I don't usually discuss politics, mostly because I'd rather spare myself the hate mail and seedy comments that the political talk would surely draw.  But on this election night, I have something to say that I'm sure everyone can agree upon, whether you bleed blue, red, or something in between. 

A blogwide tribute set up to remember 9/11

Drudge siren. Fox reporting. Allah monitoring: U.S. intel can't confirm. 11:57pm Eastern update: James Rosen reporting on Fox: Learned from a senior Bush administration official, test confirmed. But the North Koreans "may not have gotten what they wanted...they were hoping for a test that would result in an explosion of 400 kilotons. Prelim reports show that it came in under that." More: "US did indeed receive early warning from the Chinese."

Yonhap News:

North Korea is believed to have tested a nuclear weapon in the eastern part of the country Monday morning, a South Korean defense source said.

"We detected the explosive sound from Hwadaeri near Kilju in North Hamgyong Province at 10:36 a.m.(KST)," a senior Defense Ministry official said, asking to remain anonymous because of the sensitive nature of the information.

But South Korea's military has yet to raise its alert level beyond usual defense situations, he said. The troops are still maintaining a Watchcon 3 surveillance status and Defcon 4 defense readiness status.

11:52pm Eastern. Bret Baier of Fox News reporting that the US was warned by China, Japan, and South Korea before the reported test. Confirmation "looking more and more likely."

Reminder of SecDef Donald Rumsfeld's remarks on NoKo nuclear ramifications:

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Thursday if North Korea successfully tests a nuclear weapon, it will show weakness on the part of the international community.

"And that failure … is something that the international community would have to register and ask itself how comfortable are we being that ineffective in this situation," Rumsfeld told reporters at the Pentagon during a visit by Croatian Defense Minister Berislav Roncevic.

His comments came as U.S. officials warned North Korea anew not to test a nuclear weapon...

...Rumsfeld also said that a successful North Korean test could prompt other countries to pursue nuclear weapons.

"Because of the ineffectiveness, and the lack of cohesion and the inability to marshal sufficient leverage to prevent North Korea from proceeding toward a nuclear program … it will kind of lower the threshold, and other countries will step forward with it," Rumsfeld said.

He added that depending on whether the test is above or below ground, the United States has as good a capability of detecting it as any country. But he declined to say whether or not it would trigger any U.S. military action.

"I wouldn't be the person who would make a decision like that. That's a decision for the country, and a decision for president," Rumsfeld said.

Bryan Preston's thoughts from Friday:

Diplomacy isn’t going to stop North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. That’s the bottom line. North Korea sees nukes as its last best hope of survival, while the rest of the world (minus China and possibly Russia) see North Korean nukes as an intolerable threat. I don’t see a peaceful end to this. Either China deals with Kim, or we do. And it doesn’t look like we will.

Breitbart/AP has this headline:

North Korea Says Nuclear Test Successful
Oct 08 10:54 PM US/Eastern

Nothing further yet.

Austin Bay looked at trouble on the China/N. Korean border earlier today. See also StrategyPage and the London Times. Austin from this morning:

Remember the cross-shaped beams pulled from the wreckage at the World Trade Center on 9/11?

The 20-foot-tall artifact was discovered in the smoking ruins two weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and became a symbol for recovery workers, family and later construction crews at the site.

It will be moved to the exterior wall of nearby St. Peter’s Church during construction at the trade center site. The World Trade Center Memorial Foundation has said it plans to include the cross as part of its memorial or inside the Sept. 11 museum.

Making the cross part of the official memorial or museum display would be a wonderful idea--though I'm sure lawyers for the ACLU and CAIR will be ready to file their lawsuits any day now.

 

In holiday greetings, President Bush said Jewish observance of Yom Kippur makes the world a more peaceful place.

"Yom Kippur is a solemn time to express thanksgiving that the Almighty remembers the names of all His children," said a White House statement issued in the name of the president and First Lady.

"During this blessed Day of Atonement, Jewish people gather in synagogues, consider their deeds and actions and celebrate as the sound of the Shofar proclaims the forgiveness and mercy shown by the Creator of life.

"As the High Holy Days come to an end, the Jewish people in America and around the world remind us of the gift of religious freedom and the blessings of God's steadfast love. On Yom Kippur and throughout the year, your deep commitment to faith helps make the world a more hopeful and peaceful place.

 

Gd Bless President Bush. Not sure I have ever seen a similar statement from a US President. Wishing all my Jewish readers an easy fast this Yom Kippur. Next year in Jerusalem.

Via http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com

Watch The Latest Episode of Hot Air

Bethany is under the weather but she makes an appearance just long enough to tape this week's realVerse!

Watch the latest episode of RealVerse

And it sounds bad. Very, very bad.

As for being emaciated, it’s the only death camp in history where the soi-disant torture victims put on weight. In contrast to the undernourished thesp in the movie version, the average gain at Gitmo is 18 pounds.

Not only are we overfeeding them, in what could be argued is a breach of the Geneva Conventions, but we provide them with only limited reading material.

If I had to summon up Gitmo in a single image, it would be the brand-new Qurans in each unoccupied cell. To reassure incoming inmates that the filthy infidels haven’t touched the sacred book with their unclean hands, the Qurans are hung from the walls in pristine surgical masks.

I’m sure there are also brand-new Bibles in the cells for when, you know, a Christian terrorist is detained.

Money line:

What does that degree of abasement before their prejudices tell them about us?

I couldn’t agree more. The more we bow and scrape before these animals, the more they despise us. Too bad Pat Leahy doesn’t understand that - we should open a book on this website, offering odds on who will be the first Dhimmicratic politician to convert.

These people cannot be allowed to win control of either the House or the Senate.

 Via Bampapachyderm.com

Here’s a must-read at the Sunday Times on the absolutely hideous record of United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan: Is there blood on his hands? (Hat tip: LGF readers.)

The bodies were still warm when Lieutenant Ron Rutten found them: nine corpses in civilian clothes lying crumpled by a stream, each shot in the back at close range. It was July 12, 1995, and the UN-declared “safe area” of Srebrenica had fallen the previous day. The lush pastures of eastern Bosnia were about to become Europe’s bloodiest killing fields since 1945.

Refugees poured into the UN compound. But the Dutch peacekeepers (Dutchbat) were overwhelmed and the Serbs confiscated their weapons. “From the moment I found those bodies, it was obvious to me that the Bosnian Serbs planned to kill all the men,” Rutten said. He watched horrified as Dutch troops guided the men and boys onto the Serb buses.

Srebrenica is rarely mentioned nowadays in Annan’s offices on the 38th floor of the UN secretariat building in New York. He steps down in December after a decade as secretary-general. His retirement will be marked by plaudits. But behind the honorifics and the accolades lies a darker story: of incompetence, mismanagement and worse. Annan was the head of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) between March 1993 and December 1996. The Srebrenica massacre of up to 8,000 men and boys and the slaughter of 800,000 people in Rwanda happened on his watch. In Bosnia and Rwanda, UN officials directed peacekeepers to stand back from the killing, their concern apparently to guard the UN’s status as a neutral observer. This was a shock to those who believed the UN was there to help them.

Annan’s term has also been marked by scandal: from the sexual abuse of women and children in the Congo by UN peacekeepers to the greatest financial scam in history, the UN-administered oil-for-food programme. Arguably, a trial of the UN would be more apt than a leaving party.

The charge sheet would include guarding its own interests over those it supposedly protects; endemic opacity and lack of accountability; obstructing investigations, promoting the inept and marginalising the dedicated. Such accusations can be made against many organisations. But the UN is different. It has a moral mission.

It was founded by the allies in 1945 to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war” and “reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights”. Its key documents – the Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the genocide convention – are the most advanced formulation of human rights in history. And they have been flouted by UN member states for decades.

A more specific charge would be that, under the doctrine of command responsibility, the UN is guilty of war crimes. Broadly speaking, it has three principles: that a commander ordered atrocities to be carried out, that he failed to stop them, despite being able to, or failed to punish those responsible. The case rests on the second, that in Rwanda in 1994, in Srebrenica in 1995 and in Darfur since 2003, the UN knew war crimes were occurring or about to occur, but failed to stop them, despite having the means to do so.

Via LittleGreenFootballs.com