Obama not endorsed by Al Qaeda

Al Qaeda's number 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri, released his first message since the election. As the AP reported he

used a racial epithet to insult Barack Obama in a message posted Wednesday, describing the president-elect in demeaning terms that imply he does the bidding of whites.

Zawahiri also challenged Obama's policy on Afghanistan and Pakistan saying

Be aware that the dogs of Afghanistan have found the flesh of your soldiers to be delicious, so send thousands after thousands to them

The press is reporting this as Al Qaeda's first direct challenge to Obama. But what does it actually say about Al Qaeda? More than anything it demonstrates that Al Qaeda is genuinely concerned about an Obama presidency and views it as a strategic threat to its existence.
First and foremost, Al Qaeda is an organization that thrives on propaganda. It paints the United States as an evil empire that oppresses its own minorities and has little regard for the rest of the world. Al Qaeda uses these types of narratives to raise funds and recruit. The Bush administration played right into this trap. Its "with us or against us" mentality and invasion of Iraq damaged America's image around the world and reinforced Al Qaeda's narrative.
But Al Qaeda's narrative is now under siege and it's clearly uncertain about how to react. The election of the first African American President, one with a Muslim father, flies in the face of this narrative. It shows America as an open and tolerant society - not the oppressive empire Al Qaeda would like to portray. In fact, the overwhelmingly positive international reaction to Obama's election is proof of the the threat Al Qaeda faces. As a 29 year old at a Bangkok Starbucks explained,

What an inspiration. He is the first truly global US president the world has ever had. He had an Asian childhood, African parentage and has a Middle Eastern name. He is a truly global president.

Thus, it's not surprising that Zawahiri has resorted to calling Obama a "house negro" to try and paint him as just another American President. But this is clearly more a defensive and weak message than effective propaganda that might actually work.
Moreover, Zawahiri's message about Afghanistan and Pakistan portrays a certain level of nervousness over an administration that is actually going to go after the real terrorist haven on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Al Qaeda viewed the invasion of Iraq as a positive creating a recruiting and training ground for terrorists. As a 2006 National Intelligence Estimate explained:

The Iraq conflict has become the "cause celebre" for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of US involvement in the Muslim world and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement.

Now, the U.S. is once again focused on the area of the world that the Intelligence Community agrees represents the most the direct threat to the homeland. It is the area of the world, which was the source of the 9/11 attacks and has been the source of just about every other major plot against a Western target over the past few years. This should raise some serious concerns for Al Qaeda's central leadership - especially since most of them are in fact believed to be hiding in the Pakistan-Afghanistan borderlands.
.

Just the Facts

.

Obama Victory Brings Racist Rats Out of the Woodwork

Alternet
A disturbing wave of post-election hate crimes across the country shows that the cancer of American racism is far from cured.
Barack Obama's election as America's first black president has unleashed a wave of hate crimes across the nation, according to police and monitoring organizations.
Far from heralding a new age of tolerance, Obama's victory in the November 4th election has highlighted the stubborn racism that lingers within some elements of American society as opponents pour their frustration into vandalism, harassment, threats and even physical attacks.
Cross burnings, black figures hung from nooses, and schoolchildren chanting "Assassinate Obama" are just some of the incidents that have been documented by police from California to Maine.
There have been "hundreds" of cases since the election, many more than usual, said Mark Potok, director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate crimes.
The phenomenon appears to be at its most intense in the Southern states, where opposition to Obama is at its highest and where reports of hate crimes were emerging even before the election. Incidents involving adults, college students and even schoolchildren have dampened the early post-election glow of racial progress and harmony, with some African American residents reporting an atmosphere of fear and inter-community tension.
In North Carolina, four students at the state university admitted writing anti-Obama comments in a tunnel designated for free speech expression, including one that said: "Let's shoot that (N-word) in the head." Obama has received more threats than any other president-elect, authorities say.
Marsha L. Houston, a University of Alabama professor, said a poster of the Obama family was ripped off her office door. A replacement poster was defaced with a death threat and a racial slur. "It seems the election brought the racist rats out of the woodwork," Houston said.
Second and third-grade students on a school bus in Rexburg, Idaho, chanted "assassinate Obama," a district official said.
Meanwhile in Snellville, Georgia, Denene Millner, an African-American, said a boy on the school bus told her nine-year-old daughter the day after the election: "I hope Obama gets assassinated." That night, someone trashed her sister-in-law's front lawn, mangled the Obama lawn signs, and left two pizza boxes filled with human faeces outside the front door, Millner said.
She described her emotions as a combination of anger and fear.
"I can't say that every white person in Snellville is evil and anti-Obama and willing to desecrate my property because one or two idiots did it," Millner said. "But it definitely makes you look a little different at the people who you live with, and makes you wonder what they're capable of and what they're really thinking."
But the incidents have not been restricted to areas of high anti-Obama sentiment. Even states and cities which leaned heavily towards the Democrat have seen their share.
In New York, a black teenager said he was attacked with a bat on election night by four white men who shouted "Obama," while in the Pittsburgh suburb of Forest Hills, a black man said he found a note with a racial slur on his car windshield, saying "now that you voted for Obama, just watch out for your house."
In the northeastern state of Maine, customers at a general store in Standish were placing $1 bets on when the president-elect would be killed. A sign inside the Oak Hill General Store read: "Osama Obama Shotgun Pool." "Stabbing, shooting, roadside bombs, they all count," it said. At the bottom of the marker board was written "Let's hope someone wins."
Black figures were hung by nooses from trees on Mount Desert Island, Maine, the Bangor Daily News reported, while crosses were burned in yards of Obama supporters in Hardwick, New Jersey, and Apolacan Township, Pennsylvania. In Massachussetts, a nearly-finished church belonging to a black congregation was burned to the ground just hours after Obama's victory was declared.
Racist graffiti was found in places including New York's Long Island, where two dozen cars were spray-painted; Kilgore, Texas, where the local high school and skate park were defaced; and the Los Angeles area, where swastikas, racial slurs and "Go Back To Africa" were spray painted on sidewalks, houses and cars.
Potok, who is white, said he believes there is "a large subset of white people in this country who feel that they are losing everything they know, that the country their forefathers built has somehow been stolen from them."
Grant Griffin, a 46-year-old white Georgia native, expressed similar sentiments: "I believe our nation is ruined and has been for several decades and the election of Obama is merely the culmination of the change.
"If you had real change it would involve all the members of (Obama's) church being deported," he said.
Change in whatever form does not come easy, and a black president is "the most profound change in the field of race this country has experienced since the Civil War," said William Ferris, senior associate director of the Center for the Study of the American South at the University of North Carolina. "It's shaking the foundations on which the country has existed for centuries."
"Someone once said racism is like cancer," Ferris said. "It's never totally wiped out -- it's in remission."
The day after the vote, Barbara Tyler, a black high school student in Marietta, Georgia, said she heard hateful comments about Obama from white students, and that teachers cut off discussion about his victory.
Tyler spoke at a press conference by the Georgia chapter of the civil rights body NAACP which discussed complaints from across the state about hostility and resentment. Another student, from a Covington middle school, said he was suspended for wearing an Obama shirt to school on November 5th after the principal told students not to wear political paraphernalia.
The student's mother, Eshe Riviears, said the principal told her: "Whether you like it or not, we're in the South, and there are a lot of people who are not happy with this decision."
Sociologists said African-Americans suffering attacks and intimidation were essentially proxies for the frustrated emotions of some whites.
"The principle is very simple," said BJ Gallagher, a sociologist and co-author of the diversity book A Peacock in the Land of Penguins. "If I can't hurt the person I'm angry at, then I'll vent my anger on a substitute, i.e., someone of the same race."
"We saw the same thing happen after the 9/11 attacks, as a wave of anti-Muslim violence swept the country. We saw it happen after the Rodney King verdict, when Los Angeles blacks erupted in rage at the injustice perpetrated by 'the white man.'
"It's as stupid and ineffectual as kicking your dog when you've had a bad day at the office," Gallagher said. "But it happens a lot."

.

Keep talking Sarah

Some videos you just have to see to believe. On Thursday, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin appeared in Wasilla in order to pardon a local turkey in anticipation of Thanksgiving. This proved to be a slightly absurd but ultimately unremarkable event. But what came next was positively surreal. After the pardon Palin proceeded to do an interview with a local TV station while the turkeys were being SLAUGHTERED in the background!! Seemingly oblivious to the gruesomeness going on over her shoulder, she carries on talking for over three minutes. Watch the video below to see for yourself. Be warned, it's kind of gruesome.

.

World Leaders Don't Shake Bush's Hand At G20 Summit

.

Bill Clinton campaigning at his best

.

The final proof that all Americans are crazy: Sex in the White House

Obamas Expected to have Sex in White House, Insiders Say
By Billy Kimball
In what is sure to be a controversial move, President-Elect Barack Obama has indicated to his inner circle of advisors that he and his wife may have sex in the White House sometime during the four years of his first term in office.
"He's not saying they definitely will have sex," said an Obama confidante who declined to be named, "But he's not ruling it out. He's also not ruling out having sex more than once."
Although Mr. Obama himself is a regarded as something of a sex symbol, there has been surprisingly little speculation and rumor about the incoming First Couple's romantic life. Longtime observers and friends regard both Mr. and Mrs. Obama as somewhat emotionally chilly. "From what I understand, it's a bit like the Vulcan mating ritual, the Pon Far," said outgoing Democratic Party Chair Howard Dean. "Barack will feel a seasonal urge that he knows rationally and logically that he is powerless to control. He will inform Michelle and she will attempt to satisfy the urge. Their schedulers work out the precise details."
Although it was common for American presidents to have marital sex in the White House throughout the 19th Century, the practice has become increasingly rare in modern times. The last president believed to have frequent intercourse in the White House was Calvin Coolidge whose relationship with his wife, Grace, became intensely passionate following the death of their younger son from an infected blister.
The two Chief Executives most often associated with Presidential sex in recent years, Bill Clinton and John F. Kennedy, did not have the sex they are famous for with their First Ladies. Jimmy Carter, a former president known for a tendency to overshare wrote in his memoir, Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President, that he and his wife Rosalynn had intercourse once a year on New Year's Eve "for five minutes with the lights off" during his presidency. Mrs. Carter disputed her husband's account in her own memoir, First Lady from Plains.
With four large bedrooms, the First Family's private apartment on the second floor of the White House is designed to accommodate whatever marital configuration the President and First Lady happen to prefer, according to Rear Admiral Stephen Rochon, the Chief Usher of the Executive Mansion. "The President's bedroom and the First Lady's bedroom can be as close together or as far apart as they want," Adm. Rochon said, adding that, as with many couples, sleeping arrangements are usually decided based on who snores. As for the possibility that the Obamas might share a bedroom, Adm. Rochon said he "could not see any reason for that."

The Secret Service has already begun preparing for the possibility that the President's tight schedule might be interrupted on occasion by a brief sexual interlude. The code phrase to indicate that the President (code name "Renegade") and First Lady (code name "Renaissance") are having sex will be "discussing the Bosnian problem" as in "Renegade can't be disturbed right now. He and Renaissance are discussing the Bosnian problem." In the event that President and Mrs. Obama are, in fact, discussing the Bosnian problem and not having sex, Secret Service agents have been instructed to say that they are "reviewing the Bosnian situation." A spokesman for the Bosnian government could not be reached for comment.
Mr. Obama preferences with regard to birth control are not mentioned in either of his books, The Audacity of Hope and Dreams of my Father, though Michelle Obama has said on several occasions that she does not plan to have any more children.
Although Mr. Obama drew scant support form the Religious Right during his campaign, Fundamentalist Christians would have no objection to the president having post-marital sex in the White House according to Focus on the Family's James Dobson. "Intimate relations in the context of a different-sex marriage is just not something we have a problem with, despite what the liberal media would have you believe," he said.

The news that President Obama may soon be having sex in the White House was greeted by his supporters with decidedly mixed emotions. "I'm a little glad and a little sad," said Danielle Garcia-Robinson, a college student and Obama volunteer from Madison, Wisconsin. "I'm glad if he's happy and feeling pleasure but deep down a little part of me will always wish he were having sex with me," Ms. Garcia-Robinson said. Her boyfriend, David Nagel, echoed her sentiment. "That's how I feel, too," he said.