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Twenty-five years ago today a revolutionary soft drink was introduced to the market. Today, Diet Coke turns 25 and counts many prominent Americans among its loyal consumers. It allowed for a semi-Coke taste without the calories. Today it is the most popular diet soft drink in the world.
But many Americans are now Diet Coke addicts. Many continue to debate whether it’s safe to drink so much artifical sweetener–Diet Coke uses aspartame. Yet, when it was introduced, Nutrasweet (the commercial name for the particular aspartame in Diet Coke) was the most tested substance. And it’s not like anyone forces you to drink. Diet Coke comes in many varieties, from caffiene-free to cherry to cherry vanilla and several other flavors. In March, Coca-Cola introduced Diet Coke Plus with vitamins. And now experts debate whether you can really absorb or be helped by vitamins contained in a diet soda drink.

Still, I’m one of the many Diet Coke consumers who like the product and ingest from time to time (I’m no addict). And I’m happy it was introduced. Happy 25th, Diet Coke.
I note that, while there are many famous Diet Coke addicts (Newsweek recently did an article on them), the most clever is Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Chieftess Not that she’s generally very clever (she’s not), but she manages to force ICE agents to , at ever city in America she visits. While The ICE Princess and her well-connected husband make a combined income plus benefits package of over $500,000 per year, paid for by taxpayers, agents have been required to buy her the trove of Diet Coke. (Since she thinks she’s a rock star, she apparently believes she should get all the trappings contained in a rock star rider.)
I’m reminded of the anti-Semitic phrases signifying cheapness: “She Jewed me down,” or “You’re such a Jew.” Both of them should certainly be changed to “She Julie’d me down,” or “Don’t be such a Julie.”

“Julie Myers’ Diet Coke Rider” artwork by David Lunde

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News today that two of the Muslim Doctor Terrorists from the foiled British bomb plots and Glasgow Airport attack TRIED TO ENTER THE U.S. and started the process to enter Medical residency programs here. More on that below.

First, Do Harm
Then, there is Dr. Wameeth Fadhli of Galveston, Texas, who practiced at the University of Texas Hospital. He waited in his vehicle and shot several times at a random, unarmed infidel bicyclist in Galveston, trying to kill him. The 22-year-old man on the bicycle suffered wounds to his chest and shoulder and was in critical condition. (SueBob’s Diary first brought him to my attention, last summer, when .) Reader Joel S. reminds me that I forgot to add Fadhli to my , and he has now been added. And Joel asks whatever happened to Dr. Fadhli. I did some checking and learned from the Court that Dr. Fadhli is scheduled for pre-trial on July 20th and trial on July 30th. Stay tuned.
I want to introduce you to Adam Frederic Dorin, M.D., a practicing anesthesiologist who trained at the prestigious Johns Hopkins, has an MBA, and has written extensively on medical terrorism and Islamic doctors and jihad–well before the last two weeks events (as ). He maintains an important website on this topic, Jihad and American Medicine/Preventing Medical Terrorism. He also has a book coming out very soon, “Jihad and American Medicine: Thinking Like a Terrorist to Anticipate Attacks via our Health System.” Dr. Dorin was inspired to study and write about this topic, when on 9/11, he watched Muslim doctors from the Middle East vehemently cheering and praising the televised replays of the attacks on America:

Three thousand United States citizens were slaughtered on 9-11-01. On that fateful day, foreign doctors stood on American soil–with work VISAs and an opportunity for a better life in hand–and rejoiced at our suffering.

Now, back to those Muslim doctors from the British plots who tried to get into America and wouldn’t have failed in that quest, had they pursued it before the foiled attacks.
As I’ve now written several times (even before the British Doctor Attacks), we have special visas for doctors and they often get in very, very easily. I’ve also asked and answered to change this. A repeat of the answer: NOTHING. This, even though we know that these two doctors–had they completed the immigration process–and any and all of the eight medically-trained suspects in the British plots could have easily entered the U.S.
They would have gotten in because they had clean records and a medical degree. And even if they had not entered the U.S. through residency programs, they could have gotten here via other avenues. They could have applied for one of the many visas granted for the purpose of being a doctor in small town America and–like many Muslim doctors who get those visas–gone elsewhere. Or they could have applied to be a doctor at one of the many university programs. Because we have plenty of doctors at university hospitals. Therefore, we need to recruit more from the “Religion of Peace.” Like “shipping coal to Newcastle.”

Michael “Serpenthead” Chertoff a/k/a “Mr. Burns”
Hasn’t Done a Thing
to Prevent Muslim Terrorist Doctors From Coming to America

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It appears so. Mark L. Jackson has the details. All haircut, no cattle. Time for someone, or multiple parties, to file a complaint with the Federal Election Commission. Since the barber/hairstylist is upset with John Edwards, I’m sure he’ll talk. He’s talking a lot about it, already.

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It’s Islam, stupid!
A couple of day’s ago Oprah featured two 9/11 widows on her daytime talk show. They raised money to help Afghani widows start businesses and support themselves. “We gave them this opportunity, so that they’d get out of poverty, so that 9/11 would never happen again.”
I was shouting at the TV: They commited this terrorist murder of 3,000 Americans out of hate bred by their Islamic ideology, NOT out of economic status. (Many, including Mohammed Atta, were wealthy and educated.)
The 9/11 widow’s myth has been , President Bush, Mrs. Bush, Oprah herself, and your average dummy on the street who watches her.

Wall Street Journal columnist David Wessel writes about Princeton economist Alan Krueger’s in-depth research that proves what I’ve been saying like forever, and what most others seem to have just noticed with the Medical Doctor Terrorists involved in the foiled British bomb plots: that terrorists are not only NOT bred by poverty and lack of opportunity, but that they are actually better educated and wealthier than most. What distinguishes them–aside form ideology–is that they come from repressive Muslim countries.
Although I don’t agree with all of its assertions (Krueger thinks we should give more civil liberties to terrorists here–they have too many), here is some of the column, with a few brief results of the study and a few of my comments and analysis:

Each time we have one of these attacks and the backgrounds of the attackers are revealed, this should put to rest the myth that terrorists are attacking us because they are desperately poor,” he says. “But this misconception doesn’t die.” . . .
“As a group, terrorists are better educated and from wealthier families than the typical person in the same age group in the societies from which they originate,” Mr. Krueger said at the London School of Economics last year in a lecture soon to be published as a book, “What Makes a Terrorist?” [DS: Which I don’t recommend; read on for my reasons.]
“There is no evidence of a general tendency for impoverished or uneducated people to be more likely to support terrorism or join terrorist organizations than their higher-income, better-educated countrymen,” he said. The Sept. 11 attackers were relatively well-off men from a rich country, Saudi Arabia [DS: Not all of them, as 4 were not from Saudi Arabia].
Mr. Krueger, 46 years old, is one of those academics whose research extends from the standard fare — How much more do workers with education earn? What happens to employment when the minimum wage rises? — to, well, cool stuff. Did Firestone factories produce shoddy tires during a period of labor unrest? (Yes) Are rich people really enjoying life more than the rest of us? (No) Are concert-ticket prices higher for female musicians than males? (Yes) [DS: Because there’s less demand.]
He began poking around this sordid subject a decade ago when he and a colleague found little connection between economic circumstances and the incidence of violent hate crimes in Germany. Among the statistical pieces of the puzzle a small band of academics have assembled since are these:
• Backgrounds of 148 Palestinian suicide bombers show they were less likely to come from families living in poverty and were more likely to have finished high school than the general population. Biographies of 129 Hezbollah shahids (martyrs) reveal they, too, are less likely to be from poor families than the Lebanese population from which they come. . . .
‚Ä¢ Terrorism doesn’t increase in the Middle East when economic conditions worsen; indeed, there seems no link. One study finds the number of terrorist incidents is actually higher in countries that spend more on social-welfare programs. Slicing and dicing data finds no discernible pattern that countries that are poorer or more illiterate produce more terrorists. Examining 781 terrorist events classified by the U.S. State Department as “significant” reveals terrorists tend to come from countries distinguished by political oppression, not poverty or inequality.
• Public-opinion polls from Jordan, Morocco, Pakistan and Turkey find people with more education are more likely to say suicide attacks against Westerners in Iraq are justified. Polls of Palestinians find no clear difference in support for terrorism as a means to achieve political ends between the most and least educated. . . .
But the conventional wisdom that poverty breeds terrorism is backed by surprisingly little hard evidence. “The evidence is nearly unanimous in rejecting either material deprivation or inadequate education as an important cause of support for terrorism or of participation in terrorist activities,” Mr. Krueger asserts. The 9/11 Commission stated flatly: Terrorism is not caused by poverty.
So what is the cause? Suppression of civil liberties and political rights, Mr. Krueger hypothesizes. “When nonviolent means of protest are curtailed,” he says, “malcontents appear to be more likely to turn to terrorist tactics.” [DS: Uh, not the case here in America, where they enjoy more civil liberties than anywhere and win most of their challenges to curtailment in court. Yet, we still catch terrorist plots all the time. Fort Dix Six, JFK Airport, etc.]
Which — ironically, given that Mr. Krueger is no fan of the president’s actual policies at home or abroad — is close to Mr. Bush’s rhetoric: “Liberty has got the capacity to change enemies into allies.”

Wrong. Liberty makes it easier for enemies to attack allies. Islamic thought taught in mosques and schools and on TV is what breeds and encourages acts of terror. Too bad, even Krueger gets it wrong.

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There’s less work for the mostly-liberal actors in Hollywood today. Yes, there are a ton of reality TV shows, but that’s not the reason to which I’m referring.
Companies, including “Crowd in a Box and Inflatable Crowd,” are providing blow-up actors in place of extras for crowd scenes in such movies as “Million Dollar Baby,” “Ocean’s Thirteen,” and “Be Cool,” reports Fortune Small Business. (The two companies are currently suing each other.)
Now, if only we could find a blow-up Sean Penn, George Clooney, and Rosie O’Donnell to replace the real thing. Then, we’d be getting somewhere.

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. . . sing the duet, “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” on his new album, “The Greatest Songs of the Seventies,” available September 18th.
Given what we openly know about her and what we suspect about the multi-talented Manilow, it’s hard to see how that will work, since there’s absolutely zero chance either of them will be breaking the other’s heart . . . ever.
The difference between these two is that Manilow is a classy, extremely talented composer, lyricist, vocalist, and performer, who knows the meaning of “Shut Up & Sing.” We mostly have no idea what his political views are. Rosie is the exact opposite. Among other objects of her affection, she made clear .

Rosie & Barry
The album consists of covers of other acts’ 1970s hits and his own hits from the decade–including “Mandy and “Copacabana.” Too bad, Manilow didn’t do an updated version of “Copa” about Rosie O, “Qaeda Fanatic”:

Her name was Rosie; She was a big mouth;
“The View” said don’t cut your butch hair [that was in her ABC contract]; But then she got outta there;
His name was Khalid; Sheikh Mohammed;
He killed many from the U.S.; But about that Rosie didn’t distress;
She loved him very much; Much more than Donald Trump;
She was a Qaeda; Qaeda Fanatic;
“Don’t keep these poor men in Gitmo; They deserve a lot of dough;”
At the Qaeda; Qaeda Cabana (Gitmo); Koran and Prayermats were always the passion; At Gitmo, they fell in love . . . .

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**** OFFICIAL MATERIAL ****
Just in case you planned to watch this weekend’s global waste of energy and time known as Al Gore’s “Live Earth” concert, you might want to note that HAMAS financier, anti-Semite, and Rushdie-death-fatwa backer will be performing. He’ll be playing his most phony song, “Peace Train” in Hamburg, site of his buddies, “the Hamburg Cell.”
Just so you know, their version of a healthy “environment”–which includes funders of mass-murder and unabashed hatred of Jews and Christians–isn’t the kind of atmosphere you want for future generations.

Extremist Muslim Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam & His Extremist Muslim Family
For details on Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam’s terrorist activity and ties, read some of my previous work:
* “”
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As I wrote earlier today and repeatedly since 9/11, President Bush said, “You’re either on our side or the terrorists’ side.” And he’s shown us in spades on whose side he is. Bush and his Secretary of State Condi Clueless have repeatedly pressured Israel to free convicted mass-murderer terrorist, Marwan Barghouti a/k/a “fighter brother Abu al Kassam,” responsible in murder of almost 40 innocent civilians, including a Greek Orthodox Monk. And it appears they have succeeded. Maybe Israel should pressure America to free Zacarias Moussaoui. After all, what’s good for the goose . . . .
From today’s Wall Street Journal:

Rhymes-With-Witch Clueless Condi
Demands Israel Release Mass-Murderer Terrorist, Marwan Barghouti

SPECULATION RISES that Israel may release Fatah leader Barghouti as Rice prepares for Middle East trip. Some Israeli and U.S. officials believe the move could help strengthen the hand of the embattled Fatah government on the West Bank against the rising popularity of Hamas. New Mideast envoy Tony Blair will join Rice in mid-July amid mounting skepticism about U.S. strategy to isolate Hamas in its Gaza power base.

Here are some brief details about Marwan Barghouti, the man Bush and Condoleeza Rice are championing and the the man whom the Palestinian people consider their leader:
A Tel Aviv judge convicted former Fatah-Tanzim militia commander Marwan Barghouti, 43, on May 20, 2004, of murder for his involvement three terrorist attacks in Israel that killed five people. He was acquitted for 33 other murders due to lack of evidence of his direct involvement in those crimes.
Barghouti was also convicted of a charge of attempted murder, membership in a terror organization and conspiring to commit a crime. The prosecution was seeking to sentence him to five consecutive life terms. The court said in its verdict that “Barghouti was responsible for providing the field units with money and arms . . . .” The judges said that the attacks were sometimes “based on instructions” from Yasser Arafat.
The court found Barghouti responsible for a June 2001 attack in Maale Adumim, in which a Greek monk was murdered, a January 2002 terror attack on a gas station in Givat Zeev, a March 2002 attack at Tel Aviv’s Seafood Market restaurant, in which three people were murdered, and a car bomb attack in Jerusalem. . . .
On June 6, 2004, Barghouti was sentenced to five consecutive life terms and 40 years.
More on Barghouti:

The Al Aqsa Brigades [Islamic terrorist group], headed by Arafat, was put under the direct authority of Marwan Barghouti, who had no compunction in using women and even children to execute terrorist activity, which killed hundreds of Israelis.
Arafat and his men used the funds donated to them by other countries, including the European Union, to finance terrorist activity. . . .
Of significance in this connection are the words of a senior Fatah/Tanzim activist from Jenin refugee camp, Abd Al Karim Aweis, who directed mass murder attacks inside Israel and was arrested by the IDF on 30 March, that as a General Intelligence Apparatus activist in the PA, he felt a need to act and encourage others to act in the “spirit of the words” of Arafat and Marwan Barghouti.

Here is the text of one of the many notes Marwan Barghouti sent to of Arafat to orchestrate the funding of “martyr” terrorists, all of whom perpetrated lethal attacks (other notes of his were on behalf of Arafat to the Palestinian treasury, asking for payments to specifically-named “martyrs”):

To Brother President Abu Amar [DS: Arafat’s Nom de Guerre (war name)], may the Lord protect him,
Greetings,
I request of you to order the allocation of a thousand dollars for each of the fighter brethren.
Sincerely,
Marwan Al Barghouti

Often Barghouti signed:

The Supreme Movement Committee
The brother Marwan Barghouti

One of several notes written to Barghouti by terrorist factions:

In the Name of the All-merciful Allah
“Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades”
(Fatah emblem)
The Palestinian National Liberation Movement “Fatah”
To The fighting brother Marwan Barghouti, secretary of the Fatah movement
We, in the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Southern Area, request of you to cooperate with the brother carrying this letter, since we have requested him to establish a communications channel between us and yourself, so that we can handle several complicated problems that arose in our sector of the struggle, at this stage of our national struggle.
Together on the path towards an independent state with Jerusalem as its capital.
Your sons,
In the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades – Southern Area
(a stamp of “the Palestinian National Liberation Movement – Fatah” and “Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades”)

And, yet, this is the man Bush and Rice want Israel to release as a sign of goodwill to the “good terrorists” in Fatah on the “West Bank” in preparation for Condi Clueless’ and Tony Blair’s visit. GUH-REAT.
And you wonder why we are losing the war to the terrorists, all over the world.

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Is Republican Congressman (of California, Virginia, and a lot of other locations as he carpetbagged his way back into Congress) auditioning to replace annoying left-wing “comedian” (he’s not funny) ?
It sure looks that way. As reported by the Wall Street Journal’s “Washington Wire,” Bilbray made this asinine, hateful attempt at a joke about I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby’s sentence commutation:

Republican Rep. Bilbray accepts Bush’s help for Libby but adds “he ought to make him go hunting with Mr. Cheney.”

ReTHUGlican Brian Bilbray: Thinks Libby Should be Shot
Haha, funny. So funny, I’m ROFLMAO (Rolling On the Floor, Laughing My Ass Off). Uh, no. Actually, I’m just groaning and regretting that voters in his San Diego area Congressional District are such dumbasses.
As readers will recall, I wrote a urging voters there to choose Howard Kaloogian, the only real conservative and strong patriot in the race, and noted that Bilbray was the puppet of fellow San Diego area Republican Congressman and .” to refresh yourself on just who Brian Bilbray is and why I’m not at all surprised that he made this comment in completely poor taste.
And don’t forget that Bilbray (and Jihad Darrell and fellow Hezbollah-supporting Republicans, Congressman and then-Senator ) took thousands in campaign contributions (and who knows what else?) from Brent Wilkes, the federally-indicted defense contractor who . Bilbray is boneheaded and his no principles. And maybe he accepted limos and prostitutes from Wilkes, also. We’ll never know for sure. But Bilbray’s certainly in no position to be attacking Libby, who never committed any crime and has been the victim of a witchhunt, in which he isn’t even the witch.
Sorry, but no-one–on either side of the aisle–should get away with uttering such crap.

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Is Mr. Rogers (you know–cardigan-garbed Fred Rogers of PBS fame) to blame for the problems we have with the bloated self-esteem, sense of self-entitlement, and narcissism among today’s younger generations.
My friend, Jeff Zaslow, the Wall Street Journal’s Detroit bureau reporter and columnist (who was plagiarized by Katie Couric and the “CBS Evening News,” earlier this year), writes that some wise experts think so, and I agree with them:

Don Chance, a finance professor at Louisiana State University, says it dawned on him last spring. The semester was ending, and as usual, students were making a pilgrimage to his office, asking for the extra points needed to lift their grades to A’s.
“They felt so entitled,” he recalls, “and it just hit me. We can blame Mr. Rogers.”

Fred Rogers, the late TV icon, told several generations of children that they were “special” just for being whoever they were. . . . But what often got lost in his self-esteem-building patter was the idea that being special comes from working hard and having high expectations for yourself.
Now Mr. Rogers, like Dr. Spock before him, has been targeted for re-evaluation. And he’s not the only one. As educators and researchers struggle to define the new parameters of parenting, circa 2007, some are revisiting the language of child ego-boosting. What are the downsides of telling kids they’re special? Is it a mistake to have children call us by our first names? When we focus all conversations on our children’s lives, are we denying them the insights found when adults talk about adult things?
Some are calling for a recalibration of the mind-sets and catch-phrases that have taken hold in recent decades. Among the expressions now being challenged:
“You’re special.” On the Yahoo Answers Web site, a discussion thread about Mr. Rogers begins with this posting: “Mr. Rogers spent years telling little creeps that he liked them just the way they were. He should have been telling them there was a lot of room for improvement. … Nice as he was, and as good as his intentions may have been, he did a disservice.”
Signs of narcissism among college students have been rising for 25 years, according to a recent study led by a San Diego State University psychologist. Obviously, Mr. Rogers alone can’t be blamed for this. But as Prof. Chance sees it, “he’s representative of a culture of excessive doting.”
Prof. Chance teaches many Asian-born students, and says they accept whatever grade they’re given; they see B’s and C’s as an indication that they must work harder, and that their elders assessed them accurately. They didn’t grow up with Mr. Rogers or anyone else telling them they were born special.
By contrast, American students often view lower grades as a reason to “hit you up for an A because they came to class and feel they worked hard,” says Prof. Chance. He wishes more parents would offer kids this perspective: “The world owes you nothing. You have to work and compete. If you want to be special, you’ll have to prove it.”

Zaslow discusses some of the symptoms of this excessive self-esteem building and the harms they cause, including parents who allow their kids to call them by their first name and dismiss bad behavior with the universal “but they’re just children” excuse. He quotes Alvin Rosenfeld, a psychiatrist who says that kids, today, have few important discussions with their parents:

He encourages parents to talk about their passions and interests; about politics, business, world events. “Because everything is child-centered today, we’re depriving children of adults,” he says. “If they never see us as adults being adults, how will they deal with important matters when it is their world?”

Amen to that. I think this has a lot to do with why so many younger people, today, don’t understand why we must fight terrorists, and why we can’t just turn a blind eye and regurgitatate phony mantras, like “Islam is peace.”
I’m very lucky because, from a very young age, my sagacious father, (see also, ), shared his interest in politics, current events, and the news with me. On Sunday mornings–we had only one TV, then–the television was tuned not to cartoons, but to the Sunday Morning political shows. My dad would always tell me about the various people and their views. And over the Jewish Sabbath, Friday Night and Saturday, when we don’t watch TV, my father would share with me–as he does to this day–important articles from Commentary Magazine or the Wall Street Journal or the local paper (or now, usually some other source) and read and discuss them with me.
Thanks, Dad, for being there, doing this for me, and being the parent many of today’s parents just aren’t.
And also, even though my Mom suggested I watch Mr. Rogers, and I often did, I always found him creepy and silly. That whole thing with putting on his cardigan and tennis shoes was just weird to me. And I’m sure he was a nice guy, but he was way over-rated, as much of PBS a/k/a Palestinian Broadcasting System’s offerings were and are. Ditto for Sesame Street (the only good thing about that show was “the Count”). Though I did like my Mom’s other suggestion, “Captain Kangaroo.” The Captain (Bob Keeshan) and Mr. Greenjeans didn’t fill us with the “you’re special” baloney, and instead helped us learn.

Captain Kangaroo and The Count