over-rated, ho-hum acceptance speech, last night, is over. Finito. So sad, too bad.
The attacks on Palin are already beginning. We’ve seen and heard a lot from Cindy McCain’s Obama-supporting half-sister, this week. I wouldn’t be surprised if we begin hearing a lot from Palin’s ex-brother-in-law. Palin was briefly investigated, but cleared, regarding phone calls she made into the status of his position as an Alaska State Trooper on behalf of her sister.
Believe me, when it comes to Palin, all of the feminists and Democrats’ talk about “breaking the glass ceiling” and “a woman in the White House” will be replaced by “Cats R Us.” They’ll be so-much cat-fight sniping against her by that crowd, we may run out of kitty litter.
With the choice of Palin for the ticket, McCain’s chances of beating Barack Obama in November just got even better.
Time for Michelle Hussein Obama to return that dress she bought from White House/Black Market.
***
Wednesday Night, Republican strategist Mike Murphy told MSNBC that he believes Bill and Hillary Clinton will be voting for McCain, NOT Obama. You know–that privacy of the voting booth thing.
***
Reader Yvonne writes:

She is qualified at running a large state and Obama, elected the same year 2006, hardly shows up for work.

***
Reader Craig:

I want a tee-shirt that says: “Sarah Palin — change we can REALLY believe in.” I am happy with this choice that I’m giddy. She is not only ideal on most every issue, but it is a brilliant political move on a variety of levels.

Right on.
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Reader and author Paul Karcher:

Just read your piece on Sarah. Great job! I love the fact that she eats what she kills. My kind of girl. My youngest daughter, whenever she sees a deer always says, O’ arent they cute…. My answer, as always, is yes they are, and boy do they taste good.

For the record, I’ve had deer only once. At the time, there was only one kosher restaurant in the world that served kosher deer. Yum. Hope to see more.
Drill around ’em and eat ’em.
***
Reader Errol Phillips:

I haven’t felt this enthused since Ronald Reagan.
There cheers for McCain for a wisdom that I didn’t know was there.
I just love Sarah.

By Debbie Schlussel
Mainstream media outlets around the world are wet with tears over the death of 87-year-old lesbian activist Del Martin. I simply don’t care. Not that I wish death on this woman. I’m sure, during the course of her life, she was a fine WNBA fan, loyal barber shop brush-cut customer, skilled wearer of “comfortable shoes”, enthusiastic maven of “personal electronics”, and adoring attendee at the Dinah Shore Classic.
But that’s not what strikes me about her. What I found funny were the photos of Martin’s wedding to fellow lesbo, Phyllis Lyon, in June. If I were the people campaigning against gay marriage in California, these photos would be my campaign ads. I’d just keep the picture on the screen for 30 seconds with the line, “THIS IS GAY MARRIAGE.”

I’m thinkin’ the only thing more sexy than this would be a photo of Helen Thomas and Madeleine Albright. Hot, hot, hot.
The Island of Lesbos called. It wants its name back.
Exit Question: How many of these types are delegates at the DNC?

By Debbie Schlussel
On Sunday, I was at a Detroit area gun-shop and shooting range, Target Sports. The people who own it have the surname Jihad. But they’re Chaldeans (Iraqi Catholics), so they probably had Muslims in their family way back when. They’re nice people.
While I had fun practicing shooting (Glock 19, my weapon of choice), what I saw when I was about to leave was kind of disturbing.
Readers know that I’m a strong proponent of the Second Amendment. But it was unsettling to see two very scary-looking Yemeni Muslim men shooing away one of their dumb, whitebread convert wives–in black full Islamic cover from head to toe on an 80-plus degree day–as they looked at new guns to buy. It’s scary because when I looked at the wife, I knew they were extremists.
It was even more frightening when I found out the two men are involved in the check-cashing and money transfer business in Hamtramck and Dearbornistan. Both cities are the hubs for Islamic terrorists and they use check-cashing and money transfers to get their money back home.
A Few Reasons Why Muslims With Guns Scare Me . . .

After 9/11 then U.S. Customs agents raided several money transfer businesses in Dearbornistan for wiring over $50 million per year to terror central a/k/a Yemen and not reporting it under the Patriot Act. You know where the money was going–to nothing good.
When I was leaving the gun range, I saw the Muslim men’s white Oldsmobile Alero (license plate number BEF-7093) parked outside with the name “Aldwali Center” in English and Arabic on the door, as well as the phone number, (313) 297-4400.
I looked up Aldwali Center in State of Michigan records. Both Aldwali Center, Inc. and Aldwali Center I, Inc. are check-cashing and money transfer businesses owned by Dearborn resident, Abdo Almagdob a/k/a Abdo Almagdor. The Dearborn location–at the center of the Yemeni section of town on Dix Road–is also listed on one site as a grocery store. But it is registered with the State of Michigan with a primary purpose listed as “Money Transfer”. Ditto for the Hamtramckstan location.
So, my question is, to where is Abdo Almagdob/Almagdor transferring money from the heart of Islamic America? And is he reporting all the transfers? I wouldn’t bet on it.
For whom is he cashing checks? Where is the money going? Don’t bet that it’s being reported to the IRS.
The convert wife’s extremely devout Muslim garb is a hint. These guys are pretty likely into the jihad. Bet on it. And those guns they were looking at–well, it’s a scary thought for what they’ll be used.
Is Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) looking into the money transfers of Aldwali Center, where the money is going, and whether it’s been reported? Don’t bet on it. Michigan/Ohio ICE Special Agent in Charge Brian Moskowitz a/k/a Abu Moskowitz is too busy inviting “former” Islamic terrorist Imad Hamad to his home and recruiting new extramarital girlfriends from Islamic welfare agencies.
I know of–and was consulted by ICE agents about–a giant Hawala (Islamic money transfer) of multi-millions of dollars to Kuwait that remains ongoing from Dearborn and Detroit. ICE knows that this money is probably funding terrorist activity. And ICE is not doing anything about it. The mosque of a top Iranian-tied Imam is involved. The imam has made several trips to Iran. Moskowitz knows about the Hawala, but it takes work to investigate it. And he simply doesn’t care. It won’t help him and his cozy pan-Islamist relationship.
The men involved in that Hawala are legally registered with the government to conduct money transfers. They’re just not reporting the millions they’re sending each week out of the country and into Kuwait, as required by law.
I wonder whether the Aldwali Center is engaged in similar activity. We’ll never know. Because no-one will investigate them.
But I know one thing: the idea of a lethal weapon in the hands of these scary people is not appealing. Don’t forget that in most Muslim countries, it’s difficult for non-Muslims to own guns. In Yemen, Jews are not even allowed to own handcrafted swords which they make for a living (for Muslims).
And the feds should be looking at the Aldwali Center, guns or not.

By Debbie Schlussel
Earlier this week, I told you about Golden, Colorado’s plans to welcome a visit by Al-Jazeera and its American boob, Josh Rushing (see here, also). First, Al-Jazeera got disinvited from Golden City Manager Mike Bestor’s backyard (but only under pressure). Then, yesterday, patriots from all over the Denver area–including many on Harleys–welcomed Jazeera and Rushing to the Buffalo Rose Bar.
Check out the cool photos taken by El Marco who participated. Below is a t-shirt that El Marco says all of the Buffalo Rose staff wore. Wow, that’s guts (or the owner of the Buffalo Rose playing both sides). I like it:

Check out the rest of the photos, including a typical liberal 20-something in a knit hat (it’s summer, dude) who is a big fan of Al-Jazeera and Rushing, as well as some dead ringers for ZZ Top.

By Debbie Schlussel
Superman was created by two great Jewish-Americans, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. They weren’t afraid–as many comicbook creators and artists are today–to make America’s enemies the villains. Comic books from their day feature Superman bravely fighting Nazis and proudly fighting for America and all that is good.
The conventional wisdom is that Siegel and Shuster were the stereotypical geeky Jewish kids of European immigrants, that they invented Superman to attract girls and create an escapist fantasy from their lives in Cleveland.
But, now, a new book, “The Book of Lies,” by novelist Brad Meltzer, claims the real reason they created bulletproof Superman was because Siegel’s father Mitchell was murdered in a robbery of his clothing store. Though Meltzer’s book is fiction (and the storyline and plto sound ridiculous), that part of the book is based on truth. Interesting:

On the night of June 2, 1932, the world’s first superhero was born ‚Äî not on the mythical planet of Krypton but from a little-known tragedy on the streets of Cleveland.
It was Thursday night, about 8:10 p.m., and Mitchell Siegel, a Jewish immigrant from Lithuania, was in his secondhand clothing store on the near East Side. According to a police report, three men entered. One asked to see a suit of clothes and walked out without paying for it. In the commotion of the robbery, Siegel, 60, fell to the ground and died.
The police report mentions a gunshot being heard. But the coroner, the police and Siegel’s wife said Siegel died of a heart attack. No one was ever arrested.
What happened next has exploded some of the longest-held beliefs about the origins of Superman and the two teenage boys, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, who invented America’s best-known comic-book hero.
Past accounts suggest Siegel and Shuster, both 17, awkward and unpopular in high school, invented the meek Clark Kent and his powerful alter-ego, Superman, to attract girls and rise above their humble Cleveland beginnings.
But now it appears that the origin might have been more profound ‚Äî that it was the death of Jerry Siegel’s father that pushed the devastated teen to come up with the idea of a “Superman” to right all wrongs.

The rest of the book, though, is fiction. I’m not a huge fan of historical fiction because I think it eventually becomes part of the conventional wisdom of real history. But, given that Superman is pop culture and not real history, in this case I don’t think it’s as objectionable.
The article on the crime that created Superman is an interesting read. It contains possible evidence that Siegel wrote letters to the editor of his hometown newspaper as “Lex Luthor” and the story about how the two creators sold Superman for only $130 and led relatively working-class lives thereafter.

The rest of the saga of Siegel and Shuster is better known, but no less tragic. It wasn’t until 1938 that the familiar red-and-blue-garbed Superman appeared on the cover of Action Comics No. 1. The creators got a check for $130. In return, DC Comics acquired rights to the character “forever.”
Siegel and Shuster bristled as Superman grew in popularity — on radio, in wartime cartoons and serials in the 1940s. They went to court several times, winning settlements but never rights to the character. By the 1970s, Siegel had been working as a mail clerk for $7,000 a year, and Shuster was almost blind. . . .
In a landmark settlement [in the late ’70s], DC Comics agreed to pay the two men $20,000 a year for life. More important, friends say, DC agreed to add “Superman created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster” on all printed and filmed material in the future.

“The Crime That Created Superman” is an entertaining, quick read. Check it out.

By Debbie Schlussel
Even in Denver, Monica Conyers–Detroit City Councilwoman and beard, er . . . wife of U.S. Congressman John Conyers–can’t tone down her hood in-your-faceness. The cause of her latest outrage: her suite wasn’t big enough. Woman of the people.
Oh, and by the way, if Kwame Kilpatrick gets deposed as Detroit’s Mayor, she becomes President of the Detroit City Council. And you wonder why Detroit is finito. Forty years of this kind of behavior at the top of the city, that’s why:

A suite dispute between Detroit City Councilwoman Monica Conyers and staff at her Denver hotel resulted in a call to police Tuesday.
Conyers claims she called police when the hotel threatened to have her things removed from her room. The hotel claims a Denver Police officer working security called for back-up when she created a “commotion” because she wanted to stay in a suite.

“I don’t know if she was yelling a little bit or not,” Conyers’ spokeswoman, Denise Johnson said. “We know that the councilwoman is very passionate. . . .”
The issue started Monday, when Conyers checked in to the Magnolia Hotel, her accommodations while attending the Democratic National Convention.
When she checked in, the hotel had Conyers, her husband and two sons in a room with two queen-sized beds, Magnolia spokeswoman Dana Berry said.

Yup, that’s the Democratic National Convention–working families struggling to . . . get by on two queen-sized beds in a suite. Rough life.

Conyers’ spokeswoman, Denise Johnson, said the councilwoman had expected a suite, despite the hotel’s suites only offering one king-sized bed.
“You put two adults with two teenagers in one bedroom, it really wouldn’t work out,” Johnson said. “It’s a matter of privacy and what their anticipation was.”

That’s kind of funny on two levels. First, the Conyers never had their sons share a bed while they also shared a bed? This is “slumming it”–sharing beds in a suite for a few nights? Man, are they out of touch with their Detroit constituents who are lucky if they have a bed in a homeless shelter at night. (And they are out of touch. They used Congressional staff to cook and chauffeur their sons to Detroit’s most expensive prep school in the suburbs, while Conyers opposes school choice for everyone else.)
Second, it’s kind of funny that this spokeswoman for Conyers implies that the married Conyers couple needs their privacy for sex or something like that and can’t go without for a few nights of the convention. I guess she’s the last person who knows that everyone else thinks John Conyers is gay.

The hotel acquiesced Monday night, with Conyers’ understanding all suites were booked Tuesday night and the family would have to move, Berry said.
But between 4 and 5 p.m. Tuesday when asked to leave for her new room, Conyers demanded to stay, Berry said.

That’s when police were called, as a result of Monica Conyers’ hysterics.
Exit question: Did she call anyone in the dispute, “Shrek”, or tell them, “Do it, Baby”?
For a refresher on that and the world of Monica Conyers, watch this flashback video.
***
Here’s my choice for the new Monica Conyers theme song: