To make Pepe cry.
Saturday, December 30, 2006
Friday, December 29, 2006
Baghdad International
At the very least, read this excerpt:
I stopped to be photographed with a unit of this force, a group of cheerful and professional young men. But as I waved goodbye to them, my Kurdish driver said, "Army pretty good. Police no good at all." And, indeed, the sight of a police uniform is one of the least reassuring in the whole of Iraq. It is often no more than the disguise for religious fascism or organized crime or (as was revealed yet again in Basra last week) for both.... If there is a flickering pulse that holds any of this together, it is kept going by two sources. The first is the astonishing actual and potential wealth of the country. The budget negotiations, which were occupying all parties during my visit, were to discuss the allocation of more than $41 billion. This is not a paper figure: New oil fields are being prospected in parts of the country that haven't been explored yet, and there is no reason in principle why Iraq could not be one of the most prosperous countries on earth. For the moment, feuding sects use their control over ministries to enrich their own supporters, but even the most blinkered tribalist can glimpse the idea that a shared country would be more beneficial to each than a shattered one. The second source of life is the presence of the coalition, where yet again even the most hard-line factionalist will admit that as bad as things are, they would be instantly worse (and instantly worse for his own group) in the case of a withdrawal. These facts are stubborn: The idea that we could even consider abandoning such a keystone state, and so many decent people, to the forces of the faith-based is as inhumane as it is unrealistic.
I stopped to be photographed with a unit of this force, a group of cheerful and professional young men. But as I waved goodbye to them, my Kurdish driver said, "Army pretty good. Police no good at all." And, indeed, the sight of a police uniform is one of the least reassuring in the whole of Iraq. It is often no more than the disguise for religious fascism or organized crime or (as was revealed yet again in Basra last week) for both.... If there is a flickering pulse that holds any of this together, it is kept going by two sources. The first is the astonishing actual and potential wealth of the country. The budget negotiations, which were occupying all parties during my visit, were to discuss the allocation of more than $41 billion. This is not a paper figure: New oil fields are being prospected in parts of the country that haven't been explored yet, and there is no reason in principle why Iraq could not be one of the most prosperous countries on earth. For the moment, feuding sects use their control over ministries to enrich their own supporters, but even the most blinkered tribalist can glimpse the idea that a shared country would be more beneficial to each than a shattered one. The second source of life is the presence of the coalition, where yet again even the most hard-line factionalist will admit that as bad as things are, they would be instantly worse (and instantly worse for his own group) in the case of a withdrawal. These facts are stubborn: The idea that we could even consider abandoning such a keystone state, and so many decent people, to the forces of the faith-based is as inhumane as it is unrealistic.
Thursday, December 28, 2006
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
Monday, December 25, 2006
Sunday, December 24, 2006
I'd send Pepe a bag of Christmas potatoes...
Here's a little Daniel Gross piece on the worst Christmas "bonus" ever:
"A reader reported that his wife, a dental assistant, received a $30 certificate to the fancy clothing store owned by the dentist's wife, in which no item for sale was close to that price... Perhaps the most Dickensian example comes from Scrooge's homeland. One writer nominated his former employer, David Bury Ltd in the Dickensian-sounding town of Grimsby. "During my time with the company as a consumer electronic service engineer, the annual Christmas bonus given to all employees was a bag of potatoes," he writes. Apparently a relative of the boss owned a potato farm."
"A reader reported that his wife, a dental assistant, received a $30 certificate to the fancy clothing store owned by the dentist's wife, in which no item for sale was close to that price... Perhaps the most Dickensian example comes from Scrooge's homeland. One writer nominated his former employer, David Bury Ltd in the Dickensian-sounding town of Grimsby. "During my time with the company as a consumer electronic service engineer, the annual Christmas bonus given to all employees was a bag of potatoes," he writes. Apparently a relative of the boss owned a potato farm."
Saturday, December 23, 2006
Gut feeling
I'm waiting for those friendly bacteria to digest the Christmas cake for me! Ready for it, guys?
Thursday, December 21, 2006
Is Pepe nostalgic for Uncle Joe?
Sure -- he must be the guy with the beret! Aahhh, the memories. Deep down, Stalin is still the butch to the pinko-lefties.
Father of all Turkmen
.. kicks the bucket.
"The glorious years . . . confirmed his heavenly faculty to foresee and his ability to determine priorities," the statement said. "His unique abilities in the art of leading the nation revealed his talent as a diplomat..."
Hey, is this a plug for Borat?
He renamed the months of January, April and September after himself, his mother and the Ruhnama, a history and spiritual guide he is said to have written.
In the glorious tradition of the French Revolution. Aahhh, the French -- who else besides them (and the Father of all Turkmen) would think of renaming the months?
"The glorious years . . . confirmed his heavenly faculty to foresee and his ability to determine priorities," the statement said. "His unique abilities in the art of leading the nation revealed his talent as a diplomat..."
Hey, is this a plug for Borat?
He renamed the months of January, April and September after himself, his mother and the Ruhnama, a history and spiritual guide he is said to have written.
In the glorious tradition of the French Revolution. Aahhh, the French -- who else besides them (and the Father of all Turkmen) would think of renaming the months?
mft's letter to the Bismarck Tribune editor
...and responses below. In the end, all big issues are local.
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Monday, December 18, 2006
Saturday, December 16, 2006
Aurora Borealis, from N.D.
There are strengths to living in a place that's sparsely populated. Click on the title, fellahs. The photos you'll be looking at were taken on Dec. 14, 2006, from a farm just 15 miles north of Bismarck (roughly central North Dakota). If you want to check out other snapshots, go here for the homepage. Enjoy.
Friday, December 15, 2006
Monkey say, Monkey do?; or, Friedman on the U.S.S.A.
Milton Friedman: What we ought to do is practice what we preach. We have been going around preaching the virtues of free enterprise, of free competition in a free market. What have we been doing? We've been practicing the opposite, not only through our foreign aid program, but also at home. We tell other countries, use the market: we tell our farmers, look to Washington. We tell other countries, don't try to be self-sustained; try to develop valuable industries that can compete on the international market, and then what do we do? We impose import quotas on oil, we impose tariffs on goods that come in, we dump agricultural products abroad, and impose quota on their import at home. The rest of the world listens to what we say and they think, "now there is a fine bunch of hypocrites," and they are right.
Milton Friedman's Unfinished Work
If I recall correctly, what first unsettled me at this deeper level was watching a recording of a televised debate between Friedman and John Kenneth Galbraith on the respective roles of state and market. In those days I admired Galbraith, had read all of his books, and reveled in his every wise pronouncement about the deficiencies of Western capitalism and the unacknowledged virtues of Soviet central planning. I remember excitedly tuning in to this program, avid to see all that superior understanding, human empathy, and magisterial disdain pour down on poor old Friedman's head. Well, Friedman quietly, courteously, and good-humouredly tore Galbraith to shreds—or so it seemed to me. Being a lethal debater—which Friedman certainly was; nobody else came close—does not make you right.
But after this encounter I was more receptive to Friedman's broader economic philosophy. I admit, I still took a while to come around: Even when I read Capitalism and Freedom (Friedman's best book, in my view), it didn't so much change my mind as open it. It took a few more years, and a job in government, to complete my education and convince me that Friedman had been right all along about the main thing—right to argue that, when it comes to advancing social welfare, free markets are capable of very much more, and governments very much less, than is almost universally supposed.
Let me know, and I'll e-mail any one of you this article.
But after this encounter I was more receptive to Friedman's broader economic philosophy. I admit, I still took a while to come around: Even when I read Capitalism and Freedom (Friedman's best book, in my view), it didn't so much change my mind as open it. It took a few more years, and a job in government, to complete my education and convince me that Friedman had been right all along about the main thing—right to argue that, when it comes to advancing social welfare, free markets are capable of very much more, and governments very much less, than is almost universally supposed.
Let me know, and I'll e-mail any one of you this article.
you'll see him comin'
Veterinarians then decided to ask for help from Bao Xishun, a 7-foot-9 herdsman from Inner Mongolia with 41.7-inch arms, state media said.
"Called bacon on it..."
Slow-roast pork ribs between 275-to-300 (that's Fahrenheit, Pepe). I've found sake to be a better base than anything else for doin' the baby-back style. MmmmMMMMmmmm, ribs....
Johnson update
Johnson suffered a hemorrhage in his brain caused by a rare and sometimes fatal condition.
Sounds like Johnson dodged the fatal brain aneurysm on this one. Politics aside, get better Johnson. That's gotta be rough for his wife.
Sounds like Johnson dodged the fatal brain aneurysm on this one. Politics aside, get better Johnson. That's gotta be rough for his wife.
Alma Mater is at it again!
What crazy hijinks will they import next! (I guess they did allow Tom Palmer to argue "Why Welfare is Not a Right," speaking on behalf of the Cato Institute; here's one of the umpteenth backlashes from that little event).
Thursday, December 14, 2006
moving...
After this evening, I'll be packing up the iMac for a move. I anticipate to be on a little later this evening, but I won't be back to do Damage Control until sometime next week, posting from central rather than eastern Dakota.
The Iliad is Chick Lit?
He asks why the two great epics at last crossed the frontier from song to writing, and how this astonishing transformation from the singer's mouth to the goatskin page was achieved. A gifted detective of the classical world, Dalby finds new approaches to the personality of Homer, showing how the earliest evidence has been misread. He makes a powerful case that both poems are the work of a single poet and comes to an ultimate conclusion that will surprise even serious classical scholars: Homer was most likely a woman.
Senator Johnson, "critical condition"
A friend of mine interned for Johnson(D) last year. She was pretty concerned about him last evening.
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
South Pole Station Cryo-History
Kind of cool. I read Lansing's, Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage about six years ago. I recollect that Shackleton and his crew had to resort to eating much seal blubber as that's all they had. Shackleton dropped dead from a heart-attack by his late-20s or early-30s (if I remember right). Not a bad Christmas Break read.
Gratuitous Turtleneck Post
Dr Kevin De Cock, director of the HIV/Aids department of the World Health Organization told the BBC the results were a "significant scientific advance" but were not a magic bullet and would never replace existing prevention strategies.
History of Science 101: Polonium-210
If there's one thing about espionage and assassinations, it's that we get to inform ourselves a little bit more about the periodic chart and the history of science and technology. I think we'll have to wait a while for the Pentagon to give us another geography lesson.
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Off To Lower Pacific Northwest
Folks, I'll be incommunicado for roughly three weeks over this post-Ramadan holiday season. Will be down in Seattle parts, a huntin spare change fallen from the pockets of Billy Gates. Enjoy the fuselage without me, get Pepe to bring in another member of Leftistan [wouldn't it be interesting to see what leftists disagree on?], encourage JJ in his abstinence from absinthe and goats, give charity to MFT as he guards the Northern Frontier against Sheep and Canucks [a harsh and lonely task not even Bismarck would have had the Iron for], and welcome back AI to Yankland [if he is not yet back]. Have a Merry Christmas, Keep the Wolf at bay in the Dark of Winter, Blaze the Menorah on high, and Burn the Incense in the House of the Red Dust. And, Inshallah, I shall return.
Take care, friends, one and all.
Take care, friends, one and all.
a scent to die for? or, a perfume that made heads roll...
Here's a stocking stuffer:
A 25ml bottle of M.A. Sillage de la Reine perfume will sell for 350 euros (£236; $463), the palace says.
Ha, pocket change!
A 25ml bottle of M.A. Sillage de la Reine perfume will sell for 350 euros (£236; $463), the palace says.
Ha, pocket change!
Castling and Po210
The article linked is in English.
PERQUISITO - L'ufficio di Garri Kasparov, ex campione mondiale di scacchi (nella foto) e attuale esponente dell' opposizione al Cremlino di Vladimir Putin, è stato perquisito da alcuni agenti che cercavano materiale estremista. Kasparov è di fede liberale, ma ha aderito alla manifestazione in programma sabato di tutti gli oppositori all'attuale leadership russa, nella quale saranno presenti anche gruppi radicali come il Partito nazional-bolscevico di Eduard Limonov. Il corteo è stato vietato dal governo di Mosca, ma gli organizzatori hanno confermato l'appuntamento. Stando al portavoce della polizia, gli agenti avevano avuto informazioni sul fatto che volantini e materiale del Partito nazional-bolscevico e di un'altra formazione estremista, l'Avanguardia della gioventù rossa, era stato nascosto nell'ufficio dell'ex scacchista. In Russia è stata varata una controversa legge sul divieto di propaganda estremista di elastica interpretazione per le autorità. Kasparov ha protestato, in una intervista alla radio Eco di Mosca, per il comportamento degli agenti, e ha annunciato querele. (Foto Afp)
Sept. 21, 1976: did the U.S. drop the ball?...
In the context, of course, the U.S. had just finished "losing" the Vietnam War, and the military (so I've been told) was back on its heels, certainly unwilling to bring some true muscle to bear on Chile. And that whole Communist thing was goin' full bloom too. You guys were alive. Give me a bit more backdrop on this. I don't like the idea of Ruskies bringing nuclear material into London, and I certainly don't like the idea of a Chilean Dictator — regardless of whether the U.S. does or doesn't support him — blowing people up in MY nation's capital.
So like I said, now's the time to set me straight, or add to what I've already set down.
So like I said, now's the time to set me straight, or add to what I've already set down.
Bottom Cultural Sensitivity Story of the Day
Other academics have suggested English speakers use the Chinese word for dragons - "long" - when speaking of the Chinese dragon, to differentiate it from its Western counterpart.
Monday, December 11, 2006
Soccer Epitaphs for 2006
Can you coin that perfect epitaph to put on the tombstone of this most miserable of US soccer years?
How about: [with apologies to some Mississippi hack]
"Here lies the Mausoleum of all our USMNT hopes and desires, said Brucey. I give it to you not that you may remember Good Times, but that you might forget them now for all moments and not spend your breath trying to reconquer them. Because no Big Match is ever won by Yanks, he said. They are not even fought. The Field of Play reveals to us only our folly and despair, and Victory is the Illusion of Columbia Profs and Fools."
How about: [with apologies to some Mississippi hack]
"Here lies the Mausoleum of all our USMNT hopes and desires, said Brucey. I give it to you not that you may remember Good Times, but that you might forget them now for all moments and not spend your breath trying to reconquer them. Because no Big Match is ever won by Yanks, he said. They are not even fought. The Field of Play reveals to us only our folly and despair, and Victory is the Illusion of Columbia Profs and Fools."
Sunday, December 10, 2006
Miss Coulter meets an Intellectual
Hitchens is independent, and a good voice for Free Speech — whether you agree or disagree with what he's saying. I can't listen to the feminine O'Reilly, Ann Coulter. I need to either leave the room or quickly switch channels when her cross hanging down between her cleavage comes on the tele. It's the same with Hillary. Or any other psycho-bitch politico. Keep kickin ass, Hitch. Just keep kickin ass.
Fascinating from BBC
The Indian condoms crisis is still a top story! Also, I have put this most popular feature of BBC's in the sidebar. It's a little flashy, but interesting for the regional bit.
Arianna's Proctologist's Paeans
This is the most embarrassing piece of fan fluff I have ever seen. Did I get the right guardian.co.uk?
WOT down the memory hole?
Newspeak can't have it -- we can't nake war or terrorists, just kiss their butts, and be good boys, right?
Experts have welcomed the move away from one of the phrases that has most defined the debate on Islamic extremism, but called it 'belated'. 'It's about time,' said Garry Hindle, terrorism expert at the Royal United Services Institute in London. 'Military terminology is completely counter-productive, merely contributing to isolating communities. This is a very positive move.'
Spoken like a true French.
Experts have welcomed the move away from one of the phrases that has most defined the debate on Islamic extremism, but called it 'belated'. 'It's about time,' said Garry Hindle, terrorism expert at the Royal United Services Institute in London. 'Military terminology is completely counter-productive, merely contributing to isolating communities. This is a very positive move.'
Spoken like a true French.
Orwell on the dangers of Pacifism
I pulled this from a little Orwell I was reading last night, and thought I'd share it:
Orwell: "Civilisation rests ultimately on coercion. What holds society together is not the policeman but the goodwill of common men, and yet that goodwill is powerless unless the policeman is there to back it up. Any government which refused to use violence in its own defence would cease almost immediately to exist, because it could be overthrown by any body of men, or even any individual, that was less scrupulous... British pacifism is on the side of the Nazis, and German pacifism, if it exists, is on the side of Britain and the USSR. Since pacifists have more freedom of action in coutries where traces of democracy survive, pacifism can act more effectively against democracy than for it. Objectively the pacifist is pro-Nazi... Pacifism is only a considerable force in places where people feel themselves very safe, chiefly maritime states... The real working class, though they hate war and are immune to jingoism, are never really pacifist, because their life teaches them something different. To abjure violence it is necessary to have no experience of it."
Taken from Orwell, My Country Right or Left, 1940-1943: The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell, Vol. 2, edited by Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus, (Harvest Books, 1968): 166-167.
Orwell: "Civilisation rests ultimately on coercion. What holds society together is not the policeman but the goodwill of common men, and yet that goodwill is powerless unless the policeman is there to back it up. Any government which refused to use violence in its own defence would cease almost immediately to exist, because it could be overthrown by any body of men, or even any individual, that was less scrupulous... British pacifism is on the side of the Nazis, and German pacifism, if it exists, is on the side of Britain and the USSR. Since pacifists have more freedom of action in coutries where traces of democracy survive, pacifism can act more effectively against democracy than for it. Objectively the pacifist is pro-Nazi... Pacifism is only a considerable force in places where people feel themselves very safe, chiefly maritime states... The real working class, though they hate war and are immune to jingoism, are never really pacifist, because their life teaches them something different. To abjure violence it is necessary to have no experience of it."
Taken from Orwell, My Country Right or Left, 1940-1943: The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell, Vol. 2, edited by Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus, (Harvest Books, 1968): 166-167.
Saturday, December 09, 2006
Saudi used car saleswoman opines... irony alert
“I don’t support women driving, even if a permission is given for them to do so, because our society is not ready for such a step.”
— Widad Merdad, speaking about the oddity that women can now sell cars in Saudi Arabia but not drive. Merdad herself is a car saleswoman.
— Widad Merdad, speaking about the oddity that women can now sell cars in Saudi Arabia but not drive. Merdad herself is a car saleswoman.
Crazy Like an Oprah Guest?
Saturday, December 09, 2006
Al Jazeera Editor: "We Always Lose to Israel"
Here’s an interview with Al-Jazeera Editor-in-Chief Ahmed Sheikh, It’s a perfect encapsulation of the irrational, obsessive hatred of Jews that drives the Arab-Muslim victimhood mentality.
Who is responsible for the situation?
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of the most important reasons why these crises and problems continue to simmer. The day when Israel was founded created the basis for our problems. The West should finally come to understand this. Everything would be much calmer if the Palestinians were given their rights.
Do you mean to say that if Israel did not exist, there would suddenly be democracy in Egypt, that the schools in Morocco would be better, that the public clinics in Jordan would function better?
I think so.
Can you please explain to me what the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has to do with these problems?
The Palestinian cause is central for Arab thinking.
In the end, is it a matter of feelings of self-esteem?
Exactly. It’s because we always lose to Israel. It gnaws at the people in the Middle East that such a small country as Israel, with only about 7 million inhabitants, can defeat the Arab nation with its 350 million. That hurts our collective ego. The Palestinian problem is in the genes of every Arab. The West’s problem is that it does not understand this.
Wrong, Ahmed. The West does understand. In this part of the world, blaming all your problems on a super-powerful fantasy opponent is called “mental illness.”
Al Jazeera Editor: "We Always Lose to Israel"
Here’s an interview with Al-Jazeera Editor-in-Chief Ahmed Sheikh, It’s a perfect encapsulation of the irrational, obsessive hatred of Jews that drives the Arab-Muslim victimhood mentality.
Who is responsible for the situation?
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of the most important reasons why these crises and problems continue to simmer. The day when Israel was founded created the basis for our problems. The West should finally come to understand this. Everything would be much calmer if the Palestinians were given their rights.
Do you mean to say that if Israel did not exist, there would suddenly be democracy in Egypt, that the schools in Morocco would be better, that the public clinics in Jordan would function better?
I think so.
Can you please explain to me what the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has to do with these problems?
The Palestinian cause is central for Arab thinking.
In the end, is it a matter of feelings of self-esteem?
Exactly. It’s because we always lose to Israel. It gnaws at the people in the Middle East that such a small country as Israel, with only about 7 million inhabitants, can defeat the Arab nation with its 350 million. That hurts our collective ego. The Palestinian problem is in the genes of every Arab. The West’s problem is that it does not understand this.
Wrong, Ahmed. The West does understand. In this part of the world, blaming all your problems on a super-powerful fantasy opponent is called “mental illness.”
South Park News Services, Fuck Ya
"Finally, a reader from Philadelphia wanted to report a conversation he overheard on the Penn campus — Locust Walk:
Student 1: “Because if Israel and Iran go to war . . . the United States is in a war too, you know?”
Student 2: “Yeah.”
Student 1: “And then Iraq and Syria get involved . . .”
Student 2: “Yeah.”
Student 1: “And we’re not paying attention to North Korea, you know?”
Student 2: “Yeah, dude. South Park was talking about this stuff years ago.”
I absolutely adored that."
Student 1: “Because if Israel and Iran go to war . . . the United States is in a war too, you know?”
Student 2: “Yeah.”
Student 1: “And then Iraq and Syria get involved . . .”
Student 2: “Yeah.”
Student 1: “And we’re not paying attention to North Korea, you know?”
Student 2: “Yeah, dude. South Park was talking about this stuff years ago.”
I absolutely adored that."
Friday, December 08, 2006
Islamic Grenades for Illinois Christmas
CHICAGO - A Muslim convert who talked about his desire to wage jihad against civilians was charged Friday in a plot to set off hand grenades at a shopping mall at the height of the Christmas rush, authorities said.
torque curves in JJ's battery-powered Tesla?
JJ, I know you appreciate a fine speed machine. Have you seen this sucker yet?
Bogging the Pepe
Not that reading his father's Meditations would have made a better man of Commodus, but are we allowed to hope that if Pepe reads a little from the book of the Idiot Ricain Soldier [Killer, Rapist.....and (worst of all) Marine] he might actually learn something? [The answer is you are always allowed to hope, even if you're the gerbil staring at the V2 now about 1 meter from your noggin].
Thursday, December 07, 2006
Socratic wisdom
Socrates said Dean's Democrats "should know that they can count on European Socialists" for support.
Yaaaaaaarrrrrrrggghhhh!!
Yaaaaaaarrrrrrrggghhhh!!
Positive Change is a Heady CAIR
No Compulsion in Islam
Somalia official issues beheading threat.
MOGADISHU, Somalia - Residents of a southern Somalia town who do not pray five times a day will be beheaded, an Islamic courts official said Wednesday, adding the edict will be implemented in three days.
Public places such as shops and tea houses in Bulo Burto, about 124 miles northeast of the capital, Mogadishu, should be closed during prayer time and no one should be on the streets, said Sheik Hussein Barre Rage, the chairman of the town’s Islamic court.
Those who do not follow this edict “will definitely be beheaded according to Islamic law,” Rage told The Associated Press by phone. “As Muslims, we should practice Islam fully, not in part, and that is what our religion enjoins us to do.”
He said that the courts are announcing the edict over loudspeakers in the town.
The Council on American Islamic Relations called the takeover of Somalia by Islamic militants “a positive change.”
Somalia official issues beheading threat.
MOGADISHU, Somalia - Residents of a southern Somalia town who do not pray five times a day will be beheaded, an Islamic courts official said Wednesday, adding the edict will be implemented in three days.
Public places such as shops and tea houses in Bulo Burto, about 124 miles northeast of the capital, Mogadishu, should be closed during prayer time and no one should be on the streets, said Sheik Hussein Barre Rage, the chairman of the town’s Islamic court.
Those who do not follow this edict “will definitely be beheaded according to Islamic law,” Rage told The Associated Press by phone. “As Muslims, we should practice Islam fully, not in part, and that is what our religion enjoins us to do.”
He said that the courts are announcing the edict over loudspeakers in the town.
The Council on American Islamic Relations called the takeover of Somalia by Islamic militants “a positive change.”
A Test
If Bush goes along with this Baker-Gates nightmare unfolding before us he will prove himself not only fatally weak or weakminded, [ it is the fatal part that is in question here] he will have undermined us against Islam Militant in a way which is awfully worse than what came before. Bush one was awful. Clinton was bloody awful. But they had some excuse of it not yet being crystal clear what we are up against. For Bush, it was crystal clear less than a year into his first term. So he has no excuse, none whatsoever. If the House of Bush is so damaged by its relations with the House of Saud that it blows off reality like a crack whore in the Bronx, then just how much has been going on, how much have we already been compromised?
Bush can prove me wrong. It is a test. He can look Baker in the eye and say "Fuck You, you don't vote for me". He can look Gates in the eye and say. 'Sorry, but I changed my mind about being under Daddy's leash. Enjoy Houston". He could, but he won't.
I don't have to bet my life on it. This administration already has done that.
Bush can prove me wrong. It is a test. He can look Baker in the eye and say "Fuck You, you don't vote for me". He can look Gates in the eye and say. 'Sorry, but I changed my mind about being under Daddy's leash. Enjoy Houston". He could, but he won't.
I don't have to bet my life on it. This administration already has done that.
Al-Baker, Hero of Islam
The militants, from the largest Palestinian terror groups in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, welcomed the policies outlined by the Iraq Study Group, which they claim recognizes Islam is the "new giant of the world."
The group is led by former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker.
"The report proves that this is the era of Islam and of jihad," said Abu Ayman, a senior leader of Islamic Jihad in the northern West Bank town of Jenin.
The Islamic Jihad terror group is responsible for every suicide bombing in Israel during the past two years.
"[With the Iraq Study Group report], the Americans came to the conclusion that Islam is the new giant of the world and it would be clever to reduce hostilities with this giant. In the Quran the principle of the rotation is clear and according to this principle the end of the Americans and of all non-believers is getting closer," Abu Ayman said.
According to Abu Abdullah, a senior leader of Hamas' so-called military wing, Baker's report is a victory for Islam brought about by "Allah and his angels."
"It is not just a simple victory. It is a great one. The big superpower of the world is defeated by a small group of mujahedeen (fighters). Did you see the mujahedeens' clothes and weapons in comparison with the huge individual military arsenal and supply that was carrying every American soldier?" exclaimed Abu Abdullah, who is considered one of the most important operational members of Hamas' Izzedine al-Qassam Martyrs Brigades, Hamas' declared "resistance" department.
"It is no doubt that Allah and his angels were fighting with them (insurgents) against the Americans. It is a sign to all those who keep saying that America, Israel and the West in general cannot be defeated on the ground so let us negotiate with them," Abu Abdullah said.
Abu Abdullah said following a withdrawal from Iraq, the U.S. will be defeated on its own soil.
"America must understand that with anti-American governments in Latin America and with Islam growing and reinforcing, including in the U.S. itself, the next step would be a total defeat on their (American) land, not a relative one like they are facing in Iraq," he said.
Abu Nasser, the second-in-command of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terror group in the West Bank, called the Iraq Study Group report a "great victory" from which other jihadist organizations can learn.
"The Iraqi victory is a great message and lesson to the revolutionary and freedom movements in the world. Just to think that this resistance is led by hundreds of Sunni fighters who defeated hundreds of thousands of Americans, British and thousands of soldiers who belong to the puppet regime in Baghdad. What would be the situation if the Shiites will decide to join the resistance?" commented Abu Nasser.
The Al Aqsa leader said his group learned from the "Iraqi resistance" that jihad will ultimately destroy Israel.
The Al Aqsa Brigades is the declared "military wing" of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party.
"If Israel will not start negotiating its withdrawal we are ready to launch the new stage of the intifada," Abu Nasser said.
Islamic Jihad's Abu Ayman said after the U.S. "defeat" in Iraq is finalized, insurgents there should move to the West Bank and Gaza to help destroy Israel.
"We hope that after chasing the occupation from Iraq, these jihad efforts and experiences will be transferred to Palestine, and yes, I mean that we expect these fighters will come to Palestine as part of a big Islamic army."
The Iraqi Study Group's report called the U.S. position in Iraq "grave and deteriorating," and recommended the withdrawal of most combat troops from Iraq by 2008.
It warned, "The ability of the United States to influence events within Iraq is diminishing."
The report stated the U.S. should engage Iran, Syria and insurgent leaders in Iraq, and said Israel should be pressured into withdrawing from the West Bank and the Golan Heights.
The West Bank runs alongside Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Israel's international airport. The Heights is strategic mountainous territory that looks down in Israeli and Syrian population centers.
President Bush received the report at the White House this morning. Flanked by Baker and other commission members, Bush pledged to treat each proposal seriously and act in a "timely fashion."
The White House said Bush will make key decisions within weeks.
Some terror leaders, though, were unsure whether the Baker report would actually be implemented. They claimed Israel controls U.S. foreign policy and would ultimately block changes in American actions in the Middle East.
"The problem is that I think the political structure of the U.S. and the role of the Zionists in the U.S. turns impossible the possibility that this report would be implemented," said Abu Ayman.
Still the terror leader said the report shows insurgent actions are working.
"It is the dawn of the real Islam what we are seeing now, young people who are leaving everything in their countries and are coming to fight in Iraq," said Abu Ayman.
The group is led by former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker.
"The report proves that this is the era of Islam and of jihad," said Abu Ayman, a senior leader of Islamic Jihad in the northern West Bank town of Jenin.
The Islamic Jihad terror group is responsible for every suicide bombing in Israel during the past two years.
"[With the Iraq Study Group report], the Americans came to the conclusion that Islam is the new giant of the world and it would be clever to reduce hostilities with this giant. In the Quran the principle of the rotation is clear and according to this principle the end of the Americans and of all non-believers is getting closer," Abu Ayman said.
According to Abu Abdullah, a senior leader of Hamas' so-called military wing, Baker's report is a victory for Islam brought about by "Allah and his angels."
"It is not just a simple victory. It is a great one. The big superpower of the world is defeated by a small group of mujahedeen (fighters). Did you see the mujahedeens' clothes and weapons in comparison with the huge individual military arsenal and supply that was carrying every American soldier?" exclaimed Abu Abdullah, who is considered one of the most important operational members of Hamas' Izzedine al-Qassam Martyrs Brigades, Hamas' declared "resistance" department.
"It is no doubt that Allah and his angels were fighting with them (insurgents) against the Americans. It is a sign to all those who keep saying that America, Israel and the West in general cannot be defeated on the ground so let us negotiate with them," Abu Abdullah said.
Abu Abdullah said following a withdrawal from Iraq, the U.S. will be defeated on its own soil.
"America must understand that with anti-American governments in Latin America and with Islam growing and reinforcing, including in the U.S. itself, the next step would be a total defeat on their (American) land, not a relative one like they are facing in Iraq," he said.
Abu Nasser, the second-in-command of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terror group in the West Bank, called the Iraq Study Group report a "great victory" from which other jihadist organizations can learn.
"The Iraqi victory is a great message and lesson to the revolutionary and freedom movements in the world. Just to think that this resistance is led by hundreds of Sunni fighters who defeated hundreds of thousands of Americans, British and thousands of soldiers who belong to the puppet regime in Baghdad. What would be the situation if the Shiites will decide to join the resistance?" commented Abu Nasser.
The Al Aqsa leader said his group learned from the "Iraqi resistance" that jihad will ultimately destroy Israel.
The Al Aqsa Brigades is the declared "military wing" of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party.
"If Israel will not start negotiating its withdrawal we are ready to launch the new stage of the intifada," Abu Nasser said.
Islamic Jihad's Abu Ayman said after the U.S. "defeat" in Iraq is finalized, insurgents there should move to the West Bank and Gaza to help destroy Israel.
"We hope that after chasing the occupation from Iraq, these jihad efforts and experiences will be transferred to Palestine, and yes, I mean that we expect these fighters will come to Palestine as part of a big Islamic army."
The Iraqi Study Group's report called the U.S. position in Iraq "grave and deteriorating," and recommended the withdrawal of most combat troops from Iraq by 2008.
It warned, "The ability of the United States to influence events within Iraq is diminishing."
The report stated the U.S. should engage Iran, Syria and insurgent leaders in Iraq, and said Israel should be pressured into withdrawing from the West Bank and the Golan Heights.
The West Bank runs alongside Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Israel's international airport. The Heights is strategic mountainous territory that looks down in Israeli and Syrian population centers.
President Bush received the report at the White House this morning. Flanked by Baker and other commission members, Bush pledged to treat each proposal seriously and act in a "timely fashion."
The White House said Bush will make key decisions within weeks.
Some terror leaders, though, were unsure whether the Baker report would actually be implemented. They claimed Israel controls U.S. foreign policy and would ultimately block changes in American actions in the Middle East.
"The problem is that I think the political structure of the U.S. and the role of the Zionists in the U.S. turns impossible the possibility that this report would be implemented," said Abu Ayman.
Still the terror leader said the report shows insurgent actions are working.
"It is the dawn of the real Islam what we are seeing now, young people who are leaving everything in their countries and are coming to fight in Iraq," said Abu Ayman.
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
Not yet done, MFT 2 to go, AI 3 down 9 to go, JJ , PLP Cowards?
Time for finishing up the quiz, boys, for friday is Graderramung Day
Contemporary Russian Politik: the New Dosteovsky
Applebaum: "After all, this set of post-KGB relationships is nothing if not complex: There are conspiracies within conspiracies, agents of agents of agents, people who pretend to be acting on behalf of a particular oligarch or Chechen insurgent who are actually acting on behalf of someone quite different. It is quite possible that Litvinenko was murdered by "rogue secret policemen," as the British press suspects. It is also possible that the "rogue secret policemen" were working for someone who worked for the Kremlin, or someone who worked for a Russian oligarch, or someone who worked for a Russian oligarch who worked for the Kremlin."
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
Early Christmas Presents for Canadian-Bound AA
AA remarked that American television just doesn't get into Canada all that much. How Ameriphobic, yes. Regardless, here's a compilation of one of our newest Yankees, perhaps the new David Hume of 21st Century America, Christopher Hitchens (Disclaimer: Pepe might find this upsetting. Be careful JJ too: if I remember, you don't care that much for Hitchens.):
1.) Hitchens scolds the condescending Bill Maher and gives the blanket Middle Finger and a "Fuck You" to a hissing Maher audience (very recommended by mft; when watching this, I wondered how a Christopher Hitchens Ph.D Defense might go...).
2.) Hitchens on the vascillating Christian Church and Islam Militant (still recommended by mft).
3.) Hitchens wonders aloud if Reagan Jr. knows his 20th-century Mesopotamia history (very recommended by mft).
4.) Hitchens just after the Danish Embassy burnings. (yes, recommended — audio is a bit shaky).
5.) Hitchens in L.A., 11pm (just before his third wind — booze is his fuel! Kind of like JJ?).
6.) November 30, 2006, one of the latest interviews on anti-Semitism in mid-East.
1.) Hitchens scolds the condescending Bill Maher and gives the blanket Middle Finger and a "Fuck You" to a hissing Maher audience (very recommended by mft; when watching this, I wondered how a Christopher Hitchens Ph.D Defense might go...).
2.) Hitchens on the vascillating Christian Church and Islam Militant (still recommended by mft).
3.) Hitchens wonders aloud if Reagan Jr. knows his 20th-century Mesopotamia history (very recommended by mft).
4.) Hitchens just after the Danish Embassy burnings. (yes, recommended — audio is a bit shaky).
5.) Hitchens in L.A., 11pm (just before his third wind — booze is his fuel! Kind of like JJ?).
6.) November 30, 2006, one of the latest interviews on anti-Semitism in mid-East.
How Pepe Came to Love Islam--Reason 547
You see, Pissin' on the Kufr says "Contempt", in spades, and we now know that is Viagra for Le Pew
"Nigger," and other word etymologies
Reading this Hitchens article reminded me of another personal experience. So you can either skip to the article (which I thought Hitchens could have made much longer), or suffer my little story. Here's the interview with Chris Matthews that Hitchens referenced in this slate.com article.:
Back in 1998, while sitting in a Community College English Composition class (just after highschool, but prior to university), the English Professor assigned us with finding what we thought the most important passage of a particular reading assignment was. Like Hitchens outlines with his Mark Twain story, the story we were assigned dealt with an author writing about the South. The word "nigger" was used by one of the characters in the story, a white American (most-likely of French descent) who used it in every way racist.
Anyhow, I recited the sentence long passage in class, and the English Professor stopped me. She stopped the entire class. In a tone that you'd hear your mother use when you were 6, she said, "What did you say?" I repeated the passage. She then said, "We don't use that word in class, ever." I tried to be as respectful as I could, so I didn't respond with what was ready — "Well you fuckin' assigned this!" Instead, I said, "This word is powerful, and it evokes, and it was used a lot back in the South of then and today. In choosing this passage, I thought it brought out the racist flavor of the historical South..." She somewhat backed down, but again told the class to never say the word again.
Back in 1998, while sitting in a Community College English Composition class (just after highschool, but prior to university), the English Professor assigned us with finding what we thought the most important passage of a particular reading assignment was. Like Hitchens outlines with his Mark Twain story, the story we were assigned dealt with an author writing about the South. The word "nigger" was used by one of the characters in the story, a white American (most-likely of French descent) who used it in every way racist.
Anyhow, I recited the sentence long passage in class, and the English Professor stopped me. She stopped the entire class. In a tone that you'd hear your mother use when you were 6, she said, "What did you say?" I repeated the passage. She then said, "We don't use that word in class, ever." I tried to be as respectful as I could, so I didn't respond with what was ready — "Well you fuckin' assigned this!" Instead, I said, "This word is powerful, and it evokes, and it was used a lot back in the South of then and today. In choosing this passage, I thought it brought out the racist flavor of the historical South..." She somewhat backed down, but again told the class to never say the word again.
Isa Yeor Jesus Muhammad?
So Islam throws out the Baby Jaysus but keeps the fetid bilgewater. No wonder Big Easy Guy so appreciates it.
SaudiLand Celebrates One of Its Heroes
A little touch of noggin choppin for insulting Islam? Disobeying the husband? Expressing christian or jewish thoughts? For a certain someone in Big Easy this is all "Win-Win"
Yup, it's all Normal
Yup, it's all Normal
Monday, December 04, 2006
Limbaugh Meets His Pepe
Great Louisianan Yankee Hating Minds are a precious thing to waste. [I had to put a pic of William Tecumseh to go with this piece, could not pass the occasion! -- AI]
Borat meets the unamused Wyatt Earp
"If Borat comes back," Carrillo said, "I think the sheriff will run him out of town."
get on with it, NASA
I've been hearing bullshit like this for years. It's up there with flying cars and teleportation machines. I'm wondering if that isn't what JJ and his engineering buddies make up so they get discounted drinks at the bar.
the truth, or Damage Control?
I can see how this might have been lost in the mistranslation. In the end, who cares. I thought I'd bring it up.
how will you pose?
...I have a few ideas. Don't forget to wink and grin at the female operators before going in.
Don't eat the tacos: confirming E.coli
Not long ago we were chatting it up about Taco Bell. It's back!
A Streetcar Named Democracy
Funny, just like Allende and Chavez and Hitler, the Streetcar for Erdogan is intended just to get you to that Happy Place where the stinking streetcar can be disposed of......It will be interesting to see how Turkey unfolds, fo sho [and, yes, this fits in beautifully with Erdogan's gamesmanship in preventing a northern front against Saddam at the start of the war].
Proof One: Pepe's Belief in the Divine and Supernatural; or, Voodoo in the Big Easy
Pepe's failure to answer this question of mine is proof that he does in fact endorse candidates who believe in the Supernatural. Remember this when he takes his condescending tone towards Jesus Freaks and any other Superstition. Also note his failure to address my question, a method that Pepe has used more than once during our quaint little conversations. Here's a rehash:
My Frontier Thesis said...
Pepe, I don't see how your athiest ethos allows you to support a candidate like Chavez, a man who interjects God and the Devil regularly into his political rhetoric.
12/04/2006 1:40 PM
Pepe's response:
focus alert ???
12/04/2006 2:17 PM
My Frontier Thesis response...
Focus alert? Is this how you want me to address the contradictions that you find in my own Libertarian ethos from now on? Again, the French are lax when it comes to philosophy. You've got quite the mythical little worldview down there in the Big Easy, Pepe.
12/04/2006 3:14 PM
My Frontier Thesis said...
Pepe, I don't see how your athiest ethos allows you to support a candidate like Chavez, a man who interjects God and the Devil regularly into his political rhetoric.
12/04/2006 1:40 PM
Pepe's response:
focus alert ???
12/04/2006 2:17 PM
My Frontier Thesis response...
Focus alert? Is this how you want me to address the contradictions that you find in my own Libertarian ethos from now on? Again, the French are lax when it comes to philosophy. You've got quite the mythical little worldview down there in the Big Easy, Pepe.
12/04/2006 3:14 PM
Another heart-warming story for Pepe
Hey, he's on a roll!
On October 14, Orthodox Christians held a midnight worship service when a group of three hundred Muslims, carrying guns and knives approached the church. The mob could not enter the locked doors to the church but then proceeded to pour gasoline around the building, forcing the Christians to come out of the building. The men of the church came out first and attempted to defend the men and women but had no real weapons, in comparison to the guns and knives used against them. The Muslim mob began to attack the Christians. Fifteen individuals from the church suffered sever knife wounds. Six people died as a result, two priests, two elderly women, and two men.
On October 14, Orthodox Christians held a midnight worship service when a group of three hundred Muslims, carrying guns and knives approached the church. The mob could not enter the locked doors to the church but then proceeded to pour gasoline around the building, forcing the Christians to come out of the building. The men of the church came out first and attempted to defend the men and women but had no real weapons, in comparison to the guns and knives used against them. The Muslim mob began to attack the Christians. Fifteen individuals from the church suffered sever knife wounds. Six people died as a result, two priests, two elderly women, and two men.
Harmless as an Enemy and Treacherous as a Friend
That, coupled with Goh Tok's question, sums up the entire end of things.
JJ, heads up
Leave it to the Germans: experts in nylons, genocide, automobiles, and now spray on condoms. They say, "It's a bit like a car wash." Runner-up for quote of the week (context is paramount).
God Really Listens to His Dear Pepe
As if handing Pinochet's heart to Pepe on a platter was not enough, the Big 'Un has now added the Archangel Chavez to Pepe's cornucopia. How long before Le Pew and Hugo are doing the "Ricains Be Devils" rap on YouTube?
God Listens to his Dear Pepe
If an Angel irredeemably Falls, is it not Heavenly Solace that a Devil follows soon thereafter? Once Pepe recovers from his Bender of Despair over Fidel, he can promptly commence a Bender of Joy over August.
Nothing says "Ethics" quite as much as "Democrat"
Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-WV) is under investigation by the FBI. And he’s set to assume a top post which would put him in control of the FBI’s budget. Neat trick, eh?
The FBI’s probing Mollohan for possible violations of the law arising from his sprawling network of favors and money which connects him to good friends via questionable charities, alarmingly successful real estate ventures, and hundreds of millions of dollars in earmarked funds.
The investigation appears to be active and ongoing. We’re told that the Feds continue to gather information on the guy. Yet the Democrats look poised to make Mollohan the chairman of the panel which controls the purse strings for the entire Justice Department – including the FBI.
The FBI’s probing Mollohan for possible violations of the law arising from his sprawling network of favors and money which connects him to good friends via questionable charities, alarmingly successful real estate ventures, and hundreds of millions of dollars in earmarked funds.
The investigation appears to be active and ongoing. We’re told that the Feds continue to gather information on the guy. Yet the Democrats look poised to make Mollohan the chairman of the panel which controls the purse strings for the entire Justice Department – including the FBI.
Democrat Like a Pepe
From a wise soul on Huntingtonia: "Why do neoconmen hate democracy?. they don't like lebanon. they don't like palistine. they don't like iran. they don't like iraq. they hate most of europe. they hate russia. they don't like anyone in south america. "
Yes, he has compiled quite a list of all those Democracies we hate. Fortunately he didn't notice our love of the dictatorships, such as Israel, Taiwan, Australia, and Pincairn Island. And, apparently, we still have a free hand to hate at will in Africa
Yes, he has compiled quite a list of all those Democracies we hate. Fortunately he didn't notice our love of the dictatorships, such as Israel, Taiwan, Australia, and Pincairn Island. And, apparently, we still have a free hand to hate at will in Africa
NYT Knows Who It Chooses Between AP and mere Ricains
Monday, December 04, 2006
NYT Circles Its Wagons with Associated Press
It was only a matter of time before the Gray Lady, Lance at the ready, put in her two cents worth about the discredited "Six Burning Sunnis" story.
Writer Tom Zeller manages to muddy the waters without ever directly mentioning the most troubling question of all: whether or not al Qaeda propagandists are using the Western media to foment civil war in Iraq. The closest Zeller comes to acknowledging this vital issue is mentioning the title of the Flopping Aces post that started the controversy, Getting News From the Enemy.
Over the course of last week, an Associated Press article — one subsequently challenged by the military — in which six Sunni worshipers were reportedly doused in kerosene and burned alive by Shiite attackers, became the worst kind of totem.
For bloggers who believe that the media has been drawing false pictures of mayhem in Iraq, the insistence of the American military and Iraqi officials that the burning incident appeared to be a mere rumor was proof that their suspicions were correct.
As one might expect, the New York Times is vastly more concerned with the freedom of reporters to report, than the actual accuracy of those reports:
Iraq’s interior ministry wielded the article like a bludgeon and used it as an opportunity to create a press monitoring unit that suggested, in no uncertain terms, that reporters in Baghdad should come to its press officers for “real, true news.” A ministry spokesman promised “legal action” — whatever that might mean — against journalists who publish information the agency deemed wrong.
As if a country whose citizens are daily subjected to assaults from terrorists has no legitimate interest in seeing that rumors and disinformation propagated by their enemies are not being published as "news."
We've been down this road before. Mainstream media efforts to minimize the Reutersgate scandal during the Lebanon/Hezbollah war mean that most Americans aren't even aware that deadly serious concerns about the accuracy of major news service accounts have arisen. And they don't know that it was bloggers who forced Reuters to withdraw all ten years of Adnan Hajj's photographs.
The mainstream media never did fully acknowledge the stunning depth of the fauxtography scandal; a pattern of disinformation perpetrated by agenda driven stringers that made much of the "news" coming out of that war so suspect as to be nearly useless.
Is there really any reason to think that the same thing isn't going on in Ira
NYT Circles Its Wagons with Associated Press
It was only a matter of time before the Gray Lady, Lance at the ready, put in her two cents worth about the discredited "Six Burning Sunnis" story.
Writer Tom Zeller manages to muddy the waters without ever directly mentioning the most troubling question of all: whether or not al Qaeda propagandists are using the Western media to foment civil war in Iraq. The closest Zeller comes to acknowledging this vital issue is mentioning the title of the Flopping Aces post that started the controversy, Getting News From the Enemy.
Over the course of last week, an Associated Press article — one subsequently challenged by the military — in which six Sunni worshipers were reportedly doused in kerosene and burned alive by Shiite attackers, became the worst kind of totem.
For bloggers who believe that the media has been drawing false pictures of mayhem in Iraq, the insistence of the American military and Iraqi officials that the burning incident appeared to be a mere rumor was proof that their suspicions were correct.
As one might expect, the New York Times is vastly more concerned with the freedom of reporters to report, than the actual accuracy of those reports:
Iraq’s interior ministry wielded the article like a bludgeon and used it as an opportunity to create a press monitoring unit that suggested, in no uncertain terms, that reporters in Baghdad should come to its press officers for “real, true news.” A ministry spokesman promised “legal action” — whatever that might mean — against journalists who publish information the agency deemed wrong.
As if a country whose citizens are daily subjected to assaults from terrorists has no legitimate interest in seeing that rumors and disinformation propagated by their enemies are not being published as "news."
We've been down this road before. Mainstream media efforts to minimize the Reutersgate scandal during the Lebanon/Hezbollah war mean that most Americans aren't even aware that deadly serious concerns about the accuracy of major news service accounts have arisen. And they don't know that it was bloggers who forced Reuters to withdraw all ten years of Adnan Hajj's photographs.
The mainstream media never did fully acknowledge the stunning depth of the fauxtography scandal; a pattern of disinformation perpetrated by agenda driven stringers that made much of the "news" coming out of that war so suspect as to be nearly useless.
Is there really any reason to think that the same thing isn't going on in Ira
And the Odds the MSM reports on THIS??
"Within eight weeks it began intentionally to ignore certain information the President was sharing". Uh huh, Pepe's kind of Ricains at work.
Self-Appointed Deep-Thinker Opines
Maybe someone already posted this. There's so much being posted lately, I have no opportunity to read half of what's going on. Also, the conversations seem to be getting dispersed, being pushed down the page in this great antiintuitive downdraft of hot air.
Sunday, December 03, 2006
if you're looking to brushen up on your Duns Scottus Eriugena
It looks as though Eriugena was ahead of his time. He's said to have ushered in not only a new way of thinking, but also a new way of building Medieval Churches, and even texts. In short, he argued that God was symbolized in light, and the light that emanated from God was bounced off the world, or universe, and reflected back to Him. After Eriugena's ideas started catching on (he was hanging out in Ireland), architects started building churches with many more windows, and texts were gilded more and more. Check this out:
Eriugena's uniqueness lies in the fact that, quite remarkably for a scholar in Western Europe in the Carolingian era, he had considerable familiarity with the Greek language, affording him access to the Greek Christian theological tradition, from the Cappadocians to Gregory of Nyssa, hitherto almost entirely unknown in the Latin West. He also produced a complete, if somewhat imperfect, Latin translation of the Corpus Dionysii, the works of the obscure, possibly Syrian, Christian Neoplatonist, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, a follower of Proclus. In addition, Eriugena translated Gregory of NyssaÂ’s De hominis opificio and Maximus Confessor's Ambigua ad Iohannem, and possibly other works, such as Epiphanius' Anchoratus.
Eriugena's uniqueness lies in the fact that, quite remarkably for a scholar in Western Europe in the Carolingian era, he had considerable familiarity with the Greek language, affording him access to the Greek Christian theological tradition, from the Cappadocians to Gregory of Nyssa, hitherto almost entirely unknown in the Latin West. He also produced a complete, if somewhat imperfect, Latin translation of the Corpus Dionysii, the works of the obscure, possibly Syrian, Christian Neoplatonist, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, a follower of Proclus. In addition, Eriugena translated Gregory of NyssaÂ’s De hominis opificio and Maximus Confessor's Ambigua ad Iohannem, and possibly other works, such as Epiphanius' Anchoratus.
Well, she's at least got a point...
Perhaps it's my geographic locale, but it is difficult to have casual conversation in America where the question "So where do you work these days?" or "How much does that pay?" doesn't come up, almost immediately, always invariably. It is rude. Yet Yanks can be blunt. As they say: America is the best place to make money if you want to make money.
VDH Sets out Majority [Think Pepe Buchanan] and MInority [Think 911 Steyn] Briefs
Clear and quite dispassionate.
Short Radiant Dreams of Frankislamic Gloire?
Just when the Gauls were salivating at the prospect of being the worlds most powerful Islamic Nuclear State, along comes this. Versaille Weeps, Lubyanka Sleeps, and a Big Salaam to PetraBul
Limey, He Sooo Smart, Yankee, He Sooo Dumb
Boy, oh Boy, does Pepe have to feel conflicted on this one !
Small Dead Animals Blog Dares to Stamp the "D" Word on Fidel
Is Pepe right now staggering drunkenly along Prytania, gazing at the darkening sky, and shouting out as if to the unstarry Heavens: "Say it Ain't So, Dear God, Bloody Mary, Mother of Jesus, Say it Ain't So!!"
December 02, 2006
Castro
He's dead;
A military parade marking the 50th anniversary of the date Fidel Castro and fellow rebels landed in Cuba to launch their revolution started Saturday without the ailing leader.
Many Cubans still hoped that Castro would make at least a brief appearance during a huge military parade in Havana on Saturday morning to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Revolutionary Armed Forces. The commemoration culminates five days of celebrations for Castro's 80th birthday, but he has yet to make an appearance.
Dead, dead, dead.
Deader than a doornail. Deader than a dead cat bounce. Deader than Jerry Garcia. Deader than Belinda Stronach's political future.
Deader than the creature featured at the top left of your screen.
He'd be pushing up daisies if he weren't glued into that Adidas Bionic Tracksuit.
December 02, 2006
Castro
He's dead;
A military parade marking the 50th anniversary of the date Fidel Castro and fellow rebels landed in Cuba to launch their revolution started Saturday without the ailing leader.
Many Cubans still hoped that Castro would make at least a brief appearance during a huge military parade in Havana on Saturday morning to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Revolutionary Armed Forces. The commemoration culminates five days of celebrations for Castro's 80th birthday, but he has yet to make an appearance.
Dead, dead, dead.
Deader than a doornail. Deader than a dead cat bounce. Deader than Jerry Garcia. Deader than Belinda Stronach's political future.
Deader than the creature featured at the top left of your screen.
He'd be pushing up daisies if he weren't glued into that Adidas Bionic Tracksuit.
"Unnatural"???? This is as Natural as Michael Moore Pissing on Ricains
When you mull it over, could you think of an American Pol more "natural" as Mecca Chuckie's Butt Buddy?
Hollywood Ho-bags and Celebrity Insecurity
Pepe was the first to bring what a true, un-airbrushed designer pussy really looks like to our wonderful and highly-civilized little blog. I've thundered against these Hollywood morons for a while now, asserting that there's a much better stock of non-Hollywood women the world over. Someone's gotta do it. Therefore, "DON'T OBSESS OVER HOLLYWOOD BECAUSE THEY SUCKETH." Thus spaketh MFThustra.
Friday, December 01, 2006
Russkie poison
Hey, whether Putin told them or not, these Smersh guys surely did act like a bull in a China shop. Ah, but don't hold your breath for the pinko-lefties to as much as utter a peep about it -- or, about any other "Molotov cockails" thrown by the baddies (such as dismembering teachers for the crime of teaching algebra to little girls). They hold their fire for the really meaty targets, those that take tons of cojones to "speak truth to power" to. Profiles in Courage, as they say.
Gutting missile defense
So, AA, you still think it won't make a difference who's running the show? Hey, may as well elect Pepe, and see how fast we'll surrender!
A "Neocon" Contra "Realists"
Podheretz loses his invitation to the Baker Institute in fiery fashion.
"December 1, 2006 -- YES, it's been quite a week for the 10 members of the Iraq Study Group, the committee formed last spring to offer recommendations on a path forward in Iraq.
They had a wonderfully invigorating leak session the other day with The New York Times, which was the first recipient of the group's key top-level save-America recommendation. The president could wait his turn. After all, this is the Iraq Study Group we're talking about here, buddy. Even the mighty Times was probably kept waiting for its leak, since the only person who could not be kept waiting was Annie Leibovitz, celebrity photographer nonpareil.The value of Annie Leibovitz's pictorial scoop might have been reduced somewhat when the president scornfully consigned the Iraq Study Group to the ash-heap of history yesterday with a single dismissive sentence during his press conference in Jordan: "This business about 'graceful exit' just simply has no realism to it whatsoever."
Baker, Hamilton and their crew of old Washington hands (and I mean old, like Metheuselah-level old) are recommending a "gradual pullback" of American troops but without a timetable. That basically translates into a nice, long, slow defeat - the "graceful exit" of which the president spoke so harshly. As one of the study group's members told the Times yesterday, "We had to move the national debate from 'whether to stay the course' to 'how do we start down the path out'." This is the consensus view of the Iraq Study Group, which is very proud that it reached consensus.
You perhaps note that I am writing with extreme disrespect toward the Iraq Study Group. That's because its report is a scandal and an embarrassment; it's flatly immoral to seek to make or guide policy in this fashion. Look, if its members believe the war is lost, they should say so. They should bite the bullet and advocate a pullout of American forces sooner rather than later. If its members could not actually achieve consensus on that point - if, in other words, some of its members still believe the war can be won while others believe there's no way to achieve victory - then it was simple vanity on the part of the Gang of 10 that led to the creation of a "consensus" document that split the difference. There's no way to split the difference. America and its allies are either going to win this war or we're going to lose. We will either conclude our military actions in Iraq with terrorists and insurgents dead or fled and an imposition of civil order in the country by its elected government, or we will turn tail and leave the place in chaos and ruins.
What's even more appalling, if true, is the group's other key recommendation - which is that America should try to find answers to its problems through an international conference that would include Syria and Iran.
What do Syria and Iran want more than anything else in the world? To see an American defeat in Iraq. To see an America so crippled that they can work their will in the Middle East without fear of retribution. Syria could swallow up Lebanon whole once again. Iran could do whatever it chooses inside and outside its borders (develop and peddle nuclear weaponry, sponsor terrorism against Israeli and Western targets) with impunity. They're going to be a great help. But then, that's Baker for you. Give him a problem and he'll tell you your best hope of solving it can be found in sucking up to an Arab dictator.
This is an extremely dire situation. Half-measures will be disastrous, whatever form they take - and that's not true only of the Baker-Hamilton "graceful exit" disaster. Continuing as we're going would also constitute a half-measure with disastrous results as well. The president treated the Baker half-measures with the contempt they deserved. But he will deserve precisely the same level of contempt if he doesn't champion a plan for victory immediatel "
"December 1, 2006 -- YES, it's been quite a week for the 10 members of the Iraq Study Group, the committee formed last spring to offer recommendations on a path forward in Iraq.
They had a wonderfully invigorating leak session the other day with The New York Times, which was the first recipient of the group's key top-level save-America recommendation. The president could wait his turn. After all, this is the Iraq Study Group we're talking about here, buddy. Even the mighty Times was probably kept waiting for its leak, since the only person who could not be kept waiting was Annie Leibovitz, celebrity photographer nonpareil.The value of Annie Leibovitz's pictorial scoop might have been reduced somewhat when the president scornfully consigned the Iraq Study Group to the ash-heap of history yesterday with a single dismissive sentence during his press conference in Jordan: "This business about 'graceful exit' just simply has no realism to it whatsoever."
Baker, Hamilton and their crew of old Washington hands (and I mean old, like Metheuselah-level old) are recommending a "gradual pullback" of American troops but without a timetable. That basically translates into a nice, long, slow defeat - the "graceful exit" of which the president spoke so harshly. As one of the study group's members told the Times yesterday, "We had to move the national debate from 'whether to stay the course' to 'how do we start down the path out'." This is the consensus view of the Iraq Study Group, which is very proud that it reached consensus.
You perhaps note that I am writing with extreme disrespect toward the Iraq Study Group. That's because its report is a scandal and an embarrassment; it's flatly immoral to seek to make or guide policy in this fashion. Look, if its members believe the war is lost, they should say so. They should bite the bullet and advocate a pullout of American forces sooner rather than later. If its members could not actually achieve consensus on that point - if, in other words, some of its members still believe the war can be won while others believe there's no way to achieve victory - then it was simple vanity on the part of the Gang of 10 that led to the creation of a "consensus" document that split the difference. There's no way to split the difference. America and its allies are either going to win this war or we're going to lose. We will either conclude our military actions in Iraq with terrorists and insurgents dead or fled and an imposition of civil order in the country by its elected government, or we will turn tail and leave the place in chaos and ruins.
What's even more appalling, if true, is the group's other key recommendation - which is that America should try to find answers to its problems through an international conference that would include Syria and Iran.
What do Syria and Iran want more than anything else in the world? To see an American defeat in Iraq. To see an America so crippled that they can work their will in the Middle East without fear of retribution. Syria could swallow up Lebanon whole once again. Iran could do whatever it chooses inside and outside its borders (develop and peddle nuclear weaponry, sponsor terrorism against Israeli and Western targets) with impunity. They're going to be a great help. But then, that's Baker for you. Give him a problem and he'll tell you your best hope of solving it can be found in sucking up to an Arab dictator.
This is an extremely dire situation. Half-measures will be disastrous, whatever form they take - and that's not true only of the Baker-Hamilton "graceful exit" disaster. Continuing as we're going would also constitute a half-measure with disastrous results as well. The president treated the Baker half-measures with the contempt they deserved. But he will deserve precisely the same level of contempt if he doesn't champion a plan for victory immediatel "
Tolerance in the Most Tolerant of Nations Within the Most Tolerant and Loving and Peaceful of All Religions
Can't get more tolerant than that
Happy Thoughts From the Tony Snow of Al Qaeda
Suleiman Abu Gheith, al Qaeda spokesman
In a June 2002 manifesto (translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute), Abu Gheith wrote, "America is the head of heresy in our modern world, and it leads an infidel democratic regime that is based upon separation of religion and state and on ruling the people by the people via legislating laws that contradict the way of Allah and permit what Allah has prohibited. ... America is the reason for all oppression, injustice, licentiousness, or suppression that is the Muslims' lot. … We have the right to kill 4 million Americans -- 2 million of them children -- and to exile twice as many and wound and cripple hundreds of thousands. Furthermore, it is our right to fight them with chemical and biological weapons. … America is kept at bay by blood alone."
In a June 2002 manifesto (translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute), Abu Gheith wrote, "America is the head of heresy in our modern world, and it leads an infidel democratic regime that is based upon separation of religion and state and on ruling the people by the people via legislating laws that contradict the way of Allah and permit what Allah has prohibited. ... America is the reason for all oppression, injustice, licentiousness, or suppression that is the Muslims' lot. … We have the right to kill 4 million Americans -- 2 million of them children -- and to exile twice as many and wound and cripple hundreds of thousands. Furthermore, it is our right to fight them with chemical and biological weapons. … America is kept at bay by blood alone."
Happy Thoughts From the International Association of Muslim Scholars
Sheikh Yousef Al-Qaradhawi, head of the European Council for Fatwa and Research, president of the International Association of Muslim Scholars (IAMS), and spritual guide for the Muslim Brotherhood
"We are fighting them in the name of Islam, because Islam commands us to fight whoever plunders our land, and occupies our country. All the school of Islamic jurisprudence – the Sunni, the Shi'ite, the Ibadhiya, and all the ancient and modern schools of jurisprudence – agree that any invader who occupies even an inch of land of the Muslims must face resistance. The Muslims of that country must carry out the resistance, and the rest of the Muslims must help them. If the people of that country are incapable or reluctant, we must fight to defend the land of Islam, even if the local [Muslims] give it up."
"What we are fighting the Jews for. We are fighting them... Our religion commands us... We are fighting in the name of religion, in the name of Islam, which makes this Jihad an individual duty, in which the entire nation takes part, and whoever is killed in this [Jihad] is a martyr. This is why I ruled that martyrdom operations are permitted, because he commits martyrdom for the sake of Allah, and sacrifices his soul for the sake of Allah.”
"We do not disassociate Islam from the war. On the contrary, disassociating Islam from the war is the reason for our defeat. We are fighting in the name of Islam."
"They fight us with Judaism, so we should fight them with Islam. They fight us with the Torah, so we should fight them with the Koran. If they say 'the Temple,' we should say 'the Al-Aqsa Mosque.' If they say: 'We glorify the Sabbath,' we should say: 'We glorify the Friday.' This is how it should be. Religion must lead the war. This is the only way we can win."
"Everything will be on our side and against Jews on [Judgment Day]; at that time, even the stones and the trees will speak, with or without words, and say: 'Oh servant of Allah, oh Muslim, there's a Jew behind me, come and kill him.' They will point to the Jews. It says 'servant of Allah,' not 'servant of desires,' 'servant of women,' 'servant of the bottle,' 'servant of Marxism,' or 'servant of liberalism'... It said 'servant of Allah.'”
"There is no dialogue between us [Muslims and Jews] except by the sword and the rifle
"We are fighting them in the name of Islam, because Islam commands us to fight whoever plunders our land, and occupies our country. All the school of Islamic jurisprudence – the Sunni, the Shi'ite, the Ibadhiya, and all the ancient and modern schools of jurisprudence – agree that any invader who occupies even an inch of land of the Muslims must face resistance. The Muslims of that country must carry out the resistance, and the rest of the Muslims must help them. If the people of that country are incapable or reluctant, we must fight to defend the land of Islam, even if the local [Muslims] give it up."
"What we are fighting the Jews for. We are fighting them... Our religion commands us... We are fighting in the name of religion, in the name of Islam, which makes this Jihad an individual duty, in which the entire nation takes part, and whoever is killed in this [Jihad] is a martyr. This is why I ruled that martyrdom operations are permitted, because he commits martyrdom for the sake of Allah, and sacrifices his soul for the sake of Allah.”
"We do not disassociate Islam from the war. On the contrary, disassociating Islam from the war is the reason for our defeat. We are fighting in the name of Islam."
"They fight us with Judaism, so we should fight them with Islam. They fight us with the Torah, so we should fight them with the Koran. If they say 'the Temple,' we should say 'the Al-Aqsa Mosque.' If they say: 'We glorify the Sabbath,' we should say: 'We glorify the Friday.' This is how it should be. Religion must lead the war. This is the only way we can win."
"Everything will be on our side and against Jews on [Judgment Day]; at that time, even the stones and the trees will speak, with or without words, and say: 'Oh servant of Allah, oh Muslim, there's a Jew behind me, come and kill him.' They will point to the Jews. It says 'servant of Allah,' not 'servant of desires,' 'servant of women,' 'servant of the bottle,' 'servant of Marxism,' or 'servant of liberalism'... It said 'servant of Allah.'”
"There is no dialogue between us [Muslims and Jews] except by the sword and the rifle
Happy Thoughts From the Mufti of Egypt
Sheikh Dr. Ahmad Al Tayyeb, Egyptian Mufti
"The solution to the Israeli terror lies in a proliferation of Fidai [martyrdom] attacks that strike horror into the hearts of the enemies of Allah. The Islamic countries, peoples and rulers alike, must support these martyrdom attacks."
"The solution to the Israeli terror lies in a proliferation of Fidai [martyrdom] attacks that strike horror into the hearts of the enemies of Allah. The Islamic countries, peoples and rulers alike, must support these martyrdom attacks."
Happy Thoughts From the Harvard of Islam
The Al Azhar University recently reported in early 2002: "The great Imam of Al Azhar Sheikh Muhammad Sayyed Tantawi, demanded that the Palestinian people, of all factions, intensify the martyrdom operations [i.e. suicide attacks] against the Zionist enemy, and described the martyrdom operations as the highest form of Jihad operations. He says that the young people executing them have sold Allah the most precious thing of all. [Sheikh Tantawi] emphasized that every martyrdom operation against any Israeli, including children, women, and teenagers, is a legitimate act according to [Islamic] religious law, and an Islamic commandment, until the people of Palestine regain their land and cause the cruel Israeli aggression to retreat
Happy Thoughts From Nasty Nasrallah
Hassan Nasrallah, Leader of Hezbollah
"When the people of this tyrannical state [Israel] loses its faith in its mythical army, it is the beginning of the end of this entity – because Israel is a country that was established for the sake of an army, and the army in Israel does not belong to the state. Once they sense that this army has become helpless, weak, defeated, humiliated, and a failure, the question will definitely become one of life or death." (July 29, 2006)
"Anyone who reads the Koran and the holy writings of the monotheistic religions sees what they did to the prophets, and what acts of madness and slaughter the Jews carried out throughout history ... Anyone who reads these texts cannot think of co-existence with them, of peace with them, or about accepting their presence, not only in Palestine of 1948 but even in a small village in Palestine, because they are a cancer which is liable to spread again at any moment."
"[I]f they [the Jews] all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide.
"
"There is no solution to the conflict in this region except with the disappearance of Israel
"The Palestinian National Charter will live on as long as there is a knife in a Palestinian woman's hand with which she stabs an Israeli soldier or settler ... as long as there are suicide bombers in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv ... and as long as there is a child who throws a stone in the face of an Israeli soldier."
"Let the entire world hear me. Our hostility to the Great Satan [America] is absolute. ... Regardless of how the world has changed after 11 September, 'Death to America' will remain our reverberating and powerful slogan: 'Death to America.'"
"Martyrdom operations -- suicide bombings -- should be exported outside Palestine. I encourage Palestinians to take suicide bombings worldwide. Don't be shy about it." (December 6, 2002)
"If we searched the entire world for a person more cowardly, despicable, weak and feeble in psyche, mind, ideology and religion, we would not find anyone like the Jew. Notice, I do not say the Israeli."
"When the people of this tyrannical state [Israel] loses its faith in its mythical army, it is the beginning of the end of this entity – because Israel is a country that was established for the sake of an army, and the army in Israel does not belong to the state. Once they sense that this army has become helpless, weak, defeated, humiliated, and a failure, the question will definitely become one of life or death." (July 29, 2006)
"Anyone who reads the Koran and the holy writings of the monotheistic religions sees what they did to the prophets, and what acts of madness and slaughter the Jews carried out throughout history ... Anyone who reads these texts cannot think of co-existence with them, of peace with them, or about accepting their presence, not only in Palestine of 1948 but even in a small village in Palestine, because they are a cancer which is liable to spread again at any moment."
"[I]f they [the Jews] all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide.
"
"There is no solution to the conflict in this region except with the disappearance of Israel
"The Palestinian National Charter will live on as long as there is a knife in a Palestinian woman's hand with which she stabs an Israeli soldier or settler ... as long as there are suicide bombers in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv ... and as long as there is a child who throws a stone in the face of an Israeli soldier."
"Let the entire world hear me. Our hostility to the Great Satan [America] is absolute. ... Regardless of how the world has changed after 11 September, 'Death to America' will remain our reverberating and powerful slogan: 'Death to America.'"
"Martyrdom operations -- suicide bombings -- should be exported outside Palestine. I encourage Palestinians to take suicide bombings worldwide. Don't be shy about it." (December 6, 2002)
"If we searched the entire world for a person more cowardly, despicable, weak and feeble in psyche, mind, ideology and religion, we would not find anyone like the Jew. Notice, I do not say the Israeli."
Happy Thoughts from the Charter of Hamas
The Charter of Hamas (1988)
"The Slogan of the Hamas," which reads as follows: "Allah is its goal, the Prophet its model, the Qur'an its Constitution, Jihad its path, and death for the case of Allah its most sublime belief." The Charter says that jihad, or holy war, "becomes an individual duty binding on every Muslim man and woman; a woman must go out and fight the enemy even without her husband's authorization, and a slave without his masters' permission."
: "There is no other solution for the Palestinian problem other than jihad. All the initiatives and international conferences are a waste of time and a futile game." According to the Charter, those against whom jihad is to be directed are the Jews. "The Nazism of the Jews," it says, "does not skip women and children, it scares everyone. They make war against people's livelihood, plunder their moneys and threaten their honor." Hamas seeks to fulfill the Qur'anic scripture which reads: "The prophet, prayer and peace be upon him, said: The time will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him!"
The Hamas Charter further states: “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it”; “The day the enemies usurp part of Moslem land, Jihad becomes the individual duty of every Moslem. In the face of the Jews' usurpation, it is compulsory that the banner of Jihad be raised”; “Ranks will close, fighters joining other fighters, and masses everywhere in the Islamic world will come forward in response to the call of duty, loudly proclaiming: 'Hail to Jihad!'.
"The Slogan of the Hamas," which reads as follows: "Allah is its goal, the Prophet its model, the Qur'an its Constitution, Jihad its path, and death for the case of Allah its most sublime belief." The Charter says that jihad, or holy war, "becomes an individual duty binding on every Muslim man and woman; a woman must go out and fight the enemy even without her husband's authorization, and a slave without his masters' permission."
: "There is no other solution for the Palestinian problem other than jihad. All the initiatives and international conferences are a waste of time and a futile game." According to the Charter, those against whom jihad is to be directed are the Jews. "The Nazism of the Jews," it says, "does not skip women and children, it scares everyone. They make war against people's livelihood, plunder their moneys and threaten their honor." Hamas seeks to fulfill the Qur'anic scripture which reads: "The prophet, prayer and peace be upon him, said: The time will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him!"
The Hamas Charter further states: “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it”; “The day the enemies usurp part of Moslem land, Jihad becomes the individual duty of every Moslem. In the face of the Jews' usurpation, it is compulsory that the banner of Jihad be raised”; “Ranks will close, fighters joining other fighters, and masses everywhere in the Islamic world will come forward in response to the call of duty, loudly proclaiming: 'Hail to Jihad!'.
Happy Thoughts From Mad Jad
"As the Imam [Ayatollah Khomeini] said, Israel must be wiped off the map.”
“... the annihilation of the Zionist regime will come.”
“The creation of the occupying regime in [Israel] is a strong action by the ruling arrogant [American imperialist] world order against the world of Islam. There continues a historic war between the World Arrogance and the Islamic world, the roots of which go back hundreds of years ago. ... The World Arrogance turned the Zionist regime occupying Jerusalem into a staging-ground to dominate the Islamic world. This occupying country is in reality the staging-ground of the World Arrogance in the heart of the Islamic world. They have created a base, from where they can expand their rule over the entire Islamic world; it has no other purpose other than this.”
“The war that is presently going on in Palestine is the frontline of the war of destiny between the Islamic world and the World Arrogance, which will determine the outcome of hundreds of years [of war] i”
“Our dear Imam [Ayatollah Khomeini] ordered that the occupying regime in Jerusalem be wiped off the face of the earth. This was a very wise statement. The issue of Palestine is not one which we could compromise on. … This would mean the defeat of the Islamic world.”
"They [the Jews] have no boundaries, limits, or taboos when it comes to killing human beings. Who are they? Where did they come from? Are they human beings? 'They are like cattle, nay, more misguided.' A bunch of bloodthirsty barbarians. Next to them, all the criminals of the world seem righteous."
"Today, Hizbullah in Lebanon is the standard-bearer of the resistance of all the monotheistic peoples, of the seekers of justice, and of the free people. Hassan Nasrallah is shouting the loud cry of the vigilant human consciences. Today, Hizbullah stands tall as the representative of all the peoples, all the vigilant consciences, all the monotheistic people, all the seekers of justice, and all free people of the world, against the rule of hegemony. Until now, with the help of Allah, [Hizbullah] is winning, and, Allah willing, it will reach the ultimate victory in the near futur
“... the annihilation of the Zionist regime will come.”
“The creation of the occupying regime in [Israel] is a strong action by the ruling arrogant [American imperialist] world order against the world of Islam. There continues a historic war between the World Arrogance and the Islamic world, the roots of which go back hundreds of years ago. ... The World Arrogance turned the Zionist regime occupying Jerusalem into a staging-ground to dominate the Islamic world. This occupying country is in reality the staging-ground of the World Arrogance in the heart of the Islamic world. They have created a base, from where they can expand their rule over the entire Islamic world; it has no other purpose other than this.”
“The war that is presently going on in Palestine is the frontline of the war of destiny between the Islamic world and the World Arrogance, which will determine the outcome of hundreds of years [of war] i”
“Our dear Imam [Ayatollah Khomeini] ordered that the occupying regime in Jerusalem be wiped off the face of the earth. This was a very wise statement. The issue of Palestine is not one which we could compromise on. … This would mean the defeat of the Islamic world.”
"They [the Jews] have no boundaries, limits, or taboos when it comes to killing human beings. Who are they? Where did they come from? Are they human beings? 'They are like cattle, nay, more misguided.' A bunch of bloodthirsty barbarians. Next to them, all the criminals of the world seem righteous."
"Today, Hizbullah in Lebanon is the standard-bearer of the resistance of all the monotheistic peoples, of the seekers of justice, and of the free people. Hassan Nasrallah is shouting the loud cry of the vigilant human consciences. Today, Hizbullah stands tall as the representative of all the peoples, all the vigilant consciences, all the monotheistic people, all the seekers of justice, and all free people of the world, against the rule of hegemony. Until now, with the help of Allah, [Hizbullah] is winning, and, Allah willing, it will reach the ultimate victory in the near futur
Greeks ain't Halal
the establishment of an Islamic state." But an "Islamic government would never be established except by the bomb and rifle," the manual informs. "Islam does not coincide or make a truce with unbelief, but rather confronts it. The confrontation that Islam calls for with these godless and apostate regimes, does not know Socratic debates, Platonic ideals nor Aristotelian diplomacy. But it knows the dialogue of bullets, the ideals of assassination, bombing, and destruction, and the diplomacy of the cannon and machine-gun
Meanwhile, As Pepe Boogeys, Spain has its Back to the Future
The article is in the comment's section. From an article by Aaron Hanscomb
Glowing in the dark (continued)
"We are confirming that one further person who was in direct contact with Mr Litvinenko has been found to have a significant quantity of polonium 210 in their body."
Hey, JJ, does this mean that persons ingesting russkie polsky have their bodies duplicated? Or else, their ids doubled? You're the expert at PC talk (and Putin cuddling), so inquiring minds want to know.
Hey, JJ, does this mean that persons ingesting russkie polsky have their bodies duplicated? Or else, their ids doubled? You're the expert at PC talk (and Putin cuddling), so inquiring minds want to know.
Bellum omnium contra omnes
What's in a name? [Pic doesn't quite match, but everything is related to everything else on this blog, so you'll find the connection, I'm sure of that. --AI]
Thursday, November 30, 2006
A Well-Oiled World is Bunda-Bad
[Just for the heck of it, yet another Britney/Paris pic, to warm your lonely souls. --AI]
Brooks on the GOP
Waiting to Be Wooed
By DAVID BROOKS
Published: November 30, 2006
I’ve never been a swing voter before. For most of my adult life I’ve felt the Republicans tended to have the best approaches to expand economic opportunity, meet foreign threats and restore a culture of personal responsibility. But over the past few years I’ve grown estranged from many Republicans, especially the ones leading the House. I’m one of those suburbanites who thought the G.O.P. deserved to lose the last election, and now I find myself floating out there in independent-land, not a Democrat, just looking for something new.
It’s like being the belle of the ball, because the Republicans really need to woo back people like me. I hope they won’t mind if I offer a little advice on how to do it.
First, don’t listen to your consultants. Over the next few months, pollsters are going to pick out the key demographic groups (left-handed Catholic orthopedists) and offer advice on how to kiss up to those people. Majorities are never built that way. You end up proposing inconsequential micropolicies and selling your soul.
Don’t focus on groups, focus on problems. If you have persuasive proposals to address big problems, the majority coalition will build itself.
Second, be policy-centric, not philosophy-centric. American conservatism grew up out of power and has always placed great emphasis on doctrine. Today, in the wake of this month’s defeat, Republicans are firing up the old debate among social conservatives, free-market conservatives and others about the proper role of the state. This stale, abstract debate will never lead anywhere and only inhibits creative thinking.
The Republican weakness is not a lack of grand principles, it’s a lack of concrete policies commensurate with the size of 21st-century problems. If they would shelve the doctrinal debate for a second, Republicans — while not doing violence to their belief in the market, traditional values or anything else — could find plenty of policy ideas to deal with China and India, the entitlement crisis and so on.
Third, create a Republican Leadership Council. In the realm of ideas, Democrats own the center. Moderate Democrats have the Democratic Leadership Council, the Third Way and various cells within the Brookings Institution, such as the Hamilton Project. Republican moderates are intellectual weaklings. They have no independent identity, so it’s no wonder centrist voters prefer Democrats on one domestic issue after another.
Fourth, support stem cell research. This has become a symbolic issue denoting fundamental attitudes about science and progress. Moderates can understand why somebody is anti-abortion. But opposing stem cell work seems to close off research that could alleviate human suffering for the sake of a theoretical abstraction.
Fifth, support free trade, while responding to the downside of globalization. When the industrial age kicked in, many European nations built an elaborate welfare state, but didn’t aggressively expand educational opportunity. Americans didn’t build as big a welfare system, but, as the blogger Reihan Salam pointed out recently, we spent a lot on schools to foster social mobility.
The American way is to help people compete, not shield them from competition. Today that means nurturing stable families in which children can develop the social and cultural capital they need to thrive. (A significant expansion of the child tax credit would ease the burden on young parents.) It means publicly funded, though not necessarily publicly run, preschool programs in which children from disorganized homes can learn how to learn. It means radical school reform: performance pay for teachers, an end to the stupid certification rules, urban boarding schools where educators can set up local cultures of achievement, locally run neighborhood child centers to service an array of health and day-care needs.
Sixth, spread assets. Every citizen, from birth, should have an I.R.A.-type savings account. The tax code should encourage personal and employer contributions. These accounts would enhance savings and encourage an investor mentality, and once Americans became comfortable with them, they could be used as tools to reform Social Security and health care funding.
Seventh, raise taxes on carbon emissions and use the revenue to make the tax cuts on capital gains and dividends permanent. This would spur energy innovation and encourage investment more generally.
Over the past few years, the G.O.P. has become like a company with a great mission statement, but no domestic policy products to sell. Now’s the time to get granular. And the thing to remember is, we disaffected voters are easy. We want to go home with you if you’ll give us a reason.
By DAVID BROOKS
Published: November 30, 2006
I’ve never been a swing voter before. For most of my adult life I’ve felt the Republicans tended to have the best approaches to expand economic opportunity, meet foreign threats and restore a culture of personal responsibility. But over the past few years I’ve grown estranged from many Republicans, especially the ones leading the House. I’m one of those suburbanites who thought the G.O.P. deserved to lose the last election, and now I find myself floating out there in independent-land, not a Democrat, just looking for something new.
It’s like being the belle of the ball, because the Republicans really need to woo back people like me. I hope they won’t mind if I offer a little advice on how to do it.
First, don’t listen to your consultants. Over the next few months, pollsters are going to pick out the key demographic groups (left-handed Catholic orthopedists) and offer advice on how to kiss up to those people. Majorities are never built that way. You end up proposing inconsequential micropolicies and selling your soul.
Don’t focus on groups, focus on problems. If you have persuasive proposals to address big problems, the majority coalition will build itself.
Second, be policy-centric, not philosophy-centric. American conservatism grew up out of power and has always placed great emphasis on doctrine. Today, in the wake of this month’s defeat, Republicans are firing up the old debate among social conservatives, free-market conservatives and others about the proper role of the state. This stale, abstract debate will never lead anywhere and only inhibits creative thinking.
The Republican weakness is not a lack of grand principles, it’s a lack of concrete policies commensurate with the size of 21st-century problems. If they would shelve the doctrinal debate for a second, Republicans — while not doing violence to their belief in the market, traditional values or anything else — could find plenty of policy ideas to deal with China and India, the entitlement crisis and so on.
Third, create a Republican Leadership Council. In the realm of ideas, Democrats own the center. Moderate Democrats have the Democratic Leadership Council, the Third Way and various cells within the Brookings Institution, such as the Hamilton Project. Republican moderates are intellectual weaklings. They have no independent identity, so it’s no wonder centrist voters prefer Democrats on one domestic issue after another.
Fourth, support stem cell research. This has become a symbolic issue denoting fundamental attitudes about science and progress. Moderates can understand why somebody is anti-abortion. But opposing stem cell work seems to close off research that could alleviate human suffering for the sake of a theoretical abstraction.
Fifth, support free trade, while responding to the downside of globalization. When the industrial age kicked in, many European nations built an elaborate welfare state, but didn’t aggressively expand educational opportunity. Americans didn’t build as big a welfare system, but, as the blogger Reihan Salam pointed out recently, we spent a lot on schools to foster social mobility.
The American way is to help people compete, not shield them from competition. Today that means nurturing stable families in which children can develop the social and cultural capital they need to thrive. (A significant expansion of the child tax credit would ease the burden on young parents.) It means publicly funded, though not necessarily publicly run, preschool programs in which children from disorganized homes can learn how to learn. It means radical school reform: performance pay for teachers, an end to the stupid certification rules, urban boarding schools where educators can set up local cultures of achievement, locally run neighborhood child centers to service an array of health and day-care needs.
Sixth, spread assets. Every citizen, from birth, should have an I.R.A.-type savings account. The tax code should encourage personal and employer contributions. These accounts would enhance savings and encourage an investor mentality, and once Americans became comfortable with them, they could be used as tools to reform Social Security and health care funding.
Seventh, raise taxes on carbon emissions and use the revenue to make the tax cuts on capital gains and dividends permanent. This would spur energy innovation and encourage investment more generally.
Over the past few years, the G.O.P. has become like a company with a great mission statement, but no domestic policy products to sell. Now’s the time to get granular. And the thing to remember is, we disaffected voters are easy. We want to go home with you if you’ll give us a reason.
Point and Counterpoint in the Corner
[Sounds like McCarthy is as fed up with the Bush administration as I am]
Posted at 7:08 PM
Thought experiment [Rich LOWRY]
Someone was just making a good point to me. What would Gen. Casey's reaction be if he had a commander who was losing a battle, so he decided to add a tiny increment to his force. Then he kept on losing, so added another tiny increment. And so on. He would probably relieve him. But this is exactly what Gen. Casey himself is doing in the Battle for Baghdad
Re: Thought Experiment [Andy McCARTHY]
Rich, what if Gen. Casey was taking his orders from civilian leadership that denied there was a war going on between Israel
and Hezbollah this summer when there was a raging war going on between Israel and Hezbollah?
What if he knew that our enemies were being directed and abetted by Iran – which was also steering Hezbollah during the aforementioned not-a-war against Israel – but the said civilian leadership was not letting him do anything about that?
What if he knew that Iran was supplying munitions and killing his troops in Iraq, but his civilian leadership – while telling the country that rogue nations had a choice either to be “with us or with the terrorists” – was actually offering Iran economic assistance, aeronautics assistance, telecommunications assistance, agricultural assistance, and all manner or assistance under the sun if Iran would only please, please pretend to stop building nukes?
What if Iran not only laughed off that offer, but continued to help kill Gen. Casey’s troops in Iraq while continuing to harbor al Qaeda leaders (including Osama bin Laden’s sons)?
What if while all that was going on, Iran promised to obliterate Israel and to conduct blistering attacks in and against the United States, and the civilian leadership still evinced no interest in doing anything meaningful against Iran?
How much should we then blame Gen. Casey for the Battle of Baghdad when his civilian leadership has no stomach for dealing with the enemy behind the Battle of Baghdad?
Posted at 7:08 PM
Thought experiment [Rich LOWRY]
Someone was just making a good point to me. What would Gen. Casey's reaction be if he had a commander who was losing a battle, so he decided to add a tiny increment to his force. Then he kept on losing, so added another tiny increment. And so on. He would probably relieve him. But this is exactly what Gen. Casey himself is doing in the Battle for Baghdad
Re: Thought Experiment [Andy McCARTHY]
Rich, what if Gen. Casey was taking his orders from civilian leadership that denied there was a war going on between Israel
and Hezbollah this summer when there was a raging war going on between Israel and Hezbollah?
What if he knew that our enemies were being directed and abetted by Iran – which was also steering Hezbollah during the aforementioned not-a-war against Israel – but the said civilian leadership was not letting him do anything about that?
What if he knew that Iran was supplying munitions and killing his troops in Iraq, but his civilian leadership – while telling the country that rogue nations had a choice either to be “with us or with the terrorists” – was actually offering Iran economic assistance, aeronautics assistance, telecommunications assistance, agricultural assistance, and all manner or assistance under the sun if Iran would only please, please pretend to stop building nukes?
What if Iran not only laughed off that offer, but continued to help kill Gen. Casey’s troops in Iraq while continuing to harbor al Qaeda leaders (including Osama bin Laden’s sons)?
What if while all that was going on, Iran promised to obliterate Israel and to conduct blistering attacks in and against the United States, and the civilian leadership still evinced no interest in doing anything meaningful against Iran?
How much should we then blame Gen. Casey for the Battle of Baghdad when his civilian leadership has no stomach for dealing with the enemy behind the Battle of Baghdad?
In the World of Tomorrow, Hawking is Tottenkopf?
He looks about as alive, eh?
I suppose that leaves Sky Captain JJ to revv up his Coanda jet and save us all.
I suppose that leaves Sky Captain JJ to revv up his Coanda jet and save us all.
Aquinas or Augustine He Ain't
To Paraphrase: Christian Theologian: "I sucky, I fucky, I make Love to you Long Time"
Muslim Theologian: " Your ass is grass "
Muslim Theologian: " Your ass is grass "
Mad Jad's Letter O' Love to the Ricains-Redux
So, is Mad Jad saying that we should remember "Each man kills the one he Loves. Some do it with a Kiss, the brave with a Sword." ? Maybe Pepe is right, maybe Mad Jad is just a free spirited Ricain, all Wilde at heart.
Germans Undone By the Archimedean Point
But then, with a midfield of Hegel and Marx, they were dialectically doomed from the Start.....Now, that Socrates, he knows how to use his noggin for Good.
Mad Jad's Love Letter to the PepeRicains--The Smash Version
In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
O, Almighty God, bestow upon humanity the perfect human being promised to all by You, and make us among his followers.
Noble Americans,
We have so much in common. Both our nations are God-fearing, truth-loving and justice-seeking, and both seek dignity, respect and perfection.
Both greatly value and readily embrace the promotion of human ideals such as compassion, empathy, respect for the rights of human beings, securing justice and equity, and defending the innocent and the weak against oppressors and bullies.
We all deplore injustice, the trampling of peoples' rights and the intimidation and humiliation of human beings.
So why can't we acknowledge these universal values, and come together against our common enemy, the filthy Jews?
God Bless us all,
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
President of the Islamic Republic of Iran
29 November 2006
O, Almighty God, bestow upon humanity the perfect human being promised to all by You, and make us among his followers.
Noble Americans,
We have so much in common. Both our nations are God-fearing, truth-loving and justice-seeking, and both seek dignity, respect and perfection.
Both greatly value and readily embrace the promotion of human ideals such as compassion, empathy, respect for the rights of human beings, securing justice and equity, and defending the innocent and the weak against oppressors and bullies.
We all deplore injustice, the trampling of peoples' rights and the intimidation and humiliation of human beings.
So why can't we acknowledge these universal values, and come together against our common enemy, the filthy Jews?
God Bless us all,
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
President of the Islamic Republic of Iran
29 November 2006
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
That's Baker, Alright
According to the New York Sun: "An expert adviser to the Baker-Hamilton commission expects the 10-person panel to recommend that the Bush administration pressure Israel to make concessions in a gambit to entice Syria and Iran to a regional conference on Iraq. ..."
Let's see if we can parse his deepthinkery : " "Neocons" are the reason we have problems with Islam Militant. After all, Prince Bandar and I get along just fabulous. So if we take care of the "Neocons" we have a Final Solution".
Brilliant!
Let's see if we can parse his deepthinkery : " "Neocons" are the reason we have problems with Islam Militant. After all, Prince Bandar and I get along just fabulous. So if we take care of the "Neocons" we have a Final Solution".
Brilliant!
The plot thickens
Naahhh, will say JJ -- nothing there, just a bunch of coincidences. And/or a malefic plot by counterrevolutionaries, kapitalist lackeys, and assorted laughing hyenas.
THE SCORES ARE IN: Practice Final, Western Civ., Intro to Medieval Europe
Here's 15 questions pulled from a freshmen-level 100-question multiple guess test. I always hated multiple choice, but logistically it's the only way to pump undergrads through their Western Civ. requirement. The test is inside, and I'll wait until everyone has had at least a day to give it a go [Pepe beat everyone to the punch; AA has just completed it; AI opted out; where's JJ...]:
Glowing in the dark
Hey, JJ -- you like flying BA through London, dontcha? Next time you do that, don't worry, your buddy Putin has you covered. You won't need to buy lightbulbs, ever.
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Yet another study, CXXXIV
Overall, women favoured "someone who cares about you" as their top quality in a partner, while men rated most highly that that special someone "enjoys sex".
Doom & gloom is not what is was
Of course, it was easier to be elegantly gloomy about the threat posed by the Red Army and a fashionable ideology than about the threat posed by guys in caves animated by a Dark Ages dogma.
Nick Christof
The Cowards Turned Out to Be Right
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: November 28, 2006
For several years, the White House and its Dobermans helpfully pointed out the real enemy in Iraq: those lazy, wimpish foreign correspondents who were so foolish and unpatriotic that they reported that we faced grave difficulties in Iraq.
Skip to next paragraph
To Paul Wolfowitz, the essential problem was that journalists were cowards. “Part of our problem is a lot of the press are afraid to travel very much, so they sit in Baghdad and they publish rumors,” Mr. Wolfowitz said in 2004. He later added, “The story isn’t being described accurately.”
Don Rumsfeld agreed but suggested that the problem was treason: “Interestingly, all of the exaggerations seem to be on one side. It isn’t as though there simply have been a series of random errors on both sides of issues. On the contrary, the steady stream of errors all seem to be of a nature to inflame the situation and to give heart to the terrorists and to discourage those who hope for success in Iraq.”
As for Dick Cheney, he saw the flaw in journalists as indolence. “The press is, with all due respect — there are exceptions — oftentimes lazy, often simply reports what someone else in the press says without doing their homework.”
Mr. Cheney and the others might have better spent their time reading the coverage of Iraq rather than insulting it, because in retrospect those brave reporters based in Baghdad got the downward spiral right.
“Many correspondents feel a sense of vindication that the administration finally accepts what we were screaming two years ago,” notes Farnaz Fassihi, who provided excellent Iraq coverage for The Wall Street Journal. Now Ms. Fassihi wonders how long it will take for the administration to acknowledge the reality of 2006 that Iraq correspondents are writing about: the incipient civil war.
Dexter Filkins, who covered Iraq brilliantly for this newspaper until his departure this summer to take up a fellowship at Harvard, says he was constantly accused of reporting only the bad news, of being unpatriotic, and of getting Americans killed.
“I don’t think it ever affected our reporting,” he said. “But I did find it demoralizing, the idea that the truth — the reality on the ground that we were seeing every day — did not matter, that these overfed people sitting in TV studios and in their living rooms could just turn up the volume on what they wanted to be happening in Iraq and that that could overwhelm the reality.”
Mr. Filkins added: “I have almost been killed in Iraq 20 or 30 times — really almost killed. “I’ve lost count. Do these people really believe that we were all risking our lives for some political agenda?”
Richard Engel of NBC says he was taken aback when pundits accused him of standing on a balcony in the Green Zone and simply feeding the world bad news. “Like most journalists in Iraq, I have never lived in the Green Zone,” he notes, adding: “To imply from afar we were just lazy was missing the point, and also dangerous. I know several reporters who were so incensed by similar criticism, they took extra risks.”
While it’s the right that led those toxic attacks, the left is also vulnerable to letting ideology trump empiricism. Mr. Filkins notes that while he used to get nasty letters and e-mail primarily from conservatives, much of the fire more recently has come from liberals accusing him of covering up atrocities — all of it from people whose ideological certitude is proportional to their distance from Baghdad.
As we try to extricate ourselves from Iraq, a basic lesson for the administration is that it should deal with bad news in ways more creative than clobbering the messenger. From the beginning of the war, the Pentagon has had an incredibly sophisticated news operation (now including its own news channel, carried on some cable networks), but it has often seemed more concerned with disseminating propaganda than with gathering facts.
Take the Defense Department’s Early Bird news clipping service, which traditionally had been a dispassionate collection of outside articles to keep senior military officers informed. Lately it has been leading with in-house spin. The Early Bird of Nov. 20, for example, began with three separate unpublished letters to the editor by Pentagon officials before getting to the news from around the world.
So how about if the administration devotes itself less to managing the news and more to trying to manage Iraq?
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: November 28, 2006
For several years, the White House and its Dobermans helpfully pointed out the real enemy in Iraq: those lazy, wimpish foreign correspondents who were so foolish and unpatriotic that they reported that we faced grave difficulties in Iraq.
Skip to next paragraph
To Paul Wolfowitz, the essential problem was that journalists were cowards. “Part of our problem is a lot of the press are afraid to travel very much, so they sit in Baghdad and they publish rumors,” Mr. Wolfowitz said in 2004. He later added, “The story isn’t being described accurately.”
Don Rumsfeld agreed but suggested that the problem was treason: “Interestingly, all of the exaggerations seem to be on one side. It isn’t as though there simply have been a series of random errors on both sides of issues. On the contrary, the steady stream of errors all seem to be of a nature to inflame the situation and to give heart to the terrorists and to discourage those who hope for success in Iraq.”
As for Dick Cheney, he saw the flaw in journalists as indolence. “The press is, with all due respect — there are exceptions — oftentimes lazy, often simply reports what someone else in the press says without doing their homework.”
Mr. Cheney and the others might have better spent their time reading the coverage of Iraq rather than insulting it, because in retrospect those brave reporters based in Baghdad got the downward spiral right.
“Many correspondents feel a sense of vindication that the administration finally accepts what we were screaming two years ago,” notes Farnaz Fassihi, who provided excellent Iraq coverage for The Wall Street Journal. Now Ms. Fassihi wonders how long it will take for the administration to acknowledge the reality of 2006 that Iraq correspondents are writing about: the incipient civil war.
Dexter Filkins, who covered Iraq brilliantly for this newspaper until his departure this summer to take up a fellowship at Harvard, says he was constantly accused of reporting only the bad news, of being unpatriotic, and of getting Americans killed.
“I don’t think it ever affected our reporting,” he said. “But I did find it demoralizing, the idea that the truth — the reality on the ground that we were seeing every day — did not matter, that these overfed people sitting in TV studios and in their living rooms could just turn up the volume on what they wanted to be happening in Iraq and that that could overwhelm the reality.”
Mr. Filkins added: “I have almost been killed in Iraq 20 or 30 times — really almost killed. “I’ve lost count. Do these people really believe that we were all risking our lives for some political agenda?”
Richard Engel of NBC says he was taken aback when pundits accused him of standing on a balcony in the Green Zone and simply feeding the world bad news. “Like most journalists in Iraq, I have never lived in the Green Zone,” he notes, adding: “To imply from afar we were just lazy was missing the point, and also dangerous. I know several reporters who were so incensed by similar criticism, they took extra risks.”
While it’s the right that led those toxic attacks, the left is also vulnerable to letting ideology trump empiricism. Mr. Filkins notes that while he used to get nasty letters and e-mail primarily from conservatives, much of the fire more recently has come from liberals accusing him of covering up atrocities — all of it from people whose ideological certitude is proportional to their distance from Baghdad.
As we try to extricate ourselves from Iraq, a basic lesson for the administration is that it should deal with bad news in ways more creative than clobbering the messenger. From the beginning of the war, the Pentagon has had an incredibly sophisticated news operation (now including its own news channel, carried on some cable networks), but it has often seemed more concerned with disseminating propaganda than with gathering facts.
Take the Defense Department’s Early Bird news clipping service, which traditionally had been a dispassionate collection of outside articles to keep senior military officers informed. Lately it has been leading with in-house spin. The Early Bird of Nov. 20, for example, began with three separate unpublished letters to the editor by Pentagon officials before getting to the news from around the world.
So how about if the administration devotes itself less to managing the news and more to trying to manage Iraq?
Islamic scorched earth policy; upcoming world tour?
...it hardly matters whether you burn the right village or the wrong one. The same deterrent point is made in either case.
[okay, got the link up now.]
[okay, got the link up now.]
today I received this in the e-mail...
...from a friend and a doctor of history (no worries: we're buddies and he's at a different institution). I responded with what's below around noon today, and haven't heard a word back from him or anyone else on the list-serve (about 23 other friends and professional acquaintences who lean to the left to varying degrees). Keep in mind that I was keeping in mind who my audience was when writing this response. And now, my original e-mail (names altered to protect the guilty):
Dr. "X,"
Good cartoon, although it reminds of that old Ulrich B. Philips argument, that the slaves in the South were never able to take care of themselves, and thus the Plantations and Plantation owners were a necessary component. Of course, Ulrich was wrong, but still a product of his racist society (supported by "Objective Science"). Anyhow, as a comparative study of cultural norms, we're a lot more fragile these days than they were back then -- 650,000 lives to crush that "peculiar" institution, and
another 100 years to bring actual Civil Rights to the south.
How long will it take to do the same in Mesopotamia and in Islamic culture and society? The war has been mishandled, but in talking with returned soldiers (both my bro-in-law who served in Baghdad, and an Army Ranger who served two tours in Afghanistan), they know that the problems in bringing a Democratic Republic to the mid-East is so complex due to cultural differences from the bottom-up, as well as from the top-down.
We're living in too great an age of skepticism and sarcasm these days to continue what was started -- perhaps that's
because we're so fat and saucy in America as compared with the rest of the world (further symbolized by our Thanksgiving tables this past weekend).
If we take the 18th-century Enlightenment as a model, skeptics and writers of the upper-middle class will need to begin challenging the religious powers with such a force that even if they are attacked and killed by suicide Jihadists, the remainder will carry on. How's that for a moment of idealism? The graduate students of the 1950s and '60s helped bring Civil Rights to the south, but I don't see the numbers or idealism in departments today.
Perhaps Mesopotamia will someday produce their own Voltaires and Humes and Smiths and Gibbons en mass and thus check the power of their religious leaders and zealots. Like the Enlightenment, however, it'll have to come from within their own society, and from all strata of society (perhaps even the "backwaters," like it did in 18th century Scotland).
We're looking inward to realize and fix the problems and contradictions of America and the Western world, but are they looking inward too?
It's all very complex, and very complicated. I better get back to my studies.
~"mft"
Slouchers Contra Rambackers
Just the very nature of their respective positions should make it clear why Slouchers Rule
The Swan Song of the West
A Simple Sign of the Times
From Spencer:
"I hate the Queen, I hate this country"
The nature of the incident is surprising. The utter contempt for Queen and country, and the sense of entitlement ("I am a Muslim, I am fasting, I needed to eat.") is not. "Muslim jailed for killing British queen's swan to break Ramadan fast," from AFP:
LONDON -- A Muslim man who was so hungry while fasting during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan that he killed a swan to eat was jailed for two months at a court in Britain Wednesday.
Shamsu Miah, 52, killed the mute swan at a boating pond in the north Welsh seaside resort of Llandudno September 25 - only the second day of fasting in Britain.
All mute swans in Britain belong to the sovereign, Queen Elizabeth II, an historical quirk dating from the twelfth century.
When challenged by police, Miah said: "I am a Muslim, I am fasting, I needed to eat."
Llandudno Magistrates Court heard that Miah had blood on his shirt and white feathers in his beard.
Prosecutor Jim Neary said: "When interviewed he said, 'I was hungry, I had to eat the swan so I killed it, I stabbed it. I did nothing wrong, it was just a bird, I needed to eat'."
"The officers told him the swan was the property of the queen and he replied, 'I hate the queen, I hate this country'."
Judge Andrew Shaw told Miah: "You killed a swan at night. It was a cruel and reprehensible act.
"I don't know how it died; there seems to be some speculation that you bit it but I accept you killed it with a knife.
"It is a taboo act and the only sentence I can pass is one of imprisonment."
Miah had pleaded guilty to intentionally killing a wild bird and possessing a bladed article.
He was released from custody having already served his two-month sentence while on remand.
From Spencer:
"I hate the Queen, I hate this country"
The nature of the incident is surprising. The utter contempt for Queen and country, and the sense of entitlement ("I am a Muslim, I am fasting, I needed to eat.") is not. "Muslim jailed for killing British queen's swan to break Ramadan fast," from AFP:
LONDON -- A Muslim man who was so hungry while fasting during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan that he killed a swan to eat was jailed for two months at a court in Britain Wednesday.
Shamsu Miah, 52, killed the mute swan at a boating pond in the north Welsh seaside resort of Llandudno September 25 - only the second day of fasting in Britain.
All mute swans in Britain belong to the sovereign, Queen Elizabeth II, an historical quirk dating from the twelfth century.
When challenged by police, Miah said: "I am a Muslim, I am fasting, I needed to eat."
Llandudno Magistrates Court heard that Miah had blood on his shirt and white feathers in his beard.
Prosecutor Jim Neary said: "When interviewed he said, 'I was hungry, I had to eat the swan so I killed it, I stabbed it. I did nothing wrong, it was just a bird, I needed to eat'."
"The officers told him the swan was the property of the queen and he replied, 'I hate the queen, I hate this country'."
Judge Andrew Shaw told Miah: "You killed a swan at night. It was a cruel and reprehensible act.
"I don't know how it died; there seems to be some speculation that you bit it but I accept you killed it with a knife.
"It is a taboo act and the only sentence I can pass is one of imprisonment."
Miah had pleaded guilty to intentionally killing a wild bird and possessing a bladed article.
He was released from custody having already served his two-month sentence while on remand.
A Little List, 2006
Shameful how the French Oppressors keep the Oppressed confined to these separate enclaves. But the Intifada is Righteous, and perhaps in two years or so this little list will be more robust?
The Body That Launched a Thousand Jaguars?
Now I know where the seven lords a leapin' are headed off to
La France: A Unifier, Not a Divider
Unlike those stinking Potomac Ricains, Versaille knows how to bring a people together
The Raiders Struck, Seeking Swinegeld, A Town Held Hogtage
At least the coppers were the ones who had the unalloyed joy of being able to shout out: 'Stop, Pigs!"
Lifestyles of the Mathematical and Famous
Swank and Learning come together in this nifty Montana fashion statement [Of course, that's Hillary Swank -JJ]
Yet another study
Reveals profound truths:
the simple act of talking triggers a flood of brain chemicals which give women a rush similar to that felt by heroin addicts when they get a high.
Monday, November 27, 2006
it doesn't matter as much when you're in a red state
Christmas over "Holiday," although both have origins in Christian holiness.
Sunday, November 26, 2006
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