By Debbie Schlussel
Shocker. Denver International Airport was the first airport to consider offering a carbon offest program for travelers. But guess what? It’s also the first airport to “pause” the plan “due to lack of interest from vendors.”
No-one was interested? You’re kidding. Like a tree falling in the forest but no-one being there to hear it, or a WNBA game, no-one cares. Can you believe it?:

Last year, a local group of environmental experts recommended the program, and the airport has been shopping for a company to run it. “We weren’t exactly thrilled with what was laid out in the initial proposal. We’re taking a step back,” airport spokesman Jeff Green says.

Easier Preaching “Green” than Living It

A carbon offset is a voluntary fee paid by travelers to “cancel out” the carbon emissions generated by their flights. The airport had plans for kiosks where travelers can pay for carbon offsets, which are transferred to environmental advocacy groups for things such as tree-planting or clean-power projects. It estimated that a fee of $2.50 to offset 1,000 miles of air travel would be in line with the city’s goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 10% per capita by 2012.
The airport issued a formal request for proposals this year for companies interested in running the program, but received only one proposal. DIA may redesign the program, possibly by partnering with airlines, and solicit proposals again, Green says.

Good luck. Or, rather, bad luck.
Hmmm . . . I’m traveling and stuck in the Denver airport. I can spend $2.50 on half a Diet Coke (we’re at the airport, remember?), half a bad women’s fashion magazine, or hand it over to radical environmentalists. Which do I pick?
I think I tip the guy who shines shoes, even though I’m wearing sandals. Or better yet, I spend the $2.50 on the women’s magazine, just so I can throw out the non-biodegradable plastic bag it comes in, engaging in my own silent form of eco-rebellion and carbon-dangerous behavior.

By Debbie Schlussel
It figures that advertising industry sleazebags giving out awards for the best ads would love an ad promoting teen sex and dishonesty to parents and believe that J.C. Penney would actually put this kind of crap out there as a real ad.
The thing is, the ad was a fake. J.C. Penney’s slogan is “Today is the Day.” But production house, Epoch Films made a fake ad with the slogan, “Today is the Day You Can Get Away With It,” showing two teens getting ready for a sexual rendezvous in the basement and lying to their parents about it. And clueless ad industry execs just loved it–they gave the fake ad a Bronze Lion at the Cannes Lions festival, believing it was a real ad for J.C. Penney.
J.C. Penney–which won a Silver Lion for a real ad–blacked and now the Bronze Lion for this “ad” will have to be returned:

Suckers: Fake JC Penney Ad Won Real Award

By Debbie Schlussel
Hmmm . . . more evidence for future anthropologists that America is getting dumber by the minute and that if Obama is elected, morons populate America in far too large numbers.
The New Obama slogan: “We Are All Hussein.” Why not go a step further and do, “We Are All Bin Ladens”? Or, “We Are All Mohammed”? This reminds me of the stupid AIDS campaign, starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Sarah Jess-Equine Parker, and other celebs, wearing face paints and saying, “I Am African“:

Emily Nordling has never met a Muslim, at least not to her knowledge. But this spring, Ms. Nordling, a 19-year-old student from Fort Thomas, Ky., gave herself a new middle name on Facebook.com, mimicking her boyfriend and shocking her father.
“Emily Hussein Nordling,” her entry now reads.

They’re All “Hussein” . . .

“We Are All ‘Hussein'”: They Are All Idiots.
They’re “African” . . .

And You And I Are American . . .

I AM AMERICAN
(Artwork by David Lunde)

With her decision, she joined a growing band of supporters of Senator Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, who are expressing solidarity with him by informally adopting his middle name.
The result is a group of unlikely-sounding Husseins: Jewish and Catholic, Hispanic and Asian and Italian-American, from Jaime Hussein Alvarez of Washington, D.C., to Kelly Hussein Crowley of Norman, Okla., to Sarah Beth Hussein Frumkin of Chicago.
Jeff Strabone of Brooklyn now signs credit card receipts with his newly assumed middle name [DS: Which could be criminal fraud, unless he legally changes his name], while Dan O’Maley of Washington, D.C., jiggered his e-mail account so his name would appear as “D. Hussein O’Maley.” Alex Enderle made the switch online along with several other Obama volunteers from Columbus, Ohio, and now friends greet him that way in person, too. . . .
“I am sick of Republicans pronouncing Barack Obama’s name like it was some sort of cuss word,” Mr. Strabone wrote in a manifesto titled “We Are All Hussein” that he posted on his own blog and on dailykos.com. . . .
“My name is such a vanilla, white-girl American name,” said Ashley Holmes of Indianapolis, who changed her name online “to show how little meaning ‘Hussein’ really has.”

Barf.

Some said they were inspired by movies, including “Spartacus,” the 1960 epic about a Roman slave whose peers protect him by calling out “I am Spartacus!” to Roman soldiers, and “In and Out,” a 1997 comedy about a gay high school teacher whose students protest his firing by proclaiming that they are all gay as well.

Oh, and Barack Obama is embracing this stupidity.

“The theory was, we’re all Hussein,” Mr. Obama said. . . .
Mark Elrod, a political science professor at Harding University in Searcy, Ark., is organizing students and friends to declare their Husseinhood on Facebook on Aug. 4, Mr. Obama’s birthday.
Ms. Nordling changed her name after volunteering for Mr. Obama before the Kentucky primary.

Do they not know that Hussein was a martyr in Islam, at the very beginning of the bloody Shia versus Sunni Islam feud? Of course, not. They’re idiots. Completely clueless. But, hey, they’re going to get Barack “We Are All Hussein” Obama elected.
I can feel America’s IQ dropping rapidly.
They need to change their slogan, though. It’s not, “We Are All Hussein.” More like, “We Are All Insane.”

By Debbie Schlussel
Even the normally celeb-pandering US Magazine isn’t turning a blind eye to the hypocrisy of yet another “green”-preaching celebrity hypocrite. This time, it’s Kate Walsh, who plays a doctor on TV, but needs someone to diagnose and prescribe medication for her GHID (Green Hypocrisy Identity Disorder):

Oh, yes, she did! They all do, but don’t want you–the little people–to.
Oh, and by the way, since when is driving a Cadillac, “eco-friendly”? When it fills Kate Walsh’s bank account with the other kinda “green.” That’s when.

By Debbie Schlussel
**** UPDATE: Read ABC News Exclusive on How the FBI Botched the Anthrax Case ****
Where do you go to get your reputation back?
That’s a question Ronald Reagan’s Labor Secretary Raymond Donovan asked when he was acquitted of larceny and fraud charges and repeated allegations that he had ties to the mob. The feds prosecuted him, despite a lengthy investigation by a special prosecutor who said there was “insufficient credible evidence” to indict Donovan for anything. He beat the charges, after a nine-month trial, the jurors of which swiftly voted to acquit as the U.S. had no case.
Now, there is Dr. Steven Hatfill. On Friday, the government settled a lawsuit filed by Hatfill, after almost seven years of ruining his life and reputation. As you’ll recall, not long after 9/11, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft announced to the public that Hatfill was a “person of interest” in the anthrax poisonings that murdered Americans. It was part of a concerted campaign by the United States of America against Hatfill.

Dr. Steven Hatfill
Despite the fact that all evidence pointed to a Muslim terrorist plot against Americans–a Muslim was convicted of sending a letter threatening anthrax poisonong to then Connecticut Gov. John G. Rowland–the feds drained a giant swamp behind Hatfill’s apartment complex.
And since Hatfill was fired by the feds from his job studying anthrax and other toxins at a Maryland Army bioresearch lab, he had no way to earn a living. He had to move in with his girlfriend, and when he finally got a job offer from a university, the feds convinced the school to rescind the offer.
Far-left New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof–who also wrote columns defending the “innocence” of Islamic Jihad terrorist Sami Al-Arian–wrote a scathing, extensive article declaring Hatfill’s guilt in a newsmagazine. FBI agents engaged in an organized whispering campaign against Hatfill to all the media bloodsuckers, like Kristof, who would listen.
And conservatives aren’t blameless. The Bush Administration is the apparatus that ruined and basically robbed Hatfill of his life. Moreover, my friend, Pat Clawson–a former reporter, who for years served as a voluntary spokesman for Dr. Hatfill–was pressured, then removed by a conservative radio syndication network, for daring to defend Hatfill.
So, for almost seven years, Dr. Hatfill has been without a way to earn a living, his lifelong research (in which his work for America was and could have continued to be valuable) forever out of his grasp, and his reputation completely sullied as the government continued to accuse him of what they’ll never accuse extremist Muslims of: being a terrorist.
Now, the government is walking away with its tail between its legs, but getting away from this travesty it committed by paying a mere pittance. The government will never admit it was at fault. It won’t officially clear Dr. Hatfill or give him his job back. And not a single FBI agent–from the very many who trashed him in the media–will lose his or her job or get demoted.
John Ashcroft, who publicly started this fiery ball rolling against Hatfill, is counting his pennies (though he earned very few of them from his phony book, “Never Again”–it warmed my heart to see it at the local Dollar Store) and enjoying consulting, speaking, and lobbying deals.
And the government chose a Friday to announce the deal–deliberately designed to bury the story in the Saturday editions of the paper and TV news, where few will see it.
While some may say, “He’s getting big bucks–$5.82 million,” he’s really not getting much. There is no way Hatfill will ever be able to get a job in his chosen field–the only decent-paying one for which he’s trained and qualified. He’s destitute and a broken man and, to some, will forever remain under suspicion as a murderous terrorist.
The way the deal is structured, Hatfill won’t get rich. An initial government payment of $2.82 million will be severely whittled down, once Hatfill gets it. He has to pay his attorney fees of years and years of subpoenas, depositions, transcripts and other costly legal minutiae. Plus, his attorney, Thomas G. Connolly–who did G-d’s work in representing Hatfill–will get his percentage or hourly fees (depending upon what their agreement was). And Uncle Sam may get its tax cut, depending upon how the settlement was structured–many lawsuit settlements like this are immune from taxation. My guess is that out of that Hatfill will end up with about a million dollars. And much of that will probably have to go to pay back debts and loans he got from friends and good samaritans to sustain himself over the years of government persecution.
After the lump sum, the government will pay Hatfill an annuity of $150,000 per year for the next 20 years. He may have to pay half of that in taxes, as income (again, depending upon whether or not it’s considered a settlement immune from taxes). Regardless, with inflation, $150,000 won’t be worth much in terms of real dollars as the years go by.
With no government admission of wrongdoing and almost seven years of his life robbed and spent in destitution and isolation, Steven Hatfill is not a rich man, today. In fact, he’s very poor. He’s not only been robbed of his career, but of the one thing that holds most value to him: his good name–his reputation. And while many of us did not believe in the government vilification of him from the very beginning, many others will always suspect him.
For him, the $5.8 million is chump change. Where does Steven Hatfill go to get his reputation back?
There is no bank account big enough to cover that loss. And $5.8 million is the equivalent of tiny thong underwear on a very large rear end, caught with its pants down.
That rear end is our government.
As we celebrate our freedoms, this week, on the Fourth of July, I wonder if Steven Hatfill will be celebrating. Our government did not take away Steven Hatfill’s freedom absolutely by throwing him in prison.
But it took away his life’s work and his reputation. And he will never be truly free, regardless of $5.8 million.
***
This isn’t the first time our government has done this. And it won’t be the last. Justice–and even settlements like this–are rare.
In the past, I wrote about my friend, James Van de Velde. As a professor at Yale, Van de Velde was ahead of his time, teaching his students about terrorist groups and plots in international affairs.
But one of his students was murdered almost a decade ago. And–as in Hatfill’s case–without a shred of evidence, New Haven, Connecticut police and Yale authorities publicly singled out Van de Velde as one of 10 or eleven “persons of interest.”
Barbara Pinto–then a local reporter who is now with ABC News–was apparently upset that Van de Velde dumped her. And she told authorities she suspected him. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. The preposterous theory posited by those who accused Van de Velde: That he was under pressure to grade the student’s thesis and that he killed her for it (he didn’t–it should be noted–kill any of the other multiple students whose theses he graded during his career at Yale).
Van de Velde–also in the U.S. Navy–continued to maintain top secret security clearances (renewed every six months) because no-one in the U.S. Navy believed he had anything to do with the murder. Yet, it was hard for him to maintain a job because Yale and New Haven authorities engaged in the same whispering campaign against him that they engaged in against Hatfill.
But unlike Hatfill, Van de Velde–without a shred of evidence against him–has never gotten justice. He unfairly remains under suspicion, after lawsuits that he and his lawyers have filed to clear his name.
And then, there is my friend, Rick Convertino. As I’ve told you, he was a dedicated federal prosecutor–one of our nation’s best. And he made the mistake of going after terrorists and actually getting them convicted, unlike the rest of the incompetent U.S. Department of Justice. For that–for protecting America’s national security–Rick’s reputation was dragged through the mud, and the government indicted him. He beat the charges and is now suing the feds. But it is a tough route and rarely successful.
Dr. Steven Hatfill is one of the lucky ones. Relatively “lucky.”

By Debbie Schlussel
**** UPDATE, 06/29/08: Tough luck, Muslims. Despite your endless whining, dogs will sniff you, anyway (if the ideological stench doesn’t kill ’em). ****
Now, that wasn’t hard, was it? Weight Watchers franchise owners can breathe a sigh of relief. They can still go after obesity.
But in Britain, Muslims–the higher beings of the universe, in addition to being card-carrying members of the “Religion of Peace”–are immune from the very security aimed at protecting all people (fat or otherwise) from their deadly devices:

POLICE sniffer dogs trained to spot terrorists at railway stations may no longer come into contact with Muslim passengers – after complaints that it is against the suspects’ religion.
A report for the Transport Department has raised the prospect that the animals should only touch passengers’ luggage because it is considered “more acceptable”.
In the Muslim faith, dogs are deemed to be spiritually “unclean”. But banning them from touching passengers would severely restrict their ability to do their job.

The report follows trials of station security measures in the wake of the 2005 London suicide bomb attacks. In one trial, some female Muslims said the use of a body scanner was also unacceptable because it was tantamount to being forced to strip. [DS: How ’bout being forced to leave Britain?] . . .
The report concluded: “The use of sniffer dogs was generally problem¬?atic for Muslim respondents on rel¬?igious grounds if there was the potential for the dog to make direct contact with them.” . . .
Massoud Shadjareh, chairman of the Islamic Human Rights Com¬?mission, said even dogs touching baggage would be an issue for a Muslim preparing to pray. But he stressed that it should be easy to allow dogs to check passengers without physical contact.
“There is a way of dealing with this and we just need to be sensitive,” he said.

We’ve been waaaay too sensitive already to these people.
Anyway, I’m upset about this because I heard that it’s considered unclean for the dogs when they touch Muslims. And I think–in the interest of animal rights–we need to be sensitive to the dogs’ rights about not having to go near Muslims. Isn’t that animal abuse?
Where’s People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) when you need them?
Yet another example how Greater Barbaria demands the civilized West accommodate them and not the other way around. It’ll be the death of us.

By Debbie Schlussel
Since I keep kosher–and Burger King ain’t kosher–this isn’t a perk I covet. But apparently, it’s one of the most prestigious perks there is.
The Burger King Crown Card–which allows the bearer free lifetime eats at BK–is given to a select few celebrities, only eleven of them.
After actor Hugh Laurie lied in an interview with the UK’s Times, claiming he had one, Burger King decided to give him one. That’ll make it twelve bearers of this gold card.
Among other BK Crown Card holders: Jay Leno, Jennifer Hudson, George Lucas, and Robert Downey Jr.

Who Said America Doesn’t Have Royalty?
Whoever said, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch,” got it wrong. There’s no such thing as a free lunch, unless you’re a wealthy celebrity who can most afford to pay. In that case, it’s free lunch . . . and breakfast and dinner.
Read more about the BK Crown Card.
Here’s hopin’ they don’t offer one up to Super-sized Ego, Morgan Spurlock.

By Debbie Schlussel
Since I write a lot about Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on this site, because so many ICE (and DHS) personnel are among my readers, and because most of my readers care about the illegal alien problem, lots of people are sending me the article about the ICE attorney in Los Angeles and his wife, who took bribes from aliens to file false employment petitions for 47 aliens.
I know some ICE attorneys, whose job often involves preparing cases for trial in order to deport and oppose asylum requests for some very bad people who won’t leave. The attorneys I know do a thankless job and they do it well because they are patriots. For the most part, they are honest people and skilled litigators, who make a fraction of what they’d make on the open market as immigration lawyers or defense attorneys. And their work helps keep us safe.
Often, when they win at the trial level in immigration court, the Justice Department and U.S. Attorneys’ offices screw it up on the appeals level. I wish many of these ICE lawyers were U.S. Attorneys. Then, things would get done.

Then, there is Peter Kallas, the man who took bribes to commit immigration fraud as an ICE attorney. His case is evidence that anyone in ICE can be vulnerable to bribes. That includes Roy Bailey, who was ICE’s Field Office Director–in charge of deporting illegal aliens–in Detroit for several years. He took bribes from Hezbollah’s key U.S. financier, Talal Chahine.
So, while the Kallas arrest is not exemplary of ICE’s other attorneys (except maybe the incompetent chick at the top), it is exemplary of the low morale at ICE. Although there is no excuse to sell out our country and its national security, the fact is that ICE employees are increasingly vulnerable–not because of salary, but because they are fed up with their agencies non-leadership and refusal to actually crack down on illegal aliens in our midst. And the responsibility for that falls with the rotting head at the top of the fish, blackface originality expert, Julie L. Myers a/k/a “The ICE Princess”:

(Julie Myers Diet Coke by David Lunde/Lundesigns)

An attorney for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and his wife were arrested on suspicion of accepting thousands of dollars from both legal and illegal immigrants in exchange for immigration benefits, authorities said.
ICE Assistant Chief Counsel Constantine Peter Kallas, 38, and wife Maria Kallas, 39, both of Alta Loma, were arrested Thursday at the San Manuel Indian Bingo and Casino, where authorities believed they were accepting such a bribe, U.S. Attorney spokesman Thom Mrozek said in a statement.
A search warrant affidavit said the couple, using a pair of companies they had set up, filed false employment petitions with federal authorities for 45 illegal immigrants and two legal permanent residents.
“The egregious acts of corruption alleged in this case are extremely disturbing to those of us who have sworn to serve the United States,” U.S. Attorney Thomas P. O’Brien said in a written statement. “As a law enforcement official, Mr. Kallas abused his position in the Department of Homeland Security simply to line his own pockets.”
The search warrant affidavit said about $950,000 beyond Constantine Kallas’ salary had been deposited in the pair’s bank accounts since 2000.
The couple was arrested on suspicion of conspiracy, bribery, making false statements and making a false statement in an immigration application. . . .
Kallas has worked for ICE since 1998, but had been on unpaid leave since January, 2007.

I’d like to know the identities and nationalities of the individuals he helped. Who are they, and where did they come from?

By Debbie Schlussel
Only one movie I liked at the box office for this weeks new offerings. Not the boring Islamic propaganda film.
* Wall-E: The best animated movie I’ve ever seen, you forget you’re watching animation. This high-tech masterpiece, while marketed to kids by Disney/Pixar, is actually very appealing to adults. I do not have kids, and I would go see this on my own.
There is very little dialogue in this futuristic movie of lonely desolation on earth which ends in optimism and hope. It’s also a love story of sorts. Yet, it is exciting and fast-paced.
Set in the year 2700, the earth is abandoned, filled with skyscrapers of trash next to real skyscrapers, which are falling apart. WALL-E is a miniature robot, whose job is to gather trash and compact it into boxes on top of boxes. He’s either the last one left on earth or forgotten or both. WALL-E lives his life on earth doing his job alone and hanging around with a friendly cockroach. As he sifts through the trash, WALL-E keeps gadgets and other signs of past humanity (spoons, forks, sporks, etc.) For entertainment, WALL-E watches an old musical movie about love and dreams of holding hands and finding a soulmate like the stars of the old musical.
Soon, a spaceship lands on earth and deposits small robot that looks like a cross between Caspar the Friendly Ghost and an egg. WALL-E and EVE, this new robot, become fast friends as EVE is on her mission to find surviving plant life on earth.

The humans who used to live on earth, now live on a giant spaceship that looks like a cruise ship. They’re all extremely obese, and don’t walk. They get around on mobile lounge chairs and communicate via video screen attachments. They seem to have forgotten that they’re supposed to be hoping to return to earth, when the mission suddenly confronts them. And some robots, fearing their anachronism, get in the way.
Some have made a big deal of the alleged “global warming” message of the movie. But it’s really very vague, and they don’t really hit you over the head with it. We’re not told why nothing is growing on earth–though it’s hinted that’s because of all the trash. Still we don’t know. It appears humans abandoned earth because of a savvy marketing ploy to buy condos on Mars. And there have been other great movies–“Silent Running” and “Soylent Green,” of which this is reminiscent, though far more optimistic at the end–in which there is total desolation on earth and few if any plants grow. Still, they were great movies.
I’m sure you can both enjoy this film with your family and explain to your kids that Ted Turner’s scary vision of a scorched earth with no vegetation is fantasy and won’t happen.
In the end, this movie is a love story more than anything. Wall-E and EVE fall in love. The dearth in vegetation is just the way to unite them.
Not only was this movie very charming and fun, it was fantastic in its animation, story, and sound effects. Go see it.
FOUR REAGANS

* Wanted: While this movie is being marketed as an Angelina Jolie vehicle, she does little other than pout, pose, and kick butt. She’s a co-star, at best. The real star of this silly movie is James McAvoy. He plays Wesley, a loser, who hates his job and his fat pig boss lady (a dead ringer for Roseanne). Wesley sulks in his cubicle, as his best friend is having an affair with his girlfriend and everyone treats him like dogpoop.
Soon, though, Wesley is recruited by an ancient fraternity of weavers who make textiles, but are actually assassins. They train Wesley to no longer take crap from the world around him, and to become one of them.
The movie is based on graphic novels/comic books and really seems to be a parody, if anything. While a few scenes in the movie are cool–Wesley telling off his obnoxious boss and beating up his friend who is sleeping with his girl–I found it to be absurd, stupid and pointless. And very disturbing, in that it’s a ton of very graphic violence, murder, and blood without a point. Gratuitous killing for no reason.
And the bullets go around people’s heads to hit targets. Yeah, that’s believable. Ditto for the code that automatically comes to this ancient society of weavers, through some master loom. Who is sending the code regarding which person to kill next? G-d? They don’t tell us (not that I care, but it makes for an even more preposterous script). Certain skipped stitches just magically appeared.
Most of the story–about training a guy to become an assassin for the wrong people–was a bargain basement rip-off of the great “Batman Begins.”
I like guns and shooting more than the next person. But the sheer violence in this movie really does nothing other than show us what a hypocrite Angelina Jolie is. In real life, she pretends to decry violence and is a U.N. goodwill ambassador for refugees. But the pointless, random killing that she glorifies and promotes in this movie is what makes people refugees, amputees, and victims, in the first place. It does mirror the violence and killing, though, that she cheered on as Palestinian children sung of their desire for “revenge” to take Jerusalem and Palestine, when she visited a refugee camp.
Yes, in like the last two minutes there’s a faint morality play. But that’s not why they made this trash, and it doesn’t make up for the 1.5 hours that came before the “do as I say, not as I do–don’t kill” message.
Do you think Baby Shiloh, Jolie’s unborn twins, or the assorted U.N. of adopted kids she and Brad Pitt have will ever be allowed to see this onscreen tribute to killing? How about her naked butt–also shown on the big screen?
And this chick is our new national saint. Skipworthy.
THREE MARXES


* Bab’Aziz: The Prince Who Contemplated His Soul: This subtitled Arabic movie showed me one thing–that Arabic movie and TV production really hasn’t advanced much beyond the amateurish, provincial stuff you’d see on Iraqi or Egyptian TV in the 1950s or 1960s. Oh, except that they discovered this thing called “color.”
The movie looks like one of the Arabs from Lawrence of Arabia made it and in that era. Despite that, this movie is being heavily marketed to the Arab and Muslim communities in places like the Detroit area, as movie studios and distributors try to artificially create a non-existent niche market for bland, boring, unsophisticated Arabic movies like this one. It’s not charming, just backward.
You can’t blame the Arabs and Muslims for their lack of advancement in story development and video production, though. After all, they have more important industries in which to make their advancements and developments and focus their “ingenuity” and “creativity”: the IED industry, the homicide belt bomb industry, and the Mein Kampf/Protocols of the Elders of Zion publishing industry, and the women’s sackwear/full-Ninja fashion industry.
Yes, they have advanced video production but only for certain things: beheading videos, Al-Qaeda recruitment videos, and the transmission of anti-American, anti-Christian, and anti-Semitic sermons.
This movie was extremely boring. I fell asleep multiple times and didn’t miss much. A blind, old dervish (wandering, impoverished Muslim Sufi mystic), Bab’Aziz, and his granddaughter are wandering in the desert to meet with other dervishes at a religious gathering held every 30 years. Along the way, the grandfather tells her a pointless, boring story about a prince who abandons his kingdom. They also meet others wandering in the desert who tell their equally pointless, boring stories. All of the stories are mixed in, make no sense, and are, frankly, stupid. Very hard to follow, not that I wanted to.
The only story I liked was the one told by a man who describes how he found a fountain in the middle of the desert, dove into it and ended up in a palace with many beautiful women who loved and wanted him. He’s told by a group of Arabs in the desert, that this is a taste of paradise in heaven. Finally, the Muslims admit that which we all know is true, but which they constantly deny post-9/11: that “heaven”/”paradise” is comprised by the 72 virgins.
In promotional materials sent to me by the movie’s publicist, “Bab’Aziz”‘s director, Nacer Khemir, says he made this movie

to wipe Islam’s face clean with my movie, by showing an open, tolerant and friendly Islamic culture, full of love and wisdom . . . an Islam that is different from the one depicted by the media in the aftermath of 9/11.

That’s interesting, since there are no non-Muslims in the movie–we see no tolerance, and–although a bus is mentioned and we briefly see an airplane and a motorcycle–it’s as if the movie took place in 1912 or even 1612. And it’s not the real Islam of thousands in the streets, cheering on Bin Laden, HAMAS, and Hezbollah. How many Muslims or Arabs do you know who still roam aimlessly in the desert? PUH-LEEZE. How many would take their granddaughter–who’d be relegated to cooking and baby-making–instead of their grandson, who’d be trained in hate and jihad, not told stupid stories of princes and fountains?
The biggest desert they wander in Islam, today, is the empty, thirsty desert of mind, morality, and humanity–which, in the case of that religion, is completely barren.
TWO MARXES

By Debbie Schlussel
After last year’s NBA draft, I posted the photo of #9 pick Joakim Noah (son of tennis great, Yannick Noah), who went to the Chicago Bulls. With his bizarre outfit and hairdo, he resembled Bozo the Clown.
Well, Bozo the Clown made a repeat visit to this year’s NBA draft, held yeseterday. This time, his sartorial taste (his suit) is more restrained. But Bozo’s stock has dropped in value. Robin Lopez was picked 15th by the Phoenix Suns. In case you were wondering, he’s 7 feet tall and weighs 255 pounds. His twin brother, Brook Lopez, went 10th in the draft, selected by the New Jersey Nets.
Last Year’s Bozo . . .

Joakim Noah in 2007 NBA Draft
This Year’s Bozo . . .
Robin Lopez in 2008 NBA Draft