Tim Blair's Treasures, Part 1

Mr. Blair is doing a monthly compendium of notable quotes. These diamonds were found among the many treasures:

• Quotes of 2004 - January

* "How are we supposed to find hidden and buried WMDs in Iraq if, wherever one digs there, we just keep finding mass graves?" -- poet Nelson Ascher

* "For a week I managed to persist in the happy belief that I was not living in a brutal police state. I fled home the next week, leaving all my illusions of the Arab world in my Cairo flat. I couldn't wait to be in America again. On the long flight home, I promised myself I would never accept anything less than full democracy for my fellow Muslims in the Arab world or apologize for the tyranny that now masquerades as Islam." -- US-born Muslim Murad Kalam (It really is true that foreign travel is educational. - Mondo)

• February

* "I think I finally understand why Kerry underwent the botox treatments. It's so he could say all the things he does with a straight face." -- reader Dan G.

* "In general, I'm pro-life -- excuse me, I'm pro-abortion rights." -- Wesley Clark explains his position. Other Clark comments on the subject included 'I don't believe in abortion' and 'I have always been and always will be pro-choice'. (The General missed John Kerry's instructional video series "Nuance In The Lexus-Nexus Age". - Mondo)

• March
  

* "They are the Klan without the sheets. Worse: they don't have the inbred moonshine-addled mah-pappy-hated-nigras-an-I-hate-'em-too dense-as-a-neutron-star stupidity of your average Kluxer. They didn't come to this level of stupidity naturally. They had to work at it." -- James Lileks on the extreme anti-liberation, anti-Bush Left

* "Americans are polite and friendly when you speak to them. They are not rude like Afghans. If I could be anywhere, I would be in America. I would like to be a doctor, an engineer - or an American soldier." -- teenage former Guantanamo Bay inmate Asadullah. As The Guardian's James Astill wrote: "This might seem to jar with the prevailing opinion of Guantanamo among human rights groups" (Further proof that foreign travel is enlightening! -Mondo)

• April
  

* "Now I'll show you how an Italian dies." -- hostage Fabrizio Quattrocchi refuses to yield to his Saddamite captors. Al-Jazeera declines to run footage of his murder, declaring it "too gruesome" (This is unlike how the French live: "Here are our weapons and our Jews - do with them as you please."; or the Spanish: "Bomb us and we will punish you by pulling out our troops." Mark Steyn has written most eloquently on the limp-wristed response of the English press and public to the murder of a British citizen by the Islamicists and points to the heroism of Mr. Quattrocchi for comparison. (I apologize for not providing a link - look for it.) It is of special significance that the mouthpiece of Islamo-Fascism chose not to show someone who died like a man. Mr. Blair points out that "too gruesome" as a criteria seems unique to this case - Mondo)

* "In my neighborhood in Puerto Rico, Tillman would have been called a 'pendejo,' an idiot. Tillman, in the absurd belief that he was defending or serving his all-powerful country from a seventh-rate, Third World nation devastated by the previous conflicts it had endured, decided to give up a comfortable life to place himself in a combat situation that cost him his life ... this was a 'G.I. Joe' guy who got what was coming to him." -- University of Massachusetts undergraduate Rene Gonzalez (U Mass can be proud of this example of intellectual achievement. See Lileks above. No doubt this young woman is a future Democratic presidential candidate! -Mondo)

• May
  

* "Tommy Rødningsby volunteered to make life better in a country far away, in a conflict he could have stayed out of. That was brave, and worth our respect and admiration. Our politicians and pundits are soft and confused, but our professional soldiers stand comparison to anyone." -- Bjørn Stærk on Norway's first casualty in Afghanistan

* "Using artificial insemination to get pregnant, lesbians are four times more likely to have children than gay men." -- Reuters uncovers a shocking statistic

• June
  

* "When the old fella said 'Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!' I laughed at his blustery naivete, as I did whenever he uttered the phrase 'Evil Empire.' Needless to say, I was wrong about that, and he was right, and I'm still ashamed about it." -- Matt Welch

* "In Berlin there used to be, like, a communist country and there used to be a big wall between East Berlin and West Berlin, where, like, the people on the West, I suppose, couldn't come to the East, or was it the other way around, because the East was where the rich people lived and the West was where the poor people lived." -- Australian reality TV contestant Wesley (See! It's not only the American educational system that produces "historicus idioticus". Or may he is just channeling Noam Chomsky. -Mondo)

Watch for Part 2.