Washington Post's Fact Checker Glenn Kessler

Wombat: American Thinker

Instapundit: Glenn Kessler and his own version of things

Friday Fiction: Smitty/Darleen

Inshallah: Is ISIS/Daesh Falling Apart? | إن شاء الله : هل الدولة الإسلامية تتهاوى ؟

This is the ISIS/Daesh Flag, Inverted with Miss Piggy Seals

And in Arabic: "Islamic State Pigs"

Will internal power struggles destroy ISIS/Daesh from within?

More importantly, what can we do to help?

The WaPo has this article and graphic

What is interesting about this is where ISIS fighters come from.  Saudi Arabia's big numbers are not surprising.  Russia, United Kingdom, and France both have a large Muslim minority community that is increasingly radicalized (and quite a few from Germany too). But only 250 from Algeria but 3000 from Tunisia?  Why is that? 

Prior EBL Posts:

You say tomato and I say... 

ISIS Goat Rule 5

TOM: International Woman's Day Was a Communist Holiday... Funny how those feminists are sort of silent on ISIS/Islamist international treatment of women.  Why is that?  

There is so much to think about...

Such as this week's Rule 5 posts...

Rule 5 Sunday Birthday Week

The Democrats Best Friend: Karl Rove and the destruction of the GOP

The Architect

Mark Levin points to this article by American Thinker.

Update:
This comment did not post but I got it by email so I will post it here:

On Thu, Mar 21, 2013 at 9:32 AM, Anonymous <noreply-comment@blogger.com> wrote:

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "The Democrats Best Friend: Karl Rove and the destr...":

Utter nonsense. The Republican party's problems go back much farther and are much deeper than those caused by Rove. Rove is just trying to deal with the effects of that long term dysfunction, particularly Republican collaboration in open borders. I would remind you that Romney won the white vote by a landslide, and would have been President if we had the same sort of population that we had in 1980. It was Reagan not Rove who gave 3 million illegal aliens amnesty in the 1980s and started this decline rolling much faster. Demographics is destiny, sweetheart, and the gutless failure of The American Thinker and their ilk to deal with that reality, including in this article, is the real cause of the Republican implosion. They're just making Rove a scapegoat.

I agree there have been demographic changes.  I agree that Reagan amnesty was a mistake and letting things go as long as they have been going is a mistake too.  But that is the reality we are dealing with and letting the status quo continue is a decision too.  But this reader is wrong about Karl Rove.  While getting Bush elected over Gore was a good thing, Rove gave Bush a lot of bad advice while in office and has been consistently wrong since Bush left office.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy: The True Story Behind The Book and Movie

Bernie Reeves at American Thinker has this great article on the back story to Tinker Tailor Solider Spy:

Most movie-goers do not know the story behind the acclaimed new film Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, opening nationally this weekend.  Adapted from the 1974 John Le Carré book, and the 1982 sequel Smiley's People, both were dramatized on BBC TV and PBS and can be found on Netflix and other sites. 

Le Carré, the pen name for David Cornwell -- who served in MI6, Britain's secret intelligence service -- penned the two books (and the Honorable School Boy, the third installment in this trilogy), drawing on the real-life drama that tore apart the British spy demi-monde in the 1950s, '60s, and '70s: the discovery that the Soviet KGB had recruited upper-class British subjects to penetrate U.K. intelligence agencies. 

Their infamous careers as spies are legends in Europe, but not as well-known in the U.S., which says volumes about the American culture.  Yet three of the five penetrated U.S. secret services and diplomatic departments, setting off one of the most dramatic spy-hunts in U.S. history by James Angleton, the chief of counterintelligence for the CIA.  The manic hunt for a mysterious additional hidden Soviet spy in the CIA was considered the most damaging episode in the spy agency's history by former director William Colby... 

Le Carré's guided tour into the murky world of British espionage depicts a clubby yet lethal subculture that does not need chase scenes, pyrotechnics, and beautiful girls to keep audiences engaged.  Simply digesting the nomenclature requires attention, such as "cousins" for the CIA, honey-traps to lure agents with sex, Romeos and Swallows for operatives who use seduction to gain secret information, scalp-hunters for assassins, babysitters for bodyguards, ferrets for special agents who gain entry to plant eavesdropping equipment, and pavement artists for surveillance teams. 

It's great stuff -- and it's true.

It is still a cautionary tale for today.  Imagine that, the Soviets used to recruit their moles from universities!  Hmmm, Now why would high ranking political candidate or official's college transcripts and records be relevant?    


Here is the Washington Post link on the back story to the novel and movie.


Breitbart.TV Review of the Movie


Parkbench Blog review of the Movie


Keith Korman Review at National Review (with Spoilers)


Update:  Hot Air Notes: Tinker Tailer Don't Remember Why...