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Yesterday was the first day of class at the Kahlil Gibran International Academy in Brooklyn, New York. They keep telling us that it’s just an Arabic school, not Muslim and with no religious orientation (even though the first principal they hired was a Muslim jihad supporter and even though the “curriculum” includes pan-jihadist views and activism).
Here’s a Getty Images photo from the first day of classes. Tell me, does this look like an a-religious, non-Muslim school to you? Moreover, look at the mommy in black sheets. Does she look like she’d send her kids to a “public school”? Don’t bet on it:

STOP THE MADRASSA. STOP OUR TAX-FUNDING OF ISLAMIST PROPAGANDA FOR KIDS.

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I will be on the “Mike Church Show” on Sirius Patriot Channel 144, today at 5:30 p.m. Eastern, to discuss the Mark Cuban-produced anti-troops movie (and everyone else on the net discovered Sunday–that means you, Drudge).
The movie, “Redacted,” by Director Brian DePalma is a fictionalized account of American troops raping an Iraqi girl. DePalma, , has a history of making films that defame our troops, including those who served in Vietnam (whom he also depicted as raping a young girl). It’s disgusting. Out of many, many stories of American troops doing great things around the world, he picks a few anomalies–a few soldiers in a place where we are at war and where these things rarely happen, but do happen. Don’t expect DePalma and Cuban, though, to make a film about how Muslims rape, torture, and kill Christians and Jews, though Cuban has expressed an interest in me pitching him on an idea. And I will. We’ll see.
Listen in if you have Sirius.

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Detroit’s deceptively-named National Arab American Museum has shown it’s true colors: It’s a Muslim Museum. Not an Arab one.
Sunday, the museum will hold a Muslim fashion show for women, featuring “stylish yet modest clothing.” (A single hair on an ugly woman, if exposed, might turn on the entire Muslim male population with dire consequences, apparently.) But if the museum were truly about Arabs (not Muslims), it would divorce itself from Islamic dress. Most Arabs in America are Christians, and they don’t cover up. (And most Muslims in America are NOT Arabs).
To crib off of a Jay Leno joke, here are the likely designers featured at the “fashion show”:

Sexy: Muslim Feminist Fashion Show
* Anti-Christian Dior;
* Donna Koran (not to be confused with Evil Zionist Donna Karan);
* Khomeini Klein (not to be confused with Evil Zionist Calvin); and
* Jihadi Armani.
The Muslim fashion show is emblematic of the Islamist nature of the Museum. Sure, most of the exhibits (in addition to the Anti-Israel wing and temporary anti-Semitic exhibits) are of Christian Arab-Americans who are mainstream in American life, like Doug Flutie and Jamie Farr. But they are using the Christians’ images to make us think that the Muslims–who run and control the Museum–are the same as Flutie and Farr. They ain’t. It’s pure propaganda.
In fact, one of the Arab Americans featured in the museum is Erin Brockovich attorney, the late Edward Masry. But, , unlike the museum’s message, Masry–a Syrian Christian–was pro-Israel. He told a newspaper:

My father was a Christian from Syria who came to the United States in 1912 because of repression in his native country. He was one of the first to give money to Israel in 1948. His sympathies were pro-Zionist, not pro-Arab.

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Fortunately, we haven’t heard Sheryl Crow or Laurie David preaching this idea to us, yet, but it shows the disgusting lengths to which environmentalists will go to make life disgusting and absurd.
Today, at a movie screening, I used the Women’s restroom of the swanky theater. In all the stalls there was a sign facing the user:

Please do not deposit sanitary napkins in toilets. Thank You. The Mgmt.

But wait:
Then, there was something written on each sign (I checked –each stall had the same thing):

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

Hate to be graphic, but “Reuse” or “Recycle” a feminine napkin? Do they know what they are used to absorb? Hello . . . ?
Eeuuww. And that’s kind of my reaction to the entire “global warming” environmentalist crowd: Eeuuww.
Disgusting.

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What’s the definition of “Chutzpah”? Well, the Yiddish (and Hebrew) word means gall or nerve. But a synonym might be “Karim Koubriti.”
Koubriti, a member of the Detroit Al-Qaeda terrorist cell, is suing former federal prosecutor Richard Convertino for prosecuting him (he’s suing two federal agents, too).

Karim Koubriti:
Yet Another Smiling Islamic Terrorist Yanks America’s Chain
Koubriti–who, along with his co-conspirators, planned to blow up several American tourist cites and the Incirlik Army Base in Turkey (from which American AWACS and Israeli F-16s take off)–lucked out. The 28-year-old punk, who lived a crummy house on Norman street in Detroit, was convicted at trial. But in a political move spurred by the jealousy of the then-U.S. Attorney, Convertino’s case was sabotaged by superiors, who then got the judge to overturn the conviction. Meanwhile, the government is pursuing insurance fraud charges against Koubriti (as a way to deport the man they know is a terrorist, but whose conviction they politically overturned).
, vindictive Justice Department officials indicted Convertino–the earnest counterterrorism prosecutor. But that was not enough for them. It’s believed that they suggested to terrorist Koubriti that he pursue a suit against Convertino.
Convertino isn’t the only object of Koubriti’s litigious nature. The terrorist is also suing over his purported poor treatment in jail, where he claims he was strip searched, confined to his cell, and forced to eat pork. And the crime here is . . .?
Koubriti’s suit against Convertino is frivolous and with no merit, and Koubriti’s lawyer Ben Gonek–who has been reprimanded FOUR TIMES(!) and twice disciplined by the Michigan Attorney Grievance Commission–should know better. As famed Michigan criminal defense attorney and former chief of the Michigan Attorney Grievance Commission (and full disclosure: my friend and lawyer) Michael A. Schwartz notes, the federal case of Imbler v. Pachtman bestows immunity on government prosecutors for their actions performed within the scope of their duties. The case should be immediately thrown out and Gonek and his client should be assessed thousands in sanctions. And a grievance should be filed over this wasteful clogging of our legal system on behalf of Islamic terrorists.
Only in America: A Muslim terrorist goes free. His prosecutor is indicted for pursuing him. Then, the terrorist has the chutzpah to sue the prosecutor.
Yup, only in America.

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For the last several weeks, I was and continue to be fascinated with the big, ongoing Chicago Mob trial. It reminds me of the old days when the FBI and Justice Department did a semi-decent job of chasing organized crime, rather than the completely crummy job they do today of only focusing on terrorism (and reaching out to terrorists for falafel dinners together). “The Outfit” prosecution is one of the last remnants of the great FBI J. Edgar Hoover molded, which has now sunk to the heights of mediocrity in its limp “war” on terrorism (at the cost of all other crime investigations).

Prosecutors in the trial of “The Outfit”–a Chicago-based Mafia operation–say this isn’t “The Godfather” or “The Sopranos,” but it sure sounds like it. Ditto for the names and nicknames of the Defendants, which include Joseph “Joey the Clown” Lombardo and Paul “the Indian” Schiro (as well as James Marcello, and Frank Calabrese Sr.). The mob boss was named Angelo “the Hook” LaPietra. One of the men they were alleged to have murdered was named Anthony “The Ant” Spilotro.
And, as in the movies, the Judge felt the jurors’ lives were in danger. He ordered that their names be sealed and that they be referred to only by numbers. This is not only just like TV and the movies, it is straight from them.
Accused Mafioso (Mafiosi?) Defendants’ lawyers say the trial is evidence that FBI stands for “Forever Bothering Italians.” Maybe it once did, but today, it stands for “Forever Butt-kissing Islamists.” (Thanks, reader Nodog.)
Today, most Mafia operations are on their last legs. Organized crime isn’t what it once was. But it’s not been put completely out of its misery, and Cosa Nostra (“Our Thing”–those in the know don’t use “La” at the beginning of the phrase) is festering again.
Now the fate of the elders of “The Outfit” are in the hands of the Jury. More of the details of “The Outfit” trial:

For 10 weeks, the Family Secrets trial has mesmerized this city and opened a window into the workings of Chicago’s organized crime operation known as the Outfit. . . .
Testimony about grisly killings, family betrayals and secret ceremonies sometimes seemed borrowed from those fictional dramas. . . .
The five defendants, all in their 60s or 70s and facing sentences that could put them in prison for the rest of their lives if convicted, include reputed members of the Outfit and a former policeman. They are Joseph “Joey the Clown” Lombardo, Paul “the Indian” Schiro, James Marcello and Frank Calabrese Sr.
The 43-page indictment charged them with 18 murders, racketeering, extortion, loan-sharking and illegal gambling. Retired policeman Anthony Doyle is not charged in the murders.
Prosecution witnesses described the rituals and violence of Mob life:
* Nicholas Calabrese testified that he held a man’s arms decades ago while his brother, Frank Calabrese Sr., strangled the man with a rope, then slit his throat. “I wet my pants, I was so scared,” he said. Nicholas Calabrese pleaded guilty in the case and admitted taking part in 14 murders.
* Just before reputed mobster Anthony “the Ant” Spilotro was beaten to death for attracting too much attention to the Outfit’s Las Vegas operations, Nicholas Calabrese testified, the man realized he had walked into a trap.
Spilotro asked, “Can I say a prayer?”
* Frank Calabrese Jr. taped conversations with his father while both were in a Michigan prison for loan sharking. The senior Calabrese said that new Mob members are “made” at ceremonies where their fingers are cut and religious cards are burned in their palms while bosses watch to see if recruits flinch in pain.
Nicholas Calabrese testified that at his ceremony, he had to say as the card burned, “If I give up my brothers, may I burn in hell like this holy picture.”
* Cash collections were split with boss Angelo “the Hook” LaPietra, Nicholas Calabrese testified. He sometimes stuffed money into an oven mitt hanging from a nail in LaPietra’s garage, he said, flipping the mitt over to indicate the cash was inside. LaPietra died in 1999.
* Michael Talarico [DS: Hmmm . . . Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler’s real surname is Talarico], an admitted bookie who ran surveillance for the Outfit, testified that he once left a dead rat with a rope around its neck at the office of someone who had irritated LaPietra, his uncle. Nicholas Calabrese once cut the head off a puppy and left it on someone’s car, Talarico said.
Defense lawyers called Nicholas Calabrese and Frank Calabrese Jr. liars. Attorney Joseph Lopez, who represents Frank Calabrese Sr., said Nicholas “would shoot you in the head over a cold ravioli.” . . .
Frank Calabrese Sr. and Lombardo each testified and denied that they are members of the Outfit. The elder Calabrese said his brother was the real power in the Mob. All the defendants pleaded not guilty.
Rick Halprin, Lombardo’s lawyer, said his client did “run the oldest and most reliable floating crap game on Grand Avenue.” The remark echoed the musical Guys and Dolls, in which Nathan Detroit runs “the oldest established permanent floating crap game in New York.”
John Binder, author of the 2003 book The Chicago Outfit, says the Outfit has shrunk since its heyday, but it’s still involved in narcotics, illegal gambling and lending. The men who are on trial have been replaced, he says.
“Maybe the Outfit will break up one day, but I don’t think this is going to be it,” Binder says. “It’s been declared dead before and people were wrong every time.”
Robert Fuesel, a retired IRS special agent who pursued the Outfit from 1958 until 1986, agrees.
“They’re not as flamboyant as they were in the days of Al Capone, but there’s a whole new fresh breed out there,” he says. “Organized crime survives anyplace where there’s money to be had.”

And it flourishes, today, because it’s neglected almost completely by an FBI and Justice Department, who focus instead on mostly bungling terrorism cases (and pursuing Americans in trumped-up “hate crimes” against extremist Muslims).
For the record, I know that terrorists–or, let’s get real, Islam–is a much bigger threat to America than the dying Mob. But you never saw the FBI conduct raids of Mobsters, then apologize to the Gambino and Genovese families for having done so (that’s what the FBI did after raiding Muslim charities funding Hezbollah in the Detroit area). And they never sponsored Gotti Family reunions or sat down for cannoli with John, Jr. in the name of “outreach.” The FBI and Justice Department are doing the equivalent of all of these with open Islamic terrorist supporters and their organizations. (Oh, and one other thing: Plenty of Italian FBI agents went after mobsters. You can’t say the same for Muslim FBI agents, many of whom have refused to investigate Muslims and have tipped them off, a la Gamal Abdel-Hafiz, who refused to surveil Sami Al-Arian and tipped off HAMAS financiers that they were targets).
Clearly, the FBI isn’t serious about stopping Islamic “organized crime,” so we’d be best off if another agency was and the bloated FBI bureaucracy stuck to what it was good at, regular, non-terrorism-related crime investigations.

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So much for the FBI warnings that University of Sami’s (Al-Arian) Friends a/k/a University of South Florida students –the Smiling Mugshot “Just Fireworks” Muslim terrorists–were not terrorists.
A Federal Grand Jury says they are, and indicted them:

Mohamed and Megahed: Smiling Terrorists Indicted

Two Egyptian students at the University of
South Florida who were arrested in South Carolina have been
indicted on federal charges for carrying explosives across states
lines.
One of the men also is charged with teaching the other how to
use the material for violent reasons.
Twenty-four-year-old Ahmed Abdellatif Sherif Mohamed faces terrorism charges for teaching and demonstrating how to use the explosives.

So, FBI, what say you? We already know what CAIR will say.
And by the way, while the FBI is now taking the credit, it really belongs to the Sheriffs Deputies in South Carolina, upon whom the FBI cast doubt. They were proven correct, and hopefully will be further vindicated with a conviction, which is another hurdle.
More here — they tested the explosives at a storage facility, it appears:

Two Egyptian students at the University of South Florida were indicted Friday for carrying explosive materials across states lines and one of them was charged with teaching the other how to use them for violent reasons.
Ahmed Abdellatif Sherif Mohamed, 24, an engineering graduate student and teaching assistant at the Tampa-based university, faces terrorism charges for teaching and demonstrating how to use the explosives.
He and Youssef Samir Megahed, 21, an engineering student, were stopped for speeding August 4 in Goose Creek, South Carolina, where they have been held on state charges.
The two men were stopped with pipe bombs in their car near a Navy base in South Carolina where enemy combatants have been held. They were held on state charges while the FBI continued to investigate whether there was a terrorism link.
Mohamed was charged with distributing information relating to explosives, destructive devices, and weapons of mass destruction, which is a terrorism-related statute, a Justice Department official said. The crime carries a maximum of 20 years in prison.
He and Megahed both face with charges of transporting explosives in interstate commerce without permits, which carries a 10-year prison penalty. Their defense attorney, Andy Savage, did not immediately return a call seeking comment.
The indictment was handed up in Tampa, Florida.
In South Carolina, where Mohamed and Megahed have been held in the Berkeley County jail, U.S. Attorney Reginald I. Lloyd praised state and federal authorities for cooperating in the four-week investigation that initially did not look like a terrorism case. [DS: The FBI deserves no praise. They deserve disdain for questioning the deputies’ case.]
“The arresting deputy’s vigilance and the immediate response of our local investigators and prosecutors are highly commendable,” Lloyd said in a statement.
Since the August 4 arrest, authorities sought to determine whether Mohamed and Megahed were fledgling terrorists or merely college students headed to the beach with devices made from fireworks they bought at Wal-Mart in their car, as they claimed. The local sheriff in South Carolina said the explosives were “other than fireworks.”
The charges follow several searches in Tampa, including of a storage facility and a park where the explosives might have been tested, authorities said.

Hopefully, the Justice Department doesn’t screw it up at trial, as it has a track record of doing at trial.
3-2-1. CAIR’s legal defense fund for these two starts now.

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Some interesting selections, this weekend, including Rob Zombie’s remake of “Halloween,” 29 years later. Sorry, readers, but I cannot review that movie. Knowing Zombie’s penchant for the most disturbing, most grotesque dismemberment and myriad other shock mechanisms in his movies, I wimped out of last night’s screening. (One sign that it’s bad: A movie that should have actually premiered on Halloween, is stuck in the August movie crypt reserved for bad movies.) I now heear it’s not as bad or scary as his other stuff, but, again, I didn’t see it. Here’s what I did see:

“Death Sentence” Far Inferior to “Death Wish”
* “Death Sentence“: I was really looking forward to this movie, because it has a plot akin to “Death Wish” (which I like) and stars Kevin Bacon, of whom I’m a fan. But this movie adds little to America, other than another connection for the “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” game. You can now link Kelly Preston (who plays Bacon’s wife), Aisha Tyler (a police detective), and John Goodman (a gang member’s bizarre father with an even more bizarre and unbelievable, bad accent) to Bacon with one “degree.”
This movie is based on a book written by Brian Garfield, the same novel on which “Death Wish” was based. But this is no Death Wish. Instead, it’s “Remorse Wish”–a miserable, choppy emulation of what is now a cult film classic. It’s the sensitive man’s, liberal version of what they wished “Death Wish” was about, with moralizing and lectures and messages against vengeance. Spare me.
And it’s clumsy on so many levels.
Where the late, great Charles Bronson was a methodical architect–all of the killers, muggers, and other criminals he targeted got theirs and he got away with it–Kevin Bacon is a brooding, sensitive man who doesn’t plan ahead and repeatedly gets stuck. We liked “Death Wish” because tough-as-nails Charles Bronson felt no remorse cleaning the streets of these scumbags who murdered his wife and raped his daughter. We enjoyed watching this bleeding-heart liberal become a conservative-minded vigilante who did the job the cops and prosecutors wouldn’t.
In this version, Kevin Bacon is crying in the shower and has to be comforted by his wife. Please. We really don’t need the sensitive man’s Death Wish. The original was just fine. It had no room for men who wear moisturizer and visit the spa.
In this incarnation, Bacon plays a top executive of an insurance or financial investment company who watches his talented, favorite son get slaughtered by a gang at a gas station in an initiation rite. He chooses to take revenge and kill the murderer. But it doesn’t quite go as planned, as he gets deeper and deeper into a vicious Sunni-versus-Shi’ite-like cycle of murder with the gang. In an odd portrayal you’d only see from liberal Hollywood, the gang of drug-dealing skinheads has token Black and Hispanic members . . . for diversity’s sake. Yup, only Tinseltown would insist on cast diversity in a skinhead gang.
And the third act of this movie is just plain stupid and too long and drawn out. It’s bloody and gory, but not scary or poignant. Just kill them already! That Bacon has transformed himself into “one of them” is a statement I didn’t need. Charles Bronson’s Paul Kersey doesn’t transform into one of them. He just gets hardened. And that’s what we like about him.
There’s a reason vengeance movies–where innocent law-abiding victims of murder take justice into their own hands when the system fails–are making a comeback. This and Jodi Foster’s far-superior, upcoming “The Brave One” are symptoms of a “justice” system that is, in fact, failing us. Zacarias Moussaoui didn’t get the death penalty for conspiracy in the murder of 3,000 Americans because jurors read a book by his brother about how he was abused as a child. Meanwhile, an innocent Michigan prosecutor has been indicted and is now being sued over his daring to successfully prosecute Al-Qaeda terrorists. And other violent criminals are going free. O.J. is playing golf and partying with numerous young, buxom blondes, while the Goldmans struggle to make him pay and can’t get justice. And there are plenty of other examples.
But “Death Sentence” doesn’t quite capture that emotion. Instead of getting pure vengeance, we get speeches about how revenge never works and how things “don’t balance out.” Bacon cries and whines, “How do I make it end? How do I stop this?” Spare me the moralizing and guilt. I go to the movies to see the job get done in fantasyland that doesn’t get done on America’s streets, police precincts, and courts in real life.
We want Bacon to succeed in murdering them all and get away with it with his family intact. But in this one, we don’t get what we want. Not even close.
Sometimes vengeance is good. Revenge is underrated. Often, it is not only deserved. It is necessary. The system fails far too often. And many of us cheer when the likes of Bernard Getz give the “change” the gang members “ask for” on the New York subway (he’d been mugged before, with no police response). They asked for it. And they got what they deserved.
Hollywood just can’t handle that truth.
Entertaining enough, but with the wrong message. Go rent Charles Bronson’s 1974 classic instead.

* “2 Days in Paris“: Adam Goldberg plays my favorite of his characters–Adam Goldberg. It’s the same character he plays in every movie he’s in, these days. You know–the arrogant, annoying, irritating, snarky, cheerless guy, who is enormously funny. Finally, in this movie, it has its proper place as a lead character. Though, I did not need to see so many, repeated full-frontal naked shots of him. The guy has an exhibitionist problem, it seems.
Goldberg is the non-French speaking American boyfriend of Julie Delpy’s Frenchwoman who has moved to America. Their Italian vacation is ruined, and she promises to make it up to him with a trip to Paris, where her family lives. They stay in an apartment on the upper floor of her non-English-speaking parents’ residence. There, Goldberg must contend with encountering his girlfriends’ many past boyfriends and flings, her tactics to embarrass him, and her annoying family and friends.
Although there are several unnecessary, irrelevant, snarky attacks on President Bush, Vice President Cheney, the War in Iraq, and Guantanamo Bay, there is an upside to this movie. Though annoying–as Delpy and most of the French are–the movie makes fun of the French, big-time. They are silly, stupid, sex-obsessed, boorish, anti-American, anti-Semitic, and annoying. Everything is about sex, from their art, their photos, their conversations, their jokes, their conversations at the family dinner table. And they are an unduly arrogant lot. Everything you hated about the French–and everything which tears down their undue contempt for Americans–is personified in this film.
Did not like the filthy “humor” and some of the conversation, and I hated the cheesy ending. But it was still funny and entertaining. That’s for sure. The “ugly American” ain’t so ugly compared to the ugly Frenchwoman.
Okay for an arthouse film by an annoying actress from France who thinks she’s Wood Allen in a skirt.
* “Balls of Fury“: See from Wednesday. One thing to add. I did learn something from this movie after all. In a running Chinese vs. White, Caucasion theme in the movie, the Chinese constantly call the main character (a White guy) “Gwai Lo” (sp?) and “round-eye” (nice racist slur). Had never heard either of these before. As for the rest of the movie, too dumb, but not dumb enough. Again, .

* “Halloween“: Wimped out of screening this Rob Zombie remake of the 1978 John Carpenter cult classic and cannot review.

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They don’t work for Michael Vick, but they are engaged in far more worthy wheeled pursuits (all are 1 minute or less and completely office-viewing safe). And, even better, this type of activity would be anathema to the “Religion of Peace”. They hate the stars of it almost as much as they hate Jews (and Christians):

Thanks to Sacred Scoop for the tip.

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We know that Iran is funding, arming, and training Shi’ite terrorists who are attacking our troops. We know that they are also helping Al-Qaeda (Sunni) terrorists there. So what do we do? We hand Ahmadinejad yet another victory.

U.S. forces briefly held eight Iranians, including two diplomats. Tuesday night, they were caught with unauthorized weapons and were believed to be helping terrorist fighters against U.S. troops. They claimed they were guards to Iranian diplomats. Uh-huh. That’s why they also had with them a large briefcase filled with American cash. Because, as everyone knows, American cash is king in helping to protect Iranian diplomats in Iraq. Well, maybe. But I doubt that’s what the cash was for. More likely to fund terrorists looking for arms.
But what did we do? We just released all eight of them. And, to make matters worse, we called their detention “regrettable.” HUH?! What is regrettable about it . . . aside from releasing them with absolutely zero penalty?
Why are we losing? With actions like these, no need to ask the question. We simply don’t have the will to win. And by that, I’m not referring to America, with its left-wing whine crowd and accompanying Oprah viewership. I’m talking about our OWN generals and the Bush Administration directing them. The “regrettable” comment? That was made by an advisor to General David Petraeus:

Saadi Othman, an adviser to Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. general in Iraq, told British Broadcasting Corp. television that the detentions were “regrettable” and had “nothing to do” with Bush’s remarks.

Saadi Othman? I understand the Muslim affirmative action absurdity, but this is ridiculous. Our general appoints a Muslim to apologize for our legitimate actions? Hello . . .? And this is supposed to be our top general over there? With generals like these, who needs enemies?
And after releasing these “diplomats” a/k/a spies and subversives, Iran continues to shell Iraq and to scoff at America. GUH-REAT. Clearly, we should not have released them.
The Washington Post claims:

Televised images of the handcuffed men complicated an increasingly tense diplomatic and military standoff with Iran.

Right. Because our “diplomatic” relations with Iran are so great. Trust me, Ahmadinejad doesn’t call detention of Westerners for absolutely no reason, “regrettable.” And he doesn’t worry how it will look to those who hate him when they watch it on TV. That’s the way to go.
Do you ever remember the Ahmadinejad regime calling the detention of British sailors or American academics “regrettable”?
PUH-LEEZE. He’s laughing at us. I’d be laughing, too, if it weren’t so sad. And yet another nail in our coffin.
And that’s how this story is playing all over the Muslim world.