"Evil is eventually extinguished. The question is how big to let the fire grow before you put it out."

"As many have now observed, the “Islamists” have semi-consciously spun together diverse ideological materials. They have borrowed uncritically from such 20th century totalitarian ideologies as Fascism, Nazism, and Communism. Each of these European ideologies, itself simplistic, had previously played a part in Arab nationalism. The Hitler strain came right off a flight from Berlin, in the person of the satanic old Mufti of Jerusalem. You look at the fascist salutes in the Hezbollah warrior parades, and see that almost everything about these soi-disant “soldiers” is pathetically imitated from a melodrama on some other history channel.

The very obsession with Israel and the Jews -- exhibited in obscene repetitions of blood libels -- is instructive. While there is some choice indigenous anti-Jewish material to be found within the Islamic tradition, starting in the Koran, the flavour and pitch of contemporary Muslim “anti-Semitism” owes little to it. One must ask such questions as, why do the current rulers of Iran spend so much time denying the Holocaust? It had nothing to do with Islam."

And another...

"The number of ways in which our present situation illuminates the formerly hard-to-understand 1930's seems endless.

What were the bulk of the German people doing during the 1930's? This is an issue which of course bears on their culpability, and on our own moral status, given what we subsequently did to them.

It's a question most histories have been coy about.

It is now clear to me that many if not most of them were doing exactly what many if not most Muslims (as the surveys in the UK and elsewhere show) are doing today: not actively supporting the violence by members of their community, but not opposing it either, and privately deriving great pleasure from the assaults on their neighbors, which they consider justified.

This attitude proved enough to condemn all of the Germans to total military defeat and surrender, in a war the Allies had not sought. I don't see any other likely ultimate outcome for Muslims today. They are playing with fire."

Comment of the day:

"Between March 21, 2003, when the first military death was recorded in Iraq, and March 31, 2006, there were 2,321 deaths among American troops in Iraq.

Let's use this figure and rank the Iraq War with battle deaths from other US wars.

World War II..............291,557
Civil War (Aggressors)..140,414
Civil War (Old Dixie).....133,821
World War I................53,402
Vietnam War...............47,366
Korean War................33,629
---- cut line ---- -ed.
Revolutionary War.........4,435
Iraq War....................2,321
War of 1812................2,260
Mexican War...............1,733
Spanish-American War......385
Afghanistan 2002-present...327
Gulf War I.....................147

At a glance it can be seen that there is a discontinuity between the battle deaths of a large conflict such as Korea, and a small one such as the Revolutionary War. Iraq is still and will probably always be, a minor conflict. [ Well, until the real war with Mr. A(bomb) cranks up. That's also why we can't commit the level of troops everyone thinks we need in Iraq. They're going to be in great danger no matter how you slice it and we can't gamble it all there... -ed. ] "

"(2006-08-26) — Just hours after Iran opened a new plant capable of making plutonium “for peaceful purposes”, U.S. President George Bush assured his Iranian counterpart that any B-2 bombers that appear over Tehran in the near future would also serve peaceful purposes."

"Therefore, because of the truth-loving nature of the uncreated conscience, if you can establish a lie as the truth, the furtherance of evil will take care of itself.

What largely defines man is his free will, which implies both intelligence and objectivity, for if we aren’t free, then we cannot really possess either truth or goodness. Animals cannot leave the closed system of cause and effect, whereas human beings clearly can. In our vertical aspect, we can see a range of potential choices before us, whereas the animal is simply spurred by the demands of instinct.

Thus, to call free will into question is to make us less than human, which is why humanism is always subhumanism. The most subhuman places on earth are specifically those places where free will was and is denied or atrophied: in communist countries, in the Islamic world, and in urban areas where free will has been eroded by 40 years of leftist brainwashing and social engineering. In the latter case, you might say that poverty does indeed cause crime--the impoverished metaphysic of the left."

It would seem that August 22nd is suffering a bit of schedule slippage. But a slipped project is not the same as an abandoned project:

"The Germans tried using heavy water for its own atomic-weapons program during World War II, and for a solid technical reason: it eliminates the need for uranium enrichment to fuel reactors, which can then yield weapons-grade fissile material. It seems as though the Iranians want to cover all their bases in creating the fuel for nuclear weapons; they continue to pursue enrichment in parallel.

Ahmadinejad's construction of the heavy-water plant puts a stake in the heart of the argument that Iran only wants peaceful nuclear energy. Their multiple-tracked efforts to achieve plutonium production shows quite clearly that they have spent more effort than necessary to get simple civil nuclear power production. The incentive package offered by the West would have given it to them in any case."

Ho hum. I'm sure Mr. A(bomb) is quite a rational chap. No need to worry. Move along now...

"However, for some reason, Firedoglake, MyDD, and even the normally reasonable Middle Earth Journal all claim shock and anger over this development. The same voices who called for Lieberman's expulsion from the party earlier in the week and have worked to defeat him despite a solidly Democratic voting record now fume because the man they spent the summer reviling won't endorse their other candidates. None of them answer the obvious question: if you detest the man so much, why would you want his endorsement?

Lieberman is exploring the many facets of independence in American politics, and the people who forced it on him still express surprise and anger over it. The only surprise here is that they're surprised."

"In the last few days I completely missed this classic photographic analysis of a news story by Zombietime. It describes possible fraud in depicting an ambulance allegedly struck during the Israeli-Lebanon conflict. Michelle Malkin is on target when she says, "If there were Pulitzers for Internet posts, this one would win hands down." (Hat tip: Tim Blair)"

"Natural appetites can be satisfied, but the gods of abstract metaphysical desire are omnipotent and require constant tribute. That is one of the paradoxes, for one might think that the spiritually developed person lives in an “abstract” world, while the bovine, slack-jawed grazing multitudes live in the concrete world, but it is quite the opposite. The spiritual person becomes very concretely aware of subtle and fleeting little concrete joys on a moment-by-moment basis, where as the BSJGM’s are only tuned into the most gross forms of sensory overload, whether in music, entertainment, or food (and I imagine the porn industry taps into this same dynamic as well)." [ And again... ]

"Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, if he ever became the supreme decision maker in his country, would "sacrifice half of Iran for the sake of eliminating Israel," Giora Eiland, Israel's former national security adviser, told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday.

At present, Eiland stressed, the ultimate decision maker in Iran was Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 67, whom he said was "more reasonable." But, Eiland went on, "if Ahmadinejad were to succeed him - and he has a reasonable chance of doing so - then we'd be in a highly dangerous situation." [ Ho hum. And Rafsanjani didn't mean it either when he said Iran could win a nuclear war with Israel. Move along now... -ed. ] "

"Or, as Will put it “Like any physical attribute, if the human intellect is not yoked to and governed by the Higher Intelligence, it runs amok and eventually goes crazy. It's taken some time to get there, but currently, the spiritually bereft intellect is basically in charge of most of the world's influential institutions, which of course means the world is in deep stew. As far as definitions of the Antichrist go, I think this would do OK.”

On the spiritual level, there is simply nothing more satanic than envy. The sword of gratitude is our only defense."

"The Iranian news service Al-Borz, which is known to have access to sources in the Iranian government, predicted that on the first anniversary of Iranian President Ahmadinejad's government, in late August 2006, Ahmadinejad is expected to announce what the news service called Iran's "nuclear birth."

In addition, an August 23, 2006 article about Iran's reply to the incentives proposal, that was posted on the Iranian Foreign Ministry-affiliated website www.tehrantimes.com, implied that Iran's nuclear technology had already reached the point of no return: "... If the West is seeking to impede Iran's nuclear industry, it should realize that Iran has passed this stage." [ Oh I'm just sure it will be at least another 5 years before they have one... -ed. ] ]"

"In all times and in all places, human beings have looked for ways to objectify, worship, and appease their self-created demons. This is preferable to having them run around loose in one's own psyche. Take again the example of the typical beast of Islamist depravity. How would one even begin to tell him: "you have a persecutory entity inside of you that your life revolves around. You have placed it outside of yourself, in the 'infidels,' so as to make your life bearable, for it conceals a truth that is too painful to endure. Would you like to put down that meat cleaver and talk about it?"

To a large extent, this dynamic is at the heart of more mundane politics as well. For those who do not experience George Bush as a demon, it is almost impossible to understand those who do, any more than we can really understand the motivations of the Aztec. The collective mind parasite has a grammar and logic all its own, inaccessible to all but initiates into the Lie.

You don't actually want to get that close to an intoxicating Lie of that magnitude. It's not safe. Better to observe it from a respectful distance. [ OK, I'll stop now. But you should be able to see by now that you really need to read it all... -ed. ] "

"He made the provocative observation that the lie requires a thinker to think it, whereas the truth does not, for it simply is. We discover truth, but it takes a thinker to concoct the lie (and, I might add, a brilliant thinker such as Marx or Chomsky to create the most grandiose lies). And once the lie is in place, it causes the psyche to enter a sort of parallel universe, for it constructs itself on the foundations of that primordial lie.

In my own colorful terminology, I have called these internalized lies "mind parasites." I believe the term is an accurate one, for it is meant to convey the idea that a vital lie that lodges itself in the psyche is not static, but takes on the characteristics of the host, so to speak. I remember once discussing this with my analyst. I don't remember the exact context of the problem I was whining about (or if I’m lying about not remembering) but he said words to the effect of, "What do you expect? It's as smart as you are.""

"Interestingly, this problem is fully recognized in scripture, as the very first conversations recorded in the Bible are a tissue of lies. The serpent lies to the woman, the woman transmits the lie to the man, and the man lies about it to God. The very emergence of self-consciousness seems to be inseparable from lying. Isn’t that interesting?"

"On the day when the Iranians decide to divulge their nuclear achievements Turkey will forget about becoming European. Turkey will show its true face and stick with the Muslim world. Iran has not made any nuclear tests on Iranian soil. Why? The test was carried out in Pakistan. So why bother to do it in Iran? What's the difference?"

"The consensus of the intelligence agencies is that Iran is still years away from building a nuclear weapon. Such an assessment angers some in Washington, who say that it ignores the prospect that Iran could be aided by current nuclear powers like North Korea. “When the intelligence community says Iran is 5 to 10 years away from a nuclear weapon, I ask: ‘If North Korea were to ship them a nuke tomorrow, how close would they be then?” said Newt Gingrich, the former Republican speaker of the House of Representatives.

“The intelligence community is dedicated to predicting the least dangerous world possible,” he said. [ For instance there's a minimum of 500 chemical shells that just don't exist... -ed. ]

Some veterans of the intelligence battles that preceded the Iraq war see the debate as familiar and are critical of efforts to create hard links based on murky intelligence.

“It reflects a certain way of looking at the world — that all evil is traceable to the capitals of certain states,” said Paul R. Pillar, who until last October oversaw American intelligence assessments about the Middle East. “And that, in my view, is a very incorrect way of interpreting the security challenges we face.” [ Horsepucky. And it was just random chance that Mussolini was on Hitler's side. Pure luck. -ed. ] "

"Some of the passengers pulled out cell phones during the flight and appeared to be trying to pass the cell phones to other passengers, a U.S. government official said.

In addition, some passengers unfastened their seatbelts while the light requiring they be fastened was still illuminated, the official said.

That was enough for U.S. air marshals aboard the DC-10 to break their cover. Flight attendants ordered the passengers to heed the orders of the marshals, the official added. [ Slap or fist blow, that is the question... The boiled frogs principle seems to be at work here. This level of crap going on would have sent everyone into spasms a few years ago -- certainly for the first year after 9/11. Now it's ho-hum. -ed. ] "

"A senior official in Teheran said Wednesday that in the next few days, a "surprise" was expected regarding Iran's nuclear program, Al-Jazeera reported. Teheran's apparent refusal to suspend uranium enrichment set the stage for a showdown at the UN Security Council later this month. [ Looks like schedule slip for the "devastating fist blow". -ed. ] "

What Do You Mean "Tinfoil Apocalypse"?

OK, the war is getting serious so it's time to bump NYeT from the top. Sounds like Iran has taken direct control of Hez if they didn't have it already. In the NYeT's place of honor goes commentary on the Apocalypse. But you might be surprised to find that I'm not a dispensationalist. So read up on the latest Tinfoil Apocalypse update:

START HERE: Understanding The Concept Of "Button" (Read it or stop now.)
NEW RTWT: (8/8) Bernard Lewis on August 22nd: Now even Lewis thinks it's a date possible for the Iranians. He actually argues that MAD is an attraction for them -- you know, moths, flames and all that -- how I wish I was surprised. I'm now pondering modifying my terminology to the "Tinfoil Apocalyphate" for the specific instance of Islam. How I wish it weren't so...
CLASSIC: (8/5) ShrinkWrapped Takes On The Tinfoil Apocalypse

UPDATED AGAIN: But the NYeT still retains a "special" place in my heart. Previous post section deleted and placed here.

UPDATED (UPDATED): The Hojjatieh gets one of the prime spotlights in the Apocalypse stage show of course.

And keep scrolling -- lots and lots of new posts lately also...

"They did not agree to suspend enrichment, but they’ve obfuscated the issue enough that they’ll get away with it.

In short, they’ve decided to talk about what rewards we’ll give them, but have refused the conditions under which those rewards were to be granted."

"Mr. Annan said he believes that “direct negotiations with the Hidden Imam can defuse all of this talk of the end of the world, which I’m confident is nothing more than a bargaining chip.”

In any case, the world’s end is expected to have little effect on the work of the United Nations, according to Mr. Annan.

“The U.N. will continue to be just as effective at resolving conflicts and ensuring world peace as it was before the end of the world,” he said."

Bernard Lewis(!) On August 22

BUMPED UP AND UPDATED: Bernard has the best summary and gets a place high on the blog as a result. I think it's come out now that the recently broken airline bombing plot was scheduled for sooner than 8/22. My speculation is that was to be the "resounding slap". I suspect the "devastating fist-blow" hasn't been seen yet however...

Bernard Lewis on the "Tinfoil Apocalypse":

"In Islam, as in Judaism and Christianity, there are certain beliefs concerning the cosmic struggle at the end of time--Gog and Magog, anti-Christ, Armageddon, and for Shiite Muslims, the long awaited return of the Hidden Imam, ending in the final victory of the forces of good over evil, however these may be defined. Mr. Ahmadinejad and his followers clearly believe that this time is now, and that the terminal struggle has already begun and is indeed well advanced. It may even have a date, indicated by several references by the Iranian president to giving his final answer to the U.S. about nuclear development by Aug. 22. This was at first reported as "by the end of August," but Mr. Ahmadinejad's statement was more precise.

What is the significance of Aug. 22? This year, Aug. 22 corresponds, in the Islamic calendar, to the 27th day of the month of Rajab of the year 1427. This, by tradition, is the night when many Muslims commemorate the night flight of the prophet Muhammad on the winged horse Buraq, first to "the farthest mosque," usually identified with Jerusalem, and then to heaven and back (c.f., Koran XVII.1). This might well be deemed an appropriate date for the apocalyptic ending of Israel and if necessary of the world. It is far from certain that Mr. Ahmadinejad plans any such cataclysmic events precisely for Aug. 22. But it would be wise to bear the possibility in mind.

A passage from the Ayatollah Khomeini, quoted in an 11th-grade Iranian schoolbook, is revealing. "I am decisively announcing to the whole world that if the world-devourers [i.e., the infidel powers] wish to stand against our religion, we will stand against their whole world and will not cease until the annihilation of all them. Either we all become free, or we will go to the greater freedom which is martyrdom. Either we shake one another's hands in joy at the victory of Islam in the world, or all of us will turn to eternal life and martyrdom. In both cases, victory and success are ours."

In this context, mutual assured destruction, the deterrent that worked so well during the Cold War, would have no meaning. At the end of time, there will be general destruction anyway. What will matter will be the final destination of the dead--hell for the infidels, and heaven for the believers. For people with this mindset, MAD is not a constraint; it is an inducement. [ Read that again: my interpretation is that he is saying: "these people are lunatics, and for lunatics MAD is like a flame is to a moth". -ed. ]

How then can one confront such an enemy, with such a view of life and death? Some immediate precautions are obviously possible and necessary. In the long term, it would seem that the best, perhaps the only hope is to appeal to those Muslims, Iranians, Arabs and others who do not share these apocalyptic perceptions and aspirations, and feel as much threatened, indeed even more threatened, than we are. There must be many such, probably even a majority in the lands of Islam. Now is the time for them to save their countries, their societies and their religion from the madness of MAD. [ It's kind of a sad state when even Bernard Lewis is only speculating that there's only "probably even a majority" in Islam that feel threatened by the lunatics among them, isn't it? Folks, you may not realize it but Bernard Lewis is a professor emeritus at Princeton and one of the West's foremost authorities on Islam. That he would write this given his history of apologetics for Islam is alarming bordering on the extreme. -ed. ] "

He didn't use the word "Hojjatieh". But that's what he is referring to...

ALSO BUMPED:

As I have been saying, on or before August 22:

"A former CSIS informant who once kept tabs on terrorists says the Iranian regime is “mentally and spiritually” preparing its people for war against Israel.

The Ottawa man, now in Tehran, says the hate campaign against Israel is “everywhere” on the streets of the capital."

We didn't believe Hitler either.

"At bottom, what the commandment is emphasizing is that life is sacred--it is of infinite value; therefore, do everything you can to honor and protect it. Clearly, not all cultures do so. Some, as in so much of the Muslim world, worship death, not life. And this inversion is reflected throughout these sick cultures, in that they are “fruitless.” That is, they produce nothing but misery, both to themselves and to others. They produce nothing for the body, i.e., no medicines, no new ways to produce food; they produce nothing for the mind, i.e., no science, no translations of books, no freedom of inquiry; and they produce nothing for the spirit, i.e., only the spiritual shackles of their medieval death cult."

"The shell is huge, bigger than the young boy pushed forward to stand reluctantly next to it while we get our cameras out and record the scene for posterity. [ Yes, what's a child's life worth compared to another chance to score propaganda points with an audience of violent lunatics and puerile fascifists after all? Never mind the dead child abuse. Maybe they could have gotten lucky and had the bomb go off and then abused his dead body posing it for the EneMedia vultures. A "two-fer"! -ed. ] "

"If you want to have good relations with the Iranian people in the future, you should acknowledge the right and the might of the Iranian people, and you should bow and surrender to the might of the Iranian people. If you do not accept this, the Iranian people will force you to bow and surrender. [ Cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo. He must have had a revelation from Allah that our boomers don't exist just like there was no Holocaust. I'm way beyond shivers and deeply in gobsmacked territory with these nuts. I've got to come up with something way beyond the "Tinfoil Apocalyphate" for these loons. But if I try I'm sure I'll find that my imagination is once again too feeble... -ed. ] ]"

"With Iran likely on the eve of rejecting a European Union incentive package meant to encourage Iran to abandon its nuclear program, ignoring the propaganda is becoming an increasingly tall order. Indeed, on Monday, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei provided a taste of what is apt to come. "The Islamic Republic of Iran has made its own decision," Khamenei said according to Iranian state television. "And in the nuclear case, God willing, with patience and power, (Iran) will continue its path."

Sound familiar? It should; Germans made the same mistake about the Nazis when they first came to power. Forget the shouting and the demonstrations, they would explain; that's just for show, a motivational display intended to unify a demoralized nation."

"With Hezbollah's mini-success in Lebanon, and Iran's success in subsidizing Hezbollah and moving towards the development of nuclear weapons, it has become the conventional wisdom that the Shiites have surpassed the Sunnis as the main threat to the West. Less note is made of the main reason why the Sunnis seem to be lagging -- the fact that they have no major state sponsoring their terrorism and their development of weaponry. Even less note (none that I'm aware of) is made of the reason why the Sunnis lack such a state -- the overthrow by the U.S. of the Taliban in Afghanistan and of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. [ D'oh. But don't write off the Saudis prematurely... -ed. ] ]"

"Scruton notes that during the time of the Ottomans, Islam moved towards the Western notion that human societies should be governed by human laws, and these laws must take precedence over religious edicts. But "after the Ottoman collapse the Muslim sects rebelled against the idea, since it contradicts the claims of the Shariah to be the final legal authority."

In my view, the recent success of this rebellion stems mostly from the failure of secular leaders in the Middle East from Nasser on to satisfy Arab ambitions, including territorial ones. If so, it may be that the best thing the West can do to promote democracy and the rule of human law in the region is to make sure that the fundamentalists don't satisfy Arab ambitions either."

"Unfortunately for the Fitzmas crowd, Armitage makes a poor villain. He worked for Colin Powell and not Dick Cheney, which would mean that either the conspiracy theorists would have to include Powell in the plot, or drop the idea altogether. Armitage has repeatedly distanced himself from the Cheney team in foreign policy, and it's doubtful that he would have carried any water on behalf of the Vice President, especially with something as politically dicey as the deliberate exposure of a CIA agent. He'd be more likely to have blown the whistle on that kind of conspiracy rather than partake in it.

If Armitage sourced the Plame connection, it would also explain the lack of prosecutorial interest on the part of Patrick Fitzgerald. An Armitage lead pretty much stops at Armitage, given his relationship with the rest of the administration. The fizzling of Fitzmas becomes more comprehensible."

"And as I discussed below (though not that coherently), public statements about the TSP suggest the surveillance was used only on those with a suspected connection to Al-Qaeda—something none of the plaintiffs specifically allege. Unless Greenpeace is admitting it communicates with Al-Qaeda. Is that what they’re saying? The ACLU complaint contains repeated assertions that these guys have the “well-founded belief” that they were being spied upon by the NSA; but apparently their belief was founded upon an erroneous understanding of what the NSA was actually up to—or, even if they were right, their understanding of the TSP was very different from the Court’s."

Today's Orwellian (Fascifist) Update

"And as to America, whatever its faults, I do not think he [Orwell] would have seen American policy, anywhere in the world, as symptomatic of an emergent "Oceanian" Big Brother. No doubt he would often have been critical, but the current fashionable anti-Americanism, denigrating America and whitewashing its opponents, would have seemed to him, I think, either perverse or dishonest. Of course, America is not as good as it ought to be, but to say that it is therefore no better, or is even worse, than totalitarian China or Russia would probably have reminded him of a similar argument used by both pacifists and communists in the 1930s. He described it as the argument that "half a loaf is the same as no bread." --Richard Rees"

"They’re all backing out. [ I'm shocked, just shocked. -ed. ] "

"Mr. Walker's essay belongs to that large and growing genre of fiction, the political fairytale. The aim of such works is not to put its readers to sleep, but to soothe them into acquiescence. This it does in two ways. First, it tells people what they want to hear--the threat of radical Islam is overstated by irresponsible purveyors of hysteria. Second, it flatters their moral vanity: you, Dear Reader, are a good liberal and know that there is no political problem that cannot be solved by good will and a willingness to negotiate and see the other chap's point of view.

But wait: What is the other chap's point of view? I have always admired this frank observation by Hussein Massawi, a former Hezbollah leader: "We are not fighting so that you will offer us something, We are fighting to eliminate you." Point noted. [ I couldn't resist another link to Kimball's piece -- the Massawi quote encapsulates all that's wrong with liberal projection and ethnocentrism. -ed. ] "

"Like Rodney King, Mr. Walker wonders why we can't all get along. Neville Chamberlain tried the same wheeze. Adolf was only too happy to play along. Until, that is, he decided the time for playing was over."

"I think there are two groups who are upset with the opinion: those for whom the opinion is further evidence of results oriented judging and those who are upset that the judge did not do a better job of hiding that this was the work of results oriented judging. Tribe is speaking to the second group. [ D'oh. -ed. ] He'd like the public to quit looking at the man behind the curtain. That can't happen if the rest of the professorate keep calling attention to The Great Judicial Oz' failure to explain why the Administration is wrong. If you guys keep blogging, some might come to believe there is such a thing as judicial activism. That's a greater risk to all Tribe holds dear than the matters that were at issue in this case."

"Iran keeps telling the Western world they’re not going to stop developing nuclear weapons. The West keeps pretending we just need to find the right incentives, as a radical Islamic totalitarian state run by Holocaust-denying apocalyptic lunatics inches ever closer to the ultimate weapon: Iran says it won’t halt atomic work. [ Pretty pithy summary. But Charles did forget to mention that they're nuttier than cuckoo clocks. And they still say they'll respond by Tuesday. That would be August 22nd of course. -ed. ] "

"Arab parents are now naming their children “Hizb’allah” and “Nasrallah,” a genocidal group and a genocidal fanatic, respectively. These children will surely grow up to honor their father--the father of lies. These parents are spiritually unfit to bring children into the world, because they inflict the worst possible psychic injury to the child: failing to provide them with a parent worthy of honor. Like most any abused child, the child will still do his part--he will honor his parents--which will have the practical effect of making him lower than the beasts, unless the child somehow sees through his warped parents and locates his father “who art in heaven.” [ Gagdad gets a second link to today's post. I'm liking him more and more... -ed. ] "

"Minnesota's state motto is "Land of 10,000 lakes" and its state bird is the loon. The political scene in Minnesota this year suggests that we're more like the land of 10,000 loons. [ Ya sure, you betcha. There's a reason I moved away... -ed. ] "

"That sounds like an invitation to Hezbollah to start launching rockets at their earliest convenience. It can't be Hezbollah, Murr will claim; they promised not to do it -- and so it must be the Israelis themselves! [ Well what do you expect from the champions of Holocaust denial? Let me be clear: Holocaust deniers are either ignorant or red-eyed devils or both. You are as loony as they are if you expect any good to come of accomodating them... -ed. ] "

"The UN won't enforce the ceasefire, nor will Lebanon. Both will criticize Israeli efforts to enforce the ceasefire. That criticism is discouraging any European nations from joining the peacekeeping force. Fighting Hizbollah is seen as a losing proposition. Hizbollah will organize some dead civilians, and any force that fights Hizbollah will automatically become bad guys in the eyes of the mass media and the Moslem world.

However, Hizbollah media deception tactics are themselves becoming news, thus making Hizbollahs Information War efforts less effective. However, in the Moslem world, Hizbollah can still do no wrong. But 40 percent of Lebanese are not Moslem, but Christians. The Lebanese Christians are pressuring the other anti-Hizbollah minorities (Druze and Sunni) to back an effort to disarm Hizbollah. So far, no one wants to risk it. Most everyone is running from any responsibility for dealing with Hizbollah. [ When perception becomes reality, reality will eventually render a harsh verdict. Possibly even sooner than eventually... -ed. ] "

In case you've ever wondered why the U.N. building never seems to be on the target list of terrorists, this might be a wee bit of a clue:

"The equipment, which needed special export-license approval from the British government, was passed to the Iranians through a program run and administered by the U.N. Drug Control Program. The equipment uses infrared imaging to provide nighttime surveillance that allows the user to detect people and vehicles moving in the dark at a range of several miles.

Use of such equipment would have enabled Hezbollah to detect and record the movements of Israeli forces inside Israel, as well as its military advance into Lebanon."

"What did Reid get in exchange for all of this support? According to the Times, Whittemore contributed $45,000 to Reid and his PACs since 2000. He also gave the DSCC $20,000 in 2000, when it pushed Reid as a leader for the party in the Senate. Reid's son Josh got $5,000 for his unsuccessful campaign for a city council seat; his other sone Rory got $5,000 for his successful effort to win a spot on the Clark County Board of Commissioners.

Money talks. And Harry Reid walks. If you wondered why the Democrats have abandoned the corruption theme for these midterm elections, now you know."

"All of this is only a digression to note the following. The public disgrace of the BBC in the Hutton Inquiry has not to my knowledge occasioned the kind of historical examination of the BBC that it deserves. The Churchill biographies note mostly in passing that the BBC systematically barred Churchill from discussing his defense and foreign policy views during the 1930's; Sir John Reith was head of the BBC at the time. Manchester states that "Reith saw to it that [Churchill] was seldom heard over the BBC..." Reith wrote of Churchill in Reith's monumentally voluminous diaries, "I absolutely hate him."

In 1938 Churchill was scheduled to appear on the BBC for a half-hour talk -- on the Mediterranean. When the Czech crisis erupted, Manchester reports, Churchill asked that the program be cancelled. On the Saturday before Parliament's debate on the Munich Agreement, Churchill agreed nevertheless to meet with (future Communist spy) Guy Burgess of the BBC. Churchill complained to Burgess, according to Burgess's recollection, that "he had been very badly treated in the matter of political broadcasts and that he was always muzzled by the BBC."

Why did Reith detest Churchill? In Reith's eyes, Churchill was of course a warmonger, and Reith, not coincidentally, held Hitler in the highest regard. How little times have changed. [ Deja vu all over again one might even say... -ed. ] "

"Parents do not own children--this was one of the radical innovations of Judaism, in contrast to other ancient peoples who practiced infanticide and other forms of systematic abuse.

In raising a child, you are deputized by the divine to help usher your child from his earthly caretaker--i.e., you--to his celestial benefactor. Even if you are not particularly religious, this is still the aim of your parenting, but it will merely go by another name--for example, instilling good values. Few people outside the Muslim world actually consciously want to raise their children as antisocial, homicidal beasts. And even these Moloch-worshipping parents are under the delusion that they are on a divine mission to raise their children in this perverse way."

"In recent weeks, France stepped forward to act as a broker of peace in Lebanon. “Act” is the key verb in that last sentence, as it now would seem that the only other verifiable part of the sentence is “in recent weeks.”

To correctly parse that sentence, one must understand that when France suggested it wanted to broker peace in Lebanon, it did not necessarily mean “broker” or “peace” or “Lebanon” in the way we might understand those words. The same is true when France further suggested it wanted to “lead” a “strong” “multinational” “force” there."