[Just for the heck of it, yet another Britney/Paris pic, to warm your lonely souls. --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
Lei chi e'? Bin Laden?
«Ma chi è, Bin Laden?»: così Berlusconi, secondo quanto riferito dal portavoce Paolo Bonaiuti, ha apostrofato scherzosamente il medico che l'ha socccorso dopo il suo malore a Montecatini terme (Pistoia). Si tratta di Giuseppe Papaccioli, cardiologo che, insieme a Umberto Scapagnini, è stato il primo a soccorrere l'ex premier. Ed in effetti una certa somiglianza con lo "sceicco del terrore" non manca. Papaccioli è anche sindaco di Caivano, in provincia di Napoli, oltre che attivo militante di Forza Italia (foto Martucci - Ansa)
Ralph Peters on meth
Far from enjoying the prospect of taking over Europe by having babies, Europe's Muslims are living on borrowed time. [..] I have no difficulty imagining a scenario in which U.S. Navy ships are at anchor and U.S. Marines have gone ashore at Brest, Bremerhaven or Bari to guarantee the safe evacuation of Europe's Muslims.
Gee, looks like that Russkie Pollonium got to Ralph's brain.
Gee, looks like that Russkie Pollonium got to Ralph's brain.
Selling out the B2
But, will say JJ, who cares? The Chinese don't know how to build Coanda jets, anyhow, so what's the big deal? Right.
Russian polonaise
Thus spakeJJ, chanelling Putin:
so a particle smaller than a dust mote could be fatal. probably nonsense. We need to check this out.
You're quoting a wikipedia source on Litvinenko as authoritative on polonium? Hilarious!
OK, OK, maybe you will believe Pravda on the Hudson, now?
so a particle smaller than a dust mote could be fatal. probably nonsense. We need to check this out.
You're quoting a wikipedia source on Litvinenko as authoritative on polonium? Hilarious!
OK, OK, maybe you will believe Pravda on the Hudson, now?
Commie Afterlife?
"Bientôt Fidel Castro entamera un second mandat. Le premier a duré 40 ans et bientôt débutera le second", a annoncé Hugo Chavez qui cherchera le 3 décembre à se faire réélire à la tête du Venezuela.
Saturday, November 25, 2006
Native Warrior gives the ultimate
Should we ever take the Jihadists who did this alive, well, then we on the upper Missouri have some scalps to take. I wish Godiron's family well — as well as can be wished. A close friend of mine knows him. I've done some archaeological survey north Mandaree, N.D., too (the town name is a synthesis of Mandan and Arikara). Nathan Goodiron is with his Great Spirit now, and we're still brooding on earth.
Learning to eat soup with a knife
Wherein Michael Ledeen recalls long-forgotten lessons from the War in Algeria, and muses on how they may apply to the present. Anything to it?
Peace with honor
The only reason these unrealistic realist solutions are being taken seriously is because the Democratic election victory has been widely being interpreted as the American public's acceptance of defeat in Iraq. But the Democrats, and those who voted for them, didn't really want to admit, openly, that they were for defeat. They wanted to come up with a way to paper over an American retreat to make it look like an orderly "redeployment." And if you're looking for a ruse like that, well, the man with the most experience is uber-"realist" Henry Kissinger.
Friday, November 24, 2006
This Is Nonsense
The Frenchies would have attacked an Italian or Spaniard or Englishman under similar circumstances and no one would call it anti-Italian, anti-Spaniard, or anti-British violence. (The Brit would have fucked them up, though.) Bullshit sensationalist press.
An update on Tor
About a year ago, JJ and I had some back-and-forth on these Russian missiles to be delivered to Iran (included in comments section). So whose analysis weathers better the test of time?
Thursday, November 23, 2006
Whatever.
[JJ: Did I choose the right pic? Connections between text and pic are getting more and more tenuous. Oh well. --AI]
New Sidebar Members
Now Maybe
you see the significance of the illustration? What do you think, AA? To me, this is an unmitigated catastrophe.
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Holding Fallujah
Can they do it? Not if they apply the JJ doctrine, methinks.
"Fallujah has an iconic value to the Marine Corps. Fallujah falling [to insurgents] would be like Iwo Jima falling to the Japanese again after World War II - it would be intolerable."
[AI, I have added some random picture taken on Iwo Jima a while back. Seems AA is unaware of the meaning of the word iconic. Perhaps an example will help. -JJ]
The Thumper-Cutter Reunion
So, as Islam more openly embraces the Creationist stance, will we see the same blasts of Menckenish scorn, from Hollywood, MSM, et al, for the nutters of the creed? Consistency of stated thought would say "of course we will", but consistency of their recent behavior would say "like hell they'll take the bullet for that one".
Now, I sympathize with Menckenites on this issue, but I don't sympathize with Menckenites who only dare to be Mencken when Menckonizing morons meek and mild. Let's see how they handle morons mean and merciless.
Now, I sympathize with Menckenites on this issue, but I don't sympathize with Menckenites who only dare to be Mencken when Menckonizing morons meek and mild. Let's see how they handle morons mean and merciless.
Just don't call it surrender. Really.
"realism" has come to be a kind of code word for surrendering American interests and American allies, as well as American principles, in the Middle East. [I added a pic, even though the connection to the topic was tenuous, at best.]
Not with a bang but a whimper
And the bonga drums of the Lefty Euros, delighted at the prospect.
Church attendance in most European countries is less than five percent. Less than half of the British public can name any of the four New Testament Gospels. Almost a third of all Dutch no longer know why we have Christmas day. There is a new dark continent -- the land that used to be known as Christian Europe. Today, many of its cathedrals are simply large museum pieces. They are artifacts of an ancient religion, and a dead faith.
Church attendance in most European countries is less than five percent. Less than half of the British public can name any of the four New Testament Gospels. Almost a third of all Dutch no longer know why we have Christmas day. There is a new dark continent -- the land that used to be known as Christian Europe. Today, many of its cathedrals are simply large museum pieces. They are artifacts of an ancient religion, and a dead faith.
It's all America's fault!!!!
The Soviet menace during the cold war prompted American leaders, impatient with Europe's (and Canada's) weak responses, effectively to take over their defense. This benign and far-sighted policy led to victory by 1991, but it also had the unintended and less salutary side-effect of freeing up Europe's funds to build a welfare state. This welfare state had several malign implications.
- The nanny state infantilized Europeans, making them worry about such pseudo-issues as climate change, while feminizing the males.
- It also neutered them, annexing "most of the core functions of adulthood," starting with the instinct to breed. From about 1980, birth rates plummeted, leaving an inadequate base for today's workers to receive their pensions.
- Structured on a pay-as-you-go basis, it amounted to an inter-generational Ponzi scheme, where today's workers depend on their children for their pensions.
- The demographic collapse meant that the indigenous peoples of countries like Russia, Italy, and Spain are at the start of a population death spiral.
The unbearable moral superiority of the pinko-Left
What the story reveals, in the end, is the tiresome fashion in which our betters insist on politicizing not just every aspect of adult life, but every detail of their children's world. [...] What counts is the satisfied glow of a right-thinking parent when the Young Pioneer chants back the party line.
I Knew BU Had Pathetic Standards
Apparently the 6 Republicans that go there are dying to keep the Congress Democrat. [Actually, there are 7 of them. Powwww! -- AI]
Sego nanny pap
In a country where political debate is mainly hair-splitting argument conducted by posturing intellectuals...
The Year 1427 is Developing Into an Excellent Year, O Believers
MOGADISHU, Somalia - The president of a semiautonomous region in northeastern Somalia said Monday he will rule according to Islamic law, a surprising announcement in an area that has resisted the spread of Islamic militants who control much of the country's south.
Puntland President Gen. Addeh Museh did not cite a reason for his decision, but it comes amid increasing fears that the Council of Islamic Courts will try to seize his territory.
The move also isolates Somalia's official government, which has watched helplessly as the Islamic movement steadily gained ground since June. The U.N. envoy to Somalia tried to bolster the fragile administration Monday, urging leaders to restart peace talks with the Islamists in order to avert a war.
[...]
Puntland, which declared itself an autonomous state within Somalia in 1998, has generally been spared the violence that has wracked much of the rest of the country. But radicals within the Islamic courts have vowed to take over.
"I set up a committee of scholars and traditional leaders to implement sharia law," Museh said in his presidential decree. Puntland usually enforces a secular penal code, even though the region's charter says it is based on sharia law.
Puntland President Gen. Addeh Museh did not cite a reason for his decision, but it comes amid increasing fears that the Council of Islamic Courts will try to seize his territory.
The move also isolates Somalia's official government, which has watched helplessly as the Islamic movement steadily gained ground since June. The U.N. envoy to Somalia tried to bolster the fragile administration Monday, urging leaders to restart peace talks with the Islamists in order to avert a war.
[...]
Puntland, which declared itself an autonomous state within Somalia in 1998, has generally been spared the violence that has wracked much of the rest of the country. But radicals within the Islamic courts have vowed to take over.
"I set up a committee of scholars and traditional leaders to implement sharia law," Museh said in his presidential decree. Puntland usually enforces a secular penal code, even though the region's charter says it is based on sharia law.
Simpson's Rule is Less Than The Sum of Her Parts?
Everyone's a critic. [Is she saying, Oh, no, not that mierda again? -- AI]
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
One Trick Baker's Old Orthodoxies and The Sunni Side of Life
Realpolitickers and Other Gerbils in the Saudi Mesh
Ignore James Baker
by Martin Peretz
The man who has come to rescue U.S. policy in Iraq is actually the man who rescued Saddam Hussein twice. The first time came early during the presidency of George Bush père. It was James Baker who was in charge, tending Saddam's wounds and building up his arms. At that moment, the Baath dictatorship was still reeling from its brutal eight-year war with Iran, a conflict that presaged the uncivil strife occurring in Mesopotamia now. The second time was toward the close of the first Bush presidency, and Baker was still in charge. Iraq had been forced back from the invasion of a country it had intended to annex. The logic of the victory should have suggested unseating the aggressor--a man at once reckless and conniving, hated by (most of) his countrymen and feared by (all of) his neighbors.
But that logic never penetrated the victors, who maintained Saddam in Baghdad with the goal of keeping him on a tight rope and constraining his economy by a regime of sanctions. Such a regime has rarely worked. He turned out to be especially adept at manipulating it against his longtime domestic victims and for his sectarian, familial, and geographical allies. This suffering was neither here nor there for the especially visible members of the coalition that had defeated him. Arab solidarity does not cut across doctrinal lines. This was only one reason why pan-Arabism turned out to be a roaring tiger but one without teeth.
The primary consideration of Saudi Arabia, for example, was that a Sunni government of one sort or another--like the ones that had been in place since Gertrude Bell (the T.E. Lawrence of the north) installed the Emir Faisal as king in Baghdad 70 years earlier--not be displaced. This meant a permanent minority was to be in power. And, if history was an accurate predictor, it would be a brutal minority at that. A neighboring Shia state would be an enormous discomfort for the royals in Riyadh. I don't want to be cavalier about this, since, to say the least, nationhood is not a fully matured notion among the Arabs. And, if I were a responsible Saudi official, I, too, would worry greatly if adjacent Iraq became an official Shia state, especially given how the Shia minority fared under Sunni rule of the Arabian peninsula.
Almost uncannily, Baker's instincts and convictions meshed (and mesh still) with the House of Saud. Forgive me for appearing like a Marxist--a vulgar Marxist, no less. But the Carlyle Group of which Baker has been a top factotum is much at home with the Sunni princely and investor dynasts. Their compatibility is almost primordial--and also very practical.
Let's face it: The Baker-Hamilton Commission is a desperate rescue operation for the Iraqi Sunnis. George W. Bush has gotten us all into trouble, and he will now be taken to the woodshed by his father's faithful but resentful lieutenant. George W. never really liked Baker. (But who actually does?) The president might even muse to himself that, had Baker--and his dad--not saved Saddam 15 years ago, he would not have had the chore to do for himself. He probably wouldn't relish the irony of reading a speech by then-Senator Al Gore on September 29, 1992, lambasting the first Bush administration--and Baker, in particular--for leaving the despot-aggressor in power.
Michael Kinsley has written a characteristically hilarious and insightful column in Slate, "bake me a cake, baker man: why the baker commission won't fix iraq." It focuses on the predictably "blue-ribbon" members of this gathering of senior citizens. Or, as Mike writes, "This is one torch that has not been passed to a new generation, although former Virginia senator and presidential son-in-law Charles Robb (age 67) is a fresh face in the pool of Washington Wise Men." But perhaps he forgot that, aside from Baker, two other members of the commission have sins to atone for with regard to Saddam as well: Larry Eagleburger and Alan Simpson, who, in April 1990, lectured the "haughty and pampered" Western press that dared report Baathist abuses. And what, by the way, is Vernon Jordan doing on this particular commission of sages?
The truth is that commissioners rarely do the real work of the commission. That is done by its subalterns. It is true that this group is numerous and various. But several names ring alarms: Chas Freeman, Shibley Telhami, William Quandt, Phebe Marr, Marina Ottaway, Augustus Richard Norton--all fading apologists for the exhausted Sunni solution to everything.
What I fear is that the thrust of the moment is to restore as much of the old orthodoxies as possible. They haven't worked for more than two decades, even as superficially as they did before, when resentments were festering not only among the Shia, but among ever more pious--and, yes, fanatical--Sunnis as well. Their ranks, too, are swelling.
Sorry! Give George W. Bush his due. He took down the Taliban. And he also took down the savage Caesar. These are achievements. What he did not grasp--and what, for that matter, Baker and those for whom he speaks also do not grasp--is the sheer and relentless butchery of which both Sunni and Shia are capable. The fiendish barbarism of decapitated heads and mutilated bodies is now a reflex of the warriors and nothing exceptional, a commonplace. Even the bare rudiments of civilization will not soon come back to the banks of the Tigris and the Euphrates.
So what is to be done? Inevitably, Baker will deploy the only trick he knows: force Israel to retreat to the 1967 lines. OK, it can't be forced. Then at least hold a peace conference. The 1991 peace conference actually accomplished nothing, except to pay Bush-Baker's debt to their partners in the Kuwait coalition. And the Oslo accords--also nothing. In any case, although many people believe a resolution of the Palestine question is the key to everything, it is actually a key to nothing but itself. It would not affect the bloodshed in Iraq. It would not even affect the strife in Lebanon. It also would not calm the anxieties of the Saudi monarchy. Or the clamor for freedom in Egypt. Well, if a peace settlement doesn't douse these fires, another blue-ribbon panel surely will rise to the challenge.
Ignore James Baker
by Martin Peretz
The man who has come to rescue U.S. policy in Iraq is actually the man who rescued Saddam Hussein twice. The first time came early during the presidency of George Bush père. It was James Baker who was in charge, tending Saddam's wounds and building up his arms. At that moment, the Baath dictatorship was still reeling from its brutal eight-year war with Iran, a conflict that presaged the uncivil strife occurring in Mesopotamia now. The second time was toward the close of the first Bush presidency, and Baker was still in charge. Iraq had been forced back from the invasion of a country it had intended to annex. The logic of the victory should have suggested unseating the aggressor--a man at once reckless and conniving, hated by (most of) his countrymen and feared by (all of) his neighbors.
But that logic never penetrated the victors, who maintained Saddam in Baghdad with the goal of keeping him on a tight rope and constraining his economy by a regime of sanctions. Such a regime has rarely worked. He turned out to be especially adept at manipulating it against his longtime domestic victims and for his sectarian, familial, and geographical allies. This suffering was neither here nor there for the especially visible members of the coalition that had defeated him. Arab solidarity does not cut across doctrinal lines. This was only one reason why pan-Arabism turned out to be a roaring tiger but one without teeth.
The primary consideration of Saudi Arabia, for example, was that a Sunni government of one sort or another--like the ones that had been in place since Gertrude Bell (the T.E. Lawrence of the north) installed the Emir Faisal as king in Baghdad 70 years earlier--not be displaced. This meant a permanent minority was to be in power. And, if history was an accurate predictor, it would be a brutal minority at that. A neighboring Shia state would be an enormous discomfort for the royals in Riyadh. I don't want to be cavalier about this, since, to say the least, nationhood is not a fully matured notion among the Arabs. And, if I were a responsible Saudi official, I, too, would worry greatly if adjacent Iraq became an official Shia state, especially given how the Shia minority fared under Sunni rule of the Arabian peninsula.
Almost uncannily, Baker's instincts and convictions meshed (and mesh still) with the House of Saud. Forgive me for appearing like a Marxist--a vulgar Marxist, no less. But the Carlyle Group of which Baker has been a top factotum is much at home with the Sunni princely and investor dynasts. Their compatibility is almost primordial--and also very practical.
Let's face it: The Baker-Hamilton Commission is a desperate rescue operation for the Iraqi Sunnis. George W. Bush has gotten us all into trouble, and he will now be taken to the woodshed by his father's faithful but resentful lieutenant. George W. never really liked Baker. (But who actually does?) The president might even muse to himself that, had Baker--and his dad--not saved Saddam 15 years ago, he would not have had the chore to do for himself. He probably wouldn't relish the irony of reading a speech by then-Senator Al Gore on September 29, 1992, lambasting the first Bush administration--and Baker, in particular--for leaving the despot-aggressor in power.
Michael Kinsley has written a characteristically hilarious and insightful column in Slate, "bake me a cake, baker man: why the baker commission won't fix iraq." It focuses on the predictably "blue-ribbon" members of this gathering of senior citizens. Or, as Mike writes, "This is one torch that has not been passed to a new generation, although former Virginia senator and presidential son-in-law Charles Robb (age 67) is a fresh face in the pool of Washington Wise Men." But perhaps he forgot that, aside from Baker, two other members of the commission have sins to atone for with regard to Saddam as well: Larry Eagleburger and Alan Simpson, who, in April 1990, lectured the "haughty and pampered" Western press that dared report Baathist abuses. And what, by the way, is Vernon Jordan doing on this particular commission of sages?
The truth is that commissioners rarely do the real work of the commission. That is done by its subalterns. It is true that this group is numerous and various. But several names ring alarms: Chas Freeman, Shibley Telhami, William Quandt, Phebe Marr, Marina Ottaway, Augustus Richard Norton--all fading apologists for the exhausted Sunni solution to everything.
What I fear is that the thrust of the moment is to restore as much of the old orthodoxies as possible. They haven't worked for more than two decades, even as superficially as they did before, when resentments were festering not only among the Shia, but among ever more pious--and, yes, fanatical--Sunnis as well. Their ranks, too, are swelling.
Sorry! Give George W. Bush his due. He took down the Taliban. And he also took down the savage Caesar. These are achievements. What he did not grasp--and what, for that matter, Baker and those for whom he speaks also do not grasp--is the sheer and relentless butchery of which both Sunni and Shia are capable. The fiendish barbarism of decapitated heads and mutilated bodies is now a reflex of the warriors and nothing exceptional, a commonplace. Even the bare rudiments of civilization will not soon come back to the banks of the Tigris and the Euphrates.
So what is to be done? Inevitably, Baker will deploy the only trick he knows: force Israel to retreat to the 1967 lines. OK, it can't be forced. Then at least hold a peace conference. The 1991 peace conference actually accomplished nothing, except to pay Bush-Baker's debt to their partners in the Kuwait coalition. And the Oslo accords--also nothing. In any case, although many people believe a resolution of the Palestine question is the key to everything, it is actually a key to nothing but itself. It would not affect the bloodshed in Iraq. It would not even affect the strife in Lebanon. It also would not calm the anxieties of the Saudi monarchy. Or the clamor for freedom in Egypt. Well, if a peace settlement doesn't douse these fires, another blue-ribbon panel surely will rise to the challenge.
Laverne Would Have Cleaned Her Clock
That about sums up our education burros, not as smart as Lenny but probably marginally better than Squiggy
Oh Barbra, You Look So Jolly and Gay
Yer figure Pepe has found a gig-olo's joy in uncovering the strata of Streisand? [This called for a pic. Is she JJ's type? --AI]
Swift Falls the Guillotine of Wikipedia
"Kramer" is Kaput? Read the last two paragraphs of the WK entry. Judge Roy Bean could not get the rope ready quicker.
The Point of the Speer
Yeah, I remember reading this in a Speer book back in the mid 70s. Paid absolutely no attention to it then, in fact thought it stupid to have wanted to be like that fading doomed Relgion. And now? Now our compeers of Red and Brown are busy trying to calculate if there is bigger cash value in being Petain or Adolf.
Re: The future belongs to Islam
ADOLF AND ISLAM
According to Albert Speer, Hitler once opined that Germany would have been better off if Islam had successfully conquered Europe. That way, Aryans wouldn't have been saddled with wimpy Christianity but a religion more attuned to conquest and domination. Seems Adolf may eventually get his wish.
Bill Manuel
Spokane
Re: The future belongs to Islam
ADOLF AND ISLAM
According to Albert Speer, Hitler once opined that Germany would have been better off if Islam had successfully conquered Europe. That way, Aryans wouldn't have been saddled with wimpy Christianity but a religion more attuned to conquest and domination. Seems Adolf may eventually get his wish.
Bill Manuel
Spokane
Petain Flammeur'?
Another Steynian Mash Note
NEO-CONS KNIFED
You completely misread the election and the people who are still conservative but not neocons. Neocons, those lying, corrupt, cowards who insulted the religious "nuts".
Long live Pat Buchanan! Let there be a long knive night in the GOP. Out with the neocons !
Réjean Laflamme
Granby, Québe
NEO-CONS KNIFED
You completely misread the election and the people who are still conservative but not neocons. Neocons, those lying, corrupt, cowards who insulted the religious "nuts".
Long live Pat Buchanan! Let there be a long knive night in the GOP. Out with the neocons !
Réjean Laflamme
Granby, Québe
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